Orders to Brigadier General Nathaniel Heard, 23 April 1777
Orders to Brigadier General Nathaniel Heard
[Morristown, 23 April 1777]
Sir
I would have you leave at this place (out of the Militia under your Command) One hundred Men, or as near that number as have had the Small Pox (Officered agreeably to the resolutions of Congress).
You are also to send a Subaltern & twenty five Men to Succasony to guard the Magazines and Stores at that place—agreeably to Orders which the Officer is to receive from the Assistant Quarter Master General.1
The residue of the Militia you are to March to Pompton from whence you are to detach parties towards Hackensack &ca to cover the Inhabitants in that Quarter and quiet the fears of the People as much as possible.
You will use your utmost deligence to compleat the Works begun at Pompton by Captn O’Hara, who upon your arrival at that place is to repair hither with the detachment under his Commd.2 Given at Head Quarters at Morristown this 23d day of April 1777.
Go: Washington
ADfS, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman wrote Heard on 2 May: “Mr Gabriel Ogden of Pompton is employed to cast Cannon Ball and Grape Shot for the public use; but from the great scarcity of hands he is not able to go on so briskly, as the Service requires. His Excellency [GW] therefore desires, that you would permit him to employ about forty of your men upon such terms as he and they can agree. As the Works are at Pumpton, these men can, upon any alarm, take up their Arms, and be useful as Soldiers” (DLC:GW).
1. Succasunna (Suckasunny), N.J., is about eleven miles northwest of Morristown. On 16 May Tilghman wrote Brig. Gen. William Winds of the New Jersey militia: “The Magazines at Succasony plains are left without a General [a Guard] by the dismission of the Militia lately in Service. His Excellency [GW] therefore desires, that you will immediately detach a Subaltern and Twenty five men to that place where he will find Major [James] Abeel, who will give directions where to mount the Guards. You will inform Genl Heard, that this detachment is sent to Succasony by order of the General” (DLC:GW).
2. Richard Kidder Meade wrote Capt. Henry O’Hara on this date: “You are directed by the General [GW] to hold your self in readiness as you will shortly be reliev’d by a part of the jersey Militia on the arrival of whom you will march immediately for this place” (DLC:GW).