From Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Henry E. Lutterloh, [February 1778]
To Colonel Henry E. Lutterloh1
[Valley Forge, February, 1778]
Dr. Sir
You are hereby Authorised by order of His Excellency General Washington to impress any number of Waggons you stand in need of in the neighbourhood of the Camp—you don’t say what number you expect in tomorrow. General Green2 & Coll. Bidle3 write, that they meet with the greatest difficulty in foraging for want of Waggons. The General begs you to give them all the assistance you can. For Gods sake, my Dear Sir, exert yourself upon this occasion, our distress is infinite.
Yrs.
A Hamilton A D C
To Coll. Lutterloh
Copy, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Collection, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
1. This letter is included in another letter, which concerns the impressment of wagons for the Army and which was written by James Young, wagon-master general of Pennsylvania, to Timothy Matlock, secretary to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Young’s letter is dated February 21, 1778. At the end of his transcription of H’s letter to Lutterloh, Young wrote: “I have transcribed the above Copys that you may be a better Judge of the Wants of the Army.”
Lutterloh was deputy quartermaster general of the Continental Army.
2. Major General Nathanael Greene, who became quartermaster general on March 2, 1778.
3. Clement Biddle, commissary general of forage.