Professor James Leamon explores the significance of a series of letters from William Bayley, a Revolutionary War soldier, to his mother in Falmouth (Portland).
Leamon, professor emeritus of Early American History at Bates College, is the author of The Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine (The University of Massachusetts, 1993). He also is co-editor of Maine in the Early Republic (The University of New England Press, 1988) and a contributor to Maine: The Pine Tree State (The University of Maine Press, 1995).
Click on the play button to hear Professor's Leamon's introduction to this collection of documents:
Transcription of Leamon's comments:
The sixteen documents in the William Bayley collection offer insights into the military career of William Bayley of Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, a common soldier who served in the American army during most of the Revolution. Letters from William to his mother back home in Falmouth constitute the bulk of the collection, which includes only one from the many that Mrs. Jean Bayley wrote to her solider son. Nonetheless, these documents are as revealing of life on the home front as they are of life in the military, and collectively reveal much about the impact of the war on family relationships.
