General Orders, 11 June 1780
General Orders
Head Quarters Short Hills [N.J.] Sunday June 11th 1780
Parole Patriotism Countersigns Jersey Brave
Watchword Halloo
After Orders
The General observed with great pain today that a number of men were straggling to a considerable distance from Camp on a variety of frivolous pretences and without passes from the Commandants of their regiments.
This Practice subversive of all discipline and pernicious in every point of view demands the utmost care of the officers to prevent it; The General for this Purpose enjoins a strict observance of the Regulations forbidding any noncommission’d officer or Soldier to pass the chain of Sentinels without a written permission from the commanding officer of his regiment; and those respecting Roll-calls;1 and the more effectually to prevent straggling He authorizes every officer who shall find a Soldier without the chain unprovided with the Permit requir’d to order him on the spot fifty lashes. The visit directed to be made at Tatoo beating will be always under the Inspection of a Commission’d officer and the Tatoo will beat at nine o’clock ’till further orders.2
The advanced Corps not to beat.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. The Continental army’s regulations specified that “No non-commissioned officer or soldier shall be permitted to pass the chain of sentinels round the camp, without permission in writing from the commanding officer of his regiment or battalion; which permission shall be dated the same day, and shall, on the return of the person to whom it was granted, be delivered to the adjutant, who is to return it to the colonel or commanding officer, with his report.” The regulations also enjoined that during roll calls no non-commissioned officer or soldier was to be absent without permission from the commanding officer of the company, and that no commissioned officer was to be absent without the permission of the commanding officer of the regiment (, 86–88).
2. The Continental army’s regulations instructed non-commissioned officers “to visit their respective squads a quarter of an hour after tatoo beating” to “see that they are all present and retired to rest” and then “make their report to the commanding officer of the company.” The beating of the drum called the “tatoo”‘ is “for the soldiers to repair to their tents, where they must remain till reveille beating next morning” (, 88, 92).