[1] Bride Brook.—The colony of New London (now part of Connecticut) was founded by John Winthrop, Jr., under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. One of the boundary lines was a stream flowing into Long Island Sound, between the present city of New London and the Connecticut River. In the snowy winter of 1646, Jonathan Rudd, who dwelt in the settlement of Saybrook Fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut, sent for Winthrop to celebrate a marriage between himself and a certain "Mary" of Saybrook, whose last name has been lost. Winthrop performed the ceremony on the frozen surface of the streamlet, the farthest limit of his magistracy; and thereupon bestowed the name "Bride Brook," which it still bears.
[2] The Bride of War.—Jemima Warner, a Pennsylvania woman, was the wife of one of Morgan's riflemen. She marched with the expedition; and, when her husband perished of cold and exhaustion, she took his rifle and equipments and herself carried them to Quebec, where she delivered them to Arnold as a token of her husband's sacrifice, and proof that he was not a deserter.
Colonel Enos of Connecticut abandoned the column while it was struggling through the Dead River region, with his whole force, the rear-guard, numbering eight hundred men. But for this defection Arnold might have triumphed in his assault on Quebec. It is a curious circumstance that, with this traitor at the rear, and with Benedict Arnold at its head, the little army also counted in its ranks Aaron Burr, whose treason was to ripen after the war ended.
[3] The Sword Dham.—Antar, the Bedouin poet-hero, was chief of the tribe of Ghaylib.
[4] The Name of Washington.—Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887, and adopted as the poem of the Society.
[5] Marthy Virginia's Hand.—This was an actual incident in the experience of the late Colonel (formerly Captain) Albert J. Munroe. of the Third Rhode Island Artillery, a gallant officer, gentle and brave as well in peace as in war.
[6] Gettysburg: A Battle Ode.—Written for the Society of the Army of the Potomac, and read at its re-union with Confederate survivors on the field of Gettysburg, July 3, 1888, the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Battle.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg