ABSTRACT
The study of logistics has long been the neglected offspring of military history, itself a stepchild in the historiographical family. The written history of logistics is too often tediously technical, with much emphasis on organization, inefficiency, and corruption. The eight-year war for American independence may not seem the most promising place to carry on the revival of logistical study stimulated by van Creveld. The impressive British effort to project unprecedented levels of land and sea power across the North Atlantic has been fairly well studied by Edward Curtis, Piers Mackesy, Arthur Bowler, Norman Baker, and David Syrett, among others. Localized scarcity of forage added to the upward pressure of wartime prices. Farmers naturally wanted adequate compensation for allowing a cavalry unit or a wagon brigade to pasture on their land, but the meaning of "adequate compensation" in an environment of rapidly rising prices was disputed.
