The winter of 1779 and ’80 was very severe; it has been denominated the “hard winter,” and hard it was to the army in particular, in more respects than one. The period of the Revolution has repeatedly been styled “the times that try men’s souls.” I often found that those times not only tried men’s souls, but their bodies too. . . .
At one time it snowed the greater part of four days successively, and there fell nearly as many feet deep of snow, and here was the keystone of the arch of starvation. We were absolutely, literally starved;—I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood. . . . I saw several men roast their old shoes . . . some of the officers killed and ate a favourite little dog that belonged to one of them.—If this was not “suffering” I request to be informed what can pass under that name.
—Nineteen-year-old private Joseph Plumb Martin