Trumbull, Joseph

TRUMBULL, JOSEPH. (1738–1778). First commissary general of the Continental army. Connecticut. Eldest son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull and brother of the younger Jonathan Trumbull and of the painter John Trumbull, Joseph graduated from Harvard College in 1756. After studying the law, he joined his father's mercantile firm in Lebanon, one of the most important retail and wholesale businesses in eastern Connecticut. As one of Lebanon's representatives in the General Assembly after 1767, he shared his family's dislike of British colonial policies. In May 1773 the Assembly appointed him a member of its Committee of Correspondence, and in August 1774 elected him to the first Continental Congress as an alternate to Roger Sherman, but he did not get the opportunity to take a seat. Although he had served as captain of his local militia company in Lebanon, the Assembly selected him in April 1775 to be commissary general of the Connecticut forces at the Boston Siege because of his extensive mercantile and political connections. Impressed by his performance, and fully aware of the important role Governor Trumbull played in supporting the cause and the army, Commander in Chief George Washington on 10 July urged Congress to appoint Joseph as commissary general of the Continental Army. On 19 July 1775 the delegates complied with this request, giving Trumbull the rank and pay of a colonel and the job of feeding the army.

Logistics can be an overwhelming task in a modern army, but for Trumbull it was a pioneer effort in which he was handicapped not only by his own lack of logistical experience but also by lack of funds, lack of transportation, lack of support from jealous state and Congressional authorities, and lack of qualified subordinates. He was charged with dishonesty, but an inquiry directed by Washington in December 1775 exonerated him. In 1776 General Phillip Schuyler challenged his authority to control the provisioning of the Northern army, but Congress and Washington upheld Trumbull's position. His performance had not been perfect, however. The inquiry in December 1775 found fault with the prices he fixed for provisions, although it held that no fraud was involved, and his conduct in the clash with Schuyler had reflected the ill-tempered rivalry between New York and New England. In the spring of 1777 an impatient Congress approved an ill-advised reorganization that split Trumbull's job in two: one commissary general for purchases and another for issues. Trumbull refused the purchasing post because his deputies would report directly to Congress rather than to him. He pronounced the system unworkable and resigned on 2 August 1777. (When Congress re-established in the spring of 1778 the system under which Trumbull had operated, Jeremiah Wadsworth became commissary general.) Appointed by Congress to the new Board of War on 27 November 1777, he was forced by ill health to resign on 18 April 1778. Worn down by his labors, he died 23 July 1778 at the age of 41. Faced by the complexity of supplying an army of unprecedented size that operated over vast distances, a problem exacerbated by the structural impediments, inefficiencies, inelasticity, and inexperience that were endemic in the late colonial economy, Trumbull did a masterful job of providing the material resources that enabled the American army to fight.

SEE ALSO Trumbull Family; Wadsworth, Jeremiah.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buel, Richard V., Jr. In Irons: Britain's Naval Supremacy and the American Revolutionary Economy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Risch, Erna. Supplying Washington's Army. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981.

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky