General Orders, 18 June 1781
General Orders
[New Windsor] Monday June 18th 1781
Parole Countersigns ——
The Troops at West point and in the Vicinity of it will be Brigaded as follows and are to Encamp in that order when they remove to Peekskill1—’till then no alterations will be made in the Present disposition of them.2
When the Troops assemble at Peekskill General McDougall is to take command of the Post of West point and its dependencies and will remain there ’till the army commences its operations when he will be relieved.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW; copy (extract), MHi: Heath Papers; copy (extract), NHi: McDougall Papers; copy (extract), NHi: McDougall Papers; copy (extract), NHi: McDougall Papers. The extract at MHi and one at NHi contain only the final paragraph. The other extracts at NHi contain the entire general orders but omit the diagram (see n.2 below).
1. For the march to Peekskill, see General Orders, 19 June.
2. Following this paragraph, a diagram appears that depicts the army command structure and encampment arrangement. GW placed the “Left Wing” under Major General Stirling and the “Right Wing” under Maj. Gen. William Heath. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln commanded a division in the left wing that contained two brigades of three regiments. Brig. Gen. John Paterson led a brigade with three Massachusetts regiments, and Brig. Gen. John Glover led a brigade with another three Massachusetts regiments. Maj. Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons commanded a division in the right wing that also contained two brigades of three regiments. Brig. Gen. Jedediah Huntington led a brigade with three Connecticut regiments; no commander was named for the other brigade, with two Connecticut regiments and the one Rhode Island regiment. Maj. Gen. Robert Howe commanded a division with six regiments that formed a second line evenly divided between the two wings. Three Massachusetts regiments were in the left wing, and another Massachusetts regiment and the two New Hampshire regiments were in the right wing. In the area between the two wings, Brigadier General Duportail commanded the “Engineers & Sapp[er]s & Min[e]rs,” situated to the left, and Brig. Gen. Henry Knox commanded the “Park of Artillery,” situated to the right (see Fig. 1). GW wrote in his diary entry for this date that the troops would “March for the New Camp in three divisions” between 21 and 24 June (, 3:381).
Fig. 1. GW’s order of battle for the move from West Point and vicinity to Peekskill. (DLC:GW)
3. GW wrote Maj. Gen. Alexander McDougall from New Windsor on 21 June: “Least from your Scituation you may not have had an Opportunity to see the Genl Arrangement of the Army on its takg the Field, as published in Genl Orders—I have tho’t proper to give you this particular Information.
“That upon the Troops taking their Position in the Field, which is now beginning to be done, you are assigned to take the Comand at West Point—to which Post it may be well for you to repair as soon as may be, at least by Tomorrow, that you may be able to make your Arrangements, as you shall think proper. At the same Time I have to inform you, that this is not designed as a permanent Comand assigned to you—but that on the takg Place of Active & Offensive Operations, you will be called to a Comand in the Field” (LS, in Jonathan Trumbull, Jr.’s writing, enclosed in GW’s second letter to McDougall of this date, CSmH; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW; GW signed the cover of the LS, which is addressed to McDougall at Fishkill). An orderly book kept at West Point (9–29 June 1781) contains “Artillery Orders” under 24 June: “General McDougal has arrived and taken the command of this post; in consiquence of which the command of the Artillery again devolves on” Maj. Sebastian Bauman (NHi). For Bauman’s temporary assignment as West Point commander, see General Orders, 19 June, n.2.
GW again wrote McDougall on 21 June: “The inclosed is more in the official stile, than I wished to have had it written. I am induced therefore to accompany it with a line to assure you, that it is my desire, and intention, to have you in the field with me; but in the first arrangement, & till I get the York and Jersey Troops, with Hazens Regiment annexed to the line; I could not, under a full view of all circumstances, make a better disposition of the Troops, than what was done in the orders of tuesday” (copy, NHi: McDougall Papers). GW refers to the general orders for Tuesday, 19 June.
Despite GW’s intentions, McDougall remained at West Point for the next fourteen months because a planned attack on New York City went awry, and he later declined a field command for health reasons (see , 173–75).