My Brother Sam Is Dead

Despite the best efforts of Mother, Tim, and even his colonel, Colonel Parsons, to persuade the general, General Putnam, to release Sam, General Putnam decides that Sam will be executed for stealing cattle. Tim makes one last-ditch effort, refusing to leave the encampment until he speaks with Colonel Parsons himself. Colonel Parsons explains to Tim that General Putnam will execute Sam even if he is innocent to make a point to the other soldiers and the towns people that the army will not stand for thievery.

During this time, a change comes over Mother. She begins drinking more rum and seems to be preoccupied. Tim is worried about her but is unable to help.

After trying for some time, Tim finally makes it to General Putnam to plead Sam’s case. General Putnam says that he will consider the request and lets Tim see Sam. The chapter ends with the brothers speaking honestly to each other, and Sam telling Tim that he is “the best brother [he’s] got” (198). It is the last time that Tim and Sam will speak to each other.

Betsy Read and Tim spend the next week talking over plans and considering whether they can help Sam escape, but they can come up with nothing that seems possible. On Saturday, February 13, Colonel Read tells them that General Putnam has refused to pardon Sam. When Tim says that executing Sam is not fair, Colonel Read says, “[w]ar is never fair. Who chooses which men get killed and which ones don’t?” (200).

Mother refuses to go to church to pray for the souls of the men about to be executed, despite being required to do so. She seems to have lost all interest in living and wants to close the tavern forever. Mother has given up on Sam and says that he is dead. Tim, however, takes down Father’s bayonet and sharpens it. He wants to use it to save his brother.

Tim goes to the stockade where Sam is being held. He intends to kill the guard. However, when Tim calls to Sam, the guard charges him. Tim throws the bayonet, but it does not hit the guard and Tim turns to run away, soldiers shooting at him. Tim gets away but realizes that his plan is all a waste. The prisoners have already been moved from the stockade.

The next morning, Tim goes to the execution grounds and catches sight of Sam. Several other men are hanged, and then Sam is brought out to be executed. Tim screams, “[d]on’t shoot him, don’t shoot him!” (208)—the same words that he shouted at the cowboys when they threatened his father. In graphic detail, the last paragraphs of the chapter describe Sam’s death by firing squad.

On the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a 64-year-old Tim writes the story of Sam’s short life. As he reports, after Sam’s death, he finally began studying calculations and surveying with Mr. Heron. At the war’s end, he and his mother moved to Pennsylvania where they set up another tavern. Tim says that his life has been a happy one, although Mother never recovered from losing her husband and son, Sam. In closing, Tim acknowledges that both he and the United States have been successful since independence, “[b]ut somehow, even fifty years later, I keep thinking that there might have been another way, beside war, to achieve the same end” (211).