ichards was in Capt. Flagg's company, but after he returned,
concluding there was going to be "hot work," to use his own words forty
years afterwards, he turned over to the tories. The organization of the
army was immediately made at Cambridge, and Timothy Bigelow was
appointed Major in Colonel Jonathan Ward's regiment. In the autumn of
1775, Major Bigelow volunteered his services, with his men from
Worcester, in that expedition against Quebec, alike memorable for its
boldness of conception, the chivalrous daring of its execution, and its
melancholy failure. During their march from Cambridge to Quebec, Major
Bigelow and his noble band endured severe hardships, reduced by hunger
to the necessity of eating their camp dogs, and in their last extremity,
cutting their boots and shoes from their feet to sustain life. Had that
winter march through the wilderness been the exploit of a Grecian
phalanx or Roman legion, the narrative of suffering and danger would
have been long since celebrated in song and story.

One of the three divisions, penetrating through the forest by the route
of the Kennebec, was commanded by Major Bigelow; and during a day's halt
of the troops on this memorable march, Major Bigelow ascended a rugged
height about forty miles northwest from Norridgewock, for the purpose of
observation. This eminence still bears the name of Mount Bigelow. In the
attack on Quebec, on the night of the 31st of December, Major Bigelow
was taken prisoner, with those of his men who were not killed, and
remained in captivity until the summer of 1776.

IV.

MAJOR BIGELOW A PRISONER.

We left Major Bigelow a prisoner of war. Whether he was confined in
Canada, transported to Halifax, or placed aboard an English prison ship,
does not appear on the record. But tradition has it, that he went aboard
one of those tory vessels, so noted in the history of George the Third.
The severe treatment and cruelty he received here, did not cool his
ardor. His motto was, "I have not begun to fight yet." An exchange
having been effected in the summer of 1776, after an imprisonment of
seven months, he returned and was immediately called into the service
with the rank of lieutenant colonel; and the next February, he was
appointed colonel of the fifteenth regiment of the Massachusetts line in
the continental army. His regiment was composed principally of men from
Worcester, though there were some from Leicester, Auburn, Paxton and
Holden, and