FullReads

If, on the evening of July 9, 1876, at six of the clock, you go and stand where the shadow of the steeple of St. Paul’s church in New York is falling, you will occupy the space General Washington occupied, just one hundred years ago, when with uncovered head and reverent mien, he, in the presence of and surrounded by a brigade of noble soldiers, listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

You will remember that at the church door on Sunday, Blue-Eyed Boy brought to him, by word of mouth, the great news that a nation was born on Thursday.

This news was now, for the first time, announced to the men of New York and New England.

No wonder that their military caps came off on Tuesday, that their arms swung in the air, and their voices burst forth into one loud acclaim that might have been heard by the British foe then landing on Staten Island.

As you stand there, and the shadow of old St. Paul swings around and covers you, shut your eyes and listen. Something of the olden music, of the loud acclaim, may swing around with the shadow and fall on your ears, since no motion is ever spent, no sound ever still.

On that night, when the grand burst of enthusiasm had arisen, Blue-Eyed Boy said to General Washington: “I am afraid, sir, if Congress had known, they never would have done it, never! It seemed easy to do it in Philadelphia, where everything is just as it used to be; but here, with all the British ships riding in, full of soldiers, and guns enough in them to smash the old State House where they did it! If they’d only known about the ships!–“

Ah! Blue-Eyed Boy. You didn’t keep your eye very close to Congress Hall in the morning of last Thursday, or you would have heard Mr. Hancock or Mr. Thompson read to Congress a letter from General Washington, announcing the arrival of General Howe at Sandy Hook with one hundred and ten ships of war.

No, no! Blue-Eyed Boy and every other boy; the men who dared to say, and sign their names to the assertion, “A nation is born to-day,” did not do it under the rosy flush of glorious victory, but in the fast-coming shadow of mighty Britain, strong in all the power and radiant with all the pomp of war.

And what had a few little colonies to meet them with? They had, it is true, a new name, that of “States”; but cannon and camp-kettles alike were wanting; the small powder mills in the Connecticut hive could yield them only a fragment of the black honey General Washington cried for, day and night, from Cambridge to New York; the houses of the inhabitants, diligently searched for fragments of lead, gave them not enough; and you know how every homestead in New England was besieged for the last yard of homespun cloth, that the country’s soldiers might not go coatless by day and tentless at night.

Brave men and women good!

Let us hurrah for them all, if it is a hundred years too late for them to hear. The men of a hundred years to come will remember our huzzas of this year, and grow, it may be, the braver and the better for them all.

But now General Washington has ridden away to his home at Number One in the Broadway; the brigade has moved on, and even Blue-Eyed Boy is hastening after General Washington, intent on taking a farewell glance, from the rampart of Fort George, at the far-away English ships.

To-morrow he will begin his homeward journey through the Jerseys. His pass is in his pocket, and as he quickens his steps, he sees groups gathering here and there, and knows that some excitement is astir in the public mind, but thinks it is all about the great Declaration.