A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier

by Plumb Martin, Joseph; Fleming, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780451528117
• ISBN10: 0451528115
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Signet Classics

Summary

The Declaration of Independence is barely a year old - and a motley band of farmers and city folk, beggars and gentlemen, makes up the army of a newborn country. Joseph Plumb Martin, once a sixteen-year-old private in the Continental Army of the Revolutionary War, here narrates his true adventures as one of them. With neither horses nor uniforms, little food and less lodging, Martin and his fellows feed off the taste of freedom and warm themselves with only the prospect of independence and the shirts on their backs. Their growling stomachs only sometimes quieted by stale bread and salted horsemeat, Martin and his comrades traverse the mid-Atlantic colonies, from Connecticut over to Pennsylvania and back down through Delaware. Forging most of the path only by foot, these men leave tracks of blood with which the British trace them.

Author Biography

Joseph Plumb Martin was born in western Massachusetts in 1760. His father, the Reverend Ebenezer Martin, was often at odds with parishes for his unorthodox opinions and his impulsiveness, so his son was raised from the age of seven by his well-to-do grandparents in Milford, Connecticut. At age fifteen, he enlisted for a six-month period in the Connecticut state troops and fought mostly in the New York City area. A few months after his first tour of duty, Martin joined the Continental Army for the remainder of the war. After the war, he settled on Maine's frontier, where he was a respected, if not prosperous, farmer. At different times in the following years, Martin served as selectman, justice of the peace, and town clerk. In 1830, he anonymously published his memoirs, although his identity was never a well-kept secret. Joseph Plumb Martin died in 1850. Thomas Fleming is a distinguished historian and the author of numerous critically acclaimed and bestselling novels. His masterpiece, The Officers' Wives, was an international bestseller with over two million copies sold. His novels Time and Tide and Liberty Tavern were both New York Times bestsellers. He is also the author of the award-winning PBS miniseries Liberty! The American Revolution. A decade ago, Fleming was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. He writes frequently for American Heritage Magazine and is contributing editor of the Quarterly Journal of Military History. His most recent nonfiction novel is Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America. Thomas Fleming lives in New York City.