Washington's aides-de-camp explained

Washington's aides-de-camp during the American Revolutionary War were officers of the Continental Army appointed to serve on General George Washington's headquarters staff, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The headquarters staff also included one military secretary, a full colonel.

Washington had a small number of aides-de-camp at any given time, with relatively frequent turnover. A total of 32 men were appointed to these positions, and served between July 4, 1775, and December 23, 1783. Other people worked as volunteer aides or assistants, and helped with office duties when needed.

Headquarters staff

The Second Continental Congress unanimously elected George Washington to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army on June 15, 1775. He traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and took command of the siege of Boston on July 3. His headquarters staff initially consisted of his military secretary, Joseph Reed, and one aide-de-camp, Thomas Mifflin.

The responsibilities of the headquarters staff included managing Washington's military correspondence, making copies of each day's General Orders (to be distributed to the commanding officer at each military post), and making copies of individual orders. The 19-year-old artist John Trumbull, who was skilled at drawing maps, was appointed an aide-de-camp on July 27, and served three weeks before being transferred.

The Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia authorized one military secretary and three aides-de-camp for the commander-in-chief, but this number soon proved insufficient. Washington's pleas for Congress to authorize two additional aides were ignored, so he augmented his staff with volunteers. Six aides-de-camp, George Baylor, Edmund Randolph, Robert Hanson Harrison, George Lewis, Stephen Moylan, William Palfrey, were appointed by Washington between August 1775 and March 1776, some replacing predecessors who had been transferred. Finally, in January 1778, Congress granted the commander-in-chief the power to appoint headquarters staff as he saw fit.

The military secretary held the rank of colonel in the Continental Army, with a monthly pay of $66 in 1775 (equivalent to about $2,050 in 2018). The aides-de-camp held the rank of lieutenant colonel, with a monthly pay of $33 in 1775 (equivalent to about $1,025 in 2018). The aides-de-camp wore a green riband across their chests as a rank insignia. Washington referred to the headquarters staff as "my family." Some were the sons of his friends and relatives, but above all he valued talent:

The Secretaries and Aid De Camps to the Commander in chief ought not to be confined to the line for plain and obvious reasons. The number which the nature and extent of his business require, in addition to the many drawn from the line to fill the different offices of the staff, when it is considered, that they ought all to be men of abilities, may seem too large a draft upon the line. But a consideration still more forcible is, that in a service so complex as ours, it would be wrong and detrimental to restrict the choice; the vast diversity of objects, occurrences and correspondencies, unknown in one more regular and less diffusive; constantly calling for talents and abilities of the first rate, men who possess them, ought to be taken, wherever they can be found.

On the battlefield, the aides-de-camp were couriers, delivering Washington's orders on horseback and gathering or relaying intelligence on enemy troop movement. Samuel Blachley Webb was wounded at the October 28, 1776, Battle of White Plains and at the December 26, 1776, Battle of Trenton. John Fitzgerald and John Laurens were both wounded at the June 28, 1778, Battle of Monmouth, where Alexander Hamilton's horse was shot from under him. George Johnston served barely four months, before dying of disease at the Morristown headquarters. Tench Tilghman served longer than any other aide-de-camp: more than seven years, about half of it as a volunteer.

The commander-in-chief's headquarters staff was disbanded on December 23, 1783, when General Washington resigned his commission to the Second Continental Congress, which was then meeting at Annapolis, Maryland. Aides David Humphreys, David Cobb, and Benjamin Walker escorted him to and from the ceremony. Many members of Washington's headquarters staff earned his trust and friendship and some later served in his presidential administration.

Additional aides

In 1906, Worthington Chauncey Ford, chief of the Manuscripts Division at the Library of Congress, published a list of Washington's 32 military secretaries and aides-de-camp. He added Martha Washington as number 33, acknowledging her unofficial clerical help at Washington's headquarters.

Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., former editor of The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series, adds to the list Washington's nephew, George Augustine Washington - a volunteer aide from September 1779 to May 1781, and from December 1781 to May 1782.

Military secretaries

Appointed aides-de-camp

Volunteer aides

Possible aides

Notes and References

  1. News: 1938-11-10. Burial ground of Mathias Swartzel, 1739-1820, Aide to Gen George Washington.. 17. The Dayton Herald. 2021-04-24.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Washington's aides-de-camp".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.