From George Washington to Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons, 1 August 1779
To Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons
[West Point] 1st August 1779
Dr Sr
I return you my thanks for the intelligence contained in your letter of this date1 & shall be ob[l]iged to you, to communicate any thing further that may come to your knowledge—especially if it should be of importance.
I have not the least objection to your employing the corporal & six men as you propose.
If Mr Pomroy has accepted the appointment you mention, he cannot hold, his rank in the line, but must be considered as discharged from the service;2 He ought first however to produce proper certificates of his having setled his Public accounts, in the Regt. I am Sr Yrs &ca
G. W——n
Df, in Richard Kidder Meade’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. This letter has not been found.
2. Ralph Pomeroy (1737–1819), of Hartford, Conn., had been appointed by the Board of War as commissioner to settle the pay for clothing due to the troops for 1777 (see General Orders, 3 Aug.). Despite his appointment as commissioner, Pomeroy retained his commission in the army against the protests of the 3d Connecticut’s officers (see GW to William Heath, 29 Sept., first letter).
From September to December 1776, Pomeroy served as paymaster of the 22d Continental Infantry Regiment and as paymaster of the 3d Connecticut Regiment from February 1777 to September 1778. By the latter date he had received a commission as a lieutenant in that regiment. After leaving the Continental army in January 1781, Pomeroy became deputy quartermaster general for Connecticut that same month and apparently served in that office until the end of the war. In 1789 he unsuccessfully sought a federal appointment from GW (see Pomeroy to GW, 20 July 1789). From 1789 to 1791 Pomeroy was comptroller of Connecticut.