General Orders, 17 May 1781
General Orders
[New Windsor] Thursday May 17. 1781
Parole Countersigns [ ]
The Enemy having embarked a considerable number of troops lately at New York the General thinks it necessary (though the destination of them is not yet known) to have a detachment of four hundred men immediately formed & held in readiness to march at an hour’s warning.1
This Corps is to consist of a Colonel Lieutenant Colonel and Major, eight Captains Sixteen Subalterns with staff and Non-commissioned officers proportioned.
Colonel Scammell will command it and ’till further orders may lay encamped contiguous to King’s ferry and be ready to support the Party on the lines.2
The Detachment now on the lines to be immediately relieved by Detail from the Army at large: the Relief to consist of a number equal to the detachment previous to the disaster of the 14th inst.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
Lt. William Colfax, commander of GW’s guards, received a warrant for $20,000 “old emission” on this date for “the Use of the Commander in Cheif” (Revolutionary War Warrant Book 5, 1780–1783, DLC:GW, ser. 5).
1. For this embarkation, destined for the Chesapeake Bay, see William Heath to GW, 1 May, n.1.
3. John Singer Dexter, assistant to the adjutant general, kept an orderly book where this paragraph appears as “After Orders” (DLC: Peter Force Collection).
For the disaster on 14 May, see John Paterson’s first letter to GW, same date, and the notes to that document. For the detachment to be relieved, see Paterson to GW, 15 May, and n.2 to that document.