Jack Mulgrew is my name, and I live near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Ive seen 30 years in this world, 26 of them a farmer or
farmers son. The other 4 were spent a private fighting in
the Continental
Army for American independence from England. I enlisted
in 1777, in my 16th year, in the spring after planting.The Continental
Congress, our new government, promised me land when our
freedom was won. But by the end of the war, I was penniless, and
I had to sell the land they offered me. Now, I farm the land of
my father, which will be mine on his passing. I do not regret
my time with the army. It is my great reward to live in a land
that is free and to be able to say in truth that I had a hand
in making it so.
It was my good fortune to be at Yorktown, Virginia, where the
Continental Army dealt British general Cornwallis
his final defeat, and to live to tell of it. I kept a diary
to record the events, great and small, that I witnessed or heard
of. Here is my accounting of those days.
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Original of the Spirit of '76 hangs in the
Selectman's Room, Abbott Hall,
Marblehead, Massachusetts |