When Littlepage was first in Poland, the place was gay and laughter-loving. An atmosphere of high culture and literary achievements made a satisfactory entourage for the ill-fated people. He lived happily there and loved a princess of North Poland. There were starlight meetings and woodland strolls, vows of faith and the pain of renunciation, when for diplomatic reasons she was forced to endure another alliance. Littlepage’s reputation and splendid appearance; her beauty and the love they bore each other and, finally, her death, made a background of red romance, against which he is silhouetted in one’s memory.
That Lewis Littlepage was a poet of no mean ability was a fact too well known to be disputed. The last verse of a poem written by him and inspired by the death of the woman he loved reads:
“Over there, where you bide—past the sunset’s gold glory,
With eyes that are shining, and red lips apart,
Are you waiting to tell me the wonderful story,
That death cannot part us—White Rose of my Heart.”
It is said that Littlepage had more honors and decorations showered upon him than any other American in history.
Go to the old Masonic cemetery in Fredericksburg, and in a far corner, where the wild vines and the hardy grass struggle for mastery, you may see a legend inscribed upon a large flat stone: This is the tomb of Lewis Littlepage. For the multitude, it is simply an unpleasant finale to the life of a well known man.
To the imaginative, it starts a train of thought—a play of fancy. One sees the rise of the star of Poland. Gay youths and maids pass and repass to the sound of music and laughter. The clank of a sword sounds above the measured foot fall on a polished floor. A soldier passes in all the bravery of uniform. It is General Littlepage silently going to an audience with the King. The massive doors open without a challenge, for as a passport to the palace, on the uniform of this soldier glitters a large gold key—the gift of Stanislaus.
Suddenly the scene changes. Amid the surging hosts and in the thick of the bloody clash at Prague, when the anguish of uncertainty was crumbling the courage of a kingdom, a man is seen, riding with reckless abandon. Tearing through the lines and holding aloft the tattered standard of Poland, comes Littlepage of Virginia. With the rallying cry of his adopted land, he gathers up his troops and gloriously defends the flag he loves. Our eyes again stray to the legend on the tomb: Disillusionment!
His return to his old home! His death! We see this also, but with this is the knowledge that he lived greatly, and in his ears, while dying, sounded again, the shout of victory, while his heart held the dream of the old romance.
Gen. George Weedon
Among the first men in America to “fan the flames of sedition,” as an English traveler said of him long before the war, was Mine Host George Weedon, keeper of the Rising Sun Tavern, Postmaster, and an Irish immigrant. At his place gathered all the great of his day, spending hours dicing and drinking punch.