1. In response to a petition written in behalf of the committee of inspection in Cape May County, N.J., by Thomas Learning, Jr., “setting forth the defenceless state of that part of the country,” the Continental Congress resolved on 17 April to send these two companies there and to sell Leaming 200 pounds of gunpowder for the use of the county militia (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 4:284–85, 291). GW found it necessary to include Dayton’s regiment in the reinforcements for Canada, however, and on 17 June Congress ordered two companies of the forces in Delaware to go to Cape May in place of Dayton’s companies (ibid., 5:452; see GW to Hancock, 25–26 April, and General Orders, 27 April 1776).

Elias Dayton (1737–1807), who served as a lieutenant in the “Jersey Blues” at Quebec in 1759 and as a provincial captain during Pontiac’s Conspiracy in 1763, was elected a colonel in the Continental army by Congress on 9 Feb. 1776. A native of Elizabeth, Dayton commanded the 3d New Jersey Regiment until January 1781 when he became colonel of the 2d New Jersey Regiment. Although Dayton led a brigade during the Yorktown campaign, he was not promoted to brigadier general until January 1783.