Joseph Martin Plumb Thesis

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Joseph Martin Plumb had to steal food from the citizens and collect it from wherever he could because the army was not providing it for the men: “Our stomachs being empty…I soon became very faint” (Martin 101). The army was not taking care of the men properly and that is why he was acting the way he was. Throughout the entire book his number one complaint is food. Everything circles back to him not having food and he seems to worry/focus about that a lot. His daily life consisted of not eating: “I had now to enter again on my old system of starving; - there was nothing to eat” (Martin 102). From the very beginning they kept the men starving: “… excepting starvation…” (Martin 41). All the above reasons go to show why he ends up stealing …show more content…

Being in any kind of war would be a difficult thing to do between missing family, facing death daily, and the hardships of being treated like garbage by the people who need the army. These men were out in the field all the time trying to keep the British at bay. Courage and will was eminent: “[We] wished nothing more than to have them engage us, for we were sure of giving them a drubbing, being in excellent fighting trim” (Martin 86). The men were clearly ready to see some action on the field. There was another point where the men were about to engage with the British and the sick/gimp men were told to stay behind but they were so ready for a fight that the they were having trouble keeping them at bay. The thought of plunder brought up a great deal of enthusiasm: “the men did not need much haranguing to raise their courage, for when the officers came to order the sick and lame to stay behind as guards, they were forced to exercise their authority to the full extent before they could make even the invalids stay behind” (Martin 109). The guys in the army had copious amounts of energy and will to fight off the British. The entire time in the war conditions were extremely poor and these men could have just said they quit and walked off, but they were in it because they wanted to have the thrill of taking down the enemy and doing something

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