Letters to the Council. 425

period: We have not hesitated to share every danger and difficulty
in common with our brother officers and have also been fortunate
enough to be of the Number of those who had the thanks of the
Commander in-chief for our conduct in a General Battle. We have
often been detached a great distance from the Grand Army upon
hard and disagreeable Service; And necessarily on our marches
incured greater expences. When we took commissions in the present
Regiment engaged in the common cause we were taught to believe
that we could render as much service there as in any other Corps
and by no means expected to be considered as aliens or excluded
any benefit common to officers of the same State. We have seen a
Resolution of Congress last spring calling for Returns from the
additional Regiments that the States severally might have Credit
for so many officers and soldiers and be accounted as part of their
Quota, in consequence of which the States of Massachusetts Bay,
Rhode Island & Connecticut with Pennsylvania have considered
the officers & Soldiers from their States (in the same Regiment with
ourselves) as part of their quota and given them all the benefits &
privileges of the States Troops, from whence we were induced to
believe that the State of Maryland not less generous than her
sister states had made a similar Provision for us untill undeceived
by the officers of that Line on our arival at this Place. When the
claims of our Country called us into the Field we chearfully left
the Pleasures and indulgences of retirement to encounter the hard-
ships & toils of war, not only to Protect the rights of mankind but
our own individual Liberty, and now when the war is apparently
drawing to a conclusion we shall reluctantly leave the work unfin-
ished for which we have made so many sacrifices; but the advanced
price of every necessary will not leave it in our Power to continue in
a Service in which we are so much interested unless some Provision
shall shortly be made for us. Relying on your Excellencys justice
and liberality of sentiment We are Your Excellency's Most Obed^t
H^l Serv^t

February 12

[Charless Hogg to Council]

[Asks discharge from army on account of " distressed condition "
of his " wife, pretty far advanced in her pregnancy," with her fifth
child.]

February 12

[Ben Ford, Lt. Col. to the Honble Genl Gist]

Sir We have not any Serjeants in the Sixth Regiment we Can
recommend as Qualified for appointments of Officers. We have
a Sufficient Number of Officers for the number of men now in the
Regiment, by the Time the Regiment is recruited there is every
reason to believe Young Gentlemen may be had that will do honor
to the Appointment The Officers in the sixth Regiment beg that
none of the serjeants from the line may be introduced into that
Regiment as Officers

February 12
Brown
Book No. 3
Letter
No. 34