General Orders, 10 October 1780
General Orders
Head Quarters Totowa Tuesday October 10th 1780
Parole Albany. Countersigns, Alps: Arr.
Watchword, Franklin.
[Officers] For the day Tomorrow[:] Brigadier General Patterson[,] Colonel Bailey[,] Lieutenant Colonel Basset[,] Major Maxwell[,] Brigade Major Woodbridge
The General Court martial whereof Colonel Jackson is President to sit tomorrow morning Ten ô clock at a house near Totowa bridge.1
The Commander in Chief desires that the Colonels and Officers commanding regiments in the several state lines will by saturday next2 without fail make returns to the Adjutant General of the men in their respective regiments designating by Columns how many are engaged for the War; and how many of these are actually present—how many on command, extra service and in hospitals and where—The officers will be as accurate as possible in this and will return no men about whom they have not received certain recent Accounts.
They will also designate by monthly columns extending the Columns to July next the proportion of men in each Month whose services will expire.
The Colonels and Commanding officers of regiments of Artillery Cavalry and of all other Regiments and Corps not comprehended in State lines are to make a similar return in which they are also to designate the particular States to which their men belong and the Proportion of each.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
Lafayette wrote his wife, the marquise de Lafayette, from Totowa Bridge, N.J., on 10 Oct. that GW “was very touched” to learn that the Lafayettes’ had named their new son George Washington Motier Lafayette (
, 3:195–97, quote on 196).1. This court-martial resumed proceedings against Joshua Hett Smith (see The Smith Family and Major General Benedict Arnold’s Treachery, 26 Sept.–30 Oct., editorial note; see also General Orders, 12 Sept., and n.3 to that document).
2. The next Saturday was 14 October.
3. GW ordered these returns in response to the letter Samuel Huntington, president of Congress, wrote him on 4 Oct. (see Huntington to GW, 26 Oct., n.1). Returns for Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are filed with the documents for this date in DLC:GW; see also GW to Nathanael Greene, 10 Oct., found at Greene to GW, 8 Oct., source note, and Circular to the States, 18 Oct., n.1.