What a roystering set those Cavaliers were! Fond of horse racing, cock
fighting, gambling and drinking, the soul of hospitality, quick to
take offense, and quicker to forgive,--duellists as brave as Spartans,
chivalric, proud of honor, their province, their blood and their
families, they envied only one being in the world and that was he who
could establish his claim to the possession of a strain from the veins
of the dusky daughter of Powhatan--Pocahontas.
Could such people succeed as pioneers of the wilderness?
Into the snowy wastes of New England plunged the Pilgrims to blaze a
path for civilization in the New World. They were perfect pioneers
down to the minutest detail. Sturdy, grimly resolute, painfully honest,
industrious, patient, moral and seeing God's hand in every affliction,
they smothered their groans while writhing in the pangs of starvation
and gasped in husky whispers: "He doeth all things well; praise to his
name!" Such people could not fail in their work.
And yet of the first ten presidents, New England furnished only the
two Adamses, while Virginia gave to the nation, Washington, Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe and then tapered off with Tyler.
In the War for the Union, the ten most prominent leaders were Grant,
Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Farragut, Porter, Lee, Stonewall Jackson,
J.
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