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1. Help students appreciate the difficulty America faced during the Revolutionary War in feeding, clothing, and arming an army. In those days, without the trucks, planes, or railroads, how hard would it be to supply troops and what would be the impact on the war front? Ask students to assume that they are in charge of supplying the needs of their class mates who are now soldiers. They must get all their food, clothing, shelter to them for a whole year. They must also provide guns and ammunition. Their assignment is for each to write a diary entry that tells about the writer's experiences on a significant day of the war during 1777 and up until July 1778.
2. To focus this assignment as much as possible, tell students that they must write from the point of view of one of the following men:The soldier (see introduction on the common soldier)The QuartermasterWifeBrotherSister
3. In addition, the writer of each diary entry must begin the entry with a specific date (anytime in 1777 until July 1778) and the name of the place where he or she is composing it. Students should choose one of the following locations:
A Southside Virginia Farm
Philadelphia
Valley Forge
Boston |
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Hardships at Home and Away
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In writing to his wife, Josiah advised her to "hold the letters over the smoke a little before you handle them as the Small Pox is very frequent in the City." He asked whether the house had been finished. (The first Bartlett home had been burned down in 1774, perhaps by Tories.) He recommended preparing for winter with "cloathing" and by laying in a good supply of wood. Addressing Mary as "My dear", he urged her to visit him in Philadelphia, and told her he was sending chintz for three gowns, and silver sleeve buttons for the children.
Mary's letters to her husband are full of accounts of the children's ailments,--Sally's colick or worms, Ezra's "canker and scarlet fever," Rhoda's fainting spells, Lois's pain in head and sore throat. "Miriam," she wrote on September 24th, "has been poorly," probably because she took "a cold bath in the sea," and added that dysentery was very prevalent. She also reported on her own "sick headaches," and on September 9th, 1776, begged (concerning her pregnancy) "Pray do come home before cold weather. As you know my circumstances will be difficult in the winter, -- If I am alive."
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Letters between Hisband and Wife
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Mary Bartlett, born in Newton, New Hampshire, and married in 1754 to her first cousin, left us a priceless heritage in letters that have been carefully preserved. Unusually well educated for the times, Mary wrote regularly to her husband, Dr. Josiah Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence, while he was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775-1776.
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