December 2nd
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“I regret that the Inhabitants should be unwilling to give shelter to men who have made and are still making every sacrafice in the service of their Country.”
To Major General Nathanael Greene
Head Quarters, Morristown, 22 December 1779
Sir,
I have received Your letter of Yesterday and am extremely concerned to find that you meet with such difficulties in quartering the Officers whose rank and situation require they should be lodged in the Houses in the vicinity of the Army. I regret that the Inhabitants should be unwilling to give shelter to men who have made and are still making every sacrafice in the service of their Country; and that the Magistrates should refuse to give you effectual aid in a matter to which in my opinion by a liberal and necessary construction of the law, their authority is fully competent.
Nathanael Greene
National Park Service
The dilemma is perplexing. On one hand, nothing I wish so much as to avoid the least deviation from the line prescribed by the law; on the other, it is impossible the Officers can remain without proper covering. If the Obstacles cannot be removed so as to satisfy the Law, necessity decides that you must proceed in quartering the Officers yourself in such Houses as the good of the service may require, having all possible regard to the circumstances of the Inhabitants, that none may be distressed or incommoded more than is unavoidable. To this I am persuaded your own disposition will induce you to pay the strictest attention. But before you have recourse to this step, you will make one more application to the Magistrates, which you will be pleased to do in writing, and request their answer also in writing. You will expose to them the reasonableness and necessity of their concurrence and inform them what we shall be compelled to do, if they decline giving their assistance with cordiality and efficacy. Should they again refuse, you will then have no alternative but to do as I have mentioned. I am Sir with great regard & respect Yr Most Obed. servant
G:o Washington
* On 12 October 1779, Washington had written to The Board of War: “I believe I may say without exaggeration that we should lose the service of one third of the Men who could not march from this Ground, unless bare footed.” On 9 January 1780 Washington would write to Brigadier General Irvine: “Circumstanced as things are, (Men half starved, imperfectly Cloathed, riotous, and robbing the Country people of their subsistence from shear necessity) I think it scarcely possible to embrace any moment (however favorable in other respects) for visiting the enemy on Staten Island, and yet if this frost should have made a firm and solid bridge between them and us I should be unwilling, indeed I cannot, relinquish the idea of attempting it.”
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