Description:

Greene Nathaniel

Nathaniel Greene Receives Report from Continental Army in New Jersey in 1780

 

AZARIAH DUNHAM, Autograph Letter Signed, to Nathanael Greene, February 25, 1780, Morris Town, New Jersey. 1 p., 8" x 13." Expected folds; chipped edges; text clear and dark.

From the Library of Charles I. Forbes, off the market for 63 years!

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Morris Town February 25th 1780

Sir

            The scarcity of hay at camp and at the several post of the army is a verry serious affair and the consequences you mention are obvious and may prove verry distressing. I have repeatedly informed the several contributors of our situation and have pressed them in the strongest terms to be diligent and to use all the authority they are invested with by their appointment to give the necessary supply have also directed them to deliver to the Quarter Master General Forrage Master General or their assistants any quantity they may collect when called for and that their receipts will be accepted as proper Vouchers; shall continue to urge them to the discharge of their duty

                                                                        and am Sir

                                                                        Your most Obd Humb Sert

                                                                        Az: Dunham Supndt of Purchases

Major General Green QMG

[Docketing: Possibly by Greene

From Azh Dunham / Feby 25, 1780

 

Historical Background

The Continental Army spent the winter of 1779-1780 in Morristown and suffered extensively from the lack of supplies of all kinds. By mid-November, the camp went on half rations and suffered from a shortage of blankets and clothing. They also lacked forage for the horses, and without forage, offensive operations were impossible.

 

On February 24, Commissary General of Forage Clement Biddle (1740-1814) wrote to Continental Army Quarter Master General Nathaniel Greene, “Altho’ a very considerable stock of hay was provided by my Agents within the State it was out of my power to increase the quantity after our removal to this Camp, when the demand increased, for want of a supply of money.... The Assembly of this State [New Jersey on the 25th of same Month passed an Act to provide provisions and forage for the use of the Army and appointed persons in the different Counties to purchase and Azariah Dunham Esqr. to superintend the whole.... He informs me he has wrote to the purchasers to exert themselves but has received no returns nor does he give me the least encouragement to depend on supplies anyways adequate to our wants.... The grain in store will be very soon exhausted, I fear much sooner than I can supplies from the other States....”

 

Greene wrote to General George Washington the same day that “our stock of forage is nearly consumed, and that there is no probability of replenishing the magazines. A failure in this respect strikes as fatally at the subsistence of the army, as a more direct deficiency on the score of provisions.”

Washington responded the following day and told Greene to send Colonel Biddle to Trenton, “where the Governor and Assembly are sitting, and lay before them the state of his Magazines, and urge the necessity of taking the most vigorous measures for keeping up the supply of Forage, ’till the Navigation and Roads will permit us to bring that forward which we may hope is procured to the Southward.”

 

On March 6, Washington described his forage difficulties for Congress, and on March 29, Pennsylvania forbade purchase of forage by agents. The shortage of forage continued into the Spring of 1780, and Commissary General of Forage Biddle urged the delivery of forage from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia to Trenton for the army’s use. The forage issue improved but continued to be a problem into the summer of 1780, when General Washington issued impressment warrants to allow Greene to gather forage in specific areas.

 

 

Azariah Dunham (1718-1790) was born in New Jersey and became an extensive landholder and slave owner. During the Revolutionary War, he was a colonel in the New Jersey militia and assistant commissary of purchases in New Jersey. After the war, he served as mayor of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and from 1783 to 1790 was a trustee of Queen’s College (Rutgers University).

 

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. 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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