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BOOK 973.R393 c. 1 RICHARDSON # HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY
■^
3 T153 000M7t,lt D
THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY
FROM ITS DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS TO THE CELEBRATION
OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF ITS
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
EMBRACING
AN ACCOUNT OF ITS DISCOVERY; NARRATIVES OF THE STRUGGLES OF ITS EARLY SETTLERS; SKETCHES OF ITS HEROES; THE HISTORY OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, AND THE WAR FOR NATIONALITY; ITS INDUSTRIAL SUC- CESSES, AND A RECORD OF ITS WHOLE PROGRESS AS A NATION.
BT
ABBY SAGE RICHARDSON.
BEAUTIFULLY AND PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED BY
ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY GRANVILLE PERKINS, C. G. BUSH, AND FELIX O. C. DARLEY, AND PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED DISCOVERERS, STATES- MEN, GENERALS, AND HEROES.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
%\)t Mitn&int prrsg, Cambritjge*
1893.
Copyright, 1875. Abby Sage Richardson.
The RiuersUle Press, Cambriilge , lilass., U. S. A. Electrotypud and Printed by II. O. Houghton & Company.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE STORY OP THE COLONIES : FROM INFANCY TO INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. PAOE
Christopher Columbus. — The Route to the East. — Columbus wishes to sail Westward to India. — He applies to Portugal and Genoa. — Finally aided by Isabella of Spain. — Sets Sail from Palos. — Incidents of Voyage. — Discovers West Indies. — Riches of the New World. — Second Voyage 25
CHAPTER II.
OTHER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.
Portugal finds an Eastern Passage to India. —Columbus and the Egg. —Third Voyage.— Touches the Continent. — Sad Fate of Columbus 33
CPIAPTER III.
NAMING OF AMERICA, AND OTHER DISCOVERERS.
Amerigo Vespucci. — The Brothers Pinzon. -^ Gulf of the Three Brothers. — Florida dis- covered. — Fountain of Immortal Youth . . . .35
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC.
Spanish Colonies. — Vasco Nunez de Balboa. — Avarice of Spaniards. — The Indians lead Balboa in Sight of the Land of Gold. —The South Sea 39
CHAPTER V.
FIRST VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD.
Magellan at Patagonia. — The First Potatoes eaten by Europeans. — The Straits of Magel- lan.— Death of the Great Navigator. — Return of the Last Ship to Spain . . .41
CHAPTER VI.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
Cortez and Pizarro. — Story of Narvaez. — Cabe(;a de Vaca crosses the Continent. — ^ Fer- dinand de Soto. — Grand Armj' of De Soto. — Story of John Ortiz. — The Great Mis- sissippi.— Burial of De Soto. — Return of his Army 43
CHAPTER VII.
ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORERS.
Henry VII. of England. — Sebastian Cabot discovers North America. — The French King sends Ships to America. — Verrazano comes to New York. — Voyages of Jacques Car- tier to Canada. — His Ship lost in the St. Lawrence ...-.-. 49
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
FRENCH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
The French Protestants. — The Land of Flowers. — The Colony of Ribault in Carolina. — Spaniards at St. Augustine. — The Spanish massacre the French Colony. — Sad Fate of Ribault and his Companions. — Dominic de Gourgues. — He avenges the Murder of Frenchmen ..... 53
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLISH ATl'EMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage. — His Ship struck by an Iceberg. —The Shipwrecked Crew. — Walter Raleigh's First Colony. — Homesick Emigrants. — The Lost Colonists 59
CHAPTER X.
THE INDIANS.
First Inhabitants of America. — Aztecs in Mexico. — The Red Men of the United States. — How they looked. — Their Houses. — The Clothes they wore. — Canoes. — Food. — Household Implements. — Indian Women. — The Happy Hunting-grounds . . . 65
CHAPTER XL
FIRST PERMANENT ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.
King James grants Lan-^.s in Virginia. — The Sealed Orders for the Colony. — Captain John Smith. — His School-days. — Turns Hermit. — Tournament with the Turks. — His Slavery in Tartary. — His Character as Leader in a Colony 74
CHAPTER XIL
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY.
Smith and Newport explore the Country. — Smith taken Prisoner by Indians. — The Young Pocahontas saves his Life. — New Arrivals in Jamestown.— Shipwreck of Gates and Somers. — Pocahontas taken Prisoner. — Marriage and Death of Pocahontas 79
CHAPTER XIIL
THE PLANTER IN VIRGINIA.
How a Settlement was begun. — Exports of the Colonists. — Choosing Sites for Planta- tions. — Slavery introduced into Virginia. — Buying a Wife with Tobacco. — Life in England in 1607. — A Virginia Planter's House in 1649 84
CHAPTER XIV.
A CHAPTER OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
John Smith sets out on another Voyage. — Queen Elizabeth and her Father. — Bloody Mary persecutes the Protestants., — The Puritans. — The Cavaliers. — The Puritan Em- igrants ia Holland. — They resolve to buy Lands in America . . ... 90
CHAPTER XV.
EMIGRATION OF PILGRIMS.
The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth. — Landing in Massachusetts. — Treaty with Mas- sasoit. — Struggles of the Colony. — Massachusetts Bay Colony formed. — The Apos; tie of the Indians 9*
CHAPTER XVI.
SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND.
Religious Intolerance. — Roger Williams's Banishment. — He finds Succor from friendly Indians. — Providence settled. — Religious Freedom in Rhode Island. — Williams gets a Charter for his Colony ... 102
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER XVII.
WEST COUNTRY PEOPLE SETTLE CONNECTICUT.
Settlers in Dorchester. — March to Connecticut River. — New Haven founded. — Traders and Fishermen settle New Hampshire and Maine. — Troubles in England. — The King beheaded. — Story of Oliver Cromwell. — Maine a Province of Massachusetts . . 106
CHAPTER XVin.
THE DUTCH IN AMERICA.
The Country of Holland. — How they keep off the Sea. — Dutch Traders. — Henry Hud- son sent to America. — Hudson River discovered. — Fur-trade. — New York City be- gun. — Indians afraid of Windmills. — Warfare with Indians. — Kieft's Massacre . 109
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SWEDES IN NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE.
Peter Minuit and his Colony of Swedes. — They buy New Jersey for an Iron Kettle. — New Jersej' claimed and named by Three Nations. — A New King in England. — New York Citj' becomes an English Colony. — New Jerse\' named by an English Nobleman 115
CHAPTER XX.
SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.
Lord Baltimore and the Carolinas. — Roman Catholic Colony. — Indian Wonder at the Big Canoe. — Freedom to worship God. — Papists and Puritans. — Lord Baltimore's Ambi- tion.— Maryland one of the King's Colonies. — Ribault and Raleigh's Unsuccessful Colonies. — The Carolinas settled again 118
CHAPTER XXI.
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT.
Persecution of Quakers. — William Penn the Admiral. — His only Son turns Quaker. — Dress and Manners of Quakers. — Young Penn inherits his Father's Wealth. — He brings a Colony to America. — Treaty with Indians. — City of Brotherly Love. — Nam- ing of Pennsylvania. — Delaware made a Separate Colony 122
CHAPTER XXII.
GEORGIA SETTLED.
Another Colony planned. — General Oglethorpe. — The Town of Savannah begun. — Oglethorpe's Treat}'. - Speech of Indian War-chief. — March of Salzburgers. — Pro- slaver}' Agitators. — John Wesley the Great Methodist. — Georgia becomes a Royal Province 125
CHAPTER XXIII.
KING PHILIP'S WAR.
The Thirteen Colonies. — The Colonists' Fear of the Indians. — Philip, the Son of friendly Massasoit. — John Sassamon tells Tales of Philip. —Blood shed by English and In- dians.—Outbreak of Indian War. — The Attack on Hadley. — " The Indians! The Indians! "—Appearance of the Strange Warrior. — The Regicides. — Death of King Philip. — End of the War 128
CHAPTER XXIV.
AFFAIRS IN VIRGINIA.
Governor William Berkeley. — " Thank God there are no Free Schools in Virginia! " — John Washington fights Maryland Indians. — Savages retaliate. — Nathaniel Bacon
viii CONTENTS.
goes into the Field without a Commission. — He is declared Traitor. — Great Excite- ment in Jamestown. — Attack on the Town. — Bacon's Death. — Berkeley hangs the Rebels. — The King calls him back to England. — What the King said of Berkeley . 134
CHAPTER XXV.
AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS.
England and Holland at War. — The Dutch take New York City again. — Edmund An- dros in Boston. — His Tyrannies there. — His Journey to Connecticut. — Disappear- ance of the Charter. — The New English King. — Uprising in New York. — Leisler executed. — Charter Oak 137
CHAPTER XXVI.
SALEM WITCHCKAFT.
BeUef in Witches. — Causes for this Belief. — The Idea of the Devil. — Study of Necro- mancy.— Two Children "bewitched." — Arrest of Friendless Old Women. — Babies chained and thrown into Prison as Witches. — Torture of Witches. — Confessions. — Hanging of Women. — Witches' Hill. — End of the Witchcraft Madness . . . 141
CHAPTER XXVII.
INTER-COLONIAL WAKS.
War between French and English Colonies. — The French League with Indians. — Hor- rors of Indian Warfare. — Stor}' of Hannah Dustin. — Bravery of the Women. — Towns destroyed. — Peace declared. — Another War. — Peace of Utrecht. — George's War. — Peace of Aix-la Chapelle 146
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FRENCH DISCOVERERS AND JESUIT MISSIONARIES.
Colony of Jacques Cartier. — French Fishermen. — Samuel Champlain the Father of New France. — Jesuits on the Mississippi. — Storj' of Isaac Jogues. — Indians worshiping with Roman Catholics 150
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE MISSISSIPPI EXPLORED.
James Marquette is sent to the Great River. — He goes with Joliet to Wisconsin. — Carry- ing their Canoes on their Backs. — The Bison and Deer. — Greeting of the Illinois. — Death of Marquette. — Robert La Salle in Illinois. — Fort Heartbreak. — Murder of La Salle. — Hennepin goes to Falls of St. Anthony. — Adventures of Marquette and Joliet. — Explorations of the Mississippi River by La Salle and Hennepin . . . 153
CHAPTER XXX.
THE LAST COLONIAL WAR.
Position of French and English Colonies. — The English Colonies hug the Sea-coast.— Jealousy between the Nations. — Trouble brewing. — Young George Washington. — His Winter Journej' to Fort Duquesne 157
CHAPTER XXXI.
FOUR EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH.
Plan of the Campaign. — Braddock's Contempt for American Militia. —George Wasliing- ton in the Expedition — Braddock's Defeat. —French Neutrals. — Burning of Aca- die. — Evangeline. — Sir William Johnson. — King Hendrick killed . . • .161
CONTENTS. is
CHAPTER XXXII.
SECOND YEAR OF WAR.
French Fortifications in America. — War in earnest. — Story of Mrs. Howe and her Chil- dren. — Massacre at Fort William Henry. — Loss of a Noble Young Leader. — George Washington's Advice to the British Colonel. — The City of Quebec. — Wolfe ap- proaches the Fortress. — The Heights of Abraham. — Defeat of the French. — Death of Wolfe. — Peace at last . . . . • IS*
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A TOUR IN AMERICA.
Sailing for Boston. — Boston in 1760. — Dress of Lady and Gentleman. — Thanksgiving in New England. — Irish Flax Spinners. — By Stage-coach to New Haven. — New York Harbor. — A Dutch Interior. — Drive through New York City. — New Year's Day. — Up the Hudson to Albany. — Journey through New Jersey. — How Philadel- phia Streets were named. — The Great State-house Bell. — Account of Benjamin Frank- lin. — Plantations in Virginia. — Christmas Festivities. — A Group of Noble Virgin- ians. — Cotton Crop of Eliza Lucas 173
CHAPTER XXXIV.
UPRISING OF THE COLONIES.
The New King. — Royal Treasury empty. — Taxation without Representation. — Stirring Scene in Boston State-house. — The People and the Stamp Act. — Speech of Patrick Henry. — Our Defenders in England 186
CHAPTER XXXV.
MORE OPPRESSION.
Daughters of Liberty. — Redcoats in Boston. — Boston Massacre. — Boy Rebels. — Tax on Tea. — First Continental Congress. — The Man who attended it. — Speech of William Pitt. — Whigs and Tories. — The Patriotic Barber. — Yankee Doodle .... 191
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.
Hidden Stores of Gunpowder and Bullets. — Paul Revere's Ride. — Midnight March. — Scene at Lexington Meeting-house. — First Blood shed. — Destruction of Stores. — The Retreat and Pursuit. — Lord Percy at Charlestown. — "Yankee Doodle" and "Chevy Chase" 198
CHAPTER XXXVII.
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL.
Congress meets again. — George Washington made Commander of the Armies. — Green Mountain Boys. — Ethan Allen takes Ticonderoga and Crown Point — Oglethorpe re- fuses to fight the Americans. — Noble Words of Samuel Adams. — Americans on Bun- ker Hill. — Battle of Bunker Hill. — The Monument there 204
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
WASHINGTON AND HIS ARMY.
Washington's Camps about Boston. — The Patriot Generals. — Story of Israel Putnam. — Dress of the Soldiers. — Pennsylvania Riflemen. — Story of a Marksman. — Washing- ton's Anxieties 212
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE MARCH TO QUEBEC.
On to Canada. — Montgomery clothes his Soldiers in Montreal. — Benedict Arnold's Heroic March to Quebec. — Attack on the Citadel. — Montgomery's Death. — Brave Act of Aaron Burr. — Retreat from Canada 215
CHAPTER XL.
AFFAIRS IN MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA.
The Redcoats imprisoned in Boston. — Howe concludes to leave Boston. — The Tories go to Halifax. — Entrance of Washington into Boston. — Joy of the Patriots. — Washington goes to New York. — The Hessians in America. — A British Fleet attacks Charleston ■ 218
CHAPTER XLI.
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED.
Colonial Feeling towards England. — The Declaration of Independence. — Our National Holiday. — Retreat from Kipp's Landing. — Anger of Washington. — Mrs. Murray's Ruse to save General Putnam. — Retreat through New Jersey. — A Gloomy Outlook for Washington. — Bad News from Newport and Lake Champlain. — Prison Ships. — Washington crosses the Delaware. — Victory at Trenton 221
CHAPTER XLII.
EVENTS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1777.
Rebels and Redcoats in Friendly Converse. — Battle of Princeton. — Washington at Mor- ristown. -j-The Marquis de Lafayette. — Other Noble Foreigners. — Defeat at Brandy- wine. — Story of Lydia Darrah. — Good News on the Way . . . . . . 227
CHAPTER XLIII.
BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN.
The Burning of Danbury. — General Burgoyne. — The Tory Brant. — Burgoyne takes Ticonderoga. — Defense of Fort Stanwix. — Brave General Herkimer. — Massacre of Jane McCrea. — Murmurs against General Schuyler. — The Relief of Fort Stanwix. — Stark's Speech at Bennington. — The Encampment on Bemis Heights. — Battle of Sar- atoga. — Surrender of Burgoyne 232
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE YEAR 1778.
Gayeties in Philadelphia. — The Terrible Winter at Valley Forge. — Story of Washington and the Farmer. — Molly Pitcher at Monmouth. — Philadelphia ours once more. — The Wyoming Massacre. — Tories and Indians. — Atrocities of the Wj'oming Attack. — End of the Year 239
CHAPTER XLV.
SAVANNAH AND STONY POINT.
Continental Money. — Lincoln and Count D'Estaing at Savannah. — Defeat to the Ameri- cans. — Mad Anthony Wayne. — The Forlorn Hope. — Taking of Stony Point . . 243
CHAPTER XLVI.
JOHN PAUL JONES.
Privateers. — Daring Adventure of John Paul Jones. — The Bon Homme Richard. — Fight with the Sei'opis. — The Ships tied together. — Victory 246
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER XLVII.
EVENTS DURING 1779.
Discontent in the Aruij'. — Flogging of Soldiers. — Taking of Charleston by the British.
— Tarleton's Quarter. — General Marion's Militia. — Story of Marion and the British Officer. — Count Rochambeau in Rhode Island 250
CHAPTER XLVin.
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.
West Point. — Gustavus, and John Anderson. — Capture of. Colonel Andr6. — Escape of Benedict Arnold. — Andre condemned to be hanged. — His Letter to Washington. — Plot to save Andrd. —Feigned Desertion of Champe. — The Execution of Andre.— Failure of Champe's Enterprise and his Return 253
CHAPTER XLIX.
DEFEAT AND VICTORY IN THE SOUTH.
Misfortunes of Gates in South Carolina. — A Stronghold on King's Mountain. — General Greene takes Command. — A Ragged Army. — Victory at Cowpens. — Sharp Retort of a Patriotic AVoman. — The Bravery of South Carolina Women . . . .260
CHAPTER L. Greene's campaign. March through the Carolinas. — Attack upon Camden. — Fort Ninety-six. — Eutaw Springs 265
CHAPTER LI.
THE WINTICR OF 1780-81.
Mutiny in the Army. — Riot among Wayne's Troops. — Mutineers shot. — Benedict Ar- nold ravages Virginia. — Governor Tiiomas Jefferson. — Arnold in his Native State. — Barbarous Murder of Colonel Ledyard. — Concentration of the French and American Forces for Campaign of 1781 267
CHAPTER LIL siege of yoiuctown.
March of French Arm\' to Virginia. — The whole Army of Washington before Yorktown.
— Tlie Batteries open Fire. — Cornwallis attempts to Escape. — His Surrender. — Gen- eral Lincoln's Revenge. — End of the War 271
CHAPTER LIII. closing events of the revolution. Savannah and Charleston evacuated by the British — England baited on all Sides. — She is glad to have Peace. — Our Great Statesmen during the War. — Benjamin Franklin in France. — John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. — Henr}- Laurens in the Tower of London. — John Jay. — The First Secretary of the Treasury. — The Commission to Treat for Peace. — The Thirteen English Colonies become the Nation of the United States. —Evacuation of New York City. -Fireworks on Bowling Green. — Washing- ton's Farewell to his Officers. — Affecting Scene in Francis's Tavern . . . • 274
xii CONTENTS.
PART II.
THE STORY OF THE NATION : ITS BIRTH, CONFLICTS, AND TRIUMPHS.
CHAPTER I.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
Forming a Government. — The Constitution and its Makers. — Grand Celebration in New York City. — Tlie Two Political Parties. — Washington made President. — Inaugura- tion Biill. — Change in Dress and Manners after the Revolution 283
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS IN W^ASHINGTON's ADMINISTRATION.
Settlers in the Western Country. — " D. Boon cilled a Bar." — Scarcity of Salt. — Dan- ger from Indians. — General Anthony Wayne sent to fight Savages. — Death of Wayne. — Three New States added to the Nation. — Story of Young Andrew Jackson.
— Revolution in France. — The Guillotine. — French Sympathizers in the United States. — Washington's Public Life draws to a Close 288
CHAPTER III.
ADAMS' S ADMINISTRATION.
War with France imminent. — Washington and Napoleon. — The Nation mourns at Wash- ington's Death. — The Capital changed to Washington City. — Mrs. Adams's Expe- riences in Washington 294
CHAPTER IV.
JEFFERSON'S PKESIDENCY.
The Purchase of Louisiana. — The First Journey from Ocean to Ocean. — Lewis and Clarke's Expedition. — The Sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. — The Great Pacific Ocean. — Return of Lewis and Clarke 297
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.
Pirates of the Mediterranean Sea. — Demands of these Sea Robbers on United States. — General Eaton's Interview with the Bey of Tunis. — Royal Beggars. — War declared.
— Daring Feat of Decatur. — The Philadelphia burned in the Harbor of Tripoli. — The Bashaw Ilamet.— End of War 301
CHAPTER VI.
JEFFERSON'S SECOND TERM.
Aaron Burr's Duel with Hamilton. — Hamilton's Death. — Burr's Disgrace. — First Steam- boat on the Hudson. — Fulton's Triumph. —The Great Event of Jefferson's Adminis- tration 309
CHAPTER VII.
MADISON'S PRESIDENCY.
Character of Madison. — Tecumseh. — William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana. — The Visit of Tecumseh. — The Prophet. — Battle of Tippecanoe. — Impressment of American Sailors on English Ships. — The Leopard and Chesapeake. — War declared against England. — Flogging of an American Sailor. — War Feeling in the United States 311
CONTENTS. xiii
CHAPTER VIII.
OPENING OF THE WAR OF 1812.
The Scene of War. — Hull's Surrender of Detroit. — Disgrace of Hull. — The Chicago Massacre. — Young Wiufield Scott. — Defeat on all Sides . . . 316
CHAPTER IX.
VICTORIES ON THE OCEAN.
The Constitution beats the Guerriere. — The Wasp on a Frolic. — Decatur wins Fresh Laurels. — Flag of the Macedonian presented to Mrs. Madison. — Bainbridge and the Constitution. — British Anger at Defeat 320
CHAPTER X.
EVENTS OF 1813.
Bounty on American Scalps. — The Slaughter at Frenchtown. — The Hornet meets the Peacock. — Lawrence takes command of the Chesajyeahe. — The Shannon challenges the Chesapeake. — Death of Lawrence. — " Don't give up the Ship " . . . . 324
CHAPTER XI.
BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE.
Ship-building on the Lake. — A Stage-coach loaded with Sailors. — The Look-out at Put- in Bay. — The Battle begins. — Commodore Perry's Ship disabled. — He rows to the Niagara. — Victory on Lake Erie. — Battle of the Thames 328
CHAPTER XII.
FRESH VICTORIES AND DEFEATS.
The Battle of Chippewa. — Scott at Lundy's Lane. — Admiral Cockburn sails up the Poto- mac.— Alarm at Washington. — The Defense at Blagdeusburg. — Invasion of Wash- ington. — The Dinner at the White House. — Baltimore besieged. — The Star Span- gled Banner 332
CHAPTER XIII.
macdonough's victory.
" Old Ironsides." — Macdonough on Lake Champlain. — Fight on Lake and on Shore. — Victory in the Fleet. — The British Defeat at Plattsburg ..«,,.. 338
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF THE WAR.
Signs of Peace. — Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. — Organizes Regiments of Black Men. — Preparations for a Merry Christmas in Camp. — Barricades of Sugar Hogs- heads. — Battle of New Orleans. — The Peace Angel. — A New President elected . 341
CHAPTER XV.
MONROE AND ADAMS.
More Pirates. — War with Indians. — Lafayette's Visit. — Five New States. — Monroe Doctrine. — Another President from Massachusetts. — Death of Two Patriots. — Mas- sachusetts and Virginia. — A Democratic President 345
I
Xiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVI.
RAILROADS AND BANKS.
Character o^ i.iarpw Jackson. — Traveling by Steam. — Tram-ways. — Oliver Evans's Steam-engme. — George Stephenson. — Jackson's War with the Banks. — The First National Banks. — Jackson vetoes the Bank Charter 352
CHAPTER XVII.
NULLIFIERS IX SOUTH CAROLINA.
Manufactures in United States. — The}' ask for a "Protective Tariff." — The South tlireaten Rebellion. —Three Great Men. — The Man of the South. — The Man of the West. —The Man of the North. — Wrath of Jackson. — Speech of Daniel Webster.— The NuUitiers subdued. — Indian Troubles again. — The Indians moved West. — Jackson returns to his Hermitage 358
CHAPTER XVIII.
VAN BUREN, HARIilSON, AND TYLER.
"Old Hickory " and " Old Ironsides." — Hard Times. — Log Cabin Campaign. — Death of General Harrison. — John Tyler's Presidency. — A New Invention. — Samuel Morse, the Artist and Inventor. — Invention of the Telegraph. — A New Political Question 367
CHAPTER XIX.
BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICO.
Spanish Conquest of Mexico. — Inhabitants of Mexico. — Americans in Texas. — Sam Houston. — Texas rebels against Mexico, and asks to join the United States . . 371
CHAPTER XX.
BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAR.
"Old Zach." —Troops on the Rio Grande. —Pn/o Alto. — The Prairie on Fire. —A Bat- tle-field by Night. — Victory over the Mexicans. — Crossing the Rio Grande. — Scenery about Monterey. — Capture of the Bishop's Palace. — Siege of the Town. — Monterey taken 375
CHAPTER XXI.
INVASION OF MEXICO.
Army of the West. — Conquest of New Mexico. — Fremont, the Explorer of the Rocky Mountains. — He enters California. — Kit Carson, -r- Fremont declares California an Independent State. — The Army of the Centre. — " Rough and Read}'." ^ Bragg' s Battery. — Victory of Buena Vista. — Five Thousand Miles' March . . . .378
CHAPTER XXII.
SCOTT'S march TO MEXICO.
The Fortress of San Juan D'Ulloa. — Vera Cruz. — The Road to the Mexico. — Cerro Gordo, or " Big Hill." — The Ascent of the Hill. — In the Cordilleras. — The Defenses of Mexico. — The Hill at Contreras. — The Bridge at Churubiisco.— The King's Mill.
— Grasshopper Hill. — School-boys' Defense of their Academy. — Entry into Mexico.
— End of War . . . .389
CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE JSEW ELDORADO.
General Taylor made President. — Gold in California. — The Gold Fever. — Death of Taylor. — Fillmore succeeds him. — Election of Franklin Pierce 397
CHAPTER XXIV.
SLAVERY IN UNITED STATES.
Beginning of African Slavery. — First Triumph of Slavery in Georgia. — The North and South. — Washington's Letter to Lafayette. — Slavery in the Constitution. — The Slave-trade. — Turner's " Slave-ship." — Disputes about Slavery. — Chattel Votes. — California wants to be a Free State. — Anger of the South 403
CHAPTER XXV.
EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.
Extravagance of the Tobacco Planter. — Poor Whites. — Black House-servants. — Cotton Plantations. — Three Classes in the South 409
CHAPTER XXVI.
A NEW PARTY.
The First Abolitionist. — A Mob in Boston. — Shooting of Lovejoy. — The Cradle of Lib- erty. — A Quaker Poet. — Arguments on both Sides. — Gunpowder and Cold Steel . 413
CHAPTER XXVII.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
The President from New Hampshire. — Escape of Fugitive Slaves. — Story of Margaret Garner. — The Missouri Compromise. —Beating of Charles Sumner. — " Indignation " Meetings. — The Awkward Lawyer, and the Little Giant 417
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE KANSAS STRUGGLE.
Settling Kansas. — Free-state Emigrants. — Bloodshed on the Plains. — Sharps's Rifles. — A Modern Puritan. — The " John Brown Tract." — Attack on Lawrence. — Old Ossa- watomie. — Kansas a Free State 421
CHAPTER XXIX.
RAID INTO VIRGINIA.
Presidential Contest of 1856. — An Exodus of Slaves. — The "Kennedy Farm." — Sur- prise of the Watchmen at Harper's Ferry. — Tiie Arsenal taken. — John Brown Pikes. — Arrival of Soldiers. — Capture of John Brown. — His Trial. — John Brown's Speech. — Sentence and Execution. — Scene on the Gallows 426
CHAPTER XXX.
LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT.
Party Quarrels. — The Story of Abraham Lincoln's Boyhood. — Feeling of the South.— Threats to break up the Union. —Joy in South Carolina at Lincoln's Election. —What 'B Treason? — Difference between Northern and Southern Patriotism .... 431
Xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXI.
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES.
Inauguration Speech of Lincoln. — Coercion. — National Property. — Forts in Charleston Harbor. — Guns opened on Fort Sumter. — The Bombardment. — The Flag hauled down. — Intense Excitement. — Patriotism in the North. — Patriotism in the South . 436
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE MARCH THROUGH BALTIMORE.
The Regiment from Massachusetts. — Mob in Baltimore. —Anniversary of Battle of Lex- ington. — General Scott. — The Seventh Regiment of New York. — A Volunteer Offi- cer. — Federal Hill 444
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SECEDING STATES.
An Armed Rebellion. — The Southern Confederacy. — The Seven Pioneers of Secession.
— East Tennessee. — The Stars and Bars. — Ellsworth Zouaves. — Death of Ellsworth.
— Contrabands. — Theodore Winthrop 448
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WESTERN VIRGINIA.
The Ghost of Caesar. — Rich Mountain. — Carrick's Ford. — Union Defeat. — Loyalty in the Mountains 453
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT.
A Knot of Railways. — General Beauregard. — A Moonlight March. — The Stone Bridge.
— The Cromwell of Rebellion. — Stonewall Jackson. — "Johnston's Men are upon us."
— Bull Run 457
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE GREAT BORDER STATE.
Border Ruffians. — The Faithful Germans. — Keeping Neutral. — The "Rebel Yell" — Heroic Death of Lyon. — Fremont in St. Louis. — His Proclamation. — Removal from Command. — Fremont's Body-guard. — Charge of the Guard. — Beriah Magoffin. — McClellan commands the Army of the Potomac. — All Quiet on the River . . . 462
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AFFAIRS ON THE SEA-COAST.
The Blockade. — Blockade Runners. — The Sea Islands. — A Steamboat Waltz. — The Trent. — Seizure of Prisoners on an English Ship. — Feeling of England. — Danger of War averted 469
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TAKING OF DONELSON.
Gibraltar of the West. — U. S. Grant in Cairo. — Patience and Perseverance. — Commo- dore Foote batters Fort Henry. — The Muddy Road to Donelson. — The Rebel Ruse. — Grant detects the Design. — Fall of Donelson. — Unconditional Surrender. — Halleck in Missouri. — A Renegade Poet. — Pea Ridge. — Guerrillas. — Close of the Year 1862 . 472
CONTENTS. ■ xvil
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WORK ON THE OCEAN IN 1862.
Hampton Roads. — The Burnside Expedition. — A Formidable Monster. — How the Cum- berland went down. —A Cheese Box on a Raft. — Fight of the Monitor and Merrimack 479
CHAPTER XL.
SHILOH, ISLAND NO. 10, AND COHINTH.
The Log Meeting-house. — The Surprise. — " Drive the Yankees into the River." — Beau- regard's Great Victory. — The Tide turns next Morning. —Cutting a Canal under Wa- ter.— Taldng of Island No. 10. — The Siege of Corinth. — Beauregard's Last Strat- egy. — The Nation had found its Leader 482
CHAPTER XLI.
CAPTUKE OF NEW ORLEANS.
Ship Island. — Admiral Farragut. — Birnam Wood.— A Huge Fire Monster. — Cutting away the Barriers. — Passing the Forts. — The Levee at New Orleans. — A Bombastic Major. — Temper of the Citizens. — What " Beast Butler " did in New Orleans . . 489
CHAPTER XLII.
PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.
Quiet on the Potomac. — Quaker Guns. — Transportation of an Army. — On to Richmond.
— Death in the Swamps. — Norfolk taken by General Wool. — Stonewall Jackson in Western Virginia. — Seven Days' Retreat. — Discouragement of the President . . 495
CHAPTER XLIII.
INVASION OF MARYLAND.
Pope takes Command. — More Defeats. — Maryland ! my Maryland ! — Entrance into Frederick. — Barbara Frietchie. — Through the Mountain-gap. — McClellan makes haste. —The Antietam Creek. — Fighting Joe Hooker. — The Battle. — Lee's Retreat.
— Burnside made Commander. — Ruins of Fredericksburg 499
CHAPTER XLIV.
AFFAIRS IN THE WEST.
Generals Bragg, Polk, and Hardee. — The Queen City threatened. — Southern Rhetoric.
— Armor of the Southern Soldiers. — Rebel Spoils in Kentucky. — Battle of Corinth. — Christmas Jollity at Murfreesboro'. — Rosecrans marches on the Revelers. — "We fight,
or die here." — Victory for Unionists . 508
CHAPTER XLV.
EMANCIPATION.
The Day of Jubilee. — Sambo in the Union Lines. — The Loyal Chattel. — Lincoln on the Union and Slavery. — His Solemn Vow. — The Emancipation Proclamation. — Prejudice against Negro Soldiers 514
CHAPTER XLVI.
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.
Western Men. — Surroundings of Vicksburg. — Digging a Canal again. — Running the Batteries. — Grant's Baggage. — The Assaults. — Bombardment. — Surrender. — Port
Hudson. — The Mississippi flows unvexed to the Sea 517
b
xvm CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE WAR IN THE EAST.
The Army in Winter-quarters. — Stonewall Jackson's Death. — Invasion of Pennsylvania.
— The Call for a Leader. — Gettysburg. — Sanitary Commission. — Horrors of a Battle- field. — Narrative of an Eye-witness. — A Modern Sidney. — The Consecration of Get- tysburg 524
CHAPTER XLVin.
RIOTS IN NEW YORK CITY.
Drafting. —Traitors in the North. — A Peace Party. —Beginning of the Draft. — The Mob. — Destruction of Private Property. — Mob Violence is suppressed . . . 530
CHAPTER XLIX.
EFFORTS TO TAKE CHARLESTON.
Three Strongholds of the Enemy. —Monitors in Charleston Harbor. —Folly Island. — The Storming of Wagner. — Robert Shaw "buried under his Niggers." — The Swamp An- gel.— Fall of Wagner 533
CHAPTER L.
GUERRILLA RAIDS.
John Morgan. — Raid into Indiana. — A Plucky Colonel. — Ohio at Morgan's Mercy. — Capture of Morgan. — Morgan's Escape from Prison. — Quantrell and his Ruffians. — The Sack of Lawrence. — A Hideous Butchery 53"
CHAPTER LI.
CHATTANOOGA AND LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
Chattanooga Valley. — The Gateway of the Mountains. — Mission Ridge. — Defeat of Union Troops. — " Hold Chattanooga, or starve." — Battle in the Clouds. — The Rebels' last stand. — Victory for the Nation 540
CHAPTER LII.
kilpatrick's raid. Prison Pens. — Their Horrors. — Kilpati-ick and Dahlgren. — Dahlgren lost in the Woods.
— Shot from an Ambush. — Robbing his Bod3^ — Return of Kilpatrick . . . 544
CHAPTER LIII.
grant in VIRGINIA.
Old Virginia. — Lincoln's Passes to Richmond. — First Meeting of Grant and Lincoln.
— A Baulky Team. — Hard Times in Richmond. — The Wilderness. — "Grant not a Retreating Man." — Slow " Hammering." — " We will tight it out on this Line " . 541
CHAPTER LIV.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
General Phil. Sheridan. — Jubal Early's Raid. — Sheridan "Goes in." — The Ride from Winchester. — The Army settles round Petersburg. — A Mine exploded. — A Pit of Death 553
CONTENTS. • xix
CHAPTER LV.
THE WAR IN THE WEST.
Red River Expedition. — Forrest's Raid. — Butchery at Fort Pillow. — Secret Societies. — End of the Struffsle in Missouri 557
"oo'
CHAPTER LVI.
NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS.
A Confederate Navy. — Ships built in English Ports. — The Alabama. — Fight with the Kearsart/e. — Story of a Brave Sailor. — Collins violates Neutrality Laws. — The Bat- tle of Mobile Bay. — Farragut lashed to the Main-top. — The Gulf is Ours . . .560
CHAPTER LVII.
ON TO ATLANTA.
William T. Sherman. — The Three Armies. — Rebel Generals. — The Army fights its Way to Atlanta. — McPherson killed. — " Atlanta is Ours and fairly Won." — Designs against Nashville. — "Old Reliable." — Nashville saved 564
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA.
The Army begins its March. —The Army Battle Hymn. — The Land of Plenty. — Prison Pen at Millen.— "Old Glory."— The Sight of the Sea. —Lincoln's Christmas Pres- ent. — Sherman goes North. — Burning of Columbia. — Charleston restored to the Na- tion.— Nearing the End of the March. — The Forlorn Hope of Johnston. — It is baf- fled at Bentonsville. — Sherman joins Grant 569
CHAPTER LIX.
LAST FLASHES OF WAR.
Mobile taken. — " Remember Fort Pillow." —The Last Stand at Selma. —The Post before Petersburg. — Lee's last Attempt. — Five Forks. — Confusion in Richmond. — Lee's Surrender to Grant. — The last Parade. — The Cruel War is over 576
CHAPTER LX.
THE ASSASSINATION.
The -Joy of the Nation. — Last Speech of Lincoln. — In the Theatre. — The Murder. — Seward's attempted Assassination. — The Last Martyrs to Rebellion. — The Murderer at Bay. — His Death. — Fate of the Conspirators 582
CHAPTER LXI.
THE ACCESSION OF ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF GRANT.
Andrew .Johnson succeeds Lincoln. — The Atlantic Cable laid. — Reconstruction of the South. — Attempt to Impeach the President. — Purchase of Alaska and St. Thomas Island. — Tiie Thirty-seventh State. — Jefferson Davis. — Election of Grant and Colfax. — The ^u Klux Klan.— The Death of Edwin M. Stanton 58G
CHAPTER LXII.
EVENTS FROM 18G9 TO 1872.
The Pacific Railway finished. — The Enemies of the Work. — Indian Outrages. — The Slaughter at Fort Philip Kearney. — Peace and War Measures. — Death of George H. Thomas. — Fires in Chicago and the Northwest 592
XX CONTENTS.
CHAPTER LXIII.
LATEST EVENTS.
Decoration Day. — The Alabama Claims, and their Arbitration. — Election of Grant and Wilson. — Death of Horace Greelej^. — Great Fire in Boston. — The Modoc War. — Hanging of Captain Jack. — The Capture of the Virginius. — Shooting of American Citizens. — Death of Charles Sumner. — Louisiana Troubles. — Celebration of Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. — The National Centennial 597
APPENDIX. The Centennial International Exhibition at Philadelphia . » . . 609
LIST OF ILLUSTEATIOE"S.
PAGE
Discovery of the Hudson River Frontispiece
A Northman's Vessel 26
Christopher Columbus 27
The Ocean and Islands between Western Europe and Eastern Asia (from the
Map of Martin Behaim, 1492) ... 29
Columbus before the Council .... 30
The Fleet of Columbus 31
Isabella 34
Amerigo Vespucci 35
Balboa 40
Ferdinand de Soto 45
Sebastian Cabot 50
Verrazano 51
Cartier's Ship 52
French Nobleman in 1540 53
English Gentleman, 1580 59
Sir Walter Raleigh 59
Drake's Ship 62
Indian Wigwam 67
American Deer 68
Indian Weapons 70
Medicine Dance 71
Indian Pipes 72
Buildiiig Jamestown 74
John Smith . 74
Pocahontas 84
Tobacco Plant 86
A Puritan 93
Pilgrims Embarking 95
The Mayflower 95
Pilgrim Costumes 96
Peaceful Overtures from Indians ... 97
Carver's Chair 99
Signatures of Pilgrims 99
Leyden Street, Plymouth, Massachu- setts, in 1874 100
Signatures of Massachusetts Bay Colo- nists 101
John Eliot's Signature 102
Roger Williams 104
Early New England House 105
Early Meeting-house 109
Dutch Windmill 110
Henry Hudson Ill
PAGE
The Half-moon 112
A Dutchman, 1660 114
Peter Stuyvesant 116
New York in 1664 , 118
Lord Baltimore 119
William Penn 124
Penn's Assembly House 125
General Oglethorpe . 126
King Philip 130
Palisaded Buildings 131
Cave of the Regicides 132
Indian Attack ......... 147
Braddock's Head-quarters in Virginia . 160
Braddock 162
Evangeline 163
Acadians leaving Home 164
Sir William Johnson 164
Block-house on Lake Erie 165
Block-house 166
Lord Howe 170
General Wolfe 173
A Boston House 175
Spinning-wheel 176
A Dutch Household in New York . . . 180
American Stage-coach 178
Cotton Plant . 185
William Pitt 186
James Otis 188
Patrick Henry 189
Patrick Henry before the Assembly . . 190
Badge of Sons of Liberty 191
Faneuil Hall 192
Samuel Adams ... 195
Paul Revere's Ride 201
George Washington 205
Benjamin Franklin 206
John Hancock 208
Joseph Warren 210
Plan of Bunker Hill, and Monument . 211
General Putnam 212
The Stars and Stripes 219
General Bloultrie 220
Liberty Bell . 221
Independence Hall 222
General Burgoyne 232
xxu
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Joseph Brant , . . . . ... . 233
Philip Schuyler 236
General Gates 237
Count D'Er-taing 241
Count Pulaski 24-i
Paul Jones 246
Engagement of the Bon Homme Richard
with tlie Serapis 247
Francis Marion 252
Benedict Arnold 254
Major Andr6 255
Henry Lee 258
Baron de Kalb 260
Kosciusko 261
Nathanael Greene 262
Women intercepting Dispatches . . . 264
Lafayette 270
Rochambeau 271
Plan of Siege of Yorktown 272
Cornwallis 273
John Jay 277
Robert Morris 278
General Knox 280
George Washington 283
Martha Washington 284
Inauguration of Washington .... 285
New Settlers 289
Daniel Boone 290
John Adams 295
Thomas Jefferson 297
The Untrod Prairie 299
Decatur burning the Philadelphia . . 303
Lieutenant Decatur 305
Mohammedan Soldier 306
Alexander Hamilton 307
Aaron Burr 308
Robert Fulton 309
Fitch's Philadelphia and Trenton Packet 310
Fulton's Clermont Steamer 310
James Madison 311
Felucca Gun-boat 316
Captain Lawrence 327
Oliver H. Perry 330
Cockburii's Fleet sailing up the Potomac 335
Fort McHenry 338
Commodore Macdonough 339
Plan of Battle of New Orleans ... 344
James Blonroe 346
J. Q. Adams 348
Pioneers traveling West 349
Andrew Jackson 353
Oliver Evans's Road Engine .... 354
First Railway Passenger Engine . . . 355
First Railway Coach 356
John C. Calhoun 360
Henry Clay 361
Daniel Webster 362
The Palmetto 363
Osceola . , . , 364
Indians moving West 365
Martin Van Buren 367
William Henr3^ Harrison 368
John Tyler 369
Samuel F. B. Morse 371
Mexican Farm-house 373
Sam Houston 374
The Spanish Bayonet 380
Prairie Dogs 381
Mexican Town 382
Conquest of New Mexico 383
Kit Carson 385
Santa Anna 387
Plan of Intrenchments at Vera Cruz . 390
Winfield Scott 391
Zacharj' Taylor 397
San Francisco in 1849 398
Scenerj' in California — Yosemite Falls 399
Mining in California 401
Millard Fillmore 402
Picking Cotton 411
Sugar-cane 412
Franklin Pierce 417
John Brown 421
James Buchanan 424
Lawrence, Kansas, in 1857 425
John C. Fr(?mont 426
Abraham Lincoln 432
.Jefferson Davis 4-34
Sand Bag Battery at Fort Moultrie . . 438
Robert Anderson 439
Banner of South Carolina 440
Fort Sumter after Bombardment . . . 440
Setting out for the Army 441
Union Square, New York, April, 1861 . 445
Federal Hill 447
The Secession Flag 449
Zouave 450
Ephraim E. Ellsworth 451
Exodus of Slaves 452
An Army Forge 453
Carrick's Ford 455
Robert E. Lee 456
Residence of Jefferson Davis .... 458
The Stone Bridge 459
Stonewall Jackson 460
A Cannon Truck 462
Hauling Cannon 463
George B. McClellan 468
Ulysses S. Grant 472
Foote's Flotilla 474
Grant's Head-quarters at Fort Donel-
son 475
The Merrimack attacking the Cumber- land 480
Pittsburg Landing 483
Pickets on Duty 484
Building the Canal 487
Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island . . 490
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
XXIU
Kam attacking Union Vessel below New
Orleans 491
Levee at New Orleans 492
Quaker Gun 496
War Balloon SOO
Barbara Frietchie 501
Barbara Frietchie's House 502
Harper's Ferry 504
Antietam Battle-field 505
Ruins of Fredericksburg 507
Mules carrying Wounded Men . . . 513
Thirteen-inch Mortar 518
Abatis 519
A Louisiana Swamp 523
Army Huts 524
George G. Meade 627
Drafting Wbeel 530
An Armored Lookout 534
The Swamp Angel 536
Lawrence, after Quantrell's Raid' . . 539 Lookout Mountain, and Chattanooga
Valley 541
Libby Prison 545
Bullet-proof in Woods 546
Union Envelope 547
Grant's Head-quarters in the Wilderness 550
Hand Litter 551
Virginia Cavalrj'man 554
Foragers at work 555
Philip H. Sheridan 555
Sheridan's Head-quarters at Winchester 557
David G. Farragut 563
The Hartford 563
William T. Sherman 565
Leonidas Polk 565
Summit of Kenesaw Mountain . . . 566
Prison Pen at Millen 571
Ruins at Charleston 573
Redoubt and Ditch at Mobile .... 576
Ruins at Selma 578
Lee's Residence 579
Andrew Johnson 583
The National Capitol -583
William H. Seward 584
PART I.
THE STORY OF THE COLONIES . FROM INFANCY TO
INDEPENDENCE.
THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
PART I.
THE STORY OF THE COLONIES: FROM INFANCY TO INDE- PENDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
Christopher Columbus. — The Route to the East. — Columbus wishes to sail Westward to India. — He applies to Portugal and Genoa. — Finally Aided by Isabella of Spain. — Sets Sail from Palos. — Incidents of Voyage. — Discovers West Indies. — Riches of New World. — Second Voyage.
TT is almost impossible to believe that less than four hundred * years ago this whole great country of ours was a vast unknown wilderness ; that the people in Europe and Asia did not even know that there was any land here, but supposed the Atlantic was a broad spreading ocean reaching from the shores of Europe into unknown space ; that, although there were schools, and books, and maps of the earth's surface, learned men in Europe and Asia were still dispnting whether the earth were round or flat, and no person in all their schools or cities dreamed that these two great Continents, of North and South America, had any place in the earth's geography. It is difficult to believe, is it not ? Yet it is true. The land of the Western Hemisphere was a new discovery in the history of the globe. Hence it was called •' The New World," while Europe, Asia, and Africa, are called " The Old World."
Many nations, and many different sailors, have claimed the honor of being the first to discover the Americas. Some of the North- men, both Icelanders and Norwegians, have traditions that their ships had sailed across the Atlantic, and some of their people set- tled here, and even built houses and forts in North America, hun- dreds of years ago.
But the honor of saiUng forth on purpose to find an unknown land,
26
THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of setting foot upon its shores, and then sailing back to Europe to tell the whole world that such a country did exist, and was really found, belongs only to one man. His name is celebrated in civilized countries of all languages and races. You must never forget it from this time forth. He was called Christopher Columbus.
Columbus was born in the year 1435, in the town of Genoa, Italy. He was an Italian sailor. In those days nearly all the towns on the Italian sea-coasts belonged to separate states, and were each famous for their commerce. So a great many of the boys born there were brought up to follow the sea. It was thought necessarj^ that they should have some knowledge to fit them for that trade, tliere-
A Northman's Vessel.
fore when Columbus said he should like to be a sailor, his father, who was a poor man, either a wool-comber, or cloth-weaver by trade, sent him to school to study mathematics and geography (such as they knew in those days), and the rudiments of navigation. Columbus could not have had time to get a very thorough knowl- edge of these branches, however, for he was only fourteen years old when he began to go to sea.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
27 ■
As there were a good many ships engaged in the traffic be- tween different states and cities, especially those which bordered on the Mediterranean, it happened there was a good deal of quarreling and many battles. And as there were not so good laws regulating commerce as we have nowadays, there were many pirates con- stantly to be met with in sailing on the seas. Consequently the life of a sailor was full of daring and adventure, and he learned not only how to manage his ship, but to defend it, and to attack and do battle with other ships.
Columbus went to sea with a warlike old uncle of his, and saw many an exciting sea-fight. Before he was twenty he had assisted in many such battles, and was at that age no inexperienced warrior. He was not a man of warlike spirit, however. On the contrary, he seems to have been a quiet, thoughtful, earnest man, full of noble and lofty enthusiasm.
In those days it was as if the air was full of discovery and adven- ture. People Avere all the time talking about new-found islands, and far-off countries, of wonderful eastern lands, and of new routes upon the sea. Kings took great in- terest in the pursuits of navigators, and often fitted out ships for voyages of explo- ration. The Portu- guese sovereigns, es- pecially, had been noted for their gen- erosity to mariners, and to Portugal Co- lumbus came to live when he was a man thirty-five years old.
In Lisbon, the cap- ital of Portugal, he met a lady whom he loved and married. This lady's father had been a sailor too, and had left many maps
Christopher Columbus.
28 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and books relating to na\dgation, which came into the hands of Cohimbus. So he spent much time in poring over these books and charts, and tracing out new routes which might be sailed over.
What Cohimbus, and all other navigators of his time most wished, was to discover a direct passage by sea to India and China, the rich eastern countries with which Europe traded for all kinds of precious stuffs and spices. The only known sea way to India was that found by sailing through the Mediterranean Sea to the Isthmus of Suez which joins Asia to. Africa, and crossing that to embark upon the Red Sea, and thus sail into the Indian Ocean. You can see by looking on the map that this was not a convenient route, be- cause the ships had to be unloaded on one side of the Isthmus, which is seventy -five miles wide, and all the goods conveyed across it in caravans.
In the imagination of the people in Europe, India was a country overflowing with riches. The sovereigns in EurojDC constantly heard rumors of a wonderful Prester John, who ruled over a kingdom abounding in gold and precious stones, where the land streamed with honey and in which ran rivers of milk. There, too, they thought the Garden of Eden still existed, and they believed that there was the fountain which would make "all who drank of it young and happy.
Nearly two hundred years before the time of Columbus, a great traveler named Marco Polo who had lived in India and China, brought back glowing accounts of the magnificence of the Khan of Tartary, whose kingdom was in the east ; and of the great cities in China and Japan.
Columbus heard and read all these things, and reasoned that if the world was round, by sailing west, one could certainly approach the shores of Asia. He also reasoned that there must be land between Europe and Asia, which would ^be passed on the way westward. Bat he did not realize how large this globe was, nor that there was a great continent like North and South America on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Thinking over all the stories of travelers and sailors, which he had read and heard, it became his great desire to make a voyage westward ; and as he had no means of his own to fit out ships, he re- solved that he would lay his plans and wishes before some sovereign and ask his help in the matter. Good Prince Henry of Portugal, who had done much for discovery, was dead. His name had made
BISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
29
Portugal famous for enterprises on the sea, and Columbus went first to his nephew, King Alphonso, and laid his plans before him. But
Alphonso was at war, and could not listen to him. Then he asked Genoa, his native city, to fit him out with ships, but it was too busy
30
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
with commercial affairs, and thus lost the great honor which its son was able to confer on it.
After a time Alphonso of Portugal died, and was succeeded by John II. Columbus went to him with his plans. He listened atten- tively, but after hearing all Columbus had to say the king did a very base and treacherous thing. Columbus wanted to have a gen-
Columbus before the Council.
erous reward, and high titles secured to him, in case he discovered this country, and King John did not wish to give him all he asked. He therefore obtained from Columbus all his plans, charts, and di- rections for sailing, and then privately fitted out a fleet and sent it in the track described. An expedition so basely conceived did not deserve success : the ships were wrecked and partly destroyed ; and on hearing of the king's dishonesty Columbus left his court in dis- gust. Years after, when he had become a famous discoverer, King John wrote and offered him large inducements to return to Portu- gal, but Columbus refused to go.
He resolved next to go to Spain. And that he might lose no opportunity of finding a royal patron he sent his brother Barthol- omew at the same time to England, to ask Henry VII. to fit him out on this strange new voyage.
His wife was now dead and he set out for Spain on foot, with his little son Diego. He was so poor that he had to ask help and shel- tfir on the way. His hair, which had been gray at thirty-five, was now quite white, but he had a fine commanding presence, and even
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
31
though clothed in rags, he never could have looked like a beggar. Imagine this man, who is now so famous in all history, standing one evening about dusk at the gate of a convent in Spain holding his son by the hand, while he supplicated the prior to give him food and lodging for the night.
Fortunately the monlc to whom he thus applied, was an uncom- mon nian^ and from him Columbus got aid and counsel. His name was Juan Perez, and he had formerly been the priest and father confessor of Isabella, the reigning Queen of Castile. Her husband was Ferdinand, King of Arragon, and by joining their dominions these two consorts ruled all Spain as one sovereign. Juan Perez advised Cohimbus to unfold his plans to them.
But the sovereigns were impoverished by constant wars, and Fer- dinand, who was a cold dull man, was not much moved by the glow- ing projects of Columbus. He spent many years of vain hopes and sickening disappointments at the Spanish courts. At the last mo- ment, as he was leaving it forever, Isabella was inspired by one of her priests with a sudden enthusiasm, and declared that Columbus should sail even if she were obliged to pledge her own jewels to fit out his ships. Thus it happened that the New World owed its dis- covery to the generous ambition of a woman, and the untiring pa- tience and enei'gy of a single man.
With this aid and by furnishing himself one eiglith of the sum required Columbus began his preparations. He made ready three ships with which to sail out upon this unknown waste of waters. Not such tall stout ships as you now see lying at our wharves, with their broad sails, huge wooden sides, and spacious d^cks. These were frail little crafts, not so
large
as
those
The Fleet of Columbus.
which now navigate our rivers and inland lakes. The first of those three vessels was com- manded by Columbus in per- son, and was called the Santa Maria. The second, called Pinta, liad for captain Alonzo Pinzon, a famous Spanish navigator. The third was the Nina, commanded by Vincente Yanez Pinzon, a brother of Alonzo. On Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, these three little ships set sail from the harbor of Palos, a sea-port in Southern Spain.
32 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
After sailing several weeks in unknown waters, the sailors were dissatisfied and uneasy, and wished to go back. It required all the authority of Columbus to keep them from mutiny. At length he promised them, if he did not see land within three days, he would certainly turn back. And as if to reward him for his undaunted courage, signs of land began at once to appear. Great masses of green weeds drifted past the ship, which they knew never grew ex- cept near the shore ; and on the 11th of October a branch of red berries which the dullest sailor knew could grow only on land, was found floating on the water. On the 12th of October, 1492, they discovered and set foot on the island of San Salvador, one of the Bahama group, lying north of the West Indies. Shortly after, they discovered the island of Hayti, which Columbus called Hispaniola, meaning " Little Spain."
After landing at Hayti and taking possession of it for the King and Queen of Spain, Columbus sailed from that island and touched the coast of Cuba, which he supposed to be part of a large continent. After this, without waiting to explore farther, he went back to Spain to report to the- two sovei-eigns what he had seen.
Of course when Columbus reached Spain he was received with the highest honors. When he told of these green fertile islands thousands of miles west, of the inhabitants with straight black hair and copper colored skins, with head-dresses of feathers, and faces streaked with paint ; of the strange fruits and vegetables and trees they had seen ; all Spain was filled with wonder. Every one thought the western passage to Asia was now discovered. As yet nobody had any comprehension of the size of this new world which had been found, or indeed of the size of the globe at all. And from the belief that they had landed very near the Asiatic coast they named these new lands the West Indies and the inhabitants Indi- ans which name they bear to this day.
As soon as possible Columbus was fitted out for a second voyage, and this time he had little trouble in getting sailors. Everybody wished to go to this wonderful land, which all believed was teeming with riches. Stories were told of pearls as big as robin's eggs that could be picked up on the shores, and of mountains where topaz and rubies, emeralds and diamonds, could be seen glittering among the rocks. It was difficult to keep any of the young men at home now, who had a taste for adventure.
In September, 1493, Columbus set out on a second voyage. But
OTHER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS. 33
now his ships were crowded with adventurers who did not care whether their discoveries should benefit the human race. What they wished was a fortune, which they hoped to get by merely sail- ing after it. And they were constantly quarreling and bickering among themselves, and blaming Columbus if all did not turn out just as they wished it.
He sailed first to the island of Hayti, and left a colony there which he named Hispaniola. Then he sailed on, touched at the islands of Jamaica and Porto Rico, and finally returning to Hispani- ola left his brother Bartholomew to take care of the new colony, while he returned to Spain again.
CHAPTER II.
OTHEE VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.
Portugal finds an Eastern Passage to India. — Columbus and the Egg. — Third Voyage. — Touches the Continent. — Sad Fate of Columbus.
Portugal has not been unmindful of the success of Spain in dis- covering America. For Spain and Portugal were at this time the two greatest naval powers in Europe, and were jealous rivals. For years Portugal had been exploring the coast of Africa to try and find an eastern passage to Asia. In 1497 they were successful, and Vasco da Gama found his way round the Cape of Good Hope, and sailing up the eastern coast of Africa reached India and China. That was a great triumph for Portugal, and almost matched the triumph of Spain in her discoveries. Three years before Vasco da Gania's success, Spain and Portugal had divided the globe between themselves. They drew up an agreement by which Portugal was to have all the ocean on the east side of a line drawn north and south 1,200 miles west of the Cape Verd Islands, and Spain was to have all west of this line. It did not seem to occur to them that any one had any right to the ocean but themselves.
In the mean time when Columbus returned to Spain from his sec- ond voyage he found the court filled with fault-finders who were underrating the value of his discoveries. They claimed that other men, native Spaniards, were making rich voyages. " Why should so much power and so many rewards be given to this foreigner," they grumbled, " when so many of our nation can do as much as he ?"
34
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
There is a story told that on one occasion Columbus came upon a group of these enemies in the palace. He asked them, as a merry jest, to stand an egg on its end, upon the table. Everybody tried, but like Humpty Dumpty in the nursery rhyme, all the king's men could not make the egg stand.
Then Columbus took it and with a delicate blow he broke the shell a little so the egg would sit upright. " Ah, that is easy enough," every one cried.
" When I have shown you how," answered Columbus meaningly. It was easy enough for others to sail west and find new countries, after one man had inspired the nation with a belief in unknown lands, and led the way there in his frail sliips.
For the third time, in May, 1498, he embarked for America. This time he went to South America and explored the coast. He entered the Orinoco River and fancied he had made a great discovery there. In those days every one believed that the Garden of Eden ■ — "• the earthly Paradise " — still flourished in all its beauty. Co- lumbus thought he had drawn near it, and that the Orinoco was the Gihon which was one of the boundaries of Eden.
When Columbus again landed at Hispaniola he found mischief had been plotted in his absence. His enemies there who wanted to rule the colony, had sent back to Spain such stories of his cruelty and tyranny, and desire for power, that the King of Spain had sent an officer named Francis de Bobadilla to inquire into these reports, and see if Columbus were guilty. The first thing this brutal fellow did after getting there, was to load Columbus with irons and send him back to Spain.
After he went on board, the officers of the ship which was to take him home were ashamed of the conduct of Bobadilla, and wished to
take off: his fetters. But Columbus would not have them removed. He would thus pre- sent himself to his sovereigns. An old Span- ish historian who tells his story, tells us that when the irons were put on him he said, " Thus the world rewards those who serve it ; this is the recompense men give to those wlio trust in them. Have the utmost endeavors of my services ended in this ? Have all my la- bors and sufferings deserved no more ? Let me be buried in these irons to show that Crod alone knows how to
Isabella.
NAMING OF AMERICA, AND OTHER DISCOVERERS.
85
reward and bestow favors, of which He doth never repent ; for the ' world pays in words and promises and at hist deceives and lies."
And though the king and queen took off his chains and restored him to favor, the iron had entered his soul and he was never him- self asjain.
He made one more voj^age in 1502. This time he went into the Gulf of Mexico and explored the Isthmus of Darien, still hoping to find the long sought passage westward. But his search was vain. He planted a little colony on the coast of Panama, and then returned to Spain to die. His patroness, Queen Isabella, was now dead. The cold-hearted King Ferdinand neglected him. He lingered a few months in poverty and obscurity, and died in 1506, almost broken- hearted. Seven years after, the ungrateful king, for very shame at his neglect, put him up a monument with the inscription, " To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world." " Words," says Ferdinand, the son of Columbus, in his life of his dear father, " words which we do well to mark, because the like cannot be found amono; either ancients or moderns."
So ended the life of one of the greatest men who is celebrated in history.
CHAPTER III.
NAMING OF AMERICA, AND OTHER DISCOVERERS.
Amerigo Vespucci. — The Brothers Pinzoii. — Gulf of the Three Brothers. — Florida discov- ered. — Fountain of Immortal Youth.
In studying the history of discovery, we find that it is common to name different bodies of land and water after the men who first explored them ; and it has often been a matter of wonder that this continent did not receive its name from the great navigator who discovered it. It would seem only a merited honor for so great a service to the world.
While Columbus was making ready to go on one of his voyages he met an Italian merchant in the city of Seville, who was interested in discovery, al- though he was not himself a sailor. This man's name was Amerigo Ves- pucci. He was a man of good birth, well educated, and curious to hear all Amerigo vespucci
36 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
about the strange lands across the ocean. In 1499 he joined an expedition from Portugal, going to explore part of the coast of South America. On his return he published an account of this voyage, and of others that he afterwards made : and these voj^ages, written in Latin, were printed in Germany early in the sixteenth century. And because these printed accounts of the discovery of a new world circulated from one place to another, with his name attached to them, this country began to be called " the land of Amerigo (or Americus in the Latin form), and after a while chano-ed to Amer- ica. I do not believe that Vespucci himself intended to take from Columbus the honor of naming the continent. Indeed, it was not until after the death of both that the land began to be generally known as America.
But it is often regretted that the New World Columbus had dis- covered did not bear his name. We often hear the United States called Columbia. One of our national songs is " Hail Columbia." And all over the country there are many cities and towns named for him.
Before the death of Columbus a number of the companions who had shared with him the honor of his first voyage, had either joined other expeditions, or had fitted out ships at their own expense, or that of any wealthy patron who would help them, and set out on voyages to the west.
The most noted of these were the brothers Alonzo, Vincente Yanez, and Francisco Pinzon. You remember the two former each commanded a vessel in the first voyage of Columbus. Alonzo, the oldest brother, had aided him in obtaining a crew and in bearing an eighth part of the expense of this voyage.
The Pinzons were all daring and expert sailors. In the year 1500, Vincente Yanez, who commanded four ships, led them over the equator southward to the coast of Brazil, and then into the mouth of the River Amazon, the largest river in the world. Com- mg back to Spain, he fell among hurricanes and dreadful tempests which destroyed two of his ships. His fortune was nearly all ven- tured in this enterprise, and this voyage almost ruined him. After- wards, in 1506 and 1508, he was among those who were seeking the western passage to Asia. In the same year in which Pinzon dis- covered the Amazon, the Gulf of St. Lawrence was first explored. Caspar Cortereal, a Portuguese, was the first who entered this gulf. He sailed past Canada and landed at Labrador. Here he took away some Indians and carried them to Portugal as slaves. He
NAMING OF AMERICA, AND OTHER DISCOVERERS. 37
first named the coast Labrador. Cortereal returned on a second voyage, and entering the Gulf never came out again. His second brother, who lieard of his loss from the ships that accompanied him, set out in search of him. He too went into the Gulf of St. Law- rence never to be heard of any more. A third brother, also in the service of Portugal, wished to go after his kinsmen, but the king re- fused him permission, saying, " he could not afford to lose so many brave sailors in one place." So he did not go. But for years after, the place was known as the " Gulf of the Three Brothers.''''
The principal object which impelled so many to set out on these voyages was the desire for gold. The belief in the riches of this new country was so great, that ships without number were sent to bring back whatever of value they could find. When they could not find gold or jewels, they sometimes brought back ship-loads of Indians to serve as slaves. Very soon they began to load their ships with the fruits of the country, with mahogany wood or other rare woods, and aught else that was marketable in Europe. A few men of noble minds, like Columbus, considered the great benefit it would bring to their posterity if they found new lands and opened up a new route to Asia, but most of these adventurers thought only of paltry gain to themselves.
Juan Ponce de Leon was one of the captains who had sailed with Columbus in his second voyage of discovery from Spain. Some time after this he was made Governor of Porto Rico, one of the West India Islands, and went there to reside. But just as he was comfortably settled in his governorship, he was attacked by two very serious foes to his happiness and power. These enemies were sickness and old age.
Now Ponce de Leon had heard a legend of a fountain in some un- known region whose waters, leaping up to the sun, gave everlasting youth and health to whoever drank of them. These waters were called, " The Fountain of Immortal Youth.""
Poor De Leon, in failing health and strength, — nearly seventy years old, his hair and beard quite white with age, his form bowed and stooping, — remembered this legend, and made up his mind to seek for this wonderful fountain. The Spaniards were quite ready to believe everything romantic and magical was situated in this strange country, which seemed to them so full of wonders. And many others besides Ponce de Leon readily believed that somewhere in its borders they should find this enchanted fountain.
38 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
With this hope he set out from Porto Rico in the spring time of the year 1512, with three ships and a goodly company of men. They came in sight of land on a beautiful Sunday morning. It was Palm Sunday, when according to the custom of the Church, every man, woman, and child at home in Spain was carrying in his hand as he came out from worship a little green branch, in remembrance of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Looking on this new found land, which was covered with greenness and beauty to the very water's edge, and remembering what Sunday it was, De Leon named the new country Florida, which means " Tlie Land of Flowers.'''
Of course all their hopes were raised by the sight. They thought a land which seemed to blossom so beautifully without any one to nurture it, could only be watered by the rills from the immortal fountain. Landing, they took possession of it in the name of the King of Castile.
Then his men began searching far and wide for the waters which should restore Ponce de Leon's youth. After some time spent in this search, the Indians began to grow hostile. The Spaniards never knew how to treat them in such a way as to gain their good-will and friendship. At length De Leon concluded he would leave the main-land, and go in search of a wonderful island Avhich the Indians described, and which he felt sure contained the fountain. In pur- suit of this, he touched the Bahamas and various other islands, never ceasing in his search. So long he sought, and so vainly, that his resolution wore out the robust strength even of his hardy crew. But the magic waters were never found. At length, feeble and worn out in body, he was borne back to his ships, and they sailed to Porto Rico. Even then his faith did not desert him. Unable to go farther himself, he left one of his ships to continue the search. But this ship, after discovering the island of Bimini, forty leagues west of the Bahamas, came back to Porto Rico also, reporting that no fountain had been seen, and no traces of it could be discovered.
On sending to Spain an account of this new found land of Flor- ida, Ponce de Leon was made governor there on condition that he would plant a colony. In 1513 he went with two ship-loads of peo- ple and provisions, and materials for building a fort. But the In- dians, who began to distrust the Spaniards and to grow jealous of their power, tried to prevent the landing of De Leon, and in the fight he was badly wounded. He was carried back to Porto Rico and soon died of his hurts. Let us hope he has long since discov= ered the fountain of immortal youth.
FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC. 39
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC.
Spanish Colonies. — Vasco Nunez de Balboa. — Avarice of Spaniards. — The Indians lead Balboa in Sight of the Land of Gold. — The South Sea.
You remember I told you of a little colony which Columbus had left on the continent of North America when he explored the Gulf of Mexico in his last voyage. This colony had not been successful, and one or two later attempts had been made to plant a colony there without result. The Spaniards had now settled on all the large West India Islands, and had several thriving towns, among which was Hispaniola, the colony first planted by Columbus. In 1511, Vasco Nunez de Balboa joined an expedition which had come from Spain, and stopped at Hispaniola, where he was residing. This company sailed to the coast of Darien, and found the last col- ony which had been sent there, in ruins, and no white man alive. Through the influence of Balboa they built another town, and called it Santa Maria de Antigua. This was the first 'permanent colony ever founded on the Americmi continent > Balboa was made its governor, and continued to reside there.
He was very good to the natives. The poor creatures had not been used to see a Spaniard so just, or so disposed to keep peace with them, and they met his offers of friendship in the same spirit. When they found his great desire was for gold, one of the chiefs sent him a large box of that precious metal. This was not the best thing for the peace of the colony, for all the Spaniards were mad after gold, and quarreled over it, when they got any, like so many fierce dogs. This time, when Balboa had got out the scales and was weighing it as evenly as he could, the rest were snarling and growling around him about their shares.
The son of the chief, a tall athletic Indian, who had brought them the gold, stood looking on during the division. As the quarrel grew hotter and hotter, he scornfully overturned with his foot the balance in which they were weighing the treasure, and said vehe- mently : —
" Is it possible you should value so much a thing that so little deserves your esteem ; that you should leave the repose of your houses, and pass so many seas, exposed to such dangers, to trouble
40
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
those who live quiet in their own land ? Have some shame, Chris- tians, and do not desire these things ; but if you are resolved to seek gold, I will show you a country where you can satisfy yourselves." ^ Of course these words excited the curiosity of Balboa, and he gave the young chief no rest till he should show him this great gold country.
Accordingly, they started, one morning in September, 1513, for the mountain-ridge which lay not far west of the colony. Bal- boa with a party of his men, and the chief with a band of natives. The Spaniards wore armor of glittering plates of steel, with swords at their sides, and the clumsy muskets which they carried in those days over their shoulders ; while the Indians had huge bows and arrows, stone and wooden clubs, as weapons.
Just before they reached the top of the wooded ridge from which the Indians said thev would see two oceans, Balboa bade his com- panions pause that he might climb the steep alone, and so be the first Spaniard who should look upon the promised sea.
Obediently remaining, they left him to climb the last few yards without them. In a few moments more he gained the summit, and
looking southward, beheld the broad expanse, — the waters of the long dreamed of " South Sea," or Pacific Ocean, which lay, smiling and blue, almost at his feet. Standing there, he could see both oceans, only a few miles apart.
The grand sight overcame him, and the Span- ish warrior, bronzed with conflict with seas and storms, hardened with exposure and contact with many dangei-s, fell prone on the earth and wetted it with his tears. Then calling to his soldiers, he commenced descending toward the new found ocean. When he reached the shore, he walked knee-deep into the waters, and waving above them his cross-hilted sword, he took possession of the ocean " in the name of God, for the use of the sovereign majesty of Spain."
The land of great riches which the Indians had pointed out to
Balboa from the heights of Darien, was the kingdom of Peru in
South America, which was afterwards conquered by Francis Pizarro.
Since I have said so much to you about the search after a western
1 These are rather dignified words on the part of the young Indian, and are put into his mouth by the Spanish monk Ovalle, who tells the story of Balboa's discovery.
Balboa.
FIRST VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD. 41
route to Asia, I am going to make a brief digression, to tell you how this search was ended, and give you an account of the first voyage around the world.
CHAPTER V.
FIRST VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD.
Magellan at Patagonia. — The First Potatoes eaten by Europeans. — The Straits of Magellan. — Death of the Great Navigator. —Return of the Last Ship to Spain.
Fernando Magalhaens — or, as we call him, Magellan — set sail from Spain in September, 1519. Like Columbus, the Pinzons, and so many other daring navigators, he wished to find the western passage to Asia.
He had been one of those who had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, and tested the truth that there was an eastern route to India. Then he came back to petition Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain, to fit him out for a western voyage.
King Charles heard him with favor, gave him five ships, two hun- dred and thirty-four men, and provisions for two years. That was a generous fitting out, in days when sovereigns were not over libtjral to the brave men who risked life for their glory and profit.
Thus in September Magellan sailed. He reached South America, and sailed in and out the rivers on the coast of Brazil, hoping to find there a channel to the " South Sea." When he had exhausted this hope, he sailed along the coast of Patagonia, stopping occasionally, and landing on the shores. Here the Spaniards saw a vegetable unknown before. It was almost round, and had a brown skin. The natives called them " batatas " or " patatas," and " they looked like turnips, and tasted like chestnuts," so the old historian of the voyage tells us. The sailors ate them eagerly without cooking them. Do you guess what they were ? Why, potatoes, the commonest vegeta- ble that grows, but unknown then to the civilized world.
The Patagonians looked like a race of giants to the Spaniards. They were very tall, the old historians say, ten or twelve feet high, but I fancy that is exaggerated. Magellan got two on board his ship and carried them away, they crying loudly on their god Setebos to rescue them. If you read Shakespeare's play, " The Tempest," you will find that Setebos is also the god of Caliban. Probably Shake-
42 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
speare had been reacfing Magellan's voyage just before he wrote his play.
The natives could not understand how the white men could be so small and sail such large boats. They had an original idea about the vessels. They believed the boats were the babies of the large ship, and called the latter the " mother-canoes " and her boats the little ones.
When Magellan reached the Straits which now bear his name, oue of his vessels was lost, and another had deserted. This left him with only three ships. Slowly and cautiously feeling their way at every step, they entered the crooked, winding straits. It was cold and stormy. Above their heads, taller many times than the masts, rose the icy peaks of Terra del Fuego, glittering and pitiless. The crew began to mutiny, but Magellan resolutely put them down. " Do I cry because I am cold and hungry ? " he asked the raurmurers. " Let a man dare to speak of his suffering and he dies at once."
When at length they came out upon the sea that Balboa had seen eight years before from Darien, they all forgot their miseries. Though their mouths were so swollen from scurvy that they could not chew their food, they cried aloud for joy. This calm, placid ocean, so free from storms, Magellan called " Pacific," and it bears the name to this day.
The ships sailed northward toward warmer latitudes, but their sufferings had only just began. Provisions failed. They ate their shoe leather and their clothing. They chewed sawdust and gnawed pieces of wood. They bargained for rats, which some lucky ones caught in the hold, and sold as high as a ducat apiece. At length they reached some of the South Sea islands and got relief.
But Magellan, trying to make Christians of the people on the Philippine Islands, by fighting those whom he could not convert, was killed. His ships were left without their rash but brave com- mander. One after the other was lost, till only one ship remained. This was commanded by Sebastian del Cano.
The lonely vessel went on, sailing past Borneo, the Cape of Good Hope, and up the African coast, till it reached Spain. In September, 1522, just three years from their first setting out, they returned. Of their two liundred and thirty-four men, they brought back eighteen. So ended the first VOYAGE AROUND THE GLOBE, one of the most remarkable in all the history of navigation. From this time forth the practicability of reaching Asia by sailing west was proved be- yond a doubt.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 43
CHAPTER VI.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
Cortez and Pizarro. — Story of Narvaez. — Cabepa de Vaca crosses the Continent. — Ferdinand de Soto. — Grand Army of De Soto. — Story of John Ortiz. — The Great Mississippi. — Burial of De Soto. — Return of his Army.
After Balboa had established his colony on the Isthmus of Darien all the coasts thereabout were explored, and other settlements made on the Gulf of Mexico. Hernando Cortez, a brave but cruel Spaniard, went to Mexico, and found great quantities of gold and silver there. He oppressed the helpless natives, and wrested from them their treasures, treating them in the most unjust and cruel manner. Francis Pizarro followed the example of Cortez, in Peru. They both acquired great wealth, and the fame of their success went all over Spain, and fired other Spanish adventurers with the desire of making similar conquests.
All these Spanish conquerors were devout Roman Catholics, and had one passion almost as strong as their love for gold, — this was their desire to convert the natives to Christianity. While they plundered and pillaged them, took their goods, burnt their cities, destroyed their crops, and left these poor people to starve, they were all the time setting up the cross with the image of the crucified Jesus upon it and forcing them to adore it. What sort of a religion the poor natives thought it was which seemed to justify so much bloodshed and plunder, I do not know ; but I fancy they did not make very sincere Christians, who were driven to religion by the point of the sword.
After the news of the success of Cortez and the great wealth he was gaining in Mexico, the adventurers remembered the country of Florida which Ponce de Leon had visited. It was reported that Florida was quite as rich in gold as Mexico ; and in 1527 a naviga- tor, named Pamphilo de Narvaez, got a grant of Florida from Charles V. of Spain, and sailed thither.
He landed with his men on the eastern coast of the long penin- sula of Florida. When they went on shore they found the Indians disposed to be quite fi-iendly. They told the Spaniards stories of gold which could be found in the province of Apalache, which was to the north of them. Narvaez went on to Apalache. But the na- tives began to dislike and distrust the Spaniards more and more as
44 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
they inarched into the heart of their country, and finally became bold enough to oppose their ill-treatment of them. They attacked Narvaez, killed many of his men, and refused to furnish him with grain or any kind of food. Then the Spaniards suffered dreadfully. They killed their horses and ate them, living all the time in constant fear lest the Indians should come upon them in their weakened state, and cutting them off from the sea leave them to perish of hunger. In their desperation they resolved to build ships where they were, on the coast of the province of Apalache, which was in the northern part of Florida, and from thence put to sea.
But they had nothing of which to build ships, neither timber, nor iron, nor cloth for sails, nor rope for rigging. Lacking all these things, they yet contrived to construct five brigantines, which seem to have been a kind of large boat with sails, capable of holding forty or fifty men. How they accomplished this is wonderful to relate.
From the iron in their armor, their horses' trappings, and their stirrups, they forged saws, hammers, axes, and other needed tools. They actually made their spurs into nails, and their swords into saws and knives. They cut down trees, and made timber for their boats. They wove ropes from the hair of the horses which they had killed for food. They sewed all their shirts and other linen up into sails, and after such terrible labors as it amazes one to think of, their five brigantines were completed and they went on board.
In a short time a great storm came up, and the boat in which Narvaez sailed was lost and never heard of again.
One of these five brigantines was commanded by a daring fellow named Cabega de Vaca, and he alone succeeded in reaching the main-land with his crew. On their way they passed the mouth of •a great river which poured into the sea with such force that it car- ried earth and roots and branches of trees with it. This was prob- ably the first time the Mississippi River was ever seen by a white man.
After landing somewhere on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, Cabe^a de Vaca and his companions wandered into the wilderness which lay all about them. They were supposed to be utterly lost by all who remembered them, when, eight years after, Cabega and three companions turned up on the Pacific coast of Mexico in a Spanish settlement there called Culiacan. Thei/ had traveled across the continent, making friends with the Indians, and living among
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 45
them as one of the tribe ; till at last, long bearded and long haired, looking more like savages than white men, they found their way to this town on the Pacific.
When Pizarro was in Peru, he had with him, in his array, a captain named Ferdinand de Soto, who had grown very rich from spoils taken from the Peruvians. About the year 1535 he was on a visit to Spain, and met there Cabe^a de Vaca, who had just come back from America after his long sojourn in the wilderness. De Vaca told De Soto many stories of *'"'^^
this strange country, and its wonders, and especially ^^^
Ferdinand de Soto.
of the reports he had heard, of gold that could be found there, De Soto was very ambitious to earn the glories of conquest in some rich land, as Cortez and Pizarro had done in Mex- ico and Peru. After talking with De Vaca he resolved to fit out ships and go to conquer Florida. He was rich, so that he easily bought the governorship of Florida of the King of Spain, and sailed off in the track of Narvaez and De Leon.
His ships anchored in the Bay of Espirito Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit) on the 28th of May, 1539. He had a large fleet, nine vessels in all, and his soldiers numbered seven hundred men, most of them mounted on horses. De Soto landed with his men, dressed in full armor, which soldiers all wore in expeditions of war. They took on shore a great many horses and swine. These were the first horses and pigs brought to North America. There were no such animals on this continent, and De Soto first intro- duced them. Besides all the men and animals, they carried on shore provisions and supplies of all kinds. They had even chains with which to chain the natives whom they should take prisoners, so you can see they did not come with the intention of inducing the Indians to be their friends. After landing, De Soto sent back part of the ships to Cuba to return with more provisions, and left the rest in the bay to guard it in case they wished to come back to the ships.
Then they began their march inland. The men in their armor, spurred and booted, the horses with heavy glittering trappings, the loads of supplies, droves of animals, — all to push their way through the thick everglades, the trackless swamps, which abound in Florida even to this day. It was a weary journey before they came in sight of land which looked as if it were habitable. When
46 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
they emerged from the swamps and forests upon a plain planted with grain, they saw a party of some ten or twelve Indians running toward them. They were going to fire upon and kill them, when to their surprise one of these natives ran before the others and throw- ing up his arms to stop the attack, called out in good Spanish, —
" Good sirs, I am a Christian. Slay me not, nor these Indians, who have saved my life."
At this address all the troop of De Soto stopped in much amaze- ment to hear their own language in these wilds. Being questioned, the stranger told them this story : —
He said that his name was John Ortiz, and he was a true-born Spaniard. He had been one of the sailors of Pamphilo de Narvaez, when he came to these coasts twelve years before to explore Florida. He was one of the few who had escaped death in this expedition. When after long hardships he had got back to Cuba, the wife of Narvaez was fitting out ships to seek after her husband. John Ortiz sailed in this expedition. When they reached the coast of Florida he went on shore with some of his companions in a ship's boat. Near that part of the bay where Narvaez first landed, they saw a stick set up in form of a cross, and thought it might have been set up by him as a token that he had escaped from shipwreck.
Just then some Indians who appeared friendly beckoned them to land. John Ortiz and one other went on shore. But no sooner had they landed than these Indians attacked them, slew his compan- ion, and wounded Ortiz, while the frightened boat's crew hastened back to the ship believing them both slain. They would have killed Ortiz, but that the daughter of the chief begged for his life. This one white man alone, she urged, could do no harm, and he mio-ht be useful to them. So Ucita — this was the name of the chief — saved the Spaniard's life at the pleading of his daughter.
After this Ortiz lived for some time with this tribe. He was given the strange office of guarding the temple where the Indians were in the habit of placing the bodies of those who had died. The poor Spaniard had many bloody encounters with the wolves, who came by night to seize the bodies which were kept there.
At length the daughter of Ucita, the Indian princess who had at first befriended him, came secretly and told him her tribe again had designs upon his life, and advised him to flee to the kingdom of Mo- coco, who was a chief not far distant.
Mococo received him with open arms, and lor several years Ortiz
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 47
had lived as one of his tribe. But this good king had promised that if the Spaniards ever came thither, John Ortiz should go away freely with them.
After hearing this story of Ortiz, the Spaniards had an interview with Mococo, who not only entertained De Soto well, but gave him provisions to take with him, and sent John Ortiz rejoicing away with his companions.
De Soto continued his march. It was a very crooked route he took, and was changed and directed by the natural obstacles or ad- vantages in this wild country through which they went.
John Ortiz was a great addition to them, for he knew many In- dian languages, and acted as guide and interpreter. The country was divided into kingdoms or provinces, each with a different ruler. They were not very large, for De Soto passed through a good many on his march to the Mississippi River. Their towns were often walled about. The walls were made about breast high, of posts thrust into the ground, and rails laid across from one to the other, like rail-fence. Then they were filled with clay, which hardened in the sun. These primitive walls had loop-holes for firing arrows. But these rude defenses protected the natives but little against Spanish warfare, and wherever the white man went he left havoc in his track.
Often the Indians met them in kindness, gave them food, and es- corted them on their way, but generally there was much bloodshed before the last of De Soto's troops left their boundaries.
Once they passed through a province ruled over by a woman. It was a beautiful country, in what is now Alabama. She treated them most graciously, and gave them food and buffalo skins.
Now they began to hear rumors of a great river in front of them, — a river of great riches and beauty, whose waters were yellow with gold. It was more than a year since De Soto first landed on the coast of Florida. He had lost manj men, and very little gold had yet rewai'ded his labors. So he pushed impatiently on toward this wonderful river.
One spring morning in 1541, two years from the time they first landed on the coast of the New World, they halted on the banks of the Mississippi River. They were weary and worn and travel- stained ; the brightness was gone from their armor, and the trap- pings of the horses no longer glittered in the sun. But they were still hopeful and resolute and courageous.
48 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The place where they touched the river was the point where the Arkansas River unites with the great father of waters. You can im- agine it looked very different to the Spaniards from what it looks to-day. Now steamboats ply up and down day and night, and towns and cities dot its banks. Then the great river, undisturbed by boats or ships, rushed furiously on to the sea. These are the words in which one of De Soto's men tells how it looked that day : —
" The river was almost half a league broad. If a man stood still on the other side, it could not be discerned if he were a man or no. The water was of great depth and of a strong current, always muddy, and there came down continually many trees and timber, which the force of the water and the stream brought down."
For a year they remained at this part of the river. In that time De Soto crossed and recrossed on rude boats which they built, and made excursions into the interior of the country west of the river. He spent one winter among what are now known as the Ozark Mountains, near the great lead region of southwestern Missouri. But they were tired of adventure, and longed eagerly to get to the sea.
Yet it seemed almost madness to think of trusting themselves to this terrible swift current with such rafts and boats as they had made to cross it ; and it was as hopeless to think of going back through the trackless wilds through which they had come, and where they had left enemies all over their pathway. Their hearts began to fail. Finally De Soto, weary with devising hopeless plans, and heart-sick with disappointment, fell into a fever and died.
The Spaniards were afraid that the Indians would discover the loss of their leader, whom they had told the savages was a child of the sun, and could not die. They hid his body three days. Then they dug a grave under cover of a hut, but seeing some Indians look- ing at the place where the earth had been upturned, they secretly took it up in the night, and wrapping it in the Spanish mantle De Soto had been used to wear, they made it heavy with sand and threw it into the Mississippi. There, after many wanderings, he slept in peace at the bottom of the mighty river he had found.
After this the desire to get upon the open sea, and the prospect of getting back to Spain, inspired them to great exertions. The labors of Narvaez were repeated by them. They cut timber, forged iron, and built ships or brigantines to get to sea.
This took them nearly a year, and it was in July, 1543, before they were ready to go on board.
ENCxLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORERS. 49
Their departure showed the same cruelty to the Indians which had marked all their conduct to them. They stripped the coun- try around of all their corn and provisions, and when they set out they wei'e so abundantly provided that they cast corn before their hogs which the animals could not eat because they were already so full, while the natives, robbed of the food they had planted, fam- ished and despairing, crowded the shores and implored that some of their store should be given back. Some of the Spaniards, more tender-hearted than others, cast back a small portion, bub many laughed in their faces, and threw back jeers at their distress as the boats fflided down the river.
After much perilous sailing they reached the Spanish settlement of Panuco on the Gulf of Mexico, and were received with great hospitality by the colonists there. They returned to Spain shortly after, and thus ended the third expedition into Florida. It is hardly possible to say which of these seems most disastrous to the captain who commanded it.
CHAPTER VII.
ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORERS.
Henry VH. of England. — Sebastian Cabot discovers North America. — The French King sends Ships to America. — Verrazano comes to New York. — Voyages of Jacques Cartier to Can- ada.— His Ship lost in the St. Lawrence.
When the other nations of Europe beheld how rich Spain and Portugal were growing from the spoils of the new lands they were sharing between them, they were naturally anxious to share also in the profits of discovery. Almost as soon as Columbus returned from his first voyage Henry VII. of England was busily fitting out ships for exploration.
I have told you before that Columbus sent his brother Barthol- omew to England at the time that he went to Spain. Bartholomew had an adventurous journey ; fell among thieves, lost his money, and reached England very ragged and poor. It was a long time before he could get decent clothes in which to be presented at court, and he worked hard at map-making in London for money to keep himself from starvation.
It is claimed by English writers of this period that Henry VII.
4
60
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
intended to accept the proposition of Columbus and fit him out on the expedition. If this were so he was so slow and hesitating in his decision that Columbus had sailed from Spain and discovered Amer- ica before Henry had fairly made up his mind. When the news of the discovery came to his ears, he set to work briskly and sent out an expedition, commanded by John and Sebastian Cabot, a father
and son, who were living in Bristol, Eng- land, although they were natives of Venice. Sebastian Cabot was very young, probably only eighteen years old, but he seems to have been the ruling spirit of the voyage, and was one of the greatest navigators the world has ever known.
They sailed almost due west, and touched Sebastian Cabot. tlic Continent of North America at Labra-
dor, before Columbus had found the main-land. The Cabots, there- fore, were really the first Europeans who landed on these shores. They took possession in the name of England, and sailed northward to find a way farther west. But the land everywhere presented a firm barrier to their ships.
" I found the land ranne all along to the north, which was to mee a great displeasure," wrote Sebastian, in his description of the voy- age.
See how all these navigators in their search after the rich Indies, at first scorned this poor continent of ours which has turned out to be worth a dozen Indies, in everj^thing that really makes the world rich.
After Sebastian Cabot returned to England, his father died, and he had sole command of the expeditions which followed. He de- voted the greater part of his life to searching after the long wished for western passage to Asia ; made several voyages to the coast of South America, under the auspices of Spain, and finally went back to England and spent his later years in making charts and maps. He lived up to the time of Queen Elizabeth of England, and when a very old man, nearly eighty, he assisted in fitting out some ships to seek for a northwest passage to the Pacific, went to a parting ban- quet on the ship, and danced there like a youth of twenty.
From this discovery of John and Sebastian Cabot, England laid claim to the northern part of the New World near Labrador ; Spain claimed Peru and Mexico and all the Orinoco River region ; and
ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORERS. 61
Portugal claimed Patagonia and Brazil, on account of Magellan's voyage there.
Francis I. was at this time king of France. He had pressing affairs on his hands, — a kingdom beset with civil war and foreign war. But in spite of his anxieties he felt very jealous of the possessions his brother kings of Spain, Portugal, and England, were get- ting on the new continent. When he heard they had divided the new countries across the sea, he cried out, " I should like to see the clause in Adam's will which gives them all America." verrazano.
In 1524 he sent Captain Juan Verrazano to see if he could find a corner where France might gain a foothold on this continent. Verrazano sailed with four ships, but nearly all were disabled early in the voyage, and he finally crossed with only one vessel, — the Dolphin^ — the only good ship of the four. He touched America near the coast of New York and New Jersey, entered Long Island Sound, and came up New York Bay. He describes a beautiful river, which probably was the Hudson, but he did not stop to explore it. Coming out from Long Island Sound, he sailed northward, past Cape Cod and the crooked coast of Maine, and finally stopped at the borders of Canada. From his discovery all this region was first called " New France."
Now as early as 1503 the Portuguese had discovered that New- foundland was a wonderful place to catch fish, and that there was no end to the number of cod which swam around its .banks. It is probable that Verrazano carried back reports of the great wealth of fish in these waters, for shortly after his return to France we hear of many French ships off Newfoundland Banks. One of the nobles of the court of Francis I. was allowed a certain sum of money on every ship-load of fish brought into French ports, and he took good care to encourage the fishing trade. For ten years after Verrazano's visit, we hear little of New France except that the fishing sloops went there every year in numbers.
St. Malo is a rocky little sea-port in the province of Brittany in France, and is famous for its brave and hardy sailors. Indeed, nearly all the dwellers in St. Malo get their living from the ocean, which washes up on their rock-bound coast. Jacques Cartier was born and bred there, and grew up to be just the kind of a man to command an expedition to America. In 1534, just ten years after
52 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Verrazano, Cartier was fitted out, to see what could be done toward establishing a colony in New France.
He went to Newfoundland in the track of the fishingr vessels. Sailing around that island, past the banks, he set up a cross on the bleak shores of Labrador, and traded with the natives of that coast and of New Brunswick. The Indians were so friendly with the Frenchmen, that one of the chiefs let two young Indian boys, his own sons, go back to Europe with Cartier. It was less than five months from the time he left St. Malo that he was back again with accounts of his visit.
In 1535 he sailed again with three ships. But this time he had ill winds, which do not seem to have blown anybody good. How- ever, they all got into land safely at last, and entered the Gulf of the Three Brothers, where Gaspar Cortereal had sailed in, never to be heard of afterwards. Cartier gave this gulf and river the name of St. Lawrence, because he entered it on the day which the Romish Church has dedicated to the memory of Lawrence, the Christian martyr. He sailed down the river as far as an island on which was a wooded hill. Climbing this hill to overlook the country, he named it Mont-real (royal mountain), and there the city of Montreal, Can- ada, was afterwards built.
Cartier lived up there all winter among the Indians, and lost many of his men from cold weather and the scurvy. The Indians were very good to them, and the French traded with them for many fine furs.
In the spring he went back to France, taking only two of his
ships. The third had been somewhat disabled by the weather, and he had lost too many of his crew to man her properly, so he left it behind. In 1848, only twenty-six years ago, and over three hundred years after its deser- tion, this old ship was found sticking up in the mud of the St. Lawrence River. Would you not like to have seen this strange old craft Cartier's Ship. wliich had fclt tlic tramp of the sailors of St.
Malo on her decks three hundred years ago, and had laid quiet so many ages after its work was done ?
Again Cartier sailed with five ships and men to build a colony. But on his second voyage he had carried away some natives to sell as slaves, and perhaps the Indians remembered that against him, for
FRENCH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 53
he was not so well received by them this time. He visited Mon- treal, but without founding a colony, and eight months after started for France. On his way back he met Lord de la Roque, who had just been made Governor-General of New France, by the king. La Roque ordered him back, but Cartier refused to go. H^e went in- stead to St. Malo, and was never heard of as a discoverer afterwards. De la Roque built a fort on the site of Quebec, and then he too got discouraged and returned to France.
CHAPTER VHI.
FRENCH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
The French Protestants. — The Land of Flowers. — The Colony of Ribault in Carolina. — Spaniards at St. Augustine. — The Spanish massacre the French Colony. — Sad Fate of Ribault and his Companions. — Dominic de Gourgues. — He avenges the Murder of Frenchmen.
This all happened from 1534 to 1542. Twenty years later there was an attempt to found a French colony in North America. It happened in this way. There were in France a good many people called Huguenots, which was only another name for those who were of the Protestant religion, and did not believe in the Roman Cath- olic Church. Nearly all Europe was Roman Catholic then. The English nation had only just got rid of the Pope's authority and gone to thinking a little for itself. The Spaniards were all very bitter Romanists, and wished to put everybody to death who did not believe just as they did ; the French king was Roman Catho- Hc also, and so were nearly all his nobles. Francis I. was dead, and Charles IX. was King of France.
Yet there was one very good Huguenot nobleman in the court of Charles whom, in spite of his religion, the Romanists were forced to respect. His name was Coligny, Jj^^
and he was an admiral in the French navy. rf^^i
This nobleman saw that there was very little J&I^^Ma peace for the Huguenots in France, and accordingly ^^ [ail/^wk. he planned to make a colony of them in America, ' "imtmrn^
where they could find a refuge to escape persecu- "wM®^
tion in their own country. if // ^
He obtained the consent of the king, and first <::^,a^^^ made an attempt to settle a colony in Brazil. But prencrTobili^an in the Portuguese resisted their encroachments on '^"^^
54 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
what they claimed as their territory. In the year 1562 he sent an expedition to Florida, commanded by John Ribault.
All Europe had heard much of the beauty of the " Land of Flowers," and it was known the Spaniards had not attempted to settle there since the unfortunate journey of Ferdinand de Soto. The Spanish colonies were all in Mexico and South America, or on the West India islands. Therefore Ribault determined to go to Florida. As they neared this far-famed land, the sailors were de- lighted with sight of its vernal shores, which sloped gently down, green even to the water's edge. A little back from the shore stretched a line of dense forests. Over the trees ran flowering vines with many colored blossoms. They could see gay plumaged birds and graceful deer in the leafy recesses of the wood.
On the first day of May, 1562, they sailed into the St. John's River in Florida. Ribault called this river the May^ in honor of the month in which he entered it. Here he set up a stone pillar look- ing out to sea, with the coat of arms of France engraved on it ; and then, not quite satisfied with the place, he sailed northward past the coast of Georgia, to Port Royal in South Carolina. At this point Ribault buiJt a fort which he called Fort Caroline, in honor of Charles IX., and from this fort comes the names of the States which are now called the Carolinas. But at that time you must remember all this country north of Mexico was known as Florida. After es- tablishing the fort Ribault returned to France, leaving thirty men under command of Albert de la Pierria.
Left to themselves these Frenchmen made merry, and formed friendships with the Indians ; but they neglected to plant corn for the harvest, and would have starved if the natives had not been very generous with them and given them part of their crops. After a time, getting homesick and discontented, they quarreled with each other, and finally accused their leader, Albert de la Pierria, of cru- elty, and put him to death.
There was a good deal of sickness and suffering amongst them, and they resolved to build a ship and return to France. They had already a small pinnace — which is a vessel propelled partly by oars and partly by sails, — that Ribault had left behind. This they took in pieces for materials to help build a larger ship. They had also some iron and a forge in the fort, and the Indians gave them ropes for the rigging, made of grass and the tough bark of trees. To caulk their vessel they used the long moss which hung from the forest trees, and pitch was plentiful everywhere on the tall pines.
FRENCH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 55
They finished this ship and went on board her, poorly provisioned for the long journey. They suffered terribly, and would all have died, most likely, if they had not met an English ship which suc- cored them, and took the few survivors home.
In 1564 Admiral Coligny sent out a second colony. Ribault did not go this time, and Rene de Laudonniere commanded the fleet. They sailed for the river which Ribault had called the May, and which you can now find on the map of Florida as the St. John's River. There they found the pillar still standing which Ribault had set up on first landing in America. Around it were pretty little baskets made of fresh green rushes heaped full of yellow corn. These offerings the Indians had placed around the pillar to show their reverence for it.
Soon after the French landed, the natives came trooping down to the shore, crying " Afni, Ami.'''' " Ami " is the French word for friend^ which the natives had learned of Ribault, and repeated to show they had not forgotten the former coming of the Frenchmen.
They set to work at once to built a fort. The Indians helped them eagerly, and showed themselves very friendly. They taught the French how to thatch their houses with leaves after the Indian custom, and they gave them a generous portion of their corn.
This fort the Frenchmen also called Fort Caroline, as they had named the former one at Port Royal. And like the former colony they began to get into trouble among themselves as soon as the fort was built. There were nearly always some reckless spirits in every colony who did not wish to work, and consequently made trouble for the rest.
Then they were homesick, and desired to go back to France again. While they were making plans to leave the country, they saw a fleet putting into their harbor, and to their great delight it proved to be Captain Ribault with seven ships.
Shortly before the appearance of Ribault, the French had heard that some Spanish ships had come to Florida, and landed just a hun- dred miles below where they were building.
This report was true. The Spaniards had made a stronghold, and planted a colony at a place they called St. Augustine. It is the present site of the old town of that name in Florida and this town, thus built by the Spaniards in 1564, is the oldest town in all the United States.
Just before Ribault came up the mouth of the St. John's
56 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
River, some of the Spanish vessels lurking about, fired upon his ships, but did him no injury. This showed the French that the Spaniards meant to be unfriendly, and served to put them on their guard against them. Ribault went up to Fort Caroline and took the command which belonged to him by superior rank. Laudonniere wanted him to stay and make the fort stronger in case the Spanish forces came to attack them. But Ribault decided to take his ships and go to St. Augustine to besiege the Spaniards. He therefore gathered all his fighting men, and left Laudonniere with the women and children and a few men, who from sickness or other causes could not go with him.
As soon as Ribault was fairly off, a party of Spaniards attacked the fort and soon got inside the walls. Then they murdered, in cold blood, every man, woman, and child they could seize upon. Laudonniere and a few others escaped to the sea-shore, and taking a small vessel Ribault had left behind, they succeeded in getting back to France. But very few escaped the Spanish swords.
In the mean time Ribault fared very badly. Terrific storms came on, and as these were all strange waters and coasts, of course even experienced sailol^s did not know how to steer safely. So it hap- pened that all Ribault's ships were wrecked, and he and his men barely escaped with their lives.
They found themselves on shore in the wilderness, one hundred miles from the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine and one hun- dred and fifty from Fort Caroline. In order to get on easier they agreed to separate into two companies. One of these companies numbered about two hundred men, the other two hundred and fifty.
The party which Ribault commanded marched northward till they came to the banks of a river, where they beheld a great force of Spaniards awaiting them on the opposite side. The French stopped to parley with them. After some talk the French, who must have lost many of their arms in their shipwreck and been worn out with their severe march, agreed to give themselves up to the enemy. They had not heard of the fate of their comrades in the fort, and had no reason to suppose they should receive any cruel treatment at the hands of the Spaniards, who were not at war with France. No sooner had they surrendered themselves than the Spaniards ordered them to be placed in a line, and then the Spanish soldiery set upon them with their swords and daggers, and stabbed every man to death. No, not quite all. They first asked every man what religion he was
FRENCH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 57
of, and ten or twelve said they were Roman Catholics. These they kept alive. The rest — Ribault among them — were thvis foully slaughtered. One man, a carpenter by trade, fell down as one life- less, and after the Spaniards had left them for dead, he crawled away, managed to get into a safe place, and finally returned to France, where he wrote this story and had it printed.
After the Spaniards had done this foul deed they hung the bodies of these murdered men on trees with this label fastened to them, *' Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans,'''' which meant they did not kill these men because they were Frenchmen, but because they were of the belief of Martin Luther, who was a Protestant and boldly opposed the Roman Catholic Church.
The party which had separated from Ribault, were a little more fortunate. Shortly after the murder of Ribault and his men, the Spaniards heard that this second party were building a fort not far from St. Augustine. On this they sent word to know if they would surrender, promising them they should not be harmed. The French, who knew nothing of the fate of their companions, gave themselves up. It is a remarkable fact, that the Spanish leader kept his word, and this party of French were unharmed. Many of the French had previously gone to ask shelter of the Indians, preferring to trust the tender mercies of savages rather than the Spiiniards.
When the few surviving Frenchmen returned to France with an account of these massacres, the French people, both Huguenots and Romanists, were filled with rage against the Spaniards. But King Charles paid no attention to the wrongs the colony had endured. He was a weak boy ruled by his bad mother, Catherine de Medicis, a violent Romanist, who wanted all the Huguenots in the kingdom slaughtered. Many people believed that the French court knew the designs of the Spaniards, and had encouraged them, that France might be rid of the Protestant colony. But there was one man in France, though he was a devout Romanist, who was too much of a patriot to see his countrymen slaughtered without indignation. This man was Dominic de Gourgues, a noble gentleman of Gascony in France.
He sold all his estates, borrowed of his friends, and got all the money together he could to fit out ships for Florida. Then he picked out a brave company of soldiers, and went on his way. He did not tell his men what he was going to do till the ships reached
68 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the West Indies. Then he told them he was going to lead them to avenge their lost countrymen. At this they were so impatient to go on that he could hardly restrain them.
Gourgues went to the River May, and there had a talk with the Indian chiefs with whom the French had been on friendly terms. He found a number of his countrymen among the Indians who had fled at the time of the massacre. These men had learned the lan- guage of the natives, and could act as interpreters.
All the Indians hated the Spaniards, and were ready to join the French to do battle against them. In a few days Gourgues at- tacked the Spanish forts with the help of the Indians, and killed every Spaniard in their strongholds. Those who were not killed in battle were hung on the scaffold. In return for the label they had affixed to the bodies of the French, he affixed to each of the Span- iards as they hung on their gibbets, " Not as Spaniards and sailors^ hut as traitors, robbers, and inurderers.'"'' In all cases the Indians fought bravely, and were the firm allies of the French. They fed them with fish, corn, and game, and remained to the last tlieir true friends. There were three forts belonging to the Spaniards near the St. John's River, and after all these had been sacked, De Gour- gues returned home. The fort of St. Augustine being strongly foxtified, he did not attack it, and the settlement remained there unharmed.
After his return the king looked coldly on De Gourgues, and the queen-mother would have arrested him, had she dared, but the peo- ple welcomed him as their hero. He had ruined himself by the ex- pedition, and died a few years later in great poverty.
You will recognize the fact, that his conduct was not in accord- ance with a high spirit of humanity, but his feeling for his country- men was an unselfish and noble one. It is sad to discover that the history of Christian nations, is not at all a carrying out of the prin- ciple of returning good for evil.
, After this Coligny made no more attempts to settle a French col- ony. In fact, he himself was shortly murdered in a general killing of all the Huguenots in the great city of Paris where he dwelt.
ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
59
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
Sir Humphrej' Gilbert's Voyage. — His Ship struck by an Iceberg. — The Shipwrecked Crew. — Walter Kaleigh's First Colony. — Homesick Emigrants. — The Lost Colonists.
In the mean time the English were growing jealous of the power the Spaniards had assumed over this country, and over all the seas. The massacre of the French colony excited much anger in England. The English sovereign, Queen Elizabeth (a granddaughter of Henry VH., who had been the patron of American discovery), was strongly opposed to the Romanists. She sympathized with Dominic de Gourgues, and sent one of her ambassadors to invite him to England. Sir Francis Drake, and other brave English captains, went out to cruise in the Atlantic, to overtake and capture any Spanish vessel they might meet on the high seas, and thus revenge certain wrongs which they said this proud nation had inflicted on English ships peacefully sailing southward.
England had not yet attempted to plant colonies in America. She still claimed the land Sebastian Cabot explored, which extended from Labrador to Florida ; and every year she had vessels fishing off the Banks of New- foundland. But until the year 1578 there was little attempt at colonizing.
In that year Sir Humphrey Gilbert got a patent from Queen Elizabeth, which gave him the right to explore, settle, and fortify in any part of her pos- sessions in North America, where he might lead his ships. Sir Humphrey was a half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was one of the favorite noble- men of Queen Elizabeth. She was a queen who liked brave and ele gant gentlemen, to set off her royal pres- ence, and Sir Walter was famous for being one of the handsomest and best-dressed men of the time, and better than that, he was a brave soldier, a clear-headed statesman, a fine orator, and something of a poet. At the time De Gourgues re- turned from Florida, Raleigh was in Paris, in high favor with Colignyand the Hugue- nots there, and probably heard much about the French colonies. In 1583, when Ra- sir waiter Raieigh.
English Gentleman, 1580.
60 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
leigh was in London, his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, much older than he, was making preparations for a voyage to America.
There were five ships in all. Sir Humphrey, the admiral, went on the ship Delight^ the Raleigh followed, commanded by the vice- admiral of the fleet, then came the Grolden Hind^ with rear-admiral Edward Hayes. There were, besides, two smaller barks, the Squir- rel, and the Swallow.
They sailed for Newfoundland, and there found thirty-six ships of other nations fishing away on the banks. The first thing Sir Humphrey did was to drive all these thirty-six other ships away. I am surprised to find they went so peaceably. His claim to New- foundland seems to us so very doubtful that one would have ex- pected all the other ships to insist that they had as good right to fish on Newfoundland Banks as he. But they gave him no trouble, and after a little parley sailed away, and left him in undisputed possession of all the fish. Then he set up a pillar with the English arms upon it, to show that this was English ground. After this the little fleet, headed by the Goldeji Hind, began to sail southward. There were only four ships now, for the Raleigh had, on first sail- ing out, got separated from the rest, and very soon returned alone to England. But Sir Humphrey and the others went to Cape Race, which is on the southern extremity of the island of Newfoundland, and sailing westerly tried to get in to land. There they fell among shoals, and had terrible storms and fogs and all kinds of bad weather, till the Swallow went down to the bottom of the sea. Af- ter that Sir Humphrey thought he would leave his own ship, the Delight, and go on board the Squirrel, which was smaller, and better fitted for navigating the coast. The sailors tried to dissuade him on account of the danger, but he would not give in. " What,"" said the stout old sailor, " is not heaven quite as near by sea as land ? "
So he went on board the smaller ship and got in close to shore. Suddenly the Golden Hind, which was not far behind the Squirrel, felt the shock of a sharp concussion in the water, and immediately they saw the sea close over the lights which hung in her rigging, and that was the last they ever saw or heard of the hapless vessel. Whether a floating iceberg, drifting down from unknown seas like a glassen ship, had with one blow crushed in her timbers and sunk her under the black waters, or whether she struck some unseen rock, I do not know. But down she went with all these brave
ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 61
souls on board her, and the grand old admiral on her deck. Noble Sir Humphrey ! I faiKjy heaven was quite as near him as in his own dear England. But does it not make the eyes fill with tears to think of those bold fellows, eager to build towns in the wilder- ness, and bring civilization to this unknown land, daring the terrors of strange waters, suffering from cold and exposure, and all to go down at last under the cruel sea, never to see their wives and chil- dren any more ? Our own poet, Longfellow, sings their sad fate, —
" Alas ! The land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night, Aid never more on sea or land Would Sir Humphrey see the light ! "
After the Squirrel went down the ship Delight took her turn at disaster. She struck a rock and parted amidships. Fourteen of her crew got on board a pinnace, and they waited to take the captain off too, but, like many another brave shipmaster, he would go down with his ship rather than leave her. So he went to the bottom with the timbers of his beloved craft. The fourteen picked up two more out of the water, and then they were so crowded that the cry was raised that lots must be drawn to cast one overboard. At this one brave fellow (I wish we knew his name) spoke up, and said, " No ; better trust to Providence, and sink or swim together than cast one man out." And his counsel prevailed. So the six- teen souls drifted about on the desolate sea.
Six days and nights they drifted thus, suffering horrible tortures from hunger and thirst, eating the soles of their shoes, and lapping up with parched tongues the blessed night-dew when it fell. In this time two died, and were cast overboard. On the seventh day the pin- nace floated ashore at Newfoundland, and the fourteen survivors, hag- gard, starved, and meagre, landed there. Afterwards an English ship took them back to London. This was the end of the first voyage.
After that Sir Walter Raleigh bought the whole of Sir Hum- phrey's patent, and began to fit out a second expedition. Sir Walter would have liked to command this in person, but he had his hands full in England. He was one of the favorite courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and you know what an exacting mistress she was, — so vain, so eager for admiration, and so jealous lest any of her' lords should show preference for any one except herself, that she constantly kept poor Sir Walter in trouble. . Between trying to keep in her good grace and not make himself too much a slave to
62 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
her whims, he seems to have had a hard time of it. Then he had powerful enemies, because his rivals saw that the queen really favored him, and that made them jealous and ready to plot against him. When he found he could not go in person he sent two of his friends, Arthur Barlow and Philip Amydos, to explore. Coming back they gave such glowing accounts of the beauty of the country that Raleigh laid their descriptions before Elizabeth, and the land was named Virginia, in honor of that princess, who was known as the " Virgin Queen."
In this very year, 1585, on a beautiful summer day. Sir Richard
Grenville started for America with Sir Walter's first colony. The^^ landed on an island called Roanoke, just outside Roan- oke Inlet, and began the first English col- ony in America. Soon after leaving them Sir Richard returned to England for more supplies. The colonists went to work to settle the wilderness, but they had a se- Drake's Ship. vcTC time. They did not know how to pro-
vide against hardships, and like almost all new colonists they suf- fered terribly. They did not get houses built soon enough, and had to live in wretched little huts all the first winter. And winter always seems hard on new colonies. It generally happens to be the coldest known for years.
Then their provisions gave out, and they nearly starved. The Indians became hostile, too, to add to the distress, and they were in a most desperate and pitiable condition when the spring of 1586 dawned upon them. They dragged out a miserable existence through the spring and summer, and in August of that year Sir Francis Drake came there with his fleet. He had been on several expeditions to fight the Spaniards, and take away some of the gold this latter nation had plundered from the Indians in South America. He had sailed all around this continent, had landed at California, which was then an unknown country, and was returning home loaded with gold and booty of all kinds taken from Spanish ships.
His own ship was very splendid indeed. He had it fitted up vrith velvet and satin hangings in his cabin, with gold and silver dishes to eat and drink from, and a band of musicians on board. Imagine how he loo}ced on his princely ship in his handsome dress, as he came sailing up to the half-starved colonists at Roanoke. I
ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 63
warrant they cried and laughed and fell on each other's necks when they saw their dear old English flag streaming in the air under these strange skies. And I doubt not the generous admiral feasted them with the best he had on board when they told him they were free-born Englishmen who had been starving for months. At first he offered to leave them plenty of provisions and take home news of them to England. But they were so homesick, they pleaded only to go back. So he took them all on board his fleet, every man of them, and the colony sailed back to England.
Sir Walter at home, harassed by his enemies and in not very good spirits, had sent out Sir Richard Grenville with more ships, not yet knowing Sir Francis Drake had taken them away. When Sir Richard arrived and found the settlement all deserted, he landed fifty men and provisions for two years as a beginning of another colony. This was in 1586, nearly a year since Sir Francis had taken away the others, and yet Sir Richard Grenville had not heard the news of their departure before he left England. You see they had no steamships nor Atlantic cable in those days.
Well, Sir Richard left the fifty men, among whom were carpen- ters, blacksmiths, and all sorts of .artisans, and they went to work merrily, cutting down trees, planting grain, and preparing to build a fort to keep secure from the Indians. They seem so stanch and brave and resolute, such a little party breasting the terrors of the great wilderness, that I can hardly bear to tell you what happened to them. Just one year after, Raleigh sent Mr. John White as governor, with three ships and supplies to the colony. He reached Roanoke inlet and landed on the beach. Instead of the expected sound of the axes in the greenwood, and the more cheerful sound of voices greeting them on the shore, a stillness like death reigned there. The half-erected fort was there, but no human be- ing lurked within its walls. They called, and shouted, and made the forest ring with blasts of trumpets, but there was no voice to answer in hearty English welcome. Only white bones lying among the ruins of the attempted town. Every man of the settlement had been killed by the Indians.
I admire the spirits which were undaunted by the disaster which had been met before. I can hardly believe men could be found nowadays who would settle in a place where they knew so much discouragement and toil and peril awaited them. Yet there were men so brave, and women, too, and the next colony was immedi-
64 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
ately formed from those on board Mr. White's ships. They chose eleven men, for a governor and his assistants, and the third colony was begun. Soon after landing. Mistress Ellinor Dare, who was the daughter of the governor, and the wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a dear little babe, who was the first Christian child ever born on this continent. They named her Virginia, after the land in which she was born, — delicate little English blossom, to spring from so rude and inhospitable a soil !
After safely landing his party, Mr. John White prepared to go back to England to report to Sir Walter. First he took counsel of the people to find out their minds about staying, and all chose of their own accord to remain. Then he sailed away as swiftly as the wind would take him, and, I doubt not, many an eye gazed after him as if they bade a last farewell to England in his retreating sails.
After his return Mr. White spent two years trying to get fitted out again. It was up-hill work, for the American possessions were getting less and less popular, but at length with three ships and more men and provisions, he went back.
Again they met the same experience as before. No gathering on the shore to greet them, no voices answering to their shouts, no signs of human occupation. They landed and looked anxiously about them. After some search they found three large letters, C. R. O. carved in the bark of a tree, and then, looking more closely found, cut on the logs of the fort, the word CROATAN. They rec- ognized this as the name of an island outside the inlet. They also found some smouldering embers in the fort, which denoted recent occupation, and some of the sailors unearthed certain chests which contained goods belonging to Mr. White. These he was glad to see, because it confirmed his impression that the colonists were alive and in safety, since they had time before going away to conceal this treasure. On this, he took to his ships and decided to go di- rectly to Croatan.
Now comes the strangest part of the story. Mr. White's .ships never reached Croatan at all. After they got out to sea the snn^ changed, the weather was unfavorable, the fleet drifted off in the direction of the Azores, and never, so far as we can find out, from that day to this, did any one ever go to Croatan to look for the lost colonists. There they remain — the one hundred and fifty men, -women, and children, Ananias Dare with his wife Ellinor, the gov- ernor's daughter, and their dear little baby, — never to be known
THE INDIANS. 65
among men any more. Did they live there in Croatan till they died of hunger and hardships ? Did the Indians murder them as they did their predecessors ? Did they unite with the Indians and be- come one with the tribe, the little Virginia growing up into a lovely maiden, perhaps to become the fair-faced princess of some dusky warrior ? All these questions have been asked over and over, but they have never been answered. And this was the end of Sir Walter's last colony. There are records among his papers of ships fitted out to seek these lost people, but notliing is known of any such expedition. There is little doubt that he did make some effort to send after them. He also made two or three attempts to plant other colonies in Guiana, South America, and lost his son Walter in a skirmish with the Spaniards there.
You know what became of Sir Walter himself, do you not ? The ending of his life was as sad as the fate of the colonists. He out- lived the dangerous intrigues of his enemies all through the reign of Queen Bess, to fall a victim to them in the time of James I., her successor, and this princely courtier, this noble gentleman, perished on the scaffold in 1618, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.
CHAPTER X.
THE INDIANS.
First Inhabitants of America. — Aztecs in Mexico. — The Red Men of the United States. — How the}' looked. — Their Houses. — The Clothes they wore. — Canoes. — Food. — Household Implements. — Indian Women. — The Happy Hunting-grounds.
Before I proceed to tell you about the permanent settlement of the white man in this country, I must tell you something about the people who inhabited America at the time it was discovered. You know that Columbus called them Indians, because he supposed they were dwellers in a country that was either a part of the continent of Asia or very near it. But the Indians had names by which they called themselves, and when the white people began to settle here, they found there were many different tribes and peoples, and that there were great diversities in language, manners, and customs, among the various tribes.
When Hernando Cortez had entered Mexico and conquered it, he found a very much more civilized people than those dwelling in
5
66 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
other parts of North America. They had a fine city, with walls, well-built houses, and temples ornamented with gold and silver, in which to worship their gods. The kings wore robes woven of cot- ton, dyed in beautiful colors, and sometimes painted with birds and flowers, so that they resembled fine European fabrics. They also understood the art of smelting metals, and making paper, and many manufactures of which the more northern Indians knew nothinar.
These people were called Aztecs, and were the most civilized na- tives on this continent.
But the Indians who inhabited the country which is now the United States, were a race of savage people, without any knowl- edge of the arts and manufactures, and very little idea of the man- ner of tilling the soil.
The skins of these native Americans were copper-colored, or red- dish brown, from which they have been called "red-skins," or " red men." They had black hair, which even in the women never curled or fell in waving masses, but was always perfectly straight and very coarse. The men did not have beards, and never shaved. If any hair attempted to grow on their faces they plucked it out by the roots, so that it did not come again. They had rather small, half-shut eyes, high cheek-bones, and low, broad foreheads. We should not think them a very handsome people, I fancy, although some of the Indian women, and men, too, are said to have been quite dignified and good-looking.
When De Soto went through Florida on his way to the Missis- sippi River, he passed through a great manj^ Indian kingdoms. None of these were very large, and each tribe spoke a language a little different from its neighboring tribe. Each kingdom had its town, into which they could retire in case of war. These towns were walled about, as I have described to you in the account of De Soto's march to the Mississippi. All about these towns lav the fields where they planted their corn and beans.
The Indian corn, or maize, potatoes, and tobacco, were all new vegetable productions to the white men, and were soon introduced into Europe as great luxuries. On the other hand, the Indians had no domestic animals at all. They had plenty of wild deer, which they used for food, and dressed their skins for clothing ; the woods and rivers abounded in wild ducks, turkeys, geese, swans, ^nd all kinds of game. But they had no farm animals, no oxen, cows, horses, pigs, or even dogs and cats. All these were brought
THE INDIANS. 67
here by the Europeans, De Soto brought the first horses and pigs, and when the English began to settle here, they brought oxen, sheep, cows, and all the animals which are seen in an English barn- yard.
The Indians who lived in Virginia and the eastern States were even less civilized than those De Soto encountered. Their houses, or " wigwams," were often made of several poles, put into the ground in a circle, and tied together at the top in the shape of a round tent. These poles were covered with mats woven of grass, and the inner bark of trees, which was tough and fibrous. Sometimes the wigwams were square, with poles thrust in wigwam.
the ground in each corner, forming a room eighteen or twenty feet square, with walls of matting and a roof of the same. In the cen- tre of the roof was a hole through which the smoke might pass when they built a fire inside this tent. Often the walls inside were lined with the fur of the deer, and piles of these deer-skins made very comfortable beds.
In the summer the Indians wore very little clothing, but in the winter the northern Indians dressed warmly in mantles of fur, some- times very handsomely trimmed with feathers. They wore leggings of skins, and their moccasins or shoes were made of the same material. When they were in fall dress the men wore high crests of bright feathers on their heads, and decorated their faces with paints of many colors. They seemed to think this paint added very much to their beauty, and if any of the young Indian girls could get a lit- tle blue and yellow- and red paint to daub over her cheeks and fore- head in long streaks, she was very proud of her personal appear- ance.
They also had strings of shells of different colors, which they used for ornaments. These were woven into belts, and sometimes embroi- dered upon the edges of their fur mantles, or up and down their leggings, and made little tinklings when they walked. These shells, which they called wampum^ they used for money, and had dif- ferent values for them, as they were more or less rare. After the white men began to trade with the Indians they brought over many-colored beads which the Indians also called wampum^ and used for decoration in the same way that they had used the shells. Often they would give bushels of corn, or an armful of rich furs, for a single handful of briglit-colored beads.
68
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The deer was a very valuable animal to the Indians. After they had stripped him of his skin to make their clothes, or their beds,
American Deer.
or the lining to their wigwams, they had his carcass for food. And they used his sinews for thread to sew their clothing, or their ca- noes of birch bark.
These canoes or boats were sometimes made of logs, hollowed out something as you have seen a pig's trough, but oftener they were made of the bark of the birch-tree, stripped off in one long piece and carefully fitted over a light frame of cedar wood. In these frail little boats, which danced on the water like a plaything, the Indians, sometimes eight or ten in one canoe, would make long journeys in rivers abounding in falls and rapids, and would come safely back in them. When they were on shore, the boats were so light they could take them on their shoulders and carry them from one river to another.
There was no need of their suffering for want of food. Besides the deer which were so abundant, and the corn and beans which they raised every season, there were quantities of wild fowl and game which they could shoot with their bows and arrows. Then
THE INDIANS. ' 69
the ocean, rivers, and inland lakes swarmed with fish. All the Indians who lived near the sea, or any body of water, were very skillful in taking fish, and it was a principal feature in their diet. Indeed, many of the Indian dishes would seem very delightful to a hungry man, and quite make his month water to think of.
At one time, after a colony of Englishmen had been settled in Virginia and was getting on prosperously, a party of colonists com- ing over from England to join them were shipwrecked, and cast ashore some miles below the English settlement on a rocky island. One of the gentlemen, named Colonel Norwood, who was a kinsman of the governor of the colony, tells the story of their sufferings. For some time they lived on oysters which they found on the rocks^ but at last even the supply of oysters gave out, and they were act- ually forced to become cannibals, and eat the bodies of their dead companions. In this great distress some Indians found them, car- ried them off the island in their canoes, took them to their wig- wams, and fed and succored them in the tenderest manner.
Colonel Norwood describes the houses and fare of the Indians very minutely, and cannot praise too much their kindness, who thus saved the lives of all the party. This is his description of the king's wigwam : —
" Locust posts sunk in the ground at corners and partitions was the strength of the whole fabric. The roof was tied fast to the posts with a sort of strong rushes which grew there, which supplied the place of nails and pins.
" This house or wigwam was about twenty feet square, and on both sides were platforms about six feet long, covered with skins which were used for beds. In the middle of the roof was the hole for the smoke, which naturally did not all rise out at this opening without the aid of a chimney, bvit was plentifully distributed in all parts of the wigwam."
The first dish which the starving party were served with was what the natives called " hominy," or Indian corn boiled and beaten to a mash. This they handed round in a wooden bowl, a large clean muscle shell serving for a spoon. Then they fed them with steaks cut from the hind-quarters of a deer, and roasted before the coals on a sharp stick. Another time they had a wild turkey boiled with oysters, and served up in the same pot in which it was boiled. " This," says Colonel Norwood, " was a very savory mess, and I believe would have passed for a delicacy at any great
70 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
table in England, by palates more competent to make a judgment than mine, which was now more gratified with the quantity than the quality of what was before me."
All the cooking utensils of the savages were either of stone or a
kind of rude earthenware made of baked clay. Indeed, all their implements were of the rudest kind. You can imagine they were so, when you remember they had no iron what- ever. Even the Aztecs, who were partly civil- ized, had no iron, although they knew how to Weapons. melt copper, silver, and gold. But the north-
ern Indians understood the use of none of the metals. Their most dangerous weapons, and all their instruments for hunting and fish- ing, were of stone rudely hammered and sharpened. The heads of their arrows were of stone, and their tomahawks (a kind of war-club which they could fling so dexterously as to split the skull of an enemy), were also of sharpened stone.
After the English came they soon learned to use muskets and fire-arms of different kinds. But at first they were very much afraid of them. Often after they had seen these weapons they would fancy, when they were taken ill, that some unseen bullet had wounded them, and they would send to beg a w^hite man to come and cure them. They could not understand, either, what gunpow- der was, and the first quantity which they obtained they planted in the ground, expecting it to come up in the spring, as the corn and beans did, and they could raise a large crop of it.
The men among the Indians occupied themselves most of the time in hunting and fishing and going to war. In war they were brave and fearless, although their manner of warfare seemed very mean and cowardly to the whites. They rarel}^ came out in fair and open battle, as the Europeans did. They hid from their ene- mies to leap upon them and surprise them ; they lurked behind trees, from which shelter they shot their weapons ; and considered it fair to practice any kind of stratagem upon their foes. When they killed or murdered an enemy on the battle-ground, they cut the skin all around the top of his head and tore away the hair, and this they called the scalp. The bravest Indian chief had many scalp locks of his dead foes hanging at his wampum girdle when he went to dance his fierce war-dance, and on the handle of his tomahawk was cut notches for each scalp he had taken in battle. When they were
THE INDIANS.
71
captured and put to death they rarely uttered a cry or groan, but bore terrible pain very heroically. Indeed, they seemed to be less sensitive to pain than the white man. Yet though very agile and brave and indifferent to pain, it proved in the end that the white man could endure hardships longer than the Indian, and that he died under sufferings and burdens which the white man could sus- tain and live through.
The Indian women were treated much like slaves by the men.
Medicine Dance.
They did all the labor, such as planting the corn and the other work in the fields. They put up the tents, wove the mats for the walls, pounded the corn for the flour or hominy, and did all the work ex- cept hunting and fishing. The men seemed to care very little for their women, and there was less love between Indian husbands and wives than among almost any other people ever known. They were an idle, wandering race, taking their huts from one place after the hunting grounds were exhausted, and the deer all killed from that spot, and pitching them somewhere else. Then the women trudged along carrying the heavy burdens of lodge-poles and house- hold wares and rolls of furs, their babies strapped on their backs,
72 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
while the men walked off straight and unencumbered, bearing only their bows and arrows. And when they decided upon a place to fix the camping ground, they lay at ease under the trees, smoking their long pipes and talking of battles, while their wives put up the wigwams and got the camp in order.
They had dances to celebrate impoi'tant events, as "war dances" and " harvest dances," after a battle or harvest. When one of the tribe was ill, they danced the medicine dance about the couch, hop- ing by their wild cries to drive away the bad spirits which caused disease. But the women did not take part in these dances. When the men danced their war dances with hideous yells, round poles decorated with human scalps, with their faces painted in all the col- ors of a rainbow, the squaws looked reverently on from beside the camp fires.
They had some rude ideas of religion, for they believed in a " Great Spirit," and in happy hunting-grounds, where the soul of the warrior went after death ; and when they buried his body they put in the grave bows and arrows, and food for him to eat on his journey. Often they tried to make friends with this Great Un- known Spirit, by offers of tobacco, or other products of the earth, which they burned on a rude altar built to his worship. Their re- ligion, however, taught them nothing of the Golden Rule, " Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," nor of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness to enemies. They were conse- quently terrible and relentless in war, and most of the tribes in North America were exceedingly cruel in their treatment of cap- tives, whether men, women, or children. Sometimes they took a fancy to spare the life of a young child among their white captives, and rear it as one of the tribe ; and there are a few instances in which a white man or woman has been found, by their kinsfolk, after having lived so long among the Indians that they had lost all memory of their childhood, and were complete savages in language, customs, and everything except features.
In order that they might be better prepared to bear pain, if in the chance of war it should be their fortune to be made prisoners and put to the torture, the Indians were trained from childhood to be very enduring and hardy. As soon as an Indian babe was born, it was strapped to a flat board, on which it was carried on its mother's back, or sometimes hung on a tree, or laid on the ground. To this board it was fastened night and day. Fancy how decidedl}^ a white
THE INDIANS. 7'-
baby would protest against this treatment. Yet these copper- skinned infants rarely uttered a cry, but looked contentedly about them with their bead-like black eyes, and bore all discomfort with serene temper. When it became time for the youth to join the company of the older men, he was forced to go through the severest ordeals of trial and pain to test his fortitude, before he was consid- ered hardy enough to become a warrior.
This is a, brief description of the first inhabitants of America of whom we know anything. They were not without their virtues Often very generous and hospitable to the white man who landed on their shores, they gave freely of their corn and such poor food and shelter as they had. When Ribault landed in Florida, you recollect the natives were very kind to him. Indeed, the Frenchmen always understood better how to treat the natives, so as to gain their hearts, than any other of the Europeans, and the Indians kept faith with them better than with any other nation.
When, too, the English landed in Virginia and New England, the natives were not wanting in kindness and proffers of help. After a time they found that these "pale-faces" had come to remain and take possession of their lands ; that they were crowding them off from their hunting-grounds and fishing places, and building cities in the sites where i"dian pipes.
their wigwams used to stand. It was not strange that they began to grow jealous of this people, whose number seemed to them like the stars in the sky, or the sands of the sea, and they resented their encroachments with all their savage might and means of warfare.
Now all that the wisest among them could have feared has happened to those poor natives of the soil. The white man has crowded them back farther and farther, till the last Indian is driven beyond the Mississippi. Their tribes are scattered and few in num- bers. They have neither been able to keep their savage estate, nor adopt the manners of the white men. It will not be long before the last of them will have died out in the great country that they once possessed and called their own.
* •
74
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY
CHAPTER XI.
FIRST PERMANENT ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.
King James grants Lands in Virginia. — Tlie Sealed Orders for the Colony. — Captain John Smith. — His School-days. — Turns Hermit. — Tournament with the Turks. — His Slavery in Tartary. — His Character as Leader in a Colony.
place on the
Building Jamestown.
There were no very vigorous attempts, on the part of the Eng- lish, to settle in America, for many years after the sad faikire of Sir Walter Raleigh's colonies. About the year 1606 and 1607, \^ y however, a new niterest was aroused, and colonizing in America was again talked about. Queen Elizabeth was now dead, and her cousin, James I., had taken her throne of England. From King James some enterpris-
John Snnith.
FIRST PEiniANENT ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 75
ino- p-entlemen in London had obtained a errant of land in America, and the right to plant colonies there.
All the country, north of Cape Fear, on the coast of North Caro- lina, had been called Virginia ever since Raleigh's first expedition. The gentlemen who held this grant from the king divided their possessions into two parts. One part they called South Virginia, the other, North Virginia. The former included all that tract lying be- tween Cape Fear and the Potomac River ; the latter portion lay between the Hudson River and Newfoundland. The strip between the two — comprising the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware — they agreed to leave for the pi-esent as neutral ground, where any one might settle, if he were a good and loyal subject of England. After thus dividing the land, the men who owned the grant, or patent, separated into two companies. Those who took South Virginia were the " London Company ; " those who took North Virginia, the " Plymouth Company."
Now settlement began in earnest. In April, 1607, the first per- manent colony of Englishmen was jjlanted on this American soil. They were sent by the London Company to the same island of Roan- oke where Raleigh's ill-fated colonies had perished twenty years before. Fortunately they were driven by storms into Chesapeake Bay, and instead of building on the island they fixed their abode on the main-land, at the mouth of the James River in Vu-ginia. This river they immediately named the James, in honor of their king, and they called the infant town which they then began to build in the wilderness, Jamestown.
The principal men who were engaged in this settlement were Edward Wingfield, Bartholomew Gosnold, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, George Kendall, John Marten, and John Smith. Both Newport and Gosnold had made previous voyages to Virginia, and had explored the sea-coast in that vicinity.
Before setting out for America, the London Company had given Captain Newport, who commanded the expedition, a sealed packet, containing the names of those who were to form the council which was to rule and make laws for the colony. They were forbidden to break this seal until they reached Virginia. I confess I see very little sense in such an arrangement, for no one knew who had any authority, and they had hardly set out on their voyage before they began to quarrel about who had the best right to com- mand. One of their number. Captain John Smith, was a mark
76 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
for the jealousy of all those who wished to keep the reins in their own hands. No one among the leaders of the new colony was so fitted to rule such an expedition. He was already very popular with the most part of the common people on the ship, and Wing- field, Ratcliffe, and one or two others, began to hate him bitterly. On some pretext or other, therefore, they caused Smith to be im- prisoned during the greater part of the voyage, and he was closely guarded till they got to Virginia.
Then, opening their sealed orders, they found that Wingfield, Newport, Gosnold, Marten, Ratcliffe, Kendall, and Smith were appointed members of a- council of Avhich Wingfield was to be the president.
Of all the men who came to America in these early days, no one man did more for the permanent establishment of English colonies than Captain John Smith. He was very brave and persevering, and he knew just how to do the right thing at the right moment , and besides these qualities, he had led a life which was the proper apprenticeship for a man who would build up a colony. His auto- biography is more like a story out of a novel than any real life history, and to give you some idea of what kind of a man he was I must tell you briefly his story from boyhood, as he tells it himself.
He was born in Lincolnshire, England, of well-to-do parents, and was sent early to school. But even then he was so full of adven- ture, that when only thirteen years old he sold his satchel and books, in order to raise money for a journey to a neighboring sea-port, that he might go to sea. Before this bargain was completed his father died, and that damped his sea ardor for a time. The guardians who were left in charge of the boy and his small inheritance, re- garded the property much more than they cared for him, and most likely were not sorry when he finally ran away. For as soon as they tried to apprentice him to a merchant, he did run away to France, in company with the sons of an earl who lived in the county where John Smith was born and brought up. In France, he and the young noblemen had many adventures, and he was at length fur- nished by them with money to return to England. But money was merely an incumbrance, and he got rid of it as quick as he could. Then he rendered some service to a Scotch gentleman in Paris, who gave him in return some letters to noblemen in the court of King James, asking them to introduce him at court.
Back to England started Smith ; but before he was off the shores of
FIRST PEKMANENT ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 77
France, he concluded to enlist as a soldier, and fight with the Dutch against the Spaniards. Two years he was a soldier in the low coun- tries, — as Holland was then called, — and then he really went back to Scotland with the letters of introduction, which ought by this time to have grown somewhat musty.
But thouoh the noble Scots to whom he had been recommended offered to present him at court, he declared he had neither means nor inclination to become a courtier, and instead resolved he would go and turn hermit. On this he went into a wood, and, as he says, " built a faire pavillion of boughs," where he slept at night. By da}^ he exercised with a good horse and threw the lance like a knight in a tournament. In his leisure he read the two books which made up his library. These were " Life of Marcus Aurelius " and " Machiavelli's Art of War." But this singular hermit and his wonderful horseback exercises soon drew so many people to see him, that he got tired of the play, and went back to France to see if he could get another chance to turn soldier.
After many wonderful adventures he came into Transylvania, now a province of Austria. Transylvania was then at war with the Turks, and John Smith joined their army and made himself noted for his sagacity and brilliant exploits. He invented a kind of bomb- shell to throw into the enemy's camp, which in those days was con- sidered a wonderful engine of war.
At one time the Turks withdrew into a fortress on the Carpa- thian Mountains. The Christians, preparing for a siege, encamped on the plain under the fortress walls. While the two armies waited a breathing space before commencing the siege, the Turkish governor thouglit he would have some sport to please the many fair ladies who had taken shelter in the castle walls. So he sent a polite message to the Transylvanian captain, saying that one of his bravest knights would be most happy to meet one of the Christian warriors in single combat, down upon the plain where both armies could be spectators of the affray. The challenge was accepted, and Captain John Smith was chosen as the champion who should meet the Turkish warrior.
The day arrived, and the Christians in their brightest and newest armor spread themselves over the green plain to form a ring for the two valiant champions. On the walls of the castle just over the plain the Turks had assembled as spectators, and many ladies flut- tered their brilliant scarfs, and waved their white hands when their
78 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
warrioi- went out at the fortress gates. The heralds shouted, the drums beat, and out came the Turk in great pomp. By his side marched two black attendants, one bearing a lance and the other leading a horse in glittering trappings and saddle-cloth stiff with gold. The Turk himself was most gorgeously arrayed, and his splendid dress was completed by a pair of wings fastened on his shoulders, made of woven eagles' feathers studded with gold and jewels. I fancy this last must have been an awkward ornament to fight in.
As for John Smith, he came out in plain soldier's clothes, with a boy bearing his lance, and rode up to the lists. Then with a few polite bows and exchange of courtesies the fight began. It was not a very long tussle. In a few minutes the Christians set up a shout, and the Turks uttered a cry, for their brave warrior's head lay rolling in the dust, while John Smith stood quite cool and un- harmed alone in the field.
Two other Turks, eager to avenge their comrade, challenged Cap- tain Smith, and, one after the other, they shared the fate of the first. By this time the Turkish commander concluded it was too expensive an amusement to furnish to his lords and ladies in the castle walls, and the fight ended. The Transylvanian general rewarded Smith with a coat of arms bearing three Turks' heads, and a purse with three hundred ducats.
Next we hear of our hero taken prisoner by the Turks, and sold as a slave in Constantinople. There the young Turkish mistress to whom he is presented as a servant, loses her heart to the gallant English youth, and in order to free him from bondage she sends him to a brother in Tartary with a letter, begging him to treat the stranger well for her sake. But the Tartar chief is furious at his sister's interest in a slave, and instantly claps a great iron collar on John Smith's neck, and sets him to all sorts of the most menial drudgery.
This is too hard to be borne by an Englishman of his spirit, and one day when he is threshing grain in a secluded place he has his opportunity for escape. His master, passing by, stops to taunt him and revile him in such a way as he cannot bear, and Smith suddenly hits him over the head with a flail and lays him lifeless ; then strip- ping him hastily of his clothes, he dresses himself in them and hur- ries off across this strange wild country. It takes him weeks to get to a place of safety, all the time in mortal fear of discovery from the
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY. 79
dreadful iron collar on his neck, which he can by no means remove. At length he comes to a Russian settlement on the River Don, gets rid of his slave-badge, and is furnished with means to get among friends.
Wars and shipwrecks, and moving adventures both by land and sea, are always ready to wait on John Smith. Once when he took passage in a French ship, the Roman Catholic sailors insisted that he was the cause of a dreadful storm which oppressed them, because he was a heretic and an Englishman, So they tumbled him over- board into the raging sea. But he swam safely to a rocky island, where another ship soon picked him up, and he was dry and warm and ripe for new fortunes in a few hours. Whichever way he was thrown he always came down on his feet again like a cat. And when at twenty-eight years old this man came back to England and found every one excited about Virginia and planting colonies, he was in his element and ready to join the first expedition which offered. And notwithstanding his harum-scarum life. Captain John Smith was by no means a rattle-brain. He was a man of strong common sense, fviU of expedients, ready in action, shrewd in his dealings with men. A little overbearing and fond of command, as such a man naturally would be. You will hear a good deal about him in the account of the settlements of the colonies, or I should not have given you so long a description of him.
CHAPTER Xn.
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY.
Smith and Newport explore the Country. — Smith taken Prisoner by Indians. — The Young Pocaliontas saves his Life. — New Arrivals in Jamestown. — Shipwreck of Gates and Somers. — Pocahontas taken Prisoner. — Marriage and Death of Pocahontas.
When the sealed paper containing the names of the rulers of the colony was opened, as I told you before, John Smith's name was found to be among the number. But Wingfield, always Smith's enemy, refused to let him take his rightful seat in the council. This did not make Smith either sulky or discontented, and he at once joined Captain Newport in an expedition up the river to explore the country arou.nd Jamestown. In six weeks they returned, and Newport began to make preparations to go back to England to bring more men and supplies. Wingfield tried to make
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Smith go back also. He pretended that he was causing discontent in the colony, but Smith insisted on remaining, and on his trial taking place he was declared " not guilty," by every voice. So much the most part of the colonists loved him, that Wingfield dared no longer keep him out of the council, and he was admitted as one of the members.
Now the colony began to suffer for food. Provisions and game became very scarce. In the midst of the distress it was found that Governor Wingfield was stealing the public stores and hiding them away that he might get rich from the necessities of the colony. At this he was quickly turned out from his office, and Ratcliffe made governor.
About this time sickness of various kinds began to prevail in the colony. They were suffering from want of food, and from the great change of climate. They had grown disheartened and homesick. Through all their distress John Smith was the ruling spirit to cheer and encourage them. He persuaded them to build comfortable log houses. He had a church built in Jamestown, where they could assemble together for public worship, and Robert Hunt, a man of blessed memory, held services there.
When aifairs were at the lowest ebb, by dint of coaxing and threatening the Indians, Smith got a little corn from them, which relieved the distress of the colony. He kept up the spirits of the homesick by every device in his power. He found places where game abounded, and induced them to go hunting. Indeed, at one time Captain Smith seems to have carried the whole colony on his broad, helpful shoulders. Yet his fellows in the council so hated him for his very popularity and the useful qualities which they lacked, that in the midst of these labors they openly rebuked him because he had not yet explored to its source the river on which they were settled. On this, with a small party of men, he set out in a boat up the river.
At a convenient point in the stream he left the boat and went to explore the banks, taking with him only one man and an Indian guide. In his absence some Indians fell upon the boat's crew and killed them. Then they set out upon Smith's track to take him cap- tive. They overtook his companion and slew him, and finally came up with Smith on the edge of a swamp. As soon as he saw his pur- suers Smith fastened his Indian guide to his arm with his garter, using him for a sliield between himself and the enemy. And al-
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY. 81
though they were in large numbers he fought so gallantly that it ■was only when he was up to his knees in the swamp, and stiff with cold and fatigue, that he gave up. For some time after he had thrown down his gun and offered to surrender, the Indians dared not approach to take him prisoner, he had filled them with such terror.
When at length they held him captive he diverted them by showing them a pocket compass and explaining its use. They car- ried him about with them for days, using his skill to cure their sick, and performing about him all sorts of wild dances and strange con- jurations. At last they held a long consultation as to what had best be done with him, and concluded they must kill him, since so great a man must be dangerous to their race.
Smith himself tells the story of his deliverance, which is so roman- tic that it has subsequently been declared false. But the story be- longs to the annals of Virginian history, and could not be left out of the ^tory of its first colony. It happened in this wise.
He was brought out, as he declares, bound hand and foot, his head laid on a flat stone, and Powhatan, the chief, was preparing to dash out his brains with a war-club, when suddenly the little Poca- hontas, a daughter of the chief, ran forward, threw her arms about the neck of the prisoner, and begged his life. It was granted her, and Smith was released, and treated with every mark of kindness and respect.
Whether the story be true or no. Smith came back to Jamestown, and found the members of the colony still plotting against him. But he defeated their designs, and in a few months, by the unani- mous desire of the people, he was chosen president of the council.
At this time (1608), Newport came back from England with food and supplies, which, according to their wasteful custom, were lavished and spent, until they were as poor as ever, and Smith had to go and beg corn of the natives. In this year Powhatan planned to surprise the colony, and destroy it. He might have succeeded in this, if Pocahontas had not warned Smith, so that he was prepared for the attack.
All this time, Smith's labors were untiring. He tried to induce the settlers to plant corn and useful products. He discouraged the raising of so much tobacco as bad for their interests. When all the rest had gone mad over some glittering sand from the river's bed, which they thought was gold, and wanted to send home a ship-load of it. Smith persuaded them out of that folly, and sent instead
35" O 0
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a cargo of cedar-wood, which was a marketable commodity in Eng- land.
In 1609, the comj)any in London sent nine ships and a large number of men to Jamestown, with Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, as its leaders. These three gentle- men all went on one ship, and were wrecked off the Bermuda Islands. Seven out of the nine ships came safely to Virginia. But the men sent were poor material to build up a colony in a wilderness. In- stead of the hardy, industrious mechanics and workmen, who were wanted there, they had sent ship-loads of men who were idle and good for nothing at home, and worse than useless in America.
As they had still no leader. Smith retained the command, and with great difficulty tried to keep order among them. At length he was so severely wounded by an explosion of gunpowder, that he was forced to go back to England to be healed. We shall hear of John Smith again, but not in Virginia, for he never after returned there.
Six months after Smith had returned to England, Newport, Gates, and Somers, who I told you had been wrecked on one of the Bermu- das, made their appearance in the colony. They had rigged up one of their wrecked vessels, built a small pinnace from the remains of the other, and got off safely. The Bermuda Islands were uninhab- ited, and supposed to be barren, but the shipwrecked crew had suf- fered no lack of provisions. They had found plenty of swine run- ning wild all over the island, which furnished them with abundance of fresh meat. Many conjectures were raised to account for the presence of the hogs there. It is probable that a Spanish ship, loaded with supplies for its colonies, in the West Indies, had touched at the same point, and left some swine which had multiplied till they filled the island. It was a fortunate circumstance for Somers and his company, for it not only saved their lives while there, but they were able to salt enough to furnish them with food to Virginia.
Of course the shipwrecked wanderers expected to find plenty of provisions in Jamestown, and it did not occur to them to salt down any pork for their use. It would have been well if they had done so, for on arriving in James River they found their friends in a state of great distress and destitution. John Smith was gone, and there was nobody else who could bring order out of confusion, and make plans for their relief.
Sir George Somers offered to take the pinnace they had built
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY. 83
and go back to the Bermudas, and bring her back filled with provis- ions, but they would not accept the offer. Sir Thomas Gates was appointed governor, and was so inefficient to keep up the spirits of the colony, that they all agreed to desert Jamestown and go to Newfoundland, to seek food and passage home from English ships there. Their preparations to leave were nearly completed, when they saw three ships with the English flag at their mast-head, sail- ing up the river. That was a welcome sight. It was Lord De la Ware, with provisions and men for their relief. This lord had been appointed governor of Virginia by the London Company. You will remember his name easily, because the little State of Del- aware has been named for him.
He did many good things for the colony. He fought the Lidians who had been hostile, strengthened the fort, and set up a trading port where the Indians and whites might trade peaceably together. Then, his health failing him, he returned to England.
After him Sir Thomas Dale came to be governor, with another ship-load of colonists, and in a year or two Sir Thomas Gates, who had been back to the old country, returned with three hundred col- onists.
They had still much trouble with the Indians, and Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, was not disposed to be friendly. During Sir Thomas Dale's governorship, it was proposed that the young Indian princess should be taken as a hostage till her father should make peace with the English. This was accordingly done, and the young Indian girl was kept on board ship in the harbor. I hope she was a willing hostage, for she deserved nothing but kind treatment fi'ora the white man, as she seems always to have been his devoted friend and ally. She was now a young maiden of nineteen, and is said to have been really beautiful. At any rate she was charming enough to Avin the heart of a young Englishman named John Rolfe, who wished to make her his wife. The consent of the governor of the colony, and of Powhatan, was obtained, and in 1613 Pocahontas was married in Jamestown. Before her marriage she was baptized and christened by the name of Rebecca. But by this name she has never been called, and history knows her only as Pocahontas.
After her marriage she went to London, was introduced at court, and presented to King James. Every one was eager to see this young Indian princess and English bride. While in England a little son was born to her, who afterward returned to Virginia, and
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whose descendants are said to be living to this day. In the spring
of 1617, as Pocahontas was just on the point of em- barking for America, she was taken ill, and died.
There are few stories in histor}'- more romantic than that of Pocahontas. To the imagination, this dusky maiden, reared among savages, appears like a wild flower of the forest. And like the wild flower, which droops and dies when transplanted to garden or hot-house, so this little wild maiden died soon after she was taken from her native soil.
After the marriage of his daughter, Powhatan kept peace vnth the English during the rest of his hfe ; and the colonists did not suffer from Indian warfare until by his death his brother Opecancanough became chief of the tribes in Virginia.
Opecancanough was not of so peaceful a temper as Powhatan, and in 1622 he made an attack on Jamestown and all the country around, and massacred hundreds of white men. In a few months the number of colonists was reduced from 4,000 to 2,500. Whole families were butchered on distant plantations, without opportunity for defense, and the name of Opecancanough was a word of terror in Virginia.
%ff^f^^
Pocahontas.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PLANTER IN VIRGINIA.
How a Settlement was begun. — Exports of the Colonists. — Choosing Sites for Plantations. — Slavery introduced into Virginia. — Buying a Wife with Tobacco. —Life in England in 1607. — A Virginia Planter's House in 1649.
Before I go any farther with the history of the English colonies in America, I want to give you an idea of the kmd of people who
THE PLANTER IN VIRGINIA. 85
came to Virginia to settle, what sort of homes they made in the wilderness, and how they finally made Virginia a successful colony.
When these colonies, which were sent from England, landed on these shores, of course their first impulse was to provide some kind of houses to shelter them. This they did by cutting down trees and making log-houses for themselves, and a fort into which all could retire in case of an attack from the Indians.
They were often very careless about providing for winter, by planting corn and laying in stores of provisions, and for the first two or three years relied on ships from England to bring them sup- plies. But as soon as they were able to provide for themselves, the London Company demanded that they should send something home to pay for the expense of fitting out so many ships and men. You can see the company must have spent a great deal of money, and that they were a long time getting any return for it.
All these early colonists had a strong hope of finding gold and rich treasures in Virginia, as Cortez and Pizarro had found it in Peru and Mexico ; and at first rumors were constantly afloat of dis- coveries of gold, now in one place and then in another. In John Smith's governorship, they were about to load a ship with glittering sand, which they had dug up in the river's bed and supposed to be gold.
When they learned by repeated disappointments that there was no gold nor silver to be found, they very wisely turned their atten- tion to the natural productions of the country. In the first place, there was plenty of timber, which was exceedingly welcome in England, where there was a great want of building material for ships and houses. The huge trees in Virginia astonished the colo- nists. " One fir-tree in Virginia is able to make a main-mast for the greatest ship in England," writes one of the new-comers home to his relatives in England. Consequently, they soon began to cut down the timber, and to saw it up into clapboards and masts, and beams and door-posts, and all kinds of boards. Then also they be- gan to manufacture wood-ashes, and pitch and tar, to send back to England. Previously pot and soap ashes had been brought from Prussia, and commanded a high price, but now the colonies furnished them plentifully, and at a cheap rate. The tar and pitch was ob- tained from the numberless pine-trees of the forest. Then they sent great stores of deer and beaver skins, bought of the Indians, and quantities of salted fish caught all along the sea-coast. But the main staple of export in the colony was tobacco.
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
This weed — which perhaps it would have been quite as well if tlie white man had never learned to use — had been introduced into Eng- land more than twenty years before. As near as we can find out, the homesick colony of Raleigh's, which Sir Francis Drake had taken back to England in his shij) in 1586, carried this plant home with them. Sir Walter began to smoke a pipe immediately, and in Queen Elizabeth's time, tobacco was fashionable, but very scarce.
As soon as the colony at Jamestown tilled the soil to any extent, they began to raise tobacco. King James, who was a strange man, — a mixture of learning and foolishness, — strongly discouraged the culture of tobacco. He thought it was not a good thing for the colony, and wi'ote a book to prove it was unwholesome. On this
the company tried to substitute other things in its place. There were many mulberry-trees, on whose leaves the lit- tle silk-worm which spins silk depends for food. This led them to try and raise silk in Virginia. But this project failed. Silk is not a good product for a colony in a wilderness, always on the look-out for danger and attacks from Indians. The worms soon died, and there was an end of silk-culture.
Then the company sent out some Dutch and Germans, and set them to glass-making and other manufactures. The English themselves at this time did not know how to make glass, and were very poor manufacturers, so they called in the aid of these foreigners, thinking they would teach their colonies these arts. But I cannot find that much came of these attempts. Nothing succeeded like tobacco, and for a long time that was the principal export.
Tliere were two classes of colonists in the early settlement of Vir- ginia. The first class was that of the " master-planter," who owned a share in the colony, or had purchased lands of the company in London. These gentlemen paid their passage on the ships, and took many comforts from England abroad with them. When they arrived they selected their lands and chose sites for their houses.
Tobacco Plant.
THE PLANTEU IN VIRGINIA. 87
One planter sought for a pleasant spring of water near which to build ; another sought a green slope by the bank of a river where fish abounded ; still another found a good building site near a wood, where game and quantities of wild fowl could be shot ; and others, no doubt, half homesick at heart, saw a little spot which reminded them of their own bonny England, and so pitched their tents or put up their log-houses there. Thus, in a few years, many such planta- tions in the midst of tobacco fields and corn-fields, abounded all about Jamestown, and even extended into other townships and counties.
As soon as the planters got possession of these large tracts they found they could not cultivate them all with their own hands, and as there were no people in {his country who could be hired to do the hard work, the managers in London set themselves at once to work to provide for the want of laborers.
They induced many young men to join the colony, oh condition that they should go passage-free and be provided with all necessary food, clothing, and tools to work with for one year. In return, each of these men must choose a master among the planters, and serve on the land for seven years. These formed a second class, who were called " bound servants." These men had an excellent oppor- tunity to go to work and secure plantations of their own. The allotted working hours were only from six till ten in the morning, and from two till four in the afternoon, and a prudent servant could get a little patch of tobacco to cultivate on his own account ; from which he could sell the product, and lay up a nice little sum to buy a farm.
Still there was danger that the master on a lonely plantation, if he were not a good and just man, might abuse his power over these bound servants ; and it was not altogether easy to get free-born Eng- lishmen to sign away their freedom for seven years ; so the great want in the colony, for hands to do the labor, still continued.
In 1620, a Dutch ship, which had been trading to the East Indies, stopped at Jamestown, and sold them twenty negroes as servants for life. These were the first slaves ever sold to the English, al- though the Spaniards had been importing negroes into their colonies for many years, and English ships and sea-captains had engaged in the traffic. You must bear in mind this first landing of negro slaves, for it set the root of a great evil in these new colonies. Still, so pressing was the demand for labor, that at length it was resolved in England to transport ship-loads of criminals and felons from prisons
88 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and jails, and bind them to the planters as servants. This was not a very wholesome thing for the colony, for it brought much vice and idleness into the new clean land. Still it was not quite so bad then as it would seem now. For in those days men were imprisoned for debt, and other much lighter crimes than we put people in prison for nowadays. No doubt many of these condemned men were not hardened criminals, and became honest men when they had once more a chance to begin life in the young colony.
Another great want was the presence of women among them. Many of the young men who were idle or unsettled would become steady citizens, if they could get tidy little wives to take care of their homes. Therefore, in 1619, the compan}^ sent over ninety respectable young women as wives for the unmarried men. Each man who took a wife in this way must pay for the expense of bring- ing her over from England. As there was little money, debts were frequently paid in tobacco, so that a wife cost the J^oung man one hundred pounds of tobacco, and some paid as high as one hundred and twenty -five or one hundred and fifty pounds. It must have been a funny sight to see these bachelors go to Jamestown to choose them a wife. After they had paid their tobacco, I hope each had the privilege of choosing the one who pleased him best. As the prettiest young women were doubtless picked out first, the one who came last must have had rather a sorry choice in point of good looks.
This bringing over of decent young women did much good, and helped to the prosperity of Virginia. When the young man got his wife and his log-house, saw his children playing about his door, and his fields of tobacco and corn spreading about him, he began to feel as if this new country was home, and ceased to long to go back to England.
When you hear of the log-houses and the rude manner in which the early settlers lived, it may seem to you that it was very diffi- cult for men who had been brought up in a civilized country to endure such a life. But even in England, in those days, the man- ner of living was not very luxurious. Carpets were hardly to be found in the houses of the wealthiest. Glass windows were not seen except in the houses of the rich, and even then the nobleman who owned a set of glass windows took them about when he went from one of his houses to another, as we take our chairs and sofas. The common people of England, even the respectable classes, lived m houses where the floor was earth — perhaps instead of a carpet,
THE PLANTER IN VIRGINIA. 89
— thickly strewn with rushes. For beds they had coarse bags filled with straw, and frequently a log of wood for a pillow. Their food was of the plainest kind, and wheat bread was rarely seen except on the tables of the nobles. The people ate barley bread, which was very dark and coarse. And though England is now a garden, abounding in beautiful farms, at the time Virginia was settled, the country of Holland was the market-garden of England, and most of her vegetables were imported from thence. To complete our idea of England we must remember that they had no telegraphs, no rail- roads, no steam-ships, no gas for lighting houses ; the streets of their cities were not paved ; in the evening the streets were not lighted. So after all, in coming to this country, so fertile, so pleas- ant in climate, abounding in fruits and fish and game, the first set- tlers did not have so many luxuries to leave behind them as we should miss to-day, if we went to live in some new, wild land.
And in manufactiu'ing enterprise, this country soon rivaled Eng- land. In 1650 England had not a saw-mill in all her length and breadth, and that year saw one built in Virginia. Up to that time all boards had been sawed by hand. Think of all the boards being made in that way. No wonder they could not afford to have them for floors. Glass was made in Virginia, too, almost as early as it was made in England. At first they used oiled paper to let in the light. But by 1650 they had made great improvements. A num- ber of brick houses, with real glass windows, had been built in Jamestown. All over the country the planters were growing rich with their corn-fields and tobacco fields. They had thrifty orchards, too, and cider presses, and stores of oats, wheat, and barley.
Already the country began to look comfortable and flourishing. Here is a little description of a planter's house, written by a gentle- man visiting in Virginia in 1619, when the colony was forty-two years old : —
" Worthy Captain Matthew is an old planter of thirty years' standing. I must not omit to let you know this gentleman's in- dustry. He hath a fine house and all things answerable to it ; he sows yearly stores of flax and hemp, and causes it to be spun ; he keeps weavers, and has a tan-house where he causes leather to be dressed ; hath eight shoemakers employed in their trade ; hath forty negro servants, and brings them up to trade in his house. He sows abundance of wheat, barley, rye, etc. ; hath abundance of kine, a brave dairy, swine in gi-eat store, and in a word, keeps a good
90 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
house, lives bravely, and is a true lover of Virginia. He is worthy of much honor." Add to this that he kept fine horses ; entertained his infrequent guests most hospitably ; was a firm believer in the King of England, and in the Church of England, and you can under- stand very well what kind of man the Virginia planter was when the colony was forty years old. Now I will introduce you to a very different kind of man, — The New Englaycd Planter.
CHAPTER XIV.
A CHAPTER OF ENGLISH HISTORY,
John Smith sets out on another Voyage. — Queen Elizabeth and her Father. — Bloody Mary persecutes the Protestants. — The Puritans. — The Cavaliers. — The Puritan Emigrants in Holland. — They resolve to buy Lands in America.
In the year 1614, Captain John Smith, who had been in England ever since his return from Virginia, set out on a new voyage. You remember I told you the gentlemen who owned the patent to settle in America had divided into two companies, the London and the Plymouth companies. The Plymouth Company owned the north- ern country, and this time John Smith went in their service. He went in and out the inlets of the coast of Maine, sailed to Massachu- setts and Cape Cod bays. Landing several times he collected a good stock of furs and fish, and went back to England. He drew a map of this country, and named many of the gulfs, bays, and islands. To the whole region that he had explored he gave the name of Neiv England.
To only one group of small islands did this brave fellow give his own name. This is the Isle of Shoals, a rocky little group oft" the shores of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He also named a cape on the coast of Massachusetts, now called Cape Ann, '•'-Traga- higzanda^'' in honor of the Turkish lady who had loved him when he was a captive in Turkey. It was such a hard name I think the people found it too difficult to pronounce, and so it was soon changed.
When Smith got back he made arrangements to go again with a colony, and did start in 1615. Before he was fairly out to sea his vessel was attacked by some French ships, which were not much better than pirates, and Smith was taken on board and kept prisonei
A CHAPTER OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 91
for some time. His vessel got away, leaving him in the hands of the enemy, and the expedition, which had thus lost its leader, was ruined. One night in the dark he slipped down the side of the French ship, cut loose a small boat which was fastened to her, and after great tossing about in stormy waters, reached England. He wrote after this two or three very interesting books about this coun- try, but never came here again.
From this time little more is heard of him. When Pocahontas became Mrs. Rebecca Rolfe, and was visiting England, Smith went to see her, and that is the last thing we hear of him, except the fact of his death, which happened in 1631. I hope he had a pleasant home with wife and children to make his last days happy. He tells us that he spent many hundreds of pounds in Virginia and his voy- ages to New England, and yet, he says, " In neither of these countries have I one foot of land, nor the very house I builded, nor the ground I digged with mine own hands." Like Columbus, he might have said, " Thus the world rewards those who serve it, " — for truly no man served the colonies so effectually as Captain John Smith, of whose after life and death no record remains.
Before I go on to tell you anything about the first colony in New England, I must explain briefly some religious matters in Eng- land which have much to do with this history.
You remember the great Queen Elizabeth who has been men- tioned before in these pages. Her father was King of England many years before her reign, and was known as Henry the Eighth. This king had a quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church. Up to his time, England, like all the rest of Europe, had been Catholic. All Roman Catholic countries had to acknowledge the rule of the Pope at Rome, who was called " The Head of the Church." But Henry *ihe Eighth, who did not believe in anybody but himself, and did not like a Pope over his head telling him what to do, one day said he would be the head of his own church, and it should be the " Church of England."
This made a great hubbub in the nation. Some of the people said they would not give up the Pope, and most of the priests de- clared the same thing. But a great many others were very glad of the change and helped it on.
When Henry died 'his young son Edward was king. He was in favor of the Church of England party. But he died very young, and the crown v^ent to his sister Mary. Mary was a Roman Cath-
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olic, and she brought back the priests and bishops of the Church of Rome, and told the Pope he was head of the church again, and tried to make all as it was before.
In the mean time, a great many people in German}^ and France had begun to be tired of the Pope too, and declared boldly that they wanted a simpler and purer worship than that of Rome. These people were called Protestants. You remember the Protest- ants in France were called Huguenots.
A good many people in England had also become Protestants, and Queen Mary had hard work to turn them into Romanists again. When she could not do it by persuasion, she tried the very simple mode of hanging, or burning, or any other of those means formerly employed in converting people who did not believe as the stronger party believed. So many people were thus murdered in her reign that this queen has always since been called " Bloody MaryT
Well, Bloody Mary died, and Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. She was a Protestant. Like her father she would not have any Pope over her head, and was determined to choose her own priests and govern her own church.
They had the great fight all over again, only this time the Prot- estants persecuted the Romanists, and torturing, imprisoning, hang- ing, burning, and the other modes of conversion went on as briskly as before. They did not call this queen " Bloody Elizabeth," though ; because she was so successful, nobody dared call her dis- agreeable names. Instead, they called her ^'■Grood Queen Bess.''
After Elizabeth came James Stuart, son of Mary Queen of Scots, as unkingly a king as ever wore a crown. His mother had been a Roman Catholic, but he was pledged to join the Church of England. The church in Elizabeth's time, and in his time, held to nearly all the ceremonies and beliefs of the Romish Church, and was almost as tyrannical over those who did not conform to it.
Now many English Protestants had been driven into Germany in " Bloody Mary's" reign, and had got a good many new ideas there. The thoughtful people had seen so much of emptj^ parades, of altar lights, saying masses, false miracles, and all sort of deceptions practiced by the priests on the people, that they were inclined to worship God purely and simply without any forms whatever. When they came back to England in Elizabeth's time, and found the cliurch very like that of Rome in all save the Pope, they were grievously disappointed.
A CHAPTER OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 93
They cried out, " We have been banished, and imprisoned, and lost property and homes to get rid of Popery and worship God in our own fashion, and we don't want to conform to the Church of England."
Then Queen Elizabeth said they should conform, and when she said a thing she meant it. But these people, who were called Non- conformists, Dissenters, Presbyterians, and most of all, Puritans, kept increasing every year till there grew to be a large body of them. When King James came to the throne he promised to let them alone in peace, but as it was never the habit of his family to keep their promises he did not keep this.
But the Puritans were still a growing party in England. Of course they were much the smallest party, because all the ease-loving people, or people who did not like change, or did not think much about religion so long as they were comfortable, op- a Puritan.
posed them. But the Puritans were men who did think, who could not sleep o' nights for thinking, and being persistent and persevering they were a troublesome party even when a small one.
Nearly all the court people and noblemen clung to the Established Church, or Church of England. They were called Cavaliers^ to dis- tinguish them from the Puritans. Cavalier meant a gay, gallant gentleman ; and the name was a great deal more pleasant sounding than Puritan, and they were much more winning and pleasant to look at than the latter class. In those days the rich gentlemen dressed in fanciful suits of bright colored velvets and satins, trimmed with gold and silver laces ; their breeches were short at the knee and ended in ruffles of fine lace ; their hats were decorated with long plumes ; their hands half hidden by the rich laces on the wrist-bands ; they wore flowing beards ; their locks were long, and scented and curled like a woman's hair ; indeed these men were as fond of the newest fashions in garments as a fine lady of to-day. Add to this descrip- tion that they uttered plentiful oaths, were generous, light-hearted, unprincipled, with swords ready to fly from their scabbards on the slightest pretext for a qviarrel, and you have a picture of the English courtier in the reign of the Stuarts in England.
The Puritan was of a different fashion. He wore sober colored clothes either black or purple, plainly cut. His hair was cropped and his chin shaven. Because his hair was kept so closely cut and his
94 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
chin SO beardless, he was called " Roundhead " by the Cavaliers. He uttered no oaths and was slower to quarrel. His speech was slow and measured. He discouraged mirth, and took life in solemn earnest.
You can see that the beauty and grace, the bright colors and en- joyment of life, were pretty much all on the Cavalier side, while the Puritans had generally the greater worth and manliness, and the rigid virtues.
I am nearing the end of my long departure from the main road of my story. In King James's time many Puritans, driven by perse- cution, had settled in the country of Holland, on the sea-coast. A little party were at Leyden with their minister, Mr. John Rohinson^ a very devout and pious man. These people heard much about the new colonies. I presume they read the published accounts of the new colonies in Virginia, and the efforts of the London Company to make settlements there. At any rate, they resolved to take their goods and families and go to America to make a home.
They did not feel at home in Holland. The people around them spoke another language and had other customs. They feared their children growing up might be absorbed into the inhabitants of the country, and all trace of their birth and the religion they cherished so carefully be lost. So they sent two of their number, John Carver and Robert Cushman, to England, to purchase the right from the Plymouth Company to settle in their domains of North Virginia. They finally obtained this right from the company, on terms which were pretty hard for themselves and advantageous to the company. Then they tried to get the good will of King James. But the king, who had declared he would make the Puritans '"con- form or he would harry them out of his kingdom," would promise nothing at all. They were obliged to be contented with the fact that he did not prevent them from going.
CHAPTER XV.
EMIGRATION OF PILGRIMS.
The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth. — Landing in Massachusetts. — Treaty with Massasoit. — Struggles of the Colony. — Massachusetts Bay Colony formed. — The Apostle of the In- dians.
In the year 1620 this band of people from Holland agreed to set sail. They had taken the name of Pilgrims — the old title of those
EMIGRATION OF PILGRIMS.
95
pious wanderers who journeyed with scrip and staff to the Holy Land, or the shrine of some saint where they wished to worship.
Pilgrims Embarking.
These Pilgrims, also journeying to find a place to plant their shrine for worship, embarked from Delft Haven for England in the year 1620. Tliey sailed for Southampton, where two ships, the May- floiver and the Speedwell were made ready for their long voyage.
Soon after leaving port the SjjeechveU was declared unseaworthy, and the two ships put back into the port of Plymouth. Here the company was divided, and those most needful to tlje colony put on board the 3Iayflcnver, which now set out alone. In this way many who had wished to go were left behind, because one ship was not large enough to take all. There were 102 souls on the Mayflower — men, women, and children, — when she left
England. IVIayflower.
For more than two months they were tossed on the ocean without sfght of land. For nearly a month after they came in sight of land, they coasted up and down seeking an inviting looking spot to plant their town in the wilderness. At length on the 22d of December, 1620, at the head of a little harbor which runs up into the land from Cape Cod Bay, the Pilgrims left their ship to take
96
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
possession of their new home. The shore was rocky and desolate. They saw no signs of any inhabitant. No refreshing verdure, nor the song of birds welcomed them. The ground was frozen, and the streams locked with ice. Kneeling on the rock on which they had first set foot, they named it Plymouth Rock, praising God mean- while for their safe deliverance from the perils of the sea.
Then they went sturdily to work. There were no merry-hearted, careless, idle, improvident members in this colony, like those who had troubled John Smith in Virginia. These men were all terribly in earnest. They had known misfortune. They had been driven from their own country years before by oppression. They had known home-sickness and disappointment, and felt pangs as bitter as cold and frost could give. They cared little whether they lived or died, if they perished in their work of building up their church, and made a place for those who were to come after them.
Well, they went to work to build their houses so that they might get under shelter and keep from freezing. They divided the whole party into nineteen families, arid each family must build his own house, in order that one might suffer no more than another.
I can fancy their axes ringing in the still winter days, as, to the
sound of nothing gayer than a psalm tune, they kept at their work. I can fancy the roaring of the great fires which they built at night, of great piles of green brush- wood, to keep them warm, and frighten away the wolves, whose howling could be heard when darkness fell. And their fear of wolves was mingled with the dread of more fearful animals ; for in their ignorance of this new country they did not know but lions and tigers might lurk in the deep coverts of the
Kilgrirr, Costumes. forCStS arOUud them.
When they landed the shores were deserted, but not long after- wards an Indian came towards them, exclaiming in their own tongue, " Welcome, Englishmen ! Welcome Englislimen ! " ' He had learned a few English words from the boats which had
EMIGRATION OF PILGRIMS.
99
visited the coast fishing for cod, and was very friendly to the white men. This Indian told them of Massasoit, the great chieftain of the Waumpanoags, who was in their neighborhood with sixty of his war- riors, all dressed in their best array of paint and feathers, secretly observing the motions of the colony.
John Carver had before this been made governor, and in the name of the English he sent for Massasoit to come and make a peace with him. Massasoit came readily in answer to the invita- tion, and the two chiefs smoked a pipe together and made a treaty which Massasoit kept all his life long.
The Indians told the English that all this shore where they had landed had been visited by a great sickness, from which nearly all the natives had died. This accounted for the deserted country they had found, and the Pil- grims believed they saw the hand of God clearing a way for them in the wilderness.
During this winter all the firmness and endurance of the colony were called into action. Governor Carver s chair. Carver showed much wisdom in his early dealings with the Indians, but when the colony was three months old, he died. Brave Will- iam Bradford was made governor in his stead. Shortly after Carver's death they began to fear trouble with the Narragansett Indians, who were enemies of the friendly Massasoit. One chief sent a snake skin stuffed with ar- rows to Governor Bradford, to show him he was his enemy ; but un- daunted Bradford sent back the skin stuffed full to the jaws with gunpowder. After this answer the Indians do not seem to have cared to meddle with the plucky gov- ernor.
Miles Standish was another Pu- ritan of indomitable pluck. He had been in the wars in Europe, and was the soldier of the colony. Where there was any danger he went straight to the front. He had brought over with him a little wife named Rose. I fancy her a signatures of Piigrims.
100
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
rose-bud sort of woman, too tender for bleak winds and rough rocks, and they were obliged to lay her away in a snow covered grave very soon after coming to Plymouth. One after another they died. When spring set in after that first winter, only half their number was living.
These are hard days to read about. Yet in spite of all obstacles they prospered. In this next year another ship came bringing others to join them. And in less than a year from the time they landed, they had sent home to the Plymouth Company, in part pay- ment of lands, " 500 pounds worth of furs and clapboards."
'^^'di^
Leyden Street Plymouth. Massachusetts, in 1874.
In 1622 another colony sent out by the Plymouth Company came to Wessagusset, which is now called Weymouth, and settled there. These were not Puritans, however. They were nearly all of
EMIGRATION OF PILGRIMS.
101
the English Church ; and the Pilgrims, who had run away from this church, did not view with very cordial eyes the sight of a colony of this kind growing up so near them.
In 1628, when this Plymouth Colony were grown hardy and well- rooted, a large emigration set in from England : for the Puritans there were every day growing more and more restless under perse- cution. Men of education and men of fortune — the kind of men usually averse to emigrating — were ready to leave England for a land where they would not be oppressed for their opinion's sake. Democratic ideas, the sort of ideas which grow into the making of
^-- U^^
^
^f^-ffJT"
Signatures of Massachusetts Bay Colonists
a republic, had crept into the brains of some of these men, and made them eager to form a church and community on their own plan of government. A party of these Puritans, living principally in Lincolnshire and Dorsetshire in England, bought a tract of land of the Plymouth Company, and began making their arrange- ments to settle there. The first of these, led by John Endicott, came to Massachusetts, and settled in Salem. During the year 1630, seventeen ships with 1,500 men came to the new colony.
102 STORY OF OUE COUNTRY.
They founded the towns of Boston, Watertown, Charlestown, Lynn, and Dorchester. The first colony still kept the name of Plymouth, and had its separate governor. All the last named towns, including Salem, were united under the name of the " Massachusetts Bay Col- ony^'' and their first governor was Mr. John Winthrop, a very noble name in the annals of the Puritans.
0 nn^ lA^oL
About this time a good minister, named John Eliot, came to America, and devoted his life to the teaching of the savages. He is known as the " Apostle of the Indians." He worked among the savages in Massachusetts many ^^ears, learned their language, sat at their camp-fires, and slept in their lodges. He taught the men to till the ground with better tools than they had before known how to use. He taught the Indian women to spin, and the whirr of the wheel was heard in many a savage wigwam where Eliot had visited. He founded churches and schools, and taught the natives to read and pray. He translated for them a Bible into their own language, and this book was printed afterwards on the first printing-press ever set up in the American colonies.
Such were some of the labors of this good man, who deserves to be remembered for his life of devotion and self-sacrifice.
CHAPTER XVI.
SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND.
Religious Intolerance. — Roger Williams's Banishment. — He finds Succor from friendly In- dians. — Providence settled. — Religious Freedom in Rhode Island. — Williams gets a Charter for his Colony.
You have now seen something of the men who settled first in New England. Life seems much more severe and uninviting among the Puritans in their bleak wintry climate, than among the Cava- liers in Virghiia. And in many respects they are less agreeable to contemplate. They had left their homes, spent their fortunes, and periled their lives, that they might have liberty of conscience,
SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. 103
that is, the right to worship God as they pleased. But having got this right for themselves they did not mean to give it to anybody- else. They had seen how powerful a thing for its people was an established church, and how dangerous it was to any religious society to permit any difference of opinion among its people ; and they kept strict watch over all their church-members to see that no one dis- puted any of their rules or dogmas.
If they heard of a man who said anything against their church, they brought him before the council and admonished him not to do so again. If he did it a second time, they banished him from the colony.
Once in the dead of winter they banished twp men, who were accused of having written home to England something unfavorable to their religious autocracy. Governor Winthrop of the Massachu- setts Bay Colony did not send them away from the settlement until the weather grew warmer, because he was more humane than some of the others, and said he did not like to be the cause of their death. On this they reproved Governor Winthrop for being " over- tender in his administration of the law," and the governor peni- tently owned his error and said he would not do so again.
As they were always talking about religious matters it is not strange that little differences were constantly springing up among them. One woman who called together a few others at her house, and claimed that every one had a right to interpret the Scriptures for himself, was accounted very wicked. Her name was Anne Hutchinson, and as she was a very clear-headed person and a power- ful reasoner, and made a good deal of trouble, she was banished, with all her family.
Another woman who did not make quite as much disturbance as Mrs. Hutchinson, but yet held some opinions of her own, was pub- licly whipped at a whipping-post. She bore the whipping like a Spartan boy : but when they put a cleft stick on her tongue to con- vince her she had better not talk any more, the poor young woman burst into tears at the additional disgrace.
Indeed, so frequent were these whippings and persecutings among the Puritans, that the friends of the colony in England began to remonstrate, and beg them to be a little more generous. It is nat- ural to suppose that among so many who came over here, in these early days, to get liberty to worship as they pleased, there were many men who would not relish the strict watch which the Puri-
104
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
tans kept over everybody's opinions, and would desire to have the
freedom they had crossed the seas for.
One such man there was named Roger Wilhams, who had come
to Salem as minister. It was very soon found out that this new minister, who was a learned and very promising young man, did not altogether agree with the leaders of the Massachusetts Church in some points of religion. The difference between them was so small, that I don't believe you or I could understand it very well if we tried. I do not think Roger Williams was any less strict in his views than they were, ex- '
! 1 ^ ^ ^ /^' r? '^^^ ^®P^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ believe in ^ KJ J so much tyranny over
everybody's conscience.
The Massachusetts men tried hard to bring him to terms. Gov- ernor John Winthrop, who seems to have been a gentler sort of Puritan, tried his best, and entreaty and persuasion were used with him. But Roger Williams stood his ground. He was going to declare what he believed true. Liberty of conscience was what he •came to America for.
At length they concluded to take Williams and send him back to England to be rid of him. They had tried that remedy before with some Episcopalians who had gone quietly to worshiping in their own fashion. Roger Williams heard of their plan just before they were ready to execute it, and when they got to his house they found it empty.
It was midwinter, one of those hard New England winters, when Roger Williams was thus driven from his home and family. For three months he was without home, almost without shelter, hiding from his persecutors. To the goodness of some friendly Indians he owed his life.
SETTLEMENT OF IIIIODE ISLAND. 105
Of these Indians he was able to purchase some lands, and, remov- ino- his family, he soon drew many of his church in Salem after him, who had sympathized with his opinions. Here he built a town called Providence, which was the first town built in the State of Rhode Island.
In his colony Roger Williams declared that " all dwelHng therein should worship God as they chose." There Catholic and Protestant, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Puritans, should say their prayers in their own fashion. In this colony rose the star of pure religious freedom. All honor to Roger Williams ! All honor to that little settlement which shone for years a bright spot in the midst of per- secution and bigotry.
Roger Williams did not forget to be grateful to the Indians who had been good to him. He was a rare scholar, knew many lan- guages, and now he set about learning the Indian tongue. He was famous for his labors among them, and they loved him scarcely less than the good Eliot was loved. He was very dear to his colony too. and few men seem to have been more honored and loved. He had founded his little colony in 1636, and in 1642, when it had been planted six years, and had grown and flourished, he went to Eng- land to get a charter from the king. Several other towns had, in the mean time, been built in Rhode Island, by different parties of men who had been driven out of the Massachusetts colonies for their opinions.
Williams remained in England nearly two years, and got a very liberal charter from King Charles I., which left the little colony almost entire freedom in its laws and the choice of its rulers.
When he returned to Providence and was coming over the river to his home, he found the whole colony had come out in boats to meet him. The old and young men, the women and children, ^ were all embarked, and welcomed him with every demonstration of joy. Williams was greatly affected and touched by this wel- come, and felt that he never knew before
1 1 1 • 11 -II- Early New England House.
how much his people loved mm.
106 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XVII.
WEST COUNTRY PEOPLE SETTLE CONNECTICUT.
Settlers in Dorchester. — March to Connecticut Kiver. — New Haven founded. — Traders and Fishermen settle New Hampshire and Maine. — Troubles in England. — The King beheaded. — Story of Oliver Cromwell. — Maine a Province of Massachusetts.
You have now seen the beginning of three colonies in New Eng- land : the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Rhode Island colonies. The next in the list of settlements is that of the colonies in Con- necticut.
The people who had settled the town of Dorchester, near Boston, in the great immigration of 1630, were generally known as the " west country people." They were so called because they were nearly all from Dorsetshire, a county in England lying west of Lincolnshire, the county from which the larger part of Massachusetts Bay Colony had come. These Dorsetshire people had been accustomed to a much more fertile and pleasant country than that in which they were settled. They had brought oyer a large number of English cattle, and their cows and oxen had been used to better feeding- grounds than the salt marshes with their coarse grass, which sur- rounded their settlement. But they heard very soon of green pas- ture lands and smiling meadows in the valley of the Connecticut River which flowed southwest of them. It was also said that here plenty of rich furs could be had very cheap of the Indians, who had not yet learned to drive sharp bargains with the white man. Then it was whispered that the Dutch traders had already begun to come up this river, and would claim these beautiful lands if the English did not make haste to get them.
Some Englishmen from Plymouth had already visited the bankr, of the Connecticut ; and one of the Indian sachems had sent to tli ^ governors of the two Massachusetts colonies, inviting them to send their people to build a town there.
In 1635 a party of these Dorchester men got permission of the magistrates to remove to Connecticut. In the spring of this year, nearly half the males of Dorchester went down where the town of Windsor was afterwards built, and began felling trees and cutting logs for their houses. They found some Dutch encamped on the river and drove them away ; they found also a pai'ty of twenty set- tlers from Plymouth on the site of Windsor, and succeeded, by fair
WEST COUNTRY PEOPLE SETTLE CONNECTICUT. 107
means or foul, in getting them to surrender the ground. Then they set to work and made a clearing.
They worked here all summer, and early in the fall went back to Dorchester for their families. They loaded a ship there with household goods and with stores of provisions for winter, and sent it around Cape Cod to come through Long Island Sound, and up the Connecticut River to meet them. Then with the women and children they started to return on foot. The delicate women, and the little children, were put on horseback, and the sturdy men and women marched along on foot driving their cattle before them.
It was late in October when they started, and this was slow travelmg. The winter set in early, and the emigrants were fam- ished with cold. Many died on the route, and the cattle, unable to find fodder in the thick wood, died also, or wandered away and were lost.
At last they took little heed of their beasts, except those which they rode, and made the best speed they could to their clearing. When they got there they found the river fast bound in ice, and the ship with provisions not yet arrived. A party of seventy men, women, and children, started down the river to meet it, eating acorns and nuts to keep themselves from starvation. Fortunately the river thawed before winter fairly set in, and they found the ship making its way up to them.
They went back, and building a fort to protect themselves from the Indians, named the town Windsor. And thus began the first settlement in Connecticut.
Three years after, another town was built at the mouth of the river and called the " New Haven Colony." This was a separate government till 1662, when it was joined to Connecticut and be- came a part of it.
As you see, all these last three colonies were off -shoots from the Puritan emigration. But James I., who had never favored the Puritans and would promise to show them no favor, gave away a large part of New England to Fernando Gorges in the year 1620, the very year Plymouth was settled. This tract stretched over Maine and New Hampshire, and included part of Massachusetts.
Fernando Gorges was a friend of the king and a member of the Church of England. He had for years been interested in Amer- ica, was acquainted with Captain John Smith, and was one of the company wh© sent this brave adventurer to survey the coast of
108 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
New England. Maine was well known as a great fishing coast, and was famous also for the tall pines used for masts to English ships. After Gorges became proprietor of this tract of land, he was de- sirous to plant colonies there.
The French, who claimed all Canada and the St. Lawrence region under the name of Neiv France^ had settled in Nova Scotia and en- croached upon the borders of Maine. Indeed it was a long time before the boundaries of this State were settled, as you will learn hereafter.
Gorges and another gentleman, named John Mason, shared this large tract between them. The former took Maine, and Mason took New Hampshire. In 1623 the town of Dover was settled by a party of traders, who had dealings with the fishermen on the coast ; and shortly after, the town of Portsmouth was built on the sea-coast. This was the beginning of the State of New Hampshire.
About the same time Gorges sent colonies to the towns of Saco and of York in Maine, and established a government there of which he was the proprietor in chief.
Shortly after Gorges had received all this land from James I., that king died, and his eldest son came to reign in his stead. This son, who was known as Charles I., was certainly not much worse than his father, and perhaps intended to be a better king. But he dis pleased the people very much. The Puritans in England had now grown to be a strong party, and had powerful leaders in the state. Oppression had brought out all their strength, while the Cavaliers, who had held power so long, were overbearing and oppressive and regardless of the rights of the p3ople, who had come to sjnnpathize with the Puritans and to look upon the court party as very corrupt and tyrannical.
Oliver Cromwell, a very able and ambitious man, was one of their leaders. He headed the Puritans in a war against the Cava- liers, and finally got King Charles into his power, and tried him be- fore a court of judges on the charge of treason against the liberties of the people of England. This court condemned him to death, and his head was cut off by the headsman in his own city of London.
Then Oliver Cromwell was made Lord Protector of England for his whole life, and used that office very much as if he were king. There is a story told of Cromwell, that when a student in college he had once played in some drama with his comrades. In this play he finds a royal purple mantle and a golden crown, and puts it on his head. The story says that Cromwell played the part with great
THE DUTCH IN AMERICA. 109
effect, and that his ambition was so stirred by it that he never rested all his life till he could wear the royal honors of a king. I do not know if the story is true, but it is certain that a very slight thing sometimes shapes the life of a man from his boyhood.
Ambitious as Cromwell was for power, he made much better and wiser laws for the English people than King Charles or his pig- headed old father.
Of course the Massachusetts colonies, settled by Puritans, had a better time when Cromwell was in power, because they sympathized with his government and had always been of his party. They now claimed a right over the provinces of Maine and New Hamp- shire. Gorges had been one of the party of loyalists who remained faithful to the king, and his rights were not respected by the Puritans. Eariy Meeting-house. He seems, however, to have been a sincere, honest man, and did a good work for America in his efforts to settle the country.
From this time Maine became a province of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and remained so for many years, until she became one of the United States, and Fernando Gorges never regained his right as lord proprietor.
CHAPTER XVHI.
THE DUTCH IN AMERICA.
The Country of Holland. — How they keep off the Sea. — Dutch Traders. — Henry Hudson sent to America. — Hudson River discovered. — Fur-trade. — New York City begun. — Indians afraid of Windmills. — Warfare with Indians. — Kieft's Massacre.
By looking closely on the map you will find on the sea-coast of Europe, hidden away behind the islands of Great Britain, a little country called Hollayid. It is not of very great importance now, as a European power, but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially at the time this country was settled, it was one of the briskest, busiest, most thriving places in the world. The people of this covmtry are called Dutch, and they are an interesting people to read about.
Holland is the queerest little country in Europe. It is as flat as a pancake, lying so much lower than the ocean that the mighty waves are constantly trying to encroach upon it, and the whole face
110
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY,
of the land would be drowned out of sight, and all the houses and people swept away, if its undaunted inhabitants had not built great walls of mud and stone, and sticks and straw, as the cunning beaver
builds his dam, to keep out their uncomfortable neighbor, the ocean. Those great beaver- dams, which they call dikes, are all along the sea-coast for miles and miles, and. are planted thickly with willows, whose deep-striking roots help to strengthen the works and make the country look as if it were set behind a green hedge. All over the land are windmills, which keep up a perpet- ual whirring and whiz- zing of their sails like so many great birds. This persevering little Holland was far ahead of England in gen- eral comfort at the time of which we are reading. Her people were a nation of thriving merchants. Although she had hardly a stick of timber to cut in her length and breadth, she built more ships and better ones than England. She was also the market-garden of the latter country, and supplied the English with the turnips, carrots, green peas, and cabbages, which they were not yet good enough gardeners to raise at home.
A large company of merchants, called the Dutch East India Com- pany, brought all the luxuries of the East to the Dutch cities, from whence they were sold all over Europe. This trade brought a greater degree of comfort into Holland than was then common in England. Many a merchant's house had stores of linen and stuffs of silk, hangings of tapestry, and even rugs for the floor, such as were only seen among the English nobles. They manufactured brick and glass, and many other useful materials, long before these arts were practiced in their neighbor country.
Dutch Windmill.
THE DUTCH IN AMERICA. Ill
These Dutch, always on the look-out for a good opportunity to turn an honest penny, did not forget America. They began early to fix their eyes on this new country, and to examine into the facilities it offered for trade.
In 1609 an English sea-captain offered his services to the Dutch East India Company to go on voyages to America, if they chose to fit •him out. This was Henry Hudson, a man who had already been on two voyages for the H^nry Hudson.
Plymouth Company in England, to see if he could discover a pas- sage west to Asia. That was his hobby, as it had been the hobby of nearly all the great navigators since Columbus. So, in 1609, Henry Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India Company in a little vessel called the Half-moon. It is said that Captain John Smith, who was a friend of Hudson, had told him that he had heard there was an open channel to the South Sea somewhere between New England and the coast of Virginia.
Hudson sailed for New England, and began to explore the coast for this far-famed passage. He anchored first on the coast of Maine, which was then a great wilderness of tall pine-trees. Then he sailed all along the coast of New England, which looked very lonely and bleak, for this was thirteen years before the Pilgrims landed on Ply- mouth Rock, and there was not one white man on all its shores. From thence Hudson sailed southward to New York Bay, and then up into the harbor, and at length into the mouth of the beautiful river which now bears his name. This river he concluded must be the object of his search, the channel of which Smith had told him.
This seems very absurd to us now, when every little place on our whole globe is laid down upon the maps. But Hudson did not have such maps. He was one of the men who, by their discoveries, have helped us to make them. Two hundred and fifty years ago even the great sea-captains did not know so much about geography as a clever school-boy of to-day.
Well, he sailed up and up the pleasant river, in the pleasant month of September. All along the banks, where now are fine country houses and pretty villages, were Indian wigwams and fields yellow with Indian corn. And the savages, hooting and yelling trooped to the shores to see the strange canoe of the pale-faces sail by.
Pretty soon the Indians began to venture to the ship, bringing
112 , STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
corn and other vegetables in their boats. Hudson gave them, in re- turn, axes, and knives, and shoes, and cotton cloth. Of course, these were all curiosities to the wild people of the forest, and they hardly knew what to do with them. The next time they came to the ship, the chiefs had strings of shoes around their necks, and axes and knives strung about their girdles as ornaments, just as they wore chains of beads and wampum.
At first the Indians were friendly ; but no matter how pleasantly the Englishmen and the savages began each other's acquaintance, they were pretty sure to end in fighting. So it happened in this case, and in a skirmish they killed one of Hudson's oldest sailors. The others buried him on the shore, and left him there close by the river he had aided to discover, where its gentle waters ebbed and and flowed over his lonely grave.
When Hudson had got up as far as the • spot where the city of Albany now stands, he found his supposed channel had grown nar- rower and narrower, until here he was stopped altogether. No longer was the stream deep enough to sail his ship. He sent boats on farther ; but they confirmed his growing suspicion that, after all, it was only a river which he had been exploring. So back he sailed between the shores crowned with oak -forests, or fringed with fields of Indian corn, down between the rocky Palisades, which remain to- day unchanged by the hand of Nature or of man, just as Hudson saw them so long, long ago — out into the Narrows, and back across the ocean to Holland.
From this time the Dutch claimed all the country about the Hud- son, and called it New Netherlands, after one of the names of their own country.
Hudson's other voyages were made up in the regions of Hudson Bay and those frozen lands of North America. There, on hi^ last voyage, still searching for the western passage, his crew mutinied, set him adrift with seven others in a The Half-moon. little boat, aud left him to starve. So the brave
sailor and those who were with him were never heard of any more. These voyages of Hudson and others in which the Dutch traders had taken part had given them an inkling of the valuable furs that could be bought so cheap of the Indians in the great hunting grounds of America, and put it into their heads to establish a fur trade on the western continent that should rival their trade with
THE DUTCH IN AMERICA. 113
the East Indies. They thei-efore bought a grant from the govern- ment of Holhmd of the hind it chiimed through Hudson's dis- coveries, and formed a West India Company.
The company knew of a Uttle ishmd in the mouth of Hudson River called Manhattan by the Indians. They decided they would make this island a trading port or depot for the fur trade, where their ships could come in, after an excursion for fur, and also where they could keep up a trade with the surrounding Indians. In the country about Hudson River they could get quantities of deer, otter, and beaver skins. The beaver skins were used for making hats, and you often see men's gloves nowadays made of the soft fur of the otter. Away to the north about Hudson Bay, the furs were still more valuable. They got there the skins of mink, mar- ten, ermine, and sable, such as ladies' furs are made of now.
For several years the Dutch carried on this trade, before thej began to build a colony. They had a few log huts on Manhattan Island where the fur dealers and trappers lived, but there was no settlement there until long after these were built.
Holland had been for many years a country of refuge for people who had been persecuted for their religion in their own land. From Holland, you remember, came the first English to this coun- try. In another part of the country were settled many French Protestants, as the Huguenots of whom I have told you. These French-Dutch people were called Walloons, and in 1623 a party of them, thirty families in all, decided to come to New Netherlands.
These thirty families came over and scattered about in different places. A few went up the Hudson and began the city of Albany. Others settled in Long Island, a few went into New Jersey, and the rest, eight families in all, settled on the island of Manhattan, and began what is now the great city of Netv York.
A year or two later the Hollanders began to send out more men and cattle, and materials to build houses. A little fort was built on the end of the island, and the town was named JVew Amsterdam, after one of the richest cities in Holland.
This new colony soon showed the same spirit which had made the little country across the water one of the most prosperous in Europe. As they were ship-builders at home, so the first ship built in the American colonies was made by the Dutch. They put up the first saw-mill ever used here. This was driven by wind power, as so many of their mills were in Holland. Very soon after they came
114 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
here, these windmills began to dot the landscape all about New
York with their whirring sails.
The Indians were afraid of these strange monsters by means of which the pale-faces could saw their boards and grind their flour. They would sit hours staring at one as it revolved, with mingled awe and wonder. Sometimes when they got a chance they would burn them down, believing them to be the work of evil spirits and only fit to be destroyed.
When the Dutch first came to Manhattan Island they bought it of the natives, and made with them a treaty of peace. They gave twenty-four dollars in wam- pum for the whole island where the great city of New
A Dutchman. ^ ^ . .
1660. York, worth millions and millions of dollars, now stands.
For many years they lived peaceably with the savages, who kept the treaty very faithfully. But about 1640, several acts of blood- shed were committed by the Indians, and quickly retaliated by the whites. The Dutch, as well as the English, used the law of " blood for blood" in dealing with the savages, and in most cases the white men were quite as much to blame as the poor untaught red men. In one respect the former were the most guilty, for they furnished the whiskey and rum which made the Indians ripe for deeds of bloodshed. Until the white men came here the Indians had never known the use of intoxicating liquor. They called it "fire-water," which was a very suitable name for the vile stuff, and it caused them to do many deeds they were sorry for when sober.
For two or three years the ill-feeling between the colony and the savages was kept up, till in the year 1642, when William Kieft was governor of the colony, a general slaughter of the Indians was re- solved upon. Some of the milder-tempered in the colony, among whom was David de Vries, one of the first settlers and a man much beloved by the savages, tried to prevent this design. But Kieft was a violent, unreasonable man, and would not give up his cruel purpose.
One winter's night in 1643 they crossed over to the Jersey shore, where an Indian encampment was set up, and took it wholly by surprise. So sudden and so terrible was the attack, that the savages had no time to take up their weapons, and did not know who were their foes. Many of them thought it was another Indian tribe with whom they were at enmity. Nearly all the party, men, women, and children, were killed. Many were driven into the
THE SWEDES IN NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE. 115
river and drowned. Never was there a more pitiless and bloody slaughter.
After this, a terrible warfare raged between the two races. Woe to the unfortunate family of white people who lived too far from the colony to receive its protection. Many whole families were sur- prised and slain. Sometimes the lonely farm-house would be en- tered when the husband and father was away, and all the women and children would be murdered. The women at their spinning- wheels would look up to behold a huge Indian entering silently with his tomahawk upraised to cleave their skulls. Babies would be torn from their mother's arms and their brains dashed out before her eyes. Many a brave woman learned to fire a musket and defend her home against Indians. Long had the colony cause to regret the cruel attack planned by Kieft which had brought on this war and made so many homes desolate. At this time Mrs. Anne Hutch- inson, who, you recollect, had been driven out of Massachusetts by the Puritans, and was now settled on Long Island by the Dutch settlers, was slain, with all her family.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE S^VEDES IN NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE.
Peter Minuit and his Colony of Swedes. — They buy NewJerseyfor an Iron Kettle. — New Jer- sey claimed and named by Three Nations. — A New King in England. — New York City be- comes an English Colony. — New Jersey named by an English Nobleman.
The governor of the first colony of Dutch who came to settle in New Amsterdam, was Peter Minuit. He quarreled with the West India Company after a time, and in order to revenge himself on them went to Sweden to see if he could not bring a colony of his own from thence to America. Sweden was a powerful and pros- perous country, and was naturally anxious to get a part of the New World, Avhich was being so generously divided among its people by the other powers of Europe. Queen Christina of Sweden was only twelve years old, but the kingdom was managed for her by very able men. They favored the design of Peter Minuit and fitted him out with ships and men.
They went to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, and sailing up the river, built a fort, called " Christina " after their queen. It was
116
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
near where the city of Wihiiington, Delaware, is built. They bought of the Indians all that part of Delaware and New Jersey which lies between Delaware Bay and Trenton Falls, and named it New Swe- den. I have heard they gave an old iron kettle for all this land. We should consider that a very good bargain nowadays. After this land was purchased the Swedes began to scatter over this part of New Jersey and make farms and build houses.
But they did not long remain in undisputed possession. All this part of the country had been granted to Sir Edmund Plo}'^- den by King Charles I., and in 1634, four years before the Swedes came, a number of English gentlemen had begun laying out plan- tations in the more northern part of New Jersey, on the River Passaic, The Dutch also claimed this land, and some of the Wal- loons had settled here earlier than the Eng- lish. So you see there were three nations
claiming this one lit- tle State. It had three names, also. The Swedes called it New Sweden, the Dutch, New Netherlands, and the English, New Al- bion.
After the Swedes were fairly estab- lished there, a part of the New Haven col- ony came down to New Jersey and be- Dutch, who were more
ct;^^;..
gan to build very near them. But the jealous of the New Haven people than any others, immediately came down with ships to resist their encroachments. The English had driven awa}^ the Dutch from the Connecticut River, and the colony at New Haven were settled on one of the very points which
THE SWEDES IN NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE. 117
the Dutch had wished to keep for their own. So the Dutch were very glad to unite with the Swedes, and help them drive the Eng- Hsh out of New Sweden. For some time now the Swedes were left alone, but in 1651 a new governor of the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam, named Peter Stuyvesant, came down and took the Swedish fort and town, and brought it all under Dutch rule. The Swedes gave in very peaceably, and this was the end of their colonies in America.
But there was not a very long triumph for the Dutch in their Swedish possessions. Before I tell you how they came to lose them, however, I must tell you about some changes which had been tak- ing place in England.
Oliver Cromwell, after being made Lord Protector of England, had ruled a number of years very quietly. But death overtook him in the midst of his power, and after his death nobody among the Puritans was bold enough or strong enough to take up the crown and put it on his head as Cromwell had done. Oliver's son Rich- ard tried to rule, but he was too weak to hold the power, and the people, seeing all things unsettled, began to think they wanted their king again.
Charles I. had a son Charles, who was now in France, where all the royal family had fled when the king was beheaded. The English people sent for this son, and he was brought back to Lon- don, crowned king, and seated on the throne where his father and grandfather had been seated before him. He was a good-natured, dissipated, indolent, unprincipled, generous, untrustworthy young fellow, and was if anything more nnfit to be king than his prede- cessors. This bringing back of the Stuart family to the throne they called the " Mestoration,''^ and all the Cavaliers were in high feather about it.
Charles II. began giving away his lands in America at a great rate. He spent money faster than a mint conld have coined it, and kept his pockets as empty as a beggar's the most part of the time. And as for land, Columbus might have found a continent every year or two to furnish this improvident king with acres enough to give to his friends and companions.
One of the first things he did was to give away all the territory where the Dutch and Swedes had settled, to his brother James, the Duke of York. This was in 1664, and while that same stout old Peter Stuyvesant, who had conquered the Swedes, was still governor
118 STORY OF pUR COUNTRY.
there. James sent over a fleet of English ships, which after some little trouble took the island of Manhattan, and run up the English flag over the whirring windmills of New Amsterdam.
Peter Stuyvesant found it hard to give up, but there was no help for it, and for that time the Dutch rule ended in America, and the city of New Amsterdam became Neiv York^ so called after its owner, the Duke of York.
New York in 1664.
The Dutch settlers remained, however, and they have left many traces of their customs and manners on the State and city ; and many of the villages and towns on the Hudson still bear their Dutch names,
James sold his right to New Albion^ as the English still called it, to Sir George Carteret, a noble Cavalier who had fought for the crown ; and it was then named New Jersey^ in honor of a gallant defense of the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel, where Carteret had commanded.
Thus these flourishing colonies came under English rule, without any of the trouble of settlement or clearing the wilderness. And thus New York and New Jersey, as well as Virginia and New England, became colonies subject to the crown of England.
CHAPTER XX.
SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.
Lord Baltimore and the Carolinas. — Roman Catholic Colony. — Indian Wonder at the Big Canoe. — Freedom to worship God. — Papists and Puritans. — Lord Baltimore's Ambition. — Maryland one of the King's Colonies. — Ribault and Raleigh's Unsuccessful Colonies. — The Carolinas settled again.
By the terms of the charter of the London Company, as I have before explained to you, all the land between Cape Fear and the Potomac River was called South Virginia. In 1632 a nobleman in England named Sir George Calvert, Lord of Baltimore, had ob- tained a grant of all that part of South Virginia lying on Chesa-
SETTLEMENT OF MAKYLAND. 119
peake Bay north of the Potomac River. This Lord Baltimore had been a member of the London Company, which had owned South Virginia. The Calvert family were Roman Catholics, and since the time of Elizabeth you know it had been very unpopular, and almost dangerous to be a Catholic in England. George Calvert lived in the reign of Charles I. (the monarch who afterward had his head cut off), and he was so strong a friend of the king that, in spite of his religion, Charles was glad to grant him any favors he could.
Lord Baltimore's design was to plant a colony in this new world, where the people of his church might wor- ship peacefully, and he once sent a band of colonists to Acadia, which is now called Nova Scotia. But it was so cold and bleak there that he became discouraged. Just after he had obtained the grant of the lands on the Chesapeake Bay, he was taken ill and died. He did not see his plans carried out after all his labors.
His lands fell to his son Cecil, who was now Lord Baltimore, and he sent his brother ^°"^ Baltimore.
Leonard with a colony to America. All these people were Catholics, and among them were a number of Jesuit priests, who came for the humane purpose of Christianizing and civilizing the Indians. In the fall of 1633 this colony arrived, and sailing up the Potomac, began building a town on its north bank, which they named St. Mary's. They called all their country Maryland^ in honor of the queen of Charles I. Her name was Henrietta Maria^ and as she was a devout Catholic herself, she sympathized with, and had probably aided the colony.
The Indians in this part of the country were not accustomed to the sight of the white men, whose settlements were some distance to the south of this. They ran to the shore to welcome the new-comers, and ran back again to the woods to tell their comrades that there was " a canoe as big as an island with as many men in it as there were trees in the forest" had come to their land. They did not know that a ship was built board by board, and they wondered where a tree could grow big enough to hollow out such a great canoe.
Lord Baltimore's colony bought the land about St. Mary's of the Indians, paying them with axes, hoes, and yards of cloth for cloth- ing. They set up a cross in the wilderness, and from the first tried
120 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
to win the Indians to the Christian religion in the same mild way John Eliot used in Massachusetts. One law passed by Lord Baltimore does him honor. He decreed that all persons in that colony should worship God in their own way without interference, or any persecution on account of their religion. The only people they left out of this liberal law were the Unitarians. They would not allow them any rights there. Like Roger Williams in Rhode Island, they were unusually generous about making laws over any one's conscience. On this account many Puritans from Vir- ginia who had been persecuted by the Episcopalians, or Church of England party there, came to Maryland ; Quakers came from Mas- sachusetts, and the colony grew rapidly.
Previously to the coming of the Catholics, however, a man named William Claybourne had settled on an island in Chesapeake Bay, and treated with the Indians in Maryland. Naturally he did not relish the coming of this new colony, and tried by all the means in his power to prevent its growth. As soon as the Puritan party there began to grow stronger, he found them a great aid in his ani- mosity against Lord Baltimore. For no sooner did the Puritans begin to grow influential, than their intense dislike of " Popery and Papists " made them rather too inclined to be forgetful of the liberal- ity which had been shown them in Maryland. They had fled from Virginia to escape the persecution of the Church of England, and as soon as they waxed in strength elsewhere, they began to desire to oppress the Quakers and Catholics. I think it would have been better if they could have all agreed to worship God, each in his own way, and let each other alone. But that easy way of settling a quarrel never seems to have occurred to people in their wars about religion.
Lord Baltimore, the lord proprietor of the colony, wished to be the undisputed ruler of his property in Maryland. He was ambi- tious to be a great baron, who should be accountable to nobody. In all his laws and decrees he said little about the king's authority, but spoke only of himself. It had been the custom of the province to ask all who joined the colony to take an oath of fidelity to the " lord proprietor," and swear to serve his interests. This oath was not relished by the Puritans, who grew to hold a large majority in two counties of the province, Anne Arundel and Kent counties. As soon as Oliver Cromwell came in, they rebeled and would show no allegiance to Lord Baltimore, who, they claimed, took on himself
SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND. 121
the rights of a king. They said, " we will only recognize the Par- Hament of England." There was a good deal of quarreling for sev- eral years, and some bloodshed. In 1654 the colonists drove away George Stone, who was Lord Baltimore's governor, and took the colony into their own hands.
The Calverts were always royalists at heart, although they kept very quiet about their opinions while Cromwell was in power ; but when Charles Stuart was restored he gave them their power again in Maryland, because he knew they had always been his friends. They governed it for thirty years, till William and Mary became king and queen (you will hear more about them hereafter), and then it was made a province of the crown of England and was called one of the king^s colonies.
I trust you have not forgotten poor John Ribault's attempt to settle at Port Royal in the present State of South Carolina, and the unsuccessful attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to found colonies on the coast of North Carolina. It was Ribault who gave the Caro- linas their name in honor of Charles IX. of France. For a long time, however, these States were not divided, but both bore the name of Carolina.
After Raleigh there was no attempt to settle until the time of Charles II, A small company of Puritans from Virginia had gone there to escape the persecutions of the English Church, and had built a town called Albemarle. In 1663 Charles II. gave the Carolinas to eight noblemen of his court, who began to send out families to settle there. They took with them a code of laws drawn up by a celebrated philosopher named John Locke. But they found that they were obliged to make quite different laws when they got to America, to suit the condition of the country. Wise as he was, Mr. Locke was not wise enough to know what was best for people in a wild country never inhabited by civilized men.
Part of the colonists to Carolina went to Albemarle, and that made the beginning of North Carolina. A part went farther south, and laid out the town of Charleston, and that was the first town of South Carolina. The new towns grew rapidly. People began now to pour into the fertile Carolinas. Swiss, Irish, and German Prot- estants came there, and a good many Quakers came also. One of the best governors they ever had was a good Quaker named John Archdale. The people loved him dearly. They had a great deal of trouble with their governors sometimes. The eight owners in
122 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
England would choose any man to whom they wanted to give an office, and he would take ship and come over to rule the colony. Often, all he cared about was putting money in his purse. He did not care whether the colonies prospered or not.
The Carolinas had trouble with the Indians, and trouble with pirates too, who were so bold that they would sail up almost into Charleston harbor and take the ships trading there. Then they were close by Florida, which was still owned by the Spaniards, who were always their enemies. But they would have prospered if it had not been for their bad governors, and did prosper in spite of them, till they could bear them no longer, when in 1719 they got the king of England to take them as his own colonies, like Massa- chusetts and Virginia. After that they went on quite smoothly for a great many years. The king named the two provinces North and South Carolina, Albemarle being the largest town of one, and Charleston of the other.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT.
Persecution of Quakers. — William Penn, the Admiral. — His only Son turns Quaker. — Dress and Manners of Quakers. — Young Penn inherits his Father's Wealth. — He brings a Colony to America. — Treaty with Indians. — City of Brotherly Love. — Naming of Pennsylvania. — Delaware made a Separate Colony.
Through all this period in which so many settlements were being made, there was a large tract of country between Virginia and New York which had not yet been given away by that generous beggar. King Charles II., to any of his friends or boon companions. This large tract, which is now the State of Pennsjdvania, was quite neglected. The Swedes and Dutch had gone up the Delaware River, and there were planters near Trenton, New Jersey, and in the vi- cinity of Wilmington, Delaware. English, Quakers, Puritans, and Church of England people had also come into these two little States. But great broad-acred Pennsylvania lay unowned and unclaimed except by Indians. In 1681 all the land was granted to William Penn, a celebrated Quaker, of whom I am now going to tell you.
I have spoken a great many times of the Quakers, a large number of whom had left England and come to this country, for the same
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT. 123
reason that the Puritans came, — that they might have liberty to worship God in the way they liked best. But they did not fare much better in this country than in England. In Massachusetts they had been most vilely treated, even to the cutting off their ears and slitting open their noses. They had been whipped in the streets and had their tongues put in cleft sticks for preaching what they be- lieved to be true. To this day, on the beautiful Common in Boston, Massachusetts, an elm-tree is standing, on whose boughs the Puritans hanged a woman named Mary Dyer, because she was a Quaker and preached their doctrines. Very good doctrines they were, too, teach- ing lessons of peace and good-will to men, and telling people not to go to war, but counseling all to live in peace and love together. No- body who is born in humane and liberal Boston to-day can remember the hanging of Mary Dyer without being ashamed of his ancestors.
In England the Quakers had a hard struggle to maintain their faith. But still their numbers grew and grew, and very early they looked to America as a land of refuge, where they could live in peace.
In the court of Charles II. there was a noted admiral named Sir William Penn, who had been made a baronet for his services to his country. This nobleman had a son William, on whom he lav- ished all his hopes. All possible pains were taken with his educa- tion. When onl}'- a boy he was sent to one of the best colleges in England. But in college he met with a young Quaker, who con- verted him to his 'religion. When young William Penn went back to his father, the old gentleman was outraged and horrified beyond description to find his son had turned from the Church of England, in which he was brought up, and had become one of a despised sect, on whom Sir William looked with contempt. Worse than that, Ms son — the son of a warrior who had fouffht battles for old England — had become a man of peace, who hated war, and said, " If a man smite thee on one cheek turn to him the other also." The Quakers, too, were plain in dress, and would not wear the gorgeous clothes of the Cavaliers. Instead, they wore broad-brimmed hats, drab-colored clothes, and long-skirted coats. They said " thee " and " thou " instead of " you." They did not take off their hats to any man, and all their habits were unlike those of the court of King Charles, and consequently very shocking to the proud old admiral.
Sir William Penn scolded and argued and raved. He sent the young man to the Continent of Europe, hoping that he might there
124
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
be cured of his notions. Young William visited Paris, went into Italy,
and through the gay capi- tals of Europe, and came back a polished, elegant gentleman, versed in the manners of courts, well-in- formed and well-bred, — but still a Quaker. His father allowed him to live in his house, but refused to set eyes on him. Before he died, however, he was rec- onciled to him, and left him his fortune, which was very large.
William Penn's wealth and position, and the friendship of the king for his father, preserved him from severe persecution. Besides, the monarch was deeply in debt to Sir Will- iam, and when young Penn proposed to take a tract of land in America in payment for these debts and settle a colony of Quakers there, I fancy the king thought it a happy bargain. Charles II. and his brother James alwaj^s liked William Penn, and he had large influence at court.
In 1682 Penn came to America with a party of Quakers. They entered the Delaware River and sailed up to the site of the city of Philadelphia. Before beginning this settlement Penn held a coun- cil with all the Indians who owned the land which the king had given him. The meeting was held under a spreading oak which has been famous ever since. There the English gentleman, in his drab long-skirted coat and broad hat, met the Indians in all their glory of feathers and war-paint, glittering strings of wampum, and drapery of furs.
He paid the Indians fairly for their lands, and made with them a treaty of peace which was never broken. Like Roger Williams in Rhode Island, Penn was always loved and revered by the red man. The great oak-tree near Philadelphia, under which he made his
GEORGIA SETTLED. 125
treaty, flourished for many years, and now, on the spot where it grew, a monument is built.
The name of Philadelphia means " city of brotherly love," and here Penn wished that those of his religion, and all other religions, should dwell together in peace. None of the early cities of America was so carefully laid out as this.
The land of which he became owner Penn wished to call " Syl- vania," from a Latin word meaning " forest." But the secretary, in writing the deed, made the name Pennsylvania, or " Penn's forest." Penn objected to this, because he did not believe in " vain titles " as he called them ; but the king insisted that the name should stand in honor of Penn's father, and so it stands to this day.
Pennsylvania Quakers had learned a noble lesson from their per- secutions,— the lesson of tolerance. Their laws were the best and most generous of any colony. All men and women who be- lieved in the Heavenly Father could there worship Him in peace.
For twenty-two years after Pennsylvania was settled, the little State of Delaware was ^"" ^ ^^^"^ ''
a part of this large State. In 1703 those counties of Pennsylvania which make the State of Delaware, petitioned to be allowed to make a colony by themselves, and this was granted, and from that time Delaware paid allegiance only to the crown of England.
CHAPTER XXH.
GEORGIA SETTLED.
Another Colony planned. — General Oglethorpe. — The Town of Savannah begun. Ogle- thorpe's Treaty. — Speech of Indian War-chief .— March of Salzburgers. Pro-slavery
Agitators — John Wesley, the Great Methodist. — Georgia becomes a Royal Province.
After the settlements in the Carolinas at Albemarle and Charles- ton, the settlers there had great trouble with Indians. They finally made a treaty in which they promised they would make no settle- ment west of the Savannah River. This promise was so well kept, that when Charleston had been built sixty or seventy years there was not an English town beyond the Savannah.
In 1732, when the Carolina colonies were flourishing, and Massa-
126
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
chusetts and Virginia were quite important provinces ; when Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were populous cities, it was proposed in England to colonize this southern part of the prov- ince of South Carohna, west of the Savannah. The king now rul- ing England was George II., a man from a different family from the Charleses, of whom we have heard so often. This George II. gave the right to colonize to a company of men called " Trustees of the Colony of Georgia." They called' it Georgia^ in honor of their king. The trustees were to hold these lands for twenty-one years, and do their best to make a successful colony. They selected one
of their number, Greneral James Oglethorpe, to go out with the col- ony and see that they had comforta- ble homes there. General Oglethorpe was a soldier, and a wise, generous gentleman. The trustees thought it wise to send a military man, because the Indians, who lived across the river, had always been considered dangerous, and the Spaniards in Florida were so near Georgia, it was General Oglethorpe. thought best to be prepared to act on
the defensive against them.
The trustees collected forty families for their colony. They were most of them poor people, who were glad to go where they could get lands and make towns of their own. A missionary society in London also raised money and sent it over to Germany, to help some poor Protestants called Salzhurgers, who had been dreadfully abused on account of their religion, to go to Oglethorpe's colony.
General Oglethorpe sailed in November, 1732, and on January 20, 1733, he reached Charleston, South Carolina. He had with him one hundred and fourteen persons. After they had rested a little they went to the mouth of the Savannah, and Oglethorpe went up the river to pick out a place for a town. He chose a site, and they at once began to lay it out as compactly as they could, so that the people might be close together in case the Indians or Spaniards should attack them. This to^vn they called Savannah. It is the oldest town in Georgia.
Very soon General Oglethorpe sent for some of the Indian chiefs and held a parley with them. There came eleven chiefs, each with his
GEORGIA SETTLED. 127
attendants, and all behaved with great dignity. One of these chiefs made a speech, in which he said, that though " they were poor and ignorant, He who had given them breath, had given the English breath also. He who had made them both, had given most wisdom to the white man. They were all firmly persuaded that the Great Power which dwelt in heaven and all around, had sent the Eng- lish here to teach them, their wives, and children. Therefore they would freely give them all the land they did not use themselves."
He made a very good speech, indeed, for an unlearned savage ; and two Englishmen, who had lived in America for several years, translated it for Oglethorpe. When he got through, the chiefs of eight tribes laid a bundle of deer-skins at General Oglethorpe's feet. Then the general gave them each a suit of clothes, with some coarser cloth for their attendants, and gave them fire-arms, tobacco- pipes, cloth, linen, and several other tilings to take away. The Indians always kept peace with Oglethorpe, and he always heard their complaints of any ill-treatment, on the part of his colonists, with justice and humanity.
About a year after Oglethorpe had settled in Savannah, the first ship-load of the Salzburgers came. They were very good people, and were welcome to the colony. Before leaving Germany this little band of pilgrims, who had suffered as much for their religion as the Pilgrims in Plymouth, had walked in procession from the bor- ders of Austria to the sea-coast, in oi'der to take ship and leave their native land, to find freedom in Georgia.
The colony began with some of the wisest laws passed by any of the colonies. First, they forbade the use of rum in the colony, and the sale of it to the Indians, because Oglethorpe declared that rum was the chief cause of the quarrels between the whites and Indians, from which the Indian wars arose. Instead of strong liq- uors like rum, he tried to introduce English ale or beer among the people. Next, he made a law which forbade any colonists to hold negro slaves. He wished to encourage white labor, because he did not believe in slavery, and thought it bad for the colony. Ever since the Dutch in 1620 had sold the first slaves in Virginia, slavery had been increasing there and in the Carolinas. So that Oglethorpe's attempt to keep it out of Georgia was not popular among his colonists.
The colony had some trouble with the Spaniards in Flwida, and once Oglethorpe invaded Florida, and made an unsuccessful attack
128 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
on St. Augustine. His great trouble, however, was on account of his two laws against rum and slavery. Some colonists were so indignant because they could not hold slaves, that they went to Charleston, and wrote bitter letters to England against Oglethorpe.
Rev. John Wesley, who was the head and founder of the Metho- dist Church, — one of the best and sweetest of Christians, — was in Georgia when these pro-slavery colonists were stirring up sedition there. They abused him as being a " hypocrite and more than half Roman Catholic," and accused him of many bad deeds. After his return to England, John Wesley denounced slavery in America as " the sum of all villainies." I presume what he saw in the Carolinas helped him to this conclusion.
But Oglethorpe found his colonial labor an ungrateful one. He was a noble gentleman, and deserves to be ranked beside John Smith, John Winthrop, Roger Williams, and William Penn. But he had so much trouble with the disaffected colonists in Georgia, that he said at last he was sick of the name of the colony and glad to return to England.
After the twenty-one years had expired for which the trustees held their charter, it was given up to George II., and Georgia be- came a royal colony. They had negro slaves after that, and as much strong drink as they wanted.
CHAPTER XXIII.
KING PHILIP'S WAR.
The Thirteen Colonies. — The Colonists' Fear of the Indians. — Philip, the Son of friendly Mas- sasoit. — John Sassamon tells Tales of Philip. — Blood shed by English and Indians. — Out- break of Indian War. — The Attack on Hadley. — " The Indians ! The Indians ! " — Appear- ance of the Strange Warrior. — The Regicides. — Death of King Philip. — End of the War.
We have now heard all about the settlement of the thirteen col- onies which afterwards became the first States in this Union. These thirteen colonies were Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Geor- gia. Maine had also been settled, but it was a part of Massachu- setts until after the Union was formed.
By recalling the dates, you will see that Virginia was settled in
KING PHILIP'S WAR. 129
1607, and Massachusetts thirteen years after, while Georgia, the last colony, was begun in 1732, more than one hundred years later. I wish you would also recall the differences between the early settlers in these States, the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Cavaliers in Vir- ginia, the Dutch traders in New York, the Quakers in Pennsylva- nia, and the Catholics in Maryland, and you can see when all these different kinds of people, of diverse countries, and many religious beliefs, were blended together into one nation, they must have brought together a great many manners and customs, which united to form a broad, liberal country, where all nations on the earth could find a home.
For a long time, partly because they were the oldest settlements, Massachusetts and Virginia remained the principal colonies, and were the centre of the most important events. We will now return to the New England settlements, and see what they had been doing up to the time the last emigration came to Georgia.
Massachusetts was still the leading colony there. Beside Mas- sachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colony, she owned the province of Maine. Her two oldest settlements had towns up and down the sea-coast, and were rapidly spreading into the interior toward the Connecticut River. Rhode Island and Connecticut had also many growing towns, and the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire were the resort of fishermen and fur traders, and many ships came to their ports to take away fish and timber.
The great cause of anxiety in Massachusetts, for the first century of its growth, was from war with Iixdians. Notwithstanding the efforts of good John Eliot to do good to the Indians, and make them Christians, the English, as a general thing, did not get on any bet- ter with the savages than the Spanish explorers did. With the ex- ception of Roger Williams, William Penn, and James Oglethorpe, the founders of the colonies do not seem to have taken the humane ground, that the Indians were human beings, and brothers in the great family of God. Eliot's labors had formed a community at Natick, who were civilized, and known as " praying Indians." But the greater part of the Indians in New England looked with distrust on the pale-faces.
I hope you have not forgotten Massasoit, the Indian chief who visited the Plymouth Colony and smoked the pipe of peace with Governor Carver. During his life, Massasoit kept faith with the white men, and once revealed to them the plot of another Indian
9
130 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
tribe which endangered their safety. After Massasoit died, his son Metacomet, whom the white men called Philip, became chief of his
tribe. King Philip seems to have been a brave warrior, and a man of superior mind. He was never quite contented with the rapid inroads which the English were making in the country which had once belonged entirely to the In- dians. I have no doubt he felt something as we should, if a company of men much wiser than we, and superior in all respects to our- selves, should come here to America, begin building magnificent cities all over our coun- try, and keep crowding us farther and farther from the places we had called our own. It would be rather hard to bear, would it not ? The chief abode of Philip was at Mount Hope, a hill near the town of Bristol, Rhode Island. Here around the camp-fire the rude monarch may have sat with his war-chiefs, mused over the past glories of his tribe, and thought of the time when Massasoit, his father, owned all the land which now was filled with the farms and villages of the strangers, till his heart grew heavy, and he vented his discontent in bitter words. Some such words of Philip were overheard by a " praying Indian " named John Sassamon, and he went at once and told the white people that Philip was plotting mischief against them. It is not known whether there really was any plot or only murmurings of discontent among the savages. When they heard, however, that Sassamon had told tales of them, they were very angry, and slew him as soon as they could lay hold of him. There had been some other acts of hostility before this, and growing ill-feeling on both sides.
To revenge Sassamon's death the white men took three of Philip's men and hung them on the gallows. King Philip was wise enough to foresee that these things must end in misery to his own people, and when word was brought him that there had been blood shed on both sides, he is said to have wept tears of regret that war could not be prevented.
When the war began it was a terrible and bloody warfare. The first attack was made by Indians on a party peacefully coming home from church. The Indians rarely left any one alive, not even the baby at its mother's breast. Those they left alive they took away as prisoners, made them suffer great hardships, and often put
KING PHILIP'S WAK. 131
them to death, with slow tortures, at some of their war-feasts or war-dances.
King PhiKp made a treaty with one of the neighboring tribes (the Narragansetts), and tlie two united made gi-eat havoc. Up and down the Con- necticut River vallev, from the borders of Connecticut to what is now the State of Vermont, they roamed in large bands, car- rying horror wherever they went. They
, , , , , , . Palisaded Buildings.
attacked churches where the congregations
were worshiping. Every church-goer said his prayer, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," with his musket close by his side. Everywhere was inassacre and fighting. Sometimes a party of white men fell upon a party of Indians in their wigwams and slew them all, warriors and old men, and even the children. Sometimes they carried away the squaws and young ones, to be sold into slavery, which the Indians feared more than death. Often the white woman and her daughters spinning in her farm-house kitchen with the little children playing on the floor, would see an Indian tomahawk come flying through the air and cleave the b'aby's skull ; then the tall forms of Indians would darken the doorway, and they would rush in to murder the wife and daughters, and even the helpless old grandmother sitting by the fireside. At sunset, when the father and sons came home from the field where they had been at work, they would find only the smok- ing ruins of their homes, and dead bodies on their hearth-stone.
The war began in the summer of 1675, and all through the sum- mer and winter it was kept up with great suffering on both sides. The towns of Brookfield and Deerfield were burnt. A terrible bat- tle was fought near Deerfield, which is called the " Battle of Bloody Brook."
One quiet Sunday, nearly all the inhabitants of the little town of Hadley were gathered together in church. All the old men and young men, mothers with nursing babies in their arms, maidens and little children were in the house of worship. The minister was at prayer, and the whole congregation was as still as death. Suddenly arose the wild cry, " The Indians ! The Indians ! "
Every man seized the gun which stood by him. The women huddled the children together, and stood close in the little log church, with faces pale as death. The men met the red foe bravely,
132
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
but the surprise was so great, 'and the numbers so unequal, that the Indians were fast gaining an advantage. All at once, in the middle of the fight, appeared a man of towering height, with long streaming hair and beard, dressed in strange wild fashion. He came among the white men like a strong deliverer. Wherever he went the Indians fell before him. The courage of the English began to rise. They thought God had sent a warlike angel, or the spirit of some great Hebrew prophet whom they revered, to lead them out of this sore strait, and gathering all their strength they beat back the enemy. When the fight was over the stranger had disappeared as quickly as he had come.
It was not until long after that it was discovered who this un-
Cave of the Regicides.
known helper was. Many believed to their dying day that he was not mortal man. But long after this story was told : When King Charles I. had his head cut off in England, four-and-twenty Puritan judges signed the sentence of death. In the time of Crom- well, these judges were men of distinction in England, but as soon as Charles II. came to be king, he offered a reward for the heads of the men who had condemned his father. Two of them, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, got away to America, and were concealed here, and secretly harbored by the Puritans. They
KING PHILIP'S WAR. 133
were known as the " Regicides," which means " king-murderers." For years they were in many hiding-phxces. Thay Hved in woods and caves, sometimes daring to seek shelter in lonely farm-houses, where the people sympathized with them. There is to-day a place in the rocks near New Haven, Connecticut, called the " Regicides' cave," where they were once hid. Finally, one of their friends, who lived in Hadley, had a part of his house cunningly divided off, and fitted up for them. And there they lived a long time, no one in the town being aware of their abode there. It was William Goffe, the younger of the two, who had thus aided the people of Hadley on the day of the battle.
During the winter of 1675-76, Josiah Winslow, who was a son of one of the first governors of Massachusetts, with 1,000 men under his command, went to conquer these " bloody heathen," as they called the red men. It was desperate fighting on both sides. Neither showed any humanity. When the Indians took prisoners, they tortured them horribly till they died. Once when the white men had taken the body of an Indian woman, a princess of her tribe, who had tried hard to escape by swimming and was drowned, they were not content with getting her dead body, but cut off the head and paraded it round on a pole. Before the summer of 1676, the white men had conquered, and Philip, who had lost his men and lands, and had neither corn to eat nor powder for his musket, came wearily back to Mount Hope to die. There he found that his wife and little boy had been taken prisoners.
" It is enough," said the poor chief, when he heard this. " Now my heart breaks." He made no effort to escape after this, and was shot by an Indian friendly to the whites.
The Puritans debated what they should do with Philip's little son who was their prisoner. Some wanted to kill him outright, others wanted to sell him into slavery. This last counsel prevailed, and he was sold as a slave in the West India Islands. There the son of King Philip, the grandson of Massasoit, who for a life-time kept faith with the white men, ended his life in the worst kind of bond- age.
After Philip's death peace was known once more. But Massachu- setts had suffered terribly. Connecticut had kept clear of the war, and Rhode Island had kept peace with the Indians, although part of that little State had been the battle-ground, and Providence and Warwick were partly burned. Massachusetts had lost one man out
134 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of every twenty, and one family out of each twenty had lost their homes. After ^e war, the Puritans reasoned that it had been a judgment of God sent upon them for their sins. One of the sins on which they urged this penalty was that they had not been severe enough on the Quakers. I think they had done a good deal more than any humane persons would like even to read about nowadays, but it seems that they fancied that God was not quite satisfied with them and would have liked a few more noses and ears cut off. . As soon as the people in Massachusetts began to recover from the dreadful effect of the Indian massacres, they became engaged in a law-suit about the ownership of New Hampshire and Maine. You remember Maine had been granted to Fernando Gorges, and New Hampshire to John Mason. Both these men were dead, but their heirs were living and claimed these countries. It was fiually settled in this way : Massachusetts bought Maine in 1677 for six thousand dollars, and in 1680 New Hampshire came under the con- trol of the king, and was a royal colony.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AFFAIRS IN VIRGINIA.
Governor William Berkeley. — " Thank God there are no Free Schools in Virginia! " — John Washington fights Maryland Indians. — Savages retaliate. — Nathaniel Bacon goes into the Field without a Commission. — He is declared Traitor. — Great Excitement in James- town. — Attack on the Town. — Bacon's Death. — Berkeley hangs the Rebels. — The King calls him back to England. — What the King said of Benteley.
During the troubles in Massachusetts they were having trouble in Virginia also. Ever since Charles II. had been made king in 1660, Sir William Berkeley had been governor there. He was a very strong royalist, a narrow-minded, tyrannical man. I am quite sure he was narrow-minded, because this is what he said in one of his reports to the English Council : " I thank God there are no free schools and printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience, heresy, and 'sects into this world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the government. God keep us from both."
You can imagine from that what sort of a man Berkeley was. A regular pig-headed old governor, I think. The colonies had
AFFAIRS IN VIRGINIA. 135
enjoyed large liberties in Cromwell's reign. The colonists had been allowed to vote, and had managed their own affairs with very little appeal to England. All this Berkeley changed. He took away their right to vote, and made himself very powerful, so that he was almost a king in the colony. He made tax-laws without consulting the planters, and there was a great deal of discontent felt about it. The planters who were scattered about at a distance from James- town, which v\^as the capital of the colony, many of them scolded about Berkeley, but they could not do anything against his tyranny without risking their lives and their farms, and men will generally bear a great deal before they will risk either.
One of the members of the governor's council, which held its meetings at Jamestown, was Nathaniel Bacon, a man about thirty years of age, who had a plantation in Stafford County on the Poto- mac. He did not like Berkeley's conduct, and said many sharp things about it. And as he was a ready speaker, brave, daring, and popular among the colonists, Berkeley was not favorably inclined toward him.
Early in 1675, the year of Philip's war in Massachusetts, the Indians began to trouble the Virginians. The troubles began in Maryland, and the Marylanders, being weak, sent to ask help of Virginia. Colonel John Washington went out to help them with a small company. This Colonel Washington was the ancestor of Genei-al George Washington, whom I shall tell you much about hereafter. The Virginians foolishly killed six Indian chiefs, who were sent to treat for peace by the Indian tribes, and that made matters worse. The Indians at once killed sixty white men, saying it took ten common English soldiers to pay for one chief. After that they crossed into Virginia, killing the settlers, and laying waste their farms. Each day there were fresh accounts of some horrible proceeding, and the planters complained that Governor Berkeley took no measures to protect them. Nathaniel Bacon sev- eral times asked permission of the governor to go and put down the Indian warfare, but was peremptorily refused. At this Bacon grew hotly indignant, and swore " commission or no commission, the next man I hear of that is killed by Indians, I will go out against the savages if I can get twenty men to follow me."
Now it happened the next man killed was the overseer on Bacon's plantation, to whom he was very much attached. This made him furious, and he at once gathered all the fighting men in
136 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the country who would join him, and went out against the Indians. They killed one hundred and fifty, with a loss of three of their own men, and then Bacon returned home to find that h6 had again been elected one of the assembly to meet in Jamestown.
Before he arrived in Jamestown, he learned that Berkeley had sent an armed boat to take him prisoner, and that he was declared a rebel all over the town. He was seized, carried before the gov- ernor, and made to give his word of honor that he would not do so again. He gave his word, and the next day he came before the as- sembly, and asked pardon of the governor for what he had done. He had a rich uncle in the colony, whose heir expectant and name- sake he was, and it was said that he had urged him so strongly to make peace with Berkeley, and make this confession, that the young man had unwillingly given in.
Berkeley now made all sorts of fair promises, and said he would give Bacon a proper commission to fight the Indians. But Bacon was warned that the governor meant to play false with him, and went up the James River, away from the town.
The governor then summoned the men of the country to arm,- and defend Jamestown, which he feared Bacon was going to attack. In three or four days Bacon appeared with about five hundred men, marching into Jamestown, threatening the governor (who he said had always deceived him), and demanding his commission to fight the Indians.
There was a terrible hubbub in the town. Bacon's troops shouted, the governor's friends were frightened, and the governor appeared at a window, and tearing open his breast in high Roman fashion, cried, " Shoot me ! here, shoot ! here is a fair mark ! "
At length the governor again agreed that Bacon should have the commission, and he went off with it in triumph. No sooner as his back turned, than Berkeley again proclaimed him a reb' and began to raise troops to follow and suppress him.
This again fired Bacon's anger. He came back with nis men as fast as he could gallop, and attacked Jamestown in good earnest. He had two influential friends in town, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Drummond, who helped him all they could. After a short fight he took the town, and burned it, houses, churches, and all. Mr. Law- rence and Mr. Drummond owned the two best houses in town, ex- cept the governor's, and each applied the flames to his own house Most of the town was thus laid in ashes.
AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS. 137
Then Bacon called a convention and an assembly of his own, and as he was popular with a large number of the people, perhaps might have made himself governor, if he had not been taken ill, from ex- posure in the marsh around Jamestown, and died suddenly. After this Berkeley published a proclamation, pardoning all who would come back and submit to his authority, except a few of the most noted rebels. As they had now no leader, and no plan of resist- ance, the insurgents laid down their arms, and went home. When quiet was restored, Berkeley began to hang all those whom he had exempted from pardon. He put several of the assembly to death, and many honest persons who had really meant and done no harm, till the colonists petitioned him to hang no more. How long he would have continued this wholesale hanging, if Charles II. had not called him back to England, I do not know. When the king heard of the affair he said, " That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country, than I have for the murder of my father."
Berkeley died soon after in England, and Virginia had a new governor named Jeffreys. The Indians do not seem to have troub- led them any more at this time, and thus ended the most notable disturbance which ever took place in the Virginia colony, which is known in history as Bacon s rebellion.
CHAPTER XXV.
AFFAIRS IN NT;W YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS.
England and Holland at War. — The Dutch take New York City again. — Edmund Andros in "Boston. — His Tyrannies there. — His -Journey to Connecticut. — Disappearance of the qrter. — The New English King. — Uprising in New York. — Leisler executed. — Char- tei ^k.
After Bacon's rebellion, Virginia remained quiet and prosper- ous for manj^ jj^ears. While we leave her to raise tobacco, and cul- tivate her plantations by the help of her increasing negro slaves, we must look at New York, and see how she is prospering. You remember, the last account we had of this colony, Charles II. had given her to his younger brother, the Duke of York, from whom the State took its present name. This Duke of York, whose name was James Stuart, had made Richard Nichols governor, after the colony was conquered by the English and surrendered by sturdy Peter
138 STORY OF OUR COITOTRY.
Stuyvesant, the last Dutch ruler. After Nichols had remained in office three or four years, he went to England, leaving the colony prosperous, and the duke sent a gentleman bearing the romantic name of Francis Lovelace, as his representative in 'New York.
About this time war broke out between England and Holland. While Charles II. was wasting the money of his poor people, and behaving like an idle vagabond who has no object in life but his own amusement, the plucky little state of Holland came near con- quering England. One of the Dutch admirals sailed up the River Thames, frightening the London people nearly out of their wits, and almost succeeding in making Charles serious for a few days. Hol- land gave instructions to one portion of her fleet to go over to America and recover her lost possessions there. Early in 1673 they came over, and after very little trouble took New York into their own hands, and renamed it New Amsterdam. They did not keep it long, however. In sixteen months the countries across the ocean made peace with each othei-, and Holland gave New York back to its duke. From that time it remained a colony of England.
When Charles II. died, his brother James became king. Of all the Stuarts, he seems the weakest and most unfit to be king. He had sent during his dukeship a very tyrannical governor to New York, Sir Edmund Andros, and after his accession to the throne, he transferred him to Massachusetts.
Never was a man more heartily hated than Sir Edmund Andros by the people of Massachusetts. He brought over in his train to Boston some companies of British soldiers. These were the first English soldiers in the colony, and were looked on with great dis- favor by the people, who had got so accustomed to taking care of themselves, that they were very much afraid of any military inter- ference.
But what most outraged the Puritans of Boston, was the fact that Andros put an English clergyman in their " South Meeting-house," and bade him read there the service of the Church of England. The Puritans hated surpliced priests, and litanies, and all ceremonial worships as much as ever. They would not even have a cross on their meeting-houses, because it reminded them of the Church of Rome. And now, to have a clergyman in long robes reading a litany out of book in their own pulpit, was too much to be borne. The sexton refused to ring the church bell to call the worshipers together, and all the owners of the meeting-house were in great in- dignation.
AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS. 139
But Andros did something worse than appropriating their church- building to his own uses. He made an attack on the liberties of the people, and sought to take away the charters, which the people guarded as the very ark and covenant of their freedom.
The charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were all very liberal, and gave the people large powers. They had been given by King Charles at a time when he probably regarded the colonies as not of much consequence, and a little freedom more or less as a thing not material to English rule in America. These charters Andros pronounced void ; the people were forbidden to as- semble in town meeting to elect their officers as they had been wont to do ; they were heavily and unjustly taxed ; their citizens were arrested for acts which their charter pronounced legal ; in short, all the indignities that a narrow tyrant could heap upon a people, Sir Edmund Andros heaped upon the colony he was sent to govern.
After establishing as firmly as he might his system of tja-anny in Massachusetts, he made a visit to Connecticut, designing to take away her charter and repeal all the laws which gave freedom of action to the people. Arriving in Hartford, where that sacred document of the liberties of the colony was carefully guarded, he called a meeting in the court-house. The strong box containing the charter was placed upon the table in the midst of the assembly. Then the officers of the colony began a long argument with Sir Edmund Andros and his party, until it grew so dark that candles were lighted in the apartment. Suddenly all the candles were put out. It was pitchy dark for a few minutes, and when the con- fusion was over and lights were brought in, the box with the char- ter had disappeared, nobody knew where. Sir Edmund Andros had to go back without it and to content himself with telling the people that the rights it gave them were good for nothing, and they had no rights at all except the very few he and King James chose to grant them.
By this time the people of England were getting as tired of James II. as the Massachusetts people were of Andros. For one thing he was a bigoted Romanist, and all the English people now were firmly Protestant. They resolved to dethrone James, and sent to WilHam of Orange, who had married the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of James, to come and be their ruler. It was agreed that this husband and wife should govern England as joint sovereigns^ and their reign is called " the reign of William and Mary."
140 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
As soon as the Massachusetts people heard of James's removal from the throne, they resolved they would not endure Andros any longer. One morning in April the Boston people rose as one man, beat their drums, and set up a flag on Beacon Hill. Then they took the governor and his men prisoners. Andros tried to escape by dressing up in woman's clothes, and had got past two of his guards, when the next one caught sight of his shoes, saw that they were not a lady's shoes, and so stopped his escape.
He was sent back to England, and although nothing was done to punish the colonies for his arrest, no steps were taken against him. Indeed, he was afterwards made governor of Virginia, but behaved better' there, and gave the colonists no great alarm by his onslaughts on their liberties.
Governor Dongan of New York (one of King James's governors) was a mild ruler and not unjust to the people. But the Protestants there did not like him because he was a CathoUc. When the news reached New York that WilUam of Orange was king, there was an insurrection of the New York people, headed by Jacob Leisler. He took possession of the fort, and then sent word to England that he was holding the government against the Cathohcs for William and Mary. In the mean time, the king had sent Colonel Henry Sloughter to govern New York. When he arrived he arrested Leis- ler for treason.
Leisler had many enemies, and they put the worst color upon his acts, so that after a trial, he with his son in-law, Jacob Milbourne, were sentenced to die. They met death bravely, saying they had meant no treason, but had simply defended the rights of Protestant- ism and the new king and queen. This was the only blood shed in the colonies on the new change of government, and was the only cloud on the bright prospects of the new reign.
Are you wondering meanwhile what became of the Connecticut charter, which disappeared so suddenly from under the nose of Sir Edmund Andros? A certain Captain Wads worth had seized it in the dark, and hidden it in a hollow place in an oak-tree just outside the court-house. There it stayed till William and Mary were pro- claimed sovereigns of England, when it was taken out with great rejoicing. The old oak was always called the " Charter Oak " and remained green till 1856, when a storm blew it down.
And amid great rejoicing all over New England at the recovery of their liberties and the restoration of a Protestant monarch to the throne of England, the reign of William and Mary began. ^
SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 141
CHAPTER XXVI.
SALEM WITCHCRAFT.
Belief in Witches. — Causes for this Belief. — The Idea of the Devil. — Study of Necro- mancy. — Two Children " bewitched." — Arrest of Friendless Old Women. — Babies chained and thrown into Prison as Witches. — Torture of Witches. ^— Confessions. — Hanging of Women. — Witches' Hill. — End of the Witchcraft Madness.
Shortly after Sir Edaiund Andros was deposed, and while the colony was under little or no government but that of the local au- thorities of Massachusetts, one of the worst- events took place ever recorded in the annals of the American colonies. It is known as the Salem Witchcraft.
Of course you understand that there are no such things as witches ; that there never have been and never can be. But in the days of which I write, a large number of people, whom we should think ought to have known better, believed in witchcraft. They believed that witches were a class of persons who had made a league with the devil to be his servants and children, and in return got power from him to do evil deeds and torment innocent people. In Europe, this belief was almost universal, and men and women had been not unfrequently burned, hanged, and tortured for witchcraft. King James I. of England, a stupid, narrow-minded old bigot, had believed in witches, and caused some to be hung in his day. Sev- eral times in the colonies there had been a brief excitement of this kind, and in many places some poor withered old woman, who lived by herself, was looked on with suspicion as a witch. But nothing in this country, and few things abroad, equaled the madness on the subject that prevailed in Salem in the year 1692.
We must take into consideration the fact that Salem was a pecul- iar colony. Its chief and founder was John Endicott, who was a stern, gloomy, fanatical man; naturally the colony fostered by him had something of his spirit impressed upon it, — the spirit that had driven the good Roger Williams out into the wilderness. Salem, like most of the New England towns, was stanch in the idea that amusement or recreation must form a very small part in life. Re- ligion— a hard, sombre kind of religion we should think it to-day — was the first thing in life ; and work was the next thing. To dance, or play games, laugh gayly, sing much except psalm tunes in minor keys, were to them " ungodly customs." The severe colonists of
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Massachusetts had once gone miles out of their way to cut down a May-pole wreathed with flowers, which, according to the custom in " Merry Old England," some people had erected to dance around on the first day of May. To them such practices were " profane, and unbefitting God's people." All the light and color and bright- ness with which God has adorned the earth did not appeal to those hard Puritans. In short, these people were just, sternly honest, conscientious, ready to die for the sake of duty, but they completely turned their backs on one side of life. They did not recognize the fact that all work and no play not only makes Jack a dull boy, but that in the end it makes him worse than dull, it often makes him mad, and drives him even into terrible and unexpected crimes. Such a social system as theirs was sure to have some such an out- break as it did in the serious town of Salem, and it was very well, to my thinking that it was not even worse and more wide-spread than it proved.
In the minds of these people the devil was a very important per- sonage who had great powers and was very real. In their imagina- tions he had a long tail, a pair of horns, and hoofs like an animal. He could take all sorts of shapes, the most usual being that of a black man, or a black cat. Sometimes, however, he might be a pig, or even a spider, or flea. You have perhaps read similar stories of transformation in the " Arabian .Nights." The queerest part of it was that learned men, not only in America but all over Europe, be- lieved these old nurse's tales.
In such a state of belief as this a company of young girls, who had no wholesome girlish amusements to fill up their evenings, met together at the house of the village minister to study what was called " necromancy, or the black art of magic." The oldest of these was not more than twenty years, the youngest only nine. Two or three young married women afterwards became interested in their proceedings, and two slaves from the West Indies, who were Indians with a mixture of African blood in their savage veins, met also with them. No doubt these ignorant slaves, full of the wild superstitions of their savage estate, put many ideas in these children's heads. They had also a few old books on "magic" or the "black art" over which they pored in their secret conclaves. What they did at their meetings is not known. It is not impossible that they may have had exhibitions of some phenomena not unlike " modern spiritualism." But whatever they did, the worst sort of excitement
SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 143
arose from it. All at once these girls began to have strange fits, to utter loud outcries, and be twisted in wonderful contortions, declar- ing that they were bewitched.
If they had been left unnoticed, or their meetings broken up, and they had been sharply reasoned with about their absurd conduct, it would probabl}^ have stopped at once. But the minister's daughter and niece, two girls eleven and nine years old, were among the number, and their conduct attracted his notice. Of course he be- lieved in witchcraft, and was at once on the alert to hunt out witches. The girls accused a poor, feeble woman, with no worse crime than that of old age, as the cause of their convulsions, and she was at once taken up and thrown into prison. From that time the madness steadily increased till it reached its height. Soon another old woman, then another, was arrested. The victims were brought before their accusers, who straightway went into terrible convulsions at the first look of the witch's eyes, from which they were only re- covered when the poor trembling old creature was loaded with chains and thrown into prison.
At first only old women, poor and friendless, were accused, but by and by young women, men, mothers with children, even little children of tender years, fell victims. At one time a woman and her five-year-old child both lay chained in Salem jail, awaiting trial for ^vitchcraft. A little girl of eight was examined by a council of reverend men and frightened into saying that she was a witch, " her mother had taught her to be one." A widow with four children, the youngest an infant, was torn from her family, dragged from her house, her babies following and crying piteously for their mother. If the neighbors had not been tender-hearted enough to succor these children they might have starved, and it required some cour- age to succor the children of those accused of witchcraft.
When the " witches " were brought to trial, they were urged to confess their wicked practices. If they denied all guilt, they were confronted with their accusers, who were seized with convulsions at the sight of them, and who cried out upon them as having on such a night come to them to persuade them also to become fol- lowers of Satan. The prisoners were baited with questions, urged to confess, and sometimes in case of refusal were put to torture. Some were tied by the neck and heels, and hung up till the blood gushed from their nostrils ; they were probed with pins, till a cal- lous place insensible to pin-prick was found on them, when it was
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said, " this was the devil's mark which he had set on his chil- dren." They did all sorts of cruel things that the inhumanity of the time could devise, till one old man, who had probably heard of the persecutions of Bloody Mary's time, said simply, " It seemeth me these are very like Popish cruelties;" and another colonist, speaking of the examinations of the witches, said, " They had trials of cruel mockings, which is the more strange, considering what a people for religion (I mean for profession of it) we have been."
Sometimes the accused people, amazed at what they saw, badgered and baited by unfeeling judges, began to think they must be witches without knowing it. Their accusers urged them to confess that on such a night they had appeared in the shape of cats, or other ani- mals, or in their own human form, and tempted such a girl or woman to sign her name in a red book, "the devil's book." Hear- ing such strange accusations, urged with minute descriptions of their words and actions, while engaged in their unlawful practices, is it any wonder the victims almost lost reason, and sometimes con- fessed to crimes of which they had never dreamed ? Of these, most took back their confessions, saying they had made them through fear, or from hope of mercy. But to their honor, be it said, most of the accused stood firm, and denied all these charges laid to them. They were largely intelligent and pious people, many of them dis- believing witchcraft altogether, and they showed a courage and steadfast heroism that would grace the annals of Christian martyr- dom. One woman over eighty, hanged in Salem for witchcraft, died such a sublime death, so patient and heroic, praying tenderly for her misguided persecutors, that her story thrills the blood of him who reads it even to this day.
Day after day these girls grew bolder in their wicked madness, and Christian ministers who aided on the frenzy by their exciting sermons, preached more ardently that the town must be cleared of all witches. A saintly clergyman, named George Burroughs, once settled in Salem, was accused of witchcraft and murder. The ghosts of his victims appeared to one of these "possessed" children, and revealed that he had murdered his two wives and many other per- sons. On which the minister was sentenced to be hanged, which sen= tence was presently carried out. He died a holy death, with the Lord's Prayer on his lips. His body was taken down, disgracefully handled, and thrust half buried into the ground.
And now accusations of murder were made by wholesale. Ghosts
SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 145
appeared by night and day, who had been sleeping quietly for twenty years. If you could believe these crazy girls of Salem, half the population of the town were murderers, and most of the dead for twenty years were put out of life by violent means.
The hanging of the witches began vigorously. One morning in Septembei-, eight bodies hung dangling from one broad gallows on " Witches' Hill," and Mr. Noyes, a preacher of Christ's gospel, who was foremost in their persecution, said, as he looked on approvingly, " See those eight fire-brands of hell hanging there."
But this could not go on forever. The crazy zeal of those who began the excitement went too far. They fell into the habit of accusing all who denied the belief in witches, or showed sympathy for the prisoners. Their frenzy struck too high. In their wild ravings they accused Mrs. Phips (wife of Sir William Phips, the governor), who had entreated mercy for some of the accused ; they cried out upon the wife of one of the magistrates who had been luke- warm in convicting Avitches ; they uttered the name of Mrs. Hale, wife of an eminent divine in Beverly, who was known to have given aid to accused persons. These were names too high for evil repute, and the men who were calling for the blood of the witches, began to look about, .ind ask where this would stop. In this pause, better judgment came in ; reason returned to her throne ; the com- mon sense of these usually clear-headed Puritans asserted itself, and the tide of madness turned back. But not till twelve good, inno- cent people had suffered a vile and horrible death ; not till an old man, over eighty, had been slowly pressed to death by heavy stones placed on his chest ; not until hundreds had been torn from homes and families, and suffered from chains and imprisonment for months. In prison, many had died ; some lived with shattered reason ; the homes of some were broken up ; their goods sold ; and even after they were pronounced innocent, some were kept months in prison for want of money to pay their board while in jail, and when liber- ated were set adrift homeless and penniless. In the history of the century, I know of no fouler blot on civilization than this of Salem Witchcraft.
As out of all evil may come some good, this had its good results. It was the last of witchcraft in the country. A faint attempt at such an excitement in New Hampshire, a few years later, was promptly checked. It set the peojAe to thinking, and made them skeptical about such monstrous beliefs. It started "a healthy reaction
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on that very spot. And to-day Salem, Massachusetts, stands a centre of science and intelligence, hardly second to any in America, a school of all the liberal and broad humanities which will tolerate no such cruel madness as this of which we have just read.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LNTER-COLONIAL WARS.
War between French and Englisli Colonies. — The French League with Indians. — Horrors of Indian Warfare. — Story of Hannah Dustin. — Bravery of the Women. — Towns destroyed. — Peace declared. — Another War. — Peace of Utrecht. — George's War. — Peace of Aix- la-Chapelle.
The most unfortunate affair that resulted from the accession of William and Mary was a war with France. On being driven from the throne by his peoj)le, James II. fled to France, and enlisted the interest of the French king to such a degree that he went to war with England for the jjurpose of restoring James to his 'kingdom. After France declared war upon England, the French colonies here went to war with the English colonies. Of course if the " mother countries " over the water were fighting, their children must fight also.
The French got the Indian tribes in Eastern Canada, and in Maine and New Hampshire, to help them. This gave them a great advantage. The French leaders were skillful warriors, but did not know the country as well as the savages did ; their Indian allies knew the safest paths through the forest, the best way to fall upon and attack an unsuspecting village, and all the modes of warfare best adapted to a wild country. The principal French leader in this war was Count Frontenac, who was sent across the water to command the French army. This war between the colonies lasted about eight years, till 1697, when peace was declared between France and England.
You have heard something of the barbarities of Indian warfare. In this war they were revived in more than their usual horror. Whole towns were ravaged, farm-house after farm-house entered, the inmates slain or taken prisoners, and then the fire-brand applied. The war raged principally on the northern boundary of the English colonies ; and in New York and New England particularly, the peo-
TNTEK-COLONIAL WARS.
147
pie lived in constant dread of their terrible foes. Even the women learned to handle a musket, and defend homes and children. The suffering endured by the women captured by the savages is one of the notable features of this war.
Just before the end of the war a band of Indians attacked the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and made terrible havoc there. On leaving, they took Mrs. Hannah Dustin prisoner, with her nurse and her little babe only one week old. The baby cried as they
Indian Attack.
were marching out of town, and one of the Indians took it from the mother and killed it before her eyes. Then they marched through the woods for days and days, until they came to an island in the Merrimac River, near Concord, New Hampshire. Here Mrs. Dustin was placed in a wigwam with two Indian men, three squaws, and seven children. The Indians had a white boy in their service who had been taken prisoner in Massachusetts the year before. This boy had learned to talk with the Indians, and Mrs. Dustin formed
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a plan of escape in which she was aided by his knowledge of their tongue. She secretly instructed the boy to ask his savage master how to strike a blow which would kill instantly. The Indian unsus- pectingly showed the boy how to deal a fatal blow. One night when all the savages were asleep Mrs. Dustin aroused her two white companions, and one after the other they killed ten of their captors. A baby and one of the women she left unharmed. Then following the course of the Merrimac River, on which her home was situated, she reached the town of Haverhill safely, and was welcomed with great joy by her husband and seven children who supposed her dead or sold into slavery.
The deeds of bfave women, who rivaled the men in endurance and courage, would fill a volume. One heroic woman took charge of a fort and defended it successfully against the enemy, although it was on the frontier and subject to many attacks. They knew if they were taken what a terrible fate would be theirs. If the Indians did not kill them, they drove them by long, hard marches through the wilderness till they reached some French settlement in Canada, and there sold these free-born English men, women, and children, as slaves to the French colonists.
During " King William's War," as this long conflict was called, many towns were destroyed. Schenectady in New York, Salmon Falls in New Hampshire, Haverhill in Massachusetts, were all rav- aged and burned. Sir William Phips, a "native of New England, led the English troops to Port Royal and was successful in taking it. Colonel Church, who had been in King Philip's War, also did good service at this time. When at length the Eneclish and French made peace, great harm had been done on both sides. Indeed, war very rarely does any good. You will see that more and more as you read history, and it is to be hoped as the world grows more civilized we shall get rid of it altogether.
Peace lasted about five vears, and then England and France went to fighting again. William and Mary were both dead, and Anne, Mary's youngest sister, was queen. " Queen Anne's War" was very much such a war as the preceding. The Indians were again en- listed on the French side, and the same horrible scenes were re-en- acted. The English also endeavored to join the Indians with them, and in some cases enlisted the tribes in New York, but ffliey were much more inclined to be the allies of the French. The French missionaries had been working many years to convert the savages,
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with much better success than had been gained by the EngUsh Puri- tans. A great many Indians had joined the Roman Cathohc Church and attached themselves to the religion of their French teachers. The English asserted that the French leaders made use of their re- ligious feeling, and told them that they were lighting for God when they were killing the English. I do not know if this were true, but the Euglish colonists believed it, and all through New England they passed more severe laws against Roman Catholics than they had done before, and hatred of the" Jesuits," as they called all priests of that religion, was more intense than ever. King William's War had been felt very little by any of the colonies, except New York and New England, but in this war of Queen Anne's reign, they got involved with Spain also, and so the Carolinas had their share of fighting with the Spanish colonies in Florida.
At length, in 1713, a new peace was made between France and England at the town of Utrecht, which was called the peace of Utrecht. In this peace France gave England the domain which they called " Acadie,'^ and we call " Nova Scotia." They also gave up the fur trade of Hudson Bay, and the whole of the island of Newfoundland.
One of the effects of these wars was that the colonies got in debt, and could not get gold and silver to pay what they owed, so they were obliged to issue notes. This was the first paper money ever used in the colonies.
The Indians still troubled the colonies more or less, especially in South Carolina. Indeed the history of all settlements in the country is the history of Indian troubles, and there is little hope of being en- tirely free from them*as long as the white man and the red man live on the same continent.
I am sorry to be obliged to tell you so much about war. It is not a very pleasant subject to read about. But I must make a brief mention of one more war between France and England in which they again involved their colonies, and then for a chapter or two we can pass to more interesting subjects.
This third war was called King George's War because it happened in the time of George II. You must understand that Queen Anne had died and been succeeded by a distant relative of hers from Hanover in Germany, who reigned under the title of George I. This king in turn had been followed by his son George II., in whose reign the new war was begun. We shall hear a good deal about
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the Georges of England for a long time to come in our history, and I want you to keep their names in remembrance.
"King George's War" began in 1744 and lasted four years. Then a famous peace was made between France and England called the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The treaty took its name from the place in Germany where it was signed by all the European nations who had been fighting together. In this country the fighting had been going on as briskly as in Europe. It seems incredible that Christian nations should have offered rewards for the scalps of their enemies, and yet it was done during these wars. When peace was declared, the governor of the French colonies ordered their Indian allies to be notified " that they were not to go to New England on any more war parties, as they will not be paid in future for prison- ers or scalps.''''
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FRENCH DISCOVERERS AND JESUIT MISSIONARIES.
Colony of Jacques Cartier. — French Fishermen. — Samuel Champlain the Father of New France. — Jesuits on the Mississippi. — Story of Isaac Jogues. — Indians worshiping with Roman Catholics.
Since I told you of the attempts of the brave sailor of St. Malo, Jacques Cartier, to found a city at Montreal, and the failure of Coligny to plant colonies in the Carolinas, I have not told you much about the progress of French colonies in America. I am now going back to take up the thread of my story where it left the French explorers and colonists, and tell you what they had done since the times of Cartier and Ribault. It is a long and interesting story, full of many strange and moving adventures, both by water and land.
Almost from the time that their ships first came over to America, the French merchants and sailors were interested in the fishing business which was so flom'ishing off the banks of Newfoundland. When Sir Humphrey Gilbert came over here in 1585, he found French ships fishing away on the banks. The discoveries of Ver- razano and Cartier gave the French their claim to the northern part of America, which they called New France. In 1603 the king of France gave one of his noblemen all that part of America between
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the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north hititude. Look on the map, and you will see just where this tract lies. At this very time, or shortly after, King James I. gave away some of this very land to companies of his subjects. Very little was known about boundary lands in North America in those days.
For many years before the time of James I., French merchants had been sending ships over here for furs, of which they brought home large quantities of very fine ones. It was so profitable that even the nobles of France did not disdain to be interested in the fur trade. After this tract of land was given away by the king of France, it was named Acadie, and for a long time the part of North America now called Nova Scotia bore that name. About the year 1603 Samuel Champlain sailed to explore America. He went to Maine and put a colony on its shores, but they suffered so from cold and want of provisions, that this site was given up. In 1608 he tried a colony in Quebec, Canada, with better success. The first winter was a hard struggle, almost as severe as the winter in Maine, but they were not discouraged, and in the spring Champlain set out to explore the country. He had with him a party of Indians who were at war with the tribes of northern New York. Champlain had made a treaty with them, to take their part against their ene- mies, if they would keep peace with him. They went in boats past the rapids of the St. Lawrence River, and finally reached the shores of a beautiful inland lake. Here they met a party of the hostile Indians, who prepared to attack them. But when Champlain turned upon them with his glittering muskets, and fired into their ranks ; when they saw the " thunder and lightning," as they called it, of the guns, they were filled with terror and fled, leaving a few dead and wounded behind tbem. The lake, on whose borders this fight took place, was Lake Champlain, and still bears the name of the man who discovered it. For many years Champlain remained in Canada, where he was called the " Father of New France." You have heard of the " Canadian boat-song," which is sung by the boatmen of the St. Lawrence. It is said that the first boat-song which ever woke the wild echoes of Canada, was sung by Cham- plain's sailors as they rowed up the river from their rude settlement at Quebec, to explore the unknown western wilderness.
After Champlain had been a few years in America, he sent over to France for some missionaries, to be employed in converting the Indians to the Christian religion. Nearly all the early explorers of
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France and Spain were devout Roman Catholics, and were anxious to convert the savages to their religion. No doubt Champlain was a sincere and good man, and desirous to save these heathen souls.
The sending for these missionaries, was a very important fact in the history of America. From that time forward they came in scores, all intent upon penetrating deeper and deeper into the wilder- ness, and setting up the cross, the emblem of their religion, where the Indians could bow before it. These Catholic priests, most of them, were " Jesuits," or " members of the Order of Jesus." They were nearly all excellent, self-denying men, who bore suffering, great perils, and cruel death, with meekness and heroism, in the service of their religion. While good John Eliot was at work teaching the Bible to the "bloody heathen" of New England, these priests had penetrated to the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Su- perior, and planted the cross in northern Michigan. While the English colonists had only learned the geography of the sea-coast on which they lived, these early Jesuits had explored the interior of the continent, all the Mississippi valley, and the whole course of the mighty father of rivers. The history of their travels is no less interesting than that of the early voyagers, who one century earlier had explored the region about the Gulf of Mexico, and discovered the " South Sea," and the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was fortunate for history that these Jesuits were men of education, wlio nearly all wrote accounts of the places they visited, and drew maps of the country over which they passed. Our first maps of the Mis- sissippi valley we owe to these missionaries.
One of the earliest Jesuits was Isaac Jogues. He came with an earnest desire to do good to the uncivilized Indian, and was one of those who went to Lake Huron to establish a mission at St. Mary's, on Lake Superior. Unfortunately the small-pox had broken out in the vessel which brought the Jesuits, and the infection spread from them to the savages. The Indians regarded the plague as an evil spirit sent among them by the priests, and for a time refused to listen to them. Poor Isaac Jogues was taken prisoner and dread- fully treated. They tore out his finger-nails, and forced him to run up and down a line of savage warriors, each of whom would strike at him as he ran, with war-clubs or tomahawks, till he was muti- lated and bleeding, and almost dead. Yet when he was at length released, and sent to his friends, Jogues could not rest till he had again been sent to preach to the Indians, and he was finally mur-
THE MISSISSIPPI EXPLORED. 153
dered by them with great tortures. Generally, however, the Jesuits made friends with the Indians, and were loved by them. Their manner of worship attracted the Indians more than the severe and simple mode of the Puritans. The priests brought pictures of the Virgin and the child Jesus to show the savages ; they wore robes of brilliant colors when they celebrated mass ; sometimes they would lead a band of Indians in solemn procession bearing banners and sacred images, to a place where a rude church was erected ; all the ceremonies were like a new kind of play to these children of the wilderness, in which they joined with grave delight.
The New England colonists hated the priests and accused them of inciting the savages to carry bloodshed into their borders. I do not believe this to be true, as in all the accounts of their lives and char- acters they appear to be men of great gentleness and purity, quite ready, and even anxious to die for their religion. They advocated temperance among the Indians, and when the French fur-traders be- gan to sell rum and brandy to the savages, the Jesuits begged that the sale of it should be stopped.
But though they petitioned the French Minister to forbid the sale of liquor to the Indians, they could get no better answer than this : " The principle is good, hut it will ruin trade, for the Indians are very fond of brandy, and if we do not sell it them, they will go and sell their furs to the Dutch traders in New York and get brandy of them."
So the French government said, " Give the Indians the brandy and all the prayers of the Jesuits did not arrest the evil.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
THE MISSISSIPPI EXPLORED.
James Marquette is sent to the Great River. — He goes with Joliet to Wisconsin. — Carrying their Canoes on their Backs. — The Bison and Deer. — Greeting of the Illinois. — Death of Marquette. — Robert La Salle in Illinois. — Fort Heartbreak. — Murder of La Salle. — Hen- nepin goes to Falls of St. Anthony. — Adventures of Marquette and Joliet. — Explorations of the Mississippi River ,by La Salle and Hennepin.
In the year 1673 a very important mission was undertaken by two of the Jesuits who had been teaching the Indians in the region of Lake Superior, These two men, James Marquette and Louis Joliet, were selected by the superior officer of their order to
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go on a voyage of discovery down among the Illinois Indians. It was a mission on which Marquette, who was a most pious and de- voted man, had long desired to be sent. Every day for many months he had prayed that God would put it into the heart of the priest from whom he received his orders, to send him down among these unknown savages, to whom he longed to preach the gospel. He had, also, another object in view besides the conversion of tlie Illinois tribe. He had heard of a broad river which the Indians called " Mississippi " — " great river " — which ran through a beau- tiful, fertile country till it reached the sea. You know this was more than a century after De Soto had explored the Mississippi, from its mouth almost to its junction with the Missouri, and the tradition of a ffreat river in the centre of this continent had become dim, and was almost forgotten. None of the French or English knew anything about the river, except by rumors from the Indians, of a great "father of waters" in the west. So Marquette, who had heard these rumors, longed to go and explore there. When he heard that leave had been granted him to set out, he fell on his knees and thanked God.
As soon as they were ready to start, Joliet and Marquette called together the Indians with whom they had been living, and asked them all sorts of questions about the way to the country of the Illinois. The Indians, who loved the good priests, told them all they knew. Marquette drew a rude map from the direction they gave, and with this poor chart they started in birch bark canoes for the unexplored wilderness.
They took to their boats at Mackinaw, and rowed to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Then they took the Fox River, as far as they could navigate it, thence across a short piece of swampy prairie, over which they carried their birch bij^rk canoes on their shoulders, till they reached the Wisconsin River. Embarked on the beautiful Wisconsin, they soon floated down to its junction with the Missis- sippi, and were borne upon the bosom of the great Father of Rivers. I wish you would get the map and trace out this journey of Marquette and Joliet. Imagine how perilous it must have seemed, and how blind the way was, and then fancy their joy at finding the river of which they had heard. The two companions paddled merrily on, looking with interest and delight at all they saw. It was June, and the shores were green and beautiful. Over the prairie they saw herds of bison or buffalo scattered, and some-
THE MISSISSIPPI EXPLORED. 155
times a moose or elk, seen in the distance, excited their wonder and dehght.
They had been just a week on the river, when to their great joy they saw human foot-prints on the bank. They stopped their canoes, pulled them up on the shore and followed the trail. In a short time they found an Indian village, whence all the people came crowding out to see them. It was a village of the Illinois tribe, whom Marquette had longed to find.
These people received Marquette with great kindness, and made a feast for him, where all smoked the calumet, or pipe of peace. At the door of the cabin where they were received as guests, an old man saluted them in these words : —
" How beautiful is the sun, O stranger, when thou comest to visit us. All our town awaits thee, and thou shalt enter our wig- wams in peace."
The Indians called Marquette " Black gown," on account of the long black cloth robe reaching to his heels which all of the priests wore.
After a friendly and pleasant visit among these Illinois people, Marquette and Joliet took to their boats again, and went down to the Arkansas region, to within a few days' sail of the mouth of the Mississippi. Their whole voyage is so interesting, that I wish I had space to give you a longer account of it.
Two years after he had been down the river, Marquette was taken ill, after a severe winter sojourn in the Illinois region, near where the city of Chicago is now built. He felt that he was soon to die, and welcomed death with great joy. The companions who were with him built a poor little cabin in the dim forest, and while they wept at his loss, the good Marquette consoled them, and told them not to be sad at his leaving them. When he died, they buried him in the lonely wilderness with many tears, for they all ioved him. His body was afterward taken to Mackinaw, and there it reposes at the junction of two lakes whose borders were the scenes of his pure labors.
After Marquette's death, a Frenchman named La Salle planned a new exploration of the Mississippi. Robert La Salle had been educated for a priest, but not liking the life, he had become a skillful captain and navigator. He owned land in Canada, and had been the commander of a fort there. When he started to explore the Mis- sissippi, he took with him a company of men, — sailors, mechanics,
156 STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
carpenters, and other workmen, that he might be able to build forts, or make settlements wherever he might fix upon a favorable spot. He went very much the same difficult and roundabout way which Marquette had taken, through Green Bay, Wisconsin. Instead of taking the Wisconsin River to its junction with the Mississippi, how- ever, he took the Illinois River, and by the middle of winter he found himself near a small lake called Peoria, in the centre of what is now the State of Illinois. He had not found the Indians disposed to be as friendly to him as they were to Marquette, and his journey to this place had been very hard and discouraging. On a little hill near the lake, he set his men to work to build a fort, which he called, in French, " Fort Heartbreak." I think this a very piti- ful title, and that poor Robert La Salle, who was a brave man, must have felt very sore at heart when he gave the place this name.
It was the winter of 1681 that La Salle finally got embarked on the great Mississippi to go down its current. In a few weeks they passed from the frozen region of the Illinois to the beautiful south- ern country of verdure and blossoms. They found plum, peach, mul- berry, apple, and pear trees in bloom, and the promise of fruits was luxuriant. At last, in April, they arrived at the Gulf of Mexico, and with great solemnity they planted the cross and raised the arms of France aloft on the shore. He called the great river the River Colbert^ in honor of the prime minister of France, and taking pos- session of the whole country in the name of the " mighty, invinci- ble, and victorious Prince Louis of France," he called it Louisiana.
La Salle made a journey north to tell the results of his voyage, and then came back again to the fort which he had left near the mouth of the river. In this last expedition he attempted to return to Illi- nois by land. Just after he had started back there was mutiny and dissatisfaction among his men. Some of these mutineers murdered the nephew of La Salle, who was out on an expedition with them. As his nephew did not return. La Salle went out into the forest in search of him, taking with him a priest who belonged to the party. On his way out. La Salle was very sad, and talked like a man in deep melancholy. As they walked on he suddenly came upon the bloody neckerchief of his servant, who had also been killed by these bad men. While La Salle was examining this, two of the murderers ' who were hidden in the grass, one on each side of him, fired sud- denly and gave him a fatal wound in the head. Thus died the brave Chevalier Robert La Salle, the first explorer of the Mississippi
THE LAST COLONIAL WAR. 157
River from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It seems almost as if the father of rivers had been fatal to its discoverers. Ferdi- nand de Soto was biu^ied in its bosom ; James Marquette died in the forest not far from its shores ; and Robert La Salle was murdered on its banks and buried in a lonely grave within hearing of its waves.
La Salle had sent one of his company, a priest named Louis Hennepin, to explore the Mississippi to the north, when he sailed south. Hennepin had gone up as far as the Falls of St. Anthony and had given these falls their name. So in this year (1682) the whole of the Mississippi region, and all the interior — which they now called Louisiana — had been explored by the French. This was shortly after Iving Philip's War in Massachusetts, and Bacon's rebellion in Virginia. And at that early day the territory which now forms the States of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana, had been traveled over by these Frenchmen, and in many of these States trading-posts for furs, or permanent settlements had been already made. Before the English had explored one hundred miles west of the sea-coasts, these devoted missionaries had opened up the great interior, with its magnificent lakes and rivers. Let us say, " All honor to them for their untiring energy and perseverance, which they exercised without hope of reward. All honor, also, to Robert La Salle, the brave gentleman who sleeps on the banks of the Mississippi."
CHAPTER XXX.
THE LAST COLONIAL WAR.
Position of French and English Colonies. — The English Colonies hug the Sea-coast Jealousy
between the Nations. — Trouble brewing. — Young George Washington. — His Winter Jour- ney to Fort Duquesne.
I WISH you would try and trace out on a map of the United States the position of the French and English colonies in our coun- try in the middle of the eighteenth century. If you do so, you will see that the English owned all the sea-coast on the Atlantic from Maine to Florida. In Florida the Spanish claimed ownership, and there they still kept up the old town of St. Augustine, settled in the Huguenot Ribault's day. Up to the north the English owned Nova Scotia (which the French called Acadie), ever since it had been
158 STORY OF OUU COUNTRY.
yielded them by the French in the peace that ended Queen Anne's War. The French possessions began in Canada on the St. Law- rence, stretched west to the great lakes, and followed down the valley of the Mississippi. They had a line of forts which were half mihtary and half trading-posts, beginning at Quebec and extending all through the west and south till they reached New Orleans. You will see that many of our large cities and towns in the west and southwest had their origin in these French posts. The fur-traders, and some of the soldiers, became at home in the wilderness. Often they married Indian women, who were devoted to their white hus- bands and made them very faithful wives. The French were a light-hearted, merry people, and they made sunshine in the wilder- ness. The Indians called them '^ good spirits." They joined in the dance with the red men, smoked with them, lived in their wig- wams, and were able to feel a more friendly regard for them than the English ever could feel. Consequently the Indian liked the light-hearted Frenchman, and would rather trade for furs with him than the more reserved English trader.
By the year 1750 the French forts extended from the Ohio River as far west as the present State of Kansas. You can see, then, that the French settlements somewhat resembled a broad half circle, ex- tending around the outer edge of the English colonies.
Now the grants of land which had been given to the English owners in North America by their sovereigns, were supposed, when originally given, to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Of course when Kings James and Charles granted lands, no one had any idea how wide the continent was. Some of the early colonists fancied it might be two or three hundred miles wide, but they knew nothing about it, and the English showed less inclination to be ex- plorers than either the French or Spanish. Instead of pushing into the wilderness, they would settle right down on the sea-coast, and go to trading with Europe. Yet they always felt that the land at their backs, in the great West, was theirs, and year after year it made them more uneasy as they heard how the French were finding great rivers and countries in the west, and creeping down behind them, making stronger forts, and getting all the richest fur trade with the Indians. It seems always to have been strongly felt by the European nations who settled on the continent, that they must own all of it. Over in Europe they got along very well by being cut up into small parts, and one nation getting a dice here, and an-
THE LAST COLONIAL WAE. 159
other a smaller slice there, but in America, the Englisli, the French, and the Spanish, seem to have felt they must have all or none. So you see it became as plain as the nose on your face, that the French and the English must have a war. The English colonies said to themselves, " Either Ave must crowd the French back out of that great tract which they call Louisiana, running west of us, from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico, on both sides the big river, or they will crowd us into the Atlantic Ocean, and we shall have no place here at all." Feeling as they did, the war had to come, because un- fortunately, as yet, nations have no better way of settling their dis- putes than by fighting. Just as two bad boys, when they quarrel over their playthings, bite and scratch, and tear each other's e^^es, so two great nations muster armies of innocent men, and send them out face to face to stand up and be fired at with guns and cannons, and fill fields with wounded and dying, and fill both countries with sobs of women and children whose husbands and fathers have died. After they have done this till one of them gets tired of it, and can lose no more men, they make peace, and the question is settled by a sensible treaty, as it ought to have been in the first place. Of all senseless and horrible proceedings, w^ar seems to me the worst, fit onl}'^ for poor savages, and not for civilized men and nations at all.
Peace was liardl}^ declared after King George's War before the French and English in this country began to differ about boundary lines. The first uneasiness was felt down in Virginia, where the French forts on the Ohio River came nearest their boundaries. Governor Dinwiddle (he was then governor of Virginia) sent a young major, George Washington, with a message to the French commander on the Ohio River, objecting to some of his operations there.
This George Washington you have no doubt heard of if you were born in the United States, and are old enough to read. It is he who afterwards was known as the " Father of his Country," and became one of our greatest heroes. His family had emigrated to Virginia in Cromwell's reign, and his great-grandfather was the John Washington who had been in the Indian war in Maryland, just before Bacon's rebellion. George Washington was a major in the Virginia military forces, and as he was born in Virginia, and knew the country well, he was just the man for Dinwiddle to send on such an errand.
He had a very hard journey, in cold weather, over mountains
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and rivers, wading and climbing, sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback, often in great danger from Indians. Once he and the gentleman with him worked all night with only one miserable hatchet, to make a rnde raft to cross a river which was too large and deep to ford ; all the time feai'ing the savages would come upon them. But they reached the French post on the Ohio at length, and saw the French commander, who did not give any satisfactory answer to their inquiries, and then they had the weary journey back again.
This expedition of Washington's decided Virginia that there must be war, and in this war all the colonies were united in feeling a desire to resist the French power in this country. Even weak Georgia, who had only been settled a little more than twenty years, was ready to do her best with grown up Massachusetts and Vir- ginia.
In 1754 an expedition from Virginia, with George Washington
as the second in com- mand, was sent to- wards Pittsburg, or where Pittsburg is now built. They were commanded to build a fort at the junction of rivers which form the Ohio, and to fight any one who molested them. Before they had proceeded far, a company of French came, drove them . away, and went on with the building of
Braddock's Head-quarters in Virginia. ^j^^ f^j.^.^ ^^^^^ liamcd it
Fort Duquesne. This is where Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, now stands. They had some fighting about here, and, his superior officer dying, young Washington, then only twenty-two years old, was made the commander of those forces. In the end he was beaten, and had to go back to Virginia, and this was the opening of the French and Indian War.
FOUR EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH. 161
CHAPTER XXXI.
FOUR EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH.
Plan of the Campaign. — Braddock's Contempt for American Jlilitia. — George Washington in the Expedition. — Braddock's Defeat. — French Neutrals. — Bm-ning of Acadie. — Evangeline. — Sir William Johnson. — King Hendrick killed.
After war was really begun over here, England, whom the colo- nists always called the " Mother Country," sent over one of the officers of her army to be the general of all the forces here. Troops were gathered in from all the colonies, and the sounds of the drum and fife, calling soldiers together, was heard all over the towns and villages of this new country. When the English general, whose name was Braddock, came to America, he found the colonies all ripe for war. The leading warriors all put their heads together and talked it over, and this was what they planned to do for their firsf campaign.
They agreed to divide into four divisions. General Braddock would take one and go down and attack Fort Duquesne, on the Ohio, where Washington had been beaten back. The second division, under command of General Winslow, was to go to the Bay of Fundy and look after Nova Scotia. This General Winslow was a grandson of Josiah Winslow, who had beaten the Indians in King Philip's War, and he was supposed to have good fighting blood in him. The third division, under Governor Shirley of Mas- sachusetts, was to attack Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, and Fort Niagara on Lake Erie. Finally, the fourth division, under Sir William Johnson, who lived in New York, and was well known among the Mohawk Indians, whom he hoped to induce to join his troops, was to attack two principal strongholds of the French known as Crown Point and Ticonderoga. Crown Point was on Lake Cham- plain, and Ticonderoga on Lake George in the present State in New York.
Now, for a little while, we will follow the fortunes of each of these four divisions as they set out on their diverse roads to subdue their hated French enemies.
Braddock went first in the summer of 1755, to make his attack on Fort Duquesne. He had brought over soldiers, and guns, and powder, and various stores from England, and landed them in Vir- ginia. He started on his march, accompanied by some of the Vir-
11
162 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
ginia militia, with young George Washington as his aide-de-camp. His way was rough and hard, a good deal of mountain climbing to do, rivers to ford, and trackless forests to pass through. The sol- diers, fresh from England, used to their own settled and level coun- try, hardly knew how to endure such hardships, and began to be discouraged and tired out before they had hardly begun their march. The colonist-troops, on the other hand, used to Indian fighting and life in the wilderness, were quite at home there. But General Braddock, who was a high-tempered, arrogant British officer, made up his mind before- hand to feel nothing but contempt for the colonists and their leaders, and paid no attention to their suo-gestions, when, if he had had the sense to have listened to them, they might have helped him greatly. The consequence was that Braddock was attacked by a party of French and Indians before Braddock. \yQ reaclicd Fort Duquesne, and met with a terrible
defeat. The general was killed, and if it had not been for some of the despised colonists with Washington at their head, very few Eng- lish would have been left alive. As it was, they lost hundreds of soldiers, while the French lost only a handful. And this was the end of Braddoclcs Expedition.
In the mean time. General Winslow, the New England com- mander, had started with his party for the Bay of Fundy. Nearly all these men were Massachusetts men, who hated the French and the Catholics more intensely than any other of the colonies. They believed that almost every attack of the Indians on their farms and villages during all the wars of WiWiam and Anne and George, was due to the influence of the Jesuits, whom they abhorred with all their might and main. Consequently they were delighted to march against Nova Scotia, which, although it belonged to the English by treaty with the French, was really settled entirely by French Cath- olics. These people were called French " neutrals," because they would not fight against the French, and were not allowed to fight for them. They were peacefully working their farms and minding their own afPairs, with war and rumors of war all about them.
The English chiefs, however, feared that these French neutrals would take part with their brother Frenchmen, and I have very little doubt they miglit some of them have done so. But even that fear did not justify the cruel conduct of the English. I am sure that you will think so, too, when I tell you what they did.
FOUR EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH.
163
As soon as they arrived in the beautiful Basin of Minas, the har- bor on whose borders these French neutrals were settled, they issued an order that the people all over the country should meet in their parish churches, and hear a proclamation, which the English wished to read to them.
The people in the settlements — there were about 15,000 in all — left their w ork and flocked to the churches. The farmer left his harvest field, the blacksmith his anvil, and the wife and maiden their spinning-wheels. When they got inside their churches they found themselves surrounded by crowds of red-coated British sol- diers. Unarmed, and unable to resist, they were hustled to the harbor, and crowded on board the English ships like herds of sheep and lambs who are to be sent to the slaughter-house. Families were torn apart ; wives lost their husbands ; and mothers looking over their flock of little ones, often found part of their children missing. Out- cries and bitter sobbing pierced the air, and ought to have pierced the hearts of their oppressors. But the ships sailed away with these poor people, and the hearts of the English remained steeled. As they sailed down the harbor in the twilight, the captives saw the soft September sky painted with a terrible glare, which lighted with lurid glow the whole heavens. It was the burning of their homes and barns and corn-ricks, which their merciless enemies had de- stroyed, that they might also destroy the last hope of the poor Acadians of ever finding their homes again.
All over the country these poor people were scattered. Many never met again the dear ones from whom they had been torn, and died of homesickness and heartbreak. A little company of them went down to the mouth of the Mississippi, and settled in the country about New Orleans. Some of the young maid- ens and children, separated from their parents, were made " bound servants" in the families of English colonists. Our poet Longfellow has written a lovely poem called " Evan- geline," which tells all this sad story of Acadie, and the history
Evangeline.
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STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of one of these Acadian exiles, torn from the home she had loved, and all she held dear.
Acadians leaving Home.
The next division of the army was commanded by Sir William Johnson. He was born in England, and had been appointed " In- dian Agent "' (or manager of affair's and trade with the Indians) of the colony of New York. He lived in a fine mansion, which he bnilt upon an eminence overlooking the Mohawk River, and had been very successful in making friends with /'^'*' Kins Hendi-ick, the chief of the Mohawk In- '^y'^%^ dians, and in gaining the good-will of the tribe. Sir William, who was a tall, elegant looking Sir William Johnson. mau, had adoptcd a dress not unlike that of an Indian chief, and wore leggings of deer-skin, and belt embroidered with wampum, so that he looked, when browned by the sun and
FOUR EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH.
165
wind, like a handsome Indian warrior. He had also taken an In- dian maiden, the daughter of a chief, for his wife, and this aided to make his friendship with the Mohawk tribe more secure.
These Indians, therefore, were quite ready to come to the aid of Sir William Johnson when the war broke out ; and when he began his march against the French forts at Crown Point and Ticon- deroga, a large party of Indian allies went with him. A party of the English forces had already built a fort a few miles above Al- hsmj called Fort Edward, and Sir William joined them and went
Block-house on Lake Erie.
on toward the place where he expected to begin his siege. All at once he heard that a body of French troops were coming on to at- tack him. He sent ahead a party of Indians and Americans to meet them, and these forces were beaten back by the French, and their two leaders killed. Both these leaders were men whose names ought to be remembered. The Indian was King Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, a noble and brave Indian. The American leader was Colonel Ephraim Williams, who, just before setting out to take part in this war, had made his will, giving his property to estab-
166 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
lish a college in Massachusetts. The institution now exists under the name of Williams College. This college remains as a proof that the early founders of this country remembered, in all their dark days of Indian warfare, the necessity for schools and universi- ties in this new land.
After dispersing the forces of King Hendrick and Colonel Will- iams, the French swept down upon Johnson. There they suffered severe retribution. Johnson had had time to get ready for them, and, when they attacked him, defeated them completely, taking their leader prisoner. He concluded, however, not to go on to Crown Point, and contented himself with building the fort at the north- ern part of Lake George (Fort William Henry). He also ordered the building of a line of forts all along the frontier from Albany to Oswego, and the whole of northern New York began to be well fortified and assume a warlike appearance.
The expedition under Governor Shirley against the forts on the
lakes did not begin favorably. Indeed it began so unfavorably that it was decided to abandon it for that time, and after sending a few hundred men to defend Fort William Henry, just built by Johnson's men, Shirley returned to Boston.
SucAi were the results of the four plans of Block-house. campaign for the year 1755, which celebrated
the opening of the great struggle for possession of this country between the French and English. You can imagine if you like what a difference it would have made in this United States, and in the people who live here, if the French had been in the end victo- rious. I doubt very much if there would have been any such country as the United States, if the colonies here had been made subjects of France.
SECOND YEAR OF WAR. 167
CHAPTER XXXII.
SECOND YEAR OF WAR.
French Fortifications iu America. — War in earnest. — Story of Mrs. Howe and her Children.
— Massacre at Fort William Henry. — Loss of a Noble Young Leader. — George Washing- ton's Advice to the British Colonel. — The City of Quebec. — Wolfe approaches the Fortress.
— The Heights of Abraham. — Defeat of the French. — Death of Wolfe. — Peace at last.
In the close of the last year, the mother countries had pre- tended not to take any share in the war of their American colonies. But they now began to see that it was time for them to take a more active part, and therefore France and England declared war against each other, for the fourth time in about seventy-five years.
Before we go any farther, I wish you to fully understand the exact position of the principal French and English forts in America. The description will not be very interesting, but it is necessary for you to get the position of the two countries mapped out in your head, in order that you may understand the plan of the war. For you know in a war for the possession of a country, the one who takes the most forts or strongholds will in the end be the victor.
First, then, the eastern end of the French line of forts was at Louisburg, a very strong place on Cape Breton Island, commanding all the fisheries and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. Next came Quebec and Montreal, the two old towns on the St. Lawrence. Then came Crown Point and Ticonderoga in New York, on Lake Champlain and Lake George. Fort Frontenac, where La Salle used to command almost a century before, was on Lake Ontario, and Fort Niagara was between the two lakes. The French line of strongholds thence extended down the Ohio River at Fort Duquesne, where Braddock was killed, and from thence all along the Missis- sippi, where they ended in New Orleans. There were a great many of these forts all over the Northwest, but I have only given you the names of those which were most important in the war.
Until this war began, the English had paid little attention to fortifying their western border. But as soon as the troubles broke out, they went to building forts, and at the opening of the second year of war, they had several important positions. Fort Cumber- land was built in Virginia, where George Washington was com- manding the forces of the colony. Forts Edward and William
168 STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Henry were built in eastern New York, near Crown Point and Ticonderoga. They were also strengthening their lines all along in New York, where they ended in the strongly fortified town of Os- wego. Besides these, of course their sea-coast towns, of Boston, New York, and Charleston, were always carefully guarded.
Now can you see it all like the pieces on a chess board ? If the English take Louisburg, Quebec, Ticonderoga, and the rest, they will beat France. If they cannot get them, and the French take Oswego and William Henry, get down to the city of Albany and take that, and then keep pressing in on the borders of Virginia and New England, in the end they will crowd the English out and get the rule here. Keep all this in mind now and we will rapidly fol- low the motions of the two armies.
As soon as they declared war openly, the French sent over to Canada a very able commander, named Montcalm, and the English sent two generals, Loudon and Abercrombie, each commander with troops and war ships. Loudon was not a very able man, and Aber- crombie soon superseded him.
As soon as war began in earnest, the worst feature of it, as usual, was the Indian raids upon defenseless villages. The peace that Sir William Johnson kept with the Mohawks in New York, helped them greatly there, but in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachu- setts these were dreadful days. The Indians were so bold that they came once within thirty miles of the city of Philadelphia, and the lonely little villages, remote from large cities, lived in constant dread. I could tell you stories enough to fill a great book, of white people who were taken captive and carried off to slavery by these terrible foes.
One summer morning in July a troop of hooting and yelling sav- ages rushed into a little village in New Hampshire. After their work of destruction and death was over, they left the settlement with a band of captives, among whom was a Mrs. Howe and her seven chil- dren. They scattered the children in various French families along the route, selling them to any family among the French who would give them gay calico for their squaws, or an iron kettle in which to cook food, or even a drink of " fire-water," to quench their thirst for the new strong liquor which the white man had brought among them. They permitted Mrs, Howe to keep her baby, who was only a helpless infant, and with this in her arms they took her to Mon- treal. Her dearest wish was to be sold to some decent French peo-
SECOND YEAR OF WAR. 169
pie as a slave, for terrible as it seemed for a free-born English woman to live in slavery, it was a bright fate compared to the pros- pect of being kept among the savages. But at Montreal her hope died out. No one would buy her because she had her infant with her. " We do not want a slave with a child," they said, " she will be nothing but a burden to us."
On this she was taken back into the wilderness, and her last child, her baby, was torn from her arms and given away, she knew not where, nor to whom. In the forest among the Indians, she suffered the acutest tortures of hunger, and when winter approached, of cold also. A few acorns found in the wood were a feast for her. In her dreams she heard the crying of her poor children, till it often seemed as if her mind would give way and she should go mad. At length she found her baby, and one of her other children, in the wigwam of an Indian family. When, with a cry of joy, she took her baby in her arms, the poor little creature was in such a famished condition that it bit its mother in the face like a starved wild animal. Fortunately, the poor infant soon died, and its sufferings were at an end.
In the spring her captors once more took Mrs. Howe to a French village, and succeeded in selling her. Her owners were kindly people and she was comfortable once more in body. But you can fancy what heart-ache she felt, torn from her kindred and home, as she saw herself day after day sinking into hopeless bondage, expect- mg to die a miserable slave. Such was the fate of many an English and French captive in these horrible wars. But Mrs Howe's case proved happier. Colonel Philip Schuyler, who was a prominent citi- zen of Albany, heard of her condition, and himself sent her money by which, she was able to purchase her own liberty and that of four of her sons. With these rescued children she returned to her home in New Hampshire. After the war she journeyed to Canada and recovered another child, a daughter. One of her daughters, who had been sold to the governor of Canada, was taken to France and respectably married there. This story is only one among thousands not unlike it, which are found in the annals of the French and In- dian wars in America.
The close of the year 1757 looked very dark for the English. The French had succeeded in taking Oswego, one of their strongest points. Montcalm, the French general, had laid siege to Fort William Henry. The garrison had held out nobly ; but at last, their
170 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
powder giving out, they were obliged to give up. Colonel Munroe was the commander there, and he obtained the pledge that his band of soldiers should go out unharmed from the fortress, leaving it to the French. The French commander gave his word, but no sooner had the brave little garrison marched a short distance from the fort, than a band of Indians, allies of the French, fell upon them and slew them without mercy.
The English colonies were filled with gloom and anxiety, and complained so loudly that some of their fears spread among their friends in England, and at the beginning of 1758 much more vigor- ous measures were taken. Three expeditions were sent out at once, against Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Duquesne. The force wliich be- seiged Louisburg after a hard siege took the town, thus getting one of the best strongholds of the enemy, and the control of the entrance to Canada.
At the same time General Abercrombie went to Ticonderoga, and here a sad event occurred for the English army. They were de- feated, and lost many men. Among others a brave young general,
Lord Howe, was killed, who of all their leaders was the one most liked by the col- onists. Nearly all the British officers, like Braddock, had felt and shown great con- tempt for the colonial soldiers and leaders, and this contempt for the advice and experi- ence of the residents in America lost the English many battles. But Lord Howe was a young soldier of better sense than most of Lord Howe, the othcrs. He lived like a plain soldier, in
a tent in the fields, dressed plainly, and ate soldier's fare. He found the soldiers' lives were often endangered by their long-tailed array coats, which the Indians would catch at from their ambush beliind trees, and he ordered all his soldiers to wear jackets, wearing one himself to set the example. He gave every attention to the health of his men, providing in all ways that he could for their comfort, and when they had discomforts he shared them with the men. Of course he was loved by every one; all called him a model com- mander, and when he died, fighting before Ticonderoga, all the country mourned for the young man, as a true gentleman and hero. Abercrombie's forces did some good service, however, after the de- feat at Ticonderoga. They went down to Oswego, retook it from the French, and afterward captured Fort Frontenac.
SECOND YEAR OF WAR. 17]
Colonel Forbes led the army against Duquesne. When he got as far as Cumberland, George Washington, who commanded there, said to him, " You had better go by Braddock's old road. A good many trees are cut down, and bridges built, in that road, and it will save time and labor."" But a British officer had no idea of paying any attention to young Washington, who was nothing but a col- onist, and so he started to make a new road. This hewing a fresh path through the wilderness caused them great delay and suffering, and might have caused the ruin of the whole expedition. Fortu- nately for them, however, the French heard stories of their coming, and fancied them much stronger than they really were. They were very short of provisions in the fort, and just before the English got there, they set fire to the place and ran away. The English took it and changed the name of Duquesne to Pittsburg^ and a flourishing city stands there to-day, on the site of the old French fort. This year ended in English rejoicing, with Louisburg and Duquesne in their possession, and Oswego back again, beside the smaller fort, Frontenac, which they had also taken.
Now that they held two such important points in the French lines as Louisburg and Duquesne, the English thought if they could only take Quebec the French power would be completely broken. But it was not an easy matter to take Quebec. You would say so if you had ever seen the town. It is built high up on the top of a precipice, at least two hundred feet above the St. Lawrence River, and the steep, rocky cliff looks as if no human foot could scale it.
A brave young English general, James Wolfe, had been at the taking of Louisburg, and behaved so gallantly there, that it was de- cided to send him to make an attempt on Quebec. He accordingly sailed thither with a large fleet, and disembarked on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, on a low-lying point of land known as Point Levi. By this time the French were growing uneasy at the English successes. They knew they must hold Quebec or acknowl- edge themselves beaten. They summoned at once the soldiery in Crown Point and Ticonderoga, who left those posts and came up to defend their more important fortress. For two months General Wolfe lay in his quarters at Point Levi, looking over at Quebec, and thinking how it were best to attack it. The town itself was built within a strong wall. Back of the city, lay broad green fields known as the " Plains of Abraham." Wolfe, who was constantly studying some means of reaching the top of the cliff, one day dis-
17^ STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
covered a little cove at tlie foot of the heights which ascended to these plains. From this cove, where boats could be run in, he thought the heights could be scaled. On a quiet, moonless evening in September, the army crossed noislessly in small boats, and under cover of night began the ascent. They were obliged to catch at projecting rocks, twigs, and roots of trees, to pull themselves up. Of all their artillery they could only get up one small cannon. How they ever dragged even that up, it is difficult to imagine.
On the way across the river, in the silent night, Wolfe, lying in his boat, wrapped in a cloak, murmured softly to himself some verses of Gray's " Elegy," and when he had finished, said, " I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec."
In the morning when the French were awake, they saw something stirring out on the Plains of Abraham. They rubbed their eyes in wonder. It could not be possible ! They could not believe their senses. And yet it really was the English army.
Montcalm was in Quebec, and on finding that the enemy were in- deed on the plains, he went to meet them with his whole force. A severe battle began. Wolfe was wounded twice, but still fought he- roically. As he led on his men in a final attack, he was struck in the side and fell with a deadly wound. At this moment he heard the cry, " They run ! They run ! " " Who run ? " he asked eagerly. "The French! " " Go," he cried, "cut off the retreat of the fugi- tives to the bridge." Then sinking back into the arms of his at- tendants, he said, " I die in peace," and breathed his last breath.
Montcalm was also killed in this battle, which was a fatal one for the French. With the taking of Quebec, they knew that their power was broken in America. Almost at the same time of the taking of Quebec, came news that Sir William Johnson had taken Fort Niag- ara which was the only place of consequence, except Montreal, left to the French in their whole line from Louisburg to Duquesne.
Now the people in Boston and New York rang their bells and shouted and hurrahed. The boys built bonfires, and everybody in the English cause was delighted at the approach of peace. The French governor went down to Montreal, and concentrated his forces there, but it was no use. They were obliged to confess them- selves beaten. This was in 1759, and peace would have been de- clared at once if the English government had not felt so elated over their success that they carried the war down into some of the West India islands owned by the French, and conquered those. In
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1762 peace was at last made between France and England. France had to give up all her possessions in Canada to the English, and all her claim to America, except the tract known as Louisiana. I have already told you what a large tract that was, a good many times larger than the present State of Louisiana.
To pay Spain for helping her in the war, they then were obliged to give Spain the Louisiana country, and thvis France lost her last claim to North America. Canada has ever since belonged to the English. Yet there are still many traces of the early French col- ony there. If you go to Quebec or Montreal, you will find that these towns are largely French. In the streets, stores, and markets you will hear almost as much French as English ; and you will see the Jesuit priests in their long black robes, mingling with English sol- diers in the streets. Outside the walls, on the green Plains of Abraham, is a granite monu- ment with the simple inscription, " Here lies Wolfe, victorious."
The fortress in Quebec is still very strong, much stronger than when Wolfe took it, and General woife.
there is always a large garrison there. The English are not afraid of the French any more. They cannot retake Quebec, but there is another great nation on her borders, against whom she would think it more necessary to keep Quebec guarded. Can you guess what nation it is ? I am going to tell you directly how there came to be this new nation in America. Only I wish first to take you among the thirteen colonies, and see in what condition they find themselves after this last French war.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A TOUR IN AMERICA.
Sailing for Boston. — Boston in 1760. — Dress of Lady and Gentleman. — Thanksgiving in New England. — Irish Flax Spinners. —By Stage-coach to New Haven. —New York Harbor. — A Dutch Interior. — Drive through New York City. — New Year's Day. — Up the Hudson to Albany. — Journey through New Jersey. — How Philadelphia Streets were named. — The Great State-house Bell. — Account of Benjamin Franklin. — Plantations in Virginia. — Christmas Festivities. — A Group of Noble Virginians. — Cotton Crop of Eliza Lucas.
Well, French rule is over in North America, and the English col- mists breathe freely. They have always been afraid that those
174 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
dreadful " Jesuits and Papists " would get control of affairs here, and they are very happy at having the dread removed. But this happiness is to be brief. In less than fifteen years these colonies, who are now rejoicing in the victory of their "dear mother- country " over that abominable nation of France, will be strug- gling to wrest their liberties from England, as men struggle from the grasp of their deadly enemy. There is a cloud now on their sky no bigger than a man's hand, which has in it all the thun- der of rebellion. As yet, however, they do not see the cloud, and while they take a resting and breathing spell after the long war, you and I will go on a journey over these thirteen colonies, visit some of the largest cities, and see how these people are getting on.
Can you go back in imagination to the year 1760, and fancy your- self an English boy or girl about to take ship for his majesty's col- onies in North America ? You cannot go there in a steamship, you know. There are no steamships, no steam-engines, no means of traveling by steam. Just about this time, a man in England, named James Watt, is experimenting with steam, to see' what can be done with it, but people generally have very little confidence that his labors will amount to anything.
So we will leave England in a sailing vessel, and shall be five or six weeks on the voyage, landing at last, very dirty and travel-worn, in the harbor at Boston, the lai'gest town in New England. This city is now one hundred and thirty years old, and is really quite a stir- ring metropolis. As we come up the harbor, we can see the English flag flying from the public buildings, and we know we are under the protection of English law, and the rule of an English governor.
The city, as you see, is built upon three hills, and already some fine looking houses are scattered about. Rather irregularly, how- ever, for this city was not carefully laid out when first settled, like Philadelphia or the new town of Savannah in Geoi'gia. There are from 16,000 to 20,000 people in the citjr, and the spires of ten churches rise from among the clustering houses of brick and wood.
That fine house of brick, three stories high, belongs to Governor Hutchinson, the lieutenant-governor and chief -justice of the colony. If we enter the house, we shall' find a large hall with massive stair- case heavily carved, the floor laid in elegant mosaic of different woods. In the parlors the walls are painted in fresco, fluted columns supporting the ceiling, and heavy mahogany furniture is set round in stately grandeur. There are many houses in Boston which rival
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Governor Hutchinson's in magnificence, and these things show a great improvement in arts and manufactures since the time the col- onists first landed at Plymouth. Another fine house is the Province House, It stands on the principal street, a stately pile of brick, with the king's arms, handsomely gilded, put over the entrance. It has a little garden-plot in front, in which are a few trees. A cupola surmounts it, with the figure of an Indian on top, made of bronze.
John Hancock's Residence, Boston.
A little farther down is the court-house, which is thought quite a grand building ; and still farther on is Peter Faneuil's new struct- ure, Faneuil Hall, the most imposing in the town. Near the court- house is the " South Meeting-house," and at the other end of the town, on Copp's Hill, stands the "-North Meeting-house." King's Chapel is the Episcopal church, and here the king's officers, who are nearly all stanch churchmen, attend worship.
Across Charles River, in the town of Cambridge, stands Harvard College, a flourishing university, almost as old as the town itself. There many of the rising young men of Massachusetts have gradu- ated, among whom are Mr. John Adams and Mr. John Hancock of Braihtree, who have both just left its walls.
Dress has also changed very much since the time of James I. and Charles 11. The Puritans could not be called " Roundheads " any
176 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
more. They wear great powdered wigs when they go out in full dress, or else powder their own hair, and tie it behind in a long queue. Do you see that gentleman standing in his door taking a sniff of morning air before he goes out to walk ? It is one of the prominent citizens. He has on a red velvet cap, with an inside cap of white linen which turns over the edge of the velvet two or three inches ; a blue damask dressing-gown lined with sky-blue silk ; a white satin waistcoat, with deep embroidered flaps ; black satin breeches with long white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. When he goes out into the street he will change his velvet cap for a three-cornered hat ; his flowered brocade for a gold-laced coat of red or blue broadcloth, with deep lace ruffles at the wrists ; put a sword at his side, and wear a pair of shoes with great silver or gold buckles. Then he will be a well-dressed gentleman of the eight- eenth century. If he were a very young man, and a good deal of a dandy, his toilet would be more elaborate. His shirt front would be trimmed with fine lace, with a great brooch stuck in it, his breeches of green or red velvet, or white, lilac, or blue satin, and his morocco shoes would have diamond buckles.
The lady in the next house, who is going to a dinner party, sat three hours under the barber's hands to get her hair done in that amazing mass of frizzles and puffs and rolls, one upon the other, till it looks like a Pyramid or the Tower of Babel. She has on a bro- cade dress, green ground with great flowered sprigs on it, looped up over a pink satin petticoat. It is very low in the neck, with a lace stomacher, and is very tightly pulled over a stiff hoop which sticks out so on both sides that she has to go in at the door sideways. The heels of her shoes are very high, and she wears beautiful white silk stockings. Do you think lier tastefully dressed ? At home she
wears a cap and a pretty chintz gown, a neat little white apron and muslin kerchief over her neck. These are the rich people who dress thus. The farmers' wives wear checked dresses of linen for summer and linsey-wool- sey for winter, which they spin themselves ; while their husbands and sons wear stout leather breeches, and checked shirts or smock-frocks. On every day but Sunday, the mechanics and laborers wear leather Spinning-wheel. aprous, and are not ashamed of this badge
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of employment. This is the way the people look in America in these prosperous days. The sober Roundheads of Cromwell's time would hardly know their American brothers of George the Third's day.
The Puritan people have changed more in dress than in manners. Thev still keep strict watch over the religious habits of their church- members, and they look on the Church of England as very little short of Popery. They will not keep Christmas nor any like holi- day. Instead, their chief day in the year is Thanksgiving Day, which they celebrate in the fall, after the harvest is gathered. Then the good housewives cook pumpkin pies and mince pies for a week beforehand, and at dinner on the eventful day, the table groans under the weight of turkeys, chickens, pies, and smoking plum-puddings. They have frequent tea-drinkings — the AmericaA women are famous for their passion for the Chinese herb — where the women take their knitting-work and sewing for the afternoon, and end the day with a sociable cup of tea. The residents of New England who favor more latitude of amusement than is found in the simple social life just described, are generally either those of English birth who hold office under the crown, or the children of the rich Americans who have imbibed worldly notions abroad. In the country, the life is still more primitive and untainted by any breath of fashion.
Although Boston is the great centre of Massachusetts in 1760, we must not imagine that Boston is all of New England. Industrious and thriving towns are growing up all over these colonies. In the town of Derry, in New Hampshire Colony, a company of thrifty people, called Scotch-Irish, settled forty or fifty years ago, bringing with them their wheels for spinning flax. They taught the Massa- chusetts women to spin better linen than they had yet been able to produce. All along the coast of Maine, still a province of Massa- chusetts, the hardy lumbermen are cutting down the great pine- trees of Maine, making them into masts for vessels, which they send by ship-loads to England. In all the growing towns on the sea- coasts, the hammer of the ship-carpenter and the boat-builder is heard. To be sure, nearly all manufactured articles are brought from England ; still, many kinds of manufactures are successfully begun. They are making shoes in Lynn, cotton and woolen cloth in Rhode Island, and very good silk for ribbons and dresses in Con- necticut. Everywhere new industries are starting up, that the
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
people may not be obliged to send so far for the comforts and luxu- ries of life.
If we should stay long enough to visit all the places in New Eng- land which have something interesting about them, we should stop at least a year. We cannot spend so long a time, therefore we will take the stage-coach from Boston to New York city. We shall be at least a fortnight on the way. If the fall rains are heavy, and the roads muddy, we shall be longer perhaps, and if the stage gets into a deep rut of mud, all the passengers will get out, and pry the clumsy old vehicle out upon solid ground again.
Anrserican Staae-coach.
On we go then in the stage-coach. The driver sounds his horn, cracks his whip, and we whirl along merrily. In the evening we have a great bull's-eye lantern in front of our coach, glaring like an eye of fire, as we crash along through forests, and over lonely roads. We go through Connecticut, through the towns of Hartford and New Haven, — the towns settled by the west country people in 1635. New Haven has a college called Yale, founded in 1701. In that year a party of ten Connecticut ministers met together, each bringing a few books, which he laid down saying, " I give these •to found a college for learning in Connecticut." That little begin ing has flourished, and Yale is already a powerful rival of Harvard.
At New Haven we have reached Long Island Sound, and if we choose, we can here take a vessel for New York. If we choose too, we may, before leaving New England, go by the Sound to New- port, and see how Roger Williams's colony flourishes. We shall find Providence a thriving city, and her sister town of Newport, by
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the aid of its splendid harbor, growing more prosperous every year. Here, into the beautiful Narragansett Bay, ships come from abroad, loaded with rich cargoes. If Roger Williams had been ever so much of a dreamer, he could hardly have dared to dream so much ])rosperity could come to his poor, struggling colony in little more than a century.
And now we have left New England, the home of the Puritans and Pilgrims, and are in New York, the New Amsterdam of the stirring Dutch traders. If we go by a vessel, *we can sail up to the foot of the island right in the teeth of the guns which the Dutch fired against the British when they came to take the city in 1664. The fortifications are stronger now, and they have a line of guns all around the " Battery," as the lower end of the city is called. Behind the fortifications, the Battery is planted with fine shade trees, which look green and beautiful. Here and there you see a windmill, which reminds you of the early days when brave Peter Stuyvesant was governor. Let us walk up the principal street. It is called Broadivay ; what odd looking houses, of yellow and black bricks, with great iron figures on the front to tell when the house was built! Some of the brick houses have dates as early as 1650 and 1660. They have very pointed gable roofs, with weather-cocks on top. The houses have balconies in front, and in the summer evenings you will see the families sitting there to enjoy the fresh sea-breeze. Would you like to go into one of the houses of. the Dutch citizens? They are very nice and clean, for these Holland people are the tidiest in the world. This is the best room. There is no carpet, although a few of the richest people in the colonies are beginning to use them. Instead there is a large drugget in the middle of the floor. The walls are not papered, but there are a great many pictures in little frames, hung all over them. See the great wide chimney with blue and white tiles, with Bible pictures on them, all inlaid about the chimney-piece. On each side the chimney is a deep alcove, which makes two cozy nooks, in which we could sit to read or sew. The great high bedstead, with feather bed, is in the corner, and in that high chest of drawers beside it are stores on stores of linen sheets, not very fine, but very white, which the thrifty housewife and her daughters have spun themselves. There are also stores of home-knit stockings of red, green, and blue yarn, and you will see in the street many stout legs cased in red or green stockings which have been knit by the quick fingers of
180 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
mothers and wives. The chairs are leather-covered, with high backs ; and two chairs covered with " blue damask trimmed with silver lace " are very carefully kept, because they are too nice to be used, except on extra occasions. In the living-room you will find stores of shining pewter-ware, with some silver, and some delft earthenware, all set up for show in closets with glass doors. These are very comfortable homes, and pleasant, are they not ?
In the street again, we find that the city is full of trees, which make a cool shade. The locust-tree prevails, with its fragrant white blossoms, and the birds are singing gayly in the branches. At night, the frogs croak loudly, because there are many large swamps which are full of frogs. There are a great many wells in the city, but the water is bad; therefore the people bring most of their water from " Fresh-water Pond," out in the country, a mile or more from the Battery. You very often meet a water-cart, sell- ing water for a penny a gallon, at the doors of the houses.
There are not many private carriages yet used, but we can get an " Italian chaise," a comfortable vehicle with two wheels, and drive out of town. We go past the fine church with a tall steeple called " Trinity," and past King's College, which is a grand new college just built. It is a very short drive before we are in the broad open country, with cows and sheep feeding all about. At night, the herdsman comes, blows his horn loudly, and all the cattle follow him back through the streets of the town, and he leaves them each at the owner's door till the next morning. When we have driven far enough, we can go back through the side streets, which are filled with children on their way from school. Although this is an English town, you hear almost as much Dutch spoken as Eng- lish. The children's names, too, Peter Ryckman, Catharina Van- dam, Hans Jacobs, Anthony Jansen, these are not like the names you hear in Boston. There are English names, too, of course, be- cause for many years the English have been peopling New York, and the names of Livingston, Jay, and Murray are heard among those of Holland extraction. The names of the streets, however, are largely Dutch, and you can almost read the history of the town in the names at its street corners. The houses of the rich English resi- dents and those of the wealthier Dutch, have stately mahogany fur- niture, and stores of silver and china, while their dress is even more gorgeous than in the Puritan cities.
You can see plainl}^, however, that the earliest settlers of this
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growing metropolis have impressed their characteristics strongly upon it. Even in their amusements and occupations you see this. Their chief summer recreation is in forming sailing parties up the Hudson, where they go to eat turtle-soup, which is made in great perfection there. They have no Thanksgiving Day, but " New Year's " they keep with great festivities, and the custom of making New Year's calls and presents is celebrated most gayly among the Hollanders.
Oysters have never before been known so plentiful and cheap as in New York. They are largely used by the poorest classes, because they are so cheap. Truly, this city seems a goodly one to dwell in, does it not ? We feel ^uite sure it will be one day a large city.
Albany, up the Hudson, is also growing rapidly, and even more than New York is like a town in Holland. But we cannot stop to visit it now. We must go on to Philadelphia. We shall go by stage-coach through New Jersey, traveling over a pleasant country dotted with farms, very green and fertile. Many of the old Swedish settlements remain, and their comfortable stone farm-houses are seen, overtopped by the large barns and granaries. Orchards of peaches and cherries border the road. We can climb the fences anywhere and help ourselves to fruit. The owner will find no fault. Every- thing is abundant in this new country, and there are not travelers enough to make trespass laws necessary.
Three days' journey brings us to Philadelphia, and we will go to the London Coffee House on High Street and get breakfast. The streets are not crooked here, as in Boston. William Penn was very careful about the appearance of his new city, and it was laid out in broad squares, with streets crossing each other at right angles. When the city was first built, they chopped down trees to mark where a street was to be cut through. Sometimes it was a walnut- tree, sometimes a chestnut. " Penn's woods " bore a great variety of trees. So the streets were called " Chestnut," " Walnut," " Elm," after the stumps which had marked them, and Philadelphia streets continue to be named for trees, just as those in New York are named for its early settlers.
Of all the cities of the New World, I think Philadelphia is the handsomest. The people, too, how differently they look. There are a few dressed in the bright colors which are the fashion, but most wear the quiet Quaker colors, — drab, pearl grays, and delicate brown. The women, like Jenny Wren, wear plain brown or drab
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gowns, " and never go too tine." With their large bonnets, which shade their eyes, and keep their faces smooth and unwrinkled, they look very sweet and peaceful. The white muslin crossed over their breasts is like drifted snow. The men, with broad hats and long drab coats, look much as William Penn did eighty years ago.
The houses, like the owners, are substantial, but quiet and un- pretending. There are many brick houses, for this colony is rich in clay, and they began very early to practice brick-making.
The state-house in Philadelphia is an imposing brick building, and the citizens are very proud of it. A great bell, the largest bell in all the country, has just been put up in the steeple of the state-house, whose grand peal is soon to announce to the world that the Americans have declared their independence from the rule of Great Britain.
Before we leave Philadelphia, I want to tell you about one of the most remarkable men who was ever born in America, and give you some idea of his character and good works. This man is Benjamin Franklin. He was born in Boston, but when only a youth he came to Philadelphia to make it his home. When he tirst landed there his pocket contained a dollar and a few cents, his only capital. Not his only capital either, for he had beside that his head and hands, and a thorough knowledge of the printer's trade. You have heard, doubtless, how he bought tlu-ee large rolls at the baker's, and walked up the city streets, eating one of them, while he carried the others, one under each arm.
He went to work at once setting type in a printer's office, and in a year went to England, from whence he returned to Philadelphia, to edit a newspaper of his own. He was never so busy with his own affairs that he could not interest himself in those of others. He started a debating society for the discussion of all the topics of the day, in which he induced other young men to take part. He organ- ized a public library. He originated the plan for the University of Pennsylvania, now a flourishing institution. Everywhere the town shows some monument of his intellect and practical energy. Noth- ing is too high, or too low, to interest this great man. He has made experiments to prove that lightning and electricity are the same forces, and has just invented the lightning rod, to diminish the dangers of accident. He has also introduced a welcome inmate into the parlors of Philadelphia — a new stove, called the " Franklin," the best heater yet in use. From lightning-rods and stoves, humble
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instruments of blessing to man, which he leaves his studies in science to produce, he has turned his clear head to politics, and is now on an embassy to London, intrusted by four colonies with the management of their affairs in the mother-country. You will hear him often mentioned as this history goes on, and you will hear only good of him. That plain house in High Street is his, and his duti- ful wife is now fitting and furnishing it for his return. She writes him to bring home from England some new table-cloths, and some panes of glass to set in a closet door ; and tells him she shall not drive up the nails for the pictures till he comes home, because she wants him to see that they are just right. So you see this great man, who founds libraries and universities, and makes a familiar of the lightning, can attend to as small an affair as the driving up of picture hooks.
In all Philadelphia, at this time the handsomest city in these colonies, I find nothing so well worth seeing as Benjamin Franklin, and since he is gone away, we will take our luggage and pack to Virginia.
If we measure by the growth of Boston or New York, we must expect Jamestown in Virginia to be larger than either of these cities, since it is several years older. But the colony of Virginia has had a different kind of growth from Massachusetts or New York. You remember how the settlers scattered about at first, selecting their homes wherever the site pleased them, and cultivat- ing large farms of tobacco, which is sent to be sold in England. It has not been their custom to build up large towns for commerce and manufactures, like Massachusetts and New York, and in jour- neying through Virginia you will see" here and there a planter's house with great, hospitable porch, and wide, open front door, inside which 3^ou are made heartily welcome, but you will see few of the fast growing towns and villages which are scattered all over New England. All about the planter's large house are little cabins in which swarm negro babies and their mothers. The men are out at work in the tobacco fields. These two products, tobacco and negro slaves, make the wealth of Virginia, and just now her planters are very rich, and some of them live like princes. We have seen a good many black slaves in Philadelphia, and a few in New England, but here in Virginia all the work is done by blacks. These people have multiplied exceedingly since the year 1620, when the Dutch traders landed twenty Africans in Virginia. Now this colony not only has
184 . STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
negroes as many as she can use, but sells them to the other colonies. Georgia, which was at first opposed to the introduction of slave labor, has now for several years been holding slaves, many of whom she imported from Virginia.
I have told you the Virginia planter lives like a prince. I have a picture of one of them, taken about this time. He wears a crimson velvet coat embroidered with gold ; silver-gray satin waistcoat richly wrought with gold figures ; a green silk sash, white silk stockings, green velvet breeches, and diamond shoe-buckles. Round his neck he wears a jeweled locket, with a portrait in little of King George II. He owns some of the largest tobacco fields in Virginia. His sons are sent to England to be educated, and his daughters have ' been presented at court in London. When he is in Virginia he rides to Williamsburg, which is the capital and the nearest large town, in a great coach with yellow wheels, drawn by six horses. About Christmas time they have jolly festivities in his house. He invites his neighbors, and they have a grand Christmas dinner, and in the evening music and dancing. The young ladies play the harpsicJiord (they do not have pianos, but the harpsichord or the spinet makes very good music instead), and the young gentlemen play the violin, and there are merry times.
The Virginia gentleman is also a great sportsman, and hunting and fishing are his chief amusements. Nearly all visitors to the col- onies think the Virginia planter is most of all to be envied. He has a contempt, quite strongly expressed, for the New Engianders. He says they are too stingy, and think too much of their money. But the fact is, the planter is spending his money too fast. He is wasting his soil and putting nothing into it for the tobacco he takes out ; and while the New England er is spending his money in col- leges and public schools and manufactories, Virginia is sending hers to England to bring over big lumbering coaches with yellow wheels; gay dresses, and rich furniture which will wear out and leave noth- ing behind.
There are noble men in the Virginia colony whose names we are sure to hear mentioned hereafter. There is George Washington, who did such good service in the French war. He has married a rich widow, and lives on his great estates at Mount Vernon in Fairfax County, on the Potomac River. He is occupied in managing his affairs, and spending his leisure time in hunting and fishing, for he is an ardent sportsman. There is the stirring young orator, Patrick
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Henry, whose eloquence is the talk of all Virginia. The two rising lawyers, Richard Henr}'^ Lee and Peyton Randolph, are known by everybody. There is another young man not so well known, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, now at William and Mary's College in Williams- burg, who is certain to make his mark one of these days. If great men can make a community thriving, Virginia is rich in material for prosperity.
The Carolinas and Georgia are rich in tobacco and rice planta- tions, and down in the swampy fields where the rice grows, you will see bands of black slaves at work. The Carolina planter is not as rich as the Virginian, but he is prosperous, and the towns of Charles- ton in South Carolina, and Savannah, which good Mr. Oglethorpe laid out so carefully, are handsome cities.
As yet they have no export in the Carolinas which rivals tobacco in the riches it bi'ings to the planters. But twenty years ago a 3^oung girl of eighteen, named Eliza Lucas, was managing a plantation all by herself in South Carolina. Her father sent her some cotton seeds from the West Indies, and she planted them and had a good crop. She tried also raising the indigo plant, and found that successful, and when she married Mr. Pinckney two or three years later, she interested him in her attempts at planting cotton and indigo. Already cotton is an article of growing export from Charleston, and the time will come when all other exports will sink into nothing besides this king of products, and it will rule trade with a rod of iron.
Well, our journey is ended. We have made a rapid tour of the king's colonies in North America, and will take return ship to London, from whence we came. Daring this year (1760) his majesty King George 11. has yielded up his crown and sceptre, and gone to sleep in the royal tomb at Westminster Abbey. His grandson, George III., is just crowned King of Eng- land, and as we sail away, guns are fired off from the fort in Charles- ton harbor, in honor of the new monarch. From all sides go up the cry, " The King is dead. Long live the King ! " Let us see in the next chapter how we like this new king.
Cotton Plant.
18ci STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
UPRISING OF THE COLONIES.
The New King. — Royal Treasury empty. — Taxation without Representation. — Stirring Scene in Boston State-house. — The People and the Stamp Act. — Speech of Patrick Henry. — Our Defenders in England.
The year 1761 beheld a new monarch ascend the throne of Eng- land. He was a young man of twenty years, the grandson of George II., the preceding king. England was just emerging from the clouds of her war with France. The war had been long and ex- pensive, and the English government wanted money very much, so much that they were not particular about the means by which they got it.
The young king had not the best of advisers. William Pitt, a man of great intellect and elo- quence, who had been the secretary of state in "iCflsWr^"'" ^^^^ grandfather's reign, did not gain the ear of William Pitt. the new monarch, and his favorite counselors
foolishly advised him to tax the American colonies to raise some money to put into the royal coffers.
The American colonies were worn out and tired to death with war. They had really done more than half the work of driving the French out of Canada. They felt that if ever the "mother-country" ought to be proud of her children over here, and tender of them, it should be after they had unfurled the English flag above the walls of Louisburg, Duquesne, and Quebec. Besides, the American col- onies had never been an expense to the crown of England. On the contrary, they had paid their own way almost from the first, and- were really valuable acquisitions to the power of England. So that the proposition to tax them without allowing them to have any voice in the matter, was not very agreeable, as you can fancy. To state the matter in six words, " They objected to Taxation loitlioid Representationy
Now do you know just what that means ? " Taxation without representation ? " If not, I shall be obliged to tell you, because it is quite necessary you should understand it.
A " tax" is a sum which must be paid on any article used by the people who are taxed. It may be tea or sugar or tobacco, or any
UPRISING OF THE COLONIES. 187
other article imported into a countr}^ and the tax may be five cents, or ten cents, or any number of cents a pound. If it is silk, or any fabric for wearing apparel, the tax would be so many cents on a yard. All the teas or sugar or silk, or any other taxable article, must be weighed or measured when it comes into a port, and the people pay so much extra on each pound or yard, which goes into the coffers of the government.
When this country is taxed (and we always have some taxed articles to furnish money to the government) we send our represent- atives to Congress to make laws about the taxes, and choose the men whom we believe worthy of trust. These men represent us in making laws, and we are willing to pay such taxes as they decide are wise and proper. This is taxation ivith representation.
But the American colonies had no votes in England. They did not send any representatives over to the great English Parliament, where laws were made regulating taxes and everything else in Eng- land. Therefore, when the English minister. Sir Richard Grenville, said in effect, " We are now going to pass a law to tax you, and you must submit to it," the blood of the colonies boiled fiercely with rage. They said, " We will not submit to it. We tax our black African slaves, and take their earnings without allowing them to have any voice in the matter, because they are our slaves. But we are not slaves. You mean to treat us as if we were, but we will NOT endure it. We will never hear taxation without representation.''''
Previous to the accession of George III. there had been laws passed taxing various kinds of merchandise in the colonies, but these laws were generally ignored, and were considered worthless. The first step the English crown took towards this tyranny they were planning was to send over here legal documents called " Writs of Assistance." These writs commanded the king's officers to search anywhere, in a man's store or his house, for articles taxed under the old laws, and seize upon it, in the king's name. One old tax which had not been enforced was on sugar and molasses. It was proposed to put that in force, and make the people pay it. The worst feature of the writs of assistance was, that the king's officers were authorized to oblige the colonial sheriffs and town officers to assist in breaking into a man's house, and search for his taxable goods.
There was a stirring scene in the old Boston state-house in Feb- ruary, 1761. The council chamber was filled to overflowing. Five
188
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
judges, with Governor Hutchinson, the chief-justice of Massachu- setts, at their head, were seated in state, grandly dressed in long flowing robes of scarlet broadcloth, with great wigs on their heads, which made them look as big as bushel baskets. At a long table covered with papers and law books, sat all the lawyers of Middlesex County in their black gowns and wigs. At each end of the room was a picture in a splendid gilt frame, of the two sovereigns, Kings Charles II. and James II. The scene was like a grand picture itself, and there were heads there better worth putting on canvas, than the reckless Charles II. and his contemptible brother James.
This assembly was gathered to hear an argument from a young Massachusetts lawyer, James Otis, against the writs of assistance.
It was a speech that fired every American who heard it, and sent him away with " Liberty " ringing in his ears. John Adams, afterwards a president of the United States, heard Otis speak, and de- clared " American independence was then and there born." It was a speech that silenced the king's officers. They dared not mention " writs of assistance " that day. I think Governor Hutchinson, who was an American born, must have writhed in his scarlet gown, as he sat under the blazing eloquence of this glorious orator.
It would be a long story, and tiresome, if I followed out every act by which the English attempted to force the colonies to accept their will as law. I shall only mention the most notable acts, the first of which is called the " Stamp Act." This was a taxed paper, and bore a royal stamp. The colonies were ordered to use it on all business or legal contracts. Nothing would be legal, not even a marriage ceremony, if the contract were not on stamped paper.
The people all over the coiintry were very angry when this stamped paper was sent here. Of all of them Boston was a little the worst. The Boston people would not buy the paper. They would not get married, not buy or sell anything, or do any business which obliged them to use it. They made a great figure of straw dressed up in a red coat to look like Mr. Oliver, the royal officer who had the stamped paper to sell, and hung the figure on a tree on Boston Common, which is since called " The old Liberty Tree."
James Otis.
UPRISING OF THE COLONIES.
189
They broke into Governor Hutchinson's house, and made great havoc there, burning his books and papers. I am sorry for that, for Governor Hutcliinson was a man of abilit}^ who wrote a very good liistory of tlie colonies, and he lost there many valuable papers which would be interesting now for us to read.
In New Hampshire, when the news of the passage of the stamp act was made public, the bells were tolled, and the people summoned to a fmieral. A coffin with the inscription, " Liberty — died 1765," was paraded through the streets. It was carried to the grave, guns were fired over it, and a funeral oration spoken. Just as they were about to bury it, it was declared that there were still signs of life ; the coffin was again carried through the streets with " Liberty alive again," inscribed upon it. These things show the spirit of the peo- ple, and that they had no idea of burying their liberties without a struggle.
In New York city they hung an effigy of the governor, burned up his carriage, the only piece of his property they could lay hold of, and be- haved as unreason- ably as mobs usu- ally do. All over the colonies a so- ciety called " Sons of Liberty " was formed by the men who meant to fight rather than yield.
In Virginia they held a meeting which was ad- dressed by Patrick Henry, a spirited young Virginian. He spoke so boldly for freedom that the older men were Patrick Henry.
alarmed. When he introduced some resolutions claiming that the American colonists were free-born Englishmen, and to tax them
190
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
without their consent was tja-anny, there was a terrible struggle over their passage. During the debate Patrick Henry rose.
" Caesar had his Brutus," he cried, " Charles the First his Crom- well, and George the Third" —
Here all the timid listeners who thought this sounded like a threat against the king's life, began to shout, "Treason ! Treason ! "
Patrick Henry waited till they were quiet, and then he ended impressively, " and George the Third — may profit by their exam- ple. If that be treason, make the most of it."
Patrick Henry before the Assembly.
Benjamin Franklin had been sent to England from Philadelphia, to use his influence against taxation. He found a strong party on his side in England. William Pitt, the great English statesman ; Colonel Barre, who had fought here in the French wars ; Edmund Burke, the great jurist and orator ; the lord mayor, and many of the citizens of London, all sympathized with the colonies. Pitt made a speech in which he said, "We are told America is obstinate ; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has re- sisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instru- ments to make slaves of all the rest."
- When Mr. Charles Townsend asked in the English parliament, " Will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge their
MORE OPPRESSION.
191
mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of the burden which we lie under ? " Colonel Barre started to his feet and said : —
'"'■ They planted by your care! Your oppression planted them in America. They fled from tyranny to a then uncultivated and in- hospitable countr}^, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human beings are liable.
"They nourished by your indulgence ! They grew up by your neglect of them.
"They protected by your arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defense, have exerted their valor for the defense of a coun- try whose frontier was drenched with blood, while its interior yielded its little savings to your emolument. And believe me, re- member that I this day told you, the same spirit of freedom that actuated that people at first, will accompany them still."
Hurrah for Pitt and Colonel Barre ! Next fourth of July re- member to give them three extra cheers.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MORE OPPRESSION.
Daughters of Liberty. — Redcoats in Boston. — Boston Massacre. — Boy Rebels. — Tax on Tea. — First Continental Congress. — The Men who attended it. — Speech of William Pitt. — Whigs and Tories. — The Patriotic Barber. — Yankee Doodle.
The women were not less ardent and patriotic than the men. As
the men had formed themselves into com- panies called Sons of Liberty, they also formed an organization called " Daughters of Liberty," and pledged themselves not to buy any goods imported from England. They formed '• spinning societies " to make their own cotton and linen, and they wove cloth for their fathers, husbands, and sons to wear. The ladies met together and had matches to see who could spin fastest. One party of young girls met at the house of their minister, in Boston, to spend the afternoon in a spinning match, and when they left, presented the minister with two hundred and thirty skeins of yarn, the fruit of their afternoon's labor. I can as- sure you these were stirring times.
13
192
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
In 1766 England repealed the stamp act. But before the rejoic- ing was over in America, she began again her encroachments on our liberty. Sir Richard Grenville was out of office, and Charles Townshend, who succeeded him, was determined the colonies should submit. By this time England began really to care more about making the colonies submit than she cared for the tax. It began now to be a trial to see which should give i^i.
The thing which most outraged Boston, about this time, was the fact that a large detachment of red-coated British soldiers were sent there and quartered for a time in Faneuil Hall. That was too much to bear. They hated the soldiers, and it was a double offense to put them in Faneuil Hall, where indignation meetings about the stamp act had been held. Already Faneuil Hall was called fondly " The Cradle of Liberty."
^^^^m:.gmks^-^^
Faneuil Hall
The soldiers were hooted at and scouted at by the very boys in the streets. I know they did not have a pleasant life of it. At length the hatred broke out in an open quarrel, and three citizens of Boston were killed by the soldiers. This was called the " Boston Miissacre," and the public rage was hot against the soldiers.
Even the children shared the general feeling, and were as patri- otic as their fathers and mothers. One winter's day a party of boys
MORE OPPRESSION. 193
were buildinir a snow fort on Boston Common. Some idle soldiers standing about, battered it down. As the boys had suffered fre- quent annoyance from the soldiers, they determined to go in a body to General Gage (who had been sent over to take Governor Hutchin- son's place), and complain of the way in which they had been treated. After they had laid their wrongs before the general, he said impa- tiently, " Have your fathers been teaching you rebellion and sent you here to show it ? "
" Nobody sent us, sir," answered the boy who led the others. " But your soldiers have insulted us ; thrown down our forts ; called us young rebels. We will bear it no more."
Gage laughingly promised them redress, and sent them away tri- umphant. Then he said to an officer beside him, —
" Even the children here draw in a love of liberty in the air they breathe."
In 1773 a tax on tea was passed by England. The people were very fond of tea, and a large quantity was annually used by the colonies. All over New England tea-drinkings were in fashion, where the women met to knit and sew, and ended with a social cup of tea. " They will rather pay a small sum than give up their beloved beverage," argued the British statesmen.
The British statesmen reckoned without their host. Every patri- otic woman in America was willing to drink milk and water to the end of her days rather than give in. They steeped all kinds of herbs, made pennyroyal, catnip, and sage tea, and pretended it tasted very good indeed, but not an ounce of real Chinese tea would any loyal woman use. There were many songs written about this odious tea tax. Here is a verse which appeai^ed in one of the newspapers, —
" O Boston wives and maids, draw near and see Our delicate Souchong and Hyson tea; Buy it, my charming girls, fair, black, or brown, If not, we '11 cut your throats and burn your town."
In Boston, they heard that a cargo of tea was to be landed. Night after night the liberty-loving citizens walked up and down the wharf watching for the coming of the ship, to prevent her from landing her cargo. When a ship-load finally got into the harbor, a party of men disguised like Indians, in war-paint and feathers, went on board ship and pitched every chest of it into the water, where it quickly sank to the bottom. There it rotted under the waves, although half the women in Boston would have given almost any-
194 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
thing for a cup of that very tea, if they could have had it without yielding to tyranny.
The English merchants made their tea so cheap that it could have been bought for less money with the tax than it had been sold pre- viously without it. That made no difference. It was not two or three cents a pound on tea. It was the immortal principle. " Down wath tyranny ! Hurrah for liberty! '
The English blood was up in England as well as in America. Parliament was held in London, and they talked angrily there about the " unwarra.ntable practices in America," and especially the "out- rageous behavior of Boston."
Then they passed the " Boston Port Bill," shutting up the port of Boston, so that no commerce could come there, and moving the custom-house to Salem. They also passed a law taking all govern- ment authority from the colonies, and giving it entirely to the crown, and ordered that all persons committing murder should be brought over to England to be tried. That was to protect the sol- diers who might kill a rebellious colonist occasionally.
This was worse and worse, and public discontent waxed stronger and stronger. The thirteen colonies met in their assemblies, and appointed delegates to meet in Philadelphia and talk the matter over. This convention is known as the " First Continental Con- gress" . It is the first body representing the colonies that ever met on the American continent. It was the germ from which the United States grew up. There were fifty-two members in all, and I believe a nobler assembly never met together than this body of men who sat in the old state-house in Philadelphia, to deliberate calmly how the liberties of a people should be preserved.
There was the fiery young orator, Patrick Henry, whose words were like lightning to strike tyranny dumb. There were the Adamses of Massachusetts : John Adams, now only a promising young lawyer, but afterwards to be rewarded with the highest hon- ors his country could bestow on him ; Samuel Adams, whose grand utterances for freedom still ring through the years like bugle-notes. There was George Washington, the hero of many dangerous battles, as ready now to fight for American independence, as he had fought for English conquest ; Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, of whom it is praise enough to say that he was worthy to sit beside George Wash- ington and Patrick Henry ; Roger Sherman of Connecticut, who had risen from the shoemaker's to the judge's bench ; John Jay of New
MORE OPPRESSION.
195
York, the blood of the Frencli Huguenots in his veins, crying out against submission to tyrants ; and Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Isl- and, almost seventy years old, yet as much in love with liberty as the youngest man among them.
Samuel Adams.
[From Copley's portrait in Faneuil Hall.]
Other noble names were there, and every man of them deserves ^o be crowned with immortal honor. For remember, that to meet thus meant danger in every form. If they decided to strike the blow for liberty and were unsuccessful, their names would be dishon- ored as traitors, their families reduced to poverty, their heads would perhaps fall by the hand of the common executioner. It was no ordinary braverj^ that inspired these men. It was a higher courage than that which upholds the soldier in the excitement of battle, when the shots are falling round him. It was the calm, steadfast courage of reason and conscience.
196 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
One man should have been there whose name does not appear. You have not forgotten James Otis, whose voice had kindled the first flame of this agitation when he spoke in Boston against " Writs of Assistance." He would have been of this noble company, but five years before he had met one of the tax-ofiicers in a coffee-house in Boston, and a dispute arose, in which the officer struck him such a blow on the head that he was severely injured. At the time of this Congress he was hopelessly insane from the effects of this in- jury and thus America lost one of her ablest counselors at a time when she needed him so much. He lived to the last year of the war of the Revolution and was killed by lightning as he stood in the door of his house.
This- Continental Congress passed resolutions approving the re- sistance of the colonies to the unjust acts of England, and remon- strating with the mother-country, respectfully yet firmly, against her coui-se. This remonstrance contained these words : " If neither the voice of justice, the dictates of law, the principles of the con- stitution, nor the dictates of humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to he hewers of wood, or draivers of water for any ministry or nation in this world'^
When William Pitt read this address, he said to Parliament,
"You will be powerless either to convince or enslave America
You may, no doubt, destroy their cities ; you may cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life; but they will still despise your power, for they have still remaining their for- ests^ a7id their liberty.''''
It was plain enough that the struggle was close -at hand. The fact is the people here had been getting ready to be a free nation ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. If England had not passed the stamp act, or the port bill, it would have turned out the same in the end. Freedom was in the air of the New World, and England could no more have hoped to hold these growing colonies as vassals, than she could have dammed up the Falls of Niaerara to run her saw-mills.
Now the colonies began to call out their citizens to form companies of militia, and practice military drill. Old muskets that had figured in Indian wars were brought out, and cleaned and polished ; giui- powder and bullets were hoarded up; women spun yarn, knit heavy stockings, and wove good substantial cloth to make clothes
MORE OPPRESSION, 197
for the men. There were many tears shed, and many solemn prayers sent to Heaven ; but in the hearts of the people there was but one thought and one hope, — that was for Freedom.
Do not think, however, that everybody was on one side. There were a great many people in New England, Virginia, New York, and the Carolinas, who were bitter against the action of the Conti- nental Congress. They would give up to the king at any cost, and they denounced the rest as " traitors " and " rebels." These people who stood for the king and his government were called " Tories," or royalists, and the other party " Whigs," or rebels. These names, Tory and Whig, were borrowed from English politics. ^ Many of the American newspapers were Tory, and remained so until the cause of the revolutionists became strong, then they turned about and abused the English as much as any one. There were a good many Tories persecuted for their allegiance to the king. Some of them moved to Canada ; some of them kept silent and took as little part as they could ; and some of those who spoke their mind freely, were tarred and feathered, and ridden on rails, and treated in the unjust and foolish manner in which excited mobs will treat those who disagree with them.
The lines between Tories and Whigs were closely drawn at the beginning of the year 1765. The Americans demanded to know those who were going to stand for liberty, and in Boston and else- where those who stood for the king did not have a very pleasant time of it. A good deal of tarring and feathering was done about this time, and many Tories got broken heads and bloody noses for speaking up for the king. A patriotic barber in Boston was quietly shaving a customer, and had just got half his face shaved, when he found that he was a Tory. He threw down his razor, and ordered him out of his shop. The poor Tory with his face all lathered, one side clean shaven, " like a field new reaped at harvest time," and the other side with a bristling beard, was forced to go hunting through the streets of Boston for a barber who was devoted to the cause of George III.
The Americans opposed to the king and his measures were known as Patriots, Whigs, Continentals, and lastly as Yankees, a term which the English soldiers took up in derision. The English soldiery
1 Tory was from an Irish word signifying a "savage," but had come to mean an adherent of the king and his measures. Whig came from a Scotch word, meaning a " drover," and finally came to mean those who believed that government was not to enslave men, but to serve them. It was first applied to a party of soldiers in Cromwell's time, who came from Scotland.
198 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and their sympathizers in America, were called Tories, Royalists, Britishers, and Regulars, — the last name being applied to their troops to distinguish them from the provincial or American militia.
The English bands belonging to the regular troops took great de- light in playing an air called " Yankee Doodle." It was played in derision of the Yankees, but has since become our most popular national tune. The patriots accepted the term Yankees, as one of honor rather than contempt, and one of the newspapers of that time says, " It is a name which we hope will soon be equal to that of a Roman, or an ancient Englishman,"
They soon had other work than calling names, knocking their
antagonists down, or tarring and feathering them. " The war has
already begun. The next breeze will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms." The smoke arises from the first battle in the
War of the Revolution.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.
Hidden Stores of Gunpowder and Bullets. — Paul Eevere's Ride. — Midnight March. — Scene at Lexington Meeting-house. — First Blood shed. —Destruction of Stores. —The Retreat and Pursuit. — Lord Percy at Charlestown. — " Yankee Doodle " and " Chevy Chase."
In the spring of 1775 Governor Gage heard constant rumors of military stores, gunpowder, bullets, guns, and muskets, secretly col- lected and hidden in secure places by the Americans, till there should be use for them. He also heard accounts of companies forming in all the towns and villages about Boston, for military drill. These were the " minute-men," so called because they were to be ready on a minute's notice, to take their muskets and hurry to the field.
It was difficult for Gage to find just where these stores of powder and ammunition were hidden ; still as there were Tories in every town it was impossible to keep all their hiding- jDlaces secret. In April Gage was told that out in the town of Concord the Yankees had stores secreted. At ten o'clock on the evening of April 18, the patriot watchmen who were posted at all the landing-places in Boston, saw a stirring among the British troops, and a company of them embarking in boats, at the lower end of Boston Common.
BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 199
In less thffii half an hour, two mounted horsemen were sent off by the patriots to warn the country all around to be on their guard. One of these messengers was named Paul Revere, He was an en- graver by trade, and five years before, at the time of the Boston Massacre, he had made a picture of the troops firing on the citizens, which plainly showed that he was a loyal American. Now he started off at full gallop over Middlesex County, to rouse up the people, and tell the minute-men to be on the alert. Once he was stopped on his way, but after being examined was allowed to go on. Longfellow has told the whole story of Paul Revere's ride so much better than I can, that I will put in here his account of it. See if you do not hear the sound of those swift hoofs in our poet's lines.
PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.
Listen, my cliiklren, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride o£ Paul Revere.
On the eighteenth of April in 'Seventy-five ;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, " If the British march By land or sea from the town to-nio-ht, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal lio-ht,
One if by land, and two if by sea, And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country-folk to be up and arm.
Then he said " Good- night ! " and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Wliere swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war ;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street. Wanders and watches with eager ears. Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door.
200 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The sound of arms, and tlie tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers Marching; down to their boats on the shore.
Then he chmbed the tower of the old North Churcll
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber over- head,
And startled the pigeons from their perch,
On the sombre rafters, that around him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, —
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall.
To the highest window in the Avail,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred with a heavy stride. On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side. Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then impetuous, stamjjed the earth, And turned, and tightened his saddle girth. But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry tower of the old North Church As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still, And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingjers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns —
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet :
That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was ridintr that night :
And the spai-k, struck out by that steed in his flight.
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
In the mean time the troops had crossed Charles River, and marched in dead silence down to Lexington, six miles from Con- cord. Not a man was allowed to speak. The officers uttered their commands in whispers as they rode along the lines, and only the
Paul Revere's Ride.
BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 203
tliud ! thud ! of their footsteps was heard, on the quiet country road. They passed many a farm-house where the inmates lay dreaming of Hberty, — so silently that they were not wakened from their dreams.
When they reached Lexington, the sun was just rising, and threw the long shadow of Lexington meeting-house over the grass. Close by the meeting-house, talking earnestly, were a group of less than a hundred men. These were minute-men, with muskets in hand. When they saw the red coats of the soldiers glittering in the morn- ing sun, they began to disperse. Up rode Major Pitcairn, who was at the head of the troops, shouting fiercely, " Disperse, you rebels ! Throw down your arms, and disperse ! "
The troops hurrahed ; an officer discharged his pistol, and then the soldiery fired among the provincials. The minute-men had been instructed not to fire unless they were first fired upon by the British. They now promptly returned fire, wounding three of the soldiers. This was answered by a fierce volley from the British, un- der which the Americans began a retreat, and the troops marched on unmolested to Concord, leaving them to pick up their dead, laugh- ing, meanwhile, at the Yankees, who, they said, needed only the first smell of gunpowder to make them run.
This was the first blood shed in the coming war. There, on the tender, budding grass at Lexington, under the shining morning sun, near the shadow of the meeting-house, lay eight dead men, — the first victims in the great cause of liberty in America.
On went the troops to Concord, dividing there into two detach- ments which went straight to the two points where stores were hid- den,— so straight that it was said afterwards each band had an American pilot, who knew more of the secrets of his countrymen than the British had been able to learn. There was a Boston bar- ber (not our loyal barber, but a Tory), and a tailor, seen among the troops in soldiers' clothes, and bad as they hated the soldiers, the Americans hated worse these " Judases," who would betray their own fellow-countrymen.
The troops took the guns and powder, spiked the cannon, set fire to the gun-carriages, and took one hundred barrels of flour, half of which they tumbled into the river. Going onward they found the minute-men mustered on a bridge to the north, one hundred and fifty strong. They fired and killed two of them, and then a volley blazed back from the American fines. The British troops fell back
204 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
before it. The Americans pursued, and almost in a twinkling back went the red-coats pell-mell, in retreat toward Lexington, followed by the minute-men. On they went in swift retreat. From barns, fences, and trees, all along the road, rang the quick crack of mus- kets picking off a British soldier. Every bush seemed to hold a patriot, and when the British ran panting into Lexington, where Lord Percy had been sent from Boston to join them with some fresh troops, they had left two hundred and ninety-three men, dead and dying, on the road from thence to Concord. Percy formed a hollow square to surround the fugitives, and, panting with fatigue and thirst, with their tongues hanging from their mouths like dogs, the soldiery threw themselves down upon the ground exhausted and beaten, with no breath left even to laugh at Yankees. When one could speak, he said frankly, " They fought like bears, and I would as soon storm hell, as fight them again."
Percy led them back to Boston, but all the way the militia fired from every place where a man and a musket could be hidden. In the morning Lord Percy had marched gayly out of Boston, his band playing " Yankee Doodle " in derision. The evening saw him com- ing slowly into Charlestown, tired out, his redcoats gray with mud and dust. " Halloa," cried a young rebel from behind a safe corner, as he watched him setting out that morning, "You play 'Yankee Doodle ' now, but before long you will play ' Chevy Chase.' " ^ It had been a chase, indeed. And thus ended the battle of Lexington.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL.
Congress meets again. — George Washington made Commander of the Armies. — Green Mountain Boys. — Ethan Allen takes Ticonderoga and Crown Point. — Oglethorpe refuses to fight the Americans. — Noble Words of Samuel Adams. — Americans on Bunker Hill. — Battle of Bunker Hill. — The Monument there.
May 10, 1775, the Continental Congress met again in Philadel- phia. They had a new man in their ranks : Thomas Jefferson, whom we heard of in Virginia before the war.
This time Congress took stronger measures, and formed a "Federal Union," taking a pledge that the colonies would stand by each other
1 A patriotic newspaper of the time gives this story of the boy's jest as an authentic one. I hope you all know the heroic old battle of Chevj"^ Chase, in which one of this very Lord Percy's ancestors figures.
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL.
205
in the struggle that was coming, and that all should be as one. They did not give up remonstrating with the king yet, but sent him an eloquent appeal, which he took no notice of except by call- ing them rebels.
They talked over plans for raising an army, for collecting stores, and fortifying their weak places. Their most memorable act was the appointment of a commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.
Mr. Johnson of Maryland rose and nominated for commander, Greorge Washington of Virginia^ and it was unanimously approved. You have already heard something of Washington ; of his service in the French and Indian wars, and his loyalty to his country when these new troubles had arisen. Ever since the French wars, until he was called to jom the Continental Congress, he had lived quietl}' down in Virginia, working hard in the care of his large plan- tation, and all his great family of slaves, which numbered several hundred. He had lived a simple life, although he was a rich man, and his chief amusement had been long horse-back rides, or hunting excursions, of which he was very fond. There was no show nor pretense about him, but everybody who knew ^
him, knew that here was an honest, brave, clear- headed gentleman, loyal to the core, a good sol- dier, and the fittest man whom they could select to lead the provincial army.
When his appoint- ment was confirmed, he rose and thanked Con- gress in a manly, straightforward speech. He told them he very much feared he was not equal to the high trust they had given him, but he would do his best in the service of his coun-
George Washington.
try. And he told them he should accept no money for his servic
ices.
206
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
beyond the bare expenses he incurred, and those, he doubted not, they would be able to discharge.
The picture of this Virginia gentleman, the soldier- farmer, stand- ing with his tall figure in the midst of this listening Congress, is a picture quite as grand as any gallery of Roman heroes furnishes.
Before Congress adjourned stirring news reached them. It would have reached them long before, if news could travel as fast then as
now. This news came slowly, even for those days. England had re- fused to carry the mails in her rebellious prov- inces, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the Americans re- fused to use British let- ter-carriers. Benjamin Franklin had just been made general-postmas- ter by Continental Con- gress, and carrying news was slower business than ever, in the change of affairs. Spite of all ob- stacles, however, news did reach Philadelphia that the forts Crown Point and Ticonderoga, famous in the French war, had been taken by the Americans on the 10th of May, the very day Congress assembled. Let me tell you how this happened.
Up among the mountains in what is now the State of Vermont, companies of brave fellows were formed, who called themselves " Green Mountain Boys." The foremost leader among them was Colonel Ethan Allen, a man of great energy and resolution. To him was intrusted the attack upon Ticonderoga. Allen's men were joined by another company under Colonel Benedict Arnold^ a vol- unteer from New Haven, Connecticut, who had lately enlisted in
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL. 207
the war. They had some trouble about which should command, but Arnold finally gave up, and Allen marched on to Fort Ticon- deroga. Their coming was so unexpected, and the force in the gar- rison was so small, that Ethan Allen got inside the fort with a party, rushed up-stairs to where the governor was asleep in his bed, ignorant of the attack, and waked him up with a tremendous pound- ing on his door.
" Who 's there," asked the sleepy governor, " and what do you want ? "
" I come to demand the instant surrender of this fort," answered Allen.
" By whose authority ? " asked the astonished governor, jumping up and beginning to dress.
" I demand it in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Conti- nental Congress," thundered Allen. Surprised in this manner, with no time to plan resistance, the governor could do no better than yield the fort. Crown Point also surrendered peaceably, and thus two valuable posts were in the hands of the patriots. The best of it was that they found a good supply of powder and ball, guns and cannon, in the fort, which was a great treasure to the Americans. I do not know whether they could have fought through their first campaign if it had not been for this good fortune.
All this time the King of England and his counselors were chaf- ing and fretting at their powerlessness to argue the colonies into submission. They had fully decided that America was an unruly child who must be made to obey. They had decided on sending more generals and further troops to the colonies. General James Oglethorpe was the oldest general in rank, and they offered the com- mand to him. But he refused it. All honor to him for that. If he had come over here to America, to force taxation on the people, after all his noble work in the colony of Georgia, I fear we should have lost faith in him.
They sent over instead. Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton, who came prepared to let slip the dogs of war at the very throats of the colonies. As soon as they got over, General Gage, who had been trembling in his shoes at the way matters looked, began to feel brave again. He issued a proclamation, saying, if the colonists would now lay down their arms and say they were sorry, they might be forgiven, and taken into royal favor again, — all but John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Those two men should be
14
208
STORY OF OUR COUNTRV,
hanged if anybody could lay hold of them. John Hancock had been president of the Massachusetts Assembly, and made himself odious in that way. As to Samuel Adams, he was the man best hated by the Tories, of any rebel in America. He was eloquent, and he always used his voice for liberty. He was poor, and no money could buy him off from speaking his mind. No matter how other men wavered, he stood always firm. General Gage complained, " Such is the dogged obstinacy of this man, he cannot be conciliated by any offices or any gifts."
^^^^
He spurned both British offices and money, and he said, —
" I will oppose this tyranny at the threshold, though the fabric of liberty fall and I perish in its ruins."
I do not wonder that General Gage left him out of his pardon proclamation. One such man was enough to infect a whole state with a desire for freedom.
Howe landed in Boston, and began to form plans for his cam-
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL. 209
paio-n. He was the brother of that brave young Howe who fell, iia-htino-, at Ticonderoga in the French war. If he were half as good a soldier, the Americans had reason to fear his coming.
The evening of the 16th of June, a party of Americans were com- manded to go over to Charlestowni and fortify Bunker Hill. It was rumored that Governor Gage was going to take the hill and plant cannon there, and the patriots determined to be ahead of him. Under cover of the dark, the Americans climbed the hill, and began to work at throwing intrenchments of earth on its top. They made a mistake, however, and took Breed's Hill, instead of Bunker, the former being a quarter of a mile nearer Boston.
When the British got up in the morning of the 17th of June, and looked out over the river, there were the Americans, with pickaxes and spades, working away like so many ants on an ant-hill, with a great breastwork of earth piled up in front of them. They hurried to get their cannon in readiness, and from Copp's Hill, in the north of Boston, they poured a rain of balls on Breed's Hill, while from their ships in the harbor they raked the embankment from another point. But they could do no harm in this way, so. well were the Americans protected.
By noon they concluded the}^ must make a more decided attack. Howe sent 3,000 men over the river, to go up the hill, and drive the Americans from their post. They went over in boats, and the Americans, who could see every movement, watched their coming. Other eyes watched too. The roofs of Boston were covered with people looking on. Many a woman, whose husband or son was crouching down behind that breastwork of earth, waiting the enemy's approach, looked eagerly over the river, and watched with fast beating heart every motion of the two armies. It was a terrible sight to gaze on, when your own heart's blood might flow in the coming battle.
Up the hill went the British soldiers, firing every moment as they climbed. At the top waited fifteen hundred men, crouched be- hind the embankment, silent as death. They had no bullets and powder to waste, till the British were close at hand.
" Aim low, boys," whispered Colonel Prescott, the patriot com- mander, " fire at their waistbands, and wait till you see the whites of their eyes. Waste no powder."
When the redcoats were almost up the hill, then- plumes nearly level with its crest, Bang ! bang ! went the fifteen hundred muskets
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
at once, and down went scores of brave Britishers, cut down as the scythe cuts the waving grain. At this moment, great volumes of flame and smoke rose from Charlestown in eight or ten places at once. It had been set on fire by the soldiers as they marched through the town.
The British fell back at the first fire, then they rallied again, and the Americans sent another volley among them. A second time they fell back in dismay. This time they waited long before renew- ing the attack, and hope beat high in the breasts of the men behind
Joseph Warren.
the intrenchment. But the third time the British pressed on more firmly; they scaled the intrenchment; the Americans, many of them without powder, tried to beat them back with clubbed muskets,
TICONDEROGA AND BUNKER HILL.
211
and volleys of stones caught up from the redoubt ; but their last resistance was in vain, the British had gained the summit, and the Americans, beaten backwards, fled down the hill, and retreated be- yond Charlestown Neck. The last man to leave the field was Joseph Warren, one of the bravest and noblest of all who had gathered there that day. As he turned to follow his retreating com- panions, he was shot through the head and killed instantly. The battle had lasted two hours, and when the day ended, 1,100 men from the British ranks, 450 men from the Americans, were found to be lost in the encounter.
To-day, a grand monument rises from the summit where Warren fell, and on the grass-covered terraces which crown the hill, there
Plan of Bunker Hill.
Monument.
are no other signs of battle ; hundreds of tall-masted ships crowd Boston harbor, where the British ships then rode at anchor ; on the ruins of Charlestown, that day burnt to the ground, a thickly built city stands ; on .the summit of Copp's Hill, where the English planted their cannon, is an old cemetery with its mouldering grave- stones. There, in the midst of the great city, sleep many of the fore- fathers of the old town. There, where some of my ancestors sleep, and very likely some of yours, the sunshine falls pleasantly on the crumbling old stones and the neglected paths overgrown with grass and burdocks. It is a century since these places resounded with the
212 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
thunder of British cannon, and no traces of the struggle are left there. Happily, our good mother Earth bears no scars from the battles fought on her bosom, but covers them quickl}^ up with soft grass and tender flowers.
CHAPTER XXXVm.
WASHINGTON AND HIS ARMY.
Washington's Camps about Boston. — The Patriot Generals. — Story of Israel Putnam. — Dress of the Soldiers. — Pennsylvania Riflemen. — Story of a Marksman. — Washington's Anxieties.
The ball had opened, and events followed each other thicker and faster. All those who had hesitated before, now took one side or the other. Before the summer was over, every colony, from New Hampshire to Georgia, was up in arms ; the thirteen royal governors were pushed from their royal stools, and obliged to go office-hunt- ing elsewhere.
Washington had gathered his army together, and gone to Massa- chusetts, which was for the present the head-quarters of both armies. Boston had been fortified all about by the British; and the patriots who had not left the city before the battle of Bunker Hill, were prisoners in their own homes. In return, Washington sur- rounded Boston with his whole army, and held the country all about. He had several generals to help him bring order out of chaos, most of whom had gained military experience in the French and Indians wars. You can fancy it was no easy task to organize these raw recruits into an orderly and disciplined army. General Hora- tio Gates was one of the ablest of them all in this respect. Charles Lee of Virginia also did good service, and one of the most famous of all was Israel Putnam of Connecticut, whom the boys called " Old
Put," a kind of pet name by which they showed their liking for him. He was famed for his pluck ever since his wolf hunt, which was known all over the T^tate of Con- necticut. The wolf story is as follows : —
When Putnam was a young man, a
farmer in Connecticut, he was very much
troubled by a wolf which for several years
General Putnam. ravagcd all tlic shccp licrds for miles around.
WASHINGTON AND HIS ARMY. 213
One morning, on finding he had lost a hirge number of sheep during the night, Putnam declared he would set out and destroy the fero- cious animal. He raised a party of neighbors, and they tracked the creature forty miles, till they came to her den. This den was a deep cave in the rocks, which a man could only enter by crawling on his hands and knees. They tried to smoke the animal out, but it was impossible. They set dogs in upon her, and the dogs came out with lacerated flesh, howling with pain. At length Putnam declared he would go in himself. Tying a rope round his legs, so that they might draw him out, when he should pull it a certain number of times, he crawled in slowly, holding a torch. He soon saw the eyes of the creature glaring from a corner of the cave. He gave the signal to be pulled out, and loading his gun outside, crawled in again, till he was close upon the monster. Then he fired, and, blinded by smoke, deafened by the noise of the gun, was pulled out again. For the third time he entered, and finding the animal was dead, he hauled her out by the ears, while his com- panions pulled him by the rope round his legs. His clothes were all torn off his back, and his face black with smoke and powder, but he had killed the wolf, and kept her skin as a trophy. Since then he had fought in the French and Indian wars, and wherever danger was, he was foremost.
You can form no idea what a task lay before Washington and his generals. Here was a great body of men hurried into the field from farms and workshops, with no more idea of military drill than a herd of sheep, with miserable old muskets, scanty supply of powder and balls, and no money to buy any. Then the dress of this pro- vincial army was enough to excite the laugh which the British sol- diers raised at them. Some of them were dressed in the long-tailed linsey-woolsey coats, and linsey-woolsey breeches, which had been spun and woven in farm-house kitchens ; some wore smock-frocks like a butcher, also made of homespun ; some wore suits of British broadcloth, so long used for Sunday clothes that they had grown rather the worse for wear ; and every variety of dress and fashion figured in these motley ranks.
When General Washington rode grandly out on horseback, dressed in his fine blue broadcloth coat, with buff colored facings, buff waistcoat and breeches, a hat with black cockade, and a sword in an elegantly embroidered sword-belt, I think his heart must have sunk within him as he looked on his tatterdemalion army, and
214 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
then glanced over towards Boston, and thought of the British soldiers, gorgeous in brand-new uniforms, trained to march up to the cannon's mouth like a solid wall in motion.
But for all that, there was good stuff in that American army, bad as it looked. Many of those men had fought hand-to-hand with sav- age beasts and still more savage Indians. They had learned to pick off their adversaries from behind trees and rocks, and when their powder gave out, they could fight with clubbed muskets. When a company of Pennsylvania riflemen came to join the army, a news- paper of the day says, " They already show scars which would do honor to Homer's Iliad."
Two brothers in this company took a board five inches long by seven wide, with a piece of white paper, the size of a dollar, in the middle. One of them stood up and held it between his knees, while the other shot, at sixty yards off, eight bullets one after the other through the white, and never grazed his brother's leg. When the spectators wondered, they said " fifty boys in the company could do that feat," and then they offered to shoot apples off each other's head, as William Tell did, if the spectators would like to see it done.^ Their feats were stopped, however, and they saved their powder for other uses. These were not men to laugh at, though some of them had no better uniform than an Indian hunting shirt, and leggings and moccasins of deer-skin to cover legs and feet.
Looked at in the most hopeful light, the aspect of the army was discouraging, and Washington must have passed many anxious days and sleepless nights, as he lay with his army on the banks of the Mystic River. He knew better than anybody that there was hardly powder enough in their whole camp to fight a two hoars' battle, and that half the officers knew no more of military affairs than their men. But he was one of those men who carry a grand, serene front, no matter what trouble gnaws the heart. He did not go fretting and blustering about, telling people how worried he was. And when some people, who did not understand the facts, blamed him because he did not march upon the British, he kept silent, and did not betray by a look the true state of affairs. He was, of all men, the one who best knew how to be patient and bide his time for action. It is to that grand quality of this great man, that this country owes a greater debt than we can rightly estimate.
1 These feats, and many others of like daring, are related by the newspapers of that date.
THE MARCH TO QUEBEC. 215
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE MARCH TO QUEBEC.
On to Canada. — iMontgomery clothes his Soldiers in Montreal. — Benedict Arnold's Heroic March to Quebec. — Attack on the Citadel. — Montgomery's Death. — Brave Act of Aaron Burr. — Retreat from Canada.
Early in the summer of 1775 the Americans began to look eagerly towards Canada, to see if there were any signs of help from that quarter. Ever since their success in New York, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had been thundering in the ears of Congress and the commander-in-chief, " On to Montreal and Quebec. Let us take them as we took Crown Point and Ticonderoga."
Washington knew as well as anybody how important it was to hold these places, but he knew also that there was not enough ammunition in the Continental army to besiege a log hut, to say nothing of the strong walls of Quebec. All summer he was urging on the various colonies the necessity of sending powder to the army, " Send what powder and lead you can spare, be it ever so little," was the burden of his prayer to all the patriotic governors. He even sent to Bermuda and got from them one hundred barrels of gun powder, a most valuable acquisition to his small store.
In September, two detachments were ordered to march to Canada. General Montgomery was the brave soldiei- who had helped Wolfe at the taking of Quebec from the French. He had married a wife in America, and settled down in Virginia after the French war. When the -Hevolution began, he went into it, heart and soul. He was the leader of one of these divisions, and was sent north through Lake Champlain down the St. Lawrence to Montreal. General Schuyler of Albany started with him, but he was obliged to turn aside in order to make treaty with the Mohawk Indians, who lived all about Albany. You remember Sir William Johnson who had made such good friends of these Indians. He was now dead, and his son, who succeeded him in "Johnson Castle," was a British officer. The Americans feared he would make all the Mohawk Indians hostile to them, and as nobody among the American gener- als could deal with them as well as General Philip Schuyler of Albany, he left Montgomery to go and treat with them.
Montgomery went on to Montreal, and, as the British army in Canada was nearly all withdrawn to the colonies, he found no sol-
216 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
diers to defend it, and took the city with very Httle trouble. There he found such treasures ! whole store-houses full of warm woolen goods, blankets, shirts, jackets, and trousers, all of good English cloth and flannel, to clothe his army. They were a ragged set of fellows, I imagine, when they marched into Montreal, but many of them marched out again, like Harry Gill, " with blankets on their backs, and coats enough to smother nine." They carried off an extra supply to give to some of the shivering fellows who were coming up to Quebec to join them in front of its walls.
Montgomery left part of his soldiers in Montreal, and went on to- wards Quebec. All this time the second division had been on its way there. They had been ordered to go up through Maine, and meet Montgomery on the other side of Quebec. Their leader was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who had behaved so gallantly at Ticon- deroga with Allen. Allen would have been sent too, probably, if he had not made a foolish attack on Montreal before Montgomery got there, been taken prisoner, and sent in irons to England as a traitor.
General Arnold had a young captain with him, named Aaron Burr, a brave, gallant young fellow, just out of college, whose name I wish you to remember, because you will hear more about him in the course of this history. Their march to Quebec was terribly severe. They had to go up the Kennebec River in boats, and when they got to places where the river was not navigable, they carried their boats on their backs, till they could find a stream leading to the St. Lawrence. It was bitter cold, and they marched sometimes waist deep in icy water ; they slept in the leafless forests on freez- ing nights ; their clothes were ragged ; and in this march, five hun- dred miles long, they wore out their shoes, and many froze their feet. Their provisions gave out also, and some of them ate the leather of their shoes and knapsacks. Many of them turned back discouraged, and straggled home to Massachusetts, or died by the way. Still the brave Arnold went on unflinchingly, followed by the brave men who would not retreat, in spite of all this suffering. Yes, and many brave women, too, who had followed the army, hoping to be of ser- vice to the cause, shared all these hardships, and kept firmly on till they reached the shores of the i*iver opposite Quebec, and halted there. Then young Aaron Burr continued alone his march more than one hundred miles farther, to find Montgomery and tell him they were ready to join him in the attack on Quebec.
THE MARCH TO QUEBEC. 217
On the 31st of December, the last day of the year, a severe snow- storm raged, and in the midst of it, Montgomery gave the signal for the attack. Montgomery was to attempt it on one side, Arnold on the other. It was a fierce and bloody struggle, a fight hand-to-hand almost, between the American soldiers outside, and the small garrison inside, who had the advantage of the city walls to help their small numbers. I think the Americans might have beaten, — and if they had taken Quebec that day, the stars and stripes might be flying at this moment from that grand old citadel, — but just as Montgomery was storming the second battery, just as he cried aloud, "• Follow me, my brave boys, and Quebec is ours! " a grape-shot struck him, and he went down without another word. The soldiers who followed him, were mown down by the same volley from the cannon, the rest scattered and fled, and Quebec was lost.
I must not forget one brave deed of Captain Aaron Burr's, who stood beside Montgomery when he fell. He was only a slight, del- icate looking stripling, and Montgomery was a tall, heavy man, twice his weight almost. Yet, when he saw him fall, young Burr snatched up the dead body of his general, and, staggering under his load, dragged it down the ascent away from the fire of the enemy.
After Montgomery's fall, Arnold, who had made his attack from the opposite side, was beaten off and forced to retreat. He stayed in Canada several months, hoping he might see an opportunity for victory, but in May, 1776, the British army from Boston came to reinforce it, and Arnold left his post before Quebec, took the sol- diers whom Montgomery had left in Montreal, and left Canada to the British. It is possible that Canada might have gone with the United Colonies, if there had not been so large a proportion of in- habitants there (the old French settlers), who had no interest in the war, and cared very little which side was victorious. There was little of the liberty loving element in Canada, which had been fostered among the English who had settled in New England, Vir- ginia, and the rest of the thirteen colonies.
218 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XL.
AFFAIRS IN MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA.
The Redcoats imprisoned in Boston. — Howe concludes to leave Boston. — The Tories go to Halifax. — Entrance of Washington into Boston. — Joy of the Patriots. — Washington goes to New York. — The Hessians in America. — A British Fleet attacks Charleston.
All the winter of 1775 and 1776, Washington remained in his en- campments about Boston, keeping the army of the redcoats inclosed there, ahnost as if the city were their prison-house. The British had for some time been obliged to live on salt provisions, for want of fresh meat, and there was some danger that even their salted meats might give out. They were short of fuel, too, and General Howe had taken down several wooden houses, and the " Old North Meeting-house," and had them chopped up for firewood. The British took great delight in showing all the contempt they could for the Puritan places of worship. Not content with chopping up the wood of the old North Meeting-house to replenish their wood- piles, they had used the " Old South Church " for a riding-school, taking out the pews and strewing the floor with litter for the horses. One especially handsome pew, which had a carved back, thej'- had taken, early in their occupation of Boston, to make a fence for a pig- pen. The British soldiers amused themselves by shooting into the Puritan churches, and otherwise mutilating them, calling them " d d Presbyterian meeting-houses."
In March Washington began to fortify on Dorchester Heights, an eminence very near the city. His movements alarmed General Howe very much, and he began at once to make plans to take his army away from the city, and go to Halifax in Nova Scotia, where he knew he should be quite safe. Accordingly he gave orders to the Tories and the soldiers to take everything out of town whicli would be of any service to the Americans, and what they could not take away they were ordered to destroy. On this, the army took all the blankets, and woolen and linen clothing in town ; they spiked some of their cannon, and threw some into the harbor ; and did all the mischief they could before leaving. The Tories living in Boston, who had hoped the British army would stay and protect them and their property there, were terribly alarmed when they found General Howe was going. Fifteen hundred of them packed up their household goods and valuables, as many of them as they
AFFAIRS IN MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 219
could carry, and prepared to go to Halifax with the army. Then the soldiers scattered all about the entrances to the city an ugly little iron instrument with four sharp points sticking out in all directions which was called a " crow's foot." This was done that the horses and men of the Americans might tread upon it in en- tering the town, and be disabled in their feet. At last, one day in March, General Howe and his army took ships and sailed out of Boston harbor for Halifax, never to rule again over the free capital of Massachusetts.
You can imagine how glad the patriotic Americans of Boston were — those who had been shut in there with the Tories and the " redcoats " — when they saw General Washington come marching in at the head of his troops after the British ships were gone. Some of these Boston people had fathers, husbands, sons, in the army, and there was much thankfulness, and many tears shed for joy, at meeting with dear friends who had been parted in these hard days.
The old British flag, which had once been so dear, was hauled down from all its high places, and publicly burned, and a new American flag hoisted in its stead. The new flag had still the British em- blem in the corner, where our stars now adorn it, but it had thirteen gorgeous stripes, of red and white, to represent the thirteen colonies. Afterwards the British " union-jack" was taken from the corner, and thirteen stars on a blue ground put in its place. We add a new star for every new State, and our banner is now al- most as thick with stars as the milky way. Thus our flag (which we are proud to think the handsomest in the world) has grown to its present beauty.
In April, Washington concluded to leave a sufficient number of troops in Boston to protect the town, and remove with the main part of his army to New York. He' accordingly did so, and made his head-quarters in a handsome house on " Richmond Hill," two miles from the city. To-day the site of the once handsome country mansion is the corner of Varick and Charlton Streets, one of the dingiest and most crowded thoroughfares of the great metropolis.
General Putnam also took up his quarters near the Battery. This bluff old soldier had brought his wife and daughters, and with him
The Stars and Stripes.
220 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
they were busy spinning flax, day after day, pi'oviding linen to make shirts for the army. Mrs. Washington was also in New York. She was a rich woman, with great estates in Virginia, but she was never idle, and in her leisure moments kept her knitting-work at hand. Ah ! these are women worth reading about, who were ready to aid the cause of liberty both with heart and hand.
The British army was now pouring troops into America. Gen- eral Cornwallis and Sir Peter Parker had been sent from Engla;id with a large body of men. A brother of General Howe was made lord admiral of the EngHsh fleet. Sir Henry Clinton had been sent to South Carolina with ten ships. An army of 17,000 Ger- mans from Hesse-Cassel, under command of General De Hiester had been hired by the English to help do their American fighting. All these new recruits, added to the army already in Canada, made a .force that looked almost overpowering, in comparison with the Americans.
As I said before. Sir Henry Clinton sailed south with his ten ships. There had already been some fighting in North Carolina, and the people in all the soutliern colonies were up in arms and waiting for the coming struggle. Clinton was going down there to
attack Charleston, South Carolina, hoping if he could bring their largest towninto sub- jection, he could soon take the whole col- ony. But they were ready for him. As ;-^ soon as Clinton's fleet appeared in sight, I \^^ the guns from Fort Sullivan opened on him. There was hot firing and a sharp struggle. In the midst of it a ball from one of General Moultrie. CHuton's ships struck the flagstaff which
was raised over the fort and cut it in two, so that the banner fell outside the walls. It lay there for a moment with the hot fire from the enemy playing upon the wall under which it lay. Only for a moment however, for Sergeant Jasper leaped the inclos- ure, snatched up the colors, and bearing them safely inside, ran them up in sight again, where they waved gayly over the smoke and din of battle.
The day ended in triumph, and the British ships were forced to withdraw. They had met so warm a reception, that for two years they let the Carolinas alone. As for Colonel Moultrie, commander of the fort, he received the thanks of Congress, and the fort was afterwards named for him, and bears the name of Moultrie to-day.
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. 221
CHAPTER XLI.
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED.
Colonial Feeling towards England. — The Declaration of Independence. — Onr National Holi- day. — Retreat from Kipp's Landing. — Anger of Washington. — Mrs. Murray's Ruse to save General Putnam. — Retreat through New Jersey. — A Gloomy Outlook for Washington. — Bad News from Newport and Lake Champlain. — Prison Ships. — Washington crosses the Delaware. — Victory at Trenton.
At the beginning of the war with Enghmd there were very few men in the United Col- onies who had any idea of becoming free and ^) independent states, entirely separate and dis- f 1 1 tinct from the power of England. They were
resolved they would not yield to unjust taxa- tion, but beyond that they thought very little about the future of the colonies. Most of these people loved England as their country and spoke of her tenderly, as " home " and the " mother-land." But since the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, there had been a growing feeling, that if the Americans were to fight for their rights, they must not fight as " rebels " against a government whose power over them in many respects they acknowledged, but as free and independent states, who had a right to govern them- selves, and were ready to prove the right at the cannon's mouth.
In July of 1776 Congress met together, and after much debate what they should do about it, agreed to declare " that they were, and ought to be, free and independent states." There were many members in Congress, as well as in the colonies, very much opposed to this declaration, but those in favor of it finally triumphed, and a committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, was appointed to write out the " Declaration of Lidependence." Every American citizen has read this " Declaration of Independence," and is famil- iar with its ringing sentences. It is one of the simplest yet grand- est statements of a people's right to liberty, ever written, and covers with honor the names of the men who wrote it.
After this paper had been presented to Congress, all the members signed it. It was a dangerous thing to do, for if they failed in the war with Great Britain, every man who had his name signed to this document would certainly be hung as a rebel. But none there
222
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
were cowards. John Hancock signed his name in strong bold signa- ture, and not one hand looks as if it had faltered. Stephen Hop- kins's signature looks a little tremulous, but that was because he was an old man and had had a stroke of palsy.
Independence Hall.
You should have heard the old bell in th-e belfry at Philadelphia ring out its joy peal, when it was announced that the Declaration was signed. As fast as the messenger could ride from Philadelphia to New York, as fast as the news could be sent to Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas, one after the other, the bells in all the church-steeples took up the peal of the big bell in Philadelphia, and rang out the anthem of Freedom all over the land. The boys lit bonfires at night, and the cannons blazed by day. In every way the heart of the people tried to show how it beat for joy at the fact that thej'^ were now united to throw off the yoke of English tyranny and be a free nation. The Declaration was signed on the 4th of
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. 223
July, 1776, and John Adams, who was one of the men who helped draw it np, wrote to his wife, " This day ought to be celebrated with pomp, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever." It is our national holiday, the 4th of July, of which Adams writes.
All summer long after the Declaration, the British kept gathering their forces about New York city. General Howe returned from Halifax ; Lord Henry Clinton came up with his ships from the siege of Charleston ; Lord Cornwallis and the Earl Percy marched their troops thither, and General De Hiester, with his band of Hes- sians, whom the Americans hated worst of all those who were to fight against them, also joined them. The Americans were occupy- ing New York city, and Long Island and Governor's Island close by. The British, who had got a foothold on Staten Island, now took active measures to drive the Americans away from their strong points. They landed first on Long Island, where General Sullivan was commanding a large body of patriots. There was a fight, in which the Americans were driven to take refuge inside their lines in the city of Brooklyn. Washington knew his army was not strong enough to hold Brooklyn, and in the afternoon, while the fight was still raging, he crossed the river from New York, to see what could be done. He decided at once to remove his army to New York city, from Brooklyn. Under cover of night he managed the trans- portation of nine thousand men, with all their baggage and arms, over the East River to New York, and did it so quietly that the British, who were asleep in their tents not five hundred yards off, never waked np. Fortunately, too, there was a very heavy fog which covered the river from two o'clock till daylight, and when it lifted, and the British began to wake up and get breakfast, all the Yankees were flown.
Next, the British crossed to attack New York. They made their first attempt at Thirty-fourth Street, New York city ; it was then called Kipp's Landing. When the guard stationed there saw Gen- eral Howe's troops putting in for the Landing, they began a wretched and disorderly retreat, without trying to keep the enemy off. Washington rode in front of them, shouted at them, waved his gun, snapped his pistol in their faces, called them " cowards," but it was of no use. They ran like sheep. Then Washington, in a great anger threw his hat upon the ground, and cried, " Are these the men with
15
224 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
whom I am to defend America." He was so unconscious of danger, as he sat there looking after his retreating men, tliat he might have been taken prisoner, or killed, if one of his aides-de-camp had not seized his horse's reins and fairly dragged him off the field.
When the British began to land in New York, brave old General Putnam led one division out of the city by the Hudson River road. He was to meet Washington at a certain point, and they were then to join in a retreat up the river. It happened that at this very time a party of British, more than double the number of General Put- nam's men, were coming doum this very road. Governor Tryon, the royal governor of New York, was in this party. If Putnam should meet the British army before he reached a certain turn in the road, where he was to branch off to join Washington, he would certainly be captured. Fortunately, on the way down, the British army passed the house of Mrs. Robert Murray, a lady who was a stanch rebel, although she was a Quaker, and did not approve of wars or fighting. She knew General Putnam was coming up, unaware of his danger, and that Governor Tryon and his men were marching down, unconscious of the prize which might fall into their clutches. When the British neared her mansion, she went out to the British governor and officers, and politely invited them in to luncheon. It was very hot August weather. She had delicious cake, wine, and many tempting viands, spread for them. Their men could rest in the cool shade of the groves and orchards round her house. It was too pleasant to resist, and they all rested and talked ; and Governor Tryon laughed at Mrs. Murray because she had been said to sym- pathize with the " dirty rebels ; " and Mrs. Murray laughed and joked back again, while all the time, step by step. General Putnam was nearing that turn in the road which meant safety to him and his men. When the British officers said " Good-by " to Mrs. Murray, mounted their horses, and shouted " march on " to their men, Put- nam had just turned the corner, and was safe on his way to the commander-in-chief. So it was said afterward that " Mrs. Murray saved General Putnam and the American cause that day."
The British now held New York city, and the Americans were obliged to retreat northward. Washington put a strong garrison into Fort Washington on the banks of the Hudson, and went to -pitch his tents on White Plains. But the great army of redcoats followed him up. They drove him from White Plains, and then went down and took Fort Washington, — another severe loss to the patriot cause.
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. 225
Then Washington was obhged to flee before the British army for weeks. He knew it was useless to stand and give battle. The enemy too greatly outnumbered him. Day by day his army was growing smaller. The time of enlistment of many of his regiments expired, and the men, disheartened, would not enlist again, but threw down their guns and went home.
These were gloomy days for Washington and his fellow-patriots. I wonder he was not discouraged enough to give up his sword and surrender to the British. But his invincible spirit was always equal to the test, and he wore just the same serene countenance, when on a bitter cold day in December he passed through the town of Tren- ton, New Jersey, and crossing the Delaware River at that point, encamped on the Pennsylvania shore, with his army of half-starved and half-frozen men, in the comfortless winter twilight. Just as his last boat-load of men left the Trenton side. General Howe with his army entered the other extremity of the town, with flying colors and beating drums.
In the mean time, discouraging news came from the North. Sir Peter Parker had sailed from Fort Moultrie to Newport, and taken that gallant seaport of Rhode Island. From Lake Champlain, where Colonel Benedict Arnold had been commanding a fleet, bad news came also. Arnold had sixteen small vessels on the lake, with which he had endeavored to protect Crown Point. He had failed in this ; and the British now held all the strong points on the lake. From thence, they hoped to descend upon Albany, and hold all the country down the Hudson to New York city. Arnold had cheated the British out of his little fleet, however. In a dark and foggy night he had slipped through the enemy's lines, run all his ships ashore, set them on fire, and saw every one burn to the water's edge before he would give them up to the British.
During the year the English had taken many hundreds of prison- ers, and accounts of the way in which his men were treated, con- stantly reached Washington's ears. The Americans were confined in the vilest of prisons, or, worse still, in " prison ships," which were anchored in harbors held by the British fleets. One of these " prison ships," called the Jersey^ outdid all the others in horror. It was dirty beyond description, and our men were thrust into its hold like pigs in a pen, with no air, except what came in at small gratings. It smelled so foully that no one could enter the place without becom- ing sick ; and there, furnished with wretched food and impure water,
226 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
our men sickened and died by hundreds. Even some of the British wrote letters of remonstrance against this manner of treating ene- mies of war.
Thus matters stood in December, 1776. It was a dark out-look for the friends of liberty, and gave joy and encouragement to the British and their Tory friends. But as the Christmas holidays drew near, and the cold grew more severe, Washington formed a plan which would decide the fate of the American army. He knew that the forces over in Trenton, under British command, were largely composed of the hated Hessians. He knew that, according to their National custom, they would keep Christmas holidays in great mer- riment, and he resolved then to strike a decisive blow. He made all his preparations to cross the river on Christmas Eve, but the river was so full of ice it delayed him several hours, and he did not start until the evening of the 25th. It was a dark night, with flakes of snow occasionally falling. The river was full of broken masses of ice, through which their boats struggled with difiiculty. It was four o'clock in the morning when the last boat-load of men reached the Trenton shore. They crept silentlj^ along the bank to where the Hessians lay, tired out with Christmas revelry, and thus burst suddenly upon their unsuspecting enemy. It was a glorious vic- tory. The Hessians were captured almost before they could rub their eyes open. Washington lost hardly ten men in all, and cap- tured almost one thousand Hessians, besides cannon, guns, and am- munition. The Hessians were sent off for winter-quarters into cen- tral Pennsylvania, where they found many German settlers who treated them kindly, and spoke their own language. They had a very comfortable time there, and always spoke of Washington as " a very good rebel."
After his victory Washington recrossed the river for a few days, but finally returned, and took up his quarters for the rest of the winter in Trenton. Thus the year 1776, which had seemed so dark to the Americans, ended with new hope and brightness, which came from Washington's success in " crossing the Delatvare.^^
EVENTS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1777. 227
CHAPTER XLIL
EVENTS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1777.
Rebels and Redcoats in Friendly Converse. — Battle of Princeton. — Washington at Morristown. — The Marquis de Lafayette. — Other Noble Foreigners. — Defeat at Brandywine. — Story of Lydia Darrah. — Good News on the Way.
On the first day of the new year (1777), Washington was en- camped at Trenton. Although he had won this fine victory over the Hessians, his army was in bad condition. The new recruits came in slowly and rather unwillingly, and when they did come were very raw material for soldiers, and must undergo incessant drill till they were taught what military discipline meant.
As soon as he heard of the victory over the Hessians, the British general who commanded the New Jersey division of the army, drew all his forces together at Princeton, another town in New Jersey, eleven miles from Trenton. This British officer was Lord Corn- wallis, a brave gentleman, who had opposed in England the policy which led to the American war, but nevertheless would not refuse to take part in it when his regiment was ordered to sail for the col- onies.
Cornwallis found that Washington was settling down in Trenton, apparently disposed to stay there, and on the second of January he sent a large body of troops to attack him. They had a little skirmishing during the day, but as night came on both armies began to get supper and make preparations for a night encampment, with only a narrow stream of water between them. You must not im- agine that two armies are always quarreling. When the generals do not give the command to advance or attack, the privates of opposing armies are often on very good terms with each other. When the British and Yankees found themselves encamped on oppo- site sides of a stream, they often addressed each other very amicably as " redcoats " and " rebels." In New York when the armies lay so close together before Washington's retreat to White Plains, they exchanged many civilities in the shape of packages of tobacco, which they would convey across the Harlem River from one camp to another. Thus, after some not unfriendly interchanges of this kind, the two armies sunk into repose at Trenton.
Meanwhile Washington was very anxious. He knew he had not disciplined men enough to meet the army at daybreak, and he saw
228 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
they meant to force him to battle. What should he do? He called a council of his officers in his tent, and while the camp-fires burned brightly and the men slept soundly, they talked the matter over. Cornwallis had taken the best part of his army from Princeton and left a small force there. How would it answer to wake the army about midnight, steal a silent march to Princeton, capture the Brit- ish there and hold the town ? This suggestion was approved. The Americans were aroused. The camp-fires were built high in order that the British might fancy from their light that the army still re- mained to feed them, and one hour after midnight Washington was on his march to Princeton. The winter was mild, and the roads had been very muddy, but by good fortune the weather grew cold, dur- ing the night the road stiffened and froze smooth, and the heavy artillery, otherwise so difficult to move, rolled lightly over the hard ground as if it were a polished floor.
When they reached Princeton, the remnant of the British left there were preparing to march to Trenton. They drew up outside the town on seeing the approach of the Americans, and awaited their attack. At first, victory seemed to lie with the British ; when Washington came into the field with a fresh body of men, the Brit- ish were driven from their position, and the Americans gained the day. Washington grieved at the death of one brave officer. Gen- eral Hugh Mercer, who was covered with wounds, and fell with his head broken and disfigured by blows from a clubbed musket given him after he was wounded.
Cornwallis followed closely on Washington's heels, but he had already left the scene of battle and gone to Morristown, burning all bridges behind him. At Morristown he made his winter-quarters. The Jersey people, who had been greatly outraged by the conduct of the British army in ravaging their farms and destroying their stores, flocked to Washington with offers of food and assistance. The militia of New Jersey added their efforts to the army. Wash- ington was able to fortify Elizabeth, Newark, and the other towns about him, and Cornwallis, seeing that an attack would be unwise, gave up New Jersey and withdrew.
Washington remained all the winter and spring of 1777 at Mor- ristown. The main portion of the English army was in New York under General Howe ; and the English fleet under Admiral Howe rode at anchor in New York harbor. This fleet was a constant source of anxiety to Washington. He was not sure but it might at
EVENTS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1777. 229
any time attack one of the large commercial towns of Boston, Phila- delphia, or Charleston.
Howe's real design was to get possession of Philadelphia, the seat of Congress, but he kept making movements to deceive Washington, and blind him to his intention. Washington came out of Morris- town in May, strengthened his army in New York in order to pro- tect the Hudson, and hovered about New Jersey trying to find out what Howe was going to do. All summer long the armies were like two cats, who were stealthily waiting to spring whenever one should find the other off his guard for a moment. ^
During the summer of 1777, Washington met for the first time a most important friend and ally to the American cause. This was the young Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman, who had so great love for liberty that the struggle of America to be free roused all his sympathy. He was a nobleman, young, wealthy, and just married to a beautiful s^irl of eischteen. He was himself little more than nineteen years old. When he met a group of Americans in France who were trying to interest Frenchmen in our country, he said, " I have always held the cause of America dear ; now I go to serve it personally."
He left his estates, his country, and his wife, and taking with him a large sum of ready money, sailed for this country. When he arrived he gave freeiy for the clothing and equipments of the troops in South Carolina. He sent $12,000 to Washington to aid him in paying off his soldiers, and he wrote to Congress asking permission to figlit in their armies, saying, " The moment I heard of America, I loved her. The moment I heard she was fighting for liberty, I burned with a desire to bleed for her."
This glorious young man, whose name is dear to America from that day, Washington met in Philadelphia at a dinner given him on the 3d of August.
In the same ship which brought Lafayette, many other noble foreigners came also. Among these were several Polish gentlemen, who had fought for liberty in their own unhappy country, and were the warm friends of America. One of them was tlie Count Pulaski, who entered the army at once as a volunteer. Baron de Kalb, a French officer of rank and great bravery, was among those who offered the service of his sword to Washington. The sympathy and advice of these brave soldiers must have greatly aided and en- couraged our general.
230 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
As soon as it was seen tliat Howe was moving toward Philadel- phia, Congress was urgent that Washington should make a gallant defense there. Washington was not yet quite ready to fight, but he could not withstand Congress, and when he saw the British forces approach, he brought his army to the bank of Brandywine Creek, and made a stand there.
On the 11th of September the two armies met at Brandywine, and here the American troops suffered one of the severest defeats in the war. They were driven back to take refuge in Philadelphia, and lost 1,400 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. General Lafayette was wounded in the leg, but not dangerously. He fought gallantly, receiving the thanks of Congress for his bravery. Count Pulaski shared with him the thanks of the country for his services on that field.
The British, elated with success at Brandywine Creek, marched on toward Philadelphia, Washington, rested and refreshed, and strengthened by troops sent from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, went out of the city prepared to meet the enemy again. It is said that our commander-in-chief was never so firmly resolved on victory as after the defeat at Brandywine. But a terrible rain-storm overtook his army, and before they could guard against it, their guns and powder were wet and almost ruined. Washington was forced to give up all show of battle. Howe pushed on rapidly. Congress gathered up its papers, and hurried away to Lancaster, to avoid being taken prisoners, just before a division of the conquering red- coats under Cornwallis, marched into Philadelphia, to the victorious music of their drums and fifes. On their way to the city they had met a small portion of Washington's forces, under General Wayne, and had killed three hundred of our men, almost without loss to them- selves. The clouds hung very dark over our army at this time.
Part of Howe's army now were posted in Germantown, three miles from Philadelphia, and Washington was only eleven miles away. He marched upon Howe, hoping to surprise him and gain a victory there. Fortune seemed everywhere unfavorable. At first, indeed, the Americans were successful, but in the end, they were obliged to retreat, and the battle of Germantown was almost as fatal as that of Brandywine. This was early in the month of Octo- l)er, and nearly all that had been gained at Princeton and Trenton seemed lost to our arms by the successes of the British in Pennsyl- vania. The Americans held two forts on the Delaware River, Forts
EVENTS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1777. 231
Mifflin and Mercer, and they hoped by keeping these to cut General Howe off from any commvmication with the sea. Even here they were disappointed, for Howe, seeing the importance of the forts as clearly as Washington did, sent an overpowering force down and captured them both before the close of November, Howe now made himself comfortable for the winter in the pleasant mansions of Phila- delphia, while Washington remained for a time at White Marsh.
While the armies lay in this position, Washington Avas once very near being surprised, and perhaps would have been totally destroyed, if he had not been warned and put on his guard by a woman who risked her life to save him. This woman was Lydia Darrah, of Philadelphia, a member of the Society of Quakers, many of whom, while holding war a sin, gave their prayers and all their influence to the cause of liberty. Lydia Darrah lived opposite the house where General Howe had his quarters, and one of his principal officers had rooms at her house. One evening this officer instructed her to send her family to bed early, see that there was a good fire and candles burning in his room, and be ready to admit General Howe, and let him out again secretly when he was ready to depart. Lydia obeyed all these directions. When night came she let General Howe in at her front door, locked it after him, and when he was safely in his officer's apartment, she took off her shoes, crept softly up-stairs, and listened at the keyhole. There she heard them plan to sur- prise Washington, and take him and his whole army. When she had heard enough, she went trembling to bed, and was apparently so sound asleep that the officer had to knock again and again, when he came to rouse her to let General Howe out of the house.
Next day good Mrs. Darrah got a pass from General Howe to go to mill and get some flour ground, outside the lines of the army in Philadelphia. Off she walked with a bag of wheat in her arms, to the outposts of the patriot army, twenty-five miles away. Meeting an officer there, she told her story, and begged the Americans to put Washington at once on his guard. When Howe's forces marched toward White Marsh, with the greatest secrecy, they found such excellent preparations to receive them, that they turned round and marched back again, without striking a blow.
The officer questioned Mrs. Darrah. '• Was any one in your house stirring the night General Howe was here ? " "Not a soul," she answered. " Then the walls of this house must have heard our plans," he said, " for some one reported them to the rebel Washing-
232 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
ton. When we got to White Marsh, he was all ready for us, and we all marched back like a parcel of fools."
It was now December, and the winter threatened to be severe. Washington's campaign of 1777 was ended. It had not been suc- cessful; and I very much fear the war would have ended in total ruin to our cause, if glorious news had not come from the north in the month of October previous. I must go back a little and tell you what had been happening elsewhere, while Washington was in the Jerseys and Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER XLIII.
BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN.
The Burning of Danbury. — General Burgoyne. — The Tory Brant. — Burgoyne takes Ticon- deroga. — Defense of Fort Stanwix. — Brave General Herkimer. — Massacre of Jane McCrea. — Murmurs against General Schuyler. — The Relief of Fort Stanwix. — Stark's Speech at Bennington. — The Encampment on Bemis Heights. — Battle of Saratoga. — Sur- render of Burgoyne.
We have seen how unfortunate Washington's campaign has been during the year 1777. We will now leave him for a time, and look after the British operations elsewhere during this eventful year. Early in May, Tryon, the Tory governor of New York, was sent to Connecticut to capture some stores at Dan- bury. Tryon was hated by the Americans more than any of the New York leaders, because he was regarded as a renegade and an apostate. He was gallantly met by Colonel Benedict Ar- IqT' ' \ nold and a company of Connecticut militia, but
■^^0^;- '-' he had already burned the stores at Danbury, General Burgoyne. ^^^^ made a successf ul retreat to New York, doing all the mischief he could to the country through which he passed.
In the North, on the Canada border, great events cast their shadows before. General John Burgoyne was sent from England early in May, with a picked army, great stores of ammunition, and the finest brass cannon yet sent over to subdue the rebels. He was a fat, pompous man, this General Burgoyne, who had written a comedy or two in his own country, and after he had reached America he amused himself by first writing a long proclamation to
BURGOYNE'S* CAMPAIGN.
233
the Americans, promising them what he would do if they would lay- down their arms and surrender peaceably to the British, and threat- ening them with various terrible things, among the rest that he Avould let the Indians loose among them, if they refused to sur- render. He signed his proclamation with ten or fifteen high sound- ing titles, and circulated it all over the country. This document made the Americans very indignant, especially the threat about the Indians, and the patriotic newspapers made fun of Burgoyne's composition, and said it was the best comedy he had yet written.
The plan of the northern campaign was the one most dear to the British commanders. It was to move down through New York from Canada, and take possession of the Hudson River to New York city, which was held by the British. In that way they would hold all the province of New York, cut New England off from the rest of the colonies, and crush her into subjection. They believed that in subduing New England, they should strike at the head and heart of rebellion and kill it altogether.
This was Burgoyne's plan, and he had made an arrangement ■with Sir Henry Clinton, who commanded the fleet at the mouth of the Hudson, to move up the river and meet him at Albany. Let us see how his plan succeeded.
The Americans at the North were commanded by General Philip Schuyler, a brave, high-spirited soldier, with the blood of the plucky Dutch settlers in his veins. He was a native of Albany, and thoroughly familiar with all that country. He was now sta- tioned at Fort Edward, the head of boat navigation on the Hudson; and Ticonderoga and Crown Point, poorly garrisoned, were held by his troops.
Burgoyne divided his army into two parts. He commanded in person the first division, which was to keep on the river. The com- mand of the other division he intrusted to General St. Leger, who was to go west, through the Mohawk Valley, and take the western forts in New York. St. Leger ex- pected to be greatly aided by Sir John John- son, a son of the famous Sir William John- son, who had been so popular among the Indians in the French wars. The Johnson >'°=^p^ ^""'^■
family still retained their Indian influence, and as they were vio-
234 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
lent Tories, it was expected that hosts of the Six Nations would flock to the British flag under Johnson. There was also a famous Indian chief named Brant, commanding the Indians here, who was a close friend of the British, and the whole country swarmed with Tories, who were formed into a company called " Johnson Greens." Thus you see St. Leger had a fair prospect of success. The forts against which he was marching were Fort Stanwix on the Mohawk River, where the city of Rome now stands, and Fort Oswego on Lake Erie.
Burgoyne went down to besiege Ticonderoga with an army ten thousand strong. General St. Clair, commanding the fort, had only three thousand. One warm July morning he saw the red coats and brass cannon of the British glittering on the peaked top of Sugar Loaf Hill directly overlooking the fort. The Americans had not fortified this hill, because they thought no cannon could be drawn to its steep top. St. Clair was obliged to give orders to evacuate the fort, and led his men and all the stores they could carry away, over to Vermont. They left their stores and baggage at White- hall, and took a roundabout way to Fort Edward, to join Schuyler there. But Burgoyne's army was on their track. They followed and captured the goods left at Whitehall. Then General Frazer, one of the ablest British generals, and some Germans, under the Hessian General Ridesel, went in pursuit. They caught the Amer- icans at Hubbardston, Vermont, where brave Seth Warner turned and gave battle. There the Americans were badly beaten.
In the loss of Ticonderoga, the stores at Whitehall, and the men at Hubbardston, the campaign had opened brilliantly for Burgoyne, and he felt jubilant. There were many in the American camp who complained that Schuyler did not reinforce Ticonderoga, and grumbled that St. Clair did not strike a blow in its defense. There were whispers that traitors were in our midst. One absurd report was circulated that Schuyler and St. Clair were in league with the British, and were paid for treason by silver balls shot into the camp from British guns.
In the mean time St. Leger and his army moved on toward Stan- wix. The " Johnson Greens " had joined them, and Brant with his savages howled and war-whooped in their rear.
The patriots were also up in' arms in all the country about Fort Stanwix, and were prepared to help the little garrison inside. Colonel Gansevoort held the fort, with seven hundred and fifty
BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 235
men, and General Herkimer had raised a company of about eight hundred militia to aid in defending it outside the walls. The Indians, skillful in that kind of warfare, united with the Tories and British in a close ambuscade, from which they fell suddenly on Gen- eral Herkimer as he approached the fort. There was a bloody fight, in which Herkimer, brave old fellow, fought like a tiger. He was shot in both legs, mortally wounded, but, like brave Witherington in " Chevy Chase," who, —
" When his legs were cut in two He fought upon his stumps,"
so Herkimer, sitting down on a log, waved his men on to battle, and holding a rifle, fired as long as his hand could pull a trigger. It ended in triumph for the Americans, — a dearly bought triumph, for they left more than half their men on the field, scalped and mutilated by the savages in St. Leger's army.
The deeds of the Indians, and their employment by Burgoyne, fired all the Americans with increased indignation and resolve not to yield. Every day there was a new story told of Indian barbarity. Even the British could not securely trust their savage allies. An oflBcer among tlie Tories sent a party of Indians to escort a young girl named Jane McCrea, to whom he was engaged in marriage, within the British lines. On the way the Indians fell to quarreling over the reward they were to receive, and, in the melee, killed the girl, and bore her scalp away, leaving her mutilated body in the road. This outrage, committed almost in the sight of her neighbors and friends, filled the whole country with horror, and General Bur- goyne was called upon to declare that it was a horrible mistake.
Schuyler worked bravely to defend the Hudson, filling up the river with all the means he could devise, in order to render it impassable by British ships, and obstructing Burgoyne's marches wherever he could do so with safety. Still there had been much grumbling against him ever since the fall of Ticonderoga. Rein- forcements had poured in rapidly at Fort Edward, and he now had a large army there. After the battle at Fort Stanwix, Gansevoort sent messengers begging reinforcements. When Schuyler talked of sending them, there were murmurs all around him of discontent. " He wants to deplete the army." The general was smoking at the time, and he was so angry that he bit the stem of his clay- pipe to pieces in his mouth, in the effort to restrain his temper, " I
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take all responsibility upon myself, gentlemen," said he. " Who
will volunteer to command the relief to Stanwix. 1 shall send it to-morrow." On this, Benedict Arnold started to his feet, and vol- unteered to command.
Arnold was as crafty as he was brave. When he was nearing the British under St. Leger, he sent a man on ahead with several bullet holes in his clothes, who entered the enemy's camp as a deserter, and gave such an account of the great army coming on. that St. Leger was fright- ened, and the Indians, who had begun to show signs of flagging bravery ever since the fight with Herkimer, nearly all took to their heels.
The British army began a rapid retreat. Arnold went on unmolested, left his reinforcements at Stanwix, and returned to Schuyler, after taking a quantity of tents and baggage that St. Leger had left in his flight.
While Arnold was gone, Schuyler had moved his army from Fort Edward and taken up a position on the left bank of the Hudson, near the village of Stillwater. Burgoyne was trying all this time to bring stores and provisions for his army down to the river from Lake George. After working fifteen days he found he had only succeeded in bringing provisions for four days eighteen miles, so effectually had General Schuyler blocked up roads and impeded his progress. To rest a little from his labors and see if he could not draw some aid from the enemy's country, Burgoyne sent out a de- tachment of his Germans under General Baum, to take some Ameri- can stores at' Bennington. The Germans marched on to Benning- ton, where General John Stark had just arrived with a company of his New Hampshire militia.
BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 237
When Stark saw them coming he made a short speech to his sol- diers, which was as good as vokimes of words. " There they are, boys," he shouted, pointing to the British, " We shall beat them to-night, or to-morrow morning Molly Stark will be a widow."
They did beat them and drove them back toward the Hudson. On their retreat the British met a new supply of their troops under General Breyman, and turned back to renew the battle. Fortu- nately for the Americans, Seth Warner and his " Green Mountain Boys " had joined Stark by this time, and they sent the redcoats back again. In the battle the men took several brass cannon. They did not know how to load cannon, and could not use them till Stark rode up and showed them how. For men who did not know enough of arms to load a cannon properly, I think they fought the battle of Bennington very satisfactorily. At all events, the retreat of St. Leger from Stanwix, and the defeat of Baum at Bennington, was a great aid to the American cause.
Just at this time Schuyler was superseded in command by General Horatio Gates. It was a severe blow to Schuyler after all his plans were laid for the campaign, but he gave up with much grace, and cheerfully did all in his power to help the cause of the country in the region of his former command.
About the middle of September the two armies of the North were very near each other, waiting to give battle. Burgoyne was on the heights of Saratoga, Gates was on some heights just back of an old tavern known as " Bemis's Inn," and held a strongly fortified place there overlooking a flat country, and commanding the road up and down the river. On the 19th of September both armies came outside their lines, and met in a bloody battle near the village of Stillwater, which lasted several hours without any marked result on either side. Again the armies retired inside °'"''" °'*''
their Hues and awaited battle till the 7th of October. On that day they met again in almost the same place as before. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when the battle began, and they fought until darkness put an end to the affray. General Frazer, Burgoyne's favorite general, was shot through the body and carried dying off the field. General Breyman was slain, and several other British ofiicers were fatally wounded. General Benedict Arnold,
238 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
wlio since his return from Fort Stanwix had quarreled with Gates, was wounded in one leg. General Gates had given him no special command, which had added to Arnold's anger, and all day long he fought like a madman, rushing in wherever the fight was thickest, and seizing a loaded rifle from any private soldier who was near him, that he might deliberately pick off one of the foes. It was an additional source of complaint to Arnold that Gates did not speak of his bravery in his report to Congress of the victory which was gained that day.
General Frazer asked that he might be buried in the trenches where he had been shot ; and the day after the battle the chaplain of Burgoyne's army read the service for the dead over the body of the general as it was lowered into the trenches from which he had rid- den to his death. General Gates saw the enemy in their intrench- ments, and unaware that they were burying the dead, he kept up a constant fire from the cannon. General Frazer was buried, as he had lived and died, amid the roar of artillery.
This battle had broken Burgoyne's strength. The Americans were in large force, and flushed with victory. The British were discouraged, and anxious to give up. The two generals began to correspond on the terms of surrender, and it was finally agreed that Burgoyne's army should lay down their arms and march to Boston, to be sent from that city to Europe under a promise to fight no more in this war.
On the 17th of October Burgoyne's army marched silently out of their camp and stacked their guns on the fields of Saratoga. The American army were nowhere in sight. Their general had generously forbidden them to look on the humiliation of their beaten enemies.
When Burgoyne and Gates met after the surrender, the British general drew his sword and handed it politely to Gates, while with the other hand he gracefully lifted his hat, saying, " The fortunes of war, general, have made me your prisoner."
" I shall always be glad to testify that it was through no fault of your excellency," answered General Gates with equal politeness, and after this exchange of civilities the two gentlemen went off to dine together.
So ended Burgoyne's campaign. He was much blamed in Eng- land, poor man, and sought solace in writing more comedies, but he always afterwards opposed the war against America.
You must fancy the great joy in this country at this surrender.
THE YEAR 1778. 239
Sir Henry Clinton, who had got up the Hudson as far as Haverstraw, and taken two forts there, retreated to New York. The Hudson River was ours, and in spite of the gloom around him, the heart of Washington was cheered by the glorious news from the North.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE YEAR 1778.
Gayeties in Philadelphia.— The Terrible Winter at Valley Forge. - Story of Washington and the Farmer. — Molly Pitcher at Monmouth. — Philadelphia ours once more. — The Wyoming Massacre. — Tories and Indians. — Atrocities of the Wyoming Attack. — End of the Year.
In the winter of 1777-78 the armies of America and Great Britain lay only twenty miles apart. The army of redcoats with their commander-in-chief. General Howe, were quartered in the city of Philadelphia, the pleasantest city in America. There they lived in fine houses, ministered to by the Tory citizens, who hoped to see the British arms successful, and did all in their power to make the city agreeable for its ofiicers and men. There were balls, dinner parties, and all sorts of festivities. Once they held a grand tourna- ment, in which the officers wore the favorite colors of fair ladies on their shields, and the ladies crowned their favorite knights with garlands. The array of beauty and gorgeous dresses seen at this mock tournament rivaled the old days of knighthood and chivalry. So from the city, all winter long, rose the sounds of feasting and merry-making, and there, in inglorious ease, reposed the British commander and his men.
Twenty miles away, in a rocky, desolate, mountain gorge known as Valley Forge, Washington had led his army from White Marsh. When he went there, in bitter December weather, his men, shoeless and almost naked, had marked their way with blood from their bare feet. They reached the valley, and for want of tents were obliged to cut down trees and build huts of logs for shelter from the cold. Congress had no money to pay the men, no money to buy them food. For days and days together, during this winter, they had no bread and lived upon salt pork alone. They sickened with hunger and cold, and there was no money to buy medicines, no comfortable hospitals where they could be nursed. They were ragged and without shoes. Some comrades had but one suit of clothes between them, and while one went out to parade, the other would lie shiver-
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240 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
iiig with a single blanket wrapped about him. Ah, my children, liberty was dearly bought in this country. It cost many lives that winter, and left many homes desolate and mourning. We should never forget the men who died there at Valley Forge.
These were hard days for Washington, too, and his heart must often have felt very heavy. He knew there were many who mur- mured against him because he had not been more successful and won more brilliant victories. He saw his men naked, starving, freezing with cold, and burning with malarious fevers. Once the rude Pennsylvania farmer with whom he lodged, went to his door to speak with the commander-in-chief. He heard his voice in earnest entreaty, and stopped to listen. Washington was alone, praying to God for succor for his poor soldiers, and the success of American liberties. The farmer stole softly away and went down- stairs to his wife. " If God ever hears any prayers," he said, while he wiped away the tears which were rolling down his cheeks, " he will hear George Washington."
The long winter, a bitterly cold winter, at last passed away. New England sent money and provisions for their relief, and with the first breath of spring came cheering news. France acknowl- edged the United States as a nation, and had given notice to Eng- land of her intention to treat her as such. For almost two years, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee, had been in France, trying to get the king to lend a helping hand in America. The news of Burgoyne's surrender had decided France, and tidings came to Congress that ships and soldiers and money would soon reach the struggling colonies. There was universal gladness, and a bond of friendship was knit between France and this country which has never been broken from that day to this.
Howe's stay in Philadelphia did not end quite so pleasantly for him. Benjamin Franklin said shrewdly, " Howe has not taken Philadelphia ; Philadelphia has taken him." He had so indolent a time there that the British government began to mistrust his desire to do anything but dance and eat good dinners, and sent Sir Henry Clinton to take his command away from him. In June the whole army moved out of Philadelphia, and then Washington, whose men were now clothed and comfortable, broke up his camp, and went to give them battle.
The two armies met at Monmouth, and fought from sunrise to sunset, a ghastly, bloody fight. It was the hottest day in the year,
THE YEAK 1778. 241
and men were constantly dropping down in the ranks from sun- stroke. During the battle, one of the gunners, a man named Pitcher, was shot at his gun. His wife, who had followed him from their home to the camp, and from camp to the battle-field, stepped forward and took his place, firing the cannon with the skill and rapidity of a soldier. She was always called after that, " Cap- tain Molly Pitcher."
When night came, the Americans lay down in their clothes upon the field, with guns in hand, ready to begin again next morning. But at daybreak the British had fled and were on their way to New York city. Washington followed to White Plains, and set up his tents there on the very spot from which he had been driven two years before.
So Philadelphia was ours once more. Washington left General Benedict Arnold there to hold the city, because his wounded leg still troubled him, and he was not fit for active service. Arnold was very angry that his valor had not been more fully recognized, and very bitter against General Gates, who, he said, had wronged him at Saratoga. But Washington seems to have prized his ser- vices. I am very sorry that he gave him the command at Phila- delphia, however. Because he got acquainted with many wealthy Tories there, and married very soon, a beautiful, accomplished Tory girl, who had been one of the belles in the festivities which General Howe kept up in Philadelphia. General Arnold would better have married a poor, plain, uneducated, loyal-hearted girl in his own native Rhode Island, than this handsome Tory, who wrote gay and delightful letters to several British officers in Howe's army.
In July Count D'Estaing came from France with twelve ships, ammunition, men, and money. England be- gan to be anxious. She was ready to repeal her tax laws now, if her children would return to their allegiance. But they had already tasted freedom ; they would listen to no offers. Some British commissaries tried to bribe loyal Americans to betray their country. But as one of them (General Reed of Philadelphia) said, "I am not worth buying, but such as I count D'Estaing.
am, the King of England is not rich enough to do it." So all the patriots felt at heart.
The saddest event of this year was known as " The Wyoming
242 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Massacre," a story which has been told since in many a poet's verse. 1
The Wyoming Valley was a strip of green meadow land, border- ing the Susquehanna River, inclosed on all sides by steep and rugged mountains. Here many Connecticut families had settled, and their pleasant farms and comfortable farm-houses formed a peaceful little Arcadia. The Wyoming settlers were very loyal, and nearly every family had a husband or son in the patriot army. But the country about swarmed with Tories, and there was the bitterest ill-feeling between the Tories and patriots there.
One summer evening (June, 1778), about eleven hundred men, six hundred of whom were Indians, swept down upon the lovely valley. The frightened people, largely women and children, hud- dled together in Fort Forty, the safest stronghold in the event of a siege. Fortunately, a brave soldier in the Continental army. Colo- nel Zebulon Butler, one of the Connecticut settlers, was at home in the valley on a furlough. To him the command of the little army of defense was given. He mustered a small band, principally old men and boys, numbering in all, hardly more than one fifth of the enemy. It was decided that their only hope was in meeting their foes upon the open field, and accordingly they left the walls of the fort and what poor protection they afforded, and went bravely out to await the fate of battle. The Tories and Indians were com- manded by Colonel John Butler of the " Johnson Greens," who had fought at Fort Stanwix when Herkimer was killed. They were a savage band ; the Tories nearly all native Americans, and hardly less bloodthirsty than their Indian allies. The patriots made a brave but hopeless defense. When at last overpowered by such numbers, they gave way, they were pursued with horrible fury, and the conquerors showed no mercy. Many tried to escape by swim- ming the river, or hiding in the branches of the trees which over- hung the water, but the Indians pursued with their wild war-whoops, and hacked them to pieces with knives and tomahawks. Every painted warrior bore scalps at his girdle, torn from the heads of old men, women, and children. Some of the captives were roasted in slow fires, some had their brains dashed out with clubs. In the flesh of some they stuck splinters of pine, and then set them on fire. Others they threw into the flames and held them there with pitchforks
1 The English poet Campbell celebrates this massacre in his famous poem, Gertrude of Wyoming.
SAVANNAH AND STONY POINT. 243
till they were consumed. Friend murdered his friend, and brother slaughtered brother, in this hideous affray. Glutted with blood, the conquerors came to demand the surrender of Fort Forty, which was given up to them without resistance. The miserable little handful of women and children, widows and orphans of those they had just destroyed, left the fort, and wandered out without food, almost with- out clothing, into the wilderness. A part of them made their way to some distant settlements, but many perished on the road from hunger and exhaustion. Their ti'ack through the wilderness is known to this day as " The Shades of Death."
After this conquest, the cruel hordes of Butler devastated the whole region of western Pennsylvania, and all summer tales of their brutality startled the whole land.
The rest of the year 1778 was not marked by any notable event. Washington remained that fall and winter in New Jersey. Count D'Estaing, with his French fleet, went to the British islands in the West Indies, to worry the enemy there. Sir Henry Clinton sent a large force to Georgia, the youngest and weakest of all the colonies, and they took the town of Savannah, and held it till the war ended.
CHAPTER XLV.
SAVANNAH AND STONY POINT.
Continental Money. — Lincoln and Count D'Estaing at Savannah. — Defeat to the Ameri- cans. — Mad Anthony Wayne. — The Forlorn Hope. — Taking of Stony Point.
One of the greatest troubles which beset the American Congress in carrying on this revolutionary war, was the want of money. This pressing need forced them to issue paper money to supply the place of the gold and silver which was lacking, and as paper money is not worth anything unless people are sure there is enough gold and silver somewhere to take its place, this American or Continental money was worth less and less, as Congress grew poorer and poorer, till finally forty dollars of it was hardly worth one dollar in gold. In South Carolina, it was said, it took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes. The soldiers were paid with this money, and their pay would not keep their families in salt. By the way, salt was very dear, and became as much of a kixury as tea or sugar. So you can see the worthlessness of the " Continental money," as it was called, caused much grumbling and discontent.
244 STORY OF OUR COUIVTRY.
I told you, in the last chapter, that the British had concentrated a large force in Georgia. Colonel Campbell and General Prevost were the British commanders there, and General Lincoln of Massa- chusetts commanded our Southern army. There was constant man- CBUvring on the part of the British to hold Georgia and the Carolinas, and on the part of Lincoln to drive them out. They tried to take Charleston once, but Lincoln's troops made a gallant resistance, aided by brave General Moultrie, who had been at the first siege of Charleston, and was there to help them. So the redcoats did not get Charleston, but retired to Savannah again. At length. Count D'Estaing came up from the West Indies and joined Lincoln, and they decided to lay siege to Savannah.
You know something about a siege, I presume, and I have no doubt you have read about the siege of Troy, which lasted ten years, and ended by getting a great wooden horse, filled with soldiers, inside the Trojan walls. This siege of Savannah lasted nearly a month. The French and the Americans were posted on all sides of the city, and kept perpetually firing inside the fortifications which surrounded it. Inside the town, the people had to hide in cellars, and throw up banks of sand round their houses to keep out of the way of bomb-shell and cannon-shot. After a number of days of this kind of warfare, Lincoln made an assault on the town, and was
beaten back with terrible slaughter of his men. The hrave Count Pulaski^ the noble Pole who was here helping in our battles, lost his life in this fearful assault at Savannah. Sergeant Jasper, the one who saved the flag at Charles- ton by jumping over the wall after it, was here killed. He died, grasping a flag which had been given his regiment by some patriotic Count Pulaski. womcu, sayiug, "Tell the ladies of Charleston
I preserved their flag unharmed."
This fight at Savannah ended in triumph for the British and was the last attempt of the Americans for the present to recover Georgia.
In the North, Tryon was ravaging Connecticut, burning towns, tram]5ling down the growing harvests, and insulting the people by all kinds of brutality. On the Hudson River General Clinton was harassing Washington's army which had spent the winter in New Jersey, and was now trying to guard the Hudson. The Americans
THE YEAK 1778. 245
had built some very good forts at West Point, — now the great inilitary school of our nation. But the British had two fortified places on the Hudson — Verplanck's Point and Stony Point — nearly opposite each other on the river.
In July Washington planned the taking of Stony Point. He selected General Anthony Wayne, whom the soldiers called " Mad Anthony " because he was so recklessly brave. Wayne went up the river secretly and divided his army into two columns, to attack each side of the fort at once. Each column was led by a " forlorn hope" of twenty men. Do you know what a " forlorn hope " means ? It is a small party of men appointed to go first in a very dangerous attack, where there is little chance that auy will be left alive. When Wayne called for volunteers to join the " forlorn hope " to lead his two attacking columns, so many men came for- ward to go that it was difficult to choose from among them.
The columns came in upon the fort from south and north, and so quick and sudden was the attack that the fort was taken in hardly less time than it takes to tell it, and the two parts of Wayne's army met almost exactly in the middle of the fortress. Of one "forlorn hope " only five men remained, and the other was almost as badly cut to pieces. Yet it was a glorious victory, and Wayne took many prisoners, and cannon, powder, flags, and other trophies of war. Unfortunately Washington was not strong enough to hold the fort, but was obliged to order Wayne to take away his spoils and desert the Point.
Away in the west General Sullivan was paying the Indians and Tories in their own coin by burning the towns and ravaging the country which the Indians had ravaged before. On the extreme western border, now the State of Indiana, and then called the " country of the Illinois," General George Rogers Clarke had waded through the swamp lands and crossed the rivers to hang the Ameri- can flag over Fort Vincennes, built years before by the French. The war was spreading out in wider and wider circles, and the end of it seemed farther and farther away.
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XLVI.
JOHN PAUL JONES.
Privateers. — Daring Adventure of John Paul Jones. — Tiie Bon Homme Richard. — Fight with the Seraph. — The Ships tied together. — Victory.
As yet you have heard nothing of any battles on the sea. It would seem ahnost absurd for these poor colonies to meet England in her own domain of the ocean, — England who had so long claimed
to be the mistress of the seas. Yet as early as 1775 Congress had or- dered a small fleet to be fitted out as the begin- ning of an American navy, and had appointed Esek Hopkins as its com- mander. Up to the fall of 1779, however, nearly all the naval enterprises had been undertaken by " privateers," which since the beginning of the war had swarmed in Boston hai'bor and the neighbor- ing sea-coasts. These pri- vateers were ships fitted out by private individ- uals, who obtained a com- mission from the govern- ment to capture any of the enemy's ships which they were strong enough to take. There were a good many Amer- ican privateers fitted out which had done more or less service, though the British declared they were piratical craft and their captains and men were no better than pirates.
One of the commanders of the vessels in this weak and puny American navy was Captain John Paul Jones. Jones was a native of England, but he had lived for years in Virginia, owned an estate there, and was an American in heart and soul. He was as daring
IPill i
JOHN PAUL JONES. 249
as any hero of romance, and his adventures are as various and as strange as those of Roderick Random or Masterman Ready. He had actually sailed over to the enemy's country, landed on the coast of England at Whitehaven, spiked all the cannon in the fort while the town was asleep, and then set fire to the ships in the harbor, and gone quietly on board his vessel, before the terrified inhabitants could rub open their sleepy eyes and see that it was only one poor little vessel with a handful of men, who had done all this. After this adventure, he went to France, and with Benjamin Franklin's aid and influence finally got a good-sized ship, which he called the Bon Homme Richard (Good Man Richard), after Dr. Franklin's " Poor Richard's Maxims," which I am sure you have often heard quoted,
John Paul sailed with "Good Man Richard" to the coast of Eng- land bordering on the North Sea. Cruising about near the harbor of Scarborough in Yorkshire County, he saw a fleet of ships just setting to sea under the protection of two English men-of-war. The largest of these ships was the Serapis, with forty-four guns, splen- didly manned and every way the better of John Paul's ship. He did not hesitate on that account, but challenged her at once to battle. The English captain was so certain of victory that when he had fired one or two broadsides at " Good Man Richard," he inquired of her commander if he was ready to pull down his colors. " I have not yet begun to fight," answered John Paul coolly.
The two ships were then so close together that the bowsprit of the Serapis came over the side so that it nearly touched the miz- zen-mast of the Bon Homme Richard. John Paul saw his oppor- tunity, and before the captain could disentangle the two ships he seized a rope and with his own hands tied the ships together. There, lashed side by side, with the mouths of the cannon from each vessel belching into each other their terrible volley, ensued one of the most desperate fights in the history of sea battles. It lasted about two hours and a half, when the English captain went aloft and hauled down his colors with his own hand. Not one of his men was brave enough to venture on deck on such an errand. When the fight was over, John Paul's vessel was sinking, and her master and his crew were obliged to leave her and take refuge in the con- quered ship. "Next day," says John Paul in his account of it, "I saw it was impossible to save the good old ship from sinking. We did not abandon her till nine in the morning. The water was then
/
250 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
up to the lower deck, and a little after ten I saw, with inexpressi- ble grief, the last glimpse of the Bo7i Homme Richard.'^
The fight with the Serapis filled all Europe with surprise, and John Paul Jones was the hero of the hour. The fact that an Eng- lish ship could be beaten in fair battle was proved, and was hailed as a good omen in America. Of all the events of the year 1779 it was the most brilliant, and excited most wonder.
CHAPTER XLVII.
EVENTS DURING 1779.
Discontent in tlie Army. — Flogging of Soldiers. — Taking of Charleston by the British. — Tarlton's Quarter. — General Marion's Militia. — Story of Marion and the British Officer. — Count Rochanibeau in Rhode Island.
Another winter of cold and discontent in Washington's army stationed at Morristown. The winter was terribly severe, and in their miserable quarters the men huddled together at night on piles of straw, keeping themselves from freezing by the heat from the close contact of their bodies. Heavy snow-storms often cut off their supplies, and they were frequently a week without a mouthful of meat, and sometimes as long without bread. The soldiers, paid in Continental money, were discontented with this kind of reward for their services. They grumbled loudly at having nothing but this worthless paper to send home to their families, whom they knew were often without the common necessaries of life. When their pay was given them, they said, as they looked scornfully at the crisp new paper which the Continental Congress had issued, " A hat full of this 3turf would not buy our families one bushel of salt."
There were many signs of mutiny, and only the utmost care and judicious management of Washington prevented a serious outbreak in his army. Many of the soldiers, contrary to orders, would steal from camp to take sheep, pigs, and poultry, from the farmers in the country round about. Many a poor fellow had to be flogged for this offense (for the discipline of the army must be maintained), and it was said Washington would always take care to have the punish- ment inflicted as far as possible from his quarters, that he might not be pained by witnessing it. The soldiers would bear the whipping with great fortitude, and devised a means to endure the pain with-
EVENTS DURING 1779. 251
out uttering any outcry. They would take a leaden bullet between the teeth, and chew on it wlaile the lash fell on their naked backs. After the punishment was over they would often spit the bullet from their mouths all flattened out, and showing as plainly the impression of the teeth as if it had been rubber.
Yet although the soldiers were often hungry and very ragged, the army managed to turn out and make a tolerable appearance when- ever Washington had any distinguished foreign guest, and a " dress review " was ordered. Washington had very efficient help at this time in disciplining the army, in the person of Baron Steuben, a splendid soldier, who had been an aide-de-camp in the army of Fred- erick the Great of Prussia, who you know had the finest soldiers in the world. There was no better order in the American army than in the regiments which Baron Steuben drilled. Perfect order and perfect silence prevailed in the parades of his soldiers. Every man's gun was examined, and if it was dirty or out of order, off the man went to the guard-house. If clean, and ready for use at a seconds notice, the soldier had a reward in money from his commander. There were few among those foreign oSicers who came to aid us, more efficient than Baron Steuben.
During the winter General Clinton, who still held New York firmly in his grasp, and who felt sure Washington was not in a con- dition to make any attempt to retake the city, sailed with a fleet to Charleston, South Carolina, to take that town. His southern army held Savannah, and if they could take Charleston, he believed that Georgia and the Carolinas would be entirely subdued to British power. General Lincoln, who commanded our southern troops, was a brave man and a good soldier, but he always fought with the odds against him. He managed to muster about 3,000 men inside the city of Charleston for its defense, and he hoped to get more forces before Clinton could entirely surround the city. But he hoped in vain. The British ships entered Charleston harbor boldly, and after a siege of a month, Lincoln was forced to surrender. There were many Tories in South Carolina as well as many patriots, and Clinton took counsel of the Tories, who of course were very bitter against the Whigs, and advised him to issue a severe proclamation, threatening all the people who did not at once prove themselves loyal to the British king. The South Carolina militia began to re- treat to the mountains of North Carolina, to get out of the way of their conquerors. One of the British officers. Colonel Tarleton,
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
was sent to pursue them, and falling in with a band who were re- treating, he attacked them and cut them to pieces without mercy. It was reported that he spurred on his soldiers after the militia had laid down their arms and asked for quarter, — and " Tarleton's quarter " afterwards was understood to mean the most unrelenting barbarity.
After the taking of Charleston, two brave soldiers in the Carolinas carried on unceasing war against the Tories. These were General Francis Marion and General Thomas Sumter, both natives of South Carolina. General Marion had been in the siege, but had left the city just before it surrendered and escaped capture. The two gen- erals had raised an army of men from among the patriot farmers and hunters in the interior. They were a motley crew, without uni- forms and almost without arms. Yet for months they were the only representatives of the American cause in the South, and by ha- rassing the Tories, making frequent descents on Brit- ish outposts, and capturing now and then a few prison- ers and a stand of arms, they kept liberty alive. At one time Marion had a camp vipon Snow's Island, an in- accessible spot, in the cen- tre of swamps and tangled forests. Here with his men he slept on the ground with- out a blanket, and marched bareheaded in the sun, for want of a hat. A British officer was marched into this retreat, blindfolded, in order to talk with Marion about the exchange of some prisoners.
Marion invited him to dinner, and when it was reported ready, the young officer, fresh from the lux- urious fare of the English mess-rooms, saw a pine log for a table, and some roasted sweet potatoes for the sole dish.
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. 253
" Is this all you have for dinner ? " he asked, in astonishment. *' This is all," answered General Marion, " and we thought ourselves fortunate in having more potatoes than usual, when we had a guest to dine with us.''
" You must have excellent pay to console you for such living," said the officer.
" On the contrary," answered Marion, " I have never received a dollar, nor have one of my men."
" What on earth are you fighting for ? "
"For the love of liberty," answered the hero. The story relates that the young officer went back to Charleston and resigned his position in the English army, saying he would not fight against men who fought from such motives, and endured such hardships. I hope the story is true, it is such an excellent one.
In the mean time, at the North, there had been some skirmish- ing, and many houses and towns plundered in New York and New Jersey, but no serious fighting. During the spring Lafayette re- turned from France with news of more help on the way to America. The Count de Rochambeau soon followed him with several ships and an army of 6,000 men. They took up quarters in Newport, Rhode Island.
In September Washington went to Connecticut to confer with the Count, and while here a treason to the American cause was discov- ered, which if it had been successful might have been the death-blow to liberty in this country. But the account of this treason must have place in a fresh chapter.
CHAPTER XL VIII.
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.
West Point. — Gustavus, and John Anderson. —Capture of Colonel Andr^. —Escape of Bene- dict Arnold. — Andr(5 condemned to be hanged. — His Letter to Washington. — Plot to save Andr6. — Feigned Desertion of Champe. — The Execution of Andr^. — Failure of Champe's Enterprise and his Return.
We left General Benedict Arnold in command of the forces sta- tioned in Philadelphia after Howe's evacuation. He had lived a gay life in the Quaker city, getting badly in debt there, and grow- ing every day on worse terms with himself and his brother generals in the American army. In the summer he asked Washington for a
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more active command, and Washington gave him West Point for
_ his post of duty.
West Point was the most important post in our possession. It was the stronghold which guarded the Hudson, and kept the British from their darhng project of cut- ting off New York from New England. Therefore in sending; Arnold to command there, Washington gave him a great trust to hold.
But Arnold was a bad-hearted man, ca- pable of betraying trust. He had at that very time planned to sell himself to the Brit- ish, and had named the price at which he could be bought. He asked <£ 10,000 in English gold, and a commission in the royal army, and Sir Henrj^ Clinton had offered to pay it to him.
I have told you Arnold's wife was a Tory, who was living in Phil- adelphia when Howe was there. It is said that she wrote letters at intervals to her acquaintances in the British army, among whom was young Major Andre, an adjutant-general of General Clinton. It may have been in this way that Arnold first came into correspond- ence with Major Andre. At any rate, for some time they ex- changed letters, which were signed " Gustavus " by Arnold, and " John Anderson " by Andre.
In September General Clinton sent Major Andre to West Point to visit Arnold, and arrange definitely for the betrayal of that post into his hands. Andre went up in a British vessel named the Vulture^ and was carried on shore in a boat to a house inside the American lines. There Arnold met him, and the matter was fully discussed. The next day when Andre wished to rejoin his vessel
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.
255
Major Andre.
he found it had gone down the river. Some patriots had seen it
tliere, and suspecting it to be an Enghsh
vessel, tliey liad dragged an old cannon to
the river bank, firing directly into the Vul-
tu7'e, till they had obliged the captain to
hoist anchor and sail toward New York.
Andre was forced to cross the river and go by horse to New York city. Arnold gave him a pass, and a disguise in place of his uniform as an English officer, and thus provided, he crossed the river just below West Point.
He had passed the American lines, and had reached Tarrytown on the Hudson. Before night-fall he would be in the camp at New York, and the plan for the surrender would be in Clinton's hands. Almost free from apprehension of danger, he rode on. Suddenly three men appeared in his path. Without producing his pass, he asked them, " Where do you belong."
" Down below," answered one. " Down below " meant New York, and Andre was thrown off his guard by the answer. " I belong there also," he said. " I am a British officer on important business. Do not detain me."
" Then you are our prisoner," answered the men.
Andre then produced his pass, but as by his own confession he was a British officer, it availed nothing. He offered his watch, his purse, and more valuable than either, he offered to deliver to them next day a cargo of English dry goods if they would let him pass. They were unmoved by his bribes, and already had begun to search him. They searched pockets, saddle-bags, his hat. They even ripped open the linings of his coat. The prisoner stood nearly naked in the road, yet no paper had been found. At length they pulled off his boots. His boots were empty ; but they heard the rustle of paper when they were drawn off. The stockings came last, and in his stockings, under the soles of his feet, were found, in Ar- nold's handwriting, the treasonable papers, with a plan of the fort, mode of entrance, and everything to facilitate its surrender to Clinton.
The three men (their names were John Paulding, David Will- iams, and Isaac Van Wert) took their prisoner and the papers to
17
256 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the nearest officer, Colonel Jameson, and gave, him cip. Andre asked one favor of Colonel Jameson, that he might write a brief note to Arnold, and Jameson, not understanding the importance of the capture, granted his request. Andre wrote, " John Anderson has been taken on his way to New York," and sent this warning by a speedy messenger."
The note reached Arnold in time. Washington had met Rocham- beau in Hartford, had finished his talk with him, and was on his way to West Point. At any moment Arnold might see him enter his head-quarters. He hurriedly made all his preparations for escape, mounted his horse, and rode to the nearest boat-landing, plunging down a steep and almost impassable precipice to reach it. This precipice was afterwards named " The Traitor's Hill." At the landing he took boat, and tying his white handkerchief to a stick, waved it aloft that he might not be fired on by the guns of the fort, and was rowed safely to the Vulture. Almost as soon as he reached that vessel, orders came from head-quarters to fire on his boat. Washington had arrived there and learned of his treachery.
Arnold reached New York in safety, leaving Andr^ in captivity. Andre was taken before the American officers and examined as a spy. He told the whole truth with the utmost frankness, and claimed that he was not a spy, that he had had no intention even of entering our lines, but had come up at the command of his gen- eral, to meet and confer with Arnold.
Wherever he went, the young prisoner won all hearts. His manners were charming ; he was handsome, well educated, a clever artist, and gifted with some literary ability. The hearts of the American officers with whom he was thrown in his captivity warmed toward him, and every one felt the deepest interest in his fate. But the tribunal before which he was tried, decided that he was a spy, and as a spy he must suffer death.
Sir Henry Clinton made every effort to avert the sentence, but the judges were inexorable. It had been the previous custom in both armies to hang all spies, and there had been repeated execu- tions on both sides. When the British demanded Andrd's release, the Americans reminded them of the fate of young Nathan Hale from Connecticut, who had been found inside the enemy's lines as a spy in 1776, and had been hanged immediately. His executioners had denied him even the solace of a clergyman in his last moments ; and when he died saying, "^I regret that I have but one life to lose
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. 257
for my countiy," they refused to send any account of his last mo- ments to his friends, declaring " the rebels should not know they had a man who could meet death so bravely." Hale's execution had caused sfreat excitement in the country, then unused to the bar- barities which all war involves, and although many spies had since been hung, they remembered more vividly than any other the exe- cution of this promising young hero.
When Andr^, at first expecting to be released, found that he was to die, he prepared to meet death firmly. He said frankly that al- tliough not afraid of death, he dreaded to die like a dog, with a rope round his neck, and wrote the following letter to Washington : —
" Sir : — Buoyed above the terrors of death by the consciousness of a life devoted to honorable pursuits, I trust that the request I make to your excellency at this serious period, and which is to soften my last moments, will not be rejected. Sympathy toward a soldier, will surely induce your excellency and a military tribunal, to adapt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honor. Let me hope, sir, if aught in my character impresses you with esteem toward me, if aught in my misfortunes marks me as the victim of policy, and not of resentment, I shall experience the operations of these feelings in your breast by being informed, / am not to die on a gibbet. I have the honor to be
" Your excellency's most obedient and humble servant,
" John Andre."
Washington laid this letter before the military tribunal which had judged Andre. It was composed of some of the best American officers, and it included also the humane Marquis de Lafayette, and Baron Steuben, who, though he was a graduate of the most severe military school of Germany, was a tender-hearted man. This tri- bunal thought the petition of Andre should not be granted, and Washington, perliaps from a repugnance to write a denial, did not answer the letter.
But Washington was not a man who could remain indifferent to the fate of so noble an officer as Andre ; and while the British were denouncing him as a monster of cruelty, Avho gloated over the blood of his victim ; while the base traitor, Arnold, dared to write him an impertinent letter, threatening retaliation if Andre were not given up, Washington was silently maturing a plan, by which he hoped Andre might yet be saved.
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
To save Andr^, it would be necessary to substitute some one in his place, and so appease the demands of justice. The only man who could avert the doom of death from Andr^, was Benedict Ar- nold, the man who had betrayed him. To seize Arnold would be in effect to free Andr^. This was Washington's project. He took only Major Henry Lee into his confidence, an officer on whose pru- dence he knew he could rely. He asked Lee to select from among his soldiers one whom he could trust in a difficult and dangerous undertaking, and told him his desire to capture Arnold, in order that the gallant young Major Andre might be restored to his friends.
Lee chose a man for this scheme, a brave young sergeant, named
John Champe, a man reserved, vigilant, and intelligent, and induced him to make this attempt. Champe was to desert from the American camp, and join the British in New York, in such a manner as to deceive both his friends and enemies. After a long conference with Lee, Champe started with his horse, and made down the Hudson River road toward New York. The American sentinels were thickly posted to prevent desertion, and his ride was a dangerous one. He had only been gone half an hour when a watchful officer came to Lee's quarters with the intelligence that a man, most likely a deserter, had passed over the lines toward New York. He asked Lee for an order to send a body of mounted men to arrest him. Lee made all the delay he possibly could. He feared the brave sergeant might be killed in the pursuit, but in order to keep up appearances, he was obliged to send the detachment after him. The flight and pursuit were a hot one. Champe was in im- mediate danger of being taken by his fellow soldiers, when after a break-neck ride he reached the bank of the Hudson, where some British galleys lay in full sight. He leaped into the river, and swam for the galleys, hailing them as a deserter ; they approached, took him on board, and sailed with him to New York.
Champe's comrades on the bank discharged after him their rifles, captured his horse, and returned sadlj^ to camp. When Lee saw them approaching with the riderless horse, he was dumb with anxi- ety as to the fate of Champe, but when he learned that he was safe, concealed his joy, and went to report to Washington.
Henry Lee.
TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. 259
But the plan failed. The action of the court was so rapid that it gave no time in which to carry out Arnold's capture. While Wash- ington and Lee were eagerly waiting news from Champe, the court had fixed on the immediate execution of Andre's sentence, and Washington was forced to consent to it. It is said that his hand could hardly command the pen when he signed this death warrant.
Andre met death like a brave gentleman. He hoped to the last to be shot, and when he entered the field of execution and saw the gallows, he gave an involuntary start. " I am reconciled to death," he said, " but I detest the mode."
" While waiting near the gallows," said an eye-witness of the scene, " I saw some degree of trepidation, a choking in his throat, as if he attempted to swallow. So soon as he perceived all things were ready, however, he stepped into the wagon, saying, ' It will be but a momentary pang,' and taking from his pocket two white hand- kerchiefs, the provost-marshal with one pinioned his arms, and with the other the victim himself bandaged his own eyes with perfect firmness, which 'melted the hearts and moistened the eyes, not only of his servant, but the throng of spectators. He then adjusted the rope to his neck without the assistance of the awkward executioner. Then raising the handkerchief from his eyes he said, ' I pray you to bear me witness, that I meet my fate like a brave man.' " Thus ended Major Andre's life, a tragedy which is one of the most touch- ino" of this whole war.
Champe in the mean time pursued the plans to take Arnold, and once had laid a complete plot to capture him, and deliver him into the hands of Lee. At the very moment it was to be carried out, Arnold was removed to a new command, and Champe, who was now acting as a deserter in the English service, was also ordered elsewhere. He did not rejoin the Americans for months. When at length he reappeared, his comrades were astonished to see Lee meet him with marks of warmest friendship, but after his story was known, the whole corps to which he belonged joined in honoring and admiring him.
260 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XLIX.
DEFEAT AND VICTORY IN THE SOUTH.
Misfortunes of Gates in South Carolina. — A Stronghold on King's Mountain. — General Greene takes Command. — A Ragged Army. — Victorj' at Cowpens. — Sharp Retort of a Patriotic Woman. — The Bravery of South Carolina Women.
Disaster still followed tlie American flag in South Carolina. In July, 1780, General Gates was dispatched with a large army to oppose Cornwall! s in his victorious career there. Baron de Kalb, the French officer who had come to serve under Washington, was second to Gates in command.
Since his victory over the British army in Saratoga, Gates had lost the modesty which befits a true hero. He talked vain-gloriously about " Burgoyning the army of Cornwallis," believing that he need only to march south to swallow it uj) as easily as he had conquered Burgoyne. It was very hot weather, and his troops were many of them Northern men, unaccustomed to the climate. He marched them under the torrid sun without sufficient rest or proper food. Much of the time they were forced to eat green corn and vegetables gathered on the march. Diseases of all kinds set in, and when the troops reached South Carolina and encamped a few miles from Corn- wallis, most of them were fitter for a hospital than a battle-field. Gates was for immediate battle, against the advice of De Kalb and several other officers. The result was, that when the battle of Cam- den was fought, on the 19th of August, the Americans were entirely unfit to meet the enemy. A portion of them threw down their arms and fled, when they saw the British approaching with fixed bayonets
in fierce charere. Baron de Kalb's division
stood their ground and fought bravely but vainly, and the Americans suffered a bloody defeat. Baron de Kalb, pierced with eleven wounds, fell at the head of his troops. By the terrible ill-fortune in the battle of Camden, Gates lost the prestige he had gained at Sara- toga. He was soon after removed from his Baron de Kalb. positiou, and General Greene was sent to take
command in the South.
Cornwallis, believing hiinself now secure in his hold on the South,
sent two bodies of soldiery to scour the country, and cut off the lin-
DEFEAT AND VICTORY IN THE SOUTH. 261
gering remnant of the militia who were still holding out against the army. One of these bands was commanded by the notorious Tarle- ton ; the other was under Colonel Ferguson, a man almost as much hated by the patriots as Tarleton.
Ferguson marched over the line to Georgia, where a band of the militia, in this darkest hour for freedom, had taken up their stand. He halted on King's Mountain, a mile and a half from the Carolina border. Several miles below, the militia had heard of Ferguson's approach, and had mustered all their strength to meet him. They intercepted a messenger to Cornwallis bearing this dispatch : " I hold a position on King's Mountain that all the rebels in hell can- not drive me from. — Ferguson."
Nothing daunted by this bravado, the militia marched on till they were in sight of the enemy's camp. There was a fierce onset, a fierce defense. The militia charged up the hill. The British met them with fixed bayonets. It was said and believed in the British army, that the Americans might stand fire, but they would run be- fore a charge of bayonets. This time the proverb failed. The men stood like rocks before the English weapons. Both sides fought like lions. At last a cry of " Quarter ! Quarter ! " broke from Fer- guson's men, and shouts of victory rose from the militia. These men, imperfectly disciplined, half clothed, shoeless, hatless, with such arms as they could collect together, had beaten Ferguson's troops, which numbered nearly one fourth of the forces of Corn- wallis, had taken eight hundred prisoners, and arms and ammunition to match. The news of the battle of King^s Mountain was the first gleam of light which reached Wash- ington through the darkness of the year 1780, in which treachery and defeat had Kosciuszko.
seemed to brood over his country.
General Greene brought with him several able ofiicers, when he came down to South Carolina to take the command of the army, where Gates had failed so signally. He had brave General Mor- gan, who had served in the campaign against Burgoyne, and fought at the battle of Stillwater. General Lee, who had been Washington's confidant in the endeavor to capture Arnold, also joined Greene, with a body of cavalry, and Colonel Washington, a relative of the com- mander-in-chief, met his army there. A brave young Polish officer,
262
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
named Thaddeus Kosciuszko, also went as a civil engineer, to make the plans for fortifications. This Kosciuszko had also planned the defense at Beniis Heights in the campaign against Burgoyne, and had been hard at work strengthening West Point, and making it a stronghold which the British had found impregnable. Young Kos-
l^C-o<U/
ciuszko was a noble friend to liberty, and afterwards fought bravely in his own unhappy country of Poland, to gain the freedom for her, that he had helped the United States to gain for themselves.
The army that awaited General Greene in South Carolina was not a very promising one. It was ragged and dirty, and looked very much like the famous army of Falstaff, in Shakspeare's play of " Henry IV." There were a great many militia belonging to the State in its ranks, and although they often fought bravely, they could not be relied on in a pitched battle, as fully as the Continental troops, who had been drilled and disciplined by long service in the war. But Greene worked vigorously, and showed himself a master of strategy in his Carolina campaign.
DEFEAT AND VICTORY IN THE SOUTH. 263
The first battle after his arrival was fought on the 17th of Janu- ary, 1781, at Cowpens in South Carolina. The place has not a very romantic name. It was so called from a herd of cows who had been penned up near the battle-field. It was not far from King's Mountain, where Ferguson had been defeated, and the battle was fought by the troops of Morgan and Tarleton. Morgan was retreating toward the north, and Tarleton had been ordered to pur- sue him. He was so sure of an easy victory that he led his men forward without giving them time to eat or sleep. At Cowpens Morgan suddenly turned and accepted the challenge to fight. The day ended in victory for the Americans and in Tarleton's complete route. At first the Americans had given way, and Tarleton thought they were retreating, but at the moment he was sure of victory, young Colonel Washington rode up with a body of cavalry and sent the redcoats flying from the field. After this battle, whicli proved that the redoubtable Tarleton was no more invincible than Ferguson, the American hopes rose higher. The news of the vic- tory reached the ears of a patriotic lady in whose house Tarleton had quartered himself and a party of officers. He knew the lady had a great admiration of Colonel William Washington, and took every opportunity of sneering at him.
" I should like once to see your friend, Mr. Washington," he said one day. " I hear he is very insignificant in his appearance."
" If you had taken time to look beJiind you at Cowpens, Colonel Tarleton, you might have seen Colonel Washington," rejoined the lady. Her tongue was too sharp for the British officer, and he said no more after this.
The patriotic women of South Carolina equaled the men in bravery. They not only encouraged their husbands and sons by brave words, but often acted the part of messengers in expeditions of trust and secrecy. Two brave women whose husbands were in the army, dis- guised themselves in the dress of men, and intercepted two British soldiers bearing dispatches, captured the papers, and bore them to General Greene, whose camp was not fai: distant. They showed the spirit of the noble matron who told Cornwallis she had seven sons in the army with General Sumter.
Cornwallis had stopped at her house to dine on his march north- ward, and when, in answer to his inquiries she told him this fact, he endeavored to persuade her of the folly of fighting against the king, and the superior advantages they would enjoy in joining his army.
264
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
She heard him through, and then putting her hand on the head of her youngest boy, standing beside her, answered him thus, —
" Sooner than I would see one of my boys turn back in their noble enterprise, I would myself take this child, enlist under Sumter's
Women intercepting Dispatches.
banner, and show my sons how to fight, and if need be, to die, for their freedom."
With such women to inspire them, no wonder the men refused to be beaten, even when affairs were at the darkest in the Carolinas.
GREENE'S CAMPAIGN. 265
CHAPTER L.
GREENE'S CAMPAIGN. March through the Caroliuas. — Attack upon Camden. — Fort Ninety-six. — Eutaw Springs.
As soon as Cornwallis heard of Tarleton's defeat he hastened on to intercept Morgan, hoping to capture hmi before he could join the main army under Greene.
But Greene was too cunning to allow his able officer to be caught in this way, and had himself hastened to join Morgan as soon as he heard of the affair at Cowpens. Cornwallis with his whole army then prepared to pursue the Americans and force them to battle. Greene was not yet ready to fight. His policy was to hold off from battle till he had got his army under better discipline and raised some needed reinforcements. For three weeks he kept up a rapid march, the whole army in motion, with Cornwallis close behind. They crossed the South Carolina borders, marching up through North Carolina. Three times in fording the rivers in their path the vanguard of Cornwallis overtook Greene's rear, as they were getting their stores and ammunition across the stream. Each tiuie there was sharp skirmishing, a few left dead or wounded on both sides ; still the retreat kept on with undiminished ardor. At length both armies paused near the Virginia border, and after several weeks of manoeuvring and watching each other's movements, they met once more. This was at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. Gen- eral Greene, occupying a hill near the court-house, waited for the attack of Cornwallis. He had more men than the British com- mander, but they were badly drilled, and many of them were state militia who had been picked up in the march and ordered to take a gun and fall into the American ranks. Many of these were Tories at heart, and the commander knew it. They were stationed in the front rank, with fifty picked soldiers at their backs with loaded rifles, ordered to shoot the first man who tried to run from the enemy. None of the men had eaten a good meal for weeks. They had been eating frogs from the swamps, and green' rice from the plantations, and no army fights well on an empty stomach. We cannot wonder, then, that the Americans were beaten at Guilford Court House. If Greene had not led them back in an orderly retreat it would have been a bad day's work for them. As it turned
266 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
out, the victory of Cornwallis was hardly better than a defeat. His army were tired out and discouraged. Weary of the Carolinas, he turned aside and went over to Virginia to join the royal forces near Yorktown.
Greene, after resting and recruiting his forces, went back again to Camden, South Carolina, where Lord Rawdon commanded the re- mainder of the British army in the South. He attacked Camden, but was repulsed, with a large loss on both sides. Greene fell back toward Fort Ninety-six, about thirty miles north of Camden.
All this time, Marion, Sumter, and Lee were in the field attacking the various forts held by British and Tories. One after another these posts surrendered. General Pickens, at the head of a band of militia, was emulating Marion and Sumter in deeds of daring. The larger part of South Carolina was again in the hands of the pa- triots.
Greene had already begun the siege of Fort Ninety-six, his first point of attack since his repulse at Camden. Rawdon with fresh reinforcements approached the stronghold, hoping to enter and re- lieve the garrison before Greene had entirely invested it. The American commander saw that he must storm the fort before Raw- don's army approached, and accordingly ordered an attack. It was gallantly met by the Royalists and Tories inside the walls, and after a siege that had lasted nearly a month, Greene was obliged to fall back unsuccessful.
Shortly after this Rawdon left the army and returned to England, leaving Colonel Stuart, the officer next in rank, in command. It was very hot summer weather, and in the midst of swamps and in- terlacing streams, the two armies lay only a few miles apart, for almost two months, before they were ready to risk another battle. Early in September Colonel Stuart was posted at Eutaw Springs. Here General Greene, joined by Lee, Marion, Sumter, and Pickens,; determined to attack him.
The battle that followed is known as the battle of Eutaw Springs. It was one of the hottest battles of the war, and lasted four hours. The Americans at one time gained the whole field, and prepared to claim the victory. But the British had made a citadel of a strongly built brick house, surrounded by a picket fence ; and here they held a strong position from which it was impossible to dislodge them. After a sharp contest about the house, the men and officers some- times fighting hand to hand with bayonets and swords, Greene fell
THE WINTER OF 1780-81. 267
back seven miles. Both sides claimed victory, but the result was most ruinous to Stuart, who immediately after the fight went to Charleston, to seek refuge. Except Charleston, there was now no place of importance held by the British in all the Carolinas.
CHAPTER LI.
THE WINTER OF 1780-81.
Mutiny in the Army. — Riot among Wayne's Troops. — Mutineers sliot. — Benedict Arnold ravages Virginia. — Governor Thomas Jefferson. — Arnold in his Native State. — Barbarous Murder of Colonel Ledyard. — Concentration of the French and American Forces for Cam- paign of 1781.
General Wayne — "Mad Anthony Wayne," as the soldiers called him — commanded the division of the American army quar- tered at Morristown. All the winter of 1780-81 the men had been living there in huts, badly fed and only half clothed. Early in Jan- uary news came to Wayne that his whole division of Pennsylvania troops was in revolt and up in arms against their officers. General Wayne rode out to the front of the regiments which were drawn up in hostile order. He endeavored to argue with them, but although Wayne was much loved by the men, they would not listen to him. To his entreaties that they would lay down their arms, they had only one answer, —
" We love you, General Wayne ; you have often led us to battle, and we respect you as our leader, but we are no longer under your command. If you attempt to fire on us or to enforce your orders, we shall instantly kill you."
It was true that the men had- great cause for complaint. Their families were suffering at home while they were in the field, starved and ragged. Congress could not pay with anything but its worth- less paper money, and the war seemed no nearer its end than two years before. Many of the men declared they had only enlisted for three years, while the officers claimed it was for the war. Feeling had risen to so high a pitch that the whole array in New Jersey was in a state of mutiny. Washington was appealed to, and Congress was urged to pay the men. But they could as easily make bricks without clay, as furnish money from an empty treasury. Poor Robert Morris, the Continental treasurer, '.lad a very difficult task before him.
268 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The riot among Wayne's troops was finally subdued, and a large number of the soldiers, who claimed that their time had expired, were allowed to leave the army. No sooner was this over, however, than news reached head-quarters of another still more alarming re- volt among the New Jersey troops. Washington at once decided that it would not do to compromise with the mutinous army. He sent a force of troops from West Point, on whose fidelity he could depend, to subdue the mutineers. They were surrounded and cap- tured without resistance. Three of the ringleaders were sentenced to be shot, and twelve of their comrades, who had been engaged with them in resistance to authority, were condemned to act as execu- tioners. The three victims were led out, and after having their eyes bandaged were placed on their knees. The miserable men who had been their companions plead with tears to be spared the punishment of firing at them. But the severe justice of war is deaf to pleading and tears, and they were commanded to be silent and obey. Just before the twelve guns were fired, one of the criminals was par- doned ; the other two, fell dead under the fire from the weapons which were leveled at them. After this, there was no more revolt in the Continental army. It was a cruel necessity of war that these poor wretches should die. But the more closely you look at war, the more you will discover that all its demands are cruel and inhuman.
Sir Henry Clinton had heard with delight that the army was in revolt, and had sent messengers to the men asking them to desert. But the men, whom Arnold's treachery had filled with a horror of desertion, replied that they " were not traitors, and had no wish to be such ; they only asked for justice from their country." In most cases they gave the British messengers up to their officers, and they were hung as spies. The poorest man among- the Americans despised the base traitor who had sold himself to the enemy, even while they suffered for food and shelter
Arnold felt bitterly the hatred and contempt all his countrymen manifested for him. All his actions showed a desire for revenge, and a delight in gloating over the miseries he was able to inflict, He was now a British officer, in command of a large force, and was able fully to indulge his malice. Early in January, 1781, the Vir- ginians were alarmed by the report of a large armed fleet coming up the James River. The whole country was filled with anxiety at the news. Mr. Thomas Jefferson, who had just succeeded Pat- rick Henry as governor, mounted his horse and rode over the country
THE WINTER OF 1780-81. 269
along the borders of the James, calling the people to arms, and ordering the planters to burn their tobacco, rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the British. The militia of the State were called out to aid the regular troops. Baron Steuben, who had command of the Continental troops near Richmond, was notified that the enemy were coming on to the city. But before militia or regular troops could move, Arnold had entered Richmond, burnt the town, made bonfires of all the tobacco stored there, emptied all the gun- powder into the river, and was off again before the militia or the troops could catch him. He went back down the James, occasionally landing to plunder, burn, and destroy the plantations on the river bank. The curses of the Americans followed him wherever he went.
After this expedition to Virginia he went to his native State of Connecticut, and entering the harbor at New London, resumed his ravages. He ordered the town to be burnt, and looked on while the homes of his fellow-citizens, and the friends of his youth and childhood, were consumed. Opposite New London, Fort Griswold was situated, commanded by Colonel Ledyard and a small party of militia. Arnold's troops attacked and took this fort, which was courageously defended by the little garrison. When the British officer, Major Bromfield, entered, he cried out, " Who commands here ? "
" I did^ sir," answered Ledyard, " but. you do now," at the same time presenting his sword.
Without a word the ofiicer stabbed him to the heart, and he fell dead in the door of the fortress that he had so gallantly defended. Then a cold-blooded slaughter of the garrison began, in which nearly . all perished by sword and bayonet. Such acts as these marked Arnold's treachery to the country which had given him birth.
While Arnold was ravaging Virginia, Washington sent Lafayette thither to join General Steuben. All the soldiers loved the young Frenchman. From his own private purse he bought them comforta- ble clothes, shoes, and hats. He examined the rations, to see that his soldiers were well fed. There were not many deserters from his camp, and no general met with a warmer welcome than he, when he showed himself among his men.
Washington had been all this year threatening the English army stationed in New York, and planning to take that city. Sir Henry Clinton believed this was what the American commander-in-chief intended to do. But when Cornwallis marched into Virginia,
270
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Washington changed his plans. He went up to Rhode Island to see the Count Rochambeau, who was stationed there with a large body of French troops, and they decided to go to Virginia and make the Old Dominion State their battle-ground.
im^fm---^^^^
Lafayette.
General Wayne was ordered to join Lafayette and Steuben in Virginia. A large fleet was expected early in the fall from France, under the Count de Grasse. If Washington could elude Clinton, and reach Virginia with Rochambeau before the British could strengthen their forces in Virginia, he felt sure that Cornwallis would soon be in his power.
The plans were well made and the secret well kept. The two divisions, under Washington and his French ally, reached Philadel- phia just about the time that the French fleet under De Grasse entered Chesapeake Bay, and the fresh troops from France were landed to reinforce Lafayette's army. Clinton was cut off from Cornwallis, who was down in Yorktown, fifteen miles above the mouth of the York River.
SIEGE OF YORKTOWN. 271
CHAPTER LII.
SIEGE OF YORKTOWN.
March of French Army to Virginia. — The whole Armj'- of Washington before Yorktown. — The Batteries open Fire. — Cornwallis attempts to Escape. — His Surrender. — General Lin- coln's Revenge. — End of the War.
The march of Rocliambeau through the country, to Virginia, was hke a triumphal march. In Philadelphia the streets were crowded with citizens eager to look upon the allies to whom the country owed so much. Tlie magnificent uniforms of the officers, glittering with gold lace; their horses gay with trappings of gold and silver and scarlet cloth ; the dress of the soldiers, white broadcloth faced with green ; — everything was in contrast to the poor and plain equipments of the Continental army. Washington's troops were in unusually good condition, however, and all the patriots felt hopeful that the coming campaign would be successful.
Cornwallis had been busily fortifying Yorktown. All about the city he had thrown up trenches and constructed redoubts to hin- der the approach of the Americans. Yet he knew that he had only 7,000 men, 1,000 of whom were negro slaves, armed to assist the royal cause. The united army of the French and Americans could not|be less than 16,000, 13,000 of this number disciplined troops, and the other 3,000 picked men of the Virginia militia. If Clinton could not send an army to his aid, Cornwallis felt that his case was hope- less. On the 28th of September Washington's army marched from Williamsburg, Virginia, and sat down one mile from Yorktown. Only a short distance away they could see the outer works of the enemy ; and the hum and bustle of life in the British camps must have reached the ears of the Americans. Everything was order and regularity. There must be no hurrying and no false move- ments in so important an affair as a siege. Two days after Wash- ington appeared, Cornwallis drew all his forces inside his fortifica- tions. He had received private dispatches that Clinton would send him relief by the 5th of October. If he could hold out until then, Yorktown might be held and his honor as a British leader saved.
18
272
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Siege of Yorktown.
Incessantly the batteries kept up their roar against the besieged town. Gun after gun was silenced, and the ditches outside the
town were filled with shattered fragments of the wall, and heaped with the dead and dy- ing who had fallen in defend- ing it. The Americans, under cover of the intrenchments which they threw up in the night approached every day nearer the town. Even at night the batteries were not still, and every now and then a shell went whizzing through the air like a blazing comet, falling with a great roar inside the fortifications. By the evening of the 14th of October only two redoubts lay between our army and the town. It was decided that these must at once be carried. Two columns, one French and one American, were ordered to attack on the right and left. The French column was commanded by Lafayette, the Americans were under Colonel Alexander Hamilton of New York. They carried the redoubt by the bayonet with only a small loss, although the enemy kept up a steady fire upon them.
Cornwallis saw himself completely surrounded, with no hope ex- cept by flight. He accordingly planned to convey his men across the York River, in boats, under cover of darkness, and march north through Maryland and Pennsylvania, till he joined Clinton in New York. He managed with great secrecy, and had already got part of his army across the river, when a terrific storm of wind and rain came up which overturned some of his boats, and obliged the men to return drenched and disheartened inside their fortifications again. Still there were no signs of Clinton's coming to his relief. Count de Grasse had so well blocked up the river entrance that no Eng- lish ship could enter. All further defense was useless ; and after some correspondence with Washington, Cornwallis was obliged to declare that he could no longer continue the struggle.
The general appointed to receive the vanquished troops upon the field where they were to deliver up their arms, was General Lincoln,
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 273
who at the surrender of Charleston had given up his sword to Gen- eral Cornwallis. To him the haughty British officer had dictated the hardest terms. The same measure that had been meted out to him, Lincoln now returned to his adversary, and would not soften any of the terms of capitulation which had been proposed.
Cornwallis claimed to be, and very likely was, ill on the day of the surrender. It was a glorious day for America, a bitter one for the British army. The American and French allies were drawn up in two opposite lines, through which the conquered army marched. Washington, attended by Lafayette, Steuben, Knox, and others of his suite, headed one line ; the Count de Rochambeau, with his officers, led the other. General O'Hara, one of the staff officers of Cornwallis, appeared at the head of the British army, which was led by General Lincoln to the place where the arms were to be stacked. The men, most of them, maintained a sullen silence, shading their faces with their hats. Some threw their guns with violence upon the ground. Some of the officers wept outright at giving up their arms, while others wore a look of haughty defiance, and refused to look upon their conquerors.
Washington and all his officers showed the utmost kindness to their captives. Even Cornwallis, in his report to Clinton, speaks of this, and mentions with great warmth the kindness of the French officers, which he hopes will be remembered in future warfare. But Cornwallis was so deeply humiliated by his conquest that he could hardly appreciate the courtesy of Washington. Once when they were conversing together, Corn- wallis stood with his head bare.
" You had better be covered from the cold, my lord," said Washington, politely.
" It does not matter what becomes of this comwaiiis.
head now," answered Cornwallis, putting his hand to his brow.
With the siege of Yorktown the great conflict ended. The war, begun on the soil of Massachusetts, closed in Virginia. There was still skirmishing on the Indian frontiers, and trouble on the New York border, in Sir John Johnson's region, between Tories and Whigs ; but the war was virtually decided, and from that time the colonies of England became free and independent States.
274 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER LIIL
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
Savannah and Charleston evacuated by the British. — England baited on all Sides. — She is glad to have Peace. — Our Great Statesmen during the War. — Benjamin Franklin in France. — John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. — Henry Laurens in the Tower of London. — John Jay. — The First Secretary of the Treasurj-. — The Commission to Treat for Peace. — The Thirteen English Colonies become the Nation of the LTnited States. — Evacuation of New York City. — Fireworks on Bowling Green. — Washington's Farewell to his Officers. — Affecting Scene in Francis's Tavern.
I HAVE told you that the war was vn'tually'^over when Cornwalhs gave up his sword at Yorktown. Yet the British army still held to their posts, and for more than a year no movement was made to give up the large cities of New York, Charleston, and Savannah. In South Carolina, Greene still kept his eye fixed upon Charleston, ready at any time, if there was opportunity, to strike a blow for the possession of the city.
In July, 1782, the British concluded they would give up Savan- nah, and accordingly marched away, leaving the patriots there to draw their breath freely once more, and to rejoice in the absence of military rule. By the 14th of December they left Charleston also, and General Greene marched in to the tune of " Yankee Doodle," while all the Whigs in town waved their hats and handkerchiefs in the streets, at open windows and from balconies, shouting, " God bless our army and the gallant General Greene!" All the Tories, who could not go away with the British army, slunk dejectedly into corners, and wished they were in England, or some other place where King George the Third was still acknowledged the lawful ruler.
The English people had had enough of war. It was not only that France was aiding America with men, money, and ships, but Spain had declared war with England ; and even the little state of Holland, her next-door neighbor, was almost on the point of quar- reling with her. England was like the bull in a Spanish arena, baited on all sides, and though she held out with her usual pluck on such occasions, she began to breathe hard, and show signs of giving in. When a large party at home, growing larger as the war went on, kept crying, "Stop the war! Give us peace ! peace! PEACE ! " the English king and his ministers began at last to see that they might as well stop, before all the other powers in Europe
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE EEVOLUTION. 275
had joined hands with America, and each taken up a cudgel in her defense. Therefore tlie men in power who had advised and carried on the war, now resigned their seats in the English government, and a new set of men took their places, determined to have peace on the best terms they could get, but at all events to have peace.
All through the war we have heard constantly about the men who have been fighting and winning battles, but not so much about men who have been managing other affairs at home and abroad, I am not sure but those were the greatest men, who waited on foreign courts and princes, borrowed money, supplied Congress with means, and wore a brave face before strangers, when they were heart-sick with anxiety at the news from Washington and his army. Now the war was over, these men began to come uppermost. States always use warriors or politicians. I do not use the word " politician " in the sense of a vulgar, party schemer, but to denote a man who can work with politic wisdom for the good of his coun- try. Perhaps statesman would be the better word.
Our great statesmen had most of them been either in civil offices at home or public offices abroad, during the war. At the head of them stands Benjamin Franklin. He had been several years in Paris. I do not know what we should have done without him there. I think we owe quite as much to his long head, as to the surrender of Cornwallis or Burgoyne. Everybody in Paris reverenced him. Louis XVI. was then King of France, and Marie Antoinette (poor lady, she afterwards had her pretty head cut off by the guillotine) was queen. In their court, the ladies and courtiers in their gor- geous dresses, like a flock of tropical birds and butterflies, fluttered round Doctor Franklin, when he came to visit the royal palace in his plain brown coat, and vied with each other to show him honor. If he had been Prester John, or the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, in the glittering robes of the " Arabian Nights," he would not have made a greater sensation than he did in his own quiet, modest presence. They could refuse him nothing he asked, and principally through his influence came the tide of money and fleets from France which had helped us through the war. His shrewd common sense was never dazzled by flattery, and he never lacked the clear, keen judgment, which threw light on the ways that were darkest and most doubtful.
Then there was John Adams, who had been to the front ev^r since the stamp act agitation, a warm-hearted, warm-headed patriot.
276 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Not SO cool and clear-headed a man as Franklin, but a successful diplomatist, who had succeeded in borrowing money of the little state of Holland at a time when there was hardly a dollar in the hands of Congress. Franklin and he did not always agree ; and the great philosopher said of him, " Adams is ahvays honest, often great, and sometimes mad." Adams was the first minister sent to England from America, after the United States were declared inde- pendent, and the place suited him and he suited it. He was a bit of an aristocrat, although he was born in Massachusetts.
Another man, very different from either of these, was Thomas Jefferson, as ardent as Adams, as clear-sighted as Franklin. He was the man to whom we owe the grandest utterances of the Dec- laration of Independence. He was the truest democrat that ever breathed the breath of freedom. By that I mean that he not only declared and believed that men had equal right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but he acted on that belief. He was Gov- ernor of Virginia, you know, in Arnold's invasion, and his beautiful estate of Monticello had been trampled over and devastated, his horses killed, and all his plantation laid waste. So he had suffered with the rest, for liberty. Like Franklin, he was more than a poli- tician : a man of wide learning, practical acquirements, cultivated tastes, yet simple in dress and manners, a loving husband, tender father, and loyal friend. Such was Thomas Jefferson, of whom we shall hear more hereafter.
Henry Laurens had also been one of the statesmen brought for- ward by the war. He was from South Carolina, and from the first had stood firm for liberty. In 1777 he was made President of Con- gress, succeeding John Hancock, who had served in that capacity since the Declaration. After this Laurens was sent to Holland to make a treaty, and gain their sympathy for the Americans. On the voyage, his vessel, which was only a small Dvitch trader, was stopped by an English man-of-war. When Laurens saw his danger, he threw the box containing his private dispatches over the side of the vessel. Quick as he was, he was not quite quick enough to escape the eye of an English sailor, who leaped overboard and rescued the box. The officers of the ship read treason in every line of the dispatches, and seizing Laurens as their prisoner, hurried him off to London. Taken before a board of commissioners he was asked, " Is your name Henry Laurens ? " " It is." " Are you the Laurens who was President of Congress in America ? " " I am."
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
277
*' Then, sir, we are ordered to examine you, as to your designs and your mission abroad."
" Your lordships may spare yourselves the trouble, as I think it my duty to answer no questions."
On this he was sent to the Tower of London, after some discussion whether he should be ordered there as a prisoner of state or be sent to Newgate prison as a rebel criminal.
Not least among this group of great men comes John Jay, whom we have seen before, sitting in the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. All through the war he had fought with tongue and pen as effect- ively as Gates and Greene with sword and bayonet ; and while Franklin was in
France, and Adams in Hoi- M^^^ J^(A/^' land, he had been m bpam ^ ^"^ ^ ^ '^ •/■ y
pleading the cause of the ^
colonies there.
I should be ungrateful if I forgot Robert Morris, the hard-worked
superintendent of the empty money chests of Continental Congress.
He had about as thankless a task as anybody, and nobody could
have done better unless he had power to make stones into gold, and
good currency out of dried leaves, like the enchanters in fairy tales.
He pledged his own credit very often to get money to pay off the
soldiers ; and when the army was starving, it was his own notes
that furnished them with flour and beef. He was scolded about and
blamed, when affairs went badly, because he did not furnish money
to make them better, and was that useful scapegoat on whom to lay
all faults, — " the chief of the Treasury Department." In his old age
he lost his fortune, which at one time was large, and spent some
of the last years of his life in a debtor's prison. " Thus the world
rewards those who serve it," said Columbus, sadly, and his cry
is repeated by nearly all who have followed in his footsteps.
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Now that war was over and peace was to be talked of, these men I have been describing to you were looked to at once for counsel. In those days the country knew the men who would serve her best,
and elected them without quarreling over it. So Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Laurens, and Jay, were at once chosen to meet with the English, French, Spanish, and Dutch commissioners in Paris, and decide upon terms of peace. When arrangements were all made for a meeting of these high mightinesses, only Franklin and Ja}'^ of the Americans, were pres- ent. Jefferson had a sick wife at Monticello, and he was too good a hus- band to leave her alone if any one could be found to serve in his stead. Laurens was still in the Tower of London, where he had remained since his capture, and Adams was in Holland completing his business there. Thus Franklin and Jay were alone to represent the wishes of their countrymen in the peace.
Franklin held firmly for three things, before signing the peace articles : First, that the United States should be recognized as a free nation, independent of England ; second, that the Canada boundaries should be satisfactory, giving us control of the great lake-chain of the Northwest ; third, that we should have right to fish for cod off Newfoundland banks. You know this last had been a great privilege ever since the region had been iiamed " New France," and the sailors of Brittany began to come fishing there. All these conditions were finally agreed upon, after much talking about it, and Franklin and Jay went home triumphant.
It was on the eighth anniversary of the battle of Lexington that peace was proclaimed in America. If in reading these chapters
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 279
about the Revolution, you have realized what a train of sickening horrors follows in the track of war, you will be able to rejoice with the United States when it was all over, and peace reigned over the land.
Now followed two great events : the evacuation of New York by the British, and the disbanding of Washington's army. Sir Guy Carleton, who had been the British commander since Cornwallis surrendered, left New York city in November, 1783. With him went ship-loads of Tories, who emigrated to Canada or Nova Scotia, in order, as they declared, " to escape from the tyranny and oppres- sion of their countrymen."
It took the British army several weeks to load and embark upon their ships, and leave New York once more a free city. When they were gone, the Americans, under General Knox, came in with many of the patriots, who had been forced to live away from their houses while the British occupied them. There was great rejoicing. They had a splendid show of fireworks that evening on the Bowl- ing Green, where the leaden statue of George III. used to stando The statue had been taken down and melted into bullets during the war, and now in its place was a great pyrotechnic arch of vic- tory, where perched a dove in purple flame, holding an olive branch of green fire, and all around, grand rockets, like fiery serpents, lit up the waters of the Bay and the Hudson, now for the first time in seven years free from the presence of English ships of war.
A week later, one morning early in December, Washington met his officers in the parlor of an inn, called " Francis's Tavern." They came together for the last time to bid farewell to each other and their beloved commander. The men who had been comrades in many a bloody battle-field, facing death together for seven years, assembled in silence and deep sadness. There were many tender friendships to sever; many would say " Good-by," who could never meet again, and the sadness of parting shed a gloom even over the remembrance that their efforts had aided to give a new free land to the world's company of nations.
When they were all present, Washington filled his glass with wine, and standing, drank the health of the company. Then he said, his voice tremulous witli emotion, " I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but I shall be gratified if each man will come and take me by the hand."
280
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
As he said this General Knox, a man whom Washington dearl_y
loved, came forward and fell upon the neck of his commander-in-chief. Washington, moved to tears, embraced and kissed him, and the ice thus broken, each one came forward to take his leave. The bravest men, those most unmoved by cannon smoke and ball, were not ashamed to weep that day. And in the midst of the parting of those heroes, who have worked so nobly for
their country, we will draw the curtain upon the close of the Warjor
Independence^
General Knox.
PART II.
THE STORY OF THE NATION: ITS BIRTH, CONFLICTS,
AND TRIUMPHS.
PART II.
THE STORY OF THE NATION: ITS BIRTH, CONFLICTS, AND
TRIUMPHS.
CHAPTER I.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
Forming a Government. — The Constitution and its Makers. — Grand Celebration in New Yorlv City. — The Two Political Parties. — Washington made President. — Inauguration Ball. — Change in Dress and Manners after the Revolution.
Foe. six years after the Revolution, these thirteen United States had no government ex- cept that exercised by the " Continental Con- gress " which had worked so hard all through the war. This Congress was doing its best to pay off the debts due its armies ; arrange for new loans of money from foreign countries ; keep the quarrelsome Indians in check ; and administer justice to the utmost of its power. But it was the general opinion that there must be a new government, although, whenever it was talked over, there was a great difference among the people as to the kind which would suit the country best.
'--^^/^ J^e^^^
A large
284
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
party were for " State Rights," meaning the right of each State to be independent of the others, with an agreement that all should unite in times of war, or in the event of the invasion of an enemy into any one of the States. Another party wanted a strong, united govern- ment, which should bind all the States into a great nation," one and
indivisible." Another party, who thought the English form of " limited monarchy," about as good a government as could be made, would have been glad to have had such an one in this country. This was a small jjarty, however. The largest part of the peo- ple believed in a " repub- lic," and in being governed by men chosen from among their own ranks for a lim- ited time. The American colonies had flourished for a century and a half, with a whole broad ocean be- tween themselves and their monarch, and consequently, had learned to believe they could get on very well without any king at all.
In the spring of 1787, a convention met in Philadelphia, to make " The Constitution of the United States." Washington was made president of this body. Franklin, now a venerable man ; Roger Sherman, whose trembling fingers had signed the Declaration ; Robert Morris, the treasurer of the old Congress ; Alexander Ham- ilton, whom we saw leading on a charge upon the batteries of York- town, — all these were in the convention. With them many other able men — fifty in all — debated earnestly day after day, rejecting this proposition, accepting that one, striking out a word here, put- ting in another there ; endeavoring to make the whole as perfect a set of laws as could be made by man. To aid them they had the " Articles of Confederation " which Franklin had drawn up in 1777, when the colonies united to carry on the war. Four months they
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
285
•worked in this way, and at the end presented to the States the result of their labor for their approval. Of course it could not be a perfect Constitution, and it could not suit everybody. P'ranklin said, very wisely, that he was not exactly suited with it, but he thought on the whole it was the very best they could do, with so many diverse opinions to consult, with thirteen States, each wanting something a little different from the others, to unite under one gov- ernment. Jefferson, who was in Paris, learning how wretched the tyranny of kings can make a nation, was so afraid of seeing the people here too much governed, that he wrote home he felt sure he should never like the new Constitution. On the whole it gave very good satisfaction. Ten of the States accepted it at once. The other three held out against it for a time ; little Rhode Island was the last to come into the ranks, and stoutly refused for a year or two, but finally gave in. Thirteen stars were set in the flag of the United States, and George Washington, " the father of his country," was made the first president.
Inauguration of Washington.
Then the large cities held celebrations on the adoption of the new Constitution. In New York they had a ga-and procession, such as was never before seen in America. It was headed by a person dressed to look like Columbus, the discoverer of our country. He was surrounded by pioneers, bearing axes, to denote the early set- tlers in the wilderness ; then came the farmers, with plows, scythes,
286 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and reapers. All kinds of artisans followed, in cars fitted up like workshops. The bakers with a gigantic loaf of bread, ten feet high, inscribed with the names of the States ; the coopers, binding the staves of an immense barrel with a strong iron hoop called " The New Constitution; " the butchers, with an ox weighing 1,000 pounds roasted whole ; the cabinet makers with a " federal chair of state," gorgeous enough for an eastern emperor ; tailors, masons, car^^enters, all carried some emblem of their trade. In the ranks were thirteen beautiful boys, each thirteen years old, dressed in white, with rib- bons and garlands of green. Grandest of all, was the ship of state, drawn on a car, by ten milk-white horses. The ship was manned by thirty sailors, who went aloft in the rigging, furled and unfurled the sails, and went through all the motions of bringing a ship safe to port through fair and foul weather. At one point they stopped and took a pilot on board, and at another, the gallant vessel was presented with a flag, which was received with cheers from the sail- ors and the crowd. On the car representing a printing-office, a press was kept all the time in motion, printing copies of a patriotic song, which they flung right and left among the crowd. It was a grand day. The people shouted and hurrahed till they were hoarse, and finally the procession sat down to a banquet in a fine pavilion decorated with flags, and ate the barbecued ox, which the butchers had roasted, and drank toasts to the Constitution, and to George Washington, " the father of his country."
With the Constitution the first political parties were born. You hear now about " Democrats " and " Republicans," or whatever else the two parties who vote against each other at elections are called. At this time there were " Federalists" and " Anti-Federalists." The Federalists were those who were for the Constitution, and in favor of a strong, central government. The others, who were called first " Anti-Federalists," then " Republicans," and lastly, " Democrats," were opposed to the Federalists. They accused them of being an aristocratic party, and said they wanted to make the government too aristocratic and leave the States no power, outside the general government. Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, were Federalists. Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Madison, were Anti-Federalists. Please keep these parties in mind, as you will hear of them often.
On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was made president. He had been at Mount Vernon to enjoy a little rest and quiet, be-
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 287
fore he entered on bis new duties. His aged mother was there, proud of the son whom she had nursed, when she saw his whole country united in loving and honoring him. He said " Good-by " to the pleasant shades of his home almost with regret as he went to take his seat at the head of the nation. On his way to New York city, where Congress was to assemble, he was met everywhere by the outpouring of the people's love and reverence. At Trenton, where he had crossed the Delaware that wintry Christmas night, twelve years before, his way was strewn with roses, and young girls held arches of flowers over him, while they sang hymns of gratitude and welcome.
In New York there was a grand " Inauguration Ball," where the array of handsome dresses was almost equal to that of the Pa- risian court. Washington left off his blue military coat with buff facinss and his buff breeches, and wore a handsome suit of black velvet with white silk stockings, and white satin waistcoat. He was always very nice in his dress, and with his tall elegant fig- ure and powdered hair, would have made a distinguished appear- ance anywhere. John Adams, the vice-president, was at the ball ; so was Hamilton, who was the new secretary of the treasury ; Gen- eral Knox, the secretary of war, and his distinguished looking wife, were also there ; and the whole assembly presented an array of beauty and grace, such as any court in Europe might have been proud of.
Jefferson was called home from Paris to be secretary of state. He had been with Lafayette and a party of republicans in France who wore the red color of revolution, and astonished all his friends on his return by appearing in a white broadcloth coat, very long- waisted, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, cocked hat, and white silk stockings. It was enough to make men wonder to see Jefferson, generally so plain in his dress, in such brilliant hues.
Just about this time, too, boots began to be worn, in place of low shoes with shining buckles, and high-topped " Hessians " reaching to the knee, with dangling tassels, were seen on the feet of the gen- tlemen who followed the newest fashions. There were a good many dandies sported their new Hessians on Broadway in those days. The new government made changes in the habits of the American people as well as in their rulers. This began to show itself in the clothes of the working men and women in the large cities, very soon after Washington became president. Before the war, the mechanics had worn leather aprons and breeches, checked
19
288 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
tow shirts, and flannel jackets all the week, and on Sundays their best clothes were homespun, with clumsy shoes and brass buckles. Now, they doffed leather aprons when they left the work-shop, and took to wearing full suits of broadcloth. Some people complained that you could not tell a carpenter or blacksmith in the street from a gentleman. There were a good many aristocrats left over from the old order, and they had not learned that a man may be both a gentleman and a carpenter or blacksmith. Some of the ladies, who did not own slaves, but kept white servants, complained that the new state of things had spoiled the servant-maids, who wanted to be called " hired help," had stopped saying " master " and " mistress," and would wear caps and gowns like a lady, although before the war they had been content with blue and white check gowns, and caps without frills. And they had grown so pert, that one could hardly give an order to a girl without seeing her flounce off to a new place. " There were a great many inconveniences in a republican government," said some of the grumblers.
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS IN WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION.
Settlers in the Western Country. — " D. Boon cilled a Bar." — Scarcity of Salt. — Danger from Indians. — General Anthony Wa^ne sent to fight Savages. — Death of Wayne. — Tliree New States added to the Nation. — Story of Young Andrew Jackson. — Revolution in France. — The Guillotine. — French Sympathizers in the United States. — Washington's Public Life draws to a Close.
Meanwhile the good ship of state sailed resolutely on, often among troubled waters. There were the Indian troubles always. The red men seemed to have made up their minds that no more white men should settle beyond the Ohio River. The great " Ohio Land Company " had been formed, holding the tract which now makes all the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wiscon- sin. There was a steady tide from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, spreading over that country, and settling up and down the banks of La Belle Riviere (the beautiful river), as the Ohio was called. Across the Cumberland Mountains, in the fertile valleys of Tennessee — a very garden spot of the earth, the poor Indians thought it, — the settlers from North Carolina were rushing in
EVENTS IN WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION.
289
with axe and plowshare. In Kentucky, twenty years before, Daniel Boone had gone, a lonely hunter with his gun on his shoulder, and stayed all winter, living on what food his gun furnished him, with- out salt or bread, till he could make a clearing, and next year bring in a party of friends and neighbors to settle with him. Years after, some- body found marked on a tree, in the spot where he had wintered, —
D. Boon CillED. A BAR on TrEE in thE yEAR 1760.
You and I could spell better than Boone and his comrades, perhaps, but we might not have been able to build cities in the wilderness with such obstacles to contend against.
Very little in the way of luxury, or even of comfort, could be brought by these settlers into the wilderness. If they got a log cabin which would keep off the sun and rain, furnished with a rude table and some logs sawn off a tree trunk for seats, a bed in one corner and a fire-place in another, with an iron kettle to cook in, they were very well off. Salt was a luxury, yet they could not well do without it. It was all made on the sea-coast. In Kentucky every bushel was brought over the mountains of Virginia on pack-hoi^ses, and often cost the settlers sixteen and twenty dollars a bushel. Sometimes the settlers would hear of a salt spring in their vicinity, and with great labor would make a little home-made salt, — dirty looking stuff it was, too, — which they could sell for three or four dollars a bushel ; but they were not often so lucky. In those days they treasured their salt almost as if it were gold-dust.
The Indians fought them every inch of the way. Almost every spring of sweet water, every strip of fertile meadow, every log cabin built in a clearing, was the scene of danger, perhaps of death. Such
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stories as these border histories are full of ! Of lonely women sitting by the firelight, nursing one baby, — the other children asleep in a
truckle bed in the corner, — watching for the father who has gone to mill, or to the next village. Whoop ! goes a horrid yell outside, " Indians ! " whisper the awakened children, hud- dled under the bedclothes. The mother does not faint or scream. She looks at the barred door, to see if it is strongly fastened ; puts the baby down, takes , the loaded gun from the corner, and fires from the nearest loop-hole. While she loads again, she cries in hoarse, masculine voice, " Now boys, fire all at once ! " that she may de- ceive the Indians into the belief that they are garrisoned strongly inside. Sometimes the device succeeds, and one woman drives away a dozen painted war- riors. Sometimes they scale the roof, glide down the chimney, scalp wife and babies, and murder the husband returning to his desolate hearthstone. Sometimes they set fire to the thatch, the flame drives out the helpless victims to be taken prisoners, and suffer the tor- tures of Indian captivity. It is the old story, told over and over again in every border State of this nation. How, foot by foot, the white man has wrested the soil from the Indian, till every acre has been wet with blood, every hill has echoed with the cries of the dying who have perished in the struggle.
Washington heard the appeals for help from the settlers in this region, and sent forces to protect them. General St. Clair and General Harmer tried first, but failed to subdue the savages. At length, in 1794, he sent brave Anthony Wayne, hero of Stony Point, with orders to try first to treat for peace with the savages, and if they would not hear words of peace, to give them war. Wayne
^!?^^y^--c^
EVENTS TN WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 291
obeyed faithfully. He sent peace emissaries to the savages, and they killed them. A second and third time he made offers of peace, till the Indians whispered, " This pale-face is a coward, and afraid to fight." Then he marched on them, as he did on Stony Point, and forced them to peace at the point of the bayonet. He built a fort in the Ohio country where Fort Wa^ne, Indiana, now stands, and marched back again. Brave Anthony Wayne ! On his way home he was taken ill, died at a miserable tavern, in a wretched village in Western Pennsylvania, almost unattended, was buried in an unmarked grave, where he lay till years after, when his son re- moved his ashes to a more honorable , resting-place. In England, they put their famous dead to rest under a noble pile called West- minster Abbey ; but the great men of America may sleep where they fall. It is too apt to be the bad fashion in a republic, to forget its great men when it has no more use for them. It does not gather up their dust as sacred, and build monuments to them. If they did we might have a Westminster Abbey too.
Washington was president from 1789 to 1797. The president's term of ofhce is only four years, but after his first term expired, his friends so earnestly desired him to accept the office a second time that he consented. During his administration the Union added three new States to its number, — Vermont, Kentuck}^, and Tennessee.
Vermont and its " Green Mountain Boys,"' among whom you will remember Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, had been fighting many years against the claims of New York, to hold her as part of that State. They had held stoutly to their independence, all the time growing stronger, and every now and then asking to be recognized as a separate State, till New York got tired of the contest, and said if Vermont would pay her $30,000, she would give up her claim. On this Vermont paid the money, and in 1791 came in under the Constitution as the fourteenth State. The yerj next year Kentucky showed her population of 77,000, and claimed the right to be a State also. Kentucky had gained her name, which in the Indian language means, " a dark and bloody field," by the Indian battles which had stained her so with blood. She was moderately peaceful now, with growing towns and villages, and Congress let her into its circle of States.
In 1796 came Tennessee, so named from the pleasant river which watered her fertile plains, the sixteenth State in the growing Union. The first representative from this last new State was a tall, gaunt,
292 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
rather awkward looking young man, named Andrew Jackson. He was born in North Carolina, and when a boy of fourteen had been taken prisoner by the British in their campaign against Greene. The British officer who captured young Andrew Jackson, ordered him to clean his boots, and when the boy proudly refused to do such menial service, he knocked him down. This is one of the first things we hear of him, but not the last. He is poor, and has had a hard struggle, but he is bound to make his mark. Note him as he stands on the floor of Congress, first member from Tennessee, for we shall hear of him again.
While we have been looking at Washington's administration at home, we must not forget that the United States had become one of the nations of the earth, had ministers at foreign courts, and was recognized as a power among other nations. The success in this country of the republican form of government, was talked about all over Europe. Kings and nobles, who live by the permanence of monarchies, did not like such a proof that nations were able to dis- pense with hereditary sovereigns. In France there were a great many republicans who hated tyranny, and wanted to see their own country under a better government, and the example of America made them long still more ardently to be free.
France, poor country, had reason to be discontented, for her peo- ple had groaned Under heavy taxes, paid to support worthless rulers, till they were in the very depths of misery. Their king, Louis XVI., was not a bad man, and would do as well as he knew how by his people. But discontent had grown too strong for him, and all over Paris was heard a deep undertone of rebellion like mutter- ing thunder.
Lafayette, who was working hard in France, and had gained many wholesome ideas about liberty in America, did his best to help the king and advise him how to pacify the people. But the trouble had been too long brewing, and a great hungry people who had been starving on black bread, while their rulers feasted off gold and sil- ver dishes, could not be fed and made to hear reason both in one day. So, in spite of King Louis and Lafayette, and other good men with him, the great French Revolution broke furiously over France in the year 1792, in Washington's first administration. This is not a history of France, so I cannot tell you much about this revolution, except that it was the bloodiest, most fearful era in any history of any nation. For months the streets of Paris were filled with a
EVENTS IN WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 293
hungry, furious mob of men and women, who looked and acted Uke blood-thirsty wolves.
Guillotines — machines for cutting off the heads of its victims — were set up in public squares, and day after day the headless bodies of men and women lay piled up around these awful scaffolds. Mobs, wet to the armpits in blood, paraded the streets bearing aloft on pikes the ghastly heads of victims they had murdered. King Louis was beheaded, and his queen, Marie Antoinette. Beautiful and tal- ented women, noble and brave gentlemen, scholars, soldiers, peers and commoners, old and young, were sent in crowds to the guil- lotine, until it seemed as if there could be no stop to this horror. The only good that could come of such a dreadful thing, perhaps, was the lesson to other nations, that if power is too long abused, and a nation too long oppressed, there will come a dreadful day of reckoning in which the innocent and the guilty must suffer together for all the wrongs that have been done in the past.
When the French Revolution began, before it got to these days of blood, and when good men like Lafayette were trying to make things better, all the French republicans looked to America to help them. They claimed that they had helped us in gaining our liberty, and there was a strong feeling here of sympathy for them. On the other hand, the more cautious Americans, who knew we were a new struggling nation, poor, and in debt, and still a good deal afraid of English power, argued that it would be wisest and safest to keep out of French troubles altogether. This made two parties in this country : one for the French, the other against them ; and they hated each other as heartily as any two parties ever hated in the whole history of politics. The Federalists, with Washington and Hamil- ton at the head, were for prudence and caution, and keeping out of French quarrels. The Republicans, with Jefferson to lead them, were strong sympathizers of France. For years, until the troubles in France were all ended, and Napoleon Bonaparte had made him- self emperor of that distracted country, the great fight in American politics was between the sympathizers with France and those who did not sympathize with her, and there were times when the dispute ran so high that it came near making riot and bloodshed in this country. One of the French ambassadors, M. Genet, acted very foolishly here, by trying to raise an army in America to aid the French cause. Washington held out firmly against this, and main- tained the doctrine of not interfering in French matters. For this
294 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
he was very much abused, although in the end it turned out to be the wisest course. After a time, many of the sympathizers with France, who had taken her side through a generous feeling of sym- pathy, grew disgusted with the way the revolution went on there, and the feeling in her favor grew less and less ardent, till it died out altogether.
Washington's administration now drew to a close. The only other trouble of any importance, beside the Indian wars, and the intense feeling about the affairs in France, which occurred in his time, was the " Whiskey Insurrection " in Pennsylvania. Whiskey is likely to make insurrections, or other kinds of trouble always, and this one was caused by a tax put upon this liquor by the govern- ment. At one time, in 1794, it threatened to be a serious rebellion, and the rioters burned the mails, and the houses of the tax-officers, and made a great deal of trouble. But Washington sent out a strong force, which subdued the rioters and restored peace.
In 1796 Washington's second term expired. No arguments could make him accept the office another four years. He was sixty-five years old ; he had served his country faithfully ; now he wanted to spend in quiet the last years of his life in the pleasant home at Mount Vernon, with his wife, and her grandchildren, whom he loved as if they were his own.
So the two parties had to select each a new leader. The Fed- eralists took John Adams, who had been vice-president with Washington ; the Republicans chose Thomas Jefferson, who had been from the first their leader. In those days — we have changed it now — the man who had the most votes in the presidential elec- tion, was president ; he who had the second highest number was vice-president. When the votes were counted it was found Adams was president and Jefferson vice-president.
CHAPTER III.
ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION.
War with France imminent. — Washington and Napoleon. — The Nation mourns at Washing- ton's Death. — The Capital changed to Washington City. — Mrs. Adams's Experiences in Washington.
It seems very odd now to think of the two heads of political par- ties, sharing the two highest offices between them. Very few men
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could be found more unlike in mind, manners, and opinion, than John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, yet one was president, and the other vice-president. They agreed, however, in both being true patriots, with a sincere desire for the good of their country, even when they did not agree upon the measures by which they could best serve her, and that pre- served them from any great migunderstanding.
The disputes between the Federalists and Re- publicans waxed hotter than ever in John Adams's administration. In 1797 the country came very near war with France, who was already at war with nearly every country in Europe. She now called herself a republic, and her brilliant young warrior, Napoleon Bonaparte, was leading her armies to victory from one battle-field to another. One of the first things President Adams did was to send an embassy to France to talk over her relations with the United States. Charles Coatesworth Pinckney was one of these ambassadors. The French ministry hinted to him that the United States might make matters smooth by paying a certain amount of money to them. " No," answered Pinckney, " Millions for defense, but not one cent for trib- ute," — meaning that they would rather spend millions of dollars to fit out ships and an army to defend the country, than pay one cent as a bribe to buy off the war with which they were threatened.
When war seemed to be close at hand the United States began fitting out a navy, and gathering together an army. Washington was called on to be the commander, and again came forward at the call of his country. What a wonderful story history might have to tell, if Washington had fought in a campaign against the armies of
'm^j
296 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Napoleon Bonaparte. But this did not happen. War was not fully decided upon, and finally the cloud passed over, and there was fair weather again.
Only a few months after the country had heard the news that their beloved commander-in-chief was ready to lead its armies, in the event of a war with France, came the news of his sudden death. George Washington was dead ! The news struck a chill to all hearts. The father of his country, the beloved leader of the people, covered with honors and mourned by a grateful nation, was borne to his tomb. The whole people wore mourning, and a united voice of lamentation went up for him all over the land. In England and France the highest honors were paid to his memory. Many ships of the Eng- lish fleet wore their flags at half-mast. Napoleon Bonaparte or- dered the banners of the French Republic to be decorated with crape. Wherever the name of Washington was spokeri, it was mentioned with tender and profound reverence.
In 1800 the national capital was changed. When Washington was made president, the seat of government was in New York city. In his second year it had been moved to Philadelphia, where the Colonial Congress had held its meetings. But it was finally decided that the capital ought to be farther south, on the banks of the Poto- mac. Accordingly a site was chosen, a president's mansion was built there, and a national capitol begun in the new city of Washington. It was in winter weather when President Adams went down with his wife to begin housekeeping in the new edifice which the United States had built for its presidents. Mrs. Adams was a thrifty housewife, and capable of making the best of things, but she found Washington a rough place, and a great change from New York and Philadelphia. Except the new public buildings, there was hardly a house in sight. A few poor huts where the laborers lived who had been engaged on the buildings, and a dreary expanse of thick forests, were all she could see from the windows of the cold and cheerless mansion. Although wood was so plenty, they could hardly get laborers to cut it, and they could not burn coal, because there were no grates in the house. Poor Mrs. President ! she was afraid they could not keep warm enough to drive off the ague ; and she says, no doubt thinking regretfully of Philadelphia, or her own dear Boston : " This is indeed a new country." Remember this was the capital of our republic in the first year of the century.
President Adams was not re-elected a second term. The Repub-
JEFFERSON'S PRESIDENCY.
297
lican party was growing stronger and stronger, and in 1801 elected Thomas Jefferson as its third president, and Aaron Burr of New York as vice-president.
CHAPTER IV.
JEFFERSON'S PRESIDENCY.
The Purchase of Louisiana. —The First Journey from Ocean to Ocean. — Lewis and Clarke's Ex- pedition. — The Sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. — The Great Pacific Ocean. — Return of Lewis and Clarke.
The country had been growing richer and more prosperous every year since the war ended. Every year saw an increase in the tide of people going west to settle in the new lands beyond the Ohio River. A rich farming country was opening up, under the plows of the thrifty settlers, all the way from Ohio to Mississippi Ter- ritory. In the very first year of Jefferson's rule, the Territory of Ohio came to urge her claim to be made a State. Con- gress voted in her favor, and a new star, to repre- sent the State of Ohio, was put in the flag of the Union.
There was always some anxiety about the Mis- sissippi valley. You know the Spanish still owned Louisiana, and that territory extended up the river from New Orleans, as far as the Falls of St. Anthony, where Hennepin had explored.
New Orleans was now a large town, well protected by forts guard- ing the mouth of the Mississippi. St. Louis was a snug settlement of
298 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
log cabins where dwelt a company of French fur traders with their Indian wives, whose children, speaking a mixture of the French and Indian tongues, could be seen playing beside the waters of the muddy Mississippi.
Spain had recently ceded Louisiana to France, and France needed money to carry on her wars. So when President Jefferson, who was on very good terms with France, offered fifteen millions of dollars for her possession in North America, Napoleon accepted the offer, and the bargain was ratified at once. Jefferson believed in a good large country with no troublesome neighbors at the back door, such as we might have had if the Spaniards or the French had kept the Mississippi River. Thus by peaceful purchase we got the great territory of Louisiana and the towns of New Orleans, St. Louis, and all the trading posts and forts situated on the great river. The Spaniards still kept the peninsula of Florida, the land they had first settled in North America.
Jefferson offered the governorship of Louisiana to Lafayette, who was then living on his estate in France, but Lafayette refused, be- cause he was unwilling to abandon his own country. Therefore, Gen- eral Wilkinson, a soldier who had served with Gates in his campaign against Burgoyne, was made governor of the new Territory.
As soon as his purchase was complete, Jefferson was eager to explore the new country we had gained. At this time nobody knew anything about a route across the continent. There was a romantic account by a man named Jonathan Carver, who had journeyed across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But with the excep- tion of this solitary traveler, it was not known that any one had ever explored the country from one ocean to another. Jefferson planned such a journey, and began to look about for men to under- take it.
He had a private secretary, named Captain Merri weather Lewis, a very quiet man, but a man of undaunted resolve and great enthu- siasm for science. To him and to Captain Clarke, who had been a soldier in several Indian campaigns, the president finally intrusted his project. These two leaders went to St. Louis, in the winter of 1803-4, aud there collected a party of forty or fifty men, and all necessaries Por their journey, — the first journey across the American continent.
They started up thv .nuddy waters of the Missouri in little boats. Part of the boats worked by sails, part of them by oars. When the
JEFFERSON'S PKESIDENCY.
299
current was too powerful to be stemmed by oars, they tied their boats by ropes to the trees, and worked them up by the capstan. They made their way slowly, and only reached the territory of the Mandan Indians, somewhere in Northern Dakota, when cold weather set in, and they found themselves winter bound among the savages. For six months they stayed there, living in rude huts which thej had built, passing the time in hunting and fishing, or studying thr habits of their Indian neighbors.
In spring, when the ice broke up, the canoes were put in order, and they set out once more. Hitherto they had once in a wlhie met French traders from Canada, or British traders from Hudson's Bay, seeking furs of the Indians, but now they began to enter a wilderness where no foot of white man had ever trodden.
The Untrod Prairie.
Their plan was to follow the Missouri to its source, and from thence to strike the source of the Columbia River, which the Indians had told Lewis was only separated by a low ridge of the Rocky Mountains from the head waters of the Missouri. Had they taken any of the branches of the Missouri, they might have spent months of fruitless search, and perhaps given up their journey. But Lewis had the scent of a sleuth hound for the right track, and led them on with unerring sagacity.
On they went, around the great falls, through the bold rock called " Gate of the Mountains," up the Jefferson Fork, till the river,
300 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
growing narrower and narrower, would no longer float even their light canoes. Then they took the boats on their backs, and walked beside the stream. One day one of the men put one foot on each side the narrow rippling waters, and thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri River. When, a little later, they reached the chaste, clear fount from which bubbled the first drops of the mighty stream, every one drank in silent thankfulness for their suc- cess so far. Only a little mountain ridge divided the waters of the great river of the east from the river of the west. They could stand upon the crest and toss a pebble one way into waters that flowed to the Atlantic, and the other into waters flowing to the Pacific. When they reached the Columbia, drinking from its fountain, they cried aloud that they quaffed the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
As soon as they reached a point where they could embark their canoes on the Columbia, they proceeded with breathless rapidity over its dangerous rapids to the ocean. But their enthusiasm was damped by the greeting the Pacific coast gave them. It was in the rainy season, and the ocean of their hopes was covered with impene- trable fogs. For days and weeks the rain fell in steady torrepts till the leather of their waterproof tents rotted to the consistency of brown paper. Their clothes were never dry. They suffered from wet, cold, and want of proper food, but in spite of all kept their health and spirits. On their return, they wore Indian hunting shirts, deer-skin leggings, and moccasins instead of shoes. They were bronzed almost as dark as Indians. When Lewis wished to prove that he was a white man, he had to strip up his sleeve to show the original color of his skin. In this guise they landed at St. Louis in July, 1806.
" Never did any similar event," writes President Jefferson, " ex- cite more joy in the United States." Every citizen of the nation felt a glow of pride in his newly enlarged country, so rich, bound- less, and romantic. It was the first journey across that continent where now the Pacific Railway winds across the two great mount- ain ranges to the western ocean.
WAR WITH ALGERINE PIRATES. 301
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.
Pirates of the Mediterranean Sea. — Demands of these Sea Robbers on United States. — Gen- eral Eaton's Interview with the Bey of Tunis. — Royal Beggars. — War declared. — Daring Feat, of Decatur. — The Philadelphia burned in the Harbor of Tripoli. — The Bashaw Hamet. — End of War.
While we were thus broadening our territories at home, we were having trouble abroad with no less formidable enemies than Alger- ine pirates who infested the Mediterranean Sea, and all the coasts of southern Europe. The Barbary States, you know, comprise the countries of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli, and are formed of a narrow strip of land in northeastern Africa. They are inhabited by Moors, Turks, Arabs, and a sprinkling of Jews. The principal religion is that of Mohammed, and they were sworn enemies to all Christian nations. For years the pirates of the Barbary States, or, as they were generally called, " Algerine pirates," had been a terror to every merchant vessel who came to trade with the countries near the Mediterranean. Any unlucky ship, which found itself near the Atlantic coast of Africa, might see at any moment an odd-looking boat with long lateen sails, swooping down upon her from some sheltered inlet or harbor, where she had lain at watch for her prey. In a twinkling she would sail alongside the merchantman, grapple her, drop her long sails over the vessel's side, and a host of swarthy, turbaned Moors, with bare, sharp sabres held between their teeth, belts stuck thick with knives and pistols, would come swarming over from sails and rigging, boarding their prize from all sides at once. The merchantman, with a crew untrained to fighting, would surren- der. Every man on board would be made prisoner, and carried to Algiers or Tripoli to be held for the payment of a large ransom. If this sum were not paid they were sold as slaves in the public market- places.
It is wonderful, when we read of th^s thing, to see the terror in which these miserable, half clad pirates held half a dozen European nations. Italy feared them as a mouse fears a cat ; Holland and Sweden trembled at the name of Algiers ; Denmark paid them yearly a large tribute ; the only nation of whom they stood in awe was England. For her, they had some respect, as one of their proverbs, " as hard-headed as an Englishman," testifies.
302 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY,
When the pirates found America had become an independent nation, they immediately made demands on the government to pay them tribute. The Emperor of Morocco, Dey of Algiers, Bey of Tunis, and Bashaw of Tripoli (such were the high sounding titles of these squalid potentates) all thought they had found a new nation weak enough to submit to their piratical demands. And at first the United States did submit in the most astonishing manner. They sent consuls to the Barbary States to arrange on the amount of money or presents to be given these rulers to buy their favor and exempt our ships from their plunder. General Eaton, an officer who had served in the Revolutionary War, was one of these consuls, and very indignant he was at the manner in which his government submitted to the demands of these barbarians. When he called to see the Bey of Tunis, he was ordered to take off his shoes in the anteroom, and enter in his stocking feet. When he approached the bey in the stifling little den only eight by twelve, which served for grand audience chamber, he was ordered to " kiss his majesty's hand." " Having performed this ceremony," says the bluff old soldier, " we were allowed to take our shoes and other property and depart, without any other injury than the humiliation of being obliged in this way to violate one of God's commandments and offend common decency."
These potentates of Barbary were constantly begging. They asked for ships, gunpowder, arms, cloth, and jewels from our consuls. General Eaton says, while he lived in the consulate at Tunis, not only the bey, but his minister and half a dozen officers of his court, sent for their coffee, spices, sugar, and other groceries, to the Ameri- can house, demanding it as tribute. Once the bey saw there a handsome looking-glass, for which he sent next day, and the Ameri- can consul could do no better than pack it off to him. If he refused to comply with any demand, the bey threatened to let his pirates loose on the American trading vessels. Here is a specimen of the letters sent by this prince of pirates to the Danish consul.
" On account of the long friendship subsisting between us we take the liberty to give you a commission for sundry articles, naval and military, which I find indispensable. I give you six months to answer this letter, and one year to forward the goods. And re- member, if we do not hear from you we knoiv tvhat steps to tahey
As demand followed demand, and our consuls found it was like filling a bottomless tub witli water to satisfy these fellows, they be- gan to demur.
HH ,
"lSHf|!|i(S-< ;■ sWfliiiSWiW;:. :'.iS:f P'Sfli
WAR WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.
305
" Wlien will these demands end ? " asked United States Consul Cathcart of the Basha\y of Tripoli. " Never I They will never be at an end," answered the bashaw, coolly. " Then I will declare war on my own responsibility,"' said the consul. And so finally war was declared.
The United States sent Commodore Edward Preble with a fleet to Tripoli, and they arrived shortly after the pirates had captured the American ship Philadelphia. The ofiicers and crew of the cap- tured vessel were taken to Tripoli and a ransom of five hundred dollars a head placed on each man. The Philadelj^hia was anchored in the harbor in plain sight of the town.
One of the officers on Preble's ship, young Stephen Decatur, begged to be allowed to destroy the Philadelphia^ in order that the pirates might not be able to use her in their war against the United States. Permission was given him, and Decatur took a party of picked men and started on his adventure. He first captured a boat belonging to the pirates which was loaded with a cargo of women slaves thev were sending to the markets of Constanti- nople. This vessel he fitted up and new bap- tized The Intrepid. She sailed into the harbor of Tripoli one midnight with all her crew, except the man at the helm, lying flat on their faces on the deck. The ship was hailed, but her captain gave plausible answers till they reached the side of the Philadelphia. In a moment Decatur and his crew had boarded her, and throwing over the deck pitch, tarred cloth, and all sorts of combustibles, set fire to her. Before the enemy had recovered from their surprise, the Intrepid with all sails spread was outside the harbor, which was lighted up as brightly as noonday by the burning ship. Decatur lost not one man, while the TripoHtans lost twenty, or nearly that number, who were sur- prised on the ship, and part of whom were drowned from leaping off the burning vessel.
In the mean tune General Eaton went to Egypt and found Bashaw Hamet, a brother of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, who claimed that he was the rightful prince of Tripoli, and promised General Eaton that he would forever keep peace with the Americans if he would aid him in recovering his throne. Eaton had only a hand- ful of men with him, yet with the force of Moors and Arabs which
0"
«^^
Lieu-tenant Decatur.
306 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Hamet succeeded in raising, they started overland from Egypt to Tripoli to subdue this barbarous empire and re- cover his throne for Hamet. The little force actu- ally laid seige to, and captured the city of Derne, the most eastern town in Tripoli. At this moment, however, peace was made between the reigning bashaw and the United States ; General Eaton was obliged to give up the town, while poor Hamet, who found himself worse off than before, was left with- out a kingdom or even a home.
The American valor in this war had the good
Mohammedan soid.er. ^^^^^ ^^ couviucing the pirates that the United
States was not a country to be triJfled with. They said we were too much like the English, and for the present no more demands were made for either ships or jewels as presents, by these autocrats of the seas.
CHAPTER VI.
JEFFERSON'S SECOND TERM.
Aaron Burr's Duel with Hamilton. — Hamilton's Death. — Burr's Disgrace. — First Steam- boat on the Hudson. — Fulton's Triumph. — The Great Event of Jefferson's Administration.
When Jefferson's first four years of office expired, he was elected for another term. George Clinton was made vice-president, in place of Aaron Burr, who had been getting into disgrace. You have heard something about Burr early in the Revolutionary War, when he marched up with Arnold to take the fortress of Quebec. He did good service then and afterwards in the war, and in the early days of the republic was thought to be a brave soldier and a brilliant statesman.
Washington did not like or trust Aaron Burr, however, and Washington's friend, and secretary of the treasury, Alexander Ham- ilton, liked him even less, and did not trust him at all. Hamilton more than any one had opposed Burr in all his political schemes, and there was a strong feeling between the two men, although up to the last of Burr's vice-presidency they had not quarreled outright.
In those days, duels were common. If a man felt himself insulted
JEFFERSON'S SECO^^'D TERM.
307
he challenged his foe to meet him in mortal combat, and the two stood up with pistols and fired at each other till one or the other fell. Hamilton himself had already lost a son in a duel, and ought to have been brave enough to have set his face against such foolish wickedness. Yet, when Burr, in a fit of anger, challenged him, Hamilton accepted it, and the two men went out to meet each other in this cold- blooded manner, which they called an affair of honor. They met on Weehawken Heights, opposite New York city on the Jersey shore. Hamilton fired his pistol into the air, and made no effort to kill his opponent ; but Burr aimed deliberately, and Colonel Hamilton fell with a mortal wound in his side.
Notwithstanding dueling was fashionable among military men and men of the world, the death of Alexander Hamilton, who was so much beloved, and had been a faithful servant of his country, seemed to awake the whole country to a sense of the horror of such a deed. Burr was denounced as a murderer, and from that moment he sank in public estimation, never to rise again.
If Burr had possessed sufficient manhood to retrieve his past errors, he might easily have done so. He had still many friends, and he had been gifted by nature with the power of winning love and confidence. But he was a restless, ambitious, scheming man, and his bitter disappointment at the failure of his political career made him false and unprincipled. For a time he was absent in a tour through the West, and little was heard of him, except accounts of his visits in western cities, and of his being entertained like a prince in the houses of wealthy western friends.
All at once the report burst like a thunderclap upon the country,
308
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
that Aaron Burr was secretly plotting to invade Louisiana, seize
New Orleans, stir up a re- bellion in the Western States, break up the Union, and make himself emperor in the domains he had gained by treason. All the country was filled with excitement. Burr was arrested and tried for treason in Richmond. Nothing could be proven against him. He ex- plained in defense that he was intending to in- \ vade Mexico, and the Spanish possessions in America, in case of a war with Spain, which then was threatened. Whether ^^;^^^ he was guilty or innocent
/ could not be decided from
the evidence brought forward, and he was finally acquitted. But the once brilliant Aaron Burr, third vice-president of the United States, was from thenceforth a disgraced and ruined man, and his name ranked next to that of Benedict Arnold in ignominy, and the contempt of all good patriots.
The trial of Burr was the most important political event of Jefferson's second term. Bvit the greatest event in his whole ad- ministration was now at hand. Let me tell you what it was.
One day in September, 1807, a crowd of people were assembled on one of the piers of Hudson River in New York city, to see an extraordinary boat set out on a voyage. The boat was not to be carried by oars or sails, but by steam, a wonderful new means of locomotion, which James Watts of England had done much to bring into use as a motive power, and which many scientific men in Europe and America had been experimenting with during the last half century. The enterprising American who had built the strange new boat now about to start upon its trial trip, was Robert Fulton of Pennsylvania. He had started out in life as an artist, had painted
JEFFERSON'S SECOND TERM.
309
a few tolerable pictures, but finally gave up art, and went to France to experiment there in many inventions with which his fertile brain teemed. Fortunately he met in Paris, Robert Livingston, whom Jef- ferson had sent as minis- ter. Fulton told him about a pet project of his to make boats move through the water by steam. The idea was not an original one with Fulton. Many others had experimented with steam, and twenty years earlier, an American named John Fitch had actually succeeded in propelling boats by steam in regular trips for sev- eral weeks, on the Dela- ware River from Phila- delphia to Trenton. But for want of money, pow- erful influence, and other
adverse causes. Fitch had failed to establish steamboat navigation and for years all attempts to make it successful had been, dropped. Fulton was poor, as most great inventors have been, but Livingstv>n furnished him with money, and the result of their combined efforts was the steamboat lying off the pier on the Hudson on this afternoon in September, 1807, ready to make her first trip to Albany. You can fancy what anxiety Fulton felt on this momentous day. Gk the dock the crowd of people, disbelieving in such a miracle a& the moving a ship by steam, laughed and jeered at Fulton and his foolish under- taking. As the piston began to move slowly up and down, the wheels to splash up the water on the pier, and the boat to move away, how the people must have wondered. I faiicy Fulton's heart must almost have stopped beating. She went on bravely, scaring all the other boats out of her track. They burned pine wood in those days, instead of coal, and as it grew dark the smoke pipe sent up a
310
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
glittering column of sparks. The people on the banks of the Hudson, who had not heard of this new monster of the seas, as they beheld her
Fitch's Philadelphia and Trenton Packet.
passing by in the evening, thought it was some supernatural appear- ance, and many declared it was not the work of man but of Satan.
Fulton's Clernnont Steanner.
After all, the thing was a success. It went to Albany at the rate
MADISON'S PRESIDENCY.
311
of five miles an hour, and forced people to believe in the power of steam to propel vessels. Fulton thought that in time a boat might reach six miles an hour, but probably never more than six. Now, our great Hudson River steamboats go to Albany at the rate of twenty miles an hour.
Am I not right in calling this the greatest event of Jefferson's administrations ? Wars, treaties, and political intrigues, become small in importance when compared with such wonderful inventions as the steamboat and telegraph.
CHAPTER VII.
MADISON'S PRESIDENCY.
Character of Madison. — Tecumseh. — William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana. —The Visit of Tecumseh. — The Prophet. — Battle of Tippecanoe. — Impressment of American Sailors on English Ships. — The Leopard and Chesapeake. — War declared against England. — Flogging of an American Sailor. — War Feeling in United States.
The country did a very good thing for itself when it made James Madison of Virginia its president. He was a near and dear friend of Thomas Jeffer- like
son, and like him a Republican in politics. Quiet, and rather re- served in his manner, he was a man who gained the respect and confidence even of those who did not agree with him. Almost always dressed in plain black broadcloth, he looked, as he was, a plain, scholarly, unpretending gentleman. The ten- dency to fine clothes and bright colors in the dress of men, was fast wear- ing out in this republic. There was a striking con- trast between the inau- / juration dress of John Adams — a lavender colored broadcloth,
/'£^^u^t^ ^f^^.^^;^c^^^^Ccjrfyz^
312 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
with white silk stockings, — and the plain black suit of Madison, made from cloth manufactured in the United States.
When Madison took his seat in the presidential chair there was peace and prosperity in the country. But there was a strong pros- pect that peace would not be long continued. The Indians on the border had been very quiet since Anthony Wayne subdued them, but now there were symptoms of gathering trouble among them. There had arisen among the Shawnee Indians a chief of superioi intellect and far-sightedness to the rest of his race. He was en- deavpring to stir up the Indians to resist the constant invasion of the white man ; to prevent them from being pushed off their pleasant hunting-grounds, and driven farther and farther west. This man's name was Tecumseh. Tecumseh in Indian dialect means " Flying Tiger," or " Tiger leaping at his prey."
Indiana, where Tecumseh's tribe lived, had just been divided from Michigan and Illinois, and made a Territory. Its governor was William Henry Harrison, who had been one of the officers in Wayne's campaign against the Indians. Harrison had bought a piece of land on the Wabash River from the chiefs of Tecumseh's tribe, and was about to take possession of it. When Tecumseh heard of this, he came with an armed band of warriors to the settle- ment where the governor lived, and told him he wished to talk with him about the purchase. Governor Harrison asked him to enter his house, but Tecumseh refused. The air of the white man's dwelling stifled him. He wanted to speak in the open air.
When they were all assembled, one of Harrison's officers asked the chief to sit beside the governor, saying, " Tecumseh, your father requests you to seat yourself."
The savage repeated contemptuously, " My father ! The sun is my father. The earth is my mother. On her bosom I will repose," and seated himself on the ground.
In simple and eloquent speech Tecumseh laid his cause for com- plaint before the governor. He declared that the lands of the broad West belonged to all the Indian tribes in common ; that one tribe had no right to sell a tract without the sanction of all the others. Harrison laughed at this claim ; he answered him that the tribes spoke different languages and were different nations ; that his bar- gain with the Shawnees was a just one ; and he should keep the land. In the middle of his speech Tecumseh started to his feet with raised war-club. At the same moment the other warriors also started up with cries of rage, brandishing their weapons.
MADISON'S PRESIDENCY. 313
Harrison and his men, many of them unarmed, snatched whatever was nearest at hand to defend themselves. The Indians grew calmer, and the storm passed over without bloodshed. Tecumseh said he was sorry for his violence, and declared he was willing to have peace if the whites would leave him undisturbed in the posses= sion of the land.
The meetino; ended without further result. But from that time Harrison feared at any time an outbreak of the Indians. Tecum- seh, filled with the idea of union between all the tribes — a noble idea and worthy of a more civilized hero — journeyed from tribe to tribe trying to form a confederation. He visited the Cherokees, the Creeks, the Choctaws, all intelligent and warlike tribes, and wae untiring in his efforts to inspire them with his spirit.
While Tecumseh was absent he left the tribe under the control of his twin brother, who was known among the savages as " The Prophet." He pretended to be able to foretell future events, and to be aided by powers from the Great Spirit, which would enable him to bring his people victory in war. The savages had great rever- ence for the Prophet, and believed devoutly in all that he professed to do. At this time Harrison was constantly hearing rumors ol threatened uprising among the people of the Prophet. These ru- mors decided him at length to go and break up their town, which was on the Tippecanoe, a branch of the Wabash River, not far from the governor's fort. He accordingly led his forces through the for- ests and marshes to the banks of the river, and there fought the Prophet and his men, driving them from their town, and scattering them over the country. When Tecumseh returned from his patri- otic journey, he found the tribe broken up and dispersed, his plans fruitless, and could onl}^ vow future vengeance against his enemies. He knew the Americans were on the point of war with England again, and inflaming all the Indians who would listen to him with his own desire for revenge, he hastened to offer himself and his warriors to the British officers^ to fight against the United States. This trouble with the Indians broke out in the fall of 1811, and in June of the next year, this country, for a second time, declared war with England. In order that you may understand the cause of this, I must relate to you a few events that had been leading to war, almost ever since the nation had been independent of British rule.
It was hardly to be expected that Great Britain should give up
314 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
her American colonies, wliicli had been such a source of wealth to her, without a good deal of bitter feeling. Ever since the Constitu- tion was formed, and the American merchant-ships began their trade with Europe, England, who called herself the mistress of the ocean, and prided herself on owning the finest navy on the globe, had done everything she could to injure American commerce. The United States, who wished for peace, and were reluctant to go to war again, had borne much, both from France and England, in submissive silence. But one wrong had aroused the people more than any other. This was the impressment of Americans, to serve as sailors on English ships. Let me explain to you what this means. It had long been the custom in England to fill up their ship's crews by a method called " impressment." When they could not get men to enlist readily as sailors, a party of rough men, called a " press-gang," would go on shore, and, upon meeting any sturdy, healthy looking young fellow, would seize him as their prize. Sometimes they greeted him jovially, and persuaded him to drink with them, then they plied him either with liquor or drugs, till they could carry him off insensible to their ship ; sometimes they knocked their victim over the head, stunned him, and carried him off in that way. When he recovered from his stupor, he found himself on the sea, away from home and friends, perhaps from wife and children, bound on a voyage which might last years. If he refused to work the ship, he was lashed to a mast and beaten almost to death with a rope's end. Tlie "press-gang" was at one time almost as much dreaded in Europe as the plague. Many a homely ballad has told the fate of a poor fellow thus torn from all that was dear in life by the horrible " press-gang." The impressment of its hero was also one of the thrilling incidents of many of the novels of that time.
You see now what the word impressment means. What will you say when I tell you that at the time war was declared against Eng- laind, it was alleged that there were 6,000 free-born Americans who had been seized from American vessels to serve on English war ships. And the cruelty and horrors of an English war ship of three quarters of a century ago have never been told. If the captain were a bad man — and the English navy captain of this day seems to have been specially prone to brutality — he had every chance to abuse his power. No eastern despot, on his throne, surrounded by crowds of cringing subjects, had more autocratic sway than a ship's captain, out on the broad ocean, over the crew he commanded.
MADISON'S PllESIDENCY. 315
Again and again had a merchant vessel from America been stopped on the high seas by a stout man-of-war, and a boat sent to search her for Enghsh seamen. In vain would the captain and men protest they were Americans by birth and residence. The crew were overhauled, all the stout, strong men were declared to be Eng- lishmen, and carried off to serve Great Britain. Once on board, if they refused to work they were flogged. Many an American sailor, escaped from this slavery, showed great scars on his back which he bore to his dying day.
In the last year of Jefferson's rule, a British vessel called the Leopard had met the American Chesapeake commanded by Captain Barron, peacefully pursuing its course on the seas. The Leopard ordered the American to stop, and be searched for English seamen. The Chesapeake answered that she had no English sailors on board, and very properly refused to stop. On this the British ship opened fire on the American, killing and wounding part of the crew, and disabling the vessel. Unprepared for fight, Captain Barron was obliged to pull down his flag and allow his ship to be overhauled. Three American-born sailors were taken off the vessel and forced to serve a nation whom they detested. Such outrages as these were enough to stir up war feeling in the mildest and most Quaker-like nation.
In spite of these wrongs, however, the threat to go to war with England was opposed by a large party in the United States. This was the Federalist party, who when they found the Republicans wanted war, set their faces against it with all tlie bitterness of party hatred. They saw in the war feeling of Jefferson, Madison, and the Republicans, a desire to go against England, in order that they might deliver the United States up to France, who was then at war with England. The man who led the Federalists in their hue and cry against war was Josiah Quincy, one of the ablest men of Massa- chusetts. He well represented his State, which was very largely opposed to Madison's policy. Connecticut and nearly all New Eng- land followed the lead of Quincy and his State, and during the next three years divided the country on the subject. The South and West favored war, and Henry Clay, a young man from Kentucky, who had already made his musical, ringing voice heard in the na- tion's councils, took the lead of the Republicans against Quincy and the Federalists. Another rising man from Carolina, named John C. Calhoun, took the part of Madison and the war measures.
316 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Thus matters stood when in June, 1812, President James Madi- son declared war with Great Britain.
On the decks of the British war ships, thousands of impressed American sailors who joyfully heard the news, stood up and refused to pull another rope on board the ship of a nation at war with their own country. Thej^ were flogged, — some of them till death released them from torture, — but the larger portion held out. "Will you do your duty on this ship," asked one captain of an American who was suffering under the lash for refusal to work the ship. " Yes, sir," answered the man, with his back bleeding at every pore. " It is my duty to blow up this ship, an enemj^ to my country, and if I get a chance I '11 do it."
The captain looked round in astonishment. " I think this man must be an American," he said. " No English sailor would talk like that. He is probably crazy, and you may untie him and let him
go."
Over twenty-five hundred Americans who had been impressed and who thus refused to serve, were sent to Dartmoor prison in the Eng- lish county of Devonshire, where they were kept in most wretched imprisonment until the war closed.
CHAPTER Vni.
OPENING OF THE WAR OF 1812.
The Scene of War. — Hull's Surrender of Detroit. — Disgrace of Hull. — The Chicago Massacre. — Young Winfield Scott. — Defeat on all Sides.
The United States had reason now to be thankful for the war with the Barbary pirates, for that war had in- duced them to take measures to fit out a navy, and they had a few ships ready for war. "What!" cried the Federalists, "fight with Eng- land on the sea. Expect that this new, weak navy of ours can hold out for one moment against the magnificent ships of England, which Felucca Gun-boat. j-^jg tlic occaus of two hemispheres! It is mad- ness!"
"Wait and see," answered the Republicans. "Wait and see," echoed young Decatur, who had burned the Philadelphia under the noses of the Tripolitans in their own harbor. "Wait and see," cried
OPENING OF THE WAR OF 1812. 317
hundreds of American seaman, burning to avenge the wrongs of their comrades, taken away from their native vessels under their very eyes. Let us also wait and see.
The war of the Revolution had been, on the part of Great Brit- ain, a war for conquest and subjection. They had been able, during seven years, to introduce and maintain armies in the heart of our ■ country in some of its largest cities, and they had also ravaged and laid waste our most populous farming districts. The War of 1812 was very different from this. The struggle in nearly all cases was on our boundary lines ; along the borders of our great lakes, between the United States and Canada ; up and down the Atlantic coast ; and on the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. Such a war, carried on in our lakes, and upon the sea-coasts, would be largely naval war- fare. Of course the English, with great faith in their navy, be- lieved the Americans could man no ships to beat them. Harassed on three sides by English fleets, while on the western border Tecumseh and his Indian allies would keep up a series of blood- thirsty attacks, the Americans, with a weak and ineffectual navy, would soon be worried into making a dishonorable peace, which would perhaps oblige them to give up much they had gained only a few years previously. This no doubt was the hope and belief of the English who favored the new war.
The fighting began on the Canada border. General Hull, who had been one of Washington's ofiicers, and was now governor of the Territory of Michigan, had taken command of the troops, which were to defend Detroit, and the borders of Lake Erie. Hull seems, from all accounts, to have been a man too timid in purpose, and too waver- ing in judgment, for a military commander. At first he marched boldly on towards Canada, crossed the river from Detroit, and entered the British possessions. Staying here for three weeks without ac- complishing anything, he marched back again, and shut himself up in Detroit. There he waited till the English under command of Gen- eral Brock began crossing the river to attack the town. Brock had about 1,300 men, half of them Indians. Hull had only 800 men inside the walls, but they held a strong position, and believed they could hold the fort. On his approach Brock insolently threatened to let the Indians loose without restraint upon the garrison, if they refused to surrender. General Hull's fear of the tomahawk induced him to take a measure which no excuses have been able to make ap- pear other than cowardly. He hung a white flag, the token of sub-
318 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
mission, on his outer wall, and the fort, with all its stores of provis- ions, gunpowder, arms, indeed the whole Territory of Michigan, was given to the enemy. This surrender was made without consulting his officers and men, who were eager to fight. It is said that a large number of the men shed tears of mortification and anger, when they saw the white flag strung up on the walls. One officer broke his sword in pieces, and tearing his epaulettes from his shoulders, trampled them under foot, in his anger that he had been forced to disgrace his uniform by this surrender without striking a blow.
A cry of dismay and indignation rose up against Hull all over the country. He was tried for treason, and acquitted ; but convicted of cowardice, and sentenced to death. The president pardoned him, however, and he lived from that time in retirement. He claimed to have surrendered, that he might save his army from the horrors of Indian slaughter, but it is generally believed that if he had not been overcome by his caution, he could have defended the fort and held it, against such numbers as attacked it. Humanity, the noblest of traits in a time of peace, is sometimes dangerous in the barbarous time of war.
Hull's surrender of Detroit was in August, 1812. The very day before it took place, terrible events were happening on the banks of Lake Michigan, on the very spot where the city of Chicago now stands. Then only a wooden fort, surrounded by high walls, and one or two dwelling-houses, stood on those shores where a great busy city, stretching for miles along the lake, has since sprung up, as if by magic.
In this wooden fort, called Fort Dearborn, was a garrison of about fifty men, commanded by Captain Heald. Besides the sol- diers, there were several women (wives of the officers and men), a number of children, and the family of Mr. Kinzie, who had built and lived in the solitary house which was close by the fort. There had been some threatenings from the Indians, and one friendly savage had warned the fort that the Pottawotamie tribe which was encamped all about them, was hostile. While Captain Heald was thinkine: what was best to be done, orders came from Hull to leave the fort and bring his garrison away in safety. He began to make plans for this, and gathered his boats on the shore to embark the whole party, and cross the lake to Michigan. Just as they were about to go on board their boats, had already left the protecting walls of their fort, and were on their way to the lake, part on foot, part on
OPENING OF THE WAR OF 1812. 319
horseback, and the children in a large wagon, the yells of the sav- ages resounded in their ears, and they were surrounded by a band ten or twelve times their number.
The sight of these warriors, striped with paint in various colors, naked to the waist, with belts stuck full of scalping knives, war- clubs, and tomahawks, hair stiffened till it stood erect like porcu- pine quills, uttering dreadful, ear-piercing yells, was enough to strike terror to brave hearts. But the forlorn little band fought for dear life, or rather like those who prefer death to the tortures of Indian capture. The women showed the same bravery and desper- ation as the men. The children, twelve in all, cowering together in one large wagon, were all tomahawked and scalped, by a hideously painted young savage who mounted on one of the wheels and dis- patched them all. In a few minutes from the time the attack began, two thirds of the party were killed. The remainder were taken prisoners and carried to the Pottawotamie camp. Most of these were afterwards ransomed and rejoined their friends. To-day the streets of Chicago bear the names of several of the victims of this slaughter.
Hardly had the news of these misfortunes reached the ears of gov- ernment when we suffered another defeat at Niagara. General Van Rensselaer, of good Holland stock, as his name denotes, was stationed with his division at Lewiston, near Buffalo. He planned the taking of the English post, Queenstown, on the opposite shore of the river. The design was an able one, and he was aided in carrying it out by Lieutenant-colonel Winfield Scott, a brave young soldier, who came up just before the expedition started. Part of the soldiers crossed the river and had made a gallant attack. Success seemed close at hand, when the ti'oops still remaining on the American shore refused to cross, and the attacking party, Avithout reinforce- ments, were cut to pieces and the remnant captured. Young Scott fought like a tiger, and only when overpowered by numbers, he gave up his sword and was taken prisoner. He was a tall, elegant figure, and a proper mark for bullets. After he was taken, the Indians sur- rounded him, curious to examine his person, to see if it were possible that none of the shots they had fired at him had left their mark.
Such were some of our defeats on the borders of Canada. In the West, General William Henry Harrison was meeting the fierce onsets of the Indians with courage, but with doubtful success. The Fed- eralists, opposed to war, welcomed every defeat with hnrdly less joy
21
320 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
than the British. We should have been once more at the mercy of England, if our victories elsewhere had not overpowered these de- feats and kept hope alive in the hearts of the Republicans. Let me tell you of the naval battles that had been fought and won while Hull's surrender, the Chicago massacre, and the defeat at Niagara, had been damping the spirits of the army.
CHAPTER IX.
VICTORIES ON THE OCEAN.
The Constitution beats the Guerriere. — The Wasp on a Frolic. — Decatur wins Fresh Laurels. — Flaj; of the Macedonian presented to Mrs. Madison. — Bainbridge and the Constitution. — British Anger at Defeat.
About a fortnight before the surrender of General William Hull at Detroit, a vessel commanded by Captain Isaac Hull, a nephew of the over-cautious general, set sail from Boston harbor. His ship was the frigate Constitution., carrying fifty-four guns, and manned by as brave a body of men as ever handled gunpowder. They sailed north and cruised about near the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, until one August evening, about six o'clock, they saw the British frigate Guerriere not far away, making signals that she was ready to fight them. Captain Hull immediately put on all sail to bring his vessel close to the Englishman.
" Is that an American ship ? " asked the English Captain Dacres, who had been watching her approach through his glass.
" Yes, sir, I am sure she shows the American flag," answered the ofiicer to whom Dacres had spoken.
" I can hardly believe that an American ship would dare ap- proach with so much boldness," said Dacres, still looking doubtftilly through his glass.,
In a few minutes his doubts were resolved. The Constitution drew near, till he could see plainly the stars and stripes at her mast-head. As soon as she approached, the Cruerriere opened upon her with a terrible volley from all the guns on one side. Not a single gun was discharged on board the American ship. Another broadside from the Cruerriere poured into the Constitution, which still came on as silent as death. Hull's officers began to murmur, and asked him to let them return the fire.
VICTORIES ON THE OCEAN. 321
*' Not yet," answered he, decidedly.
Another officer came to report that a man had been killed at his gun, which had not yet fired one shot at the enemy.
" Shall Ave open upon them, captain ? " asked the officer.
" Not quite yet," returned Hull, walking up and down the deck in intense excitement.
Nearer and near drew the vessels together till they stood almost yard-arm to yard-arm. Then, with tremendous energy, the Ameri- can opened her guns, and over the deck of the Cruerriere belched a* fire so deadly that it swept it almost clean of men and officers, and left rivers of blood pouring in its track. Never was a fire more terrible. It seemed to wrap both ships in a garment of smoke and flame, and when it subsided a little, and the haze of the conflict rolled upward, the valiant Guerriere^ with two masts fallen over- board, her sides torn with balls, lay a dismantled hulk at the mercy of the sea. The Constitutio7i filled her sails and retired a short dis- tance to repair her rigging. She had been on fire once during the fight, but one of her gallant officers had put out the flames before the vessel was injured. When she had put herself in order, she returned to the side of the Cruerriere. The English flag had been shot down at the first fire, and brave Captain Dacres had nailed it firmly to the mast. It was now cut down, and the stars and stripes unfurled over the deck, slippery with the blood of the carnage. It was useless to try to bring the Cruerriere to port. She was a hope- less wreck. Captain Hull took his prisoners on board his own ship, and set fire to the conquered vessel. She burned like tinder, light- ing up the whole sky with lurid grandeur, and at last, exploding with a loud roar, sank to the bottom of the sea. This was just three days after Hull's surrender at Detroit, and such a victory as this did much to reconcile the country to defeat on land.
On the 17th of October, just four days after the defeat at Niagara, where Winfield Scott was taken prisoner, a sloop of war named the Was]} was out in the Atlantic, four days' sail from land. Her com- mander was Captain Jones, who had been captured at Tripoli on the frigate Philadeljjhia, and been twenty months a prisoner among Barbary pirates. He bore a fortunate name in naval history, for it was that borne by John Paul Jones who commanded the Bon Homme Richard in Revolutionary days. This Captain Jones was not related to John Paul, however, except by the kinship of brave deeds.
322 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
One Sunday morning, not long after sunrise, the Wasp fell in with the English war-sloop Frolic, having under convoy a fleet of mer- chant ships which she was guarding on their way home from the West Indies. The Wasp began to gather herself up for an attack, and taking in all her loose canvas, made herself taut and fit for action. The Frolic- did the same, although she had just weathered a heavy storm near the Indies, and was not in the best condition for fighting. It had been rough weather, and the sea rolled heavily, breaking against the ships, and making even the oldest sea-dogs stag- ger like landsmen, as they made their vessels ready. When at last word was given on both sides to begin, it seemed for a time uncer- tain which would come off conqueror. At the first onset the Wasp lost mast and rigging, and was pitched wildly about on the rough sea. But swinging round, she brought her side against the bows of the Frolic, and raked her from stem to stern with a fire that carried death to almost every man on deck. The crew of the Wasp, seeing themselves so near their enemy, could not be held back, but swarmed over the side of their vessel, boarding the Frolic with loud cheers of triumph. On her deck they found only one man at his post, the man at the wheel, who stoutly faced death there. The remaining offi- cers, most of them wounded, threw down their swords as the Amer- icans came on board, and Lieutenant Biddle of the Wasp himself cut down the English flag. It fluttered to the deck, and lay there, another trophy to the success of the American navy.
The Frolic was terribly cut up by the fight. As they rested from the battle. Captain Jones saw a British man-of-war coming in sight. It was the Poitiers, a ship much larger than either of the two which had just been engaged. Jones's own ship was dreadfully battered, and her sails riddled with holes like a sieve. There was nothing for him but surrender, and the evening of the day which had seen him victor, saw him conquered, and a captive on the enemy's ship.
This was only the 17th of October, and on the 25th another vic- tory roused rejoicing in America. This time it was Captain Deca- tur who won laurels for himself, — the same daring officer who sailed into the harbor of Tripoli in the Intreind, and burned the Philadelphia under the very noses of the enemy. He commanded the ship United States, and when near the Azore Islands gave chase to the British frigate Macedoniaji. He not only chased, but over- took and captured her, and brought her as his prize into Newport harbor. As soon as he reached port, Decatur sent his lieutenant,
VICTORIES ON THE OCEAN. 323
young Hamilton, whose father was secretary of war, to announce the news of his success at Washington. Hamilton reached Wash- ington late in the evening, and found everybody had gone to a grand ball given in honor of the United States navy. Without waiting for any ceremony of toilet, he rushed to the ball-room, covered with the dust of travel, and told the good news to the president, and to his father, who welcomed his son with pride, as a participant in the battle. The tattered flag was carried into the ball-room, and pre- sented to Mrs. Madison, amid the cheers of the company.
One more naval victory I must relate to you, and then for the present I have done. This was another triumph of the good ship Constitution, who seems to have had more than her share of honor. Hull had given up her command to another brave ofiicer, Commo- dore Bainbridge, who had seen good service at sea when we were at war with Barbary pirates. He sailed the Constitution from Boston to the West India Islands, and there fell in with his British majesty's ship Java, on her way to the east. She was well manned, and mounted nearly fifty guns, but found herself no match for the Constitution. In less than two hours after the firing began, she lowered her flag, and Bainbridge went on board a conqueror. On the deck lay Captain Lambert of the Java, supjDorted in the arms of his oflicers, the blood oozing from a mortal wound. The Ameri- can captain approached, and returned his sword to the dying man, who had sent it to his conqueror in token of surrender. Bainbridge himself had two wounds in the leg, but refused to have them dressed till all was over. Like the Cruerriere, the Java was a wreck past repair. After taking out her wheel to fit it into the Constitution^ which had been badly shattered in the conflict, the hulk of the con- quered ship was set on fire.
I have given you now a brief account of four naval battles, all of which took place in 1812, the first year of the war, and six months after hostilities had begun. The Americans were hardly less sur- prised than the English at such victories. The belief that an Eng- lish man-of-war could not be beaten, had been the ruling idea ever since the days of Queen Ehzabeth, when the English had conquered the great Spanish Armada. Now, to be beaten by a parcel of American built ships, manned by raw sailors ! It was too much for English dignity, and all their newspapers growled with wounded vanity, yet owned there was reason to fear that the future rule of Britannia on the seas might be periled by this upstart nation, — a rebel which she had once nursed in her bosom. «
324 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Another cause for astonishment to the English was the rapidity with which the Americans worked their guns, and the great disparity between the American and British killed and wounded. In the fight between the Covistitutioti and Gruerriere, the Americans had seven killed and seven wounded ; the British, over eighty killed and wounded. In the capture of the Macedonian, Decatur lost five men, and had seven wounded ; the British, over one hundred killed and wounded. In each battle the same great odds prevailed. The British had seen the wonderful shooting of the western riflemen in the Revolutionary War, — those daring fellows in buckskin shirts and leggings, who could hit the middle of the target at the longest distance every time they fired their guns. They declared now, that companies of these riflemen were stationed on the American ships to pick off the English crew, since no ship's guns could fire with such aim. It was fully proved in these battles that the Americans were superior to the English in gunnery.
CHAPTER X.
EVENTS OF 1813.
Bounty on American Scalps. — The Slaughter at Frenchtown. — The Hornet meets the Peacock.
— Lawrence takes command of the Chesapeake. — The Shannon challenges the Chesapeake.
— Death of Lawrence. — " Don't give up the Ship."
No British commander was more heartily hated by the Americans during the War of 1812 than General Proctor, who commanded the troops on the borders of Michigan. He had in his army a large body of Indian allies, and the dreadful mode of warfare which they pursued was said to be encouraged by Proctor. American scalps were paid for, as in new settlements a bounty is offered for the heads of wolves, or any wild animals whose ravages are dangerous. Many horrible stories are told of Proctor's insensibility and cruelty. He is accused of permitting the slaughter of the Americans, even after they had surrendered and begged for quarter, and of encouraging his Indian allies in their frightful massacres. It is only common charity to hope that these accusations are not all true. For a long time the slaughter at Frenchtown, on the river Raisin, was held up as one of the bloodiest deeds of all Proctor's bloody campaign. Frenchtown was a settlement built on both sides the river Raisin, and
EVENTS OF 1813. 325
was a peaceful, quiet little village, until the horrors of war came to disturb and destroy it. As soon as the English had taken Detroit, and were menacing all that part of Michigan, the people of French- town began to be alarmed for their safety. They sent to General Harrison's army, which was quartered in northern Ohio, asking their protection from Indian slaughter. A party of Harrison's troops went down, met the British near Frenchtown, drove them away, and guarded the little town. In the mean time General Winchester, one of Harrison's officers, marched to their aid with another body of men. Before he had joined the Americans at Frenchtown, Proctor came up with some British and Indians, sur- rounded them, and took Winchester prisoner. Proctor worked so on Winchester's fears for the safety of his comrades in Frenchtown, that he induced him to write an order for them to surrender them- selves to the British, before the Indians should set upon them and put them all to the tomahawk. The troops inside the town reluct- antly gave in to Winchester's commands, only stipulating that if they yielded themselves up as prisoners, their wounded men in the houses of the settlers should be well taken care of. Proctor prom- ised of course, and then went away, taking with him his large body of prisoners. The wounded were left behind to be ministered to by the people of the little village.
A terrible anxiety hung over the place as it saw its protectors thus led away as prisoners of war. They feared an invasion of the savages who had been by night and day their constant dread. Their fears were more than justified. In less than twenty -four hours the yelling savages, painted in their most hideous manner, entered the houses where lay the wounded Americans, and scalped them with the barbarity of demons. Some they killed at once, and so set them free from their misery ; others they left half alive, in torturing agony. At the last they set fire to the houses, where the wounded lay, and burned their bodies in this funereal pile. Some of these very scalps torn from the heads of these victims, were car- ried to the British head-quarters as trophies of their faithfulness to the English arms.
In this massacre on the Raisin perished some of the noblest sons of Kentucky — young men of birth and education. It roused the anger of the whole Northwest, and crowds of new recruits, eager to avenge their countrymen, came pouring in to join Harrison's army in Ohio.
326 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
If you look on the map and trace the progress of the campaign in the Norths you will find the struggle was confined to the borders of Lake Erie, beginning northwest at Detroit, and running southward along northern Ohio and New York, till it ended at Sackett's Har- bor. Harrison, with the western wing of the army, occupied Fort Meigs, on the Maumee River, and General Dearborn commanded the east wing resting at Sackett's Harbor. All the winter and spring of 1812 there was hard fighting on this border line, and many a deed of heroism made a bright spot in the midst of the general darkness and horror of war.
In spite of the bravery and caution of General Harrison, backed by the Kentucky troops eager to avenge their slaughtered brethren ; in spite of the experience of General Dearborn, aided by the brave young Winfield Scott, the northern frontier was weak and poorly defended, and the victories which had thus far protected us from complete ruin, were our victories on the ocean.
In January, 1813, the very morith in which Proctor's Indians were slaughtering the unprotected people in Frenchtown, our ships in the Atlantic were seeking for new enemies to conquer. Captain James Lawrence commanded the Hoi-net^ one of the vessels belong- ing to the command of Commodore Bainbridge, which was separated from its fleet, and was now cruising in the West Indies close to the small island of San Salvador. Here Lawrence met the English ship Peacock, which came up to give battle. The Hornet accepted the challenge with great alacrity, and buzzing about the Peacock^ showed her stings with such effect, that in fifteen minutes the Eng- lish ship was a wreck.
After her surrender it was found that she had several feet of water in her hold, and would sink, if something were not done to save her. Captain Lawrence took the officers and crew on board his own ship, except a dozen men, who stayed to see if they could not save the vessel. A few men from the Hornet went on board to assist in calking up the holes in the injured ship, and while they were thus at work the hulk sank, carrying down three men of the Hornet'' s crew, and nine of the Peacock.
The generous way in which Lawrence treated his prisoners, won the hearts of the British, while his bravery won the praises of his countrymen. His name was set beside those of Jones, Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge.
When Lawrence came to Boston harbor after taking the Pea-
EVENTS OF 1813. 827
€Ock^ a new ship was assigned to him. You remember the Chesa- peake^ who had been fired into by the Leopard when she refused to be searched for English seamen ? It was this ship which now fell to Lawrence's command. The Chesapeake had borne the name of an " unlucky ship " ever since the day when the first blood spilt in this war had stained her decks. Nearly all the sailors in the navy had a good deal of reluctance to ship on board her. With the usual superstition of sailors, they were wont to say that " sooner or later the Chesapeake would come to a bad end."
Flushed and happy from his recent victory, the gallant Lawrence took command of her. Just as he was ready to sail out of Boston harbor, a politely written challenge to test the powers of their ships in battle, came from Captain Broke of the British" ship Shannon^ which lay outside the harbor, one of a fleet which was blockading the coast of New England. Lawrence accepted the challenge and went out to meet his foe.
The news that the Chesapeake and Shannon were to meet in mortal combat, spread like wild-fire round the coast. On the high- lands about Boston harbor, in Salem and Marblehead, groups of people, some with glasses and some without, assembled to watch the result. I wish the prophecy of the sailors had failed, and I was able to write of- victory for the unlucky Chesapeake. Instead, I must tell you that in fifteen minutes she was completely disabled, and when boarded by the British, — who shouted for joy at this victory, coming after so many defeats, the star spangled flag was hauled down and wrapped round the body of her dead commander. For brave James Lawrence was dead. Mortally wounded in the first of the battle, he was carried below, crying in death, " Don't give up the ship.'' He did not sur\ave the loss of his vessel, and his corse, still enveloped in the flag he loved so well, was can-ied to Halifax by the British, and buried captam Laurence.
with all the honors it deserved.
S28 STORY or OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XL
BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE.
Ship-building on the Lake. — A Stage-coach loaded with Sailors. — The Look-out at Put-in Bay. — The Battle begins. — Commodore Perry's Ship disabled. — He rows to the Niagara. — Vic- tory on Lake Erie. — Battle of the Thames.
All through the summer of 1813 there were busy times in the harbor of Erie, Pennsylvania. Several gallant vessels, some ready to be launched, some partly completed, others merely great skeleton hulks on whose sides the hammer of the carpenter made cheery music, were gathered in the quiet harbor of Lake Erie, on whose shores the town of Erie, Pennsylvania, is built.
Captain Oliver Perry, a young naval officer, had been sent there to build a fleet to engage with the British squadron which held the lake. When all were finished, there were nine ships in all — three brigs, a sloop, and five schooners. The brig which was to be Perry's own flag-ship, he named the Latvrence, in honor of the dead hero who had fallen on the Chesapeake.
After the ships were done and lay sound and stanch in the harbor, there were no men to work her. For weeks Perry begged for men and promised the country victory if they would send him sailors. At length tardily and in small installments they came in. General Harrison furnished one hundred Kentucky riflemen from his army. Dressed in their fringed hunting shirts, and leggings of deer-skins, they made a picturesque party for the deck of a man-of-war. New England also sent sailors. From Rhode Island, Captain Perry's na- tive State, another hundred men were sent. These were real sailors, who had seen service on the Atlantic, some of them gray old sea- dogs with hands hornj'- from handling tarred ropes in ships of war or commerce. When they were ready to be sent to Lake Erie it was found that they could not march on foot like soldiers. They rolled about on their legs like ships in a gale, and knew so little about military order, that it was useless to attempt to march them thither. So the government fitted up a dozen great stage-coaches in Boston, with four horses each, and in these they were taken to Lake Erie. These jolly tars decorated their coaches with flags and streamers, and with a band of musicians on top, rattled through the country to the tunes of Yankee Doodle and Hail Columbia, waking the huzzas of the people as they drove through the scattered villages from Bos-
BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE. 329
ton to Western Pennsylvania. They were the merriest set of fel- lows who ever made a stage-coach journey.
When Perry got his ships all manned, he had only one more wish. It was to meet his enemy ; and for a month it seemed as if every one of their ships had been sunk under Erie's waters. Day after day Perry watched in vairi for a sail from his covert in Put-in Bay : and day after day no sail appeared.
One pleasant morning, the 10th of September, the cry " Sail ho ! " resounded from the mast-head of his vessel. Word that the Eng- lish fleet were coming, spread from ship to ship. Every officer felt his pulses beat eagerly ; every man shared his officer's pride in the ship, and his desire to do his best in the coming battle.
By ten o'clock that day six English ships hove to and lay in a compact line, waiting the approach of the Americans.
Perry had nine ships, the British only six ; but the Americans carried only fifty-four guns, the British sixty-three. In close en- counter the Americans would have the advantage ; at a long range the English guns could do the deadliest work. This decided Perry to approach quickly, and save his fire till he was close to the enemy. But before giving the order to draw near, he brought from his cabin a simple banner of blue cloth inscribed with these words in white letters, " DorCt give up the ship.'" " Boys," he said, holding aloft the pennant, so that all might read it, " these are the dying words of the brave Lawrence. Shall I hoist this banner ? " -
" Aye, aye, sir ! " shouted the crew with a will, and such a cheer went up on board the Lawrenee, returned by the men on all the other ships, that it woke the echoes on shore, and was sent resound- ing back to the ears of the waiting Englishmen.
The command was given to advance, and on went the Lawrence with the blue banner aloft. Barclay, the English commander, was on board the Detroit., the largest and best vessel of his squadron. He leveled his fire at the Lawrence as she came grandly on. True to his resolution not to fire till he was close at hand. Perry kept his guns quiet till within short range. Then he opened fire, and all the ships of the two lines engaged. It was a sight terrible and grand. For almost three hours a deadly combat waged, filling the whole air with smoke and flame, with the roar of guns and the cries' of wounded. On his deck, which ran blood like water, Perry saw man after man go down. His lieutenant, wounded in the face by a splinter from a gun, was streaming with blood, but
330
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
stanchly refused to go below. Every man worked with superhuman energy. Perry's brother, a boy of twelve, stood beside him until he
was struck by a splinter, and carried to the cabin. Of one hundred men who stood erect in the fullness of manly strength and vigor on that morning, only eight- een remained standing on the deck. The good ship Lawrence^ too, was in as bad plight as her crew. With shattered masts, rag- ged sails, and ever}'^ gun silenced, she lay a battered hulk at the mercy of the enemy.
In this emergency Perry saw the Niagara^ the sec- ond ship in his fleet, appar- ently fresh and uninjured. He immediately ordered a boat to be lowered, and wrapping himself in his banner, which had streamed abroad through all the conflict, he leaped into the boat and ordered four of his crew to row him to the Niagara.
As the boat sped over the waves, the guns of the Detroit sent discharge after discharge at the tiny craft. Standing upright in the boat, Perry furnished a shining mark for their shot. The balls cut the waters on every side, but the boat was untouched, and on reaching the Niagara Perry climbed rapidly up her sides, and trod the deck of a ship fresh, untired, and ready for action. With tre- mendous energy the fight was renewed. The Niagara broke the line of the enemy, raked her two foremost ships with terrible destruc- tion, and in fifteen minutes from the time Perry stepped on board her, four English ships had struck their colors, and a white flag was flying from their bows. The two smaller ships of the squadron showed their heels in an attempt to escape, but two of the Ameri- can schooners gave chase and soon brought them back as prisoners. It was a sight to see when Perry stood on the deck of his vessel, among the corpses of the men who died in her defense, and the
BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE. 331
English officers one after the other tendered him their swords, hilt foremost, in token of their conquest. He refused to take their swords, and treated his prisoners with such generous kindness that Commander Barclay afterwards declared, " Perry's humanity alone should have immortalized him."
General Harrison was waiting on shore with eight thousand men, to hear the result of Perry's battle. As soon as the good news reached him, he marched his army on Detroit. The cruel Proctor still occupied the town with his army. His Indian ally, Tecumseh, with two thousand warriors, was with him.
Proctor, too, had heard of the defeat of Barclay's squadron, and when Harrison's approach was made known, fled with all possible haste. First, however, he set fire to all the stores in Detroit that could be of any service to the Americans. Then he went with all speed up the banks of the Thames River in Canada. Harrison reached Detroit and found the city deserted, and the smoking embers of the burnt store-houses which the enemy had left. He was joined here by a thousand mounted men under Colonel Rich«<.rd M. John- son of Kentucky. Without waiting to rest, he pushea on in pursuit of Proctor and Tecumseh.
He overtook the enemy on the evening of October 4th, and en- camped on the Thames, eighty miles from Detroit. Worn out with their march, the tired army slept like children, and next morning were ready for battle. Colonel Johnson with his mounted Ken- tuckians made the first onset. Their battle-cry was, " Remember the River Raisin," and with the memory of their dead at French- town, murdered through Proctor's treachery, they spurred their horses on in a tremendous charge.
" The English strove with desperate strength, Paused, — rallied, — staggered, — fled."
Proctor ran away as soon as the tide of battle turned against him. Tecumseh, whose name ought to live with those of other heroes and patriots, fought bravely till he fell under the balls which rained their iron hail all around him. His warriors, seeing their leader killed, uttered a yell of grief and dismay, and ran wildly from the field. Thus ended the battle of the Thames in complete victory for the Americans.
332 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XII.
FRESH VICTORIES AND DEFEATS.
The Battle of Chippewa. — Scott at Lundy's Lane. — Admiral Cockbiirn sails up the Potomac. — Alarm at Washington. — The Defense at Blagdensburg. — Invasion of Washington. — The Dinner at the White House. — Baltimore beseiged. — The Star Spangled Banner.
The victory of Harrison over Proctor and Tecumseh carried the wave of war eastward, and the struggle was renewed now on the borders of Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. General Jacob Brown was commanding in this region, and he had for his right arm young Winfield Scott, who was worth a dozen ordinary men in courage and military ability. Brown and Scott were eager to invade Canada, and carry the war into the enemy's country. Just before the 4th of July they crossed the Niagara, and took Fort Erie, just opposite Buffalo on the Niagara River. There they heard of a body of the British encamped upon the Chippewa Creek a few miles north, and went rapidly on, eager to fight on the anniversary of their country's independence. The British leader wondered why they were so hotly pressed by the Americans, till some one reminded him what day it was.
" Never mind, boys," said Scott to his troops, when they failed to force the English to battle on the 4th ; " we will make a new anniversary to-morrow."
And so they did. On the 5th of July the battle of Chippewa was fought and won by the Americans. Scott covered himself with glory by the skill and bravery which he showed here. After this battle, the British retreated over Chippewa Creek. Brown prepared to follow them. He sent Scott with 1,200 men towards the Niagara. The British were in a narrow road leading down to the river, known as Lundy's Lane. With his brave twelve hundred, Scott came suddenly upon their force of 2,000, strongly posted in this lane, which was directly in his line of march. Without hesitatiug, Scott pushed on. It was sunset, and the spray from the great Falls of Niagara, close at hand, was formed into myriads of rainbows by the raj^s of the setting sun. As Scott advanced through the floating mists, his tall figure was surrounded with the bright halo which the spray had formed. The army behind joyfully hailed his rainbow crowned head as a^n omen of victory. From sunset until midnight the silent sky was lit up by the lurid blaze of cannon ; the waning
FEESH VICTORIES AND DEFEATS. 333
moon and pale stars were obscured by the smoke which rose in dense cokimns from the field. Fighting by broad daylight is horrible enough, but it seems as if night added a deeper horror to the scenes of war. Almost at the close of the conflict, after two horses had been shot and killed under him, Scott was carried away wounded, crving as he went, " Charge again ! Charge once more ! " The Americans had taken the enemy's cannon and had driven them from the field. But a more timid commander was left to take Scott's place, and after all was over he abandoned the ground gained, and led his men back to encamp on Chippewa Creek. The British in- stantly returned, occupied the field, and claimed the victory.
During all the year 1813 a fleet of British ships had been block- ading our coasts, and the name of Admiral Cockburn who com- manded it was a word of terror in every town and village on the Atlantic shore. Again and again his ships had come into port, landed a band of soldiery, who burned and destroyed wherever they could apply the torch.
In the summer of 1814 this invading fleet planned their boldest enterprise. Admiral Cochrane joined them on the shores of Vir- ginia with a fresh fleet of ships. They were freighted with an army of 4,000 men, the flower of the Duke of WelUngton's troops. Wel- lington was the great English general who a year later conquered Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo, and his army was supposed to be unconquerable. The whole country around Virginia was thrown into great trouble at the news of their appi-oach.
They entered Chesapeake Bay and sailed up the Potomac River. It was in August, and all the country was green and beautiful. The river was bordered wdth dense forests broken here and there by a clearing, where the plantation of some wealthy Virginian, or the smoke of a little cluster of houses, showed traces of human habi- tation. The tall trees excited the admiration of the British oflicers, who had never seen forests of such grandeur.
About fifty miles from Washington city the English troops were landed, 4,500 men in all, with sailors to drag their artillery. And now the rumor reached Washington that the enemy were marching on to destroy the city. President Madison, by virtue of his office, was the commander-in-chief of the army, but he was not a mihtary man by training or instinct. The protection of Washington was intrusted to General Winder, who began hurriedly to gather troops for its defense.
334 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Meanwhile the British were steadily approaching. A flotilla of boats and barges kept up the Patuxent River abreast of the Eng- lish troops. The flotilla was commanded by Cockburn. The land troops were led by General Ross, an Irish ofiicer from Wellington's army.
As the English drew nearer, reports of their numbers kept reach- ing the ears of the Americans in Washington. They were magni- fied into 10,000 men, in splendid fighting order. General Winder had raised hastily aiid without proper preparation, 7,000 men, and a small force of cavalry. These should have been enough, and more than enough, to overcome all the British force. The defense was placed at Blagdensburg, a town six miles from the capital, through which the English must pass to invade it.
Three days after their landing, the English came upon Blagdens- burg, and the American outposts there. All the morning they had been marching through one of the thick forests, cool and impene- trable to the sun's rays. About noontide they came out into a road without shade, and the intense heat of the sun's rays, pouring with full force upon them, had been very severe. Many had fallen under it, unable to go on. When the English came in sight of Blagdens- burg, they found the American army in three lines, one behind the other, within the distance of a mile. The first line was formed on a low hill, which overlooked a bridge, across which ran the direct road to Washington. The English charged across the bridge, and were driven back by the Americans. A second charge and they were over, and had gained another step on their journey.
There has been a great deal said about the battle of Blagdensburg, and the folly of the country in allowing the British to get so far without check. It certainly seems, when we look at the matter, as if 7,000 men, even if part of them were undisciplined, might have kept back a force so much smaller. But the Americans had heard very exaggerated reports of the number of their foes, and did not go into battle with the confidence which is a part of success. After their first line was broken, the English troops easily drove back the second and third line, and in less than four hours they had driven the last detachment of the Americans to retreat to the forests where the enemy could not pursue them. By eight o'clock that evening the invading army marched into our national capital.
President Madison and his cabinet had been on the field of bat- tle during the day, but as they saw the certainty of their defeat,
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FRESH VICTORIES AND DEFEATS. 337
they rode hurriedly back to Washington to save what they could. Mrs. Madison had loaded a cart with her valuables, in readiness to depart. Just before leaving she remembered the great portrait of Washington which hung on one of the walls of the presidential man- sion. The frame could not easily be taken down and carried away, and the energetic lad}^ cut the canvas from its frame, and rolling up the picture, took it with her into safety. The whole party fled across the Potomac, and sought refuge in a village there for that night.
When the English officers entered the White House, they found there an excellent dinner which had been prepared for the president and his party. The table was spread with the best dishes, table linen and plate, the wine waiting in wine coolers, the plates in plate warmers before the dining-room fire, and the roast meats turning on the spit. The conquerors sat down and ate with very good appe- tites. I wish it had made them better natured, but their first move- ment after dinner was to set fire to all the public buildings, the Capitol, President's House, Arsenal, Public Library, all the buildings belonging to government. The blaze lit up the whole heavens and turned night into day for many miles around.
During the night a terrible storm of rain and hail came up, and after this storm had somewhat abated, the English, who had begun to fear the Americans might come back in numbers too strong for them, marched silently and rapidly back to their fleet, embarked, and put back to Chesapeake Bay. Thus ended the invasion of Washington, one of the most exciting events of the war. The Eng- Hsh believed it a great victory, but as Washington was only a newly built, straggling, unfurnished city, only fourteen years before an uncleared spot in the wilderness, its destruction very slightly affected the fortunes of the country.
The English fleet next sailed up into Patapsco River to Baltimore, and attempted to take that city. But Baltimore was able to repulse their attack, and send them away in mourning. General Ross, their gallant Irish commander, was killed in the attempt to take the city.
During the attack on Baltimore the English vessels in the bay bombarded Fort McHenry, which guarded the approach to the city by water. Just before the firing began, on the night of the 14th of September, a volunteer soldier, named Francis Scott Key, had gone on board one of the vessels, under a flag of truce, to urge the release of some American prisoners taken at Washington. He was detained
838
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
on the English ship during the bombardment. At midnight the firing ceased, and Key waited with intense anxiety for daylight, to see if the flag still floated over McHenry. When the morning dawned, it was still flying proudly from the top of the fort. On
Fort McHenry.
the deck of that ship where he had passed a night of sleepless anx- iety, Key composed the song of " The Star Spangled Banner," since one of our national songs.
" Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early hght.
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming — And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in aii', Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say, does the star spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"
CHAPTER XIII.
MACDONOUGH'S VICTORY.
" Old Ironsides." — Macdoiiough on Lake Champlain. — Fight on Lake and on Shore. — Vic- tory in the Fleet. — The British Defeat at Plattsburg.
Our good ships did excellent service on the sea all this year of 1814. The Constitution was always a " lucky ship," so the super- stitious sailors said, and got the title of " Old Ironsides," which she has borne from that day. One of our poets has written some lines about " Old Ironsides," which every American school-boy knows.
MACDONOUGH'S VICTORY.
' 339
" Aye, tear her tattered ensigh down, Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky."
The chief naval battle of this year was the battle of Lake Oham- plain. During the whole spring and summer the British were threat- ening a descent upon New York from Lake Champlain. To gain the whole control of the lake would give them almost unlimited power over all that region, divide Vermont from New York, and perhaps end by dividing New York and New England. General Macomb commanded our army, encamped at Plattsburg on the shores of Champlain. He had only about 3,000 men, when news reached him that General Prevost, with an army of 12,000, was pre- paring to march down upon him. He immediately called upon Vermont to send men to his aid, and from the Green Mountain State, the home of Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, volunteers came in crowds to his stand- ard. Bidding hasty farewells to their fami- lies and homes, these gallant sons of Vermont hastened to the stand- ard of Macomb. On the lake. Commodore Macdonough, with a fleet of four vessels and ten small gunboats, was waiting to meet the English fleet. He lay at anchor close by those shores where just two hundred years be- fore Samuel Champlain had frightened away the Indians with the first volley of his mus- kets. Thus for weeks they waited, Macdon- ough on the water, Macomb on the land, for the approach of the enemy.
340 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
It was the lltli of September when General Prevost approached Plattsburg with his formidable army, to engage the troops of Ma- comb, many of them raw volunteers. On the same morning — it was a lovely Smiday, day of peace and good-will among men — the fleet of Captain Downie, headed by his flag-ship, the Confiance, was seen approaching Macdonoagh. Two deadly struggles were close at hand.
What do you think Macdonough did first? His ships were in order, every gun ready for action, every man instructed in his duty. All that had been taken care of beforehand, so there was no need of hurry or loud command. He called all his men on deck, and gathering them about him, read a few spirited verses from the grand Psalms of David, and offered up a brief prayer to God before he plunged into battle. That done, he was all ready.
The fight was almost another Lake Erie. Macdonough's ship was the /Saratoga, and as she carried the signal-flag of combat, against her the hottest fire was directed. Twice the cry went up that Macdonough was killed. Twice for answer he sprang to his feet, begrimed with dust and blood, but still alive. At the last, when all her guns were silenced, the Saratoga manceuvred to turn about and present her other broadside to the Oonfiance, her chief adversary. The Confiance tried the same manoeuvre. This meant victory to the vessel who accomplished it ; defeat to the one who failed. Y/hcit a cheer arose from the lips of those on the battered Saratoga, who were left with voice enough to cheer, when her hulk swung slowly round, and her uninjured side was brought to bear on the Confiance. The latter vessel was at her mercy. Captain Downie, the English commander, lay dead upon her deck ; the other American ships were following up the victory gained by their. leader, and after two hours and a half of most desperate conflict, the Brit- ish flag again was pulled down, and the star spangled banner waved in its place.
On shore, the fight had also been going on as fiercely as on the lake. The Green Mountain Boys had done well. Yet the odds were against them. Tlieir ranks had once been broken, and their leader was rallying them again, when a horseman, wild with excite- ment, rode through the ranks, proclaiming Macdonough's victory. The news was like new wine to the blood. The army felt re- doubled strength, and was ready to charge an enemy of twice its size.
General Prevost heard the news at the same moment. As de-
THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF THE WAK. 341
pressed as the Americans were elated, he made an immediate retreat, leaving his wounded to the mercy and care of the Ameri- cans. These men lay on the field with the rain falling on their up- turned faces, mutely asking that help from Heaven which their com- rades could not stop to give.
Thus one day saw the victorious battles of Plattsburg and Lake Champlain, a day long to be remembered in our country's history.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF THE WAR.
Signs of Peace. — Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. — Organizes Regiments of Black Men. — Preparations for a Merry Christmas in Camp. — Barricades of Sugar Hogsheads. — Battle of New Orleans. — The Peace Angel. — A New President elected.
Are you not tired of war, the booming of cannon, and the cries of the dying ? I am, and shall be glad when all this is over, and we have smiling peace once more. Already signs of it begin to ap- pear in the eastern skies, and England no less than America begins to long for rest and quiet.
I will take you to only one more battle-field, and then we may for the present say farewell to all the pomp and circumstance of war.
In the South and Southwest General Andrew Jackson of Ten- nessee, the same tall, awkward looking representative who first ap- peared on the part of his State in Congress, had been fighting the Indians. After Tecumseh visited the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choc- taws (all tribes of the Southwest in the Mississippi valley), they had leagued with the British to harass our armies in the South- west. Harrison had done brave work on this western border, but in April, 1814, retired from service, and left Jackson to fill his place. At the close of the year Jackson had been stationed in the town of Pensacola, still under Spanish rule, to prevent the French and Spaniards on our southern coasts from giving help or comfort to the enemy.
While he was there, a formidable foe was all ready to swoop down upon him.
The fleets of Admirals Cochrane and Cockburn had been rein- forced. A large number of ships, and men, enough to swell their forces to eleven or twelve thousand, had been sent from England
342 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
after the capture of Washington by the British army and their re- pulse at Baltimore. Sir Edward Pakenham, who had been with the great Wellington in Spain, and beaten the French armies there, was to be the commander of this fresh army. And their design now was to sail silently and swiftly to the Gulf of Mexico, and get the mouths of the Mississippi River. They had all the Indians in the Mississippi valley on their side, and they knew there were many foreigners in Louisiana who cared very little for the United States, and would help very little in her defense. Then the Spaniards in Florida were more than half their friends. With all these things to aid them, they might hope to hold the outlet of the great river, and so keep the United States from using the Mississippi, or extend- ing her territory beyond its banks. So certain were they of success that one of their officers said, " We hear that we have only to show ourselves before New Orleans, and the city will fall into our hands." But there was one lion in their way, and that lion was General An- drew Jackson. You remember, in the Revolutionary War, when he was taken prisoner, he had been knocked down for refusing to clean the boots of an English officer ? What he had seen and suffered in those old days in South Carolina had filled him with an intense and life-long hatred of the English. There were few generals in the American army better fitted to oppose the English plans against New Orleans.
He was in Pensacola keeping a wary eye on the Spaniards, when an urgent entreaty was sent that he would come at once to New Orleans. The British were coming down upon them. There was no time to lose.
He hastened thither at once, found everybody frightened, and nothing ready for defense. If the English had arrived before Jack- son came there, they might have had New Orleans.
Jackson went to work. He put a musket into the hands of every man who could carry one. He formed regiments of black men, who had not before been allowed to serve in the war, although half the population of the city were colored. If a man came to complain that he feared the English were coming, and would lay his planta- tion waste, " Here, take this musket, go into the ranks, and help defend your plantation," answered the indefatigable Jackson. He overlooked in person all the forts guarding the approach to the city, and put them in the best order he could on so short notice. Then he turned his attention to the shipping. In Lake Fonchartrain,
THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF THE WAR. 343
and Lake Borgne there were half a dozen gun-boats. A few boats and barges, and two ships, the Carolina and the Louisiana, lay in the river. This was all the naval force in the Territory to oppose a fleet of over fifty ships, with barges to match, in which the sol- diers could be sent up rivers impassable to larger vessels.
His first preparations were hardly made when news came that a great flotilla of barges had entered Lake Borgne and captured the American boats there. From the lake the flotilla entered a little stream which wound towards the city, and sailing up until it was within nine miles of New Orleans, landed 2,000 men on its banks.
Jackson was still at work in the city, inspiring hope and patriot- ism there. General Coffee had joined him from Pensacola with nearly 1,400 men ; General Carroll, with a company of sharp-shoot- ing Tennesseeans, had also arrived. When news reached Jackson, through his trusty spies, of the landing of the soldiers, his army was already distributed and instructions given.
The British, encamped on a flat strip of land lying between the levee which held back the river on one side, and an impassable cy- press swamp on the other, were confident of success. They biv- ouacked about, making their preparation for a merry Christmas, unconscious of any special need for alarm. On the evening of the 23d of December, the clay of their landing, they were quietly eating their suppers, reclining at ease on the grass or inside the tents, when an armed vessel appeared on the creek or bayou. As she rode by in the stream so narrow that she almost grazed the shore, a voice, so distinct that ofiicers and men heard the words, cried aloud, " Now boys, give them one for the honor of America," and on the moment a volley of grape tore through the camp carrying death and confu- sion into their midst. It was the ship Carolina, one of the only two available vessels in Jackson's hands. The guns from the ship were the signals of attack. The Americans were marching on their foe. Drums beat to arms, and the British had hardly time to form before they were almost surrounded. It was now dark, and they fought hand to hand without seeing each other's faces. At last the British took shelter behind the levee on their left, hostilities were for the time suspended, and the night was quiet except for the cries of the wounded and dying.
Christmas day came and passed. Not a merry Christmas for either army. The Americans were busy building a barricade to reach from the river to the cypress swamps, which should keep the
344
STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
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enemy from New Orleans. For nearly a week they worked like ants on an ant-hill, making their defenses high and strong — piling up bales of cotton, with trees, earth, and whatever else would serve
to make it sure. The British had found a sugar warehouse, and had constructed some costly defenses of the hogs- heads filled with sugar, behind which they worked their can- non. On the 28th of Decem- ber the foe again attacked the
Plan of Battle of New Orleans. American line witllOUt TCSult.
Almost daily for a week there was skirmishing between the lines. But on the morning of the 8th of January the grand attack came.
It was led by Sir Edward Pakenham in person, and the attack- ing party was composed of the very flower of the British army. They marched on, furnished with scaling ladders, with which they meant to scale the formidable redoubt which Jackson's army had erected between them and New Orleans. But the Tennessee and Kentucky sharp-shooters picked off a man every time they fired, and before their unfailing rifles the British ranks grew thinner and thinner. Pakenham, invincible in Spain, was killed while he was cheering on his storming party, and fell back dead in the arms of one of his officers. The redoubt could not be taken even by the troops of Wellington, and leaving over 2,000 men killed and wounded on the field, the British withdrew to their boats, re-em- barked, and went to rejoin the fleet. Jackson had lost only a hand- ful of his men. His whole loss in the siege had been only a little more than three hundred. Thus ended the battle of New Orleans, the last bloodshed in the War of 1812.
The angel of peace was already close at hand. On the 11th of February a vessel brought the glad news into New York harbor. A day and a half later it was known in Boston. Couriers, sent with all the speed that horses could travel, carried the good tidings from State to State, from village to village, and peace was celebrated by bonfires and bell-ringing all over the land.
The remaining events of Madison's administration I can tell you in a few words. We were no sooner at peace with England, than Algiers, one of the pirate fraternity of states, made war with Amer- ica. Decatur, the hero of so many adventures, commanded the
MONROE AND ADAMS. 345
fleet sent to bring the Dey of Algiers to terms. It did not take him long to settle the matter. In a week after he appeared with his fleet in the Mediterranean, the frightened dey sent to beg for a treaty. Decatur made him give up all the Americans he had taken for slaves, pay for the ships he had captured, and promise to ask for no more " presents " from American consuls. The dey paid a good round sum, gave up his American prisoners, and some Danes, Avhom Decatur took as part payment for his debt, and promised to behave in the future.
Then the country made a great treaty with the Indians, and buried a hatchet in token of continual peace. Indiana^ one of the new Territories, which had been growing fast in spite of war, was made a State, and Madison's eight years having expired, James Mon- roe, his successor, also a Republican and a follower of Jefl^erson, took his seat in the president's chair on the 4th of March, 1817.
CHAPTER XV.
MONROE AND ADAMS.
More Pirates. — War with Indians. — Lafayette's Visit. — Five New States. — Monroe Doc- trine.— Another President from Massachusetts. — Death of Two Patriots. — Massachusetts and Virginia. — A Democratic President.
James Monroe was the fifth president of the United States, and the fourth who was born in Virginia. He had begun his career as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded at the battle of Trenton. From the time of Washington's administration he had served his country in several ofiices at home and abroad. When he was nominated there was very little opposition, and he made his inaugural address in Washington to the largest number of people who had ever gathered in the capital to see the newly made president take his seat.
Mr. Monroe was president for eight years, as Washington, Madi- son, and Jefferson had been. His administration was a quiet one, and few important events happened.
There were troublesome pirates — not the Barbary pirates this time — but some water-thieves who infested the ports of the West Indies and waylaid our ships there. Brave Oliver Perry, hero of Lake Erie, went down to scatter them, but was taken with yellow fever and died there. So we were obliged to subdue the pirates without help from him.
346 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The Florida Indians, known as Seminoles, also broke out in in- surrection. We can but feel a great deal of sympathy with the Indian tribes, when we consider how much reason they had to dread
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the growth of the white man's power. But our sympathy is de- stroyed almost as soon as it arises by the accounts we read of their barbarous warfare and the cruel treatment of the white people who fell into their hands. Massacres of women and children by these relentless foes began to reach the ears of government, and General Andrew Jackson was sent to subdue them.
Jackson was living quietly at his home, "The Hermitage," i;i Tennessee, when the order came for him to proceed against the Seminoles. He raised two regiments of sharp-shooters in his native State, and marching to Florida, made quick work of the matter. Jackson never deliberated long upon what he thought a military ne- cessity. If he caught a man, white or Indian, who was stirring up sedition against the government, he hung him. Those he did not hang, he shot. In that way he disposed of all offenders rapidly, and soon made it more qiiiet in the Indian country. Soon after this, in the year 1821, Spain gave Florida up to the United States, in pay-
MONROE AND ADAMS. 347
ment of a claim we held against her. Thus the Territory of Florida, with its old Spanish settlements, and the town of St. Augustine, the most ancient on the continent, became our property. General Jack- son was made governor of the newly acquired dominions, and went to live there for a time away from his Hermitage in Tennessee.
One of the pleasantest things that happened in Monroe's adminis^ tration was the visit of Lafayette to America in the year 1824. This noble Frenchman, only a youth of nineteen when he came to serve in our armies, was now a veteran of sixty-seven. He had fought for liberty in France, as well as for liberty in America, and now visited us to see the result of the experiment of self-government in our nation. His journey through this country was that of a man whom the whole people delighted to honor. Every town and city turned out in gala dress, its maidens in white, its children crowned with flowers, scattering flowers before the nation's guest.
Verdant arches were held aloft that he might ride beneath them ; fire-works blazed in his honor ; huzzas rent the air. All over the land, wherever he went, the hearts of the people met him in a hearty burst of welcome. Never was welcome more sincere or honors more worthily bestowed. If America had forgotten Lafayette she would have been an ungrateful country who proved herself unworthy the aid her noble champion had given.
One of Lafayette's journeys was made to the tomb of Washing- ton, the commander-in-chief he had revered, the friend he had loved like a son.
On his return to France the United States fitted up a ship to bear him home. It was named the Braridyivine, in remembrance of the battle^ where he had received a wound in fighting for the liberty of America. Thus we bade farewell to Lafayette, whose conduct to America, from first to last, was that of the most disinterested friend- ship— a friendship rarely found in the annals of history.
While Monroe was president, five new States were admitted. They were Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri. These show how the country was growing. We had now a Union of twenty-four States. There was a great dispute about the coming in of Missouri, which I will tell you more about hereafter. It was finally settled, and she became a State in the year 1821.
When Monroe had served eight years — the country all the time prosperous and peaceful — he gave the chair of state to his successor, John Quincy Adams, and retired to his home in Virginia. The
348
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
great feature of his policy is called the "Monroe Doctrine," of which you may have heard. The Monroe doctrine was the theory that the United States should keep out of all the wars and disputes arising in Europe, and that the quarrels of the Old World should never be allowed to affect affairs in the New World. A very sensible doctrine this was too, and one that has served us well.
Now we have a second president from Massachusetts. A son of
old John Adams, whom we have seen also in the seat this new president comes forward to occupy. This son has received all the advantages of educa- tion and travel which his father's position had given him, and is a dignified gentleman, of rather stiff manners, but of excellent judgment and pure patri- otism.
It was in 1825 that he took his seat in the capi- tol as chief of the nation, with Mr. John C. Calhoun as vice-president. Like Monroe, he had a quiet, undisturbed rule for four years. In these times of peace the country grew constantly in manufactures and commerce, while all the time the line of emigrant wagons kept bearing westward the pioneer, who with his axe and plow was making the wilderness blossom with wheat and corn, the true riches of the country.
In 1826, while the nation was celebrating its great anniversary, the 4th of July, two of its historic men passed away from earth. These two men were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both of whom had contributed so much to give this birth-day to America. Jefferson died at his home in Monticello. Just as the morning of the 4th was ushered in, he opened his eyes (he had been lying a long time speechless), and murmured, " This is the Fourth of Jnly." At the same hour John Adams was lying on his death-bed in
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MONROE AND ADAMS. 351
Quinoy, Massachusetts. Jefferson died a few hours earher than Adams. Just as Adams breathed his hist, he said with animation, "Thomas Jeft'erson still lives." Yet at that moment the spirit of his fellow-patriot awaited him on the other side of the River of Death. Amid the booming of cannon and the festivities of the nation, these great men died. They had lived to a good old age. Adams was over ninety, Jefferson eighty-three years old.
The question arose early in John Quincy Adams's administration, " who shall be next president of the United States ? " Up to this time either a native of Massachusetts or Virginia had filled the chair of state. And not only was the presidential office shared between these two States, but they very nearly divided the opinions and sympathies of the whole country. If you have read carefully all about the settlement of this country, you have seen what different people, of different ideas, habits, and social customs, make up these two States of Massachusetts and Virginia. You have seen Massa- chusetts (and by Massachusetts we mean nearly all of New Eng- land) building towns and cities on the products of its manufactures and commerce ; fostering common schools and colleges ; promoting equality among all classes of citizens ; abolishing slave labor ; advo- cating a strong federal government. Virginia, on the other hand, was an agricultural State. The cultivation of large plantations caused a widely scattered population, very different from the crowded towns of Massachusetts. Doing the work by the hands of slaves had tended to form there a landed aristocracy ; education was not so widely dif- fused ; in politics the tendency was towards " state rights " rather than to a strong federation. Indeed, the two States, not very much alike in the beginning, had ever since the Revolution been growing more and more apart. There was not much love lost between them. The Virginians thought the Yankees, as they contemptuously called the New Englanders, altogether too saving and stingy. They de- clared they cared for nothing but dollars and cents. On the other hand, the New Englanders had an innate dislike of the Virginia traf- fic in slaves, and thought the habits of Virginia less rigid in morals than they ought to be. In a word, the North and South, represented by Massachusetts and Virginia, after sharing the highest offices so long between them, might have shared the whole country, if another force had not come in to prevent it. For recollect, as I have been telling you, all this time the great West has been filling up, and its stirring pioneer life has produced a new race of citizens. It was time
23
352 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
to select a president from among these men to represent the new growing life of the nation.
Andrew Jackson was the coming man for the presidency, — the first president from among the ranks of the people. Democrat means, as I hope you know by this time, one who believes in the right of the peoplp to rule. Now, Jefferson had been a true Democrat in theory ; so had Madison and Monroe, but they, as well as Wash- ington and the two Adamses, had been born of wealthy and culti- vated families. They belonged to a more privileged class. But Andrew Jackson was really of the people ; born among them ; work- ing among them ; struggling up to power from their midst. He was a democrat by birth, as well as theory. The people saw this, and this was one thing that helped to make him, what he was then, and has been ever since, the president most widely popular, and more be- loved by all sections of the country, than any man since Washington. Hitherto the party of Jefferson had been called Rejmhlican. But with the coming in of Jackson, who ostensibly followed in the foot- steps of Jefferson's party, it was called Democratic. Make way, then, for General Andrew Jackson, first Democratic president of the United States.
CHAPTER XVI.
RAILROADS AND BANKS.
Character of Andrew Jackson. — Traveling by Steam. — Tram-ways. — Oliver Evans's Steam- engine. — George Stephenson. — Jackson's War with the Banks. — The First National Banks. — Jackson vetoes the Bank Charter.
We have seen something of Andrew Jackson before. At Cam- den, where the British ofl&cer knocked him down for resisting his tyranny ; on the floor of Congress, a tall, awkward looking back- woodsman from Tennessee ; at New Orleans, where his hatred of the British, no doubt, helped him beat the flower of their army there ; down in the Florida and Mississippi region, putting the In- dians under subjection. Wherever we have seen him, we have seen a man who does what he means to do ; will brook no opposition. A man who is domineering, arrogant, merciless to his enemies, inclined to use all the power he can take into his hands ; almost a
RAILROADS AND BANKS.
353
dangerous man to put in power if it had not been for one quality : he devotedly loved his country^ and made her interests his own. He made mistakes, of course, but he always meant to do his duty by his country.
He was sixty-two years old, a childless and lonely old man, almost heart-broken at the recent loss of his wife, when he came to Washington, March 4th, 1829, to be inaugurated. Around him, as a sort of body-guard, were a group of old soldiers, survivors of the Revolutionary War. No man ever held that war and its heroes in more sacred reverence than Andrew Jackson.
When the fiery warrior of New Orleans was made president, his opponents said, " Now we shall have our hands full of wars and broils with foreign nations. Jackson hates England so sincerely he will embrace the first opportunity to quarrel with her." Their words did not come true, however, for we were unusually peaceful all through the eight years of Jackson's government. The most noteworthy event of his administration was the beginning of land travel by steam in this country. We had had steamboats ever since Fulton's successful trip on the Hudson. Already the western lakes
354
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and rivers were filled with large steamboats, and the Mississippi swarmed with steamers, carrying goods and passengers up and down between Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, New Orleans, and all the other large cities connected by inland rivers.
Ever since the discovery of the steam-engine, and particularly since its application to boats, far-sighted men had been prophesying the application of steam to land travel. But inventors were slow in putting this idea into practice. Everybody said we must have some easier way of transporting goods and passengers by land, but nobody had produced the locomotive, worked by steam. We had built the great Erie Canal through New York, by the aid of De Witt Clinton, who was as active in that as Robert Livingston had
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Oliver Evans's Road Engine.
been in steam navigation ; but that did not serve the whole purpose. It was the problem for twenty years after steamboats began to run, how to get the same increased degree of speed on land.
First, railroads began to come in use. Coal mines caused the first railroads to be made, and they were used long before we could make steam-engines run on them. It was so much trouble to draw great carts loaded with coal from the English mines, that somebody sug- gested plank roads, with wooden rails, over which wheeled carts would run more easily. These were called " tram-ways." Then it was suggested that a plate of iron should be nailed on the wooden rail to make it wear longer; finally an {ro7i rail was substituted, and thus the railway was all ready for the locomotive and cars. These " tram-ways " had long been used in England. In America, they already had such a road in the granite quarries of Quincy, Massa-
RAILROADS AND BANKS.
355
cliusetts, to draw out the large blocks of stone. But so far all had been done by horse-power.
Yet clever men were all the time experimenting to make a steam- engine which would go. They tried them with wheels, and tried them with four legs like a horse. Benjamin Franklin, who was, as Captain Cuttle would say, " so chock full of science," believed it could be done. If he had not been so busy working for his country he might have found time to invent some of these things. As it was, he only speculated about them, and encouraged others to be- lieve in the possibility of the steam locomotive.
First Railway Passenger Engine
Oliver Evans of Pennsylvania was the most earnest in advo- cating the use of steam in propelling carriages. He invented a steam-engine, and tried in vain to get some one interested in his project, who could lend him moriey to carry on his inventions. But a member of the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia ridiculed him as the man with a " steam mania," and his project was thought a very crazy one. In England, Richard Trevethick had been work- ing on an engine of the same plan as Evans's. It has been said that Trevethick saw some of the drawings that Evans had sent to Eng- land when he was trying to interest people there in his scheme.
356
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
However that may be, Trevetliick got his locomotive made, and made one or two successful attempts to run it, until, from want of money, and that perseverance which surmounts all obstacles, even want of money, he gave up the plan.
r^v ^4
First Railway Coach,
The man to whom belongs the honor of making land traveling steam possible, was not an American. It was the English collier, George Stephenson, who showed all the grit and energy which deserved, and will finally gain, success. In 1825, the year John Quincy Adams was made president, the first Stephenson loco- motive was run over a railway in England.
We had now several railroads built, and in process of building, in the United States, beside the one in Quincy. The longest one was the Baltimore and Ohio road, which already began to draw passengers by horse-power. And when the news of Stephenson's success came here, we were already talking about steam locomotives. By 1830, steam-engines were running on several roads, and in 1832 they had already run as fast as thirty-eight miles an hour. Rail- roads for the new steam carriages and engines were building all over the country, and we were beginning then to be, what we have since become, the greatest nation on the globe for vast railroad enterprises. How delighted would Thomas Jefferson have been, if he could have seen the Pacific Railroad, binding together the great extent of country which lie sent Lewis and Clarke to explore. It is such inventions as these, rather than any wars of conquest, that make our country great and united.
RAILROADS AND BANKS. 357
There were two great political events in Jackson's time which caused much excitement, of which I must tell you. One was Jack- son's war with the United States Bank, and the other, his treat- ment of the Nullifiers of South Carolina. I will explain to you briefly about both.
Ever since the days of the Revolution, the United States had kept up a national bank. Robert Morris, the financier of Conti- nental Congress, planned the first one, which lasted until Washing- ton was made president. Then Washington's right-hand man, Alexander Hamilton, brought forward a charter for a national bank, which Congress approved. It went into operation, and was a very serviceable institution until 1811, when it wound up its affairs and passed quietly out of existence. While we were carrying on the second -war with England, our finances got badly muddled again, and President Madison was sometimes almost at his wit's end to know what to do for money. Governments are just as likely to be troubled in their money matters as private individuals, and the man who is clear-headed enough to fill the office of the secretary of treas- ury, and fill it well, must be a very remarkable man indeed.
President Madison called to his aid Alexander Dallas, and he planned a new bank for the relief of the government. This bank — the one in existence when Jackson came to the chair of state — for a time worked admirably, and relieved the government of its troubles. It had a charter from Congress, allowing it to continue as a national bank till the year 1836 ; and it was expected by all who were interested in it, that Congress and the president would grant it a new charter from that date, and it would go on increas- ing in power and prosperity.
But Jackson was no sooner president than he began to show his dislike to the institution. He thought it was not democratic, be- cause it placed so much money-power in a few hands. He also liked good hard gold and silver money, as we all do, I fancy, and he believed that these paper bank-notes did not always represent hard cash. So he began a war on the national bank. First, the bank people apphed for a new charter, to come in force when the old one expired. Congress voted them a charter, and Jackson vetoed ^ it. Then he forbade the depositing of any more money in the bank, and ordered that the deposits should be removed from the national bank vault to the different state banks.
1 The veto (from a Latin word, meaning '' to forbid ") is the power the president has to for. Ud an act passed by Congress.
358 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
This caused a great uproar. The strongest men in Congress, representing the wealth of the country, opposed the president. His cabinet trembled in their shoes. When he told the secretary of the treasury to remove the deposits, he dared not obey him. On this, Jackson made the secretary resign, and put a new man in his place, who took the responsibility of moving the money. The whole country was disturbed and fearful of the consequences. But the admiration the Americans have for pluck aided the determined old general, and the bank was crushed. The Democrats were all dehghted with this result, and the Federalists correspondingly un- happy. It made some financial trouble among the wealthy bond- holders, and a good many failures for a time.
Jackson's manner of dealing with the Nullifiers was his great triumph, and won him the hearts of the Federalists. You must know first who the Nullifiers were, and I will begin a new chapter to explain it.
CHAPTER XVII.
NULLIFIERS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
Manufactures in United States. — Tliey ask for a " Protective Tariff." — The South threaten Rebellion. — Tliree Great Men. — The Man of the South. —The Man of the West. — The Man of the North. — Wrath of Jackson. — Speech of Daniel Webster. — The Nullifiers sub- dued.— Indian Troubles again. — The Indians moved West. — Jackson returns to his Hermitage.
After the country began to establish manufactures of various kinds, in order that we might not be dependent on Europe for all our cloth, hats, shoes, and other manufactured articles, the makers of these goods began to call on Congress to " protect " them by passing a law to tax all articles brought here from Europe, of the same kind as those they were making for our markets. " We are poor and weak now," said the manufacturers to Congress. " These great factories in Europe can afford to sell lower than we can, and they will bring their goods here, and sell them so cheap to our people, that they will buy them, and we shall not be able to make any more hats or cotton cloth or iron. But if you make the people who import from Europe pay you such a tax that they will be forced to sell their goods as high as our home-made articles, we shall soon be able to make as good hats or iron or cloth as they. Such a tax
NULLIFIERS IN SOUTH CAKOLINA. 359
will make the nation richer, because the money will go into the public treasury ; it will make us richer, for it will help us to become large manufacturers ; it will make our work-people richer, because we can pay them much larger wages than the work-people in Europe receive."
This was in substance what the manufacturers said to Congress and the country. Nearly everybody approved ; and in 1828 a law called a " protective tariff " was passed, heavily taxing foreign goods to protect national manufactures.
Well, this law had not been long in operation before the South- ern States, who were agricultural, and not commercial and manufact- uring like New England, New York, or Pennsylvania, discovered that protection was not as good for them, as it was for the others. They said to Congress, "It is very true that this tariff makes the manufacturers rich, able to build great factories, and cities full of the humming of cotton spindles. But what good does it do us, in Vir- ginia or the Carolinas ? -We do not sell our cotton at any better price, on account of it ; and when we want to buy cloth or shoes, we have to pay more for the American article than we should have to pay for the European article, if it were not for this odious tax. Be- sides, the foreign article, which we can buy cheap, is better than the American article for which we pay dear. If Massachusetts who makes cloth, and Pennsylvania who produces iron, want a ' protective tariff,' let them have it. But give us free trade."
Congress replied that a law made for one part of the country must be good all over the country. They could not make laws for one State and different ones for another. Finally, the feeling waxed very bitter in the South, especially in South Carolina, and the lat- ter State began to take action against the law. She declared that she would not pay a tax ; that the general government had no right to enforce a law on a State which that State did not choose to ac- cept and that she should defend her state rights and take herself out of the Federal Union of States, if the country tried to enforce the tariff laws there. They held public meetings, in which they declared the tariff null and void in South Carolina ; and hence they received the name of Nidlijiers^ and their attempts to make the tariff of no effect were called " Nullification Acts." At this time there were three very remarkable men in the United States Senate, who were so much engaged in this dispute that I want to describe them to you. Probably we have never had at one time three so remarkable
360
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
men in Congress as these three, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay.
John C. Calhoun was the man of the South, the leader of the
Nullifiers. He was a South Carolinian by birth, and believed with all his heart in his State. He was a tall, slender, erect man, with wonder- fully bright, keen eyes, that lighted up his thin, sallow face like coals of fire. When he spoke in Congress, his speeches were like the blows of a steel hammer, — decisive, clear, logical, with little of the em- broidery of fancy or rhetoric. He believed with sincerity, that the rights of the state were superior to those of the government ; and with the aid of his friend, Robert Hayne, who was also a senator of South Caro- lina, he was ready to oppose the tariff laws, by force if necessary ; was willing to take his State out of the Union, and make her a little nation by herself. He was adored by his party, and considered the foremost leader and champion of the South.
The man of the West was Henry Clay, the darling of the whole region west of the Alleghanies. He was born in Virginia, the son of a poor preacher, and was a self-made man. His manners were so gracious and charming, that he won the friendship of nearly all who met him, and probably had more personal friends than any man in public office. As a speech-maker he was unsurpassed. He had a beautiful, clear, ringing voice, which went straight through the ear to the heart. This, with his fine presence, his winning face, his affable manners, made him a host in himself when he supported or opposed any measure. He was opposed with all his
NULLIFIERS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
361
might to the ideas of Calhoun and his followers, and although he had never been of the Federalist party, he was as strong a lover oi the Union as any Massachusetts Federalist.
The third in this trio of great men was Daniel Web- ster, the man of the North. A New Hampshire man by birtji, he had removed to Massachusetts, and was a senator from that State. He had been reared a Fed- eralist, and held the doc- trines of Hamilton and his peers. Since the War of 1812, however, he had sided with the administration on many points, although in union ^vith both Clay and Calhoun, he had opposed the president in his bank policy.
Of these three great men, Daniel Webster was the strongest and most power- ful orator. He had a tall, massive figure, with the head and shoul- ders of a Titan. His great forehead projected over a pair of large dark eyes that could glow like lurid fires. He had a voice to match his face, deep and sonorous, that was to the ringing utterances of Henry Clay as the clang of a deep-toned cathedral bell to the peal of musical chime bells. His speeches were like himself, massive, and grand, often soaring into regions of sublimest eloquence. No man Kstened to Webster vnthout feeling thrilled with his oratory, and even those who were opposed to him often felt their prejudices melt away before his eloquence. Like Clay, he was a self-made man, the son of a poor farmer, working hard as a boy to get an education, and struggling upward through poverty to his present position.
These three men were in the full vigor of life in Jackson's admin- istration. In 1832, when the nullifying agitation was at its height, Webster and Calhoun, both born in one year, were forty-seven years old. Clay was fifty-two.
362
STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
When Jackson heard how the Nullifiers were holding meetings in South Carolina, threatening to oppose the government by force of arms, and that Calhoun and Hayne were encouraging them with
speeches to this effect, his wrath waxed as hot against them as it had against the British at New Orleans. He was down in his Hermitage in Ten- nessee when the news of the agitation in Charles- ton reached him. The country had just elected him president for a second term by an immense ma- jority. He flew to Wash- ington, and there issued a vigorous proclamation to the people of South Caro- lina, calling them back to their allegiance as sub- jects of the United States. He ordered ships to be sent to the harbor of Charleston ; he sent orders to the forts to be on the look-out for the first sign of insurrection ; he marched troops there, ready to sup- press the first symptom of revolt. In short, if that insurrectionary little State had dared to take one step in opposition to the govern- ment, Jackson would have had her under subjection before she had time to strike a blow.
The Nullifiers saw that resistance was foolhardy. The public meetings were stopped ; the volunteers who had been drilling in Charleston went home ; patriotic South Carolinians took off the blue cockade with a palmetto button in the centre, which they had been wearing as the sign of their loyalty to the State, and defiance of the government. Mr. Calhoun came quietly up to take his seat in Con- gress, and see what peaceful measures would do in the tariff busi- ness. Very soon Mr. Clay introduced a bill in Congress, softening the tariff measures so disagreeable to the South, and the disunion cloud passed over.
^^^^"^ ^^7^
a ^^^-e^
NULLIFIERS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
363
The Palmetto.
But many of the people, who knew Jackson had never been a friend of the Federalist party, and were not certain how he would behave if the Union were threatened, were from this hour Jack- son's most loyal adherents. New Eng- land resounded with his praises. What he had done to the national bank was forgotten even by the friends of the bank. The whole people would have borne him aloft on their shoulders from Maine to Florida, so proud and fond they were of the president who maintained the Constitution and the Union.
As for Jackson, he was thoroughly in earnest. He did not care whether it made him popular or not. He would have done the same, in either case. He used to say, " Haman's gallows was not high enough to hang the man upon, who would raise his finger to pull down the Union." I think he was a little sorry on his death-bed that he had not hung John C. Calhoun and some of his fellow conspirators, as a " warning to future traitors."
Some of Webster's speeches at this time are the grandest speci- mens of American eloquence. His speech in answer to Robert Hayne, when he talked of disunion on the floor of Congress, is one of his most famous orations. Then Webster announced the doctrine, that the United States ivas not a league of States^ hut a nation., — one and indivisible — as much as Crreat Britain or France. He repudiated the doctrine of "every man for his State," and announced that every citizen of the United States had a country., whose inter- ests were above that little corner of the Union where he happened to be born. So ended the agitation in South Carolina, which Jack- son's energy nipped at once in the bud.
There were Indian wars in Jackson's time. Those were a neces- sary consequence of all our dealings with the Indians. The tribes of the South — the Seminoles in Florida, and the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, who lived in Georgia, Alabama, and the region of the Mississippi — must be moved beyond the great nver. The white man wanted their lands, and the white and the red man could not occupy the same soil in peace. A tract called
364 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the Indian Territory bad been set apart for tbem, and tbitber it was decided the Indians must go. Naturally tbey did not wish to go. They were somewhat civilized, — all these tribes whose names I have given. They had their farms and their villages ; many of them owned negro slaves ; they had built saw and grist-mills and stores, and possessed many of the appliances of civilized life. Some of their leaders were half-breeds, the sons of white men, and were more intelligent than the full-blooded Indians. They were ready to fight bitterly before they would remove beyond the Mississippi.
But Jackson was as determined in this as in all other matters, — and he had decided they must remove. The Seminoles fought fiercely under Osceola, a half-breed chief, who had suffered wrongs enough at the hands of the white man to stir a fever in less savage
blood than his. He was finally captured, and taken in irons to Fort Moultrie, where he died a prisoner. The Creeks also fought, as all brave men have done before or since, for the right to their homes and firesides. General Winfield Scott was %. ' !)\P5 fii^9,lly sent there, and with very wise and \ |\^^ — yl^ soothing management succeeded in re- Hj moving all the tribes to the new Indian
Os"oia- country. The last of them went about
1838. There these tribes remain to this day, — the most intelligent and civilized communities of Indians in the country. They have schools, printing-presses, and a degree of intelligence among thera, which argues well for their capacity to make good citizens. If the white men had known how to make peace with them as well as they had known how to make war upon them, we might have been spared much bloodshed and a great deal of money.
Jackson's administration ended in March, 1837. The vice-presi- dent of his second term was Martin Van Buren of New York, a descendant of the worthy Dutch settlers, " Old Hickorj^," as the people fondly called Jackson, was growing infirm and tired of ofiice. He wanted his friend and colleague. Van Buren, to be president, and he helped toward his election. Before he retired to the Hermi- tage, he had the satisfaction of assisting in the ceremonies which made Martin Van Buren the eighth President of the United States.
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VAJSr JJUlirCN, HARRISON, AND TYLER.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
VAN BUREN, HARRISON, AND TYLER.
"Old Hickory" and "Old Ironsides." — Hard Times. — Log Cabin Campaign. — Death of General Harrison. — John Tyler's Presidency. — A New Invention. — Samuel Morse, thj Artist and Inventor. — Invention of the Telegraph. — A New Political Question.
When Van Buren rode through the streets of Washington to tho capitol, to take the in- augural voWs, General Jackson rode by his side. The carriage in which they sat together was made of wood which had once been part of " Old Ironsides,' ' — the gallant ship Constitution, which had figured so often in our naval history. " Old Hickory " and " Old Iron- sides " shared with the new president the cheers of the crowd.
Mr. Van Buren was hardly made president before the country was in great distress. All these bank troubles and movins; about of the money of the country, had made many troubles among business men. Then there had been too much land speculation, and other kinds of speculation, for several years. All this helped now to make a panic, and the whole country was in the condition of a bankrupt merchant, whose creditors will not wait a day for their money. Rich men failed, poor men were thrown out of employ- ment. Provisions, always so cheap before, became very dear. Flour was fifteen dollars a barrel, and the poor, who had no work, were many of them mthout bread. Those were hard days. People blamed the government, which really had nothing to do with the state of affairs, and the new president was made unpopular by the .discomfort which prevailed.
24
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368
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
When Ills four years had nearly expired, the Democrats nominated Van Buren for president again. Meantime the other party — now no longer called Federalists, but renamed " Whigs," in remembrance of the revolutionary patriots — had been growing stronger. They nominated for president, WilHam Henry Harrison, our old Indian fighter in Indiana, the hero of Tippecanoe. For vice-president they had John Tyler of Virginia.
The Whigs made the land ring with a new war-cry of " Tippeca- noe and Tyler too." General Harrison had been living quietly in
Ohio ever since he had re- signed his army command on the western border to Andrew Jackson in 1814. For several years he had occupied a rude frame-house on the western frontier, and lived like a plain farmer of very moderate means.
Some of his Democratic opponents said of him sneer- ingly, " Give Harrison a log cabin and a barrel of hard cider, and he will never leave Ohio to be President of the United States." On this his followers took up the word, and the " log cabin and hard cider cam- paign " was one of the most exciting political fights ever fought. Newspapers bore pictures of log cabins at their head, and barrels of hard cider were rolled from one town to another, attended by crowds of boys and men who turned out to see the fun. It ended in Harrison's election to the presidency, with Mr. John Tyler as vice-president.
Ever since the election of Thomas Jefferson, forty years before, the Democratic party had held the political power and offices. Now the party which claimed to represent Washington and the elder Adams, once more took the reins.
It was a brief triumph, however. On the 4th of March, 1841, William Henry Harrison took the solemn oath of his ofiice. On
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VAN BUREN, HARRISON, AND TYLER.
369
tlie 4th of April, one month later, he lay a corpse in the national capitol. Worn out by the excitement and labors of the election, he died before the country knew how well he would have filled his high office.
In the event of the death of the president, the vice-president takes his place. John Tyler now came forward to take the chair from which his colleague had been so suddenly re- moved by death. He had been elected by the Whigs, and they natu- rally expected him to be their ally. But for some cause or other he disap- pointed their hopes, and very soon was acting in open alliance with the Democratic party which had held the power so many years before Har- rison's election.
The most important event which occurred in Tvler's time was the in- troduction of telegraphy, which now followed the two great inventions of steamboats and railways.
Like all the great inventions, the telegraph had been many years growing to perfection. Benjamin Franklin, flying his kite to the clouds to draw the lightning down, had done something toward the series of discoveries which helped make the telegraph. From his day, the wise men of France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Eng- land, and America, had been making experiments with electricity, galvanic batteries, and many other machines, which you and I do not very well understand, — all of which helped on to the telegraph- Franklin himself had sent lightning across the Schuylkill River on a wire, and some Spanish experimenters had sent a message on a wire twenty-six miles long, as early as 1798. After the idea had been started that messages might really be sent on wires from one
370 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
place to another, it began to grow in many minds at once, and al- most at the same time a German, an Englishman, and an American, began to invent a system of telegraphing by electricity.
The American, to whom we owe our telegraph, was Samuel Morse of Massachusetts. His father was the Rev. Jedediah Morse, a clergyman, who had made the first geography ever published in America. Your great grandfathers and grandmothers, no doubt, studied Morse's Geography when they went to school. Samuel Morse made up his mind to be an artist, and went over to England early in life to study painting with two great American painters, Washington Allston and Benjamin West. You remember, Robert Fulton was an artist, too, and that he also went to England and studied with West. There is, an idea quite prevalent that jDainters and other artists are not very practical, but for all that the two men who introduced steamboats and telegraphing into America, and made them go^ were artists by profession.
While studying and practicing his profession, Mr. Morse went several times across the Atlantic Ocean. On one of these jour- neys, in the year 1832, he was talking with a fellow-passenger about discoveries in electricity, and in the course of the talk the idea of the telegraph, just as he afterwards carried it out, came into his head. He went to his cabin and made drawings to express his idea, and from that time forward devoted himself to perfecting his design.
In the mean time William Cooke and William Wheatstone in England, and Professor Steinheil in Germany, were also busily engaged in a similar enterprise. Wheatstone's telegraph was done first, and was used in England in 1837. Morse could not get the help which he asked from Congress till 1843. Then they gave him $30,000 to aid him in his work, and in 1844 a wire was laid from Washington to Baltimore and the first message ever sent in the United States passed between those two cities. Professor Steinheil was not so fortunate as his rivals. He, too, produced a telegraphing apparatus so nearly similar to Morse's that only a very slight differ- ence marked Morse's superiority. When Morse went to Europe to get his invention used there, the three systems of Wheatstone, Steinheil, and Morse were exhibited. S\:einheil closely examined Morse's in the respect in which it differed from his own, and finally, with touching generosity, declared that the American invention was the best, and recommended it to the committee who were
BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICO.
371
examining it. A man who could so generously support the inter- ests of science, when to do so cost him the work of a life-time, and made his own invention useless, must be a noble character, and I like to record here the name of Professor Steinheil of Munich. Wheatstone strongly contended for the superiority of his method, and it has kept the supremacy in Eng- land. Morse's telegraph was ac- cepted by nearly all the European nations, and he was loaded with honors in Europe and America. Such is briefly the history of the electric telegraph, one of the great inventions of the world. It makes the year 1844 one of the most nota- ble in our country's history.
A dispute which greatly troubled political parties in John Tyler's time, was about the annexation of Texas ; whether we should let the independent State of Texas become one of the United States. We have not before heard of this new country of Texas, and I must begin a new chapter to tell you about it.
Samuel F. B. Morse.
CHAPTER XIX.
BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICO.
Spanish Conquest of Mexico. — Inhabitants of Mexico. — Americans in Texas. — Sam Hous- ton. — Texas rebels against Mexico, and asks to join the United States.
Do you remember Hernando Cortez ? He was the Spanish war- rior who, with a handful of soldiers, entered the territory of Mexico in North America, penetrated to its great inland capital, took the emperor Montezuma prisoner in his very palace, and subjected the country to the power of Spain. For years the gold and silver of Mexico went to enrich the coffers of Spain, and its mines seemed to offer boundless riches which could never be exhausted. A]l the dreams of Columbus, of the rich lands which he hoped to find Id the East, were fulfilled in the western country of Mexico.
372 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY,
Ever since the conquest of Cortez, Mexico had belonged to Spain. This not only included the present domain of Mexico, but Texas, California, and New Mexico, all three now States and Territories of the United States. I am going to tell you how these three large portions of Mexico came to be joined to our territory.
Poor Spain had not been fortunate in her American possessions. First she was obliged to cede Louisiana to France, and we bought that Territory of the latter country. Then she was obliged to yield Florida to the United States, in order to settle a dispute about boundaries. Thus her possessions began to dwindle away. The inhabitants of Mexico had been a mixed population from the time of Cortez. First, there were the Spanish settlers, who held the power and the government offices, and were haughty, overbearing, and often cruel to their inferiors ; then there were the native Mexicans, or In- dians, who were a race easily subdued, and who had suffered great oppression under Spanish rule ; lastly there were a mixed race, which had sprung from the intermarriage of the Spanish and Indian races. These made up the inhabitants of Me:dco. After the United States became an independent nation, there was a strong party in Mexico, disliking the Spanish rule, who would have been very glad to follow the example of the United States in making herself an independent nation. Affairs were tolerably quiet there, however, till 1810, when the Mexicans revolted and tried to throw off the power of Spain. There was a good deal of hot fighting for several years. Some- times the Spanish would think the rebellion was subdued, and every- thing settled, when all at once the Mexicans would be up in arms again, and the Spanish rulers deposed and sent to prison. At length, in 1824, Mexico finally declared herself a republic, free of Spain ; drew up a constitution, made a federal union of nineteen states and four territories, and elected her president and vice-president for four years, just like the United States. Thus we had a republican neighbor next door, and the power of Spain was broken in America. There were a great many American settlers living in a part of Mex- ico called Texas, which joined the United States, and many of them helped the Mexicans in their rebellion against Spain. When Mex- ico became a republic, many Americans bought land-grants, and went to Texas to settle. It was such a great broad country to raise cattle upon, that hundreds of colonists went there with herds of cows and horses ; soon innumerable cattle with a letter branded in their hides to show the name of their owner, roamed over the boundless, unfenced prairies.
BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICO.
37B
A great many adventurers also came to Texas, men who had broken the laws of the United States and were afraid of its justice, so that the State contained many outlawed men, some of whom made trouble among the peaceable, order loving colonists. The prin- cipal American settler, and one who had brought a large colony to Texas, was a man from New England, named Stephen Austin. If you study the map of Texas you will see that he has a county and town named for him there.
The Americans were much more enterprising and thrifty than the Mexicans. Where they settled, the country soon began to look trim and neat, with comfortable houses and well kept farm-yards. The Mexicans were content to live from generation to generation in " adobe " houses, houses built of rude bricks, made of mud
Mexican Farm-house.
dried in the sun. They had little energy, and none of the Yankee shrewdness which was apt to get the better of them in all their bar- gains. It was quite natural that they should begin to feel jealous, and a little afraid of these pushing, enterprising Yankees. So when in 1833 the Americans held a convention, and sent Stephen Austin to the city of Mexico to ask that Texas should be admitted as a State into the Mexican Union, they kept him for months in a state of uncertainty about what answer they meant to make him.
374
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Sam Houston .
Austin got tired of this, and wrote to the Texas people to proclaim themselves a State without further delay. This letter the Mexicans got hold of, and at once put Austin in prison.
When the American Texans heard how their petition had been received, they were up in arms at once. Every American felt him- self a match for eight or ten Mexi- cans. They got Sam Houston for their leader, a man who was brave enough to lead a forlorn hope. He Jiad lived among the Indians as their adopted son in his boyhood, had fought under Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, and after the War of 1812 was over, had gone quietly into civilized life and settled down as a lawyer. All at once, in mid- dle life, the old adventurous spirit broke out in him again, and he went back to the Indians he had known in boyhood, became one of their tribe, and finally had roamed down to Texas to become one of the cattle graziers of that vast territory. Here he was, all ready to lead the rebellion in Texas.
There was some sharp fighting with the Mexican authorities for several years. The contest began in 1836, and very soon after, Texas declared herself an independent State, made a government of her own, and chose Sam Houston governor. Very soon she asked the United States to take her in. But Martin Van Buren, who was then president, objected strongly. He did not want the United States to get into a quarrel with Mexico on account of Texas. So the matter stood all through Van Buren's time and John Tyler's administration. There were constant disputes in Congress about lettino- Texas come into the Union. The Northern States said •' No, we do not want any more States with slavery. Texas is a slave-holding country, and the slave power is getting too strong for us. Besides, we do not want war. It hurts our trade and makes us poor." The Southern States argued in favor of admitting Texas for the very reasons that the North urged to keep her out. Thus the dispute waxed hotter till the year 1845. Then, just before Tyler's last Congress dissolved, they voted to let Texas come into the Union as one of the United States, and amid the praises of the
BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAE. 375
Democrats, who were delighted with this measure, and the curses of the Whigs, who were furiously angry about it, the administration of John Tyler ended.
CHAPTER XX.
• BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAR.
" Old Zach." — Troops ou the Rio Grande. — Palo Alto. — The Prairie on Fire. — A Battle- field by Night. — Victory over the Mexicans. — Crossing the Rio Grande. — Scenery about Monterey. — Capture of the Bishop's Palace. — Siege of the Town. — Monterey taken.
Jainies K. Polk, eleventh president of the United States, was born in North Carolina, but had lived many years in Tennessee. The votes of the Democratic party elected him to the seat left va- cant by John Tyler. He inherited from his predecessor the Mexi- can War, which was at once on his hands. This history of his administration is the history of this new war. Not a war for free- dom this time, but a war for conquest, — a war to extend the already vast area over which the United States was spreading.
Mexico had declared that she should go to war if the United States attempted to annex Texas, and it was quite a foregone con- clusion that the act of Congress annexing this rebellious part of her dominions, would pull down war upon our heads. We had at this time a bluff old soldier in our armies named Zachary Taylor, whom the men under his command called " Old Zach." Soldiers are very apt to give nicknames to their favorite leaders, and " Old Zach " had been a favorite commander ever since he went to fiffht the Indian tribes whom Tecumseh had stirred up on our western border in the last war with Great Britain. He was living down in Louisiana, when orders came for him to march to Texas and hold it against any Mexican troops who might try to take the State. The Rio Grande, which means " great river," was to be the line dividing the new State from Mexico, and that was the line on which the government at first proposed to fight the Mexicans. Taylor was sent at once to bar all approach across the Rio Grande. He marched with all the men he could raise ; not a very large army, but the Americans had great faith in their own prowess, and not so much faith in the valor of the Mexicans. War was not yet declared either, and the general hoped to get more troops when war was fully decided upon .
376 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
When Taylor and his army reached the borders of the Rio Grande, after their long march over the plains of Texas, it was beautiful spring weather ; the air was fresh and sweet, the banks of the river were bright with flowers ; they fancied they could feel cool breezes blowing from the sea, so delicious after their hard and dusty march. On the oj)posite river bank lay the Mexican town of Matamoras. It was bowered in trees, and looked like a pleasant village of scatter- ing houses, never intended to be the scene of war. But already the shore in front of the town bristled with angry looking cannon, and the Mexicans were busy preparing defenses along the line of the river. As soon as he arrived, Taylor, on his part, began to defend the eastern bank of the river in dispute, and the first earth was dug for a fort opposite Matamoras, and named Fort Brown.
This was the last of March. Taylor lingei-ed here till May, yet no news of a declaration of war had been received from government. On the 1st of May General Taylor decided to leave Fort Brown, with the main part of his army, and go to a point farther down the river, which he feared was not sufficiently protected. He left a small garrison in the fort, commanded by Major Brown, and a battery commanded by Captain Bragg, which afterward had an opportunity to make itself famous. As soon as the general's back was turned, the guns from Matamoras opened on the little fort, and shot and shell rattled across the river. It made a great deal of noise, but really did very little damage. The American guns kept silent, thinking it wise to save their powder, and for four days the enemy kept up the siege with little return of their fire from the Amer- icans, who were short of powder, and constantly hoping General Taylor would return and relieve them.
On the fifth morning of the siege the garrison could see the Mex- icans strengthening themselves for an attack, and were awaiting it with some anxiety, when all at once the dull booming of distant cannon announced to both sides that a battle had begun elsewhere. Besieged and besiegers forgot their own defense and attack in this new sound, fraught with an equal interest to both. It was the roar of the guns from Palo Alto, the first battle-field in the Mexican War, which reached Fort Brown and Matamoras. Let us hasten thither and see what fortune waits on our arms.
Palo Alto means " tall timber," and the battle has its name from a wood which skirted the plain, over which Taylor's troops were marching on their return to Fort Brown, when the Mexicans
BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAR. 377
buist upon their sight, drawn up to meet them, in all the splendor of battle. They shared the gorgeous taste of the native Indians for bright colors, and the glitter and brilliancy of their uniforms almost dazzled the eyes of our soldiers as they first saw their foe with the fervid southern sun shinino- on their ranks. The Mexicans, 6,000 strong, looked as if the birds of their tropical forests had lent them their rainbow hues for the battle, while the Americans, less than 2,300 in number, in their plain army blue, resembled the quiet snow-birds of the North, hardly at home in this gorgeous clime.
The battle began early in the morning, and soon raged over the whole plain. The American artillery did good service, and charge after charge of the enemy was repulsed even from the very mouth of the guns. In the midst of the battle the tall dry grass of the plain took fire from the guns, and in a moment, to add to the hor- ror, great sheets of flame and smoke rolled over the prairie. It drove both armies before it, and when it had passed by, leaving a blackened waste behind, the Mexicans had lost their position. Tay- lor, cool in every moment of battle, had advanced and gained an advantage. The firing was kept up till night, but the Mexican volleys grew fainter and fainter, and when the day ended they had fallen back towards the river. That night all slept, worn out with the day's strife, only a little distance apart. Can you fancy the two armies, with their cannon silent, the sounds of war hushed, lying on the blood-stained, blackened field, under the quiet night sky, ready to rise and renew the scenes of carnage at the next dawn ? All night the cries of the wounded, who cannot sleep, arise from the field. Here and there the dim light of a lantern borne by surgeons and their assistants seeking out those who have fallen, gleams on the ghastly faces, pale in death, and on the convulsed and agonized faces of the dying. It is a horrible sight, this battle- field, is it not ?
Next morning, when the sun rose, it showed the Mexicans in- trenched in a deep ravine which crossed the road, their artillery sweeping the pass and making approach seem impossible. But Taylor's men rose like giants refreshed by slumber. In one charge they swept throught the enemy's batteries, leaped the guns, bayon- eted the gunners, and carried the day at Resaca de la Palma. So the second day's battle ended also in victory.
Although they largely outnumbered the Americans, the Mexicans
378 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
were forced to give way before men who fought with such fury. They fell back, then retreated, then turned and ran for the river. The little garrison at Fort Brown anxiously looking out for news, beheld the enemy hurrying pell-mell for the Rio Grande. There were no boats to receive them except one flat boat, soon filled by the crowding fugitives. Many plunged in and attempted to swim ; many were trampled under the feet of men and horses ; wild uproar and confusion filled the river and its banks. Along the opposite shore crowded the people of Matamoras, the sisters, daughters, and wives of those slain in the battle, anxiously straining their eyes for the sight of their friends who left them a little while before in health and hope, to meet their death upon the field.
CHAPTER XXL
INVASION OF MEXICO.
Army of the West. — Conquest of New Mexico. — Fr(§mont, the Explorer of the Rocky Mount- ains.—He enters California. —Kit Carson. —Fremont declares California an Independent State. — The Army of the Centre. — " Rough and Ready." — Bragg's Battery. — Victory of Buena Vista. — Five Thousand Miles' March.
Nine days after the battle of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Taylor and his army crossed the Rio Grande and took up their quarters in Matamoras. All the smaller towns in the vicinity sur- rendered and were occupied by our troops. Henceforth all the fighting was to be done on Mexican soil and the war was carried into the towns and cities, to the very firesides of the Mexicans.
General Arista had been commanding at Matamoras, but his want of success in keeping back the Americans had made him unpopular. He was now in disgrace, and General Ampudia was the ofiicer com- manding the Mexicans. During this summer of 1846 Taylor heard that Ampudia was collecting his forces at Monterey a town among the mountains of Sierra Madre, and that the town had been fortified to resist an attack from the Americans.
In August he decided to march on Monterey and endeavor to take it. General Worth, an able officer in the United States army, had now joined Taylor, and the united forces amounted to about 9,000. Of these 6,500 were destined for the march on Monterey.
Early in September the army reached the beautiful plain em-
INVASION OF MEXICO. S70
bosomed among momitains, on which the city is built, 'iha San Juan River encircles the pleasant town on one side, and all about it the heights of the Sierras rise above the city, lying half hid by its clustering trees. On one of the heights, commanding the city, was the bishop's palace, a stately pile of white limestone, with the green, white, and red flag of the republic floating from its top. The palace and the hillside bristled with cannon, and on all the heights about the city, the black ya\\^ning mouths of these instru- ments of death stood ready to pour their volleys into the ranks of the invading army. To the north was the stone citadel, showing a gun at every loop-hole, and affording an impregnable shelter to the besieged army if all other defenses failed. To look at her prepara- tion it seemed impossible to believe that any army could take a city with every avenue so guarded as that of Monterey.
The Americans sat quietly down three miles from the city, while their officers settled on the best mode of attack, and studied point by point the enemy's defenses. On the 19th of September the plans were made and the army began to move. General Worth led his division around to the west to attack in the rear the palace of the bishop, and Taylor with the main army began cannonading the centre of the town. On the 21st of September the firing began from Taylor's batteries, answered by the roar of the great guns of the citadel. All through that day the thunder of artillery deafened the ear. Just before dusk General Worth took the batteries on the height nearest the palace of the bishop, and turned the captured guns against the defenses. At night the soldiers on both sides lay down to rest in the midst of a terrific thunder-storm. Many of the Americans, without shelter, lay on the bare earth, exposed to the drenching rain. Next morning, almost before day-break, the assault on the bishop's palace was made. It was brief, and ended in vic- tory. The flag of Mexico was pulled down, and the " red, white, and blue " was seen waving over the turrets of this stronghold.
In the mean time Taylor's army were hammering away at the de- fenses in front of the town. On the morning of the 22d they entered the streets of the city and fought their way inch by inch towards the citadel. Every street was barricaded and protected by cannon, which swept a deadly fire down the ranks of the Americans. They literally dug their way through the opposing barriers, driving the besieged army closer and closer to the citadel, until they were forced to take refuge in its sheltering walls. By sunset on the 22d
380
STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Taylor's army held the town as securely as Worth held the palace. Only the bastioned front of the citadel opposed itself to the besieg- ers, and behind those walls lay General Anipudia and his array, defeated and broken in numbers and courage. They had fought bravely, and with the earnestness of men who fight on their own soil. Next morning when they proposed to surrender, General Tay- lor gave them generous terms. He allowed them to march out of the citadel with all their side arms, and pledged himself not to fol- low or attack them until eight weeks had expired. Thus on the 23d of September the strong city of Monterey fell into the hands of our army. We had paid for it with one hundred and twenty men killed, three hundred and sixty-eight wounded.
In the mean time, while Taylor was marching from the Rio Grande to Monterey, victorious in every encounter, the Ameri- can arms were gaining easy victories elsewhere. Three divisions of the United States army were penetrating into the re- public of Mexico, and already the United States flag waved over many Mexican towns in token of conquest.
The first of these three
divisions was the gallant
Army of the West," commanded
General Stephen Kearney. It
ted from Fort Leavenworth, Kan-
for its long march to the Mexi-^
border in the month of June, i,
weeks after Taylor's victory at
Palo Alto. The destination of the
The Spanish Bayonet. troops was the towu of Santa Fe, the
largest in New Mexico and the most famous trading place between
Mexico, Texas, and the United States.
Fort Leavenworth is on the Missouri River in Kansas, and is now sui-rounded by one of the flourishing cities of the West. Then it was a lonely military fort, far away from civilization, with great plains roamed over by the wolf and bison, stretching away to the
INVASION OF MEXICO.
381
west and south. Over these broad spreading plains, covered vrith sage bush, tufts of gray buffalo grass, and the sharp pointed cactus, the army took its march. Except where an occasional river, bordered by cotton-wood trees, crept slowly through the plain, the way was barren and treeless. Sometimes they met vast herds of the buffalo traveling north for the summer. At night the howling of the prai- rie wolf often disturbed the slumbers of the camp. The only other inhabitant of the plain were the prairie dogs, whose towns were built thickly all along the northern part of their journey. As the sol- diers marched through these " prairie dog towns," the bright eyed
Prairie Dogs.
little animals would sit erect on their haunches, blinking cunningly at the men, then suddenly turning tail would dart into their holes and disappear in the underground labyrinth where they dwelt.
After a march of more than a month the sight of the Arkansas River cheered the eyes of the weary travelers, and a little rest at Bent's Fort on its banks refreshed them after their long march. From thence to Santa Fe the way was less monotonous, sometimes leading among grand old mountains and scenery of surpassing beauty. Early in August they set foot in the Territory of New
B82
STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Mexico, the northern Hne of the Mexican possessions. Kearney's proceedings were executed with military brevity and decision. Whenever he entered a town — they were all miserable, badly built villages of adobe houses- in this region — he summoned the alcaid or Mayor of the place, and asked him to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, for himself and the inhabitants. The trembling alcaid, surrounded by American troops, could do no better than comply, and usually took the oath without hesitation. Sometimes he ventured to hope his religion should not be interfered with, and General Kearney assured him he might be as devout a Roman Cath- olic as he liked, if he would be true to the United States. Thus town after town was left with the stars and stripes flying above its walls of mud brick, and Kearney, who was a hearty soldier, and not unpopular with the Mexicans, went triumphantly on to Santa Fe. At first this town made preparations for defense, but hearing that the country had surrendered without resistance, hopeless of success against the invaders, concluded to make no show of battle. Kearney
Mexican Town.
marched peacefully into the town, conciliated the people with prom- ises of the best possible treatment if they would be faithful to the government he represented, unfurled his flag from the palace of the Mexican governor, and fired a cannon salute in honor of his conquest. As the sound reverberated over the scene of his bloodless victory,
Conquest of New Mexico.
INVASION OF MEXICO. 885
Kearney said proudly, " There, my guns proclaim that the flag of the United States floats over the capital." Thus ended the conquest of New Mexico.
After Kearney's success here he took part of his troops, leaving the rest to guard his newly acquired possessions, and started to sub- due Upper California. That country in the meantime had been the scene of another conquest, only a little more difficult to achieve than that of New Mexico.
In the spring of 1845, one year before war was declared, a young lieutenant, named John Charles Fremont, had been given the rank of captain in the United States army. There were few officers who deserved promotion better. For several years he had been explor- ing the western territories of his country ; had crossed the Rocky Mountains, climbing one of its loftiest peaks ; explored its mountain passes ; followed the courses of unknown rivers in the west, and sought out a new path to the Pacific Ocean. No discoverer, since the days of Lewis and Clarke, had done so much to open up the geography of our western country, as Captain John C. Fremont.
Soon after he had received his new rank, he set out with a com- pany on an expedition to Oregon. His way lay across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which separated the United States from Upper California, then a part of the Mexican possessions. Over these mountains Fremont took his way with his company of brave men, and descended into California in the winter of 1846. He went to Monterey, California, and asked permission of the Mexican governor of the province, to pass through his territories on his way to Oregon. But the Mexican, distrusting all the United States troops, although the war had not yet begun, refused his permission, and acted as if he believed Fremont's design was a hostile one. There was a dispute and a close ap- proach to a battle near Monterey, but Fremont finally marched to Oregon without any actual outbreak between them.
The adventures in their journey to Oregon were very interesting. Once the party were attacked by Indians while sleeping peacefully in their tents, \mconscious of danger. Springing up in the dark, they met the sav"
386 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
ages in a hand-to-hand fight, and drove off the Indians after a desperate struggle. One of Fremont's guides was the famous Kit Carson, who had Uved for years the Ufe of a mountaineer in these wild regions. No story could be dull in which Carson was one of the heroes. We cannot follow this little band to Oregon, but will meet them as they come back to San Francisco Bay in the spring of 1846.
The first news which then reached Captain Fremont was the in- telligence that Governor De Castro — the very governor who had shown such open hostility to and distrust of his expedition to Ore- gon — was raising troops to attack and drive out the American set- tlers in California. Already war had been declared between the United States and California, but this news had not yet reached the distant shores of the Pacific. Fremont at once decided that the rights of his countrymen settled there should be maintained, and on June 1st he surprised and captured a fort of the enemy at the town of Sonoma. A few days later he met a party of De Castro's men, and a slight skirmish ensued, in which, as usual, the Americans were victorious. On the 4th of July Fremont called all the Amer- icans together at this captured post of Sonoma, and declared Cali- fornia a " free and independent State." A few days later Commo- dore Stockton of the American navy hoisted the stars and stripes over Monterey, and declared it a conquered town. Fremont has- tened to join Stockton, and the two entered Los Angeles, the capital of California, and took it in the name of the United States. Cal- ifornia, largely settled by Americans, was easily brought under sub- jection, and there was very little more bloodshed in this conquest, than in that of New Mexico.
The third division which contributed to our successes this year was the division of General Wool, formed of Illinois troops, and named the " Army of the Centre." Wool was an officer in the War of 1812, and had fought bravely on the Canada border, where Scott had gained his laurels. He was sent with his army to invade the province of Chihuahua, at the same time Kearney was sent to New Mexico. But after a hot summer march through Texas, he found a high mountain wall which barred his entrance into the province he was seeking ; and turning in a southerly direction, he went to join a part of Taylor's division quartered at Saltillo, not far from Monterey.
Wool arrived at Saltillo in December, and found General Taylor
INVASION OF MEXICO. 387
and General Worth busily preparing for another battle. The com- mander-in-chief of the whole Mexican army was gathering a force of 20,000 men in the capital of the province of San Luis Potosi, with which he hoped to crush the Americans who had fought at Monterey. This commander was General Santa Anna, a famous patriot, who had fought against Spain for Mexican freedom, had been president of the re- public, and was one of their best and bravest soldiers. He had already lost one leg in battle, but even thus disabled was a match for many a warrior with the full complement of legs and arms. Santa Anna.
It was to aid in repulsing General Santa Anna that Wool had fortunately joined General Worth at Saltillo. While they waited for battle, news came that General Scott had landed with an army at the town of Vera Cruz on the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. Orders were sent that all the troops which Taylor could spare should be sent there at once. This at a time when Santa Anna's army, reported to be of overwhelming numbers, was just ready to engage him. But " old Zach Taylor," or old " Rough and Ready," as he was called after his Mexican victories, was too good a soldier to grumble. He sent all his troops except 5,500 to Scott, and tak- ing up a strong position in a narrow mountain valley on the road between Monterey and Saltillo, waited for the enemy. The place where he intrenched himself was hemmed in by rugged mountains and narrowed to a gorge hardly wider than an ordinary road, called the pass of Angostura. The valley was known as Buena Vista or "Fine View," and was a very strong point for the occupation of an army. Here, on the morning of the 2 2d of February, the day our nation celebrates as Washington's birth-day, — the armies came in sight of each other. It was not until the 23d that the fighting began. The American battle-cry was, " To the memory of Washing- ton," and inspired by that memory, every man did his best.
I have told you that Taylor's whole army was 5,500. Santa Anna admitted that he had 20,000 men. With such a difference we could never have hoped for victorj^ if the position of Buena Vista had not been almost impregnable. It was like a strong castle which a few men could hold against immense numbers. The battery stationed in the pass of Angostura swept down any force which ventured near its narrow throat.
888 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Still it was a terrible contest, and before night the mountain slopes were red with human blood. Many times the scale of victory- hung so evenly balanced that the slightest turn would have given the day to Santa Anna. Once near the day's close, a party of American cavalry were contending with an overpowering force of the enemy in a deep gully which entered the valley. • Taylor was watching with intense anxiety the efforts of the troops in repelling the attack. If they were defeated at this point, the enemy would rush in, in such numbers that the rout of the Americans appeared inevitable. At this moment Captain Bragg with his battery, the one that had seen service at Fort Brown in the early stages of the war, was ordered to the relief of the cavalry. He advanced and loading his guns with grape-shot poured one volley into the enemy's ranks. They wavered for a moment and then charged. Again the grape poured in among them, cutting them down like grass before the sickle. Still the ranks closed up with new men and the advance continued. " A little more grape. Captain Bragg," said General Taylor, coolly, as for the third time the Mexicans advanced. That "little more" was too much for the enemy. Their ranks were broken and dispersed, and from that moment victory was with the Americans. Santa Anna fell back, leaving his dead and wounded behind liim. He could not recover his army sufficiently to make another attack, and soon retreated, leaving Taylor and his allies, Worth and Wool, covered with glory. This was the last battle of Taylor's campaign in Mexico. Scott was already advancing on the capital, and with his movements we must now occupy ourselves. Taylor, feeling that his work was done, returned home, to hear his name sounded as the " hero of Monterey and Buena Vista."
After Kearney's army had entered Santa F^, one division of it was at once sent off to join General Wool, who everybody supposed had gone, according to directions, to the province of Chihuahua lying directly south of New Mexico. This division, of eight hun- dred men was given to Colonel Doniphan of St. Louis. It was composed of men who were used to long marches, for they had already traveled from Leavenwoi'th to Santa F^, a march of nine hundred miles. In coming from the north they kept in the rear of the high mountains which had barred Wool's progress from the east and caused him to make his detour to the south to join Taylor. They found instead a barren waste, often without roads or any land- marks by which the way could be tracked. To set out thus into
SCOTT'S MARCH TO MEXICO. 389
the heart of an enemy's country, with so small a force, required sound judgment and clear common sense, as much as bravery. Doniphan led his men to Chihuahua, the State where once flour- ished the richest mining of Mexico. From these almost inex- haustible veins of ore, the race of Montezuma had drawn the rich metal which decorated their palaces when Cortez came there a conqueror. Still later, the Spaniards had compelled the natives to work the mines, and for a century flooded Spain with their sup- plies of treasure. When Doniphan entered the province with his men, it contained only scattered villages of miserable houses, with inhabitants without energy or enterprise.
He did not reach the capital of Chihuahua altogether without opposition, since the Mexican had several times given battle. Once as his men were gathering wood for their camp fires, the enemy came upon them, but fled at the first attack from the Americans. Again, in crossing the Sacramento, a small tributary of the Rio Grande, the passage was hotly contested, and more than a hundred Mexicans were killed there.
When Doniphan reached Chihuahua he learned that Wool had not been there, but had gone instead to Satillo. He immediately followed, and reached that place to find the battle of Buena Vista fought and won, Taylor's campaign ended, and the old hero prepar- ing to go home. There was nothing for Colonel Doniphan's soldiers to do but march quickly to the Rio Grande, where they took ship for New Orleans, and were there mustered out of service. So ended one of the longest marches in history. In one year this corps com- manded by Doniphan had marched 5,000 miles, over a country of which the geography was almost unknown.
CHAPTER XXH.
SCOTT'S MARCH TO MEXICO.
The Fortress of San Juan D'Ulloa. — Vera Cruz. — The Road to the Mexico. — Cerro Gordo or "BigHill."— The Ascent of the Hill. — In the Cordilleras. —The Defenses of Mexico. — The Hill at Contreras. — The Bridge at Churubusco.— The King's Mill. — Grasshopper Hill. — School-boys' Defense of their Academy. —Entry into Mexico. — End of Wai-.
The town of Vera Cruz in Mexico was accounted one of the strongest places in all the republic of the south. It was a well built city, lying on the shores of the Gulf, just where it curves deep-
390
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Gall'jtqcv Beef
F'" SanJiwn oe I/lwa
W"
Intrenchments at Vera Cruz.
est into the land, and was protected by the famous fortress of San Juan D'Ulloa, now more than two hundred and fifty years old. This old castle was situated on a bar half a mile from the city, with
guns pointing from every side, threat- ening to sweep any fleet out of the water that should venture within can- non range. Vera Cruz also had guns mounted at every assailable point, and flattered herself that she could not be taken by any enemy. It was in front of this city and castle that General Scott with his grand "Army of Invasion " sat down for a siege in March, 1847. Scott had been joined by Generals Twiggs, Pillow, and Quitman, with their divisions. They had been part of General Taylor's army and were sent in answer to the demand for troops. After Buena Vista, General Worth also joined Scott, whose forces now numbered about 12,000.
These troops had been landed on a barren coast, covered with hillocks of sand, three miles below the city. There, amid terrific gales called " northers," not unlike the simoons of the desert, the soldiers worked day and night on their trenches, getting ready to bombard the city. So fierce were these " northers," that a man lying down to rest would in a few minutes be covered out of sight by heaped up sand, and the hillocks were constantly shifting their places under the influence of the wind. In spite of difficulties the trenches were made, batteries planted, and the cannon began its assault on town and castle. Roar answered roar, till the ear grew deaf in listening to these thunder peals, while flash and smoke blinded the eyes, and filled the whole air with alternate light and darkness. For nine days this bombardment continued, till the governor of Vera Cruz sent out offers to surrender. Both town and castle gave up, and on the 29th of March Scott entered Vera Cruz in person, and sent a garrison to hold the castle. The greatest stronghold on the gulf coast was in possession of the Americans.
The plan of the commander-in-chief had for its principal aim the capture of the city of Mexico, the capital of the republic. This was the ancient city into which Cortez had ridden in the pride of conquest. It was the ancient seat of the Aztecs, the site of the palaces of the Montezumas, one of the oldest cities on this conti-
SCOTT'S MARCH TO MEXICO. 391
nent. It was built in a beautiful plain lying in the midst of the Cordilleras Mountains, and watered by the streams from its sides. These mountain courses had formed numer- ous lakes, which gemmed the plain with their clear blue waters, making the contrast with the bright greenness of the plain one of remarkable beauty. In the middle of this plain lay the capital city, the pride of all Mexico.
The road thither from Vera Cruz, through which Scott prepared to march, wound among rugged and steep mountains. Be- tween the two cities lay the heights of Cerro ^""^^^' 2=°"- Gordo (where Santa Anna now lurked with his army), the strong fortress of Perote, the walled town of Puebla, all prepared to re- sist invasion. At the end of this perilous way was Mexico, every point guarded and double guarded against the expected attack.
Cerro Gordo was the nearest point that opposed Scott's advance. Cerro Gordo, which means " big hill," was a height one thousand feet above the plain, from which the road ascended over the mount- ain-spur of the Cordilleras. Over this road Scott meant to pass, and right in his way stood the stony castle of Cerro Gordo, which crowned the tojmiost point of the hill, while all about was battery upon battery held by Santa Anna and his army of fifteen thousand.
To advance in the face of such a fire as would meet the troops from that castle and the mountain slopes around, was more than madness. Scott did not propose to lead his soldiers into the jaws of death. He ordered instead that a new road should be cut in the rear, creeping up behind the enemy toward the key to the position, the castle of Cerro Gordo. For three days, as silently and surely as ants and moles dig in the earth, the men worked, without being discovered by the enemy. Then it was too late to stop them. They already commanded a position which overlooked all but the castle. All night on the night of the 17th of April Twiggs's divis- ion were slowly and painfully dragging the guns of their battery up this height. When all was done they sank exhausted on the ground to catch a brief slumber before the battle.
At day-break on the 18th they were all up and stirring. Twiggs's division on the left, Pillow in front, they march on the enemy. Up the very face of the steep — so steep that the soldiers clutch at twigs
392 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and bushes to aid their ascent — chmb Colonel Harney and his regiment to storm the fortress on the top. The enemy's gmis belch fire and smoke in their faces. The front rank, wounded and dead, fall and roll back down the hill, under the feet of their advancing comrades. The ranks fill up and press on without wavering, till the height is gained. They enter the works, pull down the flag of green, white, and red, and the " red, white, and blue " is hoisted in its place. The day is over, and the second stronghold between the Gulf and Mexico is in the hands of our army.
Santa Anna and his army fled beyond pursuit. They did not wait to defend Perote or Puebla, but went on to Mexico without delay. The last of April Worth entered Perote and captured im- mense stores of arms and ammunition. With hardly a breath of re- sistance he rode into Puebla. By the middle of May every strong point except Mexico was occupied, and General Scott waited to re- fresh himself in the pleasant old city of Puebla before his final attack, which would end his campaign in Mexico.
Scott was in Puebla in August. He was not wasting his time here in inglorious ease, but stayed, endeavoring to patch up his broken army, in which disease and death had made such havoc that the regiments were mere skeletons, and the great army had dwindled to 5,000 able men. All the road was marked by hospitals, where the sick were left with little hope of recovery. Something in this air, clear and pure as it seemed, among mountain tops, was fatal to American constitutions.
In August, the army — General Twiggs in advance — left Puebla. Reinforcements under General Franklin Pierce and Gen- eral Cadwallader had arrived from Vera Cruz, and with an army swelled to nearly 11,000, Scott decided to advance. On the fourth day of the month they reached the highest point of the mountain road leading to their goal ; looking down the slope they saw at their feet the beautiful plain of Mexico gemmed with silver, sparkling lakes, and bright green fields, while in the centre, like a pearl in its setting, lay the famous city of Mexico.
On the 18th of August Scott encamped with General Worth's corps at San Augustine, a village nine miles from the walls of Mexico. Twiggs, Pillow, and Quitman, with their divisions, were in the vicinity. The final struggle was close at hand. In front of our army, five miles away, the camp of General Valencia with his 6,000 men, the very flower of the Mexican soldiery, whitened
* SCOTT'S MARCH TO MEXICO. 393
the hill-sides of Contreras. The crest of the hill was black with a battery of twenty-two great guns. Still nearer the city, on one of the main avenues of approach, was the hamlet of Churubusco, lying on a little stream which bore the same name. Across this stream was a bridge flanked with cannon. A line of guns ran from the bridge's head to an old gray convent-church, now turned into a cit- adel, mounting guns at every available loop-hole. Between these three guarded points were great beds of lava, with sharp and jag- ged points, making a march of soldiery over it next to impossible. Inside this triangle of fortifications was Santa Anna, with his main army, 12,000 strong. Such were the obstacles which must be overcome in the first advance towards Mexico. To take the hill and battery at Contreras, carry the bridge and hamlet at Churu- busco, force Santa Anna to fall back nearer the city, was plainly the thing to be done before our army could control the main road to Mexico.
The night of the 19th of August was planned for the attack on Contreras. It was a di'eary night, a cold rain drenching the officers, and men, who lay without shelter, too tired to cook their suppers, and too wet to sleep. Lying hid behind some temporary intrench- ments, built to screen themselves from the enemy, they waited the approach of day. In the first gray of the morning, a part of Twiggs's army, led by General Persifer Smith, crept stealthily into a ravine which partly encircled Contreras. Their approach was so quiet, and conducted so secretly, that they made half the circuit of the hill, climbed the slope, and were in the rear of the Mexicans, in a position almost between the main post of their army and the bat- teries, before they were seen. In fifteen minutes from the time they were discovered, they had taken the guns, broken the ranks of the enemy, and were following them down the hill in hot pursuit to- wards Mexico. They did not give up the chase until they heard the roar of guns at Churubusco, where Worth's corps was already storming the bridge's head. Then they turned to mingle in this new tide of battle, steadily advancing towards the walls of the city.
Worth was fighting gallantly at the bridge. Twiggs ordered his men to storm the church, a strong building, and capable of making a gallant defense. In the rear of the church, on the open field, sev- eral thousand of Santa Anna's men were engaged with the brigades of Pierce and Shields. Thus three battles were raging at once in three different points about the doomed village. Two hours and a
394 THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY*
half of this fierce contest, and a great shout proclamied that the bridge had given way, and Worth's troops were rushing over vic- torious. Half an hour more and the white flag of surrender flut- tered from the convent walls. Still a little later, and the corps of Shields were pursuing the Mexicans along the road to the city. The impulsive Captain Philip Kearney, his left arm hanging wounded at his side, followed so close at the enemy's heels that he only reined up his horse at the very gates of Mexico, and was obliged to ride back again to rejoin his corps. When the sun set on the evening of the 20th of August, Contreras and Churubusco were both in possession of the Americans.
The day after these victories Scott advanced to Tacubaya, only two miles and a half from the city. A messenger met him, bearing a flag from Santa Anna, who had retreated behind the city walls. He asked an armistice, or cessation of fighting, for a short time, while an American commissioner, who had arrived from Washing- ton, might talk with the Mexican government about peace. Scott waited till the 7th of September, and then believing that Santa Anna had no real intention of making peace, but was strengthen- ing himself with a view to further hostilities, he declared the armis- tice over, and proceeded to remove the last obstacles to his entrance into Mexico.
The main barrier now was the heights of Chapultepec, or " Grass- hopper Hill," a rocky precipice, on which was the military college of Mexico, now turned into a fortress, very strong and formidable. At the foot of these heights, about two thirds of a mile from Scott's camp, were two stone buildings, well guarded. The most important of these was Molino del Rey, which means " The king's mill." It was filled with arms and supplies of war, and a strong force rested there. A quarter of a mile distant in a straight line, was the Cas;i de Mata, another stone building also occupied by the Mexicans , while between the two buildings and connecting them, were sta- tioned heavy batteries. This strongly fortified line guarded the foot of Chapultepec.
Three o'clock in the morning of the 8th of September, the twi- light not yet gray in the east, the troops were marching to attack this line. Their orders were to attack and capture the two build- ings and the batteries, destroy all stores found in the strongholds, and then fall back to their encampment. Chapultepec was not to be stormed that day.
SCOTT'S MARCH TO MEXICO. 395
The army had learned to obey orders literally. During the whole war to plan the capture of a fortification, had been only followed by the execution of the plan. The men had grown to believe that vic- tory was always with their army, and this belief no doubt aided to success. The battle of Molino del Rey was no exception. The King's Mill was taken and sacked. Casa de Mata also was taken, and before evening the cannon of the enemy's batteries enriclied Scott's camp at Tacubaya. Only the fortress crowned heights of Chapultepec remained.
Chapultepec, as I said before, was a rocky hill, one hundred and fifty feet high. On three sides it was a rocky precipice, too steep to climb. On the west it sloped more gradually to the plain, and was quite thickly wooded. A stone wall surrounded its base, and a splendid building with domed roof, over which could be seen fly- ing the tri-color of Mexico, surmounted it. It remained now the forlorn hope of the Mexicans. After this, nothing but the city walls could oppose the victorious course of their enemies.
All night, on the 11th of September, the Americans were engaged in planting batteries at the point from which they would do most damage to the fortress. All next day these batteries rained shot and shell on the roof, the battlements, the walls of the beautiful building. At night, when the firing stopped, many a ragged aperture in roof and side showed how sure had been the destructive work of the guns.
The next day Scott decided to storm the heights. Two cohunns, one under Pillow, the other commanded by Quitman, were to ap- proach from points as widely diverging as the ascent would admit. They were each led by an advance of two hundred and fifty men, furnished with ladders to scale the walls of the building.
Up they go, straight up the heights, in the very mouths of the cannon. Pillow falls wounded at the head of his column. " Take me up," he begs his soldiers, " that I may be in at the victory." His soldiers carry him up, still under the terrible fire. They gain the top of the heights, the ladders are thrown against the walls. The men scramble over, pell-mell, and meet the Mexicans hand to hand, inside the building. Among its defenders are a hundred boys, from ten to twenty years old, the students of the military school, fighting like lions to defend the walls, which only a little while be- fore had been the scene of peaceful study, or of mock battle. " They were pretty little fellows, and fought gallantly," says one of our own officers, who was there that day. " Pretty little fellows ! " I am
396 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
sad when I think of thek faces dabbled with blood, or convulsed with the agony of a gunshot wound, or when I think of the mothers whose sons, hardly more than babies, were in that cruel fight. Soon the waiting army below gives a great shout, as they see the stars and stripes go up over the dome in token of victory ; and thus the last battle of the Mexican War is ended.
That night Santa Anna fled, with the government and all the ofiicers of the republic. Next morning, before day-break, the city officers waited upon Scott to tell him there need be no more slaughter. The city was his. By seven o'clock on that morning, the 14th of September, 1847, General Scott, followed by his army, rode into the grand square of the city. Once more Mexico was conquered. From their first entrance into the republic, our soldiers had carried everything before them. A succession of victories marked their course from the Rio Grande.
The Mexicans were glad to accept peace on our own terms. By February 2, 1848, the two nations signed a treaty by which we gained an undisputed right to Texas and the new Territories of Cal- ifornia and New Mexico. For almost one hundred years the United States has been a nation. The Mexican War is the first and only war which she has waged to extend her borders. Let us hope in the name of humanity that it may be the last.
While we were fighting the Mexicans, we settled peacefully a dispute with Great Britain which might have led to another war, if we had not been amicably disposed towards her. The dispute was about our northern boundary line in Oregon. The United States had claimed that its Territory of Oregon extended north to the fifty- fourth degree of latitude. You will see by looking on the map that this brought in a good slice of what is now the British possessions. In 1846, just as the Mexican War began, we signed an agreement to take the forty-ninth degree of latitude for our boundary line, and so the matter ended.
The last event of Polk's administration was the admission of the thirtieth State into the Union. This was Wisconsin, which had been growing in population ever since it had been made a Territory twelve years before.
Already the presidential election was at hand. Polk's work was over. His administration had seen the war begun and finished, and the president in whose time it was all accomplished, went quietly into retirement, and, like most other presidents, sank into the obscu- rity in which the life of any private citizen is passed.
THE NEW ELDORADO.
397
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE NEW ELDORADO.
Creneral Taylor made President- — Gold in California. — The Gold Fever. — Death of Taylor. — Fillmore succeeds him. — Election of Franklin Pierce.
The Whigs who had failed by Harrison's death to get the gov- ernment into their hands, and who had been the party out of power for so many years, looked about carefully for a man to represent them in the election of 1848, who would be sure to get votes enough to make him president. General Zachary Taylor seemed to be the man. He was honest and sincere. He was covered with glory Avon in the recent war. The soldiers he had led to victory would all vote for " Old Rough and Ready," and this name given him in the Mexican War was the catch-word of the new political campaign. It helped no doubt to elect him, for a man's popularity is often greatly aided by some familiar title, which brings him closer to the hearts of the people. Amid the great joy of the Whigs, Taylor began his political government as twelfth president of the United States.
When California was joined to our territory, nobody supposed we had made a very valuable ac- quisition. To be sure she had a fine strip of the Pacific coast, with several good harbors, and inter- secting the mountains she had numerous fertile val- leys offering good farming lands. But the prospect of settlement there seemed remote, and likely to be the work of years. In February, 1848, however, the very month
398
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
in which Mexico and the United States signed their treaty, an event took place which gave an impulse to emigration to the Pacific, and made California an important State. An American resident of California named Captain Sutter, who had a great " ranch e " — as the California settlers called their farms — in the Sacramento Valley, sent a man up the river to run a mill built upon its banks. In the sands of the region where he was at work, this man discov- ered some glittering yellow particles. It occurred to him that it might be gold that shone so in the sunshine, and he was curious enough about it to submit it to the test. It turned out to be pure gold, and from that hour the fortune of California was made. You
San Francisco in 1849.
can hardly imagine the excitement that followed this discovery. People from every part of the United States, from England, France, Germany, even from the unsocial continent of Asia, were landed, ship-load after ship-load, vipon the coast of California. In 1849 the little Spanish settlement of San Francisco, with its scattering adobe houses and its old mission church, became a swarming city of tents, wooden shanties, and unpainted hotels, all filled to overflowing with new-comers to the land of gold, the new "Eldorado." The whole surface of the country for miles and miles around where gold was first found, was torn up by the eager seekers after wealth. Gold- dust was used in place of. coined money, and prices were so enor-
Scenery In California — Yosemite Falls.
Hi
THE NEW ELDORADO.
401
mous that they sound like fables. Men left their homes and families in the East to seek their fortunes here. The greater part failed in their search, or if they found wealth, found it in other ways than digging for it in the earth. The whole story of this 'California "gold fever," is a sad, sad story of disappointment and failure to thousands. But it served to populate a new State, and open up a trade on the Pacific coast, which has since led to the building of a railroad across this continent, and a commerce with the East, such as Columbus had in view when he started from Palos to find the new route to the Indies. Gold mining in California became an organized form of labor, and is now a feature of the State.
In 1849 California asked to be admitted into the Union. The following year her petition was granted. One of the two senators sent first to Congress from the young State, was John Charles Fre- mont, now a large land-holder in the territory he had first declared
Mining in California.
a part of the United States. California was not admitted without a terrible struggle. She had decided to come in as a State without slaves, and the Southern States did not like that. I am going shortly to tell you the whole story of slavery, so I will not now go into detail about the California dispute.
In the midst of it all. President Taylor, on whom the hopes of those opposed to slavery were set, suddenly died, m July, 1850. Like Harrison, he had lived hardly long enough to show what he
402
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
would have done as president. His vice-president, Millard Fillmore, succeeded him.
Nothing very remarkable happened during the three years in which Fillmore administered the government. We were a great
and prosperous nation, all the time growing stronger, and taking a more assured place among the nations of the earth. In 1853, when Fillmore's term of office expired, General Franklin Pierce, one of the officers who had figured in the Mexican War, and been wounded at Churubusco, was elected president. I have told you from time to time how the North and South, at first represented by Massachu- setts and Virginia, had been growing farther and farther apart, and that the difference in their institutions, and especially their different views on the subject of slavery, had been growing more and more intense. At this time the slave power had grown to be the strongest power in the nation, and was able to elect whomsoever it chose to the presidency. So far the largest proportion of presidents had been from the South. Of the eleven men already elected to that office, six had been born in Virginia, and two in North Carolina.
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 403
The other three had been from Massachusetts and New York. As FiUmore's rule drew to a close it was thought politic to select a Northern man for the next candidate. The Democratic party, who now represented the slave power of the South, chose Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire as the man to receive their votes, and he was elected and installed president in March, 1853. In his administra- tion the first blood in an arising civil conflict was shed on the plains of a new Territory called Kansas. In order that we may fully understand the meaning and cause of this war, I must ask you to read the chapters which follow on the history of slavery in our coun- try. Without them you cannot understand fully the history of the War for the Union.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SLAVERY IN UNITED STATES.
Beginning of African Slavery. — First Triumph of Slavery in Georgia. — The North and South. — Washington's Letter to Lafa3'ette. — Slavery in the Constitution. — The Slave- trade. — Turner's "Slave-ship." — Disputes about Slavery. — Chattel Votes. — California wants to be a Free State. — Anger of the South.
When that Dutch trading ship of which I told you early in this history anchored in Jamestown harbor, and sold twenty slaves to the planters there, she sowed the seeds of a terrible harvest in America. It had been better for our dear country and for the civil- ized world, if that ship had sunk to the bottom with every man on board her, if by that shipwreck slavery could have been kept out of this fair, new land. But remember, we needed hands to labor in this country more than anything else. England could not furnish them fast enough, when all at once this little company of blacks from Africa, naked, uncivilized savages, with robust frames formed to endure torrid heats, in short, just the people needed to hoe the newly planted tobacco fields of Virginia, were offered for sale on the shore.
" They will be much better off on my plantation," reasoned the planter, "with plenty to eat and drink, a snug little cabin to sleep in by night, and all the privileges of a Christian land, than when roaming in the uncivilized wilds of Africa, living and dying like beasts."
This was good reasoning on the surface, and the generous and
404 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
kind-hearted Virginian believed in what he said. But these Africans, black and degraded, were human beings still. And Nat- ure has one inexorable law which cannot be disputed. It is this : You cannot give one human being unlimited poiver over another^ no matter how much inferior^ without its resulting in the moral degra- dation of the master, and the unjust oppression of the subject. It you do not believe this, read the history of the world and see if this stafement is not everywhere proved.
Human slavery has been practiced, more or less, ever since the world began. Savage and semi-civilized nations often made slaves of their prisoners taken in war, as you have seen John Smith, made prisoner in war with the Turks, working in Tartary with an iron collar round his neck as a badge of servitude. The Romans held slaves, and so did the Greeks, and there seems to have been no feel- ing among them that the enslaving of men and women was not a just and right practice. In the ancient history of the Jews, related in the Old Testament, that people were made slaves by the Egypt- ians ; and you have read the interesting story of their captivity and their deliverance by that grand hero of his race, the lawgiver Moses ; and your blood has been thrilled when you read how the escaping Israelites passed over the Red Sea between the mighty wall of waters which held back till the rejoicing host passed over. In this case the slaveholders were a black and the slaves a white race. In America this order was reversed, and the enslaved races were blacker than the Egyptians. For a long time the color of the enslaved race was urged as an excuse for their being held in bond- age. But in the better light of to-day, you and I know that is no excuse at all. We know that the noble words of our Constitution, which says all men are free and equal, applies to all human beings on our country's soil, and that every man has a right to himself, his liberty, his wife and babies, whether he be black, or white, or yel- low, or copper colored. But we had a severe experience, almost as bitter as that of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, before we let our bond- men and bond- women go out into freedom.
I told you that when Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia
in 1732, he forbid slavery there. The institution was then one
-hundred and twelve years old in Virginia, and the planters of that
State and the Carolinas, accomplished their field labor by the hands
of slaves. The fields of Georgia were as hot as those of South Car-
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 40o
olina, and the white laborers and planters clamored loudly for slaves there, saying they were no better able to work under the torrid heat of the sun than their South Carolina neighbors. They abused Oglethorpe bitterly, and a party of the disaffected planters went to Virginia and wrote angry letters to England about him. They vil- ified good John Wesley, who was in Georgia, also opposing slavery with all his might and main, and called him vile names, even charg- ing him with being a "' hypocrite " in religion. All this because they could not get slavery. As soon as Oglethorpe's charter ex- pired, and George II. took command of Georgia as a royal province, they introduced slavery at once. So the slave-power celebrated its first triumph in Georgia.
As there were no state laws against it, slavery at first crept into all the thirteen colonies, and the ebony-faced African " mammy," her head crowned with a bright turban, made of a many-colored handkerchief, nursed her wliite charges in Massachusetts and Con- necticut as well as Virginia. But one after another of the New England and Middle States began to pass laws abolishing it. Mas- sachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, emancipated their slaves. Pennsylvania — where the good Quakers always set their faces against owning human beings — freed her bond-children gradually. So did New York and New Jersey. Gradually the States with slavery began to be known as the "• South," the free States as the " North."
Vermont had passed laws against slavery in 1777, long before she was admitted into the Union. A man came before a Vermont judge in these early days to claim a negro as his property. He produced a bill of sale from the former owner of the slave to prove his right to the man. " The court cannot admit this as evidence," said the judge. "Nothing but a bill of sale from the Almighty can be admitted as proof of this man's ownership to this other man." This anecdote marks the feeling in Vermont.
Before the year 1804, seven out of the thirteen original colonies would not have slavery at any price. The six colonies who retained it were Virginia, the two Carolinas, Maryland, Delaware, and Georgia. In Virginia, the feeling among the best men against the institution was as strong as in Massachusetts. Washington hated slavery, although he owned slaves and had them on his plantation. He said earnestl}", " There is not a man living who desires to see a plan adopted for its abolition more sincerely than I." He wrote to
406 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
his beloved Lafayette : " The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so conspicuous upon all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proof of it ; but your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipate the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself in the minds of the people of this country ! But I despair of seeing it. Some petitions were presented to the assembly at its last session, for the abolition of slavery, but they could scarcely obtain a reading."
Jefferson, adored by his slaves at Monticello, opposed the institu- tion which made them his property. " I tremble for my country," he said mournfully, speaking of this foul blot on freedom, " when I reflect that God is just.'" I might quote a whole book of such pro- tests against slavery by the fathers of our republic. Unfortunately for their success in arousing the consciences of their neighbors, it was profitable to have slave labor, or rather, it seemed to he profit- able. It is possible if it had seemed equally so in New England and the Middle States, they might haVe held slaves to this day, in spite of the protests of their best men. Thank God that the sterile soil of New England offered no spot rich enough for this dragon of slavery to fatten on.
When the convention met to form the Constitution, the contest about slavery at once began. " Touch our slaves," said Georgia and the Carolinas, " and we shall not join the Union." So although Washington, Franklin, Jay, Hamilton, and many other members opposed slavery, the Union was formed with it.
Have you ever read anything about the African slave-trade ? If you like stories of horror, you can feed on them in reading the ac- counts of the voyages of ships loaded with slaves brought to be sold in the markets of this country, for twenty years after it was a na- tion. In the holds of these ships, chained together in gangs, the poor blacks, stolen from their native country, were packed so closely that they died by scores from suffocation and want of air. Some- times, from the sufferings they endured, terrible pestilences broke out among them, and often the dying as well as the dead were hurled, chained together, into the ocean. Sometimes the poor wretches, brought on deck for a brief space to breathe a few mouth- fuls of God's free air, staggered together to the ship's side, and leaped into the waves, choosing rather to die so than bear longer the great misery of life.
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 407
There is a famous picture by the English artist, Turner, of a slave- ship, which has just passed through a terrible tempest at sea. In order to lighten the vessel and save the crew, the captain has thrown overboard his living cargo of these unhappy Africans. The lurid glow, which the storm has left behind, lights up the picture with an unearthly radiance, and in the foreground a black arm, on which hangs the manacles of the slave, is thrust upward from the depths, appealing mutely to Heaven against this wholesale murder. So for a century nearly, manacled hands were raised to Heaven from our country, in mute appeals for its justice.
When you have read more about the horrors of the slave-trade, you will be more shocked by what I am obliged to relate about the convention which formed our Constitution. Although they had con- sented to let slavery alone in the States where it existed, and had even recognized its existence in a faint way in the Constitution, nearly all of the States intended to abolish at once the trade in slaves. England had done so, and was heartily ashamed of having had any ships engaged in it. All the States here, which had abol- ished slavery, hated this wicked commerce in human beings. Vir- ginia, Maryland, and Delaware, wanted to get rid of it as much as Massachusetts. But South Carolina and Georgia held out. " If we cannot import slaves as- fast as we want them under this new gov- ernment, we will stay out of it," said they. " We do not much desire a general government. We believe in ' state rights.' But if you want us to come into your new Union, let our slave-trade alone." Well, they talked it over and over, and the end was, we bargained with them to abolish the slave-trade in 1808, twenty years after this nation was formed. And all those years the republic founded on the principles of freedom, with liberty for a watchword, had to endure the scoffs and jeers of European nations, at keeping np a trade that was abhorred by all civilized countries.
I cannot tell you, because it would take too long, how, step by step, this slave-power made itself the chief power ; how it controlled people's consciences, and made itself a stronghold, which hardly any- body dared attack ; how the South, at first ashamed of it, began to defend it and say it was good for humanity and the nation ; how ministers preached in favor of holding men in bondage, and went to the grand old Bible, and twisted its utterances into apologies for slavery. All the time growing stronger, the slave-power elected the majority to Congi-ess ; it elected the presidents, and it added year by year new States to its great area of slave labor.
408 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
When Mr. Jefferson bought Louisiana of France, it contained ah-eady 40,000 slaves, and furnished so much more slave territory. When, in 1820, Missouri, ready to be made into a State, asked to come inside the Union, she could not come in except as a slave State. But by this time a few strong men were aroused to the danger. They saw that one might as well live under a despot of Asia, the heads of whose subjects fall at his nod, as under the rule of a power so despotic as this slave power. So they argued, and protested, and reasoned, on the floor of Congress, till the " Missouri Compromise " was passed. That compromise said, " Let Missouri come in as a slave State, and hereafter, no State west of her borders and north of the line of 36° 30' north latitude, shall have slavery.
You will wonder, perhaps, how the Southern States, which I have told you were more sparsely settled than the North, could have so often outvoted the States without slaves. I forgot to tell you that the slave-holders, in the time of the framing of the Constitution, had devised a shrewd way to greaten their votes. They gained the right to count three votes for every jive slaves they held ; so that a man with one hundred slaves could count as many votes as a New Eng- land village with sixty freemen ; and a district largely peopled by slaves sent as many representatives to Congress as an intelligent community of Northern citizens. In this way a very few Southern men, of large property, held all power in their hands, and always elected some one to serve them in Congress. These slaves, whom they now called " chattels," and claimed to be property, as much as the barrels and bales in the warehouse of a New York merchant, they used to vote with. But what if the New York merchant had claimed to vote with barrels and bales ? How then ?
So the country went on. The North never liked slavery. The South, always inclined to " state rights," you remember, grew more and more in favor of state rights. The North, always Federalists, believed more and more in union, and made all kinds of sacri- fices to keep the South amiable and contented in union. When South Carolina tried to secede in Jackson's time, the North glori- fied Jackson for holding together the bond which had knit the thirteen States into one. " The tariff was only a pretext," said Jackson, speaking of S^uth Carolina's attempt to go out of the Union. " The next \yiI\ oe Sla><3ry, ov the Negro question." Long-headed "■ Old Hickory " saw deeper than most men of his day.
EFFECTS OF SLAVEKY. 405:*
Next the nation, or rather the South, made the Mexican War to annex Texas, and that gave more slave territory, and more votes in Congress for that part of the nation. The North tried to prevent this war, but it came in spite of its efforts. Then Mexico tried to put a clause in her treaty of peace, providing that as the lands she yielded the United States had been previously free, they should not be made slave States. The blood of the great slave- dragon was up at this ; fire blew from his nostrils. One of its emissaries answered Mexico's mild appeal for freedom thus : " If you offered the territory ten times increased in value, covered a foot thick with gold, on the condition of leaving out slavery, I would not entertain the idea." So dear had slavery become to its worshipers !
California was a part of the territory thus alluded to. They would not take it from Mexico " covered a foot deep with gold," if they had to leave slavery out ! How do you think they felt when the Americans in California came together, made a government, voted that they would not have slavery, and asked to come \nfree ? There was another battle in Congress, the hottest yet. The South threatened again to leave the Union. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster worked harder than they had worked in the days of the Nullifiers, to make the South hear reason and finally Henry Clay — who was a great man for devising " compromise bills," or bills which generally gave a good deal to slavery, and a little to freedom, that the two opposites could be coaxed to running along smoothly together, side by side for a while longer — came in with a new com- promise remedy, and our glorious Union was saved again.
In the mean time was the South really any better off for slavery ?
Let us look and see.
CHAPTER XXV.
EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.
i*>xtravagance of the Tobacco Planter. — Poor Whites. — Black House-servants. — Cotton
Plantations. — Three Classes in the South.
In that tour that we made through the American colonies just before the Revolutionary War, I hinted to you that the rich tobacco planter of Virginia was spending his money too fast. He was bringing over his luxuries from Europe, sending his sons abroad to
410 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
be educated, driving about in his big four-wheeled yellow coach, with four horses, or riding on horseback, hunting, fishing, visiting his dis- tant neighbors, while every year his negroes put another crop of to- bacco into the rich land, gathered the harvest, packed it in hogsheads, and loaded it in ships for the foreign markets. But it is a fact in farming, which even you and I are farmers enough to understand, that you cannot plant the same crop year after year on the same soil, without making the land poorer and poorer. It is like always taking something out of a vessel, and putting nothing in. At last the vessel must get empty. Just so empty had Virginia soil grown with slave-labor, for this last hundred years.
Another misfortune had been wrought by leaving the work to be (tone by the Africans. It had made labor disreputable in Virginia, and all over the South. Now, ever since God said to Adam, " Thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow," whenever a man has tried to escape from the divine command, and has made up his mind to live in absolute idleness, it has generally made a ver}^ mis- erable human being of him. In the South, there were a large class of white people, not rich enough to live decently without work, yet disdaining work, because it placed them on the level with negroes, or as they pronounced it, " niggahs." So they lived a wretched, thriftless existence, the most abject and hopeless looking class of people the sun ever shone upon in a civilized land. They were called "poor whites," or "mean whites." The rich whites looked down on them ; the negroes with wealthy owners despised them ; they were ignorant to a degree almost incredible in a free country like ours ; and in a word, they were a class which never could have existed in a community where honest labor was respected as it ought to be. In Georgia, a class of these " poor whites " were called "clay-eaters," because — probably to appease the pangs of hunger which gnawed their stomachs — they had contracted the habit of eating a kind of yellow earth. This clay distended their abdomens and turned them ghastly yellow in complexion, making them look like ghosts of the unburied dead. By the superior race which ruled them, and accepted their votes for office, these poor whites of the South were looked upon with undisguised contempt.
The Southern slave, originally imported from the torrid clime of Africa, was not by nature or habit a vigorous or thrifty laborer. When a human being works year after year without any hope of being paid for his labor, it will not add to his industry. The black
EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.
411
slave did not love work, and it often had to be coaxed out of him by the lash. The plantation he worked was not like the farms of the North, with barns, fences, and fields in trim condition, the bars up to keep the cattle out, the crops gathered in season, and everything speaking thrift and neatness. Instead, the whole land showed signs of universal neglect and decay. The planter's house, filled with "house-slaves," was very unlike the " Yankee" farm- house, where everything was in perfect order. I have known a Virginia house with ten or fifteen droning servants, where not half the amount of work was done that was accomplished in a Yankee kitchen with only the skillful housewife and her daughters to keep the domestic wheels running smoothly. Every year the Virginia dwelling fell more and more into disrepair, the fences loose, gates off the hinges, a dreadful clutter on the broad hospitable porch, windows that shook in the breezes, shutters that would not fasten, worn-out furniture, bad domestic management, uncleanness, — these were what marked many of the fair plantations of Virginia.
By the time slavery had become an institution over two hundred years old, Virginia could no longer depend on the tobacco product of her worn-out lands. She raised tobacco and some other commodities,
Picking Cotton.
but she depended principally on her crop of slaves. She raised negroes for South Carolina and Georgia, now great cotton-raising States. The cotton crop of Eliza Lucas, planted in 1740, had be- come a great harvest, whitening the fields of Carolina, and loading myriad ships with its produce. Between the rows of the cotton plant, picking the snowy flakes from bursting pods, black men and
412
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
women filled basket after basket, filling also the pockets of their owners with their unpaid labor. Still farther south, the great swampy plains, planted with rice and sugar-cane, swarmed with black labor, furnished by the slave markets of Virginia.
This is the South of 1850 hastily glanced at. Keep in mind its three classes. First, the slave-holder, sometimes rich, but often in debt and embarrassed by improvident living and bad management ;
Sugar-cane.
autocratic, and overbearing with inferiors ; courteous and generous with his equals ; very swift to quarrel, and apt to Relieve a differ- ence of opinion between gentlemen best settled by the duel ; rash, haughty, gallant to ladies, ready to empty his purse for his friend ; — such was the type of a Southern gentleman of the time. If I add, that he hated all "Yankees " — as he called every one born in the North, especially those of New England, — you would have a still more complete idea of the man.
Next, the unpaid, black laborers ; often devoted to their masters, on whose lands they had been born; often also brooding over a vague idea of freedom, of which they had heard as something uni- versal in the far off North ; a people with much that was loyal, patient, and poetical in their natures, mixed with much ignorance and native stupidity.
Last, and lowest of all, the ignorant, idle, demoralized " poor whites." These classes were the elements which made the slave States.
A NEW PARTY. 413
CHAPTER XXVI.
A NEW PARTY.
The First Abolitionist. — A Mob iu Boston. — Shooting of Lovejoy. — The Cradle of Liberty. — A Quaker Poet. — Arguments on both Sides. — Gunpowder and Cold Steel.
In the mean time, for twenty-five years dating back from the year 1850, there had been a new party growing up in the North. They were known as " Abolitionists," and considering their size and num- bers they made a good deal of noise. One of the first of these Aboli- tionists was Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker in Pennsylvania. How it ever occurred to him that it was a bad thing to raise human beings for market, sell them like oxen, put them to work, and pocket their wages, I do not know. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, had thought so in their day, but they had been dead a long time, and people generally had ceased to share their views on that subject. So Benjamin Lundy has the merit of being an original discoverer. He made himself a good deal of trouble by saying what he thought, and at length he went to Boston and met there a young man named William Lloyd Garrison, a printer by trade, who held exactly the same ideas. You could hardly believe how much trouble these two men managed to make. Young Garrison went to work and published a paper called the "Liberator," in which he said plainly that he thought slavery was wrong!
Now of course this was not a proper thing to do. It set a good many people to thinking, who decided that they also thought slavery was wrong. It made the slave-holders uncomfortable, because they feared these abolitionist people might get South and tell their slaves that freedom was a good thing. The slaves might believe it, being very ignorant and stupid, and might try to get their freedom by any means. One of the mottoes of the American revolutionists had been, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Suppose some Aboli- tionist should teach the slaves that their masters were " tyrants," why, there might be an insurrection, and the masters might be murdered in their beds. Such a thing had happened in the island of Hayti, where the slaves had thrown off their yoke and made them- selves a republic, after a fierce and bloody war against their masters. The name of " Abolitionist" made the slave-holder both angry and fearful. And with just cause. They were his very dangerous ene- mies. Garrison would have been killed like a rattlesnake in the
414 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
South if be had gone there, and they offered five thousand dollars for his head in one of the States of this Union. In Boston, which was really the safest place in this country for him, he did not fare very well. In 1835, soon after Jackson had had his quarrel with the South Carolina Nulhfiers, the good citizens of Boston intimated to Mr. Garrison that he must not abuse slavery. He insisted that he had a right to speak his mind, and he would speak it. They put him in prison, fined him, and at length, one day in October, they dragged him through Boston streets with a rope round his body, till the mayor got him and put him in jail for safety from the mob. Any conservative and prudent person would suppose this would have cured him. On the contrary, as soon as he got out of jail, he went to editing that paper of his, with this flaming motto: "Z am i7i earnest. I ivill 7iot equivocate, I will not excuse. I ivill not retreat a single inch, and I will he heard. Everybody knew he was a fanatic, but the trouble with fanatics is, they make converts. St. Paul did that, and Wycliff and Martin Luther, and they were all called fanat- ics in their day. It was so with Garrison. Men and women gath- ered about him, su^jported his views, advanced money, formed an " an tislavery society," and held meetings. Many of their views were bitter and extreme. Sometimes, when the western prairie is in flames, we fight the fire with fire, till the two conflagrations meet, and wrestle with each other and die out. So we often have to fight fire with fire in great social reforms. The early Abolitionists denounced the Constitution because they declared it upheld slavery. They de- nounced churches because the churches upheld slavery. They denounced everything but absolute and immediate freedom to all enslaved men and women.
Well, these ranks began to swell. Out in Illinois a man named Lovejoy, a minister, a quiet-spoken, moderate sort of man, who did not go so far in denouncing everything as Garrison did, began to edit a paper and speak against slavery. He was warned it would not do to say these sort of things, and still he kept on. Then the mob broke up his presses and destroyed his prhiting-office. He got another office, printed another paper, and had the audacity to repeat again that he was convinced of the sin of slavery. Again the mob surrounded his office, and when engaged in defense of the building he was shot by a man in ambush. He fell with five bullets in his body, and was carried home a corpse to his wife and babies.
The Abolitionists, growing stronger and stronger, held a meeting
A NEW PARTY. 415
in Faneuil Hall, the old " Cradle of Liberty " in Boston, to remon- strate against Lovejoy's murder. In that meeting was a young Boston lawyer, handsome, rich, the best blood of Massachusetts in his veins, and the prospect of a brilliant career before him, if he was careful and prudent. He was gifted with a wonderful voice, — the voice of the orator. He could often move even his enemies to tears or laughter. On this occasion he rose to address this meeting, and turning his back on the political and social honors which might easily have been his, he allied himself for life with this disreputable cause of abolitionism, going hand in glove with a little company of poor, struggling, despised, persecuted men and women. His name was Wendell Phillips, and from that time he ranked with Garrison as one of the leaders of his party.
Just about this time another man joined the antislavery cause. He was a Quaker by birth, named John G. Whittier. Nature had not given him power of speech, but she gave him power to stir men's hearts with such poetry as can only be written by a man who feels other men's joys and sorrows as his own. If he could have let alone the subject of slavery, he might have made money by his poems, and been feted and flattered in the land. Bvit he preferred to take up the cause of the slaves, and for thirty years the sweetest singer of America lived under a cloud of contempt, neglect, and obloquy, because his pen had chosen so unpopular a theme. Thus the anti- slavery cause gained a leader, an orator, and a poet. Given three such members, any cause must make itself heard.
Most people found it impossible to understand what the Abolition- ists meant by their conduct. Many concluded it was sheer obstinacy and wrong-headedness that made them behave so.
" Why don't you let the slaves alone," said they. " Don't they have enough to eat, and good clothes to wear ? Are they not well treated ? See how they sing and dance, down on the cotton-planta- tions. They are a good deal better off than they were in Africa. They love their masters too. Why, they would n't run away if they could."
Others said, " The slaves are no better than monkeys. They are only fit for slaves. Even if they do get beaten with the lash now and then, it is necessary to make them work. The white is the superior race."
Others said, — these were mostly Northern men, — "I think very hkely slavery is not right. It don't seem the right sort of thing
27
416 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
to sell men and women. But it is none of our doing. Slavery exists, and we can't help it. We shall make a terrible revolution in the South if we make a fuss about it. Besides, I don't really see how they could raise cotton, rice, and sugar without the negro. At any rate the North must mind its own affairs, and let slavery settle itself where it belongs."
The Abolitionists, who always had arguments thicker than black- berries, met the speakers with an answer at every point. When you told them the slaves did not want freedom, they showed how all along on the borders of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere, over the line dividing slave from free States, year after year the slaves were running away in greater and increasing numbers. They showed the backs of these fugitives, women as well as men, ridged and scarred with the lash. They rehearsed the stories of these men and women ; how they had been hunted in their flight by blood- hounds, and had escaped only by hiding in swamps, and lying hid to the neck in rivers to elude the keen scent of the dogs ; how mothers had seen their babies sold away from their breasts as we sell calves and foals ! How husbands and wives had no certainty that their marriage-vows might not be at any time severed by the auction-block. They declared that under all apparent content was a terrible discontent that in a race of more blood-thirsty nature than these peaceable Africans would be deadly in its outbreak. All this the Abolitionists said, and more. They said that year by year the black in these African faces had grown paler and paler. That there was already too much of the blood of the white race in the faces of these bond-servants to make good " chattels " of them. They showed women in the South, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like their own wives and daughters, bearing the brand of ownership. They cut from Southern papers such advertisements as these, and read them in their meetings : —
" Five hundred dollars reward. Ran away on the 4th of July, a slave girl, named Rosa. Has straight brown hair, and blue eyes. Limps a little from a wound in the foot, and has a scar on the left shoulder. She has a good address and will probably try to pass herself off as a lady. Any one giving information of her to her master, John Smith, will receive the above reward."
With all these weapons, the Abolitionists, or antislavery party, did infinite mischief to the slavery party, and they finally became a word of terror and hatred in the South. One of them had little
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
417
chance of life or safety there. " The only way to meet them," said an able Virginian, alluding to the Abolitionists, " is with gunpowder and cold steel." There was truth in that. Argument was not the thing to meet them with.
CHAPTER XXVII.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
The President from New Hampshire. — Escape of Fugitive Slaves. — Story of Margaret Gar- ner. — The Missouri Compromise. — Beating of Charles Sumner. — " Indignation " Meet- ings. — The Awkward Law^-er, and the Little Giant.
I HAVE before told you that Fillmore's successor was Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, and that he was the first Northern man who had been elected to the presi- dency in many years. As I have explained to you in my chapter on slavery, that the slave-power, whose head- quarters naturally were in the South, was the strong- est power in the nation, you will want to know why a man from the extreme North should all at once be elected to the highest office in the land. Under- stand, then, that there was a partj^ in the North who believed so strongly in yielding to all the demands of the slave-holding party, that they were called " Northern men with Southern principles." Franklin Pierce was one of these men. He was more averse to the agitation about slavery than even the Southerners themselves, and had as little sympathy with Abolition- ists as the slave-holders.
You remember I told you that when the dispute came up about
^:^£^^c
^r^
418 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
admitting California, Henry Clay presented a compromise, grant- ing some privileges to the North, and others to the South, so that their mutual differences could be smoothed over, and the wheels of government could go on again. One of the new privileges granted the South, was the right to pursue their fugitive slaves to the North and bring them back. The slave-owners claimed that this right belonged to them under one of the acts of the Constitution, although it had never been enforced, and a great many escaj^ed slaves were living in towns and cities in the North in unmolested possession of freedom. Hither the masters now proposed to go, find their fugi- tives, and return them to slavery. Many black people who had been living thus for years in freedom, were sought out and returned to the South, Some mothers were taken back, with large families of children born to them in the North, because, according to the law, the child of a slave-mother is born a slave.
This " Fugitive Slave Law " was not liked by the North. One offensive part of it was, that any Northern citizen might be called in to help the (J icers of the law seize and arrest a fugitive slave, and it was his duty under the law to do it. Many people, not opposed to slavery before, resented this, and declared they would not do it. They cried in indignation to the South, " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Others, excellent men, argued against this feeling, which they said was the outgrowth of wicked aboli- tionism, and showed how the " Fugitive Slave Law " was a law of the land, and it was our plain duty to obey it. One worthy clergyman said, that if his own mother Avas a slave, and dared to run away North, and be free, he would himself help send her back to her mas- ter. The Abolitionists talked in return of a " Higher Law " than the " Fugitive Slave Law," which they said was the law of God, giving human beings the right to "life and liberty ; " and thus in Pierce's time the dispute waxed hotter and hotter.
Once the officers came to Boston, now quite a hot-bed of anti- slavery feeling, to take back a slave named Anthony Burns, who had escaped there. The people showed so much rebellion on the subject, that it was feared they would take Burns away from the officers, and they had to put chains all around Boston court-house to guard it from the mob. They got the slave back, however, and the majesty of the law was vindicated. Sometimes, however, the slaves took the law into their own hands. Let me tell you the story of Margaret Garner, and the way she resisted the Fugitive Slave Law.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 419
Margaret was a slave. Not a very black slave, but with a dusky- yellow skin like those we call mulattoes. She had two children, a boy and girl. The little girl was white, as fair, perhaps, as you or I. From some cause or other, Margaret Garner did not like to stay in slavery, and ran away with her two children and two other slaves. They all hid in the house of a free negro, but were soon tracked to their hiding-place by Margaret's master and a force of men he had brought with him. The door was barred, but the officers battered it down and got in. When they entered, there stood Margaret Garner with a bloody knife in her hand between the bodies of her two children. She had cut their throats with her own hand, and said she would rather have them dead than taken back to slavery. The little girl was already quite dead, but the boy was only wounded and afterwards got well. Margaret loved her u.^^^ baby, called her " Birdie," and wept when she told how pretty she was. But so far as I can learn she never was sorry that she killed her. They carried the mother and her wounded boy back to her master, and she was never heard of any more.
Now you can understand, perhaps, why some people did not like the Fugitive Slave Law, and its demand on all loyal citizens to help enforce it, and how the feeling grew stronger and stronger in Mr. Pierce's administration, when all these things were happening.
But one thing the North always rested on in great content. It was the " compromise " which had been made in 1820, when Mis- souri was made a State. That solemnly promised that no slavery should come west of Missouri, and north of the line of 36° 30' after Missouri was admitted with slaves. The North regarded this " Mis- souri Compromise " as their very ark of safety against slavery. They prized it as men prize the charter of their liberties. Men who disliked Abolitionists as they disliked troublesome insects, would have resented any doubt that this compromise was firm and eternal, as much as even Garrison or Wendell Phillips, the chiefs of abolitionism.
Fancy the excitment, then, in 1854, when a senator from Illinois, named Stephen A. Douglas, arose in the Congress of the United States and proposed to take back the Missouri Compromise and let slavery into the great lands of Kansas and Nebraska, which lay just west of Missouri, and so were promised fairly to freedom by the pledge of 1820. It was a bomb-shell dropped in the cities of the North. The telegraph wires flashed it over the land, and the
420 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
people gathered to talk over the news with faces like those we wore in days of war. It was whispered that now slavery was to be forced on us everywhere, even into the heart of Massachusetts ; and then the story was told that one man, a senator of Georgia, had said he would yet live to " call the roll of his slaves from Bunker Hill." He would do it to spite the Boston Abolitionists. This new proposition of Stephen A. Douglas was called the " Kansas- Nebraska Bill." There was a hard and bitter fight on it in Con- gress. One senator from Massachusetts, Cliarles Sumner, worked night and day to prevent the bill from passing. He made a speech called " The Crime against Kansas," which deeply offended the Southern senators. A representative from South Carolina, Preston Brooks was so enraged at this speech that he came up behind Mr. oumner while he sat writing at his desk in the senate chamber, and beat him over the head with a cane till the senator fell bleeding and senseless on the floor. The North held indignation meetings at this, and more and more people joined the growing antislavery party. The South honored Mr. Brooks, and presented him with another and a stronger cane, and said he served the dastardly Northerner right, who was a coward, and would not have fought a duel like a gentleman if Mr. Brooks had challenged him fairly.
Well, of course the Kansas bill passed, in spite of all such men as Sumner could do or say. Slavery, it was decided, should go into the fertile plains of Kansas, if the majority of the people should vote to have it there when Kansas was ready to be a State. Doug- las had the pleasure of seeing his measure victorious ; but I must tell you in advance that he lived, I think, to be sorry that he ever made such a bill, and what he could do to atone for it, he did heartily. Douglas had an opponent in his own State of Illinois. A tall, awk- ward looking lawyer, as tall and gaunt as Andrew Jackson was when he first came up to Congress, but with none of the courtly grace that Jackson could put on in society. This man was Abraham Lincoln. Remember his name, if you forget every other name in this book excepting that of George Washington. He arose against Douglas, the idol of the State that owned them both, and soon " the Little Giant " (so Douglas was called) began to realize that he had met his match, and more than his match, when right and justice were at issue between them.
THE kj\.nsas struggle. 421
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE KANSAS STRUGGLE.
Settling Kansas. — Free-state Emigrants. — Bloodshed on the Plains. — Sharpe's Rifles. — A Modern Puritan. — The "John Brown Tract." —Attack on Lawrence. — Old Ossawatomie. — Kansas a Free State.
After the " Kansas-Nebraska Bill" was made a law, there was a regular scramble from slave and free States to see who should get first possession of this fair land, that lay smiling and peaceful, ready for the settler to come and open up her rich soil, and build new towns on the slopes of her rolling prairies. Missouri was close at hand, and could at any time send whole towns full of settlers to peo- ple this new country. The free States, most in earnest to make Kansas also free and add no more slave territory to the Union, were very far distant. But they were now thoroughly aroused, and bent on their object. They held meetings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia ; formed " emigrant aid societies," and subscribed money liberally to send people to Kansas, who would make it a free State.
Very soon a long train of white-topped emigrant wagons were seen going westward. They carried the new settler with his wife and children. In the wagon were all their household goods. When they encamped at night on the western plains, the husband set up the cooking-stove, and the mother baked the bread and cooked the supper, while the baby, seated on the grass, crowed with delight at the sight of the great free dome of sky over his head. From 1856 till 1860, when Kansas was made a State, these long lines of emi- grant trains were seen almost as frequently on the western plains as the locomotive with its wavy line of smoke is now seen on its way thither.
And now, for the first time, blood began to flow in the fight be- tween slavery and freedom. The emigrants from the East and North met the Missourian with bowie-knife and pistol, on this neu- tral ground, which both claimed. The man who believed in "free soil," named his antagonist " border-ruffian." The Missourian thought " Yankee " and " black abolitionist " as bad names as he could find for his opponent. Pretty soon revolvers went off, bowie- knives flashed from their sheaths, a man here and another elsewhere, had been killed in an affray. It is but just to say that the Missou-
422 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
rian was much the best fighter, and much more ready with pistol and bowie-knife than his Yankee neighbor. The Yankees intended to come in force, stake out their farms, build a town of houses painted white with green blinds, with school-house and meeting-house in the midst, and when election-day came, go up solid to the polls and vote that Kansas was a free State. The Missourians, on whom the chief defense of slavery seemed to fall, were not so good at emigrating, and found it easier to go over the borders in gangs, and try to frighten the settlers away, than to move in their goods and chattels to settle there. They felt quite sure that these Yankees were white- livered cowards who would leave after a few revolver-shots, and go home again, or be silent about slavery. But when one or two free- state men had been killed, the Yankees sent word to the emigrant societies that they wanted something else in addition to the usual outfit. They wanted an excellent gun known as " Sharpe's Rifle," to aid them in defending their rights to settle in Kansas.
About this time a singular figure appeared on the plains of Kan- sas, which were now looked at with intense interest by the whole country as the battle-ground of a new revolution. This strange figure was the tall, erect form of an old man with stiff white hair and flowing beard. He might have stood as an artist's model for some prophet of old, and his severe life, austere in religion, his speech full of quaint Biblical allusions, matched his looks. His name was John Brown, a name we have often heard, and one likely to prove more and more, famous. With him four stalwart sons came to Kansas to settle there.
John Brown was much such a Puritan as Oliver Cromwell was. And one of the convictions that he held, as sacred as Cromwell held the dearest article in his creed, was this : that slavery^ was a sin, against which it was as right and just to wage warfare, as in any cause upon whose banners God's cross had been set. That when Joshua led the armies of Israel against the heathen Amorites, God was not more surely with him, than with the man who went to smite slavery with the edge of the sword.
John Brown had good blood in his veins. His ancestors came over in the Mayflower^ the earliest ship of the Puritans, and his grandfather died in a battle of the Revolution. Poor and hard- worked, with a family of twenty children born to him, John Brown had grown poorer, and worked harder, on account of his devotion to one idea.
THE KANSAS STRUGGLE.
423
Years before he came to Kansas, Gerrit Smith of New York, one of the Abolitionists who had wealth to aid the cause he believed in, and had aided it largely, offered to give a large tract of land to those negroes who were free or had escaped to freedom, that they might come there and form a colony and turn the land into farms. This
John Brown.
tract was in northern New York, in the region of the Adirondacks. On hearing of this plan of Gerrit Smith, John Brown had moved with his family to this untilled forest, hoping that by his knowledge of farming he might aid the poor, ignorant, undisciplined negroes who wished to avail themselves 'of the land. From this region John Brown with his sons now came to help the struggle in Kansas. Such is an outline sketch of the man, wliose soul is marching on through the future to a fairer and fairer immortality.
In 1856 the struggle in Kansas had fairly begun. At first only a single man had been killed here and there by lawless bands of
424
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
" border ruffians," who were constantly making incursions into Kansas, not to settle there, but to drive away free-state settlers. Whenever there was a territorial election, or any laws to be passed in the Territory, the Missourians came over in great force, out-voted the free-state men and after carrying the election by violence, went
home again. In the more extreme south a company of militia from South Carolina and Georgia was raised and sent to subdue Kansas to slavery.
Then preparations were made on both sides for attack and defense. Lawrence, the chief town of the free-state settlers, was attacked, and its principal buildings burnt. Then four or five hundred men came to the village of Ossawatomie, where John Brown lived. The old hero had only about thirty men to oppose this force, but he managed them so skillfully that after a long defense of his position he led his men to a safe retreat with a loss of only five or six, leav- ing the Missourians in possession of the field with thirty -one killed and about twice that number wounded. One of the dead at Ossa- watomie \A^as Frederick Brown, a son of the leader.
THE KANSAS STRUGGLE.
425
When Lawrence was besieged a second time by an army from Missouri, said to be one thousand strong, the citizens sent for " Ossawatomie Brown " (as he was now called) to defend them. He came, and with his little army, never more than thirty or forty in number, aided by the citizens, guarded the town so well that the Missourians concluded not to give battle.
Lawrence, Kansas, in 1857.
In the mean time the steady line of trains kept coming from the East, wagon-load after wagon-load of settlers, all ready to vote Kan^ sas into the Union without slavery. Again and again the vote was polled, and when the free-state residents of Kansas had mustered in force, a great party would swoop over the border from Missouri, outnumbering the legal voters, and force upon them the most ob- noxious laws. But this could not last always. Before the swelling tide of emigration all Missouri might soon oppose itself in vain. In 1858 the free-state men were able to vote with 10,000 majority, that Kansas should be organized ivithout slavery^ and from that time resolutely voted down all attempts to make her anything but free.
426
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXIX.
RAID INTO VIRGINIA.
Presidential Contest of 1856. —An Exodus of Slaves. —The "Kennedy Farm." — Surprise of the Watchmen at Harper's Ferr}'. — The Arsenal taken. — John Brown Pikes. — Arrival of Soldiers. — Capture of John Brown. — His Trial. — John Brown's Speech. — Sentence and Execution. — Scene on the Gallows.
While these Kansas troubles were growing more exciting, a new president was elected. Franklin Pierce served the Southern interest
faithfully for four years, as he was pledged to do, and in 1857 gave up his seat to James Bu- chanan of Pennsylvania, also elected by the Dem- ocratic party. There had been a hard politi- cal fight against him by the other party, who now called themselves " Republicans," the old name which Thomas
k-"' ' ^^^^^^MXmwIli^^^^^^^^^^ Jefferson had been
proud to own. The Republicans had for a leader, John C. Fre- mont, the young ex- plorer of the Rocky Mountains, and the bat- tle was fought for him with intense enthusiasm. The contest was decided in favor of the party which had ruled the country so many years, and in 1857 James Buchanan was made president in Washington. Of course he had little sympathy with free-state settlers in Kansas, and they fought out their fight there with no aid or encouragement from him.
Meanwhile, John Brown, who found Kansas was now able to gain her freedom at the ballot-box, concluded to leave the Territory. Just before he left, a slave came secretly to beseech his good offices
2^t^^^^t^g^^^^3^:
/—
KAID INTO VIRGINIA. 427
in aiding him to escape with his wife and children. He had just learned they were all to be sold in Texas, and the slaves dreaded being sold into the extreme south more than the punishment of the lash. It was a place from which there seemed no hope of any re- lease from bondage.
Brown never heard any appeal from the slave without acting upon it. Just before he started for the East, he went over into Missouri to the plantation where the slave lived, and took away with him twelve slaves who were anxious to escape. The master of the slaves was killed in opposing the escape of his property. Brown marched the whole party to Canada, and left them there rejoicing in their freedom, and blessing their deliverer. But this deed covered his name with odium in the South, and he was de- nounced as the blackest of murderers and desperadoes.
About the 1st of July, 1859, several months after John Brown arrived with his fugitives in Canada, a man and his two sons came to Virginia, and hired a farm near Harper's Ferry on the Potomac River. The man, who said he was a farmer, gave his name as Smith, had white hair and flowing beard. His sons were young men who looked as if they had been used to farm-work, and were bronzed by exposure to wind and weather. They went to work at once, very often receiving packages and boxes by the railroad, which runs through Harper's Ferry, which they said contained their farming tools, and the various utensils they needed in their labor.
The town of Harper's Ferry near which the " Kennedy Farm," hired by " Smith " and his two sons, is situated, is one of the most romantic in Virginia. It is built under the crest of the mountains through which the Potomac flows. Two long streets on the river's level form the main town, and from thence the houses straggle up the sides of the mountains overlooking the river. A large armory for the manufacture of United States arms, furnishes employment for a band of workmen, and makes brisk sounds of labor in the otherwise quiet little place. The great arsenal building, stored with guns and munitions of war, stands in the heart of the town.
On the night of the 16th of October, a little company of men appeared before the three astonished watchmen who guarded the arsenal gates, bound and took them prisoners, and entered the arsenal. The company was twenty-two in number, five black men and seventeen whites. Their leader was the long-bearded man who had hired the " Kennedy Farm " as Smith. He is no longer called
428 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Smith, but " John Brown of Kansas." In his party are his two sons, OUver and Watson. John Brown entered the armory, and prepared to fortify it, and make it his head-quarters, just as a gen- eral would choose head-quarters in time of war. They have in fact declared war, these twenty-two men, against the institution of slavery. They are here to begin the battle.
It seems a mad attempt for this handful of men to think of fight- ing the whole State of Virginia ; behind that the whole slave-holding league ; still behind these, the established law and order of a great nation. Yet there was some method in this madness. John Brown knew by gaining possession of the arsenal he should have plenty of arms at his disposal. His plan was to cut off all communication with the town, seize the wealthy citizens in the vicinity, and keep them as hostages to supply money and provisions. Already his comrades outside Harper's Ferry were cutting down telegraph wires, and tearing up railroad tracks, to prevent intelligence of their at- tack spreading over the country. During the three months of their stay in Virginia, John Brown and his sons had been exploring the mountains in all that wild region, holding communication with slaves, and they expected now to be joined by a large band of blacks to whom they could furnish arms from the arsenal, and then retreat in force to the mountain fastnesses where Liberty could hold a siege, impregnable against her foes. At Collinsville, Connecticut, he had ordered a thousand instruments of war, known as " John Brown's pikes." These pikes were simply a kind of bowie-knife, a broad, pointed knife, sharp on both edges, fastened to a pole about six feet long. These were John Brown's own invention, and he probably intended to arm the slaves with them, who were unaccustomed to fire-arms. Some of the boxes consigned to him at Harper's Ferry, had contained these " pikes."
This was, as far as we can discover it, John Brown's plan and preparation for striking the death-blow to slavery. It was so far carried out, that shortly after daylight on the morning of October 17th, over sixty prisoners were shut up in the armory, and John Brown's little army held the town. They arrested every citizen they met. When the astonished prisoners asked the meaning of their arrest, they were told, "It is to aid in the freedom of the slave." And on whose authority was this done ? " On the au- thority of Almighty God."
If at any hour before noon on this eventful Monday of October,
RAID INTO VIRGINIA. ' 429
John Brown and his men had chosen to escape from Harper's Ferry, they could have gone away unmolested, and sought shelter in the mountains. Probably the leader constantly expected to see a force flocking to join him. But no such aid appeared. By noon, the first company of one hundred militia marched into the town, and John Brown's fate was sealed.
His men outside the armory who were guarding different posts about the town, were at once killed by the troops. Before even- ing there were 1,500 soldiers in Harper's Ferry, and the whole country rang with news of the astonishing insurrection. By night, the party inside the armory numbered seven men, the sole surviv- ors of John Brown's army, only three of whom were unwounded. Shots from every side had poured into the arsenal, till night sus- pended for a season the attack. Through the night John Brown sat upon the floor between his two sons, one dead, the other mortally wounded and dying in slow agony, waiting for the day to break and put an end to the conflict. Next morning a ladder used as a battering-ram, broke down the arsenal door, the last defense be- tween Brown and his assailants. The sixty prisoners inside hailed its fall as their signal of deliverance. When the army entered they confronted these formidable invaders ; the old man between the bodies of his two sons, another dead body a little distant, and three others with guns thrown down in token of surrender. Before John Brown could speak, a lieutenant had struck him over the head with his sabre, and a soldier speared him in the side with a bayonet after he had fallen. One of his men was also stabbed by the soldiers, and the two others, mingling in the crowd, were borne off unhurt, as prison- ers, the troop not recognizing them in the crowd as part of the in- surgents. Such was the beginning and end of " John Brown's raid into Virginia." Of the excitement which it caused all over the United States, and especially in Virginia, I can give you no idea. Never did so small a party of men raise such fears, or require so much military paraphernalia to suppress them. The rest of the story is briefly told.
John Brown was tried by the State of Virginia for " murder, trea- son, and exciting insurrection among the slaves." He lay most of the time during his trial on a cot, from which his wounds did not permit him to rise, and lying there he heard the conclusive evidence against him. During the affray on Monday, several citizens of Harper's Ferry had been killed and wounded. This furnished the
430 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
evidence of murder. Treason and insurrection were no less fully- proved. There could be no doubt about the verdict. The pris- oner Brown, and Stevens, the companion who was tried with him, were found guilty, and sentenced to be hung by the neck till they were dead. On the 2d of December Brown was to suffer the penalty of his deeds.
When he was asked why sentence of death should not be passed on him, John Brown made a brief speech. Here is one passage from it.
" This court acknowledges, I suppose, the validity of the laws of God. I see a book kissed here, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least, the New Testament. That teaches me that all things ' whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them.' It teaches me further ' to remember those in bonds, as bound with them.' I endeavored to act upon these instructions. I believe that to have interfered as I have done in behalf of liis de- spised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed neces- sary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit. So let it be done."
He spent the intervening time before the execution of his sentence, in writing and answering letters. He had many letters of sympathy, some even expressing admiration of his course. He left minute direc- tions for his wife and children to follow, and wrote a careful will dis- posing of his simple effects. He read the Bible much, but would re- ceive no Southern clergyman, because he declared no man could be a Christian who defended slavery, and he preferred to die unministered to rather than take the hand of any one in fellowshijj who could apologize for that which was to him the most monstrous of crimes.
On the 2d day of December, he made ready to ride to the gal- lows. As he walked out of the door of his jail with the step of a conqueror rather than that of a felon, he saw near the entrance a slave woman with a little black child in her arms, who looked at him wonderingly. He stooped and kissed the baby, and went quietly on. In the cart, going to the gallows, with the undertaker beside him, the latter said, —
" You are more cheerful than I am, Mr. Brown."
" Why, yes," said the old man simply, " I ought to be."
LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT. 431
Then he apologized for his eahnness, as if he feared it looked like bravado, explaining that it had been characteristic with him from childhood not to feel fear of death. " I have suffered far more from bashfulness than from fear," he said. On the scaffold he was blindfolded and led upon the drop. For ten minutes he waited im- movable with the rope around his neck, while the military troops in attendance paraded gorgeously in the sun, till at length many voices cried " Shame ! shame ! " at the spectacle of that patient figure up there waiting his death signal. Then the drop was let fall, the bod}^ struggled and writhed till all was over and the dangling figure ceased to give evidence of life. The majesty of the law was vindi- cated, and John Brown's body was dead.
CHAPTER XXX.
LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT.
Party Quarrels. — The Story of Abraham Lincoln's Boyhood. — Feeling of the South. — Threats to break up the Union. — Joy in South Carolina at Lincoln's Election. — What is Trea- son ? — Difference between Northern and Southern Patriotism.
Mr. Buchanan was president during this John Brown excite- ment, and in his administration other and still more exciting events were to follow. Already the country began to talk about the man who should be the next president, and never had the nation been divided into so many parties as in the fall of 1860, when the election was to take place. Before this time there had been two great parties, the " Democrats " and " Republicans." Now these were subdivided into four parties, each resolved on electing their candidate. The Democratic party had split in two. There were the " Southern Democrats," who had at their head John C. Breckenridge of Ken- tucky. There were the " Northern " or " Douglas Democrats," with Stephen A. Douglas, the author of the famous " Kansas-Ne- braska Bill," as their leader. These two parties had quarreled be- cause Douglas held that Kansas, or any other Territory, had the right to vote that slavery should not exist within its boundaries if the ma- jority of the people did not want it. The Southern party now de- clared that slavery ought to go into the Territories and be recognized as an institution of the United States. Hence their quarrel with the Northern members of their party. The third party was called the * Union and Constitutional party," or the " Bell-Everetts," from
28
432
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
their leaders, John Bell and Edward Everett, for president and vice- president. This party was very much troubled by the constant threats of Southern senators on the floor of Congress, that they were going out of the Union to make a new government of their own. The " Union party " drew up an expression of their opinion (or what
Abraham Lincoln.
political parties call a " platform "), in which they begged all the people to stand by the Union and the national laws. The fourth party was the Republican ; the same tliat had worked so hard for John C. Fremont four years before. This party had taken Abra- ham Lincoln for their leader. He was the fellow-statesman of Douglas in Illinois, and once before had had a contest with the " Little Giant," with their own State as the battle-ground.
Abraham Lincoln had had a severe struggle in life before he got far enough up above the crowd, so that people could see his homely, honest face above those of other men born in his own rank. He was the son of a Kentucky farmer, and in his youth had worked hard at the rudest kind of labor. He had hoed corn, driven oxen, helped to build the log-house which was the home of his family in Illinois, and had spent one whole season in the woods splitting rails
LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT. 433
for fences. From this, bis opponents called him a " vulgar rail- splitter," an " ignorant boor, unfit for the society of gentlemen." But Abraham Lincoln had been early in the very best society. He was so poor that he could get only very few books in his boyhood and youth, but through the aid of his mother, who encouraged his love for reading, he got three volumes early into his hands. These were the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and ^Esop's Fables. In their very excellent society he spent his leisure till he knew them by heart. To them, no doubt, he owed much of his ability to write clean, wholesome English, such as men write who have begun their educa- tion with a few good books. When Abraham Lincoln wrote a thing, you read what he meant. The meaning was not covered up under a heap of useless words. One thing was apparent in him from boyhood. This was his straightforward truthfulness and sin- cerity of purpose. No political experience ever twisted him ; he ended life as he began it, an honest, sincere, trustworthy man. One of the great outcries against him by his opponents after he was elected was, " He is an uncouth, rough backwoodsman. He is no gentleman.''^ It is true that he was very uncouth in face and figure ; never handsome to look at, although the soul of the man sometimes shone through the plain features in a way that trans- figured them, and his deep gray eyes were full of a great sadness, that seemed almost to prophesy his tragic fate. He had not the manners of a court, but he did deeds from the promptings of a simple, manly heart that a king might have been proud to own, and if he was not a true gentleman, God does not make any nowadays.
This was Abraham Lincoln, who stood before the people in the year 1860 as one of the candidates for the presidency.
As soon as he was announced as the choice of the party, the South were more furious than ever. And they declared through their senators in Congress, their newspapers, in their public meetings, in private meetings all over the South, that if the Republican party should elect their president, the " South would go out of the Union."
Now it is very plain that if the Southern Democrats had not quarreled with their Northern friends and refused to vote with them, the}^ might altogether have outvoted the Republicans. But it seems quite clear that the South wanted a pretext for " secession," and really hoped Lincoln might be elected so that she could go off by herself and form a " Southern Confederacy " of slave-holding States, where, as one of her best and ablest leaders said, " she could
434
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
have slavery for the corner-stone." Many of her wealthy slave- holders wanted to reopen the trade in slaves so that they could get negroes cheaper than they could with the present restrictions on that kind of commerce, and one of the Georgia members complained in the convention which nominated Breckenridge, that he had to pay from one to two thousand dollars a head for negroes in Virginia, when he could go to Africa and buy better ones at fifty dollars apiece.
So the South were prepared to welcome the election of Lincoln when it took place in November, 1861, and they did welcome it heartily. When the Republican party in the North was firing cannon, and ringing bells, and building bonfires over their first vic- tory in the nation, the people of Charleston in South Carolina were shaking hands in congratulation, and many hearty cheers went up at the news of Abraham Lincoln's election.
Before Lincoln had been the president elect three months, and almost three months before he took the seat of government, seven States had passed resolutions to go out of the Union. South Caro- lina led the van, and Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Loui- siana, and Texas, all followed. Each State held a convention, declared that she no longer be- longed to the United States, and would not acknowledge its author- ity. Then these seven met to- gether and formed a " confeder- acy " of Southern States, called the " Confederate States of America," and on the 4th of February, 1861, elected Jefferson Davis of Mis- sissippi the president, and Alex- ander Stephens of Georgia vice- president. Thus they proposed to sever, or cut in two, the nation previously known as the United States of America.
Of course you understand that if the United States was a nation, the action of such men was treason, and they w^ere rebels. There are forty counties in England. Suppose the twenty southern coun- ties should say all at once, " We are dissatisfied with the people of the northern counties, and are going to break off and make a nation by ourselves. We are perfectly willing to make a peaceable treaty with the other half of England, and we do not want to fight her, but
Jefferson Davis.
LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT. 435
if she attempts to prevent our forming a new nation we shall fight her, tooth and nail, till one side is forced to yield." In such a case we should be sure there were TKAITORS in England, and we should call their action treason against the English government.
But the southern part of our country claimed that they were not traitors, because each State was " sovereign and independent ; " that they had voluntarily come together and made a Union, and now were tired of it, wanted to go away, and had a perfect right to go. This was the view the politicians in the South had taken almost from the first. This was the idea of John C. Calhoun. The time had come at last when it had to be tested whether the United States was a nation reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, or a band of petty states who could divide and subdivide at pleasure, till we had thirty or iortj small republics, perhaps, on this contiiient. That was the question which had been brewing ever since the year 1787 when the Federal Constitution was adopted.
The Northern people had no adequate idea how resolved the people of the South were in this matter. Hardly any one among them believed that South Carolina, who led off in this act of seces- sion, really could be in earnest. The North believed in a nation. Even the larger part of the Northern Democrats, who were ready to yield up almost anything for the sake of peace, would have sprung to the rescue of the American flaar, if they had seen it about to be hauled down by any members of their own party. To the Northern man the Union meant everything dear to him as a patriot.
On the other hand, the man of South Carolina from childhood had heard of his State and her glory ; he boasted of being a " South Carolinian " ; he loved the palmetto flag, the emblem of his State. The man of New England, New York, or the States of the North- west hardly knew if his State had a flag ; for him there was but one flag, which he reverenced abroad and at home — the stars and stripes. He did not say " I am an Illinoisian," or a " New Yorker," but declared proudly, "I am an American.'''' You see thus what diffi- culty these two classes of men had in understanding each other. The Northerner could not believe that the South would really break up the sacred Union ; the Southerner could not believe that the Union was anything which the North would fight about. Thus the two opposing parts of the nation stood when the 4th of March, 1861, drew near.
436 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXXI.
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES.
Inauguration Speech of Lincoln. — Coercion. — National Property. — Forts in Charleston Har- bor.— Guns opened on Fort Sumter. — The Bombardment. — The Flag hauled down. — Intense Excitement. — Patriotism in the Nortli, — Patriotism in the South.
Inauguration day came, and Lincoln, standing before the as- sembled crowd in Washington, read his inaugural address. He had had a grand tour from his simple home in Springfield, Illinois, all the way to Philadelphia, met everywhere by the hearty greetings of a large party of the people. When he reached Philadelphia and went through the customary ceremonies of welcome there, he was informed that he must not go through Baltimore openly. There was a plot discovered by some skillful detectives, to murder him as he passed through that city. Then for the first time the new presi- dent was made to feel he was nearing an enemy's land. He refused to believe in this plot at first, but finally yielded and went through Baltimore by night and secretly, in order to frustrate these designs upon his life.
Mr. Lincoln's address was like himself, honest and manly. He told the country that the United States was a government, and that no State could by its own act take herself out of the Union. That to the best of his ability he should faithfully execute the laws of the Union. He assured the Southern people that he had no design or wish to violate any of their lawful rights, even those which re- lated to slavery, and he and the nation intended to respect all their rights. But he assured them that he must, as the servant of this nation, hold, occupy, and possess all the property belong- ing to the United States, whether it was situated in the North or the South.
This last declaration was taken up as the signal of war upon the South, and all her people, and her friends in the North, talked about the wickedness of " coercion," or forcing the South to stay in the Union at the cost of bloodshed. The truth was, the United States owned a line of forts extending all along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico. There were forts at the entrance of all the large harbors, and the mouths of all important rivers, from Virginia to Louisiana, or the Mississippi. These forts were built, owned,
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES. 437
manned, and furnished by the United States. They did not belong to South Carohna or Florida, any more than to Michigan or Wis- consin. These forts, many of them, had been seized, and were now held by the rebels against the United States government. In Texas the largest part of the United States army were stationed near the Mexican border under command of General Twiggs, who you will remember had been in the Mexican War. This army belonged to the United States ; not to Texas, or Georgia, or Massachusetts, or New York. Its officers had been educated at West Point, on the Hudson, at {he expense of the country. Its men were clothed and fed by the United States ; its officers drew their pay from the Union ; they were its property. Yet, news had already come that Gen- eral Twiggs had given this army up into the hands of " secession- ists " in Texas. Again, during the last days of Mr. Buchanan's pres- idency, the secretary of war, who had control of guns and cannon and munitions of war belonging to the nation, had been using his power to send arms wherever he chose. So this secretary, who was an ardent secessionist, had sent all the munitions South that he could, without arousing suspicion. From one United States arsenal m Massachusetts alone, he had thus sent away over 100,000 guns. Add to these, that in the seven States now already claiming to be a " confederacy," the secessionists were seizing the arsenals and manu- factories that were national property, the national mints, containing United States money, and you see what Mr. Lincoln meant by saying he considered it his duty to hold the property of the United States, and why it brought down on him more bitter hatred and darker threatenings than he had yet heard.
In the harbor of Charleston were several forts. One of these was Fort Moultrie, named for the gallant colonel who had held it in the first years of the Revolution. Another was Fort Sumter, also of Revolutionary fame. When South Carolina began her secession fury, after Lincoln's election. Major Robert Anderson was com- manding the forts in the harbor. He was stationed with a little garrison at .Moultrie. Fort Sumter was the better and larger fort, and six days after South Carolina had declared herself out of the Union, Major Anderson took his soldiers, provisions, guns, and all that could be moved, over to Sumter, and occupied it. The South Carolinians talked loudly about this, and claimed that Mr. Buchanan had promised not to reinforce the forts, or put any more soldiers in the harbor. On the other hand. Major Anderson asked repeatedly
438
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
for provisions and men, if the government wanted to keep their forts. One attempt had been made to send a ship to his aid, but she had been fired upon in Charleston harbor and retreated, and was finally captured by the rebels, and held by them as their property.
Now Major Anderson sent word to Lincoln that he could not hold the fort unless the government came to his succor. Lincoln answered that the fort should be provisioned. The chiefs of the confederates in Charleston heard this, and on the 12th of April they informed Anderson that the fort must at once be surrendered, or it would be bombarded.
Anderson refused to surrender. He knew a long defense would be hopeless, but he resolved not to haul down his country's flag with- out a struggle. He had eighty men in the garrison, and a very small
Sand Bag Battery at Fort Moultrie.
supply of food, and while provisions lasted he thought he could make a defense. On Friday, the twelfth day of Aj)ril, 1861, the guns from Charleston opened their fire on the walls of Fort Sum- ter. The rebels had taken possession of Fort Moultrie, and two other fortified points in the harbor, and they had also two floating batteries from which guns were leveled. So, from five points at once, balls rained on the devoted fort.
Major Anderson kept silent for a time and did not i-eturn the fire. At last he began to use his guns, but with little effect on his ene- mies. All his powers were necessarily devoted to defense. There were wooden barracks inside the fort which soon took fire from the bombs thrown by the rebels. These were twice saved — the flames
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES.
439
extinguished. But on the second day of the siege, the flames took such hold of them that they could not be stopped, and they were all consumed. With flames inside, and the pelting cannon balls batter- ing away at their walls outside, the little garrison had a hot day. The smoke was blinding, the air too hot and thick to breathe. The men worked with wet cloths over their mouths and noses. The fort was a scene of ruin, such as one sees in a city where a great fire sweeps over its squares and consumes them. It was plain Fort Sumter could not hold out much longer.
All this time several ships sent to reinforce Major Anderson waited out- side the harbor, out of range of the firing, the issue of the siege. They could only draw near the fort through the heavy fire, with great loss of life, and their commander thought it prudent not to attempt a nearer approach. Major Anderson could see these vessels, with our flag flying cheeringly from the mast-head, all the time the bombard- ment was going on. So far he had kept his flag gallantly flying in answer. Although it had once been shot from the staff, it was nailed up again under the enemy's fire.
But Sumter's gallant defense was hopeless. Major Anderson knew that from the first. At noon, on the 13th, a boat with one of the rebel leaders on board, set off from Charleston to the fort, and asked to see Major Anderson. He gave his name as General Wigfall of Texas, and said he came from General Beauregard, who commanded the Southern army in South Carolina, and wished to stop the firing. On his representations Major Anderson permitted a white flag to be displayed. Another party, this time really sent by Beauregard, came over from Fort Moultrie in a boat to see what Anderson meant to do. From these last comers Major Anderson found that Wigfall had acted without orders, without the knowledge even of General Beauregard. But after some discussion it was agreed that on the next day, Sunday, the 14th of April, Major Anderson should evacuate the fort with all his men and all their movable property, should come out with arms and flying colors, and salute his flag with fifty guns before it was pulled down. This was done, and on that day Anderson and his men took the vessels
440
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
that had been sent to reinforce them, and sailed North, where the gallant major received all the honors which his countrymen could
lavish on him in token of their love and esteem. As soon as he had left, the rebel General Beauregard went over to the bat- tered and smoking fort, and pulling down the old flag, ran up the palmetto flag of the little State of South Carolina in her place.
This is the bombardment of Sumter, simply and briefly told. But I can hardly dare trust myself to tell 3-ou how the news Bannerof South Carolina. that the fort had bceu fircd on, our flag riddled with cannon balls and hauled down from its proud place aloft, was received by the people of the North. In all the siege not a drop of blood was shed on either side, but if it had flowed in rivers over the walls of Sumter, it could not have intensified the feeling. No one living in the North will ever forget the great uprising of its people, when the news of Sumter's bombardment was sent over the telegraph wires into every city, town, and hamlet in the North. At once the people of different political parties, so hostile before, became
V'^^T'T'TnTTTim
"mnm^imiliiiTiitininiiiniv.nTimi
mTTimmnTWti
Fort Sumter after Bombardment.
like brothers. Democrats and Republicans were all one when the safety of the nation was at stake. Wlien -close following the attack on Sumter came the news that President Lincoln had asked for
Setting out for the War.
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES. 443
75,000 men as volunteers to help him restore public order and " pre- serve the Union," it seemed as if every able bodied man in the North was ready to shoulder a musket. Men enlisted in the ranks who had been bred in luxury, and submitted with cheerfulness to the privations endured by the common soldier. Into the smallest vil- lages the war ardor penetrated, and companies were drilling and pa- rading in the little towns of the far West, before Mr. Lincoln's dispatch was two days old. The man of military knowledge and ex- perience was the hero of the hour. Women were as ardent as men in patriotism, and they assembled in crowds at every railway station from whence the embarking troops set out waving their handker- chiefs and fluttering patriotic ribbons of red, white, and blue, till they watched their soldiers out of sight. The American flag became more than ever a sacred emblem, and many eyes filled with tears at the thought of it dragged down and trampled in the dust.
Of course there were still many in the North who sympathized with the South, and believed in the right of secession. Up to this time the South had believed that they had friends enough in the North to fight their battles for them in the cities of the free States. Ex-president Franklin Pierce had just written Jefferson Davis, that he believed if the war came, it would be fought in the North be- tween the friends and enemies of the South there. But the events following the bombardment of Sumter proved the contrary, and for a time hardly a voice could be heard in favor of secession, or the " Southern Confederacy."
In the South, the same manifestations of feeling prevailed as in the North. When news came that Sumter was in the hands of South Carolina, extravagant joy was shown. Regiments were form- ing everywhere to resist any attempt to force the seceded States into the Union. The women cheered on the men ; made cockades of the secession colors ; sang new songs written in the popular vein of excitement ; and refused to notice the young men who would not enlist for the coming war. Many ardent Southerners who had hated the " Yankees " from birth, welcomed this opportunity of freeing themselves from a bond of union which had always been irksome. They felt as their fathers had felt in the days of the Revolution, and men and women announced themselves ready to give their lives and their fortunes for the " Sacred cause of liberty to the South."
-444 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE MARCH THROUGH BALTIMORE.
The Regiment from Massachusetts. — Mob in Baltimore. — Anniversary of Battle of Lexington. — General Scott. — The Seventh Regiment of New York. — A Volunteer Officer. — Fed- eral Hill.
On the 19th of April the first vokmteer troops entered Bal- timore on their march to Washington. The State of Maryland had not seceded, and thanks to a few loyal men who led her through her hour of danger and disloyalty, she never did secede. But Bal- timore overflowed with bitterness and cursing against the Union and the men who came to defend her, and on this morning the streets were filled with a scowling, angry mob, as the cars — eleven in all — containing the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, rolled into town. These cars were drawn by horses across the city from one railroad station to another. As they penetrated farther into the city, the crowd became more dense, and the faces grew blacker with hate. The mob now bore sticks, paving stones, and occasion- ally a gun or a revolver was seen among them. Stones, brickbats, and all kinds of missiles were thrown through the windows of the cars. At first the soldiers bore it patiently, and without resistance, until all but two of the cars reached the station. These two, sep- arated from the others, were surrounded by a yelling crowd that opposed their passage. The ofiicers consulted, and concluded to disembark the men and march them in a solid column to the sta- tions. The brave fellows went on through a shower of stones, bricks, and scattering shots- from revolvers. At last, just before they reached the station, the colonel gave orders to fire. The sol- diers discharged their guns among the crowd, and several among the mob fell dead or wounded. The troops reached the station and entered the cars. " The scene that ensued was terrific," says one of the historians of the war.^ " Taunts, clothed in most fearful lan- guage, were hurled at the troops by the panting crowd, who, breath- less with running, pressed up to the windows, presenting knives and revolvers, and cursing up into the faces of the soldiers." Amid such a scene the Massachusetts regiment passed out of the city, bearing with them three dead bodies of their number, and eighteen wounded. On this very day, the 19th of April, eighty-five years
1 Pollard's Lost Cause.
THE MARCH THROUGH BALTIMORE.
445
before, tbe first blood shed in the War of the Revokition had stained the grass in front of Lexington meeting-house. On this second anniversary, long to be remembered, the first blood in this civil war flowed in the streets of Baltimore, shed from tlie veins, very likely, of the descendants of these early patriots.
About this time the country was filled with rumors that Wash- ington, the national capital, was to be seized by the rebels. They had threatened, ever since the fall of Sumter, to unfurl their flag from the capitol at Washington, even from Faneuil Hall in Boston. Washington was poorly guarded. The disbelief in Southern seces- sion seems to have kept all Northern eyes and ears closed against danger until the Massachusetts regiment was attacked.
# -
Union Square, New York, April, 1861.
General Scott, the hero of two wars, and now the veteran general- in-chief of the Northern army, had his head-quarters in Washington. But at this moment the communication through Maryland between our national capital and the North was cut off, and it seemed pos- sible that at any moment the president and his officers might be captured in the exposed city. The cry arose, " Washington is in danger." General Wool, who fought beside Scott in Canada and Mexico, as loyal now to his flag as in his youthful days, was in New York, giving all his energy to putting down treason. He caused arms
446 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
to be distributed ; troops to be sent forward. The Seventh regi- ment of New York, a regiment up to this timelcept for parade, and not for such work as war furnishes, offered itself for the field, and for the protection of the capitol. It was made up of the very flower of volunteer troops, of young men used to dainty fare and soft beds. But they came out gallantly in full force, and early in April were marching down Broadway, the main street of New York city, to embark for Washington. The day of that march will be long re- membered by the citizens. Crowds filled the sidewalks, and cheers rent the air as those boys marched down the splendid street. The deadest heart quickened in the dullest bosom at the sight of them, and the sound of the cheers. In their ranks was a young man named Theodore Winthrop, who welcomed the approaching war as one from which a better future for his country was sure to arise. He bore one of the noblest names in New England history, and was worthy both by nature and by descent to be a martyr in such a cause as this. Writing of this march down Broadway, he said, " It was worth a life, that march. Only one who passed as we did through that tempest of cheers, two miles long, can know the terrible enthusiasm of the occasion. We knew now, if we had not before divined it, that our great city was with us as one man, utterly united in the cause we were marching to sustain."
The Seventh regiment was joined by the Eighth Massachusetts, ac- companied by Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, one of the vol- unteer generals, who had left his law office to take a command in the gathering army. General Butler had been a Democrat of strong Southern sympathies. He had favored concession after concession to the slave power. But when in the Democratic convention of 1860 which met in Charleston, where he was sent as a member from Massachusetts, the reopening of the slave-trade was urged, Ben- jamin Butler had said to his colleagues, " I will not sit in a conven- tion which advocates a commerce pronounced piracy by the laws of my country," and thereupon left the convention.
When his Southern friends and fellow politicians told him they meant to secede, he asked coolly, "Are you prepared for war, then." " Oh, the North will not fight," was the contemptuous answer. " The North will fight," returned Butler. " The moment you fire on the flag, the North will be a unit against you. And rest assured, if the war comes, slavery will end." And this man was one of the first to ask a place in the army of the Union. You can fancy what
THE MARCH THROUGH BALTIMORE.
447
a blow it was to the hopes of the South that their Northern friends would be their allies in this rebellion, when such men as Benjamin Butler appeared in the field against them.
It was no longer safe to march troops through Baltimore, and Butler therefore led them around the city. They were embarked at the head of Chesapeake Bay, and sent by steamers down the river to Annapolis. From that city the Seventh New York regi- ment marched down through Maryland to the capital, and on the 25th of April they entered Washington and marched to the capitol buildings. The country breathed freely. Washington was saved from its foes.
One thing was certain. A way must be made through Baltimore for the march of the troops southward. There were plenty of Union men and women in Baltimore, but just now they were overborne and kept under by the secessionists. Benjamin Butler proposed to free the city from their rule and establish law and order there.
Federal Hill
Accordingly he moved northward from Annapolis and seized a rail- way station nine miles south of the city. He remained near Balti- more until the night of the 13th of May, when, under cover of a black thunder-storm, he took up a station with his troops on Fed- eral Hill, commanding the city. On that very hill, in 1787, the loyal people of Maryland had celebrated with splendid rites the adoption of the National Constitution. From the brow of this same eminence, on the 14th of May, 1861, the black throats of the cannon leveled towards Baltimore, were prepared to thunder forth their commands
29
448 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of obedience to the laws of this Constitution. The loyal citizens of Baltimore rejoiced ; treason was suppressed, and from that hour national troops marched through Maryland unmolested by mobs.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SECEDING STATES.
An Armed Rebellion. — The Southern Confederacy. — The Seven Pioneers of Secession. — East Tennessee. — The Stars and Bars. — Ellsworth Zouaves. — Death of Ellsworth.— Contrabands. — Theodore Winthrop.
After the attack on the Massachusetts soldiers at Baltimore, and the march of the troops on Washington, even the people in the North most reluctant to believe in war, began to see that it was already at their doors. A few Northern newspapers talked against " coercing the South," the " wickedness of invading sister States," and the "horrors of fratricidal war," but the great party said: " This is an armed rebellion, which must be put down by arms, or the nation's life is destroyed." Let us look for a moment at the two divisions of the country thus up in arms against each other.
After the Southern States had formed their confederacy, they con- fidently expected the eight other slave-holding States Would at once flock to join them. But this was not so easy a matter as the seces- sionists believed. The States which had at first taken themselves out of the Union were the farthest remote from the North. Be- tween them and the Middle and Northwestern States lay Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, all bordering on the free States, and known as the " Border States." By their position they were more exposed to influences from the North. West Virginia, East Ten- nessee, and part of North Carolina were all mountainous regions, and slavery had never flourished well among mountains. It is cer- tain that some of the most ardent Unionists dwelt in the mountain regions of these three States, and suffered for their devotion to the nation as no others suffered in the great struggle.
The first to follow the lead of the seven pioneers of rebellion was Virginia. As soon as Fort Sumter was fired upon, she passed an " act of secession," and was received with boisterous delight as the "eighth Confederate State." "Virginia, the mother of the presi- dents, has joined our ranks," they cried. But the people of West
THE SECEDING STATES. 449
Virginia, across the Alleghany Mountains, loyal to the core, resisted with might and main the action of the eastern part of the State. The secession act passed in April, and in June the western counties declared themselves " the State of West Virginia," and one of the United States. They maintained their position, and finally tri- umphed. Before the war was over, West Virginia was made a sep- arate State, and was forever divided from Old Virginia.
The next State to leave the Union was Arkansas. Early in May, her governor, aided by a few powerful politicians, joined her for- tunes to the " Confederacy," although the State had before voted not to secede. On the 20th of May North Carolina followed, in spite of many Unionists dwelling on her soil. She seceded on the anniversary of that day in 1775 on which her fathers in the Revolu- tion had declared themselves free from English rule. Tearing down the old flag she put up a new one in its stead, which still bore the tri-color of the republic. On the 8th of June Tennessee held a secession convention. The loyal men from the eastern part of the State were prepared to vote against secession. It was hoped that a majority, peaceably obtained, would preserve the State. But they were The Secession Flag.
warned that no man could vote for the Union in the convention. " If he speaks for the South, we have no reply," wrote one of the secessionists of Tennessee in reference to a loyal man who wished to speak in the convention.^ "If against the South, our only answer to him and his backers must be cold steel and bullets." By thus choking down free speech, Tennessee was joined to the Southern Confederacy. But the mountains of East Tennessee were full of Union men who suffered terribly for devotion to their country. Hunted like dogs by rebel guerrillas ; pinched with cold and with hunger ; killed on their very hearth-stones under the eyes of wife and children ; these men clung to the Union and their flag, as mar- tyrs cling to the cross for which they die. With Virginia, Tennes- see, North Carolina, and Arkansas, the Southern Confederacy had eleven States. Delaware, Maryland, Kentu.cky, and Missouri did not join them. Little Delaware had no inclination to leave her comfortable corner in the Union for the uncertainties of a rebellion. Maryland, awed by Butler's resolute action, was held firm by the
1 Greeley's Amencan Conflict.
450
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
loyal men who guarded her honor, and preserved her to the right cause in spite of the many traitors in her borders. Kentucky de- cided to be " neutraL" She would not leave the Union, and she would not fight the South. She was constantly torn by dissensions. Many of her sons found honorable graves in fighting for their old flag ; many others fell in the ranks of the rebel army. Missouri, the most western border State, was also divided by hostile factions, but the valor of a few men kept her in the Union ranks. She was, for a time, one of the battle-fields of the republic, and I will tell you presently how well she was defended by some of her sons from the attack of treason.
The campaign of 1861, the opening year of the war, was princi- pally in the border States of Virginia and Missouri. The border States were the great breakwater to hold back the tide of insurrec- tion. The loyalists felt they must hold them securely and keep up the conflict within their limits, or the whole country would be plunged into ruin. Let us see how the struggle went on in Vir- ginia and Missouri after the war had actually begun.
While the rebels were talking about the capture of Washington, the " Yankee capital," they were making terrible threats against the United States government if it should " invade the South," and " plant troops on the sacred soil of Virginia." But by the last of
May the government saw that it was necessary to its safety to send troops into Virginia. Already the new Con- federate flag of " stars and bars " waved in full sight of the capital, from the town of Alexandria, and from the top of Ar- lington Heights, where Colonel Lee, the leader of the rebel forces in Virginia, had his dwelling-place, the same emblem flaunted. On the 24th of May the na- tional troops crossed the Potomac and took possession of Alexandria. A regi- ment called the New York Zouaves, com- Jp^^glf-^'' manded by Colonel Ephraim E. Ells- worth, first entered the town. Ellsworth was young, handsome, and daring, and his Zouaves, dressed in brilliant uniforms of red, blue, and yellow, after the costume of a French corps who had served in the Crimean War, were the admiration of all who saw them.
Zouave.
THE SECEDING STATES.
451
As soon as Ellsworth entered the town, he went straight to the Marshall House, from whose top the secession flag was waving. He ran quickly up-stairs, pulled down the banner and descended, fold- ing it together. The tavern-keeper, a man named Jackson, stand- ing at the foot of the stairway with a gnn, shot him as he came down. With one cry, the gayly dressed young colonel fell dead at the foot of the stairs. In another moment one of Ellsworth's men had shot Jackson, killing him instantly, and the two bodies lay to- gether in the passage. Young Ellsworth was the first officer killed, and his death created the most intense excitement in the North.
Almost at the same time that Ellsworth was ordered to Alexan- dria, General Benjamin Butler was relieved from guarding Baltimore, and sent to command Fortress Mon- roe, which lay between the entrance to the James River and the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. I have told you that the rebels seized nearly all the forts on the southern coast from Maryland to Texas. There were a few of the forts, however, which had been preserved to the government by the unflinching loyalty of their commanders. One of these was Fort Pickens, at the mouth of Pensacola Bay in Florida, where Lieutenant Slemmer had held out till the government could reinforce him, after all the other forts in the Gulf had been given up through treason or cowardice. Another most important point was Fortress Monroe, where Colonel Dimick, with three hundred men, had guarded a long line of ramparts, with secession up in arms all about him. To this latter fort Butler came on the 22d of May, 1861.
Almost immediately Butler began making little incursions into the country about the fort to study the situation, and report upon the condition of affairs there. As soon as the army approached, they were greeted with delight by the negroes, who flocked to the soldiers, singing to each other, " The day of jubilee has come." The ques- tion " what to do with the negroes ? " promised to be one of the most perplexing of the war. The North, through the government and the newspapers, were all the time declaring that this was not a war to abolish slavery, it was solely to preserve the Union. Many
Ephraim E. Ellsworth.
452
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Exodus of Slaves.
of the soldiers in the Northern army hated the word " Abolition,'* and declared " they were not going to fight for the negro, but only -s.^_, for UNION." Already many
negroes who sought freedom on the approach of the array, had been sent back to their masters ; and the inquiry, " What shall we do with the negro?" was asked again and again. Benjamin But- ler, an old pro-slavery Democrat, the least likely to be sentimental to the negroes, cut the knot of difficulty by a very direct action. He said, "In an enemy's country all his property, such as flour, cotton, gunpowder, or arms, become ' contraband of war.' They belong to the victor, and are used by him to strengthen his army and thus to compel peace. This two- legged property of the slave-holder is also 'contraband of war.' Let us take him and use him to dig on our fortifications as we would use any other of the enemy's property if we needed it." This was sound logic, and went right to the root of the matter. From that time the war name of the negro was a "contraband," and the whole army soon knew them by that name.
As soon as Butler found himself fairly established at the fort, he began to take measures to strengthen his position there. First, he sent over and fortified the point called Newport News, still farther up the mouth of the river. Then he kept scouts always on the alert to catch any new movement of the enemy.
Butler had with him in the fortress young Theodore Winthrop, whom we saw marching down Broadway in the Seventh regiment. That regiment, having finished its duty of guarding Washington, was sent home, but Winthrop had eagerly offered himself to Gen- eral Butler, and was now his secretary and military aid. From a " contraband " friend, Winthrop had found out several facts about the enemy. The forces of the rebel Colonel Magruder, about two thousand men in all, were encamped at two churches known as " Little Bethel " and " Big Bethel," to the north of Newport News. General Butler and his aid, who now bore the commission of major, together drew up a plan of attack, as follows : —
The troops, divided into two bodies, were to attack Little Bethel
WESTERN VIRGINIA.
453
One party in front, and the other in the rear, thus cutting them off from their companions at Big BetheL After capturing them at the first point, they were to marcli to Big Bethel and finish the enemy there. The two bodies marched under cover of darkness, and from this a fatal mistake arose. Just as they neared Little Bethel the two divisions met, and mistaking friends for foes in the uncertain light, they fired into each other's ranks, and killed and wounded several before the error was discovered. The firing warned the rebels whom they were marching to surprise, and the force at Little Bethel made an immediate retreat to join their friends at the other church. General Pierce, who commanded the expedition, marched on towards Big Bethel. But by this time the rebels were prepared, and from behind intrenchments of earth they rained a hot fire on our men. Major Winthrop mounted a log near the outworks to cheer on his men, and in the very ardor of the charge was shot through the brain and fell instantly. Almost at the same moment Lieutenant Greble, a young ar- tillery officer, was shot dead at his guns. Both these deaths caused great mourning. The loss of Winthrop, just in the opening of a career of such promise, was felt by the country as if she had lost her dearest son. The names of Ellsworth, Greble, and Winthrop headed the list of that vast army of patriots who fell in the .nation's *" ^'""^ ^°'^^-
defense. Before long it had swelled to such numbers that deaths like theirs made hardly a ripple of excitement except in the home circle which missed them, and had thus lost them forever.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WESTERN VIRGINIA.
The Ghost of Caesar. —Rich Mountain. — Carrick's Ford. — Union Defeat. — Loyalty in the
Mountains.
West Virginia is one of the most mountainous regions in this country. The Alleghanies divided in two the State of old Virginia,
454 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and the western half was formed of steep mountains and interlac- ing hills, from whose sides rapid flowing rivers rush off to pour themselves into the great Ohio which bounds West Virginia. As I have told you, the people in these wild mountain regions were patri- otic to the core, and determined to resist rebellion. Early in June, the rebels had sent an army to Philippi, under the rebel General Porterfield, to awe the people into disunion. Philippi is the name of the place in Roman history where Brutus saw the ghost of murdered Csesar. I do not know what sort of dreams the rebel general had at this modern Philippi, but I am sure they were not the kind of visions that arise from a patriotic conscience. On the night of the 2d of June, a party of Union forces were marching towards Phil- ippi. They were divided into two columns, — General Kelly in command of one, and Colonel Dumont of the other. It was pitchy dark, and a rain fell, wetting them all to the skin. Dumont arrived first, and began the attack without waiting for the other column. He had almost beaten the enemy when Kelly came up to see their retreat and receive a dangerous wound as a farewell from the flying rebels. This was the first battle after war had really opened.
The Union troops in Ohio and West Virginia were all placed under command of General George B. McClellan, an officer who had graduated with honor from the military school at West Point, and gained some warlike experiences in Mexico. He was still young, with fine soldierly bearing, a good disciplinarian, and adored by his soldiers. On the 23d of June he came into Virginia to take command in person. He had with him General Rosecrans, whom he at once sent to attack a part of the enemy on Rich Mountain. General Garnett was commanding all the rebel forces in West Vir- ginia, and he had posted Colonel Pegram with 1,600 men on Rich Mountain, and was encamped himself on Laurel Hill, a few miles distant, with a much larger force. Rosecrans took 3,000 men for his march up the steepy sides of Rich Mountain. It was raining hard — it seems always to have rained in West Virginia in these days — and it was hard climbing. The soldiers dragged themselves up as best they could, and when fairly on the top found that they had gained a position above Pegram, and in his rear. The Unionists charged down upon them and put them all to flight. Pegram wan- dered about all night trying to make a safe retreat, and by daylight of July 12th came up and surrendered to Rosecrans his remaining army — about six hundred men.
WESTERN VIRGINIA.
455
As soon as General Garnett heard of Pegrani's misfortune he took up camp and began a retreat to the Cheat River. He took his way througli difficult mountain passes pursued by another part of Mc- Clellan's forces. On the way the rebel soldiers threw away their guns, knapsacks, blankets, anything that would lighten their march. The Unionists followed closely on their heels. At length they
Carrick's Ford.
came in sight of the fugitives at a fording place in the river, called " Carrick's Ford." Here Garnett turned to give battle and stood bravely at bay. His men were routed, but General Garnett would not flee. Standing almost alone on the field, he was shot dead by a rifle in the hands of a sharp-shooter. Only one youth, scarcely more than a boy, was with him when he fell, still fighting gallantly. This boy shared the fate of his general.
In the mean time General Henry A. Wise had an army in the Kanawha Valley, down among the mountains near the centre of the State. Wise was the governor who hung John Brown, and was then very severe on treason. General Cox went in pursuit of him, when Wise immediately began to retreat towards General Floyd, who was coming from the South with more soldiers. It looked as if the rebels meant to hold Western Virginia. General Floyd had been secretary of war in Buchanan's time, and had greatly aided the South by sending thousands of United States muskets thither from Springfield arsenal, just before the States seceded.
456
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
He was marching along the Gauley River to meet Wise, when he heard that the Union troops were close upon him. He got up early, made a countermarch, surprised the Union troops while they were eating breakfast, and routed them completely. Then Floyd came triumphantly back to Carnifax Ferry on the Gauley River, and sat down there to wait. Rosecrans, always wide awake, was soon on the march for Floyd. He came over the mountain which faces the Gauley River, up a winding road in the mountain's side, down the rough sides in front of Carnifax. When he had nearly reached the river level he saw Floyd on a wooded crest opposite, with guns all ready. It was a good position for Floyd, and after fighting several hours, the Unionists had the worst of it. But in the night the rebels ran away and left their post. Probably they felt they could not hold it, and were satisfied with what results they had attained, Floyd marched again to join Wise, who had built a camp on another mountain, and characteristically named it " Camp Defi-
ance.
Just at this time Robert E. Lee, the general of the whole rebel
army in Virginia, came out into this region. Robert Lee had been an officer in the United States army. He was a son of brave Harry Lee of the Revolu- tion, a man very near to Wash- ington's heart and counsels. This son Robert had married a daugh- ter of Washington's adopted son George Custis, and was bound to his country by every tie that should make her sacred. He avowed that he passed through a General Robert E. Lee. tcrriblc Struggle whcu Virginia
seceded, between his love for his country and his devotion to his State. When he decided to follow his State he was at once made major-general of the rebel army in Virginia. He was especially valuable to the Southern cause, from the fact that he was a near friend of General Scott, and Avhile undecided which cause he should espouse, he had been admitted to the war councils of the general- in-chief, and was thus able to carry with him the plans of our leading general. We shall hear often of General Lee, for he was one of tlie most famous officers in the rebel army.
THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT. 457
Lee then came to West Virginia after Garnett, Wise, and Floyd had failed to make any impression there. At the time of his com- ing, the secession cause was weak in West Virginia. Disloyalty could not breathe well the pure air of those mountain-tops. He made one ineffective advance on a part of Rosecrans's forces under General Reynolds, and very soon was called back and sent to a Southern command. Wise, who never did much of anything but bluster and tell what he was going to do, was called to Richmond. Floyd was soon chased out of the loyal half of Virginia. In the northeast, Kelly, who was able to take the field again, was dealing hard knocks to the rebels in that part of the State. On the last day of the year 1861 General Milroy dispersed the rebels in Huntersville, where they held a strong post. West Virginia was all through the war a battle-ground of the republic : but little attempt was made after this to raise any rebel forces among the inhabitants there.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT.
A Knot of Railways. — General Beauregard. — A Moonlight March. — The Stone Bridge. — The Cromwell of Rebellion. — Stonewall Jackson. — " Johnston's Men are upon us." — Bull Run.
In July, 1861, " the grand army of the United States " had crossed from Washington into Virginia. Its commander was Gen- eral McDowell, who had won promotion years before, at* the battle of Buena Vista. He led an army of nearly 30,000. Most of them were the men whom Lincoln had called out to serve for three months, after Sumter was fired upon. The three months were nearly up, and many of the men were ready to go home. If they had enlisted for three years, instead of three months, they would have served patiently through their time. But the near approach of the day which freed them from the new restraints of war, made thoughts of home almost too strong for them.
The enemy against whom McDowell marched, had for some rea- son been concentrated at Manassas Junction, a railway crossing, binding together the railway lines of Virginia leading west and south. To hold this junction was to hold the approach to Rich- mond, now the capital city of the rebels, where Jefferson Davis was sitting in state, as " President of the Southern Confederacy." The
458
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Southern army under General Beauregard were carefully guarding Manassas.
Beauregard was the man who ordered the bombardment of Sum-
Residence of Jefferson Davis.
ter. He was a thin, brown-skinned little man, with black eyes and perfectly white hair. Probably he hated the "Yankees" more heartily than any other Southern general. " We shall whip the North," he said to his army, " if we have nothing for weapons but flint-lock muskets and pitchforks." ^
On the 20th of July the rebel army occupied the west bank of a thickly wooded stream known as Bull Run. It was a branch of a larger stream that flowed into the Potomac. Although not wide, the current was strong, and the water so deep that it could be forded only at intervals of perhaps a mile. The rebels presented a front of nearly eight miles, along this stream. Their right wing rested on a ford called Union Mills Ford. Their left held a stone bridge over which one of the main roads of the country crossed Bull Rur. Behind his lines Beauregard was quietly encamped at Manassa.>. He knew McDowell was at Centreville, only a few miles east of Bull Run. He was also very well informed of the movements and plans of the Union commander, for Washington was then swarming with spies, who, under the garb of loyalty, remained there to fur- nish the rebels with information from our army and the govei'nment. With Beauregard was General Johnston, who had, been commanding the forces in the Shenandoah Valley, in West Virginia. He had arrived that very day in Beauregard's camp, and his army of 8,000 men were hurrying to join him there.
1 Pollard's Lost Cmise.
THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT.
459
In the camp of General McDowell all was preparation. Saturday night, the night of the 20th, was a glorious moonlight. The men were ordered to march at half-past two on Sunday morning, and although it was later before they were all ready, the moon had not yet set, and her soft light, pouring down on the marching columns, made the scene one of romantic beauty. When Sunday dawned, the men were on their way to Bull Run, to meet the enemy for the first time.
McDowell knew that without reinforcements the number of Beau- regard's troops did not exceed, even if they quite equaled, his own. He felt that victory was sure, if Johnston's army did not coine to Beauregard's aid. And General Patterson, with 18,000 men, had been sent to Shenandoah to prevent Johnston from crossing over to Beauregard. McDowell trusted to Patterson to keep Johnston in
The Stone Bridge.
check. If McDowell could only have known that Patterson had proved incapable, or false to his trust, and that at the very moment of the advance from Centreville, Johnston sat in council with his brother commander at Manassas, hourly expecting his troops to join him ! t
It was nine in the morning when a division of McDowell's, under General Hunter, crossed a ford a mile or two above the enemy's left and came down upon them at tlie " stone bridge." General Evans
460
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
commanded tbe rebels at this point. He made a good defense, but was obliged to fall back and give a new front to his assailants. General Bee with his brigade was sent to aid him. Still Hunter pressed them farther and farther back till they were a mile and a half from the stream. Another brigade had been sent to reinforce the Unionists. This brigade belonged to an impetuous, yellow-haired commander, named William T. Sherman. The rebels, under Bee and Evans, severely pressed, were falling into disorder. Already the news of victory had been sent back to Washington, and the telegraph wires were sending the glad tidings over all the North. Members of Congress, and civilians of all classes, waited at Centre- ville (McDowell's head-quarters of the day before) the victorious march of our army towards Richmond.
As Generals Bee and Evans conducted their retreat, it was checked by the appearance of a man on horseback, sitting motion- less as marble, in front of a brigade also waiting and immovable. This was General Thomas Jackson of Virginia, with his troops. If rebellion had its Cromwell in this war for state rights, Thomas Jackson was the prototype of the old Puritan warrior. Here he sat grimly waiting amid the raging of the battle. His neck was encased in a high black stock in which he turned only his head as he gave his decisive orders.
" General Jackson, they are beating us back," cried Bee, despair- ingly, at sight of him.
" Then we will give them the bayonet," coolly answered this im- perturbable figure. Bee turned again to his defeated troops.
" Boys, here are Jackson and his Virginians like a stone- wall. Let us resolve to die, and we will conquer." The phrase " stone- wall " became historical, and from that hour the grim commander was known as " Stonewall Jackson."
Down at Manassas Beauregard and Johnston heard the roar of guns, and galloped in eager haste to the battle- I^^P field, ordering up fresh troops to join their discouraged soldiers on the field. These fresh troops met the tired Unionists, already gasping with thirst under the July sun. The two armies were now on a high plain above the Run, bordered on two sides by
Stonewall Jackson.
THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT. 461
thick woods. The Unionists still outnumbered their foes, but the latter had stationed cannon in the woods which swept a deadly fire through the national lines. From high noon till three o'clock the battle raged here. Back and forth, like great waves, the lines surged against each other. Guns were captured and recaptured on both sides. Still victory remained undecided.
All this time Beauregard and Johnston waited anxiously to hear from the reserve troops from the Shenandoah, which were hourly expected. The rebel general had watched for their approach through a strong field-glass, for hours. It was about three o'clock when his signal flags warned him that a column was coming toward the field. He looked to see if the "stars and stripes," or the *' stars and bars," waved at its head. If the former, it would be Patterson coming to the relief of McDowell ; if the latter, Johns- ton's army was marching to his aid. As he looked, the wind spread out the flag. It was the welcome banner of the " Confederacy ! " Beauregard knew then that the day was his.
The first warning the Unionists had of their new enemy, was from loud yells on all sides, as the rebels dashed upon them, led by Gen- eral Kirby Smith, a recreant son of old Connecticut. The cry arose, " Johnston's men are upon us," and at once a panic incon- ceivably wild arose among them. In maddest confusion, they ran like frightened animals, with no order or discipline, dropping guns, knapsacks, blankets, even hats and coats, by the way. They plunged into the stream and rushed on toward Centreville. The panic spread to Centreville, and the civilians there, infected with the fear, fled toward Washington. It was the strangest, most dis- graceful flight in history. Teamsters unharnessed their horses and fled with them, leaving the loaded teams in the road. The way to Washington was crowded with fugitives. On Monday morning a disorderly tide was still pouring into the capital, and the deepest despair brooded over the national council halls.
The North, which had heard victory first claimed for its arms, could hardly believe the shameful story. When at last it realized what a disgrace had fallen on it, the whole nation was in mourning. Through all the war there was only one sadder day than that in which the defeat at BuU Run was proclaimed in the land.
462
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE GREAT BORDER STATE.
Border Ruffians. — The Faithful Germans. — Keeping Neutral. — The " Rebel Yell." —Heroic Death of Lyon. — Fremont in St. Louis. — His Proclamation. — Removal from Command. — Fremont's Body-guard. — Charge of the Guard. — Beriah Magoffin. — McClellan commano ' the Army of the Potomac. — AH Quiet on the River.
While all these things were happening in East and West Vir- ginia, important events were taking place elsewhere. From Mis- souri to Virginia is a long stride, but we will make it in imagina- tion in order that we may see how secession and loyalty are at work there.
There was a very strong secession spirit in Missouri. The " bor- der ruffians " of the old Kansas fights were still living, and would
gladly have joined their State with the " Southern Confeder- acy." Claiborne F. Jackson, the ruling governor, was an ar- dent rebel. He had for an ally Sterling Price, a former gov- ernor of Missouri, a man of mil- itary ability and experience. These two men went at once to work to raise an army. They claimed that this was to be a state army, to protect Missouri against war and invasion, while Missouri would remain " neutral," neither taking one side nor the other. But the fact that both Price and Jackson were violent against the United States government, that they were all the time corresponding with rebel leaders ; and that they took the first opportunity of joining their army with the rebel forces from Arkansas, shows how much truth there was in iheir pretense of being '' neutral."
St. Louis was the great metropolis of all that region, and sitting as she does on the Mississippi River, was a very important place to hold. Fortunately for the national cause, she had a large mass of German citizens who had left a monarchical government in Europe for a home in this republic. They were devoted to their adopted country, and firm friends to the Union, and came as one man to its
<^ly
^n
SI uW''
A Cannon Truck.
THE GREAT BORDER STATE.
463
rescue. Franz Sigel, a soldier who had fought republican battles in Germany, was ready to lead his fellow-countrymen. It ^s difficult to tell what might have happened to St. Louis at that hour if it had not been for her faithful German citizens. There was one man in St. Louis who turned out to be a host in himself. This was Cap- tain Nathaniel Lyon, who had fought in the battle of Cerro Gordo and Churubusco, and been wounded at the gates of ' the Mexican capital. He was a slender, red-haired man, full of courage, and ready for all emergencies. He held the arsenal at St. Louis, forti- fied the city, and by June 1st he had an army organized to meet Price. He had a sharp little skirmish at Booneville, where the rebels had congregated, and drove them out of that town. In the opening of this rebellion he was one of the most valuable officers in our army.
As soon as the conflict began in Missouri, Price marched to the southwest corner of his State, and meeting the rebel general Mc- Culloch there, with an army from Arkansas, he joined his forces to McCulloch's and took command under him. This was probably -what he meant by "keeping neutral." Then they marched north together to find Lyon, who by this time had General Sigel and his Germans with him.
Lyon was encamped at Springfield the last of July, when Mc- Culloch advanced fronx the south. They first met each other at " Dug Springs," twenty miles from Springfield, bat this engagement decided nothing. A few days after this, on the 10th of August, Mc- Culloch was encamped on the banks of Wilson's Creek, nine miles
Hauling Cannon.
from Lyon's camp at Springfield. McCullocli had much the largest army. But it was the raggedest, most starveling army that ever went out to fight. They had lived principally on green corn on their march. Hungry, dirty, and ragged, their misery deserved g,
30
464 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
better cause. Lyon, although in much smaller force, determined to go out and attack them. He knew Springfield was difficult to de- fend, and likel}^ to yield to larger numbers if he allowed McCulloch to come and attack him. He set out, therefore, accompanied by Sigel to give battle. They marched very silently to surprise the enemy, muffling the wheels of the cannon that their rolling might not be heard. Sigel attacked on one side, Lyon on the other. Although his force was greatly inferior, Sigel was doing well, and had taken some prisoners, when he saw a column approaching, bear- ing the American flag.. He supposed it to be part of Lyon's army, till, with the wild " rebel yell," with which the Missourians rushed to battle, they fell on him and defeated him with great loss.
On his side Lyon was fighting gallantly. Early in the day he had been twice wounded, in the head and in the leg. But he seemed unconscious of wounds or danger. Riding from one part of the field to another, the blood from his wounded head trickling down his face, his whole nervous frame alive with fiery ardor, he seemed to pervade the whole battle. But after Sigel's defeat, the day looked black. Lyon said sadly to an officer, " I fear the day is lost." At this moment a regiment, whose leader had fallen, cried out for some one to lead them. Lyon rose in his saddle and waved his sword. " Come on, my brave boys," he cried, " I will lead you. Forward ! " On the instant a ball pierced his heart ; he reeled in his saddle and fell lifeless. For a moment there was a dead silence ; then with a great cry the Kansas regiment that Lyon was about to lead, broke upon the enemy. For half an hour the fight was terrible ; then the Unionists retreated to Springfield, and the rebels remained holding the field. The loss of that day was a great one in the death of Lyon. No more prompt and loyal man had risen to notice since the war. There was another day of mourn- ing in the North when his death was known.
John C. Fremont had been appointed at the beginning of the war, the commander of the West. He was in Europe, but hurried home at the first summons and went to St. Louis. He arrived there late in July, and began to take the most energetic measures. He sent down immediately to guard the town of Cairo, on the river, which he knew would be a most important place if seized by rebels. The work before Fremont was immense. He could ^vith difficulty get men or money from the government. Almost the first things that happened after he arrived was the defeat at Wilson's Creek,
THE GREAT BORDER STATE. 465
jind Lyon's death. He worked bravely, however, and very soon published a proclamation, in which he declared the slaves of all the rebels in arms against the government, free men and women. This made great excitement. As yet, the North was not at all prepared to free the slaves. They still kept declaring they were not going to harm or overturn any of the Southern institutions, and they seem to have believed, if they were very careful not to touch slavery, the rebellion would soon be over. So Fremont's proclamation was thought very daring, and the government asked him to retract. He said he could not in good conscience take back an act which he be- lieved right, unless he was openly directed to do so by the president. Mr. Lincoln accordingly ordered the part of the proclamation relatiug to slaves to be repealed, to the great disappointment of all those who believed that slavery was the root of the war, and that only by cutting at the root could the tree be killed.
Encompassed by so many anxieties. General Fremont did not lead an easy life in Missouri. The town of Lexington, an impor- tant town on the Missouri River, had just been taken by rebels. Colonel Mulligan, with less than 3,000 men, had held the place three days against overwhelming numbers, and finally was forced to yield. Fremont was loudly blamed that he had not sent men to Mulligan, but with such numbers of points to guard, and such want of men to fill all the points, I hardly see how he could have done better. It is so much easier for other people to see mistakes after some one else has made them.
Fremont resolved to go himself into the field with his army, to silence at once all clamors. But he was hardly on the march, before an order came to remove him from his generalship in the West. His army sorrowfully came back to St. Louis, and very sadly bade him farewell.
Among Fremont's troops were a company of one hundred and fifty young men, mounted on superb bay horses. The greater part of them were patriots from Kentucky, and their leader was a brave Hungarian, Major Charles Zagonyi. This company was known as " Fremont's body-guard."
On his brief march before his recall, Fremont had sent this guard in advance to mark the position of the rebel forces. Soon after starting, Zagonyi was joined by a battalion called " Prairie scouts," increasing his force to three hundred men. Going merrily on towards Springfield, within two hours' march of the town, they were
466 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
met by a Union farmer who told them the enemy, two thousand in number, were in Springfield. Zagonyi turned to his little band of three hundred : " Comrades, the enemy is before us, two thousand strong. If any man would turn back, do it now." Not a man stirred. The horses, perfectly trained, stood like horses of stone. " Then follow me," shouted the brave Hungarian, " and do as I do." With this the troops dashed on. Over a muddy brook where the horses' hoofs stuck in clinging mud ; stopping to tear down a high board fence in sight of the enemy's sharp-shooters ; down through a lane bordered with woods from which murderous rifles piclvfed them off at every shot ; through all these obstacles the guard dashed on, crying "Union and Fremont," as they rode. It was like running the gauntlet of death. Seventy bodies were left dead or wounded in the lane.
When they emerged they saw the enemy — four hundred horse, twelve hundred foot — posted on a hill in front of the town. Still sounding their battle-cry, the guard spurred onward. One band of thirty burst with such impetuous fury on the cavalry's ranks that they scattered them in that one charge. The rest, riding with head- long speed among the infantry, spread wild confusion in their ranks. Right and left fled the rebels, the guard at their heels. Into neigh- boring corn fields, trampling down the tasseled grain ; into the woods, at whose border the pursuers reigned up their steeds ; back to the village, whose streets swarmed with men fighting hand to hand ; this way and that, fled the rebel forces, pell-mell, till the field was clear, and Zagonyi and his guard held Springfield. But the foe might return in larger force, and Zagonyi knew himself too weak to hold the field. He therefore left the town in the night and fell back towards Fremont. It was the one brilliant exploit of the guard. On Fremont's recall they were disbanded, and the charge at Springfield was their only opportunity to win the glory they thirsted for.
One of the best things done by Fremont in his very brief admin- istration of affairs in St. Louis was the guarding of Cairo. Cairo is a very uninviting looking town on the Mississippi, just where the Ohio River comes pouring in. But muddy, and dirty, and low- lying as it is, it would have been great gain to the rebels if they had taken it. In the fall of 1861, an officer named Ulysses S. Grant, newly made a major-general of our armies, was stationed at Cairo. Hearing that the rebel forces were marching up into Kentucky, he
THE GREAT BORDER STATE. 467
reached out an arm of strength and took Padiicah, a town on the Ohio, just on its bend to the Mississippi. The Kentucky governor, •who bore the very extraordinary name of Beriah Magoffin, was all the time loudly proclaiming the neutrality of Kentucky. This neu- trality on the part of Beriah, consisted principally in ordering Union troops from off the " polluted soil of Kentucky," and in blandly ignoring the entrance of the rebel troops inside her borders. But the people of Kentucky were largely loyal, and many regiments from her midst were already in the field to fight for the nation. Leonidas Polk, a rebel general from Louisiana, a fighting Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was marching up to take Columbus, a town south of Cairo on the river. With him was General Pillow, who had seen good service in Mexico, and had deserted the flag under which he then fought, for the new flag of Jefferson Davis and his fellow conspirators. These were in the west, while in the east of Kentucky, in her mountain-region, Felix Zollicoffer had marched the rebel troops from Tennessee, to keep those mountain Unionists under. But the Unionists were ready for him, and in the very first skirmish drove his army back from their encampment.
Up at Louisville, Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame guarded the river borders. He was ill, and almost unfit for service, but a remarkable aid of his, William T. Sherman, was ready at any time to step into the command. Already he had baffled an attempt of the rebel General Buckner to surprise Louisville, and he was at work organizing a great army which would one day be known as the " Army of the Cumberland." You have now in your mind's eye, I hope, the position of Unionists and rebels in Kentucky. Let us return for a time to East Virginia, and see what work was being done there.
The rebels still held their camps almost in full sight of the na- tional capital. From some parts of the city one could see the wav- ing of Confederate flags. Since Bull Run the rebels had been jubi- lant. They believed for a time that the whole war was decided in that one fight. The North, by that defeat, was only incited to new efforts. The first 75,000 men, raised for three months, had gone home, and now troops enlisted for three years, or " for the war," poured into Washington. The tramp \ tramp! tramp! of their steady march sounded from Oregon to Maine, and southward through Maryland to the capital.
General Scott had grown old and infirm. The country grumbled
468
STORY OF OUK COUNTRY.
at him, and called for a young commander. In answer to this call
General George B. McClellan, who had managed affairs in West Virginia, and managed them well, was called to be general-in-chief of the armies, and to the command of the " Army of the Potomac." In September that army held a grand review of 70,000 men. By November it had swelled to 200,000 men, the largest army that had ever encamped on American soil. General
George B. McClellan. McCMlan, who UndcrstOOd
military matters perfectly, had drilled it and disciplined it so thoroughly that the men moved in the field like veteran soldiers. The only fault anybody found with the army and its general was that during the long fall and winter of 1861 they did not march on that enemy who all the time faced them, flaunting their flag in the eyes of the nation. During all this time there was only one engage- ment deserving the name of a battle. This took place on a high bluff of the Potomac, northwest of Washington, known as " Ball's Bluff," where the national troops were defeated and terribly slaugh- tered ; where Colonel Baker, a promising soldier of Oregon, lost his life on the field. The battle of Ball's Bluff was fought the 21st of October. Two months after, on the 20th December, there was a tussle with the enemy at Drainsville, in which the Unionists had the advantage. But for the most part these two armies remained idle, facing each other all these long months. And the North, who was waiting eagerly to see the great masses of men it had furnished set to work, read day after day, " All quiet along the Potomac," in all the newspapers, and on all the bulletin boards, till at last the phrase excited indignation and hot complaint.
APFAIRS ON THE SEA-COAST. 469
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AFFAIRS ON THE SEA-COAST.
The Blockade. — Blockade Runners. — The Sea Islands. — A Steamboat Waltz. — The Trent. — Seizure of Prisoners on an English Ship. — Feeling of England. — Danger of War averted.
So far I have told you nothing about the plans of the navy and its war-ships. But I am sure that you do not believe our fleets are to lie inactive, or that the nation has forgotten what an aid in time of war had been the services of such men as Perry, Decatur, and Macdonough. When the rebellion began, we had less than one hundred ships ready. All summer and fall at the docks in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, the hammer of the ship-builder was constantly heard. In less than a year, over three hundred ships could have been mustered for our navy. Early in the war President Lincoln had ordered the ports of the rebellious sea-coast " blockaded." This blockade was to stop all vessels com- ing from foreign ports who were carrying in any goods to sell to the rebels, to help them in keeping up the war ; and also to pre- vent any of their ships from going out to sell their cotton in foreign ports. Still many vessels did escape the vigilant eyes of the captains who were watching these ports, and many ships known as " blockade runners " did a good business between England and the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas.
Early in August, 1861, General Butler gave up his command in Fortress Monroe to the veteran General Wool, who came from New York to take command there. General Butler was given in charge of a fleet, and sent to Hatteras Inlet on the coast of North Carolina. All old sailors know Hatteras, for it is almost always sure to blow such a gale off that point that one would think the four winds had gone mad there and blew all ways at once. Hatteras Inlet is the narrow entrance to Pamlico Sound, between those long narrow strips of islands that stretch all around our eastern and southern coast to Florida and Mississippi. General Butler sailed to Hatteras Inlet, took the forts on either side of it, and leaving a garrison there, went back to Washington for more troops, to get a secure foothold in North Carolina.
In October another expedition was sent, much larger than Butler's. It was a splendid fleet under Admiral Dupont, with an army on
470 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
board commanded by General T. W. Sherman. They were bound for the "Sea Islands," a swarming archipelago on the southern coast of South Carolina. On these islands, Hilton Head, Philip, St. Helena, Port Royal, and many others, grow the finest cotton in the world, called the " sea-island cotton." In the old town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island, were the mansions of some of the wealthiest of all the slave-holders. Thither went the army of gun-boats to attack that State which had begun the rebellion against the govern- ment. The flag-ship of Dupont was called the Wabash. Behind her were forty-eight gun-boats and steamers, and twenty-six sailing vessels. Though they were scattered at first by one of those bluster- ing gales that blow off Hatteras, they reunited in front of Hilton Head, and prepared for their attack. There were two forts. Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard, flanking the passage between Hilton Head and Philip's Island into the heart of the archipelago. Dupont formed his fleet into a huge round O, the Wabash leading the circle, and began to steam round and round between the two forts, each vessel pouring into them a hot fire as it passed slowly by. Round and round, to the waltz-music of the cannon, went the ships, till the poor forts gave way, and our ships and men held the richest lands of the South in their grasp. The land-holders made a swift retreat when they heard the news, burning as they went, their stored cotton, now almost worth its weight in gold. There was one class of inhabitants who did not run, however. These were the negroes, laborers on these plantations. When our ships came near they flocked eagerly to their sides, sometimes with all their earthly goods tied up in little bundles, begging to be taken away to freedom. This was the first genuine success of the government. The hold this expedition gained in the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, was of great value. Soon after, busy " Yankees " were experimenting in cotton raising on the Sea Islands, and schools established for the teaching of the negroes were seen on the spot where slavery had flourished best.
In November, 1861, an exciting event took place that at one time seemed likely to provoke a war with England. James Mason and John Slidell, two agents of the rebel party, ran the blockade at Charleston, reached Havana safely, and there took passage on the English ship Tt-ent, bound for England. They bore with them papers from Jefferson Davis, making Mr. Mason an ambassador to England, and Mr. Slidell to France, to urge those countries to recog- nize the seceded States as an independent nation.
•AFFAIRS ON THE SEA-COAST. 471
Captain Wilkes, the commander of the American ship San Ja- cinto, had heard of the departure of these two men, and resolved to take them off the English ship as traitors to the government, en- gaged in treasonable practices against the United States. He has- tened therefore to come up with the English vessel, and reached her just before she put in at the island of St. Thomas. There he boarded the ship, seized Mason and Slidell, and bore them to New York as his prisoners.
There was great rejoicing all over the United States, and Captain Wilkes was publicly thanked. But in thus taking these men from a foreign vessel, Captain Wilkes had violated a principle upon which this country had previously acted. The United States had always denied the right of a foreign vessel to search one of its own ships, and take from it any one who was a passenger thereon. Eng- land, on the contrary, had frequently transgressed this rule. You remember how during the Revolution she had taken Henry Laurens off a Dutch ship, and imprisoned him in the Tower, and how prior to the War of 1812 she had seized so many seamen from American vessels, claiming them as her subjects.
In the seizure of Mason and Slidell, therefore. Captain Wilkes had really transgressed the usual policy of the United States. The only excuse for the act was, that the country was so excited by the terrible struggle for its existence, that it was for the time blinded to what was absolutely just and right. But when England de- manded these two men who had been thus taken from off the planks of her vessel, and declared it a violation of all national courtesy to enter her ships and take men by violence, the country stopped to reason about it, and the more wise and thoughtful people at once said, " England is right. She merely takes the ground in this matter which the United States has always taken, and Mason and Slidell must be given up to her protection." And although many people felt annoyed and humiliated at the mistake that had been made, it was generally felt that a wrong was better made right at once, than left unredressed, and that to quarrel with England in an unjust cause, would be very foolish indeed. So Mason and Slidell were allowed to go to England and France, where they had no suc- cess as ambassadors, and the rebels who had hoped there would be a war, in which England would have been their ally, were very much disappointed at the way the whole affair had turned out.
472
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TAKING OF DONEI.SON.
Gibraltar of the West. — U. S. Grant in Cairo. — Patience and Perseverance. — Commodore Foote batters Fort Henry. — Tlie Muddy Road to Donelson. — The Rebel Ruse. — Grant detects the Design. — Fall of Donelson. — Unconditional Surrender. — Halleck in Missouri — A Renegade Poet. — Pea Ridge. — Guerrillas. — Close of the Year 1862.
Will you come with me now to the theatre of war in Ken- tucky and Tennessee, where great events are to take place in the
year 1862. We left Ulysses S. Grant at Cairo, holding fast to that valuable point on the Mississippi. The rebels still held Columbus, Kentucky, a point on the river below Cairo. They called it boastingly the " Gibraltar of the West," and declared no force could be mus- tered that could take it. Co- lumbus was the western end of the rebel lines in Kentucky. The eastern end was at Bowl- ing Green, on the railroad be- Bowling Green was called the " Manassas of the West" in proud recollection of the rebel success in holding Manassas in Virginia. They felt altogether sure of holding Kentucky and Tennessee against Union assaults, so long as they held Columbus and Bowling Green, and you can see by their pet names, " Gibraltar " and " Manassas," what an opinion they had of their strength. But the rebel lines had a middle as well ;n two ends. Two great rivers, the Tennessee and Cumberland, come rushing up through the States of Tennessee and Kentucky to pour themselves into the Ohio River just a little way from where the Ohio pours itself into the Mississippi. These two rivers flow side by side, in friendly companionship, for rnany miles before they join the Ohio. At one point where they are about twelve miles distant, the rebels had erected two forts, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. These two forts, lying about midway between Columbus and Bowling Green, formed the rebei
Ulysses S. Grant.
tween Louisville and Nashville.
TAKING OF DONELSON. 473
centre. To take them would be like opening a side door to Colum- bus and Bowling Green. It would also be like opening a front door to another important point, — the town of Nashville, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River, which was guarded by these forts. Besides, if the forts were taken, the navigation of the rivers would be free to Union steamboat's. Up the Tennessee, vessels could sail into the State of Alabama, which so far, since the war, had been locked up and double-bolted against the armies of the nation.
General Ulysses S. Grant, turning over these matters in his mind up in Cairo, fixed on Forts Henry and Donelson as the points on which to strike the blow that would cut the snake of rebellion in Kentucky right in two in the middle, and make the head at Co- lumbus, and the tail at Bowling Green, of not the slightest possible use to the reptile.
You have no idea what hard work it is for a clever general to carry out his ideas. It is not only the work of getting a large army ready to move, seeing that the men have comfortable clothing, good shoes to march in, plenty of provisions carefully guarded, horses and wagons to carry the goods ; but, if a subordinate general has a good idea, he has to get leave to act upon it, from the com- manding general of his department. Often and often when he sees a good chance, and telegraphs to his superior, " May I hit the enemy here ? " or, " May I strike a blow in this direction ? " the command- ing general delays answering, or waits to examine the plans of the subordinate, till the golden moment goes, and it is too late to carry out the design.
So Grant had to wait and wait to get leave from Halleck, com- mander in Missouri, to make the attempt on the two forts. For- tunately this was a man who knew how to wait patiently when there was need of it. " Patience and Perseverance " would be an excellent motto for U. S. Grant's war-banner. At length, on the last day of January, 1862, came the long wished for permission to march on the forts. Commodore Foote, with a fleet of iron-covered gun-boats, was sent down the Tennessee River in advance. Behind him, in steam " transports," followed Grant and his army. Fort Henry was known to be the weakest of the two strongholds, and they were to begin operations there.
It was the 6th of February on which the attack was to be made. Commodore Foote was to draw up his gun-boats in front of the fort, and pepper away at it with all his guns. In the mean time, Grant,
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
who had landed his army four miles below the fort, was to send General McClernand and the troops round to a back road running from Fort Henry to Donelson, to cut off any retreat that might be attempted from Fort Henry. He knew that Donelson was the real stronghold, and felt sure they would send their men and guns over to Donelson, if Foote succeeded in his attack.
Commodore Foote, who was a sincere, pious soul, and no brag- gart, said he would have the white flag floating over Fort Henry in one hour from the time his boats began upon her. He was not far out of time. It was just an hour and five minutes after his fire began, that the fort surrendered. In the mean time McClernand's army were hurrying round to the road behind Fort Henry. Un- luckily it was terribly muddy, and they were behind time. All the
Foote's Flotilla.
rebel guns of any value and most of the men had got across before McClernand reached the road. Muddy roads have been the cause of many a loss on one side and many a gain on the other. When Henry surrendered there was only a handful of men in the fort, under a brave commander. General Tilghman, who held out stoutly till he had covered the retreat to Donelson. This was the 6tli of February. Six days later Grant set out for Donelson along the road from Henry. As he neared the Cumberland River he kept spread- ing his lines till his army lay in a great half circle running outside of Donelson, with its two ends on the river.
Donelson was much larger and sti'onger than Henry. General Pillow had been commanding there, with General Buckner, who had been a prominent rebel in Kentucky ever since the war began. On the day of Grant's march upon it, John B. Floyd had arrived there
TAKING OF DONELSON.
475
with an army and taken chief command. So there were three prominent generals and 15,000 men in the fort. As before, Com- modore Foote began the attack. But this time he was not so suc- cessful. The rebel guns from the fort peppered him there as badly as he had peppered them at Henry. He made a gallant fight all one afternoon, but at length was obliged to fall down the river with his boats injured and almost useless. It was the evening of the 14th of February when Foote retired. Grant had made up his mind that it would take time to take the place and was going to keep up the siese, while he
sent for more troops and repaired his gun- boats, when the reb- els helped him to a different conclusion. They had a talk in the fort that very evening, and Floyd concluded that they
could not stand a GranVs Head-quarters at Fort Oonelson.
long siege. He accordingly resolved to go out next day and give battle. During the fight they were to watch a good opportunity for retreat and when it came make off in good order, leaving the empty fort to Grant's army.
This was acted on next morning. General Pillow came out, and threw all his forces on the right end of our lines, resting on the river. General McClernand commanded here and held his • own bravely. But he was very hard pressed and Pillow was feeling quite confident of escape if not of victory.
Grant was down the river talking with Foote when the attack began. Up he galloped to the scene of battle. When he reached the place there was a lull in the battle, but McClernand's men, who had felt the heaviest of the attack were weakened and discouraged. Grant heard a soldier say, as he was talking with McClernand, —
" The rebels have come out to fight for several days. They have got their haversacks full of provisions."
Grant turned suddenly. " Bring me a rebel haversack," he or- dered.
The haversack of a " gray-coat " was brought to him. He ex- amined it and found it provisioned for three days.
476 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
" This means retreat," he said. " Men don't provision Hke this unless they mean to run away. One spirited attack now, will finish the fight."
At once he ordered General Smith, who commanded the Union forces on the left, to begin the attack. General Lew. Wallace in the centre, and McClernand, reinforced by some fresh troops, were to be ready to join when they heard Smith's guns. One concen- trated terrible push along the whole rebel lines, and Grant felt that the victory was his. It was done. With overpowering force the whole line made the attack. The fight waxed more and more deadly. The snow-covered earth was spread thick with dead ; pools of blood everywhere stained its whiteness. The cries of the wounded men, suffering from the bitter cold, as well as from the agony of their hurts, could be heard among all the uproar of battle. When darkness came mercifully, to cut off for a time the carnage, the rebels had been driven inside their lines.
Grant and his men were in good spirits.
" Two hours more of good fighting to-morrow will finish the bat- tle," they said.
Inside the fort General Floyd was packing up to go away. He feared if he were taken prisoner the government of the United States might remember the money and muskets he had sent to the Southern conspirators when he was holding an office of liigh trust in Buchanan's cabinet. So, during the night, he took his army and got away by the river. General Pillow also thought discretion was the better part of valor, and discretion consisted in not being taken prisoner. By daylight on the 16th of February, General Buckner, the real hero of the defense, was left alone to surrender. He sent out to Grant to know what terms he would accept.
" No terms but unconditional surrender can be accepted. I pro- pose to move immediately upon your works," answered the general, who wrote this dispatch in liis tent sitting on an empty cracker- box. Buckner made no further remonstrance, and at once Grant's conquering army marched into Donelson.
The very day after the capture of Donelson, General Johnston began a retreat with his forces from Bowling Green. TWo weeks later General Bishop Leonidas Polk took his forces from Columbus and sent them to an island in the Mississippi, known as Island No. 10. At Nashville, the frightened Governor of Tennessee packed ap his papers and valuables, and fled to Memphis. All over the city
TAKING OF DONELSON. 477
of Nashville there was hurrying and scurrying to get out of town, among those who had reason to dread the presence of Union troops. On the 26th of February part of our army entered and took possession there. An expedition was sent at once to Alabama, and soon, in the northern part of that State, our flag waved over a part of the nation to which it had been long a stranger. For the first time since the war opened, the whole North felt it had real cause for joy, and every loyal heart, North and South, beat with thankfulness at the news of the taking of Bonelmn.
After Fremont was recalled from Missouri, General Halleck was given command there. Fremont had made a mistake, — so Mr. Lincoln and the government thought, — in proclaiming the negroes of the rebels free men and women. Halleck did not mean to err on that side, so he ordered that all slaves running away to the Union camps should be at once sent back to their masters. The excuse for this order was that negroes sometimes carried information to the rebels which aided them in planning an attack. This is now known to be false. It is now known, that from first to last, from one boundary to the other of the " Southern Confederacy," the slaves were the devoted friends of the Union cause. It was proved that no ill treatment or distrust ever served to shake their loyalty. All through the war the " Yankee " soldier, wherever he found himself in the disloyal States, was absolutely sure of the aid and sympathy of the loyal negro, of all shades of color, and all degrees of intelli- gence.
General Sterling Price, who had been for some time encamped in Springfield, suddenly heard that the Union General S. R. Curtis was marching down upon him. He was eating his breakfast when the news came and left at once with his army, leaving his dishes unwashed, and his half-eaten breakfast in camp. He repaired over the Missouri border into Arkansas, to join again his old friend McCulloch. There the two generals mustered quite a large army. Among their troops were four or five thousand Indians, from the Indian Territory. They were commanded by a long-haired poet, named Albert Pike, who had formerly written some tolerable verses, against the dissolution of the Union. This renegade poet was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but seems to have forgotton both his State and his country.
Curtis came on in pursuit of Price. As soon as his troops crossed the boundary they set up a flag-staff and unfurled the flag with a
478 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
great cheer as they saw it flying over the soil of another State. Earl Van Dorn, another famous rebel, had just taken supreme com- mand over Price, McCulloch, and Pike's Indian army. They were all in the extreme northwest corner of Arkansas, when the battle- hour drew near. Curtis, who liad Sigel with him, was on a mount- ain swell, heavily wooded, and cut up by ravines, known as Pea Ridge. Earl Van Dorn, with a very much larger force, was threat- ening him all around. Curtis saw that he must fight in spite of the great disparity of numbers. He therefore formed his lines on the 7th of March, and the two armies faced each other in the Battle of Pea Ridge.
The fight lasted all day, sometimes turning in favor of Unionists, sometimes of rebels. On that day General McCulloch was killed. He was a good soldier, and an important loss to the rebel cause. That night Curtis made all preparations for a victory in the morn- ing. He felt so sure of success that he was terribly disappointed when he got up next day and ordered the advance, to find the field quite empty of foes. The rebels had run away in the night.
For some time after this, the rebels were quiet in Missouri, and there was very little except guerrilla warfare going on in that quar- ter. The " guerrillas " were bands of armed men who roamed about the country making raids at intervals, in which they carried off all the property they could, and destroyed what they could not carry away. They were not part of the regular army, but were generally led by a bold and reckless leader who called them together and disbanded them much at his own pleasure. The trouble with guerrillas (you must not get them mixed up with gorillas, though they are rather suggestive of wild animals), was that you never knew where to find them. They would make a dash in one place, murder a number of Union men, steal all the horses and cattle, tram- ple down the crops, and be off before any force could be mustered to capture them. The border States were very much pestered by guerrillas.
To finish up. events in the western border, I must tell you that late in the year 1862, General Hindman commanded the rebels on this line, with his head-quarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hind- man amused himself and his men by burning villages, stealing cattle, destroying crops, and killing Unionists in Northern Arkansas. Even the Confederates suffered from his rule and clamored for his recall from the State. He met the Union General Blunt in a sharp fight
WORK ON THE OCEAN IN 1862. 479
near Prairie Grove, in which both sides declared they had beaten. As the rebels tore up their blankets in the night, after the fighting was over, and wound them round their cannon wheels so as to get away without being heard by the Unionists, I should say they had had the worst of it. Be that as it may, at the end of 1862 Mis- souri was comparatively quiet, and there was very little of interest going on in Arkansas, to either the rebel or Union cause.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WORK ON THE OCEAN IN 1862.
Hampton Roads. — The Burnside Expedition. — A Formidable Monster. — How the Cumber- land went down. — A Cheese Box on a Raft. — Fight of the Monitor and Merrimack.
Let us turn to the sea-coast once more and see what our gun- boats and iron-clads are doing there. In January, 1862, nearly one hundred ships, both steam and sailing vessels, were riding at anchor in Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads is not a highway on land as its name might imply. It is an arm of Chesapeake Bay, running up into the coast of Virginia. These ships and the troops on board them, were commanded by Commodore Goldsborough and General Ambrose Burnside. These were going down to the coast of North Carolina, to take possession of it as Dupont had taken the islands of South Carolina.
They set out on the 11th of January. Just as they drew near Hatteras Inlet, one of the dreadful gales blew off the stormy cape. The splendid fleet was scattered and some of the ships lost. After the storm was over, seventy vessels got over the bay and made their way to Roanoke Island. They came to the very spot where Sir Walter Raleigh's unsuccessful colony came in 1585. How differently it looked in this year of grace, 1862, when the Burnside Expedition steamed up to capture it. Now it bristled with angry-looking can- non, and instead of the fragrant odors . of the forest, the air was redolent of smoke and the smell of gunpowder.
Burnside's success at Roanoke was as decided as Dupont's success at Port Royal, His troops landed on the island, marched up through a narrow causeway, defended on each side by cannon, and took the enemy's works in gallant fashion. After taking Roanoke they moved to the main-land and captured Newbern, the most im-
31
480 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
portant town on the North Carolina coast. By April the towns at the mouths of all the principal rivers were in the power of the United States. The whole coast of Carolina was blockaded by our ships. If Burnside had controlled land forces enough he might have pressed still farther inland, but in all this expedition he had only about 15,000 men.
This very month of April General Quincy Gilmore, a civil engineer as well as a soldier, attacked Fort Pulaski, a strong- hold guarding the mouth of the Savannah River. This post was taken, and another of the best points on the coast restored to the nation.
In the mean time a formidable monster had appeared in Hampton Roads, some time after Burnside left there. A fleet of Union ves- sels lying peacefully in the James River not far from Fortress Mon- roe, were startled by the appearance of an iron-clad ship making rapidly towards them. It was the steamer Merrimach, once a fine war vessel belonging to the navy. When the rebels seized the navy- yard at Norfolk they had sunk this ship in the harbor. On sec- ond thought they had raised the hulk, and found it still firm and seaworthy. They had put over the deck a shelving iron roof from which cannon-balls glanced over harmlessly, and had plated the sides over with iron to below the water-level. Thus fitted up, with a formidable pointed " beak" of oak and iron fastened to her bow, the Merrimack was a monster frightful to the stoutest wooden ship that ever sailed the seas.
Down she came on this Saturday, the 8th of March, right upon the grand old Cumberland, who awaited her unflinchingly. They fought for two hours, the water gushing through the holes which the iron beak of the enemy gored in the wooden sides of the Cum- berland. At the last, her brave captain, Morris, refused to surrender, and the ship went down with one hundred dead and wounded on her decks, with her good flag still flying. Even after the vessel sank, the flag floated above the waves, a sign of hope and cheer to the others in the fight.
" ' Strike your flag! ' the rebel cries In his arrogant old plantation strain. ' Never ! ' our gallant Morris cries. ' It is better to sink than to yield ! ' And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men.
WORK ON THE OCEAN IN 1862, 481
" Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the main-raast head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge for the dead ! ' '
Without a pause the Merrimack turned to the Congress^ who had already been attacked by some wooden companions of the iron giant-ship. In a short time the Cotigress was on fire, slowly burn- ing down to the powder stored in the hold. Then the monster went on to attack the other ships lying almost under the shadow of Fortress Monroe. Luckily darkness came to check her all-devouring career, and with the certainty of more easy victories on the next day, the Merrimack withdrew till daylight.
But day-break a little changed the scene. Next morning the Merrimack beheld a plucky little enemy beside her, dressed in a suit of clothes of the same material as her own. It was the United
Engagement of Merrimack and Monitor.
States Monitor, built in New York by John Ericsson, and sent just in time to try her hand at checking the victorious Merrimack. She looked like a flat iron raft, with a round iron box or turret in the middle. The rebels called it a " Yankee cheese-box on a raft," and this was not a bad name for it. But the cheese-box had within its iron sides two great guns which turned round and round on a pivot, and could be sighted by the men inside, with almost the precision of a rifle. These guns could send a ball that weighed two hundred pounds. When the Merrimack saw this little craft steaming up close by her, with nothing visible but the turret, she felt like laugh-
482 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
iiig. But when one of those two hundred pound balls dented into her iron sides and shook her like the crash of a thunder-bolt, there was no fun in it. Goliali did not laugh after David struck him once with the stone from his sling. The Merrimack tried her shot on the Monitor^ but they pattered off her iron-proof sides like hail on a house-roof. She ran down upon her, full force, and tried to gore her with her pointed beak as she had gored the Cumberland and Con- gress ; but the little craft scarcely budged under the shock and kept up her steady fire from those revolving guns. At last, after four hours of such fighting, the Merrimack retired, leaving the small Monitor in possession of the watery field. Cheers rose from fort and ships at the spectacle ; and from that time there was no more fear of the rebel monster, in Hampton Roads, while the " Yankee cheese-box " guarded the entrance there.
CHAPTER XL.
SHILOH, ISLAND NO. 10, AND CORINTH.
The Log Meeting-house. — The Surprise. — "Drive the Yankees into the River." — Beaure- gard's Great Victory. — The Tide turns next Morning. — Cutting a Canal under Water. — Taking of Island No. 10. — The Siege of Corinth. — Beauregard's Last Strategy. — The Nation had found its Leader.
The fall of Fort Donelson drove the rebels straight down through the State of Tennessee. Their commanding general, Al- bert S. Johnston, stopped his march at Corinth, a little town in the very northeast corner of Mississippi, only a few miles from the boundary of Tennessee. Here he was joined by General Beaure- gard, the hero of Bull Run, who came to aid him. Bishop Polk also came from Columbus with part of his troops, — the rest he had left to fortify Island No. 10 — and General Bragg, who had commanded the famous battery at Buena Vista in Mexico, also added an army freshly recruited in Mississippi and Alabama, to the gathering masses. By the 1st of April 40,000 rebels were in Cor- inth.
Grant was closely following on Johnston's heels. He had halted at a point on the Tennessee River known as Pittsburg Landing, about twenty miles north of Corinth ; and all about this village, which consisted of two or three log huts on the river bank, his army
SHILOH, ISLAND NO. 10, AND CORINTH.
483
lay encamped. Three miles from the river was a poor little log church known as " Shiloh Meeting-house," and around this church was posted the division of William T. Sherman, who had been sent to join Grant after the taking of Donelson.
It was just before dawn on Sunday, the 6th of April. The Union army near Pittsburg Landing was fast asleep. Behind them lay the broad Tennessee River. To the right and left, wind- ing about their encampment, were two small rivers known as " Snake " and " Lick " creeks, tributaries of the large Tennessee. General Grant was at Savannah, ten miles distant, looking after
■I . f^V ^^^^
Pittsburg Landing.
.r>'/^;-^--
provisions to feed his great army. There had been some rumors that the enemy at Corinth meant to attack at Pittsburg Landing, but not much attention was paid to this report, and it seemed quite certain that General Carlos Buell, who was on his way with a large force to join Grant at Pittsburg Landing, would come up before serious fighting began. Therefore Grant in Savannah, and the Union troops in their camp on the river, slept soundly and without fear.
At that very moment Johnston and Beauregard, with their arm;y
484
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of 40,000, lay bid in the encircling wood about the Union camp. They bad marched swiftly and secretly from Corinth, through rain and mud, and at midnight had gained sight of the camp fires. Cold and weary they lay on the ground, not daring to light fires to dry their clothes or cook a comfortable meal, lest the smoke or the light should reveal their presence to Union pickets. Just as the gray dawn broke on Sunday, — that day which ought to bring peace and good-will among men, — the Union soldiers were roused from sleep by the wild yells which hailed the rebel attack. In a moment all was hurry and confusion in Sherman's camp, where the alarm began. His pickets made a feeble resistance, then rushed
'^> W^^k 't^^^^' '%/ , ^ 4^^^'
^:- ^w
'V-. a
Pickets on Duty.
back to. give the alarm. It soon spread from camp to camp. There was dressing in hot haste ; no time for breakfast, or for elaborate toilets. By daylight the battle of Shiloh had fairly set in.
The battle broke first on Sherman's division near the log meeting- house. He worked like the hero he was, and fought his ground inch by inch. But first Bragg, then Polk, and afterwards Johnston, beat upon him right and left. He was obliged to fall back nearer the river.
It was eight in the morning when Grant galloped on from Savan- nah where he had heard the firing. He sent post haste to hurry up General Buell, who he knew could not be far away, and another eX'
SHILOH, ISLAND NO. 10, AND CORINTH. 485
press was sent to General Lew. Wallace, who was at a landing up the river with 5,000 men. If he could hold out till reinforcements came up. Grant did not despair.
The enemy fought hard to drive the Unionists to the river. There was not a boat to take them over. In case worse came to the worst, they could only have fought to the brink and then they must either drown or surrender. Beauregard, riding up and down his ranks, repeated again and again this order, " Drive the Yankees into the Tennessee."
For hours the battle raged, the Union troops all the time pressed backwards. But the banks of the river just here were high and ridgy. The Union troops had mounted guns on this crest, and with them held back the rebel advance. To keep this ridge was their only hope of resistance.
At three in the afternoon the rebel General Albert Sydney John- ston, riding in front of his troops, felt a twinge in his leg where a rifle ball had entered. " It is nothing but a flesh wound," he said, riding on. Ten minutes later he turned to his aid, deadly pale and almost fainting, " I fear I am mortally wounded," he said, brokenly. Then stretching out his arms to his companion, he fell from his horse, dead. His loss was a serious one to the South. He was one of their ablest commanding generals. Still with victory so near them as it seemed at that hour, his loss could not alter the chances. His body was borne quietly from the field and the fight went on.
As darkness fell, Beauregard gave orders for his men to suspend battle for the night. That morning he had pointed to the tents, where our army lay, unconscious of the near danger, and said to his oflScers. " Gentlemen, we will sleep to-night in the enemy's camp." He was right. The whole Union lines had fallen back so far from their position that the conquering rebels held their camping ground of the night previous. If he had gone on with the battle, in spite of growing darkness, he might perhaps have pushed the Union troops to the river and forced them to " surrender or drown."
That night Beauregard sat in his tent till after midnight, writ- ing the report of the " glorious victory of the Confederate Army." While he wrote, the fresh troops of General Buell, who had been hurrying up to join Grant the previous day, were arriving, regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade. General Lew. Wallace, with his 5,000 men, was also in camp, after a hard march the afternoon previous. When Monday morning dawned there was an army of
486 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
50,000 Unionists at Shiloli, ready to regain what they had lost the 4ay before. Beauregard's army had dwindled, by the killed, wounded, and missing, in Sunday's fight, to hardlj'-more than 30,000. While he wrote in proud security of victory, the tables were ready to be turned upon him.
The battle of the second day began when these masses of fresh soldiers were hurled against the rebels, already worn by the hard fight of the first day ; a less soldierly eye than that of Beauregard could have foreseen the issue. He made a gallant show of resist- ance, but fell back constantly. At noon, he ordered a retreat towards the stronghold at Corinth. On Monday afternoon Grant's banners fluttered victorious over the Battle-field of Shiloh. I have told you that the end of the rebel lines at Columbus fell back to Island No. 10, an island in the Mississippi, just where the river makes a double curve between Kentucky and Arkansas. This island had been strongly fortified. The town of New Madrid, lying opposite in Arkansas, was also guarded by rebel forces under the famous guerrilla chieftain, Jeff. Thompson. Rebel batteries, planted up and down on both sides of the river, were ready to sweep vessels coming down the stream, and a fleet of gun-boats lying off New Madrid lent their aid in making this point in the river impassable. While Grant was lying at Pittsburg Landing awaiting the battles' of Shiloh, which broke up the centre of the rebel lines as effectually as it had been before broken up at Donelson, General John Pope, who had been generalling in Missouri since the war began, was proceeding to take Island No. 10.
The fii-st thing Pope did was to drive Jeff. Thompson away from New Madrid and take possession with his army. This was not a work of much time. Thompson saw that it was not a place that he could hold, and accordingly he took advantage of a dark night, and a tremendous thunder-storm, and landed all his troops on the island, leaving Pope to come peaceably into his desired head-quarters.
Just about this time Commodore Foote, who had been in Cairo repairing his vessels, battered in the attack on Donelson, appeared on the scene of action. Eighteen gun-boats, all made as good as new, prepared to pound away with their cannon and mortar-guns on Island No. 10.
The attack was begun March 16th, and promised to be slow busi- ness. The batteries along the shore answered back Foote's firing. The days went by till April, and still the island remained appar-
SHILOH, ISLAND NO. 10, AND CORINTH.
487
ently as strong as ever. Pope, at his headquarters in New Madrid, was all the time chafing with impatience at his inability to hasten on affairs. One morning Gen. Hamilton of his army came to hira with a brilliant suggestion. He proposed to cut a canal straight across a swampy tongue of land jutting out into the river opposite the island, through which gun-boats would pass out of reach of shore or island batteries, get down below No. 10, and so attack it in front and rear at once. The plan was at once acted on. In nine- teen days the soldiers, commanded by the army engineers, had cut a canal twelve miles long, through the swampy peninsula, covered with trees which had to be sawed by hand four feet iHnder water.
Building the Canal.
On the 5th of April the enemy saw a fleet coming up from below, upon their defenses. Already several of their shore batteries had been silenced. They saw that Island No. 10 was as good as taken, and resolved to save themselves by instant flight. Pope heard of this intention, and hastened down below to cut off their retreat. The fugitives, hemmed in by the river on one hand, the swamps on the other. Pope's army in front and their deserted stronghold in the rear, could do nothing but surrender. Nearly 7,000 men were taken prisoners' without striking a blow. The same day the rebels remain- ing on the island sent a flag to Commodore Foote, and the place was in his hands when Pope returned. This happened on the 8th of April, the day after the victory at Shiloh.
488 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Pope went immediately over to join Grant's army, who had begun the siege of Corinth, where Beauregard had retreated from Shiloh. There the rebels had built, or pretended to build, another set of im- pregnable fortresses. General Halleck, who had come down from Missouri to take the chief command, was very cautious about moving upon the enemy's works. Grant, Pope, and Sherman were all in front of Corinth, waiting the order from Halleck to attack. But although there was some skirmishing and a constant advance, over a month slipped by, and the town was not taken. On the night of May 30th a terrible explosion was heard in Corinth. The soldiers in the Union camp could see clouds of smoke rolling into the air. Sherman was ordered forward to look out for the enemy and see what they were doing. He found Corinth empty. The rebels had decamped again. For days Beauregard had been sending his most valuable stores away south to Mobile. He had gone with his army to Tupelo, a place commanding the railway lines to Mobile and New Orleans. He began to feel that it was important to be near the railway in case of further retreat. This was Beauregard's last strategy, however. Jefferson Davis, who was at Richmond making believe that he was president of a " great and glorious country," was tired of him. He took advantage of his temporary illness to put General Bragg in his place, and the star of Beauregard, who was really a very able military man, went down below the horizon. The rebels fought no more battles with him for a leader.
After Pope left for Corinth, Commodore Foote with those inde- fatigable gun-boats proceeded down the river to take Memphis, where Jeff. Thompson, who had got away from the siege of No. 10, had made another stand. There were a few small obstacles along the river in the way of forts and batteries, but Foote proceeded slowly, taking these by the way, in the same deliberate, matter of course way in which he would eat his dinner. Fort Pil- low was taken with the most difficulty, and caused him the delay of a week or two. But when, on the 6th day of June, he arrived at Memphis, the rebels had again fled, and there was nothing to do but anchor the gun-boats in the river and march the troops into the city. Thus the first half of the year 1862 ended. In those six months Henry and Donelson had been taken; the rebel line had again been broken at Shiloh; Island No. 10 had been captured, and the Mississippi was free of obstruction as far south as Memphis.
The Union troops, under General Mitchell, were scouring Ala*
CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.
489
bama, setting up our flag there. In these six months the rebels had been driven through the States of Kentucky and Tennessee ; our armies had got a foot-hold in Alabama and Mississippi, and events looked bright for the full possession of the great inland river of the West. At length the nation seemed to have found a military leader in Ulysses S. Grant, to whom the honor of these victories princi- pally belonged.
CHAPTER XLI.
CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.
Ship Island. — Admiral Farragut. — Biniam Wood. — A Huge Fire Monster. — Cutting away the Barriers. — Passing the Forts. — The Levee at New Orleans. — A Bombastic Major. — Temper of the Citizens. — What " Beast Butler " did in New Orleans.
After General Butler returned from his expedition to Hatteras Inlet, he went to Washington to ask what he could do next. Talk- ing one day with Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war, the ques- tion was asked, " Why cannot New Orleans be taken ? " . " It can," answered General Butler briefly and emphatically.
Butler was a man who could almost make other men believe that possibilities were certainties. The next thing we hear of him after
Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island.
his talk with Stanton, is that he commanded an expedition to cap- ture New Orleans. In February, 1862, he started from Hampton Roads in the steamship Mississippi. The purpose for which he sailed was carefully concealed from the public.
Ship Island is a low-lying strip of land, hardly high enough to
490 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
keep its head above water in stormy seasons, which forms one of a group on the Mississippi coast. It looks like a strip of white beach that has floated off the shore. Nothing grows there except a few stunted pine-trees on one end of the island. When General Butler reached there in March, 1862, it looked as if the white sand had just yielded a crop of white tent^, thickly dotting the island. They were the camp-tents of General Phelps, who, with 6,000 men, was eagerly waiting his arrival.
At Ship Island Butler was joined by Admiral Farragut, one ot the oldest, as well as one of the youngest men in the United States navy. He was one of the oldest, because it was fifty-two years since he had joined the United States navy, then a boy midship- man, eleven years old. He was one of the youngest, because there was not a boy in the fleet more light and agile, quick-footed and quick in all action than he. Admiral Farragut and General Butler shook hands, and proceeded to talk about the capture of New Orleans.
New Orleans, as you know, is on the Mississippi, a little more than one hundred miles from the place where the great river tears through the land in five different places and plunges into the Gulf. Every approach to New Orleans by land had been carefully forti- fied. The approach up the river was guarded by two forts opposite each other, thirty miles from the river mouths, and seventy-five from the city. They were Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, both very strong and well garrisoned. To take New Orleans by the river, our ships must either take these forts by bombardment, or pass them under the constant fire of their guns. Let us see what Farragut did.
He took plenty of time to get ready. There were forty-eight vessels in all, carrying three hundred and ten guns. Think what a noise that fleet would make when all those guns were in action '. These ships were guarded, many of them, with an armor of chains, skillfully interlaced over the ship's sides to protect her from balls, much as a knight of old was protected by his armor. The wood work was painted a dull brown, to make it undistinguishable from the muddy river water. Others of the vessels had their sides coated with the reeds that bordered the river, so that they looked, as they lay along the banks, almost like a part of the shore. Just above Fort Jackson the bank was thickly wooded, and some of the vessels had trees lashed to their rigging to simulate the forest. As they
CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 491
steamed slowly up tlie river they must have looked like Macduff's army when it marched to Dunsinane with the branches of Birnam wood on its shoulders.
On the 17th of April twenty-one mortar steamers, led by Com- modore Porter, started uj) the river to bombard Fort Jackson. They were met at the first by a huge fire-monster which came slowly floating down into the middle of their fleet. It was a raft piled high with wood soaked in turpentine, and set on fire. A boat from the fleet pushed out boldly, threw grappling irons on the mon- ster, and towed her to shore out of reach of the Union vessels. There she burned slowly to the water's edge, a magnificent bonfire. On the 18th, the bombardment began. Fort Jackson was a little lower down than Fort St. Philip, and the first attack fell upon it. From vessels and fort, crossing each other in the air, came cannon- ball and bomb-shell, with smoke, a flash, and then a roar, that
Ram attacking Union Vessel below New Orleans.
seemed to shake the solid earth to its foundations. " Combine all you ever heard of thunder with all you ever saw of lightning," said one of the oflicers who was in the bombardment, " and you will have a faint idea of the scene."
For three days the gun-boats kept up the bombardment, and there were no signs of yielding in the fort. " Whatever is done must be done quickly," said Farragut. " The forts must be run, and the fleet be brought to New Orleans. Then our troops can attack the strongholds in the rear, and take them by assault." But there was an obstacle to a passage up the river even more formidable than the cannon that swept it from the two fortresses. Several schooners were strongly anchored at intervals, all the way across the river. Over these vessels, wound firmly round the capstan of each, a strong
492
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
chain-cable passed from, shore to shore, forming an impassable bar- rier. This cable must be removed before the Union fleet could pass up to New Orleans. In the darkness of night, two of the gun-boats were sent to cut the cable. With hammer and chisel, under cover of the night, they worked away till the chain parted, and the hulks on which it was supported swept down the current, leaving the way clear.
Farragut divided the fleet going up the river into three parts. One division was to hug the shore on the side of Fort St. Philip, and fire into it in passing; the second was to go up the middle of the river and watch for rebel gun-boats sent from New Orleans ; the third, with Farragut at their head, in his flag-ship Hartford^ was to go under the walls of Jackson on the left bank.
It was one o'clock in the morning when the three lines started in single file up the river. For five miles they would be exposed to the enemy's fire. As soon as the vessels began their stately march, first Jackson and then St. Philip opened on them. Cannon-
Levee at New Orleans.
ball, bomb-shell, and grape-shot answered back from the fleet. There was no light but that from the battle, but the quick firing kept the river in a glow. Now and then, too, great fire-rafts came floating down among the fleet, shedding a terrible illumination on the scene. Once Farragut's ship, the Hartford^ was set all ablaze with one of these, but was speedily put out before the flames had done much damage. When the ships had passed the forts, they were met by a fleet of gun -boats stretched across the stream to op- pose the passage. The vessels made quick work of these. Eleven of them were destroyed in half an hour, and could be seen, riddled and dismantled hulks, drifting down the river.
I
CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 493
On the morning of the 24th of April seventeen vessels steamed up to the levee in New Orleans to demand the surrender of the city. The people had not believed the town could be taken. They had feasted and danced, given parties and balls, gone to the theatres as usual, all the time Farragut's fleet was bombarding the forts. Pleasure parties had come down the river to look on the bombard- ment from a safe distance, as a pretty sight that could not result in harm to their city. When they heard tliat Farragut was coming up the stream, a panic seized the citizens. The streets were filled with an excited crowd. General Lovell, commanding the rebel troops, decided at once to remove from the city, and leave it to the civil authorities. The citizens, with their own hands, put the torch to the piles of cotton on the levee, and it was amid the smoke and flame of this burning that Farragut anchored. Many voices cried, " Burn the city," and women oftered to light the fires which would consume their homes. But better counsels prevailed, and the city was left standing.
In the mean time, as soon as Farragut had passed the forts and was safely on his way up the river, Butler embarked his troops in small boats to enter the creeks and bayous that led round to the rear of St. Philip, that he might take it by a desperate assault. But this bloodshed was saved. The men in the fort had mutinied, believing defense was impossible, and our first detachment of troops was met by a large party who had spiked the cannon and came out to surrender.
New Orleans had a fiery mayor whose name was John T. Monroe. He should have been called Bombastes Furioso. When Farragut asked him to haul down the flag of secession from over the United States buildings in New Orleans, he answered in the strain of Bom- bastes, "The man lives not in our midst whose hand and heart would not be paralyzed at the mere thought of such an act," and much more to that effect. On which the admiral sent a company on shore, who hoisted the American flag on the United States Mint, where it waved as if it had never been pulled down from thence.
At this juncture came news that the forts below were in our hands. This was the last blow to the hopes of the rebels, of New Orleans, and they submitted sullenly to the entrance of General Butler and his troops. New Orleans was taken, and all the valuable property of the United States so long in the hands of the rebels, was restored to the government.
494 STOEY OF OUE COUNTRY.
Butler at once took military command. The city streets over- flowed with an angry mob whose mutte rings filled the whole air. They glared upon him and upon the United States soldiers with the glare of beasts. The women were even more bitter than the men. They crossed to the middle of the street that they might not pass an officer or a soldier of the United States. They openly reviled the flag of their country. They lost no opportunity of insulting, by a great show of contempt, all those who wore the uniform of the gov- ernment. Once, two women, dressed like ladies, spit in the face of an unoffending soldier, in the public street. Butler never took haK way measures. He fought treason and insult with their own weap- ons. He sent the most stubborn cases to the fort in which traitors were confined as prisoners of war. He enforced an outward show of respect to the government. He insisted that the flag and its soldiers should not be publicly insulted. By the measures he took to keep order, he drew down upon himself the bitterest hatred of those most devoted to the cause of rebellion. "Beast Butler" was the name he gained all over the South. A reward of $10,000 was offered for his head. No other man was hated as he was, by the secessionists.
All the time Butler showed himself an excellent manager. He cleaned the streets of New Orleans as they were never cleaned before. " If the Yankees do not know anything else, they know how to clean streets," owned one of the hostile newspapers. He took such health measures that the yellow fever, the yearly scourge of the city, was kept away. He organized a system of relief by which the starving poor were fed, and kept comfortable. He did all these things without costing the government a penny. Indeed, he sent to Washington a sum of money, the prodvict of the crops he had saved by his good management. All this he did from May until December, 1862, when General Nathaniel P. Banks was sent to take his place as military ruler of New Orleans.
Butler was not a mild ruler of the rebellious people of New Orleans. He believed with all his soul in putting down rebellion, and he hated secession as bad as secessionists hated the government. War is not mild or amiable under any aspect. And the soldier who does not hesitate or temporize is the man who is likely soonest to bring about peace. Stonewall Jackson, one of the ablest generals in the Southern army was strongly in favor of giving no quarter to the Yankee soldiers in his battles. He said this would be the truest humanity, and in the end would save bloodshed, because it would
I
PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 495
shorten the contest.* He was overruled in this, but believed to his death that an entire slaughter of his foes, even after their surrender, was the true policy.
None of the Northern generals favored such a sanguinary course. But Butler was almost as uncompromising as Jackson. He believed that when the nation was engaged in a life and death struggle for existence, the time for mild measures was past.
I have told you that Butler was never an antislavery man, but a strong defender of the rights of the South to her peculiar institution. Years before the war, Harriet Beecher Stowe of Massachusetts had written a book called " Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which the horrors of slavery were depicted so strongly that the whole civilized world read the book with shuddering and tears. General Butler had regarded this book with contempt, as a highly colored, overdrawn picture of Southern servitude. But when he left New Orleans in the year 1862, this is what he said : —
" I have seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, many things in slavery which go as much beyond Mrs. Stowe's book, as her book goes beyond an ordinary school-girl novel."
CHAPTER XLII.
PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.
Quiet on the Potomac. — Quaker Guns. — Transportation of an Army. — On to Richmond. ^^ Death in the Swamps. — Norfolk taken by General Wool. — Stonewall Jackson in Western Virginia. — Seven Days' Retreat. — Discouragement of the President.
Through January and February the Army of the Potomac still remained quiet. The country chafed under this quietude. The men and money which had been poured out so lavishly to retrieve the disaster at Bull Run seemed like water poured through a sieve. Wasting in inaction the army lay in Virginia while rebel banners still waved under the eyes of the government at Washington.
President Lincoln, who was by the Constitution the commander- in-chief of the whole army, insisted on an advance. The rebels were still at Manassas. If ever any army could take that post, should it not be that army nearly two hundred thousand strong lying idle on the Potomac ? At last, after all this wearv delav, an
1 See Southern biography of Jackson by Dabney. 32
496
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
advance was ordered by McClellan. Our troops reached Manassas the 8th day of March to find it empty. For days General Joseph
Johnston, who had taken com- mand when Beauregard left for Tennessee, had been carefully movhig away from Manassas. When their fortifications were examined, it was found that some of the cannon which had held back the Union army were made of logs, with a black spot painted in the sawed end to simulate the cannon's mouth. In one Quaker Gun. place au old stovc-pipc had done
duty as a gun. A cry of rage and disappointment went up all over the country as these " Quaker guns " were found to be part of the tremendous batteries of the rebel stronghold.
If Richmond could be taken, such a blow would be given to the rebellion as would virtually put an end to the war. So the North believed, and the loyal people anxiously awaited McClellan's long promised march to Richmond. That general who had such ability at keeping his plans to himself that many people doubted whether he had any plans at all, at length began to develop signs of a move- ment on Richmond by water. In March he transported an army of 121,000 men to Fortress Monroe. He moved them with great skill and ability, with all the innumerable wagons, provisions, ammunition, clothing, tents, and other necessaries that form the outfit of such an immense army. From the fortress, this great military caravan took up its march upon Yorktown, the very spot where Cornwallis had surrendered in 1781.
Yorktown lay on that swampy stretch of land lying between the York and James rivers, which is known as the " Peninsula," and this campaign of the Army of the Potomac is known as the " Pe- ninsular campaign." It was early in April when the army arrived there, and for more than a month a bloodless siege was kept up be- fore Yorktown, where the enemy were supposed to be in full force. On the 4th of May it was discovered that the enemy had run away in the night, in the same clever way in which he had run away at Manassas, leaving only a few guns and the useless fortifications to General McClellan.
i
PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 497
General Stoneman was sent in pursuit of the enemy, and caught up with a portion of them under General Longstreet, at Williams- burg. The main body of the rebel army had reached Richmond. There was a smart fight at Williamsburg. The Union General Joseph Hooker, who was known as "fighting Joe Hooker," bore the brunt of the battle. There was really no decisive victory gained by either side, although it was a costly battle. We lost more than 2,000 men, without any result to our arms. After it was over the rebels continued their march towards Richmond. Our army followed to the banks of the Chickahominy, a small stream flowing between the York River and Richmond.
Those of us who lived in these sad days can never forget the dark months in which our army lay on the banks of the Chickahominy River. It was a sluggish, muddy stream, with swampy borders, from which poisonous vapors rose under the heat of the summer sun. The army were set at once to digging trenches and building out- works as a defense against their foes at Richmond. The men, forced to dig all day in the sun, and encamped by night on the damp ground, fell victims to all forms of murderous malaria. " They died as fast as if a plague had raged," said one of the army physicians. It was a sad sight to see this noble army melting away, day by day.
The only encouraging event that had happened after the Monitor had driven the Merrhnack clear out of Hampton Roads, was an ex- ploit of old General Wool, who had been stationed at Fortress Mon- roe since Butler was sent to New Orleans. He had been asking for permission to go on an expedition against Norfolk, where early in the war our navy-yard had been seized and was still held by the rebels. Norfolk was the lurking place of the iron ram Merri- mack^ and was a valuable point to the enemy.
In March General Wool got the long wished for permission, and sent down his gun-boats and troops to take the place. As on so many other occasions when they saw a force approaching, the rebels had evacuated, and on the evening of March 10th General Wool's troops marched into Norfolk. Before the rebels left they blew up the Merrimack^ and the remains of that formidable war ship were sinking in the harbor when the Unionists took possession. This was something good to remember, while events looked so dark on the Peninsula.
Johnston, with his army at Richmond, finding that McClellan
498 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
did not come to attack liim there, came out to attack McClellan. They met in the battle of Fair Oaks, which, like most of the other battles on the Peninsula, was not favorable to the Unionists. John- ston was wounded here, and after the battle the rebels all fell back to Richmond again. It was said that Jefferson Davis himself rode out and led in a charge at Fair Oaks. He might have done that, for he had proved himself a good soldier in Mexico, years before.
Robert E. Lee, who had been growing more and more in favor with the rebels, was made general-in-chief of their armies after Johnston's wound rendered him unfit for command. Stonewall Jackson, who had been pressing General Banks and General Fre- mont in western Virginia, was now called to join Lee at Richmond, and aid in driving the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula. There were few abler generals in the war than General Stonewall Jackson, on either side. All through May he had been making havoc among our armies in West Virginia. He had held Banks in check, preventing him from doing any good to the cause, and had driven Fremont and his army out of the Shenandoah Valley. The government in Washington, poorly guarded, and trembling lest Mc- Clellan's army should be cut off from the capital, feared the name of Stonewall Jackson. His campaign in the spring of 1862 had been one of« the most brilliant of the war on either side.
For almost a month after the battle of Fair Oaks, our army kept on dying in the swamps of the Chickahominy, while General Mc- Clellan decided whether or not he would retreat to the James River. The enemy helped him to make up his mind, by coming out again to attack him. They came up with the national army at Mechan- icsville, and a battle was fought there on the 26th, which was fol- lowed by McClellan's order next day to retreat towards the James River. Then began an epoch which is known as the " Seven Days' retreat." For a week, a battle was fought almost daily, the great Army of the Potomac retreating all the time towards the river, upon whose banks they were ordered to fall back. From the 26th of June till the 1st of July the fighting and the retreat kept up. On the morning of the 1st the Union army was on Malvern Hill, a high ridge of land sloping towards the James. Here for the last time, Lee attacked, late in the hot summer afternoon. The rebels were driven back when darkness fell, broken and disabled by the fight. The Unionists exulted over a victory, and many officers believed that even Richmond might yet be won, if a decisive blow followed
INVASION OF MARYLAND. 499
that of Malvern Hill. To their disappointment, General McClellan ordered the retreat continued, and on the 3d of July the remnant of the army was at Harrison's Landing on the banks of the James. Of the Army of the Potomac that had at one time been swelled to 160,000, McClellan reported to President Lincoln that he had only 50,000 men left. The " Peninsular campaign " had been a great Moloch, that had swallowed its prey by thousands upon thousands.
President Lincoln came at once to Harrison's Landing to talk with McClellan. Discouraged, almost heart-broken by these long series of failures, the president ordered the army to come back and guard Washington, for whose safety much alarm had been felt. McClellan returned, slowly and reluctantly, and took command of the Washington defenses. General Halleck was called from Mis- souri to the seat of government, and was made general-in-chief of .the armies. Lee, satisfied with driving the Union army from its position before Richmond, returned to that city to be hailed by the rebels as a conquering hero.
CHAPTER XLin.
INVASION OF MARYLAND.
Pope takes Command. — More Defeats. — Maryland! my Maiyland ! — Entrance into Fred- erick. — Barbara Frietcliie. — Through the Mountain-gap. — McCellan makes haste. — The Antietam Creek. — Fighting Joe Hooker. — The Battle. — Lee's Retreat. — Bui-nside made Commander. — Ruins of Fredericksburg.
After General Pope's success on the Mississippi, he was called to take command in Virginia. He was given the three armies com- manded by Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. As Fremont had been a superior officer, he did not choose to serve under Pope, and was accordingly relieved, and his command given to Sigel, the brave German who had done such good fighting in Missouri. All mustered. Pope's whole army numbered about 40,000 men. This army lay across Virginia from Frederickburg to Harper's Ferry, then west to Winchester, in the pleasant valley of the Shenandoah. It was an outer girdle of defense guarding Washington, where McClellan was again bringing into order the remnant of the Army of the Potomac.
Lee, who had been so long on the defensive in Richmond, now
500
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
began to show signs of an attack upon our national capital. He advanced his army towards Pope's lines, to beat upon them and force them back. If he could invade Washington, drive President Lincoln from the seat of govern- ment, that would be a victory worth having.
I am sorry that I cannot write of Pope's successes in his new field. He had done so well in the West that great things were hoped of him, and, unfor- tunately, he made a good many boasts of what he was going to do. He reminds one a good deal of Gates in Revolutionary times, when, after his success in New York, he came to the Carolinas and talked loudly about " Burgoyning the armies of Cornwallis." But all this summer and fall defeat seemed to cover with a pall the track of our arms in Virginia. The armies of Pope and Lee met in a bloody, deadly battle on Cedar Mountain, sometimes called Slaughter's Mount. The latter name would suit the place best, for the sun set on a scene of slaughter such is I should pray it might never iook on again. Both sides claimed the victory, but if victory rested on either side, it was probably with the rebels. This was August 8tli. During the next three weeks three more battles were fought at Grove- ton, Bull Run, and Chantilly. The Bull Run battle raged on the banks of the same stream, across
which the Union army had fled in such panic, early in the war. It was an unlucky place to us. The second Bull Run battle was also a defeat, though much less disgraceful than the first. On the 1st of September the Army of Virginia was also recalled to Wash- ington, as broken and dispirited as the Army of the Potomac on its recall from the Peninsula. The two armies were again blended into one, with General McClellan in command. The soldiers, who had always had a great affection for McClellan — " Little Mac," they called him — received him again as their commander with great delight. As he rode along their lines they tbcew up their hats and shouted for joy.
'i^
War Balloon.
^
INVASION OF MARYLAND.
501
Very greatly satisfied with Ins success in the contest with Pope, General Lee turned to invade Maryland. He was not yet quite ready to attack Washington, and he concluded to try what he could do in Maryland in enlisting soldiers for his army. A rebel song, sung all over the South, had this verse : —
" I hear the distant thunder hum, Maryland ! The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland ! She is not dead, or deaf, or dumb ; Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum ! She breathes — she burns ! she '11 come ! she '11 come ! Maryland ! my Mai-yland ! "
But although Lee's soldiers marched to this music, yet Maryland did not come, and in fact refused very unequivocally to have any- thing to do with rebellion. Perhaps the appearance of Lee's army would have damped the ardor of the warmest rebel. They were the raggedest set of poor fellows, — in butternut-colored homespun cloth, that ever marched behind a leader. Many of them had no shoes or hats, many were coatless, and Stonewall Jackson himself, so famous as a general, looked almost as dirty and ragged as one of his men. The heart aches in viewing these miserable, misguided adherents of a bad cause, laying
down their lives to government which
establish a
they had boasted should have human slav- ery " for its corner-stone."
When Jackson entered the town of Frederick, some of the Union people, frightened at his coming, had made haste to pull down the stars and stripes. There was one loyal old woman named Barbara Frietchie, however, who was resolved not to disgrace her flag in that way. When the steady tread of the soldiers marched down the street, her flag floated from an attic window. But John G. Whittier, our good old poet, tells the story best. I will give it to you in his words.
" Down the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson marchino; ahead.
Barbara Frietchie.
502
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
" Under his slouched hat, left and rio-ht He glanced ; the old flag met his sight.
" Halt ! The dust brown ranks stood fast. Fire ! Out blazed the rifle blast.
" It shivered the window, pane and sash, It rent the banner with seam and sash.
" Quick as it fell from the broken staff. Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
" She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will.
" ' Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag,' she said."
It is not often that treason gets so wholesome a rebuke as it got that day from the lips of this gray-haired old woman.
Discouraged by his success in recruiting in Maryland, Lee began
a new line of march. Not strong enough to attack Washington
^^ j*^**^^^^ _ directly, he planned to go up
^ S a^ ^^^^ Pennsylvania and draw
McClellan with his army up to the defense of this Northern State. After McClellan's ad- vance had uncovered Washino;- ton, and left it defenseless, he would go back and possess the national seat of government.
He therefore divided his army, and sent part of his men un- der Stonewall Jackson, to take Harper's Ferry, — first made famous by John Brown's raid, — while he went west through Maryland into northern Virginia, and so across the line into Pennsylvania. It was very evident to a clever soldier, that Lee never would have divided his army in this way, in the enemy's own country, if he had any very great fear of his antagonists. But so far, the rebels had had it very much their own way in the Virginia campaign. They had beaten two armies back behind their defenses at Washington, and Lee was getting a little reckless from success. Back he marched over the mountains, in
Barbara Frietchie's House.
I
INVASION OF MAEYLAND. 503
Western Maryland, clown which his army had moved in their march to Frederick. There were two passes, called Turner's Gap and Crampton's Gap, in the range through which he was to march west- ward ; and the 14th day of September found him just marching through these gaps, to the other side of South Mountain. Just beyond was the Potomac, dividing Maryland from Virginia. Once across into Virginia, he would be joined by Jackson, who would probably by that time have taken Harper's Ferry, and be ready to carry his victorious banners into the hated State of Pennsylvania. And then what might not his armies do with all the prestige they had gained ? Even Washington might be disdained as too easy a prize. They might march to New York city itseK, — reinforced by more soldiers, who could pour up through the Shenandoah Valley, after Harper's Ferry was taken, and join his march. It had been predicted that blood should flow like water in the streets of the great metropolis of our nation, that grass should grow on the unused paving-stones of Broadway, after its commerce had been destroyed by waste of Southern cotton. While from Bunker Hill, hallowed in the eyes of Bostonians, Robert Tombs had boasted he would call the roll of his slaves in the ears of that accursed city of abolitionists. Many hearts in the domains of rebellion beat high with hope that all these things were to be realized, when Lee marched, in that pleasant September weather, over the hills of Maryland.
In the mean time, McClellan made haste from Washington, with his army at his back, when the news came that Lee was at Frederick. On reaching Frederick, he found the town empty of the invaders. But he found there a slip of paper which an impatient rebel gen- eral had thrown under his feet in a fit of ill-temper. It was Lee's private order, showing, in clearest black and white, his whole plan of the Pennsylvania invasion.
It had been one of McClellan's faults as a general that he could not make haste to- do anything, and this had lost him good oppor- tunities heretofore. But on this occasion he hurried. He followed on Lee's track as fast as any one could reasonably suppose so large an army could follow, and caught up with him just as Lee's troops were ready to cross through the two mountain gaps into the valley beyond. Here McClellan also divided his army, sending General Burnside to Turner's Gap, and General Franklin to Crampton's Gap. These two passes were only a few miles apart, and once passed, the ai-my was but six miles from Harper's Ferry.
504
STOEY OF QUE COUNTEY.
Nearly all day on the 14th of September there was a hot contest for the possession of these mountain passes, the rebels in their superior position holding back the Union army, who largely out- numbered them. At night the rebels fell back beyond the mount- ain, and when the next day dawned, McClellan marched through unimpeded, except by the dead and dying bodies which Lee had left in his retreat. When the Union army reached the valley on the morning of September 15th, the cessation of the cannon firing in the direction of Harper's Ferry warned McClellan that the place had been surrendered. In a few hours Jackson would be on the way to Lee's army. The struggle was near at hand.
Both armies were in the lovely valley, stretching to the banks of the Potomac, made greenly fertile by Antietam Creek, which flowed into the Potomac a few miles south of the place where Lee halted.
Harper's Ferry.
The rebel commander had crossed this creek, and with that stream in front, and the Potomac behind him, he waited for Jackson to come to his aid, and McClellan to give him battle. One end of his line, was in the town of Sharpsburg, his centre ran through a rough field where ledges of lime rock made convenient lurking places for sharp-shooters ; lines of timber in the rear of his army
1
INVASION OF MARYLAND.
505
furnished good cover for batteries, stationed there to sweep his ap- proaching foes.
Harper's Ferry had surrendered to Stonewall Jackson on that very morning. Without a moment's delay this energetic commander left a small force to take charge of the town, and all the wealth of cannon and other valuables of war that had been captured there, and pushed on at once to Antietam Creek.
Three bridges spanned this creek in front of Lee's army. The upper bridge had been left unguarded and open. Across this the corps of " fighting Joe Hooker " was sent on the 16th, prepared to strike a heavy blow on the left of the rebel lines. On the night of the 16tli the two armies lay down to sleep with the knowledge that the inevitable battle must begin next morning. I wonder if those who slumbered there in their last earthly slumber felt the shadow of the approaching conflict more deeply than those who were to escape the bullet or cannon ball next day.
y^'W*-*!*.
Antietam Battle-field.
Morning dawned upon the battle-field of Antietam, and the first streakings of light in the east were hailed by the roar of the guns. From dawn till dusk the two armies fought in bloody and uncertain fight. For an advantage gained on one side of the field by the
506 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
national soldiers, Lee could show an equal advantage in another quarter. When the sun set, neither side could claim the victory, and the night saw both armies standing at bay, like two wild beasts who have tasted the blood from their own wounds, and are all the more eager to pursue the fight. But night cooled the ardor of both generals. Lee was not ready to give battle, and McClellan, who from excess of caution could rarely follow up an advantage with rapidity, waited for more troops. The 18tli passed without % fight, and on the night of that day Lee made good his escape over the Potomac. His army was broken up; his plans of campaign spoiled. He concluded not to go to Pennsylvania. From this time the hopes of those who longed to see Washington under the feet of the rebels. New York city drenched in blood, and Boston clothed in sackcloth, were forever dampened. However costly in human lives had been the battle-field of Antietam, it had gained for the North a sense of security it had not felt since the campaign in Virginia had begun.
Lee remained in the Shenandoah Valley. To revenge himself for his disappointment in not reaching Pennsylvania, he sent General Stuart with a troop of horsemen 12,000 or 15,000 strong to ravage the borders of Pennsylvania. Stuart did this with great alacity, go- ing as far into the State as Chambersburg, burning national works, tearing up railroads, and laying waste the country.
For several weeks McClellan remained near Harper's Ferry — which was at once retaken and occupied by our troops — calling for wagons, horses, clothing, shoes, and other goods for his army. In return General-in-chief Halleck and President Lincoln were con- stantly ordering him to march against the enemy. He was so long in obeying these orders that his superiors got impatient, and on the 7th of November an order reached his camp giving over his com- mand to General Ambrose Burnside, who already commanded a corps in his army. It was the same general who had led the troops into North Carolina and taken Newbern the previous March.
The order reached McClellan as the two generals were sitting together in camp. McClellan read it without any perceptible emo- tion, and handing it over to Burnside said calmly, " Well, general, you are to try your hand at managing the Army of the Potomac ! " So passed into obscurity one of the most notable generals of the war, a man better capable of drilling and setting an army in the field, than almost any other commander among the Union generals,
INVASION OF MARYLAND.
507
but so hampered by an excess of caution, often resembling timidity, that his well drilled and disciplined armies wasted in inaction. He lost more men by disease than by battle, and the months on the Peninsula were deadlier than all his defeats on the field.
Burnside, a modest, unassuming, brave soldier, took the command with a great deal of distrust in his ability to manage so lai'ge a force. Lee was now encamped on the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia, prepared to contest any attempt of our army to go on to Richmond. Burnside prepared to go on and oc- cupy Fredericksburg, and make the town his winter head-quarters. But before he could reach it, it was so fortified by Lee that a fight for the place was inevitable. Our soldiers did wonders of work in preparing bridges of boats to cross the river, and building railway
Ruins of Fredericksburg.
bridges over which loaded trains could pass. At length, on the 11th of December, the attack on Fredericksburg began. It raged hotly till the night of the 13th. When it was over the streets of the town were filled with smoking ruins ; walls of houses tottering to their fall, and black destruction everywhere. But Lee still held the place, and Burnside, driven up the river, waited another opportu- nity. His generals had lost confidence in him, however, and he did not attempt another battle. The last of December he led his army back to the old camps which it had occupied before the battle of Fredericksburg. There the men built mud huts and sat down to
608 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
spend the winter. The Union army was dispirited and despondent. The rebels were exultant and self-confident. The poorest judge of military matters saw that the campaign in Virginia was a dark one to the Union cause. With the exception of Lee's repulse from Maryland, and the spoiling of his plans about the Pennsylvania in- s^asion, we had no success there during the year 1862.
CHAPTER XLIV.
AFFAIRS IN THE WEST.
Generals Bragg, Polk, and Hardee. — The Queen Citj^ threatened. — Southern Rhetoric. — Armor of the Southern Soldiers. — Rebel Spoils in Kentucky. — Battle of Corinth. — Christ- mas Jollity at Murfreesboro'. — Rosecrans marches on the Revelers. — "We fight, or die here." — Victory for Unionists.
In the mean time the armies of the West were not altogether idle. We left the rebels down in Tupelo, Mississippi, where Beauregard had marched them when he gave up Corinth. General Bragg was in Beauregard's place at the head of the rebel army. Bragg was now a grizzled old man, stooped shouldered, and angular. A pair of sharp eyes under a thick brush of black eyebrows, were all that denoted the fiery soldier to whom Taylor had shouted at Buena Vista, " A little more grape. Captain Bragg."
Bragg first moved his army to Chattanooga in Georgia, which the Union army showed signs of occupying. Then, when he saw Bu- ell's men all at work repairing railroads, and intent on marching slowly towards Georgia, he cut round behind them, and made a swift march into Kentucky. His army was in three parts ; one com- manded by Bishop Polk, who was a good fighter, whatever he may have been as a clergyman. He owned seven hundred slaves, it is said, which was an excellent reason for taking up his sword in aid of the rebellion. Another part of Bragg's army was under General Hardee, who had written some good military works. He had been educated at West Point at the expense of his countr3% which was not a good reason for deserting her and taking up arms with her enemies. Bragg's third division, under Kirby Smith, another West Point graduate, was sent ahead to northern Tennessee, while Bragg began operations in Kentucky. It was in early September, the same month of Lee's invasion into Maryland, when Bragg ravaged Ken- tucky. For about six weeks he had it pretty much all to himself
AFFAIRS IN THE WEST. 509
there. Grant was occupying northern Mississippi near Corinth, and Buell, who thought Bragg might be coming to retake Nashville, hur- ried to defend that town, and keep fast hold of the railway between Nashville and Louisville, down which came the bread, and meat, and clothing for his men.
But Bragg, creeping all the time in a wide circle to the east, ap- proached Louisville. Kirby Smith meanwhile was nearing Bragg. On his way he defeated the Union troops at Richmond, entered Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, and then marched on to the bor- ders to threaten the city of Cincinnati. The inhabitants of the *' Queen city " were badly frightened, and if General Lew. Wallace had not been in town to organize means for defending it, there might have been a terrible panic. But General Wallace established mili- tary order there. In one day a pontoon bridge was built across the Ohio, over which troops for the city's defense poured into her streets. So thorough were the preparations, that when Kirby Smith reached the Ohio, he at once fell back under the friendly cover of darkness, and a tremendous thunder-storm, and went to join Bragg at Frankfort.
On the 14th of September Bragg captured Mumfordsville, a place south of Louisville, where the Union army had very large supplies of food and clothing. All looked bright for the rebels, and they had hopes of soon marching to Louisville, and so cutting off the railway between that place and Buell's troops.
Here General Bragg sent out a proclamation to the Kentucky people, which is such a very good specimen of what we have learned to distinguish as " Southern rhetoric," that I must quote a little of it for you.
" Kentuckians ! " says Bragg, " we have come with joyous hopes. Let us not depart in sorrow, as we shall, if we find you wedded in your choice to your present lot. If you prefer Federal rule, show it by your frowns, and we will return whence we came. If you choose rather to come within the folds of our brotherhood, then cheer us with the smiles of your women, and lend your willing hands to secure you in your heritage of liberty.
" Women of Kentucky ! Let your enthusiasm have free rein. Buckle on the armor of your kindred, your husbands, sons, and broth- ers, and scoff with shame him who would prove recreant to his duty to you, his country, and his God."
The appeal to " buckle on armor," is a figure of speech of the
510 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
kind in which " Southern rhetoric " is rich. At that moment the armor of the Southern sokher consisted of a shirt of yellowish jean, such as slaves had worn, and a coat of rusty gray. The lack of coats was often supplied by tattered bed-quilts, old pieces of carpet, and such other rags as the poor private could muster. Not that these are causes for which to despise them. It rather makes us sorry that men who could fight in such ragged plight, had not a better cause than the destruction of the country that gave them birth, and the continuance of human slavery.
But Buell was at last upon his feet in pursuit of Bragg. They both hurried to take Louisville. Buell won the race, and got there in time to force Bragg to fall back southward. The rebel general had loaded himself with the riches of Kentucky. Her factories and warehouses were robbed of cloths, shoes, and all kinds of clothing materials. Barrels of bacon, pork, biscuit, flour, filled the wagon- trains in his march. The splendid horses of Kentucky curveted in the ranks of his cavalry, and day after day, car-load after car-load was sent South, carrying away the goods which had been taken from the State. For some of these goods the rebel general professed to pay in " Confederate bills," a worthless paper printed to resemble our bank-notes, by which they strove to keep the fiction of a gov- ernment alive.
Bragg halted at the town of Perry ville. Buell sent the central division of his army to drive him thence, and all day, on the 8th of October, a hard battle was fought. The Unionists met with great slaughter, and lost many guns. At night, however, Bragg retreated toward East Tennessee, leaving the Unionist to hold the worthless town of Perryville. Dissatisfied with General Buell's management, the government sent a dispatch to General Rosecrans in Grant's command, to come and take Buell's command over the Army of the Ohio.
Rosecrans had first come into notice in the mountains of West Virginia in 1861, when he had been one of the most efficient in routing the enemy across the mountains beyond the Shenandoali. Now he was in Grant's army, and had been, for several months in Mississippi and Alabama, doing good work there. On the 19tli of September, he had attacked Sterling Price, and driven him from the village of luka, after a hard day's fight. When the day was over each side was uncertain which had been beaten, but during the night Price retreated to join Earl Van Dorn, and Rosecrans retired behind the strong works at Corinth.
AFFAIES IN THE WEST. 511
About the 1st of October news came that Price and Van Dorn were on the march toward Corinth. Rosecrans was uncertain whether they meant to attack him, but made all his preparations to give them a warm welcome in the event of a battle.
On the morning of the 3d of October the attack began on the row of outer works built around Corinth. The rebels, who, whatever their faults, were never to be despised as enemies, made a terrible attack, coming on in the pelting fire from the fortifications as if they were men of stone. Where the batteries made gaps in their ranks, they were filled up as coming waves fill up the troughs of the sea. " Some of the men bent their necks downward and marched steadily to death, with their faces averted, like men striving to prote6t themselves from a driving storm of hail," says one who saw the advance. At night the rebels slept on their arms, expecting next day the town would yield, and Price in his tent dictated a dispatch to Richmond, announcing a " glorious victory."
At three o'clock next morning the battle began again. Parties of men, some of them contrabands, had worked all night strengthening the works and building new ones. On the rebel side guns had been leveled against the town, and bombs fell in the very streets of Corinth. There was a wild rebel charge upon the new fortifications. For a little the Unionists fall back. Then silently they closed round the attacking rebels, beat them back, and their yells of battle changed into roars of rage and defeat as they were driven into the forests around Corinth. The "rebel yell" was heard always on entering battle, and an unearthly yell it was, enough to shake stout nerves. " Our men do not often shout before battle," says a looker- on at Corinth. " Heavens ! what thunder there is in their throats after victory."
Into the woods they pursued the rebels. The way was marked by dead and dying, broken tree branches, gouts of human gore, shat- tered guns, and broken bayonets. The day was over, and Corinth was still safe. In the flush of this victory cam-e the word to Rose- crans to go to Kentucky and take command of Buell's army, now to be new baptized as the " Army of the Cumberland."
When Rosecrans joined his new army he found it in the condition
of all bodies of men who have fought a discouraging campaign, and
had a change of generals. There was much to do to bring it into
order, and the whole country was loudly calling on the " Army of
the Cumberland " to drive the rebels from Kentucky. Bragg had 33
612 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
settled down at Murfreesboro', southeast of Nashville, and was having a very good time there. There were parties and balls, card playing, and tea drinkings, and general jollity in the town of Murfreesboro'. Jefferson Davis was there paying a visit to his favorite general. The famous guerrilla chief, Morgan, who had probably burned and desolated more homes than any leader of a semi-civilized horde of banditti, was here, celebrating his marriage festivities. Bishop Polk liad laid aside his sword, and donned his disused surplice to marry him, and they had a gay wedding with much wine drinking and speech making. One would have said that Bragg held Kentucky grappled with hooks of steel to the cause for which he was figliting.
All the time Rosecrans was busy repairing the railway torn up between Nashville and Louisville, so that his supplies could come from the North in safety. He was too wise to risk being cut off from bis food by a hostile army, and therefore, while the rebels were fid- dling in Murfreesboro', he was steadily piling up two months' pro- visions in the store-houses of Nashville. When that was all done he was ready to dislodge Bragg from his winter-quarters.
It was the 26th of December when the march began. Christ- mas was just over, and the " boys in blue " had eaten their Christ- mas dinners in Nashville. Many of them, I have no doubt, re- membering with aching hearts the family circle at home where their seats were empty. Such remembrances do not make the soldier less brave. Indeed, I believe those to whom home was the dearest memory, fought best for their country.
The morning of the last day of the year found our army in front of Murfreesboro', readv for battle. The rebels were on a stream known as Stone River, on which lay the town. On one side of the river lay the division under John C. Breckenridge, the man who had been one of the candidates for president against Abraham Lincoln. On the other side, with his face toward Rosecrans, was Bragg, with the main part of his army. The rebels numbered 35,000. The Unionists, 47,000. That sounds like a great dis- parity, but Bragg knew the ground best, and it takes more men to attack than to defend a field.
I am tired of battles, and I think you must be, so we will not dwell longer than we can help on this battle of Murfreesboro'. I will only tell you that on the right of our army, after it had been driven back and almost beaten, a gallant general, named Phil. Sheridan, held an overmastering force for three hours at bay, leav-
AFFAIRS IN THE WEST.
51S
ing at last 1,700 men on the field, and joining Rosecrans with the words, " Here we are, all that is left of us.'"' How Colonel Hazen, with 1,300 men, fought on the left, against odds such as Sher- idan had held out against. How Rosecrans, as cool as if there were no roar of guns, galloped from one part of the field to another, insensible to bullets, and only intent on gaining the day. For all accounts of death or disaster, he had only one answer, " We must win this fight."
Night settled down on a drawn battle. Neither army would admit a defeat, neither could claim a victory. That night in his tent General Rosecrans made one short speech to his ofiicers. '' Gentlemen, we fight, or die right here." Through the first day
Mules carrying Wounded Men.
of the new year, both armies stood at bay. Another day dawned, and until almost twilight the same inaction prevailed. But at three P. M. an attack was begun by Breckenridge, which at first seemed successful. Just as the Union troops on one side our lines were wavering, fresh troops were sent to support them. Brecken- ridge retreated under a terrible fire from our artillery. In half an hour be lost 2,000 men.
It was the last attack of the battle. Next day Bragg retired from Murfreesboro', leaving the field to our army. Again the coun- try rang with the praises of new heroes who had won laurels at the battle of Murfreesboro'»
514 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XLV.
EMANCIPATION.
The Day of Jubilee. — Sambo in the Union Lines. — The Loyal Chattel. — Lincoln on the Union and Slavery. — His Solemn Vow. — The Emancipation Proclamation. — Prejudice against Negro Soldiers.
There are certain anniversaries which ought to be sacred to every
American citizen. I need not te]l you that we all should honor the
Fourth of July, the day on which this nation was born. I hope and
believe the day is fast coming when every patriotic American will
revere equally the first day of January, 1863. On that day the
bondmen and bondwomen of the United States were proclaimed /reg
men and women. Slavery, which had been a shame and reproach
to this country among all the civilized nations, was abolished, and
we were able to say of America, as one of her poets had said of
England, —
" Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free ; They touch our country and their shackles fall."
The war did not at first make much difference in the opinion of the North about slavery. The people said, this is a " War for the Union," and went into it with little consideration for the negro. But it was very soon found that the negro kept getting in the way. When General Butler found them set to work by their masters, near Fortress Monroe, digging fortifications to keep out our armies, he decided they were " contraband " as much as corn or cotton. When Fremont saw that the masters in Missouri were disloyal, and that their slaves were loyal, he pronounced the loyal men free men. But when Halleck took Fremont's place, he changed all this, ordered the negroes to take themselves off, and allowed the masters to come and take away their escaping slaves.
There was, of course, a great difference of feeling among army officers, about slavery. When the rebel masters came to the Union camp, asking if their " boy Jim," " Sambo," or " Pompey " was within our lines, and requesting permission to look for him there, some of the officers politely escorted the slave-owner through the camp, offering every assistance to find the poor, half-starved wretcli, who had come to the Union lines, believing that Freedom traveled along with its banners. In Missouri, during the war, some bright,
EMANCIPATION. 515
wide-awake negroes brought to our camp valuable news of the enemy's movements. A little later the owner of these men came to demand that they should be returned to him. The slaves, perhaps warned of the coming of the master, had already fled. Well, how did the Union officer treat the disloyal master claiming to own these men, who had given proof of their devotion to this country ? They mounted their horses and went off with the master to hunt down the slaves, and in taking them, one of the Union officers shot the slave who had so well earned his right to be a free man under the flag he had served. On the other hand there were officers who, in spite of orders admitting owners into the lines to take away their " chattels," said, " No ! I did not come here to be a slave-hunter. No man shall enter my camp for that purpose. The enemies of my country are my enemies. Its friends, black or white, are my friends ! "
The soldiers, a very large part of them, went into the war op- posed to " fighting a war for the negroes." They fought for the Union, and wanted to let slavery alone. But when, month after month, they saw the negro, loyal through all discouragement and repulse, welcoming everywhere the march of our army ; when they heard the stories told by the slaves at camp-fires, wlie:'e they sought shelter • when the^' found that wherever the hand of the white was raised to strike and curse them, the hand of the black was out- stretched in help and blessing, the soldiers began to change their minds on the subject. There were more men who became " Aboli- tionists " in the United States army during the two first years of the war, than all the numbers put together who had joined that little party under William Lloyd Garrison's noble teachings.
Poor Mr. Lincoln in the White House at Washington, his sad eyes every day growing sadder as he carried the heavy load of duties his office brought him, was always very much troubled by the slavery question. In his heart he hated slavery, believed it a sin, and had believed so from boyhood. But he believed him- self a servant of the great people, put into his place to obey their bidding. It was his duty to save the nation's life, and bring her out from her great danger ; not to touch slavery unless her safety demanded it. He said : —
"My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I
516 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone,, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the col- ored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save this Union."
Of course he was assailed on both sides. Bodies of men waited on him, begging him not to touch slavery. If he did so he would lose the sympathy of thousands in the border States who held slaves, and yet had clung to the Union. Other bodies of men waited on him, begging him to emancipate the slaves ; telling him that the sympathies of all foreign nations would be with us if we only showed that we warred against slavery ; declaring that tlie back-bone of rebellion would be broken if slavery were destroyed.
Between them both Lincoln stood, often solely tried and per- plexed in the extreme. At length, in August, 1862, he called to- gether his cabinet, and showed them a copy of a proclamation free- ing all slaves of rebel owners. His secretary of state, Willliam H. Seward, a thoughtful statesman, and long known as an antislavery man, begged him to wait a little. " We are in dark days now," said Seward, " and this will look like a last measure, a cry to Ethiopia for help." So Mr. Lincoln put aside the paper. Shortly after came Pope's repulses in Virginia. Things looked darker and darker. Then the battle at Antietam drew near. " I made a sol- emn vow before God," said the president, talking of it afterwards, " that if General Lee was driven back from Maryland, I would crown the act by the declaration of freedom to the slaves."
Many vows of most solemn import have been offered up to the Almighty, but there are few in all history with so great a result as that which gave freedom to a race.
Therefore, on the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln an- nounced to the nation, and to those in arms against it, that all the slaves of those at war against the government were thenceforth FREE. The rebels became bitterer than ever, and declared this last blow at their rights and their property had made it impossi'ble for them ever to yield. They would die to the last man. Many in the North loudly denounced Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. But in truth, almost every man in the United States whose heart was in the restoration of the LTnion, believed that the right thing had been done, and that now, for the first time, the God who parted the waters of the Red Sea that a race of bondmen might wahv through to freedom, was ready to smile on our nation's cause.
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. 517
From the beginning, negroes had been employed by the rebels to work on their fortifications, and dig in their trenches. As the prej- udice against using them began to melt away in our armies, spades were put into their hands, and they were employed in our lines. In the summer of 1862 negro soldiers were talked of, and Congress passed a law the next spring, permitting the raising of black regi- ments. Massachusetts gave the first colored regiment to the coun- try. It was known as the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, and its colonel, Robert G. Shaw, was descended from a noble line of anti- slavery ancestors.
This regiment, the first to shed its blood in the struggle which gave freedom to their race, was not permitted to pass through the city of New York, on their way to the seat of war. It was danger- ous even then, in the metropolis of the nation, for a black man to wear the free garb of the soldier. The troops were therefore sent from Boston by water in May, 1863. But only a few months later, a negro regiment passed down Broadway, New York city, cheered by thousands, who came out to see them march. So rapid were the strides made by public opinion in the four years of the war, that only the seven-league boots of a Brobdignagian giant could keep up with it.
CHAPTER XL VI.
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.
Western Men. — Surroundings of Vicksburg. — Digging a Canal again. — Running the Bat- teries. — Grant's Baggage. — The Assaults. — Bombardment. — Surrender. — Port Hudson. — The Mississippi flows unvexed to the Sea.
The armies under Grant's command were largely made up of Western men, — the men of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana. These men felt that the Mississippi River belonged to them. To shut it up with hostile batteries, to divide it by stretching across it the boundary of a foreign nation, and so cut them off from the Gulf of Mexico, these men of the Northwest felt would be an unendura- ble injury. They were prepared to fight for their river till their blood flowed to the Gulf as freely as its waters. So while the East clamored, " On to Richmond," the West cried, " On to Vicksburg and New Orleans."
You have not forgotten how the glorious work of Farragut and
518
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
13-inch Mortar
Butler gave us New Orleans in 1862. By that victory we held firmly the great mouths of the Mississippi. And by the conquests
of Island No. 10 and Fort Pil-
^^1 " ^ _ low we held the river from its
"^^^~-" ^"- " source to Memphis. The only
places that opposed the passage of our boats from New Or- ?s leans to the Falls of St. An- 1 tliony, were Vicksburg, Mis- — sissippi, and Port Hudson, Louisiana, one hundred and ^ fifty ]uiles up the river from New Orleans. Take these, and the river would be free. But Vicksburg was thought to be invincible. After our gallant Farragut had taken New Orleans, he went up the river with gun- boats to attack Vicksburg. Assisted by Commodore Porter, they had hammered on the town with cannon-ball and bomb-shell without making any impression on it. Disappointed and weary of the siege, they had turned back. The rebels boasted that Vicksburg could not be taken. The government and the people were almost in- clined to believe their boasts.
But General U. S. Grant intended to take Vicksburg and open the Mississippi. It was what he came there for. Another great general had said, There is no such word as " impossible." Grant did not say this — he had very little to say at any time — but he acted it, which was better.
Vicksburg was built on the " bluffs," or heights, which rise up steeply from the flat bottom lands of the river. All through these bottom lands ran interlacing creeks, or bayous. These swampy stretches of land were covered with dense cypress woods, or im- passable sloughs, in which a man would sink in mud up to his arm- pits. At various .points in the approacli, the swamps were made more difficult to traverse by trees felled to lie across each other, their branches left sticking up, so that it was almost impossible for an army to clamber through them. Inside the city and all about the edges of the bluff, slaves had been at work for months throwing up fortifications. Do you wonder if it seemed that Vicksburg could not be taken?
The last month of the year 1862, Grant sent General Sherman
SIEGE OF VICKSBUHG.
r>i9
with 30,000 men down from Memphis to the moutli of the Yazoo River, which flows into the Mississippi twelve miles above Vicks- burg. Here Sherman landed his men, and going down to the banks of Chickasaw Bayon, made an attack upon the northern defenses of Vicksbm'g. Sherman was a splendid officer, and the attack was a gallant one, but hopeless. We left hui^reds upon hundreds of our brave fellows lying dead among those tangled tree-boughs, and in the swamps and quicksands along the bayou, and then Sherman fell back to be joined by General McClernand. Together they took a post on the Arlciinsas River, fifty miles from the Mississippi, which consoled them a little for the failure.
Grant was having also bad fortune on his part of the river. All his supplies at Holly Springs he had left to be guarded by an
Abatis.
incompetent officer, named Murphy. While Grant was absent in some other part of his army. Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn, who usually hunted in couples, came down and took Murphy in their toils and carried off everything they could lay their hands on. Murphy was discharged for cowardice or incapacity, but that did not bring back the supplies.
Still Grant was no whit discouraged. He began to move his army down to the mouth of the Yazoo River, where he first sent Sherman. His army was in three corps, under Sherman, McCler- nand, and McPherson, a splendid trio, devoted to the caus,», for which
520 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
they fought, with no half-way f eehng. Here at this river's month, for almost three months. Grant was feeling his way to victory. The year before, when Farragiit's ships had made the attempt on Vicks- burg, a canal was begun across a tongue of land round which the river bent in a sharp angle. If this canal could be completed, ships and gun-boats could pass below Vicksburg, as they had passed be- low Island No. 10, and attack it in the rear. The canal had been given up at that time, and now Grant's soldiers began digging again in this old ditch, and were going on hopefully, when one day the treacherous river overflowed ; away went the banks of the canal, and the diggers were forced to run for their lives. So the canal attempt was again abandoned.
All these months a plan was maturing in the mind of the general, who sat night after night, " peering in maps, for ports, or piers, or roads," searching for the best way to approach Vicksburg. At last the plan was full grown in the head of the leader. Then he pre- pared to act.
Commodore Porter of the navy was at hand with a full fleet of stanch gun-boats. There were plenty of transports for the soldiers. Grant decided to send the boats of all kinds to run the formidable batteries of Vicksburg. He himself would march with the army down the west bank of the Mississippi till he got below Vicksburg, and meeting the boats there, the army could be taken across the river, and attack the place in the rear.
The rebel armies in this whole region were commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston, whom Lee had superseded in Virginia, after his wound at Fair Oaks. This army was divided in two parts. One was under Bragg in Tennessee ; the other under General Pemberton in Mississippi. General Pemberton's army was lying north of Vicks- burg, when Grant with his transports carefully covered up with cotton bales to protect them from cannon-balls, passed Vicksburg in safety, and stopped fifty miles down the river. The three corps marched down the Avest bank, — Grant in the centre with Sherman, while McClernand marched on his left hand, and McPherson on his right.
When Grant embarked in his transports to cross to the east side of the Mississippi he gave his men three days' food in their knap- sacks, and threw away every article of unnecessary baggage. His own luggage consisted of a comb, toothbrush, and a pipe and tobacco pouch. This silent general of ours was a constant smoker.
With this slender provision for the future our army crossed the
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. 521
Mississippi. It must live on the country till Vicksburg fell. It was victory or death ; conquest or starvation. The first business at hand was to take Grand Gulf and Port Gibson, two places lying below the city. This our troops proceeded to do with great alacrity. They crossed the river on the 29tli of April, and by the morning of May 3d both Grand Gulf and Port Gibson were held by Grant's army. The way was clearing fast.
In the mean time Grant's new plan of attack had forced Pember- ton to march south. His army now lay to the east of Vicksburg awaiting the attack, and prepared, if diiven back, to take shelter in the town. At this crisis of affairs Grant heard that Johnston, by far the cleverest general the rebels had in the West, was likely to come up behind him at any time. His head-quarters were at Jack- son, the capital of Mississippi. If Johnston were left there in large force he could come up behind Grant as he went on towards Pem- berton, and shut him in between the two rebel hosts, like a rat in a trap. "I do not propose to leave any enemy in my rear," said Grant, and accordingly marched across to Jackson to meet the enemy. There was some smart fighting on the way towards Jackson which opened the way for an easy victory at the town. Johnston was no longer there when the army reached the capital of Missis- sippi. He had found he was not strong enough in numbers to hope for success and had prudently withdrawn. Our soldiers enjoyed running up the stars and stripes on the Mississippi state-house, and after singing " We '11 rally round the flag," marched back towards Pemberton's encampment.
On the 16th of May the armies met midway between Jackson and Vicksburg and had their first field battle. The rebels were forced back, and on the next day Pemberton's army, shattered and broken, marched inside Vicksburg and shut themselves up there. The siege of Vicksburg was began.
Next an assault upon the town was tried. This was on the 18th of May. Its ill-success ought to have decided the fact, that the men who would take Vicksburg must sit down outside its walls and possess their souls in patience. Time and General Grant would surely win the town if Joseph E. Johnston did not come up from behind with a bigger army. Several assaults were tried without much result, and at length the army encamped at ease outside the walls and the siege begun.
Now our bomb-shells began a constant whiz ! whiz ! into the town.
522 STOEY OF OUR COUNTRY.
The people inside dug caves in the precipitous streets of the bluff on whose side the town was built and there the}'^ took refuge from the shells. Sometimes the caves were quite comfortable ; furniture and bedding were carried in, and the women and children huddled together there for safety. Provisions began to grow scarce. There were reports that mules had been eaten, and even rats had been killed for food. The only hope of the rebels was that Johnston might raise an army and come to their succor. Grant's only feai was that Johnston might be able to do this. A letter from a rebel in Vicksburg to his wife was intercepted and put into Grant's hands. " We put our trust in the Lord," said the writer ; " and we expect Joe Johnston to come to our relief."
Grant smiled grimly. " They put a good deal of faith in the Lord and Joe Johnston," he said to Sherman ; " but you must whip Johnston at least fifteen miles from here."
Johnston did not come. He could not get together a sufficient army. May passed into June, June melted into July, and the troops still surrounded Vicksburg. On the second day of July a white flag waved over the walls of the beleaguered city. A little later two men, closely blindfolded, were led through our lines to Grant's head-quarters. They came to ask on what terms he would take Vicksburg. Grant, who had already been named " Uncon- ditional Surrender " Grant, offered the terms which had given him that title. The rebels were to throw down their arms, and give up the city with all it contained. He would meet General Pember- ton next day at three o'clock, when all firing should be stopped, while they talked over the matter. The result of the talk was the understanding that Grant's army should sleep the next night in Vicksburg.
It was ten o'clock on the morning of the 4th of July, when tli > rebel army, 27,000 in number, marched out of their defenses, eaci regiment throwing its guns, knapsacks, and ammunition, in a great pile, and covering them with the regimental flag. This was done in funereal silence, our men looking on in silent sympathy for their beaten foes.
But they did cheer loudly when Vicksburg was fairly entered, and the national flag was flying there. It was the happiest 4th of July in a long time. And when the telegraph wires told the country that " Vicksburg had fallen," the delight almost passed bounds. As the news spread from city to town, from town to village, the whole
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.
623
North resounded with tlie ringing of bells and the pealing of cannon. It was the brightest day since the war.
Ever since the last of May General Banks had been besieging Port Hudson in the river below. He had made many assaults upon the place, and was ably aided by some regiments of colored men, formerly slaves, who prized freedom sufficiently to sell their lives for it. But up to the taking of Vicksburg the place held out. On the 7th of July news reached the rebel commander in Port Hud- son that Vicksburg was taken. Immediately he proposed surrender ; and on the 9th of July the place, with 6,400 prisoners, was in Banks's power. The last obstacle was gone from the Mississippi. The great river was unfettered from its source to its mouth. Once more it flowed " mivexed to the sea."
A Louisiana Swamp,
While Banks was at work in southern Mississippi, the rebels in Texas had taken advantage of his absence to make trouble there. The rebel Magruder, whom we heard of in Virginia early in the war, had attacked Galveston, and made great havoc among our ships on the Texan coast. The rebels in upper Louisiana also rose in arms, and began to march south, apparently with hostile designs on New Orleans. Therefore, when Banks returned victorious from
524
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Port Hudson, he started on an expedition to clear the rebels from these States. He was so far successful that they were soon driven across the Colorado River, and Texas and Louisiana were again under national control.
The Southwest was restored again to its allegiance. Arkansas was entered by the Union troops. Our standard floated over Mis- sissippi and Alabama. One such victory as that of Vicksburg in the East, and the war would be at an end.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE WAR IN THE EAST.
The Army in Winter-quarters. — Stonewall Jackson's Death. — Invasion of Pennsylvania. — The Call for a Leader. — Gettysburg. — Sanitary Commifsion. — Horrors of a Battle-field. — Narrative of an Eye-witness. — A Modern Sidney. — The Consecration of Gettysburg.
It is discouraging to turn from the army of the West to the army of the East. We left the Army of the Potomac after the defeat at Fredericksburg, in its winter-quarters on the Rappahannock. Lee,
Army Huts.
still strongly ensconced in Fredericksburg. Burnside, discouraged and always very distrustful of his ability, resigned. Fighting Joe Hooker, who enjoyed a great popularity among the soldiers, was made his successor. He took command in January, 1863, and began brushing up the army again, and getting it in trim for a new campaign.
In April it numbered one hundred thousand foot, thirteen thou- sand horse, and ten thousand artillery, all in splendid marchmg order.
♦ THE WAR IN THE EAST. 525
t Hooker ordered a movement across the Rappahannock River. He was at this time on the opposite side from Fredericksburg, and by a secret movement across the river, to the rear of Lee, he hoped to come down and give a decisive blow to his forces. He moved his army successfully, and the last of April he had reached Chancellors- ville, northwest of Fredericksburg, so quietly that Lee knew nothing of his movements till he heard of him there. When he heard of this new position, he determined not to be attacked in Fredericksburg, but to go out and give battle himself. Accordingly, on the 1st day of May, the advance columns of Hooker's army met the advance of Lee, who, ably seconded in his plans by Stonewall Jackson, was approaching Chancellorsville. The events of that day were unim- portant, and at night Hooker ordered his army behind their de- fenses at Chancellorsville, while Lee and Jackson, only a little dis- tance from his lines, talked over the plan of attack next day.
The morning of the 2d of May saw the beginning of the un- fortunate battle of Chancellorsville. Although the Union force outnumbered the rebels, the masterly skill with which Stonewall Jackson managed the attack, made the day a sad one for our coun- try. All day Jackson was in the field inspiring his army of 30,000 picked troops with all his own valor. At the close of the day he had pushed forward with some of his staff, till he was under fire from the Union lines. He spurred back hastily towards a com- pany of his own men. His men saw him coming, and mistaking their general and his staff for a party of Union cavalry, fired all together into their midst, and Jackson, their leader, and the pride of the rebel army in Virginia, fell dangerously wounded. He lived a few days, hopeful of recovery till almost the last, and died on the 10th of May. So ended the career of one of the most re- markable soldiers of the rebellion. When, after his fall, General Lee heaixl that Jnckson's left arm had been amputated, he wrote him, " You have lost your left arm ; but I have lost my right arm in you." He was the very right arm of the rebellion in Virginia, and his loss was a greater blow to Lee than any single defeat. Even his success at Chancellorsville could not compensate for it. The battle was resumed the next day, and the next ; the rebels all the time driving back the Unionists towards the river. On the 5th of May Hooker retreated across the stream, and once more settled down in his old quarters.
One month after this sickening defeat at Chancellorsville, there
526 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
was a stir all through the rebel lines. Encouraged by his successes, and believing that his army had proved themselves incapable of defeat, Lee determined to carry out his design of taking the war out of Virginia. He was ready for another invasion into Pennsyl- vania. Just about one month after the last battle he was on the march, and by the 27th of June part of his army had reached Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The inhabitants of Pennsylvania were overwhelmed with alarm, and all over the North the news spread consternation. For as yet the Union armies in Virginia had not had a general in whom public confidence rested. The North had seen army after army wasted and broken. It had seen in Virginia the failures of McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker. The whole North cried for a leader for this splendid armj^ on which it lavished its riches without stint.
" Back from the trebly crimsoned field Terrible words are thunder-tost, Full of the wrath that will not yield,
Full of revenge for battles lost ! Hark to their echo, as it crost The capital, making faces wan ! ' End this murderous holocaust !
Abraham Lincoln, give us a man.' "
" ' Oh, we will follow him to the death,
Where the foeman's fiercest columns are | Oh, we will use our latest breath. Cheering for every sacred star. His to marshal us nigh and far,
Ours to battle, as patriots can. When a liero leads the Holy War! ' Abraham Lincoln, give us a man.' "
Such was the cry of both people and army as a poet puts it into words.
This extract from the above poem printed at this time, represents the feeling of nearly every loyal heart. Hooker's army was much re- duced by its last defeat and by the expiration of the term for which many of the men had enlisted, to a bare remnant of the great army of April. He led it on to Frederick in Maryland, the same place from whence McClellan had started in pursuit of Lee in his former invasion. Here another change was made in the command. Gen- eral Halleck at Washington, and Hooker in Virginia, had a dispute about the policy of evacuating Harper's Ferry. It ended in Hook-
THE WAR IN THE EAST.
527
er's throwing up his command, and Halleck at once put General George G. Meade in his stead.
Meade took the command, and heavily reinforced from Washing- ton, kept in pursuit of Lee. The rebel army had already
ravaged the
region
about
General George G. Meade.
Chambersburg, and were pre- paring to cross the Susque- hanna River, near Harris- burg, the state capital. When Lee heard that Meade was on his track, he paused to consider what he should do next. It would hardly be wise to get too far away from his supplies, until he had again proved his superiority in battle. There- fore Lee concluded to wait and fight the Union army before he went any farther.
On the morning of the 1st of July 6,000 mounted Union soldiers met the advance of Lee's army near the village of Gettysburg. It was an obscure little town, nestling among hills, and famous then for nothing but its peaceful beauty. Now its name rings in our ears like a war-trumpet, calling up scenes only of bloodshed and battle.
The battle began on the morning of the 1st. It raged for three days along the ridges that bounded the little town, growing more and moi-e fearful as these summer days went by. At the end of the second day's fighting, the advantage seemed in favor of Lee. Already nearly 40,000 men were dead or wounded, in the two armies. But on the third day the tide turned. Victory, so long a stranger to the cause of the Union, at last came to bless the old flag. On the evening of the 3d of July Lee began silently and swiftly to withdraw his army, thoroughly foiled in his second at- tempt at invading the North. On the 4th of July, when the triumphant shouts were going up from Vicksburg, Lee was on his way from the field of Gettysburg. That saci-ed day had given us two occasions for rejoicing, and hope once more animated the heart of the nation.
When Lee's retreating army moved off the field, it left thou- sands of dead and wounded behind. And of the Army of the
34
528 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Potomac, probably 15,000 dead and wounded lay in the valleys and on the hill-slopes about Gettysburg. I will not attempt to paint the horrors of such a battle-field, where between twenty and thirty thousand men, in all degrees of agony, torn by gun-shot wounds, or mangled by cannon-ball, lay hours and days under the July sun, crying for death to put an end to their torments.
As soon as possible after the battle, the country began to send help to these sufferers. Delegates from different States hurried to the field bearing all the comforts that tender hearts could devise. The " Sanitary Commission," an organization formed to relieve the sufferings of the soldier on the battle-field or in the hospital, sent on its great supplies of stores ; food, medicine, dressing for wounds, and everything else that could minister to the men. In many cases the governors of the States headed the delegation which went to carry succor to its brave sons on the field. From one of these eye-witnesses I have the following account of Gettysburg within twenty-four hours after the last day's fighting was over,
" As I approached the scene of battle," says my informant, " it seemed to me at first as if the terrible, sickening odor which arose from the field strewn with dead and dying men, and dead horses, would make it impossible for me to remain there for a mo- ment. I paused, faint and almost suffocated. But summoning up all the powers of my will, reflecting on the suffering of those who had lain in that dreadful place since the battle began, more than three days before, I pushed on, resolved that no weakness of the senses should delay me in such an errand.
" Now my ears were greeted by a chorus of groans and outcries, such as I shall never forget, to my dying day. I hear them some- times now in my dreams. They came from a barn on my right, in which some of the wounded had been hurridly lain for shelter till some better disposition could be made of them. I went to the door of the building. Inside, the floor was covered thick with men, in all degrees of agony, from all sorts of wounds. Many were already dead, many were too near death to make any sound, but from those not yet too weak to cry out, came that pitiful moaning of strong men struck down while full of life and health.
" I called aloud, ' Are there any boys from New Hampshire here ? ' A few heads raised up a little, and some eager voices cried ' Here.'
" I had with me a few cans of jelly, only what I could carry in
THE WAB IN THE EAST. 529
my hands, as I had hastened on in advance. This I opened at once and began to distribute by teaspoonfuls to the parched mouths and throats of the men. There wiis not enough in all I had to moisten the lips of one tenth of the sufferers, and I cannot describe the pain it cost me to refuse any of them. There were many wounded rebels among them, and they begged piteously for a taste of the cooling jelly, or even to lap out with their tongues the dishes when they were emptied. Poor fellows, my heart bled for them, as truly as for our own boys, and what poor help I could give them I rendered. They were all brother men together, and I pitied all equally.
" One young lieutenant from my own State I found in such a hor- rible state of suffering as I will not attempt to describe. He had been two or three days under the sun, with a terrible wound in the side and was just brought in under cover and laid on the bare floor of the barn. I knelt beside him and with some water which I brought in a tin cup, began to bathe out his wound. He looked up with a smile of gratitude. ' Ah, that feels good. So good,' he said, ' but you would better not waste time over me, I can only last a few hours longer at most. I can't possibly get well, and some of the men will recover with care. Go and look after them.' "
This is one little glimpse of the battle-field at Gettysburg. I do not wish to dwell on its horrors, and we will turn aside from them. Our best remembrance of it is that there were deeds of hero- ism and words of noble self-sacrifice, such as fell from the lips of the dying lieutenant, that make us feel the grandeur of humanity. Many a noble deed that will never be recorded, was done by men who seemed but rough fellows to the outer vision. Let us thank God for these redeeming features of war, for these proofs of the divine beauty of human souls. The battle-fields of America have shown that the last Sidney did not die at Zutphen.
Shortly after this the field at Gettysburg was consecrated as a national cemetery for the burial of our soldiers. In November, after the battle. President Lincoln went there t(? be present at the ceremony. Standing above the graves of those wno had fallen there, he said, " Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom ; that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
To which solemn words all loyal hearts responded earnestly, Amen!
630
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Drafting.
CHAPTER XL VIII.
RIOTS IN NEW YORK CITY.
Traitors in the North. — A Peace Party. — Beginning of the Draft. — Destruction of Private Property. — Mob Violence is suppressed.
-The Mob.
You can fancy that the great loss of men in our armies must have kept up a constant call for soldiers from all the loyal States, and that the enthusiasm which at first existed would be somewhat dampened by the series of disasters in Virginia. In tlie spring of 1863 the vacancies in the armies filled up so slowly that the govern- ment found it would be obliged to resort to drafting to fill up the ranks. Up to this time all those enlisted in the national army had done so of their own free will. The rebels had long before drafted to fill their armies, and even boys and gray-haired old men were seen bearing arms in their ranks.
You have heard perhaps of drafting or " conscription " in Europe.
In certain European lands, Prussia for example, every able-bodied man is liable to be taken as a soldier for three years. Those coun- tries keep a large standing army all the time ready for war. In America we have only a small regular army, depending on the citizens to " volunteer " in times of need. But now, as the volun- teers did not come in fast enough, President Lincoln decided there must be a draft.
The conditions of the draft were mild and reasonable. No man over forty-five years nor under eighteen years could be taken. A son who was the support of his widowed mother could not be drawn,
RIOTS IN NEW YORK CITY. 531
iior a father with motherless children ; indeed, there were many modifications that made the drafting as mild as might be.
But the ill-fortune we had suffered in the war thus far had dis- couraged so many of the loyal people, and affairs looked so dark for the Union in the first half of 1863, before the Vicksburg and Gettys- burg successes, that the evil counsels of the party in the North who were traitorously in sympathy with the rebels, began to be heard more loudly than they had dared to speak since Sumter was fired on. The Governor of New York, Horatio Seymour, was one of these sympathizers ; Franklin Pierce, ex-president of the United States, was another, and many others of less note scattered over the North, joined with some of the leading newspapers in our large cities, were doing all in their power to put an end to the war at any cost, how- ever harmful to the nation. Of course at this time the war could have ended on no other terms than the division of this noble nation into two parts. It would have been like cutting a body in two, or dividing the top of a tree from its roots. Fancy, if you are a loyal American, how it would have been if we had then surrendered the Union ; drawn a line across Virginia, Kentucky, and on west to the Pacific, and allowed the South to become a foreign nation on our borders.
Still this " peace party " in the North clamored for the end of war, even though they must have known it could only come by yielding up our national life. Therefore, under the treasonable teachings of some of these men, the draft was made unpopular in our large cities. The leaders of the " peace party " had probably no definite idea of exciting forcible opposition to the draft. They were, as a rule, American citizens, and even in their wildest mo- ments, American citizens are not inclined to turn themselves into a mob, or to furnish mob-leaders. But in some of our large cities, especially in New York, where we have most generously opened our doors to the poor and oppressed of other countries, and have per- haps too generously given them the right of citizenship while they were still steeped in the ignorance in which they were born in their own lands, there were a large class of voters whom bad teachings could at any time turn into a mob. This class was principally composed of the Irish population. I should be unjust to the other for- eign citizens of our country, if I included them. The Germans, who come next in numbers to the Irish, are, as a rule, peaceable, law- abiding citizens, many of them Republicans in theory before they
532 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
join our republic. Tlie Irish, brought up under EngUsh rule, which they are trained to hate, and are always in antagonism with, have by a long habit of resistance to law, become unfit subjects for a democratic government. They form, in all our large cities, where they number in sufficient force, a lawless inflammable mass of igno- rant people, ready to rush into violence when wrought on by bad leaders.
On the 13th of July, in 1863, when in several appointed places in New York city the drafting had begun, such a mob as was never before seen in the United States surrounded the offices ; drove the officers from their posts ; set some of the buildings on fire ; tore out the contents of other buildings into the streets ; and began a mad career of destruction and anarchy.
Gathering in force, armed with clubs, brickbats, and other weap- ons, this great tide of furious men, women, and boys rushed on through the streets. They entered private houses and scattered the contents to the four winds. They robbed and murdered unoffend- ing citizens in the ^streets, and sacked shops filled with valuable wares, carrying off clothing, jewels, and other spoils. On one of the avenues of the city was a fine building raised by the charity of good men and women, devoted to the protection and rearing of colored children left fatherless and motherless. The bestial multitude rushed thither, and driving off the few policemen that could be called to guard it, they sacked and burned the building. Fortu- nately the children had been taken away before the mob had reached the spot, and thus their lives were saved. But woe to the unoffend- ing blacks, men, women, or children, who fell in the way of the riot- ers. They stabbed them, trampled on them, burned their bodies before life was extinct, hanged them on lamp posts, almost tore them limb from limb in their wild-beast fury.
One of the loyal newspapers of New York was the " Tribune," founded and edited by Horace Greeley. For years this eminent journalist had been the earnest friend of the laboring classes. Prob- ably no man in the United States had done more to elevate the masses who formed this very mob than Horace Greeley. Yet they howled curses on him, and sought him that they might sacrifice him to their thirst for blood. Pausing before the house of a philan- thropic citizen where Mr. Greeley was accustomed to visit, and where a part of the mob believed he lived, they sacked the house from top to bottom. Among other valuables the owner had a fine library,
EFFORTS TO TAKE CHARLESTON. 533
and they tore the priceless books from the bindings, scattering the leaves to the winds, as if in their brutal ignorance they would visit their hatred of all learning on the innocent books that contained it. For three days robbery, arson, murder raged in the streets. New York did not contain one Napoleon bold enough to set a cannon at the end of a street where the mob centred, and with one blast put the speediest and least bloody end to this riot. At last, on the 16th of July, soldiers began to arrive, bayonets began to bristle in the streets, and before a few determined armed men, the mob slunk to their dens in corner grog-shops and low tenement houses, loaded with the spoils they had gained, and the uprising was over. How hid- eous and demoniacal the scenes of those three days were, only those who saw them can tell. And for weeks afterwards the faces of those who had been part of the mob, glowed with savage ferocity. Even the boys who had hooted and howled in its midst, looked like animals who had tasted blood for the first time. So ended the '■''New York draft riots" one of the most terrible episodes of the whole war.
CHAPTER XLIX.
EFFORTS TO TAKE CHARLESTON.
Three Strongholds of the Enemy. — Monitors in Charleston Harbor. — Folly Island. — The Storming of Wagner. — Robert Shaw "burled under his Niggers." — The Swamp Angel. — Fall of Wagner.
By the beginning of the year 1863 the only real obstacle to our possession of the whole sea-coast from Fortress Monroe to New Orleans, was Charleston, South Carolina. It was one of the three points which, when conquered, would decide the fate of the nation. From the first, as soon as Vicksburg, Richmond, and Charleston could be reduced, every one knew the war would be at an end.
The care with which the entrance to Charleston was guarded, showed that the rebels thought so too. The approach to Charles- ton harbor is between a mass of those low-lying islands that fringe the whole Atlantic coast. All these islands flanking the harbor were dotted thick with forts and batteries. Right in the middle of the channel leading to the city stood Fort Sumter, the proudest trophy of rebellion, with her guns pointing out to sea, and the " stars and bars " floating over her battered walls.
534
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
An Armored Lookout.
Early in 1863 Commodore Dupont lay off Morris Island with his fleet. He had five splendid gun-boats and nine iron monitors,
— each one of them an exact copy of the famous little craft we lately saw fighting the Merrimack in Hampton Roads. The nine were mar- shaled in line. They were going up through the passage between Morris and Sulli- van's Island, between the fire from both forts, to attack Sumter. The men on board the Ironsides^ — Dupont's flag-ship — might see with a field-glass the roofs of Charleston crowded with spectators, looking curiously, but without any dismay, on our attacking fleet. They had come to believe Charleston im- pregnable, and had little fear for its safety.
Our iron-clads went boldly up and began the bombardment. But though they rained balls on the fort like hail-stones, the attack was in vain. In return, the balls from the forts pattered fiercely on the vessels. Half an hour was hardly over when they all steamed back again — one of the valiant little monitors riddled with balls and on the point of sinking ; and the attempt on Charleston was for this time abandoned.
Dupont, who did not much enjoy the fighting done in these little iron turrets, with the men securely hidden from the foe, now re- signed his command, and Foote, who had done so well in the Mis- sissippi, was called there. But that brave and pious-souled com- mander died before he could reach his new post, and Commodore Dahlgren, whose improvements in cannon had caused a gun to be named in his honor the " Dahlgren gun," came to the place. Gil- more, successful at Fort Pulaski, took charge of the land forces. With this strong combination of Gilmore and Dahlgren, another attack on the defenses of Charleston began.
General Hunter, who had commanded the land troops on Dupont's exj^edition, had left his forces encamped on Folly Island, south of Morris. Here hidden among high reeds and marsh-grass, the men had laid out roads, set up batteries, thrown up intrenchments, unseen by the enemy. As soon as Gilmore had made his plans he
EFFORTS TO TAKE CHARLESTON. 535
commanded a body of troops to land on the south end of Morris Island. At its north end was Fort Wagner, one of the strongest of the Charleston defenses. It guarded the south side of the outer en- trance to Charleston harbor.
On the 9th of July General Strong, who had landed with 2,000 men, began to creep silently up towards Wagner. They made an indecisive assault, in which half the attacking party were lost, and then fell back, and settled down upon the swampy, i-eedy island to await another opportunity. A few days later other troops joined them and it was resolved that the time for attack had come.
On the morning of the 18th of July the storming party was ready to move on Wagner. Six regiments were ordered forward, under leadership of General Strong, who was to direct the charge. In the van stood the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, — the first black regiment, — given the post of honor on this day. Their young colonel, Robert G. Shaw, was at its head. He looked hardly more than a boy with his fair blonde face shining out in front of the gleaming black faces of his men. In a few eloquent words he called on them to prove now that freedom was worth the price that had been set on it.
It was almost dark when the solid column started on a half run. A sheet of flame seemed to wrap the fort, as the musket volleys crashed from the walls, and the cannon belched its deadly contents into the midst of the approaching troops. Undaunted, they leaped the ditch, scaled the sides, and planted the grand old flag (the soldiers called it " Old Glory ") on the top of the wall. It waved there only one instant, tottered, and fell, just as the storming column also reeled and fell back into the ditch below.
Colonel Shaw had fallen, struck dead at once. General Strong was mortally wounded. Every officer in the regiment was killed or wounded, when what was left of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts was led back under the command of Lieutenant Higginson, a boy of nineteen.
Another brigade advanced to the charge, under Colonel Putnam. This also suffered the fate of the first. After half an hour's hard fighting, what remained of the brigade was forced to go back, leav- ing its brave leader dead on the field of honor.
The body of Colonel Shaw was found close under the walls among the men he had led so well. The rebels who came out to bury the slain, showed their hatred of the man who had led a regiment of
536
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
negroes, by boasting that they had " buried him in a pit under his niggers." But no grave could be dug deep enough to hide the memory of the young hero. He could not lie in soil so poor that the remembrance of his devotion to human freedom would not spring greenly from its bosom.
The costly knowledge had been gained that it was useless to take Wagner by assault, and Gilmore began to try other tactics. Work- ing patiently by day over the swampy land, where they held a position, the army slowly crawled nearer Wagner, each day erecting batteries a little nearer, under cover of the earthworks which they made at night. The yellow September moon revealed them at work with spade and axe, and guided by its light, the guns of the fort were leveled at them, often with deadly aim. ^ Still they worked undauntedly on. In one place in the slimy, horrible mud, where a man could sink out of sight and be buried alive, if he ventured to tread on the dangerous surface, they drove piles, one above the other, till they made a firm foundation. On it they built ramparts, and set up a huge gun, named by the soldiers " The Swamp Angel."
The Swamp Angel.
Thus they worked, till the batteries were so close that they could send balls into both Wagner and Sumter. Then they bombarded both, till Sumter looked like a smoking ruin, and Wagner was bat- tered helpless. On the morning of the 7th of September a rebel deserter brought news that Wagner was empty ; the rebels had evacuated it the night before. On the 8th Gilmore's army marched in and took possession. Our flag waved once again in the entrance to Charleston harbor. We had made one step towards the rebel city.
GUERRILLA RAIDS. 537
CHAPTER L.
GUERRILLA RAIDS.
Johu Morgan. — Raid into Indiana. — A Plucky Colonel. — Ohio at Morgan's Mercy. — Cap- ture of Morgan. — Morgan's Escape from Prison. — Quantrell and his Ruffians. — The Sack of Lawrence. — A Hideous Butchery.
John Morgan had been a guerrilla chief in the rebel army ever since the war opened. He commanded a troop of horsemen as dar- ing as himself. His name was a word of terror to Unionists in Ken- tucky, where he had made several raids, stealing the horses and everything else he could take away. In the summer of 1863 he planned the most daring expedition of his whole career. It is known as Morgan'' s raid into Indiana and Ohio.
He crossed the Cumberland River in Tennessee with about 2,000 thoroughly armed men on horseback, and began his march across the State in a northeasterly course towards Indiana. On the 4th of July his troops reined up in front of a little post protected with felled trees and earthworks hastily thrown up, behind which Colonel Moore with two hundred men from Michigan had intrenched them- selves. " Surrender ! " shouted Morgan. " If to-day were not the Fourth of July," answered the plucky colonel inside the works, "we might take time to think of surrender ; " ^ and with that he ordered such a sharp defense that in spite of his greater numbers Morgan was driven away, and the post was held by Colonel Moore and his handful of brave men.
Morgan went next to a post at Lebanon, Kentucky, where a stout resistance was made by Colonel Hanson commanding there. In this attack Morgan's younger brother was killed. Infuriated by his death, his men set fire to the fort, and Hanson was forced to surrender. On went Morgan through Indiana, reaching that State about the middle of July, and frightening the quiet towns there unprepared for the presence of such an enemy, almost out of their wits. He took every- thing away that he could carry, burning the houses he had sacked, trampling down the crops, and destroying what he could not take with him. The railroads were torn up, and telegraph wires cut all along their march. His pathway was strewn with desolation and ruin like that left by a tornado. On the 14th he crossed into Ohio, seizing steamboats to convey his troops over the river, and sweeping across
1 Greeley's American Conflict tells this incident. Pollard, in The Lost Cause, puts the same reply into the mouth of Colonel Hanson, commancfing the post at Lebanon.
538 STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the State in a wide half circle, above Cincinnati, a town which was too large to invade. Morgan's passage through Ohio was marked by the same destruction. But the people there were beginning to muster. When he reached the eastern boundary of Ohio, where he intended to cross the river into Virginia, and join his friends in Lee's army, he found himself in hotter quarters than were comfortable. Gun-boats were coming down the river to seize him. On the first attempt of his troops to cross to Virginia, several hundred of his men were taken prisoners. Morgan, with the remainder of his troop, wandered up the river, seeking a safe place to cross. He was at last brought to bay on a high bluff on the bank, and gave himself up to a body of United States troops who had hemmed him in. He was at once sent, with his officers captured with him, to the Ohio state prison, where their historian relates that " they were shaved and had their hair cut very close by a negro barber. They were then marched to the bath-room and scrubbed, and from thence to their cells, and locked up." The shaving, hair-cutting, and scrubbing in the bath-tub, is mentioned as if it were a great indignity. But as they were probably very dirty after their long raid, it was no more than a wholesome precaution to take before admitting them into a state institution. As to the state prison, it was an infinitely healthier and better prison than any of those in which our national soldiers were confined in the South. Yet Morgan, who, with seven of his companions, dug out a passage with their pocket-knives, and escaped, talked bitterly of the "cruelty of the Yankee captors."
Another guerrilla raid, made shortly after Morgan's, shows in much darker colors on the page of history. It was a raid into the State of Kansas, hated by all the rebels since the fight it had made to keep slavery out of its borders. A man who called himself Quantrell, although the name was probably a false one, used as a cloak to hide his crimes, rode across the line into Kansas at the head of a band of " border ruffians " from Missouri. Spurring across the undulating prairie, peaceful and fertile, they entered the town of Lawrence, which had been the favorite town of the " free-state " people ever since the days of John Brown and the Kansas war. By this time — the month of August, 1863 — it had grown to be a pleasant town, built like a New England village, with broad streets, bordered with pretty houses, interspersed with church spires and school-house belfries, which rose over the hovise roofs like landmarks set to show the growth of piety and intelligence on this new free soil.
GUERRILLA RAIDS.
539
Into this town, peaceful as Paradise, quiet as a Sabbath-day, Quantrell entered, with his troop of ruffians at his back, hooting and yelUng like a pack of painted savages. In a moment the peaceful scene was changed to one of wildest horror. Houses were burned ; stores plundered ; citizens robbed and murdered. The German and negro residents, especially, were killed without mercy. Women plead in vain for the lives of fathers, sons, husbands, over their very bodies. Men were shot, and while still alive their houses were fired, and their bodies burned in the flames. There was no resistance ; the surprise had been too great : it was simply a
Lawrence, after Quantrell's Raid
butchery. When the murderers left the town, one hundred and forty citizens had been slaughtered. Their bodies lay in the pools of blood in streets and door yards, or had become a charred mass of flesh and bones among the ruins of their homes.
The raid of Quantrell was not an attack of soldiers upon armed men ; it was a descent of bandits upon a defenseless town. Let us hope, for the honor of civilized warfare, that it was not an author- ized expedition ; and that it was made by a robber, in the interests of plunder and private malignity. ^
^ Pollard's Lost Cause (the best Southern history of the war) does not mention Quantrell among their officers ; and it is but just to suppose that the generals of the army of the rebel- lion would not have countenanced or permitted such an outrage as the attack on Lawrence.
640 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER LI.
CHATTANOOGA AND LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
Chattanooga Valley. —The Gateway of the Mountains. — Mission Ridge. — Defeat of Union Troops. — "Hold Chattanooga, or starve." — Battle in the Clouds. — The Rebels' last stand. — Victory for the Nation.
After Bragg was driven from Murfreesboro', in January, 1863, he stopped again at TuUahoma, in the southern part of Tennessee, while Rosecrans with his army remained at Murfreesboro'. Both generals had been looking towards Chattanooga, a little town lying in a gateway of the mountains, very near the line between Ten- nessee and Georgia. In June, after a rest of almost six months, Rosecrans began a march thither. Almost at that same time Bragg began a retreat from Tullahoma. Rosecrans approached, and Bragg retreated, till the rebel army was concentrated in Chattanooga. It was their last stronghold in Tennessee. You have marked how they have gradually been driven from Kentucky, through Tennessee, till they are now on the very borders of Georgia. At the same time that Rosecrans approached Chattanooga, General Burnside, who had been sent to take a command in the West, approached from Cincinnati upon Knoxville, one of the centres of East Tennessee, and driving the rebel Buckner (the same who surrendered at Fort Donelson) from that city, planted the Union flag in Knoxville. For months the people had been forced to hide the dear flag, and now, all at once, in the track of Burnside's army, the whole soil seemed to blossom with the nation's tri-color, as if they had been planted for a season, and a crop of them had just sprung up. Tennessee held many ardent patriots who had suft'ered for their love of country more than the people of any other State. We can never honor too much the loyalists of Tennessee. Many of them wept with delight when they saw our soldiers marcliing to Knoxville, and the joyous people crowded to press on the soldier all thej had of food or luxury, robbing themselves even of their scanty fare to give to the " defenders of the Union."
Rosecrans reached Chattanooga to find it empty. Bragg had gone over the boundary line of Georgia, and was strengthening himself for a battle in the town of Lafayette, only a few miles distant.
The town of Chattanooga lies at the head of a pleasant valley
CHATTANOOGA AND LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
541
watered by Chattanooga Creek. On the west of the valley is Look- out Mountain ; on the east is Mission Ridge, an irregular hill on which once stood an Indian mission church. Still east of Mission Ridge lies another valley, through which runs Chickamauga Creek.
Lookout IVIountaIn, and Chattanooga Valley.
These valleys, green as the suns and rains of summer could paint them, were to be the last battle-grounds for the possession of Ten- nessee.
Bragg had all the men that the other rebel commanders could possibly spare him. Lee, who had learned by his long success not to fear very greatly the Union army in Virginia, had sent rein- forcements to him under General Longstreet ; Buckner had come to join him on his retreat from Knoxville ; Johnston had sent all the men he could spare from Mississippi ; and thus Bragg's army now largely outnumbered that of Rosecrans, encamped at Chat- tanooga.
Early in September the armies began again to approach each other. On the 9th of that month, a part of Bragg's advance, posted on Lookout Mountain, could survey the army of Rosecrans, in the valley town of Chattanooga below, and almost count his numbers. On the 19th of September, in the valley of Chickamauga, the contesfc began.
For two days the fight raged on the borders of that little stream. It ended in a terrible defeat to Rosecrans, who withdrew to Chatta- nooga on the evening of the 20th, with 16,000 men killed, wounded, and missing. 16,000 men ! That would have been a large army in the Revolutionary War. In those days they counted their dead only by tens or hundreds ; to-day we count them by thousands.
542 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Rosecrans was blamed at Washington for his defeat, and although he was a brave soldier, and up to this time had been a successful one, Halleck at once deposed him, and General George H. Thomas, who had held a post under him, took command of the Army of the Cumberland. Grant, who united under his command all the Western armies, came on to Chattanooga to look at matters with his own eyes. Up to this time we owed our best successes to this quiet general, who had taken Donelson and Vicksburg. He now came to confer with Thomas, ordering General Sherman, who was his strong right arm in battle, to come and aid the Army of the Cumberland. That army was in somewhat desperate straits. Their supplies were nearly cut off by Bragg, and it was almost impossible even to get half- rations for the men and horses into Chattanooga. Before Grant reached Thomas, he telegraphed him, " Hold Chattanooga." Thomas telegraphed briefly, " I will hold it, or starve."
It was the 24t]i of October when Grant arrived, and at once set to work to plan the relief of the army. General Hooker, with two corps, had been sent to reinforce Thomas. His men were fresh, de- moralized neither by defeat nor victory. They were sent at once to take a ferry on the Tennessee. Holding that point, they could reopen the river, send their boats loaded with provisions to the shores near Chattanooga, thus relieving all fears of starvation. This was done quickly. Although the rebels made a strong resistance, they were overcome, driven back to Lookout Mountain, and the Union- ists held a foothold on the south bank of the Tennessee.
Almost a month of quiet passed here, Thomas's army all the time increasing ; while Bragg, who had stripped the rebel armies east and west of him, before the Chickamauga battle, could raise no more men. Thomas, with Sherman and Hooker as his right and left hand, and Grant to counsel and command, prepared for the battle of Chattanooga.
As he was getting ready, an insolent message came from Bragg, advising him to withdraw from the place. Alas, for Bragg ! His star is already descending, and will soon be out of sight.
On the 24th of November Hooker went ahead to drive the enemy from Lookout Mountain. It was a misty day, and the top of the mountain was so covered with clouds that it could not be seen. The clouds favored the approach of Hooker's men, who clambered up the steep sides of Lookout as if they were sure of victory. On the top they fell upon the enemy like a whirlwind, sweeping them
CHATTANOOGA AND LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 543
over the precipice on the eastern side, and driving them down pell- mell, amid gulleys and steeps, into the valley below. Grant, watch- ing the battle from an eminence called Orchard Knob, lost sight of this army as they disappeared in the clouds on Lookout, and could only see them now and then, as the mists parted for an instant. Some one has called this " The Battle in the Clouds." It was a happy day when the boys in blue issued from the misty eyrie, pur- suing the retreating enemy into Chattanooga Valley.
Next morning the rebels were posted on Mission Ridge. They had burned behind them the bridge over Chattanooga Creek, and Hooker was obliged to wait and build it before he could cross to renew the attack. But Sherman was now on hand, ready to win his share of glory. He advanced early in the morning over the row of ridges covered with hastily felled trees, behind which the rebels were preparing a desperate defense. Sherman was alone in this attack. Hooker was busy at bridge-building, and Grant was waiting for Hooker's advance, as the signal to send Thomas forward.
After a fight which lasted from early morning till three o'clock in the afternoon, it seemed an even chance between victory and defeat with our brave Sherman, when four of Thomas's divisions at length joined him. One of these divisions was led by Phil. Sheri- dan, one of the heroes of our victory at Murfreesboro'. This aid to Sherman was enough. It was almost night when they appeared and charged up Mission Ridge. The enemy were driven from their position, and began a disorderly run down to Chickamauga Valley. That night Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga Valley, and Mission Ridge were all held by our army. Next day, Sherman and Hooker pursued the flying rebels. At Ringgold, part of the fugitives turned upon Hooker, and gave battle for a short time, then turned again to retreat ; we had driven them fairly from Tennessee, and Thomas returned to Georgia, to send troops to the relief of Burnside, who was suffering a siege in Knoxville.
During the month of October, in the rest which the armies took between these two battles of CMchamauga and Chattanooga^ ^I'agg had sent the corps of Longstreet, lent him from Lee's army in Vir- ginia, to drive Burnside out of Knoxville. Longstreet had been for a month before the town, making cautious approaches towards a siege. On the 28th of November he made a desperate assault on Fort Saunders, an outpost of Knoxville, in which he was so strongly
35
544 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
repulsed, that he gave up the idea of taking the town, and went back to Virginia. Just after this the troops sent by Thomas from Chattanooga arrived, and Knoxville was from that time safe.
CHAPTER LII.
KILPATRICK'S RAID.
Prison Pens. — Their Horrors. — Kilpatrick and Dahlgren. — Dahlgren lost in the Woods. — Shot from an Ambush. — Bobbing his Bodj'. — Return of Kilpatrick.
The horrors of the Southern prisons, where our men taken in battle were shut up to die lingering and fearful deaths, can never be fully realized. Something of their misery may be guessed by the numbers who died there. They were rightly named " prison pens." In many instances these places consisted of a great stock- ade, like that in which cattle are penned. In this our men were herded, often without tents or shelter, exposed to the burning suns, pelting rains, and stinging frosts of the varying seasons. With forests all about them, they were not allowed to build huts to cover them. In a country where grain and vegetables were rotting for want of means to get them to market, they were deliberately starved to death. In these Southern prisons at Richmond, Charleston, An- dersonville, Salisbury, men lost their reason and went mad from de- spair. Inside the pen or stockade was often a fence or paling which marked the " dead line." This was so called because the guards were ordered to shoot any prisoner who crossed the barrier. Some- times the guard amused themselves by picking off prisoners with their rifles, who had incautiously approached this limit so that a fold of their ragged garments or an outstretched hand was seen out- side the line. It is too painful to remember what our soldiers suf- fered in these prisons. For almost four years their cry for help sounded in the ears of the loyal people whose battles they had gone out to fight.
In February, 1864, General Kilpatrick, who had under his com- mand a body of splendid cavalry belonging to the Army of the Potomac, started on a raid to Richmond. His object was the re- lease of the prisoners there. It was a daring enterprise, and there was little hope of its success. Our men in the rebel capital were confined in what was known as " Libhy Prison.'''' It was a large
KILPATRICK'S RAID.
545
brick building, once used as a tobacco warehouse, but since the war turned into a prison. Here our soldiers, although sheltered from the weather, suffered all the horrors that filth and starvation could inflict.
Kilpatrick left the main army on the 28th of February, and took a direct line towards Richmond. Arrived at Spottsylvania Court House, afterwards the scene of a battle, he divided his force. The smaller party, about five hundred in number, were led by Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, a son of the admiral now in command of the gun-
Libby Prison.
boats near Charleston. Colonel Dahlgren was sent to cross the James River, and come up to attack Richmond from the south, while Kilpatrick came down upon it from the other side.
Kilpatrick went on, tearing up railway lines, cutting telegraph wires, and doing all the mischief he could, after Morgan's fashion in Indiana. By the 1st of March, he was within three and a half miles of Richmond, waiting eagerly to hear Dahlgren's guns booming their signal from the south. But he waited in vain. Young Dahl- gren had met only with misfortune, and at that moment his body lay stark and unburied in the woods not far distant.
Dahlgren did not know the roads of the country, and after leav- ing Kilpatrick had taken a negro guide. The negro led them the wrong way, and Dahlgren's men discovering this, believed him to be false, and hanged him in the forest through which they were jour-
546
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
neying. Traveling in a hostile country, almost entirely ignorant of their way they did not cross the James, but touched the outer lines of Richmond the day after Kilpatrick arrived there, in a direc- tion west of him. It was dark, and the rain fell like a deluge. In the storm and darkness Dahlgren and about one hundred of his men were separated from the main body. A party of boys, led by their ■
warlike school-master, had formed a company of militia and lay in ambush in the wood through which the lost party strayed. A volley from these concealed foes struck young Dahlgren dead, at the same time wounding several of his companions. Those who escaped the bullets wandered about all night, and were next morning taken prisoners. Fortu- nately the main body of the company were on the road toward home, and next morning reached the Union lines.
As one of these youthful militia was robbing Dahlgren's body of his watch and other valuables, he found on his person his papers of instruction relating to the plan for the liberation of the prisoners in Richmond, the purpose of the raid. The rebel newspapers circulated a report that the papers revealed a dark plot to capture and murder Jefferson Davis and his associates in Richmond. Dahlgren's body was treated with every indignity. The South rang with accounts of the " Yankee plot ; " and several barrels of gunpowder were placed under Libby Prison with orders to blow it up at once if any at- tempt at rescue or escape were made.
Kilpatrick, hearing nothing of Dahlgren, and finding that the enemy had become aware of his approach to Richmond, fell back to the east. He was met by a force sent by General Butler from For- tress Monroe, and soon joined the main army. Thus ended the futile attempt to free the Union prisoners at Richmond.
m^it-'-r.r-^v^i ■■ fill- '^ il >\tf*AWt Bullet-proof In Woods.
GRANT IN VIRGINIA.
547
CHAPTER LIII.
GRANT IN VIRGINIA,
Old Virginia. — Lincoln's Passes to Richmond. — First Meeting of Grant and Lincoln. — A Bauli^y Team. — Hard Times in Richmond. — The Wilderness. — " Grant not a Retreating Man." — Slow " Hammering." — " We will fight it out on this Line."
Early in the war Governor Pickens of South Carolina had said to his State, " You may phmt your cotton in peace, old Virginia will have to bear the brunt of battle." The North had taken up this prophecy, and some patriotic stationer had printed a Union en-
^
^"YOU MAY PLANT YOUR SEED IN PEACE, FOa OLD VIRGINIA WILLHAVETO BEAR. THE BRUNT OF BATTLE^
GOV. PICKENS.
POOR. OLD SIMPLE VIRGINIA
,4
k.
.Ai;
^\Ui,i,.»//
velope, bearing the picture of an old woman bowed on her staff, while over her back two opposing armies rushed to battle. The words of Governor Pickens had come true. Thus far, the deadliest warfare, the fiercest slaughter, has raged in Virginia, and it con- tinued to be so, till the rebels in Virginia had drank to the depths the bitter cup of secession.
The two watch-words of the year 1864 were, " On to Richmond," and " On to Atlanta." The first had been the war-cry of the " Army of the Potomac " ever since it began to muster its hosts in the field. The second cry was only raised after the enemy had been swept from his last foothold in Kentucky and Tennessee, and driven to Georgia.
You have seen by this time that while the story of the army of the West had been one of success since the line of the rebel army gave way in Kentucky, after the taking of Donelson, the story of
548 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the East had been one of defeat only. Thousands of men had been lost in the svs^amps of the Peninsula, and in the valleys of the Rapi- dan and the Rappahannock, yet our army was no nearer Richmond in the spring of 1864 than when it first started forth bent on vic- tory. You have seen general succeed general, at the head of this grand army, failure succeed failure in its attempts to push on to- wards the rebel capital.
Somebody asked President Lincoln, about these days, for a pass to Richmond.
" I should be glad to oblige you," said the president, " but my passes are not respected. I have given passes to an army of a quarter of a million, and not one has got there except as prisoners of war."
In the beginning of 1864, Lincoln, who was made daily more worried and anxious by the long and cruel series of defeats so near our capital, began to make more earnest inquiries about that silent general out West, named U. S. Grant, who was famous for saying nothing, and for doing a great deal. This Grant had taken Donel- son ; had taken Vicksburg ; had come down to Chattanooga and redeemed the defeat of the Chickamauga. He asked little of the war department ; wrote no long dispatches to government ; gave only short orders to his officers ; and made very brief speeches to his men. Already the sound of his name caused a chorus of cheers all over the loyal North wherever it was mentioned. Could it be possible that the long looked for leader, the man for whom we had sought three years, could be this quiet cigar-smoking soldier, who, although educated at West Point, had been only a clerk in a leather store in Illinois, when the war began ?
" There is the right sort of stuff in this western major-general," said Lincoln. " I should like to take a look at this little man." All at once, in the spring of 1864, Congress passed a resolution making him lieutenant-general of the United States armies, and summoning him to take command of the Army of the Potomac. Grant came on to Washington, and the two men — Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and U. S. Grant, General- in-chief of its armies — shook hands for the first time.
And now General Grant went to survey the Army of the Po- tomac. He had before him an enemy that believed itself invin- cible, with a leader whose name inspired victory. A long list of generals, McClellan, Burnside, Pope, Hooker, Meade, had preceded
GRANT IN VIRGINIA. 549
him, and from the chief-generalship had sunk into obscurity. It was a trying position for a new comer, and Grant saw its dif- ficulties.
By this time he had learned that this war was not a common one, in the temper of the adversaries who met upon its battle-fields. It was American fighting American ; it was a struggle between men of about the same degree of physical prowess, with leaders taught in the same schools, and educated together in the arts of war. And thus far the army of Lee, holding the advantage of position, and knowing well every inch of ground it occupied, had been able to use this knowledge against larger forces. Grant saw that to defeat this advantage we must use new means. " So far," he said in summing up the matter, " our armies have acted without concert, like a baulky team, no two ever pulling together. I have now determined to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy, and to hammer continuously against him, until by mere attrition, if no other way, there shall be nothing left him but an equal submission with the loyal part of our common country to the constitution and laws." And having made an uncommonlv long speech for him, Grant began his " hammering," first announc- ing, with Biblical eloquence, " wherever Lee goes, I am going also."
When Grant came to the field Lee was on the line of the RaBidan River, and Meade was in his winter-quarters on the line of the Rap- pahannock. The rebel army, as great as was its confidence in its ability to fight, was no doubt getting somewhat shaken by want ot supplies. One of its historians says that the men had only an allow- ance of a quarter of a pound of meat to a man per day. The little cabal in Richmond which called itself the " Government of the South- em Confederacy," was in want of money. The Southern women, whose sympathies were with secession, had been fertile in plans for raising money. One fair political economist had suggested that every woman, whose heart was in the cause of the Southern Con- federacy, should cut ofE her hair and sell it to raise funds for the army. Another had suggested that all her sex should contribute their jewels, silver, and other valuables to the sacred cause, and ac- cordingly the Richmond newspapers published daily a list of ear- rings, brooches, silver teapots, spoons, and cream-pitchers, sent in as contributions to the government of Jefferson Davis. ^ I do not tell these things to laugh at them. They would be glorious in a people
1 See Pollard's Lost Cause.
550
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
who fought for freedom; in a misguided section fighting to rivet tighter the chains on the slave, and destroy the freest nation on which the sun shone, they are sad as tragedy itself.
When Grant took command, he divided the armv under Meade into three corps, commanded by Generals Sedgwick, Warren, and Hancock. Burnside had been sent to join it, with a separate army, but was soon blended into the " Army of the Potomac." The val- leys of Western Virginia were guarded by General Sigel with his " Army of the Shenandoah," and at Fortress Monroe, where Gen- eral Benjamin Butler was again in command, another army was stationed ready to obey the call of the lieutenant-general. Grant visited all these armies before he prepared for action.
On the 3d of May the Union army left its camps and crossed the Rapidan, over which Lee had driven Hooker the j^ear before. For the first time it moved under the lead of a man who would not be driven back, beaten or not beaten. Almost at the same moment Lee's army also began to move. The Unionists came from the north ; the rebels from the east, making a great right angle. The point
of this angle met on the battle-field of " The Wilderness.
The Wilderness was well named, growth of scrub oaks, dwarf pines.
It was a thick and hazel, and sassafras hardly higher point than a
matted
bushes,
at any
man's
Grant's Head-quarters in the Wilderness.
breast. Through it ran a network of roads and paths, known to the enemy, unknown to the Union army. Grant had hoped to pass through this place before meeting Lee, and fight him on a clean battle-ground beyond. But Lee knew too much to permit that. On the morning of May 5th, just as Grant reached the edge of the Wilder- ness, his scouts came
GRANT IN VIRGINIA.
551
'•'^»*>>j^i
Hand Litter.
in to tell him that the undergrowth was thick with rebel batteries ; that rebel soldiers lurked everywhere in its matted ambush. The enemy had chosen the ground, and the Union army must fight or retreat. There was no talk of retreat, and on the morning of May 5th the ball opened. Such a fight as it was that day. The men struggled through the tangled bushes, to be fired at by unseen foes. They fell by thousands, and a constant procession issued, hour after hour, from out the wood, carrying stretchers on which the dead and wounded were borne back to the rear. On the bloodiest scene of the war the merciful darkness fell. Neither side was ready to yield. Lee was look- ing anxiously for Longstreet, rece'ntly arrived from Tennessee, whom he relied on to reinforce him. To his great joy Long- street came up a little after mid- night, and together the two rebel officers planned the next day's battle. Longstreet advised the attack at two in the morning, before the Union army were awake ; but Grant had laid his plans for nearly the same hour, and both armies were in arms at almost the same moment next morning. Burnside had come to Grant's aid in the night, and the position was the same as the day before.
Still another day of slaughter ; the sun pouring down on the field in midsummer heat, torturing the wounded with thirst, and making the long day seem like an eternity to the contending armies. Long- street, stopping a moment on the road in the middle of a deadly fire, to greet an old friend whom he had not seen since his return from Tennessee, was dangerously wounded by his own men and carried from the field. His loss disconcerted the rebels, although they fought on bravely. Again night fell, leaving two bruised and shattered armies equally unwilling to admit failure.
The next day was Saturday. There were orders given in the Union army to break up the camps. After every such battle as that of the Wilderness, the Army of the Potomac had fallen back from its position. One of his officers said to Lee, " I think Grant is retreating." Lee always showed great wisdom in judging of the chai'acter of the general opposed to him. When his officer made
652 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
this remark, he said, " I think Grant is not retreating ; he is not a retreating man."
When the Army of the Potomac heard it was to go forward instead of back, bruised and tired and sore as it was from fight, such a chorus of cheers went up as would have deafened ears not used to the roar of artillery.
On they went with faces toward Richmond. The two armies moved with equal rapidity. After a march of twelve miles, the Union advance was checked. Lee's army had thrown itself again across the path, intrenched behind some fresh earthworks at Spott- sylvania Court House. It was now Monday, the 9th of May. After a brief delay, in which the lines were formed in order, the fight began. Little by little the Army of the Potomac gained on Lee's army. But it was slow " hammering," like steel pounding on steel. To all despairing questions Grant had only one answer, " We are going through to Richmond. There is no doubt about that."
On Wednesday morning there was another lull in the battle. Go- ing to his tent Grant wrote back to Lincoln, who was waiting with intense anxiety for news from the army : " The result at this time is much in our favor. I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer. ^^
In the mean time General Butler had moved from Fortress Mon- roe, according to Grant's orders, to come up the James River and be ready to strike Richmond on the south, as the Army of the Potomac came from the northeast. Beauregard was in Richmond, strength- ening the place for the coming struggle. When he saw Butler com- ing, he came out of his defense and drove him back into his intrench- ments on the river, rendering him unable to move until the main army could come to join him. Grant, who had a habit of using homely comparisons, which everybody could understand, wrote that " Butler's army, although safe, is as completely shut off from further operations against Richmond, as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked."
ISHERIDAN'S RIDE. 553
CHAPTER LIV.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
General Phil. Sheridan. — Jubal Early's Raid. — Sheridan " Goes in." — The Ride from Win- chester. — The Army settles round Petersburg. — A Mine exploded. — A Pit of Death.
On the 25th of May a dashing leader of cavalry joined the army. This was General Phil. H. Sheridan, a favorite commander in the West, whom" Grant had now put in command of the mounted troops in the Army of the Potomac. He had been out cutting telegraph wires and tearing up railroads in the enemy's lines, and brought in a large bod}^ of prisoners. His raid had led him within six miles of Richmond, and there in a skirmish his men had killed General Stuart, General Lee's favorite cavalry general, who for three years had been the leader of daring raids into Maryland and the Union sections of Virginia.
On the 1st of June the two hostile armies, skirmishing all the way, stopped again at a place called Cold Harbor, very near one of the battle-fields, on which McClellan had met Lee in the " penin- sular campaign." The army was retracing its steps now over the Peninsula in almost its old track of 1862. For the first time it was driving the enemy, instead of being driven.
Here, on the morning of June 2d, the battle of Cold Harbor be- gan. It was another story of terrible loss of life, and ended with- out deciding anything. After that day's fighting, and several days of skirmishing. Grant began to move again, this time to the south side of James River, where Butler waited to welcome him. Lee, no longer strong enough to make an attack, fell back toward Rich- mond, and stood on the defensive. Almost at his last gasp, and driven to some desperate means to retrieve his sinking fortunes, he sent General Early, with all the cavalry he could muster, to invade Western Virginia and Maryland. It was barely possible that by throwing an army into Maryland, and threatening the national capital again, he might frighten Grant off toward Wash- ington. Accordingly, the middle of June, Early departed. Sigel was no longer commanding in the Shenandoah. Grant had given his place to General Hunter, who had so far not been very suc- cessful. Early tore along through Western Virginia like a whirl- wind, till he reached the Potomac, then up into Pennsylvania.
554
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
where he loaded his men with spoils, and gorged them with the fat of the land, making his poor half-starved army rejoice in abund- ance. Driving before him the horses and cattle he had captured, he proceeded toward Frederick, where General Lew. Wallace was doing his best to gather a force and make a stand against him. On the banks of the Monocacy River, a stream near Frederick, Early met Wallace, and defeated him, continuing his march to- ward Washington. Within six or seven miles of the capital he paused. Here a body of troops, pushing out from Washington, en- countered his advance, and there was a sharp skirmish close to our national capital. The country began to be filled with fears for Washington. Early, however, distrusted his own powers, and be- gan to fall back across the Potomac, carrying havoc into Western Virginia and Pennsylvania again. For a time he swept ever^'thing before him, levying on the people for money, as well as cattle and provisions.
It was the last of July, and Grant hearing all the time of Early's operations, concluded he must send a man there to stop him. Gen- eral Sheridan could not very well be spared, as he was of great service in Grant's own department. But then there was no one else who would make quicker work of driving Early out of Pennsylvania. Grant there- fore hurried him to the scene of ac- tion, giving him before starting two words of instruction, more forcible than elegant. These were simply, " Go in." Sheridan, who is some- thing like the mastiff breed of fighters, went in.
He made his first appearance at Harper's Ferry. Early, resting from his last profitable raid into Pennsyl- vania was on the banks of a small creek near Winchester, Here Sheridan came to find him on the 19th of September, and they had a battle known as the battle of Winchester. When it ended. Early was driven back eight miles. He shrewdly took up his stand on Fisher's Hill, a very strong post, between two high mountains, from whence he hoped to sweep Sher-
Virginia Cavalryman.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
655
idan out of existence, if he came to an attack. On came the gal- lant Phil., his fighting blood all alive in his veins. Again he struck Early such a blow, that, shattered and defeated, he fled for safety into the mountains. Sheridan did not care to follow the flying rebel. At present he was where he could do no harm. He therefore burned all the grain and forage on which the rebel
army could feed themselves and '' '" ■^"^''«tt.'^^'f\^^~'^ >^^ their horses, and went up to Wash- Foragers at Work.
ington to confer with the authorities there.
Early heard of Sheridan's absence, and creeping down the mount- ains he prepared for one last blow. Our army was encamped on the banks of Cedar Creek, about twenty miles from Winchester. The attack was a complete surprise. So quietly had Early led his men down upon them, that the rebel yell sounded in their ears before the Union soldiers knew what the matter was. Frightened at the sudden attack, they began to run. The rebels started in hot pur- suit. It was more a race than a battle. At length — it was now late in the afternoon — Gen- eral Wright, commanding one corps, had succeeded in halt- ing some of his men, when a new actor appeared on the scene. It was General Sher- idan. On his return from Washington he had stopped for the night in Winchester, and hearing distant sounds of
firing, had sprung to his horse, and galloped rapidly on to the field.
Two thirds of the way thith- Phiiip h. sheridan.
er he began to meet the stragglers from his retreating army. Tak- ing off his cap, and standing up in his stirrups he cried, " Turn round, boys ; turn round ! We are going back to our camp ! We are going to beat the enemy out of his boots." The sight of his face,
556 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the sound of his voice, gave them new spirit. The men faced about, as he rode down the ranks, shouting, "Turn round! Turn round I " In an hour, with the help of Wright's corps ah-eady in line, they had beaten back their pursuers. By night the boys were in their camps again, and Early, with no more strength left for another battle, was hurrying back to join Lee. Lee had felt that a decided success by Early might save his army in Richmond. By Sheridan's good fighting that hope had been foiled. And the ride to Winches- ter, the victory snatched from defeat, had furnished a poet with the subject for one of the most spirited poems of the war : —
"Hurrah! hurrah! for Sheridan, Hurrah! hurrah! for horse and man. And when their statues are placed on high, Under the dome of the Union sky, Tlie American soldier's temjile of fame, Then with the glorious general's name. Be it said, in letters both bold and bright, — Here is the steed that saved the day, By carrying Sheridan into the fight, From Winchester, twenty miles away."
After the battle of Cold Harbor, Grant gave up the idea of taking Richmond from the north. He resolved to cross the James River and find the enemy's weak point on the south. He had lost a great number of men in these battles, but a large army still re- mained, and reinforcements were never wanting. The new com- mander of the Army of the Potomac never expressed a doubt that Richmond would yet be in his hands. By the 16th of June he had brought the army across the James, and was conferring with Butler about an attack on Petersburg.
Petersburg was a point on the Appomattox River, twenty miles from Richmond, whence a knot of railroads sent out branches to the west and southeast. It was strongly fortified, and was a point most important in the defense of Richmond. As soon as Lee un- derstood that Grant was threatening the place, he poured his army into Petersburg, and the fortifications were made doubly strong. One vain assault was made, with terrible slaughter, and then the Union army settled down in front of the trenches at Petersburg.
Then a new design was formed and carried out. For a month the soldiers worked in the earth, like moles, digging a tunnel through the earth under one of the principal forts, that they might
THE WAR IN THE WEST.
557
undermine and blow it up with gunpowder. It was believed the surprise of the explosion would aid in securing an easy victory.
By daylight on the 30th of July the mine was exploded. A ter- rible roar was heard, and a mass of earth, stones, guns, pieces of cannon, mangled human bodies, were thrown high into the air. The earth around trembled as if an earthquake shook it. When all was over, a great crater, like that of a volcano, was seen in the middle of the defenses. At the same time an assault was ordered by the Union general. But unfortunately this advance was made slowly. The ground had been filled with obstructions, and before the first column reached the crater the rebels had rallied from their fright and the edge was thick with guns. A division of negro sol- diers led the attack. They started up the crest, but were pushed back into the gulf below, which became a terrible " pit of death." The cannon swept into it from front, right, and left. The place was filled with human bodies, black and white mingled to- gether ; the earth literally ran rivers of blood; men trying to climb from the pit were beaten back with clubbed muskets, and fell with crushed skulls and man- gled faces on the heaps of their slain comrades. Those who could
see an outlet of escape, retreated Sheridan's Head-quarters at Winchester.
without order, each seeking his own safety. It was — as General Grant pronounced it — "a needlessly miserable affair." This ended, for the year 1864, the campaign before Richmond.
•Secret Societies.
CHAPTER LV.
THE WAR IN THE WEST.
Red River Expedition. —Forrest's Raid. — Butchery at Fort Pillow.
End of the Struggle in Jlissouri.
Let us leave Grant in snug winter-quarters, his army in their huts, stretching for miles around the outer defenses at Petersburg, while we see what has been going on elsewhere.
558 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
Down in Louisiana the war had been raging. In March, General Banks, who was commanding at New Orleans, and keeping open the passage of the Mississippi, was ordered to go up the Red River into the interior of Louisiana, and try to bring the rebels of that State and Texas to repentance for their treasonable behavior. Accord- ingly, Banks with an army, and Commodore Porter with his gun- boats, started on the " Red River Expedition." They met with alternate victory and defeat in their engagement with the rebels on the river course, but after many adventures. Banks finally returned in April, without having accomplished anything.
In this very month of April the shores of the great Mississippi were also the scene of a dreadful slaughter, which filled the North with horror. General N. B. Forrest was a leader of the rebel cav- alry of the same stamp as the notorious John Morgan. When Morgan was making his famous raids in Kentucky, in 1862, Forrest was ranging in like manner through Tennessee, stripping the State of horses, cattle, provisions, filling the Unionists everywhere with dread at the very sound of his name. In March, 1864, he started from Northern Mississippi on one of the longest expeditions he had yet made. The largest part of our army of the West was concen- trated at Chattanooga, leaving West Tennessee comparatively at Forrest's mercy. He went through the State like a whirlwind, ruin and famine stalking in his track, to finish the destruction of the wretched inhabitants. He passed up through Tennessee into Ken- tucky, carrying the same desolation everywhere, until he reached Paducah, on the Ohio River, the first place Grant had taken when he came down to Cairo in 1862. There were a small body of men in Fort Anderson, an outpost of Paducah ; and Forrest, made in- solent by his triumphant- journey through Tennessee and Kentucky, demanded its surrender in these words, " If you surrender, you shall be treated as prisoners of war ; if I have to storm your works, expect no quarter.''''
In spite of this bloody threat and his small numbers, Colonel Hicks, who commanded the fort, refused to surrender. Two or three gun-boats lying off in the river, prepared- to second his defense of the post. Forrest stormed, but found the place too strong for him, and went down the Mississippi, breathing oaths of vengeance on any place weak enough to yield to his assault.
Fort Pillow, just above Mempliis, victoriously occupied by our troops in the march toward Vicksburg, was his next point of attack.
THE WAR IN THE WEST. 559
At this time there were only five hundred men there, under com- mand of Major Booth.
Fully half these troops were negroes, on whom Forrest's chief desire for vengeance fell. Arriving before the weakly garrisoned fort with his great force of cavalry, he demanded its surrender with the same threat in case of their refusal that he had made at Padu- cah. Major Booth refused to consider the surrender, and fought ■ bravely till he was killed at his post. Major Bradford succeeded him, and Forrest again called the fort to give up, and again met with a refusal. On this, the rebels made one tremendous attack and burst into the fort. The garrison, which threw down its arms on the entrance of the conquerors, was at once put to the sword. Men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood. Those who sought to flee to the river, were followed, and shot or stabbed with- out mercy. The negro soldiers were killed with most inhuman barbarity, some of them nailed to the floor with the cloth of their tents, and burned to death ; wounded men were held up to be shot at, till a bare handful of prisoners remained. Some of these. Major Bradford among the rest, were taken away, to be shot next day. The butchery at Fort Pillow will remain as one of the worst horrors of a war made always more horrible by the unresti-ained temper of men accustomed as slave-holders to wreak their passions on the unresistino; slave. The murderers at Fort Pillow had declared that they would not recognize the negroes as prisoners, and killed the whites because they were found " fighting with the negroes." Yet only a few months later, in the last " congress of the Confederate States," there was a hot debate on the subject of arming the negroes still left them, and if the rebels could have been as certain of the attachment of their slaves to the cause of their masters as to the cause of freedom, in all human probability their last resort would have been to have " fought with their negroes."
The battle of Pea Ridge, in the spring of 1862, had been pretty effectual in driving the rebels from Missouri. There had been one severe raid by the rebel General Marmaduke, in which he was met by our troops and forced to retreat to Arkansas. But the rebel element was still alive in Missouri, though working secretly. After his defeat at Chickamauga, General Rosecrans had repaired to St. Louis, and found that secret societies known as " Sons of Liberty," and " Knights of the Golden Circle," had been formed there, and were in active league with the rebel army. That undaunted sol-
36
560 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
dier, Sterling Price, was lurking on the borders of Arkansas, ready to invade the State when these plotters were ripe to receive him. Rosecrans wrote again and again to Washington, of his informa- tion of the intentions of the traitors, and at last got together a force sufficient to give Price a warm welcome. In September Price made his last attempt to drag Missouri again into the clutches of ti'eason. He was met with such firmness and energy that he dared make no demonstration, but began a retreat. Nearly all the month of October was spent in retreat and pursuit, by rebels and Union- ists, till at last Price trailed the last remnant of his tattered ban- ners down through the borders of Kansas into Western Arkansas, and there watched hopelessly the final dying out of the struggle in Missouri.
CHAPTER LVI.
NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS.
A Confederate Navy. — Ships built in English Ports. — The Alabama. — Fight with the Kear- sarge. — Story of a Brave Sailor. — Collins violates Neutrality Laws. — The Battle of Mobile Baj'. — Farragut lashed to the Main-top. — The Gulf is Ours.
In the beginning of the contest the rebels had passed sounding resolutions in favor of building a " Confederate Navy ; " and as the number of naval officers in the United States service who had de- serted their government for the cause of rebellion, was very large, they did not lack able naval commanders in the South. They had, as you remember, made a very creditable iron " ram," the Merrimack^ out of a United States man-of-war, captured early in the war, and they had done some very good ship-building under great disadvan- tages. But they would have early been brought to a stop in their naval enterprises, for want of means to carry them on, if it had not been for the aid received from a party in England, whose sympa- thies were largely with the rebels. It is only fair to believe that English monarchists do not rejoice in the success of a republican form of government, and that the sympathy these Englishmen felt and showed with the rebellion was caused by the interest in the fail- ure of a nation whose system of government was so at variance with their own. With the real issue of the seceding States, the right to hold slaves, they had no sympathy. Almost every Englishman — let us say this to his honor — had looked with horror on the slave- holding policy of the United States.
SAVAL ENGAGEMENTS. 561
Notwithstanding all our government could say or do, sbip-build- ing for the rebels was begun and carried on in English ports. At Liverpool a builder named Laird, was engaged in furnishing ships to rebel " privateers," One of the most noted of these privateer captains was Raphael Semmes, who began his career in the Sumter, in the year 1861. The Sumter was sunk by a Union vessel early in her career, and Semmes went straightway to Laird for a new vessel. This vessel, named the Alabama, in honor — or dishonor — of Semmes's native State, set out on her cruise in 1862. She princi- pally haunted foreign ports and waylaid helpless American mer- chantmen bound on long voyages. The Alabama sailed under a British flag, and was manned for the most part by English seamen. When the unsuspecting merchantman, decoyed by the flag of a friendly nation approached near enough, Semmes opened his guns upon her, at the same time running up the rebel stars and bars above the British ensign. In her career of plunder this one ship had captured over sixty vessels, destroyed forty-five others, and taken millions of dollars worth of property.
In June, 1864, grown bold from long success, Semmes lay in the harbor of Cherbourg in France. Outside the harbor was the stanch ship Kearsarge, named for a mountain of New England, and commanded by Captain Winslow, a loyal North Carolinian.
The boastful Semmes sent a notice of his desire to fight the Kearsarge. Winslow accepted the challenge with delight. On the morning of the 19th of June, 1864, the Alabama steamed out of the harbor to where the Kearsarge awaited her.
The vessels did not make a close approach, but steaming round and round in wide circles, kept firing at each other. In an hour's time \h& Alabama was sinking, while the Kearsarge, erect and unhurt, not one man killed on board her, was left victorious. I should not have said not one man was killed. One brave sailor, named AVilliam Gowin, had his leg shattered at the knee early in the fight. He concealed his injury as much as possible, and refusing to go below, sat on deck waving his hat over his head, crying out words of en- couragement to his comrades till the fight was over. Then he was taken to hospital and died there, saying, " I am willing to die for my country since our ship got the victory." When defeat was certain, Semmes and his men leaped from their sinking vessel. Most of them were picked up by an English yacht, come out from the har- bor to see the fight, and so escaped being taken prisoners.
562 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
A few months later another of these English built ships, the Florida, who had been lurking near the American coasts, was also captured. The rebel commander, John Moffit, is accused not only of robbing the merchant ships, but also of breaking open private baggage of the passengers. One of our historians ^ relates of Moffit, that when a boy at school, one of his companions wrote these verses about him : —
" And here 's Johnny Moffit, as straight as a gun, If you face him square up he '11 turn round and run ; The first boy in school, if thieving and hes, Instead of good scholarship, bear off the prize."
It was certainly not a good character for John Moffit to bring away from school, especially if he had for a copy in his writing-book, " The child is father of the man."
At last, in the fall of 1864, the Florida was in San Salvador Bay on the Brazilian coast. In the harbor also was the ship Wachusett^ named like the Kearmrge for a New England mountain, and com- manded by Captain Collins. Captain Collins had remonstrated with the Brazilians for allowing a vessel engaged in piracy against the United States to enter its harbor, and our consul had repeated the remonstrance. Finding the Brazilians took no notice of him, Collins tried to induce the Florida to come out and fight, but she knew her weakness, and skulked for protection among the Brazilian vessels. At length, on the midnight of October 6th, the Waclmsett^ putting on a full head of steam, ran right into the Florida,^ dealing her a staggering blow. Then our men boarded her, and fastening a stout rope to her bows, the Waclmsett steamed off to the open sea with the Florida in tow.
The Brazilians did not find out the affair till both vessels were on their way to Hampton Roads, Virginia. But this capture of a ship in a neutral harbor was contrary to the laws of nations, and resented by the government of Brazil. Mr. Seward, the secretary of state, was forced to apologize, and Collins was both blamed and praised for his daring.
It is so long since we have heard from our brave Farragut that I am sure you will be glad to hear about him again. He was still down in the Gulf of Mexico in the year 1864, with four iron-
1 Lossing, Hist- Civil War,
NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS.
563
clads and four gun-boats under his command, when word came that Mobile Bay must be taken. General Canby — one of our brave officers who had been doing rather a thankless work in Texas during the war — sent all the troops he could spare to Farragut, and on the 6th of August his fleet was steaming up the channel.
Mobile Bay was now the only strong point in the Gulf, and its convenient harbor had formed a snug nursery for the young navy of the rebels, where many boats had been built and repaired for active service against the Union. There was not a very large fleet here at this time, however, to confront the national vessels, but Fort Morgan on one side and Forts Gaines and Powell on the other, were prepared to sweep Farragut as he passed. The brave old admiral lashed himself aloft in the main- top of his flag-ship, the Hartford, that he might see clearly over the smoke of the firing. By his side was a tube reaching to the deck, through which he shouted his com- mands below. Some smiling young cherub that sits up aloft, must
David G. Farragut.
have guarded him from the shot and shell that fell thick around him, as his flag-ship went into the deadly fire. The first of our iron-clads that entered the channel struck a torpedo placed there to explode
564 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
and blow up the ship that entered. A sullen roar, a great water- spout, and down went the Tecuinseh, with her captain and crew. After that the fleet approached more cautiously, each vessel fearing that her fate might be that of the Teeumseh. But before evening the rebel fleet was dispersed, the forts passed, and no more torpedoes encountered. Then Farragut began upon the forts. One after another they gave in. First, Morgan surrendered, then Gaines, while Powell was blown up and abandoned by its garrison. On the 9th of August Farragut's vessels rode safely in Mobile Bay, and the city lay at his mercy. Satisfied with this success for the present, he did not attack the city. Canby's troops were needed to fill up the army in Tennessee and Mississippi, and were sent back there, leaving the vessels to hold Mobile Bay, —
" For the mighty Gulf is ours, The Bay is lost and won! "
And the last stronghold in the Gulf was again a part of the nation.
CHAPTER LVII.
ON TO ATLANTA.
William T. Sherman. — The Three Armies. — Rebel Generals. — The Army fights its Way to Atlanta. — McPherson killed. — "Atlanta is Ours and fairly won." — Designs against Nash- ville. — " Old Reliable." — Nashville saved.
When Grant left Chattanooga to don the fresh uniform of lieu- tenant-general of the army of the United States, and to direct in person the movements of the Army of the Potomac, General Will- iam T. Sherman went with him as far as Cincinnati. Grant had one admirable quality of a good general : he could see military talent in other men. He had early seen the great ability of Sher- man, and he now gave him full control in the West. Three armies, — the Tennessee, under McPherson ; the Ohio, in command of Gen- eral Schofield ; and the Cumberland, with Thomas at its head, were united under his command.
In 1861 Sherman had told the government that it would take an army of 200,000 men to carry the stars and stripes to the Gulf of Mexico, and sweep those States clean of rebellion. The government called him " crazy ; " and some of its officials declared the rebellion
ON TO ATLANTA.
565
would be over in a month or two. Now, after almost four years our army had only just reached the boundaries of Georgia, while thou- sands upon thousands were left dead along its line of advance through Kentucky and Tennessee. Now, when Sherman demanded 100,000 men to finish the work Grant had begun, they were at once furnished, and his request was thought a remarkably sane and reasonable one.
The Union army was at Chat- tanooga when their last battle had been fought and won. South of them, at Dalton in Georgia, was
General Joseph Johnston, next wiiiiam t. Sherman.
to Lee, probably, the ablest soldier in the rebel array. The bold mountain steep of Rocky-faced Ridge interposed as a barrier be- tween him and his foes. With him were three able generals: Hardee, Hood, and Polk. Hardee, an able tactician ; Hood, impul- sive and fearless ; Polk, a better soldier than a minister of Christ's peaceful doctrines.
Beyond Johnston, to the south, lay Atlanta. Georgia was now the co-rival of Virginia in importance to the Confederacy ; and her heart was Atlanta. This town was the centre of many radiating railways, that poured in grain and beef from the surrounding country ; it was the centre, also, of a circle of smaller manufacturing towns, sending in cloth, shoes, cannon, powder, and bullets. All that was needed to feed, clothe, and equip an army, was found in this flourishing city. Sherman's keen eye saw through all obstacles the straight road to Atlanta, and when his army of 98,800 men were in marching order, announced that he was going to move upon that place.
Grant's advance to Richmond was begun on the 3d of May. Sherman's move on Atlanta was one day later. I fancy this
Leonidas Polk.
666
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
united movement was fixed upon when the two generals conferred together in the cars, on lihe way to Cincinnati. In the warm May weather, the troops struck their tents at Chattanooga, and fell into the ranks. The word " March ! " repeated by hundreds of voices, resounded along the lines, and " On to Atlanta " went the army.
The enemy were at first inclined to fight at Dalton, but McPher- son was sent round behind them to tear up a railroad, and cut o£E supplies, if they waited to give battle ; and the cunning Johnston, seeing this design, fell back farther south to the village of Resaca. To Resaca followed Sherman, where the enemy were in fighting order.
Thomas, McPlierson, and Schofield burst here upon Hood, Hardee, and Polk, — foemen quite worthy of their steel. There the Union army counted their dead by thousands, while the rebels, in a better guarded position, suffered much less. But next day — it was now grown to be the 15th of May — the rebels fell back from Resaca to a new position behind a rocky ridge near Cassville ; and Sherman, following quickly, had taken a new stride on his journey. Again Johnston left his position, and crossing a little river behind him,
Summit of Kenesaw Moun-fain.
went to another row of hills in the direct line south. On these hills the rebels again turned to face Sherman, and at New Hope Church, close by the town of Dallas, another deadly battle raged. Two days of hot fighting, and Johnston again fell back to Kenesaw Mountain, the highest of another nest of hills, through which the railway track wound to Atlanta. Here, drawn up in the most formidable array they had yet presented, the enemy fronted Sher- man again. Atlanta was to be fought for inch by inch. Sherman
ON TO ATLANTA. 567
assaulted these firm ranks on the mountain-side, but was beaten back with terrible loss, while the rebels, behind their intrench- ments, were comparatively safe. They lost one officer, however, who counted for many men ; this was General Bishop Leonidas Polk, whose name we have heard ever since secession first raised its banners.
Since Kenesaw could not be taken by assault, Sherman tried his favorite method of getting behind the enemy to cut off his supplies. Johnston at once perceived his movement, and fell back again, this time across the Chattahoochee River. Another stride, and Sherman was over the river after him._
Here a fortunate event happened for Sherman. General Johns- ton, a very skillful and cautious leader, was removed by Jefferson Davis, and General Hood was put in his place. The rebel army had now lost Johnston and Polk. Hood, brave but reckless, was left alone to meet Sherman, who was a fox as well as a lion in the field of war.
The last natural bar now between our army and Atlanta was Peach Tree Creek, a small branch of the Chattahoochee. Here Sherman fought Hood, this time shattering his army terribly. After this only the fortifications about Atlanta presented them- selves. On the 21st of July McPherson's division swung round to the southeast, and encamped three miles from the city. But this advance cost Sherman one of the most valuable lives in the country. The gallant McPherson, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, was shot dead in a wood, just outside the rebel lines.
From the last of July until the 1st of September, fighting, skir- mishing, and mancEuvring succeeded each other. In the opening of SejDtember, — the fourth month since Sherman left the borders of Tennessee, — Hood abandoned Atlanta, first setting fire to his stores and some of the valuable manufactories. On the 2d of September Sherman rode into the town, still smoking with the fires Hood had lighted there. The happy general telegraphed to his chief : " At- lanta is ours, and fairly won." The hardest blow yet dealt at rebel- lion, had fallen. The most despairing grew hopeful in the sunshine of this victory.
General Hood had been placed in power to retrieve what Johns- ton had lost. In return, he had lost Atlanta. Desperate from his failure, he started on a bold push back through Georgia, to Nash- ville, Tennessee. Nashville was the source from which Sherman
668 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
would get his supplies, by way of Chattanooga. Hood hoped to starve his enemy in Georgia, by cutting him off from his base in Tennessee. It was the last hazard of a desperate man. If he were successful, it might change the whole fortune of war. But Sherman was on the alert, and quick to fathom his designs. He gave to Thomas the charge of following Hood, and keeping him out of mis- chief. Then he proceeded in Georgia to carry out a favorite project of his own.
In the mean time, Hood spurred on toward Nashville. Ahead of him, with a fine body of mounted men, rode N. B. Forrest, who knew the best roads in Tennessee as well as his alphabet. The army under Hood, reinforced all along the route, grew larger dailv.
Thomas marched rapidly, and reached Nashville in October. His army was now much less than Hood's, and sending North at once for reinforcements, he waited for them to come to his aid. Schofield was also on the way to join him from the South. The chief fear was lest Hood might attack, and swallow him up in his march to Nashville. Thomas strengthened Murfreesboro' so hardly won from Bragg two years before, and waited anxiously — all his energies alive to meet the coming event, — with the fate of Tennessee, per- haps of the war, resting on his shoulders. There were few men better fitted than he to bear such burdens. His friends had long since named him " Old Reliable ; " and the soldiers who had felt his fatherly care for their safety and comfort, called him " Pap Safety," or " Old Pap Thomas." One of the best and ablest men of the war, sharing the confidence of the nation with Grant and Sherman, was this watchful man at Nashville, — General George H. Thomas.
On the 7th of November the first guns of the conflict were heard at Franklin, a village lying south of Nashville. Schofield, hasten- ing to join Thomas, had been caught there by Hood. Beset hy much larger numbers, all Schofield could hope was to get away as safely as he could to Nashville. The day was spent in fight, which bore heavily on Hood ; and next morning Schofield had joined with his leader. On the same day reinforcements from Missouri arrived, and Thomas ceased to be anxious.
On the 2d of December Hood began the siege of Nashville. The weather was bitter cold. The rebels shivered in the tents outside, and the frozen earth hardly yielded to their spades. But about the middle of the month the cold abated. Mild weather came, and the
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 569
frozen earth became liquid mud. On the 14th of December the Union army came out to give battle. The plan of attack was like Thomas, strong, calm, and effectual. When the early winter twi- light fell. Hood had been driven back from his position, and every- thing looked fair for the next day. Next morning fresh cannon bursts gave warning of the reopening of the fight. This day there was no doubtful success. Twilight saw the rebels in full retreat toward Franklin. On they went pell-mell, throwing away as they ran, their guns, knapsacks, blankets, all that would impede their flight. Bull Run was forever avenged. Our troops pursued till darkness stopped the race. Next day the pursuit was continued. Thomas strongly hoped to capture all Hood's army. On this point Hood disappointed him. Gathering his troops together, he formed now an orderly retreat, and crossed the Tennessee with what was left of his army.
CHAPTER LVm.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA.
The Army begins its March. — The Army Battle Hjonn. — The Land of Plenty. — Prison Pen at Millen. — " Old Glory." — The Sight of the Sea. — Lincoln's Christmas Present. — Sher- man goes North. — Burning of Columbia. — Charleston restored to the Nation. — Nearing the End of the March. — The Forlorn Hope of Johnston. — It is bafHed at Bentonsville. — Sher- man joins Grant.
Fully trusting in the ability of Thomas to foil the designs of Hood in Tennessee, Sherman proceeded to carry out his darling project. This was a march to the Atlantic coast, through Georgia, thence north through the Carolinas to join Grant in Virginia. Sher- man, like most other wise soldiers and statesmen, was convinced that the surest way to end the cruelty of the war was by decisive and resolute measures. He believed in invading the enemy's coun- try and destroying the resources which helped them continue the war. Georgia was the great centre of supplies. To destroy the crops of this season, while it would make a few months of great distress, might save many years of long misery. As Sherman him- self said. " war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." He therefore took the promptest means to put an end to it.
On the 15th day of November our army was ready for their march to the sea, their faces set joyously toward the rising of the
570 STOKY or OUR COUNTRY.
Bun. There were only twenty days' provisions in the supply wagons that went with them. The men were ordered to live on the enemy's country, finding food for themselves and fodder for their horses in the region through which they marched. On the right were the two army corps, led by General Howard. On the left two others, under the leadership of General Slocum. About these armies hovered a body of cavalry under General Kilpatrick. Moving from one part of the army to another was Sherman, the head and front of this grand '■'•march to the sea.'^ Behind them as they advanced, sixty thousand strong, the smoke and glare of burning buildings in Atlanta shed a terrible grandeur on the scene. All the stores, pub- lic buildings, and manufactories that^had remained after Hood's evacuation, were now consumed by Sherman's orders. The bands struck up the army battle-hymn, with the quaint chorus, " John Brown's body lies mouldering in his grave ; but his soul is march- ing on," — and the tramp ! tramp ! of soldiers marching out from Atlanta blended with the strains, while countless voices all over the land took up the chorus as its heroes marched to restore peace to the nation. Old John Brown had become the apostle of the war. The name of this poor old man, so lately dying a despised death on the gallows, with few bold enough to declare themselves his friends, had rung over hundreds of battle-fields and become one of the watch-words of freedom. " The mills of God grind slowly " for the most part ; but between the years 1859 and 1864, the Divine mills had ground exceeding fast.
The army moved on into a land which seemed as Canaan to the Jews, " overflowing with milk and honey." The soldiers, previously fed on salt pork and hard-tack, and black coffee cooked in iron ket- tles over camp-fires, came at once into abundance. Cut off from railroads, the people of central Georgia had not been able to send their crops to market. Pits hastily dug and filled with sweet pota- toes ; corn-fields rich with yellow corn ; barnyards crowded with turkeys and chickens ; overfed cattle ; cows dropping creamy milk ; pigs ranging in the woods gorging themselves with nuts and acorns, — all these dainties in the way of food presented themselves to the palate of the hungry soldiers. Now the night camps were scenes of revelry. Fat turkeys, impaled on sharp sticks, revolved over the coals ; roasts of beef dropped savory juices ; cream softened the flavor of the bitter coffee ; eggs were beaten into omelets ; sweet potatoes roasted in hot ashes ; the fortunate messmate who had a genius for
THE MAKCH TO THE SEA.
571
cookery, received the blessings of his companions. Thus luxuriously- fed, they went on to Milledgeville, the capital of the State. Little resistance met them on their way. A few regiments here and there, scattering companies of militia, who had responded to the frantic ap- peals of the Southern leaders to " put every obstruction in the path of the enemy," were all that encountered Sherman's army. From Milledgeville they went to Millen, where one of the Southern " prison
Prison Pen at Millen.
pens " was situated. Here in the midst of all the plenty through which the army had marched, our poor soldiers had died of starva- tion. The Southern newspapers and leaders had pleaded in excuse for their suffering, that lack of food for themselves had prevented a full supply to their prisoners.
When Sherman reached Millen, the Uiiion prisoners had been taken away, and the soldiers were disappointed in their hope of res- cuing them. Much has been said of the lawless march of Sherman's army through Georgia, and no doubt much happened that was be- yond Sherman's control.^ But the sight of that prison pen at Millen, and the remembrance of our soldiers who had starved there in the midst of plenty, tended to excite in the breasts of their fellows a desire for retribution which military discipline could hardly have checked.
From Millen, they continued straight on to the Atlantic. The end of the march was at Savannah, where General Hardee, with what forces he could collect, awaited him. Part of Admiral Dahl-
1 There were a class of men who followed in Sherman's track, who were not a part of the dis- ciplined army, and often committed unauthorized depredations. Such a class almost invariably follows the track of an army after war has been prolonged. These were called " bummers" and were supposed to feed on the fat of the spoils in this Georgia campaign.
572 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
gren's fleet lay at the mouth of the Ogeechee River just out of range of the guns of Fort McAllister, which protected the city.
The army approached Savannah on the 10th of December. Sher- man sent General Hazen to surround Fort McAllister, and on the 13th ordered him to assault. The fort was triumphantly carried in a few hours, and our fleet in the harbor saw " Old Glory " waving gallantly over the ramparts. On the same evening, Sherman moved into the fort, and made his head-quarters there. A few days later, news came that Hardee had secretly embarked his army in boats, and had left for Charleston, South Carolina. Sherman had hoped to capture the army in Savannah, and was disappointed at hearing of Hardee's escape ; but the town, rich in spoils of war, remained to him. He entered it on the 20th of December, liis men uttering irrepressible shouts of delight as they reached the end of their march. Sherman at once telegraphed to Lincoln, " I beg to pi-esent you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns, plenty of ammunition, and 25,000 bales of cotton." I think President Lin- coln never had a more delightful Christmas present, even when, as a boy, he hung his stocking up in the chimney corner.
After a rest from their long journey in Savannah, Sherman asked Grant's permission to continue the march of his army through North and South Carolina. Grant's first plan had been to send for Sher- man to join him by water from Savannah, but he gladly acceded to Sherman's wishes. The army crossed the Savannah, and set foot on the soil of that State, which above all others had planned the destruction of the Union.
Sherman had a shrewd way of dividing his armies, and threaten- ing several points at once, so that the enemy were puzzled to guess in what direction he meant to march in force. Beauregard and Hardee, now together in Charleston, were inclined to believe that he was coming upon them. But Sherman saw that Columbia in the interior of the State was the outer wall of Charleston ; if that yielded, the latter town would probably fall into his hands. He therefore marched upon Columbia, where Wade Hampton, a rebel cavalry leader, was trying to rally for a defense. He failed in this, and his rear was rapidly leaving the town, when Sherman reached it. The town was ours, and the mayor, coming out, received Sherman as its conqueror. The streets of the city were filled with bales of burning cotton, set on fire by Hampton's orders. The white flakes, flying in the wind, set many buildings on fire. These, added to the public
THE MARCH TO THE SEA.
573
buildings which Sherman destroyed from the cruel necessity of war, made a terrible conflagration. In a few hours the town was a mass of ruins, which left the major part of the inhabitants homeless and shelterless. Such were some of the miseries the war brought on the heads of those who brought the terrible conflict upon the nation. Alas ! that many innocent ones suft'ered equally with the guilty.
Sherman's calculation was correct. The fall of Columbia settled that of Charleston. On the 17th of February — the same day that Sherman entered Columbia — Beauregard and Hardee left the chief city of secession, and went to find General Joseph Johnston, who was musterino; in North Carolina for one final effort.
It was a day of jubilee when Charleston was ours. Into the city, covered all over with scars of the sieges it had withstood, our troops
Ruins at Charleston.
marched joyously. Almost as soon as they entered a party was dispatched to Sumter, and the flag unfurled over its broken walls, while a thundering chorus of cheers went up from the men who had worked so long for the reward of seeing it planted there once more.
The end of the long journey drew near. Sherman might soon hope to shake hands with his superior officer on the soil of Virginia. Grant had already sent a body-guard to meet him by the route through Wilmington. Wilmington, a little back from the mouth
674 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
of Cape Fear River, was guarded by Fort Fisher, just at the river entrance. Bragg was commanding at Wihnington, greatly to the displeasure of some of the rebels, who had been indignant at his want of success in Tennessee. One of their newspapers had lately announced, " General Bragg is in command at Wilmington. Good- by, Wilmington."
In January Grant sent General Terry with an army to take Fort Fisher, and so clear the way to Wilmington. On the 15th of Jan- uary, the fort, after a gallant siege, fell into our hands. General Schofield, who had been with Thomas in Nashville, was sent to join Terry at the fort, and as soon as he reached it the two officers began together their advance to Wilmington. The resistance on their way to that city was slight. On the 22d of February, the anniversary of Washington's birthday, Schofield entered Wilmington. Bragg had before this run away to join General Johnston.
Eighty-four miles from Wilmington lay the town of Goldsboro'. Here Schofield was to go on to meet Sherman, who was marching upon it from South Carolina. At the same time another moving column of Union troops was to come from Newbern — which we had held ever since Burnside took it, — also to unite with Sher- man at Goldsboro'. Fancy, then, these three marching columns ; Sherman from the southwest, Schofield from the south, General Cox from Newbern, almost due east, all converging on this central meeting-point at Goldsboro'. Here General Joseph Johnston was straining every nerve for a final contest. It was like a drowning man catching at a straw. He had with him, Bragg from Wilming- ton, Hardee from Savannah, Beauregard from Charleston, and Wade Hampton, with the cavalry he had vainly endeavored to rally at Columbia. The shattered remnaiit of Hood's army from Nashville, had joined him. Together they made a formidable array.
But affairs looked dark for the rebels. Their army in Tennessee had been broken up, Lee Avas beleaguered by Grant in Virginia ; Sherman had conquered Georgia and South Carolina ; if he now joined Grant, Lee's army would be captured. The only hope of the rebels was that Johnston might defeat one or all of the armies marching on Goldsboro', prevent their junction with the Army of the Potomac, then go north and help Lee drive Grant from his post near Richmond. It was a desperate last chance, and might be suc- cessful. Johnston had gathered in all about 40,000 men, and thrown himself between Sherman and Goldsboro'.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 575
In the mean time, Sherman, with an occasional fight between the advance of his army and the rear of some of the colmnns who were hurrying to join Johnston, marched rapidly on. He did not antici- pate the struggle Johnston was preparing for him. He felt as if he had nearly reached the end of his journey and all fear of serious in- terruption was over. But on the morning of the 19th he came up with a body of cavalry who seemed disposed to stand and make a stout resistance. General Slocum, who commanded the portion of the army thus attacked, thought he was only to have a slight skir- mish. About noon a deserter from the rebels was brought to the general's tent, who told him that all Johnston's army was be- hind this front of cavalry, and that Johnston had assured his soldiers that morning that they could " cut Sherman to pieces."
At once word was sent back to hurry up the Union troops who were lagging behind. Tlie fight, which had begun at Bentonsville, only a few miles west of Goldsboro', grew hotter and hotter. The Union general waited anxiously for his expected troops, and the afternoon was one of intense expectancy. General Jefferson C. Davis — a national officer who redeemed the misfortune of bearing the same name as the traitor in Richmond, by deeds of great brav- evj — was this day more than ever a hero. Our troops made a splendid stand, and held the field against all Johnston's terrible attacks. When darkness came they had not budged from the spot where the battle began. During the night, several fresh divisions came up and joined the advance, making our line too strong to be broken. There was skirmishing all the next day, but on the night of March 20th Johnston fled, leaving the track to Goldsboro' clear. He had heard that Schofield and Terry had come up with their divisions, and saw that further resistance to the junction of the three armies was vain. By the night of the 23d the tents of the united columns whitened all tlie fields about Goldsboro', and Sherman was on his way to City Point, Virginia, to visit Grant. There must have been a very happy meeting between the two generals.
576
STOKY OF OUR COUNTRY.
CHAPTER LIX.
LAST FLASHES OF WAR.
Mobile taken. — "Remember Fort Pillow." — The Last Stand at Selma. — The Post before Petersburg. — Lee's last Attempt. — Five Forks. — Confusion in Richmond. — Lee's Surren- der to Grant. — The last Parade. — The Cruel War is over.
Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas placed every rebelhous State in the hands of the government except Ala- bama. The fall of Charleston restored to the nation every seaport on the ocean and gulf coast, except Mobile. And for weeks Farra- gut's fleet had lain in Mobile Bay ready at any time to take the city. When Sherman's success was assured two Union armies were ordered to advance at once ; one from the north upon Alabama ; the other along the Gulf upon Mobile. General Canby, who had sent a part of his army to Nashville to aid Thomas, was now awaiting its return that he might finish the work begun by the capture of Mobile Bay ; take the city, and clear the Gulf of traitors. There were two forts on the eastern side of the bay, very near the city. These were, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley. Canby 's men were taken in trans- ports to Fort Gaines, one of the forts conquered when Mobile Bay was taken. From Fort Gaines he moved them up a small river, from
^' ■4'.; S^il,^^:*^^?^^^^'^
Redoubt and Ditch at Mobile.
whence they marched overland to Spanish Fort, till within a few miles of its walls. On the 28th of March the fort was inclosed by our batteries, joined by the gun-boats which had come up the river to aid in the siege. For twelve days a circular fire from boats and batteries poured into the fort. On the 8th of April an assault was made upon the works, which carried all the outer line of the rebels,
LAST FLASHES OF WAR. 577
and made longer possession of the fort impossible on their part. At two in the morning of the 9th our troops entered it. Only six hun- dred men remained in the garrison. The rest had escaped in the night. It was Sunday when the troops, tired with the long siege, took possession ; but there was not yet time for rest. They were ordered at once to attack Fort Blakeley, the only remaining point between Mobile and our army. The leadership in the assault was given to a division of negro soldiers, in whose memory the massacre of their race at Fort Pillow was still fresh. These troops rushed upon the defenses at Blakeley with terrible fury, shouting the battle- cry, " Remember Fort Pillow." Sunday evening the red-stained battlements of Fort Blakeley were carried. Mobile was ours. The rebels began to flee from the city early Monday morning, and on Tuesday the flag of the Union waved over it. The coast of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico were redeemed.
Meanwhile affairs were progressing in Alabama. Thomas had given a force of cavalry to General James Wilson, and ordered him to clear the State of treason. General Dick Taylor, who had fought Canby in Texas, and Banks in Louisiana, commanded the rebels in Alabama, as well as in Mobile. His most efficient aid in the former State was General Forrest. But Forrest's cavalry had been reduced to a bare remnant of its old numbers. As soon as Wilson crossed the Tennessee River into Alabama, he marched straight toward the town of Selma, where the rebels still kept a number of manufac- tories at work furnishing guns and ammunition. Forrest saw that Wilson was on the way to destroy these valuable works, and hurried to intercept him. Throwing himself across the road to Selma, he made one attempt to prevent his advance, but finding Wilson too strong for him he fell back into Selma, and intrenched himself there. Forrest was in a sad plight. With the remains of his once famous cavalry and some miserable militia, principally consisting of old men and boys, he had not half as many men as Wilson. The best part of valor lay in a hasty retreat. But General Dick Taylor, his superior officer, was in the town, and ordered him to hold it at all risks. After giving this order Taylor took the first train of cars out of town and was seen there no more. Forrest, who had the manly virtue of courage, remained and did his best. But the town was soon taken with many prisoners, and its manufactories, work- shops, and store-houses, were burned to the ground.
Selma. was taken on the 2d of April, and from that day Wilson's
578
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
advance was more like a triumphal march than the invasion of an army into the enemy's country. He met none to molest or make him afraid. He marched on to Montgomery and raised the Union flag there. Then on to Georgia, stopping occasionally to disperse
> i
friiliiiijiri
Ruins at Selrr,a.
the last wandering detachments of rebel cavalry in his way, till he ended his journey at Macon. There news reached him that made farther advance unnecessary.
We left General Grant at his post before Petersburg. After that bloody affair of the mine and its ill success, little more was done that winter. Butler had moved north of the James River, and taken an important stronghold called Fort Harrison. The rebels had once attempted to recapture it without success, and when the new year opened it was one of Grant's points of attack upon Petersburg.
The 1st of January, 1865, was the opening of a dark New Year to the rebels. The Southern Confederacy was at its last gasp. As a final resort, Lee advised that the negroes should be drafted for the army. Perhaps his advice might have been taken, if there had been muskets to arm them or even meat to feed them. But it was too late to consider the question of arming their slaves. The steady tramp ! tramp ! of Sherman's advance sounded its warning in Lee's ears. He knew that advance was the signal for his destruction.
On the 25th of March Lee ordered one last attack upon our lines. It was made on the extreme right of Grant's defenses, situated on Hall's Hill. Lee hoped here to break through Grant's lines and join Johnston in North Carolina. But the day, which began brightly for the rebels, ended in gloom. They surprised the Unionists by
LAST FLASHES OF WAR.
579
Lee's Residence.
a sudden attack, and took Fort Steadman, the principal point in Grant's defense. They held it only a short time, however. The Unionists, recovering from their surprise, rallied with such force that the rebels were driven back with great slaughter. For the last time, Lee retired behind his defenses at Richmond, and re- mained silent there. The rebel army was thinned by constant desertions. Lee could not muster more than 50,000, and Johnston was reduced to 20,000 men.
By the last of March Grant was ready for action. The weather was growing warm, and the roads firm and dry. Muddy roads had been one of the powerful aids of the rebel armies in the South, and the drying up of the mud was hailed with delight by. our troops. About the 1st of April Sheridan with his fresh troops from West Virginia joined Grant, and received a warm welcome. Grant told him that " he had now made up his mind to end this matter," and Sheridan, always ready for warm work in the field, assented with alacrity to Grant's plans.
Lee's defenses now stretched for forty miles in a circuit about Richmond, but were thin in comparison to their length. To find his weakest point, and break through it, was Grant's purpose. Four miles west of the end of Lee's lines, a cluster of roads, branching in five different directions, was known as Five Forks. Here Grant believed he had found the vulnerable point at which he might turn Lee's flank, and, getting behind him, enter Richmond. On the last day of March he sent Sheridan towards this place to see what could be done there.
Wary as the fox, who grows more cunning as the dog gains upon him, Lee saw this manoeuvre as soon as Sheridan moved. He de- tached every man that could be spared from the Petersburg defenses, and sent them at once to oppose Sheridan. That intrepid hero came near being defeated at Dinwiddle Court House, where the rebels overtook him on his way to Five Forks. But he held them back, hke the brave fellow he was, till reinforcements could be sent to him, and next morning was at Five Forks with a strong and well
580 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY. ,
conditioned army. He had driven the rebels before him from Din- widdie Court House, and they were hemmed inside their defenses at Five Forks, awaiting his charge.
It was the morning of April 1st, known in the calendar as " All Fool's Day." There was some delay in making the charge, a delay at which Sheridan chafed liked a caged lion. At length, at nearly four in the afternoon, a charge was ordered. The rebels met it manfully ; they must have felt that their resistance was a forlorn hope, yet they fought well. Nothing could avail them. The battle at Dinwiddle had nearly decided that of this day. In a short time the rebels were in full flight, with Sheridan's cavalry spurring after them. All broken and disordered they ran hither and thither, falling an easy victory to their pursuers. Sheridan captured this day more than 5,000 prisoners. All the while, at Petersburg, Grant was hammering away on the defenses there, now almost drained of men.
Lee was a man hard to beat, but he knew when he was beaten. When the scattering fugitives came flying to Petersburg with the bad news of their defeat, he telegraphed back to Jefferson Davis, "Richmond must be evacuated this evening." It was then Sun- day morning, and the messenger was obliged to follow Mr. Davis to church with this very unwelcome message. The people of Rich- mond fully believed that Lee was invincible, and Richmond could not be taken. Therefore, when the gentleman from Mississippi, who had been playing the part of " President of the Southern Confederacy," read Lee's message in the corner of his pew, he was plainly put out of countenance. The news fell on all in Richmond, says one of their historians, " like a thunder-clap from clear skies, and smote the ear of the community like the knell of death."
Then a scene of confusion ensued, such as one sees when a fire is spreading in a large city. Wagons, hastily loaded, were hurrying to the railway station, by which they hoped to escape. Women, children, and old men, hastened to leave the town before the en- trance of the army. All night the crowd surged in the streets. The liquor stores were broken open, and thousands helped them- selves freely to their contents. The sidewalks near these places were strewn with broken bottles, and the shouts of the maddened drunkards at their orgies filled the night. Toward morning the shipping at the wharves was blown up ; tobacco warehouses and flour stores were set on fire. The flames spread rapidly, till Rich-
LAST FLASHES OF WAR. 581
mond was wrapped in fire and smoke. Its roar blended with the chxmor in the streets, and amid terror, destruction, robbery, fire, and drunkenness, tlie night ended. A fearful night, fit for the fall of the blood-red meteor of secession. '
Lee left Petersburg the night of April 2d, following the line of the Appomattox River to the west. Grant began a pursuit next morning. But there was hardly need of pursuit. The rebel sol- diers, by thousands, threw down their guns. Starvation stared them in the face. There was small hope left in the breast of those most enthusiastic for the cause of secession.
On the 6th of April Sheridan's cavalry pressed so close upon them, that a part of the fugitives faced about and made a desper- ate resistance. Weak from hunger and worn with hard marches, this forlorn hope fought bravely, but were finally captured with nearly all their ofiicers. The next day, Lee, with about 8,000 men, all that was left of his grand army, was across the river near Appo- mattox Court House. Jefferson Davis, and the officers of the rebel government, had fled to Danville, and were resolving that " the Confederacy would fight to the last man." At this crisis a flag of truce came from Grant, with a note demanding Lee's surrender. Lee answered, asking what terms would be granted him. Then followed an exchange of letters lasting till the 9th, when the two generals agreed to meet and talk the matter over. They met in a quiet dwelling in the little cluster of houses about Appomattox Court House. Through the garden, blossoming fresh with spring flowers, the two generals walked to their important interview. They were both quiet and reserved men, indulging in no unnecessary talk. Grant said afterwards, " I was covered with dust and mud ; I had no sword ; I was not even well mounted. I found General Lee in a fresh suit of Confederate gray, with all the insignia of his rank, and by his side the splendid dress sword given him by the State of Virginia."
Their talk was soon ended. The " Army of Virginia " was to disband and go home, every man pledging himself to fight no more against the flag of the Union. After the settlement, Lee rode silently back to his camp. The news had preceded him. Great cheers rose from the ranks as he rode through. There were proba- bly few men among them who were not heartily glad the end had come. Lee looked at them with a pale, sad face. " Men," he said, " we have fought the war together, and I have done the best I could
582 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
for you." It was true. The war had brought forward no greater military leader, no man who might better have served the country which he had chosen to desert.
On the 12th of April, the anniversary of the attack on Sumter, the rebel army had its last parade. Grant generously withdrew his troops from sight while the last of the conquered men fixed bayonets, stacked their guns, flung down their cartridge boxes, and laid over all the tattered flags they had carried. There were tears in some eyes, and some bent to kiss the ragged colors under which they had fought.
Into every dwelling. North and South, came the conviction that at last " the cruel war was over." Sherman was marching toward Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 13th of April, when the news reached him. He was then moving towards Johnston. On the 15tli he received a note from Johnston asking that any further shedding of blood might be stopped. Sherman at once hastened to meet him, and received his surrender. Close upon this followed Taylor's sur- render to Canby in the Louisiana department, and the laying down of the arms of all the rebels across the Mississippi. By the end of May there was not one armed soldier to resist the authority of the nation. The two armies had melted like snow under the spring sun, and the dreadful sounds of war were hushed.
CHAPTER LX.
THE ASSASSINATION.
The Joy of the Nation. — Last Speech of Lincohi. — In the Theatre. — The Murder. — Sew- ard's attempted Assassination. — The Last Martyrs to Rebellion. — The Murderer at Bay. — His Death. — Fate of the Conspirators.
You must picture to yourself the great joy of the loyal people when the news of Lee's surrender spread over the land. How the telegraph flashed it over the wires from city to town, from town to village, till at last it reached the lonely homes on the prairies, or among the mountains, where only the slow stage-coach carried the news. How it was heard by distant companies of soldiers guarding posts in the heart of the enemy's country, or busy in tearing up rail- roads, cutting telegraph wires, or any of the other acts of destructive warfare. The happy boys in blue, to whom came the joyful tidings, tossed up their caps for joy. Faces shone with thankfulness even in
THE ASSASSINATION.
583
homes that would from thenceforth be forever dark, because of the dreadful havoc war had made in the home circle. Everywhere there was gladness that the struggle which had almost torn the nation in twain, was at last over.
Nobody was happier than Abraham Lincoln. All these four years the lines in his face had grown deeper from the heavy cares his office had lain upon him. The nation had re-elected him in the fall of 1864, with Andrew Johnson as vice-president, and on the 4th of March he had a second time taken on him the heavy duties of his office. The glad news of Lee's surrender came to fill him with new life and vigor. Amid the shouts, bonfires, and illuminations that
showed the joy in the capital, Andrew Johnson.
President Lincoln came out on the balcony of the White House
'jfff^W^-,
The National Capitol.
and asked one of the bands to play the tune of " Dixie." This air had been the favorite battle-music of the rebels. They marched to
684
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
it as our armies marched to " John Brown." Said President Lincoln, " I have always thought ' Dixie ' one of the best songs 1 ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it. But I insist that yesterday we fairly captured it. I referred the question to the attorney-general, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it was now our property. I now ask the band to give us a good turn upon it."
This was Abraham Lincoln's last public speech. At that very moment the pistol of the assassin was loaded for him.
.Next evening, the 14th of April, the president went to the the- atre to see a popular English play, called '^ Our American Cousin." For four years the heavy duties of his great office, the sorrow which he had felt at the horrors of the war, had made recreation almost impossible. But the war was over ; he could lay off some of his cares. There was now to be a little time for laughter and enjoy- ment ; a holiday for the nation and its president. So Mr. Lincohi went to the theatre, sitting in full sight of audience and actors, in a box just above the stage. About half-past ten o'clock in the evening, as the play drew near its close, a man named John Wilkes Booth, wrapped closely in a cloak, entered the box. He came up behind the president and shot him in the back of the head. The ball entered the brain, Lincoln's head drooped forward, his eyes closed, and he never spoke afterwards. It is hoped that he felt no
more pain, though he lingered until next morning, and then quietly passed away.
After the shot, the murderer, with the cry, " Sic semper tyrannis ! " (" Thus may it be always with ty- rants"), leaped over the box-railing down upon the stage. Rushing has- tily' through the frightened actors, hardly conscious what had been done, he escaped through a back entrance, mounted a horse made ready for him at the theatre door, and rode rapidly away.
The same evening, William H. Seward, who had been secretary of state all through Lincoln's administration, was lying at home ill in his bed, from a recent fall from a carriage. As he lay thus help-
Wilham H. Seward.
THE ASSASSINATION. 585
less, another assassin, named " Payne," entered his room, fell upon him with a knife, and stabbed him three times in face and neck. His son, who was in the room, and tried to defend his father, was also wounded. As the alarm arose, and the household was aroused, the assassin made his escape, stabbing to right and left all who en- deavored to hold him back.
This news of horror so quickly following that of joy, spread over the country, filling it with gloom. This unostentatious man, Abra- ham Lincoln, — this gentleman of the people, — had won to him- self all loyal hearts. His face, so full of pathos, winning in spite of its rugged plainness, his manly, truthful nature, his noble human- ity, had gained him the regard even of those who at first sneered at the " vulgar rail-splitter." Across the ocean in England, where he had been held up to ridicule, his name was now mentioned with reverence. From the hour when that pistol shot made him a mar- tyr, the last of the long train of martyrs who died for the Union, Abraham Lincoln's name took its place beside that of George Wash- ington, and the memory of these two men will stand together as long as America is known or remembered.
The miserable assassin, as he leaped from the box upon the stage, had caught his foot in the American flag, which draped the front of the President's box. He fell forward, and broke his leg in the fall. For days he fled with the limb unset, the bone working through the swollen flesh, in an agony of excitement that perhaps deadened him to any sense of pain. A party was at once sent in pursuit of him, and on the 21st of April he was found in a barn near Fredericks- burg. Defiant to the last, he stood at bay, like a hunted wild ani- mal, with loaded weapon, prepared to take the life of any one who attempted to take him alive. The pursuers at length fired the barn in which he had taken refuge. Before the flames had fairly spread, an army sergeant, named Boston Corbett, fired his rifle at him. The ball entered his neck, and he died a few hours later in great agony. The action he committed was so wild and devoid of reason, that it has been charitably thought the murderer was partly insane. He belonged to a family of remarkable actors. His father, one of the most famous tragedians of his time, was a man of ahnost sentimental tenderness to men and ammals. His grandfather was an earnest partisan of the American colonies during the war of the Revolution, and he kept in his drawing-room a portrait of Washing- ton, before which he obliged his guests to uncover their heads. By
686 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
what strange caprice their descendant ever took upon himself the assassination of so just a man as Abraham Lincoln, can never be known. After Booth's death, Payne, the assassin who attempted to murder Seward, was taken, and with three others — one a woman — who were engaged in this conspiracy of murder, was tried and sentenced to death. The four were publicly hanged on the Tth of July, 1865.
CHAPTER LXI.
THE ACCESSION OF ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE ADMINISTRA- TION OF GRANT.
Andrew Johnson succeeds Lincoln. — The Atlantic Cable laid. — Reconstruction of the South. — Attempt to Impeach the President. — Purchase of Alaska and St. Thomas Island. — The Thirty-seventh State. — Jefferson Davis. — Election of Grant and Colfax. — The Ku Klux Klan. — The Death of Edwin M. Stanton.
Vice-president Andrew Johnson took the "presidential chair in the midst of the general gloom that spread over the land at the sad news of Mr. Lincoln's murder. Andrew Johnson was a man of limited education, but with sufficient force of character to raise himself from one political office to another, till he had come to oc- cupy a seat in the senate of the United States. He was a member from Tennessee, and his strong utterance against secession had made * his name famous among the loyal people, and had won him their votes as vice-president, on Mr. Lincoln's second election. The coun- try looked anxiously to him as tlie successor of their murdered pres- ident, to carry out with energy the measures that would soonest bring order and peace back to the States so long distracted by war.
Early in President Johnson's administration, one of the mosc important events was celebrated, which had ever happened in the history of any nation. This was the laying of the great Atlantic cable under the ocean, from America to England.
Before the war began to shake the land with its thunders, a plan had been talked of for binding Europe and America together with a telegraphic wire, which should lie under the waters of the Atlan- tic Ocean, by means of which the two continents could have instant news of each other. Submarine telegraphs had been tried and been successful, though nowhere over so wide a space of waters. But an
ACCESSION OF ANDREW JOHNSON. 587
American, named Cyrus W. Field, who had ability to form great enterprises, energy to carry them out, and money to invest in them, determined that a cable should be laid from the Western to the Eastern hemispheres. He interested rich men in England and America, and they all set to work to carry out the project. The cable was to be laid from the Island of Newfoundland to the shores of Ireland, because the distance across the ocean was shorter at these points, and both these islands were connected with the main land by other shorter marine telegraphic wires. Thus they began in 1857 to lay the wires from Ireland, when the cable parted, and the attempt was a failure. Undiscouraged, they tried again ; this time sending the vessel which bore the wire out to mid-ocean to begin there its precious deposit into the deep. Again the cable parted, and again the experiment was tried. This time — the third — it was at first successful, and a message from Queen Vic- toria, of ninety-nine words, was sent to the President of this nation. The whole land set up a great shout of rejoicing, when in the midst of the celebration of the great event it was discovered that the cable did not work properly, and no more messages could be sent. The undaunted leaders of the enterprise were not yet dis- mayed, but kept on experimenting in all kinds of wires, determined that they would yet succeed in the teeth of failure. In 1865, when they thought they had now a perfect cable and a perfect set of in- struments, they tried again ; and again the cable parted. I think even the patient spider would hardly have spun her web again over a chasm which had baffled her skill as often as the ocean had baf- fled these men. But Field and his associates could teach perse- verance even to the spider ; and, for the fifth time, they began cautiously, and with the civilized world waiting the result with breathless anxiety, to uncoil their wire into the threatening ocean. This time they were rewarded by success, and in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-six the lightning crossed under the waters, and carried its message from the Old World to the New. Since that time there has been unbroken telegraphic com- munication between Europe and America.
The first political measures of Andrew Johnson's administration were directed to the restoration of order in the parts of the country lately in rebellion, and were called the Reconstruction Acts, because they proposed to reconstruct the laws and social structure of the States which had endeavored to secede, and bring them into harmony
588 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
with the laws of the United States. Congress decided that the States which had been in rebellion were not yet fitted to send rep- resentatives to the nation's councils, and that certain conditions nuist be complied with before they could be again admitted. The nine States, therefore, which had been in rebellion : Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas, were divided into five military districts and put under martial rule, several of the most prominent generals in the Union army being installed as governors. It was quite natural that there should still have been much bitter feelino; between North and South, and that the declaration of peace should not all at once have been felt obligatory in the portion of the country which had been up in arms.
The Southern people had suffered tragically for the mistake they had committed in permitting themselves to be drawn into a rebel- lion against the government, by a few wrong-headed leaders. A sadder story will never be told than that which could be repeated in every city, town, and village of the seceding States. Many fami- lies, who before the rebellion had lived in affluence, saw every lux- ury, and almost every comfort, carried away in the dire course of war. Delicate women, unused to toil, had been driven almost to starvation, in attempts to support themselves and their families by the needle or some other form of feminine labor. The war, like the plague that passed over Egypt, had stricken down the first-born in thousands of families. Husbands, fathers, sons, had perished on bloody battle-fields, leaving the helpless women only an inheritance of sorrow and poverty. They saw their houses in ruins ; their plan- tations pass into the hands of strangers ; and their chattel slaves free men and women. The heart aches in contemplating the mis- ery endured by them, and in reflecting how many suffered for causes in which they had no part.
Now that the hopeless struggle was over, the wiser and more in- telligent among the Southern people accepted the situation, and were inclined to become peaceable and law-abiding citizens under the old flag ; but there were still a part of the people who cher- ished the old hostility, and there was still much hot blood to grow cool in rebellious veins before peace could properly be said to be established.
Congress made an amendment to the Constitution which was called the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that race or color
NEW TERRITORIES BOUGHT. 589
should be no bar to the right of suffrage, and making it a condition of the admission of all the States under military rule, that they should pass this amendment. As this would give the black men a right to a vote, and as several States thus outside the Union had about as many blacks as whites, it will be seen that this was a difK- cult amendment for them to accept, as it practically put the political power into the hands of their former slaves. But Congress was resolute to insist upon this. They claimed that the black people during the war had been the only part of the South loyal to the government ; that they had by means of the war become a free peo- ple ; that they needed the ballot to protect them from the whites, who might oppress them and deprive them of their liberties, if they were not given equal political rights.
On all these matters connected with reconstruction, Congress and the new president differed so widely, that at last he stood in open hostility to the party which had elected him. He was accused by them of cooperating with the enemies of government and of oppos- ing the passage of all such bills as would aid in restoring order. So strong was the feeling against him that he was openly charged with treason, and the attempt was made to impeach him. He was brought to trial on the charge of high crimes and misdemeanors in the administration of his office ; but was finally acquitted, although in the senate thirty-five voted him guilt}' against nineteen who voted not guilty.
The United States had little time to attend to any acquisition of property or territory during her civil war, but she was no sooner out of the flame and smoke of conflict than she extended her bound- aries to include the Russian possessions in America. She bought of the Empire of Russia the icy peninsula of Alaska, and gave, in May, 1867, 87,200,000 for the title to her lands on our continent. Alaska is a frigid and very uninviting country, not much inhabited except by Indians, and containing a few scattered trading posts where dwell the families of Russian officials stationed there, and a larger population of mixed blood, the offspring of Russian and native alliances. Its principal source of revenue is its fur trade, and it produces yearly great store of otter and seal, beaver, fox, and martin skins. Besides the acquisition of this new territory, in this year a new State was added to the Union. This was Nebraska, which applied for admission and was made the thirty-seventh State.
Would you like to Jaear what became of Jefferson Davis, the un-
590 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
fortunate make-believe president of the seceding States ? When Lee's surrender had killed the last hope of success in every rebel breast, Jefferson Davis, with his family and a few friends, hurried south to reach some port on the Gulf of Mexico, by which he might flee from the country. He got into the heart of Georgia, where General Wilson and his cavalry were still guarding the State. Wilson heard of Davis's whereabouts, and sent out detachments in different directions to watch for, and if possible capture him. One of these parties entered the town of Irwinsville, and approached a house that had been suspected. Here they met a singular- looking figure, tall and gaunt, oddly attired in a woman's wrapper, with a shawl drawn over the head, carrying a pail as if to draw water from a spring nearby. The leader of the soldiery challenged this strange object, and the shawl and wrapper removed, the marked form and features of Jefferson Davis appeared under the flimsy disguise. He had almost made a successful escape, for horses and all preparations for flight were awaiting him at the spring in a coppice hard by. He was taken prisoner, and confined in some pleasant apartments in Fortress Monroe, where he remained until 1867, awaiting his trial for treason.
He was at last allowed to go free upon finding bondsmen who subscribed to a large amount of bail which he was required to give as security for his appearance if he was ever summoned to trial. One of his principal bondsmen was the celebrated journalist, Horace Greeley, the editor of the " New York Tribune," one of the most earnest and loyal newspapers in the countrj^ Since his release Jef- ferson Davis has fallen naturally into obscurity, and will probably never be heard of in history again. If you have ever read how se- verely treason has been punished in other countries you will realize how lenient our government has been to those who endeavored to destroy it. Up to this time no individual has been punished for treason against the government by a penalty severer than imprison- ment.
The fall of 1867 was agitated by the presidential contest, in which General U. S. Grant, who had proved himself so able a leader during the war, was made president. With him, as vice- president, Schuyler Colfax was elected, a man who was an ardent patriot, and had long and honorably served his country in various offices. They were inaugurated March 4, 1868, in the capital which Grant had so noble a share in preserving to his country.
THE KU KLUX CLAN. 591
President Grant's administration took up the work of reconstruc- tion, and endeavored to wipe out the last traces of war. In spite of the mihtary rule established, and, as many discontented people declared — on account o£ that very rule, there were still constantly arising troubles in the South ; and the military governors had to nuike frequent complaints and appeals for help to the central gov- ernment. Tennessee, especially, was disturbed by reports of the outrages of a secret society, known as the Ku Klux Klan, who were said to be an organized band of men who had formerly been in re- bellion, and who were now engaged in committing all sorts of des- perate outrages on the Union residents, and particularly on the blacks. This organization was said to consist of 40,000 men in Tennessee alone, and in North Carolina rumor declared it no less formidable. On the other hand, many of the southern people denied the existence of any organization of the kind, and between the affirmatives and denials, it is difficult even now to get at the truth of the matter. Governor Brownlow of Tennessee, however, who was a man always staunchly loyal to the government, did believe in the Ku Klux Klan, and made energetic laws to suppress it. He made it a criminal offense to belong to any such society, and made every person who took office, swear an oath that he did not belong to any Ku Klux party. In North Carolina, a committee appointed to investigate the matter reported a secret organization of this kind, and said they were the dregs of the civil war, an army of criminals, committing all sorts of violence. Finally President Grant issued a proclamation commanding any such secret society to disperse, and although for two or three years there was much newspaper agitation about the Ku Klux, and no doubt many deeds of violence were committed in the South, the excitement gradually died out as time removed us farther from the war, and little is heard now of these dangerous enemies to peace and order.
In 1869, the second year of the administration of Grant and Colfax, came the death of Edwin M. Stanton, who had been secre- tary of war through most of Mr. Lincoln's administration. All through the gloomy days, wlien next to the president, this was the most trying and responsible official position in the land. Secretary Stanton had been a most efficient though somewhat stern officer and had held firmly to his line of duty. Dui'ing Johnson's administration the difference between himself and the president had been so serious that .Johnson had ordered him to resign his office, and in his stead
592 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
appointed Grant secretary. But as soon as Congress met again they refused to approve the president's action, and put Stanton again in his place, which Grant promptly vacated as soon as he knew the will of Congress.
This was in 1867, and Stanton continued in the cabinet till the next year, when the president again removed him, appointing Gen- eral Thomas in his place. On this Stanton refused to give up his office, and was sustained by Congress, who resolved that the presi- dent had no power to make these arbitrary removals. All these events had made Stanton an important man, and as he showed abil- ity quite equal to his position his loss was a great one to the nation.
CHAPTER LXIL
EVENTS FROM 1869 TO 1872.
The Pacific Railway finisiied. — The Enemies of the Work. — Indian Outrages. — The Slaugh- ter at Fort Philip Kearney. — Peace and War Measures. — Death of George H. Thomas. — Fires in Cliicago and the Northwest.
An important work done in the year 1869 was the completion of the railroad to the Pacific coast, thus making a link which brouglit the two great oceans of the world into close companionship. This had long been talked about, and Congress had sent officers to ex- plore the country west of the Mississippi River, across the con- tinent to California, and find the best place to build a road thither. California, now a large and prosperous State, lent her energy to the achievement, and year after year the work was urged forward till the 12th of May, 1869, when the end of the great work was reached. The scene of the celebration was a gra.ss}^ valley in the territory of Utah, at the head of the great Salt Lake. Although it was so far from any large city, there were over 3,000 people gathered to be- hold the ceremony of finishing the road. The last railroad tie was made of the beautiful wood of the California laurel-tree, finished with silver bands : a gold spike from California, a silver one from Nevada, and one of mixed gold, silver, and iron from Arizona, were driven home to fasten the last rail, by the officers of the two com- panies ; and then two engines — one coming from California over the mountain range of the Sierra Nevada, and the other crossing
BUILDING OF THE PACIFIC RAILWAY. 593
tne great plains of the Northwest and cutting through the spurs of the Rocky Mountains — steamed slowly together till they touched each other front to front, and the engineers from the West and East shook hands in congratulation across the narrow line of separation. The last rail in the great work was laid, and the dream of Colum- bus, and all the great sailors of his day, of a short route to the Indies, was here realized. From Europe to America in nine days, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in seven more, and across the Pacific to the Isle of Cipangu and the rich coasts of Cathay in twenty more, — the wildest dreams of the fifteenth century could hardly have pictured a shorter journey to the East.
In its course through the plains the Pacific Railroad had met with a persistent and jealous foe in the Indian, who saw in it a terrible enemy to his race. The story of troubles with the Indians has been a continuous one since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, or the Virginia colonies began their settlement at Jamestown. The strug- gle has never ceased upon the border line, where the white pioneer pressed against the Indian aborigine, and it will probably never come to an end till the last Indian has been exterminated upon his native soil or been pushed westward into the Pacific Ocean. Knowing, as the Indian must know from tradition and observa- tion, that the coming of the white man is fatal to him, it is not strange that he should have watched, with hostile eyes, the estab- lishment of military posts along the line the railroad was to fol- low, and the preparations for laying the rails over the plain where the deer and the buffalo, his chief means of subsistence, as yet roamed unscared by the whistle of the locomotive.
Amid our civil war the Indians were unusually troublesome. They had attacked the white settlers on the frontiers, and threat- ened the military outposts of the Western borders. All along on the great lines of travel across the plains to the gold regions of Califor- nia, or the mines of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, in the terri- tories where emigrants were coming to build up their towns, the In- dians resented the occupation of lands which they considered their own. And when we think of it, their case was often a hard one. The building of new towns drove away their game, and they were often pinched by hunger; the white man who had come over the plains in the latest emigrant train to parcel out his farm from the great tracts of the new territories, had very little thought of the
prior claim of a roaming savage. When he sought for a comfortable
38
594 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
site for his dwelling, — the fair spot by the nearest water-course, — he did not reflect that he sometimes drove out wild occupants who knew the advantages of such a spot as well as he. And when our government appointed Indian agents to protect the Indian, or to feed him when hungry, he was often cheated by men who put the money into their own pockets which the country had paid to buy the good-will of the Indians. When the gold mines were discovered twenty-five years ago, in California, a treaty had been made pay- ing the Indians a large sum for the privilege of crossing their lands on the way thither, and ten years later when the Colorado mines were opened up, another treaty was made of a similar kind. But it is said by those who have studied the matter closely, that the In- dians never got their money fairly, that they were cheated with poor goods, bad food, and miserable blankets, sold to them by un- principled men, and that, when we accuse them of keeping no trea- ties, and breaking faith with us, we should hear much the same story on the other side, told in the Indian tongue. And although the attacks of the Indians in war are cowardly, their manner of war blood-thirsty and horrible, they were sometimes met by the white soldiery in a spirit of bloody reprisal, which almost equaled the sav- age spirit. As in a massacre, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, where a large party of Indians, who had sued for peace, were gath- ered together awaiting an answer, and unprepared for war, they were set upon by a party of United States soldiers, and all of them slaughtered, men, women, and children, alike. This was a piece of savagery which could not be improved, even by a band of Arrapahoe or Cheyenne Indians in the full glory of war-paint, their war-girdles hung with scalps.
In 1866 the government ordered the establishment of a new mili- tary post in Dakota, at Fort Philip Kearnej^ which the Indians had threatened they should attack if built. In the last of December they drew a party of troops out to a point several miles from the fort, and then set upon them in great numbers, killing three officers and ninety men, mutilating their bodies with tomahawks, piercing them with arrows, and cutting off all the scalps. General Hancock was sent out and held a council in which some of the chiefs declared they wanted peace, but as they dispersed they murdered several white men in their course, thus giving the lie to their words of peace. In 1867 and 1868, affairs with the Indians were at their worst. It was said that scattered over the plains about the Pacific Road there
INDIAN WAKS. 595
were 11,000 painted warriors, of different tribes, who had formed a union against the common enemy. The building of the railway was kept back, the building stock stolen, the mail-stages robbed, the pas- sengers murdered, and the settlers in these regions suffered con- stantly all the horrors of a savage war.
One of the causes of complaint on the part of the Indians was that the railroad cut through their best hunting grounds, and would scare away their game. The United States yielded so far as to change slightly the course of the road and withdraw one or two military posts. But in spite of such complaints the great work must go on. Could it be expected that a few savages should stop the march of civilization, the opening up of the mines of Colorado or Montana, the building of cities on the plains of the Great West ? As well might a group of these same dirty naked savages, expect by stand- ing in its track to stop the course of the locomotive. The iron mon- ster would simply crush them under its wheels, leaving their man- gled bodies for the crows to peck at.
General Grant, who had a good deal of sympathy with the Indian, advocated gentle measures, and in accordance with his message on that subject, a peace commission was formed to treat with them. Various treaties had been made and broken, and several of the tribes promised to give up tracts in Montana and some of the other territories they had occupied, and move upon new reservations laid out for them in Southern Kansas, west of Arkansas, and north of Nebraska, but when the time came there was delay and resis- tance among them. And all the time came news of fresh outrages in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, and elsewhere. Solitary farms were attacked, houses burnt, men, women, and children scalped, the victims mutilated, and from Kansas especially came loud cries to the government for protection. General Philip Sheridan was sent in 1868 to see if he could not bring these insubordinate savages to reason. I think he believed the best way would be to exterminate them as one would any sort of vermin, and so get rid of them altogether. His measures were sharp and severe, and on Christmas day, 1868, he de- stroyed a Camanche village, putting all to the sword, and wrote back to the seat of government on the 1st of January, 1869, that he believed he had given the final blow to the back-bone of Indian rebellion, and reported that the Indians were begging for peace. Whether it was these salutary measures, or the gentler influence of peace commissions that abated savage fury, is not now quite certain.
596
STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
In his message of 1869, the President chiimed that the peaceful measures had been very successful in their workings, and since that time, and the opening of the Pacific Railway, there has been onh'^ an occasional outbreak, here and there, among these tribes with whom we had been at war. Whether any permanent peace can ever be made or not, or when we shall have the account of the last Indian war, remains to be seen. The country has been experimenting in Indian affairs for about 275 years, and they seem to be doing very little better in that way in the nineteenth, than in the seventeenth century.
During the year 1870 we lost a man whom the country could ill spare. This was her faithful servant, General George H. Thomas,
whom we have heard of always with honor during the War of the Rebellion. He was a na- tive of Virginia, and hence his loyalty to his country wears a special grace, since his native State had seceded. He died of apoplexy in California, in March, 1870.
In the fall of 1871, one of the largest cities of the United States was the scene of the most terrible fire ever recorded in history. This was in Chi- cago, which, although compara- tively a young city, and built up with a rapidity hardly to be be- lieved in except by those who have seen the growth of a western town, was a marvel of fine buildings and of pleasant homes, built on what was at first only an unsightly muddy spot on the banks of the noble Lake Michigan. One Sunday evening in 'October, a terrible fire broke out in the western division of the city, chiefly built up with wooden houses, where flames could spread rapidly. In a few hours it had ravaged the finest business portion of the city, burning up the public buildings — lapping up with its thousand tongues of flame street after street of magnificent stores, warehouses, and man- ufactories, and reaching over to the quarter where were the choicest private houses, to devour in a few brief hours the homes of thou- sands of people, thus made suddenly homeless and beggared. The
Major-general George H. Thomas.
FIRES IN THE iSIORTHWEST. 597
loss was estimated at $190,526,000 ; but the losses in homes, which can never be restored, cannot be counted up. The city is now largely rebuilt, and the energetic people of this city on the Lake have ever since been busy at work retrieving their fortunes, which so suddenly were turned to ashes. In this same fall the whole north- west country seemed to be in an inflammable condition, and fires, devastating large tracts of country in Northern Wisconsin, Michi- gan, and Minnesota, were constantly heard of. The whole village of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was consumed, and many lives were lost. In one family of twenty persons all but one perished. All agree that it was no ordinary condition of the atmosphere which caused such a reign of fire in the northwest. In Peshtigo the very sky seemed to shower flaming sparks. One man related that he went out after he heard the cry of fire, to wet the roof of his house, when suddenly, with a rush and roar like that of many waters, a cloud of mid- night blackness about twenty feet in length passed over him, and when a few yards away exploded like a shell, and then it seemed as if the whole air was aflame. The affrighted inmates of the house rushed for the river, escaping only with their lives. In this one little village three hundred and twenty people are reported to have lost their lives. At the same time vast forest fires raged all over the^orthwest-«^in Michigan especially — and the losses in lumber could not^e estimated.
CHAPTER LXIII.
LATEST EVENTS.
Decoration Day. — The Alabama Claims, and their Arbitration. — Election of Grant and Wilson. — Death of Horace Greeley. — Great Fire in Boston. — The Modoc War. — Hang- ing of Captain Jack. — The Capture of the Virginius. — Shooting of American Citizens. — Death of Charles Sumner. — Louisiana Troubles. — Celebration of Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. — The National Centennial.
The spring of the year 1872 should be held important in our memories, from the fact that on a balmy May day, when Congress assembled, every seat in its legislative halls was filled by represent- atives from all the reunited States. For the first time since 1861, when the South Carolinian representatives withdrew angrily from their seats, the whole country again sat together in unison. The
598 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
31st of May, called Decoration Day, has been set apart as a sacred holiday, on which we place flowers on the graves of the soldiers who died on the battle-fields of the rebellion. Let us hope that on this Decoration Day of 1872, when flowers were placed on Northern and Southern graves alike, the last bitterness between the two sections was put away and forgotten by all noble minds.
At least one important quarrel was peacefully made up in this yea,r of grace 1872. One of our chief causes of grievance during our great war bad been against England, for the harm she had done in building and equipping ships for the help and service of the rebels. As I have already told you in the account of the battle between the Alabama and the Kearsarge^ many ships had set out from British ports, built, armed, and furnished forth by British mer- chants, and manned for the most part by British sailors, which went into the seas to waylay and capture American vessels. The Shen- andoah^ the Florida, and the Sumter were all ships of this sort, and each had done a great deal of mischief. It was said that ninety- five American vessels could be enumerated, and ten millions of prop- erty could be proved to have been destroyed by these privateers from England. So when the great war was fairly off the hands of the country, it was resolved that England must be brought to an account for her active part in all this wrong-doing. Accordingly, the United States demanded indemnity for all she had suffered from British vessels employed against her navy and merchant ships. And as the Alabama had been the most famous of all these vessels, and was known beyond denial to have been built in Liverpool, the question in dispute began to be known as the " Alabama Claims.^^
Naturally, England did not want to acknowledge these claims, and at first stoutly denied any right of our government to make them. Mr. Charles Sumner made a powerful speech, showing the right of the United States to urge her claim to reparation, and that all the laws between nations would bear her out in demanding it. The speech made a good deal of bitter feeling in England, while it was loudly praised in America, and it seemed at one time almost as if the two countries must go to war and decide the matter by force of arms. Fortunately, a very much better way of settling the matter was hit upon. England said there were a number of questions which she should like to settle with America. The rights of the two nations in the Canada fisheries were not quite clear; there was some dispute about the American navigation of the St.
THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 599
Lawrence ; the trade between the United States and Canada was in a rather unsettled state ; the boundaries of the British posses- sions in America were not absohitely fixed, and in consideration of all these (in addition to the special grievance of America about these Alabama claims), it was proposed that each country should appoint a certain number of respectable and honest gentlemen who should debate the points at issue, and come to a peaceful settlement. After some argument on both sides, this was agreed upon ; and five Englishmen and five Americans were chosen, who formed what was called a " Joint High Commissions^' which met at Washington, Feb- ruary, 1871.
The English commissioners were very polite to the American commissioners, and in a very agreeable and manly way expressed their regret for what had occurred in the Alabama affair, and all other affairs of that kind. Yet with the politest possible conduct on both sides, the joint high commission could not fully decide what was to be done, and therefore concluded to appoint foreign arbitra- tors of different nations to end the whole matter. These arbitrators were five in number, and were chosen, — one by the President of the United States ; one by the English Queen ; one by the Emperor of Brazil ; one by the King of Italy ; and the fifth and last by the President of the Swiss Republic. These were to settle the Alabama claims. The other minor issues were to be agreed upon by a com- mission of three gentlemen, and the northwest boundary was to be left to the decision of the German Emperor.
This Board of Arbitration met at Geneva in Switzerland, and was composed no doubt of very wise and able, as well as honorable men. They were. Sir Alexander Cockburn of Great Britain ; Charles Fran- cis Adams, — who was the lineal descendant of two of our presi- dents, — on the part of the United States ; ex-president Stampfli from Switzerland; Count Sclopis of Italy; and Viscount D'ltajuba, Brazil. When they had convened, able counsel on the part of both Great Britain and the United States laid each side of the case before them, and they began their deliberation. They met first in Decem- ber, 1871, and then for a time separated, till on the 15th of June, 1872, they had a meeting, and it was decided by four votes to one that the United States should be paid by England fifteen and a half million dollars in gold, in reparation for the losses suffered in the war from ships built in her ports. This being adjudged, the Amer- icans were satisfied ; all other subjects of dispute were easy to end :
600 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
the fishery question, the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and all minor matters were peaceably settled, and good feeling restored. And nobody woidd question that this amicable settlement was not incomparably better and wiser than going to war, killing thousands of innocent victims, wasting money in gunpowder and cannon-balls till arbitration had to be resorted to in the end after all the fiofht- ing.
The fall of 1872 witnessed the opening of the twenty-second con- test for the election of president. There was a portion of the re- publican party which was dissatisfied with Grant's management of affairs, and formed a new organization called the " Liberal Republi- can." Delegates to represent this party met in Cincinnati and nom- inated Horace Greeley for president. Mr. Greeley you have heard of in these pages as a journalist, the life-long editor of the " New York Tribune," one of the most influential and respectable newspa- pers of the country.
The Republicans wished to see General Grant once more their president, and therefore nominated him, with the Hon. Henry Wil- son as vice-president. Mr, Wilson was a native of New Hampshire ; a man who had hewn out his path to fortune, and at the time of his nomination for vice-president, had been many years in public life. The contest ended in the election of Grant and Wilson. Only a few weeks after his defeat Mr. Greeley died, worn out by the hard work and cares of his political campaign. He had suffered all through from constant sleeplessness, under which at last, his brain gave way, and he died, broken down and crushed by his defeat and tlie abuse of political opponents, on the 29th of November, 1872. Much harsh- ness of feeling had been shown during the strife of parties befoi-e Mr. Greeley's defeat ; but as soon as he was dead, the whole country seemed bent on doing him honor, and in New York city especially, there was heard only the voice of mourning for his departure, and of praise for his spotless life as a citizen and a politician.
Only a few weeks before the death of Horace Greeley, another great American, one of her greatest statesmen, also passed away. William H. Seward — his health always shaken since the attempt on his life by the assassin Paj^ne, at the time of Lincoln's murder — had left the cabinet in 1869, after eight years good and constant service at the head of the state department, and had sought rest in travel. He went first on a journey through Mexico and California, and then set out for a tour around the world, visiting the countries of Asia,
THE MODOC WAR. (301
and making full and interesting notes of travel. On his return he began to arrange these notes for publication, but died in the midst of his work, on the 10th of October, 1872.
During this fall of 1872, the country was startled by news of an- other great fire, which swept over the time-honored city of Boston, almost equaling in its ravages the fire of the year before, in Chicago. The flames broke out on the 10th of November, and in a few hours ate out the heart of the noble old city, devouring square after square of granite stores and warehouses, besides many noble churches and public buildings. Fortunately, however, there were few dwellings in the part of the town where the flames raged, and not many peo- ple were left houseless, as in the fire of Chicago. The inhabitants were not behind the people of the West in enterprise, and even now, although less than three years since, the blackened and ruined space left by fire is filled again by handsome blocks of business houses.
I could wish that we were done with tales of Indian warfare, and that the closing record of our nation's life might not be stained by any further record of bloodshed. But one more outbreak among the Modocs in Oregon, a new tribe whom you have not previously heard of, remains to be chronicled. These Modocs Jiad made some years since a treaty with the government, in which they promised to remove upon some lands marked out for them in Oregon, called the Klamath reservation. A part of the tribe did go thither, but it is said that those who went found it difficult to live there ; part of the tract was occupied by a hostile tribe, who constantly harassed them ; they were cheated out of their provisions by the Indian agent who was to supply them, and they had suffered some wrongs from the soldiery, which they had never forgotten. How much of this state- ment — which was made in palliation of the obstinacy of those who refused to remove — can be believed, it is difficult to tell, as in all cases it is next to impossible to decide where justice lies, in the quarrel be- tween the white man and the Indian. The most certain fact is, that in the fall of 1872, a small party of Modocs — not more than two hundred in all — were reported as being on the war-path in Oregon. These, led by some courageous chiefs, known as Captain Jack, Scar- faced Charley, Black Jim, and Schonchin, were murdering and rob- bing the settlers, and spreading consternation wherever they went. They were ordered to go at once to their allotted lands on the Kla- math reservation, but defiantly refused. A party of soldiers under Captain Jackson, was sent to force them to go. They met the sav-
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STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
ages and a fight ensued, in which several Indians and three or four soldiers were killed. After this fight, the savages retreated to the California border, to what are known as the lava-beds, and pre- pared to hold out a siege against their enemies. These lava-beds were fields covered with a honey-combed surface of volcanic rock, full of crevices, caves, and under-ground windings, in which a hand- ful of Indians could hold out against thousands of foes. Concealed among the jagged rocks, a savage from his lurking place could shoot down the soldiers as they approached, and then slipping into a nar- row crevice could seek some winding passage under the lava and re- appear again on the surface far away from his foe. The country was constantly startled by accounts of a sudden sally of Modocs, in which the soldiers were killed, and the Indians had quickly re- treated to the lava beds, bearing the scalps of the slain.
General Canby, who had been in Mississippi during the last of the war, was in Oregon lending all his endeavors to make peace with
the Modocs. In this he was as- sisted by some of the peace com- mission, and Canby with these men, forming together representa- tives both of war and peace, agreed on a day in April, 1873, to meet the Indian chief. Captain Jack, and some of his party, at a place they named outside the lines of Canby's military post. General Canby, and Mr. Thomas, Mr. Meacham, and Mr. Dyer, the three peace com- missioners, guided by a friendly Indian and squaw, went unat- tended to the place proposed. A signal officer watched them from a distance, and in half an hour from the time of meeting, the cry was raised that the peace com- missioners were slain. The troops hastened to the place, meetmg Mr. Dyer and the two Indians running for dear life. Canby, Thomas, and Meacham were shot while in peaceful debate, and then- bodies were found stripped of their clothing lying dead at the meet- ing place. The Indians had already fled to the lava-beds, and it was in vain for the troops to attempt to follow.
Two weeks later a company of soldiers under Evan P. Thomas
Major-general Canby.
CAPTURE OF CAPTAIN JACK. 603
went in the direction of these savage strong-holds with a party of friendly Indian allies. They went to the vicinity of the lava-beds bnt could see no signs of Indians. As soon, however, as they had ventured fairly in among the rocks, fire opened on them on all sides from unseen foes. The Indians had plenty of guns, some of them having six or seven loaded rifles lying beside them, which they would discharge one after the other. Thomas, the leader, was killed, with twenty-three soldiers and several officers. When some of these bodies were recovered they were so mutilated as not to be recognized. Through the spring this war went on, till it seemed as if a handful of savages could keep at bay the whole United States army, so much advantage did the position in the lava beds give to the Indians. But in time the superiority of numbers must tell. Late in May a party of Captain Jack's band were captured, among them the murderer of Thomas. At the time of this capture Captain Jack was seen not far distant, and was urged by some of the squaws of his tribe to give himself up. He refused and stole away in the night, escaping capture for that time. On the 1st of June a scouting party of soldiers led by some Indian guides came upon a trail which they said was Captain Jack's. They were preparing to follow the track, when a Modoc appeared bearing a white flag. He said that Jack was ready to surrender. Three scouts were sent to meet him. The redoubtable foe came forward slowly, looked about him, and held out his hands to his captors. Two Indian braves, five squaws, and seven children also came forth and surrendered with him, and with this remnant of an army which had held out through so long a seige, the exultant troops of the United States went yelling back to their camp in triumph. Jack re- mained silent and sullen. He and his warriors were ironed, and then consultation was held what was to be done with these " prisoners of war." They were finally tried hj a military court and sentenced to be hanged, and on the 31st of October, 1873, four of the chiefs. Captain Jack, Boston Charlie, Black Jim, and Schonchin were exe- cuted on the gallows at Fort Klamath in the presence of the sol- diers and a few wandering Indians who looked on at the execution. The hanging of Captain Jack put an end to the Modoc war, and re- stored quiet to the State.
Already, on March 4, 1873, Grant and Wilson had taken their seats as president and vice-president, and great excitement had been aroused in the nation, by the fact that the Congress which
604 STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
met on the occasion of the new inauguration had passed a bill in- creasing salaries of the officials, raising the salary of the president from $25,000 per year to $50,000, and making large increase in the pay of other officers of government. This caused much discon- tent and criticism in a large party, who argued that the country was already feeling the pressure of the late war, and ought to re- trench its expenses instead of increasing them.
In 1869, a rebellion had begun in the island of Cuba, still a colony of Spain, in which the Cubans endeavored to gain their independence. There was among many of the people of the United States a strong feeling of sympathy with Cuba, and as there were Cubans in this country who sought to interest Americans in their efforts for freedom, it was feared by our government that expeditions might be fitted out in our ports to go to the aid of the insurgents. As this would be contrary to the law of nations, and any such aid from America would be doing just such a wrong to Spain, as that we complained of from England in the dispute about the Alabama. our government was strict in its efforts to prevent any such action. One vessel preparing to sail was found to be engaged to go to the aid of Cuba, and her departure was stayed and her crew taken off and disbanded. In another case, two American citizens who were accidentally identified with a hostile expedition in Cuba, were killed by Spanish authorities, but Spain promised instant reparation, and so there was little trouble about it. In the fall of 1873, however, quite an important event occurred which came near breeding war between Spain and the United States.
On the 26th of September, a vessel named the Virginius^ was registered in the New York Custom House as the property of a citi- zen of United States, and sailed on the 4th of October for a port in the West Indies. She carried American papers, and in foreign ports made claim to her American nationality, and bore the Ameri- ctui flag. On the last day of October while still sailing under the stars and stripes, a Spanish ship captured the Virginius, accusing her captain of hostile designs against Spain and declaring that the purpose of the voyage was to land men and arms in Cuba, in aid of the rebellion against the government. Four leading Cubans were found among the passengers, who were known to be in revolt against Spain. The ship and all on board were taken to Havana, and on November 4th the Cuban prisoners were shot. A few days later Captain Fry, the American captain of the Virginius, thirty six
DEATH OF CHARLES SUiMNEK. 605
men of his crew, and eighteen others who were on board, were sum- marily shot without being allowed to appeal to their government for protection and trial. The circumstances of Fry's execution awak- ened great sympathy. He died a manly and heroic death, sending a most touching letter to his wife, whom he had left behind him in the United States.
The excitement in the country was very great, and indemnity and full reparation was demanded from Spain, for the act com- mitted by her officers in Cuba. All the power of diplomacy in both nations was exerted to preserve peace. President Grant made a demand upon Spain for the restoration of the vessel, the return of all the survivors to this country, the punishment of the offending officials in Cuba, and a salute from the Spanish guns to the Vir- ginius^ to be fired when she left their port. After much correspon- dence between the two nations, the American secretary of state ac- knowledged that the Virginius was on an errand hostile to Spain, and not entitled to carry the flag of United States at the time of her capture, and therefore the salute was dispensed with. The ves- sel was formally delivered up to the navy of the United States on the 16tli of December, 1873, and prepared to return to New York. But the ill fated ship met with foul weather, with difficulty could be kept afloat ; and finally sank off Cape Fear. The prisoners who had survived the slaughter were also returned, and reached New York in safety. Thus a cloud which at one time seemed black with war, passed over the country without further threatening.
On the 11th of March, 1874, the sad news went over the tele- graph wires that Charles Sumner was dead. Sumner, whose voice had never been heard but in the cause of justice, and who had for many years held a seat in the councils of the land, was gone to his final rest. His last labors had been to restore peace and good feel- ing between the two parts of the country which had been so long at variance ; and up to his death he had also worked incessantly for the passage of a bill which should give civil rights to the African race, and abolish all distinctions which arose from the system of caste which slavery had founded. It forbade making any man an outcast on account of his color or his race, and gave equal privilege to all men in all public places, and in traveling, or at hotels, giving the black man as well as the white, a right to all the comforts for which he was able and willing to pay. In the midst of these hu- mane labors, he died. His last words were in entreaty to a friend to
606 STORY OF OUK COUNTRY.
"take care of his Civil Rights' Bill," and with this request on his lips, one of the noblest and purest of American statesmen breathed his last breath.
The struggle between the new and the old order of things was not quite over in the South, and accounts of troubles in Louisiana disturbed all lovers of peace and quiet during the year 1874. Two governors, elected by opposite parties, claimed their rights to the office ; riots were on foot and blood was shed in the contest. The president was obliged to interfere, and Congress at one time pro- posed to put Louisiana again under military rule, and deprive her of her rights as a State, till order was brought back. General Sher- idan, who was sent to aid in restoring harmony, reported, that since the war, 3,500 black men had been massacred there, and that many frightful murders in cold blood had been committed by bands of men who were known as ivhite leaguers. Finally, Congress sent to the state a commission, to report on the condition of affairs, and at this time order seems to be entirely restored.
The beginning of 1875, the anniversary year of the Revolution- ary War, marked so great an era in American history, that all Amer- icans welcomed it with a feeling of enthusiasm, and a reawakening of patriotism, which was perhaps made stronger by the dangers through which the country had passed only a few yeai'S before. Great preparations were made to celebrate the most interesting days of the year. In Massachusetts the battle" of Lexington was celebrated on the 19th of April, both at Lexington and at Concord. Crowds of people flocked to these towns, patriotic speeches were made, and a noble oration delivered in both towns, on this memo- rable day. Two months later, on the 17th of June, when the anni- versary of Bunker Hill's Battle was kept in Charlestown, the patri- otic excitement still ran high, and the streets of Boston were filled with happy crowds, and made gay with festive processions, in which figured such notable men as General Sherman and General Burn- side, and others of the army, while a regiment from Maryland, which had only a few years before been in hostile array against the men of Cliarlestown, now took peaceful part in the national holiday.
On the last day of July 1875, Andrew Johnson, who had been elected to the United States Senate by the Legislature of Tennesee, was attacked by paralysis and died after a brief illness, He was one of the remarkable men of his country, a man without culture and most limited opportunities in early life, who in spite of all
THE END.
607
Henry Wilson.
disadvantages had taken the most distinguished position in the nation.
A few months later, on the 22d of Noa' ember, Henry Wilson, whose career was hardly less remarkable than that of Andrew John- son, also died of a similar attack. Like Johnson he had been born m the lowest ranks of life, working for his daily bread from earliest boyhood, and climbing up all the steps that lead to fortune, till he filled the highest offices of trust and honor his country could be- stow.
The celebrations of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill grow pale before the great approaching Centennial Exhibition, which is to be held very shortly in the city of Philadelphia, to commemorate our year of Independence, 1876. Its hundredth year opens on a nation, peaceful, rich in territory, with material improvements spreading far and wide over the land — in the iron rails of its railways and the connecting wires of its tele- graphs — with free schools, and every means for spreading intelli- gence among its people.
And not alone in railroads which cut the states and territories right and left, like the lines of a spider's web ; nor in telegraphs that spread their fine network all over the land, has the nation shown its progress and enterprise. The invention of the cunning Yankee has become a by-word. There are his sewing-machines, one of which could do the work of a dozen nimble-fingered seam- stresses. There are his agricultural machines for reaping, mowing, and sowing, and all sorts of out-door labor, which do the work of an army of laborers. His improvements in manufactures, in science, it would take another volume to tell all about them. It is in such works as these that the chief glory and highest prosperity of our nation lies.
On the one hundredth anniversary of Our Country's life I end her story. I have tried to show you the steps by which she grew to her present gi'eatness. I have told you of the two great conflicts through which she passed before she could assert her right to call
608 • STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.
herself a great nation, ranking among the most powerful on the globe. Let us never forget what a price she has paid for her great- ness, and let us aid to make this such a nation that every one of us may be proud to say, I AM A. CiTizMN" OF the American Re- public.
APPENDIX.
THE CENTENNIAL INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AT
PHILADELPHIA.
THE celebration of the close of the first century of the Republic has taken the form of a great exhibition to which not only all parts of the United States, but all countries of the globe are invited to send the products of their industry and art. This exhibition follows the great exhibitions of London, Paris, and Vienna, but in the extent of ground occupied and the magnitude of the plan surpasses all previous exhibitions.
The idea of a centennial exhibition was first suggested by Professor Camp- bell of Indiana (now Secretary of the Commission), in a letter written to Hon. Morton McMichael, Mayor of Philadelphia in 1866. This was acted upon by the city council and Franklin Institute. This suggestion took its first practical shape in the Act of Congress March 3, 1871. This act recited, that the Declaration of Independence, wliich gave existence to the United States of America, was prepared, signed, and promulgated in the city of Philadelphia ; and that it behooved the people of the United States to cele- brate by appropriate ceremonies at its birthplace the centennial anniver- sary of this memorable arid decisive event. It was deemed fitting by the Congress, that the manner of its celebration should be an exhibition of the natural resources of the country and their development, and of its progress in those arts which benefit mankind, in comparison with those of older nations. They therefore decreed that an exhibition of American and foreign arts, products, and manufactures should be held under the auspices of the Government of the United States, in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1876. As the act incorporating the Centennial Commission made an explicit proviso that no expense should be incurred for which the govern- ment should be held responsible, it became necessary to secure the organ- ization of a financial body in which proper powers should be invested. An act was therefore passed June 1, 1872, to enable provisions to be made for procuring the funds requisite for the preparation and conduct of the inter- national exhibition and memorial celebration.
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The said corporation was empowered to secure subscriptions of capital stock to an amount not exceeding $10,000,000, to be divided into shares of $10 each; and to issue to the subscribers of said stock certificates therefor under the corporate seal of said corporation ; the certificates to bear the signature of the president and treasurer, and be transferable under such rules and regulations as might be made for the purpose. And it was made lawful for any municipal or other corporate body, existing by or under the laws of the United States, to subscribe and pay for shares of said capital stock ; and all holders of said stock were by the act made associates in said corpoi'ation, and as such entitled to one vote on each share.
The exhibition buildings are located in Fairmount Park, which adjoins the built-up portions of Philadelphia on the northwestern border. This is a beautiful park of 2,740 acres, upon which the city has already spent over $6,000,000. Through it runs the Schuylkill River bordered by high banks and ravines, and its great natural beauty enhanced by art. The buildings are located on some of the most beautiful spots on the banks of this river ; groves of stately trees surrounding them, splendid views of river and land- scape being afforded. These buildings stand from one hundred and twelve to one hundred and twenty feet above the highest tide-water level in the Delaware River, and fully that height above the Schuylkill. Phihidelphia has a population of 800,000 inhabitants, containing 133,000 dwelling-houses, a large j^rojjortion of which are owned by their occupants ; and this number is bein£[ increased at the rate of 6,000 a year. Girard Avenue, one of the chief streets of PhiladeljDhia, leads directly from the heart of the city to the eastern entrance of the Main Exhibition Building. This is a broad highway 100 feet in width, crossing the Schuylkill River upon a magnificent iron bridge, and which was erected at a cost of $1,500,000, expressly to furnish good facilities of access to the exhibition grounds. This avenue passes through the park in a westerly direction, and is a very fine drive. On the left, and fronting the Schuylkill, are the Zoological Gardens, occupying about 35 acres ; which long formed an elegant rural residence, being known as "Solitude," and rendered historical as the abode of John Penn while he was Governor of Pennsylvania. The society who have this in charge have already made a valuable collection of tropical and other animals, to which constant additions are being made. Bordering this avenue on the right are the exhibition grounds. These cover about 236 acres, which are inclosed for the buildings ; in addition to which there are other inclosures for the display of horses and cattle.
The buildings for the exhibition are — The Main Exhibition Building. Machinery Building. Memorial Hall or Art Gallery.
612 APPENDIX.
Agricultural Hall. Horticultural Hall.
But besides these great buildings there are a number of special buildings erected for the convenience of the several commissions, or for the better display of separate industries, so that the whole number of buildings in the inclosure devoted to purposes of the exhibition is not far from two hundred and fifty- There are some seven miles of roads and walks. The West End narrow- gauge Railway makes a circuit of the grounds. There is a station at each of the buildings for the accommodation of visitors.
THE MAIN BUILDING.
This is a parallelogram running east and west, 1,880 feet long, and north and south 464 feet wide. The larger portion is one story high, the interior height being 70 feet, and the cornice on the outside 48 feet from the ground. At the centre of the longer sides are projections 416 feet in length, and on the ends of the building projections 216 feet in length. In these, which are in the centre of the four sides, are located the main en- trances, which are provided with arcades upon the ground floor, and central facades 90 feet high. The east entrance will form the principal approach for carriages, visitors alighting at the doors of the building under cover of the arcade. The south entrance will be the principal approach from rail- way cars. The west entrance opens upon the main passage-way to two principal buildings, the Machinery and Agricultural Halls, and the north entrance to Memorial Hall (Art Gallery), Towers 75 feet in height rise at each corner of the building. The main building gives 936,008 square feet of surfoce, or nearly 21^ acres. Its ground plan shows a central avenue 120 feet in width, and 1,832 feet in length, which is the longest avenue of that width ever introduced into an exhibition building.
The foundations consist of piers of masonry, the superstructure being composed of wrought-iron columns placed 24 feet apart, which support wrought-iron roof-trusses. There are 672 of these columns in the entire structure, the shortest being 23 feet and the longest 125 feet long. Their aggregate weight is 2,200,000 lbs. The roof-trusses and girders weigh 5,000,000 lbs. Turrets surmount the building at all the corners and angles ; and the national standard, with appropriate emblems, is placed over each of the main entrances. There are numerous side-entrances, each being sur- mounted with a trophy showing the national colors of the country occupy- ing that portion of the building. Offices for the foreign commissions are placed along the sides of the building, in close proximity to the products exhibited. Offices for the administration are at the ends.
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ARRANGEMENT OF PRODUCTS.
The arrangement of products in the main building is by eight depart- ments, placed in parallel zones lengthwise the buildings, the zones being of different width according to the bulk of the products exhibited in the par- ticular dejiartment. The countries and states exhibiting are arranged in parallel zones crosswise the building, these zones also being of different widths according to the amount of space required for the exhibits of each country. Between each department and each country are passage-ways dis- tinctly marking the limit of each. By this means the visitor who desii-es to compare products of the same kind from different parts of the world may do so by passing through the building lengthwise, keeping in the zone devoted to the particular department ; or if he desires to examine the prod- ucts exhibited by any particular country or state he may do so by passing through the building crosswise, in the zone devoted to the country or state he is studying.
THE ART GALLERY.
The most imposing and ornate of all the structures is Memorial Hall, built, at a cost of $1,500,000, by the State of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia. This is to be used during the Exhibition as an Art Gallery, after which it is designed to make it the receptacle of an industrial and art collection similar to the famous South Kensington Museum at London. It stands on a line parallel with, and a short distance northward of, the Main Building, and is in a commanding position, looking southward across the Schuylkill over Philadelphia. It stands upon a terrace 122 feet above the level of the Schuylkill. Being designed for an absolutely fireproof struct- ure, nothing combustible has been used. The design is modern Renais- sance. It covers an acre and a half, and is 365 feet long, 210 feet wide, and 59 feet high, over a spacious basement 12 feet high. A dome, rising- ISO feet above the ground, surmounts the centre, capped by a colossal ball, from which rises the figure of Columbia. The main front of this building looks southward, displaying a main entrance in the centre, consisting of three enormous arched door- ways, a pavilion on each end, and two arcades connecting the pavilions with the centre. The entrance is 70 feet wide, to which there is a rise of 13 steps. Each of the huge door- ways is 40 feet high and 15 feet wide, opening into a hall. Between the arches of the door-ways are clustei's of columns terminating in emblematic designs illus- trative of science and art. The doors are of iron, relieved by bronze panels, displaying the coats of arms of all the States and Territories. The United States coat of arms is in the centre of the main frieze. The dome is of glass and iron, of unique design. While Columbia rises at the top, a colos- sal figure stands at each corner of the base of the dome, typifying the four
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quarters of the globe. In each pavilion there is a large window 12|^ feet by 34 feet. There are garden-plots each 90 feet by 36 feet, ornamented in the centre with fountains, and intended to display statuary. The arcades are highly ornamented, and the balustrades of them and of the approaching stair-ways are also designed for statuary. The grand balcony is a prom- enade 275 feet long and 45 feet wide, elevated 40 feet above the ground, and overlooking to the northward the beautiful grounds of the Park. On each front of the buildings the entrances open into halls 82 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 53 feet high, decorated in modern Renaissance. These, in turn, open into the centre hall, 83 feet square, the ceiling rising over it 80 feet in height. From the east and west sides of this centre hall extend the gal- leries, each 98 feet long, 48 feet wide, and 35 feet high. These galleries with the centre hall form a grand hall 287 feet long and 83 feet wide, capa- ble of comfortably accommodating 8,000 persons. This is nearly twice the dimensions of the largest hall in the United States. This fine building- gives 75,000 square feet of wall space for paintings, and 20,000 square feet of floor space for statues, etc. The skylights throughout are double, the upper being of clear glass and the, under of ground glass.
MACHINERY BUILDING.
This structure is located about 550 feet west of the Main Exhibition Building ; and, as its north front stands upon the same line, it is practically a continuation of that edifice, the two together presenting a frontage of 3,824 feet, from their eastern to their western ends, upon the principal avenue within the grounds. This building consists of a main hall 1,402 feet long, and 360 feet wide, with an annex on the southern side 208 feet by 210 feet. The entire area covered is 558,440 square feet, or nearly thirteen acres ; and the floor space afforded is about fourteen acres. The chief portion of the building is one story in height, the main cornice upon the outside being 40 feet from the ground, and the interior height to the top of the ventilators in the avenue 70 feet, and in the aisles 40 feet. To break the long lines of the exterior, projections have been introduced upon the four sides ; and the main entrances are finished with facades extending to 78 feet in height. The eastern entrance will be the principal approach from railways, and from the Main Exhibition Building. Along the southern side are placed the boiler-houses, and such other buildings for special kinds of machinery as may be required. The plan of the Machinery Building shows two main avenues 90 feet wide, with a central aisle between, and an aisle on either side, these being 60 feet in width. These avenues and aisles together have 360 feet width, and each of them is 1,360 feet long.
This Machinery Building has very superior fticilities for shafting, and double lines are introduced into each avenue and aisle at a height of about
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20 feet. A Corliss steam-engine of 1,400 horse power drives the main shafting. There are also counter-lines of shafting in the aisles, and special steam-power is furnished where necessary. Steam-power is furnished free to exhibitors. In the annex for hydraulic machines there is a tank 60 feet by 160 feet, with 10 feet depth of water. It is intended to exhibit all sorts of hydraulic machinery in full operation ; and at the southern end of the tank there is a waterfall 35 feet higli by 40 feet wide, supplied from the tank by the pumps on exhibition.
THE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING.
This building illustrates a novel combination of materials, mainly wood and glass, and consists of a long nave crossed by three transepts, each being- composed of truss-arches of Gothic form. The nave is 820 feet long by 125 feet in width, with a height of 75 feet from the floor to the point of the arch. The central transept is 100 feet wide, and 75 feet high, and the two . end transepts 80 feet wide and 70 feet high. Its interior appearance re- sembles that of a great cathedral ; and, in looking from transept to transept, the vista is extremely imposing. A portion of this building is supplied with steam-power for the use of agricultural machinery. The four courts in- closed by the nave and transept, and also the four spaces at the corners of the building, having the nave and end transepts for two of their sides, are roofed, and form valuable spaces for exhibits. The ground plan of the building is a parallelogram 540 feet by 820 feet, covering about 10;^ acres.
THE HORTICULTURAL BUILDING.
The city of Philadelphia made a liberal grant of money to provide for the horticultural department of the Exhibition an extremely ornate and commodious building, which is designed to remain in permanence as an ornament of Fairmount Park. This building is designed in the Moresque style of architecture of the twelfth century, the chief materials externally being iron and glass, supported by fine marble and brickwork. The build- ing is 383 feet long, 193 feet wide, and 72 feet high to the top of the lan- tern. The main floor is occupied by the central conservatory, 230 feet by 80 feet, and 55 feet high, surmounted by a lantern 170 feet long. 20 feet wide, and 14 feet high. Running entirely around this conservatory, at a height of 20 feet from the floor, is a gallery 5 feet wide. On the north and south sides of this principal room are four forcing-houses for the propaga- tion of young plants, each of them 100 feet by 30 feet, and covered by curved roofs of iron and glass, which, appearing upon the exterior of the building, present a very fine feature. A vestibule 30 feet square separates the two forcing-houses on each side ; and there are similar vestibules at the
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APPENDIX.
centre of the east and west ends, on either side of which are apartments for restaurants, reception-rooms, offices, etc. The east and west entrances
United States Government Building.
to the Horticultural Building are approached by flights of blue marble steps, from terraces 80 feet J)y 20 feet, in the centre of each of which stands an open kiosk 20 feet in diameter. Each entrance is beautified by ornamental tile and marble work ; and the angles of the main conservatory are to be adorned with eight attractive fountains. Extensive heating arrangements are provided in the basement, which is of fireproof construction.
Surrounding this building there are thirty-five acres of ground, which will be devoted to horticultural purposes.
The Jury Pavilion.
'S
c
5
X
622 APPENDIX.
The site occupied by the Horticultural Building was formerly occupied by a mansion, which was the residence of John Penn, the last colonial gov- ernor of Pennsylvania.
Of the other buildings, the most notable are the Government Building, for the exhibition by the various departments at Washington ; the Wo- man's Pavilion, containing specimens of woman's work in every department of industry; and the Jury Pavilion, for the service of the judges of the Exhibition.
The space covered by the buildings erected for former world's fairs, and the cost of their erection, were as follows : —
Space covered,
acres. Cost.
London, 1851 20 $1,464,000
New York, 1850 5| 500,000
Paris, 1855 30 4,000,000
London, 18G2 . . 24 2,300,000
Paris, 1867 40|. 4,596,763
Vienna, 1873 50 9,850,000
The Philadelphia Exhibition Buildings will cover a much larger area. The exact cost cannot, at this writing, be stated, but the figures below are an approximation : —
Area, Probable
acres. cost.
Main building or Industrial Hall . . . .21.47 $1,500,000
Memorial Hull 1.50 1,500,000
Machinery Hall 14.00 600,000
Horticultural Hall 1 .50 253,000
Agricultural Hall . 10.15 250,000
Totals . . . 48.62 $4,103,000
Other structures, such as the Woman's Pavilion, Government, leather, carriage, and photograph buildings, an additional art building and proposed annexes to the machinery and agricultural buildings will occupy at least fourteen acres, and together with stock-yards, improvements, bridges, etc., will probably cost $2,250,000 more. So that the total space covered by the principal Exhibition Buildings will be more than sixty-two acres, — twelve acres more than the space covered by the buildings of the heretofore largest fair, at Vienna ; and the cost of the buildings will be considerably less altogether than the cost of the Vienna buildings.
A writer in the " New York World," for February 14, 1876, before the opening of the Exhibition, draws this glowing picture of what was to be ex- pected.
" Great Britain and nearly all her colonies, France and hers, — in fact, all the Euro- pean nations but one, — several Asiatic and African states, and most of the South Amer- ican countries are represented here by their agents, and will contribute to the Exhibi-
624 APPENDIX.
tion. To swell the enormous and as we shall see unprecedented show will come offerings of gold, and ivory, and gums, from torrid Barbary, and furs and feathers from Norway in the north. Egypt, now ruled by a great Khedive, has gathered together her relics of a civilization forei unning by thousands of years the birth of the Saviour of the modern world, and sends them across the Atlantic in company with specimens of products, — such as tobacco, sugar-cane, indigo, and cotton, — the culture whereof has long replaced Shat of the papyrus in regions inundated by old Nile. In the unopened boxes wliich have been received from Cairo are said to be transcendent antiques excavated from Abousambul, Alexandria, and Memphis. The Obelisk and the Pyramids have given up parts of themselves for transportation hither, and several objects illustrating the remot- est Theban past will be set down here to touch the minds of millions of people next summer with thoughts of days when Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshiped in the earliest recorded abodes of man. From the Netherlands — the ancient nurse-lands of Erasmus, Scaliger, and Grotius, of Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Van der Heist, and the modern home of Ary Scheifer and Rotterdam Sclibaaps — are on their way speci- mens of diamond-cutting and similar wondrous arts, fabrics of wool, cotton, silk, and paper, and canvasses from the choicest galleries north of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Worried though Turkey just now is, the ports of Constantinople, Trebizond, and Smyrna are full of the tumult of preparations for shipping goods through the Mediter- ranean and across the Atlantic. The odor of attar of roses is upon the deep, and the costumes of Sclaves and Roiimaniaus, Albanians, Armenians, and Circassians, Koords Gypsies, Druses, Arabs, Tartars, Syrians — all the motley nationalities of which the Osmanlis are made up — will blend their colors with the approaching kaleidoscopic scene. Siam has appropriated $100,000 to bear the expenses of her display of vases and urns, fine cloths and glass wares. The Japanese are early in the field with mate- rials for their building on the Exhibition grounds, and have devoted $600,000 to make their part in the festival a brilliant success. To the porcelain articles, lacquer work, wood and ivory carvings, and gorgeous sjjecimens of lithochroine printing, which have distinguished this singular people at European and native fairs, they will add on this oc- casion many extraordinary objects which have never before quitted the shores of their islands nor even the seclusion of certain residences there of the highest rank. The land of the Shah, whose jewels lately dazzled London, has also in preparation its tribute of silks, shawls, and felts, satins, sarcanets, and somewhat inferior brocades and velvets. If one may trust the reports current in the no longer staid Quaker City, the plateaux and mountain recesses of Persia are streaked with caravans ; the sites of Persepolis, Shahpur, and Lstakhar are turned into noisy encampments, and the Straits of Armuz and the Gulf are loud with the shouts of Tajik mariners under white sails that bend forward over costly cargoes towards the western world. Even Tunis will render store of precious metals, leather, senna, spices, and cochineal, and web-like muslins ; and the ri>ing em- pire of Brazil, of whose growth and progress we have taken too little heed, is to fling into this peaceful arena a full assortment of its agricultural products, manufactures, and arts. Italy has dedicated many of her most glorious paintings and groups of statuary to the exhibition of the arts. And for the first time since the days of the Jesuits' ascendancy in America, the walls of the art galleries of Madrid and Lisbon will loan a generous portion of their long-secluded treasures to the gaze of eyes beyond the Atlantic sea. Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Pern, Bolivia, Hayti, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Nica- ragua, Liberia, Guatemala, and Salvador, Hondura.s, the United States of Colombia, Hawaii, the Argentine Confederation, Orange Free State — these are among the coun- tries which are to be represented at the biggest World's Fair that will ever have been held."
INDEX.
A.
.'iBERCROMBiE commands Britisl^ army, 168.
Abolitionists, measures of, 414; arguments, 41G.
Acadie granted to England, 149 ; burning of, 163.
Adams, John, graduates at Harvard, 175; made foreign minister, 276; elected presi- dent, 2:t4; death, 348.
Adams, Samuel, patriotism of, 208.
Alabama secedes, 434.
Alabama, sunk bj' the Kearsarge, 561.
Albany built, 113; growth of, 181.
Algerine pirates, trouble with, 301.
Algiers attempts to lev-}' on United States, 302; war with, 305, .344.
Allen, Ethan, takes Ticonderoga, 207; taken prisoner, 216.
Alphonso, King of Portugal, 29.
American flag first designed, 219.
Ampudia, General, Mexican officer, 378.
Anderson, Major K., defends Fort Sumter, 437; in Kentucky, 467.
Andre, Major John, correspondence with Ar- nold, 254; capture of, 255; letter to Wash- ington, 257; execution, 259.
Andros, Sir Edmund, Governor of Massachu- setts Colony, 138; rebellion against him, 140.
Antietain, battle of, 506.
Archdale, John, Governor of Carolinas, 121.
Arkansas leaves the Union, 449 ; entered b}' troops, 524.
Army of the Cumberland, The, 511.
Arnold, Benedict, enlists in revolutionary army, 206 ; burns his ships on Lake Cham- plain, 225; expedition to Fort Stauwix, 230; marries Tory wife, 241; at West Point, 254; his treason, 254; escape, 256; burns Richmond, 269.
Atlanta, Sherman moves toward, 565; taking of, 567.
Austin, Stephen; colonist in Texas, 373.
Aztecs, 66.
40
B.
Bacon, Nathaniel, rebellion in Virginia, 135; death, 1.36.
Bahama Isles, 38.
Baker, Colonel, killed at Ball's Bluff, 4G8.
Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, discovers Pacific Ocean, 40.
Ball, Washington's inauguration, 287.
Baltimore, Lord, settles Maryland, 119.
Baltimore attacked by British, 337 ; riot in, 444.
Banks, General N. P., supersedes Butler at New Orleans, 494; besieges Port Hudson, 523.
Barre, Colonel, speech iu Parliament, 191.
Beauregard, General, commands in South Carolina, 439; at Manassas, 458; at Pitts- burg Landing, 484; removal of, 488.
Bee, General, at Bull Run, 4G0.
Behaim, Martin, globe of 1492, 29.
Bell, John, nominated for president, 432.
Bennington, battle of, 237.
Bentonsville, battle at, 575.
Berkeley, Sir William, Governor of Virginia, 134; hangs insurgents, 137.
Bimini, Island of, discovered, 38.
Blagdensburg, repulse of Americans; 334.
Bloody Brook, battle of, 131.
Bobadilla, Francis, arrests Columbus, 34.
Bon IJomme Richard fights Scrapie, 249.
Boone, Daniel, in Kentucky, 289.
Booth, John Wilkes, murders Lincoln, 584 ; capture and death, 585.
Boston, settled, 102; description in 1760, 174; massacre, 192; Port Bill, 194; evacuated by the British, 219.
Braddock, General, commands British in Vir- ginia. 161.
Bradford, William, second Governor of Plym- outh Colony, 99.
Bragg, General, at Buena Vista, 388; re- treat through Tennessee, 540; proclamation, 509.
Brandywiiie, battle of, 2-30.
Brant, John, Indian ally of British, 234.
626
INDEX.
Breckenridge, John, nominated for president, 431.
Broadway, aspect in eighteenth centmy, 179.
Brooks, Preston, beats Charles Sumner, 420.
Brown, John, emigrates to Kansas, 422; leads slaves to Canada, 426; Harper's Ferry raid, 427; execution, 430; song, 570.
Buchanan, James, elected president, 426.
Buckner, General, attempts capture of Louis- ville, 467.
Buena Vista, battle of, 387.
Bull Run, defeat at, 461; second battle of, 500.
Bunker Hill, battle of, 209 ; monument, 211.
Burgoj-ne, General John, sent to America, 232 ; surrender of, 238.
Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 418.
Burnsidc, General Ambrose, takes Newbern, 479 ; supersedes McClellan, 506.
Burr, Aaron, march to Quebec, 216 ; duel with Hamilton, 307; arrest for treason, 308.
Burroughs, Rev. George, hanged for witch- craft, 144.
Butler, General B. F., opposes secession, 446; commands at Fortress Monroe, 451; at Hatteras Inlet, 469; expedition to New Orleans, 489; liis administration in New Orleans, 494.
Butler, John, leader at Wyoming massacre, 242.
Butler, Zebulon, bravery at Wyoming, 242.
C.
Cabot, John, sails for North America, 50. Cabot, Sebastian, discovers Labrador, 50. Calhoun, John C, leader of "Nuliifiers,"
360. California, Drake lands there, 62; conquest
of, 386 ; gold discovered, 398; admitted to
the Union, 401. Calvert, Cecil, Lord Baltimore, sends colony
to Maryland, 119 ; liberality of his laws, 120. Calvert, Leonard, leads colony to Maryland,
119. Camden, battle of, 265. Canada, refuses to join the thirteen colonies,
217. Canbv, General, commands at Mobile, 576. Cano, Sebastian del, 42. Canoes, Indian, 68. Cape Verde Islands, 33.
Carolinas, settlement of by Ribault, 54; grant _ of, by Charles II., 121. Carolina, North, settled at Albemarle, 121. Carolina, South, settled at Charleston, 121. Carteret, Sir George, gets grants of New
Jersey, 118. Cartier, Jacques, discovery of Canada, 51;
other voyages, 52.
Carver, John, first Governor of Plymout Colony, 99.
Cavaliers, description of, 93.
Cedar Mountain, battle of, 500.
Cerro Gordo, assault, 391.
Champe, John, pretended deserter, 258.
Champlain, Samuel, fight on Lake Cham- plain, 151.
Champlain, Lake, battle of, 339.
Chancellorsville, battle of, 525.
Chapultepec, storming of, 395.
Charles I. of England, gives charter to Roger Williams, 105; beheaded, 108.
Charles II., made King of England, 117; grants lands to Penn, 122.
Charles V. of Germany, 41.
Charleston, South Carolina, settled, 121 ; taken bj' British, 251 ; celebration in, 274; bombardment of, 534.
Charlestown, Massachusetts, settled, 102.
Charter Oak, story of, 140.
Chattanooga Valley, Bragg at, 541.
Chicago, slaughter at, 319.
Chickamauga Valley, retreat at, 543.
Chippewa, battle of, 332.
Christina, Queen of Sweden, 115.
Churubusco, fight at, 393.
Clarke, George Rogers, takes Vincennes, 245.
Clay, Henry, in Congress, 361.
Clayboiirne, William, incites insurrection in Maryland, 120.
Clinton, Sir Henry, leads his fleet to South Carolina, 220; takes Charleston, 251.
Cockburn, Admiral, in Virginia waters, 333.
Cold Harbor, battle of, 553.
Coligny, Admiral, sends colony to Florida, 53; death, 58.
Collins, Captain, commander of the Wcuhu- sett, 562.
Columbus, Bartholomew, made Governor of New Spain, 33 ; goes to England, 49.
Columbus, Christopher, birth, 26 ; career as sailor, 27; goes to Spain, 30; sets sail from Palos 31; discovers land, 32; story of the egg, 34; disgrace, 34: death, 35.
Columbus, Diego, 30.
Columbus, Ferdinand, 35.
Congress, seat of, 296.
Connecticut, settled, 106; preserves her char- ter, 139.
Constitution, adoption of new, 285.
Constitution, sailing of the, 320.
Continent, first journey across, 298.
Continental (-ongress, assembled, 194; mem- bers, 195; resolutions, 196; second meet- ing, 204; Declaration of Independence pre- sented and passed, 221; vacates Philadel- phia, 230.
Continental money, worthlessness of, 243.
INDEX.
627
Contreras, attack on, 393.
Couventiou for drafting the Constitution,
284. Corinth, gathering of rebel armies, 482;
rebels decamping from, 488; battle of, 511. Cornwallis, Lord, sends troops to attack
Washington, 227; fortilies Yorktown, 271;
campaign in South Carolina, 260; suiTen-
der of, 273. Cortereal, Caspar, discovers St. Lawrence
Kiver, 36. Cortez, Hernandez, conquest of Mexico, 43,
65; in Mexico, 371. Cotton plant introduced into South Carolina,
185. Cowpens, battle of, 263. Cromwell, Oliver, becomes Lord Protector of
England, 108. Crown Point, captured by Ethan Allen, 206. Cumberland, sinking of, 480. Curtis, General, marches on General Price,
477.
D.
Da Gama, Vasco, 33.
Dahlgren, Admiral, renews bombardment of
Charleston, 534. Dahlgren, Colonel, defeat and death, 546. Dale, Sir Thomas, Governor of Virginia, 83. Dallas, Alexander, plans a new government
bank, 357. Dare, Ellinor, mother of iirst white child, 64. Dare, Virginia, first child born in Virginia,
64. Darien, Isthmus of, 35. Darrali, Lydia, patriotic conduct, 231. Daughters of Liberty, 191. Davis, Jefferson, President of Southern Con-
federacj', 434; capture of, 587. Deane, Silas, commissioner to France, 240. "Decatur, Captain, captures British frigate,
322; sent to Algiers, 345. De la Ware, comes to Virginia, 83. Delaware, becomes a separate colony, 125. Delaware Bay, settlement on, 115. Delaware River, Washington crosses, 226. D'Estaing, Count, joins American cause, 241. De Soto, see Soto. De Vaca, Cabeija, crosses the continent, 44;
meets De Soto, 45. Donelson, Fort, capture of, 476. Doniphan, march of, 389. Dorchester Heights fortified bv Washington,
218. Dorchester, Massachusetts, settled, 102. Dorsetshire, emigration from, 106. Douglas, Stephen, Kansas Nebraska Bill,
419. Draft, conditions of the, 530.
Drake, Francis, Sir, attacks the Spaniards, 59; succors Kaleigh's colony, 62.
Dumont, Colonel, attacks Philippi, 454.
Dupont, Admiral, commands expedition to Sea Islands, 470 ; at Morris Island, 534.
Dustin, Hannah, prisoner among Indians, 147.
Dyer, Mary, hanging of, 123.
E.
Early, General, advances toward Washington, 554.
Edward VI. of England, 91.
Eliot, John, Apostle of the Indians, 102.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, 59; Virginia named in her honor, 62 ; succeeds Edward, 92.
Ellsworth, Col. Ephraim E., death, 451.
Emancipation Proclamation, 516.
Endicott, John, settles in Salem, 101.
England claims North America, 50 ; at war with Holland, 138; war with France, (1689), 146; forced to obtain peace, 274; outrages on American sailors, 314; second war with United States, 316.
Erie, battle of Lake, 329.
Evans, General, at Bull Run, 460.
Evans, Oliver, his road engine, 355.
Everett, Edward, nominated for vice-presi- dent, 432.
Fair Oaks, battle of, 498.
Faneuil, Peter, builder of Faneuil Hall, 175.
Faneuil Hall, cradle of liberty, 192.
Farragut, arrival of, at Ship Island, 490; in Mobile Bay, 563.
Fashions and changes in clothes, 287.
Federal Union formed, 204.
Federalists and their leader, 315.
Ferdinand of Aragon, 31; his neglect of Columbus, 35.
Ferguson, Colonel, bravado of, 261.
Field, Cyrus W., originates Atlantic tele- graphs, 588.
Fillmore, Millard, becomes president, 402.
First bloodshed in Revolution, 203.
Fitch, John, attempts at steamboat naviga- tion, 309.
Florida, steamship, captured, 562.
Florida, discovered, 38; explored by Narvaez, 44; explored by De Soto, 45; Ribault's colony, 54; St. Augustine built, 55; Spain, relinquishes possession, 347 ; secession, 434.
Floyd, John B., at Carnifax Ferry, 456; in command at Fort Donelson, 475.
Foote, Commodore, sent to Tennessee, 473; arrival at Island No. 10, 486 ; sails to Mem- phis, 488 ; death of, 534.
628
INDEX.
Forrest, General, makes stand iu Selma, 577; attack on Fort Pillow, 559; raid through Tennessee, 558; retreat from Fort Anderson, 558
Fort Blakeley, taking of, 577.
Fort Brown, built on Kio Grande, 376.
Fort Crown Point, situation of, 167.
Fort Duquesne, site of Pittsburg, 160; at- tacked b}' Braddock, 161.
Fort Forty, in Wyoming massacre, 243.
Fort Frontenac, built bj' La Salle, 167.
Fort Gaines, su jnaer of, 564.
Fort Griswold, slaughter at, 269.
Fort Henry, attack on, 473 ; surrender of, 474.
Fort Jackson, bombardment of, 491.
Fort Leavenworth, situation of, 380.
Fort McAllister taken, 572.
Fort Morgan, surrender of, 564.
Fort Moultrie besieged by rebels, 438.
Fo.t Pillow, Foote takes it, 488; butcherj' at, 559.
Fort Powell blown up, 564.
Fort Saunders, assault on, 543.
Fort St. Philip, surrender of, 493.
Fort Stanwix, attack on, 235.
Fort Sullivan, attack by Sir H. Clinton, 220.
Fort Sumter fired upon, 438.
Fort Ticonderoga, situation of, 167.
Fort Vincennes captured by Americans, 245.
Fort William Henry built, 168.
Fortress Monroe, Butler takes command, 451.
France, possessions in America, 158; loses her lands in North America, 173; effect of French Revolution on America, 293; a threatened war with, 295.
Franklin, Benjamin, account of early life, 182 : made postmaster of colonies, 206 ; commissioner in France, 240; at the court of France, 275 ; his three articles of peace, 278; opposes slavery, 406.
Frazer, burial of, 238.
Fredericksbu7-g, attack on, 507.
Free trade, clamor for by the South, 359.
Fremont, John C, explores Rocky Mountains, 385; conquest of California, 386; nominated for president, 426 ; in command in Missouri, 465 ; deposed, 465.
Frenchtown, slaughter at, 323.
Frietchie, Barbara, her patriotism, 501.
Fugitive Slave Law, 418.
Fulton, Robert, experiments in steamboat- ing, 309.
G.
Gage, Governor, of Massachusetts, 193; sends troops to Concord, 198; issues proclamation, 207.
Gansevoort, Colonel, defends Fort Stanwix, 234.
Garner, Margaret, story of, 419.
Garnett, General, death of, 455.
Garrison, William Lloyd, mobbed in Boston, 414.
Gates, General Horatio, aids in organizing army, 212; victory over Burgoyne, 238; sent to oppose Cornwallis, 260.
Gates, Sir Thomas, shipwreck, 82; comes to Virginia, 83.
Genoa, birthplace of Columbus, 29.
George H., King of England, 126 ; death, 185.
George IH., accession to throne, 185.
Georgia, settled, 126 ; secession of, 434.
Germantown, battle of, 230.
Gettysburg, battle of, 527 ; horrors of battle- field, 528; consecration of national ceme- tery, 529.
Gibson, Fort, taking of, 521.
Gilbert, Humphrey, gets patent for discovery, . 59; reaches Newfoundland, 60; ship- wreck, 61.
Glass-making in Virginia, 86.
Goffe, William, regicide, 132.
Gorges, Fernando, gets land grants in Maine and New Hampshire, 107; sends colonies to Maine, 108.
Gosnold, Bartholomew, goes to Virginia, 75; member of first council, 76.
Gourgues, Dominic de, revenges his country- men, 57.
Government, forming a new, 283.
Grant, General, occupies Paducah, 466 ; plan of attack in Kentucky, 473; loses supplies at Holly Springs, 519; at Chattanooga, 542; made lieutenant-general of the Union armies, 548; plan against Lee's army, 549; his measures against Lee, 552; before Rich- mond, 579; receives Lee's surrender, 581; elected president, 586.
Greeley, Horace, New York riot, 532.
Green Mountain Boys, 206.
Greene, General, campaign in South Carolina, 261.
Grenville, Richard, goes with Raleigh's col- ony, 62.
Guerrillas, their warfare in Missouri, 478.
Gueniere, capture of, 321.
Guilford Court House, South Carolina, de- feat at, 265.
Gulf of Mexico, -39.
Gulf of St. Lawrence discovered, 37.
H.
Hale, Nathan, fate of, 256.
Hamilton, xV., secretary of treasury, 287; duel
with Burr, 307. Hampton Roads, arrival of one hundred ships,
479.
INDEX.
629
Hancock, John, graduated at Harvard, 175; president Massachusetts Assembly, 208.
Harper's Ferry, description of, 427; sur- render, 505; recapture, 506.
Harrison, William H., elected president, 368; death of, 369 ; pursuit of Proctor and Te- cuniseh, 331.
Hartford, flag-ship of Farragut, 563.
Harvard College founded, 175.
Hayti discovered, 32.
Hazen, General, attacks Fort McAllister, 572.
Hendrick, King, death of, 165.
Hennepin, Louis, explores to Falls of St. An- thony, 157.
Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, 119.
Henry VII. of England, 30; Bartholomew Columbus applies to him, 49; sends Cabot to North America, 50.
Henry VIII. of England, 91.
Henry, Prince, of Portugal, 28.
Henry, Patrick, orator of Virginia, 185; speech for freedom, 189.
Herkimer, General, brave death, 235.
Hessians, capture of, 226.
Hispaniola discovered, 32; colony of, 33.
Holland, pilgrims in, 94; description of; 109.
Hood, General, defeated at Nashville, 568.
Hooker, General, crosses Rappahannock, 525.
Hopkins, Esek, commands American navy, 246.
Hornet, battle with Peacock, 326.
Houston, Samuel, leader in Texas, 374.
Howe, Admiral, brings fleet to New York, 228.
Howe, General, evacuates Boston, 219; enters Trenton, 225.
Howe, Lord, killed at Ticonderoga, 170.
Howe, Mrs., story of her captivity, 168.
Hudson, Henrj', explores Hudson River, 111; in Hudson Bay, 112.
Hudson, Fort, surrender of, 523.
Hudson River, discovered, 111.
Huguenots in France, 53.
Hull, Captain, naval victor}"-, 321.
Hull, General, surrenders Detroit, 317.
Hunter, General, at Bull Run, 459; Foily Island, 534.
Hutchinson, Anne, banishment, 103 ; massa- cre, 115. Hutchinson, Thomas, Governor of Massa- chusetts, 188; house mobbed by patriots, 189.
L
Icelanders said to have discovered America,
25. Independence declared, 221. India, 28.
Indian corn introduced into Europe, 66.
Indians, description of, so called by Colum- bus, 32; different tribes of, 05; personal appearance, 66; houses and dress, 67; car noes, 68; food, 69; implements, 70; dances, 71; religion, 72.
Indians, treaty with, 345; hostilities toward settlers, 290.
Indian wars in Jackson's administration, 364.
Isabella of Castile, patron of Columbus, 31; her death, 35.
Island No. 10, fortifications on, 486 ; captured, 487.
J.
Jackson, General Andrew, representative from Tennessee, 292; fights the Indians, 346 ; elected president, 353 ; war with the United States Bank, 358; Nullifiers, 362.
Jackson, Claiborne F., Governor of Missouri, 462.
Jackson, General, Thomas, at Bull Run, 460; takes Harper's Ferry, 505; death, 525.
James I. succeeds Elizabeth, 74; persecutes the Puritans, 94; gives grants in America, 107.
James II., Duke of York, New York named for him, 118 ; made king, 138 ; deposed, 139.
Jamestown settled, 75.
Jasper, Sergeant, brave deed of, 220; death, 244.
Jay, .John, his services to the colonies, 277.
Jefferson, Thomas, at William and Marj-'s College, 185; member Continental Con- gress, 204 ; Governor of Virginia, 269 ; po- litical beliefs, 286; elected president, 297; second term, 300; death, 348; opposition to slavery, 406.
Jesuits in America, 152 ; good work of mis- sionaries, 153.
Jogues, Isaac, sufferings from Indians, 152.
John II., King of Portugal, 30.
Johnson, Andrew, becomes president, 586.
Johnson, Sir William, influence with Indians, 161; description of, 164.
Johnston, General A. S., in Kentucky, 476; killed at Pittsburg Landing, 485.
Johnston, General Joseph E., at Bull Run, 459; removed from command, 567; last ef- fort in South Carolina, 573.
Joliet, Louis, journey down Mississippi River, 154.
Jones, John Paul, battle with Serapis, 249.
Jones, Captain, naval success, 322.
K.
Kalb, Baron de, enters American army, 229. Kansas, emigration to, 421; civil war, 424.
630
INDEX.
Kearney, Captain Philip, in Mexico, 394.
Kearney, General Stephen, conquest of New Mexico, 382.
Kelly, General, wounded, 454.
Kendall, George, goes to Virginia, 75; mem- ber of first coiuicil in Virginia, 76.
Kenesaw Mountain, battle of, 566.
Kentucky becomes a State, 291; neutrality of, 467.
Key, Francis Scott, writes " Star Spangled Banner," 338.
Kieft, William, Governor of New York, 114.
Kilpatrick, General, raid in Virginia, 544; in Sherman's armj^, 570.
King George's War, 149.
King's Mountain, battle of, 261.
King William's War, 148.
Kipp's Landing, 223.
Kosciusko, Thaddeus, joins Americans, 262.
L.
Labrador discovered, 36.
Lafayette, Marquis de, arrival in America, 229; wounded at Brandy wine, 230; in France, 292 ; visit to America, 347.
La Salle, Chevalier Robert, explores Missis- sippi River, 155; murder of, 156.
Laudonniere, Renh de, commands Huguenot colony, 55.
Laurens, Henry, his services and capture, 276.
Lawrence, Captain James, death of, 327.
Lawrence, Kansas, besieged by Missourians, 425; sack of, 539.
Lee, Arthur, commissioner to France, 240.
Lee, Charles, assists in organizing army, 212.
Lee, Richard Henry, rising lawyer in Virginia, 185.
Lee, Major Henry, attempts to take Arnold, 258.
Lee, General Robert E., joins rebel cause, 456 ; made general-in-chief , 498 ; march to Pennsylvania, 526 ; march to Maryland, 501. surrender of, 581.
Lexington, battle of, 204.
Lexington, Mississippi, taken by rebels, 465.
Libby Prison, 545.
Lincoln, General, plans siege of Savannah, 244; besieged in Cliarleston, 251.
Lincoln, Abraham, debates with Douglas, 420; earlj' life, 432; election, 434; inaug- ural speech, 436; emancipation proclama- tion, 516; last speech, 583; murder of, 584.
Locke, John, makes laws for Carolinas, 121.
London Company colonize Virginia, 75.
Longfellow, H. W., ballad of "Humphrey Gilbert," 61; "Evangeline," 163; "Paul Revere's Ride," 199.
Lookout Mountain, battle of, 543. Louisiana receives its name, 156; purchase
of, 298; secession of, 434; uprising in,
523. Louisville, Kentucky, guarded by Anderson,
467. Lovejoy, Elijah, killing of, 414. Lucas, Eliza, introduces cotton, 185. Lundy, Benjamin, first abolitionist, 413. Lundy's Lane, battle of, 333. Luther, Martin, called a fanatic, 414. Lynn, Massachusetts, settled, 102. Lyons, General Nathaniel, guards St. Louis,
463 ; killed, 464.
M.
Macdonough, Commodore, naval battle of,
340. Madison, James, elected president, 311; at
battle of Blagdensburg, 334. Magellan, vovage around the world, 41. Magellan, Straits of, discovered, 42. Magoffin, Beriah, Governor of Kentucky', 467. Mails, colonial, 206.
Maine, settled, 108; purchase by Massachu- setts, 134. Manhattan Island, settled, 113; bought of
Indians, 114. Marion, Francis, story of, 252. Marquette, James, explores Mississippi River,
154. Martin, John, member of Virginia council,
75. Mary, Queen of England, 91; called " Bloody
Mary," 92. Maryland, settled, 119; liberal laws, 120;
invaded by rebels, 501. Mason, James, captured b}' Wilkes, 470. Mason, John, proprietor of New Hampshire,
108. Massachusetts, settled, 96 ; suffering in King
Philip's War, 133; buys province of Maine,
134; abolishes slaverj^, 405, Massachusetts Bay Colony formed, 102. Massasoit makes treaty with English, 99. Matthew, Captain, planter in Virginia, 89. Mayflower sets sail, 95. McClellan, General G. B., in West Virginia,
454; made general-in-chief, 468; failures
in peninsular campaign, 498; advance on
Manassas, 496 ; at Antietam, 503 ; replaced
by Burnside, 506. McCulloch, General Benjamin, distress in his
arm}', 463; death, 478. McDowell, General, commands in Virginia.
457. McHenry, Fort, bombardment of, 337. McPherson, General, death of, 567.
INDEX.
asi
Meade, General George G., commands at Get- tysburg, 527.
Mercer, General Hugh, death of, 228.
Merrimack, rebel iron-clad, 480; depreda- tions of, 481.
Mexico, invaded by Cortez, 43, 371; history of, 372.
Millen, prison pen at, 571.
Minuit, Peter, brings Swedish colony to New Jersey, 115.
Mississippi River, discovered, 47.
Mississippi secedes, 434.
Missouri, neutrality of, 462; Halleck com- mands tliere, 477; rebel element in, 560.
Missouri Compromise, 408; repeal of, 419.
Missouri River, discover}' of its source, 300.
Mob in New York, 531.
Moffat, Captain John, his reputation, 562.
Monitor, fights with Merrimack, 482.
Monmouth, battle of, 240.
Monroe, James, elected president, 345; Mon- roe doctrine, 348.
Montcalm, General, besieges Fort William Henry, 169 ; killed at Quebec, 172.
Monterey, siege of, 379.
Montgomery, General, gallant death of, 217.
Montreal discovered by Cartier, 52; taken by Montgomery, 216.
Morgan, John, raid of, 537; capture, 538.
Morris, Robert, services in Revolution, 277.
Morristown, Washington's head-quarters, 250.
Morse, Samuel F. B., invention of telegraph, 370.
Moultrie, Colonel, defends Charleston, 220.
Mulligan, Colonel, holds his post at Lexing- ton, 465.
Mumfordsville captured, 509.
Murfreesboro', battle of, 512.
Murray, Mrs. Robert, saves the army, 224.
Mutiny in Revolutionary War, 250.
N.
Narvaez, Pamphilo de, explores Florida, 44.
Nashville, besieged by Hood, 568.
Newbern, capture of, 479.
New England named, 90.
New France, Canada so called, 108.
New Hampshire, settled, 108 ; a royal colony, 134; revolutionary outbreak, 189; abol- ishes slavery, 405.
New Haven Colony formed, 107.
New Jersey, tour through, 181; militia in Revolution, 228.
New Orleans, .Jackson defends it, 342 : battle of, 343; taken by Farragut and Butler, 493.
Newport, Christopher, member of Virginia council, 76.
Newport taken by British, 225.
New York city, in 1760, 179 ; held by British, 224; evacuation by British, 279; rejoicing in, 279.
New York, first settled, 113; patriotic mobs, 189; abolishes slavery, 405.
Nina, ship in fleet of Columbus, 31.
North Carolina settled, 121; secession of, 449.
Norwegians said to discover America, 25.
Nova Scotia, formerly called Acadia, 149.
Nulliiiers of South Carolina, Jackson's treat- ment of, 359.
O.
Oglethorpe, General James, founder of Georgia, 126; treaty with Indians, 127; refuses to fight against colonies, 207; for- bids slavery, 404.
Ohio Land Company, 288.
Ohio, made a State, 297.
Opecancanough succeeds Powhatan, 84.
Orinoco River discovered, 34.
Ortiz, John, story of, 46.
Osceola, chief of Seminoles, 364.
Otis, James, argument on writs of assist- ance, 188; death, 196.
P.
Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 40.
Pacific Railroad built, 589.
Pakenham, Sir Edward, at New Orleans,
342; death, 344. Palo Alto, battle of, 376. Palos, Columbus sets sail from, 31. Panama, Isthmus, 35. Panic, financial, 367. Parties, two political, 286. Patapsco River, 337. Patterson, General, fails to join McDowell,
459. Paulding, John, one of Andre's captors, 255. Peace, proclamation of, 278; celebration of,
344. Peacock, naval battle of, 326. Pea Ridge, battle of, 478. Pegram, General, surrenders, 454. Penn, Admiral, father of William Penn, 123. Penn, William, turns Quaker, 123; buys
land in North America, 124. Pennsylvania settled, 124; origin of name,
125; riflemen in Revolutionary War, 214;
abolishes slavery, 405. Perry, Oliver, at battle of Lake Erie, 328;
death of, 345. Peru entered by Pizarro, 40; conquest of, 43.
632
INDEX.
Petersburg, Union army besiege, 556. I
Phelps, General, encamped on Ship Island, I
496. Philnddphia, burning of the ship, 305. Philadelphia, laid out, 125; appearance in
1760, 181; taken by British, 230; occupied
by Washington, 241. Philip, King, son of Massasoit, 130; makes
war on colonies, 131 ; death of, 132. Philippi, battle of, 454. Phillips, Wendell, speech in Faneuil Hall,
415. Pierce, Franklin, made president, 403 ; friend
to the South, 417. Pilgrims, embark for America, 95; settle at
Plymouth, 96. Pillow, General, in rebel army, 467. Pinta, ship of Columbus, 31. Pinzon, Alonzo, friend of Columbus, 31 ; goes
on voyages, 36. Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, commands the
Nina, 31; voyage to South America, 36. Pirates, encroachments of, 345. Pitcher, Molly, at Monmouth, 241. Pitt, Sir William, minister of George III.,
186 ; speech in Parliament, 196. Pittsburg Landing, battle of, 484. Pizzaro, Francis, enters Peru, 40; conquest, 43. Planters in Virginia, 84. Plattsburg, battle of, 340. Plymouth Company formed, 75. Plymouth Colony settled, 96. Pocahontas, saves John Smith, 81; marries,
83; in England, 91. Polk, James K., made president, 375; end
of administration, 396. Polk, General Leonidas, sent to Island No.
10, 476; killed, 567. Polo, Marco, travels in India, 28. Ponce de Leon, Juan, discovers Florida, 38. Pope, General John, victory at New Madrid,
486; commands in Virginia, 499. Porter, Commodore, at Vicksburg, 520. Porto Ptico, 38. Portugal, Columbus at court of , 29; rivalry
of Spain, 33. Potatoes discovered, 41. Powhatan spares Smith, 81 ; death of, 84, Prester John, 28.
Price, General Sterling, neutrality of, 463. Princeton, battle of, 228. Prison pens in the South, 544. Prison ships, condition of, 225. Protective tariff passed, 359. Protestants in Englnnd, 92. Providence, built, 105. Pulaski, Count, enters American army. 229;
death of, 244. Puritans, description of, 93; settle in Hol-
land, 94; emigration to New England, 101; persecutions, 103. Putnam, Israel, wolf story, 212; in New York, 219; narrow escape, 224.
Q.
Quakers, persecution of, 123.
Quantrell's raid, 538.
Quebec built, 53; taken by English, 17/
American defeat there, 217. Queen Anne's War, 148. Queenstown, expedition to, 319. Quincy, J., leader of Federalists, 315.
R.
Railways, introduction of, 354.
Raisin, River, massacre on the, 325.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, in Paris, 59; buys Humphrej' Gilbert's commission, 61 ; sends colonies, 62, 63; death, 65; introduces smoking in England, 86.
Randolph, Peyton, rising lawyer in Virginia, 185.
Ratcliffe, John, member of council in Vir- ginia, 76.
Red River expedition, 558.
Reed, General, his loyalty to his country, 241.
Republicans, Henry Clay leader, 315 ; elect Lincoln, 434.
Resaca de la Palm a, battle of, 377.
Resaca, fight at, 566.
Revere, Paul, ride to Lexington, 199.
Rhode Island, settled, 105; gets royal char- ter, 105; abolishes slavery, 405.
Ribault, builds Fort Caroline, 54 ; second visit to Florida, 55; massacre, 56.
Richmond, rebel capital, 457; McClellan's march on, 496 ; last siege, 579 ; evacuation, 580.
Ridesel, General, commands Hessian troops, 234.
Riot in New York city, 532.
Rochambeau, Count de, conies from Franre. 253 ; march to Virginia, 271.
Rolfe, John, marries Pocahontas, 83.
Roqtie, De la, founds Quebec, 53.
Rosencrans in Virginia, 454; succeeds Buell, 510; provisions Nashville, 512; march through Tennessee, 540 ; at Chattanooga, 542. '
Ross, General, commands British troops, 334; death of, 337.
S.
St. Augustine, building of, 55.
St. Clair, General, evacuates Ticonderoga, 234.
INDEX.
633
Salzburgers emigrated to Georgia, 12R.
Sanitary Commission, worlc of, 528.
San Salvador discovered, 32.
Santa Anna, Mexican patriot, 387; evacu- ates Mexico, ;J96.
Santa Maria, sliip of Columbus, 31.
Saratoga, battle of, 237.
Savannah settled, 126 ; siege of, 244 ; British give up, 274.
Schuyler, General Phillip, treats with Mo- hawk Indians, 215; stationed at Fort Ed- ward, 233 ; superseded by Gates, 237.
Scott, General Winfield, sent to the Indians, 364; at Lake Ontario, 332; campaign in Mexico, 390; general-in-chief, 445.
Selma taken by Unionists, 577.
Seminoles, insurrection of tlie, 346.
Seninies, Ilapliael, commands Alabama, 561.
Serapis, battle with Bo7i Homme Richard, 249.
Settlers, new, trials of, 289.
Seven Days' Retreat, 498.
Seventh New York Regiment, march of, 446.
Sheridan's ride, 555; at Five Forks, 580.
Sherman, General, in Kentucky, 467; takes command in the West, 564; march to At- lanta, 565; march to sea, 569; enters Sa- vannah, 572.
Ship Island, fortifications on, 489.
Shirley, Governor, of Massachusetts, 161.
Sigel, General F., leads lo\'al Germans, 463.
Slave trade, horrors of, 406.
Slavery, beginning of, 403; history, 408.
Slavery introduced into colonics, 87.
Slaves, their connection with the war, 514 , loyalty to the Union, 515 ; emancipation of, 516; regiments organized, 517.
Slidell, John, sent to France, 470.
Smith, Captain John, sails for Virginia, 75; adventures in Europe, 76 ; work in the Jamestown colony, 80 ; prisoner among Indians, 81; goes to New England, 90.
Smith, Gerrit, early alioHsionist, 423.
Smith, Kirby, at Bull Run, 461; enters Frank- fort, 509.
Soniers, Sir George, shipwrecked, 82 ; comes to Virginia, 83.
Soto, Ferdinand de, in Peru with Pizarro, 45; sets sail for Florida, 45; finds the Mis- sissippi River, 47; death of, 48.
South, clamor for free trade by the, 359.
South Carolina, patriotism of women of, 263; signs of insurrection in, 362; affairs in, 260; secedes, 434.
Spain, Columbus goes thither, .30; sovereigns of, 31.
Spanish Fort, taking of, 577.
Speedwell sets sail for America, 95.
Stamp Act passed, 188 ; repealed, 192.
Standish, Miles, soldier of Plj'mouth Colony,
99. Standish, Rose, wife of Miles, 99. Stark, General John, speech at Bennington,
237. Steam, introduction of, 308; land travel by,
354. Steamer, first river, 310. Steinheil, Professor, his telegraphic sj'stem,
370. Stephens, Alexander, of Georgia, 434. Stephenson, George, his efforts in steam trav- eling, 356. Steuben, Baron, military disciplinarian, 251;
in military tribunal which condemns Andre,
257. Stony Point, capture of, 245. Stuyvesant, Peter, Governor of New York,
117. Sumner, Charles, beaten by Brooks, 420. Swedes, purchase New Jersey, 116.
Tarleton, Colonel, massacres militia, 252.
Taxation of colonies, 186.
Taylor, Dick, General, command in Alabama,
577. Taylor, Zachary, nicknamed "Old Zach,"
375; marches to Rio Grande, 376; elected
president, 397 ; death, 401. Tea taxed, 193. Tecumseh, treaty with, 312 ; allied against
Americans, 317 ; killed, 331. Telegraph, introduction of, 367; laying first
wire, 368; Atlantic cable, 589. » Tennessee becomes a State, 291; secedes, 449. Terra del Fuego, 42 Texas, troubles about annexation, 371;
made a State, 396 ; secedes, 434. Thames, battle of the, 331 Thomas, General, defends Nashville, 568. Ticonderoga taken b}' Ethan Allen, 207. Tobacco introduced into England, 86; wives
bought with it, 88. Tories, persecution of, 197; departure from
Boston, 218. Tournament in Philadelphia, 2-39. Townsend, Charles, on American affairs, 190. Tienton, battle of, 226. Tryon, Tory Governor of New Y'ork', 2.32. Turner, John, picture of, 407. Twiggs, General, joins rebel cause, 437. Tyler, John, becomes president, 369.
U.
United States Bank, Jackson's war on, 357. Utrecht, peace of, 149.
b34
INDEX.
Vallej' Forge, suffering of American army tiiere, 239.
Van Buren M., elected president, 364; and opposes Texas annexation, 374.
Van Wert, Isaac, one of Andre's captors, 255.
Vera Cruz, siege of, 390.
Vermont buys her independence, 291; volun- teers from, 339 ; opposition to slavery, 405.
Verrazano, Juan, discovers New York, 51.
Vespucci, tirst voyage, 35; America named for him, 36.
Viclisburg, plan of siege, 520; taken, 522.
Virginia named for the queen, 62; perma- nent settlement, 75; planters in, 85; Ba- con's rebellion, 135 ; condition in 1760, 183; first meeting held, 189 ; slaves landed, 403; prosperity with slave labor, 411; secession, 448.
W.
Wach^^sett, ship, takes the Florida, 562. Wallace, General Lew., protects Cincinnati,
509. Warner, Seth, at Bennington, 237. Warren, Joseph, killed at Bunker Hill, 211. Washington city, invasion of, 337. Washington, George, expedition to the Ohio, 159 ; services in French and Indian war, 160; planter on Potomac, 184; made com- mander-in-cluef, 205; muster of his army, 212; fortities Dorchester Heights, 218; enters Boston, 219 ; in New York, 223 ; re- treat through Jersey, 225 ; crosses the Dela- ware, 226; piety, 240; revolt in his armies, 268; march to Yorktown, 271; disbanding of army, 279; inaugurated president, 285; re-elected, 291; expiration of term, 294; death, 296 ; letter to Lafayette, 406. Washington, John, fights Indians in Mary- land, 135. Watertown, Massachusetts, settled, 102. Watt, James, experiments with steam, 174;
his invention, 308.
Wayne, General Anthony, storms Stony
Point, 245; mutiny among his troops, 267;
. expedition against Indians, 290; death, 291.
Webster, Daniel, his oratory, 361; speech for
the Union, 363. Wellington, Duke of, his troops in Virginia,
333. Wesley, John, in Georgia Colony, 128. West Country people, emigration to Connect- icut, 106. West Indian Company, 113.
West Indies, name, 32.
West Virginia made a State, 449.
Whalley, Edward, the regicide, 132.
Whigs in Revolution, 197.
Whiskey Insurrection, 294.
White, John, colony in Virginia, 63.
White Plains, V»^ashington encamped at, 224
Whittier, John, poet of anti-slavery cause,
415; " Barbara Frietchie," .501. Wigfall, General, goes to Sumter, 439. Wilderness, battle of, 551. Wilkes, Captain, takes Mason and Slidell, 471. William and Mary, sovereigns of England,
121, 139. Williams, Daniel, one of Andre's captors, 255. Williams, Colonel Ephraim, founds Williams
College, 165. Williams, Roger, minister in Salem, 104;
settles Rhode Island, 105. Wilson, General James, in Alabama, 577. Winchester, battle of, 554. Winder, General, mustei-s troops, 333. Windsor, first town in Connecticut, settled,
107. Wingfield, Edward, first Governor of Virginia,
76. Winslow, Captain, captures Alabama, 561. Winslow, General, expedition to Acadie, 162. Winslow, Josiah, commands in King Philip's
War, 133. Winthrop, John, Governor of Massachusetts
Bay Colony, 103. Winthrop, Theodore, letter of, 446; heroic
death of, 453. Wisconsin admitted, 396. Wise, General Henry, encamped in West
Virginia, 455. Witchcraft in Salem, 141. Wolfe, General James, takes Quebec, 172. Women of the South, devotion of, 549. Wool, General, march througli Texas, 386; work in civil war, 445; commands at For- tress Monroe, 469 Worth, General, at Monterey, 379. Wyoming massacre, 242.
Yale College founded, 178. Yorktown, Cornwallis fortifies, 271 ; siege and victory, 272 ; undecisive battle of, 497.
Zagonyi, Major Charles, commands Fre- mont's body guard, 465. ZoUicoffer, Felix, march in Kentucky, 467.
INDEX.
636
INDEX TO CHAPTERS LXI.-LXIII.
Alabama Claims, 598. Alaska, purchase of, 589. Atlantic cable laid, 586.
Board of Arbitration meet at Geneva, 599.
Boston, great (ire in, GOl.
Brownlow, Governor, his efforts to suppress
the Ku Klux, 591. Bunker Hill, Centennial anniversary of the
battle of, 606.
Canby, General, killed, 602.
Chicago, great tire in, 596.
Colfax, Schuyler, elected vice-president, 590.
Concord, Centennial anniversary at, 606.
Davis, Jefferson, capture of, 590.
Field, Cyrus W., his efforts in laying the
great Atlantic cable, 587. Fort Philip Kearney built, 594 ; massacre by
Indians near, 594. Fourteenth Amendment, 588.
Grant, General U. S., elected President, 590; reelected, 600.
Johnson, Andrew, President, 586; differences between him and Congress, 589 ; impeach- ment and acquittal, 589 ; death, 606.
Joint High Commission meet at Washington, 599.
Ku Klux Klan, organization of, 591.
Lexington, Centennial anniversary at, 606. Louisiana, troubles in, 606.
Modocks, outbreak of, 601.
Nebraska admitted into the Union, 589.
Pacific Railway completed, 592. Peshtigo destroyed by fire, 597.
Reconstruction Acts, 587.
Sand Creek Massacre, 594. Seward, William H., death of, 600. Stanton, Edwin M., death of, 591. Sumner, Charles, death of,, 605.
Thomas, General George H., death of, 596.
Virgiuius, the, captured, 604 ; execution of her officers and crew, 605.
White Leaguers, murders committed by, 606. Wilson, Henry, elected vice-president, 600; death, 607.
/^,.y^(y