General Orders, 12 June 1780
General Orders
Head Quarters Short Hills [N.J.] Monday June 12. 1780
Parole Springfield: Countersigns F; O.
Watchword. Take Care.
[Officers] For this day—Colonel Steward[,] Major Reed[,] Brigade Major Van Laer.
Field Returns of the officers and men “present fit for Action” to be delivered at six o clock this afternoon.
Picquets to be paraded at 5 o clock P.M: between the right and left Wing of the Front line where the Grand Parade is assigned ’till further orders.
A Chain of Sentinels to be posted round each Division.
A Captain of the day from each division to be appointed as usual.
After Orders
In Case of an Alarm Colonel Taylor’s regiment of Militia is to join the right wing of the Army and Colonel Van Dyck’s and Colonel Nelson’s the Left to be disposed of as Major General St Clair and the Marquis de la Fayette shall judge most proper.1
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
The Committee at Headquarters wrote in the postscript of their letter to Samuel Huntington of this date: “Since writing the above, the commander in chief has advised us, that whenever the British now in this State shall be reinforced by the troops from Carolina, which he momently expects to be advised of, he will in all proba[bi]lity be obliged to retire beyond the Delaware, and leave the fortresses in the highlands of New York to be defended as well as they may be by the present weak and inadequate garrison, as he has no prospect of supplying an additional number of troops at that post, for the want of flour.
“In the utmost distress to be reduced to this sad alternative, he has entreated us to apply to the State of Pennsylvania on the subject, we have accordingly addressed ourselves to Governor Reed, and also begged the favor of him to transmit copy of our letter to the Governors of Delaware and Maryland. permit us Sir, to request the intervention of Congress by seconding our application” (DNA:PCC, item 39; see also the committee’s letter of this date to Joseph Reed, in , 15:298–99).
1. Major generals Lafayette and Arthur St. Clair commanded the two divisions of the army’s front line. See the second general orders for 7 June (Document V under the Battle of Connecticut Farms) and the second general orders for 8 June.