General Orders, 8 September 1780
General Orders
Head Quarters Steenrapia Friday September 8. 1780
Parole Canterbury Countersigns M. R.
Watchword Parade
[Officers] For the Day Tomorrow[:] Brigadier General Huntington[,] Colonel Cilley[,] Lieutenant Colonel Dearborn[,] Major Leavensworth[,] Brigade Major Oliver
Major Rosekrans will do the duty of brigade Inspector in Clinton’s brigade during Major Fish’s absence.1
Lieutenant Luther Trowbridge of the 7th Massachusetts regiment is appointed Adjutant to the same from the 1st instant vice Adjutant White Promoted.2
A detachment to be paraded this afternoon five oclock furnished with one days provision and forty rounds per man—Major Torrey to command.
There being considerable intervals between some of the brigades—The Major Generals commanding wings will take care that additional Camp guards are furnished for completing the Chain of Centinels, along those intervals in front and rear.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. James Rosekrans (d. 1805) became captain in the 4th New York Regiment in August 1775 and joined the 5th New York Regiment in November 1776. He rose to major in March 1780, transferred to the 3d New York Regiment that June, and served until January 1781.
2. Luther Trowbridge (1756–1802), a shoemaker, joined the 3d New Hampshire Regiment in April 1775 as a corporal. He became a lieutenant in January 1777 in the militia regiment that turned into the 7th Massachusetts Regiment. He began as regimental adjutant in September 1780, was named the 1st Massachusetts brigade’s quartermaster in November 1782, and remained in service until June 1783.
William White (1750–1781) began as a Massachusetts militia sergeant in April 1775 and was commissioned lieutenant in June 1776. He later served as regimental adjutant for the 7th Massachusetts Regiment. Promoted to captain lieutenant in 1779 and captain in September 1780, White perished near Yorktown, Va., in fall 1781.
3. GW wrote major generals Nathanael Greene, Lafayette, and Stirling from headquarters in Bergen County on 9 Sept.: “I am apprehensive that neither the fixed pickets for the security of the Army, nor the duties of the patrolls are sufficiently established—You will therefore be pleased to have a meeting for the purpose of taking the matter into consideration, and making such regulations, as will at the same time contribute to safety and to the ease of duty by dividing it between the Infantry and the Wings.
“As some difficulties may arise by putting Moylans and Lees Horse on duty together—I would recommend it to you to assign different quarters of the Army to the care of each Corps. I think a picket at the little ferry supersedes the necessity of a patrol down Tean Neck, as no body of Men can get upon the Neck without passing the ferry.
“You will be pleased to make a report of the business to me” (Df, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW). GW’s aide-de-camp Richard Kidder Meade wrote Stirling on 12 Sept.: “His Excellency is this moment going out—He desires me to observe that he approves the instructions you sent for his perusal, & only wishes you to add to them, that in case the Enemy should make a move up the River, that the Officers may give notice immediately to the Commanding Officer at Dobbes’s” (NHi: Stirling Papers; the instructions sent GW have not been identified).