What a great change has taken place in so short space of time.

Soon after I returned from my western trip, there began to be a great
excitement throughout the land, about the war. It was proposed by the
Governor of Connecticut, John Cotton Smith, of Sharon, to raise one or
two regiments of State troops to defend it in case of invasion. One
Company of one hundred men, was raised in the towns of Waterbury,
Watertown, Middlebury, Plymouth and Bethlem, and John Buckingham chosen
Captain, who is now living in Waterbury; the other commissioned officers
of the company, were Jas. M.L. Scovill, of Waterbury, and Joseph H.
Bellamy, of Bethlem. The company being composed of young men, and I
being about the right age, had of course to be one of them.

Early in the Summer of 1813, the British fleet run two of our ships of
war up the Thames River, near New London. Their ships being so large
could not enter, but lay at its mouth. Their presence so near greatly
alarmed the citizens of that city, and in fact, all of the people in the
eastern part of the State. Our regiment was ordered to be ready to start
for New London by the first of August. The Plymouth company was called
together on Sunday, which was the first of August, and exercised on the
Green in front of the church, in the fore part of the day. This unusual
occurrence of a military display on the Sabbath greatly alarmed the good
people of the congregation, but it really was a case of necessity, we
were preparing to defend our homes from a foreign foe.

In the afternoon we attended church in a body, wearing our uniforms, to
the wonder and astonishment of boys, but terrible to the old people. On
Monday morning we started on a march to Hartford, sleeping that night in
a barn, in the eastern part of Farmington, and reaching Hartford the
next day, where we joined the other companies, and all started for New