George Washington Papers
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From George Washington to Major General Robert Howe, 1 April 1780

To Major General Robert Howe

Head Quarters Morris Town 1st April 1780

Dear Sir

Inclosed you have Duplicates of my letters of the 30th ulto—the originals of which having been sent by a soldier on foot, I am apprehensive he may have been detained by the Weather1—I have since recd your favr of the 28th March2—The intelligence communicated in it, urges the necessity of drawing down poors Brigade as expeditiously as possible, and also points out the expediency of endeavouring to get a supply of provision within the Garrison.3 I am well aware of the difficulties you will meet with in accomplishing the last, but I am convinced you will leave no means unessayed. I am Dear Sir Yr most obt Servt

P.s. Pay particular & proper attention to the Signals for alarming the Country.4

Df, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.

1GW duplicated his letters of 30 March to Howe and to Brig. Gen. Enoch Poor or the officer commanding his brigade (see n.3 below).

GW reported the weather at Morristown between 30 March and 1 April in his diary entries for those dates: “30th. Clear & cool … Ground froze again.

“31st. Snowing more or less all day & generally pretty fast. Wind tho not much of it abt. No. East.

“1st. The Snow which fell yesterday & last night was about 9 or 10 Inches deep upon a level. The Morning and remainder of the day clear & pleasant overhead. Wind Westerly but thawing nevertheless” (Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 3:349–50).

2Howe had written GW from the Highlands, N.Y., on 28 March: “I have just heard from —[.] He writes me thus ‘Your Agent L—is not yet come out of New york, which I am surpris’d at; A Tory tells me that 500 of the New Rais’d Corps are arriv’d at Morrisania from New York, that they daily Expect to be join’d by more, and that all the new rais’d Corps are to be there, that they intend to make rapid incursions into this country, that the Refugees are in the highest Spirits, & promise themselves great things from the Ensuing Campaign, and that great preparations are making for an attack upon the North River which seems to be Certainly their object’; he adds, ‘that he does not love to trouble me with hearsay news, but as it Comes to him such a Variety of Ways, and from so many intelligent Tories, Who Confide in him, he places belief in it, and so therefore informs me,[’] he says to[o], that some maneuvre up the Connecticut river may probably be made by way of Diversion: Your Excellency will make your own Comments & draw your own Conclusions from these informations, I write in great hurry, the Gentlemen who brings this, Calling upon me this moment and pressing to be dispatched” (ALS, DLC:GW).

3For orders moving Poor’s brigade from Danbury, Conn., to the vicinity of West Point, N.Y., see GW to Howe, 30 March, n.1; see also Howe to GW, 3 April. Howe explained the need for this reinforcement in part of a letter he wrote Maj. Gen. William Heath from the Highlands on 4 April: “We have diminished so much, and are so daily growing weaker, that I have prevaild upon the General to let me call down General Poors Brigade for without them it would have been impossible to proceed upon the works, which is an anxious Circumstance to me & must be so to Every one” (MHi: Heath Papers; see also “Heath Papers,” description begins “The Heath Papers.” Parts 1–3. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 5th ser., 4:1–285; 7th ser., vols. 4–5. Boston, 1878–1905. description ends 3:50–51). Lt. Thomas Blake, an officer in Poor’s brigade, recorded in his journal entry for 6 April that the command’s march “to West point” commenced on that date (Kidder, History of the First New Hampshire Regiment description begins Frederic Kidder. History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution. Albany, 1868. description ends , 54).

4The postscript is in the writing of GW’s secretary Robert Hanson Harrison.

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