Journal Chapters (My Brother Sam is Dead)

Edison Kim 8E

Chapter 1

• Sam comes home from Yale University. He is satisfied from the news he heard about the war against the British. Sam wants to fight and join the army because he wants freedom.

• Sam is trying to achieve the Brown Bess, a gun who is in possession of Sam’s father. Sam’s father doesn’t want Sam to go to war and they start arguing.

• Sam’s father was crying after they ended the argument. Tim doesn’t want Sam to go to war as well.

Chapter 2

• Tim goes and makes friends at the church. Tim goes to Besty Read for fun and finds out that Sam was with her. Tim asks Sam about if he’s actually going to war.

• Tim tells Sam not to go to war, and says it is too dangerous. Sam disagrees with Tim. Sam and Besty recommends Tim to work as a news reporter.

• If there’s any news, then Tim would tell Sam and Besty. Sam leaves his hometown and marches to war. He’s been missing for a very long time.

Chapter 3

• Tim asks Besty Reed if she thinks Sam would return home soon. Besty Reed tells Tim that Sam will arrive home very soon every time Tim asks her.

• Tim gets worried since Sam isn’t coming. Besty encouraged Tim that Sam will be okay. Tim felt a little better after Besty encouraged Tim about Sam coming home very soon.

• Few months later, Tim hears the news from Besty that Sam is returning home. Tim was very excited about Sam coming home.

Chapter 4

• Tim is doing his chores and wants to make an excuse to his father so he doesn’t have to do it and go to Besty Read and find out where Sam is. He was chopping down wood while he was thinking of his excuse.

• While Tim is thinking of his excuse, he heard horses galloping to his hometown and the galloping started to get louder and louder. Tim sees that they are Continentals. They went into Tim’s house and asked Father for the Brown Bess. Father said that his son took it to use it for war.

• Tim got scared because he was afraid that the Continentals will kill Father, so he ran to Sam as fast he could so he can steal the Brown Bess and give it to Father. Sam catches Tim from his sleep and chases Tim for the gun. They fought over the gun and Tim warned Sam about Father. Sam and Tim went to Father and found out that the Continentals were gone.

Chapter 5

• Tim continues to work on his chores. He milks Old Pru and thinks about Sam milking Old Pru and admiring him and thinking how clever he was. One day, Mr. Heron, a surveyor comes into the tavern with Tom Warrups.

• Father was glad to see Mr. Heron and had conversations about their life. Few minutes later, Mr. Heron asks Tim if he would like to work for him and earn some money. Tim accepts Mr Heron’s request and does want to earn money.

• Father, on the other hand disagrees that Tim shouldn’t join Mr. Heron’s request. After Mr. Heron and Tom left, Father tells Tim that Mr. Heron is up to something.

Chapter 6

• Tim really wants to work for Mr. Heron on the business letters, so he thinks of an idea. His idea was to tell Father that he is going to go fishing early in the morning and Father says yes.

• In the morning, Tim wakes up early and goes out with his fishing rods so Father don’t get suspicious. Tim walks to Mr. Heron’s house and goes into the house. Mr. Heron writes something on the letter and tells Tim to send it to Mr. Burr.

• Tim goes out of the house and walks to Mr. Burr. While he was walking, he sees Besty Reed. Besty is curious what that letter was for. She wants to see it, but Tim didn’t let him, so they fought for the letter. Besty took the letter and opened it. She reads it and runs away. The letter says, “If this message is received, we will know that the messenger is reliable.”

Chapter 7

• Tim now stays away from Mr. Heron and Tim wonders why Mr. Heron isn’t talking about the letter. Mother receives two letters from Sam telling what is going on in war. Father and Mother was arguing about replying to Sam or not. Mother wins the argument and replies to Sam.

• It is becoming winter and it is getting cold. Food was running scarce and Father had to sell some cattle in New York to get some rum and money. Father and Tim takes the flock of cattle with a wagon.

• While they were going, they meet some men with muskets, pistols, swords, and with their horses. Father calls them Cow-boys. The men were hostile looking and tells Tim to go to the field. Father talked to the Cow-boys and the Cow-boys hit Father. Tim was going to get help, but a dozen other troops came and the Cow-boys ran away. The troops calls them Cattle Thieves.

Chapter 8

• Tim and Father hangs around with his friends and their cousins. They travel together to go to New York. They need escorts to travel because if they were alone, cattle thieves will show up and might kill the Tim’s family. Their destination is Verplanks Point.

• They come up to the Hudson River and it was one of the biggest river. Tim wishes he would live near the river. They see fishermen fishing in the river. They sleep in a tavern and plans to go home.

• While they were going home, snow began to fall and it became more harder to travel with the oxen. They sleep in icy huts and they didn’t make it to their tavern yet.

Chapter 9

• Tim and Father kept on moving with their oxen and wagon. Father scouted two miles up ahead with his horse to look for any cow-boys. If there were any cow-boys, then Father would shout and tell Tim to hide with the wagon in the woods.

• While they were making their voyage home to the tavern, Father scouted ahead and didn’t come back to see how Tim was doing for a while. Tim got frightened and thought that Father was captured by the cow-boys. He stopped the oxen and went up the road following Father’s footprints.

• The sun was setting and it was getting dark and cold. Tim didn’t know what to do and he saw cow-boys up ahead. He had to lie saying that he was looking for escorts. While Tim was talking to the cow-boys, other riders came up ahead and the cow-boys ran away. Tim later had finally got to the tavern.

Chapter 10

• Once Tim got to the tavern, he went to bed straight away because he was so tired. His mother let him sleep through the morning. Now, Father and Sam was missing. Tim had to do lots of chores since Father was missing. Tim missed Father and he was getting sick of half the family missing. Tim imagined Father returning back to the tavern.

• While Tim was working on his chores, he heard horses galloping and suddenly, it got louder and louder. An army of British soldiers were marching on the road. While they were marching, they were going into the Mr. Heron’s house. The British troops took Jerry because they thought that he was with a rebel who was Mr. Heron.

• Half an hour later, they British troops shot the messenger on his horse and the messenger fell off. Then, the troops marched forward. Tim was following the British. Later, the Rebels and the British started to fire one another. Captain Starr and Ned was one of the Rebels. Later, Tim saw the British officer behead Ned. Tim later vomited and ran straight to the tavern.

Chapter 11

• When Sam arrived home, the wounded man was checked by Dr. Hobart. The man said he took the ball from the British troops. The man was talking about the news about the British going after the munitions stored in Danbury. The man came into Tim’s tavern and fell asleep.

• Few minutes later, rain began to fall and night arrived. Then, Tim started to hear another marching sound and it became louder and louder. Tim looked out the window and found out that it was the Continentals. Few seconds later, two generals and some aides came into the tavern and asked for food. Tim knew that Sam was around because he worked for the Continentals.

• Tim finally got out of the tavern and walked to the church and asked one of the soldiers about where Sam was. One soldier got into the church and brought Sam. Tim and Sam embraced and were happy to see each other. Tim brought Mother and had an argument about Sam coming home or not. Sam disagreed and told Mother that he was going to fight until the British were beaten.

Chapter 12

• Tim and Mother found out that Father was dead. He was locked in a British ship and died from a disease. Tim also found out that Jerry died as well. Sam found out as well that his father had died. Winter was going and passing by.

• In December 1778, Sam came back to the tavern and embraced his family. Tim and Mother needed some food and money. They got 8 cows and was thinking about if they should butcher or get meat for themselves. Sam told Tim and Mother that he and his soldiers will be making a hut. Sam said that he will be seeing Tim and Mother more often.

• Sam and Tim was discussing about the 8 cows. Drunken soldiers can steal the cows without thinking. While they were discussing, they heard an abrupt noise that came from the tavern. In the tavern, four cows were taken. Later, Sam was taken as a hostage from the cattle thieves.

Chapter 13

• Tim went to Colonel Parsons about Sam, but Colonel Parsons told Tim to come back in the morning. Tim went to Colonel Parsons next morning. Tim had a conversation with Colonel Parsons that Sam was innocent and he didn’t steal any cattle. Tim told Mother and Mother was getting worried so he went to Colonel Parsons.

• Later, Mother came back and with Colonel Parsons and General Putnam. The two of them explained to Mother and Tim that Sam will be executed by getting accused of stealing the cattles. Mother and Tim told them that he was innocent and it is not true. The Colonel and General said no and left.

• Tim got furious, so he went to Colonel Parsons the next day. Tim told Colonel Parsons over and over again about Sam and finally, he told Tim to go see General Putnam. The Colonel wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to the soldier and told the soldier to go see General Putnam. Tim and the soldier went into the encampment. The soldier told Tim to wait and an hour had past. Tim went inside and saw General Putnam. Tim told General Putnam once again about Sam being not guilty. So, General Putname told Tim to go see Sam. Sam was glad to see Tim and was happy that Tim was doing his job to make Sam not get executed.

Chapter 14

• Colonel Read and General Putnam came to Tim and stated that war is never fair and by asking who chooses which men get killed and which ones don’t. Tim cried in the balcony because of his anger. He had memories of Sam sitting with Tim in the balcony a hundred times.

• During the night, Tim told Mother that he was going to save Sam. So, Tim took a bayonet which was in possession of Father and went outside to the encampment. He saw a guard and tried to kill him with the bayonet, but he couldn’t. Tim got caught by waking the guard up and ran away home and obtained a wound on the top of his left shoulder from the bullet.

• Tim went back to the encampment the next morning to see Sam’s execution. Mother didn’t go because he couldn’t bear to watch. Tim saw the prisoners coming out. One got killed from getting hanged by the rope with a bag covering his face. Finally, Sam had a bag over his face and was standing in the front of the soldiers. The soldiers pointed the musket at him and shot him. One soldier shot him once more and then Sam had finally perished.