05/09/2003 Entry: ""
Posted by Maynard @ 08:03 AM MST
A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier
Reading through modern history books and watching TV like the History Channel can lead you to believe there aren't very many stories from the low-level people who made history, like the private soldiers and the secretaries and the gophers. Thankfully, as Joseph Plumb Martin shows us, that is far from the truth. The following is a review of his memoirs of his part in the American Revolutionary War, a side hardly ever depicted in media.
Joseph P. Martin was a farmboy from New England who enlisted at the age of 15 in 1776 in the Continental Army. The cultural differences between Americans then and Americans now are obvious in that fact alone, aside from other indicators picked up in the text. For instance, Martin was raised mostly by his maternal grandparents after the age of seven, and at one point in the text he mentions his "grandsire", as he called him, "driving like Jehu". Not many people today, even in this day of patchwork families, are raised by their grandparents, and not very many know who Jehu is.
He was hungry a lot, and mentions this often after his enlistment. Each chapter begins with a verse of a few lines. For instance:
You may think what you please, sir. I too can think -
I think I can't live without victuals and drink;
Your oxen can't plow, nor your horses can't draw -
Unless they have something more hearty than straw;-
If that is their food, sir, their spirits must fall -
How then can I labour - with nothing at all?
His role in the Revolution is minor, but it crosses many important points. He encounters at one point or another George Washington, Molly Pitcher, John Andre, and Benedict Arnold. Numerous times he is sent out on some exhausting task made useless because of events that transpire while he is away.
The one thing that really stands out, though, is not his effect on History but the effects of the war on him. At the beginning of the book he complains that an enlistment in 1776 is a year, far too long for him since he is just curious about the Army. By the end, he has re-enlisted again and again, and even sticks around an extra month for the sake of his friends.
Along the way he takes part in all the usual soldier antics, such as siphoning from the whiskey barrel. That, along with other elements of soldier life, make for interesting reading. This is a worthy read, and gives a perspective not usually seen in historical books. I recommend it.
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