Colonel Walter Stewart to George Washington, 21 March 1781
From Colonel Walter Stewart
Yellow Springs [Pa.] March 21st 1781
Dear Sir,
The Satisfaction I felt on finding your Excellency Approve of my Conduct, during the Unhappy Affair of the Pennsylvania Line, is hardly to be Exprest.1 Be Assurd sir, the greatest wish of my Heart since I enter’d the Army, has been to prove myself Worthy the Attention And Confidance of my General.
I have been at this Post for Ten days past, where the Auditors of Accounts are settling with my Regiment, I am unhappy to find but few Men come in for Settlement; A Consciousness of Guilt prevents it. As at the time they Swore off, I Inform’d them, that when my Inlistments Came to hand, I should Certainly take up every Man, who I found legally, And properly Inlisted for the War. A few under these Circumstances have Appear’d, and upon my laying their Situation before them, And the Necessity I was Under of making good my promise, they have taken the New Bounty, and reinlisted.2
I Cannot bear the Idea the Council of the State Possess, that however Unlawfully they gain’d their discharges, And under every Circumstance, these Men should be at Liberty to Act as they please; I much fear the Example would be of the most dangerous Consequence, and am determin’d as far as in my power to put in Execution the Engagement I made in behalf of the Army, And State, and which they so fairly Agreed to.
It would make me Happy, Could I Inform Your Excellency that the recruiting service went on with rapidity. The late Law brought to our Regiments a very few Men, the Classess in general, rather then give themselves much trouble to procure Soldiers, paid in their Fines of fifteen Pounds.3 And the Want of money Occasions the mode of Voluntary Inlistments, being very much Contracted.
We have been Urging the Members of our Legislature Speedily to pass an Effectual Act to bring men into the Field, and put it out of the power of the different Classes to Excuse themselves by paying a Small Sum. The one pass’d in Conecticut, we have held up to them;4 And they Assure us, as soon as the last has fully Operated, by bringing in all the fines, (wch may be Expected by the 1st of April) they will with Industry Attend to a Second.
Our Regiments are yet but very small, mine Consists of 18 Serjts 12 Drums & fifes, And 118 Rank And file, the fifth is more Compleat. It and the Ninth being Join’d together, and Comeing late for Settlement, they were enabled to retain a good many men, it Consists of between 250 And 300 rank And file—The others are in General from 100 to 200 Men Strong.5
I have great hopes as the Warm Weather Approaches, and on the next Laws passing, we shall Compleat with more Expedition;6 Tomorrow I remove my Regiment from this Out of the Way, and Uncomfortab⟨le⟩ position to Downings Town, on the Lancaster Road.
⟨Since I came to Philada I have Paid Attention to a⟩ Young Lady of Extensive Accomplishments, and a disposition form’d for Happiness;7 Our Attatchment to each other I flatter myself is Mutual, and Miss Meclanaghan is to make me Happy, the beginning of next Month. I beg Your Excellency will Excuse my troubling You on a Subject which is relative only to myself.8 I do it in Order to Assure You, that I have not the most distant thoughts of leaving the Army, And that my Duty to my Country, & Regiment, (by my taking this Step) shall not be in the least Abated. Tis not the Wish of the Lady, And tis far from being the desire of Her Father.9
Confidant of the Hurry of business Your Excellency has always before You, I should not trouble You by Writing, If I thought my letters Would be Attended with Answers. I think it my Duty from time to time, to let Your Excellency know how things go ⟨o⟩n with my Regiment in particular, And ho⟨w matters are carri⟩ed10 on in the State, relative to the Army, wh⟨ich⟩ Come under my Notice. It will always make me Happy the doing it, when I know it is not Attended with any trouble to Your Excellency.11 I have the Honor to be with sincere regard And Esteem, Yr Excellency’s Most Obedt Huble servant
Walter Stewart
ALS, DLC:GW; ADfS, in private hands. Faded, mutilated, and obscured material on the ALS is supplied in angle brackets from the draft.
1. Stewart alludes to comments on his actions during the Pennsylvania line’s mutiny (see Anthony Wayne to GW, 2 Jan., source note; and GW to Stewart, 22 Feb., found at Stewart to GW, 11 Feb., source note).
2. For the amnesty terms that settled the mutiny, see Arthur St. Clair to GW, 17 Jan.; see also Wayne, Richard Butler, and Stewart to GW, 4 Jan., and Continental Congress Committee on the Pennsylvania Line to GW, 9 January.
3. For this law, see Joseph Reed and James Potter to GW, 19 Feb., and n.12.
4. The Connecticut legislature had passed a law penalizing “every town that shall neglect to raise their whole quota of men … double the sum it shall cost upon an average to procure a recruit for each and every deficiency” (, 3:174–76, quote on 175).
5. A congressional reform had reduced the number of Continental army regiments (see General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780).
6. The Pennsylvania legislature adopted “An Act for Recruiting the Pennsylvania Line in the Army of the United States” on 25 June 1781 (, 10:344–49).
7. Stewart wrote the previous phrase on his draft as “a disposition form’d to make any Man Happy.”
8. Stewart initially had started this paragraph on his draft with this sentence.
9. Deborah McClenachan (1763–1823), whose father, Blair, was a prosperous Philadelphia merchant, married Stewart on 11 April 1781 and bore him eight children, beginning that December. The couple named their last child, born in 1796, after Washington. Charles Willson Peale painted her portrait in 1782.
10. The material in angle brackets is lost on the ALS because of mutilated edges. The phrase “matters in General of the state” was Stewart’s initial rendering on his draft.
11. GW replied to Stewart from New Windsor on 12 April 1781: “I have been favoured with your letter of the 21st Ulto and am much obliged by the general information which you have given of the progress of the line in collecting their old Soldiers and Recruits. Be assured your letters can never be troublesome to me.
“The communication which you so politely made in your last; respecting your own prospects, gave me a particular pleasure, which will be heightened by hearing that I may congratulate you, and present my compliments to Mrs Stewart—That you may be as happy as you deserve is the sincere wish” (ALS, NjMoHP; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).