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To George Washington from Carl Friedrich Führer and Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmit, 24 December 1778

From Carl Friedrich Führer and Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmit

Philadelphia
December 24the 1778.

May it please Your Excellency!

Your Excellency was pleased, after we left New York, to favour us with a Recommendation to the Honorable the Congress; Congress according to a Resolve of Septbr 3the was pleased to appoint us Captains in a New Corps, Called the German Volunteers; By a Resolve of December 5the Congress was pleased to contermand the Raising of Said Corps and to Dismiss us with One Month pay.

How great our Distress must be, Your Excellency can well See; The great Distance from our Native Country, Relations and friends, besides the bold Step we took out of Love for this Country, Add to our Misfortune.

We have no Remedy left but this one, to apply to Your Excellency. Should Your Excellency be pleased to remedy our present Unhappy Circumstances, by pleasing us in the Army (where we Served from our Infancy) we would humbly propose, to Serve in the State of Virginia (Where we, During our Captivity of fifteen Months) accquired many friends and Accquaintances.1 With an Everlasting Gratitude, our all, we have the Honor to be Your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble Servants

Charles Feurer

Wilhelm Kleinsmitt

LS, DLC:GW.

1. Führer and Kleinschmit briefly received permission from Congress to recruit a corps of German deserters, but the permission was quickly revoked; their subsequent attempts to make amends with their former British employers were likewise rebuffed (see GW to Henry Laurens, 9 Aug. 1778 [second letter], and n.2 to that document). The resolves to which they refer here are in 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 , 12:866–67, 1192–93.

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    Washington Papers
    Title
    To George Washington from Carl Friedrich Führer and Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmit, 24 December 1778
    Authors
    Führer, Carl Friedrich
    Kleinschmit, Carl Wilhelm
    Recipient
    Washington, George
    Date
    24 December 1778

    Reference

    Cite as
    “To George Washington from Carl Friedrich Führer and Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmit, 24 December 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0559. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 18, 1 November 1778 – 14 January 1779, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 498–499.]