On January 2, 1776, seven months before the Declaration of Independence Stephen Moylan, an acting secretary to General George Washington, spells it out, “I should like vastly to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain” to seek foreign assistance for the cause.”
Stephen Moylan was writing this letter from the Continental Army’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, headquarters to Colonel Joseph Reed, Washington’s aide-de-camp who was then on leave in Philadelphia.
The Irish Catholic Moylan served in various capacities during the revolution, including quartermaster-general and cavalry colonel, but not without the vicissitudes—forced resignations, limited supplies, courts-martial—of a Continental officer in the protracted struggle. In a slim 1909 biography, he is depicted as a true hothead for independence. Moylan was rewarded for his service by being breveted to brigadier general on November 3, 1783; the highest rank achieved by a Catholic during the evolutionary War.