inoculation, including their attendants, amounted to about one
thousand.

In a letter of the sixth of March to Governor Trumbull, calling on the
state of Connecticut for two thousand militia to be marched to
Peekskill, after complaining of the militia he had called from the
southern states, who came and went as their own caprice might direct,
he says, "I am persuaded, from the readiness with which you have ever
complied with all my demands, that you will exert yourself in
forwarding the aforementioned number of men, upon my bare request. But
I hope you will be convinced of the necessity of the demand, when I
tell you, in confidence, that after the 15th of this month, when the
time of General Lincoln's militia expires, I shall be left with the
remains of five Virginia regiments, not amounting to more than as many
hundred men, and parts of two or three other continental battalions,
all very weak. The remainder of the army will be composed of small
parties of militia from this state and Pennsylvania, on whom little
dependence can be put, as they come and go when they please. I have
issued peremptory orders to every colonel in the regular service, to
send in what men he has recruited, even if they amount to but one
hundred to a regiment: if they would do this, it would make a
considerable force upon the whole. The enemy must be ignorant of our
numbers and situation, or they would never suffer us to remain
unmolested; and I almost tax myself with imprudence in committing the
secret to paper; not that I distrust you, of whose inviolable
attachment I have had so many proofs; but for fear the letter should
by any accident fall into other hands than those for which it is
intended."

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