re. Throwing
all recollections of English hospitality to the winds, he chased the
red coats at Bunker Hill, gave them a drubbing at Bennington, and
remained bravely in the rear to watch their scouts while Washington
retreated from Long Island. Many a time he was the sole support of the
faithful few stationed to guard some important outpost; many a time he
marched along with the old Continentals, grim and faithful, expecting
every moment would reveal danger and perhaps death.

He crossed the Delaware with Washington on that eventful Christmas
night, in 1775, though the Italian blood in him must have shrunk a
little from the cold. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the great
leader through all the misery and hopelessness of Valley Forge. He was
joyously welcomed by the soldiers in all their daring escapades when
breaking loose from the restraints of camp life; and the women and
children who had to remain home and suffer danger and privation alone,
never saw his honest face without a smile.

Such devotion met with its reward. When the war was over the old
veteran retired from the service with full military rank, and was
brevetted an American citizen besides. It is pleasant to think that he
has at last found a resting place among a people who will always honor
and love him.

Two other ballads very popular at that time were _The Battle of
Trenton_ and _The Massacre of Wyoming_, while innumerable ones of
lesser note were sung by fireside and camp-fire, all through the
colonies.

In New York the first liberty pole raised in the country was planted
by the Sons of Liberty, a band of patriotic Americans, who set it up
again and again as it was cut down by the Tories, accompanying their
work by singing every imaginable kind of ballad that would irritate
the breast of the British sympathizers.

During the war of 1812, came the _Star Spangled Banner_, written to
the accompaniment of shot and shell, while the author, Francis S. Key,
was a prisoner on shipboard watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry
by the British, in the harbor of Baltimore. The song was born in the
darkness of a night of terrible anxiety, and when the dawn broke and
found the flag still floating over the fort, an earnest of the victory
to come, its triumphant measures seemed the fitting paean of American
liberty.

The ballad of the camps had developed into the national anthem.

CHAPTER II

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

1780-1851

In the days when Loui