The Hit-and-Run Raid
St. Albans was as drowsy a Vermont town as any there was —until the Confederate Army’s enthusiastic but incompetent bank robbers put on a wild half-hour of extravagant melodrama
August 1961 | Volume 12, Issue 5
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EmailThe townspeople got together and appointed a four-man delegation, including the Vermont representative to Congress, the local newspaper editor, and “Old John” Branch, who personally remembered the raid (“Rebels didn’t steal my Pa’s hoss, on account they see it was blind”), to call on General Young.
It was a truly friendly visit, and it was lengthily recorded in the Montreal Gazette of July 29. General Young wore the iron-gray and gold full dress of a Confederate general, his white hair lending impressive contrast to his handsome uniform. The Kentuckian’s bourbon stores were abundant. For a long evening, the Vermonters and the dignified Confederate fraternized. Toward midnight they touched glasses in a final toast. No hard feelings.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.
