svollga
replied to your post
“I’m so intrigued about the time Washington and some of his aides...”
Details!
Ok so winter 1778-1779 Washington set up headquarters in Middlebrook, New Jersey. However Washington went to Philadelphia to meet with congress. He took Harrison, Meade, Tilghman, Hamilton and Laurens with him and left McHenry and Gibbs at Middlebrook. Henry Laurens invited Washington (and I assume his aides) to stay at his house on Chestnut Street. They arrived on the 22nd of December and stayed until the 2nd of February.
The duel between Laurens and Lee took place on the 23rd of December.
In a letter to McHenry Tilghman writes about their time in Philadelphia:
I suppose you think we must be, by this time, so wedded to sweet Philada. that it will break our hearts to leave it. Far from it I assure you my Friend. I can speak for myself, and I am pretty certain I can answer for all, when I say, that we anxiously wait for the moment that gives us liberty to return to humble Middle Brook. Philada. may answer very well for a man with his pockets well lined, whose pursuit is idleness and dissipation. But to us who are not in the first predicament, and who are not upon the latter errand, it is intolerable. We seem to work hard, and yet we do nothing ; in fact we have no time to do any thing and that is the true reason why a great assembly do so little. A morning visit, a dinner at 5 o clock Tea at 8 or 9 supper and up all night is the round die in diem. Does not the Republic go on charmingly?
