On this day 250 years ago at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, Col. Arthur St. Clair, the commander of the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in recognition of his exemplary service in Canada. St. Clair was born in Scotland and settled in America in 1764. He would later be promoted to major general and continue serving in the Continental Army until the end of the War and after the War became the President of the Confederation Congress (the highest elected office in the United States before the Constitution went into effect. In 1791, he was called back into service as the highest ranking officer in the Army to combat Native Americans in the Northwest Territory. This immigrant to America was entrusted by our Founders with the highest ranking positions in both the military and civilian government of the United States.

Sources: https://www.electricscotland.com/history/highlands/chapter15.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_St._Clair

On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress wrote to General Washington

The Congress approve of your employing in the Service of the States, the Stockbridge Indians, if you think proper.

The Stockbridge Company was composed mostly of Native Americans from the Muh-he-con-neok (Muhheakun’nuk) community in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and were Christian Indians primarily from the Mahican, but also the Housatonic, Wappinger, and Tunxis nations. The Stockbridge Indians had been fighting as part of the Army since a few days after Lexington and Concord, including at Bunker Hill and would continue in the Continental Army until 1778 when most of them would lose their lives in combat with the British in Westchester County, New York

Sources: “John Hancock to George Washington, 2–6 August 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0412. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776 – 12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 547–549.]; https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/stockbridge-company