Coudray Calls for Acceleration of the Delaware River Fortifications
COUDRAY CALLS FOR ACCELERATION OF THE DELAWARE RIVER FORTIFICATIONS
August 6, 1777
... It is necessary to procure some remedy for the present weakness of the first line, by putting ourselves in a State of protecting the second and of giving thereby time to the army to arrive.
I offer to continue in this respect my care and that of the commissioned and non Commissioned Officers who attend me; but if his Excellency intends that their care should not be useless, and that an invincible disgust should not succeed the most ardent zeal, it is absolutely necessary to cause a change in the conduct, which has been observed hitherto, and to accelerate the slowness of the Civil and Military administration, to which the Congress addressed us, to procure the means of execution.
It is necessary ... that the Honourable Congress themselves order without delay. 1st. A Thousand effective Workmen every day for Billingsport who are to work on holy days, and Sundays, under the proper direction of the Engineers whom I have there. 2nd. The necessary tools, as well for these Workmen, as for my Artillery Workmen, whom I shall employ to construct the Batteries, and to repair the Carriages intended either for this or Mifflin Fort in the actual circumstances; those that I keep at Billingsport and here for this purpose having not yet been able in spite of my repeated solicitations to obtain this month past neither all the tools they want nor even Clothes. 3rd. 200 other Workmen every day at Fort Mifflin and an hundred at Red bank under the same conditions with the former. Provided this request be granted, I engage to put these three places in a State of defence in the course of this Month. Viz., to be defended Billingsport with 400 Men and 80 Cannoniers; Fort Mifflin with 600 and 500 [50?] Cannoniers, Red bank with 200 Men and 20 Cannoniers.
During the same time, I shall employ the rest of my Engineers to execute suitably to the examination of the five places of encampment to be taken between Marcus Hook and Philadelphia ....
I ask for these Engineers no other assistance, besides the horses, and a Man to serve them and carry their instruments ....
-Washington Papers, roll 25.