IN JUNE 1775, Samuel Ward, of Westerly, delegate to the Second Continental Congress, seated in Philadelphia, dispatched a letter to his second son and namesake. It comes down to us today, held by the Rhode Island Historical Society.

He wrote the letter in the month that Samuel Ward Jr. marched from Westerly to Boston. The Rhode Island encampment, in front of the town, was particularly admired by Gen. George Washington.

Young Ward’s father, Rhode Island’s governor during the Stamp Act crisis and a delegate to both Continental Congresses, received word from Washington himself of the lad’s fine service. “Sammy” had graduated from the College of Rhode Island (later to become Brown) at 15. He was commissioned a captain in the Rhode Island Army of Observation three years later.

Later that year, Captain Ward volunteered for Colonel Benedict Arnold’s daring expedition from the Boston encampment across Maine “in the expectation of bringing Quebec in as the fourteenth colony,” as Samuel Eliot Morison put it. The men marched out in September 1775. Ward reported to Lt. Col. Christopher Greene, brother of Rhode Island’s famed Nathanael Greene. The wilderness route was barely a trace, known only to the troop’s Indian guides. It was frigid. Ward spoke in later life of having “waded” to Canada. One of the four divisions turned back in late October; those men carried that infamy forever. On Dec. 3, Arnold’s 650 men were joined by those of Gen. Richard Montgomery’s force of 300, which had reached Montreal traveling north from Fort Ticonderoga.

The New Year’s Eve assault against Quebec was a disaster. The young New Yorker, Montgomery, beau ideal of the early Revolution, was killed. Almost 100 men lost their lives or were wounded. Colonel Arnold himself was wounded. Over 300 were taken prisoner, Captain Ward among them. Trumbull’s magnificent panoramic painting in Yale’s art gallery captures the tragedy.

Captain Ward was exchanged and released in August 1776, to return to his nine brothers and sisters on the Westerly farm. Soon, he rejoined the Continentals in New Jersey and distinguished himself at the battles of Brandywine and Red Bank. He is commemorated in a bronze plaque at site of the Ward homestead on Langworthy and Shore Roads in Westerly. The stone was dedicated by Ward’s granddaughter, Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” who traveled over from Oak Glen, her Portsmouth summer home, in September 1904.

Governor Ward’s June 1775 letter to his imprisoned son marks the price of liberty. He never saw Sammy again, for on March 27, 1776, he died of smallpox. It was not until August that Captain Ward was exchanged.

Governor Ward died “on station,” as his grave in Newport’s Common Burial Ground states, as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Thomas Young, one of his four doctors (another was Benjamin Rush), wrote, “Never was a sick person more assiduously attended in any part of the World than Mr. Ward was in Philadelphia.”

John Adams led the mourning delegates. “We have this week lost a very valuable friend of the colonies in Governor Ward, of Rhode Island,” Adams wrote. “He would never hearken to his friends, who have been constantly advising him to be inoculated, ever since the first Congress began. . . . He was an amiable and a sensible man, a stedfast [sic] friend to his country upon very pure principles.”

Here’s the governor’s letter to his soldier son:

To Capt. Samuel Ward of the Rhode Island Forces near Boston. Write to Me freely and often.

Philadelphia 23rd June 1775

My Dear Son

This is the first Time that I ever wrote to a Person whom I did not know whether to consider as one of this world or of the next; if Heaven has spared You, devote your Life to the Service of God and your Country; if You are wounded or a Prisoner let the Satisfaction that You are engaged in the Cause of God and Man support You; if neither let your Heart overflow with gratitude to the great Preserve of Men; if You have been successful Humanity will direct the most generous Treatment of our vanquished Enemies at the same Time that Wisdom directs pushing the Victory to the utmost; if You have met a Check, Let a firm reliance in the justice of your Cause and the divine Protection give fresh Vigour, rouse every generous Sentiment in the Army as far as your little Influence will extend and bravely exert every nerve in Defense of your Country. We have immense resources and nothing will be wanting to make you soon superior to our Enemies.

Major Mifflin Who does Me the Favor to deliver You this is worthy for the greatest Regard as a Friend to his Country; I am afraid the common Cause here will suffer much by his Absence, for he is almost the Soul of the City.

May God in his infinite Mercy preserve You all,

Your very affectionate father, Sam Ward

P.S. Time admits no more.

The Congress has chosen your Brigadier Genl. As a continental brigadier Gen. and as such he is to be commissioned. Your area is to receive continental Commiss.s from the General.

Helen Farrell Allen, a local historian and principal of Tempus Fugit, lives in Wakefield.