It was Tuesday, July 16, 1776.
In Exeter, New Hampshire, the Committee of Safety had received the Declaration of Independence.
Farther south, George Washington was learning how difficult it would be to turn that Declaration into an army.
Five days earlier, he had praised the Connecticut Light Horse for racing to New York before the militia could arrive. Now their officers faced a choice: perform ordinary soldier duties away from their horses or leave.
Washington’s answer was blunt.
Independence was still arriving in one place.
In another, Washington was already enforcing what it required.
The DX Brief
- The New Hampshire Committee of Safety acknowledged receipt of the Declaration of Independence in Exeter on July 16, 1776.
- Washington answered Thomas Seymour and other field officers of the Connecticut Light Horse.
- Washington said men who would not mount guard, perform garrison duty or serve apart from their horses could no longer help defend New York.
- The mounted contingent had arrived about 400 or 500 strong only days earlier.
- Congress approved half a dollar per week for each Connecticut horseman to maintain his horse while Washington considered it necessary.
- Congress called 2,000 Flying Camp troops toward New York and urged Connecticut to send every militia member it could spare.
- Washington told Congress the next day that dismissing the horsemen reduced his force by about 500.
The Declaration reaches Exeter
The Declaration still moved at the speed of a horse.
Congress had ordered printer John Dunlap to produce the first broadside copies after adopting the Declaration on July 4. John Hancock sent them to colonial governments, committees of safety and military leaders, but the paper needed nearly two weeks to reach New Hampshire.
The New Hampshire Committee of Safety acknowledged its copy in a July 16 letter to Hancock.
“Such a Declaration was what they most Ardently wished for,” the committee wrote. “And I Verily believe it will be Received with great Satisfaction, Throughout this Colony, a very few Individuals excepted.”
Exeter tradition later credited 22-year-old John Taylor Gilman with reading the Declaration aloud to the town. Historians describe that public reading as legend rather than a fully documented event.
The words that had already reached Washington’s army in New York were still becoming real to Americans farther north.
But in Washington’s camp, independence had already moved beyond words.
Five days from praise to dismissal
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Washington told Hancock on July 11 that 400 or 500 Connecticut Light Horse had arrived to help defend New York.
Washington praised their “Zeal and laudable attachment to the Cause of their Country.” He said the men had agreed to remain as long as needed, even if they had to pay to maintain their horses.
They pastured the animals around Kingsbridge at half a dollar per week each.
Washington had already questioned whether the army should keep the horses. He now told their officers that the animals could not be brought into action where the army needed the men. What he needed most was manpower that could guard posts, build defenses and perform garrison duty.
By the night of July 15, the disagreement had reached Washington directly.
The field officers followed with a letter on July 16. Washington answered them the same day.
Washington draws the line
Washington addressed Thomas Seymour and the other field officers in a brief reply.
“In Answer to yours of this Date, I can only repeat to you what I said last Night,” Washington wrote.
Then he stated the issue.
If the men considered themselves exempt from “the common Duties of a Soldier,” would not “mount Guard,” perform “Garrison Duty” or serve apart from their horses, Washington wrote, “they can be no longer of Use here, where Horse cannot be brought to Action.”
He closed the decision with six words: “I do not care how soon they are dismissed.”
Washington did not challenge their willingness to support independence. Only days earlier, he had praised their motives and standing in the community.
He challenged the idea that mounted status placed them above the work his army needed.
Congress pays for the horses
The timing produced a striking contrast.
On the same day Washington answered the Connecticut officers, Congress approved the horse allowance he had described five days earlier.
The congressional journal allowed each Connecticut light horseman half a dollar per week to maintain his horse “for so long time, only, as the general shall think it necessary for such horses to continue in the service.”
Congress was still answering Washington’s July 11 report while Washington was ending the arrangement in New York.
The resolution gave Washington the final decision on how long the horses were necessary. His July 16 letter made his judgment clear: the horses could not be brought into action where the army needed the men.
Money could cover pasture.
It could not settle the question of command.
Discipline costs Washington 500 men
Washington explained the consequences to Congress on July 17.
Washington admitted their help was badly needed and “might be of Essential service in case of an Attack.”
He dismissed them anyway.
Allowing their claimed exemptions, Washington wrote, “would set an Example to others and might produce many ill consequences.”
The decision reduced the army’s latest return by “about 500” men.
Washington chose a smaller force over an army in which one contingent could decide which duties it would perform.
Congress calls for more men
The loss came as Congress tried to push more manpower toward New York.
Its July 16 resolutions told Washington to call 2,000 men from the Flying Camp in New Jersey to help defend the city. Congress asked New Jersey to replace those troops with an equal number of militia.
Congress also urged Connecticut to send “all the militia thereof, which can be spared” into New York until the requested state quotas arrived.
That was the pressure surrounding Washington’s decision.
Congress wanted Connecticut to send every available militiaman. Washington was sending hundreds of Connecticut horsemen home.
The contradiction was only apparent.
Washington needed men, but he needed them under one command and one standard of duty.
Why it mattered
July 16, 1776, exposed a problem the Declaration could not solve.
The colonies had declared themselves one country. Their soldiers still arrived under different laws, customs, expectations and ideas about service.
The Connecticut horsemen had answered the emergency quickly. Washington had called them men of reputation and property. Congress had agreed to help pay for their horses.
None of that placed them above guard duty.
Washington understood the danger of making an exception. If one unit could refuse fatigue duty because it considered itself cavalry, another could claim a different privilege. An army assembled from separate states could fracture into separate rules.
So Washington accepted the immediate loss.
The Declaration had announced a new nation in Philadelphia and reached another state in Exeter.
In New York, Washington was trying to create the discipline that might keep that nation alive.
On July 16, independence required more than men willing to arrive.
It required soldiers willing to serve where they were needed.
Tomorrow on Road to Independence
July 17, 1776: Washington told Congress that about 500 Connecticut horsemen were heading home, reported that British boats had tried to land near Haverstraw and rejected another letter addressed only to “George Washington Esquire.”
Follow the full Road to Independence series here.
