在研究生研究研讨会上：大陆军士兵没有陷入贫困
革命性的研究
大卫·沃德的研究打破了一种观念，即大陆军士兵离开原来的家园，最终陷入贫困，无法在新的社区立足。
Stephen Salpukas摄
他还承认，这一结论是根据对这些士兵在独立战争后35至50年提交的养老金申请进行研究得出的。
As a retired 28-year Army veteran originally researching how the Continental Army might have helped form “An American Identity,” neither of those conclusions made sense to him. 他的研究有了新的方向。
“If they stayed where they were after the war, they didn’t do so well because Britain cut off trade and the U.S. entered an economic recession,” Ward explained. “When these guys moved west and applied for their pensions 35 to 50 years later, the pensions were based purely on financial need. 你必须让自己看起来尽可能糟糕，以证明你急需帮助。
“They didn’t talk about the positions they held, like being justice of the peace, a town founder, a religious leader, a local politician or a selectman – jobs that didn’t pay a lot but were fundamental if you are going to start a new community.”
沃德是威廉玛丽大学历史学博士候选人，获得了三个硕士学位。 His thesis for one of them centered on five individuals whose memoirs didn’t support the stereotype that Continental Army soldiers ended up broke and in desperate need of the pension.
The five were all junior leaders -- sergeants, lieutenants, captains -- who were promoted based on merit and served at the local level in their new communities.
“I thought, ‘Is this just anecdotal or are there more individuals out there?’”
It’s the pursuit of that project that won for Ward the Market Access International, Inc., award for “Excellence in Scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.” 这是他在1月份提交论文供审议后做出的决定。 He presented his work at William & Mary’s 16th annual Graduate 研究 Symposium.
“As far as I know I am the only one doing this research today,” Ward said. “There just aren’t a lot of people doing military history any more in the scholarly arena.”
Ward’s work begins In March 1778 at Valley Forge. 乔治·华盛顿从不同的兵团中抽调了100人组成一个模范连。 Washington’s appointed inspector general and major general, Baron von Steuben, used them to demonstrate military training to the rest of the junior leaders. 反过来，这些人训练连队和团级别的人。 他们中的一些人最终搬到了西部。
与此同时，冯·施托本撰写了《美国军队秩序和纪律条例》。 1778年5月下旬，他的书由华盛顿编辑，更广为人知的是《蓝皮书》，由国会出版并分发给大陆军部队。
这本书分为三个部分，最后一个部分是最不为人知的：领导者的责任和义务。
“It’s how you take care of people,” Ward said. “It’s almost like an executive MBA program. These guys are in these jobs, they have to be trained, and they’re learning leadership skills on the battlefield and management skills in the encampments.
“Most armies don’t spend most of their time fighting. They’re in encampments, so you’re running small cities. 你有纪律问题，健康和卫生问题。 你如何保持一个单位的凝聚力？”
“In the early 20th century, Ward said, the Ohio chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution gathered data on Revolutionary War veterans buried in Ohio. 他们的工作包括对这些人的简短介绍，包括他们的名字、军衔、出生地点、服役单位以及后来的成就。 沃德利用他们的登记处找到了更多的人，现在接近400人，他们来自俄亥俄州、田纳西州、肯塔基州，还有密西西比州的一对夫妇，他知道他们在军队服役时是从中士到上尉。
“What did they do? 他们真的是治安法官，还是只是传说？” he said. “Now I’m starting to go through newspapers and other records.
“One thing that has helped me in the last five years is the vast amount of information that has been digitized. There’s a group that’s posted almost all of the pension applications from Virginia and the south online. I was able to search through 3,000 to 4,000 records in about 15 minutes and find all of the people who were sergeants, lieutenants and captains, which would have been impossible not so long ago.”
Ward acknowledged that he can’t prove a causal relationship between von Steuben’s training lessons and soldiers’ future success.“But I know they got the training from von Steuben, I know they were in these encampments, so it’s not like they were going to forget everything,” he said. “I’m looking at the skills they’re using in their new communities and I’m tracing it back to the training they got in the Continental Army.”
沃德将在今年夏天继续工作，并希望在11月之前完成研究部分。
“I’ve read enough to know that there’s something there,” he said. “I tell people, ‘It’s like the sculptor; he’s got the block of granite and he knows something is in there. He just needs to chip away at it.’”