Orders to Colonel William Malcom, 27 June 1777
Orders to Colonel William Malcom
[Middlebrook, 27 June 1777]
Sir
You are hereby appointed to the command of a regiment in the Continental service, to be composed of the eight following independent companies—the four raised under the direction of General George Clinton, and commanded by Major Pauling, and four others raised or to be raised by Captains Scott, McDougall, Hallet and Hunter.1 In case any of these last mentioned Captains should not have accepted or acted upon their appointments, you are to supply the place by nominating others, the nomination to be approved and ratified by me. Your field officers are to be Lieut: Col: Burr & Major Pauling.
You will immediately make yourself acquainted with the state of your reg: & collect as many of them as are raised under a proper proportion of officers to where Major Paulings party is now stationed—You will also keep out a sufficient number of officers, qualified for the business of recruiting, to make up the deficiency of your regiment and will do whatever else may be necessary to complete it for service as soon as possible. You and your field officers are without delay to take the field, at the head of those men who have been already recruited: I shall expect a speedy report of the strength and exact situation of your regiment. Given at Head Quarters at Middle Brook Camp this 27th June 1777.
Df, in Alexander Hamilton’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. Jonathan Hallett served as a second lieutenant in the 3d New York Regiment from July 1775 to March 1776, when he was promoted to first lieutenant and adjutant. In November 1776 he became captain of the 2d New York Regiment, and he apparently served in that capacity to June 1783. John Hunter, who served as a lieutenant in the New York militia levies in the summer and fall of 1776, had been appointed a captain in Malcom’s Additional Continental Regiment in April 1777. Hunter was taken prisoner when the British captured Fort Montgomery, N.Y., on 6 Oct. 1777, and he resigned his commission the following December.