Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the
American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the
upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary
era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals,
and politics. "Going for a soldier" forced young men to confront
profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them
novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on
youths, military service promised young men in their teens and
early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental
soldiers' own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and
their goals of an economic competence and marriage not only ordered
their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting
capacities of George Washington's army and the course of the
war.
"Becoming Men of Some Consequence" examines how young soldiers
and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their
relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting
long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow
of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers'
perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and
journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing
how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational
calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young
men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing
how these soldiers' generational struggle for their own
independence was a profound force within America's struggle for
"its" independence.
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