General Orders, 29 March 1778
General Orders
Head-Quarters V. Forge Sabbath March 29th 1778.
Parole: Islington—Countersigns: Ireland. Ixworth.
As the stormy weather prevents the Brigade Inspectors &c. meeting this day agreeable to yesterdays orders, the Sub and Brigade Inspectors with the Officers and non commission’d Officers who were to have assembled at Head-Quarters this day ten ôClock will attend the first fair day at said time and place. The following Officers are appointed Brigade Inspectors and are to be obeyed & respected as such in the respective Brigades.
- Coll Tupper in General Patterson’s Brigade
- Lieutt Coll Sprout in Glovers.
- Major Wallace in Woodford’s—
- Major Cabbel1 in Weedon’s—
- Major Hull in Larned’s—
- Major Fish in Poor’s.
- Major Bloomfield2 in Maxwell’s
- Major Ryan in 1st Pennsylvania
- Major Huling3 in Late Conway’s—
- Captn Smith4 in Varnum’s.
- Captain Converse5 in Huntington’s
- Captain Ingles6 in McIntosh’s—&
- Captain McGowin in 2nd Pennsylvania—
Captain Walker of Coll Livingston’s Regiment is appointed Brigade Major pro temp. in General Poor’s Brigade & is to be obeyed & respected as such.7
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. Samuel Jordan Cabell (1756–1818) was commissioned a captain of the 6th Virginia Regiment in March 1776 and transferred to Col. Daniel Morgan’s rifle regiment by July 1777. His promotion to major of the 14th Virginia Regiment was dated 20 Dec. 1777 but evidently not issued until early 1778 (see George Weedon to GW, 31 Dec. 1777, DNA: RG 93, Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775–1783, Virginia, Various Organizations). Cabell transferred to the 5th Virginia Regiment in May 1779 and to the 4th Virginia Regiment in July of that year. His commission as lieutenant colonel, dated from December 1778, was issued in the fall of 1779. He was taken prisoner at Charleston on 12 May 1780 and although paroled in August 1781 was not exchanged during the war, being transferred to the 7th Virginia in February 1781. After the war Cabell served in the Virginia house of delegates, 1785–92, and in the U.S. Congress, 1795–1803.
2. Joseph Bloomfield (1753–1823), a Cumberland County, N.J., lawyer, was appointed a captain in the 3d New Jersey battalion in February 1776 and was promoted to major in November of that year. Also in November 1776 he was appointed deputy judge advocate general for the northern army, but he probably served only a short time in that post. He left the army in September 1778, although his resignation was dated 29 Oct. 1778 and was not accepted until 1 Feb. 1779. After the war Bloomfield served as New Jersey attorney general, 1783–92; mayor of Burlington, N.J., 1795–1800; governor of New Jersey, 1801–12; and U.S. congressman, 1817–21. Named a brigadier general of New Jersey militia in 1792, he commanded a New Jersey brigade in the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion campaign and became a major general of militia in 1796. In 1812 Bloomfield was appointed a major general in the U.S. Army, serving to 1815.
3. John Huling (1743–1802) was appointed a captain of the 2d Pennsylvania Regiment in January 1776 and continued in that regiment after it was redesignated the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment in January 1777. He was promoted to major in August 1777 but became supernumerary and retired in July 1778. After the war Huling lived in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
4. David Smith (1747–1814), of Waterbury, Conn., became a captain in Samuel Elmore’s Connecticut State Regiment in April 1776 and transferred to the 8th Connecticut Regiment in January 1777. His promotion to major, eventually backdated to 13 Mar. 1778, occurred in November 1778. He remained with the regiment, consolidated with the 1st Connecticut Regiment and redesignated as the 5th Connecticut Regiment in January 1781, until it disbanded in January 1783, when he transferred to the 2d Connecticut Regiment, where he served to June 1783. He later became a militia general.
5. Thomas Converse (1738–1809), of Goshen, Conn., was commissioned as a lieutenant in Charles Burrall’s Connecticut State Regiment in January 1776 and became lieutenant and adjutant of the 7th Connecticut Regiment in January 1777. His promotion to captain of that regiment dated from November 1777. Converse served with the regiment, redesignated as the 2d Connecticut Regiment in January 1781, until January 1783.
6. John Ingles (Inglas) was appointed a second lieutenant of the 2d North Carolina Regiment in May 1776 and was promoted to captain in October 1777. Taken prisoner at Charleston on 12 May 1780 and not exchanged in the general cartel of 1782, he remained on army rolls in 1783.
7. Benjamin Walker (1753–1818), who had been commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st New York Regiment in August 1775 and promoted to first lieutenant in February 1776, became a captain in the 4th New York Regiment in November 1776. In September 1778 Walker was named an aide-de-camp to Steuben with the rank of major, and on 25 Jan. 1782 he was appointed one of GW’s aides, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, a position he held until the end of the war. GW appointed Walker naval officer for New York City in August 1789, and he held that post until 1797 when he moved to Fort Schuyler (now Utica), New York.