General Orders, 23 June 1780
General Orders
Morning Orders June 23d [1780]
The Men will cook their Provisions immediately they are to be kept Compact in readiness for a sudden movement.
Head Quarters Rockaway [Bridge, N.J.,] Friday June 23d 1780
Parole. Countersigns.
Watchword.
In Case a sudden movement should become necessary two pieces of Cannon will be fired at the Park as a signal to the Troops to get under Arms.
The General officers present will assemble at General Hand’s Brigade this afternoon five o clock to take into consideration a dispute of rank between Colonels Livingston and Hazen of that brigade and will as speedily as possible report their opinion to the Commander in Chief.
The General has often observed much unnecessary damage done to Grass grounds by turning the Horses of the Army at large upon them by which means more is trodden down than is Consumed Care will therefore be taken in future when the Army Halts near Mowing grounds to have the grass cut and brought to the horses. The officers commanding divisions and brigades will see this order executed and the Quarter master General will direct that it is particularly attended to by the Conductors of Teams not attached to any particular part of the Line.
Captain David Humphrys of the Connecticut Line is Appointed Aide de Camp to the Commander in Chief and is to be respected and obeyed accordingly.1
Brigade Field Returns (of the officers and men present fit for Action (regimentally digested)[)] are to be delivered in at five o clock this afternoon at which time After Orders will be issued.
After Orders
In the present divided State of our Force the second Pennsylvania, Hand’s and the two Connecticut Brigades are to form one line the Park of Artillery will be between Hand’s brigade and the Connecticut Troops2—the Troops will lay on their Arms in their proper Platoons[;] Officers of all ranks are to be at their Posts; Head Quarters will be at the Park of Artillery.
General St Clair will see that proper Picquets are posted for the security of the right Wing and General Huntington will do the same for the Security of the Left Wing.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
GW’s expenses for this date included £32.5 “To Cash pd Hannah Till for 2 months wages as pr bill” (Revolutionary War Journal of Household Expenses, 1776–1780, DLC:GW, ser. 5). Hannah Till signed a receipt with her mark at Morristown on this date: “Received of Major Gibbs eighty six dollars in full for two months wages in His Excellency General Washington’s family” (Revolutionary War Vouchers and Receipted Accounts, 1776–1780, DLC:GW, ser. 5).
Former slave Hannah Till (c.1722–c.1827) served with GW’s military family for over six years. A native of Kent County, Del., Till had been sold twice to owners in Pennsylvania before being purchased about 1757 by a Parson Mason of New York. Till bought her freedom prior to the American Revolution. Both she and her husband joined GW’s military family as cooks. Later in the war, Till served for some months as a cook for Major General Lafayette’s military family. Till resided in Philadelphia in 1824 when she was interviewed by a writer who described her as “a pious woman, possessing a sound mind and memory, and fruitful of anecdote of the Revolutionary war. … She could speak, in a good strong voice, of all the things she saw in her long life, with better recollection and readier utterance than any other narrator with whom I have had occasion so to converse” (, 552–53).
1. Although David Humphreys served as an aide-de-camp to major generals Israel Putnam and Nathanael Greene with the rank of major, he held the rank of captain in the Connecticut line. As GW’s aide, Humphreys became a lieutenant colonel (see , 5:418).
2. The after orders appear to have been written after the fighting and maneuvering of this day. The brigades with GW had apparently completed their march from Rockaway Bridge to Whippany, N.J. (see “Battle of Springfield, 23–24 June”).