“My father himself was extremely anxious to accompany them, but they and his mother, who was a widow, forbade his doing so, telling him he was entirely too young, and that he must stay at home and take care of his younger brothers and sisters. And he was thus very reluctantly compelled to remain at home. At the expiration of about twelve months his brothers returned home, and when the time for their second departure had arrived, the wonderful tales they had narrated of their life in camp had wrought so upon my father’s youthful and ardent imagination that he besought them and his mother with tears in his eyes, to suffer him to accompany them. But they, regarding his youth, would not give their consent, but took their departure without him. “However, the second night after their arrival in camp (which was at Bergen, New Jersey), they were astonished by the arrival of my father, he having run off from home and followed them all the way on foot, and now appeared before them, haggard and weary and half starved by the lengths of his march. * * * My father was taken prisoner at the battle of Fort Washington, and the privations and cruel treatment which he then underwent gave a blow to his constitution from which he never recovered. After the close of the Revolution he returned home with a constitution much shattered. * * *” Many years after the Revolution Dr. Draper, who died in Madison, Wisconsin, and left his valuable manuscripts to the Historical Society of that State, interviewed an old veteran of the war, in Kentucky. This venerable relic of the Revolution was Major George Michael Bedinger, a brother of Daniel. Dr. Draper took down from his lips a short account of the battle of Fort Washington, where his two brothers were captured. Major G. M. Bedinger was not in service at that time, but must have received the account from one or both of his brothers. Dr. Draper says: “In the action of Fort Washington Henry Bedinger heard a Hessian captain, having been repulsed, speak to his riflemen in his own language, telling them to follow his example and reserve their fire until they were close. Bedinger, recognizing his mother tongue, watched the approach of the Hessian officer, and each levelled his unerring rifle at the other. Both fired, Bedinger was wounded in the finger: the ball passing, cut off a lock of his hair. The Hessian was shot through the head, and instantly expired. Captain Bedinger’s young brother Daniel, in his company, then but a little past fifteen, shot twenty-seven rounds, and was often heard to say, after discharging his piece, ‘There! take that, you----!’ “His youthful intrepidity, and gallant conduct, so particularly attracted the attention of the officers, that, though taken prisoner, he was promoted to an ensigncy, his commission dating back six months that he might take precedence of the other ensigns of his company.