The front page of the Green Mountain Freeman is dominated by a haunting Vermont legend in verse - "Margery Gray," a poem by Julia C.K. Dorr that tells the tragic tale of a young wife and mother who becomes lost in the wilderness "near a hundred years ago." The poem follows Margery as she leaves her cabin on a lovely April morning with her laughing baby, planning to visit a friend while her husband Robert works in the wheat fields. But she never arrives, becoming hopelessly lost in the dark Canadian forests and New Hampshire valleys, wandering for months as her baby dies in her arms and she slowly wastes away, finally emerging months later in October as a wild, disheveled figure in the streets of Charlestown. Below the poetry, the paper features a lengthy piece from The Atlantic Monthly titled "Our Future Militia System," which discusses the urgent need for military training in American schools. The article recalls the chaos of the early Civil War days and advocates for drilling schoolboys as the solution to America's military preparedness, citing successful examples from Switzerland and England where such programs restored order and discipline.

This September 1865 edition captures America just months after the Civil War's end, as the nation grapples with questions of military preparedness and identity. The lengthy discussion of militia systems reflects widespread anxiety about how to maintain military readiness without a large standing army - a debate that would shape American defense policy for decades. The romanticized frontier tragedy of "Margery Gray" speaks to Vermont's efforts to create its own literary mythology, part of a broader post-war cultural movement where regions sought to define their unique American character through local legends and folklore.

• The newspaper cost just $1.50 per year if paid in advance, otherwise $2.00 - and was delivered free of postage to all towns in Washington County
• The fictional Brigadier-General Blank in the militia article once 'omitted the final order March' during drill, leaving most of his men 'perched, Zouave-like, upon the high board fence which bounded the camp'
• The paper mentions that a hundred thousand veterans live 'in every village' with 'an arsenal full of rifles in every State' - highlighting just how militarized America had become
• The Swiss military drill system being praised was implemented at Hofwyl school, where the chaplain Rev. Charles O. Vignoles confirmed that discontinuing military drill had caused complete 'disorganization'
• The only successful American public school experiment with military drill mentioned was in Brookline, Massachusetts

• Poet Julia C.K. Dorr, whose tragic Vermont legend fills the front page, would go on to become one of America's most popular 19th-century female poets, eventually hosting literary salons that attracted figures like Oliver Wendell Holmes
• The article's mention of 'Zouave-like' positioning refers to the colorful French colonial troops whose flamboyant uniforms and acrobatic drills became wildly popular with Civil War units on both sides
• Switzerland's military school system being praised here would later inspire similar programs across Europe - the same Swiss model would influence military education in Prussia, contributing to their later military dominance
• The 'hundred thousand veterans in every village' the paper mentions was barely an exaggeration - over 2 million Union soldiers were mustering out in 1865, creating the largest population of military veterans in American history to that point
• That Atlantic Monthly article advocating for school military drill would prove prophetic - by the 1880s, military training would be mandatory in many American high schools and colleges