From George Washington to George Augustine Washington, 21 November 1778
To George Augustine Washington
Head Quarters Fredg [N.Y.] 21st Novr 1778.
Sir,
Your Letter came to my hands last Night.1 I have wrote to Majr Lee on the subject—when his answer arrives you will hear further from me on the subject of it.2 I am.
ADf, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
George Augustine Washington (c.1758–1793) was the oldest son of GW’s brother Charles. He served from September to November 1777 as a second lieutenant in Col. William Grayson’s Additional Continental Regiment and was appointed a cornet in Maj. Henry Lee Jr.’s Partisan Light Dragoons in April 1778. His resignation in December 1778 apparently was the subject of this letter. He remained out of the army until April 1780, when Congress appointed him an ensign in the 2d Virginia Regiment and GW took him on as a member of his personal guard (General Orders, 27 April 1780). He subsequently declined an offer to serve as Maj. Gen. Steuben’s aide (see GW to Steuben, 2 May 1780), electing instead to serve as an aide to Major General Lafayette beginning in the summer of 1780. Ill health forced him to relinquish his duties in the autumn of 1782 and travel to the West Indies for a cure (see GW to George Augustine Washington, 14 Nov. 1782). He became GW’s Mount Vernon farm manager in 1786 and continued serving in that capacity until his death of tuberculosis in 1793.
1. This letter has not been found.
2. This letter has not been found, but see Henry Lee, Jr., to GW, 23 November.