Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln and the Outbreak of the Civil War: Address Delivered by Colonel David N. Foster, February 17, 1929, Before the First Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana This great country of ours has had such a marvelous growth that the men and women of today do not fully comprehend how very young it is. I am reminded by this occasion of my father taking me when a child of but eight years of age to a Fourth of July celebration, held at Washington's Headquarters, at Newburgh, New York, where Washington was quartered during one of the winters of the Revolutionary War. After we had listened to the address of the orator of the 'day, they brought forward on the platform a tottering old man and introduced him to us as Mr. Usual Knapp, the last surviving member of Washington's body guard. That I should have had the privilege of seeing a member of Washington's body guard and of shaking his hand is to you a somewhat impressive illustration of how few years have passed since the Revolutionary War. If you add to the 88 years that I have lived, another life as long as mine it will take you back to 1754, more than two decades before the Declaration of Independence. In less, therefore. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.