Circular to the Brigade Commanders, 6 January 1780
Circular to the Brigade Commanders
Head Quarters Morristown Jany 6th—1780.
Sir
As it will contribute in some degree to relieve our distress on the subject of provision, I am to desire that you will discharge all the men in the Brigade under your command whose enlistments and terms of service will clearly expire by the last of this month. In conducting the matter you will be pleased to call upon the commanding officers of Regiments, to prevent the discharge of any not coming within the above description. I am sir your most obt sert
Go: Washington
LS, in James McHenry’s writing, NhHi; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. This circular was sent to brigadier generals Henry Knox, John Stark, Mordecai Gist, and William Maxwell; colonels John Gunby, Moses Hazen, Philip Burr Bradley, and Philip Van Cortlandt; and Lt. Col. Isaac Sherman.
GW sent the orders for Gist, commanding the 2d Maryland Brigade, and Gunby, temporarily commanding the 1st Maryland Brigade, through Maj. Gen. Johann Kalb, commander of the Maryland Division and the only major general with a field command then in camp. On this date, GW, at headquarters in Morristown, wrote to Kalb: “You will be pleased to have the inclosed orders delivered to the Brigadier and Officer commandin[g] the 1 Maryd Brigade—executed without delay” (Df, in Alexander Hamilton’s and Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).