Imagine you're a young man and you have your whole life ahead of you, you have everything you need,
you're never hungry but you know war is headed your way. Like so many young men
around you you feel it is your duty to take up arms and support your country in battle.
It's not long before things look very bleak food is scarce the men are tired
the living conditions are unfathomable you quickly realize if you're going to
be victorious and win this war you simply have to survive the day.
Have you ever made a decision that you knew was the right thing to do but it was going to cause
you a lot of pain? a lot of sacrifice. Joseph Plum Martin was a soldier during the Revolutionary War
and he wrote his experiences about what it was like to be a common soldier. So many times we
get the big repercussions and we get to hear about generals but very rarely the story of
an individual soldier. What was life like for someone who actually was fighting in that battle?
What he feared most was not the battles but the deprivations. The lack of clothing the
lack of shelter the lack of water even the lack of food. "We marched from fence and crossed the
Delaware again between Burlington and Bristol here we procured a day's rations of Southern
salt pork three quarters of a pound and a pound of sea bread. We marched a little distance and
stopped to refresh ourselves we kindled some fires in the road and some broiled
their meat as for myself I ate mine raw. We did not pitch our tents and about midnight it began
to rain very hard which soon put out all our fires and we had to lie and weather it out."
Even after suffering hunger and freezing conditions after six
months his term of service was over and he went home.
He enjoyed all the luxuries of home and yet when it was time and the war was continuing
he signed back up. Knowing he was going to suffer all those for the rest of the war.
"There were but three of our men present we had our cooking utensils at that time the most useless
things in the army to carry in our hands they were made of cast iron and consequently heavy.
I was so beat out before mourning with hunger and fatigue that I could hardly move one foot
before another. I told my messmates that I could not carry our kettle any further they said they
would not carry it any further and of what use was it? they had nothing to cook and did not
want anything to cook with." At the beginning of the war the soldiers were told that their
rations every day would be a pound of meat and a pound of bread but as we dig into the narrative
we find that he very rarely gets supplied a pound of meat and a pound of bread. In fact he complains
that even when they got a so-called pound of meat it was usually three quarters of a pound of meat
and that was half bones. "We drew a day's ration of beef and flour what was called to pound each
the flower perhaps was not far from its nominal weight but the beef was as it always was in such
cases and indeed in all others in the army not more than three quarters of a pound and that at
least half bone. And how was it cooked? Why as it usually was when we had no cooking utensils
with us that is the flour was laid upon a flat rock and mixed up with cold water and then daubed
onto a flat stone and scorched on one side while the beef was broiled on a stick in the fire."
So what does he do when he doesn't get that ration? And he so often does not get that
ration. Many times he's just going hungry for days at a time he talks about 24 hours
48 hours three days without food. And they scrounge up whatever they can. Sometimes it
is disgusting and other times it's something in the field turnips carrots or potatoes.
After one long march when they expected to go into battle but nothing happened they
didn't have anything to eat he went off into the woods and he found a few walnuts cracked
them open and ate the meats. That's all he had but he was happy that day he did win.
There were times when it got to be too much
when there was so little food that the men could not stand it any longer and there was a mutiny
they would not obey and it took a lot of effort by the officers to bring them back
under control they wanted to offer them food but there was still none to offer at that time.
As we go from page to page into narrative it can be kind of a misery because every day is such
a struggle for him and yet sometimes miraculous things happen. He was taking a boat from one shore
to another they were taking equipment across and to their amazement this huge fish jumps into the
boat. They're taken aback things like that just don't happen they truly had a victory that day.
Today in this camp it's a good day we've got a little bit of bony meat we've got a carrot
and we've got some ships biscuits. We're going to make a simple stew.
[Music]
Joseph Plum Martin's job was not to win the war
that was George Washington's job. Joseph's job was to survive the day.