ALS, DLC:GW.

Daniel Waters (1731–1816) of Maiden, Mass., participated as a minuteman in the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 and during the siege of Boston was in charge of a small gunboat on the Charles River. On 20 Jan. 1776 GW appointed him to command the schooner Lee, one of six vessels under fleet commander John Manley, in which he captured several British vessels, including an armed troopship. Upon GW’s recommendation Waters was appointed a captain in the Continental Navy on 15 Mar. 1777, but served as a volunteer in the Hancock under Manley, was captured by superior forces off Halifax on 6 July 1777, and was imprisoned in New York harbor until 1778, when he was exchanged. In the spring of 1779 he made a West Indies cruise in the Continental sloop General Gates. Waters did not mention at this time his participation in the failed Penobscot expedition against Castine, Maine, in the summer of 1779 in which he destroyed his ship, the General Putnam, to prevent its capture by the enemy, or his successful exploits as commander of the Massachusetts privateers Thorn and Friendship (see Papers, Revolutionary War Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series. 25 vols. to date. Charlottesville, Va., 1985–. description ends , 3:279, n.3; Claghorn, Naval Officers of the American Revolution description begins Charles E. Claghorn. Naval Officers of the American Revolution: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. Metuchen, N.J., 1988. description ends , 327).