Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin, edited by James Marin (TPB, 1993, $2) SOLD
Joseph Plumb Martin was no one special. He was 14 when George Washington became the leader of the Continental Army. When he was 16 he joined the army, where he would stay until the end of the war in 1783. In his later years he was urged to write down his experiences. He had had little schooling, but yet he managed to write "the only detailed memoir of the Revolutionary War by a common soldier." He tells of both death and boredom, servere hunger and thirst, servere cold and heat, and illnesses of all kinds (smallpox, pleurisy, yellow fever, and a broken ankle). He tells of his anger at the civilians who won't give them food, and the jeering of members of the militia who thought the Continental soldiers were lazy. He tells of spies being hung, of units threatening mutiny because of lack of food , and of getting no pay for months, of digging trenches, chasing deserters, foraging for food, and always the marching somewhere else. "He fought in major engagements that in 1776 included the defense of Long Island and NYC and the Battle of White Plains, in 1777 the Battle of Germantown ...and the defense of the Delaware River forts, in 1778 the Battle of Monmouth... and in 1781 the seige of Yorktown." We owe this man and the men like him much gratitude. The book will be located on the new non-fiction table, available 9/17.
