A clue to the story behind the soldiers in the Continental Army can be found in a frequent image of the time — a farmer leaving his plow in the field as he goes off to fight for the independence of the 13 British colonies.

Another is the iconic image of a soldier suffering in the snow at Valley Forge. He is not properly clothed, even lacking shoes, and is hungry.

These images offer a glimpse of who the Continental Army soldiers were, why they joined and what they experienced. The men who survived struggled to adapt to constantly changing conditions — irregular supplies of food, clothing and equipment, and the personalities and experience level of their officers and peers.

While most soldiers in the American Revolution faced combat, the majority of their time was spent simply surviving exhaustion, lack of necessities, and too often rampant illness.

There is no simple picture of life in the Continental Army.

The war lasted for about eight years, 1775–1783, and took place over a wide area involving people of various ethnic ancestries.

The Army was highly diversified. Men who served came from various European backgrounds, including England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain as well as numerous African Americans and Indigenous people.

Experts estimate 230,000 men served overall with a maximum of 48,000 at any one time. About 6,800 to 8,000 Army personnel were estimated killed in action, with 6,000 to 25,000 wounded in combat.

The 13 British colonies, that became states on Sept. 9, 1776, were not yet a unified country. While the Continental Congress may have developed the overall structure of the Army, the individual colonies/states were very involved in regard to their men and the regiments they served in.

For the troops raised for 1777, the individual states provided recruits from their state with arms, clothing, and “every necessary.”

It would not be out of line to say that for the Continental Army there were too many cooks and the “broth” immersing the soldiers, frequently got ruined. Any man who successfully completed his enlistment was a true survivor.

There was no boot camp to teach military skills to those who enlisted. The soldiers started with on-the-job training, and often without a uniform or complete set of gear.

It is estimated that between 20% and 25% of the men deserted over the course of the war — more in the early years before better conditions and battlefield successes improved morale.

An additional estimated 16,000 to 17,000 soldiers died of disease, including as prisoners of war.

How a man dealt with the conditions often was related to his reasons for joining the Army.

The Continental Army formed in June 1775. The conflict with Great Britain involved protesting and trying to overturn several acts of Parliament, only some involving taxation. A soldier could say he was fighting to make his country, Great Britain, better, for himself and others like him.

However, after July 4, 1776, the conflict changed to a war for independence — a new nation separated from Great Britain with freedom and equality for all “men.”

Would those two very different goals for war attract the same recruits?

The Continental Army was a volunteer army — made of up recruits rather than draftees. Potential recruits had to be found and then convinced to enlist. At the beginning of the war, men were asked to enlist for just several months. Everyone thought the war would be short and Great Britain would come to its senses.

When the war dragged on, the Army was reconstituted, and men were recruited to serve for a full year. As the end of their enlistment drew near in late 1776, Congress created a third establishment of the Army to recruit men to serve for three years or the remainder of the war.

The man who put aside his plow was a volunteer in the first version of the Army. Men with established businesses or jobs supporting their families, especially as farmers, could not serve as full-time soldiers for a long period of time.

As the enlistment time span grew, potential recruits became men who did not have full-time obligations. They were usually younger, healthier men, or from the poorer classes. In either case, they were individuals perhaps seeking a job, looking for an adventure or some other personal reason.

While some recruits felt strongly about the cause they were signing up to fight for, not all of them did.

Failing to enlist enough men, the Continental Congress reacted by providing monetary incentives to attract recruits. These included cash enlistment bonuses and promises of 100 acres of free land when the war ended in victory.

Aside from some of the top ranking officers, it would be hard to find a soldier who served the entire war from Lexington in April 1775 to the disbandment of the Army in June 1783. Even George Washington was two months short, assuming command in June1775.

Yet those that enlisted in the Continental Army, also served additional time, before Continental service or after, in their local militia.

Most regiments were raised and at least partially supported by a colony/state in line with the resolutions of the Continental Congress. Congress could determine the number of regiments and how many men each of the companies making up each regiment should have. But it depended on the skills and efficient work of the captain and his junior officers as to how many men actually served.

Men who joined the Continental Army were not assigned to a regiment and company. They enlisted directly into a company.

The quality of their lives depended upon the abilities of their captain, in addition to the captain’s superior officers and subordinates, other recruited privates and noncommissioned officers. The officers struggled to overcome problems and inefficiencies created by those responsible for the welfare of the Army.

While they continually reported problems to higher authority, the officers —using their own money — sometimes even purchased supplies, such as clothing and shoes, for their men.

Alexander Graydon of Bristol, Pa., on the Delaware River, received a captain’s commission from the Continental Congress on Jan. 5, 1776, to serve in the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment.

Graydon was responsible for recruiting men into his company, each enlisting for one year.

“My recruiting party was therefore sent out in various directions; and each of my officers as well as myself, exerted himself in the business,” Graydon wrote in his 1846 “Memoirs of His Own Time.”

Those men who joined under Graydon accepted him as their leader.

“Since the common opinion was, that the men and the officers were never to be separated … to see the persons who were to command them, and above all, the captain, was deemed of vast importance by those inclining to enlist,” Graydon wrote.

He makes it clear his regiment enlistment goals were not met.

“Some officers had been more successful than others, but none of the companies were complete; mine perhaps contained about half its complement of men, and these had been obtained by dint of great exertion,” he said.

Recruiting duty could be dangerous. On one occasion at a tavern, Graydon had to defend himself and fight a man who refused to enlist and threatened the recruiters.

Afterward, Graydon said that the man “was as submissive as could be wished, begging my pardon for what he had done, and although he would not enlist, he hired himself to me for a few weeks as a fifer, in which capacity he had acted in the militia.”

Graydon pointed out that “This incident would be little worthy of relating, did it not serve in some degree to correct the error of those who seem to conceive the year 1776 to have been a season of almost universal patriotic enthusiasm. It was far from prevalent in my opinion, among the lower ranks of the people, at least in Pennsylvania.”

Especially among the poorer and less-educated people, Graydon said, “the true merits of the contest, were little understood or regarded.”

William L. “Larry” Kidder is the author of five books on the American Revolution including “Ten Crucial Days: Washington's Vision for Victory Unfolds” (2020 Knox Press) about events of Dec. 25, 1776 through Jan. 3, 1777. He is nearing completion of sixth book on the Revolution about the August 1777 siege of Fort Stanwix. Kidder, a graduate of Allegheny College, served for four years in the U.S. Navy, two years in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was a high school history teacher for 40 years. For more information, visit his website: www.wlkidderhistorian.com.