IV. From Captain Ezekiel Porter Belden, 20 April 1780
IV
From Captain Ezekiel Porter Belden
Wethersfield [Conn.] April 20th 1780
sir
It is with the greatest reluctance, I address your Excellency on a subject which I am sensible must be disagreable, & which you have been already too frequently troubled with viz. Applications to resign Commissions in the Army. For this purpose I now address your Excellency.
since the commencement of the present Contest, I have had the honor to serve in different capacities, both in the Infantry, and Cavalry, in the service of the United States of America. A service which I reverence and esteem, & which nothing but necessity could induce me to leave.
In October last, I had the misfortune to loose my only Brother1—soon after which I informd Colo. Sheldon, that I expected I must be obliged to leave the Regiment. knowing that my Father would not be able to manage his Business, without my assistance;2 My Father has from the begining of the War, fill’d some Civil or Military Office, (or both) that has, for a very considerable part of the time call’d him into the Field, or from attention to his own Business to that of the Public; which has much impaired his Estate, & must continue to, unless your Excellency is pleas’d to grant me Liberty to leave the service.
This Application I should have made earlier, but when I mentioned my intention to Colo. Sheldon, at the close of last Campaign, he desired me to wait untill the Regiment should be fixed in Winter Quarters—In consequence of which, I went to Wethersfield before the Regiment, to prepare Stables for their reception; & afterwards by Colo. Sheldons order march’d them to Colchester: indeed the Regiment was marching from Place, to Place, for,3 & did not get settled in Quarters, ’till the eleventh of February. soon after which, I again intimated my intention of resigning, but was advised to wait untill the Committee from the State, & Army, should come to some agreement concerning the depreciation of the Currency; as the State of Connecticutt were determined to allow their Officers who had, or should resign, before the Settlement nothing for past services.4
I since receivd Orders to attend a Genl Court Martial to sit at Springfield on the 15th inst. which I attended ’till the 18th when I returned to this Place,5 with an intention of getting relieved from the Court, for the purpose of waiting on your Excellency with this request; but finding I could not be relieved, consistent with the present state of the Regiment. I thot proper (lest you should be surprised at my calling at so late an hour,) thus to make known my intention of waiting on your Excellency, with the necessary Certificates as soon as I can be dismised from the Court Martial.6 I am with every sentiment of esteem, and Respect. Your Excellency’s Most Obedt Servt
Ezekl P. Belden Capt. 2d L. D.
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. James Belden (1760–1779), a younger brother, died on 27 Nov. (see , 2:84).
2. Thomas Belden (1732–1782) graduated from Yale in 1751 and lived his entire life in Wethersfield. He served several terms in the Connecticut General Assembly and held the rank of colonel in the state militia prior to his resignation in 1779. Probably a slaveholder, Belden had advertised in 1767 for the return of a fugitive “Molatto Servant … named Jess Quarters, about 20 Years of Age” (Connecticut Courant [Hartford], 31 Aug. 1767).
3. Belden apparently neglected to write a length of time following this word.
4. At its session that began on 11 May, the Connecticut legislature adopted “An Act to secure to the Officers and Soldiers of the Connecticut Line of the Continental Army or serving with said Line the Ballances found due to make up the Value of their Wages to the first Day of January last and to provide for the Payment of the Same” that included restrictions on “any officer who hath resigned, is now out of service or is deceased” (, 3:21–23; see also Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., to GW, 6 June, DLC:GW).
5. Belden served on the court-martial of Isaac Tichenor, assistant commissary general of purchases, held at Springfield, Mass. (see GW to Jacob Bayley, to Joseph Cilley, Jr., and to James Gray, all 9 March; see also Moses Hazen to GW, 8 Feb., and Stephen Moylan to GW, 28 March).
6. Belden presumably brought this letter to GW when he served as courier for Col. Elisha Sheldon’s letter to GW of 5 June (DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 18278).
An undated document titled “Resignations of Officers received & entered at Head Qrs since the 1st of January 1780” in the writing of GW’s secretary Robert Hanson Harrison listed Belden’s resignation as 11 June under the heading “Resignations in Sheldons Regimt of Dragoons in 1780” (DNA:PCC, item 152).