To George Washington from Brigadier General James Clinton, 10 September 1776
From Brigadier General James Clinton
Fort Montgomery [N.Y.]
septr 10th 1776
May it Please your Excellency
Yours of the 8th of this Inst. I just Receiv’d and am Glad to hear your Excellency has Ordered a Reinforcement of Six hundred men which I hope will be Sufficient and are as Many as we Can find Barrack room for if the three Barracks were finish’d that I have Order’d to be built. I hope the Quarter Master General can supply me with the Nails—Agreeable to an Order sent him, and if not already sent, he may send them with one of the four sloops that goes Down to bring the sick from the Hospital in New-York to Orange Town.
We are as busy in fortifying these Garrisons with the other Posts as fast [as] Possible and order all the Garrison out every Day both offrs & Soldrs, Except those on Guards and the Sick, & a very few number of Cooks, and those Detach’d in the Artillery who are employd daily in makeing Cartriges, &c. and learning the Artillery Exercise, for which I have as yet exempt’d them from any other kind of Duty In order to encourage them to learn.
I have likewise Recd two Letters this Day from Congress Copies of them you have Inclos’d1—I have Just now Stopt Capt. Dirck Schuylers Sloop from Albany, and Sent her Down to New-York to Remove the Sick to Orange-Town—I have Orderd Lieutt Henry Pawling, of the 2nd New-York Regmnt, to proceed Down the River with a Whale-Boat and 11 Men, to Press the first Three Good Sloops that he Meets wt., for the Same Purpose.2 I am Your Excellency’s Most Obedt Humble Servt
James Clinton B. Genl
LS, DLC:GW.
1. The New York committee of safety drafted a letter to Clinton on 9 Sept. informing him of its resolution to send 600 militia to reinforce the Highlands and requesting him to send an officer down the Hudson River to impress four sloops for removing the sick from New York City to Orange Town (see , 1:616–17). The second document apparently was the impress warrant of that date (ibid., 617).
2. Henry Pawling (1752–1836) became a first lieutenant in Col. Lewis Duboys’s 5th New York Regiment on 21 Nov. 1776. He was captured at Fort Montgomery on 6 Oct. 1777 and remained a prisoner for nearly three years before rejoining his regiment (see officer’s petition to George Clinton, 24 May 1780, in Hastings, Clinton Papers, 5:750–52). Transferred to the 2d New York Regiment on 1 Jan. 1781, Pawling was promoted to captain in that regiment on 6 Nov. 1782 and served until the end of the war.