From Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Hugh Hughes, [28 July 1781]
To Colonel Hugh Hughes
[Dobbs Ferry, New York, July 28th, 1781]
Dear Sir
I beg your particular Care of the Enclosed. The only News we have here is a Report from Philadelphia, that Rawdon after throwing a small succour into 96, had retired to Charles Town, & that Greene had renewed the Seige of that Place.1 You heard the British Fleet had put to Sea from the Hook, supposed to be going to escort Cornwallis back.2
Adieu my Dear Sir your most obedt.
A Hamilton
LC, New-York Historical Society, New York City.
1. See H to Hughes, July 25, 1781 (printed in this volume).
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Rawdon took the fort in the town of Ninety-Six on June 21, 1781, and ordered its evacuation. He left a small force at Ninety-Six, but moved the main portion of his troops to Orangeburg, a town forty miles southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.
2. When six or seven ships left Sandy Hook under Admiral Thomas Graves on July 21, George Washington expected them to return to New York with all or part of Cornwallis’s forces. Both Washington and H were mistaken, for the vessels were bound for Pensacola, Florida, to pick up and return to New York paroled British soldiers who had been captured by the Spanish under Bernardo de Galvez in May, 1781.