Logistics before DLA: How agency missions explain America’s Revolutionary War success

When America declared independence 250 years ago, it had been fighting the British for more than a year. Victory came to the new nation for several reasons. The most unrecognized today was logistics.

At four points in the conflict, key individuals either provided material that allowed continental forces to gain advantage over the enemy or denied Britain the supplies it needed. These instances relate to the Defense Logistics Agency because they revolve around sustainment, the warfighting function by which the agency makes military units effective today.

When 1776 began, most fighting had taken place in eastern Massachusetts. Two exceptions were Cols. Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen seizing Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York and an invasion of British Canada. Outside Boston, newly appointed Commander in Chief George Washington lacked the strength to oust the British. He and his chief of artillery, Col. Henry Knox, devised a plan to remedy the situation. While Knox and two escorts rode north to Fort Ticonderoga, Washington wrote Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler, commander of the Continental Congress's northern army. By the time the artillery chief arrived, Schuyler had pieces dismounted and brought down to Lake Champlain, where oxen, sleds and men to drive them waited. Knox had to solve many problems during his trek but transportation wasn't one of them, with Schuyler rotating teams until the train crossed the Berkshire Mountains into Massachusetts.

Washington didn't stop there. While Massachusetts towns took over Knox's logistical support, the commander in chief ordered positions prepared on Dorchester Heights south of Boston. When Knox arrived, he had the cannon emplaced at night, then personally fired the first shot in the morning. Unable to defend against the barrage, the British departed within days.

While Knox was heading south, so too was the continental army in Canada. The previous year's invasion had seized Montreal but failed to take Quebec. Reinforcements from England pushed America's exhausted and sickly forces south of the St. Lawrence River in June and south of Lake Champlain in July. Led by Maj. Gen. Guy Carleton, governor of Quebec, the British sought to defeat the Americans and winter in Albany, New York.

Carleton reached the northern shore of Lake Champlain the same time Americans reached the southern shore. Both sides immediately began building boats. Carleton, a careful officer who planned ahead of time, already had the tools, material and personnel he needed to build a fleet. Schuyler, a merchant in Albany who had served as a supply officer during the final French and Indian War, was similarly prepared, having purchased nails and erected a sawmill for cutting boards as far back as January. The American officer received help from Connecticut, which sent carpenters and money, and Pennsylvania, which sent carpenters. When Carleton launched three-and-a-half months later, the Americans set sail to meet him.

Schuyler didn't personally command this fleet. That responsibility fell to Benedict Arnold, now a brigadier general. In an engagement off Valcour Island, Arnold lost every one of his ships while sinking none of the enemy's. Even so, the months Carleton had spent building boats convinced him it was too late in the season to move on Albany.

One of the governor general's deputies wasn't happy with this decision. Maj. Gen. John Burgoyne traveled back to England over the winter to convince those running the war he could do better. The ambitious officer won both orders to invade and reinforcements with which to do so. Returning to Canada in May 1777, he headed south in June with a large artillery train; substantial personal baggage; and a force consisting of British soldiers, German mercenaries, Loyalists and native Americans. Carleton did what he could to support his former subordinate but couldn't muster enough wagons and pack animals to meet his transportation needs.

The British supply situation didn't at first matter. Burgoyne pushed back continental forces, seizing Fort Ticonderoga and moving troops and supplies on water unimpeded by the Americans. Then his discipline failed. Pursuing remnants of the continental army into a wilderness far from his line of communications, his progress slowed. When New York militia arrived, they felled trees in front of him, slowing him even further. An attempt to capture a suspected American depot in Bennington ended in disaster. Before Burgoyne could think of returning to Lake Champlain, militia from New England had cut off his escape. Forced to continue forward, he ran into a reinforced American army well protected by defensive works. Two engagements later, Burgoyne realized he was surrounded with no hope of rescue. He surrendered on Oct. 17, 1777.

America's victory over Burgoyne brought France into the conflict but didn't persuade Britain to end the war. More convincing was another surrender four years later. While Yorktown differed from Saratoga by having the French present and including a naval component, its ultimate result - a British army surrounded and cut off from supplies - was the same.

Yorktown was one of five locations in eastern Viriginia the British considered as a base for their southern campaign. Pressured by a continental detachment under Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, British Lt. General Charles Cornwallis occupied the position so he could refit and receive supplies. While he could have lived off the Virginia countryside, doing so would have angered the same population Britain was trying to win back to the crown. With the Royal Navy supreme in the Atlantic, regaining a sea line of communications was his best bet.

Unfortunately for Cornwallis, events turned Yorktown into a trap. In a bold move, Washington marched half his army from outside New York City to eastern Virginia. A French army under Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the Comte de Rochambeau, followed. With a mature logistics system, Washington was able to pre-position supplies along the route. Rochambeau compensated for his added numbers by buying produce and fodder with hard currency, a rarity in the war.

While Lafayette, Washington and Rochambeau tightened a noose around Cornwallis, a French fleet under François Joseph Paul, the Comte de Grasse, defeated a British fleet under Thomas Graves at the Battle of the Capes. Cornwallis's sea line of communications was cut. Surrender was only a matter of time.

At first glance, the Revolutionary War seems to offer only DLA Troop Support examples. While food, clothing, medicine, and construction and barrier material were important to the war, a closer look reveals other DLA missions as well. Knox's movement of cannon from where they were excess to where they were needed was the same transfer mission DLA Disposition Services conducts today. Schuyler's boatbuilding approximated DLA Weapons Support's mission, with components and consumables enabling construction. Additionally, moving armies before Yorktown depended on storing items ahead of need, a DLA Distribution mission.

Even the management of energy played a role in America's independence. Victory at Yorktown depended on the Comte de Grasse defeating Thomas Graves at the Battle of the Capes, a conflict the French officer won only after securing the weather gage. Put differently, de Grasse used wind, the only means of propulsion available to him, to position his ships where they could most damage the enemy. DLA Energy couldn't have advised better. The closer you look at the Revolutionary War, the more you see DLA's mission set as contributing to American victory.