"And When They Didn't Come Home..."

On the eve of signing the most important document in history, the Courier brings his last dispatch from George Washington to the members of Congress:

"I can now report with certainty that the eve of battle in New York is near at hand... At the present time my forces consist entirely of Haslet's Delaware Militia and Smallwood's Mary-landers, a total of five thousand troops to stand against--twenty five thousand of the enemy--and I begin to notice that many of them are lads under fifteen and old men...How it will end only Providence can direct--but dear God! what brave men--I shall lose before this business ends."

Words with such poignancy as America commemorates this memorial day in the midst of our celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.