Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Forrest to George Washington, 2 April 1781
From Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Forrest
Philadelphia Aprill 2nd 1781
Sir
In Obedience to the Orders of Generall Knox I have repair’d to the post at Carlile, and as far as time would Admitt perform’d every duty enjoin’d upon me, I should still have continued in the performance of the Orders laid upon me, but that the Honorable the Board of Warr were pleas’d to Break up the Post.1
I of Course find myself in a very uneligible Situation, And as the present Commissary General of Military Stores is at the point of Death and Cannot in all human probability Live many days, I have to Solicit Your Excellency’s influence and recommendation to the Honorable the Congress (Whom I shall petition on the Subject) for that Appointment I have Spoke to General Sullivan and others my Friends in Congress who informs me nothing is wanting but Your recommendation.
I need not point out to one of Your Excellencys Observation the Length or meritt of my Services, but trust with them the Situation of my Little family together my wishes to render every Service to my Country, will entitle me to Your favourable Opinion.2 And I am the more induc’d to this request from the very high and gratefull Sence I have of Your Excellencys paternal Goodness upon every Occasion;3 Assuring You that I am with the purest sentiments of Attachment & respect Your Excellency’s Most Obt & Very Hble servt
Thos Forrest
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. The Board of War had recommended a resolution that Congress adopted on 29 March: “That all the non-commissioned officers and men of the regiment of artillery artificers at Carlisle, whose times of service are unexpired, be formed into one or more company or companies, and the officers at that place … be no longer considered in the service of the United States” (, 19:330).
For Forrest’s transfer to Carlisle, Pa., see Samuel Huntington to GW, 25 Nov. 1780, n.2, and Forrest to GW, 24 Jan. 1781.
2. Forrest had cited family obligations when seeking to resign from the army (see his letter to GW, 12 Nov. 1780, and n.1 to that document).
3. GW replied to Forrest from headquarters at New Windsor on 16 April: “I have received your favor of the 2d: You will readily perceive the impropriety of my interfering in an election which depends upon the will of Congress, before they have been pleased to ask my opinion; and as there probably will, in case of Colo. Flowers’s death, be more than one application for his Office, I should chuse to withhold the promise of a recommendation to any particular person, that I might be at liberty to give my voice, if asked, in favor of him who on every account seemed best intitled to the succession in question” (Df, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).
Congress eventually chose Samuel Hodgdon to replace Benjamin Flowers as deputy commissary general of military stores (see Thomas McKean to GW, 14 July, DLC:GW). Forrest subsequently submitted his resignation and received a conditional discharge (see his letter to GW, 4 Aug., and GW to Forrest, 8 Oct., both DLC:GW; see also , 21:839).