[MANUSCRIPT RATIONS REPORT, SIGNED BY CHARLES POMROY, BENJAMIN STEELE, AND MAJOR GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE RATIONS OF BEER, PEAS, AND SOAP ALLOCATED TO GENERAL TYLER'S CONNECTICUT MILITIA BRIGADE STATIONED IN RHODE ISLAND DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION].

Descripción

A Revolutionary-era manuscript report, giving an accounting of the rations of beer, peas, and soap allocated to General John Tyler's 3rd Brigade of Connecticut militia between August 15 and September 12, 1778. The report, dated in the text November 2, 1778 (but likely misdated November 3 at top), was drafted by Charles Pomroy, quartermaster to the brigade. In it, Pomroy certifies "That there is Due to Genl. Tylers Brigade of Militia as per Acct. of my Book of Issues" from this period "Twenty seven Thousand seven Hundred and Twenty six Rations of Peas and Beer and Eighteen Thousand one Hundred and Eleven Rations of Soap Which is Agreeable to my Book of fees." Pomroy proceeds to give a detailed breakdown of the rations, with a table presenting the 27,776 rations of beer and peas totaling £260 8s and £130 4s, respectively, and the 18,111 rations of soap totaling £19 8s 8d, all for a combined total of £400 0s 8d. Pomroy records funds received from the quartermasters of Colonel Smith's and Colonel Herrick's regiments for their shares of the provisions in the amount of £71 1s, which is subtracted from the combined total above, leaving a grand total of £328 19s 8d. The report is signed at bottom, "Charles Pomroy QM to Brigade." On the verso, Benjamin Steele, deputy paymaster general of the Continental Army in Rhode Island (where Tyler's brigade was evidently stationed), endorses Pomroy's report, noting that the "within Abstract for parts of Rations Ret[aine]d is Right Cast & there is Due to Genl. Tylers Brigde. three hundred twenty Eight pounds, nineteen shillings & Eight pence, as Specify'd within." The note is dated Providence, November 2, 1778, and is signed, "Benj. Steele Dy. PM R. Island." Below that, and in a different, much larger, and more formal hand, payment is approved, and Steele is instructed to pay the amount "as specifyd in the annexed Abstract." These orders are signed below by Major General John Sullivan, "Given at Head Quarters, Providence this 3d day of Novr. 78 by His Honors Command." A later note, dated March 29, 1779, appears at bottom, indicating that payment was received "in full," and is signed, "Charles Pomroy PMtr." In 1774, John Sullivan (1740 1795) served as part of the New Hampshire delegation to the First Continental Congress. By 1775, he was an officer serving in the Continental Army. He participated in several important engagements during the war and was present at the siege of Boston, the Battle of Long Island (where he was captured and later released), the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, and the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He was transferred to Rhode Island in early 1778, where he was given command of a combined force of Continental troops and militia tasked with assisting a French naval fleet in a planned siege of British-held Newport. The plan was abandoned, however, after a storm befell the fleet, and Sullivan's troops were forced to retreat at the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778. In the summer of 1779, the year after he signed the present document, Sullivan led a campaign for which he would become infamous. Sullivan's Expedition, as it came to be called, was a scorched-earth campaign against the Iroquois in western New York conducted in retaliation for recent American defeats, in which Sullivan and his troops destroyed forty Iroquois villages, killing some 200 Iroquois, including several women and children, and displacing some 5,000, who were forced to seek refuge at the British-controlled Fort Niagara. Sullivan resigned the army shortly afterward and later served as the governor of New Hampshire. An interesting Revolutionary War manuscript, documenting both the rations allocated to soldiers and the administrative bureaucracy that requisitioned and paid for them. Old folds. Very good.

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Título

[MANUSCRIPT RATIONS REPORT, SIGNED BY CHARLES POMROY, BENJAMIN STEELE, AND MAJOR GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE RATIONS OF BEER, PEAS, AND SOAP ALLOCATED TO GENERAL TYLER'S CONNECTICUT MILITIA BRIGADE STATIONED IN RHODE ISLAND DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION].

Editor

Providence, RI. November 2, 1778; May 29, 1779.