title: Hardest conflict: morale in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783
title: The hardest conflict: morale in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Blackstone, Krysten E.
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 2023
Subjects: American Revolutionary War
Continental Army morale
soldiers' diaries
eighteenth century military theory
public service
mutiny and desertion

description: This thesis provides the first examination of Continental Army morale. It investigates the morale of enlisted, ordinary soldiers during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783. This thesis does not attempt to measure morale. Instead, it analyses the factors that sustained and inhibited morale and addresses why soldiers chose to continue fighting despite their extreme hardships. This thesis argues that morale is socially and culturally constructed and that common soldiers exhibited significant agency. Army leadership created a foundation for morale by educating soldiers on the conflict and their position in it. However, soldiers modified these explanations and turned them into more tangible concepts, which sustained their service. While previous scholarship focuses on perceptions of soldiers, ideologies of the Revolution, and combat demographics, this thesis focuses on the overlooked but deeply significant service of those entrenched in the conflict. Analysing the determinants of morale allows for a bottom-up approach to uncover what soldiers thought about their lived experiences. Narratives of Continental Army soldiers have shaped the direction and outline of this thesis. I utilised more than 250 soldiers’ diaries to examine the factors that influenced morale. The almost daily entries left by these soldiers, reflected the monotony and hardships of war, and illuminated the diversity of troop experiences. These sources revealed two categories of factors that affected morale: foundational and sustaining. These two aspects of morale functioned in dialogue with one another. Foundational factors were institutional, reliant on the structures of the Continental Army and military leadership, whereas soldiers determined sustaining factors of morale. Foundational factors were physical – basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and supplies – and psychological – how officers defined the conflict, the principles behind it, and soldiers’ position within the war. In contrast, soldiers exhibited their understanding of the conflict in their relationships with one another and civilian populations. These relationships acted as sustaining factors. Military leadership may have defined and reinforced foundational aspects of morale, but soldiers transformed them. Following an analysis of foundational and sustaining morale, this thesis examines soldiers’ expressions of dissatisfaction. By examining patterns in mutiny and desertion, this thesis demonstrates that soldiers exhibited significant agency and created complex systems of protest. These protests underscore the importance of their relationships as well as their dedication to military service. This thesis situates the Continental Army within broader eighteenth-century developments. Enlightenment ideas about humanity, specifically about the individual, and education, significantly impacted military theory and paved the way for considerations of morale within a military context. As an army created for the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was able to implement the newest military theories in its structures and training. This thesis argues that, as such, the Continental Army was the first army to consider morale instrumental to military success. Prioritising morale benefitted the revolutionary character of the war. To succeed, officers needed to convince soldiers that they were an important part of the new nation; soldiers would become citizens worthy of the utmost status and honour due to their participation in the conflict. This thesis demonstrates that from the outset of the Revolutionary War, officers acknowledged the humanity of ordinary soldiers and understood that the toils of war impacted individuals emotionally, not just physically.