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in the whole colony that ever expected any blood would be shed in the contest"; the night after, the king's governor and the king's army found themselves closely beleaguered in Boston.

      "The next news from England must be conciliatory, or the connection between us ends," said Warren. "This month," so wrote William Emerson, of Concord, late chaplain to the Provincial Congress, chronicled in a blank leaf of his almanac, "is remarkable for the greatest events of the present age." "From the nineteenth of April, 1775," said Clark, of Lexington, on its first anniversary, "will be dated the liberty of the American world."

      Note.—The principal part of this account of the Battle of Lexington is taken from Banecroft's history.—American Monthly Magazine.

SIGNERS OF DECLARATION.

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      (Poem that embraces the names of the famous Americans.)

      It will not be denied that the men who, on July 4, 1776, pledged "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" in behalf of our national liberty deserve the most profound reverence from every American citizen. By arranging in rhyme the names of the signers according to the colonies from which they were delegated it will assist the youthful learner in remembering the names of those fathers of American Independence.

      I.

       The Massachusetts delegation

       That signed our glorious Declaration

       Where Hancock, Gerry, Robert Paine,

       The great John Adams, and again

       Another Adams, Samuel by name.

      II.

       New Hampshire, called the "Granite State,"

       Sent Whipple, Bartlett, Thornton great,

       Alike in counsel and debate.

      III.

       Rhode Island's delegates, we see,

       Were Stephen Hopkins and Ellery.

      IV.

       Connecticut, excelled by none,

       With Wolcott, Williams and Huntington.

      V.

       New York as delegates employed

       Lewis Morris and William Floyd,

       With Francis Lewis and Livingston,

       Who died before the war was done.

      VI.

       New Jersey to the congress sent

       Her honored college president,

       John Witherspoon, with Stockton, Clark,

       Hart, Hopkinson—all men of mark.

      VII.

       Though Pennsylvania need not blush

       For Morris, Morton, Wilson, Rush,

       And though most men might seem as dross

       To Cylmer, Taylor, Smith and Ross,

       To Franklin each his tribute brings

       Who neither lightning feared, nor kings.

      VIII.

       The men from Delaware—indeed

       As true as steel in utmost need—

       Were Rodney, with McKean and Read.

      IX.

       "My Maryland" is proud to own

       Her Carroll, Paca, Chase and Stone.

      X.

       On old Virginia's roll we see

       The gifted Richard Henry Lee,

       And, just as earnest to be free.

       His brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee,

       And Wythe and Nelson, patriots true,

       With Harrison and Braxton, too;

       But of them all, there was not one

       As great as Thomas Jefferson.

      XI.

       North Carolina's chosen men

       We know were Hooper, Hewes and Penn.

      XII.

       And South Carolina's vote was one—

       By Heyward, Lynch and Middleton.

      XIII.

       From Georgia came Gwinnett and Hall

       And Walton, too, the last of all

       Who signed our precious Declaration

       The pride and glory of the nation.

LIFE AT VALLEY FORGE.

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      Mrs. Harriet D. Eisenberg.

      I have chosen to look up particulars concerning the daily life of the soldier at Valley Forge in the awful winter of 1777–8. And as no historian can picture the life of any period so vividly as it may be described by those who were participants in that life, or eye witnesses of it, I have gathered the materials for this paper from diaries of those who were there, from accounts by men whose friends were in the camp, from letters sent to and from the camp, and from the orderly book of a general who kept a strict report of the daily orders issued by the Commander-in-chief, from the fall campaign of 1777, to the late spring of 1778.

      It is unnecessary to reiterate what all of us know—that the winter of '77–8 was the blackest time of the war of Independence, and it was made so, not only by the machinations of the enemies of Washington who were striving to displace him as Commander-in-Chief, but by the unparalleled severity of the winter and the dearth of the commonest necessaries of life. The sombreness of the picture is emphasized by contrast with the brightness and gaiety that characterized the life in Philadelphia during that same winter when the British troops occupied the city. There a succession of brilliant festivities was going on, the gaieties culminating in the meschianza that most gorgeous spectacle ever given by an army to its retiring officer, when Peggy Shippen and Sallie Chew danced the night away with the scarlet-coated officers of the British army, while fathers and brothers were suffering on the hills above the Schuylkill.

      Why did Washington elect to put his army in winter-quarters? He himself answers the question, which was asked by congress who objected to the army's going into winter quarters at all. The campaign, which had seen the battles of the Brandywine and of Germantown, was over; the British were in possession of Philadelphia; the army was fatigued and there was little chance of recuperation from sources already heavily drained. Hence a winter's rest was necessary. And Washington's own words, as he issued the orders for the day on December 23d, tell us why Valley Forge was chosen.

      "The General wishes it was in his power to conduct the troops into the best winter quarters; but where are those to be found? Should we retire into the interior portions of the country, we should find them crowded with virtuous citizens who, sacrificing their all, have left Philadelphia, and fled hither for protection. To their distress, humanity forbids us to add. This is not all. We should leave a vast extent of fertile country to be despoiled and ravaged by the enemy. These and other considerations make it necessary to take such a position (as this), and influenced by these considerations he persuades himself that officers and soldiers, with one heart and one mind, will resolve to surmount every difficulty with the fortitude and patience becoming their profession and the Sacred Cause in which they are engaged. He himself, will share in the hardships, and partake of every inconvenience."

      And with this resolve on his part, kept faithfully through the long weeks, the bitter winter was begun.

      It was on December

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