Nathaniel Stevens to George Washington, 14 April 1781
From Nathaniel Stevens
Fishkill [N.Y.] April 14th 1781.
May it please Your Excellency,
I had the Honour of receiving Your Excellency’s Letter of Yesterday,1 in Obedience to which acquainted Colonel Pickering the State of Connecticut had Forty Hogsheads of Rum at or near Hartford and Fifteen at Philadelphia; The former Quantity Mr Pomeroy informs me has not been delivered to him for the Purpose of forwarding.2 I also informed Colo: Pickering that there is a considerable Balance of that Article due from Massachusets State, I expect two or three hundred Hogsheads at least, and that I had wrote very urgent to the Agent and Deputy Quarter Master of the State representing our Situation and requesting they would send us one hundred Hogsheads or more soon as possible.3
Twenty seven Beef Cattle arrived Yesterday from that State, and the Drover brought verbal Information from the Agent that fifty head would be on, the ensuing Week.4 I have the Honour to be with due Respect, May it please Your Excellency, Your Excellency’s most obedient Servant,
Nat. Stevens D.C. Genl of Issues
LS, DLC:GW.
1. See GW to Stevens, 13 April, found at GW’s second letter to Heath, 12 April, n.4.
2. Ralph Pomeroy, deputy quartermaster general for Connecticut, had transmitted this information (see GW to Pomeroy, 7 April, and n.1 to that document). Stevens hoped the forty hogheads of rum at Hartford would be “coming on soon” when he wrote Maj. Gen. William Heath from Fishkill on 24 April (MHi: Heath Papers). Stevens again wrote Heath from Fishkill on 8 May: “Judge Wynkoop, one of the Gentlemen employed to procure the Shad, informs me that he had fifty four Barrels the 5th Instant. …
“No Beef Cattle or Salt Meat has arrived from the Eastward for near ten Days, nor can I hear of any that’s moving—but as Colonel Hughes is gone wholly upon that Business, it is to be hoped he will be able to get some of it under Way, as well as the forty Hogsheads of Rum that has laid so long at Hartford” (MHi: Heath Papers; see also Stevens to GW, 20 April and 1 May, and Heath to GW, 1 May, n.3).
3. These letters have not been identified.
4. For cattle from Massachusetts, see Oliver Phelps to GW, 2 May; see also Stevens to GW, 21 April.