From George Washington to Major General Artemas Ward, 29 March 1776
To Major General Artemas Ward
Cambridge 29th Mar. 76
Sir:
As General Green is ordered to march with the next Brigade on Monday and as Generl Spencer will follow with the last1 (leaving four or five Regiments in this department for Defence, Protection of the Stores, Erection of works ect.) & should be glad, if you are not afraid of the Small Pox & Incline to continue longer in the Service that you lately talk’d of, if you would remove in to Boston tomorrow or next day, & take upon you the Command and direction of Matters there.2 I am Sir Yr Most Obed: Ser.
Go: Washington
Transcript, MWA; ALS, sold by Charles Scribner’s Sons, catalog 84, item 1695, New York, 1926. A note on the transcript reads “copy, original MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc.,” but no letter of this date from GW has been found in the Ward Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
1. See General Orders, 29, 31 Mar. 1776.
2. Despite his previous letter of resignation, Ward agreed to take command in Boston, and he continued in service until March 1777. See Ward to GW, 22 Mar. 1776, and note 1.