To George Washington from Lieutenant Colonel William De Hart, 24 January 1780
From Lieutenant Colonel William De Hart
Paramus [N.J.] Janry 24. 1780.
Sir
Mr Herring (the state superintendant—& Purchaser of Provisions for this County)1 has been with Me, & Informs Me that he has Already Procur’d the 800 Bushls of Grain Requir’d from this County And thinks in A little Time he will be Able, to Double the Quantity, the Grain now lays at several Different Mills to be Manufactured the Proprietors Chusing to diliver it that way.2 the severeness of the weather has stop’d the Mills from Grinding As fast As I Could wish, but he will with the Utmost Dispatch have it done & forwarded it to Col. Dunham C:P. as the law Directs him,3 he Inform’s Me he has Diliver’d A sufficient Quantity of flour, for the Present to the Issuing Comissary at this Post for this Detachment, & will Continue to do So. he likewise Informs Me that it will be Impossible to Collect the Number of Cattle wanted from here which is 200; but thinks he Can supply this Post with Meat. this I belieive is True for the Difficulty I have had in Collecting Cattle for this Detachment Convinces Me of it. A Very Considerable Number of Cattle Already has been Taken from this County & few left.
I shoul’d be glad to Know whether, I Am to Use Any Measures to Procure More Cattle than what he Promises & whether the surplussage of Grain will Not be A Compensation for the Cattle. I Am your Excellenceys Most Hum. Servt
Wm D. Hart.
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Cornelius A. P. Haring, of Bergen County, N.J., was appointed by an act of the New Jersey legislature of 25 Dec. 1779 (, 41–47 [chapter XVII]).
2. For GW’s requisition of provisions in New Jersey, see Circular to the New Jersey Magistrates, 7 January. For GW’s orders to De Hart to supervise the requisition in Bergen County, see GW to De Hart, 8 January.
3. The New Jersey legislature had recently appointed militia colonel Azariah Dunham, formerly Continental assistant commissary of purchases for eastern New Jersey, to the office of superintendent of purchases for the state. But in March, Dunham was still acting as a Continental commissary (see his letter of 3 March to GW’s aide Alexander Hamilton in the source note to the general orders of that date). The same New Jersey law that appointed Haring a purchaser of provisions directed him and the other purchasers to deliver their supplies to the Continental agent.