and the Louisburg grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they everywhere gave way.  Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barre, who fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which made him blind of one eye, and ultimately of both.  Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was wounded in the wrist; but still pressing forward, he received a second ball; and having decided the day, was struck a third time, and mortally, in the breast.  “Support me,” he cried to an officer near him; “let not my brave fellows see me drop.”  He was carried to the rear, and they brought him water to quench his thirst.  “They run! they run!” spoke the officer on whom he leaned.  “Who run?” asked Wolfe, as his life was fast ebbing.  “The French,” replied the officer, “give way everywhere.”  “What,” cried the expiring hero, “do they run already?  Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb’s regiment with all speed to Charles River to cut off the fugitives.”  Four days before, he had looked forward to early death with dismay.  “Now, God be praised, I die happy.”  These were his words as his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory.  Night, silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure inspiration of genius, had been his allies; his battle-field, high over the ocean river, was the grandest theatre for illustrious deeds; his victory, one of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the English tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race the unexplored and seemingly infinite West and South.  He crowded into a few hours actions that would have given lustre to length of life; and, filling his day with greatness, completed it before its noon.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

LEXINGTON

From ‘History of the United States’

Day came in all the beauty of an early spring.  The trees were budding; the grass growing rankly a full month before its time; the bluebird and the robin gladdening the genial season, and calling forth the beams of the sun which on that morning shone with the warmth of summer; but distress and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town.  There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the grassy field was red “with the innocent blood of their brethren slain,” crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.

Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green.  These are the village heroes, who were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of a race divine.  They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the mighty struggle which they began.  Their names are held in grateful remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation.  They fulfilled their duty not from