[2] These skulkers in their hurry to get away left five silver buckles and epaulettes which were exhibited at the Exposition in New Orleans some years ago.
Long after the victories of Washington over the French and the English had made his name familiar to all Europe, Benjamin Franklin was a guest at a dinner given in honor of the French and English Ambassadors. The Ambassador from England arose and drank a toast to his native land: "To England--the sun whose bright beams enlighten and fructify the remotest corners of the earth."
The French Ambassador, filled with his own national pride, but too polite to dispute the previous toast, offered the following: "To France--the moon whose mild, steady, and cheering rays are the delight of all nations, consoling them in darkness and making their dreariness beautiful."
Then arose "Old Ben Franklin," and said in his slow but dignified way: "To George Washington--the Joshua who commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, and they obeyed him."
After the cold winter at Valley Forge, Captain Charles Cameron was sent home to Augusta County, Virginia, to recruit his Company. On his way back to the Continental Army, he and his men captured a Tory on the right bank of the Potomac River and decided to convert him, by baptism, into a loyal Patriot. Taking him down to the river bank they plunged him in.
Once--"Hurrah for King George!" came from the struggling Tory as he arose from the water.
Twice--"Hurrah for King George! Long live King George!" The Tory was again on top.
Three times--"Hurrah for King George! Long live King George! King George forever!"
The men looked helplessly at their Captain. "Loose him," were the orders, "and let him go. He is unconvertible."
The youngest of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence, from Georgia, was George Walton, who was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in 1749. He became an orphan when quite young and his guardian did not care to be burdened with his education, so he was given to a carpenter as an apprentice and put to hard work. After his days work he would light a fire of fat pine and study until the wee small hours of the night, thus gaining an education most boys would let go by. The good carpenter, seeing him so industriously inclined and anxious for an education, allowed him to keep the money he earned and helped him all he could and at last relieved him of his apprenticeship, and he then decided to come to Georgia. At twenty years of age he went (by private conveyance) to Savannah, which was then a small town of only a few thousand people. He studied law in the office of Henry Young and was soon admitted to the bar.