Orders, 18–21 July 1756
Orders
Parole: Ghent.
Conogochieg:1 Sunday, July 18th 1756.
Parole: Hanover.
Winchester: Monday, July 19th 1756.
All the Officers in town are to hold themselves in readiness to join their respective companies, and to march the day after to-morrow.
Parole: Ireland.
Winchester: Tuesday, July 20th 1756.
The Officers who are to march to-morrow, are to take with them all the men properly belonging to their own companies, except those who are employed on the public works.2 The men that will come from Conogochieg to day are to march to-morrow to join their respective companies. A Return to be given in immediately of the last Detachment of Drafts, which marched up from Fredericksburgh.3 A Regimental court-martial to sit for trial of Thomas Newbern—The complainants to be summoned to attend.4
Parole: Kendall.
Winchester: Wednesday, July 21st 1756.
As several complaints have been made to Colonel Washington, that the Soldiers do often, at the deserted Plantations and in the woods, take up Horses to ride and carry their Baggage—He hereby declares, that if any Soldier, upon any pretence whatever, upon any party or post, do presume to take Horses for their own use, they shall be severely punished: and the commanding Officers of parties are ordered to have particular regard to this; and not allow their men to do so for the future.
The Troops are not to march until to-morrow morning.
LB, DLC:GW.
1. Lt. Gov. Horatio Sharpe wrote Dinwiddie, “while I was on our Frontiers at Fort Frederick Colo Washington paid me a Visit” (23 Aug. 1756, in , 1:468–70). GW’s return trip to Winchester from Fort Cumberland by way of Conococheague, or Maidstone, between 15 and 19 July, was undoubtedly the occasion for his visit to Fort Frederick situated on the Potomac several miles upstream from the mouth of Conococheague Creek.
2. GW’s Orders of 22 July indicate that the officers and men referred to here probably did not leave Winchester until 23 July and that they marched off either to join Capt. Thomas Waggener on the South Branch or to join Lt. Col. Adam Stephen at Fort Cumberland. See also GW to Waggener, 21 July, and Stephen to GW, 25 July 1756.
3. The return of the “Drafts” has not been found, but see GW’s Orders, 2 June 1756, n.2, for an accounting of the militiamen drafted.
4. The size roll of Captain Waggener’s company, 19 Sept. 1756, lists Thomas Newburn as a 40–year-old draftee from Gloucester County.