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This map from 1783 shows the American fortifications in place at West Point. The yellow point indicates the location where Pierre Charles L’Enfant stood to paint his panorama of West Point. 

Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C.

This letter does not include a year. James Davenport’s letters and his memoirs indicate that he was at West Point in May 1779, 1780, and 1782, so it is unclear in which year he wrote this one. John Davenport, who transcribed this letter in the 1850s, numbered it as the second letter, between Isaac How Davenport’s two, but James was at Valley Forge, not West Point, in May 1778.

James Davenport was born in 1759 and apprenticed to a local shoemaker. In 1776, he enlisted in a militia unit and then in the Continental Army in February 1777. In April 1777, he began several months of campaigning in New York that eventually took him to the Battle of Saratoga in September. He spent that winter at Valley Forge with the main Continental Army, where, according to his memoir, “huts and cells were built to dwell in during the winter, as commodious as place and circumstances would allow.” After a brief illness and recovery away from camp, he was inoculated for smallpox, as a result of which he “had a siege of it; but I came off conqueror.” In 1778 and 1779, he fought at the Battle of Monmouth, endured a series of illnesses, and saw active service in New York before gaining a furlough in December 1779.

In this undated letter, he complains about the minimal daily rations that Continental soldiers sometimes received: in this case, half a pound of bread, a gill (four ounces, or half a cup) of peas, and “a little stinking shad,” a type of fish. May was a hard month in army encampments because there was little fresh food available, and stores put up the previous summer and fall would be running low and spoiling.

In 1844, Andrew Ferguson sent a petition to the United States Government to request an increase in his Revolutionary War pension payments due to the growing pain of his wartime injuries. This written record documents the denial of Ferguson’s request by the House of Representatives one year later. According to this document, Ferguson had gathered support from “several hundred” people who signed his petition. The House of Representatives denied his application because Ferguson’s petition did not include sworn testimony from people that could authenticate his claims about his military service and wounds. 

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC

On April 13, 1781, Jack faced charges of theft, rebellion, and attempted murder at the Botetourt County courthouse in Fincastle, Virginia. Like all enslaved people in Virginia, Jack was denied a jury trial. Instead, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by a group of justices. This written record of his case is the earliest known documentation of Jack’s activity during the Revolutionary War.

Court Order Book, Vol. 5a (pp.100-101), Botetourt County Courthouse, Virginia

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London arrived in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1783 with fellow members of the American Legion, a Loyalist military unit. This list of troops in the American Legion from 1785 records that London, then called London York, died at some point between 1783 and 1785. Like many other formerly enslaved men and women who resettled in Canada, London may have died due to sickness caused by the harsh living conditions and cold weather. Unfortunately, London died prior to receiving a plot of land in New Brunswick on which he could live as a free man.

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, RS108 Land Petitions: Original Series

As a reward for military service during the Revolutionary War, veterans, like Andrew Ferguson, could apply to receive land in what is now the Midwest region of the United States. The land had been previously settled by Native Americans and taken over by the United States Government. According to an act passed by Congress in March 1855, veterans, their widows, or the children of deceased veterans could apply to receive 160 acres of land. This document records Andrew Ferguson’s application for his parcel of land. Ferguson’s application was approved, but he died in 1856, the same year he was granted the land. 

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC/Fold3.com