Cara’s Blog

I could not believe the drastic difference between how the Revolutionary Soldier was viewed during the time of the war and at the turn of the century. The men who, twenty years ago, were thought of as scum, the dregs of society, were now being portrayed as heroic. Why the sudden change? It couldn’t possibly be that people of this later time were more simply more compassionate. I found a few reasons that it would be convenient to portray Veterans in such a light.

The first thing I noticed was that publications were being more through. John Marshall’s The Life of George Washington, and Mercy Otis Warren’s children’s history of the Revolution described the horrors and hardships of the winter at Valley Forge. Other publications such as Port Folio, Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, and Military Monitor and American Register were very effective in changing public opinion with a hint of historical tweaking.

Another observation I made was that the “spirit of ‘76” seemed to become a popular way to almost force nationalism. When Americans found themselves in another armed conflict, it needed some way of getting men to enlist. Stories of the revolutionary soldiers bravery and patriotism were successful at getting young men to join stand up and fight. Eventually the numbers dwindled as the soldiers found that war is not so glorious. To me the “spirit of ‘76” was almost a way to make people feel obligated to go along with patriotism. They knew from the revolution that they very well may turn out to be homeless, penniless, cripples, however, to contemplate joining for these reasons would be unpatriotic. Through the examples of popular texts, these people would be heavily criticized.