1776.] A WAR OFFICE ESTABLISHED. 209 Maryland, and likewise engaged vull tre 1st be stationed in the Jerseys for the defart of the Wading on was, morbo, era mutand, de to fee militia. important revat of Ma bme it of a my office. Milit coforth a 1eruatio» i Odrance, was to 4. was composed of fe Frison Roger & with Richard Peters no 12th of June. Phiahia, Washington equat Attrations "re of the old (tock of End; belag ral James (or adherent of royuty in t.. time , but, who p over to Irland, after tas eir fathe., Carles Clinton, grabs b. 129 and sufflet in 1 ve the DM 1776.] A WAR OFFICE ESTABLISHED. 209 Delaware and Maryland, and likewise engaged until the 1st December, should be stationed in the Jerseys for the defence of the Middle colonies. Washington was, moreover, empowered, in case of emergency, to call on the neighboring colonies for temporary aid with their militia. Another important result of his conferences with Congress was the establishment of a war office. Military affairs had hitherto been referred in Congress to committees casually appointed, and had consequently been subject to great irregularity and neglect. Henceforth a permanent committee, entitled the Board of War and Ordnance, was to take cognizance of them. The first board was composed of five members; John Adams, Colonel Benjamin Harrison, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, and Edward Rutledge; with Richard Peters as secretary. It went into operation on the 12th of June. While at Philadelphia, Washington had frequent consultations with George Clinton, one of the delegates from New York, concerning the interior defences of that province, especially those connected with the security of the Highlands of the Hudson, where part of the regiment of Colonel James Clinton, the brother of the delegate, was stationed. The important part which these brothers were soon to act in the military affairs of that province, and ultimately in its political history, entitles them to a special notice. They were of the old Clinton stock of England; being descended from General James Clinton, an adherent of royalty in the time of the civil wars, but who passed over to Ireland, after the death of Charles I. Their father, Charles Clinton, grandson of the general, emigrated to America in 1729, and settled in Ulster, now Orange County, just above the Highlands of the Hudson. Though not more than fifty miles from the city of New York, it was at that time on the borders of a wilderness, where every house had at times to be a fortress. Charles Clinton, like most men on our savage frontier in those days, was a warrior by necessity, if not by choice. He took an active part in Indian and French wars, commanded a provincial regiment stationed at Fort Herkimer, joined in the expedition under General Bradstreet, when it passed up the valley of the Mohawk, and was present at the capture of Fort Frontenac. His sons, James and George, one twenty, the other seventeen years of age, served in the same campaign, the one as captain, the other as lieutenant; thus taking an early lesson in that school of American soldiers, the French war. James, whose propensities were always military, continued in the provincial army until the close of that war; and afterwards, when settled on an estate in Ulster County, was able and active in organizing its militia. George applied himself to the law, and became successful at the bar, in the same county. Their father, having laid aside the sword, occupied for many years, with discernment and integrity, the honorable station of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died in Ulster County, in 1773, in the eighty-third year of his age, "in full view of that revolution in which his sons were to act distinguished parts." With his latest breath he charged them" to stand by the liberties of their country." They needed no such admonition. had been heart and hand in the cause. From the very first, they for years in the New York legislature, signalizing himself by his zeal as one of an intrepid minority in opposing ministerial op |