1. The copies of Congress’s resolutions of 17 Oct. that Hancock enclosed in his letter to GW of that date include one that directs GW “to publish a proclamation offering pardon, to such as have deserted from the continental army and shall on or before such day as he shall think proper to fix in his proclamation, return to their respective corps or surrender themselves to the officers appointed to receive recruits and deserters in the respective states, or any other continental commission[ed] officer” (DLC:GW; see also JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 9:816). GW’s proclamation on deserters is dated 24 October.

Congress also recommended that the state legislatures pass laws for detecting and punishing persons who knowingly harbored or assisted deserters, and it increased the reward for apprehending each Continental deserter from five dollars to ten dollars and “twelve ninetieth parts of a dollar for each mile between the place in which he may be taken, & to which he may be conveyed” (DLC:GW; see also JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 9:814–15).

2. See Circular to Various States, 4 August. Congress in its resolutions of 17 Oct. urges the states “to use their utmost endeavours for immediately compleating their several [recruiting] quotas,” and it directs GW “forthwith to order one or more of his officers that are or may be appointed to receive recruits & deserters agreeable to the resolution of the 31 of July last to apply to the supreme executive authority of each respective state for the names of the recruiting officers & of the places of rendezvous, which the said executive authority were requested to appoint by the resolution aforesaid” (DLC:GW; see also JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 9:813, 815). For the resolution of 31 July 1777 regarding recruiting officers, see ibid., 8:593–95.

3. The previous Sunday was 19 October.

4. See GW’s letters to David Forman and Silas Newcomb of 22 October [1] [2]. Capt. Johann Ewald of the Hessian jägers says in his diary entry for 21 Oct. that “about three o’clock in the morning the Jäger Corps marched to Cooper’s Ferry on the Delaware. The Corps crossed the Delaware in flatboats with the three Hessian grenadier battalions, Linsing, Minnigerode, and Lengerke, along with the Mirbach Regiment under [Lieutenant] Colonel [Justus Henrich von] Schieck, and landed about eight o’clock in the Province of Jersey. I had the advanced guard with sixty jägers, followed by the Corps, the Minnigerode battalion, the Mirbach Regiment, two 6–pounders, two howitzers, the Lengerke and Linsing battalions, and Captain [Friedrich Heinrich] Lorey with twenty mounted jägers. This corps under Colonel Donop, was ordered to seize by force Fort Red Bank, through which the garrison on Mud Island maintained its communication with the mainland. . . .

“This corps was still less than a half an hour away from the Delaware when it ran into an enemy party in the vicinity of Newton Township, which withdrew over Cooper’s Bridge toward Burlington. I pursued it up to the end of a wood, where I discovered several hundred men on both sides of Cooper’s Creek, with whom I skirmished until about four o’clock in the afternoon, after which time they withdrew. The colonel, who continued his march with the corps, had ordered me to occupy myself with the enemy until nightfall, and then to follow the corps to Haddonfield. He wanted to mislead the enemy and conceal his march. At eight o’clock in the evening I arrived at Haddonfield, where I found the corps encamped in a quadrangle on the heights” (Ewald, Diary description begins Johann Ewald. Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal. Translated and edited by Joseph P. Tustin. New Haven and London, 1979. description ends , 97; see also Whinyates, Services of Francis Downman description begins F. A. Whinyates, ed. The Services of Lieut.-Colonel Francis Downman, R.A., in France, North America, and the West Indies, between the Years 1758 and 1784. Woolwich, England, 1898. description ends , 43; Baurmeister, Revolution in America description begins Carl Leopold Baurmeister. Revolution in America: Confidential Letters and Journals, 1776–1784, of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian Forces. Translated and annotated by Bernhard A. Uhlendorf. New Brunswick, N.J., 1957. description ends , 125–26; Muenchhausen, At General Howe’s Side description begins Friedrich von Muenchhausen. At General Howe’s Side, 1776–1778: The Diary of General William Howe’s Aide de Camp, Captain Friedrich von Muenchhausen. Translated by Ernst Kipping. Annotated by Samuel Smith. Monmouth Beach, N.J., 1974. description ends , 41; and Scull, Montresor Journals description begins G. D. Scull, ed. The Montresor Journals. New York, 1882. In Collections of the New-York Historical Society, vol. 14. description ends , 469). For accounts of the attack on Fort Mercer at Red Bank, N.J., on 22 Oct., see Charles Stewart’s two letters to GW of 22 Oct. and Samuel Ward, Jr., to GW, 23 October.