The national fathers in Congress displayed a gift for debate and committee work but only a modest aptitude for organized warmaking. A fifteen-thousand-man force required a hundred thousand barrels of flour and ten thousand tons of meat annually, by Washington’s calculations. Where that would come from, and how it should be purchased, transported, and distributed, was unclear. The same held true for a hundred other vital commodities, from flints and wagons to shoes and blankets. Congress had sensibly, if belatedly, acknowledged that the 1774 policy of restricting imports and exports was a
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