Lead Mines and Long Journeys: The Continental Army’s Quest for Ammunition

Posted on November 21, 2025

Lead Mines and Long Journeys: The Continental Army’s Quest for Ammunition

In the first year of the Revolution, military leaders were desperate for supplies. Officials struggled to buy, beg, borrow, or sometimes steal enough arms to equip soldiers being called into service, and the army also needed ammunition to fire those arms. On August 4, 1775, George Washington wrote to Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull, “Our Necessaties in the Articles of Powder, Lead & Flints are so great as to require an immediate Supply—I must earnestly intreat you will… forward to us every Ounce in the Province that can possibly be spared.”

Connecticut worked to fill the army’s need for lead through its own natural resources. In early 1775 the Connecticut government took over a lead mine in the town of Middletown. A Committee for the Lead Mines was put in charge of the management of the mine and a furnace to smelt the lead ore into metal. The lead could then be shaped into bullets, which could be sent to Boston, Canada, or wherever they were needed.

250 years ago today—November 21, 1775—the Connecticut Committee of the Pay Table ordered that politician and lawyer Titus Hosmer and the rest of the Committee for the Lead Mines receive 250 pounds for use in their mining and smelting work. The committee continued for nearly three years, disbanding in 1778 after the supply crisis eased. The lead they extracted likely wound up in countless Continental cartridge boxes.

While the lead mine did its part, other tactics were needed to supply the army. On this day 250 years ago, Henry Knox was on his way to Fort Ticonderoga, where over a ton of lead waited for him. The highlight of Knox’s mission was the nearly 60 tons of artillery that he hauled from Ticonderoga to Boston, but also included in Ticonderoga’s stores were vast quantities of musket balls. Knox brought 2300 pounds of lead balls back to Boston with him. This was far from enough to supply the entire army, but when combined with the Middletown mine and other sources, it helped keep the army ready to fight another day.

Learn more about the pay order (object ID MS.7756, property of Robert Nittolo) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/31671