(June 17, 1775), was a corporal in the Massachusetts Militia during the Revolutionary War. Immediately after the Battle of Bunker Hill, he entered in his diary:
We within the entrenchment … having fired away all ammunition and having no reinforcements … were overpowered by numbers and obliged to leave. … I did not leave the entrenchment until the enemy got in. I then retreated ten or fifteen rods.
Then I received a wound in my right arm, the ball going through a little below my elbow, breaking the little shellbone. Another ball struck my back, taking a piece of skin about as big as a penny.
But I got to Cambridge that night. … Oh the goodness of God in preserving my life, although they fell on my right and on my left! O may this act of deliverance of thine, O God, lead me never to distrust thee; but may I ever trust in thee and put confidence in no arm of flesh!1721
Following a battle fought on one of the islands in Boston Harbor, Amos Farnsworth entered in his diary:
About fifteen of us squatted down in a ditch in the marsh and stood our ground. And there came a company of regulars on the other side of the river … and we had hot fire, until the regulars retreated.
But notwithstanding the bullets flew very thick, there was not a man of us killed. Surely God has a favor toward us. … Thanks be unto God that so little hurt was done us, when the balls sang like bees round our heads.1722