To George Washington from Colonel Seth Warner, 28 November 1779
From Colonel Seth Warner
Fort George [N.Y.]
28th Novr 1779.
May it please your Excellency—
On my Arrival to my Regiment at this Place, I find my Men naked for Want of the Cloathing Capt. Woolcott will present a Return for1—Beg they may be forwarded as soon as may be, or my Men must unavoidably suffer—If a Warrant for Ten Thousand Dollars more Recruiting Money, could be obtained & sent to me by Capt. Woolcott, it would answer a very good Purpose; for I shall be out in a few Days. I am your Excellency’s Humble Servant
Seth Warner
P.S. The suppossed surplus Cloathing drew for my Regimt was drawn for Majr Whitcomb’s Corps, and stopt by General Clinton in Albany—Capt. Wolcott can produce a Copy of the Rec[eip]t.2
S. Wr
LS, owned (2011) by Mr. Joseph Rubinfine, Cocoa, Fla.; Sprague transcript and original cover, DLC:GW.
1. Capt. Giles Wolcott brought “A Cloathing Return for a Regiment of Foot in the Service of the United States Commanded by Colonel Seth Warner,” dated 28 Nov. at Fort George, N.Y., at the southern end of Lake George (DLC:GW). Warner’s Additional Continental Regiment required 111 hats, 106 coats, 20 watch coats, 102 vests, 231 shirts, 103 breeches, 225 pairs of stockings, 142 pairs of shoes, 103 blankets, 120 caps and 120 pairs of mittens. All were for men already in the regiment, except that “5 new Recruits” needed ten shirts and ten pairs of stockings along with five of every other named item.
Giles Wolcott (1734–1819) served as captain in Warner’s Additional Continental Regiment from January 1777 until his retirement from the army in January 1781. He often performed the duties of assistant deputy quartermaster general.
2. GW acknowledged this receipt in his reply to Warner written at Morristown on 24 Dec.: “I have recd yours of the 28th Novemr by Capt. Woolcot, inclosing a return of the Cloathing wanting for your Regiment. Capt. Woolcot had also with him an account of the Cloathing which the Regiment recd in the Course of the last year, which is in every respect more, in proportion, than any other Regiment in the service drew; particularly of Blankets of which there were no less than 317. There were also 20 Watch Coats, which Capt. Woolcot says Capt. Sherman your pay Master sold and applied the Money to his own use. This may have been the case with part of the Blankets and other Articles. I have therefore suspended giving Capt. Woolcot an order for any new Cloathing untill the old is accounted for. If Capt. Sherman has been guilty of selling the Watch Coats, he should be immediately arrested.
“I gave you, when at Head Qua[r]ters a Warrant for 10,000 dollars and I observe that you have only inlisted 5 Recruits. You must therefore have a considerable sum in your hands—When it is expended you are to transmit a list of the names of the men inlisted regularly attested” (Df, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).
William Sherman (1751–1789), the son of Connecticut’s noteworthy Roger Sherman, graduated from Yale College in 1770 and unprofitably managed his father’s mercantile business before becoming paymaster in Warner’s Additional Continental Regiment in July 1776. Sherman’s troubled tenure as paymaster ended in 1780 after his “Elopement” left the regiment in a predicament (Warner to GW, 30 Oct. 1780, DLC:GW; see also GW to Warner, 12 Nov. 1780, DLC:GW). For a summary of Sherman’s difficult life, see 319–21.