Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 127

Price Realized: $ 31,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
QUEEN'S RANGERS ARE TAKING CATTLE: "PUT AN IMMEDIATE STOP TO THIS." WASHINGTON, GEORGE. Letter Signed, "G°:Washington," to Brigadier General George Weedon, promising to send whatever scarce ammunition can be spared, and imploring Weedon to stop British provisioning raids into the countryside. With a postscript Signed "G:W" and Franking Signature on address leaf. 3 pages, 8vo, on a single folded sheet; slight scattered fading to franking signature, 2 seal tears affecting 3 words of the postscript, short closed separation at center fold, minor foxing. "Head Quarters" [Williamsburg, VA], 15 September 1781

Additional Details

An unpublished Washington letter from the Yorktown campaign, written the day after he arrived in Williamsburg to begin preparations for the siege: "Major General the Marquis de la Fayette has refered to me your letter of the 13th.
I am not yet so fully informed of the state of our magazines in this quarter, as to be able to say when it will be in my power to send you a reinforcement of fire-arms. I find cartridges and powder so very scarce, as to render the utmost economy necessary. I shall however order you over as much as can be spared, and let me request you to make the commanding officers of each corps responsible for its waste or destruction. I need not observe to you how very essential it is to pay the most particular attention to this object, as well as to our fire-arms.
Col. Taylor mentioned some time since the formation of a magazine of grain, at a mill in the vicinity of his post. I wish to know the quantity collected, and what prospects remain of increasing it. . . .
Would it not be practicable to retain the ammunition in the hands [of] proper officers ready for distribution when wanted.
I find by the information of deserters that small parties from the Queens rangers make a practice of advancing ten or twelve miles into the country, and driving in what stock they please. It is of the utmost importance to put an immediate stop to this."
Not published in Fitzpatrick's Writings of George Washington or elsewhere; quoted briefly in Ward, Duty, Honor or Country, page 216.