Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1914-02-18


5- amid floating blocks of ice on that
II - memorable Christmas night, to
j& a5%l fight the battle which turned the
n 1llllAAA tide Of the revolution in the right
n $$25.ssl direction. But no painter could
II 1lA.-Ia.A delineate the heroism of the actual
3$ssv> M scene. His men were gragged-half
naked Besides the running ice in the river there
was "a binding blizzard, and it was SO bitter cold
that the chief loss on the American side was OF
the men who though Injured to pioneer hardshlps'4
}froze to death that awful night. ~ t%&55s5 =3r
Did General Washington stand in his boat in
Y that dangerous current during a driving storm
and stare pompously at the opposite shore? Not
he Instead Of that, he sat tight" and ca1oled
the men, using every device that might make them
forget their terrible situation; even telling them
a facetious story, which, coming from him, star
tied them set their blood tingling and made them
oblivious to the cold and dangers around them.
That was the grandest deed in the military STRAIT
agemswhich made Frederick the Great OF Prussia,
and, indeed, the whole world wonder at the
genius Of Washington. 55I 35aS NJ 4ss5T
III Nearby every one knows the outside OF the
story OF the siege of Boston by the new COM
&manderin-chief, who had come to the continental
II congress as q wealthy Virginia colonel and his
nondeecript crowd OF raw recruits, wholly unused
not only to military discipline, but even to mill
d tary forms. I'll But few know Of the transcendent
y blum General Washington had to put up when ne
4 discovered that there were but few rounds OF
5gunpowder In the possession of the whole Ameri-
h with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American 3irregulars I'LL VI s
Il Some one had Numbered" Many com
$mander would have shown, up the improvident
IS ofncersawho had that matter in charge and pee
$yishlys thrown up the command as rdicuously i'm
Il possible But General Washington did not tell his
X most trusted officers of the excruciatng dilemma
4 he found himself in; He knew the awful secret
would spread If known to *a few, and the great
cause st Justice might be lost. He began quietly
4 to scour8 the country for gunpowder, He soon
II found that the nearest place at which any quan-
tity could be had was in a magazine: on the island
OF Bermuda. To get that required q secret expe-
55dition, much hazard and many. weeks; but Wash
sington's nerve was equal to the fearful strain.
During that long tense interval the American
u troops5were working away upon the Notifications,
$8 preparing for a grand attack Meanwhile the
young 5commanderin-chief was entertaining
Hospitality at his headquarters, the Craige man
Il sion now best known as "Longfellows Home" in
Cambridge. AS q pleasant diversion. lady
Washington, then one OF the hest women in
~ America, came to visit the general, and all the
countryside was agog over her with
IL six black positions in white and scarlet livery
n Even the British cooped up in Boston, were I'M
pressed by the resources and apparent confidence
VI OF the American generalissimo.
While one expedition was gone d to Bermuda
III Tor powder General Knox, with small force,
a succeeded Sin bringing a number Of cannon sew
SSeral hundred miles on OK sleds in, mdwinter
h from Fort Ticonderoga M In those times that
tried mems souls, it was Il Washingtons iron
nerve supported by his broad sense OF humor,
sometimes scintillating with a radiance worthy
$tof q Franklin or q Lincoln, which SAVED the day
A This was only one Of many occasions on which
Washington had to ght out the revolutio alone.
fiA friend OF Lincons once said OF him, The
4 presidents laugh is his ifepreserver This was
B truer Of Washington than any one seems TO have
realized in day when strict gravity without
&levity was expected Of public character To
laugh or to see the humorous side OF an incident
Il was considered the sign OF q frivolous DISPOSE
n ton. 45}t 5s 3
sWashington,s EARLY biographers were solemn
&S men To have told In their books how much their
y hero laughed would have been, in their opinion,
wantonly exposing bis weakness to public gaze.
n Men like 1Parson' Weems, renegade preacher and
Y tramp fiddler though he was, had been brought
up to think that laughing was worse than wick
8 edit was vulgar ~ In strafning to make their
n hero appear to have been demigod, those ,pedan-
4 tic biographers related notTwhat George Wash
5aington really did, but what they imagined such q
boy or man ought to have done under given con-
n ditions s ss2 & II \.
w ashington would have laughed heartily at
siWeems' hatchet-and- cherry-tree story II he had
ever heard it7-which he never did, for 1t was not
# invented till q later edition Of the erring rectors
Juvenile history, six n years after Washingtons
q death. Yet the real hero Of the cherry-tree fc-
nj ton would have found it the occasion of gravity
as well as mirth. In the stilted story Of Little
II George and His Pa" Weems was only carrying
boy actually did, but what the consummate little
81 prig he conceived little George Washington to
have been would have done If he had cut down his
81 fathers favorite cherry tree @.} 5.y
II little George Washington had been the insult
ferable little prig described by MI. Weems his
d half brothers would not have loved him better
than their own brothers, their own children.
q for that matter His early life was fuller of ex-
citing experiences than any fiction Yet the life
ii Of young Washington is yet to be told as an adj
venture story. Even in his quaint little diaries
" he early discloses lively sense of humor-sav-
" age humor sometimes, but broad and boyish He
showed this by telling only the jokes against him
self. When he lad of sixteen he led sur
veyng party to lay out the lands OF his old friend,
II Lord Fairfax, in the wilderness Of the Shenan-
IS doah. Here is one Of his own experiences as B.
d :tenderfoot," recorded on Tuesday, March Is,
81747-8: 5@5 r
.We got our suppers & was lighted into
Room, and T. not being so good Woodsman as
ye rest of my company, stripped myself very or
5Sderly, & went into We Bed, they called it,
when to my surprise I'found it to be nothing but
q q little straw-matted together without sheets or
Y anything else but one threadbare blanket, with
j double It's weight OF Vermin, such as Lice F1eas,
4 &c. 4 s. E.tS Z
II was glad to get up Gas soon as We light
81 carried from us) put my Clothes and lay
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UsE51 {, 200, 600 coBs. I'm PIPES to Missouri
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