active duties of the war. preparation of soldiers for the field. With recovering health came the old ardor for active service in the camp. Solicited personally by Washington during the close of the year 1776 to take command of a regiment during the ensuing campaign, Pomeroy determined to enter again into the 1777, he left Northampton for the division In January, of the northern army, then stationed at Peekskill under the command of Gen. M'Dougal. "I know not," were his favorite words to his family, "I know not whether it be God's will that I should return home again, but it is of little matter, provided I am doing His work." It is no mean illustration of the zeal of the Americans in behalf of their cause, that an old man of seventy-one years, worn out in the fatigues of military service for more than a third of a century, should again buckle on his armor for the contest. The usual stimulants to military ardor in the human breast, do not often outlive the prime of life. It is not the nature of old age to look forward to the honors and emoluments of toil and danger, but to seek its enjoyment and repose in the recollections of the past. A higher motive must be sought, than any which the camp, or the field of battle, or the love of power, can produce, in a case like this. That motive is to be found only in the righteous cause for which our fathers contended. "That is no mean cause," said his minister on the Sabbath after he left, "that is no mean cause which can call the young man from his pleasures, and the man of middle age from his family, to the field of strife and carnage; but that cause which enlists in its behalf the toil and labor of gray hairs, inducing it to sacrifice the love of quiet, the infirmities of years, and the need of repose, to its country's good, must be the cause of God." There are but few letters preserved, written by the old man after his re-enlistment to the army. Indeed he could have written but few, as he lived but four weeks after he bade farewell to his family. With a single one of these, we will close our already too protracted notice: "Peekskill, Feb. 11th, 1777. "DEAR SON-I have once more an oppor tunity to write from this place, which will be understand this day, that some of the prisoners the last, as I design to-morrow or the day after to set out for Morristown in the Jerseys. I whom Lieut. Brown went up with, are sent to Northampton. If there should be a smith among them, I should be glad to have you try him at the smith's business, or you may find of the continental army gets along in the one who will suit for the husbandry business. "I should be glad to hear how the filling up that they fill up fast towards Boston. I hope county of Hampshire. It is reported here, it is true. "I have nothing special more than you will see in the papers. I am sorry upon one account to leave this place, and that is the friendship of Gen. M'Dougal towards me. I hope I may find those who have the command the same wherever I go. 1 are engaged in is just, and the call I have to it "I go cheerfully, for I am sure the cause we is clear, and the call of God. With that assurance, who would not go on cheerfully, and confront every danger? 66 namesake, who I suppose has got home. My My compliments to Deacon Hunt, and my love to all the family. From your loving father, SETH POMEROY. kill. There was living a few years ago General Pomeroy was buried at Peeks venerable lady, sister to the late Pierre Van Cortland, who remembered to have watched, when a child, the funeral proces sion which followed the old soldier to the grave, and to have seen through the trees the place where they buried him, I not possible at this day to identify the spot. His bones lie somewhere within the precincts of the old churchyard in Peek kill, mingling with other human dust. Is character upon the age in which he lived. matters not. He left the impress of has and its features are not lost upon the gen erations which have followed. N. S. D. HON. JOSEPH R. UNDERWOOD. | a large family of children to provide for, were induced to commit him to his maternal uncle, Edmund Rogers, who, shortly after the Revolutionary War, (in which he was a gallant soldier, and engaged in several battles,) emigrated to Kentucky, and became a locator and surveyor of land warrants, by which he secured a handsome estate. JOSEPH ROGERS UNDERWOOD was born in Goochland county, Virginia, on the 24th day of October, 1791. He was the eldest | of eight children of John Underwood, who frequently represented that county in the Legislature. The name of Senator Underwood's grandfather was Thomas, and that of his great-grandfather, William Thomas Underwood. The last emigrated from England as a merchant's clerk, when quite Mr. Rogers conducted his youthful a boy, in the latter part of the seventeenth charge to Barren county, Kentucky, in the century. He had two wives: the last, spring of 1803, and nobly did he fulfil the whose maiden name was Taylor, was the promise made to the parents of the little mother of Thomas Underwood, who rep-boy "to be unto him as a father." The resented the county of Goochland in the Green river country in Kentucky, in which Legislature of Virginia ten years, begin he had settled, was then a wilderness, and ning in 1777 and ending in 1790; a contained but few schools, and those not period when it may be safely affirmed that of the best class. Joseph was placed at no man, unless he possessed a clear head school, near the town of Glasgow, with the and sound heart, was likely to be trusted. Rev. John Howe, a Presbyterian minister, Thomas Underwood, the grandfather, also and under his tuition commenced learning had two wives. The second, whose maid- | the Latin language. After remaining with en name was Taylor, was the mother of him a year, he was transferred from place nine children, among whom John was the to place, and put under the charge of second child. Thus, by a double con- various teachers in different parts of the nection, Judge Underwood is related to State, as suited the means and arrangethat very numerous family of Taylors who ments of his uncle, until, having been preinhabit the low lands of Virginia. On the pared for college, he was sent to Transylmother's side, Judge Underwood is de- vania University, where he completed his scended from the Rogers and Pollard scholastic course in the year 1811. On families. His maternal ancestors have re- leaving the University, he commenced the sided in Virginia from the earliest periods study of law in Lexington with Robert of the colony. His mother was Frances Wickliffe, Esq., and under the instructions Rogers, daughter of George Rogers and of this learned and accomplished lawyer, Frances Pollard. His great-grandfather, he finished the course of elementary readJoseph Pollard, and his wife, lived until ing. they were about ninety-three years of age, and were man and wife more than seventy years. Senator Underwood was named for his maternal uncle, Joseph Rogers, who went with his cousin, Gen. George Rogers Clark, to Kentucky at an early period, was captured by the Indians near Maysville, and subsequently killed at the battle of Piqua Plains in attempting to make his escape from them. The parents of Senator Underwood being in humble circumstances, and having About this time Kentucky was thrown into great excitement by the war with Great Britain, then raging with violence on the Canada border. The melancholy affair of the River Raisin had deprived the State of some of its best citizens, and plunged the commonwealth in mourning. The impulse to arms was universal, and pervaded all classes. With a mind imbued, by the teachings of his uncle, with strong admiration for military achievements, it was not to be expected that young Underwood should remain an indifferent specta tor of the martial preparations around him. In March, 1813, a company of volunteers being about to be raised in Lexington, to be commanded by John C. Morrison, two regiments of militia, which were to supply the number of men required, were drawn up in parallel lines, and a stand of colors planted in the centre. Those who designed to volunteer, were requested, at the beat of the drum, to march to the colors. Young Underwood was the first to reach and raise the stars and stripes, and bearing them aloft, marched after the musicians along the lines, other volunteers falling in as he passed. This little, but prompt incident, stranger as he was among the young men who volunteered on that occasion, led to the election of Mr. Underwood as the Lieutenant of the company. A gentleman, much Mr. Underwood's senior, then holding a military commission, tendered his services. The privilege was conceded to the volunteers of electing their own officers. When the election for the Lieutenancy was about to commence, a voice in the ranks was heard exclaiming, "Where is the man who carried the colors? Let's elect him." Upon this, young Underwood stepped forward and said to the company, he should be happy to serve them if thought worthy. The voters formed two lines, Mr. Underwood and his competitor being at the head of their respective supporters. On counting the votes, the numbers were found to be precisely equal. It was agreed to decide the matter by lot. The competitor of Mr. Underwood threw up the dollar. He cried heads, and so it fell. Those who voted against him immediately surrounded him. in the best humor, saying, "It's all right; we'll now go for him who has luck on his side." Isaac Shelby was then Governor of Kentucky, and signed the first commission that Mr. Underwood ever held in the service of his country. The company was attached to the thirteenth regiment, commanded by Col. William Dudley, constituting part of Gen. Green Clay's brigade. On the 5th of May, 1813, Dudley's regiment was defeated and captured by the combined British and Indian forces opposite Fort Meigs. After taking the British battery, which the regiment was ordered to most imprudently, and in direct violation of Gen. Harrison's orders, instead of returning to the boats, and crossing the river to Fort Meigs, the regiment pursued the retreating Indians and Canadian militia into the woods. These kept up a retreating fire, and were rapidly reinforced. The pursuit continued about two miles, the Indians contesting every inch of ground, sheltering themselves behind trees and logs, and shooting down the Kentuckians as they advanced. When the regiment charged upon the foe in their ambuscades, as soon as they fired, they would retreat, load, take new positions, and again shoot from behind trees and logs, on the advancing regiment. In this manner the fight continued for many hours. At length orders were given to retreat to the captured battery, which had been left in charge of two companies; where, instead of finding friends and companions, the regiment met foes. A detachment of the British army had retaken the battery and driven the two companies to their boats; and, as if anticipating what would happen, waited the arrival of the retreating regiment, which, coming up in disorder, was incapable of resistance and surrendered. In the battle, Captain Morrison was killed, and the command of the company devolved upon Lieutenant Underwood. The loss of the company, owing to its position on the extreme left of the regiment, and the efforts of the enemy to outflank and surround it, was very severe. In the retreat Lieut. Underwood was severely wounded. The ball still remains in his body. After the surrender, the prisoners were marched down the left bank of the Maumee river, about two miles, to the old fort built by the British and retained for years after the end of the Revolutionary War. In marching from the place of surrender to the fort, the Indians stripped the prisoners, with a few exceptions, of their clothing, watches, and whatever else of value they possessed. Lieut. Underwood, however, saved his watch by hiding the chain, so that it was not discovered, and it was afterwards of great service to him and his fellow soldiers. He was stripped of all his clothes, except his shirt and pantaloons, and in this condition, bleeding from his wound, was marched to the fort But before getting into it, he and his com |