Joseph Plumb Martin – The Soldier Who Told the Revolution from the Ranks

In This Article

His Story

When Joseph Plumb Martin looked back upon the American Revolution, he remembered more than the battles. He remembered hunger. He remembered marching until his body ached, sleeping in miserable conditions, and watching men struggle to survive while the government they served failed to provide adequate food, clothing, and pay.

He remembered the gunfire at Fort Mifflin, the winter at Valley Forge, the oppressive heat at Monmouth, and the trenches at Yorktown. He also remembered the men who died beside him, the strange humor that soldiers used to endure their circumstances, and the religious questions that arose when survival appeared to depend upon chance or divine providence.

Martin was not a general. He did not command an army or negotiate a treaty. He entered military service as a teenager and spent the next seven years, with a brief interruption, among the ordinary soldiers who carried out the Revolution.

More than four decades after leaving the army, he published an account of what those years had been like.

His 1830 book, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, would eventually become one of the most important firsthand descriptions of military life during the American Revolution.

Unlike the correspondence of Washington, Greene, or Knox, Martin’s account came from the ranks. It offered the perspective of a man who received orders rather than issued them, and whose daily concerns frequently involved finding something to eat.

He lived long enough to see the United States become a nation far larger than the thirteen colonies that had declared independence in 1776. Yet his later years were marked by financial hardship, family responsibilities, and the continuing struggle of an aging veteran to support his household.

His greatest contribution to history may have been his determination to ensure that the experiences of the common soldier were not forgotten.

The Minister’s Son Who Wanted to Fight

Joseph Plumb Martin was born in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, in the settlement that became Becket.

His father, Ebenezer Martin, was a Congregational minister. The surviving records of the church in Township Number Four identify a child named Joseph Plumbe Martin, born November 21, 1759, and baptized four days later.

This creates a small but important discrepancy in Martin’s biography. In his own memoir, written many decades later, he remembered his birth as November 21, 1760. The contemporary church record supports 1759.

Martin spent much of his childhood with his grandparents in Milford, Connecticut. His grandfather Joseph Plumb, for whom he was named, played a central role in his upbringing.

The household provided him with an education and a religious environment shaped by New England Congregationalism. His familiarity with Scripture would remain evident in the language of his later memoir.

When fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Martin was a teenager. He watched as communities throughout New England mobilized men, gathered supplies, and debated the developing war.

He wanted to enlist, but his grandparents were reluctant to allow him to leave home. Military service offered danger, disease, and an uncertain future, particularly for a boy who had not yet reached adulthood.

Martin persisted. In 1776, he finally obtained permission to join the Connecticut forces.

A Fifteen-Year-Old Goes to War

Martin’s first enlistment came during the summer of 1776, when the struggle for independence was entering a dangerous new phase.

Congress had declared independence in July, but the British government was preparing to suppress the rebellion through a major military campaign around New York.

Martin joined Connecticut state troops for a limited term of service. He was approximately sixteen according to the church birth record, although he remembered himself as fifteen.

His memoir describes the mixture of youthful enthusiasm and uncertainty that accompanied his enlistment. He wanted to see the war for himself, but he also recognized that the decision carried consequences he could not fully predict.

He soon discovered that soldiering involved much more than firing a musket. Men marched long distances, performed exhausting labor, waited for orders, and endured irregular provisions.

The military experience quickly replaced romantic expectations with practical concerns. Food, shelter, clothing, and survival became recurring subjects in his recollections.

The Disastrous New York Campaign

Martin entered military service during the campaign in which the British attempted to destroy Washington’s army and regain control of New York.

British commanders possessed a large professional force supported by naval power. Washington’s troops included Continental soldiers and state militia, many of whom had limited military experience.

Martin’s recollections place him amid the operations surrounding Long Island, Harlem Heights, and White Plains.

The Americans suffered a major defeat on Long Island in August 1776 and were compelled to abandon positions around New York City. Subsequent engagements demonstrated that Washington’s army could resist British attacks but remained vulnerable to encirclement and defeat.

For a young soldier, the campaign provided a harsh introduction to the uncertainty of war. Orders could change, troops could be forced to withdraw, and the outcome of an engagement was often difficult to understand from the position of an individual private.

Martin’s first term ended late in 1776. He returned to Connecticut, but his departure from the army was temporary.

Returning to the Continental Army

In April 1777, Martin enlisted again, this time for service in the Continental Army.

He entered the 8th Connecticut Regiment, a formation also identified in historical accounts as the 17th Continental Regiment. He would subsequently serve in the artillery branch.

Unlike his first short enlistment, this commitment carried him through the remaining years of the Revolution.

The year 1777 brought major campaigns in both northern New York and the region around Philadelphia. Martin’s service placed him with Washington’s army as the British moved against the American capital.

He experienced the Philadelphia campaign, including operations associated with Germantown and the defense of the Delaware River.

One of the most dangerous episodes of his service occurred at Fort Mifflin.

Under Fire at Fort Mifflin

After capturing Philadelphia in September 1777, the British still faced a serious problem. American forts and obstacles along the Delaware River prevented the free movement of British supply ships.

Fort Mifflin, located on Mud Island, formed an important part of the American defenses.

British forces bombarded the fort repeatedly, attempting to destroy its defenses and force the garrison to withdraw.

Martin was among the soldiers who experienced this bombardment. His memoir describes the danger of artillery fire, the destruction caused by enemy guns, and the vulnerability of men confined within a heavily attacked position.

One incident remained particularly vivid in his memory.

During an intense cannonade, officers wanted a flag raised as a signal. Martin considered volunteering for the dangerous assignment. Before he acted, an artillery sergeant undertook the task.

The sergeant was struck and killed by enemy fire.

Decades later, Martin reflected upon how narrowly his own life might have been spared. Had he volunteered first, he might have died instead. Yet he refused to claim certainty about what divine providence would have ordained.

The episode reveals both the danger of service at Fort Mifflin and Martin’s willingness to wrestle with difficult questions about mortality and God’s purposes.

The American garrison eventually evacuated the fort after sustained bombardment rendered its position untenable.

For Martin, the defense was not simply an episode in the struggle for control of the Delaware River. It was an experience in which survival could depend upon a few moments of hesitation or a decision made by another soldier.

Hunger at Valley Forge

Following the Philadelphia campaign, Washington’s army entered winter quarters at Valley Forge in December 1777.

Valley Forge later became a symbol of the Continental Army’s endurance, but Martin’s account reveals the hardship behind that reputation.

The soldiers suffered from shortages of food, clothing, blankets, and other necessities. Hunger was not an occasional inconvenience. It was a recurring problem that affected the men’s strength, morale, and ability to perform their duties.

Martin described the frustration of men who had volunteered or enlisted to defend their country but could not depend upon receiving adequate provisions.

The soldiers were still expected to stand guard, maintain discipline, and perform the physical work required to sustain the army.

Martin’s recollections are especially valuable because they complicate the familiar image of Valley Forge as a single season of noble suffering.

The men were patriotic, but they could also be angry. They wanted independence, but they also wanted food. Their loyalty did not prevent them from criticizing the failures of the institutions responsible for supporting them.

During the winter, the army underwent important training and organizational improvements. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben helped introduce more consistent drill and discipline.

Yet improved military organization did not erase the experience of hunger. Martin carried those memories into old age, when he wrote about the costs borne by the enlisted men.

The Heat and Gunfire at Monmouth

In June 1778, British forces evacuated Philadelphia and marched across New Jersey toward New York.

Washington pursued the British army, and the two forces met near Monmouth Court House on June 28.

The Battle of Monmouth was fought during extreme summer heat. Soldiers faced exhaustion and thirst alongside the dangers of musket and artillery fire.

Martin participated in the battle and described the experience from the perspective of a man serving among the ranks.

The engagement demonstrated the improved discipline of Washington’s army following its winter training. American troops resisted British regulars in a prolonged battle, and the British continued their withdrawal toward New York afterward.

For Martin, the battle also illustrated the physical demands of combat. Soldiers had to march, maneuver, and fight while struggling against the heat.

His account provides a reminder that even when historians describe an engagement through strategy and command decisions, the soldiers themselves experienced it through immediate dangers, bodily exhaustion, and limited knowledge of the wider battlefield.

Faith, Providence, and the Hungry Soldier

One of the most revealing aspects of Martin’s memoir is his frequent use of biblical language and religious ideas.

As the son of a Congregational minister and a young man raised in a religious New England household, Martin possessed a familiarity with Scripture that appeared naturally in his writing.

His religious reflections were not always simple expressions of certainty. He sometimes questioned whether an event should be understood as providential intervention, ordinary chance, or a mystery beyond his understanding.

The death of the artillery sergeant at Fort Mifflin provides a particularly striking example.

Martin wondered whether he would have been killed had he raised the flag himself. He also considered whether both men might have survived under different circumstances.

He did not pretend to know the answer.

In another part of his account, Martin compared his physical afflictions to the sufferings of Job, the biblical figure who endured terrible trials while wrestling with questions of suffering and divine justice.

He also used the betrayal of Judas as a comparison when discussing Benedict Arnold’s treason.

Such references demonstrate how readily biblical history and language entered his interpretation of military events.

Martin could also use Scripture with humor and criticism.

He remembered a Thanksgiving sermon delivered to soldiers who were struggling with inadequate provisions. The preacher took his text from Luke 3:14, in which John the Baptist instructed soldiers concerning their conduct.

When the sermon reached the instruction that soldiers should be content with their wages, the hungry men recognized the bitter irony.

Their frustration was not necessarily directed against Scripture itself. Rather, Martin portrayed soldiers who believed the government had failed to provide what it owed them.

His religious outlook and his criticism of military administration could coexist. He could reflect upon divine providence while also expressing anger over inadequate food and compensation.

Historian Benjamin E. Severson has examined these themes in detail, arguing that Martin’s religious understanding helped shape his interpretation of the war and the hardships he endured.

Martin’s memoir does not establish that every soldier shared his beliefs. It does, however, preserve the religious vocabulary and reflections of one man who spent years in Washington’s army.

Digging Toward the British at Yorktown

In 1781, Martin participated in the campaign that culminated in the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.

American and French forces moved against the army of Lord Cornwallis, which occupied defensive positions near the York River.

With French naval forces preventing an effective British evacuation, the allied armies began a formal siege.

For ordinary soldiers, siege warfare required extensive physical labor. Trenches had to be dug, earthworks constructed, artillery positions prepared, and supplies moved into place.

Martin served in the artillery and participated in the siege operations. His recollections describe the work and danger involved in bringing the allied forces closer to the British defenses.

The trenches were not merely engineering projects. They allowed soldiers and artillery to approach enemy positions while reducing exposure to British fire.

As the siege progressed, American and French forces captured advanced British redoubts and extended their artillery positions.

The pressure became overwhelming. Cornwallis surrendered his army on October 19, 1781.

Martin’s description of Yorktown is valuable because it records the experience of the men who carried out the siege rather than concentrating solely upon the generals who planned it.

The surrender was a decisive American victory, but Martin’s service did not end immediately. The Continental Army remained in existence while the war continued toward its diplomatic conclusion.

The War Ends, but the Soldiers Wait

Although Yorktown effectively ended Britain’s realistic prospects of defeating the American rebellion, the war did not formally conclude in 1781.

Martin remained with the Continental Army during the final years of the conflict.

The soldiers continued to face problems involving provisions, military pay, and uncertainty over their eventual discharge.

For men who had spent years in the ranks, the approach of peace raised difficult questions. Would their promised compensation be paid? Would they receive the benefits they believed they had earned? What would become of them after returning to civilian life?

Martin left military service in June 1783.

He had entered the war as a teenager and emerged as a veteran whose formative years had been spent marching, fighting, standing guard, and enduring the hardships of army life.

His experience did not end with his discharge. The consequences of military service, including the question of compensation, would follow him into old age.

The Old Soldier Who Remembered

After the Revolution, Martin eventually settled in Maine, where he farmed, raised a family, and participated in local government.

By 1830, the Revolution belonged to an earlier generation. Many of the men who had fought in it were dead, and public memory increasingly emphasized the achievements of the Founding Fathers and senior military commanders.

Martin wanted to preserve a different perspective.

That year, a publisher in Hallowell, Maine, issued his book under the title A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier; Interspersed with Anecdotes of Incidents That Occurred Within His Own Observation.

The original edition was published anonymously. Its author was identified through later research, including the connection to the book’s copyright holder, Martin’s son James Sullivan Martin.

Martin’s memoir was unusual in both subject and tone. It did not present military service as an uninterrupted series of patriotic triumphs.

He described boredom, discomfort, fear, hunger, frustration, and the occasional absurdity of army life. He could be sarcastic about authority and critical of the government’s treatment of veterans.

His writing also demonstrated a lively sense of humor. He sometimes treated his younger self with irony, acknowledging that youthful ambition had helped draw him into a war whose hardships he had not fully understood.

The book attracted little attention during his lifetime. It remained obscure for generations before being republished in 1962 under the title Private Yankee Doodle.

Its rediscovery transformed Martin into one of the most recognizable enlisted witnesses to the American Revolution.

He had not been famous during the war. He became important to history because he recorded what the war had been like for those who were not famous.

From His Account

Military Service

Conflict	American Revolutionary War
Allegiance	United States
First Service	Connecticut state troops, 1776
Continental Enlistment	April 1777
Continental Regiment	8th Connecticut Regiment
Later Branch	Continental artillery
Rank	Private; later corporal and sergeant
New York Campaign	1776
Philadelphia Campaign	1777
Fort Mifflin	1777
Valley Forge	Winter 1777–1778
Battle of Monmouth	June 28, 1778
Hudson River Service	Later war years
Siege of Yorktown	September–October 1781
Discharge	June 1783
Memoir	Published in 1830
Pension File	W.1629
1818 Pension	$8 per month

Later Life & Burial

Following his military service, Joseph Plumb Martin briefly taught school in the New York Highlands before moving to Maine in 1784.

He settled in the area that later became Prospect, a community near the Penobscot River.

Martin became a farmer, but his circumstances were complicated by uncertain land titles and disputes over property ownership.

Much of the region had been connected to the Waldo Patent and to land claims associated with Henry Knox, the former Continental Army artillery commander.

Martin became involved in disputes over land claimed by Knox and other proprietors. These conflicts reflected the difficulties faced by settlers whose occupation and improvement of property did not always establish a legally secure title.

Despite his financial difficulties, Martin became an active participant in local government.

He served as a selectman in Prospect and became town clerk in March 1818, retaining that position until March 1843.

His long service as town clerk suggests that the community valued his literacy, recordkeeping ability, and familiarity with local affairs.

In April 1818, Martin applied for a federal pension under legislation providing assistance to qualifying Revolutionary War veterans.

His pension certificate was issued in April 1819. The pension paid eight dollars per month, or ninety-six dollars annually.

In July 1820, he submitted another declaration describing his financial circumstances.

He reported that he possessed very little property beyond basic household necessities and a small number of farm animals. He also described his wife’s poor health and the children who depended upon him.

The declaration demonstrates that Martin’s military service had not produced lasting financial security.

Yet he remained a respected veteran in his community.

In September 1836, a company of Maine militia marched past his home and fired a salute in his honor.

A local newspaper reported that the elderly soldier appeared deeply moved by the gesture.

Martin responded with a published letter thanking the officers and soldiers. He expressed the hope that the nation would remain peaceful and that their future duties would never become more severe than the recent military excursion.

Joseph Plumb Martin died on May 2, 1850, in Prospect, Maine. If the contemporary church birth record is correct, he was ninety years old.

His wife Lucy survived him until April 30, 1857.

A modern monument honoring Joseph and Lucy Martin stands in Sandy Point Cemetery, in the present-day Stockton Springs area.

However, local historical research suggests that the couple and their children who died young may originally have been buried in a family plot near their home. The monument therefore should not be treated as conclusive evidence of their original interment.

Family & Descendants

Joseph Plumb Martin’s family history is unusually well documented for a Revolutionary War enlisted soldier.

Prospect town records, his pension declaration, and later genealogical research identify his wife and ten children, including several who died in infancy or childhood.

The family history also reveals the personal hardships Martin experienced after the Revolution. While his memoir concentrates upon military life, the records of his household preserve the losses and responsibilities of his later years.

His Parents and Grandparents

Joseph was the son of Reverend Ebenezer Martin, a Congregational minister in the Massachusetts settlement that became Becket.

The church records identify Joseph’s birth on November 21, 1759, and his baptism on November 25 of that year.

He spent much of his childhood in Milford, Connecticut, with his grandparents, including his grandfather Joseph Plumb, whose name he carried.

His grandparents’ household shaped his education and early religious environment. Martin’s later memoir contains numerous biblical allusions consistent with that upbringing.

The reviewed sources do not provide a fully verified list of his siblings, and none are assigned here without documentary support.

Lucy Clewley Martin — His Wife

Joseph Plumb Martin married Lucy Clewley in Prospect, Maine, on May 22, 1794.

Their marriage intentions were recorded on April 23, 1794. The ceremony was performed by Benjamin Shute, a justice of the peace.

Lucy was born on February 24, 1776, the daughter of Isaac Clewley and Sarah Stimson.

She was eighteen when she married Martin, who was thirty-four according to the contemporary record of his birth.

The couple raised a large family in Prospect. Their household experienced repeated bereavement, including the deaths of two daughters on consecutive days in 1800.

Lucy survived her husband by nearly seven years, dying on April 30, 1857.

The Ten Children of Joseph and Lucy Martin

Research based upon the Prospect manuscript birth and death records identifies ten children born to Joseph and Lucy Martin.

Child	Dates	Documented Information
William Clewley Martin	Born September 9, 1794	Their eldest child. His later whereabouts remain incompletely documented.
Susanna Martin	August 8, 1795 – September 28, 1800	Died at age five.
Lucy Martin	June 3, 1798 – September 27, 1800	Died one day before her sister Susanna.
Joseph Plumb Martin Jr.	September 12, 1801 – March 20, 1835	Described in his father’s pension declaration as having a disability from birth.
Thomas Goldthwait Martin	September 20, 1802 – October 18, 1803	Died in infancy.
Thomas Goldthwait Martin	April 7, 1805 – October 21, 1878	Later worked in maritime occupations; died in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
Nathan Nettleton Martin	April 8, 1805 – 1867	Twin brother of Thomas; became a longtime schoolteacher.
James Sullivan Martin	February 2, 1807 – July 3, 1850	Associated with the copyright of his father’s memoir; drowned in California.
Susanna P. Martin	November 1–10, 1812	Died nine days after birth.
Susannah P. Martin	June 14, 1814 – 1873	The only daughter to survive to adulthood.

The family reused the names Thomas Goldthwait and Susanna after earlier children bearing those names died. This was not unusual in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century families, but it can create confusion in genealogical research.

Martin’s 1820 pension declaration named five dependent children living in his household. That list should not be mistaken for a complete record of all children born to Joseph and Lucy.

The Deaths of Susanna and Lucy

In September 1800, Joseph and Lucy Martin lost two young daughters within twenty-four hours of one another.

Lucy, born in 1798, died on September 27. Her older sister Susanna, born in 1795, died the following day.

The available family chronology establishes the dates of their deaths but does not prove their cause.

For a veteran who had survived years of war, these losses represented a different kind of suffering. Martin’s military memoir does not provide a detailed account of the deaths, but the local records preserve the tragedy within his household.

Joseph Plumb Martin Jr.

Joseph Plumb Martin Jr. was born September 12, 1801.

In his 1820 pension declaration, Martin described his son using the period’s language for a person with an intellectual disability and stated that the condition had existed since birth.

The description is significant because it demonstrates that Martin’s household included a dependent adult son who required continued support.

Joseph Jr. died on March 20, 1835.

The Twins: Thomas and Nathan

Thomas Goldthwait Martin and Nathan Nettleton Martin were twins, born on consecutive dates in April 1805.

Thomas was born April 7 and Nathan April 8, according to the Prospect birth record.

Nathan became a schoolteacher and remained in the Prospect area throughout his life. Later local accounts credited him with approximately forty-seven years of teaching.

Thomas pursued maritime-related work. He was described as a shipping master in an 1860 Boston census and as a seaman in his death record.

He died at the Massachusetts State Almshouse in Tewksbury on October 21, 1878.

The different paths taken by the twins illustrate the opportunities and uncertainties faced by the children of Revolutionary War veterans in the nineteenth century.

James Sullivan Martin and the California Gold Rush

James Sullivan Martin was born February 2, 1807.

His name appears in the publication history of his father’s memoir because he was the copyright holder of the 1830 edition.

During the California Gold Rush, James traveled west in search of opportunity.

He drowned in California on July 3, 1850, just two months after the death of his father.

His death connected the Martin family’s history to another great national event: the migration of Americans to California following the discovery of gold in 1848.

The Surviving Daughter, Susannah

Susannah P. Martin was born June 14, 1814.

She was the youngest of Joseph and Lucy’s ten children and the only one of their four daughters to survive into adulthood.

She lived until 1873.

Additional research into marriage, probate, and census records would be needed to establish her descendants with confidence.

Tracing Martin’s Descendants

The surviving family records identify the children of Joseph and Lucy Martin, but they do not establish a complete genealogical chain for every later generation.

Researchers should begin with the Prospect manuscript birth and death records, the veteran’s pension file W.1629, and the local records of Waldo County, Maine.

Later descendants should be identified through documented parent-child relationships rather than the recurrence of the names Joseph Martin, Joseph Plumb Martin, or other family surnames.

Original Sources & Historical Note