Memoirs of the Revolution: Sources and Evidence
On this page, we have included some of the sources we are using for the research project, War Stories: The Meaning of the American Revolution. This project aims to bring to light a different set of stories than the ones with which we are most familiar. The long-neglected memoirs of ordinary participants suggest that for thousands of colonists, the Revolutionary War was just another chaotic imperial conflict that might be exploited, but most often had to endured. For many, it was a time of suffering, violence, and even trauma. It was, after all, just as much a civil war as it was a contest over liberty.
Yet even while these memoirs reveal a startlingly different kind of war story than we are accustomed to hearing about the Revolution, they also point us toward a better understanding of how a nation came into being. For these memoirists, recalling the past allowed them to make their own claim on the fruits of a bitter and costly Revolution. The creation of the nation, then, was premised on conflicting stories, riven by contradictions, and shaped by clashing interests in a process that might seem familiar to those observing contemporary politics today.
In committing their stories to paper, the memoirists also help us to understand how diverse groups navigated the turbulent and often treacherous post-war landscape. This is particularly true in the case of African Americans (those who stayed, as well as those who fled), Native Americans, women, and loyalists (again, those who stayed and those who left).
This is an ongoing project, and we will add content periodically. Whenever possible, we have linked to a digitised version of the memoir. Some memoirs are not yet digitised, but are located in hardcopy in multiple libraries, and for these we have linked to WorldCat. To learn more about this project, click here.
This page has been created and narrated by my collaborator Dr Marama Whyte.
I use a selection of memoirs in the first year workshop ‘Charleston, South Carolina, 1780’ which I teach at the University of Sydney. These sources are collated here, and made freely available for use in teaching.
John ADLUM
Howard H. Peckham, ed., Memoirs of the Life of John Adlum in the Revolutionary War, Chicago: Published for the William L. Clements Library Associates by the Caxton Club, 1968.
John Adlum was born in 1759 in Pennsylvania. When the Revolution broke out he was 15, and he joined a volunteer teenage militia in York. He was called into service in July 1776, and was captured by the British in November 1776 at Fort Washington. Adlum was paroled in 1777, and eventually settled back in his home state. Following the war, he was appointed as state surveyor, and later became an associate judge. He was commissioned a Major when war with France threatened in 1798. Adlum married in 1805 and had two children. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1836.
During his life, Adlum was also known for his work as a viticulturist and horticulturalist. In 1814 he moved with his family to the District of Columbia, where he purchased a farm which he used to grow grapes. He published several books on this subject during his lifetime, but he never published his memoir. According to editor Howard H. Peckham, Adlum’s memoir was compiled from notebooks which may have been based on earlier journals. Drafts of Adlum’s memoirs are held at the Clements Library at the University of Michigan.
Jolley ALLEN
Frances Mary Stoddard, ed., An Account of a part of the Sufferings and Losses of Jolley Allen, A Native of London, Boston: Franklin Press, 1883. (Memoir originally published in 1878.)
Born in London in approximately 1718, Jolley Allen was the second son of Captain Nathaniel Allen. He married Eleanor Warren in 1739, and they remained together in London until 1754 or 1755, when the couple emigrated to Boston. There, Allen worked as a shopkeeper, who was later threatened for importing tea. In March 1776, his attempt to evacuate Boston with his family was botched by his captain’s inexperience. After running the ship aground in Provincetown, Allen lost his possessions to the American residents of the town. After several months of anguish, including losing his wife and his eldest son, in 1777 Allen travelled to New York alone, where he successfully boarded a ship to London, leaving behind his six remaining children.
What happened to Allen after this is less clear. Some sources claim that Allen died in 1782, and that several of his children returned to London during the war. Allen’s account was written c. 1778, in the immediate aftermath of his “sufferings,” but was not published until much later. Like many loyalist narratives, it has been largely ignored.
Thomas ANDROS
Thomas Andros, The Old Jersey Captive: or a Narrative of the Captivity of Thomas Andros, (Now Pastor of the Church in Berkley,) on Board the Old Jersey Prison Ship at New York, 1781, In a series of letters to a friend, suited to inspire faith and confidence in a particular divine providence, Boston: William Peirce, 1833.
Thomas Andros was born in Connecticut in 1759. He joined the army at age 16 and served at battles at Long Island and White Plains. In 1781 he re-enlisted as a privateer in New London, but was captured and held on the Jersey prison ship in New York. He eventually escaped, at which point his military career ended. In 1788, Andros was ordained in Berkley, Massachusetts, where he worked as a pastor for 57 years. He died in 1845. He married, and in 1829 mentioned having six children, ranging in age from 6 to 40 years old.
Andros published his account—the majority of which deals with his capture, captivity, and escape from the Jersey—during his lifetime. The narrative is retrospective, and written through a series of letters, although it is unclear exactly when he wrote them. Framed using an evangelical mode, his narrative is substantially informed by his conversion to Christianity following his wartime experiences.
Abigail Abbot BAILEY
Ethan Smith, ed., Memoirs of Mrs. Abigail Bailey, who had been the wife of Major Asa Bailey, formerly of Landaff, (N.H), Written by herself […], Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong, 1815.
Abigail Abbot was born in 1746 in New Hampshire, to a loving, well-to-do family. In 1763, her family moved to Newbury, Coos (now Vermont). She married Asa Bailey in 1767, at the age of 22. The marriage was not a happy one. Bailey was volatile and angry, assaulted Abigail, and carried on affairs with the women the couple employed within their home. The Revolution brought Abigail some peace, with her husband occupied with his major’s commission while Abigail raised their children. Following the war, her husband’s behaviour became more erratic, and in 1793 they divorced. Abigail had fourteen children, and she died in New Hampshire in 1815.
Abigail wrote her narrative in 1793 as an attempt to make sense of her traumatic experiences. She used her memoir to justify her divorce, and to describe her evolving relationship with God. Her memoirs were found upon her death, and published locally.
Daniel BARBER
Daniel Barber, The History of My Own Times, 3 volumes, Washington City: Printed for the author by S.C. Ustick, 1827.
Reverend Daniel Barber was born in Connecticut in 1756. He enlisted immediately following the Battle of Bunker’s Hill in 1775. After his military service, Barber was ordained as a minister of the Episcopal Church in New York. He married in 1780, and in c. 1787 he moved with his family to Claremont, New Hampshire, where he ministered for 30 years. At age 62, Barber converted to Catholicism. He died in 1834 at St Inigoes, Maryland, at age 78.
In 1821, Barber published a pamphlet explaining his conversion, which he followed in 1827 and 1828 with the first two volumes of his “History.” He published a third and final volume in 1832, which may have been prompted by a pension application in the same year. Barber spent the years following his wife’s death in 1825 as an itinerant wanderer, and he died in relative obscurity. However, he did leave a legacy of Catholicism in Claremont, through his sons and extended family. The three volumes of Barber’s memoir are available through the Gale database “Sabin Americana.”
John P. BECKER
The Sexagenary: Reminiscences of the American Revolution, Albany, N.Y.: J. Munsell, 1866. (Memoir originally published in 1833.)
John P. Becker was born in New York in 1765. His first role in the war was to accompany his father on a journey north in 1775 to help recover the spoils of war. He and his father were again employed to carry provisions in 1777. Later that year, following the fall of Ticonderoga, Becker’s family was forced to flee their farm. When they returned, they found the farm converted to a military post for the New England militia. According to war pension records, Becker was married, and he died in 1837.
Becker wrote out his story in 1831, in part because of a conscious desire to record the experiences of “ordinary individuals.” Becker was too young to join the army during the Revolutionary War, and in his memoir he displayed ambiguous loyalties, and an ambivalence towards the conflict . His view was of New York, focused mostly on local officials and officers, and his memoir rarely dealt with anything outside of this. Interestingly, Becker is not actually named within the publication.
John BLATCHFORD
Charles I. Bushnell, ed., The Narrative of John Blatchford, detailing His Sufferings in the Revolutionary War, while a Prisoner with the British, as related by himself, New York: Privately Printed, 1865. (Memoir originally published in 1788.)
John Blatchford was born around 1762 in Massachusetts. In 1777, he enlisted as a cabin-boy on a Continental ship. Almost immediately, the ship was captured by the British. After inadvertently killing a guard during an escape attempt, Blatchford was sent to England to stand trial, where he only narrowly escaped execution. Soon after, he found himself impressed on board an East India ship, an ordeal which resulted in more pain and trauma, and another narrow escape from execution due to his youth. After many more misfortunes, he finally returned home to Massachusetts in 1783. He soon married, and had four children. He continued to voyage until his death c. 1794, while in the West Indies.
Blatchford’s account was signed and published in 1788, when he was only 26 years old. Editor Charles I. Bushnell believed the account was “prepared from dictation,” and would have been shaped by the interests of his interviewer and publisher. Bushnell’s edition fills in some details, likely by drawing on Blatchford’s eldest surviving son’s recollections.
Elisha BOSTWICK
William S. Powell, “A Connecticut Soldier Under Washington: Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs of the First Years of the Revolution,” The William and Mary Quarterly, volume 6, no. 1 (January 1949): 94-107.
Elisha Bostwick was born into a well-connected family in New Milford, Connecticut in 1749. In 1775 he enlisted in the Seventh Connecticut Regiment, into a company commanded by his cousin Arthur Bostwick. Elisha was engaged as sergeant and clerk, and later appointed lieutenant. He was present for Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware in 1776. Following the war, he returned to New Milford where he served as town clerk for 55 years. He died in 1834.
Bostwick wrote his account when he was 84 years old, but his memoirs don’t seem to have been published prior to the inclusion in WMQ, instead ending up at Yale University Library. His account ends very abruptly, and may have been taken from a war pension application. According to editor William S. Powell, Bostwick was identified as the author of the account by George Dudley Seymour, who donated the manuscript to Yale.
Jeffrey BRACE
Benjamin F. Prentiss, ed., The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-Named Jeffrey Brace. Containing an Account of the Kingdom of Bow-Woo, in the Interior of Africa; with the Climate and Natural Productions, Laws, and Customs Peculiar to That Place. With an Account of His Captivity, Sufferings, Sales, Travels, Emancipation, Conversion to the Christian Religion, Knowledge of the Scriptures […], St Albans, VT: Harry Whitney, 1810.
Jeffrey Brace was born in Mali in approximately 1742. He was sold into slavery as a teenager, and fought in the Seven Years’ War in the Caribbean before ending up in chains in Connecticut. He was around 33 years old when the revolution broke out in 1775. He fought in the rebel ranks around New York and New Jersey, possibly as a substitute for his enslaver. Brace was able to obtain his freedom based on his military service, but only after challenging for it. He immediately headed north, and although he married, continued to experience persecution and misfortune even in his apparent freedom.
When he sat down to tell his story in 1810, Brace, who had never learned to write, was also blind. He instead narrated his life to Benjamin Prentiss, a local white lawyer and abolitionist. His narrative is mediated and edited by Prentiss, but at times Brace’s voice comes through clearly. His memoir draws on the genres of slave narrative, conversion narrative, and Revolutionary War memoirs.
Tarleton BROWN
Charles I. Bushnell, ed., Memoirs of Tarleton Brown, A Captain in the Revolutionary Army, Written by Himself, New York: Privately Printed, 1862.
Tarleton Brown was born in 1757 in Virginia, and moved with his family to South Carolina in 1769. He was drafted into military service against the British when the war broke out, served in Georgia and South Carolina, and was present for the siege of Savannah. During the Revolutionary War, Brown was eventually promoted from private to captain, and also served as a scout. Following the War, he married and had at least four children. He built several mills at Fork Mills in North Carolina, and died in 1846, at age 92.
Brown appears to have written his memoir in 1843, a few years before his death. His narrative was first published in the Charleston Rambler, and then reprinted with accompanying historical notes and preface by Charles I. Bushnell, a little-known figure who was responsible for publishing multiple Revolutionary memoirs during the 1800s. Bushnell argued for the importance of Brown’s memoir because of the lack of writing on the Southern States in the literature of Revolutionary history. Linked to this sentiment was the resurgence of interest in Revolutionary memoirs as the Civil War broke out, of which Brown’s was only one of many.
CHAINBREAKER
Thomas S. Abler, ed., Chainbreaker: The Revolutionary War Memoirs of Governor Blacksnake, as told to Benjamin Williams, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Chainbreaker, known as Blacksnake among Europeans, was born around 1753, and raised in the Seneca Haudenosaunee village of Kendaia on Seneca Lake, in what is now western New York. Led by his uncle Cornplanter, Chainbreaker was drawn into the politics of the day. Although initially electing to remain neutral, the Seneca decided to join with the British in the Revolutionary War. Chainbreaker took part in the Battle of Oriskany in 1777, defended his home villages around Seneca Lake from the rebels in 1779, and was involved in negotiations of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. Following the war, he continued to play an important political role among the Seneca, and fought on the American side in the War of 1812. He died in 1859, at around the age of 106.
Chainbreaker’s story was transcribed by Benjamin Williams, and was later preserved by Lyman Draper. A fragment was published in 1908, but the complete narrative was not published until 1989. Chainbreaker’s narrative ends around 1800, and subsequent details of his life come from his modern editor. Although it is valuable as a rare Indigenously-generated source, only a handful of scholars have drawn from it.
William CHAMBERLIN
“Letter of Gen. William Chamberlin,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society Second Series, Vol. 10 (1895-1896): 490-506.
William Chamberlin was born in 1755 in Massachusetts, and moved to New Hampshire with his family before the War. He enlisted as a private in 1776, but managed to avoid regular duties because he could do the writing for the company. He served in Boston, New York, Montreal—where he encountered small-pox—and then in Pennsylvania, where he was among the troops who crossed the Delaware. Following the Revolution, he moved to Vermont, where he married and had seven children. There, he rose to some prominence. He was a member of the state legislature, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1791, a Presidential Elector in 1800, and a Member of Congress from 1803-1805 and 1809-1811. He died in 1828.
Chamberlin’s memoir is written in the form of a letter to his son, dated 1827. He wrote at the age of 72, only eighteen months before his death. Although his account foregrounds the justness of the Revolution, in reality his narrative highlights the suffering, disease, and trauma which many soldiers experienced.
Seth COLEMAN
Memoirs of Doctor Seth Coleman, A.M of Amherst, (Mass.), New Haven: Printed by Flagg & Gray, at the Herald Office, State-street, 1817.
Seth Coleman was born in 1740, and was 35 in 1775 and in the thick of things serving as a physician in Amherst, Massachusetts. In February 1776, he recalled a “peculiar sickness” that levelled his family, killing two of his children. In his memoir, he alluded to business and domestic concerns that took his mind away from God, but never elaborated. In 1779, he noted a local awakening of religious sensibilities, and another bout of sickness. Another of his children died in 1782, and his wife died in 1783.
In an almost 300 page book published by his friends, which included an introductory biography, a memoir abstracted and based on his diary, letters, a “farewell address” and a funeral discourse, we learn almost nothing of Coleman’s temporal world, beyond his family. Coleman himself may have edited this out, or the “compilers” of the 1817 volume. His recollections of the Revolutionary era ran only a few pages, and were focused on his family. For Seth Coleman, that’s all we’ll ever know about the impact of the Revolution on his life.
James P. COLLINS
John M. Roberts, ed., Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, Clinton, LA: Feliciana Democrat, Print, 1859.
James Potter Collins was born in South Carolina in 1763. As a child, he attended school and helped his father on their farm. His father hoped he might attend divinity school, but Collins objected, and took up work as a tailor. When the Revolution came to the South, Collins was at first sent to Charlotte, N.C. for college, but was quickly recalled home. His older brother was enlisted, and soon after, the British pressed on Charleston. Following the burning of William Hill’s Iron Works, both Collins and his father volunteered to join the mounted Minute Men, to seek vengeance for the destruction. He participated in many battles in S.C., including at Fishing Creek. Collins left the service in 1783, but continued to join militias when they were called up to guard the Cherokee and Creek Indians. He died c. 1838 in Texas.
Collins originally wrote his memoir in 1836, although it was not published for another two decades. His account ends abruptly, as Collins was unable to finish it due to his failing health. Collins explained at the time that he wrote the memoir from memory, as he had lost his papers and records in the course of the various moves he undertook after the War.
Joshua DAVIS
Joshua Davis, A Narrative of Joshua Davis : an American citizen, who was pressed and served on board six ships of the British Navy […], Boston: Printed by B. True, 1811.
Born in Boston in 1760, Joshua Davis was a musician who played the fife. Following a brief engagement in a youth company in 1774, in May 1775 Davis joined a militia in Watertown. In June 1776 he formally signed up for the First Artillery Regiment of Massachusetts as a musician, and following his discharge, joined a privateer crew in June 1779. Three months later, the entire crew was capture by a British ship, where he was pressed into service for the first time. He eventually returned to Boston, but in 1780 returned to privateering, where he was captured again. Following this release, he tried in vain to return to Boston, instead travelling circuitously between Plymouth, London, and Cork. He worked on British ships for over three years while trying to find a passage home. Davis made it safely into port at Boston in December 1787 — eight years, six months, and 17 days after he initially left.
Davis’ memoir skips over many aspects of his life, including his early years and his Continental war service. Instead he focuses on the violence and punishment he witnessed while impressed. His narrative, published in 1811, seems designed to warn against British practices of impressment, and he included an additional appendix of advice for anyone who might find themselves in a similar situation — including how to avoid fights, and find a good messmate.
Nathan DAVIS
Nathan Davis, “History of the Expedition Against the Five Nations, Commanded by General Sullivan, in 1779,” The Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America, volume 13, number 4 (April 1868): 198-205.
Nathan Davis was born in Connecticut in 1762, and was only 13 when the war came. By the time of his enlistment in 1778, his family had moved to New Hampshire, and Davis had already married. He enlisted in March 1778, likely just as he turned 16. He served at the Battle of Monmouth in June of that year, took part in Sullivan’s expedition into Haudonosaunee country in 1779, and served around West Point and the Highlands of New York in 1780. In 1785 Davis moved with his wife to Vermont, where he had acquired a tract of land, and eventually tended a farm and kept a public house. He was granted a war pension at age 55, and died in 1832 aged 69.
We know about Davis’ Continental Army service from his pension application, but the only part of this service which he chose to write about was his role in Sullivan’s expedition. He begins with a tentative justification for the campaign, but his narrative quickly becomes a journal of destruction as the soldiers destroyed and looted Indian villages when their enemy refused to engage with them in a formal battle. In his memoir, Davis displayed some uneasiness with his role in the expedition, and with the cost to individual soldiers and to native peoples.
Samuel DEWEES
John Smith Hanna, ed., A History of the Life and Services of Captain Samuel Dewees, a Native of Pennsylvania, and Soldier of the Revolutionary and Last Wars […], Baltimore: Printed by Robert Neilson, 1844.
Samuel Dewees was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania around 1760, the fourth of seven children. His family struggled to make ends meet, and all the children were bound out. Dewees suffered at the hands of his master for almost ten years, until his father enlisted as a recruiting sergeant for the Continental Army in 1776. Dewees’ father enlisted Samuel as a fifer but he never saw any real action, although later he was among a detachment of troops who took part in an expedition against Indians near the Juniata River in Pennsylvania. After the war, he was part of a volunteer company that helped put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and he signed on to serve during the War of 1812. He married four times, had four children, and died in 1846.
Dewees was 84 years old when he wrote out his conflicted narrative. After his father’s death following a smallpox epidemic, Dewees had relied on the protection of officers in the army. However, he recalled in detail the violent executions of Continental soldiers by their own officers for desertion, as well as relatively minor infractions. Dewees spent much of the war in fear of his life. In his memoir he struggled to rationalise the harsh discipline and executions, or balance them with his enduring admiration for George Washington.
Thomas DRING
Albert G. Greene, ed., Recollections of the Jersey Prison-Ship; Taken and prepared for publication from the original manuscript of the late Captain Thomas Dring, of Providence, RI, one of the prisoners, Providence: Published by H.H. Brown, 1829.
Born in Rhode Island in 1758, Thomas Dring went on to enter the merchant service and take command of a ship. He sailed from Providence for many years as an able and experienced officer. He was a prisoner twice, first on the Good Hope in 1779, and later on the Old Jersey in 1782. On the latter, Dring was surrounded by small pox, but managed to successfully inoculate himself. He witnessed violence and suffering, in addition to disease, but was eventually released as part of a prisoner exchange. Dring retired in 1803 and established a business in Providence, where he died, aged 67, in 1825.
Dring’s manuscript is a captivity narrative detailing his imprisonment on the Old Jersey. His original manuscript was reportedly written in 1824, but was edited and re-written by Albert G. Greene in 1829, raising questions about how much remained of Dring’s own words. Greene claimed that Dring had not intended the manuscript for publication, and so had paid little attention to the order of events or the language he used. A new edition that is closer to Dring’s original recollections was published in 2010, but is not freely available online.
Jonathan ELKINS
“Reminiscences of Jonathan Elkins: From a manuscript in the possession of the Vermont Historical Society,” in Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society for the years 1919-1920, Vermont Historical Society, 1921, 185-212.
Jonathan Elkins was born in approximately 1761. He was 15 when the war broke out, and when a new road was cut to move troops to Canada, Elkins and his family used it to move to Peacham, Vermont, where they were among the first European settlers in the town. There, he and his family found themselves caught between Native Americans and the British and Continental armies. In March 1781 he and his family were captured by a British scouting party. Elkins initially agreed to join the British army, but when he attempted to escape he was imprisoned, first in Quebec and later in at the Mill prison in Plymouth. He was eventually exchanged in a cartel for troops.
Following the war, Elkins married and had four children between 1786 and 1795. He outlived his first wife and four children, and later re-married and had another six children between 1813 and 1825. He remained in Peacham until 1836, when he and his wife moved to Orlean County, New York, where he died in 1852. Not much is known about Elkins’ postwar life, or when he wrote his narrative. The only other source of information about Elkins is his pension record in the 1830s, and the paper trail it left.
Nathanael EMMONS
Jacob Ide, ed., The Works of Nathanael Emmons, D.D., Late Pastor of the Church in Franklin, Mass., with A Memoir of His Life, Vol. I, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1842.
Born in 1745 in Connecticut, Nathanael Emmons graduated from Yale in 1767, spent a few years as an itinerant preacher, and eventually gained a ministry in Wrentham, Massachusetts on the eve of hostilities. He married in April 1775, but his wife died in 1778, followed soon after by their young sons. He married again, and had two sons and four daughters. Emmons remained at the same ministry until May 1827. Even after relinquishing his ministry due to his health, he remained in Massachusetts until he dies in 1840, at the age of 95.
Emmons, a noted theologian of the post-war New Divinity School in New England, was pro-patriot as the Revolution began, but recalled the war as a very dark time in his and his congregants’ lives. While some religiously-oriented memoirs are often silent about the Revolution, Emmons’ is very revealing. He wrote that he dreaded war, but also believed the conflict was a “civil war”. The death of his first wife and children was also a heavy loss. In fact, Emmons sought dismission from his ministry for most of the rest of the War, but it was never granted. It was not until a religious revival in 1784 which put a “new face” on his congregation, that he began to revive in spirits.
David FANNING
David Fanning, The Narrative of Colonel David Fanning (A Tory in the Revolutionary War with Great Britain): Giving an account of his Adventures in North Carolina from 1775 to 1783, as written by himself, New York: Reprinted for Joseph Sabin, 1865. (Memoir originally published in 1808.)
David Fanning was born c. 1755 in Virginia. He grew up in North Carolina, but moved to South Carolina in 1773. He initially joined the loyalist cause, and served in campaigns in South Carolina. In 1777 he was arrested, and subsequently acquitted, for treason. In 1778, Fanning accepted a pardon from the Governor of South Carolina and agreed to serve in the patriot militia. However following the British victory at the siege of Charleston, he again joined the loyalists in South and North Carolina, where he served for a time with “Bloody Bill” Cunningham. Following the War, he married and settled in New Brunswick. He was a member of the Kings County House of Assembly, and died in 1825.
Fanning’s memoir was written c. 1790, and was first published for “private distribution” in 1861 before being reprinted. It is likely that he wrote in order to gain some compensation from the British for his services during the War. He seems to have become a notorious figure during his life, and his memoir offers insight into the different ways loyalists and patriots function in historical memory.
Elizabeth FISHER
Elizabeth Fisher, Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Fisher, of the City of New-York […] Written by Herself, New-York: Printed for the Author, 1810.
Elizabeth Munro was born in Philadelphia in 1759, in the midst of the Seven Years’ War. She was the daughter of a well to do Army chaplain, who married Eve Jay—the sister of John Jay—in 1766. Elizabeth suffered cruelty and domestic abuse at the hands of her stepmother. In 1776, Elizabeth married Donald Fisher against her father’s wishes, but the marriage was doomed from the start and Elizabeth was deeply unhappy. The War came to her door while she was still recovering from the birth of her first son when, with her husband away, patriot riflemen looted and burned down her house. Now a refugee, she reunited with her husband, and eventually took refuge in Montreal, although they later separated. Elizabeth’s misfortunes continued, and from 1801 to 1806 she was jailed in Albany following a conflict with her well-connected stepbrother Peter Jay Munro. Her date of death is unknown.
Elizabeth Fisher wrote her narrative four years after she was released from jail, while living alone in New York City. Now 50 years old, she may have thought she could make a little money from her memoir, but mostly she seemed determined to acquit herself in the court of public opinion. Her 1810 edition languished, but was rescued by historian Sharon Halevi with a modern and annotated edition in 2007.
Ebenezer FLETCHER
Ebenezer Fletcher, Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Mr. Ebenezer Fletcher, of Newipswich […] Written by Himself, Amherst: Printed by Samuel Preston, 1798.
Ebenezer Fletcher was born in New Ipswich in 1761. He had a plain common school education, and enlisted as a fifer in a New Hampshire battalion in 1777. He was captured at Ticonderoga, and later managed to escape from the British with a great deal of difficulty and suffering. Soon after arriving home, an officer heard of his arrival and ordered him arrested and returned to the army to serve out the rest of his enlistment. He went on Sullivan’s Indian expedition in 1779. Following the War, Fletcher married twice, first in 1786 to Polly Cummings, with whom he had twelve children, and then to Mary Foster in 1812. Fletcher died in 1831 at New Ipswich.
Fletcher’s narrative has a complicated publication history. After the 1798 edition, it was republished by editor Charles I. Bushnell in 1866 with several additional paragraphs that were not in the initial printing. Much of our knowledge of Fletcher’s life comes from his own pension record, and a widow’s pension submitted by his wife following his death.
Ebenezer FOX
The Revolutionary Adventures of Ebenezer Fox, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1838.
Ebenezer Fox was born in 1763, into a poor, large family. He was bound out to a farmer from age 7 to 12, when he ran away due his own dissatisfaction. He joined the army in 1779, just shy of his 16th birthday. After a brief return to his apprenticeship, he joined a privateer in Boston and served from 1780 to 1783. Fox was eventually captured by the British and held on the Jersey prison ship. He agreed to enlist in the British service, a decision he later regretted, in the hope it might present the opportunity to escape—which it eventually did. He returned to Boston in 1783, after a three year absence, and eventually established himself as a shop owner. He died in 1843.
Fox’s captivity narrative was first published in 1838, with a second edition published in 1847 by his son Charles Fox—who also entered the copyright on the 1838 edition. His narrative has been tainted with accusations of plagiarism. However, there is evidence that Fox’s account was also drawn from his own experience, so it is possible he used other accounts to fill in the gaps in his memories 50 years after the events he described.
David GEORGE
“An Account of the Life of Mr. David George, from Sierra Leone in Africa; given by himself in a Conversation with Brother Rippon of London, and Brother [Samuel] Pearce [1766-1799] of Birmingham,” in Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Vincent Carretta, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996, 333-350. (Memoir originally published in 1793.)
David George was born into slavery in Virginia, in approximately 1743. He ran away when young, and found refuge among the Creek Indians before he ran into George Liele in 1773. Liele impressed George, and he was baptised at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, and formed one of the first African-American Baptist congregations in the colonies in 1775. Eventually, George and his family found refuge with the British at Savannah, and were evacuated to Nova Scotia. Harassed and hounded by racist mobs, he chose to migrate to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he helped found the first Baptist church there.
George’s account was originally published in The Baptist Annual Register in 1793. It came about as a result of a “Conversation” with another Baptist named Rippon from London, and a Samuel Pearce from Birmingham. George spoke of the cruelties he experienced under slavery, as well as getting caught in the cross-fire of the Revolutionary War.
John GREENWOOD
Isaac J. Greenwood, ed., The Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775-1783, Edited from the original Manuscript, New York: The De Vinne Press, 1922.
From a relatively well-to-do Boston family, John Greenwood was born in 1760. At age 13 or 14, he was sent to live with his uncle in Portland. When the War came, Greenwood’s uncle was lieutenant of a company of cadets, and he engaged his nephew to play the fife. He used the confusion following Lexington and Concord to travel alone in an attempt to see his family in Boston. Unable to get home, he was persuaded to enlist as a fifer. After serving our his enlistment, in 1777 he decided to sign on as a privateer. He returned to Boston in 1783, and eventually moved to New York where he took up his father’s profession as a dentist.
Greenwood wrote out his story in 1809, in part to respond to accusations his brother had been spreading about him. By this point he was already a local celebrity, and he advertised his services as “Washington’s favorite dentist.” According to Greenwood’s son, his father asked on his deathbed for his manuscript to be burned. Luckily for historians, it never was.
Henry HALLOWELL
“A Narrative of Henry Hallowell, of Lynn, Respecting the Revolution in 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, to January 17, 1780,” in Lynn in the Revolution: Compiled from Notes, edited by Howard Kendall Sanderson, Part I, Boston: W.B. Clarke Company, 1909, 149-183.
Henry Hallowell was born in Massachusetts in 1754. When he was 13 or 14 he was bound out to a local shoemaker, where he served for around six years. By the time the war came, he was doing some farm work and teaching in the evening. He signed up to six months in the state services in 1775, before enlisting in the Continental Army. He served around Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and experienced disease, poor conditions, and violence. So difficult were his experiences that he did not see out his full term of service, instead contracting with another man to serve his final months. In 1780 he married, and eventually had six children. He died in 1839.
Hallowell recorded his narrative some time after 1831, in a chaotic series of fragments which may have grown out of his pension application. Unlike many others, his narrative secured some prominence when it was discovered in the early twentieth century.
Levi HANFORD
Charles I. Bushnell, ed., A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Levi Hanford, a Soldier of the Revolution, New York: Privately Printed, 1863.
Levi Hanford was born in Connecticut in 1750, to a strict Baptist family. He undertook some schooling, but mostly helped his parents for their farm. He was 16 in 1775 and so eligible for military service, and he joined up in 1776. He was captured by the British while guarding the coastline of Fairfield County, when he was not yet 18 years old. He was held in Sugar House prison in New York, and was later transferred to the Good Intent prison ship, spending a total of fourteen months imprisoned before returning home in May 1778. Despite this, he reenlisted in 1779. Following the War he married, and settled in New Canaan. With his family, he moved to Walton, New York in 1808, where they lived until Hanford died in 1854 at age 96.
Hanford’s memoir focuses entirely on his prison experience with the British, but his son and editor each filled in some additional detail about his life. Like other memoirists, it is possible that he wrote his captivity account after applying for a wartime pension. He may have also been influenced by other captivity narratives published around this time, like Andrew Sherburne’s account of the Jersey.
Christopher HAWKINS
Charles I. Bushnell, ed., The Adventures of Christopher Hawkins, Containing Details of his Captivity […], Now first Printed from the original Manuscript, Written by Himself, New York: Privately Printed, 1864. (Memoir originally published in 1858.)
Christopher Hawkins was born in Rhode Island in 1764. He worked on his family farm, and at age 12 was bound out to learn the tanner’s trade in Providence. He stayed for one year before running away to enlist as a privateer. He was first captured in 1777, but managed to escape, before being recaptured and held on the Old Jersey prison ship. Following the War, he married, and eventually settled in Newport in 1791, becoming the first permanent settler there. He went on to become first supervisor of Newport, and held the office for fourteen years. He had seven children, and died in 1837 at 73 years old.
Hawkins’ narrative was held within his family, before being placed in editor Charles I. Bushnell’s hands. Bushnell added some explanatory notes, and his dedication gives some suggestion that he may have also edited the text by using other captivity accounts published by Andrew Sherburne and Thomas Dring.
John Joseph HENRY
John Joseph Henry, An Accurate and Interesting Account of the Hardships and Sufferings of that Band of Heroes, who traversed the wilderness in the Campaign against Quebec in 1775, Lancaster: Printed by William Greer, 1812.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1758, John Joseph Henry was the son of a gunsmith who had made a small fortune from wartime profiteering. In 1772, his father bound him out to an uncle who was also a gunsmith, but he was dissatisfied with this plan and in 1775 joined a Pennsylvania regiment that was headed for Quebec. He experienced brutal conditions, starvation, and captivity during the failed siege, and was eventually exchanged and released in August 1776. He apprenticed himself as a clerk in Lancaster Country during the end of the War, and later practiced law from 1785 to 1793, when he was appointed president of the second judicial district of Pennsylvania. He died in 1811.
Henry’s account was ostensibly recorded for his children, but in large part it was an outpouring of grief about his experiences during the Quebec campaign, and the loss of many of his comrades. He worked on the manuscript for several years, and clearly intended to publish it.
Henry HOLCOMBE
Henry Holcombe, The First Fruits, in a Series of Letters, Philadelphia: Printed for the Author, by Ann Cochran, 1812.
Henry Holcombe was born in 1762 in Virginia, and moved with his family to South Carolina during his youth. He served in the War as a commissioned officer, beginning when he was roughly 17 years old. During the war he rose to a captain’s commission, but he eventually resigned his commission and was ordained in 1785. Holcombe was married in 1786. He was later a delegate to the South Carolina Convention to ratify the Constitution, and founded Beaufort College in South Carolina. He organised the Pennsylvania Peace Society in 1822, and continued to be a pacifist until his death in 1824.
Holcombe wrote his memoir—divided into a series of letters—in 1812, when he was already on the path to pacifism. Likely because of his new perspective, and the context of writing on the eve of the War of 1812, he significantly downplayed his military career in his writing. Instead, he offered a narrative of religious conversion and of his later career. In reflecting on the War, Holcombe wrote that while he once venerated Washington’s piety, he now thought a Christian would be ridiculed in an army camp, which offers a new perspective on how soldiers reframed their military experiences later in life.
Devereux JARRATT
The Life of the Reverend Devereux Jarratt, Rector of Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Written by Himself, in a series of letters addressed to the Rev. John Coleman, Baltimore: Warner & Hanna, 1806.
Devereux Jarratt was born in Virginia in 1733. He became a tutor, and eventually worked as a schoolmaster. In 1753 he experienced a Presbyterian conversion, but in 1762 he travelled to England, where he was ordained as a deacon and priest in the Anglican church. In 1763 he returned to the pulpit in Virginia. He opposed Methodists’ condemnation of slavery, and he went on to own a plantation of twenty-four enslaved people. He was involved in the Methodist revival assembles of the 1770s, but later became isolated from other Methodist and Anglican leaders. He died in Virginia in 1801.
Jarratt was an influential evangelical leader in Virginia’s Anglican Church. In a foreword, John Coleman wrote that Jarratt had left his manuscript with Coleman for publication after his death. He wrote that the manuscript was published in full, with only a few additional explanatory notes. Coleman believed the manuscript was “of too sacred a nature to be neglected.” In addition to detailing his life, Jarratt’s memoir is a chronicle of the American Methodist revival.
Mary JEMISON
James E. Seaver, A Narrative of the life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, Who was taken by the Indians in the year 1755, when only about twelve years of age, and has continued to reside amongst them to the present time, Canandaigua, New York: Printed by J.D. Bemis and CC, 1824.
Mary Jemison was born in 1743 aboard the William and Mary ship. She lived in Pennsylvania and New York, and as a young girl was taken captive by the Seneca. While not born a Seneca, Mary Jemison effectively became one through her captivity and adoption. She married two Native American men, and had several children.
Jemison told her story to minister James E. Seaver. By the time her story was published, she had been living with the Seneca for some sixty years. Because of this, her 1824 memoir may have assisted in the general interest in collecting Native stories in the 1830s and 1840s—although at the time, it was considered a classic of the captivity narrative genre. Her memoir, framed as it is by Seaver’s interviewing and editing, has many limitations. But it was hugely popular at the time of publishing, and has remained so to this day, with multiple editions and revisions.
Boston KING
Boston King, “Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher. Written by Himself, during his Residence at Kingswood-School,” Methodist Magazine, March-June 1798.
Boston King was born a slave on a plantation in South Carolina c. 1760. He joined the British forces in Charleston. He later travelled to New York where he married his wife Violet, an enslaved woman from North Carolina. The Kings were eventually granted their freedom, and were resettled by the British in Nova Scotia. There, King became a Methodist minister. In 1792, the Kings immigrated to Sierra Leone, however Violet died soon after their arrival. King continued to preach, went on to open a school, and was eventually sent to England to study at the Kingswood School. He died in Sierra Leone in 1802.
King wrote his account in 1796 while he was a resident at the Kingswood School in London, and it was published in instalments in Methodist Magazine in London. King’s narrative offers a prominent and well-documented example of a Black loyalist in this period. His memoir is also a kind of conversion narrative, which details his spiritual—as well as physical—journey to freedom.
Abraham LEGGETT
Charles I. Bushnell, ed., The Narrative of Major Abraham Leggett, of the Army of the Revolution, Now first Printed from the Original Manuscript, Written by Himself, New York: Privately Printed, 1865.
Abraham Leggett was born in Westchester Country in New York in 1755. Following his father’s death when he was 4 years old, he was left in the care of his grandfather and later his uncle. He was apprenticed out as a blacksmith at age 14, but did not enjoy the work. In 1776, he joined a volunteer company and fought in the Battle of Brooklyn, and was tempted to re-enlist in the Continental Army by the offer of a commission. In 1777 he was captured near Fort Montgomery, and was held in captivity until his exchange in 1781. He married twice, and had eleven children.
Leggett wrote his memoir at the request of his children, but did not live to complete it. In fact, he seems to have stopped halfway through his account, having primarily covered his wartime service and captivity. His son Abraham A. Leggett and editor Charles I. Bushnell decided to faithfully publish the section he did complete. What little else we know about Leggett’s life comes from a pension application, and from information Bushnell was told by Leggett’s sons. Leggett died in New York in 1842, aged 88.
Elizabeth LICHTENSTEIN JOHNSTON
Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston, Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist, New York: M.F. Mansfield & Co., 1901.
Elizabeth Lichtenstein was born in 1764. She was the daughter of a Russian immigrant, who was employed by the royal government in Georgia. In 1779 she married Captain William Martin Johnston, and went on to have ten children, although many did not survive infancy. During the War, the Johnstons moved to New York, then Savannah, and eventually Charleston, S.C., leaving only when the British evacuated the town. In 1784 they immigrated to Scotland where William completed his medical studies, and then moved to Jamaica. Following William’s death in 1806, Elizabeth moved to Nova Scotia. She died in 1848.
Lichtenstein Johnston wrote her narrative for her grandchildren in 1836, when she was 72 years old. Despite the distance to the events she described, she recalled the fear and betrayal of the Revolution vividly. Her memoir, which describes at one point how an old family friend headed the gang that came looking for her loyalist father, makes plain how the War tore apart communities, friendships, and families.
George LIELE
John Rippon, “An Account of several Baptist Churches, consisting chiefly of Negro Slaves: particularly of one at Kingston, in Jamaica; and another at Savannah in Georgia,” in Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Vincent Carretta, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996, 325-332. (Memoir originally published in 1793.)
George Liele was born into slavery in Virginia in 1752, but became a Baptist while enslaved in Georgia during the Revolutionary War. He was freed by his Baptist, and Loyalist, enslaver. Along with David George, Liele helped organise an early Baptist congregation in Savannah, Georgia before the end of the war, and then became one of the first Baptist missionaries in Jamaica. He died in 1828.
Liele gave a brief narration of his life story in a letter in 1791 from Kingston, but while it referenced the war and his owner’s death in battle, it largely focused on Liele’s spiritual journey and work in Jamaica. His account was eventually published in 1793 in the Baptist Annual Register. His title, “An Account of several Baptist Churches,” seemed to distance himself from an autobiography
Janet LIVINGSTON MONTGOMERY
Janet Livingston, “Reminiscences,” edited by John Ross Delafield, Year Book Dutchess County Historical Society, volume 15 (1930): 45-76.
Janet Livingston was born in 1743, to a wealthy New York family. She spent her youth on her family estate and learning family history from her grandparents. In 1773 she married Captain Richard Montgomery, and together they built a mill and stocked a farm on a section of her paternal grandparents’ estate. The Revolution came when Janet was 32 years old, and her husband was soon appointed a Brigadier General in the Continental Army. He died in 1775, in an ill-planned siege of the fortress of Quebec. Janet never remarried, and instead maintained her independence by acquiring a working farm at the age of 59. She died c. 1827.
Livingston Montgomery wrote her narrative in 1820, when she was 76 years old. She wrote in a series of letters to her much younger brother, and included numerous details of her early life and family for his benefit. Her letters were preserved by the family, and in 1930 they were published by the Dutchess Country Historical Society.
John MARRANT
Rev. William Aldridge, ed., A Narrative of the Lord’s wonderful dealings with John Marrant, a Black, (Now going to Preach the Gospel in Nova-Scotia), Born in New-York, in North-America. Taken down from his own Relation, in Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century, edited by Vincent Carretta, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996, 110-133. (Memoir originally published in 1785.)
John B. Marrant was a free Black from New York, born in 1755. As a child, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina with his family, and later lived with the Cherokee for two years. During the war, he was impressed in the Royal Navy and served as a musician, ending up in London. In 1785 he travelled to Nova Scotia, where he founded a Methodist church and married. He later settled in Boston, and returned to London in 1790, where he died in 1791.
Marrant’s narrative was taken down, arranged, and corrected by the Rev. William Aldridge in 1785, while Marrant was in England. His account focused on his spiritual journey, and especially his two year sojourn among the Cherokee and other Indians before the Revolution – in this, Marrant and his editor Aldridge might have had Indian captivity narratives in mind.
Joseph Plumb MARTIN
Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, edited by George F. Scheer, New York: New York Times, 1968. (Memoir originally published in 1830.)
Joseph Plumb Martin was born in 1760 in Massachusetts, to a substantial New England family. After his father ran into trouble, young Joseph grew up with his affluent grandparents in Connecticut. In 1776, aged 15, he enlisted in the Connecticut state troops for six months and served in New York. In 1777 he reenlisted for three years, although he ended up serving through to 1783. After the War he spent some time as a schoolteacher, before migrating to the Maine frontier where he and some 30 families created the new town of Frankfort. In 1794 he married Lucy Clewley, with whom he had five children.
Martin wrote his memoir at the age of 70. Although the published narrative made little impression at the time, he enjoyed local celebrity and status as an ageing war veteran. His narrative was rediscovered in the 1950s, and eventually edited and published by historian George F. Sheer in 1962. It has since been widely distributed and reprinted, and is one of the few memoirs regularly used by historians of the Revolution.
James MOODY
James Moody, Lieut. James Moody’s Narrative of his Exertions and Sufferings in the Cause of Government, Since the Year 1776; Authenticated by Proper Certificates, 2nd edition, London: Printed and sold by Richardson and Urquhart, 1783.
James Moody was born c. 1744, but we know very little about his early life. He married at age 22, and had three children born between 1768 and 1775. When the War broke out he tried to remain neutral, but after being accosted by a rebel party in 1777, he set out for British lines. He joined the New Jersey Volunteers, and his job was to recruit other loyalist volunteers. By 1780 he had gained a notorious reputation among rebels in New Jersey, and he was captured later that year. He managed to escape, and continued to serve the King. Following the war he received a yearly pension, and in 1786 he immigrated to Nova Scotia. He held a range of prominent positions including magistrate and was elected to the Assembly. He died in 1809.
Moody wrote his story in 1782, at the age of 38, making him one of the earlier memoir writers. He joined other loyalists who wrote their stories amidst frantic attempts to restore their fortunes following the War. The first edition of his account was printed as a pamphlet, but it was later reprinted with notes by editor Charles I. Bushnell.
Thomas PAINTER
Thomas Painter, Autobiography of Thomas Painter: Relating his Experiences during the War of the Revolution, [Washington, D.C.]: Printed for Private Circulation, 1910. (Memoir originally published in 1888.)
Thomas Painter was born in West Haven in 1760, and was still a child when his father, and then mother, died. Thomas ended up with his shoemaker uncle. When he turned 16 in 1776, he enlisted in the militia, and later in a company. He returned home briefly to continue his apprenticeship, before deciding to serve on a privateer, and later joining an artillery company in New Haven. After returning to privateering, he was captured and held on the Old Jersey. Following the War, he married and had nine children. He continued to dabble in sailing, and died c. 1848.
When he wrote his narrative in 1836, Painter was likely inspired by the pension he applied for in 1832. Painter was not interested in caring out a place for himself in the patriotic narrative of the past, and did not present his wartime service in a positive light. Like many others, he had an ambiguous relationship to the Revolution. Based on his writings before his death, it seems that he did not have any ambitions for his narrative to be widely known. However, it did begin to surface at the end of the nineteenth century, and was first published in the New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers in 1888.
Levi REDFIELD
A Succinct Account of Some Memorable Events and Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Levi Redfield, Late of Connecticut, Now Residing in Brattleboro, Ver. Written by HImself. Brattleborough: From the Press of B. Smead, 1798.
Levi Redfield was born in Connecticut in 1745, and recorded very little about his childhood. He turned 16 in 1761, and with his father’s consent enlisted to serve in the ongoing Seven Years’ War. He married Sybel Wilcox in 1765, and they had four children while Redfield commenced working as a music teacher. When news of Lexington and Concord arrived, Redfield was 30 years old and again enlisted, this time as a drum major. He served until 1782. Following the War, he moved his family to Brattleboro and later opened his own school in Mason, New Hampshire. He lived for another 40 years, to 1838, when he died at the age of 94.
We know very little about Redfield’s life beyond the details of his narrative, and those contained in his 1832 pension application. He was only of the earliest patriots to write his story, which he set out in 1798 at the age of 53. Redfield wrote that he wanted to create a record for his family and friends, but what compelled him to write his story so early—and not update it—is unclear.
Jacob RITTER
Joseph Foulke, ed., Memoirs of Jacob Ritter, A Faithful Minister in the Society of Friends, Philadelphia: T.E. Chapman, 1844.
Jacob Ritter was born in 1757 to German parents who came to Pennsylvania as indentured servants. He remained out of the War until 1776, when he joined a militia in his neighbourhood at age 20, Ritter regretted it almost immediately, and he suffered through the horror of the Battle of Brandywine. Though he doesn’t admit it, it is possible he deserted during or after the battle, but he was soon after captured by a party of Hessian soldiers. He recalled his captors beating him, threatening to kill him, and starving him. He was eventually released, apparently by using his local connections and family in Philadelphia. He never served again, instead marrying and starting a family, before becoming a Quaker. He lived quietly until his death in 1841 at age 84.
Ritter’s story is a conversion narrative that meanders through a series of anecdotes that illustrate his devotion to God, temperance, and pacifism. He sought God’s forgiveness, and also to forgive his enemies and captors. Ritter wrote his story c. 1828, and may have been inspired by the Jubilee celebrations of the Declaration of Independence two years earlier. From his narrative, it is clear that the Revolution was only important to him because it was a major step on his road to religious conversion.
Nathaniel SEGAR
Nathaniel Segar, A Brief Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Lt. Nathan’l Segar, who was Taken Prisoner by the Indians and Carried to Canada, during the Revolutionary War, Written by Himself. Paris, ME: Printed at the Observer Office, and Published at the Oxford Bookstore (1825).
Nathaniel Segar was born just outside of Boston c. 1755. In 1774, his family moved north to Maine, where Segar cleared the land for a few months before returning to Massachusetts. He enlisted following Lexington, and served at Prospect Hill, Connecticut, and New York. He suffered from sickness, but was not deterred from reenlisting at least three more times between 1777 and 1779. After this, he returned to Maine to clear the land and extend the town. In 1781, he was taken captive by Native Americans and taken to Montreal where he and his fellow captives were ransomed to the British. In 1782 they returned home to Bethel, where Segar married and had a large family on land dispossessed from their Native inhabitants.
Segar wrote out his story after being granted a pension in 1818, sometime before 1825. He wrote that he had not been adequately compensated for his wartime service, and complained about the hardships he had endured. When published, the unnamed editor of Segar’s autobiography emphasised his captivity and largely ignored his wartime service.
Andrew SHERBURNE
Andrew Sherburne, Memoirs of Andrew Sherburne: A Pensioner of the Navy of the Revolution, Written by Himself, Utica: William Williams, 1828.
Andrew Sherburne was born in Rye, New Hampshire in 1765. He was 9 years old when the British took Boston, and by age 13 had joined the navy. He worked first as a waiter, and was given a share of the goods captured by the privateer. In February 1780, he was caught in the British blockade of Charleston. Sherburne helped with efforts to defend the city, but was eventually captured by the British in May 1780. Under the terms of the capitulation, the officers and their waiters were paroled. They eventually travelled back to Newport, Rhode Island, although the men suffered from disease and malnutrition during the journey. After the war he became a Baptist preacher, and married twice, with six children in total. He died c. 1831.
Sherburne wrote his narrative in 1828, at age 63. He joined the War effort as a child, and therefore only half of his memoir is concerned with the Revolution. Despite this focus on his postwar years, Sherburne wrote that his intention was to offer a “plain, unvarnished tale” of the Revolution, and to convey the “price” of the freedom that Americans had since enjoyed. Sherburne may also have been motivated to write by his difficult financial situation. He noted that his children would inherit any sales from his book.
Daniel TRABUE
Lillie Du Puy Van Culin Harper, ed., Colonial Men and Times: Containing the Journal of Col. Daniel Trabue, Some Account of his Ancestry, Life and Travels in Virginia and the Present State of Kentucky during the Revolutionary Period […], Philadelphia: Innes & Sons, 1916. (Memoir originally published in 1879.)
Daniel Trabue was born in Virginia in 1760, into a family of fifteen children. He turned 16 in 1776, and resisted many calls to join the Continental Army. Instead he served several short tours in the local militia. Finally, in late 1777, and at the risk of being drafted, Trabue and his brother decided to enlist to receive the offered bounties of clothing, money, and the promise of land. He soon went west to Kentucky, and became embroiled in hostilities with local Indians. During the War he made a large profit by selling liquor, and he used this to buy a tract of land in Chesterfield County following the War, with his new wife. He eventually returned to Kentucky, and died at the age of 80, in 1840.
Trabue sat down to write his story in 1827, when he was a fairly obscure figure. Despite his early success, later in like he was bankrupt and homeless. He bequeathed his narrative to his grandson, and it was first partially printed in the Richmond Standard in 1879. A modern edition, edited by Chester Raymond Young, was published in 1981, and has been used by modern historians.
Daniel TUCKER
Daniel Tucker, Capt. Daniel Tucker in the Revolution: An Autobiographical Sketch, edited by E.C. Cummings, [Portland, ME, 1896].
Daniel Tucker of Portland, Maine was born in 1760. When the War broke out he enlisted in the army, before deciding to follow his older brother’s footsteps and become a privateer. He was taken captive at least twice, but still managed to use his privateering career as an apprenticeship for the merchant marine business in the postwar period. In 1782 he married, and eventually became a shipowner which allowed him to retire from seafaring in 1791. Among his many achievements, he was a selectman from 1791 to 1800, and served four years as a representative to the General Court. Following his first wife’s death, he remarried, and had a total of ten children. Tucker died in 1823, aged 63.
Tucker wrote his narrative in 1821, less than two years before his death. He set it out as part history, part memoir, which was a common trend among more elite writers. The manuscript was not published in his lifetime, and did not see the light of day until the Maine Historical Society published part of it c. 1896. The full manuscript was edited and published by E.C. Cummings shortly afterwards.
Felix WALKER
Clarence Griffin, ed., Revolutionary Service of Col. John Walker and Family and Memoirs of Hon. Felix Walker, Forest City, NC: The Forest City Courier, 1930.
Felix Walker was born in 1753, and moved with his family from Virginia to North Carolina when he was a child. There, they experienced hostilities and conflict with the powerful Cherokees, but Felix still grew up in relative affluence. He was bound out as an apprentice at the age of 15 or 16 to a merchant in Charleston, but when the war came in 1775, he headed west. He served several short tours of duty, trading on his father’s connections to secure a commission as a Lieutenant. Following the War he married twice, and moved around before settling in Rutherford, North Carolina. He was elected to the House of Commons, and served three terms in Congress as a Democratic-Republican, from 1817 to 1823. In 1820, he made an infamously poor speech in favour of the expansion of slavery. He moved to Mississippi in 1824, where he died four years later.
According to editor Clarence Griffin, Walker wrote his memoir in 1826, aged 73. It was not published until 1877 by his son Samuel Walker, who hinted that he had stitched together several different sets of writing. A second edition was published in 1930.