On the 26th of December, 1825, it being his
sixty-seventh birthday, General Benjamin Pierce prepared a festival for
his comrades in arms, the survivors of the Revolution, eighteen of whom,
all inhabitants of Hillsborough, assembled at his house. The ages of
these veterans ranged from fifty-nine up to the patriarchal venerableness
of nearly ninety. They spent the day in festivity, in calling up
reminiscences of the great men whom they had known and the great deeds
which they had helped to do, and in reviving the old sentiments of the
era of 'seventy-six. At nightfall, after a manly and pathetic farewell
from their host, they separated--"prepared," as the old general expressed
it, "at the first tap of the shrouded drum, to move and join their
beloved Washington, and the rest of their beloved comrades, who fought
and bled at their sides." A scene like this must have been profitable
for a young man to witness, as being likely to give him a stronger sense
than most of us can attain of the value of that Union which these old
heroes had risked so much to consolidate--of that common country which
they had sacrificed everything to create; and patriotism must have been
communicated from their hearts to his, with somewhat of the warmth and
freshness of a new-born sentiment.
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