On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General George Washington wrote to Brigadier General John Thomas imploring him not to resign after Congress named other generals with less competence and experience as senior to Thomas. The lengthy letter began:

The Retirement of a general Officer, possessing the Confidence of his Country & the Army; at so critical a Period, appears to me to be big with fatal Consequences both to the Publick Cause, & his own Reputation. While it is unexecuted, I think it my Duty to make this last Effort to prevent it; & after suggesting those Reasons which occur to me against your Resignation, your own Virtue, & good Sense must decide upon it. In . . . such a Cause as this, where the Object is neither Glory nor Extent of Territory, but a Defence of all that is dear & valuable in Life, surely every Post ought to be deem’d honourable in which a Man can serve his Country. 

General Thomas had already proven to be one of Washington’s ablest generals. Washington’s plea worked and Thomas did not resign but continued to serve with distinction until his untimely death from smallpox the following year.

Source: “From George Washington to Brigadier General John Thomas, 23 July 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0096. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775 – 15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985, pp. 159–162.]