To George Washington from Captain Abijah Savage, 19 May 1780
From Captain Abijah Savage
Quarters Morristown
May 19 1780
May It Please your Excellency
I Beg Leave to acquaint your Excellency of my Services & Present Situation—I Entered in the Service of my Country in May 1775 as a Lieutenant in which Capacity I Served untill the 31 of December 75 at which time I was Taken a Prisoner at Quebec I Remaind a Prisoner more than twelve months Soon after my Exchange I was appointed a Captain in Colo. Henry Sherburnes Regit one of the additional Sixteen Battalions in which Capacity I have Served to the Present Time1 the Regiment to which I Belongd Being Reduced while I was on Command at Paramas—I am now Left Destitute of any Command: the men that I once Commanded are Incorporated with other Regiments I Find by the general order for that purpose there was no Mention made of any Commissond officers where they are to go, or what is to be Done for them2—I have Receivd but very Little of any thing more than the Nominal Sum of my wages in Continental Currency for my Five years Service3—the Calamities of war the Low value of the money, the great Expence which my Station in the army has led me to, together with the Expences of a Large Family at Home has Reduced me to poverty & want the Situation of my Family at home Demands my Immediate attention for ther Relief—my own Necessity for Cloathing is Such that I Cannot Stay here in my present Situation with Decency.
I have no Dislike to the Service but am under the Necessity of Desiring your Excellencys Permission to Retire home to Relieve the Distresses of my family which the Tender feelings of Humanity Cannot Endure to hear Repeated.
If there is, or Shall hereafter be any Prov[i]sion made for the Officers of those Regiments which are or Shall be Reduced I Could wish to Receive all the Priviledges that are or may be granted to them.
But if there is not, nor Cannot be any Compensation Made to those Officers who are put out of Service by the Present arrangement nor permited to go on furlough—I Shall be under the Disagreeable Necessity of asking for a Discharge.4 I am with Respect your Excellencys Most obedient & Most Humble Servant
Abijah Savage
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. In December 1776, Congress authorized sixteen additional regiments to supplement the original eighty-eight regiments established in September 1776 (see Commissions to the Colonels of the Sixteen Additional Continental Regiments, 11 Jan. 1777, and the source note to that document).
2. For the reduction of Col. Henry Sherburne’s regiment, see General Orders, 2 May. Service record summaries state that a muster roll dated 4 May listed Savage as on command at Paramus, N.J. (see DNA: RG 93, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, Sherburne’s Additional Continental Regiment). Congress subsequently acted to officially disband the remaining additional regiments on 1 Jan. 1781 (see , 18:893–96; see also General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780).
3. Payrolls for Savage’s company for January through April 1780 indicate that his pay amounted to $40 per month (see DNA: RG 93, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, Sherburne’s Additional Continental Regiment).
In a letter dated 24 April at “Quarters Near Morristown,” presumably Jockey Hollow, N.J., Savage wrote the Committee at Headquarters: “From the Smallness of the Regit of boath officers & men—we are Induced to believe that the Regit will be Reduceed—The officers & men have heretofore Labourd under many Disadvantagees by being Composd of Severall Difirent States & not acknowledged by any one State in particular—Therefore have not Receivd Supplys of Cloathing & Refreshments Equeal to the Troops of the Same States … we would Request if the Regiment is Reduceed the officers & men may be Distributed into the Line of the Several States to which we belong If so undoutedly we shall be acknowleged by the States & Receive the Privalegees that is Due to us for our Servicees” (DNA:PCC, item 78).
4. Savage apparently remained in Sherburne’s regiment until its dissolution on 1 Jan. 1781 (see “A Return of the Names and Rank of the Officers of the Continental line deranged,” that date, in DNA:PCC, item 19).