Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, 1775-1783

by Arthur R Bowler

Overview

The myth of the eighteenth-century British "war machine" persists, perplexing those who search for the reasons why Britain lost the Revolutionary War. In this book, R. Arthur Bowler argues that although recent and traditional studies have pointed out many problems of the British forces in America, they have failed to appreciate a major weakness—logistics.

The author draws on the remarkably complete records of British government offices concerned with logistics during the Revolutionary War and army service departments such as commissary, quartermaster and barrack-master generals to provide a full account of the everyday life of the British army and an accurate record of how logistical and administrative problems in America affected the course of the war. His study makes it clear that the British army in America depended almost entirely on Britain for supplies, and that for six years inadequate and sometimes corrupt administration seriously affected the course of operations and the morale of the troops. An organization capable of supplying the army was not developed until 1781, too late to change the outcome of the war.

Originally published in 1975.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691617879
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/08/2015
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1468
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.30(d)

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Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, 1775-1783

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By R. Arthur Bowler

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1975 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-04630-3

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CHAPTER 1

The Logistical Organization

The provision of the goods and services required by the British army in America during the American Revolution was a huge task, and one for which neither the army nor the British government was well prepared. The importance of the navy to the very existence of the nation had long since led to the development under the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty of a permanent command structure and a complete logistical service, but the British army in the eighteenth century had developed very little above the regimental level. It was considered primarily a peacekeeping force rather than an instrument for making war, and was normally scattered throughout the kingdom in regimental or smaller units. No general staff as it is known today existed. Such central direction as the army received came from the cabinet, which set policy and determined strategy. When a situation requiring an army arose, an appropriate number of regiments were collected and a commander-in-chief and staff appointed. When the situation was resolved, the army and its staff were dispersed. The commander-in-chief received his instructions from the cabinet via the secretary of state in whose area of competence he was operating. If Britain itself was threatened, then a commander-in-chief for the home forces was appointed, as General Lord Amherst was in 1778 when the French entered the American war. He sat in the cabinet and participated in its decisions, but his military authority was confined to the home forces except insofar as he was also in charge of the War Office.

The War Office was the army's only permanent institution above the regimental level. Its concern, however, was little more than the administrative and financial affairs of the regiments. Its importance was indicated by the fact that except in periods where there was a commander-in-chief of the home forces, it came under the direction of a civilian politician without cabinet rank, the secretary at war.

The problem with this organization — if it may be flattered with that name — was lack of continuity and professional direction. In each war the process of building up a general staff from officers who had not thought beyond the regimental level since the last war had to be repeated. 2 Further, the execution of strategic aims established by the cabinet was entrusted to a civilian, the secretary of state, who in turn directed the commander-in-chief in the field. The secretary of state might have had military experience, as did Germain, the American secretary during the greater part of the American war, but he did not have an organization behind him that was experienced in the direction of armies.

The logistical organization was equally undeveloped. Over time a number of government departments had acquired responsibility for providing material and services required by the army. The War Office had charge of medical supplies, uniforms, and camp equipment, a function it carried out for the regiments in peace as well as the armies in war. For the most part, however, it did nothing more than lay down standards of quality, design, and quantity, leaving the actual responsibility for furnishing the items to the commanders of regiments, who in turn worked through agents in London. In peace time, with the army living in barracks and seldom if ever engaged in field exercises of any kind, little beyond uniforms and personal equipment was required. This system of regimental responsibility was maintained even through 1774 and 1775 when an army that needed tents and field equipment of all kinds was assembled at Boston. By the end of the latter year, the problems in ordering, collecting, and transporting these goods was beyond regimental control, and the War Office had to take over this task for all the regiments serving in America.

The major responsibility for supplying the army, however, fell on the Treasury department. Even in the area of clothing, equipment, and medical supplies it was expected to look after the German and Provincial troops as the War Office looked after the regular British regiments. By far the Treasury's most onerous duty, though, was supplying food — a traditional responsibility that had never been very demanding until the Seven Years' War. The army was normally scattered about the British Isles in detachments each of which looked after its own feeding. Only on occasions when parts of the army were called together into encampments did the Treasury become involved and then only in supplying bread, although it also had to provide firewood and forage. In wartime, armies abroad were expected to find their own food locally, and the Treasury's responsibility was increased only insofar as encampments increased in frequency and usually included large numbers of militia. The conditions under which the armies serving in America had to operate during the Seven Years' War enormously increased the Treasury's task. The campaigns of that war took the army into remote areas of wilderness or of sparse population, where there was no possibility of obtaining supplies locally. Everything needed had to be collected in distant areas and transported to the army. The problems of organization on that scale finally forced the Treasury to become involved. For the first time it took up the task of contracting for provisions and ensuring their delivery. Although most of the food eventually came from the old settled parts of the Thirteen Colonies, for a time considerable quantities had to be shipped from Britain. When the decision was made to maintain a permanent force in America after the war, the Treasury's responsibility remained. In the period from 1760 to 1775, however, a system worked out during the Seven Years' War prevailed. The Treasury negotiated contracts with London firms for supplying the troops in specific areas. These firms in turn usually subcontracted with American merchants who actually collected, delivered, and issued the rations.

The system worked well enough in peace time but collapsed entirely when, on the outbreak of fighting at Boston, Rebel organizations throughout the Thirteen Colonies began intercepting supplies destined for the army. Thus, from the spring of 1775, provisions contractors had to rely on British sources of supply. In the first year of the crisis the Treasury still called on the contractors to deliver the provisions to the army, but serious incursions on the supply fleets by Rebel privateers and a severe shortage of shipping led it reluctantly to take on this task itself in i776. A collection and storage depot, where contractors made their deliveries, was established at Cork under the direction of a Treasury commissary, Robert Gordon. There provisions collected from all over the British Isles were received, inspected, and loaded into the victualling transports hired by the Treasury. Armed with cannon (supplied by the Ordnance Board and manned often by troop replacements for the army) to protect them from privateers, the victualers were dispatched singly or in groups as they were loaded. Although the Treasury regularly protested, with good reason, its own incompetence as a shipping agent, this task remained with the department until 1779, when it was assumed by the Navy Board.

The organization of the supply of food, clothing, and personal and camp equipment was by far the major logistical task of the Treasury, but it was by no means the only one. In the period immediately before the war the barrack master's department at Boston ordered the various supplies it required through the Boston merchant firm of John and George Ewing. By the early fall of i775, however, the London agents of this firm reported that they were unable to execute the orders placed with them, and the Treasury was forced to take up this responsibility also. The demands of this department included iron cooking pots for each barrack room, axes, stoves, and fire iron sets, but the most burdensome requirement was for bedding, candles, and fuel. Beds, each of which accommodated two enlisted men, were supplied with a paillasse, two sheets, two blankets, and a rug. Although the main requisition for these items came early in the war — as in 1776, for instance, when 52,000 blankets were ordered — replacements in the order of 10,000 rugs and blankets a year were required. Fuel, except for some futile attempts to ship coal from England in the early years of the war, was obtained by the barrack department in America, but candles were another matter and each year some sixty-three tons were procured and shipped to the army.

Numerous less demanding tasks also fell to the Treasury. When, for instance, General Howe requested a wagon train for the army, the request was passed on to that department. The Treasury turned to the Ordnance Office for the actual procurement of wagons, harness, and horses, but retained responsibility for the train, appointing a superintendent, hiring drivers and conductors, and arranging transportation to America.

Finally, in the list of logistical tasks assigned to the Treasury were those of supplying the army in America with the money it required and, in coordination with the War Office, contracting for medical supplies. Since this study is not concerned with the medical side of the army, except insofar as diet was a medical problem, the latter responsibility need not be discussed here. Money, however, was required for the procurement of a multitude of goods and services in America as well as for army pay, and the supply of this most necessary article remained a major responsibility of the Treasury. To fulfill this responsibility the Treasury contracted with the London firm of Harley and Drummond. Prior to 1775 virtually all the money that the army in North America required could be obtained by the sale in America of bills drawn on London. When informed by the deputy paymaster in America that cash was required, the commander-in-chief requested an appropriate amount from Harley and Drummond, informing the Treasury at the same time. Harley and Drummond then applied to the Paymaster in London, who issued them with a draft on the Bank of England. At this point Harley and Drummond then directed their agents in North America to sell bills drawn on them, and the cash thus raised was turned over to the deputy paymaster. Although slow, the system worked smoothly and, indeed, to some profit since the chronic imbalance of trade between America and Britain meant that there was usually a premium on London bills in America. Only on rare occasions, when specie ran short in the colonies and London bills sold at a discount, was it necessary to send out cash. On those occasions Harley and Drummond were responsible for the more difficult task of collecting the necessary specie. The Treasury then arranged for its transportation to America on board a warship. With the war, the situation rapidly reversed itself. The suspension of trade drastically reduced the normal inflow of specie into the colonies and what was there, especially in the British-held enclaves, quickly drained out to pay for food and other necessities, or went into private hordes to serve as hedges against the economic perils of war. Further, beyond the British enclaves a decree of Congress forbade Americans accepting British army bills. In this situation the discount on government bills could and did rise to fifteen percent and higher and at times it was impossible to sell them at all. To bring the exchange rate down and keep it down required the continuous infusion of large quantities of specie. In the first year of the war alone, from June 1775 to June 1776, over half a million pounds in specie was shipped to the army and the amount increased in later years. From 1770 to 1783, the period of their contract, Harley and Drummond supplied the army with £17,002,598-4-2 in specie and bills, all but a small part of it during the war period.

The Board of Ordnance, of course, also played a vital part in army logistics. It was responsible for supplying not only arms and ammunition for the whole army but also all of the clothing and equipment needs of the engineers and the artillery, both of which came under its control. The needs of these two arms included not only such obvious items as artillery pieces and all the equipment needed to service and transport them but also such items as axes, pickaxes, shovels, mobile forges, and shoes for artillery horses.

The last of the government departments with a major involvement in army logistics was the Navy Board. From the very beginning of the war, this division of the Admiralty supplied, on demand, transports to carry troops, camp equipment, clothing, horses, quartermaster's stores, and a variety of other items to the army in America. In March 1779 it also took over from the Treasury the much more onerous responsibility of organizing the shipment of food and forage to the army. It was expected at first that the Board could limit its task to the procurement of ships and the organization of convoys, leaving the reception and inspection of provisions to the Treasury. This division of authority, however, proved to be unworkable. Robert Gordon, the Treasury commissary at Cork, and Lieutenant Stephen Harris, the Navy Board representative there, soon came to loggerheads, with the result that the whole organization was turned over to the Board. A short time later, as a measure to relieve the long-standing problem of congestion at Cork, a second victualling depot was established at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Cork continued to be the center for shipments to the army on the American seaboard while Cowes handled provisions for Canada, the West Indies, and West Florida.

This transfer of authority from the Treasury to the Navy Board was judicious. The Navy Board had long experience in the handling of provisions and the organization of shipping, while the Treasury, despite three years at this task, still had much to learn. It also made sense to eliminate competition in the hiring of shipping and to call the experience of the navy to the service of the army. Further, France came into the war in 1778, and with the French navy rather than just American privateers to contend with, it was clear that the safety of victuallers could no longer be assured by arming them with a few pieces of ordnance. Convoys guarded by the Royal Navy had become necessary and the navy was the obvious agency to organize them. The new system went through some serious teething problems, so serious that Germain was led at one point to request that the Treasury resume its old responsibilities, but these were overcome, and by the middle of 1781 the troubles that had plagued supply from Britain since the beginning of the war virtually came to an end.

But the procurement of supplies and their transportation to America was only one aspect of army logistics. Not only had there to be a distribution organization with the army but also facilities for procurement since some supplies could be obtained only in America. Further, logistics involves services as well as supplies and hence service departments. The basic organization of the logistical services with the army was a holdover from the Seven Years' War. Under normal circumstances the army that served in America during that war would have been returned to England and resolved into its regimental components, and its staff and service organization dismissed. However, the decision to maintain a force in America after 1763 was, in administrative terms at least, a decision to maintain an army in being. Although the staff and services that thus persisted were small, as befitted the size of the force, they became the basis of the logistical service of the Revolutionary War period. At the heart of the service were four extensive departments: quartermaster, commissary, barrack master, and engineer.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, 1775-1783 by R. Arthur Bowler. Copyright © 1975 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• PREFACE, pg. vii
• CONTENTS, pg. xi
• ABBREVIATIONS, pg. xii
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 1
• I. The Logistical Organization, pg. 12
• II. America as a Source of Supply, pg. 41
• III. Britain as a Source of Supply: The Problem of Food, pg. 92
• IV. Britain as a Source of Supply: Camp Equipment, Clothing, Arms, Ammunition, Money, pg. 146
• V. “How Men on Fixed and Moderate Salaries Could Better Their Fortunes”, pg. 167
• VI. The Northern War, pg. 212
• CONCLUSION, pg. 239
• APPENDIX, pg. 265
• BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 269
• INDEX, pg. 283