Compared to modern camps, Revolutionary War encampments were not comfortable places. But soldiers of the day were not accustomed to modern comforts! In good times, multi-day camps of the regular armies had:

• rows of tents or temporary shelters for homes, stores, and services;
• an open space for drilling;
• pasture for horses and oxen;
• wagons parked together under guard, when not in use to gather supplies; and
• cannons placed in protective groups (“batteries”) facing outward.

Camps were placed near streams for drinking and cooking water, featuring one or more mills for grinding grain into flour, with enough trees nearby for firewood. A line of sentries or “pickets” encircled the camp, far enough from the edge to provide early warning of an attack, and some of the cavalry would keep an eye on the closest enemy forces.

One historian writes of Camp New Providence (in today’s Charlotte): “There were probably 50 wagons carrying gunpowder, tents, officer baggage, or barrels of rum. The camp was a busy place. Every few hours, express riders arrived and departed carrying written status reports, strength returns, and the latest news. During the day, local farmers arrived with cattle, chickens, and wagons of produce hoping to sell for currency.”[1]

These camps were huge by the standards of the day. The largest city in North Carolina, Wilmington, had around 1,200 people. During the 1781 campaigns here, the regular British and Continental armies had between 2,000 and 2,500 men each, plus followers. Based on today’s city populations, that would be like having two two-million-person armies moving through modern N.C.!

[1] Anderson 2011.

A tent for the soldiers was a single piece of canvas. It was slung over a rope raised off the ground, with the ends staked down wide so they form triangles viewed from the end. As many as eight privates could be assigned to a single tent, though some would be out on duty at any given time. They slept on the bare ground or wrapped in blankets. Open-sided tents were used for selling or providing supplies, often with small folding tables and chairs. Part-time “militia” soldiers rarely even had tents or decent blankets.

The commander usually took over the nicest nearby house. If the camp was near a town, the British army forced local residents to house their officers (a specific complaint in the Declaration of Independence). If not, higher-ranking officers had larger, sometimes round tents with sides. Many officers had servants—often enslaved in the Continental Army—and were allowed to transport fancy dishware, cots, chairs, and portable writing tables