From George Washington to John Jay, 28 March 1779
To John Jay
Head qrs Middle Brook March 28th 1779.
Sir
I do myself the Honor of transmitting to Your Excellency—Two of Rivington’s papers of the 24th and 25th, which I received last night. I fear from the accounts contained in the last of them, though I doubt not but that they are highly coloured, that our people have suffered in the affair, mentioned to have happened in the Southern quarter on the 4th Instant.1
Since my Letter of the 26th I have obtained no further advices respecting Sir Henry Clinton and the Vessels gone up the Sound. I have the Honor to be with the most perfect esteem & respect Your Excellency’s Most Obedt servant
Go: Washington
LS, in Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DNA:PCC, item 152; Df, DLC:GW; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Congress read this letter on 1 April and referred it to the Board of War (, 13:402).
1. These newspapers apparently were among the “large asortment of papers from New York” that Brig. Gen. William Maxwell had sent with his letter to GW of 27 March (see also GW to Maxwell, this date). Because James Rivington’s Royal Gazette (New York) was published on Wednesdays and Saturdays during this period, the only one of GW’s two enclosures that could have been a copy of that newspaper was the one for 24 March, which was a Wednesday. The enclosed newspaper for 25 March, a Thursday, must have been a copy of the Royal American Gazette (New York), which was published on Tuesdays and Thursdays during this period. The issue of the Royal American Gazette for 25 March apparently contains an account of the Battle of Briar Creek, Ga., that mistakenly says it occurred on 4 March, rather than on the actual date of 3 March (see Maxwell to GW, 27 March, n.2).