the cause, his words and calls upon the people were seldom
unheeded; and the people were generally as patriotic as their
governor. In the present crisis Connecticut sent to New York six
Continental battalions, seven of "new levies," and twelve of militia.
Her Continentals were commanded by Colonels Samuel Holden Parsons,[88]
of Lyme; Jedediah Huntington, of Lebanon; Samuel Wyllys, of Hartford;
Charles Webb, of Stamford; John Durkee, of Bean Hill, near Norwich;
and Andrew Ward,[89] of Guilford. The "levies" were the troops raised
in answer to the last call of Congress, and were commanded by Colonels
Gold Selleck Silliman, of Fairfield; Phillip Burr Bradley, of
Ridgefield; William Douglas, of Northford; Fisher Gay, of Farmington;
Samuel Selden, of Hadlyme; John Chester, of Wethersfield; and Comfort
Sage, of Middletown. Among these names will be recognized many which
represented some of the oldest and best families in the State. Wyllys
was a descendant of one of the founders of Hartford. His father held
the office of Secretary of State for sixty-one years; his grandfather
had held it before that, and after the Revolution the honor fell to
the colonel himself. The three held the office in succession for
ninety-eight years. Three members of this family, which is now
extinct, were in the army during this campaign, and two served with
honor through the war. From Lebanon came Colonel Jedediah Huntington
and his two brothers, Captains Joshua and Ebenezer. They were sons of
Jabez Huntington, who like Trumbull was a type of the patriotic
citizen of the Revolution. Although his business and property, as a
West India merchant, would be greatly endangered if not ruined by the
war, he and his family cheerfully ignored their personal interests in
their devotion to the common cause. The three brothers and their
brother-in-law, Colonel John Chester, served through the present
campaign as they had in the previous one, and two of them, Jedediah
and Ebenezer, fought to the end of the struggle. Parsons, who
subsequently rose to the rank of a Continental major-general, Wyllys
and Webb, were among those who pledged their individual credit to
carry out the successful enterprise against Ticonderoga in 1775. In
his section of the State few men were more influential than Colonel
Silliman, of Fairfield, where, before the war, he had held the office
of king's attorney. After the present campaign, in the course of which
he was more than once engaged