Horatio Gates Autograph Letter Signed. One page, 6.5" x 8", July 17, 1776, "Tyonderoga", written to an unnamed recipient...

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Horatio Gates Autograph Letter Signed. One page, 6.5" x 8", July 17, 1776, "Tyonderoga", written to an unnamed recipient. In full:
Sir
Lieut. Colonel Morgan Lewis is sent by me with Dispatches of consequence for General Schuyler & you will assist him with a Horse, and all in your power to forward him on his way to Albany.
I am
Yr. Hum: Servant
Horatio Gates
Maj. Genl.
P.S. Col. Lewis has my positive order not to deliver his Dispatches into any person hands but those they are intended for.

In 1775, Horatio Gates, a British soldier, offered his services to the Continental Congress. By the time this letter was written, he was serving as a major general in command of the Northern Department, which had recently retreated southward out of Canada. Gates had abandoned Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain, a move that was unfavorably viewed by many, including General Washington. Gates writes this letter from Ticonderoga, a fort seventeen miles south of Fort Crown Point. He was using Fort Ticonderoga to maintain his control over Lake Champlain. Gates was later censured for abandoning Crown Point and demoted to a position of assistance to General Philip Schuyler, his replacement. After Schuyler was later defeated by the British at Ticonderoga in 1777, Gates was reinstated as commander of the army. Morgan Lewis, sent by Gates with dispatches for Schuyler, was a Declaration of Independence signer, quartermaster general of the Northern Department, and future third governor of New York. Affixed below the letter is a short caption which reads, "GATES, HORATIO. First Adj.-Gen. of the Army; Conqueror of Burgoyne; totally defeated by Cornwallis at Camden." With mounting residue on verso. Also included are two images of Horatio Gates, with one small image of Morgan Lewis. All are in fine condition.