WHAT DID WAYNE PLAN IN THIS ORDER?
Mad Anthony was not content with his success at Stony Point, but a short time after issued this order:
Fishkill Landing, 4 Aug., 1779.
Dear Sir: You’ll please to order a detachment of one hundred and fifty men, with two days’ provisions, under the command of Col. Butler. I wish you to order Major Hull with him.
Interim believe me yours,
ANT’Y WAYNE. B. G.
N. B.—The detachment will move to-morrow morning early.
To Mr. Nath’l Sackett.
It is evident that the contemplated movement was not to be far away, as only two days’ provisions were called for. There was something to be performed in the secrecy of the night. Col. Butler was probably Col. Richard Butler, who was a capable officer of the 9th Pennsylvania. Major Hull was later Gen. Hull, of the War of 1812. Sackett had his home in the neighborhood near where Wayne was writing, and had been very active in civil life. He graduated at Yale, and was prominent in revolutionary committees. He brought to Fishkill the news of the Battle of Lexington, organized local patriotic meetings, and was associated with the leaders in that historic time. It seems that Wayne looked to him to give him some important aid where nothing was accomplished, because of some new turn for other action. Such are familiar to the soldier. Many soldiers were quartered in Fishkill, where those officers and men to be called must have been.
J. HARVEY COOK.
Fishkill-on-Hudson.