General Orders, 30 May 1781
General Orders
Head Quarters New Windsor Wednesday May 30. 1781.
Parole Countersigns.
The Honorable the Congress have been pleased to pass the following Resolves:1
By the United States in Congress assembled May 4th 1781—Resolved, That Thomas Hutchins be appointed Geographer to the Southern army with the same pay and emoluments as are allowed to the Geographer to the main army.2
May 8th 1781
Resolved That the Commander in Chief be and he is hereby authorized and directed to arrange the brigade Chaplains of the several state lines serving with the Army; and the commanding General of the southern army those of lines serving with that army so as to retain in service no more Chaplains of each line than are equal to the number of Brigades.
That every Chaplain deemed and Certified to the Board of War to be supernumerary be no longer continued in service and be entitled to have their depreciation made good and to the Half pay of Captains for life.3
Resolved that the commanding General at West Point for the time being receive the extra allowance granted by Congress to an officer commanding in a seperate department untill the further order of Congress.4
As a considerable proportion of the troops in this Army will consist of recruits but little accustomed to military service, and as the season for commencing the Campaign is so near at hand as to afford but a small opportunity at best of initiating them in the duties of their profession; the General is extremely sollicitous that the intermediate space between the present moment and that of taking the Field should be wholly occupied in disciplining and forming them.
He calls upon the officers of every rank in the most earnest and pressing manner to devote themselves personally and unremittingly (agreeably to the orders of yesterday) to an object of such vast importance to their own Reputation as well as the Good of the Public Service.5
The Adjutant General will be pleased also to superintend the Exercising and manœuvring of the troops so far as their dispersed situation and the other duties of his office will permit; he will begin with the Guards of the Commander in Chief, and attend the Cantonments of the other Corps at such times as he shall appoint; he is requested likewise to report with great precision from time to time the State of the discipline of the several regiments noting the extraordinary proficiency that any particular Corps may make and the apparent want of it which may be visible in any others.
As soon as the Army is drawn together the Commander in Chief will judge for himself of the attention which shall have been paid to this order.
Colonel Hazen’s regiment to hold itself in readiness to march on the shortest notice.6
The Adjutant General will inspect the Rhode Island regiment on Saturday next it is therefore ordered to be in as collected a state as possible and under Arms for that purpose at six ô clock in the morning of that day.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. For the transmittal of these resolutions, see Charles Thomson to GW, 10 May.
2. Thomas Hutchins negotiated a modification to this resolution (see GW to Thomson, 29 May).
3. For the half-pay provision, see General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780. A congressional resolution adopted on 17 May 1778 had established the monthly pay of infantry captains at $40 and cavalry captains at $50 (see , 11:539–40).
4. Congress adopted a resolution on 16 June 1775 that doubled the monthly pay of major generals who served “in a separate department” from $166 to $332 (, 2:93–94). Maj. Gen. William Heath had contended for additional compensation for West Point commanders (see his second letter to GW, 26 March, and GW to Heath, 30 March).
5. See General Orders, 29 May, and n.4 to that document.
6. This regiment was ordered to Albany (see the general orders for 5 June; and GW to Edward Antill, 6 June, found at GW to James Clinton, 5 June, source note).