Colonel Timothy Pickering to George Washington, 25 April 1781
From Colonel Timothy Pickering
Newburgh [N.Y.] April 25. 1781
Sir,
On the 21st inst. I wrote to the leading Justice (Mr Burt) in Warwick relative to the procuring teams to transport the flour from that place to New Windsor: but have received no answer: and I am now apprehensive that my application will be fruitless.1 And the supply on hand (as appears by the commissary’s return this day received) is so trifling,2 I dare not wait any longer my request for an impress warrant, and a party of Vanheer’s dragoons to execute it. I would send an intelligent express or two with the dragoons, with orders to use military coercion only in case the justices impress fails, or that they refuse to interfere at all.3
There are 200 barrels of flour at Ringwood, to remove which the like means with those above mentioned will be requisite.4
I know these measures are as painful to your Excellency, as the necessity which occasions them: and were it possible at present to substitute other means, I would not fail to do it: but every prospect is become hopeless. Even the partial aid of certificates receivable in taxes I almost despair of. I learn from Genl Wolcott that the committee to whom my letter on the subject was referred, had made no report when he left Congress a few days since. In that letter I represented the peculiar distresses of this state, which being deprived of all means of obtaining money, required certificates to enable the people to pay their taxes.
In the same letter I intimated the necessity of selling some provisions to raise money to forward on the residue, as had formerly been done, particularly, in the case of live stock.5 Since my return from Philadelphia I have been obliged to give an order for that purpose to Colo. Hughes. A copy of the order I immediately transmitted to the president of Congress; another I beg leave to inclose to your Excellency.6 At Richmond (as Colo. Hughes informed me) the people refused to transport provisions ’till part of the money was paid on taking up the load, and the residue assured to them on the delivery.7
In my Letter to Congress on this occasion, I observed that this mode of selling some articles to defray the expences of transporting the rest, was a wretched way of doing business—that I should be happy could I be excused from continuing it—that the measure was the more painful, as the army would want the very provisions that were thus sold; & that I thus early apprized Congress of the fact, that if the orders I had given were disapproved, they might be speedily revoked, before much mischief could ensue.8
In the same letter (which was dated the 21st inst.) I added what is contained in the inclosed extract from it. I beg your Excellency’s pardon for troubling you with it: but to express to Congress those sentiments, I thought was a duty I owed to myself, to your Excellency, & to my country The declaration which closes the extract was equally frank and sincere.9 I have the honour to be with the greatest respect your Excellency’s most obedt servant.
T. Pickering Q.M.G.
ALS, DLC:GW; copy, DNA: RG 93, Records of Quartermaster General Timothy Pickering, 1780–87. GW replied to Pickering on this date, postscript.
1. Pickering’s letter of 21 April, probably to Daniel Burt, has not been identified (see Burt to GW, 9 April; see also Nathaniel Stevens to GW, 21 April, source note, and GW to Hugh Hughes, 24 April, n.2).
GW subsequently received part “of a letter from Robert Nessbitt, superintendant of the magazines at Warwick &c., to T. Pickering Q.M.G. dated April 24th 1781, and recd the 25th at 11 o’clock at night.” The extract reads: “Your favour of the 21st I received by express. I am sensible that Mr [Thomas] Anderson (Assistant quarter master at Sussex Court House) will do all in his power to send the stores on to New Windsor, but I fear that the waggoners will not be prevailed on to go through: and I am well convinced that ‘Squire Burt will find it a hard matter to oblige the teams in his neighbourhood to turn out’” (DLC:GW).
2. Pickering probably refers to a return dated 22 April that reported eighty barrels of flour at New Windsor (see Stevens to GW, 21 April, n.4). Another return, dated 29 April, reported twenty barrels of flour at New Windsor (see Stevens to GW, 21 April, source note).
3. GW chose Capt. Bartholomew von Heer’s Maréchaussée Corps for impressment duties (see GW to Pickering, this date). For impressment concerns, see GW to Richard Platt, 31 March, source note.
4. GW’s aide-de-camp David Humphreys had written Pickering from New Windsor on 20 April: “His Excellency wishes to be informed what success has attended the Measures taken for the transportation of the flour from Ringwood—what number of Teams were procured by the last impress &C. He also requests that you will direct the Forage Master Genl to provide Pasture, as convenient as possible to Head Quarters for the Horses which belong to himself & his Family.
“We shall shortly be much distressed for Paper & Wax. … P.S. We will thank you for some Wafers by the bearer if any have Arrived” (DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 25984; see also Stevens to GW, 21 April, source note).
Pickering replied to Humphreys from Newburgh on the same date: “Between the 5th & 13th inst. were loaded at Ringwood fifteen double teams & twenty nine single teams, with 124 barrels of flour 1 barrel of biscuit 33 barrels of beans 2 hogsheads of salt 6 tierces of [salt and] 23 barrels [of salt]—according to the report of Mr Skidmore the deputy waggon master, who saw them loaded. On his return hither the 14th inst. he met 17 more single teams on their way to Ringwood for flour. These were doubtless a part of those impressed by the dragoons: for Alexander, one of the expresses who went to assist in the impresses, reports 24 teams being set in motion on the 14th, and 18 more on the 18th inst. Another Express, Tatham, went with another party, but was taken unwell, & obliged to leave the dragoons to make the impresses in Orange county by themselves. Of these I have had no return. But as what provisions have actually arrived at New Windsor would better satisfy the General, I sent to Mr Weed at New Windsor for a return of all he had received from Ringwood during the present month, & on what days it arrived. But he & his clerk were absent. My request was left, &, I expect his return to-morrow: but if you chuse, you may obtain it sooner by sending to Mr Weed for it in the morning, which I will thank you to do” (DLC:GW).
5. Pickering refers to his letter to Samuel Huntington, president of Congress, written while in Philadelphia on 30 March. In that communication, Pickering quoted extracts from letters he received from Hugh Hughes, deputy quartermaster general for New York. One excerpt came from a letter dated 1 March: “‘Nothing but despair seems to stare us in the face in every quarter. In one place an intire loss of confidence in public faith: in another individuals seizing on public property, & either selling it or converting it to their own use. The inhabitants of the line towns on the boundary between Massachusetts Connecticut & New York begin to refuse letting the horses go, that they have kept but a little time, unless they are first paid. At Richmond a place of deposit near Great Barrington in Massachusetts they refuse to transport provisions till part of the money is paid on taking up the load, & the residue assured to them on delivery.’ He then remarks that it has heretofore been the practice to sell some provisions to defray the expences of forwarding others—that we are restained from doing this, which is very right—but then that other means of conveying them should be furnished—till when the old mode will be adopted, or the army starve.”
Another extract reads: “If the specie certificates could be received in lieu of taxes, it would afford some relief to the department, as the country then would receive some thing for their labour … For its quota of Supplies for the army not money but State certificates have been given. These certificates are receivable in taxes. But in addition to these Supplies the army make large draughts on this State for forage—lumber, wood &ca, & the Service of teams; For all which no consideration in general, can be given, but certificates; and then not receivable in taxes; whereby the inhabitants of that State are exceedingly distressed. There is nothing which the army wants & that State can furnish, which is not taken by impress, when not otherwise to be obtained, which often happens. … Other States out of the armys reach, experience no such oppression—The inhabitants make their own terms for Supplies or services required of them; and without money or promise of speedy payment, refuse to yield either. Hence with great justice the citizens of New York complain, of oppression. If (say they) we must be Stripped of our property—if we must at every call put our teams in the Service—at least let the other States furnish money to pay us. We will chearfully supply our full quotas—to take more without compensation, is cruelty” (DNA: PCC, item 192; see also Pickering to GW, 14 April, n.1).
The congressional committee that received Pickering’s letter delivered its report on 13 April. That same day, Congress authorized “leave of absence” for Connecticut delegate Oliver Wolcott, Sr. (see , 19:389).
6. Pickering enclosed a copy of his order to Hughes written from Newburgh on 17 April: “I have stated in a Letter to Congress the impossibility of forwarding provisions without selling part of them to raise money for the purpose, unless the latter were furnish’d from the public Treasury. No Answer or direction has been given as yet: in the mean time to prevent a failure of Supplies to the Army so much of the provisions must be sold from time to time as shall be indispensibly necessary to effect the transportation or forwarding of the Residue. But this is a Measure so liable to abuses, I wish to avoid it as far as possible and when gone into, that it may be with great Caution. Let the Sales be open free from privacy or Concealment; and in every Case a Certificate given by the purchaser of the Quality, Quantity & Price of the Article purchased, the place where & of whom: such Certificates to accompany the Accounts of the Assistants by whom such sales shall be made. If any other precautions occur to you, which shall tend to prevent Abuses in these Transactions, and the Department from consequent Reproach, I request you to adopt them. The mode you suggest of having every Article sold previously appraised I think a very good one” (DLC:GW). For the letter with a copy of this order enclosed to Congress, see n.8 below.
7. See n.5 above.
8. Pickering paraphrases a section of the letter he wrote Huntington on 21 April (see Pickering to GW, 14 April, n.2).
9. The enclosed extract contains the final paragraph of Pickering’s letter to Huntington on 21 April (see DLC:GW; see also n.8 above).