General Orders, 5 May 1781
General Orders
[New Windsor] Saturday May 5th 1781.
Parole Countersigns [ ]
The Honorable the Congress having directed the Board of War to take order on a Letter from the Paymaster General of the 3d of April last, respecting the extra ration to be drawn in kind by the Officers in the Army.
Agreed, That no charge be made against the officers for such extra ration but that the same be considered as a Gratuity, untill the further order of Congress and that his Excellency the Commander in Chief and the Paymaster General be informed of this opinion of the Board.1
The Honorable the Congress having by their Resolve of the 17th of April last appointed John Moylan Eqr. Clothier General of the Army he is to be respected and obeyed as such.2
The Honorable the Congress have been pleased by their Resolve of the 26th of April last to direct that the pay of Captain Lieutenants of Artillery and of Lieutenants and serjeants of Infantry be paid in Bills of the new Emission3 at the rates fixed for the pay of Officers and non commissioned officers respectively on the 27th May 1778 any former Resolution of Congress to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.4
The Commander in Chief directs that all returns for Arms or accoutrements shall specify the regiments they are for, and the particular purposes for which they are then wanted and that after such returns are signed by the division Inspector agreeable to the Resolution of Congress of the 25th of September last5 they be carried to the Orderly Office to be registered and Countersigned by the Adjutant General previous to issues being made thereon.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW; copy, MHi: Heath Papers. Adj. Gen. Edward Hand signed the copy.
1. The first two paragraphs of these general orders come from a document enclosed with a letter Board of War secretary Joseph Carleton enclosed when he wrote GW from the “War Office” in Philadelphia on 28 April: “I have the Honor to enclose your Excellency, an Act of this Board of yesterday, respecting the extra ration to be drawn in Kind by the Officers of the Army” (ALS, DLC:GW; the enclosure, dated 27 April, also is in DLC:GW). For the correspondence and congressional deliberations that led to this decision, see John Pierce to GW, 15 Feb., and GW to Pierce, 24 March; see also Pierce to GW, 6 April, and n.1.
2. See Samuel Huntington to GW, 29 April, and n.2.
3. For this congressional monetary policy, see Philip Schuyler to GW, 12 March 1780, and notes 3 and 4.
4. See Huntington to GW, 29 April 1781, and n.1 to that document.
5. GW refers to the revised rules for the inspector general’s department adopted in Congress on 25 Sept. 1780 (see , 18:854–60; see also General Orders, 20 Dec. 1780).