Private Plumb’s journal entry, written on Thanksgiving Day, 1777 was timely and poignant. In plainspoken but penetrating prose, the eighteen-year-old Martin conveyed in stark detail what the common soldier faced, endured, and, sometimes, survived.
While we lay here there was a Continental thanksgiving ordered by Congress; and as the army had all the cause in the world to be particularly thankful, if not for being well off, at least, that it was no worse, we were ordered to participate in it. We had nothing to eat for two or three days previous, except what the trees of the fields and forests afforded us. But we must now have what Congress said, a sumptuous Thanksgiving to close the year of high living we had now nearly seen brought to a close. “Our country, ever m
indful of its suffering army, opened her sympathizing heart so wide upon this occasion as to give us something to make the world stare. And what do you think it was, reader?” Guess. You cannot guess, be you as much of a Yankee as you will. I will tell you: It gave each and every man half a gill of rice and a tablespoonful of vinegar!” With this extraordinary superabundant donation, we were ordered out to attend a meeting and hear a sermon delivered upon the happy occasion.
See the First National Thanksgiving Day article in the Fall 2012 issue of the King of Prussia Gazette for the rest of Martin’s journal entry.