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John Lloyd and David Rhea Lead Purchasing for the Army

by Michael Adelberg

John Lloyd and David Rhea Lead Purchasing for the Army

The Continental Army was dependent on supplies raised from New Jersey. Azariah Dunham led purchasing efforts in the state. David Rhea and John Lloyd were his main agents in Monmouth County.

- October 1778 -

In the first half of 1777 and after the Battle of Monmouth (June 28, 1778), the main body of the Continental Army camped in New Jersey (near Morristown). New Jerseyans were largely responsible for feeding the Army’s men and horses and, with some of the state’s best farmland, the farmers of Monmouth County were critical to this effort. Yet, under Monmouth County’s first commissary officer, Francis Wade, in early 1777, the county underperformed in supplying the Army.


Raising Provisions for the Army after Wade’s Departure

When Wade left in May 1777, itinerant purchasing agents came into the county. But they frustrated Monmouth Countians who, on September 6, petitioned the Legislature:


Your Petitioners, having been frequently called out by wagon masters & deputy Commissaries for grain for the use of the Continental Army, & at the time of delivery thereof we have never been able to get satisfaction, therefore -- that many of us applied sundry times since to Commissaries & Pay Masters in order to get our pay & have been disappointed, by which we have been put at considerable expense & trouble.


The petitioners further complained:


Your Petitioners would further beg leave to inform your Honorable Houses that a number of wagons & horses have been pressed from the inhabitants of this County (known to be friends of the freedom of the States) into the Continental service & have never been returned or compensated, altho' frequent applications have been made.


The petitioners called for naming a single “contractor” for the county who would make purchases and settle accounts for the Army. The petition received a favorable reception. Two days later, the lower house of the legislature, the Assembly, recorded that "a bill is now before the Council [upper house], tending to prevent future inconveniences complained of in said petition.”


However, a single contractor was not immediately named. In January 1778, George Washington wrote Governor William Livingston that he instructed his commissary officer, Ephraim Blaine “to direct his Deputies in the Monmouth district to purchase up that produce first which lays nearest the Coast." Just two weeks later, another commissary officer, Clement Biddle, wrote that "there is a store at Allentown to receive the grain of Monmouth."


Supplying the Army, however, was only half the challenge. The Monmouth militia and State Troops also needed horses, food, and forage. The State of New Jersey, parallel to the Continental Army, named its own purchasing agents and each county militia had its own quartermaster. These men competed for supplies with the Army’s agents. (The state’s efforts to raise supplies for the militia and State Troops is discussed in the appendix of this article.) They also competed with so-called “London Traders” who illegally ferried provisions to British purchasers on Sandy Hook and New York. Frustrated Monmouth Countians petitioned the Legislature about this in February 1778, writing:


We find that our commissarys & quartermasters of the Monmouth malitia [sic] are not able to get supplies for the small number of troops stationed in this county as grain & provisions have been & still are plenty in this county, quite sufficient, not only for the support of the inhabitants, but also for the support of the malitia stationed... To our great mortification, we do find that grain and other provisions are daily carted from the townships of Freehold, Middletown & c. to the township of Shrewsbury (a noted place for the raising of grain & likewise produce of every kind in great plenty) under pretense of supplying the inhabitants of Shrewsbury... [where] by some means it is conveyed to the public enemy of the United States.


By spring 1778, it was known that the British would quit Philadelphia and the Continental Army would leave Valley Forge and return to New Jersey. Plans were drawn up to raise stores for the arriving Army. General Nathanael Greene developed plans to raise 30,000 bushels of hay from Burlington and Monmouth counties with stores at Trenton and Allentown. On April 9, Commissary officer Clement Biddle confirmed to Greene that the store at Allentown was established.


Biddle appointed Elisha Lawrence (cousin of the Loyalist of the same name) to raise food for the Army. He wrote Moore Furman on April 25, "Mr. Lawrence to be continued in purchasing from Princetown, Trenton and Allentown & I recommend him as a suitable person for the QM department.” Biddle sent Lawrence to Egg Harbor on June 9: “I have directed that Col. Lawrence send down corn to supply to wagons hauling from Egg Harbor." Three days later, Biddle asked to keep Lawrence on his payroll, calling him “highly necessary” and hoping “he will not quit." But it appears that Lawrence did quit; he was replaced by Freehold merchant, John Lloyd.


John Lloyd and David Rhea as Purchasing Agents

From 1778 through the end of the war, Lloyd, for the commissary department purchased food for army soldiers, and David Rhea, for the quartermaster department purchased hay and horses for the Army’s cavalry and wagon-master. They would be Monmouth County’s key purchasers for the Army. Based on surviving purchasing records, it appears that Lloyd and Rhea cooperated well. At times, they purchased goods that were within the scope of activity of the other. Presumably, they shared and transferred goods in those cases.


Rhea was a Lt. Colonel in the Continental Army who had guided the Army to high ground during the Battle of Monmouth. On October 30, 1778, he wrote to Moore Furman of a plan to establish a Quartermaster's office in Monmouth County. Rhea wanted the job. He wrote Furman: “You had thoughts of appointing me to that office if I thought it proper to retire from the Army... I can leave the Army on the shortest notice."


Rhea returned home and took over the commissary’s store at Allentown. He did so while retaining his Lt. Colonel commission in the New Jersey Line into 1780. Other senior officers from Monmouth County also retained Army commissions long after relinquishing the command of soldiers.


The initial reports of Rhea’s assignment in Monmouth County were glowing. On December 29, Lord Stirling [General William Alexander] wrote George Washington that:


Col. Biddle is come in from Monmouth and says forage is coming in so plenty that we shall soon be able to stop the impressing of it. God Grant it, on every Account; but I shall be glad to get rid of the numerous complaints I have every day from the farmers.


Two days later, Greene wrote Stirling, "I have but little hopes of getting any considerable quantity of forage in any part of New Jersey except Monmouth, where I believe there is a considerable quantity."


By late January, the bolus of forage for the Army from Monmouth County began to ebb, perhaps because supplies were diverted to militia and state troops inside the county (see appendix). On January 24, an Army quartermaster agent named Van Heer wrote Greene that he was sending men into Monmouth County to raise more forage. One of Van Leer’s men, William McAuley, ran afoul of Captain John Burrowes, a Continental Army captain sent home to Middletown. Burrowes wrote Lord Stirling in early February:


I have a complaint to enter to your lordship concerning one William McAuley, a forage master now in Monmouth, his conduct I think is unsufferable - this McAuley has been down in Monmouth with eleven waggons there eight days. He has been at two farms about two miles apart and not one mile further, he has had to the amount of five or six loads of forage at these two farms and would not suffer them forward, but has staid [sic] without asking for more till he has fed it away to the waggon horses.


Clement Biddle revealed the reason that Van Heer and McAuley were in Monmouth County. He wrote that "my resources in Monmouth begin to fail and I fear will begin to fall short." A month later, he further reported that "our supplies for this place grow less and less, and I expect will totally stop coming in, the inhabitants of Monmouth begin to get clamorous at the great quantities being drawn from thence."


Frustrations Build in 1779

Rhea’s first surviving letter as a quartermaster officer was written on March 4, 1779. He responded to Moore Furman regarding a request to purchase horses for the Army. Rhea was pessimistic: “The inhabitants ask exorbitant prices and seem to govern themselves much by the prices set by grain. Should that continue to rise, I dare not say what the horses will sell for.” The need for horses continued. Three months later, Governor Livingston acknowledged the shortage to Samuel Huntington, President of the Continental Congress. Livingston empowered "Magistrates to impress all the teams they possibly can” in five counties, including Monmouth. This led to allegations of abuse of power and litigation in Monmouth County where magistrates may have selectively impressed goods. A frustrated Rhea called his home county, “a damnation country to do business with."


Although it may have been Lloyd’s role, Rhea also sought to raise food for the Army. In July 1779, he wrote Moore Furman about his efforts. He ordered Richard McKnight to the shore to take foodstuffs from a beached ship, but McKnight was taken by Loyalists and the cargo sat. By July 23, the flour was old and damaged (likely by salt water), so Rhea ordered that the "damaged flour at Squan be sold." Later, Rhea admitted being mistaken about the flour, "the inhabitants prove it not so bad, but bread might [still] be made of it." In August, with harvests beginning, Rhea detailed his operation at Allentown: ten wagons, three oxen, four horses, and two subordinates (a forage master and a clerk).


However, purchasing remained challenging and frustrating. Both Rhea and Lloyd were convicted of assault at the August 1779 Monmouth County Court of Oyer and Terminer. Rhea was fined £20 (roughly the cost of a good horse) and Lloyd was fined £6. A few months later, Governor Livingston wrote: “The truth is farmers will not sell. Some are determined upon this measure thro' sheer avarice which prompts them to keep what they have as long as there is any prospect of a rising price." That same month, Rhea complained of an order to raise wood on short notice: "I am distressed exceedingly, but this is always the way; [we] never look out until we want & then [pay] any price for it."


In January 1780, the Army compiled a "General Return of Persons Employed in the Quarter Master General & Forage Departments in the State of New Jersey." In Monmouth County, at Allentown, there was Rhea and his two purchasing officers; at Freehold, there was Lloyd and three subordinates (including David Rhea, Jr.).


Larger staff did not counter rising prices or weak institutions. Rhea wrote of the price of cut wood: "you cannot conceive how they have drove up the price of boards… the severe frost has prevented them coming to hand." A few months later, he complained to Moore Furman about weak laws and indifferent local officials: "I find no teams have come in -- the law & Magistrates both are insufficient."


In March, Lloyd’s commanding officer, Azariah Dunham, compiled a "Return of Grain Purchases" across New Jersey. Lloyd was assigned 11,000 bushels of grain, about 1/3 of the total needed. Lloyd’s July 1780 account book shows that he purchased hay or meat from 31 Monmouth farmers. 


Interestingly, the largest seller was Asher Holmes, the Colonel of the Monmouth militia and State Troops in Monmouth County. He appears to have sold goods to Lloyd that might otherwise have been used to supply his own men. Holmes sold 1,100 lbs. of beef, four tons of hay, and leased a horse team. He was paid £74 for these supplies (triple the amount paid to any other farmer).


Amidst all of this activity, yet another purchasing contractor emerged in July 1780. William Tapscott of Upper Freehold was appointed to purchase sheep for the expected French fleet. He purchased fifty sheep from fifteen Monmouth Countians. The sheep gathered was a fraction of what the French fleet would need. Meanwhile, Rhea continued to struggle to raise horses from those same Upper Freehold farmers: He wrote on July 1: "They would rather pay a tax to support Continental teams” than have the horses “dragged from their farms.”


In September, the Army’s Commissary General, Ephraim Blaine, informed George Washington: “Mr. Dunham, Agent for Jersey, has assured me the Contractor of Monmouth County [Lloyd] has purchased one hundred cattle, exclusive of those which General Furman [David Forman] took from the Inhabitants.” Rhea’s account books from October 1780 show purchases of food and wood for the Army. The account books also include a number of expenses related to maintaining his staff, including payments to widow Charity Jones for quartering his men. Three men were paid roughly $300 each for carting the purchased supplies.


Raising supplies for the Army continued in 1781. John Lloyd’s account book shows that he raised enough supplies to warrant leasing 27 horse teams (for an average of one week at approximately £1 per day). Lloyd also paid £200 to a handful of men for "shoeing horses" and paid himself £12 for "use of storehouse" and £40 for butchering meat.


Lloyd’s accounts became the subject of controversy. Azariah Dunham refused to pay him and sought to replace him in early 1782. Dunham’s own account books show that he bypassed Lloyd and purchased directly from nearly a dozen Monmouth Countians, including two of its leaders, Samuel Forman and Kenneth Hankinson. Lloyd’s accounts with Dunham remained unsettled at least until December 1785 when the New Jersey Assembly instructed the state’s Treasurer to sue Dunham on behalf of Lloyd and others still owed money.


Related Historic Site: U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum (Lorton, Virginia)


Appendix: Raising Supplies for the Monmouth Militia and State Troops


Even before John Lloyd and David Rhea were appointed to raise supplies for the Continental Army in Monmouth County, the militia and state troops competed with the Army for provisions. In early 1778, 29 Monmouth County militia officers petitioned the state legislature and laid out the problem: “We find that our commissarys [sic] & quartermasters of the Monmouth militia are not able to get supplies for the small number of troops stationed in this county.”


The petitioners asked the legislature to empower militia officers to impress horses and provisions:


Malitia [sic] officers when in actual service, are forbid impressing any teams, horse or saddle, from which inconveniences may arise in case of emergency; we do most humbly conceive that the commanding officers of the malitia, or the commanding officer of any party, should be empowered (if need require) to hire waggons & horses, upon the refusals of the owner or owners, to empowered to impress them - giving the owner or owners proper certificates for the time they were in the service.


The petition signers included all three colonels (Asher Holmes, Samuel Forman and Daniel Hendrickson) and the county’s militia general, David Forman. The Legislature did not empower all militia officers to impress horses, but, a month later, it did pass an act appointing one purchasing agent per county to purchase horses. Tunis Vanderveer was selected for Monmouth County.


A year later, the large quantity of forage raised for the Army from Monmouth and Burlington counties prompted colonels Samuel Forman and Nicholas Biddle (of Burlington County) to write the New Jersey Legislative Council (upper house of the Legislature) complaining of a lack of forage. The Council was not willing curb the activity of Continental purchasing officers, but it did act:


Hearing Colonels Biddle and Forman on the subject, and fully considering the present scarcity of forage, [the Council] advised his Excellency the Governor [Willam Livingston] to issue a proclamation requiring the Magistrates to be attentive to the application of the persons employed in collecting forage for the troops.


Two days later, the Legislative Council called on Governor Livingston "to call two classes of the militia from Burlington, one class from Hunterdon, one class from Middlesex and one class from the militia of Monmouth County" to protect the Monmouth shore. A regiment of Pennsylvania Continentals under Colonel Caleb North joined them on the Monmouth shore to provide the county security. Local magistrates and militia officers became involved in impressments to supply these men, leading to accusations and at least one scandal (“the Benjamin Van Cleaf affair”).


In 1780, raids against Monmouth County peaked and so did the number of men called out to defend the shore, including both militia and a regiment of State Troops under Colonel Asher Holmes. The New Jersey Assembly had no choice but to focus on raising supplies for these militia and state troops. It passed an act on March 18 to appoint a state contractor, one per county, to raise forage and provisions.


The state appointed John Smock (already a Lt. Colonel of the militia) contractor for Monmouth County to raise the following quotas: 1250 barrels of flour, 1300 lbs. of pork, 750 tons of hay, and 4150 bushels of corn. The Monmouth County quota was nearly equal to the combined quotas from its neighboring counties (Middlesex to the north and Burlington to the south). The state fixed prices for these purchases. These fixed prices raise the probability that farmers would refuse to sell to these contractors without impressment—a practice detested by farmers.


The apparent difference in prices paid (Smock vs. Continental purchasers) put Smock at a disadvantage and Governor Livingston became aware of the problem. On June 6, 1780, Livingston wrote to the Assembly "that it is impossible to supply the militia now on duty in the County of Monmouth" and that "that the men find their own rations, which will be credited to the accounts of the State at the rate of Continental soldiers." Livingston called the lack of supplies for troops in Monmouth County a matter “requiring all possible dispatch, lest the post be deserted & a greater part of the County be thereby exposed to the depredations of the enemy."


The next day, the legislature’s upper house passed a resolution. "Resolved, that for the present, until a law can be enacted for remedy... the contractor for the County of Monmouth be authorized to furnish the detachment of militia stationed in that County with rations and provisions." And two days after (June 9), the lower house, the Assembly, passed a law giving the Monmouth County contractor (John Smock) a line of credit to purchase needed supplies without adhering to the state’s fee schedule.


However, Smock was captured four weeks later by a party of African American Loyalist raiders. It is probable that the provisions collected by Smock made him an especially attractive target for attack. It is unclear if Smock was replaced.


Sources: New Jersey State Archives, Collective Series, Revolutionary War Documents, #52; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, September 6-8, 1777, p 157; The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 13, 26 December 1777 – 28 February 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003, pp. 296–297; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, M247, I192, Quartermaster Department Letters, p373; National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Library, file cabinet: John Lloyd of New Jersey, February 1778; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, March 28, 1778, p 95; Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1976) vol. 2, p 327; George Washington to Nathanael Greene, March 31, 1778, The George Washington Papers, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov; Clement Biddle to Congress, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 199, item 192, #373; Joseph Lee Boyle, Writings from the Valley Forge Encampment of the Continental Army (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2003) v2 p114, 153; v3, p145; New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #10671; Lord Stirling to George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 18, 1 November 1778 – 14 January 1779, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 528–529; Nathanael Green to Lord Stirling, Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1976) vol. 3, pp. 130-1; David Bernstein, Minutes of the Governor's Privy Council, 1777-1789 (Trenton: New Jersey State Library, Archives and History Bureau, 1974) pp. 109, 112-3; Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1976) vol. 3, pp. 179, 181, 307; Erna Risch, Supplying Washington's Army (Washington, DC: Center of Military History United States Army, 1981) p 113; David Rhea, Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1976) vol. 3, pp. 247-8; John Burrowes to Lord Stirling, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 4, reel 55, February 3, 1779; David Rhea to Moore Furman, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5601; William Livingston to Samuel Huntington, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 3, p 439; New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5600; David Rhea’s Return, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #4248; William Livingston to Nathaniel Scudder, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 3, p 198; David Rhea to Moore Furman, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5598; Return of Persons Employed by Quartermaster General, January 1780, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Numbered Manuscripts #5939; David Rhea to Moore Furman, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5594; New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5596; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 22, item 11, #166-72; Return of Grain Purchases, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 170, item 152, vol. 8, #439; Dorothy Stratford, Certificates and Receipts of Revolutionary New Jersey (Trenton: Hunterdon House, 1996) pp. 242-4; New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #8219-8933; Dennis P. Ryan, "Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) p 127; Ephraim Blaine to George Washington, Founders Online, National Archives (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-03264, ver. 2013-09-28; Account Book, David Rhea, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #4218; Account Book, David Rhea, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5603; Schedule of Horse Teams, New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Revolutionary War, Numbered Manuscripts, #5934; Account Book of Azariah Dunham, Deschler Collection, Rutgers University Special Collections; New Jersey Gazette, December 12, 1785; Journals of the Legislative Council of New Jersey (Isaac Collins: State of New Jersey, 1780) p93; William Livingston to Assembly, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 3, p 421; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, June 8, 1780, p 223.

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