To George Washington from Brigadier General George Clinton, 14 March 1777
From Brigadier General George Clinton
New Windsor [N.Y.] 14th March 1777.
D’r Sir,
I begg Leave to recomend Capt. Black & Lieut. Santford both of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment for Captains of the two remaining Companies for which your Excellency Directed me to appoint Officers.1 Their Charecters Well in private life as Officers are good & I believe they will [be] able to raise their Companies as the Men of that Regiment are strongly attached to their Officers; many of them have not yet entered the service. It might promote the filling of their Companies to let the Men know the Field Officers of the Regiment to which they are to be annexed. If Colo. Malcom is to command the Regim’t I believe it will influence many to inlist. As soon as we fix on the subalterns for these two Companies I will return their Names to your Excellency. I am your Most Obed’t Serv’t
(G.C.)
Hastings, Clinton Papers, 1:657.
1. James Black and John Sandford (d. 1808) were appointed first lieutenants in Col. William Malcom’s regiment of New York militia levies in the summer of 1776. Both men served as captains in Malcom’s Additional Continental Regiment from the spring of 1777 to April 1779, when the regiment was consolidated with Col. Oliver Spencer’s Additional Continental Regiment. Black resigned from the army at that time, and from October 1779 to the end of the war he was the state clothier for New York. Sandford remained with Spencer’s regiment until 1 Jan. 1781 when he retired from the service.