To George Washington from Major James Norris, c.5 July 1780
From Major James Norris
[c.5 July 1780]1
Sir
My health being much impair’d and some circumstances of a domestick nature lately taken place verry allarming to a man that has a large young Familey reduces me to the disagreeable necessity of applying for a discharge from the Service or seeing my fammiley reduced to great distress for want of my personal attention concidering my situation if your Excellency will please to grant me a discharge it will be gratefully acknowledge’d by Your Excellency’s most obedient and very humble Servant
James Norris Major
3d N. Ham. Regt
P.S. My Commission and the necessary Certificate are inclosed.2
ALS, DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 3328. No reply to Norris from GW has been found.
On 2 July, Lt. Col. Henry Dearborn wrote GW from West Point, N.Y., that Norris had “for six months past been so desireous for discharge.” Dearborn stated his willingness to release Norris from service in the 3d New Hampshire Regiment if GW thought “proper to discharge” him (DNA: RG 93, Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Records, 1775-1783).
1. The date is based on the docket, which indicates that Norris resigned from the army on 5 July 1780.
2. Norris’s commission and the certificates have not been found. GW required that a resigning officer provide certification (through certificates from the auditor and regimental paymaster) that he had settled his public and regimental accounts. GW also required that the “officer commanding the regiment” furnish a certificate affirming “that the state of the regiment does not make the resignation improper at the time” (General Orders, 25 Dec. 1779; see also GW to Robert Forsyth, 5 Sept. 1779).