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

TO MAJOR-GENERAL SCHUYLER. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. V (1776-1777) [1890]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. V (1776-1777).

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

About Liberty Fund:

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 MAJOR-GENERAL SCHUYLER.

Dear Sir,

I wrote to you yesterday by express, informing you of what I had done towards furnishing you with such supplies as are in my power to give, and the obstacles that at present lie in the way of granting you others that your situation demands. Since that I have received yours of the 9th.1 I have sent by express to Peekskill, to order on from thence to you, as speedily as possible, forty barrels of powder and an equivalent quantity of lead.

It is astonishing beyond expression, that you have heard nothing of St. Clair and the army under him. I am totally at a loss to conceive what has become of them. The whole affair is so mysterious, that it even baffles conjecture. I know not how to suppose it possible, that they can be on any route towards us, without our hearing something of them, and even if they have been all taken prisoners, one would imagine, that the account of it, by some channel or other, would have come to your knowledge. Sometimes I am led to doubt whether it may not be possible, that they had recalled their design of retreating from the forts, and returned to them; but here again it occurs, that they could have found some means to communicate intelligence of it to you. I impatiently wait more certain accounts of their fate.1 Meantime, I hope you will leave nothing in your power undone to check the career of the enemy. This is the second day I have been detained here by the badness of the weather. As soon as it will permit, I shall prosecute my march through the Clove. I am, &c.

[1 ]This letter was dated at Fort Edward, and contained the following particulars. “I have not been able to learn what is become of General St. Clair and the army. The enemy followed the troops, that came to Skenesborough, as far as Fort Anne, where they were yesterday repulsed; notwithstanding which Colonel Long, contrary to my express orders, evacuated that post. I am here at the head of a handful of men, not above fifteen hundred, without provision, with little ammunition, not above five rounds to a man, having neither balls, nor lead to make any; the country in the deepest consternation; no carriages to remove the stores from Fort George, which I expect every moment to learn is attacked; and what adds to my distress is, that a report prevails, that I had given orders for the evacuation of Ticonderoga, whereas not the most distant hint of such an intention can be drawn from any of my letters to General St. Clair, or any other person whatever.”

[1 ]St. Clair’s letters to Schuyler, the one dated the day before he left Ticonderoga, and the other, on the march, had miscarried.