Colonel Henry Ludington: A Memoir

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Reduced Fac-simile of the Commission of Henry Ludington as Colonel.

From the State of New York. May 28, 1778.

(Original in possession of Charles H. Ludington, New York City.)

The local needs of Dutchess County were not, however, to be overlooked. A committee of the New York Congress on June 20 reported that there were many disaffected and dangerous persons in Dutchess and Westchester counties, who greatly disturbed the peace, and who would probably take up arms whenever the enemy should make a descent upon that region, and that the requisitions of troops made by the Continental Congress had left the militia incapable of keeping peace and order “without great inconvenience to themselves and much injury to and neglect of their private property.” It was therefore recommended, and ordered, that 100 men and officers in Dutchess County and 50 in Westchester County be taken into the service of the Provincial Congress “and confined to the Service of those Counties.” The 100 men in Dutchess County were organized in two companies. On July 16 the Provincial Congress, or Convention, was in session at White Plains, and it there ordered that one fourth of the militia of those two counties should be summoned into active service, until the end of the year; each man receiving $20 bounty, and the same pay and subsistence as the Continental soldiers. Among those thus drawn into the service was Colonel Ludington.

The first care of Colonel Ludington on assuming command of his regiment was to fill up its ranks and organize a complete staff of officers. In reporting to the Convention—or Provincial Congress, as he still called it—upon this work, he wrote under date of July 19, 1776, from Fredericksburgh, as follows, this letter being transformed into modern and corrected orthography, and others which follow being thus edited only enough to insure intelligibility:

These may inform Your Honors that I meet with some difficulty in furnishing my quota of men for the present emergency, for want of commissions in the regiment which I have the honor to command. We have a number of officers chosen already that have no commissions, and several more must be chosen in order to have the regiment properly officered. And whereas I have applied to the County Committee for blanks to be filled up, and there are none to be had, therefore I, in conjunction with the committee of this Precinct, would desire that there might be about twenty blank commissions sent up by Mr. Myrick, the bearer hereof. I would further acquaint Your Honors that the regiment is destitute of Majors, and would be glad if Your Honors would appoint two gentlemen to that office and fill up commissions for them. There are two gentlemen that I do, with the advice of the Committee, nominate, viz., Mr. Gee—his Christian name I am not able to tell—of Phillipse Precinct, and Captain Ebenezer Robinson of this Precinct. These gentlemen are doubtless known by several of the members of the honorable House.

From Your Humble Servant,

Henry Ludenton, Colonel.

To the Honorable Provincial Congress.