The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [12]
The Boston camp was a messy collection of badly built structures that lined crooked dirt lanes. Some men lived in private homes, some in tents, some in huts, and some in crudely formed stone, wood, and dirt enclosures. Some tents had boards for sides and some had canvas. Some huts were well built and some badly designed. Some held too many men and some too few. The construction of wooden barracks outside Boston, and huts later in the war, began as soon as Washington took command. Groups of men erected barns for horses and slaughterhouses for cattle. Artillery crews spent their day at first mounting cannon and then cleaning and maintaining them and practicing gunnery drills. Men sewed their tattered uniforms and those who had been tailors before the conflict assisted and supervised them. Cleaning crews dug, filled up, and maintained latrines. Some men drove wagons. In the early days of the war, the army sometimes loaned crews of enlisted men to the counties or villages where they were camped to help with necessary governmental work; many enlisted men were employed as workers to construct barns for towns.
In a unique labor system apparently used only during the Boston siege, commanders even permitted enlisted men to sell furniture or other things that they made in camp to civilians. Some made furniture for generals in return for favors. Private William Parker continued his shoemaking business in the military, producing footwear that he sold to soldiers.2 Some men were even allowed to work for civilians in the community for a few weeks, walking back and forth from camp. The long-standing system of job-time swapping was honored, too, and many enlisted men had another do their work for them while they took the day off and swam or visited local women. Upon their return, at an agreed upon date, they worked the time of the man who had substituted for them.
Greenwood and all of the troops were drilled periodically during the day and much time was spent in the early months of the war simply training men how to load and fire muskets and maneuver with bayonets. Men attended prayers in the morning and in late afternoon when chaplains were on hand, usually led by one chaplain for each regiment. All were ordered to attend Sunday services and many went to those in nearby communities.
Hours were set aside for leisure. Ball games, such as lacrosse played by the Indians, proved popular and men competed against each other on the wide fields that surrounded the city. Washington saw so much merit in the ball games that he had men clear fields for them at every winter camp. Enlisted men engaged in wrestling matches in large, roughly hewn dirt areas. Sports fields were even cleared at Valley Forge. Many enlisted men, especially those from New England, delighted in ice skating on frozen ponds and rivers. Some went swimming in nearby lakes during the spring and summer. Shooting contests were allowed from time to time.
Men spent much of their time playing cards until this practice took up so much time and generated so many arguments that all gambling was outlawed in the winter of 1777. It was eradicated after a woman who permitted some soldiers to live in her Morristown, New Jersey, home reported that one of them had become ill during a card game and was placed in his bed by the others, who went back to their card game. Twenty-four hours later, she found the private dead and the men still playing cards, oblivious to his condition.
Men in the army indulged in a considerable amount of drinking, a common activity in colonial America. Beer and rum became a part of everyday life. The standard daily issue to the men included whiskey when available. It created substantial problems for the enlisted men throughout the war. Men in Greenwood’s regiment and others often staged drinking contests, with predictable results. Winners and losers became quite ill. James Stevens wrote that in one legendary drinking contest in Boston on February 7, 1776, one man defeated