Below is a transcript of a letter from Richard Howell to his friend, and Commanding Officer, Colonel Israel Shreve about some personal letters Richard wrote to his future wife, Kaziah Burr, that were left unattended by the mail carrier and opened by an unknown individual. The letters were then presented to “the council,” presumably the Quaker Council of Elders. This greatly incensed Richard. It is known that Kaziah was a Quaker. Quakers, being anti-war, generally discouraged their daughters from being involved with military officers.

This page collects excerpts from primary source correspondence — drawn from The Writings of George Washington and the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress — documenting Major Richard Howell’s role as an intelligence officer and field commander during the Revolutionary War.

Richard Howell’s Intelligence Operations, 1778–1779#

The greater part of the New Jersey soldiers’ time was occupied by such mundane duties as mounting guard, cutting wood, and maintaining garrisons in several towns in the area. There were occasional opportunities during this period for excitement or at least a change in the mundane rounds of daily living.