Colonel Heman Swift to George Washington, 24 April 1781
From Colonel Heman Swift
Wethersfield [Conn.] 24th April 1781
Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s favor of the 16th Inst:1 Am unable to inform you of the number of Recruits which are at Danbury (if there be any at that place), there are none at the other places of Rendezvous, we have constantly sent them on to Camp as fast as they could be collected, excepting those who have been mustered out, which of late has been near one fourth part of those presented.
By an Act of the Assembly qualifying the Militia Colonels as Muster Masters to their several Regiments the bussiness has been much impeded, as they frequently muster men who afterwards are mustered out by us being unfit for Service, and will (I fear) in the result occassion this State to fall greatly short of its Quota.2
A dispute likewise between the several Towns in the State respecting their claims to the Men now in the Feild has occassion’d much delay in furnishing the recruits, but those Claims being now determined there remains no excuse for future neglect.3 I have the honor to be, with great respect, Your Excellency’s, Most Obt Hume Servant
Heman Swift
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. See GW to Swift, 16 April, found at Swift to GW, 5 April, n.2.
2. The Connecticut legislature’s act for raising men from the militia to fill the state’s Continental regiments specified that the commanding officers of the militia regiments should muster the recruits (see , 3:174–76).
3. In its February 1781 session, the Connecticut legislature had set up a committee to resolve disputed claims (see , 3:312–14).