PRIVATE YANKEE DOODLE

First published in 1830, entitled by its author The Adventures, Etc., of a Revolutionary Soldier, this personal record of a private soldier's experiences in the American Revolution has long been a backlog of information for historians; now, ably edited by an authority in the field, it is republished for the first time since its original appearance. Born in 1760 and brought up in Milford, Conn., by a wealthy grandfather, the author was one of the few ""citizen"" soldiers to fight through the entire war. When he was less than 16 he enlisted, on July 6, 1776, for three months in a ""brigade of new levies"", and took part in the Battle of Brooklyn Heights and in the slow retreat to White Plains. Discharged in December, he re-enlisted in April, 1777, ""for the duration"", fought in the dreary Philadelphia campaign, and endured the starving winter of 1777-78 in New Jersey, ragged, frozen and nearly dying of hunger. Transferred to the Hudson Valley, he met more hardships, knew of the capture of Major Andre, and saw the stoop Valluce sail down the Hudson with Renedict Arnold; as one of a crops of Sappers and Miners he saw Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown. The book, however, tells less of military campaigns than of the ""citizen"" soldiers themselves, who ""on every occasion would have to be collected"", who got drunk, died of smallpox and wounds, hated their officers, sometimes mutinied -- and won the War. Somewhat overweighed with accounts of personal hardships and too stilted in style to appeal to casual readers, this soldier's eye record is a must for all historians and serious students of the American Revolution and belongs in all historical collections of the War.