James Lincoln Collier > Quotes

“We woke up before the sun, hitched the oxen to the wagon, herded the cattle out of the Platt’s pasture where they had spent the night, and started off again on the road toward Peekskill. Peekskill was on the Hudson River. We would turn south there and go down the river about five miles to Verplancks Point. From North Salem to Peekskill was more than twenty miles. It would take us all day to make fifteen miles to our next stop, Father’s friends south of Mohegan. We were supposed to pick up another escort. I hoped we would find it soon. I didn’t like traveling through this country alone, and I kept looking around all the time for galloping horsemen.”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“But nobody was really desperate.”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“It was so beautiful I could hardly keep my eyes off it. “Father, it’s so big,” I said. He grinned. “This is nothing, Tim. Wait till we get down to Verplancks”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“Sometimes Father brought home Rivington’s Gazette from Verplancks. It was a Tory paper and he wasn’t supposed to have it; it was illegal, so he kept it hidden. It made me wonder how the war was going to make us freer if you couldn’t read any paper you wanted any more.”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“ELIPHALET,”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“In Connecticut we had freedom of religion so you could belong to any church you wanted, unless you were a Papist.”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

“Do you want to know what General Putnam is thinking? It’s this. He’s thinking that he can’t win the war if he doesn’t keep the people on his side. He’s thinking that he can’t keep the people on his side if the troops are running amok among the civilian population—raping the women, stealing cattle, burning houses. He is determined to scare the wits out of the troops to keep them in line. And he’s thinking that it doesn’t matter very much who he executes to do it. So many men have died, so many mothers have wept, so many brothers and sisters have cried. He is thinking that in the long run if he executes somebody, he’ll shorten the war and save more lives. It doesn’t matter to him very much who he executes; one man’s agony is like another’s, one mother’s tears are no wetter than anybody else’s. And that’s why he’s going to have Sam shot.”
― James Lincoln Collier, My Brother Sam Is Dead

“If we haven't got time to pray to The Lord for help then we haven't got much time at all do we?”
― James Lincoln Collier