 Chapter 8, Part 2 of a Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier by Joseph Plumb Martin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Campaign of 1782, Part 2 We started before sunrise this morning and walked 49 miles, when, just before sunset, we overtook our core. I had eaten nothing all day, but drank several droughts of buttermilk, which I begged of the farmers' ladies on the road. The next day we arrived at a large house near King's Ferry, usually denominated by the army, the White House, belonging to Blank Smith, the man who conducted Major Andre on his way towards New York when he was taken. Our troops stayed here that night, and the next day at night, the officers in the house and the men in the barns. In the evening of the last day we were here, just at dark, one of our officers came and told me that two of the men had deserted and had compelled another man to go with them. As they were all what we called old countrymen, it was conjecture that they had gone to the enemy, and I was accordingly ordered to take nine men who were then in readiness and endeavored to overtake them before they could reach New York. I immediately set off, having received my orders, which were to go to what was called the English neighborhood and if I could not find them or hear of them, to return. The English neighborhood was from 45 to 50 miles distant from the place we were at. We traveled so hard that at daylight I had but three men of the nine left with me, the other six having given out by the way. We were now near our journey's end when the men with me, beginning to grow slack and hearing no tidying of the deserters, we concluded to return. When we had got eight or ten miles on our retrograde movement, we met one of our lieutenants on his way to visit his friends who lived in that quarter. He had with him three men for an escort and had picked up those of my party who had given out by the way. We met him just as he arrived at his father's house, a lucky circumstance for us as we stopped and got something to eat. He then sent me off alone to a place on the river where some spy boats, as they were called, were stationed, with directions to request the officers commanding them to take up the three deserters should they see them. I executed this commission and returned to the lieutenant who then told me to take all the men and return to our corps. The country all about here was infested by Tories, especially a certain district through which I had to pass on my return. The lieutenant charged me not to stop at this place through the night, but to rest short of it or proceed beyond it. I again set out with my twelve men, little heeding the Tories. It being some time tonight when we arrived to the above-mentioned Tory land, we pushed on and did not stop till we got quite back to Smith's house. We, particularly myself and the three men who held out all night, were tired enough, having traveled about ninety miles in twenty-four hours, and I had traveled five or six miles further than any of them in going to and returning from the spy boats. We were hungry and tired, but had nothing to eat. I had six or seven dollars in spicy, which one of our corps, an Irishman, had desired me to keep a while for him, to avoid the importunity of his friends, but he was not with us. I, however, ventured to make use of one dollar that evening and the next morning in purchasing some bread and cheese and a little something to wet our whistles with. I afterwards paid the man, and he informed me that that dollar did him more good than all the others. I had the day before this expedition put on a pair of new shoes, which, not having got fitted to my feet, caused blisters upon them as large as since. The deserters were all the time we were in pursuit of them, within three miles of the place where they left us. The man whom they forced off with them made his escape from them soon after and returned. He told me that they saw us on our return, that they were then in Haverstraw Mountain, not more than a quarter of a mile from us. Thus I had another useless and fatiguing expedition for nothing. The next morning we set out after our troops, who had gone on for West Point about 18 or 20 miles. We found them on the eastern side of the river. Here we got some provisions and a day or two after crossed over to West Point, where we encamped and worked some time in repairing the fortifications. Toward the latter part of the summer, we went on to Connecticut Island, opposite to West Point, and were employed awhile in blasting rocks for the repair of the works on that side of the river. It was not so dreary at this time as it was when we were there wheeling dirt upon the magazine in 1780. Our duty was not over hard, but the engineers kept us busy. In the month of September, while we lay here and our tents were pitched about promiscuously, by reason of the ruggedness of the ground, our captain had pitched his marquee in an old gravel pit at some distance from the tents of the men. One day two or three of our young hotheads told me that they and some others of the men whom they mentioned were about to have some fun with the old man, as they generally called the captain. I inquired what their plans were, and they informed me that they had put some powder into a canteen and were going to give him a bit of a hoist. I asked them to let me see their apparatus before they put their project in execution. Accordingly, they soon after showed me a wooden canteen with more, as I judged, than three pounds of gunpowder in it, with a stopper of touch wood for a fuse affixed to it, all they said in prime order. I told them they were crazy, that the powder they had in the canteen would hoist him out of time, but they insisted upon proceeding. It would only frighten him, they said, and that was all they wished to do. It would make him a little more complacent. I then told them that if they persisted in their determination and would not promise me on the spot to give up their scheme, I would that instant go to the captain and lay the whole affair before him. At length, after endeavoring, without effect, to obtain my consent to try a little under his birth, they concluded to give up the affair altogether, and thus I verily believe I saved the old man's life, although I do not think that they meant for anything more than to frighten him. But the men hated him and did not much care what happened to him. There was a foundation of some barracks which the British had burnt in their excursion up the North River in the year 1777. It was composed of stone and lime, perfectly level, and perhaps a hundred feet long. The bushes had grown up around it, accepting the side next the river. The place formed a very pretty spot for a contemplative evening's walk. The captain used frequently in fine weather to be seen pacing backward and forward upon this wall between sunset and dark. The men observed him and itched to discommode him, but since they had made me privy to their roguery they dare not play any of their tricks upon him without consulting me for fear of being discovered. They were therefore applied to me for my consent to cut some caper with him, as they called it. Their plan now was to set an old musket, which they had somewhere obtained, in the manner that hunters set them to kill wild animals, charged only with powder. I consented to let them try this experiment, but after all it never took effect. Either the captain discovered it, or it failed by accident, or some other cause, for I never heard anything more about it. I did not wish him to receive any personal injury from their roguery, but I cared very little how much they frightened him. I did not consider myself as being under very heavy obligations to him for his civilities to me, and many of the men considered themselves under still less. One young man, who was the ringleader of this gunpowder plot, had a particular grudge against the old man, which urged him on to devise mischief against him. I imagine that he considered himself justified by his conscience in doing so, in consequence of several affronts, as he turned them, which he had received from him. I will mention one or two to which I was knowing that the reader may be able to form some judgment as to the cause he had to be revenged on the poor old captain. He once purloined a flower barrel, I think, from the baker for the purpose of making a washing tub. The pretended owner complained to the captain, who, apparently, took no notice of it at the time. However, as it appeared not long afterwards, he did not forget it, for this man one morning soon after went off without leave with some others who had permission across the mountain to New Windsor, eight or ten miles distant, and did not return till after evening roll call, at which time he was reported as absent without leave. The sergeant major, who belonged to our company, chanced that evening to call the roll. He was a sheer sycophant, and would, at any time, have a man punished if he could by so doing ingratiate himself with the officers. He therefore, as might be expected, informed the captain of the whole affair. The captain ordered the sergeant major to send the delinquent to him as soon as he returned, which he accordingly did. The captain used, but very little reasoning with him, before he began to use harder arguments than words could convey, urged by the weight of his retan. After he had satiated his vengeance upon the poor culprit for playing the truant, he told him that the flower-barrel was still to settle for, and then paid him for that, principle and interest. Another affair in which the captain and he differed in opinion happened while we were laying at West Point. It was as follows. This man used sometimes to attend on the sergeant's mess, as they were allowed a waiter or cook. He acted as such at the time I mentioned. One morning after roll call, we, the sergeants, allowed him, at his own request, to go and work for a farmer in the neighborhood of the camp. He had done so before, and it was quite agreeable to us all, for he received his wages for his work in milk, butter, etc., which he always brought into the mess. On the day mentioned, he was at work at the farmer's pulling-flax. The farmer had an orchard close by where our man was at work. The soldiers, as they passed, used often to pillage some of the good man's apples. To prevent these depredations upon his property in some measure, he requested our soldier to take an old musket belonging to the house, loaded with powder only, and when any of the plunderers passed by, to pretend that he was a sentinel and drive them off. Not content with going thus far, he must put a small blighted apple into his musket for a ball. It was not long before he had an opportunity to exercise his sentry ship. For several soldiers came by and, taking the liberty, as usual, to take some fruit, they were ordered off by our hero, and not obeying so soon as he desired, or expected, he fired his apple amongst them, which did not seem to be very agreeable to their feelings. They knew to what core he belonged by his uniform, and ours was the first they came to on entering the garrison. As the poor fellow's ill luck would have it, the sergeant major was the first they encountered upon entering. They made bitter complaint against the pretended sentry, and he carried it directly to the captain, without losing a morsel by the way. The captain ordered him to send the man to him as soon as he came home. The captain's marquee had his shade over and round the entrance. I was upon quarters at guard at a tent in the rear of the captains, when, just after roll call, I saw a poor pill-girlic repairing to the captain's tent. I pretty well knew what would be the consequence of his visit. I listened, heard some discourse between them, but the distance was so great that I could hear but little distinctly, but I soon heard the retan in motion again, very plainly. As soon as the action was over, the man came to me at the guard. I asked him what the captain and he had been at, as they had, to appearance, been very lively. I will tell you, said he. The sergeant major had told the captain that I had deserted, but when he found I had not, he sent for me to come to see him, and you could not conceive how glad he was to see me, and nothing would do, but I must dance a jig with him. I told him I had much rather not, as possibly it might injure his character to be seen dancing with a private soldier. But it would not signify, a jig we must have at all events, and he got hold of my hand and began to whistle, and I began to dance in a fine jig I suppose he thought we had. The plague sees his old carcass. I wished he was twisted up fifteen miles above the seven stars, there to remain till every hair of his head was a meteor, and every limb a comet. I could not help laughing at his buffoonery, though I thought if I had been in his place I should not have turned it off so lightly. After we had ended our stoneblasting, we went to building a new range of barracks, and elegant ones too. They were two stories high with wings at each end, brick chimneys, and a gallery in front the whole length of the building, with large flights of steps to ascend to the gallery in the upper room, large enough to accommodate two or three regiments. Leviti and Folly are twin sisters, and are restive jades when they are yoked together in the same vehicle and have indiscretion for a driver. They will very often draw a man into wild and ridiculous scrapes, as I know by experience. They ran me into one about this time, which I will relate, as I think it an adventure and a suffering, though a foolish one, such and one as I shall not easily forget if it should not seem of much consequence to anyone but myself. Several of our men and myself among the rest, by permission of our officers, took a boat one day and went to the western side of the river for the purpose of gathering chestnuts. Two or three miles above West Point is a remarkable mountain jutting quite into the river called Butter Hill, from the color of the rocks that compose it, which are of a yellowish hue. The end of the mountain next to the river is almost perpendicular, and in many places, quite so. It runs off gradually to the westward, where it is on all sides easy of ascent. Not finding the nuts so plenty as I wished or expected, and being drawn on by the two nags I mentioned above, I took it into my head to leave my associates and climb this mountain, where I expected to have a prospect of the country around me that would compensate me for all my trouble in climbing the hill, and then, by going along to the top, I could descend it with ease. My mates tried to dissuade me from the undertaking, but no, I was determined to go, and go I did. A part of the way, I clambered up, sometimes upon my hands and knees, and sometimes pulling myself up by the small bushes that grew in the cliffs of the rocks, passing many places in imminent danger of falling, passing round crags of rocks on the very edges of frightful precipices, not daring to look back. When after I had ascended perhaps five or 600 feet and thought I had nearly obtained my object, I arrived at a spot where I was completely graveled and could go no farther, one way or the other. I then had to stop, of course, and venture to look back. Being forced to do so, I saw the tall trees below me in the valley, reduced in size to wortleberry bushes. I sat down on a crag of the rock, which was hardly broad enough for me to rest upon, and then began to reflect on my folly. To go farther was impossible. To get down again alive seemed equally so, especially when I recollected the many dangerous places I had passed in climbing up, and to call for help was vain, for no one could do ought for me if they were ever so willing. I thought of my more than madness in attempting such a hazardous foolish exploit without any cause for it but my idle curiosity. I recollected the advice of my comrades, and when all these considerations rushing on my mind at once, it almost made me desperate. I had a mind to sit still where I was and starve to death, or throw myself down the rocks and put an end to my life and anxiety together. Had the mountain been all solid gold and I the sole possessor of it, I would at that instant have given every ounce of it to have been in the situation I was but two hours before, but as the poet says, he had slighted good counsel, had reckoned it cheap, and now the sad fruit of his folly must reap. However, after taking breath a little, for truly I was almost breathless from fatigue setting aside the danger, I came to the resolution to make a trial to free myself from the preposterous hobble I had so foolishly poked my unthinking skull into for nothing. I could but die if I fell, and I should die if I stayed there. Accordingly, I sat out on my downward passage. Everyone knows that has had the trial, that it is much easier and safer in ascending than descending such places. I was sensible of this and therefore took good care that as much as I wished to be at the bottom of the hill, I did not go down faster than was necessary. By much care, more labor, and abundance of danger, for about an hour undergoing fear and horror in the extreme, I arrived where I set out from about two hours and a half before. I could hardly stand upon my feet when I reached the foot of the mountain. I looked up the hill with horror and pleasure, horror at the sight and thought of the risk I had run from my life, and pleasure to find myself safe once more on level land. I made myself a promise that nothing but absolute necessity should ever carry me off on such another foolish expedition, so long as I was allowed sense and reason enough to keep myself from running headlong into the fire. Another scrape of a similar complexion I got into about this time when I ran as great or greater risk of losing my life than I did in the one just related. I had before in this narrative informed the reader of my propensity to gunning whenever I could get an opportunity to indulge myself in it. The mountains on the Hudson, called the Highlands, had an abundance of partridges, heath hens, and gray squirrels upon them, especially on the western side of the river. I had one day got over the river and among those hills for an afternoon's hunting. I had not been long there when, going along by the side of a steep mountain, I saw and shot a squirrel, but only badly wounding it. It fell from the tree just before me upon a flat part of the rock, which rejected from the side of the mountain, and was about 20 feet wide and perhaps two or three rods long, as steep as the ordinary roof of a house. The lower edge, or what might be denominated to the eaves, hung over a frightful precipice, 80 or 100 feet perpendicular. My game, as I said before, fell upon this rock and was scrambling off across it. I laid down my gun and gave it chase. When I had got about halfway across this rock and nearly up with the squirrel, being so intent upon overtaking it that I did not observe the danger I was in, I slipped and fell upon my side and slid directly down the rock towards the precipice until my feet were within a foot or two of the brink. There happened, providentially, to be a small savin' or red-seed or bush about the size of a man's wrist at the root, which had grown out of a crevice in the rock but had fallen down, yet hung by a single root, not larger than a pipe stem. This tree, as it lay, reached almost to the lower edge of the rock. When I had got to the top end of it and was in full motion directly for the edge of the rock, I instinctively caught hold of the tree, which immediately stopped my way. But when I looked up and saw by what a slender hold I depended, I owned that I felt affrighted. However, by using great caution and bearing with as little weight on the tree as possible, I got up to the upper part of the rock, where it was more level. When I had got upon my feet again, I made off, thankful for whole bones, though not with an entire whole skin. I could not think of the risk I then ran from my hide without my feet involuntarily moving even at this late hour of my life. In the first part of the month of November, I was sent down to the river about five miles with 15 men to cut wood for our winter's use. Our duty was to cut the wood of proper lengths for the fire and then carry it on our backs to the shore. From whence it was carried to the garrison in Bat-Toe by those who had remained at home. We continued at this business till Christmas when we were ordered to the garrison. I sent off our tents, et cetera, by the boats, and on Christmas day we set off ourselves by land. It was a violently cold, windy, snow stormy day and we had to travel eight or 10 miles roundabout to get home with the wind abruptly in our faces. It began to snow before daylight and we started out about eight o'clock in the morning. Before we reached home, the snow had fallen 18 inches deep and not a single track but those we made ourselves. I froze my right ear considerably, but otherwise we all arrived safely at camp, although I was very unwell for several days after. Affliction always attended the poor soldiers. As soon as the storm had ceased, we removed into our new barracks one half of a regiment of our tillerist and a regiment of invalids having removed into them before us. And now, having provided our wood for the winter, built our barracks, stowed ourselves away snugly in them and winter having handsomely set in, it will, of course, bring our seventh campaign to a close. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 OF A NARRATIVE OF A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER by Joseph Plum Martin This Lieber-Vox recording is in the public domain. Campaign of 1783. When we see the end of strife and war and gain what we contended for, remember that our thanks are due to him whose mercy brings us through. The winter set in rather early for that part of the country and not over-gentle. We had a quarter's guard and a magazine guard to keep. The magazine was situated on one of the highest hills or rather ledges on the island. In a cold, northeast snowstorm, it would make a sentry shake his ears to stand two hours before the magazine. We likewise kept a small guard to protect the slaughterhouse, about half the winter. The invalids kept it the other half. All this made the duty of our little corps of less than seventy men rather hard. I was once upon this slaughterhouse guard, when I went to relieve the sentinel there, who was a roommate of mine and a smart, active young man of about twenty-one years of age. As it was an obscure place, we dispensed with the usual ceremonies in relieving sentries, but this young man standing in the door of the house when I came with the relief in his levity endeavoring to cut some odd figure with his musket by throwing it over and catching it again, and not considering where or how he stood, he struck the butt of his piece against the upper part of the door, which knocked it out of his hands, and coming down behind him, the bayonet entered the upper part of the calf of his leg and came out a little above the ankle. I had him conveyed to the barracks, where the wound was dressed by an ignoramus boy of a surgeon, belonging to the regiment of invalids. A few days later, he complained of a pain in his neck and back. I immediately informed the captain, who had him wrapped up and sent off to the hospital at Newburg. The men who conveyed him to the hospital returned in the evening and informed us that he was dead, having been seized with a lockjaw, convulsions, or something else caused by the wound. Thus a poor fellow, who had braved the hardships and peril of the war till the very close of it died as a fool dyeth, causing his own death by his folly. But perhaps if another man had been in his stead, he would have acted just as he did. If I were you, I would do so and so as a very common expression, but a very improper one. If I were in your place, or were you, I should do just as you do. Here we suffered again for eatables. We, generally speaking, had fared better for a year or two back than we did in the first three or four years of the war. Then all the care of procuring sustenance for the army was entrusted to the commissaries themselves. After our government had obtained loans of money from France and Holland, the money was put into the hands of commissaries responsible for what they received of them. But somehow this winter, between the two stools, the poor soldiers often came to the ground. I lived half the winter upon tripe and cowheels, and the other half upon what I could get. We always had very short carnivals, but lengthy fasts. One evening, in the first part of this winter, there happened the most brilliant and remarkable exhibition of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, that I ever witnessed. The wind was in the same quarter and quite fresh. We passed this winter as contentedly as we could, under the hope that the war was nearly over, and that hope buoyed us up under many difficulties, which we should hardly have surmounted without its aid. But we were afraid to be too sanguine for fear of being disappointed. Sometime in the latter part of the month of February, our officers were about to send off some men to Newburgh, 10 or 12 miles up the river, to bring down some clothing. As the ice in the river had not broken up, although it began to be thin and rotten, several of the non-commissioned officers solicited the job for the sake of a frolic. We readily obtained permission, and seven or eight of us set off in the morning on the ice with a large hand slid to bring the clothing upon. About a mile and a half above West Point, there was a large rent in the ice, quite across the river, in some places not more than a foot or two wide, in others eight or ten. We crossed this place very easily and went on, when we met an officer coming down the river, picking his way among the holes in the ice. He asked us what troops we belonged to, we told him. He bid us be careful, for, said he, you are too good-looking men to be drowned. We thanked him for his compliment and passed on, arrived safe at Newburgh, got our clothes, and set off on our return. When we came to New Windsor, about three or four miles below Newburgh, we conceded we were growing thirsty. We concluded thereupon to go on shore and get something to make us breathe freer. We could not get anything but cider, but that was almost as good and as strong as wine. We drank pretty freely of that and set off again. It was now nearly sundown, and we had about seven miles to travel. Just before we had arrived at the before-mentioned rent in the ice, we overtook a sleigh drawn by two horses and owned by a countryman that I was acquainted with. He had in his sleigh a hog's head of rum belonging to a subtler on West Point. There were two or three other citizens with him, one of whom was, to appearance, 60 or 70 years of age. When we arrived at the chasm in the ice, the teamster untackled his horses in order to jump them over, and we stopped to see the operation performed. He forced them both over at once, and when they struck the ice on the other side, they both went through, breaking the ice for a rod round. The poor man was in a pitiful taking. He cried like a child. Some of our party told him to choke them out. He had but little faith in the plan. We, however, soon got his leading reins, which happened to be strong new cords, and fixed one round each of the horses' necks with a slit noose. They did not require much pulling before they both sprang out upon the ice together. The owner's tune now turned. He was as joyful as he had been sad before. The next thing was to get the sleigh and rum over. We got it to a narrow spot in the chasm and all hands taking hold, we ran it over. But when the hinder ends of the sleigh runners came near the edge of the ice, they, with their own weight, broke the ice as bad as the horses had done before. The sleigh arrived safe on the other side, but we were mostly upon the broken floating ice, but by the aid of Providence, we all survived the accident. The old man that I mentioned happened to be on the same fragment of ice with me. When I had stepped off, I saw him on the edge of the piece, settling down gradually in the water, without making the least exertion to help himself. I seized him by the shoulder and at one flirt, flung him upon the solid ice. He appeared as light as a bag of feathers. He was very thankful and said I had saved his life and I am not quite sure that I did not. After we had got matters regulated again, we must take a sip of their rum with them. They soon got the bung from the hog's head, the only way they had in their power to get at the good creature. We each took a hearty pull at it, for soldiers are seldom backward in such cases. The rum soon began to associate with the cider, and between them they contrived to cut some queer capers amongst us, for we had not gone far before one of our corporals hauled up or rather upset. We laid him upon the sled and hauled him to the wharf at West Point where we landed. There was a sentry on the wharf, and as we had to go some distance to deliver the clothing to our commanding officer, we left our disabled corporal in the care of the sentry, with a strict charge not to let him stir from the place, for fear that he might blunder off the wharf and break his neck on the ice. We were gone an hour or more. When we returned we found the poor prisoner in a terrible chafe with the sentinel for detaining him, for the guard had been true to his trust. We then released him from his confinement, and he walked with us as well as he could across the river to our barracks, where during the night he settled his head. If the reader says there was no suffering of a revolutionary soldier in this affair, I say perhaps there was not, but there was an adventure. The great chain that barred the river at West Point had been regularly taken up every autumn and put down every spring, ever since it had been in use. That chain which the soldiers used to denominate General Washington's watch chain, every four links of which weighed a ton. But we heard nothing of its being put down this spring, although some idle fellow would report that it was going to be put down immediately. These simple stories would keep the men in agitation, often for days together, for the putting down or the keeping up of the chain was the criterion by which we were to judge of war or peace. When they would get some other piece of information by the ears which would entirely put the boot on the other leg. The political atmosphere was at this time as full of reports as ever the natural was of smoke and of about as much consequence. Time thus passed on to the 19th of April when we had General Orders read which satisfied the most skeptical that the war was over and the prize won for which we had been contending through eight tedious years. But the soldiers said but very little about it. Their chief thoughts were more closely fixed upon their situation as it respected the figure they were to exhibit upon their leaving the army and becoming citizens. Starved, ragged and meager, not assent to help themselves with and no means or method in view to remedy or alleviate their condition, this was appalling in the extreme. All that they could do was to make a virtue of necessity and face the threatening evils with the same resolution and fortitude that they had for so long a time to face the enemy in the field. At length the 11th day of June, 1783 arrived. The old man, our captain came into our room with his hands full of papers and first ordered us to empty all our cartridge boxes upon the floor. This was the last order he ever gave us and then told us that if we needed them we might take some of them again. They were all immediately gathered up and returned to our boxes. Government had given us our arms and we considered the ammunition as belonging to them and he had neither right nor orders to take them from us. He then handed us our discharges or rather furloughs, permission to return home but to return to the army again if required. This was policy in government. To discharges absolutely in our present pitiful forlorn condition it was feared might cause some difficulties which might be too hard for government to get easily over. The powder in our cartridges was soon burnt. Some saluted the officers with large charges others only squibbed them just as each one's mind was affected toward them. Our old man had a number of these last mentioned symbols of honor and affection presented him. Some of the men were not half so liberal in the use of powder as they were when they would have given him a canteen full at once. I confess after all that my anticipation of the happiness I should experience upon such a day as this was not realized. I can assure the reader that there was as much sorrow as joy transfused on the occasion. We had lived together as a family of brothers for several years, setting aside some little family squabbles like most other families, had shared with each other the hardships, dangers and sufferings incident to a soldier's life, had sympathized with each other in trouble and sickness, had assisted in bearing each other's burdens or strove to make them lighter by counsel and advice, had endeavored to conceal each other's faults or make them appear in as good a light as they would bear. In short, the soldierry, each in his particular circle of acquaintance, were as strict a bond of brotherhood as masons, and I believe as faithful to each other. And now we were to be the greater part of us parted forever, as unconditionally separated as though the grave lay between us. This I say was the case with the most, I will not say all. There were as many genuine misanthropists among the soldiers according to numbers as of any other class of people whatever, and some in our core of minors. But we were young men and had warm hearts. I question if there was a core in the army that parted with more regret than ours did, the New Englanders in particular. Ah, it was a serious time. Some of the soldiers went off for home the same day that the fetters were knocked off. Others stayed and got their final settlement certificates, which they sold to procure decent clothing and money sufficient to enable them to pass with decency through the country and to appear something like themselves when they arrived among their friends. I was among those. I went up the river to Walkill and stayed some time. When I returned to West Point, the certificates were not ready and it was uncertain when they would be. I had waited so long I was low to leave there without them. I had a friend and acquaintance in one of the Massachusetts Regiments who had five or six months to serve in the three year service. There was also in the same regiment a man who had about the same space of time to serve and who wished to hire a man to take his place. My friend persuaded me, although against my inclinations, to take this man's place, telling me that at the expiration of our service we would go together into the western parts of the state of New York, where there was a plenty of good land to be had as cheap as the Irishman's potatoes. For nothing at all, faith, and a little farther on, cheaper nor all that. And there we would get us farms and live like heroes. The other man offering me sixteen dollars in specie was several other small articles I consented. And now I had got hobbled again, though but for a short time. After I had been in this regiment about a month or six weeks, this friend of mine told me that he had taken an affront at something. I have forgotten what and was determined not to stay there any longer and endeavored to persuade me to go with him. I told him I had so short a time to serve and as there was a prospect that I should not have to stay so long as I had engaged to do, I would not go off like a scoundrel, get a bad name, and subject myself to suspicion and danger. I labored to persuade him to relinquish his foolish resolutions and I thought I had. But he, a few days after, set off with himself and I have never heard of him since. I hope he did well, for he was a worthy young man. Soon after this an order was issued that all who had but four months to serve should, after they had cut two cords of wood near the garrison for firewood, be discharged. Accordingly I cut my two cords of wood and obtained an honorable discharge, which the other man might have done if he had not been so hasty in his determination. I now bid a final farewell to the service. I had attained my settlement certificates and sold some of them and purchased some decent clothing and then set off from West Point. I went into the Highlands where I accidentally came across an old messmate who had been at work there ever since he had left the army in June last and, as it appeared, was on a courting expedition. I stopped a few days with him and worked at the farming business. I got acquainted with the people here who were chiefly Dutch and as winter was approaching and my friend recommended me to them, I agreed to teach a school amongst them, a fit person, I knew but little and they less if possible. Like people like priests, however, I stayed and had a school of from twenty to thirty pupils and probably I gave them satisfaction. If I did not, it was all one. I never heard anything to the contrary. Anyhow, they wished me to stay and settle with them. When the spring opened, I bid my Dutch friends adieu and set my face to the eastward and made no material halt till I arrived in the now state of Maine in the year seventeen eighty-four where I have remained ever since and where I expect to remain so long as I remain in existence and here at last to rest my war-worn weary limbs. And here I would make an end of my tedious narrative but that I deem it necessary to make a few short observations relative to what I have said or a sort of recapitulation of some of the things which I have mentioned. When those who engaged to serve during the war enlisted, they were promised a hundred acres of land, each which was to be in their own or the adjoining states. When the country had drained the last drop of service it could screw out of the poor soldiers, they were turned adrift like old worn-out horses and nothing set about land to pasture them upon. Congress did indeed appropriate lands under the denomination of soldiers' lands in Ohio state or some state or a future state but no care was taken that the soldiers should get them. No agents were appointed to see that the poor fellows ever got possession of their lands. No one ever took the least care about it except a pack of speculators who were driving about the country like so many evil spirits endeavoring to pluck the last feather from the soldiers. The soldiers were ignorant of the ways and means to obtain their bounty lands and there was no one appointed to inform them. The truth was no one cared for them. The country was served and faithfully served and that was all that was deemed necessary. It was, soldiers, look to yourselves. We want no more of you. I hope I shall one day find land enough to lay my bones in. If I chance to die in a civilized country none will deny me that. A dead body never begs a grave. Thanks for that. They were likewise promised the following articles of clothing per year. One uniform coat, a woollen and a linen waistcoat, four shirts, four pair of shoes, four pair of stockings, a pair of woollen and a pair of linen overalls, a hat or a feather cap, a stock for the neck, a hunting shirt, a pair of shoe buckles and a blanket. Ample clothing says the reader and ample clothing say I but what did we ever realize of all this ample store? Why perhaps a coat? We generally did get that and one or two shirts, the same of shoes and stockings and indeed the same may be said of every other article of clothing. A few dribbled out in a regiment two or three times in a year never getting a whole suit at a time and all of the poorest quality. The blankets of thin bays thin enough to have straws shot through without discommoting the threads. How often have I had to lie whole stormy cold nights in a wood on a field or a bleak hill with such blankets and other clothing like them with nothing but the canopy of the heavens to cover me? All this too in the heart of winter when a new England farmer, if his cattle had been in my situation, would not have slept a wink from sheer anxiety for them. And if I stepped into a house to warm me when passing what to the skin and almost dead with cold hunger and fatigue what scornful looks and hard words have I experienced? Almost everyone has heard of the soldiers of the revolution being tracked by the blood of their feet on the frozen ground. This is literally true and the thousands part of their sufferings has not nor ever will be told that the country was young and poor at that time I am willing to allow. But young people are generally modest, especially females. Now I think the country, although of the feminine gender for we say she and her of it show but little modesty at the time alluded to or she appeared to think her soldiers had no private parts for on our march from the Valley Forge through the jerseys and at the boasted battle of Monmouth a fourth part of the troops had not a script of anything but their ragged shirt flaps to cover their nakedness and were obliged to remain so long after. I had picked up a few articles of light clothing during the winter past while among the Pennsylvania farmers or I should have been in the same predicament. Rub and go was always the revolutionary soldier's motto. As to provision of victuals I have said a great deal already but 10 times as much might be said and not get to the end of the chapter. When we engaged in the service we were promised the following articles for our ration. One pound of good and wholesome fresh or salt beef or three fourths of a pound of good salt pork a pound of good flour, soft or hard bread a quart of salt to every hundred pounds of fresh beef a quart of vinegar to a hundred rations a gill of rum, brandy or whiskey per day some little soap and candles I have forgot how much for I had so little of these two articles that I never knew the quantity and as to the article of vinegar I do not recollect of ever having any except a spoonful at the famous Rice and Vinegar Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania in the year 1777 but we never received what was allowed us often times have I gone one, two, three and even four days without a morsel unless the fields or forests might chance to afford enough to prevent absolute starvation. Often when I have picked the last grain from the bones of my scanty morsel have I eat the very bones as much of them as possibly could be eaten and then have had to perform some hard and fatiguing duty when my stomach has been as craving as it was before I had eaten anything at all. If we had got our full allowance regularly what was it? A bare pound of fresh beef and a bare pound of bread or flour. The beef when it had gone through all its divisions and subdivisions would not be much over three quarters of a pound and that nearly or quite half bones. The beef that we got in the army was generally not many degrees above the carrion. It was much like the old Negro's rabbit. It had not much fat upon it and but a very little lean. When we drew flour, which was much of the time we were in the field or on marches, it was of small value being half cooked besides a deal of it being unavoidably wasted in the cookery. When in the field and often while in winter quarters our usual mode of drawing our provisions when we did draw any was as follows. A return being made out for all the officers and men for seven days we drew four days of meat and the whole seven days of flour. At the expiration of the four days the other three days allowance of beef. Now dear reader, pre-consider a moment. How were five men in a mess, five hardy hungry young men to subsist four days on 20 pounds of fresh beef? And I might say 12 or 15 pounds without any vegetables or any other kind of sauce to eek it out. In the hottest season of the year, it was the same. Though there was not much danger of our provision pre-trafine we had none on hand long enough for that. If it did we were obliged to eat it or go without anything. When General Washington told Congress the soldiers eat every kind of horse fodder but hey he might have gone a little further and told them that they eat considerable hogs fodder and not a trifle of dogs when they could get it to eat. We were also promised six dollars and two thirds a month to be paid us monthly and how did we fare in this particular? Why as we did in every other I received the six dollars and two thirds until if I remember rightly the month of August 1777 when pain ceased. And what was six dollars and sixty-seven cents of this continental currency as it was called worth? It was scarcely enough to procure a man a dinner. Government was ashamed to tantalize the soldiers any longer with such trash and wisely gave it up for its own credit. I received one month's pay in specie while on the March to Virginia in the year 1781 and except that I never received any pay worth the name while I belonged to the army. Had I been paid as I was promised to be at my engaging in the service I needed not to have suffered as I did nor would I have done it. There was enough in the country and money would have procured it if I had had it. It is provoking to think of it. The country was rigorous in exacting my compliance to my engagements to a punctilio but equally careless in performing her contracts with me and why so? One reason was because she had all the power in her own hands and I had none. Such things ought not to be. The poor soldiers had hardships enough to endure without having to starve. The least that could be done was to give them something to eat. The laborer is worthy of his meat at least and he ought to have it for his employer's interest if nothing more. But as I said, there were other hardships to grapple with. How many times have I had to lie down like a dumb animal in the field and hear the pelting of the pitiless storm? Cruel enough in warm weather but how much more so in the heart of winter? Could I have had the benefit of a little fire? It would have been deemed a luxury. But once no rain would fall so heavy that it was impossible to keep a spark of fire alive to have to weather out a long, wet, cold, tedious night in the depth of winter was scarcely close enough to keep one from freezing instantly. How discouraging it must be, I leave to my reader to judge. It is fatiguing almost beyond belief to those that have never experienced it. To be obliged to march 24 or 48 hours as very many times I have had to and often more, night and day without rest or sleep wishing and hoping that some wood or village I could see ahead might prove a short resting place. When alas, I came to it almost tired off my legs it proved no resting place for me. How often have I envied the very swine their happiness when I was wet to the skin and wished in vain for that indulgence? And even in the dry warm weather I have often been so beat out with long and tedious marching that I have fallen asleep while walking the road and not been sensible of it till I have jostled against someone in the same situation. And when permitted to stop and have the superlative happiness to roll myself in my blanket and drop down on the ground in the bushes, briars, thorns or thistles and get an hour or two sleep. Oh, how exhilarating! Fighting the enemy is the great scarecrow to people unacquainted with the duties of an army. To see the fire and smoke, to hear the din of cannon and musketry and the whistling of shot they cannot bear the sight or hearing of this. They would like the service in an army tolerably well but for the fighting part of it. I never was killed in the army, I never was wounded but once I never was a prisoner with the enemy but I have seen many that have undergone all these and I have many times run the risk of all of them myself. But reader, believe me, for I tell you a solemn truth that I have felt more anxiety undergone more fatigue and hardships suffered more every way in performing one of those tedious marches than ever I did in fighting the hottest battle I was ever engaged in with the anticipation of all the other calamities I have mentioned added to it. It has been said by some that ought to have been better employed that the revolutionary army was needless that the militia were competent for all that the crisis required that there was then and now is in the militia as brave and as good men as were ever in any army since the creation I am ready and willing to allow but there are many among them too I hope the citizen soldiers will be as ready to allow who are not so good as regulars and I affirm that the militia would not have answered so well as standing troops for the following reason among many others they would not have endured the sufferings the army did they would have considered themselves as in reality they were and are free citizens not bound by any cords that were not of their own manufacturing and when the hardships of fatigue, starvation, cold and nakedness which I have just mentioned begun to seize upon them in such awful array as they did on us they would have instantly quitted the service and discussed and who would blame them? I am sure I could hardly find it in my heart to do it that the militia did good and great service in that war as well as in the last on particular occasions I well know for I have fought by their side but still I insist that they would not have answered the end so well as regular soldiers unless they were very different people from what I believe and know them to be as well as I wish to know upon every exigency they would have been to be collected and what would the enemy have been doing in the meantime the regulars were there and were obliged to be we could not go away when we plead without exposing ourselves to military punishment and we had trouble enough to undergo without that it was likewise said at that time that the army was idle did nothing but lounge about from one station to another eating the country's bread and wearing her clothing without rendering her any essential service and I wonder that they did not add spending the country's money too it would have been quite as consistent as the other charges you ought to drive on said they you are competent for the business rid the country at once of her invaders poor simple souls it was very easy for them to build castles in the air but they had not felt a difficulty of making them stand there it was easier with them taking whole armies in a warm room and by a good fire than enduring the hardships of one cold winter's night upon a bleak hill without clothing or victuals if the revolutionary army was really such and useless appendage to the cause such as nuisance as it was then and has since been said to be why was it not broke up at once why were we not sent off home and obliged to maintain ourselves surely it would have been as well for us soldiers and according to the reckoning of those wise acres it would have been much better for the country to have done it than for us to have been eating so much provisions and wearing out so much clothing when our services were worse than useless we could have made as good militiamen as though we had been discharged from the army have saved the country a world of expense as they said and I say we should have saved ourselves a world of trouble in having our constitutions broken down and our joints dislocated by trotting after bologna's car but the poor old decrepit soldiers after all that has been said to discourage them have found friends in the community and I trust there are many very many that are sensible of the usefulness of that suffering army although perhaps all their voices have not been so loud in its praise as the voice of slander has been against it. President Monroe was the first of all our presidents except president Washington who ever uttered a syllable in the old soldiers favor president Washington urged the country to do something for them and not to forget their hard services but president Monroe told them how to act he had been a soldier himself in the darkest period of the war that point of it that emphatically tried men's souls was wounded and knew what soldiers suffered his good intentions being seconded by some revolutionary officers then in Congress brought about a system by which aided by our present worthy vice president then secretary of war heaven bless him many of the poor men who had spent their youthful and consequently their best days in the hard service of the country have been enabled to eke out the fag end of their lives a little too high for the groveling hand of envy or the long arm of poverty to reach many murmur now at the apparent good fortune of the poor soldiers many I have myself seen vile enough to say that they never deserve such favor from the country the only wish I would bestow upon such hard-hearted wretches is that they might be compelled to go through just such sufferings and privations as that army did and then if they did not sing a different tune I should miss my guests but I really hope these people will not go beside themselves those men whom they wish to die on a dung hill men who if they had not ventured their lives in battle and face poverty disease and death for the country to gain and maintain that independence and liberty in the sunny beams of which they like reptiles are basking they would many or the most of them be this moment in as much need of help and sucker as ever the most indigent soldier was before he experienced his country's beneficence the soldiers consider it cruel to be thus vilified and it is cruel as the grave to any man when he knows his own rectitude of conduct to have his hard services not only debased and underrated but scandalized and vilified but the revolutionary soldiers are not the only people that endure obliquely others as meritorious and perhaps more deserving than they are forced to submit to ungenerous treatment but if the old revolutionary pensioners are really an eyesore a grief of mine to any man or set of men and I know they are let me tell them that if they will exercise a very little patience a few years longer will put all of them beyond the power of troubling them for they will soon be where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest and now I think it is time to draw to a close and so say I says the reader in truth when I began this narrative I thought a very few pages would contain it but as a currency's return to my memory and one thing brought another to mine I could not stop for as soon as I had let one thought through my mind another would step up and ask for admittance and now dear reader if any such should be found I will come to a close and trespass upon your time no longer time that may doubtless be spent to more advantage than reading the adventures and sufferings of a private soldier but if you have been really desirous to hear apart and apart only of the hardships of some of that army that achieved our independence I can say I am sorry you have not had an abler pen than mine to give you the requisite information to conclude whoever has the patience to follow me to the end of this rhapsody I will confess that I think he must have almost as great a share of perseverance in reading it as I had to go through the hardships and dangers it records and now kind reader I bid you a cordial and long farewell through much fatigue and many dangers past the war-worn soldiers braved his way at last end of chapter nine end of a narrative of a revolutionary soldier some of the adventures dangers and sufferings of Joseph Plum Martin by Joseph Plum Martin read by Barry Eads