The main store of drugs was housed at Manheim until late March, when Shippen ordered Apothecary Cutting to pack the medical stores there and proceed on to Yellow Springs.[133] Cutting wrote Potts on March 30 that
... the articles that we have in store are now ready to put on board the waggons excepting the want of cases to contain them.... Paper, Twine, Square Snuff Bottles & Corks are so essentially necessary to take with us, to fit up the Regimental Chests that I wish your order to buy them at Lancaster immediately. I never heard what place in the vicinity of Camp has been chosen for our temporary Medicine Shop, nor what quantities the Regimental Surgeons are to be supply'd when we get there....[134]
On April 16 Cutting[135] wrote that the
... dispensing store is open'd here [at Yellow Springs] and we have begun to supply the Regiments in Camp.... Dr. Cochran has given orders to the Division on the left to bring their Chests first, and we propose going through the whole Army in the order in which they lay.... The best method I can think of is to act immediately about preparing new Chests upon the Northern Plan at some convenient place for all such Battallions as did not get chests from Dr. Craigie [in the] last campaign. When these new parcels are ready, let us call all the large chests into the Stores ... which are too compleat & capacious for Field Service, & in lieu of them give out our smaller ones. By this exchange, the Genl. Hospital will be well supplied with standing Chests & acquire a great variety of useful articles which are not essential in Camp.
Apothecary Cutting was concerned, however, over supplies and
... very apprehensive that the several Hospitals in this vicinity will render a further reinforcement necessary before we shall be able to compleat the whole.... To give only a few of the Capitals to each will be a work of Time, & a much more intensive piece of business than I at first imagined.
Meanwhile, Potts had sent Apothecary Craigie to Baltimore to obtain a fresh stock of drugs, and probably to prevent further friction between Craigie and Cutting. This feud started early in 1777 when Apothecary Cutting, serving with Shippen in Philadelphia, was named, over his preceptor Craigie, to head the newly organized "Apothecary department" of the army.[136] On March 27 Craigie wrote from Annapolis advising Potts that he had been in Baltimore
... not long since and waited on Messrs. Lux & Bowly. The medicines were not come to hand but were expected.... I have engaged the whole invoice which contains several important medicines not mentioned in your list. I think the prices are full high, tho' somewhat less than Dr. Shippen affixed, and it was not in my power to procure them at a cheaper rate. They were offered £20 per lb. for all the Cantharides and much higher price for the Bark. They are not yet arrived from some place in Virginia where they were first landed. I shall examine them immediately on their arrival, and if good forward them on to Manheim, if they prove not good shall reject them, as the engagement is conditional.[137]
Then on April 4, Craigie wrote from Chester Town:[138]
I this day received a letter from Messrs. Lux & Bowley informing me, the waggons were arrived, but to their great surprise with only two packages of medicines, the others being seized near Williamsburg for the use of Virginia State. Those arrived contain but a very small share of any of the articles mentioned in your list and I believe none of the Bark and Cantharides. I shall immediately proceed to Baltimore and examine those two packages & if good send them on to Manheim, provided the price is agreeable.... I shall inquire into the circumstances of the seizure and endeavor to find out if there has been any unfair play which I can hardly suspect from the character of the Gentlemen.