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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. II (1758-1775) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Vol. II (1758-1775).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

New York 24th [25] June 1775.1

Gentlemen,

The Rain on Friday afternoon and Saturday the advice of several Gentlemen of the Jerseys and this city, by no means to cross Hudson’s River at the lower Ferry and some other occurrences too trivial to mention (which happened on the Road) prevented my arrival at this place until the afternoon of this day. In the morning, after giving General Schuyler such orders, as, from the result of my Inquiry into matters here, appear necessary, I shall set out on my Journey to the Camp at Boston and shall proceed with all the dispatch in my Power. Powder is so essential an Article that I cannot help again repeating the necessity of a supply. The Camp at Boston from the best accounts I can get from thence, is but very poorly supplied. At this place they have scarce any. how they are provided in General Wooster’s Camp I have not been able yet to learn.1

Governor Tryon is arrived and General Schuyler directed to advise you of the line of conduct he moves in. I fear it will not be very favourable to the American cause. I have only to add that I am with the greatest respect and regard.

[1 ]Washington’s commission was signed on the 19th. On the following day “the three battalions of Philadelphia and the liberties, together with the artillery company, a troop of light horse, several companies of light infantry, rangers and riflemen, in the whole about two thousand, marched out to the commons, and having joined in brigade, were reviewed by General Washington. . . . They went through the manual exercise, firings and manoeuvres with great dexterity and exactness.” Rivington’s Gazetteer, June 29th. “Philadelphia, June 23. This morning at seven o’clock it is said, general Washington will set out for Massachusetts Bay, in order to take command of the American Army, attended by Major Mifflin, one of his aid de camps, and general Lee, who is appointed third in command.” Virginia Gazette, 6 July. “June 24. Yesterday morning General Washington and General Lee set off for Philadelphia to take command of the American army at Massachusetts Bay. They were accompanied a few miles from town by the troop of light horse, and by all the officers of the city militia on horseback. They parted with our celebrated commanders, expressing the most ardent wishes for their success over the enemies of our liberty and country.” Rivington’s Gazetteer, June 29th. On the 24th, General Schuyler wrote to the New York Congress from New Brunswick. “General Washington, with his retinue, is now here, and proposes to be at Newark by nine to-morrow morning. The situation of the men-of-war at New York (we are informed) is such as may make it necessary that some precaution should be taken in crossing Hudson’s river, and he would take it as a favor if some gentlemen of your body would meet him to-morrow at Newark, as the advice you may there give him will determine whether he will continue his proposed route or not.” On the day before (June 23d) the New York Congress had requested Col. Lasher, whom Jones describes as a German shoemaker, “to send one of his field officers to meet General Washington, and to know when he will be in this city,” and “to make such orders as to have his battalion ready to receive Gen. Washington when he shall arrive.” On the receipt of General Schuyler’s letter the Congress ordered Thomas Smith, John Sloss Hobart, Gouverneur Morris, and Richard Montgomery “to go immediately to Newark, and recommend to general Washington the place which they shall think most prudent for him to cross at.” Some precaution was necessary as the province was still intensely loyal, the Provincial Congress, where the revolutionary spirit might be supposed to have centered, was then discussing a plan of accommodation with Great Britain, and on this very day information was received that the royal governor, Tryon, had arrived at the Hook, and might land at one o’clock. How to pay the due respect to both the general and the governor was a question that could be determined only by a proper amount of “trimming,” but little creditable to the Congress. “Colonel Lasher was called in, and requested to send one company of the militia to Paulus Hook to meet the generals; that he have another company at the side of the ferry for the same purpose; that he have the residue of his battalion ready to receive the general or governor Tryon, which ever shall first arrive, and to wait on both as well as circumstances will allow.” (Provincial Congress, June 25th.) Fortunately for the Congress circumstances were favorable to this double arrangement, as Washington landed a sufficient time before Tryon to permit an escort for both. “Last Sunday about two o’clock, the generals Washington, Lee and Schuyler arrived here. They crossed the North River at Hoback [Hoboken] and landed at Col. Lispenard’s [in the vicinity of Laight and near Greenwich Street]. There were eight or ten companies under arms, all in uniforms, who marched out to Lispenards. The procession began from there thus, the companies first, Congress next, two of Continental Congress next, general officers next, and a company of horse from Philadelphia, who came with the general brought up the rear. There were an innumerable company of people, men, women and children present.” Gilbert Livingston to Dr. Peter Tappan, 29 July, 1775. The Virginia Gazette, 13 July, copying from a northern gazette, said “The generals landed at the seat of Colonel Lispenard about 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon, [i. e. the 25th], from whence they were conducted by nine companies of foot in their uniforms, and a greater number of the principal inhabitants of this city than ever appeared here on any occasion before.” Judge Thomas Jones, a staunch loyalist records a description of this event. “After 12 o’clock the same day Washington, Lee, and Schuyler, three of the first rebel generals appointed by Congress to the commaud of their army, the two first on their way to Boston, the latter for Albany to command the expedition then preparing against Canada, arrived from Philadelphia, and were entertained at the house of Leonard Lispenard, Esq., about two miles out of town. Upon this occasion the volunteer companies raised for the express purpose of rebellion, the members of the Provincial Congress, those of the city committee, the parsons of the dissenting meeting-houses, with all the leaders and partisans of faction and rebellion (including Peter R. Livingston, Esq., and Thomas Smith, John Smith and Joshua Hett Smith, the brother-in-law and brothers of William Smith, Esq.,) waited upon the beach to receive them upon their landing from the Jersey shore, and conducted them up to Lispenard’s, amidst the repeated shouts and huzzas of the seditious and rebellious multitude, where they dined, and towards evening were escorted to town, attended and conducted in the same tumultuous and ridiculous manmer.” New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 55. Governor Tryon landed in the evening (eight or nine o’clock) and it is very probable, as Jones says, much the same collection of people greeted him with the loudest acclamations and accompanied him to the house of Mr. Hugh Wallace. “Gaine, in his New York Gazette and Mercury, does not allude to either of the arrivals referred to; Rivington, in his Gazetteer of the 28th June, gives an account of Tryon’s reception.” New York City during the Revolution, 83, n.

[1 ]General Wooster commanded the forces, which had been raised by Connecticut, and which were stationed on the shores of Long Island Sound, to protect the southern borders of that colony. On the 15th of June, a rumor having been spread, that a regiment of British troops was soon to be landed in the city of New York from Ireland, the Provincial Congress invited General Wooster to march within five miles of the city for its defence, and while there to be under the command of the Continental Congress, or that of New York. This request being approved by the government of Connecticut, General Wooster marched eighteen hundred men to the neighbourhood of the city, on the 28th of June, where he remained several weeks.—MS. Journal of the New York Provincial Congress.

In reply to General Wooster’s letter of consent, the Congress add:—“We beg leave to testify to you our high sense of the readiness, which you show to assist our colony. That honest zeal, which inspirits the bosom of our countrymen in Connecticut, commands our admiration and praise.”