Charles Pettit to George Washington, 23 June 1781
From Charles Pettit
Philadelphia 23d June 1781.
Sir,
Having had the honor for some years past to serve the public in an employment under Your Excellency’s command,1 I cannot but feel a kind of obligation to make known to you the cause and manner of my quitting that employment, though it has latterly been but little under your immediate Notice. It would give me pain if on any occasion my conduct should be thought to merit Your Excellency’s disapprobation, and more particularly in a case of this kind, which, if not fairly understood, might wear the appearance of an improper withdrawing from the public service in a time of difficulty. I therefore hope the liberty I take in this communication will be excused.
In March last the Quarter Master General was pleased to give me an extract from a plan he had prepared to lay before Congress for reforming the Staff departments, in which he proposed the abolition of the Office of Assistant Quarter Master General.2 I had for some time wished to be honorably disengaged from a business which fell short of affording me the means of a decent support for my family, especially as my private fortune was too slender to make up the deficiency by it’s annual produce; but having so lately been honored with a reappointment,3 after having expressed to Congress a desire to decline it, I felt myself too delicately circumstanced to tender a resignation on the first intimation of the Quarter Master General’s plan. I have since, however, on considering the alteration of circumstances which has taken place in the schemes of finance & in the mode of collecting supplies, which has rendered this office less necessary than it was formerly,4 thought it my duty, as well with regard to the public as to myself, to make such a tender, a copy of which, together with a copy of the answer I have this day received from Congress, I take the liberty to inclose herewith.5 I have the honor to be, with perfect respect, Your Excellency’s most obedient & most humble servant
Cha. Pettit
ALS, DLC:GW; copy, NHi: Reed Papers.
1. For Pettit’s appointment as assistant quartermaster general, see General Orders, 24 March 1778.
2. The extract has not been identified, but Q.M. Gen. Timothy Pickering wrote Samuel Huntington, president of Congress, from Philadelphia on 24 March 1781 with a plan to revamp the quartermaster general’s department that included abolishing the office of assistant quartermaster general (see DNA:PCC, item 147; see also Board of War to GW, 22 March, and n.1 to that document).
3. For Pettit’s reappointment, see Huntington to GW, 26 July 1780.
4. Robert Morris, superintendent of finance, had instituted a system of contracting for supplies (see Morris to GW, 29 May and 2 July 1781).
5. Pettit enclosed a copy of his letter to Huntington from Philadelphia on 12 June in which he expressed disagreement with Pickering’s ideas for reforming the quartermaster general’s department and tendered his resignation with “thankful acknowledgment of the marks of distinction with which Congress have been pleased to honor me, and to assure them of a sincere desire to promote the public interest to the utmost of my power on all occasions which may be afforded me” (DLC:GW). Congress read Pettit’s letter on 15 June and referred it “to a committee of three” (, 20:649). Pettit also enclosed a copy of Huntington’s reply from Philadelphia on 21 June. Huntington included a copy of the congressional resolution adopted on 20 June that accepted Pettit’s resignation with an observation that his request “appeared to be founded on generous principals and disinterested Motives” (DLC:GW). The same resolution abolished “the Office of Assistant Quarter Master General” and transferred “the duties of the said Office” to “the Quarter Master Genl, and his deputies under his direction” (DLC:GW; see also , 20:677–78).
GW replied to Pettit from headquarters near Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., on 9 July: “The Army having been for some Time past in Motion, has been the Reason that I have not sooner acknowleged the Receipt of your Favor of the 23d ulto.
“The Motives on which you quit the Service are not only justifiable, but honorable; as I think it praize Worthy in a Citizen to resign a Place, which he finds no longer of public Utility—your Attention to the Business of your Station, I have always heard much commended; & I shall ever esteem myself under Obligations to you for the many Acts of Civility which I have personally received from you” (LS, in Jonathan Trumbull, Jr.’s writing, PPINA; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW; GW signed the cover of the LS, which is addressed to Pettit at Philadelphia). GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman, who penned the draft, wrote and struck out “can never be deemed a desertion of the Cause” prior to writing “are not only justifiable.”