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1777.]

GATES IN A PETULANT MOOD.

59

a moving one, and that consequently nothing but tents would serve our turn; and that, therefore, as there would be the greatest probability of your being stationary, you should endeavor to cover your troops with barracks and huts. Certainly this was

not a refusal of tents, but a request that you should, in our contracted situation, make every shift to do without them, or at least with as few as possible.

"The Northern army is, and ever has been, as much the object of my care and attention as the one immediately under my command. I will make particular inquiry of the quartermaster-general, concerning his prospect and expectations as to the article of tents; and if, as I said before, there appears a sufficiency for the whole army, you shall most willingly have your share. But, if there is not, surely that army whose movement is uncertain, must give up its claims for the present to that which must inevitably take the field the moment the weather will admit, and must continue in it the whole campaign.'

Notwithstanding this reply, Gates persisted in imputing sectional partiality to the commander-in-chief, and sought to impart the same idea to Congress. "Either I am exceedingly dull or unreasonably jealous," writes he to his correspondent Mr Lovell, "if I do not discover by the style and tenor of the letters from Morristown, how little I have to expect from thence. Generals are so far like parsons, they are all for christening their own child first; but, let an impartial moderating power decide between us, and do not suffer Southern prejudices to weigh heavier in the balance than the Northern." †

*Washington's Writings, Sparks, iv. 427.
† Gates's Papers, N. Y. Hist. Lib.

A letter from Mr. Lovell, dated the 23d of May, put an end to the suspense of the general with respect to his position. "Misconceptions of past resolves and consequent jealousies," writes he, "have produced a definition of the Northern department, and General Schuyler is ordered to take command of it. The resolve, also, which was thought to fix head-quarters at Albany, is repealed."

Such a resolve had actually been passed on the 22d, and Albany, Ticonderoga, Fort Stanwix, and their dependencies, were thenceforward to be considered as forming the Northern department. The envoy of Gates, bearing the letter in which he had carved out a command for Schuyler at Peekskill, arrived at Philadelphia too late. The general was already provided for.

Schuyler was received with open arms at Albany, on the 3d of June. "I had the satisfaction," writes he, "to experience the finest feelings which my country expressed on my arrival and reappointment. The day after my arrival, the whole county committee did me the honor in form to congratulate me.

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Gates was still in Albany, delaying to proceed with General Fermois to Ticonderoga until the garrison should be sufficiently strengthened. Although the resolve of Congress did but define his position, which had been misunderstood, he persisted in considering himself degraded, declined serving under General Schuyler, who would have given him the post at Ticonderoga in his absence; and obtaining permission to leave the department, set out on the 9th for Philadelphia, to demand redress of Congress.

General St. Clair was sent to take command of the troops at Ticonderoga, accompanied by Gen. de Fermois. As the whole force in the Northern department would not be sufficient to com

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