American Camp

Pension records remain one of our best sources of information for what life was like for Revolutionary War families. Sarah Osborne, wife of a New York Soldier, related after the war of her experience at Yorktown: “Deponent’s said husband was there throwing up entrenchments, and deponent cooked and carried in beef and bread, and coffee (in a gallon pot) to the soldiers in the entrenchment. On one occasion when deponent was thus employed carrying in provisions, she met General Washington, who asked her if she ‘was not afraid of the cannonballs?’ She replied, ‘It would not do for the men to fight and starve too.’”