June Fifteenth

O, Art, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits,

By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits
Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed
By some who would invoke thee.

June Sirteentb

WASHINGTON ALLSTON

W'en banjer git ter talkin'

You better hol' yo' tongue,

Hit mek you think youse gre't an' gran'
An' rich an' strong an' young,

An' ev'rything whar scrumpshus
Right at yo' feet is flung.

Oh, my soul gits up an' humps hisse'f
An' goes outside an' walks,

W'en a picker gits ter pickin'

An' de

banjer

talks!

ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

Winchester captured by Confederates, 1863

June Seventeenth

GENEROUS TRIBUTE OF A BRAVE FOE AND DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN SOLDIER AND CITIZEN

Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia never sustained defeat. Finally succumbing to exhaustion, to the end they were not overthrown in fight.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

(Massachusetts)

June Eighteentb

Now, Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin' on der packet,

Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an' c'u'dn't stan' de racket;

An' so, fur to amuse hese'f, he steamed some wood an' bent it,

An' soon he had a banjo made-de fust dat wuz invented.

De 'possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I's a-singin';

De ha'r's so long an' thick an' strong,—des fit fur banjo-stringin';

Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as washday-dinner graces;

An' sorted ob' em by de size, f'om little E's to IRWIN RUSSELL

basses.

(Origin of the Banjo on Board the Ark)

June Nineteenth

By Captain Winslow's account, the Kearsarge was struck twenty-eight times; but his ship being armored, my shot and shell fell harmless into the sea. The Alabama was not mortally wounded until after the Kearsarge had been firing at her an hour and ten minutes. In the meantime, in spite of the armor of the Kearsarge, I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her stern post-where there were no chains -which failed to explode because of the defect of the cap. On so slight an incident-the defect of a percussion-cap-did the battle hinge.

RAPHAEL SEMMES

The "Alabama" sunk by the "Kearsarge" of Cherbourg, 1864

June Twentieth

Jamestown and St. Mary's are both within the segment of a circle of comparatively small radius whose centre is at the mouth of the Chesapeake. In this strategic region, the key of America, Raleigh chose the base from which he would colonize the new empire; here the Jamestown experiment succeeded, after Raleigh's head had fallen on the block; the Revolution was fired by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, and was consummated at Yorktown; the War of 1812 was settled by the victories of North Point and Fort McHenry; the crisis of the Civil War occurred; and seven Presidents of the United States were born.

ALLEN S. WILL

The first Lord Baltimore obtains from the Crown a grant of the territory lying between the Potomac and the 40th parallel, 1632

Secession of West Virginia from Virginia sustained by the Federal Government, 1863

"Virginia, who had given to all the States in common five great commonwealths of the northwest and the county of Kentucky, was now bereft of half of what remained to her"