Lafayette visited York in 1825, then sixty-eight years old, and last surviving Major General of the Revolution; he stopped overnight at McGrath’s Hotel, on site of the Rupp Building, where a reception and banquet were given him; among the toasts was, “Lafayette, we love him as a man, hail him as a deliverer, revere him as a champion of freedom, and welcome him as a guest”; to which he responded, “The Town of York, the seat of our American Union in our most gloomy time; may her citizens enjoy a proportionate share of American prosperity.” At request of Washington, Baron Steuben came to Yorktown early in 1778, and was immediately appointed to the rank of major-general; from here he went to Valley Forge and began to drill and discipline the Army, in the military tactics used by Frederick the Great. In May, 1778, a nephew of General Putnam, who crossed the Atlantic in the Mercury, a fast flying vessel of Congress, which landed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, brought a letter to Henry Laurens of South Carolina, President of Congress, from Benjamin Franklin, saying, “The King of France has resolved to send $600,000 in silver, an army and a fleet, to aid the Americans in their struggle for Liberty.” The Articles of Confederation were formed here, and adopted in Philadelphia the following June. Much Continental money was ordered by Congress, which was printed in a house, at the corner of Market and Beaver Streets, marked by tablet. Penn Park has a soldiers’ monument, to men of York County in Civil War; this has been the scene of many military gatherings; several insubordinates of the Pennsylvania line were shot here, by order of General Wayne, before the forces under him marched to Virginia; and large hospitals were built here during the Civil War, when York County was the high-water mark of the Southern Confederacy. On June 28, 1863, General Jubal Early of Virginia, with 10,000 Confederate troops, took possession of York. John B. Gordon, leading a brigade of Georgia troops, was first to enter town; he marched on to Wrightsville with twenty-eight hundred men, where a skirmish took place, and when the bridge across the Susquehanna was burned by the Union forces on the Lancaster County side; Early remained in York two days, with four brigades, and received word to fall back immediately to Gettysburg. The first engagement took place in the streets of HANOVER, between Confederate cavalry under Stuart, who were defeated by Union cavalry under Kilpatrick; they were prevented from reaching Gettysburg until evening of second day of battle, which probably turned the tide in favor of the Union; this event is commemorated in the Center Square by a statue, that ranks with the best Art in Pennsylvania, a cavalryman, bronze; sculptor, Cyrus E. Dallim, Boston.