The personal narrative of ordinary Continental Army private Joseph Plumb Martin has long provided corroborating evidence for battlefield accounts of the American Revolution and has never been out of print, albeit usually in abridged form, since its discovery in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, the memoir was written in 1830, fifty years after the events Martin narrated. Its romantic literary style, its populist sensibility, its racism, its empiricism, all reflect nineteenth-century values. The memoir has value in epitomizing the solidification of American nationalism and the populist rhetoric that became associated with it.
Chapter one attempts to understand Martin’s rhetoric in terms of the literary influences on his writing, which include some works of the nineteenth century, but most from earlier times. Particularly evident is a modeling of behavior and outlook on the popular “Jonathan” character emerging from the works of post-Revolutionary American playwright Royall Tyler and others coupled with the romantic low-born outdoorsmen protagonists of nineteenth century rural poet Robert Bloomfield.
Chapter two argues that Martin’s populism and distrust of authority which positions him in the Jacksonian era, had experiential roots in his years of service during the Revolution, particularly with regard to the relationship between the rank and file and their commanders: a contractual, negotiated environment based on competency and personal liberty.
Chapter three demonstrates the racism that influenced Martin’s narrative and which stemmed from a growing antagonism between white and African-American laborers in the nineteenth century which rationalized white supremacy through the concept of competence.
Chapter four discusses Martin’s and by extension the early republic’s view of the practice of medicine in context of competence and the rise of anti-intellectual empiricism in the creation of knowledge, with a focus on the medical advances of Martin’s lifetime.
Chapter five presents a behavioral view of a Revolutionary War veteran who has imposed a nineteenth century populist sensibility on the meaning behind his service in the Continental Army. This is a dramatic recreation of Martin’s testimony before county officials in petition for a veteran’s pension offered in 1828.
It is hoped that this work will help create an understanding of how certain anti-authoritarian individualistic ideas realized in the early nineteenth century acted upon interpretations of the meaning behind the American War of Independence and American nationalism, a meaning that has colored our understanding of the nation’s founding and has influenced ideas of what it means to be an American.