Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/71

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due to his concern at the sufferings of his ill-*clad soldiers, awoke such sympathy that next morning "the ball-room was turned into a clothing manufactory. Fathers and husbands furnished the materials; daughters and wives plied the needle at their grateful task." "My campaign," said the General upon his return, "began with a personal obligation to the citizens of Baltimore, at the end of it I find myself bound to them by a new tie of everlasting gratitude." When, forty-three years later, Baltimore again welcomed Lafayette, one of the most touching incidents of his visit was his especial inquiry for Mr. and Mrs. David Poe,—grandparents of Edgar Allan Poe,—the one of whom had advanced Lafayette money from his private funds, and the other had herself cut out five hundred garments for his ragged troops. Mrs. Poe, with feeble body but unclouded mind, was yet alive to welcome the General, but her husband had preceded his venerable friend to the rest which comes after toil.

Another foreigner well known in Baltimore was Pulaski, who completed here the organization of the legion in command of which he fell at Savannah. In the library of the Maryland