Given at the War Office of the United States, in Philadelphia, this 19th day of December, A.D. 1799, and in the twenty-fourth year of the Independence of the said States.
By command of the President:
JAMES M'HENRY,
Secretary of War.
[From Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, December 21, 1799.]
NAVY DEPARTMENT, December 20, 1799.
The President with deep affliction announces to the Navy and to the marines the death of our beloved fellow-citizen, George Washington, commander of our armies and late President of the United States, but rendered more illustrious by his eminent virtues and a long series of the most important services than by the honors which his grateful country delighted to confer upon him.
Desirous that the Navy and marines should express, in common with every other description of American citizens, the high sense which all feel of the loss our country has sustained in the death of this good and great man, the President directs that the vessels of the Navy in our own and foreign ports be put in mourning for one week by wearing their colors half-mast high, and that the officers of the Navy and of the marines wear crape on the left arm below the elbow for six months.
BEN. STODDERT.
[From Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, December 24, 1799.]
Impressed with unspeakable grief and under the influence of an affectionate sympathy which must pervade the hearts of his beloved fellow citizen soldiers, the Blues, Brigadier-General MacPherson announces the following communication: