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Bryan, George.

[Letter, signed, to Col. Joseph Kirkbride or Col. George Wall regarding the directing of militia to guard British soldiers defeated at the Battle of Saratoga as they pass through Pennsylvania.]

Philadelphia, 26 November 1778. 2 pp. manuscript in ink on bifolium, 12.25” x 7.5”. Addressed, sealed, and docketed on p. 4. CONDITION: Good, document tape repairs along a few old horizontal and vertical folds.

A letter by the acting president of the Pennsylvania executive council, relaying orders from General Washington for a guard of militia to march British and Hessian prisoners of the Battle of Saratoga—the so-called “Convention Army”— through Pennsylvania on their way from Boston to Virginia.

The letter, dated “In Council” and signed by Vice President of Pennsylvania George Bryan (serving as acting president since the death of Thomas Wharton the preceding May), instructs either Col. Joseph Kirkbride or Col. George Wall “to call into service, with all possible expedition, the first class of the militia of the county of Bucks” to march the Convention Army across the state, from Easton, on the New Jersey border, through Reading and Lancaster, and finally to Hanover. These orders come from “His Excellency General Washing…thro the Board of War,” and “If the first class [of militia] has been called out,” Bryan instructs,

then the next in order is to March. His Excellency’s letter has, by some means, been several days on the road, which makes it but too probable that there is danger of the troops being delayed in their march if the utmost expedition is not used in sending forward the militia.

It is expected that the militia will furnish themselves with arms as far as it is in their power as there is some uncertainty of their being supplied in the county of Northampton; but there must be no delay in their march. If there be any deficiencies you will give notice to the Council, that orders may be issued to supply them at Easton as far as it is possible.

Docketing on page four records receipt of the letter by George Wall the following day: “Received this By Express from Cormick November the 27th about 6 OClock in the evening——G.W.”

The Convention Army—named after the articles of convention agreed upon between Lieutenant-General Burgoyne and Major General Gates upon British surrender at Saratoga—was initially to be returned to Britain in exchange for their pledge not to re-enter the war. Agreements like these were not uncommon, and spared the victors the burden of so many prisoners of war. The revolutionary public opposed the release of enemy soldiers, however, and the Continental Congress ultimately fell in line, finding means of indefinitely stalling ratification of the Convention. The captured soldiers, initially numbering some 5,800, thus became a “threatening nuisance” (Halverson), and were moved through several purgatories, first in Boston (where some 1,300 escaped during the year they waited to set sail), then in Virginia, and then (to keep them away from British forces and would-be liberators) in Maryland, where they were held until the end of the war in 1783. Approximately 600 men would escape during the march south, and others died during their years of captivity.

George Bryan was an Irish-born Philadelphia merchant and politician who was elected the first Vice President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania (equivalent to lieutenant governor) and in both a political and a business capacity was a key Revolutionary organizer in the colony. He was also an important abolitionist, and after his vice presidency he served in the General Assembly and as a judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in which capacity he drafted what would become the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, making Pennsylvania the first of the original thirteen colonies to pass such an act. It was this legislation that prompted President Washington, during his term and residence in Philadelphia, to rotate his slaves across the Virginia state line “every six months to prevent their legal emancipation” (Cannon).

An urgent Revolutionary War letter by the acting Vice President of Pennsylvania, arranging militia escort for the political pawn and logistical headache that was the Convention Army.

REFERENCES: Cannon, Alexandria. “Gradual Abolition Act of 1780” at George Washington’s Mount Vernon online; “Gov. George Bryan” at National Governors Association online; Mumford, Brian. “Breaking the Law of War” at Friends Of The Saratoga Battlefield online; Halverson, Sean. “Dangerous Prisoners: Confining the Convention Army in American Space during the American Revolution” at Mississippi State University online.

Item #9817

Price: $7,500.00

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