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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ch. 3.
celebrities, including all the heroes of the Revolutionary War:—
- "Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars,
- The living records of his country's wars;
- Wayne, like a moving tower, assumes his post,
- Fires the whole field, and is himself a host;
- Undaunted Stirling, prompt to meet his foes,
- And Gates and Sullivan for action rose;
- Macdougal, Clinton, guardians of the State,
- Stretch the nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate;
- Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers;
- Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers,
- His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skilled to pour
- Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore;
- No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,
- They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,
- Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,
- Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead,
- Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,
- And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head."
More than seven thousand lines like these furnished constant pleasure to the reader, the more because the "Columbiad" was accepted by the public in a spirit as serious as that in which it was composed. The Hartford wits, who were bitter Federalists, looked upon Barlow as an outcast from their fold, a Jacobin in politics, and little better than a French atheist in religion; but they could not deny that his poetic garments were of a piece with their own. Neither could they without great ingratitude repudiate his poetry as they did his politics, for they themselves figured with Manco Capac, Montezuma,
