Dan Silva has contributed more material to our public documents exhibit. Thank you again, Dan.

These new additions include letters from South Carolina's Col. John Laurens to his father Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress. This unique father-and-son relationship between the President of Congress and a personal aide to Washington provides us with a special view on the events of autumn 1777.

Colonel John Laurens, a native of South Carolina and a staunch abolitionist, was a valued member of Washington's military "family." With direct access to Washington and the daily affairs of the Continental Army's headquarters, Col. John Laurens views can be regarded as some of the best informed perspectives on the Philadelphia Campaign. Just as importantly, Colonel Laurens had the ear and the implicit confidence of his father at the head of Congress, so this correspondence may be assumed to have had great influence over public policy and Congress's ongoing faith in Washington's leadership.