Varick transcript, DLC:GW.

On this date, GW’s aide-de-camp David Humphreys wrote Q.M. Gen. Timothy Pickering from New Windsor: “His Excellency has received such intelligence as induces him to direct the preparations, which were making for Marching the Detachment to be discontinued: you will be pleased therefore, to Order the Horses (should any have been brought in), to be returned, & that no more should be procured without further Instructions from him.

“The want of Forage has become so distressing, and all our applications have been so ineffectual that the General requests Your particular attention to this subject. For unless some better supply can be obtained, the Horses at Head Quarters must inevitably perish, the General’s have not had one handful of hay for these two or three days. … Pray let us hear some good news respecting Forage” (DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 26037). For Pickering’s response after a second appeal for a supply of forage at headquarters, see his letter to GW, 25 Jan.; see also GW’s first letter to Pickering of that date. For the detachment of troops, see William Heath to GW, 11 Jan., and GW to Robert Howe, this date.