作者:Blake McGready，纽约市立大学研究生中心
Elijah Winslow disobeyed his sergeant’s orders and went swimming in the Susquehanna River, so he had no one to blame but himself when he drowned. 1779年夏天, Winslow and thousands of other Continental soldiers assembled in the Pocono Mountains as they prepared to invade the homelands of the Haudenosaunee people. 在伊斯顿扎营时, 怀俄明, 和其他山村, American revolutionaries flagrantly defied orders. They deserted camp, plundered the locals, and indulged in swimming in the rivers. 温斯洛就是这样一个违法者. A sergeant remembered that “Winslow asked Leave…Repeatedly both Last Night and this Morning to Go into the River.” After the sergeant denied Winslow’s request, he ventured into the water anyway. By the end of the day, the army determined that Winslow’s death was “entirely Accidental.”[1]
I read this account in the orderly book of the 新罕布什尔第二团, one of the many Revolutionary War orderly books at the 马萨诸塞州历史学会. 有序的书s document everyday details about life in the 大陆军—the officers in charge, 部队的部署, 对战场失败和损失的记录, 等. 对于一个更仔细观察的学者来说, these records also show enlisted men struggling with officers over the conditions of their service. Officers wanted to secure the compliance of unruly troops, while at the same time rank and file soldiers objected to military hierarchy. 有序的书s seethe with conflict between officers and their disobedient men.[2]
The 新罕布什尔第二团’s insubordination leaps off the pages. 当军队到达伊斯顿时, officers ordered soldiers to limit their bathing in the nearby Delaware River. 不到一周之后, 官员们重复了禁令, now reporting that some soldiers developed “Intermitting Fevers” on account of their “their too frequent Going into the Water and Remaining too Long in that Situation.” Despite repeated orders against swimming, Elijah Winslow drowned one month later.[3]
盗窃是另一个主要问题. 当北方佬士兵到达伊斯顿时, several of them harassed and plundered the town’s mostly German inhabitants. After Continentals 旅行ed “a Great Distance…into the Country” and robbed the locals, commanders established a half-mile perimeter around camp. The restrictions did not work, and soldiers were soon caught stealing sheep from local farmers. A court martial also found several New Jersey soldiers guilty of “Stealing hoggs” and other property from civilians. 七月初, Major General John Sullivan begged his men to not rob the locals’ hay or burn their fences.[4]
Sullivan struggled to stop vengeful troops from taking matters into their own hands. Armed parties departed camp and intimidated disaffected locals. Continentals insulted Native allies (“Warriers of the Anydas [Oneidas] Tuscorara and Stock bridge Indians”) who had recently joined the rebel ranks. 士兵们怎么敢“嘲笑” & Speak Contemtably” of the Native troops, Sullivan declared. 但在接下来的日子里, the jeering continued and tensions between white revolutionaries and Native soldiers simmered.[5]
In August and September, the 大陆军 ferociously devastated Iroquoia. As the maelstrom of Continental predation barreled through the Haudenosaunee heartlands, 士兵们烧毁了土著村庄, 被侵犯的土著妇女, 还抢劫了当地的墓地. What can an orderly book tell us about this pivotal invasion? During the weeks before the army entered Iroquoia, officers had been struggling constantly with their troops’ discipline. Soldiers repeatedly violated orders against bathing, stealing, and taunting Native soldiers. The Continentals, it seemed, were spoiling for a fight.[6]
As American revolutionaries destroyed Haudenosaunee villages and farms, they wrote many 杂志s and diaries bragging about the devastation. Their orderly books, however, tell a different story. These documents shed light on soldiers’ numerous infractions and the tensions within the 大陆军. 此外, they reveal that soldiers’ acts of plundering and terror began well before the army stormed into Iroquoia. 在波科诺斯, the Continentals rehearsed the destruction and belligerence that would characterize their invasion of Native lands.
[1] “温斯洛请求离开……,，日期为7月6日, 1779, 有序的书, 怀俄明和伊斯顿, 宾西法尼亚, 1779年5月27日至7月25日, 新罕布什尔第二团, 大陆军, 由William Mordaunt Bell录制, 革命战争秩序书(P-394), 卷4, 马萨诸塞州历史学会. (I have modernized the spelling of most entries but included the original text in the notes.)
[2] 约翰一. •鲁丁曼, “‘A Record in the Hands of Thousands’: Power and Negotiation in the Orderly Books of the 大陆军,” 威廉与玛丽季刊 67, no. 4 (2010): 748.
[3] Entry dated May 29; “Intermitting Fevors”; “their two [原文如此] frequent Going into the Water and Remaining two Long in that Situation,” entry dated June 9.
[4] 利亚姆•赖尔登 Many Identities, One Nation: The Revolution and Its Legacy in the Mid-Atlantic (费城:宾夕法尼亚大学出版社, 2008), 80; “a Great Distance…into the Cuntrey,” entry dated June 7; entries dated June 9, 24, 7月5日, 12.
[5] 日期为6月10日，15日，24日.
[6] 因为苏利文手下在易洛魁的所作所为, 参见梅芙·凯恩, “‘She Did Not Open Her Mouth Further’: Haudenosaunee Women as Military and Political Targets during and after the 美国革命,” in Women in the 美国革命: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, ed. 芭芭拉·B. Oberg (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019), 83–92.