To George Washington from Colonel Joseph Vose and Colonel William Shepard, 7 March 1778
From Colonel Joseph Vose and Colonel William Shepard
Camp 7th March 1778
May it Please your Excellency
Upon the repeated Application of Adjt. Pearl of my Regt for a Discharge from the Service, and he being in an Ill state of Health I would beg leave to recommend him for the same1
Joseph Vose Colo.
W. Shepard Colo. Commdt
LS, DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 2252. No reply to this letter from GW has been found.
Vose signed the following statement, also dated 7 March 1778, which appears on the LS beneath both signatures: “This is to certify that Adjutant Pearl is not indebted to the United States.”
1. Stephen Pearl (c.1747-1816), a resident of Lenox, Mass., at the start of the Revolutionary War, served as a captain of Col. Benjamin Woodbridge’s Massachusetts Battalion in 1775. He was court-martialed in August of that year but was acquitted of the charge of “defrauding his men of their pay” (General Orders, 22 Aug. 1775). In January 1777, he became adjutant of Vose’s 1st Massachusetts Regiment. Pearl was discharged from the army on 8 March 1778. He later moved to Rutland County, Vermont, where he served as colonel of the county militia. Around 1794, Pearl relocated to Burlington, Vt., where he died.