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General Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Explaining His Request for Half-Pay for Life for Revolutionary Officers. Direct from Trumbull Family.
General Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Explaining His Request for Half-Pay for Life for Revolutionary Officers. Direct from Trumbull Family.
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Washington George

General Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Explaining His Request for Half-Pay for Life for Revolutionary Officers. Direct from Trumbull Family. 

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Letter Signed, to Jonathan Trumbull, June 11, 1783, Headquarters, New York. 1 p., 8" x 12.5". Toning and edge tears; some small paper loss affecting first line of letter.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Head Quarters, 11th June 1783

Sir

            I have the Honor to enclose to your Excellency the Collection of papers which was promised in my Letter of last Week.

                                                                        I have the honor to be

                                                                        With great Regard & Esteem

                                                                        Sir Your Excellency’s / Most Obedient &

                                                                        humble Servant

                                                                        Go Washington

His Excellency / Governor Trumbull

 

[Docketing on verso:] 11th June 1783 / His Excelcy General Washington with Collection of papers de half pay / recd 23rd June

 

Historical Background

On August 26, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution, the first national pension legislation, that provided half pay for officers and men disabled during their service for the United States. On May 15, 1778, another resolution provided half pay for seven years after the end of the war to all officers who remained in the service for the duration of the war. On October 21, 1780, Congress amended the resolution to offer half pay for life to officers after the war.

 

Early in 1782, army pay stopped because of a lack of funds, but Congress assured the army that officers and men would be paid when the war finally ended. In the spring of 1783, with rumors of a preliminary peace agreement arriving from Paris, some of the officers in the Continental Army at Newburgh called a meeting to address the situation, vaguely threatening to use force if they were not paid or if the half-pay provision was altered. On March 15, 1783, disgruntled field officers met at the camp at Newburgh to formulate an ultimatum to Congress, when General Washington suddenly appeared and asked to speak to the assembled officers. His short but passionate speech, known as the Newburgh Address, urged them to be patient and warned against civil discord. With Washington’s address, the “Newburgh Conspiracy” collapsed, and the officers reaffirmed their loyalty to Congress. One week later, the alarmed Confederation Congress changed the half-pay-for-life provision to five years at full pay.

 

After the announcement of an end of hostilities in mid-April, much of the Continental Army was furloughed. Congress gave each soldier three months’ pay, but because they had no money, financier Robert Morris issued $800,000 in personal notes to the soldiers.

 

On June 8, 1783, General George Washington wrote a circular to the chief executives of the American states, and through them to the American people. “The great object, for which I had the honor to hold an Appointment in the service of my Country being accomplished,” he began, “I am now preparing to resign it into the hands of Congress, and to return to that domestic retirement; which it is well known I left with the greatest reluctance....” He congratulated them on the “glorious events which Heaven has been pleased to produce in our favor” and offered “my final blessing to that Country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life, for whose sake I have consumed so many anxious days and watchful nights, and whose happiness, being extremely dear to me, will always constitute no inconsiderable part of my own.” It was just one of several farewells Washington wrote, culminating in his Farewell Address of 1796, as he closed his second term as President of the United States.

 

In this 1783 circular, Washington warned that the next few years would decide whether the Revolution had been ultimately “a blessing or a curse, not to the present Age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn Millions be involved.” He felt that four things were essential to the existence and well-being of the United States: (1) an “indissoluble Union of the States”; (2) a “sacred regard to public Justice”; (3) the “adoption of a proper Peace Establishment”; and (4) a “pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States,” willing to “make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity” and in some cases to “sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.”

 

Washington also discussed the debts the new nation owed to the Army: “For my own part, conscious of having acted, while a servant of the public, in the manner I conceived best suited to promote the real interests of my Country, having in consequence of my fixed belief, in some measure, pledged myself to the Army that their Country would finally do them compleat and ample Justice and not wishing to conceal any instance of my official conduct from the eyes of the World, I have thought proper to transmit to your Excellency the inclosed collection of papers relative to the half-pay & commutation granted by Congress to the Officers of the Army. From these communications my decided sentiment will be clearly comprehended, together with the conclusive reasons which induced me, at an early period, to recommend the adoption of this measure in the most earnest and serious manner.” He dismissed the idea “that the half pay and Commutation are to be regarded merely in the odious Light of a pension, it ought to be exploded forever—that provision should be viewed as it really was, a reasonable compensation offerd by Congress at a Time when they had nothing else to give to the Officers of the Army for services then to be performed. It was the only means to prevent a total dereliction of the Service—it was a part of their hire, I may be allowed to say, it was the price of their blood and of your Independancy—it is therefore more than a common debt, it is a debt of honor—it can never be considered as a pension or gratuity nor be cancelled untill it is fairly discharged.”

 

To those who objected to the distinction between officers and soldiers, Washington responded that “it is sufficient that the uniform experience of every Nation of the World combined with our own, proves the utility and propriety of the discrimination—Rewards in proportion to the Aids the Public derives from them, are unquestionably due to all its Servants—In some Lines, the Soldiers have perhaps generally had as ample a compensation for their Services, by the large bounties which have been paid them....” If states wanted to do more to reward their soldiers’ service, Washington suggested “an exemption from Taxes for a limitted time.”

 

Apparently, Washington sent out the circular letter first, and this letter accompanied the “collection of papers relative to the half-pay & commutation granted by Congress to the Officers of the Army” that Washington had promised in his circular letter.

 

The collection of papers included the first seven paragraphs of Washington’s letter of January 29, 1778, to a Congressional committee, in which he argued that “I consider a proper and satisfactory provision for officers, in a manner, as the basis of every other regulation and arrangement necessary to be made; since without officers no army can exist, and unless some measures be devised to place those of ours in a more desireable situation, few of them would be able, if willing, to continue in it.” Congress needed to reward officers who were serving their country but were financially “losers by their patriotism,” and Washington concluded that “Nothing, in my opinion, would serve more powerfully to reanimate their languishing zeal, and interest them thoroughly in the service, than a half-pay establishment.” The collection also included relevant acts of the Continental and Confederation Congresses; other correspondence between Washington and Congress; and a report of the Newburgh meeting of officers, including Washington’s Newburgh Address.

 

Later in 1783, Barzillai Hudson and George Goodwin, publishers of The Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer in Hartford, published both Washington’s address and the collection of papers “to give the people of America an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the state of facts, respecting the half pay and commutation, granted by Congress to the officers of the army; together with the reason, the necessity and policy which induced the measure.” Hudson and Goodwin almost certainly produced the 48-page pamphlet from the enclosures sent with this letter to Governor Trumbull.

 

Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Harvard College in 1727. He studied theology and received an A.M. in 1730 but became a merchant with his father in 1731. He served as a delegate to the General Assembly from 1733 to 1740, and as colonel of a Connecticut regiment during the French and Indian War. Trumbull served as deputy-governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1766 to 1769, and as Governor of the Connecticut Colony from 1769 to 1776 and Governor of the State of Connecticut from 1776 to 1784. He was the only colonial governor to join the Revolutionary cause. George Washington declared Trumbull to be “the first of the patriots.”

 

 

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

 

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