REPRINT

OF

THE ORIGINAL LETTERS

FROM

George WASHINGTON TO JOSEPH REED,

DURING

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

REFERRED TO IN THE PAMPHLETS OF LORD MAHON AND MR. SPARKS.

BY

WILLIAM B. REED.

PHILADELPHIA:

A. HART, LATE CAREY AND HART.

1852.

INTRODUCTION.

THE object of this republication of original letters may be briefly stated. In or before the year 1834, I forwarded to Mr. Sparks, then engaged in preparing his edition of the Works of Washington, copies of a series of letters from the Commander-in-Chief to my ancestor, General Reed, written from Cambridge in the years 1775 and 1776. They were private and confidential, and, on that account, very interesting and valuable. Mr. Sparks printed a number of these letters. He thought it right to omit certain passages in them, and to make some alterations of phraseology, and it is possible, though I have no recollection of it, he apprised me of having done so at the time. He certainly did, at a later period, in 1838.

In 1847, thirteen years after Mr. Sparks's publication, appeared my Biography of Reed. In it, I printed the Washington letters from the originals; the only variations being occasional corrections of grammar and spelling, and the omission of one or