1. An undated copy of the memorial against Ryan’s promotion, addressed to GW and signed by forty-six captains of the Pennsylvania Continental regiments, reads: “We the Captains in the Pennsylvania Line of the Army now in Camp, beg leave to remonstrate to your Excellency in the most respectful yet earnest manner against the unpresedented promotion of Brigade Major Ryan to a Majority in the line of this State—a Gentleman who never attain’d a higher rank in the Army than that of a 2d Lieutenant, which we presume he must have resign’d when he accepted his Appointment in the Staff.

“In General Orders issued at middle Brook, and repeated in those of the 31st of October last, your Excellency was pleas’d to declare that all Commission’d Officers should rise regimentally according to seniority to the rank of Captains; and from that in the line of the State they belong to, by Seniority also, ’till they attain the rank of Colonel: except where particular Officers signalize themselves by Extraordinary Merit, or where others prove themselves Unworthy of preferment. We are not conscious of such unworthiness in our Conduct, nor do we conceive that Mr Ryan, tho’ no doubt a Gentleman of Worth, has signaliz’d himself by any Merit so extraordinary that we should be thrown a Step back, while he, tho’ entirely out of the line of preferment which your Excellency has been pleas’d to establish, is created a Field Officer over all our heads.

“Exclusive of the good of our Country and the glory of assisting to establish the blessings of Liberty & Independance, the only recompense of our Services, as Individuals, is honour and promotion in Right of Seniority; both which are severely wounded in the present Case—in losing these we are depriv’d of our reward.

“This Step, Sir, is so highly injurious to us, indeed to the youngest Subaltern of this State, that we cannot suppose your Excellency was rightly inform’d of Circumstances, and therefore pray your Excellency to order an Enquiry by a Board of Officers into the Merits of the Case as to grant us such other redress as your Excellency in your Wisdom and Justice may think proper” (DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 15528). For the appointment and determination of the board of general officers, see the general orders of 15 and 20 February.

2. Israel Davis (c.1730–1783) of Boothbay, District of Me., had served in 1776 as a captain in the Massachusetts militia and was appointed a captain of the 13th Massachusetts Regiment in January 1777. Giles Tibbets of Boothbay, Reuben Kincade of Newcastle, Benjamin Fletcher of Casco Bay, and Hollis Hutchins, Thomas Clark and William Clark of Pownalborough, District of Me., were all privates in Davis’s company of the 13th Massachusetts Regiment. Section 12, article 4 of the articles of war reads in part: “Every officer who shall be convicted at a court-martial of having embezzled or misapplied any money with which he may have been entrusted for the payment of the men under his command, or for inlisting men into the service, if a commissioned officer, shall be cashiered and compelled to refund the money” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 5:796).