Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., to George Washington, 20 June 1781
From Jonathan Trumbull, Sr.
Hartford 20th June 1781
Sir
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellencys favor of 15th Instant ⅌ express.1 In compliance with its requisitions have ordered Eight hundred men forthwith to be raised by peremptory detatchment, with proper officers, and to March to West Point immediately. It was out of my power to order them from the contiguous Counties as proposed. The detatchment is in equal proportion from every Town in the State; and I flatter myself that the time of their joining will not on that account be postponed.2
Your Excellency’s letter of the 24th Ultimo from Wethersfield was laid before the General Assembly.3 They closed their Session last Saturday.4 Agreable to the requisitions contained in it, they have ordered the Army to be filled up by peremptory detatchment (if not filled up by the 25th Instant by the Towns or Classes) to be mustered, and at Rendezvous ready to March by the 5th day of July next.5 Also the Two State Regiments at Horsneck, the Governor’s guards at Hartford, & New Haven, the independant companies of matrosses at Hartford, Middleton, Norwich, & Pomfret, and the independant company of Infantry at Norwich, and so many of the sea coast guards, as to make up Twenty one Hundred men, to march at the direction of the Governor & Council of safety to join the Army; and Five Hundred Volunteers to be put into readiness to march if called for.6
The salted provisions on the West side Connecticut River are ordered to be transported by the Towns to Fish Kill, or the Army.7 The whole of our Salted meat & fish will be about Eight Thousand Barrels. Between fifty, & eighty head of Cattle were sent on to the Army last week, by means of a supply of Five Hundred pounds in specie furnished Commissary Champion. To-morrow he will receive five hundred pounds like money more, which will be immediately applied to the same use, and the Cattle sent on. Besides this he has to recieve One Thousand pounds more in hard money as soon as it can come in, which will be expended in the same way.8 The Assembly have also granted a Tax of one Penny on the pound, which will raise about £7,600; & payable on the first day of each of the next succeeding months, in fresh Beef at the rates affixed by Congress for the Army, or in hard money, & amounting in the whole to £30,400.9 Beef Cattle are plenty. The means to purchace them the only difficulty. I fear for this, how we shall get them regularly on to Camp; shall exert ourselves the best we can with the means put in our power. Colo. Champion was yesterday appointed to join a Committee of the New England States at Providence next Monday, to consult & devise measures for the forwarding on provisions to the Army in a regular manner.10 The Deputy Quarter Master is furnished, & has used, to a large ammount, in Pay Table Orders.11 Horses are ordered to be purchased to remount Col. Sheldens Regiment of Light Dragoons, and equipments are making for them.12 Messrs Shaw, & Mumford have undertaken, the former for Two Hundred, & the latter for One Hundred Tents.13
The Governor & Council of Safety are directed to contract for Cloathing for the Officers.14 The Towns are preparing the summer cloathing for the soldeirs. Money is also preparing for them. I perceeve it comes in slowly.15 About Twenty Hogs heads of Rum will be furnished by this State and soon sent on to the Army. Fifteen Hogsheads belonging to this State have been ordered from Philadelphia which I hope before this have arrived in Camp.16
The Governor & Council of Safety in this State are invested with full & compleat Executive Authority.17 I am, with every Sentiment, of Esteem and Consideration Your Excellency’s most Obedient hble Servant
Jonth; Trumbu⟨ll⟩
ALS, DLC:GW. Trumbull signed the cover, which also reads “⅌ Express” and is addressed to GW at New Windsor.
GW’s secretary Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., wrote his father from headquarters at New Windsor on 23 June: “The receipt of your favors of the 20th, which came to hand last night, gave us much satisfaction. The Resolutions of the Assembly of Connecticut, tho long delayed, appear to convey a good degree of spirit at last. Nothing seems now to be wanting but a vigorous & active execution of apparently well adopted measures.
“The calculation of deficiencies in our line will fall much short of their real state,—from what circumstances I cannot fully determine, no allowance, I suppose, has been made for the many casualties which have happened since the State have had the returns of their numbers, many discharges, some deaths, & two many desertions have taken place since last fall. I hope the drafts will be punctually & fully inforced. The punctual collection of the beef tax will be a matter of the utmost importance. …
“The idea of your coming this way with your Council is highly relished; it is tho’t it may be attended with very happy consequences. Much is expected of Connecticut; I hope she will not disappoint our wishes” (, 3:232–33). GW’s diary entry for 24 June indicates that Governor Trumbull’s letter included a disconcerting “list of deficiencies” (, 3:382). GW referenced a printed document titled “A RETURN of the several Towns in this State, their Quota, Number of Men in Service, Surplus and Deficiencies.” The return showed 669 “Deficiencies” from Connecticut towns and concludes that Trumbull “give all necessary Orders for carrying into speedy Execution the Acts and Resolves of this Assembly, for filling up the Continental Army, and for raising and compleating the Troops of this State” (DLC:GW, filed under 10 May; see also , 3:392).
GW replied to Trumbull from headquarters at New Windsor on 24 June: “I am honored with Your Excellency’s Letter of the [2]0th Inst. together with the several Enclosures.
“The measures which have been taken by your Legislature to produce a prompt compliance with the requisitions upon the State, are of a good complexion, and afford me great satisfaction—I flatter myself the ample powers with which your Excellency & your Council are invested, will be strenuously exerted to carry those salutary Measures into execution.
“I shall be extremely happy to see you at the Army” (LS, in David Humphreys’s writing, Ct: Trumbull Papers; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW; Trumbull docketed the LS: “recd 26th inst. 11 o. Clo. A.M.”).
1. See GW to Trumbull, 15 June, found at GW to John Hancock, same date, source note.
2. Trumbull enclosed a printed document that related his presentation at Hartford to the “Council of Safety” on 19 June of GW’s request for 800 troops for service at West Point and the determination to raise “in this State, eight hundred able bodied effective men, officers included, by peremptory detachment, to serve for three months after they join the army, unless sooner discharged; from each brigade, in proportion… To be commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Canfield, of the fourth Brigade, and Major Nathan Peters, of the third Brigade.
“And the non-commissioned officers and soldiers shall be entitled to a premium or bounty of forty shillings lawful silver money… and the officers and soldiers shall receive the same wages, rations and refreshments with those of the same rank in the continental army, during the time of their continuing in said service.” The resolution also established monetary incentives to ensure that “each non-commissioned officer and private” would serve “with a good gun, bayonet, cartouch box, knap-sack, and blanket” (DLC:GW; see also , 3:462–63).
4. The Connecticut legislature began a session on 10 May that ended on Saturday, 16 June (see , 3:368).
5. Trumbull summarizes a printed enclosure: “An ACT, in further Addition to an Act, intitled, ‘An Act for filling up this State’s Quota of the Continental Army,’ ” which specified that recruits obtained “peremptorily” after 25 June would “serve till the last day of December next.” Monetary incentives in the act encouraged longer recruitment terms (DLC:GW, filed under 10 May; see also , 3:386–87, 390–92; General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780; and Trumbull to GW, 27 Nov. 1780, n.1).
6. Trumbull summarizes two resolutions that the legislature adopted in response to “His Excellency, General Washington, having represented the necessity of having fifteen hundred men in readiness to march upon the shortest notice and to be holden in service three months after joining the army, and also of raising a number of men to the amount of one sixth part of this State’s quota of the continental army to supply the deficiencies which have taken place from the various casualties incident to an army” (, 3:377). All 2,600 troops were to serve for at least three months (see , 3:378–79).
7. Trumbull refers to a resolution the legislature adopted to send the Continental army 1,000 barrels of salted meat and 20 hogsheads of rum that were “to be lodged at such posts or places as shall be directed by his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief or the Commissary General of Issues” (, 3:381; see also William Heath to GW, 15 May, and n.2 to that document).
8. The legislature had resolved to pay Henry Champion, commissary of purchases for Connecticut, “the sum of two thousand pounds, lawfull money, in specie,” to furnish the Continental army with cattle (, 3:383; see also GW to Heath, 9 May, n.10, and GW to Trumbull, 1 July).
9. Trumbull summarizes a printed enclosure: “An ACT for raising Supplies for the Use of this State and the Continental Army, until the first Day of January next” (DLC:GW, filed under 10 May; see also , 3:384–86, 469). For congressional supply requisitions and valuations, see Huntington to GW, 12 Nov. 1780, n.1.
10. Champion had been appointed to represent Connecticut at this meeting in Providence “to agree upon some regular s[y]stem or mode of sending on supplies of beef cattle to the army the current year” (, 3:462; see also Heath to GW, 4 July, n.1).
11. Ralph Pomeroy served as deputy quartermaster general for Connecticut.
12. The legislature had formed a committee to buy 210 “horses, suitable to remount a like number of dragoons in Colo. Sheldon’s regiment” (, 3:381–82; see also GW to Trumbull, 22 May). During their meeting at Hartford on 9 June, Trumbull and the council had directed Pomeroy “to apply to the several persons having tannd leather belonging to this State … for the purpose of furnishing Colo. Sheldon’s light dragoons with the necessary articles for remounting them for service” (, 3:457).
13. Trumbull and the council had resolved when meeting at Hartford on 11 June that Pomeroy receive from Nathaniel Shaw “cloth sufficient to make one hundred tents, and more in case he can furnish it; and four thousand yards of oznabrigs for making napsacks and haversacks … and cause said tents &c. to be immediately made up and forwarded to the army.” Trumbull and the council adopted another resolution at the same meeting that required Pomeroy to receive from Thomas Mumford “cloth sufficient to make fifty tents” at minimum (, 3:458).
14. The legislative directive made Continental officers from Connecticut accountable for “what the articles shall cost the State in specie” (, 3:389).
15. Meeting at Lebanon, Conn., on 4 July, Trumbull and the council pronounced that “repeated orders from the General Assembly to the several towns in this State to procure summer cloathing for our soldiery in the continental line, have hitherto proved too ineffectual.” To remedy the situation, town officials were “directed without delay to procure the cloathing enjoined by acts of Assembly to have been furnished by the 15th of May last, especially shirts, frocks and overhalls sufficient for the quotas of the continental soldiers in each town. … No delay can be permitted, and private families will doubtless on this occasion turn out every article they can possibly spare” (, 3:467; see also Heath to GW, 24 June, n.10) Trumbull and the council then ordered the impressment of clothing on 6 July (see , 3:471).
16. For the rum at Philadelphia belonging to Connecticut, see , 3:355–56; see also Nathaniel Stevens to GW, 4 July.
17. GW desired that such authority be established so state executives could act on new requisitions during legislatives recesses (see n.3 above).