"SIR,--We, your most obedient and affectionate officers, beg leave to express our great concern at the disagreeable news we have received of your determination to resign the command of that corps in which we have, under you, long served. The happiness we have enjoyed and the honor we have acquired, together with the mutual regard that has always subsisted between you and your officers, have implanted so sensible an affection in the minds of us all that we cannot be silent on this critical occasion. "Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit, first heightened our natural emulation to excel. Judge, then, how sensibly we must be affected with the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, such an affable companion. How great the loss of such a man! It gives us additional sorrow, when we reflect, to find our unhappy country will receive a loss no less irreparable than our own. Where will it find a man so experienced in military affairs--one so renowned for patriotism, conduct, and courage? Who has so great a knowledge of the enemy we have to deal with? Who so well acquainted with their situation and strength? Who so much respected by the soldiery? Who, in short, so well able to support the military character of Virginia? We presume to entreat you to lead us on to assist in the glorious work of extirpating our enemies. In you we place the most implicit confidence. Your presence only will cause a steady firmness and vigor to actuate in every breast, despising the greatest dangers, and thinking light of toils and hardships, while led on by the man we know and love."[3] [3] This letter, which is printed in full in Marshall's _Life of Washington_, was among the highest personal compliments ever paid Washington. The signers were seasoned soldiers, addressing a young man of twenty-three, under whom they had made a campaign of frightful hardship ending in disaster. They were to be ordered to resume operations in the spring, and it was to this young man that these officers appealed, believing him to be essential to the proper conduct of the campaign. Deep indeed was the conviction which made George resist this letter; but his reply was characteristic, "I made not this decision lightly, and all I ask is that I may be enabled to go with you in an honorable capacity; but to be degraded and superseded, this I cannot bear."