My Brother Sam Is Dead

Summary By Deborah Lee

8E

Sam Meeker, a 16 year old college boy comes home wearing a uniform. Right

then, he brings a whole new idea of fighting against the Britain that gives shocks to everyone, even Tim, Sam’s

younger brother

CHAPTER CHAPTER 11

Sam wants to go on a war, but his father doesn’t want him to. He also asks for his

father’s gun, but he refuses. These different ideas cause a

big fight that will last for a quite a long time.

Sam’s father becomes worried about his

rebellious son. The chapter ends with the father secretly crying

alone.

Meeker family goes to sabbath when Tom Warrup suddenly

asks Tim to come to his house. He tells his father that he’s going to his friend, Jerry’s

house and run to Tom’s house.

Tim sees Sam and Betsy in Tom’s house, and also finds a gun beside Sam. They tell him that Sam will be leaving right

now to fight, and he’s not even sure when he’s coming

back.

CHAPTER 2CHAPTER 2

Tim is forced to promise not to tell Father or anyone about

Sam’s departure. Soon, Sam goes on his way to fight with Father’s gun. After seeing his brother leaving, Tim end up

crying alone.

After awhile, the whole family realize that Sam had ran away from home. This leads to depression and desolation to everyone

including Tim and Father.

CHAPTER 3CHAPTER 3

As usual, Tim goes back to his work at his family’s store.

Strangely, Betsy continuously visits the store to see what’s going around in Tim’s house.

Days later, Betsy comes to the store once again and gives Tim

a nod. Right by then, he just knew that the nod meant that

Sam was back.

Chapter 4

While cutting wood, Tim continues to think about his brother, Sam, coming

home. Then, he sees a group of Patriot soldiers going into his own house. Soon, Tim saw his parents getting

threatened by the soldiers. When he realized that the soldiers wanted his father’s weapons, he runs down to

where Sam is. He was determined to take the gun from him and return it to his father. When he reached Sam’s shelter, he found Sam taking a nap, holding the gun. He made an attempt to take it away, but fails and Sam wakes up.

When Sam hears the whole story, he decides to accompany Tim to his house to see if everything was okay. Luckily, the soldiers were gone by them, leaving their parents alive. However, their father saw Sam before he could disappear, but was unable to catch him before he ran away.

Chapter 5After the incident, Tim went back to his normal life, working for his family’s shop, milking the cow,

and etc. By that time, he started to envy Sam for his adventurous life. He, too, wanted the same

glory. One day, Mr. Heron and Tom Warrup comes to Tim’s shop to talk to Tim and his father. Mr.

Heron said that it would be nice to have Tim as his apprentice of

being a surveyor. After that, he asked if Tim would deliver

something for him.

After that, he asked if Tim would deliver something for him. He

wanted Tim to be his messenger and send a letter to someone in Fairfield. Of course, Tim’s father said no due to the risks involved. However, Tim still decided to go

secretly.

Chapter 6

First, he told his father that he was catching some fish. Then, in the next morning, he started off as

soon as he can to Fairfield. He was excited, not scared.

On the way there, Tim met Betsy. Betsy was going to Horseneck to see Sam. She was told from Mr.

Heron that Sam and his troop was there, scouting for beefs. Then, he suddenly wondered how he knew about that when he was a Tory.

After Betsy realized something fishy was going on, she soon found the

letter that Tim was delivering. After a big struggle, Betsy takes away the letter and reads it. It said, “If this message is received, we will know that the messenger is reliable”.

Chapter 7

As times passed, Sam sent letters to his family about how he was

doing. At first, his father didn’t let anyone write back to him, but on the second one, his mother wrote him back and ignored father. For

the letter incident, Mr. Heron didn’t even talk about anything related

when he met Tim.

In the end of November, Tim and his father began his trip to

Verplancks Point to sell their beef and buy some products for their store. Tim was glad to be away from all the schoolwork and experience new things.

Unfortunately, on the way there, they met cattle-thieves who

tried to take away their thirty cattle. Tim’s father was beaten a

little, but luckily, the escorts came just in time to save their

lives and their cattle.

Tim and his father visit their relatives in North Salem on the way. The relatives ask many questions to Tim about him and his brother. Since they were in the British side, they thought it was foolish for Sam and the other Rebels to even fight against the British army.

They finally reach to Verplancks Points after several nights. Father finds Mr. Bogardus, the man he usually sold his livestock to. Luckily, he gets a good price for the cattle and earns many new products for his store.

Chapter 8

Unfortunately, it starts snowing when they were starting to head back home. After spending a rough time leading the oxen and the wagon. Soon, they reached to their other relatives, Platts, and spent another night in there.

They resume their trip to home after the snow. Father decides to ride ahead to spot any cattle thieves if there are any while Tim works on the oxen and the wagon. For several times, father would come back to check if Tim was all right.

Strangely, after some time, Tim couldn’t see his father. Then, he sees some several cattle thieves waiting for him. Right then, he knew that the thieves had kidnapped his father, and they were planning to take him to along with all the goods.

Chapter 9

However, he didn’t let that happen. He fooled them by purposely mistaking that they were the escorts. This frightened the thieves and kept them from stealing the products. Dumbfounded and exhausted, Tim first decides to take his wagon home and get help.

Having Father being gone created even more work for Tim and Mother. Mother continues to say that Father is somewhere in a prison ship and he’ll be back when the war is over. However, Tim knew that he wouldn’t probably come back. After the incident, Tim became more responsible over things. (133)

After some time, Tim spots British coming. After talking to Mr. Heron, they come over and charged into the rebel’s house where Captain Betts, Mr. Rogers, and Jerry lived. They take them away. They also capture all the rebels who were planning to charge, and one of them was the black slave, Ned. He was killed right on that spot.

Chapter 10

Also, the British sight a spy coming over toward them. Even though the spy quickly turned back as soon as he saw the troop, they shoot him and he soon falls down. The townspeople help him out and saves him after the British departs.

Nine out of twelve rebels survive, but Tim finds out that Jerry, his best friend, was killed. After awhile, the Continental troops come over to his village. They were stopping by in the village and were planning chase the British before they reach Danbury where the munitions were stored.

Luckily, Tim finds out that Sam was back in the village too along with his troops. He goes to the camp and asks for Sam. He soon sees him in years. Tim noticed that Sam had changed; he looked older, dirtier, and exhausted.

Chapter 11

He also realized that he felt equal to his brother. After greeting Sam, Tim brings mother too. After spending a small family time together, Sam leaves, promising to come back later.

Soon, Tim and his family finds out that Father died in a prison ship, infected by a disease. He was now buried somewhere in Long Island. Tim then knew that he won’t even be able to see him ever, and he won’t even have the chance to rebury him.

After the Continentals settled in Redding, Sam was able to visit his house more often. He was usually very tired, but it was still very nice for the family to reunite. Whenever Sam visited, Tim and Mother would urge him to come back home permanently and help out. However, Sam refuses every time they ask.

Chapter 12

One day, when Sam’s family was having a nice family time, he hears something crumpling outside. When he went out, he noticed that four of eight cows were gone. Right then, he sees the two thieves running away. He decides to chase them right away.

After the big cattle incident, Tim hears from rumors that his brother was accused of stealing cows. He knew that this was totally wrong because he saw his brother chasing after the thieves last night.

However, the real thieves made Sam guilty by stressing out the point that Sam wasn’t in his positioned place. Captain Putman accuses both Sam and the real thieves guilty and decides to kill them all to straighten out his soldiers.

Chapter 13

After the trial, the generals decides to shoot Sam about two weeks later. This reminds Tim and everyone else that war is not fair at all. He learns that thousands of soldiers gets killed and thousands of mothers weep, but that doesn’t keep more men from getting killed.

Tim and his mother wait and pray until the very night when Sam was supposed to get shot. They all hoped that Captain Putman would change his mind, but he never did. And they all knew that Sam would be sentenced to death like what has planned.

On that day, Tim goes to see Sam because he knew that Sam would need him on his last day. However, Mother refuse to go. Tim goes in the middle of the crowd and sight Sam with his face dead white.

Chapter 14

After hanging Edward Jones, they prepare for Sam’s death. The priest preys for Sam for the last time, and when it was over, one of the soldiers came out holding a gun in his gun. When the soldier shoot him twice he stops jerking and ends his early life.