George Washington Papers

To George Washington from Lieutenant Thomas Grover, 5 May 1776

From Lieutenant Thomas Grover

New York, 5 May 1776. “When I red the letter Sent to me by your Excellencys order1 it Struck me with amasement to think I had Committd such a Crime that had so affronted your Excellency I therefore unfainedly & humbly ask your Excellencys forgiveness: as I hope to obtain it and also all my superior officers that is offended with me and promis to Submit myself to such orders as I shall receive from my superior officers and Chearfully obey them allso humbly ask for orders to Follow my Regiment or if it be more agreable to your Excellency to discharge me from the Continental Army I am willing to Submit to that altho I Could more Chearfully follow the Regiment.”

ALS, enclosed in GW to Hancock, 11 May 1776, DNA:PCC, item 152; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169. copy, DLC: Hancock Papers. Attached to the ALS is Grover’s formal statement, dated 8 May, acknowledging his guilt “in behaveing disrespectfully to the Captain set over me by the Authority of the Honurable the Continental Congress” and asking for GW’s forgiveness.

Thomas Grover of New Hampshire was first lieutenant of Capt. James Wilkinson’s company in Col. James Reed’s 2d Continental Regiment, which had recently left New York for Canada. GW enclosed a copy of the proceedings of Grover’s court-martial, 29–30 April, in his second letter to Hancock of this date. By 11 May GW had decided to allow Grover to rejoin his regiment in Canada (see GW to Hancock, that date, and General Orders, 18 May 1776).

1This letter has not been identified.

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