From George Washington to the U.S. Senate, 2 March 1797
To the United States Senate
United States, 2 March 1797. GW makes appointments and promotions in the U.S. army and nominates a total of eight men, including two lieutenants in the light dragoons. One of those officers, James Vincent Ball, is appointed to replace John Posey who resigned as lieutenant in the light dragoons on 19 Oct 1795.1 GW also appoints a surgeon’s mate in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers because of a recent death in that corps. For the infantry, GW appoints one major; a captain; one lieutenant; a surgeon, George Gillaspie; and an ensign, Larkin J. Dickinson, “to rank from 16 Septemr 1796.”2
LS, DNA: RG 46, entry 52; LB, DLC:GW.
This message was delivered to the Senate by GW’s secretary George Washington Craik on this date. The Senate approved the appointments on 3 March (see , 228–32).
1. John Posey had discussed his resignation in a letter to William Simmons, accountant for the War Department, written from Fredericksburg, Va., on 29 Sept. 1795. That letter reads in part: “As I have sent on my Resignation to the War Office & it appears that the Public are in my debt, I shall decline inlisting any more men untill I receive an answer” from the secretary of war (DNA: RG 94, Post Revolutionary War Papers).
The promotion of James Vincent Ball (d.1818) to lieutenant was dated 19 Oct. 1795. Later promoted to captain in the light dragoons in 1799, Ball served in the War of 1812. In September 1812, he became a major, and in December of that year, he received a brevet rank of lieutenant colonel for his display of gallant conduct during a battle with Indians. Ball later served in the infantry.
2. Daniel Bradley already had taken his rank as major in the 4th Infantry on 19 Jan. 1797, the death date of Maj. Richard Brooke Roberts. Appointees Capt. Andrew McClary and Lt. Charles Martin also had received their promotions on 19 Jan. 1797.
Gillaspie, of New York, took his post in the 2nd Infantry on 3 March. He later served as a surgeon in the U.S. navy aboard one of the original frigates that Congress had authorized in 1794 (see Edmund Randolph to GW, 27 March 1794 [first letter], and n.1 to that document).
Dickinson (d. 1797) served with the rank of ensign in the 4th sublegion, starting on 16 Sept. 1796. He took his post as ensign in the 4th Infantry on 1 Nov. 1796.