On the twenty-ninth of May, Colonel Thomas Thomas informed the Provincial Congress that Elijah Hunter, who had been Second Lieutenant in Captain Mills's Company, from Bedford, during the Campaign of 1775, 2 and who was a member of the County Committee of 1776-77, 3 representing that Town, was desirous of raising a Grenadier Company, to be attached to the Regiment of Westchester-county Militia, of
1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M., May 21, " 1776."
2 Vide pages 100, 101, ante.
3 Members of a Committee for Westcheeler-counly^Eistorical Manuscript, etc.: Miscellaneous Papers, xxxviii., 309.
which Thomas was the Colonel ; and it was intended that, of that Company, Elijah Hunter should be the Captain ; * Richard Sackett, the First Lieutenant ; 6 Silas Miller, the Second Lieutenant ; 6 and Jeremiah Lounsberry the Ensign. 5 The Colonel also solicited Commissions for all these aspirants to official authority, although there was not the slightest pretense that a single Private had been enlisted ; and, of course, since a Thomas had made the request, the Commissions were "immediately issued to those gentlemen." 6
On the first of June 1776, the Continental Congress made a requisition for six thousand men from the Colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, " to be employed to reinforce " the Army in Canada and to keep up the communi- " cation with that Province ; " ' on the third of June, a second requisition was made, by the same Congress, for thirteen thousand, eight hundred men from the Colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, " to be employed to reinforce the "Army at New York;" 8 the eleven Battalions already " raised and ordered to be raised for the protec- "tion of the four New England Colonies," were declared to be '' sufficient," for that purpose ; 9 and a third requisition was also made for ten thousand men from the Colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, " for a Flying Camp, to be immediately " established in the Middle Colonies." 10