Guide to Native American Research

Representing federal correspondence and documents from the early republic, the Papers of the War Department contains over 2,000 documents pertaining to federal relations with more than forty Native American tribes. Finding a specific item on the site can be difficult without knowing the full scope of the collection or how individual documents are described. To assist researchers of Native American history, we compiled a list of nations and tribes, with all known variations of spelling, mentioned in the documents of the PWD (see below).

How to Transcribe Letterbooks

A letterbook is a bound collection of copies of letters sent and received by one person, usually organized chronologically. Clerks, who often had neat penmanship, were employed to create copies of their employer’s letters. Some early Americans wanted to utilize letterbooks when writing their memoirs; others simply found it useful and practical to have copies of their correspondence on hand. From a technological perspective, letterbooks were quite useful in the event that a person’s original correspondence got lost or, in the case of the War Department, fell victim to fire. From today’s perspective, a letterbook is akin to an email’s sent mail folder.

What is that word?

If you have transcribed a letter, rather than a bill or report, you might have come across a jumble of letters at the end of the letter, just before the sender’s signature. The most common would be “yr obt svt.” What does this mean?

Just as modern correspondence conventionally ends with “Sincerely” or “Best Wishes” (on paper, at least), there were phrases in common use for closing letters in the late eighteenth century. “Yr obt svt” is short for “Your obedient servant.” Sometimes letter writers used the longer “Your most humble and obedient servant,” which might get compressed to “yr most hmbl & obt svt.”

What is a Letterbook?

If you are looking at an image that contains multiple documents with unusually neat penmanship, you are looking at a letter book. Letter books are simply copies of original letters bound together in a book and usually organized chronologically. Making such hand written copies was the job of a clerk. Among many other qualities, clerks had to have good penmanship. That’s why these letters are so easy to read.
There are numerous letter books in the Papers of the War Department collections. The letter books of Generals such as Anthony Wayne, for example, furnish us a picture of his Fallen Timbers campaign-both in terms of what he sent to the War Department and what he received from Henry Knox. The letter books of accountants such as Joseph Howell and William Simmons have thousands of entries.

Nautical Terminology: Learning a New Language at the War Department

Before the formation of the Department of the Navy in 1798, naval affairs came under the direction of the War Department.   Among Washington’s Cabinet members, former bookseller, Continental artillery officer and staunch Federalist, Secretary of War Henry Knox was the most vigorous proponent for the development of an American Navy.  Against the objections of many Anti-Federalists, Congress nevertheless passed the Naval Act of 1794, approving expenditures of $688,888 for the construction of six frigates.  A contemporary living along America’s coast might catch a glimpse of the new American navy -beginning with the laying of the keel-at one of six shipyards: Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Gosport,  Virginia,  and Baltimore. Paid an annual salary of $2000, “naval constructors” were professional shipbuilders-a couple of the better known  were the Philadelphia Quakers Joshua Humphreys and Josiah Fox.   “Superintendents” were the Navy Captains who were expected to command the ships.  These included notables such as John Barry, Thomas Truxtun and Samuel Nicholson.  “Naval agents” such as Henry Jackson of Boston worked with the War Department to procure men and materials for the ships.  Shipyard clerks oversaw the day to day operations of the yard and kept track of expenditures.  With the building of a naval organization came a unique and confusing lexicon of nautical terminology.  Here are definitions for some of the terms found in this letter forwarded by Knox to the Secretary of Treasury containing Joshua Humphreys’ recommendations and estimates on the costs of procuring white oak timber and planking.

A Pair of Overalls

In the lists of articles of clothing which frequently appear in War Department correspondence there is an item which has a deceptively familiar name: overalls. Inventories list woolen and linen overalls for the troops, commanders write requesting additional overalls for their corps. Overalls were an important part of the suits of clothing issued to soldiers, but they did not in any way resemble the straps-over-the-shoulder coveralls people wear today.

Overalls were, very simply, trousers with a gaiter, which covered the top of the shoe. Unlike breeches, which only went to the knee, overalls covered the full length of the leg. The bottom of the leg flared out into the gaiter, with buttons on the flare for a tighter fit around the foot and sometimes a strap which went under the foot to keep the bottom of the pants from pulling up.

The War Department Fire and Compensation

The papers of the War Department – along with the other executive departments – relocated to Washington, D.C. from Philadelphia in the summer of 1800. Five months later on November 8, 1800, flames engulfed the new building. You can read one of the immediate reactions here. The devastation felt by Secretary Samuel Dexter in the wake of the fire shines through in the plainly, solemnly stated first sentence in another letter the same day: “On Saturday evening last my office with all the Records, Papers, &c. was consumed by fire.” The fire was an incalculable disaster for the young federal government, destroying valuable Indian, veterans, and military records that had been collected since the Revolutionary War. Dexter quickly wrote his subordinates in order to obtain much-needed copies of documents that had been lost. More than two centuries later the Papers of the War Departments is nearing completion of a digital reconstruction of that lost archive.

Ghost Author of Documents

In browsing or searching the files of the Papers of the War Department digital archive, you may come across the authors, “Elijah and Simon House“.  Investigating further, you’ll learn that they were contractors from Hebron, CT.  That is where their biographical information ends within our database.  As editors, we asked ourselves many times over who these two men were and why their names appeared on so many of our documents.

A Gill Filled with Taffia

Sound like a secret code?  In a way, it is.  Both the word “gill” and “taffia” are relics from 18th century language that described a unit of measure and a type of alcohol, respectively.  The words  first appeared in War Department correspondence on September 25, 1790 in a letter from James O’Fallon to George Washington.  The letter discussed the South Carolina based Yazoo Company, the Choctaw Nation, and lists various articles for rations given to the troops by contract with the merchant Yazoo.

Allowance of Spirits

It was common in the late 18th century American army to provide a daily allowance of “spirits” to each soldier. Generally the allowance was measured in “gills,” a gill being the equivalent of four fluid ounces.  Section 6 of  “An Act to augment the Army of the United States” specifically provided that “…every non-commissioned officer, private and musician shall receive daily…a gill of rum, brandy, or whiskey.” (1 Stat. 604-05) [July 16, 1798]  However, Congress must have had second thoughts about the allowance because only eight months later, section 22 of a law entitled “An Act for the better organizing of the Troops of the United States (1 Stat. 749-55) [March 3, 1799]  stated “That it shall be lawful for the commander-in-chief of the army, or the commanding officer of any separate detachment or garrison thereof, at his discretion, to cause to be issued, from time to time to the troops under his command…rum, whiskey, and other ardent spirits in quantities not exceeding half a gill to each man per day…” In his General Orders of June 13, 1799, Inspector General Alexander Hamilton discussed “issuing Liquor to the Troops” and directed that the allowance for each man should be a half gill per day “whenever the Contractors can furnish the supply.” He added, however, that commanders had the discretionary power of “issuing for fatigue service or on Extraordinary Cases.” In other words, commanders could reward their men for additional work or exceptional service with additional rations of liquor.  When Hamilton discussed the matter in his letter of August 26, 1799 to John J. U. Rivardi, he observed that although most men had enlisted when the allowance of spirits was half-gill per day “…Those who entered the Service whilst the act of Congress which allows a gill pr. day was in force…have some colour to contend that the witholding from them of any part of that allowance would be a breach of contract.” Hamilton’s comment would seem to indicate that the allowance of spirits was a significant factor in the decision of those who enlisted in the army. Indeed, it may have been so significant  that cutting that allowance in half might constitute a legal justification for terminating the enlistment.

Creation of the War Department

When the Continental Congress was established, it appointed a Commander-in-Chief and set about to raise an army.  But there was no War Department back then. Instead, Congress ran the war by committees, which were usually established on an ad hoc basic to deal with specific issues such as supply or disciplinary matters.  Later, in June 1776, Congress established a committee called “Board of War and Ordnance.”  Absorbing all of the work of the various committees, the Board found itself meeting sometimes twice a day. Its chairman, John Adams, lamented that the duties kept him in “continual employment, not to say drudgery,” until he left Congress.  In July 1777, Congress created a Board of War, which gradually included military officers, including Major General Thomas Mifflin and Colonel Timothy Pickering.  Later,  Saratoga hero Horatio Gates  would become its Chairman,  and Thomas Conway, of Conway Cabal fame, the Inspector General.