Robert McNutt McElroy

“ Then as the gray army mounted the opposite hill, rifles and cannon thundered again, line after line broke and fell; but still the charging body of the Confederates kept on. They captured the first Federal outworks, and staggered on toward the second. But the Union fire had been too deadly. No human bravery could withstand such losses. The gray lines fell back, leaving most of their men dead on the field. Thus with the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg over, the climax of the war was past. ”

“ A few years before the settlement of the territory now known as the United States the people of Europe had witnessed a great naval battle in which two kinds of civilizations contended for supremacy. England and Spain were the combatants, and the issue, as we now clearly see, was whether the old idea of monarchy or the new idea of democracy should dominate two continents. Gold from Mexico and Peru had made Spain a great power. ”

“ The failure of the Popham colony had discouraged the Plymouth Company, and it was not until Jamestown was a flourishing village that a permanent settlement was made in the northern part of the region which King James had granted to the Virginia Company. Those years had been years of strife and sorrow in England. The king in the narrow bigotry of his ecclesiastical views, had declared that if any refused to conform to the rules of worship prescribed by the established Church of England, he would “harry them out of the land,” and King James had kept his word. ”

“ The story of gruff, big-hearted Myles Standish, the military captain of Plymouth, and Priscilla Mullins, is inseparably connected with the colony. Captain Standish had many encounters with the Indians. A fort was built, and, while in general the Indians were friendly, the men of the little army under his command were constantly on the lookout for trouble that might arise. Once a conspiracy was detected, and the Indians put to death with the very weapons they had brought to use upon the people of the colony. ”

“ England, on the other hand, was the champion of Protestantism, whose doctrine of the direct responsibility of the individual led logically to democracy in government. England won the battle, destroying Spain’s great Armada, and thus opening the New World to the settlement of men professing Protestant doctrines; for as soon as Spain’s power on the seas was shattered Protestants could plant colonies without danger of having them destroyed by a Spanish man-of-war. ”

“ The great contest which we call the American Revolution was not, as is sometimes asserted, an attempt to throw off the shackles of tyranny, but was, on the contrary, a determined refusal to allow these shackles to be put on. George the Third and his obsequious minister, Lord North, were the real revolutionists; for they sought to take away from the American colonies rights of self-government as old as Jamestown and Plymouth. In this they failed, and their failure cost England an empire.
PLAN OF FORT TICONDEROGA
A restoration begun in 1909. ”

“ In 1624 each member of the colony received a parcel of land, which he was allowed to work for himself. After that there was always plenty of food in Plymouth. The colony was united with that of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.
Today Plymouth is a busy city of more than 12,000 people. The great boulder upon which the Pilgrims stepped is still there at the harbor edge, and a protecting canopy of granite has been built above it. The bones of some of the Pilgrims have been placed within the canopy. ”

“ Here, where the waters of Lake George descend tumultuously into Lake Champlain, falling thirty feet in one sheer drop, where the voyagers from Canada to New England had to leave their boats, and portage their loads, a fort had been built by the French twenty years before. Three years after it was put up, Ticonderoga was attacked by six thousand British regulars and ten thousand provincials. The four thousand men of the French garrison repulsed the attacking army, and among the killed was Lord Howe. ”

“ And when the great political figures of the Revolution—Adams, Witherspoon, Franklin, Jefferson, and the rest—assembled in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, and signed the Declaration of Independence, while the Liberty Bell pealed forth the notes of freedom, they were but repeating the declaration of the first American charter. ”

“ Gettysburg is a name which is justly mentioned with pride by Americans of all sections; for when its aged veterans, North and South, can clasp hands and declare themselves brothers, it would be presumptuous for others to display the rancor of partizanship.
The settings of the battle were dramatic. Robert E. Lee, the ablest commander of the Confederacy, had crossed into Pennsylvania with his main column. The Federal army of the Potomac was close behind, intent upon pressing northward after Lee to protect Baltimore should it be endangered. ”

“ Thus came the colonists who, a few weeks later, founded Jamestown in Virginia, the first English settlement in America, which they named after King James I. Starting in three small vessels, one of them but twenty tons in burden, they had taken more than four months in crossing.
At first they had only tents to live in. It was late to plant, and food was not plentiful. ”

“ The colonies grew to populous cities, and the far off plains of Texas became the field for pioneer activity: Austin, Houston, and a host of others, with their love of “God’s out of doors,” left settled parts of America and sought homes upon the spreading prairies of that distant province of Mexico. With these men ideals of American freedom had become instinctive, and from the very first a trial of strength was inevitable between them and Santa Anna, the despotic ruler of Mexico. ”

“ Captain Smith, later a governor, was absent much of the time, buying food from the Indians. Two years afterward he went home, and the months that followed were called the “Starving Time,” when all but sixty of the four hundred settlers died.
Yet, through many tribulations, Jamestown lived. In 1608 it was burned, and other cabins were built. In 1619 word was received that a representative government had been granted. The settlers were each to have a portion of ground, and plantations were gradually laid out along the James. In spite of Indian massacres the colony and all Virginia grew. ”

“ In a broad, popular, educational plan of this kind there should be the fullest confidence. The importance of this grows week by week, for The Mentor idea has drawn the interest of many thousands, and the membership increases day by day. ”

“ There he found that Captain Martin and thirty-two men had gone to the assistance of the besieged men, fighting their way into the fort. So he returned.
Three days after Bonham’s ride the Mexican army made a general assault. All but six of the brave garrison were killed, and these, surrendering on condition of parole, were butchered in cold blood. The Mexicans lost 1,600 men. On April 21 the Mexican army overtook General Houston and his army of 780 men at San Jacinto. ”