r his command. This,
gentlemen, is the man who vanquished the former royalists in his own
native town. He marched the first company of minute men from Worcester
at the alarm from Lexington. He shared largely in the sufferings of the
campaign against Quebec, and was taken prisoner there. After his
exchange he raised a regiment in his own neighborhood, and joining the
northern army under Gen. Gates, participated in the struggle with
Burgoyne, and shares largely in the honor of that victory."

It was said by an eye-witness, that "this was an exceedingly interesting
and affecting event, and could not fail to satisfy every one of the high
estimation in which the commander-in-chief held Col. Bigelow."

The American army was now watching the movements of Sir William Howe,
commander of the British army, who soon landed his troops at the head of
Elk river, in two columns, the right commanded by Gen. Knyphausen, the
left by Lord Cornwallis. After several skirmishes, the two armies met
upon the banks of the Brandywine. In this battle, the Americans were
unsuccessful, and soon after the British army took possession of
Philadelphia, and the American army took their position at Germantown,
which is six miles northwest from Philadelphia. Here again the Americans
are repulsed, and each army retires to winter quarters, the British to
Philadelphia, the American to Valley Forge.

VI.

AT VALLEY FORGE.

Valley Forge is on the west side of the Schuylkill, twenty miles from
Philadelphia, and this is where Col. Bigelow spent the winter of
1777-78, with his regiment, and here is where the soldiers of freedom
suffered most intensely. The British general had derived no other fruit
from all his recent victories, than of having procured excellent winter
quarters for his army in Philadelphia. Here they spent the winter within
the splendid mansions of that city, feasting upon the best the country
afforded; while the American army were suffering in their mud huts, half
clothed, with famine staring them in the face. Many of the soldiers were
seen to drop dead with cold and hunger; others had their bare feet cut
by the ice, and left their tracks in blood. The American army exhibited
in their quarters at Valley Forge such examples of constancy and
resignation, as were never paralleled before. In such pressing danger of
famine and the dissolution of the army, mutiny appeared almost
inevitable. At this alarming crisis, Col. Bigelow had a part