“A Look At the Colonial World Through the Eyes of….”

I am a soldier in Colonial America, and my job requires intense dedication and sacrifice. I am now 21, and enlisted in the Continental Army when I was only 17, when the War began. Four years have passed, and yet Great Britain is still determined to maintain it’s control over the colonies. Thus, I continue to fight loyally for the Patriots, in the hopes that one day, we will be freed from the King’s rule.

As a soldier, I live in very poor conditions, especially when I am on the battlefield. We sleep on the cold hard floor inside tents, and there are six of us in a tent.  If we get food, we eat poorly; nothing close to being enough to feed soldiers who spend days at  time not sleeping, firing a gun and people opposite a very large field.

I am consumed by the fear of being shot to the death; the fear of handing myself over to the British in defeat; the fear of losing my family to the invading English troops, ordered to burn towns down, and to let there be no survivors. But most of all, I am consumed by the horror of the war, all of the hatred and bloodshed and the gore, the sadness and despair and the agony and the fear.

And there are some times when I feel sorry for myself, for what I am going through, the suffering and the pain of the cuts that bullets have left me, as they barely miss my torso, but still graze my arms and legs. And some times, I am sorry for the people that I have killed. There was a moment that I will never forget. Years ago, a British troop charged the Patriots. He could have been no more than seventeen, and yet I saw all of the hate in his eyes. That boy was had is musket aimed point blank at a soldier to my right. He took a couple of more steps, then fired. The soldier collapsed on his knees, and was hauled towards the battlefield surgeon by to other Patriots, trying to shield the body from taking any more damage.

I then shrieked in all of the anger and despair and hate that was inside me. And despite my hatred for the boy, I am ashamed to admit what I did next. I rushed at the boy with my bayonet while he foolishly attempted to reload his musket in front of his enemy’s line. When I was a few feet away, he looked up, at first with anger and hate, but then fear and agony as I drove my bayonet into his stomach. I ripped it out and  felt his blood ooze down my hands. I then rushed back to my position, leaving him to die alone on the trampled grass of the battlefield, as was expected of me.

I am Private Robert Gordon of the Continental Army, and I am afraid of what I’ve become.