The Memoirs of a Revolutionary Soldier. Joseph Plumb Martin
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so beat out before morning, with hunger and fatigue, that I could hardly move one foot before the other. I told my messmates that I could not carry our kettle any further; they said they would not carry it any further; of what use was it? they had nothing to cook and did not want any thing to cook with. We were sitting down on the ascent of a hill when this discourse happened. We got up to proceed, when I took up the kettle, which held nearly a common pail full, I could not carry it; my arms were almost dislocated; I sat it down in the road, and one of the others gave it a shove with his foot, and it rolled down against the fence, and that was the last I ever saw of it. When we got through the night's march we found our mess was not the only one that was rid of their iron bondage.
We arrived at the White Plains just at dawn of day, tired and faint—encamped on the plains a few days and then removed to the hills in the rear of the plains. Nothing remarkable transpired, while lying here, for some time. One day, after roll-call, one of my messmates with me, sat off upon a little jaunt into the country to get some sauce of some kind or other. We soon came to a field of English turnips; but the owner was there, and we could not get any of them without paying for them in some way or other. We soon agreed with the man to pull and cut off the tops of the turnips at the halves, until we got as many as we needed. After the good man had sat us to work, and chatted with us a few minutes, he went off and left us. After he was gone, and we had pulled and cut as many as we wanted, we packed them up and decamped, leaving the owner of the turnips to pull his share himself.
When we arrived at the camp, the troops were all parading. Upon inquiry, we found that the British were advancing upon us. We flung our turnip plunder into the tent—packed up our things, which was easily done, for we had but a trifle to pack, and fell into the ranks. Before we were ready to march, the battle had begun. Our regiment then marched off, crossed a considerable stream of water which crosses the plain, and formed behind a stone wall in company with several other regiments, and waited the approach of the enemy. They were not far distant; at least, that part of them with which we were quickly after engaged. They were constructing a sort of bridge to convey their artillery, &c. across the before mentioned stream. They however soon made their appearance in our neighbourhood. There was in our front, about ten rods distant, an orchard of apple trees. The ground on which the orchard stood was lower than the ground that we occupied, but was level from our post to the verge of the orchard, when it fell off so abruptly that we could not see the lower parts of the trees. A party of Hessian troops, and some English, soon took possession of this ground: they would advance so far as just to show themselves above the rising ground, fire, and fall back and reload their muskets. Our chance upon them was, as soon as they showed themselves above the level ground, or when they fired, to aim at the flashes of their guns—their position was as advantagious to them as a breastwork. We were engaged in this manner for some time, when finding ourselves flanked and in danger of being surrounded, we were compelled to make a hasty retreat from the stone wall. We lost, comparatively speaking, very few at the fence: but when forced to retreat, we lost, in killed and wounded, a considerable number. One man who belonged to our company, when we marched from the parade, said, "Now I am going out to the field to be killed;" and he said more than once afterwards, that he should be killed; and he was—he was shot dead on the field. I never saw a man so prepossessed with the idea of any mishap as he was. We fell back a little distance and made a stand: detached parties engaging in almost every direction. We did not come in contact with the enemy again that day, and just at night we fell back to our encampment. In the course of the afternoon the British took possession of a hill on the right of our encampment, which had in the early part of the day been occupied by some of the New-York troops. This hill overlooked the one upon which we were, and was not more than half or three fourths of a mile distant. The enemy had several pieces of field artillery upon this hill, and, as might be expected, entertained us with their music all the evening. We entrenched ourselves where we now lay, expecting another attack. But the British were very civil, and indeed they generally were, after they had received a check from Brother Jonathan, for any of their rude actions; they seldom repeated them, at least, not till the affair that caused the reprimand, had ceased in some measure to be remembered.
During the night we remained in our new made trenches, the ground of which was in many parts springy; in that part where I happened to be stationed, the water, before morning, was nearly over shoes, which caused many of us to take violent colds, by being exposed upon the wet ground after a profuse perspiration. I was one who felt the effects of it, and was the next day sent back to the baggage to get well again, if I could, for it was left to my own exertions to do it, and no other assistance was afforded me. I was not alone in misery; there were a number in the same circumstances. When I arrived at the baggage, which was not more than a mile or two, I had the canopy of heaven for my hospital, and the ground for my hammock. I found a spot where the dry leaves had collected between the knolls; I made up a bed of these, and nestled in it, having no other friend present but the sun to smile upon me. I had nothing to eat or drink, not even water, and was unable to go after any myself, for I was sick indeed. In the evening, one of my messmates found me out, and soon after brought me some boiled hog's flesh (it was not pork) and turnips, without either bread or salt. I could not eat it, but I felt obliged to him notwithstanding; he did all he could do—he gave me the best he had to give, and had to steal that, poor fellow;—necessity drove him to do it to satisfy the cravings of his own hunger, as well as to assist a fellow sufferer.
The British, soon after this, left the White Plains, and passed the Hudson, into New-Jersey. We, likewise, fell back to New-Castle and Wright's mills. Here a number of our sick were sent off to Norwalk, in Connecticut, to recruit. I was sent with them as a nurse. We were billetted among the inhabitants. I had, in my ward, seven or eight sick soldiers, who were (at least, soon after their arrival there,) as well in health as I was: all they wanted was a cook and something for a cook to exercise his functions upon. The inhabitants here were almost entirely what were in those days termed tories. An old lady, of whom I often procured milk, used always, when I went to her house, to give me a lecture on my opposition to our good king George. She had always said, (she told me,) that the regulars would make us fly like pigeons. My patients would not use any of the milk I had of her, for fear, as they said, of poison;—I told them I was not afraid of her poisoning the milk, she had not wit enough to think of such a thing, nor resolution enough to do it if she did think of it.
The man of the house where I was quartered had a smart looking negro man, a great politician; I chanced one day to go into the barn where he was threshing. He quickly began to upbraid me with my opposition to the British. The king of England was a very powerful prince, he said,—a very powerful prince; and it was a great pitty that the colonists had fallen out with him; but as we had, we must abide by the consequences. I had no inclination to waste the shafts of my rhetoric upon a negro slave. I concluded he had heard his betters say so. As the old cock crows so crows the young one; and I thought, as the white cock crows so crows the black one. He ran away from his master, before I left there, and went to Long-Island to assist king George; but it seems the king of terrors was more potent than king George, for his master had certain intelligence that poor Cuff was laid flat on his back.
This man had likewise a negress who (as he was a widower) kept his house. She was as great a doctress as Cuff was a politician, and she wished to be a surgeon. There was an annual thanksgiving while we were here. The sick men of my ward had procured a fine roasting pig, and the old negro woman having seen the syringe that I picked up in the retreat from Kipp's bay, fell violently in love with it, and offered me a number of pies, of one sort or other for it. Of the pig and the pies we made an excellent thanksgiving dinner, the best meal I had eaten since I left my grandsire's table.
Our surgeon came amongst us soon after this, and packed us all off to camp, save two or three, who were discharged. I arrived at camp with the rest, where we remained, moving from place to place as occasion required, undergoing hunger, cold and fatigue, until the twenty-fifth day of December, 1776, when I was discharged, (my term of service having expired,) at Philip's manor, in the State of New-York, near Hudson's river.
Here ends my first campaign. I had learned something of a soldier's life; enough, I thought, to keep me at home for the future. Indeed, I was then fully determined to rest easy with the knowledge I had acquired in the affairs of the army. But the reader will find, if he has patience to follow me a little longer in my details,