1To George Washington from Jean-Baptiste Ternant, 4 September 1778 (Washington Papers)
your Excellency’s kind answer was handed to me yesterday evening —from the Idea I entertain of a good military constitution, I am, & have always been sensible of the necessity of limiting rank to the line of an army, & of the dangerous impropriety of lavishing it to men mercantilely or otherwise civily employed in the Staff departments; nor did I ever think of proposing any direct or indirect...