This Day in History: February 13

But Your Excellency well knows our presents supplies [inserted: & reserves] of [struck: ordnance & stores for an ] of ordnance & stores are totally inadequate to the demands of an arduous operation – I have straind every nerve I [struck: have possessd of] [inserted: possess] public and private to obtain an ample supply of shot & shells [struck: articles] which are made in our own country to uncommon perfection but in vain contracts which have been made for those articles upon the [struck: inst] prospect of our instant exigence, have been suspended [inserted: or annihilated], as soon as that [inserted: particular] prospect [strike-out] [inserted: subsided.], And tho we have by these transitory exertions [struck: I was] obtaind a considerable quantity of those articls yet the is still great.  [struck: The Contracts a cause] the greater part of the contracts which were made [struck:last year] were arrested by an order from the [3] board of War just as the furnaces began to work to the great detriment and even utter vain of some of the owners... [More]