One Nation
By: Johnny R. Ireland
My names Anthony White, I was born in South Carolina in 1758 on my parents farm. My parents came to the colony’s because they wanted to start a better life in the free world. My dad, Tyrone lived somewhere in great britain and he was a builder. He fixed houses and built them for his neighbors. He was 22 at the time when he came over to the colony’s. My mom, Alice White was 19 when she came to the colony’s and she had been learning english since she was 15 years old. She came over from Germany for the same reasons as Tyrone. She was previously named Alice Johnson, but she got married to Tyrone and became Alice White.
When they got to the colony’s, they bought a piece of land and called it home. It was filled with Fur Trees and when they first got there, they had to sleep in a cold dark tent that they had bought at a store in their village.
The next morning they woke up and started to cut down trees to build their house. On the first day, they had built a base for their house while meeting their new neighbors that they just met. They worked on their house for days and days.
It took a year to finish it but two years later I, Anthony White was born.
Nine years after I was born My brother Tony was born.
On Tony’s 10th birthday, I went to my best friend Tom’s house to get him to come to the party when I saw the mayor ride his horse up to my door. He was holding an envelope with my name on it. I ran over to see what was going on. The mayor was a shot chubby middle aged man who wore a navy blue jacket and a brown hat. I asked him what was going on.
He announced, “I need to speak with your parents.”
I led him inside and he went to talk with my parents. They walked into their room and closed the door. I didn’t know what they were talking about but I had an idea of what it was. I thought I might have to fight in a war. That's exactly what I had to do.
5 minutes later, the mayor and my parents walked out of the room and the mayor handed me the envelope. I carefully opened it and inside was a note, it read,
Dear Mr. Anthony White,
A war has started and we need young men like you to serve for our colonies. It would be an honor for you to come and fight for our freedom from the king and Great Britain. If you will serve for us, Please meet at town hall at 9 o'clock tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Your mayor, Wade R. Westmore
“You have till tomorrow to make your decision but for now, I’m out,” Wade announced as he left our house and jumped on his horse and sped off into the distance.
I thought about it during the party and all night long. I couldn't sleep because I was still thinking of my decision.
The next morning, I woke up right at 9 to the clock tower ringing. I jumped up as fast as I could, put on some clothes, grabbed a snack, ran out to the door, and sprinted down to the town hall. I thought of the time when I slept in and missed the trip to boston.
When I got inside I noticed my friend Tom standing with a group of other boys from our school. The mayor was talking to them about what they needed to know and about if they were going off to fight. I ran over to tom and stood next to him. The mayor gathered all the teenagers my age into a room and asked us if we were up for the job. He asked us by alphabetical order by last names
“Fred Brown?” The mayor yelled.
“I need to stay with my family to work on our farm,” Fred answered.
“Mr. Tom Dutton, are you going to go of and fight?” The mayor asked.
“Yes, I will,” Tom replied.
The mayor called out the next name, “Arnold Jones?”
“Yip!” Arnold replied. Tom and I actually became good friends with arnold.
The mayor yelled out a few more names when he got to Danny, “Danny?” The mayor screamed.
“I will serve,” Danny announced. We also became good friends with him.
The next name was my name, “Anthony White?” He screeched.
“I am going to fight.” I replied.
“That's everyone!” The mayor told us.
We went into yet another back room that smelled of body odor except this time the mayor didn’t come with us, a man in around his 30’s lead us in. He was a trainer that was going to teach us all we needed to know for the war like how to use a gun and stuff like that. The boys that chose not to fight had to walk out of the building and all the boys in our group called it the, “walk of shame.” After 2 or 3 hours of learning about war, the man told us to come back every weekday for the next 4 months. we were dismissed. I jogged with Tom over to his house for lunch and after that, we wished each other good luck.
4 months later
I said goodbye to my mom, dad, and brother, not knowing if i'd ever see their faces again. I walked out to the stable and climbed up onto my horse. We rode off to the town hall one last time and I met with the other boys and we started riding to boston.
After a few hours of riding, we got off our horses to eat a snack. We had fresh apples picked from a grove that we rode by. After that, we got right back on our horses and it was another 4 hours till lunch.
It was just about 7 O’clock when we stopped for the night. I got out a piece of paper and wrote a letter that I would send once I got to boston.
7 more days of riding later, we arrived in boston. We were sent to a camp just outside the city with other groups of young adults from all over the colony’s. All the groups were put into bigger groups and sent to different major cities to protect the colonies.
My group was assigned to go stay in Massachusetts
We had another 3 more days till we got to Lexington, but when we got there, We saw the british, in their bright red coats formed in a line across a field. I slowly turned my head in the other direction to see a line of colonist armed with rifles. Our leader told us to march down to the colonists and draw our guns and BANG!! The first gun went off followed by many more. No One knew who did it but It, only took seconds for the smoke to fill the air. I could barely see the red coats on the british soldiers.
Moments later Tom stood up to fire his gun when a red coat fired his rifle and a metal ball went flying through the air and hit Tom in the chest. It was like slow motion. Tom fell to the ground and tried to be calm. He got to his knees and told me his last words.
“Give this to my mom,” Tom whispered as he handed an envelope with his moms name on it, then he closed his eyes and fell on the ground. I filled with anger and got up and shot my gun but missed. I ducked down behind a rock and I heard a bullet ricochet off of the rock I was behind. I got back up and hit someone in the chest and the young man fell to the ground. I just hid behind rock for a few minutes, but I got back up to shoot again, but I noticed all the other colonists running for their lives and the british soldiers running toward them.
The british continued to Concord where they found a large quantity of weapons, but they were shortly confronted by us patriots. We started shooting and they shot back. A bullet skimmed my hair as it flew past me. I fired off into the distance and it flew by everyone. I kept missing but I finally hit something. It was only a rock, but at leased I hit something. Every so often, men got hit and dropped to the ground.
By the time the battle was finished, many dozens of patriots and british soldiers died on both sides. The remaining soldiers marched back to their hometowns.
I got back to my parents farm just 1 week before my 18th birthday, but their wasn’t much to celebrate other than Tom's funeral. Toms mother, Angela Dutton read Tom’s letter that Tom had wrote that he gave to me. Tom got buried along with his letter.
The next day was my 18th birthday, but I didn’t do anything except for the normal things I would do like feeding the animals, taking a walk, and doing other work on our farm. I just sat the rest of the day thinking about Tom and that moment when he died and how I could have stopped it from happening.
