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Joseph Howell letter December 17th 1795

                                                                                          WD Accountant Office
                                                                                          December 17th 1794
Sir
I inclose the following papers. Vizt. A Muster roll of your recruits to 1st instant.
Ensign Voss acct. & Vouchers of expenditures in search of deserters being returned to you.  Also A duplicate pay roll of Capt. Hannah’s recruits from 1st April to 31st July 1794 and A return of men inlisted by Captain Hannah stationed at Norfolk.
The muster roll is returned in order that it may be certified on oath to be a true statement of your recruits.  Agreeable to the inculor letter of the Secretary of War dated March 1st 1793.  When this done and roll returned to the Office the pay will be remitted.
Ensign Voss’ Accounts and vouchers returned. Being inadmissible in their present State.  If it is necessary to advance monies for any purpose the person or persons receiving it should be held accountable to produce regular vouchers to the person who made the advance for the expenditure thereof, which being so vouched would then become proper charged against the U States.  As it appers that the persons to whom Ensign Voss advances the monies are Solders and probably yet with him, to remedy the defect I would advise that he should state an acct against the U States for the monies actually expended and let those persons qualify to it and that they received the money for the same from Mr. Voss.  The pay roll of Capt Hannah’s men forwarded to you in order that you may pay the sums due the men and take their receipt accordingly for this purpose the sum of two hundred & thirty seven dollars and 30 cents being the amount of the pay due to Capt. Hannah and his recruits from 1st April to 31st July 1794 agreeably to the said roll and which was submitted to Edward Carrington Esq a considerable time since, is now directed to be placed in your hands.  It became necessary in the arrangement of the Office to pay the whole amount to you a surplus will of course remain being the pay of Capt. Hannah and probably of some men whom  some casualty has known out of service or possibly removed from your command, of which it will be proper for you to give information.  This surplus you will apply to the recruiting service.  The sum thereof due Capt. Hannah will be taken in view on a final settlement of his account in this office.  The return of men inlisted by Capt. Hannah is expected to embrace all those stationed at Norfolk, in order to inform of the dates of their inlistments that you may be enabled to make up a muster roll.  I now furnish you with some muster rolls for detachments, when the present month is expired you will please to take musters of the whole troops under your command, duplicates of which being transmitted I shall remit you their pay to be disbursed by you.  If you should not be possessed of the state of their inlistment be pleased to take immediate measures to obtain them.
Capt Rich. S. Blackburn                                                                       I am Sir & C
Norfolk, Virginia                                                                                Joseph Howell

Fort Norfolk Documents

Before 1794, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1816, 1817, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865

Source of Information

Papers of the War Department 1784 to 1800

Papers of the War Department is a project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Fire destroyed the War Department office in 1800. For decades historians believed that its files, and the window they provide into the early federal government, had been lost forever. This collection unites copies of the lost files in a digital archive that reconstitutes this invaluable historical resource.