most freemen at the time were farmers who were artisans and most of the men who soldiered in the continental army were farmers or artisans. so a great many families had to struggle along in 1775 and 1776 with their husbands away. somehow, they had to find the money to pay the tax collector who came knocking at their door, or to grow crops and sell crops and whatever. and they had to pay extraordinarily high taxes during this conflict. so civilians suffered. and we think of, we are all familiar i think with the images of the threadbare, ragged american soldiers. and sometimes we don't realize that those who fought for the british suffered as well. during the first winter of the war when boston was a deceased by washington's army, the revolutionary war, revolutionary army, continental army got along very well. they were well fed and well housed, and it was the british who suffered the most during that harsh boston winter. the british to get here had to make an atlantic crossing, and one of the british soldiers wrote in his journal of the crossing which sounds like a horrid crossing, that he ex