requiring the abandonment of home and family, and attended by exposure and deprivation, was performed not only at the expense of his health and comfort, but of his private fortune. In 1780, 1782, and again in 1783, he suggested to the Assembly the propriety of some remuneration. A few days after his death, a petition from a number of citizens, accompanied with vouchers, was presented to the Assembly, setting forth his labors in the cabinet, and in the field, in the cause of the State, and of the United States, and asking that his family receive some adequate compensation. So far as I have been able to ascertain, the matter was permitted to slumber without action.
It is now too late to repay in any way these debts to the worthies of the American Revolution, but we can at least see to it that ourselves and our children preserve a lasting sense of gratitude for their services, and that in the hurry and bustle of our present growth and prosperity their courage and sacrifices, from which we derive the benefit, be not permitted to fall into forgetfulness.
Dr. Wm. P. Dewees, of the University of Pennsylvania, said of Atlee, that he was a very handsome man, of faultless manners. He had a fresh and ruddy complexion, brown hair and blue eyes, and his military bearing set off to advantage an erect and full figure.
His “personal respectability” impressed President Madison. That he could be moved to anger is proven by the fact that he inflicted personal and public chastisement upon a very celebrated man of the time who said something derogatory to the character of Washington. He left nine children, one of whom married the daughter of Anthony Wayne, and from this union the only living descendants of that great captain derive their origin.
