After the warning I just heard about “friends and enemies,” I was unsure how to describe my new duties so I said, “Sir, I won’t be able to work with David on the ferry for the near future as Captain Morgan has asked me to be of service to him for an uncertain duration.”

Mrs. Casselman suddenly wailed, “Oh no!” She leapt from the carriage, rushed around the rear of the transport, and put her arms around me. With tears streaming down her face, she implored her husband, “David, tell him he cannot do this! I won’t hear of it.”

Mr. Casselman said nothing and simply stared at his horses. In the back, David, Jr. drew up his legs and rested his head on his knees, his face turned away.

She looked up at me, grabbed my elbows at her arms’ length and said, her voice choked with emotion, “Nathanael, you must not do this. Your mother was one of my closest friends. She is gone. Now you have just lost your brother, Joshua. Your father is not here. You are too young. You must have your father’s permission for such a decision. Taking up arms to avenge your brother’s death is wrong!”

At this, her husband finally spoke. With great distress evident in his countenance, he said quietly, with formality, as though I was not even present, “Mrs. Casselman, young Nathanael is not a Quaker. You have had your way with our son, but Nathanael is not your responsibility. Please take your place beside me. We must be off.”

She released her grip on my arms, reached up, pulled my face down to hers, kissed me on the forehead, and said barely above a whisper, “May Almighty God protect you.”

Without another word spoken, I walked her around the tram and helped her into her seat. When she was situated, Mr. Casselman gently slapped the reins and they headed off through the meadow toward the road. As they pulled away, David Jr. glanced up for a moment and I could see tears streaming down his face.

Endnotes

1. In the days immediately after Lexington and Concord, Morgan and most members of the Colonial Secret Committees throughout the Colonies had only the information they received from Trusted Couriers dispatched from New England. Many of these reports varied widely as to the number of casualties and what had actually happened in the engagements.

To this day, the true number of combatants and the totals of killed, wounded, and missing on both sides in the 19 April 1775 engagements in Lexington and Concord and during the British retreat back to Boston remain in dispute. While Morgan erred in numbers, there is no doubt about the outcome of which he spoke at the Shenandoah Store on Monday 24 April 1775.