By Juliana Varsalona, B.A. in History, Christopher Newport University, Class of 2025 and Sheri Shuck-Hall, PhD, Professor of History, Christopher Newport University
Wars are won or lost as much by supply wagons as by battlefield tactics. When the American Revolutionary War erupted in 1775 at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the newly formed Continental Congress faced a staggering challenge: it had to build a new nation and equip a brand-new army at the exact same time. For General George Washington, one of the most agonizing struggles of the war was simply finding enough food to keep his soldiers alive. Operating without established supply lines, the Continental Army routinely faced broken transportation networks, empty bank accounts, and brutal winter weather that left troops on the brink of starvation. This digital exhibit explores how early Americans struggled to feed their army, looks inside the desperate winter encampment at Valley Forge, and honors the frontline cooks and laborers who fueled the fight for American independence.[1]
The Logistics of Supply: The Commissary Department
At the start of the Revolution, the colonies lacked a centralized system to provide food or clothing. Instead, individual New England towns had to gather supplies from local family barns to feed nearby militias. Realizing this makeshift support could not sustain a long war, the Continental Congress created an official “Commissary Department” on July 19, 1775. Congress appointed a merchant named Joseph Trumbull as the first Commissary General, charging him with purchasing and distributing rations for the entire army. However, state rivalries, poor roads, and food hoarding made deliveries highly unpredictable.[2]
The system broke down completely in the summer of 1777 when Trumbull resigned after political arguments with Congress. In the Middle Department—the vital theater covering New Jersey and Pennsylvania—food distribution collapsed under the new agent, Carpenter Wharton. The job of feeding thousands of mobile men proved too immense for one person. In March 1777, a congressional committee investigated the department, found Wharton guilty of financial mismanagement, and fired him.[3]
Joseph Trumbull, “Printmakers include Asher B. Durand, Henry Bryan Hall, Albert Rosenthal and Max Rosenthal. Draughtsmen include David McNeely Stauffer,” New York Public Library‘s Digital Library, ID 6abb1cd0-c605-012f-823a-58d385a7bc34.
To rescue the supply lines, Congress split up responsibilities by region. They appointed William Buchanan as the new overseer in August 1777, who then selected Deputy Commissary Ephraim Blaine to manage food collection across Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and parts of New York.[4] To protect soldiers from sudden food shortages, field assistants like John Chanoner and James White marched directly alongside Washington’s troops. These agents acted as a live human link between civilian farms and the fighting front.[5]
The Grand Forage of 1778: Managing the Crisis at Valley Forge
The deep cracks in the supply system collided with disaster during the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Washington chose this location for strategic reasons: it was close enough to British-occupied Philadelphia to monitor enemy movements, yet easily defendable. But without reliable supply routes, the camp quickly turned into a humanitarian crisis. By late December, Washington warned Congress that the army was facing total collapse due to administrative failures, writing:
“Since the month of July, we have had no assistance from the Quartermaster General, and in want of assistance from this department, the Commissary General charges a great part of his deficiency.”— General George Washington, December 1777 [6]
Fearing his army would dissolve before spring, Washington ordered a massive emergency mission known to history as the Grand Forage of 1778.[7]
For nearly six weeks, Washington sent 150 to 200 of his remaining able-bodied soldiers on an expedition sweeping through southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, Delaware, and northeastern Maryland. Their mission was to seize cattle, livestock, grain, and flour from local farms to keep the garrison alive. Letters written by supply officers at Valley Forge reveal just how desperate the situation had become. On January 20, 1778, Deputy Commissary Ephraim Blaine wrote to Washington, begging him to cut standard food portions to stretch their disappearing reserves:
“May it please your Excellency—The vast daily consumption of beef and the appearance of want of that articles induces me to present your excellency with the under mentioned queries—which if approved of may be of great service to the public—Qu. 1 would not a reduction of the rations of beef to the soldietry [sic] be a great service to the publick, suppose the ration 1 ½ flour or bread 12 ounces beef or pork, and one gill of whiskey… Flour is plenty and whiskey may be procured to supply the army, and without great assistance from the Southern and Eastern departments it will be impossible to procure beef”— Ephraim Blaine to George Washington, January 20, 1778 [8]
That same day, Blaine wrote a frantic letter to his boss, William Buchanan, warning that regional supply agents had run completely out of cash, meaning local farmers refused to sell to them:
“Sir, The vast expense in supplying the army makes the demand of cash in our department very great I made a distribution of 208 thousand dollars which was but a mere trifle among them, half my assistant purchases are not above one fourth paid they complain the want of cash is a great injury in their purchases… Indeed this is a very heavy complaint… wou’d request you to procure an order for three hundred thousand dollars and without delay forward me 250 of it, I am this moment without one shilling… those reasons with sundry others have determined me upon quitting the service…”— Ephraim Blaine to William Buchanan, January 20, 1778 [9]
NPS Photo, Hannah Till portrayed by Park Ranger Ajena C. Rogers.
The Labor of the Camp: Hannah Till and Paid Staff
While ordinary soldiers cooked their own meals in small outdoor squads, high-ranking officers relied on a dedicated staff of laborers, cooks, and artisans to run their headquarters and manage daily cooking. The life of Hannah Till provides a powerful window into the complex labor dynamics that sustained the army’s leadership.[10]
Born into bondage around 1721, Hannah Till was an enslaved woman owned by Reverend John Mason of New York. During the war, she was leased out as a cook, eventually working directly for General George Washington. However, unlike many workers at the time, Till successfully negotiated a contract during her service that allowed her to earn wages to purchase her freedom.[11]
Alongside her husband Isaac, Till managed the bustling fireplace kitchen inside the Isaac Potts House, Washington’s official headquarters at Valley Forge.[12] Working under grueling wartime conditions, Hannah and Isaac carefully saved their earnings and fully paid off their self-purchase agreements by 1780. Even after winning her liberation, Till chose to stay with Washington’s staff—and later General Lafayette’s—for the remainder of the war as a paid pastry cook, marking a remarkable personal transition from forced labor to self-determined, paid employment.[13]
Revolutionary Rations and Daily Reality
In 1775, the Continental Congress set a standard daily ration that every enlisted soldier was legally supposed to receive:
“One pound of fresh beef, or ¾ of a pound of Pork, or one pound of Salt Fish, pr diem. One pound of Bread, or Flour pr diem. Three pints of Peas, or Beans pr Week, or Vegetables equivalent… One pint of milk pr Man, pr diem, when to be had. One half pint of Rice, or one pint of Indian meal pr Man, pr Week. One quart of Spruce Beer per man, pr diem…” [14]
In reality, these items rarely reached the soldiers. By 1776, supply delays were so frequent that Washington ordered all troops to carry at least two days of provisions in their bags at all times so they wouldn’t starve during an emergency. If baked bread could not be delivered, soldiers received raw flour, which they mixed with water and baked on hot rocks over open campfires to create “firecakes.”[15]
Depiction of Continental soldiers’ daily rations, including the notorious hard bread. Photo by author, taken at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown encampment, April 2025.
The food soldiers did manage to find was often terrible or hazardous to their health. In his famous wartime diary, Private Joseph Plumb Martin remembered the dental hazards of eating “hardtack” biscuits during the 1776 campaign:
“We marched a short distance when he halted to refresh ourselves. Whether we had any other victuals besides hard bread I do not remember. I do remember my gnawing at the bread. It was hard enough to break the teeth of a rat.”— Private Joseph Plumb Martin, 1776 [16]
Similarly, Samuel Dewees of the 11th Pennsylvania Regiment remembered how terrible nutritional deficiencies made the soldiers sick:
“…sometimes we had one biscuit and herring per day, and often neither the one nor the other…a biscuit and a herring each day, the soldiers lived until their mouths broke out with scabs, and their throats became as sore and raw as a piece of uncooked meat.”–Samuel Dewees, 11th Pennsylvania Regiment [17]
To survive these shortages, the army relied heavily on “camp followers”—the wives, mothers, and daughters of enlisted men who marched alongside the troops. These women ran makeshift outdoor kitchens, butchered animals, and managed tight ration portions to stretch every single ingredient as far as possible.[18]
Starving for Liberty
The history of the American Revolution proves that administrative endurance is just as vital to victory as battlefield strategy. The fight for independence was won not only by generals drawing maps, but by the daily labor of supply officers, regional farmers, and camp cooks who kept the army fed under near-impossible conditions. Looking at the evolution of the supply system, from the dark days of Valley Forge to an organized national rationing system, reveals the true human cost of building early America.[19]
To explore these historical artifacts and experience the reality of Revolutionary camp life firsthand, visitors are invited to view the public exhibitions and step inside the live, interactive military encampments at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation museums in Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia (https://www.jyfmuseums.org/). By walking among the tents and engaging with the period’s material history, modern audiences can truly appreciate the physical sacrifices required to lay the foundations of American liberty.[20]
Notes
[1] Joseph Boyle, My Last Shift Betwixt Us & Death: The Ephraim Blaine Letterbook 1777-1778 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books Inc., 2016), v.
[2] Erna Risch, Supplying Washington’s Army (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1981), 8–12.
[3] Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 8 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907), 500–501.
[4] Boyle, The Ephraim Blaine Letterbook, v–ix.
[5] Ibid., xi.
[6] George Washington to the President of Congress, December 23, 1777, in The Writings of George Washington, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), 6:255.
[7] Boyle, The Ephraim Blaine Letterbook, x.
[8] Ephraim Blaine to George Washington, January 20, 1778, in Boyle, The Ephraim Blaine Letterbook, 96.
[9] Ephraim Blaine to William Buchanan, January 20, 1778, in Boyle, The Ephraim Blaine Letterbook, 96–97.
[10] Ricardo A. Herrera, Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023), 88–91.
[16] Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin (New York: Signet Classics, 2001), 16–17.
[17] Quoted in Backus, “Getting Food in the Continental Army.”
[18] Herrera, Feeding Washington’s Army, 1–4.
[19] Risch, Supplying Washington’s Army, 28–32.
[20] On-site living history interpretation guidelines, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation Educational Materials, https://www.jyfmuseums.org/.
Parker Watson, B.A. in History and Museum Studies, Christopher Newport University
Sheri Shuck-Hall, Ph.D. Professor of History, Christopher Newport University
Oysters are an integral part of the oceans that surround us. They are especially important in the Chesapeake Bay as they filter and clean the water, and their reefs prevent coastal erosion and protect estuaries. Oysters are essential for the health of the bay’s ecosystem and are a source of food for the people of the mid-Atlantic and beyond. We have been eating oysters for generations. In fact, today’s methods of harvesting oysters are more like those practiced by Indigenous peoples that inhabited the Chesapeake Bay area before European settlement. Featuring artifacts from the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown and archival images from the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, this exhibit will explore oyster harvesting by diverse people throughout time in the Chesapeake Bay and discuss how we can help preserve the ecosystem and support sustainable practices.
Oysters are a very interesting species. When looking at how they live below the water, oysters start out as floating larvae before eventually settling down on a solid surface, such as rocks. Over time, they create oyster reefs by gathering with other oysters and grow together. Oysters around 500 years ago were mostly average size (adults can grow up to 8 inches, but it is more common for them to be from 3 to 5 inches in the Chesapeake Bay today). They are measured by the size of the shell. Indigenous people had methods of selecting and harvesting oysters by hand, mostly by men or boys, and resulted in picking more consistent sizes. Those tribes living near the Chesapeake Bay practiced sustainability as they collected oysters without harming the habitat. Four supporting factors that contributed to a sustainable oyster population were: water depth and existing technology restricted communities to harvesting close to shore; oysters may have been harvested intensively only at certain times of the year; the density of the human population was drastically lower; and human diets at the time had a mixture of marine and land-dwelling resources. The Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Chesapeake Bay ate oysters regularly, either stewed or roasted, because they were a very valuable source of protein for the Native population, and the size of the oyster meat provided plenty of food to support the villages.[1]
This image depicts Indigenous peoples using various nets to collect marine life for their diets. Oysters would have been collected by hand or by using rake-like tools seen here. Incolarum Virginiae piscandi ratio (The Method of Fishing of the Inhabitants of Virginia), Theodor de Bry after John White’s watercolor paintings, 1590. Courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum Library.
When Europeans arrived in North America, they had limited knowledge of what the land was like or what kind of food supply that this new world offered. When they met Indigenous peoples, they eventually learned how to farm fruits and vegetables and hunt and fish the wildlife, including the Chesapeake Bay oyster. Realizing that oysters were not only an excellent food source but also a way to earn money, colonists used tools to harvest them more easily. Oyster tongs were widely used from the 18th century onward; they had long pieces of wood with metal clamps at the end to scrape the top layer from the reef and pull up bunches of oysters rather than picking them by hand. Oysters quickly became a popular protein in mid-Atlantic diets, especially as oyster tongers competed in a growing market.[2]
Different types of tongs used in the American oyster industry. Image reproduced from von BrantOyster tongs were an easy way to gather oysters quickly and used for generations; the men who used this tool were called oyster tongers. Image from The Daily Press, 1961, Labeled: Delmas Haddaway (left) and Chester (right) use huge rake like thongs to get oysters from Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. P0001.001/01-#P1694. Courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum Library.
Boom Time
In the 19th and 20th centuries, oyster harvesting experienced a boom. A new technology, called the dredge, provided quicker and more efficient extraction of oysters from the reefs, especially if used with motorized boats. This piece of equipment would be thrown over the back of a boat and towed while moving. Its purpose was to scrape the top of the oyster reefs and collect large quantities of oysters. However, in doing so, dredges scraped and destroyed the floor of the Chesapeake Bay, which disrupted the ecosystem for the oyster and other organisms that dwelled on the ocean floor. Many communities of oyster tongers, who represented more traditional methods of oyster harvesting, resisted dredging.[3]
Photo by author of a fishing dredge from the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown, Virginia.
Watermen who continued to use tongs to harvest oysters in the second half of the 19th century were typically smaller and owner-operated compared to their highly industrialized counterparts. The new dredging system outstripped the oyster yield of more traditional tongers. In 1849, watermen harvested 178,000 bushels of oysters; ten years later it jumped to 2.3 million bushels. By 1865, oyster harvesting in Virginia increased to 2 million bushels per year, then doubled to 4 million by 1871. Consequently, the period between 1860 and 1920 saw a massive expansion of the Chesapeake Bay oyster fishery and the introduction of industrialized harvesting that eventually depleted oysters in the bay.[4]
Picture of oyster dredging in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Inscription: “Capt. Wade Muirphy of Tilghman, Md. operating a dredge, legal only during the period from November 1 to March 15, a shorten season than allowed tong men.” AP News features Photo. G- Daily Press, 1961, P0001.001/01-#P1693. Courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum Library.
Increased oyster harvesting from dredging in the 19th and 20th centuries also came with a new way for oysters to be sold to consumers. In the early 1800s canning revolutionized food preservation. Harvested oysters need to be eaten quickly (up to 2 days on ice for safety). However, canned oysters allowed greater commercial distribution beyond the coast and a long shelf life (albeit sacrificing the fresh flavor). The process was simple: canners kept them on ice until they were heated 5 to 7 minutes at 400 degrees. Then, they shucked the oysters once cooled and placed the meat into cans or jars with hot water and salt before sealed and sterilized, preserving it on average for a year. The hub of the Chesapeake Bay commercial oyster canning industry was in Baltimore, Maryland by Edward Wright from Kent County on the Eastern Shore in 1831. Oyster canning improved throughout the years, especially during the 1860s after the Civil War. Canners experimented with new methods that preserved the oysters more efficiently to transport them for sale to different states and countries.[5]
An example of the expanding market for oysters with the introduction of canning. Eldridge Cook, mentored by T.C. Walker and a graduate of the Gloucester Training School, was the owner of Cook’s Seafood Company, a top national seafood processing plant and supplier by the 1950s. He operated the thriving company that distributed oysters like these around the world for over 70 years until 2010. Photo by author. Courtesy of the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown, Virginia.
How Can We Help Preserve Oyster Reefs?
In the late 1800s, the United States experienced a nationwide conservation movement to preserve its natural resources, including the Chesapeake Bay. Established in 1875, the Virginia Fish Commission (now known as the Virginia Marine Resources Commission) began to push legislation that placed greater restrictions on oyster harvesting. In 1929, the commission appointed oyster inspectors and started to plant shells to rebuild oyster habitats and counter the overharvesting of past decades. Today there are alternative ways to harvest oysters responsibly in the Chesapeake Bay. As dredging is highly destructive, many have opted to use more environmentally friendly cages that help sustain the bay oysters and keep the ecosystem healthy. People now farm oysters by placing cages in the water where the oysters create a “reef” as they grow and flourish with access to natural food sources, like algae, then flip the cages regularly. Below are images of the different types of cages that are common today, including the bottom cage, the Taylor float, and the downunder. These are used all throughout the bay to keep the oyster population alive and healthy, but most importantly, sustain the oyster population.[6]
The most common cage is the bottom cage that is placed on the bottom of the sea floor and can hold up to 300 market-sized oysters. Photo by author of a bottom cage from the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown, Virginia.The Taylor float drifts on the surface. This type is the base cage for many oyster farms in the bay and in the United States. It holds up to 400 market-size oysters; once full this cage is heavy to lift, so it has an optional lid to help get the oysters out more easily and efficiently. Photo by author of a Taylor float from the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown, Virginia.A downunder float is typically tied to a dock with rope and hung just under the water level. It can hold up to 150 market-sized oysters and is used for growing and harvesting. The cage got its name because it originated in Australia. Photo by author of a downunder from the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown, Virginia.
The Chesapeake Bay oyster has been a steadily harvested and eaten seafood for many generations. From the Indigenous peoples’ careful hand-selection harvesting to modern-day sustainable oyster farming, we have learned to extract oysters safely and efficiently while protecting the ecosystem. As of 2020, the number of market-size oysters (larger than three inches) was about 400 million compared to 2018 when it was 300 million. These are significant improvements and proves that with community action and environmental education, positive change happens.[7] We must be careful to protect the Chesapeake Bay oyster so that they can continue to thrive. To learn more about oysters and watermen, visit the Watermen’s Museum in historic Yorktown and the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Here you will find exhibits with interesting artifacts, marine archaeology, and interactive displays and programs tracing the history of our diverse coast and its people. For more information conservation and how you can help protect the bay, see the Chesapeake Bay Foundation at Homepage – Chesapeake Bay Foundation (cbf.org).
Acknowledgements
This exhibit was a service-learning project with the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown and the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News in partnership with the Public History Center and the Department of History at Christopher Newport University. We would like to give special thanks to Mike Steen, the Director of Education at Watermen’s, for assisting Parker with this exhibit, providing his expertise on the Chesapeake Bay, and acting as a peer reviewer. We would also like to thank the Mariners’ Museum Library for access to their extensive digital collection of photographs on watermen.
About the Author
Parker Watson graduated from Christopher Newport University with a B.A. in history and a minor in museum studies, graduating with Service Distinction. During his time at CNU, Parker completed an internship with Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways Park in Chesapeake. He is currently working as a museum technician at the Hampton University Museum while pursuing a MA in museum studies.
[2] Juliana M. Harding, Roger Mann, and Melissa J. Southworth, “Shell Length-at-age Relationships in James River, Virginia, Oysters (Crassostrea virginica) Collected Four Centuries Apart,” Journal of Shellfish Research 27(5), (1 December 2008), 1109-1115. https://doi.org/10.2983/0730-8000-27.5.1109
[3] Bradford Botwick and Debra A. McClane, “Landscapes of Resistance: A View of the Nineteenth-Century Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery.” Historical Archaeology 39, no. 3 (2005): 94–112.
[5] William S. Dudley, Maritime Maryland: A History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010,), 110-111; N. D. Jarvis, “Curing and Canning of Fishery Products: A History.” Marine Fisheries Review 50, no. 4 (1988): 180-185; “Selecting, Preparing and Canning Meat.” National Center for Home Food Preservation | How Do I? Can Meats. Accessed April 7, 2023. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_05/oysters.html.
