Fredericksburg, Virginia is one of the historic towns of America. Founded long before the Revolution, upon the Rappahannock River, at the head of tide-water, it commanded for many years the trade of the opulent planters of all that fertile region lying along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The town was the centre of the commercial and social life of that rich region known as the Northern neck of Virginia and the Piedmont country, where were born and bred the great Fathers of the American liberty. In my boyhood there were many there who had walked and talked with John Marshall, George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and the Lees. For more than a century prior to the Revolution, the sturdy people of that region were often engaged in active war with the great Indian nation once ruled by King Powhatan. In the rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon against Sir William Berkeley two centuries ago, several thousand horsemen marched under his command to assert those principles of popular rights which were proclaimed and established in 1776. Many of those soldiers were from Fredericksburg and its vicinity, and it was inevitable that the descendants of these men should be the very first to arm against the encroachments of the British Crown, and it was in Fredericksburg that a convention of delegates of twelve companies of horse assembled and proclaiming their purpose to defend the colony of Virginia, or any other colony, against the king of England, marched under the command of Patrick Henry, against Lord Dunmore in his capital.