The success of my efforts to see the old hero comfortably fixed naturally awakened a renewed interest and a desire to visit him once more at his home. So, on a bright day in June, 1867, I visited John Gray, of Mount Vernon, Va., for the last time. I felt a deep interest in the old hero, because I knew him long and well, but chiefly because I knew he was the last living man who could say of a truth --

"I have shaken hands with Washington, and fought under him. I was born at Mount Vernon, and was his warm personal friend."

I know no mortal man except John Gray could say those words. I sought for his history. He had a history worth knowing. To fill out the volume of our colonial and Revolutionary history only one name more was left; it was the name of John Gray, of Mt. Vernon. But to get his history was no easy task. He had been a common man. His deeds were not in print. Only from his lips could I gather up the raveled threads of his life. To him, therefore, I went, and to his neighbors; and from them gleaned the fragmentary points presented in this volume. If the reader will read as patiently as I have written, he will down this book satisfied that John Gray was the last survivor of Washington's army. If the reader finds any discrepancies or contradictions, let him remember that the field from which I gleaned is one a hundred years, grown over thickly with weeds of forgetfulness, and covered, for the most part with the fog of oblivion. John Gray did not figure in public life. He was a plain man, like Lincoln. From such a life it is hard to gather strange incidents. I give the facts as I got them from time to time from an old man nearly in his grave. He had no writings. He had not records. You can see John Gray's humble connection with great events, without putting on my glasses, so I merely drop these facts. You may elaborate. I deal with points. You may detail. I profess to tell the world a new and wonderful story of a wonderful old man. This is all I claim. I point to the evidence in the acts of Congress and in the letter of the governor of Ohio. A vast crowd of witnesses attest the truth of this history. The proof is plain. It is given in fragments. You can pick them out. It will interest you as such as story has never interested you before. Such is the plain truth of this history of the last man of the Revolution. A plain tale of truth. If I take my own way of telling the old man's story, you can not blame me after you have heard it.

Washington is in the clear upper sky, and John Gray, his last soldier, has joined him in the land of the spirits. Eighty-nine years ago Washington died; John Gray died March 29, 1868. Washington was the first soldier of the Revolution, John Gray was the last soldier of the Revolution. The whole army had died before John Gray died. Alone John Gray remained as a venerable monument of that noble generation. Washington was a Virginian, John Gray was a Virginian too. Washington was a patriot and a Christian, so was John Gray. Washington fought for our liberty and independence, so did John Gray. One after another Revolutionary soldiers dropped off, until John Gray alone survived. Liek the sentinel of Pompeii, John Gray remained sublimely resolute at his post of duty until God had removed all his companions in the arms by death, and then folded his hands quietly over his patriotic heart and fell asleep in Jesus, in his 105th year. Washington's home was Mount Vernon. John Gray's birthplace was Mount Vernon. It would seem as if this coincidence worked a charm to preserve John Gray alive. It would seem as if to be born at Mount Vernon were to inherit immortality, as of one bathed in the fabled stream whose waters were said to confer immortality. It seemed as if born at Mount Vernon he could not die. And here we submit material for a grander history of John Gray, for this history is an unhewn boulder of truth.

Whomever may hereafter visit Mount Vernon, let him remember that Washington's last soldier was born upon its ample acres. Let him remember, too, that John Gray was a dear personal friend of Washington. That hand crumbling to dust in that white coffin there has often pressed the hand of John Gray. Wherever hereafter you go about the dear shades of Mount Vernon, remember that John Gray's sturdy arm felled trees here, and his skillful hand helped to adorn Mount Vernon for his chieftan's eye. Washington little thought, when he lasted pressed the hand of his soldier John Gray, that John Gray was to outlive him by nearly three generations, and speak his fame to another century. Washington was only thirty years older than John Gray. His chances to live as long as John Gray seemed fair and flattering. But John Gray outlived his chief well night three-quarters of a century. It is of this wonderful old man this book speaks. His fame should keep company with the venerable fame of Washington forever. Washington, the first soldier -- John Gray, the last soldier. Worthy every way is John Gray of a place beside the name of Washington, for his life was pure and good. The volume of the history of the Revolution remained open until John Gray died. The volume now closes. This book finishes the history of the Revolution. Nothing more remains but that we forever revere the memory and imitate the virtues of such men as Washington and John Gray. My last visit to Mr. Gray, as before intimate, was in June, 1867. At this interview I was determined, if possible, to get more definite information in regard to his parentage and early life. My friend Matthew McCleary, of Noble county, Ohio, was with me. I transcribe th enotes which I then and there made of that interview. I am sorry I could not make them more full and accurate. Let future historians do so. It is my duty to give these facts just as John Gray gave them to me, without addition. Near Hiramsburgh, Ohio, in the midst of a meadow, is a cabin; in front of the door is an old-fashioned well; on the hill just above, and in full view, perhaps two hundred yards off, is a little enclosure grown over with weeds, where sleep the remains of John Gray's people. As I approached the cabin, the old man's dog ran out and barked fiercely at me. As I entered the cabin, a sweet girl of perhaps fourteen years met me with a smile and invited me in. There before me stood John Gray on his crutches, an old man, the oldest I ever saw and the most reverend. On his crutches leaning, his hair falling in snowy showers about his shoulders; his hands large, for he had lived by hard labor; his feet as small as a woman's; he was five feet eight inches high; broad, very broad of chest, and with a massive head of perfect symmetry. He looked up at me with his two sweet, blue eyes and smiled. He was not ugly. His smile made him look handsome. His voice trembled a little but was pleasant; a subdued and musical treble like that of a child. I expected him to sit down exhausted. He had been moving about on his crutches and was indeed tired. But, on sitting down, he at once began to talk to us. His dog walked around and lay down quietly beside Mr. Gray, the sentinel of the old revolutionist. Thus appeared John Gray in his 105th year, in his home in Noble county Ohio. Doubtless artists will yet set the picture in a beautiful frame in the Capital of the Nation, and thus for the first time do honor to a private soldier. I came in. The old man looked up, and hardly knew me at firse. My friend, Matthew McCleary, Esq., called to the old man, and told who I was. Instantly he recognized me, and reached out the hand that had so often grasped the hand of Washington. I seized his hand and kissed it, and felt that I was blessed to have the privilege. The old man's hearing was quite dull, and his eyesight very dim. But he could both see and hear a little. He told me he was five feet eight inches high, though he sat doubled up in an old man's way, he appeared much shorter. He had grown heavy but by no means corpulent. He laughed as I remarked that he was not much fatter than he was the last time I had met him. "Oh, no," he said, laughingly, "we old men don't fatten much on hog and hominy, and the poor tobacco we get now-a-days." He had a large spittoon by his side -- a wooden box that would be hold half a bushel -- contents thereof better imagined than described. He had chewed tobacco for about a hundred years, and could not leave it off. Mr. Gray had grown quite infirm, and could hardly hear us speaking. His memory, of course, had somewhat failed. So this may account for some discrepancies in this book. I will try explain some of them. In the main they are not such as to give the reader any trouble, satisfied as now his mind must be of the general truth o fmy story. So here are the fragmentary facts elicited at that last interview. Mr. Gray's father enlisted in 1777, and fell at White Plains. Mr. Gray belonged to the militia under Captain Sanford, and they were called out in the fall, in October prior to year the war closed. I now give his words: "I was a mighty tough kind of boy in them days I tell you. I saw big, heavy men give out, but I never lagged a foot behind. We started from Fairfax C.H. and went out to Fredericksburg, and from there to Yorktown. When we were near Williamsburg orders came to send out a scouting part to feel of the British; we were then trying to come up to Williamsburg. We were to weak to fight them. But our captain called for volunteers to go out on a scrimmage, and I volunteered with sixty others. We had gone only two or three miles when we came upon the red-coats in large force. Just as we got near enough to fire, I could see day-break.

"It was pretty hot for a while, I tell you. They had cannon, we had none. They fired grape-shot at us; but it was on rising ground, and they fired over us. But we had to fall back, and so we then marched to Richmond. In the next year, Cornwallis surrendered. Our time was out the day we came in sight of Yorktown. I went back to hard work, near Moutn Vernon, when the war was over. My family were mighty poor, and there was a big family of us. So, as I was the eldest of a large family, I had to go to work to support them. There was eight children of us. I used to take my dog, and go out and catch rabbits. It was all we had to eat sometimes. I was married to Nancy Dowell when I was twenty years old. I first moved to Morgantown, Va. We had our things in a wagon. I took a notion we would go down to Kentucky. So I built a boat, and put my family and horses aboard, and went as far as Dilly's Bottom. There I stopped for nine years. From there, I went to Fish Creek, took a lease to clear some land, and stayed there seven years. I came up through these parts in them days. There was a salt-lick up on Duck Creek and we used to come up and hunt of winters. I saw Indians, plenty of them. I remember the year of Wayne's defeat. I tell you, the settlement was badly skeered of then. I may have shot one or two red-skins -- no matter.

"I was married to my second wife in the Flats of Grave Creek. He name was Mary Regan. I don't know where my children is now; I am afeerd they are all gone, except my step-daughter. I have my crutches and a pension to support me. I am very well satisfied. God bless Judge Bingham for getting that pension he got for me! He was always kind to me. I always voted for him, because I have known him to be a good man. I tell you, we haven't many more such men. He is a soldier's firend. I saw all that through the war. He is always ready to do a good turn for a soldier. No wonder all the boys like him."

Mr. Gray narrated to me the following anecdote of General Washington. I beleive it has never before been published, and, as it gives a new view of General Washington's characteristic kindness, it is worth preserving:

At this time (after Mr. Gray had returned from the Continental army) he lived near Mount Vernon. There was then a saw-mill -- running by water power, of course -- on a stream called Dog Run. The General's negroes came there, with whip-saws in their hands, one bright May morning, and with them also came John Gray, with a whip-saw, too. Sawing was a slow business then. What could not be sawed with the large saw, Mr. Gray and the slaves easily sawed with the whip-saws. As he was busily sawing, one day, and musing over his Revolutionary experience, who should ride up but General Washington himself. With characteristic kindness, the great man called to John Gray, for he knew him well. John dropped his saw, and, in a twinkling, was shaking hands with the General. The General inquired kindly for his health, and, telling him not to work too hard, bad him good-bye, and rode away.

It did me good to hear the old man tell it. I might fill a volume with similar anecdotes, for Mr. Gray never tired of speaking of General Washington. His want of property excluded him from voting, in Virginia, for his beloved Washington. And he often said, had it not been for that, he might well have lived and died in Virginia. But he was a Republican at heart, and could not well get over the insult thus leveled by aristocratic distinctions against his proud manhood. Saving this, John Gray was a true lover of Virginia. He often mourned, and even wept, over Virginia's wayward course in the Rebellion -- for John Gray was loyal. But when the war was over, all his feelings against Virginia left him. He remembered that Washington and he were born in Virginia, had fought a common foe in Virginia, and had returned in triumph from a war that closed so grandly in Virginia. No Virginian need ever blush to acknowledge John Gray's fame. He was a true Virginian, proud of the Old Dominion -- with all her faults, loving her still. I asked him if he would hang Jeff Davis.

"Oh, no," said the old man, "that would do no good. The war is over. It would only raise bad feelings against us. He can't do us any harm. Let him live." I asked him if thought the South would come back all right. "Oh, yes, I guess so," responded the old soldier, "when she cools off a little. You know those Southern folks are pretty hot-blooded; but they'll come around all right by-and-by." I asked his opinion of Grant. "Well," he said, musingly, "he is a great general, but I can't see into him very well. But he will be our next President, though." This was June 1867, one year before General Grant was first nominated. Mr. Gray was very fond of dogs. He said he had always owned a dog or two. "Though," said he, with a merry laugh, "I sometimes have had nothing else but a dog;" and, musing a moment, he added: "A plug of tobacco, of course, for without a dog or tobacco I should feel lost." A little white dog lay coiled up near his chair. "What is the name of your dog, Mr. Gray" I inquired. "Nice," responded he. "Is that not a nice name?" he naively inquired, while his sides shook at the witticism. He told me biographies of several of his canine friends. I remember one only. When Mr. Gray's father first went into the army John was but thirteen years of age; but, being the eldest of eight children, the care of the family devolved on him. They had no meat. They had nothing but a little cornmeal -- rather a spare larder, my fair reader of the nineteenth century's fullness; so John went out and caught rabbits to feed the family. His dog, "Lade," always his companion upon these expeditions. What John's gun failed to bring down, Lade's flying feet brought low. I am glad that Mr. Gray has left us a picture of Lade. She was a red female hound, with a white ring around her neck. He told me that he never cried harder than he did that day he last saw Lade, except when he was leaving home to enter the Continental army. He told me that he died old and full of years, and he laid her down gently to sleep in the deep recesses of the woods of Mount Vernon. Thus closed the man's story. There he sat alone. He had outlived his generation. His white hair, still abundant, flowing down over his bent form, made him seem a patriarchal hero. We bade him good-by.