A NEW NOVEL, A LOVE STORY SET IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR 
 

This is a love story based on a 250 year old diary told through historical documents and love letters. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great nation most people familiar with history can recite the famous names of the Revolutionary War era. But those famous people weren’t the only souls who faced peril at the end of a bayonet, musket, or cannon ball. What follows in these pages is the story of a soldier you’ve never heard of, but who fought for the future of his country, his community, his family, and the woman he loved. Lt. Samuel Benjamin is my 4th great-grandfather. And I am eternally thankful to him as well as his sweetheart, my grandmother, Tabitha Livermore, and to their fellow compatriots and families. Samuel and Tabitha represent the sacrifice made by tens of thousands of common people for the ideal of liberty – freedom from the tyranny of a King. 25,000 souls made the ultimate sacrifice. Their blood was spilled over eight years. Include the Boston Massacre, and those fighting for liberty died over a more than 13-year period. Amazingly Lt. Benjamin survived serving for more than seven of those years during multiple battles and hardships to help found the United States. His service began at the Battle of Lexington in 1775 as a Minute Man from Watertown, Massachusetts. And ended with the Continental Army’s decisive victory at Yorktown, which proved to be the turning point in the war against the British monarchy. Because of the sacrifice of Samuel, Tabitha, and their fellow patriots our nation remains a shining light to the world. The great American experiment began with imperfection, and much work is left to be done, as we continue to strive “to form a more perfect union.”  What drives someone to leave home, family, and the incredible woman he loves, and plunge themselves into danger time and time again not over a matter of months, but over a matter of years? Why would the woman on the other side of the equation put up with it? How did she endure the torture of loving someone who submitted themselves to the possibility of death over and over for an ideal? And yet, that’s what Tabitha did. Perhaps it took even more bravery on her part than what Samuel Benjamin showed against the King’s soldiers.