Customer Reviews

Private Yankee Doodle: Being a Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Private Yankee Doodle, 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 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.

I was looking for a soldier's account of the Revolutionary War and came across this rare memoir in the Jamestown, Virgina Nationa Park Service bookstore. I sure was glad I did.
I have read many soldier's memiors from from all periods of time but never during the Revolutionary War. We have heard about the sufferings of our country's first soldiers but Martin tells us like it was as he lived it. There is not a lot of battle descriptions but he is a master story teller who will take you back in time to the days of the colonies and George Washington's army during America's struggle for independence.
If you love good personal history narratives and want to learn about the Revolutionary War then get this book. This would be an excellent book for classroom study or home school.

It is unfortunate your format allows only five stars; on a scale of one to five, Joseph Martin's memoir is an eleven! As a university history professor, reenactor and volunteer at Brandywine Battlefield, I have been recommending "Private Yankee Doodle" for many years to anyone with any interest in history at all. It is the best account of the American Revolution by any participant on either side. To really know the War of Independence, you should read Joseph Plumb Martin's great memoir. Almost anyone who has ever read the book will say that.

Too many of the great events of history were either unreported, or told only by leaders bent on demonstrating their own greatness. "I came. I saw. I conquered!" We all know Caesar did it by himself without the Roman legions. Luckily, sometimes someone else who had no particular reason to flatter or even like the leader wrote about what happened. The Spanish conquest of Mexico is best seen through the blind eyes and extraordinary recollections of Bernal Dias de Castillo, who despised Cortez. The court of Louis XIV lives in the jaundiced memories of the Duc de Saint Simon. Martin, Dias and Saint Simon, despite differences in time, place and language, speak with similar literate, irreverant, funny, cynical, and bitter voices.

One reads Martin with wonder. They suffered so much! The Revolution becomes real. What were the soldiers like? Now we know. There is heroism at the Battle of Long Island, for example, but it is the hunger, cold and discomfort readers are likely to remember best, along with Martin's own personality. It is no coincidence that all three of the television series on the Revolution have quoted and used Martin so much.

For all of the Revolutionary War books that I have read, none describes in as much detail the life and tribulations of an American soldier during the Revolutionary War. The author's good humor and wit make it easy to sympathize with his trying experiences. Hunger is the central theme throughout the book, to the point that when the author finds something substantial to eat, you can not help but enjoy the meal with him.

Though the author drags some of his experiences out in detail, sometimes to the reader's detriment, it provides us with a better understanding of what the Revolutionary War soldier's had to endure for our freedom. For those of you having a hard time finding this book, I found it in the Jamestown National Park bookstore (Virginia).

Written a lifetime later by a man who had spent his teenage years fighting the British from New England to Virginia, this is the most fascinating and well-written account of the Revolution I've read. Mr. Martin's narrative voice is so matter-of-fact and wryly humorous that it's hard to believe it's coming to you from the distant past.

There is as much social history as military here, as Mr. Martin describes his inoculation with smallpox, his shock at being introduced to a white Connecticut farmwoman's black husband, and the ubiquity of alcohol.

One is struck, in Mr. Martin's account, by how seldom the British /Hessians and American/French ever bothered to shoot each other. There seems to have been a consciousness of the enemy as a human being which made shooting him difficult. This could be hindsight on Mr. Martin's part, but it does jibe with the fact that the total combat death toll for the war (excluding disease and starvation) was around 5,000 on both sides.

Mr. Martin himself seems to have spent much of the war starving. He was only paid twice-- once when he signed up in 1776, and once in 1781 by French officers who dipped into their own pockets to give him a month's salary. Nor was he ever paid anything after the war by a grateful nation. Then again, given that American troops were fed by commandeering groceries, liquor and livestock from local farms, much of the nation may not have been that grateful.

You might be, though, after reading this book. I was. And it's good to remember that fighting for our nation's freedom, once upon a time, meant fighting on our own land instead of other people's.

A very exact and daily account of the EIGHT years of our war for independence. I have seen Morristown and Jockey Hollow and bought this book there and so can place myself into the actual scene of some of this story.
A great book that answers the question of why people fight for freedom in spite of opposition and nay sayers. Perhaps the military understand best what is at stake because it is so clear and simple when you are doing the fighting and encountering the foe and friend alike, the hunger and fatigue. It is a wonder we won the war but thankfully there were a lot of private Yankee Doodles out there who knew the score.
I am glad they did not change the language and left it as it was written with minimal footnotes. Much more enriching that way. Buy it and you'll love it.
M Smith

J.P.Martin was a simple foot soldier during the American Revolution. This book gives a real feel of this war from his own perspective. It is a must for any history buff.

This book is still in print in paperback and is available at all Eastern National Park Service Site bookstores. It is an extraordinarily accurate view of the life of an ordinary foot soldier in the American Revolution. Rev War reenactors read and re-read this book to develop and polish their interpretations.

Loved reading Martin's account of the fight for the right for America to exist. He makes you aware that it is not only the British soliders we were fighting but the vast amount of British supporters, the "Cowboys and the Refugee's" who were there to plunder and take what they could. You could compare the fight and plight of the Soldier then to anyone who has served in Service of the United States of America. Truley those who fought for America and the belief of the U.S. did it with the believe that we were more important to each other than to the Crown.
It does set the tone for America and for the next generation that wanted to divide this Nation.
Great Reading.