THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND.
COM. PORTER IN THE BAY OF NOVAHEEVAH.
THE SECOND WAR
WITH
ENGLAND.
BY J. T. HEADLEY,
AUTHOR OF "NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS," "WASHINGTON AND HIS GENERALS," "THE OLD GUARD," "SCOTT AND JACKSON," ETC. ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.
1853.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
C. W. BENEDICT,
Stereotyper and Printer,
12 Spruce Street, N. Y.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER I.
THE CREEK WAR.
Jackson's first service — Is appointed commander-in-chief of the Tennessee forces — Co-operation of other states — Jackson enters the Creek nation — Difficulties of his position — General Coffee's expedition — Relieves Fort Talladega — Battle of — Stormy condition of his army — Quells a mutiny — Abandoned by his troops — Quells a second mutiny — His boldness — A third mutiny suppressed — Left with but a hundred followers — Clairborne's movements — Arrival of reinforcements — Makes a diversion in favor of General Floyd — Battle of Nutessee — Battle of Emuckfaw — Ambuscade of the Indians — Gallantry of General Coffee — Battle of the "Horse Shoe" — The war ended — Jackson's character, [11]
CHAPTER II.
Cruise of Commodore Porter in the Essex — Arrival at Valparaiso — Capture of British whalers and letters of marque — Essex Junior — Marquesas Islands — Description of the natives — Madison Island — War with the Happahs — Invades the Typee territory — Tedious march — Beautiful prospect — Fights the natives and burns down their towns — Sails for Valparaiso — Blockaded by two English ships — Attempts to escape — Is attacked by both vessels — His gallant defence — His surrender — Returns home on parole — Insolence of an English Officer — Porter escapes in an open boat and lands on Long Island — Enthusiastic reception in New York, [45]
Plan of the third Campaign — Attack on Sackett's Harbor — Attack on Oswego — Woolsey transports guns to Sackett's Harbor — Capture of the detachment sent against him — Expedition against Mackinaw — Death of Captain Holmes — Complete failure of the expedition, [67]
CHAPTER IV.
Brown takes command of the army at Niagara — Crosses the river into Canada — Battle of Chippewa — Brilliant charge of the Americans — Desperate battle of Niagara — Conduct of Ripley — The army ordered to Fort Erie — General Gaines takes command, [74]
CHAPTER V.
Siege of Fort Erie — Assault and repulse of the British — Brown takes command — Resolves to destroy the enemy's works by a sortie — Opposed by his officers — The sortie — Anecdote of General Porter — Retreat of Drummond — Conduct of Izard, [101]
CHAPTER VI.
British plan of invading our sea ports — Arrival of reinforcements — Barney's flotilla — Landing of the enemy under Ross — Doubt and alarm of the inhabitants — Advance of the British — Destruction of the Navy Yard — Battle of Bladensburg — Flight of the President and his Cabinet — Burning and sacking of Washington — Mrs. Madison's conduct during the day and night — Cockburn's brutality — Sudden explosion — A hurricane — Flight of the British — State of the army — Character of this outrage — Rejoicings in England — Mortification of our ambassadors at Ghent — Mistake of the English — Parker's expedition — Colonel Reed's defence — The English army advance on Baltimore — Death of Ross — Bombardment of Fort McHenry — "The star spangled banner" — Retreat of the British, and joy of the citizens of Baltimore, [114]
Macomb at Plattsburg — American and English fleets on Lake Champlain — Advance of Prevost — Indifference of Governor Chittenden — Rev. Mr. Wooster — Macdonough — The two battles — Funeral of the officers — British invasion of Maine — McArthur's expedition, [147]
CHAPTER VIII.
The Navy in 1814 — Cruise of Captain Morris in the Adams — Narrow escapes — The Wasp and Reindeer — Cruise of the Wasp — Sinks the Avon — Mysterious fate of the Wasp — The Peacock captures the Epervier — Lieutenant Nicholson, [165]
CHAPTER IX.
Third Session of the XIIIth Congress — State of the Treasury — The President's Message — Dallas appointed Secretary of the Treasury — His scheme and that of Eppes for the relief of the country — Our Commissioners at Ghent — Progress of the negotiations — English protocol — Its effect on Congress and the nation — Effect of its publication on the English Parliament, [174]
CHAPTER X.
HARTFORD CONVENTION.
Attitude of New England — Governor Strong — Views and purposes of the Federalists — Anxiety of Madison — Prudence of Colonel Jesup — Result of the Convention — Fears of the People — Fate of the Federalists, [191]
General Jackson appointed Major-General — Hostility of Spain — Gallant defence of Fort Bowyer — Seizure of Pensacola — Jackson at New Orleans — Approach and landing of the British — Jackson proclaims martial law — Night attack on the British — Jackson entrenches himself — First attack of the British — Second attack — Final assault — The battle and the victory — Jackson fined by Judge Hall — Arrival of the Treaty of Peace — Great rejoicings — Delegates of the Hartford Convention — Remarks on the treaty, [199]
CHAPTER XII.
Cruise of the Constitution — Action with the Cyane and Levant — Chased by a British fleet — England's views of neutral rights and the law of nations — Her honor and integrity at a discount — Singular escape of the Constitution — Recapture of the Levant under the guns of a neutral port — Lampoons on the English squadron for its contemptible conduct — Decatur — Capture of the President — The Hornet captures the Penguin — Chased by a ship of the line — Narrow escape — Cruise of the Peacock — Review of the American Navy — Its future destiny, [236]
CHAPTER XIII.
PRIVATEERS.
Character and daring of our privateers — Skill of American seamen — Acts of Congress relative to privateering — Names of ships — Gallant action of the Nonsuch — Success of the Dolphin — Cruise of the Comet — Narrow escape of the Governor Tompkins — Desperate action of the Globe with two brigs — The Decatur takes a British sloop of war — Action of the Neufchatel with the crew of the Endymion — Desperate defence of Captain Reed against the crews of British squadron — The Chasseur captures a British schooner of war — Character of the commanders of privateers — Anecdote, [258]
Impressed Americans made prisoners of war — Treatment of prisoners — Prison Ships — Dartmoor prison — Neglect of American prisoners — Their sufferings — Fourth of July in Dartmoor — Brutal attack of the French prisoners — Fresh arrivals — Joy at the news of our naval victories — Sufferings of the prisoners in winter — American Government allows them three cents per diem — Moral effect of this notice of Government — Napoleon's downfall — Increased allowance of Government — Industry of prisoners — Attempts to escape — Extraordinary adventure of a lieutenant of a privateer — Number of prisoners increased — A riot to obtain bread — Dartmoor massacre — Messrs. King and L'Arpent appointed commissioners to investigate it — Decision — The end, [279]
Tax-tables, [301]
Index, [313]
HISTORY OF THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE CREEK WAR.
Jackson's first service — Is appointed commander in-chief of the Tennessee forces — Co-operation of other states — Jackson enters the Creek nation — Difficulties of his position — General Coffee's expedition — Relieves Fort Talladega — Battle of — Stormy condition of his army — Quells a mutiny — Abandoned by his troops — Quells a second mutiny — His boldness — A third mutiny suppressed — Left with but a hundred followers — Clairborne's movements — Arrival of reinforcements — Makes a diversion in favor of General Floyd — Battle of Nutessee — Battle of Emuckfaw — Ambuscade of the Indians — Gallantry of General Coffee — Battle of the "Horse Shoe" — The war ended — Jackson's character.
Allusion has been made to Jackson's campaign against the Creeks, but I purposely omitted an account of its progress, preferring to go back and make a continuous narrative. Although embracing a portion of two years, it composed a single expedition, and forms a whole which loses much of its interest by being contemplated in parts. After the cowardly surrender of General Hull, at Detroit, in the commencement of the war, Jackson offered his services to the government, and solicited the post which was assigned to Winchester. Disappointed in this, he repaired, at the order of the Secretary of War, to Natchez, to assist Wilkinson, then stationed there, to repel the attacks of the enemy should they advance up the Mississippi. But no danger from an attack in that quarter appearing, he was directed to disband his troops. Refusing to do this, on account of the number of sick in camp, many of them sons of his neighbors and friends, he became involved in a quarrel both with Wilkinson and his own officers. He, however, carried out his measures and led his men back in safety to their homes.
1813.
Here he remained idle till the massacre at Fort Mimms, the news of which, together with the rising of the Indians all along our southern frontier, burst like a sudden thunder-clap on the neighboring States. Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, flew at once to arms. On the 17th of September a mass meeting assembled at Nashville, which with one voice nominated Jackson commander-in-chief of the troops of the State. Ten days after, the nomination was confirmed by the Legislature, and 200,000 dollars voted to carry on the war. Jackson immediately issued a stirring appeal to the people, in which, after describing the state of things, he urged them to assemble to his standard with all speed, saying, "Already are large bodies of the hostile Creeks marching to your borders, with their scalping-knives unsheathed to butcher your women and children: time is not to be lost. We must hasten to the frontier, or we shall find it drenched in the blood of our citizens." At this time he was suffering from a disabled arm which had been mutilated in an encounter with Benton, and was unable to be present at Fayetteville, the rendezvous, on the 4th of October; but he sent an address to be read to the troops, and rules regulating the police of the camp. Although too feeble to take the field, he, three days after, with his arm in a sling, put himself at the head of the army. The next evening, a dispatch arrived from Colonel Coffee, who had been previously sent forward with a large detachment to Huntsville, thirty-two miles distant, stating that a body of nearly a thousand Indians were on their way to ravage the frontiers of Georgia, and another party approaching Tennessee. The day after came a second express confirming the report. By nine o'clock the following morning, Jackson put his army of twenty-five hundred men in motion, and at eight in the evening reached Huntsville, making the thirty-two miles in eleven hours. Finding that the rumor was without foundation, he proceeded leisurely to Ditto's Landing, where Col. Coffee with his regiment was encamped. Here he paused to wait for supplies, and survey his position.
With promptness on the part of those co-operating with him, he saw that the hostile Creeks could be crushed with one blow; for on the west of their settlements were six hundred Mississippi volunteers and the 3d regiment of regular infantry, six hundred strong, under Colonel Russel; on the east were twenty-five hundred Georgia militia, commanded by General Floyd; while from the north, five thousand volunteers and militia—twenty-five hundred from East Tennessee, under Generals Cocke and White, and the same number from the western section of the State—were moving down on the devoted tribes. This army of five thousand Tennesseans was under his own command, the western half of which he led in person. There were, besides this formidable array, a few posts held by small detachments, and a few hundred friendly Indians, most of them Cherokees. When these separate armies should close around the hostile settlements, encircling them in a girdle of fire, it was universally believed that the war would be over.
While Jackson remained at Ditto's Landing, waiting anxiously for the supplies which Generals Cocke and White had promised to forward, he dispatched General Coffee, with six hundred picked men, to destroy Blackwarrior town, a hundred miles south.
At length, being urged by the earnest appeals of friendly Indians, who were in daily danger of being cut off by the Creeks, he, on the 19th, started for Thompson's Creek, where he had ordered the provisions, which he supposed were near at hand, to be stopped. Cutting his way through the heavy forests, and dragging his artillery over steep mountains, he at length, after a painful march of two days, reached the place of depôt but no provisions had arrived. Instead of supplies, came a letter from General White, who was at Lookout Mountain in the Cherokee country, stating that no flour could be spared from that post. His position was now becoming painful and critical. Standing in the centre of the wilderness, on the borders of the enemy's country, with his little band around him, he saw no alternative but to retreat, unless he ran the risk of starving in the forest. But to abandon his design, would leave the friendly Indians at the mercy of their enemies, an act not only cruel in the extreme, and utterly repugnant to his nature, but which would furnish a fatal example to the other friendly tribes, whose alliance it was of the highest importance to secure. Prudence would have dictated a retreat, but Jackson had never yet turned his back voluntarily on a foe, and he resolved, at all hazards, to proceed. Sending off expresses to Generals Cocke and White, and to the Governors of Tennessee and Georgia, and the American agents in the Choctaw and Cherokee nations, he issued a stirring address to his troops, in which he promised them that the "order to charge would be the signal for victory." In urging on them the importance of coolness, and presence of mind, in every emergency, even in "retreat," he adds,
"Your general laments that he has been compelled, even incidentally, to hint at a retreat, when speaking to freemen and to soldiers. Never, until you forget all that is due to yourselves and your country, will you have any practical understanding of that word. Shall an enemy, wholly unacquainted with military evolutions, and who rely more for victory on their grim visages, and hideous yells, than upon their bravery or their weapons—shall such an enemy ever drive before them, the well-trained youths of our country, whose bosoms pant for glory, and a desire to avenge the wrongs they have received? Your general will not live to behold such a spectacle; rather would he rush into the thickest of the enemy, and submit himself to their scalping-knives; but he has no fear of such a result. He knows the valor of the men he commands, and how certainly that valor, regulated as it will be, will lead to victory."
Cut off from supplies, locked up in the wilderness, through which swarmed thousands of savages eagerly watching his advance, with only six days' rations of meat and two of flour, he issued this bold and confident address, and then gave orders for the army to march. Arriving at Ten Islands, he erected Fort Strother, to serve as a depôt, and to cover his retreat. In a letter to Governor Blount, from this place, he says,—
"Indeed, sir, we have been wretchedly supplied,—scarcely two rations in succession have been regularly drawn, yet we are not despondent. While we can procure an ear of corn apiece, or anything that will answer as a substitute for it, we shall continue our exertions to accomplish the object for which we were sent."
Here, being informed that General White was only twenty-five miles distant up the river, he sent him a despatch to hasten, at once, to the fort. In the mean time, General Coffee, who had returned successful from his southern expedition, was sent to attack a large body of Indians at Tallushatchee, some thirty miles distant. With nine hundred men, this gallant officer advanced, and succeeded in completely surrounding them; and though the savages fought desperately to the last, but few escaped. A hundred and eighty warriors lay stretched around the ashes of their dwellings. Among the slain, was a mother, on whose bosom her infant boy was found, struggling in vain to draw nourishment from the lifeless breast. When he was brought to camp, Jackson endeavored to persuade some of the female captives to take care of him, but they all refused, saying, "His relations are all dead, kill him too." He then ordered some sugar to be given him, and sent him to Huntsville, where he could be properly cared for. He afterwards adopted him, gave him a good education, and placed him at a saddler's to learn a trade. The latter was accustomed to spend every Sunday at the Hermitage, with his adopted father, who was strongly attached to him. But he always pined for the free, wild life of his race. The close air of the shop and the drudgery of an apprentice did not agree with him, and he soon after sickened. He was then taken home to the Hermitage, where he lingered some time, and died.
At length, on the 7th of November, an Indian runner arrived in camp, stating that Fort Talladega, about thirty miles distant, was surrounded by the hostile Red-sticks, and if he did not hurry to its relief, the friendly Indians, who had taken refuge in it must be massacred. The runner had scarcely finished his message when the order to march was issued, and in a few minutes the columns were in motion. It was midnight, and through the dim cathedrals of nature, lighted only by the stars of heaven, Jackson led his two thousand men towards the Talladega. Eight hundred of these were mounted riflemen, who presented a picturesque appearance, as they wound slowly along the rough forest path underneath the autumnal woods, each with unceasing watchfulness, piercing the surrounding gloom, and every hand grasping a trusty rifle. Their heavy tramp frightened the wild beasts from their lairs, and awoke strange echoes in the solitude. Now straining up steep ascents, and now swimming deep rivers, the fearless and gallant band pressed forward. In three columns, so as to prevent the confusion that might arise from a sudden surprise, it forced its difficult way through the forest, and at night arrived within six miles of the besieged fort. Here Jackson halted, and sent forward two friendly Indians and a white man, to reconnoitre. About eleven o'clock they returned, and reported the enemy in great force, and within a quarter of a mile of the fort. No time was to be lost, and though the troops had been without sleep, and constantly on the strain for twenty-four hours, another night, and a battle, lay between them and repose.
It was four o'clock of a cool November morning, when the three columns again moved forward. Advancing with the utmost caution and quietness to within a mile of the Indian encampment, they halted, and formed in order of battle. Two hundred and fifty of the cavalry, under Lieut.-Col. Dyer, were left in the rear of the centre to act as a reserve, while the remaining four hundred and fifty were ordered to push forward to the right and left on either side, until the heads of their columns met beyond the hostile encampment, and thus completely encircle it. The two brigades of Hall and Roberts, occupying the right and left, were directed to advance, while the ring of cavalry was steadily to contract, so as to shut in every savage and prevent escape. At eight o'clock, Colonel Carroll boldly charged the position in front of him, and carried it; he then retreated, in order to draw the Indians in pursuit. They charged after him with such terrific whoops and screams, that a portion of General Roberts' brigade, on whom they were rushing with uplifted tomahawks, broke and fled. This made a chasm in the line, which Jackson immediately ordered Colonel Bradley to fill with his regiment, that for some reason, known only to the latter, had lagged behind, to the great detriment of the order of battle. But not only had he proved a laggard in the approach, but he refused to fill the chasm, as ordered by his commander, and the latter was compelled to dismount his reserve and hurry them forward. As these steadily and firmly advanced, and poured in their volleys, the panic-stricken militia recovered their courage and resumed their places in the line. In the mean time, the encircling cavalry came galloping, with loud hurrahs, towards the centre. The next moment the forest rang with the sharp reports of their rifles. In fifteen minutes the battle was over, and the terrified savages were wildly skirting the inner edge of this circle of fire, seeking, in vain, an avenue to the open forest beyond. Turned back at every step, they fell like the autumn leaves which the wind shook around them. At length they discovered a gap, made by the neglect of Colonel Bradley and the delay of a portion of the cavalry, which had taken too wide a circuit, and poured like a torrent that has suddenly found vent, through it. The mounted riflemen wheeled and streamed after; and the quick, sharp reports of their pieces, and the receding yells rising from the forest, told how fiercely they pressed on the flying traces of the foe. The savages made straight for the mountains, three miles distant, fighting as they went. The moment they bounded up the steep acclivity they were safe, and the wearied horsemen turned again to the camp. Their way back was easily tracked by the swarthy forms that lay stretched on the leaves, showing where the flight and pursuit had swept. Of the thousand and more who had composed the force of the enemy, more than half were killed or wounded. Three hundred were left dead on the spot where they had first fought. The loss of the Americans in killed and wounded, was ninety-five.
The friendly Indians, who had been so long shut up without a drop of water, in momentary expectation of being massacred, listened to the uproar without, with beating hearts; but when the battle was over, they rushed forth with the most frantic cries of joy, and leaped and shouted around their deliverers in all the wildness of savage delight. They crowded around Jackson as if he had been their deity, toward whom they could not show too much reverence.
The refusal of General White to march to Fort Strother, left the feeble garrison of the latter in a perilous state. If it should fall, Jackson's whole line of retreat would be cut off; and he, therefore, with deep pain, was compelled to stop in his victorious progress, and return to the fort. On his arrival, he found that no supplies had reached it, and that the soldiers, half-starved, were bordering on mutiny. General Cocke, from the first, seemed resolved to withhold all aid from Jackson, lest he himself should be eclipsed in the campaign. Nov. 11. This officer directed his movements against the Hillabee towns. General White, with the mounted men, succeeded in destroying the place, killing and capturing three hundred and sixteen warriors.
Nov. 18.
Jackson, however, endeavored to keep alive the spirits and courage of his troops, and distributed all his private stores to the feeble and wounded. Having nothing left for himself and staff, he repaired to the bullock-pen, and from the offals cut tripe, on which he and they lived for days, in the vain hope of receiving the long-promised supplies. One day, as he sat at the foot of a tree, thinking of the hard condition of his men, and planning how he might find some relief from the increasing difficulties that pressed so hard upon him, one of the soldiers, observing that he was eating something, approached, and asked for a portion. Jackson looked up with a pleasant smile, and said, "I will, most cheerfully, divide with you what I have;" and taking some acorns from his pocket, he handed them to the astonished and mortified soldier. His solicitude for the army did not expend itself in words, for he shared with the meanest soldier his privations and his wants, while many of his subordinate officers possessed abundance. He let the latter enjoy the rations to which they were legally entitled, but himself scorned to sit down to a well-supplied table, while the army was perishing with want.
This state of things, of course, could not last long. The soldiers believed themselves neglected by the State for whose safety they were fighting; else why this protracted refusal to send them provisions? The incipient discontent was fed and aggravated by several of the officers, who were getting tired of the campaign, and wished to return home, till at last it broke out into open revolt. The militia regiments, en masse, had resolved to leave. Jackson received the communication with grief and indignation. He felt for his poor, half-starved men, but all his passionate nature was roused at this deliberate defiance of his authority. The militia, however, did not regard his expostulations or threats, and they fixed on a morning to commence their march. But as they drew out to take their departure, they found, to their astonishment, the volunteers paraded across the path, with Jackson at their head. He ordered them to return to their position, or they should answer for their disobedience with their lives. They obeyed; but the volunteers, indignant that they had been made the instrument of quelling the revolt, and anxious as the others were to get away, resolved next morning to depart themselves. To their surprise, however, they saw the militia drawn up in the same position they had occupied the day before, to arrest the first forward movement that was made. This was a dangerous game to play with armed men, and would not bear a second trial.
The cavalry, on the ground that the country yielded no forage for their horses, were permitted to retire to the neighborhood of Huntsville, where they promised to wait the orders of their commander.
In the mean time, Jackson hearing that provisions were on the way, made an effort to allay the excited, angry feelings that existed in the army, and so, on the 14th of November, invited all the field and platoon officers to his quarters, and after informing them that abundant supplies were close at hand, addressed them in a kind and sympathizing manner, told them how deeply he felt for their sufferings, and concluded by promising, if provisions did not arrive within two days, to lead them back himself to Tennessee. But this kind and conciliatory speech produced no effect on a portion of the army, and the first regiment of volunteers insisted on abandoning the fort. Permission to leave was granted, and Jackson, with chagrin and anguish, saw the men whom he refused to abandon at Natchez, forsake him in the heart of the forest, surrounded by hostile savages.
The two days expiring without the arrival of provisions, he was compelled to fulfill his promise to the army, and preparations were made for departure. In the midst of the breaking up of the camp, he sat down and wrote a letter to Colonel Pope, the contractor, which exhibits how deeply he felt, not merely this abandonment of him, but the failure of the expedition. He says in conclusion:
"I cannot express the torture of my feelings, when I reflect that a campaign so auspiciously begun, and which might be so soon and so gloriously terminated, is likely to be rendered abortive for the want of supplies. For God's sake, prevent so great an evil."
As the baggage-wagons were loaded up, and the men fell into marching order, the palpable evidence of the failure of the project on which he had so deeply set his heart, and the disgrace that awaited his army, became so painful, that he could not endure the sight, and he exclaimed in mingled grief and shame,
"If only two men will remain with me, I will never abandon the post."
"You have one, General!" exclaimed Captain Gordon, of the spies, who stood beside him.
The gallant captain immediately began to beat up for volunteers, and it was not long before a hundred and nine brave fellows surrounded their general, swearing to stand by him to the last.
The latter then put himself at the head of the militia, telling them he should order them back, if they met provisions near by. They had gone but ten or twelve miles, when they met a hundred and fifty beeves on their way to the fort. The men fell to, and in a short time were gorging themselves with half roasted meat. Invigorated by their gluttonous repast, most of them consented to return. One company, however, quietly resumed its journey homeward. When Jackson was informed of it, he sprang into his saddle, and galloping a quarter of a mile ahead, where General Coffee with his staff and a few soldiers had halted, ordered them to form across the road, and fire on the first man that attempted to pass. As the mutineers came up and saw that living barrier before them, and in front of it the stern and decided face of their commander, they wheeled about, and retraced their steps. Jackson then dismounted and began to mingle among the men, to allay their excitement, and conciliate their feelings. While he was thus endeavoring to reduce to cheerful obedience this refractory company, he was told, to his utter amazement, that the other portion of the army had changed their mind, and the whole brigade was drawn up in column, and on the point of marching homeward. He immediately walked up in front of it, snatched a musket from the hands of a soldier, and resting it across the neck of his horse, swore he would shoot the first man who attempted to move. The soldiers stood and looked in sullen silence at that resolute face, undecided whether to advance or not, when General Coffee and his staff galloped up. These, together with the faithful companies, Jackson ordered to form behind him, and fire when he did. Not a word was uttered for some time, as the two parties thus stood face to face, and gazed on each other. At length a murmur rang along the column—rebellion was crushed, and the mutineers consented to return. Discontent, however, prevailed, and the volunteers looked anxiously forward to the 10th of December, the time when they supposed the term of their enlistment expired. They had originally enlisted for twelve months, and counting in the time they had been disbanded, after their return from Natchez, the year would be completed on that date. But Jackson refused to allow the time they were not in actual service. Letters passed between the officers and himself, and every effort was made on his part to allay the excitement, and convince the troops of the justice of his demands. He appealed to their patriotism, their courage, and honor, and finally told them if the General Government gave permission for their discharge, he would discharge them, otherwise they should walk over his dead body before they stirred a foot, until the twelve months' actual service was accomplished. Dec. Anticipating trouble, he wrote home for reinforcements, and sent off officers for recruits.
In the mean time, the 10th of December drew near, and every heart was filled with anxiety for the result. A portion of the army was resolved to take their discharge, whether granted or not. It was not a sudden impulse, created by want and suffering, but a well-considered and settled determination, grounded on what they considered their rights. The thing had been long discussed, and many of the officers had given their decided opinion that the time of the men actually expired on the 10th. Jackson knew that his troops were brave, and when backed by the consciousness of right, would be resolute and firm. But he had made up his mind to prevent mutiny, though he was compelled to sacrifice a whole regiment in doing it.
At length, on the evening of the 9th, Gen. Hall entered the tent of Jackson, and informed him that his whole brigade was in a state of revolt. The latter immediately issued an order stating the fact, and calling on all the officers to aid in quelling it. He then directed the two guns he had with him, to be placed, one in front and the other in the rear, and the militia on the rising ground in advance, to check any movement in that direction, and waited the result. The brigade assembled, and were soon in marching order. Jackson then rode slowly along the line, and addressed the soldiers. He reminded them of their former good conduct, spoke of the love and esteem he had always borne them, of the reinforcements on the way, saying, also, that he expected every day, the decision of the government, on the question of their discharge, and wound up by telling them emphatically, that he had done with entreaty,—go they should not, and if they persisted, he would settle the matter in a very few minutes. He demanded an immediate and explicit answer. They persisted. He repeated his demand, and still receiving no answer, he ordered the artillerists to prepare their matches, and at the word "Fire!" to pour their volleys of grape-shot into the closely crowded ranks. There he sat, gazing sternly down the line, while the few moments of grace allowed them, were passing rapidly away. The men knew it was no idle threat. He had never been known to break his word, and that sooner than swerve one hair from his purpose, he would drench that field in blood. Alarmed, they began to whisper one to another, "Let us go back." The contagion of fear spread, and soon the officers advanced, and promised, on behalf of the men, that they would return to their quarters.
As if to try this resolute man to the utmost, and drive him to despair, no sooner was one evil averted than another overtook him. He had, by his boldness, quelled the mutiny; but he now began again to feel the horrors of famine. Supplies did not arrive; or in such scanty proportion, that he was compelled, at last, to discharge the troops, and, notwithstanding all the distressing scenes through which he had passed to retain them, see them take up their line of march for home, leaving him, with only a hundred devoted followers, shut up in the forest.
Dec. 23.
While these things were passing, General Clairborne, with his volunteers, passed up the east side of the Alabama, and piercing to the towns above the Cahawba, gave battle to the Indians under their great leader, Weathersford, and defeated them, with the loss of but one man killed and seven wounded. Destroying their villages, he returned to Fort Clairborne. 1814. Jackson remained idle till the middle of January, when he was gladdened by the arrival of eight hundred recruits. Not deeming these, however, sufficient to penetrate into the heart of the Creek country, he resolved to make a diversion in favor of General Floyd, who was advancing from the east. Dec. 29. This officer, leaving his encampment on the Chattahouche, and advancing into the Indian territory along the southern bank of the Talapoosa River, came on the morning of the 29th upon the town of Autossee, where a large number of Indians were assembled. Having marched since one o'clock in the morning, he took the savages by surprise. They however rallied and fought desperately, retreating only before the fire of the artillery. Two towns, within sight of each other, were soon in flames. Several hundred of the enemy were killed and wounded, while the loss of the Americans was but sixty-five. Among the wounded was General Floyd, who was struck by a shot while gallantly leading on his command. Hearing that a large number of Indians were encamped on the Emuckfaw Creek, where it empties into the Tallapoosa River, Jackson marched thither, and on the evening of the 21st of January, arrived within a short distance of their encampment. The Indians were aware of his approach, and resolved to anticipate his attack. To prevent a surprise, however, Jackson had ordered a circle of watch-fires to be built around his little band. The men stood to their arms all night; and just before daylight a wild yell, which always precedes an attack, went up from the forest, and the next moment the savages charged down on the camp. But, the instant the light of the watch-fires fell on their tawny bodies they were swept with such a destructive volley, that they again took shelter in the darkness. At length, daylight appeared, when General Coffee ordered a charge, which cleared the field. He was then directed to advance on the encampment with four hundred men, and carry it by storm. On his approach, however, he found it too strong for his force, and retired. Jackson, attacked in return, was compelled to charge repeatedly, before the savages finally took to flight. Many of their bravest warriors fell in this short conflict; while, on the American side, several valuable officers were badly wounded, among them General Coffee, who, from the commencement to the close, was in the thickest of the fight.
Notwithstanding his victory, Jackson prudently determined to retreat. He had gained his object; for in drawing the attention of the Indians to his own force, he had diverted it from that under Gen. Floyd. Besides, his horses had been without forage for two days, and would soon break down. He, therefore, buried the dead on the field where they had fallen; and, on the 23d, began to retrace his footsteps. Judging from the quietness of the Indians since the battle, he suspected they were lurking in ambush ahead. Remembering also what an excellent place there was for a surprise at the ford of Enotochopeo, he sent men in advance to reconnoitre, who discovered another ford some six hundred yards farther down the stream. Reaching this just at evening, he encamped there all night, and the next morning commenced crossing. He expected an attack while in the middle of the stream, and, therefore, had his rear formed in order of battle. His anticipations proved correct; for no sooner had a part of the army reached the opposite bank, than an alarm-gun was heard in the rear. In an instant, all was in commotion. The next moment, the forest resounded with the war-whoop and yells of the savages, as they came rushing on in great numbers. As they crowded on the militia, the latter, with their officers, gave way in affright, and poured pell-mell down the bank. Jackson was standing on the shore superintending the crossing of his two pieces of artillery, when his broken ranks came tumbling about him. Foremost among the fugitives was Captain Stump; and, Jackson, enraged at the shameful disorder, aimed a desperate blow at him with his sword, fully intending to cut him down. One glance of his eye revealed the whole extent of the danger. But for Gen. Carroll, who, with Capt. Quarles and twenty-five men, stood nobly at bay, beating back with their deliberate volleys the hordes of savages, the entire rear of the army would have been massacred. But, over the din and tumult, Jackson's voice rang clear and steady as a bugle-note, as he rapidly issued his orders. The gallant and intrepid Coffee, roused by the tumult, raised himself from the litter on which he lay wounded, and casting one glance on the panic, and another upon the little band that stood like a rock embedded in the farther bank, leaped to the ground, and with one bound landed in his saddle. The next moment, his shout of encouragement broke on the ears of his companions as he dashed forward to the conflict. Jackson looked up in surprise as that pale face galloped up the bank, and then his rage at the cowardice of the men gave way to the joy of the true hero when another hero moves to his side, and he shouted, "We shall whip them yet, my men! the dead have risen, and come to aid us." The company of artillery followed, leaving Lieutenant Armstrong and a few men to drag up the cannon. When one of the guns, at length, reached the top of the bank, the rammer and picker were nowhere to be found. A man instantly wrenched the bayonet from his musket, and rammed home the cartridge with the stock, and picked it with his ramrod. Lieutenant Armstrong fell beside his piece; but as he lay upon the ground, he cried out, "My brave fellows, some of you must fall; but save the cannon." Such heroism is always contagious; and the men soon rallied, and charging home on the savages, turned them in flight on every side.
After burying his dead and caring for the wounded, Jackson resumed his march; and, four days after, reached Fort Strother in safety. Nearly one-eighth of his little army had been killed or wounded since he left the post, and he now dismissed the remainder, who claimed that the time of their enlistment was expired; and quietly waited till sufficient reinforcements should arrive for him to undertake a thorough campaign into the Creek country.
Jan. 27.
Four days after this, General Floyd again advancing into the Creek country, was attacked just before daylight by a large body of Indians, who rushed on him with terrible impetuosity. Determined on victory, they advanced within thirty steps of the artillery, and would have taken it but for the uncommon coolness and bravery of the subordinate officers. At length a charge of bayonet sent them flying in all directions. The cavalry then charged, and the horses rushing furiously forward, to the sound of bugles, completed the terror of the savages, who disappeared like frightened deer in the surrounding forests, leaving thirty-seven dead on the field.
Reinforcements soon began to come in to Jackson; for his bravery and success awakened confidence, and stimulated the ambition of thousands, who were sure to win distinction under such a leader; and, by March, he found himself at the head of four thousand militia and volunteers, and a regiment of regular troops, together with several hundred friendly Indians. While preparing to advance, mutiny again broke out in the camp. He determined this time to make an example which should deter others in future; and a private, being tried and convicted, was shot. The spectacle was not lost on the soldiers, and nothing more was heard of a revolt.
Having completed all his arrangements, Jackson, with four thousand men, advanced, on the 16th of March, into the Creek country. At the junction of the Cedar Creek with the Coosa River, he established Fort Williams, and left a garrison. He then continued his march, with some two thousand five hundred men, towards his previous battle-ground at Emuckfaw. About five miles below it, in the bend of the Tallapoosa, the Indians, a thousand strong, had entrenched themselves, determined to give battle. They were on sacred ground; for all that tract between the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, known as the "hickory ground," their prophets had told them the white man could never conquer. This bend contained about a hundred acres, around which the river wrapped itself in the form of a horse-shoe, from whence it derived its name. Across the neck leading to this open plain, the Indians had erected a breastwork of logs, seven or eight feet high, and pierced it with a double row of port-holes. Behind it, the ground rose into an elevation; while still farther back, along the shore, lay the village, in which were the women and children. Early in the morning of the 25th, Jackson ordered General Coffee to take the mounted riflemen together with the friendly Indians and cross the river at a ford below, and stretch around the bend, on the opposite bank from the village, so as to prevent the fugitives from escaping. He then advanced in front, and took up his position, and opened on the breastwork with his light artillery. The cannonade was kept up for two hours without producing any effect. In the mean time, the friendly Indians attached to General Coffee's command had swam the river and loosened a large number of canoes, which they brought back. Captain Russell's company of spies immediately leaped into them, and, with the friendly Indians, crossed over and set the village on fire, and with loud shouts pressed towards the rear of the encampment. The Indians returned the shout of defiance, and, with a courage and steadiness they seldom exhibited, repelled every effort to advance.
The troops under Jackson heard the din of the conflict within, and clamored loudly to be led to the assault. He, however, held them back, and stood and listened. Discovering, at length, by the incessant firing in a single place, that the Americans were making no progress, he ordered the drums to beat the charge. A loud and thrilling shout rolled along the American line, and, with levelled bayonets, the excited ranks precipitated themselves on the breastwork. A withering fire received them, the rifle-balls sweeping like a sudden gust of sleet, in their very faces. Not an Indian flinched, and many were pierced through the port-holes; while, in several instances, the enemy's bullets were welded to the American bayonets. The swarthy warriors looked grimly through the openings, as though impervious to death. This, however, was of short duration, and soon the breastwork was black with men, as they streamed up the sides. Major Montgomery was the first who planted his foot on the top, but he had scarcely waved his sword in triumph above his head, when he fell back upon his companions, dead. A cry of vengeance swelled up from his followers, and the next moment the troops rolled like a sudden inundation over the barrier. It then became a hand-to-hand fight. The Indians refused to yield, and with gleaming knives and tomahawks, and clubbed rifles and muskets, closed in a death grapple with their foes. Civilization gave the bold frontiersmen no advantage here—it was a personal struggle with his swarthy rival for the mastery, where they both claimed the right of possession. The wild yell of the savage blended in with the stem curse of the Anglo-Saxon, while high and shrill over the clangor and clash of arms, arose the shouts of the prophets, as dancing frantically around their blazing dwellings, they continued their strange incantations, still crying victory.
At length one was shot in the mouth, as if to give the lie to his declarations. Pressed in front and rear, many at last turned and fled. But the unerring rifle dropped them along the shore; while those who endeavored to save themselves by swimming, sunk in mid-stream under the deadly fire of Coffee's mounted men. The greater part, however, fought and fell, face to face, with their foes. It was a long and desperate struggle; not a soul asked for quarter, but turned, with a last look of hate and defiance, on his conqueror. As the ranks grew thin, it ceased to be a fight, and became a butchery. Driven at last from the breastwork, the few surviving warriors took refuge in the brush and timber on the hill. Wishing to spare their lives, Jackson sent an interpreter to them, offering them pardon; but they proudly refused it, and fired on the messenger. He then turned his cannon on the spot, but failing to dislodge them, ordered the grass and brush to be fired. Driven out by the flames, they ran for the river, but most of them fell before they reached the water. On every side the crack of the rifle told how many eyes were on the fugitives. Darkness at last closed the scene, and still night, broken only by the cries of the wounded, fell on the forest and river. Nearly eight hundred of the Indians had fallen, five hundred and fifty-seven of whom lay stark and stiff around and in that encampment. The loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, was about two hundred.[1]
The tired soldier slept on the field of slaughter, around the smouldering fires of the Indian dwellings. The next morning they sunk the dead bodies of their companions in the river, to save them from the scalping-knives of the savages, and then took up their backward march to Fort William.
The original design of having the three armies from Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi, meet in the centre of the Creek nation, and thus crush it with one united effort, had never been carried out, and Jackson now resolved alone to overrun and subdue the country. Issuing a noble address to his troops, he, on the 7th of April, set out for the Indian village of Hoithlowalle. But he met with no opposition; the battle of Tohopeka had completely prostrated the tribe, and the war was virtually at an end. He, however, scoured the country, the Indians everywhere fleeing before the terror of his name. On his march, he sent orders to Colonel Milton, who, with a strong force, was also advancing into the Creek country, to send him provisions. The latter returned a cavalier refusal. Jackson then sent a peremptory order, not only to forward provisions, but to join him at once with his troops. Colonel Milton, after reading the order, asked the bearer what sort of a man Jackson was. "One," he replied, "who intends, when he gives an order, to have it obeyed." The colonel concluded to obey, and soon effected a junction with his troops. Jackson then resumed his march along the banks of the Tallapoosa; but he had hardly set the leading column in motion, when word was brought him that Colonel Milton's brigade was unable to follow, as the wagon-horses had strayed away during the night, and could not be found. Jackson immediately sent him word to detail twenty men to each wagon. The astonished colonel soon found horses sufficient to draw the wagons.
The enemy, however, did not make a stand, and either fled, or came in voluntarily to tender their submission. The latter part of April, General Pinckney arrived at Fort Jackson, and assumed the command, and General Jackson returned to Tennessee, greeted with acclamations, and covered with honors. In a few months peace was restored with all the Southern tribes, and the machinations of England in that quarter completely frustrated.
There is nothing in the history of our country more remarkable than this campaign, and nothing illustrates the genius of this nation more than it and the man who carried it triumphantly through. Rising from a sick couch, he called the young men of every profession to rally to the defence of their country. Placing himself at the head of the brave but undisciplined bands that gathered at his bidding, he boldly plunged into the untrodden wilderness. Unskilled in the art of war, never having witnessed a battle since he was a boy, he did not hesitate to assume the command of an army without discipline, and without knowledge of the toils and difficulties before it. Yet with it he crossed broad rivers, climbed pathless mountains, and penetrated almost impassable swamps filled with crafty savages. More subtle and more tireless than his foes, he thwarted all their schemes. With famine on one side and an army in open mutiny on the other, he scorned to yield to discouragement, and would not be forced by the apparently insurmountable obstacles that opposed his progress, from his purpose. By his constancy and more than Roman fortitude, compelling adversity at length to relent, and quelling his rebellious troops by the terror of his presence and his indomitable will, he at last, with a smile of triumph, saw his columns winding over the consecrated grounds of the savages. Soon his battle-shout was heard rising over the crackling of burning villages. Kings, prophets, and chieftains fell before him; and crushing towns, villages, and fortresses under his feet, he at last, with one terrible blow, paralyzed the nation for ever.
Indian warfare, though exhibiting none of the grand movements of a well-appointed battle, often calls out equally striking qualities, and requires more promptness and self-possession, and greater mental resources in a commander. Especially with such an army as Jackson had under him, the task he accomplished was Herculean, and reveals a character of vast strength and executiveness. That single man, standing up alone in the heart of the wilderness, and boldly facing his famine-struck and rebellious army, presents a scene partaking far more of the moral sublime than Cromwell seizing a rebel from the very midst of his murmuring band.
His gloomy isolation for a whole winter, with only a few devoted followers, reveals a fixedness of purpose and grandeur of character that no circumstances can affect. Inferior to the contagion of fear, unaffected by general discouragement, equal in himself to every emergency, he moves before us in this campaign the embodiment of the noblest qualities that distinguish the American race.
Jackson, with his undisciplined, mutinous, and starving army in the southern wilderness, does not seem to belong to the same race as Hull, Dearborn, Wilkinson and Izard on the northern frontier. Contrast the difficulties that surrounded him with those that embarrassed them, and how pitiful do their apologies and excuses sound. Had he been in Dearborn's place, the first campaign would have placed Canada in our possession.
CHAPTER II.
Cruise of Commodore Porter in the Essex — Arrival at Valparaiso — Capture of British whalers and letters of marque — Essex Junior — Marquesas Islands — Description of the natives — Madison Island — War with the Happahs — Invades the Typee territory — Tedious march — Beautiful prospect — Fights the natives and burns down their towns — Sails for Valparaiso — Blockaded by two English ships — Attempts to escape — Is attacked by both vessels — His gallant defence — His surrender — Returns home on parole — Insolence of an English Officer — Porter escapes in an open boat and lands on Long Island — Enthusiastic reception in New York.
An expedition similar in its unity to that of Jackson's, and hence requiring a connected narrative, was carried forward by Captain Porter during the year 1813 in the Pacific Ocean. When Commodore Bainbridge sailed from Boston with the Constitution and Hornet, Porter, then lying in the Delaware with the Essex, was ordered to join him at Port Praya in St. Jago, or at Fernando Noronha. Oct. 26, 1812. The capture of the Java by the Constitution, and of the Peacock by the Hornet, caused a change in the plans of Bainbridge, and Captain Porter, not finding him or the Hornet at either of the two places mentioned, or off Frio, a rendezvous afterwards designated by the Commodore, he was left to cruise where he thought best. Dec. 12. While searching for these vessels, he captured an English government packet with $55,000 in specie on board, and sent her home.
Jan. 1813.
At length, after revolving various schemes in his mind, he took the bold resolution to go alone into the Pacific, where we had not a depôt of any kind, or a place in which a disabled vessel could be refitted, while all the neutral ports were under the influence of our enemy, and make a dash at the British fishermen. The vessels employed in these fisheries he knew were invariably supplied with naval stores, etc., and he resolved to live on them. This original and daring cruise was no sooner decided upon than he turned his prow southward, and was soon wrapt in the storms that sweep Cape Horn. Jan. 28. Again and again beaten back, as if to deter him from his hazardous course, he still held on, and at length, after a most tempestuous and toilsome passage, took the breezes of the Pacific and stretched northward. March 5. His provisions getting short, and being in want of some new rigging, he determined to run into Valparaiso. On his arrival at that port he found, to his astonishment and delight, that Chili had declared herself free of Spain, and his reception was kind and courteous. Here he learned, also, that Peru had sent out cruisers against American shipping, which, together with British letters of marque, threatened to make destructive work with our whalers. He therefore remained only a week in port, and then steered northward. On the 25th he captured one of the Peruvian cruisers, which, with an English vessel, had seized two American whalers a few days before.[2] Four days after, he recaptured the Barclay, one of the American vessels taken by the Peruvians, and the British letter of marque. Looking into Callao to see if any thing had arrived from Valparaiso since he left, he cruised from island to island till the latter part of April without making any prizes. At length, on the morning of the 29th, three sail were discerned and chase was immediately made for the nearest, which soon struck. She was a British whaler with fourteen hundred barrels of oil on board. It having fallen calm when the Essex was yet eight miles distant from the other vessels, he was compelled to resort to his boats to effect their capture. One of these, the Georgiana, Captain Porter equipped as a cruiser, with sixteen guns, and put her under the command of Lieutenant Downes, who soon started on a cruise of his own.
June 24.
These two vessels joined company again at Tumbez, the Essex in the mean time having captured two large British vessels, and the Georgiana three. The Atlantic, one of those taken by Porter, being a much larger and faster ship than the Georgiana, Lieutenant Downes was transferred to her, and she was christened Essex Junior. On the last day of June this little fleet of nine sail put to sea, and on the 4th of July fired a general salute with the enemy's powder. A few days after, the Essex Junior parted company, steering for Valparaiso with all the prizes but two in company. Porter continued his cruise with the Georgiana and Greenwich, and on the 13th captured three more vessels. The Greenwich behaved gallantly in the action, closing courageously with the largest vessel, a cruiser, while the Essex was led away in chase of the first. Porter soon after captured another whaler, when, being joined by the Essex Junior, bringing information that the Chilian government was assuming a more unfriendly attitude towards the Americans, he resolved to proceed to the Marquesas to refit, and return home. Having made the vessels of the enemy answer for a naval depôt, he now sought the bay of an island inhabited by savages, where unseen he could prepare to retrace his voyage of ten thousand miles.
He made the Marquesas Islands on the 23d of October. Winding among them to find a hiding-place secure as possible against English war vessels that he heard had been sent out to capture him, he at length dropped anchor in the sequestered bay of Novaheevah and took possession of it in the name of the United States, naming it Madison Island. In a short time the native women came swimming off naked to the ship in crowds, and as they climbed up the vessel's sides, the sailors, astonished at the novel spectacle, threw them their handkerchiefs to cover their persons. Though swarthy, many of them possessed beautiful forms and handsome features. Apparently wholly unconscious of those feelings of modesty which seem innate in the sex, they received with pride the advances of the men, and in a short time every petty officer had chosen his wife, and the long and tedious confinement on ship-board was exchanged for unbridled license.
A year before, Porter had sailed from the United States alone, with only a few months' provisions on board, and in the mean time had taken thirteen vessels and four hundred prisoners. With but a single imperfect chart to direct him, he had boldly threaded the islands of the Pacific, and swept it of nearly all the enemy's ships. His journal of this long cruise reads more like a romance than a logbook, and seems to belong to that class of literature in which Robinson Crusoe and Captain Kidd figure as heroes. That frigate dropping down the Delaware in October, the autumn previous, and now riding at anchor, with a large fleet about her, in a deserted bay amid the Marquesas Islands, presents a striking contrast, and shows what a single brave, energetic, and skillful officer can accomplish.
In a short time those quiet waters resounded with the hammer of the workmen, and were filled with the stir and activity of a civilized port.
The nations were at first friendly, but those occupying the valley where Porter had landed being at war with another tribe, the Happahs, they insisted that he should make common cause with them against their enemies. This, at last, for the sake of peace, he was compelled to do, and sent a party of sailors, under Lieutenant Downes, to assist them in their invasion of the enemy's territory. The hostile tribe had assembled to the number of three or four thousand, but Downes soon scattered them and returned with five dead bodies, which his allies brought back in triumph, slung on poles.
In the mean time Captain Porter built a small village, consisting of several houses, a bakery, and rope-walk, and erected a fort which he mounted with four guns.
At length the Typees, a warlike tribe, succeeded in exciting the friendly tribes to hostilities, and a plan was rapidly maturing to murder the American crews. Presents and requests to induce them to maintain a peaceful attitude, only increased their arrogance, and Porter at last resolved to make them feel his power. Accompanied by thirty-five sailors he advanced into their country, but the natives avoided a combat and retired into the mountain fastnesses. The next day he took nearly his whole crew and boldly entered the mountains, whose bald tops swarmed with thousands of savages. But to his surprise, he suddenly came to a wall seven feet high flanked with impenetrable thickets. Behind this the Typees made a bold stand, and hurled stones and arrows against their assailants. The volleys of the Americans produced but little effect, and Porter discovering at length that his ammunition was nearly exhausted, sent Lieutenant Gamble to the boats for more, while he, with only nineteen sailors, maintained his position. On the return of Gamble it was thought best to retreat, and the whole took up their backward march. The savages, elated with their victory, pressed forward in pursuit, when Porter gave them a volley which killed two and wounded several more. Coming to a river, the Americans heard the snapping of slings in the thickets on the bank, and immediately after, a shower of stones fell among them, one of which fractured the leg of Lieutenant Downes. Weary and disappointed, they at length reached the boats. Here they rested till night, when they were again ordered forward. The moon shone bright as this little column slowly and painfully climbed the heights, from whose summits arose the yells and songs of the savages. As the party advanced, the sterile region grew more dreary and broken, and the prospect ahead more disheartening. Now wading foaming torrents, and again creeping along dizzy precipices, the astonished sailors, unaccustomed to such labors, became exhausted, and many dropped down amid the rocks unable to proceed further. At length the summit, from which the valley of the Typees could be seen, was reached. But in the mean time the sky had become overcast, the moon was obscured, and the guide declared it would be impossible to descend in the darkness. They therefore laid down, where they were, to wait for morning.
Those American sailors reposing on the top of the Typee mountain, in that remote and almost unknown region, presented a novel spectacle. An impenetrable gloom hung over the valley beneath, the sky spread like a pall above them, while the dull, heavy roar of the Pacific, as its billows broke in the darkness far below them, added to the strangeness and romance of the scene. At length the gathering storm burst, and the rain fell in torrents. It was a tropical shower—one of those deluges of the skies, and in a few moments the little band was flooded with water. Porter, fearing the ammunition would all be spoiled, bade every man protect it with the utmost care. The Typees, assembled in the valley below to the number of four or five thousand, appeared to entertain the same expectations, for they began to shout and beat their drums in exultation.
At length the long wished for day dawned—the storm had ceased, and as the light crept down the sides of the mountain, a scene of surpassing beauty presented itself. A valley nine miles long and three broad, lay spread out before them, inclosed on every side by high mountains. At the farther extremity arose a lofty precipice, over whose brink a torrent rushed in a flying leap, and falling in foam at the base, formed a stream, which, after winding tranquilly through the green and lovely valley, passed, by an opening in the mountains, into the Pacific, that, far away, rolled and glittered in the early dawn. All over this sequestered plain were scattered the breadfruit and cocoa trees, while picturesque villages of bamboo dotted it in every direction. Amid these, immense crowds of swarthy men were moving, and animals grazing, giving life and animation to the strange and beautiful panorama.
Firing a volley, to let the enemy know his powder was not destroyed, Porter began the difficult descent. The tortuous course he was compelled to pursue made the journey long and tedious, and that night he encamped in a village of friendly natives. The next morning he moved on the Typee towns. The natives at first closed bravely with him, but frightened by the musketry they soon retreated, followed by the sailors. Retiring from village to village, they at last took refuge in a strong fortress, against which small arms could have no effect. Porter then began the work of destruction, and soon nine villages were wrapt in fire. As the flames and smoke rolled up from the plain, he began his backward march to the ships. At sunset he stood again on the mountain where he had reposed the night before, and looked down on the valley, but it was now a scene of desolation. The smoke curling slowly up from the ruins revealed where the Typee towns had stood, while around the smouldering ashes the inhabitants were gathered in consternation and despair.
Porter reached his boats in safety, having marched sixty miles in all. The sailors, unaccustomed to such land duty, were completely broken down with the fatigue and exposure.
This novel expedition succeeded in humbling the hostile tribes, and Porter had no further trouble with them while he remained.
The burning of these villages furnished the English papers a subject for the exercise of their philanthropy. An act of self-preservation by which a few empty wigwams were destroyed, aroused the humanity of those who could see no cause of complaint in the conflagration that lighted up the Niagara river from Buffalo to the falls, and kept the Chesapeake in a glow from burning farm-houses and villages.
Dec. 12, 1813.
Leaving behind him three prizes under the protection of the fort he had erected, Porter set sail for Valparaiso, where he arrived the 12th of January. Although it was evident that the sympathies of the Chilian government had changed, and were now entirely with the English, he determined to wait at that port for the Phœbe, an English ship, which he understood had been sent out on purpose to capture him. She at length arrived, but not alone—the Cherub, a sloop of war bearing her company. These vessels bore flags with the mottoes on them "God and our country—British sailors' best rights—traitors offend them." Porter immediately hoisted at his mizen, "God, our country and liberty; tyrants offend them." The Essex could doubtless have made good her voyage home, but Porter in capturing merchantmen and whalers had done nothing in his own view to distinguish himself, and he longed to grapple with this English ship of war. But the vast superiority of these two vessels to his own and the Essex Junior, forbade a combat unless he was forced into it.
When the Phœbe, commanded by Captain Hillyar, came into port she passed close to the Essex with her men at quarters. Porter hailed her, saying the vessels would get foul, and requesting the officers in command to keep off. The English captain declared he had no intention of provoking an action, but his conduct arousing the suspicion of Porter he summoned the boarders. In the mean time the English vessel being taken aback, passed her bows directly over the decks of the Essex, and she lay exposed to a raking broadside from the latter, and was for the time completely at her mercy. There is scarcely a doubt that Captain Hillyar had orders to attack the Essex wherever he found her, even if in a neutral port, and if the positions of the two vessels had been reversed he would not have hesitated to demolish the American frigate. The whole proceeding justified Porter in such a construction, and his broadsides should have anticipated those of the enemy, which soon after left him a wreck.
The English ships having taken in supplies, cruised outside for six weeks, completely blockading the Essex. Porter saw that his vessel could outsail the enemy, but he was not anxious to escape. He wished if possible, notwithstanding his inferiority in men and weight of metal, to engage the Phœbe alone. In this Captain Hillyar would not gratify him. Once Porter got within range and opened his fire on the Phœbe, but her gallant commander, though his vessel was a thirty-six, while the Essex was a thirty-two, and his crew mustered one hundred more men, refused the challenge and dropped nearly three miles astern to close with her consort, the Cherub. This enraged Porter, for Hillyar had hove to off port, and fired a gun to windward, which could be interpreted in no other way than as a challenge.
The former so understood it, and immediately got under way, when his adversary retired. Hillyar afterwards declared that the gun to windward was a signal to the Cherub. It was doubtless a ruse practiced to decoy the Essex into a chase till she could be assailed by both vessels at once. There can be only one of two explanations to Hillyar's conduct in this affair; he either was afraid to meet the American frigate, though the latter was inferior in force, or his instructions were not to hazard a single engagement.
Finding that his adversary was determined to avoid him, unless he could close with both his vessels at the same time, and hearing that other British cruisers were on the way, Porter resolved to put to sea, and by tempting Captain Hillyar in pursuit, give the Essex Junior, a slow sailer, an opportunity to follow. So on the 28th of March the wind blowing fresh, he stood out of port. For awhile every thing promised a safe exit, and an open sea, where he would have defied the enemy. But in doubling the Point of Angels to clear the harbor, a squall struck the vessel, carrying away her main-top-mast, and with it several men, who were drowned. Unable to go to sea in this crippled condition, and unable also to beat back to his former anchorage, he passed to the north-eastern side of the harbor and dropped his anchor within three miles of the town, a mile and a half from the Castello Viego, and close in shore. He was on neutral ground, as much so by the law of nations, as if under the guns of the castle, and where, in the same circumstances, at the present day, no nation on the globe would dare fire into an American frigate; and yet Captain Hillyar moved down on her with both his vessels, chose his position, and opened his broadsides. Only one of two measures was therefore left to the American commander—strike his flag at once, or fight his ship to the last. To conquer he knew was impossible, still he could not give up his vessel without an effort, and he sternly ordered the decks cleared for action.
The two English vessels, although they had chosen their own position, were in a short time so cut up by the deadly aim of the gunners of the Essex that they hauled off for repairs.
The state of affairs having got wind, thousands of spectators assembled on the surrounding heights to witness the combat. Porter's situation was well nigh hopeless, but he was one of those few men whom desperate circumstances only stimulate to greater exertions. Fortune, as if envious of his long success, seemed determined to crush him. Yet he resolved that what adverse fate got out of him, should be on terms that would cover him with more glory than ordinary success could possibly do.
Captain Hillyar having completed his repairs, again took his position where the Essex could not bring a gun to bear. Porter finding himself a mere target on the water, determined if possible to board the Phœbe. But his sheets and halyards had been so shot away that not a sail could be set, except the flying jib. Giving this to wind and cutting his cable, he drove slowly down on his foes, and when he got them within range of his carronades, opened a terrible fire. The cannonade on both sides was incessant and awful. The Essex on fire, almost a wreck, and swept by the broadsides of two vessels, still bore steadily down to close, but the Cherub hauled off, while the Phœbe, seeing the advantage she possessed with her long guns, when out of the reach of carronades, kept edging away. It was a painful spectacle to behold, that crippled, dismantled ship, bravely limping up to grapple with her powerful adversary, and that adversary as slowly moving off and pouring in the while a ceaseless, murderous fire. Hulled at almost every shot, her decks ripped up and strewed with the dead, her guns torn from their carriages and rendered useless, it was evident that noble frigate could not be fought much longer. Still Porter would not strike his flag, and he resolved to run his vessel ashore and blow her up. Her head was turned towards the beach, and he had got within musket-shot of it, when the wind suddenly veered and blew him back on the Phœbe and under her raking broadsides. Foiled in his first effort, he now for a moment hoped to get foul and board the enemy, but she kept away, raking the Essex as she retired. The scene on board the frigate at this time was horrible. The cock-pit was crowded with the wounded—men by the dozens were mowed down at every discharge—fifteen had successively fallen at one gun, and scarcely a quarter deck officer was left standing. Amid this scene of carnage and desolation, Porter moved with a knit brow and gloomy heart. As he looked at his crippled condition and slaughtered crew, he felt that he must submit, but when he turned his eye to the flag of his country, still fluttering at the mizen, he could not give the order to strike it. The sympathies of the thousands of spectators that covered the hill-top were with him—as they ever are with the brave. The American consul hastened to the governor of the city and claimed the protection of the batteries for the Essex, but in vain. It had, no doubt, been all arranged beforehand between the authorities and the British commander. Every thing, even the elements of nature, seemed combined against this single ship. As a last resort, Porter let go his sheet anchor, which brought the head of his vessel round so that his broadsides again bore. A gleam of hope lighted up for a moment the gloom that hung over his prospects, and walking amid his bleeding crew, he encouraged the few survivors to hold on. The broadsides of the two vessels again thundered over the bay, telling with frightful effect on both vessels. But this last forlorn hope was snatched from the fated frigate—the hawser parted in the strain, and she drifted an unmanageable wreck on the water—while, to complete the horror of the scene, the flames burst from the hatchways and rolled away towards the magazine. Finding that his doom was now inevitably sealed, for his boats had all been shot away, Porter ordered those of his crew who could swim to jump overboard and make for the shore, three-quarters of a mile distant. Some reached it, while the remainder who made the attempt were either drowned or picked up by the enemy's boats. He then, with the few who preferred to share his fate, extinguished the fire, and again worked the guns that could be brought to bear. It was, however, the last feeble effort of a dying giant. The enemy could now fire more leisurely, and the water being smooth, he soon made a perfect riddle of the Essex. The crew at last entreated their commander to surrender—the contest was hopeless—the cock-pit, ward-room, steerage, and berth-deck could contain no more wounded, who were constantly killed while under the surgeon's hand. Of the carpenter's crew not one remained to stop the shot-holes, through which the water was pouring in streams, and the entire vessel was a wreck. Porter would have sunk with his flag flying, but for the number of wounded who would thus perish with him. For their sakes he finally consented to surrender, and ordered the officers of the different divisions to be sent for, but to his amazement only one was left to answer his call,[3] while out of two hundred and fifty-five men only seventy-five were left fit for duty. This unexampled and murderous combat had lasted nearly two hours and a half, and he gave the melancholy order to lower the flag. The enemy not at first observing it, kept up his fire. Porter, thinking it was his intention to give no quarter, was about to hoist his flag again, and go down with it flying, when the firing ceased.
A ship was never fought more bravely or skilfully, and Porter, though compelled to surrender, earned imperishable renown, and set an example to our navy, which if followed, will ensure its success, and cover it with glory.
Captain Hillyar's conduct after the victory, was distinguished by a courtesy and delicacy rarely witnessed in English commanders at that time. But he was blameworthy in attacking a ship in a neutral port, and it would not take many such victories to ruin his reputation. The whole transaction shows what little respect England paid to the laws of neutrality. The national heart was exceedingly shocked at the violation of those laws by Napoleon when he seized the Duke D'Enghien, but she could give orders, the execution of which did not cause the death of merely one man, but more than one hundred brave spirits, on neutral territory. The authorities of Valparaiso were also guilty of a base act in not defending the rights of their own port, and extending the protection required by the laws of nations to the American vessel.
1814.
The Essex Junior was transformed into a cartel, and the prisoners sent in her to the United States, on parole. She arrived off Sandy Hook the 5th of July, and though provided with passports from Captain Hillyar, to prevent a recapture, she was overhauled and detained by the British ship Saturn. Captain Nash, the commander, at first treated Porter very civilly, endorsed his passports, and allowed the vessel to proceed. Standing on the same tack with the Essex, he kept her company for two hours, when he ordered the former to heave to again, and her papers brought on board for re-examination. Porter was indignant at this proceeding, but he was told that his passport must not only go on board the Saturn, but the vessel itself be detained. He remonstrated, declaring that it was in direct violation of the contract entered into with Captain Hillyar, and he should consider himself a prisoner of Captain Nash's, and no longer on parole, and at the same time offered to deliver up his sword. On being told that the vessel must remain under the lee of the Saturn all night, he said, "then I am your prisoner, and do not feel myself bound any longer by my agreement with Captain Hillyar." He withdrew his parole at once, declaring he should act as he saw fit. The English captain evidently suspected some Yankee trick was at the bottom of the whole proceeding, and as it usually happened during the war, suspicion was aroused at precisely the wrong times. English vessels had been so often duped by Yankee shrewdness that they were constantly on the alert, and hence to be safe, often committed blunders of a grave character. Porter, whether treading the quarter-deck of his own vessel or a prisoner of war, was not a man to be trifled with, and as a British officer had treated him basely, he determined to be free of the obligations that galled him, at all hazards, and the next morning finding that he was off Long Island, and that Captain Nash had no idea of releasing him, he ordered a boat lowered, into which he jumped with an armed crew, and pushed off. As he went down the vessel's side, he told Lieutenant Downs to say to Captain Nash, "that he was now satisfied that most British naval officers were not only destitute of honor, but regardless of the honor of each other; that he was armed and should fight any force sent against him, to the last, and if he met him again, it would be as an enemy." Keeping the Essex Junior between him and the British vessel, he got nearly out of gun-shot before he was discovered. The Saturn immediately gave chase, but a fog suddenly rising, concealed the boat, when Porter changed his course and eluded his pursuers. Lieutenant Downs, taking advantage of the same fog endeavored to escape with his vessel, but the Saturn suspecting his movements, opened her guns, which brought him to. Porter heard the firing, and kept off in an opposite direction, and by rowing and sailing, alternately, for nearly sixty miles, in an open boat, at length reached Babylon, on Long Island. The people there discredited his story. Suspecting he was an English officer in disguise, they began to question him, and he was compelled to show his commission before they would let him go. When their doubts were at length removed, every attention was lavished upon him, and he started for New York. His arrival was soon spread abroad, and as the carriage that contained him entered the city the horses were snatched away, and the people seizing it, dragged him through the streets with huzzas and shouts of welcome.
Porter had lost his ship, but not his place in the heart of the nation, nay he was deeply and forever fixed there. His cruise had been a great triumph, notwithstanding its disastrous close. The boldness and originality of its conception—the daring and gallant manner in which he had carried it out—the spirit and desperation with which he had fought his ship against a superior force, were themes of universal eulogy, and endeared him to the American people.
CHAPTER III.
Plan of the third Campaign — Attack on Sackett's Harbor — Attack on Oswego — Woolsey transports guns to Sackett's Harbor — Capture of the detachment sent against him — Expedition against Mackinaw — Death of Captain Holmes — Complete failure of the expedition.
While Porter was slowly approaching our coast, on his return from the Pacific, events on our northern frontier were assuming an entirely different aspect from that which they had worn for the last two years. In the spring, just before and after Congress adjourned, small expeditions on both sides were set on foot; one, on our part, to Mackinaw, to aid in carrying out Armstrong's plan for the summer campaign. This, like all the previous plans looked to the same result, the details being varied apparently for the sole purpose of appeasing the people, who it was thought, would not allow a repetition of those manœuvres which had ended in such signal disgrace. It was therefore proposed, first to humble the Indians in the north-west, by capturing Mackinaw, and thus hold the key of that whole region, so valuable for its fur trade, and then march an army from the east of Lake Erie to Burlington Heights, and seize and fortify that position till the co-operation of the Ontario fleet and the troops at Sackett's harbor could be secured, when a rapid advance might be made on Kingston, and after its reduction, on Montreal. The Secretary clung to the conquest of Canada with a tenacity that deserved success, but this plan also utterly failed, and the progress of the campaign brought about results widely different from those anticipated. That part of it looking to the seizure of Mackinaw, was placed under the direction of Colonel Croghan and Major Holmes, with whom Captain Sinclair, recently appointed to the command of the upper lakes, was to co-operate with a portion of his fleet—the other portion to aid in the expedition against Burlington Heights. Major Holmes had at first been appointed by the Secretary to command the land forces, but Colonel Croghan, stationed at Detroit, and senior officer during Colonel Butler's absence, denied the right thus directly to appoint him, insisting that the commission should go through his hands. A correspondence followed, which delayed the expedition till the third of July. In the mean time, a British force, under Colonel McDowell, had visited and reinforced all the posts on the northern lakes, penetrating even beyond Mackinaw. While Holmes and Sinclair were detained till Colonel Croghan and the Secretary could settle a question of etiquette, the English, who had again acquired the ascendancy on Lake Ontario, by building more ships, made an attack on Sackett's Harbor. Being repulsed, Sir James Yeo then sailed for Oswego, to destroy materials for ship building, etc., which he supposed to be assembled there. He arrived on the 5th of May, and began to bombard the place. The American garrison at the fort, consisted of three hundred men under Colonel Mitchell, with five guns, three of which were almost useless. The place contained at that time, but five hundred inhabitants. The schooner Growler being in the river, and exposed to certain capture, was sunk, and her cannon transferred to the fort, situated on a high bank east of the town.
Finding that the bombardment produced no effect, a large body of troops, under General Drummond, was sent forward to carry the fort by storm. The fifteen barges that contained them were led on by gun-boats, destined to cover the landing. These no sooner came within range of the artillery on shore, than a spirited fire was opened on them, repulsing them twice, and finally compelling the whole flotilla to seek the shelter of the ships. The next day the fleet approached nearer shore, and commenced a heavy cannonade which lasted three hours. Under cover of it, General De Watteville landed two thousand troops, and advanced in perfect order over the ground that intervened between the water and the fort. The soldiers and marines of the Growler fought bravely, but Colonel Mitchell seeing that resistance was hopeless, retired, scourging the enemy as he withdrew, with well-directed volleys, and strewing the ground with more than two hundred dead and wounded. He fell back to Oswego Falls, where the naval stores had all been removed, destroying the bridges as he retired. Foiled in their attempt to get possession of the stores, the British, after having raised the Growler, retired to Sackett's Harbor, and blockaded it, resolving to intercept the supplies, guns, etc., that were ready to be sent forward. Lighter materials could be transported by land, but the guns, cables, and anchors, &c., destined for two vessels recently built at Sackett's Harbor, could reach there only by water, from Oswego, whither they had been carried by way of the Mohawk river, Woods' creek, Oneida lake, and the Oswego river. Captain Woolsey, a brave, skillful and energetic officer, who had been appointed to take charge of their transportation, caused a rumor to be spread that he designed to effect it through Oneida lake. May 28. But soon as the British fleet left Oswego, he dropped down the river with fifteen boats, loaded with thirty-four cannon and ten cables. Halting at Oswego till dark, he then pulled out into the lake. A detachment of a hundred and thirty riflemen accompanied him, while a body of Oneida Indians marched along the shore. The night was dark and gloomy—the rain fell in torrents, drenching sailors and soldiers to the skin, while the waves dashed over the boats, adding to the discomforts and labors of the voyage. It was a long and tedious pull along the scarcely visible shores, on which swayed and moaned an unbroken forest.
The next day at sunrise the fleet of boats reached Big Salmon river, with the exception of one, which kept on, under the pretence of going direct to Sackett's Harbor, and fell into the hands of the blockading squadron, giving it information of the approach of the others. Woolsey, knowing that he could not run the blockade, had resolved to land his guns at Big Sandy creek and transport them by land eight miles distant, to Sackett's Harbor. Having reached the mouth of the creek in safety, he ascended two miles and landed. In the mean time Sir James Yeo had dispatched two gun-boats, with three cutters and a gig, in search of him. Finding the fleet had ascended Big Sandy creek, Captains Popham and Spilsbury, who commanded the expedition, followed after. The soldiers and marines were landed a mile or more below where Woolsey was unloading, and moved forward, keeping parallel with the gun-boats, which incessantly probed the thickets, as they advanced, with grape shot. Major Appling, who commanded the American riflemen, placed them and his Indian allies in ambush about half a mile below the American barges. Allowing the enemy to approach within close range, he suddenly poured in a destructive volley, which so paralyzed them that they threw down their arms and begged for quarter. All the boats, officers, and men were taken, making a total loss of a hundred and eighty-six men.
The guns were then carried across to Sackett's Harbor, and the new ship Superior armed, which so strengthened Chauncey's force that Sir James Yeo raised the blockade and sailed for the Canada shore.
July 3.
At last the expedition against Mackinaw got under way. Two war brigs, the Lawrence and Niagara, together with several smaller vessels, carrying in all nine hundred men, began slowly to traverse the inland seas from Detroit to Mackinaw. Nothing but canoes and batteaux had hitherto floated on those scarcely known waters, with the exception of a single schooner or sloop, which made an annual solitary trip to the extreme north-western posts to carry supplies. More than a thousand miles from the ocean, and lifted nearly six hundred feet above it, those vast seas rolled their waves through unbroken forests. This was the first fleet that ever penetrated those solitudes, through which roamed unscared beasts of prey, and from whose further margin stretched away those immense prairies that go rolling up to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Amid unknown rocks and shoals—feeling its way along narrow channels—at one moment almost grazing the sand-bars with its keels, and the next moment floating over water nearly a thousand feet deep—now traversing groups of beautiful islands, and anon skirting the bases of precipices, on whose summit waved forests that had stood undisturbed since the birth of time—that little fleet crept on towards its destination. Its progress was so slow that Colonel McDowell, commanding at Mackinaw, had ample time to make preparations for defence.
Captain Sinclair, on his arrival, refused to advance against the fort, for its batteries looked down on his decks from a hundred feet in the air. A land attack was therefore resolved upon and carried into execution. Aug. 4. But the dense woods, filled with sharp shooters, through which the troops were compelled to force their way, rendered the movement a complete failure. Captain Holmes, a gallant officer, was shot by an Indian boy. A black servant of Colonel Croghan immediately covered the body with leaves, to prevent mutilation by the Indians, and the next day it was recovered. The troops were re-embarked, and the discomfitted fleet turned homeward. Overtaken by a storm in Lake Huron, all their boats were destroyed, and the vessels themselves narrowly escaped being wrecked. A detachment having destroyed six months' supplies at the mouth of the Natewasaga river destined for Mackinaw, two schooners were left to blockade the place. Sept. 13. Mackinaw, thus cut off from all communication with the provinces, would be starved out and compelled to surrender. But to complete the disaster of this unfortunate enterprise, four batteaux, with a fleet of small boats from Mackinaw, surprised and captured one of the schooners, the Tigress. Lieutenant Woolsey then took command of her, and the next morning, with American colors flying, stood steadily down on the Scorpion until he ranged alongside, when he fired all his guns at once, and running aboard, took the unsuspecting vessel without a struggle.
Thus ended an expedition, romantic from the scenery through which it passed, but comparatively useless in its results, and costing more than it was worth, even if it had been successful.
CHAPTER IV.
Brown takes command of the army at Niagara — Crosses the river into Canada — Battle of Chippewa — Brilliant charge of the Americans — Desperate battle of Niagara — Conduct of Ripley — The army ordered to Fort Erie — General Gaines takes command.
July 3.
On the same day the expedition to Mackinaw sailed from Detroit, the army which had been concentrated at Buffalo during the winter, crossed the Niagara, in its third campaign against Canada. Brown, who had been made Brigadier-General for his gallant conduct at Sackett's Harbor, was afterward promoted to the rank of Major-General and given the command of the army destined to act on the Niagara frontier. Two regular brigades, commanded by Scott and Ripley, and a brigade of volunteers and militia, with a few Indians, under General Porter, composed his force. He was directed to carry out that portion of the Secretary's plan which looked to the possession and fortification of Burlington Heights, previous to a descent on Kingston and Montreal. First, he was to seize Fort Erie, risk a combat with the enemy at Chippewa, menace Fort George, and then, if Chauncey's fleet could co-operate with him, advance rapidly on Burlington.
The two regular brigades had been subjected for three months to a new and most rigid discipline. The system of tactics hitherto in use, had been handed down from the Revolution, and was not, therefore, adapted to the improved mode of warfare. Scott, here, for the first time, introduced the French system. He drilled the officers, and they, in turn, the men. So severe and constant was this discipline, that, in the short space of three months, these brigades became intelligent, steady, and invincible as veterans.
July 3.
The preparations being completed, the army crossed the Niagara river, and took Fort Erie without a struggle. The main British army, under General Riall, lay at Chippewa, towards which Scott pressed, heading the advance, with his brigade, chasing before him for sixteen miles, a detachment commanded by the Marquis of Tweesdale, who said he could not account for the ardor of the pursuit until he remembered it was the 4th of July, our great anniversary. At dark the Marquis crossed the Chippewa, behind which lay the British army. This river enters the Niagara nearly at right angles. Two miles farther up, Street's Creek joins the Niagara also, and behind it Gen. Brown drew up the American forces. Those two miles of interval between the streams was an open plain, skirted on one side by the Niagara river and on the other by a forest.
In the morning Gen. Brown resolved to advance and attack the British in their position. The latter had determined on a similar movement against the Americans, and unbeknown to each other, the one prepared to cross the bridge of Chippewa, and the other that of Street's Creek.
The battle commenced in the woods on the left, and an irregular fight was kept up for a long time between Porter's brigade and the Canadian militia stationed there. The latter were at length driven back to the Chippewa, when General Riall advanced to their support. Before this formidable array, the American militia, notwithstanding the noble efforts of General Porter to steady their courage, broke and fled. General Brown immediately hastened to the scene, merely saying to Scott as he passed on, "The enemy is advancing, you will have a fight." The latter, ignorant of the forward movement of Riall, had just put his brigade in marching order to cross the creek for a drill on the level plain beyond. But as the head of the column reached the bank, he saw the British army drawn up in beautiful array in the open field, on the farther side, while a battery of nine pieces stood in point blank range of the bridge over which he was to cross. Swiftly yet beautifully the corps of Scott swept over the bridge and deployed under the steady fire of the battery. The first and second battalions under Majors Leavenworth and McNeil, took position in front of the left and centre of the enemy, while the third, under Jessup, obliqued to the left to attack their right, stationed in the woods, and which threatened to outflank the American line. It was a bright, hot July afternoon, the dusty plain presented no obstacle behind which either party could find shelter, and the march of the steady battalions over its surface led on by bands of music, playing national airs, presented one of those stirring scenes which make man forget the carnage that is to follow. The heavy monotonous thunder of Niagara rolled on over the discharges of artillery, while its clouds of spray rising from the strife of waters, and glittering in the sunbeams, contrasted strangely with the sulphurous clouds that heaved heavenward from the conflict of men beneath.
Both armies halting, firing, and advancing in turn, continued to approach until they stood within eighty yards of each other. Scott who had been manœuvering to get the two battalions of Leavenworth and M'Neil in an oblique position to the British line, at length succeeded, the two farther extremities being nearest the enemy. Thus the American army stood like an obtuse triangle of which the British line formed the base. While in this position, Scott, wishing to pass from one extremity to the other and being in too great a hurry to go back of the lines around the triangle, cut directly across, taking the cross fire of both armies, as he spurred in a fierce gallop through the smoke. A loud cheer rolled along the American line as they saw this daring act of their commander. Riding up to Towson's battery, he cried out, "a little more to the left, captain, the enemy is there." This gallant officer was standing amid his guns, enveloped in smoke, and had not observed that the British had advanced so far that his fire fell behind them. Instantly discovering his mistake, he changed the direction of his two remaining pieces and poured a raking, destructive fire through the enemy's ranks, blowing up an ammunition wagon, which spread destruction on every side. At this critical moment, Scott rode up to M'Neil's battalion, his face blazing with excitement, and shouted, "The enemy say that we are good at long shot but cannot stand the cold iron. I call upon the Eleventh instantly to give the lie to that slander—Charge."
Just as the order "charge," escaped his lips, came that destructive fire from Towson's battery. The thunder of those guns at that critical moment, was to Scott's young and excited heart like the shout of victory, and rising in his stirrups and swinging his sword aloft, he cried, "Charge, charge the rascals." With a high and ringing cheer, that gallant battalion moved with leveled bayonets on the foe. Taking the close and deadly volleys without shrinking—never for a moment losing its firm formation, it struck the British line obliquely, crumbling it to pieces, as it swept on and making awful havoc in its passage.
Leavenworth did the same on the right with like success, while Jessup in the woods, ignorant how the battle was going in the plain, but finding himself outflanked, ordered his troops "to support arms and advance." They cheerfully obeyed and in the face of a most deadly fire charged home on the enemy, and obtaining a better position poured in their volleys with tremendous effect. From the moment these charges commenced, till the enemy fled, the field presented a frightful spectacle. The two armies were in such close proximity, and the volleys were so incessant and destructive, and the uproar so terrific that orders could no longer be heard. But through his two aids Lieutenants Worth and Watts, who galloped to and fro, and by their presence and gestures transmitted his orders in the midst of the hottest fire, Scott caused every movement to be executed with precision, and not an error was committed from first to last.
The enemy fled over the Chippewa, tore up the bridge and retired to his encampment.
The sun went down in blood and the loud voice of Niagara which had been drowned in the roar of battle, sounded on as before, chaunting a requiem for the gallant dead, while the moans of the wounded loaded the air of the calm summer evening.
Nearly eight hundred killed and wounded, had been stretched on the earth in that short battle, out of some four thousand, or one-fifth of all engaged.[4] A bloodier battle, considering the numbers, was scarce ever fought. The British having been taught to believe that the American troops would give way in an open fight, and that the resort to the bayonet was always the signal of victory to them, could not be made to yield, until they were literally crushed under the headlong charge of the Americans.
Gen. Brown, when he found that Scott had the whole British army on his hands, hurried back to bring up Ripley's brigade; but Scott's evolutions and advance had been so rapid, and his blow so sudden and deadly, that the field was swept before he could arrive.
M'Neil's battalion had not a recruit in it, and Scott knew when he called on them to give the lie to the slander, that American troops could not stand the cold steel, that they would do it though every man perished in his footsteps.
Maj. Leavenworth's battalion, however, embraced a few volunteers, and among them a company of backwoodsmen, who joined the army at Buffalo a few days before it was to cross the Niagara.
An incident illustrating their character, was told the writer's father by Maj. Gen. Leavenworth himself. Although a battle was expected in a few days, the Major resolved in the mean time to drill these men. Having ordered them out for that purpose, he endeavored to apply the manual; but to his surprise, found that they were ignorant of the most common terms familiar even to untrained militia. While thus puzzled with their awkwardness, Scott rode on the field, and in a sharp voice asked Maj. Leavenworth if he could not manage those soldiers better. The Major lifting his chapeau to the General, replied, that he wished the General would try them himself. The latter rode forward and issued his commands—but the backwoodsmen instead of obeying him, were ignorant even of the military terms he used. After a few moments' trial, he saw it was a hopeless task, and touching his chapeau in return to Leavenworth, said, "Major, I leave you your men," and rode off the field. The latter, finding that all attempts at drill during the short interval that must elapse before a battle occurred, would be useless, ordered them to their quarters. On the day of the battle he placed them at one extremity of the line, where he thought they would interfere the least with the manœuvres of the rest of the battalion. He said that during the engagement, this company occurred to him, and he rode the whole length of his line to see what they were about. They were where he had placed them, captain and all, obeying no orders, except those to advance. Their ranks were open and out of all line; but the soldiers were cool and collected as veterans. They had thrown away their hats and coats, and besmeared with powder and smoke were loading and firing, each for himself. They paid no attention to the order to fire, for the idea of "shooting" till they had good aim was preposterous. The thought of running had evidently never crossed their minds. Fearless of danger, and accustomed to pick off squirrels from the tops of the loftiest trees with their rifle-balls, they were quietly doing what they were put there to perform, viz., kill men, and Maj. Leavenworth said there was the most deadly work in the whole line. Men fell like grass before the scythe. Not a shot was thrown away—ten men were equal to a hundred firing in the ordinary way.
The American army rested but two days after the battle, and then advanced over the Chippewa, Scott's brigade leading. The British retreated to Burlington Heights, near the head of Lake Ontario. Thither Brown resolved to follow them. But on the 25th, while the army was resting, preparatory to the next day's battle, word was brought that a thousand English troops had crossed the river to Lewistown, for the purpose, evidently, of seizing our magazines at Fort Schlosser, and the supplies, on the way to the American camp, from Buffalo. In order to force them to return, Brown resolved immediately to threaten the forts at the mouth of the Niagara river, and in twenty minutes, Scott, with a detachment of twelve hundred men, was on the march. He had proceeded but two miles, when he came in sight of a group of British officers on horseback, evidently reconnoitering. The force to which they belonged lay behind a strip of wood, which prevented him from seeing it. Supposing it, however, to be the fragments of the army he had so terribly shattered at Chippewa, he ordered the march to be resumed. But as he cleared the road he saw before him an army of two thousand men drawn up in order of battle. He paused a moment at this unexpected sight, and his eye had an anxious look as it ran along his little band. To retreat would endanger the reserve marching to his relief, and destroy the confidence of the troops. Besides, Scott never had, and never has since, learned practically, what the word "retreat" meant. He determined, therefore, hazardous as it was, to maintain the unequal contest till the other portion of the army arrived. Despatching officers to General Brown with directions to ride as for life, he gave the orders to advance. The sun, at this time, was but half an hour high, and unobscured by a cloud, was going to his lordly repose behind the forest that stood bathed in his departing splendor. Near by, in full view, rolled the cataract, sending up its incense towards heaven, and filling that summer evening with its voice of thunder. The spray, as it floated inland, hovered over the American army, and as the departing sunbeams struck it, a rainbow was formed, which encircled the head of Scott's column like a halo—a symbol of the wreath of glory that should adorn it forever.
The British, two thousand strong, were posted just below the Falls, on a ridge at the head of Lundy's Lane. Their left was in the highway, and separated from the main body by an interval of two hundred yards, covered with brushwood, etc. General Drummond had landed a short time before with reinforcements, which were rapidly marching up to the aid of Riall. Scott, however, would not turn his back on the enemy, and gallantly led in person his little army into the fire. His bearing and words inspired confidence, and officers and men forgot the odds that were against them. Major Jessup was ordered to fling himself in the interval, between the British centre and left, and turn the latter. In the mean time the enemy discovering that he outflanked the Americans on the left, advanced a battalion to take them in rear. The brave McNeil stopped, with one terrible blow, its progress, though his own battalion was dreadfully shattered by it. Jessup had succeeded in his movement, and having gained the enemy's rear, charged back through his line, captured the commanding general, Riall, with his whole staff. When this was told to Scott, he announced it to the army, and three loud cheers rang over the field. A destructive discharge from the English battery of seven pieces, replied.
It was night now, and a serene moon rose over the scene, but its light struggled in vain to pierce the smoke that curtained in the combatants. The flashes from the battery that crowned the heights, and from the infantry below, alone revealed where they were struggling. Scott's regiments were soon all reduced to skeletons—a fourth of the whole brigade had fallen in the unequal conflict. The English battery of twenty-four-pounders and howitzers, sent destruction through his ranks. He, however, refused to yield a foot of ground, and heading almost every charge in person, moved with such gay spirits and reckless courage through the deadliest fire, that the troops caught the infection. But the British batteries, now augmented to nine guns, made frightful havoc in his uncovered brigade. Towson's few pieces being necessarily placed so much lower, could produce but little effect, while the enemy's twenty-four-pounders, loaded with grape, swept the entire field. The eleventh and twenty-second regiments, deprived of their commanders, and destitute of ammunition were withdrawn, and Leavenworth, with the gallant ninth, was compelled to withstand the whole shock of battle. With such energy and superior numbers did the British press upon this single regiment, that it appeared amid the darkness to be enveloped in fire. Its destruction seemed inevitable, and in a short time one-half of its number lay stretched on the field. Leavenworth sent to Scott, informing him of his desperate condition. The latter soon came up on a gallop, when Leavenworth pointing to the bleeding fragment of his regiment, said, "Your rule for retreating is fulfilled," referring to Scott's maxim that a regiment might retreat when every third man was killed. Scott, however, answered buoyantly, cheered up the men and officers by promising victory, and spurring where the balls fell thickest, animated them by his daring courage and chivalric bearing to still greater efforts. Still he could not but see that his case was getting desperate, and unless aid arrived soon, he must retreat. Only five or six hundred of the twelve hundred he at sunset had led into battle, remained to him.
General Brown, however, was hurrying to the rescue. The incessant cannonading convinced him that Scott had a heavy force on his hands; and without waiting the arrival of a messenger, he directed Ripley to move forward with the second brigade. Meeting Scott's dispatch on the way, he learned how desperate the battle was, and immediately directed Porter with the volunteers to hurry on after Ripley, while he, in advance of all, hastened to the field of action. The constant and heavy explosions of artillery, rising over the roar of the cataract, announced to the excited soldiers the danger of their comrades; and no sooner were they wheeled into marching order than they started on a trot along the road. Lieut. Riddle, who was off on a scouring expedition in the country, paused as he heard the thunder of cannon, and waiting for no dispatch, gave orders to march, and his men moving at the charge de pas, soon came with shouts on the field. At length the head of Ripley's column emerged into view, sending joy through those gallant regiments, and a loud huzza rolled along their line. Brown, seeing that Scott's brigade was exhausted, ordered Ripley to form in advance of it. In the mean time, Drummond had arrived on the field with reinforcements, swelling the English army to four thousand men. At this moment there was a lull in the battle, and both armies prepared for a decisive blow. It was evident the deadly battery on the heights must be carried, or the field be lost, and Brown, turning to Colonel Miller, asked him if he could take it. "I will try, sir," was the brief reply of the fearless soldier, as he coolly scanned the frowning heights. Placing himself at the head of the 21st regiment, he prepared to ascend the hill. Major M'Farland with the 23d was to support him. Not having arrived on the field till after dark, he was ignorant of the formation of the ground or the best point from which to commence the ascent. Scott, who had fought over almost every foot of it since sunset, offered to pilot him. Passing by an old church and grave-yard, that showed dimly in the moonlight, he took the column to the proper place, and then returned to his post. In close order and dead silence the two regiments then moved straight for the battery. It was by their heavy muffled tread that General Drummond first detected their approach. But the moment he caught the dark outlines of the swiftly advancing columns he turned his battery upon them with terrific effect. The twenty-third staggered under the discharge, but soon rallied and pressed forward. Smitten again, it reeled backward down the hill; but the twenty-first never faltered. "Close up, steady, men!" rung from the lips of their leader, and taking the loads of grape-shot unshrinkingly into their bosoms, they marched sternly on, their bayonets gleaming red in the fire that rolled in streams down the slope. Every explosion revealed the whole hill and that dark column winding through flame and smoke up its sides. At length it came within range of musketry, when the carnage became awful; but still on through the sheets of flame, over their dead comrades, this invincible regiment held its stubborn course towards the very vortex of the battle. The English gazed with amazement on its steady advance. No hesitation marked its movement; closing up its ranks after every discharge, it kept on its terrible way, till at last it stood face to face with the murderous battery, and within a few steps of the gunners. A sudden flash, a deafening explosion, and then "Close up, steady, charge," rung out from the sulphurous cloud that rolled over the shattered regiment, and the next instant it swept with a thrilling shout over guns, gunners, and all. The struggle became at once close and fierce,—bayonet crossed bayonet,—weapon clashed against weapon,—but nothing could resist that determined onset. The British were driven down the hill, and the remnants of that gallant regiment, together with M'Farland's, which had again rallied, formed between the guns and the foe. Ripley then moved his brigade to the top of the hill, in order to keep what had been so heroically won.
Stung with rage and mortification at this unexpected defeat, Drummond resolved to retake that height and his guns, cost what it might; and soon the tread of his advancing columns was heard ascending the slope. With their uniforms glittering in the bright moonlight, the excited troops came on at the charge step, until within twenty yards of the American line, when they halted and delivered their fire. "Charge" then ran along the line, but the order had scarcely pealed on the night air before they were shattered and torn into fragments by the sudden and destructive volley of the Americans. Rallying, however, they returned to the attack, and for twenty minutes the conflict around those guns was indescribably awful and murderous. No sounds of music drowned the death-cry; the struggle was too close and fatal. There were only the fierce tramp and the clash of steel,—the stifled cry and wavering to and fro of men in a death-grapple. At length the British broke, and disappeared in the darkness. General Ripley again formed his line, while Scott, who had succeeded in getting a single battalion out of the fragments of his whole brigade, was ordered to the top of the hill.
In about half an hour the sound of the returning enemy was again heard. Smote by the same fierce fire, Drummond with a desperate effort threw his entire strength on the centre of the American line. But there stood the gallant twenty-first, whose resistless charge had first swept the hill; and where they had conquered they could not yield. Scott in the mean time led his column so as to take the enemy in flank and rear, and but for a sudden volley from a concealed body of the enemy, cutting his command in two, would have finished the battle with a blow. As it was, he charged again and again, with resistless energy, and the disordered ranks of the British for the second time rolled back and were lost in the gloom. Here Scott's last horse fell under him, and he moved on foot amid his battalion. Jessup was also severely wounded, yet there he stood amid the darkness and carnage, cheering on his men. The soldiers vied with the officers in heroic daring and patient suffering. Many would call out for muskets as they had none, or for cartridges as theirs were all gone. On every side from pallid lips and prostrate bleeding forms came the reply, "take mine, and mine, my gun is in good order, and my cartridge box is full." There was scarcely an officer at this time unwounded; yet, one and all refused to yield the command while they could keep their feet.
Jessup's flag was riddled with balls, and as a sergeant waved it amid a storm of bullets, the staff was severed in three places in his hand. Turning to his commander he exclaimed as he took up the fragments, "Look, colonel, how they have cut us." The next moment a ball passed through his body. But he still kept his feet, and still waved his mutilated standard, until faint with loss of blood he sunk on the field.
After being driven the second time down the hill, the enemy for a while ceased their efforts, and sudden silence fell on the two armies, broken only by the groans of the wounded and dying. The scene, and the hour, combined to render that hill-top a strange and fearful object in the darkness. On one side lay a wilderness, on the other rolled the cataract, whose solemn anthem could again be heard pealing on through the night. Leaning on their heated guns, that gallant band stood bleeding amid the wreck it had made. It was midnight—the stars looked quietly down from the sky—the summer wind swept softly by, and nature was breathing long and peacefully. But all over that hill lay the brave dead, and adown its sides in every direction the blood of men was rippling. Nothing but skeletons of regiments remained, yet calm and stern were the words spoken there in the darkness. "Close up the ranks," were the heroic orders that still fell on the shattered battalions, and they closed with the same firm presence and dauntless hearts as before.
It was thought that the British would make no further attempts to recover their guns, but reinforcements having arrived from Fort George, they, after an hour's repose and refreshment, prepared for a final assault. Our troops had all this time stood to their arms, and faint with hunger, thirst, and fatigue, seemed unequal to a third conflict against a fresh force. But as they heard the enemy advancing, they forgot their weariness and met the onset firmly as before. But this time the ranks of the enemy did not yield under the fire that smote them—they pressed steadily forward, and delivering their volleys as they advanced, at length stood on the summit of the hill, and breast to breast with the American line. The conflict now became fearful and more like the murderous hand-to-hand fights of old than a modern battle. Battalions on both sides were forced back till the ranks became mingled. Bayonet crossed bayonet and men lay transfixed side by side. Hindman, whose artillery had been from the first served with surpassing skill, found the enemy amid his guns, across which he was compelled to fight them.
The firing gave way to the clash of steel, the blazing hill-top subsided into gloom, out of which the sound of this nocturnal combat arose in strange and wild confusion.
Scott, charging like fire at the head of his exhausted battalion, received another severe wound which prostrated him—but his last words to Leavenworth were, "Charge again!" "Charge again, Leavenworth!" he cried, as they bore him, apparently dying, from that fierce foughten field. General Brown, supported on his horse, and suffering from a severe wound, was slowly led away. Jesup was bleeding from several wounds; every regimental officer in Scott's brigade was killed or wounded. Only one soldier out of every four stood up unhurt. The annals of war rarely reveal such a slaughter in a single brigade, but it is rarer still a brigade has such a leader. The ghosts of regiments alone remained, yet before these the veterans of England were at last compelled to flee, and betake themselves to the darkness for safety. Sullen, mortified, and badly wounded, Drummond was carried from the field, and all farther attempts to take the hill were abandoned. The Americans, however, kept watch and ward, around the cannon that had cost them so great a sacrifice, till near daybreak, when orders were received to retire to camp. No water could be obtained on the heights, and the troops wanted repose. Through the want of drag-ropes and horses, the cannon were left behind. This was a sad drawback to the victory, and Major Ripley should have detailed some men to have taken at least the lightest ones away. Trophies won with the blood of so many brave men were worth more effort than he put forth to secure them.
A bloodier battle, in proportion to the numbers engaged, was never fought than this. Nearly eight hundred Americans, and as many English, had fallen on and around that single hill. It was literally loaded with the slain. Seventy-six officers were either killed or wounded out of our army of some three thousand men, and not a general on either side remained unwounded.
Among the slain was young Captain Hull, son of the General who had so shamefully capitulated at Detroit. This young officer, who had fought one duel in defence of his father's honor, and struggled in vain to shake off the sense of disgrace that clung to him, told a friend at the opening of the battle, that he had resolved to fling away a life which had become insupportable. When the conflict was done, he was found stark and stiff where the dead lay thickest.
It would be impossible to relate all the deeds of daring and gallantry which distinguished this bloody engagement. Almost every man was a hero, and from that hour England felt a respect for our arms she had never before entertained. The navy had established its reputation forever, and now the army challenged the respect of the world. The timorous and the ignorant had been swept away with the old martinets, and the true genius of the country was shining forth in her young men, who, while they did not despise the past, took lessons of the present. Scott at this time, but twenty-eight years of age, had shown to the country what a single youth, fired with patriotism, confident in his resources, and daring in spirit, could accomplish. His brigade, it is true, had been almost annihilated, and nothing apparently been gained; but those err much who graduate the results of a battle by the number taken prisoners or the territory acquired. Moral power is always more valuable than physical, and though we are forever demanding something tangible to show as the reward of such a great effort and sacrifice, yet to gain a national position is more important than to take an army. Thus while many think that the battle of Niagara, though gallantly fought, was a barren one, and furnished no compensation for the great slaughter that characterized it, yet there has been none since that of Bunker Hill, more important to this country, and which, directly and indirectly, has more affected its interests. It probably saved more battles than if, by stratagem or superior force, General Brown had succeeded in capturing Drummond's entire army.
Brown and Scott both being disabled, the command devolved on Major Ripley, who retired behind the Chippewa, and the defences recently erected by the British. Scott's last wound was a severe one. A musket ball had shattered his shoulder dreadfully, and for a long time it was extremely doubtful whether he ever recovered. He suffered excruciating pain from it, and it was September before he ventured to travel, and then slowly and with great care. His progress was a constant ovation. The young and wounded chieftain was hailed on his passage with salvos of artillery, and shouts of freemen. He arrived at Princeton on commencement day of Nassau Hall. The professors immediately sent a delegation requesting his attendance at the church. Leaning on the arm of his gallant aid-de-camp, Worth—his arm in a sling, and his countenance haggard and worn from his long suffering and confinement, the tall young warrior slowly moved up the aisle, and with great difficulty ascended the steps to the stage. At first sight of the invalid, looking so unlike the dashing, fearless commander, a murmur of sympathy ran through the house, the next moment there went up a shout that shook the building to its foundations.
Passing on to Baltimore, then threatened with an attack by the British, he finally so far recovered as to take command in the middle of October of the tenth military district, and established his headquarters at Washington City.
General Brown was indignant with General Ripley for leaving the cannon behind, and peremptorily ordered him to reoccupy the heights of Lundy's Lane at daybreak, and remain there till the dead were buried and the guns removed. He however did not commence his march till after sunrise, and then being told that the enemy were in possession of the heights, he halted, and finally retired to Chippewa.
This officer, on whom the command had devolved since the battle, seemed from the first opposed to all the movements. When the army was about to cross the river against Riall, he not only strongly condemned the proceeding, but even offered his resignation, which was not accepted. By his neglect to remove, or attempt to remove the captured guns, which had cost such a heroic struggle, and his after delay to return and take them, it would seem as if he were offended that such brilliant results had followed a course which had met with his strong disapprobation. He was an able officer and a brave man, yet his heart was not in this movement of Brown's, consequently he did not go into combat with the enthusiasm of Scott, Miller, and Jesup, nor feel so elated by the victory.
Soon after, a rumor was spread that Drummond was marching on the American camp. Although occupying a strong position, Ripley immediately ordered a retreat to the ferry opposite Black Rock, with the intention of recrossing the river into the limits of the United States. This sudden determination, founded on a mere rumor, can hardly be accounted for, except on the supposition that he could not be contented till the army was back to the place it started from, and whence it never would have moved had he been commander-in-chief. He was prevented from carrying out this purpose by the earnest remonstrances of McCrea and Wood, who scorned to flee so ignominiously from the field of their fame. Ripley then left the army and hastened to Buffalo, to obtain Brown's consent to the measure. The wounded hero was enraged that the commanding officer should contemplate such a virtual confession of defeat—rebuked him, and ordered the division to remain at Fort Erie, and fortify and defend it to the last extremity. He also sent a dispatch to General Gaines, commanding at Sackett's Harbor, to repair at once to the army at Fort Erie, and take command of both.
CHAPTER V.
Siege of Fort Erie — Assault and repulse of the British — Brown takes command — Resolves to destroy the enemy's works by a sortie — Opposed by his officers — The sortie — Anecdote of General Porter — Retreat of Drummond — Conduct of Izard.
Aug. 3.
Gaines, immediately on his arrival at Fort Erie, set about strengthening the works, so that when Drummond actually invested it, he found it in a good state of defence.
In the mean time, the English commander hearing that Brown's magazine had been removed from Schlosser to Buffalo, dispatched Colonel Tucker to the latter place, with twelve hundred men, to seize them. But Brown anticipating such a movement, had stationed Major Morgan, with a battalion of riflemen, at Black Rock, to meet and repel it. This vigilant and gallant officer thwarted every attempt of the British to advance, and compelled them reluctantly to return.
A night expedition sent to cut out three small American vessels at anchor in the river, succeeded better—two of them being surprised and captured.
Aug. 13.
Having completed his trenches and erected his batteries, Drummond, on the 13th, opened his fire. Shot and shells were incessantly hurled all that and the succeeding day against the fort without materially weakening its strength. The British commander then resolved to carry it by assault. The garrison was composed of about 2500 men, while the force under Drummond was estimated at four thousand. As night approached, and the cannonading ceased, General Gaines observed a commotion in the British camp, and suspecting that preparations were making for an assault, ordered one third of the garrison to stand to their arms all night.
Drummond had resolved to assail the works in three separate strong columns, of from twelve to fifteen hundred men each, moving simultaneously against three separate points. One against Towson's battery, occupying the extreme north-east angle of the fortifications; a second against the right, and the third full on the fort itself. The day had been stormy, with torrents of rain deluging the earth, and the night set in dark and dismal. The watch fires of the enemy's camp could scarcely be discerned through the gloom, and dead silence reigned over both encampments. Hour after hour wore slowly away, till midnight came, and yet no sound but the moaning of the wind as it swept over the water and the woods, broke the stillness.
At length about two o'clock in the morning, the muffled tread of the advancing columns was distinctly heard in the darkness. The one directed against Towson's batteries near the water, came first within range, when a tremendous fire opened upon it. In an instant, the whole scenery was lit up by the blaze of the guns, which threw also a red and baleful light over the serried ranks, pressing with fixed bayonets to the assault. Although Towson kept his batteries in fierce play, and sheets of flame went rolling on the doomed column, it kept resolutely on till it approached within ten feet of the infantry. But its strength was exhausted; it could stagger on no farther; and first wavering, it then halted, and finally recoiled. Rallied to a second attack, it advanced with loud shouts, only to be smitten with the same overwhelming fire. Encouraged to a third effort, it swerved from the direct assault, and endeavored to wade around an abattis of loose brushwood, that stretched from the batteries to the shore. Pressing forward, up to their arm-pits in the water, some few reached the enclosure within, but only to perish, and the remainder retreated. The column advancing against the right battery, commanded by Douglas, was allowed to approach within fifty yards, when such a rapid and wasting fire was poured upon it, that it recoiled in confusion. The central column, led on by Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, pressed firmly and rapidly through the fire of Hindman's guns, applied their ladders to the walls, and began to mount. Repulsed, they made a second and third desperate effort to reach the parapets, but without success. Stubborn and brave, this officer was resolved not to abandon the attempt, and favored by the darkness, led his troops quietly along the ditch to a point where no assault was expected, and applying his ladders, mounted to the top of one of the bastions. Enraged by his successive repulses, and maddened by the slaughter of his troops, this intrepid but brutal leader no sooner gained the parapet than he cried out "give the damned Yankees no quarter." The latter instantly closed on him with a sternness and ferocity that made that single bastion swim in blood. Carrying out his own inhuman orders, Drummond shot Lieutenant Macdonough as he lay prostrate and wounded, bravely beating off the soldiers who refused his cry for quarter. The next instant the barbarous act was avenged by a soldier, who shot him dead in his footsteps. The troops, however, courageously maintained the advantage they had gained, till daylight, when some cartridges in a stone building near by, catching fire by accident, exploded with a tremendous concussion, lifting the platform of the bastion from its bed, and hurling the shattered and affrighted occupants of it to the ground. A disorderly flight followed, and the British troops withdrew to their encampment.
General Drummond, however, did not abandon the siege, but sat down before the fort with a stronger determination than ever to reduce it.
General Gaines being wounded by a shell, now retired to Buffalo, leaving Ripley in command. When the state of affairs was reported to General Brown, he saw at once that another and heavier assault would soon be made, and though his wounds were yet unhealed, repaired to the fort, and assumed the command. Sept. 2. The brave Jessup with his arm in a sling, and still suffering from his wounds, volunteered his services, and every preparation was made for a desperate resistance.
Owing to the sickness of Commodore Chauncey the co-operation expected from the fleet had entirely failed, so that the brilliant victories of the summer, on the Niagara frontier, had not advanced the original plan of the campaign, and the American army instead of marching to Burlington Heights, and thence on Kingston, was compelled to stand on the defensive. Commodore Chauncey was a gallant and skillful commander, and had reduced his crews to a state of discipline rarely equaled. But he lay sick in Sackett's Harbor till the 2d of July, and then was carried on board his ship. His arrival near Aug. 5. Niagara was too late to be of any service to the army shut up in Fort Erie, and he cruised in the lake, blockading Yeo in Kingston, and striving in vain to bring him to an engagement. It was no fault of his that Ontario was not signalized by a victory equal to that on Lake Erie.
General Izard, after sitting on the court-martial of Wilkinson, was appointed to take command of the northern army at Plattsburg. May 4. He was an accomplished officer, but like his predecessors, too much of a martinet to effect any thing with irregular troops. He fell a victim to military rules, which, in the changing, disorderly army under his command, could not be applied. Cut adrift from them he knew not what to do. A thoroughly-educated officer, he became a slave to his knowledge, and without the genius to create resources, or skill to mould and apply the materials that surrounded him, he made matters worse by grumbling. Quarrels, duels among the officers, desertion, the mixture of black and white recruits, misrule, and bad appointments, discouraged and disgusted him with the army he commanded. In the mean time, the arrival of fresh troops from England rendered some movement necessary, and Izard, at the head of seven thousand men, such as they were, was ordered to Sackett's Harbor, to plan an attack on Kingston, if circumstances rendered it prudent, or succor General Brown. Leaving three thousand under Macomb, at Plattsburgh, he with the remainder took up his sulky and discontented march for Sackett's Harbor, where he arrived on the 13th of September. Three days previously, Brown wrote him from Fort Erie, imploring his assistance, saying unless it was rendered speedily, the fate of his army was doubtful. The accounts, however, which he received of the dilatory manner in which Izard marched, and of the feelings he entertained, left him no hope from that quarter, and he said, "We must, if saved, do the business ourselves." He fell back on himself, and his little band resolved to defend the fort to the last, against whatever force might be brought against it. Weak from his wounds, he yet toiled day and night to strengthen his defences. Neither his sickness, nor the torrents of rain that fell almost daily, could deter him from exertion, and by his energy and bearing he diffused an air of cheerfulness and confidence amid and around those entrenchments, which are always the forerunner of great deeds. Having ascertained what formidable preparations were making to press the siege, he resolved not to wait their completion, but with one bold sortie overwhelm the batteries of the enemy and destroy their works. A council of officers was called, to whom he submitted his plans. Their decision was adverse, which chagrined him much; he was also annoyed to find himself opposed by his next in command. He, nevertheless, was determined to carry out his purpose, and said to Jesup, "We must keep our own counsels; the impression must be made that we are done with the affair; but as sure as there is a God in heaven the enemy shall be attacked in his works, and beaten, too, as soon as all the volunteers shall have passed over." These were rapidly coming in at the call and efforts of General Porter, who was worthy to command them, and with whom they knew no disgrace could occur.
General Brown having made himself perfectly acquainted with the position and designs of the enemy, quietly matured his own plans. Drummond's army, four thousand strong, was encamped in an open field surrounded by a forest, two miles distant from his entrenchments in order to be out of reach of the American cannon. One-third of this force protected the artillerists in completing their batteries and the workmen in digging trenches and erecting blockhouses.
Two batteries were at length completed and a third nearly finished—all mounted with heavy cannon, one being a sixty-eight pounder—before the sortie was made. For four days previous Brown tried the effect of his artillery upon these works, and during the whole of the thirteenth and fourteenth a tremendous cannonading was kept up in the midst of a pelting storm. The two succeeding days the firing continued at intervals, interspersed with conflicts between the pickets. Sept. 17. The next day at noon, an hour when such an attempt would be least expected, Brown resolved to make a sortie with nearly the whole of his disposable force, capture the batteries, spike the cannon, and overwhelm the brigade in attendance before the other two brigades, two miles distant, could arrive. The assault was to be made in two columns. The left composed of Porter's volunteers, Gibson's riflemen, a portion of the 1st and 23rd regiments of regulars and some Indians was directed to march along a road which had been cut through the woods, while the gallant Miller with the first brigade was to move swiftly along a deep ravine that run between the first and second batteries of the enemy, and the moment he heard the crack of Porter's rifles, mount the ravine and storm the batteries. It was a dark and sombre day—the clouds flew low, sending down at intervals torrents of rain and giving to the whole scenery a sour and gloomy aspect. But everything being ready, Brown, about ten o'clock, opened with his artillery, and for two hours it was an incessant blaze and roar all along the line of the entrenchments. Its cessation was the signal for the two columns to advance. General Ripley commanded the reserve, while Jesup with a hundred and fifty men held the fort itself. Porter with his column surprised and overthrew the enemy's pickets, and began to pour in rapid volleys on his flank. Miller no sooner heard the welcome sound than he gave the order to charge. In an instant the brigade was on the top of the bank, and without giving the enemy time to recover from their surprise the troops dashed forward on the entrenchments in front of them. Though assailed so unexpectedly and suddenly the enemy fought gallantly to save the works which had cost them so much labor. The contest was fierce but short. Carrying battery after battery at the point of the bayonet, the victorious Americans pressed fiercely on till all the batteries and the labor of nearly fifty days were completely in their possession. Ripley then hastened up with the reserve to form a line for the protection of the troops while the work of destruction went on; while executing the movement he was wounded in the neck and carried back to the fort.
In the mean time, Drummond aroused by the first volleys, had hurried off reinforcements on a run. Pressing forward through the rain, urged to their utmost speed by the officers pointing forward with their swords to the scene of action, they, nevertheless, arrived too late to prevent the disaster. In an hour the conflict was over; yet in that short space of time the work of demolition had been completed. In the midst of incessant volleys and shouts and the rallying beat of the drum, heavy explosions shook the field and magazines and block houses one after another blew up, spreading ruin and desolation around.
In that short combat more than four hundred of the enemy had fallen, and nearly as many more been taken prisoners. The American loss was three hundred killed and wounded; among the slain, however, were the gallant Wood and Gibson. The bayonet and sabre were wielded with terrible effect in the strife.
General Porter in passing with a few men from one detachment to another, during the engagement, suddenly found himself in the presence of sixty or eighty British soldiers drawn up in the woods, and apparently not knowing what to do. Thinking it better to put a bold face on the matter, he ran up to them, exclaiming, "That's right, my good fellows, surrender and we will take care of you!" and taking the musket out of the hands of the first and flinging it on the ground he pushed him towards the fort. In this way he went nearly through the first line, the men advancing unarmed in front. At length a soldier stepped back and presented the point of his bayonet to General Porter's breast, and demanded his surrender. A scuffle ensued, and some officers coming to the rescue of the soldier Porter was flung upon the ground and his hand cut with a sword. On recovering his feet he saw himself surrounded by twenty or thirty men, shouting to him to surrender. He very coolly told them to surrender, and declared if they fired a gun he would have the whole put to the sword. In the mean time a company of American riflemen coming up, fired upon the English. After a short fight the whole were killed or taken prisoners.
Having accomplished his work, Brown retired in good order within the fort. Drummond, weakened by nearly one-fourth of his force, and the labors of so long a time being destroyed, raised the siege and retired behind the Chippewa.
General Izard, who was to fall on his rear, did not reach Lewistown till the 5th of October. Oct. 14. At length, forming a junction with Brown's troops, he moved forward, and sat down before Drummond encamped, behind the Chippewa. His army, six thousand strong, was deemed sufficiently large to capture the enemy, and this event was confidently expected to crown the Canadian campaign. Oct. 21. But after some faint demonstrations, not worth recording, he seven days after retired to Black Rock, preparatory to winter quarters. Although pressed by the Secretary of War to attack the enemy, he declined, and having spent the summer in grumbling, went sullenly into winter quarters, thus closing the list of inefficient commanders, which threatened for awhile never to become complete.
While Izard was thus ending a military career in which he had gathered no laurels, Macomb, whom he had left at Plattsburgh, doomed as he said to destruction, had crowned himself with honor, and shed lustre on the American arms.
CHAPTER VI.
British plan of invading our sea ports — Arrival of reinforcements — Barney's flotilla — Landing of the enemy under Ross — Doubt and alarm of the inhabitants — Advance of the British — Destruction of the Navy Yard — Battle of Bladensburg — Flight of the President and his Cabinet — Burning and sacking of Washington — Mrs. Madison's conduct during the day and night — Cockburn's brutality — Sudden explosion — A hurricane — Flight of the British — State of the army — Character of this outrage — Rejoicings in England — Mortification of our ambassadors at Ghent — Mistake of the English — Parker's expedition — Colonel Reed's defence — The English army advance on Baltimore — Death of Ross — Bombardment of Fort McHenry — "The star spangled banner" — Retreat of the British, and joy of the citizens of Baltimore.
But while these events were passing around Niagara—in the interval between the assault on Fort Erie by Drummond and the successful sortie of Brown—a calamity overtook the country, which fortunately resulted in producing more harmony of feeling among the people, and strengthened materially the administration. Washington was taken and sacked by the enemy. The overthrow of Napoleon and his banishment to Elba, enabled England to send over more than 30,000 troops, which were soon on our sea-board or in the British Provinces. New England no longer remained excluded from the blockade, and the whole Atlantic sea-board was locked up by British cruisers. The Constitution, the year previous, after a cruise in which she captured but a single war schooner and a few merchantmen, was chased into Marble Head, from whence she escaped to Boston. The blockading of our other large ships, and the destruction of the Essex about the same time in the Bay of Valparaiso, had left us without a frigate at sea. The Adams, a sloop of twenty-eight guns, was the largest cruiser we had afloat.
Hitherto the enemy had been content with blockading our seaports, and making descents on small towns in their neighborhood, but as the summer advanced, rumors arrived of the preparation of a large force, destined to strike a heavy blow at some of our most important cities. To meet this new danger the President addressed a circular letter to the States, calling on them to hold in readiness 93,500 militia. Fearing that Washington or Baltimore might be the points at which the enemy would first strike, the tenth military district was erected, as mentioned before, and General Winder, recently released by exchange, given the command of it.
The whole sea-board was in a state of alarm—even Massachusetts caught the infection, and preparations were immediately made to defend her seaports and protect her coast. The militia of the different States were called out—Governor Barbour, of Virginia, garrisoned Norfolk, the intrenching tools were busy night and day around Baltimore, Providence voted money for fortifications, Portland shipmasters formed themselves into a company of sea fencibles, and gun-boats were collected in New York and all the great northern ports. The notes of alarm and preparation rang along the coast from Maine to Louisiana, and before the mysterious shadow of the gigantic coming evil, party animosities sunk into insignificance. Released from her Continental struggle, England, with her fleets that had conquered at Aboukir, Trafalgar, and Copenhagen, and her troops fresh from the fields of Spain, had resolved to fall upon us in her power, and crushing city after city, leave us at length without a seaport, from the Merrimack to the Mississippi. Even the brilliant victories of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane could not dispel the terror inspired by this gathering of her energies.
But the first serious demonstration was made in the Chesapeake. To act against the fleet a flotilla was placed there under the charge of Captain Barney, a bold and skillful officer. Constantly on the alert, he would dash suddenly out of the Patuxent River, and roughly handling the light vessels of the enemy that approached the shallow waters, compel them to take refuge under the guns of the frigates. But the river at length became blockaded, and the flotilla was compelled to run up into Leonard's Creek. From the 1st to the 26th of June, frequent skirmishes took place, in which Captain Barney exhibited a daring, skill and prudence combined, which proved him to be an able commander. On the 26th he attacked the British vessels in the river, and after a sharp cannonade of two hours, drove them into the bay, and broke up the blockade.
Aug. 14.
At length Admiral Cochrane arrived from Bermuda, in an eighty gun ship, bringing with him three thousand troops, commanded by General Ross. Entering the Chesapeake he joined Rear Admiral Cockburn, who by this timely reinforcement found himself in command of twenty-three vessels of war. This imposing fleet stood slowly up the waters of the Chesapeake, sending consternation among the inhabitants of Washington and Baltimore. Aug. 21. Cockburn, designed by nature for a freebooter, was admirably fitted for the work he had designed to do. Landing four thousand five hundred troops at Benedict, he began to advance up the Potomac. Barney, acting under instructions he had received, immediately took four hundred men and fell back to the Wood Yard, where he joined what was called the army. He had left five or six men in each boat, to blow them up, should the enemy advance. That night, about one o'clock, the President, with the Secretaries of War and Navy, visited Winder's camp, and next morning reviewed the troops. The camp was in confusion. Citizens and soldiers intermingled—each giving his opinion of the course to be pursued—disordered ranks and loud and fierce talking—the utter absence of the quiet demeanor and military precision characteristic of a regular army, gave to the one assembled there the appearance of a motley crowd on a gala day. General Smith and Barney, however, seemed to understand themselves, and were anxious to advance and attack the enemy.
At the first appearance of the fleet Winder had sent off for the militia, but none had yet arrived. Six hundred from Virginia were reported close at hand—fourteen hundred from near Baltimore had reached Bladensburg, whither, also, was marching a picked regiment from the city itself, led by Pinckney, recently our Embassador to England. The whole country was filled with excited men, hurrying on foot or on horseback from one army and place to another—some without arms and others in citizens' dress, with only swords or pistols. The President and Cabinet were also in the saddle, riding by night and day, yet all without definite object. Rumor had swelled the invading force to twelve thousand men, but whether its destination was Washington, Baltimore, or Annapolis, no one could tell.
While affairs were in this excited, disorderly state around Washington, great uncertainty reigned in the British camp. It was a hot day when the troops landed, and the sight of neat farm-houses, rich fields, and green pastures, seemed to increase the lassitude occasioned by their long confinement on ship-board, rather than invigorate them, and it required the exercise of rigid authority and unceasing care to keep them from straggling away to the cool shelter of trees. Weighed down with their knapsacks and three days' provisions, and sixty rounds of ball cartridge—without cavalry, and with only one six-pounder and two three-pounders drawn by a hundred seamen, this army of invasion took up its slow and cautious march inland on Sunday afternoon, and reached Nottingham that night. Aug. 21. They found the village wholly deserted—not a soul was left behind, while the bread remaining in the ovens, the furniture standing just as it had last been used, showed that the flight had been sudden and the panic complete.
At this time the object of the expedition was the destruction of Barney's flotilla, which had so harassed and injured the lighter vessels of the fleet.
Next morning at eight o'clock the army took up its line of March, and soon entered a cool, refreshing forest. But they had traversed scarce half its extent, when Ross was filled with anxiety and alarm by frequent and loud explosions, like the booming of heavy artillery, in the distance. Officers were immediately hurried off to ascertain the cause, who soon returned with the welcome and unexpected intelligence that the Americans were blowing up their own flotilla.
The first and chief object of the invasion being secured, Ross halted his column at Marlborough, only ten miles from Nottingham, and sent for Cockburn, who, with a flotilla, was advancing up the river "pari passu," to advise with him what course to pursue. The admiral proposed to march on Washington. To this Ross at first objected, for to pierce a country of which he was ignorant fifty miles, with no cavalry or heavy artillery, seemed a rash undertaking, especially when, in a military point of view, success would accomplish comparatively nothing. Cockburn, however, who had been on the coast longer, and through informants residing in the city, had become acquainted with its defenceless state, persuaded him that its capture would be easy, and the results glorious. The taking of a nation's capital certainly seemed no mean exploit, while the heavy ransom the government would doubtless pay to save its public buildings, would compensate Cockburn for lack of prize money at sea.
It was not, however, till next noon that the army, preceded by a company of a hundred blacks, composed of fugitive slaves, began to advance. After making a few miles, it halted for the night.
The Secretary of War had insisted from the first that Washington was not the point threatened, and still adhered to that opinion. He could not conceive that an experienced commander would select as the first object of attack a town of some nine hundred houses, scattered over a surface of three miles, and destitute of wealth, while the opulent cities of Baltimore and Annapolis lay so near. This, too, was the opinion of many others, creating great confusion, and preventing the selection of strong positions, where successful stands could have been made.
While the British were thus slowly advancing, General Winder was riding hither and thither, now making a reconnoissance in person, now posting to Washington to rouse the Secretary of War out of his lethargy, or hurrying on foot back again to his army, doing every thing but restoring tranquillity and order. Confusion in the camp—disorder in the ranks—consternation among the inhabitants, and gloom and doubt in the cabinet, combined to render the three days the British were marching on Washington, a scene of extraordinary excitement and misdirected efforts.
Aug. 24.
At length, videttes and scouts, coming in quick succession, announced that the British army was approaching Bladensburg, where General Stansbury, with the Baltimore militia, was encamped. There was not a breath of air, and the column staggered on through a cloud of dust, and under a sweltering August sun. The soldiers, exhausted, reeled from the ranks and fell by the road side, while many others could scarcely drag their weary limbs along. The American troops were busy cooking their dinner when the drums beat to arms, announcing the approach of this much dreaded army.
When the news reached Winder, he immediately transmitted an order to Stansbury to give battle where he was, and hastened thither with the main army, arriving just before the action commenced. Barney, who had been stationed with five hundred men at the bridge over the eastern branch of the Potomac, with directions to blow it up should the enemy approach by that route, no sooner heard of his advance on Bladensburg, than he earnestly requested to repair thither with his brave seamen. He chafed under the inaction to which he was doomed, talking in a boisterous manner, half to himself and half to others, lashing the generals with the bluntness and truth of a sailor, saying, loud enough to be heard by the President and his cabinet standing near, it was absurd to leave him there with five hundred men to blow up a bridge which any "d——d corporal could better do with five." At length permission was given him to join the army, when he leaped on a horse, and ordering his seamen to follow, galloped to Bladensburg. The advance was already engaged, and he immediately sent back to his men to hurry up, and soon the brave and panting fellows appeared on a trot and took their stand beside their commander. The President and his cabinet galloped thither also, but retired at the commencement of the action, not before, however, Monroe, Secretary of State, had tried his hand at military evolutions, and altered the order of battle.
Instead of taking advantage of patches of woods, thickets, etc., where inexperienced militia would have fought well, this heterogeneous army of five or six thousand men was arranged in the form of a semi-circle on the slope that makes up westward from the eastern branch of the Potomac, here a shallow stream and crossed by a wooden bridge. The British, supposing of course, that the position was chosen because it commanded a narrow bridge, the passage of which is always so difficult in the face of batteries, never dreamed the river could be forded, and therefore never attempted it. Ross, who from the top of the highest house in the neighborhood surveyed the American army, was disconcerted at the formidable appearance it presented—posted on such a commanding eminence with heavy artillery,—and would doubtless have retreated but for the greater danger of a retrogade movement with his exhausted troops.
The American army was arranged in three lines like regiments on a parade, connected by the guns that could pour no cross fire on the assailing column. The latter advancing steadily, throwing Congreve rockets as they approached, so shook the courage of the militia that it required but the levelled gleaming bayonet to scatter them like sheep over the field. Many of the officers were brave men and strove to arrest the panic, but in vain. Pinckney with a broken arm rode leisurely out of the battle, his heart filled with rage and mortification at the poltroonry of those under his command.
The details of the engagement are useless—there was a show of resistance and some well sustained firing for awhile; but the whole battle, so far as it can be called one, was fought by Barney. He had planted four guns, among them an eighteen pounder, so as to sweep the main road, and quietly sat beside them on his bay horse, allowing the column to come within close range before he gave orders to fire. The first terrible discharge cleared the road. Three times the British endeavored to advance in front, and as often were swept to destruction by that battery. At length they were compelled to abandon the attempt, and taking shelter under a ravine filed off to the right and left and assailed Barney in flank and rear. Driving easily before them the regiments whose duty it was to protect the artillery, they moved swiftly forward. Barney's horse had been shot under him and he himself, prostrated by a wound, lay stretched in the road. Seeing that the battle was lost, he bade his seamen cut their way through the enemy and escape. Reluctant at first to obey him, they at last fled, and their gallant commander was taken prisoner. A few such determined men would have saved Washington from the flames.
The six hundred Virginians who had hastened to the rescue never joined the army at all. Having arrived without arms, they slept in the House of Representatives all night and were not equipped next day till the battle was over.
The retreat became a wild and shameful flight. No other stand was made, and the fugitive army fled unpursued in squads hither and thither. It was a regular stampede. The fields and roads were covered with a broken and flying multitude. President, secretaries of war and navy, attorney-general and all were borne away in the headlong torrent; and though the enemy had no cavalry to pursue, and the infantry were too tired to follow up their success, the panic was so complete and ridiculous that our troops never stopped their flight except when compelled to pause from sheer exhaustion. Fatigue, not the interval they had put between themselves and the enemy, arrested their footsteps. Only fifty or sixty had been killed on our side, while the British had lost several hundred, a large portion of whom fell under the murderous discharges of Barney's battery.
After the shouts and derision of the enemy had subsided with the disappearance of the last fugitive over the hills, the tired army instead of advancing to Washington reposed on the field of battle.
Winder endeavored to rally the troops at the capital for another defence, but not a sufficient number could be found to make a stand, and with curses and oaths the rabble rout streamed along the road to Georgetown, presenting a picture of demoralization and insubordination that formed a fit counterpart to their poltroonry.
The first arrival of the fugitives, officers and citizens, riding pell-mell through the streets, carried consternation into the city, and the inhabitants, some on foot, some in carts or carriages, rushed forth, and streaming on after the frightened militia completed the turbulence of the scene.
Cockburn and Ross leaving the main army to repose itself, took a body-guard and rode into Washington. No resistance was offered—a single shot only was fired, which killed the horse of General Ross. The house from which it issued was formerly occupied by Mr. Gallatin. In a few moments it was in flames. Halting in front of the capitol, they fired a volley at the edifice and took possession of it in the name of the king.
The troops were then marched in, and entering the Hall of Representatives, piled together chairs, desks and whatever was combustible, and applied the torch. The flames passing from room to room, soon wrapped the noble library, and bursting forth from the windows leaped to the roof, enveloping the whole edifice in fire and illuminating the country for miles around. The house of Washington and other buildings were also set on fire. The remaining British force, lighted by the ruddy glow that illumined the landscape and the road along which they were marching, entered the city to assist in the work of destruction. In the mean time, the navy-yard was set on fire by order of the secretary of war, mingling its flames and explosions with the light and roar of the burning capitol. The gallant officer in command of it had offered to defend it, but was refused permission. Whether the refusal was discreet or not, one thing is certain, the enemy could have accomplished no more than the destruction of the materials collected there, and it was not worth while to save them the labor.
The capitol being in flames, Ross and Cockburn led their troops along Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's house, a mile distant, and soon the blazing pile beaconed back to the burning capitol. The Treasury building swelled the conflagration, and by the light of the flames Cockburn and Ross sat down to supper at the house of Mrs. Suter, whom they had compelled to furnish it. Pillage and devastation moved side by side through the streets, while to give still greater terror and sublimity to the scene, a heavy thunder storm burst over the city. From the lurid bosom of the cloud leaped flashes brighter than the flames below, followed by crashes that drowned the roar and tumult which swelled up from the thronged streets, making the night wild and appalling as the last day of time.
To bring the day's work to a fitting close, Cockburn, while the heavens and surrounding country were still ruddy with the flames, entered a brothel and spent in lust and riot a night begun in incendiarism and pillage.
BURNING OF WASHINGTON.
While these things were transpiring in the city, the President and his Cabinet were fleeing into Virginia. During the battle of Bladensburg, Mrs. Madison had sat in the Presidential mansion, listening to the roar of cannon in the distance, and anxiously sweeping the road, with her spy-glass, to catch the first approach of her husband, but saw instead, "groups of military, wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms or of spirit, to fight for their own firesides." A carriage stood waiting at the door, filled with plate and other valuables, ready to leave at a moment's warning. The Mayor of the city waited on her, urging her to depart, but she bravely refused, saying she would not stir till she heard from her husband. At length a note from him, in pencil-marks, arrived, bidding her flee. Still delaying, till she could detach a portrait of Washington, by Stuart, from the wall, her friends remonstrated with her. Finding it would take too long to unscrew the painting from the walls, she seized a carving-knife, and cutting the canvas out, hurried away. At Georgetown she met her husband, who, with his Cabinet, in trepidation and alarm, was en route for Virginia. Just as the flames were kindling in the capitol, the President, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Rush, Mr. Mason, and Carroll, were assembled on the shores of the Potomac, where but one little boat could be found to transport them over. Desponding and sad, they were rowed across in the gloom, a part at a time, and mounting their horses, rode hurriedly and sadly away. Mrs. Madison returned towards Georgetown, accompanied by nine troopers, and stopped ten miles and a half from the town. Trembling from the anxiety and fright of the day—separated from her husband, now a fugitive in the darkness—oppressed with fears and gloomy forebodings, she sat down by an open window, and through the tears that streamed from her eyes, gazed forth on the flames of the burning city, and listened with palpitating heart to the muffled shouts and tumult that rose in the distance.
Before daylight, she, with her lady companions, started for a place of rendezvous appointed by her husband, sixteen miles from Georgetown.
The 25th of August dawned gloomily over the smouldering city, and the red sun, as he rolled into view, looked on a scene of devastation and ruin. From their drunken orgies, negroes and soldiers crawled forth to the light of day, roused by the reveille from the hill of the capitol, and the morning gun that sent its echoes through the sultry air.
Rising from his debauch, Cockburn sallied forth to new deeds of shame. The War office, and other public offices, among them the building of the National Intelligencer, were set on fire, and the pillage and riot of the preceding day again sent terror through the city. The gallant admiral seemed refreshed rather than enervated by the plunder, conflagration and debauch of the night that had passed, and brilliant and witty as the day before, "was merry in his grotesque rambles about Washington, mounted on a white, uncurried, long switch-tail brood mare, followed by a black foal, neighing after its dam, in which caricature of horsemanship that harlequin of havoc, paraded the streets, and laughed at the terrified women imploring him not to destroy their homes. "Never fear," said he, "you shall be much safer under my administration than Madison's." "Be sure," said he to those who were destroying the types of the National Intelligencer, "that all the C's are demolished, so that the rascals can no longer abuse my name as they have done."[5]
In the midst of this wanton destruction and barbarian licentiousness, two events occurred calculated to sober even a more brutal man than he. A detachment had been sent to destroy two rope-walks, at a place called Greenleaf's point, a short distance from the city. After they were burned, an officer threw the torch with which the buildings had been lighted, into a dry well near by. But this well had been made for a long time the repository of useless shells, cartridges and gunpowder. The unextinguished torch ignited this subterranean magazine, which exploded with a violence that shook the earth, and sent dismembered bodies and limbs, mingled with fragments of iron, and dust and smoke, heavenward together. When it cleared away, nearly a hundred officers and men were seen strewed around, some killed, others presenting torn, misshapen masses of human flesh. The sad procession, carrying the mutilated and dead back to the city, had scarcely reached it before the heavens became dark as twilight, and that ominous silence which always betokens some dreadful convulsion of nature fell on the earth. The air was still, and the burning dwellings around shed a baleful light over the faces of men, on which sat terror and perplexity. This portentous silence was broken by the rush and roar of a hurricane, that swept with the voice and strength of the sea, over the devastated city. Flashes of lightning rent the gloom, and the thunder rolled and broke in deafening crashes over head. The flames leaped up into fiercer glow, under the strong breath of the tempest; private dwellings that had escaped the incendiary's torch were stripped of their roofs, and the crash of falling, walls and shrieks of terrified men and women fleeing through the streets, imparted still greater terror to the appalling spectacle. The British army, on the Capitol hill, was rent into fragments before it, and scattered as though a magazine had exploded in its midst. Thirty soldiers, besides many of the inhabitants, were overwhelmed in the ruins.
Fleeing before this same hurricane, Mrs. Madison approached the tavern designated by the President as the place where he would meet her, but was refused admittance by the terrified women within, who had also fled thither, because she was the wife of the man who had involved them in those horrors of war, made still more terrible by the visitation of God. He, in thus turning day into night, had evinced his displeasure, and foretold his judgments; and not until an entrance was forced by the men, would they allow her a shelter from the storm. There her husband, the fugitive President of the republic, drenched with rain, hungry and exhausted, joined her in the evening. Provided with nothing but a cold lunch, he retired to his miserable couch, not knowing what tidings the morning would bring him.
In the mean time General Ross, chagrined at the part he had been compelled to play—filled with self-reproaches at the wanton destruction of a public library, was anxious and unquiet at the non-arrival of the boats that had accompanied him to Alexandria. In constant fear of an uprising of the people of the country, he was eager to get back to the ships. As soon therefore as night set in, he resolved to commence his retreat. To prevent pursuit, an order was issued prohibiting the appearance of a single inhabitant in the street after eight o'clock. At nine, in dead silence, and with quick step, as though stealing on a sleeping foe, the advance column took up its march and passed unnoticed out of the city. The camp fires on the hill of the capitol were kept blazing, and piled with fuel sufficient to preserve them bright till near morning, in order to convey the impression that the army was still there, and at a late hour the rear column followed after, and silently and rapidly traversed the road to Bladensburg. Not a word was spoken, not a man allowed to step out of his place. Arriving on the ground which had been occupied by other brigades, they found it deserted, but the fires were still blazing as though the encampment had not been broken up. Approaching the field of Bladensburg, they saw in the white moonbeams the whiter corpses of the unburied dead, who had been stripped of their clothing and now lay scattered around on the green slope and banks of the stream where they had fallen. The hot August rain and sun had already begun to act on the mutilated flesh, and a horrible stench loaded the midnight air. Stopping there for an hour, to enable the soldiers to hunt up their knapsacks thrown aside the day before, Ross again hurried them forward, and kept them at the top of their speed all night. If the column paused for a moment, the road was instantly filled with soldiers fast asleep. Men were constantly straggling away, or falling into slumbers, from which even the sword could with difficulty prick them, and the army threatened to be disorganized. It therefore became necessary to halt, and the order to do so had scarcely passed down the line before every man was sound asleep, and the entire army in five minutes resembled a heap of dead bodies on a field of battle. Resting here under the burning sun until midday, Ross then resumed his march and reached Marlborough at night, and the next day proceeded leisurely back to the ships.
The raid had been successful—Washington was sacked. Two millions of property had been destroyed—the capitol, with its library—the President's house—the Treasury and War, Post offices, and other public edifices, burned to the ground, together with five private dwellings, thirteen more being pillaged. These, with the destruction of the office of the National Intelligencer, two rope-walks, and a bridge over the Potomac, constituted the achievements of this redoubtable army of invasion.
The English press, which had teemed with accounts of Napoleon's barbarity, and the English heart, which had heaved with noble indignation against the man who could rob the galleries of conquered provinces to adorn those of Paris, had no word of condemnation or expression of anger for this wanton outrage, but on the contrary, laudations innumerable. Napoleon had marched into almost every capital of Europe without destroying a library or work of art, or firing a dwelling. With his victorious armies he had entered city after city, and yet no Vandalism marred his conquest. The palaces of kings, who had perjured themselves again and again to secure his downfall, had never been touched, and yet he was denounced as a robber and proclaimed to the world a modern Attila. But an English army, warring against a nation that spoke the same language, and was descended from the same ancestors, could enter a city that had made no defence—had not exasperated the conquerors by forcing them to a long siege or desperate assault, and, without provocation, burn down a public library, the unoffending capitol and presidential mansion, state offices, and even private dwellings. Incredible as this act appears, the greater marvel is how the English nation could exult over it. An American victory tarnished by such barbarity and meanness, would overwhelm the authors of it in eternal disgrace. And yet, a popular so-called historian of England, in narrating this transaction, says it was "one of the most brilliant expeditions ever carried into execution by any nation." An army of some four thousand regulars put to flight five or six thousand raw militia, and, with the loss of a few hundred men, marched into a small unfortified town, occupied as the capital of the United States, and like a band of robbers, set fire to the public Library, Arsenal, Treasury, War office, President's house, two rope-walks and a bridge; and such an affair the historian of Lodi, Marengo, Austerlitz, and Waterloo,—of the terrible conflicts of the peninsular, and the sublime sea-fights of Aboukir and Trafalgar, calls "one of the most brilliant expeditions carried into execution by any nation."
"Ille crucem, scelenis pretium tulit, hic diadema."
The news was received in England with the liveliest demonstrations of joy. The Lord Mayor of London ordered the Park and Tower guns to be fired at noon, in honor of a victory, which he pompously declared was "worth an illumination." The official account was translated into French, German and Italian, and scattered over the continent. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell were in the theatre at Brussels when the news arrived. The secretary of the legation, Mr. Hughes, had overheard an English officer in the lobby saying—"We have taken and burned the Yankee capital, and thrown those rebels back half a century"—and going to their box told them there were reasons why they should leave the theatre, which he would disclose at their hotel. He had observed some of the British legation present, and the announcement of such tidings would be embarrassing to the American embassy. They were exceedingly annoyed by the news, especially next morning, when the English embassadors sent them a paper giving an account of the act; and they returned, mortified, to Ghent. It was received on the continent, however, with marked disapprobation. Even a Bourbon paper, in Paris, declared that notwithstanding the atrocities charged on Napoleon, he had never committed an act so degrading to civilized warfare as this.
The vessels designed to coöperate with the movement on Washington, reached Alexandria the same evening the British army left the former place, and after levying a contribution on the inhabitants, seizing twenty-one merchant vessels, sixteen thousand barrels of flour, a thousand hogsheads of tobacco, and whatever else was valuable, departed. In their descent, they were harassed by Porter and Perry from the shore, but the guns of the latter were too light to effect much damage. Commodore Rodgers also hovered with fire ships around their flight, but it was too rapid to allow the concentration of a sufficient force to arrest them.
Armstrong, the Secretary of War, following the example of President, Cabinet, Generals and army, galloped away from the disastrous field of Bladensburg, and took refuge in a farm-house. The fugitive President and the fugitive Secretary at length met, and returned together to Washington. The entrance of the latter to the capital was the signal for the indignant outburst of the entire population. The militia officers of the District refused to obey his orders in the future, and a committee of the citizens waited on the President, demanding his dismissal from the post of Secretary of War. It was suddenly discovered that he was wholly to blame for the conduct of the troops at Bladensburg. Borne away by the popular current, which he was thankful was not directed against himself, Madison requested Armstrong to retire for awhile to Baltimore. Sept. 3. The latter obeyed, but immediately sent in his resignation, in which he paid the President the compliment of having, as he declared, shamefully yielded to the "humors of a village mob." Monroe, Secretary of State, was appointed to discharge his duties, and a proclamation was issued calling an early meeting of Congress.
The British government never committed a greater blunder than when it sanctioned the sack and burning of Washington. Estimating its importance by that which the capitals of Europe held in their respective kingdoms, her misguided statesmen supposed its overthrow would paralyze the nation and humble the government into submission. But there was scarcely a seaport on our coast, whose destruction would not have been a greater public calamity. Besides, the greater its value in the eyes of the people, the more egregious the mistake. Judging us by the effeminate races of India, or the ignorant population of central Europe, who are accustomed to be governed by blows, they imagined the heavier the scourging, the more prostrated by fear, and more eager for peace we should become. But resistance and boldness rise with us in exact proportion to the indignities offered and injuries inflicted. With a country, whose vital part is no where fixed, but consisting in the unity of the people, can shift with changing fortunes from the sea-coast even to the Rocky Mountains, its heart can never be reached by the combined forces of the world. This republic can never die but by its own hand. In a foreign war, our strength can be weakened only by sowing dissensions. Outrages which inflame the national heart, or local sufferings that awaken national sympathy serve only to heal all these, and hence render us impregnable. Thus, when Mr. Alison, in closing up his account of this war and speaking of the probabilities of another, advises the sudden precipitation of vast armies on our shore as the only way to insure success, he exhibits a lamentable ignorance of our character. An outrage or calamity at the outset, sufficiently great to break down party opposition, and drown all personal and political contests in one shout for vengeance, rolling from limit to limit of our vast possessions, would endow us with resistless energy and strength. The attacks on Baltimore and New Orleans teach an instructive lesson on this point. In the latter place, where a veteran army of nine thousand men were repulsed by scarcely one-third of its force, now an army of two hundred thousand would make no impression.
The sack of Washington furnishes a striking illustration of the effect of a great public calamity on this nation. One feeling of wrath and cry for vengeance swept the land. A high national impulse hushed the bickerings and frightened into silence the quarrels of factions, and the President and his Cabinet never gained strength so fast as when the capitol was in flames, and they were fleeing through the storm and darkness, weighed down with sorrow and despondency.
At the same time this expedition against Washington was moving to its termination, Sir Peter Parker ascended the Chesapeake to Rockhall, from whence he sent out detachments in various quarters, burning dwellings, grain, stacks, outhouses, etc. On the 30th, he landed at midnight, to surprise Colonel Reed, encamped in an open plain with a hundred and seventy militia. It was bright moonlight, and as the column advanced it was received with a steady and well-directed fire. At length the ammunition failing, this brave band was compelled to fall back. The enemy at the same time retreated, carrying with them Sir Peter Parker, mortally wounded with buck shot.
On the return of these several expeditions, it was resolved to make a grand and united attack on Baltimore, that nest of privateers. On the 6th of September, the whole fleet, consisting of more than forty sail, moved slowly up the Chesapeake, carrying a mixed, heterogeneous land force of five thousand men. Six days after, it reached the Patapsco, and landed the troops at North Point. The first object of attack was fort M'Henry, situated about two miles from Baltimore. The capture of this, it was thought, would open a passage to the city. Having put their forces in marching order, General Ross and Cochrane moved forward towards the intrenchments erected for the defence of Baltimore, while the vessels of war advanced against the fort.
After marching four miles, the leading column of the army was checked by General Stricker, who with three thousand men had taken post near the head of Bear Creek. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which the two companies of Levering and Howard under Major Heath and Captain Aisquith's rifle company, fought gallantly. General Ross, hearing the firing rode forward, and mingled with the skirmishers, to ascertain the cause of it, when he was pierced by the unerring ball of a rifleman, and fell in the road. His riderless horse went plunging back towards the main army, his "saddle and housings stained with blood, carrying the melancholy news of his master's fate to the astonished troops." Stretched by the road side, the dying general lay writhing in the agonies of death. He had only time to speak of his wife and children, before he expired. He was a gallant, skillful and humane officer, and his part in the burning of Washington, must be laid to his instructions rather than to his character.
The command devolved on Colonel Brooke, who gave the orders to advance. General Stricker defended his position firmly, but at length was compelled to fall back on his reserve, and finally took post within half a mile of the intrenchments of the city. This ended the combat for the day. The next morning Colonel Brooke recommenced his march, and advanced to within two miles of the intrenchments, where he encamped till the following morning, to wait the movements of the fleet.
In the mean time, Cochrane had moved up to within two miles and a half of the fort, and forming his vessels in a semi-circle, began to bombard it. These works, under the command of Major Armstead, had no guns sufficiently heavy to reach the vessels, which all that day threw shells and rockets, making a grand commotion but doing little damage. At night, Cochrane moved his fleet farther up, and opened again. The scene then became grand and terrific. It was dark and rainy, and amid the gloom, rockets and shells, weighing, some of them, two hundred and fifty pounds, rose heavenward, followed by a long train of light, and stooping over the fort burst with detonations that shook the shore. Singly, and in groups, these fiery messengers traversed the sky, lighting up the fort and surrounding scenery in a sudden glow, and then with their sullen thunder, sinking all again in darkness. The deafening explosions broke over the American army and the city of Baltimore like heavy thunder-claps, calling forth soldiers and inhabitants to gaze on the illumined sky. The city was in a state of intense excitement. The streets were thronged with the sleepless inhabitants, and the tearful eyes and pallid cheeks of women, attested the anguish and fear that wild night created. As soon as Armstead discovered that the vessels had come within range, he opened his fire with such precision that they were compelled to withdraw again, content with their distant bombardment. At length a sudden and heavy cannonade was heard above the fort, carrying consternation into the city, for the inhabitants believed that it had fallen. It soon ceased, however. Several barges, loaded with troops, had passed the fort unobserved, and attempted to land and take it in rear. Pulling to the shore with loud shouts, they were met by a well-directed fire from a battery, and compelled to seek shelter under their ships.
During this tremendous bombardment Francis Key lay in a little vessel under the Admiral's frigate. He had visited him for the purpose of obtaining an exchange of some prisoners of war, especially of one who was a personal friend, and was directed to remain till after the action. During the day his eye had rested eagerly on that low fortification, over which the flag of his country was flying, and he watched with the intensest anxiety the progress of each shell in its flight, rejoicing when it fell short of its aim, and filled with fear as he saw it stooping without exploding, within those silent enclosures. At night, when darkness shut out that object of so much and intense interest, around which every hope and desire of his life seemed to cling, he still stood straining his eyes through the gloom, to catch, if he could, by the light of the blazing shells, a glimpse of his country's flag, waving proudly in the storm. The early dawn found him still a watcher, and there, to the music of bursting shells, and the roar of cannon, he composed "The Star-Spangled Banner."[6]
In the morning, Broke not deeming it prudent to assail those intrenchments, manned by brave and determined men,[7] while the heights around bristled with artillery, resolved to retreat. Waiting till night to take advantage of the darkness, he retraced his steps to the shipping.
From the extreme apprehensions that had oppressed it, Baltimore passed to the most extravagant joy. Beaming faces once more filled the streets, and the military bands, as they marched through, playing triumphant strains, were saluted with shouts. The officers were feted and exultation and confidence filled every bosom.
CHAPTER VII.
Macomb at Plattsburg — American and English fleets on Lake Champlain — Advance of Prevost — Indifference of Governor Chittenden — Rev. Mr. Wooster — Macdonough — The two battles — Funeral of the officers — British invasion of Maine — McArthur's expedition.
The gallant defence of Baltimore was still the theme of every tongue, when tidings from our northern borders swelled the enthusiasm to the highest pitch, and extinguished for a moment the remembrance of the barbarities committed at Washington.
The day before the British landed at North Point and received their first shock in the death of General Ross, the double battle of Plattsburg was fought.
Izard, when he started on his tortoise-like march, to the relief of Brown, left Colonel Macomb in command of three thousand men, not more than half of whom were fit for service. Their defeat he considered certain, and the result would have justified his prognostications, had Macomb, like him, sat down to brood over his troubles and gaze only on the difficulties that beset the army, till his confidence was gone and his energies paralyzed. But he was made of sterner stuff—difficulties only roused and developed him. Were the well men under his command few? then his defences must be the stronger, and the labor of those able to work, the more constant and exhausting.
Calling on New York and Vermont for militia, he toiled night and day at the works, and soon found himself strongly intrenched.
In the mean time, Prevost, at the head of a disciplined army of twelve thousand men, began to advance on Plattsburg. The ulterior design of this invasion of the States has never been disclosed. It is hardly possible that the British General meditated a movement similar to Burgoyne's, hoping to reach Albany. The object may have been to get entire command of Lake Champlain; and, pushing his land forces as far as Ticonderoga, there wait the development of events on the sea-coast, or by conquests along the northern boundary, create a claim to the lakes, to be enforced in the negotiations for peace.
Prevost marched slowly, cumbering the road with his heavy baggage and artillery trains as he advanced, and did not arrive at Plattsburg till the 7th of September.
This town is situated on the Saranac River, a deep and rapid stream, crossed at the time by several bridges. Abandoning that portion of it on the north shore, as untenable, Macomb withdrew his forces to the southern bank. Prevost, after a sharp action with the advance of the American army, was allowed to erect his batteries at his leisure. It took him four days to complete his works, or rather that time elapsed before the arrival of the British fleet.
Sept. 1.
In the mean time Macomb had sent an express to Governor Chittenden, of Vermont, telling him that Prevost had commenced his march on Plattsburg, and beseeching him to call out the militia to his aid. But this Federalist Governor, acting on the rebellious doctrine of Massachusetts, coldly replied that he had no authority to send militia out of the State. On the 4th, Macomb sent another express saying the army was approaching, that his force was too small to resist it, and begging for assistance. General Newell, more patriotic than the Governor, offered to take his brigade over to the help of Macomb, but the former would not sanction the movement by his authority, though he advised him to beat up for volunteers. With every feeling of patriotism deadened by the poison of the spirit of faction—every generous sentiment and sympathy apparently extinguished—deaf to the piteous plea rising from a neighboring town, he coldly entrenched himself behind a party dogma, and let the ruin and devastation sweep onward. The cannonading on the 6th, by Majors Appling and Wool, who gallantly attacked the enemy's advance, did not rouse him from his apathy.
One can hardly imagine that the call he issued for volunteers before the battle, and the stirring proclamation he made afterwards under the pressure of popular enthusiasm, emanated from the same person.
The people, however, did not require to be stimulated into patriotism by their executive. As that sullen thunder came booming over the lake, it stirred with fiery ardor the gallant sons of that noble State, who never yet turned a deaf ear to the calls of their country, and before whose stern and valorous onset the enemy's ranks have never stood unbroken. Spurning the indifference of their Governor, and trampling under foot his constitutional scruples, they flew to their homes, and snatching down their muskets and rifles, and giving a short adieu to their families, rushed to the shore, and soon the lake was covered with boats, urged fiercely forward by strong arms and willing hearts towards the spot where the heavy explosions told that their brave countrymen were struggling in unequal combat. The face of young Macomb lighted with joy as his eye fell on those bold men, and a heavy load was taken from his heart.
Among those who had previously volunteered, was the Rev. Benjamin Wooster, of Fairfield, Vermont. Responding to the call of Governor Tompkins, he put himself at the head of his parishioners and repaired to the American camp, where he endured all the privations of a common soldier. The aged members of his church and the women, when they saw him draw up his little flock on the village green, prior to their departure for the scene of conflict, assembled in the church and sent for him, saying, "We shall see you no more—come, go to the house of God and preach us a last sermon, and administer to us the holy sacrament for the last time." But fearing the effect of so touching an interview on his own decisions, he refused. Sending them an affectionate farewell, he embraced his weeping family, kissed his babes, and gently untwining their arms from his neck, turned away. On the day of battle this brave old shepherd led his fearless flock into the fire, with the serenity of a good man doing his duty.
During the summer the English at the northern, and the Americans at the southern portion of the lake, had been busy in building ships to contest the supremacy of this sheet of water, whose head pierces so deep into the bosom of New York. The latter had at length assembled a flotilla consisting of four vessels—the largest carrying twenty-six guns—and ten galleys, the whole under the command of Macdonough. After some skirmishing, this little fleet, which early in the season lay in Otter Creek, was got into the lake and steered for Plattsburg Bay, to assist Macomb in his defence of the town. This bay opens to the southward, and instead of piercing the main land at right angles, runs north, nearly parallel with the lake itself. A narrow tongue of land divides it from the main water, the extreme point of which is called Cumberland Head. Just within its mouth, and nearly opposite where the turbulent Saranac empties into it, Macdonough anchored his vessels. Sept 20. Between him and the main land was a large shoal and an island which effectually blocked the approach of vessels on that side.
The English fleet sent to attack him, consisted, also, of four vessels—the largest mounting 32 guns—and 13 galleys. The American force, all told, was 14 vessels, mounting 86 guns and carrying 850 men, while that of the English was 17 vessels, mounting 96 guns and carrying 1000 men. The largest, the Confiance, "had the gun deck of a frigate," and by her superior size and strength, and her 30 long twenty-fours, was considered a match for any two vessels in Macdonough's squadron. Captain Downie, who commanded the British fleet, joined his gun boats at the Isle au Motte on the 8th of September, where he lay at anchor till the 11th. In the mean time, Prevost, whose batteries were all erected, remained silent behind his works waiting the arrival of the fleet before he should commence his fire.
During those sleepless nights, and days of agitation, young Macdonough lay calmly watching the approach of his superior foe, while Macomb strained every nerve to complete his defences. Fearless, frank and social, the young General moved among his soldiers with such animation and confidence, that they caught his spirit, and like the Green Mountain boys and yeomanry of New York at Saratoga, resolved to defend their homes to the last.
Sept. 11.
At length, on Sunday morning, just as the sun rose over the eastern mountains, the American guard boat, on the watch, was seen rowing swiftly into the harbor. It reported the enemy in sight. The drums immediately beat to quarters, and every vessel was cleared for action. The preparations being completed, young Macdonough summoned his officers around him, and there, on the deck of the Saratoga, read the prayers of the ritual before entering into battle, and that voice, which soon after rung like a clarion amid the carnage, sent heavenward, in earnest tones, "Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us, for thou givest not always the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or by few." It was a solemn and thrilling spectacle, and one never before witnessed on a vessel of war cleared for action. A young commander who had the courage thus to brave the derision and sneers which such an act was sure to provoke, would fight his vessel while there was a plank left to stand on. Of the deeds of daring done on that day of great achievements, none evinced so bold and firm a heart as this act of religious worship.
At eight o'clock the crews of the different vessels could see, over the tongue of land that divided the bay from the lake, the topsails of the enemy moving steadily down. These had also been seen from shore, and every eminence around was covered with anxious spectators. The house of God was deserted, and the light of that bright Sabbath morning, with its early stillness, flooded a scene at once picturesque and terrible. On one side was the hostile squadron, coming down to the sound of music—on the other, stood the armies on shore in order of battle, with their banners flying—between, lay Macdonough's silent little fleet at anchor, while the hills around were black with spectators, gazing on the strange and fearful panorama.
As the British approached, Macdonough showed his signal, "Impressed seamen call on every man to do his duty." As vessel after vessel traced the letters, loud cheers rent the air.
The English vessels, under easy sail, swept one after another round Cumberland Head, and hauling up in the wind, waited the approach of the galleys.
BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
Position of the two squadrons.
As Macdonough lay anchored with his vessels in line north and south—his galleys on their sweeps forming a second line in rear—the English fleet, as it doubled the head, was compelled to approach with bows on. The Eagle was farthest up the bay, the Saratoga second, Ticonderoga third, and Preble fourth. The impressive silence which rested on the American fleet was at last broken by the Eagle, which opened her broadsides. Startled by the sound, a cock on board the Saratoga, which had escaped from the coop, flew upon a gun slide and crowed. A loud laugh and three hearty cheers acknowledged the favorable omen, and spread confidence through the ship. Macdonough, seeing the enemy were at too great distance to be reached by his guns, reserved his fire, and watched the Confiance standing boldly on till she came within range. He then sighted a long twenty-four himself and fired her. The heavy shot passed the entire length of the deck of the Confiance, killing many of her men and shivering her wheel into fragments. This was the signal for every vessel to open its fire, and in a moment that quiet bay was in an uproar. The Confiance, however, though suffering severely, did not return a shot, but kept on till she got within a quarter of a mile, when she let go her anchors and swung broadside to the Saratoga. Sixteen long twenty-fours then opened at once with a terrific crash. The Saratoga shook from kelson to cross trees under the tremendous discharge. Nearly half of her crew were knocked down by it, while fifty men were either killed or wounded, and among them Lieutenant Gamble. He was in the act of sighting a gun, when a shot entered the port and struck him dead. The effect of this first broadside was awful, and the Saratoga was for a moment completely stunned. The next, however, she opened her fire with a precision and accuracy that told fatally on the English ship. But the latter soon commenced pouring in her broadsides so rapidly that she seemed enveloped in flame. The Eagle could not withstand it, and changed her position, falling in nearer shore, leaving the Saratoga to sustain almost alone the whole weight of the unequal contest. She gave broadside for broadside, but the weight of metal was against her, and she was fast becoming a wreck. Her deck soon presented a scene of the most frightful carnage. The living could hardly tumble the wounded down the hatchway as fast as they fell. At length, as a full broadside burst on the staggering ship, a cry of despair rang from stem to stern, "the Commodore is killed!—the Commodore is killed!" and there he lay on the blood-stained deck amid the dead, senseless, and apparently lifeless. A spar, cut in two by a cannon shot, had fallen on his back and stunned him. But after two or three minutes he recovered, and cheering on his men, took his place again beside his favorite gun that he had sighted from the commencement of the action. As the men saw him once more at his post, they took new courage.
But a few minutes after, the cry of "the Commodore is killed," again passed through the ship. Every eye was instantly turned to a group of officers gathered around Macdonough, who lay in the scuppers, between two guns, covered with blood. He had been knocked clean across the ship, with a force sufficient to have killed him. Again he revived, and limping to a gun, was soon coolly hulling his antagonist. Maimed and suffering, he fought on, showing an example that always makes heroes of subordinates.
At length every gun on the side of his vessel towards the enemy was silenced, but one, and this, on firing it again, bounded from its fastenings, and tumbled down the hatchway. Not a gun was left with which to continue the contest, while the ship was on fire. A surrender, therefore, seemed inevitable. Macdonough, however, resolved to wind his ship, so as to get the other broadside to bear. Failing in the first attempt, the sailing-master, Brum, bethought him of an expedient, which proved successful, and the crippled vessel slowly swung her stern around, until the uninjured guns bore. The Confiance, seeing the manœuvre, imitated it, but she could not succeed, and lay with her crippled side exposed to the fire of the Saratoga.
In a short time not a gun could be brought to bear. Further resistance was therefore useless, and she surrendered. She had been hulled a hundred and five times, while half of her men were killed and wounded. Captain Downie had fallen some time before, and hence was spared the mortification of seeing her flag lowered.
The Eagle, commanded by Capt. Henley, behaved gallantly in the engagement, while the Ticonderoga, under Lieutenant Cassin, was handled in a manner that astonished those who beheld her. This fearless officer walked backward and forward over his deck, encouraging his men, and directing the fire, apparently unconscious of the balls that smote and crashed around him. His broadsides were so incessant, that several times the vessel was thought to be on fire.
The surrender of the Confiance virtually terminated the contest, which had lasted two hours and a quarter; and as flag after flag struck the galleys took to their sweeps and escaped.
In the midst of this tremendous cannonade, came, at intervals, the explosions on shore. The first gun in the bay, was the signal for Prevost on land, and as the thunder of his heavy batteries mingled in with the incessant broadsides of the contending squadrons, the very shores trembled, and far over the lake, amid the quiet farm-houses of Vermont, the echoes rolled away, carrying anxiety and fear into hundreds of families. Its shore was lined with men, gazing intently in the direction of Plattsburgh, as though from the smoke that rolled heavenward, some tidings might be got of how the battle was going.
To the spectators on the commanding heights around Plattsburgh, the scene was indescribably fearful and thrilling. It was as if two volcanoes were raging below—turning that quiet Sabbath morning into a scene wild and awful as the strife of fiends. But when the firing in the bay ceased, and the American flag was seen still flying, and the Union Jack down, there went up a shout that shook the hills. From the water to the shore, and back again, the deafening huzzas echoed and re-echoed. The American army took up the shout, and sending it high and clear over the thunder of cannon, spread dismay and astonishment into the heart of the enemy's camp.
The American loss in killed and wounded, was one hundred and ten, of whom all but twenty fell on board the Saratoga and Eagle—that of the English was never fully known, though it was supposed to be nearly double.
The force of Macomb was so inferior, and the most of the volunteers were so recently arrived, that from the first he was advised to retreat, a course that Wilkinson and Dearborn and Izard would doubtless have taken, and defended it by rules laid down in books on military tactics. But Macomb had resolved to fight where he stood. The two forts of Brown and Scott, which he had erected and named, he designed should be symbolical of the defence he would make, and the battle he would fight.
After the British batteries had been in fierce operation for some time, throwing shells, hot shot and rockets in a perfect shower upon the American ranks, three columns of attack were formed—two pressing straight for the bridges, the planks of which had been taken up, and the third for a ford farther up the river. The last was repulsed by the volunteers and militia. The other two steadily approached the bridges, but the artillery rained such a tempest of grape shot on the uncovered ranks of one, and the pickets and rifles so scourged the other, that they were driven back to their intrenchments for shelter. After Macdonough's victory, their fire slackened, not only from discouragement, but from the destructive effect of the American gunnery on their batteries, and at nightfall ceased entirely. As soon as it became dark, Prevost ordered a retreat. So rapidly and silently was it conducted, that the army had advanced eight miles before Macomb knew of it. He immediately ordered a pursuit, but this day of strife had ended in a storm of wind and rain, and it was soon abandoned.
Prevost lost two hundred and fifty in killed and wounded, many of whom were left on the ground, drenched and beat upon by the storm. These he commended to the humanity of Macomb, and continued his rapid flight to the St. Lawrence. That British fleet, shattered and torn, lying at anchor under the guns of Macdonough, in the bay, and the army of twelve thousand men streaming through the gloom and rain, panic stricken, lest the feeble force behind should overtake it, present a striking contrast to their prospects in the morning, and show how changeful is fortune. Downie heard not the shout of victory, for he lay stiff and cold in the vessel he had carried so gallantly into action, and Prevost did not long survive his defeat.
So large a hostile force had never before crossed the Canada line, while no such sudden and terrible reverse of fortune had befallen the feeblest expedition. Two such victories on one day, were enough to intoxicate the nation. The news spread like wildfire, and shouts and salvos of artillery, and bonfires, hailed the messengers, as they sped the glad tidings on. The campaign was closing gloriously. Instead of the defeats and failures of the last year, there were Chippewa and Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie, crowned by the victories of Baltimore and Plattsburgh. The news of the two last, approaching from different directions, set the land in a glow of transport, and lifted it from despondency and gloom to confidence and bright expectations.
The Thursday following the battle of Champlain was devoted to the burial of the officers killed in the naval action. As the procession of boats left the Confiance, minute guns were fired from the vessels in the harbor. The artillery and infantry on shore received the dead and bore them to the place of burial, while the cannon of the forts responded to those from the fleet, blending their mournful echoes over the fallen in their prime and manhood. The clouds hung low and gloomy over lake and land, and the rain fell in a gentle shower, imparting still greater loneliness to the scene. On this very day, while friends and foes were thus paying the last tribute of respect to the fallen, Baltimore was shaking to the huzzas of the inhabitants, at the news that the British fleet was sailing down the bay, baffled and disappointed.
Sept 1.
Simultaneous with these two invasions of our territory, a British force was sent against Machias. The misfortune which befel the Adams, sloop-of-war, compelling her to take refuge at Hampden, in the Penobscot river, caused a change in the movements of the expedition, and it did not stop to take Machias, but seized Castine and Belfast, on the Penobscot bay, then pushed on with a sloop of war and small craft carrying in all 700 men, to capture this vessel. Sept 9. Machias was then seized, and all the country east of Penobscot taken possession of. July 14. The islands in Passamaquoddy bay had been seized and occupied two months previous.
Our whole maritime coast was still threatened, and every seaport of any magnitude, was fortifying itself when Congress assembled again.
The only other military movement of note during this fall, was an expedition which set out from Detroit, under the command of General McArthur. It consisted of 700 mounted men, seventy of whom were Indians, and for secresy, daring and skill was not surpassed during the war. Its object was to prevent the enemy from molesting Michigan during the winter, and if successful in its operations, eventually attack Burlington Heights, and form a junction with Generals Brown and Izard. This body of seven hundred bold and well-mounted borderers, left Detroit the 22d of October, and plunged at once into the wilderness. Oct 22. The long and straggling column would now be seen wading along the shallow shores of the lake, and then be lost in the primeval forest, to reappear on the bank of deep rivers, from whose farther shore the wilderness again spread away. The bivouac by night in the autumnal woods, or on the bank of a stream, presented a fine subject for a painter. Their seven hundred horses tied to the trees around, only half relieved by the ruddy fire that strove in vain to pierce the limitless gloom—the lofty trunks of trees receding away like the columns in some old dimly-lighted cathedral—the hardy and rough-looking frontiersmen, stretched with the half-clad savages around the fire—the sentinels scarcely discernible in the distance, all combined to form a picture which has a charm even for the most civilized and refined.
It was, however, no holiday march—expedition was necessary to success, and the horses were kept to the top of their endurance. Straining up acclivities, floundering through swamps, struggling with the rapid currents of rivers, this detachment succeeded in penetrating more than two hundred miles into the enemy's country, and to within twenty-five miles of Burlington Heights. It marched more than four hundred miles, one hundred and eighty of it through an unbroken wilderness, defeated five hundred militia strongly posted, killed and wounded twenty-seven men, and took a hundred and eleven prisoners, and returned with the loss of but one man. Oct 17. In the discipline he maintained, the health of the troops, and their safe return, McArthur showed himself a skillful and able commander, while his subordinates deserve the highest commendation.