News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1908-04-15
The Month OF April

d,
which many are anxious to hav,
pass rapidly, because of its weather
uncertainties. Yet 1t brings with il
the music of the robbins and othel
matutinal and eventde vocal wi
dences that show it is April. Aside
from this the month is one of III,
most noted of the twelve. Ordina
rilv we give no particular thought tC
wha, the month has been to all the
world and to the United States ir
particular. If you search the vol
umes of history you will find the
mouth of April the month when the
most stirring things have happened
with US as nation.
On the 10Th of April<1775, to 60
no further back, was fired that "shot
heard round the world" at the
Bridge of Lexington, when the war
of the American Revolution NAV be
said to have really begun. There
100 British regulars met small
body of Mass qchusetts Militia and
gave way before them.
On the 9th of April, 1777, at
Ridgeheld, Conn, there was q nota-
BILE battle fought in which 500 col
onists were defeated by 1000 Eng
lishmen.
April II, 1873, marked the real
termination of hostilites between
England and the colonies, though
England did not withdraw her
troops until November.
Passing along to the period after
the Revolution, and over many
Aprils that carried minor historical
happenings, we arrive at the 4th of
April, 1871, when President Vim H.
Harrison, who had been elected
amid such a flourish of trumpets,
died-a month after he had been in
augurated President. On the 18th
of the same month he was buried at
North Bend, Ohio, in a tomb that
has, until lately, been suffered to fall
into a great degree of neglect.
On the 18th of April, 1S47. orders
were given for the United States
Army, then lying at Vera Cruz, to
take the road for the city of Mexico.
1t took the road, and the Mexican
capital, little later, lay at our
mercy.
Then we come down to the la
inevitable April day of 1861, the
18th, when the mutterings OF seces-
sion at last took tangible form in
the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
marking the beginning of the blood
lest war that has been recorded in
modern history. This lasted, offici-
ally, as settled by the United States
Supreme court, till the Goth of Aug
ust, 1866, when the State of Texas
finally gave in it's allegiance. How
ever, historic Appomattox was an
April event, and the surrender of Lee
to Grant was on the 9th of April,
1865, to be followed, nine days later,
on the 18th of April, Good Friday,
by the blacklist night of the whole
rebellion, when Abraham Lincoln |
was shot down by that arch traitor, !
I, Wilkes Booth, to expire in the
grey dawn Of the 18th.
The war of the rebellion may,
indeed, be said to have lasted from
an April to an April, from the firing
on Sumter to the surrender at APP
pomattox, both of them April days.
The muster out of the Union troops |
began on the Goth of April, 1865,
and the last skirmish was fought
May 18th. In this war the United
States Army sent into the field
2. 494, 592 white troops, 1O1 ,2O7 /
sailors and marines; 17S, 975colored
troops and $3.50 Indians, a total
of 2, 7SS, 304 men, and the number OF
deaths was 359,52S. The Gettys-
burg campaign. from June 3 to Aug
ust l. 1868, included &c battles and
with loss of 1852
officers and 3o,o15 men, total of
81, 997-truly an April beginning that
lad most bloody ending.
Since then, as before, April has
much of strange eventful
history" in this land of ours. The l