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My Dear General:

You being about to leave the Southern Army will perhaps put an end to that communication which has for some time past existed between us. However, I should think myself greatly remiss in point of gratitude & justice to your Character in suffering the Correspondence to close without acknowledging your politeness and Attention to me during your Command in this Department, and thanking you in the warmest terms for the confidence you have been pleased to place in my attention to the duties you have committed to me. What light your Conduct in the Southern department may stand in, to the Eyes of those who cannot or will not also take into view the embarrassing circumstances under which you have been perplexed, I cannot undertake to say. But I am convinced that those who have perception & liberality enough to make a due adjustment of them will receive impressions very different from those opinions which occasioned your recall from the Southern Army.

Your successor, General Greene, is my Friend, & I have been made happy, in my ride with him to this place, to find his opinion of the Matter results from having duly weighed all the circumstances which has attended your Situation, & he has generously represented them to such persons as we have fallen in Company

with who were blindly led away by having only considered events.

I have communicated to him the instructions you have been pleased to honor me with, which have met with his entire approbation.

Be assured, my Dear General, that you leave the Southern Army possessed of my Affection & good opinion, & that my best wishes follow you.

P. S. If you will, call at Colo. Mumford's on your way northwardly, I can promise a welcome reception.

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