The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1878-03-01
AoftiraI,
From Harper's Magazine, March, 1901
THE BALLAD VALLEY FORGE.

It was a night in winter,
Some seventy years ago:
The bleak and barren landscape
Was blurred with driving snow.
You caught glimpse of uplands,
And guessed where valleys lay;
The trees were broken shadows,
A house was something gray.
Only the western forests
Stood sharply, black and bare;
For there the blood-red sunset
Still shot sullen glarel
In an old New England farm house,
That snowy winter night,
In the spacious chimney corner,
Where the logs were blazing brigh
An aged man was sitting
In the CHEEKY light and heat,
With his head upon his bosom,
And the watch dog at his feet
Beside him sat his grandson,
In high-backed oakeu char,
And the glow of ten sweet summers
Was golden in his hair.
The man was Nathan Baldwin,
And many tale is told
Of how he marched, and suffered
With hunger, and with cold.
OF brave old Gran'ther Baldwin,
Shall be the song l sing,
Who fought for Independence
When George the Third was King.
Before him hung two muskets,
With clumsy, dinted stocks;
The bayonets were mounted,
The flints were in the locks:
Two rusty Queen Annes muskets,
Whose pans were smoky still,
The spoil of British soldiers
Who charged at Bunker's Hill.
They fell by Nathan's rifle,
He snatched their dropping guns,
And sent them to the farmhouse
To arm his stalwart sons.
They hung against the chimney
That windy winter night,
Unseen by Nathan Baldwin,
Who saw another sight.
He sat there in his settle
Before the dancing flame,
And on the wall behind him
His shadow went and came.
He dozed beside his grandson,
Whose thoughts were on the snow,
While his eyes were on the muskets,
And the powder-horns below.
'Tell me story, Gran'ther,"
The little dreamer said:
But Nathan did not answer,
Though he smoothed his curly heai
He heard the shrill winds whistle,
He saw the embers glow,
And dropping down the chimney
The ragged fakes of snow. -
The sap in the back log spluttered,
And through the pufs of smoke,
Like sharp discharge of rifles,
y cracking volley brokel
"Tell me story Gran'ther;
Not that of Riding Hood,
Nor how the robins buried
The children in the wood;
"But how you fought the Indians
So many years ago:
Or Valley Forge in winter,
And all about the snow
AIN the fall of seventy-seven
(My little Abner, hear),
In the middle of November
OF that unhappy year,
Il marched with Morgan's Rifles,
A corps of gallant men,
To join our wretched army
In the Quaker State of Penn.
@By forced and rapid marches
(We took the shortest way,
A crow fight through the Jerseys,
And added night to day.
"By long and weary marches
We crossed the dreary plain;
The winds were wild with winter,
And the sky was dark with rain.
There was no sun in the day time,
At night there was no moon;
So Morgan told the fifer
To blow a merry tune.
HOur poor old regimentals
Were more like rags than clothes;
Just fit to flap in corn-fields
And scare away the crows.
"You knew our hating places
BY the tatters lying round.
When we came in sight of White Mars
Our feet we're on the ground
"We scarcely saw the army,
That cheered as we drew nigh;
But we marched with flying colors,
And our powder, boy, was dry!
"One morning in December
The British came in sight;
Said Morgan, Load your rifles,
For here's chance to fight
six hundred stout militia,
With Irvine at their head,
Sneaked out to take volley-
OF course the towards fled
Howe changed his ground at midnigf
For at the break of day.
We saw that he was nearer,
Though still mile away.
"All day he lay and watched US,
But changed again at night.
When morning came Ctwas Sunday
We saw he meant to fight.
"'Be ready, boys said Morgan,
And let your aim be truep
At noon the word was, Forward
And then the bullets flewl'
Il guess" said Abner, warming,
"You showed 'em how to fight"
"At dusk they lighted watch-fres,
And vanished in the night.
@The General called council
To meet him in his tent,
To choose our winter quarters,