“My Spirit Glows with a Martial Courage”: Lieutenant Noah Allen at War
Noah Allen’s Canteen and Letter to Sarah Allen
Posted on July 10, 2025
“My Spirit Glows with a Martial Courage”: Lieutenant Noah Allen at War
250 years ago—July 10, 1775—Lieutenant Noah Allen was missing his wife. On April 21, he had marched for Boston when news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord had reached his hometown of Sandisfield in western Massachusetts. After arriving in Roxbury on the outskirts of occupied Boston, Allen enlisted for the rest of the year, joining John Fellows’ regiment as a lieutenant on May 8.
By July 10, when Allen wrote to his wife Sarah, he had seen some of the dangers of service. He was recovering from one of the illnesses that were common in army camps, and while Allen was not engaged during the Battle of Bunker Hill, he had likely interacted with soldiers who were. Allen begins his letter to Sarah longingly: “Dear madam, I imbrace every opportunity to write to you, as… I am under the greatest obligation to you of any Person on Earth for the many kindness that you have shewed me, and when I look on home I long to be with you.”
“But when I look on the cause of Liberty,” Allen continues, “and see the hands of [tyrants and oppressors] on eve
ry side invade us… my Spirit [glows] with a martial Courage”. Martial courage aside, he worries about Sarah, their children, and the farm that he left behind. “Although we are at Such great Distant from one another you are Constantly in my mind Concerned for you and the Children, How you will make out with the Bisness, and I Desire that you would write to me… by Every opportunity”.
Allen’s military service continued for over seven years. He retired from the army as a major on August 1, 1782. The canteen shown here was carried by Allen during the last years of his service, when he was part of the 1st Massachusetts Regiment. By the time he used this canteen, Allen had traveled far from Sandisfield, serving at Ticonderoga and Valley Forge, and had endured years of separation from his beloved Sarah. But by the end of his service, Allen’s sacrifice had paid off in the form of a new nation.
Learn more about Allen’s letter (object ID MS.7074.28) and his canteen (object ID AC-44) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.