"Caroline Cox examines the great gap that existed in the conditions of service of soldiers and officers in the Continental Army. She looks particularly at disparities between soldiers' and officers' living conditions, punishments medical care, burial, and treatment as prisoners of war. Using pension records, memoirs, and contemporary correspondence, Cox illuminates not only the persistence of hierarchy in Revolutionary America but also the ways in which soldiers contested their low status."--Jacket.

Take the length of every soldier : servants, sons, and gentlemen of the Continental Army -- A proper sense of honor : educating officers and soldiers -- Necessary and excusable measures : the policy and practice of punishment -- Oh the groans of the sick : health, status, and military medicine -- The last duty to the dead : death and burial in the Continental Army -- Onspeakable sufrings such as no man can tell : status and the treatment of prisoners of war.