Wrote Evidence of the Footfalls of Freedom and published it in the This Journal Belongs To Jakeb Hoke collection with the novel,  Through the Kindness of Ravens.

Evidence of the Footfalls of Freedom was inspired by something I had read in one or more of many books on the Revolutionary War. A commander of the Continental Army had written in their journal how they had looked down at the ground from riding their horse beside the marching army to find many of the soldiery were barefoot and bleeding on the snow.

 

Evidence of the Footfalls of Freedom

 

To believe in something

So much as to willingly 

Subject mind, body and soul

To the cruelest elements of nature

And the enemy as well

To fight for it

Thus two enemies

The obvious 

That represents the anti-cause

The other

The arena in which the cause is fought

 

Soldiers of the Revolutionary War

Their barefoot footprints of blood

Left in the mounting snow

And like the snow melts

As does their memory go

 

Though every American should

Does every American know

That food and supplies were short

Along with sharing sentinel duty

Was the sharing of shoes and coat

That before freedom surrounded us

Its fighters were surrounded 

By enemy and cold

 

Soldiers of the Revolutionary War

Their barefoot footprints of blood

Leave behind a trail to freedom

Along the frozen shore

 

Though every American should

Does every American know?

If the Continental Army wanted shelter

They chopped the wood, then built by hand

While red coats hung on the hooks

Of homestead granted on their homeland

 

Soldiers of the Revolutionary War

Their barefoot footprints of blood

Though tread on their colonies’ own land

Not a country of their own behind them

 

Though every American should

Does every American know?

That the Continental Army did not win the war

You may believe whatever you choose

But to put it correctly, it was more

That it was a war they did not lose 

 

Minutemen of the Revolutionary War

When called to action, they did trod

Their obstacles by far more taxing

Than the taxing of the King

 

Though every American should

Does every American know?

Bullet holes in his coat and

Horses shot out from under him

But he’d jump right on another then

Back out in front to lead again

 

Soldiers of the Revolutionary War

Their barefoot footprints of blood

Inspired by the actions of their leader

A fearless General on a white horse

 

Though every American should

Does every American know?

That liberty was once in front of us

That freedom was once the goal

And for it thousands died for us

As for those that suffered, ten-fold

 

And so it was no tea party

But there was one I am told

Though the British were not invited

They were welcomed to go home

As petitioned by the men the minute

They signed what could have been 

Either a declaration of independence 

Or their very own death warrants

History proved not to be the latter

The bloody barefoot footprints

Left by bloody barefoot soldiers

Were not left in vain

Though the snow long melted

Their imprints in history remain