Explore "Yorktown" by John Greenleaf Whittier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, in his description of the siege of Yorktown, says: "The labor on the Virginia plantations is performed altogether by a species of the human race cruelly wrested from their native country, and doomed to perpetual bondage, while their masters are manfully contending for freedom and the natural rights of man. Such is the inconsistency of human nature. " Eighteen hundred slaves were found at Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored to their masters. Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery: "No slave was any nearer his freedom after the surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick Henry first taught the notes of liberty to echo among the hills and vales of Virginia. "
FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, / Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill / Who curbs his steed at head of one? / Hark! the low murmur: Washington! / Who bends his keen, approving glance, / Where down the gorgeous line of France / Shine knightly star and plume of snow? / Thou too art victor, Rochambeau! / The earth which bears this calm array / Shook with the war-charge yesterday,