DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit:

DISTRICT CLERK'S OFFICE.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the tenth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, and in the fiftyfirst year of the Independence of the United States of America, COTTONS & BARNARD, of the said District, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

"A Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783, describing Interesting Events and Transactions of this Period; with numerous Historical Facts and Anecdotes, from the original Manuscript. To which is Second Edition, added, an Appendix, containing Biographical Sketches of several General Officers. By James Thacher, M. D. late Surgeon in the American Army. 'As Americans we hail with delight any attempt to rescue revised and corrected. from oblivion the words or actions of those whose names we have been taught to

revere.

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled," An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned :" and also to an Act entitled, "an Act supplementary to an Act entitled, An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the times therein JOHN W. DAVIS. mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching Historical and other Prints."

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

DEDICATION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY, JOHN BROOKS, ESQUIRE,

GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Ir is with peculiar felicity that your Excellency is recognized as one among the few survivors of that heroic band, who have been crowned with military honors for glorious achievements at an era when our republic was in its infancy, and in peril for its existence. This production, though aspiring not to the dignified title of history, may revive in your recollection scenes and events of the deepest interest, in which you nobly participated, and may afford to the rising generation lessons of instruction and motives for gratitude to their progenitors, when we shall be at rest. Long may those public virtues and that philanthropy, which are so eminently your characteristics, continue to cement the love and gratitude of the people, and may the benedictions of Heaven be your final reward. With sentiments of profound veneration for the patriotic warrior and statesman, this work is dedicated,

By your Excellency's obedient,

and very humble servant,

Plymouth, January 1st, 1823.

JAMES THACHER.

The following is a correct copy of a letter from the late President Adams to the author. To a suggestion whether the words " I have seen in any history of that period," were not too strong, the venerable writer, with some warmth, insisted that they were true, and would make no alteration, saying he wrote them expressly for publication.

DEAR SIR,

Quincy, 11th September, 1824.

I have had read to me your valuable Journal of your campaigns in the American revolutionary war, and I have no hesitation in saying that it is the most natural, simple, and faithful narration of facts that I have seen in any history of that period. It preserves the memory of many men and many facts of which I was wholly ignorant until I heard that book read to me; particularly the conduct and character of General Peter Muhlenburg, of Pennsylvania, who in the collisions and conflicts of party spirit has not had justice done him in this country. As I was absent in Europe a great part of the time which your Journal embraces, I was necessarily uninformed of many particulars which your work has cleared up. Posterity will be under great obligations to you for this labor, and every man of the present age who can afford to purchase it, ought to have it.

DR. JAMES THACHER,

Plymouth.

I

am, Sir, your obliged humble servant,

JOHN ADAMS.

INTRODUCTION.

It is through your earnest solicitations, my dear friends, that I commit to public inspection the crude fragments recorded in my Military Journal, kept during the American Revolutionary War. The subordinate station which I sustained did not permit access to the great source from which all important events derived their origin; nor was I made acquainted with the views and motives of action. The transactions and occurrences which I shall relate, though of minor import and penned for temporary amusement, are nevertheless of a nature too deeply interesting to be consigned to oblivion. No circumstance pertaining to our country's emancipation, but should be embalmed in the memory of our children, and transmitted to the latest posterity, as among the most interesting transactions recorded in the annals of man. When we contemplate the vastly extended consequences of our revolution, it will be conceded that every incident respecting its rise and progress, and the renowned patriots and heroes by whom it was achieved, is well worthy of perpetual remembrance. With these are associated the primary principles of the rights of man.

which so successfully prevailed at the period of our country's infancy, Those principles, which are the great spring of action in the bosom of the honest patriot, spurn the power and paralyze the hearts of tyrants. The contents of these sheets refer more to details of military manœuvres and the internal police of camps, than to projects and events which decide the fate of nations; they may, however, afford amusement to the inquisitive mind, and to the rising generation, precepts not altogether destitute of importance and useful instruction. They will disclose some interesting particulars, not generally known, and may serve to augment the stock of information developing the fatal policy of the British government, as displayed on the theatre of her American colonies. This production may moreover subserve the purpose of an epitome of the history of the revolutionary contest, and abridge in some measure the labor of the youthful mind in the study of the more elaborate and technical histories of that ever memorable epoch. With this view I have prefixed a short sketch of interesting transactions prior to the actual commencement of hostilities. "History," says a late elegant writer, "presents no struggle for liberty, which has in it more of the moral sublime, than that of the American revolution. It has been of late years too much forgotten in the sharp contentions of party, and he who endeavors to withdraw the public mind from these debasing conflicts, and to fix it on the grandeur of that epoch, which, magnificent in itself, begins now to wear the solemn livery of antiquity, as it is viewed through the deepening twilight of al