lf to see how much of it
you can recall exactly. Complete the memorization
by this same process of careful re-reading.

3. Whitman had his volume, _Drum Taps_, practically
completed when Lincoln's assassination occurred. He
held up its publication to include "O Captain! My
Captain" and another poem on the death of Lincoln,
called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed."
Why is the title of the latter poem appropriate?

WASHINGTON'S GREATEST BATTLE

BY FREDERICK TREVOR HILL

By 1781 the French were cooeperating with our
colonial troops against the armies and navies of
the British. Lafayette was in the South helping
Greene worry Cornwallis. Rochambeau was working
with Washington near New York, to keep Clinton from
uniting his forces with those of Cornwallis. De
Grasse, in charge of the French fleet, was planning
a blow at the British squadron. The stage was thus
set for a great military stroke--and Washington
readily took up the cue.

Word was received from Lafayette that Cornwallis
had moved to Yorktown on the York River, Virginia,
close to Chesapeake Bay, and almost at the same
moment the long-expected dispatch arrived from de Grasse,
advising Washington that he was just on the point of 5
sailing for Chesapeake Bay. The instant he received this
news the American commander realized that his chance had
come. Cornwallis had evidently brought his army to
Yorktown that it might cooeperate with a British fleet in
the Chesapeake, and by good luck de Grasse was heading 10
directly for this very spot. A bold, swift stroke might now
end the war, and the plan which Washington immediately
put in operation was daring to a really perilous degree.

Up to this point all the movements of the French and
Americans had convinced Clinton that an attack would 15
soon be made against New York. Never for a moment did
he imagine that his opponent would dare leave the Hudson
unguarded and throw his whole army against Cornwallis.
The risk of losing West Point and the difficulty of covering
the hundreds of miles that lay between New York and Yorktown
seemed to forbid any such maneuver. Nevertheless,
this was precisely what Washington intended to do, and
within a few days af