Volume 10 of the Revolutionary War Series opens with Washington headquartered at the Continental army's encampment at Middlebrook, New Jersey, about seven miles northeast of New Brunswick, the location of the main British force under General William Howe. From this strategic vantage point in the Watchung Mountains, Washington could survey the country between Perth Amboy and New Brunswick while keeping an eye on the road to Philadelphia. Here he weighed contradictory intelligence reports. "The views of the Enemy," surmised Washington, "must be to give a severe blow to this Army and to get possession of Philada. Both are objects of importance; but the former of far the greatest--while we have a respectable force in the field, every acquisition of territory they may make will be precarious and perhaps burthensome." Washington also considered the possibility that Howe might attempt torendezvous his army with General Burgoyne's, thought to be en route fromQuebec to Albany by way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.

For his part, Howe, whose army outnumbered the Americans by a margin of more than two to one, hoped to lure Washington away from his defensive positions and force a general engagement. When a series of British maneuvers in late June failed to bring on the desired fight, Howe evacuated his army from New Jersey to Staten Island, leaving Washington completely in the dark as to the enemy's next move and keenly aware of "the great advantage they derive from their navy." Although Howe had abandoned the idea of attacking the main Continental army, from his new disposition the British commander easily could join with Burgoyne via the Hudson, move upon Philadelphia by way of the Delaware River or the Chesapeake Bay, sail farther south into Virginia or to Charleston, South Carolina, or sail northward and invade one of the New England states.

Washington's repositioned his army back at its old camp at Morristown, where it could better assist the American troops at Peekskill, New York, if Howe moved up the Hudson and yet still interfere with any British designs upon Philadelphia. Although surveillance reports revealed that the British were preparing for "a longer Voyage than up the North River," the British capture of Ticonderoga, New York, convinced Washington that Howe would take the northern route, and he swiftly marched the Continental army into New York state, where it remained until it became clear that the British fleet had gone out to sea. Washington then returned to New Jersey, where he made preparations for the defense of Philadelphia, but with several critical weeks of the summer campaign already passed, he confessed his puzzlement at his foe's decision to sail south.

Volume 3 covers the final months of the siege of Boston. It opens with General Washington proclaiming the commencement of the remodeled Continental army on New Year's Day 1776 and closes at the end of March as he prepares to depart for New York in the wake of the British evacuation of Boston.

Washington's correspondence and orders for this period reveal an uncompromising attitude toward reconciliation with Britain and a single-minded determination to engage the enemy forces in Boston before the end of the winter. Washington's bold proposal to attack Boston across the frozen back bay in the middle of February was rejected as too risky by a council of war, but the council did approve occupying the strategic Dorchester Heights overlooking the city and harbor. During the last weeks of February and the first days of March, Washington devoted himself to mobilizing artillery and gunpowder for a massive cannonade of Boston and assembling materials for portable fortifications to be erected on the frozen soil of Dorchester Heights. The successful execution of this operation on the night of 4 March failedto provoke General William Howe into assaulting the American lines and thereby open the way to counterattack on the city as Washington hoped it would. It did, however, compel the British to withdraw from Boston in haste a few days later, giving Washington and his army a spirit of confidence with which to embark on the New York campaign. The volume also includes a number of documents relating to Washington's private affairs in Virginia, the most important of which are eight letters from his Mount Vernon manager Lund Washington.

Volume 11 of the Revolutionary War Series contains correspondence, orders, and other documents covering one of the most militarily active periods of the war. The volume begins with Washington's army camped about twenty miles north of Philadelphia. Having planned to march toward the Hudson River to engage General John Burgoyne's northern expedition, Washington had to change course when scouts sighted the British fleet carrying General William Howe's army in the Chesapeake Bay on 22 August. Three days later Washington's troops were at Wilmington, Delaware, when Howe's army began landing at the head of the bay. Having personally led reconnaissance parties quite close to British lines, Washington then positioned his army on Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania to halt Howe's subsequent march to Philadelphia, but on 11 September the Americans suffered a nearly disastrous defeat. After another American attempt to stop the advancing British was frustrated by a fierce rainstorm, Howe skillfully outmaneuvered Washington before turning to Philadelphia, taking possession on 26 September as Congress fled the city.

Washington still hoped to reverse Howe's apparent victory, but his attack on British positions at Germantown, Pennsylvania, on 4 October was hampered by his complicated plan of attack, battlefield confusion, and stout British resistance, which combined to defeat the Americans. No longer able to come to grips with Howe's main army, Washington turned his attention to blocking passage of the Delaware River to prevent supplies from reaching the British in Philadelphia. American hopes of recapturing Philadelphia looked dim.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

Volume 6 documents Washington's decisions and actions during the heart of the New York campaign--the period from late summer to early fall 1776 when his British opponent, General William Howe, took the offensive and outmaneuvered the American forces in and around New York City through a series of amphibious landings. Faced with an enemy superior in numbers, mobility, and discipline, Washington attempted to defend New York by placing his green troops behind fortifications on high ground and hoping that courage and patriotism would offset their lack of experience and training. That strategy failed at the Battle of Long Island on 27 August when Howe's army outflanked and routed a larger American force on the Heights of Guana. Two nights later Washington reunited his dangerously divided army by skillfully evacuating every man and most stores and equipment from Long Island to New York City.

During the following weeks Washington spared no one including himself in an effort to restore order and confidence to his badly dispirited troops. He also reassessed his strategy and concluded "that on our side the War should be defensive" and "that we should on all occasions avoid a general Action or put anything to the risque unless compelled by a necessity into which we ought never to be drawn." Reluctantly deciding to abandon New York City, Washington narrowly avoided being forced into a disadvantageous general engagement on 15 September when he marched his army north to defensive positions on Harlem Heights ahead of British and Hessian soldiers landing at Kip's Bay. Although the Battle of Harlem Heights on the following day was an indecisive skirmish between detachments, it raised American morale by showing that some of their troops could and would fight well against enemy regulars in limited actions.

Military concerns so preoccupied Washington that at times his secretary Robert Hanson Harrison had to write the president of Congress and other public officials for him. This volume, nevertheless, includes four long letters that Washington wrote to his plantation manager Lund Washington describing his situation in New York and giving detailed instructions regarding such matters as the sale of flour from the Mount Vernon mill, the remodeling of the mansion house, and the planting of trees around it.

Volume 7 of the Presidential Series presents documents written during the final sessions of the First Congress, a period of intense activity for Washington and his administration. Between December 1790 and March 1791, Congress passed legislation that established a national bank and a federal excise, dramatically increased the size of the army, and provided for the admission of Vermont to the Union. Filling the offices created by these and other acts occupied much of Washington's attention; the excise service alone was one of the largest bureaucracies created during the Early Republic. The Indian war on the northwest frontier continued to be a major concern. Washington received news of Josiah Harmar's defeat on the frontier shortly after arriving in Philadelphia in December and spent the succeeding months planning a larger military expedition for 1791. Washington also devoted a large part of his time to the new Federal City on the Potomac. He announced the location of the federal district, dispatched Andrew Ellicott and Pierre L'Enfant to lay out the city, and engaged in negotiations with local property owners for the necessary land. All of these activities were set against a background of increasing partisan division within the government, brought into high relief in February 1791 by the controversy over the bill to incorporate the Bank of the United States. This volume includes written opinions on the bill's constitutionality prepared for Washington by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph (Randolph's opinion is published here for the first time). The volume closes on 21 March 1791, the day Washington left Philadelphia on the first leg of his triumphal Southern Tour.

Volume 13 of the "Revolutionary War Series" documents a crucial portion of the winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, when the fate of Washington's army hung in the balance. The volume begins with Washington's soldiers hard at work erecting log huts to the general's specifications and building a bridge over the Schuylkill River under the direction of Major General John Sullivan. Most of the fighting that characterized the bloody year of 1777 had drawn to a close by Christmas, and although British foraging and raiding parties ventured out of Philadelphia from time to time, Washington's priority was no longer to fight General William Howe but to preserve his own army and prepare it for the next campaign.

The American army was badly in need of reform. Attrition and ineffective recruitment had left most of the Continental regiments dangerously weak, and the rising pace of officer resignations made apparent the need for an equitable pay and pensionary establishment. At the same time the battle losses of the previous summer and autumn had exposed severe problems in military organization, drill, and discipline. Washington hoped that a congressional camp committee would rectify some of these problems, and after consulting his officers on army organization, he submitted to the committee one of the longest, most detailed, and most thoughtful letters he ever wrote. The arrival in camp of a Prussian volunteer who styled himself the Baron von Steuben, meanwhile, promised to bring about improvements in drill and discipline. Washington also had to look to his own authority, as a dispute with Major Generals Thomas Conway and Horatio Gates seemingly threatened to undermine his command of the Continental army.

The turning point of the Valley Forge encampment came in February 1778, when a provision shortage led to what Washington called a "fatal crisis" that threatened the continued existence of the army. Poor management of the commissary department and a breakdown of transport, resulting from bad weather and an insufficiency of wagons, combined to bring about a logistical collapse that brought provision supplies almost to a halt. For many days bread was scarce and meat almost nonexistent. Soldiers, many dressed literally in rags because of the incompetence of the clothier general, threatened mutiny. Washington's efforts to save his army in this crisis mark one of the highest points of his military career and make up an important part of this volume.

Volume 17 of the Revolutionary War Series opens with Washington moving his army north from White Plains, New York, into new positions that ran from West Point to Danbury, Connecticut. His purpose in doing so was threefold: to protect his army, to protect the strategically important Hudson highlands, and to shore up the equally vital French fleet anchored at Boston. His new headquarters, located near Fredericksburg, New York, about seventy miles north of New York City, was one of the most obscure of the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, Washington remained as busy with important tasks during the fall of 1778 as during any other period of the war. It was a time of delicate transition for the new Franco-American alliance and for British strategists yet unwilling to concede defeat. Both circumstances required Washington to exercise the sort of mental agility he had demonstrated during the first three years of the war. Equally pressing were the immediate problems of British raids--threatened and real--in New Jersey and New York and along the extensive American frontier and coastline. Within the Continental army, troubling breakdowns in discipline and morale demanded Washington's close attention, as did the logistical and political difficulties of planning proper troop dispositions for the coming winter--the fourth straight winter that Washington would not see home.

Although Washington could not foresee in October 1778 that the British would soon try their hand at conquering the southern states and that the war would last another five years, he sensed that the British Ministry still had both the financial means and the political will to continue the struggle. Ever a realist, Washington recognized that American victory would not come cheaply in what had become a war of attrition as well as an international conflict involving North American, European, and Caribbean theaters. As he had done since 1775, Washington was once more adjusting his thoughts to meet new realities on the long road to American independence.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

Volume Four of the ""Revolutionary War Series"" completes the documentary record of Washington's first year as commander in chief of the Continental army. It opens with this final preparations to leave Cambridge following the successful siege of Boston and concludes with news that General William Howe's British army was soon to arrive at New York, an event which would mark the beginning of the New York campaign. In the interim between campaigns, Washington established his headquarters as New York and began wrestling with the perplexing problems of defending the strategically important corridor between New York and Canada formed by the Hudson River and Lake Champlain. In addition to Washington's activities as commander in chief of the Continental army, the volume includes documents and notes concerning the medal that Congress awarded him for the liberation of Boston, Washington's efforts to terminate his long and successful administration of the Custis estate, and details of his travels from Cambridge to New York and between New York and Philadelphia. As in earlier volumes of the ""Revolutionary War Series"", Washington's writings show him to be unwavering in his advocacy of American independence and in his commitment to the subordination of the military to civil authority.

Volume 9 of the Revolutionary War Series covers the spring of 1777, a period when Washington's resourcefulness and perseverance were tested as much as at any time during the war. Instead of opening the new campaign by taking the field with a reinvigorated Continental army as planned, Washington was obliged to spend much of his time pleading with state authorities to fill their recruiting quotas and with officers to bring in the men whom they had enlisted. He was further hampered by a high desertion rate, which he blamed on the failure of many officers to pay their men regularly.

Painfully aware of the weakness of his army, Washington was puzzled but relieved that General Howe did not launch a major offensive during the spring. Although British raids on Peekskill, New York, Boundbrook, New Jersey, and Danbury, Connecticut, stirred local fears, Washington remained focused on the larger threat posed by Howe's forces. Employing a network of spies, Washington attempted to discover whether Howe planned to attack the strategically important Hudson highlands or politically important Philadelphia, and if the latter, whether he intended to move by land or sea. Believing that Philadelphia would be Howe's target but unable to prove it, Washington concentrated most of his forces at Middlebrook, New Jersey, in late May, in order to be able to move rapidly north or south as events dictated.

Unhappy officers added to Washington's woes with complaints of ill treatment and threats to resign. "It seems to me, " Washington wrote John Hancock in April, "as if all public Spirit was sunk into the means of making money by the Service, or quarrelling upon the most trivial points of rank." Foreign officers,who arrived in unprecedented numbers, were the most troublesome. Often unable to speak English and having little attachment to the American cause, they demanded extravagant ranks and pay that could not be granted without disrupting and demoralizing the Continental officer corps. "The management of this matter, " Washington wrote Richard Henry Lee in May, "is a delicate point.... In the mean while I am Haunted and teased to death by the importunity of some & dissatisfaction of others."

Volume 7 documents the dramatic events of the New York campaign and the ensuing New Jersey campaign, a seemingly endless string of American reverses and retreats terminated by surprising victories at Trenton and Princeton. The volume opens with Washington's withdrawal of most of his army from Manhattan Island north to White Plains, where on 28 October British and Hessian troops routed the American right wing on Chatterton hill. Although Washington subsequently succeeded in blocking any further British advance to the north, his indecisiveness about ordering the evacuation of Fort Washington, the sole remaining American post on Manhattan Island, led to the disastrous loss of the fort's large garrison and many valuable stores when General Howe's forces overran it on 16 November.

After the fall of Fort Lee on the west bank of the Hudson River four days later, Washington began retreating across New Jersey with his rapidly dwindling army. His repeated appeals for reinforcement by local militia and Continental troops remaining in New York fell largely on deaf ears, and in early December Washington was obliged to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, leaving New Jersey in enemy hands. From his Bucks County Headquarters Washington wrote his brother Samuel on 18 December: "If every nerve is not strained to recruit the New Army with all possible Expedition I think the game is pretty near up.... No Man I believe ever had a greater choice of difficulties & less the means of extricating himself than I have--However under a full perswation of the justice of our Cause I cannot but think the prospect will brighten." Washington's optimism was justified by his subsequent actions. His daring counterstrokes against a Hessian brigade at Trenton on 27 December and a British detachment at Princeton on 3 January not only reversed the strategic situation but also turned the tide of political defection that had theatened to engulf the middle states.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

Volume 5 covers the preliminary phase of the New York campaign, the period from mid-June to mid-August 1776 when the stage was set for Washington's greatest challenge yet as commander in chief of the Continental army. As the summer weeks passed, the British concentrated a massive military force in New York Harbor, bringing in thousands of Redcoats and German mercenaries backed by the guns of a large fleet. "The Powers of Despotism," Washington wrote in August, "are all combined against America], and ready to strike their most decisive Stroke." Not knowing exactly where the stroke would fall, Washington wrote urgently to Congress and the states seeking reinforcements for the extensive lines that he was obliged to defend, while vigorously pushing forward construction of fortifcations and efforts to obstruct the Hudson River. At every opportunity he sought and read any piece of intelligence regarding the enemy force and its intentions.

Washington could not focus his thoughts solely on the defense of New York City, however, for letters from the north informed him of the disastrous American retreat from Canada. That alarming situation elicited from Washington detailed consideration of the strategy to be pursued in defensing the upper end of the vital Hudson River-Lake Champlain corridor. Other correspondence concerned threats from internal enemies, conspiracies allegedly fomented by disaffected persons to undermine the American cause through subversion and sabotage. Such reports resulted in the execution of Thomas Hickey, a soldier in Washington's personal guard, for treachery in late June and the forced removal of many suspicious persons from New York City a short time later. Although the reading of the Declaration of Independence to the Continental army in early July boosted its morale, Washington continued his unrelenting efforts to check disorder and discord at all levels and to overcome the spirit of disunity that threatened the American cause as much as did British arms. "Let all distinctions of Nations, Countries, and Provinces," he told his men on 1 August, "be lost in the generous contest, who shall behave with the most Courage against the enemy, and the most kindness and good humor to each other." Washington's roles as miltary commander and political leader cannot be separated.

This volume covers the middle months of the siege of Boston when George Washington faced the delicate task of disbanding one army and recruiting another, all within musket shot of the British forces. Throughout the fall of 1775, assisted and sometimes thwarted by congressmen, New England officials, and fellow officers, Washington laid plans not merely to keep a besieging force around Boston and provide his men with winter necessities but also to remodel the army to make it more efficient and truly continental, intermixing officers and men without regard to their colonial identity. The numerous official letters Washington wrote and received during this period, his daily general orders, the records of his councils of war, and the minutes of his important October conference reveal a competent military administrator and a committed patriot attempting to create a professional American army which would transcend the narrow localism of the colonial past well in advance of the Declaration of Independence.

Unwilling to risk an attack on the main British army in Boston during the fall of 1775, Washington encouraged and monitored two major offensive efforts elsewhere: the outfitting of a small fleet of armed vessels to disrupt the flow of British supplies by sea to Boston and Canada and the two-pronged invasion of Canada led by Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold. Washington also dealt with the treasonous intrigues of Benjamin Church and John Connolly and with the burning of the seaport of Falmouth. He also received several unsolicited schemes for attacking the British fleet in Boston harbor, a steady stream of personal pleadings for discharges, and a laudatory verse written by the black poet Phillis Wheatley.

Substantial portions of Washington's correspondence for this period concern his personal business and family affairs. Most notable are the fourteen letters from his Mount Vernon manager, Lund Washington. They offer rare views into the daily operations of the plantation as well as into Washington's finances and land dealings. They provide valuable information about plans for remodeling the mansion house, proposals for defending it against British attack, and Martha Washington's travels culminating in her journey to join her husband at Cambridge.

This is the first volume of the four-volume Retirement Series, covering the interval between Washington's retirement from the presidency on 4 March 1797 and his death on 14 December 1799. Except for a trip to Philadelphia in 1798, Washington stuck close to home, only occasionally going from Mount Vernon into Alexandria or across the river to Georgetown and the new Federal City. The management and improvement of his farms at Mount Vernon were his major concern, and the pressing need for money forced him to give particular attention to the disposition of his large landholdings in the West. As Father of His Country he found himself not only entertaining a constant stream of visitors but also responding to a steady flow of letters from friends and strangers, foreign and domestic. From the start, senators, congressmen, Adams's cabinet members, and diplomats kept him informed of political developments. Washington's absence from the public state, never much more than a fiction, came to an end in July 1798 when his growing alarm over French policy and the bitter divisions in the body politic arising out of it led him to accept command of the army, with the promise to take the field in case of a French invasion. And in 1799 Washington for the first time became deeply involved in partisan electoral politics.

During the first ten months of his retirement, with which this volume deals, Washington was, as he said, busier than ever before, breaking in a new farm manager, repairing and refurbishing long-neglected buildings, hiring new overseers and a new gardener from Britain, and most difficult, and perhaps most important of all, getting a proper cook for Mrs. Washington.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

The ten-volume Colonial Series, covering the years 1748-1775, takes the young Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the American Revolution.

Volume 12 of the Presidential Series continues the fourth chronological series of The Papers of George Washington. The Presidential Series, when complete, will cover the eight precedent-setting years of Washington's presidency. This series includes the public papers written by or presented to Washington during his two administrations. Among the documents are Washington's messages to Congress, addresses from public and private bodies, applications for office and letters of recommendation, and documents concerning diplomatic and Indian affairs. Also included are Washington's private papers, consisting of family correspondence, letters to and from friends and acquaintances, and documents relating to the administration of his Mount Vernon plantation and the management of the presidential household. In the period covered by volume 12, mid-January through May 1793, Washington completed his first term as president and began his second term with a modest inauguration ceremony. Washington continued his efforts to keep the United States out of the expanding European war between France and a coalition that now included Great Britain. The behavior of Edmond Genet, the new French minister to the United States, and the presence of French privateers in American waters intensified disagreement among Americans over U.S. foreign policy, especially American obligations under its treaties with France. After extensive consultation with the cabinet, Washington issued a neutrality proclamation in April, but this did little to quell the debate. While the administration made arrangements for a forth-coming peace treaty at Lower Sandusky with the Indians of the Northwest Territory, the U.S. Army under General Anthony Wayne prepared for an Indian war. In addition, Washington monitored the development of the Federal District. He intervened in a dispute between the commissioners for the District of Columbia and their chief surveyor, Andrew Ellicott, and approved the architectural plans for the U.S. Capitol. As always, the president tended to his private financial affairs and the management of his farms at Mount Vernon, a task made more difficult by the death of his nephew and estate manager, George Augustine Washington.

n the period covered by volume 9, the fall and winter of 1791-92, Washington was busy dealing with a host of issues. Over forty letters to and from Washington between November 1791 and February 1792 concern the problems arising from Pierre L'Enfant's high-handedness as designer of the Federal City, particularly his destruction of the house of Daniel Carroll of Duddington, and L'Enfant's insistence that he not take orders from the Commissioners for the District of Columbia but receive his authority from Washington directly. Washington's nomination in late December 1791 of Thomas Pinckney, Gouverneur Morris, and William Short as ministers at London, Paris, and the Hague, respectively, set off a firestorm of congressional controversy about the meaning of the "advice and consent" provision of the Constitution. Washington believed that the Senate was required either to accept or reject his nominees, while many congressional leaders, who disliked the idea of a fixed diplomatic establishment, argued that only Congress could decide where or if the United States was to appoint resident ministers abroad. Although Washington eventually secured the appointment of Pinckney, Morris, and Short, the disagreement between the Senate and the administration over their relative authority, as well as the practical meaning of the constitutional provision, remained to be settled. In the wake of General Arthur St. Clair's defeat on 4 November, Washington and his secretary of war, Henry Knox, attempted to induce Congress to increase the size of the army, and they sought to rally popular support for yet another punitive expedition against the warring Indian tribes on the northwest frontier of the United States. To do so, in January 1792 Washington instructed Knox to prepare a statement, based on official government documents, revealing the causes of the Indian war and the administration's efforts to pacify the frontier region. Its publication, the preface to which took the form of a letter from Washington to Knox instructing the secretary of war to make the government's case to the American people, represents and early presidential effort to guide the public opinion an win popular support for a controversial policy.

Volume 8 of the Revolutionary War Series documents Washington's first winter at Morristown. Situated in the hills of north central New Jersey, Morristown offered protection against the British army headquartered in New York City yet enabled Washington to annoy the principal enemy outposts at Newark, Perth Amboy, and New Brunswick. To discover Howe's intentions for the next campaign, Washington refined his intelligence-gathering network in New Jersey and New York during the winter months and kept a watchful, if distant, eye on the British armies in Rhode Island and Canada.

Most of the remainder of Washington's time and efforts were directed toward the reorganization of the Continental army, which dwindled away rapidly following the victories at Trenton and Princeton. Unwilling to face the usual hardships of winter or the dangers of a new outbreak of smallpox, many men returned home when their enlistments expired. Desertion also rose dramatically, and Washington was reluctantly forced to depend upon militia. By mid-March Washington's army in New Jersey numbered only about 4,000 troops, nearly two-thirds of which were militia enlisted only to the end of the month.

Other important matters demanding Washington's attention included the reorganization of the hospital department and the creation of new hospitals, the reorganization of the commissary and clothier generals departments, the appointment of a wagonmaster, the establishment and placement of a new "Magazine, Laboratories, & Foundery for casting Cannon &c.", and continuing negotiations with the British on prisoner exchanges. The volume closes in late March with the good news that a much-anticipated shipment of arms, ammunition, andcloth had arrived from France for the Continental army.

Volume 1 of the Revolutionary War Series begins with Washington's address of 16 June 1775 accepting command of the Continental army and continues to the middle of September 1775. The focus of the volume is on Washington's initial effort to make an effective fighting force out of the green provincial army that he found besieging the city of Boston.

His military letters and orders for these three months deal extensively with his reorganization of the army, the instituting of new administrative procedures and standards of discipline, the teaching of duties to both officers and men, and the measures taken to overcome the army's perplexing supply problems, most notably the alarming shortage of gunpowder. They also touch on matters of strategy and tactics relating to schemes for reducing the British garrison in Boston, the arming of American vessels to intercept enemy supplies at sea, and the planning for Benedict Arnold's bold march to Quebec.

Much of the information upon which Washington based his decisions is contained in the letters that he received from his numerous correspondents. Included here are detailed reports of British military activities in and about Boston, along with the New England coast, in Canada, and in Virginia, as well as news of legislative actions and recommendations of men, to fill positions both high and low in the Continental army.

Supplementing the portrait of Washington the general provided by his official correspondence are a number of letters to and from relatives and friends in Virginia. These offer a more intimate view of the private man and his personal affairs. Of particular interest are the two letters that he wrote in June 1775 from Philadelphia to Martha Washington, rare survivals of the correspondence that Mrs. Washington destroyed shortly before her death.