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Show HISTORY MADE IN THIS SMALL TOWN Middletown, Va., Saw Start of "Sheridan's Ride." This is written in the tiny village of Middletown, Va. The town is so small that it hasn't even a drug store in which to buy a picture postcard. But there is more history to be read here and more tradition in its ancient landmarks than many towns of 100 times its size can boast of. Almost everybody who ever read a school book remembers "Sheridan's ride." This village of Middletown was at the end of the ride from Winchester, writes Grove Patterson in the Toledo Blade. The house in which this Is written Is one hundred and twenty-five years old an old house when General Sheridan Sher-idan pulled up at the gate. The general gen-eral turned what looked like a Confederate Con-federate victory into a rout, and saved the day by coming from Winchester. Up at Winchester Is a house where General Washington stopped awhile during the Revolution. Between here and there is a ridge now a pleasant bit of farm land where Stonewall Jackson stood, and kept standing until, un-til, on that day at least, the Union army had a bad time of It. Once In Virginia, if he has eyes and ears for history, one begins to think and hear cf Robert E. Lee. Lee said : "The suhlimest word in the English language is duty." If he had left no other message, that message mes-sage put across to the American people peo-ple would have been worth living for. Good Americans no longer think of Lee as a "rebel" leader, but as a great man loyal to a mistaken and a lost cause. |