with the enemy, he was appointed a State
brigadier, rendered further service during the British forays into
Connecticut, and marched with troops to the Hudson Highlands upon
Burgoyne's approach from Canada. Colonel Douglas, of Northford,
engaged heart and hand in the struggle. Joining Montgomery's command
in 1775, he served in the flotilla on Lake Champlain, and was
subsequently appointed commodore by Congress; but accepting a
colonelcy of Connecticut levies he marched to New York in 1776, after
first advancing the funds to equip his regiment. With Silliman he
enjoyed the confidence and good opinion of the commander-in-chief, and
both were appointed to command regiments to be raised for the
Connecticut Continental Line. Another of those citizen-soldiers who
came from the substantial element in the population was Colonel
Selden. A descendant of the Seldens who were among the first settlers
in the Connecticut Valley, fifty years of age, possessing a large
estate, incapacitated for severe military duty, the father of twelve
children, he nevertheless answered the governor's call for troops, and
joined the army at New York, from which he was destined not to return.
Durkee, Knowlton, Hull, Sherman, Grosvenor, Bradley, afterwards a
Continental colonel, and many others, were men from Connecticut, who
gave the country their best services. The militia regiments from this
State turned out at the governor's call upon the arrival of the enemy.
Of the fourteen he designated to march, twelve reported at New York
before August 27th, each averaging three hundred and fifty men, with
Oliver Wolcott as their brigadier-general,[90] than whom no man in
Connecticut had done more to further the public interests of both the
State and the nation. Signing the Declaration in 1776, he was to be
found in the following year fighting Burgoyne in the field, and
afterwards constantly active in a military or civil capacity until the
success of the cause was assured.

[Footnote 88: On his promotion to a brigadier-generalship in August,
Parsons was succeeded by his lieutenant-colonel, John Tyler.]

[Footnote 89: This was the same officer who came down with Lee in the
spring. When his regiment returned home he was put in command of
another raised on the continental basis. He joined the army in August,
but did not cross to Long Island.]

[Footnote 90: The original letter from Trumbull to Wolcott, among the
latter's papers, informing him of his appointment