---

Among the sources of the History of the Revolution which have not yet been well explored, as we believe, are records of the Pension Office at Washington. The Declaration of General Graham, which is given below, is a specimen of what may be found there. In statements of this kind the minuter incidents and anecdotes which give a character of life to the larger transactions in connection with which they occurred, and which have yet no place in history, are very likely to be found. We do not doubt that a careful search in

that department would bring to light much that we have thought lost, and furnish the means of rectifying much that we had supposed to be already well established. The fact, for instance, that the first recognition of the Tory character of Piles’s men and the first attack on them are due to the Militia, appears first in the testimony of Gen. Graham. Such narratives too have a certain picturesque worth, being the statements of eye-witnesses. The letters of Judge Murphey are added, partly to show his high regard for Gen. Graham’s reminiscences, and partly also with the memorials to recall the efforts he made and the judicious means he used to preserve the memory of past events among us. The very valuable narrative of General Graham to which he refers, passed into the keeping of Mr. J. S. Jones, and it has been found impossible, up to this time at least, to recover it.

---