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Winter-Hill, September 23, 1775.
MUCH RESPECTED GENTLEMEN: I am sorry to inform you that your Troops from New-Hampshire have more reasons to complain, and actually do complain more, than any other Troops in the Army. General Washington gave it out in order that all the Troops should be paid up to the 4th of August. All the other Colonies have complied, though not strictly obliged thereto by the original contract; and why New-Hampshire should refuse, I can by no means conceive, as the men must be paid sooner or later. And as the money now emitted is not on interest, it can make no difference to the Province whether they are paid now or two months hence; but to the men the difference is very great, as their families are in immediate necessity, and can by no means do without it. All the money you advance to make your Troops comfortable will
This, gentlemen, has been the case respecting those Troops, which I venture to pronounce the very best in the Army. Gentlemen, I am sure there must have been a great defect somewhere; where it is, or to whom you will impute the iniquity, time alone must discover. It must be allowed that suffering the New-Hampshire Troops to remain in so wretched a situation, for such a length of time, will never redound to the credit of the Colony, or have the least tendency to enable us to raise another Army, after this is disbanded, but the reverse. I must therefore, as a friend to the Continent in general, and the Colony in particular, beg and entreat you to send some trusty persons here, with money sufficient to pay off the men, in order to have them as comfortable as the nature of the service will admit; and you will thereby much assist the common cause of America, and partially oblige, gentlemen, your most obedient humble servant,
JOHN SULLIVAN.
The Hon˙ the Committee of Safety in New-Hampshire.
General Sullivan to New-Hampshire Committee of Safety
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be repaid by the Congress, and therefore can be of no disadvantage to you. I wish you were acquainted with the complaints and murmurings of your Troops. They have long been kept out of their blankets, and now are kept out of coats or blankets. The officers who bore their expenses here have never received any pay. The Committee here seemed to have been employed the whole time in riding back and forth, to bring small sums of money to pay part of the soldiers, to make the others mutinous and uneasy.