We find that the
accounts of British prisons are usually dismissed in a few words,
sometimes in an appendix, or a casual note. But history was ever
written thus. Great victories are elaborately described; and all the
pomp and circumstance of war is set down for our pleasure and
instruction. But it is due to the grand solemn muse of history, who
carries the torch of truth, that the other side, the horrors of war,
should be as faithfully delineated. Wars will not cease until the
lessons of their cruelty, their barbarity, and the dark trail of
suffering they leave behind them are deeply impressed upon the
mind. It is our painful task to go over the picture, putting in the
shadows as we see them, however gloomy may be the effect.
CHAPTER X
A BOY IN PRISON
In the winter of 1761 a boy was born in a German settlement near
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the third son of Henry Bedinger and his wife,
whose maiden name was Magdalene von Schlegel. These Germans, whom we
have already mentioned, moved, in 1762, to the neighborhood of the
little hamlet, then called Mecklenburg, Berkeley County,
Virginia. Afterwards the name of the town was changed to
Shepherdstown, in honor of its chief proprietor, Thomas Shepherd.
Daniel was a boy of fourteen when the first company of riflemen was
raised at Shepherdstown by the gallant young officer, Captain Hugh
Stephenson, in 1775.
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