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Revolutionary War - Continental Army 1776 abstract of wages over £440,000!
Revolutionary War - Continental Army 1776 abstract of wages over £440,000!
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Description:

Continental Army

Revolutionary War - Continental Army 1776 Abstract of Wages over £440,000!


The Quartermaster General’s Department methodically and hopefully prepared a list of personnel and salaries needed for the coming campaign season, but as the note at the end makes clear, the young nation suffered continually from a lack of funds.

 

CONTINENTAL ARMY, Autograph Document, February 1780, Morristown, New Jersey. 3 pp., 7.75" x 12.5." Expected folds; chipped edges; text clear and dark. From the Library of Charles I. Forbes, last known about in 1955.

 

Partial Transcript

Estimate of the Wages and Subsistence of the Persons employed in the Quarter Master General’s Department, on salary, except those in the Waggon Branch, calculated for the year 1776. Morris Town Feby 1780.

 

 

            The number of Agents, of different denominations, are much more numerous than would be necessary, was the state of our finance upon a proper footing, and trade and agriculture in as flourishing a state as at the commencement of the War; but while the War continues on the present extensive scale, the supplies so scarce, and Money on its present wretched footing, and the Agents obliged to stand collectors as they have done for two years past, no deduction can be made from the number; on the contrary, they will require to be increased.

[Docketing:]

Estimate of the Wages and Subsistence of all the Persons, except the Waggon branch, employed in the Q. M. Genl’s Department, on Salary. 1780. / No 11.

 

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. It was the responsibility of the Quartermaster’s Department to supply the material needs of the army, but the lack of funds and the devaluation of Continental and state currency hampered the Quartermaster’s efforts.

 

According to Erna Risch in Supplying Washington’s Army, “During the course of the war, prices on the domestic market rose from 50 to 100 percent over those charged in prewar days in terms of constant money value. They rose many times more in terms of Continental and state currencies.” This document recognizes, though probably underestimates, the devaluation of Continental currency in the totals of $442,884 (or £132,865.4 “in lawful money”).

 

The lack of funds made Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene’s task of raising supplies particularly difficult by 1780. His deputies had to employ many agents to collect supplies from people who would have given them gladly if the currency were stable. Because the department had to employ more agents, its expenditures increased, leading to charges that the Quartermaster’s Department was wasteful in its operations. Costs of the Commissary and Quartermaster Departments spiraled from $5.4 million in 1776 to $200 million in 1779. The Quartermaster Department likely prepared this estimate in response to an inquiry by General Washington or by Congress. Perhaps it includes an estimate of costs in 1776 as a benchmark against requests for 1780.

 

 

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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