By order of the President of the United States, a national salute was
fired, at meridian, on the twenty-fourth day of December, 1883, as a
memorial recognition of the one hundreth anniversary of the surrender by
George Washington, on the twenty-third day of December, 1783, at
Annapolis, of his commission as commander-in-chief of the patriotic
forces of America. This official order declares "the fitness of
observing that memorable act, which not only signalized the termination
of the heroic struggle of seven years for independence, but also
manifested Washington's devotion to the great principle, that ours is a
civil government, of and by the people."

The closing sentence of Washington's order, dated April 18, 1783, may
well be associated with this latest centennial observance. As he
directed a cessation of hostilities, his joyous faith, jubilant and
prophetic, thus forecast the future: "Happy, thrice happy! shall they be
pronounced, hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed
the meanest office, in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and
empire, on the broad basis of independence,--who have assisted in
protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an asylum for
the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."

The two acts of Washington, thus associated, were but the fruition of
deliberate plans which were formulated in the trenches about Boston. The
"centennial week of years," which has so signally brought into bold
relief the details of single battles and has imparted fresh interest to
many localities which retain no visible trace of the scenes which endear
them to the American heart, has inclined the careless observer to regard
the battles of the War for Independence as largely accidental, and the
result of happy, or even of Providential, circumstances, rather than as