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Lot 48
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During Revolutionary War the Continental Army's Quartermaster Dept Estimates Needs for a 40,000 Man Army
During Revolutionary War the Continental Army's Quartermaster Dept Estimates Needs for a 40,000 Man Army
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Description:

Continental Army

 

This small archive emphasizes the Quartermaster Department’s challenges to supply and support the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War in a planned attack on New York City.

 

CONTINENTAL ARMY, Archive of 9 Handwritten Documents, ca. July 1780, with estimates for equipment needed to supply 40,000 men.  9 pp., 7" x 9" to 9.25" x 15.25". Expected folds; some tears on folds have led to loss of paper affecting small amounts of text. From the Library of Charles I. Forbes.  Off the market for over 63 years.

 

This archive consists of nine lists of equipment needed for a 40,000-man army, in the following categories:

·         House Carpenter’s Tools

·         Wagons and horses

·         Iron Mongery

·         Camp equipage

·         Saddler’s Tools

·         Ship Carpenter’s Tools

·         Smith’s Tools

·         Entrenching Tools

·         Stationery

 

Historical Background

On July 14, 1780, General George Washington sent a letter to his trusted lieutenant and Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene that “I have determined upon a plan of operations for the reduction of the City and Garrison of New York; which is to be carried on in conjunction with the French forces daily expected from France. The number of Troops to be employed upon this occasion may be about forty thousand Men.” Washington went on to order Greene to “make every necessary arrangement and Provision in your Department for carrying the plan of operations into execution.” Washington ordered Greene to request from the states what they were “bound to furnish” under the requisitions of Congress and to request cash from the Treasury for all other supplies not required to be furnished by the states.

 

These lists are likely a part of Greene’s effort to respond to Washington’s orders. Although the army was chronically short of many supplies, it actually had surpluses in some categories, likely reflecting the agricultural nature of American life and the army’s previous experiences. For example, the Quartermaster’s department estimated that they would need 350 hatchets, but they already had 539. They would need 140 hammers and had 170; would need 70 anvils and had 80; would need 7,000 spades and shovels and had 12,000.

 

One of the greatest categorical deficiencies for the army was transportation equipment, on which all else depended. The department estimated needing 588 covered wagons, but had only 187; needed 1,040 open wagons or ox-carts, but had only 814; needed 9,754 horses, but had only 2,285. Other major deficiencies included iron spoons (for which they had just over 1 percent of what was necessary), wooden bowls (20 percent), quills (25 percent), knapsacks (42 percent), bridles (42 percent), sail needles (0 percent), traveling forges (7 percent), and a variety of specialized tools of which the Quartermaster’s department had few if any.

 

The French army of 5,300 men and 450 officers under the Comte de Rochambeau landed off Newport, Rhode Island on July 11, 1780. When Rochambeau met with Washington late in September 1780, Washington still favored attacking New York City but had to concede that the French forces had arrived too late in the campaign season and had too many sick to start a major assault. Similarly, the Continental Army remained undersupplied. The French army wintered in Rhode Island and Connecticut, while the Continental Army was dispersed at camps in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

 

Late in May 1781, Washington and Rochambeau again met to discuss an attack on New York. Rochambeau’s army finally joined Washington’s Continental Army, with only 4,000 men, in early July. When Washington learned that French Admiral de Grasse had sailed his fleet to the Chesapeake, rather than New York, Washington had to give up his hopes of attacking New York and move to reinforce General Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia, leading to General Cornwallis’s surrender after the Battle of Yorktown in October.

 

 

Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) was a major general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He was born in Rhode Island and served in the Rhode Island General Assembly in the early 1770s. In 1775 he was promoted from private to major general of the Rhode Island Army of Observation formed in response to the Siege of Boston. The Continental Congress appointed him as brigadier general in the Continental Army in June 1775. Promoted to major general in August 1776, he was active in the major battles until General George Washington selected Greene to command all troops from Delaware to Georgia in late 1780. From March 1778 to August 1780, Greene also served as Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. Although placed in command of smaller forces, Greene successfully tired the British troops in the southern department through rapid maneuvers against superior forces. Although he lost every pitched battle against the British, he effectively liberated the southern states from British control, limiting them to a few coastal cities by the end of the war. He twice turned down the position of Secretary of War before settling on his Georgia estate, where he died at age 43.

 

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