The celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the United States at
the city of Philadelphia in 1876, and the exhibit there made of that
nation's wonderful growth and progress, gave a new and remarkable
impulse to the germs of patriotism in American life. The following
tales of the American Revolution--with the exception of the last--were
written twenty-two years ago, and are the outcome of an interest then
awakened. They all appeared in magazines and other publications of
that period, from which they have been gathered into this volume, in
the hope that thereby patriotism may grow stronger in the children of
to-day.