To George Washington from Colonel Moses Hazen, 20 November 1779
From Colonel Moses Hazen
Camp, Peeks-Kill [N.Y.] Novr 20, 1779.
The Memorial of Col. Moses Hazen humbly sheweth,
That the Canadian Regiment your Excellency’s Memorialist’s has the Honour to Command was, by a Resolution of Congress of the 20th of January 1776, ordered to be raised in Canada for one Year, or during the then present Disputes; to compose four Battalions of Two Hundred and fifty Men each, as will, by said Resolution of Congress, more fully appear.1
That Four Hundred and Seventy-seven Men only were inlisted for the Term of the War, mustered and carried into Service. The Want of Money to pay the Bounty ordered prevented the Regiment from being completely filled up at that Time and in that Country.
That a Part of the Officers and Men raised in Canada retreated with Genl Sullivan’s Army on the 17th of June 1776 from that Country; and that on the 23rd of October, in the same Year, the Hon. Continental Congress was pleased to order that the said Regiment should remain on the Original Establishment thereof, and be recruited to its Original Complement in any of the Thirteen United States, as the said Regiment did not belong to any particular State, nor was there any Additional Expence in the Mode of Officering the same.2
That by the Alacrity and great Attention of the Recruiting Officers Seven Hundred and Twenty Men were brought into the Field, on the opening of the Campaign in the Year 1777.
That this Regiment has been employed on hard Services in the Course of this Contest; a Part of it was at the Blockade, and Assault of Quebec;3 the Regiment was with Genl Sullivan in the Action of Staten-Island, of the 22nd of August 1777; at Brandywine the 11th of September, and Germantown the 4th of October following: In all which; it has acquitted itself with Honour, and was at the last-mentioned Engagement amongst the Troops that were rewarded with your Excellency’s Public Thanks.4
That in the three several last-mentioned Engagements were killed, wounded and taken Prisoners, fifteen Commissioned Officers and One Hundred and Thirty-three Non-commissioned Officers and private Men: That detach’d Parties from this Regiment have frequently been in warm Skirmishes with the Enemy, which have been conducted to the Honour of the Officer who commanded, tho’ attended with the Loss of many brave Men.
That on the [2]4th of November 1778 the Hon. Continental Congress was pleased to order that the said Regiment should remain on its Original Establishment, and that no new Appointments or Promotions of Officers be made therein, until further Orders of Congress.5
That on the 15th of March 1779 the Hon. Continental Congress was pleased to Order, Returns to be made of this Regiment and others, setting forth the different States in which the Officers were raised, or the Non-commissioned Officers and Soldiers recruited, and that the said States should have Credit for the Officers and Men so raised or recruited, as a Part of their Quotas to be kept up in the Field.6 This Resolution it is presumed was entered into as well to do Justice to the several States, in Point of raising their several Quotas of Men, as to leave it in their Power to take Care of and reward the Officers and Men in the same Manner as they might their own State Battalions, which however just the Intention it can never effect this Regiment, so as to do it Justice in every Part thereof; for as the Officers are raised and the Regiment recruited from North-Carolina to Canada, it is impossible that the Officers and Men should have the Benefit of the several and respective State Stores, to which it seems it was intended they should have a Right to in common with their own Troops; nor have they ever received a Farthing value from any one State before or since that Resolution took Place; on the other Hand, sixteen Officers and One Hundred and eleven Non-commissioned Officers and Soldiers are returned Volunteers from Canada, and otherwise belonging to no one of the Thirteen United States, consequently no Kind of Provision is or has been attempted to be made for them: However hard their Case, their Services are deserving of Notice: That the Canadian Soldiers are not inferior to any in the Regiment, in Point of Morality, Bravery, or Attachment to the Cause and Service in which they are engaged; a Proof of which, one Canadian only has deserted since the Regiment retreated out of Canada. Nine different Detachments were sent into that Country the last Summer for Intelligence, and the greater Part of the other Canadians within Sight of and not more than one Day’s march of their own Country, Families, Friends, Connections and Estates. Four Hundred and Seventy-one Non-commissioned Officers and Soldiers are now on the Muster Rolls and Returns; four Hundred and Sixty of which are inlisted during the War—on Twenty Dollars Bounty only; not a Man has ever received either a Town or State Bounty to the Knowledge of your Memorialist.
That neither Officer or Soldier in the Regiment has ever received a Farthing’s Value of Clothing, or other Supplies whatever, out of any State or Continental Store, otherwise than a Dividend of coarse Clothes, with the other Troops at Hartford, by Order of Genl Gates, the whole of which did not compose an Assortment that would have made up one Regimental Coat:7 That under the present Hardships, and many Difficulties herein enumerated, it is impossible to expect this Regiment can continue in the Service unless some proper Provision of Clothing for the Officers and Supplies for them, and the Men, may by some means or other, be obtained, so as to leave this Regiment on a footing with the Army.8
Your Memorialist has the Pleasure to assure your Excellency, That notwithstanding the different States, Countrys and Nations from which this Regiment has been raised, yet a perfect Harmony and a general Unanimity has always subsisted amongst the Officers, as well as a most Passive-Obedience cultivated amongst the Soldiers; and further your Memorialist begs Leave to assure your Excellency, that he should not do Justice to the Regiment if he did not add on this Occasion, that he has the Honour to command as good a Corps as any in the American Army. It is hoped and really wished that the Period may not be far off when this Regiment may be adopted by their own—a fourteenth State in America. Your Memorialist therefore humbly prays your Excellency will please to take the Case of this Regiment into Consideration, and direct or recommend to Congress a Remedy by which the Officers and Soldiers may be on a footing with the Army.
That in Point of Clothing and Supplies for the Regiment your Memorialist begs Leave to propose, That the Commanding Officer, Paymaster, or some other Person, may be empowered to purchase such Articles of Clothing and Supplies, or Refreshments as are or may be furnished to the other Troops, and in like Proportion, and that they may be issued out or delivered to the Officers and Men in the same Manner as have been, now are, or may hereafter be, to other Continental Troops, at the same or like Discounts; that the Extra Prices and Amount of all such Clothing and Supplies may be paid from Time to Time from the Military Chest; that a particular Account may be kept of all such Issues or Deliveries, and rendered to such Persons, and as often as may be directed, in order that the Amount of the Extra Cost of all such Goods so delivered may be by the Public a Charge against the several and respective States, as issued to the Officers and Men which they have Credit for in their several and respective Quotas; and that such a Part as may be issued and delivered to the Canadian Volunteers be a Charge against the Public at large until a final Settlement, which appears to your Memorialist the only Method by which common Justice may be done to the whole, and that all the Soldiers of the Regiment may be served at one and the same Time with such Refreshment as may be allowed them, which will naturally tend to Quiet the Minds of the Soldiers, and promote Harmony in the Regiment; for Soldiers who serve together ought to serve on one and the same footing; any Thing to the contrary has been found by Experience to be Subversive of that good Order and Military Discipline which ought to be preserved; for these Reasons, your Excellency’s Memorialist was obliged to stop, by the Advice of the Officers of the Regiment, four Months Pay to the Officers raised and Soldiers inlisted from Connecticut, and by the Legislative Body of that State ordered to be paid to them, which remains yet in the Hands of the Paymaster.9 Your Excellency’s Memorialist will, as in Duty bound, ever pray.
Moses Hazen
Your Excellency’s Memorialist begs Leave to recommend Lieut. Noah Lee, of his Regiment, to a Company, in the Room of Capt. Robert Burnes who resigned the 31st of May 1779—and Ensign Francis Gilmant, to be Lieutenant in the Room of Lieut. Lee, as very old and deserving Officers, and the first intitled to Promotion in the Regiment by Seniority.10
Moses Hazen
DS, DLC:GW. Copies of this document with Hazen’s signature but lacking the postscript are in CSmH; NHi: Miscellaneous Manuscripts; and MnHi: Allyn K. Ford Collection. The docket of the DS, misfiled in DLC:GW under 18 Nov., contains a note in the writing of GW’s secretary Robert Hanson Harrison: “Colo. Hazen transmitted a Copy of this the 25 Feby 1780—in a Letter to Mr C. Justice [Thomas] McKean” (see also Hazen to GW, 12 Feb. 1780, DLC:GW).
Hazen appears to have enclosed a letter addressed to him from twenty-three officers in his regiment and dated 18 Nov. at “Camp Peeks-kill”: “We need not represent to you our attachments to our Country, our early embarking in the common cause, the Number of Battles we have fought, or our long marches in the dead of winter, our watchings, hunger, fatigues or dangers, as you yourself have been an Eye witness and partaker of them in common with ourselves; It is our misfortune (though five hundred Combitants) to be too inconsiderable a body to divert the people in power from the grand and more weighty concerns of the nation and attract their attention as a Regiment. ’Tis our misfortune that we are collected from the several States, and have the benefit of neither, that some of us are very remote from our provinces and homes and others even from our Country, and consequently cut off from resources of every kind, and at the same time serving with Troops richly supplyed with the necessaries and comforts of life. (who as Soldiers are entitled to no exclusive priviledges from ourselves) Maryland has given her Officers Two Thousand Dollars cash to purchase a suit of Cloathes, Pennsylvania has prepared a suit for each of her Officers, the New-England States are making good their contracts with their Troops with respect to the depreciation of our Money. whilst we have the alternatives of Struggling with our unnecessary difficulties or retiring from a service which concerns us individually both as soldiers and Citizens. It is not enough for us barely to serve our Country, we wish to serve it with reputation. The too w⟨ell⟩ grounded complaints of our Soldiers added to our real necessities will oblige us to retire from the army to avoid becoming proverbial. we beg you will once more represent our situation to the commander in Chief and if necessary to Congress, holding us up in a true point of view and if we cannot be upon a footing with the rest of the army, we trust we can with the fellow Citizens of America” (DLC:GW).
1. The resolution that Congress adopted on 20 Jan. 1776 provided for the enlistment of “one thousand Canadians … for one year, or during the present disputes, at six dollars and two thirds of a dollar bounty, and the usual pay, which number shall compose four battalions, and form one regiment, five companies of fifty men to each batallion, one captain, one lieutenant, and one ensign, to each company, and four majors, one lieutenant colonel, and one colonel commandant, to the whole regiment” ( 4:75).
2. See 6:900.
3. Hazen is referring to operations in late 1775 that led to a failed assault on 31 December.
4. The general orders for 5 Oct. 1777 presumably recognized Hazen’s regiment among those that fought “on the enemy’s left wing” at Germantown with “spirit and bravery.”
5. See 12:1159; see also 61–62.
6. See 13:317–18; see also John Jay to GW, 15 March 1779, and n.1 to that document.
7. Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates had ordered Hazen’s command to Hartford on 19 Oct. 1778 (see ). Hazen’s regiment remained at Hartford until ordered to winter quarters near Danbury, Conn., later that fall (see GW to Henry Laurens, 27 Nov. 1778).
8. Hazen’s regiment received clothing in the general orders for 12 March 1780.
9. Hazen probably is alluding to a resolution that the Connecticut legislature passed in January 1779 after “taking into consideration the sufferings of the troops of this State in the army, occasioned by the enhanced prices of the necessaries of life and other circumstances which have intervened since their engagement in the public service through the unforseen inevitable calamities of war, as represented by the officers of the Connecticut Line and otherwise.” The resolution reads: “That the sum of forty-five thousand pounds, lawfull money, be paid out of the treasury of this State by the first day of April next to the officers and soldiers belonging to this State and now serving in the infantry and train of artillery in the continental army included in the quota of this and not that of any other State, in just proportion to their respective wages as heretofore ascertained or stated by Congress” ( 2:180).
10. Noah Lee (1745–1840), originally from Connecticut, enlisted in Hazen’s regiment on 3 Nov. 1776 and served as a lieutenant until his promotion to captain in October 1780. He remained in the army until the end of the war.
Robert Burns served as a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania rifle regiment beginning in March 1776, transferred to Hazen’s regiment that November, and became a captain. He no longer appeared on company muster rolls after May 1779.
Francis (François) Gilman (Gilmant, Gillemat) served as an ensign in Hazen’s regiment from February 1776 until his promotion to lieutenant in August 1780. He apparently left the army during 1782.