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A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier

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Joseph Plumb Martin (1760-1850) served as an enlisted soldier in the American Revolutionary War, and published a memoir of his war experiences in 1830. That book, "A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier," is an amazing document of a pivotal era in United States history.

Martin recalls his experiences in military campaigns from 1776 to 1783. He was an enlisted man who rose to the rank of sergeant, and his memoirs present the war from that perspective, rather than from the viewpoint of generals or political leaders. The suffering of the common troops is vividly detailed. Martin tells of the sleep deprivation, hostile weather conditions, combat death and injury, and lack of clothes. The men suffered from many diseases. But their most constant enemy was probably "the monster Hunger." Martin describes at length the horrible foods the men had to eat: bread "hard enough to break the teeth of a rat," carrion beef, and even tree bark.

From a tactical standpoint, Martin's descriptions of 18th century trench warfare are fascinating. Martin is eventually transferred to the Corps of Miners, and I was especially interested by the descriptions of his corps' duties: blasting rocks, dismantling enemy fortifications with axes, etc. He gives insights into how the miners' corps worked together with the infantry.

Martin's narrative is enlivened by his wit and humor. One of my favorite lines comes after he mentions the village of Maidenhead: "don't stare, dear reader, I did not name it."

Martin ends his narrative with a passionate defense of the rights and dignity of veterans. He notes with anger that Revolutionary soldiers were "turned adrift like old worn out horses" after the war. He strikes me as very ahead-of-his time in his concern for veterans.

This book is a remarkable piece of early United States literature. It should be read by current military personnel, veterans' advocates, students of history, and students of U.S. literature.

Martin was born into a dysfunctional family in the Massachusetts frontier town of Becket, but grew up outside New Haven at his maternal grandparents' farm on Long Island Sound. He first joined a Connecticut Militia regiment for six months service in the summer of 1776: the regiment was best remembered for running away during the British landing at Kip's Bay. The unit did fight well at the Battle of White Plains, but at the end of their enlistment, the unit and Martin returned home.

He enlisted a second time during the spring of 1777 for three years and reenlisted until 1783. He served in a Connecticut Infantry regiment, in the Light Infantry, and then for most of the war as a sergeant in a company of Sappers and Miners (Combat Engineers.) His service took to the defense of Red Bank in the fall of 1777, Valley Forge, Monmouth, and back to the Hudson Highlands (where in 1780 he says he could have easily killed Benedict Arnold, an officer he hated, had he the benefit of hindsight.)

Martin marched to Yorktown, Virginia in 1781 and was one of Alexander Hamilton's storming party that captured a key redoubt.

After leaving the army he made his way up to Maine and wrote this book from memory early in the 19th century. Lucky we are that when it was first published no editor had tried to improve Martin's text. Reading Martin is like listening to an 18th century man speak. He leaves in sex and violence. He is not ashamed. And he tells the truth, which is something hard to do when recording something that happened forty years since.

This book will tell a reader more about the Revolutionary War and the 18th century American world than any other book ever published. I got my first copy of Martin forty years ago and I still read and reread him regularly.

An invaluable primary source. There are few first hand accounts of the American Revolutionary War and of those few, Martin's is the most famous. And justly so. It offers many insights into the attitudes of the day, for example when he describes the enmity that existed between the 'Yankees', such as himself, and the Pennsylvanians with which he served and says that he would as happily serve with a tribe of Western Indians as with those 'southerners'. Such comments remind us how concepts of race and nationhood evolve through the generations. There is much humour too, sometimes rather grim, such as the description of the 'tricks' that the men play on an unpopular officer, that come close to killing him. If the common soldiers' greatest enemies were hunger, cold and disease, it seems that the officers' greatest enemies were sometimes the men they commanded. It is important to remember that these are the memoirs of a man writing late in life about events in his youth, events that had already become mythologized. Half a century and a strong patriotic sense take their toll on objectivity. So this personal narrative is not a substitute for a sober academic history; it is an essential adjunct. And a damn fine read.

The diary of Joseph Plumb Martin is an excellent account of the Revolutionary War told from the soldier's view.

Martin campaigned almost continuously from the beginning of the War through Yorktown (with the exception of the first winter after his initial three month service). He lived much of what have become the hallowed tales of our epic struggle for nationhood. He was at the Battles of Brooklyn, Harlem Heights and White Plains, endured Valley Forge (though for most of that winter stationed away from the camp as a forager), Monmouth, the other terrible winter encampments and Yorktown to name a few. Through it all, Martin marched, froze, starved and suffered for his service. It is remarkable that he kept at it for most of the war. (One reads of the constant lack of food - often for two or more days - and is amazed that more soldiers didn't simply just quit.) It is more remarkable that he kept at it in fairly good humor - though he did parade with the Connecticut troops who conducted a minor mutiny over the lack of provisions. (An incident that Washington reported to Congress as more worrisome to the cause than the British force occupying New York.)

Martin is a good storyteller and raconteur. The reader will not find detailed accounts of battle here. In fact, battle is mentioned rather matter-of-factly. What is delightful to find is an account of the day in and day out hardships of life in Washington's army. Stories abound of camp life, foraging, marching, guard duty, scrapes with Torries, the hunt for clothing and the other ever-present challenges that soldiers had to endure and perform to simply survive between battles.

This is a wonderful book that I highly recommend.

This is as good as it gets for history buffs. Just prior to reading this book I read the McCullough book, John Adams, and was heart sick at the suffering that Abigail Adams had to endure while her husband was off in Europe, Philadelphia or Washington. Well compared to Jospeh Plumb Martin's experiences Abigail was in heaven. She had a farm with food and clothing and a warm fire. Three things that Pvt. Martin seldom had in his many years fighting for the country. Pvt Martin is an excellent, courageous soldier when the times call for it, but during the lulls in between he is a kid who gets himself in trouble. It was a miracle he survived some of his escapades. He is irreverent and funny and often furious at his country and the damn British sympathizers. Even at 70 years old, 50 years afterward he is bitter over the treatment of veterans. Some things will never change. Politicians especially. If you like history and are tired of reading it as written from the "top down" this "bottom up" view will be refreshing.

Joseph Plumb Martin who writes of his own experiences during the American Revolution is such an interesting and multifaceted character. He is a true rarity as he left us a firsthand account of a private soldier in the Revolutionary War. He is very human and suffers miserably under excruciating circumstances; yet, he is able to see the humorous side to things as well. There seem to be so few personal accounts of the Revolutionary War, but I am thankful that his is one of the few. Joseph is very intelligent as well, even philosophical at times. He is gentleman enough to even have sympathy for individual British enemy soldiers who are wounded and/or dying. He also thinks about the future and tries to give the reader many things to contemplate. Just one of many examples are as follows:
"...I, with some of my comrades who were in the battle of the White plains in the year `76, one day took a ramble on the ground where we were then engaged with the British and took a survey of the place. We saw a number of the graves of those who fell in that battle; some of the bodies had been so slightly buried that the dogs or hogs, or both, had dug them out of the ground. The sculls [sic] and other bones, and hair were scattered about the place. Here were Hessian sculls as thick as a bomb shell; ---poor fellows! they were left unburied in a foreign land; ---they had, perhaps, as near and dear friends to lament their sad destiny as the Americans who lay buried near
them. But they should have kept at home, we should then never have gone after them to kill them in their own country. But, the reader will say, they were forced to come and be killed here;
forced by their rulers who have absolute power of life and death over their subjects. Well then, reader, bless a kind Providence that has made such a distinction between your condition and
theirs. And be careful too that you do not allow yourself ever to be brought to such an abject, servile and debased condition."
Please get this book and read it. This should be required reading for every American citizen!

In 1776 at age 15, Joesph Plumb Martin joined the Continental Army serving through the American War of Independence as a common foot soldier. His memoir shares the experiences that are all too often are overlooked in histories - what it was like for those on the bottom of the social ladder.

His service included the retreat from New York, the battle of White Plains, wintering at Valley Forge, near mutiny at Baskinridge and Morristown, the British surrender at Yorktown - but Martin gives little attention to these conflicts, instead sharing much of his daily struggles: enduring the elements without shelter, constant gnawing hunger, frustration at his (and his fellow soldiers) treatment by officers. Throughout, Martin relates his experiences with a dash of humor and no small measure of pride in his sacrifice.

The narrative is fantastic - it is a fascinating and engaging story. The only criticism I have is the map provided: rather than a single map that illustrates all of Martin's campaigns, it would have been more helpful to me to have a map illustrating his comings and goings year by year, with more detail. This minor point aside, it is a marvelous read. Highly recommended.

Most of us have heard that the Revoltionary War soldiers underwent very difficult hardships during the eight years of the war. Joseph Plumb Martin was a Revolutionary War soldier for seven of those years and he confirms those hardships in "A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier."

Nearly all of the information we have of the Revolutionary War is from the top-down, that is to say the big, overall plan in the scheme of the battles of the war, from the generals' point of view. This book gives us an insight to how it was from the regular foot soldier as he unfolds his adventures and sufferings from 1776-1783. He was only 15-22 years old during this time, but wrote these memoirs when he was 70 years of age. It gave me a glimmer of a feeling of being there with him. It was exciting to read his narrative about certain events that Revolutionary War buffs already know about, but this time from this ordinary and honorable soldier's point of view. One such incident was when he described seeing General Washington redressing General Lee for calling for a retreat during battle. Although Martin doesn't mention the place, it's obvious this was the infamous cussing out of Gen. Lee by Gen. Washington at the battle of Monmouth Court House in 1778. He later actually talked to Gen. Washington during the entrenchment phase of the Battle of Yorktown, not knowing at first to whom he was speaking. Also, in the battle of Monmouth, he describes the event that happened to the legendary Molly Pitcher, whose actual name was Margaret Hayes, as a cannon ball zipped between her legs as she was helping her wounded husband load a cannon. Martin tells us what she said about if the ball was higher.

One of the consistent themes throughout his narrative is the constant lack of food. He is quoted as saying that for four days he had not one bite of food save a piece of bark from a tree. He and his comrades were reduced to eating what they could, from beef carrion (no telling how long it had been dead) to soldiers boiling their shoes to eat. He talks about the nearly naked soldiers even though it was promised to the soldiers at enlistment that they would be getting four pairs of shoes and changes of clothing every year. If anything at all, clothing came in piecemeal, and never a whole set of clothes at once.

I'm sure we've all heard about being able to track the soldiers by the bloody footprints in the snow. Martin says that is definitely true. What is amazing is that he and they, his fellow soldiers, put up with it all for the love of their country and to rid it of the despised British. And through it all he kept his sense of humor and his honor.

We read about his encounters with young ladies who use him to disparage a feudful neighbor family, who, it turns out is very generous and gracious to him and his small squad of soldiers. We get some insight into his feeling about meeting a white woman who is married to a black man. We see his sense of humor here also. There are many fasinating experiences that he lets us know about.

This narrative is written in the words and sentence syntax used in the 18th century. It's quite quaint, actually, the way Martin speaks or writes. I also found it, surprisingly, that he uses some of the expressions we still use today, such as "the more the merrier" and many other recognizable phrases. This whole narrative is delightful. The reason I gave it four stars is that Martin is not the best writer in the world, but he gets his point across. I have a renewed respect for these, the soldiers who fought, suffered, and died for their country and for the start of a nation.

The book is only 253 pages, including the introduction and the preface. It's worth your time to read it. It will go fast and you'll find yourself in "aha" moments, having a chuckle here and there, and shaking your head in sympathy and outrage.

This priceless memoir is one of those works often quoted, but never read. Countless Rev War historians quote this work by pvt. Joseph Plumb Martin, and many TV documentries do the same. At length I was finally able to obtain a copy of this most elusive, yet oft used work.

Martin's recollections range from the trivial, to the fascinating. His homespun style of writing catches the mood of what the Revolutionary War soldier was. Written many years after these events one can only marvel at the authors ability to recall so much detail. But I think this is the case with many veterans. My father (God rest his soul) who fought in WW2 would have agreed with everything Martins says. Like him, my dad's memory of war events became clearer in his advanced years, and I think this was probably the case with our writer here. While much of it could have been fabricated, there seems too much an air of authenticity to deny its truth.

Martin speaks with the convictions of a determined old rebel, and while may personal feelings lean more toward the British/Loyalist perspective, I can't deny the utter charm this work has for the reader. Intespaced with all the hunger and privation of his expereinces, the old soldier still has the ability to offer wit and humor at his circumstances. Martin's expereinces could well apply to any soldier of both sides, for the British soldier's lot was often not much better, despite all the supposed power of Albion!

What strikes one most about this memoir is how little fighting Martin saw, despite the whole time he spent in the war. Yet his time was almost always spent in hunger and want. This is the universal plight of the soldier no matter what time period we speak of. In the end, Martin rightly faults his country for allowing him and his comrades to suffer so much for so little in the end. His quote that his government expected every last obligation from him, yet was so half-hearted in fulfilling its own in turn I think is a tendency that still haunts us today in the USA. Not much his changed in that regard. The veterans of Iraq today would find much to agree with Pvt. Jospeh Plumb Martin.

There are interesting details about his movements in the New York, New Jersey area, and any person interested in this local history would find this book fascinating. Martin's account of his time as an enginner is also quite interesting. His account of the attack on redoubt's No. 9 and 10 at Yorktown sheds much light on how the stroming parties took those advanced posts. Martin was the original combat engineer. In fact he is the original GI grunt. Forget Vietnam and Iraq, here is the essential US army veteran. Reader's today, whether military historians or not, could gain many fascinating insights into the soldier's daily life, which as I said earlier is unniversal. This book certainly deserves a wider reading audience. Many will find the appealing nature of the author's words worthy of a smile and a nod of admiration. A classic work, essential for reader on the Rev War.

As someone who has sat spellbound reading the narratives of more Civil War soldiers than I can count this was my first for the Revolution. First of all and sadly, there simply are not very many. Thank God for this gem. Martin is funny. He is an excellent story-teller. He shares the hardships of the Continental (18th century vernacular for regular army) without whining. I cannot over recommend this very readable volume. As a living historian who will be presenting the struggle for independence to school kids this will be in the top five of my recommended reading lists.