A rendering of the 4th Dragoon Red Coats from The Company of Military Historians

To COLONEL STEPHEN MOYLAN

A party of your Regiment arrived here Yesterday with an escort of Money.
Their appearance has convinced me fully of the danger which I always
apprehended from the similiarity of their Uniform to that of the British
Horse, and the Officer who commands the party, tells me, that the people
were exceedingly alarmed upon theRoad, and had they been travelling thro'
a part of the Country, where it might havebeen supposed the Enemy's Horse
would be foraging or Scouting, they would in allprobability have been fired
upon. The inconvenience will increase, when your Regiment joins the Army.
Your patroles will be in constant danger from our own Scouting Parties
and whenever there is occasion to dispatch a party into the Country,
they will alarm the Inhabitants.

I therefore desire that you will immediately fall upon means for having
the colourof the Coats changed, which may be done by dipping into that
kind of dye that is most proper to put upon Red.
I care not what it is, so that the present Colour be changed.

I am etc. 92 from the Varick Transcripts at the Library of Congress.

This is the letter that put the 4th Dragoons in the History Books. (IVLD)

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