Captain John Pray to George Washington, 29 June 1781
From Captain John Pray
Niack [N.Y.] June 29th 1781.
Dear Sir,
Your Excellency’s favour of the 28th Inst. has just came to hand.1
The inclos’d are Returns of the Strength of the block house & Water Guards at Dobbs Ferry2—When I tooke command of this post was Order’d perticularly to continue with the Water Guards, & take my Quarters at this place which is about 5 miles above the block house.
The men in the Water Guard are exceeding good, & well diciplin’d to the boats, as they have not been Reliev’d Sin[c]e I have been here.
The Officer who is Lieut. Shailer of the Connecticut Line, is exceeding well acquainted with this duty, should be glad he might be continued,3 likewise one of the Officers at the block house, by Reason of their being acquainted with the disposition of the inhabitants, Those that are friendly as well as those which are Enemical.
I this moment found out that one of my boats has been down to Kings Bridge & Plunder’d a family of a few smaall things which Lieut. Shailer who has the Prisoner which Commanded them with him, will give Your Excellency the perticulars.4 Am with every Sentiment of Respect & esteam Your Excellencys most Obedient and Very Humble Serveant
Jno. Pray. Capt.
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. GW had written Pray from headquarters at Peekskill on 28 June: “Yours of this day has been received.
“You will be pleased to send me immediately a State of the Detachment under your Command specifying particularly the number of Officers & Men in the Garrison & on the Water Guard” (LS, in David Humphreys’s writing, NjP: De Coppet Collection; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW; the LS is addressed to Pray “Commanding at Dobb’s Ferry”). No letter from Pray to GW dated 28 June has been found, but see Pray to GW, 27 June.
2. An enclosed undated return of “the Number of Officers Non Commsd officers, & Privates in the block house at Dobbs Ferry” listed two “Artilery men,” two subaltern officers, one sergeant, two corporals, one drummer, and twenty-six privates. A notation then reads: “The Officer Reliev’d every week the other is out.” For “The Strength of the Water Guard,” Pray reported one captain, one subaltern, one sergeant, four corporals, and twenty-nine privates (DLC:GW).
3. Joseph Shaylor (Shailor, Shailer; c.1748–1816), of Wallingford, Conn., entered the war as an ensign in a Connecticut state regiment. He became a lieutenant in the 6th Connecticut Regiment in January 1777 and transferred to the 4th Connecticut Regiment in January 1781. Shaylor served in the garrison at Dobbs Ferry into 1782, moved to the 1st Connecticut Regiment in January 1783, and left the army that June. Shaylor was in the U.S. Army from 1791 until 1797 and attained the rank of major. He died in Clermont County, Ohio. A death notice in the Western American (Williamsburg, Ohio) for 16 March 1816 reported that Shaylor “three times received the public thanks of Gen. Washington for his courage and zeal in performing extraordinary services.”
4. Shaylor probably spoke to GW.