You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

This week episode 241, drafting an army and freeing the slaves.

As 1780 began, the Continental Army suffered its ongoing struggle to keep an army in the field.

While the army had begun using three-year enlistments in 1777, some of those enlistments were nearing their end. Soldiers were sick of the continual deprivation of food, clothing, and shelter, which took more lives

than the enemy ever did.

They saw many civilians doing quite well, and naturally ask themselves, why am I continuing to serve when the country will not support my basic needs?

These thoughts also impacted the ability to attract new recruits to the Army.

On January 1st, 1780, about a hundred men from Massachusetts who were stationed at West Point,

determined that their enlistments were up and began to march home. The men were living through a miserably

cold winter without sufficient food clothing or shelter. Even though their

officers did not discharge them, they saw no reason to remain beyond their enlistments and began

marching back to New England. According to General Heath, the commanders were able to

force the men to turn back, subsequent hearings of which there is very little record,

found that some men should be discharged, others punished for attempting to desert,

and others simply forced to return to duty. This incident did not get much attention at the time,

but it was a foreshadowing of larger problems that would only become even greater over the remaining course of the war.

Americans were not accustomed to serving multiple years in standing armies.

While this was the norm in Europe, Americans were used to serving in militia,

supplementing regular forces when required,

but typically only seeing active duty for a few months,

or perhaps a year at most.

In the early part of the war, most continental enlistments

...