1. Are Joseph's reasons for joining the American army good ones? What do they tell about his personality?

2. Murphy mentions that soldiers left the army and went home throughout the war. He endured a great deal of misery during the war; at the end of his first enlistment, he even remarks, "Here ends my first campaign. I learned something of a soldier's life—enough, I thought, to keep me home for the future," so why does Joseph not go home and stay there?

Why rejoin the army? Why stay with the army?

3. When Joseph is put in charge of a detail to find a deserter, why do he and his men show little interest in finding the man?

4. Joseph dislikes taking provisions from people against their will, calling it only "a whit better than plundering," but he does it. Why would he?

5. Did his...