Logistics: \u201c. . the branch of military science dealing with the procurement, maintenance, and movement of equipment, supplies, and personnel.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Organization of Continental Ordinance\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of ordinance activities in the 18th century was to provide forces in the field with the weapons and am- munition to carry on the fight. While the focus was mostly on artillery needs, the term and the activities included provision and repair of muskets and other individual arms, preparation of ammunition for muskets, and supplying all the materials and accoutrements necessary to maintain\nthe army\u2019s fighting capabilities.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The management structure for ordinance changed constantly during the war, with the key players being Congress, its Board of War, and the Commissary General of Military Stores on one side, and Washington with his artillery chief Henry Knox, on the other. At the beginning in 1775-76, the field army under Washing- ton and Knox controlled much of the supply chain for ordinance. They directed the establishment of supply points, gave orders as to what was needed, and arranged the distribution of the resulting weaponry. In the beginning of the war, ordinance logistics was mostly a matter of distribution, since no original supply sources had been developed. Ordinance consisted of captured British equipment, or assets procured by the colonial militia establishments before the war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because Washington and Knox were in the field with the Main Army, they could not keep track of supply problems at the source, nor could they know the needs of other forces scattered about the colonies. Trying to operate the ordinance logistics chain from the field caused innumerable problems and failures of the supply system which culminated in a complete reversal in 1779. Congress, through its committee known as the Board of War, took control and retained it through the end of major conflict in 1782. Congress appointed the Commissary General of Military Stores who was responsible for the supply end of the ordinance chain, who followed the guidance of the Board of War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was a commissariat position, and not a military one, so not subject to the Army (Washington\u2019s) command. The man who held the post of Commissary General for Military Stores for most of the war was Benjamin Flower, who began the Revolution as a Lieutenant in a Philadelphia militia regiment. Congress originally had appoint-ed him in 1776 as Commissary of Military Stores for the New Jersey flying camp. Then Washington named him as Commissary General for Military Stores for the Army in 1777, and in 1779, when Congress took control, he was reappointed to the same position, reporting to the Board of War. He served until his death in May 1781.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the 1779 arrangement, Washington, through his Chief of Artillery (General Knox), was now responsible for ordinance field operations and activities. In to-day\u2019s military terminology, we would say that Congress established and ran the acquisition and depot logistics operations, while Washington and Knox directed the field supply, distribution, and maintenance activities. This simple concept was not so simple in operation, given the multiple sources of supplies, the competing de-mands from the various geographical armies, (Northern, Southern, Main), and the overlapping responsibilities in many areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acquisition and Depot Operations <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1779 system of ordinance supply under Commissary General of Military Stores Flower operated in this way: Two major ordinance supply depots were established, one at Springfield, MA and the other at Carlisle, PA. As most of you know, these two locations would become important names in American military history. Carlisle Barracks is still an active Army post, while Springfield Arsenal was for two centuries the premier US arsenal for small arms manufacture. Their locations were selected to avoid the British Army strength around New York and the Hudson River valley, with Springfield to the north and east of contested areas, while Carlisle was west and south. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Each depot operated with approximately 100 craftsmen\nand supply staff, each known as a \u201cRegiment of Artillery\nArtificers\u201d, under the command of a deputy to the Com-\nmissary General of Military Stores. The staff included\ncarpenters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and armorers.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ordinance depots were known as laboratories, which at the time meant a place where things of a technical nature were manufactured. The mission of these depots had many facets. They received bulk shipments of materials and finished goods destined for the Army\u2019s ordinance needs and transshipped them to the Army as required. They received raw materials or piece parts from suppliers and completed the manufacture as needed, then distributed them to the field. They manufactured ammunition at the laboratory, and also received and transshipped cannon, powder, musket ball, flints, fuses, cannon balls, and mortar or howitzer shells supplied from outside sources. And they operated shops for the repair of broken or worn out items sent in from the field. Examples include manufacture and repair of caissons and limbers, artillery tools (sponges, rammers), muskets, bayonets, ironwork, and leather goods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Carlisle location specialized in cannon and large caliber ammunition due to the large number of iron works and foundries in the eastern Pennsylvania region, which provided sizable quantities of iron. It is thought \u2013 though not supported by any hard historical papers, that most of the effort at Carlisle was in cannon ammunition, rather than the casting of tubes, and in repair of artillery gear, as noted above. The Springfield labora- tory specialized in small arms since its location close to the New England coast made it the receiving depot for much of the small arms shipped in by France and other countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The depot laboratories delivered their products to the army\u2019s field ordinance operations, where they went to one of two organizations, both under Chief of Artillery Knox. The tubes, carriages, ammunition, and equip- ment for the Artillery units went directly to those units. The infantry regiments were supplied through a special- ized unit created at the Brigade level. Under the com- mand of a Brigade Conductor (remember the term from the Transport section of Part 2. of this series), an allocation of wagons, tools, a forge, and a dozen or so men drawn from the brigade were assigned to receive powder and ball and other infantry goods from the laboratories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cannon\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of the war, at Boston in 1775, the The number of tubes actually produced in the colonies during the war is not known. There is plenty of cor- respondence and other evidence of plans and orders and expectations, but precious little evidence of actual production and deliveries of indigenous American tubes to the army. It can be said for certain that both brass and iron tubes in varying weight were produced, most from Pennsylvania, and delivered to Carlisle and directly to the field, but quantities are unknown. Difficulties and failures are the most notable evidence, including, as an example, a report of Daniel Joy, agent for the Board of War, that of 150 various pieces he proofed at the Hopewell, PA furnace in May 1776, not a single one withstood testing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By far the majority of cannon, mortars, and howitzers\nwere imported from nations willing to sell to the Ameri-\ncans. From early in the war, the French, Dutch, and\nSpanish provided them, shipping most to the Caribbean\nisland of St. Eustatius (Dutch), where blockade-runners\nwould pick them up and bring them to American ports.\nOnce Silas Deane arrived in France and set up a supply\nconduit based on French funds, hundreds of artillery\npieces and thousands of muskets began to fill the pipe-\nline using French vessels, sailing directly to American\nports such as Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A major\norder shipped in 1777 included 200 cannon, 30 mor-\ntars, 30,000 muskets, and 200 tons of powder.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Washington was essentially on the defensive the entire war \u2013 until Yorktown \u2013 he needed artillery mobil- ity rather than heavy throw weight. This meant light guns of smaller ball size. He had little need for massive siege guns or heavy batteries for fixed defenses. His artillery had to be horse or oxen mobile, and able to keep with the infantry for mutual support. As a result, the requested artillery tubes usually ranged between 3 and 12 pounds in round ball weight. That is not to say the Continentals wouldn\u2019t take whatever came down the supply road, but their need was for light and mobile pieces for infantry support, more than anything else. Based on a breakdown of inventories of captured British guns, approximately two thirds of Revolutionary War artillery pieces were iron, with the other one third brass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Muskets and Powder\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There were three sources of new military muskets for the American Army, beyond what the soldiers brought from home, as the war progressed. The first sources, which continued to some extent throughout the war, were the capture of British supplies either from the battlefield or their supply system. An example was the 1776 capture of the English brig \u201cNancy\u201d by an American ship, deliv- ering some 2,000 muskets to Washington. Second was the manufacture of muskets by American gunsmiths \u2013 popularly known as committee of safety muskets. Some\nsignificant attempts to provide home-built muskets\ninclude the Virginia factory at Fredericksburg, lock\nproduction at several shops in Philadelphia, and numer-\nous contracts for complete muskets to private gunsmiths\nin manufacturing centers like Baltimore, Frederick, and\nHagerstown, MD. There were later attempts after 1778\nby Congress to operate its own shops in Lancaster, PA\nand Trenton, NJ, but there was apparently little resulting\nimpact on the shortages.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\nPART FOUR \u2013 ORDINANCE\n<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\nfirst return for the Continental Artillery Regiment was\n41 tubes of all types. Gains and losses early in the war\nincluded the famous capture at Ticonderoga of 55 guns\nthat Henry Knox carried through the snow to Boston.\nThere was the loss of Forts Washington and Lee on the\nHudson in November 1776, resulting in a loss of 149\npieces, and the 1777 victory at Saratoga, which provided\na badly needed 49 pieces from Burgoyne\u2019s army.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n