Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hamilton to the Provincial Congress, March 6, 1777

Morristown, March 6, 1777.

Gentlemen:

It is necessary I should inform you of the changes which have happened in your Company of Artillery, which should have been done long ago, had I not been prevented by sickness, from which I am but lately recovered.

General Washington has been pleased to appoint me one of his Aids-de-Camp. Captain-Lieutenant James Moore, a promising officer, and who did credit to the State he belonged to, died about nine weeks ago. Lieutenant James Gilleland, some time before that, resigned his commission, prompted by domestic inconveniences, and other motives best known to himself. There remain now only two officers, Lieutenants Bean and Thompson, and about thirty men. The reason that the number of men is so reduced, besides death and desertions, was owing to a breach of orders in Lieutenant Johnson, who first began the enlistment of the company; and who, instead of engaging them during the war, according to the intention of the State, engaged them for the limited term of a twelvemonth. The time of those enlisted by him has expired; and for want of powers to re-engage them, they have mostly entered into other corps.

I have to request you will favor me with instructions as to your future intentions. If you design to retain the company on the particular establishment of the State, it will be requisite to complete the number of officers, and make provision to have the company filled by a new enlistment. In this case, I should beg leave to recommend to your notice, as far as a Captain-Lieutenancy, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Bean is so incurably addicted to a certain failing, that I cannot, in justice, give my opinion in favor of his preferment. But if you should determine to resign the company, as I expect you will, considering it as an extraordinary burthen, without affording any special advantages, the Continent will readily take it off your hands, so soon as you shall intimate your design to relinquish it. I doubt not you will see the propriety of speedily deciding on the matter, which the good of the service requires.

I am, with the sincerest respect, gentlemen,

Your most ob't and most humble servant,

Alex. Hamilton.

SOURCE: John C. Hamilton, Editor, The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Correspondence. 1769-1789, Volume 1, p. 11-12