American Revolution Primary Sources | Joseph Plumb Martin

A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier

Originally published in 1830 and most recently republished as
Yankee Doodle Boy in 1995
Excerpted from Witnessing America, 1996

"My grandsire told [my grandma] that he supposed I was resolved to go into the service in some way or other and he had rather I would engage in the land service if I must engage in any."

Joseph Plumb Martin

Ayoung Connecticut farm boy, Joseph Plumb Martin (1760–1850), had been aware since 1774 that war with Great Britain was a strong possibility. At first, he vowed to himself to have nothing to do with it. But army recruiters came to his town in the spring of 1775, just after the war had unofficially begun in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. The recruiters offered a payment to anyone who would enlist to fight the...