Joseph Trumbull and the Challenge of Feeding an Army

The saying that “an army marches on its stomach” has been attributed to both Napolean Bonaparte and Frederick II, King of Prussia, known as “Frederick the Great.”[1] If this observation is correct, it can be argued that nobody did more to keep the Continental Army on the move during perhaps its time of greatest travail, as the disheartening campaign of 1776 unfolded, than the man most responsible for seeing they were fed: Joseph Trumbull.

A Family Affair

It has been said that the stature of the Trumbull family in Connecticut was comparable to that of the Lee family in Virginia, Adams in Massachusetts, or Livingston in New York and New Jersey.[2] The Trumbulls played an important role during the Revolutionary era, led by Jonathan Sr. (1710-1785), the deeply religious and commercially successful father who served as governor from 1776 to 1784 and was the only colonial governor to support the rebellion against Britain, as well as a friend and advisor to Washington.

Indeed, the paternal passion for the cause of American independence ran deep in the family. Jonathan’s youngest and most famous son, the artist John (1756-1843), became celebrated by dint of his paintbrushes that employed heroic imagery to capture dramatic moments in the struggle for independence. However, John lent more than his artistic talent to promoting the Patriot enterprise, serving first as an aide-de-camp to Washington and then as a brigade major in the army during the siege of Boston in 1775-1776, before following the American troops to New York. He eventually became a colonel but resigned from the army in early 1777 over a misunderstanding with Congress about the starting date of his commission in that rank. One of John’s brothers, Jonathan Jr. (1740-1809), was paymaster general of the army’s Northern Department and then military secretary to Washington, before pursuing a distinguished postwar political career as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and governor of Connecticut. Still, it was Joseph, the oldest of Jonathan Sr.’s six children, who arguably provided the most vital assist to what Washington termed the “glorious cause,” particularly when it plausibly faced the prospect of total defeat in late 1776.[3]

The Man Meets the Job

Joseph Trumbull served as the first commissary general of the Continental Army, from July 19, 1775 to August 2, 1777, with the rank of colonel. He secured that congressional appointment through Washington’s influence, coming to the general’s attention after having been named by the Connecticut Assembly as commissary general of the Connecticut troops outside Boston on April 28, 1775. Trumbull’s friend Eliphalet Dyer, a member of Congress, notified him of Washington’s appointment as the army’s commander-in-chief in a June 17 letter from Philadelphia and described his efforts at securing a position for Joseph with the ascendant Virginian, although the role he had in mind was as secretary to the general: “I have so without your knowledge or consent been laying in for that berth for you.” Dyer sang Washington’s praises to Trumbull as “discreet and virtuous, no harum starum ranting swearing fellow but sober, steady, and calm,” and further wrote, “I believe you will much esteem him and believe he will be pleased with you. I dare say you may be very happy with him.”[4] It would seem Dyer’s lobbying paid off, if not quite as he envisioned. When Washington arrived at the Cambridge encampment beside Boston in July, he reviewed the supply measures implemented by the various colonies and, being especially impressed by Trumbull’s work, recommended his appointment to Congress.[5]

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Joseph Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, on March 11, 1737 to Jonathan Sr. and Faith (Robinson) Trumbull and, following in his father’s footsteps, graduated from Harvard in 1756. In his first act of public service, he served as a captain in the 12th Connecticut regiment in 1763. Joseph became a prosperous merchant who partnered with Johnathan Sr. for eleven years and briefly practiced law. In 1770, he was appointed by the colony to collect the papers of former governors and to sort, arrange, and file them chronologically, for deposit in the Office of the Secretary. Trumbull served in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1767 to 1773, was appointed by the Assembly to its Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry in 1773, and was elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774 as an alternate delegate (who did not attend any sessions). According to more than one historian, his record and service spoke of him as an honest man who performed ably in his public career.[6]

As Commissary General of Stores and Provisions, he would achieve a considerable degree of success in creating a system by which the states supplied the Continental Army; indeed, Washington reported to the president of Congress, John Hancock, in June 1776 that “few armies, if any, have been better and more plentifully supplied than the troops under Mr. Trumbull’s care.”[7] The army patterned its supply system after that of the British Army, with a civilian Commissary General of Stores and Provisions responsible for overseeing the provision of food and general supplies to the troops and a military Quartermaster General overseeing transportation, forage, camps, and troop movements. By 1776, the commissary department had become the largest economic organization in the colonies.[8]

A Daunting Task

The enormity of the assignment facing Trumbull when he assumed his duties was staggering. He had to frantically organize butchers, bakers, storekeepers, and purchasing agents while recruiting coopers to assemble barrels for preserved pork and beef and the increasingly scarce salt needed to cure that meat, which in some cases was found to be horse flesh.[9] The specter of a starving army—if his efforts should prove in vain—loomed before the commissary general, one which compelled him to an exhausting and unrelenting exertion for nearly two years. As he conceded during the siege of Boston, “A commissary with twenty thousand gaping mouths open full upon him, and nothing to stop them with, must depend on being devoured himself.”[10] Writing to his commanding general in November 1775, Trumbull estimated the cost of a day’s ration for each soldier, which included a specified supply of pork and beef (each to be issued three days a week); salt fish (once a week); bread or flour; milk; rice; cider, beer, or molasses; soap; and peas or beans—with an approximate cost for each item.[11] He advised that “some considerable sums of cash will be wanted for beef and pork.”[12]

On April 19, 1776, Trumbull followed up by supplying Washington with a list of “the rations of provision” that he had supplied (at least on paper) the troops during the Boston siege, which included:

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• eighteen ounces of salted pork, or twenty-four ounces of salted or fresh beef, or sixteen ounces of salted fish per man per diem;
• one pound of flour or bread per man per diem;
• one quart of beer per man per diem or nine gallons of molasses per one hundred men per week;
• three pints of peas or beans per man per week;
• six ounces of butter per man per week;
• one-half pint of rice or one pint of Indian meal per man per week;
• six pounds of candles per one hundred men per week; and
• twenty-four pounds of soft or eight pounds of hard soap per one hundred men per week.[13]

Trumbull’s list excluded vegetables, but the commander-in-chief issued orders on July 22, 1776 that permitted regiments to draw a quarter of their usual rations in money with which to buy them. This appears to have been in response to a request by Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene to Washington eleven days prior. While encamped on Long Island, Greene noted that “a putrid fever prevailed in my brigade and that I thought it partly owing to their feeding too freely on animal food. Vegetables would be much more wholesome; and by Your Excellency’s permission they may be provided for the troops without any additional expense to the continent,” if regimental quartermasters “were allowed to retrench in the article of meat [and] draw its value in money” to be applied by them to the purchase of the “necessary sauce.”[14]

When it came to the quantity and quality of provisions made available to the rebel soldiery over the course of the war, the reality facing those hungry mouths would vary considerably from Trumbull’s aspirational projection to Washington in November 1775, to say the least.[15] The causes of their privation were many. In some cases, both sides competed for food in the same geographic area over the course of a lengthy campaign. Bad weather could render unpaved roads impassable or close down river traffic, impeding the delivery of provisions. The army’s wagonmaster department, which conveyed those supplies, sometimes encountered insuperable obstacles, such as shortages of wagons and teamsters, and horses insufficiently fed to be of service. It was not unheard of for a crooked driver to embezzle his cargo, while another might seek to lighten his load by draining the brine from the salt pork he carried, thereby spoiling the meat delivered to unsuspecting soldiers. Then there were farmers who would not sell to the army because of pacifist or political convictions (in the case of Quakers and Loyalists, respectively). The Continental Army’s effort to secure food from farmers was further disadvantaged in that the British paid more and in hard currency, rather than depreciated paper.[16]

On top of this, some states imposed price controls on various commodities, including beef and pork, that were below market value, which prompted Washington to register his objections with Congress, as he feared such “measures … for regulating the prices of provision will have a disagreeable effect upon our supplies of meat,” in view of how they would incent farmers to reduced their acreage in production or sell their surplus to the other side. “How far it may be practicable to suspend their operation for a time, I cannot determine—but if it can be done, it appears we should experience many advantages from it. It is a matter of great importance, and as such is submitted to Congress for their consideration.”[17]

Trumbull’s burden in 1776 was further exacerbated by the need to supply the American forces operating in Canada, including militia reinforcements for that campaign as directed by Congress, and a new congressionally authorized mobile strategic reserve in the middle colonies known as the “flying camp.” Washington wrote him on June 9 to “transmit you the resolutions of Congress for several augmentations of the army.” The general noted “complaints of the deplorable scarcity of provisions, which our men labor under” in Canada and ordered the commissary general “with all expedition, forward a supply of meat and flower; (particularly of the latter) to Albany—As there is a reinforcement of six thousand men shortly to be sent to Canada, there is a prospect of the want of necessaries being still increased.”[18]

Trumbull encountered an additional difficulty while stationed in New York City, when he notified Washington on June 9 that a congressional committee had authorized the exportation “from this place [of] large quantities of pork,” and expressed his anxiety at the example this would set for the New York provincial congress: “I really fear very bad consequences therefrom to the operations of the present campaign, and pray your Excellency to mention the matter to Congress. I cannot be answerable for supplying the army with that article unless a stop is put to its being shipped out of the country.”[19]

The commissary general followed up by entreating the provincial congress to refrain from such activity: “I am directed by His Excellency General Washington to apply to you, informing that he understands that considerable quantities of salted pork are shipping from this city and colony to different foreign ports and places.” Noting the general’s concern “that the great augmentation of troops to be made here and in Canada will require all the pork in this and the neighboring colonies for their subsistence this campaign,” Trumbull conveyed Washington’s request “to put a stop to such exportations, in such manner as to you shall appear most proper to prevent the want of provisions for subsisting the troops employed in the necessary defense of our just rights and liberties.” In response, the provincial congress resolved “that no salted beef or pork, except as much as may be necessary for the use of the crew, be exported from this colony in any vessel under any pretense whatever, for the space of fourteen days; by which time the Continental Congress will have an opportunity of making some general regulations respecting the same.”[20] Congress took prompt action to prohibit the exportation of salted pork and beef and so advised the New York provincial congress.[21]

Trumbull’s success, such as it was, at feeding Washington’s troops in late 1776 required a herculean effort. The army was unable to obtain supplies from New Jersey after retreating across the Delaware River in early December, and it could not forage from its new base of operations in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The army’s commissary officers reported that local farmers would not sell nor millers grind if they were to be paid in Continental dollars. Even after storming back across the Delaware to defeat the Hessians at Trenton on December 26, Washington reported to Robert Morris, the army’s financier, that the prospects for sustaining the troops in New Jersey were not promising: “I am taking every measure to improve our late lucky blow, and hope to be successful; the greatest impediment to our motion is, the want of provisions…. Some of the troops are yet on the [Pennsylvania] side of the [Delaware] River, only waiting for provisions. Jersey has been swept so clean that there is no dependance upon anything there.”[22]

Under the circumstances, Trumbull was able to feed the army only by reaching across the continent. The staples of the soldier’s diet at this point were largely hard bread or biscuit and heavily salted meat, and the means of supplying these comestibles were so limited in the middle states that the commissary general was forced to bring them in from a considerable distance: flour from the immense Virginia grain plantations along the James, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers and salt meat by wagon from New England over a long and dangerous route through the New York Highlands. Trumbull was forced to relocate to New England, as that region remained his strongest source of supply for provisions, clothing, and money.[23] Writing from Morristown, New Jersey on December 13, he conveyed his plans to Washington: “I conceive in [the] present situation of affairs that the great supplies of salted provisions for the Army, another season must be made in New England—The killing season is now fast advancing and will soon be passed—I have been making preparations—have salt procured—but am nearly or rather quite out of cash for that purpose.” In addition, he indicated the need for “sending to Virginia for flour during the winter, to be brought into New England by water.” Trumbull explained that he would “borrow money of the colony of Connecticut or individuals until I can receive a supply from Congress—I conceive 6 or 700,000 dollars will be necessary for me,” while noting that the “Boston and Albany chests I conceive also will need to be supplied for my deputies in those departments.” He indicated his intention to return to Peekskill in New York and then to New England, where he would “pay the utmost attention to laying in the best magazines in my power—and to preparing my accounts to lay before Continental auditors, who I hope will attend that business at Hartford—where I have sent all my books and papers, and hope by some time in February to be ready to attend them.”[24]

In his reply of December 16, Washington eschewed any objection to Trumbull’s move to New England “upon the representation you have made of the necessity, and superior advantage arising from your going, and at the same time confiding in your judgment in determining upon that plan of conduct which will conduce most to the benefit of the service.” He was pleased “to find you have been making preparations for laying in a large supply of salt provisions for the army, and approve of your plan of sending to Virginia for flour during the winter, as I don’t see but it may be rendered practicable.” The commanding general remained confident that Congress would in time furnish “the necessary supply of cash” for Trumbull’s purchases, but that “in the meantime, I think it will be very advisable for you to borrow money in the manner you propose till you receive the necessary supplies from Congress—indeed there is so little cash in the paymaster’s hands here at present that it is not in my power to afford you any assistance in that particular.” The commander-in-chief enclosed “a list of such persons in Virginia as I think will be most likely to supply you with flour on good terms.”[25]

On that same day, Washington relayed Trumbull’s missive to the congressional president Hancock: “The enclosed extract of a letter from the commissary general will show his demands for money, and his plans for procuring salted provisions, and a quantity of flour from the southward. The whole is submitted to the consideration of Congress, and I wish the result of their opinion to be transmitted him with such supplies of money as may be necessary for himself and the departments he mentions.”[26] On December 26, Congress resolved to advance $400,000 to Trumbull and empowered him “to import, at the Continental risk, from Virginia and Maryland, and the other southern states, such quantities of flour and other provisions as he may judge necessary.” Congress also directed its Virginia delegates “to write to the governor and council of their state and request them to contract with proper persons for the delivery of 10,000 barrels of flour on [the] James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers, to the order [of] Joseph Trumbull, Commissary General of the Continental Army, or of a larger quantity should he require a further supply.”[27]

Notwithstanding this success in securing congressional support for his efforts, Trumbull’s enterprise was continually hampered by a shortage of funds.[28] In addition, the states appointed numerous commissaries that created senseless competition with the army’s commissary.[29] It has been observed that Trumbull and deputy commissary general Walter Livingston were either very capable or very fortunate, for no great crisis occurred on their watch.[30] According to one scholar, Trumbull performed as well as he could under the prevailing circumstances, which included a group of deputy commissioners discontented almost from the beginning of their service with what they viewed as inadequate compensation.[31]

That said, Trumbull did make what proved to be an unfortunate decision when in December 1776 he designated Carpenter Wharton, a merchant in Philadelphia, as his sole deputy commissary with the army.[32] (Wharton had contracted with Congress a year earlier to furnish the Pennsylvania troops with provisions at seven shillings Pennsylvania currency per ration and in April 1776 offered to supply all Continental troops in the middle department, which included New York, at that same rate—an offer that was not accepted because the New York provincial congress had already contracted with Abraham Livingston for that service.) Soon after Wharton assumed his new duties, Washington and Congress began receiving complaints that he was inadequately supplying the army and paying exorbitant prices for many commodities in order to enhance the commissions and profits of himself and his friends. After being so advised by Congress and the commander-in-chief, Trumbull dismissed Wharton from the commissary department in May 1777; and on June 26, Congress ordered Wharton to settle his accounts immediately with the Continental auditors in Philadelphia.[33]

Despite his best efforts, Trumbull could not escape criticism for food shortages that was relayed to Washington. Washington inquired about such matters, including on May 12, 1777 when, in response to a complaint from Gen. Alexander McDougall about “the want of meat” for many of his troops, the general urged the commissary general’s “immediate attention, to the redress of these abuses.”[34] Trumbull replied two days later: “I had before heard of General McDougall’s complaint of want of provisions and had given orders to have the difficulty remedied—I have repeated them again now.” He explained that the “the deficiency has happened from want of teams and forage.”[35]

Bowing Out

On June 15, 1777, a weary Trumbull notified Washington that he had requested Congress to be dismissed from his post as commissary general: “I cannot undertake to continue longer in a most troublesome office, at best but rendered insupportable by neglect and inattention to repeated representations of want of regulations therein.” In a defensive vein, he maintained that no replacement could serve “with more ability, with more integrity, and good intention” than he had, but expressed his hope “that that person may have the obstacles in his way, and the difficulties I have had to encounter, removed.”[36]

On July 19, Trumbull advised the commander-in-chief that he had returned his commission to Congress and furnished Washington with a copy of his letter of resignation to that body. This missive conveyed Trumbull’s objection to the congressional decision to reorganize the commissary department (effective June 15) into two branches, one for purchases (to procure items) and the other for issues (to handle storage and distribution). The move was intended to increase efficiency through greater specialization, but Trumbull perceived it as undermining his authority: “In my humble opinion, the head of every department ought to have the control of it.” The creation of two branches would, he insisted, result in his being rendered either contentious or irrelevant: “If I accept to act, I must be at continual variance with the whole department, and of course in continual hot water … or I must sit down in ease and quiet, let the deputies do as they like, and enjoy a sinecure.” He could not accept this last situation: “It never shall be said I was the first American pensioner—I am willing to do and to suffer for my country and its cause—but I cannot sacrifice my honor and principles.” He asserted that “I can by no means consent to act under a regulation which in my opinion will never answer the purpose intended by Congress or supply the army as it should be.”[37] Congress received Trumbull’s letter of resignation on August 2 and three days later elected William Buchanan, a deputy commissary general of purchases, to fill the vacancy.

Unfortunately, Trumbull’s successors would be less successful in their efforts than he was. Widespread bribery reared its ugly head as the army’s supply system became thoroughly tainted with corruption and profiteering, and Congress was unable or unwilling to do much about it.[38] As the conflict progressed, the difficulties encountered in keeping the army adequately supplied became a greater impediment to its ability to prosecute the war. Governor Trumbull defended his son’s efforts in a letter to Henry Laurens, the president of Congress, in January 1778: “He is honest and zealous in his country’s cause. He cannot bear to see it suffer for want of any assistance in his power to afford.”[39] Subsequent to Joseph’s resignation—in a letter to Jonathan Sr. in February 1778, during the Valley Forge encampment—Washington bemoaned the logistical hurdles to ensuring adequate provisions for his troops and warned of its potential consequences. The rebel leader advised that the army’s continued existence “cannot be of long duration, unless more constant, regular, and larger supplies of the meat kind are furnished than have been for some time past. We have been once on the brink of a dissolution in the course of the present year for want of this article, and our condition now is but little better.”[40]

On November 24, 1777, Joseph was named by Congress to be a member of a newly created Board of War, which was designated as the governing body’s sole official intermediary in dealing with the army and the states on military matters. He served in that capacity until April 1778, when he resigned due to poor health.

An End Too Soon

On the subject of service to his cherished insurrection, Washington once told Col. Benedict Arnold, “In such a cause, every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.”[41] Although he never faced enemy fire, it appears that the demands of Joseph Trumbull’s role were such that he may have quite literally worked himself to death in the course of that service. He returned to Lebanon, Connecticut, in the spring of 1778, where his father wrote to Henry Laurens on June 29: “The fatigues of his business, but chiefly the trouble, sorrow, and grief for the treatment he received after all, broke his constitution, brought him next door to death, and renders his recovery doubtful—[his] former health and strength [are] never to be expected.”[42] Joseph died at four a.m. on July 23 in his father’s house at age forty-one, insolvent with no children and leaving behind his wife Amelia Dyer (daughter of his friend Eliphalet), whom he had married only four months before in Windham. (On January 5, 1785, she remarried, to Col. Hezekiah Wyllys.)

The extensive accounts compiled by the army’s first commissary general, involving the receipt and expenditure of vast sums of money for that time, were not settled by Congress at the time of his death, although Joseph had solicited such congressional action and his father would do so as well soon after his son’s death. Upon securing congressional approval of those accounts, Governor Trumbull told Laurens of his “pleasure in the estimation you express of the services of my late son” and that “I now only wait for that justice I think is due his estate, from the public, for those services he actually performed.”[43]

The governor could take satisfaction from the congressional tribute to Joseph in March 1779, which acknowledged that the latter, “coming into office in the earliest stage of the American contest, found himself without a system by which to trace the plan of his duty; that, with great care, industry, labor, and attention, he instituted a plan by which the army, during his continuance in office, was amply supplied, with much economy, and to general satisfaction.” Congress found that Trumbull “was obliged to act not only in capacity of commissary general of purchases but to direct all the issues of provisions, and, for near two campaigns, had the additional duty of purveyor of the hospitals and quartermaster general, the three last of which employments greatly increased his care and trouble but not so much his expenditure of moneys.” It was further declared that Joseph “made great savings to the public by his large and seasonable purchases and contracts, outrunning and anticipating in many instances the orders of Congress, by which means he kept up large supplies, thereby moderating the demands of the seller, intercepting monopolies, and keeping down prices, which are now greatly augmented.” The congressional review of Trumbull’s cash accounts as commissary general concluded “that little, if any, public moneys have been taken to his private use, and that a compensation for services done by the commissary general still remains to be made, at a time, too, when the value of our currency is greatly altered from what it was when the services were performed.” The delegates ultimately determined that the late commissary general “executed with great fidelity, prudence, care, and economy” the duties of his post.[44]

Food for Thought

The efforts made by the Continental Army’s first commissary general to feed Washington’s soldiers and the competence he demonstrated in meeting the challenges of that position arguably allowed the commander-in-chief to preserve the army during perhaps its time of greatest adversity—in late 1776, when the rebellion appeared near collapse. The Continentals were desperately short of various supplies—winter clothing, shoes, and blankets in particular—by the time they crossed the Delaware River that Christmas night to begin their pivotal “Ten Crucial Days” campaign, but food was not among those missing items. At this critical moment in the Revolution, it may be said that Trumbull quite literally sustained these troops and perhaps the Patriot cause. Each soldier who traversed the ice-laden waterway, to embark on perhaps the most important offensive the insurgent forces would ever undertake, was provided with a three-day supply of cooked rations pursuant to Washington’s orders.[45]

[1] Oxford Reference, www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095425331.

[2] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 158.

[3] George Washington’s Address to Congress, June 16, 1775, in George Washington, This Glorious Struggle: George Washington’s Revolutionary War Letters, ed. Edward G. Lengel (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 4.

[4] Eliphalet Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, June 17, 1775, in John Rhodehamel, ed. The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence, 1775-1783 (New York: The Library of America, 2001), 34.

[5] Robert K. Wright, Jr., The Continental Army (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006), 36.

[6] Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 158; I. W. Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull: Senator, Governor of Connecticut (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1859), 34.

[7] George Washington to John Hancock, June 28, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0089.

[8] Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 268.

[9] Rick Atkinson, The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-177 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019), 126.

[10] Victor Leroy Johnson, The Administration of the American Commissariat During the Revolutionary War, Ph.D. dissertation (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 1941), 38.

[11] Joseph Trumbull’s Estimate of a Daily Ration, November 1775, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0375-0002. This enclosure accompanied Trumbull’s letter to Washington of November 20, 1775.

[12] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, November 20, 1775, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0375-0001.

[13] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, April 19, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-04-02-0074.

[14] Nathanael Greene to Washington, July 11, 1776, in Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, ed. Richard K. Showman (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 252-253.

[15] Perhaps the most fabled instances of food deprivation encountered by the Continentals occurred during two of their winter encampments, which were chronicled by some of the best-known accounts of army life in this war.

At Valley Forge (1777-1778), Albigence Waldo wrote the following in his diary entry for December 21, 1777: “A general cry through the camp this evening among the soldiers, ‘No meat! No meat!’ – the distant vales echoed back the melancholly sound – ‘No meat! No meat!’ Imitating the noise of crows and owls, also, made a part of the confused music. What have you for your dinner, boys? ‘Nothing but fire cake and water, sir.’ At night, ‘Gentlemen, the supper is ready.’ What is your supper, lads? ‘Fire cake and water, sir.’ Very poor beef has been drawn in our camp the greater part of this season.” Albigence Waldo, “Valley Forge, 1777-1778. Diary of Surgeon Albigence Waldo, of the Connecticut Line,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1897), 21: 309.

Another such narrative is from the second Morristown encampment (1779-1780), which Joseph Plumb Martin recalled as follows: “Cold weather and snow were plenty, but beef and bread were extremely scarce in the army …. We were absolutely, literally starved;—I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards informed by one of the officer’s waiters that some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little dog that belonged to one of them.” Joseph Plumb Martin, Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier: The Narrative of Joseph Plumb Martin (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), 95-97.

[16] John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 279. An example of the recurring shortage of wagons, teamsters, and horses that plagued the army was referenced by Washington when corresponding with the commissary general near the end of the New York campaign: “I should think it unadvisable to have more provisions or stores in this camp than what may be necessary to supply the present wants of the troops, as from the scarcity of teams it has been found extremely difficult to have even the tents and the necessary baggage of the army removed upon any emergency, however urgent.” Washington to Joseph Trumbull, November 10, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0100.

[17] Washington to Henry Laurens, March 12, 1778, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-14-02-0127.

[18] Washington to Joseph Trumbull, June 9, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-04-02-0374.

[19] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, June 9, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-04-02-0375.

[20] Ibid., n2.

[21] Hancock to Washington, June 14-16, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-04-02-0411.

[22] Washington to Robert Morris, December 30, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0382.

[23] Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 268.

[24] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, December 13, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0262.

[25] Washington to Joseph Trumbull, December 16, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0286.

[26] Washington to Hancock, December 16, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0280.

[27] Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), 6:1040-1041.

[28] Richard M. Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1973), 266.

[29] John Mack Faragher, The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996), p. 427.

[30] Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 278.

[31] Robert Middlekauff, Washington’s Revolution: The Making of America’s First Leader (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), p. 169.

[32] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, December 13, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0262.

[33] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, June 27, 1776, n.2, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0083.

Washington to Joseph Trumbull, February 18, 1777, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-08-02-0396.

[34] Washington to Joseph Trumbull, May 12, 1777, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0401.

[35] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, May 14, 1777, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0421.

[36] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, June 15, 1777, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-10-02-0047. The letter to which Trumbull referred has not been identified and apparently was not sent to Congress, n1.

[37] Joseph Trumbull to Washington, July 19, 1777, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-10-02-0334.

[38] Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 569.

[39] Jonathan Trumbull Sr. to Laurens, January 24, 1778, in Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull, 424n.

[40] Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Sr., February 6, 1778, in Washington, This Glorious Struggle, 141.

[41] Washington’s Instructions to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0356. This correspondence is identified as Washington’s instructions to Arnold (concerning the Canadian campaign) because he also wrote a separate letter to the colonel on that date.

[42] Jonathan Trumbull Sr. to Laurens, June 29, 1778, in Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull, 420n.

[43] Jonathan Trumbull Sr. to Laurens, December 10, 1778, in ibid., 425n.

[44] Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), 8:395-397. Congress resolved that the following allowances be made for the benefit of Trumbull’s legal representatives: a commission of one-half percent on the gross sum of all monies received and issued by him “for public service,” as well as a commission of two-and-a-half percent on monies laid out in purchases made by himself, and also a commission of one-half percent on the gross sum received, as compensation for his extra services in issuing, purveying, quartermaster’s duties, various contingencies of office, and extra expenses, the amount of which was to be immediately paid to the administrator of Trumbull’s estate, upon settlement of the cash account for moneys received and issued by Trumbull.

[45] Washington to Joseph Reed, December 25, 1776, in Washington, This Glorious Struggle, 84.