From George Washington to Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons, 8 March 1778
To Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons
Valley-forge March 8th 1778.
Dear Sir,
Below you will receive a copy of my last dated the 5th to which I will add a thought which has occurred since the writing of it, & which if the Scheme is practicable at all may add not a little to the success namely to let the Officers & Soldiers imployed in the enterprize be dressed in red and much in the taste of the British Soldiery—Webbs Regiment will afford these dresses1 & it might not be amiss to know certainly the number of some Regiment that is quartered in the City—under some circumstances this knowledge may avail them, especially if the number on their own Buttons should corrispond thereto. I am Dr Sir Yr Obedt Servt
Go: Washington
P.S. The official Papers would be a vast acquisition & might without much difficulty accompany the Person.
ADfS, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. On the same page as the ADfS, GW copied the second of his two letters to Parsons of 5 March.
1. Col. Samuel Blachley Webb’s Additional Continental Regiment wrote scarlet coats with yellow facings; indeed on 28 June 1777, Q.M. Gen. Thomas Mifflin informed Webb, “Col. Webb has his Excellency’s, General Washington’s Orders to appropriate so much of the scarlet cloathing, taken from the Enemy at Sea, as will be sufficient to cloath one Regiment. The said cloathing to be set apart for his Regt” (, 1:216).