"A Respectable Army"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that America likes to believe that the colonial army was different from the British and was based upon ordinary men volunteering their time out of ideology and a love of liberty rather than a desire for money. The paper looks at "A Respectable Army" by James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender who suggest that the war was actually won by paid soldiers, not by volunteers. The paper also discusses the class tension in the army that contradicts the preached ideal that the new colonial army was democratic and egalitarian.

From the Paper:

"Rather than a citizen-solder, Martin and Lender stress that for most of the war, the majority of the colonial army had a relatively small percentage of landed farmers. The vast majority of the army's core was made up of poor men with little hope of employment elsewhere, who sought land and hopefully money and perhaps some social respectability as a result of the suffering they endured under Washington's command. They did not enlist for ideology, or to preserve their lifestyle, like the volunteer citizens, more often than not, they enlisted out of desperation. This vast social gulf and differing views of the rightness and importance of the colonial cause and the rightness of the social structure of America thus created an equally profound divide within the army between those who did serve as part of a standing, paid army and volunteers."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Martin, James Kirby & Mark Edward Lender. A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789. Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, 1982.

More papers on "A Respectable Army":

• Book Review # 4649 : "Book Review: "A Respectable Army"
• Book Review # 128529 : "The American Revolution in "A Respectable Army"
• Book Review # 146104 : "The Revolutionary War and the Continental Army"

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