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The Private Soldier Under Washington
2005 Scholar's Bookshelf reprint edition. Still the standard work on how Washington's army was formed and maintained; the varieties and sources of food and equipment; relations between officers and the ranks; camp duties and diversions; hospitals and prison ships; army maneuvers; and the attitudes of the ordinary foot soldier as expressed in diaries, letters, journals, and other writings. Reprint of the original 1902 Scribner's publication. Illustrated.
- GenresMilitary History
258 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1902
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 9, 2023
Succinct review of the nitty gritty details of the revolutionary war. Recruitment challenges, supply logistics, etc. What a wild time.
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October 3, 20172007-10 - The Private Soldier Under Washington. Charles K. Bolton (Author) . 1902. 258 pages.
I found this book in the library catalog and requested it. It took about two weeks to arrive, as they had to dig it out of the storage stacks. The copy the library has is the original first edition from 1902, though it was rebound in 1986. The pages are quite brittle. But there is something very pleasing about an old book; the way it smells, the way the paper feels ….
The book in terms of the genre of history is a bit out of time. It predates the social history era of the 1960’s and beyond by over half a century, and yet it stacks up very well to the more modern accounts. The prose was period and therefore more inclined to the poetic at times then the drier stuff of modern writing. I appreciated this as it made the tale the author spun weave and dance across the pages and through my thoughts much more then just a simple data download.
The books goal is to relate the reader what it was like to serve as a private soldier, a man in the ranks, in the Continental Army of 1775-1783. It does this by relying on a few well chosen primary sources. His sources tend towards individual diaries and letters notably George Washington himself and about ten or so other diarists. He choose, interestingly, a majority of his sources from the diaries of Continental Army Chaplains. This was not done for any religious reason or to grind out an agenda, merely I think because the chaplains tended to be better educated, trained observes of people and the men felt freer to talk with them then their own commanders which puts the chaplain then, as now, in a unique position to observe and comment on soldier motivation and attitudes.
He does a very good job of covering the mundane and the grand. Everything from uniforms, weapons, and training to the horror of the medical care and prison ships. He does not merely cover the main Army with Washington either. He makes extensive use of a Chaplain’s diary who was assigned to the Sullivan Campaign of 1779.
All told this is a very good book in terms of its research and prose. It pre-dates the Marxist influence you find in later books of this type and instead primarily lets the soldiers speak for themselves. The Author does not seem to be trying to push and agenda, and this is like a breath of fresh air.
I found this book in the library catalog and requested it. It took about two weeks to arrive, as they had to dig it out of the storage stacks. The copy the library has is the original first edition from 1902, though it was rebound in 1986. The pages are quite brittle. But there is something very pleasing about an old book; the way it smells, the way the paper feels ….
The book in terms of the genre of history is a bit out of time. It predates the social history era of the 1960’s and beyond by over half a century, and yet it stacks up very well to the more modern accounts. The prose was period and therefore more inclined to the poetic at times then the drier stuff of modern writing. I appreciated this as it made the tale the author spun weave and dance across the pages and through my thoughts much more then just a simple data download.
The books goal is to relate the reader what it was like to serve as a private soldier, a man in the ranks, in the Continental Army of 1775-1783. It does this by relying on a few well chosen primary sources. His sources tend towards individual diaries and letters notably George Washington himself and about ten or so other diarists. He choose, interestingly, a majority of his sources from the diaries of Continental Army Chaplains. This was not done for any religious reason or to grind out an agenda, merely I think because the chaplains tended to be better educated, trained observes of people and the men felt freer to talk with them then their own commanders which puts the chaplain then, as now, in a unique position to observe and comment on soldier motivation and attitudes.
He does a very good job of covering the mundane and the grand. Everything from uniforms, weapons, and training to the horror of the medical care and prison ships. He does not merely cover the main Army with Washington either. He makes extensive use of a Chaplain’s diary who was assigned to the Sullivan Campaign of 1779.
All told this is a very good book in terms of its research and prose. It pre-dates the Marxist influence you find in later books of this type and instead primarily lets the soldiers speak for themselves. The Author does not seem to be trying to push and agenda, and this is like a breath of fresh air.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews