AUTOBIOGRAPHY
of
JAMES P. BECKWOURTH.
CHAPTER I.
Birth-place and Childhood—Removal to St. Louis.
was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the 26th of April, 1798. My father's family consisted of thirteen children, seven sons and six daughters. I was the third child, having one sister and one brother older than myself.
My father had been an officer in the Revolutionary War, and had held a major's commission. He served throughout that glorious struggle which
"Raised the dignity of man,
And taught him to be free."
I well recollect, when a small boy, the frequent meetings of the old patriots at my father’s house, who would sit down and relate the different battles in which they had taken part during "those days that tried men's souls," According to the custom of those days, their meetings were occasionally enlivened with some good old peach brandy; the same kind, I presume, as that with which the old Tory treated M'Donald when he delivered his splendid charger "Selim" to him for presentation to Colonel Tarleton, which circumstance was very frequently spoken of by the old soldiers.
