Continental Infantryman of the American Revolution (Warrior, 68)

Rating:
Summary: They Served and Suffered
Review: As John Milsop notes in Osprey Warrior #68, Continental Infantryman of the American Revolution, the Americans raised three distinct armies during the War for Independence: militia, state troops and the Continentals. It was George Washington's dream to raise and equip an all-volunteer and professional army that could best the British redcoats on the battlefield, but circumstances continually frustrated the realization of that aspiration. The Continental Army that did emerge, as described by Milsop, was often dressed in ragged uniforms and poorly fed, but willing to soldier on. Indeed, Milsop concludes that "the willingness of the Continental infantry to endure privation may have contributed as much to final victory as did their skill on the battlefield." Although much of this volume covers fairly familiar material for anyone familiar with the American soldier in the Revolution, Milsop is able to retain the reader's interest by carefully weaving first-person accounts into a coherent narrative.

Continental Infantryman of the American Revolution begins with 5-6 page sections on the enlistment, training and equipment of the American regulars. Milsop's comment that "the absence of field sanitation and basic cleanliness promoted sickness, weakening the fighting power of the army" highlights an under-appreciated vulnerability of the American forces (oftentimes, historians attach too much significance to alleged American tactical clumsiness or skill, rather than basic meat-and-potato soldier skills). Most readers familiar with the American Revolution will be aware of Von Steuben's drill instruction at Valley Forge, but few will be aware - as Milsop details - his efforts to reform American camp procedures, including latrine digging. Apparently, about the only equipment that the American soldier had a decent supply of was muskets or rifles, but the Continentals were desperately short of uniforms and footwear. Camp life was tough on the Continentals, who were usually hungry and paid with almost worthless paper currency. Mutiny was fairly common and Milsop notes that one particularly large mutiny in 1781 cost the Continentals more men than any single battle of the war. The remainder of Milsop's narrative includes sections on campaigning, belief and belonging, the experience of battle and notes on museums.

The color plates in the volume are: a private from the Commander-in-Chief's Guard, 1778; Von Steuben drilling at Valley Forge; the night attack at Stony Point; the New Windsor cantonment; four starving Continentals; the charge of the Deleware-Maryland Battalion at Cowpens; Aftermath of the Battle of Trenton; and a Continental infantryman with equipment in 1781. Compared to other Osprey volumes, these color plates tend toward mediocre, but are acceptable. Most of the other illustrations are very commonplace examples.

Despite triumphs at Saratoga and Yorktown, the Continental soldier's main contribution was his ability to remain in the field despite crippling logistical shortfalls. Quite frankly, it was beyond the ability of the cash-strapped colonies to maintain 20-25,000 regular soldiers in 1775-1783 and the only way that it was managed was that the army put up with gross shortages because enough troops believed in the worthiness of sacrifice for the cause (Confederate troops would be in the same situation in 1864-1865). Thus, the ultimate success of the American Continental would seem to be a good example of Napoleon's dictum that in war, the moral is to the material as three is to one.