Benjamin Franklin secured six pounds of chocolate per officer as a special supply for soldiers marching with General Braddock’s army at the onset of the French & Indian War. Connecticut soldier Daniel Sizer supplemented his meager diet on the northern New York frontier with rations of chocolate in 1759. Chocolate was supplied to the British troops during construction of His Majesty’s Fort at Crown Point, New York, in 1768. During the American Revolution, commissaries accounted for a steady supply of chocolate at such northern defenses as Fort Ticonderoga, where Captain Moses Greenleaf regularly “breakfasted on chocolate”. In 1777 it was forbidden to export chocolate from Massachusetts, as it was required “for the supply of the army”.

Photo courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation