Excerpt from Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, During the War of the Revolution<br><br>The writer of the following pages wlas dandled upon the knee of a worthy sire, who had spent eight years of his life in the struggle for Independence, and taught me the name of Col. Bigelow, long before I was able to articulate his name Many have been the times, while sitting on my father's lap around the old hearthstone, now more than fifty years since, that I Iistened to affecting reminiscences of Col. Bigelow and others, until his voice would falter, and tears would flow down his aged and careworn face,_and then my mother and elder members of the fam ily would laugh, and inquire, 2' what is there in all of that, that should make you weepf. But I always rejoiced with him, and wept when I saw him weep. After the death Of my father, having engaged in the active scenes of 1ife,,those childish memories In some degree wore away, but the happiest moments of my life have been spent in company with some Old Revolutionary Patriot, while I listened to the recital of their sufferings and their final conquest. The first history of the American Revolution I ever read, is found in Morse's Geography, published in 1814. This I read until I had committed the whole to memory. The next was what may be found in Lincoln's History of Worcester, pub lished in 1836, and from which I have taken liberal extracts. The next is the History Of the War of Independence of the United States of America, written by Charles Botta, translated from the Italian by George Alexander Otis, in 1821 from this also, I have taken extracts. I have also consulted Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. In neither of these histories (except Lincoln's) does the name of Col. Bigelow occur. Therefore I have depended principally upon tradition, coming from his own brethren in arms, and corroborated by history.<br><br>It has been exceedingly difficult to trace the course and conduct of Col.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.