Evening Star Newspaper, February 23, 1930, Page 79

Fic_tion gz! h A Art PART SEVEN. , D. C, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1930. ¢ Sunfhay Star Magasine Features 24 PAGES. — By William Beverley. EHIND the glass door of a cabinet in the Exeter, N. H.,. Museum there hangs a worn and faded uniform of a soldier who fought in America’s first war. He is one.of the unsung and un- known heroes of the Revolution. The tourist or mnative. who stops before this case reads that here hangs the uniform of a soldier of the Continental Army of 1776. No name or regimental marking gives him a place in L. %ory. He has passed into the dust of the ages, leaving behind him only a faded blue coat and proof that an un- known soldier without rank had served beyond the call of duty. By an order of Gen. George Washing- ton, probably lost in the multitude of papers stored by the Govern- ment, he had been singled out from other brave men to be written down in history as one of the gloricus traditions of the new re- public. On the left breast of the blue tunic is seen a heart of purple silk, bound with braid and edged with lace. You would call it & romantic, a sentimental trinket; a valentine, worn proudly for the world to look upon. You would picture a bit of royal silk from some fair lady's bodice, a fringe of lace from her slesve. “Sentiment,” you would call it, witn a relenting tenderness for some boy who had loved and fought and died. You would probably speculate about the frivolous silken heart and the stout manly one that beat beneath it. If you had been a soldier yourself you would believe the lad had paid a price in teasing for the wearing of his lady’s colors, the boasting of his lady’s heart. And if by chance you had gone through the hell which is the kill- ‘ng of men, you would get a glow, ~ thrill out of that old blue uni- 12, and come away wishing you . .3ht have known the gallant fel- .57, and hoping he got back to the girl who made the purple heart with its fringe of lace. And you would be wrong. THE purple heart was designed by the sternest man in the en- tire history of the United States. For George Washington himself created and planned ‘the purple heart and named it the Badge of Military Merit. This was the first decoration given in our country and the second in the world. The history of the United States is as yet an unwritten book, Hardly a month passes but some new papers, some important docu- ments are discovered which throw new light upon questions which historians once thought settled. In the Library of Congress the work of assimilating, cataloguing and relating ma- terial relevant to the history of America is going on all the time. Sometime before 1932, the 200th anniversary of Washington's birth, if Congress approves the appropriation, the work of publishing the George Washington papers will commence, and some of the pro- posed 256 volumes may achieve book form. it was in the course of working over this material that John C. Pitzpatrick, while in the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, came upon the story of the Badge of Military Merit, the Order of the Purple Heart. The story of the human side of Washington can be only partly told, but as mew documents are dis- covered it will perhaps some day take its true place in the chronicle of this Nation. Today only a very few persons have even heard of the Badge of Military Merit; histories do not mention it; historians, for the most part, have never come upon it and those who do know of this decoration know of it only because Mr. Pitzpatrick was interested enough to search out all that he could find about it and write of it, romantically referring to it for the first time as the Order of the Purple Heart. Behind the stern mask which history has, Washington receiving a salute on the Field of Trenton. (Courtesy of the Robert Pridenberg Galleries.) fashioned for George Washington there lved & very romantic man, one who sensed the full emotional values of life. On the Tth of August, 1782, Washington, es- tablished in his headquarters at Newburg, dic- tated the orders of the day; “For fatigue tomor- row, the 2d Massachu- setts Regiment. “Countersign — York Lancaster.” Following the desig- nation of the counter- sign, Washington, in previous orders of the day, had listed the pro- motions and commis- sions which had been that day. Only a short time before Congress had ruled that no more officers were to be com- Money had scarce. Thus the only recog- nition which Washing- ton and his generals had been able to bestow for unusual bravery andserv- ice had been removed from their power. Out of his poverty of re- wards for distinguished service there was born an order of valor, save for the Cross of St. George of Russia, the oldest decoration for gallantry and bravery known and the first to be truly democratic in its . spirit—the Purple Heart, denied rank or social distinction as playing any part in heroic action. By its’ significance and its ro- mance it stands out be- side any decoration which the minds of men have fashioned for a tribute to heroism. On that same Tth of of the democracy. It reads: “The general, ' ever desirous to cherish vir- tuous ambition in his - soldiers' as well as to foster and encourage every species of mili- tary merit, directs that whenever any singu- lar meritorious action is performed the au- thor of it shall be Secret o]} the Purple Heart From Musty Records of a Day Gone By, Historians Have Uncovered the Story of a Badge of Merit Created by Washington During the Revolution—The Order of the Purple Heart, America’s First Decoration for Valor, Which Had Been Forgotten Many Years. as a permanent one.” book of merit which will kept at the orderly office” has ing the War of 1812, or it may just lost somewhere in the Army Munitions Building, in ‘Washington, where the Adjutant But while the book of merit can- not be found, there are two or three references to the Badge of Military Merit which have recently come to light. There are the names of three recipients and the briefest accounts of the acts which won them this honor. And in the his- torical - collection of -the New Hampshire Chapter. of the Order of the Cincinnati is the unidenti- names we can associate with Sergt. Daniel Bissel we knok somewhat more than we &0 General's records disclose. in August, 1781, Daniel Bissel deserted the Army and there, as far as General's Office is concerned, the But when we read that on the 3d of May, the Badge of Military Merit was Daniel Bissel, the deserter, we L Arnold for his “services to the King.” spent months gathering the inf - and ‘then, at Though not pertinent to the story, drama enters at this point. in delirium he-babbled enou one of the doctors attending