1. Introduction.
In the war for independence, the soldier's life was very difficult. Soldiers served in state militias or in the Continental Army. They were farmers, artisans, some professionals and the young men as well who got to know what discomfort, food shortages, low morale, and danger of the war mean. Joseph Plumb Martin joined the militia in 1776 at 16 years old and served in the Continental Army. In 1830, he wrote a memoir of the life of an ordinary soldier during the American Revolution. Being a good storyteller with wonderful memory Martin retells about the hardships of service in the army. The author of the book "Ordinary Courage" presents a truthful portrait of that war, of what it was like from the point of view of an ordinary person.
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2. Ordinary courage.
Being a soldier in the Continental army, Plumb Martin wrote down about his experiences in a diary that he kept for 7 years. This memoir is a brilliant first-person report of the Revolutionary War from which one can understand the life of a continental soldier. The story is full of realistic details though sometimes Plumb Martin embellished the events or told about events that did not take place in the real life.
In his memoir Joseph Plumb points out the differences between the colonists. He retells about the time when he was prisonned by "half New Englanders and half Pennsylvanians" (Martin, 1999, p.27) and that he "would rather be combating with a tribe of Indians than with the Southerners" (Martin, 1999, p.25). In their turn they call him "damn Yankee", as Martin notes. He had many reasons not to like them, besides they were foreigners who did not know language well enough and who spoke English very bad.
The author portraits the war and the birth of the nation very realistically and in a detailed way. He clearly wants to avoid romantic or idealitic concepts concerning the war or the birth of the nation. Martin tries to show all the hardships of the war from the point of view of an average soldier who combatted in that particular war, and gives his own opinion of the officers, of their ethnicity, geographical location or gender. He gives a detailed description of the war events, of the officers' courage and bravery. Martin shows the acts of ordinary men who combatted for freedom of their motherland and did everything that was in their power to protect their families from the enemies.
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3. Conclusion.
The paper briefly analyses the book "Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin" by Joseph Plumb Martin. When the war just started Joseph Plumb Martin was only sixteen years old. Being a young man, he underwent the formation of his character, like the country itself. His development during the war happened parallel to the development of the nation and the country. The war made him become a grown-up man at 16 ears old and he depicts the war events realistically and with a formed vision of the world.
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