The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775

The Military Journals of Two
Private
by Abraham Tomlinson

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Military Journals of Two Private
Soldiers, 1758-1775, by Abraham Tomlinson This eBook is for the use
of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 With
Numerous Illustrative Notes
Author: Abraham Tomlinson
Release Date: February 21, 2007 [EBook #20636]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY
JOURNALS OF TWO PRIVATE SOLDIERS ***

Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material from the
Google Print project.)

[Transcriber's note: Author's spelling has been retained.]
[Illustration: RUINS OF FORT TICONDEROGA (From Lossing's
Field Book of the Revolution.)]

THE
MILITARY JOURNALS
OF TWO
PRIVATE SOLDIERS,
1758--1775,

WITH
NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
A SUPPLEMENT,
CONTAINING
OFFICIAL PAPERS ON THE SKIRMISHES AT LEXINGTON AND
CONCORD.

POUGHKEEPSIE: PUBLISHED BY ABRAHAM TOMLINSON, AT
THE MUSEUM. 1855.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854,

By ABRAHAM TOMLINSON,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE. 13 Chambers Street, N. Y.
C. A. ALVORD, PRINTER, 29 Gold Street, N. Y.

ADVERTISEMENT.
Having been, for several years, engaged in the establishment of a
Museum in Poughkeepsie, I have, by extensive travel and research, and
by the kindness of many of my fellow-citizens in Dutchess county and
elsewhere, obtained numerous objects, not only curious in themselves,
but valuable as materials for history. Among these are two manuscript
Journals, kept by common soldiers, each during a single campaign, and
written at periods seventeen years apart. One of these soldiers served in
a campaign of the conflict known as the FRENCH AND INDIAN
WAR, which commenced a hundred years ago; the other soldier
assisted in the siege of Boston, by the American army, in 1775 and
1776. Believing that a faithful transcript of those Journals, given
verbatim et literatim, as recorded by the actors themselves, might have
an interest for American readers, as exhibiting the every-day life of a
common soldier in those wars which led to the founding of our republic,
I have yielded to the solicitations of friends, and the dictates of my own
judgment and feelings, and in the following pages present to the public
faithful copies of those diaries.
Perceiving that much of the intrinsic value of these Journals would
consist in a proper understanding of the historical facts to which
allusions are made in them, I prevailed upon Mr. LOSSING, the
well-known author of the "Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution" to
illustrate and elucidate these diaries by explanatory notes. His name is a
sufficient guaranty for their accuracy and general usefulness; and I

flatter myself that this little volume will not only amuse, but edify, and
that the useful objects aimed at in its publication will be fully attained.
With this hope, it is submitted to my fellow-citizens.
ABRAHAM TOMLINSON. POUGHKEEPSIE MUSEUM, December,
1854.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
The conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, and in
Europe as the Seven Years' War, originated in disputes between the
French and English colonists, in the New World, concerning territorial
limits. For a century the colonies of the two nations had been gradually
expanding and increasing in importance. The English, more than a
million in number, occupied the seaboard from the Penobscot to the St.
Mary's, a thousand miles in extent; all eastward of the great ranges of
the Alleganies, and far northward toward the St. Lawrence. The French,
not more than a hundred thousand strong, made settlements along the
St. Lawrence, the shores of the great lakes, on the Mississippi and its
tributaries, and upon the borders of the gulf of Mexico. They early
founded Detroit, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and New Orleans.
The English planted agricultural colonies--the French were chiefly
engaged in traffic with the Indians. This trade, and the operations of the
Jesuit missionaries, who were usually the self-denying pioneers of
commerce in its penetration of the wilderness, gave the French great
influence over the tribes of a vast extent of country lying in the rear of
the English settlements.
The ancient quarrel between the two nations, originating far back in the
feudal ages, and kept alive by subsequent collisions, burned vigorously
in the bosoms of the respective colonists in America, where it was
continually fed by frequent hostilities on frontier ground. They had
ever regarded each other with extreme jealousy,