New Windsor, November 12, 1777.
Dear Sir:
I have been detained here these two days by a fever, and violent
rheumatic pains throughout my body. This has prevented my being
active, in person, for promoting the purposes of my errand; but I have
taken every other method in my power, in which Governor Clinton has
obligingly given me all the aid he could. In answer to my pressing
application to General Poor, for the immediate marching of his brigade,
I was told they were under an operation for the itch; which made it
impossible for them to proceed till the effects of it were over. By
a letter, however, of yesterday, General Poor informs me, he would
certainly march this morning. I must do him the justice to say, he
appears solicitous to join you; and that I believe the past delay is
not owing to any fault of his, but is wholly chargeable on General
Putnam. Indeed, Sir, I owe it to the service to say, that every part
of this gentleman’s conduct is marked with blunder and negligence, and
gives general disgust.
Parsons’ brigade will join you, I hope, in five or six days from this.
Learned’s may do the same. Poor’s will, I am persuaded, make all the
haste they can for the future. And Glover’s may be expected at Fishkill
to-night; whence they will be pressed forward as fast as I can have any
influence to make them go. But I am sorry to say, the disposition for
marching, in the officers and men in general, of these troops, does not
keep pace with my wishes, or the exigency of the occasion. They have,
unfortunately, imbibed an idea, that they have done their part of the
business of the campaign, and are now entitled to repose. This, and the
want of pay, make them averse to a long march at this advanced season.
* * * In a letter from General Putnam, just now received by Governor
Clinton, he appears to have been, the 10th instant, at King’s Street,
at the White Plains. I have had no answer to my last applications. The
enemy appear to have stripped New-York very bare. The people there,
that is, the tories, are in a great fright: this adds to my anxiety,
that the reinforcements from this quarter to you are not in greater
forwardness and more considerable.
I have written to General Gates, informing him of the accounts of the
situation of New-York with respect to troops, and the probability of
the force gone to Howe being greater than was at first expected; to
try if this will not _extort_ from him a further reinforcement. I
don’t, however, expect much from him; as he pretends to have in view an
expedition against Ticonderoga, to be undertaken in the winter: and he
knows that, under the sanction of this idea, calculated to catch the
eastern people, he may, without censure, retain the troops. And as I
shall be under a necessity of speaking plainly to your Excellency, when
I have the pleasure of seeing you, I shall not hesitate to say, I doubt
whether you would have had a man from the northern army, if the whole
could have been kept at Albany with any decency. Perhaps you will think
me blamable in not having exercised the powers you gave me, and given a
positive order. Perhaps I have been so: but, deliberately weighing all
circumstances, I did not, and do not, think it advisable to do it.
I have the honor to be,
With unfeigned esteem and regard,
Your Excellency’s most ob’t servant,
A. Hamilton.
His Excellency General Washington.