General Orders, 6 June 1781
General Orders
Head Quarters New Windsor Wednesday June 6th 1781
Parole Countersigns.
The Quarter master General is immediately to take measures for drawing together as many Tents and other Camp equipage as will be sufficient to encamp the whole army—He will report to the Commander in Chief when he is ready to make a General delivery that orders may be given accordingly.1
The Arrangement of the Corps of Engineers and of Sappers and Miners not having been completed when the regulations for the new Formation of the army were published in General orders on the first of November last is the reason why those corps were not included at that time or mentioned in the rules of promotion published yesterday2 But the Honorable the Congress having by their Resolve of the 14th of November last declared that the abovementioned Corps are to be put on an equal establishment with those of other lines the officers belonging to them are to be considered on an equal footing in their respective ranks with those of Artillery Infantry and Cavalry and are to be respected accordingly.3
The Regimental Clothiers of the New Hampshire Massachusetts Rhode Island and Connecticut lines are called upon to deliver at the Adjutant General’s office by the 15th instant accurate returns of the Cloathing drawn and delivered by them to their respective regiments for the present year—The regimental Clothiers of the New York and New Jersey lines and Hazen’s regiment will make similar returns within the present month.
Brigadier General Du Portails guard to be immediately augmented to a Serjeant Corporal and twelve men.4
The Adjutant General will tomorrow morning superintend the exercising such of the troops of the Massachusetts line as can be drawn out for that purpose—He requests they may be on the Grand Parade at West point by seven ô clock; the recruits formed into squads greater or smaller agreeable to the proficiency they have made in discipline.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. Q.M. Gen. Timothy Pickering had written GW’s aide-de-camp David Humphreys from Newburgh, N.Y., on 5 June: “By a return of the 1st of May of stores at Fishkill, Fishkill Landing & Newburgh it appears there were then on hand at those places 12 new marquees[;] 5 new horseman’s tents[;] 116 repaired Horseman’s tents[;] 31 new wall tents[;] 5 wall tents wanting repair[;] 504 new common tents[;] 505 repaired ditto[;] 120 ditto wanting repair[;] 1129 common tents.
“The inclosed return shews what tents were in the possession of the troops on the 23d of May: but the greater part of those in the 1st & 3d Massachusetts brigades had been delivered to them between the 1st & 23d of May, and are a deduction from the numbers above mentioned; previous to which issues those brigades may be supposed to possess no more than the other brigades mentioned in the return.
“On the 12th of April Colo. [Jabez] Hatch wrote me that the tent cloth he had purchased would make about 240 common tents & three marquees. By a letter of May 10th it appears that these tents must now be on the road hither.” Pickering added that he had communicated with the Board of War and others regarding duck cloth for tent manufacture.
“Upon the whole, to the foregoing return of tents at Fishkill—the Landing & Newburgh may be added—3 marquees [and] 240 common tents purchased at Boston and 700 common tents to be made at Boston by the 16th of June.” Pickering noted that “Massachusetts have appointed a committee to procure tents for their whole quota of troops,” before concluding: “In my letter of May 2d to Mr. Tilghman, I mentioned that there were at Providence 147 tents and at Morristown 100, which would be fit for service; besides a few at Springfield. An estimate of the whole, in one view, is inclosed” (DLC:GW). For Pickering’s earlier correspondence with Tilghman about tents, see GW to Pickering, 28 April, n.10.
Pickering appended a “Return of Tents and Knapsacks prepared and preparing for the campaign 1781” that listed the quantities of various types of tents—and their condition (i.e., “Old,” “New,” “Repairing”)—available at nine different places (notably the New York Highlands, Boston, and Philadelphia). A postscript written at Newburgh on 5 June concludes the return: “N.B. The duck &c. recd of Mr Bradford which Colo. Hatch said would make about 700 common tents, will be equal to 3 marquees, 24 Horseman’s tents, 150 wall tents, 10 half wall tents, & about 300 common tents: Finding however the number of marquees & horseman’s tents so considerable, I shall write to-morrow by the post to Colo. Hatch to make no more of either” (DLC:GW). An enclosed “Return of Tents in the army May 23d 1781” gave the number and condition of various types of tents belonging to the New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and artillery brigades (DLC:GW).
2. See General Orders, 5 June. For the Continental army reorganization, see General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780.
3. For the congressional resolution adopted on 14 Nov. 1780, see , 18:1052; see also Samuel Huntington to GW, 16 Nov., and n.2 to that document.
4. An orderly book kept for GW’s headquarters has “Fourteen Men” (NHi). The general orders for 20 April had assigned a corporal and six men to guard Brigadier General Duportail’s quarters.