I do wish somebody would tell me where my place is on the field of battle! Wherever I go to look after the fight, I am told, "This is no place for you; you must go away." ROBERT E. LEE _Lee, with 50,000 men, repulses Grant with 100,000, at Spottsylvania Court House; Lee "ordered" to the rear, 1864_ May Thirteenth Good is the Saxon speech! clear, short, and strong, Its clean-cut words, fit both for prayer and song; Good is this tongue for all the needs of life; Good for sweet words with friend, or child, or wife. * * * * * 'Tis good for laws; for vows of youth and maid; Good for the preacher; or shrewd folk in trade; Good for sea-calls when loud the rush of spray; Good for war-cries where men meet hilt to hilt, And man's best blood like new-trod wine is spilt,-- Good for all times, and good for what thou wilt! JAMES BARRON HOPE _Landing at Jamestown, 1607_ _Texas troops, C. S. A., defeat Federals in last battle of the War, at Palmito Ranch, 1865, the victors learning from their prisoners that the Confederacy had fallen (Chas. Wm. Ramsdell)_ May Fourteenth [This exploration] was undertaken at the instance of President Jefferson, and together with the voyage which Captain Gray of Boston had made to the Columbia, in 1792, gave the United States a claim to all the territory covered by the States of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE _Lewis and Clark start from St. Louis on northwestern expedition, 1804_ May Fifteenth Throughout the events that led up to the Revolution, it seemed ordained that Massachusetts was to suffer and Virginia to sympathize. Until the outbreak of actual hostilities scarcely anything of moment occurred on the soil of Virginia to incite her sons to champion the cause of freedom. Indeed, from the beginning of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country, the British Ministry seemed to have avoided any special cause of irritation to the people of the Old Dominion. The part, therefore, which Virginia took in the events of those days must be attributed to her devotion to the principles of liberty, to her interest in the common cause of the colonies, and particularly to her sympathy with Massachusetts in the suffering which that province was called upon to endure. If we lose sight of these motives as the springs of Virginia's conduct in that struggle, we shall be unable to appreciate either the nobility of her spirit or the wisdom and energy which marked her initiative. S. C. MITCHELL _Virginia opposes Boston Port Bill, 1774_ May Sixteenth I refuse to make any acknowledgments for what I have done. My blood will be as seed sown in good ground, which will produce a hundred fold. JAMES PUGH (_Before execution under Gov. Tryon, North Carolina, 1771_) _Battle of Alamance Creek, 1771_ May Seventeenth