General Washington's Supplies

I was working on another thread, and someone brought up the point of supplies in the Revolutionary War. Most Patriot militia simply requisitioned stuff from the locals, but the Continental Army had supplies form Congress (Paid with French money). From the Philadelphia Campaign until 1779, what did Washington do for supplies? Did he use a supply line, forage, or requisition material? If I have accurate information here, I can make my thread more plausible.
 

ben0628

Banned
I was working on another thread, and someone brought up the point of supplies in the Revolutionary War. Most Patriot militia simply requisitioned stuff from the locals, but the Continental Army had supplies form Congress (Paid with French money). From the Philadelphia Campaign until 1779, what did Washington do for supplies? Did he use a supply line, forage, or requisition material? If I have accurate information here, I can make my thread more plausible.

The Army had warehouses full of supplies and they would hire local waggon drivers to send supplies to the army.

Problem is, people running army logistics and warehouses were incompetent, waggon drivers tended to be cheap bastards that would cut transportation costs by dumping flour/food out of their barrels onto the wagons (spoiling food in the process), and it wasn't until Nathaniel Greene was appointed as Quartermaster General during Valley Forge that these issues we're dealt with.

The Continental Army would sometimes buy food from the local farmers, but usually the farmers didn't have faith in the American paper currency at the time and would instead sell their food to the local British forces.

These two issues made foraging a Nessecity
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Honestly it sounds like the Continentals probably had little choice but to occasionally decide someone was a Loyalist and steal all their food...

But it sounds like they did indeed use a supply line instead of foraging. Right, that tells us something important - that it's possible to compel Washington to move by threatening that supply line.
 
Honestly it sounds like the Continentals probably had little choice but to occasionally decide someone was a Loyalist and steal all their food...

Really? I thought they paid with continental dollars unless they had an ACTUAL suspicion he was a loyalist.

Although a non Patriot famer (and a plurality of people were neutral remember) might think that requisition was stealing.

Burgoyne and Clinton did use requisition but paid in pounds. Burgoyne insisted that any farmer paid must be paid 30% more value than the grain taken, or if a horse was taken, whatever value of the horse plus what the British think it would earn the famer in three years. And a good 1/4 of the time his requisition parties got shot at...
 
Top