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Knox, Henry (1750-1806) to Winthrop Sargent

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02437.04952 Author/Creator: Knox, Henry (1750-1806) Place Written: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Type: Manuscript document Date: 19 May 1791 Pagination: 1 p. ; 23 x 18.8 cm. Order a Copy

Later copy. Written by Knox as Secretary at War to Major Sargent. References receiving Sargent's letters of 20 April and 1 and 2 May. Says the difficulties in connection with calling out the militia "by an order to a subordinate officer of a state" will continue until Congress fixes it. Hopes the large bodies of regular troops will provide security in the Ohio Territory, making any calls on the militia unnecessary. Says Colonel Ebenezer Sproat seems to deserve compensation for his services and that the matter will be handled soon.

Winthrop Sargent was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on 1 May, 1753 and died near New Orleans on 3 June 1820. He was graduated at Harvard, and in 1771 became captain of a ship belonging to his father, who was a merchant. In 1775 he entered the Revolutionary army, and was naval agent at Gloucester, 1 January, 1776, and captain of General Henry Knox's regiment of artillery, 16 March 1776, serving throughout the war, and taking part in the siege of Boston, the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, the Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, attaining the rank of major. He became connected with the Ohio company in 1786, under General Rufus Putnam, and was appointed surveyor of the Northwest territory by Congress. He was its secretary in 1787, and was its first Governor in 1798-1801. During the Indian wars in 1791 and in 1794-5 he became adjutant-general, and was wounded in the expedition under General Arthur St. Clair. He was a member of the American academy of arts and sciences, and of the Philosophical society, an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati as a delegate from Massachusetts

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806
Sargent, Winthrop, 1753-1820
Sproat, Ebenezer,

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