General Orders, 24 April 1780
General Orders
Head Quarters Morristown Monday April 24th 1780
Parole Maurepas Countersigns Montbarre, Neckar
[Officers] Of the Day Tomorrow[:] Brigadier General Clinton[,] Lieutenant Colonel Commandant Weissenfels[,] Brigade Major Maxwell’s Brigade
For Detachment Lieutenant Colonel Commandant Butler and Major T. Moore.1
A Subaltern from General Clinton’s Brigade to be sent immediately to Pluckemin to relieve one from Hand’s brigade superintending the Hospital at that place. He will receive his instructions from the Officer to be relieved.2
At a General Court martial of the Line held the 17th instant; Colonel J. Livingston president3 Doctor McCarty of the 4th Pennsylvania regiment appear’d before the Court charg’d with “Scandalous and Ungentlemanlike behavior in seizing Captain Pell on the evening of the 29th of January last with several others and forcibly putting him out of the room of a public house and for taking his sword from him with the assistance of others and breaking it and for taking a stick and following him into the passage of the House after he was forced out of the room.”
To which he pleaded “Not Guilty.”
The Court having fully and maturely considered the charge against Doctor McCarty and the Evidence are of opinion that the Charge is not supported and do acquit him of the same.
The Commander in Chief approves the opinion of the Court.
Doctor McCarty is released from Arrest.4
Varick transcript, DLC:GW, ser. 3, subseries G, letter book 5; Varick transcript, DLC:GW, ser. 3, subseries G, letter book 4.
1. The Varick transcript in letter book 4 does not include this general order.
2. The general orders for 23 March had assigned the officer from Brig. Gen. Edward Hand’s brigade.
3. Col. James Livingston served as president of a court-martial that sat between 10 and 20 April (see General Orders, 9 and 20 April).
4. Charles McCarter (d. 1800) served as a surgeon in the 11th Virginia Regiment from June 1777 to September 1778. He joined the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment in January 1779 and retired from the army in January 1781. For additional biographical details, see , 324–25.