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Sir:

The recruits lately raised for the Continental Battalions of this State are on their march for the upper part of the State of South Carolina. Gen'l Sumner mentions to me the high hills of Santee or Broad River as proper places, at this season of the year, for their encampment until their services may be required in the lower part of the Country, and to one of these places I expect they will march immediately; the number is inconsiderable. I have not received a return of the whole, but do not believe they will

exceed three hundred; the Militia has been drafted so as to aid from them the number deficient of 2,000 voted by the General Assembly. Some of them were embodied, but the scarcity of grain, the warm and unhealthy season, and there not being an apparent necessity for their marching at present, were inducements to the disbanding the Militia embodied until further orders. They are to hold themselves in readiness to assemble on the shortest notice. These circumstances I thought it necessary to inform you of, and will be obliged to your Excellency to let me know by the return of the Bearer, or sooner, if practicable, what time you wish the Militia to arrive in your State, as they are to serve only three months after passing the limits of this, and the place you would wish them to march, and also if there are provisions lodged in the Route after they get into that State.

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