America The Beautiful, an Oral History of the War for Independence.
When I received my assignment I had extremely mixed feelings about it. I was a bit recognizable among the American leaders due to the fact that I was a part of some of the first planning taking place with the Sons of Liberty. For the most part I was the secretary. I studied at one of the universities that Franklin helped set up and I was young and a bit foolish at the time. Despite my fervor though I still had to keep a level head about me. As the note keeper for all of those meetings I was a prime target for those first few months. It really does pain me to think about all of those documents that I had to burn to keep away from the British. I was able to evade capture but not after a few close calls.
For the most part during the war I was simply a secretary for the important people at the Continental Congress. I went to balls and was invited to tea but I never really got to know any of them very well. I knew of some secretaries who would know all about their clients little secrets but I was taught totally differently growing up. I was too professional for that.
On the other hand I grew to love the soldiers. Anytime they were in Philadelphia the pubs were almost bursting from the seams. I would love to talk to men from all over everywhere from the Americas. Even during the British occupation I would fraternize with the redcoats. That was hard because it gave me a face to think of. When I would hear about the atrocities that the British were doing I would almost be brought to tears hoping it wasn't someone I had met. One man, his name was George Forrwell, he was a sergeant. He could read and write, so he had many letters from his wife Rachel. When I heard that he had died fighting in Virginia I sent his wife some money. I never really knew if it got to her in England.
So when my orders came from the Congressional Committee on war I was both overjoyed and yet depressed. They wanted me to go and talk to a diverse group of people to get their take on the war so that when we fight more we can do the things we did right and avoid what we didn't. I was actually surprised since I thought they would send me to collect information on veterans, families, or bonds, but I was assured that the massive bureaucracy that the war made could handle that and my job was to be solely objective. So therefor off I went to see what humans had to say about the war and not just news articles and numbers.