Brothers of the Revolution
"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart has ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?" The Patriot
Sir Walter Scott
"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart has ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?" The Patriot
Sir Walter Scott
Bee-Line March
Siege of Boston
Holding Staten Island
Battle of Fort Washington
A Boy in Prison
Battles of Piscataway and Germantown
War on the Frontier
The Southern Campaign
Virginia Campaign and Siege of Yorktown
Reunion at Stephenson's Spring
This political cartoon from the 1754 edition of The Pennsyvlania Gazette and believed to have bee created by Benjamin Franklin originally appeared in the French and Indian War but was used again during the American Revolution to encourage the colonies to unite against the British rule. Credit: Library of Congress
In 1775 militia volunteers of Shepherdstown drilled at Stephenson’ Spring on the farm of Magdalene Bedinger under direction of Colonel Samuel Washington, who lived a few miles southwest of Shepherdstown at Harewood Plantation. Col. Samuel Washington was a brother of General George Washington who was selected by the Continental Congress to command the colonial forces. On the 14th of June 1775 the Continental Congress called for companies of expert riflemen to be raised to join George Washington’s Continental forces at Boston. The brothers Henry Bedinger(4) and George Michael Bedinger(6) readily enlisted for a year in Captain Hugh Stevenson’s rifle company. Stevenson’s company numbered 100 young and athletic men. They were skilled sharpshooters with their long flintlock rifles.
At first glance, it might seem incredible that 100 young men from Shepherdstown, a small hamlet on the frontier would at the first call abandon their livelihoods and take up arms to fight the mighty British, the force that had been the sovereign governing power for all their lives. Shepherdstown was on a principal trade route and at a well-used Potomac River crossing, Pack Horse Ford. News was not relayed rapidly but it was conveyed surely and the villagers had heard about the Boston Tea Party, decrees of the crown raising their taxes, Dunmore’s Proclamation of martial law, and the British Parliament’s claim of supreme authority over the American colonies. Unrest between the colonists and the British had been brewing for some time; measures taken by the British were heatedly debated in the homes, taverns and in the Virginia House of Burgesses. George Michael, Henry Bedinger and the other volunteers had without doubt had heard of the passion fomented by Patrick Henry when he exhorted to his fellow colonial patriots at the Virginia Convention of March 23, 1775 “Give me liberty or give me death!” In addition to Stevenson’s company enlisted in Shepherdstown, a company was organized by Captain Daniel Morgan of nearby Winchester. Two companies were formed in Maryland and six companies were organized in Pennsylvania.
There was some delay in outfitting the volunteers with rifles which were made by the gunsmiths in Shepherdstown. Henry Bedinger, years later wrote to the son of one of the volunteers, Samuel Finley.[i] “In the near time your father obtained from the gunsmith a remarkable neat light rifle the stock inlaid and ornamented with silver which he held until compelled as we were all of us to ground our arms in surrender to the enemy of the 18th day of November 1776.[ii]” Here Henry is speaking of the surrender of the colonial force at Fort Washington in New York.
Continuing with Henry Bedinger’s letter: “In our company were many young men of considerable fortune who generally entered from patriotic motives. A few days before we left Shepherdstown, Captain Stephenson and the other officers found it necessary in completing the organization of the Company to select four sergeants and insisted the Company should elect them from among themselves – to this the Company agreed. Your father was elected as 1st sergeant almost by acclamation. William Kelly stood next, Josiah Flagg 3rd, and me 4th. These small commissions were at the time not thought of much consequence, but it had in the end considerable bearing in the line of promotion the year following… A set of Corporals were also elected and had a like preference the year following.” George Michael Bedinger was elected corporal.
[i] Letter of Henry Bedinger to the son of Samuel Finley in Bedinger and Dandridge Family Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
[ii] Henry Bedinger is referring to the surrender of the American forces at Fort Washington, New York.
Continued: Go to Bee-Line March
At first glance, it might seem incredible that 100 young men from Shepherdstown, a small hamlet on the frontier would at the first call abandon their livelihoods and take up arms to fight the mighty British, the force that had been the sovereign governing power for all their lives. Shepherdstown was on a principal trade route and at a well-used Potomac River crossing, Pack Horse Ford. News was not relayed rapidly but it was conveyed surely and the villagers had heard about the Boston Tea Party, decrees of the crown raising their taxes, Dunmore’s Proclamation of martial law, and the British Parliament’s claim of supreme authority over the American colonies. Unrest between the colonists and the British had been brewing for some time; measures taken by the British were heatedly debated in the homes, taverns and in the Virginia House of Burgesses. George Michael, Henry Bedinger and the other volunteers had without doubt had heard of the passion fomented by Patrick Henry when he exhorted to his fellow colonial patriots at the Virginia Convention of March 23, 1775 “Give me liberty or give me death!” In addition to Stevenson’s company enlisted in Shepherdstown, a company was organized by Captain Daniel Morgan of nearby Winchester. Two companies were formed in Maryland and six companies were organized in Pennsylvania.
There was some delay in outfitting the volunteers with rifles which were made by the gunsmiths in Shepherdstown. Henry Bedinger, years later wrote to the son of one of the volunteers, Samuel Finley.[i] “In the near time your father obtained from the gunsmith a remarkable neat light rifle the stock inlaid and ornamented with silver which he held until compelled as we were all of us to ground our arms in surrender to the enemy of the 18th day of November 1776.[ii]” Here Henry is speaking of the surrender of the colonial force at Fort Washington in New York.
Continuing with Henry Bedinger’s letter: “In our company were many young men of considerable fortune who generally entered from patriotic motives. A few days before we left Shepherdstown, Captain Stephenson and the other officers found it necessary in completing the organization of the Company to select four sergeants and insisted the Company should elect them from among themselves – to this the Company agreed. Your father was elected as 1st sergeant almost by acclamation. William Kelly stood next, Josiah Flagg 3rd, and me 4th. These small commissions were at the time not thought of much consequence, but it had in the end considerable bearing in the line of promotion the year following… A set of Corporals were also elected and had a like preference the year following.” George Michael Bedinger was elected corporal.
[i] Letter of Henry Bedinger to the son of Samuel Finley in Bedinger and Dandridge Family Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
[ii] Henry Bedinger is referring to the surrender of the American forces at Fort Washington, New York.
Continued: Go to Bee-Line March