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Dorothea Graham Jensen
a book bubble about
The Riddle of Penncroft Farm
Children's Books
Author Insight
Joking at Valley Forge
I came across these jokes made by the soldiers during the terrible winter of 1777-8 at Valley Forge and put them into my story. It seemed to me that these were an excellent example of how soldiers and other Americans often use humor to get through terrible experiences. (Maybe people from other countries do, too; I don't know.) In any case, "buff and blue" and "firecakes and water" apparently did help these guys to endure.
Book Excerpt
The Riddle of Penncroft Farm
One of the other men guffawed. “You’ll soon be reduced to the official colors—Continental buff and blue—like most of us. We’re nearly stripped to the buff and blue with cold!” By then I’d learned that making such pitiful jokes was one of the only weapons these poor fellows had in facing their foes: hunger, cold, and grinding boredom. Not that anyone was actually starving to death—from time to time supplies did arrive at camp, but the roads were often nearly impassable. And sometimes the wagoners lightened loads by draining off the saltwater that preserved the food, so that what did arrive was rotten. When that happened, the soldiers survived on firecake, a tasteless mixture of flour and water charred over the fire. They even joked about this, saying they varied their diet by sometimes eating “firecakes and water” and other times eating “water and firecakes.”
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