Extract of a Letter from Colonel Reed, Commander of the New Hampshire 2nd Regiment, to Charles Pettit, Pennsylvania Delegate to the Continental Congress, Dated White-Plains, October 14, 1776 "I am sorry to say many officers from all parts leave the army when danger approaches. It is of the most ruinous consequences. It breaks the spirit that remains, and we are obliged to do the duty of the absent. They should be ordered back without exception, and even compelled." American Archives 5, Vol. 2, column 1036