in which the "Board of War" was instructed "to present to the Honourable Brigadier-general Stark a complete suit of clothes becoming his rank, together with a piece of linen as testimony of the high sense this Court have of the great and important services rendered by that officer." Did any one think to send Admiral Dewey a new uniform on the 1st of May, 1898? My own little tribute to Stark is in the marching song of Stark's men as he took them down to Bennington, or, as he called it, Wollomsac. If we can trust Colonel Creasy, the history of Bennington and what followed belongs in the history of the fifteen great battles of the world. THE MARCHING SONG OF STARK'S MEN1 March! March! March! from sunrise till it's dark, March! March! March! as we follow old John Stark, Load! Load! Load! Three buckshot and a ball, With a hymn-tune for a wad to make them stay! But let no man dare to fire till he gives the word to all Let no man let the buckshot go astray. Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire all along the line, When we meet them bloody Hessians in array! They shall have every grain from this powder-horn of mine, Unless the cowards turn and run away! 1 My accomplished friend, Mr. Whelpley, has set this marching song to music for the benefit of the New Hampshire schoolboys. If you are reading the Bible, you do not say "marching song," but a 'song of degrees." 66 Home! Home! Home! When the fight is fought and won, To the home where the women watch and pray! To tell them how John Stark finished what he had be gun, And to hear them thank our God for the day. - August 16, 1777. These latter years are years of mourning for us who love New Hampshire, because this new business of paper pulp is stripping off her magnificent forests. In old times, as I have said, King George sent his surveyors round, and when they saw a tree fit for his navy, they marked it with the broad arrow of the navy, so when its time came it was cut down in the winter, was hauled on the snow to the largest stream within range, and floated down to the ocean. I think it could be shown that in all the great sea fights in which the English, French, Spanish, or American navies were engaged between 1776 and 1790, the spars of all the vessels were from the New Hampshire forests. So other ship-builders cut logs and floated them down if they were big enough for spars or wide enough for boards. But the smaller trees were left, "Not for the good they may do now, But will do when they're grown up." So that the mountains were still green, and so the forests still grew into cathedral aisles. And with every summer the wilderness was alive with glories for which there is no comparison. Then, alas! Satan came walking up and down. And he devised methods of making paper from wood pulp. Before him, when angels and archangels presided over that business, paper was made of such rags as busy housewives minded to see the end of, and haply of older paper which had served its turn. But now, alas! there is not a tree in the forest, big or little, old or young, from which you cannot make paper. What follows is that you enter your forest with your axes in summer as you once did in winter, and you cut down virtually everything. If you leave a few sumach bushes or blackberry vines, it is because they are not worth the handling, they are so small. Big pines, little pines, big spruces, little spruces, big hemlock, little hemlock, all fall before the axe. All is grist for Satan's mill. For which the remedy will come so soon as the Congress of America makes a National Park of the White Mountain summits. The state has surveyed the region carefully, and a fit plan has been prepared. Uncle Sam must acquire fifty square miles, be the same more or less, and put it in charge of his foresters. And then my children's children's children shall see the greatgrandchildren of the pines that I saw sixty years ago, in place of the sumach and other rubbish that the pulp creatures have left us to-day. We ought to have done this years ago, but it is not too late for the twenty-first century. |