The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period

This social history of the common British soldier in the American Revolution dispels myths and sheds new light on who fought for the Crown—and why. In this extensive study, Sylvia Frey surveys recruiting records, contemporary training manuals, statutes, and memoirs to provide insight into the soldier’s “life and mind.” In the process she reveals a great deal about the common soldier: his social origins and occupational background, his size, age, and general physical condition, his personal economics and daily existence. Her findings dispel the traditional assumption that the army was made up largely of criminals and social misfits. Special attention is given to soldiering as an occupation, and the moral and material factors which induced men to accept the high risks. Focusing on two of the major campaigns of the war—the Northern Campaign which culminated at Saratoga and the Southern Campaign which ended at Yorktown—Frey describes the human face of war, with particular emphasis on the physical and psychic strains of campaigning in the eighteenth century. Frey rejects the traditional assumption that soldiers were motivated to fight exclusively by fear and force and argues instead that the primary motivation to battle was generated by regimental esprit, which in the eighteenth century substituted for patriotism. After analyzing the sources of esprit, she concludes that it was the sustaining force for morale in a long and discouraging war.