Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, by JARED SPARKS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PART SECOND;

(CONTINUED) ;

COMPRISING

CORRESPONDENCE

AND

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS

RELATING TO

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

212341

The enclosed return, made up to the first of the month, will show the number of recruits, who have joined this post of the Continental army since its formation upon the new establishment. My requests to the executives of the several States have been earnest, and my orders to the officers in them have been pointed and positive, to send forward the recruits as fast as possible. What to expect, or rather to apprehend, from these delays, Congress can more easily conceive than I can describe. Some States, I am told, despairing of getting their quotas for the war, or three years, are resorting to the old expedient of temporary enlistments, while impediments of another kind withhold the recruits from the army in others.

The bare relation of these facts, without combining other circumstances of equal magnitude and uncertainty, or adding to them the difficulties with which we

VOL. VIII.

1

A

are surrounded for want of money, will convince Congress of the impracticability of my fixing at this time on any definitive plan of a campaign, and of my inability to carry into effect those, which have heretofore been the objects of contemplation. They will readily see, that our future operations depend upon contingencies, and that our determinations must be the re-. sult of the moment, and dependent upon circumstances.

In this view of matters here, the progress of the enemy under Lord Cornwallis, and in consideration of the reinforcement which has lately gone to him, I have judged it expedient to order the Marquis de Lafayette to proceed with his detachment to the southern army, and put himself under the orders of Major-General Greene. The greatest objection I had to the measure, circumstanced as things now are, was, that the detachment was not formed for the campaign, or for so distant a service as that on which they are now ordered; consequently neither officers nor men were prepared for it; but the urgent call for succour to the southern States, the proximity of this corps to them, the expedition with which it can join the southern army, and the public expense that will be saved by its advance, have overcome all less considerations in deciding upon it. I wish the march of the Pennsylvania troops could be facilitated, and that Moylan's cavalry could. be recruited, equipped, and marched without delay; for every judicious officer I have conversed with from the southward, and all the representations I received thence, confirm me in the opinion, that great advantages are to be derived from a superior cavalry. Without magazines, and with an interrupted communication, I do not see how Lord Cornwallis could have subsisted his army, if we had outnumbered him in horse.