In his memoir, Continental Army veteran Joseph Plumb Martin included a description of the army’s June 1778 departure from Valley Forge: “we left our winter cantonments, crossed the Schuylkill and encamped. . . . We had lain here but a few days, when we heard that the British army had left Philadelphia and were proceeding to New York, through the Jerseys. We marched immediately in pursuit.”

Martin’s farewell to the log huts at Valley Forge was likely almost as pleasing to the then seventeen- year-old private in the 8th Connecticut Regiment as was the prospect of bloodying British General Sir Henry Clinton’s departing column. During the sixteen months before arriving at Valley Forge the prior December, Washington’s army had been, with few exceptions, consistently and humiliatingly bested. From Brooklyn Heights to Germantown, they had escaped several near-fatal encounters. Few were unaware that many British officers continued to regard the rebels as ragamuffins and country clowns, such knowledge stoking the Continentals’ smoldering desire for redemption and vengeance.

The army encountered more fuel for revenge after they crossed the Delaware into New Jersey. Such depredations as Private Martin now saw—“cattle killed and lying about the fields and pastures, . . . household furniture hacked and broken to pieces; wells filled up and . . . farmer’s tools destroyed”—all of it compounded the Revolutionaries’ animus toward their foes and refocused their thoughts upon the safety and welfare of distant families. For many married soldiers, though, the family was no farther distant than the rear of their own column. Reflecting the mode of the time, the Continental Army community included numerous wives and children of the rank and file. In addition to serving as their husbands’ helpmates, army wives also assisted with laundering, sewing, and caring for the sick and wounded, whether in camp or hospital. They typically received rations and pay for their work for the army.