A CENTENNIAL EDITION" OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: FROM THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, TO THE END OF THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. WITH A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE APPROACHING CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. BY BENSON J. LOSSING, LL.D., AUTHOR OF "PICTORIAL FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION," OF THE "WAR OF 1812," AND OF "THE CIVIL WAR;" "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS;" "LIVES OF EMINENT AMERICANS;" "HOME OF WASHINGTON," ETC., ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY FOUR HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS. HARTFORD: THOMAS BELKNAP. SCAMMELL AND COMPANY, ST. LOUIS, CINCINNATI, AND CHICAGO; W. E. BLISS, TOLEDO ; H. W. KELLEY, PHILADELPHIA. 1876. Entered according to Act of Congress, l n the year 1875 by BENSON J. LOSSING, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington Gin 17? PREFACE. work has been prepared with great care, for the purpose of supply ing a ,7ant long felt by the reading public, and especially by Heads of Fam ilies. Every important event in the history of the United States, from the Aboriginal period to the present time, is presented in a concise, but perspic uous and comprehensive manner, without giving those minute and often tedious details, which are valuable to the student, but irksome to the common reader. The History of our Kepublic is herein popularized, and adapted to the use of those who may not find leisure to peruse more extensive works upon the subject. The materials have been drawn from the earlier, most elaborate, and most reliable historians and chroniclers of our continent. The work is constructed upon a new plan, which, it is believed, will be found to be the most acceptable yet offered to the public, for obtaining, with facility, and fixing in the memory, a knowledge of the great events of our truly won derful history. And having visited a greater portion of the localities made memorable by important occurrences in our country, the writer claims, in that particular, an advantage over his predecessors in this special field, for he has been able to correct errors and give truthful impressions of things and events. An endeavor has also been made to show the cause of every import ant event, and thus, by developing the philosophy of our history, to make it more attractive and instructive than a bald record of facts. And wherever the text appeared to need further elucidation, additional facts have been given in foot-notes. The arrangement of the work is new. It is in six Periods, each com mencing where the history naturally divides into distinct epochs. The first Period exhibits a general view of the Aboriginal race who occupied the con tinent when the Europeans came. The second is a record of all the Discov eries and preparations for settlement, made by individuals and governments. The third delineates the progress of all the Settlements until colonial gov ernments were formed. The fourth tells the story of these Colonies from their infancy to maturity, and illustrates the continual development of Dem ocratic ideas and Republican tendencies which finally resulted in a political confederation. The fifth has a full account of the important events of the War for Independence, and the sixth gives a concise history of the Re public from its formation to the present time. The Supplement contains 01 VI PREFACE. the Articles of Confederation and the National Constitution. The former shows the final result of the efforts of the people of the Colonies, who had struggled together for general independence, to form a national organiza tion, but which signally failed, because in that League of States the suprem acy of each was recognized, and the vitality of unity, which is essential to the existence of a nation, was wanting. The National Constitution is given in its original form, and with all of the amendments since adopted, accom panied by explanatory notes. The Supplement also contains a brief outline History of the Progress of the Nation, in all its aspects, during the first one hundred years of the existence of our Republic, with a history of the preparations for the Centennial celebration in 1876, and Views of the Prin cipal Buildings for that occasion. The system of concordance interwoven with the notes throughout the entire work, is of great importance to the reader. When a fact is named which bears a relation to another fact elsewhere recorded in the volume, a reference is made to the page where such fact is mentioned. A knowledge of this relationship of separate events is often essential to a clear view of the subject, and without this concordance, a great deal of time would be spent in searching for that relationship. With the concordance the matter may be found in a moment. Favorable examples of the utility of this new feature may be found on page 289. If strict attention sha l be given to these references, the whole subject will be presented to the mind of the reader in a comprehensive aspect of unity not to be obtained by any other method. The engravings are introduced not for the sole purpose of embellishing the volume, but to enhance its utility as an instructor. Every picture is intended to illustrate a fact, not merely to beautify the page. Great care has been taken to secure accuracy in all the delineations of men and things, so that they may not convey false instruction. Geographical maps have been omitted, because they must necessarily be too small to be of essential service. History may be read for the purpose of obtaining general infor mation on the subject, without maps, but it should never be studied without the aid of an accurate Atlas. The author has endeavored to make this work essentially a FAMILY HISTORY, attractive and instructive ; and the Publishers have generously co-worked with him in producing a volume that may justly claim to be excellent in every particular. With these few observations concerning the general plan and merits of the work, it is presented to the public, with an entire willingness to have its reputation rest upon its own merits. B. J. L. THE RIDGE, DOVER, N. Y., 1875. ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON 2. DE SOTO ON THE MISBISSIPPI 3. GOVERNOR CARVER AND MASSASOIT 4. DEATH OF WOLFE 5. WASHINGTON AT KIP S BAY 6. JONES BOARDING THE "SIBA.PIS" STEEL PLATES. Frontispiece i 7. WASHINGTON RESIGNING HIS COMMISSION to face page 352 ""to face naze 44 8. HULL S SURRENDER " 410 to face page 44 8. < " 78 I 9. JAPANESE EMBASSY 202 10. GRANT AND PKMBERTON 258 11. FARRAGUT IN THE RIGGING OF THE HARTFORD.. " 306 12. PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 1. Sioux Indians 2. Portrait of Red Jacket 3. A Wigwam 4. Wampum 5. Indian Hieroglyphics 6. Indian Weapons 7. Calumets 8. Indian Burial-Place 9. Indian Totum 10. Profile of Black Hawk 11. Uncas s Monument 12. Portrait of S. Kirkland 13. Southern Indians 14. Columbus before the Council.. 15. Portrait of Vespucci 16. Northman 17. Norman Ship 18. Old Tower at Newport 19. Portrait of Columbus 20. Portrait of Isabella. 21. The Fleet of Columbus 22. B.inne r of the Expedition 23. Balboa 24. Portrait of De Soto 25. Portrait of Cabot 26. Portrait of Verazani 27. Cartier s Ship 28. Arms of France 29. French Nobleman, 1540 30. Raleigh s Expedition 31. Portrait of Raleigh 32. Rale gh s Ships 33. English Gentleman, 1580 34. Portrait of Henry Hudson 35. The Half-Moon 36. Building Jamestown 37. Portrait of Captain J. Smith 38. Portrait of Pocahontas 39. Seal of New Netherland 40. A Puritan 41. The .Mayflower 42. Governor Carver s Chair 43. Portrait of Lord Baltimore 44. Hooker s Emigr:tion 45. First Meeting- House in Connecticut 46. Portrait of Roger Williams 47. Portrait of William Penn 48. The Assembly House 49. Oglethorpe, at Savannah 50. Embarkation of the Pilgrims 51. Portrait of Oglethorpe 52. Church Tower at Jamestown 53. First Colony Seal, Massachusetts 54. Portrait of John Winthrop 55. First Money Coined in the United States. 56. Portrait of King Philip 57. Palisaded Building 58. Portrait of Captain Church 59. Portrait of Cotton Mather 60. Williams s House 61. Plan of the Siege of Louisburg 62. Portrait of Peter Stuy vesant 63. City of New York in 1664 64. Stuyvesant s Surrender 65. The Charter Oak 66. Penn s House 67. Plan of Charleston in 1680 68. Early New England House. 69. Dutchman, 1660 70. Plan of Fort Du Qnesne.. 71. Portrait of Braddo,:k 72. Burial of Braddock 73. Plan of Fort Edward 74. Portrait of Sir W. Johnson 75. Plan of Fort William Henry 76. Portrait of Abercrombie 77. Plans of Forts at Oswego 78. Block House 79. Map of Lake George. 80. Portrait of Lord Amherst 81. Plan of Ticonderoga 82. Ruins of Ticonderoga 83. Portrait of Lord Howe 84. Plan of Crown Point 85. Finn of Fort Niagara 86. General Wolfe S7. Military Operations at Quebec 88. Monument to Wolfe and Montcalm 89. Patrick Henry before the Virginia Assembly 90. Portrait of James Otis 91. Portrait of Benjamin West 92. Portrait of David Rittenhouse 93. Portrait of Patrick Henry 94. A Stamp 95. Portrait of Cadwallader Colden 96. Portraitof William Pitt 97. Portraitof John Dickenson 98. Portrait of Samuel Adams 99. Portraitof Lord North 100. Faneuil Hall 101. Snake Device 102. Portrait of Charles Thomson 103. Carpenter s Hall 104. John Hancock 105. Plan of Bunker Hill Battle 106. Bunker Hill Monument 107. Portrait of Joseph Warren 108. Portrait of Philip Schuyler 109. Plan of the Walls of Quebec 110. Portrait of General Montgomery 111. Culpepper Flag 112. Union Flas; 113 Continental Money 114. Portraitof General Lee 115. Portrait of General Moultrie 116. State House, Philadelphia 117. Portrait of Benjamin Rush 11*. Portrait of General Putnam 119. Plan of the Battle on Long Island 120. Plan of Fort Washington 121. Retreat from Long Island 122. The Jersey Prison-Ship 123. Plan of tlie Battle at Trenton 124. Portrait of Robert Morris 125. Portrait of Silas Deane 126. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin 127. Plan of the Battle at Princeton 128. Portrait of La Fayette 1S9. Plan of the Battle at the Brandy wine 130. Chevaux-de-Frise 131. Plan of the Battle at Germantown 132. Portraitof General St. Clair 133. Portrait of Kosciuszko 134. Portrait of Joseph Brant 135. Portrait of General Burgoyne 136. A Treaty 137. Burgoyne s Surrender 13S. Operation! at Bemis s Heights 139. Portrait of Francis Hopkinson 140. Encampment at Valley Forge 141. Portrait of Sir Henry Clinton 142. Plan of the Battle at Monmouth 143. Portrait of Count D Estaing 144. Portrait of Baron Steuben 145. Portrait of General Lincoln 146. Plan of Stony Point 147. Portrait of General Wayne 148. Portrait of Daniel Boone 149. Portrait of George R. Clarke 150. Clarke s Expedition 151. Portrait of General Sullivan 152. Plan of the Siege of Savannah 153. Portrait of Count Pulaski 154. Portrait of John Paul Jones 155. A Gun-boat at Boston 156. Portrait of Admiral Hopkins 157. Cipher Alphabet 158. Portrait of Governor Rutledge 159. Portrait of Commodore Whipple 160. Plan of the Siege of Charleston. 161. Portrait of David Ramsay 162. Portrait of General Gates Io3. Portrait of General Suinter 164. Plan of Battle at Sanders s Creek 165. Portrait^ Baron De Kalb 166. Portraitof Colonel Tarleton 167. Portrait of General Marion 163. Portrait of Lord Cornwallis 169. Marion s Encampment on the Pedee. 170. Portrait of G<: vernor Trumbull 171. Portrait of Benedict Arnold 17 A The Captors Medal 235 225 SOT 389 MS 249 343 MS 345 -.is 249 250 951 253 264 256 267 269 263 264 366 267 269 278 J74 -. 75 278 -77 278 278 278 279 281 284 SOS 305 Si 7 307 808 809 810 810 81 1 813 814 815 BIS 816 817 818 31 Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS. 173. Portrait of General Greene 174. Portrait of General Morgan.. 175. Portrait of Colonel Washington 176. Portrait of Colonel Henry Lee 177 Plan of the Battle at Guilford 178 Plan of the Battle at Hobkirk s Hill 179*. Portrait of Rebecca Motte PAGE 331 .. 331 332 .. 333 333 334 . 335 336 Portrait of Jefferson Davis Portrait of Robert Anderson Fort Sumter in 1861 The Confederate flag Harper s Ferry in 1861 Portrait of Salmon P. Chase Seal of West Virginia Portrait of R. E. Lee 54S , 650 652 555 557 560 .. 562 . . ... 564 .... 565 181* Portrait of General Pickens 132 Portrait of Count de Rochambeau iss! Portrait of Count de Grasse 134. Plan of the Siege of Yorktown 185. Portrait of Benjamin Thompson 186. Portrait of James Jackson 187. Portrait of George Clinton 133. Portrait of John Marshall 139. Portrait of General Mifflin 190. Order of the Cincinnati .. 339 .. 340 .. 341 346 .. 347 ... 350 .. 351 352 352 354 Arsenal at St. Louis Portraitof S. Price Portraitof Winfield Scott Ruins of the Stone-bridge Defenses of Washington Portrait of Leonidas Polk Fort Hatteras Fort Pickens Portrait of S. F. Dupont Port Roval Ferry . .... 566 .. 568 . 569 .... 572 . 577 .. 580 ".... 581 .... 582 .. 583 II . .... 586 192*. Fran r klinbeiore the Convention 193. Portrait of Oliver Ellsworth 194. Portrait of Alexander Hamilton .. 360 , 361 362 Portrait of C. Wilk es Portrait of W. H. Seward Portrait of A. E. Burnside .. 588 539 .... 591 196. Inauguration of Washington 197. Portrait of Gouverneur Morris. 198. Portrait of Washington 199. Portrait of Robert R. Livingston 364 .. 364 ... 365 366 Texas Ranger Portrait of H. W r . Halleck View at Fort Donelson Portrait of Lewis Wallace 593 595 .. 596 597 509 280. Portrait of Tench Coze 201. Portrait of General Knox 202. Wayne s Defeat of the Iiiuians 203. Portrait of John Jay .. 370 ;;; 375 ". . . . . , . 380 Island Number Ten Portraitof U. S. Grant Burivng horses at Shiloh . Portrai t of Beauregard - ..601 . 603 .. 604 .605 606 205 Portraitof John Adams 206. Portrait of C. C. Pinckney. . 207. Portrait of Martha \\ aslungton ... 38- 38 38! . Portrait of O. M. Mitchel . Colyer s Head-Quarters . Fort Pulaski breached ! 607 . 608 609 209! Portrait of Commodore Bainbridge 39 . Ram Manassas 611 210. United States Frigate.. 211 Portrait of Lieutenant Decatur 212. Mohammedan Soldier. . ..... . - .; . . . 392 ". /. 392 393 . Portraitof G. IS. McClellaii . Monitor and Merr. mack . Portraitof J. E. Johnston 3 Portrait of T. J. Jackson 4. View on the Chickahominy 5. Harrison Mansion 6. Thoroughfare Gap 612 ii en 616 213. Burning of the Philadelphia at Iripoli 214. Portrait of Ruins King 215. Portrait of Aaron Burr 216. Portrait of Robert Fulton 395 33 398 3H9 617 .. 620 622 III. 625 .. 626 218. Portraitof William Pmkney 219. A Felucca Gun-Boat... 220. Portraitof John Randolph 222. Portrait of General Dearborn 223. Portrait of S. Van Renusselaer 2->4 Sloop-of-War 4C 403 4] . . 4 8. Portrait of Philip Kearney. ....... 4. Battle-Field of South Mountain... 0. Antietam Battle-ground 1. Fredericksourg on fire .). View at Nashville 3. Portrait of D. C. Buell.. 627 . . 628 . 630 631 || 632 633 635 225. Portrait of Governor Shelby 226. Plan of Fort Meigs 227. Plan of Fort Sandusky 223. Major Croghan... .. 4; 419 420 ... 421 4. Graves at luka 5. Confederate Hag . 635 ;.... 636 7. Portrait of W. S. Rosecrans 637 " . 638 230. Portrait of Commodore Perry.. 231. Portrait of General Pike , 423 425 4 .(. Portrait of R. Semmes 0. Portrait of J. C. Pemberton ! 642 . 644 232. Fort Niagara in 1813 233 Portrait of Captain Lawrence 234. Portrait of Commodore Porter 4 ... 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 341. A Louisiana Swamp 342. Cave-Life in Vicksburg 343.. Corps Badges 344. Portrait of J. Hooker 345. Ruins of Chancellorsville :;4ti. Portrait of G. G. Meade 347. Scene near Gettysburg 348. Drafting 349. Abatis 350. Libby Prison 351. Pack Mules 352. Portrait of G. H. Thomas 353. The Chattanooga 354. Pulpit Rock 355. Missionaries Kmge 356. Portrait of J. Longstreet 357. A Parrott Gun 358. Torpedo 3.i9. The Swamp Angel 360. FortdeRussy 361. New F.ra Sft%s^aw. 364. Portrait of P. H. Sheridan 365. Pontoon Bridge 36. Belle Isle 367. The Butler Medal 363. View at Cedar Creek 369. Portrait of W. T. Sherman 370. Kenesaw Mountain.. . 371. Portraitof J. B. Hood.. ........ 372. Sherman s Quarters in Atlanta. . 373. Sherman s Quarters in Savannah. 374. The Albemarle - 375. Franklin Battle-ground 376. Portrait of J. A. %\ mslow 377. Blockade-Runner.. .- 373. Portrait of C. L. Vallandigham.. 379 Interior of Fort Fisher 3SO. Interior of Fort Steadman 3*1 Capitol at Richmond 382. McLean s House ll?; Founding New States 3b3. Portrait of Judge btory ..645 .. 647 649 235. Portrait of General brown 236. Map of the Niagara Frontier 237. Portrait of Commodore Macdonough 238. Plan of the Battle of New Orleans 239 Poi trait of VV. C. C. Claibovne 240. Jackson at New Orleans 241. Portrait of James Monroe 242. Capture of Pensacola 243. Portrait of E.I ward Livingston 244. Portrait of John Quincy Adams 245. Portraitof Dewitt Clinton 246. Portrait of John C. Calhoun 247. Portrait of General .lacks ..n 248. Portrait of Robert Y. Hayne 249. Portrait of Osceola ; - - 250. Map of the Seat of the Seminole War 251 Portrait of Martin Van Buren 252. Portraitof William H. Harrison 253. Portrait of John Tyler ..651 .. 653 ,;... 655 .. 657 . 660 .. 662 .. 664 . 665 .. 667 . 669 ;:... 669 ... 670 .. 673 673 .. 674 .. 677 ::::::::.... 682 .. 685 . 690 254. Portrait of James K. Polk 255. Portrait of General Scott 256. The Region of Taylor s Operations 257. Portrait of John C. Fremont. 258. Plan of Ihtrenchments at Vera Cruz 259. The Route of Scott s Army m Mexico 260. Bombardment of Vera Cruz 263 . Portrait of General Taylor 264. Portrait of Henry Clay 265. Portrait of Millard Fillmore 266. Portrait of Daniel Webster 267. Portrait of Joseph Smith c 268. Mormon Emigration 269 Portrait of S. F. B. Morse 270. Portrait of E. K. Kane 271. Portraitof Franklin Pierce 272. Portrait of Santa Anna 273. An Ocean Steamship 274 Crystal Palace, New York 275. Portrait of James M. Mason "76 Portrait of James Buchanan 277 Port a-tff John Plidell 573. South Carolina Institute 979. " Wigwam " at Chicago .......... ..692 .. 694 688 .. 696 . 697 .. 698 .. 700 .. 700 II".. 702 .. 703 .. 704 III... 706 .. 708 | 709 711 .. 713 . . . . . . . . . . .".". " 717 || 720 .... 721 .. 722 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;:;:;::..:... 731 resident Johnson was tried. 73? :::::::::*. .! . .; ."i 743 880. Palmetto Cockade HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. FIRST PERIOD. THE ABORIGINALS. CHAPTER I. EVERY cultivated nation had its heroic RED JA.CKET a S e a P er i 0( l when its first physical and moral conquests were achieved, and when rude society, with all its impurities, was fused and refined in the crucible of progress. When civilization first set up its standard as a permanent ensign, in the western hemisphere, northward of the Bahamas and the great Gulf, and 10 THE ABORIGINALS. the contests for possession began between the wild Aboriginals, who thrust no Spade into the soil, no sickle into ripe harvests, and those earnest delvers from the Old World, who came with the light of Christianity, to plant a new empire, and redeem the wilderness by cultivation then commenced the heroic age of America. It ended when the work of the Revolution in the eighteenth century was accomplished when the bond of vassalage to Great Britain was severed by her colonies, and when thirteen confederated States ratified a Fed eral Constitution, and upon it laid the broad foundation of our Republic. 1 Long anterior to the advent of Europeans in America, a native empire, little inferior to old Rome in civilization, flourished in that region of our Con tinent which now forms the south-western portion of our Republic, and the adjoining States of Central America. The Aztec Empire, which reached the acme of its refinement during the reign of Montezuma, and crumbled into frag ments beneath the heel of Cortez, when he dethroned and destroyed that mon arch, 2 extended over the whole region from the Rio Grande to the Isthmus of Darien ; and when the Spaniards came, it was gradually pushing its conquests northward, where all was yet darkness and gloom. To human apprehension, this people, apparently allied by various ties to the wild nations of North America, appeared to be the most efficient instruments in the hands of Provi dence, for spreading the light of dawning civilization over the whole Continent. Yet, they were not only denied this glorious privilege, but, by the very race which first attempted to plant the seeds of European society in Florida, and amonf the Mobilian tribes, 3 and to shed the illumination of their dim ChriS- CS tianity over the dreary region of the North, was their own bright light extin guished. The Aztecs and their neighbors were beaten into the dust of debasement by the falchion blows of avarice and bigotry, and nothing remains to attest their superiority but the magnificent ruins of their cities and temples, and their colossal statuary, which has survived the fury of the Spanish icono clast and the tooth of decay. They form, apparently, not the most insignificant atom of the chain of events which connects the history of the Aboriginal nations of America with that of our Republic. The position of the tribes of the North is different. From the beginning of European settlements, they have maintained, and do still maintain, an important relation to the white people. The first inhabitants of a country properly belong to the history of all sub sequent occupants of the territory. The several nations of red or copper- colored people who occupied the present domain of the United States, when Europeans first came, form as necessary materials for a portion of the history of our Republic, as the Frenchmen 4 and Spaniards, 5 by whom parts of the territory were settled, and from whom they have been taken by conquest or purchase. The history of the Indian 6 tribes, previous to the formation of settlements among them, by Europeans, 7 is involved in an obscurity which is penetrated 1 Page 360. 2 Page 43 3 Page 29. < Page 180. * Page 51. * Page 40. 7 Before the year 1607. THE ABORIGINALS. . 11 only by vague traditions and uncertain conjectures. Whence came they ? is a question yet unanswered by established facts. In the Old World, the monu ments of an ancient people often record their history. In North America, such intelligible records are wanting. Within almost every State and Terri tory remains of human skill and labor have been found, 1 which seem to attest the existence here of a civilized nation or nations, before the ancestors of our numerous Indian tribes became masters of the Continent. Some of these appear to give indisputable evidence of intercourse between the people of the Old World and those of America, centuries, perhaps, before the birth of Christ, and at periods soon afterward. 2 The whole mass of testimony yet discovered does not prove that such intercourse was extensive; that colonies from the eastern hemisphere ever made permanent settlements in America, or remained long enough to impress their character upon the country or the Aboriginals, if they existed ; or that a high degree of civilization had ever prevailed on our Continent. The origin of the Indian tribes is referred by some to the Phoenicians and other maritime nations, whose extensive voyages have been mentioned by ancient writers, and among whom tradition seemed to cherish memories of far- off lands beyond the sea, unknown to the earlier geographers. Others per ceive evidences of their Egyptian or Hindoo parentage ; and others find their ancestors among the "lost tribes of Israel," who "took counsel to go forth into a further country where never mankind dwelt, 3 and crossed from north eastern Asia to our Continent, by way of the Aleutian Islands, or by Beh- ring s Straits. 4 These various theories, and many others respecting settlements of Europeans and Asiatics here, long before the time of Columbus, unsupported as they are by a sufficiency of acknowledged facts, have so little practical value 1 Remains of fortifications, similar in form to those of ancient European nations, have been discovered. An idol, composed of clay and gypsum, representing a man without arms, and in all respects resembling one found in Southern Russia, was dug up near Nashville, in Tennessee. Also fireplaces, of regular structure ; weapons and utensils of copper ; catacombs with mummies ; ornaments of silver, brass, and copper ; walls of forts and cities, and many other things which only a people advanced in civilization could have made. The Aboriginals, themselves, have various- traditions respecting %eir origin each nation having its distinct records in the memory. Nearly all have traditional glimpses of a great and universal deluge ; and some say their particular pro genitor came in a bark canoe after that terrible event. This belief, with modifications, was current among most of the northern tribes, and was a recorded tradition of the half-civilized Aztecs. The latter ascribed all their knowledge of the arts, and their religious ceremonies, to a white and bearded mortal who came among them ; and when his mission was ended, was made immortal by the Great Spirit. 2 A Roman coin was found in Missouri ; a Persian coin in Ohio ; a bit of silver in Genesee county, New York, with the year of our Lord, 600, engraved on it; split wood and ashes, thirty feet below the surface of the earth, near Fredonia, New York ; and near Montevideo, South America, in a tomb, were found two ancient swords, a helmet and shield, with Greek inscriptions, showing that they were made in the time of Alexander the Great, 330 years before Christ. Near Marietta, Ohio, a silver cup, finely gilded within, was found in an ancient mound. Traces of iron utensils, wholly reduced to rust, mirrors of isinglass, and glazed pottery, have also been discovered in these mounds. These are evidences of the existence of a race far more civilized than the tribes found by modern Europeans. 3 2 Esdras, xiii. 40-^5. 4 The people of north-eastern Asia, and on the north-west coast of America, have a near resemblance in person, customs, and languages ; and those of the Aleutian Islands present many of the characteristics of both. Ledyard said of the people of Eastern Siberia, " Universally and circumstantially they resemble the Aborigines of America." 12 THE ABORIGINALS. for the student of our history, that we will not occupy space in giving a deline ation of even their outlines. There are elaborately-written works specially devoted to this field of inquiry, and to those the curious reader is referred. The proper investigation of such subjects requires the aid of varied and exten sive knowledge, and a far wider field for discussion than the pages of a volume like this. So we will leave the field of conjecture for the more useful and important domain of recorded history. The New World, dimly comprehended by Europeans, afforded materials for wonderful narratives concerning its inhabitants and productions. The few natives who were found upon the seaboard, had all the characteristics common to the human race. The interior of the Continent was a deep mystery, and for a long time marvelous stories were related and believed of nations of giants and pigmies ; of people with only one eye, and that in the centre of the fore head ; and of whole tribes who existed without eating. But when sober men penetrated the forests and became acquainted with the inhabitants, it was dis covered that from the Gulf of Mexico to the country north of the chain of great lakes which divide the United States and the British possessions, the people were not remarkable in persons and qualities, and that a great similarity in manners and institutions prevailed over that whole extent of country. The Aboriginals spoke a great variety of dialects, but there existed not more than eight radically distinct languages among them all, from the Atlan tic to the Mississippi, and westward to the Rocky Mountains, namely: AL GONQUIN, HURON-lROQUOIS, CHEROKEE, CATAWBA, UCHEE, NATCHEZ, MOBILIAN, and DAHCOTAH or Sioux. These occupied a region embraced within about twenty-four degrees of latitude and almost forty degrees of longi tude, and covering a greater portion of the breadth of the north temperate zone. All the nations and tribes were similar in physical character, moral senti ment, social and political organization, and religious belief. They were all of a copper color ; were tall, straight, and well-proportioned ; their eyes black and expressive; their hair black, long, coarse, and perfectly straight; their constitutions vigorous, and their powers of endurance remarkable. Bodily deformity was almost unknown, and few diseases prevailed. They were indo lent, taciturn, and unsocial ; brave, and sometimes generous in war ; unflinch ing under torture; revengeful, treacherous, and morose when injured or offended ; not always grateful for favors ; grave and sagacious in council ; often eloquent in speech ; sometimes warm and constant in friendship, and occasion ally courteous and polite. The men were employed in war, hunting and fishing. The women per formed all menial services. In hunting and fishing the men were assiduous and very skillful. They carried the knowledge of woodcraft to the highest degree of perfection ; and the slightest indication, such as the breaking of a twig, or the bending of grass, was often sufficient to form a clew to the pathway of an enemy or of game. The women bore all burdens during journeys; spread the tents ; prepared food ; dressed skins for clothing ; wove mats for THE ABORIGINALS. 13 A WIGWAM. beds, made of the bark of trees and the skins of animals ; and planted and gathered the scanty crops of corn, beans, peas, potatoes, melons, and tobacco. These constituted the chief agri cultural productions of the Aboriginals, under the most favorable circumstances. In these labors the men never engaged; they only manufactured their implements of war. Their wigwams, or houses, were rude huts, made of poles covered with mats, skins, or bark of trees ; and all of their domestic arrangements were very simple. And simple, too, were their implements of labor. They were made of stones, shells, and bones, with which they prepared their food, made their clothing and habitations, and tilled their lands. Their food consisted of a few vegetables, and the meat of the deer, buffalo, and bear, generally roasted upon the points of sticks; sometimes boiled in water heated by hot stones, and always eaten without salt. Their dress in summer was a slight covering around the loins. In winter they were clad in the skins of wild beasts, 1 often profusely ornamented with the claws of the bear, the horns of the buffalo, the feathers of birds, and the bones of fishes. Their faces were often tat tooed, and generally painted with bright colors in hideous devices. Their money was little tubes made of shells, fastened upon belts or strung in chains, and called wampum? It was used in traffic, in treaties, and as a token of friendship or alliance. Wampum belts constituted records of public transactions in the hands of a chief. There was no written language in all the New World, except rude hieroglyphics, or picture writings. The history of the nations, consisting of the records of warlike achievements, treaties of alliance, and deeds of great men, was, in the form of traditions, carefully handed down from father to son, especially from chief to chief. WAMPUM. INDIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 3 Children were taught the simple 1 The engraving at the head of this chapter represents some Sioux Indians, in their winter and fanciful costumes. 3 "Wampum is yet in use, as money, among some of the Western tribes, and is manufactured, we believe, as an article of commerce on the sea-shore of one of the counties of New Jersey. It is made of the clear parts of the common clam-shell. This part being split off, a hole is drilled in it, and the form, which is that of the bead now known as the bugle, is produced by friction. They are about half an inch long, generally disposed in alternate layers of white and bluish black, and valued, when they become a circulating medium, at about two cents for three of the black beads, or six of the white. They were strung in parcels to represent a penny, three pence, a shilling, and five shillings, of white; and double that amount in black. A fathom of white was worth about two dollars and a half, and black about five dollars. They were of less value at the time of our war for independence. The engraving shows a part of a string and a belt of wampum. 3 This is part of a record of a war expedition. The figures on the right and left one with a gun and the other with a hatchet denote prisoners taken by a warrior. The one without a head, and holding a bow and arrow, denotes that one was killed ; and the figure with a shaded part below the cross indicates a female prisoner. Then he goes in a war canoe, with nine companions, denoted by the paddles, after which a council is held by the chiefs of the Bear and Turtle tribes, indicated by rude figures of these animals on each side of a fire. 14. THE ABORIGINALS. INDIAN WEAPONS. 3 CALUMETS. a*fs practiced among them, such as making wampum, constructing bows, arrows, and spears, preparing matting and skins for domestic use, and fashion ing rude personal ornaments. Individual and national pride prevailed among the Aboriginals. They were ambitious of distinction, and therefore war was the chief vocation, as we have said, of the men. 1 They generally went forth in parties of about forty bowmen. Sometimes a half-dozen, like knights- -^y^^. *s a x^>-<- errant, 3 went out upon the war-path to seek renown in combat. Their weapons were bows and arrows, hatch ets (tomahawks) of stone, and scalping-knives of bone. Soon after they became acquainted with the Euro peans, they procured knives and hatchets made of iron, and this was a great advance in the increase of their power. Some wore shields of bark ; others wore skin dresses for protection. They were skillful in stratagem, and seldom met an enemy in open fight. Ambush and secret attack were their favorite methods of gaining an advantage over an enemy. Their close personal encounters were fierce and bloody. They made prisoners, and tortured them, and the scalps 4 of enemies were their trophies of war. Peace was arranged by sachems 5 in council ; and each smoking the same "pipe of peace," called calumet* was a solemn pledge of fidelity to the contract. With the Indians, as with many oriental nations, women were regarded as inferior beings. They were degraded to the condition of abject slaves, and they never engaged with the men in their amusements of leaping, dancing, target- shooting, ball-playing, and games of chance. They were allowed as spectators, with their children, at war-dances around fires, when the men recited the feats of their ancestors and of themselves. Marriage, among them, was only a tem porary contract a sort of purchase the father receiving presents from the 1 It was offensive to a chief or warrior to ask him his name, because it implied that his brave deeds were unknown. Red Jacket, the great Seneca chief (whose portrait is at the head of this chapter), was asked his name in court, in compliance with a legal form. He was very indignant, and replied, " Look at the papers which the white people keep the most carefully" (land cession treaties) " they will tell you who I am." Red Jacket was born near Geneva, New York, about 1750, and died in 1830. He was the last great chief of the Senecas. For a biographical sketch of him, see Lossing s " Eminent Americans." 2 Knights-errant of Europe, six hundred years ago, were men clothed in metal armor, who went from country to country, to win fame by personal combats with other knights. They also engaged in wars. For about three hundred years, knights-errant and their exploits formed the chief amusement of the courts of Europe. It is curious to trace the connection of the spirit of knighthood, as exhibited by the one hundred and thirty-five orders that have existed, at various times, in the Old World, with some of the customs of the rude Aboriginals of North America 3 a, bow and arrow; &, a war club; c, an iron tomahawk; c?, a stone one; e, a scalping- knife. 4 They seized an enemy by the hair, and by a skillful use of the knife, cut and tore from the top of the head a large portion of the skin. 6 Sachems were the civil heads of nations or tribes ; chiefs were military leaders. 6 Tobacco was in general use among the Indians for smoking, when the white men came. The more filthy practice of chewing it was invented by the white people. The calumet was made of pipe-clay, and was often ornamented with feathers. THE ABORIGINALS. 15 husband, in exchange for the daughter, who, generally, after being fondled and favored for a few months, was debased to the condition of a domestic servant, at best. The men had the right to take wives and dismiss them at pleasure ; and, though polygamy was not very common, except among the chiefs, it was not objectionable. Every Indian might have as many wives as he could purchase and maintain. The husband might put his wife to death if she proved unfaithful to him. The affections were ruled by custom, and those decorous endearments and attentions toward woman, which give a charm to civilized society, were wholly unknown among the Indians ; yet the sentiment of conjugal love was not always wanting, and attachments for life were frequent. There was no society to call for woman s refining qualities to give it beauty, for they had but few local attachments, except for the burial-places of their dead. From the frozen North to the tropical South, their funeral ceremonies and methods of burial were similar. They laid their dead, wrapped in skins, upon sticks, in the bottom of a shallow pit, or placed them in a sitting posture, or occasionally folded them in skins, and laid them upon high scaffolds, out of the reach of wild beasts. Their arms, utensils, paints, and food, were buried with them, to be used on their long journey to the spirit-land. By this custom, the . doctrine of the immortality of the soul was clearly and .. , r. . . , . . , , J BURIAL-PLACE. iorcibly taught, not as distinctively spiritual, but as possessing the two-fold nature of matter and spirit. Over their graves they raised mounds, and planted beautiful wild-flowers upon them. The Algon- quins, especially, always lighted the symbolical funeral pyre, for several nights, upon the grave, that the soul might perceive and enjoy the respect paid to the body. Relatives uttered piercing cries and great lamentations during the burial, and they continued mourning many days. Like that of the earlier nations of the world, their religion was simple, with out many ceremonies, and was universally embraced. They had no infidels among them. The duality of God is the most ancient tenet of Indian faith a prominent tenet, it will be observed, in the belief of all of the more advanced oriental nations of antiquity. They believed in the existence of two Great Spirits : the one eminently great was the Good Spirit, 1 and the inferior was an Evil one. They also deified the sun, moon, stars, meteors, fire, water, thun der, wind, and every thing which they held to be superior to themselves, but 1 They believed every animal to have had a great original, or father. The first buffalo, the first bear, the first beaver, the first eagle, etc., was the Hanitou of the whole race of the different crea tures. They chose some one of these originals as their special Manitou, or guardian, and hence arose the custom of having the figure of some animal for the arms or symbol of a tribe, called totum. For example, each of the FIVE NATIONS (see page 12) was divided into several tribes, designated The "Wolf, The Bear, The Turtle, etc., and their respective totums were rude representations of these animals. "When they signed treaties with the white people, they sometimes sketched outlines of their totums. The annexed cut represents the totum of Teyenda- gages, of the Turtle tribe of the Mohawk nation, as affixed by him to a deed. TOTUM. It would be a curious and pleasant task to trace the intimate connection of this totemic system with the use of symbolical signet-rings, and other seals of antiquity, and, by suc- the heraldic devices of modern times. 16 THE ABORIGINALS. they never exalted their heroes or prophets above the sphere of humanity. They also adored an invisible, great Master of life, in different forms, which they called Manitou, and made it a sort of tutelar deity. They had vague ideas of the doctrine of atonement for sins, and made propitiatory sacrifices with great solemnity. All of them had dim traditions of the creation, and of a great deluge which covered the earth. Each nation, as we have observed, had crude notions, drawn from tradition, of their own distinct origin, and all agreed that their ancestors came from the North. It can hardly be said that the Indians had any true government. It was a mixture of the patriarchal and despotic. Public opinion and common usage were the only laws of the Indian. 1 All political power was vested in a sachem or chief, who was sometimes an hereditary monarch, but frequently owed his elevation to his own merits as a warrior or orator. While in power, he was absolute in the execution of enterprises, if the tribe confided in his wisdom. Public opinion, alone, sustained him. It elevated him, and it might depose him. The office of chief was often hereditary, and its duties were sometimes exer cised even by women. Unlike the system of lineal descent which prevails in the Old World, the heir to the Indian throne of power was not the chief s own son, but the son of his sister. This usage was found to be universal through- O O out the continent. Yet the accident of birth was of little moment. If the recipient of the honor was not worthy of it, the title might remain, but the in fluence passed into other hands. This rule might be followed, with benefit, by civilized communities. Every measure of importance was matured in council, which was composed of the elders, with the sachem as umpire. His decision was final, and wherever he led, the whole tribe followed. The utmost decorum prevailed in the public assemblies, and a speaker was always listened to with respectful silence. We have thus briefly sketched the general character of the inhabitants of the territory of the United States, when discovered by Europeans. Although inferior in intellectual cultivation and approaches to the arts of civilization, to the native inhabitants of Mexico 2 and South America, and to a race which evidently occupied the continent before them, they possessed greater personal manliness and vigor than the more southern ones discovered by the Spaniards. They were almost all wanderers, and roamed over the vast solitudes of a fertile continent, free as the air, and unmindful of the wealth in the soil under their feet. The great garden of the western world needed tillers, and white men came. They have thoroughly changed the condition of the land and the people. The light of civilization has revealed, and industry has developed, vast treas ures in the soil, while before its radiance the Aboriginals are rapidly melting like snow in the sunbeams. A few generations will pass, and no representa tive of the North American Indian will remain upon the earth. 1 It was said of McGillivray, the half-breed emperor of the Creeks, who died in 1793, that, not withstanding he called himself "King of kings," and was idolized by his people, "he could neither restrain the meanest fellow of his nation from the commission of a crime, nor punish him after ho had committed it. He might persuade, or advise all the good an Indian king or chief can do, s 2 Page 43. THE ALGONQUINS. 17 CHAPTER II. , THE ALGONQUIN S. THE first tribes of Indians, discovered by the French in Canada, 1 were in habitants of the vicinity of Quebec, and the adventurers called them Mon- tagners, or Mountain Indians, from a range of high hills westward of that city. Ascending the St. Lawrence, they found a numerous tribe on the Ottawa River, who spoke an entirely different dialect, if not a distinct language. These they called ALGONQUINS, and this name was afterward applied to that great collection of tribes north and south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, who spoke dialects of the same language. They inhabited the territory now included in all of Canada, New England, a part of New York and Pennsylvania, the States of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, eastern North Car olina above Cape Fear, a large portion of Kentucky and Tennessee, and all north and west of these States, eastward of the Mississippi. The ALGONQUIN nation was composed of several powerful tribes, the most important of which were the Knisteneaux and Athapascas, in the far north, the Ottawas, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Menomonees, Miamies, Piankeshaws, Pottowatomies, Kickapoos, Illinois, Shawnees, Powhatans, Corees, Nanticokes, Lenni-Lenapes, or Delawares, Mohegans, the New England Indians, and the Abenakes. There were smaller, independent tribes, the principal of which were the Susquehannocks, on the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania ; the Manna- hoacks, in the hill country between the York and Potomac Rivers, and the Monocans, on the head waters of the James River in Virginia. All of these tribes were divided into cantons or clans, sometimes so small as to afford only a, war party of forty bowmen. The KNISTENEAUX yet [1867] inhabit a domain extending across the con tinent from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and are the hereditary ene mies of the ESQUIMAUX, their neighbors of the Polar Circle. The Athapascas inhabit a belt of country from Churchill s River and Hudson s Bay to within a hundred miles of the Pacific coast, and combine a large number of tribes who speak a similar language. They, too, are the enemies of the Esquimaux. The extensive domain occupied by these tribes and the Esquimaux, is claimed by the British, and is under the control of the Hudson s Bay Company. The orginal land of the OTTAWAS was on the west side of Lake Huron, but they were seated upon the river in Canada bearing their name, when the French dis covered them. They claimed sovereignty over that region, and exacted tribute from those who passed to or from the domain of the Hurons. 2 They assisted 1 Page 48. 2 Between the Ottawas and Hurons, was a tribe called Mississaguies, who appear to have left the ALGONQUINS, and joined the FIVE NATIONS, south of Lake Ontario. Remnants of this tribe are still found in Canada. 13 THE ABORIGINALS. the latter in a war with the FIVE NATIONS in 1650, and suffered much. The Hurons were almost destroyed, and the OTTAWAS were much reduced in num bers. Some of them, with the Huron remnant, joined the Chippewas, and, finally, the whole tribe returned to their ancient seat [1680] in the northern part of the Michigan peninsula. Under their great chief, Pontiac, they were confederated with several other ALGONQUIN tribes of the north-west, in an attempt to exterminate the white people, in 1763. 2 Within a fortnight, in the summer of that year, they took possession of all the English garrisons and trading posts in the West, except Detroit, Niagara, 3 and Fort Pitt. 4 Peace was restored in 1764-5, the confederation was dissolved, and Pontiac took up his abode with the Illinois, where he was murdered. 5 " This murder, says Nicol- let, " which roused the vengeance of all the Indian tribes friendly to Pontiac, brought about the successive wars, and almost extermination of the Illinois na tion." His broken nation sought refuge with the French, and their descendants may yet [1867] be found in Canada. Those two once powerful tribes, the CHIPPEWAS and POTTAWATOMIES, were closely allied by language and friendship. The former were on the southern shores of Lake Superior ; the latter occupied the islands and main land on the western shores of Green Bay, when first discovered by the French in 1761. These afterward seated themselves on the southern shore of Lake Michigan [1701], where they remained until removed, by treaty, to lands upon the Little Osage River, westward of Missouri. They are now [1867] the most numerous of all the remnants of the ALGONQUIN tribes. The Chippewas and the Sioux, west of the Mississippi, were, for a long time, their deadly enemies. The Sacs and Foxes are really one tribe. They were first discovered by the French at the southern extremity of Green Bay, in 1680. In 1712 the French garrison of twenty men at Detroit, 6 was attacked by the Foxes. The French repulsed them, with the aid of the Ottawas, and almost destroyed the assailants. They joined the Kickapoos in 1722, in driving the Illinois from their lands on the river of that name. The Illinois took refuge with the French, and the Kickapoos remained on their lands until 1819, when they went to the west bank of the Missouri in the vicinity of Fort Leav- enworth. The Sacs and Foxes sold their lands to the United States in 1830. Black Hawk, a Sac chief, who, with his people, joined the English in our second war with Great Brit ain, 7 demurred, and commenced hostilities in 1832. 8 The In dians were defeated, and Black Hawk, 9 with many of his war- , . BLACK HAWK. riors, were made prisoners. Among the very few Indian tribes who have remained upon their ancient i Chapter III, p 23. 2 Page 205. 3 Page 200. Page 198. 5 He was buried on the site of the city of St. Louis, in Missouri. "Neither mound nor tablet," says Parkman, " marked the burial-place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest hero, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor, trample with unceasing foot steps over his forgotten grave." 6 Page 180. 7 Page 409. 8 Page 463. 9 This picture is from a plaster-cast of the face of Black Hawk, taken when he was a prisoner in New York, in 1832. See page 463. THE ALGONQUIN S. 19 territory, during all the vicissitudes of their race, are the MENOMONEES, who were discovered by the French, upon the shores of Green Bay, in 1699. They yet [1867] occupy a portion of their ancient territory, while their southern neighbors and friends, the Winnebagoes, have gone westward of the Mississippi. 1 The MIAMIES and PIANKESHAWS inhabited that portion of Ohio lying be tween the Maumee River of Lake Erie, and the ridge which separates the head waters of the Wabash from the Kaskaskias. They were called Twightwees by the FIVE NATIONS, and English. Of all the Western tribes, these have ever been the most active enemies of the United States. 2 They have ceded their lands, and are now [1867] far beyond the Mississippi. The ILLINOIS formed a numerous tribe, twelve thousand strong, when dis covered by the French. They were seated upon the Illinois River, and consisted of a confederation of five families, namely, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaronas, Michigamias, and Peorias. Weakened by internal feuds, the confederacy was reduced to a handful, by their hostile neighbors. They ceded their lands in 1818, when they numbered only three hundred souls. A yet smaller remnant are now [1867] upon lands west of the Mississippi. It can not properly be said that they have a tribal existence. They are among the many extinct commun ities of our continent. The once powerful SHAWNOESE occupied a vast region west of the Alleghan- ies, 3 and their great council-house was in the basin of the Cumberland River. At about the time when the English first landed at Jamestown 4 [1607], they were driven from their country by more southern tribes. Some crossed the Ohio, and settled on the Sciota, near the present Chilicothe ; others wandered eastward into Pennsylvania. The Ohio division joined the Eries and Andastes against the FIVE NATIONS in 1672. Suffering defeat, the Shawnoese fled to the country of the Catawbas, but were soon driven out, and found shelter with the Creeks. 5 They finally returned to Ohio, and being joined by their Penn sylvania brethren, they formed an alliance with the French against the En glish, and were among the most active allies with the former, during the long contest known in America as the French and Indian War. They continued hostilities, in connection with the Delawares, even after the conquest of the Canadas by the English. 6 They were subdued by Boquet in 1763, 7 and again by Virginians, at Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha, in 1774. 8 They aided the British during the Revolution, and continued to annoy the Americans until 1795, when permanent peace was established. 9 They were the enemies of the Americans during their second war with Great Britain, a part of them fighting with the renowned Tecumtha. Now [1867] they are but 1 The "Winnebagoes are the most dissolute of all the Indian remnants. In August, 1853, a treaty was made with them to occupy the beautiful country above St. Paul, westward of the Mississippi, between the Crow and Clear Water Rivers. * Page 408. 1 The Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains extend from the Catskills, in the State of New York, In a south-west direction, to Georgia and Alabama, and have been called " the backbone of the country." Some geographers extend them to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 4 Page 64. 6 Page 30. Page 203. 7 Note 7, page 205. 8 Note 4, page 237. 9 Page 374, 20 THE ABORIGINALS. a miserable remnant, and occupy lands south of the Kansas River. The road from Fort Independence 1 to Santa Fe passes through their territory. 2 The POWHATANS constituted a confederacy of more than twenty tribes, in cluding the Accohannocks and Accomacs, on the eastern shore of the Chesa peake Bay. Powhatan (the father of Pocahontas 3 ), was the chief sachem or emperor of the confederacy, when the English first appeared upon the James River, in 1607. He had arisen, by the force of his own genius, from the po sition of a petty chief to that of supreme ruler of a great confederacy. He gov erned despotically, for no man in his nation could approach him in genuine ability as a leader and counselor. His court exhibited much barbaric state. Through fear of the English, and a selfish policy, he and his people remained nominally friendly to the white intruders during his lifetime, but after his death, they made two attempts [1622, 1644] to exterminate the English. The Powhatans were subjugated in 1644, 4 and from that time they gradually di minished in numbers and importance. Of all that great confederacy in Lower Virginia, it is believed that not one representative on earth remains, or that one tongue speaks their dialect. On the Atlantic coast, south of the Powhatans, were the Corees, Cheraws, and other small tribes, occupying the land once inhabited by the powerful Hat- teras Indians. 5 They were allies of the Tuscaroras in 1711, in an attack upon the English, 6 suffered defeat, and have now disappeared from the earth. Their dialect also is forgotten. Upon the great peninsula between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, were the NANTICOKES. They were early made vassals, and finally allies, on com pulsion, of the FIVE NATIONS. They left their ancient domain in 1710, occu pied lands upon the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, until the Revolutionary War commenced, when they crossed the Alleghanies, and joined the British in the west. They are now [1867] scattered among many tribes. The Original People, 7 as the LENNI-LENAPES (who are frequently called Del- 1 United States fort on the Missouri. Santa Fe is in New Mexico, 765 miles south-west of Fort Independence. 2 One of the most eminent of the Shawnoe chiefs, was Cornstalk, who was generally friendly to the Americans, and was always ready to assist in negotiating an honorable peace between them and his own people. But he cordially united with Logan, the Mingo chief; against the white people in 1774 ; and during the same battle at Point Pleasant, his voice, stentorian in volume, was frequently heard, calling to his men, "Be strong! be strong!" He made his warriors fight without wavering, and actually sunk his tomahawk deep into the head of one who endeavored to escape. He was murdered by some exasperated soldiers at Point Pleasant. "When he perceived their intent, he calmly said to his son, who had just joined him, " My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you hither for that purpose. It is His will ; let us submit." Turning to the soldiers, he received the fatal bullets, and his son, who was sitting near him, was shot at the same time. The celebrated Tecumtha meaning a tiger crouching for his prey who endeavored to confederate all the "Western tribes in opposition to the white people, was also a Shawnoe chief. See page 408. 8 Page 66. < p age 108> s This tribe numbered about three thousand warriors when Raleigh s expedition landed on Roanoke Island in 1584; when the English made permanent settlements in that vicinity, eighty years later, they were reduced to about fifteen bowmen. 6 Page 168. 7 This name has been applied to the whole ALGONQUIN nation. The Lenni-Lenapes claimed to have come from beyond the Mississippi, conquering a more civilized people on the way, who inhabited the great valleys beyond the AUeghany Mountains. THE ALGONQUINS. 21 awares) named themselves, comprised two powerful nations, namely, the Minsi and the Delawares proper. The former occupied the northern part of New Jersey, and a portion of Pennsylvania, and the latter inhabited lower New Jer sey, the banks of the Delaware below Trenton, and the whole valley of the Schuylkill. The FIVE NATIONS subjugated them in 1650. and brought them under degrading vassalage. They gradually retreated westward before the tide of civilization, and finally a portion of them crossed the Alleghanies, and settled in the land of the Hurons, 1 on the Muskingum, in Ohio. Those who remained in Pennsylvania joined the Shawnoese/ and aided the French against the En glish, during the French and Indian War. 3 In 1768, they all went over the mountains, and the great body of them became friends of the British during the Revolution. They were at the head of the confederacy of Western tribes who were crushed by Wayne in 1794, 4 and the following year they ceded all their lands on the Muskingum, and seated themselves near the Wabash. In 1819, they ceded those lands also, and the remnant now [1867] occupy a territory north of the Kansas River, near its mouth. The MOHEGANS were a distinct tribe, on the Hudson River, but the name was given to the several independent tribes who inhabited Long Island, and the country between the Lenni-Lenapes and the New England Indians. 5 Of this family, the Pequods, 6 inhabiting eastern Connecticut, on the shores of Long Island Sound, were the most powerful. They exercised authority over the Montauks and twelve other tribes upon Long Island. Their power was broken by the revolt of Uncas against his chief, Sassacus, 7 a short time before the ap pearance of the white people. The Manhattans were seated upon the Hudson, in lower Westchester, and sold Manhattan Island, whereon New York now stands, to the Dutch. 3 The latter had frequent conflicts with these and other River Indians. 9 The Dutch were generally conquerors. The Mohawks, one of the FIVE NATIONS, 10 were pressing hard upon them, at the same time, and several of the Mohegan tribes were reduced to the condition of vassals of that confederacy. Peace was effected, in 1665, by the English governor at New York. In the mean while, the English and Narragansets had smitten the Pequods, 11 and the remaining independent Mohe- gans, reduced to a handful, finally took up their abode upon the west bank of the Thames, five miles below Norwich, 12 at a place still known as Mohegan Plain. Their burial-place was at Nor wich, and there a granite monument rests upon the grave of Uncas. The tribe is now almost extinct " the last of the Mo- TOUB MONTmKNT. 1 Page 23. a Page 19. 3 Fourth Period, Chap. XII. 4 Page 374. 6 Page 22. 8 Page 86. 7 Page 87. 8 Page 1B9. 9 Page 140. 10 Page 23. " Page 87. M Note 4, page 340. 13 The last known lineal descendant of Uncas, named Mazeon, was buried in the Indian cemetery, at Norwich, in 1827, when the remnant of the Mohegan tribe, then numbering about sixty, were present, and partook of a cold collation prepared for them by a lady of that city. The most noted leaders among the New England Indians known to history, are Massasoit, the father of the re nowned King Philip, Caunbitant, a very distinguished captain; Hobomok; Canonicus; Mianto- nomoh ; Ninigret, his cousin ; King Philip, the last of the "Wampanoags Canonchet, and Anna- van. "We shall meet them in future pages. 22 THE ABORIGINALS. The Aboriginals who inhabited the country from Connecticut to the Saca River, were called the NEW ENGLAND INDIANS. The principal tribes were the Narragansets in Rhode Island, and on the western shores of Narraganset Bay * the Pokonokets and Wampanoags on the eastern shore of the same bay, and in a portion of Massachusetts ; the Nipmucs in the center of Massachusetts ; the Massachusetts in the vicinity of Boston and the shores southward- and the Pawtuckets in the north-eastern part of Massachusetts, embracing the Penna- cooks of New Hampshire. These were divided into smaller bands, having petty chiefs. The Pokonokets, for example, were divided into nine separate cantons or tribes, each having its military or civil ruler, but all holding alle giance to one Grand Sachem. They were warlike, and were continually engaged in hostilities with the FIVE NATIONS, or with the Mohegans. The English and Dutch effected a general peace among them in 1673. Two years afterward [1675], Metacomet (King Philip) aroused most of the New England tribes against the English. A fierce war ensued, but ended in the subjugation of the Indians and the death of Philip, in 1676. 1 The power of the New England Indians was then completely broken. Some joined the more eastern tribes, and others took refuge in Canada, from whence they frequently came to the border settlements on errands of revenge. 8 These incursions ceased when the French dominion in Canada ended in 1763. 8 When the Puritans came 4 [1620], the New England Indians numbered about ten thousand souls; now [1867] probably not three hundred representatives remain; and the dialects of all, excepting that of the Narragansets, are forgotten. Eastward of the Saco River were the Abenakes. The chief tribes were the Penobscots, Norridgewocks, Androscoggins, and Passamaquoddies. These, with the more eastern tribes of the Micmacs and Etchemins, were made nom inal Christians by the French Jesuits ; 6 and they were all firm allies of the French until the conquest of Canada by the English, in 1760. 6 Most of the ABENAKES, except the Penobscots, withdrew to Canada in 1754. A few scattered families of the latter yet [1867J dwell upon the banks of the Penob- scot River, and wanderers are seen on the St. Lawrence. Like other New England tribes, they are rapidly fading, and will, doubtless, be extinct before the dawn of another century. CHAPTER III. THE H U R N-I R Q U I S. WE now come to consider the most interesting, in many respects, of all the aboriginal tribes of North America, called IROQUOIS by the French. The pre fix "Huron" was given, because that people seemed, by their language, to form * Page 128. a Page 130. Page 202. Page 114. 6 Page 130. 8 Page 203. THE HURON-IROQUOIS. 23 a part of the IROQUOIS nation, and like them, were isolated in the midst of the ALGONQUINS, when discovered by the Europeans. The great body of the IROQUOIS occupied almost the whole territory in Canada, south-west of the Ottowa River, between Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron ; a greater portion of the State of New York, and a part of Pennsylvania and Ohio along the south ern shores of Lake Erie. They were completely surrounded by the ALGON- QUINS, in whose southern border in portions of North Carolina and Virginia, were the Tuscaroras and a few smaller Iroquois tribes. 1 The Hurons occupied the Canadian portions of the territory, and the land on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and appeared to be a distinct nation ; but their language was found to be identical with that of the Iroquois. The Hurons consisted of four smaller tribes, namely, the Wyandots or Hurons proper, the Attiouandirons, 2 the Eries, and the Andastes. The two latter tribes were south of the lake, and claimed jurisdiction back to the domains of the Shawnoese. 3 Those "Romans of the Western World," the FIVE NATIONS, or IROQUOIS proper, formed a confederacy composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk tribes, all occupying lands within the present State of New York. They fancifully called their confederacy the Long House. The eastern door was kept by the Mohawks ; the western by the Senecas ; and the Great Council fire was with the Onondagas, at the metropolis, or chief village, near the present city of Syracuse. The French, as we have observed, gave them the name of Iroquois ; the ALGONQUINS called them Mingoes. 4 At what time the confederacy was formed, is not known. It was strong and powerful when the French discovered them, in 1609, and they were then engaged in bloody wars with their kinsmen, the Wyandots. 5 1 The Southern Iroquois were the Tuscaroras, Chowans, Meherrins, and Nottoways. The three latter were upon the rivers in lower Virginia, called by their respective names, and were known under the general title of Tuscaroras. 8 Neutral Nation. "When the Hurons and FIVE NATIONS were at war, the Attiouandirons fled to the Sandusky, and built a fort for each of the belligerents when in that region. But their neu trality did not save them from internal feuds which finally dismembered the tribe. One party joined the "Wyandots ; the other the Iroquois. 3 Page 19. 4 Mingoes, Minquas, and Maquas, were terms more particularly applied to the Mohawk tribe, who called themselves Kayingehaga, " possessors of the flint." The confederation assumed the title of Aquinuschioni, " united people ;" or as some say, Konoshioni, " cabin builders." s The time of the formation of the confederation is supposed to have been at about the year 1539. According to their own tradition, it was about two generations before the white people came to trade with them. Clarke, in his history of Onondaga county, has given, from the lips of an old chief of the Onondaga tribe, that beautiful legend of the formation of the great confederacy, which forms the basis of Longfellow s Indian Edda, " HI-A-WAT-HA." Centuries ago, the story runs, the deity who presides over fisheries and streams, came from his dwelling-place in the clouds, to visit the inhabitants of earth. He was delighted with the land where the tribes that afterward formed the confederacy, dwelt ; and having bestowed many blessings on that land, he laid aside his Divine character, and resolved to remain on earth. He selected a beautiful residence on the shore of Te-ungk-too (Cross lake), and all the people called him Hi-a-wat-ha, " the wise man." After a while, the people were alarmed by the approach of a ferocious band of warriors from the country north of the great lakes. Destruction seemed inevitable. The inhabitants thronged around the lodge of Hi-a-wat-ha, from all quarters, craving his wise advice in this hour of great peril. After solemn meditation, he told them to call a grand council of all the tribes. The chiefs and warriors from far and near, assembled on the banks of Lake Oh-nen-ta-ha (Onondaga). The council-fire blazed three days before the venerable Hi-a-wat-ha arrived. He had been devoutly praying, in silence, to the Great Spirit, for guidance. Then, with his darling daughter, a virgin of twelve years, he entered his white canoe, and, to the great joy of the people, he appeared on the Oh-nen- 24 THE ABORIGINALS. In the year 1649, the FIVE NATIONS resolved to strike a final and decisive blow against their western neighbors, and, gathering all their warriors, they made a successful invasion of the Wyandot, or Huron country. Great num bers of the Wyandots were slain and made prisoners, and the whole tribe was dispersed. Some of the fugitives took refuge with the Chippewas ; others fled to Quebec, and a few were incorporated into the Iroquois confederacy. Yet the spirit of the Wyandots was not subdued, and they claimed and exer cised sovereignty over almost the whole of the Ohio country. They had great influence among the ALGONQUIN tribes. 1 and even as late as the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, the principal cession of lands in Ohio to the United States was made by the Wyandot chiefs in council. 2 They, too, are reduced to a mere remnant of less than five hundred souls, and now [1867] they occupy lands on the Neosho River, a chief tributary of the Arkansas. Being exceedingly warlike, the FIVE NATIONS made hostile expeditions against the New England Indians 3 in the East, the Eries, Andastes, and ta-ha. A great shout greeted him, and as he landed and walked up the bank, a sound like a rushing wind was heard ; a dark spot, every moment increasing in size, was descending from the clear sky. Fear seized the people ; but Hi-a-wat-ha stood unmoved. The approaching object was an immense bird. It came swiftly to earth, crushed the darling daughter of Hi-a-wat-ha was itself destroyed, but the wise man was unharmed. Grief for his bereavement prostrated him in the dust for three days. The council anxiously awaited his presence. At length he came : the subject of the peril from invaders was discussed, and after deliberating a day, the venerable Hi-a-wat-ha arose and said : "Friends and Brothers You are members of many tribes and nations. You have come here, many of you, a great distance from your homes. We have met for one common purpose to pro mote one common interest, and that is, to provide for our mutual safety, and how it shall best be accomplished. To oppose these foes from the north by tribes, singly and alone, would prove our certain destruction. "We can make no progress in that way. We must unite ourselves into one common band of brothers ; thus united, we may drive the invaders back ; this must be done, and we shall be safe. "You, the MOHAWKS, sitting under the shadow of the ; Great Tree, whose roots sink deep into the earth, and whose branches spread over a vast country, shall be the first nation, because you are warlike and mighty. "And you, ONEIDAS, a people who recline your bodies against the Everlasting Stone, that can not be moved, shall be the second nation, because you give wise counsel. "And you, ONONDAGAS, who have your habitation at the Great Mountain, and are over shadowed by its crags, shall be the third nation, because you are greatly gifted in speech, and mighty in war. "And you, CAYUGAS, a people whose habitation is the Dark Forest, and whose home is every where, shall be the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning in hunting. "And you, SENEGAS, a people who live in the Open Country, and possess much wisdom, shall be the fifth nation, because you understand better the art of raising corn and beans, and making cabins. " You, five great and powerful nations, must unite and have but one common interest, and no foe shah 1 be able to disturb or subdue you. If we unite, the Great Spirit will smile upon us. Brothers, these are the words of Hi-a-wat-ha let them sink deep into your hearts. I have said it." They reflected for a day, and then the people of the "Great Tree," the "Everlasting Stone," the "Great Mountain," the "Dark Forest," and the " Open Country," formed a league like that of the Amphyctioni of Greece. The enemy was repulsed, and the FIVE NATIONS became the terror of the Continent. Then Hi-a-watha said, " The Great Master of Breath calls me to go. I have patiently waited his summons. I am ready farewell !" , Myriads of singing voices burst upon the ears of the multitude, and the whole air seemed filled with music. Hi-a-wat-ha, seated in his white canoe, rose majestically above the throng, and as all eyes gazed in rapture upon the ascending wise man, he disappeared forever in the blue vault of heaven. The music melted into low whispers, like the soft summer breeze ; and there were pleasant dreams in every cabin of the FIVE NATIONS on that blessed night. 1 Page 17. 2 Page 374. 3 Page 22. THE HURON-IROQUOIS. 25 Miamies in the West, 1 and penetrated to the domains of the Catawbas 2 and Cherokees 3 in the South. They subjugated the Eries in 1655, and after a con test of twenty years, brought the Andastes into vassalage. They conquered the Miamies 4 and Ottawas 5 in 1657, and made incursions as far as the Roanoke and Cape Fear Rivers to the land of their kindred in language, the Tuscaroras, in 1701. 6 Thirty years afterward, having been joined by the Tuscaroras, and the name of the confederacy changed to that of the Six NATIONS, they made -war upon the Cherokees and Catawbas. 7 They were led on by Hi-o-ka-too, a Seneca chief. The Catawbas were almost annihilated by them, after a battle of two days. So determined were the FIVE NATIONS to subdue the southern tribes, that when, in 1744, they ceded a part of their lands to Virginia, they reserved a perpetual privilege of a war-path through the territory. In the year 1712, the Tuscaroras having been signally defeated by the Carolinians, 8 came northward, and in 1714 joined the FIVE NATIONS. From that time the confederacy was known as the Six NATIONS. They were gen erally the sure friends of the English and inveterate foes of the French. 9 They were all friends of the British during the Revolution, except a part of the Oneidas, among whom the influence of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland 10 was Page 17 1 Page 17. 2 Page 26. 3 Page 27, < Page 17. e Page 168. 7 Page 17. 8 Page 168. 9 Page 192. 10 Samuel Kirkland was one of the most laborious and self-sacrificing of the earlier missionaries, who labored among the tribes of the Six NATIONS. He was bora at Norwich, Connecticut, in December, 1741. He was educated at Dr. Wheelock s school, at Lebanon, where he prepared for that missionary work hi which he labored forty years. His efforts were put forth chiefly among 26 THE ABORIGINALS. very powerful, in favor of the Republicans. The Mohawks were the most active enemies of the Americans ; and they were obliged to leave the State and take refuge in Canada at the close of the Revolution. The others were allowed to remain, and now [1867] mere fragments of that great confederation exist, and, in habits and character, they are radically changed. The confederacy was forever extinguished by the sale of the residue of the Seneca lands in 1838. In 1715, the confederacy numbered more than forty thousand souls ; now [1867] they are probably less than four thousand, most of whom are upon lands beyond the Mississippi. 1 CHAPTER IV. THE CATAWBAS. IN that beautiful, hilly region, between the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers, on each side of the boundary line between North and South Carolina, dwelt the CATAWBA nation. They were south-westward of the Tuscaroras, and were generally on good terms with them. They were brave, but not warlike, and their conflicts were usually in defense of their own territory. They expelled the fugitive Shawnoese in 1672, a but were overmatched and desolated by the warriors of the FIVE NATIONS in 1701. They assisted the white people of South Carolina against the Tuscaroras and their confederates in 1712 ; 4 but when, three years afterward, the southern tribes, from the Neuse region to that of the St. Mary s, in Florida, and westward to the Alabama, seven thousand the Oneidas ; and, during the Revolution, he was active in restraining them from an alliance with the rest of the confederacy against the Patriots. He was exceedingly useful in treaty-making; for he had the entire confidence of the Indians. He died at Paris, in Oneida county, in February, 1808, in the 67th year of his age. See Lossing s Eminent Americans" for a more elaborate sketch. 1 The chief men of the FIVE NATIONS, known to the white people, are Garangula, who was distinguished toward the close of the seventeenth century for his wisdom and sagacity in council, and was of the Onondaga tribe. Logan, whose celebrated reply to a white messenger has been preserved by Mr. Jefferson, was of the Cayuga tribe. To the messenger he said: "I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan s cabin hungry, and he gave him no meat ; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not." Then speaking of the cruelty of the white people, who, in cold blood had murdered his family, he said : "They have murdered all the relations of Logan not even sparing my women and children. This called on me for revenge ; I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one !" Joseph Brant (Thayendanega), was the most celebrated of the Mohawk tribe ; and Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha), was a very renowned Seneca, greatly distinguished for his eloquence. Cornplanter, who lived till past a century in age, was also a distinguished Seneca chief. Red Jacket was very intemperate toward the latter part of his life. On one occasion a lady inquired after his children. He had lost fourteen by consumption. Bowing his head, he said: "Red Jacket was once a great man, and in favor with the Great Spirit. He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees of the forest. But after years of glory, he degraded himself by drinking the fire-water of the white man. The Great Spirit has looked upon him in anger, and His lightning has stripped the pine of its branches!" 2 Page 19. 3 Page 23. * Page 168. THE CHEROKEES, 27 strong, confederated in an attempt to exterminate the Carolinians, 1 the Cataw- has were among them. They were again the active allies of the Carolinians in 1760, when the Cherokees made war upon them, 2 and they remained true friends of the white people afterward. They joined the Americans during the Revolution, and have ever since experienced the fostering care of the State, in some degree. 3 Their chief village was upon the Catawba River, near the mouth of the Fishing Creek, in Yorkville district, South Carolina; and there the remnant of the nation, numbering less than a hundred souls, were living upon a reservation, a few miles square, when the late Civil War began. CHAPTER V. THE CHEROKEES. OF all the Indian tribes, the CHEROKEES, who dwelt westward and adjoining the Tuscaroras* and Catawbas, 5 among the high hills and fertile valleys, have ever been the most susceptible to the influences of civilization. They have been properly called the mountaineers of the South. Their beautiful land extended from the Carolina Broad River on the east, to the Alabama on the west, includ ing the whole of the upper portion of Georgia from the head waters of the Ala- tamaha, to those of the Tennessee. It is one of the most delightful regions of the United States. These mountaineers were the determined foes of the Shawnoese, 5 and after many conflicts, they finally drove them from the country south of the Ohio River. They joined with the Catawbas and the white people against the Tus- caroras in 1712, 7 but were members of the great confederation against the Carolinians in 1715, 8 which we shall consider hereafter. The FIVE NATIONS and the Cherokees had bloody contests for a long time. A reconciliation was finally effected by the English about the year 1750, and the Cherokees became the allies of the peace-makers, against the French. They assisted in the capture of Fort Du Quesne in 1758, 9 but their irregular ities, on their return along the border settlements of Virginia, gave the white people an apparent excuse for killing two or three warriors. Hatred was en gendered, and the Cherokees soon afterward retaliated by spreading destruction 1 Page 170. 2 page 204. 3 In 1822, a Catawba warrior made an eloquent appeal to the legislature of South Carolina for aid. "I pursued the deer for subsistence," he said, "but the deer are disappearing, and I must starve. God ordained me for the forests, and my ambition is the shade. But the strength of my arm decays, and my feet fail me in the chase. The hand that fought for your liberties is now open to you for relief," A pension was granted. 4 Page 25. * Page 204. 6 Page 19. i Page 168. 8 p age ^ 9 p age 186. 28 THE ABORIGINALS. along the frontiers. 1 Hostilities continued a greater portion of three years, when peace was established in 1761, and no more trouble ensued. During the Revolution the Cherokees adhered to the British ; and for eight years afterward they continued to annoy the people of the upper country of the Carolinas. They were reconciled by treaty in 1791. They were friends of the United States in 1812. and assisted in the subjugation of the Creeks. 2 Civili zation was rapidly elevating them from the condition of roving savages, to agri culturists and artisans, when their removal west of the Mississippi was required. They had established schools, a printing press, and other means for improve ment and culture, when they were compelled to leave their farms for a new home in the wilderness. 3 They are in a fertile country, watered by the Arkansas and its tributaries, and now [1867] number about fourteen thousand souls. They were in a prosperous condition when the late Civil War began.* CHAPTER VI. THT} UCHEES. IN the pleasant country extending from the Savannah River, at Augusta, westward to Milledgeville, and along the banks of the Oconee and the head waters of the Ogeechee and Chattahooche. the Europeans found a remnant of the once powerful nation of the UCHEES. Their language was exceedingly harsh, and totally unlike that of any other people on the continent. They claimed to be descendants of the most ancient inhabitants of the country, and took great pride in the fact ; and they had no tradition of their ever occupy ing any other territory than the domain on which they were found. They, too, have been driven beyond the Mississippi by the pressure of civilization, and have become partially absorbed by the Creeks, with whom less than a thousand souls yet [1867] remain. They are, in fact, an extinct nation, and their language is almost forgotten. 1 Page 204. 2 Page 428. 3 A native Cherokee, named by the white people, George Guess (Sequoyah), who was ignorant of every language but his own, seeing books in the missionary schools, and being told that the characters represented the words of the spoken English language, conceived the idea of forming a written language for his people. He first made a separate character for each word, but this made the whole matter too voluminous, and he formed a syllabic alphabet of eighty-five characters. It was soon ascertained that this was sufficient, even for the copious language of the Cherokees, and this syllabic alphabet was soon adopted, in the preparation of books for the missionary schools. In 1826, a newspaper, called the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in the new characters, was established. Many of the native Cherokees are now well educated, but the great body of the natives are in ig norance. * Note 4, page 32. THE MOBILIAN TRIBES. 29 CHAPTER VII. THE NATCHEZ. OP this once considerable nation, who inhabited the borders of the Missis sippi, where a modern city now perpetuates their name, very little is known. When first discovered by the French, they occupied a territory about as large as that inhabited by the lichees. It extended north-easterly from the Missis sippi along the valley of the Pearl River, to the upper waters of the Chickasa- haw. For a long time they were supposed to belong to the nation of Mobilian tribes, by whom they were surrounded, but their language proved them to be a distinct people. They were sun-worshippers; and from this circumstance, some had supposed that they had once been in intimate communication with the adorers of the great luminary in Central and South America. In many things they were much superior to their neighbors, and displayed signs of the refinement of a former more civilized condition. They became jealous of the French on their first appearance upon the Mississippi, and finally they con spired, with others, to drive the intruders from the country. The French fell upon, and almost annihilated the nation, in 1730. They never recovered from the shock, and after maintaining a feeble nationality for almost a century, they have become merged into the Creek confederacy. They now [18 67] number less than three hundred souls, and their language, in its purity, is unknown* CHAPTER VIII. THE MOBILIAN TEIBES. LIKE the Algonquins and Iroquois nations, the MOBILIAN was composed of a great number of tribes, speaking different dialects of the same language. Their territory was next in extent to that of the Algonquins. 1 It stretched along the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, more than six hundred miles ; up the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Ohio ; and along the Atlantic to Cape Fear. It comprised a greater portion of the present State of Georgia, the whole of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, and parts of South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The nation was divided into three grand confederacies of tribes, namely, Muscogees or Creeks Choctaws, and Chick- asaws. J Page 17. 30 THE ABORIGINALS. The Creek Confederacy extended from the Atlantic westward to the high lands which sep arate the waters of the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, including a great portion of the States of Alabama and Georgia, and the whole of Florida. Oglethorpe s first interviews 1 with the natives at Savannah, were with people of this confederacy. SOUTHERN INDIANS. ^ F . > The Yamassees, or Savannahs of Georgia and South Carolina, and the Seminoles of Florida, were of the Creek confederacy. The latter were strong and warlike. They were at the head of the Indian confederacy, to destroy the white people, in 1715. 2 When the general dis persion followed that abortive attempt, the Yamassees took refuge with the Spaniards of Florida. Small bands often annoyed the white frontier settle ments of Georgia, but they were not engaged in general hostilities until the Revolution, when the whole Creek confederacy 3 took part with the British. The most inveterate and treacherous enemy of the white people, have ever been the Seminoles. Bands of them often went out upon the war-path, with the Yamassees, to slay the pale-faces. They joined the British in 1812-14; and in 1817 they renewed hostilities. 4 They were subdued by General Jack son, and afterward remained comparatively quiet until 1835, when they again attacked the white settlements. 5 They were subjugated in 1842, after many lives and much treasure had been sacrificed. 6 A few of them yet [1867] remain in the everglades of Florida, but a greater portion of the tribe have gone west of the Mississippi, with the other members of the Creek confederacy. The Creeks proper now [1867] number about fifteen thousand souls. The number of the whole confederacy is about twenty-four thousand. They occupy lands upon the Arkansas and its tributaries, and are among the most peaceable and order-loving of the banished tribes. In the beautiful country bordering upon the Gulf of Mexico, and extending west of the Creeks to the Mississippi, lived the Choctaws. They were an agri cultural people when the Europeans discovered them ; and, attached to home and quiet pursuits, they have ever been a peaceful people. Their wars have always been on the defensive, and they never had public feuds with either their Spanish, French, or English neighbors. They, too, have been compelled to abandon their native country for the uncultivated wilderness west of Arkansas, between the Arkansas and Red Rivers. They now [1867] number about thirteen thousand souls. They retain their peaceable character in their new homes. The Chickasaw tribe inhabited the country along the Mississippi, from the borders of the Choctaw domain to the Ohio River, and eastward beyond the Ten nessee to the lands of the Cherokees 7 and Shawnees. 8 This warlike people were the early friends of the English, and the most inveterate foes of the French, 1 Page 102. 2 Page 170. 3 This confederacy now [1867] consists of the Creeks proper, Seminoles, Natchez, Hichitties, and Alabamas. The Creeks, like many other tribes, claim to be the Original People. < Page 448. 6 Page 466. Page 468. 7 Page 27. s Page 19. THE DAHCOTAH OR SIOUX TRIBES. 81 who had twice [1736-1740] invaded their country. They adhered to the British during the Revolution, but since that time they have held friendly rela tions with the Government of the United States. The remnant, about four thousand in number, are upon lands almost a hundred leagues westward of the Mississippi. Thus, with almost chronological brevity, we have given an outline sketch of the history of the Aboriginal nations with whom the first European settlers in the United States became acquainted. They have now no legal habitation eastward of the Mississippi ; and the fragments of those powerful tribes who once claimed sovereignty over twenty-four degrees of longitude and twenty degrees of latitude, are now [1867] compressed within a quadrangle of about nine degrees, between the Red and Missouri Rivers. 1 Whether the grave of the last of those great tribes shall be within their present domain, or in some valley among the crags of the Rocky Mountains, expediency will hereafter determine. CHAPTER IX. THE DAHCOTAH OR SIOUX TRIBES. THE French were the earliest explorers of the regions of the Middle and Upper Mississippi, and they found a great number of tribes west of that river who spoke dialects of the same language. They occupied the vast domain from the Arkansas on the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg on the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. These have been classed into four grand divisions, namely, the WINNEBAGOES, who inhabited the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, among the Algonquins ; 2 the ASSINNIBOINS and Sioux proper, the most northerly nation ; the MINETAREE GROUP in the Minnesota Territory, and the SOUTHERN Sioux, who dwelt in the country between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers, and whose hunting-ground extended to the Rocky Mountains. The most uneasy of these tribes were the Winnebagoes, who often attacked the Sioux west of the Mississippi. They generally lived on friendly terms with the Algonquins, after their martial spirit was somewhat subdued by the Illinois, who, in 1640, almost exterminated them. They were enemies to the 1 Mr. Bancroft [II., 253] after consulting the most reliable authorities on the subject, makes the following estimate of the entire Aboriginal population in 1650 Algonquins, 90,000 ; Eastern Sioux, less than 3,000 ; Iroquois, including their southern kindred, about 17,000; Catawbas, 3,000, Cherokees (now more numerous than ever), 12,000; Mobilian tribes, 50,000; Uchees, 1,000; Natchez, 4,000 in all, 180,000. These were the only nations and tribes then known. With the expansion of our territory westward and southward, we have embraced numerous Indian nations, some of them quite populous, until the number of the estimate above given has been almost doubled, according to the late census. 2 Page 17. 32 THE ABORIGINALS United States during the second war with Great Britain, 1 and they confeder ated with the Sacs and Foxes in hostilities against the white people, under Black Hawk, in 1832. 2 The tribe, now [1867] less than four thousand strong, are seated upon the Mississippi, about eighty miles above St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. Fear of the white people keeps them quiet. In the cold, wet country of the North, the Assiniboins yet inhabit their na tive land. Having separated from the nation, they are called " rebels." Their neighbors, the Sioux proper, were first visited by the French in 1660, and have ever been regarded as the most fierce and warlike people on the continent. They also occupy their ancient domain, and are now [1867] about, fifteen, thousand strong. Further westward are the Minetarees, Mandans, and Crows, who form the MINETAREE GROUP. They are classed with the Dahcotahs or Sioux, although the languages have only a slight affinity. The Minetarees and Mandans num ber about three thousand souls each. They cultivate the soil, and live in vil lages. The Crows number about fifteen hundred, and are wanderers and hunters. The Mandans are very light-colored. Some suppose them to be descendants of a colony from Wales, who, it is believed, came to America- under Madoc, the son of a Welsh prince, in the twelfth century. 3 There are eight in number of the SOUTHERN Sioux tribes, namely, the Arkansas, Osages, Kansas, lowas, Missouries, Otoes, Omahas, and Puncahs. They are cultivators and hunters. They live in villages a part of the year, and are abroad upon their hunting-grounds during the remainder. Of these tribes, the Osages are the most warlike and powerful. All of the Southern Sioux tribes are upon lands watered by the Missouri and the Platte, and their tributaries. CHAPTER X. THE EXTREME WESTERN TRIBES. WITHIN a few years, our domain has been widely expanded, and in our newly-acquired possessions on the borders of Mexico and the Pacific coast, and the recently organized Territories in the interior of the continent, are numer ous powerful and warlike tribes, 4 of whom little is known, and whose history J Page 260. 2 Page 287. 3 It is said that Madoc, son of Prince Owen G-wignedd, sailed from Wales, with ten ships and three hundred men, at about the year 1170, on an exploring voyage, and never returned. Many learned conjectures have been expressed, and among them the belief that the expedition reached the American continent, and became the progenitors of the Mandans, or White Indians, of our western plains. 4 The whole number of Indians within the present limits of the United States, in 1867, accord ing to official estimates, was a little more than 300,000. There are about 15,000 in the States east ward of the Mississippi, principally in New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin: the remainder, consist ing of Cherokees. Choctaws. and Seminoles, being in North Carolina. Mississippi, and Florida. Th& THE EXTREME WESTERN TRIBES. 33 has no connection with that of the people of the United States, except the fact that they were original occupants of the soil, and that some of them, especially the California and Oregon Indians, yet [1867] dispute our right to sovereignty. Of these, the Comanches and Apaches of California are the most warlike. The Pawnees upon the Great Plains toward the Rocky Mountains are very numer ous, but not so warlike ; and the Utahs, among the Wasatch and neighboring ranges, are strong in numbers. Further northward and westward are the Blackfeet, Crow, Snake, Nezperces, and Flathead Indians, and smaller clans, with petty chiefs, whose domains stretch away toward the Knisteneaux and Esquimaux on the extreme north. These tribes are rapidly fading in the light of modern civilization, and are destined to total annihilation. The scythe of human progress is steadily cut ting its swathes over all their lands ; and the time is not far distant when the foot-prints of the Indians will be no more known within the domain of our Re public. In future years, the dusky son of an exile, coming from the far-off borders of the Slave Lake, will be gazed at in the streets of a city at the mouth of the Yellow Stone, with as much wonder as the Oneida woman, with her blue cloth blanket and bead-work merchandize is now [1867] in the city of New York. So the Aboriginals of our land are passing away, and even now they may chant in sorrow : "We, the rightful lords of yore, Are the rightful lords no more; Like the silver mist, we fail, Like the red leaves on the gale Fail, like shadows, when the dawning Waves the bright flag of the morning." J. McLELLAN, JR. "I will weep for a season, in bitterness fed, For my kindred are gone to the hills of the dead; But they died not of hunger, or lingering decay The hand of the white man hath swept them away." HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT. number in Minnesota and along the frontiers of the Western States and Texas (most of them emi grants from the country eastward of the Mississippi), is estimated at 80,000. Those on the Plain* and among the Rocky Mountains, not within any organized Territory, at 50,000; in Texas, at 25,000; in New Mexico, at 30,000; in California, at "78,000; in Utah, at 10,000; in Oregon and "Washington Territories, at 20,000 ; total, 308,000. For more minute accounts of the Indians, see Heckewelder s "History of the Indian Nations;" Schoolcraft s "Algic Researches;" M Kinney s "History of the Indian Tribes;" Drake s "Book of the Indians;" Catlin s "Letters and Notes;" Schoolcraft s "Notes on the Iroquois." To the Department of the Interior of the National Government is intrusted the administration of Indian affairs. At this time [1867] the stocks and bonds held by the Department in trust for the Indians, from the income of which annuities are paid to them, amount to more than threw millions of dollars. COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF SALAMANCA. SECOND PERIOD. DISCOVERIES AMERIGO VESPUCCI. CHAPTER I. SCANDINAVIAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. ONE of the most interesting of the un solved problems of history, is that which re lates to the alleged discovery of America by mariners of north ern Europe, almost five hundred years before Columbus left Palos, in Spain, to accomplish that great event. The tales and poetry of Iceland abound with intimations of such discoveries ; and records of early voyages from Iceland to a continent south- westward of Greenland, have been found. These, and the re sults of recent investigations, appear to prove, by the strongest circumstantial evidence, that the New England 1 coast. was vis- O ited, and that settlements thereon were attempted by Scandi navian navigators, 2 almost five centuries before the great Genoese undertook his first voyage in quest of a western passage to India. 1 The States of our Union eastward of New York are collectively called New England. P. 74. 2 The ancients called the territory which contains modern Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Lapland, Iceland, Finland, etc., by the general name of Scandinavia. NORTHMAN. SCANDINAVIAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 35 NORMAN SHIP. The navigators of northern Europe were remarkable for their boldness and perseverance. They discovered Iceland in the year 860, and colonized it. In 890 they colonized Greenland, and planted colonies there also. There was traffic, friendly and lucrative, between the colonists of Iceland and Greenland, and the parent Norwegians and Danes, as early as the year 950, and no mar iners were so adventurous as these Northmen. In the year 1002, according to an Icelandic chronicle, a Norwegian vessel, commanded by Captain Lief, sailed from Iceland for Greenland. A gale drove the voy agers to the coast of Labrador. They explored the shores southward to the region of a genial climate, where they found noble forests and abundance of grapes. This, it is supposed, was the vicinity of Boston. Other voyages to the new-found land were afterward made by the adventurous Scandinavians, and they appear to have extended their explorations as far as Rhode Island perhaps as far south as Cape May. It is further asserted that settlements in that pleas ant climate were attempted, and that the child of a Scan dinavian mother was born upon the shore of Mount Hope Bay, in Rhode Island. 1 In the absence of actual charts and maps, to fix these localities of latitude and longitude, of course they must be subjects of conjecture only, for these explorers left no traces of their presence here, un less it shall be conceded that the round tower at New port, 2 about the origin of which history and tradition are silent, was built by the Northmen. The period of this alleged discovery was that of the dark ages, when ig norance brooded over Europe, like thick night. Information of these voyages seems not to have spread, and no records of intercourse with a western conti nent later than 1120, have been found. The great discovery, if made, was for gotten, or remembered only in dim traditionary tales of the exploits of the old " Sea-Kings" 3 of the North. For centuries afterward, America was an un- TOWER AT NEWPORT. 1 The old chronicle referred to says that Gudrida, wife of a Scandinavian navigator, gave birth to a child in America, to whom she gave the name of Snorre ; and it is further asserted that Ber- tel Thorwalsden, the great Danish sculptor, was a descendant of this early white American. The records of these voyages were compiled by Bishop Thorlack, of Iceland, who was also a descendant of Snorre. 2 This structure is of unhewn stone, laid in mortar made of the gravel of the soil around, and oyster-shell lime. It is a cylinder resting upon eight round columns, twenty-three feet in diameter, and twenty-four feet in height It was originally covered with stucco. It seems to have stood there when the white people first visited Rhode Island, and the Narraganset Indians, it is as serted, had no tradition of its origin. There can be little doubt, all things considered, of its having been constructed by those northern navigators, who made attempts at settlement in that vicinity. 3 This name was given to bold adventurers of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, who rebelled against Gorm the Old of Norway, and Harold Fairhair of Denmark, their conquerors, forsook their country, settled upon the islands of the North Sea, and Greenland, and from thence went forth upon piratical expeditions, even as far south as the pleasant coasts of France. They trafficked, as well as plundered ; and finally sweeping over Denmark and Germany, obtained possession of some 36 DISCOVERIES. [1492. known region. It had no place upon maps, unless as an imaginary island without a name, nor in the most acute geographical theories of the learned. When Columbus conceived the grand idea of reaching Asia by sailing westward, no whisper of those Scandinavian voyages was heard in Europe. CHAPTER II. SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. THE first half of the fifteenth century was distinguished for great commer cial activity. Sluggish Europe was just awaking from its slumber of centuries, and maritime discoveries were prosecuted with untiring zeal by the people inhabiting the great south-western peninsula covered by Spain, Portugal, and France. The incentives to make these discoveries grew out of the political condition of Europe, and the promises of great commercial advantages. The rich commerce of the East centered in Rome, when that empire overshad owed the known world. When it fell into fragments, the Italian cities con tinued their monopoly of the rich trade of the Indies. Provinces which had arisen into independent kingdoms, became jealous of these cities, so rapidly outstripping them in power and opulence ; and Castile and Portugal, in par ticular, engaged in efforts to open a direct trade with the East. The ocean was the only highway for such commerce, toward which the rivals could look with a hope of success. The errors of geographical science interposed great obsta cles. Popular belief pictured an impassable region of fire beyond Cape Baja- dor, on the coast of Africa ; but bold navigators, under the auspices of Prince Henry of Portugal, soon penetrated that dreaded latitude, crossed the torrid zone, and, going around the southern extremity of Africa, opened a pathway to the East, through the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese court at Lisbon soon became a point of great attraction to the learned and adven turous. Among others came Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool-carder of Genoa, a mariner of great experience and considerable repute, and then in the prime of life. In person he was tall and commanding, and, in manners, exceedingly winning and graceful, for one unaccustomed to the polish of courts, or the higher orders in society. The rudi- COLUMBUS. ments of geometry, which he had learned in the of the best portions of Gaul. They finally invaded the British Islands, and placed Canute upon the throne of Alfred. It was among these people that chivalry, as an institution, originated ; and back to those " Sea-Kings" we may look for the hardiest elements of progress among the people of the United States. 1609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 37 university of Pavia, had been for years working out a magnificent theory in his mind, and he came to Lisbon to seek an opportunity to test its truth. Fortune appeared to smile beneficently upon Columbus, during his early residence in Lisbon. He soon loved and married the daughter of Palestrello, a deceased navigator of eminence, and he became possessed of nautical papers of great value. They poured new light upon his mind. His convictions respecting the rotundity of the earth, and the necessity of a continent in the Atlantic Ocean, to balance the land in the eastern hemisphere ; or at least a nearer approach of eastern Asia to the shores of western Europe, than geo graphical science had yet revealed, assumed the character of demonstrated realities. He was disposed to credit the narratives of Plato and other ancient writers, respecting the existence of a continent beyond the glorious, but long- lost, island of Atlantis, in the waste of waters westward of Europe. He was convinced that Asia could be reached much sooner by sailing westward, than by going around the Cape of Good Hope. 1 He based his whole theory upon the fundamental belief that the earth was a terraqueous globe, which might be traveled round from east to west, and that men stood foot to foot at opposite points. This, it should be remembered, was seventy years before Copernicus announced his theory of the form and motion of the planets [1543], and one hundred and sixty years [1633] before Galileo was compelled, before the court of the Inquisition at Rome, to renounce his belief in the diurnal revolu tion of the earth. A deep religious sentiment imbued the whole being of Columbus, and he became strongly impressed with the idea that there were people beyond the waste of waters westward, unto whom he was commissioned by heaven to carry the Gospel. 8 With the lofty aspirations which his theory and* his faith gave him, he prosecuted his plans with great ardor. He made a voyage to Iceland, and sailed a hundred leagues beyond, to the ice-fields of the polar cir cle. He probably heard, there, vague traditions of early voyages to a western continent, 3 which gave strength to his own convictions ; and on his return, he laid his plans first before his countrymen, the Genoese (who rejected them), and then before the monarchs of England 1 and Portugal. The Portuguese monarch appeared to comprehend the grand idea of Colum bus, but it was too lofty for the conceptions of his council and the pedantic wise men of Lisbon. For a long time Columbus was annoyed by delays on the part of those to whose judgment the king deferred ; and attempts were meanly and clandestinely made to get from Columbus the information which he pos sessed. While awaiting a decision, his wife died. The last link that bound him to Portugal was broken, and, taking his little son Diego by the hand, he 1 This point was first discovered by Diaz, a Portuguese navigator, who named it Stormy Cape. But King John, believing it to be that remote extremity of Africa so long sought, named it Gape of Good Hope. Vasco de Gama passed it in 1497, and made Ms way to the East Indies beyond. 2 His name was suggestive of a mission. Christo or Christ, and Colombo, a pigeon carrier- pigeon. By this combination of significant words in his name, he believed himself to be a Christ, or Gospel-bearer, to the heathen, and he often signed his name Christo-ferens, or Christ-bearer. 3 Page 34. * Page 46 38 DISCOVERIES. [1492. departed on foot to lay his proposition before Ferdinand and Isabella, 1 the monarchs of Spain occupants of the united thrones of Arragon and Castile. Very poor, and greatly dispirited, Columbus arrived at the gate of the monastery of Rabida, near the little port from whence he afterward sailed, and begged food and shelter for himself and child. The good Father Marchena received him kindly, entered warmly into his plans, and was of essential service to him afterward. Through him Columbus obtained access to the court ; but the war with the Moors, then raging, delayed an opportunity for an audience with the monarchs for a long time. Yet he was not idle. He employed him self in the alternate pursuits of science, and engagements in some of the military campaigns. He was continually treated with great deference by the court and nobility, and at length his importunities were heeded. A council of the learned men of the nation was convened at Salamanca, to consider his plans and propo sitions. 2 The majority pronounced his scheme vain and impracticable, and unworthy of the support of the government. But a minority of the council, wiser than the rest, did not acquiesce in this decision, and, with Cardinal Men- doza and other officers of government, they encouraged the navigator by prom ises of their continual support. But he became disgusted by procrastination, and abandoning the hope of royal aid, he applied to two wealthy dukes for assistance. They refused, and he left with a determination to lay his plans before the King of France. Columbus had been encouraged by Father Mar chena (who had been Isabella s confessor), 3 and through his intercession, the navigator was recalled before he had entered France. He sought and obtained a per sonal interview with the queen. To her he revealed all his plans ; told her of the immense treasures that lay hidden in that far distant India 4 which might be easily reached by a shorter way, and pleaded eloquently for aid in his pious design of carrying the Gospel to the heathen of unknown lands. The last appeal aroused ISABELLA. the religious zeal of Isabella, and with the spirit of the Crusaders, 6 she dismissed Columbus with the assurance 1 Isabella was a sister of the profligate Henry the Fourth of Castile and Leon. She was a pious, virtuous, and high-minded woman, then almost a phenomenon in courts. She was of middle size, and well formed, with a fair complexion, auburn hair, and clear, blue eyes. 2 See the picture at the head of this chapter. The Council was composed of the professors of the university, various dignitaries of the Church, and learned friars. They were nearly all preju diced against the poor navigator, and he soon discovered that ignorance and bigotry would defeat his purposes. 3 All Roman Catholics are obliged to confess their sins to a priest. Rich and titled persons often had a priest confessor for themselves and their families exclusively. 4 Marco Polo and other travelers had related wonderful ftories of the beauty and wealth of a country beyond the limits of geographical knowledge, and toad thus inflamed the avarice and ambition of the rich and powerful. The country was called Zipangi, and also Cathay. It included China and adjacent islands. 5 About 700 years ago, the Christian powers of Europe fitted out expeditions to conquer Palestine, with the avowed object of rescuing the sepulcher of Jesus, at Jerusalem, from the hands of the Turks. These were called crusades holy wars. The lives of two millions of people were lost in them. 2609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 39 that he should have her aid in fitting out an exploring expedition, even if it should require the pawning of her crown jewels to obtain the money. And Isabella was faithful to her promise. She fitted out two caravels (light coasting ships), and Columbus, by the aid of friends, equipped a third and larger one. With this little fleet, bearing one hundred and twenty persons, he left Palos, on the Tinto River, in Andalusia, on Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, to explore the stormy Atlantic. 1 Columbus started on that perilous voyage without a reliable chart for his guidance, and no director in his course but the sun and stars, and the imperfect mariner s compass, then used only by a few in navigating the pleasant seas of the Old World. After various delays at the Canary Islands, they left them in the dim distance behind, on Sunday, the 9th of September. The broad At lantic, mysterious and unknown, was before them. A voyage of great trial for the navigator was now fairly entered upon. His theory taught him to believe that he would reach Asia in the course of a few days. But weeks wore away the needle 2 became unfaithful; alarm and discontent prevailed, and several times his followers were on the point of compelling him to turn back. One pleasant evening (the llth of October), the perfumes of flowers came upon the night breeze, as tokens of approach to land. The vesper hymn to the Virgin was sung, and Columbus, after recounting the blessings of God thus far manifested in the voyage, assured the crews that he confidently expected to see land in the morning. Yet they hesitated to believe, for twice before they had been mocked by other indications of land being near. 3 On the high poop of his vessel the great navigator sat watching until midnight, when he saw the glim mer of moving lights upon the verge of the horizon. He called others to con firm his vision, for he was fearful of mistake. They, too, perceived blazing torches, and at dawn the next morning their delighted eyes saw green forests stretching along the horizon; and as they approached, they were greeted by the songs of birds and the murmur of human voices. THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS. 1 Columbus was appointed high-admiral of all seas which he might discover, with the attendant honors. Also viceroy of all lands discovered. He was to have one-tenth of all profits of the first voyage, and by contributing an eighth of the expense of future voyages, was to have an eighth of all the profits. Although Isabella paid the whole expense, the contract was signed, also, "by her husband. 2 Needle, or pointer, of the mariner s compass. This instrument was first known in Europe, at Amalfi, about 1302. The Chinese claim to have possessed a knowledge of it more than 1 100 years before the birth of Christ. The needle was supposed to point toward the north star at all times. There is a continual variation from this line, now easily calculated, but unknown until discovered by Columbus. It perplexed, but did not dismay him. 3 They had seen birds, but they proved to be the petrel, an ocean fowl. Bits of wood and sea weeds had also been seen. These had undoubtedly been seen on the outer verge of the Gulf Stream, north-east of the Bahamas, where, according to Lieutenant Maury [Physical Geography of the Sea], there may always be found a drift of sea-weed, and sometimes objects that have floated from the land. 40 DISCOVERIES. [1492. BANNER OF THE EXPEDITION. Arrayed in scarlet, and bearing his sword in one hand, and the banner of the expedition in the other, Columbus landed, with his followers, and in the midst of the gorgeous scenery and the incense of myriads of flowers, they all knelt down and chaunted a hymn of thanksgiving to God. The natives had gathered in wonder and awe, in the grove near by, regarding the Europeans as children of their great deity, the Sun. 1 Little did they comprehend the fatal signif icance to them, of the act of Columbus, when, rising from the ground, he displayed the royal standard, drew his sword, set up a rude cross upon the spot where he landed, and took formal possession of the beautiful country in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella. 3 The land first discovered by Colum bus was one of the Bahamas, called by the natives Guana- hama, but since named by the English, Cat Island. The navigator named it San Salvador (Holy Saviour) ; and believing it to be near the coast of further India, he called the natives Indians. This name was after ward applied to all the natives of the adjacent continent, 3 and is still retained. The triumph of Columbus was now complete. After spending some time in examining the island, becoming acquainted with the simple habits of the natives, and unsuccessfully searching for "the gold, and pearls, and spices of Zipangi," 4 he sailed southward, and discovered several other small islands. He finally discovered Cuba and St. Domingo, where he was told of immense gold- bearing regions in the interior. Impressed with the belief that he had dis covered the Ophir of the ancients, he returned to Spain, where he arrived in March, 1493. He was received with great honors, 5 but considerations of State policy induced the Spanish government to conceal the importance of his dis covery from other nations. This policy, and the jealousy which the sudden elevation of a foreigner inspired in the Spaniards, deprived him of the honor of having the New World called by his name. Americus Yespucius, 6 a Flor entine, unfairly won the prize. In company with Ojeda, a companion of Colum- 1 Almost all the natives of the torrid zone of America worshiped the sun as the chief visib e deity. The great temples of the sun in Mexico and Peru were among the most magnificent struc tures of the Americans, when Europeans came. 2 It was a common practice then, as now, for the discoverer of new lands to erect some monu ment, and to proclaim the title of his sovereign to the territories so discovered. The banner of the expedition, borne on shore by Columbus, was a white one, with a green cross. Over the initials F. and Y. (Ferdinand and Ysabella) were golden mural crowns. 3 Chapter I, page 9. * Note 4, page 38. 5 Columbus carried back with him several of the natives, and a variety of the animals, birds, and plants of the New World. They excited the greatest astonishment. His journey from Palos to Barcelona, to meet the sovereigns, was like the march of a king. His reception was still more magnificent. The throne of the monarch was placed in a public square, and the great of the king dom were there to do homage to the navigator. The highest honors were bestowed upon Colum bus; and the sovereigns granted him a coat of arms bearing royal devices, and the motto, "To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world." e See the protrait of Yespucius at the head of this Chapter. The Italians spell his name Amer igo Yespucci [Am-e-ree-go Yes-pute-se]. He died while in the service of the king of Spain, in 1514. He had made several voyages to South America, and explored the eastern coast as far southward as the harbor of Kie Janeiro. 1609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 41 T)us during his first voyage, Americus visited the West Indies, and discovered and explored the eastern coast of South America, north of the Oronoco, in 1499. In 1504, he published a glowing account of the lands he had visited, 1 and that being the first formal announcement to the world of the great discov ery, and as he claimed to have first set foot upon the Continent of the West, it was called AMERICA, in honor of the Florentine, This claim was not founded on truth, for Columbus had anticipated him ; and two years earlier, Cabot, in command of an expedition from England, discovered Labrador, New foundland, and portions of the New England coast. Columbus made three other voyages to the West Indies, 2 established settle ments, and in August, 1498, he discovered the continent at the mouth of the Oronoco. This, too, he supposed to be an island near the coast of Asia, and he lived and died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discoveries. Before departing on his third voyage, he was appointed Viceroy and High Admiral of the New World. During his absence, jealous and unscrupulous men poisoned the minds of the king and queen with false statements concerning the ambitious designs of Columbus, and he was sent back to Spain in chains. The navigator was guilty of serious wrongs, but not against his sovereign. He made slaves of the natives, and this offended the conscientious Isabella. But she was soon undeceived concerning his alleged political crimes, and he was allowed to depart on a fourth voyage. When he returned, the queen was dead, his enemies were in power, and he who had shed such luster upon the Spanish name, and added a new hemisphere to the Spanish realm, was allowed to sink into the grave in obscurity and neglect. He died at Valladolid on the 20th of May, 1506. His body was buried in a convent, from whence it was afterward carried to St. Domingo, and subsequently to Havana, in Cuba, where it now remains. It was an unlucky hour for the nations of the New World when the eyes of Europeans were first opened upon it. The larger islands of the West India group were soon colonized by the Spaniards ; and the peaceful, friendly, gen tle, and happy natives, were speedily reduced to slavery. Their Paradise was made a Pandemonium for them. Bending beneath the weight of Spanish cruelty and wrong, they soon sunk into degradation. The women were com pelled to intermarry with their oppressors, and from this union came many of the present race of Creoles, who form the numerical strength of Cuba and other West India Islands. The wonderful stories of gold-bearing regions, told by the natives, and ex aggerated by the adventurers, inflamed the avarice and cupidity of the Span iards, and exploring voyages from Cuba, St. Domingo, and Porto Rico, were undertaken. The eastern coast of Yucatan was discovered in 1506 ; and in 1510, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, with a colony, settled upon the Isthmus 1 First in a letter to Lorenzo de Medici, and then [15071 in a volume, dedicated to the Duke of Lorraine. These publications revealed what the Spanish Government wished to conceal. Note 4, page 47. 2 In his -second voyage [1493], Columbus took with him several horses, a bull, and some cows. These were the first animals of the kind taken from Europe to America. 42 DISCOVERIES. [1492. of Darien. This was the first colony planted on the continent of America. Crossing the Isthmus in search of gold in 1513, Balboa saw the Pacific Ocean in a southerly direction from the top of a high mountain, and he called it the " South Sea." In full costume, and bearing the Spanish flag, he entered its waters and took possession of the "seas, lands," etc., "of the South," in the name of his sovereign. In the year 1512 Florida was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon, an old visionary, who had been governor of Porto Rico. With three ships he sailed for the Bahamas in search of a fountain which unlettered natives and wise men of Spain believed to exist there, and whose waters possessed the quality of restoring old age to the bloom of youth, and of making the recipient immortal. It was on Easter Sunday, 2 March 27, 1512, the Pasquas de Flores 3 of the Spaniards, when the adventurer approached the shores of the great southern peninsula of the United States and landed near the site of St. Augustine. 4 The forests and the green banks were laden with flowers ; and when, soon after landing, Ponce de Leon took possession of the country in the name of his sov ereign, this fact and the holy day were regarded, and he called the beautiful domain, FLORIDA. He continued his searches for the Fountain of Youth all along the coast of the newly-discovered country, and among the Tortugas (Tor toise) Islands, a hundred miles from its southern cape, but without success ; and he returned to Porto Rico, an older if not a wiser man. He soon afterward went to Spain, where he remained several years. While Ponce de Leon was absent in Europe, some wealthy owners of plant ations and mines in St. Domingo, sent Lucas Yasquez d Ay lion, one of their number, with two vessels, to seize natives of the Bermudas, and bring them home for laborers. It was an unholy mission, and God s displeasure was made manifest. A storm drove the voyagers into St. Helen s Sound, on the coast of South Carolina, and after much tribulation, they anchored [1520] at the mouth of the Combahee River. The natives were kind and generous ; and, judging their visitors by their own simple standard of honor, they unsuspectingly went upon the ship in crowds, to gratify their curiosity. While below, the hatches were closed, the sails were immediately spread, and those free children of the forest were borne away to work as bond-slaves in the mines of St. Domingo. But the perpetrators of the outrage did not accomplish their designs. One of the vessels was destroyed by a storm ; and almost every prisoner in the other refused to take food, and died. The fruit of this perfidy was a feeling of hos tility to white people, which spread throughout the whole of the Mobilian tribes, 5 and was a source of much trouble afterward. 1 This little picture gives a correct representation of those armed Spaniards who attempted con quests in the New World. Balboa s fellow-adventurers became jealous of his fame, and on their accusations he was put to death by the Governor of Darien, in 1517. 2 The day in which is commemorated in the Christian Church the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 8 Feast of flowers. * Page 51. 6 Chapter VIII., page 29. ;609.] SPANISH VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 43 Ponce de Leon returned to the West Indies soon after D Ayllon s voyage, bearing the commission of Governor of Florida, with instructions to plant settle ments there. In his attempts to do so, the angry natives, who had heard of the treachery of the Spaniards, attacked him furiously. He was mortally wounded, and almost all of his followers were killed. I) Ay lion was then appointed governor of the country which he had discovered and named Chicora. He went thither to conquer it, and was received with apparent friendship by the natives on the banks of the Combahee, 1 ne.ir the spot where his great crime of man-stealing had been perpetrated. Many of his men were induced to visit a village in the interior, when the natives practiced the lesson of treachery which D Ayllon had taught them, and massacred the whole party. The commander himself was attacked upon his own ship, and it was with difficulty that he escaped. He died of his wounds at St. Domingo. Another important discovery was made in 1517, by Francisco Fernandez de Cordova, who commanded an expedition from Cuba : the rich and populous domain of Mexico was revealed to the avaricious Spaniards. Cordova s report of a people half civilized, and possessing treasures in cities, awakened the keen est cupidity of his countrymen ; and the following year Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, sent another expedition to Mexico, under Juan de Grijalva. That captain returned with much treasure, obtained by trafficking with the Mex icans. The avarice, cupidity, and ambition of Velasquez were powerfully aroused, and he determined to conquer the Mexicans, and possess himself of their sources of wealth. An expedition, consisting of eleven vessels, and more than six hundred armed men, was placed under the command of Fernanda Cortez, a brave but treacherous and cruel leader. He landed first (it Tobasco, and then at San Juan de Ulloa, 2 near Vera Cruz [April 12, 1519], where he received a friendly deputation from Montezuma, the emperor of the nation. 3 By falsehood and duplicity, Cortez and his armed companions were allowed to march to Mexico, the capital. By stratagem and boldness, and the aid of native tribes who were hostile to the Mexican dynasty, Cortez 4 succeeded, after many bloody contests during almost two years, in subduing the people. The city of Mexico surrendered to him on the 23d of August, 1521, and the vast and populous empire of Montezuma became a Spanish province. Florida continued to command the attention of the Spaniards, in whose minds floated magnificent dreams of immense wealth in cities and mines within its deep forests ; and seven years after the conquest of Mexico [1528], Pamphilo 1 D Ayllon named this river, Jordan, for he regarded the country as the new Land of Promise. 8 Pronounced San-whahn-da-Ooloo-ah. 8 The Mexicans at that time were making rapid advances in the march of civilization. They were acquainted with many of the useful arts of enlightened nations, and appear to have been as far advanced in science, law, religion, and domestic and public social organization, as were the Romans at the close of the Republic. 4 Born at Medellon, in Estramadura, Spain, in 1485. He went to St. Domingo in 1504, and in 1511 accompanied Velasquez to Cuba. He committed many horrid crimes in Mexico. Yet he had the good fortune, unlike the more noble Columbus, to retain the favor of the Spanish monarch until his death. When, on his return to Spain, he urged an audience with the emperor, and was asked who he was, the bold adventurer replied, " I am the man who has given you more province* than your father left you towns." He died in Estramadura, hi 1554, at the age of 69 years. 44 DISCOVERIES. [1492. de Narvaez having been appointed governor of that region, went from Cuba, with three hundred men, 1 to conquer it. Hoping to find a wealthy empire, like Mexico, he penetrated the unknown interior as far as the southern borders of Georgia. Instead of cities filled with treasures, he found villages of huts, and the monarch of the country living in a wigwam. 3 Disappointed, and con tinually annoyed by hostile savages, who had heard of the treachery at the Com- bahee, 3 he turned southward, and reaching the shores of Apallachee Bay, near St. Marks, he constructed rude boats and embarked for Cuba. The commander and most of his followers perished ; only four escaped, and these wandered from tribe to tribe for several years before reaching a Spanish settlement in Mexico. Yet the misfortunes of Narvaez did not suppress the spirit of adventure, and Florida (the name then applied to all North America) was still regarded by the Spaniards as the new Land of Promise. All believed that in the vast interior were mines as rich, and people as wealthy as those of Mexico and Yu catan. Among the most sanguine of the possessors of such an opinion, was Ferdinand de Soto, a brave and wealthy cavalier, who had gained riches and military honors, with Pizarro, in Peru. 4 He obtained permission of the Spanish emperor to conquer Florida at his own expense, and for that purpose, was appointed governor of Cuba, and also of Flor ida. With ten vessels and six hundred men, all clad in armorj he sailed for the New World early in 1539. Leav- DE SOTO. ing his wife to govern Cuba, he proceeded to Florida, and on the 10th of June landed on the shores of Tampa Bay. He then sent most of his vessels back, and made his way, among hostile sav ages, toward the interior of the fancied land of gold. 5 He wintered on the banks of the Flint River, in Georgia, and in the spring crossed the Appal- lachian Mountains, and penetrated the beautiful country of the Cherokees. 6 This, all things considered, was one of the most remarkable expeditions on record. For several months, De Soto and his followers wandered over the hills and valleys of Alabama, in vain searches for treasure, fighting the fierce Mo- bilian tribes, 7 and becoming continually diminished in number by battle and disease. They passed the winter of 1541 on the banks of the Yazoo River, in the land of the Chickasaws. 8 In May of that year, they discovered and crossed the Mississippi River, probably not far below Memphis ; and there, in the pres ence of almost twenty thousand Indians, De Soto erected a cross made of a huge pine tree, and around it imposing religious ceremonies were performed. 1 They took with them about forty horses, the first ever landed upon the soil of the present United States. These all perished by starvation, or the weapons of the Indians. 2 Page 13. 3 Page 42. 4 Pizarro was a follower of Balboa. He discovered Peru m 1524, and in connection with Al- magro and Lucque, he conquered it in 1532, after much bloodshed. He was born, out of wedlock, in Estramadura, Spain, in 1475. He could neither read nor write, but seemed eminently fitted for the field of effort in which he was engaged. He quarreled with Almagro, civil war ensued, and he was murdered at Lima, in Peru, in 1541. 5 De Soto had a large number of horses. He also landed some swine. These rapidly increased in the forests. They were the first of their species seen in America. 6 Page 27. * Chapter VIII., p. 29. 8 Page 30. UD1E 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 45 To De Soto belongs the honor of first discovering that mighty river of our wide continent. After resting two days, the adventurers went up the western shore of the Mississippi as far as New Madrid. The ensuing summer and winter were spent by them in the wilderness watered by the Arkansas and its tributa ries, arid in the spring of 1542 they returned to the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Wachita, where De Soto sickened and died, after appointing his succes sor. 1 In these painful and perilous journeyings, they had marched full three thousand miles. The death of their leader was a terrible blow to the -followers of De Soto. They were now reduced to half their original number ; and, abandoning all hopes of finding gold, or a wealthy people, they sought for Spanish settlements in Mexico. For many months they wandered over the prairies, and among the tributary streams of the Red River, as far as the land of the Comanches, 2 when impassable mountain ranges compelled them to retrace their steps to the Mis sissippi. At a little below Natchez they remained until the following July [1543], engaged in constructing several large boats, in which they embarked. Reaching the Gulf of Mexico, they crept cautiously along its coast ; and, on the 20th of September, the little remnant of De Soto s proud army, half naked and starving, arrived at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the Panuco, thirty miles north of Tampico. This was the last attempt of the Spanish cotempo- raries of Columbus to explore, or to make settlements within the present terri tory of the United States, previous to the appearance of the English 3 in the same field. They were impelled by no higher motive than the acquisition of gold, and treachery and violence were the instruments employed to obtain it. They were not worthy to possess the magnificent country which they coveted only for its supposed wealth in precious metals ; and it was reserved for others, who -came afterward, with loftier aims, better hearts, and stronger hands, to cultivate the soil, and to establish an empire founded upon truth and justice. The Spaniards did finally become possessors of the southern portion of the Con tinent ; and to this day the curse of moral, religious, and political despotism rests upon those regions. CHAPTER III. ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. WITH all its zealous vigilance, the Spanish court could not conceal the fact that a New World had been discovered, 4 and over Continental Europe and the 1 De Soto s followers sunk the body of their leader deep in the Mississippi, so that the Indians should not find it. 2 Page 33. 8 Page 46. While De Soto was engaged in this expedition, another, no less adventurous, was undertaken by Coronada, at the command of Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico. He took with him, from the south-eastern shore of the Gulf of California, three hundred and fifty Spaniards, and eight hundred Indians. He penetrated the country to the head waters of the Rio del Norte, and onward into the great interior desert, as far as the fortieth degree of north latitude. It was a perilous, but miitless expedition. 4 Page 40. 46 DISCOVERIES. [1492. British Isles, were spread the most extravagant tales of gold-bearing regions beyond the Atlantic Ocean. By means of a papal bull, 1 Portugal and Spain vainly attempted to secure to themselves a monopoly of oceanic navigation. But in all maritime countries, cupidity and curiosity urged men to brave both the perils of the sea and the thunders of the Vatican, in search of the western paradise and the regions of gold. Monarchs and wealthy subjects projected new expeditions. Among those whose zeal in the cause of maritime discovery was newly awakened, was Henry the Seventh of England, who had turned a deaf ear to the appeals of Columbus before his great first voyage. 3 The town of Bristol, in the west of England, was then one of the most important sea-ports in the realm ; and among its adventurous mariners who had pene trated the polar waters, probably as far as Greenland, was Sebastian Cabot, son of a wealthy Venetian mer chant of Bristol, whose father sought the aid of the king in making a voyage of discovery. Willing to secure a portion of the prize he had lost, Henry read ily yielded to the solicitations of Cabot, and gave him SEBASTIAN CABOT. an( ^ n ^ s sons a commission of discovery, dated March 16, 1496, which was similar, in some respects, to that which Columbus had received from Ferdinand and Isabella; 3 but unlike his Spanish cotemporaries, the English monarch did not bear the expenses of the voyage. The navigators were permitted to go, at their own expense, " to search for islands or regions inhabited by infidels, and hitherto unknown to Christen dom," and take possession of them in the name of the King of England. They were to enjoy the sole right of trading thither paying to the King, in lieu of all customs and imposts," a fifth of all net profits, and the same proportion of the products of all mines. According to recent discoveries made in searching the ancient records of England, it appears to be doubtful whether the elder Cabot, who was a mer chant and a scientific man, ever voyaged to America. It is certain, however, that his son, Sebastian, accompanied, and, doubtless, commanded, the first expedition, which consisted of two vessels freighted by his father and others of Bristol and of London, and which sailed from the former port in May, 1498. They steered north-westerly until they encountered immense fields of ice west ward of Cape Farewell, when they turned to the south-west, and on the 3d of July, of that year, discovered the rugged coast of Labrador. Passing Cape Charles, they saw Newfoundland ; and, after touching at several points, prob ably as far southward as the coast of Maine, they hastened to England to announce the fact that they had first discovered a great western continent. 1 This is the name of special edicts issued by the Pope of Kome. They are written on parch ment, and have a great seal attached, made of wax, lead, silver, or gold. The name is derived from the seal, bulla. On one side, are the heads of Peter and Paul, and on the other, the name of the Pope and the year of his pontificate. The seal of the celebrated golden bull of the Emperor Charles IV., was made of gold. That bull became the fundamental law of the German Empire, at the Diet of Nuremburg, A. D. 1536. 2 Page 37. 3 Note 1, page 39. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 4T The skill and energy of young Cabot secured the confidence of his father and friends in his ability to command successfully ; and the following year, although he was only twenty-one years of age, he was placed in charge of another expedition, fitted out by his family and some Bristol merchants, for the purpose of traffic, and of discovering a north-west passage to India, a desire for which had now taken hold upon the minds of the commercial world. Ice in the polar seas presented an impassable barrier, and he was compelled to go south ward. He explored the coast from the frozen regions of Labrador to the sunny land of the Carolinas. Nineteen years afterward [1517] he navigated the northern waters, as far as the entrance to Hudson s Bay ; and nine years later [1526], while in the service of the monarch of Spain, 1 he explored the coast of Brazil, discovered and named the great Rio de la Plata, and penetrated the southern continent, in boats, upon the bosom of that river, almost four hundred miles. To the Cabots, father and son, belong the imperishable honor of first discovering the coast of the United States, through at least ten degrees of lati tude. Italy may claim the glory of having given birth to the two great discov erers, Columbus and Americus Yespucius, whose name our continent now bears ; while Sebastian Cabot drew his first breath in England. 2 The immense numbers and commercial importance of the cod fishes in the vicinity of Newfoundland, were first discovered and made known by the Cabots ; and within five or six years after their first voyages, many fishermen went thither from England, Brittany, and Normandy, for those treasures of the deep. Every French vessel that went to America, was on a com mercial errand only, until 1523, when Francis the first fitted out four ships, for the purpose of exploring the coasts of the New World. He gave the command to John Verrazani, an eminent Florentine navigator. Verrazani sailed in Decem ber, 1523, but a tempest disabled three of his ships, and he was compelled to go with only one. He proceeded due west from the Madeiras on the 27th of January, 1524, and first touched the American Continent, in March following, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, in North Carolina. After seeking a good harbor for fifty leagues further south, he sailed northward, and 1 Sebastian Cabot was born at Bristol, in 1467. He was invested with the honorable title of Chief Pilot of both England and Spain : and to him England is indebted for her first maritime con nection with Russia, by the establishment of the Russian Trading Company, of which he was appointed governor for life. He published a map of the world, and also an account of his southern voyages. He died in 1557, at the age of 90 years. 2 King John of Portugal, like Henry of England, had refused to aid Columbus, and lost the great prize. After the return of the navigator, he felt a desire to fit out an expedition for dis coveries in the New "World, but the Pope having given to Spain the whole region westward, beyond an imaginary line three hundred leagues west from the Azores, he dared not interfere with the Spanish mariners. But when the northern voyages of the Cabots became known, King John dispatched an expedition in that direction, under Gasper Cortoreal, toward the close of the year 1500, for the ostensible purpose of seeking a north-west passage to India. Cortoreal coasted along the shores of Labrador several hundred miles, and then freighting his ship with fifty natives whom he had caught, he returned to Portugal, and sold his living cargo, for slaves. Finding the adven ture profitable, he sailed for another cargo, but he was never heard of afterward. Almost sixty years later some Portuguese settled in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and first imported cattle and swine there. VERRAZANI. 48 DISCOVERIES. [H92. explored the coast from the Carolinas to Newfoundland. He anchored in the Bays of Delaware and New York, 1 the harbor of Newport, and probably that of Boston, and held intercourse with the natives, who were sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile. Yerrazani gave the name of NEW FRANCE to the vast regions within the latitudes of the coasts which he had discovered. But at that time the French King was too much engrossed and impoverished by w r ar with the Spanish monarch, to pay much attention to the important discoveries of Yerrazani, or to listen to plans for future expeditions. Ten years elapsed before Admi ral Chabon induced Francis to encourage another explor ing enterprise, when a plan for making settlements in NEW FRANCE was arranged [1534], and^James Cartier, a mariner of St. Malo, was appointed to the command of an expedition. He reached Newfoundland early in. June, 1534. After exploring its coasts, ne passed through the Straits of Belle- isle, into the Gulf beyond, planted a cross with the arms of France upon it, on the shore of Gaspe inlet, and took possession of the whole country in the name of his king. After discovering the mouth of the great river of Canada, he sailed for France, in time to avoid the autumn storms on the American coast. There was great joy at the French court, in the capital, and throughout the whole kingdom, because of the success of Cartier. He was commissioned for another voyage ; and in May following [1535] he sailed for Newfoundland with three ARMS OF PRANCK ships, accompanied by several young noblemen of France. They passed the Straits of Belleisle, and entered the Gulf on the day dedicated to St. Lawrence ; and, on that account, Cartier gave the name of the martyr to the broad sheet of water over which they were sailing. They passed up the river which afterward received the same name, and mooring their ships at Que bec, 2 proceeded in a pinnace and boats to Hochelaga, where Montreal now stands, then the capital of the Huron king. 3 The natives were everywhere friendly and hospitable. The land in all that region was very level, except a high mountain in the rear of the Indian town. Cartier ascended to its summit, and was so impressed with the glorious view that he called it Mont-Real (royal mountain), which name the fine city at its base yet retains. After exchanging presents and friendly salutations with the Indians, they returned to Quebec, and passed the severe winter on board their ships. In the spring, after setting up a cross, and 1 Some authors say that Verrazani landed where the lower extremity of N"ew York city is, and giving the natives some spirituous liquors, made many of them drunk. The Indians called the place Manna-harta, or "place of drunkenness," and they were afterward called Manna-ha-tans. But this scene of intoxication probably occurred on board the Half-Moon, the exploring ship of Hendrick Hudson, See page 59. 2 Pronounced Ke-bec. 3 Page 23. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 49 FRENCH NOBLEMAN IN 1540. taking formal possession of the country, they returned to France, having lost twenty-five seamen with the scurvy, a disease until then unknown. Their de parture was disgraced by an act of treachery, which planted the seeds of hatred of the white people among the natives of the St. Lawrence. Cartier, under pretense of friendship, decoyed the hospitable Huron king on board one of his vessels and carried him off to France. The results of this voyage were little else than a series of disappointments. Cartier s report of the rigors of the win ter and the barrenness of the land in precious stones and metals, was discouraging, and four years elapsed before an other expedition was planned. At length, Francis de la Roque, better known as lord of Robertval, in Picardy, ob tained permission of the king to make further discoveries, and to plant settlements in NEW FRANCE. 1 The king invested him with the empty title of Viceroy of the whole country. Cartier s services being indispensable, he, too, was commis sioned, but for subordinate command. He was ready long before Robertval s extensive preparations were completed, and being unwilling to bow to the new Viceroy s authority, he sailed, with five ships, in June, 1541, some months before the departure of his official superior. He had intended to take the Huron king back with him, but the broken-hearted monarch had died in France. It was an unfortunate occurrence. The natives received Cartier first with coldness, and then showed open hostility. Fearing the Indians, the French built a fort upon the island of Orleans, a little below Quebec. There they passed the winter without accomplishing any important achievement, and in June following [1542], de parted for France, just as Robertval arrived at Newfoundland, with two hun dred persons. Robertval passed up the St. Lawrence, built two more forts near Quebec, endured a winter of great distress, and, abandoning the idea of settlement, returned to France in the spring of 1543. Six years afterward, he again sailed for the St. Lawrence, and was never heard of again. The discov eries of Verrazani and Cartier, and also of French fishermen, served as the found ation for a claim by France to the northern portion of the American continent. France was now convulsed by the conflicts of religious opinions. It was the era of the Reformation there. 2 The doctrines and the teachings of Calvin and others, in opposition to the faith and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, had already arrayed great masses of the people in violent hostility to each other. The religious war was an absorbing idea, and for fifty years the French government made no further attempts at discovery or colonization. But private enterprise sought to plant a French settlement in the land discovered by D Ayllon. 3 The Huguenots, or French Protestants, who maintained the faith of early Christianity, were the weaker party in number, and felt the heavy heel of oppression. They had a powerful friend in Jasper Coligny, admiral of France, but a weak protector in the reigning monarch, Charles the Ninth. Page 48. 2 Note 14, page 62. 3 Page 42 50 DISCOVERIES. [1492. The fires of persecution were continually burning, and at length Coligny conceived the noble idea of providing a place of refuge for his Protestant brethren, beyond the Atlantic. The king granted him a commission for that purpose ; and early in 1562 [Feb. 28], a squadron, under John Ribault, sailed for America. The little Huguenot fleet touched first near the harbor of St. Augustine, in Florida. 1 Sailing northward, they saw the mouth of the beautiful St. John s River [May, 1562], and, it being the fifth month of the year, they named it the " River of May." Making their way along the coast, they discovered Port Royal entrance, were charmed with the beauty of the scene, chose the spot for their future home, and built a small fort, which they named Carolina, in honor of the king. Leaving a garrison of twenty-six men to defend it, Ribault went back to France with the ships, for reinforcements. Bitter disappointment ensued. Civil war was raging in France, and Coligny was almost powerless. The reinforcements were not supplied, and the little garrison, though treated with hospitality by the Indians, became very discon tented. Despairing of relief, they built a frail vessel, and, with insufficient stores, they embarked for France. Tempests assailed them, and famine was menacing them with death, when they were picked up by an English bark, and conveyed to Great Britain. Thus perished the first seeds of religious freedom which the storms of persecution bore to the New World. The noble Coligny was not discouraged ; and, during a lull in the tempest of civil commotion, another expedition was sent to America, under the com mand of Laudonniere, who had accompanied Ribault on his first voyage. They arrived in July, 1564, pitched their tents on the banks of the St. John s River (River of May), and built another Fort Carolina. But there were ele ments of dissolution among these immigrants. Many were idle, vicious, and improvident ; and provisions soon became scarce. Under pretext of returning to France, to escape famine, quite a large party sailed, in December, in one of the vessels. They turned pirates, and depredated extensively upon Spanish property in the West Indies. The remainder became discontented, and were about to embark for France, when Ribault arrived with immigrants and sup plies, and took command. 3 Spanish jealousy and bigotry were now aroused, and when the monarch of Spain, the narrow Philip the Second, heard of the settlement of the French Protestants within his claimed territory, and of the piracies of some of the party, he adopted measures for their expulsion and punishment. Pedro Melen- dez, a brave but cruel military chief, was appointed Governor of Florida, on condition that he would expel the Frenchmen from the soil, conquer the natives, and plant a colony there within three years. That was an enterprise exactly suited to the character of Melendez. He came with a strong force, consisting of three hundred soldiers furnished by the king, and twenty-two hundred vol- 1 Page 42. 2 James Le Moyne, a skillful painter, was sent with this expedition, with instructions to make colored drawings of every object worthy of preservation. His illustrations of the costume and cus toms of the natives are very interesting, because authentic. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 51 unteers priests, sailors, mechanics, laborers, women, and children. The fleet was scattered by storms, and with only one third of his original number, Me- lendez landed in a fine harbor on the coast of Florida. There he laid the foundations of a city, which he named St. Augustine [Sept. 17, 1565], and formally proclaimed the king of Spain to be monarch of all North America. On hearing of the arrival of the Spaniards, a large party of the French, under Bibault, proceeded from the St. John s, by water, to attack them. A tempest wrecked every vessel ; and most of the survivors, who fell into the hands of the Spaniards, were put to death. In the mean while, Melendez made his way through the swamps and forests with a strong force, to the defenseless French settlement, where he massacred about nine hundred men, women, and children, and over their dead bodies placed an inscription, avowing that he slew them, not " because they were Frenchmen, but Lutherans." 1 Upon that field of blood the monster erected a cross, and laid the foundation of a Christian church to commemorate the deed ! Charles the Ninth of France was not only a weak monarch, but an enemy to the Huguenots. He therefore took no steps to avenge the outrage, per petrated under the sanction of the bigot of Spain. But one of his subjects, a fiery soldier of Gascony, named Dominic de Gourges, obtained permission to inflict retribution. He had suffered Spanish bondage and Spanish cruelty, and panted for revenge. He fitted out three ships at his own expense, and with one hundred and fifty men, sailed for Florida. He attacked the Spaniards upon the St. John s, surprised and captured Fort Carolina, which they occupied, made two hundred prisoners, and hanging his captives upon the trees almost upon the spot where his countrymen had been murdered, he placed over them the inscrip tion " I do not this as unto Spaniards or mariners, but unto traitors, robbers, and murderers." Too weak to brave the vengeance of Melendez, who was at St. Augustine, De Gourges immediately left the coast, and returned to France. The natives were delighted at seeing their common enemies thus destroy ing each other. The Spaniards, however, held possession, and a Spanish settlement was ever afterward maintained at St. Augustine, except during a few years. It was now more than three quarters of a century since Columbus discov ered the "West India Islands, and yet no real progress toward a permanent European settlement, within the domain of the United States, had been made. Although the English seem not to have wholly relinquished the idea of plant ing settlements in America, it was not until the twentieth year of the brilliant reign of Queen Elizabeth, and almost eighty years after the discovery of the continent by Cabot, 2 that healthy efforts to found colonies in the New World, were made. Sir Martin Frobisher 3 (an eminent navigator) and others had _ ! The Protestants were often called by the general name of Lutherans, because the later Reform ation was commenced by the bold opposition of Martin Luther to the corrupt practices of the Romish Church. Note 14, page 62. 2 p a ge 46. 3 Born in Yorkshire, England ; was trained in the navigator s art ; made several voyages for discovery ; and died of wounds received in a naval battle near Brest, on the French coast, in. 1594. 52 DISCOVERIES. [1492. explored the north-western coast of North America, to the dreary region north, of Hudson s Bay, 1 in search of precious metals and a north-west passage to India, 2 but without beneficial results. Newfoundland was visited every year by numerous English and French fishing- vessels, and the neighboring continent was frequently touched by the hardy mariners. Yet no feasible plans for col onization were matured. Finally, when the public mind of England was turned from the cold regions of Labrador and the fancied mineral wealth in its rugged mountains, to the milder South, and the more solid benefits to be derived from plantations than mines, a new and brilliant era in the history of civilization began. This change was produced incidentally by the Huguenot adventurers.* The remnant of Coligny s first colony, who were picked up at sea and taken to England, informed the queen of the glory of the climate, and the fertility of the soil of Carolina. When De Gourges returned from his foray upon the Spaniards, 4 Walter Raleigh, then a young man of much promise, was learning the art of war with Coligny, in France, and he communicated to his friends in England that chevalier s account of Florida, which was yet a wilderness free for the sons of toil. Enterprise was powerfully aroused by the promises of that warm and beautiful land, and the Protestant 5 feeling of England was strongly stirred by the cruelties of Melendez. These dissimilar, but auxiliary causes, produced great effects, and soon many minds were employed in planning schemes for colonizing the pleasant middle regions of North America. The first healthy plan for settlement there was proposed by the learned Sir Humph rey Gilbert, a step-brother of Walter Raleigh. He had served with honor in the wars of Ireland, France, and the Low Countries, and then was not only prac tically engaged in maritime affairs, but had written and published a treatise on. the north-west passage to India. Having lost money in a vain endeavor to transmute baser metals into gold, he resolved to attempt to retrieve his fortune by planting a colony in the New World. In June, 1578, he obtained a liberal patent or grant from the queen. Raleigh gave him the aid of his hand and for tune ; and early in 1579, Gilbert sailed for America, with a small squadron, accompanied by his step-brother. Heavy storms and Spanish war- vessels com pelled them to return, and the scheme was abandoned for a time. Four years afterward [1583] Gilbert sailed with another squadron ; and after a series of disasters, he reached the harbor of St. John s, Newfoundland. There he set up a pillar with the English arms upon it, 8 proclaimed the sovereignty of his queen, and then proceeded to explore the coast southward. After being ter ribly beaten by tempests off the shores of Nova Scotia and Maine, and losing his largest ship, he turned his vessel toward England. At midnight, in Sep tember, during a gale, his own little bark of ten tons went down, with all on board, and only one vessel of the expedition returned to England to relate the dreadful narrative. The melancholy fate of the second expedition did not dismay the heart of 1 Note 8, page 59. 2 Page 4f . 8 Page 50. * Page 51. Note 14, page 62. Note 2, page 40. RALEIGH S EXPEDITION AT ROANOKE. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 55 RALEIGH. Raleigh. He was a young man of great spirit, "the most restless, and am bitious, as he was the most versatile and accomplished, of all Elizabeth s court iers." He now obtained a patent for himself [April, 1584], which made him lord proprietor of all lands that might be discovered by him in America, be tween the Santee and Delaware Rivers. He dis patched Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, with two well-furnished ships, to explore the American coast. They approached the shores of Carolina 1 in July, and landing upon the islands of Wocoken and Roanoke, which separate the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds from the Atlantic, they took possession of the country in the name of Elizabeth. They remained a few weeks, exploring the Sounds and trafficking with the natives, and then returned to England with two sons of the forest. 3 The glow^ ing accounts of the newly-discovered country filled Raleigh s 3 heart with joy ; and the queen declared the event to be (what it really was) one of the most glorious of her reign. In memorial of her unmarried state, she gave the name of VIRGINIA to the enchanting region. Raleigh was knighted, his patent was confirmed by act of Parliament, and the queen gave him a monopoly in the sale of sweet wines, as a means for enriching him. The ardent and ever hopeful Raleigh now indulged in brilliant dreams of wealth and power to be derived from the New World, and he made immediate prepar ations for planting settlements on his trans- Atlantic domains. He dispatched a fleet of seven vessels on the 19th of April, 1585, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. He was accompanied by Ralph Lane, the appointed governor of the colony, with learned companions ; and also by Manteo, the native chief. They narrowly escaped shipwreck on the Caro lina coast, in June, and in consequence of that danger, they named the land where their peril was greatest, Cape Fear. Entering Ocracock Inlet, they landed upon the island of Roanoke, in Albemarle Sound, and there prepared for a permanent residence. 4 RALEIGH S SHIPS. 1 The French Protestants had given the name of Carolina to the region where ^hey attempted settlement, and it has ever since retained it. See page 50. 2 Manteo and Wanchese, natives of the adjacent continent : probably of the Hatteras tribe. 3 Born in Devonshire, England, 1552. He was one of the most illustrious men of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which was remarkable for brilliant minds. His efforts to plant colonies in Amer ica, were evidences of a great genius and indomitable courage and perseverance. He was also a fine scholar, as well as a statesman, mariner, and soldier. His name will ever be held in reverence by all who can appreciate true greatness. He wrote a History of the World, while in prison under a false charge of high treason, and was beheaded in London, October 29, 1628. 4 The picture of the meeting of the English and natives of Roanoke, on page 53, exhibits truthful delineations of the persons and costumes of the Indians found there. They were copied and grouped from Harriot s " Brief and True Report of the new found land of Virginia," which was published in 1590. Harriot accompanied the expedition as historian and naturalist, remained a 56 DISCOVERIES. [1492. The English made some fatal mistakes at the outset. Instead of looking to the fruition of seed-time for true riches, they turned from the wealthy soil upon which they stood, and went upon vain searches for gold in the forests of the adjoining continent. Instead of reciprocating the hospitable friendship of the natives, they returned harshness for kindness, and treachery for confidence, until a flame of revenge was kindled among the Indians which nothing but the blood of Englishmen could quench. Schemes for the destruction of the white intruders were speedily planned, and tribes in the interior stood ready to aid their brethren upon the seaboard. As soon as Grenville departed with the ships, for England, the natives withheld supplies of food, drew the English into perilous positions by tales of gold-bearing shores along the Roanoke River, and finally reduced the colony to the verge of ruin. At that moment. Sir Francis Drake arrived from the West Indies, with his fleet, and afforded them relief. But misfortune and fear made them anxious to leave the country, and the emi grants were all conveyed to England, in June, 1586, by Drake. A few days after their departure, a well-furnished vessel, sent by Raleigh, arrived ; and a fortnight later, Grenville entered the inlet with three ships well provisioned. After searching for the departed colony, Grenville sailed for England, leaving fifteen men upon Roanoke. The intrepid Raleigh was still undismayed by misfortune. He adopted a wise policy, and instead of sending out mere fortune-hunters, 1 he collected a band of agriculturists and artisans, with their families, and dispatched them [April 26, 1587], to found an industrial State in Virginia. He gave them a charter of incorporation for the settlement ; and John White, who accompanied them, was appointed governor of the colony. They reached Roanoke in July ; but instead of the expected greetings of the men left by Grenville, they encoun tered utter desolation. The bones of the fifteen lay bleaching on the ground. Their rude tenements were in ruins, and wild deer were feeding in their little gardens. They had been murdered by the Indians, and not one was left. Manteo 2 did not share in the Indian hatred of the white people, and like Massa- soit of New England, 3 he remained their friend. By command of Raleigh, he received Christian baptism, and was invested, by White, with the title of Lord of Roanoke, the first and last peerage ever created in America. Yet Manteo could not avert nor control the storm that lowered among the Indian tribes, and menaced the English with destruction. The colonists were conscious that fear ful perils were gathering, and White hastened to England toward the close of the year for reinforcements and provisions, leaving behind him his daughter, Eleanor Dare (wife of one of his lieutenants), who had just given birth to a child [August 18, 1587], whom they named Virginia. VIRGINIA DARE was the first offspring of English parents born within the territory of the United States. 4 year in Virginia, and had correct drawings made of the inhabitants, their dwellings, their gardens, and every thing of interest pertaining to their costumes, customs, and general characteristics. The picture may be accepted as historically correct 1 Page 52. a Note 2, page 55. 3 Page 114. Note 6, page 78. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 57 The great Spanish Armada 1 was preparing for an invasion of Great Britain, when White reached England ; and Raleigh, Grenville, and others, were deeply engaged in public affairs. It was not until the following May [1589], that White departed, with two ships, for Virginia. According to custom, he went by the way of the West Indies, and depredated upon Spanish property found afloat. He was beaten in an engagement, lost one of his vessels, and was obliged to return to England. Raleigh s fortune being mate rially impaired by his munificence in efforts at colonization, he assigned his proprietary rights to others ; and it was not until 1590 that White was allowed to return to Roanoke in search of his daughter and the colony he had left. Both had then disappeared. Roanoke was a desolation ; and, though Raleigh, who had abandoned all thoughts of colonization, had five times , , , , r. , i . ENGLISH GENTLE- sent mariners, good and true, to search for the emigrants, MAN) 1580 they were never found. 2 Eighty years later, the Corees 3 told the English settlers upon the Cape Fear River, that their lost kindred had been adopted by the once powerful Hatteras tribe, 4 and became amalgamated with the children of the wilderness. The English made no further attempts at colo nization at that time ; and so, a century after Columbus sailed for America, there was no European settlement upon the North American Continent. Sir Francis Drake had broken up the military post at St. Augustine [1585], and ihe Red Men were again sole masters of the vast domain. A dozen years after the failure of Raleigh s colonization efforts, Bartholo mew Gosnold, who had been to America, and. was a friend of the late proprietor of Virginia, sailed in a small bark [March 26, 1602] directly across the Atlan tic for the American coast. After a voyage of seven weeks, he discovered the Continent near Nahant [May 14, 1602], and sailing southward, he landed upon a sandy point which he named Cape Cod, on account of the great number of those fishes in that vicinity. Continuing southward, he discovered Nan- tucket, Martha s Vineyard, and the group known as Elizabeth Islands. Upon one of them, which he named Elizabeth, in honor of his sovereign, Gosnold and his company prepared to found a settlement. Upon an islet, in a tiny lake, they built a fort and store-house. 5 Becoming alarmed at the menaces of the Indians and the want of supplies, they freighted their vessel with sassafras 1 This was a great naval armament, fitted out by Spain, for the invasion of England, in the summer of 1588. It consisted of one hundred and fifty ships, two thousand six hundred and fifty great guns, and thirty thousand soldiers and sailors. It was defeated [July 20] by Admirals Drake and Howard. 2 While Raleigh was making these fruitless searches, the Marquis de la Roche, a wealthy French nobleman, attempted to plant a French colony in America. He was commissioned by the King of France for the purpose, and in 1598 sailed for America with a colony, chiefly drawn from the prisons of Paris. Upon the almost desert island of Sable, near the coast of Nova Scotia, La Roche left forty men, while he returned to France for supplies. He died soon afterward, and for seven years the poor emigrants were neglected. "When a vessel was finally sent for them, only twelve survived. They were taken to France, then* crimes were pardoned by the knig, and thek immediate wants were supplied. 3 Page 20. 4 Note 5, page 20. 5 Dr. Jeremy Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire, discovered the cellar of this storehouse, ii 1797. 58 DISCOVERIES. [1492. roots, and returned to England in June, 1602. The glowing accounts of the country which Gosnold gave, awakened the enterprise of some Bristol mer chants, 1 and the following year [1603] they fitted out two vessels for the pur pose of exploration and traffic with the natives. The command was given to Martin Pring, a friend of both Raleigh and Gosnold. Following the track of the latter, he discovered the shores of Maine, near the mouth of the Penobscot [June], and coasting westward, he entered and explored several of the larger rivers of that State. He continued sailing along the coast as far as Martha s Vineyard, trading with the natives ; and from that island he returned to En gland, after an absence of only six months. Pring made another voyage to Maine, in 1606, and more thoroughly explored the country. Maine was also visited in 1605, by Captain George Weymouth, who had explored the coast of Labrador, in search of a north-west passage to India. 3 He entered the Saga- dahock, and took formal possession of the country in the name of King James. There he decoyed five natives on board his vessel, and then sailed for England. These forest children excited much curiosity ; and the narratives of other mari ners of the west of England, who visited these regions at about the same time, gave a new stimulus to colonizing efforts. The French now began to turn their attention toward the New World again. In 1603, De Monts, a wealthy French Huguenot, 3 obtained a commission of viceroy alty over six degrees of latitude in New France, 4 extending from Cape May to Quebec. He prepared an expedition for settlement, and arrived at Nova Scotia, 5 with two vessels, in May, 1604. 6 He passed the summer there, trafficking with the natives ; and in the autumn he crossed over to the mouth of the St. Croix (the eastern boundary of Maine), and erected a fort there. He had left a few settlers at Port Royal (now Annapolis), under Poutrincourt. These De Monts joined the following spring [1605], and organized a perma nent colony. He named the place Port Royal ; and the territory now included in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the adjacent islands, he called ACADIE/ His efforts promised much success ; but he was thwarted by jealous men. In 1608, he was deprived of his vice-royal commission, when he obtained a grant of the monopoly of the fur trade upon the St. Lawrence, for one year, and another commission, to plant a colony elsewhere in New France. The new expedition was placed under the command of Samuel Champlain (who accom panied the viceroy on his first voyage), and on the 3d of June, 1608, he arrived, with two vessels, at the mouth of the Saguenay, on the St. Lawrence. They ascended the great river, and on the site of Quebec, near where Cartier built his fort almost seventy years before, 8 they planted the first permanent i Page 46. 3 Page 510. 3 Page 49. * p age 48. s Note 2. page 80. 6 De Monts first brought swine, and other domestic animals, into this portion of America. Some were also taken from thence to French settlements planted in Canada a few years later. The company of which he was chief, fitted out four vessels. De Monts commanded the two here men tioned, assisted by Champlain and Poutrincourt. 7 In 1613, Samuel Argall made a piratical visit to these coaste, under the direction of the gov ernor of the Virginia colony. He destroyed the remnant of De Monts settlement at St. Croix, broke up the peaceful colony at Port Royal, and plundered the people of every thing of value. See page 72. * Page 49. 1609.] ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 59 HENRY HUDSON. French settlement in the New World. The following summer, Champlain ascended the Richelieu or Sorel River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, with a war party of Huron 1 and Algonquin 3 Indians, and discovered the beautiful lake which bears his name, in the north-eastern part of the State of New York. 3 The English were not idle while the French were exploring, and making efforts at settlement in the direction of the St. Lawrence. Several private enter prises were in progress, among the most important of which was that of a company of London merchants who sent Henry Hudson, an intimate friend of Captain Smith, 4 to search for a supposed north-eastern ocean passage to India. He made two unsuccessful voyages to the regions of polar ice [1607-8], when the attempt was abandoned. Anxious to win the honor of first reaching India by the northern seas, Hudson applied to the Dutch East India Company 5 for aid. The Amsterdam directors afforded it, and on the 4th of April, 1609, Hudson departed from Amsterdam, in com mand of the Half-Moon, a yacht of eighty tons. He sought a north-eastern passage ; but after doubling the capes of Norway, the ice was impassable. Turning his prow, he steered across the Atlantic, and first touching the continent on the shores of Penobscot Bay, he arrived in sight of the capes of Virginia in August, 1609. Proceeding northward, he entered the mouths of several large rivers, and finally passed the Narrows 8 and anchored in New York Bay. He proceeded almost sixty leagues up the river that bears his name, and according to the formula of the age, took possession of the country in the name of the States General of Holland. 7 He returned to Europe 8 in November 1 Page 22. 2 p age 17. 3 Champlain penetrated southward as far as Crown Point ; perhaps south of Ticonderoga. It was at about the same time that Hudson went up the river that bears his name, as far as Water- ford, so that these eminent navigators, exploring at different points, came very near meeting in the wilderness. Six years afterward Champlain discovered Lake Huron, and there he joined some Huron Indians in an expedition against one of the Five Nations in Western New York. They had a severe battle in the neighborhood of the present village of Canandaigua, Champlain published an account of his first voyage, in 1613, and a continuation in 1620. He published a new edition of these in 1632, which contains a history of New France, from the discovery of Verrazani to the year 1631. Champlain died in 1634. 4 p age 65. 5 Dutch mariners, following the track of the Portuguese, opened a successful traffic with East ern Asia, about the year 1594. The various Dutch adventurers, in the India trade, were united in one corporate body in 1602, with a capital of over a million of dollars, to whom were given the exclusive privilege of trading in the seas east of the Cape of Good Hope. This was the Dutch East India Company. 6 Entrance to New York Bay between Long and Staten Islands. 7 This was the title of the Government of Holland, answering, in a degree, to our Congress. 8 Hudson, while on another voyage in search of a north-west passage, discovered the great Bay in the northern regions, which bears his name. He was there frozen in the ice during the winter of 1610-11. While endeavoring to make his way homeward in the spring, his crew became muti nous. They finally seized Hudson, bound his arms, and placing him and his son, and seven sick companions, in an open boat, set them adrift upon the cold waters. They were never heard of afterward. THE HALF-MOON. 60 DISCOVERIES. [1492. 1609, and his report of the goodly land he had discovered set in motion those commercial measures which resulted in the founding of a Dutch empire in the New World. With these discoveries commenced the epoch of settlements. The whole Atlantic coast of North America had been thoroughly or partially explored, the general character and resources of the soil had become known, and henceforth the leading commercial nations of Western Europe England, France, Spain, and Holland regarded the transatlantic continent, not as merely a rich garden without a wall, where depredators from every shore might come, and, without hinderance, bear away its choicest fruit, but as a land where the permanent foundations of vast colonial empires might be laid, from which parent states would receive almost unlimited tribute to national wealth and national glory. When we contemplate these voyages across the stormy Atlantic, and con sider the limited geographical knowledge of the navigators, the frailty of their vessels 1 and equipments, the vast labors and constant privations endured by them, and the dangers to which they were continually exposed, we can not but feel the highest respect and reverence for all who were thus engaged in opening the treasures of the New World to the advancing nations of Europe. Although acquisitiveness, or the desire for worldly possessions, was the chief incentive to action, and gave strength to resolution, yet it could not inspire courage to encounter the great dangers of the deep and the wilderness, nor fill the heart with faith in prophecies of success. These sentiments must have been innate ; and those who braved the multitude of perils were men of true courage, and their faith came from the teachings of the science of their day. History and Song, Painting and Sculpture, have all commemorated their deeds. If Alexander the Great was thought worthy of having the granite body of Mount Athos hewn into a colossal image of himself, 2 might not Europe and America appropriately join in the labor of fashioning some lofty summit of the Alleghanies 3 into a huge monument to the memory of the NAVIGATORS who lifted the vail of forgetful- ness from the face of the New World ?* 1 The first ships were generally of less than one hundred tons burden. Two of the vessels of Columbus were without decks ; and the one in which Frobisher sailed was only twenty-five tons burden. 2 Dinocrates, a celebrated architect, offered to cut Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, so large, that it might hold a city in its right hand, and in its left a basin of sufficient capa city to hold all the waters that poured from ^he mountain. 3 Note 3, page 19. 4 Page 47. There has been much discussion concerning the claims of certain navigators, to the honor of first discovering the Continent of America. A " Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," illustrated by documents from the Rolls, published in London in 1832, appears to prove conclusively that he, and not his father, was the navigator who discovered North America. John Cabot was a man of science, and a merchant, and may have accompanied his son, in his first voyage in 1497. Yet, hi the patent of February, 1498, in which the first voyage is referred to, are the words, "the land and isles of late found by the said John, in our name, and by our commandment." The first commission being issued in the name of John Cabot, the discoveries made by those employed by him, would of course be in his name. A little work, entitled "Researches respecting Americus Vespucius, and his Voyages," prepared by Viscount Santarem, ex-prime minister of Portugal, casts just doubts upon the statements of Vespucius, concerning his command on a voyage of discovery when, he claims, he discovered South America [page 41] in 1499. He was doubtless an officer under Ojeda ; and it is quite cer tain that he got possession of the narratives of Ojeda and published them as his own. The most accessible works on American discoveries, are Irving s "Life of Columbus;" Prescott s "Ferdinand and Isabella;" Lives of Cabot and Hudson, in Sparks s "American Biography," and Histories of the United States by Graham. Bancroft and Hildreth. THIRD PERIOD. SETTLEMENTS. JOHN SMITH. CHAPTER I. THERE is a distinction to be observed in considering settlements and colonies. The act of forming a settlement is not equivalent to the establishment of a colony or the founding of a State. It is the initiatory step toward such an end, and may or may not exhibit permanent results. A colony becomes such only when settlements assume permanency, and organic laws, subservient to those of a parent government, are framed for the guidance of the people. It seems proper, therefore, to consider the era of settlements as distinct from that of colonial organization. The period of settlements within the bounds of the thirteen original colonies which formed the Confederacy in the War for Independence, 1 extends from 1607 to 1733. For fifty years previous to the debarkation [1607] at Jamestown, 3 fishing stations had been established at various points on the Atlantic coast : and at St. Augustine, 3 the Spaniards had kept a sort of military post alive. Yet the time of the appearance of the English in the James River, is the true point from which to date the inception or beginning of our great confederacy of Page 229. 2 Page 64. Page 51. 62 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. free States. Twelve years [1607 to 1619] were spent by English adven turers in efforts to plant a permanent settlement in Virginia. 1 For seventeen years [1609 to 1623] Dutch traders were trafficking on the Hudson River, before a permanent settlement was established in New York. 2 Fourteen years [1606 to 1620] were necessary to effect a permanent settlement in Massachu setts ; 3 and for nine years [1622 to 1631] adventurers struggled for a foothold in New Hampshire. 4 The Roman Catholics were only one year [1634-5] in laying the foundation of the Maryland colony. 5 Seven years [1632 to 1639] were employed in effecting permanent settlements in Connecticut ; 6 eight years [1636 to 1643] in organizing colonial government in Rhode Island ; 7 and about fifty years [1631 to 1682] elapsed from the landing of the Swedes on South River, 8 before Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (whose several histo ries of settlements are interwoven), presented colonial features. 9 Almost sixty years [1622 to 1680] passed by before the first settlements in the Carolinas became fully developed colonies; 10 but Georgia, the youngest of the thirteen States, had the foundation of its colonial government laid when Oglethorpe, with the first company of settlers, began to build Savannah in the winter of 1733. 11 The first permanent settlement within the bounds of the original colonies, was in VIRGINIA. [16071619]. A century had not elapsed after the discoveries of Columbus [1492]," before a great social and political revolution had been effected in Europe. Commerce, hitherto confined to inland seas and along the coasts, was sending its ships across oceans. The art of printing had begun its wonderful work ; 13 and, through its instrumentality, intelligence had become generally diffused. Mind thus acting upon mind, in vastly multiplied opportunities, had awakened a great moral and intellectual power, whose presence and strength had not been suspected. The Protestant Reformation 14 had weakened the bonds of spiritual dominion, and allowed the moral faculties fuller play ; and the shadows of feudal institutions, 15 so chilling to individual effort, were rapidly disappearing before 1 Page 71. 2 Page 73. 3 p age 79. p age 80. 6 Page 82. p age 89. 1 Page 91. 8 Page 92. 9 Page 97. 10 Page 99. " Page 103. 12 Page 40. " About the year 1450. Rude printing from engraved blocks was done before that time; but when Peter Schoeffer cast the first metal types, each letter separately, at about 1450, the art of printing truly had birth. John Faust established a printing-office at Mentz, in 1442. John Gutten- berg invented cut metal types, and used them in printing a Bible which was commenced in 1445, and finished in 1460. The names of these three men are usually associated as the inventors of printing. l * Commenced by "Wickliffe, in England, in 1360 ; by Huss, in Bohemia, in 1405 ; by Luther, in Germany, in 1517. From this period until 1562, the movement was general throughout Europe. It was an effort to purge the Christian Church of all impurities, by reforming its doctrine and ritual. The Reformers protested against some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and the movement received the title of the Protestant Reformation. The name of Protestants was first given to Luther and others in 1529. 15 The nature of feudal laws may be illustrated by a single example : William, the Norman conqueror of England, divided the land of that country into parts called baronies, and gave them to certain of his favorites, who became masters of the conquered people on their respective estates. For these gifts, and certain privileges, the barons, or masters, were to furnish the king with a stipu- 1619.] VI S GIN I A. 68 the rising sun of the new era in the history of the world. Freedom of thought and action expanded the area of ideas, and gave birth to those tolerant princi ples which lead to brotherhood of feeling. The new impulse developed nobler motives for human action than the acquisition of wealth and power, and these soon engendered healthy schemes for founding industrial empires in the New World. Aspirations for civil freedom, awakened by greater religious liberty, had begun the work, especially in England, where the Protestants were already divided into two distinct parties, called, respectively, Churchmen and Puritans. The former supported the throne and all monarchic ideas ; the latter were more republican ; and from their pulpits went forth doctrines inimical to kingly power. These religious differences had begun to form a basis of political parties, and finally became prime elements of colonization. Another event, favorable to the new impulse, now exerted a powerful influ ence. A long contest between England and France ceased in 1604. Soldiers, an active, restless class in England, were deprived of employment, and would soon become dangerous to the public peace. While population and general prosperity had greatly increased, there was another large class, who, by idle ness and dissipation, had squandered fortunes, and had become desperate men. The soldiers needed employment, either in their own art, or in equally exciting adventures ; and the impoverished spendthrifts were ready for any thing which promised gain. Such were the men who stood ready to brave ocean perils and the greater dangers of the Western World, when such minds as those of Fer nando Gorges, Bartholomew Gosnold, Chief Justice Popham, Richard Hakluyt, Captain John Smith, and others, devised new schemes for colonization. The weak and timid James the First, 1 who desired and maintained peace with other nations during his reign, was glad to perceive a new field for restless and adventurous men to go to, and he readily granted a liberal patent [April 20, 1606] to the first company formed after his accession to the throne, for planting settlements in Virginia. The English then claimed dominion over a belt of territory extending from Cape Fear, in North Carolina, to Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and indefinitely westward. This was divided into two districts. One extended from the vicinity of New York city northward to the present southern boundary of Canada, including the whole of New England, and westward of it, and was called NORTH VIRGINIA. This territory was granted to a company of " knights, gentlemen, and merchants" in the west of England, called the Plymouth Company? The other district extended from the mouth of the Potomac southward to Cape Fear, and was called SOUTH VIRGINIA. It was lated amount of money, and a stated number of men for soldiers, when required. The people had no voice in this matter, nor in any public affairs, and were made essentially slaves to the barons. Out of this state of things originated the exclusive privileges yet enjoyed by the nobility of Europe. Except in Russia, the people have been emancipated from this vassalage, and the ancient forms of feudal power have disappeared. 1 He was the Sixth James of Scotland, of the house of Stuart, and son of Mary, Queen of Scot land, by Lord Darnley. The crowns of England and Scotland were united by his accession to the throne of the former kingdom, in March, 1603. 2 The chief members of the company were Thomas Hanham, Sir John and Raleigh Gilbert (sons of Sir Humphrey Gilbert), William Parker, George Popham, Sir John Popham (Lord Chief Justice f England), and Sir Fernando Gorges, Governor of Plymouth Fort. 64 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. granted to a company of " noblemen, gentlemen and merchants," chiefly resi dents of London, called the London Company. 1 The intermediate domain of almost two hundred miles, was a dividing line, so broad that disputes about territory could not occur, as neither company was allowed to make settlements more than fifty miles beyond its own boundary. The idea of popular freedom was as yet the heritage of a favored few, and the political character of the first colonial charter, under which a permanent settlement was made within the territory of the United States, was unfavorable to the best interests of all. The king reserved to himself the right of appoint ing all officers, and of exercising all executive and legislative power. The colonists were to pay homage to the sovereign, and a tribute of one fifth of the net products of gold and silver found in Virginia ; yet they possessed no rights of self-government. They were to be governed by a council of seven appointed by the king, who were allowed to choose a president from among themselves. There was also a Supreme Council in England, appointed by the king, who had the general supervision of the colonies, under the direction of the monarch. That charter was the conception of a narrow mind, and despotic temper, and proved totally inadequate as a constitution of government for a free people. The North Virginia, or Plymouth Company, made the first attempt at set tlement, and failed. 8 The South Virginia, or London Company, sent Captain Christopher Newport, with three vessels and one hundred and five emigrants [Dec., 1606], to make a settlement upon Roanoke Island, 3 where Raleigh s colony had perished almost twenty years before. Among them was Bartholo mew Gosnold, the projector of the expedition. They possessed very poor materials for a colony. There was no family among them, and only "twelve laborers and a few mechanics." The remainder were " gentlemen," 4 many of whom were vicious, dissolute men, totally unfit for such an enterprise, and quite unworthy to be actors in the glorious events anticipated by Gosnold and his enlightened associates at home. The voyage was a long and tedious one. Newport pursued the old route by the Canaries and the West Indies, and did not arrive upon the American coast until April, 1607, when a storm drove his vessels into Chesapeake Bay, where he found a good harbor. He named the capes at the entrance, Charles and Henry, in honor of the king s sons. A pleasant point of the Virginia peninsula, between the York and James Rivers, which they next landed upon and enjoyed repose, he named Point Comfort ; and the noble Powhatan River which he soon afterward entered he called James. Sailing up the broad stream about fifty miles, the immigrants landed upon a beautiful, shaded peninsula, 5 where they chose a site for the capital of the new empire, and called it JAMESTOWN. 1 The chief members of the company were Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hak- luyt (the historian), and Edward Maria Wingfield, who was the first governor of Virginia. 2 Page 73. 3 Page 55. 4 This name was given to wealthy men, who were not engaged in any industrial pursuit, and often spent their lives in idleness and dissipation ; a class which, in our day and country, number, happily, very few. Labor is worthily honored as more noble than idleness. 5 This may be called an island, for the marsh which connects it with the mainland is often over flowed. The currents of the river have washed away large portions of the original island. 1619.] VIRGINIA. 65 111 feelings had been engendered before they reached the Canary Islands, and violent disputes had arisen during the long voyage. As the silly king had placed the names of the colonial council in a sealed box, with instructions not to open it until their arrival in Virginia, there was no competent authority on board to restore harmony. Captain Smith, 1 who was the most able man among them, excited the envy of his companions ; and being charged with a design to murder the council, usurp government, and proclaim himself king, he was placed in confinement. On opening the sealed box, it was discovered that Smith was one of the council. He was released from confinement; but, through the influence of Wingfield, an avaricious, unprincipled, but talented man, he was excluded from office. Smith demanded a trial upon the absurd charges. The accusation was withdrawn, and he took his seat in the council, over which Wingfield was chosen to preside. Soon after landing, Newport, Smith, and twenty others, ascended the James River to the Falls at Richmond, and visited the emperor of the Powhat- ans, 2 whose residence was a mile below the foot of the rapids. The title of the emperor was Powhatan, which signified supreme ruler, as did Pharaoh in the antient Egyptian language the chief man in Egypt. He was a man of great ability, and commanded the reverence of the whole confederation. He appeared friendly to the English, notwithstanding his people murmured at their presence ; and the visitors returned to Jamestown much gratified. Early in June, 1607, Newport sailed for England, to obtain more settlers and provisions. The little band of emigrants soon perceived the perils of their situation. A large portion of their provisions had been spoiled during the voyage. They had not planted, therefore they could not reap. The neighboring tribes evinced hostility, and withheld supplies. Poisonous vapor arose from the marshes ; and before the close of summer, one half of the adventurers per ished by disease and famine. Among the victims was Gosnold. The settlers, in their despair, reproached themselves and the leaders of the expedition, and longed to depart for the Old World. In the midst of their despondency, the survivors discovered that president Wingfield was living on choice stores, and was preparing to abandon the colony and escape to the West Indies in the pin nace 3 left by Newport. Their indignation was thoroughly aroused, and he was deposed. Ratclifie, a man as weak and wicked as Wingfield, was chosen his successor. He, too, was speedily dismissed ; and the settlers, with one con sent, wisely turned to Smith as ruler. It was a happy hour for the Virginia settlers when Captain Smith took the reins of government. All was confusion ; but he soon restored order ; and by his courage and energy, inspired the Indians with awe, and compelled them to bring him supplies of food. In October, wild game became plentiful ; and at the beginning of November, the abundant harvest of Indian corn was gathered 1 See portrait at the head of this Chapter. Smith was one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was born in Lincolnshire, England ; and after many adventures hi Europe, went to America. He died in 1631. He wrote a History of Virginia, and several other works. * Page 20. 9 A small, light vessel, with sails and oars, 5 66 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. by the natives, and they supplied the settlers with all they needed. Having established a degree of comfort and prosperity, Smith started, with some com panions, to explore the surrounding country. He ascended the Chickahomminy River fifty miles from its mouth, and then, with two companions, penetrated the vast forest that covered the land. His companions were slain by the na tives, and he was made a captive. After being exhibited in several villages, he was taken to Opechancanough, 1 the eldest brother of Powhatan, who, regarding Smith as a superior being, spared his life, and conducted him to the emperor, then at Weroworomoco, on the York River. 2 A solemn council decided that the captive must die, and Smith was prepared for execution. His head was placed upon a stone, and the heavy clubs of the executioners were raised to crush it, when Pocahontas, a child of "ten or twelve years," 3 the favorite POCAHONTAS. daughter of Powhatan, rushed from her father s side, and casting herself upon the captive, besought the king to spare his life. Powhatan consented, and Smith was conducted in safety to Jamestown by a guard of twelve men, after an absence of seven weeks. God, in his providence, overrules every thing for good. It is seen in this event, for Smith s captivity was a public benefit. He had acquired a knowl edge of the Indian character, and of the country and its resources, and also had formed friendly relations with the sachems and chiefs. Had his companions 1 Note 5, page 106. * At Shelly, nearly opposite the mouth of Queen s Creek, Gloucester County, Virginia. 3 Page 70. 1619.] VIRGINIA. 67 possessed half as much energy and honesty as Smith, all would have been well. But they were idle, improvident, and dissolute. As usual, he found every thing in disorder on his return from the forest. Only forty men were living, and a greater portion of them were on the point of escaping to the West Indies in the pinnace ; but the courage and energy of Smith compelled them to re main. Conscious of the purity of their ruler and the wickedness of themselves, they hated him intensely, and from that time they plotted for his destruction, or the overthrow of his power. Captain Newport arrived with supplies and one hundred and twenty im migrants, early in 1608. These were no better than the first adventurers. Instead of agriculturalists and mechanics, with families, they were idle "gentle men," "packed hither," as Smith said, "by their friends, to escape ill destin ies." There were also several unskillful goldsmiths, the very men least needed in the colony. Some glittering earth in the vicinity of Jamestown, was by them mistaken for gold ; and in spite of the remonstrances of Smith, the whole indus try of the colony was directed to the supposed treasure. " There was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, work gold, refine gold, load gold." Newport loaded his vessel with the worthless earth, and returned to England, believing himself exceedingly rich ; but science soon pronounced him miserably poor in useful knowledge and well-earned reputation. The gold-fever had taken strong hold upon the indolent dreamers, and Smith remonstrated against idleness and pleaded for industry, in vain. He implored the settlers to plow and sow, that they might reap and be happy. They refused to listen, and he turned from Jamestown with disgust. With a few sensible men, he went to explore the Chesapeake in an open boat, and every bay, inlet, and creek, received his attention. He went up the Potomac to the falls above Washington city ; and then, after exploring the shores of the Rappahannock to the site of Fredericsburg, he returned to Jamestown. A few days afterward he returned again to the Chesapeake, carefully explored each shore above the mouth of the Potomac, and entered the Patapsco, and ate Indian corn on the site of Baltimore. He also went up the Susquehannah to the beautiful vale of Wyoming, 1 and penetrated the forests even to the territory of the Five Nations, 2 and established friendly relations with the dusky tribes. Within three months he traveled full three thousand miles. It was one of the most wonderful of exploring expeditions, considered in all its aspects, ever re corded by the pen of history ; and the map of the country, which Smith con structed on his return, is yet in existence in England, and is remarkable for its general accuracy. Captain Smith returned to Jamestown on the 7th of September, 1608, and three days afterward he was formally made president of the settlement. New port arrived soon afterward, with seventy immigrants, among whom were two females, the first English women ever seen upon the James River. 3 To the soil they were compelled to look, chiefly, for their food, and Smith exerted all Page 290. a Page 23. fl Page 105. 68 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. his energies to turn the little industry of the settlers to agriculture. He suc ceeded, in a degree, but he had poor materials out of which to form a healthy, self-sustaining commonwealth. He wrote to the Supreme Council 1 to send over a different class of men. "I entreat you," he said, "rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers of trees roots, well provided, than a thousand such as we have." Yet, with all his exertions, idleness and improvidence prevailed. At the end of two years from the first landing at Jamestown, and when the settlement numbered two hundred strong men, not more than forty acres were under cultivation. To the Indians the white people were compelled to look for their chief supply of food. The London Company were disappointed, for the anticipations of sudden wealth, in which they had indulged, were not realized, and they sought and ob tained a new charter [June 2, 1609], which gave them more ample privileges. The territory of SOUTH VIRGINIA* was extended northward to the head of the Chesapeake. The Supreme Council was vested with power to fill vacancies in its own body, and to appoint a governor for Virginia, whose rule was made ab solute. The lives, liberties, and property of the settlers were at his disposal, and they were compelled to contribute a certain share of their earnings to the proprietors. Thus they were mere vassals at will, under a petty despotism, without any inherent power, then recognized, to cast off the yoke. Under that charter, Lord De la Warr (Delaware), an enlightened peer, was appointed governor of Virginia, for life, and soon afterward Newport sailed for America [June 12, 1609], with nine ships, and more than five hundred emigrants. 3 Sir Thomas Gates, the governor s deputy, embarked with New port, accompanied by Sir George Somers. Gates, Newport, and Somers, were commissioned to administer the government until the arrival of Delaware. When near the coast, a hurricane dispersed the fleet, and the vessel bearing the commissioners was wrecked on one of the Bermuda Islands. Seven vessels of the squadron reached the James River in safety. The colony would have been the gainer had these never arrived, for a greater portion of the new immigrants were more profligate, if possible, than the first. They were dissolute scions of wealthy families, and many of them came to avoid punishment for crimes at home. They regarded Virginia as a paradise for libertines, and believed the colony to be without a head until the arrival of the governor or his deputy. Smith, on the contrary, boldly asserted his authority as president, and main tained it until an accident in autumn compelled him to go to England for sur gical aid, 4 when he delegated his authority to George Percy, brother of the duke of Northumberland. When the idle and profligate settlers were released from the control of 1 Page 64. a Page 63. 3 Domestic animals were now first taken to Virginia. They consisted of six mares, one horse, six hundred swine, a few sheep and goats, and five hundred domestic fowls. Two years later one hundred cows and some other cattle were brought over. * While passing down the James River, in a boat, from the Falls, Smith s bag of powder ignited, and the explosion almost killed him. His wounds were so severe as to require the most skillful surgery. 1619.] VIRGINIA. 69 Smith, they gave themselves up to every irregularity of life. Their ample stock of provisions was rapidly consumed. The Indians had great respect for Smith, and were friendly while he remained, but after his departure, they openly showed their contempt for the English, withheld supplies of provisions, and conceived a plan for the total extermination of the white intruders. Fam ine ensued, and the winter and spring of 1610 were long remembered as " the starving time." Those who went to the cabins of the Indians, for food, were treacherously murdered ; and finally a plan was matured by the natives for striking a blow of utter extermination. Again. Pocahontas performed the part of a guardian angel. 1 On a dark and stormy night she hastened to Jamestown, revealed the plot, and was back to her couch before the dawn. Thus, she saved the colonists by placing them on their guard. Yet death hovered over them. The horrors of destitution increased, and the settlement which numbered five hundred persons when Smith left, was reduced to sixty within six months after his departure. The commissioners 2 finally arrived. They constructed a rude vessel upon the barren island where they were wrecked, and in it reached Virginia, in June, 1610. Instead of being greeted by a flourishing people, they were met by a mere remnant, almost famished. There appeared no way to obtain food, and Gates determined to sail immediately for Newfoundland, 3 and distribute the immigrants among the English fishing vessels there. James town was utterly abandoned, and toward Hampton Roads 4 the dejected settlers sailed in four pinnaces. Early the next morning white sails greeted their vision. Lord Delaware had arrived with provisions and immigrants ; and that very night, Jamestown, abandoned to pagans in the morning, was made vocal with hymns of thanksgiving to the true God, by the returned settlers. Governor Delaware was a virtuous and prudent man, and under his admin istration the colony began to prosper. Failing health compelled him to return to England the following spring [March, 1611] ; and he left the government in the hands of Percy, Smith s successor, who managed with prudence until the arrival of Sir Thomas Dale, with supplies. 5 Dale was an experienced soldier, and, assuming the government, he ruled by martial law. Early in September following, Sir Thomas Gates arrived with six well-furnished ships, and three hundred immigrants. With this arrival came hope for the colony. A large portion of the new settlers were sober, industrious men, and their arrival gave great joy to the four hundred colonists at Jamestown. Gates assumed the functions of governor, and Dale went up the river to plant new settlements at the mouth of the Appomattox and near the Falls. 6 And now a wise change in the domestic policy of the colony was made. Hitherto the land had been worked in common, and the product of labor was deposited in public storehouses, for the good of the community. The industrious created food for the indolent, and an incentive to effort was wanting. That incentive was necessary ; and it was found in the plan of making an assignment of a few acres of land to each 1 Page 66. a Page 68. 3 Page 47. 4 Note 3, page 297. 5 Dela\rare afterward sailed for Virginia, to resume the reins of government, but died on the voyage. 6 Near the present City Point, and Richmond. 70 SETTLEMENTS. [1607. man, to be cultivated for his own private benefit. This regulation gave a pow erful impulse to industry. Larger assignments were made, and soon the com munity system was abandoned, and industry on private account created an ample supply of food for all. 1 A third charter was obtained by the London Company, on the 22d of March, 1612, by which the control of the king was annulled. The Supreme Council was abolished, and the whole company, sitting as a demo cratic assembly, elected the officers, and ordained the laws, for the colony. Yet no political privilege was granted to the settlers. Their very exist ence as a body politic, was completely ignored. They had no voice in the choice of rulers and the enactment of laws. Yet they were contented ; and at the beginning of 1613 there were a thousand Englishmen in Virginia. At about this time an event occurred, which proved of permanent benefit to the settlement. Powhatan had continued to manifest hostile feelings ever since the departure of Smith. For the purpose of extorting advantageous terms of peace from the Indian king, Captain Argall (a sort of buccaneer), 2 bribed an Indian chief, with a copper kettle, to betray the trusting Pocahontas into his hands. She w r as induced to go on board his vessel, where she was detained as a prisoner for several months, until Powhatan ransomed her. In the mean while, a mutual attachment had grown up between the maiden and John Kolfe, a young En glishman of good family. He had instructed her in letters and religion ; and, with the consent of Powhatan, she received the rite of Christian baptism, and became the wife of Rolfe, in April, 1613. This union brought peace, and Powhatan was ever afterward the friend of the English. Prosperity now smiled upon the settlement, yet the elements of a perma nent State were wanting. There were no families in Virginia, and all the settlers indulged in anticipations of returning to England, which they regarded as home. Gates went thither in March, 1614, leaving the administration of government with Sir Thomas Dale, who ruled with wisdom and energy for about two years, and then departed, after appointing George Yeardley deputy- governor. During Yeardley "s administration, the culture of the tobacco plant 3 was promoted, and so rapidly did it gain in favor, that it soon became, not only the principal article of export, but the currency of the colony. And now [1617] Argall, the buccaneer, was appointed deputy-governor. He was a des pot in feelings and practice, and soon disgusted the people. He was succeeded by Yeardley, who was appointed governor in 1619 ; and then dawned the natal morning of Virginia as a Republican State. Yeardley abolished martial law, 1 A similar result was seen in the operations of the Plymouth colony. See page 116. 2 Note 7, page 58. 3 This plant, yet very extensively cultivated in Virginia and the adjoining States, was first discovered by Sir Francis Drake, near Tabaco, in Yucatan : hence its name. Drake and Raleigh first introduced it into England. King James conceived a great hatred of it, and wrote a treatise against its use. He forbade its cultivation in England, but could not prevent its importation from Virginia, It became a very profitable article of commerce, and the streets of Jamestown were planted with it. Other agricultural productions were neglected, and while cargoes of tobacco were preparing for England, the necessaries of life were wanting. The money value of tobacco was about sixty-six cents a pound. 1619.] NEW YORK. 71 released the planters from feudal service to the colony, 1 and established repre sentative government. 2 The settlement was divided into eleven boroughs, and two representatives, called burgesses, were chosen by the people for each. These, with the governor and council, constituted the colonial government. The burgesses were allowed to debate all matters pertaining to the good of the colony ; but their enactments were not legal until sanctioned by the company in England. The most important event of that year occurred on the 28th of June. On that day, the first representative assembly ever convened in Amer ica, met at Jamestown. Then and there, the foundations of the VIRGINIA commonwealth were laid. The people now began to regard Virginia as their home, and "fell to building houses and planting corn." Within two years afterward, one hundred and fifty reputable young women were sent over to become wives to the planters, 3 the tribe of gold-seekers and "gentlemen" was extinct, for " it was not the will of God that the new State should be formed of such material ; that such men should be the fathers of a progeny born on the American soil, who were one day to assert American liberty by their eloquence, and defend it by their valor." 4 CHAPTER II. NEW YORK [1609 1623]. IN a preceding chapter, 5 we have considered the discovery and exploration of the river, bearing his name, by Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch East India Company. On his return to England [Nov. 1609], he for warded to his employers in Amsterdam, 6 a brilliant account of his discoveries in America. Jealous of the maritime enterprise and growing power of the Dutch, the British king would not allow Hudson to go to Holland, fearing he might be employed in making further discoveries, or in planting settlements in America. This narrow and selfish policy of James was of no avail, for the ocean pathway to new and fertile regions, once opened, could easily be traversed by inferior navigators. This fact was soon demonstrated. In 1610, some wealthy mer chants of Amsterdam, directors of the Dutch East India Company, 7 sent a ship from the Texel, laden with merchandise, to traffic with the Indians upon the Mauritius, 8 as -the present Hudson River was then called. Hudson s ship (the Half -Moon?) was also sent hither the same year on a like errand ; and for three 1 Page 68. 2 Yeardley found the people possessed with an intense desire for that freedom which the English constitution gave to every subject of the realm, and it was impossible to reconcile that feel ing with the exercise of the arbitrary power which had hitherto prevailed. He, therefore, formed a plan for a popular assembly as similar to the English parliament as circumstances would allow. 3 Page 105. 4 Bancroft. Page 59. 6 Page 59. 7 Note 5, page 59. 8 So named, in honor of Prince Maurice, of Nassau. 9 Page 59. 72 SETTLEMENTS. [1609. years afterward, private enterprise dispatched many vessels from Holland, to traffic for furs and peltries. Among other commanders came the bold Adrian Block, the first navigator of the dangerous strait in the East River, called Hell-Giite. Block s vessel was accidentally burned in the autumn of 1613, when he and his companions erected some rude huts for shelter, near the site of the Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, New York, these huts formed the germ of our great commercial metropolis. During the ensuing winter they constructed a vessel from the fine timber which grew upon Manhattan Island, and early in the spring they sailed up Long Island Sound on a voyage of discovery which extended to Nahant. Block first discovered the Connecticut and Thames Rivers, and penetrated Narraganset Bay to the site of Provi dence. Intent upon gain, Dutch trading vessels now frequently ascended the Mau ritius, and a brisk trade in furs and peltries was opened with the Indian tribes, almost two hundred miles from the ocean. The traders built a fort and store house upon a little island just below Albany, in 1614, which they called Fort Nassau ; and nine years later, Fort Orange was erected near the river, a little south of the foot of the present State-street, in Albany, on the site of Albany. There is a doubt about a fort being erected on the southern extremity of Man hattan Island, at this time, as some chroniclers have asserted. It is probable the trading-house erected there was palisaded, as a precautionary measure, for they could not well determine the disposition of the Indians. On the llth of October, 1614, a special charter was granted to a company of Amsterdam merchants, giving them the monopoly of trade in the New "World, from the latitude of Cape May to that of Nova Scotia, for three years. The territory was named NEW NETHERLAND, in the charter, which title it held until it became an English province in 1664. Notwithstanding it was included in the grant of James to the Plymouth company, 2 no territorial jurisdiction being claimed, and no English settlements having been made northward of Richmond, in Virginia, the Dutch were not disturbed in their traffic. The popular story, that Argall entered the Bay of New York on his return from Acadie in 1613, and made the Dutch traders promptly surrender the place to the English crown, seems unsusceptible of proof. 3 Success attended the Dutch from the beginning. The trade in furs and peltries became very lucrative, and the company made an unsuccessful applica tion for a renewal of their charter. More extensive operations were in contem plation; and on the 3d of June, 1621, the States General of Holland 4 incorporated the Dutch West India Company, and invested it with almost regal powers, for planting settlements in America from Cape Horn to New foundland ; and in Africa, between the Cape of Good Hope and the Tropic of Cancer, The special object of its enterprise was New Netherland, and espe cially the region of the Mauritius. 5 The company was not completely organized 1 Page 144. 2 Page 63. 3 See Brodhead s " History of the State of New York," Appendix E, where the matter is dis cussed at some length. * Note 7, page 59. 5 Page 71. 1620.] MASSACHUSETTS. 73 until the spring of 1623, when it commenced operations with vigor. Its first efforts were to plant a permanent colony, and thus establish a plausible pretext for territorial jurisdiction, for now the English had built rude cabins on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. 1 In April, 1623, thirty families, chiefly Wal loons (French Protestants who had fled to Holland), arrived at Manhattan, under the charge of Cornelius Jacobsen May, who was sent to reside in New Netherland, as first director, or governor. Eight of the fam ilies went up the Mauritius or Hudson River, and settled at Albany ; the remainder chose their place of abode across the channel of the East River, and settled upon lands now cov ered by the eastern portions of Brooklyn, and the Navy Yard. 2 Then were planted the fruitful seeds of a Dutch colony then were laid the foundations of the future com monwealth of NEW YoRK. 3 The territory was erected into a province and the armorial distinction of a count was granted. 4 SEAL OF NEW NETH ERLAND. CHAPTER III. MASSACHUSETTS [16061620]. SOON after obtaining their charter, in 1606, the PLYMOUTH COMPANY* dispatched an agent in a small vessel, with two captive Indians, to examine North Virginia. This vessel was captured by a Spanish cruiser. Another ves sel, fitted out at the sole expense of Sir John Popham, and commanded by Martin Pring, was sent, and reached America. Pring confirmed the accounts of Gosnold and others, 6 concerning the beauty and fertility of the New England region. The following year [1607], George Popham 7 came, with one hundred immigrants, and landing at the mouth of the Sagadahoc or Kennebec [August 21], they erected there a small stockade, a storehouse, and a few huts. All but forty-five returned to England in the vessels ; those remained, and named their settlement St. George. A terrible winter ensued. Fire consumed their store-house and some of their provisions, and the keen frosts and deep snows 1 Page 78. a The first white child born in New Netherland was Sarah Rapelje, daughter of one of the "Walloon settlers. Her birth occurred on the 7th of June, 1625. She has a number of descendants on Long Island. 3 Page 144. 4 Several hundred years ago, there were large districts of country in England, and on the con tinent, governed by Earls, who were subject to the crown, however. These districts were called counties, and the name is still retained, even in the United States, and indicates certain judicial and other jurisdiction. New Netherland was constituted a county of Holland, having all the individual privileges appertaining to an earldom, or separate government. The armorial distinction of an earl, or count, was a kind of cap, called coronet, seen over the shield in the above engraved repre sentation of the seal of New Netherland. The figure of a beaver, on the shield, is emblematic of the Hudson River regions (where that animal then abounded), and of one of the grand objects of settlement there, the trade in furs. 6 Page 63. 6 Page 58. 7 Note 2, page 63. 74 SETTLEMENTS. [1606. locked the waters and the forests against the fisherman and hunter. Famine menaced them, but relief came before any were made victims. Of all the com pany, only Popham, their president, died. Lacking courage to brave the perils of the wilderness, the settlement was abandoned, and the immigrants went back to Englatid [1608] at the very time when the Frenchmen, who were to build Quebec, 1 were upon the ocean. Traffic with the Indian tribes was continued, i3ut settlements were not again attempted for several years. 2 Only the coast of the extensive country was seen by the several navigators who visited it. The vast interior, now called NEW ENGLAND, was an unknown land, until Captain John Smith, with the mind of a philosopher and the courage of a hero, came, in 1614, and explored, not only the shores but the rivers which penetrated the wilderness. Only himself and four London merchants had an interest in the expedition, which proved highly successful, not only in discoveries, but in trade. With only eight men, Smith examined the region between Cape Cod and the Penobscot, constructed a map of the country, and after an absence of less than seven months, he returned to England, and laid a report before Prince Charles (afterward the unfortunate king who lost his head), the heir apparent to the throne. The prince, delighted with the whole account, confirmed the title which Smith had given to the territory delineated on the map, and it was named NEW ENGLAND. Crime, as usual, dimmed the luster of the discovery. Hunt, commander of one of the vessels of the expedition, kidnapped twenty-seven of the Indians, with Squanto, 3 their chief, as soon as Smith had departed, took them to Spain and sold some of them into slavery.* And now, at various points from Florida to Newfoundland, men-stealers of dif ferent nations, had planted the seeds of hatred and distrust, 5 whose fruits, in after years were wars, and complicated troubles. At the close of 1614, the Plymouth company employed Smith to make farther explorations in America and to plant a colony. He sailed in the spring of 1615, but was driven back by a tempest. He sailed again on the 4th of July following. His crew became mutinous, and finally his vessel was cap tured by a French pirate, and they were all taken to France. Smith escaped to England, in an open boat, and arousing the sluggish energies of the Ply mouth company and others, they planned vast schemes of colonization, and he was made admiral for life. Eager for gains, some of the members, joining with others, applied for a new charter. It was withheld for a long time. Finally, the king granted a charter [November 3, 1620] to forty of the wealth iest and most powerful men in the realm, who assumed the corporate title of THE COUNCIL OF PLYMOUTH, and superseded the original PLYMOUTH COMPANY. 6 The vast domain of more than a million of square miles, lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and westward to the South Sea, 7 1 Page 49. a The celebrated Lord Bacon, and others, fitted out an expedition to Newfoundland in 1610, but it was unsuccessful. 3 Page 114. 4 When some benevolent friars heard of Hunt s intentions, they took all of the Indians not yet sold, to instruct them as missionaries. Among them was Squanto. 5 See pages 42 and 49. 6 Page 63. * p a ge 42. 1620.] MASSACHUSETTS. 75 was conveyed to them, as absolute owners of the soil. It was the finest portion of the Continent, and now embraces the most flourishing States and Territories of our confederacy. This vast monopoly was uupropitious, in all its elements, to the founding of an empire. It was not the will of God that mere speculators and mercenary adventurers like these should people this broad land, The same year when that great commercial monopoly was formed [1620], a company of devout men and women in Holland, who had been driven from England by a persecuting government, came to the wilderness of the New World, not to seek gold and return, but to erect a tabernacle, where they might worship the Great God in honest simplicity and freedom, and to plant in the wilderness the found ation of a commonwealth, based upon truth and justice. Who were they? Let History answer. Because the pope of Rome would not sanction an important measure desired by a greater part of the people, King Henry the Eighth of England defied the authority of the head of the Church, and, by the Act of Supremacy* Parliament also cast off the papal yoke. Yet religious freedom for the people was not a consequence, for the king was virtually pope of Great Britain. Heresy was a high crime ; and expressions of freedom of thought and opinion were not tolerated. The doctrines and rituals of the Romish church were enforced, while the authority of the pope was denied. The people discovered that in exchanging spiritual masters, they had gained nothing, except that the thunders of excommunication 3 had lost their effect upon the public mind, and thus one step toward emancipation was gained. Henry s son, Edward, estab lished a more liberal Protestantism in England [1547], and soon the followers of Luther and Calvin 4 drew the tangible line of doctrinal difference which existed between them. The former retained or allowed m my of the ceremonials of the church of Rome ; the latter wore more austere, and demanded extreme simplicity in worship, and great purity of life. For this they were called PURITANS, in derision ; a name which soon became honorable. When Parliament established a liturgy for the church, the Puritans refused conformity, for they acknowledged no authority but the Bible in matters of religion. They became a distinct and influential party in the State [1550], and were specially commended by the con- ^ PURITAN- tinental reformers. 1 The people, whose proclivities were toward Protestantism, deprecated the influence of the queen (Catharine of Arragon), who was a zealous Roman Catholic, and desired her divorce from the monarch. The king was very willing 1 , for he wished to marry the beautiful Anne Boleyu. Pope Julius the Third refused to sanction a divorce, when the king, on whom had been conferred the title of " Defender of the Faith. quarreled with the pontiff, and professed Protestantism. 2 An Act of Parliament, adopted in 1534, which declared the king of England the superior head of the Church in that realm, and made Protestantism the established religion of England. 3 The Pope of Rome assumes the right to excommunicate, or expel from Christian communion, whomsoever he pleases. In former times, even kings were not exempt. An excommunicated person lost social caste ; and for centuries this was an iron rod in the hand of ecclesiastics to keep the people in submission to spiritual authority. Happily for mankind, this species of despotism has lost its power, and commands the obedience of only the ignorant and enslaved, 4 See note 14, page 62. Calvin was the leading French Reformer. 76 SETTLEMENTS. [1606. Romanism was re-established in England in 1553, by Mary, the daughter and successor of Henry the Eighth, who was a bigoted persecutor of Protestants of every name. Lutherans and Calvinists were equally in peril. The fires of persecution were lighted, and the first Protestant martyrs were consumed at the stake. 1 Her reign was short, and she is known in history as the bloody Mary. She was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, in 1558, who was a professed Protestant, and the flames were extinguished. Elizabeth was no Puritan. She endeavored to reconcile the magnificent rituals of the Romish Church with the simple requisitions of the gospel. There was no affinity, and trouble ensued. The Puritans, struggling for power, asserted, in all its grandeur, the doctrine of private judgment in religious matters, and of untrammeled religious liberty. From this high position, it was but a step to the broad rock of civil freedom. The Puritan pulpits became the tribunes of the common people, and the preachers often promulgated the doctrine, that the sovereign was amenable to public opinion when fairly expressed. This was the very essence of demo cratic doctrine, and evinced a boldness hitherto unparalleled. The jealousy and the fears of the queen were aroused ; and after several years of effort, the Thirty-nine Articles of belief, which constitute the rule of faith in the Church of England, were confirmed [1571] by an Act of Parliament. And now bigotry in power began its wicked work. In 1583, a court of high commission was established, for the detection and punishment of Non- Conformists, 2 with powers almost as absolute as the Roman Inquisition. Per secution began its work in earnest, and continued active for twenty years. The Puritans looked to the accession of James of Scotland, which took place in 1604, 3 with hope, but were disappointed. He was the most contemptible mon arch that ever disgraced the chair of supreme government in England. A brilliant English writer 4 says, " He was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the most conceited man on earth." The pure in heart could expect no consideration from such a man. When he was fairly seated on the English throne, he said of the Puritans, " I will make them conform or I will harrie them out of the land." There were then more than thirty thousand of them in England. During the first year of James s reign, three hundred of their ministers were silenced, imprisoned, or exiled. The long struggle of the established church with the Roman Catholics on one hand, and the Puritans on the other, was now decided. It had been a struggle of three quarters of a century, not so much for toleration as for supremacy ; and the Church of England was the final victor. During these trials, England lost some of her best men. Among the devout ones who fled 1 John Rogers, a pious minister, and John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, were the first who suffered. 2 This was the title of all those Protestants in England who refused to conform to the doctrines and ceremonials of the Established Church. This name was first given in 1572. Ninety years afterward [1662], 2,000 ministers of the Established Church, unwilling to subscribe to the Thirty- nine Articles, seceded, and were called Dissenters ; a name yet applied to all British Protestants who are not attached to the Church of England. 3 See note 1, page 63. 4 Charles Dickens. 1620.] MASSACHUSETTS. 77 from persecution, was the Reverend John Robinson, pastor of a flock gathered in the northern counties. Informed that there Was " freedom of religion for all men in Holland," he fled thither, with his people, in 1608, and established a church at Ley den. They were soon joined by others from their native country. Their purity of life and lofty independence commanded the admiration of the Dutch ; and their loyalty to the country from which they had been driven, was respected as a noble virtue. There they learned many of those sound political maxims which lie at the foundation of our own government ; for there those principles of civil liberty, which lay almost dormant in theory, in England, were found in daily practice. At Leyden, the English exiles were charmed by the narratives of the Dutch voyagers to America. They felt that they had now no home, no abiding place that they were only PILGRIMS and they resolved to go to the New World, far away from persecutions, where they might establish a colony, with religious freedom for its basis. A deputation went to England in 161 7, l and through the influence of powerful friends, 2 obtained the consent of the Plymouth Company to settle in North Virginia, 3 and also a promise from the king that he would wink at their heresy, and let them alone in their new home. They asked no more. Some London merchants formed a partnership with them, and furnished capital for the expedition. 4 Captain John Smith, the founder of Virginia and explorer of New En gland, offered his services, but on account of his aristocratic notions, they were declined. Two ships (Speedwell and May-Flower) were pur chased and furnished, 5 and in the summer of 1620, a portion of the Pilgrims in Holland "the youngest and strongest" embarked from Delft- Haven for England. 6 Robinson and the larger portion of his flock remained at Leyden till a more MAY-FLOWER. convenient season, 7 and elder Brewster accompanied the voyagers as their spiritual guide. The two ships left Southampton, in England, on the 5th of August, 1620. The courage of the captain and company of the Speedwell failed, and the vessels put back to port. The sails, of the May-Flower were again spread, in the harbor of Plymouth, on the 6th 1 John Carver and Robert Cushman. a Sir Edward Sandys [page 105] was one of their chief advocates in England. 8 Page 63. 4 The services of each emigrant were valued as a capital of ten pounds, and belonged to the company. All profits were to be reserved till the end of seven years, when all the lands, houses, and every production of their joint industry, were to be valued, and the amount divided among the shareholders, according to their respective interests. This was a community of interest, similar, in character, to those which have been proposed and attempted in our day, under the respective titles of Communism, Fourierism, and Socialism. It failed to accomplish its intended purpose, and was abandoned. 6 The Speedwell was a vessel of 60 tons; the May-Flower of 180 tons. 8 See engraving on page 104. This is a copy of a picture of The Embarkation of the Pilgrim^ in the Rotunda of the National Capitol, painted by Professor Robert W. Weir, of the Military Academy, at "West Point, New York. 7 Mr. Robinson was never permitted to see America. Notes 3, aiid 5, page 116. 78 SETTLEMENTS. [1606. of September, and forty-one men, most of them with families 1 (one hundred and ne in all) the winnowed remnant of the PILGRIMS who left Delft-Haven crossed the stormy Atlantic. These were they who came to the New World to enjoy liberty of conscience and freedom of action, and to lay, broad and deep, a portion of the foundations of our happy Republic. After a boisterous passage of sixty-three days, thee May-Flower anchored within Cape Cod. 2 Before proceeding to the shore, the PILGRIMS agreed upon a form of government, and committed it to writing. 3 To that jrs constitution of government ever sub scribed by a whole people, the forty-one men affixed their names, and then elected John Carver to be their governor. 4 In the cabin of the May-Flower the first republican government in America was solemnly inaugurated. That vessel thus became truly the cradle of liberty in America, rocked on the free waves <?f the ocean. The May-Flower was tossed about on the ocean for two long months, and the approach to land was a joyful event for the settlers. Exploring parties were sent out, 5 and after many hardships, they selected a place for landing. It was on the 22d day of December, 1620, that the PILGRIM FATHERS first set foot upon a bare rock on the bleak coast of Massachusetts Bay, while all around, the earth was covered with deep snow. 6 They called the landing-place 1 The following are their names : John Carver, "William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaac Allerton, Captain Miles Standish, John Alden, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin, William Mullms, William White, Richard Warren, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Tilly, John Tilly, Peter Brown, Richard Britteridge, George Soule, Richard Clark, Richard Gardiner, Francis Cook, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Ridgdale, Edward Fuller, John Turner, Fran cis Eaton, James Chilton, John Crackston, John Billington, Moses Fletcher, John Goodman, Degory Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert Winslow, Edward Margeson, John Allerton, Thomas English, Ed ward Dotey, Edward Leister. Howland was Carver s servant ; Soule was Winslow s servant ; and Dotey and Leister were servants of Hopkins. 8 The foolish statement has often been made, that the PILGRIMS intended to land at Manhattan Island (New York), but the commander of the May-Flower, having been bribed by the Dutch to do so, landed them further east beyond the Dutch possessions. The story is a fable. Coppin, the pilot, had been on the coast of New England before, and, in navigating the May-Flower, he only followed his old track. . 3 The following is a copy of the instrument: "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, king James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony ; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the llth of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland, the Eighteenth, and of Scotland the Fifty -fourth. Anno Domini, 1620." 4 John Carver was born in England, went with Robinson to Holland, and on the 3d of April, 1621, while governor of the Plymouth colony, he died. 6 Their leader was Miles Standish, a brave soldier, who had served in the Netherlands. He was very active in the colony as military commander-in-chief, in both fighting and treating with the Indians, and is called "The Hero of New England." He was a magistrate many years, and died at Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 1656. 6 While the explorers were searching for a landing-place, the wife of William White, a bride but a short time before leaving Holland, gave birth to a son, "the first Englishman born in New En gland." They named him Peregrine, and the cradle in which lie was rocked is yet preserved. He died in Marshfield in 1704. Drawn try H."L. Stevei Eng d by Augustus Robm,NY F <B 3680.] NEW HAMPSHIRE. 79 New Plymouth, and there a flourishing village is now spread out. 1 Dreary, indeed, was the prospect before them. Exposure and priva tions had prostrated one half of the men before the first blow of the axe had been struck to erect a habitation. Faith and hope nerved the arms of the healthy, and they began to build. One by one perished. The governor and his wife died on the 3d of April, 1621 ; and on the first of that month, forty- six of the one hundred immigrants were in their graves. Nine- f, ,, . ,, ^ , ., , . A , ,. GOV. CARVER S teen of these were signers to the Constitution. At one time C HAra. 2 only seven men were capable of assisting the sick. Fortun ately, the neighboring tribes, weakened by a pestilence, 3 did not molest them. Spring and summer came. Game became plenty in the forest, and they caught many fishes from the waters. They sowed and reaped, and soon friends from England joined them. 4 The settlement, begun with so much sorrow and sufier- ing, became permanent, and then and there the foundations of the common wealth of MASSACHUSETTS were laid. CHAPTER IV. NEW HAMPSHIRE. [1622-1680.] THE enterprising Sir Fernando Gorges, who, for many years, had been engaged in traffic with the Indians on the New England coast, projected a set tlement further eastward than Plymouth, and for that purpose became associ ated with John Mason, a merchant, afterward a naval commander, and always "a man of action." Mason was secretary to the Plymouth Council, for New England, 5 and was well acquainted with all matters pertaining to settlements in the New World. Gorges and Mason obtained a grant of land in 1622, extend ing from the Merrimac to the Kennebec, and inland to the St. Lawrence. They named the territory LACONIA. Mason had obtained a grant the previous year, extending from Salem to the mouth of the Merrimac, which he had named MARIANA. The same year, a colony of fishermen, under David Thompson, seated themselves at Little Harbor, on the Piscataqua Eiver, just below Ports mouth. Another party, under two brothers named Hilton, London fishmong ers, commenced a settlement, in 1623, a few miles above, at Dover ; but these were only fishing stations, and did not flourish. " Plymouth Rock" is famous. It is now [186*7] in two pieces. One part remains in its orig inal position at Hedge s Wharf; Plymouth; the other is in the center of the town, surrounded by an iron railing. It was dragged thither, in 1774, by twenty yoke of oxen, and over it the Whigs [note 4, page 226] erected a liberty-pole. 2 This was the throne upon which sat the first Christian monarch of New England. Governor Carver was at the head of a new State, and, as chief magistrate, held the same relative position as king James of England, whose seat was richly ornamented and covered with a canopy of silk and gold. 3 Page 114. 4 Page 115. 6 Page 74 80 SETTLEMENTS. [1634. In the year 1629, the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright (a brother-in-law of the cele brated Anne Hutchinson, who was banished from the Massachusetts colony on a charge of sedition, in 1637) purchased from the Indians the wilderness be tween the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and founded Exeter. The same year Mason obtained from Gorges exclusive ownership of that same portion of LA- CONIA. He named the domain NEW HAMPSHIRE, and in 1631 built a house upon the site of Portsmouth, the name which he gave to the spot. 1 Other set tlements upon the Piscataqua, and along the present coast of Maine, as far as Portland, were attempted. At the latter place a company had a grant of land forty miles square, and formed an agricultural settlement in 1631, called LiGONiA. 3 Pemaquid Point was another settlement, which remained an inde pendent community for almost forty years. Trading houses were established as far east as Machias, but they were broken up by the French, and the west ern limits of Acadie were fixed at Pemaquid Point, about half way from the Penobscot to the Kennebec. The several feeble and scattered settlements in New Hampshire formed a coalition with the flourishing Massachusetts colony in 1641, and remained dependencies of that province until 1680, when they were separated by order of the king, and New Hampshire became a royal prov ince. Its first government consisted of a governor and council appointed by the king, and a house of representatives elected by the people. Then was founded the commonwealth of NEW HAMPSHIRE. CHAPTER V. MARYLAND. [1634.] A LARGE portion of the American colonies were the fruitful growth of the seeds of civil liberty, wafted hither by the fierce gales of oppression in some 1 Mason had been governor of Portsmouth, in Hampshire County, England, and these names were given in memory of his former residence. 2 The people of these eastern settlements, which formed the basis of the present commonwealth of MAINE, did not like the government attempted to be established by the proprietor, and, taking political power into their own hands, placed themselves under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in 1652. The territory was erected into a county, and called Yorkshire. In 1621, king James, as sovereign of Scotland, placed the Scottish seal to a charter granting to Sir William Alexander, after ward [1633] earl of Stirling, the whole territory eastward of the State of Maine, under the title of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. The French had already occupied places along the coast, and called the country Acadie. The Scotch proprietor never attempted settlements, either in this territory or in Canada which Charles the First had granted to him, and the whole country had passed into the hands of the French, by treaty. The earl died in 1640, and all connection of his family with Nova Scotia ceased. His title was held afterward by four successors, the last of whom died in 1739. In 1759, William Alexander (General Lord Stirling during our War for Independence) made an unsuccessful claim to the title. The next claimant was Alexander Humphrey, who commenced operations in the Scottish courts in 1815, and by forgeries and frauds was partially successful. The whole was exposed in 1833. Humphrey was in this country in 1852, pressing his claims to the monopoly of the Eastern Fisheries, by virtue of the grants of kings James and Charles more than two hundred years agol 1634.] MARYLAND. 81 form. Maryland, occupying a space between North and South Virginia, 1 was first settled by persecuted Roman Catholics from England and Ireland. While king James worried the Puritans on one hand, for non-conformity, 2 the Roman Catholics, at the other end of the religious scale, were subjected to even more severe penalties. As the Puritans increased in numbers and influence, their cry against the Roman Catholics grew louder and fiercer ; and, while defend ing themselves from persecution with one hand, they were inflicting as severe & lash upon the Romanists with the other. Thus subjected to twofold opposition, the condition of the Roman Catholics became deplorable, and, in common with other sufferers for opinion s sake, their eyes were turned toward free America. Among the most influential professors of Catholicism was George Calvert, an active member of the London Company, 3 and Secretary of State at the time when the PILGRIMS* were preparing to emigrate to America. He was so much more loyal in action to his sovereign than to his faith, that he did not lose the king s favor, although frankly professing to be a Roman Catholic ; and for his services he was created an Irish peer in 1625 ; with the title of Lord Baltimore. He also obtained from James, a grant [1622] to plant a Roman Catholic colony on a portion of Newfoundland. He called the territory AVALON, but his scheme was not successful. The barren soil, and French aggressors from Acadie, were too much for the industry and courage of his colonists, and the settlement was abandoned. Foiled in his projects in the east, Lord Baltimore went to Virginia in 1628, with a view of establishing a colony of his brethren there. But he found the Virginians as intolerant as the crown or the Puritans, and he turned his back upon their narrow prejudices, and went to examine the beautiful, unoccupied region beyond the Potomac. He was pleased with the country, and applied for a charter to establish a colony there. The London Company was now dis solved, 5 and the soil had become the property of the monarch. King Charles the First, then on the throne, readily granted a charter, but before it was com pleted, Lord Baltimore died. This event occurred on the 25th of April, 1632, and on the 20th of June following, the patent was issued to Cecil, his son and heir. In honor of the queen, Henrietta Maria, 6 the province was called MARYLAND. The territory de fined in the charter extended along each side of Chesapeake Bay, from the 30th to the 40th degree of north latitude, its western line being the waters of the Potomac. It is believed that the Maryland charter was drawn by the first Lord Baltimore s own hand. It was the most liberal one yet granted by an English monarch, both in respect of the proprietor and the settlers. The government of the province was inde- CECIL SECOND LORD BALTIMORE 1 Page 63. a Note 2, page 76. 3 Page 63. 4 Page 77. 8 She was a Eoman Catholic, and sister of Louis the Thirteenth of France. Page 107 82 SETTLEMENTS. [1632. pendent of the crown, and equality in religious rights and civil freedom was secured to every Christian sect. Unitarians, or those who denied the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as all unbelievers in Divine revelation, were not covered by this mantle of toleration. The king had no power to levy the smallest tax upon the colonists, and all laws were invalid until sanctioned by a majority of the freemen, or their deputies. Under such a wise and liberal charter the colony, when planted, flourished remarkably, for those persecuted by the Puritans in New England, and the Churchmen in Virginia, there sought refuge, and found peace. Emigration to Maryland commenced in 1633. The first company, mostly Protestants, sailed for America on the 2d of December of that year, under Leonard Calvort, brother of the proprietor, and appointed governor of the province. They arrived in March, 1634, and after sailing up the Potomac, as far as Mount Yernon, they descended the stream, almost to its mouth. They landed upon an estuary of the Chesapeake, purchased an Indian village, and laid the foundation of a town [April, 1634], which they named St. Mary. 1 The honesty of Calvert, in paying for the land, secured the good will of the Indians ; and, unlike the first settlers of most of the other colonies, they experi enced no sufferings from want, or the hostilities of the Aboriginals. Popular government was first organized in Maryland on the 8th of March, 1635, when the first legislative assembly was convened at St. Mary. Every freeman being allowed to vote, it was a purely democratic legislature. As the number of colonists increased, this method of making laws was found to be in convenient, and in 1639, a representative government was established, the people being allowed to send as many delegates as they pleased. The first rep resentative assembly made a declaration of rights, defined the powers of the proprietor, and took measures to secure to the colonists all the civil liberties enjoyed by the people of Old England. Then was founded the commonwealth of MARYLAND. CHAPTER VI. CONNECTICUT. [1632 1639.] ADRIAN BLOCK, 2 the Dutch navigator, discovered and explored the Con necticut River, as far as the site of Hartford, in 1614, and named it Versche, 1 Trading posts were established a little earlier than this, within the Maryland province. In 1631, William Clayborne obtained a license from the king to traffic with the Indians; and when Calvert and his company came, he had two settlements, one on Kent Island, nearly opposite An napolis, and another at the present Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehannah. He refused to acknowledge the authority of Baltimore, and trouble ensued. He collected his people on the eastern shore of Maryland in 1635, with a determination to defend his claims by force of arms; and in May quite a severe skirmish ensued between his forces and those of the colonists. Clayborne s men were taken prisoners, and he fled to Virginia. He was declared guilty of treason, and sent to England for trial. His estates were forfeited ; but, being acquitted of the charge, he returned to Maryland and incited a rebellion. See page 151. a Page 72. EMTrtH -TKW TO CONXECTTCUT. 1639.] CONNECTICUT. 85 or Fresh Water River. 1 Soon afterward Dutch traders were upon its banks, and might have carried on a peaceful and profitable traffic with the Indians, had honor and honesty marked their course. But the avaricious agent of the Dutch, imprisoned an Indian chief on board his vessel, and would not release him until one hundred and forty fathoms of wampum 2 had been paid. The exasperated Indians menaced the traders, and near the site of Hartford, at a place yet known as Dutch Point, the latter commenced the erection of a fort. The Indians were finally conciliated, and, at their request, the fort was abandoned for awhile. A friendly intercourse was opened between the Dutch of New Netherland and the Puritans in 162 T. 3 With the guise of friendship, but really for the purpose of strengthening the claims of the Dutch to the Connecticut valley, by having an English settlement there under the jurisdiction of New Netherland, Governor Minuit 4 advised the Puritans to leave the barren land of Massachusetts Bay, and settle in the fertile region of the Fresh Water River. In 1631, a Mohegan chief, then at war with the powerful Pequods, 5 desirous of having a strong barrier between himself and his foes, urged the English to come and settle in the Connecticut valley. The Puritans clearly perceived the selfish policy of both parties,- and hesitated to leave. The following year [1632], however, Governor Winslow, of the Plymouth colony, 6 visited that fertile region, and, delighted with its appearance, resolved to promote emigration thither. In the mean while, the Council of Plymouth 7 had granted the soil of Connecticut [1630] to the Earl of Warwicke, who, in 1631, transferred his interest to Lord Say-and-Seal, Lord Brooke, John Hampden, and others. The eastern bound ary of the territory was " Narraganset River," and the western (like all other charters at that time) was the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. 8 The Dutch became apprised of these movements of the English ; and perceiving no advan tage (but detriment) to themselves, they purchased of the Indians the land at Hartford and vicinity, completed their fort, and placed two cannons upon it, in 1633, with the intention of preventing the English ascending the river. Although the Plymouth people were aware of the preparations made by the Dutch, to defend their claim, they did not hesitate, and in October, 1633, Captain William Holmes and a chosen company arrived in the Connecticut River, in a sloop. Holmes bore a commission from Governor Winslow to make a settlement, and brought with him the frame of a house. When he approached the Dutch fort, the commander menaced him with destruction if he attempted to pass it. Holmes was not intimidated, and sailing by unhurt, he landed at the site of Windsor, and there erected his house. v Seventy men were sent by the Dutch the following year, to drive him from the country. They were kept at bay, and finally a parley resulted in peaceful relations. 9 Holmes s colony flourished, and in the autumn of 1635, a party of sixty men, women, and chil dren, from the Puritan settlements, commenced a journey through the wilder- 1 Connecticut is the English orthography of the Indian word Quon-eh-ta-cut, which signifies "the long river." 2 Probably about four hundred dollars. See note 2, page 13. 3 Page 75. 4 Page 139. 5 Page 21. 6 Page 79. * Page 74* 8 Page 42. 9 See note 2, page 142. 8Q SETTLEMENTS. [1632. ness [Oct. 25] to join him. With their cattle, 1 they made their slow and dreary way a hundred miles through dark forests and dismal swamps ; and when they arrived upon the banks of the Connecticut [Nov. 25], the ground was covered with deep snow, and the river was frozen. It was a winter of great trial for them. Many cattle perished. 2 A vessel bearing food for the colony was lost on the coast, and the settlers were compelled to subsist upon acorns, and scanty supplies of Indian corn from the natives. Many of them made their way to the fort, then just erected at Saybrook, near the mouth of the river, and returned to Boston by water. Spring opened, and the necessities of those who remained were supplied. They erected a small house for worship on the site of Hartford, and in April, 1686, the first court, or organized government was held there. At about the time when this company departed, a son of Governor Winthrop, 3 of Massachusetts, Hugh Peters, and Henry Vane, arrived at Boston from England, as com- FIKST MEETING-HOUSE, niissioners for the proprietors of Connecticut, with instruc tions to build a fort at the mouth of the river of that name, and to plant a colony there. The fort was speedily built, and the settlement was named Saybrook, in honor of the two peers named in the charter. 4 Another migration of Puritans to the Connecticut valley, more important, and with better results, \iow took place. In June, 1636, Rev. Thomas Hooker, the " light of the western churches," 5 with other ministers, their families, and flocks, in all about one hundred, left the vicinity of Boston for the new land of promise. It was a toilsome journey through the swamps and forests. They subsisted upon berries and the milk of their cows which they took with them, .and on the 4th of July, they stood upon the beautiful banks of the Connecticut. On the 9th, Mr. Hooker preached and administered the communion in the little meeting-house at Hartford, and there a great portion of the company settled. Some chose Wethersfield for a residence ; and others, from Roxbury, went up the river twenty miles, and settled at Springfield. There were now five dis tinct English settlements upon the Connecticut River, yet they were scattered and weak. Clouds soon appeared in the morning sky, and the settlers in the Connecti cut valley perceived the gathering of a fearful storm. The powerful Pequod Indians became jealous of the white people, because they appeared to be the friends of their enemies, the Mohegans on the west, and of their more powerful foes, the Narragansetts, on the east. They first commenced petty annoyances ; then kidnapped children, murdered men in the forests, and attacked families on 1 This was the first introduction of cattle into Connecticut. 3 The loss in cattle was estimated at about one thousand dollars. 3 Page 117. * Page 85. 5 Thomas Hooker was a native of Leicestershire, England, where he was born in 1586. He was silenced, because of his non-conformity, in 1630, when he left the ministry, and founded a grammar school at Cambridge. He was compelled to flee to Holland, from whence he came to America with Mr. Cotton, in 1633. He was a man of great benevolence, and was eminently use- faL He died in July, 1647, at the age of sixty-one years. 6 Page 21. 1639.] CONNECTICUT. 8T the outskirts of the settlement at Saybrook. Their allies of Block Island 1 cap tured a Massachusetts trading vessel, killed the captain 2 [July, 1636], and plundered her. The Puritans in the east were alarmed and indignant, and an inefficient expedition from Boston and vicinity penetrated the Pequod country. It did more harm than good, for it resulted only in increasing the hatred and hostility of the savages. The Pequods became bolder, and finally sought an alliance with their enemies, the Narragansetts, in an effort to exterminate the white people. At this critical moment a deliverer appeared when least expected. Roger Williams, who for his tolerant opinions had been banished from Massachusetts, 3 was now a friendly resident in the country of the Narragan- setts, and heard of the proposed alliance. Forgetting the many injuries he had received, he warned the doomed people of the Bay colony, of impending danger. At the risk of his own life, he descended Narraganset Bay in an open canoe, on a stormy day, and visited Miantonomoh, the renowned sachem, at his seat near Newport, while the Pequod embassadors were there in council. The latter menaced Williams with death ; yet that good man remained there three days, and effectually prevented the alliance. 4 And more he induced the Nar- ragansetts to renew hostilities with the Pequods. By this generous service the infant settlements were saved from destruction. Although foiled in their attempt at alliance, the Pequods were not dis heartened. During the ensuing winter they continued their murderous depre dations. In the spring, the authorities of the English settlements on the Connecticut declared war against the Pequods [May, 1637], and the Massachu setts and Plymouth colonies agreed to aid them. Soon, Captain Mason, who Was in command of the fort at Saybrook, 5 and Captain John Underbill, a brave and restless man, sailed in some pinnaces, with about eighty white men and seventy Mohegan Indians under Uncas, 6 for Narraganset Bay. There Mian tonomoh, with two hundred warriors, joined them, and they marched for the Pequod country. Their ranks were swollen by the brave Niantics and others, until five hundred " bowmen and spearmen" were in the train of Captains Mason and Underbill. The chief sachem of the Pequods, was Sassacus, a fierce warrior, and the terror of the New England tribes. 7 He could summon almost two thousand warriors to the field ; and feeling confident in his strength, he was not properly vigilant. His chief fort and village on the Mystic River, eight miles north east of New London, was surprised at dawn the 5th of June, 1637, and before sun-rise, more than six hundred men, women, and children, perished by fire and sword. Only seven escaped to spread the dreadful intelligence abroad, and arouse the surviving warriors. The Narragansetts turned homeward, and the English, aware of great peril, pressed forward to Groton on the Thames, 1 This island, which lies nearly south from the eastern border of Connecticut, was visited by Adrian Block, the Dutch navigator, and was called by his name. At the tune in question, it was thickly populated with fierce Indians. 2 John Oldham, the first overland explorer of the Connecticut River. 3 Page 89. 4 Page 91. 6 Page 85. 6 Page 21. 7 Page 22. 88 SETTLEMENTS. [1632. and there embarked for Saybrook. They had lost only two killed, and less than twenty wounded. The brave Sassacus had hardly recovered from this shock, when almost a hundred armed settlers, from Massachusetts, under Captain Stoughton, arrived at Saybrook. The terrified Pequods made no resistance, but fled in dismay toward the wilderness westward, hotly pursued by the English. Terrible was the destruction in the path of the pursuers. Throughout the beautiful country on Long Island Sound, from Saybrook to New Haven, wigwams and cornfields were destroyed, and helpless women and children were slain. With Sassacus at their head, the Indians flew like deer before the hounds, and finally took shelter in Sasco swamp, near Fairfield, where, after a severe battle, they all surrendered, except Sassacus and a few followers. These fled to the Mohawks, 1 where the sachem was treacherously murdered, and his people were sold into slavery, or incorporated with other tribes. The blow was one of extermination, relentless and cruel. " There did not remain a sannup or squaw, a warrior or child of the Pequod name. A nation had disappeared in a day." The New England tribes 2 were filled with awe, and for forty years the colonists were unmolested by them. With the return of peace, the spirit of adventure revived. In the summer of 1637, John Davenport, an eminent non-conformist 3 minister of London, with Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, rich merchants who represented a wealthy company, arrived at Boston. They were cordially received, and urgently solicited to settle in that colony. The Hutchinson controversy 4 was then at its height ; and perceiving the religious agitations of the people, they resolved to found a settlement in the wilderness. The sagacious Puritans, while pursuing the Pequods, had discovered the beauty and fertility of the country along the Sound from the Connecticut to Fairfield, and Davenport and his companions heard their report with joy. Eaton and a few others explored the coast in autumn, and erecting a hut 5 near the Quinipiac Creek (the site of New Haven), they passed the winter there, and selected it for a settlement. In the spring [April 13, 1638] Davenport and others followed, and under a wide-spreading oak," the good minister preached his first sermon. They pur chased the lands at Quinipiac of the Indians, and, taking the Bible for their guide, they formed an independent government, or " plantation covenant, " upon strictly religious principles. Prosperity blessed them, and they laid the found ations of a city, and called it NEW HAVEN. The following year, the settlers at Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, met in convention at Hartford [Jan uary 24, 1639], and adopted a written constitution, which contained very liberal provisions. It ordained that the governor and legislature should be elected annually, by the people, and they were required to take an oath of allegiance to the commonwealth, and not to the king. The General Assembly, alone, 1 Page 23. 2 Page 22. 3 Note 2, page 76. 4 Page 120. 6 On the corner of Church and George-streets, New Haven. 6 At the intersection of George and College-streets, New Haven. 1636.-3 RHODE ISLAND. 89 could make or repeal laws ; and in every matter the voice of the people was heard. This was termed the CONNECTICUT COLONY; and, notwithstanding it and the New Haven colony were not united until 1665, now was laid the found ation of the commonwealth of CONNECTICUT, which was governed by the Hartford Constitution for more than a century and a half. CHAPTER YII. RHODE I S L A X D . [163 G 1 643.] THE seed of the Rhode Island commonwealth was planted by brave hands, made strong by persecution. The first settler in Rhode Island was William Blackstone, a non-conformist minister, 1 who was also the first resident upon the peninsula of Shawmut, where Boston now stands. 2 Not liking the lords brethren" in Massachusetts any more than the "lords bishops" of England, from whose frowns he had fled, he withdrew to the wilderness, and dwelt high up on the Seekonk or Pawtucket River, which portion of the stream still bears his name. There he planted, and called the place Rehoboth. 3 Although he was the first settler, Blackstone was not the founder of Rhode Island. He always held allegiance to Massachusetts, and did not aspire to a higher dignity than that of an exile for conscience sake. Roger Williams, an ardent young minister at Salem, 4 became the instru ment of establishing the foundations of a new commonwealth in the wilderness. When he was banished from Massachusetts, toward the close of 1635, 5 he crossed the borders of civilization, and found liberty and toleration among the heathen. After his sentence, 6 his bigoted persecutors began to dread the influ ence of his enlightened principles, if he should plant a settlement beyond the limits of existing colonies, and they resolved to detain him. Informed of their scheme, he withdrew from Salem in the dead of winter [Jan., 1636], and through deep snows he traversed the forests alone, for fourteen weeks, sheltered only by the rude wigwam of the Indian, until he found the hospitable cabin 7 of 1 Note 2, page 76. 2 Page 118. 3 Room. The name was significant of his aim he wanted room outside of the narrow confines of what he deemed Puritan intolerance. 4 Roger Williams was born in "Wales, in 1599, and was educated at Oxford. Persecution drove him to America in 1631, when he was chosen assistant minister at Salem. His extreme toleration did not find there a genial atmosphere, and he went to Plymouth. There, too, he was regarded with suspicion. He returned to Salem in 1634, formed a separate congregation, and in 1635, the general court of Massachusetts passed sentence of banishment against him. He labored zealousiy in founding the colony of Rhode Island, and had no difficulty with any people who came there, except the Quakers. He died at Providence, in April, 1683, at the age of eighty-four years. 5 Page 119. Williams was allowed six weeks after the pronunciation of his sentence to prepare for his departure. 7 Massasoit had become acquainted with the manner of building cabins adopted by the settlers at fishing-stations on the coast, and had constructed one for himself. They were much more com fortable than wigwams. See page 13. 90 SETTLEMENTS. [1636. Massasoit, the chief sachem of the Wampanoags, 1 at Mount Hope. There he was entertained until the buds appeared, when, being joined by five friends from Boston, he seated himself upon the Seekonk, some distance below Blackstone s plantation. He found himself within the territory of the Plymouth . Company. 2 Governor Winslow 3 advised him to cross into the Narragansett country, where he could not be molested. With his companions he embarked in a light canoe, paddled around to the head of Narraganset Bay, and upon a green slope, near a spring, 4 they prayed, and chose the spot for a settlement. Williams obtained a grant of land from Canonicus, chief sachem of the Narragansetts, and In com memoration of " God s merciful providence to him in his distress," he called the place PROVIDENCE. The freedom enjoyed there was soon spoken of at Boston, and persecuted men fled thither for refuge. Persons of every creed were allowed full liberty of conscience, and lived together happily. The same liberty was allowed in politics as in religion; and a pure democracy was established there. Each settler was required to subscribe to an agreement, that he would submit to such rules, "not affecting the conscience," as a majority of the inhabitants should adopt for the public good. Williams reserved no political power to himself, and the leader and follower had equal dignity and privileges. The government was 1 Page 22. a Page 63. 3 Page 85. 4 This spring is now [1867] beneath some fine sycamores on the west side of Benefit street, in Providence. 1643.] RHODE ISLAND. 91 entirely in the. hands of the people. Canonicus, the powerful Narragansett chief, became much attached to Williams, and his influence among them, as we have seen, 1 was very great. He saved his persecutors from destruction, yet they had not the Christian manliness to remove the sentence of banishment, and receive him to their bosoms as a brother. He could not compress his enlarged views into the narrow compass of their creed ; and so, while they rejoiced in their deliverance, they anathematized their deliverer as a heretic and an outcast. But he enjoyed the favor of God. His settlement was entirely unmolested during the Pequod Avar, 2 and it prospered wonderfully. Roger Williams opened his arms wide to the persecuted. Early in 1638, while Mrs. Hutchinson was yet in prison in Boston, 3 her husband, with Wil liam Coddington, Dr. John Clarke, and sixteen others, of concurrent religious views, 4 accepted the invitation of Williams to settle in his vicinity. Mianto- nomoh gave them the beautiful island of Aquiday 5 for forty fathoms of white wampum. They called it Isle of Rhodes, because of its fancied resemblance to the island of that name in the Levant, and upon its northern verge they planted a settlement, and named it Portsmouth. A covenant, similar to the one used by Williams, 7 was signed by the settlers ; and, in imitation of tlie Jewish form of government under the judges, Coddington was chosen judge, or chief ruler, with three assistants. Others soon came from Boston ; and in 1689, Newport, toward the lower extremity of the island, was founded. Liberty of conscience was absolute ; love was the social and political bond, and upon the seal which they adopted was the motto, Amor vincit omnia "Love is all-powerful." Although the Rhode Island and the Providence plantations were separate in government, they were united in interest and aim. Unwilling to acknowledge allegiance to either Massachusetts or Plymouth, 8 they sought an independent charter. For that purpose Roger Williams went to England in 1643. The whole parent country was then convulsed with civil war. 9 After much delay, he obtained from Parliament (wiiich was then contending fiercely with the king) a free charter of incorporation, dated March. 24, 1644, and all the settle ments were united under the general title of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Then was founded the commonwealth of RHODE ISLAND. 1 Page 81. 3 Page 87. 3 Page 120. * Note 2, page 120. 6 This was the Indian name of Rhode Island. It is a Narragansett word, signifying Peaceable Isle. It is sometimes spelled Aquitneck, and Aquitnet. 6 Note 2, page 13. They also gave the Indians ten coats and twenty hoes, on condition that they should leave the island before the next winter. 7 Page 90. The following is a copy of the government compact: ""We, whose names are underwritten, do swear solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, to incorporate ourselves into a body politic, and, as He shall help us, will submit our persons, lives, and estates, unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of Hosts, and to all those most perfect and absolute laws of His, given us in His holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." 8 This unwillingness caused the other New England colonies to refuse the application of Rhode Island to become one of the Confederacy, in 1643. See page 121. 9 Note 3, page 108. 92 SETTLEMENTS. [1631. CHAPTER VIII. DELAWARE, NEW JERSEY, AND PENNSYLVANIA. [16311682.] IT is difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the first permanent settlements in the provinces of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, for they bore such intimate relations to each other that they may be appropriately considered as parts of one episode in the history of American colonization. We shall, therefore, consider these settlements, in close connection, in one chapter, commencing with DELAWARE. It was claimed by the Dutch, that the territory of New Netherland 1 ex tended southward to Cape Henlopen. In June, 1629, Samuel Godyn and others purchased of the natives the territory between the Cape and the mouth of the Delaware River. The following year, two ships, fitted out by Captain De Vries and others, and placed under the command of Peter Heyes, sailed from the Texel [Dec. 12, 1630] for America. One vessel was captured ; the other arrived in April, 1631 and near the present town of Lewiston, in Delaware, thirty immigrants, with implements and cattle, seated themselves. Heyes returned to Holland, and reported to Captain De Vries. 2 That mariner visited America early the following year [1632], but the little colony left by Heyes was not to be found. Difficulties with the Indians had provoked savage vengeance, and they had exterminated the white people. Information respecting the fine country along the Delaware had spread northward, and soon a competitor for a place on the South River, as it was called, appeared. Usselincx, an original projector of the Dutch West India Company, 3 becoming dissatisfied with his associates, visited Sweden, and laid before the enlightened monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, well-arranged plans for a Swedish colony in the New World. The king was delighted, for his attention had already been turned toward America ; and his benevolent heart was full of desires to plant a free colony there, which should become an asylum for all persecuted Christians. While his scheme was ripening, the danger which menaced Protestantism in Germany, called him to the field, to contend for the principles of the Reformation. 4 He marched from his kingdom with a strong army to oppose the Imperial hosts marshaled under the banner of the Pope on the fields of Germany. Yet the care and tumults of the camp and field did not make him forget his benevolent designs ; and only a few days before his death, 3 De Vries was an eminent navigator, and one of Godyn s friends. To secure his valuable services, the purchasers made him a partner in their enterprise, with patroon [page 139] privileges, and the first expedition was arranged by him. He afterward came to America, and was one of the most active men in the Dutch colonies. On Ms return to Holland, he published an account of his voyages. 3 Page 72. * Note 14, page 62. 1682.] NEW JERSEY. 93 at the battle of Lutzen [Nov. 6, 1632], Gustavus recommended the enterprise as " the jewel of his kingdom." The successor of Gustavus was his daughter Christina, then only six years of age. The government was administered by a regency, 1 at the head of which was Axel, count of Oxenstierna. He was the earliest and most ardent sup porter of the proposed great enterprise of Gustavus ; and in 1634 he issued a charter for the Swedish West India Company. Peter Minuit, 3 who had been recalled from the governorship of New Netherland, and was also dissatisfied with the Dutch West India Company, went to Stockholm, and offered his serv ices to the new corporation. They were accepted, and toward the close of 1637 he sailed from Gottenburg with fifty emigrants, to plant a colony on the west side of the Delaware. He landed on the site of New Castle, in April, 1638, and purchased from the Indians 3 the territory between Cape Henlopen and the Falls of the Delaware, at Trenton. They built a church and fort on the site of Wilmington, called the place Christina, and gave the name of New Sweden to the territory. The jealousy of the Dutch was aroused by this "intrusion," and they hurled protests and menaces against the .Swedes. 4 The latter contin ued to increase by immigration ; new settlements were planted ; and upon Tin- icum Island, a little below Philadelphia, they laid the foundations of a capital for a Swedish province. 5 The Dutch West India Company 6 finally resolved to expel or subdue the Swedes. The latter made hostile demonstrations, and defied the power of the Dutch. The challenge was acted upon ; and toward the close of the summer of 1655, governor Stuyvesant, with a squadron of seven vessels, entered Delaware Bay. 7 In September every Swedish fort and settle ment was brought under his rule, and the capital on Tinicum Island was destroyed. The Swedes obtained honorable terms of capitulation ; and for twenty-five years they prospered under the rule of the Dutch and English pro prietors of New Netherland. NEW JERSEY. All the territory of NOVA C^ESAREA, as New Jersey was called by the English, was included in the New Netherland charter, 8 and transient trading settlements were made [1622], first at Bergen, by a few Danes, and then on the Delaware. Early in 1623, the Dutch built a log fort near the mouth of Timber Creek, a few miles below Camden, and called it Nassau. 9 In June, 1 A regent is one who exercises the power of king or emperor, during the absence, incapacity, or childhood of the latter. For many years, George the Third of England was incapable of ruling on account of his insanity, and his son who was to be his successor at his death, was called the Prince Regent, because Parliament had given him power to act as king, in the place of his father. In the case of Christina, three persons were appointed regents, or rulers. 2 Page 139. 3 The Delawares. See page 20. 4 Page 143. 6 This was done about forty years before William Penn became proprietor of Pennsylvania. Page 72. 7 Page 143. 8 Page 72. 9 It was built under the direction of Captain Jacobus May, who had observed attempts made by a French sea-captain to set up the arms of France there. The fort was built of logs, and was little else than a rude block-house, with palissades. [See note 1, page 127.] A little garrison, left to protect it, was soon scattered, and the fort was abandoned. 94 SETTLEMENTS. [1631. 1623, four couples, who had been married on the voyage from Amsterdam, were sent to plant a colony on the Delaware. They seated themselves upon the site of Gloucester, a little below Fort Nassau, and this was the commence ment of settlements in West Jersey. Seven years later [1630] Michael Pauw bought from the Indians the lands extending from Hoboken to the Raritan, and also the whole of Staten Island, and named the territory Pavonia. 1 In this purchase, Bergen was included. Other settlements were attempted, but none were permanent. In 1631, Cap tain Heyes, after establishing the Swedish colony at Lewiston, 2 crossed the Delaware, and purchased Cape May 3 from the Indians ; and from that point to Burlington, traders huts were often seen. The English became possessors of New Netherland in 1664, and the Duke of York, to whom the province had been given, 4 conveyed to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret [June 24, 1664], all the territory between the North and South (Hudson and Delaware) Rivers, and northward to the line of forty-one degrees and forty minutes, under the title of Nova Ccesarea or NEW JERSEY. Soon afterward several families from Long Island settled at Elizabethtown, 5 and there planted the first fruitful seed of the New Jersey colony, for the one at Gloucester withered and died. The following year, Philip Carteret, who had been appointed governor of the new province, arrived with a charter, fair and liberal in all its provisions. It provided for a government to be composed of a representative assembly 6 chosen by the people, and a governor and council. The legislative powers resided in the assembly ; the executive powers were intrusted to the governor and his council. Then [1665] was laid the foundation of the commonwealth of NEW JERSEY. PENNSYLVANIA. A new religious sect, called Quakers, 7 arose in England at about the com mencement of the civil wars [1642 1651] which resulted in the death of Charles the First. Their preachers were the boldest, and yet the meekest of all non-conformists. 8 Purer than all other sects, they were hated and perse cuted by all. Those who came to America for " conscience sake" were perse cuted by the Puritans of New England, 9 the Churchmen of Virginia and Maryland, and in a degree by the Dutch of New Amsterdam ; and only in Bhode Island did they enjoy freedom, and even there they did not always dwell in peace. In 1673, George Fox, the founder of the Quaker sect, visited all his brethren in America. He found them a despised people everywhere, and his 1 Until the period of our War for Independence, the point of land in Pavonia, on which Jersey City, opposite New York, now stands, was called Paulus Hook. Here was the scene of a bold exploit by Americans, under Major Henry Lee, in 1779. See page 298. 2 Page 92. Named in honor of Captain Jacobus Mey, or May. 4 Page 159. 5 Page 159. 6 Note 3, page 159. 7 This name was given by Justice Burnet, of Derby, in 1650, who was admonished by George Fox, when he was cited before the magistrate, to tremble and quake at the Word of the Lord, at the same time Fox quaked, as if stirred by mighty emotions. See page 122. b Note 2, page 76. 8 Page 75 1682.] PENNSYLVANIA. 95 heart yearned for an asylum for his brethren. Among the most influential of his converts was William Penn, 1 son of the renowned admiral of that name. Through him the sect gained access to the ears of the nobility, and soon the Quakers possessed the western half of New Jersey, by purchase from Lord Berkeley. 3 The first company of immigrants landed in the autumn of 1675, and named the place of debarkation Salem. 3 They established a democratic form of government ; and, in November, 1681. the first legislative assembly of Quakers ever convened, met at Salem. "While these events were progressing, Penn, who had been chief peace-maker when disputes arose among the proprietors and the people, took measures to plant a new colony beyond the Delaware. He applied to Charles the Second for a charter. The king remembered the services of Admiral Penn, 4 and gave his son a grant [March 14, 1681] of " three degrees of latitude by five degrees 1 William Penn was born in London, in October, 1644, and was educated at Oxford. He was remarkable, in his youth, for brilliant talents ; and while a student, having heard the preaching of Quakers, he was drawn to them, and suffered expulsion from his father s roof, in consequence. He went abroad, obtained courtly manners, studied law after his return, and was again driven from home for associating with Quakers. He then became a preacher among them, and remained in that connection until his death. After a life of great activity and considerable suffering, he died in England, hi 1718, at the age of seventy-four years. 2 Page 119. 8 Now the capital of Salem county, New Jersey. 4 He was a very efficient naval commander, and by his skill contributed to the defeat of the Dutch in 1664. The king gave him the title of Baron for his services. Note 15, page 62. 96 SETTLEMENTS. [1631. of longitude west of the Delaware," and named the province Pennsylvania, in honor of the proprietor. It included the principal settlements of the Swedes. To these people, and others within the domain, Penn sent a proclamation, filled with the loftiest sentiments of republicanism. William Markham, who bore the proclamation, was appointed deputy-governor of the province, and with him sailed [May, 1681] quite a large company of immigrants, who were members or employees of the Company of Free Traders,* who had purchased lands of the proprietor. In May, the following year, Penn published a frame of gov ernment, and sent it to the settlers for their approval. It was not a constitu tion, but a code of wholesome regulations for the people of the colony. 2 He soon afterward obtained by grant and purchase [Aug. 1682] the domain of the present State of Delaware, which the Duke of York claimed, notwithstanding it was clearly not his own. It comprised three counties, Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, called The Territories. Penn had been anxious, for some time, to visit his colony, and toward the close of August, 1682, he sailed in the Welcome for America, with about one hundred emigrants. The voyage was long and tedious ; and when he arrived at Newcastle, in Delaware [Nov. 6], he found almost a thousand new comers there, some of whom had sailed before, and some after his departure from En gland. He was joyfully received by the old settlers, who then numbered almost three thousand. The Swedes said, "It is the best day we have ever seen;" and they all gathered like children around a father. A few days afterward, he proceeded to Shackamaxon (now Kensington suburbs of Philadelphia), where, under a wide-spreading elm, as tradition declares, he entered into an honorable treaty with the Indians, for their lands, and established with them an everlast ing covenant of peace and friendship. ".We meet," said Penn, " on the broad pathway of good faith and good will ; no advantage shall be taken on either side ; but all shall be openness and love." And so it was. "Thou lt find," said the Quaker, " in me and in mine, But friends and brothers to thee and thine, "Who abuse no power and admit no line Twixt the red man and the white. And bright was the spot where the Quaker came, To leave his hat, his drab, and his name, That will sweetly sound from the trump of Fame, Till its final blast shall die." On the day after his arrival, Penn received from the agents of the Duke of York, 3 in the presence of the people, a formal surrender of The Territories ; 1 Lands in the new province were offered for about ten cents an acre. Quite a number of pur chasers united, and called themselves The Company of Free Traders, with whom Penn entered into an agreement concerning the occupation of the soil, laying out of a city, &c. 2 It ordained a General Assembly or court, to consist of a governor, a council of seventy, chosen by the freemen of the colony, and a house of delegates, to consist of not less than two hundred members, nor more than five hundred. These were also to be chosen by the people. The proprietor, or his deputy (the governor), was to preside, and to have a three-fold voice in the council ; that is, oa all questions, he was to have three votes for every one of the councillors. 3 Page 144. 1682.] THE CAROLINAS. 97 and after resting a few clays, he proceeded to visit his brethren in New Jersey, and the authorities at New York. On his return, he met the General Assembly of the province at Chester, 1 when he declared the union of The Territories with Pennsyl vania. He made a more judicious organization cf the local government, and then were permanently laid the foundations of the commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA. THE ASSEMBLY HOUSB. CHAPTER IX. THE CAROLINAS. [1622 1680.] UNSUCCESSFUL efforts at settlement on the coast of Carolina, were made .uring a portion of the sixteenth century. These we have already considered. 3 As early as 1609, some dissatisfied people from Jamestown settled on the tfansemond; and in 1622, Porey, then Secretary of Virginia, with a few riends, penetrated the country beyond the Roanoke. In 1630, Charles the <"irst granted to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, a domain south of Virginia, six degrees of latitude in width, extending from Albemarle Sound to he St. John s River, in Florida, and, as usual, westward to the Pacific Ocean. settlements were made, and the charter was. forfeited. At that time, Dis- enters or Nonconformists 3 suffered many disabilities in Virginia, and looked to ;he wilderness for freedom. In 1653, Roger Green and a few Presbyterians eft that colony and settled upon the Chowan River, near the present village of Menton. Other dissenters followed, and the colony flourished. Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, 4 wisely organized them into a separate political commu nity [1663], and William Drummond, 5 a Scotch Presbyterian minister, was appointed their governor. They received the name of Albemarle County Colony, in honor of the Duke of Albemarle, who, that year, became a proprietor of the territory. Two years previously [1661], some New England 6 adventur ers settled in the vicinity of Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, but many of them soon abandoned the country because of its poverty. Charles the Second was famous for his distribution of the lands in the New World, among his friends and favorites, regardless of any other claims, Abo- 1 The picture is a correct representation of the building at Chester, in Pennsylvania, wherein the Assembly met. It was yet standing in 1860. Not far from the spot, on the shore of the Dela ware, at the mouth of Chester Creek, was also a solitary pine-tree, which marked the place where Penn landed. 2 Pages 55 to 57 inclusive. 3 Note 2, page 76. * Page 78. 5 Drummond was afterward executed on account of his participation in Bacon s revolutionary acts. See note 5, page 112. Page 108. 7 98 SETTLEMENTS. t 1622 - riginal or European. In 1663, he granted the whole territory named in Sir Robert Heath s charter, to eight of his principal friends, 1 and called it CARO LINA. 2 As the Chowan settlement was not within the limits of the charter, the boundary was extended northward to the present line between Virginia and North Carolina, and also southward, so as to include the whole of Florida, except its peninsula. The Bahama Islands were granted to the same proprie tors in 1667. 3 Two years earlier [1665], a company of Barbadoes planters settled upon the lands first occupied by the New England people, near the present Wilmington, and founded a permanent settlement there. The few settlers yet remaining were treated kindly, and soon an independent colony, with Sir John Yeamans 4 as governor, was established. It was called the Clarendon County Colony, in honor of one of the proprietors. Yeamans managed prudently, but the poverty of the soil prevented a rapid increase in the popula tion. The settlers applied themselves to the manufacture of boards, shingles, and staves, which they shipped to the West Indies ; and that business is yet the staple trade of that region of pine forests and sandy levels. Although the settlement did not flourish, it continued to exist ; and then was founded the commonwealth of NORTH CAROLINA. The special attention of the proprietors was soon turned toward the more southerly and fertile portion of their domain, and in January, 1670, they sent three ships with emigrants, under the direction of William Sayle 5 and Joseph West, to plant a colony below Cape Fear. They entered Port Royal, landed on Beaufort Island at the spot where the Huguenots built Fort Carolina in 1564, 6 and there Sayle died early in 1671. The immigrants soon afterward abandoned Beaufort, and sailing into the Ashley River, 7 seated themselves on its western bank, at a place a few miles above Charleston, now known as Old Town. There they planted the first seeds of a South Carolina colony. West exercised authority as chief magistrate, until the arrival of Sir John Yeamans, in December, 1671, who was appointed governor. He came with fifty families, and a large number of slaves. 8 Representative government was instituted in 1672 9 under the title of the Carteret County Colony. It was so called in honor of one of the proprietors. 10 Ten years afterward they abandoned the spot ; 1 Lord Clarendon, his prime minister ; General Monk, just created Duke of Albemarle ; Lord Ashley Cooper, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury; Sir George Carteret, a proprietor of New Jersey; Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia; Lord Berkeley, Lord Craven, and Sir John Colleton. 2 It will be perceived [note 1, page 55] that the name of Carolina,, given to territory south of Virginia, was bestowed in honor of two kings named Charles, one of France, the other of England. 3 Samuel Stephens succeeded Drummond as governor, in 1667 ; and hi 1668, the first popular Assembly in North Carolina convened at Edenton. 4 Yeamans was an impoverished English baronet, who had become a planter in Barbadoes, to mend his fortune. He was successful, and became wealthy. 6 Sayle had previously explored the Carolina coast. Twenty years before, he had attempted to plant an "Eleutharia," or place dedicated to the genius of Liberty [see Eleutheria, Anthon s Class ical Dictionary], in the isles near the coast of Florida. 6 Page 50. 7 Page 166. 8 This was the commencement of negro slavery in South Carolina. Yeamans brought almost two hundred of them from Barbadoes. From the commencement, South Carolina has been a planting State. 9 Note 5, page 165. 10 He was also one of the proprietors of New Jersey. See page 119. 3680-J GEORGIA. 99 and upon Oyster Point, at the junction of Ashley and Cooper Rivers, 1 nearer the sea, they founded the present city of Charleston. 2 Immigrants came from various parts of Europe ; and many Dutch families, dissatisfied with the English rule at New York, 3 went to South Carolina, where lands were freely given them ; and soon, along the Santee and the Eclisto, the wilderness began to blossom under the hand of culture. The people would have nothing to do with a government scheme prepared by Shaftesbury and Locke, 4 but preferred simple organic laws of their own making. Then were laid the foundations of the com monwealth of SOUTH CAROLINA, although the history of the two States, under the same proprietors, is inseparable, until the period of their dismemberment, in 1729.5 CHAPTER X . GEORGIA. [1733.] GEORGIA was the latest settled of the thirteen original English colonies in America. When the proprietors of the Carolines surrendered their charter 6 to the crown in 1729, the whole country southward of the Savannah River, to the vicinity of St. Augustine, was a wilderness peopled by native tribes, 7 and claimed by the Spaniards as part of their territory of Florida. 8 The English disputed this claim, and South Carolina townships were ordered to be marked out as far south as the Alatamaha. The dispute grew warm and warlike, and the Indians, instigated by the Spaniards, depredated upon the frontier English settlements. 9 But, while the clouds of hostility were gathering in the firma ment, and grew darker every hour, it was lighted up by a bright beam of be nevolence, which proved the harbinger of a glorious day. It came from England, "where, at that time, poverty w r as often considered a crime, and at least four thousand unfortunate debtors were yearly consigned to loathsome prisons. The honest and true, the noble and the educated, as well as the ignorant and the vile, groaned within prison walls. Their wailings at length reached the ears of benevolent men. Foremost among these was James Edward Oglethorpe, 18 a brave soldier and stanch loyalist, whose voice had been heard often in Parlia ment against imprisonment for debt. A committee of inquiry into the subject of such imprisonments, was ap- 1 These were so called in honor of Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. The Indian name of the former was Ke-a-wah, and of the latter E-ti-wan. 2 Charleston was laid out in 1680 by John Culpepper, who had been surveyor-general for North Carolina. See page 166. 3 Page 164. 4 Page 1C4. 5 Page 171. 6 Page 171. 7 Page 29. 8 Page 42. 9 Page 170. 10 See portrait, page 104. General Oglethorpe was born in Surrey, England, on the 21st of De cember, 1698. He was a soldier by profession. In 1745, he was made a brigadier-general, and fought against Charles Edward, the Pretender, who was a grandson of James the Second, and claimed rightful heirship to the throne of England. Oglethorpe refused the supreme command of the British army destined for America m 1775. He died, June 30, 1785, aged eighty-seven years. 100 SETTLEMENTS. [1733. pointed by Parliament, and General Oglethorpe was made chairman of it. His report, embodying a noble scheme of benevolence, attracted attention and admiration. He proposed to open the prison doors to all virtuous men within, who, would accept the conditions, and with these and other sufferers from pov erty and oppression, to go to the wilderness of America, and there establish a colony of freemen, and open an asylum for persecuted Protestants 1 of all lands. The plan met warm responses in Parliament, and received the hearty approval of George the Second, then [1730] on the English throne. A royal charter for twenty-one years was granted [June 9, 1732J to a corporation " in trust for the poor," to establish a colony within the disputed territory south of the Sa vannah, to be called Georgia, in honor of the king. 2 Individuals subscribed large sums to defray the expenses of emigrants hither ; and within two years after the issuing of the patent, Parliament had appropriated one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for the same purpose. 3 The sagacious and brave Oglethorpe was a practical philanthropist. He offered to accompany the first settlers to the wilderness, and to act as governor of the new province. With one hundred and twenty emigrants he left England [Nov., 1732], and after a passage of fifty-seven days, touched at Charleston [Jan., 1733], where he was received with great joy by the inhabitants, as one who was about to plant a barrier between them and the hostile Indians and Spaniards. 4 Proceeding to Port Royal, Oglethorpe landed a large portion of his followers there, and with a few others, he coasted to the Savannah River. Sailing up that stream as far as Yamacraw Bluff, he landed, and chose the spot whereon to lay the foundation of the capital of a future State. 5 On the 12th of February, 1733, the remainder of the immigrants arrived from Port Royal. The winter air was genial, and with cheerful hearts and willing hands they constructed a rude fortification, and commenced the erection of a town, which they called Savannah, the Indian name of the river. 6 For almost a year the governor dwelt under a tent, and there he often held friendly intercourse with the chiefs of neighboring tribes. At length, when he had mounted cannons upon the fort, and safety was thus secured, Oglethorpe met 1 Note 14, page 62. 2 The domain granted by the charter extended along the coast from the Savannah to the Ala- tamaha, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. The trustees appointed by the crown, possessed all legislative and executive power ; and, therefore, while one side of the seal of the new province expressed the benevolent character of the scheme, by the device of a group of toiling silkworms, and the motto, Non sibi, sed aliis ; the other side, bearing, between two urns the genius of " Georgia Augusta," with a cap of liberty on her head, a spear, and a horn of plenty, was a false emblem. There was no political liberty for the people. 3 Brilliant visions of vast vintages, immense productions of silk for British looms, and all the wealth of a fertile tropical region, were presented for the contemplation of the commercial acumen of the business men of England. These considerations, as well as the promptings of pure benev olence, made donations liberal and numerous. * Page 99. 6 Some historians believe that Sir Walter Raleigh, while on his way to South America, in 1595, went up the Savannah River, and held a conference with the Indians on this very spot. This, probably, is an error, for nothing appears in the writings of Raleigh or his cotemporaries to warrant the inference that he ever saw the North American continent. 6 The streets were laid out with great regularity; public squares were reserved; and the houses were all built on one model twenty-four by sixteen feet, on the ground. OGLETHORPE S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH THE 1733.] G-EOKGIA. 103 fifty chiefs in council [May, 1733], with To-mo-chi-chi* the principal sachem of the lower Creek confederacy. 2 at their head, to treat for the purchase of lands. Satisfactory arrangements were made, and the English obtained sover eignty over the whole domain [June 1, 1733] along the Atlantic from the Sa vannah to the St. John s, and westward to the Flint and the head waters of the Chattahoochee. The provisions of the charter formed the constitution of gov ernment for the people ; and there, upon Yamacraw Bluff, where the flourishing city of Savannah now stands, was laid the foundation of the commonwealth of GEORGIA, in the summer of 1733. Immigration flowed thither in a strong and continuous stream, for all were free in religious matters ; yet for many years the colony did not flourish. 3 Wonderful, indeed, were the events connected with the permanent settle ments in the New World. Never in the history of the race was greater hero ism displayed than the seaboard of the domain of the United States exhibited during the period of settlements, and the development of colonies. Hardihood, faith, courage, indomitable perseverance, and untiring energy, were requisite to accomplish all that was done in so short a time, and under such unfavorable circumstances. While many of the early immigrants were mere adventurers, and sleep in deserved oblivion, because they were recreant to the great duty which they had self-imposed, there are thousands whose names ought to be per petuated in brass and marble, because of their faithful performance of the mighty task assigned them. They came here as sowers of the prolific seed of human liberty ; and during the colonizing period, many of them carefully nur tured the tender plant, while it was bursting into vigorous life. We, who are the reapers, ought to reverence the sowers and the cultivators with grateful hearts. 1 To-mo-chi-chi was then an aged man, and at his first interview with Oglethorpe, he presented him with a buffalo skin, ornamented with the picture of an eagle. " Here," said the chief, " is a little present : I give you a buffalo s skin, adorned on the inside with the head and feathers of an eagle, which I desire you to accept, because the eagle is an emblem of speed, and the buffalo of strength. The English are swift as the bird, and strong as the beast, since, like the former, they flew over vast seas to the uttermost parts of the earth ; and like the latter, they are so strong that nothing can withstand them. The feathers of an eagle are soft, and signify love ; the buffalo s skin is warm, and signifies protection ; therefore I hope the English will protect and love our little fam ilies." Alas ! the wishes of the venerable To-mo-chi-chi were never realized, for the white people more often ^plundered and destroyed, than loved and protected the Indians. To-mo-chi-chi died on the 5th of October, 1739, at his own town, four miles from Savannah, aged about ninety-seven years. He loved General Oglethorpe, and expressed a desire that his body might be laid among the English at Savannah. It was buried there with public honors. See the Gentleman s Magazine, 1740, page 129. 30. 3 Pages 171 and 173. FOURTH PERIOD. THE COLONIES JAMES EDWARD OGLETHOKPE. CHAPTER I. HAVING briefly traced the interesting events which resulted in the founding of sev eral colonies by settlements we will now con sider the more important acts of establishing permanent commonwealths, all of which still exist and nourish. The colonial history of the United States is comprised within the period commencing when the several settlements along the Atlantic coasts became organized into political communities, and ending when representatives of these colonies met in general congress in 1774, 1 and confeder ated for mutual welfare. There was an earlier union of interests and efforts. It was when the several English colonies aided the mother country in a long war against the combined hostilities of the French and Indians. As the local histories of the several colonies after the commencement of that war have but little interest for the general reader, we shall trace the progress of each colony only to that period, and devote a chapter to the narrative of the French and Indian war. 8 Page 228. a p age 179. 1619.] VIRGINIA. 105 As we have already observed, a settlement acquires the character of a colony only when it has become permanent, and the people, acknowledging allegiance to a parent State, are governed by organic laws. 1 According to these conditions, the earliest of the thirteen colonies represented in the Con gress of 1774, was VIRGINIA. [1619.] That was an auspicious day for the six hundred settlers in Virginia when the gold-seekers disappeared, 2 and the enlightened George Yeardley became governor, and established a representative assembly [June 28, 1619] the first in all America. 3 And yet a prime element of happiness and prosperity was wanting. There were few white women in the colony. The wise Sandys, the friend of the Pilgrim Fathers,* was then treasurer of the London Company, 5 and one of the most influential and zealous promoters of emigration. During the same year when the Puritans sailed for America [1620], he sent more than twelve hundred emigrants to Virginia, among whom were ninety young women, "pure and uncorrupt," who were disposed of for the cost of their passage, as wives for the planters. 6 The following year sixty more were sent. The fam ily relation was soon established ; the gentle influence of woman gave refine ment to social life on the banks of the Powhatan ; 7 new and powerful incentives to industry and thrift were created ; and the mated planters no longer cherished the prevailing idea of returning to England. 8 Vessel after vessel, laden with immigrants, continued to arrive in the James River, and new settlements were planted, even so remote as at the Falls, 9 and on the distant banks of the Poto mac. The germ of an empire was rapidly expanding with the active elements of national organization. Verbal instructions would no longer serve the pur poses of government, and in August, 1621, the Company granted the colonists a written Constitution, which ratified most of the acts of Yeardley. 11 Pro vision was made for the appointment of a governor and council by the Company, and a popular Assembly, to consist of two burgesses or representatives from each borough, chosen by the people. This body, and the council, composed the General Assembly, which was to meet once a year, and pass laws for the 1 Page 61. 2 Page 71. 3 Page 71. 4 Page 77. 6 Page 64. 6 Tobacco had already become a circulating medium, or currency, in Virginia. The price of a wife varied from 120 to 150 pounds of this product, equivalent, in money value, to about $90 and $1 12 each. The second " cargo" were sold at a still higher price. By the king s special order, one hundred dissolute vagabonds, called "jail-birds" by the colonists, were sent over the same year, and sold as bond-servants for a specified time. In August, the same year, a Dutch trading vessel en tered the James River with negro slaves. Twenty of them were sold into perpetual slavery to the planters. This was the commencement of negro slavery in the English colonies [note 4, page 177]. The slave population of the United States in 1860, according to the census, was about 4,000,000. 7 Page 64. 8 Most of the immigrants hitherto were possessed of the spirit of mere adventurers. They came to America to repair shattered fortunes, or to gain wealth, with the ultimate object of returning to England to enjoy it. The creation of families made the planters more attached to the soil of Vir ginia. 9 Near the site of the city of Richmond. The falls, or rapids, extend about six miles. 10 The people of the May-flower formed a written Constitution for themselves [page 78]. That of Virginia was modeled after the Constitution of England. u P^O-A SO, 106 THE COLONIES. [1619. general good. 1 Such laws were not valid until approved by the Company, neither were any orders of the Company binding upon the colonists until ratified by the General Assembly. Trial by jury was established, and courts of law conformable to those of England were organized. Ever afterward claim ing these privileges as rights, the Virginians look back to the summer of 1621 as the era of their civil freedom. The excellent Sir Francis Wyatt, who had been appointed governor under the Constitution, and brought the instrument with him, was delighted with the aspect of affairs in Virginia. But a dark cloud soon arose in the summer sky. The neighboring Indian tribes 2 gathered in solemn council. Powhatan, the friend of the English after the marriage of his daughter, 3 was dead, and an enemy of the white people ruled the dusky nation. 4 They had watched the increasing strength of the English, with alarm. The white people were now four thousand in number, and rapidly increasing. The Indians read their des tiny annihilation upon the face of every new comer ; and, prompted by the first great law of his nature, self-preservation, the red man resolved to strike a blow for life. A conspiracy was accordingly formed, in the spring of 1622, to exterminate the white people. At mid-day, on the 1st of April, the hatchet fell upon all of the more remote settlements ; and within an hour, three hun dred and fifty men, women, and children, were slain. 5 Jamestown 6 and neigh boring plantations were saved by the timely warning of a converted Indian. 7 The people were on their guard and escaped. Those far away in the forests defended themselves bravely, and when they had beaten back the foe, they fled to Jamestown. Within a few days, eighty plantations were reduced to eight. The people, thus concentrated at Jamestown by a terrible necessity, pre pared for vengeance. A vindictive war ensued, and a terrible blow of retalia tion was given. The Indians upon the James and York Rivers were slaughtered by scores, or were driven far back into the wilderness. Yet a blight was upon the colony. Sickness and famine followed close upon the massacre. Within three months, the colony of four thousand souls was reduced to twenty-five hundred ; and at the beginning of 1624, of the nine thousand persons who had been sent to Virginia from England, only eighteen hundred remained. These disheartening events, and the selfish action of the king, discouraged the London Company. 8 The holders of the stock had now become very numer ous, and their meetings, composed of men of all respectable classes, assumed a 1 This was the beginning of the Virginia House of Burgesses, of which we shall often speak in future chapters. 2 The Powhatans. See page 20. 3 Page 70. 4 Powhatan died in 1618, and was succeeded in office by his younger brother, Opechancan- ough [see page 66]. This chief hated the English. He was the one who made Captain Smith a prisoner. 5 Opechancanough was wily and exceedingly treacherous. Only a few days before the mas sacre, he declared that " sooner the skies would fall than his friendship with the English would be dissolved." Even on the day of the massacre, the Indians entered the houses of the planters with usual tokens of friendship. 6 Page 64. 7 This was Chanco, who was informed of the bloody design the evening previous. He desired to save a white friend in Jamestown, and gave him the information. It was too late to send word to the more remote settlements. Among those who fell on this occasion, were six members of the council, and several of the wealthiest inhabitants. 8 Page 64. 1688.] VIRGINIA. 1QT political character, in which two distinct parties were represented, namely, the advocates of liberty, and the supporters of the royal prerogatives. The king was offended by the freedom of debates at these meetings, and regarded them as inimical to royalty, and dangerous to the stability of his throne. 1 He deter mined to regain what he had lost by granting the liberal third charter 2 to the company. He endeavored first to control the elections. Failing in this, he sought a pretense for dissolving the Company. A commission was appointed in May, 1623, to inquire into their affairs. It was composed of the king s pliant instruments, who, having reported in favor of a dissolution of the Com pany, an equally pliant judiciary accomplished his designs in October following r and a quo warranto* was issued. The Company made but little opposition, for the settlement of Virginia had been an unprofitable speculation from the be ginning ; and in July, 1624, the patents were cancelled. 4 Virginia became a royal province again, 5 but no material change was made in the domestic affairs of the colonists. King James, with his usual egotism, boasted of the beneficent results to the colonists which would flow from this usurpation, by which they were placed under his special care. He appointed Yeardley, 6 with twelve councillors, to administer the government, but wisely refrained from interfering with the House of Burgesses. 7 The king lived but a few months longer, and at his death, which occurred on the 6th of April, 1625, he was succeeded by his son y Charles the First. That monarch was as selfish as he was weak. He sought to promote the welfare of the Virginia planters, because he also sought to reap the profits of a monopoly, by becoming himself their sole factor in the manage ment of their exports. He also allowed them political privileges, not because he wished to benefit his subjects, but because he had learned to respect the power of those far-off colonists ; and he sought their sanction for his commercial agency. 8 Governor Yeardley died in November, 1627, and was succeeded, two years later [1629], by Sir John Harvey, a haughty and unpopular royalist. He was a member of the commission appointed by James ; and the colonists so despised him, that they refused the coveted monopoly to the king. After many and violent disputes about land titles, the Virginians deposed him [1635] and appointed commissioners to proceed to England, with an impeachment. Harvey accompanied the commission. The king refused to hear complaints against the 1 These meetings were quite frequent ; and so important were the members, in political affairs,, that they could influence the elections of members of Parliament. In 1623, the accomplished Nicholas Ferrar, an active opponent of the court party, was elected to Parliament, by the influence of the London Company. This fact, doubtless, caused the king to dissolve the Company that year. 2 Page 70. 3 A writ of quo warranto is issued to compel a person or corporation to appear before the king, and show by what authority certain privileges are held. 4 The Company had expended almost $700,000 in establishing the colony, and this great sum was almost a dead loss to the stockholders. 6 Page 63. 6 Page 70. * Note 1, page 106. 8 In June, 1628, the king, in a letter to the governor and council, asked them to convene an assembly to consider his proposal to contract for the whole crop of tobacco. He thus tacitly acknowledged the legality of the republican assembly of Virginia, hitherto not sanctioned, but only permitted. 108 THE COLONIES. [1619. accused, and he was sent back clothed with full powers to administer the gov ernment, independent of the people. He ruled almost four years longer, and was succeeded, in November, 1639, by Sir Francis Wyatt, who administered gov ernment well for about two years, when he was succeeded [1641] by Sir William Berkeley, 1 an able and elegant courtier. For ten years Berkeley ruled with vigor, and the colony prospered wonderfully. 2 But, as in later years, commo tions in Europe now disturbed the American settlements. The democratic revolution in England, 3 which brought Charles the First to the block, and placed Oliver Cromwell in power, now [1642] began, and religious sects in England and America assumed political importance. Puritans 4 had hitherto been tolerated in Virginia, but now the Throne and the Church were united in interest, and the Virginians being loyal to both, it was decreed that no minister should preach except in conformity to the constitution of the Church of En gland. 5 Many non-conformists 6 were banished from the colony. This was a dark cloud upon the otherwise clear skies of Virginia, but a darker cloud was gathering. The Indians were again incited to hostilities by the restless and vengeful Opechancanough, 7 and a terrible storm burst upon the English, in April, 1644. For two years a bloody border warfare was carried on. The king of the Powhatans 8 was finally made captive, and died while in prison at Jamestown, and his people were thoroughly subdued. The power of the con federation was completely broken, and after ceding large tracts of land to the English, the chiefs acknowledged allegiance to the authorities of Virginia, and so the political life of the Powhatans passed away forever. 9 During the civil war in England [1641 1649], the Virginians remained loyal ; and when republican government was proclaimed, they boldly recognized the son of the late king, although in exile, as their sovereign. 10 The republican parliament was highly incensed, and took immediate measures to coerce Vir ginia into submission to its authority. For that purpose Sir George Ayscue was sent with a powerful fleet, bearing commissioners of parliament, as repre sentatives of the sovereignty of the commonwealth, and anchored in Hampton Eoads in March, 1652. 1 William Berkeley was born near London ; was educated at Oxford ; became, by travel and education, a polished gentleman; was governor of Virginia almost 40 years, and died in July, 1677. 2 In 1648, the number of colonists was 20,000. "The cottages were filled with children, as the ports were with ships and immigrants." 3 For a long time the exactions of the king fostered a bitter feeling toward him, in the hearts of the people. In 1641 they took up arms against their sovereign. One of the chief leaders of the popular party was Oliver Cromwell. The war continued until 1649, when the royalists were sub dued, and the king was beheaded. Parliament assumed all the functions of government, and ruled until 1653, when Cromwell, the insurgent leader, dissolved that body, and was proclaimed supreme ruler, with the title of Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Cromwell was a son of a wealthy brewer of Huntingdon, England, where he was born in 1599. He died in September, 1658. 4 Page 75. 6 Page 75. 6 Note 2, page 76. 7 Note 5, page 106. 8 Page 20. 9 They relinquished all claim to the beautiful country between the York and James Rivers, from the Falls of the latter, at Richmond, to the sea, forever. It was a legacy of a dying nation to their conquerors. After that, their utter destruction was swift and thorough. 10 Afterward the profligate Charles the Second. His mother was sister to the French king, and to that court she fled, with her children. It was a sad day for the moral character of England when Charles was enthroned. He was less bigoted, but more licentious than any of the Stuarts Who governed Great Britain for more than eighty years. 1688.] VIRGINIA. 109 The Virginians had resolved to submit rather than fight, yet they made a show of resistance. They declared their willingness to compromise with the invaders, to which the commissioners, surprised and intimidated by the bold attitude of the colonists, readily consented. Instead of opening their cannons upon the Virginians, they courteously proposed to them submission to the authority of parliament upon terms quite satisfactory to the colonists. Liberal political concessions to the people were secured, and they were allowed nearly all those civil rights which the Declaration of Independence, 1 a century and a quarter later, charged George the Third with violating. Virginia was, virtually, an independent State, until Charles the Second was restored to the throne of his father [May 29, 1660], for Cromwell made no appointments except that of governor. In the same year [1652] when the par liamentary commissioners came, the people had elected Richard Bennet to fill Berkeley s place. He was succeeded by Edward Digges, and in 1656, Crom well appointed Samuel Mathews governor. On the death of the Protector [1658], the Virginians were not disposed to acknowledge the authority of his son Richard, 2 and they elected Mathews their chief magistrate, as a token of their independence. Universal suffrage prevailed ; all freemen, without excep tion, were allowed to vote ; and white servants, when their terms of bondage ended, had the same privilege, and might become burgesses. But a serious change came to the Virginians, after the restoration of Charles the Second. When intelligence of that event reached Virginia, Berkeley, whom the people had elected governor in 1660, repudiated the popular sover eignty, and proclaimed the exiled monarch King of England, Scotland, Ire land, and Virginia" This happened before he was proclaimed in England. 3 The Virginia republicans were offended, but being in the minority, could do nothing. A new Assembly was elected and convened, and high hopes of favor from the monarch were entertained by the court party. But these were speed ily blasted, and in place of great privileges, came commercial restrictions to cripple the industry of the colony. The navigation act of 1651 was re-enacted in 1660, and its provisions were rigorously enforced. 4 The people murmured, 1 See Supplement. a Cromwell appointed his son Richard to succed him in office. Lacking the vigor and ambition of his father, he gladly resigned the troublesome legacy into the hands of the people, and, a little more than a year afterward, Charles the Second was enthroned. 3 When informed that Parliament was about to send a fleet to bring them to submission, the Virginians sent a message to Charles, then in Flanders, inviting him to come over and be king of Virginia. He had resolved to come, when matters took a turn in England favorable to his restora tion. In gratitude to the colonists, he caused the arms of Virginia to be quartered with those of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as an independent member of the empire. From this circumstance Virginia received the name of The Old Dominion. Coins, with these quarterings, were made as late as 1773. 4 The first Navigation Act, by the Republican Parliament, prohibited foreign vessels trading to the English colonies. This was partly to punish the sugar-producing islands of the "West Indies, .because the people were chiefly loyalists. The act of 1660 provided that no goods should be carried to or from any English colonies, but in vessels built within the English dominions, whose masters and at least three fourths of the crews were Englishmen ; and that sugar, tobacco, and other colonial commodities should be imported into no part of Europe, except England and her dominions. The trade between the colonies, now struggling for prosperous life, was also taxed for the benefit of England. 110 THE COLONIES. [1619. but in vain. The profligate monarch, who seems never to have had a clear perception of right and wrong, but was governed by caprice and passion, gave away, to his special favorites, large tracts of the finest portions of the Virginia soil, some of it already well cultivated. 1 Week after week, and month after month, the Royalist party continued to show more and more of the foul hand of despotism. The pliant Assembly abridged the liberties of the people. Although elected for only two years, the members assumed to themselves the right of holding office indefinitely, and the repre sentative system was thus virtually abolished. The doctrines and rituals of the Church of England having been made the religion of the State, intolerance began to grow. Baptists and Quakers 2 were compelled to pay heavy fines. The salaries of the royal officers being paid from duties upon exported tobacco, these officials were made independent of the people. 3 Oppressive and unequal taxes were levied, and the idle aristocracy formed a distinct and ruling class. The "common people" the men of toil and substantial worth formed a republican party, and rebellious murmurs were heard on every side. They desired a sufficient reason for strengthening their power, and it soon appeared. The menaces of the Susquehannah Indians, 4 a fierce tribe of Lower Pennsylva nia, gave the people a plausible pretense for arming during the summer of 1675. The Indians had been driven from their hunting-grounds at the head of the Chesapeake Bay by the Senecas, 5 and coming down the Potomac, they made war upon the Maryland settlements. They finally committed murders upon Virginia soil, and retaliation 7 caused the breaking out of a fierce border war. The inhabitants, exasperated and alarmed, called Joudly upon Governor Berkeley to take immediate and energetic measures for the defense of the col ony. His slow and indecisive movements were very unsatisfactory, and loud murmurs were heard on every side. At length Nathaniel Bacon, 8 an energetic and highly esteemed republican, acting in behalf of his party, demanded per mission for the people to arm and protect themselves. 9 Berkeley s sagacity perceived the danger of allowing discontented men to have arms, and he refused. The Indians came nearer and nearer, until laborers on Bacon s plantation, near Richmond, were murdered. That leader then yielded to the popular will, and placed himself at the head of four or five hundred men, to drive back the enemy. Berkeley, jealous of Bacon s popularity, proclaimed him a traitor 1 In 1673, the king gave to Lord Culpepper and the Earl of Arlington, two of his profligate favorites, "all the dominion of land and water called Virginia," for the terrri of thirty years. 2 Note 7, page 94. 8 One of the charges made against the King of England in the Declaration of Independence, more than a hundred years later, was that he had " made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries." 4 Page 17. 6 Page 23. 6 Page 82. 7 John Washington, an ancestor of the commander-in-chief of the American armies a century later, commanded some troops against an Indian fort on the Potomac. Some chiefs, who were sent to his camp to treat for peace, were treacherously slain, and this excited the fierce resentment of the Susquehannahs. 8 He was born in England, was educated a lawyer, and in Virginia was a member of the coun cil. He was about thirty years of age at that time. * 9 King Philip s war was then raging in Massachusetts, and the white people, everywhere, were alarmed. See page 124. 1688.] VIRGINIA. HI [May, 1676 J, and sent troops to arrest him. Some of his more timid followers returned, but sterner patriots adhered to his fortunes. The people generally sympathized with him, and in the lower counties they arose in open rebellion. Berkeley was obliged to recall his troops to suppress the insurrection, and in the mean while Bacon drove the Indians 1 back toward the Rappahannock. He was soon after elected a burgess, 9 but on approaching Jamestown, to take his seat in the Assembly, he was arrested. For fear of the people, w T ho made hos tile demonstrations, the governor soon pardoned him and all his followers, and hypocritically professed a personal regard for the bold republican leader. Popular opinion had now manifestly become a power in Virginia ; and the pressure of that opinion compelled Berkeley to yield at all points. The long aristocratic Assembly was dissolved ; many abuses were corrected, and all the privileges formerly enjoyed by the people were restored. 3 Fearing treachery in the capital, Bacon withdrew to the Middle Plantation, 4 where he was joined by three or four hundred armed men from the upper counties, and was pro claimed commander-in-chief of the Virginia troops. The governor regarded the movement as rebellious, and refused to sign Bacon s commission. The patriot marched to Jamestown, and demanded it without delay. The frightened governor speedily complied [July 4, 1676], and, concealing his anger, he also, on compul sion, signed a letter to the king, highly commending the acts and motives of the "traitor." This was exactly one hundred years, to a day, before the English colonies in America declared themselves free and independent, the logic of which the King of Great Britain was compelled, reluctantly, to acknowledge, a few years later. The Virginia Assembly was as pliant before the successful leader as the governor, and gave him the commission of a general of a thousand men. On receiving it, Bacon marched against the Pamunkey Indians. 5 When he had gone, Berkeley, faithless to his professions, crossed the York River, and at Gloucester summoned a convention of royalists. All the proceedings of the Republican Assembly were reversed, and, contrary to the advice of his friends, the governor again proclaimed Bacon a traitor, on the 29th of July. The indignation of the patriot leader was fiercely kindled, and, marching back to Jamestown, he lighted up a civil war. The property of royalists was confis cated, their wives were seized as hostages, and their plantations were desolated. Berkeley fled to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. Bacon proclaimed his abdication, and, dismissing the republican troops, called an Assembly in his own name, and was about to cast off all allegiance to the English Crown, when 1 Page 40. 2 The chief leaders of the republican party at the capital, were "William Drummond, who had been governor of North Carolina [page 97], and Colonel Richard Lawrence. 3 This event was the planting of one of the most vigorous and fruitful germs of American nationality. It was the first bending of power to the boldly-expressed will of the people. 4 Williamsburg, four miles from Jamestown, and midway between the York and James Rivers, was then called the Middle Plantation. After the accession of William and Mary [seepage 113], a town was laid out in the form of the ciphers WM., and was named Williamsburg. Governor Nicholson made it the capital of the province in 1698. 5 This was a small tribe on the Pamunkey River, one of the chief tributaries of the York River. 112 THE COLONIES. [1619. CHURCH TOWEE. intelligence was received of the arrival of imperial troops to quell the rebellion. 1 Great was the joy of the governor, when informed of the arrival of the hoped- for succor, for his danger was imminent. With some royalists and English sailors under Major Robert Beverley, he now [Sept. 7] returned to Jamestown. Bacon collected hastily his troops, and drove the governor and his friends down the James River. Informed that a large body of royalists and imperial troops were approaching, the republicans, unable to maintain their position at James town, applied the torch [Sept. 30] just as the night shadows came over the village. 2 When the sun arose on the following morning, the first town built by Englishmen in America, 3 was a heap of smoking ruins. Nothing remained standing but a few chimneys, and that old church tower, which now attracts the eye and heart of the voyager upon the bosom of the James River. This work accomplished, Bacon pressed forward with his little army toward the York, determined to drive the royalists from Virginia. But he was smitten by a deadlier foe than armed men. The malaria of the marshes at Jamestown had poisoned his veins, and he died [Oct. 11. 1676] of malignant fever, on the north bank of the York. There was no man to receive the mantle of his ability and influ ence, and his departure was a death-blow to the cause he had espoused. His friends and followers made but feeble resistance, and before the first of Novem ber, Berkeley returned to the Middle Plantation 4 in triumph. The dangers and vexations to which the governor had been exposed during these commotions, rendered the haughty temper of the baron irascible, and he signalized his restoration to power by acts of wanton cruelty. Twenty-two of the insurgent leaders had been hanged, 5 when the more merciful Assembly im plored him to shed no more blood. But he continued fines, imprisonments, and confiscations, and ruled with an iron hand and a stony heart until recalled by the king in April, 1677, who had become disgusted with his cruel conduct. 6 There was no printing press in Virginia to record current history, 7 and for a 1 This was an error. The fleet sent with troops to quell the insurrection, did not arrive until April the following year, when all was over. Colonel Jeffreys, the successor of Berkeley, came with the fleet. 3 Besides the church and court-house, Jamestown contained sixteen or eighteen houses, built of brick, and quite commodious, and a large number of humble log cabins. 8 The church, of which the brick tower alone remains, was built about 1820. It was probably the third church erected in Jamestown. The ruin is now [1856] a few rods from the encroaching bank of the river, and is about thirty feet in height. The engraving is a correct representation of its present appearance. In the grave-yard adjoining are fragments of several monuments. 4 Note 4, page 111. 6 The first man executed was Colonel Hansford. He has been justly termed the first martyr in the cause of liberty in America. Drummond and Lawrence were also executed. They were con sidered ringleaders and the prime instigators of the rebellion. 6 Charles said, "The old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than I have taken for the murder of my father." 7 Berkeley was an enemy to popular enlightenment. He said to commissioners sent from En gland in 1671, "Thank God there are no free schools nor printing press; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged these, and libels against the best government." Despots are always afraid of the printing press, for it is the most destructive foe of tyranny. 1688.] VIRGINIA. H3 hundred years the narratives of the royalists gave hue to the whole affair. Bacon was always regarded as a traitor , and the effort to establish a free gov ernment is known in history as BACON S REBELLION. Such, also, would have been the verdict of history, had Washington and his compatriots been unsuc cessful. Too often success is accounted a virtue, but failure, a crime. Long years elapsed before the effects of these civil commotions were effaced. The people were borne down by the petty tyranny of royal rulers, yet the prin ciples of Republicanism grew apace. The popular Assembly became winnowed of its aristocratic elements ; and, notwithstanding royal troops were quar tered in Virginia, 1 to overaw r e the people, the burgesses were alw r ays firm in the maintenance of popular rights. 2 In reply to Governor Jeffreys, when he ap pealed to the authority of the Great Seal of England, in defense of his arbitrary act in seizing the books and papers of the Assembly, the burgesses said, " that such a breach of privilege could not be commanded under the Great Seal, be cause they could not find that any king of England had ever done so in former times." The king commanded the governor to " signify his majesty s indigna tion at language so seditious;" but the burgesses were as indifferent to royal frowns as they were to the governor s menaces. A libertine from the purlieus of the licentious court now came to rule the liberty-loving Virginians. It was Lord Culpepper, who, under the grant of 1673, 3 had been appointed governor for life in 1677. He arrived in 1680. His profligacy and rapacity disgusted the people. Discontents ripened into insur rections, and the blood of patriots again flowed. 4 At length the king himself became incensed against Culpepper, revoked his grant 5 in 1684, and deprived him of office. Effingham, his successor, was equally rapacious, and the people were on the eve of a general rebellion, when king Charles died, and his brother James 6 was proclaimed [Feb. 1685] his successor, with the title of James the Second. The people hoped for benefit by the change of rulers, but their bur dens were increased. Again the wave of rebellion was rising high, when the revolution of 1688 placed William of Orange and his wife Mary upon the throne. 7 Then a real change for the better took place. The detested and detestable Stuarts were forever driven from the seat of power in Great Britain. That event, wrought out by the people, infused a conservative principle into the workings of the English constitution. The popular will, expressed by Par- 1 These troops were under the command of a wise veteran, Sir Henry Chicheley, who managed with prudence. They proved a source of much discontent, because their subsistence was drawn from the planters For the same cause, disturbances occurred in New York ninety years afterward. See page 218. 3 Page 71. 3 Note 1, page 110. 4 By the king s order, Culpepper caused several of the insurgents, who were men of influence, to be hanged, and a "reign of terror," miscalled tranquillity, followed. 6 Arlington [note 1, page 110] had already disposed of his interest in the grant to Culpepper. 6 James, Duke of York, to whom Charles gave the New Netherlands in 1664. See page 144. 7 James the Second, by his bigotry (he was a Roman Catholic), tyranny, and oppression, ren dered himself hateful to his subjects. William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, who had married Mary, a Protestant daughter of James, and his eldest child, was invited by the incensed people to come to the English throne. He came with Dutch troops, and landed at Torbay on the 6th of November, 1688. James was deserted by his soldiers, and he and his family sought safety in flight "William and Mary were proclaimed joint monarchs of England on the 13th of February, 1689. This act consummated that revolution which Voltaire styled " the era of English liberty." 8 114 THE COLONIES. [1620. liament, became potential ; and the personal character, or caprices of the mon arch, had comparatively little influence upon legislation. The potency of the National Assembly was extended to similar colonial organizations. The powers of governors were denned, and the rights of the people were understood. Bad men often exercised authority in the colonies, but it was in subordination to the English Constitution ; and, notwithstanding commercial restrictions bore heav ily upon the enterprise of the colonies, the diffusion of just political ideas, and the growth of free institutions in America, were rapid and healthful. From the revolution of 1688, down to the commencement of the French and Indian war, the history of Virginia is the history of the steady, quiet prog ress of an industrious people, and presents no prominent events of interest to the general reader. 1 CHAPTER II. MASSACHUSETTS. [1620.] "WELCOME, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!" were the first words which the Pilgrim Fathers 1 heard from the lips of a son of the American forest. It was the voice of Samoset, a Wampanoag chief, who had learned a few English words of fishermen at Penobscot. His brethren had hovered around the little community of sufferers at New Plymouth 3 for a hundred days, when he boldly approached [March 26, 1621], and gave the friendly saluta tion. He told them to possess the land, for the occupants had nearly all been swept away by a pestilence. The Pilgrims thanked God for thus making their seat more secure, for they feared the hostility of the Aborigines. When Sam oset again appeared, he was accompanied by Squanto, 4 a chief who had recently returned from captivity in Spain ; and they told the white people about Mas- sasoit, the grand sachem of the Wampanoags, then residing at Mount Hope. An interview was planned. The old sachem came with barbaric pomp, 5 and he and Governor Carver 6 smoked the calumet 7 together. A preliminary treaty of friendship and alliance was formed [April 1, 1621], which remained unbroken 1 The population at that time was about 50,000, of whom one half were slaves. The tobacco trade had become very important, the exports to England and Ireland being about 30,000 hogs heads that year. Almost a hundred vessels annually came from those countries to Virginia for tobacco. A powerful militia of almost 9,000 men was organized, and they no longer feared their dusky neighbors. The militia became expert in the use of fire-arms in the woods, and back to this period the Virginia rifleman may look for the foundation of his fame as a marksman. The province contained twenty-two counties, and forty-eight parishes, with a church and a clergyman in each, and a great deal of glebe land. But there was no printing press nor book-store in the colony. A press was first established in Virginia in 1729. 2 Page 77. 3 Page 78. 4 Page 74. 6 Massasoit approached, with a guard of sixty warriors, and took post upon a neighboring hill. There he sat in state, and received Edward Winslow as embassador from the English. Leaving Winslow with his warriors as security for his own safety, the sachem went into New Plymouth and treated with Governor Carver. Note 5, page 14. 6 Page 78. 7 Page 14. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 115 for fifty years. 1 Massasoit rejoiced at his good fortune, for Canonicus, the head of the powerful Narragansetts, 8 was his enemy, and he needed strength. Three days after the interview with the Wampanoag sachem [April 3], Governor Carver suddenly died. William Bradford, 3 the earliest historian of the colony, was appointed his successor. He was a wise and prudent man, and for thirty years he managed the public affairs of the colony with great sagacity. He was a man just fitted for such a station, and he fostered the colony with parental care. The settlers endured great trials during the first four years of their sojourn. They were barely saved from starvation in the autumn of 1621, by a scanty crop of Indian corn. 4 In November of that year, thirty-five im migrants (some of them their weak brethren of the Speedwell) 5 joined them, and increased their destitution. The winter was severe, and produced great suffer ing ; and the colonists were kept in continual fear by the menaces of Canonicus, the great chief of the Narragansetts, who regarded the English as intruders. Bradford acted wisely with the chief, and soon made him sue for peace. 6 The power, but not the hatred, of the wily Indian was subdued, yet he was com pelled to be a passive friend of the English. Sixty-three more immigrants arrived at Plymouth in July, 1622. They had been sent by Weston, a wealthy, dissatisfied member of the Plymouth Com pany, 7 to plant a new colony. Many of them were idle and dissolute ; 8 and after living upon the slender means of the Plymouth people for several weeks, they went to Wissagusset (now Weymouth), to commence a .settlement. Their improvidence produced a famine ; and they exasperated the Indians by begging and stealing supplies for their wants. A plot was devised by the savages for their destruction, but through the agency of Massasoit, 9 it was revealed [March, 1623] to the Plymouth people ; and Captain Miles Standish, with eight men, hastened to Wissagusset in time to avert the blow. A chief and several war riors were killed in a battle ; 10 and so terrified were the surrounding tribes by 1 Page 124. 2 Page 22. 3 "William Bradford was born at Ansterfield, in the north of England, in 1588. He followed Robinson to Holland ; came to America in the Mayflower [see page 77] ; and was annually elected governor of the colony from 1621 until his death in 1657. 4 While Captain Miles Standish and others were seeking a place to land [see page 78], they found some maize, or Indian corn, in one of the deserted huts of the savages. Afterward, Samoset and others taught them how to cultivate the grain (then unknown in Europe), and this supply serv ing for seed, providentially saved them from starvation. The t grain now first received the name of Indian corn. Early in September [1621], an exploring party, under Standish, coasted northward to Shawmut, the site of Boston, where they found a few Indians. The place was delightful, and for a while, the Pilgrims thought of removing thither. 6 Page 77. 6 Canonicus dwelt upon Connanicut Island, opposite Newport. In token of his contempt and defiance of the English, he sent [Feb., 1622] a bundle of arrows, wrapped in a rattlesnake s skin, to Governor Bradford. The governor accepted the hostile challenge, and then returned the skin, filled with powder and shot. These substances were new to the savages. They regarded them with superstitious awe, as possessing some evil influence. They were sent from village to village, and excited general alarm. The pride of Canonicus was humbled, and he sued for peace. The example of Canonicus was followed by several chiefs, who were equally alarmed. 7 Page 63. 8 There was quite a number of indentured servants, and men of no character ; a population wholly unfit to found an independent State. 9 In gratitude for attentions and medicine during a severe illness, Massasoit revealed the plot to Edward "Winslow a few days before the time appointed to strike the blow. 10 Standish carried the chiefs head- in triumph to Plymouth. It was borne upon a pole, and was placed upon the palissades [note 1, page 127] of the little fort which had just been erected. The 116 THE COLONIES. [1620. the event, that several chiefs soon appeared at Plymouth to crave the friendship of the English. The settlement at Wissagusset was broken up, however, and most of the immigrants returned to England. Social perils soon menaced the stability of the colony. The partnership of merchants and colonists 1 was an unprofitable speculation for all. The commu nity system 3 operated unfavorably upon the industry and thrift of the colony, and the merchants had few or no returns for their investments. Ill feelings were created by mutual criminations, and the capitalists commenced a series of annoyances to force the workers into a dissolution of the league. 3 The partner ship continued, however, during the prescribed term of seven years, and then [1627] the colonists purchased the interest of the London merchants for nine thousand dollars. Becoming sole proprietors of the soil, they divided the whole property equally, and to each man was assigned twenty acres of land in fee. New incentives to industry followed, and the blessings of plenty, even upon that unfruitful soil, rewarded them all. 4 At about the same time, the govern ment of the colony became slightly changed. The only officers, at first, were a governor and an assistant. In 1624, five assistants were chosen ; and in 1630, a deputy-governor and eighteen assistants were chosen by the freemen. This broad democracy prevailed, both in Church and State, for almost fifteen years, when a representative government was instituted [1639], and a pastor was chosen as spiritual guide. 5 James the First died in the spring of 1625 ; and his son and successor, Charles the First, inherited his father s hatred of the Nonconformists. 6 Many of their ministers were silenced during the first years of his reign, and the un easiness of the great body of Nonconformists daily increased. Already, White, a Puritan minister of Dorchester, in the west of England, had persuaded sev eral influential men of that city to attempt the establishment of a new asylum for the oppressed, in America. They chose the rocky promontory of Cape Anne for the purpose [1624], intending to connect the settlement with the fish ing business ; but the enterprise proved to be more expensive than profitable, good Robinson [page 77], when he heard of it, -wrote, "Oh, how happy a thing it would have been, that you had converted some before you killed any." 1 Page 77. 2 Note 1, page 70. 8 The merchants refused Mr. Eobinson a passage to America ; attempted to force a minister upon the colonists who was friendly to the Established Church ; and even sent vessels to interfere with the infant commerce of the settlers. 4 The colonists unsuccessfully tried the cultivation of tobacco. They raised enough grain and vegetables for their own consumption, and relied upon traffic in furs with the Indians, for obtaining the means of paying for cloths, implements, etc., procured from England. In 1627, they made the first step toward the establishment of the cod fishery, since become so important, by constructing a salt work, and curing some fish. In 1624, Edward "\Yinslow imported three cows and a bull, and soon those invaluable animals became numerous in the colony. 6 The colonists considered Robinson (who was yet in Leyden), as their pastor ; and religious exercises, in the way of prayer and exhortation, were conducted by Elder Brewster and others. On Sunday afternoons a question would be propounded, to which all had a right to speak. Even after they adopted the plan of having a pastor, the people were so democratic in religious matters, that a minister did not remain long at Plymouth. The doctrine of " private judgment" was put in full practice ; and the religious meetings were often the arena of intemperate debate and confusion. In 1629, thirty-five persons, the remainder of Robinson s congregation at Leyden, joined the Pil grims at Plymouth, among whom was Robinson s family ; but the good man never saw New En gland himself! 6 Note 2, page 76. It55.] MASSACHUSETTS. 117 and it was abandoned. A few years afterward, a company purchased a tract of land [March 29, 1628] defined as being " three miles north of any and every part of the Merrimac River," and "three miles south of any and every part of the Charles River," and westward to the Pacific Ocean. 1 In the summer of 1628, John Endi- cot, and a hundred emigrants came over, and at Naumkeag (now Salem) they laid the foundations of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The proprietors received a charter from the king the following year [March 14, 1629], and they were incorporated by the name of " The Governor and Com pany of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 2 The colony at Salem increased rapidly, and soon began to spread. In July, 1629. " three godly ministers" (Skelton, Higginson, and Bright) came with FIRST COLONY SEAL. two hundred settlers, and a part of them laid the foundations of Charlestown, at Mishawam. A new stimulus was now given to emigration by salutary arrange- 1 This was purchased from the Council of Plymouth. The chief men of the company were John Humphrey (brother-in-law to the earl of Lincoln), John Endicot, Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcote, Simon Whitcomb, John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, Sir Richard Salton- stall, and others. Eminent men in New England afterward became interested in the enterprise. 8 The administration of affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were to be elected annually by the stockholders of the corporation. A general assembly of the freemen of the colony was to be held at least four times a year, to legislate for the colony. The king claimed no jurisdiction, for he regarded the whole matter as a trading operation, not as the founding of an empire. The instrument conferred on the colonists all the rights of English subjects, and afterward became the text for many powerful discourses against the usurpation of royalty. 118 THE COLONIES. [1620. merits. On the 1st of September, the members of the company, at a meeting in. Cambridge, England, signed an agreement to transfer the charter and govern ment to the colonists. It was a wise and benevolent conclusion, for men of for tune and intelligence immediately prepared to emigrate when such a democracy should be established. John Winthrop 1 and others, with about three hundred families, arrived at Salem in July [1630] following, Winthrop had been chosen governor before his departure, with Thomas Dudley for deputy, and a council of eighteen. The new immigrants located at, and named Dorchester, Roxbury, Water town, and Cambridge ; and during the summer, the governor and some of the leading men, hearing of a spring of excellent water on the pen insula of Shawmut, went there, erected a few cottages, and founded Boston, the future metropolis of 1 Tew England. 2 The peninsula was composed of three hills, and for a long time it was called Tm-MoTJNTAiN. 3 As usual, the ravens of sickness and death followed these first settlers. Many of them, accustomed to ease and luxury in England, suffered much, and before December, two hundred were in their graves. 4 Yet the survivors were not disheartened, and during the winter of intense suffering which followed, they applied themselves diligently to the business of founding a State. In May, 1681, it was agreed at a general assembly of the people, that all the officers of government should thereafter be chosen by the freemen 6 of the colony ; and in 1634, the pure democracy was changed to a representative government, the second in America. 6 The colony flourished. Chiefs from the Indian tribes dined at Governor Winthrop s table, and made covenants of peace and friend ship with the English. Winthrop journeyed on foot to exchange courtesies with Bradford at Plymouth, 7 a friendly salutation came from the Dutch in New Netherland, 8 and a ship from Virginia, laden with corn [May, 1632], sailed into Boston harbor. A bright future was dawning. The character of the Puritans 9 who founded the colony of Massachusetts Bay, presents a strange problem to the scrutiny of the moral philosopher. Vic tims of intolerance, they were themselves equally intolerant when clothed with power. 10 Their ideas of civil and religious freedom were narrow, and their prac- 1 He was born in England in 1558, and was one of the most active men in New England from 1630 until his death in 1649. His journal, giving an interesting account of the colony, has been published. 3 The whole company under Winthrop intended to join the settlers at Charlestown, but a pre vailing sickness there, attributed to unwholesome water, caused them to locate elsewhere. The fine spring of water which gushed from one of the three hills of Shawmut, was regarded with great favor. 3 From this is derived the word Tremont. 4 Among these was Higginson, Isaac Johnston (a principal leader in the enterprise, and the wealthiest of the founders of Boston), and his wife the "Lady Arabella," a daughter of the earl of Lincoln. She died at Salem, and her husband did not long survive her. 6 None were considered freemen unless they were members of some church within the colony. From the beginning, the closest intimacy existed between the Church and State in Massa chusetts, and that intimacy gave rise to a great many disorders. This provision was repealed in 1665. 6 Page 71. 7 Page 115. 8 Page 72. 9 Page 75. 10 Sir Richard Saltonstall, who did not remain long in America, severely rebuked the people of Massachusetts, in a letter to the two Boston ministers, Wilson and Cotton. " It doth a little grieve my spirit," he said, "to hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New England, as that you fine, whip, and imprison men for their consciences." Thirty years Jater [1665], the king s commissioner at Picataqua, in a manuscript letter before me, addressed to 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 119 tical interpretation of the Golden Rule, was contrary to the intentions of HIM who uttered it. Yet they were honest and true men ; and out of their love of freedom, and jealousy of their inherent rights, grew their intolerance. They regarded Churchmen and Roman Catholics as their deadly enemies, to be kept at a distance. 1 A wise caution dictated this course. A consideration of the prevailing spirit of the age, when bigotry assumed the seat of justice, and super stition was the counselor and guide of leading men, should cause us to " Be to their faults a little blind, And to their virtues, very kind." Roger "Williams, himself a Puritan minister, and victim of persecution in England, was among those who first felt the power of Puritan intolerance. He was chosen minister at Salem, in 1634, and his more enlightened views, freely expressed, soon aroused the civil authorities against him. He denied the right of civil magistrates to control the consciences of the people, or to withhold their protection from any religious sect whatever. He denied the right of the king to require an oath of allegiance from the colonists ; and even contended that obedience to magistrates ought not to be enforced. He denounced the charter from the king as invalid, because he had given to the white people the lands of other owners, the Indians. 2 These doctrines, and others more theological, 3 he maintained with vehemence, and soon the colony became a scene of great com motion on that account. He was remonstrated with by the elders, warned by the magistrates, and finally, refusing to cease what was deemed seditious preaching, he was banished [November, 1635] from the colony. In the dead of winter he departed [January, 1636] for the wilderness, and became the founder of Rhode Island. 4 Political events in England caused men who loved quiet to turn their thoughts more and more toward the New World; and the year 1635 was remarkable for an immense immigration to New England. During that year full three thousand new settlers came, among whom were men of wealth and influence. The most distinguished were Hugh Peters 5 (an eloquent preacher), the magistrates of Massachusetts, say, " It is possible that the charter which you so much idolize may be forfeited until you have cleared yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, and blood for which you are complained against." 1 Lyford, who was sent out to the Pilgrims, by the London partners, as their minister, was re fused and expelled, because he was friendly to the Church of England. John and Samuel Browne, residents at Salem, and members of Endicot s council, were arrested by that ruler, and sent to En gland as " factious and evil-conditioned persons," because they insisted upon the use of the Liturgy, or printed forms of the English Church, in their worship. 2 See page 22. This was not strictly true, for, until King Philip s war [page 124], in 1675, not a foot of ground was occupied by the New England colonists, on any other score but that of fair purchase. 8 He maintained that an oath should not be tendered to an unconverted person, and that no Christian could lawfully pray with such an one, though it were a wife or child ! In the intem perance of his zeal, Williams often exhibited intolerance himself, and at this day would be called a bigot. Yet his tolerant teachings in general had a most salutary effect upon Puritan exclusiveness. 4 Page 89. 5 Peters afterward returned to England, was very active in public affairs during the civil war, and on the accession of Charles the Second, was found guilty of favoring the death of the king s father, and was executed in October, 1660. 120 THE COLONIES. [1620. and Henry Vane, an enthusiastic young man of twenty-five. In 1636, Vane was elected governor, an event which indirectly proved disastrous to the peace of the colony. The banishment of Roger Williams had awakened bitter relig- ous dissensions, and the minds of the people were prepared to listen to any new teacher. As at Plymouth, so in the Massachusetts Bay colony, religious questions were debated at the stated meetings. 1 Women were not allowed to engage in these debates, and some deemed this an abridgment of their rights. Among these was Anne Hutchinson, an able and eloquent woman, who estab lished meetings at her own house, for her sex, and there she promulgated peculiar views, which some of the magistrates and ministers pronounced sedi tious and heretical. 2 These views were embraced by Governor Vane, several magistrates, and a majority of the leading men of Boston. 3 Winthrop and others opposed them, and in the midst of great excitement, a synod was called, the doctrines of Mrs. Hutchinson were condemned, and she and her family were first imprisoned in Boston, and then banished [August, 1637] from the colony.* Vane lost his popularity, and failing to be elected the fol lowing year, he returned to England. 5 Some of Mrs. Hutchinson s followers left the colony, and established settlements in Rhode Island. 6 The great abatement of danger to be apprehended from the Indians, caused by the result of the Pequod war, 7 was favorable to the security of the colony, and it flourished amazingly. Persecution also gave it sustenance. The non conformists in the mother country suffered more and more, and hundreds fled to New England. The church and the government became alarmed at the rapid growth of a colony, so opposed, in its feelings and laws, to the character of both. Efforts were put forth to stay the tide of emigration. As early as 1633, a proclamation for that purpose had been published, but not enforced ; and a fleet of eight vessels, bearing some of the purest patriots of the realm, was detained in the Thames [Feb. 1634], by order of the privy council. 8 Believing that the colonists "aimed not at new discipline, but at sovereignty," a demand was made for a surrender of the patent to the king. 9 The people were silent, 1 Note 5, page 116. 2 She taught that, as the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer, its revelations are superior to the teachings of men. It was the doctrine of " private judgment" in its fullest extent. She taught that every person had the right to judge of the soundness of a minister s teaching, and this was consid ered " rebellion against the clergy." She taught the doctrine of Election, and averred that the elect saints were sure of their salvation, however vicious their lives might be. 3 Her brother, Rev. John Wheelwright, was an eloquent expounder of her views. The theo logical question assumed a political phase, and for a long time influenced the public affairs of the colony. 4 Mrs. Hutchinson and her family took refuge within the Dutch domain, near the present village of New Rochelle, in New York. There she and all her family, except a daughter, were murdered by the Indians. Note 2, page 141. 6 Vane was a son of the Secretary of State of Charles the First. He was a republican during the civil war [note 3, page 108], and for this, Charles the Second had him beheaded in June 1662 e Page 91. 7 Page 87> 8 [Note 1, page 400.] It was asserted, and is believed, that Oliver Cromwell and John Hamp- den were among the passengers. There is no positive evidence that such was the fact. 9 The general patent for New England v&s surrendered by the Council of Plymouth, in June, 1635, without consulting the colonists. The inflexible courage of the latter prevented the evil that might have ensued by this faithless act of a company which had made extensive grants ; and they firmly held the charter given to them by the king. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 121 but firm. When a rumor reached them [September 18, 1634] that an arbitrary commission, 1 and a general governor was appointed for all the English colonies in America, the Massachusetts people, poor as they were, raised three thousand dollars to build fortifications for resistance. Even a quo warranto [April, 1638] 2 did not affect either their resolution or their condition. Strong in their integrity, they continued to strengthen their new State by fostering education, 3 the " cheap defense of nations," and by other wise appliances of vigorous efforts. The civil war 4 which speedily involved the church and the throne in disaster, withdrew the attention of the persecutors from the persecuted. The hope of better times at home checked immigration, and thereafter the colony received but small accessions to its population, from the mother country. The ties of interest and warmest sympathy united the struggling colonists of New England. Natives of the same country, the offspring of persecution alike exposed to the weapons of hostile Indians and the depredations of the Dutch and French, 5 and alike menaced with punishment by the parent govern ment they were as one people. They were now [1643] more than twenty thousand in number, and fifty villages had been planted by them. The civil war in England 8 threatened a total subversion of the government, and the Puri tans began to reflect on the establishment of an independent nation eastward of the Dutch dominions/ With this view, a union of the New England colonies was proposed in 1637, at the close of the Pequod war. It was favorably received by all, but the union was not consummated until 1643, when the colonies of Ply mouth, 8 Massachusetts, 9 Connecticut and New Haven 10 confederated for mutual welfare. Rhode Island asked for admittance into the Union [1643], but was refused, 11 unless it would acknowledge the authority of Plymouth. Local juris diction was jealously reserved by each colony, and the fatal doctrine of State Supremacy was thus early developed. It was a confederacy of States like our early Union. 12 The general affairs of the confederacy were managed by a board of commissioners, consisting of two church-members from each colony, who were to meet annually, or oftener if required. Their duty was to con sider circumstances, and recommend measures for the general good. They had no executive power. Their propositions were considered and acted upon by ihe several colonies, each assuming an independent sovereignty. This confed- 1 The Archbishop of Canterbury and associates received full power to establish governments and laws over the American settlements ; to regulate religious matters ; inflict punishments, and even to revoke charters. a Note 3, page 107. 3 In 1636, the General Court at Boston appropriated two thousand dollars for the establishment of a college. In 1638, Rev. John Harvard bequeathed more than three thousand dollars to the institution which was then located at Cambridge, and it received the name of "Harvard College," now one of the first seminaries of learning in the United States. In 1647, a law was passed, requiring every township, which contained fifty householders, to have a school-house, and employ a teacher ; and each town containing one thousand freeholders to have a grammar-school * Note 3, page 108. 6 The Dutch of New Netherland [page 72], still claimed jurisdiction upon the Connecticut River, and the French settlers in Acadie, eastward of New England, were becoming troublesome to the Puritans. 8 Note 3, p. 108. 7 Page 72. 8 Page 78. 9 Page 117. w Page 89. Page 91. 12 Page 267. 122 THE COLONIES. [1620. FIRST MONEY COINED IN THE UNITED STATES. eracy remained unmolested more than forty years 1 [1643 1686], during which time the government of England was changed three times. The colony of Massachusetts Bay was always the leading one of New En gland, and assumed to be a "perfect republic." After the Union, a legislative change took place. The representatives had hitherto held their sessions in the same room with the governor and council ; now they convened in a separate apartment ; and the distinct House of Representatives, or democratic branch of the legislature, still existing in our Federal and State Governments, was established in 1644. Unlike Virginia, 2 the colonists of New England sympa thized with the English republicans, in their efforts to abolish royalty. Ardently attached to the Parliament, they found in Cromwell, 3 when he assumed supreme authority, a sincere friend and protector of their liberties. No longer annoyed by the frowns and menaces of royalty, the energies of the people were rapidly developed, and profitable commerce was created between Massachusetts and the West Indies. This trade brought bullion, or uncoined gold and silver, into the colony ; and in 1652, the authorities exercised a prerogative of in dependent sovereignty, by establishing a mint, and coining silver money, 4 the first within the territory of the United States. During the same year, settlements in the present State of Maine, imitating the act of those of New Hampshire, 5 eleven years earlier [1641], came under the juris diction of Massachusetts. And now an important element of trouble and perplexity was introduced. There arrived in Boston, in July, 1656, two zealous religious women, named Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, who were called Quakers. This was a sect recently evolved from the heaving masses of English society, 6 claiming to be more rigid Puritans than all who had preceded them. Letters unfavorable to the sect had been received in the colony, and the two women were cast into prison, and confined for several weeks. 7 With eight others who arrived during 1 "When James the Second came to the throne, the charters of all the colonies were taken away or suspended. When local governments were re-established after the Revolution of 1688, there no longer existed a necessity for the Union, and the confederacy was dissolved. 3 Page 108. 3 Note 3, page 108. 4 In October, 1651, the general court or legislature of Massachusetts ordered silver corns of the values of threepence, sixpence, and a shilling sterling, to be made. The mint-master was allowed fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings, for his trouble. He made a large fortune by the busi ness. From the circumstance that the effigy of a pine-tree was stamped on one side, these coins, now very rare, are called pine-tree money. The date [1652] was not altered for thirty years. Mas sachusetts was also the first to issue paper money in the shape of treasury notes. See page 132. 5 Page 80. 6 The founder of the sect was George Fox, who promulgated his peculiar tenets about 1650. He was a man of education and exalted purity of character, and soon, learned and influential men became his co-workers. They still maintain the highest character for morality and practical Chris tianity. See note 7, page 94. 7 Their trunks were searched, and the religious books found in them were burned by the hang man, on Boston Common. Suspected of being witches [note 7, page 132], their persons were examined in order to discover certain marks which would indicate their connection with the Evil One. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 123 the year, they were sent back to England. 1 Others came, and a special act against the Quakers was put in force [1657], but to no purpose. Opposition increased their zeal, and, as usual with enthusiasts, precisely because they were not wanted, they came. They suffered stripes, imprisonments, and general contempt ; and finally, in 1658, on the recommendation of the Federal Com missioners, 2 Massachusetts, by a majority of one vote, banished them, on pain of death. The excuse pleaded in extenuation of this barbarous law was, that the Quakers preached doctrines dangerous to good government. 3 But the death penalty did not deter the exiles from returning ; and many others came because they courted the martyr s reward. Some were hanged, others were publicly whipped, and the prisons were soon filled with the persecuted sect. The sever ity of the law finally caused a strong expression of public sentiment against it. The Quakers were regarded as true martyrs, and the people demanded of the magistrates a cessation of the bloody and barbarous punishments. The death penalty was abolished, in 1661 ; the fanaticism of the magistrates and the Quakers subsided, and a more Christian spirit of toleration prevailed. No longer sufferers for opinion s sake, the Quakers turned their attention to the Indian tribes, and nobly seconded the efforts of Mahew and Eliot in the propa gation of the gospel among the pagans of the forest. 4 On the restoration of monarchy in 1660, the judges who condemned Charles the First to the block, were outlawed. Two of them (William Goffe and Edward Whalley) fled to America, and were the first to announce at Boston the acces sion of Charles the Second. Orders were sent to the colonial authorities for their arrest, and officers were dispatched from England for the same purpose. The colonists effectually concealed them, and for this act, and the general sym pathy manifested by New England for the republican party, the king resolved to show them no favor. They had been exempt from commercial restrictions during Cromwell s administration ; now these were revived, and the stringent provisions of a new Navigation Act 5 were rigorously enforced. The people vainly petitioned for relief; and finally, commissioners were sent [August, 1664] "to hear and determine all complaints that might exist in New England, and take such measures as they might deem expedient for settling the peace and security of the country on a solid foundation." This was an unwise 1 Mary Fisher went all the way from London to Adrianople, to carry a divine message to the Sultan. She was regarded as insane ; and as the Moslems respect such people as special favorites of God, Mary Fisher was unharmed in the Sultan s dominions. 2 Page 121. 8 The Quakers denied all human authority, and regarded the power of magistrates as delegated tyranny. They preached purity of life, charity in its broadest sense, and denied the right of any man to control the opinions of another. Conscience, or "the light within," was considered a suf ficient guide, and they deemed it their special mission to denounce "hireling ministers" and "per secuting magistrates," in person. It was this offensive boldness which engendered the violent hatred toward the sect in England and America. 4 John Eliot has been truly called the Apostle to the Indians. He began his labors soon after his arrival in America, and founded the first church among the savages, at Natic, in 1660, at which time there were ten towns of converted Indians in Massachusetts. Thirty-five years later, it was estimated that there were not less than three thousand adult Christian Indians in the Islands of Martha s Vineyard and Nantucket, alone. 6 Note 4, page 109. 6 These were Colonel Richard Nicolls, Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright and Richard Maver ick. They came with a royal fleet, commanded by Colonel Nicolls, which had been sent to assert English authority over the possessions of the Dutch, in New Netherland. See page 144. 124 MASSACHUSETTS. [1620- movement on the part of the mother country. The colonists regarded the measure with indignation, not only as a violation of their charters, but as an incipient step toward establishing a system of domination, destructive to their liberties. Massachusetts boldly protested against the exercise of the authority of the commissioners within her limits, but at the same time asserted her loyalty to the sovereign. The commissioners experienced the opposition of the other New England colonies, except Rhode Island. Their acts were generally disre garded, and after producing a great deal of irritation, they were recalled in 1666. The people of Massachusetts, triumphant in their opposition to royal oppression, ever afterward took a front rank in the march toward complete freedom. The licentious king and his ministers were too much in love with voluptuous ease, to trouble themselves with far-off colonies ; and while Old England was suffering from bad government, and the puissance of the throne was lessening in the estimation of the nations, the colonies flourished in purity, peace, and strength, until Metacomet, the son of the good Massasoit * kindled a most disastrous Indian war, known in history as KING PHILIP S WAE. Massasoit kept his treaty with the Plymouth colony 2 faithfully while he lived. Metacomet, or Philip* resumed the covenants of friendship, and kept them inviolate for a dozen years. But as spreading settlements were reducing his domains acre by acre, breaking up his hunting grounds^ diminish ing his fisheries, and menacing his nation with servi tude or annihilation, his patriotism was aroused, and he willingly listened to the hot young warriors of his tribe, who counseled a war of extermination against KING PHILIP. the English. At Mount Hope 4 the seat of the chief sachems of the Wampanoags, in the solitudes of the primeval forests, he planned, with consummate skill, an alliance of all the New England tribes, 5 against the European intruders. At this time, there were four hundred " praying Indians," as the converts to Christianity were called, firmly attached to the white people. One of them, named John Sassamon, who had been educated at Cambridge, and was a sort of secretary to Philip, after becoming acquainted with the plans of the sachem, 1 Page 114. a Page 114. 8 Massasoit had two sons, whom Governor Price named Alexander and Philip, in compliment to their bravery as warriors. Alexander died soon after the decease of his father ; and Philip became chief sachem of the Wampanoags. 4 Mount Hope is a conical hill, 300 feet in height, and situated on the west side of Mount Hope Bay, about two miles from Bristol, Rhode Island. It was called Pokanoket by the Indians. 6 The tribes which became involved in this war numbered, probably, about twenty-five thousand souls. Those along the coast of Massachusetts Bay, who had suffered terribly by a pestilence just before the PILGRIMS came [page 77], had materially increased in numbers ; and other tribes, besides the New England Indians proper [page 22], became parties to the conflict. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 125 revealed them to the authorities at Plymouth. For this he was slain by his countrymen, and three Wampanoags were convicted of his murder, on slender testimony, and hanged. The ire of the tribe was fiercely kindled, and they thirsted for vengeance. The cautious Philip was overruled by his fiery young men, and remembering the wrongs and humiliations he had personally received from the English, 1 he trampled upon solemn treaties, sent his women and chil dren to the Narragansetts for protection, and kindled the flame of war. Mes sengers were sent to other tribes, to arouse them to co-operation, and with all the power of Indian eloquence, Metacomet exhorted his followers to curse the white men, and swear eternal hostility to the pale faces. He said, in effect : " Away ! away I I will not hear Of aught but death or vengeance now ; By the eternal skies I swear My knee shall never learn to bow I I will not hear a word of peace, Nor clasp in friendly grasp a hand Linked to that pale-browed stranger race, That works the ruin of our ]and. ****** And till your last white foe shall kneel, And in his coward pangs expire, Sleep but to dream of brand and steel ; Wake but to deal in blood and fire I" Although fierce and determined when once aroused, no doubt Philip com menced hostilities contrary to the teachings of his better judgment, for he was sagacious enough to foresee failure. li Frenzy prompted their rising. It was but the storm in which the ancient inhabitants of the land were to vanish away. They rose without hope, and therefore they fought without mercy. To them, as a nation, there was no to-morrow." The bold Philip struck the first blow at Swanzey, thirty-five miles south west from Plymouth. The people were just returning from their houses of worship, for it was a day of fasting and humiliation [July 4, 1675], in antici pation of hostilities. Many were slain and captured, and others fled to the surrounding settlements, and aroused the people. The men of Plymouth, joined by those of Boston and vicinity, pressed toward Mount Hope. Philip was besieged in a swamp for many days, but escaped with most of his warriors, and became a fugitive with the Nipmucs, 2 an interior tribe of Massachusetts. These espoused his cause, and with full fifteen hundred warriors, he hastened toward the white settlements in the far-off valley of the Connecticut. In thf mean while the little army of white people penetrated the country of the Narra gansetts, 3 and extorted a treaty of friendship from Canonchet, 4 chief sachem of 1 In 1671, Philip and his tribe being suspected of secretly plotting the destruction of the E jflish, were deprived of their fire-arms. He never forgot the injury, and long meditated revenge. Page 22 3 Page 22. 4 Son of Miantonomoh, whose residence was upon a hill a little north of the city of Newport, R. I. That hill still bears the name of Miantonomoh, abbreviated to "Tonomy Hill." Page 91. 126 THE COLONIES. [1620. that powerful tribe. Hearing of this, Philip was dismayed for a moment. But there was no hope for him, except in energetic action, and he and his followers aroused other tribes, to a war of extermination, by the secret and efficient methods of treachery, ambush, and surprise. Men in the fields, families in their beds at midnight, and congregations in houses of worship, were attacked and massacred. The Indians hung like the scythe of death upon the borders of the English settlements, and for several months a gloomy apprehension of the extermination of the whole European population in New England, prevailed. 1 Dreadful were the scenes in the path of the Wampanoag chief. From Springfield northward to the present Vermont line, the valley of the Connecti cut was a theater of confusion, desolation, and death, wherever white settle ments existed. Almost the whole of a party of twenty Englishmen 2 sent to treat with the Nipmucs, were treacherously slain by the savages in ambush [Aug. 12, 1675], near Quaboag, now Brookfield. That place was set on fire, when a shower of rain put out the flames, and the Indians were driven away by a relief party of white people. 3 The village was partially saved, but imme diately abandoned. Soon afterward a hot battle was fought near Deerfield 4 [Sept 5], and a week later [Sept. 12] that settlement also was laid in ashes. On the same day (it was the Sabbath), Hadley, further down the river, was attacked while the people were worshiping In the midst of the alarm and con fusion, a tall and venerable-looking man, with white, flowing hair and beard, suddenly appeared, and brandishing a glittering sword, he placed himself at the head of the affrighted people, and led them to a charge which dispersed and defeated the foe. He as suddenly disappeared, and the inhabitants believed that an angel from heaven had been sent to their rescue. It was Goffe, the fugitive English judge, 5 who was then concealed in that settlement. The scourge, stayed for a moment at Hadley, swept mercilessly over other settlements. On the 23d of September, the paths of Northfield were wet with the blood of many valiant young men under Captain Beers ; and on the 28th, " a company of young men, the very flower of Essex," under Captain Lathrop, were butchered by almost a thousand Indians on the banks of a little stream near Deerfield, which still bears the name of Bloody Brook. Others, who came to their rescue, were engaged many hours in combat with the Indians until crowned with victory. Yet the Indians still prevailed. Philip, en couraged by success, now resolved to attack Hatfield, the chief settlement of the 1 The white population in New England, at this time, has been estimated at fifty-five thousand. Haverhill, on the Merrimac, was the frontier town in the direction of Maine ; and North field, on the borders of Vermont, was the highest settlement in the Connecticut valley. "Westfield, one hundred miles west of Boston, was the most remote settlement in that direction. a Captains Wheeler and Hutchinson were sent from Boston to endeavor to reclaim the Nipmucs. Apprised of their coming, the Indians lay in ambush, and fired upon them from the deep thickets of a swamp. 8 Under Major TVillard. The Indians set fire to every house except a strong one into which the people had secured themselves, and were besieged there two days. The Indians set fire to this last refuge, when rain extinguished the flames. 4 Between 180 white people and 700 Indians. [See, also, page 135.] 6 Page 123. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 127 white people above Springfield. The Springfield Indians joined him, 1 and with almost a thousand warriors, he fell upon the settlement, on the 29th of Octo ber, 1675. The English were prepared for his reception, and he was repulsed with such loss, that, gathering his broken forces on the eastern bank of the Connecticut, 2 he marched toward Rhode Island. The Narragansetts, in viola tion of the recent treaty, 3 received him, became his allies, and went out upon the war path late in autumn. A terrible, retributive blow soon fell upon the savages, when fifteen hundred men of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecti cut, marched to punish Canonchet and his tribe, for their perfidy. The snows of early winter had fallen, and at least three thousand Indians had collected in their chief fort in an immense swamp, 4 where they were supplied with provi sions for the winter. It was a stormy day in December [Dec. 29], when the English stood before the feeble palissades of the savages. These offered but little opposition to the besiegers ; and within a few hours, five hundred wig wams, with the winter provisions, were in flames. Hundreds of men, women, and children, perished in the fire. A thousand warriors were slain or wounded, and several hundreds were made prisoners. The English lost eighty killed, and one hundred and fifty wounded. Canonchet was made prisoner, and slain ; but Philip escaped, and with the remnant of the Narragansetts, he took refuge again with the Nipmucs. The fugitive Wampanoag was busy during the winter. He vainly solicited the Mohawks 5 to join him, but he was seconded by the tribes eastward of Mas sachusetts, 6 who also had wrongs to redress. The work of desolation began early in the spring of 1676, and within a few weeks the war extended over a space of almost three hundred miles. Weymouth, Groton, Medfield, Lancas ter, and Marlborough, in Massachusetts, were laid in ashes; Warwick and Providence, in Rhode Island, were burned ; and everywhere, the isolated dwell ings of settlers were laid waste. But internal feuds weakened the power of the savages ; and both the Nipmucs 7 and the Narragansetts 8 charged their misfor tunes to the ambition of Philip. The cords of alliance were severed. Some surrendered to avoid starvation ; other tribes wandered off and joined those in Canada ; 9 while Captain Benjamin Church, 10 the most famous of the partisan 1 They had been friendly until now. They plotted the entire destruction of the Springfield settlement ; but the people defended themselves bravely within their palisaded houses. Many of the strong houses of frontier settlements were thus fortified. Trunks of trees, eight or ten inches in diameter, were cut in uniform lengths, and stuck in the ground close together. The upper ends were sharpened, and the whole were fastened together with green withes or other contrivances. 2 p a g e 82. 3 Page 125 PALISADED BUILDINGS. 4 This swamp is a small distance south-west of the village of Kingston, in "Washington County, Rhode Island. The fort was on an island which contains about five acres of tillable land, in the north-west part of the swamp. The Stonington and Providence railway passes along the northern verge of the swamp. 6 Page 23. 6 Page 22. The tribes of Maine were then about four thousand strong. 7 Page 22. 8 Page 22. 9 Page 22. 10 Benjamin Church was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1639. He continued hostilities against the eastern Indians until 1704. He fell from his horse, and died soon afterward, at Little Compton, Jan. 17, 1718, aged 77 years. 128 THE COLONIES. [1620. officers of the English colonies, went out to hunt and to destroy the fugitives. During the year, between two and three thousand Indians were slain or had submitted. Philip was chased from one hiding-place to another, but for a long time he would not yield. He once cleft the head of a warrior who proposed submission. But at length, the " last of the Wampanoags" bowed to the press ure of circumstances. He returned to the land of his fathers 1 [August, 1676], and soon his wife and son were made prisoners. This calamity crushed him, and he said, " Now my heart breaks ; I am ready to die." A few days after- ward, a faithless Indian shot him, and Captain Church cut off the dead sachem s* head. 2 His body was quartered ; and his little son was sold to be a bond-slava in Bermuda. 3 So perished the last of the princes of the Wampanoags, and thus ended, in the total destruction of the power of the New England Indians, the famous KING PHILIP S WAR. 4 The terrible menaces of the Indian war, and the hourly alarm which it occasioned, did not make the English settlers unmindful of their political posi- 1 Note 4, page 124. 2 The rude sword, made by a blacksmith of the colony, with which Captain Church cut off Philip s head, is in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 3 The disposal of the boy was a subject of serious deliberation. Some of the elders proposed putting him to death ; others, professing more mercy, suggested selling him as a slave. The most prqfitabk measure appeared the most merciful, and the child was sold into bondage. The head of Philip was carried in triumph to Plymouth, and placed upon a pole 4 The result of this war was vastly beneficial to the colonists, for the fear of savages, which prevented a rapid spread of settlements, was removed. From this period may be dated the real, unimpeded growth of New England. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 129 tion, nor hopeless respecting the future. While the Massachusetts colony was yet weak in resources, from the effects of the war, 1 and the people were yet engaged in hostilities with the eastern tribes, 2 it made territorial accessions by purchase, and at the same time boldly asserted its chartered rights. For many years there had been a controversy between the heirs of Sir F. Gorges 3 and John Mason, and the Massachusetts colony, concerning a portion of the present territory of Maine and New Hampshire, which, by acts of the inhabitants, had been placed [1641 and 1652] under the jurisdiction of the authorities at Bos ton. 4 The judicial decision [1677] was in favor of the heirs, and Massachu setts immediately purchased [May 1, 1677] their interest for six thousand dol lars. 5 New Hampshire was detached three years afterward [1680], and made a royal province the first in New England ; but Maine, which was incorpo rated with Massachusetts in 1692, continued a part of that commonwealth until 1820. Now rapidly budded that governmental tyranny which finally drove all the American colonies into open rebellion. The profligate king continued to draw the lines of absolute rule closer and closer in England, and he both feared and hated the growing republics in America, especially those in the East. They were ostensibly loyal portions of his realm, but were really independent sover eignties, continually reacting upon the mother country, to the damage of the " divine right" of kings. Charles had long cherished a desire to take their governments into his own hands, and he employed the occasion of the rejection of Edward Randolph (a custom-house officer, who had been sent to Boston [1679] to collect the revenues, and otherwise to exercise authority 6 ), to declare the Massachusetts charter void. He issued a quo warranto in 1683, 7 and pro cured a decision in his favor in the High Court of Chancery, on the 28th of June, 1684, but he died on the 26th of February following, before his object was effected. Charles s successor, James the Second, 8 continued the oppressive measures of his brother toward the New England colonies. The people petitioned and remonstrated, and were treated with contempt. Their hardships in conquering a wilderness, and their devotion to the English constitution, had no weight with the royal bigot. 9 He also declared the charter of Massachusetts forfeited, and appointed Joseph Dudley president of the country from Rhode Island to Nova Scotia. Sir Edmund Andros arrived at Boston soon afterward [Dec. 1 During the war, New England lost six hundred men ; a dozen towns were destroyed ; six hundred dwellings were burned ; every twentieth family was houseless ; and every twentieth man, who had served as a soldier, had perished. The cost of the war equaled five hundred thousand dollars a very large sum at that time. 2 Page 22. 3 Page 79. 4 Page 80, and note 2, page 80. 8 The portion of Maine then purchased, was the tract between the Piscataqua and the Kenne. bee. That between the Kennebec and the Penobscot belonged to the Duke of York, and the terri. tory between the Penobscot and the St. Croix, was held by the French, pursuant to a treaty. 6 Eandolph appears to have been a greedy adventurer, and was, consequently, a faithful servant of his royal master in oppressing the colonists. He exaggerated the number and resources of the people of New England, and thus excited the king s fears and cupidity. Previous to Randolph s appointment, the colonies had dispatched agents to England, to settle impending difficulties ami cably. They failed, and Randolph came in the same vessel in which they returned. 7 Note 3, page 107. 8 Page 113. 8 Note 7, page 113. 9 130 THE COLONIES. [1620. 30, 1686], clothed with authority to govern all New England. He came with a smiling face, and deceitful lips. He appears to have been a tyrant by nature, and came to execute a despot s will. He soon made bare the rod of oppression, and began to rule with a tyrant s rigor. 1 The people were about to practice the doctrine that " resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, n when intelli gence reached Boston [April 14, 1689], that James was driven from the throne [1688] and was succeeded by William and Mary, of Orange. 3 The inhabitants of Boston seized and imprisoned Andros and fifty of his political associates [April 28, 1689], sent them to England under a just charge of mal administration of public affairs, and re-established their constitutional govern ment. Again republicanism was triumphant in Massachusetts. The effects of the revolution in England were also sorrowful to the Amer ican colonies. That revolution became a cause of war between England and France. James (who was a Roman Catholic) fled to the court of Louis the Fourteenth, king of France, and that monarch espoused the cause of the fugi tive. Hostilities between the two nations commenced the same year, and the quarrel extended to their respective colonies in America. The conflict then commenced, and which was continued more than seven years, is known in his tory as KING- WILLIAM S WAR. The colonists suffered terribly in that contest. The French Jesuits, 4 who had acquired great influence over the eastern tribes, 6 easily excited them to renew their fierce warfare with the English. They also made the savages their allies ; and all along the frontier settlements, the pathway of murder and des olation was seen. Dover, a frontier town, was first attacked by a party of French and Indians, on the 7th of July, 1689, when the venerable Major Waldron 6 and twenty others of the little garrison were killed. Twenty-nine of the inhabitants were made captive, and sold as servants to the French in Canada. In August following, an Indian war party, instigated by Thury, a Jesuit, fell [August 12] upon an English stockade 7 at Pemaquid (built by Andros), and captured the garrison. A few months later, Frontenac sent a 1 Among other arbitrary acts, Andros laid restraints upon the freedom of the press, and mar riage contracts; and, to use a modern term, he "levied black mail;" that is, extorted money, by menaces, whenever opportunity offered. He advanced the fees of all officers of the government to an exorbitant degree ; and finally threatened to make the Church of England the established relig ion in all America 2 This was Cromwell s motto ; and Thomas Jefferson had it engraved upon his private seal. 3 Note 7, page 113. 4 This was a Roman Catholic religious order, founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard, in 1539. They have ever been remarkable for their great devotion to their cause, their sell-denial, and mas terly sagacity in the acquirement and maintenance of power. Their missionaries preached Chris tianity in every part of the habitable globe. They came with the first French adventurers to Amer ica, and under their influence, whole tribes of Indians eastward of Massachusetts and in Canada were made nominal Christians. This was one of the ties which made the savages such faithful allies to the French in the contests between them and the English, previous to 1763. . 6 Page 22. 8 Waldron was eighty years of age. He had played false with the New Hampshire Indians during King Philip s war, and they now sought revenge. They tortured him to death, 7 Note 2, page 183. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 131 party of three hundred French and Indians from Montreal, to penetrate the country toward Albany. On a gloomy night in winter, when the snow was twenty inches in depth, they fell upon Schenectada [Feb. 18, 1690], a frontier town on the Mohawk, massacred many of the people, and burnt the village. Early in the spring, Salmon Falls [March 28], Casco [May 27], and other eastern villages, were attacked by another party of the same mongrel foe, the natural ferocity of the Indians being quickened by the teachings of the Jesuits concerning the proper fate of heretics. 1 All the colonies were aroused, by these atrocities, to a sense of their danger in having such foes intent upon their destruction ; and the New England people resolved on speedy retaliation. In May, Massachusetts fitted out an expedi tion, under Sir William Phipps, a native of Pemaquid, consisting of eight or nine vessels, with about eight hundred men. Phipps seized Port Royal, 2 in Acadie, and obtained sufficient plunder from the inhabitants to pay the expenses of the expedition. In June, Port Royal was again plundered by English pri vateers from the West Indies. Encouraged by these successes, the colonies of New England and New York coalesced in efforts to conquer Canada. 3 It was arranged to send a land expedition from New York, by way of Lake Cham- plain, against Montreal, 4 and a naval expedition against Quebec. 5 The com mand of the former was intrusted to the son of Governor Winthrop of Connect icut, 6 and the expenses were borne jointly by that colony and New York. 7 Sir William Phipps commanded the latter, which Massachusetts alone fitted out. It consisted of thirty-four vessels, with two thousand men. Both were unsuc cessful. Some of Winthrop s troops, with Indians of the FIVE NATIONS, 8 under Colonel Schuyler, pushed toward the St. Lawrence, and were repulsed [Aug., 1690] by Frontenac, the governor of Canada. The remainder did not go be yond Wood Creek (now Whitehall), at the head of Lake Champlain, and all returned to Albany. 9 Phipps reached Quebec about the middle of October, and landed the troops ; but the city was too strongly fortified 10 to promise a successful siege, and he returned to Boston before the winter set in. 11 Massa- 1 In these massacres, instigated by the Jesuits, we may find a reason for the seeming intoler ance of the Protestant majority in Maryland [page 152], the disabilities of Roman Catholics in Virginia, New York, and New England, and their exclusion from the privileges of freemen in tol erant Rhode Island. The most potent operations of the Jesuits were in secret, and the colonists were compelled to regard every Roman Catholic as the natural enemy of Protestants, and as labor ing to destroy every measure tending to human freedom. 2 Page 58. 3 Page 204. 4 Page 48. 6 Page 48. 6 Page 86. 7 Milborne, son-in-law of Jacob Leisler, the democratic governor of New York [page 148], un dertook to provide subsistence for the army, which marched from Albany early in July. 8 Page 23. 9 Leisler was so much incensed at this failure, that he caused the arrest of "Winthrop, at Albany. There had ever been a jealous rivalry between the people of New York and Connecticut ; and the feud which continually prevailed among the mixed troops, was the chief cause of the miscarriage of the enterprise. 10 Phipps, having no chart to guide him, was nine weeks cautiously making his way around Acadie and up the St. Lawrence. In the mean while, a swift Indian runner, from Pemaquid, sped across the country, and informed the French, at Quebec, of the approach of Phipps, in time for them to well prepare for defense. 11 This repulse was considered so important by the French, that king Louis had a commemor ative medal struck, with the legend " FRANCE VICTORIOUS IN THE NEW WORLD." 132 THE COLONIES. [1620, chusetts was obliged to issue bills of credit, or paper money, to defray the expenses of this expedition. 1 Sir William Phipps was sent to England soon after his return, to solicit aid in further warfare upon the French and Indians, and also to assist in efforts to- procure a restoration of the charter of Massachusetts, taken away by King James. 2 Material assistance in prosecuting the war was refused ; and King William instead of restoring the old charter, granted a new one, and united under it the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nova Scotia, 3 by the old name of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and made it a royal province. Phipps was appointed governor by the king, and returned to Boston with the charter, in May, 1692. But the new constitution was offensive to the people, for they were allowed scarcely any other political privileges than they already possessed, except the right to choose representatives. The king reserved the right to appoint the governor, his deputy, and the secretary of the colony, and of repealing the laws within three years after their passage. This abridgment of their liberties produced general dissatisfaction, and alienated the affections of the people from the mother country. It was one of a series of fatal steps taken by the English government, which tended toward the final dismemberment of the empire in 1776. 4 Yet one good resulted from the change. The theocratic or religious element in the government, which fostered bigotry and intolerance, lost its power, for toleration was guarantied to all Christian sects, except Roman Catholics ; and the right of suffrage was extended to others than members of Congregational churches. 5 A very strange episode in the history of Massachusetts now occurred. A belief in witchcraft 6 destroyed the peace of society in many communities, and shrouded the whole colony in a cloud of gloom. This belief had a strong hold upon the minds of the people of old England, and of their brethren in America. Excitement upon the subject suddenly broke out at Danvers (then a part of Salem), in March, 1692, and spread like an epidemic. A niece and daughter of the parish minister exhibited strange conduct ; and under the influence of their own superstitious belief, they accused an old Indian servant- woman in the family of bewitching them. Fasting and prayer, to break the "spell," were of no avail, for the malady increased. The alarm of the family spread to the 1 Note 4, page 122. The total amount of the issue was $133,338. a Page 129. 8 New Scotland, the name given to the country which the French called Acadie. See note 2, page 80. 4 Page 251. 5 Note 5, page 118. 6 A belief in witchcraft, or the exercise of supernatural power, by men and women, has been prevalent for ages. Punishment of persons accused of it, was first sanctioned by the Church of Rome a little more than three hundred years ago. Certain tests were instituted, and thousands of innocent persons were burned alive, drowned, or hanged, in Europe. "Within three months, in 1515, five hun dred persons were burned in Geneva, in Switzerland. In the diocese of Como, one thousand were burned in one year. In 1520, an incredible number, from among all classes, suffered death in France. And within fifty or sixty years, during the sixteenth century, more than one hundred thousand persons perished in the flames in Germany alone. Henry the Eighth of England made the practice of witchcraft a capital offense; and a hundred years later, " witch-detectors" traversed the country, and brought many to the stake. Enlightened men embraced the belief; and even Sir Matthew Hale, the most distinguished of England s judges, repeatedly tried and condemned persons accused of witchcraft. The English laws against witchcraft were adopted in New England ; and as early as 1648, four persons had suffered death for the alleged offense, in the vicinity of Boston. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 133 community ; and soon a belief prevailed throughout the colony, that evil spirits, having ministering servants among men, overshadowed the land. Old and ill- favored women were first accused of practising the art of witchcraft ; but at length neither age, sex, nor condition afforded protection from the accuser s tongue. Even the wife of Governor Phipps did not escape suspicion. Magis trates were condemned, many pious persons were imprisoned, and Mr. Bur roughs, a worthy minister, was executed. Men of strong minds and scholarly attainments were thoroughly deluded. Among these was the eminent Cotton Mather, whose father before him had yielded to the superstition, and published an account of all the supposed cases of witchcraft in New England. Cotton Mather, on account of his position as a leading divine, and his talents, prob ably did more than any other man to promote the spread of that fearful delusion, which prevailed for more than six months. During that time, twenty persons suffered death, fifty-five were tortured or frightened into a confession of witch craft, and when a special court, or legislature, was convened in October, 1692, one hundred and fifty accused persons were in prison. A reaction, almost as sudden as the beginning of the excitement, now took place in the public mind. The prison doors were opened to the accused, and soon many of the accusers shrunk abashed from the public gaze. 1 Standing in the light of the present century, we look back to " Salem witchcraft," as it is called, with amazement. 1 The belief in witchcraft did not cease with the strange excitement ; and Cotton Mather and other popular men, wrote in its defense. Calef, a citizen of Boston, exposed Mather s credulity, which greatly irritated the minister. He first called his opponent "a weaver turned minister;" but as his tormentor s blows fell thick and fast, in a series of letters, Mather called him " a coal from. 134 THE COLONIES. [1620. "King William s war" 1 continued until 1697, when a treaty of peace, made at Ryswick, in the west of Holland, on the 20th of September of that year, terminated hostilities. 2 Up to that time, and later, the New England people suffered greatly from their mongrel foe. Remote settlements in the direction of Canada and Nova Scotia continued to be harassed. Almost a hun dred persons were killed or made captive [July 28, 1694] at Oyster River (now Durham), ten miles from Portsmouth, in New Hampshire. Two years later [July 25, 1696], Baron St. Castine, and a large force of French and Indians, captured the garrison at Pemaquid, and exchanged the prisoners for French soldiers in the hands of the English. 3 In March, 1697, Haverhill, thirty miles from Boston, was attacked, and forty persons were killed or carried into captivity ; 4 and during the following summer, more remote settlers were great sufferers. A respite now came. The treaty at Ryswick produced a lull in the storm of cruel warfare, which had so long hung upon the English fron tiers, continually menacing the colonists with wide-spread destruction. 5 It was very brief, however, for pretexts for another war were not long wanting. James the Second died in September., 1701, and Louis the Fourteenth, who had sheltered the exile, 6 acknowledged his son, Prince James (commonly known as the Pretender), -to be the lawful heir to the English throne. This offended the English, because the crown had been settled upon Anne, second daughter of James, who was a Protestant. Louis had also offended the English by placing his grandson, Philip of Anjou, upon the throne of Spain, and thus hell," and prosecuted him for slander. The credulous clergyman was glad to withdraw the suit. Cotton Mather was born in Boston, in February, 1633, and was educated at Harvard College. Ho was very expert hi the acquirement of knowledge, and at the age of nineteen years, he received the degree of Master of Arts. He became a gospel minister at twenty-two, and holding a ready pen, he wrote much. Few of his writings have survived him. With all his learning, he was but a child in that which constitutes true manhood, and he is now regarded more as a pedant than as a scholar. He died in February, 1728. For the benefit of young men, we will here introduce an anecdote connected with him. It was thus related by Dr. Franklin, to Samuel, a son of Cotton Mather: "The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library ; and on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. "We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turn ing partly toward him, when he said hastily, Stoop! stoop! I did not understand until I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed an occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, You are young, and have the world before you ; stoop as you go through, and you will escape many hard thumps. This advice, thus beat into my head, has fre quently been of use to me ; and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too high." 1 Page 130. 2 This war cost England one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, in cash, besides a loan of one hundred millions more. This loan was the commencement of the enormous national debt of En gland, now [1867] amounting to about four thousand millions of dollars. 3 They also took the English fort of St. John s, Newfoundland, and several other posts on that island. 4 Among their captives was a Mrs. Dustan, her child, and nurse. Her infant was soon killed, and she and her nurse were taken to Canada. A little more than a month afterward, Mrs. D., her companion, and another prisoner, killed ten of twelve sleeping Indians, who had them in custody, and made their way back to Haverhill. 6 Just before the conclusion of this treaty, a Board of Trade and Plantations was established by the English government, whose duty it was to haye a general oversight of the American colonies. This was a permanent commission, consisting of a president and seven members, called Lords of Trade. This commission was always an instrument of oppression in the hands of royalty, and, as will be seen, was a powerful promoter of that discontent which led to the rebellion of the colonies in 1775. 8 Page 130. 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 135 extended the influence of France among the dynasties of Europe. These, and some minor causes, impelled England again to declare war against France. 1 Hostilities commenced in 1702, and continued until a treaty of peace was con cluded at Utrecht, in Holland, on the llth of April, 1713. As usual, the French and English in America were involved in this war; and the latter suf fered much from the cruelties of the Indians who were under the influence of the former. This is known in America as QUEEN ANNE S WAR. It was a fortunate circumstance for- the people of New York that the FIVE NATIONS had made a treaty of neutrality with the French in Canada [Aug. 4, 1701], and thus became an impassable barrier against the savage hordes from the St. Lawrence. The tribes from the Merrimac to the Penobscot had made a treaty of peace with New England, in July, 1703, but the French induced them to violate it ; and before the close of summer, the hatchet fell upon the people of the whole frontier from Casco to Wells. Blood flowed in almost every valley ; and early the next spring [March, 1704], a large party of French and Indians, under Major Hertel de Rouville, attacked Deerfield, on the Connecticut River, applied the torch, 2 killed forty of the inhabitants, and car ried one hundred and twelve away to the wilderness. Among these was Rev. John Williams, the minister, whose little daughter, after a long residence with the Indians, WILLIAMS S HOUSE. became attached to them, and married a Mohawk chief. 3 Similar scenes occurred at intervals during the whole progress of the war. Remote settlements were abandoned, and the people on the frontier collected in fortified houses, 4 and cultivated their fields in armed parties of half a dozen or more. This state of things became insupportable to the English colonists, and in the spring of 1707, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, determined to chastise the French on their eastern borders. Connecticut refused to join in the enterprise, and the three colonies alone prepared an arma ment. Early in June, a thousand men under Colonel Marsh, sailed from Nan- tucket for Port Royal, 5 in Acadie,- convoyed by an English man-of-war. The French were prepared for them, and nothing was effected except the destruction of considerable property outside the fort. Three. years later, an armament left 1 It is known in European history as the War of the Spanish Succession. 3 The only house that escaped the flames was that of the Rev. John Williams, represented in the engraving. It stood near the centre of the village, until within a few years. 3 Mrs. Williams and other captives, who were unable to travel as rapidly as the Indians, were murdered. On his arrival in Canada, Mr. Williams was treated with respect by the French, and after two years of captivity, was ransomed, and returned to Massachusetts. The chief object of *.he expedition to Deerfield, appears to have been to carry off the bell that hung in Williams s church. That bell was purchased the year previous for the church of Saut St. Louis, at Caughnawaga, near Montreal. The vessel in which it was brought from Havre was captured by a New England pri vateer, and the bell was purchased for the Deerfield meeting-house. Father Nicolas, of the church at Caughnawaga, accompanied* the expedition, and the bell was carried in triumph to its original destination, where it still remains. 4 Note 1, page 127. 6 Page 58. 136 THE COLONIES. [1620. Boston [September, 1710], and, in connection with a fleet from England, under Colonel Nicholson, demanded and obtained a surrender of the fort and garrison [Oct. 13], at Port Kojal. The name of the place was then changed to Anna polis, in honor of the Queen, Anne, and Acadie was annexed to the English realm under the title of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. In July, the following year [1711], Sir Hovendon Walker arrived at Bos ton, with an English fleet and army, designed for the conquest of Canada. New England promptly raised additional forces, and on the 10th of August, fifteen men-of-war and forty transports, bearing almost seven thousand troops, departed for the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec. Walker, like Braddock, 8 haughtily refused to listen to experienced subordinates, and lost eight of his ships, and almost a thousand men, on the rocks at the mouth of the river, on the night of the 2d of September. Disheartened by this calamity, Walker returned to England with the remainder of his fleet, and the colonial troops went back to Boston. On hearing of this failure of the naval expedition, a body of troops marching from Albany to attack Montreal, retraced their steps. 3 Hostilities were now suspended, and in the spring of 1713, a treaty of peace was concluded [April 11] at Utrecht. The eastern Indians sent a flag to Bos ton, and sued for peace ; and at Portsmouth the Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire entered into a pacific compact [July 24] with the chiefs of the tribes. A long peace now ensued, and for thirty years succeeding the close of Queen Anne s War, the colonists enjoyed comparative repose. Then, again, the selfish strifes of European monarchs awakened the demon of discord, and its bloody footsteps were soon apparent along the northern frontiers of the English colonies in America. The interim had been a period of much political agitation in Massachusetts, during which a great stimulus had been given to the growth of republican principles. Disputes, sometimes violent, and sometimes in a con ciliatory spirit, had been carried on between the royal governors and the repre sentatives of the people ; the former contending for prerogatives and salaries which the people deemed inadmissible. 4 These internal disputes were arrested when they heard that France had declared hostility to England [March 15, 1744]. and the colonists cheerfully prepared to commence the contest known in America as KING GEORGE S AVAR. 6 This war was not productive of many stirring events in America. The principal and very important one was the capture of the strong fortress of 1 King "William had no children ; and Anne, the daughter of James the Second (who was mar ried to Prince George of Denmark), succeeded him as sovereign of England in 1702. 2 Page 186. 3 These were four thousand in number, under the command of General Nicholson. They were furnished by New York and Connecticut. 4 The chief topic of controversy was the payment of salaries. Governors Shute, Burnet and Belcher, all contended for a permanent salary, but the people claimed the right to vote such salary, each year, as the services of the governor appeared justly to demand. A compromise was finally effected by an agreement to vote a certain sum each year. The subject of salaries was a cause of contention with the royal governors, until the Revolution. 6 The husband of Queen Anne died several years previous to her death, which occurred in August, 1701. George, Elector of Hanover, in Germany, was immediately proclaimed King of 1755.] MASSACHUSETTS. 137 Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton. It had heen constructed by the French after the treaty of Utrecht, at an expense of five and a half millions of dollars, and because of its strength, was called The Gibraltar of America. William Shirley, 1 a soldier and energetic statesman, was Governor of Massa chusetts when hostilities were proclaimed. He immediately perceived the importance of Louisburg in the coming contest, and plans for its capture were speedily perfected by the Legislature of Massachusetts. 2 Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut furnished their proper quota of troops. New York sent artillery, and Pennsylvania provisions. Thus common danger was extending the idea of a necessity for a union of the Anglo-American colonies, long before it assumed a practical form in 1754. 3 After vainly waiting for some time in the expectation of aid from Commodore Warren (then in the West In dies), the colonial forces, thirty-two hundred strong, tinder the general command of William Pepperell, 4 sailed [April 4, 1745] for Louisburg. 5 At Canseau they were un expectedly joined by the fleet of Warren [May 9], and on the llth of May the combined forces, four thousand strong, landed at Gabarus Bay, a short distance from their des tination. The sudden appear ance of this formidable arm ament, was the first intimation CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG IN 1745. to the French, that an attack was meditated, and great consternation prevailed in the fortress and town. A England, by the title of George the First. His son George succeeded him in 1727, and also retained the title and privileges of Elector of Hanover. A contest arose between Maria Theresa, Empress of Hungary, and the Elector of Bavaria, for the throne of Austria. The King of England espoused the cause of the empress, in 1743, and the King of France took part with her opponent. This led France to declare war against England a contest known in America as King George s War, but in Europe, the War of the Austrian Succession. 1 "William Shirley was born in England; made governor of Massachusetts in 1741; was after ward made governor of one of the Bahama Islands, and died at Roxbury, near Boston, in 1771. He appears conspicuous in history during a portion of the contest known in America as The French and Indian War. 2 Shirley proposed an expedition, but the Legislature hesitated. The measure was finally agreed upon by a majority of only one vote. 3 Page 183. 4 Pepperell was a native of Maine, and a wealthy merchant. He was afterward made a bar onet. He died in 1759. 6 Louisburg is on the east side of the island of Cape Breton, with a fine, deep harbor. The land ing-place of the British, position of the camp, etc., will be seen by reference to the map. The Roy al Battery was taken by four hundred men. When they approached, the French thought the whole English army was upon them. They immediately spiked their guns (that is, drove iron spikes into the touch-holes of the cannons, so as to make them useless), and fled. In the upper part of the map is a profile of the fortifications at Louisburg. It is given here so as to illustrate certain terms which may be used hereafter : a, the glacis, is the extreme outside slope of the works ; b, the banquet, or step upon which the soldiers stand to fire over the parapet ; c, a covered way into the fort, under the banquet; d, counterscarp, a bank or wall, outside the ditch, e;f, the parapet, a protection for the men and guns from balls from without ; g, the inner banquet ; h, ramparts the most solid embankment of the fortress ; i the last slope in the interior of the fort, called talus. 138 THE COLONIES. [1620. direct approach was difficult on account of a morass, and a combined attack by sea and land was carefully arranged. The land forces encamped in a curve in rear of the town, and detachments secured the French outposts, one after an other. Cannons were dragged on sledges over the morass, 1 trenches were dug, batteries were erected, and a regular siege was commenced, on the 31st of May. In the mean while, Commodore Warren captured a French ship of seventy-four guns, and secured, as prisoners, over five hundred men, with a large quantity of military stores. While the siege was in progress, other English vessels of war arrived, and the fleet and army agreed to make a combined attack on the 29th of June. Despairing of successful resistance, the French surrendered the fortress, the city of Louisburg, and the island of Cape Breton, on the 28th of June, 1745. 2 The pride of France was greatly mortified by this daring and successful expedition, and the following year [1746] the Duke D Anville was sent with a powerful naval armament 3 to recover the lost fortress, and to desolate the En glish settlements along the seaboard. Storms wrecked many of his vessels, and disease soon wasted hundreds of his men ; and D Anville, thoroughly dispirited, abandoned the enterprise without striking a blow. 4 Two years afterward a treaty of peace was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle, in western Germany, when it was agreed that all prisoners should be released, and all acquisitions of prop erty or territory, made by either party, were to be restored. Both of the principal parties were heavy losers by the contest ; 5 while the strength of the colonists, yet to be called forth in a more important struggle, was revealed and noted. Old national animosities, religious differences, and recent causes for irrita tion, had inspired the English and French with intense mutual hatred, when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed on the 18th of October, 1748. The allegiance of Massachusetts and its sister colonies to the British crown, and the acknowledged duty of obedience, restrained the resentment of the American people, while England and France were at peace. Soon, disputes about local boundaries began, 6 and it was not long before preparations for war between the two races, were visible in America. Then came that final bloody struggle be tween the English and French, for dominion in the New World, known as the French and Indian War. 7 This we shall consider hereafter. 1 The artillery was commanded by Richard Gridley, who was the engineer of the continental army at Boston in 1775 and 1776. See page 234. 3 The prizes and stores obtained by the English amounted, in value, to little less than five mil lions of dollars. 3 It consisted of forty ships of war, fifty-six transports, thirty-five hundred men, and forty thou sand muskets for the use of the French and Indians in Canada. 4 D Anville, with two or three vessels, anchored at Chebucto (now Halifax, Nova Scotia), where he died, it is believed, by poison. His lieutenant also committed suicide, in consequence of morti fied pride. These disasters to the French fleet were regarded by the people of New England as spe cial manifestations of Providence in their favor. Public thanksgivings were offered ; and no one doubted the right of the English to the whole of Acadie. 6 Parliament afterward reimbursed to the colonies the cost of their preparations against Canada, amounting to more than a million of dollars. See page 199. 8 Page 180. T Page 179. 1755.J NEW YORK. 139 CHAPTER III. NEW YORK. [1623.] THE State of New York commenced its political career when Peter Minuit, J recently appointed Governor of New Nether land, 2 arrived at New Amsterdam (as the germ of the present city of New York was called), in May, 1626. He immediately purchased of the Indians, for about twenty-four dollars, the whole of the island of Manhattan, 3 on which the city of New York now stands, and began vigorously to perfect the founding of a State similar to those of Holland. He erected a strong fortification near the site of the present Battery, and called it Fort Amsterdam* By conciliatory measures, he gained the confidence of the Indians ; and he also opened a friendly correspondence with the Puritans at Plymouth. 5 The English reciprocated the friendly expressions of the Dutch ; at the same time, they requested the latter not to send their trappers quite as far eastward as Narraganset Bay, to catch otters and beavers. 6 For the purpose of encouraging emigration to New Netherland, the Dutch West India Company 7 offered, in 1629, large tracts of land, and certain priv ileges, to those persons who should lead or send a given number of emigrants to occupy and till the soil. 8 Directors of the company 9 availed themselves of the privilege, and sent Wouter (Walter) Van Twiller to examine the country and select the lands. Immigrants came ; and then were laid the foundations of the most noted of the manorial estates of New York. 10 The proprietors were called patroons (patrons), and held a high political and social station in the New World. The agent of the Patroons seems to have performed his duty well, and he was appointed governor of the colony, in 1633. The beginning of Van Twil ler s administration was marked by difficulties with the English on the Con- 1 Page 93. 2 Page 72. 3 Note 1, page 48. 4 See picture on page 144 6 Page 78. 6 Trade in furs was the chief occupation of the Dutch of New Netherland at this time. They became expert trappers, and were seen as far east as Nantucket, and even Cape Cod. The trade soon became profitable to the Company. The first year s remittance of furs to Amsterdam was valued at $11,000. This trade greatly increased; and before the troubles with the Indians in 1640, the value of furs sent to Holland, annually, was more than $60,000. 7 Page 72. 8 The land was to be fairly purchased of the Indians, and then the title was to be confirmed by the Dutch government. The privileges granted to the purchasers made them, in a degree, feudal lords [note 15, page 62], yet they were exempted from paying tribute to supreme authority. 9 Killian Van Rensselaer, who purchased a tract at Fort Orange (Albany) ; Samuel Godyn and Samuel Bloemart, who selected lands in "West Jersey, on the Delaware ; and Michael Pauw, whose domain included Jersey City and vicinity. See page 94. 10 Van Kensselaer. Large tracts of land in Albany and Rensselaer counties, portions of the first Patroon s estates, are yet [1867] in possession of the family. After 1840, many scenes of vio lence and bloodshed were witnessed on those lands, growing out of disputes with tenants, when they were called upon to pay even the almost nominal rent which was demanded. Social and political questions arose and produced two strong parties. The opposition of the tenantry was termed Anti-Rentism. Conciliatory measures were finally proposed by a purchaser of a large portion of the ancient manor, in Albany county, by which the tenants were allowed to buy the land, and obtain a title in fee-simple. In time, the whole estate will thus pass into the hands of numerous new owners. These angry disputes have already become items of past history. 140 THE COLONIES. [1623. necticut River. 1 He was more distinguished for his marriage connection with Yan Rensselaer, one of the Patroons, than for any administrative qualities. Yet circumstances favored the advancement of the colony, and he ruled quite satisfactorily, especially to the company, whose interests he faithfully served. He was succeeded in office, in May, 1638, by Sir William Keift, at the mo ment when the Swedish colony 3 were seating themselves upon the banks of the Delaware. Keift was a bold, rapacious, and unscrupulous man, and soon brought serious trouble upon the people. He began a tyrannous rule by con centrating executive power -in his own hands ; and his administration was a stormy and unfortunate one. The sum of its record is a tale of continual strife with the Swedes on the Delaware, 3 the English on the Connecticut, 4 the Indians all around him, and the colonists at his door. His difficulties with the Indians proved the most disastrous of all, and finally wrought his own downfall. Pre vious to his arrival, the intercourse of the Dutch with the natives had been quite friendly. 5 The fur trade was extending, and trappers and traders were all abroad among the native tribes. These carried a demon of discord with them. They furnished the Indians with rum, and quarrels and murders en sued. The avaricious Keift also demanded tribute of wampum 6 and beaver- skins from the River tribes ; and in a short time their friendship for the Dutch became weakened. A crisis came. Some Raritan 7 Indians in New Jersey were accused of rob bery. Keift sent an armed force to punish them [July, 1640], and blood flowed. Several Indians were killed, and their crops were destroyed. Savage vengeance did not slumber long. The Raritans murdered four planters on Staten Island [June, 1641], and destroyed considerable property. 8 An expe dition sent to punish the offenders was unsuccessful. Soon afterward, a young Westchester Indian, whose uncle had been murdered by a Hollander, near where the Halls of Justice now stand, 9 revenged the murder, according to the customs of his people, 10 by killing an inoffensive Dutchman living at Turtle Bay. 11 His tribe refused to surrender him on the demand of Keift, and the governor determined to make war upon all the offending savages. The people of New Netherland had already begun to murmur at Keift s course, and they charged the troubles with the Indians directly upon him. Un willing to assume the entire responsibility of a war, himself, the governor called a meeting [Aug. 23, 1641] of the heads of families in New Amsterdam for consultation. They promptly chdbe "twelve select men" [August 29], with De I Page 85. 3 Page 93. 3 Page 93. 4 Page 85. 6 The Dutch had made a settlement, and built a fort at Albany [page 72], and made a treaty of friendship with the Mohawks [page 23]. This the River Indians, in the vicinity of New Amster dam, did not like, for the Mohawks were their oppressors. 6 Note 2, page 13. 7 A tribe of the Lenni-Lenapes. Page 16. 8 This plantation belonged to De Vries [note 2, page 92], who was a friend of the Indians. 9 On Center street, New York city. There was once a fresh-water pond there, surrounded bj the forest. 10 The Indians had a custom concerning an avenger of blood, similar to that of the Jews. It was the duty and the privilege for the next of kin to the murdered man, to avenge his blood by killing the murderer. The Indians took the life of any of the tribe of the offender. II At the foot of Forty-fifth street, on the East River. 1755.] NEW YORK. 14X Vries 1 at their head, to act for them ; and this was the first representative assembly ever formed among Europeans on Manhattan Island. They did not agree with the governor s hostile views ; and Keift finding them not only op posed to his war designs, but that they were also taking cognizance of alleged grievances of the people, dissolved them, in February, 1642. Finally, the commission of other murders by Indians, and the presence of a body of Mo hawks, who had come down to exact tribute from the River tribes, concurred with the changed opinions of some leading citizens of New Amsterdam, to make Keift resolve to embrace this opportunity to chastise the savages. A large number of them had fled before the Mohawks, and sought shelter with, the Hackensacks, near Hoboken, and there craved the protection of the Dutch. Now was offered an opportunity for a wise and humane governor to make a. covenant of peace and friendship ; but Keift could not be satisfied without a, flow of blood. At midnight, in February, 1643, a body of Hollanders and Mo hawks crossed the Hudson, fell upon the unsuspecting fugitives, and before the dawn, they massacred almost a hundred men, women, and children. Many were driven from the cliffs at Hoboken into the freezing flood ; and at sunrise the bloody marauders returned to New Amsterdam with thirty prisoners, and the heads of several Indians. The fiery hatred and vengeance of all the surrounding tribes were aroused by this massacre, and a fierce war was soon kindled. Villages and farms w r ere desolated, and white people -were butchered wherever they were found by the incensed Indians. 2 The Long Island tribes, 3 hitherto friendly, joined their kin dred, and the very existence of the Dutch colony was menaced. Fortunately for the settlers, that eminent peace-maker, Roger Williams, 4 arrived [1643], to embark for England, 5 and he pacified the savages, and secured a brief repose for the colony. But the war was soon renewed, and for two years the colony suf fered dreadfully. Having no competent leader, they employed Captain John Underbill, 6 who successfully beat back and defeated the Indians, and hostilities ceased. The Mohawks came and claimed sovereignty over the River Indians, made a treaty of peace with the Dutch, and the hatchet was buried. The conduct of Governor Keift was so offensive to the colonists and the Company, that he was recalled, and he sailed for Europe in 1647, in a richly laden vessel. It was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and there he perished. He had already been succeeded in office [May, 27, 1647], by Peter Stuyvesant, lately governor of Cura^oa, a soldier of eminence, and possessed of every requis ite for an efficient administration of government. His treatment of the Indians was very kind and just, and they soon exhibited such friendship for the Dutch, that Stuyvesant was falsely charged with a design to employ them in murder ing the English in New England. 7 Long accustomed, as a military leader, to 1 Note 2, page 92. 3 It was during this frenzy of revenge that Mrs. Hutchinson, who had been banished from Mas sachusetts, and had taken up her residence near the present New Rochelle, "Westchester County, New York, was murdered, with all her family. The stream upon which she lived is yet known as Hutchinson s River. 3 Page 21. 4 Page 87. 6 Page 91. 6 Page 87. 7 See page 121. This idea prevailed, because during almost the entire winter of 1652-3, Ninigret 142 THE COLONIES. [1623. arbitrary rule, he was stern and inflexible, but he had the reputation of an honest man. He immediately commenced much needed reforms ; and during his whole administration, which was ended by the subjugation of the Dutch by the English, 1 in 1664, he was the faithful and energetic defender of the integ rity of the province against its foes. By prudent management he avoided col lisions with the English, and peaceably ended boundary disputes 2 with them in the autumn of 1650. This cause for irritation on his eastern frontier being removed, Stuyvesant turned his attention to the growing power of the Swedes, on the Delaware. Governor Stuyvesant built Fort Casimir, on the site of the present New and two other Narragansett sachems had been in New Amsterdam, and on very friendly terms with Stuyvesant. These sachems, who were true friends of the English, positively disclaimed aU bad intentions on the part of Stuyvesant, and yet historians of the present day repeat the slander 1 Page 144. 2 See page 85. He went to Hartford, and there made a treaty which fixed the eastern bound ary of New Netherland nearly on the line of the present division between New York and Connecti cut, and across Long Island, at Oyster Bay, thirty miles eastward of New York. The Dutch claims to lands on the Connecticut River were extinguished by this treaty. From the beginning of diffi culties, the Dutch were clearly in the right. This was acknowledged by impartial and just New Englanders. In a manuscript letter before me, from Edward Winslow to Governor Winthrop, dated at "Marshfield, 2d of 6th month, 1644," in which he replies to a charge of being favorable to the Dutch, in some respects, he says that he had asserted in substance, that he " would not defend the Hartford men s cause, for they had hitherto (or thus long) wronged the Dutch." 1755.] NEW YORK. 143 Castle, in Delaware, in 1651. This was soon seized by the Swedes, and the garrison made prisoners. The States-General 1 resolved to prevent further trouble with these enterprising neighbors of the Dutch, and for this purpose, gave Stujvesant full liberty to subjugate the Swedes. At the head of six hun dred men, he sailed for the Delaware, in August, 1655, and by the middle of October, he had captured all the Swedish fortresses, and sent the governor (Risingh) and several other influential men, to Europe. Some of the settlers withdrew to Maryland and Virginia, but the great body of them quietly sub mitted, took an oath of allegiance to the States-General of Holland, and con tinued in peaceable possession of their property. Thus, after an existence of about seventeen years [1638 1655J, NEW SWEDEN 2 disappeared by absorp tion into NEW NETHEKLAND. New trouble now appeared, but it was soon removed. While Stuyvesant and his soldiery were absent on the Delaware, some Indians, who were not yet reconciled to the Dutch, menaced New Amsterdam. 3 The return of the gov ernor produced quiet, for they feared and respected him, and, for eight years, the colony was very little disturbed by external causes. Then the Esopus Indians suddenly fell upon the Dutch settlements [June, 1663] at Wiltwyck (now Kingston, in Ulster County), 4 and killed and captured sixty-five of the in habitants. Stuyvesant promptly sent a sufficient force to chastise them ; and so thoroughly was the errand performed, that the Indians sued for peace in May, 1664, and made a treaty of friendship. External difficulties gave Stuyvesant little more trouble than a spirit opposed to his aristocratic views, which he saw manifested daily around him. While he had been judiciously removing all cause for ill-feeling with his neighbors, there was a power at work within his own domain which gave him great uneasiness. The democratic seed planted by the Twelve, in Keift s time, 5 had begun to grow vigorously under the fostering care of a few enlightened Hollanders, and some Puritans who had settled in New Netherland. The latter, by their applause of English institutions, had diffused a desire among the people to partake of the blessings of English liberty, as they understood it, and as it appeared in New England. Stuyvesant was an aristocrat by birth, education, and pursuit, and vehemently opposed every semblance of democracy. At the beginning he found himself at variance with the people. At length an assembly of two deputies from each village in New Netherland, chosen by the inhabitants, convened at New Amsterdam [December, 1653], without the approbation of the governor. It was a spontaneous, and, in the eyes of the governor, a revolutionary move ment. Their proceedings displeased him ; and finding argument of no avail, he exercised his official prerogative, and commanded obedience to his will. The people grew bolder at every rebuff, and finally they not only resisted taxation, but openly expressed a willingness to bear English rule for the sake of enjoying English liberty. The opportunity for a change of rulers was not long delayed. A crisis in 2 Note 7, page 59. a Page 93. 8 Page 139. * Page 283. 5 Page 140. 144 THE COLONIES. [1623. the affairs of New Netherland now approached. Charles the Second, of En gland, without any fair pretense to title, gave the whole territory of New Netherland [March 22, 1664 J to his brother James, Duke of York, 1 The duke sent an English squadron, under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, 2 to- secure the gift ; and on the 3d of September, 1664, the red cross of St. George* floated in triumph over the fort, and the name of New Amsterdam was changed to New York. 4 It was an easy conquest, for, while the fortifications and other means of defense were very weak, the people were not unwilling to try English rule. Stuyvesant began to make concessions to the people, when it was too late, and when his real strength, the popular will, had departed from him. He hesitated long before he would sign the articles of capitulation ; and thus, until the end, he was faithful to his employers, the Dutch West India Company* With the capital, the remainder of the province passed into the hands of the English; and early in October, 1664, New Netherland was acknowledged a, part of the British realm, and Nicolls, the conqueror became governor. 6 Let us now consider NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. Very soon after the conquest the people of New York 7 perceived that a change of masters- CITY OF NEW YORK IN 1664. did not enhance their prosperity and happiness. They were disappointed in their hopes of a representative government ; and their taxes, to support a government in which they had no voice, were increased. Lovelace, the successor of Nicolls, in 1667, increased their burdens ; and when they sent a respectful protest to him, he ordered the paper to be burned by the common hangman. Like a petty tyrant, he declared that the people should have " liberty for no thought but how to pay their taxes." But the people did think of something else, and were on the eve of open rebellion when. 1 Page 94. 2 Note 6, page 123. 9 The royal standard of England is sometimes so named because it bears a red cross, which is called the "cross of St. George," the patron saint of Great Britain. After the union with Scotland [note 1, page 63], the cross of St. Andrew (in the form of an X), was added, and is now seen on the British flag. In the centre are the royal arms. This Union, as the figure is called, was borne upon the American flags, sometimes, until after the Beclaration of Independence, in 1776. It was- upon the flag of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, which "Washington caused to be unfurled at Cambridge, on the first day of that year. See page 245. * The name of Fort Orange settlement [note 9, page 139], was changed to Albany, one of the duke s titles. 6 Page 72., 6 "We have elsewhere noticed the fact, that before Nicolls was dispatched, the duke, being cer tain of victory, sold that part of New Netherland now included in New Jersey, to other parties. [See page 94.] Long Island, which had been previously granted to the Earl of Stirling, was pur chased by the Dutch, in total disregard of the claims of Connecticut. The colonies on the Delaware remained under the jurisdiction of New York, and were governed by deputies. 1 The above picture is a correct view of the city of New York two hundred years ago It is now [1875] the largest city on the American continent." On the left of the picture is seen Fort Amster dam, with the church and governor s house within it, and a windmill. The point of Manhattan Island, from the present Battery Place to the foot of Wall-street, is here seen. STUTVESANT SURRENDERING THE FORT TO THE ENGLISH 1755.] NEW YORK. 147 the clouds of national war overshadowed local difficulties. War again com menced between England and Holland in 1672, and in July the following year, a Dutch squadron sailed up the Bay of New York, and, in the absence of the governor, took possession of the fort and town [August 9th, 1673] without giving a shot. The easy conquest was the work of treason ; yet, as the royal libertine (Charles the Second) on the throne of England doubtless shared in the bribe, the traitor went unpunished. * New Jersey and the Territories of Dela ware 2 yielded, and for sixteen months [from July, 1673, to November, 1674] New York was again New Netherlands. When the two nations made a treaty of peace, the province was restored to the English, and remained in their pos session until our Independence was declared in 1776. 3 These changes raised some doubts concerning the validity of the duke s title, and the king gave him another grant in July, 1674. Sir Edmond Andros 4 was appointed governor under the new charter, and continued arbitrary rule with increased rigor. 6 At the close of 1683, Governor Andros returned to England, when the duke (who was a Roman Catholic) appointed Thomas Dongan, of the same faith, to succeed him. In the mean while, the duke had listened to the judicious advice of William Penn, and instructed Dongan to call an assembly of repre sentatives. They met [October 17, 1683], and with the hearty concurrence of the governor, a CHARTER OF LIBERTIES was established. 6 and the permanent foundation of a representative government was laid. The people rejoiced in the change, and were heartily engaged in the efforts to perfect a wise and liberal government, when the duke was elevated to the throne, as James the Second, on the death of Charles, in February, 1685. As king, he refused to confirm the privileges which, as duke, he had granted ; and having determined to intro duce the Roman Catholic religion into the province as the established church, he commenced by efforts to enslave the people. A direct tax was ordered ; the printing press the right arm of knowledge and freedom was forbidden a place in the colony ; and the provincial offices were filled by Roman Catholics. These proceedings gave pain to the liberal-minded Dongan ; and when the king, in his religious zeal, instructed the governor to introduce French priests among the FIVE NATIONS, he resisted the measure as highly inexpedient. 8 His firm- 1 The traitor was Captain John Manning, the commandant of the fort. He was, doubtless, bribed by the Dutch commander ; and the fact that the king screened him from punishment, gave the color of truth to the charge that the monarch shared in the bribe- 2 Page 96. 3 Page 251. 4 Page 129. 6 The duke claimed the country from the Connecticut River to Cape Henlopen. Andros attempted to exercise authority eastward of the line agreed upon by the Dutch and the Connecticut people [note 2, page 142], and went to Saybrook in the summer of 1676, with an armed party, to enforce the claim. He met with such resistance, that he was compelled to return to New York without accomplishing his design. See page 116. 6 The Assembly consisted of the governor and ten councillors, and seventeen deputies elected by the freeholders. They adopted a Declaration of Eights, and asserted the principle, so nobly fought for a hundred years later, that taxation and representation are inseparable ; in other words that taxes can not be levied without the consent of the people, expressed by their representatives. At this time the colony was divided into twelve counties. 7 Page 23. 8 This measure would have given the French, in Canada, an influence over the Indians that might have proved fatal to English power on the Continent. The FIVE NATIONS remained the fast friends of the English, and stood as a powerful barrier against the French, when the latter twic invaded the Iroquqis territory, in endeavors to reach the English, at Albany. 148 THE COLONIES. [1623. ness gave the people confidence, and they were again on the eve of open rebel lion, when the intelligence of the flight of James, and the accession of William and Mary 1 reached them. They immediately appointed a committee of safety, and with almost unanimous voice, sanctioned the conduct of Jacob Leisler (an influential merchant and commander of the militia), who had taken possession of the fort in the name of the new sovereigns, and by order of the inhabitants. Afraid of the people, Nicholson, the successor of Dongan, fled on board a vessel and departed, and the people consented to Leisler s assuming the functions of governor until a new one should be appointed. The aristocracy and the magis trates -were offended, and denouncing Leisler as a usurper, they accused him of treason, when Governor Sloughter arrived, in 1691. Leisler, in the mean while, conducted affairs with prudence and energy. Having the sanction of the people, he needed no further authority ; and when a letter from the British ministers arrived [December, 1689], directed to Gov ernor Nicholson, "or, in his absence, to such as, for the time being," conducted affairs, he considered it as fairly addressed to himself. Milborne, his son-in-law, acted as his deputy, and was included in the accusations of the magistrates, who had now retired to Albany. They held Fort Orange 2 until the invasion of the French, in February, 1690, 3 when they felt the necessity of claiming the protection of the government at New York. They then yielded, and remained comparatively quiet until the arrival of Richard Ingoldsby, Sloughter s lieutenant, early in 1691. That officer announced the appointment of Henry Sloughter as governor ; and without producing any credentials of authority, he haughtily demanded of Leisler [February 9, 1691] the surrender of the fort. Of course Leisler refused compliance ; but as soon as Sloughter arrived [March 29], he sent a messenger to announce his desire to surrender all authority into his hands. Leisler s enemies had resolved on his destruction ; and when he came forward to deliver the fort, in person, he and his son-in-law were seized and cast into prison. They were tried on a charge of treason, found guilty, and condemned to suffer death. Sloughter withheld his signature to their death warrant ; but, when made drunk at a dinner party prepared for the pur pose, he put his name to the fatal instrument. Before he became sober, Leisler and Milborne were suspended upon a gallows on the verge of Beekman s swamp May 26, 1691], where Tammany Hall fronting on the City Hall Park, New York now stands. These were the proto-martyrs of popular liberty in America. 4 Henry Sloughter was a weak and dissolute man, yet he came with an earn est desire to promote the welfare of the colonists. He convened a popular assembly, and formed a constitution, which provided for trial by jury, and an exemption from taxes, except by the consent of the representatives of the peo ple. Light was thus dawning hopefully upon the province, when delirium 1 Note 7, page 113. 9 Note 9, page 139. 8 At this time, Schenectada was desolated. See page 131. 4 Their estates were confiscated ; but after a lapse of several years, and when the violence of party spirit had subsided, the property was restored to their families. 1755.] NEW YORK. 149 tremens, at the close of a drunken revel, ended the administration and the life of the governor [August 2, 1691], in less than three months after the murder of Leisler and Milborne. He was succeeded by Benjamin Fletcher, a man of violent passions, and quite as weak and dissolute, who became the tool of the aristocracy, and was hated by the people. Party spirit, engendered by the death of Leisler, burned intensely during the whole administration of Fletcher ; and at the same time the French and Indians, under the guidance of Frontenac, the able Governor of Canada, 1 were traversing the northern frontiers of the province. Fletcher prudently listened to the advice of Major Schuyler, 2 of Albany, respecting the Indians; and under his leadership, the English, and their unwavering allies, the FIVE NATIONS, successfully beat back the foe to the St. Lawrence, and so desolated the French settlements in 1692, in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, 3 that Frontenac was glad to remain quiet at Montreal. A better ruler for New York now appeared. The Earl of Bellomont, an honest and energetic Irish peer, succeeded Fletcher in 1698 ; and the following year, New Hampshire 4 and Massachusetts 5 were placed under his jurisdiction. He commenced reform with great earnestness, and made vigorous efforts to sup press piracy, which had become a fearful scourge to the infant commerce of the colonists. With Robert Livingston 7 and others, he fitted out an expedition under the famous Captain Kidd, to destroy the buccaneers. Kidd, himself, was afterward hung for piracy [1701], and the governor and his sons were charged with a participation in his guilt. At any rate, there can be little doubt that wealthy men in the colony expected a share in the plunder, and that Kidd, as a scape-goat for the sins of the others, was the victim of a political conspiracy. 8 Unfortunately for the colony, death removed Bellomont, on the 16th of March, 1701, when his liberal policy was about to bear fruit. He was suc ceeded by Edward Hyde (afterward Lord Cornbury), 9 a libertine and a knave, who cursed the province with misrule for seven years. He was a bigot, too, and persecuted all denominations of Christians, except those of the Church of England. He embezzled the public moneys, involved himself in heavy debts, and on all occasions was the practical enemy of popular freedom. The people 1 From 1678 to 1682, and again from 1689 to 1698, when he died, at the age of 77. 2 Peter Schuyler. He was mayor of Albany, and acquired unbounded influence over the FIVE NATIONS of Indians. See page 23. 8 Schuyler s force was about three hundred Mohawks, and as many English. They slew about three hundred of the French and Indians, at the north end of the lake. 4 Page 79. 6 Page 117. 8 Because Spain claimed the exclusive right to the West India seas, her commerce in that region was regarded as fair plunder. Privateer commissions were readily granted by the English, French, and Dutch governments ; and daring spirits from all countries were found under their flags. The buccaneers, as they were called, became very numerous and powerful, and at length depredated upon English commerce as well as Spanish. Privateers, or those legally authorized to seize the prop erty of an enemy, became pirates, or sea robbers. Privateering is only legalized piracy. 7 An immigrant from Scotland, and ancestor of the Livingston family in this country. He was connected, by marriage, with the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler families; and in 1685, he received from governor Dongan a grant of a feudal principality (see patroon, page 139) on the Hudson, yet known as Livingston s Manor. 8 King William himself was a shareholder in the enterprise for which Kidd was fitted out. Kidd appeared publicly in Boston, where he was arrested, then sent to England, tried, and executed. 9 Page 161. 150 THE COLONIES. finally demanded and obtained his recall, and the moment his official career ceased, in 1708, his creditors cast him into prison, where he remained until his accession to the peerage, on the death of his father. 1 From this period until the arrival of William Cosby, as governor [1732], the royal representatives, 3 unable to resist the will of the people, as expressed by the Assembly, allowed democratic principles to grow and bear fruit. 3 The popular will and voice now began to be potential in the administration of public affairs. Rip Van Dam, u a man of the people," was acting governor when Cosby came. They soon quarreled, and two violent parties arose the democratic, which sided with Van Dam, and the aristocratic, which supported the governor. Each party had the control of a newspaper, 4 and the war of words raged violently for a long time. The governor, unable to compete with his opponent, finally ordered the arrest of Zenger [November, 1734], the pub lisher of the democratic paper, on a charge of libel. After an imprisonment of thirty-five weeks, Zenger was tried by a jury, and acquitted, in July, 1735. He was defended by Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, who was presented by the magistrates of the city of New York with a gold box, as a token of their esteem for his noble advocacy of popular rights. Then was distinctly drawn the line of demarcation between republicans and royalists (Whigs and Tories). 5 which continued prominent until the war of the revolution was ended in 1783. From the arrival of Cosby until the commencement of the French and Indian war, 6 the history of New York is composed chiefly of the records of party strife, and presents very little matter of interest to the general reader. Only one episode demands special attention, namely, the excitement and results incident to a supposed conspiracy of the negroes, in 1741, to burn and plunder the city, murder the inhabitants, and set up a government under a man of their own color. Several incendiary fires had occurred in rapid succession, and a house had been robbed by some slaves. The idea of a regular and horrid con spiracy at once prevailed, and, as in the case of the Salem Witchcraft, 7 an intense panic pervaded all classes, and many innocent persons suffered. 8 This is known in history as The Neyro Plot. 1 According to an unjust law of England, a peer of the realm (who is consequently a member of the House of Lords [note 2, page 218]) can not be arrested for debt. This law, enacted in the reign of Henry the Eighth, still prevails. 2 Lord Lovelace, Ingoldsby, Hunter, Schuyler, Burnet, and Montgomerie. 8 "We have already noticed (page 135) the breaking out of Queen Anne s War, in 1702, and the successful expeditions fitted out and sent in the direction of Montreal in 1709 and 1711. The debt which these expeditions laid upon New York, was felt for many years. 4 The New York Weekly Journal (democratic), by John Peter Zenger; The New York Gazette (aristocratic), by "William Bradford. The latter owned the first press ever set up in the province. He commenced printing in New York in 1696. See note 3, page 179. 6 Note 4, page 226. 6 Page 179. T Page 132. 8 Bef6re the panic was allayed, four white people were hanged; and eleven negroes were burned, eighteen were hanged, and fifty were sent to the "West Indies and sold. 1755.] MARYLAND 151 CHAPTER IV. MAR7LAND. [1639.] WHEN the first popular assembly convened at St. Mary, for legislative pur poses, on the 8th of March, 1635, 1 Maryland had then its colonial birth. Its sturdy growth began when, in 1639, the more convenient form of representa tive government was established. It was crude, but it possessed the elements of republicanism. The freemen chose as many representatives as they pleased, and others were appointed by the proprietor. These, with the governor and secretary, composed the legislature. At this first session a Declaration of Rights was adopted, the powers of the governor were defined, and all the privi leges enjoyed by English subjects were guarantied to the colonists. 3 Very soon the Indians in the vicinity, becoming jealous of the increasing strength of the white people, began to evince hostility. Frequent collisions occurred ; and in 1642, a general Indian war commenced in the region between the Potomac and the Chesapeake. It was terminated in 1645, but the quiet of the province was soon disturbed again. Clayborno had returned from England 3 [1645], and speedily fanned the embers of discontent into a flame of open rebellion. He became too powerful for the local authorities, and Governor Calvert 4 was obliged to flee to Virginia. During a year and a half, the insur gents held the reins of government, and the horrors of civil war brooded over the colony. The rebellion was suppressed in the summer of 1646, and in August, Calvert resumed his office. In the year 1649, a very important law, known as The Toleration Act, was passed by the Assembly. Religious freedom was guarantied by the charter, 6 yet, as much animosity existed between the Protestants 8 and Roman Catholics, the Assembly 7 thought proper to give the principle the solemn sanction of law. By that act every professed believer in Jesus Christ and the Trinity, was allowed free exercise of his religious opinions, and no man was permitted to reproach another on account of his peculiar doctrines, except under the penalty of a fine, to be paid to the person so insulted. Thither persecuted Churchmen of New England, and oppressed Puritans of Virginia, fled and found an asylum. This act, short of full toleration as it was (for it placed Unitarians beyond the pale of its defense), is the pride and glory of the early legislature of Maryland ; yet it was not the first instance in America, as is often alleged, when religious toleration received the sanction of law. 8 Rhode Island has that honor. 1 Page 82. a Page 82. 8 Note 1, page 82. 4 Page 81. 6 Page 81. 6 Note 14, page C2. 7 Bozman, in his History of Maryland (II. 350 356), maintains that the majority of the mem bers of the Assembly of 1649, were Protestants. The records of Maryland prove it. 8 In May, 1647, the General Assembly of Rhode Island, convened at Portsmouth, adopted a code of laws which closed with the declaration that " all men might walk as their consciences per suaded them, without molestation every one in the name of his God." This was broader tolera tion than the Maryland act contemplated, for it did not restrict men to a belief in Jesus Christ. 152 THE COLONIES. [1639. Being favored by events in the mother country, republicanism grew steadily in the new State. Royalty was abolished in England [1649J, and for more than ten years the democratic idea was prevalent throughout the realm. Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of Maryland, professed republicanism on the death of the king, but ho had been too recently a royalist to secure the confidence of Parliament. Stone, his lieutenant, was removed from office [April 16, 1651] by commissioners (of whom Clay borne was one), who were sent to administer the government of the colony. He was soon afterward [July 8] restored. On the dissolution of the Long Parliament [1653] Cromwell restored full power to the proprietor, but the commissioners, who withdrew to Virginia, returned soon afterward, and compelled Stone to surrender the government into their hands. The colonial government had been re-organized in the mean while. The legislative body was divided into an Upper and Lower House in 1650 ; the former consisting of the governor and his council, appointed by the proprietor, and the latter of representatives chosen by the people. At the same session a law was passed prohibiting all taxes, unless levied with the consent of the free men. Political questions were freely discussed by the people ; and soon the two chief religious sects were marshaled in opposition, as prime elements of political parties. So great had been the influx of Protestants, that they now [1654] outnumbered the Roman Catholics as voters and in the Assembly. They acknowledged the authority of Cromwell, and boldly questioned the rights and privileges of an hereditary proprietor. 2 The Roman . Catholics adhered to Lord Baltimore, and bitter religious hatred was fostered. The Protestants finally disfranchised their opponents, excluded them from the Assembly, and in Novem ber, 1654, passed an act declaring Roman Catholics not entitled to the protec tion of the laws of Maryland. This unchristian and unwise act of the Protestant party, was a great wrong as well as a great mistake. Civil war ensued. Stone returned to St. Mary, 3 organized an armed force composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, seized the colo nial records, and assumed the office of governor. Skirmishes followed, and finally a severe battle was fought [April 4, 1655] not far from the site of Annapolis, in which Stone s party was defeated, with a loss of about fifty men, killed and wounded. Stone was made prisoner, but his life was spared. Four other leading supporters of the proprietor were tried for treason and executed. Anarchy prevailed in the province for many months, when the discordant ele ments were brought into comparative order by the appointment of Josiah Fen- dall [July 20, 1656] as governor. He was suspected of favoring the Roman Catholics, and was soon arrested by order of the Protestant Assembly. For two years bitter strife continued between the people and the agents of the 1 When Charles the First was beheaded [note 3, page 108], the Parliament assumed supreme authority, and remained in permanent session. Cromwell, with an army at his back, entered that assembly in the autumn of 1653, ordered them to disperse, and assumed supreme power himself; under the title of Lord Protector. That British legislature is known in history as the Long Parlia ment. 3 According to the original charter, the heirs and successors of Lord Baltimore were to be pro prietors forever. 3 Page 82. 1755.] MARYLAND. 153 proprietor, when, after concessions by the latter, Fendall was acknowledged governor, on the 3d of April, 1658. His prudence secured the confidence of the people, but the death of Cromwell, in September, 1658, presaging a change in the English government, gave them uneasiness. After long deliberation, the Assembly determined to avoid all further trouble with the proprietor, by asserting the supreme authority of the people. They accordingly dissolved the Upper House [March 24, 1660], * and assumed the whole legislative power of the State. They then gave Fendall a commission as governor for the people. The restoration of monarchy in England took place in June, 1660, 3 and the original order of things was re-established in Maryland. Lord Baltimore, hav ing assured the new king that his republican professions 3 were only temporary expedients, was restored to all his proprietary rights, by Charles. Fendall was tried, and found guilty of treason, because he accepted a commission from the rebellious Assembly. Baltimore, however, wisely proclaimed a general pardon for all political offenders in Maryland ; and for almost thirty years afterward, the province enjoyed repose. A law, which established absolute political equal ity among professed Christians, was enacted ; and after the death of the second Lord Baltimore [Dec. 10, 1675], his son and successor confirmed it. Under that new proprietor, Charles Calvert, Maryland was governed mildly and pru dently, and the people were prospering in their political quietude, when the Revolution in England 4 shook the colonies. The deputy governor of Maryland hesitated to proclaim William and Mary, 6 and this was made a pretense, by a restless spirit, named Coode, 6 for exciting the people. He gave currency to the absurd report that the local magistrates and the Roman Catholics had leagued with the Indians 7 for the destruction of all the Protestants in the colony. A similar actual coalition of Jesuits^ and savages on the New England frontiers 9 gave a coloring of truth to the story, and the old religious feud instantly burned again intensely. The Protestants formed an armed association [Sept., 1689], and led on by Coode, they took forcible possession of St. Mary, and by capitu lation, received the provincial records and assumed the government. They called a Convention, and invested it with legislative powers. Its first acts were to depose the third Lord Baltimore, and to re-assert the sovereign majesty of the people. Public affairs were managed by the Convention until 1691, when the king unjustly deprived Baltimore of all his political privileges as proprietor [June 11], and made Maryland a royal province. 10 Lionel Copley was appointed the first royal governor, in 1692. New laws were instituted religious toleration 1 Page 152. 2 Note 2, page 109. 3 Page 152. 4 Note 7, page 113. 6 Page 113. 8 Coode had been a confederate in a former insurrection, but escaped conviction. 7 A treaty with the Indians had just been renewed, and the customary presents distributed among them. These things Coode falsely adduced as evidences of a coalition with the savages. 6 Note 5, page 130. 9 Page 130. 10 King William had an exalted idea of royal prerogatives, and was as much disposed as the Stuarts (the kings of England from James the First to James the Second) to suppress democracy in the colonies. He repeatedly vetoed (refused his assent) to Bills of Rights enacted by the colonial Assemblies ; refused his assent to local laws of the deepest interest to the colonists ; and instructed his governors to prohibit printing in the colonies. Note 7, page 112. 154 THE COLONIES. [1639. was abolished the Church of England was made the established religion, to be supported by a tax on the people ; and in the State founded by Roman Cath olics, the members of that denomination were cruelly disfranchised, with the consent of their sovereign. A few years later [1716], the proprietary rights of Lord Baltimore (now deceased) were restored to his infant heir, and the original form of government was re-established. Such continued to be the poli tical complexion of the colony, until the storm of the Revolution in 1776, swept away every remnant of royalty and feudalism, and the State of Maryland waa established. CHAPTER V. CONNECTICUT. [1639.] THE CONNECTICUT COLON Y 1 formed a political Constitution on the 24th of January, 1639, and in June following, the NEW HAVEN COLONY performed the same important act, 2 The religious element was supreme in the new organ ization ; and, in imitation of the Constitution of the Plymouth settlers none but church members were allowed the privileges of freemen 8 at New Haven. They first appointed a committee of twelve men, who selected seven of their members to be " pillars" in the new State. These had power to admit as many others, as confederate legislators, as they pleased. Theophilus Eaton was chosen governor, 4 and the Bible was made the grand statute-book of the colony. Many of the New Haven settlers being merchants, they sought to found a com mercial colony, but heavy losses by the wreck of vessels 3 discouraged them, and they turned their special attention to agriculture. Prudence marked the course of the magistrates of the several colonies in the Connecticut valley, 8 and they were blessed with prosperity. But difficulties with the Dutch respecting terri torial boundaries, and menaces of the neighboring Indians, gave them uneasi ness, and made them readily join the New England confederation in 1643. 8 The following year the little independent colony at Saybrook 9 purchased the land of one of the proprietors of Connecticut, 10 and became permanently annexed to that at Hartford. 11 The future appeared serene and promising. The treaty made with Gov ernor Stuyvesant, at Hartford, in 1650, 12 gave token of future tranquillity. But the repose was soon broken by international war. England and Holland drew the sword against each other in 1652 ; and because it was reported that Nini- gret, the wily sachem of the Narragansetts, 13 had spent several weeks at New 1 Page 89. 2 Page 89. The people assembled in a barn to form a new Constitution. 3 Note 5, page 118. 4 He was annually chosen to fill the office, until his death, which occurred in 1657. 6 In 1647, a new ship belonging to the colony foundered at sea. It was laden with a valuable cargo, and the passengers belonged to some of the leading families in the colony. 6 Page 86. 7 Page 85, and note 2, page 142. 8 Page 121. Pa^e 86. 10 Page 85. Page 88. Note 2, page 142. 1S Note 7, page 141. 1755.] CONNECTICUT. 155 Amsterdam in the winter of 1652-3 1 the belief prevailed in New England, as we have already observed, that Stuyvesant was leaguing with the Indians for the destruction of the English. * Great excitement ensued, and a majority of the commissioners decided, 3 in 1653, upon war with the Dutch. Immediate hostilities were prevented by the refusal of Massachusetts to furnish its quota of supplies. The Connecticut colonies (who were more exposed to blows from the Dutch than any other) applied to Cromwell for aid, and he sent four ships of war for the purpose. Before their arrival, 4 a treaty of peace was concluded between the two nations, and blood and treasure were saved. The Assembly at Hartford took possession of all property then claimed by the Dutch ; and after that the latter abandoned all claims to possessions in the Connecticut valley. On the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, the Connecticut colony expressed its loyalty, and obtained a charter. At first, Charles was disposed to refuse the application of Winthrop, 5 the agent of the colony, for he had heard of the sturdy republicanism of the petitioners. But when Winthrop presented his majesty with a ring which Charles I. had give \ to his grand father, the heart of the king was touched, and he granted a charter [May 30, 1662] which not only confirmed the popular Constitution of the colony, but contained more liberal provisions than any yet issued from the royal hand. 6 It defined the eastern boundary of the province to be Narraganset Bay, and the western, the Pacific Ocean. It thus included a portion of Rhode Island, and the whole New Haven Colony." 1 The latter gave a reluctant consent to the union in 1665, but Rhode Island positively refused the alliance. A charter given to the latter the year after one was given to Connecticut [1663], 8 covered a portion of the Connecticut grant in Narraganset Bay. Concerning this boundary the two colonies disputed for more than sixty years. The colony of Connecticut suffered but little during KING PHILIP S YfAR, 9 which broke out in 1675, with the exception of some settlements high up on the fresh water river. 10 Yet it furnished its full quota of men and supplies, and its soldiers bore a conspicuous part in giving the vigorous blows which broke the power of the New England Indians. 11 At the same time, the colonists were obliged to defend their liberties against the attempted usurpations of Ed mund Andros, then governor of New York. 12 He claimed jurisdiction to the 1 This report was set afloat by Uncas, the mischievous Mohegan sachem [page 87], who hated the Narragansetts. It had no foundation in truth. See, also, page 21. * Page 141. 3 Page 121. 4 Roger Williams, then in England, managed to delay the sailing of the fleet, and thus, again, that eminent peace-maker prevented bloodshed. Page 87. 6 John Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts. He was chosen governor of Connecticut in 1657, and held the office several years. Such was his station when he appeared in England to ask a charter of the king. Hopkins (who was one of the founders of the New Haven colony) was chosen the first governor of the Connecticut colony, and for several years he and Haynes were alternately chosen chief magistrates. 6 This original charter is now [1867] in the office of the Secretary of the State of Connecticut. It contains a portrait of Charles the Second, handsomely drawn in India ink, and forming part of an initial letter. This was the instrument afterward hidden in the great oak mentioned on the next page. T Page 88. Thus the several settlements were united under the general name of Connecticut. 8 Page 156. 9 Page 124. 10 Page 85. Page 22. M Page 147. 156 THE COLONIES. mouth of the Connecticut River, and in July, 1675, he proceeded to Saybrook with a small naval force, to assert his authority. He was permitted to land ; but when he ordered the garrison in the fort to surrender, and began to read hia commission to the people, Captain Bull, the commander, ordered him to be silent. Perceiving the strength and determination of his adversary, Andros wisely withdrew, and greatly irritated, returned to New York. During the next dozen years, very little occurred to disturb the quiet and prosperity of Connecticut. Then a most exciting scene took place at Hartford, in which the liberties of the colony were periled. Edmund Andros again ap peared as usurper of authority. He had been appointed governor of New England in 1686, l and on his arrival he demanded a surrender of the charters of all the provinces. They all complied, except Connecticut. She steadily refused to give up the guaranty of her political rights ; and finally Andros pro ceeded to Hartford with sixty armed men, to enforce obedience. The Assem bly were in session when he arrived [Oct. 31, 168T], and received him court eously. He demanded the surrender of the charter, and declared the colonial government dissolved. Already a plan had been arranged for securing the safety of that precious instrument, and at the same time to preserve an appearance of loyalty. The debates were purposely protracted until the candles were lighted, at evening, when the charter was brought in and laid upon the table. Just as Andros stepped forward to take it, the candles were suddenly extinguished. The charter was seized by Captain Wadsworth, of the mil itia, and under cover of the night it was effectually concealed in the hollow trunk of a huge oak, standing not far from the Assembly chamber. 3 When the can dles were relighted, the members were in perfect order, but the charter could not be found. Andros THE CHARTER OAK. ! 1.1 J 4. 1, ^ * ! J V A <L was highly incensed at being thus foiled, but he wisely restrained his passion, assumed the government, and with his own hand wrote the word FINIS after the last record of the Charter Assembly. The gov ernment was administered in his own name until he was driven from Boston in 1689, 3 when the charter was taken from the oak [May 19, 1689], a popular Assembly was convened, Robert Treat was chosen governor, and Connecticut again assumed her position as an independent colony. Petty tyrants continued to molest. A little more than four years later, the Connecticut people were again compelled to assert their chartered liberties. Colonel Fletcher, then governor of New York, 4 held a commission which gave him command of the militia of Connecticut. 5 As that power was reserved to 1 Page 129. 2 That tree remained vigorous until ten minutes before one o clock in the morning, August 21, 1856, when it was prostrated during a heavy storm, and nothing but a stump remains. It stood on the south side of Charter-street, a few rods from Main-street, in the city of Hartford. The cavity in which the charter was concealed, had become partially closed. 3 Page 130. 4 Page 147. 6 The declared object of this commission was to enable Fletcher to call forth the Connecticut : militia when proper, to repel an expected invasion of Northern New York, by the French and .Indians. 1755.] RHODE ISLAND. 157 the colony by the charter, the Legislature refused to acknowledge Fletcher s authority. In November, 1693, he repaired to Hartford, and, notwithstanding the Legislature was in session, and again promptly denied his jurisdiction, he ordered the militia to assemble. The Hartford companies, under Captain Wadsworth, 1 were drawn up in line ; but the moment Fletcher attempted to read his commission, the drums were beaten. His angry order of " Silence!" was obeyed for a moment ; but when he repeated it, Wadsworth boldly stepped in front of him, and said, " Sir, if they are again interrupted, I 11 make the sun shine through you in a moment." Fletcher perceived the futility of a parley, or further assumption of authority ; and, pocketing his commission, he and his attendants returned to New York, greatly chagrined and irritated. The mat ter was compromised when referred to the king, who gave the governor of Con necticut militia jurisdiction in time of peace, but in the event of war, Colonel Fletcher should have the command of a certain portion of the troops of that colony. And now, in the year 1700, Connecticut had a population of about thirty thousand, which rapidly increased during the remainder of her colonial career. During Queen Anne s War* and the stirring events in America from that time until the commencement of the French and Indian War, 8 when her people numbered one hundred thousand, Connecticut went hand in hand with her sis ter colonies for mutual welfare ; and her history is too closely interwoven with theirs to require further separate notice. CHAPTER VI . RHODE ISLAND. [1644.] WHEN the Providence and Rhode Island plantations were united under the same government in 1644, the colony of Rhode Island commenced its inde pendent career. 4 That charter was confirmed by the Long Parliament 5 in October, 1652, and this put an end to the persevering efforts of Massachusetts to absorb " Williams s Narraganset Plantation." That colony had always coveted the beautiful Aquiday, 6 and feared the reaction of Williams s tolerant principles upon the people from whose bosom he had been cruelly expelled. 7 A dispute concerning the eastern boundary of Rhode Island was productive of much ill feeling during the progress of a century, when, in 1741, commission ers decided the present line to be the proper division, and wrangling ceased. 1 Page 156. a Page 135. 3 Page 179. 4 Page 91. A general assembly of deputies from the several towns, met at Portsmouth on the 29th of May, 1647, and organized the new government by the election of a president and other offi cers. At that time a code of laws was adopted, which declared the government to be a democracy, and that "all men might walk as their conscience persuaded them." Page 151. Note 1, page 15d e Note 5, page 91. 7 Page 91- 158 THE COLONIES. [1644. Nor was Rhode Island free from those internal commotions, growing out of relig ious disputes and personal ambition, which disturbed the repose of other colonies. These were quieted toward the close of 1653, when Roger Williams was chosen president. Cromwell confirmed the royal charter on the 22d of May, 1655, and during his administration the colony prospered. On the accession of Charles the Second, 1 Rhode Island applied for and obtained a new charter [July 8, 1663], highly democratic in its general features, and similar, in every respect, to the one granted to Connecticut. 2 The first governor elected under this instrument, was Benedict Arnold ; 3 and by a colonial law, enacted during his first administration, the privileges of freemen were granted only to free holders and their eldest sons. Bowing to the mandates of royal authority, Rhode Island yielded to Andros, in January, 168 T ; but the moment intelligence reached the people of the acces sion of William and Mary 4 [May 11, 1689], and the imprisonment of the petty tyrant at Boston, 6 they assembled at Newport, resumed their old charter, and re-adopted their seal an anchor, with Hope for a motto. Under this charter, Rhode Island continued to be governed for one hundred and fifty-three years, when the people, in representative convention, in 1842, adopted a constitution. 8 Newport soon became a thriving commercial town ; and when, in 1732, John Franklin established there the first newspaper in the colony, it contained five thousand inhabitants, and the whole province about eighteen thousand. 7 Near Newport the celebrated Dean Berkeley purchased lands in 1729 ; and with him came John Smibert, an artist, who introduced portrait painting into Amer ica. 8 Notwithstanding Rhode Island was excluded from the New England confederacy, 9 it always bore its share in defensive efforts ; and its history is identified with that of New England in general, from the commencement of King William s War. 10 1 Page 109. a Page 154. This charter guarantied free toleration in religious matters, and the legislature of the colony re-asserted the principle, so as to give it the popular force of law. The assertion, made by some, that Roman Catholics were excluded from voting, and that Quakers were outlawed, is erroneous. 8 He was governor several times, serving in that office, altogether, about eleven years. He was chief magistrate of the colony when he died, in 1678. 4 Page 130. 6 Page 130. 6 Page 477. 7 Of these, about one thousand were Indians, and more than sixteen hundred were negroes. 8 Berkeley preached occasionally in a small Episcopal church at Newport, and presented the congregation with an organ, the first ever heard in America. Smibert was a Scotchman, and married and settled at Boston. His picture of Berkeley and his family is still preserved at Tale College [page 178], in New Haven. Berkeley (afterward made bishop of a diocese in Ireland) made great efforts toward the establishment of the Arts and Learning, in America. Failing in his project of founding a new University, he became one of the most liberal benefactors of Yale College. In view of the future progress of the colonies, he wrote that prophetic poem, the last verse of which contains the oft-quoted line "Westward the course of Empire takes its way." Page 121. Page 130. 1755.] NEW JERSEY. 1^9 CHAPTER VII. NEW JERSEY. [1664.] THE settlements in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, we have considered together in the same chapter, 1 as constituting a series of events hav ing intimate relations with each other. The history of the colonial organization of the first two, is separate and distinct. Delaware was never an independent colony or State, until after the Declaration of Independence, in 1776. The founding of the New Jersey colony occurred when, in 1664, the Duke of York sold the territory to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, 2 and the new proprietors began the work of erecting a State. They published a form of agreement which they called " Concessions," 3 in which liberal offers were made to emigrants who might settle within the territory. Among other provisions, the people were to be exempt from the payment of quit-rents and other burdens, for the space of five years. Allured by the liberality of the " Concessions," as well as by the salubrity of the climate and the fertility of the soil, many families came from Long Island in 1664, and settled at Elizabethtown ;* and in August, the following year, Philip Carteret (brother of one of the proprietors) was appointed governor, and arrived at Elizabethtown with a number of settlers. At first all was peaceable. Nothing disturbed the repose of the colony during the five years exemption from rents ; but when, in 1670, the specified halfpenny, for the use of each acre of land, was required, murmurs of discon tent were loud and universal. Those who had purchased land from the Indians, denied the right of the proprietors to demand rent from them ; and some of the towns had even denied the authority of the Assembly, at its first sitting, in 1668. The whole people combined in resisting the payment of quit-rents ; and after disputing with the proprietors almost two years, they revolted, called a new Assembly, appointed a dissolute, illegitimate son of Sir George Carteret, governor, in May, 1672, and in July following, compelled Philip Carteret to leave the province. Preparations were in progress to coerce the people into submission, when New Jersey, and all other portions of the territory claimed by the Duke of York, fell into the hands of the Dutch, 5 in August, 1673. On the restoration of the territory to the English, 6 in November, 1674, the Duke of York procured a new charter, 7 and then, regardless of the rights of Berkeley and Carteret, he appointed Edmund Andros, "the tyrant of New England," 1 Page 92. 2 Page 94. The province was called New Jersey, in honor of Carteret, who was governor of the island of Jersey, in the British Channel, during the civil war. He was a staunch royalist, and was the last commander to lower the royal flag, when the Parliament had triumphed. 3 This was a sort of constitution, which provided for a government to be composed of a governor and council appointed by the proprietors, and an Assembly chosen by the freeholders of the prov ince. The legislative power resided in the Assembly ; the executive in the governor. The Council and the Assembly were each restricted to twelve members. * So called, in honor of Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret 6 Page 147. 6 Page 147. T Page 147. 8 Page 130. 160 THE COLONIES. [1664. governor of the whole domain. Carteret demurred, and the duke partially restored his rights ; not, however, without leaving Andros a sufficient pretense for asserting his authority, and producing annoyances. Berkeley had become disgusted, and sold his interest in the province [March 28, 1674] to Edward Byllinge, an English Quaker. Pecuniary embarrassment caused Byllinge to assign his interest to William Penn, and two others, 1 in 1675. These purchas ers, unwilling to maintain a political union with other parties, successfully negotiated with Carteret for a division of the province, which took place on the llth of July, 1676. Carteret received the eastern portion as his share, and the Quakers the western part. From that time the divisions were known as EAST and WEST JERSEY. The WEST JERSEY proprietors gave the people a remarkably liberal consti tution of government [March 13, 1677] ; and in 1677, more than four hundred Quakers came from England and settled below the Raritan. Andros required them to acknowledge the authority of the Duke of York. They refused ; and the matter was referred to the eminent Sir William Jones (the oriental scholar) for adjudication, who decided against the claims of the duke. The latter sub mitted to the decision, released both provinces from allegiance to him, and the JERSEYS became independent of foreign control. The first popular assembly in West Jersey met at Salem, in November, 1681, and adopted a code of laws for the government of the people. 3 Soon after the death of Carteret, in December, 1679, the trustees of his estate offered East Jersey for sale. It was purchased by William Penn and eleven of his brethren, on the llth of February, 1682, who obtained a new charter, and on the 27th of July, 1683, appointed Robert Barclay, 3 a very eminent Quaker preacher, from Aberdeen, governor for life. A large number of his sect came from Scotland and England ; and others from New England and Long Island settled in East Jersey to enjoy prosperity and repose. But repose, as well as the administration of Barclay, was of short duration; for when James succeeded Charles, 4 he appeared to consider his contracts made while duke, not binding upon his honor as king. He sought to annul the American charters, and succeeded, as we have seen, in subverting the govern ments of several, 6 through the instrumentality of Andros. The JERSEYS were sufferers in this respect, and were obliged to bow to the tyrant. When he was driven from the country in 1689," the provinces were left without regular gov ernments, and for more than twelve years anarchy prevailed there. The claims of the proprietors to jurisdiction, were repudiated by the people; and in 1702, they gladly relinquished the government by surrendering it, on the 25th of 1 These purchasers immediately sold one half of their interest to the Earl of Perth, from whom the present town of Perth Amboy derives a part of its name. Amboy, or Ambo, is an Indian name. a A remarkable law was enacted at that session. It provided that in all criminal cases, except treason, murder, and theft, the aggrieved party should have power to pardon the offender. 3 He was the author of " An Apology for Quakers," a work highly esteemed by his sect. It was written in Latin, and translated into several continental languages. Barclay and Penn were intimate personal friends, and travelled much together. He died in Ury, in 1690, aged 42 years. * Page 113. 6 Pages 129, 156, and 158. 6 Page 130. 1755.] PENNSYLVANIA. April, to the crown. 1 The two provinces were united as a royal domain, and placed under the government of Lord Cornbury, the licentious ruler of New York, 3 in July following. The province of New Jersey remained a dependency of New York, with a distinct legislative assembly of its own, until 1738, when, through the efforts of Lewis Morris, 3 the connection was for ever severed. Morris was appointed the first royal governor of New Jersey, and managed public affairs with ability and general satisfaction. From that period until the independence of the colo nies was declared, in 1776, the history of the colony presents but few events of interest to the general reader. CHAPTER VIII. PENNSYLVANIA. [1682.] THE colonial career of Pennsylvania began when, in the autumn of 1682, William Penn arrived, 4 and by a surrender by the agents of the Duke of York, and a proclamation in the presence of the popular Assembly, the Territories which now constitute the State of Delaware were united with his province. 5 Already, Penn had proclaimed his intention of being governed by the law of kindness in his treatment of the Indians ; and when he came, he proceeded to lay the foundation of his new State upon Truth and Justice. 6 Where the Ken sington portion of the city of Philadelphia now stands, as we have elsewhere mentioned, he met the Delaware chiefs in council, under the leafless branches of a wide-spreading elm, 7 on the 4th of November, 1682, and there made with them a solemn covenant of peace and friendship, and paid them the stipulated price for their lands. The Indians were delighted, and their hearts melted with good feeling. Such treatment was an anomaly in the history of the intercourse of their race with the white people. Even then the fires of a disastrous war were smouldering on the New England frontiers. 8 It was wonderful how the savage heart, so lately the dwelling of deepest hatred toward the white man, be came the shrine of the holiest attribute of our nature. " We will live in love 1 The proprietors retained their property in the soil, and their claims to quit-rents. Their organization has never ceased ; and unsold, barren tracts of land in "West Jersey are still held by that ancient tenure. 2 Page 149. 3 Son of an officer in Cromwell s army, who purchased an estate near New York, known as Morrisiana, He died in 1746. Apart of that estate yet [1867] remains in possession of the Morris family. * Page 96. 6 Page 96. 6 By his direction, his agent, "William Markham, had opened a friendly correspondence with the Indians, and Penn himself had addressed a letter to them, assuring them of his love and brotherly feelings toward them. 7 The Penn Society of Philadelphia erected a monument upon the spot where the venerable elm stood, near the intersection of Hanover and Beach-streets, Kensington district. The tree was blown down in 1810, and was found to be 283 years old. The monument is upon the site of the tree, and bears suitable inscriptions. 8 King Philip s War, page 92. 162 THE COLONIES. [1682. with William Penn and his children/ they said, "as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." They were true to their promise not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian. Having secured the lands, Penn s next care was to found a capital city. This he proceeded to do, immediately after the treaty with the Indians, upon lands purchased from the Swedes, lying between the Delaware and the Schuyl- kill Rivers. The boundaries of streets were marked upon the trunks of the chestnut, walnut, pine, and other forest trees which covered the land, 1 and the city was named Philadelphia, which signifies brotherly love. Within twelve months almost a hundred houses were erected, 3 and the Indians came daily ^_ with wild fowl and venison, as presents for their "good m Father Penn." Never was a State blessed with a more propitious beginning, and internal peace and prosperity marked its course while the Quakers controlled its coun cils. The proprietor convened a second Assembly at Phil adelphia, in March, 1683, and then gave the people a PENXS HOUSE "Charter of Liberties," signed and sealed by his own hand. It was so ample and just, that the government was really a representative democracy. Free religious toleration was ordained, and laws for the promotion of public and private morality were framed. 3 Un like other proprietors, Penn surrendered to the people his rights in the appoint ment of officers ; and until his death, his honest and highest ambition appeared to be to promote the happiness of the colonists. Because of this happy relation between the people and the proprietor, and the security against Indian hostili ties, Pennsylvania outstripped all of its sister colonies in rapidity of settlement and permanent prosperity. In August, 1684, Penn returned to England, leaving five members of the Council with Thomas Lloyd, as president, to administer the government during his absence. Soon afterward, the English Revolution occurred [1688] and king James was driven into exile. 4 Penn s personal regard for James contin ued after his fall ; and for that loyalty, which had a deeper spring than mere political considerations, he was accused of dissafiection to the new government, and suffered imprisonments. In the mean while, discontents had sprung up in 1 This fact was the origin of the names of Chestnut, Walnut, Pine, Spruce, and other streets in Philadelphia. For many years after the city was laid out, these living street-marks remained, and afforded shade to the inhabitants. 2 Markham, Penn s agent, erected a house for the proprietor s use, in 1682. It is yet [1867] standing in Letitia court, the entrance to which is from Market-street, between Front and Second- streets. Another, and finer house, was occupied by Penu in 1700. It yet remains on the corner of Norris s alley and Second-street. It was the residence of General Arnold in 1778. Note 3, page 287. 3 It was ordained " that to prevent lawsuits, three arbitrators, to be called Peace Makers, should be appointed by the county courts, to hear and determine small differences between man and man ; that children should be taught some useful trade ; that factors wronging their employers should make satisfaction, and one third over ; that all causes for irreligion and vulgarity should be repress* ed ; and that no man should be molested for his religious opinions. 4 Note 7, page 113. 1755.] THE CAROLINAS. 163 Pennsylvania, and the -three lower counties on the Delaware," 1 offended at the action of some of the Council, withdrew from the Union 2 in April, 1691. Penn yielded to their wishes so far as to appoint a separate deputy governor for them. An important political change now occurred in the colony. Perm s provin cial government was taken from him in 1692 [Oct. 31], and Pennsylvania was placed under the authority of Governor Fletcher, of New York, who reunited the Delaware counties [May, 1693], to the parent province. All suspicions of Penn s disloyalty having been removed in 1694, his chartered rights were restored to him [Aug. 30], and he appointed his original agent, William Mark- ham, deputy governor. He returned to America in December, 1699, and was pained to find his people discontented, and clamorous for greater political priv ileges. Considering their demands reasonable, he gave them a new charter, or frame of government [Nov. 6, 1701], more liberal in its concessions than the former. It was cheerfully accepted by the Pennsylvania people, but those of the Delaware territories, whose delegates had already withdrawn from the Assembly [Oct. 20], evidently aiming at independence, declined it. Penn acquiesced in their decision, and allowed them a distinct Assembly. This satis fied them, and their first independent legislature was convened at Newcastle in 1703. Although Pennsylvania and Delaware ever afterward continued to have separate legislatures, they were under the same governor until the Revolution in 1776: A few weeks after adjusting difficulties, and granting the new charter, Penn returned to England [Dec., 1701], and never visited America again. His departure was hastened by the ripening of a ministerial project for abolishing all the proprietary governments in America. His health soon afterward de clined, and at his death he left his American possessions to his three sons (Thomas, John, and Richard), then minors, who continued to administer the government, chiefly through deputies, until the War for Independence in 1776. Then it became a free and independent State, and the commonwealth purchased all the claims of Penn s heirs in the province, for about five hundred and eighty thousand dollars. 8 CHAPTER IX. THE CAROLINAS. [1665 1680.] NOTWITHSTANDING the many failures which had dampened the ardor of English speculators, who had engaged in planting settlements in America, hope still remained buoyant. Success finally crowned the efforts in New England 1 Page 96. a Page 96. 8 On account of the expenses incurred in Pennsylvania, Penn was compelled to borrow $30,000, $nd mortgage his province as security. This was the commencement of the State debt of Pennsyl vania. 164 THE COLONIES. [1665. and further south, and the proprietors of the Carolinas, when settlements within that domain became permanent, 1 and tides of emigration from various sources flowed thitherward, began to have gorgeous visions of an empire in America, that should outshine those of the Old World. It then became their first care to frame a constitution of government, with functions adequate to the grand design, and to this task, the earl of Shaftesbury, one of the ablest states men of his time, and John Locke, the eminent philosopher, were called. They completed their labors in March, 1669, and the instrument was called the Fundamental Constitutions? It was in the highest degree monarchical in its character and tendency, and contemplated the transplantation, in America, of all the ranks and aristocratic distinctions of European society. 8 The spirit of the whole thing was adverse to the feelings of the people, and its practical development was an impossibility ; so, after a contest between proprietors and colonists, for twenty years, the magnificent scheme was abandoned, and the people were allowed to govern themselves, in their own more simple way. 4 The disorders which prevailed when the first attempts were made to impose this scheme of government upon the people, soon ripened into rebellion, especially in the Albemarle, or northern Colony. 6 Excessive taxation and commercial restric tions bore heavily upon the industry of the people, and engendered wide-spread discontent. This was fostered by refugees from Virginia, after Bacon s rebel lion, in 1676, who sought shelter among the people below the Roanoke. They scattered, broad-cast, over a generous soil, vigorous ideas of popular freedom, and a year after Bacon s death, 7 the people of the Albemarle County Colony* revolted. The immediate cause of this movement was the attempt of the acting governor to enforce the revenue laws against a New England vessel. Led on by John Culpepper, a refugee from the CARTERET County Colony of South Carolina, 9 the people seized the chief magistrate [Dec. 10, 1677] and the pub lic funds, imprisoned him and six of his council, called a new Assembly, ap pointed a new magistrate and judges, and for two years conducted the affairs of government independent of foreign control. Culpepper went to England to plead the cause of the people, and was arrested and tried on a charge of treason. 1 Pages 97 and 98. a It consists of one hundred and twenty articles, and is supposed to have been the production, chiefly, of the mind of Shaftesbury. 3 There were to be two orders of nobility : the higher to consist of landgraves, or earls, the lower of caciques, or barons. The territory was to be divided into counties, each containing 480,000 acres, with one landgrave, and two caciques. There were also to be lords of manors, who, like the nobles, might hold courts and exercise judicial functions. Persons holding fifty acres were to be freeholders ; the tenants held no political franchise, and could never attain to a higher rank. The four estates of proprietors, earls, barons, and commons, were to sit in one legislative chamber. The proprietors were always to be eight in number, to possess the whole judicial power, and have the supreme control of all tribunals. The commons were to have four members in the legislature to every three of the nobility. Thus an aristocratic majority was always secured, and the real repre sentatives of the people had no power. Every religion was professedly tolerated, but the Church of England, only, was declared to be orthodox. Such is an outline of the absurd scheme proposed for governing the free colonies of the Carolinas. 4 A governor, with a council of twelve six chosen by the proprietors, and six by the Assembly and a House of Delegates chosen by the freeholders. 6 Page 97. 6 Page 110. 7 Page 112. * Page 97. * Page 98. 1680.] THE CAKOLINAS. 165 Shaftesbury procured his acquittal, and he returned to the Carolinas. 1 Quiet was restored to the colony, and until the arrival of the unprincipled Seth Sothel (one of the proprietors), as governor, the people enjoyed repose. Thus early the inhabitants of that feeble colony practically asserted the grand politi cal maxim, that taxation without representation is tyranny? for the defense of which our Revolutionary fathers fought, a century afterward. Governor Sothel arrived in North Carolina in 1683. Martin says that " the dark shades of his character were not relieved by a single ray of virtue ;" and Chalmers asserts that the annals of delegated authority included no name so infamous as Sothel." He plundered the people, cheated the proprietors, and on all occasions prostituted his office to purposes of private gain. After endur ing his oppression almost six years, the people seized him [1689], and were about sending him to England to answer their accusations before the proprietors, when he asked to be tried by the colonial Assembly. The favor was granted, and he was sentenced to banishment for one year, and a perpetual disquali fication for the office of governor. He withdrew to the southern colony, where we shall meet him again. 3 His successor, Philip Ludwell, an energetic, incor ruptible man, soon redressed the wrongs of the people, and restored order and good feelings. Governors Harvey and Walker also maintained quiet and good will among the people. And the good Quaker, John Archdale, w r ho came to govern both Carolinas in 1695, placed the colony in a position for attaining future prosperity, hitherto unknown. While these events were transpiring in the northern colony, the people of the Carter et* or southern colony, were steadily advancing in wealth and num bers. Their first popular legislature of which we have records, was convened in 1674, 5 but it exhibited an unfavorable specimen of republican government. Jarring interests and conflicting creeds produced violent debates and irreconcil able discord. For a long time the colony was distracted by quarrels, and anarchy prevailed. At length the Stono Indians gathered in bands, and plun dered the plantations of grain and cattle, and even menaced the settlers with destruction. The appearance of this common enemy healed their dissensions, and the people went out as brothers to chastise the plunderers. They com pletely subdued the Indians, in 1680. Many of them were made prisoners, and sold for slaves in the West Indies, and the Stonos never afterward had a tribal existence. Wearied by the continual annoyance of the Indians, many English families 1 Culpepper afterward became surveyor-general of the province, and in 1680, he was employed in laying out the new city of Charleston. [See next page.] His previous expulsion from the southern colony, was on account of his connection with a rebellious movement in 1672. a Page 211. 3 Page 167. 4 Page 98. 6 The settlers brought with them an unfinished copy of the " Fundamental Constitutions 1 but they at once perceived the impossibility of conformity to that scheme of government. They held a "parliamentary convention" in 1672, and twenty delegates were elected by the people to act with the governor and the council, as a legislature. Thus early, representative government was estab lished, but its operations seem not to have been very successful, and a legislature proper, of which we have any record, was not organized until 1674, when an upper and a lower House was estab lished, and laws for the province were enacted. 166 THE COLONIES. [1665. CHARLESTON IN 1680. crossed the Ashley, and seated themselves upon the more eligible locality of Oyster Point, where they founded the present city of Charleston, 1 in 1680. There a flourishing village soon appeared ; and after the subjugation of the savages, 3 the old settlement was abandoned, and now not a vestige of it remains upon the culti vated plantation at Old Town, where it stood. The Dutch settlers 3 spread over the country along the Edisto and San- tee, and planted the seeds of future flour ishing communities, while immigrants from different parts of Europe and from New England swelled the population of Charles ton and vicinity. Nor did they neglect political affairs. While they were vigilant in all that pertained to their material interests, they were also aspir ants, even at that early day, for political independence. Another popular legislature was convened at Charleston in 1682. It ex hibited more harmony than the first, 4 and several useful laws were framed. Emigration was now pouring in a tide of population more rapid than any of the colonies below New England had yet experienced. Ireland, Scotland, 5 Holland, and France, contributed largely to the flowing stream. In 1686-7, quite a large number of Huguenots, who had escaped from the fiery persecutions which were revived in France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 6 landed at Charleston. English hatred of the French 7 caused the settlers to look with jealousy upon these refugees, and for more than ten years [1686 to 1697] the latter were denied the rights of citizenship. Shaftesbury s scheme of government was as distasteful to the people of South Carolina, as to those of the northern colony, 8 and they refused to accept it. They became very restive, and seemed disposed to cast off all allegiance to the proprietors and the mother country. At this crisis, James Colleton, a brother of one of the proprietors, was appointed governor [1686]. and was vested with full powers to bring the colonists into submission. His administra tion of about four years was a very turbulent one. He was in continual colli- 1 Note 1, page 165. The above engraving illustrates the manner of fortifying towns, as a de fense against foes. It exhibits the walls of Charleston in 1 680, and the location of churches in 1704. The points marked a a a, etc., are bastions for cannons. P, English church; Q, French church ; R, Independent church ; S, Anabaptist church ; and T, Quaker meeting-house. 2 Page 165. 8 They had founded the village of Jamestown several miles up the Ashley Eiver. 4 Page 164. 6 In 1684, Lord Cardros*, and ten Scotch families, who had suffered persecution, came to South Carolina, and settled at Port Royal. The Spaniards at St. Augustine claimed jurisdiction over Port Royal; and during the absence of Cardon [1686], they attacked and dispersed the settlers, and des olated their plantations. 6 In the city of Nantes, Henry the Fourth of France issued an edict, in 1598. in favor of the Huguenots, or Protestants, allowing them free toleration. The profligate Louis the Fourteenth, stung with remorse in his old age, sought to gain the favor of Heaven by bringing his whole people into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. He revoked the famous edict in 1686, and instantly the fires of persecution were kindled throughout the empire. Many thousands of the Protestants left France, and found refuge in other countries. 7 Page 180. 8 Page 97- 1755.] THE CAROLINAS. 167 sion with the people, and at length drove them to open rebellion. They seized the public records, imprisoned the secretary of the province, and called a new Assembly. Pleading the danger of an Indian or Spanish invasion, 1 the gov ernor called out the militia, and proclaimed the province to be under martial law. 2 This measure only increased the exasperation of the people, and he was impeached, and banished from the province by the Assembly, in 1690. While this turbulence and misrule was at its height, Sothel arrived from North Carolina, pursuant to his sentence of banishment, 3 and the people un wisely consented to his assumption of the office of governor. 4 They soon repented their want of judgment. For two years he plundered and oppressed them, and then [1692] the Assembly impeached and banished him also. Then came Philip Ludwell to re-establish the authority of the proprietors, but the people, thoroughly aroused, resolved not to tolerate even so good a man as he, if his mission was to enforce obedience to the absurd Fundamental Constitu tions* After a brief and turbulent administration, he gladly withdrew to Vir ginia, and soon afterward [1693], the proprietors abandoned Shaftesbury s scheme, and the good Quaker, John Archdale, was sent, in 1695, to administer a more simple and republican form of government, for both the Carolinas. His administration was short, but highly beneficial ; 6 and the people of South Car olina always looked back to the efforts of that good man, with gratitude. He healed dissensions, established equitable laws, and so nearly effected an entire reconciliation of the English to the French settlers, that in the year succeeding his departure from the province, the Assembly admitted the latter [1697] to all the privileges of citizens and freemen. From the close of Archdale s adminis tration, the progress of the two Carolina colonies should be considered as separ ate and distinct, although they were not politically separated until 1729. 7 NORTH CAROLINA. "We may properly date the permanent prosperity of North Carolina from the adminstration of Archdale, 8 when the colonists began to turn their attention to the interior of the country, where richer soil invited the agriculturist, and the fur of the beaver and otter allured the adventurous hunter. The Indians along the sea-coast were melting away like frost in the sunbeams. The powerful Hatteras tribe, 9 which numbered three thousand in Raleigh s time, were reduced to fifteen bowmen ; another tribe had entirely disappeared ; and the remnants of some others had sold their lands or lost them by fraud, and were driven back to the deep wilderness. Indulgence in strong drinks, and other vices of civiliz- 1 The Spaniards at St. Augustine had menaced the English settlements in South Carolina, and, as we have seen [note 5, page 1 66], had actually broken up a little Scotch colony at Port Royal. 3 Note 8, page 170. 3 Page 165. 4 On his arrival, Sothel took sides with the people against Colleton, and thus, in the moment of their anger, he unfortunately gained their good will and confidence. 5 Page 164. 6 The culture of rice was introduced into South Carolina during Archdale s administration. Some seed was given to the governor by the captain of a vessel from Madagascar. It was distrib uted among several planters, and thus its cultivation began. 7 Page 171. 8 Page 165. 9 Note 5, page 20. 168 THE COLONIES. [1665. ation, had decimated them, and their beautiful land, all the way to the Yadkin and Catawba, was speedily opened to the sway of the white man. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, religion began to exert an influence in North Carolina. The first Anglican church edifice was then built in Chowan county, in 1705. The Quakers multiplied; and in 1707, a com pany of Huguenots, 3 who had settled in Virginia, came and sat down upon the beautiful banks of the Trent, a tributary of the Neuse Biver. Two years later [1709J, a hundred German families, driven from their homes on the Rhine, by persecution, penetrated the interior of North Carolina, and under Count Graf- fenried, founded settlements along the head waters of the Neuse, and upon the Eoanoke. While settlements were thus spreading and strengthening, and gen eral prosperity blessed the province, a fearful calamity fell upon the inhabitants of the interior. The broken Indian tribes made a last effort, in 1711, to regain the beautiful country they had lost. The leaders in the conspiracy to crush the white people, were the Tuscaroras 4 of the inland region, and the Corees 5 further south and near the sea-board. They fell like lightning from the clouds upon the scattered German settlements along the Roanoke and Pamlico Sound. In one night [Oct. 2, 1711], one hundred and thirty persons perished by the hatchet. Along Albemarle Sound, the savages swept with the knife of mur der in one hand, and the torch of desolation in the other, and for three days they scourged the white people, until disabled by fatigue and drunkenness. Those who escaped the massacre called upon their brethren of the southern colony for aid, and Colonel Barnwell, with a party of Carolinians and friendly Indians of the southern nations, 6 marched to their relief. He drove the Tus caroras to their fortified town in the present Craven county, and there made a treaty of peace with them. His troops violated the treaty on their way back, by outrages upon the Indians, and soon hostilities were renewed. Late in the year [Dec., 1712], Colonel Moore 7 arrived from South Carolina with a few white men and a large body of Indians, and drove the Tuscaroras to their fort in the present Greene county, wherein [March, 1713] he made eight hundred of them prisoners. The remainder of the Tuscaroras fled northward in June, and join ing their kindred on the southern borders of Lake Ontario, they formed the sixth nation of the celebrated IROQUOIS confederacy in the province of New York. 8 A treaty of peace was made with the Corees in 1715, and North Car olina never afterward suffered from Indian hostilities. 9 SOUTH CAROLINA. Although really united, the two colonies acted independently of each other from the close of the seventeenth century. Soon after the commencement of The established Church of England was so called, to distinguish it from the Romish Church. Page 122. 3 Page 49. 4 Page 25. 5 Page 20. They consisted of Creeks, Catawbas, Cherokees, and Yamassees. See pages 26 to 30, inclusive. A son of James Moore, who was governor of South Carolina in 1700. 8 Page 23. The province issued bills of credit (for the first time) to the amount of about forty thousand dollars, to defray the expenses of the war. 1755.] THE CAKOLINAS. 169 Queen Anne s War 1 [May, 1702], Governor Moore of South Carolina, proposed an expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine. 2 The Assembly assented, and appropriated almost ten thousand dollars for the service. Twelve hundred men (one half Indians) were raised, and proceeded, in two divisions, to the attack. The main division, under the governor, went by sea, to blockade the harbor, and the remainder proceeded along the coast, under the command of Colonel Daniels. The latter arrived first, and attacked and plundered the town. The Spaniards retired within their fortress with provisions for four months ; and as the Carolinians had no artillery, their position was impreg nable. Daniels was then sent to Jamaica, in the West Indies, to procure bat tery cannon, but before his return, two Spanish vessels had appeared, and so frightened Governor Moore that he raised the blockade, and fled. Daniels barely escaped capture, on his return, but he reached Charleston in safety. This ill-advised expedition burdened the colony with a debt of more than twenty-six thousand dollars, for the payment of which, bills of credit were issued. This was the first emission of paper money in the Carolines, A more successful expedition was undertaken by Governor Moore, in De cember, 1703, against the Apalachian 3 Indians, who were in league with the Spaniards. Their chief villages were between the Alatamaha and Savannah Eivers. These were desolated. Almost eight hundred Indians were taken prisoners, and the whole territory of the Apalachians was made tributary to the English. The province had scarcely become tranquil after this chastisement of the Indians, when a new cause for disquietude appeared. Some of the proprie tors had long cherished a scheme for establishing the Anglican Church, 4 as the State religion, in the Carolinas. When Nathaniel Johnson succeeded Governor Moore, he found a majority of churchmen in the Assembly, and by their aid, the wishes of the proprietors were gratified. The Anglican Church was made the established religion, and Dissenters 5 were excluded from all public offices. This was an usurpation of chartered rights ; and the aggrieved party laid the matter before the imperial ministry. Their cause was sustained ; and by order of Parliament, the colonial Assembly, in November, 1706, repealed the law of disfranchisement, but the Church maintained its dominant position until the Revolution. The ire of the Spaniards was greatly excited by the attack upon St. Augus tine, 6 and an expedition, composed of five French and Spanish vessels, 7 with a large body of troops, was sent from Havana to assail Charleston, take posses sion of the province, and annex it to the Spanish domain of Florida. 8 The squadron crossed Charleston bar in May, 1706, and about eight hundred troops were landed at different points. The people seized their arms, and, led by the governor and Colonel Rhett, they drove the invaders back to their vessels, after 1 Page 135. * Page 5L A tribe of the Mobilian family [page 29] situated south of the Savannah Eiver. 4 Note 1, page 168. 8 Note 2, page 76. 6 Page 51. 7 It will be remembered [see page 135] that in 1702, England declared war against France, and that Spain was a party to the quarrel. 8 Page 42. 170 THE COLONIES. [1665. killing or capturing almost three hundred men. They also captured a French vessel, with its crew. It was a complete victory. So the storm which appeared BO suddenly and threatening, was dissipated in a day, and the sunshine of peace and prosperity again gladdened the colony. A few years later, a more formidable tempest brooded over the colony, when a general Indian confederacy was secretly formed, to exterminate the white people by a single blow. Within forty days, in the spring of 1*715, the Indian tribes from the Cape Fear to the St. Mary s, and back to the moun tains, had coalesced in the conspiracy ; and before the people of Charleston had any intimation of danger, one hundred white victims had been sacrified in the remote settlements. The Creeks, 1 Yamassees, 2 and Apalachians 3 on the south, confederated with the Cherokees, 4 Catawbas 5 , and Congarees 6 on the west, in all six thousand strong ; while more than a thousand warriors issued from the Neuse region, to avenge their misfortunes in the wars of 1712-13. 7 It was a cloud of fearful portent that hung in the sky ; and the people were filled with terror, for they knew not at what moment the consuming lightning might leap forth. At this fearful crisis, Governor Craven acted with the utmost wisdom and energy. He took measures to prevent men from leaving the colony ; to secure all the arms and ammunition that could be found, and to arm faithful negroes to assist the white people. He declared the province to be under martial law, 8 and then, at the head of twelve hundred men, black and white, he marched to meet the foe, who were advancing with the knife, hatchet, and torch, in fearful activity. The Indians were at first victorious, but after several bloody encounters, the Yamassees and their southern neighbors were driven across the Savannah [May, 1715], and halted not until they found refuge under Spanish guns at St. Augustine. The Cherokees and their northern neighbors had not yet engaged in the war, and they returned to their hunting grounds, deeply impressed with the strength and greatness of the white people. And now the proprietary government of South Carolina was drawing to a close. The governors being independent of the people, were often haughty and exacting, and the inhabitants had borne the yoke of their rule for many years, with great impatience. While their labor was building up a prosperous State, the proprietors refused to assist them in times of danger, or to reimburse their expenses in the protection of the province from invasion. The whole burden of debt incurred in the war with the Yamassees was left upon the shoulders of the people. The proprietors not only refused to pay any portion of it, but enforced their claims for quit-rents with great severity. The people saw no hope in the future, but in royal rule and protection. So they met in convention ; resolved to forswear all allegiance to the proprietors ; and on Governor Johnson s refusal to act as chief magistrate, under the king, they 1 Page 30. 2 Page 30. 3 Note 3, page 168. * Page 27. 6 Page 2 6. 6 This was a small tribe that inhabited the country in the vicinity of the present city of Colum bia, in South Carolina. 7 Page 168. s Martial law may be proclaimed by rulers, in an emergency, and the civil law, for the time being, is made subservient to the military. The object is to allow immediate and energetic action for repelling invasions, or for other purposes. 1755.] GEORGIA. 171 appointed [December 21, 1719] Colonel Moore 1 governor of the colony. The matter was laid before the imperial government, when the colonists were sus tained, and South Carolina became a royal province. 3 The people o_ North Carolina 3 also resolved on a change of government* anJ after a continued controversy for ten years, the proprietors, in 1729, sold to the king, for about eighty thousand dollars, all their claims to the soil and incomes in both provinces. North and South Carolina were then separated. George Burrington was appointed the first royal governor over the former, and Robert Johnson over the latter. From that period until the commencement of the French and Indian war, 4 the general history of the CAROLIX AS presents but few features of interest, except the efforts made for defending the colony against the Spaniards and the Indians. The people gained very little by a change of owners ; and during forty-five years, until the revolution made the people independent, there was a succession of disputes with the royal governors. CHAPTER X . GEORGIA. [1732.] THE colony founded by Oglethorpe on the Savannah River rapidly- increased in numbers, and within eight years, twenty-five hundred immigrants were sent over, at an expense to the trustees 6 of four hundred thousand dollars. Yet prosperity did not bless the enterprise. Many of the settlers were unac customed to habits of industry, and were mere drones ; and as the use of slave labor was prohibited, tillage was neglected. Even the industrious Scotch, Ger man, and Swiss families who came over previous to 1740, could not give that vitality to industrial pursuits, which was necessary to a development of the resources of the country. Anxious for the permanent growth of the colony, Oglethorpe went to England in 1734, and returned in 1736, with about three hundred immigrants. Among them were one hundred and fifty Highlanders, well skilled in military affairs. These constituted the first army of the colony during its early struggles. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denom ination, also came with Oglethorpe, to make Georgia a religious colony, and to spread the gospel among the Indians. He was unsuccessful ; for his strict moral doctrines, his fearless denunciations of vice, and his rigid exercise of ecclesiastical authority made him quite unpopular among the great mass of the colonists, who winced at restraint. The eminent George Whitefield also visited Georgia in 1738, when only twenty-three years of age, and succeeded in estab lishing an orphan asylum near Savannah, which flourished many years, and 1 Note 7, page 168. 8 The first governor, by royal appointment, was Francis Nicholson, who had been successively governor of New York [page 144], Maryland, Virginia, and Nova Scotia. 3 Page 167. * Page 179. 6 Page 100. 172 THE COLONIES. [1132. was a real blessing. The Christian efforts of those men, prosecuted with the most sincere desire for the good of their fellow-mortals, were not appreciated. Their seed fell upon stony ground, and after the death of Whitefield, in 1770, his " House of Mercy" in Georgia, deprived of his sustaining influence, became a desolation. A cloud of trouble appeared in the Southern horizon. The rapid increase of the new colony excited the jealousy of the Spaniards at St. Augustine, and the vigilant Oglethorpe, expecting such a result, prepared to oppose any hos tile movements against his settlement. He established a fort on the site of Augusta, as a defence against the Indians, and he erected fortifications at Darien, on Cumberland Island, at Frederica (St. Simon s Island), and on the north bank of the St. John, the southern boundary of the English claims. Spanish commissioners came from St. Augustine to protest against these prepar ations, and to demand the immediate evacuation of the whole of Georgia, and of all South Carolina below Port Royal. 1 Oglethorpe, of course, refused com pliance, and the Spaniards threatened him with war. In the winter of 17367, Oglethorpe went to England to make preparations to meet the exigency. He returned in October following, bearing the commission of a brigadier, and lead ing a regiment of six hundred well-disciplined troops, for the defense of the whole southern frontier of the English possessions. 2 But for two years their services were not much needed ; then war broke out between England and Spain [November, 1739], and Oglethorpe prepared an expedition against St. Augustine. In May, 1740, he entered Florida with four hundred of his best troopi, some volunteers from South Carolina, and a large body of friendly Creek Indians ; 3 in all more than two thousand men. His first conquest was Fort Diego, twenty miles from St. Augustine. Then Fort Moosa, within two miles of the city, surrendered ; but when he appeared before the town and for tress, and demanded instant submission, he was answered by a defiant refusal. A small fleet under Captain Price blockaded the harbor, and for a time cut off supplies from the Spaniards, but swift-winged galleys" passed through the block ading fleet, and supplied the garrison with several weeks provisions. Ogle thorpe had no artillery with which to attack the fortress, and being warned by the increasing heats of summer, and sickness in his camp, not to wait for their supplies to become exhausted, he raised the siege and returned to Savannah. The ire of the Spaniards was aroused, and they, in turn, prepared to invade Georgia in the summer of 1742. An armament, fitted out at Havana and St. Augustine, and consisting of thirty-six vessels, with more than three thousand troops, entered the harbor of St. Simon s, and landed a little above the town of the same name, on the 16th of July, 1742, and erected a battery of twenty guns. Oglethorpe Jiad been apprised of the intentions of the Spaniards, and 1 Note 5, page 166. 2 His commission gave him the command of the militia of South Carolina also, and he stood as a guard between the English and Spanish possessions of the southern country. 3 Page 30. 4 A low built vessel propelled by both sails and oars. The war vessels of the ancients were all galleys. See Norman vessel, page 35. 1732.] GEORGIA. 173 after unsuccessfully applying to the governor of South Carolina for troops and supplies, he marched to St. Simon s, and made his head- quarters at his princi- fortress at Frederica. 1 He was at Fort Simon, near the landing place of the invaders, with less than eight hundred men, exclusive of Indians, when the enemy appeared. He immediately spiked the guns of the fort, destroyed his stores, and retreated to Frederica. There he anxiously awaited hoped-for rein forcements and supplies from Carolina, and then he successfully repulsed several detachments of the Spaniards, who attacked him. He finally resolved to make a night assault upon the enemy s battery, at St. Simon s. A deserter (a French soldier) defeated his plan ; but the sagacity of Oglethorpe caused the miscreant to be instrumental in driving the invaders from the coast. He bribed a Spanish prisoner to carry a letter to the deserter, which contained information respecting a British fleet that was about to attack St. Augustine. 3 Of course the letter was handed to the Spanish commander, and the Frenchman was arrested as a spy. The intelligence in Oglethorpe s letter alarmed the enemy, and while the officers were holding a council, some Carolina vessels, with sup plies for the garrison at Frederica, appeared in the distance. Believing them to be part of the British fleet alluded to, the Spaniards determined to attack the Georgians immediately, and then hasten to St. Augustine. On their march to assail Frederica, they were ambuscaded in a swamp. Great slaughter of the invaders ensued, and the place is still called Bloody Marsh. The survivors retreated in confusion to their vessels, and sailed immediately to St. Augustine. 3 On their way, they attacked the English fort at the southern extremity of Cum berland Island, 4 on the 19th of July, but were repulsed with the loss of two galleys. The whole expedition was so disastrous to the Spaniards, that the commander (Don Manuel de Monteano) was dismissed from the service. Ogle thorpe s stratagem saved Georgia, and, perhaps, South Carolina, from utter ruin. Having fairly established his colony, Oglethorpe went to England in 1743, and never returned to Georgia, where, for ten years, he had nobly labored to secure an attractive asylum for the oppressed. 5 He left the province in a tran quil state. The mild military rule under which the people had lived, was changed to civil government in 1743, administered by a president and council, under the direction of the trustees, 8 yet the colony continued to languish. Several causes combined to produce this condition. We have already alluded to the inefficiency of most of the earlier settlers, and the prohibition of slave labor. 7 They were also deprived of the privileges of commerce and of traffic 1 The remains of Fort Frederica yet formed a very picturesque ruin on the plantation of "W. W. Hazzard, Esq., of St. Simon s Island, in 1856. 2 Oglethorpe addressed the Frenchman as if he was a spy of the English. He directed the deserter to represent the Georgians as in a weak condition, to advise the Spaniards to attack them immediately, and to persuade the Spaniards to remain three days longer, within which time six British men-of-war, and two thousand men, from Carolina, would probably enter the harbor of St. Augustine. 3 They first burned Fort Simon, but in their haste they left several of their cannons and a quantity of provisions behind them. 4 Fort William. There was another small fort on the northern end of the island, called Fort Andrew. Page 100. 8 Page 100. 7 Page 171. 74 THE COLONIES. [1492. with the Indians ; and were not allowed the ownership, in fee, of the lands which they cultivated. 1 In consequence of these restrictions, there were no incentives to labor, except to supply daily wants. General discontent pre vailed. They saw the Carolinians growing rich by the use of slaves, and by commerce with the West Indies. Gradually the restrictive laws were evaded. Slaves were brought from Carolina, and hired, first for a short period, and then for a hundred years, or for life. The price paid for life-service was the money value of the slave, and the transaction was, practically, a sale and purchase. Then slave-ships came to Savannah directly from Africa ; slave labor was gen erally used in 1750, and Georgia became a planting State. In 1752, at the expiration of the twenty-one years named in the patent, 2 the trustees gladly resigned the charter into the hands of the king, and from that time until the Revolution, Georgia remained a royal province. CHAPTER XI. A RETROSPECT. [14921756.] IN the preceding pages we have considered the principal events which occurred within the domain of our Republic from the time of first discoveries, in 1492, to the commencement of the last inter-colonial war between the En glish and French settlers, a period of about two hundred and sixty years. During that time, fifteen colonies were planted, 8 thirteen of which were com menced within the space of about fifty-six years from 1607 to 1673. By the union of Plymouth and Massachusetts, 4 and Connecticut and New Haven, 6 the number of colonies was reduced to thirteen, and these were they which went into the revolutionary contest in 1775. The provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia, conquered by the English, remained loyal, and to this day they continue to be portions of the British empire. In the establishment of the several colonies, which eventually formed the thirteen United States of America, several European nations contributed vig orous materials ; and people of opposite habits, tastes, and religious faith, became commingled, after making impressions of their distinctive characters where their influence was first felt. England furnished the largest proportion of colonists, and her children always maintained sway in the government and industry of the whole country ; while Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Baltic region, contributed large quotas of people and other colonial instrumentalities. Churchmen and Dissenters, 6 Roman Catholics and 1 Page 116. 3 Page 100. 3 Virginia, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Haven, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. 4 Page 132. 6 Page 89. 6 Note 2, page 76. 1756.] A RETROSPECT. 175 Quakers, 1 came and sat down by the side of each other. For a while, the dis sonance of nations and creeds prevented entire harmony ; but the freedom en joyed, the perils and hardships encountered and endured, the conflicts with pagan savages on one hand, and of hierarchical 2 and governmental oppression on the other, which they maintained for generations, shoulder to shoulder, dif fused a brotherhood of feeling throughout the whole social body of the colonists, and resulted in harmony, sympathy, and love. And when, as children of one family, they loyally defended the integrity of Great Britain (then become the " mother country" of nearly all) against the aggressions of the French and In dians 3 [1756 to 1763], and yet were compelled, by the unkindness of that mother, to sever the filial bond 4 [1776], their hearts beat as with one pulsation, and they struck the dismembering blow as with one hand. There was a great diversity of character exhibited by the people of the sev eral colonies, differing according to their origin and the influence of climate and pursuits. The Virginians and their southern neighbors, enjoying a mild cli mate, productive of tendencies to voluptuousness and ease, were from those classes of English society where a lack of rigid moral discipline allowed free living and its attendant vices. They generally exhibited less moral restraint, more hospitality, and greater frankness, and social refinement, than the people of New England. The latter were from among the middle classes, and in cluded a great many religious enthusiasts, possessing more zeal than knowl edge. They were extremely strict in their notions; very rigid in manners, and jealous of strangers. Their early legislation, recognizing, as it did, the most minute regulations of social life, often presented food for merriment. 5 Yet their intentions were pure ; their designs were noble ; and, in a great de gree, their virtuous purposes were accomplished. They aimed to make every member of society a Christian, according to their own pattern ; and if they did not fully accomplish their object, they erected strong bulwarks against those 1 Note 6, page 122, and note 3, page 123. a Hierarchy is, in a general sense, a priestly or ecclesiastical government. Such was the original form of government of the ancient Jews, when the priesthood held absolute rule. 3 Period IV., chapter xii., page 179. 4 Page 251. 6 They assumed the right to regulate the expenditures of the people, even for wearing-apparel, according to their several incomes. The general court of Massachusetts, on one occasion, required the proper officers to notice the "apparel" of the people, especially their "ribands and great boots." Drinking of healths, wearing funeral badges, and many other things that seemed improper, were forbidden. At Hartford, the general court kept a constant eye upon the morals of the people. Free men were compelled to vote under penalty of a fine of sixpence ; the use of tobacco was prohibited to persons under twenty years of age, without the certificate of a physician ; and no others were allowed to use it more than once a day, and then they must be ten miles from any house. The people of Hartford were all obliged to rise in the morning when the watchman rang his bell. These are but a few of the hundreds of similar enactments found on the records of the New England courts. In 1646, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a law, which imposed the penalty of a flogging upon any one who should kiss a woman in the streets. More than a hundred years after ward, this law was enforced in Boston. The captain of a British man-of-war happened to return from a cruise, on Sunday. His overjoyed wife met him on the wharf, and he kissed her several times. The magistrates ordered him to be flogged. The punishment incurred no ignominy, and he associated freely with the best citizens. "When about to depart, the captain invited the magistrates and others on board his vessel, te dine. "When dinner was over, he caused all the magistrates to be flogged, on deck, in sight of the town. Then assuring them that he considered accounts settled between him and them, he dismissed them, and set sail. 176 THE COLONIES. [1492. EAKLY N. E. HOUSE. 1 DUTCHMAN. [1660.] little vices which compose great private and public evils. Dwelling upon a parsimonious soil, and pos sessing neither the means nor the inclination for sumptuous living, indulged in by their southern breth ren, their dwellings were simple, and their habits frugal. In New York, and portions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the manners, customs, and pursuits of the Dutch prevailed even a century after the English conquest of New Netherland 3 [1664], and society had become permeated by English ideas and customs. They were plodding money-getters ; abhorred change and innovation, and loved ease. They possessed few of the elements of progress, but many of the substantial social virtues necessary to the stability of a State, and the health of society. From these the Swedes and Finns upon the Delaware 3 did not differ much ; but the habits of the Quakers, who finally predominated in West Jersey * and Pennsylvania, 5 were quite different. They always exhibited a refined simplicity and equanimity, without ostentatious displays of piety, that won esteem ; and they were governed by a religious sentiment without fanaticism, which formed a powerful safeguard against vice and immorality. In Maryland, 6 the earlier settlers were also less rigid moralists than the New Englanders, and greater formalists in religion. They were more refined, equally industrious, but lacked the stability of character and perseverance in pursuits, of the people of the East. But at the close of the period we have been considering [1756], the peculiarities of the inhabitants of each section were greatly modified by inter-migration, and a general conformity to the ne cessities of their several conditions, as founders of new States in a wilderness. The tooth of religious bigotry and intolerance had lost its keenness and its poison, and when the representatives of the several colonies met in a general Congress 7 [Sept., 1774], for the public good, they stood as brethren before on& altar, while the eloquent Duche laid the fervent petitions of their hearts before the throne of Omnipotence. 8 The chief pursuit of the colonists was, necessarily, agriculture ; yet, during the time we have considered, manufactures and commerce were not wholly neg lected. Necessity compelled the people to make many things which their poverty would not allow them to buy ; and manual labor, especially in the New England provinces, was dignified from the beginning. The settlers came where a throne and its corrupting influences were unknown, and where the idleness and privileges of aristocracy had no abiding-place. In the magnificent forests 1 This is a picture of one of the oldest houses in New England, and is a favorable specimen of the best class of frame dwellings at that time. It is yet [1867] standing, we believe, near Medfield, in Massachusetts. a Page 144. 3 Page 93. 4 Page 160. 6 Page 161. 6 Page 81. 7 Page 228. e Page 228. 1756.] A RETROSPECT. 177 of the New World, where a feudal lord 1 had never stood, they began a life full of youth, vigor, and labor, such as the atmosphere of the elder governments of the earth could not then sustain. They were compelled to be self-reliant, and what they could not buy from the workshops of England for their simple ap parel and furniture, and implements of culture, they rudely manufactured, 2 and were content. The commerce of the colonies had but a feeble infancy ; and never, until they were politically separated from Great Britain [1776], could their inter change of commodities be properly dignified with the name of Commerce. En gland early became jealous of the independent career of the colonists in respect to manufactured articles, and navigation acts, 3 and other unwise and unjust restraints upon the expanding industry of the Americans, were brought to bear upon them. As early as 1636, a Massachusetts vessel of thirty tons made a trading voyage to the West Indies; and two years later [1638], another vessel went from Salem to New Providence, and returned with a cargo of salt, cotton, tobacco, and negroes. 4 This was the dawning of commerce in America. The eastern people also engaged quite extensively in fishing ; and all were looking forward to wealth from ocean traffic, as well as that of the land, when the pass age of the second Navigation Act, 5 in 1660. evinced the strange jealousy of Great Britain. From that period, the attention of Parliament was often directed to the trade and commerce of the colonies, and in 1719, the House of Commons declared l i that erecting any manufactories in the colonies, tended to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain." Woolen goods, paper, hemp, and iron were manufactured in Massachusetts and other parts of New England, as early as 1732 ; and almost every family made coarse cloth for domestic use. Heavy duties had been imposed upon colonial iron sent to England ; and the colonists, thus deprived of their market for pig iron, were induced to attempt the manufacture of steel and bar iron for their own use. It was not until almost a century [1750] afterward that the mother country perceived the folly of her policy in this respect, and admitted colonial pig iron, duty free, first into London, and soon afterward into the rest of the kingdom. Hats were manufac- 1 Note ID, page 62. 2 From the beginning of colonization there were shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths in the sev eral colonies. Chalmers says of New England in 1673: "There be fine iron works which cast no guns ; no house in New England has above twenty rooms ; not twenty in Boston have ten rooms each ; a dancing-school was set up here, but put down ; a fencing-school is allowed. There be no musicians by trade. All cordage, sail-cloth, and mats, come from England ; no cloth made there worth four shillings per yard ; no alum, no copperas, no salt, made by their sun." 3 The first Navigation Act [1651] forbade all importations into England, except in English ships, or those belonging to English colonies. In 1660, this act was confirmed 1 , and unjust additions were made to it. The colonies were forbidden to export their chief productions to any country ex cept to England or its dependencies. Similar acts, all bearing heavily upon colonial commerce, were made law, from time to time. See note 4, page 109. 4 This was the first introduction of slaves into New England. The first slaves introduced into the English colonies, were those landed and sold in Virginia in 1620. [See note 6, page 105.] They were first recognized as such, by law, in Massachusetts, in 1641 ; in Connecticut and Rhode Island, about 1650; in New York, in 1656; in Maryland, in 1663 ; and in New Jersey, in 1665. There were but few slaves in Pennsylvania, and those were chiefly in Philadelphia. There were some there as early as 1690. The people of Delaware held some at about the same time. The introduc tion of slaves into the Carolinas was coeval with their settlement, and into Georgia about the year 1750, when the people generally evaded the prohibitory law. Page 174. 6 Note 4, page 109. 12 178 THE COLONIES. [1492. tured and carried from one colony to the other in exchange ; and at about the same time, brigantines and small sloops were built in Massachusetts and Penn sylvania, and exchanged with West India merchants for rum, sugar, wines, and silks. These movements were regarded with disfavor by the British Govern ment, and unwisely considering the increase of manufactures in the colonies to be detrimental to English interests, greater restrictions were ordained. It was enacted that all manufactories of iron and steel in the colonies, should be con sidered a "common nuisance," to be abated within thirty days after notice being given, or the owner should suffer a fine of a thousand dollars. 1 The ex portation of hats even from one colony to another was prohibited, and no hatter was allowed to have more than two apprentices at one time. The importation of sugar, rum, and molasses was burdened with exorbitant duties ; and the Caro linians were forbidden to cut down the pine-trees of their vast forests, and con vert their wood into staves, and their juice into turpentine and tar, for commer cial purposes. 2 These unjust and oppressive enactments formed a part of that "bill of particulars" which the American colonies presented in their account with Great Britain, when they gave to the world their reasons for declaring themselves " free and independent States." From the beginning, education received special attention in the colonies, particularly in New England. Schools for the education of both white and Indian children were formed in Virginia as early as 1621 ; and in 1692, Wil liam and Mary College was established at Williamsburg. 3 Harvard College, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded in 1637. Yale College, in Connecti cut, was established at Saybrook in 1701, 4 and was removed to its present loca tion, in New Haven, in 1717. It was named in honor of Elihu Yale, pres ident of the East India Company, and one of its most liberal benefactors. The college of New Jersey, at Princeton, called Nassau Hall, was incorporated in 1738 ; 5 and King s (now Columbia) College, in the city of New York, was foudned in 1750. The college of Philadelphia was incorporated in 1760. The college of Rhode Island (now Brown University) was established at War ren in 1764. Queen s (now Rutgers) College, in New Jersey, was founded in 1770 j and Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hamshire, was opened in 1 A law was enacted in 1750, which prohibited the "erection or contrivance of any mill or other engine for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to work with a tilt hammer, or any furnace for making steel in the colonies." Such was the -condition of manufactures in the United States one hundred years ago. Notwithstanding we are eminently an agricultural people, the census of 1850 shows that we have, in round numbers, $530,000,000 invested in manufactures. The value of raw material is estimated at $550,000,000. The amount paid for labor during that year, was $240,000,000, distributed among 1,050,000 operatives. The value of manufactured articles is esti mated at more than a thousand millions of dollars ! 8 For a hundred years the British government attempted to confine the commerce of the colo nies to the interchange of their agricultural products for English manufactures only. The trade of the growing colonies was certainly worth securing. From 1738 to 1748, the average value of exports from Great Britain to the American colonies, was almost three and a quarter millions of dollars annually. 8 The schools previously established did not flourish, and the funds appropriated for their sup port were given to the college. 4 In 1700, ten ministers of the colony met at Saybrook, and each contributed books for the establishment of a college. It was incorporated in 1701. See note 8, page 158. * It was a feeble institution at first. In 1747, Governor Belcher became its patron. 1756.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 179 1771. It will be seen that the colonies could boast of no less than nine col leges when the War for Independence commenced three of them under the supervision of Episcopalians, three under Congregationalists, one each under Presbyterians, the Reformed Dutch Church, and the Baptists. But the pride and glory of New England have ever been its common schools. Those received the earliest and most earnest attention. In 1636, the Connecticut Legislature enacted a law which required every town that contained fifty families, to main tain a good school, and every town containing one hundred householders, to have a grammar school. 1 Similar provisions for general education soon pre vailed throughout New England ; and the people became remarkable for their intelligence. The rigid laws which discouraged all frivolous amusements, induced active minds, during leisure hours, to engage in reading. The sub jects contained in books then in general circulation, were chiefly History and Theology, and of these a great many were sold. A traveler mentions the fact, that, as early as 1686, several booksellers in Boston had " made fortunes by their business. 72 But newspapers, the great vehicle of general intelligence to the popular mind of our day, were very few and of little worth, before the era of the Revolution. 3 Such, in brief and general outline, were the American people, and such their political and social condition, at the commencement of the last inter-colonial war, which we are now to consider, during which they discovered their strength, the importance of a continental union, and their real independence of Grea*. Britain. CHAPTER XII. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, [17561763.] WE are now to consider one of the most important episodes in the history jf the United States, known in Europe as the SEVEN YEARS WAR, and in 1 These townships were, in general, organized religious communities, and had many interests in /Common. 2 Previous to 1753, there had been seventy booksellers in Massachusetts, two in New Hamp shire, two in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island, two in New York, and seventeen in Pennsylvania. 3 The first newspaper ever printed in America was the Boston News Letter, printed in 1704. The next was established in Philadelphia, in 1719. The first in New York was in 1725 ; in Mary land, in 1728 ; in South Carolina, in 1731 ; in Rhode Island, in 1732 ; hi Virginia, in 1736 ; in New Hampshire, in 1753 ; in Connecticut, in 1755 ; in Delaware, in 1761; in North Carolina, in 1763; in Georgia, in 1763 ; and in New Jersey, in 1777. In 1850, there were published in the United States, 2,800 newspapers and magazines, having a circulation of 5,000,000 -of copies. The number of copies printed during that whole year was about 423,000,000. 4 We have no exact enumeration of the inhabitants of the colonies ; but Mr. Bancroft, after a careful examination of many official returns and private computations, estimates the number of white people in the colonies, at the commencement of the French and Indian War, to have been about 1,165,000, distributed as follows: In New England (N. H, Mass., R. I., and Conn.), 425,000; in the middle colonies (N. Y., N. J., Penn., Del., and Md.), 457,000 ; and in the southern colonies (Ya., N. and S. Carolina, and Geo.), 283,000. The estimated number of slaves, 260,000, of whom about 11,000 were in New England; middle colonies, 71,000; and the southern colonies, 178,000. Of the 1,165,000 white people, Dr. Franklin estimated that only about 80,000 were of foreign birth, showing the fact that emigration to America had almost ceased. At the beginning of the Revolu tion, in 1775, the estimated population of the thirteen colonies was 2,803,000. The documents of Congress, in 1775, gives the round number of 3,000,000. 180 THE COLONIES. [1756. America as the FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. It may with propriety be con sidered introductory to the War for Independence, which resulted in the birth of our Republic. The first three inter-colonial wars, or the conflicts in America between the English and French colonies, already noticed, 1 originated in hostil ities first declared by the two governments, and commenced in Europe. The fourth and last, which resulted in establishing the supremacy of the English in America, originated here in disputes concerning territorial claims. For a hun dred years, the colonies of the two nations had been gradually expanding and increasing in importance. The English, more than a million in number, occu pied the seaboard from the Penobscot to the St. Mary, a thousand miles in extent, all eastward of the great ranges of the Alleghanies, and far northward toward the St. Lawrence. The French, not more than a hundred thousand strong, made settlements along the St. Lawrence, the shores of the great lakes, on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and upon the borders of the Gulf of Mex ico. They early founded Detroit [1683], Kaskaskia [1684], Vincennes [1690], and New Orleans [1717]. The English planted agricultural colonies; the French were chiefly engaged in traffic with the Indians. This trade, and the operations of the Jesuit 2 missionaries, who were usually the self-denying pio neers of commerce in its penetration of the wilderness, gave the French great influence over the tribes of a vast extent of country lying in the rear of the English settlements. 3 France and England at that time were heirs to an ancient quarrel. Origin ating far back in feudal ages, and kept alive by subsequent collisions, it burned vigorously in the bosoms of the respective colonists in America, where it was continually fed by frequent hostilities on frontier ground. They had ever regarded each other with extreme jealousy, for the prize before them was supreme rule in the New World. The trading posts and missionary stations of the French, in the far north-west, and in the bosom of a dark wilderness, several hundred miles distant from the most remote settlement on the English frontier, attracted very little attention, until they formed a part of more exten sive operations. But when, after the capture of Louisburg, 4 in 1745, the French adopted vigorous measures for opposing the extension of British power in Amer ica : when they built strong vessels at the foot of Lake Ontario 5 made treaties of friendship with the Delaware 8 and Shawnee 7 tribes ; strengthened Fort Niag ara ; 8 and erected a cordon of fortifications, more than sixty in number, between Montreal and New Orleans the English were aroused to immediate and effective action in defense of the territorial claims given them in their ancient charters. By virtue of these, they claimed dominion westward to the Pacific Ocean, south of the latitude of the north shore of Lake Erie ; while the French claimed a title to all the territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, under the more plausible plea, that they had made the first explorations and settlements 1 King William s War (page 130); Queen Anne s War (page 135); and King George s War (page 136). a Note 4, page 130. 3 Chiefly of the Algonquin nation. Page 17. 4 Page 138. 6 At Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Upper Canada. * 6 Page 20. 7 Page 19. 8 Page 200. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 181 in that region. 1 The claims of the real owner, the Indian, were lost sight of in the discussion. 2 These disputes soon ended in action. The territorial question was speedily brought to an issue. In 1749, George the Second granted six hundred thou sand acres of land, on the south-east bank of the Ohio River, to a company composed of London merchants and Virginia land speculators, with the exclusive privilege of traffic with the Indians. It was called The Ohio Company. Surveyors were soon sent to explore, and make boundaries, and prepare for settlements; and English traders went even as far as the country of the Miamies 3 to traffic with the natives. The French regarded them as intruders, and, in 1753, seized and imprisoned some of them. Apprehending the loss of traffic and influence among the Indians, and the ultimate destruction of their line of communication between Canada and Louisiana, the French commenced the erection of forts between the Alleghany River and Lake Erie, near the present western line of Pennsylvania. 4 The Ohio Company complained of these hostile movements ; and as their grant lay within the chartered limits of Virginia, the authorities of that colony considered it their duty to interfere. Robert Dinwiddie, the lieutenant-governor, sent a letter of remonstrance to M. De St. Pierre, the French commander. 5 George Washington was chosen to be the bearer of the dispatch. He was a young man, less than twenty-two years of age, but possessed much experience of forest life. He already held the com mission of adjutant-general of one of the four militia districts of Virginia. From early youth he had been engaged in land surveying, had become accus tomed to the dangers and hardships of the wilderness, and was acquainted with the character of the Indians, and of the country he was called upon to traverse. Young Washington, as events proved, was precisely the instrument needed for such a service. His mission involved much personal peril and hardship. It required the courage of the soldier, and the sagacity of the statesman, to perform the duty properly. The savage tribes through which he had to pass, were hostile to the English, and the French he was sent to meet were national enemies, wily and suspicious. With only two or three attendants, 6 Washington started from Williamsburg late in autumn [Oct. 31, 1753], and after journey ing full four hundred miles (more than half the distance through a dark wilder ness), encountering almost incredible hardships, amid snow, and icy floods, and hostile Indians, he reached the French outpost at Venango on the 4th of De- 1 Page 180. 2 "When the agent of the Ohio Company went into the Indian country, on the borders of the Ohio River, a messenger was sent by two Indian sachems, to make the significant inquiry, "Where is the Indian s land ? The English claim it all on one side of the river, the French on the other ; where does the Indian s land lay?" 3 Page 19. 4 Twelve hundred men erected a fort on the south shore of Lake Erie, at Presque Isle, now Erie ; soon afterward, another was built at Le Bceuf, on the Yenango (French Creek), now the vil lage of Waterford; and a third was erected at Venango, at the junction of French Creek and the Alleghany River, now the village of Franklin. 6 Already the governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania had received orders from the imperial government, to repel the French by force, whenever they were " found within the undoubted limita of their province." 6 He was afterward joined by two others at Wills Creek (now Cumberland), in Maryland. 182 THE COLONIES. [1756. cember. He was politely received, and his visit was made the occasion of great conviviality by the officers of the garrison. The free use of wine made the Frenchmen incautious, and they revealed to the sober Washington their hostile designs against the English, which the latter had suspected. He perceived the necessity of dispatching business, and returning to Williamsburg, as speedily as possible ; so, after tarrying a day at Venango, he pushed forward to the head-quarters of St. Pierre, at Le Boeuf. That officer entertained him politely during four days, and then gave him a written answer to Dinwiddie s remon strance, enveloped and sealed. Washington retraced his perilous pathway through the wilderness, and after an absence of eleven weeks, he again stood in the presence of Governor Dinwiddie, on the 16th of January, 1754, his mission fulfilled to the satisfaction of all. His judgment, sagacity, courage, and execu tive force qualities which eminently fitted him for the more important duties as chief of the Revolutionary armies, more than twenty years afterward [1775] were nobly developed in the performance of his mission. They were publicly acknowledged, and w T ere never forgotten. Already the Virginians were restive under royal rule, and at that time were complaining seriously of an obnoxious fee allowed by the Board of Trade, in the issue of patents for lands. The House of Burgesses refused, at first, to pay any attention to Dinwiddie s complaints against the French ; but at length they voted fifty thousand dollars for the support of troops which had been enlisted to march into the Ohio country. The revelations made to Washington, and the tenor of St. Pierre s reply, confirmed the suspicions of Dinwiddie, and showed the wisdom of the legislative co-operation. St. Pierre said he was acting in obedience to the orders of his superior, the Marquis Du Quesne, 1 at Montreal, and refused to withdraw his troops from the disputed . territory. Dinwiddie immediately prepared an expedition against the French, and solicited the co-op eration of the other colonies. It was the first call for a general colonial union against a common enemy. All hesitated except North Carolina. The legisla ture of that colony promptly voted four hundred men, and they were soon on the march for Winchester, in Virginia. They eventually proved of little use, for becoming doubtful as to their pay, a greater part of them had disbanded before reaching Winchester. Some volunteers from South Carolina and New York, also hastened toward the seat of future war. The Virginians responded to the call, and a regiment of six hundred men was soon organized, with Colonel Joshua Fry as its commander, and Major Washington as his lieutenant. The troops rendezvoused at Alexandria, and from that city, Washington, at the head of the advanced corps, marched [April 2, 1754] toward the Ohio. Private and public interest went hand in hand. While these military prep arations were in progress, the Ohio Company had sent thirty men to construct a fort at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, now the site of Pittsburg. They had just commenced operations [April 18], when a party of French and Indians, under Contrecoeur, attacked and expelled them, completed 1 Pronounced Du Kane. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 183 the fortification, and named it Du Quesne, in honor of the governor-general of Canada. 1 When intelligence of this event reached Washington on his march, he hastened forward with one hundred and fifty men, to a point on the Monon- gahela, less than forty miles from Fort Du Quesne. There he was informed that a strong force was marching to intercept him, and he cautiously fled back to the Great Meadows, where he erected a stockade, 2 and called it Fort Neces- sity. 3 Before completing it, a few of his troops attacked an advanced party of the French, under Jumonville. They were surprised on the morning of May 28, and the commander and nine of his men were slain. Of the fifty who formed the French detachment, only about fifteen escaped. This was the first blood-shedding of that long and eventful conflict known as the French and Indian War. Two days afterward [May 30], Colonel Fry died, and the whole command devolved on Washington. Troops hastened forward to join the young leader at Fort Necessity, and with about four hundred men, he proceeded toward Fort Du Quesne. M. de Villiers, brother of the slain Jumonville, had marched at about the same time, at the head of more than a thousand Indians and some Frenchmen, to avenge the death of his kinsman. Advised of his approach, Washington fell back to Fort Necessity, and there, on the 3d of July, he was attacked by almost eight hundred foes. After a conflict of about ten hours, de Villiers proposed an honorable capitulation. 4 Washington signed it on the morning of the 4th, and marching out of the stockade with the honors of war, departed, with his troops, for Virginia. It was during this military campaign, that a civil movement of great import ance was in progress. The English and French governments had listened to the disputes in America with interest. At length the British ministry, per ceiving war to be inevitable, advised the colonies to secure the continued friendship of the Six NATIONS/ and to unite in a plan for general defense. All the colonies were invited to appoint delegates to meet in convention at Albany, in the summer of 1754. Only seven responded by sending delegates. 8 The convention was organized on the 19th of June. 7 Having renewed a treaty with the Indians, the subject of colonial union was brought forward. A plan of confederation, similar to our Federal Constitution, drawn up by Dr. Franklin, was submitted. 8 It was adopted on the 10th of July, 1754, and was ordered to be laid before the several colonial Assemblies, and the imperial Board of Trade, 9 1 Page 182. 2 Stockade is a general name of structures for defense, formed by driving strong posts in the ground, so as to make a safe inclosure. It is the same as a palisade. See picture on page 127. 3 Near the national road from Cumberland to "Wheeling, in the south-eastern part of Fayette county, Pennsylvania. The Great Meadows are on a fertile bottom about four miles from the foot of Laurel Hill, and fifty from Cumberland. 4 A mutual restoration of prisoners was to take place, and the English were not to erect any establishment beyond the mountains, for the space of a year. The English troops were to march, unmolested, back to Virginia. 6 Page 25. 6 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. 7 James Delancy, of New York was elected president. There were twenty-five delegates in all. 8 Franklin was a delegate from Pennsylvania. The idea of union was not a new one. William Penn suggested the advantage of a union of all the English colonies as early as 1700; and Coxe, Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, advocated it hi 1722. Now it first found tangible expression under the sanction of authority. 9 Note 5, page 134. 184 THE COLONIES. [1756. for ratification. 1 Its fate was singular. The Assemblies considering it too aristocratic giving the royal governor too much power refused their assent ; and the Board of Trade rejected it because it was too democratic." 1 Although a legal union was not consummated, the grand idea of political fraternization then began to bud. It blossomed in the midst of the heat of the Stamp Act excitement eleven years later [1765], and its fruit appeared in the memorable Congress of 1 774. The convention at Albany had just closed its labors, when the Indians com menced murderous depredations upon the New England frontiers [August and September, 1754] ; and among the tribes west of the Alleghanies, French emis saries were busy arousing them to engage in a war of extermination against the English. Even in full view of these menaces, some of the colonies were tardy in preparations to avert the evil. Shirley was putting forth energetic efforts in Massachusetts ; New York voted twenty-five thousand dollars for military serv ice, and Maryland thirty thousand dollars for the same. The English govern ment sent over fifty thousand dollars for the use of the colonists, and with it a commission to Governor Sharpe of Maryland, appointing him commander-in- chief of all the colonial forces. Disputes about military rank and precedence soon ran high between the Virginia regimental officers, and the captains of independent companies. To silence these, Dinwiddie unwisely dispensed with all field officers, and broke the Virginia regiments into separate companies. This arrangement displeased Washington ; he resigned his commission, and the year 1754 drew to a close without any efficient preparations for a conflict with the French. 3 CAMPAIGN OF 1755. Yet war had not been declared by the two nations ; and for more than a year and a half longer the colonies were in conflict, before England and France formally announced hostility to each other. In the mean while the British government, perceiving that a contest, more severe than had yet been seen, must soon take place in America, extended its aid to its colonies. Edward Braddock, an Irish officer of distinction, arrived in Chesapeake Bay, with two regiments of his countrymen, on the 20th of February, 1755. He had been 1 It proposed a general government to be administered by one chief magistrate, to be appointed by the crown, and a council of forty-eight members, chosen by the several legislatures. This coun cil, answering to our Senate, was to have power to declare war, levy troops, raise money, regulate trade, conclude peace, and many other things necessary for the general good. The delegates from Connecticut alone, objected to the plan, because it gave the governor-general veto power, or the right to refuse his signature to laws ordained by the Senate, and thus prevent them becoming stat utes. 2 The Board of Trade had proposed a plan which contained all the elements of a system for the utter enslavement and dependence of the Americans. They proposed a general government, composed of the governors of the several colonies, and certain select members of the several councils. These were to have power to draw on the British Treasury for money to carry on the impending war : the sum to be reimbursed by taxes imposed upon the colonists by Parliament. The colonists preferred to do their own righting, and levy their own taxes, independent of Great Britain. 3 According to a return made to the Board of Trade at about this time, the population of the colo nies amounted to one million four hundred and eighty-five thousand, six hundred and thirty-four. Of these, two hundred and ninety-two thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight were negroes. 1763.] THE FR ENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 185 appointed commander-in-chief of all the British and provincial forces in Amer ica ; and at his request, six colonial governors 1 met in convention at Alexandria, in April following, to assist in making arrangements for a vigorous campaign. Three separate expeditions were planned; one against Fort du Quesne, to be led by Braddock ; a second against Niagara and Frontenac (Kingston), to be commanded by Governor Shirley ; and a third against Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, under General William Johnson, 3 then an influential resident among the Mohawk nation of the IRQ QUOIS confederacy. 3 Already a fourth expedition had been arranged by Shirley and Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia, designed to drive the French out of that province, and other portions of ancient Acadie.* These extensive arrangements, sanctioned by the imperial government, awakened the most zealous patriotism of all the colonists, and the legislatures of the sev eral provinces, except Pennsylvania and Georgia, voted men and supplies for the impending war. The Quaker Assembly of Pennsylvania was opposed to military movements ; the people of Georgia were too poor to contribute. There was much enthusiasm in New England, and the eastern expedition first proceeded to action. Three thousand men, under General John Winslow, 5 sailed from Boston on the 20th of May, 1755, and landed at the head of the Bay of Fundy. There they were joined by Colonel Monckton with three hun dred British regulars 8 from the neighboring garrison, and that officer, having official precedence of Winslow, took the command. They captured the forts in possession of the French there, in June, without difficulty, and placed the whole region under martial rule. 7 This was the legitimate result of war. But the cruel sequel deserves universal reprobation. The total destruction of the French settlements was decided upon. Under the plea that the Acadians would aid their French brethren in Canada, the innocent and happy people were seized in their houses, fields, and churches, and conveyed on board the English vessels. Families were broken, never to be united ; and to compel the surrender of those who fled to the woods, their starvation was insured by a total destruction of their growing crops. The Acadians were stripped of every thing, and those who were carried away, were scattered among the English colonies, helpless beggars, to die heart-broken in a strange land. In one short month, their paradise had become a desolation, and a happy people were crushed into the dust. The western expedition, under Braddock, was long delayed on account of difficulties in obtaining provisions and wagons. The patience of the commander was sorely tried, and in moments of petulance he used expressions against the colonists, which they long remembered with bitterness. He finally commenced his march from Will s Creek (Cumberland) on the 10th of June, 1755, with about two thousand men, British and provincials. Anxious to reach Fort du 1 Shirley, of Massachusetts ; Dinwiddie, of Virginia ; Delancey, of New York ; Sharpe, of Mary land; Morris, of Pennsylvania; and Dobbs. of North Carolina. Admiral Keppel, commander of the British fleet, was also present. 2 Page 190. 3 Page 25. 4 Page 58. 6 He was a great grandson of Edward Winslow, the third governor of Plymouth. He was a major-general in the Massachusetts militia, but on this occasion held the office of lieutenant-colonel. This term is used to denote soldiers who are attached to the regular army, and as distinguished from volunteers and militia. The latter term applies to the great body of citizens who are liable to do perpetual military duty only in time of war. 7 Note 8, page 170. 186 THE COLONIES. [1756. FORT DU QUESXE. Quesne before the garrison should receive re-inforcements, he made forced marches with twelve hundred men, leaving Colonel Dunbar, his second in command, to follow with the remainder, and the wagons. Colonel Washington 1 had consented to act as Braddock s aid, and to him was given the command of the provincials. Knowing, far better than Braddock, the perils of their march and the kind of warfare they might expect, he ventured, modestly, to give advice, founded upon his experi ence. But the haughty general would listen to no suggestions, especially from a provincial subordinate. This obstinacy resulted in his ruin. When within ten miles of Fort du Quesne, and while marching at noon-day, on the 9th of July, in fancied security, on the south side of the Monongahela, a volley of bullets and a cloud of arrows assailed the advanced guard, under Lieutenant-Colonel Gage. 2 They came from a thicket and ravine close by, where a thousand dusky warriors lay in ambush. Again Washington asked permission to fight according to the provincial custom, but was refused. Braddock must maneuver according to European tactics, or not at all. For three hours, deadly volley after volley fell upon the British columns, while Braddock attempted to maintain order, where all was confusion. The slain soon covered the ground. Every mounted officer but Washington was killed or maimed, and finally, the really brave Braddock himself, after having several horses shot under him, was mortally wounded. 3 Washington remained unhurt. 4 Under his direction the provincials rallied, while the regulars, seeing their gen- .eral fall, were fleeing in great confusion. The provincials covered their retreat so gallantly, that the enemy did not follow. A week after ward, Washington read the impressive funeral service of the Anglican Church, 6 over the corpse of Braddock, by torch light [July 15, 1755] ; and he was buried, where his grave may now [1867] be seen, near the National road, between the fifty-third and fifty-fourth mile from Cumberland, in Mary land. Colonel Dunbar received the flying troops, and marched to Philadelphia in August, with the broken companies. Wash ington, with the southern provincials, went back to Virginia. GEN. BRADDOCK. Thus ended the second expedition of the campaign of 1755. 1 Page 181. 2 Afterward General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British troops at Boston, at the beginning of the Revolution. Page 226. 3 Braddock was shot by Thomas Faucett, one of the provincial soldiers. His plea was self- preservation. Braddock had issued a positive order, that none of the English should protect them selves behind trees, as the French and Indians did. Faucett s brother had taken such position, and when Braddock perceived it, he struck him to the earth with his sword. Thomas, on seeing his brother fall, shot Braddock in the back, and then the provincials, fighting as they pleased, were saved from utter destruction. 4 Dr. Craik, who was with "Washington at this time, and also attended him in his last illness, says, that while in the Ohio country with him, fifteen years afterward, an old Indian chief came, as he said, " a long way" to see the Virginia colonel at whom he fired his rifle fifteen times during the battle on the Monongahela, without hitting him. Washington was never wounded in battle. On this occasion he had two horses shot under him, and four bullets passed through his coat. "Writing of this to his brother, he remarked, " By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation, * * * although death was leveling my companions on every side." 6 Note 1, page 168. See picture on page 187. BURIAL OF BRADDOCK. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND iNDIAN WAR. 189 The third expedition, under Governor Shirley, designed to operate against the French posts at Niagara and Frontenac, experienced less disasters, but was quite as unsuccessful. It was late in August before Shirley had collected the main body of his troops at Oswego, from whence he intended to go to Niagara by water. His force was twenty-five hundred strong on the 1st of September, yet circumstances comp lied him to hesitate. The prevalence of storms, and of sickness in his camp, and, finally, the desertion of the greater part of his Indian allies, 1 made it perilous to proceed, and he relinquished the design. Leaving sufficient men to garrison the forts which he had commenced at Oswego, 8 he marched the remainder to Albany [Oct. 24], and returned to Massachusetts. The fourth expedition, under General Johnson, prepared for attacking Crown Point, 3 accomplished more than that of Braddock 4 or Shirley, but failed to achieve its main object. In July [1755], about six thousand troops, drawn from New England, New York, and New Jersey, had assembled at the head of boat navigation on the Hudson (now the village of Fort Edward), fifty miles north of Albany. They were under the command of General Lyman, 5 of Connecticut ; and before the arrival of General Johnson, in August, with cannons and stores, they had erected a strong fortification, which was afterward called Fort Edward. 6 On his arrival, Johnson took command, and with the main body of the troops, marched to the head of Lake George, about fifteen miles distant, where he established a camp, protected on both sides by an im passable swamp. While the provincial troops were making these preparations, General the Baron Dieskau (a French officer of much repute), with about two thousand men, chiefly Canadian militia and Indians, was approaching . from Montreal, by way of Lake Champlain, to meet the English. 7 When Johnson arrived at Lake George, on the 7th of September, Indian scouts informed him that Dies kau was disembarking at the head of Lake Champlain (now the village of 1 Tribes of the Six NATIONS [page 25], and some Stockbridge Indians. The latter were called Housatonics, from the river on which they were found. They were a division of the Mohegan [page 21] tribe. 2 Fort Ontario on the east, and Fort Pepperell on the west of Oswego River. Fort Pepperell was afterward called Fort Oswego. See map, page 192. The house was built of stone, and the walls were three feet thick. It was within a square inclosure composed of a thick wall, and two strong square towers. 3 Upon this tongue of land on Lake Champlain, the French erected a fortification, which they called Fort St. Frederick. On the Vermont side of the lake, opposite, there was a French settle ment as early as 1731. In allusion to the chimnies of then- houses, which remained long after the settlement was destroyed, it is still known as Chimney Point. 4 Page 185. 6 Born in Durham, Connecticut, hi the year 1716. He was a graduate of Tale College, and be came a lawyer. He was a member of the colonial Assembly in 1750, and performed important services during the whole war that soon afterward ensued. He commanded the expedition that captured Havana in 1762; and at the peace, in 1763, he became concerned in lands in the Missis sippi region. He died in Florida in 1775. 6 It was first called Fort Lyman. Johnson, meanly jealous of General Lyman, changed the name to Fort Edward. 7 Dieskau and his French troops, on their way from France, narrowly escaped capture by Ad miral Boscawen, who was cruising, with an English fleet, off Newfoundland. They eluded his fleet during a fog, and went in safety up the St. Lawrence. 190 THE COLONIES. [1756. FORT EDWARD. Whitehall), preparatory to marching against Fort Edward. The next scouts brought Johnson the intelligence that Dieskau s Indians, terrified by the English cannons when they approached Fort Edward, had induced him to change his plans, and that he was marching to attack his camp. Colonel Ephraim Williams, of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was imme diately sent [Sept. 8], with a thousand troops from that colony, and two hundred Mohawks, 1 under the famous chief, Hendrick, to intercept the enemy. They met in a narrow defile, four miles from Lake George. The English sud denly fell into an ambuscade. Williams and Hendrick were both killed, 2 and their followers fell back in great con fusion, upon Johnson s camp, hotly pursued by the victors. One of the Mas sachusetts regiments, which fought bravely in this action, was commanded by Timothy Ruggles, who was president of the Stamp Act Congress, 3 held at New York in 1765, but who, when the Revolution broke out, w T as active on the side of the Crown. The commander-in-chief was assured of the disaster before the flying fugi tives made their appearance. He immediately cast up a breastwork of logs and limbs, placed upon it two cannons which he had received from Fort Edward two days before, and when the enemy came rushing on, close upon the heels of the English, he was prepared to receive them. The fugitives had just reached Johnson s camp when Dieskau and his flushed victors appeared. Unsuspicious of heavy guns upon so rude a pile as John son s battery exhibited, they rushed forward, with sword, pike, and tomahawk, and made a spirited attack. One volley from the English cannons made the Indians flee in terror to the shelter of the deep forests around. The Ca nadian militia also fled, as General Lyman and a body of troops approached from Fort Edward ; and, finally, the French troops, after continuing the conflict several hours, and losing their commander, 4 withdrew, and hastened to Crown Point. Their baggage was captured by some New Hampshire troops from Fort Edward, and the defeat was complete. General Johnson erected a fortification on the site of his camp, at the head of the lake, and called it Fort William Henry. It was constructed under the direction of Richard Gridley, who commanded the artillery in the siege of Louisburg, ten years before. 5 Being informed that the French were strength- 1 Page 23. 3 While on his way north, Williams stopped at Albany, made his will, and bequeathed certain property to found a free school for western Massachusetts/ That was the foundation of " Williams College his best monument. The rock near which his body was found, on the right side of the road from Glenn s Falls to Lake George, still bears his name ; and a collection of water on the bat tle-ground, is called Bloody Pond. a page 215. * Dieskau was found mortally wounded, carried into the English camp, and there tenderly treated. He was afterward conveyed to New York, from whence he sailed to England, where he 6 Note 1, page 137. SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 191 erring their works at Crown Point, and were fortifying Ticonderoga, 1 he thought it prudent to cease offensive operations. He garrisoned Fort Edward and Fort William Henry, returned to Albany, and as the season was advanced [October, 1755], he dispersed the remainder of his troops. For his services in this campaign, the king conferred the honor of knighthood upon him, and gave him twenty-five thousand dollars with which to support the dignity. This honor and emolument properly belonged to General Lyman, the real hero of the campaign. 2 Johnson had Sir Peter Warren and other friends at court, and so won the unmerited prize. HENRY. FORT WILLIAM CAMPAIGN OF 1756. The home governments now took up the quarrel. The campaign of 1755, having assumed all the essential features of regular war, and there appearing no prospect of reconciliation of the belligerents, England formally proclaimed hostilities against France, on the 17th of May, 1756, and the latter soon after ward [June 9] reciprocrated the action. Governor Shirley, who had become commander-in chief, after the death of Braddock, was superseded by General Aber- crombie 3 in the spring of 1756. He came as the lieu tenant of Lord Loudon, whom the king had appointed || to the chief command in America, and also governor of Virginia. Loudon was an indolent man, and a remark able procrastinater, and the active general-in-chief was Abercrombie, who, also, was not remarkable for his skill and forethought as a commander. He arrived with several British regiments early in June. The plan of the campaign for that year had already been arranged by a convention of colonial governors held at Albany early in the season. Ten thousand men were to attack Crown Point; 4 six thousand were to proceed against Niagara; 6 three thousand against Fort du Quesne ; 6 and two thousand were to cross the country from the Kennebec, to attack the French settlements on the Chaudiere River. The command of the expedition against Crown Point was intrusted to Gen eral Winslow, 7 who had collected seven thousand men at Albany, when Aber- i Page 196. 3 Lyman urged Johnson to pursue the French, and assail Crown Point. The Mohawks burned for an opportunity to avenge the death of Hendrick. But Johnson preferred ease and safety, and spent the autumn in constructing Fort William Henry. He meanly withheld all praise from Ly man, in his dispatches to government. Johnson was born in Ireland, in 1714. He came to Amer ica to take charge of the lands of his uncle, Admiral Warren [page 137], on the Mohawk River, and gained great influence over the Indians of New York. He died at his seat (now the village of Johnstown) in the Mohawk valley, in 1774. 3 A strong party in England, irritated by the failures of the campaign of 1755, cast the blame of Braddock s defeat and other disasters, upon the Americans, and finally procured the recall of Shirley. He completely vindicated hia character, and was afterward appointed governor of the Bahama Islands. 4 Page 200. 5 Page 200. 6 Page 186. 7 Page 185. 192 THE COLONIES. [1756. crombie arrived. Difficulties immediately occurred, respecting military rank, and caused delay. They were not adjusted when the tardy Loudon arrived, at midsummer ; and his arrogant assumption of superior rank for the royal officers, increased the irritation and discontent of the provincial troops. When these matters were finally adjusted, in August, the French had gained such positive advantages, that the whole plan of the campaign was disconcerted. Baron Dieskau 1 was succeeded by the Marquis de Montcalm, in the com mand of the French troops in Canada. Perceiving the delay of the English, and knowing that a large number of their troops was at Albany, short of pro visions, and suffering from small -pox, and counting wisely upon the inefficiency of their commander-in-chief, he collected about five thousand Frenchmen, Ca nadians, and Indians, at Frontenac, 2 and crossing Lake Ontario, landed, with thirty pieces of cannon, a few miles east of Oswego. Two days afterward, he appeared before Fort Ontario [Aug. 11, 1756], on the east side of the river, then in command of Colonel Mercer. After a short but brave resistance, the garrison abandoned the fort [Aug. 12], and withdrew to an older fortification, on the west side of the river. 3 Their commander was killed, and they were soon obliged to surrender themselves [Aug. 14] prisoners of war/ The spoils of victory for Montcalm, were four teen hundred prisoners, a large amount of military stores, consisting of small arms, ammunition, and provisions ; one hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon, and several ves sels, large and small, in the harbor. After securing them, he demolished the forts, 4 and returned to Canada. The whole country of the Six NATIONS was now laid open to the incursions of the French. The loss of Oswego was a severe blow to the English. When intelligence of that event reached Loudon, he recalled the troops then on their way toward Lake Champlain ; and all the other expeditions were abandoned. Forts Wil liam Henry 5 and Edward 6 were strengthened ; fifteen hundred volunteers and drafted militia, under Washington, were placed in stockades 7 for the defense of the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers ; and on the western borders of the Carolinas several military posts were established as a protection against the FORTS AT OSWEGO. 1 Page 189. 2 Note 5, page 180. 3 A palisaded block-house, built by order of Governor Burnet in 1727, near the spot where Fort Pepperell was erected. A redoubt or block-house is a fortified building, of peculiar construction, well cal culated for defense. They were generally built of logs, in the form represented -in the engraving. They were usually two stories, with narrow openings through which to fire muskets from within*. They were sometimes prepared with openings for cannons. 4 This was to please the Six NATIONS, who had never felt con tented with this supporter of power in their midst. The demolition of these forts, induced the Indians to assume an attitude of neutrality, by a solemn treaty. BLOCK HOUSE. 6 Page 191. It commanded a view of the lake from its head to the Narrows, fifteen miles. e Page 190. The Hudson is divided at Fort Edward, into two channels, by Koger s Island, upon which the provincial troops out of the fort, usually encamped. 7 Note 2, page 183. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 193 Cherokees 1 and Creeks, 2 whom French emissaries were exciting to hostilities against the English. Hitherto, since the commencement of hostilities, some of the colonial Assemblies had been slow to make appropriations for the support of the war. Pennsylvania and South Carolina, actuated by different motives, had held back, but now the former made an appropriation of thirty thousand pounds, to be issued in paper, and the latter granted four thousand pounc 1 toward enlisting two companies for the public service. The most important achievement of the provincials during that year, was the chastisement of the Indians at Kittaning, their chief town, situated on the Alleghany River. During several months they had spread terror and desola tion along the western frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and almost a thousand white people had been murdered or carried into captivity. These acts aroused the people of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Franklin undertook the military command of the frontier, with the rank of colonel. His troops were voluntary militia. Under his directions, a chain of forts and blockhouses was erected along the base of the Kittaning mountains, from the Delaware to the Maryland line. Franklin soon perceived that he wr.s not in his right place, and he abandoned military life forever. The Indians continuing their depredations, Colonel John Armstrong of Pennsylvania, 3 accompanied by Captain Mercer 4 of Virginia, with about three hundred men, attacked them on the night of the 8th of September [1756], killed their principal chiefs, destroyed their town, and completely humbled them. Thus ended the campaign of 1756. The French still held in possession almost all of the territory in dispute, and of the mo^t important of their military posts. They had also expelled the English from Oswego and Lake George, and had compelled the powerful Six NATIONS to make a treaty of neutrality. On the whole, the campaign of 1756 closed with advantages on the part of the French. CAMPAIGN OF 1757. A military council was held at Boston on the 19th of January, 1757, when Lord Loudon proposed to confine the operations of that year to an expedition against Louisburg, 5 and to the defense of the frontiers. Because he was com- mander-in-chief, wiser and better men acquiesced in his plans, but deplored his want of judgment and executive force. The people of New England, in par ticular, were greatly disappointed when they ascertained that the execution of their favorite scheme of driving the French from Lake Champlain was to be deferred. However, the general ardor of the colonists was not abated, and the call for troops was so promptly responded to, that Loudon found himself at the head of six thousand provincials on the first of June. The capture of Louis- burg was Loudon s first care. He sailed from New York on the 20th of that month, and on arriving at Halifax ten days afterward [June 30], he was joined 1 Page 27. a Page 30. 8 He was a general in the war for Independence, twenty years later. See note 1, page 249. 4 Page 269. 6 Page 137. 13 194 THE COLONIES. [1756. by Admiral Holborne, with a powerful naval armament and five thousand land troops, from England. They were about to proceed to Cape Breton, 1 when they were informed that six thousand troops were in the fortress at Louisburg, 3 and that a French fleet, larger than Holborne s, was lying in that harbor. The latter had arrived and taken position while Loudon was moving slowly, with his characteristic indecision. The enterprise was abandoned, and Loudon returned to New York [Aug. 31], to hear of defeat and disgrace on the north ern frontier, the result of his ignorance and utter unskillfulness. Montcalm had again borne away important trophies of victory. Toward the close of July, he left Ticonderoga with about eight thousand men (of whom two thousand were Indians), and proceeded to besiege Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George. 3 The garrison of three thousand men was commanded by Colonel Monro, a brave English officer, who felt strengthened in his position by the close proximity of his chief, General Webb, who was at the head of four thousand troops at Fort Edward, 4 only fifteen miles distant. But his confidence in his commanding general was sadly misplaced. When Montcalm demanded a surrender of the fort and garrison [August 4, 1757], Monro boldly refused, and sent an express to General Webb, for aid. It was not furnished. For six days Montcalm continued the siege, and expresses were sent daily to Webb for rein forcements, but in vain. Even when General Johnson, 5 with a corps of provincials and Putnam s Rangers, 6 had, on reluctant permission, marched several miles in the direction of the beleaguered fort, Webb recalled them, and sent a letter to Monro, advising him to surrender. That letter was intercepted by Montcalm, 7 and with a peremptory demand for capitulation, he sent it to Monro. Perceiving further resistance to be useless, Monro yielded. Montcalm was so pleased with the bravery dis played by the garrison, that he agreed upon very honorable terms of surrender, and promised the troops a safe escort to Fort Edward. His Indians, expecting blood and booty, were enraged by the merciful terms, and at the moment when the English entered the forests a mile from Fort Wil liam Henry, the savages fell upon them with great fury, slaughtered a large number, plundered their baggage, and pursued them to within cannon shot of Fort Edward. Montcalm declared his inability to restrain the Indians, and expressed his deep sorrow. The fort and all its appendages were burned or otherwise destroyed. 8 It was never rebuilt ; and until 1854, nothing marked Crowjifo. LAKE GEORGE AND VICINITY. 1 Note 5, page 137. 6 Israel Putnam, afix 2 Page 337. 3 Page 191. 4 Page 190. 6 Page 190. ward a major-general in the army of the Revolution. He now held the commission of major, and with Major Rogers and his rangers, performed important services during the whole French and Indian "War. 7 It is said that Montcalm was just on the point of raising the siege and returning to Ticon deroga, when Webb s cowardly letter fell into his hands. The number and strength of Johnson s Iroops had been greatly exaggerated, and Montcalm was preparing to flee. 8 Major Putnam visited the ruins while the fires were yet burning, and he described the scene as very appalling. The bodies of murdered Englishmen were scattered in every direction, some of 1763.] FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 195 its site but an irregular line of low mounds on the border of the lake, a short distance from the village of Caldwell. Since then a hotel has been erected upon the spot, for the accommodation of summer tourists. Thus ended the military operations of the inefficient Earl of London, for the year 1757. The position of affairs in America now alarmed the English people. The result of the war, thus far, was humiliating to British pride, while it incited the French to greater efforts in the maintenance of their power in the West. In the Anglo-American 1 colonies there was much irritation. Thoroughly imbued with democratic ideas, and knowing their competency, unaided by royal troops, to assert and maintain their rights, they regarded the interferences of the home government as clogs upon their operations. Some of the royal gov ernors were incompetent and rapacious, and all were marked by a haughty deportment, offensive to the sturdy democracy of the colonists. Their demands for men and money, did not always meet with cheerful and ample responses ; and the arrogant assumption of the English officers, disgusted the commanders of the provincial troops, and often cooled the zeal of whole battalions of brave Americans. Untrammeled by the orders, exactions, and control of imperial power, the Americans would probably have settled the whole matter in a single campaign; but at the close of the second year of the war [1756] the result appeared more uncertain and remote than ever. The people of England had perceived this clearly, and clamored for the dismissal of the weak and corrupt ministry then in power. The popular will prevailed, and William Pitt, by far the ablest statesman England had yet produced, was called to the control of public affairs in June, 1757. Energy and good judgment marked every move ment of his administration, especially in measures for prosecuting the war in America. Lord Loudon was recalled, 3 and General Abercrombie 3 was appointed to succeed him. A strong naval armament was prepared and placed under the command of Admiral Boscawen ; and twelve thousand additional English troops were allotted to the service in America. 4 Pitt addressed a letter to the several colonies, asking them to raise and clothe twenty thousand men. He promised, in the name of Parliament, to furnish arms, tents, and provisions for them ; and also to reimburse the several colonies all the money they should expend in raising and clothing the levies. These liberal offers had a magical effect, and an excess of levies soon appeared. New England alone raised fifteen thousand men; 5 New York furnished almost twenty-seven hundred, New Jersey one them half consumed among the embers of the conflagration. Among the dead were more than one hundred women, many of whom had been scalped [note 4, page 14] by the Indians. 1 This is the title given to Americans who are of English descent. Those who are descendants of the Saxons who settled in England, are called Anglo-Saxons. Pitt gave as a chief reason for recalling Loudon, that he could never hear from him, and did not know what he was about. Loudon was always arranging great plans, but executed nothing. It was remarked to Dr. Franklin, when he made inquiries concerning him, ttat he was "like St. George on the signs always on horseback, but never rides forward." 3 Page 191. Pitt had arranged such an admirable militia system for home defense, that a large number of the troops of the standing army could be spared for foreign service. Public and private advances during 1758, in Massachusetts alone, amounted to more than a million of dollars. The taxes on real estate, in order to raise money, were enormous ; in many instances equal to two thirds of the income of the tax-payers. Yet it was levied by their own repre sentatives, and they did not murmur. A few years later, an almost nominal tax in the form of duty 196 THE COLONIES. [1756. thousand, Pennsylvania almost three thousand, and Virginia over two thousand. Some came from other colonies. Royal American troops (as they were called) organized in the Carolinas, were ordered to the North ; and when Abercrombie took command of the army in the month of May, 1758, he found fifty thousand men at his disposal ; a number greater than the whole male population of the French dominions in America, at that time. 1 CAMPAIGN OP 1758. The plan of the campaign of 1758, was comprehensive. Louisburg, 2 Ticon- deroga, and Fort du Quesne, 3 were the principal points of operations pecified in it. This was a renewal of Shirley s scheme, and ample preparations were made to carry it out. The first blow was directed against Louisburg. Admiral Boscawen arrived at Halifax early in May, with about forty armed vessels bearing a land force of over twelve thousand men, under General Amherst 4 as chief, and General Wolfe 5 as his lieutenant. They left Halifax on the 28th of May, and on the 8th of June, the troops landed, without much opposition, on the shore of Gabarus Bay, near the city of Louisburg. 6 The French, alarmed by this demonstra tion of power, almost immediately deserted their outposts, and retired within the town and fortress. After a vigorous resistance of almost fifty days, and when all their shipping in the harbor was destroyed, the French surrendered the town and fort, together with the island of Cape Breton and that of St. John (now Prince Edward), and their dependencies, by capitulation, on the 26th of July, 1758. The spoils of victory were more than five thousand prisoners, and a large quantity of munitions of war. By this victory, the English became masters of the coast almost to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. When Louisburg fell, the power of France in America began to wane, and from that time its decline was continual and rapid. Activity now prevailed everywhere. While Amherst and Wolfe were conquering in the East, Abercrombie and young Howe were leading seven thousand regulars, nine thousand provincials, and a heavy train of artillery, against Ticonderoga, then occupied by Montcalm with about four thousand men. Abercrombie s army had ren dezvoused at the head of Lake George, and at the close of a calm Sabbath evening [July, 1758] they went down that beautiful sheet of water in flat-boats, and at dawn LORD AMIIERST. TICONDEROGA. upon an article of luxury, levied without their consent, excited the people of that colony to rebellion. See page 1C 9. 1 The total number of inhabitants in Canada, then capable of bearing arms, did not exceed twenty thousand. Of them, between four and five thousand were regular troops. 2 Page 229. 3 Page 186. 4 Lord Jeffrey Amherst was born in Kent, England, in 1717. He was commander-in-chief of the army in England, during a part of our war for independence, and afterward He died in 1797, aged eighty vears. 6 Note 8, page 200. b Note 5, page 137. 1763.J THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 197 LOUD HOWE. [July 6] landed at its northern extremity. The whole country from there to Ticonderoga was then covered with dense forest, and tangled morasses lay in the pathway of the English army. Led by incompetent guides, they were soon bewildered, and while in this condition +hey were suddenly attacked by a French scouting party. The enemy was repulsed, but the vic tory was a 4 : the expense of the life of Lord Howe. 1 He fell at the head of the advanced guard, and a greater part of the troops, who considered him the soul of the expedition, retreated in confusion to the landing-place. In the midst of the temporary confusion incident to the death of Howe, intelligence reached Abercrombie that a reinforcement for Montcalm was approaching. Deceived concern ing the strength of tho French lines across the neck of the pen insula on which the fortress stood, 2 he pressed forward to the attack without his artillery, and ordered his troops to scale the breast works [July 8], in the face of the enemy s fire. These proved much stronger than he antici pated. 3 and after a bloody con flict of four hours, Abercrombie fell back to Lake George, leav ing almost two thousand of his men dead or wounded, in the deep forest. 4 He hastened to his former camp at the head of the lake, and then, on the urgent solicitation of Colonel Bradstreet, he detached three thousand men under that officer, to attack the French post at Frontenac. 5 They went by way of Oswego RUINS OF TICOXDEROGA. 1 Lord Howe was brother of Admiral Lord Howe, who commanded the British fleet on the American coast, in 1776-77, and of Sir William Howe, the commander of the land forces. He was greatly beloved by the troops; and Mante, who was in the service, remarks: "With him the soul of the expedition seemed to expire." He was only thirty-four years of age when he fell. The legislature of Massachusetts Bay appropriated one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for a monument to his memory, in Westminster Abbey. His remains were conveyed to Albany by Captain (afterward General) Philip Schuyler, and there placed in a vault belonging to the family of that officer. They were afterward removed to a place under the chancel of St. Peter s Church, on State-street, Albany, where they remain. At the time of their removal, it was tbund that Lord Howe s hair, which was very short when he was killed, had grown several inches, and exhibited beautiful smooth and glossy locks. 2 The diagram (p. 196) shows the general form of the principal works. The ground on which Ticonderoga stood is about one hundred feet above the level of the lake. Water is upon three sides, and a deep morass extends almost across the fourth, forming a narrrow neck, where the French had erected a strong line of breastworks with batteries. This line was about a mile north-west of the fortress, which occupied the point of the peninsula. The ruins of the fort, delineated in the above sketch, are yet [1867] quite picturesque. 3 The breastworks were nine feet in height, covered in front by sharpened branches of felled trees, pointing outward like a mass of bayonets. 4 Among the wounded was Captain Charles Lee, afterward a general in the army of the Kevo- lution. See note 4, page 248. 6 Pago 180. 198 THE COLONIES. [1756. and Lake Ontario, and two days after landing [August 27, 1758], they cap tured the fort, garrison, and shipping, without much resistance. 1 Bradstreet lost only three or four men in the conflict, but a fearful sickness broke out in his camp, and destroyed about five hundred of them. With the remainder, he slowly retraced his steps, and at the carrying-place on the Mohawk, where the village of Rome now stands, his troops assisted in building Fort Stanwix. 2 Aber- scrombie, in the mean while, after garrisoning Fort George, 3 returned with the remainder of his troops to Albany. The expedition against Fort du Quesne, 4 in the West, was commanded by General Joseph Forbes, who, in July, had auout six thousand men at his dis posal, at Fort Cumberland and Kaystown, including the Virginia troops under Colonel Washington, the Carolina Royal Americans, and an auxiliary force of Cherokee Indians. Protracted sickness, and perversity of will and judgment on the part of Forbes, caused delays almost fatal to the expedition. Contrary to the advice of Washington, he insisted, under the advice of some Pennsylvania land speculators, in constructing a new road, further north, over the mountains, instead of following the one made by Braddock. His progress was so slow, that in September, when it was known that not more than eight hundred men were at Fort du Quesne, 5 Forbes, with six thousand troops, was yet east of the Al- leghanies. Major Grant, at the head of a scouting party of Colonel Boquet s advanced corps, was attacked [Sept. 21], defeated, and made prisoner. Still Forbes moved slowly and methodically, and it was November [Nov. 8] before he joined Boquet with the main body, fifty miles from the point of destination. The approach of winter, and discontent of the troops, caused a council of war to decide upon abandoning the enterprise, when three prisoners gave informa tion of the extreme weakness of the French garrison. Washington was imme diately sent forward, and the whole army prepared to follow. Indian scouts discovered the Virginians when they were within a day s march of the fort, and their fear greatly magnified the number of the provincials. The French garrison, reduced to five hundred men, set fire to the fort [Nov. 24], and fled down the Ohio in boats, in great confusion, leaving every thing behind them. The Virginians took possession the following day. Forbes left a detachment of four hundred and fifty men, to repair and garrison the fort, and then hastened back to go into winter quarters. The name of Fort du Quesne was changed to Fort Pitt, in honor of the great English statesman. 8 1 They made eight hundred prisoners, and seized nine armed vessels, sixty cannons, sixteen mortars, a large quantity of ammunition and stores, and goods designed for traffic with the Indians. Among Bradstreet s subalterns, was Nathaniel Woodhull, afterward a general at the commencement of the war for Independence. [See note 3, page 252.] Stark, Ward, Pomeroy, Gridley, Putnam, Schuyler, and many others who were distinguished in the Revolutionary struggle, were active par ticipants in the scenes of the French and Indian War. 2 Page 278. 3 Fort George was erected about a mile south-east of the ruins of Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George. The ruins of the main work, or citadel, are still [1867] quite prominent 4 Page 186. 6 The capture of Fort Frontenac spread alarm among the French west of that important post, because their supplies from Canada were cut off. It so aflected the Indians with fear, that a greater part of those who were allied to the French, deserted them, and Fort du Quesne was feebly gar risoned. Page 195. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 199 With this event, closed the campaign of 1758, which resulted in great gain to the English. They had effectually humbled the French, by capturing three of their most important posts, 1 and by weakening the attachment of their Indian allies. Many of the Indians had not only deserted the French, but at a great council held at Easton, on the Delaware, during the summer of that year they had, with the Six NATIONS, 2 made treaties of friendship or neutrality with the English. 3 The right arm of French success was thus paralyzed, and peace was restored to the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. CAMPAIGN OF 1759. Four years had elapsed since the commencement of this inter-colonial war. The final struggle was now at hand. Encouraged by the success of the cam paigns just closed, Pitt conceived the magnificent scheme of conquering all Canada, and destroying, at one blow, the French dominion in America. That dominion was now confined to the region of the St. Lawrence, for more distant settlements in the west and south, were like weak colonies cut off from the parent country. Pitt had the rare fortune to possess the entire confidence and esteem of the Parliament and the colonists. The former was dazzled by his greatness ; the latter were deeply impressed with his justice. He had promptly reimbursed all the expenses incurred by the provincial Assemblies during the campaign, 4 amounting to almost a million of dollars, and they as promptly sec onded his scheme of conquest, which had been communicated to them under an oath of secresy. The unsuccessful Abercrombie 5 was succeeded by the success ful Amherst, 6 and early in the spring of 1759, the new Commander-in-chief found twenty thousand provincial troops at his disposal. A competent land and naval force was also sent from England to co-operate with the Americans, and the campaign opened with brilliant prospects for the colonies. The general plan of operations against Canada was similar to that of Phipps and Winthrop in 1690. 7 A strong land and naval force, under General Wolfe, was to ascend the St. Lawrence, and attack Quebec. Another force, under Amherst, was to drive the French from Lake Champlain, seize Montreal, and join Wolfe at Quebec ; and a third expedition, commanded by General Prideaux, was to cap ture Fort Niagara, and then hasten down Lake Ontario to Montreal. On the 22d of July, 1759, General Amherst appeared before Ticonderoga with eleven thousand men. The French commander had just heard of the arrival of Wolfe at Quebec [June 27], and offered no resistance. The garrison left the lines on the 23d of July, and retired within the fort, and three days afterward [July 26] they abandoned that also, partially demolished it, and fled to Crown Point. Amherst pursued them, and on his approach, they took to their boats [Aug. 1], and went down the lake to Isle Aux Noix, 8 in the Sorel 1 Louisburg, Frontenac, and Du Quesne. Others, except Quebec, were stockades. Note 2, page 183. 2 Page 25. 3 The chief tribes represented, were the Delawares, Shawnees, Nanticokes, Mohepans, Conoys, and Monseys. The Twightwees, on the Ohio [page 19], had always remained the friends of the English. 4 Page 195. 6 Page 191. 6 Page 196. 7 Page 131. 8 Pronounced Noo-ah. 200 THE COLONIES. [1756 CROUN POINT. 2 River. Amlierst remained at Crown Point long enough to construct a sufficient number of rude boats to convey his troops, artillery, and bag gage, and then started to drive his enemy before him, across the St. Lawrence. It was now mid-autumn [Oct. 11]. and heavy storms compelled him to return to Crown Point, and place his troops in winter quarters. 1 While there, they constructed that strong fortress, whose picturesque ruins, after the lapse of almost a hundred years, yet [1867] attest its strength. Accompanied by Sir William Johnson, as his lieuten ant, Prideaux collected his forces (chiefly provincials) 3 at Oowego, and sailed from thence to Niagara. He landed without opposition, on the 17th of July, and im mediately commenced the siege. On the same day he was killed, by the bursting of a gun, and was succeeded in command by General Johnson. The beleaguered gar rison, in daily expectation of reinforcements which had been ordered from the southern ani western forts, held out bravely for three weeks, when, on tli3 24th of July, the expected troops appeared. They were almost three thousand strong, one half being French regulars, and the remainder Indians, many of them from the Creek 4 and Cherokee 5 nations. A severe conflict ensued. The relief forces were completely routed, and on the following day [July 25], Fort Niagara and its dependencies, and the garrison of seven hundred men, were surrendered to Johnson. The connecting link of French military posts between Canada and Louisiana 6 was effectually broken, never again to be united. Encumbered with his Drisoners, and unable to procure a sufficient number of vessels for the pur pose, Johnson could not proceed to Montreal, to co-operate with Amherst and Wolfe on the St. Lawrence, according to the original plan. 7 He garrisoned Fort Niagara, and returned home. Animated with high hopes, Wolfe 8 left Louisburg, with eight thousand troops, under a convoy of twenty-two line-of-battle ships, and as many frigates FORT NIAGARA. 1 While at Crown Point, Major Rogers, at the head of his celebrated Rangers, went on an ex pedition against the St. Francis Indians, who had long been a terror to the frontier settlements of New England. The village was destroyed, a large number of Indians were slain, and the Rangers were completely victorious. They suffered from cold and hunger while on their return, and many were left dead in the forest before the party reached the nearest settlement at Bellows Falls. Rogers went to England after the war, returned in 1775, joined the British army at New York, and soon went to England again, where he died. 2 The above diagram shows the general form of the military works at Crown Point. These, like the ruins at Ticonderoga, are quite picturesque remains of the past. A A A shows the position of the strong stone barracks, portions of which are yet standing. "W shows the place of a very deep well, dug through the solid rock. It was filled up, and so remained until a few years ago, when some money-diggers, foolishly believing there was treasure at the bottom, cleaned it out. They found nothing but a few scraps of iron and other rubbish. 8 Johnson s influence over the Six Nations, made many of them disregard the treaty of neutral ity made with Montcalm [note 4, page 192], and a considerable number accompanied him to Niagara 4 Page 30. 6 Page 27. 6 Page 180. 7 Page 199. 8 James "Wolfe was the son of a British general, and was born in Kent, England, in 1726. Be fore he was twenty years of age, he was distinguished in battle. He was now only thirty-three years old. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 201 GENERAL WOLFr. and smaller armed vessels, commanded by Admirals Holmes and Saunders. and, on the 27th of June, landed upon Orleans Island, a few miles below Quebec. That city then, as now, consisted of an Upper and Lower Town, the former within fortified walls, upon the top and declivities of a high peninsula , the latter lying upon a narrow beach at the edge of the water. Upon the heights, three hundred feet above the water, was a level plateau called the Plains of Abra ham. At the mouth of the St. Charles, which here enters the St. Lawrence, the French had moored several floating batteries. 1 The town was strongly garrisoned by French regulars, and along the north bank of the St. Lawrence, from the St. Charles to the Montmorenci Biver, was the main French army, under Montcalm, 2 in a fortified camp. It was composed chiefly of Canadian militia and Indians. On the 30th of July, the English, after a slight skirmish, took possession of Point Levi, opposite Quebec, and throwing hot shot from a battery, they almost destroyed the Lower Town. They could not damage the strong fortifi cations of the city from that distance, and Wolfe resolved to attack the French camp. He had already land ed a large force, under Generals Townshend and Murray, and formed a camp [July 10, 1759], below the River Montmorenci. General Monck- ton, with grenadiers 3 and other troops, crossed from Point Levi, and landed MILITARY OPERATIONS AT QUEBEC. upon the beach [J uly gj^ at ^ bage of the high river bank, just above that stream. Murray and Townshend were ordered to force a passage across the Montmorenci, and co-operate with him, but Monckton was too eager for attack to await their coming. He unwisely rushed forward, but was soon repulsed, and compelled to take shelter behind a block-house 4 near the beach, just as a heavy thunder-storm, which had been gathering for several hours, burst upon the combatants. Night came on before it ceased, and the roar of the rising tide warned the English to take to their boats. Five hundred of their number had perished. Two months elapsed, and yet the English had gained no important advan tages. Wolfe had received no intelligence from Amherst, and the future ap- 1 These were a kind of flat-boats, with proper breastworks or other defenses, and armed, with cannons. 2 He was descended from a noble family. He was appointed governor of Canada in 1756. His remains are beneath the Ursuline convent at Quebec. 3 Grenadiers are companies of the regular army, distinguished from the rest by some peculiarity of dress and accoutrements, and always composed of the tallest and most muscular men in the serv ice. They are generally employed in bayonet charges, and sometimes carry grenades, a kind of small bomb-shell. 4 Note 3, page 192. 202 THE COLONIES. [1756. peared gloomy. The exposure, fatigue, and anxiety which he had endured produced a violent fever, and at the beginning of September [1759], he lay prostrate in his tent. He called a council of war at his bedside, and, on the suggestion of Townshend, it was resolved to scale the heights of Abraham, 1 and assail the town on its weakest side. Wolfe heartily approved of the design. A plan was speedily matured, and feeble as he was, the commander-in-chief determined to lead the assault in person. The camp at the Monimorenci was broken up [Sept. 8], and the attention of Montcalm was diverted from the real designs of the English, by seeming preparations to again attack his lines. The afiair was managed so secretly and skillfully, that even De Bourgainville, who had been sent up the St. Lawrence by Montcalm, with fifteen hundred men, to watch tlie movements of the English, had no suspicion of their designs. All preparations having been completed, the English ascended the river, in several vessels of the fleet, on the evening of the 12th of September. They went several miles above the intended landing-place. Leaving the ships at midnight, they embarked in flat boats, with muffled oars, and moved silently down to the mouth of a ravine, a mile and a half from the city, and landed. 2 At dawn [Sept. 13], Lieutenant-Colonel Howe 3 led the van up the tangled ravine, in the face of a sharp fire from a guard above. He was followed by the generals and the remainder of the troops, with artillery ; and at sunrise the whole army stood in battle array upon the Plains of Abraham. It was an apparition little anticipated by the vigilant Montcalm. He perceived the peril of the city ; and marching his whole army immediately from his encampment, crossed the St. Charles, and between nine and ten o clock in the morning, confronted the English. A general, fierce, and bloody battle now ensued. Al though twice severely wounded, Wolfe kept his feet; and as the two armies closed upon each other, he placed himself at the head of his grenadiers, and led them to a charge. At that mo ment a bullet entered his breast. He was carried to the rear, and a few moments afterward, Monckton, who took the com mand, also fell, severely wounded. Townshend continued the battle. Montcalm soon received a fatal wound : 4 and the French, terribly pierced by English bayonets, and smitten by Highland broadswords, broke and fled. Wolfe died just as the battle ended, with a smile upon his lips, because his ears heard the victory-shouts of his army. Five hundred French- 1 The declivity from Cape Diamond, on which the chief fortress stands, along the St. Lawrence to the cove below Sillery, was called by the general name of the Heights of Abraham, the plains of that name being on the top. See map on page 201. 3 This place is known as Wolfe s Cove ; and the ravine, which here breaks the steepness of the rocky shore, and up which the English clambered, is called Wolfe s Ravine. 3 Afterward General Sir William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the English forces in Amer ica, when the Revolution had fairly commenced. Page 247. * He was carried into the city, and when told that he must die, he said, "So much the better; I shall then be spared the mortification of seeing the surrender of Quebec." His remains are yet in Quebec ; those of Wolfe were conveyed to England. People of the two nations have long dwelt peaceably together in that ancient city, and they have united in erecting a tall granite obelisk, dedicated to the linked memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. MOXCMF.XT TO WOLFE AKD MONTCALM. 176 3.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN ^AR. 20S men were killed, and (including the wounded) a thousand were taken prisoners. The English lost six hundred, in killed and wounded. General Townshend now prepared to besiege the city. Threatened famine within aided him; and five days after the death of Wolfe [Sept, 18, 1759], Quebec, with its fortifications, shipping, stores, and people, was surrendered to the English, and five thousand troops, under General Murray, immediately took possession. The fleet, with the sick and the French prisoners, sailed for Halifax. The campaign now ended, yet Canada was not conquered. The French yet held Montreal, and had a considerable land and naval force above Quebec. CAMPAIGN OF 1760. Notwithstanding these terribb disasters, the French were not dismayed, and early in the spring of 1760, Vaudreuil, then governor-general of Canada, sent M. Levi, the successor of Montcalm, to recover Quebec. He went down the St. Lawrence, with six frigates and a strong land force. General Murray marched out, and met him at Sillery. about three miles above Quebec, and there, on the 4th of April, was fought one of the most sanguinary battles of the war. Murray was defeated. He lost all his artillery, and about a thousand men, but succeeded in retreating to the city with the remainder. Lcvi now laid siege to Quebec, and Murray s condition was becoming perilous, from the want of supplies, when an English squadron, with reinforcements and provisions, appeared [May 9] in the St. Lawrence. Levi supposed it to be the whole British fleet, and at once raised the siege [May 10], and fled to Montreal, after losing most of his shipping. Now came the final struggle. The last stronghold of the French was now to be assailed ; and Vandreuil gathered all his forces at Montreal for the conflict. Amherst had made extensive preparations during the summer ; and early in September [Sept. 6-7], three English armies met before the doomed city. Amherst, at -the head of ten thousand troops, and a thousand warriors of the Six NATIONS, under General Johnson, 1 arrived on the 6th, and was joined, the same day, by General Murray, and four thousand troops, from Quebec. The next day, Colonel Haviland arrived, with three thousand troops, from Crown Point, 2 having taken possession of Isle Aux-Noix 3 on the way. Against such a crushing force, resistance would be vain ; and Vandreuil im mediately signed a capitulation [Sept. 8, 1760], surrendering Montreal, and all other French posts in Canada, into the hands of the English. 1 The regular troops, made prisoners at Montreal, were to be sent to France ; and the Cana dians were guarantied perfect security in person, property, and religion. 5 General Gage 6 was appointed governor at Montreal ; and Murray, with four thousand men, garrisoned Quebec. 1 Page 190. 2 Page 198. 3 Note 8, page 197. 4 The chief posts surrendered were Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), Detroit, and Mac kinaw. 5 They were chiefly Eoman Catholics, and that is yet the prevailing religion in Lower Canada. 6 Pages 186 and 226. 204 THE COLONIES. [1756. The conquest of Canada produced great joy in the Anglo-American colonies, 1 and in none was it more intense than in that of New York, because its whole northern frontier lay exposed to the enemy. The exultation was very great in New England, too, for its eastern frontiers were now relieved from the terrible scourge of Indian warfare, by which they had been desolated six times within a little more than eighty years. In these wars, too, the Indians had become almost annihilated. The subjugation of the French seemed to be a guaranty of peace in the future, and the people everywhere assembled to utter public thanksgiving to HIM who rules the nations. Although the war had ceased in America, the French and English contin ued it upon the ocean, and among the West India Islands, with almost con tinual success for the latter, until 1763, when a definitive treaty of peace, 8 agreed upon the year before, was signed at Paris [February 10, 1763], by which France ceded to Great Britain all her claimed possessions in America, eastward of the Mississippi, north of the latitude of Iberville River. 3 At the same time, Spain, with whom the English had been at war for a year previously, ceded [February 10. 1763] East and West Florida to the British crown. And now, England held undisputed possession (except by the Indians) of the whole Continent, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen North, and from ocean to ocean. 4 The storm of war still lowered in the southern horizon, when the French dominion ceased in Canada. While the English were crushing the Gallic power in the north, the frontier settlements of the Carolinas were suffering dreadfully from frequent incursions of Indian war parties. French emissaries were busy among the Cherokees, hitherto the treaty friends of the English ; and their influence, and some w T rongs inflicted upon the Indians by some frontier Virginia Rangers, produced hostilities, and a fierce war was kindled in March, 1760. 6 The whole western frontier of the Carolinas was desolated in the course of a few weeks. The people called aloud for help, and Amherst heeded their supplica tions. Early in April, Colonel Montgomery, with some British regulars and provincial troops, marched from Charleston, South Carolina, and laid waste a portion of the Cherokee country. 6 Those bold aboriginal highlanders were not subdued; but when, the following year, Colonel Grant led a stronger force against them, 7 burned their towns, desolated their fields, and killed many of their warriors, they humbly sued for peace [June, 1761], and ever afterward remained comparatively quiet. The storm in the South had scarcely ceased, when another, more porten tous and alarming, gathered in the North-west. Pontiac, a sagacious chief of 1 Note 1. page 193. 2 France and England, Spain and Portugal, were parties to this treaty. 3 New Orleans, and the whole of Louisiana, was ceded by France to Spain at the same time, and she relinquished her entire possessions in North America. In 1800, Spain, by a secret treaty, retroceded Louisiana to France; and in 1803, Napoleon sold it to the United States for fifteen mil lions of dollars. See page 390. 4 The cost, to England, of this Seven Years War, as the conflict was called in Europe, was five hundred and sixty millions of dollars. 6 Page 27. 6 Page 27. 7 Marion, Moultrie, and several other men, afterward distinguished in the war for Independ ence, accompanied Grant on this occasion. 1763.] THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 205 the Ottawas, 1 who had been an early ally of the French, secretly confederated several of the ALGONQUIN tribes, in 1763, for the purpose of expelling the English from the country west of the Alleghanies. 2 After the fall of Montreal, 3 Pontiac had professed an attachment to the English ; and as there seemed safety for settlers west of the mountains, immigration began to pour its living stream over those barriers. Like Philip of Mount Hope, 4 Pontiac saw, in the future, visions of the displacement, perhaps destruction, of his race, by the pale-faces ; and he determined to strike a blow for life and country. So adroitly were his plans matured, that the commanders of the western forts had no suspicions of his conspiracy until it was ripe, and the first blow had been struck, in the month of June. Within a fortnight, all the posts in possession of the English, west of Oswego, fell into his hands, except Niagara, 6 Fort Pitt, 6 and Detroit. Colonel Bouquet saved Pittsburg; 7 Niagara was not attacked; and Detroit, after sustaining a siege of almost twelve months, was relieved by Colonel Brad- street, 8 who arrived there with reinforcements, in May, 1764. The Indians were now speedily subdued, their power was broken, and the hostile tribes sent their chiefs to ask for pardon and peace. The haughty Pontiac refused to bow to the white people, and took refuge in the country of the Illinois, where he was treacherously murdered 9 in 1769. This was the last act in the dramaof the FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 10 In our consideration of the history of the United States, we have now arrived at a point of great interest and importance. We have traced the growth of the colonies through infancy and youth, as their interests and destinies gradu ally commingled, until they really formed one people, 11 strong and lusty, like 1 Page 18. 2 The confederation consisted of the Ottawas, Miamies, ^yandots, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Mississaguies, Shawnoese, Outagamies or Foxes, and Winnebagoes. The Senecas, the most westerly- dan of the Six NATIONS, also joined in the conspiracy. 3 Page 203. 4 Page 124. 6 Page 200. 6 Page 198. 7 Henry Bouquet was a brave English officer. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in 1756,. and was in the expedition against Fort du Quesne (page 198). In 1763, Amherst sent him from Montreal, with provisions and military stores for Fort Pitt. His arrival was timely, and he saved the garrison from destruction. The following year he commanded an expedition against the Indians in Ohio, and was successful. His journal was published after the war. 8 Page 198. 9 An English trader bribed a Peoria Indian to murder him, for which he gave him a barrel of rum. The place of his death was Cahokia, a small village on the east side of the Mississippi, a little below St. Louis. Pontiac was one of the greatest of all the Indian chiefs known to the white peo ple, and deserved a better fate. It is said, that during the war of 1763, he appointed a commissary, and issued bills of credit. So highly was he esteemed by the French inhabitants, that these were received by them. Montcalm thought much of him ; and at the time of his death, Pontiac was dressed in a French uniform, presented to him by that commander. See page 202. Pontiac was buried where the city of St. Louis now stands, and that busy mart is his monument, though not his memorial. 10 The work most accessible to the general reader, in which the details of colonial events may be found, is Graham s Colonial History of the United States, in two volumes octavo, published by Blanchard and Lea, Philadelphia. 11 It must not be understood, that there was yet a perfect unity of feeling among the various colonists. Sectional interests produced sectional jealousies, and these worked much mischief, even while soldiers from almost every colony were fighting shoulder to shoulder [page 190] in the conti nental army. Burnaby, who traveled in America at this period, expressed the opinion, that sectional jealousy and dissimilarity would prevent a permanent union ; yet he avers that the people were imbued with ideas of independence, and that it was frequently remarked among them, that " the tide of dominion was running westward, and that America was destined to be the mistress of the world." The colonists themselves were not unmindful of the importance of their position, and 206 THE COLONIES. [1756. the mature man, prepared to vindicate natural rights, and to fashion political and social systems adapted to their position and wants. We view them now, con scious of their physical and moral strength, possessing clear views of right and justice, and prepared to demand and defend both. This is the point in the progress of the new and growing nation to which our observation is now directed, when the great question was to be decided, whether independent self- control should be enjoyed, or continued vassalage to an ungenerous parent should be endured. Our next topic will be the events connected with the settlement of that question. It is a topic of highest significance. It looms up in the panorama of national histories like some giant Alp, far above its fellows, isolated in grandeur, yet assimilated in sympathy with all others. they gave freely of their substance to carry on the contest for the mastery. Probably, the " Seven Years War" cost the colonies, in the aggregate, full twenty millions of dollars, besides the flower of their youth ; and, in return, Parliament granted them, during the contest, at different periods, about five millions and a half of dollars. Parliament subsequently voted one million of dollars to the colonies, but, on account of the troubles arising from the Stamp Act and kindred measures, min isters withheld the sum. The following is a list, taken from official records, of "The grants in Parliament for Rewards, Encouragement, and Indemnification to the Provinces in North America, for their Services and Ex penses during the last [seven years ] War : " On the 3d of February, 1756, as a free gift and reward to the colonies of New England, New Tork, and Jersey, for their past services, and as an encouragement to continue to exert themselves with vigor, $575,000. "May 19th, 1757. For the use and relief of the provinces of North and South Carolina, and Virginia, in recompense for services performed and to be performed, $250,000. "June 1st, 1758. To reimburse the province of Massachusetts Bay their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops raised by them in 1756, $136,900. To reimburse the province of Connecticut their expenses for ditto, $68,680. "April 30th, 1759. As a compensation to the respective colonies for the expenses of clothing, pay of troops, etc., $1,000,000. "March 31st, 1760. For the same, $1,000,000. For the colony of New York, to reimburse their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops in 1756, $14,885. "Jan. 20th, 1761. As a compensation to the respective colonies for clothing, pay of the troops, etc., $1,000,000. "Jan. 26th, 1762. Ditto, $666,666. "March 15th, 1763. Ditto, $666,666. "April 22d, 1770. To reimburse the province of New Hampshire their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops in the campaign of 1756, $30,045. Total, $5,408,842." In a pamphlet, entitled Rights of BRITAIN and Claims of AMERICA, an answer to the Declara tion of the Continental Congress, setting forth the causes and the necessity of their taking up arms, printed in 1776, is a table showing the annual expenditures of the British government in support of the civil and military powers of the American colonies, from the accession of the family of Hanover, in 1714, until 1775. The expression of the writer is, "Employed in the defense of America" This is incorrect ; for the wars with the French on this continent, which cost the greatest amount of money, were wars for conquest and territory, though ostensibly for the defense of the Anglo-Amer ican colonies against the encroachments of their Gallic neighbors. During the period alluded to (sixty years), the sums granted for the army amounted to $43,899,625; for the navy, $50,000,000; money laid out in Indian presents, in holding Congresses, and purchasing cessions of land, $30,500,000; making a total of $123,899,625. Within that period the following bounties on American commodities were paid: On indigo, $725,110; on hemp and flax, $27,800; on naval stores imported into Great Britain from America, $7,293,810; making the total sum paid on ac count of bounties, $8,047,320. The total amount of money expended in sixty years on account of America, $131,946,945. PATRICK HENRY BEFORE THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY FIFTH PERIOD. THE REVOLUTION. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 17611775. CHAPTER I. PRINCIPLES, like the ultimate particles of JAMES OTIS. matter, and the laws of God, are eternal, inde structible, and unchangeable. They have existed in the moral realm of our world since the advent of man ; and devious as may be their manifestations, according to circumstances, they remain the same, inherently, and always exhibit the same tendencies. When God gave to man an intelligent soul, and invested him with the prerogatives of moral free agency, then was born that instinctive love of liberty which, through all past time, has manifested itself in individuals and in societies ; and in every age, the consciences of men have boldly and indignantly asked, in the presence of oppression, "If I m design d yon lordling s slave, By Nature s laws designed ; Why was an independent wish E er planted in my mind ? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn? Or why has man the will and pow r To make his fellow mourn ?" l 1 Burns. 20* THE REVOLUTION. [1761. Nations, like men, have thus spoken. The principles of civil and religious liberty, and the inalienable rights of man which they involve, were recognized and asserted long before Columbus left Palos for the New World. 1 Their maintenance had shaken thrones and overturned dynasties before Charles the First was brought to the block ; 2 and they had lighted the torch of revolution long before the trumpet-tones of James Otis 3 and Patrick Henry 4 aroused the Anglo- Americans 5 to resist British aggression. From the earliest steps in the progress of the American colonies, we have seen the democratic theories of all past reform ers developed into sturdy democratic practice ; and a love of liberty which had germinated beneath the heat of persecution in the Old World, budded and blossomed all over the New, wherever English hearts beat, or English tongues gave utterance. Nor did English hearts alone cherish the precious seedling, nor English tongues alone utter the noble doctrines of popular sovereignty ; but in the homes of all in this beautiful land, whatever country gave the inmates birth, there was a shrine of freedom, and a refuge for the oppressed. Here king-craft and priest-craft never had an abiding-place, and their ministers were always weak in the majestic presence of the popular will. Upon the bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay ; upon the banks of the Hud son, the Delaware, the Potomac, and the James ; and amid the pine-forests or beneath the palmettos of the Carolinas, and the further South, the colonists, from the very beginning, had evinced an impatience of arbitrary rule j and every manifestation of undue control by local magistrates or distant monarchs every effort to abridge their liberties or absorb their gains, stimulated the growth of democratic principles. These permeated the whole social and politi cal life in America, and finally evolved from the crude materials of royal charters, religious covenants, and popular axioms, that galaxy of representative governments which, having the justice of the English Constitution, the truth of Christian ethics, and the wisdom of past experience for their foundation, were united in "the fullness of time, in that symmetrical combination of free institutions known as the REPUBLIC or THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It is a common error to regard the Revolution which attended the birth of this Republic, as an isolated episode in the history of nations, having its causes in events immediately preceding the convulsion. It was not the violent result of recent discontents, but the culmination of a long series of causes tending to such a climax. The parliamentary enactments which kindled the rebellion in 1775, were not oppressive measures entirely novel. They had their counter parts in the British statute books, even as early as the restoration of monarchy [1660J 8 a hundred years before, when navigation laws, 7 intended to crush the growing commerce of the colonies were enacted. They were only re-assertions of tyrannical legislative power and royal prerogatives, to which the colonies, in the weakness of their infancy and early youth, were compelled to submit. Now they had grown to maturity, and dared to insist upon receiving exact justice. 1 Page 39. a Note 3, page 108. 3 Page 212. * Note 1, page 214 5 Note 1, page 193. Page 109. 7 Note 4, page 109. 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 209 They had recently emerged from an exhausting war, which, instead of weaken ing them, had taught them their real moral, political, and physical strength. They had also learned the important lesson of power in union, and profited by its teachings. Having acquired a mastery over the savages of the wilderness, and assisted in breaking the French power on their frontiers, into atoms. 1 they felt their manhood stirring within them, arid they tacitly agreed no longer to submit to the narrow and oppressive policy of Great Britain. Their industry and commerce were too expansive to be confined within the narrow limits of those restrictions which the Board of Trade, 2 from time to time, had imposed, and they determined to regard them as mere ropes of sand. For long and gloomy years they had struggled up, unaided and alone, from feebleness to strength. They had built fortifications, raised armies, and fought battles, for England s glory and their own preservation, without England s aid, and often without her sympathy. 3 And it was not until the growing importance of the French settlements excited the jealousy of Great Britain, that her ministers perceived the expediency of justice and liberality toward her colonies, in order to secure their loyalty and efficient co-operation. 4 Compelled to be self-reliant from the beginning, the colonists were made strong by the mother s neglect ; and when to that neglect she added oppression and scorn, they felt justified in using their developed strength in defense of their rights. The colonists had grown strong, not only in material prosperity, percep tions of inalienable rights, and a will to be free, but in many things in which the strength and beauty of a State consist, they exhibited all the most prom inent developments of a great nation. A love for the fine arts had been grow ing apace for many years ; and when the Revolution broke out, West 5 and Copley, 8 natives of America, were wearing, in Europe, the laurel-crowns of supreme excellence as painters. Literature and science were beginning to be highly appreciated, and the six colonial colleges 7 were full of students. God frey, the glazier, who invented the quadrant, had flourished and passed away ; 8 1 Page 203. 2 Note 5, page 134. 3 Georgia, alone, received parliamentary aid [page 100], in the establishment of settlements. In all the other colonies, where vast sums were expended in fitting out expeditions, purchasing the soil of the Indians, and sustaining the settlers, neither the crown nor parliament ever contributed a farthing of pecuniary aid. The settling of Massachusetts alone, cost a million of dollars. Lord Baltimore spent two hundred thousand dollars in colonizing Maryland ; and William Penn became deeply involved in debt, in his efforts to settle and improve Pennsylvania. 4 Page 197. 5 Benjamin West was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1738. His parents were Quakers. He commenced art-life as a portrait-painter, when wealthy men furnished him with means to go to Italy. He soon triumphed, went to England, was patronized by the king, and became the most eminent historical painter of his age. He died in London in 1820, in the eighty- second year of his age. 6 John Singleton Copley was also born in 1738, in the city of Boston. He became a pupil of Smibert [note 8, page 158], and became an eminent portrait-painter. His family relations identified him with the Royalists at the commencement of the Revolution, and he went to England to seek employment, where he was patronized by West. There he painted two memorable pictures ; one for the House of Lords, the other for the House of Commons. These established his fame, and led to fortune. His son became lord chancellor of England, and was made a peer, with the title of Lord Lyndhurst. Copley died in England, in 1815, at the age of seventy-seven years. 7 Page 178. 8 Thomas Godfrey was a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in 1704. He was the real inventor of the quadrant known as Hadley s. See Lossing s Eminent Americans. 14 210 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. Bartram, the farmer, had become "American Botanist to his Majesty;" 1 Franklin, the printer, was known, wherever civilization had planted her ban ners, as the lightning- tamer and profound moral philosopher ; and Rittenhouse, the clock-maker, had calculated and observed the transit of Venus, and con- structed that Planetarium which is yet a wonder in the world of mechanism. Theology and the legal profession, had taken high ground. Edwards 3 had written his great work on The Freedom of the Will, and was among the dead ; and already Otis, 4 Henry, 6 Dickenson, 6 Kutledge, 7 and other lawyers, had made their brilliant marks, and were prepared to engage in the great strug gle at hand. All classes of men had noble representatives in the colonies, when the conflict commenced. There was no cause for complaint on the part of the colonists, of the willful exercise of tyrannical power, for purposes of oppression, by Great Britain. 1 See Lossing s Eminent Americans. 3 David Rittenhouse was born in Roxborough, Pennsylvania, in 1732. As he exhibited great mechanical genius, his father apprenticed him to a clock-maker, and he became one of the most eminent mechanicians and mathematicians of his time. He discovered that remarkable feature in algebraic analysis, called fluxions, and applied it to the mechanic arts. He constructed a machine which represented the motions of the solar system. That Planetarium is now in the possession of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton. Rittenhouse succeeded Franklin as president of the American Philosophical Society. He died in 1793, at the age of sixty-four years. 3 Jonathan Edwards was one of the most eminent of American divines. He was born in East Windsor Connecticut, in 1703, and died at Princeton, New Jersey, while president of the college, in 1758. 4 Page 212. 6 Page 214. 6 Page 219. 7 Page 310. 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 211 There was no motive for such a course. But they reasonably complained of an unjust and illiberal policy, which accomplished all the purposes of absolute tyranny. The rod of iron was often covered with velvet, and was wielded as often by ignorant, rather than by wicked, hands. Yet the ignorant hand, with tte concealed rod. smote as lustily and offensively, as if it had been a wicked one, and the rod bare. The first form of governmental and proprietary oppres sion 1 was in the appointment of local rulers. The people were not represented in the appointing power. Then came commercial restrictions, 3 prohibitions to manufacture, 3 imposts upon exchanges, 4 and direct taxation, by enactments of parliament, in which the colonists were not represented. At the beginning, they had asserted, and during their whole progress they had maintained, that important political maxim, that TAXATION without REPRESENTATION, is tyranny. This was the fundamental doctrine of their political creed this was the test of all parliamentary measures this was the strong rock upon which the patriots of the Revolution anchored their faith and hope. When the French and Indian War was closed by the treaty of Paris, 1 Three forms of government had existed, namely, charter, proprietary, and royal. The New England governments were based upon royal charters ; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Carolinas, were owned and governed by individuals or companies, and the remainder were immediately subject to the crown. Notwithstanding this diversity in the source of government, the anti-monarchical spirit pervaded the people of ah 1 , from the beginning, and gave birth to popular legislative assemblies. 2 Note 3, page 177. s Pages 177 and 178. * Page 178. 212 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. in 1763, the colonists looked forward to long years of prosperity and repose. A young monarch, 1 virtuous and of upright intentions, had been recently [1761] seated upon the British throne. Having confidence in his integrity, and having lately felt the justice of the government, under the direc tion of Pitt,- they were disposed to forget past grievances; and being identified with the glory of England, now become one of the first powers on the earth, they were fond of their connection. But the serenity of the political sky soon, disappeared, and it was not long before violent tempests were raging there. Even before the treaty at Paris, a cloud had arisen which portended future trouble. The war had exhausted the British treasury, 8 and ministers devised various schemes for replenishing it. They had observed the resources of the colonists, as manifested by their efforts during the recent struggle, 4 and as they were relieved from further hostilities by the subjugation of Canada 6 [1759], the government looked to them for aid. Instead of asking it as a favor, it was demanded as a right ; instead of inviting the colonial Assemblies to levy taxes- and make appropriations, government assumed the right to tax their expanding commerce ; and then commenced a vigorous enforcement of existing revenue laws, which had hitherto been only nominally oppressive. 6 One of the first acts which revealed the intentions of Parliament to tax the colonies by enforcing the revenue laws, was the authorization, in 1761, of Writs of Assistance. These were general search-warrants, which not only allowed the king s officers who held them, to break open any citizen s store or dwelling, to search for and seize foreign merchandise, on which a duty had not been paid, but compelled sheriffs and others to assist in the work. The people could not brook such a system of petty oppression. The sanctities of private life might be invaded, at any time, by hirelings, and the assertion, based upon the guaranties of the British Constitution, that " every Englishman s house is his castle," would not be true. These writs were first issued in Massachusetts, and immediately great excitement prevailed. Their legality was questioned, and the matter was brought before a court held in the old town hall in Boston. The advocate for the Crown (Mr. Gridley) argued, that as Parliament was the supreme legislature for the whole British nation, and had authorized these writs, no subject had a right to complain. He was answered by James Otis, 7 1 George the Third. Ho was crowned in 1761, at the age of twenty years. He reigned almost sixty years, and died in 1820. 2 Page 195. 3 Note 4. page 204. 4 French and Indian War. 6 Page 204. 6 Commercial restrictions were imposed upon the colonies as early as 1651 [note 4, page 109]. In 1660, 1672, 1676, 1691, and 1692, attempts were made by parliament to derive a revenue by a tariff-taxation upon the colonies. In 1696 a proposition was made to levy a direct tax upon the colonies. Then, not only in Britain, but in America, the power of parliament (wherein the colonists were not represented), to tax those colonies, was strenuously denied. 7 James Otis was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1725, and became the leader of the Revolutionary party in that province, at the beginning. He was wounded by a blow from a cudgel, in the hands of a British official in 1769, and never fairly recovered. For years he was afflicted with occasional lunacy, and presented but a wreck of the orator and scholar. The following anec dote is related of Mr. Otis, as illustrative of his ready use of Latin, even during moments of mental aberration. Men and boys, heartless or thoughtless, would sometimes make themselves merry at his expense, when he was seen in the streets afflicted with lunacy. On one occasion he was pass ing a crockery store, when a young man, who had a knowledge of Latin, sprinkled some water 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 218 the younger, then advocate-general of the province. On that occasion, the intense fire of his patriotism beamed forth with inexpressible brilliancy, and his eloquence was like lightning, far-felt and consuming. On that day the trumpet of the Revolution was sounded. John Adams afterward said. "The seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown ;"and when the orator exclaimed, " To my dying day I will oppose, with all the power and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on one hand, and villany on the other," the independence of the colonies was proclaimed. 1 From that day began the triumphs of the popular will. Very few writs were issued, and these were ineffectual. Young King George unwisely turned his back upon Pitt, 3 and listened to the councils of Bute, 3 an unprincipled Scotch adventurer, who had been his tutor. Disastrous consequences ensued. Weak and corrupt men controlled his cabinet, and the pliant Parliament approved of illiberal and unjust measures toward the colonists. The Sugar bill, 4 which had produced a great deal of ill- feeling in the colonies, was re-enacted ; and at the same time, George Grenville, then prime minister, proposed "certain stamp duties on the colonies." The subject was left open for consideration almost a year, when, in the spring of 1765, in defiance of the universal opposition of the Americans, the famous Stamp Act, which declared that no legal instrument of writing should be valid, unless it bore a government stamp, became a law. 6 Now was executed, without hesitation, a measure which no former ministry had possessed courage or reck lessness enough to attempt. 6 upon him from a sprinkling-pot with which he was wetting the floor of the second story, at the same time saying, Pluit tantum, nescio quantum. Scis netut "It rains so much, I know not how much. Do you know?" Otis immediately picked up a missile, and, hurling it through the window of the crockery store, it smashing every thing in its way, exclaimed, Fregi tot, nescio quot. Scis ne tu ? "I have broken so many, I know not how many. Do you know?" Mr. Otis, according to his expressed desire, was killed by lightning in 1782. See portrait at the head of this chapter. 1 Later than this [1768], Otis wrote to a friend in London, and said: "Our fathers were a good people ; we have been a free people, and if you will not let us remain so any longer, we shall be a great people, and the present measures can have no tendency but to hasten with great rapidity, events which every good and honest man would wish delayed for ages." He evidently alluded to the future independence of the colonies. 2 Pitt, disgusted by the ignorance and assurance of Bute and the misplaced confidence of the king, resigned his office, and retired to his country seat at Hayes. The king esteemed him highly, but was too much controlled by Bute to follow his own inclinations. It was not long, however, before public affairs became so complicated, that the king was compelled to call upon the great commoner to untangle them. 3 Bute was a gay Scotch earl, poor and proud. He became a favorite with the mother of George the Third, was appointed his tutor, and acquired such influence over the mind of the prince, that on his accession to the throne, he made him his chief minister and adviser. The English people were much incensed ; and the unwise measures of the early years of George s reign, were properly laid to the charge of Bute. A placard was put up in London, with the words, "No Scotch minister no petticoat government." The last clause referred to the influence of the queen mother. 4 A bill which imposed a duty upon sugar, coffee, indigo, &c., imported into the colonies from the West Indies. The stamps were upon blue paper, in the form seen in the engraving on page 213, and were to be attached to every piece of paper or parchment, on which a legal instrument was written. For these stamps government charged specific prices : for example, for a common property deed, one shilling and sixpence ; for a diploma or certificate of a college degree, two pounds, &c., &c. 6 During Robert "Walpole s administration [1732], a stamp duty was proposed. He said, "I will leave the taxation of America to some of my successors, who have more courage than I have." Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed such a tax in 1739. Franklin thought it just, when a delegate in the Colonial Congress at Albany, in 1754 [page 183]. But when it was proposed to Pitt in 1759, he said, "I will never burn my fingers with an American Stamp Act," 214 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. The colonists had watched with anxiety the growth of this new germ of oppression ; and the intelligence of the passage of the Act produced general and intense indignation in America. The hearts of the people were yet thrilled by the eloquent denunciations of Otis ; and soon Patrick Henry sent forth a response equally eloquent from the heaving bosom of the Virginia Assembly. 1 The people, in cities and villages, gathered in excited groups, and boldly expressed their indignation. The pulpit denounced the wicked scheme, and 1 Patrick Henry was a very Boanerges at the opening of the Revolution. He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1736. In youth and manhood he was exceedingly indolent and dull. At the age of twenty-seven, his eloquence suddenly beamed forth in a speech in court, in his native county, and he soon became a leading man in Virginia. He was elected the first Republican gov ernor of his State, in 1776, and held that office again in 1784. He died in 1799, at the age of almost sixty-three years. At the time alluded to in the text, Henry introduced a series of resolu tions, highly tinctured with rebellious doctrines. He asserted the general rights of all the colonies; then the exclusive right of the Virginia Assembly to tax the people of that province, and boldly declared that the people were not bound to obey any law relative to taxation, which did not pro ceed from their representatives. The last resolution declared that whoever should dissent from the doctrines inculcated in the others, should be considered an " enemy of the colonies." The introduc tion of these resolutions produced great excitement and alarm. Henry supported them with all the power of his wonderful eloquence. Some rose from their seats, and others sat in breathless silence. At length, when alluding to tyrants, he exclaimed, " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third" there was a cry of " Treason ! Treason !" He paused a moment, and said "may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it." [See picture at the head of this chapter.] A part of his resolutions were adopted, and these formed the first gauntlet of defiance cast at the feet of the British monarch. Their power was felt throughout the Jand. 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 215 associations of Sons of Liberty 1 in every colony put forth their energies in defense of popular freedom. The press, then assuming great power, spoke out like an oracle of Truth. In several cities popular excite ment created mobs, and violence ensued. The Stamps were seized on their arrival, and secreted or burned. Stamp distributors 2 were insulted and despised ; and on the first of November, 1765, when the law was to take effect, there were no officials courageous enough to enforce it. The people did not confine their opposition to expres sions at indignation meetings, and acts of violence. The public sentiment took a more dignified form, and assumed A STOIP an aspect of nationality. There was a prevailing desire for a general Congress, and several colonies, in the midst of the great excite ment, appointed delegates for that purpose. They met in the city of New York, on the Tth of October, 1765, 3 continued in session fourteen days, and in three well-written documents, 4 they ably set forth the grievances and the rights of the colonists, and petitioned the king and parliament for a redress of the former, and acknowledgment of the latter. The proceedings of this Second Colonial Congress* were applauded by all the provincial Assemblies, and the people of America were as firmly united in heart and purpose then, as they were after the Declaration of Independence, more than ten years later. At length the momentous day the first of November arrived. It was observed as a day of fasting and mourning. Funeral processions paraded the streets of cities, and bells tolled funeral knells. The colors of sailing vessels were placed at half-mast, and the newspapers exhibited the black-line tokens of public grief. The courts were now closed, legal marriages ceased, ships remained in port, and for some time all business was suspended. But the lull in the storm was of brief duration. The people were only gathering strength for more vigorous achievements in defense of their rights. The Sons of Lib erty put forth new efforts ; mobs began to assail the residences of officials, and burn distinguished royalists, in effigy. 8 Merchants entered into agreements 1 These associations were composed of popular leaders and others, who leagued with the avowed determination to resist oppression to the uttermost. After their organization in the differ ent colonies, they formed a sort of national league, and by continual correspondence, aided effectu ally in preparing the way for the Revolution. a Men appointed by the crown to sell the government stamps, or stamped paper. 1 Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina, were represented. The Assemblies of those not represented, declared their readiness to agree to whatever measures the Congress might adopt. Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts (who afterward commanded a corps of Tories) [note 4, page 224], presided. 4 A Declaration of Rights, written by John Cruger, of New York ; a Memorial to both Houses of Parliament, by Robert R. Livingston, of New York ; and a Petition to the king, by James Otis, of Massachusetts. Page 183. 8 Public indignation is thus sometimes manifested. A figure of a man intended to represent the obnoxious individual, is paraded, and then hung upon a scaffold, or burned at a stake, as an intimation of the deserved fate of the person thus represented. It was a common practice in En gland at the time in question, and has been often done in our own country since. Nowhere was popular indignation so warmly manifested as in New York. Cadwallader Colden, a venerable Scotchman of eighty years, was acting-governor of New York. He refused to deliver up tho 216 THE REVOLUTION". [1761. not to import goods from Great Britain while the obnoxious Act remained a law ; and domestic manufactures were commenced in almost every family. 1 The wealthiest vied with the middling classes in economy, and wore clothing of their own manufacture. That wool might not became scarce, the use of sheep flesh for food, was discouraged. Soon, from all classes in America, there went to the ears of the British ministry, a respectful but firm protest. It was seconded by the merchants and manufacturers of London, whose American trade was prostrated, 2 and the voice, thus made potential, was heard and heeded in high places. stamped paper on the demand of the people, when they proceeded to hang him in effigy, near the spot where Leisler was executed [page 148] seventy-five years before. They also burned his fine coach in front of the fort, near the present Bowling Green, and upon the smoking pile they cast his effigy. Golden was a man of great scientific attainments. He wrote a History of the Five Nations [page 23], and was in constant correspondence with some of the most eminent philosophers and scholars of Europe. A life of Golden, from the pen of John W. Francis, M.D., L.LD., may be found in the American Medical and Philosophical Register, 1811. He died in September, 1776. 1 The newspapers of the day contain many laudatory notices of the conformity of wealthy people to these agreements. On one occasion, forty or fifty young ladies, who called themselves "Daughters of Liberty," met at the house of the Rev. Mr. Morehead, in Boston, with their spinning- wheels, and spun two hundred and thirty-two skeins of yarn, during the day, and presented them to the pastor. It is said "there were upward of one hundred spinners in Mr. Morehead s Society." " Within eighteen months," wrote a gentleman at Newport, R. I., " four hundred and eighty-seven yards of cloth, and thirty-six pairs of stockings, have been spun and knit in the family of James Nixon, of this town." a Half a million of dollars were due them by the colonists, at that time, not a dime of which, could be collected under the existing state of things. 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 217 While these events were in progress, Grenville had been succeeded in office by the Marquis of Buckingham, a friend of the colonies, and an enlightened statesman. William Pitt, 1 who had been called from his retirement by the voice of the people, hoping much from the new ministry, appeared in Parlia ment, and was there the earnest champion of the Amer icans. Justice and expediency demanded a repeal of the Stamp Act, and early in January, 1766, a bill for that purpose was introduced into the House of Commons, and was warmly supported by Pitt, Colonel Barre, and others. Then Edmund Burke first appeared as the champion of right; and during the stormy debates on the subject, which ensued, he achieved some of those earliest and most wonderful triumphs of oratory, which established his f J J J j.1. A 1 a mu WILLIAM PITT. lame, and endeared him to the American people. The obnoxious act was repealed on the 18th of March, 1766, when London ware houses were illuminated, and flags decorated the shipping in the Thames. In America, public thanksgivings, bonfires, and illuminations, attested the general joy ; and Pitt, 3 who had boldly declared his conviction that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies without their consent, 4 was lauded as a political Mes siah. Non-importation associations were dissolved, business was resumed, and the Americans confidently expected justice from the mother country, and a speedy reconciliation. Alas ! the scene soon changed. Another storm soon began to lower. Pitt, himself tenacious of British honor, and doubtful of the passage of the Repeal Bill without some concessions, had appended to it an act, which declared that Parliament possessed the power " to bind the colonies, in all cases whatsoever." The egg of tyranny which lay concealed in this " declaratory act," as it was called, was not perceived by the colonists, while their eyes were filled with tears of joy ; but when calm re flection came, they saw clearly that germ of future oppressions, and were uneasy. They perceived the Repeal Bill to be only a truce in the war upon freedom in America, and they watched every movement of the government party with suspicion. Within a few months afterward, a brood of obnoxious measures were hatched from that egg, and aroused the fiercest indignation of the colonists. The American people, conscious of rectitude, were neither slow nor cautious 1 Note 2, page 213. 2 Edmund Burke was born in Ireland, in 1730. He became a lawyer, and was a very popular writer, as well as a speaker. He was in public office about thirty years, and died in 1797. 3 William Pitt was born in England in 1708, and held many high offices of trust and emolu ment. During an exciting debate in Parliament, on American affairs, in the spring of 1778, he swooned, and died within a montn afterward. " Taxation," said Pitt, "is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes are the vol untary gift or grant of the commons alone." "I rejoice," he said, "that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to become s aves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." And Colonel Barre declared the-* the colon ists were planted by English oppression, grew by neglect, and in all the essential elemen -s of a free people, were perfectly independent of Great Britain. He then warned the government to let justly, or the colonies would be lost to Great Britain tbrever. 218 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. in exhibiting their indignation, and this boldness irritated their oppressors. A large portion of the House of Lords/ the whole bench of bishops, 2 and many of the Commons, were favorable to coercive measures toward the Americans. Not doubting the power of Parliament to tax them, they prevailed on the ministry to adopt new schemes for replenishing the exhausted treasury 3 from the coffers of the colonists, and urged the justice of employing arms, if necessary, to en force obedience. Troops were accordingly sent to America, in June, 1766 ; and a Mutiny Act was passed, which provided for their partial subsistence by the colonies. 4 The appearance of these troops in New York, and the order for the people to feed and shelter the avowed instruments of their own enslavement, produced violent outbreaks in that city, and burning indignation all over the land. The Assembly of New York at once arrayed itself against the govern ment, and refused compliance with the demands of the obnoxious act. In the midst of the darkness, light seemed to dawn upon the Americans. Early in the month of July, Pitt was called to the head of the British ministry, and on the 30th of that month, he was created Earl of Chatham. He opposed the new measures as unwise and unjust, and the colonists hoped for reconcilia tion and repose. But Pitt could not always prevent mischief. During his absence from Parliament, on- account of sickness, the Chancellor of the Ex chequer (Charles Townshend) coalesced with Grenville in bringing new tax ation schemes before that body. 6 A bill was passed in June, 1767, for levying duties upon tea, glass, paper, painters colors, etc., which should be imported into the colonies. Another was passed, in July, for establishing a Board of Trade in the colonies, independent of colonial legislation, and for creating resi dent commissioners of customs to enforce the revenue laws. 8 Then another, a few days later, which forbade the New York Assembly to perform any legisla tive act whatever, until it should comply with the requisitions of the Mutiny Act. These taxation schemes, and blows at popular liberty, produced excite ment throughout the colonies, almost as violent as those on account of the Stamp Act. 7 The colonial Assemblies boldly protested ; new non-importation associations were formed ; pamphlets and newspapers were filled with inflam matory appeals to the people, defining their rights, and urging them to a united resistance ; 8 and early in 1768, almost every colonial Assembly had boldly ex- 1 Every peer in the British realm is a legislator by virtue of his title ; and when they are assem bled for legislative duties, they constitute the House of Lords, or upper branch of the legislature, answering, in some degree, to our Senate. 3 Two archbishops, and twenty-four bishops of England and "Wales, have a right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, and have the same political importance as the peers. By the act of union between Ireland and England, four "lords spiritual" from among the archbishops and bishops of the former country, have a seat in the House of Lords. The " lords temporal and lords spiritual" con stitute the House of Lords. The House of Commons is composed of men elected by the people, and answers to the House of Representatives of our Federal Congress. 3 Page 212. 4 This act also allowed military officers, possessing a warrant from a justice of the peace, to break into any house where he might suspect deserters were concealed. Like the Writs of Assist ance [page 212], this power might be used for wicked purposes. 5 In January, 1767, Grenville proposed a direct taxation of the colonies to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. 6 Note 6, page 212, and note 5, page 134. 7 Page 215. 8 Among the most powerful of these appeals, were a series of letters, written by John Dicken- son of Philadelphia, and entitled Letters of a Pennsylvania farmer. Like Paine s Crisis, ten years 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 219 pressed its conviction, that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies. These expressions were in response to a circular issued by Massachusetts [Feb., 1768] to the several Assemblies, asking their co-operation in obtaining a redress of grievances. That circular greatly offended the Ministry ; and the governor of Massachusetts was instructed to command the Assembly, in the king s name, to rescind the resolution adopting it. The Assembly, on the 30th of June bllow- ing, passed an almost unanimous vote not to rescind, 1 and made this very order an evidence of the intentions of government to enslave the colonists, by restrain ing the free speech and action of their representatives. The British Ministry, ignorant and careless concerning the character and temper of the Americans, disregarded the portentous warnings which every vessel from the New World bore to their ears. Having resolved on employing physical force in the maintenance of obedience, and not doubting its potency, later [note 4, page 250], these Letters produced a wide-spread and powerful effect on the public mind. James Otis asserted, in a pamphlet, that "taxes on trade [tariffs], if designed to raise a revenue, were as much a violation of their rights as any other tax." John Dickenson was born in Maryland, in November, 1732. He studied law in England for three years, and made his first ap pearance in public life, as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He was a member of the Stamp Act Congress [page 215], and of the Continental Congress [page 226]. He was an eloquent speaker, and elegant writer. He was opposed to the independence of the colonies, but acquiesced, and was an able member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He remained long in public life, and died in 1808, at the age of seventy-five years. 1 James Otis and Samuel Adams were the principal speakers on this occasion. "When Lord Hillsborough [colonial secretary] knows," said the former, "that we will not rescind our acts, he should appeal to Parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britons rescind their measures, or the colonies are lost to them forever." 220 THE REVOLUTION. [1161. they became less regardless of even the forms of justice, and began to treat the colonists as rebellious subjects, rather than as free British brethren. Ministers sent orders to the colonial Assemblies, warning them not to imitate the factious disobedience of Massachusetts ; and the royal governors were ordered to enforce submission by all means in their power. The effect of these circulars was to disgust and irritate the Assemblies, and to stimulate their sympathy for Massa chusetts, now made the special object of displeasure. It was in the midst of the general excitement, in May, 1768, that the new commissioners of customs arrived at Boston. They were regarded with as much contempt as were the tax-gatherers in Judea, in the time of our Saviour. 1 It was difficult to restrain the more ignorant and excitable portion of the pop ulation from committing personal violence. A crisis soon arrived. In June, 1768, the sloop Liberty, belonging to John Hancock, one of the leaders of the popular mind in Boston, 2 arrived at that port with a cargo of Madeira wine. The commissioners demanded the payment of duties, and when it was refused, they seized the vessel. The news spread over the town, and the people re solved on immediate and effectual resistance. An assemblage of citizens soon became a mob, who dragged a custom-house boat through the town, burned it upon the Common, assailed the commissioners, damaged their houses, and com pelled them to seek safety in Castle William, a small fortress at the entrance to the harbor. 3 Alarmed by these demonstrations of the popular feeling, Gov ernor Bernard unwisely invited General Gage, 4 then in command of British troops at Halifax, to bring soldiers to Boston to overawe the inhabitants. 6 They came in September [Sept. 27, 1768], seven hundred in number, and on a quiet Sabbath morning, landed under cover of the cannons of the British ships which Ibrought them, and with drums beating, and colors flying, they marched to the Common, 6 with all the parade of a victorious army entering a conquered city. Religion, popular freedom, patriotism, were all outraged, and the cup of the people s indignation was full. 7 The colonists were taught the bitter, but neces sary lesson, that armed resistance must oppose armed oppression. 8 Like the Assembly of New York, that of Massachusetts refused to afford 1 The publicans, or toll-gatherers of Judea, being a standing monument of .the degradation of the Jews under the Roman yoke, were abhorred. One of the accusations against our Saviour was, that he did "eat with publicans and sinners." . a Page 231. 8 About three miles south-east from Boston. The fortress was ceded to the United States in 1798 ; and the following year it was visited by President Adams, and named Fort Independence, its present title. In connection with Castle William, we find the first mention of the tune of " Yankee Doodle." In the Boston Journal of the Times, September 29, 1768, is the following: "The fleet was brought to anchor near Castle William ; that night there was throwing of sky-rockets ; and those passing in boats observed great rejoicings, and that the Yankee Doodle Song was the capital piece in the band of music." 4 Page 186. 6 The British ministry had already resolved to send troops to Boston to subdue the rebellious propensities of the people. 6 A large public park on the southern slope of Beacon Hill. 7 As the people refused to supply the troops with quarters, they were placed, some in the State House, some in Faneuil Hall [page 225], and others in tents on the Common. Cannons were planted at different points ; sentinels challenged the citizens as they passed ; and the whole town had the appearance of a camp. 8 There were, at that time, full two hundred thousand men in the colonies capable of bearing arms. 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 221 food and shelter for the royal troops in that province, and for this offense, Par liament, now become the supple instrument of the crown, censured their dis obedience, approved of coercive measures, and, by resolution, prayed the king to revive a long obsolete statute of Henry the Eighth, by which the governor of the refractory colony should be required to arrest, and send to England for trial, on a charge of treason, the ringleaders in the recent tumults. The colo nial Assembly indignantly responded, by re-asserting the chartered privileges of the people, and denying the right of the king to take an offender from the country, for trial. And in the House of Commons a powerful minority battled manfully for the Americans. Burke pronounced the idea of reviving that old statute, as "horrible." " Can you not trust the juries of that country?" he asked. "If you have not a party among two millions of people, you must either change your plans of government, or renounce the colonies forever." Even Grenville, the author of the Stamp Act, opposed the measure, yet a ma jority voted in favor of the resolution, on the 26th of January, 1769. The British troops continued to be a constant source of irritation, while, month after month, the colonies were agitated by disputes with the royal gov ernors, the petty tyranny of lesser officials, and the interference of the imperial government with colonial legislation. The Assembly of Massachusetts, encour aged by the expressed sympathy of the other colonies, firmly refused to appro priate a single dollar for the support of the troops. They even demanded their withdrawal from the city, and refused to transact any legislative business while they remained. Daily occurrences exasperated the people against the troops, and finally, on the 2d of March, 1770, an event, apparently trifling in its char acter, led to bloodshed in the streets of Boston. A rope-maker quarreled with a soldier, and struck him. Out of this affray grew a fight between several sol diers and rope-makers. The latter were beaten, and the result aroused the vengeance of the more excitable portion of the inhabitants. A few evenings afterward [March 5], about seven hundred of them assembled in the streets, for the avowed purpose of attacking the troops. 1 A sentinel was assaulted near the custom-house, when Captain Preston, commander of the guard, went to his rescue with eight armed men. The mob dared the soldiers to fire, and attacked them with stones, pieces of ice, and other missiles. One of the soldiers who received a blow, fired, and his six companions also discharged their guns. Three of the citizens were killed, and five were danger ously wounded. 2 The mob instantly retreated, when all 1 These were addressed by a tall man, disguised by a white wig and a scarlet cloak, who closed his harangue by shouting, " To the main guard! to the main guard!" and then disappeared. It was always be lieved that the tall man was Samuel Adams, one of the most inflexible patriots of the Revolution, and at that time a popular leader. He was a descendant of one of the early Puritans [page 75], and was born in Boston in 1722. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde pendence; was afterward governor of Massachusetts; and died in 1803. A purer patriot than Samuel Adams, never lived. SAMUEL ADAMS. 2 The leader of the mob was a powerful mulatto, named Crispus Attacks. He and Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, were killed instantly ; two others received mortal wounds. 222 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. the bells of the city rang an alarum, and in less than an hour several thou sands of exasperated citizens were in the streets. A terrible scene of blood would have ensued, had not Governor Hutchinson assured the people that justice should be vindicated in the morning. They retired, but with firm re solves not to endure the military despotism any longer. The morning of the 6th of March was clear and frosty. At an early hour Governor Hutchinson was called upon to fulfill his promise. The people de manded the instant removal of the troops from Boston, and the trial of Captain Preston and his men, for murder. These demands were complied with. The troops were removed to Castle William [March 12, 1770], and Preston, ably defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two of the popular leaders, was tried and acquitted, with six of his men, by a Boston jury. The other two sol diers were found guilty of manslaughter. This result was a comment on the enforcement of the statute of Henry the Eighth, highly favorable to the Amer icans. It was so regarded in England, and was used with good effect by the opposition in Parliament. It showed that in the midst of popular excitement, the strong conservative principles of justice bore rule. The victims of the riot were regarded as martyrs to liberty, 1 and for many years, the memory of the u Boston Massacre," as it was called, was kept alive by anniversary orations in the city and vicinity. Perceiving the will and the power of the colonists in resisting taxation with out their consent, the British ministry now wavered. On the very day of the bloody riot in Boston [March 5], Lord North, who was then the English prime minister, proposed to Parliament a repeal of all duties imposed by the act of 1767, a except that upon tea. An act to that efiect was passed a month after ward [April 12]. This concession was wrung from the minister partly by the clamor of English merchants and manufacturers, who again felt severely the operations of the non-importation associations in America. As tea was a lux ury, North supposed the colonists would not object to the small duty laid upon that article, and he retained it as a standing assertion of the right of Parliament to impose such duties. The minister entirely mistook the character of the peo ple he was dealing with. It was not the petty amount of duties of which they complained, for all the taxes yet imposed were not in the least burdensome to them. They were contending for a great principle, which lay at the foundation of their liberties ; and they regarded the imposition of a duty upon one article as much a violation of their sacred rights, as if ten were included. They ac cepted the ministerial concession, but, asserting their rights, continued their non-importation league against the purchase and use of tea. 3 1 They were buried with great parade. All the bells of Boston and vicinity tolled a funeral knell while the procession was moving ; and as intended, the affair made a deep impression on the public mind. 2 Page 218. 8 Even before North s proposition was made to Parliament, special agreements concerning the disuse of tea, had been made. Already the popular feeling on this subject had been manifested to ward a Boston merchant who continued to sell tea. A company of half-grown boys placed an effigy near his door, with a finger upon it pointing toward his store. While a man was attempting to pull it down, he was pelted with dirt and stones. He ran into the store, and seizing a gun, dis charged its contents among the crowd. A boy named Snyder was killed, and Christopher Gore 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 228 The spirit of opposition was not confined to the more northern and eastern colonies. It was rife below the Roanoke, and was boldly made manifest when occasion required. In 1771, the Carolinas, hitherto exempted from violent out bursts of popular indignation, although never wanting in zeal in opposing the Stamp Act, and kindred measures, became the theater of great excitement. To satisfy the rapacity and pride of royal governors, the industry of the province of North Carolina, especially, was enormously taxed. 1 The oppression was real, not an abstract principle, as at the North. The people in the interior at length formed associations, designed to resist unjust taxation, and to control public affairs. They called themselves Regulators ; and in 1771, they were too nu merous to be overawed by local magistrates. Their operations assumed the character of open rebellion ; and in the spring of that year, Governor Tryon 3 marched into that region with an armed force, to subdue them. They met him upon Alamance Creek, in Alamance county, on the 16th of May, and there a bloody skirmish ensued. The Regulators were subdued and dispersed, and Tryon marched back in triumph to the sea-board, after hanging six of the lead ers, on the 19th of June following. These events aroused, throughout the South, the fiercest hatred of British power, and stimulated that earnest patriotism so early displayed by the people below the Roanoke, when the Revolution broke out. 3 The upper part of Narraganset Bay exhibited a scene, in the month of June, 1772, which produced much excitement, and widened the breach between Great Britain and her colonies. The commander of the British armed schooner Gaspe, stationed there to assist the commissioners of customs 4 in enforcing the revenue laws, annoyed the American navigators by haughtily commanding them to lower their colors when they passed his vessel, in token of obedience. The William Tells of the bay refused to bow to the cap of this petty Gesler. 5 For such disobedience, a Providence sloop was chased by the schooner. The latter grounded upon a low sandy point; and on that night [June 9, 1772], sixty-four armed men went down from Providence in boats, captured the people on board the Gaspe, and burned the vessel. Although a large reward was offered for the perpetrators (who were well known in Providence 6 ), they were never betrayed. (afterward governor of Massachusetts) was wounded. The affair produced great excitement. At about the same time, three hundred "mistresses of families" in Boston signed a pledge of total ab stinence from the use of tea, while the duty remained upon it. A few days afterward a large num ber of young ladies signed a similar pledge. 1 Governor Tryon caused a palace to be erected for his residence, at Newbern, at a cost of $75,000, for the payment of which the province was taxed. This was in 1768, and was one of the principal causes of discontent, which produced the outbreak here mentioned. 3 Page 248. 3 Page 237. 4 Page 220. 6 Gesler was an Austrian governor of one of the cantons of Switzerland. He placed his cap on a pole, at a gate of the town, and ordered all to bow to it, when they should enter. William Tell, a brave leader of the people, refused. He was imprisoned for disobedience, escaped, aroused his countrymen to arms, who drove their Austrian masters out of the land, and achieved the indepen dence of Switzerland. 6 One of the leaders was Abraham Whipple, a naval commander during the Revolution [page 310]. Several others were afterward distinguished for bravery during that struggle. Four years afterward, when Sir James Wallace, a British commander, was in the vicinity of Newport, Whipple became known as the leader of the attack on the Gaspe. Wallace sent him the following letter: "You, Abraham Whipple, on the 9th of June, 1772, burned his majesty s vessel, the Gaspe, and I will hang you at the yard-arm." To this Whipple replied : " To Sir James Wallace. Sir: Always catch a man before you hang him. JAMES WHIPPLE." 224 THE EEYOLUTION. [1761. These rebellious acts, so significant of the temper of the Americans, greatly perplexed the British ministry. Lord North 1 would gladly have conciliated them, but he was pledged by words and acts to the maintenance of the asserted principle, that Parliament had the undoubted right to tax the colonies without their consent. He labored hard to perceive some method by which conciliation and parliamentary supremacy might be made to harmonize, and early in 1773 r a new thought upon taxation entered his brain. The East India Company, a having lost their valuable tea customers in America, by the operation of the non-importation associations, and having more than seventeen millions of pounds- of the article in their warehouses in England, petitioned Parliament to take off the duty of three pence a pound, levied upon its importation into America. The company agreed to pay the government more than an equal amount, in export duty, if the change should be made. Here was an excellent opportunity for the gov ernment to act justly and wisely, and to produce a per fect reconciliation; but the stupid ministry, fearing it might be considered a submission to "rebellious sub jects," refused the olive branch of peace. Continuing to misapprehend the real question at issue, North intro duced a bill into Parliament, allowing the company to LORD XORTH. , export their teas to America on their own account, with out paying an export duty. As this would make tea cheaper in America than in England, he concluded the Americans would not object to paying the three pence duty. This concession to a commercial monopoly, while spurning the appeals of a great principle, only created contempt and indignation throughout the colonies. Blind as the minister, the East India Company now regarded the American market as open for their tea, and soon after the passage of the bill [May 10, 1773], several large ships, heavily laden with the article, were on their way across the Atlantic. Intelligence of these movements reached America before the arrival of any of the ships, and the people in most of the sea-board towns, where consignments of tea had been made, resolved that it should not even be landed. The ships which arrived at New York and Philadelphia, returned to England with their cargoes. At Charleston it was landed, but was not allowed to be sold; while at Boston, the attempts of the governor and his friends, 3 who 1 Frederick, Earl of Guilford (Lord North), was a man of talent, sincerely attached to English liberty, and conscientious in the performanance of his duties. Like many other statesmen of his- time, he utterly misapprehended the character of the American people, and could not perceive the justice of their claims. He was prime minister during the whole of our "War for Independence. He was afflicted with blindness during the last years of his life. He died in July, 1792, at the age of sixty years. 2 The English East India Company was formed and chartered in 1600, for the purpose of carrying on a trade by sea, between England and the countries lying east of the Cape of Good Hope [note 1, page 37]. It continued prosperous; and about the middle of the last century, the governor of its stations in India, under the pretense of obtaining security for their trade, subdued small territories, and thus planted the foundation of that great British empire in the East, which now comprises the whole of Hindostan, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya mountains, with a population of more than one hundred and twenty millions of people. 3 The public mind in Massachusetts was greatly inflamed against Governor Hutchinson at this 1775.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. were consignees, to land the tea in defiance of the public feeling, resulted in the destruction of a large quantity of it. On a cold moonlight night [December 16, 1773], at the close of the last of several spirited meetings of the citizens held at Faneuil Hall, 1 a party of about sixty persons, some disguised as Indians, rushed on board two vessels in the harbor, laden with tea, tore open the hatches, and in the course of two hours, three hundred and forty-two chests containing the proscribed article, were broken open, and their contents cast into the water. This event produced a powerful sensation throughout the British realm, and * . FANEUIL HALL. led to very important results. While the American colonies, and even Canada, Nova Scotia, and the British West Indies, sympathized with the Bostonians, and could not censure them, the exasperated government adopted retaliatory measures, notwithstand ing payment for all damage to their property was promised to the East India Company. Parliament, by enactment [March 7, 1774], ordered the port of Boston to be closed against all commercial transactions whatever, and the re moval of the custom-hous3, courts of justice, and other public offices, to Salem. The Salem people patriotically refused the proffered advantage at the expense of their neighbors ; and the inhabitants of Marblehead, fifteen miles distant, offered the free use of their harbor and wharves, to the merchants of Boston. Soon after the passage of the Boston Port Bill, as it was called, another act, which leveled a blow at the charter of Massachusetts, was made a law [March 28, 1774]. It was equivalent to a total subversion of the charter, inasmuch as it deprived the people of many of the dearest privileges guarantied by that instrument. 2 A third retaliatory act was passed on the 21st of April, provid ing for the trial, in England, of all persons charged in the colonies with mur ders committed in support of government, giving, as Colonel Barre said, * encouragement to military insolence already so insupportable." A fourth bill, providing for the quartering of troops in America, was also passed by large majorities in both Houses of Parliament ; and in anticipation of rebellion in America, a fifth act was passed, making great concessions to the Roman Catholics in Canada, known as the Quebec Act. This excited the animosity of time, whose letters to a member of Parliament, recommending stringent measures toward the col onies, had been procured in England, and sent to the speaker of the colonial Assembly, by Dr. Franklin. At about the same time, Parliament had passed a law, making the governor and judges of Massachusetts independent of the Assembly for their salaries, these being paid out of the reve nues in the hands of the commissioners of customs. This removal of these officials beyond all de pendence upon the people, constituted them fit instruments of the crown for oppressing the inhabit ants, and in that aspect the colonists viewed the measure, and condemed it. 1 Because the Revolutionary meetings in Boston were held in Faneuil Hall, it was (and still is) called The Cradle of Liberty. It was built, and presented to the town, by Peter Faneuil, in 1742. The picture shows its form during the Revolution. The vane on the steeple, in the form of a grass hopper (symbolical of devouring), yet [1867] holds its original place. 8 It empowered sheriffs appointed by the crown, to select juries, instead of leaving that power with the selectmen of the towns, who were chosen by the people. It also prohibited all town meetings and other gatherings. It provided for the appointment of the council, judges, justices of the peace, etc., by the crown or its representative. 15 226 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. all Protestants. These measures created universal indignation toward the gov ernment, and sympathy for the people of Boston. On the first of June, 1774, the Boston Port Bill went into operation. It was a heavy blow for the doomed town. Business was crushed, and great suf fering ensued. The utter prostration of trade soon produced wide-spread dis tress. The rich, deprived of their rents, became straitened ; and the poor, denied the privilege of laboring, were reduced to beggary. All classes felt the scourge of the oppressor, but bore it with remarkable fortitude. They were conscious of being right, and everywhere, tokens of the liveliest sympathy were manifested. Flour, rice, cereal grains, fuel, and money, were sent to the suffer ing people from the different colonies ; and the city of London, in its corporate capacity, subscribed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the poor of Boston. For the purpose of enforcing these oppressive laws, General Gage, the com- mander-in-chief of the British army in America, 1 was appointed governor of Massachusetts, and an additional military force was ordered to Boston. These coercive demonstrations greatly increased the public irritation, and diminished the hopes of reconciliation. Slavish submission or armed resistance, was now the alternative presented to the American people. Committees of correspond ence which had been formed in every colony in 1773, 2 had been busy in the interchange of sentiments and opinions, and throughout the entire community of Anglo-Americans there was evidently a general consonance of feeling, favor able to united efforts in opposing the augmenting tyranny of Great Britain. Yet they hesitated, and resolved to deliberate in solemn council before they should appeal to " the last argument of kings." 3 The patriots of Massachusetts stood not alone in UNITE their integrity. SNAKE DEVICE. as inflexible and bold, and as valiantly defied the power of royal governors, when unduly exercised. But those of Massachusetts, being the special objects of ministerial vengeance, suffered more, and required more boldness to act among bristling bayonets and shotted cannons, prepared ex pressly for their bosoms. Yet they grew stronger every day under persecu tion, and bolder as the frowns of British power became darker. 5 Even while 1 Page 220. a At a consultation of leading members of the Virginia House of Assembly, in March, 17*73, held in the old Raleigh tavern at Williamsburg, at which Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and others, were present, it was agreed to submit a resolution in the House the follow ing day, appointing a committee of vigilance and correspondence, and recommending the same to the other colonies. The measure was carried, and these committees formed one of the most power ful engines in carrying on the work of the Revolution. Similar committees had already been formed in several towns in Massachusetts. s These words, in Latin, were often placed upon cannon. Before the armory, at Richmond, "Virginia, was destroyed, in April, 1865, several old French cannons, made of brass, were there, on two of which these words appeared. They also appear upon some French cannon at "West Point. 4 The terms, WHIG and TORY, had long been used in England as titles of political parties. The former denoted the opposers of royalty; the latter indicated its supporters. These terms were introduced into America two or three years before the Revolution broke out, and became the dis tinctive titles of the patriots and loyalists. 1 Even the children seemed to lose their timidity, and became bolder. They nobly exhibited it 1715.] PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 227 troops, to overawe them were parading the streets of Boston, sturdy representa tives of the people assembled at Salern, 1 and sent forth an invitation to all the colonies to appoint delegates to meet in a general Congress at Philadelphia on the 5th of September following. It met with a hearty response from twelve of the thirteen colonies, and the Press and the Pulpit seconded the measures with great emphasis. Some newspapers bore a significant device. It was a snake cut into thirteen parts, each part bearing the initials of a colony upon it, as seen in the engraving. 2 Under these were the significant words, Unite or die. The delegates were all appointed before the close of August, and the FIRST on one occasion. They werein the habit of building mounds of snow in winter, on Boston Com mon. These the soldiers battered down, so as to annoy the boys. This being repeated, a meeting of larger boys was held, and a deputation was sent to General Gage, to remonstrate. " We come, sir," said the tallest boy, "to demand satisfaction." "What!" exclaimed Gage; "have your fathers been teaching you rebeUion, and sent you here to exhibit it?" " Nobody sent us here, sir," said the boy, while his eyes flashed with indignation. " We have never insulted nor injured your troops, but they have trodden down our snow-hills, and broken the ice on our skating-grounds. We complained ; and, calling us young rebels, told us to help ourselves if we could. We told the captain of this, and he laughed at us. Yesterday our works were destroyed for the third time, and we will bear it no longer." Gage admired the spirit of the boys, promised them redress, and turn ing to an officer, he said, "The very children here draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe." 1 At that meeting of the General Assembly of Massachusetts, the patriots matured a plan for a general Congress, provided for munitions of war to resist British power in their own province, and formed a general non-importation league for the whole country. In the midst of their proceedings, General Gage sent his secretary to dissolve them, but the doors of the Assembly chamber were locked, and the key was in Samuel Adams s pocket. Having finished their business, the Assembly adjourned, and thus ended the last session of that body, under a royal governor. 8 Page 226. 228 THE REVOLUTION. [1761. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS assembled in Carpenter s Hall, Philadelphia, on the 5th of September, 1774, the day named in the circular. All but Georgia were represented. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was appointed President, and Charles Thomson of Pennsylvania, Secretary. 2 The regular business of the Congress commenced on the morning of the 7th, 3 after an impressive prayer for Divine guidance, uttered by the Rev. Jacob Duche, 4 of Philadelphia. They remained in session until the 26th of October, during which time they matured measure^ for future action, which met with the general approbation of the American people. 5 They prepared and put forth sev eral State papers, 6 marked by such signal ability and wisdom, as to draw from the Earl of Chatham these words in the House of Lords : u I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and study of history (and it has been my favorite study I have read Thu- cydides, and have studied and admired the master States of the world) that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under CARPENTER S HALL. guc k a com pij cat j OI1 O f circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. 7 In all its proceedings Congress manifested decorum, firmness, 8 moderation, 1 This name was given to distinguish it from the two colonial Congresses [pages 183 and 215] already held ; one at Albany in 1754, the other at New York in 1765. 2 Thomson was secretary of Congress, perpetually, from 1774, until the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the organization of the new government, in 1789. Watson relates that Thomson had just come into Philadelphia, with his bride, and was alighting from his chaise, when a messen ger from the delegates in Carpenter s Hall came to him, and said they wanted him to come and take minutes of their proceedings, as he was an expert at such business. For his first year s serv ice, he received no pay. So Congress informed his wife that they wished to compensate her for the absence of her husband during that tune, and wished her to name what kind of a piece of plate she would like to receive. She chose an urn, and that silver vessel is yet in the family. Thomson was "born in Ireland in 1730, came to America when eleven years of age, and died in 1824, at the age of ninety-four years. 3 When the delegates had assembled on the 5th, no one seemed inclined to break the silence, and deep anxiety was depicted in every countenance. Soon a grave-looking man, in a suit of "minister s gray," and unpowdered wig, arose, and, with a sweet, musical voice, he uttered a few eloquent words, that electrified the whole audience. " Who is he ?" was a question that went from lip to lip. A few who knew him, answered, " It is Patrick Henry, of Virginia." There was no longer any hesitation. He who, nine years before, had cast the gauntlet of defiance at the feet of British power, now set in motion that august machinery of civil power, which assisted in work ing out the independence of the United States. 4 Duche was a minister of the Church of England, and afterward became a Tory. 6 They prepared a plan for a general commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain and her West India possessions, which was called The American Association, and was recommended for adoption throughout the country. It consisted of fourteen articles. In addition to the non-inter course provisions, it was recommended to abandon the slave-trade, to improve the breed of sheep, to abstain from all extravagance in living and indulgence in horse-racing, etc., and the appointment of a committee in every town to promote conformity to the requirements of the Association. It was signed by the fifty-two members present. 6 A Bill of Rights; an address to the people of Great Britain, written by John Jay; another to the several Anglo-American colonies, written by William Livingston ; another to the inhabitants of Quebec, and a petition to the king. In these, the grievances and the rights of the colonies were ably set forth. 7 He also said, in a letter to Stephen Sayre, on the 24th of December, 1774: "I have not words to express my satisfaction that the Congress has conducted this most arduous and delicate business, with such manly wisdom and calm resolution, as do the highest honor to their deliberation." 8 On the 8th of October, they unanimously resolved, " That this Congress approve the opposition 1775.] FIRST YEAR OF THE "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 229 and loyalty ; and when the delegates resolved to adjourn, to meet again at the same place on the 10th of May following [1775], unless the desired redress of grievances should be obtained, they did so with an earnest hope that a reconcil iation might speedily take place, and render another national council unneces sary. But they were doomed to bitter disappointment. Great Britain was blind and stubborn still. CHAPTER II. FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1775.] PERSUADED that war was inevitable, the colonists began to prepare for that event, during the summer and autumn of 1774. They practiced daily in mil itary exercises ; the manufacture of arms and gunpowder was encouraged ; and throughout Massachusetts in particular, where the heel of the oppressor bore heaviest, the people were enrolled in companies. Fathers and sons, encouraged by the gentler sex, received lessons together in the art of war, and prepared to take arms at a moment s warning. From this circumstance, they were called minute-men. The Whig 1 journals grew bolder every hour. Epigrams, para bles, sonnets, dialogues, and every form of literary expression, remarkable for point and terseness, filled their cohnmis. We give a single specimen of some of the rhymes of the day : "THE QUARREL wmi AMERICA FAIRLY STATED. " Rudely forced to drink tea, Massachusetts in anger Spills the tea on John Bull ; John falls on to bang her ; Massachusetts, enraged, calls her neighbors to aid, And give Master John a severe bastinade. Now, good men of the law ! pray, who is in fault, The one who began or resents the assault?" The Massachusetts leaders, in the mean while, were laboring, with intense zeal, to place the province in a condition to rise in open and united rebellion, when necessity should demand. And all over the land, the provincial assem blies, speakers at public gatherings, and from the pulpit, w T ere boldly proclaim ing the right of resistance. These demonstrations alarmed General Gage, 2 and he commenced fortifying Boston Neck. 3 He also seized and conveyed to of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay, to the execution of the late acts of Parliament, and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition." This resolution, in letter and spirit, was the embodiment of the revolutionary sentiment. 1 Note 4, page 226. 2 Thomas Gage was a native of England. He was governor of Montreal [page 203] in 1760, and commander-in-chief of the British army in America, in 1763. He was appointed governor of Massachusetts, in 1774; left America in 1775 ; and died in 1787. 3 The peninsula of Boston was originally connected with the main land by a narrow isthmus called the Neck. It has been greatly widened by filling in the marginal morasses ; and over it now passes the fine avenue which connects the city with Roxbury, on the main. 230 THE DEVOLUTION. [1775. the city large quantities of ammunition found in the neighboring villages, and employed stringent measures for preventing intercourse between the patriots in the city and in the country. The exasperated people needed but the electric spark of even a slight offense to kindle their suppressed indignation into a blaze. They were ready to sound the battle-cry, and evoke the sword of rebel lion from its scabbard ; and they were even anxious to attack the soldiers in Boston, but they were restrained by prudei?t conselors. 1 A rumor went abroad on the third of September, that British ships were cannonading Boston. From the shores of Long Island Sound to the green hills of Berkshire, " To arms ! to arms !" was the universal shout. Instantly, on every side, men of all ages were seen cleansing and burnishing their weap ons ; and within two days, full thirty thousand minute-men were under arms, and hastening toward that city. They were met by a contradiction of the rumor; but the event conveyed such a portentous lesson to Gage, that he pushed forward his military operations with as much vigor as the opposition of the people would allow. 2 He thought it expedient to be more conciliatory ; and he summoned the colonial Assembly to meet at Salein on the 5th of Octo ber. Then dreading their presence, he revoked the order. Ninety delegates met, however, and organized by the appointment of John Hancock 3 president. They then went to Cambridge; where they formed a Provincial Congress, inde pendent of royal authority (the first in America), and labored earnestly i& preparations for that armed resistance, now become a stern necessity. They made provisions for an army of twelve thousand men ; solicited other New En gland colonies to augment it to twenty thousand; and appointed Jedediah Preble and Artemas Ward 4 men of experience in the French and Indian war, 5 generals of all the troops that might be raised. The Americans were now fairly aroused to action. They had counted the cost of armed rebellion, and were fully resolved to meet it. The defiant position of the colonists arrested the attention of all Europe. When the Brit ish Parliament assembled early in 1775, that body presented a scene of great excitement. Dr. Franklin and others, 6 then in England, had given a wide cir culation to the State papers put forth by the Continental Congress ; 7 and the 1 Many hundreds of armed men assembled at Cambridge. At Charlestown, the people took possession of the arsenal, after Gage had carried off the powder. At Portsmouth, N. H., they cap tured the fort, and carried off the ammunition. At Newport, R. I., the people seized the powder, and took possession of forty pieces- of cannon at the entrance of the harbor. -In New York, Phila delphia, Annapolis, Williamsburg, Charleston, and Savannah, the people took active defensive measures, and the whole country was in a blaze of indignation. 3 Carpenters refused to work on the fortifications, and much of the material was destroyed by- fire, at night, in spite of the vigilance of the guards. Gage sent to New York for timber and work men ; but the people there would not permit either to leave their port. 8 John Hancock was one of the most popular of the New England patriots, throughout the whole war. He was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1737, was educated at Harvard College; became a counting-room clerk to his uncle, and inherited that gentleman s great wealth. He entered public life early ; was a representative in the Continental Congress, and was its president When the Declaration of Independence was adopted. He was afterward governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Hancock died in October, 1793, at the age of fifty-six years. * Note 5, page 238. 5 Page 179. 8 Dr. Franklin had then been agent in England, for several of the colonies, for about ten years, 7 Note 6, page 228. 1775.] FIRST TEAK OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 231 English mind was already favorably influenced in favor of the Americans. Pitt came on crutches 1 from his retirement, to cast the weight of his mighty influence into the scale of justice, by action in the House of Lords. He pro posed [January 7, 1775] conciliatory measures. They were rejected, as well as others offered by Burke, Conway, and Hartly ; and in their stead, Parlia ment, in March, struck another severe blow at the industry of New England, by prohibiting fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. 3 Already Lord North had moved, in the House of Commons [February, 1775], for an address to the king, affirming that Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion. The Ministers also endeavored to promote dissensions in America, by crippling the trade of New England and other colonies, but exempting New York, Delaware, and North Carolina. The bait of favor for these three colonies was indignantly 1 Pitt was greatly afflicted with the gout. Sometimes he was confined to his house for weeks by it ; and he was sometimes seen on the floor of Parliament leaning upon crutches, and his legs swathed in flannels. In this condition he made two of his most eloquent speeches in favor of the Americans. 2 At that time, there were employed by the Americans, in the British Newfoundland fisheries, four hundred ships, two thousand fishing shallops, and twenty thousand men. On account of this blow to the fishing trade, a great many inhabitants of Nantucket and vicinity, chiefly Quakers, went to North Carolina, and in Orange and ftuilford counties, became planters. Their descendants ar yet numerous there. The principal meeting-house is at New Garden. 232 THE REVOLUTION. [1775. spurned the scheme of disunion signally failed. Common dangers and com mon interests drew the ligaments of fraternity closer than ever. When the trees budded, and the flowers bloomed in the spring of 1775, all hope of recon ciliation had vanished. It was evident that "King, Commons, and Lords, were uniting amain." to destroy the Liberty Tree, planted by faithful hands. The people of the col onies, though weak in military resources, were strong in purpose ; and, relying upon the justice of their cause, and the assistance of the Lord God Omnipotent, they resolved to defy the fleets and armies of Great Britain. There was great moral sublimity in the rising of the colonies against the parent country ; for it was material weakness arrayed against great material strength. There were more than three thousand British troops in Boston, on the first of April, 1775. Confident in his power, Gage felt certain that he could repress insurrections, and keep the people quiet. Yet he felt uneasy concerning the gathering of ammunition and stores, 1 by the patriots, at Concord, sixteen miles from Boston. Toward midnight, on the 18th [April], he secretly dispatched eight hundred men, under lieutenant-colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, to destroy them. So carefully had he arranged the expedition, that he believed it to be entirely unknown to the patriots. All his precautions were vain. The vigilant Dr. Warren, 3 who was secretly watching all the movements of Gage, became aware of the expedition early in the evening ; and when it moved, Paul Revere, 8 one of the most active of the Sons of Liberty in Boston, had landed at Charlestown, and was on his way to Concord to arouse the inhabitants and minute-men. Soon afterward, church-bells, muskets, and cannons spread the alarm over the country ; and when, at dawn, on the 19th of April. 1775 a day memorable in the annals of our Republic Pitcairn, with the advanced guard, reached Lexington, a few miles from Concord, he found seventy deter mined men drawn up to oppose him. Pitcairn rode forward and shouted, "Disperse! disperse, you rebels! Down with your arms, and disperse!" They refused obedience, and he ordered his men to fire. That dreadful order was obeyed, and the FIRST BLOOD or THE REVOLUTION flowed upon the tender grass on the Green at Lexington. Eight citizens were killed, several were wounded, and the remainder were dispersed. The last survivor of that noble band 4 died in March, 1854, at the age of almost ninety-six years. 1 Early in the year, secret orders had been sent by the ministry to the royal governors, to remove all ammunition and stores out of the reach of the people, if they made any hostile demon strations. 2 Afterward killed in the battle on Breed s Hill. See page 235. 9 Revere was an engraver, and previous to this time had executed some creditable specimens of his art. He engraved a picture of the naval investment of Boston, in 1768, and of the Boston Massacre, in 1770. As a Grand Master of the Masonic order, he was very influential; yet, like those of Isaac Sears, of New York, his eminent services in the cause of freedom have been over looked. Their fame is eclipsed by men of greater minds, but of no sturdier patriotism. 4 Jonathan Harrington, who played the fife for the minute-men, on the morning of the battle. The writer visited him in 1848, when he was ninety years of age. He then had a perfect recollec tion of the events of that morning. A portrait of him, as he appeared at that time, is published in Lossing s Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, page 554, vol. i. 1775.] FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 233 Confident of full success, the British now pressed forward to Concord, and destroyed the stores. They were terribly annoyed by the minute-men on their way, who fired upon them from behind walls, trees, and buildings. Having accom plished their purpose, and killed several more patriots in a skirmish there, the royal troops hastily retreated to Lexington. The country was now thoroughly aroused, and minute-men were gathering by scores. Nothing but the timely arrival of Lord Percy with reinforcements, 1 saved the eight hundred men from total destruction. The whole body now retreated. All the way back to Bunker s Hill, 2 in Charlestown, the troops were terribly assailed by the patri ots ; and when, the following morning, they crossed over to Boston, they ascer tained their loss to be, in killed and wounded, two hundred and seventy-three. The loss of the Americans in killed, wounded, and missing, was one hundred and three. 3 The initial blow for freedom had now been struck. It was appalling to friend and foe. The news of this tragedy spread over the country like a blaze of lightning from a midnight cloud, and li!:e the attendant thunder-peal, it aroused all hearts. From the hills and valleys of New England, the patriots went forth by hundreds, armed and unarmed; and before the close of the month [April 1775], an army of twenty thousand men were forming camps and piling fortifications around Boston, from Roxbury to the river Mystic, deter mined to confine the fierce tiger of war, which had tasted their blood, upon that little peninsula. The provincial Congress, 4 sitting at Watertown, with Dr. Warren at its head, worked day and night in consonance with the gathering army. They appointed military officers, organized a commissariat for supplies, issued bills of credit for the payment of troops (for which the province was pledged), to the amount of three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and declared [May 5] General Gage to be an "inveterate enemy" of the peo ple. An 1 as the intelligence went from colony to colony, the people in each were equally aroused. Anns and ammunition were seized by the 8ons of Liberty, provincial Congresses were formed, and beiore the close of summer, the power of every royal governor, from Massachusetts to Georgia, was utterly destroyed. Everywhere the inhabitants armed in defense of their liberties, and took vigorous measures for future security. Some aggressive enterprises were undertaken by volunteers. The most important of these was the seizure of the strong fortresses of Ticorideroga 5 and Crown Point, 6 on Lake Champlain, chiefly by Connecticut and Vermont 1 Earl Percy was a son of the Duke of Northumberland. "When he was marching out of Bos ton, his band struck up the tune of Yankee Doodle, in derision. He saw a boy at Roxbury making himself very merry as he passed. Percy inquired why he was so merry. " To think," said the lad, "how you will dance by-and-by to Chevy Chase." Percy was often much influenced by presenti ments, and the words of the boy made him moody. Percy was a lineal descendant of the Earl Percy who was slain in the battle of Chevy Chase, and he felt all day as if some great calamity might befall him. 9 Page 235. 3 Appropriate monuments have been erected to the memory of the slain, at Lexington, Concord, .and Acton. Davis, the commander of the militia at Concord, was from Acton, and so were most of his men. The estimated value of the property destroyed by the invaders, was as follows : In Concord, one thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars ; in Lexington, eight thousand three hundred and five dollars; in Cambridge, six thousand and ten dollars. 4 Page 230. 5 Page 196. 8 Page 200. 234 THE REVOLUTION. militia, under the command of Colonels Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. Ticonderoga and its garrison were taken possession of at dawn, on the 10th of May, 1775 j 1 and two days afterward, Colonel Seth Warner, of the expedition, with a few men, captured Crown Point. The spoils of victory taken at these two posts, consisting of almost one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and a arge quantity of ammunition and stores, were of vast consequence to the Amer- cans. A few months later [March, 1776], some of these cannons were hurling death-shots into the midst of the British troops in Boston. 2 Having repudiated royal authority, the people of Massachusetts were obe dient to their chosen rulers, and efficient civil government was duly inaugur ated. On the 19th of May [1775], the provincial Congress of Massachusetts clothed the Committee of Safety, sitting at Cambridge, with full powers to regulate the operations of the army. ArtCmas Ward was appointed commander- in-chief, Richard Gridley, 3 chief engineer, and Israel Putnam, John Stark, and other veterans, who had served bravely in the French and Indian war, were appointed to important commands. The military genius developed in that old conflict, was now brought into requisition. Day by day the position of the British army became more perilous. Fortunately for its safety, large reinforce ments, under those three experienced commanders, Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, arrived on the 25th of May. It was timely : and then the whole British force in Boston amounted to about twelve thousand men, besides several well-manned vessels of war, under Admiral Graves. Gage now resolved to attack the Americans and penetrate the country. Preparatory to an invasion of the province, Gage issued a proclamation [June 10, 1775], declaring all Americans inarms to be rebels and traitors, and offering a free pardon to all who should return to their allegiance, except those arch-offenders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. 4 These he intended to seize and send to England to be hanged. The vigilant patriots, aware of Gage s hostile intentions, strengthened their intrenchments on Boston Neck, 5 and on the evening of the 16th of June, General Ward sent Colonel Prescott 6 with a detachment of one thousand men, to take possession of, and fortify, Bunker s Hill, in Charlestown, which commanded an important part of Boston and the surrounding water. By mistake they ascended Breed s Hill, within cannon shot of the city, and laboring with pick and spade all that night, they had cast up a strong redoubt 7 of earth, on the summit of that eminence, before the Brit- 1 Allen was in chief command. Having taken possession of the fort and garrison by surprise, he ascended to the door of the commandant s apartment, and awoke Captain De La Place, by heavy blows with the hilt of his sword. The astonished commander, followed by his wife, came to the door. He knew Allen. " What do you want?" he inquired. " I want you to surrender this fort," Allen answered. "By what authority do you demand it?" asked De La Place. "By the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" said Allen, with the voice of a Stentor. The captain sub mitted, and the fortress became a possession of the patriots. 3 Page 247. 3 Note 1, page 138. 4 Note 1, page 221. 6 Note 3, page 229. 6 "William Prescott was born at Groton, Massachusetts, in 1726. He was at Louisburg [page 137] in 1745. After the battle of Bunker s Hill, he served under Gates, until the surrender of Burgoyne, when he left the army. He died in 1795. 7 A redoubt is a small fortification generally composed of earth, and having very few features of a regular fort, except its arrangement for the use of cannons and muskets. They are often tern- 1775.] FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR I-N DEPENDENCE. 235 ish were aware of their presence. Gage and his officers were greatly astonished at the apparition of this military work, at the dawn of the 17th. The British generals were not only astonished, but alarmed, and at once perceived the necessity for driving the Americans from this commanding position, before they should plant a heavy battery there, for in that event, Boston must be evacuated before sunrise. The drums beat to arms, and soon the city was in a great tumult. The im minent danger converted many Tories into professedly warm Whigs, for the days of British rule appeared to be closing. Every eminence and roof in Boston swarmed with people and at about sunrise [June 17, 1775], a heavy cannonade was opened upon the re doubt, from a battery on Copp s Hill, in Boston, and from the shipping in the har bor, but with very little effect. Hour after hour the patriots toiled on in the com pletion of their work, and at noon-day, their task was finished, and they laid aside their implements of labor for knapsacka and muskets. General Howe, with General Pigot, and three thousand men, crossed the Charles River at the same time, to Morton s Point, at the foot of the eastern slope of Breed s Hill, formed his troops into two columns, and marched slowly to attack the redoubt. Although the British commenced firing cannons soon after they began to ascend the hill, and the great guns of the ships, and the battery on Copp s Hill, poured an incessant storm upon the redoubt, the Americans kept perfect silence until they had approached within close musket shot. Hardly an American could be seen by the slowly approach ing enemy, yet behind those rude mounds of earth, lay fifteen hundred deter mined men, 2 ready to pour deadly volleys of musket-balls upon the foe, when their commanders should order them. PLAN OF BUNKER S HILL BATTLE. MONUMENT. porary structures, cast up in the progress of a siege, or a protracted battle. The diagram A, on the map, shows the form of the redoubt, a is the entrance. 1 That portion of Copp s Hill, where the British battery was constructed, is a burial-ground, in which lie many of the earlier residents of that city. Among them, the Mather family, distinguished in the early history of the Commonwealth. See page. 133. 2 During the forenoon, General Putnam had been busy hi forwarding reinforcements for Pres- cott, and when the battle began, about five hundred had been added to the detachment. Yet he found it difficult to urge many of the raw recruits forward ; and after the war, he felt it necessary to arise in the church of which he was a member, and in the presence of the congregation, acknowl edge the sin of swearing on that occasion. He partially justified himself by saying, "It was almost enough to make an angel swear, to see the cowards rerase to secure a victory so nearly won." 236 THE REVOLUTION. [1775. It was now three o clock in the afternoon. When the British column was within ten rods of the redoubt, Prescott shouted Fire ! and instantly whole platoons of the assailants were prostrated by well-aimed bullets. 1 The survivors fell back in great confusion, but were soon rallied for a second attack. They were again repulsed, with heavy loss, and while scattering in all directions, General Clinton arrived with a few followers, and joined Howe, as a volunteer. The fugitives were again rallied, and they rushed up to the redoubt in the face of a galling fire. For ten minutes the battle raged fearfully, and, in the mean while, Charlestown, at the foot of the eminence, having been fired by a carcass 2 from Copp s Hill, 3 sent up dense columns of smoke, which completely enveloped the belligerents. The firing in the redoubt soon grew weaker, for the ammu nition of the Americans had become exhausted. It ceased altogether, and then the British scaled the bank and compelled the Americans to retreat, while they fought fiercely with clubbed muskets. 4 Overpowered, they fled across Charles- town Neck, 5 gallantly covered by Putnam and a few brave men, and under that commander, they took position on Prospect Hill, and fortified it. The British took possession of Bunker s Hill, 6 and erected a fortification there. There wa3 absolutely no victory in the case. Completely exhausted, both parties sought rest, and hostilities ceased for a time. The Americans had lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about four hundred and fifty men. The loss of the British from like causes, was almost eleven hundred. 7 This was the first real battle 8 of the Revolution, and lasted almost two hours. Terrible for the people of Boston and vicinity, were the events of that bright and cloudless, and truly beautiful June day. All the morning, as we have observed, and during the fierce conflict, roofs, steeples, and every high place, in and around the city, were filled with anxious spectators. Almost every family had a representative among the combatants ; and in an agony of suspense, mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, gazed upon the scene. Many a loved 1 Prescott ordered his men to aim at the waistbands of the British, and to pick off their officers, whose fine clothes would distinguish them. It is said that men, at the first onset in battle, always fire too high, hence the order to aim at the waistbands. 2 A carcass is a hollow case, formed of ribs of iron covered with cloth or metal, with holes in it. Being filled with combustibles and set on fire, it is thrown from a mortar, like a bomb-shell, upon the roofs of buildings, and ignites them. A bomb-shell is a hollow ball with an orifice, filled with powder (sometimes mixed with slugs of iron), which is ignited by a slow match when fired, explodes, and its fragments produce terrible destruction. 3 See map on page 235. 4 Most of the American muskets were destitute of bayonets, and they used the large end as clubs. This is a last resort. 6 Charlestown, like Boston, is on a peninsula, almost surrounded by water and a marsh. The Neck was a narrow causeway, connecting it with the main. Charlestown was a flourishing rival of Boston, at the time of the battle. It was then completely destroyed. Six hundred buildings per ished in the flames. Burgoyne, speaking of the battle and conflagration, said, it was the most awful and sublime sight he had ever witnessed. 6 As the battle took place on Breed s, and not on Bunker s Hill, the former name should have been given to it ; but the name of Bunker s Hill has become too sacred in the records of patriot ism to be changed. 7 The provincial Congress estimated the loss at about fifteen hundred ; General Gage reported one thousand and fifty-four. Of the Americans, only one hundred and fifteen were killed; the remainder were wounded or made prisoners. 6 A battle is a conflict carried on by large bodies of troops, according to the rules of military tactics ; a skirmish is a sudden and irregular fight between a few troops. 1775.] FIRST YEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 287 one perished ; and there the country lost one of its most promising children, and freedom a devoted champion. Dr. Warren, who had just been appointed major-general, had crossed Charlestown Neck in the midst of flying balls from the British shipping, and reached the redoubt on Breed s Hill, at the moment when the enemy scaled its banks. He was killed by a musket ball, while retreating. Buried where he fell, near the redoubt, the tall Bunker Hill monument of to-day, standing on that spot, com memorates his death, as well as the patriotism of his countrymen. The storm was not confined to the east. While these events were occurring in New England, the Revolution was making rapid progress elsewhere. Even before the tragedy at Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry 2 had again aroused his countrymen by his eloquence, and in the Virginia Assembly, convened at Richmond, on the 23d of March, 1775, he concluded a masterly speech with that noted sentiment, which became the war- cry of the patriots, " GIVE ME LIBERTY, on GIVE ME DEATH !" When, twenty-six days later [April 20], Governor Dunmore, by ministerial command,* seized and conveyed on board a British vessel of war, a quantity of gunpowder belonging to the colony, that same inflexible patriot went at the head of armed citizens, and demanded and received from the royal representative, full restitu tion. And before the battle of Bunker s Hill, the exasperated people had driven Dunmore 4 from his palace at Williamsburg [June], and he was a refugee, shorn of political power, on board a British man-of-war in the York River. Further south, still bolder steps had been taken. The people in the inte rior of North Carolina, where the Regulator Movement occurred four years earlier, asserted their dignity and their rights as freemen, in a way that aston ished even the most sanguine and determined patriots elsewhere. A convention of delegates chosen by the people, assembled at Charlotte, in Mecklenberg county, in May, 1775, and by a series of resolutions, they virtually declared their constituents absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, 5 organized local government, and made provisions for military defense. In South Carolina and Georgia, also, arms and ammunition had been seized by the people, and all royal authority was repudiated. While the whole country was excited by the rising rebellion, and on the 1 Joseph "Warren was born in Roxbury, in 1740. He was at the head of his profession as a physician, when the events of the approaching revolution brought him into public life. He was thirty-five years of age when he died. His remains rest in St. Paul s church, in Boston. 2 Note 1, page 214. 3 Note 1, page 232. 4 Dunmore was strongly suspected of a desire to have the hostile Indians west of the Allegha- nies annihilate the Virginia troops sent against them in the summer of 1774 They suffered ter rible loss in a battle at Point Pleasant on the Ohio, in October of that year, in consequence of the failure of promised aid from Dunmore. They subdued the Indians, however. 5 This "Declaration of Independence," as it is called, was made about thirteen months previous to the general Declaration put forth by the Continental Congress, and is one of the glories of the people of North Carolina. It consisted of a series of twenty resolutions, and was read, from time to time, to other gatherings of the people, after the convention at Charlotte. 233 THE REVOLUTION. [1775. very day [May 10] when Allen and Arnold took Ticonderoga, 1 the SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS convened at Philadelphia. Notwithstanding New England was in a blaze of war, royal authority had virtually ceased in all the colonies, and the conflict for independence had actually begun, 2 that august body held out to Great Britain a loyal, open hand of reconciliation. Congress sent [July, 1775] a most loyal petition to the king, and conciliatory addresses to the people of Great Britain. At the same time they said firmly, We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery." They did not foolishly lose present advantages in waiting for a reply, but pressed forward in the work of public security. Having resolved on armed resistance, they voted to raise an army of twenty thousand men ; and two days before the battle of Bunker s Hill [June 15, 1775], they elected GEORGE WASHINGTON commander-in-chief of all the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of the colonies. 3 That destined Father of his Country, was then forty-three years of age. They also adopted the incongruous mass of undis ciplined troops at Boston, 4 as a CONTINENTAL ARMY, and appointed general officers 5 to assist Washington in its organization and future operations. General Washington took command of the army at Cambridge, on the 3d of July, and with the efficient aid of General Gates, who was doubtless the best disciplined soldier then in the field, order was soon brought out of great con fusion, and the Americans were prepared to commence a regular siege of the British army in Boston. 6 To the capture or expulsion of those troops, the efforts of Washington were mainly directed during the summer and autumn of 1775. Fortifications were built, a thorough organization of the army was effected, and all that industry and skill could do, with such material, in perfect ing arrangements for a strong and fatal blow, was accomplished. The army, 1 Page 234. 2 Page 232. 8 Washington was a delegate m Congress from Virginia, and his appointment was wholly unex pected to him. "When the time came to choose a commander-in-chief, John Adams arose, and after a brief speech, in which he delineated the qualities of the man whom he thought best fitted for the important service, he expressed his intenton to propose a member from Virginia for the office of generalissimo. All present understood the allusion, and the next day, Thomas Johnson, of Mary land, nominated Colonel "Washington, and he was, by unanimous vote, elected commander-in-chief. At the same time Congress resolved that they would " maintain and assist him, and adhere to him, with their lives and fortunes, in the cause of American liberty." When President Hancock announced to Washington his appointment, he modestly, and with great dignity, signified his accept ance in the following terms: " Mr. President Though I am truly sensible of the high honor done me, in this appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important trust. However, as the Congress desire it, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their service, and for the support of the glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of their approbation. But lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavor able to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in this room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. As to pay, -sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept the arduous employment, at the expense of my domestic ease and hap piness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those, I doubt not, they will discharge, and that is all I desire." 4 Page 232. 6 Artemas Ward. Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam, were appointed major- generals; Horatio Gates, adjutant-general; and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and Nathaniel Green (all New England men), brigadier-generals. 6 Page 232. 1775.] FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 239 fourteen thousand strong at the close of the year, extended from Roxbury on the right, to Prospect Hill, two miles north-west of Breed s Hill, on the left. The right was commanded by General Ward, the left by General Lee. The centre, at Cambridge, was under the immediate control of the commander-in- chief. At the close of May, Congress sent an affectionate address to the people of Canada. They were cordially invited to join their Anglo-American 1 neighbors 9 in efforts to obtain redress of grievances, but having very little sympathy in language, religion, or social condition with them, they refused, and were neces sarily considered positive supporters of the royal cause. The capture of the two fortresses on Lake Champlain 3 [May, 1775], having opened the way to the St. Lawrence, a well-devised plan to take possession of that province and pre vent its becoming a place of rendezvous and supply of invading armies from Great Britain, was matured by Congress and the commander-in-chief. 4 To 1 Note 1, page 193. 3 The Congress of 1774, made an appeal To the inhabitants of Quebec, in which was clearly set forth the grievances of the colonists, and an invitation to fraternize with those already in union. 3 Page 234. 4 A committee of Congress, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Thomas Lynch, and Benjamin Harrison, went to Cambridge, in August, and there the plan of the campaign against Canada was arranged. 240 THE REVOLUTION. [1775. accomplish this, a body of New York and New England troops were placed under the command of Generals Schuyler 1 and Montgomery, 2 and ordered to proceed by way of Lake Champlain to Montreal and Quebec. Had Congress listened to the earnest advice of Colonel Ethan Allen, to invade Canada immediately after the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the result of the expedition would doubtless have been very different, for at that time the British forces in the province were few, and they had made no prepar ations for hostilities. It was near the close of August before the invading army appeared before St. John on the Sorel, the first military post within the Cana dian line. Deceived in regard to the strength of the garrison and the dispo sition of the Canadians and the neighboring Indians, Schuyler fell back to Isle Aux Noix, 3 and after making preparations to fortify it, he hastened to Ticonderoga to urge forward more troops. Sickness compelled him to return to Albany, and the whole command devolved upon Montgomery, his second in command. That energetic officer did not remain long within his island intrench- ments, and toward the close of September, he laid siege to St. John. The gar rison maintained an obstinate resistance for more than a month, and Montgomery twice resolved to abandon it. During the siege, small detachments of brave men went out upon daring enterprises. One, of eighty men, under Colonel Ethan Allen, 4 pushed across the St. Lawrence, and attacked Montreal [Sep tember 25, 1775], then garrisoned by quite a strong force under General Prescott. 5 This was done at the suggestion of Colonel John Brown, who was to cross the river with his party, a little above, and co-operate with Allen. He failed to do so, and disaster ensued. Allen and his party were defeated, and he was made prisoner and, with several of his men, was sent to England in irons. Another expedition under Colonel Bedell, of New Hampshire, was more suc cessful. They captured the strong fort (but feeble garrison) at Chambly [October 30], a few miles north of St. John; and at about the same time, Sir Guy Carleton, governor of Canada, with a reinforcement for the garrison of St. John, was repulsed [November 1] by a party under Colonel Warner, at Longueil, nearly opposite Montreal. These events alarmed Preston, the com mander of St. John, and he surrendered that post to Montgomery, on the 3d of November. When the victory was complete, the Americans pressed on toward Mont- 1 Philip Schuyler was bora at Albany, New York, in 1733, and was one of the wisest and best men of his time. He was a captain under Sir William Johnson [page 190] in 1755, and was active in the public service, chiefly in civil affairs, from that time until the Revolution. During that struggle, he was very prominent, and after the war, was almost continually engaged in public life, until his death, which occurred in 1804. 2 Richard Montgomery was born in Ireland, in 1737. He was with "Wolfe, at Quebec [page 201], and afterward married a sister of Chancellor Livingston, and settled in the State of New York. He gave promise of great military ability, when death ended his career. See portrait on page 242. 3 Note 8, pago 197. * Ethan Allen was born in Litchfield county, Connecticut. He went to Vermont at an early age, and in 1770 was one of the bold leaders there in the opposition of the settlers to the territorial claims of New York. He was never engaged in active military services after his capture. He died in Vermont in February, 1789, and his remains lie in a cemetery two miles from Biz, "ngton, near theWinooski. 6 ^ge 27]. 1775.] FIRST TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 241 real. Governor Carleton, conscious of his weakness, immediately retreated on board one of the vessels of a small fleet lying in the river, and escaped to Que bec; and on the following day [November 13], Montgomery entered the city in triumph. He treated the people humanely, gained their respect, and with the woolen clothing found among the spoils, he commenced preparing his sol diers for the rigors of a Canadian winter. There was no time to be lost, by delays. Although all their important posts in Canada were in possession of the patriots, yet, Montgomery truly said, in a letter to Congress, " till Quebec is taken, Canada is unconquered." Impressed with this idea, he determined to push forward to the capital, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather and the desertion of his troops. Winter frosts were binding the waters, and blind ing snow was mantling the whole country. The spectacle presented by this little army, in the midst of discouragements of every kind, was one of great moral grandeur. Yet it was not alone at that perilous hour ; for while this expedition, so feeble in number and supplies, was on its way to achieve a great purpose, another, consisting of a thousand men, under Colonel Benedict Arnold, 1 had left Cambridge [Sept., 1775], and was making its way through the deep wilderness by the Kennobec and Chaudiere 3 Rivers, to join Montgomery before the walls of Quebec. That expedition was one of the most wonderful on record. For thirty-two days they traversed a gloomy wilderness, without meeting a human being. Frost and snow were upon the ground, and ice was upon the surface of the marshes and the streams, which they were compelled to traverse and ford, sometimes arm-pit deep in water and mud. Yet they murmured not ; and even women followed in their train. 3 After enduring incredible toils and hardships, exposed to intense cold and biting hunger, they arrived at Point Levi, 4 opposite Quebec, on the 9th of November. Four days afterward [Nov. 13], and at about the same time when Montgomery entered Montreal, the intrepid Arnold, with only seven hundred and fifty half-naked men, not more than four hundred muskets, and no artil lery, crossed the St. Lawrence to Wolfe s Cove, 5 ascended to the Plains of Abraham, 6 and boldly demanded a surrender of the city and garrison within the massive walls. Soon the icy winds, and intelligence of an intended sortie 7 from the garrison, drove Arnold from his bleak encampment, and he ascended the St. Lawrence to Point au Trembles, twenty miles above Quebec, and there 1 Page 234. a Pronounced Sho-de-are. 8 Judge Henry, of Pennsylvania, then a young man, accompanied the expedition. He wrote an account of the siege of Quebec, and in it he mentions the wives of Sergeant drier and of a pri vate soldier, who accompanied them. " Entering the ponds," he says, " and breaking the ice here and there with the butts of our guns, and our feet, we were soon waist-deep in mud and water. As is generally the case with youths, it came to my mind that a better path might be found than that of the more elderly guide. Attempting this, the water in a trice cooling my arm-pits, made me gladly return in the file. Now, Mrs. Grier had got before me. My mind was humbled, yet aston ished, at the exertions of this good woman." Like the soldiers, she waded through the deep waters and the mud. 4 Page 201. Several men who were afterward prominent actors in the Revolution, accompanied Arnold hi this expedition. Among them, also, was Aaron Burr, then a youth of twenty, who was afterward Y e-President of the United States. 6 Page 202. 8 Page 202. 7 This k French term, significant of a sudden sally of troops from a besieged city or fortress, to attack the besiegers. See page 434. 16 242 THE REYOLUTION. [1775. WALLS OF QUEBEC. awaited the arrival of Montgomery. These brave generals met on the 1st of December [1775], and woolen clothes which Montgomery brought from Mont real, were placed on the shivering limbs of Arnold s troops. The united forces, about nine hundred strong, then marched to Quebec. It was on the evening of the 5th of December when the Americans reached Quebec, and the next morning early, Montgomery sent a letter to Carleton, by a flag, 1 demanding an immediate surrender. The flag was fired upon, and the invaders were defied. With a few light cannons and some mortars, and ex posed to almost daily snow-storms in the open fields, the Americans besieged the city for three weeks. Success appearing only in assault, that measure was agreed upon, and before dawn, on the morning of the last day of the year [Dec. 31, 1775], while snow was falling thickly, the attempt was made. Montgomery had formed his little army into four columns, to assail the city at differ ent points. One of these, under Arnold, was to attack the lower town, and march along the St. Charles to join another division, under Montgomery, who was to approach by way of Cape Diamond, 3 and the two were to attempt a forced pass age into the city, through Prescott Gate. 3 At the same time, the other two columns, under Majors Livingston and Brown, were to make a feigned attack upon the upper town, from the Plains of Abraham. In accordance with this plan, Montgomery descended Wolfe s Ravine, and marched carefully along the ice-strewn beach, toward a pallisade and battery at Cape Diamond. At the head of his men, in the face of the driving snow, he had passed the pallisade unopposed, when a single discharge of a cannon from the battery, loaded with grape-shot, 4 killed him instantly, and slew several of his officers, among whom were his two aids, McPherson and Gheeseman. His followers instantly re treated. In the mean while, Arnold had been severely wounded, while attacking a barrier on the St. Charles, 5 and, the command of his division devolved upon Captain Morgan, 6 whose expert riflemen, with Lamb s artillery, forced their way into the lower town. After a contest of several hours, the Americans, under Morgan, were obliged to surrender them- 1 Messengers are sent from army to army with a white flag, indicating a desire for a peaceful interview. These flags, by common consent, are respected, and it is considered an outrage to fire on the bearer of one. The Americans were regarded as rebels, and undeserving the usual courtesy. 2 The high rocky promontory on which the citadel stands. 3 Prescott Gate is on the St. Lawrence side of the town, and there bars Mountain-street in its sinuous way from the water up into the walled city. The above diagram shows the plan of the city walls, and relative positions of the several gates mentioned. A is the St. Charles River, B the St. Lawrence, a Wolfe and Montcalm s monument [page 202], & the place where Montgomery fell, c the place where Arnold was wounded. 4 These are small balls confined in a cluster, and then discharged at once from a cannon. They scatter, and do great execution. 6 This was at the foot of the precipice, below the present grand lattery, near St. Paul s-street. 6 Afterward the famous General Morgan, whose rifle corps became so renowned, and who gained the victory at The Cowpens, in the whiter of 1781. See page 331. GENERAL MONTGOMERY. 1775.] FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 243 selves prisoners of war. The whole loss of the Americans, under Montgomery and Arnold, in this assault, was about one hundred and sixty. The British loss was only about twenty killed and wounded. Colonel Arnold, with the remainder of the troops, retired to Sillery, where he formed a camp, and passed a rigorous Canadian winter. He was relieved from chief command by General Wooster, 1 on the 1st of April, who came down from Montreal with reinforcements, when another ineffectual attempt was made to capture Quebec. When, a month afterward, General Thomas took the chief command [May, 1776], Carleton was receiving strong reinforcements from England, and the patriots were compelled to abandon all hope of conquering Canada. They were obliged to retreat so hastily before the overwhelming forces of Carleton, that they left their stores and sick behind them. 2 Abandon ing one post after another, the Americans were driven entirely out of Canada by the middle of June. The Virginians were rolling on the car of the Revolution, with a firm and steady hand, while the patriots were suffering defeats and disappointments at the North. We have already alluded to the fact, that the people of Williams- burg, then the capital of Virginia, had driven Lord Dunmore, the royal gov ernor, away from his palace, to take refuge on board a ship of war. 3 He was the first royal representative who " abdicated government," and he was greatly exasperated because he was compelled to do so in a very humiliating manner. From that vessel he sent letters, messages, and addresses to the Virginia House of Burgesses, 4 and received the same in return. Each exhibited much spirit. Finally, in the autumn, the governor proceeded to Norfolk, with the fleet, and collecting a force of Tories and negroes, commenced depredations in lower Vir ginia. With the aid of some British vessels, he attacked Hampton, near Old Point Comfort, 5 on the 24th of October, and was repulsed. He then declared open war. The Virginia militia flew to arms, and in a severe battle, fought on the 9th of December, at the Great Bridge, near the Dismal Swamp, twelve miles from Norfolk, Dunmore was defeated, and compelled to seek safety with the British shipping in Norfolk harbor. In that battle, the regiment of men, chiefly from Culpepper county, raised by Patrick Henry, and at the head of whom he demanded payment for the powder removed from Williamsburg, 6 did very important service. 7 1 Page 270. 2 General Thomas was seized with the small-pox, which had been raging some time in the American camp, and died at Chambly on the 30th of May. He was a native of Plymouth. Mass., and was one of the first eight brigadiers appointed by Congress [note 5, page 238]. Carleton treated the prisoners and sick with great humanity. He afterward, on the death of his father, be came Lord Dorchester. He died in 1808, aged eighty-three years. 3 Page 237. p age 7L 5 Page 64 6 Page 23 ^ 7 This regiment had adopted a flag with the significant device of a coiled rattle-snake, seen in the engraving. This device was upon many flags in the army and navy of the Eevolution. The expression, " Don t tread on me," had a double signification. It might be said in a supplicating tone, "Don t tread on me;" or menacingly, "Don t tread on me." The soldiers were dressed in green hunting-shirts, with Henry s words, LIBERTY OR DEATH [page 237], in large white letters, on their bosoms. They had bucks tails in their hats, and in their belts tomahawks and scalping-knives. Their CULPEPPER FLAG, fierce appearance alarmed the people, as they marched through the country. 244 THE REVOLUTION. Five days af^er the battle at the Great Bridge, the Virginians, under Colonel Woodford, entered Norfolk in triumph [Dec. 14, 1775], and the next morning they were joined by Colonel Robert Howe, 1 with a North Carolina regiment, when the latter assumed the general command. Dunmore was greatly exasperated by these reverses, and, in revenge, he caused -Norfolk to be burned early on the morning of the 1st of January, 1776. The conflagration raged for fifty hours, and while the wretched people were witnessing the destruction of their property, the modern Nero caused a cannonade to be kept up. 3 When the destruction was complete, he proceeded to play the part of a marauder along the defenseless coast of Virginia. For a time he made his head quarters upon Gwyn s island, in Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the Piankatank River, from which he was driven, with his fleet, by a brigade of Virginia troops under General Andrew Lewis. 3 After committing other depredations, he went to the West Indies, carrying with him about a thousand negroes which he had col lected during his marauding campaign, where he sold them, and in the follow ing autumn returned to England. These atrocities kindled an intense flame of hatred to royal rule throughout the whole South, and a desire for political independence of Great Britain budded spontaneously in a thousand hearts where, a few months before, the plant of true loyalty was blooming. CHAPTER III. SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1776.] THERE was great anxiety in the public mind throughout the colonies at the opening of the year 1776. The events of the few preceding months appeared unpropitious for the republican cause, and many good and true men were dis posed to pause and consider, before going another step in the path of rebellion. But the bolder leaders in the senate and in the camp were undismayed ; and the hopeful mind of Washington, in the midst of the most appalling discourage ments, faltered not for a moment. He found himself strong enough to be the effectual jailor of the British army in Boston, and now he was almost prepared to commence those blows which finally drove that army and its Tory abettors to the distant shores of Nova Scotia. 4 He had partially re-organized the conti- 1 Page 292. 3 When Dunmore destroyed Norfolk, its population was six thousand ; and so rapidly was it increasing in business and wealth, that in two years, from 1773 to 1775, the rents in the city in creased from forty thousand to fifty thousand dollars a year. The actual loss by the cannonade and conflagration was estimated at fifteen hundred thousand dollars. The personal suffering was incon ceivable. 8 General Lewis was a native of Virginia, and was in the battle when Braddock was killed. He was the commander of the Virginia troops in the battle at Point Pleasant [note 4, page 237], in the summer of 1774. He left the army, on account of illness, in 1780, and died not long after ward, while absent from home. * Note 2, page 80. 1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 245 nental forces under his command ; and on the first of January, 1776, he unfurled the Union Flag, for the first time, over the American camp at Cambridge. 1 His army had then dwindled to less than ten thousand effective men, and these were scantily fed and clothed, and imperfectly disciplined. But the camp was well supplied with provisions, and about ten thousand minute-men, 2 chiefly in Massachusetts, were held in reserve, ready to march when called upon. During the summer and autumn of 1775, the Continental Congress had put forth all its energies in preparations for a severe struggle with British power, now evidently near at hand. Articles of war were agreed to on the 30th of June ; a declaration of the causes for taking up arms was issued on the 6th of UNION FLAG. T SIX slANlSH U MLLLEr DOELAJR.S, or t>u A BILL OF CREDIT, OB CONTINENTAL MONEY. July; and before the close of the year, bills of credit, known as "continental money," representing the value of six millions of Spanish dollars, had been issued. 3 A naval establishment had also been commenced ; 4 and at the opening 1 The hoisting of that ensign was hailed by General Howe, the British commander in Boston, with great joy, for he regarded it as a token that a gracious speech of the king on American affairs, lately communicated to Parliament, was well received by the army, and that submission would speedily follow. That flag was composed of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, symbolizing the thir teen revolted colonies. In one corner was the device of the British Union Flag, namely, the cross of St. George, composed of a horizontal and perpendicular bar, and the cross of St. Andrew (represent ing Scotland), which is in the form of x . It was the appearance of that symbol of the British union that misled Howe. This flag is represented in the above little sketch. On the 14th of June, 1777, Congress ordered "thirteen stars, white, in a blue field," to be put in the place of the British union device. Such is the design of our flag at the present day. A star has been added for every new State admitted into the Union, while the original number of stripes is retained. 3 Page 229. 8 The resolution of the Continental Congress, providing for the emission of bills, \vas adopted on the 22d of June, 1775. The bills were printed and issued soon after, and other emissions were authorized, from time to time, during about four years. At the beginning of 1780, Congress had issued two hundred millions of dollars in paper money. After the second year, these bills began to depreciate; and in 1780, forty paper dollars were worth only one in specie. At the close of 1781, they were worthless. They had performed a temporary good, but were finally productive of great public evil, and much individual suffering. Some of these bills are yet in existence, and are con sidered great curiosities. They were rudely engraved, and printed on thick paper, which caused the British to call it "the paste-board money of the rebela" 4 Note 1, page 307. 246 THE REVOLUTION. [17V of 1776, many expert privateersmen 1 were hovering along our coasts, to the great terror and annoyance of British merchant vessels. There had been, up to this time, a strange apathy concerning American affairs, in the British Parliament, owing, chiefly, to the confidence reposed in the puissance of the imperial government, and a want of knowledge relative to the real strength of the colonies. Events had now opened the eyes of British statesmen to a truer appreciation of the relative position of the contestants, and the importance of vigorous action ; and at the close of 1775, Parliament had made extensive arrangements for crushing the rebellion. An act was passed [Nov., 1775], which declared the revolted colonists to be rebels; forbade all intercourse with them ; authorized the seizure and destruction or confiscation of all American vessels ; and placed the colonies under martial law. 8 An ag gregate land and. naval force of fifty-five thousand men was voted for the American service, and more than a million of dollars were appropriated for their pay and sustenance. In addition to these, seventeen thousand troops were hired by the British government from the Landgrave of Hesse- Cassel, and other petty German rulers, 3 to come hither to butcher loyal subjects who had peti tioned for their rights for ten long years, and now, even with arms in their hands, were praying for justice, and begging for reconciliation. This last act filled the cup of government iniquity to the brim. It was denounced in Par liament by the true friends of England, as "disgraceful to the British name," and it extinguished the last hope of reconciliation. The sword was now drawn, and the scabbard was thrown away. Intelligence of the proceedings in Parliament reached America in January, 1776, and Congress perceived the necessity of putting forth immediate and effi cient efforts for the defense of the extensive sea-coast of the colonies. Washing ton was also urged to attack the British in Boston, immediately ; and, by great efforts, the regular army was augmented to about fourteen thousand men to ward the close of February. In the mean while, the provincial Congress of Massachusetts organized the militia of the province anew, and ten regiments, making about three thousand men, arrived in camp early in February. The entire army now numbered about seventeen thousand effective men, while the British force did not exceed five thousand fit for duty. Reinforcements were daily expected from Halifax, New York, and Ireland, and the present seemed a proper moment to strike. Bills of credit, 4 representing four millions of dol lars more, were issued ; Congress promised energetic co-operation ; and on the 1 Private individuals, having a license from government to arm and equip a vessel, and with it to depredate upon the commerce of a nation with which that people are then at war, are called privateersmen, and their vessels are known as privateers. During the Revolution, a vast number of English vessels were captured by American privateersmen. It is, after all, only legalized piracy, and enlightened nations begin to view it so. 2 Note 8, page 170. 3 The Landgrave (or petty prince) of Hesse-Cassel, having furnished the most considerable por tion of these troops, they were called by the general name of Hessians. Ignorant, brutal, and bloodthirsty, they were hated by the patriots, and despised even by the regular English army. They were always employed in posts of greatest danger, or in expeditions least creditable. These troops cost the British government almost eight hundred thousand dollars, besides the necessity, according to the contract, of defending the little principalities thus stripped, against their foes. 4 Page 245 - 1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 247 1st of March, Washington felt strong enough to attempt a dislodgment of the enemy from the crushed city. 1 On the evening of the 2d of March [1776], a heavy cannonade was opened upon Boston, from all the American batteries, and was continued, with brief intermissions, until the 4th. On the evening of that day, General Thomas, 2 with twelve hundred men with intrenching tools, and a guard of eight hundred, proceeded secretly to a high hill, near Dorchester, on the south side of Boston, and before morning, they cast up a line of strong intrenchments, and planted heavy cannons there, which completely commanded the city and harbor. It was the anniversary of the memorable Boston Massacre, 3 and many patriots felt the blood coursing more swiftly through their veins, as the recollection of that event gave birth to vengeful feelings. It had nerved their arms while toiling all that long night, and they felt a great satisfaction in knowing that they had prepared works which not only greatly astonished and alarmed the British, but which would be instrumental in achieving a great victory. The enemy felt the danger, and tried to avert it. Perceiving the imminent peril of both fleet and army, General Howe pre pared an expedition to drive the Americans from their vantage-ground on Dor chester heights. A storm suddenly arose, and made the harbor impassable. 4 The delay allowed the patriots time to make their works almost impregnable, and the British were soon compelled to surrender as prisoners of war, or to evacuate the city immediately, to avoid destruction. As prisoners, they would have been excessively burdensome to the colonies ; so, having formally agreed to allow them to depart without injury, Washington had the inexpressible pleasure of saying, in a letter written to the President of Congress, on Sunday, the 17th of March, "that this morning the ministerial troops evacuated the town of Boston, without destroying it, and that we are now in full possession." Seven thousand soldiers, four thousand seamen, and fifteen hundred families of loyalists, 6 sailed for Halifax on that day. The gates on Boston Neck were now unbarred ; and General Ward, with five thousand of the troops at Roxbury, entered the city, with drums beating, and banners waving, greeted on every side with demonstrations of joy by the redeemed people. General Putnam soon afterward [March 18] entered with another division, and, in command of the whole, he took possession of the city and all the forts, in the name of the Thirteen United Colonies. 1 Page 226. a Page 243. 3 Page 221. 4 A similar event occurred to frustrate the designs of the British at Torktown, several years afterward. See page 341. 6 It must be remembered that the Americans were by no means unanimous in their opposition to Great Britain. From the beginning there were many who supported the crown ; and as the colonists became more and more rebellious, these increased. Some because they believed their brethren to be wrong ; others through timidity ; and a greater number because they thought it their interest to adhere to the king. The loyalists, or Tories, were the worst and most efficient en emies of the Whigs [note 4, page 226] during the whole war. Those who left Boston at this time, were afraid to encounter the exasperated patriots, when they should return to their desolated homes in the city, from which they had been driven by military persecution. The churches had been stripped of their pulpits and pews, for fuel, fine shade trees had been burned, and many houses had been pillaged and damaged by the soldiery. 248 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. Washington had been informed, early in January, that General Sir Henry Clinton had sailed from Bos ton, with a considerable body of troops, on a secret ex pedition. Apprehending that the city of New York was his destination, he immediately dispatched General Charles Lee to Connecticut to raise troops, and to pro ceed to that city to watch and oppose Clinton wherever he might attempt to land. Six weeks before the evacu ation of Boston [March 17, 1776], Lee had encnmped near New York with twelve hundred militia. Already GENERAL LEE. J the &ons of Liberty had been busy, and overt acts of rebellion had been committed by them. They had seized the cannons at Fort George, 2 and driven Tryon, 3 the royal governor, on board the Asia, a British armed vessel in the harbor. In March, Clinton arrived at Sandy Hook, just outside New York harbor, and on the same day, the watchful Lee 4 providen tially entered the city. The movement, although without a knowledge of Clin ton s position, was timely, for it kept him at bay. Foiled in his attempt upon New York, that commander sailed southward, where we shall meet him pres ently. The destination of Howe, when he left Boston, was also unknown to Wash ington. Supposing he, too, would proceed to New York, he put the main body of his army in motion toward that city, as soon as he had placed Boston in a state of security. He arrived in New York about the middle of April [April 14], and proceeded at once to fortify the town and vicinity, and also the passes of the Hudson Highlands, fifty miles above. In the mean while, General Lee, who had been appointed to command the American forces in the South, had left his troops in the charge of General Lord Stirling 5 [March 7], and was. hastening toward the Carolinas to watch the movements of Clinton, arouse the Whigs, and gather an army there. In the spring of 1776, a considerable fleet, under Admiral Sir Peter Parker, was sent from England, to operate against the sea-coast towns of the southern colonies. Parker was joined by Clinton, at Cape Fear, in May, when the latter took the chief command of all the land forces. The fleet arrived off Charleston bar on the 4th of June, and on the same day, Clinton, with several hundred men, landed on Long Island, which lies eastward of Sullivan s Island. Apprised of these hostile designs, and elated by a victory obtained by North Carolina militia, under Colonel Caswell, over fifteen hundred loyalists 6 [February 27, 1 Note 1. page 215. 1 This fort stood at the foot of Broadway, on a portion of the site of the present "Battery." 8 Page 223. 4 Charles Lee was born in Wales in 1731. He was a brave officer in the British army during the French and Indian War. He settled in Virginia in 1773, and was one of the first brigadiers of the Continental army appointed by Congress. His ambition and perversity of temper, finally caused Ms ruin. He died in Philadelphia in 1782. See page 288. 8 Page 254. 6 These were chiefly Scotch Highlanders, and were led by Donald McDonald, an influential Scotchman then residing at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. The husband of Flora McDonald, so celebrated in connection with the flight of the young Pretender from Scotland, at the close of the rebellion in 1745, was in the battle. Flora was then living at Cross Creek. 1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 249 1776], on Moore s Creek, in the present Hanover county, the southern patriots had cheerfully responded to the call of Governor Rutledge, and about six thou sand armed men had collected in and near Charleston, when the enemy appeared. 1 The city and eligible posts near it, had been fortified, and quite a strong fort, composed of palmetto logs and sand, and armed with twenty-six mounted cannons, had been erected upon Sullivan s Island, to command the channel leading to the town. This fort was garrisoned by about five hundred men, chiefly militia, under Colo nel William Moultrie. 2 A combined attack, by land and water, upon GENERAL MOULTHIE. Sullivan s Island, was commenced by the British, on the morning of the 28th of June, 1776. While the fleet was pouring a terrible storm of iron balls upon Fort Sullivan, Clinton endeavored, but in vain, to force a passage across a narrow creek which divided the two islands, in order to attack the yet unfinished fortress in the rear. But Colonel Thompson, with a small battery on the east end of Sullivan s Island, repelled every forward movement of Clinton, while the cannons of the fort were spreading havoc among the British vessels. 3 The conflict raged for almost ten hours, and only ceased when night fell upon the scene. Then the British fleet, almost shattered into frag ments, withdrew, and abandoned the enterprise. 4 The slaughter of the British had been frightful. Two hundred and twenty-five had been killed or wounded, while only two of the garrison were killed, and twenty-two were wounded. 5 The British departed for New York three days afterward 6 [June 31, 1776], and for more than two years, the din of war was not heard below the Roanoke. This victory had a most inspiriting effect upon the patriots throughout the land. 1 General Armstrong of Pennsylvania [page 193], had arrived in South Carolina in April, and took the general command. Lee arrived on the same day when the British, under Clinton, landed on Long Island. 3 Born in South Carolina, in 1730. He was in the Cherokee war [page 204], in 1761. He was an active officer until made prisoner, in 1780, when for two years he was not allowed to bear arms. He died in 1805. General Moultrie wrote a very interesting memoir of the war in the South. 3 At one time, every man but Admiral Parker was swept from the -deck of his vessel. Among those who were badly wounded, was Lord William Campbell, the royal governor of South Carolina, who afterward died of his wounds. 4 The Acteon, a large vessel, grounded on a shoal between Fort Sullivan and the city, where she was burned by the Americans. 6 The strength of the fort consisted in the capacity of the spongy palmetto logs, upon which can non-balls would make very little impression. It appeared to be a very insecure defense, and Lee advised Moultrie to abandon it when the British approached. But that brave officer would not desert it, and was rewarded with victory. The ladies of Charleston presented his regiment with a pair of elegant colors, and the "slaughter pen," as Lee ironically called Fort Sullivan, was named Fort Moultrie. During the action, the staff, bearing a large flag, was cut down by a cannon-ball from the fleet. The colors fell outside the fort. A sergeant named Jasper, leaped down from one of the bastions, and in the midst of the iron hail that was pouring from the fort, coolly picked up the flag, ascended to the bastion, and calling for a sponge-staff, tied the colors to it, stuck it in the sand, and then took his place among his companions in the fort. A few days afterward, Governor Rutledge took his own sword from his side, and presented it to the brave Jasper; he also offered him a lieutenant s commission, which the young man modestly declined, because he could neither read nor write, saying, "I am not fit to keep officers company I am but a sergeant." 6 Page 252. 250 TIIE REVOLUTION. [1776. Important events in the progress of the war were now thickening. Re bellion had become revolution. While the stirring events at the South, just mentioned, were transpiring, and while Wash ington was augmenting and strengthening the continental army in New York, and British troops and German hirelings 1 were approach ing by thousands, the Continental Congress, now in permanent session in the State House at Philadelphia, had a question of vast im portance under consideration. A few men, look- STATE HOUSE. ing beyond the storm-clouds of the present, beheld bright visions of glory for their country, when the people, now declared to be rebels, 2 and out of the protection of the British king, should organize themselves into a sovereign nation. " The light ning of the Crusades was in the people s hearts, and it needed but a single electric touch, to make it blaze forth upon the world," says James, in writing of an earlier disruption of political systems. 3 So it was now, in the American colonies. The noble figure of an independent nation stood forth with a beauty that almost demanded worship. The grand idea began to flash through the popular mind at the close of 1775 ; and when, early in 1776, it was tangibly spoken by Thomas Paine, in a pamphlet entitled Common Sense* (said to have been suggested by Dr. Rush), 6 and whose vigorous thoughts were borne by the press to every community, a desire for independence filled the hearts of the people. In less than eighty days after the evacuation of Boston [March 17, 1776], almost every provincial Assembly had spoken in favor of independence ; and on the 7th of June, in the midst of the doubt, and dread, and hesitation, which for twenty days had brooded over the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, 8 1 Page 246. 2 Page 246. 3 History of the Crusades, by G. P. R. James. 4 The chief topic of this remarkable pamphlet, was the right and expediency of colonial inde pendence. Paine also wrote a series of equally powerful papers, called The Crisis. The first num ber was written in Fort Lee, on the Hudson, in December, 1776, and published while Washington was on the banks of the Delaware. See page 192. These had a powerful effect in stimulating the people to efforts for independence. They were highly valued by the commander-in-chief, and he pro moted their circulation. "Writing to a friend soon after the appearance of Common Sense, Washington said, " By private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find that Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men." 6 Benjamin Rush was one of the most eminent men of his time, as a physician, a man of science, and an active patriot during the whole Revolution. He was born twelve miles from Philadelphia, in 1745. He was educated at Princeton, completed his scientific studies in Edinburg, and after his return, he soon rose to the highest eminence in his profession. He was the recipient of many honors, and as a member of the Continental Congress, in 1776, he advocated and signed the Declar ation of Independence. His labors during the prevalence of yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1793, gave him the imperishable crown of a true philanthropist. He founded the Philadelphia Dispensary in 1786; and he was also one of the principal founders of Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pennsyl vania. He was president of the American Society for the abolition of slavery ; of the Philadelphia Medical Society ; vice-president of the Philadelphia Bible Society; and 9ne of the vice-presidents of the American Philosophical Society. He died in April, 1813, at the age of almost sixty-eight years. A portrait of Dr. Rush may be found on the next page. 6 Richard Henry Lee was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, in 1732. He was educated in England, and was in public life most of the time after reaching his majority. He was one of the earliest opposers of the Stamp Act ; was a member of the first Continental Congress, and signed that Declaration of Independence which he so nobly advocated. He was afterward a member of the United States Senate; and soon after his retirement to private life, in 1794. he, died, when in the 1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 251 of Virginia, arose in his place, and with his clear, musical voice, read aloud the Resolution, "That thes j , united colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, free and independent States : that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved." l / This was an exceedingly bold step, and the resolution did not meet with general favor in Congress, at first. Many yet hoped, even against hope, for reconciliation, and thought it premature, and there were some timid ones who trembled while standing so near the borders of high treason. After debating the subject for three days, the further consideration of it was postponed until the first of July. A committee 2 was appointed [June 11], however, to draw sixty-third year of his age. A characteristic anecdote is told of his son, who was at school, in England, at the time the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. One day a gentleman asked his tutor, "What boy is this?" "He is the son of Richard Henry Lee, of America," the tutor replied. The gentleman put his hand on the boy s head, and said, " We shall yet see your father s head upon Tower Hill." The boy instantly answered, " You may have it when you can get it." That boy was the late Ludwell Lee, Esq. 1 On the 10th of May, Congress had, by resolution, recommended the establishment of independ ent State governments hi all the colonies. This, however, was not sufficiently national to suit the bolder and wiser members of that body, and the people at large. Lee s resolution more fully expressed the popular will. 2 Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia ; John Adams, of Massachusetts ; Benjamin Franklin, of Penn sylvania; Roger Sherman, of Connecticut ; and Robert R. Livingston, of New Tork. Mr. Lee waa summoned home to the bedside of a sick wife, on the day before the appointment of the committee^ or he would doubtless have been its chairman. ll 252 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. up a declaration in accordance with the resolution, and were instructed to report on the same day when the latter should be called up. Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, the youngest member of the committee, was chosen its chairman, and to him was assigned the task of preparing the Declaration. Adams and Frank lin made a few alterations in his draft, and it was submitted to Congress at the same hour when Mr. Lee s resolution was taken up for consideration. On the following day [July 2], the resolution was adopted by a large majority. The Declaration was debated almost two days longer ; and finally, at about mid-day, on the 4th of July, 1776, the representatives of thirteen colonies unanimously declared them free and independent States, under the name of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The Declaration was signed, but with the name of John Hancock only, and thus it first went forth to the world. It was ordered to be written on parchment, and on the 2d of August following, the names of all but two of the fifty-six signers 1 were placed upon it. These two were added afterward. It had then been read to the army ; 2 at public meetings ; from a hundred pulpits, and in all legislative halls in the land, and everywhere awakened the warmest responses of approval. Pursuant to instructions, General Howe proceeded toward New York, to meet General Clinton and Parker s fleet. He left Halifax on the llth of June, [1776], and arrived at Sandy Hook 3 on the 29th. On the 2d of July he took possession of Staten Island, where he was joined by Sir Henry Clinton [July 11], from the South, 4 and his brother, Admiral Lord Howe [July 12], with a fleet and a large land force, from England. Before the first of August, other vessels arrived with a part of the Hessian troops, 5 and on that day, almost thirty thousand soldiers, many of them tried veterans, stood ready to fall upon the republican army of seventeen thousand men, mostly militia, which lay intrenched in New York and vicinity, less than a dozen miles distant. 7 The 1 This document, containing the autographs of those venerated fathers of our republic, is care fully preserved in a glass case, in the rooms of the National Institute at Washington city. Not one of all that band of patriots now survives. Charles Carrol was the last to leave us. He departed in 1832, at the age of ninety years. See Supplement. It is worthy of remembrance that not one of all those signers of the Declaration of Independence, died with a tarnished reputation. The memory of aU, is sweet. 2 Washington caused it to be read at the head of each brigade of the army, then in New York city, on the 9th of July. That night, citizens and soldiers pulled down the leaden equestrian statue of George III., which stood in the Bowling Green, and it was soon afterward converted into bullets for the use of the Continental army. The statue ws gilded. The head of the horse was toward the Hudson River. The Rev. Zachariah Greene, who died at Hempstead, Long Island, in June, 1858, at the age of 99 years, heard the Declaration read to the soldiers. He was in the army. a Sandy Hook is a low ridge of sand, extending several miles down the New Jersey shore, from the entrance to Raritan or Amboy Bay. Between it and the shore, the water is navigable ; and near the mouth of Shrewsbury River, the ridge is broken by an inlet. 4 Page 249. 6 Page 246. 6 There were about twenty-seven thousand men enrolled, but not more than seventeen thousand men were fit for duty. A great many were sick, and a large number were without arms. 7 Many of the sliips passed through the Narrows, and anchored in New York Bay. Howe s flag-ship, the Eagle, lay near Governor s Island. While in that position, a bold soldier went in a submarine vessel, with a machine for blowing up a ship, and endeavored to fasten it to the bottom of the Eagle, but failed. He was discovered, and barely escaped. An explosion of the machine took place near the Eagle, and the commander was so alarmed, that she was hastily moved further down the Bay. This machine was constructed by David Bushnell, of Connecticut, and was called a torpedo. See Note 2, page 285. i77b.{ SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 253 grand object in view was the seizure of New York and the country along the Hudson, so as to keep open a communication with Canada, separate the patriots of New England from those of the other States, and to overrun the most populous portion of the revolted colonies. This was the military plan, arranged by ministers. They had also prepared instructions to their commanding generals, to be pacific, if the Americans appeared disposed to submit. Lord Howe 1 and his brother, the general, were commissioned to " grant pardon to all who deserved mercy," and to treat for peace, but only on terms of absolute submission on the part of the colonies, to the will of the king and parliament. After making a foolish display of arrogance and weakness, in addressing General Washington as a private gentleman, 2 and being assured that the Americans had been guilty of no offense requiring a " pardon" at their hands, they prepared to strike an immediate and effective blow. The British army was accordingly put in motion on the morning of the 22d of August [1776], and during that day, ten thousand effective men, and forty pieces of cannon, were landed on the west ern end of Long Island, between the present Fort Hamilton and Gravesend- village. Already detachments of Americans under General Sullivan, occupied a fortified camp at Brooklyn, opposite New York, and guarded seven passes on a range of hills which extend from the Narrows to the village of Jamaica. 3 When intelligence of the landing of the invading army reached Washington, he sent General Putnam, 4 with large reinforcements, to take the chief command on Long Island, and to prepare to meet the enemy. The American troops on the island now [August 26], numbered about five thousand. GENERAL PUTNAM The British moved in three divisions. The left, under General Grant, marched along the shore toward Gowanus ; the right, under Clinton and Cornwallis, toward the interior of the island ; and the cen ter, composed chiefly of Hessians, 5 under De Heister, marched up the Flatbush road, south of the hills. Clinton moved under cover of night, and before dawn on the morning of 1 Richard, Earl Howe, was brother of the young Lord Howe [page 197], killed at Ticonderoga. He was born in 1725, and died in 1799. 2 The letters of Lord Howe to the American commander-in-chief, were addressed, " George "Washington, Esq." As that did not express the public character of the chief, and as he would not confer with the enemies of his country in a private capacity, Washington refused to receive the letters. Howe was instructed not to acknowledge the authority of Congress in any way, and as "Washington had received his commission from that body, to address him as " general," would have been a recognition of its authority. He meant no disrespect to Washington. Congress, by resolu tion, expressed its approbation of Washington s dignified course. 3 General Nathaniel Green had been placed in command of this division, but having been pros trated by bilious fever, about a week before the landing of the British at the Narrows, Sullivan was placed at the head of the troops. 4 Israel Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1718. He was a very useful officer during the French and Indian war, and was in active service in the continental army, until 1779, when bodily infirmity compelled him to retire. He died in 1790, at the age of seventy-two years. 6 Page 246. 254 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. the 27th, he had gained possession of the Jamaica pass, near the present East New York. At the same time, Grant was pressing forward along the shore of New York Bay, and at day-break, he encountered Lord Stirling, 1 where the monuments of Greenwood cemetery now dot the hills. De Heister advanced from Flatbush at the same hour, and attacked Sullivan, who, having no suspicions of the movements of Clinton, was watching the Flatbush Pass. A bloody conflict ensued, and while it was progressing, Clinton descended from the wooded hills, by the way of Bedford, to gain Sul livan s rear. As soon as the latter perceived his peril, he ordered a retreat to the American lines at Brooklyn. It was too late ; Clinton drove him back upon the Hessian bayonets, and after fighting desperately, hand to hand, with the foe in front and rear, and losing a greater portion of his men, Sullivan was compelled to surrender. As usual, misfortunes did not come single. While these disasters were occurring on the left, Cornwallis descended the port-road to Gowanus, and attacked Stirling. They fought desperately, until Stirling was made prisoner. 2 Many of his troops were drowned while endeavoring to escape across the Gow anus Creek, as the tide was rising ; and a large number were captured. At noon the victory for the British was complete. About five hundred Americans were killed or wounded, and eleven hundred were made prisoners. These were soon suffering dreadful horrors in prisons and prison-ships, at New York. 3 The British loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was three hundred and sixty- seven. It was with the deepest anguish that Washington had viewed, from New York, the destruction of his troops, yet he dared not weaken his power in the city, by sending reinforcements to aid them. He crossed over on the following morning [August 28], with Mifflin, 4 who had come down from the upper end of York island with a thousand troops, and was gratified to find the enemy encamped in front of Putnam s lines, and delaying an attack until the British fleet should co-operate with him. This delay allowed Washington time to form and execute a plan for the salvation of the remainder of the army, now too weak to resist an- assault with any hope of success. Under cover of a heavy fog, which fell upon the hostile camps at midnight of the 29th, and continued until the morning of the 30th, he silently withdrew them from the camp, 6 and, 1 William Alexander, Lord Stirling, was a descendant of the Scotch earl of Stirling, mentioned in note 2, page 80. He was born in the city of New York, in 1726. He became attached to the patriot cause, and was an active officer during the war. He died in 1783, aged fifty-seven years. a Stirling was sent immediately on board of the Eagk, Lord Howe s flag-ship. 3 Among the prisoners was General Nathaniel Woodhull [Note 1, page 198], late president of the provincial Congress of New York. He was taken prisoner on the 30th, and after being severely wounded at the time, he was so neglected, that his injuries proved fatal in the course of a few days. His age was fifty -three. See Onderdonk s Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island. 4 Page 352. 6 During the night, a woman living near the present Fulton Ferry, where the Americana embarked, having become offended at some of the patriots, sent her negro servant to inform the RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS FROM LONG ISLAND. 1776.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 257 unperceived by the British, they all crossed over to New York in safety, carry ing every thing with them but their heavy cannons. When the fog rolled away, and the sunlight burst upon Brooklyn and New York, the last boat-load of patriots had reached the city shore. Mifflin, with his Pennsylvania battalion, and the remains of two broken Maryland regiments, formed the covering party. Washington and his staff, who had been in the saddle all night, remained until the last company had embarked. Surely, if " the stars in their courses fought against Sisera," in the time of Deborah, 1 the wings of the Cherubim of Mercy and Hope were over the Americans on this occasion. Howe, who felt sure of his prey, was greatly mortified, and prepared to make an immediate attack upon New York, before the Americans should become reinforced, or should escape from it. 2 Unfortunately for the cause of freedom, at that time, the troops under Washington lacked that unity of feeling and moral stamina, so necessary for the accomplishment of success in any struggle. Had patriotism prevailed in every heart in the American army, it might have maintained its position in the sity, and kept the British at bay. But there were a great many of merely selfish men in the camp. Sectional differences 3 weakened the bond of union, and immorality of every kind prevailed. 4 There was also a general spirit of insub ordination, and the disasters on Long Island disheartened the timid. Hundreds deserted the cause, and went home. Never, during the long struggle of after years, was the hopeful mind of Washington more clouded by doubts, than during the month of September, 1776. In the midst of the gloom and perplex ity, he called a council of war [Sept. 12th], and it was determined to send the military stores to Dobbs Ferry, a secure place twenty-two miles up the Hud son, and to retreat to and fortify Harlem Heights, 5 near the upper end of York British of the movement. The negro fell into the hands of the Hessians. They could not under stand a word of his language, and detained him until so late in the morning that his information was of no avail. a Judges, chapter v., verse 20. 2 He ordered several vessels of war to sail around Long Island, and come down the Sound to Flushing Bay, so as to cover the intended landing of the troops upon the main [page 258], in "Westchester county. In the mean while, Howe made an overture for peace, supposing the late dis aster would dispose the Americans to listen eagerly to almost any proposition for reconciliation. He parolled General Sullivan, and by him sent a verbal communication to Congress, suggesting a committee for conference. It was appointed, and consisted of Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge. On the llth of September, they met Lord Howe at the house of Captain Billop, on Staten Island, opposite Perth Amboy. The committee would treat only for independence, and the conference had no practical result, except to widen the breach. "When Howe spoke patron izingly of protection for the Americans, Dr. Franklin told him courteously, that the Americans were not in need of British protection, for they were fully able to protect themselves. 3 The army, which at first consisted chiefly of New England people, had been reinforced by others from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, all of them jealous of their respective claims to precedence, and materially differing in their social habits. 4 Cotemporary writers give a sad picture of the army at this time. Among many of the sub ordinate officers, greed usurped the place of patriotism. Officers were elected on condition that they should throw their pay and rations into a joint stock for the benefit of a company ; surgeons sold recommendations for furloughs, for able-bodied men, at sixpence each ; and a captain was cashiered for stealing blankets from his soldiers. Men went out in squads to plunder from friend and foe, to the disgrace of the army. Its appointments, too, were in a wretched condition. The surgeons department lacked instruments. According to a general return of fifteen regiments, there were not more than sufficient instruments for one battalion. [See "Washington s Letter to Congress, Sept. 24, 1776.] 5 These extend from the plain on which the village of Harlem stands, about seven and a half 17 258 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. Island. 1 This was speedily accomplished; and when, on the 15th, a strong detachment of the British army crossed the East River from Long Island, and landed three miles above the town, at Kipps Bay (now foot of Thirty-fourth- street, East River), without much opposition, 2 the greater portion of the Amer icans were busy in fortifying their new camp on Harlem Heights. The invading Britons formed a line almost across the island to Bloomingdale, within two miles of the American intrenchments, just beyond the present Man- hattanville, while the main army on Long Island was stationed at different points from Brooklyn to Flushing. 3 On the 16th, detachments of the belliger- ents met on Harlem plains, and a severe skirmish ensued. The Americans were victorious, but their triumph cost the lives of two brave officers Colonel Knowlton of Connecticut, and Major Leitch of Virginia. Yet the effect of the victory was inspiriting ; and so faithfully did the patriots ply muscle and im plement, that before Howe could make ready to attack them, they had con structed double lines of intrenchments, and were prepared to defy him. At once perceiving the inutility of attacking the Americans in front, he next en deavored to gain their rear. Leaving quite a strong force to keep possession of the city 4 [Sept. 20], he sent three armed vessels up the Hudson to cut off the communications of the Americans with New Jersey, while the great bulk of his army (now reinforced by an arrival of fresh troops from England) 5 made their way [Oct. 12] to a point in Westchester county, 6 beyond the Harlem River. When Washington perceived the designs of his en emy, he placed a garrison of almost three thousand men, under Colonel Magaw, in Fort Washington, 7 and withdrew the remainder of his army 8 to a position on the Bronx River, in Westchester county, to oppose Howe, or retreat in safety to the Hudson Highlands, if necessary. He established his FORT WASHINGTON, head-quarters at White Plains village, and there, on the 28th miles from the City Hall, New York to Two Hundred and Sixth-street, near King s Bridge, at the upper end of the island. 1 Also called Manhattan. See note 1, page 48. 2 Some Connecticut troops, frightened by the number and martial appearance of the British, fled at their approach. Washington, then at Harlem, heard the cannonade, leaped into his saddle, and approached Kipp s Bay in time to meet the flying fugitives. Mortified by this exhibition of cowardice before the enemy, the commander-in-chief tried to rally them, and in that effort, he waa so unmindful of himself, that he came near being captured. 3 Wishing to ascertain the exact condition of the British army, Washington engaged Captain Nathan Hale, of Knowlton s regiment, to secretly visit their camps on Long Island, and make observations. He was caught, taken to Howe s head-quarters, Turtle Bay, New York, and exe cuted as a spy by the brutal provost-marshal, Cunningham. He was not allowed to have a Bible nor clergyman during Ms last hours, nor to send letters to his friends. His fate and Andre s [page 326] have been compared. For particulars of this affair, see Onderdonk s Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, etc., and Lossing s Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution. 4 At one o clock on the morning of the 21st, a fire broke out in a small groggery near the foot of Broad-street, and before it was extinguished, about five hundred buildings were destroyed. The British charged the fire upon the Americans. Although such incendiarism had been contemplated when the Americans found themselves compelled to evacuate the city, this was purely accidental. 6 The whole British army now numbered about 35,000 men. 6 Throg s Neck, sixteen miles from the city. 7 Fort Washington was erected early in 1776, upon the highest ground on York Island, ten miles from the city, between One Hundred and Eighty-first-street and One Hundred and Eighty- sixth-streets, and overlooking both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. There were a few traces of its embankments yet visible so late as 1856. B Nominally, nineteen thousand men, but actually effective, not more than half that number. V A-L, Stephens Augustus Rot>:in,N.y 177G.] SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR FO (". INDEPENDENCE. 259 of October, a severe engagement took place. 1 The Americans were driven from their position, and three days afterward [Nov. 1, 1776], formed a strong camp on the hills of North Castle, five miles further north. The British general was afraid to pursue them ; and after strengthening the post at Peekskill, at the lower entrance to the Highlands, and securing the vantage-ground at North Castle, 2 Washington crossed the Hudson [Nov. 12] with the main body of his army, and joined General Greene at Fort Lee, on the Jersey shore, about two miles south of Fort Washington. This movement was made on account of an apparent preparation by the British to invade New Jersey and march upon Philadelphia, where the Congress was in session. 3 General Knyphausan and a large body of Hessians 4 had arrived at New York, and joined the British army at Westchester, previous to the engagement at White Plains. After Washington had crossed the Hudson, these German troops and a part of the English army, five thousand strong, proceeded to attack Fort Washington. They were successful, but at a cost to the victors of full one thousand brave men. 5 More than two thousand Americans were made prison ers of war [Nov. 16], and like their fellow-captives on Long Island, 6 they were crowded into loathsome prisons and prison-ships. 7 Two days afterward [Nov. 18], Lord Cornwallis, with six thousand men, crossed the Hudson at Dobbs 7 Ferry, and took possession of Fort Lee, which the Americans had abandoned on his approach, leaving all the baggage and military stores behind them. During the siege, General Washington, with Putnam, Greene, and Mercer, ascended the heights, and from the abandoned mansion of Roger Morris, 8 sur veyed the scene of operations. Within fifteen minutes after they had left that mansion, Colonel Stirling, of the British army, who had just repulsed an 1 The combatants lost about an equal number of men not more than three hundred each in killed, wounded, and prisoners. General Heath was left in command in the Highlands, and General Lee at North Castle. Page 250. That body afterward adjourned to Baltimore, in Maryland. See page 262 Page 246. The loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, did not exceed one hundred. Page 254. Nothing could exceed the horrors of these t crowded prisons, as described by an eye-witness. The sugar-houses of New York being large, were used for the purpose, and therein scores suffered and died. But the most terrible scenes occurred on board several old hulks, which were anchored in the waters around New York, and used for prisoners. Of them the Jersey was the most notorious for the suf- \ ferings it contained, and the brutality of its officers. ^^ Prom these vessels, anchored near the present Navy THE JERSEY PRISON-SHIP. Yard, at Brooklyn, almost eleven thousand victims were carried ashore during the war, and buried in shallow graves in the sand. Their remains were gathered in 1808, and put in a vault situated near the termination of Front-street and Hudson- avenue, Brooklyn. See Onderdonk s Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island. Lossing s Field Book, supplement. 8 That mansion, elegant even now [1867], is standing on the high bank of the Harlem Eiver, at One Hundred and Sixty-ninth-street. Eoger Morris was Washington s companion-in-arms on the field where Braddock was defeated, and he had married Mary Phillipse, a young lady whose charms had captivated the heart of Washington when he was a young Virginia colonel. It was the property of Madame Jumel (widow of Aaron Burr, who was Vice-President of the United States, under Jefferson}, at the time of her death in 1865. 260 Tj EYOLUTIO [1776. American party, came with hn ^ctorious troops, . ? i took possession of it. It was a narrow escape for those -Aiief commanders. A melancholy and a brilliant chapter in thj ^;. fory of the war for Inde pendence, was now opened. For three weeks Washington, with his shattered and daily diminishing army, was flying before an overwhelming force of Brit ons. Scarcely three thousand troops now remained in the American army. Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton, successively fell into the power of Cornwallis. So close were the British vanguards upon the rear of the Americans, sometimes, that each could hear the music of the other. Day after day, the militia left the army as their terms of enlistment expired, for late reverses had sadly dispirited them, and many of the regulars 1 deserted. Loyalists were swarming all over the country through which they passed, 2 and when, on the 7th of December, Washington reached the frozen banks of the Delaware, at Trenton, he had less than three thousand men, most of them wretchedly clad, half famished, and without tents to shelter them from the biting winter air. On the 8th that remnant of an army crossed the Delaware in boats, just as one division of Comwallis s pursuing army marched into Trenton with all the pomp of victors, and sat down, almost in despair, upon the Pennsylvania shore. Washington had hoped to make a stand at New Brunswick, but was disap pointed. The services of the Jersey and Maryland brigades expired on the day when he left that place, and neither of them would remain any longer in the army. During his flight, Washington had sent repeated messages to General Lee, 3 urging him to leave North Castle, 4 and reinforce him. That officer, am bitious as he was impetuous and brave, hoping to strike a blow against the British that might give himself personal renown, was so tardy in his obedience, that he did not enter New Jersey until the Americans had crossed the Dela ware. He had repeatedly, but in vain, importuned General Heath, who was left in command at Peekskill, to let him have a detachment of one or two thou sand men, with which to operate. His tardiness in obedience, cost him his liberty. Soon after entering New Jersey, he was made a prisoner [December 1 Note 6, page 185. 2 General Howe had sent out proclamations through the country, offering pardon and protection to all who might ask for mercy. Perceiving the disasters to the American arms during the summer and autumn, great numbers took advantage of these promises, and signed petitions. They soon found that protection did not follow pardon, for the Hessian troops, in their march through New Jersey, committed great excesses, without inquiring whether their victims were Whigs or Tories. Note 4, page 226. Among the prominent men who espoused the republican cause, and now aban doned it, was Tucker, president of the New Jersey Convention, which had sanctioned the Declara tion of Independence, and Joseph Galloway, a member of the first Continental Congress. These, and other prominent recusants, received some hard hits in the public prints. A writer in the Penn sylvania Journal, of February 5, 1777, thus castigated Galloway: "Gall way has fled, and join d the venal Howe, To prove his baseness, see him cringe and bow ; A traitor to his country and its laws, A friend to tyrants and their cursed cause. Unhappy wretch ! thy interest must be sold For Continental, not for polish d gold. To sink the money thou thyself cried down, And stabb d thy country to support the crown. 11 * Note 4, page 185. * Page 259 1776.] SECOND YEAF F THE W-A R INDEPENDENCE, 261 FO 13, 1776], and his comma a . devolved upon .eral Sullivan. 1 At about the same time intelligence re * led the chief ihi. n i. British squadron, under Sir Peter Parker (who, as -v ^ve seen [page 247 j, was defeated at Charleston), had sailed into Narraganset Lav [December 8th], taken possession of Rhode Island, and blockaded the little American fleet, under Commodore Hopkins, 2 then lying near Providence. This intelligence, and a knowledge of the failure of operations on Lake Champlain, 3 coupled with the sad condition of the main army of patriots, made the future appear gloomy indeed. 4 It was fortunate for the patriot cause that General Howe was excessively cautious and indolent. Instead of allowing Cornwallis to construct boats, 5 cross the Delaware at once, overwhelm the patriots, and push on to Philadelphia, as he might have done, he ordered him to await the freezing of the waters, so as to cross on the ice. He was also directed to place four thousand German troops in cantonments along the Jersey shore of the river, from Trenton to Burling ton, and to occupy Princeton and New Brunswick with strong British detach ments. Both Congress and Washington profited by this delay. Measures for re-organizing the army, already planned, were put in operation. A loan of five millions of dollars, in hard money, with which to pay the troops, was author ized. By the offer of liberal bounties, 6 and the influence of a stirring appeal put forth by Congress, recruits immediately flocked to Washington s standard at Newtown. 7 Almost simultaneously, Lee s detachment under Sullivan, and another from Ticonderoga, 8 joined him ; and on the 24th of December he found himself in command of almost five thousand effective troops, many of them fresh and hopeful. 9 And the increased pay of officers, the proflered bounties to the 1 Both Sullivan and Stirling, who were made prisoners on Long Island [page 254], had been exchanged, and were now again with the army. Lee was captured at Baskingridge, where Lord Stirling resided, and remained a prisoner until May, 1778, when he was exchanged for General Prescott, who was captured on Rhode Island. See page 271. a Note 1, page 307. 3 General Gates was appointed to the command of the army at the north, after the death of General Thomas [note 2, page 243] ; and during the summer and autumn of 1776, Colonel Arnold became a sort of commodore, and commanded flotillas of small vessels in warfare with others pre pared by General Carleton (the British commander in Canada), on Lake Champlain. He had two severe engagements (llth and 13th of October), in which he lost about ninety men; the British about forty. These operations were disastrous, yet they resulted in preventing the British forces in Canada uniting with those in New York, and were thus of vast importance. 4 Although the Americans had generally suffered defeats, they had been quite successful in making captives. The number of Americans taken by the British, up to the close of 1776, was four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four ; the number of British taken by the Americans, was two thousand, eight hundred and sixty. In addition to men, the Americans had lost twelve brass cannons and mortars, and two hundred and thirty-five made of iron ; twenty-three thousand, nine hundred and seventy-nine empty shells, and seventeen thousand, one hundred and twenty-two filled ; two thousand six hundred and eighty-four double-headed shot ; a large quantity of grape- shot ; two thousand eight hundred muskets : four hundred thousand cartridges ; sixteen barrels of powder ; five hundred intrenching tools ; two hundred barrows and other instruments, and a large quantity of provis ; ons and stores. 6 The Americans took every boat they could find at Trenton, and cautiously moved them out of the river after they had crossed. 6 Each soldier was to have a bounty of twenty dollars, besides an allotment of land at the close of the war. A common soldier was to have one hundred acres, and a colonel five hundred. These were given to those only who enlisted to serve " during the war." 7 A small village north of Bristol, about two miles from the Delaware. 8 Page 234 . 9 According to the adjutant s return to "Washington on the 22d of December, the American army numbered ten thousand one hundred and six men, of whom five thousand three hundred and ninety-nine were sick, on command elsewhere, or on furlough, leaving an effective force of four thousand se" Nindred and seven. 262 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. soldiers, and the great personal influence of the commander-in-chief, had the effect to retain in the service, for a few weeks at lefcst, more than one half of the old soldiers. There were about fifteen hundred Hessians. 1 and a troop of British light horse, at Trenton, and these Washington determined to surprise. The British commanders looked with such contempt upon the American troops the mere ghost of an army and were so certain of an easy victory beyond the Delaware, where, rumor affirmed, the people were almost unanimous in favor of the king, that vigilance was neglected. So confident were they that the contest would be ended by taking possession of Philadelphia, that Cornwallis actually returned to New York, to prepare to sail for England ! And when Rail, the commander of the Hessians at Trenton, applied to General Grant for a rein forcement, that officer said to the messenger, " Tell the colonel he is very safe. I will undertake to keep the peace in New Jersey, with a corporal s guard. 77 How they mistook the character of Washington ! During all the gloom of the past month, hope had beamed brightly upon the heart of the commander-in- chief. Although Congress had adjourned to Baltimore 2 [December 12, 1776], and the public mind was filled with despondency, his reliance upon Providenc& in a cause so just, was never shaken ; and his great soul conceived, and his ready hand planned a bold stroke for deliverance. The Christmas holiday was at hand a day when Germans, especially, indulge in convivial pleasures. Not doubting the Hessians would pass the day in sports and drinking, he resolved to profit by their condition, by falling suddenly upon them while they were in deep slumber after a day and night of carousal. His plan was to cross the Delaware in three divisions, one a few miles above Trenton, another a few miles below, and a third at Bristol to attack Count Donop 3 at Burlington. Small parties were also to attack the British posts at Mount Holly, Black Horse, and Bordentown, at the same time. On the evening of Christmas day [1776], Washington gathered twenty- four hundred men, with some heavy artillery, at McConkey s Ferry, eight or nine miles above Trenton. 4 They expected to cross, reach Trenton- At midnight, and take the Hessians by surprise. But the river was filled with floating ice, and sleet and snow were falling fast. The passage was made in flat-boats ; and so difficult was the navigation, that it was almost four o clock in the morning [December 26] when the troops were mustered on the Jersey shore. They were arranged in two divisions, commanded respec tively by Greene and Sullivan, and approached Trenton by separate roads. The enterprise was eminently successful. Colonel Rail, the Hessian com mander, was yet indulging in wine at the end of a night spent in card- 1 Page 246. 8 Alarmed at the approach of the British, Congress thought it prudent to adjourn to Baltimore. A. committee to represent that body was left in Philadelphia, to co-operate with the army. Congress assembled at Baltimore on the 20th. 3 Page 275. 4 Taylorsville is the name of the little village at that place. The river there, now spanned by" a covered bridge, is about six hundred feet in width, and has a considerable current BATTLE AT TRENTON. 1776.] SECOND TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 263 playing, when the Americans approached, a little after sunrise; 1 and while endeavoring to rally his affrighted troops, he fell, mortally wounded, in the streets of Trenton. Between forty and fifty of the Hessians were killed and fatally wounded, and more than a thousand were made prisoners, together with arms, ammunition, and stores. Five hundred British cavalry barely escaped, and fled to Bordentown. Generals Ewing and Cadwalader, who commanded the other two divisions, destined to attack the enemy below Trenton, were unable to cross the river on account of the ice, to co-operate with Washington. With a strong enemy so near as Burlington and Princeton, the com- mander-in-chief thought it imprudent to remain on the Jersey shore, so with his prisoners and booty he re-crossed the Delaware on the evening after his victory. This was indeed a victory in more aspects than that of a skillful military operation. The Germans under Dunop, on the river below, thoroughly alarmed, fled into the interior. The Tories and pliant Whigs 2 were abashed ; the friends of liberty, rising from the depths of despondency, stood erect in the pride and strength of their principles ; the prestige of the Hessian name, lately so terrible, was broken, and the faltering militia, anxious for bounties and honors, flocked to the victorious standard of Washington. Fourteen hundred soldiers, chiefly of the eastern militia, whose terms of enlistment would expire with the year, agreed to remain six weeks longer, on a promise to each of a bounty of ten dollars. The military chest was not in a condition to permit him to fulfill his promise, and he wrote to Robert Morris, the eminent financier of the Revolution, for aid, and it was given. Fifty thousand dollars, in hard money, were sent to the banks of the Delaware, in time to allow Washington to fulfill his engagement. 3 The victory was also productive of more vigilant efforts on the part of the 1 Rail spent the night at the house of a loyalist, named Hunt. Just at dawn, c messenger, sent by a Tory on the line of march of the patriots, came in hot haste to the colonel. B^- ted by wine, and intent upon his game, that officer thrust the note into his pocket. Like the Athenian polemarch, who, when he received dispatches relative to a conspiracy, refused to open them, saying, "Busi ness to-morrow," Rail did not look at the message, but continued his amusement until tiio KiH of the American drum, and the crack of his rifle, fell upon his dull ears, and called him to dcty. 2 Note 4, page 226. 3 Then it was that Robert Morris not only evinced his faith in the success of the patriot ctLiise, and his own love of country, but he tested the strength of his credit and mercantile honor. The sum was large, and the requirement seemed almost impossible to meet. Government credit was low, but confidence in Robert Morris was unbounded. On leaving his office, musing upon how b.e should obtain the money, he met a wealthy Quaker, and said, " I want money for the use of the army." "Robert, what security canst thou give?" asked the Quaker. "My note and my honor," promptly replied Morris. "Thou shalt have it," as promptly responded the lender, who offered him a considerable sum, and the next morning it was on its way to the camp of Washington. Robert Morris was a native of England, where he was born in 1733. He came to America in 1744, and became a merchant s clerk in Philadelphia. By the force of industry, energy, and a good character, he arose to the station of one of the first merchants of his time. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and was active as a public financier, throughout the war. Toward its close [1781], he was instrumental in establishing a national bank. After the war, he was a state legis lator, and Washington wished him to be his first Secretary of the Treasury, but he declined it. By land speculations he lost his fortune, and died in comparative poverty, in May, 1806, when a little more than seventy years of age. See his portrait on next page.- 264 THE REVOLUTION. [1776. invaders. Believing the rebellion to be at an end, and the American army hopelessly annihilated, -when Washington, with his shivering, half-starved troops, fled across the Delaware, Cornwallis, as we have observed, had returned to New York to embark for England. The contempt of the British for the /6L " rebels," was changed to respect and fear, and when intelligence of the affair at Trenton reached Howe, he ordered Cornwallis back with reinforcements, to gain the advantage lost. Congress, in the mean while, perceiving the necessity of giving more power to the commander-in-chief, wisely clothed him [December 27] with all the puissance of a military dictator, for six months, and gave him absolute control of all the operations of war, for that period. 1 This act was accomplished before that body could possibly have heard of the victory at Tren ton, for they were then in session in Baltimore. Inspirited by his success at Trenton, the panic of the enemy, and their retirement from the Delaware, Washington determined to recross that river, and act on the offensive. He ordered General Heath, who was with quite a 1 When Congress adjourned on the 12th, to meet at Baltimore, almost equal powers were given to Washington, but they were not then defined. Now they were so, by resolution. They wrote to Washington, when they forwarded the resolution, " Happy is it for this country, that the general of their forces can be safely intrusted with unlimited power, and neither personal security, liberty, nor property, be in the least degree endangered thereby." At that time, Congress had given Gen eral Putnam almost unlimited command in Philadelphia. All munitions of war there, were placed under his control. He was also authorized to employ all private armed vessels in the Delaware, in the defense of Philadelphia, See note 1, page 246. 1777.] THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 265 large body of New England troops at Peekskill, 1 to move into New Jersey with his main force ; and the new militia levies were directed to annoy the flank and rear of the British detachments, and make frequent attacks upon their outposts. In the mean while, he again crossed the Delaware [December 30th] , with his whole army, and took post at Trenton, while the British and German troops were concentrating at Princeton, only ten miles distant. Such was the position and the condition of the two armies at the close of the second year of the War for Independence the memorable year when this great Republic of the West was born. CHAPTER TV THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [177 <.j THE strange apathy of nations, like individuals, in times of great danger, or frhen dearest interests depend upon the utmost vigilance and care, is a remark able phase in human character, and the records thereof appear as monstrous anomalies upon the pages of history. Such was the case with the executive and legislative power of the British nation during the momentous year of 1776, when the eye of ordinary forecast could not fail to perceive that the integrity of the realm was in imminent danger, and that the American colonies, the fair est jewels in the British crown, were likely to be lost forever. Such an apathy, strange and profound, seemed to pervade the councils of the British Govern ment, even while the public mind of England was filled with the subject of the American rebellion. Notwithstanding an army had been driven from one city 2 [March, 1776], a fleet expelled from another 3 [June], their colonies declared independent 1 [July 4], and almost thirty thousand of their choice troops and fierce hirelings had been defied and combatted 5 [August], Parliament did not assemble until the last day of October, to deliberate on these important mat ters. Then the king, in his speech, congratulated them upon the success of the royal troops in America, and assured them (but without the shadow of good reason for the belief) that most of the continental powers entertained friendly feelings toward Great Britain. During a dull session of six weeks, new sup plies for the American service were voted, while every conciliatory proposition was rejected ; and when Parliament adjourned, in December, to keep the Christmas holidays, the members appeared to feel that their votes had crushed the rebellion, and that, on their re-assembling in January, they would be in vited to join in a Te Deum* at St/. Paul s, because of submission and peace in 1 On the east bank of the Hudson, at the entrance to the Highlands, forty-five miles from the city of New Tork. See page 270. 2 Page 247. 3 Page 249. 4 Page 251. 5 Page 253. 6 The Te Deum Laudamus ( We praise thee, God) is always chanted in churches in England, and on the continent, after a great victory, great deliverance, etc. There is something revolting m 26b THE REVOLUTION". [1777. America. At that very moment, Washington was planning his brilliant achievement on the banks of the Delaware. 1 In contrast with this apathy of the British Government, was the vigilance and activity of the Continental Congress. Their perpetual session was one of perpetual labor. Early in the year [March, 1776], the Secret Committee of that body had appointed Silas Deane, 2 a delegate from Connecticut, to proceed to France, as their agent, with general powers to solicit the co-operation of other governments. Even these remote colonists knew that the claims of the king of England to the friendship of the continental powers, was fallacious, and that France, Spain, and Holland, the Prince of Orange, and even Cath- SILAS DEANE. arme of Russia, and Pope Clement the Fourteenth (Gan- ganelli), all of whom feared and hated England, instead of being friendly to her, were anxious for a pretense to strike her fiercely, and humble her pride, because of her potency in arms, her commerce, her diplomacy, and her strong Protestantism. All of these spoke kindly to the American agent, and Deane was successful in his embassy. He talked confidently, and by skillful manage ment, during the summer of 1776, he obtained fifteen thousand muskets from the French arsenals, and abundant promises of men and money. And when the Declaration of Independence had been made [July 4] , Congress appointed a reg ular embassy 3 [Sept. 22, 1776], to the court of France, and finally sent agents to other foreign courts. 4 They also planned, and finally executed measures for strengthening the bond of union between the several colonies, already made powerfully cohesive by common dangers and common hopes. Articles of Con federation, which formed the organic laws of the nation until the adoption of this to the true Christian mind and heart "War, except strictly defensive as a last extremity, is always a monstrous injustice ; and for its success in soddening God s fair earth with human blood, men in epaulettes, their hands literally dripping with gore, will go into the temple dedicated to the Prince of Peace, and there sing a Te Deum! 1 Page 261. 2 Silas Deane was born at Groton, in Connecticut, and was educated at Yale College. He was elected to the first Congress [page 228] in 1774, and after being some time abroad, as agent for the Secret Committee, he was recalled, on account of alleged bad conduct. He published a defense of his character in 1778, but he failed to reinstate himself in the public opinion. He went to England toward the close of 1784, where he died in extreme poverty, in 1789. 3 The embassy consisted of Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. Franklin and Lee joined Deane at Paris, at the middle of December, 1776. Lee had then been in Europe for somo time, as a sort of private agent of the Secret Committee. He made an arrangement with the French king to send a large amount of arms, ammunition, and specie, to the colonists, but in such a way that it would appear as a commercial transaction. The agent on the part of the French was Beaumarchais, who assumed the commercial title of Eoderique Hortales & Co., and Lee took the name of Mary Johnson. This arrangement with the .false and avaricious Beaumarchais, was a source of great annoyance and actual loss to Congress in after years. What was a gratuity on the part of the French government, in the name of Hortales & Co., Beaumarchais afterward presented a claim for, and actually received from Congress four hundred thousand dollars. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, in 1706. He was a printer; worked at his trade in London ; became eminent in his business in Philadelphia; obtained a high position as a philosopher and statesman; was agent in England for several colonies ; was chief embassador for the United States in Europe during the Revolution, and filled various official stations in the scientific and political world. He was one of the most remarkable men that ever lived ; and, next to Washington, is the best known and most revered of all Americans. He died in 1790, at the age of more than eighty -four years A-rthur Lee was a brother of Richard Henry Lee [page 250], and was born in Virginia, in 17-4U. He was a fine scholar, and elegant writer. He died in 1782. * Holland, Spain, and Prussia. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 267 the Federal Constitution, were, after more than two years consideration, ap proved by Congress, and produced vastly beneficial results during the remain der of the struggle. 1 Such, in brief, were the chief operations of the civil power of the revolted colonies. Let us now turn to the military operations at the opening of a new 1 In July, 1775, Dr. Franklin submitted a plan of union to Congress. On the llth of June, 1776, a committee was appointed to draw up a plan. Their report was laid aside, and not called up until April, 1777. From the 2d of October until the 15th of November following, the subject was regularly debated two or three times a week, when thirteen Articles of Confederation were adopted. The substance was that the thirteen confederated States should be known as the United States of America ; that all engage in a reciprocal treaty of alliance and friendship, for mutual ad vantage, each to assist the other when help should be needed ; that each State should have the right to regulate its own internal affairs; that no State should separately send or receive embassies, begin any negotiations, contract engagements or alliances, or conclude treaties with any foreign power, without the consent of the general Congress ; that no public officer should be allowed to accept any presents, emoluments, office, or title, from any foreign power, and that neither Con gress nor State governments should possess the power to confer any title of nobility ; that none of the States should have the right to form alliances among themselves, without the consent of Congress; that they should not have the power to levy duties contrary to the enactments of Con gress ; that no State should keep up a standing army or ships of war, in time of peace, beyond the amount stipulated by Congress ; that when any of the States should raise troops for the com mon defense, all the officers of the rank of colonel and under, should be appointed by the Legis lature of the State, and the superior officers by Congress ; that all expenses of the war should be paid out of the public treasury ; that Congress alone should have the power to coin money ; and that Canada might at any time be admitted into the confederacy when she felt disposed. The last clauses were explanatory of the power of certain governmental operations, and contained details of the same. Such was the form of government which existed for several years. See Supplement 268 THE REVOLUTION. year. Congress, we have observed, 1 delegated all military power to Washing ton, and he used it with energy and discretion. We left him at Trenton, pre pared to act offensively or defensively, as circumstances should require. There he was joined by some troops under Generals Mifflin and Cadwalader, who came from Bordentown and Crosswicks, on the night of the 1st of January. Yet with these, his effective force did not exceed five thousand men. Toward the evening of the 2d of January, 1777, Cornwallis, with a strong force, ap proached from Princeton, and after some skirmishing, the two armies encamped on either side of a small stream which runs through the town, within pistol- shot of each other. Washington commenced intrenching his camp, and Corn wallis, expecting reinforcements in the morning, felt sure of his prey, and deferred an attack for the night. The situation of Washington and his little army was now perilous in the extreme. A conflict with such an overwhelming force as was gathering, appeared hopeless, and the Delaware becoming more obstructed by ice every hour, rendered a retreat across it, in the event of a surprise, almost impossible. A retreat down the stream was equally perilous. An escape under cover of the night, was the only chance of safety, but the ground was too soft to allow the patriots to drag their heavy cannons with them ; and could they withdraw unob served by the British sentinels, whose hourly cry could be heard from the camp ? This was a question of deep moment, and there was no time for long deliberation. A higher will than man s determined the matter. The Protector of the righteous put forth his hand. While a council of war was in session, toward midnight, the wind changed, and the ground was soon so hard frozen, that there could be no difficulty in conveying away the cannons. Instantly all was in activity in the American camp, while Cornwallis and his army were soundly sleeping perhaps dreaming of the expected sure victory in the morn ing. Leaving a few to keep watch and feed the camp-fires, to allay suspicion, Washington silently withdrew, with all his army, artillery, and baggage ; and at dawn [January 3, 1777], he was in sight of Princeton, prepared to fall upon Cornwallis s reserve there. 2 The British general had scarcely recovered from his surprise and mortification, on seeing the deserted camp of the Americans, when the distant booming of cannons, borne upon the keen winter air, fell ominously upon his ears. Although it was mid- winter, he thought it was the rumbling of distant thunder. The quick ear of General Erskine decided other wise, and he exclaimed, "To arms, general! Washington has out-generaled us. Let us fly to the rescue at Princeton !" Erskine was right, for, at that moment, Washington and the British reserve were combating. Owing to the extreme roughness of the roads, Washington did not reach Princeton as early as he expected, and instead of surprising the British, and then pushing forward to capture or destroy the enemy s stores at New Bruns wick, he found a portion of the troops already on their march to join Corn- 1 Page 264. 2 A brigade, under Lieutenant-colonel Mawhood, consisting of three regiments and three troops >of dragoons, were quartered there. 1777.] THIRD TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 26$ BATTLE AT PRINCETON. wallis at Trenton. A severe encounter occurred, when the American militia giving way, the British, with a victorious shout, rushed forward, expecting to produce a general rout. At that moment Washington advanced with a select corps, brought order out of con fusion, and leading on his troops with waving sword and cheering voice, turned the tide of battle and achieved a victory. The brave General Mercer, 1 while fighting at the head of his men, was killed, and many other be loved officers were lost on that snowy battle-field. 2 Nor was the conflict of that morning yet ended. When Corn- wallis perceived the desertion of the American camp, and heard the firing at Princeton, he hastened with a greater portion of his troops, to the aid of his reserve, and to secure his stores at New Brunswick. The Ameri cans, who had not slept, nor scarcely tasted food for thirty-six hours, were compelled, just as the heat of the first battle was over, to contest with fresh troops, or fly with the speed of strong men. Washington chose the latter alternative, and when Cornwallis entered Princeton, not a> "rebel" was to be found. 8 History has no parallel to offer to these events of a few days. Frederic the Great of Prussia, one of the most renowned com manders of modern times, declared that the achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots, between the 25th of December and the 4th of January following, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military performances. The Americans were too weak to attempt the capture of the British stores at New Brunswick, so, with his fatigued troops Washington retreated rapidly toward the hill country of East Jersey. 4 Allowing time only to refresh his- little army at Pluckemin, he pressed forward to Morristown, and there estab lished his winter quarters. But he did not sit down in idleness. After plant ing small cantonments 5 at different points from Princeton to the Hudson Highlands, he sent out detachments to harass the thoroughly perplexed British. These expeditions were conducted with so much skill and spirit, that on the first 1 Mercer s horse had been shot under him, and he was on foot at the head of his men, when a British soldier felled him with a clubbed musket [note 4, page 236]. At first, the British believed it to be Washington, and, with a shout, they cried, " The rebel general is taken." Hugh Mercer was a native of Scotland. He was a surgeon on the field of Culloden, and was practicing medicine in Fredericksburg, Virginia, when the Revolution broke out. He was with "Washington in the French and Indian War. He was made commander of the flying camp in 177.6, and at the time of his death was about fifty-six years of age. The picture of a house in the corner of the map of the battle at Princeton, is a representation of the house in which General Mercer died. It is yet [1867] standing. a The chief of these were Colonels Haslett and Potter, Major Morris, and Captains Shippen, Fleming and Neal. The loss of the Americans in this engagement, was about thirty, including the officers above named. 3 We have mentioned, on page 210, the planetarium, at Princeton, constructed by David Eitten- house. This excited the admiration of Cornwallis, and he intended to carry it away with him. It is also said that Silas Deane [page 264] proposed to present this work of art to the French govern ment, as a bonus for its good will. Cornwallis was kept too busy in providing for his own safety, while in Princeton, to allow him to rob the college of so great a treasure. * Page 160. * Permanent stations for small bodies of troops. 270 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. of March, 1777, not a British nor a Hessian soldier could be found in New Jersey, except at New Brunswick and Amboy. 1 Those dreaded bat talions which, sixty days before, were all-powerful in New Jersey, and had frightened the Continental Congress from Philadelphia, were now hemmed in upon the Raritan, and able to act only on the defensive. Considering the attending circumstances, this was a great triumph for the Americans. It revived the martial spirit of the people, and the hopes of all good patriots ; and hundreds in New Jersey, who had been deceived by Howe s proclamation, and had suffered Hessian brutality, openly espoused the Whig cause. Congress had returned to Philadelphia, 2 and commenced its labors with renewed vigor. It was almost the first of June before the main body of the two armies com menced the summer campaign. In the mean while, smaller detachments were in motion at various points. A strong armament was sent up the Hudson, in March, to destroy American stores at Peekskill, at the southern entrance to the Highlands. The Americans there, under the command of General McDougal, perceiving a defense of the property to be futile, set fire to the stores and retreated to the hills in the rear. The British returned to New York the same evening [March 23, 1777].. Almost a month afterward [April 13], Corn- wallis went up the Raritan from New Brunswick, to surprise the Americans under General Lincoln, at Boundbrook. The latter escaped, with difficulty, after losing about sixty men and a part of his baggage. Toward the close of April [April 25], Governor Tryon, 3 at the head of two thousand British and Tories, went up Long Island Sound, landed at Compo [April 26], between Norwalk and Fairfield, marched to Danbury, destroyed a large quantity of stores belonging to the Americans, burned the town, and cruelly treated the inhabitants. Perceiving the militia to be gathering in great numbers, he retreated rapidly the next morning, by way of Ridgefield. Near that village, he had some severe skirmishing with the militia under Generals Wooster, Arnold, 4 and Silliman. Wooster was killed, 5 Arnold narrowly escaped, but Silliman, keeping the field, harassed the British all the way to the coast. At Compo, and while embarking, they were terribly galled by artillery under Lamb. 6 Tryon lost almost three hundred men during this expedition, and killed or wounded about half that number of Americans. His atrocities on that 1 The Americans went out in small companies, made sudden attacks upon pickets, out-posts, and foraging parties, and in this way frightened the detachments of the enemy and drove them in to the main body on the Earitan. At Springfield, a few miles from Elizabethtown, they attacked a party of Hessians who were penetrating the country from Elizabethport [January 7, 1777], killed between forty and fifty of them, and drove the remainder in great confusion back to Staten Island. A larger foraging party was defeated near Somerset court house [January 20] by about five hundred New Jersey militia under General Dickinson ; and Newark, Elizabethtown and Woodbridge, were taken possession of by the patriots. 2 Page 262. 3 Page 223. 4 Page 234. For his gallantry at Ridgefield, Congress ordered a horse, richly caparisoned, to be presented to him. 6 David Wooster was born in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1710. He was at Louisburg in 1745 [page 137], became a captain in the British army, and was in the French and Indian War. He was in Canada in the spring of 1776 [page 243], and gave promise of being one of the most efficient of the American officers in the war for Independence. His loss, at such a critical period of the conflict, was much deplored. The State of Connecticut erected a monument to his memory, in 1854 6 Page 240. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 271 occasion were never forgotten nor forgiven. The name of Tryon will ever be held in detestation by all lovers of justice and humanity. He had already, while governor of North Carolina, been named by the Indians, The Great Wolf, and in his marauding expeditions during the earlier years of the war for Independence, his conduct confirmed the judgment of the Red Men. We shall meet him again. The Americans did not always act upon the defensive : they ivere some times the aggressors. Toward the close of May [May 22, 1777], Colonel Meigs, with one hundred and seventy men, crossed Long Island Sound in whale- boats, from Guilford, Connecticut, and at two o clock in the morning of the 23d of that month, attacked a British provision post at Sagg Harbor, near the eastern extremity of Long Island. They burned a dozen vessels, and the store houses and contents, secured ninety prisoners, and reached Guilford at two o clock the next day, without losing a man of their own party. For this exploit, Congress voted thanks to Colonel Meigs and his men, and a sword to the com mander. A little later in the season, an equally bold exploit was performed on Rhode Island. On a dark night in July [July 10], Colonel William Bar ton, with a company of picked men, crossed Narraganset Bay in whale-boats, in the midst of the British fleet, stole cautiously to the quarters of General Prescott, 1 the British commander on Rhode Island, seized him while in bed, and carried him in triumph across the bay to Warwick. There a carriage was in waiting for him, and at sunrise he was under a strong guard at Providence. From thence he was sent to the headquarters of Washington, at Middlebrook. on the Raritan, 2 and was exchanged, in April, the next year, for General Charles Lee. 3 For Colonel Barton s bravery, on that occasion, Congress voted him an elegant sword, and he was promoted to the rank and pay of a colonel in the continental army. The American commander-in-chief continued his head quarters at Morris- town until near the last of May. During the spring he had inoculated a large portion of his troops for the small-pox ; 4 and when the leaves put forth, a fair degree of health prevailed in his camp, and his army had increased by recruits, to almost ten thousand men. He was prepared for action, offensive and defens ive ; but the movements of the British perplexed him. Burgoyne was assem bling an army at St. John, on the Sorel, 5 and vicinity, preparatory to an invasion of New York, by way of Lake Champlain, to achieve that darling object of the British ministry, the occupation of the country on the Hudson. 1 Page 240. Prescott s quarters were at a house yet [1867] standing, a short distance above Newport, and about a mile from the bay. 3 While on his way, his escort stopped at Lebanon, Connecticut, to dine. Prescott was a morose, haughty, and violent-tempered man. At the table, a dish of succotash (beans and corn) was brought to him. Not being accustomed to such food, he regarded it as an insult, and taking the dish from the hands of the hostess, he strewed its contents upon the floor. Her husband being informed of it, flogged the general severely, with a horsewhip. 3 Note 4, page 248 ; also page 288. 4 The common practice of vaccination at the present day was then unknown in this country. Indeed, the attention of Jenner, the father of the practice, had then just been turned to the subject. It was practiced here a year after the close of the war. 6 Page 240. 6 Page 283. 272 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. But whether Howe was preparing to co-operate with Burgoyne, or to make another attempt to seize Philadelphia, 1 Washington could not determine. He prepared for both events by stationing Arnold with a strong detachment on the west side of the Delaware, concentrating a large force on the Hudson, and moving the main body of his army to Middlebrook, within ten miles of the British camp at New Brunswick. Washington was not kept in suspense a great while. On the 12th of June [1777], Howe passed over from New York, where he made his head quarters during the winter, concentrated the main body of his army at New Brunswick, and tried to draw Washington into an engagement by a feigned movement [June 14] toward the Delaware. The chief, perceiving the meaning of this movement, and aware of his comparative strength, wisely remained in his strong position at Middlebrook until Howe suddenly retreated [June 19], sent some of his troops over to Staten Island [June 22], and appeared to be evacuating New Jersey. This movement perplexed Washington. He was fairly deceived ; and ordering strong detachments in pursuit, he advanced several miles in the same direction, with his whole army. Howe suddenly changed front [June 25], and attempted to gain the rear of the Americans ; but, after Stirling s brigade had maintained a severe skirmish with a corps under Cornwallis [June 26], the Americans regained their camp without much loss. Five days afterward [June 30], the whole British army crossed over to Staten Island, and left New Jersey in the complete possession of the patriots. Washington now watched the movements of his enemy with great anxiety and the utmost vigilance. It was evident that some bold stroke was about to be attempted by the British. On the 12th of July, Burgoyne, who had been moving steadily up Lake Champlain, with a powerful army, consisting of about seven thousand British and German troops, and a large body of Canadians and Indians, took possession of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, 2 and spread terror over the whole North. At the same time the British fleet at New York took such a position as induced the belief that it was about to pass up the Hudson and co-operate with the victorious invader. Finally, Howe left General Clinton in command at New York, and embarking on board the fleet with eighteen thousand troops [July 23], he sailed for the Delaware. When Washington comprehended this movement, he left a strong force on the Hudson, and with the main body of his troops pushed forward to Philadelphia. There he was saluted by a powerful ally, in the person of a stripling, less than twenty years of age. He was a wealthy French nobleman, who, several months before, while at a dinner with the Duke of Gloucester, 3 first heard of the struggle of the Americans, their Declaration of Independence, and the preparations made to crush them. His young soul was fired with aspirations to give them his aid ; and quitting the army, he hurried to Paris. Although he had just married a young and beautiful girl, and a bright career was opened for him in his own 1 Page 261. 2 Page 234. 1 The duke was the brother of the king of England, and at the time in question, was dining with some French officers, in the old town of Mentz, in Germany. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 273 country, he left all, and hastened to America in a vessel fitted out at his own expense. He offered his services to the Continental Congress, and that body gave him the commission [July 31] of a major-general. Three days afterward [Aug. 3] he was introduced to Washington at a public dinner ; and within less than forty days he was gallantly fighting [September 11], as a volunteer, for freedom in America, on the banks of the Brandy wine. That young general was the Marquis de LA FAYETTE/ whose name is forever linked with that of Washington and Liberty. GENERAL LA FAYETTE. The British fleet, with the army under Sir William Howe, 2 did not go up the Delaware, as was anticipated, but ascended Chesapeake Bay, and at its head, near the village of Elkton, in Maryland, the land forces disembarked [Aug. 25], and marched toward Philadelphia. Washington had advanced be yond the Brandy wine Creek, and took post a few miles from Wilmington. Howe s superior force compelled him to fall back to the east side of the Brandy- and at Chad s Ford, several wine miles above Wilmington, he made a stand for the defense of Phila delphia. At that point, the Hes- ians under Knyphausen 3 attacked the left wing of the Americans [Sept. 11, 1777], commanded by Washington in person ; while Howe and Cornwallis, crossing the stream several miles above, fell upon the American right, under General Sullivan, near the Birmingham meeting-house.* The contest raged fearfully during the whole day. At night the shattered and defeated battalions of patriots retreated to Chester, and the following day [Sept. 12] to Philadelphia. Many brave men were killed or disabled on that sanguinary field. La Fayette was severely wounded ; 5 and the patriots lost full twelve hundred men, killed, wounded, and BATTLE AT THE BRANDYWINE. 1 He was born on the 6th of September, 1757. He married the daughter of the Duke de Noailles, a beautiful heiress, at the age of eighteen years. He first landed on the coast of South Carolina, in "Winyaw Bay, near Georgetown, and made a land journey to Philadelphia. His appli cation was not received at first, by the Continental Congress ; but when his true character and designs were known, they gave him a major-general s commission. He was afterward an active patriot in his own country hi many perilous scenes. He visited America in 1824-5 [page 453], and died in 1834, at the age of seventy-seven years. The Baron de Kalb [page 316] and eleven other French and Polish officers, came to America in La Fayette s vessel. 2 After the battle near Brooklyn [page 254], the king conferred the honor of knighthood upon General William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. The ceremony was performed by several of his officers, at his quarters in the Beekman House, Turtle Bay, East Kiver. 8 Page 259. 4 This was a substantial Quaker meeting-house, situated a few miles from Chad s Ford, on the road from Jefieris s Ford (where Howe and Cornwallis crossed) to "Wilmington. 6 A bullet passed through his leg. He was conveyed to Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, where 18 274 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. made prisoners. The British lost almost eight hundred. Washington failed of success more on account of false intelligence, by which he was kept in igno rance of the approach of the British on his left, than by want of skill or force. 1 "Washington did not remain idle in the Federal capital, but as soon as the troops were rested, he crossed the Schuylkill, and proceeded to confront Howe, who was making slow marches toward Philadelphia. They met [Sept. 16] twenty miles west of that city, and some skirmishing ensued but a heavy rain prevented a general battle, and the Americans withdrew toward Reading. General Wayne, in the mean while, was hanging upon the rear of the enemy with about fifteen hundred men. On the night of the 20th, he was surprised by a party of British and Hessians, under General Grey, near the Paoli Tav ern, and lost about three hundred of his party. 2 With the remainder he joined Washington, then near Valley Forge, and vigilantly watching the movements of Howe. As these indicated the intention of the British commander to attempt the seizure of a large quantity of ammunition and military stores which the Americans had collected at Reading, Washington abandoned Philadelphia, and took position at Pottsgrove, thirty-five miles distant, to protect those indispens able materials for his army. Howe crossed the Schuylkill [Sept. 23, 1777], near Norristown, and marched to the Federal city 3 [Sept. 26], without oppo sition. Congress fled at his approach, first to Lancaster [Sept. 27], and then to York, where it assembled on the 30th, and continued its session until the fol lowing summer. The main body of the British army was encamped at Ger- mantown, four miles from Philadelphia, and Howe prepared to make the latter place his winter quarters. 4 Upon opposite sides of the Delaware, a few miles below Philadelphia, were two forts of considerable strength (Mifflin and Mercer), garrisoned by the Americans. While the British army was marching from the Chesapeake 5 to Philadelphia, the fleet had sailed around to the Delaware, and had approached to the head of that bay. The forts commanded the river ; and chevaux-de- frise* just below them, completely obstructed it, so that the army in Philadel phia could obtain no supplies from the fleet. The possession of these forts was the Moravian sisters nursed him during his confinement. Count Pulaski began his military career in the American army, on the field of Brandywine, where he commanded a troop of horse, and after the battle he was appointed to the rank of Brigadier. He was slain at Savannah. See note 3, page 350. 1 The building seen in the corner of the map, is a view of the head quarters of Washington, yet [1867] standing, a short distance from Chad s Ford. a The bodies of fifty-three Americans, found on the field the next morning, were interred in one broad grave ; and forty years afterward, the " Republican Artillerists" of Chester county, erected a neat marble monument over them. It stands in the center of an inclosure which contains the ground consecrated by the burial of these patriots. 3 Philadelphia, New Tork, and "Washington, have been, respectively, federal cities, or cities where the Federal Congress of the United States assembled. 4 Note 2, page 285. * Page 273. 6 Chevaux-de-frise are obstructions placed in river channels to prevent the pass age of vessels. They are generally made of a series of heavy timbers, pointed with iron, and secured at an angle in a strong frame filled with stones, as seen in the engraving. Figure A shows the position under water; figure B shows how the tim bers are arranged and the stones placed in them. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 275 important, and on the 22d of October, they were attached by detachments sent by Howe. Fort Mercer was assailed by two thousand Hessian grenadiers under Count Donop. 1 They were repulsed by the garrison of less than five hundred men, under Lieutenant- Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, after los ing their commander, 3 and almost four hundred soldiers. The garrison of Fort Mifflin, under Lieutenant- Colonel Samuel Smith, also made a gallant defense, but after a series of assaults by land and water, it was abandoned [Nov. 16, 1777]. Two days afterward, Fort Mercer was also abandoned, and several British ships sailed up to Philadelphia. 3 When Washington was informed of the weakened condition of the British army, by the detachment of these forces to attack the Delaware forts, he resolved to assail the camp at Germantown. He had moved down the Schuylkill to Skippack Creek [Sept. 25], and from that point he marched, silently, on the even ing of the 3d of October [1777], toward the camp of the enemy. He reached Chestnut Hill, beyond Germantown, at dawn the following morning, and the attack soon commenced near there. After a severe battle, which continued almost three hours, the patriots were repulsed, with a loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about equal to that at Brandy wine. 4 The British lost only about six hundred. On the 19th, Howe broke up his encampment at Germantown, and three weeks afterward, he proceeded to place his whole army in winter quarters in Philadelphia. Washington retired to his camp on Skippack Creek ; and on the 29th of November, he prepared to go into winter quarters at White Marsh, fourteen miles from Philadelphia. Let us now turn for a while from these scenes of conflict and disaster in which the beloved commander-in-chief was personally engaged, to the consider ation of important events which were transpiring on the waters and banks of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. Burgoyne, with more than ten thousand men, invested Ticonderoga on the 2d of July. The fortress was gar risoned by General St. Clair, with only about three thousand men. Upon BATTLE AT GERMANTOWN. 1 Page 263. 3 Donop was terribly wounded, and taken to the house of a Quaker near by, where he expired three days afterward. He was buried within the fort. A few years ago his bones were disinterred, and his skull was taken possession of by a New Jersey physician. 3 In the defense of these forts, the Americans lost about three hundred men, and the enemy almost double that number. 4 Washington felt certain of victory at the beginning of the battle. Just as it commenced, a dense fog overspread the country ; and through the inexperience of his troops, great confusion, in their movements, was produced. A false rumor caused a panic among the Americans, just as the British were about to fall back, and a general retreat and loss of victory was the result. In Germantown, a strong stone house is yet [1867] standing, which belonged to Judge Chew. This a part of the enemy occupied, and from the windows fired with deadly effect upon the Ameri cans. No blame was attached to "Washington for this defeat, when victory seemed easy and certain. On the contrary, Congress, on the receipt of "Washington s letter, describing the battle, passed a vote of thanks to him for his " wise and well-concerted attack upon the enemy s army near G-ennan- town;" and "to the officers and soldiers of the army, for their brave exertions on that occasion." A, medal was also ordered to be struck, and presented to Washington, 276 THE REVOLUTION. [1777- Mount Independence, on the opposite side of the lake, was a small fortifica tion and a weak garrison. 1 These composed the entire force, except some feeble detachments of militia, to op pose the invaders. On the approach of Burgoyne, St. Clair 2 left his outworks, gathered his forces near the fortress, and prepared for an assault ; but when, on the evening of the 5th, he saw the scarlet uniforms of the British on the top of Mount Defiance, 3 and a battery of heavy guns planted there, 4 more than five hundred feet above the fort, he knew resistance would be vain. That GENERAL ST. CLAIR. . , , . -VII evening he sent his ammunition and stores up the lake to Skenesborough, 5 and under cover of the darkness, silently crossed over to Mount Independence, and commenced a retreat to Fort Edward, 8 the head quarters of General Schuyler, who was then in command of the northern army. The retreating army would have been beyond the reach of pursuers by dawn, had not their exit been discovered. Contrary to express orders, a build ing was fired on Mount Independence, and by its light their flight was discov ered by the enemy, and a strong party, consisting of the brigade of General Eraser, and two Hessian corps under Riedesel, was immediately sent in pursuit. At dawn, the British flag was waving over Ticonderoga ; and a little after sun rise [July 7, 177T], the rear division of the flying Americans, under Colonel Seth Warner, 7 were overtaken in Hubbardton, Vermont, and a severe engage ment followed. The patriots were defeated and dispersed, and the victors returned to Ticonderoga. 8 Before sunset the same evening, a flotilla of British vessels had overtaken and destroyed the Americans stores which St. Clair had sent up the lake, and also a large quantity at Skenesborough. The fragments of St. Glair s army reached Fort Edward on the 12th, thoroughly dispirited. Disaster had followed disaster in quick succession. Within a week, the Amer icans had lost almost two hundred pieces of artillery, and a large amount of provisions and military stores. 1 During the previous years, the Americans constructed a picketed fort, or stockade [note 2, page 183], on that eminence, built about three hundred huts or barracks, dug several wells, and placed batteries at different points. The remains of these are now [1867] everywhere visible on Mount Independence. That eminence received this name because the troops took possession of it on the 4th of July, 1776. Page 250. a Arthur St. Clair was a native of Scotland, and came to America with Admiral Boscawen, early in May, 1755. He served under Wolfe [page 201]; and when the Revolution broke out, he en tered the American army. He served during the war, and afterward commanded an expedition against the Indians in Ohio, where he was unsuccessful. He died in 1818, at the age of eighty-four years. 3 This is a hill about 750 feet in height, situated on the south-west side of the outlet of Lake George, opposite Ticonderoga. 4 With immense labor, Burgoyne opened a road up the northern slope of Mount Defiance, and dragged heavy artillery to the summit. From that point, every ball might be hurled within the fort below without difficulty. The position of that road may yet [1867] be traced by the second growth of trees on its line up the mountain. 5 Now Whitehall. It was named after Philip Skene, who settled there in 1764. The narrow part of Lake Champlain, from Ticonderoga to Whitehall, was formerly called Wood Creek (the name of the stream that enters the lake at Whitehall), and also South River. 6 Page 188. 7 Page 232. 8 The Americans lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, a little mere than three hundred ; the British reported their loss at one hundred and eighty-three. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 277 The force under General Schujler was very small, and even with this rein forcement by the fugitives from the lake, he had only about four thousand effect ive men a number totally inadequate to combat with those of Burgoyne. He therefore sent a strong party toward Skenesborough to fell huge trees across the roads, and to destroy all the bridges, so as to obstruct the march of the invaders, while he slowly retreated down the Hudson valley to the mouth of the Mohawk, and there established a fortified camp. 1 His call for aid was nobly responded to, for the whole country was thoroughly aroused to a sense of peril. Detachments were sent from the regular army to strengthen him ; and soon General Lincoln came with a large body of New England militia. When General Gates arrived, to take the chief command, 2 he found an army of thir teen thousand men, ready to meet the invader. The progress of Burgoyne was slow, and he did not reach Fort Edward until the 30th of July. 3 The obstructions ordered by Schuyler, and the de struction of the bridges, were great hinderances. 4 His army was also worn down by fatigue, and his provisions were almost exhausted. To replenish his stores, lie sent five hundred Germans, Canadians, and Tories, and one hundred Indians, under Colonel Baume, to seize provisions and cattle which the Americans had collected at Bennington, thirty-five miles distant. Colonel John Stark had called out the New Hampshire militia : and near Hoosick, within five miles of Bennington, they met [Aug. 16] and defeated the marauders. And toward evening, when another German party, under Colonel Breyman, approached, they also were defeated by a continental force under Colonel Seth Warner. 6 Many of the enemy were killed, and a large number were made prisoners. Bur- goyne s entire loss, in this expedition, was almost a thousand men. The Amer icans had one hundred killed, and as many wounded. This defeat was fatal to Burgoyne s future operations 6 this victory was a day-star of hope to the 1 Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish refugee, who came with Lafay ette [page 273], was now attached to Schuyler s army, as engineer. Under his direction, the intrenchments at the mouth of the Mohawk River, were constructed ; also, those at Stillwater and Saratoga. The camp at the mouth of the Mohawk was upon islands just below the Great, or Cohoes Falls. 2 General Schuyler had superseded Gates in June, and had been skillfully confronting Burgoyne. But Gates, seeing a chance for gain ing laurels, and having a strong party of friends in Congress, sought the chief command of the northern army. It was ungenerously taken from Schuyler at the moment when, by great exertions and through great hardships, he had a force prepared to confront Burgoyne, with some prospect of success. 3 It was while Burgoyne was approaching that point, that Jane KOSCIUSZKO. M Crea, the betrothed of a young Tory in the British army, was shot, while being conveyed by a party of Indians from Fort Edward to the British camp. Her death was untruly charged upon the Indians, and it was made the subject of the most bitter denunciations of the British ministers, for employing such cruel instrumentalities. The place of her death is a short dis tance from the village of Fort Edward. The pine-tree which marked the spot, decayed a few years since, and in 1853, it was cut down, and converted into canes and boxes for the curious. 4 Burgoyne was obliged to construct forty bridges on the way, and to remove the many trees which lay across the roads. To estimate the amount of fatigue which the troops must have endured during that hot month, it must be remembered that each soldier bore a weight of sixty pounds, in arms, accoutrements, and supplies. 6 Pages 234 and 240. 6 It dispirited his troops, who were worn down with the fatigue of the obstructed march from Skenesborough to Fort Edward. It also caused a delay of a month at that place, and in the mean THE REVOLUTION. [1777. Americans. Applause of the New Hampshire militia rang through the land, and Stark was made a brigadier in the continental army. During Burgoyne s approach, the Mohawk valley had become a scene of great confusion and alarm. Colonel St. Leger and his savages, joined by the Mohawk Indians, under Brant, l and a body of Tories, under Johnson 2 and Butler, had arrived from Oswego, and invested Fort Stanwix, on the 3d of August [1777]. The garrison was com manded by Colonel Gansevoort, and made a spirited defense. General Herkimer rallied the militia of his neighborhood ; and while marching to the assistance of Gansevoort, he fell into an Indian ambuscade [Aug. 6] at Oriskany. 3 His party was totally defeated, after a bloody conflict, and himself was mortally wounded. On the same day, a corps of the garrison, under Colonel Willet, made a successful sortie, 4 and broke the power of the besiegers. Arnold, who had been sent by Schuyler to the relief of the fort, soon afterward approached, when the besiegers fled [Aug. 22], and quiet was restored to the Mohawk valley. The disastrous events at Bennington and Fort Stan wix, and the straitened condition of his commissariat, greatly perplexed Burgoyne. To retreat, advance, or remain inactive, seemed equally perilous. With little hope of reaching Albany, where he had boasted he would eat his Christmas dinner, he crossed the Hudson and formed a fortified camp on the hills and plains of Sara toga, now the site of Schuylerville. General Gates advanced to Bemis s Heights, about four miles north of JOSEPH BRANT. GENERAL BURGOYNE. while their provisions woge rapidly diminishing. "While at Fort Edward, Burgoyne received intel ligence of the defeat of St. Leger at Fort Stanwix. 1 Joseph Brant was a Mohawk Indian, and a great favorite of Sir William Johnson. He ad hered to the British, and went to Canada after the war, where he died in 1807, aged sixty-five years. a Sir William Johnson [page 190] (then dead) had been a sort of auto crat among the Indians and Tories in the Mohawk valley. He flattered the chiefs in various ways, and through them he obtained almost un bounded influence over the tribes, especially that of the Mohawks. He was in the habit of giving those chiefs who pleased him, a diploma, certi fying their good character, and faithfulness to his majesty. These con tained a picture, representing a treaty council, of which the annexed engraving is a copy. His family were the worst enemies of the Ameri cans during the war, in that region. His son, John, raised a regiment of Tories, called the Johnson Greens (those who joined St. Leger) ; and John Butler, a cruel leader, was at the head of another band, called Butler s Rangers. These co-operated with Brant, the great Mohawk sachem, and for years they made the Mohawk valley and vicinity truly a "dark and bloody ground." These men were the allies of St. Leger on the occasion in question. 3 The place of the battle is about halfway between Utica and Rome. The latter village is upon the site of Fort Stanwix, built by Bradstreet and his troops in 1758 [page 197]. It was repaired and garrisoned in 1776, and its name was changed to Fort Schuyler. Another Fort Schuyler was built during the French and Indian War, where Utica now stands. 4 Note 7, page 241 . A TREATY. BURGOYNE SURRENDERING HIS SWORD TO GATES. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 281 BEMIS S HEIGHTS. Still water (and twenty-five from Albany), and also formed a fortified camp. 1 Burgoyne perceived the necessity for immediate operations, and advancing toward the American camp, a severe but indecisive action ensued, on the 19th of September [1777J. Night terminated the conflict, and both parties claimed the victory. 2 Burgoyne fell back to his camp, where he resolved to await the arrival of expected detach ments from General Clinton, who was to attack the posts on the Hudson Highlands, and force his way to Albany. 3 But after waiting a few days, and hearing nothing from Clinton, he prepared for another at tempt upon the Americans, for the militia were flock ing to Gates s camp, arid Indian warriors of the Six NATIONS 4 were gathering there. His own force, on the contrary, was hourly diminishing. As his star, which arose so brightly at Ticonderoga, 5 began to decline upon the Hudson, the Canadians and his Indian allies deserted him in great numbers. 6 He was compelled to fight or flee. Again he advanced ; and after a severe battle of several hours, on the 7th of October, and almost on the same ground occupied on the 19th of September, he was compelled to fall back to the heights of Saratoga, and leave the patriots in the possession of the field. Ten days afterward [October 17], finding only three days provisions in his camp, hearing nothing of Clinton, and perceiving retreat impossible, he was compelled to surrender his whole army prisoners of war. 7 Of necessity, the forts upon Lake Champlain now fell into the hands of the patriots. 1 The remains of some of the intrenchments were yet visible in 1850, when the writer visited the locality. - 2 The number of Americans engaged in this action, was about two thousand five hundred ; that of the British was about three thousand. The former lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, three hundred and nineteen; the British loss was rather less than five hundred. 3 Page 283. 4 Page 25. 6 Page 276. 6 The Indians had been disappointed in their expectations of blood and plunder ; and now was their hunting season, when provisions must be secured for winter use. The Canadians saw nothing but defeat in the future, and left the army in whole companies. 7 The whole number surrendered was five thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, of whom two thousand four hundred and twelve were Germans or Hessians [page 183], under the chief com mand of the Baron Riedesel, whose wife accompanied him, and afterward wrote a very interesting account of her experience in America. Burgoyne did dine at Albany, but as a prisoner, though a guest at the table of General Schuyler. That noble patriot, though smarting under the injustice of Congress and the pride of Gates, did not abate his zeal for the good cause when he had surrendered his command into the hands of his successor, but, as a private citizen, gave his time, his labor, and his money freely, until he saw the invader humbled ; and then, notwithstanding Burgoyne, without the show of a just excuse, had destroyed Schuyler s fine mansion, his mills, and much other prop erty, at Saratoga^ he made the vanquished general a guest at his own table. When Burgoyne said, "You are very kind to one who has done you so much injury," the generous patriot replied, "That was the fate of war ; let us say no more about it." Burgoyne s troops laid down their arms upon the plain in front of Schuylerville ; and the meeting of the conqueror and the conquered, for the latter to surrender his sword, was a very significant scene. The two came out of Gates s marquee together. Without exchanging a word, Burgoyne, according to previous arrangement, stepped back, drew his sword, and, in the presence of the two armies, presented it to General Gates. The latter received it with a courteous inclination of the head, and instantly returned it to the vanquished general. They then returned to the marquee together. The British filed off, and took up their line of march for Boston ; and thus ended this important act in the great drama, upon the heights of Saratoga. Burgoyne s troops were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the view of sending 282 THE REVOLUTION. [1777. Glorious, indeed, was this victory for the Americans. It gave them a fine train of brass artillery, five thousand muskets, and a vast amount of munitions of war. Its moral effect was of greater importance. All eyes had been anxiously turned to the army of the North, and Congress and the people listened eagerly for every breath of rumor from Saratoga. How electric was the effect when a shout of victory came from the cam >f Gates I 1 It rolled over the land, and was echoed from furrows, workshops, marts of commerce, the halls of legislation, and from the shattered army of Washington at White- marsh. 2 Toryism stood abashed; the bills of Congress rose twenty percent, in value ; 3 private capital came from its hiding-places for public employment ; the militia nocked to the standards of leaders, and the great patriot heart of Amer ica beat with strong pulsations of hope. The effect in Europe was also favor able to the Americans. The highest hopes of the British ministry rested on this expedition, and the generalship of Burgoyne justified their expectations. It was a most severe blow, and gave the opposition in Parliament the keenest weapons. Pitt, leaning upon his crutches, 4 poured forth eloquent denunciations [December, 1777] of the mode of warfare pursued the employment of German hirelings 5 and brutal savages. 6 "If I were an American, as I am an English man," he exclaimed, u while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms never, never, never !" In the Lower House, 7 Burke, Fox, and Barr were equally severe upon the government. When, on the 3d of December, the news of Burgoyne s defeat reached London, the latter arose in his place in the Commons, 8 and with a serene and solemn countenance, asked Lord George Germain, the Secretary of War, what news he had received by his last expresses from Quebec, and to say, upon his word of honor, what had become of Burgoyne and his brave army. The haughty secretary was irritated by the cool irony of the question, but was compelled to acknowledge that the unhappy intelligence of Burgoyne s surrender had reached him. He added, " The intelligence needs confirmation." That confirmation was not slow in reaching the ministry. Mightily did this victory weigh in favor of the Americans, at the French them to Europe, but Congress thought it proper to retain them, and they were marched to the interior of Virginia. John Burgoyne was a natural son of Lord Bingley, and was quite eminent as a dramatic author. On his return to England, he resumed his seat as a member of Parliament, and opposed the war. He died in 1792. 1 General Gates was so elated with the victory, which had been prepared for him by General Schuyler, and won chiefly by the valor of Arnold and Morgan [page 331], that he neglected the courtesy due to the commander-in-chief, and instead of sending his dispatches to him, he sent his aid, Colonel Wilkinson, with a verbal message to Congress. That body also forgot its dignity in the hour of its joy. and the young officer was allowed to announce the victory himself, on the floor of Congress. In his subsequent dispatches, Gates did not even mention the names of Arnold and Morgan. History has vindicated their claims to the honor of the victory, and placed a just estimate upon the ungenerous conduct of their commander. Congress voted a gold medal to Gates. a Page 275. 3 Note 3, page 245. 4 Note 1, page 231. 6 Note 3, page 246. 8 A member justified the employment of the Indians, by saying that the British had a right to use the means "which God and nature had given them." Pitt scornfully repeated the passage, and said, tl These abominable principles, and this most abominable avowal of them, demands most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench (pointing to the bishops), those holy ministers of the gospel, and pious pastors of the church I conjure them to join in the holy work, and to vindicate the religion of their God." 7 Note 2, page 218. 8 Note 2, page 218. 1777.] THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 283 court. Unaided by any foreign power, the Americans had defeated and cap tured a well -trained army of about six thousand men, led by experienced com manders. " Surely such a people possess the elements of success, and will achieve it. We may now safely strike England a severe blow, 1 by acknowledging the independence, and forming an alliance with her revolted colonies," argued the French government. ad so it did. Intelligence of the surrender of Bur- goyne reached Paris on the 4th of December, 1777. King Louis then cast off all disguise, and informed the American commissioners that the treaty of alliance and commerce, already negotiated, would be ratified, and "that it was decided to acknowledge the independence of the United States." Within a little more than a hundred days after Burgoyne laid down his arms at Saratoga, France had formed an alliance with the confederated States [Feb. 6, 1778], and pub licly avowed it. The French king, in the mean while, wrote to his uncle, the king of Spain, urging his co-operation ; for, according to the family compact of the Bourbons, made in 1761, the king of Spain was to be consulted before such a treaty could be ratified. While these events were in progress at Saratoga, General Clinton was making hostile demonstrations upon the banks of the lower Hudson. He attempted the concerted co-operation with Burgoyne, but he was too late for success. He ascended the Hudson with a strong force, captured Forts Clinton and Montgomery, in the Highlands 2 [October 6, 1777], and sent a marauding expedition above these mountain barriers, to devastate the country [October 13], and endeavor to draw off some of the patriot troops from Saratoga. 3 These marauders burned Kingston, and penetrated as far as Livingston s Manor, in Columbia county. Informed of the surrender of Burgoyne, they hastily retreated, and Clinton and his army returned to New York. Some of Gates 7 troops now joined Washington at White Marsh, 4 and Howe made several attempts to entice the chief from his encampment, but without success. 5 Finally 1 France rejoiced at the embarrassments of England, on account of her revolted colonies, and from the beginning secretly favored the latter. She thought it inexpedient to aid the colonies openly, until there appeared some chance for their success, yet arms and money were secretly pro vided [note 3, page 266], for a long time previous to the alliance. Her motives were not the benevolent ones to aid the patriots, so much as a selfish desire to injure England for her own bene fit. The French king, in a letter to his uncle, of Spain, avowed the objects to be to " prevent the union of the colonies with the mother country," and to " form a beneficial alliance with them." A Bourbon (the family of French kings) was never known to be an honest advocate of free principles. a These forts were situated on opposite sides of a stream which forms the dividing line between Orange and Rockland counties. Fort Indpendence, near Peekskill, and Fort Constitution, opposite West Point, were abandoned on his approach. Fort Putnam, at West Point, was not yet erected. 3 While the garrison of the two forts (who escaped) were re-gathering, back of New Windsor, a man from the British army was arrested on suspicion of being a spy. He was seen to swallow something. An emetic brought it up, and it was discovered to be a hollow silver bullet, containing a dispatch from Clinton to Burgoyne, written on thin paper. That bullet is yet in the family of George Clinton, who was the first republican governor of New York. The dispatch was as follows: "Nous y voici [Here we are], and nothing between us and Gates. I sincerely hope this little success of ours will facilitate your operations. In answer to your letter of the 28th of Sep tember, by C. C., I shall only say, I can not presume to order, or even advise, for reasons obvious. I heartily wish you success. Faithfully yours, H. CLINTON." The prisoner was taken to Kingston, and there hanged as a spy. * Page 275. * Howe marched out to attack Washington on the 4th of December, expecting to take him by surprise. A Quaker lady of Philadelphia, at whose house some British officers were quartered, had 284 THE REVOLUTION. [1778. Washington moved from that position [December 11], and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, where he might easier afford protection to Congress at York, and his stores at Reading. 1 The events of that encampment at Valley Forge afford some of the gloomiest as well as some of the most brilliant scenes in the records of American patriotism. CHAPTER V. FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1778.] IF there is a spot on the face of our broad land wherein patriotism should delight to pile its highest and most venerated monument, it should be in the bosom of that rugged gorge on the bank of the Schuylkill, twenty miles north west from Philadelphia, known as Valley Forge, where the American army was encamped during the terrible winter of 1777- 78." In all the world s his- overheard them talking about this enterprise, gave Washington timely information, and he was too well prepared for Howe, to fear his menaces. After some skirmishes, in which several Americans were lost, Howe returned to Philadelphia. J Page 274. 2 That was a winter of severe and protracted cold. The waters of New York Bay were so firmly frozen, that the British took heavy cannons from the city to Staten Island, on the ice. ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FORGE- 1778.] FOURTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 285 tory, we have no record of purer devotion, holier sincerity, or more pious self- immolation, than was then and there exhibited in the camp of Washington. Many of the soldiers had marched thither from Whitemarsh, bare-footed, and left bloody foot-prints in the snow on their dreary ^ journey. 1 There, in the midst of frost and snow, half- clad and scantily fed, they shivered in rude huts, while the British army was indulging in comforts and luxuries within a large city. 2 Yet that freezing and starving army did not despair ; nor did the com- mander-in-chief, who shared their privations and suf fered injury at the hands of intriguing men, 3 lose con fidence in the patriotism of the people or his troops, or doubt the wisdom of Providence. 4 The winter wore away, and when the buds began to burst, a cheering ray of glad tidings came from Europe. The intelli gence of the treaty of alliance with France, 5 wa^ a hopeful assurance of success, and when the news spread through the camp, on the 1st of May [1778], shouts loud and long shook the forests which shrouded the hills around Valley Forge. 6 Nor was that a solitary gleam of hope. Light also emanated from the 1 Gordon, the historian, says, that while at "Washington s table in 1784, the chief informed him that bloody foot-prints were everywhere visible in the course of their march of nineteen miles, from "Whitemarsh to Valley Forge. 2 The power of t 7 e British army was much weakened by indulgence, during that winter. Prof ligacy begat disease, 3rime, and insubordination. The evil effects produced upon the army led Dr. Franklin to say, " Howe did not take Philadelphia Philadelphia took Howe." General Howe took leave of the army in May, and the officers gave him a splendid farewell fete, which was called a Mischianza, signifying a medley. For a full description, see Lossing s Field Book of the Revolution. During their occupation of the city, the enemy were annoyed by the patriots in various ways. In January, some Whigs at Bordentown, where Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declara tion of Independence, resided, sent a number of kegs down the Delaware, which were rilled with powder, and furnished with machinery, in such a manner, that on rubbing against any object in the stream, they would explode. These were the torpedoes invented by Bushnell of Connecticut, already mentioned on page 252. The British vessels, hauled into the docks to keep clear of the ice, escaped receiving any injury from these missiles. One of them exploded near the city, and pro duced intense alarm. Not a stick or a chip was seen floating, for twenty-four hours afterward, but it was fired at by the British. This circumstance afforded the theme for that remarkable poem from the pen of Hopkinson, entitled The Battle of the Kegs. Hopkinson [see page 284] was a native of Philadelphia and married and settled in Bordentown, New Jersey. He was an elegant writer, a great wit, a good musician, and a thorough-bred gentleman. He was a warm and active patriot, became eminent as a jurist after the war, and died in 1791, at the age of forty-seven years. His son, Joseph Hopkinson, was the author of our national song. Hail Columbia. 3 During this season a scheme was formed among a few officers of the army, and members of Congress, for depriving "Washington of his command, and giving it to Gates or Lee. Both of these ambitious men sought the honor, and the former was fully identified with the clandestine move ments toward that end. One of the chief actors in the plot, who was more the instrument of others than a voluntary and independent schemer, was General Conway, an Irishman, who belonged to the continental army. The plot was discovered and defeated, and Conway was led to make a most humble apology to Washington, for his conduct. * On one occasion, Isaac Potts, whose house was "Washington s head-quarters at Valley Forge, discovered the chief in a retired place, pouring out his soul in prayer to his God. Potts went home to his wife, and said, with tears in his eyes, " If there is any one on this earth to whom the Lord will listen, it is George Washington." 6 Page 283. 6 On the 7th day of May the army fired salutes in honor of the event, and by direction of the chief, they all shouted, " Huzza for the king of France /" 286 THE REVOLUTION. [1778. British throne and Parliament. The capture of Burgoyne, and the general failure of the campaign of 1777, had made the English people, and a powerful minority in Parliament, clamorous for peace and reconciliation. Lord North, the prime-minister/ was compelled to listen. To the astonishment of every body, he proposed [Feb. 17] a repeal of all the acts of Parliament obnoxious to the Americans, which had been enacted since 1763 ; and in the course of his speech in favor of his conciliatory plan, he actually proposed to treat the Con tinental Congress as a legal body. 2 Two bills, expressing these conciliatory measures, were passed after much opposition, 3 and received the signature of the king, on the llth of March. Commissioners* were appointed to proceed to America to negotiate for peace with Congress, and the British government seemed really anxious to offer the olive branch, without qualification. But the Americans had been too often deceived to accept any thing confidingly from that source, and as soon as these bills reached Congress [April 15], and it was found that they made no mention of the independence of the colonies, that body at once rejected them as deceptive. When the commissioners came [June 4], Congress refused to negotiate with them until Great Britain should withdraw her fleets and armies, or unequivocally acknowledge the independence of the United States. After unsuccessfully appealing to the American people, and one of them endeavoring to bribe members of Congress, 6 the commissioners returned to England, and the war went on. The alliance with France gave the patriots greater confidence in their ulti mate success. It was immediately productive of action. The first movement of the French government, in compliance with the requirements of that treaty, was to dispatch a squadron, consisting of twelve ships of the line, and four large frigates, under Count D Estaing, to blockade the British fleet in the Del aware. When, a month before he sailed, the British ministry was officially informed [March 17, 1778] of the treaty, and it was considered equivalent to a declaration of war, a vessel was dispatched with a message to the British com manders, ordering them to evacuate Philadelphia and the Delaware, and to con centrate their forces at New York. Fortunately for Lord Howe, he had left 1 Page 224. 3 Note 2, page 253. 3 Pitt was favorable to these bills, but when a proposition was made to acknowledge the independ ence of the colonies, and thus dismember the British empire, he opposed the measure with all his might. He was in favor of reconciliation, not of separation. It was during his speech on this sub ject, that he was seized [April 7] with the illness which terminated his life a month afterward. Pitt was bora in November, 1708, and died on the llth of May, 1778, when almost seventy years of age. * The Earl of Carlisle, George Johnstone, formerly governor of Florida, and William Eden, a brother of Sir Robert Eden, the last royal governor of Maryland. Adam Ferguson, the eminent professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburg, accompanied them as secretary. 6 Among those who were approached was General Joseph Reed, a delegate from Pennsyl vania. Mrs. Ferguson, wife of a relative to the secretary of the commissioners, then residing hi Philadelphia, and who was intimate with Mr. Reed, was employed to sound him. Mr. Reed had been suspected by some of his compatriots of rather easy virtue as a republican, and the fact that he was approachable in this way, confirmed their suspicions. Mrs. Ferguson was authorized to offer him high official station and a large sum of money, if he would use his influence in favor of peace, according to the submissive terms offered by the commissioners. Her mission became known, and General Reed alleged that he said to her, "I am not worth purchasing; but such as I am, the king of England is not rich enough to do it." 1778.] FOURTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 287 the Delaware a few days before the arrival of D Estaing 1 [July 8, 1778], and found safety in the waters of Amboy or Raritan Bay, into which the heavy French vessels could not enter over the bar that stretches northward from Sandy Hook toward the Narrows. A little earlier than this, there had been a change in the command of the British army. Sir Henry Clinton, 3 a more effi cient officer than Howe, had succeeded him as general- in-chief, toward the close of May, and on the 18th of June, he withdrew his whole army from Philadelphia. With eleven thousand men, and an immense baggage and provision train, he started for New York, by the way of New Brunswick and Amboy. Washington, sus pecting some important movement, was on the alert, and breaking up his encampment at Valley Forge, he pur sued Clinton with more than equal force. 3 Bv adroit , , , f , i A GENERAL CLINTON. movements, detachments of the American army so inter cepted Clinton s march, as to compel him to change his course in the direction of Sandy Hook, while New Jersey militia continually harassed his flanks and rear. 4 Finally, a general engagement took place [June 28, 1778] on the plains of Monmouth, in the present village of Freehold, in New Jersey. The 28th of June, 1778, a day memorable in the annals of Freedom, was the Christian Sabbath. The sky was cloudless over the plains of Monmouth, 5 when the morning dawned, and the sun came up with all the fervor of the sum mer solstice. It was the sultriest day of the year one of the warmest ever known. On that calm Sabbath morning, in the midst of paradisal beauty, twenty thousand men girded on the implements of hellish war, to maim an<? destroy each other to sully the green grass and the fragrant flowers with human blood. Nature was smiling in her summer garments, and in earth and air there was fullness of love and harmony. Man, alone, was the discordant note in the universal melody. He, alone, the proud "lord of creation," dis turbed the chaste worship of the hour, which ascended audibly from the groves, the streams, the meadows, and the woodlands. The two armies began to prepare for action at about one o clock in the morning, and at day-break they were in motion. Before nine, detachments met 1 Silas Deane [page 266] returned to America in D Estaing s flag-ship, and Gerard, the first French minister to the United States, came in the same vessel. Congress was now in session in Philadelphia, having returned from York [page 274] on the 30th of June, twelve days after the British had left for New York. 8 Henry Clinton was a son of George Clinton, governor of the province of New York in 1743, and a grandson of the Earl of Lincoln. After the war he was made governor of Gibraltar [1795], and died there the same year. 8 Arnold was yet quite lame from the effects of a severe wound in the leg, which he received in the battle on Bemis s Heights [page 278], and at his solicitation, "Washington left him in command of a corps at Philadelphia, with the powers of a military governor. "Washington crossed the Delaware in pursuit of Clinton, with a little more than 12,000 men. 4 "Washington was anxious to attack Clinton when he was hi the vicinity of Allentown, but Lee and others overruled his opinions, in a council of war. Greene, La Fayette, and "Wayne agreed with the chief, and supported by these able officers, he resolved on a general engagement. The battle of Monmouth was fought in the immediate vicinity of the present village of Free hold, New Jersey, chiefly within the space of two miles north-west of the town. 288 THE REVOLUTION. [1778. in deadly conflict, and from that hour until dark, on that long summer day, the terrible contest raged. It was commenced by the advanced division of the American army, under Gen eral Charles Lee. 1 His apparent want of skill or courage, and a mis understanding of orders on the BATTLE AT MONMOUTH. part of some of his officers, pro duced a general and tumultuous retreat of his division. The fugitives were met by the approaching main body, under Washington, 2 and being speedily checked and restored to order by the chief, they were led to action, and the battle became general. Many fell under the excessive heat of the day, and when night came, both parties were glad to rest. The Americans slept on their arms 3 during the nigkt, with the intention of renewing the battle at dawn, but when light appeared, the British camp was deserted. Clinton had silently withdrawn [June 29], and was far on his way toward Sandy Hook. 4 Washington did not follow, but marching to New Brunswick, and thence to the Hudson River, he proceeded to White Plains, 6 where he remained until late in autumn. Then he crossed into New Jersey, and made his winter quarters at Middlebrook, on the Raritan, where he was 1 Page 248. This command was first given to La Fayette, but when Lee, who had opposed the measure in council, signified his readiness to lead it, it was given to him, as he was the senior officer. 2 Washington was greatly irritated when he met the fugitives, and riding up to Lee, he addressed him with much warmth of language, and directed him to assist in restoring order. Lea promptly obeyed, but the sting of Washington s words rankled in his bosom, and on that day, after the battle, he addressed an offensive letter to the chief. Lee was arrested and tried by a court- martial, on the charges of disobedience of orders, misbehavior before the enemy, and disrespect to the commander-in-chief. He was found guilty, and was suspended from command for one year. He never entered the army again, and died in obscurity, in Philadelphia, in October, 1782. He was brave, but bad in manners and morals, profane in language, and a contemner of religion. It is believed that he was willing to have Washington lose the battle of Monmouth, because he (Lee), was opposed to it, and at the same time was seeking to rise to the chief command upon the ruins of Washington s reputation. We have already alluded to the conspiracy toward that end, on page 285. The hottest of the battle occurred a short distance from the Freehold Presbyterian Church yet [1867] standing. Near it is a board, with an inscription, showing the burial-spot of Colonel Monckton, of the British army, who was killed in the battle. 9 This expression is used respecting troops who sleep with all their accoutrements on, and their weapons by their side, ready for action in a moment. The British left about three hundred killed on the field of battle. They also left a large number of the sick and wounded to the mercy of the Americans. The Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, two hundred and twenty- eight. Many of the^missing afterward rejoined the army. They had less than seventy killed. 4 In his dispatch to the Secretary of War, General Clinton said, "I took advantage of the moon light to rejoin General Knyphausen," &c. As, according to an almanac of that year, the moon was quite new, and set two hours before Clinton s march, this boast of leaving in the moonlight occa sioned much merriment. Trumbull, in his WFingal, alluding to this, says, 4 He forms his camp with great parade, While evening spreads the world in shade, Then still, like some endanger d spark, Steals off on tiptoe in the dark ; Yet writes his king, in boasting tone, How grand he march d by light of moon I Go on, great general, nor regard The scoffs of every scribbling bard, Who sings how gods, that fearful night, Aided by miracle your flight ; As once they used, in Homer s day. To help weak heroes run away ; Tells how the hours, at this sad trial, Went back, as erst on Ahaz dial, While British Joshua stayed the moon On Monmouth s plain for Ajalon. Heed not their sneers or gibes so arch, Because she set before your march." * Page 305. 1778.] FOURTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 289 encamped in the spring and summer of the previous year. 1 Clinton s shattered forces went on board the British fleet at Sandy Hook, and proceeded to New York, where the head quarters of the royal army continued until the close of the war. 2 And when D Estaing appeared off Sandy Hook, the British fleet was safe in Raritan Bay. As we have already mentioned, the bar from Sandy Hook to Staten Island would not allow the heavy Trench vessels to pass, and D Estaing therefore relinquished his design of attacking Howe s fleet, and on the solicitation of Washington, he proceeded to Newport, to assist the Americans in an attempt to drive the British from Rhode Island. 3 General Sullivan had been sent to supersede General Spencer in command there ; and Washington also dispatched La Fayette, with two continental regiments (accompanied by General COUNT D ESTAING. Greene, then quartermaster general), to aid in the expe dition. John Hancock 4 came at the head of Massachusetts militia, and similar troops gathered at Tiverton, from Connecticut and Rhode Island. 5 On the 9th of August, [1778], the whole American force crossed from Tiverton to the north end of Rhode Island, and the British guards fled to the camp of General Pigot, at Newport. Several ships of war came from England at about this time, to reinforce the British fleet at New York, and a few days after D Estaing sailed for Newport, a large squadron under Howe, proceeded to the relief of Pigot. It appeared off Rhode Island on the same day [Aug. 9] when the Americans landed on the northern end of it. D Estaing, who was then within the harbor, went out to meet Howe, but before they came to an engagement, a terrible storm arose [Aug. 12], and scattered and disabled both fleets. 6 The French squadron returned to Newport [August 20], and immediately sailed for Boston to be repaired. The Americans had then advanced almost to Newport, with every prospect of making a successful siege. They had been promised four thousand land troops from the French fleet. These were denied them ; and refusing to listen to entreaties or remonstrances, D Estaing sailed for Boston and abandoned the Americans. 7 The latter hastily withdrew to the north end of the island 1 Page 272. 2 Page 350. 3 Page 261. 4 Page 231. 6 The people of Rhode Island had suffered dreadfully from the brutality of the British troops. There had been some amelioration of their condition since the capture of Prescott [page 271], and under the rule of Pigot, the present commander. "When success seemed possible, thousands of volunteers flocked to the standards of Sullivan and La Fayette. John Hancock was appointed a general of some of these volunteers. But his term of service was short. Like Dr. Franklin [page 193], Hancock was better fitted for a statesman than a soldier. Very old people on Rhode Island, who remembered this gale, spoke of it to the writer in 1850, as "the great storm." So violent was the wind, that it brought spray from the ocean a mile distant, and encrusted the windows of the town with salt. 7 This conduct was warmly censured by the American commanders, because it had no valid excuse. It deprived them of a victory just within their grasp. Congress, however, afraid to offend the French, uttered not a word of blame. The matter was passed over, but not forgotten. Once again [page 305], the same admiral abandoned the Americans. D Estaing was a native of Auvergne, France. He became involved in the French Revolution, in 1792, and in the spring of 1793, he was guillotined. The guillotine was an instrument for cutting off the head, invented by M. Guillotine, who was eventually beheaded by it himself. 19 290 THE REVOLUTION". [1778. [August 28], pursued by the British, and a severe engagement took place [August 29] at Quaker Hill. Sullivan repulsed the British, and on the night of the 30th, withdrew his whole army to the main, near Bristol, in time to avoid an interception by Sir Henry Clinton, who had just arrived with four thousand troops, in light vessels. 1 The Americans lost in this expedition, thirty killed, and one hundred and seventy-two wounded and missing. The British loss was about two hundred and twenty. While these events were transpiring on the sea-board, a dreadful tragedy was enacted in the interior, when the Wyoming, Mohawk, Schoharie, and Cherry Valleys, were made the theaters of terrible scenes of blood and devasta tion. Tories from distant Niagara, 2 and savages upon the head waters of the Susquehanna, gathered at Tioga early in June ; and at the beginning of July, eleven hundred of these white and dusky savages, under the general command of Colonel John Butler, 3 entered [July 2, 1778] the lovely valley of Wyoming, in northern Pennsylvania. Most of the strong men were then away on distant duty, and families and homes found defenders only in aged men, tender youths, resolute women, and a few trained soldiers. These, about four hundred strong, under Colonel Zebulon Butler, 4 marched up the valley [July 4], to drive back the invaders. But they were terribly smitten by the foe, and a large portion of them were slain or made prisoners. A few escaped to Forty Fort, near Wilkesbarre, wherein families, for miles around, had sought safety. Uncertain of their fate for the invaders were sweeping like a dark storm down the Sus quehanna the night of the battle-day was a terrible one for the people in the fort. But their agony of suspense was ended the following morning, when the leader of the invaders, contrary to the expectations of those who knew him, agreed upon humane terms of surrender. 5 The gates of the fort were thrown open, and most of the families returned to their homes in fancied security. They were doomed to terrible disappointment and woe. Brant, the great Indian 1 "When Clinton was assured of the security of Rhode Island, he detached General Grey on a marauding expedition upon the southern shores of Massachusetts, and among the adjacent islands, and then returned to New York. Grey burned about seventy vessels in Buzzard s Bay, near New Bedford, and in that vicinity destroyed property valued at more than three hundred and twenty- three thousand dollars. He then went to Martha s Vineyard [page 57], and carried away, for the army in New York, about three hundred oxen, and ten thousand sheep. On the first of October, Clinton sent a successful expedition to capture American stores at Little Egg Harbor, on the New Jersey coast. 2 Page 200. 3 Note 2, page 278. 4 Zebulon Butler was a native of Connecticut, and was born in 1731. He was in the French and Indian War, and was one of the earlier settlers in Wyoming. In 1778 he was appointed colonel, and was with Sullivan in his memorable expedition against the Senecas [page 304] the fol lowing year. He was in active service thoughout the war, and died in Wyoming in 1795, at the age of sixty-four years. 6 All our histories contain horrible statements of the fiend-like character of John Butler, and his unmitigated wickedness on this occasion. They also speak of the "monster Brant" [page 278] as the leader of the Indians, and the instigator of the crimes of which they were guilty. Both of these men were bad enough ; but recent investigations clearly demonstrate that Brant was not there at all ; and the treaty for surrender, which is still in existance, granted most humane terms to the be sieged, instead of the terrible one reported in our histories. The fugitives who fled over the mount ains, and made their way back to their native Connecticut, crossed the Hudson, many of them at Poughkeepsie, where John Holt was publishing a weekly paper. Their fears had magnified events, and their tales of terror were published in Holt s journal, and thus became records for future his torians.- Among other things, it was related that when the question was asked, on what terms the fort might be surrendered, Colonel John Butler, with more than savage cruelty, replied, The Hatchet 1 This is wholly untrue, and yet the story is repeated in all our histories. 1778.] FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 291 leader, was not there to restrain his savage bands, 1 and their thirst for blood and plunder soon overcame all their allegiance to their white commander. Be fore sunset they had scattered over the valley ; and when night fell upon the scene, the blaze of more than twenty dwellings cast its lurid glare over the paradise of yesterday. The cries of the murdered went up from almost every house and field ; and when the moon arose, the terrified inhabitants were fleeing to the Wilkesbarre mountains, and the dark morasses of the Pocono beyond. In that vast wilderness between the valley and the Delaware, appropriately called the Shades of Death, many women and children, who escaped the hatchet, perished by hunger and fatigue. That "Wyoming Massacre," as it has been appropriately called, stands out in bold relief as one of the darkest crimes per petrated during the "War for Independence. In the mean while, Brant 2 was leading or sending war parties through the country south of the Mohawk River ; and the Johnsons 3 and their Tory adher ents were allies of the savages in the Mohawk valley. On the llth and 12th of November [1778], a party of Tories, under Walter N. Butler, 4 accompanied by Indians, under Brant, fell like lightning upon the settlement of Cherry Val ley. Many of the people were killed, or carried into captivity ; and for months no eye was closed in security at night, within an area of a hundred miles and more, around this desolated village. Tryon county, as that region of New York was then called, was a " dark and bloody ground" for full four years, and the records of the woes of the people have filled volumes. 5 Our space allows us to mention only the most prominent events of that period. And now, when the year 1778 the fourth year of the war drew to a close, the British army had accomplished very little more in the way of conquest, than at the end of the second year. The belligerent forces occupied almost the same relative position which they did in the autumn of 1776, while the Amer icans had gained strength by a knowledge of military tactics, naval operationSj 1 The Indians were led by Gi-en-gwa-tah (he who goes in the smoke), a celebrated Seneca chief. a Page 278. 3 Note 2, page 278. 4 He was a son of Colonel John Butler, and one of the most brutal of the Tory leaders. In the attack upon the defenseless people at Cherry Valley, on the 10th of November, 1778, he was the most conspicuous for cruelty ; in fact, he was the head and front of all the villainy perpetrated there. Thirty-two of the inhabitants, mostly women and children, and sixteen soldiers of the little garrison there, were killed. The whole settlement was then plun dered, and every building in the village was fired. Among the pris oners carried into captivity, were the wife and children of Colonel Campbell, who was then absent. One of the children (Judge James S. Campbell of Cherry VaUey), then six years of age, still [1867] sur vives, and during the summer of 1855, after an absence of seventy- five years, he visited the Indian village of Caughnawaga, twelve miles from Montreal, where he resided some time with his captors. Walter Butler was shot by an Oneida Indian, in West Canada Creek, and his body was left to be eaten by wild beasts. 6 See Campbell s Annals of Tryon County, Simm s History of Scho- Tiarie County, Stone s Life of Brant, etc. 6 Among the foreign officers who came to America in 1777, was the Baron Steuben, who joined the Continental army at Valley Forge [page 285]. He was a veteran from the armies of Frederic the BARON STEUBEN. Great of Prussia, and a skillful disciplinarian. He was made Inspector- General of the army ; and the vast advantages of his military instruction were seen on the field of Monmouth [page 287], and in subsequent conflicts. Steuben died at Steubenville, in the interior 292 THE REVOLUTION. [1778. and the art of civil government ; and they had secured the alliance of France, the powerful European rival of Great Britain, and the sympathies of Spain and Holland. The British forces occupied the real position of prisoners, for they were hemmed in upon only two islands, 1 almost two hundred miles apart, and each about fourteen miles in length ; while the Americans possessed every other stronghold of the country, and, unlike the invaders, were warring for the dearest rights of common humanity. Tha scene of the most active military operations now changed. In the autumn [Nov. 3, 1778], D Estaing sailed for the West Indies, to attack the British possessions there. To defend these, it was necessary for the British fleet on our coast to proceed to those waters. 2 This movement would prevent any co-operation between the fleet and army in aggressive movements against the populous and now well-defended North ; they could only co-operate in act ive operations against the sparsely-settled South. These considerations caused a change in the plans of the enemy ; and late in November [Nov. 27 J, Sir Henry Clinton dispatched Colonel Campbell, with about two thousand troops, to invade Georgia, then the weakest member of the Confederacy. They pro ceeded by water, and landed at Savannah, the capital of the State, on the morning of the 29th of December. General Robert Howe 3 was there, with only about a thousand men, and these were dispirited by the failure of a recent expe dition against Florida in which they had been engaged. 4 They defended the city nobly, however, until an overwhelming force, by power and stratagem, com pelled them to retire. They then fled, in confusion, up the Savannah River, and took shelter in the bosom of South Carolina. The capital of Georgia be came the head-quarters of the British army at the South ; and the enemy re tained it until near the close of the contest [1782], even when every foot of soil in the State, outside the intrenchments around the city, was possessed by the patriots. CHAPTER VI. FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1779.] THICKLY mottled with clouds of evil forebodings for the Republican cause, Was the political firmament at the dawn of the year 1779. The finances of the of New York, in 1795, and his remains rest beneath a slab in the town of Steuben, about seven miles north-west of Trenton Falls. 1 Manhattan, or York Island, and Rhode Island. 2 Admiral Hotham sailed for the "West Indies on the 3d of November ; and early in December, Admiral Byron, who had just succeeded Lord Howe in chief naval command, also sailed for that destination. 3 Page 244. 4 A great number of Tories were organized in Florida, and committed so many depredations upon the settlers on the Georgian frontiers, that Howe, during the summer of 1778, went thither to dis perse them. He penetrated to the St. Mary s River, in June, where he awaited reinforcements, and supplies, by water. "Want of co-operation on the part of the governor of Georgia and the naval commander, produced much disunion ; and sickness soon reduced the number of effective men so much, that the enterprise was abandoned. 1779.] FIFTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 293 country were in a most wretched condition. Already, one hundred millions of dollars of continental money 1 were afloat without the security of even good public credit ; 2 and their value was rapidly depreciating. While the amount of the issues was small, the credit of the bills was good ; but when new emis sions took place, and no adequate measures for redemption were exhibited, the people became suspicious of those frail representatives of money, and their value began to depreciate. This effect did not occur until eighteen months after the time of the first emission. 3 Twenty millions of the continental bills were then in circulation, besides a large amount of local issues by the several States. It was perceived that depreciation was inevitable, and Congress proposed, as a substitute for further issues, a loan of five millions, at an interest of four per cent. A lottery had been early authorized, and was now in operation, designed to raise a like sum, on loan, the prizes being payable in loan-office certificates. 4 Although these offices were opened in all the States, and the interest raised to six per cent., the loans came in slowly. The treasury became almost exhausted, the loan-offices were overdrawn upon by the commissioners drafts, and the issue of bills was reluctantly recommenced. The financial embarrassments were increased by the circulation of an immense amount of counterfeits of the continental bills, by the British and the loyalists, which rapidly depreciated the currency. They were sent out from New York, literally, by " cart-loads." Congress felt the neces sity of making some extraordinary efforts for redeeming the genuine bills, so as to sustain their credit. The several States were taxed, and on the 2d of Janu ary, 1779, it was, by Congress, " Resolved, That the United States be called on to pay in their respective quotas of fifteen millions of dollars, for the year 1779, and of six millions of dollars annually for eighteen years, from and after the year 1779, as a fund for sinking the emissions," &c. ; yet all was in vain; prices rose as the bills sank in value, and every kind of trade was embarrassed and 1 Page 245. 2 At this time, when Congress could not borrow a dollar upon its own credit, Robert Morris [page 264] found no difficulty in raising millions upon his own. For a long time he, alone, furnished the "hard money" used by that body. 3 Note 3, page 245. 4 On the first of November, 1776, the Continental Congress "Resolved, That a sum of money be raised by way of lottery, for defraying the expenses of the next campaign, the lottery to be drawn in Philadelphia." A committee was appointed to arrange the same, and on the 18th, reported a scheme. The drawer of more than the minimum prize in each class, was to receive either a treasury bank note, payable in five years, with an annual interest at four per cent., or the preemption of such billets in the next succeeding class ; this was optional with the adventurers. Those who should not call for their prizes within six weeks after the end of the drawing, were considered adventurers in the next succeeding class. Seven managers were appointed, who were authorized to employ agents in different States to sell the tickets. The first drawing was decided to be made at Philadelphia, on the first of March, 1777; but purchasers were comparatively few and tardy, and the drawing was postponed from time to time. Various impediments continually presented themselves, and tli3 plan, which promised such success at the beginning, appears to have been a failure. Many purchasers of tickets were losers ; and this, like some other financial schemes of the . Revolution, was productive of much hard feeling toward the Federal Government. 5 It was no secret at the time, as appears by the following advertisement in Games New York Mercury : " ADVERTISEMENT. Persons going into other colonies, may be supplied with any number of counterfeited Congress notes, for the price of the paper per ream. They are so neatly and exactly executed, that there is no risk in getting them off, it being almost impossible to discover that they are not genuine. This has been proven by bills to a very large amount, which have already been successfully circulated. Inquire of Q. E. D., at the Coflfee-house, from 11 A. M., to 4 P. M., during the present month." 294 THE REVOLUTION. [1779. deranged. The federal government was thoroughly perplexed. Only about four millions of dollars had been obtained, by loan, from Europe, and present negotiations appeared futile. No French army was yet upon our soil, to aid us, nor had French coin yet gladdened the hearts of unpaid soldiers. A French fleet had indeed been upon our coasts, 1 but had now gone to fight battles for France in the West Indies, after mocking our hopes with broken promises of aid. 2 Gloomy, indeed, appeared the firmament at the dawn of 1779, the fifth year of the War for Independence. In the autumn of 1777, a plan for invading Canada and the eastern British provinces, arid for seizing the British posts on the western lakes, had been matured by Congress and the Board of War, 3 but when it was submitted to Washington, his sagacious mind perceived its folly, and the influence of his opinions, and the discovery, by true patriots, that it was a part of the secret plan, entered into by Gates and others, to deprive Washington of chief com mand, caused an abandonment of the scheme. Others, more feasible, occu pied the attention of the Federal Legislature ; and for several weeks the com- mander-in-chief co-operated with Congress [January, 1779], in person, in preparing a plan for the campaign of 1779. It was finally resolved to act on the defensive, except in retaliatory expeditions against the Indians and Tories in the interior. 4 This scheme promised the most beneficial results, for it would be safer and less expensive, than offensive warfare. During the entire year, the principal military operations w r ere carried on in the two extreme sections of the confederacy. The chief efforts of the Americans were directed to the con finement of the British army to the seaboard, and chastising the Indian tribes. The winter campaign opened by Lieutenant-colonel Campbell 5 [December 29, 1778], continued until June, and resulted, as we have mentioned [page 292], in the complete subjugation of Georgia to British rule. When Campbell had garrisoned Savannah, and arranged for its defense, he prepared to march against Sunbury, twenty-eight miles further south, the only post of any consequence now left to the Americans on the Georgia seaboard. He treated the people leniently, and, by proclamation, invited them to join the British standard. These measures had their desired effect, and timid hundreds, seeing the State under the heel of British power, proclaimed their loyalty, and rallied be neath the standard of King George. At the same time, General Prevost, who was in command of the British and Indians in east Florida, marched northward, captured Sunbury [January 9, 1779], and assumed the chief com mand of the British forces in the South. With this post GENERAL LINCOLN. f e n the hopes of the Republicans in east Georgia, In the 1 Page 289. 2 Page 289. 3 On the 12th of June, 1776, Congress appointed a committee, to be styled the "Board of War and Ordnance," to have the general supervision of military affairs. John Adams was the chairman, and Richard Peters was secretary. Peters was the real " Secretary of "War" under the old Confed eration, until 1781, when he was succeeded by General Lincoln. General Gates was chairman in 1778. 4 Page 291. 6 Page 293 1779.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 295 mean while, General Benjamin Lincoln, of Massachusetts, had been appointed [September, 1778], commander-in-chief of the southern army of patriots. 1 He made his head-quarters at Purysburg [January 6], twenty-five miles above Savannah, and there commenced the formation of an army, composed of some con tinental regiments, new recruits, and the broken forces of General Howe. 2 While Lincoln was collecting his army on the Carolina bank of the Savannah, Camp bell marched up the Georgia side to Augusta, 3 for the purpose of encouraging the Tories, opening a communication with the Creek Indians 4 in the West (among whom the British had active emissaries), and to awe the Whigs. At the same time a band of Tories, under Colonel Boyd, was desolating the Carolina fron tiers, while on their march to join the royal troops. When within two days march of Augusta, they were attacked 5 [February 14, 1779] and utterly defeated by Colonel Pickens, at the head of the militia of Ninety-six. 6 Boyd and seventy of his men were killed, and seventy-five were made prisoners. 7 Pick- ens lost thirty-eight of his men. This defeat of Boyd alarmed Campbell and encouraged Lincoln. The latter immediately sent General Ashe, of North Carolina, with about two thousand men, 8 to drive Campbell from Augusta, and to confine tho invaders to the low, sickly sections near the sea, hoping for aid from tho deadly malaria of the swamps, when the heats of summer should prevail. The British fled [February 13, 1779] at the approach of Ashe, and were pursued by him [February 16] as far as Brier Creek, about forty miles below Augusta, where he halted to establish a camp. There Ashe was surprised and defeated [March 3] by Gen eral Prevost, who, with quite a large force, was marching up the Savannah to the relief of Campbell. Ashe lost almost his entire army by death, captivity, and dispersion. Some were killed, others perished in the morasses, and many were drowned in attempting to escape across the Savannah. 9 This blow deprived Lincoln of one fourth of his army, and led to the temporary re-establishment of royal government in Georgia. 10 1 Benjamin Lincoln was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1733. He was a farmer, yet took an active part in public affairs. He joined the continental army in 1777, and rose rapidly to the station of major-general. He commanded the militia against Shay s insurgents [See 5, page 353.] in 1786. He was also a useful public officer in civil affairs, and died in 1810. a Page 292. 3 When Campbell departed for Augusta, Prevost sent Colonel Gardiner with some troops, to take possession of Port Royal Island, some sixty miles below Charleston, preparatory to a march upon that city. Gardiner was attacked by General Moultrie [page 249], with Charleston militia, on the morning of the 3d of Februaiy. Almost every British officer (except the commander), and many privates, were killed. Gardiner and a few men escaped in boats, and Moultrie, whose loss was trifling, joined Lincoln at Purysburg. 4 Page 30. 5 The place of the skirmish was upon Kettle Creek, in Oglethorpe county, Georgia. 6 Page 336. 7 Seventy of them were tried and found guilty of treason, and sentenced to bo hung. Only five were executed, 8 Lincoln wa? joined by Generals Ashe and Rutherford, with North Carolina regiments, about the first of February, and his army now amounted to little more than three thousand men. John Ashe was born io England in 1721, and came to America when a child. He was engaged in the Regulator War [page 223], and was one of the most active of the North Carolina patriots. He died of small-pox in 1781. 9 About one hundred and fifty were killed and drowned, eighty -nine were made prisoners, and a large number, who were dispersed, did not take up arms again for several months. 10 At the beginning of 1776, the bold Whigs of Savannah had made the royal governor, Sir James Wright, a prisoner in his own house ; and the provincial Assembly, assuming governmental 296 THE REVOLUTION. [1779. Prevost now prepared for an invasion of South Carolina. Toward the last of April, he crossed the Savannah [April 27] with two thousand regulars, and a large body of Tories and Creek Indians, and marched for Charleston. Lin coln had recruited, and was now in the field with about five thousand men, preparing to recover lost Georgia, by entering the State at Augusta, and sweep ing the country to the sea. But when he discovered the progress of Prevost, and that even the danger of losing Savannah did not deter that active general from his attempts upon Charleston, Lincoln hastened to the relief of the men aced city. The people on the line of his march hailed him as a deliverer, for Prevost had marked his progress by plunder, conflagration, and cruelty. For tunately for the Republicans, the invader s march was so slow, that when he arrived [May 11] before the city, the people were prepared for resistance. Prevost, on the morning of the llth of May, approached the American intrenchments thrown across Charleston Neck, 1 and demanded an immediate surrender of the city. He was answered by a prompt refusal, and the remain der of the day was spent by both parties, in preparations for an assault. That night was a fearful one for the citizens, for they expected to be greeted at dawn with bursting bomb-shells, 2 and red-hot cannon-balls. When morning came [May 12, 1779], the scarlet uniforms of the enemy were seen across the waters upon John s Island, and not a hostile foot was upon the Charleston peninsula. The cause of this was soon made manifest. Prevost had been informed of the approach of Lincoln, and fearing his connection with Savannah might be cut off, he commenced a retreat toward that city, at midnight, by way of the islands along the coast. For more than a month some British detachments lingered upon John s Island. Then they were attacked at Stono Ferry, ten miles below Charleston [June 20] by a party of Lincoln s army, but after a severe engage ment, and the loss of almost three hundred men in killed and wounded, they repulsed the Americans whose loss was greater. Prevost soon afterward established a military post at Beaufort, on Port Royal Island, 3 and then retreated to Savannah. The hot season produced a suspension of hostilities in the South, and that region enjoyed comparative repose for several months. Sir Henry Clinton was not idle while these events were in progress at the South. He was sending out marauding expeditions from New York, to plunder and harass the people on the sea-coast. Governor Tryon 1 went from Kings- bridge 5 xm the 25th of March [1779], with fifteen hundred British regulars and powers, made provisions for military defense [February, 1776]. issued bills of credit, &c. "Wright escaped and went to England. He returned in July, 1779, and resumed his office as governor of the "colony." 1 Charleston, like Boston [note 3, page 229], is situated upon a peninsula, the neck of which is made quite narrow by the Ashley and Cooper Kivers, and the marshes. Across this the Americans had hastily casj up embankments. They served a present purpose, and being strengthened, were of great value to the Americans the following year. See page 310. 3 Hollow balls or shells of cast iron, filled with gunpowder, slugs, &c. In an orifice communi cating with the powder, is a/ slow match. This is ignited, and the shell is hurled from a mortar (a short cannon) into the midst of a town or an army. "When the powder ignites, the shell is bursted into fragments, and these with the slugs make terrible havoc. They are sometimes the size of a man s head. 3 Note 5, page 166. 4 Page 248. 6 The passage across the Harlem River (or as it is sometimes there called, Spuyten Duyvil Creek), at the upper end of York or Manhattan Island,, 1779.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 297 Hessians/ to destroy some salt-works at Horseneck, and attack an American detachment under General Putnam, at Greenwich, in Connecticut. The Amer icans were dispersed [March 26], and Putnam barely escaped capture by some dragoons. 2 He rallied his troops at Stamford, pursued the British on their return toward New York the same evening, recaptured a quantity of plunder in their possession, and took thirty-eight of them prisoners. On the 9th of May, Sir George Collier entered Hampton Roads, 3 with a small fleet, bearing General Mathews, with land troops, destined to ravage the country in that vicinity. They spread desolation on both sides of the Elizabeth River, from the Roads to Norfolk and Portsmouth. After destroying a vast amount of property, they withdrew ; and at the close of the month, the same vessels and the same troops were up the Hudson River, assisting Sir Henry Clinton in the capture of the fortress at Stony Point, and also the small fort on Verplanck s Point, opposite. Both of these posts fell into the power of the British, after a spirited resistance ; the first on the 31st of May, and the latter on the 1st of June. These achievements accomplished, Collier, with a band of twenty-five hundred marauders, under Governor Tryon, sailed on the night of the 4th of July [1779], for the shores of Connecticut, to plunder and destroy the towns on the coast. They plundered New Haven on the 5th, laid East Haven in ashes on the 6th, destroyed Fairfield in the same way on the 8th, and burned and plundered Norwalk on the 12th. Not content with this wanton destruction of property, the invaders insulted and cruelly abused the defense less inhabitants. While Norwalk was burning, Tryon sat in a rocking-chair, upon an eminence near by, and viewed the scene with great complacency, and apparent pleasure a puny imitation of Nero, who fiddled while Rome was blazing. 4 The Hessian mercenaries generally accompanied these expeditions, for, unlike the British soldiers, they were ever eager to apply the torch and abuse the inhabitants. They were the fit instruments for such a warfare. When Tryon (whom the English people abhorred for his wrong-doings in America), had completed the destruction of these pleasant villages, he boasted of his ex- 1 Page 246. a On this occasion he performed the feat, so often related, of descending a steep hill on horse back, making his way, as common history asserts, down a flight of stone steps, which had been constructed for the convenience of people who had to ascend this hill to a church on its summit. The whole matter is an exaggeration. An eye-witness of the event says that Putnam pursued a zig-zag course down the hill, and only descended four or five of the steps near the bottom. The feat was not at all extraordinary when we consider that a troop of dragoons, with loaded pistols, were at his heels. These, however, dared not follow the general. In 1825, when a company of horsemen were escorting La Fayette the "Nation s Guest" along the road at that place, some of them went down the same declivity on horseback. The stone steps are now [1867] visible in some places, among the shrubbery and overlying sod. 3 Page 69. This is a body of water at the conjunction of the James and Elizabeth Eivers, and communicating with the sea. It is one of the most spacious harbors in the world. The village of Hampton lies upon its northern border. See page 243. 4 Alluding to these outrages of Tryon, and the burning of Kingston [page 283] by Yaughan, Trumbull, in hi3 JWFingal, says : " Behold, like whelps of British lion, Our warriors, Clinton, Yaughan, and Tryon, March forth, with patriotic joy. To ravish, plunder, and destroy. Great generals ! Foremost in their nation The journeymen of desolation!" 298 THE REVOLUTION. [1779. STONY POINT. treme clemency in leaving a single house standing on the New England coast. While these marauding forays were in progress, the Americans were not idle- They were preparing to strike the enemy heavy and unexpected blows. Only three days after the destruction of Norwalk [July 15], General Anthony Wayne was marching secretly to attempt the re-capture of Stony Point, on the Hud son. The fort stood upon a rocky promontory, sur rounded by water and a marsh, and was very strong in its position. So secretly was the whole movement conducted, that the British garrison were unsuspicious of danger. At midnight, the little army of patriots crossed the morass in the rear, and attacked the fort with ball and bayonet, at two separate points, in the face of a heavy cannonade from the aroused garrison. At two o clock in the morning [July 16, 1779], Wayne, though so badly wounded in the head by a glancing blow of a bullet, as to fall senseless, wrote to Washing ton, " The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free." This was considered one of the most brilliant events of the war. 1 The British lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about six hundred men ; the loss of the Americans was fifteen killed, and eighty-three wounded. The spoils were a large amount of military stores. The post was abandoned by the Americans, for, at that time, troops sufficient to garrison it could not be spared. 2 The capture of Stony Point was followed by another brilliant achievement, a month later [August 19], when Major Henry Lee, 3 at three o clock in the morning, surprised a British garrison at Paulus Hook (now Jersey City), 4 op posite New York, killed thirty soldiers, and took one hundred and sixty pris- 1 Wayne was highly complimented by all. General Charles Lee [page 248], who was not on the most friendly terms with Wayne, wrote to him, saying, "I do most seriously declare that your assault of Stony Point is not only the most brilliant, in my opinion, throughout the whole course of the war, on either side, but that it is the most brilliant I am acquainted with in history. The as sault of Schiveidnitz, by Marshal Laudon, I think inferior to it." Dr. Rush wrote, saying, "Our streets rang for many days with nothing but the name of General "Wayne. You are remembered constantly next to our good and great Washington, over our claret and Madeira. You have estab lished the national character of our country; you have taught our enemies that bravery, humanity, and magnanimity are the national virtues of the Americans." Congress gave him thanks, and a gold medal ; and silver medals were awarded to Colonels Stewart and De Fleury, for their gallantry on the occasion. Anthony Wayne was born in Pennsylvania in 1745. He was a professional sur veyor, then a provincial legislator, and became a soldier in 1775. He was very active during the whole war; and was efficient in subduing the Indians in the Ohio country, in 1795 [see page 374]. He died at Erie, on his way home, near the close of 1796. 2 After the Americans had captured Stony Point, they turned the cannons upon Fort La Fay- ette, upon Yerplanck s Point, opposite. General Robert Howe [page 292] was directed to attack that post, but on account of some delays, he did not reach there before Sir Henry Clinton sent up relief for the garrison. . Note 2, page 133. 4 Note 1, page 94. GENERAL WAYNE. 1779.] FIFTH YEAK OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 299 oners. This gallant act was greatly applauded in the camp, in Congress, and throughout the country, and made the enemy more cautious and circumspect. The hero was honored by Congress with thanks and a gold medal. These and some smaller successes at about this time, elated the Americans ; but their joy was soon turned into sorrow, because of disasters in the extreme East. Massa chusetts had fitted out almost forty vessels to attempt the seizure of a British post on the Penobscot River. The assailants delayed more than a fortnight after their arrival [July 25] before determining to carry the place by storm. Just as the troops were about to land for the purpose, a British fleet arrived, destroyed the flotilla, took many of the soldiers and sailors prisoners, and drove the remainder into the wilderness [Aug. 13]. These, after great hardships in the forests, reached Boston toward the close of September. The storm of war was not confined to the Atlantic settlements. It burst over the lofty Alleghanies, and at an early period, even while it was gathering, a low, muttering peal of thunder came from clouds that brooded over the far- off wilderness of the great valleys of the West. Pioneers from the sea-board colonies were there, and they were compelled, almost at the moment of arrival, to wage war with the Indian, and hunt savage men as well as savage beasts. Among the earliest and most renowned of these pioneers, was Daniel Boone, the great " Hunter of Kentucky," of whom Byron wrote, " Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, Who passes for, in life and death, most lucky, [1779. 500 THE REVOLUTION. Of the groat names which in our faces stare, The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest among mortals anywhere." 1 He went west of the Blue Ridge as early as 1769, and in 1773, his own and a few other families accompanied him to the paradise lying among the rich valleys south of the Ohio River. 2 From that period until the power of the western Indians (who were continually incited to hostilities by the British and Tories) was broken by George Rogers Clarke, Boone s life was one of almost continual warfare with the children of the forest. Nor did Boone and his companions measure strength with the Indians alone ; 1 Don Juan, VIII, Ixi. a The wife and daughters of Boone were the first white females that set foot in the valleys west of the Alleghanies. Daniel Boone was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, in 1734. "While he was a small boy, his parents settled on the Yadkin, in North Carolina. "When in the prime of life, he went over the mountains, and became a famous hunter. He planted the first settlement on the Kain-tuck-ee River, yet known as Boonsborough. During the Revolution he fought the Indians bravely, and was a prisoner among them for some time, but escaped. He was active in all matters pertaining to the settlement of Kentucky, until it became an independent State. Yet he was, by the technicalities of law, doomed to be disinherited of every foot of the soil he had helped to redeem from the wilderness, and, at almost eighty years of age, he was trapping beaver upon the Little Osage River, beyond the Mississippi. He died in Missouri, when almost ninety years of age, in September, 1820. CLARK S EXPEDITION ACROSS THE DROWNED LANDS. 1779.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 303 but in time they confronted white leaders and white followers. These conflicts, however, were only a series of border forays, until 1778, when Major George Rogers Clarke 1 led a regular expedition against the frontier posts of the enemy, in the wilderness in the far north-west, now the States of Indiana and Illinois. His little army rendezvoused at the Falls of the Ohio, where Louisville now stands, where he was joined by Simon Kenton, and other pioneers. From thence they penetrated the country northward, and on the 4th of July [1778]. they captured Kaskaskia. 2 On the 9th, they took the village of Cahokia, sixty miles further up the river ; and finally, in August, the stronger British post of Vincennes, on the Wabash, fell into their hands. Acting in the capacity of a peace-maker, Clarke was working successfully toward the pacification of the western tribes, when, in the month of January, 1779, the commander of the British fort at Detroit retook Vincennes. With one hundred and seventy-five men, Clarke penetrated the dreadful wilderness a hundred miles from the Ohio. For a whole week they traversed the 1 drowned lands" of Illinois, suffering every privation from wet, cold, and hunger. When they arrived at the Little Wabash, at a point where the forks of the stream are three miles apart, they found the intervening space covered with water to the depth of three feet. The points of dry land were five milea apart, and all that distance those hardy soldiers, in the month of February, waded the cold snow-flood 3 in the forest, sometimes arm-pit deep ! They arrived in sight of Vincennes on the 18th [February, 1779], and the next morning at dawn, with their faces blackened with gunpowder, to make them selves appear hideous, they crossed the river in a boat, and pushed toward the town. On the 20th, the stripes and stars were again unfurled over the fort at Vincennes and a captured garrison. Had armed men dropped from the clouds, the people and soldiers at Vincennes could not have been more astonished, than at the apparition of these troops, for it seemed impossible for them to have traversed the deluged country. The indignation of the people was fiercely aroused by the atrocities at Wyoming and upon the head waters of the Susquehanna ; and in the summer of 1779, General Sullivan 4 was sent into the heart of the country of the Six NA TIONS, 5 to chastise and humble them. He collected troops in the Wyoming 1 George Rogers Clarke, was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, in 1752, and first appears in history as an adventurer beyond the Alleglianies, twenty years afterward. He had been a land- surveyor, and first went to the Ohio region in 1772. He was a captain in Dunmore s army [note 4, page 237] in 1774, and in 1775, he accompanied some emigrants to Kentucky. Pleased with the country, he determined to make it his home ; and during the war for Independence, he labored nobly to secure the vast region of the west and north-west, as a home for the free. Under his leadership, what afterward became the North-west Territory, was disenthralled, and he has been appropriately styled the Father of that region. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier, after serving under the Baron Steuben against Arnold, in Virginia, in 1781, and at the close of the war he remained in Kentucky. He died near Louisville, in February, 1818, at the age of sixty-six years. 3 Page 180. * Note 3, page 241. 4 John Sullivan was born in Maine, in 1740. He was a delegate in the first Continental Con gress [1774], and was one of the first eight brigadiers in the Continental Army. After being in act ive service about four years, he resigned his commission in 1779. He was afterward a member of Congress, and governor of New Hampshire, and died in 1795. 6 Page 25. British emissaries had gained over to the royal interest the whole of the Six NA TIONS except the Oneidas. These were kept loyal to the republicans, chiefly through the instru- 304 THE REVOLUTION. [1779, Valley ; and on the last day of July, marched up the Susquehanna, with about three thousand soldiers. At Tioga Point, he met General James Clinton, 1 on the 22d of August, who came from the Mohawk Valley, with about sixteen hundred men. On the 29th, they fell upon a body of Indian and Tory savages, strongly fortified, at Chemung (now Elmira), and dis persed them. Without waiting for them to rally, Sulli van moved forward, and penetrated the country to the Genesee River. In the course of three weeks, he de stroyed forty Indian villages, and a vast amount of food growing in fields and gardens. One hundred and sixty GENERAL SULLIVAN. liiir. A i / n i thousand bushels of corn in the fields and in granaries were destroyed ; a vast number of the finest fruit-trees, the product of years of tardy growth, were cut down ; hundreds of gardens covered with edible vegetables, were desolated ; the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were hunted like wild beasts ; their altars were overturned, and their graves trampled upon by strangers ; and a beautiful, well- watered country, teeming with a prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness state, by the aid of culti vation, to a level with the productive regions of civilization, was desolated and cast back a century in the space of a fortnight, 2 To us, looking upon the scene from a point so remote, it is difficult to perceive the necessity that called for a chastisement so cruel and terrible. But that such necessity seemed to exist we should not doubt, for it was the judicious and benevolent mind of Washington that conceived and planned the campaign, and ordered its rigid execution in the manner in which it was accomplished. It awed the Indians for the moment, but it did not crush them. In the reaction they had greater strength. It kindled the fires of deep hatred, which spread far among the tribes upon the lakes and in the valley of the Ohio. Washington, like Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, received from the savages the name of An-na-ta-kau-les, which sig nifies a taker of towns, or TOWN DESTROYER. 3 mentality of one or two Christian missionaries. After the war, those of the Six Nations who joined the British, pleaded, as an excuse, the noble sentiment of loyalty. They were the friends of the En glish, and regarded the parent country as then* ally. When they saw the children of their great father, the king, rebelling against him, they felt it to be their duty, in accordance with stipulations of solemn treaties, to aid him. 1 General James Clinton was born in Ulster county, New Tork, in 1736. He was a captain in the French and Indian War, and an active officer during the Revolution. He died in 1812. 2 The Seneca Indians were beginning to cultivate rich openings in the forests, known as the- " Genesee Flats," quite extensively. They raised large quantities of corn, and cultivated gardens- and orchards. Their dwellings, however, were of the rudest character, and their villages consisted of a small collection of these miserable huts, of no value except for winter shelter. 3 At a council held in Philadelphia in 1792, Corn Planter, the distinguished Seneca chief, thus addressed Washington, then President of the United States: "FATHER The voice of the Seneca nation speaks to you, the great counselor, in whose heart the wise men of all the thirteen fires have placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears, and, therefore, we entreat you to hearken with attention, for we are about to speak to you of things which to us are very great When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you Tlw Town Destroyer ; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers. Our counselors and warriors are men, and can not be afraid ; but then* hearts are grieved with the fears of our women and children, and desire that it may be buried so deep that it may be heard no more." 1779.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 305 SIEGE OF SAVANNAH. 1779. While these events were in progress at the North, the Southern army, under Lincoln, 1 was preparing to attack Savannah, in concert with the French fleet, then in the West Indies. During that sum mer, Count D Estaing had battled successfully with Admiral Byron there, and early in Septem ber, he appeared off the coast of Georgia with a powerful fleet, prepared to co-operate with Lincoln. D Estaing landed troops and heavy battery cannon a few miles below Savannah ; and on the 23d of September, the combined armies commenced the siege. It was soon perceived that the town must be taken by regular approaches, and to that end all energy was directed. On the morning of the 4th of October, a heavy can nonade and bombardment was opened upon the Britsh works. It continued for five days, but with very little effect upon the strong British intrenchments. D Estaing became impatient of delay, 2 and proposed an attempt to take the place by storm. It was reluctantly agreed to, for there seemed a certainty of final victory if the siege should continue. D Estaing would listen to no re monstrances, and the assault coifimenced on the morning of the 9th of October. After five hours of severe conflict, there was a truce for the purpose of burying the dead. Already, nearly a thousand of the French and Americans had been killed and wounded. 8 The standards of France and Carolina, which gallant men had planted upon the parapet, had been torn down. Yet important breaches were made, and another assault promised a sure triumph. But D Estaing, strangely perverse, was unwilling to renew the assault, and made preparations to withdraw. Lincoln yielded a reluctant assent to the movement, and the enterprise was abandoned at the moment when the American commander felt certain of victory. 4 Ten days afterward, the French fleet had left the coast, and Lincoln was re treating toward Charleston. Thus closed the campaign for 1779, at the South. The repulse at Savannah was a severe blow to the hopes of the patriots of Georgia, and spread a gloom over the whole South. Toward the Georgia sea board, every semblance of opposition to royal power was crushed, and only in the interior did armed resistance appear. 1 Page 294. 2 D Estaing expressed his fears, not only of the arrival of a British fleet, to blockade his own in the Savannah River, but of the autumn storms, which might damage his vessels before he could get to sea. 8 Among the mortally wounded, was Count Pulaski, the brave Pole whom we first met in the battle on the Brandy wine [note 5, page 273], He died on board a vessel bound for Charleston, a few days after the siege. Serjeant Jasper, whose bravery at Fort Moultrie we have not iced [note 5, page 249], was also killed, while nobly holding aloft, upon a bastion of the British works which he had mounted, one of the beauti ful colors [note 5, page 249] presented to Moultrie s regiment by ladies of Charleston. The colors were beautifully embroidered, and given to the regiment, in the name of the ladies of Charleston, by Mrs. Su sanna Elliott. Just before he died, Jasper said, " Tell Mrs. Elliott I lost my life supporting the colors she presented to our regiment." These colors, captured during this siege, are among British trophies in the tower of London. Savannah honors both these heroes by having finely- shaded parks bearing their respective names. 4 Page 289. 20 COUNT PULASKI. 306 THE REVOLUTION. [1779. ~ After the close of Sullivan s campaign against the Senecas, very little of general interest transpired at the North, except the withdrawal of the British troops from Rhode Island, on the 25th of October, 1779. La Fayette had been in France during the summer, and chiefly through his efforts, the French government had consented to send another powerful fleet, 1 and several thousand troops, to aid the Americans. When informed of this intended expedition, the British ministry ordered Clinton to cause the evacuation of Rhode Island, and to concentrate, at New York, all his troops at the North. This was accom plished with as little delay as possible, for rumors had reached Rhode Island that the new French armament was approaching the coast. So rapid was the retreat of the British, caused by their fears, that they left behind them all their heavy artillery, and a large quantity of stores. Clinton sailed for the South at the close of the year [December 25], with about five thousand troops, to open a vigorous campaign in the Carolinas. Washington, in the mean while, had gone into winter quarters at Morristown, 2 where his troops suffered terribly from the severity of the cold, and the lack of provisions, clothing, and shelter. 8 Strong detachments were also stationed among the Hudson Highlands, and the cavalry were cantoned in Connecticut. During this fifth year [1779] of the war for Independence, difficulties had gathered thick and fast around Great Britain. Spain had declared war against her 4 on the 16th of June, and a powerful French and Spanish naval armament had attempted to effect an invasion of England in August. American and French cruisers now became numerous and quite powerful, and were hovering around her coasts ; and in September, the intrepid John Paul Jones 5 had conquered two of her proud ships of war, after one of the most desperate 1 Page 286. 2 Page 269. 8 Dr. Thacher, in his Military Journal, says, " The sufferings of the poor soldiers can scarcely be described ; while on duty they are unavoidably exposed to all the inclemency of storms and severe cold ; at night, they now have a bed of straw upon the ground, and a single blanket to each man ; they are badly clad, and some are destitute of shoes. We have contrived a kind of stone chimney outside, and an opening at one end of our tents gives us the benefit of the fire within. The snow is now [January 6th, 1780] from four to six feet deep, which so obstructs the roads as to prevent our receiving a supply of provisions. For the last ten days we have received but two pounds of meat a man, and we are frequently for six or eight days entirely destitute of meat, and then as long without bread. The consequence is, the soldiers are so enfeebled from hunger and cold as to be almost unable to perform their military duty, or labor in constructing their huts. It is well known that General "Washington experiences the greatest solicitude for the suffering of his army, and is sensible that they, in general, conduct with heroic patience and fortitude." In a private letter to a friend, Washington said, " We have had the virtue and patience of the army put to the severest trial. Sometimes it has been five or six days together without bread, at other times as many without meat, and once for two or three days at a time without either. * * * At one time the soldiers ate every kind of horse food but hay. Buckwheat, common wheat, rye, and Indian corn composed the meal which made their bread. As an army, they bore it with the most heroic patience ; but sufferings like these, accompanied by the want of clothes, blankets, &c., will produce frequent desertions in all armies ; and so it happened with us, though it did uoi excite a single mutiny." 4 Hoping to regain Gibraltar, Jamaica, and the two Floridas, which Great Britain had taken from her, Spain made a secret treaty of peace with France in April, 1779, and in June declared war against Great Britain. This event was regarded as highly favorable to the Americans, because any thing that should cripple England, would aid them. 5 John Paul Jones was born in Scotland in 1747, and came to Virginia in boyhood. He entered the American naval service in 1775, and was active during the whole war. He W&s afterward very active in the Russian service, against the Turks, in the Black Sea, and was created rear-admi ral in the Russian navy. He died in Paris in 1782. 1779.] FIFTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 307 naval fights ever known. These were the Serapis and Countess of Scar borough. The conflict occurred in the evening, off Flamborough Head, on the east coast of Scotland. Jones s ship was the Bonhomme Richard, which had been fitted out in France. After much maneuvering, the Serapis and Richard came alongside of each other, their rigging intermingling, and in this position they poured heavy broadsides from their respective guns. Three times both ships were on fire, and their destruction appeared inevitable. A part of the time the belligerents were fighting hand to hand upon the decks. Finally 7 the commander of the Sera ns was obliged to yield, and ten minutes afterward, the Countess of Scarborough, which had been fighting with another vessel of Jones s little fleet, struck her colors. The Richard was a perfect wreck, and was fast sinking when the conflict ended ; and sixteen hours afterward, she went do?rn into the deep waters of the North Sea, off Bridlington Bay. Jones, with his prizes, sailed for Holland, having, during that single cruise, captured prop erty to the value of two hundred thousand dollars. 1 1 The naval operations during the war for Independence, do not occupy a conspicuous place in history, yet they were by no means insignificant. The Continental Congress took action on the subject of an armed marine, in the autumn of 1775. Already Washington had fitted out some armed vessels at Boston, and constructed some gun-boats for use in the waters around that city. These were propelled by oars, and covered. In November, the government of Massachusetts established a Board of Admiralty. A committee on naval affairs, of which Silas Deane [page 266] was chairman, was appointed by the Continental Congress in Octo* A GUX-BOAT AT BOSTON. 308 THE REVOLUTION. [1779. On the land, in America, there had been very little success for the British arms ; and sympathy for the patriots was becoming more and more manifest in Europe. Even a great portion of the intelligent English people began to regard the war as not only useless, but unjust. Yet in the midst of all these difficulties, the government put forth mighty energies energies which might have terminated the war during the first campaign, if they had been then executed. Parliament voted eighty-five thousand seamen and thirty-five thou sand troops for general service, in 1780, and appropriated one hundred millions of dollars to defray the expenses. This formidable armament in prospective, was placed before the Americans, at this, the gloomiest period of the war, yet they neither quailed nor faltered. Relying upon the justice of their cause, and the favor of a righteous God, they felt prepared to meet any force that Great Britain might send to enslave them. ber, 1775. Before the close of the year, the construction of almost twenty vessels had been ordered by Congress ; and the Marine Committee was so re-organized as to have in it a representative from each colony. In November, 1776, a Continental Navy Board, to assist the Marine Committee, was appointed; and in October, 1779, a Board of Admiralty was installed. Its Secretary (equivalent to our Secretary of the Navy) [page 382] was John Brown, until 1781, when he was succeeded by General McDougal. Robert Morris also acted as authorized Agent of Marine ; and many privateers were fitted out by him on his own account. In November, 1776, Congress determined the relative rank of the naval commanders, such as admiral to be equal to a major-general on land : a commodore equal to a brigadier-general, &c. The first commander-in-chief of the navy, or high admiral, was Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, whom Congress commissioned as such in December, 1775. He first went against Dimmore [page 244] on the coast of Virginia, He also went to the Bahamas, and captured the town of New Providence and its governor. Sailing for home, he captured some British vessels off the east end of Long Island, and with these prizes, he went into Narraganset Bay. In the mean while, Paul Jones and Captain Barry were doing good service, and New England cruisers were greatly annoying English shipping on our coast. In 1777, Dr. Franklin, under the authority of Congress, issued commissions to naval officers in Europe. Expeditions were fitted out in French sea-ports, and these produced ADMIRAL HOPKINS. great alarm on the British coasts. While these things were occurring in European waters, Captains Biddle, Manly, M Neil, Hinman, Barry, and others, were making many prizes on ihe American coasts. Finally, in the spring of 1779, an expedition was fitted out at L Orient, under the auspices of the French and American governments. It consisted of five vessels under the command of John Paul Jones. They sailed first, in June, for the British waters, took a few prizes, and returned. They sailed again in August, and on the 23d of September while off the coast of Scotland, not far above the mouth of the Humber, Jones, with his flag-ship (t .e Bonhomme Richard), and two others, fell in with and encountered a small British fleet, which was convoying a number of merchant ves sels to the Baltic Sea, when the engagement took place which is described in the text. Congress gave Jones a gold medal for his bravery. Many other gallant acts were performed by American seamen, in the regular service and as privateers, during the remainder of the war. The " whale- boat warfare" on the coast, was also very interesting, and exhibited many a brave deed by those whose names are not recorded in history men who belong to the great host of "unnamed demi gods," who, in all ages, have given their services to swell the triumphs of leaders who, in real merit, have often been less deserving than themselves. For a condensed account of the whole naval operations of the Revolution, on the coast, see sup plement to Lossing s Field Book of the Revolution. f80.] SIXTH YEAR OF .HE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTER VII. SIXTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1780.] WHEN, on Christmas day, 1779, Sir Henry Clinton sailed for the South, with the main body of his army, he left the Hessian general, Knyphausen, 1 in command at New York. To aid the southern patriots, Washington sent thither the Baron De Kalb a and others the following spring [1780], and thus the two armies were so much weakened at head-quarters, that military operations at the North almost ceased during that year. The Carolinas became the chief theater of war, and many and bloody were the acts upon that stage. Invasions from without, and the cruelties of Tories 3 in their midst, made 1780 a year of great woe for the patriots and their families below the Roanoke, for they also suffered all the horrors of civil war. At no time, during the whole conflict, were the Tories, or adherents of the crown, more active throughout the whole country, than in 1780. They 4|A_ /^x were the most inveterate enemies of the patriots, and the lead- * V Q^ ers were in continual correspondence with each other, with the British government, and with the royal commanders in Amer- j^ ica. Their correspondence was carried on chiefly in cipher f writing, understood only by themselves, so that in the event of jy H^* t^ their letters falling into the hands of the Whigs, their contents * JT would remain a secret. These characters sometimes varied, and L^ C- ^O^ it was a frequent occurrence for two persons to invent a cipher J// ^^ alphabet, for their own exclusive use. The engraving shows ** *^* V the alphabet of the cipher writing of some New York Tories. 3hT *2* 2j/ A fleet, under Admiral Arbuthnot, with two thousand ma- ^ ***(} U rines, bore the forces of Sir Henry Clinton to the southern I ** waters. After encountering heavy storms, 4 they arrived on the coast of Georgia in January; rnd early in February [Feb. 10], turned north ward, and proceeded to invest Charleston. Clinton s troops were landed [Feb. 11] upon the islands below the city, on the shores of the Edisto Inlet, thirty miles distant ; but instead of marching at once to make an assault upon the town, the British commander prepared for a regular siege. General Lincoln was in Charleston with a feeble force 5 when Clinton landed ; and he was about to evacuate the city and flee to the interior, when intelligence of the tardy plans of the British reached him. He then resolved to remain, and prepare for de- 1 Page 259. 3 Page 316. 3 Note 4, page 226. 4 During a severe storm off Cape Hatteras, one vessel, carrying heavy battery cannons, was lost, and almost all the cavalry horses of Tarleton s legion, perished at sea. Tarleton supplied himself with others, soon after landing, by plundering the plantations near the coast. 6 During the preceding winter, Lincoln s army had dwindled to a mere handful. The repulse at Savannah had so disheartened the people, that very few recruits could be obtained, and when Clin ton arrived, Lincoln s army did not exceed fourteen hundred men in number. The finances of the State were in a wretched condition, and L he Tories were everywhere active and hopeful. 310 THE REVOLUTION. fense. John Rutledge, 1 the governor of South Carolina, was clothed with all the powers of an absolute dictator ; and so nobly did the civil and military authorities labor for the public good, that when the invaders crossed the Ashley [March 29, 1780], and sat down before the American works on Charleston Neck, 2 the besieged felt strong enough to resist them. In the mean while, the intrenchments had been greatly strengthened, and works of defense had been cast up along the wharves, and at various points around the harbor. Fort Moultrie 3 was strongly gar- GOVERNOR RUTLEDGE. r isonecl, ami Commodore Whipple 4 was in command of a flotilla of small armed ships in the harbor. On the 25th of March, Admiral Arbuthnot crossed Charleston bar, drove Whipple s little fleet to the waters near the town, and cast anchor in Five 1 John Rutledge was born in Ireland, and came to South Carolina when a child. He was one of the most active patriots of the South. After the war he was made a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and also chief justice of South Carolina. He died in the year 1800. 2 Note 1, page 296. 3 Note 5, page 249. 4 Abraham Whipple was bom in Providence, Rhode Island, in IT 3 3. His early life was spent chiefly upon the ocean, and, in later years, he was long engaged in the merchant service. At the age of twenty-seven, he was commander of a privateer, and during a single cruise, in 1760, he took twenty-three French prizes. He was engaged in the destruction of the Gaspe, in 1772 [page 223]. In 1775, he was appointed to the command of vessels to drive Sir James Wallace from Narragan- sett Bay. He was active in naval service until the fall of Charleston, when he was taken prisoner. 1780.] SIXTH TEAR OF THE WAR TOR INDEPENDENCE. 311 Fathom Hole, not far from St. John s Island. On the morning of the 9th of April, he sailed up the harbor, and sustaining but trifling damage from the guns of Fort Moultrie, anchored within cannon-shot of the city. As Whipple could not contend with the strong ships, he sunk several of his vessels near the mouth of the Cooper River, and formed a chevaux-de-frise* to prevent the en- em v s ships passing beyond the town, so as to enfilade the American works on the Neck. Clinton, in the mean while, had erected batteries 2 in front of these works, and both commanders joined in a summons for the patriots to surrender. Expecting reinforcements from the interior, the people of the beleagured city refused compliance,, and for more than a month the siege went on. 2 In the mean while, American detachments sent out between the Cooper and Santee Eivers to keep open a communication with the interior, were attacked and de feated by parties of British horsemen ; 4 and at the close of the month [April, 1780], the city was completely environed by the foe. Cornwallis had arrived [April 18], from New York, with three thousand fresh troops, and all hopes for the patriots faded. The night of the 9th of May was a terrible one for Charleston. That day a third summons to surrender had been refused, and late in the evening a gen eral cannonade commenced. Two hundred heavy guns shook the city with their thunders, and all night long destructive bombshells were hailed upon it. At one time th-3 city was on fire in five ==================== SIEGE OF CHARLESTON. 1780. different places. Nor did morning bring relief. The enemy had deter mined to take the city by storm. The cannonade continued all the day, and the fleet moved toward the town to open a bombardment. Further resistance would have been sheer madness, for the destruction of the town and the people seemed inevitable. At two o clock on the morning of the llth, a proposition for surrender was made to Clinton, and his guns were all silenced before day light. At about noon on the 12th [May, 1780], the continental troops marched out, and laid down their arms, after a gallant and desperate defense for forty days. Lincoln and his army, with a large number of citizens, were made pris oners of Avar. The citizens, and a great number of soldiers, were paroled. 8 He was the first who unfurled the American flag in the Thames, at London, after the war. Accom panying settlers to Ohio, he became a resident of Marietta, from which he sailed, in 1800, down the Ohio, with pork and flour, for Havana. He died in 1819, at the age of eighty-five years. 1 Note 6, page 274. a On Saturday morning, the first of April, the British first broke ground in the face of eighty cannons and mortars on the American works. 3 General Woodford had just arrived with seven hundred Virginians, and others from North Carolina were reported on their way. 4 On the 14th of April, Tarleton defeated Colonel Huger on the head waters of the Cooper Eiver, and killed twenty-five Americans. On the 6th of May, a party under Colonel White, of New Jersey, were routed at a ferry on the Santee, with a loss of about thirty in killed, wounded, and prisoners. These British detachments overran the whole country below the Cooper and Santee, in the course of a few days. 6 Note 2, page 236. 8 A prisoner on parole is one who is left free to go anywhere within a prescribed space of court 312 THE REVOLUTION. [1780. Altogether, the captives amounted to between five and six thousand j 1 and among the spoils of victory were four hundred pieces of cannon. The fall of Charleston, and the loss of this southern army, was a severe blow for the Republicans. It paralyzed their strength ; and the British com manders confidently believed that the finishing stroke of the war had been given. It was followed by measures which, for a time prostrated South Caro- try, or within a city, under certain restrictions relative to conduct. Prisoners taken in war are often paroled, and allowed to return to their friends, with an agreement not to take up arms. It is a point of honor, with a soldier, to "keep his parole," and when such a one is again taken in battle, during the period of his parole, he is treated not as a prisoner, but as a traitor. 1 In violation of the solemn agreement for surrender, Clinton caused a great number of the lead ing men in Charleston to be seized, and carried on board prison-ships, where hundreds suffered ter ribly. Many were taken to St. Augustine, and immured in the fortress there. Among other prominent citizens thus treated, were Lieutenant-Governor Christopher Gadsden, and David Ram say, the historian, who, with about twenty others, remained in prison at St. Augustine almost eleven months, before they were paroled. Both of these men were exceedingly active patriots. Ramsay was a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1749. He was educated at Princeton ; studied medicine, and became an eminent physician at Charleston. He was an efficient member of the Council of Safety when the Revolution broke out, and was also an esteemed legis lator. He was also a member of the Continental Congress. In 1790, he published his History of the American Revolution. He wrote and published a Life of Washington, in 1801 ; a History of South Carolina, in 1808; and when he died, from a shot by a maniac, in 1815, he had almost com- pleted a History of the United States. Soon after the assembling of the first National Congress, under the new Constitution, in 1789, Dr. Ramsay sent in a petition, asking for the passage ol a law for securing to him and his heirs the exclusive right to vend and dispose of his books, re spectively entitled, History of the Revolution in South Carolina, and A History of the American Revolution. A bill for that purpose was framed and discussed. Finally, in August, it was " post poned until the next Congress." A similar bill was introduced in January, 1790, and on the 30th of April following, the first copyright law recorded on the statute books of Congress, was passed. 1780.] SIXTH YEAR OP THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. lina at the feet of royal power. With an activity hitherto unusual for the British officers, Clinton took steps to extend and secure his conquest, and to re-establish royal power in the South. He sent out three strong detachments of his army to overrun the country. One under Cornwallis marched up the Santee toward Camden ; another under Lieutenant-colonel Cruger, was ordered to penetrate the country to Ninety-six, 1 and a third, under Lieutenant-colonel Brown, marched to Augusta, 2 in Georgia. A general truce was proclaimed, and a pardon to all who should accept British protection. The silence of fear overspread the whole country ; and mistaking this lull in the storm of war for permanent tranquillity, Clinton and Arbuthnot, with a large body of troops, sailed, on the 5th of June [1780], for New York. The last and most cruel blow struck by the British, was that which almost annihilated an American detachment under Colonel Abraham Buford. .He had hastened toward Charleston for the relief of Lincoln ; but when he heard of the disasters there, he commenced retreating toward North Carolina. His force consisted of nearly four hundred Continental infantry, a small detachment of Colonel Washington s cavalry, and two field-pieces. He had evacuated Camden, and, in fancied security, was retreating leisurely toward Charlotte, in North Carolina. Cornwallis resolved to strike Buford, if possible, and, for that purpose, he dispatched Tarleton, with seven hundred men, consisting of his cavalry and mounted infantry. That officer marched one hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours, and came up with Buford upon the Waxhaw. Impa tient of delay, he had left his mounted infantry behind, and with only his cavalry, he almost surrounded Buford before that officer was aware of danger. Tarleton demanded an immediate surrender upon the terms granted to the Americans at Charleston. These terms were humiliating, and Buford refused compliance;. While the flags for conference were passing and re-passing, Tarle ton, contrary to military rules, was making preparations for an assault, and the instant he received Buford s reply, his cavalry made a furious charge upon the American ranks. Having received no orders to defend themselves, and supposing the negotiations were yet pending, the Continentals were utterly dismayed by this charge. All was confusion ; and while some fired upon their assailants, others threw down their arms and begged for quarter. None was given ; and men without arms were hewn in pieces by Tarleton s cavalry. One hundred and thirteen were slain ; one hundred and fifty were so maimed as to be unable to travel ; and fifty-three were made prisoners, to grace the triumphal entry of the conqueror into Camden. Only five of the British were killed, and fifteen wounded. The whole of Buford s artillery, ammunition, and baggage, fell into the hands of the enemy. For this savage feat, Cornwallis eulogized Tarleton, and commended him to the ministry as worthy of special favor. It was nothing less than a cold-blooded massacre; and Tarleton^ s quarter became proverbial as a synonym to cruelty. 3 The liberal press, and all right-minded 1 Page 336. 2 Page 336. 3 Stedman, one of Cornwallis s officers, and afterward an eminent English historian of the war, says, "On this occasion, the virtue of humanity was totally forgot." 314 THE REVOLUTION. [1780. men in England, cried Shame ! After the battle, a large number of the wounded were taken to the log meeting-house of the Waxhaw Presbyterian Congregation, where they were tenderly cared for by those who had courage to remain. This blow, however, was so terrible, that fear seized the people, and women and children fled from their homes in dismay, to avoid falling in the track of the invader. 1 Brief was the lull of the storm. De Kalb 2 did not reach the borders 01 South Carolina until midsummer, and then not an American \vas in arms in the lower country. Although Congress had confidence in the skill of De Kalb (who by the capture of Lincoln, became the commander-in- chief at the South), yet it was thought best to send General Gates 3 thither, because of the influence of his name. The prospect before him was far from flattering. An army without strength ; a military chest without money ; but little public spirit in the commissary department ; a climate unfavorable to health ; the spirit GENERAL GATE?. of the Republicans cast down ; loyalists swarming in every direction ; and a victorious enemy pressing to spread his legions over the territory he had come to defend, were grave obsta cles in the way of success. Yet Gates did not despond ; and, retaining De Kalb in command of his division, he prepared to march into South Carolina. When it was known that he was approaching, southern hearts beat high with hope, for they expected great things from the conqueror of Burgoyne. 4 Many patriots, who, in. their extremity, had signed "paroles" and protections," seeing how little solemn promises were esteemed by the conqueror, disregarded both, and flocked to the standard of those brave partisan leaders, Sumter, Marion, Pickens, and Clarke, who now called them to the field. While Gates and his army were approaching, these partisans were preparing the way for conquest. They swept over the country in small bands, striking a British 1 Among those who fled, was the widowed mother of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, who, with her two sons, Robert and Andrew, took refuge in the vicinity of Charlotte, North Carolina, The dreadful scenes of that massacre, was the first lesson .that taught Andrew to hate tyranny. It fired his patriotism ; and at the age of thirteen years, he entered the army, with his brother Robert, under Sumter. They were both made prisoners ; but even while in the power of the British, the indomitable courage of the after man appeared in the boy. When ordered to clean the muddy boots of a British officer, he proudly refused, and for his temerity received a sword-cut. After their release, Andrew and his brother returned to the Waxhaw set tlement with their mother. That patriotic matron and two sons perished during the war. Her son Hugh was slain in battle, and Robert died of a wound which he received from a British officer while he was prisoner, because, like Andrew, he refused to do menial service. The heroic mother, while on her way home from Charleston, whither she went to carry some necessaries to her friends and relations on board a prison-ship, was seized with prison-fever, and died. Her unknown grave is somewhere between what was then called the Quarter House and Charleston. Andrew was left the sole survivor of the family. 2 Page 316. 8 Horatio Gates was a native of England, and was educated for military life. He was the first adjutant-general of the Continental army [note 5, page 238], and was made major-general in 1776. He retired to his estate in Virginia at the close of the war, and finally took up his abode in New York, where he died in 1806, at the age of seventy-eight years. * Page 281. Note 6, page 311. GENERAL SUMTER. 1780.] SIXTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 315 detachment here, and a party of Tories there : and soon, they so effectually alarmed the enemy in the interior, as to check the onward progress of invasion. General Sumter 1 first appeared in power on the Catawba River. Already Whigs, between that and the Broad River, led by local officers, had assailed the enemy at different points. In the mean while Sumter had collected a considerable force, and on the 30th of July, he attacked a British post at Rocky Mount, on the Catawba. He was repulsed, but not disheartened. He immediately crossed the river, and at Hanging-rock, a few miles eastward, he fell upon and dispersed a large body of British and Tories, on the 6th of August. Through the folly of his men, he did not secure a victory. They commenced plundering, and drinking the liquors found in the camp, after they had secured it, and becoming intoxicated, were unable to complete the triumph. Yet the British dared not follow Sumter in his slow retreat. Marion, at the same time, was smiting the enemy, with sudden and fierce blows, among the swamps of the lower country, on the borders of the Pedee. Pickens was annoying Cruger in the neighborhood of the Saluda ; and Clarke was calling for the patriots along the Savannah, Ogee- chee, and Alatamaha, to drive Brown 2 from Augusta. General Clinton left Earl Cornwallis in the chief command of t .io British army at the South, and his troops on the Santee were intrusted to Loid Raw- don, an active and meritorious officer. When that general heard of the approach of Gates, he gathered all his available forces at Camden, where he was soon joined by the earl. Rumor had greatly magnified the number of the army under Gates. The loyalists became alarmed, and the patriots took courage. He came down from the hill country, through Lancaster district, and took post at Clermont, a few miles north of Camden. Feeling certain of victory, he marched from his camp on the night of the 15th of August, to surprise the British at Camden. Without berno" aware of this movement, Cornwallis and Rawdon advanced at o the same hour to surprise the Americans. A little after midnight the belligerents met [August 16, 1780], near San ders s Creek, about seven miles north of Camden, on the Lan caster road. The sand was so deep that the footsteps of the approaching armies could not be heard by each other. They came together in the dark, almost noiselessly, and both were equally surprised. A slight skirmish between the vanguards ensued, and early in the morning a general battle began. After a desperate struggle with an overwhelming force, the Americans were compelled to yield to the British bayonets in SAXDERS S CREEK. 1 Thomas Sumter was a native of South Carolina, and was early in the field. Ill health com pelled him to leave the army just before the close of the war, in 1781. He was afterward a mem ber of the National Congress, and died on the High Hills of Santee [page 337], in 1832, at ths %e of ninety-eight years- 2 Page 336. 316 THE REVOLUTION 1 . [1780. BARON DE KALB. front, and the sabres of Tarleton s dragoons on their flanks. The rout became general. The militia fell in great numbers, under the heavy blows from the British cavalry ; and for more than two miles, along the line of their retreat, the open wood was strewn with the dead and dying. Arms, artil lery, horses, and baggage, were scattered in every direction. More than a third of the continental troops were killed ; and the entire loss of the Americans, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was about a thousand men, besides all of their artillery and ammunition, and a greater portion of their baggage and stores. 1 The British loss was three hundred and twenty- ^ ve ^- mon S tne killed was the brave Baron de Kalb, a whose remains were buried at Camden, and there they yet lie, under a neat monument, the corner-stone of which was laid by La Fayette in 1825. 3 Having vainly endeavored to rally his flying troops, Gates fled to Charlotte, 4 eighty miles distant. There he continued to be joined by officers and men, and he began to hope that another army might be speedily collected. But when, a few days after his own defeat, he received intel ligence that Surnter s force had been nearly annihilated by Tarleton 5 near the Catawba, he almost despaired. That event was a sad one for the republicans. Sumter had been ordered, by Gates, to intercept a British detachment which was conveying stores for the main army, from Ninety-Six. 6 He was joined by other troops sent to assist him, and they cap tured forty-four wagons loaded with clothing, and made a number of prisoners. On hearing of the defeat of Gates, Sumter continued his march up the Catawba, and on the 18th [August, 1780] he encamped near the mouth of the Fishing Creek. There he was surprised by Tarleton, and his troops were routed with great slaughter. More than fifty were killed, and three hundred were made prisoners. All the booty captured by the Americans fell into the hands of Tarleton. Sumter escaped, but was stripped of power. With the dispersion of Gates ? s army, and Sumter s brave band, the victory of the British was again complete ; and at the close of summer, there were no COLONEL TARLETON. 1 General Gates had felt so certain of victory, that he had made no provisions for a retreat, or the salvation of his stores in the rear. His troops were scattered in ah 1 directions, and he, appar ently panic-stricken by the terrible blow, fled, almost alone, to Charlotte. Even now [1867] bul lets are found in the old pine-trees on the route of their retreat. Gates did indeed, as General Charles Lee predicted he would, when he heard of his appointment to the command of the south ern army, "exchange his northern laurels for southern willows." 3 De Kalb was a native of Alsace, a German province ceded to France. He had been in Amer ica as a secret French agent, about fifteen years before. He came to America with La Fayette in 1777, and Congress commissioned him a major-general. He died of his wounds at Camden, three days after the battle. 3 Page 453. 4 Page 237. 6 Tarleton was one of the most active and unscrupulous officers of the British army. He was distinguished for his abilities and cruelties during the southern campaigns of 1780- 81. He was born in Liverpool, in 1754. He married a daughter of the Duke of Ancaster, in 1798, and waa afterward made a major-general 6 Page 336. 1780.] SIXTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 317 republicans in arms in South Carolina, except Marion and his men. Within three months [May 12 to August 16 J, two American armies had been annihil ated, and one of the most formidable partisan corps (Sumter s) scattered to the winds. The exploits of Marion 1 and his men, form the materials of one of the most interesting chapters in the history of our War for Independence. He was in Charleston during the long siege, but having been disabled by an accident, 2 he had retired to the country, and was not among the prisoners when the city passed in the possession of the British. 3 He was therefore untrammeled by any parole, and as soon as he was able, he mounted his horse, and took the field. With a few ragged followers, equal in grotesque appearance to any Falstaff 1 Francis Marion was a descendant of a Huguenot [page 49] settler, and was born near George town, South Carolina, in 1732. His first military lessons were learned in the war with the Chero- kees [page 204], in 1761. He entered the army at the commencement of the Revolution, and was one of the bravest and most useful of all the partisan officers at the South. He was also a member of the South Carolina Legislature, during, and after the war. He died at his home, near Eutaw Springs, on his beloved Santee, in 1795, in the sixty-third year of his age. 3 Marion was dining with some friends at a house in Tradd-street, Charleston, when, on an at tempt being made to cause him to drink wine, contrary to his practice and desire, he leaped from a window, and sprained his ankle. The Americans yet kept the country toward the Santee, open, and Marion was conveyed to his home. 8 Page 311. 318 THE REVOLUTION. [1780. ever saw, 1 he was annoying the Tories in the neighborhood of the Pedee, when Gates was moving southward ; and just before the battle at Camden, he ap peared in Gates s camp. The proud general would have treated him with con tempt, had not Governor Rutledge, 2 then in the camp, known the sterling worth of the man before them. While Marion was there, the people of the Williamsburg district, who had arisen in arms, sent for him to be their com mander. Governor Rutledge gave him the commission of a brigadier on the spot ; and soon afterward, Marion organized that noted brigade, which per formed such wonderful exploits among the swamps, the broad savannahs, and by the water-courses of the South. It was this motley brigade, only, that appeared in the field, and defied British power, after the dispersion of Gates 3 army at Camclen. Had Cornwallis been governed by good judgment and humanity, the con quest of South Carolina might have been permanent, for the State swarmed with Tories, and the Republic ans were wearied with the unequal contest. But he was governed by a foolish and wicked policy, and pro ceeded to establish royal authority by the most severe measures. Instead of winning the respect of the people by wisdom and clemency, he thought to subdue them by cruelty. Private rights were trampled under foot, and social organization was superseded by the iron rule LORD CORXWA.LLIS. of military despotism. 3 His measures created the most bitter hatred; and hundreds of patriots, who might have been conciliated, were goaded into active warfare by the lash of military power. Everywhere the people thirsted for vengeance, and only awaited the call of leaders, to rally and strike again for homes and freedom. Now, feeling confident of his power in South Carolina, Cornwallis 4 prepared to invade the North State. Early in September he proceeded with his army to Charlotte, 5 while detachments were sent out in various directions to awe the Republicans and encourage the loyalists. While Tarleton, with his legion, 1 Colonel Otho II. Williams said of his appearance then, that his followers were " distinguished by small leathern caps, and the wretchedness of their attire. Their number did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped. Their appearance was, in fact, so burlesque, that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the regular soldiery was restrained by the officers ; and the general himself [Gates] was glad of an op portunity of detaching Colonel Marion, at his own instance, toward the interior of South Carolina, with orders to watch the motions of the enemy, and furnish intelligence." 3 Page 310. 3 He issued cruel orders to his subalterns. They were directed to hang every rmntia-man who had once served in Loyalist corps, but were now found in arms against the king. Many who had submitted to Clinton [page 313], and accepted protection, and had remained at home quietly during the recent revolt, were imprisoned, their property taken from them or destroyed, and their families treated with the utmost rigor. See note 3, page 337. 4 Charles, Earl Cornwallis, was born, in Suffolk, England, in 1738. He was educated for mili tary life, and commenced his career in 1759. After the Revolution in America, he was made gov ernor-general of India [note 2, page 224], then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and again governor of India. He died near Benares, East Indies, in 1805. 6 His advanced corps were attacked by the Americans under Colonel Davie, on their arrival at Charlotte, but after a severe skirmish, the patriots were repulsed. 1780.] SIXTE TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 319 was operating on the east side of the Catawba, Major Patrick Ferguson was sent to embody the militia who favored the king, among the mountains west of the Broad River. Many profligate and worthless men joined his standard, and on the first of October, 1780, he crossed the Broad River at the Cherokee ford, in Yorkville district, and encamped among the hills of King s Mountain, with about fifteen hundred men. Several corps of Whig militia united to oppose him, 1 and on the 7th of October, they fell upon his camp on King s Mountain, there, a cluster of high, wooded, gravelly hills, about two miles below the southern line of North Carolina. A very severe engagement ensued, and the British were totally defeated. Ferguson was slain, 2 and three hundred of his men were killed and wounded. The spoils of victory, which cost the Americans only twenty men, were eight hundred prisoners, and fifteen hundred stand of arms. This defeat was to Cornwallis, what the afiair at Bennington 3 was to Burgoyne, and it gave the Republicans hope. Nearer the sea-board, in the mean while, the patriots were daily gaining strength. Marion and his men 4 were striking the banding Tories here and there, and annoying British outposts continually ; while Colonel Pickens and Clarke were hourly augmenting their forces in Georgia and south-western Carolina. Sumter, too, undismayed by his recent defeat, again appeared in the field ; 5 and other leaders were coming forth between the Yadkin and Broad Rivers. Alarmed by the defeat of Ferguson, and these demonstrations on flank and rear, Cornwallis withdrew [October 14] to South Carolina, and toward the close of October [27th], made his head quarters at Winnsborough, midway between the Broad and Catawba Rivers, in Fairfield district. Here he remained until called to the pursuit of Greene, 6 a few weeks later. Victory after victory was achieved by Marion and his brigade, until late in October, when they pushed forward to assail the British post at Georgetown, for the purpose of obtaining necessary supplies. Hitherto Marion had confined his operations to forays upon British and Tories ; now he undertook a more 1 These were commanded by Colonels William Campbell, Isaac Shelby, Benjamin Cleveland, John Sevier, Joseph "Winston, Charles McDowell, and James "Williams. Their united forces amounted to nearly eighteen hundred men. 2 On the spot where Ferguson was slain, a plain stone has been erected to the memory of that officer, and of Americans who were killed. The following inscriptions upon the stone, give the names: North side. "Sacred to the memory of Major WILLIAM CHRONICLE, Captain JOHN" MAT TOCKS, WILLIAM ROBB, and JOHN Bo YD, who were killed here fighting in defense of America, on the seventh of October, 1780." South side. " Colonel FERGUSON, an officer belonging to his Britan nic majesty, was here defeated and killed." Ferguson s rank is incorrectly given, on the monument. He was only a major ; but his good conduct was placing him in the way of speedy promotion. He was a son of the eminent Scotch jurist, James Ferguson, and came to America in 1777. He was in the battle on the Brandy wine, in the autumn of that year [page 273], and accompanied Sir Henry Clinton to South Carolina [page 30G] at the close of 1779. 3 Page 277. 4 Page 317. 5 Sumter collected a small force in the vicinity of Charlotte, and returned to South Carolina. For some weeks he annoyed the British and Tories very much, and Lord Cornwallis, who called him The Carolina Game Cock, used great endeavors to crush him. On the night of the 12th of Noverr ber, Major Wemyss, at the head of a British detachment, fell upon him near the Broad River, but was repulsed. Eight days afterward he had a severe engagement with Tarleton, at Blackstock s plantation, on the Tyger River, in Union district. He had now been joined by some Georgians under Colonels Clarke and Twiggs. The British were repulsed, with a loss, in killed and wounded, of about three hundred. The Americans lost only three killed and five wounded. Sumter was among the latter, and he was detained from the field several months, by his wounds. 6 Page 332. 320 THE EEVOLUTION. [1780. serious business. The garrison was on the alert, and in a severe skirmish with a large party near the town, the Partisan was repulsed. He then retired to Snow s Island, at the confluence of Lynch s Creek and the Pedee, where he fixed his camp, and secured it by such works of art as the absence of natural defenses required. It was chiefly high river swamp, dry, and covered with a heavy forest, filled with game. From that island camp, Marion sent out and led detachments as occasion required ; and for many weeks, expeditions which accomplished wonderful results, emanated from that point. Their leader seemed to be possessed of ubiquitous powers, for he struck blows at different points in rapid succession. The British became thoroughly alarmed, and the destruction of his camp became, with them, an object of vital importance. 1 That work was accomplished in the spring of 1781, when a party of Tories penetrated to Marion s camp, during his absence, dispersed the little garrison, destroyed the pro visions and stores found there, and then fled. The Partisan was not disheartened by this misfortune, but pursued the marauder some distance, and then wheeling, he hastened through the then overflowed swamps to confront Colonel Watson, who was in motion with a body of fresh troops, in the vicinity of the Pedee. While these events were progressing at the South, others of great import ance were transpiring at the North. As we have observed, 2 military operations were almost suspended in this region during the year, and there were no offens ive movements worthy of notice, except an invasion of New Jersey, in June. On the 6th of that month (before the arrival of Clinton from Charleston), Knyp- hausen 3 dispatched General Matthews from Staten Island, with about five thousand men, to penetrate New Jersey. They took possession of Elizabeth- town [June 7], and burned Connecticut Farms (then a hamlet, and now the village of Union), on the road from Elizabethtown to Springfield. When the invaders arrived at the latter place, they met detachments which came down from Washington s camp at Morristown, and by them were driven back to the coast, where they remained a fortnight. In the mean while Clinton arrived, and joining Matthews with additional troops [June 22], endeavored to draw Washington into a general battle, or to capture his stores at Morristown. Feigning an expedition to the Highlands, Clinton deceived Washington, who, with a considerable force, marched in that direction, leaving General Greene in command at Springfield. Perceiving the success of his stratagem, he, with Knyphausen, marched upon Greene, witn iibout five thousand infantry, a con siderable body of cavalry and almost twenty pieces of artillery. After a severe 1 Here was the scene of the interview between Marion and a young British officer from George town, so well remembered by tradition, and so well delineated by the pen of Simms and the pencil of White. The officer who came to treat respecting prisoners, was led blindfolded to the camp of Marion. There he first saw the diminutive form of the great partisan leader, and around him, in groups, were his followers, lounging beneath magnificent trees draped with moss. When their business was concluded, Marion invited the young Briton to dine with him. He remained, and to his utter astonishment he saw some roasted potatoes brought forward on a piece of bark, of which the general partook freely, and invited his guest to do the same. "Surely, general," said the officer, "this can not be your ordinary fare!" "Indeed it is," replied Marion, "and we are fortunate on this occasion, entertaining company, to have more than our usual allowance." It is related that the young officer gave up his commission on his return, declaring that such a people could not be, and ought not to be subdued. a Page 309. 3 Page 259. MARION S ENCAMPMENT ON THE PEDEE. 1780.] SIXTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 323 skirmish at Springfield, the British were defeated [June 23, 1780], and setting fire to the village, they retreated, and passed over to Staten Island. Good news for the Americans came from the East, a few days after this invasion. It was that of the arrival, at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 10th of July [1780], of a powerful French fleet, under Admiral Ternay, bearing six thousand land troops under the Count de Rochambeau. This expedition had been expected for some time, it having sailed from Brest early in April. The whole matter had been arranged with the French government by La Fay- ette, who had returned from France in May, and brought the glad tidings to the Americans. With wise forethought, the relation between Washington and Rochambeau had been settled by the French government. In order to prevent any difficulties in relation to command, between the American and French offi cers, the king commissioned Washington a lieutenant-general of the empire. This allowed him to take precedence of Rochambeau, and made him commander- in -chief of the allied armies. Soon after his arrival, Rochambeau, by appoint ment, met Washington at Hartford, in Connecticut, to confer upon their future movements. The season being so far advanced, that it was thought imprudent for the French army to enter upon active duties during the current campaign, it 324 THE REVOLUTION. [1780. was determined to have the main body of it remain in camp, on Rhode Island, while the cavalry should be cantoned at Lebanon, in Connecticut, the place of residence of Jonathan Trumbull, governor of that State. That eminent man was the only chief magistrate of a colony who retained his office after the change from royal to Republican rule ; and throughout the war, he was one of the most efficient of the civil officers among the patriots. 1 The arrival of the French caused Clinton to be more circumspect in his movements, and he made no further attempts to entice Washington to fight. Yet he was endeavoring to accomplish by his own strategy, and the treason of an American officer, what he could not achieve by force. At different times during the war, the British officials in America had tampered, directly or indirectly, with some Americans, supposed to be possessed of easy virtue, but it was late in the contest before one could be found who was wicked enough to be a traitor. Finally, a recreant to the claims of patriotism appeared, and while the French army were landing upon Rhode Island, and were preparing for winter quarters there, Clinton was bargaining with Benedict Arnold for the strong military post of West Point, 2 and its dependencies among the Hudson Highlands, and with it the liberties of America, if possible. Arnold was a brave soldier, but a bad man. 3 He fought nobly for freedom, from the beginning of the war, until 1778, when his passions gained the mas tery over his judgment and conscience. Impulsive, vindictive, and unscrupu lous, he was personally unpopular, and was seldom without a quarrel with some of his companions-in-arms. Soon after his appointment to the command at Philadelphia, 4 he was married to the beautiful young daughter of Edward Shippen, one of the leading loyalists of that city. He lived in splendor, at an expense far beyond his income. To meet the demands of increasing creditors, he engaged in fraudulent acts which made him hated by the public, and caused charges of dishonesty and malpractices in office to be preferred against him, before the Continental Congress. A court-martial, appointed to try him, con- 1 Jonathan Trumbull was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in June, 1710, and was educated at Harvard College. He prepared for the ministry, but finally became a merchant. He was a mem ber of the Connecticut Assembly at the age of twenty-three years. He was chosen governor of Connecticut in 1769, and for fourteen consecutive years he was elected to that office. He died at Lebanon, in August, 1785, at the age of seventy-five years. See page 323. 3 During the spring and summer of 1778, the passes of the Hudson Highlands were much strengthened. A strong redoubt called Fort Clinton (in honor of George Clinton, then governor of New York), was erected on the extreme end of the promontory of West Point. Other redoubts were erected in the rear ; and upon Mount Independence, five hundred feet above the Point, the strong fortress of Fort Putnam was built, whose gray ruins are yet visible. Besides these, an enormous iron chain, each link weighing more than one hundred pounds, was stretched across the Hudson at West Point, to keep British ships from ascending the river. It was floated upon timbers, kiked together with iron, and made a very strong obstruction. Two of these floats, with the con- Aocting links, are preserved at Washington s Head Quarters, at Newburgh ; and several links of the great chain may be seen at the Laboratory, at West Point. 3 While yet a mere youth, he attempted murder. A young Frenchman was an accepted suitor of Arnold s sister. The young tyrant (for Arnold was always a despot among his play-fellows) disliked him, and when he could not persuade his sister to discard him, he declared he vould shoot the Frenchman if he ever entered the house again. The opportunity soon occurred, and Arnold discharged a londed pistol at him, as he escaped through a window. The young man left the place forever, and Hannah Arnold lived the life of a maiden. Arnold and the Frenchman afterward met at Honduras, and fought a duel, in which the Frenchman was severely wounded. 4 Note 3, page 287. 1780.] SIXTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 325 victed him, but sentenced him to a reprimand only. Although Washington performed that duty with the utmost delicacy, Arnold felt the disgrace. It awakened vengeful feelings which, operating with the pressure of debt, made him listen with complacency to the suggestions of a bad nature. He made treason able overtures to Sir Henry Clinton, and by a correspondence of several months (under an assumed name, and with propositions couched in commercial phrases) with the accomplished Major Andre, 1 Clinton s adjutant-general, he bargained with the British commander to betray West Point and its dependencies into his hands. For this service he was to receive a brigadier s commission, and fifty- thousand dollars in cash. The traitor managed the affair very adroitly. For a long time, Washington had been suspicious of Arnold s integrity, but was unwilling to believe him capable of treason. Under pretense of having private business in Connecticut, Arnold left Philadelphia, passed through Washington s camp on the Hudson, and on his return, he suggested to the chief that he would be glad to have com mand of West Point. He made many patriotic professions, and his desires were gratified. He was appointed to the command of that post, in August, 1780, and then all his thoughts were turned to the one great object of the betrayal of 1 Arnold s hand-writing was disguised, and he signed his letters Gustavus. Andre s letters were signed John Anderson. A correspondence was carried oa between them for more than a year. 326 THE REVOLUTION. [1780. his trust. The time chosen for the consummation of his treasonable designs, was when Washington was absent, in September, in conference with the French officers at Hartford, Connecticut. 1 Up to the time of his taking command of West Point, Arnold and Andre had negotiated in writing. They had never met, but now a personal conference was necessary. For that purpose, Andre went up the Hudson in the sloop of war, Vulture, which anchored off Teller s Point, just above the mouth of the Croton River. Andre was taken ashore, near Haverstraw, on the west side of the Hudson, where, by previous appoint ment, he met Arnold. Before they parted [Sept. 22, 1780], the whole matter was arranged. Clinton was to sail up the river with a strong force, and after a show of resistance, Arnold was to surrender West Point and its depend encies into his hands. But all did not work well. Some Americans dragged an old iron six -pound cannon (yet preserved at Sing Sing) to the end of Teller s Point, and with it so galled the Vulture, that she was driven from her anchor age, and, dropping down the river, disappeared from Andre s view. He was consequently compelled to cross to the eastern side of the Hudson in disguise, and make his way toward New York, by land. At Tarrytown, twenty-seven miles from the city, he was stopped [Sept. 23] and searched by three young militia men, 2 who, finding papers concealed in his boots, 3 took him to the near est American post. Colonel Jameson, the commander, could not seem to com prehend the matter, and unwisely allowed Andre to send a letter to Arnold, then at his quarters opposite West Point. The alarmed and warned traitor im mediately fled down the river in his barge, and escaped to the Vulture in safety, leaving behind him his young wife and infant son, who were kindly treated by Washington. 4 The unfortunate Major Andre was tried and found guilty as a spy, and was hanged on the 2dof October, 1780, at Tappan opposite Tarrytown, while the real miscreant escaped. Strenuous efforts were made to gain possession of Arnold, and save Andre, but they failed, 5 and that accomplished officer, betrayed by circum stances, as he said in a letter to Washington, "into the vile condition of an enemy in disguise," suffered more because of the sins of others, than of his own. Washington would have spared Andre, if the stern rules of war had permitted. J Page 323. 2 John Paulding, David "Williams, and Isaac Van "Wart, all residents of "Westchester county. Andre offered them large bribes if they would allow him to pass, but they refused, and thus saved their country from ruin. 8 These papers are well preserved. After being in private hands more than seventy years, they were purchased, and deposited in the New York State Library, in 1853. 4 "Washington returned from Hartford on the very morning of Arnold s escape, and reached his quarters (yet standing opposite "West Point) just after the traitor had left. The evidences of his treason were there, and officers were sent in pursuit, but in vain. Washington sent the wife and son of Arnold to New York, whither the traitor was conveyed by the Vulture. That infant, who was named James Robertson Arnold, was born at "West Point. He became a distinguished officer in the British army, having passed through all the grades of office, from lieutenant. On the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1835, he was made one of her aids-de-camp, and rose to the rank of major- general, with the badge of a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order. 5 Serjeant Champe, of Lee s legion [page 333], went into New York City, in the disguise of a deserter, joined the corps which had been placed under Arnold s command, and had every thing arranged for carrying off the traitor, in a boat, to the New Jersey shore. On the very day when he was to execute his scheme, at night, Arnold s corps were ordered to Virginia, and Champe was compelled to accompany it. There he escaped, and joined Lee in the Carolinas. 1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 327 The young soldier has always been more pitied than blamed while the name of Arnold will ever be regarded with the bitterest scorn. 1 Although he did not accomplish his wicked schemes, he received the stipulated reward for his treason able services. And history, too, has given him its reward of recorded shame, while those who were instrumental in securing Andre, and with him the evidences of the foul treason, are honored by the nation with its ever lasting gratitude. Thankful for deliverance from the dangers of treason, Congress voted [Nov. 3, 1780] each of the three young militia men, a sil ver medal and a pension of two hundred dollars a year, for life. And marble monuments have been . . . CAPTORS MEDAL. erected to their memories ; while the sentiment of sympathy for the unfortunate Andre, has also caused a memorial to him, to be erected at Tarrytown, upon the spot where he was executed. And now another year drew to a close, and yet the patriots were not sub dued. England had already expended vast treasures and much blood in en deavors to subjugate them ; and, on account of the rebellion, had involved herself in open war with France and Spain. Notwithstanding all this, and unmindful of the fact that a large French land and naval armament was already on the American shores, 4 she seemed to acquire fresh vigor as every new ob stacle presented itself. And when the British ministry learned that Holland, the maritime rival of England, was secretly negotiating a treaty with the United States for loans of money and other assistance, they caused a declaration of war against that government to be immediately proclaimed [Dec. 20, 1780], and procured from Parliament immense appropriations of men and money, ships and stores, to sustain the power of Great Britain on land and sea. CHAPTER VIII. SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1Y8L] ONE of the noblest displays of true patriotism, for which the war for Inde pendence was so remarkable, signalized the opening of the year 1781. Year 1 Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in January, 1730. He was bred to the business of an apothecary, and for some time carried on that, with bookselling, in New Haven. "We have already met him in his career during the war, up to the time of his treason. We shall meet him again, in Virginia [page 330], with the enemy. At the close of the war, he went to En gland, then to Nova Scotia, but he was everywhere despised. He died in London, in June, 1801, where, just three years afterward, his wife also died. 2 On one side is the word "FIDELITY," and on the other, "VINCIT AMOR PATRI^;" "The love of country conquers." 3 To Paulding, in St. Peter s church-yard, about two miles from Peekskill, and to Van Wart in Greenburg church-yard, a little more than that distance from Tarrytown. Williams was buried in Schoharie county, where a monument is about to be erected to his memory. 4 Page 323. 828 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. after year the soldiers had suffered every privation, from lack of money and clothing. Faction had now corrupted the Continental Congress, and the public welfare suffered on account of the tardiness of that body in the performance of its legitimate duties. Continental money had become almost worthless, 1 and the pay of officers and men was greatly in arrears. The frequent promises of Congress had been as frequently unfulfilled, and the common soldiers had cause to be dissatisfied with the illiberal interpretation which their officers gave to the terms of enlistment. 2 They had asked in vain for aid; and finally, on the first day of January, 1781, thirteen hundred of the Pennsylvania line, whose time, as they understood it, had expired, left the camp at Morristown, 3 with the avowed determination of marching to Philadelphia, and in person demanding justice from the national legislature. General Wayne 4 was in command of the Pennsylvania troops, and was much beloved by them. He exerted all his influ ence, by threats and persuasions, to bring them back to duty until their griev ances should be redressed. They would not listen to his remonstrances ; and, on cocking his pistol, they presented their bayonets to his breast, saying, "We respect and love you ; often have you led us into the field of battle, but we are no longer under your command ; we warn you to be on your guard ; if you fire your pistol, or attempt to enforce your commands, we shall put you instantly to death." Wayne appealed to their patriotism; they pointed to the impo sitions of Congress. He reminded them of the strength their conduct would give to the enemy ; they exhibited their tattered garments and emaciated forms. They avowed their willingness to support the cause of freedom, for it was dear to their hearts, if adequate provision could be made for their comfort, ami then boldly reiterated their intention to march directly to Philadelphia, and demand from Congress a redress of their grievances. Finding threats and persuasions useless, Wayne concluded to accompany the mutineers. When they reached Princeton, they presented the general with a written programme of their demands. It appeared reasonable ; but not being authorized to promise them any thing, the matter was referred to Congress. That body immediately appointed a commission to confer with the insurgents. The result was a compliance with their just demands, and the disbanding of a large part of the Pennsylvania line, for the winter, which was filled by new recruits in tlie spring. 5 1 Page 245. Thirty dollars in paper were then worth only one in silver. 2 The terms, as expressed, were, that they should "serve for three years, or during the war;" that is, for three years if the war continued, or be discharged sooner if the war should end sooner. The officers claimed that they were bound to serve as long as the war should continue. 3 The head-quarters of Washington were now at New Windsor, just above the Hudson PTigh- lands. The Pennsylvania troops were cantoned at Morristown, New Jersey ; and the New Jersey troops were at Pompton, in the same State. 4 Page 298. 6 Intelligence of this revolt reached Washington and Sir Plenry Clinton on the same day. Washington took measures immediately to suppress the mutiny, and prevent the bad influence of its example. Sir Henry Clinton, mistaking the spirit of the mutineers, thought to gain great advantage by the event. He dispatched two emissaries, a British sergeant, and a New Jersey Tory named Ogden, to the insurgents, with the written offer that, on laying down their arms and marching to New York, they should receive their arrearages, and the amount of the depreciation of the Conti nental currency, in hard cash ; that they should be well clothed, have a free pardon for all past offenses, and be taken under the protection of the British government ; and that no military service SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 399 On the ISth of January, a portion of the New Jersey line, at Pompton, followed the example of their comrades at Morristown. The mutiny was soon quelled [January 27], but by harsher means than Wayne had employed. Gen eral Robert Howe was sent by Washington, with five hundred men, to restore order. Two of the ringleaders were hanged, and the remainder quietly sub mitted. These events had a salutary effect. They aroused Congress and the people to the necessity of more efficient measures for the support of the army. Taxes were imposed and cheerfully paid ; a special agent, sent abroad to obtain loans, was quite successful, 2 and a national bank 3 was established at Philadel phia, and placed under the charge of Robert Morris, 4 to whose superintendence Congress had recently intrusted the public Treasury. To his efforts and finan cial credit, the country was indebted for the means to commence offensive opera tions in the spring of 1781. He collected the taxes, and by the free use of his ample private fortune, and his public credit, he supplied the army with flour and other necessaries, and doubtless prevented their disbanding by their own act. Let us now turn our attention to events in the South. While half-starved, half-naked troops were making such noble displays of patriotism amid the snows should be required of them, unless voluntarily offered. Sir Henry requested them to appoint agents to treat with his and adjust the terms of a treaty; and, not doubting the success of his plans, he went to Staten Island himself, with a large body of troops, to act as circumstances might require. Like his masters at home, he entirely misapprehended the spirit and the incentives to action of the American soldiers. They were not mercenary not soldiers by profession, fighting merely for hire. The protection of their homes, their wives and little ones, and the defense of holy principles, which their general iiitelligjnea understood and appreciated, formed the motive-power and the bond of union of tha American army ; and the soldier s money stipend was the least attractive of all the induce ments which urged him to take up arms. Yet as it was necessary to his comfort, and even his existence, the want of it afforded a just pretext for the assumption of powers delegated to a few. The mutiny was a democratic movement: and, while the patriot felt justified in using his weapons to redress grievances, he still looked with horror upon the armed oppressors of his country, and regardoi the a. t and stain of treason, under any circumstances, as worse than the infliction of death. Clinton s proposals were, therefore, rejected with disdain. "See, comrades," said one of the leaders, " he takes us for traitors. Let ua sliDW him that tho American army can furnish but one Arnold, and that America has no truer friends than we." They immediately seized the emissaries, who, being delivered, with Clinton s papers, into tho hands of Wayne, were tried and executed as spies, and the reward wiiich had been offered for their apprehension was tendered to the mutineers who seized them. They sealed the pledga of their patriotism by nobly refusing it, saying, "Necessity wrung from us the act of demanding justice from Congress, but we desire no reward for doing our duty to our bleeding country !" A committee of Congress, appointed to report on the condition of the army, sail, a short tirna previous to this event, that it was "unpaid for five months; that it seldom had m 3re than six days provisions in advance, and was, on several occasions, for sundry successive diys, without meat; that tho medical department had neither sugar, coffee, tea, choco late, wine, nor spirituous liquors of any kind, and that every department of the army was without money, and had not even tha shadow of credit left." r Page 292. 2 Colonel John Laurens [See page 348], a son of Henry Laurens [page 348], had been sent to France to ask for aid. While earnestly pressing his suit, with Vergennes, the French minister, one day, that official said, that the king had every disposition to favor the United States. This patronizing expression kindled the indignation of the young diplomatist, and he replied with empha sis, " Favor, sir ! Tho respect which I owe to my country will not admit the term. Say that the obligation is mutual, and I will acknowledge the obligation. But, as the last argument I shall offer to your Kxcallency, the sword which I now wear in defense of France, as well as my own country, unless the succor I solicit is immediately accorded, I may be compelled, within a short time, to draw against France, as a British subject." This had the effect intended. The French dreaded a recon ciliation of the colonies with Great Britain, and soon a subsidy of one million two hundred thousand dollars, and a further sum, as a loan, was granted. The French minister also gave a guaranty for a Dutch loan of about two millions of dollars. 3 This was called the Bank of North America, and was the first institution of the kind estab lished in this country. * Page 264. 330 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. of New Jersey, Arnold, the arch-traitor, 1 now engaged in the service of his royal master, was commencing a series of depredations upon lower Virginia, with about sixteen hundred British and Tory troops, and a few armed vessels. He arrived at Hampton Roads 2 on the 30th of December. Anxious to distin guish himself, he pushed up the James River, and after destroying [January 5, 1781] a large quantity of public and private stores at Richmond, and vicinity, lie went to Portsmouth [Jan. 20], opposite Norfolk, and made that his head quarters. Great efforts were made by the Americans to seize and punish the traitor. The Virginia militia men were collected in great numbers, for the purpose ; and Jefferson, then governor of that State, offered a reward of five thousand guineas for his capture. 3 La Fayette was sent into Virginia, with twelve hundred men, to oppose him and a portion of the French fleet went [March 8, 1781] from Rhode Island, to shut him up in the Elizabeth River, and assist in capturing him. But all these efforts failed. He was brave, vigil ant, and exceedingly cautious. Admiral Arbuthnot 4 pursued and attacked the French fleet on the 16th of March, and compelled it to return to Newport ; and General Phillips soon afterward joined Arnold [March 26], with more than two thousand men, and took the chief command. In April, the traitor accom panied Phillips on another expedition up the James River, and after doing as much mischief as possible between Petersburg and Richmond, he returned to New York. 5 We shall meet Arnold presently on the New England coast. 6 During the year 1781, the southern States became the most important theater of military operations. General Greene 7 was appointed, on the 30th of October, 1780, to succeed General Gates in the direction of the southern army. He first proceeded to Hillsborough, to confer with Governor Nash, and other civil officers of North Carolina, and arrived at the head-quarters of the army, at Charlotte, on the second of December. On the following day he took formal command, and Gates immediately set out for the head-quarters of Washington, in East Jersey, to submit to an inquiry into his conduct at Camden, 8 which Congress had ordered. Greene, with his usual energy, at once prepared to confront or pursue the enemy, as occasion might require. He arranged his little army into two divisions. With the main body he took post at Cheraw, east of the Pedee, and General Morgan was sent with the remainder (about a thousand strong) to occupy the country near the junction of the Pacolet and Broad Rivers. Cornwallis, who was just preparing to march into North Car- 1 Page 325. 2 Page 243. 3 Page 326. 4 Page 310. 6 General Phillips sickened and died at Petersburg. Lord Cornwallis, who arrived from North Carolina soon afterward [page 338] took the chief command. In a skirmish, a short distance from Petersburg, on the 27th of April [1781], in which Arnold was engaged, he took some Americans prisoners. To one of them he put the question, " If the Americans should catch me, what would they do to me?" The soldier promptly replied, "They would bury with military honors the leg which was wounded at Saratoga, and hang the remainder of you upon a gibbet." 6 Page 340. 7 Nathanial Greene was born, of Quaker parents, in Rhode Island, in 1740. He was an anchor- smith, and was pursuing his trade when the Revolution broke out. He hastened to Boston after the skirmish at Lexington, and from that time until the close of the war, he was one of the most useful officers in the army. He died near Savannah, in June, 1786, and was buried in a vault in that city. His sepulchre can not now be identified. No living person knows in what vault his remains were deposited, and there is no record to cast light upon the question. 8 Page 315. 1781.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 331 olina again, 1 when Greene made this disposition of his army, found himself in a dangerous position, for he was placed between the two divisions. Unwilling to leave Morgan in his rear, he sent Tarletoii to capture or disperse his com mand. The Americans retreated before this superior force, but were overtaken at the Cowpens, in Spartanburg district, and compelled to fight. 2 There, well posted upon an eminence, Morgan 3 and his brave follow ers turned upon their pursuers. Tarleton was discon certed by this movement, for he expected to overtake the Americans while on the wing ; yet, feeling confident of an easy victory, he quickly arranged his line in battle order. It was now nine o clock in the morning [January 17, 1781]. At a signal from Tarleton, his advance gave a shout, and rushed furiously to the contest, under cover of artillery, and an incessant discharge of musketry. GENERAL MORGAN. 1 Page 318. 2 The scene of the battle is among the Thicketty Mountains, west of the Broad River. It waa called Cowpens from the fact, that some tune before the Revolution, some traders at Camden kept herds of cows in that fertile region. 3 Daniel Morgan, commander of the famous rifle corps of the Revolution, was born in New Jer sey, in 1738, and was in the humble sphere of a wagoner, when called to the field. He had been a soldier under Braddock, and joined Washington at Cambridge, in 1775. He served with distinc tion in the army of the Revolution, and was a farmer in Virginia after the war. where he died in 1802, 332 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. The Americans were prepared to receive them, and combatted with them for more than two hours, with skill arid bravery. The British were defeated, with a loss of almost three hundred men in killed and wounded, five hundred made prisoners, and a large quan tity of arms, ammunition, and stores. It was a brilliant victory ; and Congress gave Morgan a gold medal, as a token of its approbation. Colonels Howard 1 and Wash ington, J whose soldierly conduct won the battle, received each a silver medal. When the battle was ended, Morgan pushed forward COLONEL WASHINGTON. .,, i . . , i ,1 n ^ i with his prisoners, intending to cross the Gatawba, and make his way toward Virginia. Cornwallis started in pursuit of him, as soon as he heard of the defeat of Tarleton. He destroyed his heavy baggage, and hastened with his whole army toward the Catawba to intercept Morgan and his prisoners, before they should cross that stream. But he was too late. He did not reach that river until in the evening, two hours after Morgan had crossed. Then feeling confident of his prey, he deferred his passage of the stream until morning. A heavy rain during the night filled the river to its brim ; and while the British were detained by the flood, Morgan had reached the banks of the Yadkin, where he was joined by General Greene and his escort. One of the most remarkable military movements on record, now occurred. It was the retreat of the American army, under Greene, from the Catawba, through North Carolina, into Virginia. When the waters of the Catawba had subsided, the next day, Cornwallis crossed, and resumed his pursuit. He reached the western bank of the Yadkin on the 3d of February [1781], just as the Americans were safely landed on the eastern shore. There he was again arrested in his progress by a sudden swelling of the floods. Onward the patriots pressed, and soon again Cornwallis was in full chase. At Guilford Court-house, the capital of Guilford county, Greene was joined [February 7], by his main body from Cheraw, 3 and all continued the flight, for they were not strong enough to turn and fight. After many hardships and narrow escapes during the retreat, the Americans reached the Dan on the 13th of February, and 1 John Eager Howard, of the Maryland line. He was born in Baltimore county in 1752. He went into military service at the commencement of the war. He was in all the principal battles of the Revolution, was chosen governor of Maryland in 1778, was afterwad United States Senator, and died in October, 1827. 2 William Washington, a relative of the general. He was born in Stafford county, Virginia. He entered the army under Mercer, who was killed at Princeton [page 269], and greatly distin guished himself at the South, as a commander of a corps of cavalry. Taken prisoner at Eutaw Springs [page 338], he remained a captive till the close of the war, and died in Charleston, in March, 1810. In a personal combat with Tarleton in the battle at the Cowpens, Washington wounded his antagonist in his hand. Some months afterward, Tarleton said, sneeringly, to Mrs. Willie Jones, a witty American lady, of Halifax, North Carolina, " Colonel Washington, I am told, is illiterate, and can not write his own name." "Ah! colonel," said Mrs. Jones, "you ought to know better, for you bear evidence that he can make his mark. 11 At another time he expressed a desire to see Colonel Washington. Mrs. Ashe, Mrs. Jones s sister, instantly replied, " Had you looked behind you at the Cowpens you might have had that pleasure." Stung by this keen wit, Tarleton placed his hand upon his sword. General Leslie [page 347 I, who was present, remarked, " Say what you please, Mrs. Ashe ; Colonel Tarleton knows better than to insult a lady in my presence." 3 Page 330. 1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 333 crossed its rising waters safely into the friendly bosom of Halifax county, in Virginia. When Cornwallis arrived, a few hours later [February 14], the stream was too much swollen to allow him to cross. For the third time the waters, as if governed by a special Providence, interposed a barrier between the pursuers and the pursued. Mortified and dispirited, the earl here aban doned the chase, and moving sullenly southward through North Carolina, ho established his camp at Hillsborough. General Greene remained in Virginia only long enough to refresh his troops,, and receive recruits, 1 and then he re-crossed the Dan [February 28], to oppose Cornwallis in his efforts to embody the loyalists of North Carolina under the royal banner. Colonel Lee, 2 with his cavalry, scoured the country around the head waters of the Haw and Deep Rivers, and by force and stratagem foiled the efforts of Tarleton, who was recruiting in that region. On one occasion he defeated and dispersed [March 2] a body of three hundred loyalists under Colonel Pyle, 3 near the Alamance Creek, after which the Tories kept quiet, and very few dared to take up arms. Greene, in the mean while, had moved cautiously forward, and on the first of March [1781], he found himself at the head of almost five thousand troops. Feeling strong enough now to cope with Cornwallis, he sought an engagement with him, and on the 15th they met, and fiercely contended, near Guilford Court-house, about five miles from the present village of Greensborough, in Guilford county, North Carolina. That battle, which continued for almost two hours, was one of the severest of the war. Although the Americans were repulsed and the British became masters of the field, the victory was almost as destructive for Cornwallis as a defeat. " Another such victory," said Charles Fox in the British House of Commons, " will ruin the British army." 4 Both parties suffered severely ; and, in some degree, the line of the Scotch ballad might be applied to them : COLONEL HENRY LEE. BATTLE OF GUILFORD. " They baith did fight, they baith did beat, they baith did rin awa." 1 On his way south, to take command of the southern army, he left the Baron Steuben [page 291] in Virginia, to gather recruits, provisions, &c., and forward them to him. This service the Baron performed with efficiency. 2 Henry Lee was born in Virginia, in 1756. He entered the military service as captain of a Virginia company in 1776, and in 1777 joined the continental army. At the head of a legion, he performed extraordinary services during the war, especially at the South. He was afterward gov ernor of Virginia, and a member of Congress. He died in ]818. 3 Lee sent two youtig countrymen, whom he had captured, to the camp of Pyle, to inform that leader that Tarleton was approaching, and wished to meet him. Pyle had never seen Tarleton, and when he came up he supposed Lee and his party to be that of the renowned British officer. Friendly salutations were expressed, and at a word, the Americans fell upon the loyalists, killed almost a hundred of them, and dispersed the remainder. This event took place two or three miles from the scene of the Regulator battle mentioned on page 223. 4 That statesman moved in committee, " That his majesty s ministers ought immediately to take every possible means for concluding peace with our American colonies." Young William Pitt, the 334 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. The battalions of Cornwallis were so shattered, 1 that he could not maintain the advantage he had gained ; while the Americans retreated in good order to the Reedy Fork. Thoroughly dispirited, he abandoned Western Carolina, and moved [March 19] with his whole army, to Wilmington, near the sea-board. Greene rallied his forces and pursued the British as far as Deep River, in Chatham county. There he relinquished the pursuit, and prepared to re-enter South Carolina. Lord Rawdon, 2 one of the most efficient of Cornwallis s chief officers, was now in command of a British force at Camden. On the 6th of April, Greene marched directly for that place, and on the 19th, he encamped on Hobkirk s Hill, about a mile from Rawdon s intrenchments. Six days afterward [April 25, 1781], he was surprised 3 and defeated by Rawdon, after a sharp battle for several hours, in which the Americans lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, two hundred and sixty-six men. The British lost two hundred and fifty-eight. 4 The British retired to their works at Camden, and Greene, with his little army, encamped for the night on the north side of Sanders s Creek. 5 Greene conducted his retreat so well, that he carried away all his artillery and baggage, with fifty British prisoners, who were captured by Colonel Washington. 8 This defeat was unexpected to Greene, 7 yet he was not the man to be successor of his father, the Earl of Chatham, inveighed eloquently against a further prosecution of the war. He averred that it was "wicked, barbarous, unjust, and diabolical^-conceived in injust ice, nurtured in folly a monstrous thing that contained every characteristic of moral depravity and human turpitude as mischievous to the unhappy people of England as to the Americans." Yet, as in former years, the British government was blind and stubborn still. 1 The Americans lost in killed and wounded, about four hundred men, besides almost a thousand Who deserted to their homes. The loss of the British was over six hundred. Among the officers who were killed was Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, who was one of the most efficient men in the British army. On this occasion, Greene s force was much superior in number to that of Cornwallis, and he had every advantage of position. Events such as are generally overlooked by the historian, but which exhibit a prominent trait in the character of the people of North Carolina, occurred during this battle, and deserve great prominence in a description of the gloomy picture, for they form a few touches of radiant light in the midst of the sombre coloring. "While the roar of cannon boomed over the country, groups of women, in the Buffalo and Alamance congregations, who were under the pastoral charge of the Reverend Dr. Caldwell, might have been seen engaged in common prayer to the God of Hosts for his protection and aid ; and in many places, the solitary voice of a pious woman went up to the Divine Ear, with the earnest pleadings of faith, for the success of the Americans. The battling hosts were surrounded by a cordon of praying women during those dread ful hours of contest. 2 Page 315. 3 Greene was breakfasting at a spring on the eastern slope of Hobkirk s Hill, when Rawdon s army, by a circuitous rout through a forest, fell upon him. Some of his men were cleaning their guns, others were washing their clothes, and all were unsuspicious of danger. 4 The number killed was remarkably small Only eighteen of the Americans, and thirty-eight of the British, were slain on the battle-field. 6 Page 315. 6 He had captured two hundred, but hastily paroling the officers and some of the men, he took only fifty with him. 7 Greene had some desponding views of the future at this time. To Luzerne, the French min ister at Philadelphia, he earnestly wrote: "This distressed country cannot struggle much longer without more effectual support. "* * * We fight, get beaten, rise, and fight again. The whole country is one continued scene of blood and slaughter." To La Fayette. he wrote: "You may depend upon it, that nothing can equal the sufferings of our little army, but their merit." To Gov ernor Reed, of Pennsylvania, he wrote: "If our good friends, the French, cannot lend a helping hand to save these sinking States, they must and will fall." At that time, the French anny had remained for several months inactive, in New England. 1781.] SEVENTH TEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 335 crushed by adversity. On the morning succeeding the battle, he retired as far as Rugeley s Mills, and then crossing the Wateree, he took a strong position for offensive and defensive operations. The two armies were now about equal in numbers, and Greene s began to increase. Alarmed by this, and for the safety of his posts in the lower country, Rawdon set fire to Camden and retreated [May 10, 1781] to Nelson s Ferry, on the Santee. He had ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Cruger 1 to abandon Ninety-six 2 and join Brown at Augusta, 8 and had also directed Maxwell, the commander of Fort Granby, 4 to leave that post, and retire to Orangeburg, 5 on the North Edisto. But his orders and his movements were made too late. Within the space of a week, four important posts fell into the hands of the Americans, 6 and Greene was making rapid marches toward Ninety-six. Lee had pressed forward and co-operated with Pekens in 1 Page 313. 3 So called because it was ninety-six miles from the frontier fort, Prince G-eorge, on the Keowee River. Its site is occupied by the pleasant village of Cambridge, in Abbeville District, one hundred and forty-seven miles north-west from Charleston. 3 Page 313. 4 On the western side of the Congaree, two miles from the present city of Columbia, South Carolina. 5 On the east bank of the North Edisto, about sixty-five miles south of Columbia. Lee and Marion were the principal leaders against these posts. Orangeburg was taken on the llth of May ; Fort Motte on the 12th; the post at Nelson s Ferry on the 14th, and Fort Granby on the 16th. Fort "Watson, situated on the Santee, a few miles above Nelson s Ferry, was taken on the 16th of April. Nelson s Ferry is at the mouth of Eutaw Creek, on the Santee, about fifty miles from Charleston. Fort Motte was near the junction of the Wateree and Congaree Rivers, and was, because of its geographical position, the most important of all these posts. It was composed of the fine residence of Rebecca Motto (a widowed mother, with six children), and temporary fortifications constructed around it. Mrs. Motte. who was an ardent Whig, had been driven to her farm-house upon an eminence near by. Marion and Lee appeared before Fort Motte with a considerable force, but having only one piece of artillery, could make but slight impression. The expected approach 336 THE REVOLUTION. [1781.. holding the country-between Ninety-six and Augusta, to prevent a junction of the garrisons at either of those places ; and thus, hy skillful operations, the Americans completely paralyzed the lately potent strength of the enemy. At the beginning of June [1781], the British possessed only three posts in South Carolina, namely, Charleston, Nelson s Ferry, and Ninety-six. On the 22d of May [1781], Greene commenced the siege of Ninety-six, 1 with less than a thousand regulars and a few raw militia. Kosciuszko, 2 the brave Pole, was his chief engineer, and the post being too strong to be captured by assault, the Americans commenced making regular ap proaches, by parallels. 3 Day after day the work went slowly on, varied by an occasional sortie. For almost a month, the efforts of the Americans were unavailing. Then hearing of the approach of Rawdon, with a strong force, to the relief of Cruger, they made an unsuccessful effort, on the 18th of June, to take the place by storm. They raised FORT NINETY-SIX. the siege the following evening [June 19], and retreated beyond the Saluda. Rawdon pursued them a short distance, when he wheeled and marched to Orangeburg. Although unsuccessful at Ninety-six, detachments of the Republican army were victorious elsewhere. While this siege was pro gressing, Lee and Pickens, with Clarke and others of Georgia, w r ere making successful efforts on the Savan nah River. Lee captured Fort Galphin, twelve miles below Augusta, on the 21st of May, and then he sent an officer to that post, to demand of Brown an instant surrender of his garrison. Brown refused, and the | siege of Augusta w r as commenced on the 23d. It continued until the 4th of June, when a general as- GENERAL PICKENS. of Rawdon, would not allow them to make the slow process of a regular siege. Lee proposed to hurl some burning missile upon the building, and consume it. To this destruction of her property, Mrs. Motte at once consented, and bringing out a bow and some arrows, which had been brought from the East Indies, these were used successfully for the purpose of conveying fire to the dry roof. The house was partially destroyed, when the British surrendered. The patriotic lady then regaled both the American and British officers with a good dinner at her own table. Colonel Horry (one of Marion s officers), in his narrative, mentions some pleasing incidents which occurred at the table of Mrs. Motte, on this occasion. Among the prisoners was Captain Ferguson, an officer of consider able reputation. Finding himself near Horry, Ferguson said, "You are Colonel Horry, I presume, sir." Horry replied in the affirmative, when Ferguson continued, " "Well, I was with Colonel "Wat son when he fought your General Marion on Sampit. I think I saw you there with a party of horse, and also at Nelson s Ferry, when Marion surprised our party at the house. But," he con tinued, " I was hid in high grass, and escaped. You were fortunate in your escape at Sampit, for "Watson and Small had twelve hundred men." "If so," replid Horry, "I certainly was fortunate, for I did not suppose they had more than half that number." "I consider myself," added the cap tain, "equally fortunate in escaping at Nelson s Old Field." "Truly you were," answered Horry dryly, " for Marion had but thirty militia on that occasion." The officers present could not suppress laughter. "When Greene inquired of Horry how he came to affront Captain Ferguson, he replied, " He affronted himself by telling his own story." 1 The principal work was a star redoubt [note 3, page 192], There was a picketed inclosure [note 1, page 127] around the little village; and on the west side of a stream running from a spring (a) was a stockade [note 2, page 183] fort. The besiegers encamped at four different points around the works. 3 Page 277. 8 These are trenches, dug in a zig-zag line in the direction of the fortress to be assailed. The 1781.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 337 sault was agreed upon. Brown now proposed a surrender ; and the following day [June 5, 1781] the Americans took possession of that important post. They lost fifty-one men, killed and wounded ; the British lost fifty-two killed, and three hundred and thirty-four (including the wounded) were made pris oners. At the close of the siege. Lee and Pickens 1 hastened to join Greene before Ninety-six, and all, on the approach of Rawdon, retreated beyond the Saluda, as we have observed. The two chief commanders of the belligerent forces now changed relative positions. When Rawdon retired toward Orangeburg, Greene became his pur suer, and sent a message to Marion and Sumter, then on the Santee, to take a position in front of the enemy, so as to retard his progress. 2 Finding Rawdon strongly intrenched at Orangeburg, Greene deemed it prudent not to attack him. The Americans crossed the Congaree, and the main body encamped on the High Hills of Santee, in Santee district, there to pass the hot and sickly season. Leaving his troops at Orangeburg, in the command of Colonel Stew art (who had come up from Charleston with a reinforcement), Rawdon went to the sea-board and embarked for England. 3 Early in August, Greene was reinforced by North Carolina troops, under General Sumner ; and at the close of that month he crossed the Wateree and Congaree, and marched upon Orangeburg. Stewart (who had been joined by earth is cast up in such a way that the workmen are shielded from shots from the assailed works, and in this way they get near enough to undermine a fort, or erect a battery, so as to have a power ful effect 1 Andrew Pickens was born in Pennsylvania, in 1739. In childhood he went to South Car olina, and was one of the first in the field for liberty, in the upper country of that State. He was a very useful officer, and good citizen. He died in 1817, at the age of seventy-eight years. 2 It is related that the message to Sumter from Greene was conveyed by Emily Geiger, the daughter of a German planter in Fairfield district. He prepared a letter to that officer, but none of his men appeared willing to attempt the hazardous service, for the Tories were on the alert, as Rawdon was approaching the Congaree. Greene was delighted by the boldness of a young girl, not more than eighteen years of age, who came forward and volunteered to carry the letter to Sum ter. With his usual caution, he communicated the contents- of the letter to Emily, fearing she might lose it on the way. The maiden mounted a fleet horse, and crossing the "Wateree at the Camden Ferry, pressed on toward Sumter s camp. Passing through a dry swamp on the second day of her journey, she was intercepted by some Tory scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene s army, she was an object of suspicion, and was taken to a house on the edge of the swamp, and con fined in a room. "With proper delicacy, they sent for a woman to search her person. No sooner was she left alone, than she ate up Greene s letter piece by piece. After a while, the matron ar rived, made a careful search, but discovered nothing. With many apologies, Emily was allowed to pursue her journey. She reached Sumter s camp, communicated Greene s message, and soon Raw don was flying before the Americans toward Orangeburg. Emily Geiger afterward married Mr. Thurwits, a rich planter on the Congaree. 3 A short time before he sailed, Rawdon was a party to a cruel transaction which created a great deal of excitement throughout the South. Among those who took British protection after the fall of Charleston in 1780 [page 311], was Colonel Isaac Hayne, a highly respectable Carolinian. When General Greene, the following year, confined the British to Charleston alone, and their pro tection had no force, Hayne considered himself released from the obligations of his parole, took up arms for his country, and was made a prisoner. Colonel Balfour was then in chief command at Charleston, and from the beginning seemed determined on the death of Hayne. Without even the form of a trial, that patriot was condemned to be hanged. Not one, not even the prisoner, supposed that such a cruelty was contemplated, until the sentence was made public, and he was informed that he had but two days to live. The men of the city pleaded for him ; the women signed peti tions, and went in troops, and upon their knees, implored a remission of his sentence. All was in vain. Rawdon had exerted his influence to save the prisoner, but finally he consented to higi execution, as a traitor, and he became as inexorable as Balfour. Greene was inclined to retaliate, but, fortunately, hostilities soon afterward ceased, and the flow of blood was stopped. 22 338 THE REVOLUTION. [178 L Cruger from Ninety-six), immediately retreated to Eutaw Springs, near the south-west bank of the Santee, and there encamped. Greene pursued ; and on the morning of the 8th of September [1781], a severe battle commenced. The British were driven from their camp ; and Greene s troops, like those of Sum- ter at Hanging Rock, 1 scattered among the tents of the enemy, drinking and plundering. The British unexpectedly renewed the battle, and after a bloody conflict of about four hours, the Americans were obliged to give way. Stewart felt insecure, for the partisan legions were not far off, and that night the Brit ish retreated toward Charleston. The next day [Sept. 9, 1781], Greene ad vanced and took possession of the battle-field, and then sent detachments in pursuit of the enemy. Both parties claimed the honor of a victory. It be longed to neither, but the advantage was with the Americans. Congress and the whole country gave warm expressions of their appreciation of the valor of the patriots. The skill, bravery, caution, and acuteness of Greene, were highly applauded ; and Congress ordered a gold medal, ornamented with emblems of the battle, to be struck in honor of the event, and presented to him, together with a British standard, captured on that occasion. The Americans lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, five hundred and fifty-five. The British lost six hundred and ninety- three. While these events were transpiring upon the upper waters of the Santee, 2 Marion, Sumter, Lee, and other partisans, were driving British detachments from post to post, in the lower country, and smiting parties of loyalists in every direction. The British finally evacuated all their interior stations, and retired to Charleston, pursued almost to the verge of the city by the bold American scouts and partisan troops. At the close of the year [1781] the British at the South were confined to Charleston and Savannah ; and besides these places, they did not hold a single post south of New York. Late in the season [November] Greene moved his army to the vicinity of Charleston, 8 placing it between that city and the South Carolina Legislature, then in session at Jack- sonborough; while Wayne, at -the opening of 1782, was closely watching the British at Savannah. We left Cornwallis, after the battle at Guilford Court-house, making his way toward Wilmington, 4 then in possession of a small British garrison, under Major Craig. Cornwallis arrived there on the seventh of April, 1781, and remained long enough to recruit and rest his shattered army. Apprised of Greene s march toward Camden, and hoping to draw him away from Lord Kawdon, then encamped there, 5 he marched into Virginia, joined the forces of Phillips and Arnold, at Petersburgh, 6 and then attempted the subjugation of that State. He left Wilmington on the 25th of April, crossed the Roanoke at 1 Page 315. 3 At Columbia, the Saluda and Wateree join, and form the Congaree. This, with other and smaller tributaries, form the Santee. The Wateree, above Camden, is called the Catawba. 3 After the battle at Eutaw Springs, Greene again encamped on the High Hills of Santee, from whence he sent out expeditions toward Charleston. These were successful, and the enemy waa kept close upon the sea-board during the remainder of the war. * Page 334. 6 Page 315. Page 330; 1781.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 339 Halifax, and on the 20th of May, reached Petersburg. La Fayette was then in Virginia, 1 but his force was too small effectually to oppose the invaders, and the State seemed doomed to British rule. For the purpose of bringing La Fayette into action, Cornwallis penetrated the country beyond Richmond, and destroyed an immense amount of property. 2 He also sent out marauding parties in various directions, 3 and for several weeks the whole State was kept in great alarm. He finally proceeded [June, 1781] slowly toward the coast, closely pursued by La Fayette, Wayne, and Steuben. While lying at Williamsburg, he received [June 29] orders from General Clinton, to take post near the sea, in order to reinforce the garrison at New York, if necessary, which was now menaced by the combined American and French armies. He crossed the James River [July 9] at Old Jamestown, where he was attacked by Wayne before he could embark his troops. Wayne struck a severe blow, and then skillfully and hastily retreated back to the main army under La Fayette, then only two miles distant. His loss was inconsiderable, but the attack damaged the British seriously. After crossing the river, Cornwallis proceeded by land to Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk ; but disliking that situation, he went to Yorktown, on the York River, and com menced fortifying that place and Gloucester Point, opposite. The French army under Rochambeau, 4 in the mean while, had left New England, and made its way to the Hudson River, where it joined [July 6, 1781] that of the Americans,. in the vicinity of Dobbs Ferry. 5 At that time, Washington, who had the immediate command of the American forces, contemplated an attack upon the British in New York city. For six weeks the two armies remained in Westchester waiting for the arrival of the Count De Grasse, an eminent French naval commander, to co operate in the attack. While preparing to strike the blow, Clinton was reinforced [August 11] by nearly three COUXT DE ROCHAMBEAU. thousand troops from Europe ; and intelligence came from De Grasse that he could not then leave the West Indies. Thus foiled, Washington turned his thoughts to Virginia ; and when, a few days afterward, he learned from De Barras, the successor of Ternay, 6 in command of the French 330. 2 The principal object of Cornwallis in marching beyond Richmond, was to prevent a junction with La Fayette of troops under Wayne, then approaching through Maryland. But the marquis was too expert, outmarched the earl, and met Wayne on the 10th of June. 3 Colonel Simcoe, commander of an active corps called the Queens Rangers,, was sent to capture or destroy stores at the junction of the Fluvanna and Rivanna Rivers. Cornwallis also dispatched Tarleton to attempt the capture of Governor Jefferson and the Legislature, who had fled from Rich mond to Charlottesville, near the residence of Mr. Jefferson. Seven members of the Legislature fell into his hands [June 4], and Mr. Jeiferson narrowly escaped capture by fleeing from his house to the mountains. 4 The Count Rochambeau was born at Yendome, in France, in 1725. He was a distinguished officer in the French army, and after his return from America, was made a Field Marshal by his king. He was pensioned by Bonaparte, and died in 1807. 8 Page 257. Admiral Ternay died at Newport, soon after the arrival of the fleet there, in the summer of 1780. His remains were deposited in Trinity Church-yard there, and a marble slab was placed over his grave. 340 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. fleet at Newport, that De Grasse was about to sail for the Chesapeake, he resolved to march southward, and assist La Fayette against Cornwallis. He wrote deceptive let ters to General Greene in New Jersey, and sent them so as to be intercepted by Sir Henry Clinton. 1 He thus blinded the British commander to his real intentions ; and it was not until the allied armies had crossed the Hudson, passed through New Jersey, and were marching from the Delaware toward the head of Chesapeake Bay, 2 that Clin- COUXT DE GRASSE. ton was convinced .that an attack upon the city of New York was not the object of Washington s movements. It was then too late for successful pursuit, and he endeavored to recall the Amer icans by sending Arnold to desolate the New England coast. Although there was a terrible massacre perpetrated by the invaders at Fort Griswold 3 [Septem ber 6, 1781], and New London, opposite (almost in sight of the traitor s birth place), 4 was burned, it did not check the progress of Washington toward that goal where he was to win the greatest prize of his military career. Nor did reinforcements sent by water to aid Cornwallis, effect their object, for when Admiral Graves arrived off the Capes [September 5], De Grasse was there to guard the entrance to the Chesapeake. 5 He went out to fight Graves, but after a partial action, both withdrew, and the French fleet was anchored [September 10] within the Capes. 6 While Cornwallis was fortifying Yorktown and Gloucester, and the hostile fleets were in the neighboring waters, the allied armies, twelve thousand strong. 7 were making their way southward. They arrived before Yorktown on the 28th of September, 1781 ; and after compelling the British to abandon their out works, commenced a regular siege. The place was completely invested on the 30th, the line of the allied armies extending in a semi-circle, at a distance of almost two miles from the British works, each wing resting upon the York River. Having completed some batteries, the Republicans opened a heavy can nonade upon the town and the British works on the evening of the 9th of Oc- 1 These letters directed Greene to prepare for an attack on New York. 3 This is generally called in the letters and histories of the time, "Head of Elk," the narrow, upper part of the Chesapeake being called Elk River. There stands the village of Elkton. 8 Arnold landed at the mouth of the Thames, and proceeded to attack Fort Trumbull, near New London. The garrison evacuated it, and the village was bur r d. Another division of the expe dition went up on the east side of the Thames, attacked Fort Gr.swold at Groton, and after Colonel Ledyard had surrendered it, he and almost every man in the fort were cruelly murdered, or badly wounded. There is a monument to their memory at Groton. 4 He was born at Norwich, at the head of the Thames, a few miles north of New London. See note 1, page 327. 6 Graves intended to intercept a French squadron, which was on its way with heavy cannons and military stores for the armies at Yorktown. He was not aware that De Grasse had left the "West Indies. 6 The place of anchorage was in Lynn Haven Bay. The hostile fleets were in sight of each other for five successive days, but neither party was anxious to renew the combat. 7 Including the Virginia militia, the whole of the American and French forces employed in the siege, amounted to a little over sixteen thousand men. Of the Americans, about seven thousand were regular troops, and four thousand militia. The French troops numbered about five thousand, including those brought by De Grasse from the West Indies. 1781.] SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 34} tober. On the following evening they hurled red-hot balls among the British shipping in front of the town, and burned several vessels. Hour after hour, disasters were gathering a fearful web of difficulty around Cornwallis. De spairing of aid from Clinton, and perceiving his strong fortifications crumbling, one by one, under the terrible storm of iron from a hundred heavy cannons, he attempted to escape on the night of the 16th, by crossing to Gloucester, break ing through the French troops stationed there, and making forced marches to ward New York. When the van of his troops embarked, the waters of the York River were perfectly calm, although dark clouds were gathering in the horizon. Then a storm arose as sudden and as fearful as a summer tornado, dis persed the boats, compelled many to put back, and the attempt was abandoned. 1 Hope now faded ; and on the 19th, Corn wallis surrendered the posts at York- town and Gloucester, with almost seven thousand British soldiers, and his ship ping and seamen, into the hands of Wash ington and De Grasse. 2 The ceremony, on the occasion of the surrender, was exceedingly impos ing. The American army was drawn up on the right side of the road lead ing from Yorktown to Hampton (see map), and the French army on the left. Their lines extended more than a mile in length. Washington, upon his white charger, was at the head of the American column and Rochambeau, upon a powerful bay horse, was at the head of the French column. A vast concourse of people, equal in number, ac cording to eye-witnesses, to the military, was also assembled from the sur rounding country to participate in the joy of the event. Universal silence pre vailed as the vanquished troops slowly marched out of their intrenchments, with their colors cased, and their drums beating a British tune, and passed between the columns of the combined, armies. All were eager to look upon Lord Corn wallis, the terror of the South, 8 in the hour of his adversity. They were dis- 1 Note 4, page 247. 2 The British lost one hundred and fifty-six killed, three hundred and twenty-six wounded, and seventy missing. The combined armies lost, in killed and wounded, about three hundred. Among the spoils were seventy-five brass, and one hundred and sixty iron cannons ; seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-four muskets ; twenty-eight regimental standards ; a large quantity of musket and cannon-balls ; and nearly eleven thousand dollars in specie in the military chest. The army was surrendered to Washington, and the shipping and seamen to De Grasse. The latter soon after ward left the Chesapeake, and went to the West Indies. Rochambeau remained with his troops in Virginia during the winter, and the main body of the American army marched north, and went into winter quarters on the Hudson. A strong detachment, under General St. Clair [page 276], was sent south to drive the British from Wilmington, and reinforce the army of General Greene, then lying near Charleston. 3 The conduct of Lord Cornwallis, during his march of over fifteen hundred miles through the Southern States, was often disgraceful to the British name. He suffered dwelling-houses to be plundered of every thing that could be carried off; and it was well known that his lordship s table SIEGE OF YORKTOWN. 342 THE REVOLUTION. [1781. appointed ; he had given himself up to vexation and despair, and, feigning illness, he sent General O Hara with his sword, to lead the vanquished army to the field of humiliation. Having arrived at the head of the line, General O Hara advanced toward Washington, and, taking off his hat, apologized for the absence of Earl Cornwallis. The commander-in-chief pointed him to General Lincoln for directions. . It must have been a proud moment for Lincoln, for only the year before he was obliged to make a humiliating surrender of his army to British conquerors at Charleston. 1 Lincoln conducted the royal troops to the field selected for laying down their arms, and there General O Hara delivered to him the sword of Cornwallis. Lincoln received it. and then po litely handed it back to O Hara, to be returned to the earl. The delivery of the colors of the several regiments, twenty-eight in num ber, was next performed. For this purpose, twenty-eight British captains, each bearing a flag in a case, were drawn up in line. Opposite to them, at a distance of six paces, twenty-eight American sergeants were placed in line to receive the colors. An ensign was appointed by Colonel Hamilton, the officer of the day, to conduct this interesting ceremony. 2 When the ensign gave the order for the British captains to advance two paces, to deliver up their colors, and the American sergeants to advance two paces to receive them, the former hesitated, and gave as a reason, that they were unwilling to surrender their flags to non-commissioned officers. Hamilton, who was at a distance, observed this hesitation, and rode up to inquire the cause. On being informed, he will ingly spared the feelings of the British captains, and ordered the ensign to receive them himself, and hand them to the American sergeants. The scene is depicted in the engraving. Clinton appeared at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay a few days afterward, with seven thousand troops, but it was too late. The final blow which struck down British power in America had been given. The victory was complete ; and Clinton returned to New York, amazed and disheartened. Great was the joy throughout the colonies when intelligence of the capture of the British army reached the people. From every family altar where a love of freedom dwelt from pulpits, legislative halls, the army, and from Congress, 3 was furnished with plate thus obtained from private families. His march was more frequently that of a marauder than an honorable general. It is estimated that Virginia alone lost, during Corn- wallis s attempt to reduce it, thirty thousand slaves. It was also estimated, at the time, from the best information that could be obtained, that, during the six months previous to the surrender at York- town, the whole devastations of his army amounted in value to about fifteen millions of dollars. 1 Page 311. 2 Ensign Robert Wilson, of General James Clinton s New York Brigade. He was the youngest commissioned officer in the army, being then only eighteen years of age. He was afterward a magis trate in central New York for a number of years, and was for some time postmaster at Manlius, in Onondago county. He died in 1811. 3 A messenger, with a dispatch from "Washington, reached Philadelphia at midnight. Soon the watchmen in the streets cried, " Past twelve o clock, and Cornwallis is taken." Before dawn the exulting people filled the streets ; and at an early hour, Secretary Thomson [page 227] read that cheering letter to the assembled Congress. Then that august body went in procession to a temple of the living God [Oct. 24th, 1781], and there joined in public thanksgivings to the King of kings, for the great victory. They also resolved that a marble column should be erected at Yorktown, to commemorate the event ; and that two stands of colors should be presented to "Washington, and two- pieces of cannon to each of the French commanders, Kochambeau and De Grasse. SURRENDER OP FLAGS AT YORKTOWN. 1782.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 345 there went up a shout of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord God Omnipotent, for the success of the allied troops, and these were mingled with universal eulo gies of the great leader and his companions in arms. The clouds which had lowered for seven long years, appeared to be breaking, and the splendors of the dawn of peace burst forth, like the light of a clear morning after a dismal night of tempest and w T oe. And the desire for peace, which had long burned in the bosom of the British people, now found such potential expression, as to be heeded by the British ministry. The intelligence of the fate of Cornwallis and his party, fell with all the destructive energy of a bomb-shell in the midst of the war-party in Parliament; 1 and the stoutest declaimers in favor of bay onets and gunpowder, Indians and German mercenaries, 2 as fit instruments for enslaving a free people, began to talk of the expediency of peace. Public opinion soon found expression in both Houses of Parliament ; and Lord North 3 and his compeers, who had misled the nation for twelve years, gave way under the pressure of the peace sentiment, and retired from office on the 20th of March, 1782. The advocates of peace then came into power ; and early in the following May, Sir Guy Carleton 4 arrived in New York, with propositions for a reconciliation. CHAPTER IX. CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [17821789.] GENERAL GREENE, with the main body of the Southern army, was yet on the High Hills of Santee, when, on the 30th of October [1781], intelligence of the capture of Cornwallis reached him. The day of its arrival was made jubilant with rejoicings by the army. The event seemed to be a guaranty for the future security of the Republicans in the South, and Governor Rutledge 6 soon called a Legislative Assembly, to meet at Jacksonborough, to re-establish civil authority. An offer of pardon for penitents, brought hundreds of Tories from the British lines at Charleston, to accept the clemency. The North Caro lina Tories were dismayed, for immediately after the surrender of Cornwallis, St. Clair 6 had marched upon Wilmington, when the frightened enemy imme diately abandoned that post, and Major Craig, the commander, and a few followers, took post upon St. John s Island, near Charleston. Yet the vigilance of the Americans was not allowed to slumber, for a wary foe yet occupied the capitals of South Carolina and Georgia. Marion and his men kept TTnteh and ward" over the region between the Cooper and the Santee, 7 while Greene s main 1 Lord George Germaine said that Lord North received the intelligence " as he would have done a cannon-ball in his breast." He paced the room, and throwing his arms wildly about, kept exclaiming, " 0, God ! it is all over, it is all over I" * Page 246. 3 Page 224. Page 240. * Page 310. 6 Page 276. On one occasion, Marion s brigade suffered a severe defeat, while the commander was attend- 346 THE REVOLUTION". [1782. army lay near the Edisto ; and Wayne, always vigilant, kept the enemy as close within his intrenchments at Savannah. Washington, who returned to the North immediately after the surrender, was, at the same time, keeping Clinton and his army close prisoners in New York. While the theater of war was thus narrowing, British statesmen of all parties, considering the capture of Cornwallis and his army as the death-blow to all hope for future conquests, turned their attention to measures for an honorable termination of the unnatural war. General Conway, the firm and long-tried friend of the Americans, offered a resolution in Parliament in Febru ary [1782], which was preliminary to the enactment of a decree for command ing the cessation of hostilities. It was lost by only one vote. Thus encouraged, ing his duties as a member of the South Carolina Legislature. He left his men in command of Colonel Horry, and near the Santee, Colonel Thompson (afterward the eminent Count Kumford) attacked the corps, with a superior force, and dispersed it. Marion arrived during the engagement, rallied his brigade, and then retired beyond the Santee, to reorganize and recruit. Benjamin Thompson was a native of Massachusetts, and was born in March, IV 53. He became a school master, and while acting in that capacity, he married a rich widow. Already his mind was filled with scientific knowledge, and now he pursued his studies and investigations with energy. When the Revolution broke out, he refused to take part in political matters. The Whigs drove him to Boston for British protection, and he was sent to England by Lord Howe, with dispatches. Toward the close of the war, he commanded a corps of Tories at New York and Charleston. He returned to Europe, became acquainted with the sovereign of Bavaria, made himself exceedingly useful, was raised to the highest dignity, and was created a count. After suf^-ing many vicissitudes, he died, near Paris, in August 1814. His daughter, the Countess of Rumford, who was born in America, died at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1852. See Lossing s Eminent Americans. 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 347 the opposition pressed the subject warmly upon the attention of the House of Commons and the nation, and on the 4th of March, Conway moved "That the House would consider as enemies to his majesty and the country all those who should advise, or by any means attempt, the further prosecution of offensive war on the Continent of North America. The resolution was carried without a division, and the next day the attorney-general introduced a plan for a truce with the Americans. Orders for a cessation of hostilities speedily went forth to the British commanders in America, and preparations were soon made for evacuating the cities of Savannah and Charleston. When General Leslie, the British commander at Charleston, was apprised of these proceedings in Parliament, he proposed to General Greene a cessation of hostilities. Like a true soldier, Greene referred the matter to Congress, and did not for a moment relax his vigilance. Leslie also requested Greene to allow him to purchase supplies for his army, at the same time declaring his intention to evacuate Charleston. Greene was unwilling thus to nourish a viper, until his power to injure was destroyed, and he refused. Leslie then resorted to force to obtain provisions. Already he had made several efforts to penetrate the country for the purpose, and now, late in August, he attempted to ascend the Combahee, 1 when he was opposed by the Americans under General Gist, of 1 Page 42. 348 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. the Maryland line. Colonel John Laurens 1 volunteered in the service ; and in a skirmish at day-break, on the 25th of August, he was killed. He was greatly- beloved by all, and his death was mourned with real sorrow. His was almost the last life sacrificed in that glorious old war. The blood of one other was shed at Stono Ferry, 5 a few weeks afterward, when Captain Wilmot was killed in a skirmish with a British foraging party. Several weeks previous to this, the British had evacuated Savannah. That event occurred on the llth of July, when General Wayne, in consideration of the eminent services of Colonel James Jackson, 3 appointed him to "receive the keys of the city of Savannah" from a committee of British officers. He per formed the duty with great dignity, and on the same day the American army entered the city. Koyal power then ceased in Georgia, forever. On the 14th of December following, the British evacuated Charleston, and the next day, the Americans, under General Greene, took possession of it, greeted from windows, balconies, and even house-tops, with cheers, waving of handkercniefs, and cries of "God bless you, gentlemen! Welcome! Welcome!" The British remained in New York almost a year longer (until the 25th of November, 1783), under the command of Sir Guy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry Clinton, because the final negotiations for peace were not completed, by ratifi cation, until near that time. Measures were now taken by Congress and the British government to arrange a treaty of peace. The United States appointed five commissioners for the purpose, in order that different sections of the Union might be represented. These consisted of John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jef ferson, and Henry Laurens. These met Richard Oswald, the English com missioner, at Paris, and there, on the 30th of November, 1782, they signed a preliminary treaty. 4 French and English commissioners also signed a treaty of peace on the 20th of January following. Congress ratified the action of its commissioners in April, 1783, yet negotiations were in progress until September following, when a definitive treaty was signed [September 3, 1783] at Paris. 5 In that treaty, England acknowledged the Independence of the United States ; allowed ample boundaries, extending northward to the Great Lakes, 1 Note 2, page 329. a Page 296. 3 James Jackson was one of the most eminent men in Georgia lie was born in England, in September, 1757, arid came to America in 1772. He studied law at Savannah, and was an active soldier during the whole war for Independence. "When a little past thirty years of age, he was elected governor of Georgia, but declined the honor on account of his youth. He was a member of the United States Senate for some time, and was governor of his State for two years. He died, while at Washington, as United States senator, in 1808, and his remains are in the Congressional burial-ground. See his portrait on page 347. 4 Vergennes, the French minister, was dissatisfied with the manner in which the matter had been conducted. It was understood, by the terms of the alliance between the United States and France (and expressly stated in the instructions of the commissioners), that no treaty should be signed by the latter without the knowledge of the other. Yet it was done on this occasion. A portion of the American commissioners doubted the^ good faith of Vergennes, because he favored Spanish claims. Dr. Franklin, however, trusted Vergennes implicitly, and the latter appears to have acted honorably, throughout. The cloud of dissatisfaction soon passed away, when Franklin, with soft words, explained the whole matter. 5 It was signed, on the part of England, by David Hartley, and on that of the United States, by Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay. 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. $49 and westward to the Mississippi, and an unlimited right of fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. The two Floridas were restored to Spain. At the same time, definitive treaties between England, France, Spain, and Holland, were signed by their respective commissioners, 1 and the United States became an active power among the nations of the earth. 2 A great work had now been accomplished, yet the joy of the American people, in view of returning peace and prosperity, was mingled with many gloomy apprehensions of evil. The army, which, through the most terrible sufferings, had remained faithful, and become conqueror, was soon to be dis banded ; and thousands, many of them made invalids by the hard service in which they had been engaged, would be compelled to seek a livelihood in the midst of the desolation which war had produced. 3 For a long time the public treasury had been empty, and neither officers nor soldiers had received any pay for their services. A resolution of Congress, passed in 1780 [October 21], to allow the officers half pay for life, was ineffective, because funds were wanting. Already the gloomy prospect had created wide-spread murmurings in the army, and there were many men wlio sighed for a stronger government. They ascribed the weakness of the Confederation to its republican form, and a change, to be wrought by the army, was actually proposed to Washington. Nicola, a foreign officer in a Pennsylvania regiment, made the proposition, in a well-written letter, and not only urged the necessity of a monarchy, but endeavored to persuade Washington to become king, by the voice of the army. The sharp rebuke of the commander-in-chief [May, 1 782] , checked all further movements in that direction. The general discontent soon assumed another shape, and on the llth of March, 1783, a well-written address was circulated through the American camp (then near Newburg), which advised the army to take matters into its own hands, make a demonstration that should arouse the fears of the people and of Congress, and thus obtain justice for themselves. 4 For this purpose a meeting of officers was called, but the great influence of Washington prevented a response. The commander-in-chief then summoned all the officers together, laid the matter before them [March 15], and obtained from them a patriotic expression of their faith in the "justice of Congress and the country." In a few days the threatening cloud passed away, and soon after this event Congress made arrangements for granting to the officers fall pay for five years, instead of half pay for life; and to the soldiers full pay for four months, in partial liquidation of their claims. This arrangement was not satisfactory, and discon- 1 That between Great Britain and Holland was signed on the second. 3 John Adams was the first minister of the United States to Great Britain. He was politely received by King George the Third ; and that monarch was faithful to his promises to preservo inviolate the covenant he had made by acknowledging the independence of the new Republic. 8 The army, consisting of about ten thousand men, was then encamped on the Hudson, near Newburg. 4 This address was anonymous, but it was afterward acknowledged to be the production of John Armstrong, then a major, and one of General Gates s aids. It is believed that Gates and other officers were the instigators of the scheme, and that Armstrong acted under their direction. He was an accomplished writer, and was much in public life after the war. He was United States min ister to France for six years, from 1804. He was Secretary of "War in 1814 ; and died in Dutchesa county, New York, in 1843, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 350 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. tent still prevailed. 1 In the mean while [March 2] the preliminary treaty had arrived. On the eighth anniversary of the skirmish at Lexington [April 19, 1783], a cessation of hostilites was proclaimed in the army, and on the 3d of November following, the army was disbanded by a general order of Congress. A small force was retained under a definite enlistment, until a peace establishment should be organized. 2 These were now at West Point, under the command of General Knox. The remainder of that glorious band of patriots then quietly returned to their homes, to enjoy, for the remnant of their lives, the blessings of the liberty they had won, and the grateful benedictions of their countrymen. Of the two hundred and thirty thousand Continental soldiers, and the fifty-six thousand militia who bore arms during the war, the names of only two are now [1 867] on the pension list ! 3 And the average of these must be full ninety years. The British army evacuated the city of New York on the 25th of Novem ber, 1783. With their departure, went, forever, the last instrument of royal power in these United States. On the morning of that day a cold, frosty, but clear and brilliant morning the American troops, under General Knox, 4 who had come down from West Point and encamped at Harlem, marched to the Bowery Lane, and halted at the present junction of Third Avenue and the Bowery. Knox was accompanied by George Clinton, 5 the governor of the State of New York, with all the principal civil officers. There they remained until about one o clock in the afternoon, when the British left their posts in that vicinity and marched to Whitehall. 6 The American troops followed, and .r GOVERNOR CLINTON. 1 In May, 1783, a portion of the Pennsylvania troops, lately arrived from the South, marched to Philadelphia, where they were joined by others, and for three hours they stood at the door of the State House, and demanded immediate pay from Congress. St. Glair, then in command there, pacified them for the moment, and "Washington soon quelled the mutiny. See page 328. 2 A great portion of the officers and soldiers had been permitted, during the summer, to visit their homes on furlough. The proclamation of discharge, by Congress, was followed by "Washing ton s farewell address to his companions in arms, written at Rocky Hill, New Jersey, on the 3d of November. He had already issued a circular letter (Newburg, June 8th, 1783) to the governors of all the States on the subject of disbanding the army. It was designed to be laid before the sev* eral State Legislatures. It is a document of great value, because of the soundness of its doctrines, and the weight and wisdom of its counsels. Four great points of policy constitute the chief theme of his communication, namely, an indissoluble union of the States ; a sacred regard for public justice ; the organization of a proper peace establishment; and a friendly intercourse among the people of the several States, by which local prejudice might le effaced. " These," he remarks, " are the pillars on which the glorious fabric of our independency and national character must be supported." No doubt this address had great influence upon the minds of the whole people, and made them yearn for that more efficient union which the Federal Constitution soon afterward secured. 8 Great Britain sent to America, during the war, one hundred and twelve thousand five hun dred and eighty-four troops for the land service, and more than twenty-two thousand seamen. Of all this host" not one is known to be living. One of them (John Battin) died in the city of New York, in June, 1852, at the age of one hundred years and four months. 4 Henry Knox, the able commander of the artillery during the Revolution, was born in Boston, in 1740. He entered the army at the commencement of the war. He was President Washington s Secretary of War, and held that office eleven years. He died at Thomaston, in Maine, in 1806. _ 5 Like Governors Trumbull [page 323] and Rutledge [page 310], Clinton, in a civil capacity, was of immense service to the American cause. He was born in Ulster county, New York, in 1739. He was governor about eighteen years, and died in 1812, while Yice-President of the United States. See page 404. 6 Now the South Ferry to Brooklyn. 1189.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 351 before three o clock General Knox took formal possession of Fort George amid the acclamations of thousands of emancipated freemen, and the roar of artillery upon the Battery. On Thursday, the 4th of December, Washington met his officers, yet re maining in service, at his quarters, corner of Broad and Pearl-streets, New York, for the last time. The scene, as described by Marshall, 1 the best of the early biographers of Washington, was one of great tenderness. The commander- in-chief entered the room where they were all waiting, and taking a glass of wine in his hand, he said, With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take 1 John Marshall, the eminent Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, in 1755, and was the eldest of fifteen children by the same mother. He entered the mil itary service, in the Virginia militia, against Dunmore [page 244], in 1775, and was in the battle at the Great Bridge [see page 243]. He remained in service, as an excellent officer, until early in 1780, when he studied law, and became very eminent in his profession. He was again in the field in 1781. In 1782 he was a member of the Virginia Legislature. He was chosen Secretary of War in 1800, and the next year was elevated to the Chief Justiceship of the United States. His Life of Washington was published in 1805. Judge Marshall died at Philadelphia in 1835, in the eightieth year of his age. He was an exceedingly plain man, in person and habits, and always carried his own marketing home in his hands. On one occasion, a young housekeeper was swearing lustily because he could not hire a person to carry his turkey home for him. A plain man, standing by offered to perform the service, and when they arrived at the door, the young man asked, "What shall I pay you?" "Oh, nothing," replied the old man; "you are welcome; it was on my way, and no trouble." " Who is that polite old gentleman who brought home my turkey for me ?" in quired the young man of a bystander. " That," he replied, " is John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States." The astonished young man exclaimed, "Why did he bring home my turkey?" " To give you a severe reprimand," replied the other, "and to learn you to attend to your own bus iness." The lesson was never forgotten. 352 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." Having drank, he continued, "I can not come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you if each will come and take me by the hand." Knox, who stood nearest to him, turned and grasped his hand, and, while the tears flowed down the cheeks of each, the commander-in-chief kissed him. This he did to each of his officers, while tears and sobs stifled utterance. Washington soon left the room, and passing through corps of light infantry, he walked in silence to Whitehall, where he embarked in a barge for Elizabethtown, on his way to Annapolis, in Maryland, where Congress was in session. There, on the 23d of December, he resigned into its custody the com mission which he received [June 16, 1775] from that body more than eight years before. 1 His address on that occasion was simple and touching, and the re sponse of General Mifflin, 2 the president, was equally affecting. The spectacle was one of great moral sub limity. Like Cincinnatus, Washington, having been instrumental, under Providence, in preserving the lib erties of his country and achieving its independence, laid down the cares of State and returned to his plow. A few months before the final disbanding of the army, many of the officers, then at Newburg, on the Hudson, met [June 19, 1783] at the head-quarters ot the Baron Steuben, situated about two miles from the Fishkill Ferry, and there formed an association, which they named the SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. The chief objects of the Society were to promote cordial friendship and indissoluble union among themselves ; to commemorate, by frequent re-unions, the great struggle they had just passed through ; to use their best en deavors for the promotion of human liberty ; to cherish good feeling between the respective States ; and to extend benevolent aid to those of the Society whose circumstances might require it. They formed a General Society, and elected Washington its first president. They also made provision for the formation of auxiliary State societies. To perpetuate the Association, it was provided, in the constitution, that the eldest male descend ant of an original member should be entitled to bear the ORDER, and enjoy the privileges of the Society. The Order 3 consists of a gold eagle, suspended upon a ribbon, on the breast of which is a medallion GENERAL MIFFLIN. ORDER. 238. At the same time Washington rendered the account current of his expenditures, for reconnoitering, traveling, secret service, and miscellaneous expenses, amounting to about $74,480. He would receive nothing in compensation for his own services as commander-in-chief. 3 Thomas Mifflin was born in Philadelphia in 1744. He was a Quaker [note 7, page 94], but joined the patriot army in 1775, and rapidly rose to the rank of major-general. He was a member of Congress after the war, and also governor of Pennsylvania. He died in January, 1800. 3 An order is a badge, or visible token of regard or distinction, conferred upon persons for mer itorious services. On the breast of Baron Steuben on page 291, is the order of Fidelity, presented to him by Frederic the Great of Prussia, for his services in the army of that monarch. Some of the MES 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 353 with a device, representing Cincinnatus receiving the Roman senators. 1 Sev- , eral State societies are yet [1867] in existence. The war was ended, and peace was guarantied, but the people had much to do in the adjustment of public affairs, so as to lay the foundations of permanent prosperity, and thus secure the liberty and independence proclaimed and acknowledged. The country was burdened with a heavy debt, foreign and do mestic, 2 and the Articles of Confederation* gave Congress no power to dis charge them, if it had possessed the ability. On its recommendation, however, the individual States attempted to raise their respective quotas, by direct tax ation. But all were impoverished by the war, and it was found to be impos sible to provide means even to meet the arrears of pay due the soldiers of the Revolution. Each State had its local obligations to meet, and Congress could not coerce compliance with its recommendations. This effort produced great excitement in many of the States, and finally, in 1787, a portion of the people of Massachusetts openly rebelled. Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the continental army, marched at the head of a thou sand men, took possession of Worcester, and prevented a session of the Supreme Court. He repeated the same at Springfield. The insurrection soon became so formidable, that Governor Bowdoin was compelled to call out several thou sand militia, under General Lincoln, to suppress it. Lincoln captured one hun dred and fifty of the insurgents, and their power was broken. A free pardon was, finally, offered to all privates who had engaged in the rebellion. Several leaders were tried, and sentenced to death, but none were executed, for it was perceived that the great mass of the people sympathized with them. This epi sode is known as Shays s Rebellion. We have already noticed the fact that the Pope was unfriendly to England, 4 and looked with favor upon the rebellious movements of her colonies. Soon after the treaty of peace was concluded [Sept. 3, 1783], the Pope s Nuncio at Paris made overtures to Eranklin, on the subject of appointing an apostolic vicar for the United States. The matter was referred to Congress, and that body properly replied, that the subject being purely spiritual, it was beyond their control. The idea of entire separation between the State and spiritual governments the full exercise of freedom of conscience was thus early enun- orders conferred by kings are very costly, being made of gold and silver, and precious stones. The picture of the order of the Cincinnati, given on the preceding page, is half the size of the original. 1 Cincinnatus was a noble Roman citizen. When the Romans were menaced with destruction by an enemy, the Senate appointed delegates to invite Cincinnatus to assume the chief magistracy of the nation. They found him at his plow. He immediately complied, raised an army, subdued the enemy, and, after bearing the almost imperial dignity for fourteen days, he resigned his office, and returned to his plow. How like Cincinnatus were Washington and his compatriots of the War for Independence ! 2 According to an estimate made by the Register of the Treasury in 1790, the entire cost of the War for Independence, was at least one hundred and thirty millions of dollars, exclusive of vast sums lost by individuals and the several States, to the amount, probably, of forty millions more. The treasury payments amounted to almost ninety-three millions, chiefly in continental bills. The foreign debt amounted to eight millions of dollars ; and the domestic debt, due chiefly to the officers and soldiers of the Revolution, was more than thirty millions of dolhr.?. 3 Note 1, page 267, and Supplement. 4 Page 266. 23 354 THE REVOLUTION. [1868 elated. The Pope accordingly appointed the Reverend John Carroll, of Maryland, to the high office of Apostolic- Vicar. l At about the same time, the Church of England in the United States sought a re-organization. In compliance with the wishes of the Churchmen of Connecticut, the Rev erend Samuel Seabury went to England in 1784, to obtain ordination as bishop. The English bishops hesitating to act in consequence of the refusal of Seabury to take the oath of allegiance to the king of England as head of the Church, he "obtained ordination by Scotch bishops at Aberdeen. 8 Three years later, the Reverend William White, who had been elected bishop of the diocese of Pennsylvania, was consecrated, (with Bishop Provoost, of New York,) by the Archbishop of Canterbury ; 3 and a few years later, the independent " Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America," was established. Such was the commencement of two of the most prominent prelatical Churches in this country. The Methodist Church, which has since flourished so wonderfully, was then just taking firm root. 1 John Carroll was a native of Maryland. He was ordained to the ministry in the Roman Catholic Church in 1769 ; was consecrated a bishop in 1790, and made archbishop in 1808. 2 Samuel Seabury was a native of Connecticut. He entered the ministiy in 1758, and became the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in this country, in 1784. 3 William White entered the ministry by ordination in London, in 1770; and at one time he was chaplain to the Continental Congress. He was consecrated a bishop in 1787, and in 1789 he presided over the convention called to consider the organization of an American Church. He wrote the constitution of that Church ; and with the assistance of Bishop Seabury, he revised the Book of Common Prayer, so as to adapt it to the new order of things. 1789.] CLOSING- EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 355 For a long time it had been clearly perceived that, while the Articles of Confederation formed a sufficient constitution of government during the prog ress of the war, they were not adapted to the public wants in the new condition of an independent sovereignty in which the people found themselves. There appeared a necessity for a greater centralization of power by which the general government could act more efficiently for the public good. To a great extent, the people lost all regard for the authority of Congress, and the commercial affairs of the country became wretchedly deranged. In truth, every thing seemed to be tending toward utter chaos, soon after the peace in 1783, x and the leading minds engaged in the struggle for Independence, in view of the increas ing and magnified evils, and the glaring defects of the Articles of Confedera tion, were turned to the consideration of a plan for a closer union of the States, and for a general government founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, from which the confederation in question widely departed. The sagacious mind of Washington early perceived, with intense anxiety, the tendency toward ruin of that fair fabric which his wisdom and prowess had helped to rear, and he took the initial step toward the adoption of measures which finally resulted in the formation of the present Constitution of the United States. 2 At his suggestion, a convention, for the purpose of consulting on the best means of remedying the defects of the Federal Government, was held at Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, 1786. Only five States (Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York) were represented. They met on the llth of that month, and John Dickenson 3 was chosen chairman. They finally appointed a committee to prepare a draft of a report to be made to the Legislatures of the several States, then represented. The committee reported on the 14th, but there not being a representation from a majority of the States, it was thought advisable to postpone further action. They adjourned, after recommending the appointment of deputies to meet in convention at Philadelphia, in May following. The report was adopted and transmitted to Congress. On the 21st of February, 1787, a committee of that body, 4 to whom the report of the commissioners was referred, reported thereon, and strongly recommended to the different Legislatures to send forward delegates to meet in the proposed convention at Philadelphia. Propositions were made by delegates from New York and Massachusetts, and finally the following resolution, sub mitted by the latter, after being amended, was agreed to : " Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the 1 Page 348. 2 Page 359. 3 Page 219. 4 The committee consisted of Messrs. Dana, Varnum, S. M. Mitchell, Smith, Cadwalader, Irving N. Mitchell, Forest, Grayson, Blount, Bull, and Few. 356 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. Federal Constitution adequate to the exigences of the government and the preservation of the Union." This resolution, with a preamble, was immediately transmitted to the several Speakers of State Legislatives Assemblies, and they were laid before the repre sentatives of the people in all the States of the Confederacy. While a feeling generally prevailed, that something must be done to avert the threatened anarchy y toward which governmental operations were rapidly tending, great caution was observed in the delegation of powers to those who should be appointed members of the proposed convention. 1 In May, 1787, 2 delegates from all the States, except New Hampshire and Rhode Island, 3 assembled at Philadelphia, in the room where Congress was in session when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. 4 Washington, who was a delegate from Virginia, was, on motion of Robert Morris, chosen President. Able statesmen were his associates, 5 and they entered earnestly upon their duties. They had not proceeded far, however, before they perceived that the Articles of Confederation were so radically defective, and their powers so inadequate to meet the wants of the country, that, instead of trying to amend that old code, they went diligently to work to form a new Constitution. For some time they made but little progress. There were 1 The great question that came up before the members, at the very commencement of the session of the Convention, was, " What powers do we possess ? Can the amendments to the Articles of Confederation be carried so far as to establish an entirely new system ?" 2 The day fixed for the assembling of the Convention, was the 14th of May. On that day, del egates from only half the States were present. The remainder of the delegates did not all arrive before the 25th. 3 Ignorant and unprincipled men, who were willing to liquidate public and private debts by the agency of unstable paper money, controlled the Assembly of Rhode Island, and that body refused to elect delegates to the Convention. But some of the best and most influential men in the State joined in sending a letter to the Convention, in which they expressed their cordial sympathy with the object of that national assembly, and promised their adhesion to whatever the majority might propose. The following are the names of the delegates : New Hampshire. John Langdon, John Pickering, Nicholas Gilman, and Benjamin West. Massachusetts. Francis Dana, Elbridge Gerry, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, and Caleb Strong. Connecticut. William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman, and Oliver Ellsworth. New York. Robert Yates, John Lansing, Jr., and Alexander Hamilton. New Jersey. David Brearley, William Churchill Houston, William Paterson, John Neilson r William Livingston, Abraham Clark, and Jonathan Dayton. Pennsylvania. Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Jared Ingersoll, Thomas Fitz- simrnons, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Benjamin Franklin. Delaware. George Reed, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickenson, Richard Bassett, and Jacob Brown. Maryland. James M Henry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, John Francis Mercer, and Luther Martin. Virginia. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, Jr.. George Mason, and George Wythe. Patrick Henry having declined his appointment, James M Clure was nominated to supply his place. North Carolina. Richard Caswell, Alexander Martin, William Richardson Davie, Richard Dobbs Spaight, arid Willie Jones. Richard Caswell having resigned, William Blount was appointed a deputy in his place. Willie Jones having also declined his appointment, his place was supplied by Hugh Williamson. South Carolina. John Rutledge, Charles Pinckey, Charles C. Pinckney, and Pierce Butler. Georgia. William Few, Abraham Baldwin, William Pierce, George Walton, William Houston, and Nathaniel Pendleton. 4 Page 250. 6 The members who were most conspicuous as debaters in the Convention, were Randolph, Madison, and Mason, of Virginia ; King, Gerry, and Gorham, of Massachusetts ; Gouverneur Mor ris, Wilson, and Dr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania ; Johnson, Sherman, and Ellsworth, of Connecticut ; Lansing and Hamilton, of New York ; the two Pinckneys, of South Carolina ; Paterson, of New Jersey ; Martin, of Maryland ; Dickenson, of Delaware ; and Dr. Williamson, of North Carolina, FRANKLIN IN THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 359 great diversities of opinion, 1 and it soemed, after several days, that the conven tion must, of necessity, dissolve without accomplishing any thing. Some pro posed a final adjournment. At this momentous crisis, Dr. Franklin arose, and said to the President, " How has it happened, sir, that while groping so long in the dark, divided in our opinions, and now ready to separate without accom plishing the great objects of our meeting, that we have hitherto not once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings ? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and graciously answered." He closed by saying, " The longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of the truth that God governs in the affairs of men" and then moved that " henceforth, prayers, im ploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in tins Assembly every morning before we proceed to business." The resolution was not adopted. On a memorandum of it, Franklin wrote, " The Convention, except three or four members, thought prayers unnecessary." After long and animated debates, the Convention referred all propositions, reports, etc., which had been agreed to from time to time, to a Committee of Detail, consisting of Rutledge, Randolph, Gorham, Ellsworth, 2 and Wilson. The Convention then adjourned, and ten days afterward [August 6, 1787] it met, and that committee reported a rough sketch of the Constitution, as it now stands. Now, again, long and sometimes angry debates were had. Amend ments were made, and all were referred to a committee for final revision. That committee submitted the following resolution on the 12th of September, which was adopted : 1 Edmund Randolph submitted a plan on the 29th of May, in a series of Resolutions, which was known as the " Virginia Plan." It proposed to form a general government, composed of a legislature, and an executive and judiciary department; a revenue, and an army and navy n independent of the control of the several States; to have power to conduct war, establish peace, anil make treaties; to have the exclusive privilege of coining money, and the general supervision of all national trans actions. Upon general principles, this plan was highly approved ; but in that Convention there were many ardent and pure patriots, who looked upon the preservation of the State sovereignties as essential, and regarded this proposition as an infringement upon State Rights. Mr. Paterson also submitted a plan for amending the Articles of Confederation. It proposed to enlarge the powers of Congress, but left its resources and supplies to be found through the medium of the State governments. This was one of the most serious defects of the old League a dependence of the general government upon the State governments for its vitality. Other propositions were submitted from time to time, and the most intense solicitude was felt by every member. Subjects of the most vital interest were ably discussed, from day to day ; but none created more earnest debate than a proposition for the general government to assume the debts of the States contracted in providing means for carrying on the war. The debts of the several States were unequal. Those of Massa chusetts and South Carolina amounted to more than ten millions and a half of dollars, while the debts of all the other States did not extend, in the aggregate, to fifteen millions. This assumption was finally made, to the amount of twenty-one millions five hundred thousand dollars. See page 370. Oliver Ellsworth was one of the soundest men in the Convention, and was ever one of the most beloved of the New England patriots. He was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in April, 1745. He was educated at Yale College, anl at Princeton, and at the age of twenty-five, he commenced the practice of law at Hartford. He was nn eloquent speaker, and became very eminent in his profession. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1777, and in 1^84 he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut. He was the first United States senator from Connect icut, under the new Constitution, and in 1796 he wis appointed Chif Justice of the TTnite^ Spates. He was an embassador to the French court from 1790 tj 1801. He died in November. 1807- * the age of sixty -two years. See next page. 360 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. " Resolved unanimously, That the said report, with the resolutions and letters accompanying the same, be transmitted to the several Legislatures, in order to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each State by the people thereof, in conformity to the resolves of the Convention, made and provided, in that case." The new Constitution, when submitted to the people, 1 found many and able opposers. State supremacy, sectional interests, radical democracy, all had nu merous friends, and these formed the phalanx of opposition. All the persuasive eloquence of its advocates, with pen and speech, was needed to convince the people of its superiority to the Articles of Confederation, and the necessity for its ratification. Among its ablest supporters was Alexander Hamilton, 2 whose 1 The Convention agreed to the revised Constitution on the 15th of September, and on the 17th it was signed by the representatives of all the States then present, except Randolph, Gerry, and Mason. The Constitution was submitted to Congress on the 28th, and that body sent copies of it to all the State Legislatures. State Conventions were then called to consider it ; and more than a year elapsed before the requisite number of States had ratified it. These performed that act in the following order: Delaware, Deo. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, Dec. 12, 1787; New Jersey, Dec. 18, 1787; Georgia, Jan. 2, 1788; Connecticut, Jan. 9, 1788; Massachusetts, Feb. 6, 1788; Maryland, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; New York, July 26, 1788; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1788; Rhode Island, May 29, 1790. 2 Alexander Hamilton was born on the Island of Nevis, British "West Indies, in January, 1757. He was of Scotch and French parentage. He became a clerk to a New York merchant at St. Croix, and he was finally brought to New York to be educated. He was at King s (now Columbia) College, and was distinguished as a good speaker and writer, while yet a mere lad. When the Rev olution broke out, he espoused the Republican cause, entered the army, became Washington s favor ite aid and secretary, and was an efficient officer until its close. He made the law his profession, and, as an able financier, he was made the first Secretary of the Treasury, under the new Constitu- 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 361 pen and sword had been identified with the career of Washington during almost the whole War for Independence. He gave to its advocacy the whole weight of his character and power of his genius : and, aided by Jay and Madison, he scat tered broadcast among the people, those able papers called Thi Federalist. These, like Paine s Crisis, stirred the m isses : and soon eleven States^ in Con- vention assembled, gave the National Constitution their support, and ratified it. Congress then fixed the time for choosing electors for President and Vice- President, 1 and provided for the organization of the new government. On "Wednesday, the 4th day of March, 1789, the old Continental Congress 2 ex pired, and the NATIONAL CONSTITUTION became the organic law of the Republic. This was the crowning act of the War for Independence, 3 and then the UNITED STATES OP AMERICA commenced their glorious career as a powerful empire among the nations of the earth. tion. He was shot iu a duel, by Aaron Burr, in July, 1804, at the early age of forty-seven years. His widow, daughter of General Schuyler, died in November, 1854, hi the ninety-seventh year of her age. 1 These are men elected by the people in the various States, to meet and choose a President and Yice-President of the United States. Their number is equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the several States are entitled. So the people do not vote directly for the Chief Magistrate. Formerly, the man who received the highest number of votes was declared to be President, and he who received the next highest number was proclaimed Vice- President. Now these are voted for as distinct candidates for separate offices. See Article II. of the National Con stitution, Supplement. The first electors were chosen on the first Wednesday in February, IT 8 9. The inauguration of the first President did not take place [page 366] until the 30th of April following. 2 Page 226. 3 For details of the history, biography, scenery, relics, and traditions of the War for Independ ence, see Lossing s Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. 362 THE REVOLUTION. [1782. Congress was in session at New York while the Convention at Philadelphia was busy in preparing the National Constitution. During that time it disposed of the subject of organizing a Territorial Government for the vast region north ward of the Ohio River, within the domain of the United States. 1 On the llth of July, 1787, a committee of Congress reported " An Ordinance for the Gov ernment of the Territory of the United States North-west of the Ohio." This report embodied a bill, whose provisions in regard to personal liberty and distri bution of property, were very important. It contained a special proviso that the estates of all persons dying intestate, in the territory, should be equally divided among all the children, or next of kin in equal degree, thus striking down the unjust law of primogeniture, and asserting a more republican prin ciple. The bill, also, provided and declared, that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This ordinance was adopted on the 13th, after adding a clause relative to the reclam ation of fugitives from labor, similar to that incorporated in the National Con stitution a few weeks later. 2 This ordinance, together with the fact that Indian titles to seventeen mil lions of acres of laud in that region, had been lately extinguished by treaty 1 Page 390. a See the National Constitution, Article IV.. Section 2, Clause 3, 1789.] CLOSING EVENTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 363 with several of the dusky tribes, 1 caused a sudden and great influx of immi grants into the country along the northern banks of the Ohio. Manasseh Cut ler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargent, and other New Englanders, organized the " Ohio Company," and entered into a contract for the sale of a tract of five millions of acres, extending along the Ohio from the Muskingum to the Scioto. 2 A similar contract was entered into with John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, for the sale of two millions of acres, between the Great and Little Miamis. These were the first steps taken toward the settlement of the vast North-west Territory, which embraced the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mich igan, and Wisconsin. It was estimated that, during the year following the organization of that Territory [1788], full twenty thousand men, women, and children had passed down the Ohio River, to become settlers upon its banks. Since, then, how wonderful has been the progress of settlement beyond the Alleghanies ! How wide and deep has been the ever-flowing tide of emigration thither! The original THIRTEEN STATES have now [1867] expanded into THIRTY-EIGHT, and vast territories, destined to become numerous other States, are rapidly filling with people. 3 1 The Six Nations [page 25], the Wyandots [page 23], the Delawares [page 20], and the Shawnees [page 19]. 3 Rufus Putnam, who had been an active officer during the War for Independence, was one of the most efficient of the Ohio settlers. He was born in Worcester county, Massachusetts, in 1738. He entered the provincial army in 1757, and continued in service during the remainder of the French and Indian War. He entered the army of the Revolution in 1775, and at near the close of the war, he was promoted to brigadier-general. He went to the Ohio country, with abcut forty settlers, in 1788. They pitched their tents at the mouth of the Muskingum River, formed a settle ment, and called it Marietta. Suspicious of the Indians, they built a stockade, and called it Canpus Martius. In 1780, President Washington commissioned General Putnam Supreme Judge of the North west Territory ; and in 1792, he was appointed a brigadier, under Wayne. He was appointed sur veyor-general of the United States in 1796; helped to frame the Constitution of Ohio in 1802 ; and then retired to private life. He died at Marietta in 1824. at the age of eighty-six years. He is called the FATHER OF OHIO. 3 The following table gives the names, in alphabetical order, of the States that compose the Republic at this time [1867], with the area of each in square miles, and its population m 1860 : A . TX^-n, STATES. Alabama. Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut AREA. 50,722 52,193 188,981 104,500 4,750 DelawareT." . ." . 2,120 Florida 59,248 Georgia 58,000 Illinois 55,410 Kr-::::::-.-.::::::::-. If iSS*::::::::::::::: :| Sar?:::::::::::::::: || Maryland 11,124 Massachusetts 7,800 Michigan 56,4ol Minnesota. . POPULATION. 964,201 435,450 379,994 34,277 460,147 112,210 140.424 1,057,286 1,711.951 1,350,423 674.699 107,206 1,155,684 709,002 628.279 687.049 1,231,066 749,113 172,023 STA.TES. AREA. Mississippi 47,156 ippi. . Missouri 65,350 Nebraska 75,995 Nevada .... 81,539 New Hampshire . 9 280 New Jersey 8,320 New York 47,000 North Carolina 50.704 Ohio 39.964 Oregon ,. 95,274 Pennsylvania 46.000 Rhode Island 1,306 South Carolina 34.000 Tennessee 45,600 Texas 274,356 Vermont. 10,212 Virginia 38,352 West Virginia 23,000$ Wisconsin 53,924 Total.. POPULATION. 791,395 1.182.012 28,841 6.857 326,073 672,035 3,880.735 992,622 2,339.502 52.465 2.9H6.115 174,620 703,708 1,109.801 604,215 315,098 1,596,318 775,871 81,218,773 There are also eight organized Territories in which population is rapidly increasing. These are Arizona Dakotah, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington. The aeoreeate area of these Territories is 935,650 square miles ; and the aggregate population, in 1 JbO, wa e s 211 113- making the grand total of the area of the Republic 3,002,013, and of population, 31,429,891. The population at this time [June, 1867] is probably about 40,000,000. GOUVERXEUR MORRIS. SIXTH PERIOD. THE NATION". CHAPTEE I. WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION". 17891797. WHEN the National Constitution 1 had received the approval of the people, and was made the supreme law of the Repub lic, all minds and hearts seemed spontaneously turned toward Washington as the hest man to perform the responsible duties of chief magistrate of the nation. On the 6th of April, 1789, he was chosen President of the United States by the unanimous vote of the electors, 2 and John Adams was made Vice-President. The journey of Washington from Mount Vernon to New York, was like a triumphal march. He had scarcely left his porter s lodge, when he was met by a company of gentlemen from Alexandria, who escorted him to that town. Everywhere the people gathered to see him as he passed along the road. Towns Bent out committees to receive him, and public addresses and entertainments 1 We have observed that Gouverneur Morris was one of the committee to make the final revision of the Constitution. The committee placed it in his hands, and that instrument, in language and general arrangement, is the work of that eminent man. G-ouverneur Morris was born near New York, in 1752. He was a lawyer, and was always active in public life. In 1792 he was appointed minister to France, and after his return he was a legislator for many years. He died in 1816. 3 Note 1, page 361. 1789.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. were given in his honor, in many places. Militia companies escorted him from place to place, and firing of cannons and ringing of bells, announced his approach to the large towns. At Trenton, his reception was peculiar and gratifying It was arrano-ed by the ladies. Over Trenton bridge an arch was thrown, which was adorned with laurel leaves and flowers from the conservatories. Upon the crown, and formed of leaves and flowers, were the words, " DECEMBER 26, 1776 ;" * and on the sweep beneath was the sentence, also formed of flowers : "THE DEFENDER OF THE MOTHERS WILL BE THE PROTECTOR OF THE DAUGHTERS." Beneath that arch the President was met by a troupe of females. As he approached, a group of little girls, bearing each a basket, commenced strewing flowers in the road, and the whole company, young and old, joined in singing the following ode, written for the occasion by Governor Howell: "Welcome, mighty chief, once more Welcome to this grateful shore. Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow Aims at THEE the fatal blow. Virgins fair and matrons grave, Those thy conquering arm did save, Build for THEE triumphal bowers Strew your HERO S way with flowers !" ^^ 1 Page 262. 366 THE NATION. [1789. Washington reached New York on the 23d of April, 1789. On the 30th he appeared upon the street-gallery of the old City Hall 1 in New York, and there, in the presence of an immense concourse of people assembled in front, the oath of office was administered to him by Chancellor Livingston. 2 After delivering an impressive address to the members of both Houses of Con gress, the President and the representatives of the people went in solemn pro cession to St. Paul s Church, and there invoked the blessings of the Supreme Ruler upon the new government just inaugurated. Men were never called upon to perform duties of greater responsibility, than those which demanded the consideration of Washington and his compeers. The first session of Congress 3 was chiefly occupied in the organization of the new government, and in the elaborating of schemes for the future prosperity of the Republic. The earliest efforts of that body were directed to the arrangement of a system of revenues, " order to adjust and regulate the wretched financial 1 It stood on the site of the present Custom House, corner of Wall and Broad-streets. In the picture on page 364, a correct representation of its street-gallery is given. 8 One of the committee [note 2, page 251] to draft the Declaration of Independence. He was born in New York in 1747, became a lawyer, and was always an active public man. He was minister to France in 1801, when he purchased Louisiana for the United States. See page 390. He joined Robert Fulton in steamboat experiments [page 398], and died in 1813. 3 Members of the House of Representatives are elected to seats for two years, and they usually hold two sessions or sittings during that time. Each full term is called a Congress. There are usually two sessions of each Congress, both commencing on the first Monday in De cember, and the last ending on the 3d of March. Senators are elected by the State Legislatures. 1797.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 367 affairs of the country. 1 This subject was brought forward by Madison, 2 the tacitly acknowledged leader in the House of Representatives, two days after the votes for President and Vice-President had been counted. Pursuant to his sug gestion, tonnage duties were levied, and also a tariff, or duties upon foreign goods imported into the United States. These duties were made favorable to American shipping. This was the commencement of our present, though con siderably modified, revenue system. Having made provision for the collection of revenue, Congress next turned its attention to the reorganization of the executive departments. Three Treas ury, War, and Foreign Affairs were created, the heads of which were to be styled secretaries, instead of ministers, as in Europe. These the President might appoint or dismiss with the concurrence of the Senate. They were to constitute a cabinet council, always ready for consultation with the President, on public affairs, and bound to give him their opinions in writing, when required. It may be instructive to take a brief retrospective view of the progress of legislative action concerning the commerce of the United States from the close of the Revolution until the time in question. In March, 1783, the younger Pitt 3 proposed in the British Parliament, a scheme for the temporary regulation of commercial intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. Its chief feature was the free admission into the British West India ports of American vessels laden with the products of American industry the West India people, in turn, to be allowed like free trade with the United States. The proposition was rejected, and soon an order went forth from the Privy Council, 4 for the entire exclusion of American vessels from West India ports, and prohibiting the importation there of several products of the United States, even in British bot toms. Notwithstanding this unwise and narrow policy was put in force, Mr. Adams, the American minister at the court of St. James, proposed, in 1785, to place the navigation and trade between all the dominions of the British crown and all the territories of the United States, upon a basis of perfect reciprocity. This generous offer was not only declined, but the minister was haughtily assured that no other would be entertained. Whereupon Mr. Adams imme diately recommended the United States to pass navigation acts for the benefit of their commerce. Some individual States attempted to legislate upon commercial matters and the subject of duties for revenue, but their efforts were comparatively fruitless. The importance of having the united action of all the States, in framing general navigation laws, was clearly perceh and this perception was one of the chief causes which led to the Convention that formed the National Constitution. 5 The new government was inaugurated in due time, and, as we have mentioned, the earliest efforts of Congress, under the new order of things, were the consideration of schemes fcr imposing discriminating duties. 6 These 1 Page 353. Note 5, page 356. Page 217. 4 Note 1, page 400. 6 Page 355. Page 366. 368 THE NATION. [1789. measures immediately opened the blind eyes of British legislators to the neces sity of a reciprocity in trade between the two countries. They saw that Amer ican commerce was no longer at the mercy of thirteen distinct legislative bodies, as under the old Confederation, nor subject to the control of the king and his council. They perceived that its interests were guarded and its strength nur tured, by a central power, of wonderful energy, and soon haughty Britain became the suppliant. Soon after the passage of the revenue laws by Con gress, a committee of Parliament proposed to ask the United States to con sent to an arrangement precisely the same as that suggested by Mr. Adams, six years before, which was so scornfully rejected. The proposition was met by generous courtesy on the part of the United States ; yet it was not until 1816, when the second war for Independence 1 had been some time closed, that reciprocity treaties fairly regulated the commerce between the two countries. During the period here referred to, another great commercial interest, then in embryo, was under contemplation and discussion, by a few men of forecast. It was that of the production of COTTON. Primarily it is an agricultural inte rest, but now, when a large portion of the cotton used in Europe is grown in the United States, it has become a great commercial interest. Among the first and most powerful advocates of the cultivation of this plant, was Tench Coxe, 2 of Philadelphia, who, as early as 1785, when he was only thirty years of age, pub lished the fact that he " felt pleasing convictions that the United States, in its extensive regions south of Anne Arundel and Talbot counties, Maryland, would certainly become a great cotton-producing country." And while the National Convention was in session in Philadelphia, in 1 787, 3 Mr. Coxe delivered a powerful public address on that and kindred subjects, having for his object the establishment of a society for the encouragement of manufactures and the useful arts. Before that time, not a bale of cotton had ever been exported from the United States to any other country, and no planter had adopted its cultivation, as a " crop." 4 The Senate was engaged upon the important matter of a National judiciary, while the House was employed on the Revenue bills. A plan, embodied in a bill drafted by Ellsworth of Connecticut, 5 was, after several amendments, con curred in by both Houses. By its provisions, a national judiciary was estab^ lished, consisting of a supreme court, having one chief justice, and five associate 1 Page 409. 2 Tench Coxe was born in Philadelphia, in May, 1755, and, as we have mentioned in the text, was one of the earliest advocates of the cotton culture. From 1787 until his death, there was never an important industrial movement in which he was not greatly interested, or in which his name did not appear prominent. In 1794, while he was the Commissioner of Revenue, at Phila delphia, he published a large octavo volume, containing his views, as expressed in speech and writing, on the subject of the cotton culture. In 1806, he published an essay on naval power and the encouragement of manufactures. The following year he published an essay on the culti vation of cotton, and from time to time thereafter, he wrote and published his views on these subjects. He died in July, 1824, at the age of more than sixty-eight years. See next page. 3 Page 356. 4 It has been estimated that the entire produce of cotton, in all countries, in 1791, was four hun dred and ninety millions of pounds, and that the United States produced only one twenty-fifth of the entire quantity. In the years 1859-60, the ten cotton-growiug States of the Union produced four millions, six hundred and seventy-five thousand, seven hundred and seventy bales, of four hundred pounds each, making an aggregate of 1,870,680,000 pounds. The whole world did not produce as much cotton as this, annually, previous to the year 1840. 5 Page 360. 1797.1 WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 369 justices, who were to hold two sessions annually, at the seat of the National Government. 1 Circuit and district courts were also established, which had ju risdiction over certain specified cases. Each State was made a district, as were also the Territories of Kentucky 2 and Maine. 3 The districts, except Kentucky and Maine, were grouped together into three circuits. An appeal from these lower courts to the Supreme Court of the United States, was allowed, as to points of law, in all civil cases when the matter in dispute amounted to two thousand dollars. A marshal was to be appointed by the President, for each district, having the general powers of a sheriff, who was to attend all courts, and was authorized to serve all processes. A district attorney, to act for the United States in all cases in which the National Government might be inter ested, was also to be appointed for each district. Such, in brief outline, and in general terms, was the National judiciary, organized at the commencement of the Government, and still in force, with slight modifications. The next business of importance that engaged the attention of Congress, J John Jay [page 379] of New York, one of the most active and acute lawyers in the country, was apppointed the first Chief Justice of the United States ; and Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, was made Attorney-General. Randolph succeeded Patrick Henry as governor of Virginia, in 1786, and was very active in the Convention of 1787. See note 1, page 359. He succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State, and died in 1813. John Rutledge [page 210]. of South Carolina; James Wilson, of Pennsylvania ; "William Gushing of Massachusetts ; Robert H. Harrison, of Maryland; and Joha Blair, of Virginia, were appointed associate judges. 2 Page 377. 3 Page 452. 24 370 THE NATION. [1789. was the proposed amendments to the National Constitution, made by the minor ities of the several conventions which ratified that instrument. This subject was brought forward by Madison, in justice to these minorities, and pursuant to pledges which he had found it necessary to give, in order to secure its ratifi cation in Virginia. These amounted, in the aggregate, to one hundred and forty-seven, 1 besides separate bilb of rights proposed by Virginia and New York. Many of these amendments were identical in spirit, as, for example, the nine propositions by Massachusetts were repeated by New Hampshire. And it is a singular fact, that of all the proposed amendments, not one, judged by sub sequent experience, was of a vital character. How well this illustrates the profound wisdom embodied in our Constitution ! Sixteen amendments were finally agreed to by Congress, ten of which were subsequently ratified by the States, and became a part of the Supreme Law, 2 After a session of almost six months, Congress adjourned, 3 on the 29th of September [1789], and Wash ington, having appointed his cabinet council, 4 made a brief tour through the northern and eastern States, to make himself better acquainted with the people and their resources. 5 On the 8th of January, 1790, the second session of the first Congress com menced, daring which Alexander Hamilton, 6 the first Secretary of the Treasury, made some of those able financial reports which established the general line of national policy for more than twenty years. On his recommendation, the gen- oral government assumed the public foreign and domestic debt incurred by the :ate war, 7 and also the State debts contracted during that period. The foreign debt, including interest, due to France and to private lenders in Holland, with a small sum to Spain, amounted to $11,710.378. The domestic debt, regis tered and unregistered, including interest, and some claims, principally the out standing continental money, 8 amounted to $42.414,085. Nearly one third of this was the arrears of interest. As the government certificates, continental 1 The minority of the Pennsylvania Convention proposed 14; of Massachusetts, 9; of Maryland, 28; of South Carolina, 4; of New Hampshire, 12 ; of Virginia, 20; of New York, 32. 2 See Supplement. 3 A few days before the adjournment, a resolution was adopted, requesting the President of the United States to recommend a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by the people of the nation, -i acknowledgment of the many signal favors of the Almighty, in permitting them to establish, in peace, a free government. 4 Alexander Hamilton was appointed Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Knox, Secretary of War; and Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Jefferson was then United States minister at the court of France, and did not enter upon his duties until March, 1790. The office of Secretary of the Navy was not created until the pres idency of Mr. Adams. Naval affairs were under the control of the Secretary of "War. General Knox was one of the most efficient officers of the Revolution, having, from the beginning, the chief com mand of the artillery. He entered the army as captain of artillery, and rose to the rank of major-general. Note 4, page 350. 5 Washington was everywhere received with great honors ; and Trumbull, author of M Flngal, wrote to his friend, Oliver Wolcott: GENERAL Kxox. "We have gone through all the popish grades of worship; and the President returns all fragrant with the odor of incense." 6 Note 2, page 300. 7 Note 2, page 253. In that note the amount given is ike principal, without the interest. 8 Page 245. 1797.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 371 bills, and other evidences of debt, were now held chiefly by speculators, who had purchased them at reduced rates, the idea had been put forth by prominent men, that it would he proper and expedient to apply a scale of depreciation, as in the case of the paper money toward the close of the war, 1 in liquidating these claims. But Hamilton opposed it as dishonest and impolitic, arguing, in sup port of the latter objection, that public credit was essential to the new Federal Government. He therefore urged that all the debts of the government should be met according to the terms of the contract. , He proposed the funding of the public debt, in a fair and economical way, by which the public creditors should receive their promised six per cent, interest, until the Government should be able to pay the principal, the Secretary assuming that, in five years, the United States might effect loans at five, and even at four per cent., with which these claims might be liquidated. He proposed to have the proceeds of the post-office 2 as a sinking fund, for the gradual extinction of the debt. After much debate, the propositions of Hamilton, in general, were agreed to by Con gress, on the 9th of March, 1790. 3 A system, of revenue from imposts and internal excise, proposed by Hamilton, was also adopted. A petition from the Society of Friends, or Quakers, presented on the llth of February, on the subject of slavery, caused long, and, sometimes, acrimonious debates. An act was also passed, during this session, making the District of Columbia the per manent seat of the National Government, after the lapse of ten years from that date. The First Congress commenced its third session 4 in December, 1790, an; before its close, measures were adopted which laid the foundations of public credit and national prosperity, deep and abiding. During the two years in which the new government had been engaged in the business of organization, a competent revenue had been provided for ; the public debt, national and State, had been funded, and the interest thereon had been provided for ; a national judiciary, wise in all its features, had been established ; and the nation, in its own estimation and that of other States of the world, had taken a proud position in the great political family. North Carolina [Nov. 21, 1789] and Rhode Island [May 29, 1790], had already become members of the National Union, by ratify ing the Constitution ; 5 and during this session, Vermont 6 had been admitted [February 18, 1791] as a State. Settlements were now rapidly spreading beyond the Alleghanies, 7 and the subject of territorial organizations 1 Note 3, page 245. 2 Page 373. 3 The President was authorized to borrow $12,000,000, if necessary, to pay off the foreign debt; and a new loan was to be opened, payable in certificates, of the domestic debt, at their par value, and in continental bills of credit, at the rate of one hundred for one. Congress also authorized au additional loan, payable in certificates of the State debts, to the amount of $21,500,000. These certificates were those which had been issued for services or supplies, during the war. A new board of commissioners was appointed, with full power to settle all claims on general principles of equity. * Note 3, page 366. 5 Page 360. Vermont was originally called the New Hampshire Grants, and was claimed by both New York and New Hampshire. In 1777, the people met in convention, and proclaimed the territory an independent State. After purchasing the claims of New York for $30,000, it was admitted into the Union. 7 The first census, or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States, was completed in 1791. The number of all sexes and colors, was 3,929,000, The number of slaves was 695,000. 372 THE X AT JON. [1789. was pressed upon the consideration of Congress. Already the Nor th-iv ester n Territory, as we have seen, 1 had been established [July, 1787], and Tennessee had been constituted [March 26, 1790] the Territory South-west of the Ohio. The subject of a national currency early engaged the attention of Congress, and at the commencement of the last session of the First Congress, a bill for the establishment of a national bank was introduced into the Senate, in accord ance with the suggestion and plan of Hamilton. At that time the whole bank ing capital in the United States was only $2,000,000, invested in the Bank of North America, at Philadelphia, established by Robert Morris ; 3 the Bank of Now York, in New York city, and the Bank of Massachusetts, in Boston. The charter was limited to twenty years ; its location was to be in the city of Philadelphia, and its management to be intrusted to twenty-five directors. Although chartered in January, 1791, the National Bank did not commence its operations, in corporate form, until in February, 1794, when it began with a capital of $10,000,000. Early in the first session of the second Congress, the important subject of a national mint received the attention of the representatives of the people. That subject had been frequently discussed. As early as 1782, the topic of coins and currency had been presented to the Continental Congress, by Gouverneur Morris, in an able report, written at the request of Robert Morris. In 1784, Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of a committee appointed for the purpose, submitted a report, agreeing with Morris in regard to a decimal system, but entirely dis agreeing with him in the details. 4 He proposed to strike four coins, namely, a golden piece of the value of ten dollars ; a dollar, in silver ; a tenth of a dol lar, in silver; and a hundredth of a dollar, in copper. In 1785, Congress adopted Mr. Jefferson s report, and made legal provision, the following year, for a coinage upon that basis. This was the origin of our cent, dime, dollar, and eagle. Already several of the States had issued copper coins ; 5 but the National Constitution vested the right of coinage solely in the General Govern ment. The establishment of a Mint was delayed, however, and no special action in that direction was taken until 1790, when Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary oT 362. 2 The subject of the public lands of the United States has always been one of interest. Tho first act of Congress, on the subject of limited sales, was in accordance with a scheme proposed by Hamilton, in 1790, which provided hi some degree for the protection of small purchasers. Previous to that, not less than a tract of four thousand acres could be purchased. This was calculated to make labor subservient to wealth, in new settlements. Hamilton s scheme was highly approved. The minimum price of public land, previous to 1800, was two dollars per acre ; since then, one dol lar and twenty-five cents. The extent of the public domain has greatly increased, by accessions, within a few years. At the close of 1855, there remained unsold about 96,000,000 of acres of sur veyed public domain, and of the unsurveyed, about 136,000,000 of acres, worth, in the aggregate, about $276,000,000. The average cost to the government, per acre, of acquiring title, surveying, selling, and managing, is about 22 cents per acre, while it sells at $1.25 per acre, or a net profit of $1.03. 3 Note 3, page 263. 4 Morris attempted to harmonize the moneys of all the States. Starting with an ascertained fraction as an unit, for a divisor, he proposed the following table of moneys : Ten units to be equal to one penny. Ten pence to one bill. Ten bills one dollar (or about seventy-five cents of our currency). Ten dollars one crown. * Note 4, page 122. 1797.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 373 State, urged the matter upon the attention of Congress. Still there was delay, until on the 2d of April, 1792, laws were enacted for the establishment of a Mint. During three years from that time, its operations were chiefly experi mental, and long debates were had concerning the devices for the new coins. 1 The Mint was finally put into full operation, in 1795, 2 and has continued to increase in its issues of coin, ever since. 3 A bill for the organization of a post-office system, was passed during the same session that measures were adopted for the establishment of a Mint. Very soon after the commencement of the first session of the first Congress, a letter was received from Ebenezer Hazzard [July 17, 1789], then postmaster-general under the old Confederation, suggesting the importance of some new regula tions for that department. A bill for the temporary establishment of the post office was passed soon afterward. The subject was brought up, from time to time, until the present system was organized in 1792. The postmaster-general was not made a cabinet officer until the first year [1829] of President Jack son s administration. 4 British agents on the north-western frontier continued to tamper with the Indians, and excite them to hostilities against the United States, for several years after the peace of 1783.* And, contrary to the terms of that treaty, the British held possession of western posts belonging to the United States. These facts caused a prevalent belief that the British government yet hoped for an opportunity to bring the new Republic back to colonial dependence. The pub lic mind in America became excited, and the fact, that Sir John Johnston 6 was the British Indian agent on that frontier, and Sir Guy Carleton (then Lord Dorchester) was again governor of Canada, 7 strengthened that opinion and apprehension. Finally, in the spring of 1790, the fostered discontents of the Indians were developed into open hostilities. Attempts at pacific arrangements were fruitless, and General Harmer was sent into the Indian country north of the present Cincinnati, with quite a strong force, to desolate their villages and 1 The Senate proposed the head of the President of the United States who should occupy the chair at the time of the coinage. In the House, the head of Liberty was suggested, as being Ies3 aristocratic than that of the President having less the stamp of royalty. The head of Liberty was finally adopted. 3 The first mint was located in Philadelphia, and remained the sole issuer of coin, in the United States, until 1835, when a branch was established in each of the States of Georgia, North Carolina, and Louisiana in Charlotte, Dahlonega, and New Orleans. These three branches went into oper ation in the years 1837-38. 3 From 1793 to 1795, inclusive, the value of the whole issue was less than half a million of dollars. Previous to the year 1830, almost the entire supply of gold for our coinage was fur nished by foreign countries. North Carolina was the first State of the L T nion that sent gold to the Mint from its mines. Since then, almost every State has made contributions, some very small. During the fiscal year ending in June, 1861, when the Civil "War was kindling, the value of the entire issue of coin, by the Government Mint and its branches, was $84,000,000. The discovery of gold in California, in 1848. opened an immense treasury, and, up to the beginning of the war, that was the only great gold producing region within the Republic. Of the entire amount of gold, from domestic mines, deposited in the Mint up to 18GO, valued at $489,311.000, $469,406,003 was sent from California. Adjacent territories are now [1867] yielding largely. 4 Page 459. The operations of the post-office department increased very rapidly year after year. In 1795, the number of post-office routes was 453; over 13,207 miles of travel. The revenue of the department was $160,620. When the Civil "War began, in 1861, the number of routes was about 9,000 ; the number of miles traveled, full 260,100: and the revenue nearly $9,000,000. & Page 348. 6 Note 2, page 278. 7 Page 240. 374 THE NATION. [1789. crops, as Sullivan did those of the Senecas in 1779. 1 In this he succeeded, but in two battles [Oct. 17 and 22, 1790], near the present village of Fort Wayne, in Indiana, he was defeated, with considerable loss. The following year, an expedition of Kentucky volunteers, under General Scott, marched against the Indians on the Wabash. General Wilkinson led a second expedition against them, in July following, and in September, General St. Clair, 2 then governor of the North-west Territory, marched into the Indian country, with two thou sand men. While in camp near the northern line of Darke county, Ohio, on the borders of Indiana, he was surprised and defeated [Nov. 4, 1791] by the Indians, with a loss of about nine hundred men, killed and wounded. The defeat of St. Clair produced great alarm on the whole north-western frontier. Even the people of Pittsburg 3 did not feel secure, and the border settlers called loudly for help. Fortunately the Indians did not follow up the advantage they had gained, and for a while hostilities ceased. Commissioners were appointed to treat with them, but through the interference of British officials, their negotiations were fruitless. General Wayne 4 had been appointed, in the mean while, to succeed St. Clair in military command, and apprehend ing that the failure of the negotiations would be followed by an immediate attack upon the frontier settlements, he marched into the Indian country in the autumn of 1793. He s pent the winter at Greenville, 5 near the place of St. Clair s defeat, where he built Fort Recovery. The following summer [1794] he pushed forward to the Maumee River, and built Fort Defiance ; 6 and on the St. Mary s he erected Fort Adams as an intermediate post. On the 16th of August he went down the Maumee, with three thousand men, and not far from the present Maumee City, 7 he fought and defeated the Indians, on the 20th of the same month. He then laid waste their country, and after a successful campaign of about ninety days, he went into winter quarters at Greenville. There, the following year, the chiefs and warriors of the western tribes, in all about eleven hundred, met [August 3, 1795] commissioners of the United States, made a treaty of peace, and ceded to the latter a large tract of land in the present States of Michigan and Indiana. After that, the United States had very little trouble with the western Indians until just before the breaking out of the war of 1812-15. 9 Party spirit, which had been engendered during the discussions of the National Constitution, 10 gradually assumed distinct forms, and during the second session of the second Congress, it became rampant among the people, as well as in the national legislature. Hamilton and Jefferson, the heads of distinct departments 11 in Washington s cabinet, differed materially concerning important public measures, and then, under the respective leadership of those statesmen, 1 Page 304. 2 Page 276. 3 Page 205. 4 Page 298. 5 In Darke county, Ohio. 6 At the junction of the Au Grlaize with the Maumee Eiver, in the south-east part of Williams county, Ohio. 7 In the town of Waynesfield. The British then occupied a fort at the Maumee Kapids, near by. 8 The British held possession of Detroit, and nearly all Michigan, until 1796. See page 380. Pae 409. 10 Page 360. " Page 367. WAYNE S DEFEAT OF THE INDIANS. 1^97.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 377 were drawn those lines of party distinction known as Federalist and Repub lican^ which continued for a quarter of a century. The Federalist party was composed of those who favored great concentration of power in the general gov ernment. The Republicans, on the contrary, were for diffusing power among the people. Here were antagonistic points of great difference, and the warfare between the parties was acrimonious in the extreme. During the summer of 1792, very little of public interest occurred, except the admission [June 1] of Kentucky 1 into the Union, but the marshalling of forces for the presidential election, which was to take place in the autumn. Washington yearned for the quiet of private life, and had expressed his deter mination to withdraw from public station on the expiration of his presidential term ; but it was made evident to his mind, that the great majority of the people desired his continuance in office, and that the public safety demanded it. Under these circumstances, he consented to be a candidate, and he and Adams were re-elected by large majorities. Yet the Republican party was daily gaining strength, partly from develop ments within the body politic of the United States, and partly from events then transpiring in Europe. A bloody revolution was in progress in France. The people there had abolished monarchy, and murdered their king, and the new Republic in name (a political chaos in reality), having the avowed sympathies of the Republican party in America, 2 sent M. Genet 3 as its minister to the United States, to obtain the co-operation of the American people. The French Republic had declared war against England, Spain, and Holland, and needed transatlantic assistance. Remembering the recent alliance, 4 and sympathizing with all efforts for popular freedom, the Republican party here, and also many of the Federalists, received Genet (who arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1793) with open arms, and espoused his cause. But Genet s zeal outstripped his prudence, and defeated his plans. With out waiting for an expression of opinions or intentions from the government of the United States, he began to fit out privateers 5 in our ports, to depredate upon English, Dutch, and Spanish property ; 6 and when Washington prudently issued [May 9, 1793] a proclamation, declaring it to be the duty and the inter- 1 Kentucky, which had been settled chiefly by Virginians, and was claimed as a part of the territory of that State, was now erected into a sovereign member of the confederation. Its first settlement, as we have seen [note 2, page 300], was at Boonesboro , by Daniel Boone, in 1775. 2 There was a general burst of enthusiasm in the United States, on receipt of the intelligence of the advent of Liberty in France, and public demonstrations of it were made in several places. In Boston, an ox, roasted whole, was placed upon a car drawn by sixteen horses, and with the Amer ican and French flags displayed from its horns, was paraded through the streets, followed by carts, bearing bread and two hogsheads of punch, which were distributed among the people. A civic feast was held at Faneuil Hall, over which Samuel Adams [note 1, page 221] presided. In Phil adelphia the anniversary of the French alliance [page 283] was celebrated by a public dinner, at which General Mifflin [page 352] presided ; and in other places festivals were held. 3 Edmund Charles Genet was the son of a distinguished public man in France. He married, in this country, a daughter of Governor George Clinton [note 5. page 350], and remained in the United States. He died at Greenbush, opposite Albany, in 1834, aged about seventy-two years. 4 Page 283. 5 Note 1, page 246. These cruisers brought captured vessels into our ports, and French consuls actually held courts of admiralty, and authorized the sale of the prizes. All this was done before Genet was recognized as a minister by the American government. 378 THE NATION. [1789, est of the people of the United States to preserve a strict neutrality toward the contending powers of Europe, Genet persisted, and tried to excite hostility between our people and their government. Washington finally requested and obtained his recal, and Fauchet, who succeeded him in 1794, was instructed to assure the President that the French government disapproved of Genet s con duct. No doubt the prudence and firmness of Washington, at this time, saved our Republic from utter ruin. A popular outbreak in western Pennsylvania, known in history as The Whiskey Insurrection, gave the new government much trouble in 1794. An excise law, passed in 1791, which imposed duties on domestic distilled liquors, was very unpopular. A new act, passed in the spring of 1794, was equally unpopular ; and when, soon after the adjournment of Congress, officers were sent to enforce it in the western districts of Pennsylvania, they were resisted by the people, in arms. The insurrection became general throughout all that region, and in the vicinity of Pittsburg many outrages were committed. Buildings were burned, mails were robbed, and government officers were in sulted and abused. At one time there were between six and seven thousand insurgents under arms. The local militia would have been utterly impotent to restore order, if their aid had been given. Indeed, most of the militia assem bled in response to a call made by the leaders of the insurgents, and these com posed a large portion of the " rebels." The insurgent spirit extended into the border counties of Virginia ; and the President and his cabinet, perceiving, with alarm, this imitation of the lawlessness of French politics, took immediate steps to crush the growing hydra. The President first issued two proclamations [August 7, and September 25], but without effect. After due consideration, and the exhaustion of all peaceable means, he ordered out a large body of the militia of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, who marched to the insurgent district, in October [1794], under the command of General Henry Lee, then governor of Virginia. 1 This last argument was effectual ; and soon this insurrection, like that of Shays s, of Massachusetts, some years earlier, 2 which threatened the stability of the National Government, was allayed. Another cloud was now rising in the political horizon. While these inter nal commotions were disturbing the public tranquillity, a bitter feeling was growing up between the American and British governments. Each accused the other of infractions of the treaty of 1783, 3 and the disputes, daily assuming a more bitter tone, threatened to involve the two nations in another war. The Americans complained that no indemnification had been made for negroes car ried away at the close of the Revolution ; 4 that the British held military posts on their frontiers, contrary to the treaty ; 5 that British emissaries had excited the hostility of the Indians ; and that, to retaliate on France, the English had 1 Page 333. 2 Page 353. 3 Page 348. 4 During the last two years of the war in the Carolinas and Georgia, and at the final evacua tion, the British plundered many plantations, and sold the negroes in the West Indies. 5 Note 8, page 374. 6 Page 373; THE NATION. 379 captured our neutral vessels, and impressed our seamen into the British service/ The British complained that stipulations concerning the property of loyalists, and also in relation to debts contracted in England before the Revolution, had not been complied with. In order to avert an event so very undesirable as a war with Great Britain, the President proposed to send a special envoy to the British court, in hopes of bringing to an amicable settlement, all matters in dispute between the two governments. The National Legislature approved of it, and on the 19th of April, 1794, John Jay 3 was appointed an envoy extraordi nary for the purpose. The special minister of the United States was received with great courtesy in England, where he arrived in June ; and he negotiated a treaty which, at the time, was not very satisfactory to a large portion of his countrymen. It hon estly provided for the collection of debts here, by British creditors, which had 1 This practice was one of the causes which finally produced a war between the two nations, in 1812. See page 409. 3 The loyalists, or Tories [note 4, page 226], who had fled from the country during the prog ress, or at the close of the War for Independence, and Vvhose property had been confiscated, endeavoured to regain their estates, and also indemnity for their other losses. The British govern ment finally paid to these sufferers more than $15,000,000. 3 John Jay was a descendant of a Huguenot family [page 49], and was born in the city of New York in 1745. He was early in the ranks of active patriots, and rendered very important services during the Eevolution After the war he was one of the most efficient of our countrymen in laying the foundations of our National Government, and of establishing the civil government of his native State, of which he was chief magistrate at one time. He retired from public life in 1801, and died in 1829, at the age of eighty-four years. His residence was at Bedford, Westchester county, New York. 380 (THE NATION [1789. been contracted before the Revolution, but it procured no redress for those who had lost negroes. It secured indemnity for unlawful captures on the seas, and the evacuation of the forts on the frontiers (yet held by the British), by the 1st of June, 1796. In order to secure certain points of great importance. Jay was compelled to yield others ; and he finally signed a treaty, defective, in some things, and objectionable in others, but the best that could then be obtained. The treaty gave rise to violent debates in Congress, 1 and in State Legislatures, but was ratified by the Senate on the 24th of June, 1795. a The wisdom, 1 The debates, on that occasion, developed talent of the highest order, and present a memorable epoch in the history of American politics and statesmanship. Albert Gallatin then established his title to the leadership of the opposition in the House of Representatives, while Fisher Ames, in a speech of wonderful power, in favor of the treaty and the Administration, won for himself the laurels of an unrivaled orator. He was then in feeble health ; and when he arose to speak, thin and pale, he could hardly support himself on his feet, and his voice was feeble. Strength seemed to come as he warmed with the subject, and his eloquence and wisdom poured forth as from a mighty and inexhaustible fountain. So powerful was his speech, that a member opposed to him moved that the question on which he had spoken should be postponed until the next day, " that they should not act under the influence of an excitement of which their calm judgment might not approve." In allusion to this speech, John Adams bluntly said: "There wasn t a dry eye in the House, except some of the jackasses that occasioned the necessity of the oratory." Fisher Ames was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, in April, 1756. His health was delicate from infancy. He was so precocious that he commenced the study of Latin when six years of age, and was admitted to Harvard College at the age of twelve. He chose the law for a profession, and soon stood at the head of the bar in his native district. He was a warm advocate of the Federal Constitution. He was the first representative of his district in the National Congress. He died on the 4th of July. ]808, at the age of forty-eight years. 2 Great excitement succeeded. In several cities mobs threatened personal violence to the sup- 1797.] WASHINGTON S ADMINISTRATION. 381 and policy, and true patriotism of Mr. Jay were soon made manifest. In Oc tober following, a treaty was concluded with Spain, by which the boundaries be tween the Spanish territories of Louisiana and Florida, and the United States, were defined. That treaty also secured to the United States the free naviga tion of the Mississippi, and the use of New Orleans, as a port, for ten years. As soon as one excitement was fairly allayed, causes for others appeared ; and during the whole time of Washington s administration of eight years, when the policy of the new government had to be established, and its machinery put in operation, the greatest wisdom, circumspection, and conservative action, on the part of officials, were continually demanded. Difficulties appeared like little clouds on the distant horizon, sometimes as mere specks, at others, in alarming shapes. These were chiefly in connection with trade, especially in foreign lands. American commerce was rapidly expanding, and now began to find its way into the Mediterranean Sea. There it was met by Algerine pirates, who seized the merchandise, and held the seamen in captivity, in order to procure ransom -money. These depredations, which finally gave rise to efforts to organize a navy, had continued many years before the government took active measures to suppress them. President Washington called the attention of Congress to the subject, toward the close of 1790 ; and at the same time, Jefferson, then Secretary of State, gave many interesting details, in his annual report, on the subject of these piracies. A commissioner was sent to treat with the Dey, or Governor, of Algiers on the subject, but that semi-barbarian robber argued in reply : " If I were to make peace with everybody, what should I do with my corsairs ? what should I do with my soldiers ? They would take off my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live on their miserable allowance." In the spring of 1794, Congress, on account of these depredations, passed an Act to provide for a naval armament, and appropriated almost seven hun dred thousand dollars for the purpose. But the United States, in the absence of the proposed navy, was compelled to make a treaty of peace in the autumn of 1795 [November 28], with the Dey of Algiers, by which an annual tribute was to be given for the redemption of captives, in accordance with the long-established usages of European nations. 1 This was humiliating, but could not then be avoided. Congress had given the President power to provide by purchase or otherwise, arid equip, several vessels. To this end he put forth his energies immediately, and in July [1794], he commissioned captains and superintendents, naval constructors and navy agents, six each, and ordered the construction of six ships. The treaty with the Dey of Algiers caused work on porters of the treaty. Mr Jay was burned in effigy [note 6, page 215], Mr. Hamilton was stoned at a public meeting, and the British minister at Philadelphia was insulted. 1 Between the years 1785 and 1793. the Algerine pirates captured and carried into Algiers, fifteen American vessels, used the property, and made one hundred and eighty officers and seamen slaves of the most revolting kind. In 1795, the United States agreed, by treaty, to pay eight hun dred thousand dollars for captives, then alive, and in addition, to make the dey, or governor, a present of a frigate worth a hundred thousand dollars. An annual tribute of twenty-three thousand dollars was also to be paid. This was complied with until the breaking out of the war of 1812. See pages 390 and 445. 382 THE 1ST AT TON. [ 1789> these vessels to be suspended in 1795. Soon the folly of not completing the little navy, so well begun, was made manifest, when British cruisers commenced the practice of taking seamen from American vessels, and impressing them into the English service. 1 The ships of the French Republic soon afterward com menced depredations upon American commerce ; and in 1797, when war with that government seemed inevitable, 2 Congress, on the urgent recommendation of President Adams, caused the frigates United Mates, Constellation, and Constitution to be completed, equipped, and sent to sea. This was the com mencement of the American navy, 3 which, in after years, though weak in num bers, performed many brilliant exploits. From this time the navy became the cherished arm of the national defense; and chiefly through its instrumentality, the name and power of the United States began to be properly appreciated in Europe, at the beginning of the present century. Now [1796], the administration of Washington was drawing to a close. It had been one of vast importance and incessant action. All disputes with foreign nations, except France, 4 had been adjusted; government credit was established, and the nation was highly prosperous. 5 The embryos of new em pires beyond the Alleghanies, had been planted ; and the last year of his admin istration was signalized by the admission [June, 1796] of Tennessee into the Union of States, making the number of confederated republics, sixteen. During the closing months of Washington s administration, the first great struggle among the people of the United States, for ascendancy between the Federalists and Republicans, 6 took place. The only man on whom the nation now could possibly unite, was about to retire to private life. He issued his admirable Farewell Address to his countrymen that address so full of wis dom, patriotism, and instruction early in the autumn of 1796 [September 19], and then the people were fully assured that some other man must be chosen to fill his place. There was very little time for preparation or electioneering, for the choice must be made in November following. Activity the most extraordi nary appeared among politicians, in every part of the Union. The Federalists nominated John Adams for the high office of Chief Magistrate, and the Repub licans nominated Thomas Jefferson for the same. The contest was fierce, and party spirit, then in its youthful vigor, was implacable. The result was a vic- 1 Page 401. 2 Page 385- Congress had created the office of Secretary of the Navy, as an executive department, and on the 30th of April, 1798, Benjamin Stodert of Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, was appointed to that chair. Hitherto the business of the war and navy departments had been per formed by the Secretary of War. 4 The French government was highly displeased because of the treaty made with England, by Mr Jay, and even adopted hostile measures toward the United States. It wanted the Americans to show an active participation with the French in hatred of the English, and therefore the strict neu trality observed by Washington, was exceedingly displeasing to the French Committee of Public Safety. The conclusion of the treaty with Algiers, independently of French intervention, and the success of the negotiation with Spain, excited the jealousy of the French rulers. In a word because the United States, having the strength, assumed the right to stand alone, the French were offended, and threatened the grown-up child with personal chastisement. Commerce had wonderfully expanded. The exports had, in five years, increased from nine teen millions of doUars to mere than fifty-six millions of dollars, and the imports in about the same ratio. e p 377> 1801.] ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. 383 tory for both parties Adams being elected President, and Jefferson, having the next highest number of votes, was chosen Vice-President. 1 On the 4th of March, 1797, Washington retired from office, and Adams was inaugurated the second President of the United States. The great leader of the armies in the War for Independence was never again enticed from the quiet pursuits of agri culture -at Mount Vernon, to the performance of public duties. CHAPTER II. ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. [1797 1801.] JOHN ADAMS 2 was in the sixty-second year of his age when, dressed in a full suit of pearl-colored broadcloth, and with powdered hair, he stood in Inde pendence Hall [March 4, 1797], in Philadelphia, and took the oath of office, The whole number of electoral votes [see note 1, page 361] was one hundred and thirty-eight, making seventy necessary to a choice. John Adams received seventy-one, and Jefferson sixty-seven. John Adams was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, in October, 1735. He chose the law as a sion, but being a good writer and fair speaker, he entered the political field quite early, and Hancock, Otis, and others, he took an active part in the earlier Revolutionary movements, in Boston and vicinity. He was a member of the Continental Congress, from which he was trans- ierred to tft& important post of a minister to the French and other courts in Europe. He was ona it industrious men in Congress. In the course of the eighteen months precedin* his do- 384 THE NATION. [1797. as President of the United States, administered by Chief Justice Ellsworth. 1 He was pledged, by his acts and declarations, to the general policy of Washing ton s administration, and he adopted, as his own, the cabinet council left by his predecessor. 2 He came into office at a period of great trial for the Republic. Party spirit and sectional differences were rife in its bosom, and the relations wf the United States with France were becoming more and more unfriendly. Already Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the American minister at the French court, had been ordered to leave their territory by the Directory, then the su preme executive power in France. 3 Depredations upon American commerce had also been authorized by them ; and the French minister in the United parture for Europe, Mr. Adams had been on ninety different committees, and was chairman of thirty-Jive of them. He was, at one time, intrusted with no less than six missions abroad namely to treat for peace with Great Britain; to make a commercial treaty with Great Britain; to negoti ate the same with the States General of Holland ; the same with the Prince of Orange ; to pledge *as faith of the United States to the Armed Neutrality ; and to negotiate a loan of ten millions of dollars. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence ; and died on the fiftieth anniversary of that great act [1826], with the words "Independence forever!" upon his lips. He was in the ninety-second year of his age. See page 459. 1 Page 360. Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State; Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury; James JV1 Henry, Secretary of "War; and Charles Lee, Attorney-General. Washington s first cabinet had. all resigned during the early pr.rt <t hi? second term of office (the President is elected for four years), and^the above-named gentlemen were appointed during 1795 and 1796. 3 The Republican government of France was administered by a council called the Directory It was composed of five members, who ruled in connection with two representative bodies, called, re spectively, the Council of Ancient? , and the Council of Five Hundred. The Directory was the head or executive power of the government. 1801.] ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. 385 States had grossly insulted the government. President Adams perceived the necessity of prompt and energetic action, and he convened an extraordinary session of Congress, on the 15th of May. With the concurrence of the Senate, the President appointed [July] three envoys/ with Pinckney at their head, to proceed to France, and endeavor to adjust all difficulties. They met at Paris, in October, but were refused an audience with the Directory, unless they should first pay a large sum of money into the French treasury. Overtures for this purpose were made by unofficial agents. The demand was indignantly refused; and then it was that Pinckney uttered that noble sentiment, "Mil lions for defense, but not one cent for tribute !" The two Federalist envoys (Marshall and Pinckney) were ordered out of the country, while Mr. Gerry, who was a Republican, and whose party sympathized with the measures of France, was allowed to remain. The indignant people of the United States censured Mr. Gerry severely for remaining. He, too, soon found that nothing could be accomplished with the French rulers, and he returned home. The fifth Congress assembled at Philadelphia, on the 13th of November, 1797. Perceiving the vanity of further attempts at negotiation with France, Congress, and the country generally, began to prepare for war. Quite a large standing army was authorized [May, 1798] ; and as Washington approved of the measure, he was appointed [July] its commander-in-chief, with General Alex ander Hamilton as his first lieutenant. Washington consented to accept the office only on condition that General Hamilton should be the acting commander- in-chief, for the retired President was unwilling to enter into active military serv ice again. A naval armament, and the capture of French vessels of war, was authorized ; and a naval department, as we have observed, 2 with Benjamin Stoddart at its head, was created. Although there was no actual declaratior of war made by either party, yet hostilities were commenced on the ocean, and a vessel of each nation suffered capture ; 3 but the army was not summoned to the field. The proud tone of the French Directory was humbled by the dignified and decided measures adopted by the United States, and that body made overtures for a peaceful adjustment of difficulties. President Adams immediately ap pointed [Feb. 26, 1799] three envoys 1 to proceed to France, and negotiate fo 1 * 1 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry, and John Marshall. Pinckney was an active patriot in South Carolina during the Revolution. He was born in Charleston, in February, 174G, and was eduated in England. He studied law there, and on his return to his native country, in 1769, he commenced a successful professional career in Charleston. He took part early in Repub lican movements, held military offices during the War for Independence, and when war with France seemed certain, in 1797, Washington appointed him next to Hamilton in command He died, in August, 1825, in the eightieth year of his age. Gerry was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and Marshall had been an active patriot and soldier. See page 351. The latter, as Chief Justice of the United States, administered the oath of office to several Presidents. 2 Page 382. 8 The United States frigate Constellation, captured the French frigate L 1 Insurgents, in February, Ii99. That frigate had already taken the American schooner Retaliation. On the 1st of February, 1800. the Constellation had an action with the French frigate La Vengeance, which escaped cap ture after a loss of one hundred and sixty men, in killed and wounded. 4 W. V. Murray, Oliver Ellsworth, and Patrick Henry. Mr. Henry declined, and William R Davie [note 5, page 318], of North Carolina, took his place. 25 386 THE NATION. [1797 peace, but when they arrived, the weak Directory was no more. The govern ment was in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte [Nov. 1799] as First Consul, 1 whose audacity and energy now saved France from anarchy and utter ruin. He promptly received the United States embassadors, concluded a treaty [Sept. 30, 1800], and gave such assurances of friendly feelings that, on the return of the ministers, the provisional army of the United States, whose illustrious com- mander-in-chief had, in the mean while, been removed by death, was disbanded. Two unpopular domestic measures were adopted in the summer of 1798, known as the Alien and Sedition laws. The first authorized the President to expel from the country any alien (not a citizen) who should be suspected of conspiring against the Kepublic. An apology for the law was, that it was com puted that there were more than thirty thousand Frenchmen in the United States, all of whom were devoted to their native country, and were mostly asso ciated, by clubs or otherwise. Besides these, there were computed to be in the country at least fifty thousand persons who had been subjects of Great Britain, some of whom had found it unsafe to remain at home. The Sedition law author ized the suppression of publications calculated to weaken the authority of the government. At that period there were two hundred newspapers published in the United States, of which about one hundred and seventy-five were in favor of the National administration ; the remainder were chiefly under the control of aliens. These measures were unpopular, because they might lead to great abuses. ID Kentucky and Virginia, the legislatures declared them to be decidedly uncoiu stituiional, and they were finally repealed. The nation suffered a sad bereavement near the close of the last year of the century. Washington, the greatest and best-beloved of its military and civil leaders, died at Mount Vernon on the 14th of December, 1799, when almost sixty-eight years of age. No event since the foundation of the government, had made such an impression on the public mind. The national grief was sincere, and party spirit was hushed into silence at his grave. All hearts united in homage to the memory of him who was properly regarded as the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. Congress was then in session at Philadelphia, and when Judge Marshall 2 announced the sad event, both Houses 3 immediately adjourned for the day. On re-assembling the next day, appropriate resolutions were passed, and the President was directed to write a letter of condolence to Mrs. Washington, 4 in the name of Congress. Impressive funeral ceremonies were 1 Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and the Abbe Sieyes became the ruling power in France, with the title of Consuls, after the first had overthrown the Directory. Bonaparte was the First Consul, and was, in fact, an autocrat, or one who rules by his own will. 3 Page 351. 3 Note 3, page 366. 4 Martha Dandridge, who first married Daniel Parke Custis, and afterward, while yet a young widow, was wedded to Colonel Washington, was born in Kent county, Virginia, in 1732, about three months later than her illustrious husband. Her first husband died when she was about twenty-five years of age, leaving her with two children, and a large fortune in lands and money. She was married to Colonel Washington, in January, 1759. She was ever worthy of such a huti- band ; and while he was President of the United States, she presided with dignity over the execu tive mansion, both in New York and Philadelphia. When her husband died, she said : " Tis well , all is now over; I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pass through." In little less than thirty months afterward, she was laid in the family vault at Mount Vernon. Her grandson, and adopted son of Washington (also the last surviving executor of his will), G. W. P. Custih. died at Arlington House, opposite Washington City, October 10, 1857. 1801.] ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. 387 observed by that body, and throughout the country. 1 General Henry Lee, 2 of Virginia, on the invitation of Congress, delivered [December 26, 1799] an eloquent funeral oration before the national legislature ; and the recommenda tion of Congress, for the people of the United States to wear crape on their left arms for thirty days, was generally complied with. The whole nation put on v tokens of mourning. The death of Washington also made a profound impression in Europe. To the people there, who were aspiring for freedom, it seemed as if a bright star had disappeared from the firmament of their hopes. Rulers, also, joined in demonstrations of respect. Soon after the event of his death was known in France, Bonaparte, then First Consul, 3 rendered unusual honors to his name. On the 9th of February [1800], he issued the following order of the day to the army : " Washington is dead ! This great man fought against tyrarny ; he established the liberties of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds ; a*id especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combatted for liberty and equality." Bonaparte also ordered, that during ten days black crape should be suspended from all the standards and flags throughout the French Republic. Splendid ceremonies in the Champs de Mars, and a funeral oration in the Hotel des Invalides, were also given, at both of which 1 Congress resolved to erect a mausoleum, or monument, at "Washington City, to his memory, but the resolution has never been carried into effect. An immense obelisk, composed of white marble, is now [1867] in course of erection there, to be paid for ty individual subscriptions. 2 Note 2, page 333. 3 Note 1, page ^595. 388 T H E NATION. [1801. the First Consul, and all the civil and military authorities of the capital were present. Lord Bridport, commander of a British fleet of almost sixty vessels, lying at Torbay, on the coast of France, when he heard of the death of Wash ington, lowered his flag half-mast, and this example was followed by the whole fleet. And from that time until the present, the name of Washington has inspired increasing reverence at home and abroad, until now it may be said that the praise of him fills the whole earth. After the close of the difficulties with France, very little of general interest occurred during the remainder of Mr. Adams s administration, except the removal of the seat of the National Government to the District of Columbia, 1 in the summer of 1800 ; the admission into the Union [May, 1800] of the country between the western frontier of Georgia and the Mississippi River, as the Mis sissippi Territory ; and the election of a new President of the United States. Now, again, came a severe struggle between the Federalists and Republic ans, for political power. 2 The former nominated Mr. Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 3 for President ; the latter nominated Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, 1 for the same office. In consequence of dissensions among the Federalist leaders, and the rapid development of ultra-democratic ideas among the people, the Republican party was successful. Jefibrson and Burr had an equal number of electoral votes. The task of choosing, therefore, was trans ferred to the House of Representatives, according to the provisions of the National Constitution. The choice finally fell upon Mr. Jefferson, after thirty- five ballotings ; and Mr. Burr was proclaimed Vice-President. During the year 1800, the l.-tst of Adams s administration, the second enu meration of the inhabitants of the United States took place. The population was then five millions, three hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-two an increase of one million, four hundred thousand in ten years. The National revenue, which amounted to four millions, seven hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars in 1790, was increased to almost thirteen millions in 1800. CHAPTER III. JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION. [1801 1809], THOMAS JEFFERSON, 6 the third President of the United States, was in the fifty-eighth year of his age when, on the 4th of March, 1801, he was duly 1 Page 371 The District is a tract ten miles square on each side of the Potomac, ceded to the United States by Maryland and Virginia in 1790. The city of Washington was laid out thore in 1 791, and the erection of the Capitol was commenced in 1793, when [April 18] President Washington laid the corner stone of the north wing, with Masonic honors. The two wings were completed in 1808, and these were burned by the British in 1814. See page 436. The central portion of the Capitol was completed in 1827, the wings having been repaired soon after the conflagration. Altogether it covered an area of a little more than an acre and a half of ground. In course of time it became too small, and its dimensions were greatly extended. These were completed in 1865. The addition is in the form of wings, north and south, projecting both east and west beyond the main building. a Page 377. 3 Note 1. page . H5. 4 Note 4, page 241, and page 397. 6 Thomas Jefferson was born in Alb rn-til.> county. Virginia, in April. 1743. lie was educated 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION". 389 inaugurated the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, in the new Capitol, at Wash ington City. His inaugural speech, which was looked for with great anxiety, as a foreshadowing of the policy of the new President, was manly and conserv ative, and it allayed many apprehensions of his opponents. From its tone, they imagined that few of the National office-holders would be disturbed ; but in this they soon found themselves mistaken. The Federal party, while in power, having generally excluded Republicans from office, Jeiferson felt himself justi fied in giving places to his own political friends. He therefore made many removals from official station throughout the country ; and then was commenced the second act in the system of political proscription, 1 which has not always proved wise or salutary. He retained, for a short time, Mr. Adams s Secretaries of the Treasury and Navy (Samuel Dexter and Benjamin Stoddart), but called at William and Mary College, studied law with the eminent George "Wythe, and had his patriotism first inflamed by listening to Patrick Henrv s famous speech [note 1, page 214] against the Stamp Act. He first appeared in public life in the Virginia Assembly, in 17G9, and was one of the most active workers in that body, until sent to perform more important duties in the Continental Congress. The inscription upon his monument, written by himself, tells of the most important of his public labors: "Here lies buried THOMAS JEFFERSON, Author of the Declaration of Independence; of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom ; and Father of the University of Virginia." He was governor of his own State, and a foreign minister. He lived until the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence [July 4. 1826], and at almost the same hour when the spirit of Adams took its flight [page 457], his also departed from the body, when he was at the age of eighty- three years. l Page 461 390 T H K N A T I N. [180L Republicans to fill the other seats in his cabinet. 1 He set vigorously at work to reform public abuses, as far as was in his power ; and so conciliatory were his expressed views in reference to the great body of his opponents, that many Federalists joined the Republican ranks, and became bitter denouncers of their former associates and their principles. President Jefferson s administration was signalized at the beginning by the repeal of the Excise Act, 2 and other obnoxious and unpopular laws. His sug gestions concerning the reduction of the diplomatic corps, hauling up of the navy in ordinary, the abolition of certain offices, and the revision of the judiciary, were all taken into consideration by Congress, and many advances in jurisprudence were made. Vigor and enlightened views marked his course ; and even his political opponents confessed his forecast and wisdom, in many things. During his first term, one State and two Territories were added to the confederacy. A part of the North-western Territory 3 became a State, under the name of Ohio, 4 in the autumn of 1802 ; and in the spring of 1803, Louisi ana was purchased [April] of France for fifteen millions of dollars. This result was brought about without much difficulty, for the French ruler was desirous of injuring England, and saw in this an excellent way to do it. In violation of a treaty made in the year 1795, the Spanish governor of Louisiana closed the port of New Orleans in 1802. Great excitement prevailed through out the western settlements ; and a proposition was made in Congress to take forcible possession of the Territory. It was ascertained that, by a secret treaty, the country had been ceded to France, by Spain. Negotiations for its purchase were immediately opened with Napoleon, and the bargain was consummated in April, 1803. The United States took peaceable possession in the autumn of that year. It contained about eighty-five thousand mixed inhabitants, and about forty thousand negro slaves. When this bargain was consummated, Napoleon said, prophetically, l This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." Out of it two Territories were formed, called respectively the Territory of New Orleans and the Dis trict of Louisiana. We have already adverted to the depredations of Algerine corsairs upon American commerce. The insolence of the piratical powers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, 5 at length became unendurable; and the United States government resolved to cease paying tribute to them. The Bashaw of Tripoli thereupon declared war [June 10, 1801] against the United States ; and Captain Bainbridge was ordered to cruise in the Mediterranean to protect 1 James Madison, Secretary of State ; Henry Dearborn, Secretary of "War ; Levi Lincoln, Attor ney General. Before the meeting of Congress in December, he appointed Albert Gallatin [note 1, page 380, and note 6, page 443], Secretary of the Treasury, and Robert Smith, Secretary of the Navy. They were both Republicans. 2 Page 378. 3 Page 362. 4 No section of the Union had increased, in population and resources, so rapidly as Ohio. When, in 1800, it was formed into a distinct Territory, the residue of the North-western Territory remained as one until 1809. Then the Territories of Indiana and Illinois were formed. When Ohio was admitted as a State, it contained a population of about seventy -two thousand souls. 6 Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, in Africa. They are known as the Barbary Powers. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION. 391 American commerce. 1 In 1803, Commodore Preble was sent thither to humble the pirates. After bringing the Emperor of Morocco to terms, he appeared before Tripoli with his squadron. One of his vessels (the Philadelphia), com manded by Bainbridge, 2 struck on a rock in the harbor, while reconnoitering ; and before she could be extricated, she was captured [October 31, 1803] bj the Tripolitans. The officers were treated as prisoners of war, but the crew were made slaves. 1 Captain Bainbridge had been on that coast the previous year. He arrived at Algiers in September, 1800, in the frigate George Washing ton, with the annual tribute money [page 381]. The dey, or governor, demanded the use of his vessel to carry an ambassador to Constan tinople. Bainbridgo remonstrated, when the dey haughtily observed : " You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper." Bainbridge was obliged to comply, for the castle guns would not allow him to pass out of the harbor. He sailed for the East, and had the honor of first dis playing the American flag before the ancient city of Constantinople. The Sultan regarded it as a favorable omen of future friendship, because STATES FRIGATE /lisflasr bore a crescent or half-moon, and the American a erroup of stars. a "William Bainbridge was born in New Jersey, in 1774. He was captain of a merchant vessel at the age of nineteen years, and entered the naval service in 1798. He was distinguished during the second War for Independence [page 409], and died in 1833. 392 *T IT K X A T [1301. LIEUTENANT DECATUB. The credit of the American navy was somewhat repaired, early in the following year, when Lieutenant Decatur, 1 with only sev . entj-six volunteers, sailed into the harbor of Tripoli, in the evening of February 16, 1804, and riming alongside the Philadelphia (which lay moored near the castle^and guarded by a large number of Tri^oiitans), boarded her, killed or drove into the sea all of her turbaned defenders! set her on fire, and under cover of a heavy cannonade from the American squadron, escaped, without losing a man. 2 As they left the burning vessel, the Americans M a ^^ which was answered by the guns of the batteries on the shore, and by the armed vessels at anchor near. They A ent out into the Mediterranean unharmed, sailed for Syracuse, and were received there with great joy by the American squadron, under Com modore Preble. This bold act humbled and alarmed the bashaw: 3 yet his capital withstood a heavy bombardment, and his gun-boats gallantly sustained a severe action [August 3] with the American vessels. In the following year, through the aid of Hamet Caramelli, brother of Jes- suff, the reigning bashaw (or governor) of Tripoli, favorable terms of peace were secured. The bashaw was a usurper, and Hamet, the rightful heir to the throne, 4 was an exile in Egypt. He readily concerted, with Captain William Eaton. American consul at Tunis, a plan for humbling the bashaw, and obtaining his own restoration to rightful authority. Captain Eaton acted under the sanction of his government ; and early in March [March 6, 1805], he left Alexandria, with seventy United States seamen, accompanied by Hamet and his followers, and a few Egyptian troops. They made a journey of a thousand imie.s partly across the Barcan desert, and on the 27th of April, captured Derne, a Tripoli tan city on the Mediterranean. Three weeks later [May 1 8], they had a successful battle with Tripolitan troops ; and on the 18th of June they again defeated the forces of the bashaw, and MOHAMMEDAN SOLDIER. Stephen Decatur was born in Maryland in 1779. He entered the navy at the a<*e of nineteen years. After his last cruise in the Mediterranean, he superintended the building of the gun-bents He rose to the rank of commodore; and during the second War for Independence [pa^e 409 Mie was distinguished for his skill and bravery. He afterward humbled the Barbary Powers [note 5 0] ; and was esteemed as one among the choicest flowers of the navy. He was killed at Uladensburg, in a duel with Commodore Barren, in March, 1820, when forty-one years of ao- e While the American squadron was on its way to Syracuse, it captured a small Tripolitan ves sel, bound to Constantinople, with a present of female slaves for the Sultan. This was taken into service, and named the Intrepid, and was the vessel with which Decatur performed his bold exploit >oh. This act greatly enraged the Tripolitans, and the American prisoners were treated with tne utmost severity. The annals of that day give some terrible pictures of white slavery on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, * Bashaw, or Pacha [Pas-shaw], is the title of the governor of a province, or town, in the do minions of the Sultan (or emperor) of Turkey. The Barbary States [note 5, page 3901 are all under the Sultan s rule. 4 The bashaw, who was a third son, had murdered his father and elder brother, and compelled Hamet to fly for his life. With quite a large number of followers, he fled into Egypt. I DECATUB BURNING THE PHILADELPHIA. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION 395 pressed forward toward Tripoli. The terrified ruler had made terms of peace [June 4, 1805] with Colonel Tobias Leai^ American consul-general 1 in the Mediterranean, and thus disappointed the laudable ambition of Eaton, and the hopes of Hamet. 2 While these hostile movements were occurring in the East, the President had, in a confidential message to Congress, in January, 1803, proposed the first of those peaceable conquests which have opened, and are still opening, to civil ization and human industry, the vast inland regions of our continent. He rec ommended an appropriation for defraying the expenses of an exploring expedi tion across the continent from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. The appropriation was made, and presently an expedition, consisting of thirty indi viduals, under Captains Lewis and Clarke, was organized. They left the banks of the Mississippi on the 14th of May, 1804, and were absent about twenty-seven months. It was very successful, particularly in geographical discoveries, and 1 A consul is an officer appointed by a government to reside in a foreign port, to have a general supervision of the commercial interests of his country there. In some cases they have powers almost equal to a minister. Such is the case with consuls within the ports of Mohammedan countries. The word consul was applied to Napoleon [page 387] in the ancient Roman sense. It was the title of the chief magistrate of Rome during the Republic. The treaty made by Lear provided for an ex change of prisoners, man for man, as far as they would go. Jessuff had about two hundred more prisoners than the Americans held, and for these, a ransom of $60,000 was to be paid. It was also stipulated that the wife and children of Hamet should be given up to him. 2 Hamet afterward came to the United States, and applied to Congress for a remuneration for his services in favor of the Americans. He was unsuccessful; but Congress voted $2,400 for his temporary relief. 396 TilE NATION. [1801. furnished the first reliable information respecting the extensive country between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. During the same year, the election for President of the United States recurred. Aaron Burr, having lost the confi dence of the Democratic party, was not re-nominated for Vice- President. George Clinton was put in his place ; and Jefferson and Clinton were elected by a great majority 3 over their Federal opponents, Charles Cotesworth Pinck- ney, 4 of South Carolina, who was nominated for President, and Rufus King, 5 of New York, f >r Vice- President. A serious diificulty commenced in the West during the second year [1805] of Mr. Jefferson s second administration. The fertile valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi were then very rapidly filling with adventurers, and the materials for new States, strong and ample, were gathering. Michigan was erected into a Territory in 1805 ; and all along the Mississippi, extensive settlements were taking root and flourishing. The tide of population was full and unceasing, and was composed, chiefly, of adventurous characters, ready for any enterprise that should offer the result of great gain. Taking advantage of the restless spirit of these adventurers, and the general impression that the Spanish population of Louisiana would not quietly submit to the jurisdiction of the United States, 6 Aaron Burr 7 thought to make them subservient to his own ambitious purposes. His murder of Hamilton in a duel, 8 on the 12th of July, 1804, made him everywhere detested ; and, perceiving his unpopularity in the fact of his having been superseded in the office of Vice-President of the United States, by George Clinton, 9 he sought a new field for achieving personal aggrandisement. In April, 1805, he departed for the West, with several nominal objects in view, but chiefly in relation to pecuniary speculations. These seemed to conceal his real design of effecting a strong military organization, for the purpose cf invad ing the Spanish possessions in Mexico. General Wilkinson, 10 then in the West, and the commander-in-chief of the National army, became his associate. "Wil- 1 Page 377. a Page 350. 3 The great popularity of Jefferson s administration was shown by the result of this election. He received in the electoral college [note 1, page 3G1] one hundred and sixty-two votes, and Mr. Pinckney only fourteen. 4 Page 384. 5 Rufus King was born in 1755, and was in Harvard College in 1775, when hostilities with Great Britain commenced, and the students were dispersed. He chose the law for a profession, and became very eminent as a practitioner. He was in Sullivan s army, on Rhode Island [page 289], in 1778 ; and in 1784, the people, appreciating his talents and his oratorical powers, elected him to a seat in the Legislature of Massachusetts. He was an efficient member of the National Convention, in 1787, and nobly advocated the Constitution afterward. He removed to New York, was a mem ber of the State Legislature, was also one of the first United States Senators from New York, and in 1796 was appointed minister to Great Britain. From 1813 to 1826 he was a member of the United States Senate, and in 1825 was again sent to England as minister plenipotentiary. He died, near Jamaica, Long Island, in April, 1827, at the age of seventy-two years. 6 Page 390. 7 Aaron Burr was born in New Jersey, in 1756. In his twentieth year he joined the conti nental army, and accompanied Arnold [note 4, page 241] in his expedition against Quebec, in 1775. His health compelled him to leave the army in 1779, and he became a distinguished lawyer and active public man. He died on Staten Island, near New York, in 1836, at the age of eighty years. 8 Note 2, page 360. A political quarrel led to fatal results. Burr had been informed of some remarks made by Hamilton, in public, derogatory to his character, and he demanded a retraction. Hamilton considered his demand unreasonable, and refused compliance. Burr challenged him to fight, and Hamilton reluctantly met him on the west side of the Hudson, near Hoboken, where they fought with pistols. Hamilton discharged his weapon in the air, but Burr took fatal aim, and his antagonist fell Hamilton died the next day. " Page 350. 10 Page 410. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION. 39T kinson had just been appointed governor of Louisiana, and his official position secured precisely the advantage which Burr sought. Burr went down the Ohio ; and one beautiful morning at the close of April [1805], he appeared at the house of Blennarhasset, an Irishman possessed of \ fine education, a large fortune, and an accomplished and enthusiastic wife. 1 To him he unfolded his grand military scheme ; and the imaginations of Blennar- hasset and his wife were fired. Dreams of immense wealth and power filled their minds ; and when Burr had departed from the quiet home of this gentleman, the sunshine of his house faded. Blennarhasset was a changed man. He placed his wealth and reputation in the keeping of an unprincipled dema gogue, and lost both. At that time, the brave and noble Andrew Jackson 2 was in command of the militia of Tennessee. In May, Burr appeared at the door of that stern patriot, and before he left it, he had won Jackson s confidence, and his promise of co-operation. He also met Wilkinson at St. Louis, and there gave him some hints of a greater scheme than he had hitherto unfolded, which, that officer alleged, made him suspicious that Burr s ultimate aim was damage 1 His residence was upon an island a little below the mouth of the Muskingum River. There he had a fine library, beautiful conservatories, and a variety of luxuries hitherto unseen in that wilderness region. His home was an earthly paradise, into which the vile political serpent crawled, and despoiled it with his slime. Blennarhasset became poor, and died in 1831. His beautiful and accomplished wife was buried by the Sisters of Charity, in the city of New York, in the year 1842. 3 Page 460. 398 THE NATION. [1801. to the Union. However, the schemer managed the whole matter with great skill. He made friends with some of the dissatisfied military and naval officers, and won their sympathies i 1 and in the summer of 1806, he was very active in the organization of a military expedition in the West. The secresy with which it was carried on, excited the suspicions of many good men beyond the mountains, among whom was Jackson. Burr was suspected of a design to dis member the Union, and to establish an independent empire west of the Alleg- hanies, with himself at the head. Those suspicions were communicated to the National Government, which, having reason to suspect Burr of premeditated treason, put forth the strong arm of its power, and crushed the viper in its egg. Burr was arrested [February, 1807], near Fort Stoddart, on the Tombigbee River, in the present State of Alabama, by Lieutenant (afterward Major-Gen- eral) Gaines, 3 taken to Richmond, in Virginia, and there tried on a charge of treason. He was acquitted. The testimony showed that his probable design was an invasion of Mexican provinces, for the purpose of establishing there an independent government. While Burr s scheme was ripening, difficulties with Spain were increasing, and the United States were brought to the verge of a war with that country. 1 Many in the "West supposed the government was secretly favoring Burr s plans against Mex ico, and, having no suspicions of any other designs, some of the truest men of that region became, some more and some less, involved in the meshes of his scheme. a Page 467. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION. 399 At the same time, the continued impressment of American seamen into the English navy, and the interruptions to American commerce by the British gov ernment, irritated the people of the United States, and caused the President to recommend partial non-intercourse with Great Britain. This policy was adopted by Congress [April 15, 1806], the prohibition to take effect in Novem ber following. This was one of the first of the retaliatory measures of the American government toward that of Great Britain. The following year [1807] is remarkable in American history as the era of the commencement of successful steamboat navigation. Experiments in that direction had been made in this country many years before, but it was reserved for Robert Fulton 1 to bear the honor of success. He spent a long time in France, partly in the pursuit of his profession as a portrait-painter, and in the study of the subject of steam navigation. Through the kindness of Joel Barlow, then [1797] in Paris (in whose family he remained seven years), he was enabled to study the natural sciences, modern languages, and to make experiments. There he became acquainted with Robert R. Livingston, 2 and through his influence and pecuniary aid, on his return to America, he was enabled to construct a steamboat, and to make a voyage on the Hudson from New York to Albany, "against wind and tide, 7 in thirty-six hours. 3 He took out his first patent in 1809. Within fifty years, the vast operations connected with steam boat navigation, have been brought into existence. Now the puff of the steam-engine is heard upon the waters of every civilized nation on the face of the globe. And now the progress of events in Europe began to disturb the amicable relations which had subsisted between the governments of the United States and Great Britain since the ratification of Jay s treaty. 4 Napoleon Bonaparte was upon the throne of France as emperor ; and in 1806 he was King of Italy, and his three brothers were made ruling monarchs. He was upon the full tide of his success and conquests, and a large part of continental Europe was now 1 Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania, in 1765, and was a student of West, the great painter, for several years. He had more genius for mechanics than the fine arts, and when he turned his efforts in that direction, he became very successful. He died in 1815, soon after launch ing a steamship of war, at the age of fifty years. At that time there were six steamboats afloat on the Hudson, and he was building a steamship, designed for a voyage to St. Petersburg, in Russia. 2 Page 366. 3 This was the Clerrrwnt, Fulton s experimental boat. It was one hundred feet in length, twelve feet in width, and seven in depth. The engine was constructed by "Watt and Bolton, in England, and the hull was made by David Brown, of New York. The following advertisement appeared in the Albany Gazette, September 1st, 1807: "The North River Steamboat will leave Paulus s Hook [Jersey City] on Friday, the 4th of September, at 9 in the morning, and arrive at Albany on Satur day, at 9 in the afternoon. Provisions, good berths, and accommodations are provided. The charge to each passenger is as follows : "To Newburg, dollars, 3, time, 14 hours. " Poughkeepsie, " 4, "17 " " Esopus, " 5, " 20 " " Hudson, " 5|, " 30 " " Albany, " 7, " 36 " 400 THE NATION. [1801. prostrate at his feet. Although England had joined the continental powers against him [1803], in order to crush the Democratic revolution commenced in France, and the English navy had almost destroyed the French power at sea, all Europe was yet trembling in his presence. But the United States, by maintaining a strict neutrality, neither coveted his favors nor feared his power ; at the same time American shipping being allowed free intercourse between English and French ports, enjoyed the vast advantages of a profitable carrying trade between them. The belligerents, in their anxiety to damage each other, ceased, in time, to respect the laws of nations toward neutrals, and adopted measures at once destructive to American commerce, and in violation of the most sacred rights of the United States. In this matter, Great Britain took the lead. By an order in council, 1 that government declared [May 16, 1806] the whole coast of Europe, from the Elbe, in Germany, to Brest, in France, to be in a state of blockade. Napoleon retaliated by issuing [November 21] a decree at Berlin, which declared all the ports of "the British islands to be in a state of blockade. This was intended as a blow against England s maritime superiority, and it was 1 The British privy council consists of an indefinite number of gentlemen, chosen by the sover eign, and having no direct connection with the cabinet ministers. The sovereign may, under the advice of this council, issue orders or proclamations which, if not contrary to existing laws, are binding upon the subjects. These are for temporary purposes, and are called Orders in Council. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMIN ISTEATION. 401 the beginning of what he termed the continental system, the chief object of which was the ruin of Great Britain. The latter, by another order [January 7, 1807], prohibited all coast trade with France; and thus the gamesters played with the world s peace and prosperity. In spite of pacific attempts to put an end to these ungenerous measures, American vessels were seized by both English and French cruisers, and American commerce dwindled to a domestic coast trade. 1 The United States lacked a navy to protect her commerce on the ocean, and the swarms of gun-boats 2 which Con gress, from time to time, had authorized as a substitute, A FELUCCA GUN-BOAT. were quite inefficient, even as a coast-guard. The American merchants and all in their interest, so deeply injured by the " orders" and "decrees" of the warring monarchs, demanded redress of griev ances. Great excitement prevailed throughout the country, and the most bitter feeling was beginning to be felt against Great Britain. This was increased by her haughty assertion and offensive practice of the doctrine that she had the right to search American vessels for suspected deserters from the British navy, and to carry away the suspected without hinderance. 3 This right was strenu ously denied, and its policy vehemently condemned, because American seamen might be thus forced into the British service, under the pretense that they were deserters. Indeed this had already happened. 4 Clouds of difficulty now gathered thick and black. A crisis approached. Four seamen on board the United States frigate Chesapeake, were claimed as deserters from the British armed ship Melampus* They were demanded, but Commodore Barron, of the Chesapeake, refused to give them up. The 1 In May, 1806, James Monroe [page 447] and William Pinkney, were appointed to assist in the negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain, concerning the rights of neutrals, the imprisonment of seamen, right of search, &c. A treaty was finally signed, but as it did not offer security to American vessels against the aggressions of British ships in searching them and carrying off seamen, Mr. Jefferson refused to submit it to the Senate, and rejected it. The Federalists condemned the course of the President, but subsequent events proved his wisdom. Mr. Pinkney, one of the special envoys, was a remarkable man. He was born at Annapolis, Maryland, in March, 1764. He was admitted to the bar, at the age of twenty-two years, and became one of the most profound states men and brilliant orators of the age. He was a member of the Maryland Senate, in 1811, when President Madison appointed him Attorney-General for the United States. He was elected a member of Congress, and in 1816 was appointed United States minister to St. Petersburg. After a short service in the Senate, his health gave way, and he died in February, 1822, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. 2 These were small sailing vessels, having a cannon at the bow and stern, and manned by fully armed men, for the purpose of boarding other vessels. 3 England maintains the doctrine that a British subject can never become an alien. At the time in question, she held that she had the right to take her native-born subjects wherever found, and place them in the army or navy, even though, by legal process, they had become citizens of another nation. Our laws give equal protection to the native and adopted citizen, and would not allow Great Britain to exercise her asserted privilege toward a Briton who had become a citizen of the United States. * During nine months, in the years 1796 and 1797, Mr. King [page 395], the American minis ter in London, had made application for the release of two hundred and seventy-one seamen (a greater portion of whom were Americans), who had been seized on the false charge of being desert ers, and pressed into the British service. A small British squadron, of which the Mdampus was one, was lying in Lynn Haven Bay, at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, at this time. It waa commanded by Admiral Berkeley. 26 402 T II K X A T I N . [1G01. Chesapeake left the capes of Virginia on a cruise, on the 22d of June, 1807, and on the same day she was chased and attacked by the British frigate Leopard. Unsuspicious of danger and unprepared for an attack, Barron sur rendered his vessel, after losing three men killed and eighteen wounded. The four men were then taken on board the Leopard, and the Chesapeake returned to Hampton Roads. 1 Investigation proved that three of the seamen, who were colored men, were native Americans, and that the fourth had been impressed into the British service, and had deserted. Forbearance was no longer a virtue. The outrage upon the Chesapeake aroused the nation, and provoked retaliatory measures. All parties joined in one loud voice of indignation, and many were very anxious for a declaration of war with England. The President, however, proposed a pacific course, as long as any hope for justice or reconciliation remained. He issued a proclamation, in July [1807], ordering all British armed vessels to leave the waters of the United States immediately, and forbidding any one to enter until full satisfac tion for the present insult, and security against future aggressions, should be made. Although the British government understood the attack on the Chesa peake as an outrage, yet diplomacy, which is seldom honest, was immediately employed to mistify the plain question of law and right. 3 In the mean while, France and England continued to play their desperate game, to the detriment of commerce, unmindful of the interests of other nations, or the obligations of international law. A British order in council 3 was issued on the llth of November, 1807, forbidding neutral nations to trade with France or her allies, except upon payment of tribute to Great Britain. Napoleon retaliated, by issuing, on the 17th of December, a decree at Milan, forbidding all trade with England or her colonies ; and authorizing the confiscation of any vessel found in his ports, which had submitted to English search, or paid the exacted tribute. In other words, any vessel having goods upon which any impost whatever should have been paid to Great Britain, should be denationalized, and subject to seizure and condemnation. These edicts were, of course, destruct ive to the principal part of the foreign commerce of the United States. In this critical state of affairs, the President convened Congress several weeks [Oct. 25, 1807] earlier than usual ; and in a confidential message [December 18], he recommended to that body the passage of an act, levying a commercial embargo. Such an act was passed [December 22], which provided for the de tention of all vessels, American and foreign, at our ports ; and ordered Ameri can vessels abroad to return home immediately, that the seamen might be 1 Page 297. 2 The President forwarded instructions to Mr. Monroe, our minister to England, to demand im mediate satisfaction for the outrage, and security against similar events in future. Great Britain thereupon dispatched an envoy extraordinary (Mr. Hose) to the United States, to settle the diffi culty in question. The envoy would not enter into negotiations until the President should with draw his proclamation, and so the matter stood until November, 1811 (more than four years), when the British government declared the attack on the Chesapeake to have been unauthorized, and pro mised pecuniary aid to the families of those who were killed at that time. But Britain would not relinquish the right of search, and so a cause for quarrel remained. 8 Note 1, page 400. 1809.] JEFFERSON S ADMINISTRATION. 403 trained for the inevitable war. Thus the chief commerce of the world was brought to a full stop. The operation of the embargo law was the occasion of great distress, especi ally in commercial communities, yet it was sustained by the great body of the American people. It put patriotism and firmness to a severe test. It bore extremely hard upon seamen and their employers, for it spread ruin throughout the shipping interest. It was denounced by the Federal party, chiefly for polit ical effect ; ! and as it failed to obtain from England and France any acknowl edgment of American rights, it was repealed on the 1st of March, 1809, three days before Mr. Jefferson retired from office. Congress, at the same time, passed [March 1, 1809] a law which forbade all commercial intercourse with France arid England, until the "orders in council" and the : decrees should be repealed. 1 Mr. Jefferson truly wrote to a friend: "The Federalists are now playing a game of the most mischievous tendency, without, perhaps, being themselves aware of it. They are endeavoring to convince England that we suffer more from the embargo than they do r and that, if they will hold out awhile, we must abandon it. It is truc r the time will come when we must abandon it ; but if this is before the repeal of the orders in council, we must abandon it only for a state of war." John Qtiincy Adams, who had resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States, because he dif fered from the majority of his constituents in supporting the measures of the administration, wrote to the President to the effect, that from information received by him, it was the determination of the ruling party (Federalists) in Massachusetts, and even throughout New England, if the embargo was persisted in, no longer to submit to it, but to separate themselves from the Union ; and that such was the pressure of the embargo upon the community, that they would be supported by the people. This was explicitly denied, in after years, by the Federalist leaders. 404 THE NATION. [1809. In the midst of the excitement on account of the foreign relations of the United States, another Presidential election was held. Who should be the Dem ocratic candidate ? was a question of some difficulty, the choice lying between Messrs. Madison and Monroe, of Virginia. For some time, a portion of the Dem ocratic party in that State, under the leadership of the eminent John Randolph/ of Roanoke, had differed from the Administration on some points of its foreign policy; yet, while they acted with the Federalists on many occasions, they studiously avoided identification with that party. Mr. Madison was the firm adherent of Jefferson, and an advocate and apologist of his measures, while Mr. Monroe rather favored the views of Mr. Randolph and his friends. The strength of the two candidates was tried in a caucus of the Democratic members of the Virginia Legislature, and also in a caucus of the Democratic members of Con gress. Mr. Madison, having a large majority on both occasions, was nominated for the office of President, and George Clinton for that of Vice-President. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Rufus King were the Federalist candidates. Madison and Clinton were elected. At the close of eight years service, as Chief Magistrate of the United States, Mr. Jefferson left office [March 4, 1809], and retired to his beautiful Monticello, in the bosom of his native Virginia. CHAPTER IV. MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. [1809 1817.] WHEN James Madison, the fourth President of the Republic, took the chair of state, the country was overspread with gloom and despondency. Although somewhat highly colored, the report of a committee of the Massachu setts Legislature, in January, 1809, gives, doubtless, a fair picture of the con dition of affairs. It said: "Our agriculture is discouraged; the fisheries abandoned ; navigation forbidden ; our commerce at home restrained, if not 1 John Eandolph was seventh in descent from Pocahontas [page CG], the beloved daughter of the emperor of the Powhatans. He was born at Petersburg, in Virginia, in June, 1773. He was in delicate health from infancy. He studied in Columbia College, New York, and William and Mary College, in Virginia. Law was his chosen profession ; yet he was too fond of literature and politics to be confined to its practice. Ho entered public life in 1799, when he was elected to a seat in Congress, where he was a representative of his native State, in the lower House, for thirty years, with the exception of three intervals of two years each. During that time he was a member of the Senate for two years. He opposed the war in 1812. His political course was erratic. Jackson appointed him minister to St. Petersburg in 1830. His health would not permit him to remain there. On his return he was elected to Congress, but consumption soon laid him in the grave. He died at Philadelphia, in May, 1 833. Mr. Randolph was a strange compound of moral and intellectual qualities. He was at times almost an atheist ; at others, he was imbued with the deepest emotions of piety and reverence for Deity. It is said that, on one occasion, he ascended a lofty spur of the Blue Ridge, at dawn, and from that magnificent observatory saw the sun rise. As its light burst in beauty and glory over the vast panorama before him, he turned to his servant and said, with deep emotion, "Tom, if any body says there is no God, tell them they lie!" Thus he expressed the deep sense which his soul felt of the presence of a Great Creator. 3 Page. 447. 1817.] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 405 annihilated ; our commerce abroad cut off; our navy sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cutters, or gun-boats ; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice interrupted; and the nation weakened by internal animos ities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed to war with Great Britain, France, and Spain." This was the lan guage of the opponents of the administration, and must be taken with some allowance. That party was strongly opposed to Mr. Madison, because they believed that he would perpetuate the policy of Mr. Jefferson. But when, dressed in a suit of plain black, he modestly pronounced his inaugural address [March 4, 1809], the tone and sentiment of which fell like oil upon the troubled waters, those of his most implacable political enemies who heard him, could not refrain from uttering words of approbation ; and hopes were enter tained by the whole nation, that his measures might change the gloomy aspect of affairs. To all unbiassed minds, no man appeared better fitted for the office of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, at that time of general commotion, than Mr. Mad ison. 2 He had been Secretary of State during the wt :>le administration of Mr. 1 Page 401. 2 James Madison was born in Virginia, in March, 1751. He was educated at Princeton, New Jersey, and was diverted from the intended practice of the law by the charms and excitements of political life. He assisted in framing the first Constitution of Virginia, in 1776. He was a mem ber of his State Legislature and of the Executive Council, and in 1780 was a delegate in the Conti nental Congress. In public life, there, and in his State councils, he was ever the champion of popular liberty. As a member of the National Convention, and supporter of the Constitution, he 406 T H E X A T I N . [1809. Jefferson, and was familiar with every event which had contributed to produce the existing hostile relations between the United States and Great Britain. His cabinet was composed of able men, 1 and in the eleventh Congress, which convened on the 22d of May, 1809, in consequence of the critical state of affairs, there was a majority of his political friends. Yet there was a powerful party in the country (the Federalists) hostile to his political creed, and opposed to a war with England, which now seemed probable. At the very beginning of Madison s administration, light beamed upon the future. Mr. Erskine, the British minister, assured the President, that such portions of the orders in council 3 as affected the United States, should be repealed by the 10th of June. He also assured him that a special envoy would soon arrive, to settle all matters in dispute between the two governments. Supposing the minister to be authorized by his government to make these assurances, the President, as empowered by Congress, issued a proclamation [April 19, 1809], permitting a renewal of commercial intercourse with Great Britain, on that day. But the government disavowed Erskine s act, and the President again [August 10] proclaimed non-intercourse. The light had proved deceitful. This event caused great excitement in the public mind ; and had the President then declared war against Great Britain, it would doubtless have been very popular. Causes for irritation between the two governments continually increased, and, for a time, political intercourse was suspended. France, too ; continued its aggressions. On the 23d of March, 1810, Bonaparte issued a decree at Rambouillet, more destructive in its operations to American commerce, than any measures hitherto employed. It declared forfeit every American vessel which had entered French ports since March, 1810, or that might thereafter enter ; and authorized the sale of the same, together with the cargoes the money to be placed in the French treasury. Under this decree, many American vessels were lost, for which only partial remuneration has since been obtained. 4 Bona parte justified this decree by the plea, that it was made in retaliation for the American decree of non-intercourse. 5 Three months later [May, 1810], Con gress offered to resume commercial intercourse with either France or England, or both, on condition that they should repeal their obnoxious orders and decrees, before the 3d of March, 1811. The French emperor, who was always governed by expediency, in defiance of right and justice, feigned compliance, and by giving assurance [August] that such repeal should take effect in Novem- was one of the wisest and ablest; and his voluminous writings, purchased by Congress, display tho most sagacious statesmanship. As a Eepublican, ho was conservative. For eight years he was President of the United States, when he retired to private life. He died in June, 1836, at the ago of eighty-h ve years. 1 Robert Smith, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; William Eustis, Secretary of War ; Paul Hamilton, Secretary of the Navy ; Caesar Rodney, Attorney-General. a Its session lasted only about five weeks, because peace seemed probable. 8 Note 1, page 400. 4 Page 468. Page 402. 8 The act provided, that if either government should repeal its obnoxious acts, and if the other government should not do the same within three months thereafter, then the first should enjoy commercial intercourse with the United States, but the other should not. 1817.] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 407 ber, caused the President to proclaim such resumption of intercourse. It was a promise intended to be broken at any moment when policy should dictate. American vessels continued to be seized by French cruisers, as usual, and con fiscated ; and in March, 1811, Napoleon declared the decrees of Berlin 1 and Milan 2 to be the fundamental laws of the empire. A new envoy from France, who arrived in the United States at about this time, gave official notice to the government, that no remuneration would be made for property seized and con fiscated. The government of Great Britain acted more honorably, though wickedly. She continued her hostile orders, and sent ships of war to cruise near the prin cipal ports of the United States, to intercept American merchant vessels and send them to England as lawful prizes. While engaged in this nefarious busi ness, the British sloop of war 3 Little Belt, Captain Bingham, was met [May 16, 1811], off the coast of Virginia, by the American frigate President, Com modore Rogers. 4 That officer hailed the commander of the sloop, and received a cannon shot in reply. A brief action ensued, when Captain Bingham, after having eleven men killed and twenty-one wounded, gave a satisfactory answer to Rogers. The conduct of both officers was approved by their respective gov ernments. That of the United States condemned the act of Bingham as an outrage without palliation ; and the government and people felt willing to take up arms in defense of right, justice, and honor. Powerful as was the navy of Great Britain, and weak as was that of the United States, the people of the latter were willing to accept of war as an alternative for submission, and to measure strength on the ocean. The British navy consisted of almost nine hundred vessels, with an aggregate of one hundred and forty-four thousand men. The American vessels of war, of large size, numbered only twelve, with an aggregate of about three hundred guns. Besides these, there were a great number of gun-boats, but these were hardly sufficient for a coast-guard. Here was a great disparity ; and for a navy so weak to defy a navy so strong, seemed madness. It must be remembered, however, that the British navy was necessarily very much scattered, for that government had interests to protect in various parts of the globe. The protracted interruption of commercial operations was attended with very serious effect upon the trade and revenue of the United States, and all parties longed for a change, even if it . must be brought about by war with European governments. The Congressional elections in 1810 and 1811, proved that the policy of Mr. Madison s administration was sustained by a large ma jority of the American people, the preponderance of the Democratic party being kept up in both branches of the National Legislature. The opposition, who, as a party, were unfavorable to hostilities, were in a decided minority, and the government had more strength in its councils than at any time during Jefferson s administration. For several years war with England had seemed inevitable, and now [1811] 1 Page 400. g Page 402. 3 Page 415. 4 He died in the Naval Asylum, Philadelphia, in August, 1838. 408 THE NATION. [1809. many causes were accelerating the progress of events toward such a result. Among these, the hostile position of the Indian tribes on the north-western frontier of the United States, was one of the most powerful. They, too, had felt the pressure of Bonaparte s commercial system. In consequence of the exclusion of their furs from the continental markets, the Indian hunters found their traffic reduced to the lowest point. The rapid extension of settlements north of the Ohio was narrowing their hunting-grounds, and producing a rapid diminution of game ; and the introduction of whiskey, by the white people, was spreading demoralization, disease, and death among the Indians. These evils, combined with the known influence of British emissaries, finally led to open hostilities. In the spring of 1811, it was known that Tecumtha, a Shawiioe 1 chief, who was crafty, intrepid, unscrupulous, and cruel, and who possessed the qual ities of a great leader, almost equal to those of Pontiac, 2 was endeavoring to emulate that great Ottawa by confederating the tribes of the north-west in a war against the people of the United States. Those over whom himself and twin-brother, the Prophet, 3 exercised the greatest control, were the Delawares, Shawnoese, Wyandots, Miamies, Kickapoos, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas. During the summer, the frontier settlers became so alarmed by the continual military and religious exercises of the savages, that General Harrison/ then governor of the Indiana Territory, 6 marched, with a considerable force, toward the town of the Prophet, situated at the junction of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers, in the upper part of Tippecanoe county, Indiana. The Prophet appeared and proposed a conference, but Harrison, suspecting treach ery, caused his soldiers to sleep on their arms [Nov. 6, 1811] that night. At four o clock the next morning [Nov. 7] the savages fell upon the American camp, but after a bloody battle until dawn, the Indians were repulsed. The battle of Tippecanoe was one of the most desperate ever fought with the Indians, and the loss was heavy on both sides. 7 Tecumtha was not present on this occa sion, and it is said the Prophet took no part in the engagement. These events, so evidently the work of British interference, aroused the spirit of the nation, and throughout the entire West, and in the Middle and Southern States, there was a desire for war. Yet the administration fully appreciated the deep responsibility involved in such a step ; and having almost the entire body of the New England people in opposition, the President and his friends hesitated. The British orders in council 3 continued to be rigorously enforced ; insult after insult was offered to the American flag ; and the British press insolently boasted that the United States "could not be kicked into a 1 Page 19. 2 Page 204. 3 In 1809, Governor Harrison had negotiated a treaty with the Miamies [page 19] and other tribes, by which they sold to the United States a large tract of land on both sides of the Wabash. The Prophet was present and made no objection ; but Tecumtha, who was absent, was greatly dissatisfied. The British emissaries took advantage of this dissatisfaction, to inflame him and his people against the Americans. 4 Page 17. 6 Page 474. 6 Note 4, page 390. 7 Harrison had upward of sixty killed, and more than a hundred wounded. 8 Note 1, page 400. 1817.] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 409 war." Forbearance became no longer a virtue ; and on the 4th of April, 1812, Congress laid another embargo 1 upon vessels in American waters, for ninety days. On the 1st of June, the President transmitted a special message to Congress, in which he reviewed the difficulties with Great Britain, strongly portrayed the aggressions inflicted upon us by that nation, and intimated the necessity of war. The message was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, in the House of Representatives, a majority of whom 2 agreed upon, and reported a manifesto [June 3], as the basis of a declaration of war. On the following day [June 4, 1812], a bill, drawn up by Mr. Pinckney, the Attorney-General of the United States, 3 declaring war to exist between the United States and Great Britain, was presented by Mr. Calhoun. During the proceedings on this subject, Congress sat with closed doors. The measure was finally agreed to, by both Houses, by fair majorities. It passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 49. On the 17th it passed the Senate by a vote of 19 to 13, and on that day it received the signature of the President. 4 Two days afterward [June 19], the President issued a proclamation which formally declared war against Gr:at Britain. 5 This is known in history as THE WAR OF 1812; or THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE." Congress, having authorized the President to declare war, took immediate measures to sustain that declaration. It passed an act which gave him author ity to enlist twenty-five thousand men, to accept fifty thousand volunteers, and to call out one hundred thousand militia for the defense of the sea-coast and frontiers. Fifteen millions of dollars were appropriated for the army, and almost three millions for the nayy. But at the very threshhold of the new order 1 Page 402. Four days after this [April 8] Louisiana was admitted into the Union as a State. 8 John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina ; Felix Grundy, of Tennessee ; John Smilie, of Pennsyl vania ; John A. Harper, of New Hampshire ; Joseph Desha, of Kentucky ; and Ebenezer Seaver, of Massachusetts. 8 Page 400. 4 The following are the words of that important bill : " Be it enacted, etc., That war be, and the same is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain arid Ireland, and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their Territories ; and that the President of the United States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and- naval force of the United States to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States, commissions, or letters of marque, and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof." 6 The chief causes for tin s act were the impressment of American seamen by the British ; the blockade of French ports without an adequate force to sustain the act ; and the British Orders in Council. The Federalists in Congress presented an ably- written protest, which denied the necessity or the expediency of war. 6 _ This is an appropriate title, for, until the termination of that war, the United States were only nominally free. Blessed with prosperity, the people dreaded war, and submitted to many acts of tyranny and insult from Great Britain and France, rather than become involved in another conflict. Socially and commercially, the United States were dependent upon Europe, and especially upon England ; and the latter was rapidly acquiring a dangerous political interest here, when the war broke out. ^The war begun in 1775 was really only the first great step toward independence; the war begun in 1812, first thoroughly accomplished it. Franklin once heard a person speaking of the Revolution as the War of Independence, and reproved him, saying, " Sir, you mean the Revolu tion ; the war of Independe nce is yet to come. It was a war for Independence, but not of Inde pendence." 410 THE NATION. [1809. of things, the administration was met by determined opposition. The Federal members of the House of Representatives published an address to their con stituents, in which they set forth the state of the country at that time, the course of the administration and its supporters in Congress, and the reasons of the minority for opposing the war. This was fair and honorable. But outside of Congress, a party, composed chiefly of Federalists, with some disaffected Democrats, was organized under the name of the Peace party. Its object was to cast such obstructions in the way of the prosecution of the war, as to compel the government to make peace. This movement, so unpatriotic, the offspring of the lowest elements of faction, was frowned upon by the most respectable members of the Federal party, and some of them gave the government their hearty support, when it was necessary, in order to carry on the war with vigor and effect. The first care of the government, in organizing the army, was to select efficient officers. Nearly all of the general officers of the Revolution were in their graves, or were too old for service, and even those of subordinate rank in that war, who yet regained, were far advanced in life. Yet upon them the chief duties of leadership were devolved. Henry Dearborn 1 was appointed major- general and commander-in- chief; and his principal brigadiers were James Wilkinson, 2 Wade Hampton, 3 William Hull, 4 and Joseph Bloomfield all of them esteemed soldiers of the Revolution. Hull was governor of the Territory of Michigan, and held the commission of a brigadier-general. When war was declared, he was marching, with a little more GENERAL DEARBORN. than two thousand troops, from Ohio, to attempt the subjugation of the hostile Indians. 5 Congress gave him discretionary powers for invading Canada; but caution and preparation were necessary, because the British authorities, a long time in expectation of war, had taken measures accordingly. 6 Feeling strong enough for the enemy, Hull, on the 12th of July, 1812, crossed the Detroit River with his whole force, to attack Fort Maiden, a British post near the present village of Amherst- burg. At Sandwich, he encamped, and by a fatal delay, lost every advantage which an immediate attack might have secured. In the mean while, Fort 1 Henry Dearborn was a native of New Hampshire, and a meritorious officer in the continental army. He accompanied Arnold to Quebec, and was distinguished in the battles which ruined Burgoyne [page 281]. He held civil offices of trust after the Revolution. He returned to private life in 1815, and died at Roxbury. near Boston, in 182&, at the age of seventy-eight years. Pages 396 and 426. 3 Note 3, page 427. 4 Note 4, page 411. 6 Page 408. 8 Canada then consisted of two provinces. The old French settlements on the St. Lawrence, with a population of about three hundred thousand, constituted Lower Canada; while the more recent settlements above Montreal, and chiefly upon the northern shore of Lake Ontario, including about one hundred thousand inhabitants, composed Upper Canada, These were principally the families of American loyalists, who were compelled to leave the States at the close of the Revolu tion. Then each province had its own governor and Legislature. The regular military force, which was scattered over a space of more than a thousand miles, did not exceed .two thousand men; hence the British commanders were compelled to call for volunteers, and they used the Indians to good effect, in their favor. Lrawn "by H.L. Stephens En 1 W Augustus Rot in 1817.] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 411 Mackinaw, one o f the strongest posts of the United States in the north-west, 1 was surprised and captured [July 17, 1812] by an allied force of British and Indians ; and on the 5th of August, a detachment under Major Van Home, sent by Hull to escort an approaching supply-party to camp, were defeated by some British and Indians near Brownstown, on the Huron River. 2 These events, and the reinforcement of the garrison at Maiden, by General Brock, the British commander-in-chief, caused Hull to recross the river on the 7th of August, abandon the expedition against Canada, and take post at Detroit, much to the disappointment of his troops, who were anxious to measure strength with the enemy. On the 9th of August, General Brock crossed the river with seven hundred British troops and six hundred Indians, and demanded an instant surrender of Detroit, threatening at the same time to give free rein to Indian cruelty in the event of refusal. Hull s excessive prudence determined him to surrender, rather than expose his troops to the hatchet. When the assailants approached, and at the moment when the Americans were hoping for and expecting a com mand to fire, he ordered his troops to retire within the fort, and hung a white flag upon the wall, in token of submission. The army, fort, stores, garrison, and Territory, were all surrendered [August 16, 1812], to the astonishment of the victor himself, and the deep mortification of the American troops. Hull was afterward tried by a court-martial 3 [1814], on charges of treason and cow ardice. He was found guilty of the latter, and sentenced to be shot, but was pardoned by the President on account of his revolutionary services. The whole country severely censured him ; and the rage of the war party, increased by the taunts of the Federalists, because of the disastrous termination of one of the first expeditions of the campaign, was unbounded. The difficulties with which Hull was surrounded his small force (only about eight hundred effective men) ; the inexperience of his officers, and the rawness of his troops ; his lack of infor mation, because of the interception of his communications ; and the number and character of the enemy were all kept out of sight, while bitter denunciations were poured upon his head. In after years, he was permitted fully to vindicate his character, and the sober judgment of this generation, guided by historic truth, must acquit him of all crime, and even serious error, and pity him as a victim of untoward circumstances. 4 1 Formerly spalled Michilimackinac. It was situated upon an island of that name, near the Straits of Mackinaw or Michilimakinac. a On the 8th, Colonel Miller and several hundred men, sent by Hull to accomplish the object of Yan Horno, met and defeated Tecumtha [page 408] and his Indians, with a party of British, neai the scene of Van Home s failure. 3 He was taken to Montreal a prisoner, and was afterward exchanged for thirty British cap^ tives. He was tried at Albany, New York. 4 Hull published his Vindication in 1824; and in 1848, his grandson published a large octavo volume, giving a full and thorough vindication of the character of the general, the material for which was drawn from official records. Hull s thorough knowledge of the character of the foe who menaced him, and a humane desire to spare his troops, was doubtless his sole reason for surrender ing the post. A good and brave man has too long suffered the reproaches of history. "William Hull was born in Connecticut in 1753. He rose to the rank of major in the continental army, and was distinguished for his bravery. He was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory in 1805. After the close of his unfortunate campaign, he never appeared in public life. He died near Boston in 1825. 412 THE NATION. [1809. At about this time, a tragedy occurred near the head of Lake Michigan, which sent a thrill of horror through the land. Captain Heald, with a com pany of fifty regulars, occupied Fort Dearborn, on the site of the present large city of Chicago. 1 Hull ordered him to evacuate that post in the deep wilderness, and hasten to Detroit. He left the public property in charge of friendly Indians, but had proceeded only a short distance from the fort, along the beach, when he was attacked by a body of Indians. Twenty-six of the reg ular troops, and all of the militia, were slaughtered. A number of women and children were murdered and scalped ; and Captain Heald, with his wife, though severely wounded, escaped to Michilimackinac. 2 His wife also received six wounds, but none proved mortal. This event occurred on the day before Hull s surrender [Aug. 15, 1812] at Detroit, and added to the gloom that overspread, and the indignation that flashed through, the length and breadth of the land. While these misfortunes were befalling the Army of the North- west, 8 the opponents of the war were casting obstacles in the way of the other divisions of the American troops operating in the State of New York, and preparing for another invasion of Canada. 4 The governors of Massachusetts, New Hamp shire, and Connecticut, refused to allow the militia of those States to march to the northern frontier on the requisition of the President of the United States. They defended their unpatriotic position by the plea that such a requisition was unconstitutional, and that the war was unnecessary. The British government, in the mean time, had declared the whole American coast in a state of block ade, except that of the New England States, whose apparent sympathy with the enemies of their country, caused them to be regarded as ready to leave the Union, and become subject to the British crown. But there was sterling patriotism sufficient there to prevent such a catastrophe, even if a movement, so fraught with evil, had been contemplated. Yet the effect was chilling to the best friends of the country, and the President felt the necessity of extreme cir cumspection. Unmindful of the intrigues of its foes, however, the administration perse vered; and during the summer of 1812, a plan was matured for invading Can ada on the Niagara frontier. The militia of the State of New York were placed, by Governor Tompkins, under the command of Stephen Van Rensselaer, 5 1 Chicago is built upon the verge of Lake Michigan and the ,,-rs of a great prairie, and is one of the wonders of the material and social progress of the United States. The Pottawatomie Indians [page 18], by treaty, left that spot to the white people in 1833. The city was laid out in 1830, and lots were first sold in 1831. In 1840, the population was 4,470. Now [1867] it can not be less thanl80,000! a Page 411. 8 The forces under General Harrison were called the Army of the North-west; those under Gen eral Stephen Van Rensselaer, at Lewiston, on the Niagara River, the Army of the Center; and those under General Dearborn, at Plattsburg and at Greenbush, near Albany, the Army of the North. * Page 410. 6 Stephen Van Rensselaer, a lineal descendant of one of the earliest and best known of the Patroons [note 10, page 139] of the State of New York, was born at the manor-house, near Albany, in November, 1764. The War for Independence had just closed when he came into possession of his immense estate, at the age of twenty-one years. He engaged in politics, was a warm supporter of the National Constitution, and was elected Lieutenant-Governor of New York in 1795. He was very little engaged in politics after the defeat of the Federal party in 1800 [page 388]. After the Second War for Independence, he was elected to a seat in Congress; and, by his casting vote in the New York delegation, he gave the Presidency of the United States to John Quincy Adams. 1817.] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 413 who was commissioned a Major-General. Intelligence of the surrender of Hull had inspired the Americans with a strong desire to wipe out the disgrace ; and the regiments were filled without much difficulty. These forces were concen trated chiefly at Lewiston, on the Niagara frontier, under Van Rensselaer, and at Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain, and Greenbush, near Albany, under General Dearborn. The first demonstration against the neighboring province was made on the Niagara, in mid-autumn. In anticipation of such movement, British troops were strongly posted on A& heights of Queenstown, opposite Lewiston ; and on the morning of the 13th of October [1812], two hundred and twenty-five men, under Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, 2 crossed over to attack them. The commander was severely wounded, at the landing ; but his troops pressed for ward, under Captains Wool 3 and Ogilvie, successfully assaulted a battery near Here closed his political life, and he passed the remainder of his days in the performance of social and Christian duties. He was for several years president of the Board of Canal Commissioners, and, while in that office, he died in January, 1840, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 1 Page 411. 3 Solomon Van Rensselaer was one of the bravest and best men of his time; and to his efforts, more than to those of any other man, the salvation of the American army on the northern frontier, at this time, was due. He died at Albany on the 3d of April, 1852. John E. Wool, now [1856] Major-General in the army of the United States. 414 THE NATION. [1809. the summit of the hill, and gained possession of Qucenstown Heights. But the victory was not yet complete. General Sir Isaac Brock had come from Fort George, and with six hundred men attempted to regain the battery. The British were repulsed, and Brock was killed. 1 In the mean while, General Stephen Van Rensselaer, who had crossed over, returned to Lewiston, and was using his most earnest efforts to send reinforcements ; but only about one thou sand troops, many of them quite undisciplined, could be induced to cross the river. These were attacked in the afternoon [Oct. 13, 1812] by fresh troops from Fort George, and some of their Indian allies. Many were killed and tlio rest were made prisoners, while at least fifteen hundred of their companions-in arms cowardly refused to cross to their aid. The latter excused their conduct by the plea, put into their mouths by the opponents of the war, that they considered it wrong to invade the enemy s country, the war being avowedly a defensive one. The enemies of the administration applauded them for their conscientiousness, while a victory that might have led to reconciliation and peace, was lost at the winning moment. General Van Rensselaer, disgusted with the inefficiency everywhere displayed, left the service, and was succeeded by General Alex ander Smyth, of Virginia This officer accomplished nothing of importance during the remainder of the season ; and when the troops went into winter quarters [Dec.], there appeared to have been very few achievements made by the American army worthy of honorable mention in history. While the army was suffering defeats, and became, in the mouths of the opponents of the administration, a staple rebuke, the little navy had acquitted itself nobly, and the national honor and prowess had been fully vindicated upon the ocean. At this time the British navy numbered one thousand and sixty vessels, while that of the United States, exclusive of gun-boats, 2 numbered only twenty. Two of these were unseaworthy, and one was on Lake Ontario. Nine of the American vessels were of a class less than frigates, and all of them could not well compare in appointments with those of the enemy. Yet the Americans were not dismayed by this disparity, but went out boldly in tneir ships to meet the war vessels of the proudest maritime nation upon the earth. 3 Victory after victory told of their skill and prowess. On the 19th of August, 1812, the United States frigate Constitution, Commodore Isaac Hull, 4 fought the British frigate Guerriere* Captain Dacres. off the American coast, in the present track of ships to Great Britain. The contest continued about forty minutes, when 1 Sir Isaac Brock was a brave and generous officer. There is a fine monument erected to his memory on Queenstown Heights, a short distance from the Niagara Eiver. 2 Page 401. 8 At the time of the declaration of war, Commodore Rogers [page 407] was at Sandy Hook, New York, with a small squadron, consisting of the frigates President, Congress, United States, and the sloop-of-war Hornet. He put to sea on the 21st of June, in pursuit of a British squadron which had sailed as a convoy of the West India fleet. After a slight engagement, and a chase of several hours, the pursuit was abandoned at near midnight. The frigate Essex [page 430] went to sea on the 3d of July; the Constitution, on the 12th. The brigs Nautilus, Viper, and Vixen were then cruising off the coast, and the sloop Wasp was at sea on her return from France. * Isaac Hull was made a lieutenant in the navy in 1798, and was soon distinguished for skill and bravery. He rendered important service to his country, and died in Philadelphia in February, 1843. 6 This vessel had been one of a British squadron which gave the Constitution a long and close chase about a month before, during which the nautical skill of Hull was most signally displayed. 1817,] MADISON S ADMINISTRATION. 415 Dacres surrendered; 1 and his vessel was such a complete wreck, that the victor burned her. The Constitution, it is said, was so little damaged, that she was ready for action the following day. This victory had a powerful effect on the public mind in both countries. On the 18th of October, 1812, the United States sloop-of-war, Wasp, Captain Jones, captured the British brig Frolic, off the coast of North Carolina, after a very severe conflict for three-quarters of an hour. The slaughter on board the Frolic was dreadful. Only three officers and one seaman, of eighty-four, remained unhurt. The others were killed or badly wounded. The Wasp lost only ten men. Her term of victory was short, for the same afternoon, the British seventy-four gun ship Poictiers captured both vessels. A week afterward [October 25], the frigate SLOOP-OF-WAR. United States, Commodore Decatur, 2 fought the British frigate Macedonian, west of the Canary Islands, for almost two hours. After being greatly damaged, and losing more than one hundred men, in killed and wounded, the Macedonian surrendered. Decatur lost only five killed and seven wounded ; and his vessel was very little injured. A few weeks after ward [December 29, 181 2], the Constitution, then commanded by Commodore Bainbridge, 3 became a victor, after combatting the British frigate Java for almost three hours, off San Salvador, on the coast of Brazil. The Java had four hundred men on board, of whom almost two hundred were killed or wounded. The Constitution was again very little injured; but she made such havoc with the Java, that Bainbridge, finding her incapable of floating long, burned her [January 1, 1813], three days after the action. The Americans were greatly elated by these victories. Nor were they con fined to the national vessels. Numerous privateers, which now swarmed upon the ocean, were making prizes in every direction, and accounts of their exploits filled the newspapers. It is estimated that during the year 1812, upward of fifty British armed vessels, and two hundred and fifty merchantmen, with an aggregate of more than three thousand prisoners, and a vast amount of booty, were captured by the Americans. These achievements wounded British pride in a tender part, for England claimed the appellation of "mistress of the seas." They also strengthened the administration ; and at the close of the year, naval armaments were in preparation on the lakes, to assist the army in a projected invasion of Canada the following spring. At the close of these defeats upon land, and these victories upon the ocean, the election of President and Vice-President of the United States, and also of members of Congress, occurred. The administration was strongly sustained by the popular vote. Mr. Madison was re-elected, with Elbridge Gerry 4 as Vice- President George Clinton having died at Washington in April of that year. 5 1 On the Guerriere were seventy-nine killed anl wounded. The Constitut on lost seven killed and seven wounded. a Page 392. 3 Page 391. * Note 1, page 385. 6 Note 5. r>aere 350. 416 THE NATION. [1813. A fraction of the Democratic party, and most of the Federalists, voted for De Witt Clinton 1 for President, and Jared Ingersoll, for Vice-President. Not withstanding the members of Congress then elected, were chiefly Democrats, it was evident that the opposition was powerful and increasing, particularly in the eastern States, yet the President felt certain that the great body of the people were favorable to his war policy. CHAPTER V. THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1813.] DURING the autumn of 1812, the whole western country, incensed by Hull s surrender, seemed filled with the zeal of the old Crusaders. 2 Michigan had to be recovered, 3 and the greatest warlike enthusiasm prevailed. Volun teers had gathered under local leaders, in every settlement. Companies were formed and equipped in a single day, and were ready to march the next. For several weeks the volunteers found employment in driving, the hostile Indians from post to post, in the vicinity of the extreme western settlements. They desolated their villages and plantations, after the manner of Sullivan, in 1 779, 4 and the fiercest indignation against the white people was thus excited among the tribes, which, under the stimulus of their British allies, led to terrible retaliations. 5 So eager were the people for battle, that the snows of winter in the great wilderness, did not keep them from the field. The campaign of 1813 opened with the year. Almost the entire northern frontier of the United States was the chief theatre of operations. The army of the West, under General Harrison, 7 was concentrating at the head of Lake Erie ; that of the Centre, 6 now under Dearborn, was on the banks of the Niagara River; and that of the North, under Hampton, was on the borders of Lake Champlain. Sir George Prevost was the successor of Brock 10 in command of the British army in Canada, assisted by General Proctor in the direction of Detroit, 11 and by General Sheaffe in the vicinity of Montreal and the lower portions of Lake Champlain. Brave and experienced leaders had rallied to the standard of Harrison in the north-west. Kentucky sent swarms of her young men, from every social 1 Page 456. a Note 5, page 38. 3 Page 411. 4 Page 304. 5 Harrison early took steps to relieve the frontier posts. These were Fort Harrison, on the "Wabash; Fort Wayne, on the Miami of the lakes; Fort Defiance [Note 6, page 374]; and Fort Deposit, to which the Indians laid siege on the 12th of September. Generals Winchester, Tupper, and Payne, and Colonels Wells, Scott, Lewis, Jennings, and Allen, were the chief leaders against the savages. Operations were carried on vigorously, further west. Early in October, almost four thousand volunteers, chiefly mounted riflemen, under General Hopkins, had collected at Vincennes [page 303] for an expedition against the towns of the Peoria and other Indians, in the Wabash country. It was this formidable expedition, sanctioned by Governor Shelby, which produced the greatest devastation in the Indian country. Note 3, page 412. 7 Page 4Y4. 8 Note 3, page 412. B Note 3, page 412. 10 Page 411. " Page 412. 1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 417 rank, led by the veteran Shelby, 1 and the yeomanry of Ohio and its neighbor hood hastened to the field. So numerous were the volunteers, that Harrison was compelled to issue an order against further enlistments, and many a warm heart, beating with desire for military glory, was chilled by disappointment. General Harrison chose the west end of Lake Erie as his chief place of muster, with the design of making a descent upon the British at Maiden and Detroit, and by securing possession of those posts, recover Michigan and the forts west of it. Early in January [10th, 1813], General Winchester, on his way from the southward, with eight hundred young men, chiefly Kentuckians, reached the Maumee Rapids. 3 There he was informed [January 13, 1813] that a party of British and Indians had concentrated at Frenchtown, on the river Raisin, 4 twenty-five miles south of Detroit. He immediately sent a detachment, 1 Isaac Shelby was born in Maryland, in 1750. He entered military life in 1774, and went to Kentucky as a land-surveyor, in 1775. He engaged in the War of the Revolution, and was dis tinguished in the battle on King s Mountain [page 319] in 1780. He was made governor of Ken tucky in 1792, and soon afterward retired to private life, from which he was drawn, first in 1812, to the duties of Chief Magistrate of his State, and agai-., m 1813, to lead an army to the field against his old enemy. He died in 1826, when almost seventy-six years of age. 2 Page 412. 8 Note 7, page 374. ^ * Now a portion of the flourishing village of Monroe, Michigan, two or three miles from Lake Erie. The Raisin derived its name from the fact, that in former years great quantities of grapes clustered upon its banks. 27 418 THE NATION. [1813. under Colonels Allen and Lewis, to protect the inhabitants in that direction. Finding Frenchtown in the possession of the enemy, they successfully attacked [January 18] and routed them, and held possession until the arrival of Win chester [January 20], with almost three hundred men, two days afterward. General Proctor, who was at Maiden, eighteen miles distant, heard of the advance of Winchester, and proceeded immediately and secretly, with a com bined force of fifteen hundred British and Indians, to attack him. They fell upon the American camp at dawn, on the morning of the 22d of January. After a severe battle and heavy loss on both sides, Winchester, 1 who had been made a prisoner by the Indians, surrendered his troops on the condition, agreed to by Proctor, that ample protection to all should be given. Proctor, fearing the approach of Harrison, who was then on the Lower Sandusky, immediately marched for Maiden, leaving the sick and wounded Americans behind, without a guard. After following him some distance, the Indians turned back [January 23], murdered and scalped 2 the Americans who were unable to travel, set fire to dwellings, took many prisoners to Detroit, in order to procure exorbitant ransom prices, and reserved some of them for inhuman torture. The indiffer ence of Proctor and his troops, on this occasion, was criminal in the highest degree, and gave just ground for the dreadml suspicion, that they encouraged the savages in their deeds of blood. Oftentimes after that, the war-cry of the Kentuckians was, " Remember the River Raisin!" The tragedy was keenly felt in all the western region, and especially in Kentucky, for the slain, by bul let, arrow, tomahawk, and brand, were generally of the most respectable fam ilies in the State ; many of them young men of fortune and distinction, with numerous friends and relations. Harrison had advanced to the Maumee Rapids, when the intelligence of the affair at Frenchtown reached him. Supposing Proctor would press forward to attack him, he fell back [January 23, 1813] ; but on hearing of the march of the British toward Maiden, he advanced [February 1] to the rapids, with twelve hundred men, established a fortified camp there, and called it Fort Meigs, 3 in honor of the governor of Ohio. There he was besieged by Proctor several weeks afterward [May 1], who was at the head of more than two thousand British and Indians. On the fifth day of the siege, General Clay 4 arrived [May 5] with twelve hundred men, and dispersed the enemy. A large FORT MEIGS portion of his troops, while unwisely pursuing the fugitives, were surrounded and captured ; and Proctor returned to the siege. The impatient Indians, refusing to listen to Tecumtha, 5 their leader, deserted 1 James "Winchester was born in Maryland in 1156. He was made brigadier-general in 1812 ; resigned his commission in 1815 ; and died in Tennessee in 1826. 2 Note 4, page 14. 3 Fort Meigs was erected on the south cide of the Maumee, nearly opposite the former British post [note 8, page 374], and a short distance from the present village of Perrysburg. 4 Green Clay was born in Virginia in 1757, was made a brigadier of Kentucky volunteers early in 1813, and died in October, 1826. 6 Page 408. Tecumtha came with the largest body of Indiana ever collected on the northern frontier. 1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. the British on the eighth day [May 8] ; and twenty-four hours afterward, Proctor abandoned the siege and returned to Maiden [May 9], to prepare for a more formidable invasion. Thus terminated a siege of thirteen days, during which time the fortitude and courage of the Americans were wonderfully dis played in the presence of the enemy. The Americans lost in the fort, eighty- one killed, and one hundred and eighty-nine wounded. For several weeks after the siege of Fort Meigs, military operations were suspended by both parties. Here, then, let us take a brief retrospective glance. Congress assembled on the 2d of November, 1812, and its councils were divided by fierce party spirit, which came down from the people. The Democrats had a decided majority, and therefore the measures of the administration were sus tained. The British government now began to show some desire for reconcilia tion. Already the orders in council had been repealed, and the Prince Regent 1 demanded that hostilities should cease. To this the President replied, that being now at war, the United States would not put an end to it, unless full provisions were made for a general settlement of differences, and a cessation of the practice of impressment, pending the negotiation. At about the same time a law was passed, prohibiting the employment of British seamen in American vessels. The British also proposed an armistice, but upon terms which the Americans could not accept. Indeed, all propositions from that quarter were inconsistent with honor and justice, and they were rejected. When these attempts at reconcilia tion had failed, the Emperor Alexander of Russia offered his mediation. The government of the United States instantly accepted it, 2 but the British govern ment refused it ; and so the war went on. Congress made provision for prose cuting it with vigor ; and the hope lighted by Alexander s offer, soon faded. The American troops in the West had remained at Fort Meigs and vicinity. Toward the close of July [July 21, 1813], about four thousand British and Indians, under Proctor and Tecumtha, 3 again appeared before that fortress, then commanded by General Clay. Meeting with a vigorous re sistance, Proctor left Tecumtha to watch the fort, while he marched [July 28], with five hundred regulars and eight hundred Indians, to attack Fort Stephenson, at Lower San- dusky, 4 which was garrisoned by about one hundred and fifty young men, 5 Commanded by Major Croghan, a brave soldier, FORT SANDUSKY. 1 "When, in consequence of mental infirmity, George the Third became incompetent to reign, in February, 1811, his son, George, Prince of Wales, and afterward George the Fourth, was made regent, or temporary ruler of the realm. He retained the office of king, pro tempore, until the death of his father, in 1820. 2 The President appointed, as commissioners, or envoys extraordinary, to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain, under the Russian mediation, Albert Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, "and James A. Bayard. Mr. Adams was then American minister at the Russian court, and was joined by Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard in June following. s p a ge 408. 4 On the west bank of the Sandusky River, about fifteen miles south from Sandusky Bay. The area within the pickets [note 1, page 127] was about an acre. The fort was made of regular em bankments of earth and a ditch, with bastions and block-houses [note 3, page 192] and some rude log buildings within. The site is in the village of Fremont, Ohio. 5 The greater portion of the garrison were very young men, and some of them were mere youths 420 THE NATION. [1813. then only twenty-one years of age. 1 Proctor s demand for surrender was accom panied by the usual menace of Indian massacre ; but it did not intimidate Croghan. J After a severe cannonade 3 had made a breach, about five hundred of the besiegers attempted to rush in and take the place by assault [Aug. 2, 1813] ; but so terribly were they met by grape-shot 4 from the only cannon in the fort, that they recoiled, panic- | stricken, and the whole body fled in confusion, leaving one hundred and fifty of their number killed or wounded. The Americans lost only one man killed, and seven wounded. This gallant defense was universally ap plauded, 5 and it had a powerful effect upon the Indians. Proctor and Tecumtha left for Detroit, after this noble defense of Fort Stephenson, and the British abandoned all hope of capturing these western American posts, until they should become masters of Lake Erie. But while Vhe events just narrated were in progress, a new power appeared in the conflict in the West and North, and complicated the difficulties of the enemy. In the autumn of 1812. Commodore Chauncey had fitted out a small naval armament at Sackett s Harbor, to dispute the mastery, on Lake Ontario, with several British armed vessels then afloat. 8 And during the summer of 1813, Commo dore Oliver Hazzard Perry had prepared, on Lake Erie, an American squadron of nine vessels, 7 mounting fifty-four guns, to co-operate with the Army of the West. The British had also fitted out a small squadron of six vessels, carrying sixty- three guns, commanded by Commodore Barclay. Perry s fleet was ready by the 2d of August, but some time was occupied in getting several of his ves sels over the bar in the harbor of Erie. The hostile fleets met near the west ern extremity of Lake Erie on the morning of the 10th of September, 1813, and a very severe battle ensued. The brave Perry managed with the skill of an old admiral, and the courage of the proudest soldier. His flag-ship, the Lawrence, had to bear the brunt of the battle, and very soon she became an unmanageable wreck, having all her crew, except four or five, killed or wounded. Perry then left her, in an open boat, and hoisted his flag on the Niagara at the moment when that of the Lawrence fell. With this vessel he 1 George Croghan was a nephew of George Rogers Clarke [page 300]. He afterward rose to the rank of colonel, and held the office of inspector-general. He died at New Orleans in 1849. a In reply to Proctor s demand and threat, he said, in substance, that when the fort should be taken there would be none left to massacre, as it would not be given up while there was a man left to fight. 3 The British employed six six-pounders and a howitzer, in the siege. A howitzer is a piece f ordnance similar to a mortar, for hurling bomb-shells. * Note 4, page 242. 6 Major Croghan was immediately promoted to the rank of lieutenant- colonel; and the ladies of Chillicothe gave him an elegant sword. 6 Chauncey s squadron consisted of six vessels, mounting thirty-two guns, in all. The British squadron consisted of the same number of vessels, but mounting more than a hundred guns. Not withstanding this disparity, Chauncey attacked them near Kingston [note 5, page 180] early in November, damaged them a good deal, and captured and carried into Sackett s Harbor, a schooner belonging to the enemy. He then captured another schooner, which had $12,000 in specie on board, and the baggage of the deceased General Brock. See page 414. 7 Lawrence (flag-ship), 20 guns; Niagara, 20; Caledonian, 3; shooner Ariel, 4; Scorpion. 2; Somers, 2 guns and 2 swivels ; sloop Trippe, and schooners Tigress and Porcupine, of 1 gun eacn. PERRY ON LAKE ERIE. 1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 423 passed through the enemy s line, pouring broadsides, right and left, at half pistol-shot distance. The remainder of the squadron followed, with a fair wind, and the victory was soon decided. At four o clock in the afternoon, every British vessel had surrendered to him ; J and before sunset, he had sent a mes senger to General Harrison with the famous dispatch, " We have met the enemy, and they are ours." This victory was hailed with unbounded demon strations of joy. For a moment, party rancor was almost forgotten ; and bon fires and illuminations lighted up the whole country. Perry s victory was followed by immediate and energetic action on the part of Harrison. The command of Lake Erie now being secured, and a reinforce ment of four thousand Kentucky volunteers, under Governor Shelby, the old hero of King s Mountain, 8 having arrived [Sept. 17, 1813], the general pro ceeded to attack Maiden and attempt the recovery of Detroit. The fleet con veyed a portion of the troops across the lake [Sept 27], but on their arrival at Maiden, it had been deserted by Proctor, who was fleeing, with Tecumtha and his Indians, toward the Moravian village, on the Thames, eighty miles from 1 The carnage was very great, in proportion to the numbers engaged. The Americans lo?t twenty-seven killed, and ninety-six wounded. The British lost about" two hundred in killed and wounded, and six hundred prisoners. Perry s treatment of his prisoners received the highest ap plause. Commodore Barclay declared that his humane conduct was sufficient to immortalize him. That brave commander was born at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1785. He entered the service as midshipman, in 1798. He continued in active service after the close of the Second War for Inde pendence, and died of yellow fever, in the "West India Seas, in 1819. It was his brother, Com modore M. C. Perry, who, as we shall observe, effected a treaty with Japan. a Page 417. 424 THE NATION. [1813. Detroit. 1 A body of Americans took possession of Detroit on the 29th of Sep tember ; and on the 2d of October, Harrison and Shelby, with Colonel Richard M. Johnson and his cavalry (thirty-five hundred strong), started in pursuit of the enemy. 3 They overtook them [Oct. 5] at the Moravian town, when a des perate battle ensued. Tecumtha was slain; 3 and then his dismayed followers, who had fought furiously, broke and fled. Almost the whole of Proctor s com mand were killed or made prisoners, and the general himself narrowly escaped, with a few of his cavalry. Here the Americans recaptured six brass field- pieces which had been surrendered by Hull, on two of which were engraved the words, "Surrendered by Burgoyne at Saratoga." 4 These pieces are now at the United States military post of West Point, on the Hudson. 6 The battle on the Thames was a very important one. By that victory, all that Hull 8 had lost was recovered ; the Indian confederacy 7 -was completely broken up, and the war on the north-western borders of the Union was termi nated. The name of Harrison was upon every lip ; and throughout the entire Republic, there was a general outburst of gratitude. He was complimented by Congress, and by various public bodies ; and a member of the House of Repre sentatives asserted, in his place, that his victory was "such as would have secured to a Roman general, in the best days of the republic, the honors of a triumph." Security now being given to the frontier, General Harrison dis missed a greater portion of the volunteers ; and leaving General Cass, with about a thousand regulars, to garrison Detroit, proceeded [Oct. 23, 1813] to Niagara, with the remainder of his troops, to join the Army of the Center, 8 which had been making some endeavors to invade Canada. In the mean while, an Indian war had been kindled in the South ; 9 and on the ocean, the laurel wreaths of triumph won by the Americans during 181 2, 10 had been interwoven with garlands of cypress on account of reveises. Let us turn a moment to the operations of the Army of the North. 11 Hostilities were kept up on portions of the northern frontier, during the winter, as well as in the West. In February [1813], a detachment of British soldiers crossed the St. Lawrence on the ice, from Prescott to Ogdensburg, and under pretense of seeking for deserters, committed robberies. Major Forsyth, then in command of riflemen there, retaliated. This was resented, in turn, by 1 In the present town of Orford, West Canada, 2 Commodore Perry and General Cass (late United States Senator from Michigan) accom panied General Harrison as volunteer aids. The Americans moved with such rapidity that they traveled twenty-six miles the first day. 3 Tecumtha was then only about forty years of age. Tie was a man of great ability, and had he been born and educated in civilized society, his powerful intellect would have made him one of the most distinguished characters of the age. He possessed great dignity, and always maintained it in his deportment. On one occasion he was to attend a conference held with Harrison. A circle of the company had been formed ; and when he came and entered it, there was no seat for him, Harrison s aid having taken the one by the side of the general, intended for him. Harrison per ceived that Tecumtha was offended, and told his aid to invite the chief to the seat near him. The aid politely said to Tecumtha. "Your father requests you to take a seat by his side." The offended chief drew his blanket around him, and, with an air of great dignity, said, "The Great Spirit is my father, and I will repose on the bosom of my mother;" and then sat down upon the ground. 4 Page 281. 6 Note 2, page 324. 6 Page 411. 7 Page 408. 8 Page 412. Page 428. lo Page 415. " Page 412. 1813.] THE SECOXD WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 425 a British force of twelve hundred men, who crossed on the 21st of February, and after a conflict of an hour, drove out the few military defenders of Ogdens- burg, plundered and destroyed a large amount of property, and then returned to Canada. 1 These events accelerated the gathering of the militia in that quar ter. Bodies of new levies arrived, almost daily, at Sackett s Harbor, but these, needing discipline, were of little service, as a defense of the country between that point and Ogdensburg. Being unable to afford assistance to the exposed points in that region, Gen eral Dearborn, the commander-in-chief, 2 resolved to attempt the capture of York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, and the principal depository of British military stores for the supply of western garrisons. He embarked seventeen hundred troops on board the fleet of Commodore Chauncey, 3 at Sack ett s Harbor, on the 25th of April ; and two days afterward [April 27], they landed on the beach at York, about two miles west from the British works, in the face of a galling fire from regulars and Indians, tinder General Sheaffe. These were soon driven back to their fortifications, and the Americans, under General Pike, 4 pressed forward, captured two redoubts, and were advancing upon the main work, when the magazine of the fort blew up, 5 hurling stones and timbers in every direc tion, and producing great destruction of life among the assailants. General Pike was mortally wounded, but he lived lono; enough to know that the enemy had fled, and A n i (* OEXEEAL PIKE. that the American flag waved in triumph over the fort at York. 6 The command then devolved on Colonel Pearce ; and at four o clock in the afternoon, the town was in possession of the Americans. General Dear born, who had remained with the fleet, landed soon after the fall of Pike, but did not assume the immediate command until after the surrender of the town. When the victory was completed, the fleet and troops returned [May 1] to Sackett s Harbor, but soon afterward proceeded to attack Fort George, on the western shore of Niagara River, near its mouth. After a brief defense [May 27, 1818], the garrison fled to Burlington Heights, at the western extremity of Lake Ontario, 7 thirty-five miles distant, closely pursued by a much larger force, 1 The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, twenty men. The British loss was about double that number. 2 Page 410. 8 Page 420. 4 General Dearborn had given the command of this expedition to Brigadier-General Zebulon M. Pike, a brave and useful officer, who had been at the head of an expedition, a few years earlier, to explore the country around the head waters of the Mississippi. He was born in New Jersey, in 1779. He died on board the flag-ship of Commodore Chauncey, with the captured British flag under his head, at the age of thirty-four years. In the burial-ground attached to Madison barracks, at Sackett s Harbor, is a dilapidated wooden monument erected over the remains of General Pike and some of his companions in arms. "When the writer visited the spot, in 1 860, it was wasting with decay, and falling to the earth. Such a neglect of the burial-place of the illustrious dead, is a disgrace to our government. 6 The British had laid a train of wet powder communicating with the magazine, for the purpose, and when they retreated, they fired it. 6 General Sheaffe escaped, with the principal part of the troops, but lost all his baggage, books, papers, and a large amount of public property. 7 At the head of Burlington Bay, in Canada, 426 THE NATION. [1813. under Generals Chandler 1 and Winder. 8 In this affair, Colonel (now Lieutenant- General) Scott was distinguished for his skill and bravery. On the night of the 6th of June, the British fell upon the American camp, at Stony Creek, 3 but were repulsed. It was very dark, and in the confusion both of the American generals were made prisoners. A British squadron appeared before Sacketfs Harbor on the same day play 27] that the Americans attacked Fort George : and two days afterward [May 29J Sir George Prevost and a thousand soldiers landed in the face of a severe fire from some regulars 4 stationed there. The regular force of the Amer icans consisted of only a few seamen, a company of artillery, and about two hundred invalids not more than five hundred men in all. General Jacob Brown, the commander at that station, rallied the militia, and their rapid gathering, at and near the landing-place, back of Horse Island, so alarmed Prevost, lest they should cut off his retreat, that he hastily re-embarked, leaving almost the whole of his wounded behind. Had he been aware of the condition of his opposers, he could have made an easy conquest of Sackett s Harbor. The raw militia had become panic-stricken at the first, and when Prevost retreated, they, too, were endeavoring to make their way to places of safety in the country. A change in the administration of military affairs occurred soon after the event at Sackett s Harbor. For some time, the infirmities of General Dearborn, the conimander-in-chief, 5 had disqualified him for active participation in the operations of the army, and in June [1813] he withdrew from the service. He was succeeded in command by General James Wilkinson, 6 who, like Dearborn, had been an active young officer in the War for Independence. General John Armstrong, 7 then Secretary of War, had conceived another invasion of Canada, by the united forces of the armies of the Center and North. 8 For this purpose a little more than seven thousand men were concentrated at French Creek on the 5th of November, 1813, and on that morning went down the St. Lawrence in boats, with the intention of co-operating with about four thousand troops under Hampton, 9 in an attack upon Montreal. They landed the same evening, a few miles abave the British fort at Prescott, opposite Ogdensburg. It being foggy, Wilkinson attempted to pass down the river upon the flotilla commanded by General Brown. The fog cleared away, and the moon revealed the Amer- 1 John Chandler was a native of Massachusetts. Some years after the war he was United States Senator from Maine. He died at Augusta, in that State, in 1841. 2 Page 436. 3 In the present township of Saltfleet, Canada West. In this affair the Americans lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, one hundred and fifty-four. 4 Note 6, page 185. 6 Page 410. 8 James Wilkinson was born in Maryland, in 1*75*7, and studied medicine. He joined the con tinental army at Cambridge, in 1775, and continued in service during the war. He commanded the western division of the United States army at the beginning of the century, and became some what involved, as we have seen [page 396], in Burr s scheme, in 1806. He died near the city of Mexico, in 1825, at the age of sixty-eight years. 7 Note 4, page 349. John Armstrong was a son of Colonel John Armstrong, of Pennsylvania [page 191], and was born at Carlisle, in that State, in 1758. He served in the War of the Revolu tion; was Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania ; minister to France in 1804; Secretary of War in 1813 ; and died in Duchess county, New York, in 1843. 8 Note 3, page 412. 9 Page 410. 1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 427 leans to the garrison of the fort. The latter immediately opened a heavy fire, and being thus annoyed by the enemy on shore, and by gun-boats 1 in his rear, Wilkinson landed Brown and a strong detachment to go forward and disperse quite a large force near Williamsburg, and to cover the descent of the boats. A severe battle ensued [November 11] in which the Americans lost more than three hundred men in killed and wounded, and the British about two hundred. This is known as the battle of Chrysler s Field. The locality is on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, a little more than thirty miles below Ogdensburg, and about ninety above Montreal. General Wilkinson arrived at St. Regis 2 the next day, with the main body, when he was informed that no troops from the army of the North would join him. 3 He therefore abandoned the expedition against Montreal, and went into winter quarters at French Mills (now Fort Covington, in St. Lawrence county), about nine miles east of St. Regis. A little later, some stirring events occurred on the Niagara frontier. General M Clure, commander at Fort Georo-e/ burnt the Canadian village of Newark on the 10th of December. O ; o Two days later [December 12, 1813] he was compelled by the British to abandon Fort George. A strong force of British and Indians then surprised and captured [December 19] Fort Niagara, on the east side of the Niagara River, near its mouth; 5 and in retaliation for FORT NIAGARA, 1813. the burning of Newark, they laid Youngstown, Lewiston, Manchester (now Niagara Falls), and the Tuscarora Indian village, in Niagara county, in ashes. On the 80th, the little villages of BLick Rock and Buffalo 6 were also consumed, and a large amount of public and private property was destroyed. With these events ended the campaign of 1813, m the North. Affairs in the extreme South assumed a serious aspect during the summer of 1813. In the spring of that year, Tecumseh (who was slain on the Thames a few months later) 7 went among the Southern tribes, to arouse them to wage war upon the white people. The powerful Creeks 8 yielded to his persuasions ; and late in August [30th], a large party of them surprised and captured Fort Minims, on the Alabama River, 9 and massacred about four hundred men, 1 Page 401. a This is an old French and Indian settlement on the St. Lawrence, at the mouth of the St. Regis River, about fifty miles below Ogdensburg. The dividing line (45th degree) between the United States and Canada, passes through the center of the village. 3 There was an enmity between Wilkinson and Hampton, and Armstrong resolved to command the expedition himself, to prevent trouble on account of precedence. He joined the army at Sackett s Harbor, but soon returned to Washington, for he and Wilkinson could not agree. To the jealousies and bickerings of these old officers, must the disasters of the land troops be, in a great degree, attributed. G-eneral Hampton did move forward toward Canada, but finally fell back to Plattsburg, and leaving the command with General Izard, returned to South Carolina. He died at Columbia, South Carolina, in 1835, aged eighty-one years. 4 Page 414. 6 Page 200. 6 Buffalo was then a small village, containing about fifteen hundred inhabitants, and was utterly destroyed. It is now [1867] one of the stateliest commercial cities on the continent, with a popu lation of not much less than one hundred thousand. 7 Page 424. 8 Page 30. 9 On the east side of the Alabama, about ten miles above its junction with the Tombigbee. 428 THE NATION. [1813. women, and children. This event aroused the whole South. General Andrew Jackson, 1 accompanied by General Coffee, marched into the Creek country, with twenty-five hundred Tennessee militia, and prosecuted a subjugating war against them, with great vigor. On the 3d of November, General Coffee, 3 with nine hundred men, sur rounded an Indian force at Tallushatchee, 3 and killed two hundred of them. Not a warrior escaped. Within ten weeks afterward, bloody battles had been fought at Talladega 4 [November 8], Autossee 5 [November 29], and Emucfau 6 [January 22d, 1814], and several skirmishes had also taken place. The Americans were always victorious, yet they lost many brave soldiers. At length the Creeks established a fortified camp at the Great Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, 7 and there a thousand warriors, with their women and children, determined to make a last defensive stand. The Americans sur rounded them, and Jackson, with the main body of his army, attacked them on the 27th of March, 1814. The Indians fought desperately, for they saw no future for themselves, in the event of defeat. Almost six hundred warriors were slain, for they disdained to surrender. Only two or three were made prisoners, with about three hundred women and children. This battle crushed the power and spirit of the Creek nation, and soon afterward the chiefs of the remnant signified their submission. 8 It was a sad scene to the eyes of the benevolent and good, to see these ancient tribes of our land, who were then making rapid strides in the progress of civilization, so utterly ruined by the destroying hand of war. They found that might made right, in the view of their subjugators, and they were compelled to make a treaty of peace upon the terms dictated by their conquerors. Thus, time after time since the advent of the white people here, have the hands of the stronger been laid upon the weaker, until now nothing but remnants of once powerful nations remain. The naval operations upon the ocean, during the year 1813, were very im portant. Many and severe conflicts between public and private armed vessels of the United States and Great Britain, occurred ; and at the close of the year, the balance-sheet of victories showed a preponderance in favor of the former." Toward the end of February, the United States sloop of war Hornet, Cap- 1 Page 460. 2 John Coffee was a native of Virginia. He did good service during the second "War for Inde pendence, and in subsequent campaigns. He died in 1834. 3 South side of Tallushatchee Creek, near the village of Jacksonville, in Benton county, Ala- "bama. A little east of the Coosa River, in the present Talladega county. On the bank of the Tallapoosa, twenty miles from its junction with the Coosa, in Macon county. On the west bank of the Tallapoosa, at the mouth of Emucfau Creek, in Tallapoosa county. Called Tohopeka by the Indians. Near the north-east corner of Tallapoosa county. Among those who bowed in submission was Weathersford, their greatest leader. He appeared suddenly before Jackson, in his tent, and standing erect, he said: "I am in your power; do with me what you please. I have done the white people all the harm I could. I have fought them, and fought them bravely. My warriors are all gone now, and I can do no more. "When there was a chance for success, I never asked for peace. There is none now, and I ask it for the remnant of my nation." 9 More than seven hundred British vessels were taken by the American navy and privateer during the years 1812 and 1813. 1813.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 429 tain Lawrence, fought [Feb. 24, 1813] the British brig Peacock, off the mouth of Demarara River, South America. The Peacock surrendered, after a fierce conflict of fifteen minutes, and a few moments afterward she sank, carry ing down with her nine British seamen and three Americans. The loss of the Peacock, in killed and wounded, was thirty-seven ; of the Hornet only five. The generous conduct of Captain Lawrence, toward his enemy on this occasion, drew from the officers of the Peacock, on their arrival in New York, a public letter of thanks. 1 This, of itself, was a wreath of honor for the victor, more glorious than his triumph in the sanguinary conflict. On his return to the United States, Captain Lawrence was promoted to the command of the frigate Chesapeake ; and on the 1st of June, 1813, he sailed from Boston harbor, in search of the British frigate, Shannon, which had recently appeared off the New England coast, and challenged any vessel, of equal size, to meet her. Lawrence found the boaster the same day, about thirty miles from Boston light; and at five in the afternoon, a furious action began. The two vessels soon became entangled. Then the Britons boarded the Chesapeake, and after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, hoisted the British flag. Lawrence was mortally wounded at the beginning of the action ; and when he was carried below, he uttered those brave words of com mand, which Perry afterward displayed on his flag-ship on Lake Erie, " Dont give up the ship /" The combat lasted only fifteen minutes ; but in that tims, the Chesapeake had forty-eight killed and ninety-eight wounded ; the Shannon twenty-three killed, and fifty-six wounded. The body of Lawrence, 2 with that -of Ludlow, the second in command, was carried to Halifax, in the victorious Shannon, and there buried with the honors of war. This event caused great sadness in America, and unbounded joy in England. 3 Another disaster followed the loss of the Chesapeake. It was the capture of the American brig Argus, Captain Allen, in August. The Argus, in the spring [1813], had conveyed Mr. Crawford, United States minister, to France, and for two months had greatly annoyed British shipping in the English Chan- 1 They said, " So much was done to alleviate the uncomfortable and distressing situation in which we were placed, when received on board the ship you command, that we can not better express our feelings than by saying, we ceased to consider ourselves prisoners ; and every thing that friendship could dictate, was adopted by you and the officers of the Hornet, to remedy the inconvenience we otherwise should have experienced, from the unavoidable loss of the whole of our property and clothes, by the sudden sinking of the Peacock." The crew of the Hornet divided their clothing with the prisoners. 3 Captain James Lawrence was a native of New Jersey, and received a midshipman s warrant at the age of sixteen years. He was with Decatur at Tripoli [page 392], He died four days after receiving the wound, at the age of thirty-one years. A beautiful monument, in the form of a trun cated column and pedestal, was erected to his memory in Trinity church-yard, New York. This, in time became dilapidated, and, a few years ago, a new one, of another form, was erected near the south entrance to the church, a few feet from Broadway. 3 A writer of the time observed: "Never did any victory not those of Wellington in Spain, nor even those of Nelson call forth such expressions of joy on the part of the British ; a proof that our naval character had risen somewhat in their estimation." 430 THE NATION. [1813. nel. Several vessels were sent out to capture her ; and on the 14th of August, the sloop of war 1 Pelican, after a brief, but severe action, defeated the Argus. In less than a month afterward [Sept. 10], Perry gained his great victory on Lake Erie ; a and the British brig Boxer, Captain Blythe, had surrendered [Sept. 5, 1813], to the United States brig Enterprise, Lieutenant Burrows, after an engagement of forty minutes, off the coast of Maine. Blythe and Bur rows, young men of great promise, were both slain during the action, and their bodies were buried in one grave at Portland, with military honors. A distressing warfare upon the coast between Delaware Bay and Charleston, was carried on during the spring and summer of 1813, by a small British squadron under the general command of Admiral Cockburn. His chief object was to draw the American troops from the northern frontier to the defense of the seaboard, and thus lessen the danger that hung over Canada. It was a sort of amphibious warfare on land and water and was marked by many acts of unnecessary cruelty. The British had talked of * l chastising the Americans into submission," and the method now employed was the instrument. On the 4th of February, 1813, two ships of the line, three frigates, and other British vessels, made their appearance at the capes of Virginia. 3 At about the same time, another British squadron entered the Delaware River, destroyed the American shipping there in March, and in April cannonaded the town of Lewiston. In May, Frenchtown, Havre de Grace, Georgetown, and Frederick- town, on the Chesapeake, were plundered and burned ; and then the combined British fleet entered Hampton Roads, 4 and menaced Norfolk. While attempt ing to go up to that city, the enemy were nobly repulsed [Jan. 22, 1813] by the Americans upon Craney Island, 5 under the command of Major Faulkner, assisted by naval officers. The British then fell upon Hampton [Jan. 25] ; and having surfeited themselves with plunder, withdrew. Cockburn 6 sailed dowii the North Carolina coast, marauding whenever opportunity offered, and carried away a large number of negroes and sold them in the West Indies. In pleas ant contrast to this, was the deportment of Commodore Hardy, whose squadron -was employed during the same season, in blockading the New England coast. Although he landed upon our shores frequently, yet his conduct was always that of a high-minded gentleman and generous enemy. 7 During the year 1813, the United States frigate Essex, Captain Porter, made a long and successful cruise in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It oc cupied the time from April until October. The Essex carried at her mast head the popular motto, "Free Trade and Sailor s Rights ;" and, while in 1 Page 415. 2 Page 423. 3 Page 64. 4 Note 3, page 297. 6 Craney Island is low and bare, and lies at the mouth of the Elizabeth River, about five miles below Norfolk. At the time in question, there were some unfinished fortifications upon it. These were strengthened and added to by the insurgents during the late Civil War. e Cockburn died in England in 1853, at an advanced age, 7 Congress had passed an act, offering a reward of half their value for the destruction of British ships, by other means than those of the armed vessels of the United States. This was to encourage the use of torpedoes. The cruel forays upon the southern coasts seemed to warrant this species of dishonorable warfare. It was employed against Hardy s squadron. He was justly indignan^ and protested against it as unmanly. 1814] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 431 the Pacific, she captured twelve British whale-ships, with an aggregate of three hundred and two men, and one hundred and seven guns. The Essex was finally captured in the harbor of Valparaiso [March, 28, 1814], on the western coast of South America, by the British frigate Phcebe, and sloop of war Cherub, after one of the most desperately fought battles of the war. It is said that thousands of the inhabitants of Valparaiso covered the neighboring heights as spectators of the conflict. Perceiving the overpowering advantage of the British, their sympathies were strongly elicited in favor of the Essex. When any thing in her favor appeared, loud shouts went up from the multitude ; and when she was finally disabled and lost, they expressed their feelings in groans and tears. The Essex lost one hundred and fifty- four, in killed and wounded. Captain Porter 1 wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, " We have been, unfortunate, but not disgraced." CHAPTER VI. SECOND "WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, CONTINUED. [1814, 1815.] DURING the year 1814, the war was prosecuted by both parties with more zeal and vigor than hitherto. The means for supporting it were much aug mented by the government of the United States, notwithstanding the public credit was much depreciated, and treasury notes fell as low as seventeen per cent, below par. At the same time, Great Britain seemed to put forth increased energy, and her vessels of war hovered along our entire coast, and kept the sea port towns in a state of continual alarm. Early in that year, the victorious career of Napoleon, in Europe, was checked by the allied powers. Almost all of the governments of continental Europe, with that of England, had combined to crush him, and sustain the sinking Bourbon dynasty. Their armies were allied in a common cause. These, approaching from different directions, reached Paris, at the close of March, 1814, when the Russian and Prussian emperors entered the city. a Hoping to secure the crown to his son, Napoleon abdicated in his favor on the 4th of April, and retired to Elba. Peace for Europe 1 Commodore David Porter was among the most distinguished of the American naval com manders. He was a resident minister of the United States in Turkey, and died, near Constantin ople, in March, 1843. a Russians, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, advanced from Switzerland; Blucher led one hundred and thirty thousand Prussians from Germany ; Bernadotte, the old companion-in-arms of Napoleon, was at the head of one hundred thousand Swedes, and marched through Holland ; and the English, in great power, advanced from Spain, under "Wellington. A battle at Montmartre left Paris exposed to the enemy, and Alexander and Frederic took possession of the capital on the Slat 432 THE NATION. [1814. seemed certain. British troops were withdrawn from the continent, and early in the summer of 1814, fourteen thousand of Wellington s veterans were sent to Canada 1 to operate against the United States. Considering the moral and material weakness of the American army, hitherto, the circumstance of the continual employment of the British troops on the continent, was highly favor able to the United States. Had Europe been at peace, the result of this second War for Independence might have been quite different. The favorite project of the public authorities continued to be the invasion of Canada ; 2 and to oppose it, was the chief solicitude of the British officers on our northern frontiers. The principal force of the enemy in Upper Canada, was placed under the chief command of Lieutenant-General Drummond, late in the season ; while the American army on the Niagara frontier was commanded by General Brown, at the same time. General Wilkinson was still in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence, and toward the close of February, he broke up his camp at French Mills, 8 and retired to Plattsburg ; while General Brown, with two thousand men, marched to Sackett s Harbor, prepara tory to his departure for the Niagara. Late in March, Wilkinson proceeded to erect a battery at Rouse s Point, at the foot of Lake Champlain; and at La GENERAL BROWN. Colle, three miles below, he had an unsuccessful engagement [March 30] with the British. The disas trous result of this affair brought Wilkinson into disrepute, and he was tried by a court-martial, but acquitted of all charges alleged against him. He had been suspended from all command, in the mean while, and the charge of the troops was given to General Izard. Preparations had been making on Lake Ontario, during the winter and spring, by both parties, to secure the control of that inland sea. Sir James Yeo was in command of a small British squadron, and on the 5th of May [1814], he appeared before Oswego, accompanied by about three thousand land troops and marines. 4 Oswego was then defended by only about three hundred troops under Colonel Mitchell, and a small flotilla under Captain Woolsey. The chief object of the expedition was to capture or destroy a large quantity of naval and military stores, deposited at Oswego Falls, 5 but the gallant band of Americans at the harbor defeated the project. They withstood an attack, by land and water, for almost two days, before they yielded to a superior force. Afraid to penetrate the country toward the Falls, in the face of such deter mined opponents, the British withdrew on the morning of the 7th [May, 1814] > 1 These were embarked at Bourdeaux, in France, and sailed directly for the St. Lawrence, without even touching the shores of England. a Page 410. Page 427. 4 The fort on the east side of the river was then in quite a dilapidated state, and formed but a feeble defense for the troops. It was strengthened after this attack. * At the present village of Fulton, on the east side of Oswego River, and about twelve miiea from the harbor. 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 433 after losing two hundred and thirty-five men, in killed and wounded. The Americans lost sixty-nine. Toward the close of June, General Brown marched from Sackett s Harbor 1 to the Niagara frontier ; and on the morning of the 3d of July, Generals Scott and Bipley 2 crossed the river, with a considerable force, and captured Fort Erie, which was situated on the Canada side of the Niagara River, nearly opposite Black Rock. The garrison withdrew to the intrenched camp of the British General Riall, then at Chippewa, 8 a few miles below. On the morning of the 4th [July, 1814], Brown advanced, and on the 5th the two armies had a sanguinary battle in the open fields at Chippewa. The British were repulsed, with a loss of about five hundred men, and retreated to Burlington Heights, 4 where they were reinforced by troops under General Drummond, who assumed the chief command in person. The Americans lost a little more than three hundred. General Drummond was mortified by this discomfiture of his veteran troops by what he considered raw Americans, and he resolved to wipe out the stain. Collecting every regiment from Burlington and York, with some from Kingston and Prescott, he prepared for a renewal of combat. With a force about one third greater than that of Brown, 6 he immediately advanced to meet the Amer, icans. The latter had encamped at Bridgewater, near Niagara Falls ; and there, at the close of a sultry day, and within the sound of the great cataract s thunder, one of the most destructive battles of the war began. 6 It commenced at sunset and ended at midnight [July 25, 1814], when the Americans had lost eight hundred and fifty-eight men in killed and wounded, and the British twenty more than that. The Americans were left in quiet possession of the field, but were unable to carry away the heavy artillery which they had cap tured. 7 Brown and Scott being wounded, 8 the command devolved on Ripley, and the following day [July 26] he withdrew to Fort Erie, where General Games, 8 a senior officer, who arrived soon afterward, assumed the chief com mand. Having recovered from his wound, Drummond again advanced, with five 1 Page 432. 2 The late "Winfield Scott was Lieutenant -General, and commander-in-chief of the army of the United States, in 1861, when he retired from the service. General James Ripley remained in the army after the war, and died on the 2d of March, 1839. 8 On the Canada shore, about two miles above Niagara Falls. 4 Page 425. 5 Jacob Brown was born in Pennsylvania, in 1775. He engaged in his country s service in 1813, and soon became distinguished. He was made Major-General in 1814 He was General- in-chief of the United States army in 1821, and held that rank and office when he died, in 1828. 8 The hottest of the fight was in and near an obscure road known aS Lundy s Lane. This battle is known by the respective names of Bridgewater, Lundy s Lane, and Niagara Falls. 7 After the Americans had withdrawn, a party of the British returned and carried off their artillery. This event was so magnified, in the English accounts of the battle, as to make the victory to appear on the side of the British. 8 The British Generals Drummond and Riall were also wounded. General Scott led the advance in the engagement, and for an hour maintained a most desperate conflict, when he was reinforced. It was quite dark, and General Riall and his suite were made prisoners by the gallant Major Jesup. A British battery upon an eminence did terrible execution, for it swept the whole field. This was assailed and captured by a party under Colonel Miller, who replied, when asked by General Brown if he could accomplish it, "I ll try, sir." Three times the British attempted to recapture this bat tery. In the last attempt, Drummond was wounded. 9 Page 398. 28 434 THE NATIOX. thousand men, and on the 4th of August appeared before Fort Erie, and com menced preparations for a siege. From the 7th until the 14th, there was an almost incessant cannonade between the besiegers and the besieged. On the 15th, Drummond made a furious assault, but was repulsed, with a loss of almost a thousand men. Very little was done by either party for nearly a month after this affair, when General Brown, who had assumed command again, ordered a sor tie [Sept. 17] from the fort. It was successful ; and the Americans pressed forward, destroyed the advanced works of the besiegers, and drove them toward Chippewa. In- NIAGAEA FRONTIER. formed, soon afterward, that General Izard was approach ing, 1 with reinforcements for Brown, Drummond retired to Fort George. 2 The Americans abandoned and destroyed Fort Erie in No vember [November 5], and, crossing the river, went into winter-quarters at Buffalo, Black Rock, and Batavia. Let us consider the military operations in northern New York, for a mo ment. Very little of interest transpired in the vicinity of Lake Champlain until toward the close of summer, when General Izard 3 marched [August, 1814] from Plattsburg, with five thousand men, to reinforce General Brown on the Niagara frontier, leaving General Macomb 4 in command, with only fifteen hundred men. Taking advantage of this circumstance, General Prevost, who led an army of fourteen thousand men, chiefly Wellington s veterans, to the invasion of the United States, marched for Plattsburg. During the spring and summer, the British and Americans had each constructed a small fleet on Lake Champlain, and those were now ready for operations ; the former under Com modore Downie, and the latter under Commodore Macdonough. 5 General Prevost arrived near Plattsburg on the 6th of September, when 1 Note 3, page 427. 2 Page 425. 3 George Izard was born in South Carolina, in 1777, and made military life his profession. After the war he left the army. He was governor of Arkansas Territory in 1825, and died at Little Eock, Arkansas, in 1828. 4 Alexander Macomb was born in the fort hi Detroit, in 1782, and entered the army at the age of seventeen years. He was made a brigadier in 1814. In 1835, he was General-in-chief of the armies of the United States, and died in 1841. 5 Thomas Macdonough was a native of Delaware. He was twenty-eight years of age at the time of the engagement at Plattsburg. The State of New York gave him one thousand acres of land on Plattsburg Bay, for his services. He died in 1825, at the age of thirty-nine years. Mac donough was always remarkable for cool courage. On one occasion, while first lieutenant of a vessel lying in the harbor of Gibraltar, an armed boat from a British man-of-war boarded an Amer ican brig anchored near, in the absence of the commander, and carried off a seaman. See page 401. Macdonough manned a gig, and with an inferior force, -made chase and recaptured the seaman. The captain of the man-of-war came aboard Macdonough s vessel, and, in a great rage, asked him how he dared to take the man from his majesty s boat. " He was an American seaman, and I did my duty," was the reply. " I 11 bring my ship alongside, and sink you," angrily cried the Briton. "That you can do," coolly responded Macdonough; "but while she swims, that man you will not have." The captain, roaring with rage, said, "Supposing / had been in the boat, would you have dared to commit such an act?" "I should have made the attempt, sir," was the calm reply. "What!" shouted the captain, "if I were to impress men from that brig, would you interfere?" "You have only to try it, sir," was Macdonough s tantalizing reply. The haughty Briton was over-matched, and he did not attempt to try the metal of such a brave young man. There were cannon-balls in his coolness, full of danger. 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 435 Macomb s little army, and quite a large body of militia under General Mooers, retired to the south side of the Saranac, and prepared to dispute its passage by the invaders. On the morning of the llth, the British fleet came around Cumberland Head, with a fair wind, and attacked Macdonough s squadron in Plattsburg Bay. 1 At the same time, the British land troops opened a heavy cannonade upon the Americans. After a severe engagement of two hours and twenty minutes, Macdonough became victor, and the whole British fleet was surrendered to him. 2 The land forces fought until dark, and every attempt of the British to cross the Saranac was bravely resisted. During the evening, Prevost hastily retreated, leaving his sick and wounded, and a large quantity of military stores, behind him. The British loss, in killed, wounded, and de serted, from the 6th to the llth, was about twenty-five hundred ; that of the Americans, only one hundred and twenty-one. The victory was applauded with the greatest enthusiasm throughout the land, and gave emphasis to the effect of another at Baltimore, which had been recently achieved. 1 When the British squadron appeared off Cumberland Head, Macdonough knelt on the deck of the Saratoga (his flag-ship), in the midst of his men. and prayed to the God of Battles for aid. A curious incident occurred during the engagement that soon followed. A British ball demolished a hen-coop on board the Saratoga. A cock, released from his prison, flew into the rigging, and crowed lustily, at the same time flapping his wings with triumphant vehemence. The seamen re garded the event as a good omen, and they fought like tigers, while the cock cheered them- on with, his Growings, until the British flag was struck and the firing ceased. * The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and sixteen ; the British, one hun dred and ninety-four. Among them was Commodore Downie, whose remains lie under a monu ment in a cemetery at Plattsburg, with those of several of his comrades. 436 THE NATION. [1814 So wide was the theater of war, that in our rapid view of it, the shifting scenes carry us alternately from the northern frontier to the western and south ern borders, and then upon the Atlantic and its coasts. The latter were expe riencing much trouble, while the whole frontier from the Niagara to the St. Lawrence was in commotion. The principal ports from New York to Maine were blockaded by British war- vessels ; and early in the spring, a depredating warfare again 1 commenced on the shores of the Chesapeake. These were but feebly defended by a small flotilla, 3 under the veteran, Commodore Barney; 8 and when, about the middle of August, a British squadron, of almost sixty sail, arrived in the bay, with six thousand troops, under General Ross, destined for the capture of Washington city, it proved of little value. Ross landed [Aug. 19, 1814] at Benedict, on the Patuxent (about twenty-five miles from its mouth), with five thousand men, and marched toward Washington city. 4 Bar ney s flotilla, lying higher up the stream, was abandoned and burned, and his marines joined the gathering land forces, under General Winder. Ross was one of Wellington s most active commanders, and Winder had only three thou sand troops to oppose him, one half of whom were undisciplined militia. A sharp engagement took place [Aug. 24] at Bladensburg, 5 a few miles from Washington city, when the militia fled, and Barney, fighting gallantly at the head of his seamen and marines, was made prisoner. 6 Ross pushed forward to Washington city the same day, burned the capitol, President s house, and other public and private buildings [August 24], and then hastily retreated [August 25] to his shipping. 7 The British ministry were greatly elated by the destruction of the public buildings and property at Washington, but their jubilant feelings were not shared by the best of the English people at large. The act was denounced, in severe terms, on the floor of the British House of Commons ; and throughout civilized Europe, it was considered a disgrace to the perpetrators and abettors. General Ross, however, seemed to glory in it as heartily as did the marauder, Cockburn ; and, flushed with success, he proceeded to attack Baltimore, where the veteran, General Smith, 8 was in command. That officer, in connection with 1 Page 430. 2 It consisted of a cutter (a vessel with one mast), two gun-boats [page 401], and nine barges, or boats propelled by oars. 3 He was born in Baltimore in 1*759. He entered the naval service of the Ee volution in 1775, and was active during the whole war. He bore the American flag to the French National Con vention in 1796, and entered the French service. He returned to America in 1800, took part in the "War of 1812, and died at Pittsburg in 1818. 4 Another small squadren was sent up the Potomac, but effected little else than plunder. 6 Note 1, page 392. 8 Until the latest moment, it was not known whether "Washington or Baltimore was to be at tacked. Winder s troops, employed for the defense of both cities, were divided. The loss of the British, in killed, wounded, and by desertion, was almost a thousand men ; that of the Americans was about a hundred killed and wounded, and a hundred and twenty taken prisoners. The Pres ident and his Cabinet were at Bladensburg when the British approached, but returned to the city when the conflict began, and narrowly escaped capture. 7 "Washington then contained about nine hundred houses, scattered, in groups, over a surface of three miles. The Great Bridge across the Potomac was also burnt. The light of the conflagra tion was distinctly seen at Baltimore, forty miles distant. 8 Samuel Smith, the brave commander of Fort Mifflin [page 275] in 1777. He was born in 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOB INDEPENDENCE. 437 General Strieker, rallied the militia of the city and vicinity, and soon almost fif teen thousand men were under arms, to defend the town. Ross landed [Sept. 12, 1814], with almost eight thousand troops, at North Point, fourteen miles from the city, while a portion of the fleet went up the Patapsco to bombard Fort M Henry. He immediately pressed forward, but was soon met by the advanced corps of General Strieker, and a slight skirmish ensued. Ross was killed, and the command devolved on Colonel Brooke, who continued to advance. A severe battle now commenced, which continued an hour and a quarter, when the Americans fell back, in good order, toward the city. In this engagement the British lost about three hundred men ; the Americans, one hundred and sixty- three. Both parties slept on their arms that night ; and the following morn ing [Sept. 13], the British advanced, as if to attack the city. The fleet, in the mean while, had opened its bombs and cannons upon the fort, whose garrison, under Major Armistead, made a most gallant defense. The bombardment con tinued most of the day and night, and no less than fifteen hundred bombshells were thrown. The people in the city felt in immediate danger of an attack from the land troops ; but toward the morning of the 14th, these silently em barked, and the disheartened and discomfited enemy withdrew. 1 This defense was hailed as an important victory. 3 The whole Atlantic coast, eastward from Sandy Hook, 3 was greatly annoyed by small British squadrons, during the summer of 1814. These captured many American coasting vessels, and sometimes menaced towns with bombard ment. Finally, in August, Commodore Hardy 4 appeared before Stonington, and opened a terrible storm of bombshells and rockets 5 upon the town. The attack continued four successive days [August 9-12], and several times land forces attempted to debark, but were always driven back by the militia. The object of this unprovoked attack seems to have been, to entice the American forces from New London, so that British shipping might go up the Thames, and destroy some American frigates, then near Norwich. The expedient sig nally failed, and no further attempt of a similar kind was made on the Connecti cut coast. Further eastward, that part of Maine which lies between the Penobscot River and Passamaquoddy Bay, became a scene of stirring events. On the first Pennsylvania in 1752 ; entered the revolutionary army in 1776 ; afterward represented Baltimore in Congress many years; and died in April, 1839. 1 General Smith estimated the entire loss of the British, in their attack upon Baltimore, at " between six and seven hundred." 2 An event, connected with this attack on Baltimore, was the origin of the stirring song. The Star- Spangled Banner, which was written by Francis S. Key, of Georgetown, to the air of " Anacreon in Heaven." "With another gentleman, Key went, with a flag of truce, to attempt the release of a friend on board the British fleet. They were not allowed to return, lest they should disclose the intended attack on the city. From a British vessel they saw the bom bardment of Fort McHenry. They watched the American flag over the fort, all day, with great anxiety, until the darkness of the night hid it from view. With eager eyes, they looked in that direction at dawn, and, to their great joy, they saw the star-spangled banner yet waving over the ramparts. It inspired the poet. 3 Page 289. 4 Page 430. 5 Rockets used for setting fire to towns and shipping, are made similar to the common " sky rockets," but filled with inflammable substances, which are scattered over buildings and the rigging of ships. 438 THE NATION. [1814. of September [1814], the governor of Nova Scotia and Admiral Griffith entered the Penobscot River, seized the town of Castine, and, by proclamation, took possession of the country, then inhabited by about thirty thousand people. A few days afterward, the United States frigate John Adams entered the Penobscot after a successful cruise, and ran upon the rocks. While having her injuries repaired, she was attacked by several of the British sailing vessels and barges, manned by about a thousand men. Finding resistance to be vain, Captain Morris, her commander, fired her magazine, and blew her up. Difficulties again appeared in the south-west. We have already considered Jackson s successful warfare upon the Creek Indians. 1 In the course of the summer of 1814, he wrung from them a treaty, which completed their downfall, as a nation, and the war at the South was considered ended. They agreed to surrender a large portion of their beautiful and fertile country, as indemnity for the expenses of the war ; to allow the United States to make roads through the remainder ; and also not to hold intercourse with any British or Spanish posts. But the common enemy, favored by the Spaniards at Pensacola, soon appeared, and the Creeks again lifted their heads in hope, for a moment. A British squadron, cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, took possession of the forts at Pensacola, by permission of the Spanish authorities, and there fitted out an expedition against Fort Bower (now Fort Morgan), at the entrance to Mobile Bay, 2 then commanded by Major Lawrence. General Jackson then had his head-quarters at Mobile. The enemy appeared off Mobile Point on the 15th of September, and commenced the attack, by land and water, at about four o clock in the afternoon. Fort Bower was garrisoned by resolute men, and was armed with twenty pieces of cannon. Lawrence and his little band made a gallant defense ; and soon the British were repulsed, with the loss of a ship of war and many men. Among the British land troops on the occasion, were- two hundred Creek warriors. Jackson, now a Major-General in the army, and commander of the south western military district, assuming all the authority he was entitled to, held the Spanish governor of Florida responsible for the act of giving shelter to the enemies of the United States. Failing to obtain any satisfactory guaranty for the future, he marched from Mobile with about two thousand Tennessee militia and some Choctaw warriors, against Pensacola. On the Tth of November [18 14] he stormed the town, drove the British to their shipping, and finally from the harbor, and made the governor beg for mercy, and surrender Pensa cola and all its military works, unconditionally. The British fleet disappeared the next day [November 8], and the victor retraced his steps [November 9], His return was timely, for he was needed where extreme danger was menacing the whole southern country. On his arrival at Mobile, he found messages from New Orleans, begging his immediate march thither, for the British in the Gulf of Mexico, reinforced by thousands of troops from England, were about to invade Louisiana. Jackson instantly obeyed the summons, and arrived there; 1 Page 427. 2 On the east side, about thirty miles south from Mobile. 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 439 on the 2d of December. He found the people of New Orleans in the greatest alarm, but his presence soon restored quiet and confidence. By vigorous, and even rigorous measures (for he declared martial law), 1 he soon placed the city in a state of comparative security, 2 and when the British squadron, bearing General Packenham and about twelve thousand troops, many of them Welling ton s veterans, entered Lake Borgne, he felt confident of success, even against such fearful odds. On the 14th of December, a British fleet of barges, about forty in number, and conveying twelve hundred men, captured a flotilla of five American gun boats, in Lake Borgne, which were under the command of Lieutenant (late Com modore) Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. In the engagement the Americans lost, in killed and wounded, about forty ; the British loss was about three hundred. The destruction of these gun-boats gave the enemy power to choose his point of attack ; and eight days afterward [Dec. 22], about twenty-four hundred of the British, under General Keane, reached the Mississippi, nine miles below New Orleans. An American detachment, led by Jackson in person, fell upon their camp the following night [Dec. 23, 1814], but withdrew to a stronger position, after killing or wounding four hundred of the British. The Americans lost about one hundred. And now preparations were instantly made for the great battle which soon afterward ensued. Jackson concentrated his troops (about three thousand in number, and mostly militia) within a line of intrenchments 3 cast up four miles below the city of New Orleans, where they were twice cannonaded by the Brit ish, but without much effect. Finally, on the morning of the 8th of January, 1815, General Packenham, the Brit ish commander-in-chief, advanced with his whole force, numbering more than twelve thousand men, to make a gen eral assault. Having been reinforced by about three thousand militia (chief ly Kentuckians), Jackson now had six thousand expert marksmen con cealed behind his intrenchments, or stationed at the batteries on his ex tended line. A deep and ominous silence prevailed behind these defenses, until the British had approached within reach of the batteries, when the Americans opened a terrible cannonade. Yet the enemy continued to advance until within range of the American muskets and rifles. Volley after volley then poured a deadly storm of lead upon the 1 Note 8, page 170. 9 All the inlets, or bayous, were obstructed, and the banks of the Mississippi were so fortified as to prevent the ascent of vessels. A battery was erected on Chef Menteur, at the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain. 3 These intrenchments were a mile in length, extending from the river so far into the swamp, as to be impassable at the extremity. Along this line were eight distinct batteries, with heavy cannons; and on the opposite side of the river was a battery with fifteen cannons. BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 440 THE NATION. [1814. invaders. The British column soon wavered ; General Packenham fell in front of his troops, with not less than a thousand dead and wounded lying around him ; and, utterly amazed by the terrible fire of the Americans, the entire army fled in confusion, leaving seven hundred dead, and more than a thousand wounded, on the field. The fugitives hastened to their encampment [Jan. 9], and finally to their ships [Jan. 18], and escaped. 1 The Americans were so safely intrenched, that they lost only seven killed and six wounded, in this victorious battle. It was the crowning victory, 2 and last land battle of moment, of the SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 3 While the victory of the Americans at New Orleans saved that city from plunder and destruction, 4 and the whole Southern country from invasion, the 1 While these operations were in progress on the Mississippi, the British fleet had not been in active. Some vessels bombarded Fort St. Philip, below New Orleans, on the llth of January, and continued the attack for eight days without success. In the mean while, Admiral Cockburn [page 430] was pursuing his detestable warfare along the Carolina and Georgia coasts, menacing Charles ton and Savannah with destruction, and landing at obscure points to plunder the inhabitants. 3 During 1814, the war continued on the ocean, yet there were no battles of great importance. The Peacock captured the British brig Epervier, on the 29th of April, off the coast of Florida. The Wasp, Captain Blakely, also made a successful cruise, but after capturing her thirteenth prize, dis appeared, and was never heard of again. Probably lost in a storm. The President, Commodore Decatur, was captured off Long Island, on the 16th of January, 1815; and on the 20th of February following, the Constitution, Commodore Stewart, had a severe action with the British frigate Cyane, and sloop-of-war Levant, and captured both. Soon after this, the British brig Penguin was captured, but the proclamation of peace had then ended the war. 3 Page 409. 4 It is asserted, upon good authority, that Packenham s watchword, as he led his troops toward the city, was "Booty and Beauty," thereby indicating that plunder and ravishment should be the soldiers reward! We can hardly believe Sir Edward really contemplated such barbarity. 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 443 brave Jackson, whose skill and prowess had been chiefly instrumental in pro ducing that result, was mercilessly assailed by some persons in official station, who could not appreciate his pure motives and sturdy patriotism. Perceiving the necessity of prompt and vigorous action, Jackson had taken all power into his hands, on his arrival at New Orleans, ar 1 declared martial law. 1 Governor Claiborne 3 wisely and generously seconded tiie measure, and surrendering all authority into the hands of General Jackson, led a large body of the militia of his State to the field. Three days after the battle, the news of peace arrived ; and Judge Hall immediately ordered the arrest of Jackson, on a charge of con tempt of court.-^ " tie was tried; and the judge fined him a thousand dollars. The people hissed the official ; bore the brave general upon their shoulders from the court-room to the street, and then the immense crowd sent up a shout, such as went over the land with emphasis thirteen years later, when he was a candi date for the Chief Magistracy of the nation 4 "Hurrah for Jackson!" The blow aimed at him recoiled with fearful force upon his persecutors. The country was made vocal with rejoicings on account of the victory at New Orleans ; and Congress honored General Jackson with thanks and a gold medal. A little more than a month after the battle, a proclamation by the President [Feb. 18, 1815], that peace had been secured by treaty, spread a smile of tranquillity and happiness over the whole Union. 5 For more than a year, efforts toward that end had been put forth. As early as December, 1813, the British government had sent overtures of peace to that of the United States. They were forwarded by the British schooner Bramble, \* -h arrived at Annapolis, in Maryland, on the 1st of January, 1814, bearing L flag of truce. The President at once informed Congress of the fact, arid immedi ate action was had. The overtures were promptly met, in a conciliatory spirit, by the government of the United States, and commissioners were ap pointed by the two powers to negotiate a treaty. 6 For a long time the Amer ican commissioners were treated with neglect by the British government. They 1 Note 8, page 170. 3 William C. C. Claiborne was born in Virginia in 1775, and was educated at William and Mary College. He became an assistant clerk of the National House of Representatives at the age of six teen years ; and at the age of twenty-nine, President Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory. He had already become conspicuous as a lawyer in the West ; and at the age of twenty-two he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. He was elected to Congress the following year, and was a distinguished man in that body. He was elected governor of Louisiana when it became a State in 1812, and was acting in that capacity when the British menaced New Orleans. He left that office in 1817, when he was elected to the United States Senate. But his death was near, and he never entered that assembly. He died in November, 1817, in the forty- second year of his age. 8 A member of the Louisiana Legislature assailed Jackson by a newspaper publication. Jack son ordered his arrest. Judge Hall granted a writ of habeas corpus. Jackson, in the proper exer cise of his power under martial law, not only refused obedience to the mandates of the writ, but arrested the judge, and sent him orj of the city. For this "contempt of court" Jackson himself was arrested. His noble defense was written by Edward Livingston. 4 Page 459. 6 As we have observed, intelligence of the signing of the treaty reached New Orleans three days after the battle. It was not formally proclaimed until more than a month afterward. 6 The United States commissioners were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Joim Russel, and Albert Gallatin. Those of Great Britain were Admiral Lord Gambier, Henry Goulbourn, and William Adams. These commissioners are all dead. Mr. Clay, who died in 1852, was the last survivor. 444 THE NATION. [1814. "were suffered to remain in England unnoticed, for months, and then the ministry, jproposing first one place, and then another, for the negotiations, exhibited a trifling spirit, derogatory to true dignity. For half a year the treaty was prolonged in this way, until, finally, the commissioners of the two governments met in the city of Ghent, in Belgium, in the month of August, 1814. On the 24th of December following, a treaty was signed, which both governments speedily ratified. It stipulated a mutual restoration of all places and possessions taken during the war, or which might be taken after signing the treaty ; declared that all captures at sea should be relinquished, if made within specified times there after, in different parts of the world ; and that each party st-Mild mutually put a stop to Indian hostilities, and endeavor to extinguish the traffic in slaves. The boundaries, imperfectly adjusted by the treaty of 1783, 1 were all settled; but the subject of impressment of seamen, which was the chief cause of the war, 3 of paper blockades, 8 and orders in council, 4 were all passed by without specific notice, in the treaty. With this treaty ended the war, which had been in prog ress for two years and eight months ; and the proclamation of the fact was an occasion of the most sincere rejoicing throughout the United States and Great Britain, for it was an unnatural contest a conflict between brethren of the same blood, the same religion, the same laws, and the same literature. During these negotiations, the war, as we have seen, was vigorously prose cuted, and the opposition of the Federalists grew more intense. 5 It reached its culmination in December, when delegates, appointed by several New England Legislatures, 6 met [Dec. 15, 1814] in convention at Hartford, for the purposes of considering the grievances of the people, caused by a state of war, and to de vise speedy measures for its termination. 7 This convention, whose sessions were secret, was denounced as treasonable by the administration party ; but patriot ism appears to have prevailed in its councils, whatever may have been the de signs of some. Its plans for disunion or secession, if any were formed, were rendered abortive soon after its adjournment, by the proclamation of peace, fol lowed by the appointment of a day for national thanksgiving to the Almighty for the blessed event. That day was observed throughout the Union. The short time which remained of the session of Congress, after the proclam ation of peace, was occupied by that body in adapting the affairs of the govern ment to the new condition of things. The army was reduced to a peace ostab- ment of ten thousand men, and various acts, necessary for the public good during a state of war, were repealed. The naval establishment, however, was kept up ; and the depredations of Algerine cruisers caused Congress to author- 1 Page 348. 2 Note 5, page 409. 3 A port being blockaded by proclamation, without ships of war being there to maintain it This practice is no longer in vogue. 4 Note 1, page 400. 6 Page 410. 6 New Hampshire and Vermont were unrepresented, except by three county delegates. The Federalists in Vermont, especially, were now in a weak majority ; and Governor Gilman, of New Hampshire, the members of whose council were Democratic, could not call a meeting of the Legis lature to appoint delegates. 7 George Cabot was appointed President of the Convention, and Theodore Dwight, a former member of Congress from Connecticut, and then editor of the Hartfurd Union, was its secretary. The Convention was composed of twenty-six members. 1815.] THE SECOND WAR FOE INDEPENDENCE. 445 ize the President to send a squadron to the Mediterranean Sea. The results of the war, though apparently disastrous to all concerned at the time, were seen, subsequently, to have been highly beneficial to the United States, not so much in a material as in a moral aspect. The total cost of the war to the United States was about one hundred millions of dollars, and the loss of lives, by bat tles and other casualties incident to the war, has been estimated at thirty thou sand persons. The cost of blood and treasure to the British nation was muck greater. During the war, the Americans captured, on the ocean and on the lakes, fifty-six British vessels of war, mounting 886 cannons ; and 2,360 mer chant vessels, mounting 8,000 guns. There were also lost on the American coast, during the war, by wreck or otherwise, twenty-nine British ships of war, mounting about 800 guns. The Americans lost only twenty-five vessels of war,, and a much less number of merchant-ships than the British. 1 The clouds of an almost three years war had scarcely disappeared from the firmament, when others suddenly arose. The contest with England had but just ended, when the United States were compelled to engage in a brief WAR WITH ALGIERS. As we have observed, 2 the United States had paid tribute to Algiers since 1795. Every year, as his strength increased, the ruler of that Barbary State became more insolent, 8 and, finally, believing that the United States navy had been almost annihilated by the British in the late contest, he made a pretense for renewing depredations upon American commerce, in violation of the treaty. The American government determined to pay tribute no longer, accepted the challenge, and in May, 1815, Commodore Decatur 4 proceeded with a squadron to the Mediterranean, to humble the pirate. Fortunately, the Algerine fleet was cruising in the Mediterranean, in search of American vessels. On the 17th of June [1815], Decatur met and captured the flag-ship (a frigate) of the Al gerine admiral, and another vessel with almost six hundred men, and then sailed for the Bay of Algiers. He immediately demanded [June 28] the instant sur render of all American prisoners, full indemnification for all property destroyed, and absolute relinquishment of all claims to tribute from the United States, in future. Informed of the fate of a part of his fleet, the Dey 6 yielded to the humiliating terms, and signed a treaty [June 30] to that effect. Decatur then sailed for Tunis, and demanded and received [July, 1815] from the bashaw, forty-six thousand dollars, in payment for American vessels which he had allowed the English to capture in his harbor. The same demand, on the same account, was made upon the bashaw of Tripoli, 6 and Decatur received [August] twenty-five thousand dollars from him and the restoration of prisoners. This cruise in the Mediterranean gave full security to American commerce in those 1 For details, see Lossing s Pictorial Meld- Book of the War 0/1812. 2 Page 381. 3 Page 381. In 1812, the Dey compelled Mr. Lear, the American consul [page 395], to paj him $27,000 for the safety of himself, family, and a few Americans, under the penalty of all being made slaves. 4 Page 392. 6 Note 3, page 392. 6 Page 392. 446 THE NATION.v. [1817. seas, and greatly elevated the character of the government of the United States in the opinion of Europe. Now was accomplished, during a single cruise, what the combined powers of Europe dared not to attempt. Now the eventful administration of Mr. Madison drew to a close, and very little of general interest occurred, except the chartering of a new United States Bank, 1 with a capital of $35,000,000, to continue twenty years ; and the admis sion of Indiana [December, 1816] into the union of States. On the 16th of March, 1816, a caucus of Democratic members of Congress, nominated James Monroe of Virginia (who had been Madison s Secretary of War for a few months), for President of the United States, and Daniel D. Tompkins 2 of New York, for Vice-President. The Federalists, whose power, as a party, was now rapidly passing away, nominated Rufus King 3 for President, and votes were given to several persons for Yice-President. Monroe and Tompkins were elected by large majorities. Mr. Monroe s election was by an almost unanimous vote of the electoral college. 4 Only one (in New Hampshire) was cast against him. CHAPTER VII. MONROE S ADMINISTRATION. [1817 1825]. ON the 4th of March, 1817, James Monroe, 5 the fifth President of the United States, was inaugurated at Washington City. The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Marshall, 6 in the presence of Mr. Madison, the judges of the Supreme Court, and a large congregation of citizens. His address on that occasion was liberal and temperate in its tone, and gave general satis faction to the people. The commencement of his administration was hailed as the dawn of an era of good feeling and national prosperity. 7 He selected his cabinet from the Republican party, and never since the formation of the gov- 1 Page 372. 2 Daniel D. Tompkins was born in 1774. He was a prominent Democrat when Jefferson was elected [page 389] President of the United States. He was chief justice of New York and also Governor of the State. He died on Staten Island, in 1825. 3 Page 395. 4 Note 1, page 361. 6 James Monroe was born in "Westmoreland county, Virginia, in April, 1759. He was edu cated at William and Mary College., and his youth was spent amid the political excitements, when the War for Independence was kindling. He joined the Continental army, under ashington, in 1776, and during the campaigns of 1777 and 1778, he was aid to Lord Stirling. Alter the battle of Monmouth, he left the army and commenced the study of law under Jefferson. He was again in the field when Arnold and Phillips invaded his State, in 1781 [page 330]. The next year, he was a member of the Virginia Legislature, and at the age of twenty-five, was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was in active life as a legislator, foreign minister, Governor of Virginia, and President of the United States, until his retirement from the latter office in 1825. He died in the city of New York, on the 4th of July, 1831, when in the seventy-second year of his age. His remains lie unmarked by any monument, except a simple slab, in a cemetery on the north side of Second-street, in the city of New York. 6 Page 351. 7 President Monroe, soon after his inauguration, made a long tour of observation, extending to Portland, in Maine, on the east, and to Detroit, on the west, in which he was occupied more than three months. He was everywhere received with the kindest attentions and highest honors, and hie journey was conducive to the national good. 1825.] MONROE S ADMINISTRATION. 447 ernmentj had a President been surrounded with abler counselors. 1 Monroe was a judicious and reliable man ; and when we reflect upon the condition of the country at that time in a transition state from war and confusion to peace and order his elevation to the presidency seems to have been a national blessing. The administration of Mr. Monroe was marked by immense expansion in the material growth of the United States. During the war, a large number of manufacturing establishments had been nurtured into vigorous life by great demands and high prices ; but when peace returned, and European manufac tures flooded the country, at very low prices, wide-spread ruin ensued, and thousands of men were compelled to seek other employments. The apparent misfortune was a mercy in disguise, for the nation. Beyond the Alleghanies, millions of fertile acres, possessing real wealth, were awaiting the tiller s indus try and skill.* Agriculture beckoned the bankrupts to her fields. Homes in 1 His cabinet consisted of John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State ; "William H. Crawford, Sec retary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Benjamin Crowninshield, Secretary of the Navy ; and William Wirt, Attorney-General. He offered the War Department to the venerable Governor Shelby, of Kentucky [page 417], who declined it. Calhoun was appointed in December, 1817. Crowninshield, who was in Madison s cabinet, continued in office until the close of Novem ber, 1818, when Smith Thompson, of New York, was appointed in his place. 2 The progress of the States and Territories west of the Alleghanies [note 3, page 19], in wealth and population, is truly wonderful. A little more than sixty years ago, those immense lakes, Onta rio, Erie, Michigan, Huron, and Superior, were entirely without commerce, and an Indian s canoe was almost the only craft seen upon them. In 1867, the value of traffic upon these waters and the navigable rivers, is probably not less than eight hundred millions of dollars. See note 4, page 537. Thirty-six years ago [1831] there were less than five thousand white people in the vast 448 THE NATION. [1817^ the East were deserted ; emigration flowed over the mountains in a broad and vigorous stream; and before the close of Monroe s administration, four new sovereign States had started into being 1 from the wilderness of the great West, and one in the East. 2 The first year of Monroe s administration was chiefly distinguished by the admission [December 10, 1817] of a portion of the Mississippi Territory into the Union, as a State, 3 and the suppression of two piratical and slave-dealing establishments near the southern and south-western borders of the Kepublic. One of them was at the mouth of the St. Mary s, Elorida, and the other at Galveston, Texas. In addition to a clandestine trade in slaves, these bucca neers, 4 under pretense of authority from some of the Spanish republics of South America, 5 were endeavoring to liberate the Eloridas from the dominion of Spain. In November, 1817, United States troops proceeded to take pos session of Amelia Island, the rendezvous of the pirates on the Elorida coast, and the Galveston establishment soon disappeared for want of support. Other serious difficulties arose at about the same time. A motley host,, composed chiefly of Seminole Indians, 6 Creeks dissatisfied with the treaty of 1814, 7 and runaway negroes, commenced murderous depredations upon the frontier settlements of Georgia and the Alabama Territory, toward the close of 1817. General Gaines 8 was sent to suppress these outrages, and to remove- every Indian from the territory which the Creeks had ceded to the United States, in 1814. His presence aroused the fiercest ire of the Indians, who, it was ascertained, were incited to hostilities by British subjects, protected by the Spanish authorities in Florida. Gaines was placed in a perilous position, when General Jackson, with a thousand mounted Tennessee volunteers, hastened [December, 1817] to his aid. In March, 1818, he invaded Florida, took pos session [April] of the weak Spanish post of St. Mark, at the head of Apa- lachee Bay, 9 and sent the civil authorities and troops to Pensacola. 10 At St. Mark he secured the persons of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, who, on being tried [April 26] by a court martial, were found guilty of being the principal emissaries among the southern Indians, inciting them to hostilities. region between Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean ; now [1867] the number is probably five- millions. Chicago was then a mere hamlet; now [1867] it is a fine city, with not less, probably,, than one hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants. And never was the growth of the Great- West more rapid than at the present. r Mississippi, December 10, 1817; Illinois, December 3, 1818; Alabama, December 14, 1819; and Missouri, March 2, 1821. 2 Maine, March 3, 1820. 3 The Territory was divided. The western portion was made a State, and the eastern was erected into a Territory, named Alabama, after its principal river. It included a portion of Georgia, given for a consideration. See page 455. 4 Note 6, page 149. 6 During the first quarter of the present century, nearly all of the countries in Central and South America, which, since the conquests of Cortez [page 43] and Pizarro [note 4, page 44], had been under the Spanish yoke, rebelled, and forming republics, became independent of Spain. It was the- policy of our government to encourage these republics, by preventing the establishment of monarch ical power on the American continent. This is known as the " Monroe doctrine," a term frequently used in political circles. 6 Page 30. 7 Note 8, page 428. 8 Page 398. Edmund P. Gaines was born in Virginia, in 1777. He entered the army in 1799 r and rose gradually until he was made Major-General for his gallantry at Fort Erie [page 433] in 1814. He remained in the army until his death, in 1849. Page 44. Page 438. &* 1825.] MONROE S ADMINISTRATION. 451 They were both executed on the 30th of the same month. 1 Jackson soon after ward marched for Pensacola, it being known that the Spanish authorities there had encouraged the Indians in making depredations in Alabama. The Spanish governor protested against this invasion of his territory ; but Jackson, satisfied of his complicity with the Indians, pushed forward and seized Pensacola on the 24th of May. The governor and a few followers fled on horseback to Fort Barrancas, at the entrance to Pensacola, Bay. This fortress was captured by Jackson three days afterward [May 27], and the Spanish authorities and troops were sent to Havana. For this invasion of the territory of a friendly power, and his summary pro ceedings there, General Jackson was much censured. His plea, in justification, was the known interference of the Spanish authorities in Florida, in our domes tic affairs, by sheltering those who were exciting the Indians to bloody deeds ; and the absolute necessity of prompt and efficient measures at the time. He was sustained by the government and the voice of the people. These measures developed the necessity for a general and thorough settlement of affairs on the southern boundary of the Republic, and led to the important treaty 2 concluded at "Washington City, in February, 1819, by which Spain ceded to the United States the whole of the Floridus, and the adjacent islands. That country was erected into a Territory in February, 1821 ; and in March ensuing, General Jackson was appointed the first governor of the newly-acquired domain. We have observed that the vast region of Louisiana, purchased from France in 1803, was divided into two Territories. 3 The Louisiana Territory was admitted into the Union as a State, in 1812 ; 4 and while the treaty concerning Florida was pending, the southern portion of the remainder of the Territory extending westward of that State to the Pacific Ocean, which was erected into the "Missouri Territory" in 1812, was formed into a separate government in 1819, and called Arkansas. In December, the same year, Alabama was 1 Arbuthnot was a Scotch trader from New Providence, one of the Bermuda Islands. He had a store on the Suwaney River, where many of the hostile Indians and negroes congregated. Am- brister was a young Englishman, about twenty-one years of age, wno had borne a lieutenant s commission in the British service. He was also at the Suwaney settlements, and put himself at the head of the Indians and negroes. 3 Made by John Quincy Adams for the United States, and Don Onis, the Spanish embassador at Washington. Hitherto, the United States had claimed a large portion of Texas, as a part of Louisiana. By this treaty, Texas was retained by the Spaniards. The cession was made as an equivalent for all claims against Spain for injury done the American commerce, to an amount not exceeding five millions of dollars. The treaty was not finally ratified until February, 1821. 8 Page 390. 4 The admirable penal code of Louisiana, which has ever stood the test of severe criticism, is the work of Edward Livingston, who was appointed the principal of a commission appointed to codify the laws of that State. The code, of which he was the sole author, was adopted in 1824. Mr. Livingston was born upon. the "Manor," in Columbia county, New York, in 1764. He was educated at Princeton, studied law under Chancellor Lansing, and became eminent in his profession. He became a member of Congress in 1794, then attorney for the district of New York, and finally, he went to New Orleans to retrieve a broken fortune. He was an aid to General Jackson, in the battle at New Orleans, in January, 1815, and his pen wrote the noble defense of that soldier, when he was persecuted by civil officers in that city. See page 443. When the last page of his manu script code of laws for Louisiana was ready for the press, a fire consumed the whole, and he was two years reproducing it. That work is his monument. Mr. Livingston was Secretary of State under President Jackson ; and in 1833, he was sent to France, as the resident minister of the United States. He died in Duchess county, New York, in May, 1837. 452 THE X A T I N. [1817. admitted into the Union; and at the same time, Missouri and Maine were making overtures for a similar position. Maine was admitted in March, 1820 l but the entrance of Missouri was delayed until August, 1821, by a violent and protracted debate which sprung up between the Northern and the Southern members of Congress on the subject of slavery, elicited by the proposition for its admission. It was during the session of 1818-19, that a bill was introduced into Con gress, which contained a provision forbidding the existence of slavery or invol untary servitude in the new State of Missouri, when admitted. Heated debates immediately occurred, and the subject was postponed until another session. The whole country, in the mean while, was agitated by disputes on the subject ; and demagogues, as usual at the North and at the South, raised the cry of Dis union of the Confederation ! Both parties prepared for the great struggle ; and when the subject was again brought before Congress [November 23, 1820], angry disputes and long discussions ensued. A compromise was finally agreed to [February 28. 1821], by which slavery should be allowed in Missouri and in all territory south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude (southern boundary of Missouri), and prohibited in all the territory northerly and westerly of these limits. This is known as The Missouri Compromise* Under this compromise, Missouri was admitted on the 21st of August, 1821, and 1 Page 129. 9 Page 501. 1825.] MONROE S ADMINISTRATION. 453 the excitement on the subject ceased. The Republic was now composed of twenty-four States. While the Missouri question was pending, a new election for President and Vice-President of the United States, took place. Never, since the foundation of the government, had there been an election so quiet, and so void of party virulence. Mr. Monroe was re-elected President, and Mr. Tompkins 1 Vice- President [November, 1820], by an almost unanimous vote the old Federal party, 2 as an organization, being nearly extinct. The administration had been very popular, and -the country was blessed with general prosperity. Two other measures, besides those already noticed, received the warmest approbation of the people. The first was an act of Congress, passed in March, 1818, in pursu ance of Monroe s recommendation, making provision, in some degree, for the surviving officers and soldiers of the Revel ation. It was subsequently extended, so as to include the widows and children of those who were deceased. The other was an arrangement made with Great Britain, in October, 1818, by which American citizens were allowed to share with those of that realm, in the valuable Newfoundland fisheries. At the same time, the northern boundary of the United States, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, was defined. 8 Few events of general importance, aside from the rapid progress of the country in all its industrial and governmental operations, occurred during the remainder of Monroe s administration, except the suppression of piracy among the West India Islands, and the visit of General La Fayette 4 to the United States, as the nation s guest. The commerce of tho United States had been greatly annoyed and injured by swarms of pirates who infested the West India seas. A small American squadron, under Commodore Perry, 6 had been sent thither in 1819, to chastise the buccaneers. Perry died of the yellow fever in the performance of his duty, and very little was done at that time. About four years later [1822], a small American squadron destroyed more than twenty piratical vessels on the coast of Cuba; and the following year the work was completed by a larger force, under Commodore Porter. 6 The second-named event was of a more pleasing character. La Fayette, the companion-in-arms of Washington 7 during the Revolutionary struggle, arrived at New York , from France, in August, 1824, and during about eleven succeeding months, he made a tour of over five thousand miles, throughout the United States. He was everywhere greeted with the warmest enthusiasm, and was often met by men who had served under him in the first War for Independence. When he was prepared to return, an American frigate, named Brandywine, in compliment to him, 8 was sent by the United States government to convey him back to France. Mr. Monroe s administration now drew toward a close, and in the autumn 1 Page 446. 3 Page 374. s Page 479. 4 Page 273. 6 Page 423. Page 431. 7 Page 273. 8 La Fayette s first battle for freedom in America, wag that on the Brandywine Creek, in Sep tember, 1777, where he was wounded in the leg. See note 5, page 273. 454 THE NATION. [1825. of 1824, the people were called upon to select his successor. It soon became evident that a large proportion of the old politicians of the Democratic party had decided to support William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, for the succession. Four candidates, representing the different sections of the Union, 1 were finally put in nomination. The result was, that the choice de volved upon the House of Representatives, for the second time. 3 That body, by an election held in February, 1825, chose John Quincy Adams for Presi dent. John C. Calhoun had been chosen Vice-President by the people. The election and final choice produced great excitement throughout the country, and engendered political rancor equal to that which prevailed during the admin istration of the elder Adams. Mr. Monroe s administration closed on the 4th of March ensuing, and he resigned to his successor the Chief Magistracy of a highly-prosperous nation. CHAPTER VIII. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. [18251829.] AT about half-past twelve o clock, on the 4th day of March, 1825, John Quincy Adams, 3 son of the second President of the United States, entered the hall of the House of Representatives, and took his seat in the chair of the Speaker. He was dressed in a suit of black cloth, and, being small in stature, did not present a more dignified appearance than hundreds of his fellow-citizens around him. He appeared, as he really was, a plain Republican one of the people. When silence was obtained, he arose and delivered his inaugural ad dress ; then descending, he placed himself on the right hand of a table, and took the oath of office, administered by Chief-Justice Marshall. The Senate being in session, Mr. Adams immediately nominated his cabinet officers, 4 and 1 John Quincy Adams in the East, "William H. Crawford in the South, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in the West. a Page 388. 3 John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was born at Quincy, Massa chusetts, on the llth of July, 1767. He went to Europe, with his father, at the age of eleven years ; and, in Paris, he was much in the society of Franklin and other distinguished men. At the age of fourteen years he accompanied Mr. Dana to St. Petersburg, as private secretary to that em- bassador. He traveled much alone, and finally returned, and finished his education at Harvard College. He became a lawyer, but public service kept him from that pursuit. He was made United States minister to the Netherlands in 1794, and afterward held the same office at Lisbon and Berlin. He was a member of the United States Senate in 1803 ; and in 1809 he was sent as minister to the Russian court. After negotiating a treaty of peace at Ghent [page 443], he was ap pointed minister to the English court. In 1817 he was made Secretary of State, by Mr. Monroe. Having served one term as President of the United States, he retired; and from 1831, he was a member of Congress until his death, which occurred in the Speaker s room, at the Natioal Capitol, on the 22d of February, 1848, when in thfe eighty-first year of his age. 4 Henry Clay, Secretary of State ; Richard Rush, Secretary of the Treasury ; James Barbour, Secretary of War ; Samuel L. Southard (continued in office), Secretary of the Navy ; and William Wirt (continued), Attorney-General. There was considerable opposition in the Senate to the con firmation of Henry Clay s nomination. He had been charged with defeating the election of General Jackson, by giving his influence to Mr. Adams, on condition that he should be appointed his Secre- 1829.] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. 455 all but one were confirmed by a unanimous vote of that body. His political views were consonant with those of Mr. Monroe, and the foreign and domestic policy of his administration were generally conformable to those views. The amity which existed between the United States and foreign governments, and the absence of serious domestic troubles, made the administration of Mr. Adams a remarkably quiet one, and gave the executive opportunities for adjusting the operations of treaties with the Indian tribes, and the arrangement of measures for the promotion of those great staple interests of the country agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. Discords, which the election had produced, ex cited the whole country during Mr. Adams s administration, with the agitations incident to excessive party zeal, and bitter party rancor ; yet the President, thoroughly acquainted with all the public interests, and as thoroughly skilled in every art of diplomacy and jurisprudence, managed the afiairs of State with a fidelity and sagacity which command our warmest approbation. One of the most exciting topics, for thought and discussion, at the beginning of Adams s administration [1825], was a controversy between the National Gov ernment and the chief magistrate of Georgia, concerning the lands of the Creek Indians, and the removal of those aboriginals from the territory of that State- When Georgia relinquished her claims to considerable portions of the Missis sippi Territory, 1 the Federal Government agreed to purchase, for that State, tary of State. This, however, was only a bubble on the surface of political strife, and had no truth ful substance. In the Senate, there were twenty-seven votes in favor, and fourteen against con" firming the nomination of Mr. Clay. l Note 2, page 447. 456 THE X AT ION. [1825 . the Indian lands within its borders, " whenever it could be peaceably done upon reasonable terms." The Creeks, who, with their neighbors, the Cherokees, were beginning to practice the arts of civilized life, refused to sell their lands! Troup, the governor of Georgia, demanded the immediate fulfillment of the con tract, lie caused a survey of the lands to be made, and pi epared to distribute them by lottery, to the citizens of that State. Impatient at the tardiness of the United States in extinguishing the Indian titles and removing the remnants of the tribes, according to stipulation, the governor assumed the right to do it him self. The United States took the attitude of defenders of the Indians, and, for a time, the matter bore a serious aspect. The difficulties were finally settled, and the Creeks 1 and Cherokees 2 gradually removed to the rich wilderness be yond the Mississippi. At about this time a great work of internal improvement was completed. The Erie Canal, in the State of New York, was finished in 1825. It was the most important and stupendous public improvement ever undertaken in the United States ; and, though it was the enterprise of the people of a single State, that originated and accomplished the labor of forming the channel of a river through a large extent of country, it has a character of nationality. Its earli est advocate was Jesse Hawley, who, in a series of articles published in 1807 and 1808, signed Hercules, set forth the feasibility and great importance of such a connection of the waters of Lake Erie and the Hudson River. 3 His 3 In a manuscript letter now before the writer, da tod " Albany, 4th March, 1822." Dewitt Clin ton says to Jesse Hawley, to whom the later is addressed : " Iii answer to your letter, I have no 1829.] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS S ADMINISTRATION. 457 views were warmly seconded by Gouverneur Morris, 1 Dewitt Clinton, and a few others, and its final accomplishment was the result, chiefly, of the untir ing efforts, privately and officially, of the latter gentleman, while a member of the Legislature and governor of the State of New York. It is three hun dred and sixty- three miles in length, arid the first estimate of its cost was $5.000,000. Portions of it have since been enlarged, to meet the increasing demands of its commerce ; and in 1853, the people of the State decided, by a general vote, to have it enlarged its entire length. That work is now [1867] in progress. A most remarkable coincidence occurred on the 4th of July, 1826, the fif tieth anniversary of American Independence. On that day, and almost at the same hour, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson expired. They were both mem bers of the committee who had framed the Declaration of Independence, 2 both signed it, 3 both had been foreign ministers, 4 both had been Yice-Presidents, and then Presidents of the United States, and both had lived to a great age." These coincidences, and the manner and time of their death, produced a profound im pression upon the public mind. In many places throughout the Union, eulogies or funeral orations were pronounced, and these, collected, form one of the most remarkable contributions to our historical and biographical literature. After the difficulties with Georgia were settled, the remaining years of Mr. Adams s administration were so peaceful and prosperous, that public affairs present very few topics for the pen of the general historian. 6 The most import ant movement in. foreign policy, was the appointment, early in 1826, 01 com missioners 7 to attend a congress of representatives of the South American Re publics, 3 held at Panama [July, 1826], on the Pacific coast. This appointment hesitation in stating that the first suggestion of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River, which came to my knowledge, was communicated in essays under the signature of Hercules, on Internal Navigation, published in the Ontario Messenger, at Canandaigua. The first number appeared on the 27th of October, 1807, and the series of numbers amounted, I believe, to fourteen. The board of Canal Commissioners, which made the first tour of observation and survey, in 1810, were pos sessed of the writings of Hercules, which were duly appreciated, as the work of a sagacious in ventor and elevated mind. And you wer^ at that time, and since, considered the author." Dewitt Clinton was a son of General James Clinton, of Orange county, New York. He was born in March, 1769. He was mayor of New York ten years, and was elected governor of the State in 1817, and again in 1320 and 1826. He died suddenly while in that office, in February, 1828. 1 Page 364. 2 Note 2, page 251. 3 Jefferson was its author, and Adams its principal supporter, in the Continental Congress. 4 Note 2, page 383, and note 5, page 388. 6 Mr. Adams died at Quincy, Massachusetts, at the age of almost ninety-one years. Mr. Jeffer son died at Monticello, Virginia, at the age of almost eighty-three years. 6 An event occurred in 1826 which produced great excitement throughout the country, and led to the formation of a new, and for ^a time, quite a powerful political party. "William Morgan, of Western New York, announced his intention to publish a book, in which the secrets of Free Masonry were to be disclosed. He was suddenly seized at Canandaigua one evening, placed in a carriage, and was never heard of afterward. Some Free Masons were charged with his murder, and the report of an investigating committee, appointed by the New York State Legislature, con firmed the suspicion. The public mind was greatly agitated, and there was a disposition to exclude Free Masons from office. An Anti-Masonic party was formed, and its organization spread over several States. In 1831, a national anti-Masonic convention was held at Philadelphia, and "William "Wirt, of Virginia, was nominated for the office of President of the United States. Although the party polled a considerable vote, it soon afterward disappeared. 7 R. C. Addison, and John Sargeant, commissioners ; and "William B. Rochester, of New York, their secretary. 8 Note 5, page 448. As early as 1823, General Bolivar, while acting as President of Colombia, 458 THE NATION. [1825. produced much discussion in Congress, chiefly on party grounds. The result of the congress at Panama was comparatively unimportant, so far as the United States was concerned, and appears to have had very little influence on the affairs of South America. During the administration of Mr. Adams, the policy of protecting home manufactures, by imposing a heavy duty upon foreign articles of the same kind, assumed the shape of a settled national policy, and the foundations of the American System, as that policy is called, was then laid. The illiberal commer cial policy of Great Britain, caused tariff laws to be enacted by Congress as early as 1816, as retaliatory measures. 1 In 1824, imposts were laid on foreign fabrics, with a view to encourage American manufactures. In July, 1827, a national convention was held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, to discuss the subject of protective tariffs. Only four of the slave States sent delegates. The result of the convention was a memorial to Congress, asking an augmentation of duties on several articles then manufactured in the United States. The Sec retary of the Treasury called attention to the subject in his report in Decem- invited the governments of Mexico, Peru, Chili, and Buenos Ayres, to unite with him in forming a general congress at Panama, and the same year arrangements between Colombia, Mexico, and Peru were made, to effect that object. In the spring of 1825, the United States government was invited to send a delegation to the proposed congress. The objects of the congress were, to settle upon some line of policy having the force of international law, respecting the rights of those repub lics ; and to consult upon measures to be taken to prevent further colonization on the American continent by European powers, and their interference in then existing contests. 1 Page 367. 1829.] JACKSON S ADMI N IS T E A TI N. 459- ber following. Congress, at an early period of the session of 1827 28, took up the matter, and a Tariff Bill became a law in May following. The Amer ican System was very popular with the manufacturers of the North, but the cotton-growing States, which found a ready market for the raw materinl in En gland, opposed it. The tariff law, passed on the 15th of May, 1828, was very- obnoxious to the Southern politicians. 1 They denounced it as oppressive and unconstitutional, and became rebellious in 1832 and 1833. 2 The Presidential election took place in the autumn of 1828, when the pub lic mind was highly excited. For a long time the opposing parties had been marshaling their forces for the contest. The candidates were John Quincy Adams and General Andrew Jackson. The result was the defeat of Mr. Adams, and the election of General Jackson. John C. Calhoun, 3 of South Carolina, was elected Vice- President, and both had very large majorities. During the contest, the people appeared to be on the verge of civil war, so violent was the party strife, and so malignant were the denunciations of the candidates. When it was over, perfect tranquillity prevailed, the people cheerfully acquiesced in the result, and our sytem of government was nobly vindicated before the world. President Adams retired from office on the 4th of March, 1829. He left to his successor a legacy of unexampled national prosperity, peaceful relations with all the world, a greatly diminished national debt, and a surplus of more than five millions of dollars in the public treasury. He also bequeathed to the Republic the tearful gratitude of the surviving soldiers of the Revolution, among whom had been distributed in pensions, 4 during his administration, more than five millions of dollars. CHAPTER IX. JACKSON S ADMINISTRATION. [1829 1837] THERE were incidents of peculiar interest connected with the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, 6 the seventh President of the United States. President 1 The chief articles on which heavy protective duties were laid, were woolen and cotton fab rics. At that time, the value of annual imports of cotton goods from Great Britain was about $8,000,000 ; that of woolen goods about the same. The exports to Great Britain, of cotton, rice, and tobacco, alone (the chief products of the Southern States), was about $24,000,000 annually. These producers were made to fear a great diminution of their exports, by a tariff that should almost wholly prohibit the importation of three millions of dollars worth of British cotton and woolen fabrics, annually. 2 Page 463. 3 John C. Calhoun was born in South Carolina in 1782. He first appeared in Congress in 1811, and was always distinguished for his consistency, especially in his support -of the institution of slavery and the doctrine of State supremacy. He was an able debater, and subtle politician ; and the logical result of his political teachings was the late Civil "War. He died at Washington city, while a member of the National Senate, in March, 1850. 4 Page 453. 5 Andrew Jackson was born in Mecklenberg county, North Carolina, in March, 1767. His parents were from the north of Ireland, and belonged to that Protestant community known as Scotch-Irish. In earliest infancy, he was left to the care of an excellent mother, by the death of -his father. He first saw the horrors of war, and felt the wrongs of oppression, when Colonel 460 THK NATION. [1829. Adams had convened the Senate on the morning of the 4th of March, 1829 ? and at twelve o clock that body adjourned for an hour. During that time, the President elect entered the Senate chamber, having been escorted from Gadsby s Hotel, by a few surviving officers and soldiers of the old War for Independence. These had addressed him at the hotel, and now, in presence of the chief officers of government, foreign ministers, and a large number of ladies, he thus replied to them : " RESPECTED FRIENDS Your affectionate address awakens sentiments and recollections which I feel with sincerity and cherish with pride. To have around my person, at the moment of undertaking the most solemn of all duties to my country, the companions of the immortal Washington, will afford me satisfaction and grateful encouragement. That by my best exertions, I shall be able to exhibit more than an imitation of his labors, a sense of my own imper- Buford s troops were massacred [page 313, and note 1, page 314] in his neighborhood, in 1780. He entered the army, and suffered in the cause of freedom, by imprisonment, and the death of his mother while she was on an errand of mercy. He studied law, and became one of the most eminent men in the "Western District of Tennessee, as an advocate and a judge. He was ever a controlling spirit in that region. He assisted in framing a State constitution for Tennessee, and was the first representative of that State in the National Congress. He became United States senator in 1797, and was soon afterward appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of his State. He settled near Nashville, and for a long time was chief military commander in that region. When the War of 1812 broke out, he took the field, and in the capacity of Major-General, he did good service in the southern country, till its close. He was appointed the first Governor of Florida, in 1821, and in 1823, was again in the United States Senate. He retired to private life at the close of his presi dential term, and died at his beautiful residence, The Hermitage, near Nashville, in June, 1845, at the age of seventy-eight years. 1837.] JACKSON S ADMINISTRATION. 461 fections, and the reverence I entertain for his virtues, forbid me to hope. To you, respected friends, the survivors of that heroic band who followed him, so long and so valiantly, in the path of glory, I offer my sincere thanks, and to Heaven my prayers, that your remaining years may be as happy as your toils and your lives have been illustrious." The whole company then proceeded to the eastern portico of the capitol, where, in the presence of a vast assembly of citizens, the President elect delivered his inaugural address, and took the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Marshall. 1 That jurist again adminis tered the same oath to President Jackson on the 4th of March, 1833, and a few months afterward went down into the grave. President Jackson was possessed of strong passions, an uncorrupt heart, and an iron will. Honest and inflexible, he seized the helm of the ship of state with a patriot s hand, resolved to steer it according to his own conceptions of the meaning of his guiding chart, The Constitution, unmindful of the inter ference of friends or foes. His instructions to the first minister sent to England, on his nomination " Ask nothing but what is right; submit to nothing wrong" indicate the character of those moral and political maxims by which he was governed. His audacity amazed his friends and alarmed his opponents ; and no middle men existed. He was either thoroughly loved or thoroughly hated; and for eight years he braved the fierce tempests of party strife,* domestic perplexities, 3 and foreign arrogance, 4 with a skill and courage which demands the admiration of his countrymen, however much they may differ with him in matters of national policy. The gulf between him and his political oppo nents was so wide, that it was difficult for the broadest charity to bridge it. To those who had been his true friends during the election struggle, he extended the grateful hand of recognition, and after having his inquiries satisfied, "Is he capable ? is he honest?" he conferred official station upon the man who pleased him, with a stoical indifference to the clamor of the opposition. The whole of President Adams s cabinet officers having resigned, Jackson immediately nom inated his political friends for his counselors, and the Senate confirmed his choice. 5 Among the first subjects of general and commanding interest which occu pied the attention of President Jackson, at the commencement of his administra tion, were the claims of Georgia to lands held by the powerful Cherokee tr&e of Indians, and lying within the limits of that State. Jackson favored the views of the Georgia authorities, and the white people proceeded to take possession of the Indians land. Trouble ensued, and the southern portion of the Republic was 1 Page 351. ^ a Following the precedent of Jefferson [page 389], he filled a large number of the public offices with his political friends, after removing the incumbents. These removals were for all causes ; and during his administration, they amounted \o six hundred and ninety out of several thousands, who were removable. The entire number of removals made by all the preceding Presidents, from 1790 to 1829, was seventy-four. 3 Page 464. * Page 468. 5 Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State ; Samuel D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury ; John H. Eaton, Secretary of War ; John Branch, Secretary of the Navy ; and John McPherson Berrian, Attorney-General. It having been determined to make the Postmaster-General a cabinet officer, William T. Barry was appointed to that station. 462 THE NATION. [1829. again menaced with civil war. The matter was adjudicated by the Supreme Court of the United States, and on the 30th of March, 1832, that tribunal decided against the claims of Georgia. But that State, favored by the Presi dent, resisted the decision. The difficulty was finally adjusted; and in 1838, General Winfield Scott 1 was sent thither, with several thousand troops, to remove the Cherokees, peaceably if possible, but forcibly if necessary, beyond the Mississippi. Through the kindness and conciliation of Scott, they were induced to migrate. They had become involved in the difficulties of their Creek neighbors, 2 but were defended against the encroachments of the Georgians during Adams s administration. But in December, 1839, they were crushed, as a nation, by an act of Congress, and another of the ancient communities of the New World was wiped from the living record of empire. The Cherokees 3 were more advanced in the arts of civilized life than the Creeks. 4 They had churches, schools, and a printing-press, and were becoming successful agriculturists. It appeared cruel in the extreme to remove them from their fertile lands and the graves of their fathers, to the wilderness ; yet it was, doubtless, a proper meas ure for insuring the prosperity of both races. But now [186 7], again, the tide of civilization is beating against their borders. Will they not be borne upon its powerful wave, further into the wilderness ? Another cause for public agitation appeared in 1832. In his first annual message [December, 1829] Jackson took strong ground against the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank, 5 on the ground that it had failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency, and that such an insti tution was not authorized by the National Constitution. He again attacked the bank in his annual message in 1830, and his objections were renewed in that of 1831. At the close of 1831, the proper officers of the bank, for the first time, petitioned for a renewal of its charter. That petition was presented in the Senate on the 9th of January, 1832, and on the 13th of March, a select com mittee to whom it was referred, reported in favor of renewing the charter for fifteen years. Long debates ensued ; and, finally, a bill for re-chartering the bank passed both Houses of Congress : the Senate on the llth of June, by twenty-eight against twenty votes ; and by the House of Representatives on the 3d of July, by one hundred and seven against eighty-five. Jackson vetoed 6 it on the 10th of July, and as it failed to receive the support of two thirds of the members of both Houses, the bank charter expired, by limitation, in 1836. The commercial community, regarding a national bank as essential to their prosperity, were alarmed; and prophecies of panics and business revulsions, everywhere uttered, helped to accomplish their own speedy fulfillment. An Indian war broke out upon the north-western frontier, in the spring of 1832. Portions of some of the western tribes, 7 residing within the domain 1 Page 485. a Page 427. 8 Page 27. 4 Page 30. B Page 446. 6 That is, refused to sign it, and returned it to Congress, with his reasons, for reconsideration by that body. The Constitution gives the President this power, and when exercised, a bill can not become law without his signature, unless it shall, on reconsideration, receive the votes of two thirds of the members of both Houses of Congress. See Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution, in the Supplement. 7 Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagoes. See page 18. 1837.] JACKSON S ADMINISTRATION. 463 of the present State of Wisconsin/ led by Black Hawk, 2 a fiery Sac chief, commenced warfare upon the frontier settlers of Illinois, in April of that year. After several skirmishes with United States troops and Illinois militia, under General Atkinson, 3 the Indians were driven beyond the Mississippi. Black Hawk was captured in August, 1832, and taken to Washington City ; and then, to impress his mind with the strength of the nation he had foolishly made war with, he was conducted through several of the eastern cities. This brief strife, which appeared quite alarming at one time, is known in history as the "Black Hawk War." 4 This cloud in the West had scarcely disappeared, when one loomed up in the South far more formidable in appearance, and charged with menacing thun der that, for a while, shook the entire fabric of the Republic. The dis contents of the cotton-growing States, produced by the tariff act of 1828, 3 assumed the form of rebellion in South Carolina, toward the close of 1832. An act of Congress, imposing additional duties upon foreign goods, passed in 1 That domain was not erected into a Territory until four years after that event ; now it is a rich, populous, and nourishing State. 2 Page 18. 3 Henry Atkinson was a native of North Carolina, and entered the army aa captain, in 1808. He was retained in the army after the second War for Independence, was made Adjutant-General, and was finally appointed to the command of the Western Army. He died at Jefferson Barracks, in June, 1842. 4 Black Hawk returned to his people, but was, with difficulty, restored to his former dignity of chief. He died in October, 1840, and was buried on the banks of the Mississippi. 6 Page 459. 464 THE NATION. [1829. the spring of 1832, led to a State convention in South Carolina, in November following. It assembled on the 19th of that month, and the Governor of South Carolina was appointed its president. That assembly declared the tariff acts unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. It resolved that duties should not be paid ; and proclaimed that any attempt to enforce the collection of duties in the port of Charleston, by the general government, would be resisted by arms, and would produce the withdrawal of South Carolina from the Union. The State Legislature*, which met directly after the adjournment of the con vention, passed laws in support of this determination. Military preparations were immediately made, and civil war appeared inevitable. Then it was that the executive ability of the President, so much needed, was fully displayed. Jackson promptly met the crisis by a proclamation, on the 10th of December, which denied the right of a State to nullify any act of the National Govern ment ; and warned those who were engaged in fomenting a rebellion, that the laws of the United States would be strictly enforced by military power, if necessary. This proclamation met the hearty response of every friend of the Union, of whatever party, and greatly increased that majority of the President s supporters, who had just re-elected him to the Chief Magistracy of the Repub lic. 1 The nullifiers 2 of South Carolina, though led by such able men as Cal- houn 3 and Hayne, 4 were obliged to yield for the moment ; yet their zeal and determination in the cause of State Supremacy, were not abated. Every day the tempest-cloud of civil commotion grew darker and darker ; until, at length, Henry Clay, 5 a warm friend of the American System, 6 came forward, in Con gress [February 12, 1833], with a bill, which provided for a gradual reduction of the obnoxious duties, during the succeeding ten years. This compromise measure was accepted by both parties. It became a law on the 3d of March, and discord between the North and the South soon ceased, but only for a season. 7 2 Those who favored the doctrine that a State might nullify the acts of the National Govern ment, were called nullifiers, and the dangerous doctrine itself was called nullification. 3 Page 458. Mr. Calhoun, who had quarreled, politically, with Jackson, had recently resigned! the office of Vice-President of the United States, and was one of the ablest men in Congress. He asserted the State supremacy doctrine boldly on the floor of Congress, and held the same opinion until his death. 4 Robert T. Hayne was one of the ablest of southern statesmen. The debate between Hayne and Webster, in the Senate of the United States, during the debates on this momentous subject, is regarded as one of the most eminent, for sagacity and eloquence, that ever marked the proceedings of that body. Mr. Hayne was born near Charleston, South Carolina, in November, 1791. He was admitted to the bar in 1812, and the same year volunteered his services for the defense of the sea- board, and entered the army as lieutenant. He arose rapidly to the rank of Major-General of the militia of his State, and was considered one of the best disciplinarians of the South. He had exten- eive practice at the bar, before he was twenty-two years of age, and it was always lucrative. He was a member of the South Carolina Assembly in 1814, where he was distinguished for eloquence. He was chosen Speaker in 1818. For ten years he represented South Carolina in the Senate of the United States ; and he was chairman of the Committee of the Convention of South Carolina, which reported the "ordinance of nullification." He was soon afterward chosen Governor of his State. He died in September, 1841, in the fiftieth year of his age. * Page 500. Page 459. 7 3ltisknown that Mr. Clay introduced the Compromise Bill with the concurrence of Mr. Calhoun. The latter had proceeded to the verge of treason, in his opposition to the general government, and President Jackson had threatened him with arrest, if he moved another step forward. Knowing 1337.] JACKSON S ADMINISTRATION. 465 President Jackson s hostility to the United States Bank was again mani fested in his annual message to Congress, in December, 1832, when he recom mended the removal of the public funds from its custody, and a sale of the stock of the bank, belonging to the United States. 1 Congress, by a decided vote, refused to authorize the measure ; but after its adjournment, the Presi dent assumed the responsibility of the act, and directed William J. Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, to withdraw the government funds (then almost $10,000,000), and deposit them in certain State banks. During a northern tour which the President had made in the summer of 1833, he had urged Mr. Duane (then in Philadelphia) to make the removal, but he would only consent to the appointment of an agent to inquire upon what terms the local banks would receive the funds on deposit. The President then ordered him, perem- torily, to remove them from the bank. The Secretary refused compliance, and was dismissed from office. His successor, Roger B. Taney (who was after ward Chief-Justice of the United States), obeyed the President; and in October, 1 833, the act was accomplished. The effect produced was sudden and wide-spread commercial distress. The business of the country was plunged from the height of prosperity to the depths of adversity, because its intimate connection with the National Bank rendered any paralysis of the operations of that institution fatal to commercial activity. The amount of loans of the "bank, on the 1st of October, was over sixty millions of dollars, and the amount of the funds of the United States, then on deposit in the bank, w:is almost ten millions of dollars. The fact, that the connection of the bank with the business of the country was so vital, confirmed the President in his opinion of the danger of such an enormous moneyed institution. A large portion of the government funds were removed in the course of four months, and the whole amount in about nine months. Intense excitement pre vailed throughout the country ; yet the President, supported by the House of Representatives, persevered and triumphed. Numerous committees, appointed by merchants, mechanics, manufacturers, and others, waited upon him, to ask him to take some measures for relief. He was firm ; and to all of them he re plied, in substance, that "the government could give no relief, and provide no remedy ; that the banks were the occasion of all the evils which existed, and that the firmness and decision of the President, Mr. Calhoun dared not take the fatal step. He could not recede, nor even stand still, without compromising his character with his political friends. In this extremity, a mutual friend arranged with Mr. Clay to propose a measure which would satisfy both sides, and save both the neck and reputation of Mr. Calhoun. In the discussion of the matter in the Senate, the latter most earnestly disclaimed any hostile feelings toward the Union, on the part of South Carolina. The State authorities, he asserted, had looked only to a judicial decision upon the question, until the concentration of the United States troops at Charleston and Augusta, by order of the President, compelled them to make provision to defend themselves. Several of the State Legislatures- hastened to condemn the nullification doctrine as destructive to the National Constitution. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, and Georgia, all thus spoke out plainly in favor of the Union. Georgia, however, at the same time, expressed its reprobation of the tariff system, which had brought about the movement iu South Carolina, and proposed a convention of the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, to devise measures to obtain relief from it. 1 By the law of 1816, for chartering the bank, the funds of the United States were to b deposited with that institution, and to be withdrawn only by the Secretary of the Treasury. 30 466 THE NATION. [1820. those who suffered by their great enterprise had none to blame but themselves ; that those who traded on borrowed capital ought to break." The State banks received the government funds on deposit, and loaned freely. Confidence was gradually restored, and apparent general prosperity 1 returned. Now [1867], after the lapse of more than twenty years, the wisdom and forecaste of General Jackson, evinced by his distrust of the United States Bank, appears to be uni versally acknowledged. 2 Our present National banking system possesses all of the better functions of that of the United States Bank, without, apparently, any of its dangerous ones. Trouble again appeared on the southern borders of the Union. Toward the close of 1835, the Seminole Indians, in Florida, guided by their head sachem, Micanopy, and led by their principal chief, Osceola, 8 commenced a distressing warfare upon the frontier settlements of Florida. The cause of the outbreak was an attempt to remove them to the wilderness bepond the Mississippi. In his annual message in December, 1830, President Jackson recommended the devotion of a large tract of land west of the Mississippi, to the use of the Indian tribes yet re maining east of that stream, forever. Congress passed laws in accordance with the proposition, and the work of removal commenced, first by the Chick- asaws and Choctaws. 4 We have seen that trouble ensued with the Creeks and Cherokees, 6 and the Seminoles in East Florida were not disposed to leave their ancient domain. Some of the chiefs in council made a treaty in May, 1832, and agreed to remove ; but other chiefs, and the great body of the nation, did not acknowledge the treaty as binding. In 1834, the President sent General Wiley Thompson to Florida, to prepare for a forcible removal of the Seminoles, if necessary. The tone and manner assumed by Osceola, at that time, dis pleased Thompson, and he put the chief in irons and in prison for a day. The proud leader feigned penitence, and was released. Then his wounded pride called for revenge, and fearfully he pursued it, as we shall observe presently. The war that ensued was a sanguinary one, and almost four years elapsed before it was wholly terminated. Osceola, with all the cunning of a Tecumtha, 6 and the heroism of a Philip, 7 was so successful in stratagem, and brave in conflict, that he baffled the skill and courage of the United States troops for a long time. He had agreed to fulfill treaty stipulations, 8 in December [1835], but instead 1 Page 470. 2 The course of President Jackson, toward the bank, was popular in many sections, but in the commercial States it caused a palpable diminution of the strength of the administration. This was shown by the elections in 1834. Many of his supporters joined the Opposition, and this combined force assumed the name of " Whigs" the old party name of the Revolution while the adminis tration party adhered to the name of " Democrats." 3 Page 468. 4 Page 30. 6 Page 27. 6 Page 424. 7 Page 124. 8 Osceola had promised General Thompson that the delivery of certain cattle and horses belong ing to the Indians should be made during the first fortnight of December, 1835. and so certain was Thompson of the fulfillment of this stipulation, that he advertised the animals for sale. 1837.] JACKSON S ADMINISTRATION. 467 of compliance, he was then at the head of a war party, murdering the unsus pecting inhabitants on the borders of the everglade haunts of the savages. At that time General Clinch was stationed at Fort Drane, 1 in the interior of Florida, and Major Dade was dispatched from Fort Brooke, at the head of Tampa Bay, with more than a hundred men, for his relief. That young commander, 2 and all but four of his detachment, were massacred [Dec. "23, 1835] near Wahoo Swamp. 3 On the same day, and only a few hours before, Osceola, and n small war party, killed and scalped General Thompson, and five of his friends, who were dining at a store a few yards from Fort King. 4 The assailants disappeared in the for est before the deed was known at the fort. Two days afterward [Dec. 31], General Clinch and his - troops had a battle with the Seminoles on the With lacoochee; and in February [Feb. 29, 1836], General Gaines 5 was assailed near the same place, 6 and several of his men were killed. The battle-ground is about fifty miles from the mouth of the river. The Creeks aided their brethren in Florida, by attacking white settlers within their domain, 7 in May, 1836. Success made them bold, and they at tacked mail-carriers, stages, steamboats, and finally villages, in Georgia and Alabama, until thousands of white people were fleeing for their lives from place to place, before the savages. General Winfield Scott was now in chief command in the South, and he prosecuted the war with vigor. The Creeks were finally subdued ; and during the summer, several thousands of them were re moved to their designated homes beyond the Mississippi. In October, Governor Call, of Georgia, marched against the Seminoles with almost two thousand men. A detachment of upward of five hundred of these, had a severe contest [Nov. 21] with the Indians at Wahoo Swamp, near the scene of Dade s massacre ; yet, like all other engagements with the savages in their swampy fastnesses, neither party could claim a positive victory. 9 The year [1836] closed with no prospect 1 About forty miles north-east from the mouth of the Withlacoochee Eiver, and eight south west from Orange Lake. 2 Francis L. Dade was a native of Virginia. After the War of 1812-15, he was retained in the army, having risen from third lieutenant to major. A neat monument has been erected to the memory of himself and companions in death, at West Point, on the Hudson. 3 Near the upper waters of the Withlacoochee, about fifty miles north from Fort Brooke. Three of the four survivors soon died of their wounds, and he who lived to tell the fearful narrative (Ran som Clarke), afterward died from the effects of his injuries on that day. On the southern borders of Alachua county, about sixty miles south-west from St. Augustine. Osceola scalped [note 4, page 14] General Thompson with his own hands, and thus enjoyed his re venge for the indignity he had suffered. 6 Page 433. Edmund P. Gaines was born in Virginia in 1777, and entered the army in 1799. He was breveted a major-general in 1814, and presented by Congress with a eold medal for his gal lantry at Fort Erie. He died in 1849. 6 South side of the river, in Dade county. The place where Gaines was assaulted is on the north side, in Alachua county. 7 Page 30. 8 Page 433. In this warfare the American troops suffered dreadfully from the poisonous vapors of the swamps, the bites of venomous serpents, and the stings of insects. The Indians were inaccessible in their homes amid the morasses, for the white people could not follow them. 468 THE NATION. [1829. of peace, either by treaty or by the subjugation of the Indians. The war con tinued through the winter. Finally, after some severe encounters with the United States troops, several chiefs appeared in the camp of General Jesup 1 (who was then in supreme command) at Fort Bade, 2 and on the 6th of March, 1837, they signed a treaty which guarantied immediate peace, and the instant departure of the Indians to their new home beyond the Mississippi. But the lull was temporary. The restless Osceola caused the treaty to be broken ; and during the summer of 1837, many more soldiers perished in the swamps while pursuing the Indians. At length, Osceola, with several chiefs and seventy warriors, appeared [Oct. 21] in Jessup s camp under the protection of a flag. They were seized and confined ; 3 and soon afterward, the brave chief was sent to Charleston, where he died of a fever, while immured in Fort Moultrie.* This was the hardest blow yet dealt upon the Seminoles ; but they continued to resist, notwithst inding almost nine thousand United States troops were in their territory at the -lose of 1837. On the 25th of December, a large body of Indians suffered a severe repulse on the northern border of Macaco Lake, 5 from six hundred troops under Colonel Zachary Taylor. 6 That officer had succeeded General Jesup, and for more than two years afterward, he endured every privation in efforts to bring the war to a close. In May, 1839, a treaty was made which appeared to terminate the war ; but murder and robberies continued, and it was not until 1842 that peace was finally secured. This war, which lasted seven years, cost the United States many valuable lives, and millions of treasure. In the autumn of 1836, the election of a successor to President Jacksou took place, and resulted in the choice of Martin Van Buren, of New York. Energy had marked every step of the career of Jackson as Chief Magistrate, and at the close of his administration, the nation stood higher in the esteem of the world than it had ever done before. At the close of his first term, our foreign relations were very satisfactory, except with France. That government had agreed to pay about $5,000,000, by instalments, as indemnification for French spoliations on American commerce, under the operation of the several decrees of Napoleon, from 1806 to 1811. 7 The French government did not promptly comply with the agreement, and the President assumed a hostile tone, which caused France to perform her duty. Similar claims against Portugal 1 Thomas S. Jesup was born in Virginia in 1788. He was a brave and useful officer during the war of 1812-15, and was retained in the army. He was breveted major-general in 1828, and was succeeded in command in Florida by Colonel Zachary Taylor, in 1838. He died at Washington city in 1858. 8 On the head waters of the Withlachoochee, about forty miles north-east from Fort Brooke, at the head of Tampa Bay. See map on page 467. 3 General Jesup was much censured for this breach of faith and the rules of honorable warfare. His excuse was the known treachery of Osceola, and a desire to put an end to bloodshed by what ever means he might be able to employ. 4 On Sullivan s Island, upon the site of Fort Sullivan of the Revolution [page 249]. IN ear the entrance gate to the fort is a small monument erected to the memory of Osceola. 6 Sometimes called Big Water Lake. The Indian name is 0-ke-cho-bee, and by that title the battle is known. ^ . , 6 The brave leader in the Mexican War [page 481], and afterward President of the United States. See page 498. 7 See pages 400 to 407, inclusive. 1837.] VAN BUREN S ADMINISTRATION. 469 were made, and payment obtained. A treaty of reciprocity had been concluded with Russia and Belgium, and everywhere the American flag commanded the highest respect. Two new States (Arkansas and Michigan) had been added to the Union. The original thirteen had doubled, and great activity prevailed in every part of the Republic. Satisfaction with the administration generally pre vailed, and it was understood that Van Buren would continue the policy of his predecessor, if elected. He received a large majority ; but the people, having failed to elect a Vice-President, the Senate chose Richard M. Johnson, of Ken tucky, who had been a candidate with Van Buren, to fill that station. Much excitement was produced, and bitter feelings were engendered, toward President Jackson, by his last official act. A circular was issued from the Treasury department on the llth of July. 1836, requiring all collectors of the public revenue to receive nothing but gold and silver in payment. This was intended to check speculations in the public lands, but it also bore heavily upon every kind of business. The " specie circular" was denounced; and so loud was the clamor, that toward the close of the session in 1837, both Houses of Congress adopted a partial repeal of it. Jackson refused to sign the bill, and by keeping it in his possession until after the adjournment of Congress, prevented it becoming a law. On the 4th of March, 1837, he retired from pub lic life, to enjoy that repose which an exceedingly active career entitled him to. He was then seventy years of age. CHAPTER X. VAN BUREN S ADMINISTRATION. [1837 1841.] MARTIN VAN BUREN/ the eighth President of the United States, seemed to stand, at the time of his inauguration on the 4th of March, 1837 at the opening of a new era. All of his predecessors in the high office of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, had been descended of Britons, and were engaged in the old struggle for Independence Van Buren was of Dutch descent, and was born after the great conflict had ended, and the birth of the nation had occurred. The day of his inauguration was a remarkably pleasant one. Seated by the side of the venerable Jackson, in a phoeton made from the wood of the frigate Constitution, which had been presented to the President by his political 1 Martin Van Buren was born at Kinderhook, Columbia county, New York, in December, 1782. le chose the profession of law. In 1815, he became Attorney-General of his native State, and in 1828 was elected Governor of the same. Having served his country in the Senate of the United States, he was appointed minister to England in 1831, and was elected Yice-President of the United States in the autumn of 1832. Since his retirement from the presidency in 1841, Mr. Van Buren has spent a greater portion of his time on his estate in his native town. He visited Europe at the close of 1853, and was the first of the chief magistrates of the Eepublic who crossed the Atlantic after their term of office had expired. Ex-President Fillmore followed his example in 1855, and spent several mouths abroad. Mr. Van Buren lived at Kiuderhook, after his retire ment from public life, until his death, on the 24th of July, 1862. 470 TliK X ATI OX. [1837. friends in New York, he was escorted from the presidential mansion to the capitol by a body of infantry and cavalry, and an immense assemblage of citi zens. Upon a rostrum, erected on the ascent to the eastern portico of the cap itol, he delivered his inaugural address, and took the prescribed oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Taney. l At the moment when Mr. Van Buren entered the presidential mansion as its occupant, the business of the country was on the verge of a terrible convul sion and utter prostration. The distressing effects of the removal of the public funds from the United States Bank, 2 in 1833 and 1834, and the operations of the specie circular," 3 had disappeared, in a measure, but as the remedies for the evil were superficial, the cure was only apparent. The chief remedy had been the free loaning of the public money to individuals by the State deposit banks ; 4 but a commercial disease was thus produced, more disastrous than the panic of 1833-34. A sudden expansion of the paper currency was the result. The State banks which accepted these deposits, supposed they would remain undisturbed until the government should need them for its use. Considering them as so much capital, they loaned their own funds freely. But in January, 1836. Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to distribute all the public funds, except five millions of dollars, among the several States, according to their representation. The funds were 1 He appointed John Forsyth Secretory of State; Levi Woodbury. Secretary of the Treasury; Joel R. Poinsett. Secretary of "War ; Mahlon Dickinson, Secretary of the Navy ; Amos Kendall, Postmaster-General; and Benjamin F. Butler, Attorney-General. All of them, except Mr. Poinsett, held their respective offices under President Jackson. 9 Page 465. 3 Page 469. 4 Page 466. 1841.J T^-K BUREN S ADMINISTRATION. 471 accordingly taken from the deposit banks, after the 1st of January, 1837, and these banks being obliged to curtail their loans, a serious pecuniary embarrass ment was produced. The immediate consequences of such multiplied facilities for obtaining bank loans, were an immensely increased importation of foreign goods, inordinate stimulation of all industrial pursuits and internal improve ments, and the operation of a spirit of speculation, especially in real estate, which assumed the features of a mania, in 1836. A hundred cities were founded, and a thousand villages were " laid out" on broad sheets of paper, and made the basis of vast money transactions. Borrowed capital was thus diverted from its sober, legitimate uses, to the fostering of schemes as unstable as water, and as unreal in their fancied results as dreams of fairy-land. Overtrading and speculation, which had relied for support upon continued bank loans, was suddenly checked by the necessary bank contractions, on account of the removal of the government funds from their custody : and during March and April, 1837, there were mercantile failures in the city of New York alone, to the amount of more than a hundred millions of dollars. 1 Fifteen months before [December, 1835], property to the amount of more than twenty millions of dollars had been destroyed by fire in the city of New York, w r hen five hundred and twenty-nine buildings were consumed. The eifects of these failures and losses were felt to the remotest borders of the Union, and credit and con fidence were destroyed. Early in May, 1837, a deputation from the merchants and bankers of New York, waited upon the President, and solicited him to defer the collection of duties on imported goods, rescind the "specie circular," and to call an extra ordinary session of Congress to adopt relief measures. The President declined to act on their petitions. When his determination was known, all the banks in New York suspended specie payments [May 10, 1837], and their example was speedily followed in Boston, Providence, Hartford, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and in smaller towns throughout the country. On the 16th of May the Legislature of New York passed an act, authorizing the suspension of specie payments for one year. The measure embarrassed the general govern ment, and it was unable to obtain gold and silver to discharge its own obliga tions. The public good now demanded legislative relief, and an extraordinary session of Congress was convened by the President on the 4th of September. During a session of forty-three days, it did little for the general relief, except the passage of a bill authorizing the issue of treasury notes, not to exceed in amount ten millions of dollars. 3 During the year 1837, the peaceful relations which had long existed between the United States and Great Britain, were somewhat disturbed by a revolution- 1 In two days, houses in New Orleans stopped payment, owing an aggregate of twenty-seven millions of dollars ; and in Boston one hundred and sixty-eight failures took place in six months. 2 In his message to Congress at this session, the President proposed the establishment of an independent treasury, for the safe keeping of the public funds, and their entire and total separation from banking institutions. This scheme met with vehement opposition. The bill passed the Sen ate, but was lost in the House. It was debated at subsequent sessions, and finally became a law on the 4th of July, 1840. This is known as the Sub- Treasury Scheme. 472 THE X ATI OX. [1837. ary movement in Canada which, at one time, seemed to promise a separation of that province from the British crown. The agitation and the outbreak appeared simultaneously in Upper and Lower Canada. In the former province, the most conspicuous leader was William Lyon M Kenzie, a Scotchman, of rare abilities as a political writer end an agitator, and a republican in sentiment ; and in the latter province, Louis Joseph Papineau, a large land-owner, and a very influ ential man among the French population. The movements of the Revolution ary party were well planned, but local jealousies prevented unity of action, and the ijjheme failed. It was esteemed a highly patriotic effort to secure independ ence and nationality for the people of the Canadas, and, as in the case of Cuba, at a later period, 1 the warmest sympathies of the Americans were enlisted, especially at the North. Banded companies and individuals joined the rebels ; 2 and so general became this active sympathy on the northern frontier, that peace between the two governments was jeoparded. President Van Buren issued a proclamation, calling upon ail persons engaged in the schemes of invasion of Canada, to abandon the design, and warning them to beware of the penalties that must assuredly follow, such infractions of international laws. In 1838, General Scott was sent to the frontier to preserve order, and was assisted by proclamations of the Governor of New York. Yet secret revolutionary associ ations, called "Hunter s Lodges," continued for a long time. For about four years, that cloud hung upon our northern horizon, when, in September, 1841, President Tyler issued an admonitory proclamation, specially directed to the members of the Hunter s Lodges, which prevented further aggressive move ments. The leaders of the revolt were either dead or in exile, and quiet was restored. While this excitement was at its height, long disputes concerning the bound ary between the State of Maine and the British province of New Brunswick, ripened into armed preparations for settling the matter by combat. This, too, threatened danger to the peaceful relations between the two governments. The President sent General Scott to the theater of the dispute, in the winter of 1839, and by his wise and conciliatory measures, he prevented bloodshed, and produced quiet. The whole matter was finally settled by a treaty [August 20, 1842], negotiated at Washington City, by Daniel Webster for the United States, and Lord Ashburton for Great Britain. The latter had been sent as special minister for the purpose. Besides settling the boundary question, this agreement, known as the Ashburton Treaty, provided for the final suppression of the slave-trade, and for the giving up of criminal fugitives from justice, in certain cases. A new presidential election now approached. On the 5th of May. 1*840, a 1 Page 502. 8 A party of Americans took possession of Navy Island, situated in the Niagara River about two miles above the Falls, and belonging to Canada. They numbered seven hundred strong, well provisioned, and provided with twenty pieces of cannon. They had a small steamboat named Caroline, to ply between Schlosser, on the American side, and Navy Island. On a dark night in December, 1837, a party of royalists from the Canada shore crossed over, cut the Caroline loose, set her on fire, and she went over the great cataract while in full blaze. It was believed that some persona were on board the vessel at the time. 1841.] HARRISON S AND TYLER S ADMINISTRATION. 473 national Democratic convention assembled at Baltimore, and unanimously nom inated Mr. Van Buren for President. No nomination was made for Vice-Pres ident, but soon afterward, Richard M. Johnson 1 and James K. Polk were selected as candidates for that office, in different States. A national Whig 2 con vention had been held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, on the 4th of December previous [1839], when General William H. Harrison, of Ohio, the popular leader in the North-West, in the War of 1812, 3 was nominated for President, and John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-President. Never, before, was the country so excited by an election, and never before was a presidential contest characterized by such demoralizing proceedings. 4 The government, under Mr. Van Buren, being held responsible by the opposition for the business depres sion which yet brooded over the country, public speakers arrayed vast masses of the people against the President, and Harrison and Tyler were elected by overwhelming majorities. And now, at the close of the first fifty years of the Republic, the population had increased from three and a half millions, of all colors, to seventeen millions. A magazine writer of the day, 5 in comparing several administrations, remarked that " The great events of Mr. Van Buren s administration, by which it will hereafter be known and designated, is the divorce of bank and State in the fiscal affairs of the National government, and the return, after half a century of deviation, to the original design of the Con stitution." CHAPTER XI. HARRISON S AND TYLER S ADMINISTRATION. [18411845.] THE city of Washington was thronged with people from every State in the Union, on the 4th of March, 1841, to witness the ceremonies of the inauguration of General William Henry Harrison, 7 the ninth President of the United States. He 1 Page 424 3 Note 2, page 466. 3 Pages 416 to 424. inclusive. 4 Because General Harrison lived in the West, and his residence was associated with pioneer life, a log-cabin became the symbol of his party. These cabins were erected all over the country, in which meetings were held ; and, as the hospitality of the old hero was symbolized by a barrel of cider, made free to all visitors or strangers, who " never found the latch-string of his log-cabin drawn in," that beverage was dealt out unsparingly to all who attended the meetings in the cabins. These meetings were scenes of carousal, deeply injurious to aU who participated in them, and especially to the young. Thousands of drunkards, in after years, dated their departure from sobri ety to the " Flard Cider" campaign of 1840. 6 Democratic Review, April, 1840. , c This is in allusion to the sub-treasury scheme. Mr. Van Buren remarked to a friend, just previous to sending his message to Congress, in which he proposed that plan for collecting and keeping the public moneys : "We can not know how the immediate convulsion may result; but the people will, at all events, eventually come right, and posterity at least will do me justice. Be the present issue for good or for evil, it is for posterity that I will write this message." 7 William Henry Harrison, son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born near the banks of the James River, in Charles City county, Virginia, in February, 1773. He was educated at Hampden Sydney College, and was prepared, by studies, for a physician, but en tered the army as ensign in the United States artillery, in 1791. He was Secretary of the North- 474 THE NATION. [1841 was then an old man, having passed almost a month beyond the age of sixty-eight years. Yet there was a vigor in his movements quite remarkable for one of that age, and who had passed through so many hardships and physical labors. From a platform over the ascent to the eastern portico of the Capitol, where Mr. Van Buren delivered his inaugural address, General Harrison, in a clear voice, read his. He was frequently interrupted by cheers during the reading. When it was concluded, Chief Justice Taney administered the oath of office, and three successive cannon peals announced the fact that the Republic had a new President. Harrison immediately nominated his cabinet officers. 1 and these were all confirmed by the Senate, then in session. President Harrison s inaugural speech was well received by all parties, and the dawn of his administration gave omens of a brighter day for the country. When his Address went over the land, and the wisdom of his choice of cabinet western Territory in 1797 ; and at the age of twenty-six years, was elected the first delegate to Congress from that domain. He was afterward appointed governor of Indiana Territory, and was very active during the "War of 1812. See pages 416 to 424 inclusive. At its close he retired to Ms farm at North Bend, on the banks of the Ohio. He served in the national council for four years [1824 to 1828] as United States senator, when he was appointed minister to Colombia, one of the South American republics. He was finally raised to the highest post of honor in the nation. His last disease was pneumonia, or bilious pleurisy, which terminated his life in a few days. His last words were (thinking he was addressing his successor in office) : " Sir, I wish you to under stand the principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." 1 Daniel Webster, Secretary of State ; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury ; John Bell, Secretary of War ; George E. Badger, Secretary of the Navy ; Francis Granger, Postmaster-Gen eral ; and J. J. Crittenden, Attorney-General. 1845.J TYLER S ADMINISTRATION. 475 counselors was known, prosperity was half restored, for confidence was re- enthroned in the commercial world. But all the hopes which centered in the new President were soon extinguished, and the anthems of the inaugural day were speedily changed to solemn requiems. Precisely one month after he uttered his oath of office, the new President died. That sad event occurred on the 4th day of April, 1841. Before he had fairly placed his hand upon the machinery of the government, it was paralyzed, and the only official act of general importance performed by President Harrison during his brief administration, was the issu ing of a proclamation, on the 17th of March, calling an extraordinary session of Congress, to commence at the close of the following May, to legislate upon the subjects of finance and revenue. 1 In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Vice-President became the official successor of the deceased President ; and on the 6th of April the oath of office was administered to JOHN TYLER. 2 He retained the cabinet appointed by President Harrison until September fol lowing, when all but the Secretary of State resigned. 3 The extraordinary session of Congress called by President Harrison, com menced its session on the appointed day [May 31, 1841], and continued until the 13th of September following. The Sub-Treasury act 4 was repealed, and a general Bankrupt law was enacted. This humane law accomplished a material benefit. Thousands of honest and enterprising men had been crushed by the 1 The predecessors of Harrison had called extraordinary sessions of Congress, as follows : John Adams, on the 16th of May, 1797 ; Thomas Jefferson, on the 17th of October, 1808, to provide for carrying the treaty of Louisiana into effect; James Madison, .on the 23d of May, 1809, and also on the 25th of May, 1813 ; and Martin Van Buren, on the 4th of September, 1837. 2 On the 4th of April, the members of Harrison s cabinet dispatched Fletcher Webster, chief clerk in the State Department, with a letter to Mr. Tyler, announcing the death of the President. Mr. Tyler was then at Williamsburg. So great was the dispatch, both by the messenger and the Vice-President, that the latter arrived in Washington on Tuesday morning, the 6th of April, at four o clock. As doubts might arise concerning the validity of his oath of office as Vice-President, while acting as President, Mr. Tyler took the oath anew, as Chief Magistrate, before Judge Cranch, of Washington city. On the following day he attended the funeral of President Harrison. John Tyler was born in Charles City county, Virginia, in March, 1790. He was so precocious that he entered William and Mary College at the age of twelve years. He graduated at the age of seven teen, studied law, and at nineteen he was a practicing lawyer. At the age of twenty he was elected a member of the Virginia Legislature, where he served for several years. He was elected to Congress to fill a vacancy caused by death, in 1816, when only twenty-six years of age. He was there again in 1819. In 1825 he was elected governor of Virginia. He was afterward sent to the Senate of the United States; and he was much in public life until the close of his Presidential ca reer. He took part with the enemies of the Republic in the late Civil War, and died in Rich- mond, Virginia, on the 18th of January, 1802. 3 He then appointed Walter Forward, Secretary of the Treasury ; John C. Spencer, Secretary of War; Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy; Charles A. Wickliffe, Postmaster-General; and Hugh S. Legare, Attorney-General. Mr. Tyler had the misfortune to lose three of his cabinet of ficers, by death, in the course of a few months. Mr. Legare accompanied the President to Boston, on the occasion of celebrating the completion of the Bunker Hill monument [page 235], in June, 1843, and died there On the 28th of February following, the bursting of a gun on board the steam ship Princeton, while on an excursion upon the Potomac, killed Mr. Upshur, then Secretary of State ; Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy ; and several other distinguished gentlemen. The President and many ladies were on board. Among the killed was Mr. Gardiner, of the State of New York, whose daughter the President soon afterward married. 4 Note 2, page 471. 476 THE X ATI OX. [1841. recent business revulsion, and were so laden with debt as to be hopelessly chained to a narrow sphere of action. The law relieved them ; and while it bore heavily upon the creditor class, for a while, its operations were beneficent and useful. When dishonest men began to make it a pretense for cheating it was repealed. But the chief object sought to be obtained during this session namely, the chartering of a Bank of the United States, was not achieved. Two separate bills 1 for that purpose were vetoed 2 by the President, who, like Jack son, thought be perceived great evils to be apprehended from the workings of such an institution. The course of the President was vehemently censured by the party in power, and the last veto led to the dissolution of his cabinet. Mr. Webster patriotically remained at his post, for great public interests would have suffered by his withdrawal, at that time. The year 1842 (second of Mr. Tyler s administration) was distinguished by the return of the United States Exploring Expedition ; the settlement of the North-eastern boundary question; essential modifications of the tariff; and domestic difficulties in Rhode Island. The exploring expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Wilkes, of the United States navy, had been sent, several years be fore, to traverse and explore the great southern ocean. It coasted along what 1 One was passed on the 16th of August, 1841 ; the other, modified so as to meet the Presi dents objections, as it was believed, passed September 9th. 2 Note 6, page 462. 1845.] TYLER S ADMINISTRATION. 477 is supposed to be an Antarctic continent, for seventeen hundred miles in the vicinity of latitude 66 degrees south, and between longitude 96 and 154 degrees east. The expedition brought home a great many curiosities of island human life, and a large number of fine specimens of natural history, all of which are now [1867] well preserved in the custody of the National Institute, Smithsonian building, in Washington city. The expedition made a voyage of about ninety thousand miles, equal to almost four times the circumference of the globe. The modifications of the tariff were important. By the compromise act of 1832, 1 duties on foreign goods were to reach the minimum of reduction at the close of 1842, when the tariff would only provide revenue, not protection to manufactures, like that of 182 8. 2 The latter object appeared desirable; and by an act passed on the 29th of June, 1842, high tariffs were imposed on many foreign articles. The President vetoed it ; but a bill, less objectionable, received his assent on the 9 h of August. The difficulties in Rhode Island originated in a movement to adopt a State Constitution of government, and to abandon the old charter given by Charles the Second, 3 in 1663, under which the people had been ruled for one hundred and eighty years. Disputes arose concerning the proper method to be pursued in making the change, and these assumed a serious aspect. Two par ties were formed, known, respectively, as the "suffrage," or radical party; the other as the 1 1 law and order, or conservative party. Each formed a Constitu tion, elected a governor and legislature, 4 and finally armed [May and June, 1843] in defense of their respective claims. The State was on the verge of civil war, and the aid of National troops had to be invoked, to restore quiet and order. A free Constitution, adopted by the " law and order" party in Novem ber, 1842, to go into operation on the first Tuesday in May, 1843, was sus tained, and became the law of the land. During the last year of President Tyler s administration, the country was much agitated by discussions concerning the proposed admission of the independ ent republic of Texas, on our south-west frontier, as a State of the Union. The proposition was warmly opposed at the North, because the annexation would increase the area and political strength of slavery, and lead to a war with Mexico. 5 A treaty for admission, signed at Washington on the 12th of April, 1 Page 464. 3 Page 459. 3 Page 158. 4 The " suffrage" party elected Thomas W. Dorr, governor, and the " law and order" party chose Samuel "W. King for chief magistrate. Dorr was finally arrested, tried for and convicted of treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. The excitement having passed away, in a meas ure, he was released in June, 1845, but was deprived of all the civil rights of a citizen. These dis abilities were removed in the autumn of 1853. * Texas was a part of the domain of that ancient Mexico conquered by Cortez [page 43]. In 1824, Mexico became a republic under Generals Victoria and Santa Anna, and was divided into States united by a Federal Constitution. One of these was Texas, a territory which was origin ally claimed by the United States as a part of Louisiana, purchased [page 390] from France in 1803, but ceded to Spain in 1820. In 1821-22, a colony from the United States, under Stephen F. Austin, made a settlement on both sides of the Colorado River; and the Spanish government favoring immigration thither, caused a rapid increase in the population. There were ten thousand Americans in that province in 1833. Santa Anna became military dictator ; and the people of Texas, unwilling to submit to his arbitrary rule, rebelled. A war ensued ; and on the 2d of March, 1836. a convention declared Texas independent. Much bloodshed occurred afterward; but a final 478 THE NATION. [1845. 1844, was rejected by the Senate on the 8th of June following. To the next Congress the proposition was presented in the form of a joint resolution, and received the concurrence of both Houses on the 1st of March, 1845, and the assent of the President on the same day. This measure had an important bearing upon the Presidential election in 1844. It became more and more pop ular with the people throughout the Union, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee, who was pledged in favor of the measure, was nominated for the office of Pres ident of the United States, by the National Democratic Convention, assembled at Baltimore on the 27th of May, 1844. George M. Dallas was nominated for Vice-President at the same time ; and in November following, they were both elected. The opposing candidates were Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuy- sen. The last important official act of President Tyler was the signing, on the 3d of March, 1845, of the bill for the admission of Florida and Iowa into the Union of States, CHAPTER XII. FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. [1845 1849.] NEVER before had so large a concourse of people assembled at the National city, to witness the inauguration of a new Chief Magistrate of the nation, as on the 4th of March, 1845, when James Knox Polk, 1 of Tennessee, the tenth President of the United States, took the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Taney. The day was unpleasant. A lowering morning preceded a rainy day. and the pleasures of the occasion were marred thereby. The address of the President, on that occasion, clearly indicated that energetic policy which distinguished his administration. On the clay of his inauguration he nominated his cabinet officers, 2 and the Senate being in session, immediately confirmed them. Among the most important topics which claimed the attention of the admin istration, were the annexation of Texas, and the claims of Great Britain to a large portion of the vast territory of Oregon, on the Pacific coast. The former battle of San Jacinto, in which the Texans were led by General Sam Houston, afterward a United States Senator from Texas, vindicated the position the people had taken, and terminated the strife. Texas remained an independent republic until its admission into our National Union in 1845. 1 James K. Polk was born in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, in November, 1795. While he was a child, his father settled in Tennessee ; and the first appearance of young Polk in public life, was as a member of the Tennessee Legislature, in 1823. He had been admitted to the bar three years before, but public life kept him from the practice of his profession, except at intervals. He was elected to Congress in 1825, and was in that body almost continually until elevated to the Presidential chair. He was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1835, and contin ued in the performance of the duties of that office during five consecutive sessions. He was elected governor of Tennessee in 1839, and President of the United States in 1844. He retired to his residence, near Knoxville, Tennessee, at the close of his term, in 1849, and died there in June of the same year. 2 James Buchanan, Secretary of State; Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury; William L. Marcy, Secretary of War; George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy; Cave Johnson, Postmaster- General; and John Y. Mason, Attorney- General. 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 479 demanded and received the earliest consideration. On the last day of his offi cial term, President Tyler had sent a messenger to the Texan Government, with a copy of the joint resolutions of the American Congress, 1 in favor of an nexation. These were considered by a convention of delegates, called for the purpose of forming a State Constitution for Texas. That body approved of the measure, by resolution, on the 4th of July, 1845. On that day Texas became one of the States of our Republic. The other momentous subject (the claims of Great Britain to certain portions of Oregon), also received prompt atten tion. That vast territory, between the Kocky Mountains and the Pacific, had been, for some time, a subject of dispute between the two countries. 2 In 1818, it was mutually agreed that each nation should equally enjoy the privileges of all the bays and harbors on the coast, for ten years. This agreement was re newed in 1827, for an indefinite time, with the stipulation, that either party might rescind it by giving the other party twelve months notice. Such notice 1 The communication was made through A. J. Donelson, the " American" candidate for Vice- President of the United States, in 1856, who was our Charge d Affaires to the Texan Grovernment. 2 Captain Grey, of Boston, entered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792, and Captains Lewis and Clarke explored that region, from the Rocky Mountains westward, in 1804- 5. In 1811, the late J. J. Astor established a trading station at the mouth of the Columbia River. The British doctrine, always practiced by them, that the entrance of a vessel of a civilized nation into the mouth of a river, gives title, by the right of discovery, to the territory watered by that river and its tributaries, clearly gave Oregon to 54 degrees 40 minutes, to the United States, for the dis covery of Captain Grey, in 1792, was not disputed. 480 THE NATION. [1845. was given by the United States in 1846, and the boundary was then fixed by treaty, made at Washington city, in June of that year. Great Britain claimed the whole territory to 54 40 north latitude, the right to which was disputed by the United States. The boundary line was finally fixed at latitude 49 ; and in 1848, a territorial government was established. In March, 1853, Ore gon was divided, and the northarn portion was made a separate domain, by the title of Washington Territory. The annexation of Texas, as had been predicted, caused an immediate rup ture between the United States and Mexico ; for the latter claimed Texas as a part of its territory, notwithstanding its independence had been acknowledged by the United States, England, France, and other governments. Soon after [March 6, 1845] Congress had adopted the joint resolution for the admission of that State into the Union, 1 General Almonte, the Mexican minister at Wash ington, formally protested against that measure, and demanded his passports. On the 4th of June following, General Herrera, President of Mexico, issued a proclamation, declaring the rights of Mexico, and his determination to defend them by arms, if necessary. But, independent of the act complained of, there already existed a cause for serious disputes between the United States and Mexico. 2 Ever since the establishment of republican government by the latter, in 1824, it had been an unjust and injurious neighbor. Impoverished by civil wars, its authorities did not hesitate to replenish its Treasury by plundering American vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, or by confiscating the property of American merchants within its borders. The United States government remonstrated in vain, until, in 1831, a treaty was formed, and promises of redress were made. But aggressions continued ; and in 1840, the aggregate amount of American property which had been appropriated by Mexicans, was more than six millions of dollars. The claim for this amount remained unset tled 3 when the annexation of Texas occurred [July 4, 1845], and peaceful relations between the two governments were suspended. The President being fully aware of the hostile feelings of the Mexicans, ordered [July] General Zachary Taylor, 4 then in command of troops in the South- West, to proceed to Texas, and take a position as near the Rio Grande, 5 as prudence would allow. This force, about fifteen hundred strong, was called the "Army of Occupation," for the defense of Texas. At the same time, a strong squadron, under Commodore Conner, sailed for the Gulf of Mexico, to protect American interests there. General Taylor first landed on the 25th of July on St. Joseph s Island, 6 and then embarked for Corpus Christi, a Mexican 1 Page 478. 2 Pronounced May-hee-co by the Spaniards. 8 Commissioners appointed by the two governments to adjust these claims, met in 1840. The Mexican commissioners acknowledged two millions of dollars, and no more. In 1843 the whole amount was acknowledged by Mexico, and the payment was to be made in instalments of three hundred thousand dollars each. Only three of these instalments had been paid in 1845, and the Mexican government refused to decide whether the remainder should be settled or not 4 Taylor s actual rank in the army list was only that of Colonel. He had been made a Brig adier-General by brevet, for his good conduct in the Florida War [page 468]. A title by brevet is only honorary. Taylor held the title, of Brigadier-General, but received only the pay of a Colonel. * Great or Grand river. Also called Rio Bravo del Norte Brave North river. There the flag of the United States was first displayed in power over Texas soil. 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 481 village beyond the Nueces, and near its mouth. There he formed a camp [September, 1845], and remained during the succeeding autumn and winter. It was during the gathering of this storm of war on our south-western frontier, that the difficulties with Great Britain, concerning Oregon, occurred, which we have already considered. By a dispatch dated January 18, 1846, the Secretary of War ordered Gen eral Taylor to advance from Corpus Christi to near the mouth of the Rio Grande, opposite the Spanish city of Matamoras, because Mexican troops were then gathering in that direction, with the evident intention of invading Texas. This was disputed territory between Texas and the Mexican province of Tamau- lipas ; and when, on the 25th of March, he encamped at Point Isabel, on the coast, about twenty-eight miles from Matamoras, General Taylor was warned by the Mexicans that he was upon foreign soil. Regardless of menaces, he left his stores at Point Isabel, under Major Monroe and four hundred and fifty men, and with the remainder of his army advanced [ March 28, 1846] to the bank of the Rio Grande, where he established & fortified camp, and commenced the erection of a fort. 1 President Herrern s desire for peace with the United States made him un popular, and the Mexican people elected General Paredes 3 to succeed him. That officer immediately dispatched General Ampudia 8 with a large force, to Matamoras, to drive the Americans beyond the Nueces. Ampudia arrived on the llth of April, 1846, and the next day he sent a letter to General Taylor, demanding his withdrawal within twenty-four hours. Taylor refused compli ance, and continued to strengthen his camp. Ampudia hesitated ; and on the 24th of that month he was succeeded in command by the more energetic Arista, 4 the commander-in-chief of the northern division of the army of Mexico, whose reported reinforcements made it probable that some decisive action would soon take place. This change of affairs was unfavorable to the Americans, and the situation of the u Army of Occupation 7 was now becoming very critical. Parties of armed Mexicans had got between Taylor and his stores at Point Isabel, and had cut off all inter-communication. Arista s army was hourly gathering strength; and already an American reconnoitering party, under Captain Thornton, 5 had been killed or captured [April 24] on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. This was the first blood shed in THE WAR WITH MEXICO. When he had nearly completed the fort opposite Matamoras, General Tay lor hastened [May 1], with his army, to the relief of Point Isabel, which was menaced by a large Mexican force 6 collected in. his rear. He left a regiment 1 It was named Fort Brown, in honor of Major Brown, the officer in command there. It was erected under the superintendence of Captain Mansfield, and was large enough to accommodate about two thousand men. a Pronounced Pa-ray-dhes. 3 Pronounced Am-poo-dhee-ah. * Pronounced Ah-rees-tah. 6 General Taylor had been informed that a body of Mexican troops were crossing the Rio Grande, above his encampment, and he sent Captain Thornton, with sixty dragoons, to reconnoitre. They were surprised and captured. Sixteen Americans were killed, and Captain Thornton escaped by an extraordinary leap of his horse. 6 General Taylor was apprised of this force of fifteen hundred Mexicans, by Captain Walker, 31 482 T T! E NATION. [1845. of infantry and two companies of artillery, under Major Brown (in whose honor, as we have just observed, the fortification was named), to defend the fort, and reached Point Isabel the same day, without molestation. This departure produced great joy in Matamoras, for the Mexicans regarded it as a cowardly retreat. Preparations were immediately made to attack Fort Brown ; and on the morning of the 3d of May [1846], a battery at Matamoras opened a heavy cannonade and bombardment upon it, while quite a l^ge body of troops crossed the river, to attack it in the rear. General Taylor had left orders that, in the event of an attack, and aid being required, heavy signal-guns should be fired at the fort. For a long time the little garrison made a noble defense, and silenced the Mexican battery ; but when, finally, the enemy gath ered in strength in the rear, -arid commenced planting cannons, and the heroic Major Brown was mortally wounded, 1 the signals were given [May 6], and Taylor prepared to march for the Rio Grande. He left Point Isabel on the evening of the 7th, with a little more than two thousand men, having been reinforced by Texr.s volunteers, and marines from the American fleet then blockading the mouth of the Rio Grande. At noon, the next day [May 8], they discovered a Mexican army, under Arista, full six thousand strong, drawn up in battle array upon a portion of a prairie flanked by ponds of water, and beautified by trees, which .gave it the name of Palo Alto. As soon as his men could take refreshments, Taylor formed his army, and pressed forward to the attack. For five hours a hot contest was maintained, when, at twilight, the Mexicans gave way and fled, and victory, thorough and complete, was with the Americans. It had been an afternoon of terrible excitement and fatigue, and when the firing ceased, the victors sank exhausted upon the ground. They had lost, in killed and wounded, fifty-three ; a the Mexicans lost about six hundred. At two o clock in the morning of the 9th of May, the deep slumbers of the little army were broken by a summons to renew the march for Fort Brown. They saw no traces of the enemy until toward evening, when they discovered them strongly posted in a ravine, called Resaca de la Palma, 3 drawn up in battle order. A shorter, but bloodier conflict than that at Palo Alto, the pre vious day, ensued, and again the Americans were victorious. They lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and ten ; the Mexican loss was at least one thousand. General La Vega 4 and a hundred men were made prisoners, and the celebrated Texas Ranger, who had been employed by Major Monroe to keep open a communi cation between Point Isabel and Taylor s camp. Walker had fought them with his single company, armed with revolving pistols, and after killing thirty, escaped, and, with six of his men, reached Taylor s camp. 1 He lost a leg by the bursting of a bomb-shell [note 2, page 296], and died on the 9th of May. He was born in Massachusetts in 1788 ; was in the war of 1812 ; was promoted to Major in 1843 ; and was fifty-eight years of age when he died. 2 Among the fatally wounded was Captain Page, a native of Maine, who died on the 12th of July following, at the age of forty-nine years. Also, Major Ringgold, commander of the Flying Artillery, who died at Point Isabel, four days afterward, at the age of forty-six years. 3 Pronounced Ray-sah-kah day la Pal-mah, or Dry River of Palms. The ravine is supposed to be the bed of a dried-up stream. The spot is on the northerly side of the Rio Grande, about three miles from Matamoras. In this engagement, Taylor s force was about one thousand seven hundred j Arista had been reinforced, and had about seven thousand men. 4 Lay Yay-goh. He was a brave officer, and was captured by Captain May, who, rising in his 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 483 j eight pieces of cannon, three standards, and a quantity of military stores, were captured. The Mexican army was completely broken up. Arista saved him self by solitary flight, and made his way alone across the Rio Grande. After suffering a bombardment for one hundred and sixty hours, the garrison at Fort Brown were relieved, and the terrified Mexicans were trembling for the safety of Matamoras. When intelligence of the first bloodshed, in the attack upon Captain Thorn ton and his party, on the 24th of April, and a knowledge of the critical situa tion of the little Army of Occupation, reached New Orleans, and spread over the land, the whole country was aroused ; and before the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma [May 8, 9] were known in the States, Congress had declared [May 11, 1846] that, "by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that government and the United States ;" authorized the President to raise fifty thousand volunteers, and appropriated ten millions of dollars [May 13] toward carrying on the contest. Within two days, the Sec- retary of War and General Scott 1 planned [May 15] a campaign, greater in the territorial extent of its proposed operations, than any recorded in history. A fleet was to sweep around Cape Horn, and attack the Pacific coast of Mexico ; an " Army of the West" was to gather at Fort Leavenworth. 2 invade New Mexico, and co-operate with the Pacific fleet ; and an " Army of the Center" was to rendezvous in the heart of Texas, 3 to invade Old Mexico from the north. On the 28d of the same month [May], the Mexican government made a formal declaration of war against the United States. When news of the two brilliant victories reached the States, a thrill of joy went throughout the land, and bonfires, illuminations, orations, and the thunder of cannons, were seen and heard in all the great cities. In the mean while, General Taylor was in Mexico, preparing for other brilliant victories. 4 He crossed the Rio Grande, drove the Mexican troops from Matamoras, and took possession of that town on the 18th of May. There he remained until the close of August, receiving orders from government, and reinforcements, and prepar ing to march into the interior. The first division of his army, under General Worth, 6 moved toward Monterey 5 on the 20th. Taylor, with the remainder (in all, more than six thousand men), followed on the 3d of September; and on the 1 9th, the whole army 7 encamped within three miles of the doomed city, then stirrups, shouted, "Remember jour regiment! Men, follow!" and, with his dragoons, rushed for ward in the face of a heavy fire from a battery, captured La Vega, killed or dispersed the gunners, and took possession of the cannons. 1 Page 485. 2 A strong United States post on the southern bank of the Missouri River, on the "borders of the Great Plains. These plains extend to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. 3 At San Antonia de Bexar, the center of Austin s settlement [note 5, page 477], south of the Colorado river. 4 On the 30th of May he was rewarded for his skill and bravery by a commission as Major- General, by brevet See note 4, page 480. 6 William J. Worth was born in Columbia county, New York, in 1794. He was a gallant soldier during the War of 1812-15; was retained in the army, and for his gallantry at -Monterey, was made a Major-General by brevet, and received the gift of a sword from Congress. He was of great service during the whole war with Mexico. He died in Texas in May, 1849. c Pronounced Mon-tar-ray. It is the capital of New Leon. T The principal officers with General Taylor, at this time, were Generals Worth, Quitman, Twiggs, Butler, Henderson, and Hamer. 484 THE X ATI OX. [1845. defended by General Ampudia, 1 with more than nine thousand troops. It was a strongly built town, at the foot of the great Sierra Madre, well fortified by both nature and art, and presented a formidable obstacle in the march of the victor toward the interior. But having secured the Saltillo road, 2 by which supplies for the Mexicans in Monterey were to be obtained, General Taylor commenced a siege on the 21st of September. The conflict continued almost four days, a part of the time within the streets of the city, where the carnage was dreadful. Anrpudia surrendered the town and garrison on the fourth day* [September 24], and leaving General Worth in command there, General Tay lor encamped at Walnut Springs, three miles distant, and awaited further orders from his government. 4 When Congress made the declaration of war, and authorized the raising of an army from the great body of the people, General Wool 5 was commissioned to muster and prepare for service, the gathering volunteers. He performed this duty so promptly, that by the middle of July, twelve thousand of them had been inspected, and mustered into service. Nine thousand of them were sent to the Bio Grande, to reinforce General Taylor, and the remainder repaired to Bexar, 6 in Texas, where they were disciplined by General Wool, in person, preparatory to marching into the province of Chihuahua, 7 in the heart of Mexico. Wool went up the Rio Grande with about three thousand men, crossed the river at Presidio, and on the last day of October, reached Monclova, seventy miles north-west from Monterey. His kindness to the people won their confidence and esteem, and ho was regarded as a friend. There he was informed of the capture of Monterey, and guided by the advice of General Taylor, he abandoned the project of penetrating Chihuahua, and marched to the fertile dis trict of Parras, in Coahuila, where he obtained ample supplies for his own and Taylor s forces. The armistice 8 at Monterey ceased on the 13th of November, by order of the United States government. General Worth, with nine hundred men, took possession of Saltillo [November 15, 1846], the capital of Coahuila, 9 and Gen eral Taylor, leaving General Butler in command at Monterey, marched for Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, with the intention of attacking Tampico, 1 Page 481. 2 This road passed through the mountains along the San Juan river, and is the only commu nication between Monterey and the fertile provinces of Coahuila and Durango. The command of this road was obtained after a severe contest with Mexican cavalry, on the 20th of May, by a party under General Worth. 3 The Mexican soldiers were permitted to march out with the honors of war ; and, being short of provisions, and assured that Santa Anna, now at the head of the Mexicans, desired peace, Gen eral Taylor agreed to a cessation of hostilities for eight weeks, if permitted by his government. 4 The Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, five hundred and sixty-one. The number lost by the Mexicans was never ascertained, but it was supposed to be more than one thousand. 6 John Ellis Wool is a native of New York. He entered the army in 1812, and soon rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, for gallant conduct on Queenstown Heights [page 413]. He was breveted brigadier in 1826, and for gallant conduct at Buena Vista, in 1847. was breveted Major- General. He took an active part for his country in the late Civil War, and, in 1862, was appointed full Major-General. Austin s settlement. See note 5, page 477. 7 Pronounced Chee-wah-wah. 8 The agreement for a cessation of hostilities is so called. 9 Pronounced Co-ah-weel-ah. 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 435 on the coast. That place had already surrendered 1 [November 14], and being informed that Santa Anna was collecting a large force at San Luis Potosi, 3 he returned to Monterey, to reinforce General Worth, if necessary. Worth was joined by Wool s division, near Saltillo, on the 20th of December, and Taylor again advanced and took possession of Victoria, on the 29th. And now the conquering Taylor was compelled to endure a severe trial of his temper and patriotism. General Scott 3 had arrived before Vera Cruz [January, 184T], for the purpose of invading Mexico from that point, and being the ssnior officer, took the supreme command. Just as Taylor was preparing for a vigorous winter campaign, he re ceived an order from General Scott, to send him a large portion of his best officers and troops to assist against Vera Cruz, and to act thereafter only on the defensive. 4 Taylor was deeply mortified, but, like a true soldier, instantly obeyed, and he and General Wool were left with an aggregate force of only about ,!_ T / , ~ | , , , " GENERAL SCOTT. nve thousand men (only five hundred regulars; t) op pose an army of twenty thousand, now gathering at San Luis Potosi, under Santa Anna. They united their forces at Agua Nueva, 5 twenty miles south from Saltillo, on the San Luis road, early in February [Feb. 4, 184T], and weak as he was, Taylor determined to fight the Mexicans, who were now ad vancing upon him. Tho opportunity was not long delayed. The Americans fell back [Feb. 21] to Buena Vista, 6 within eleven miles of Saltillo, and there, in a narrow defile in the mountains, encamped in battle order. At about noon the next day [Feb. 22] the anniversary of the birth of Washington the Mex ican army approached within two miles of them ; and Santa Anna, assuring Taylor that he was surrounded by twenty thousand troops, and could not escape, ordered him to surrender within an hour. Taylor politely refused the request, and both armies prepared for battle. 7 There was some skirmising dur- 1 Commodore Connor, who commanded the " Home Squadron" in the Gulf, captured Tampico. Tobasco and Tuspan were captured by Commodore Perry [page 512], in October following. 3 Santa Anna was elected provisional President of Mexico, in December, and in violation of his peace promises to Commodore Connor, he immediately placed himself at the head of the army. 3 "Winfield Scott was born in Virginia in 1786. He was admitted to law practice at the age of twenty years. He joined the army in 1808, was made Lieutenant-Colonel in 1812, and passed through the war that ensued, with great honor to himself and his country. He was breveted major-general in 1814, and was made general-in-chief of the army in 1841. His successes in Mex ico greatly added to his laurels. On the 15th of February, 1855, he was commissioned a Lieu- tenant-General. Owing to infirmities, he retired from active duty in the autumn of 1861. He died at "West Point, May 29, 1866, one of the greatest captains of the age. * The necessity for this order was as painful to General Scott as it was mortifying to General Taylor. Before leaving Washington, Scott wrote a long private letter to Taylor, apprising him of this necessity, expressing his sincere regrets, and speaking in highest praise of the victories already achieved in Mexico. 5 Pronounced Ag-wah New-van, or New "Water. 6 Pronounced Bwe-naw Ves-tah Pleasant View. This was the name of a hacienda (planta tion) at Angostura. 7 Santa Anna wrote as follows : " CAMP AT ENCATADA, February 22d, 184T. "Goo AND LIBERTY! You are surrounded by twenty thousand men, and can not, in any human probability, avoid suffering a rout, and being cut to pieces with your troops ; but as you de- 486 THE NATION. [1845. night succeeding the conflict, the ing the afternoon, when the battle-cry of the Americans was, "The Memory of Washington!" Early the following morning [Feb. 23] a terrible conflict commenced. It was desperate and bloody, and continued until sunset. Sev eral times the overwhelming numbers of the Mexicans appeared about to crush the little band of Americans ; and finally Santa Anna made a desperate assault 1 upon the American center, commanded by Taylor in person. It stood like a rock before a billow ; and by the assistance of the artillery of Bragg, Wash ington, and Sherman, the martial wave was rolled back, the Mexicans fled in confusion, and the Americans were masters of the bloody field. During the Mexicans all withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded behind them. 2 The invaders were now in possession of all the northern Mexican provinces, and Scott was prepar ing to storm Yera Cruz 3 and march to the capital. 4 In the course of a few months General Taylor left Wool in command [Sept., 1847], and returned home, every where receiving tokens of the highest re gard from his countrymen. Let us now consider other operations of-the war during this period. The command of the " Army : * the West" 5 was given to General Kearney, 8 with instructions to conquer New Mexico and California. He left Fort Leaven- worth in June, and after a journey of nine hundred miles over the Great Plains and among the mountain ranges, he arrived at Santa Fe, the capital of New REGION OF TAYLORS OPERATIONS. serve consideration and particular esteem, I wish to save you from such a catastrophe, and for that purpose give you this notice, in order that you may surrender at discretion, under the assurance that you will be treated with the consideration belonging to the Mexican character ; to which end you will be granted an hour s time to make up your mind, to commence from the moment that my flag of truce arrives in your camp. "With this view, I assure you of my particular consideration. "ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA. "To General Z. Taylor, Commanding the Forces of the U. S." General Taylor did not take tho allotted time to make up his mind, but instantly sat down and wrote the following reply : " HEAD-QTJAKTEES, AEMY OF OCCUPATION, Near Buena Vista, Feb. 22d, 1847. " SIR: In reply to your note of this date, summoning me to surrender my forces at discre tion, I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your request. "With high respect, I am, sir, your obedient servant, Z. TAYLOR, Major-General U. S. Army." 1 To deceive the Americans, Santa Anna resorted to the contemptible trick of sending out a flag in token of surrender, at the moment of making the assault, hoping thereby to cause his enemy to be less vigilant. Taylor was too well acquainted with Mexican treachery to be de ceived. 2 The Americans lost two hundred and sixty-seven killed, four hundred and fifty-six wounded, and twenty-three missing. The Mexicans lost almost two thousand. They left five hundred of their comrades dead on the field. Among the Americans slain was Lieutenant-Colonel Clay, son of the distinguished Henry Clay, of Kentucky. Page 500. s p a o- e 489. 4 On the day of the battle at Buena Vista, General Minon, with eight hundred cavalry, was driven from Saltillo by Captain Webster and a small party of Americans. On the 26th of February, Colonels Morgan and Irvin defeated a party at Agua Frio ; and on the 7th of March, Major Gid- dings was victorious at Ceralvo. 6 Page 483. 6 Stephen "W. Kearney was a native of New Jersey. He was a gallant soldier in the War of 1812-15. He was breveted a Brigadier in 1846, and Major-General in December the same year, for gallant conduct in the Mexican War. He died at Yera Cruz, in October, 1848, at the age of fifty- four years. 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 487 Mexico, on the 18th of August. He met with no resistance ; and having taken peaceable possession of the country, and constituted Charles Bent its governor, he marched toward California. He soon met an express from Commodore Stock ton 2 and Lieutenant- Colonel Fremont, informing him that the conquest of Cali fornia had already been achieved. Fremont had been sent with a party of about sixty men to explore portions of New Mexico and California. When lie arrived in the vicinity of Monterey, on the Pacific coast, he was opposed by a Mexican force under General Castro. Fremont aroused all the American settlers in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, captured a Mexican post and garrison, and nine cannons, and two hun dred and fifty muskets, at Sonoma Pass [June 15, 1846], and then advanced to Sonoma, and defeated Castro and his troops. The Mexican authorities were effectually driven out of that region of the country ; and on the 5th of July, the American Californians declared themselves independent, and placed Fre mont at the head of their affairs. Two days nfterward, Commodore Sloat, then in command of the squadron in the Paciiic, bombarded and captured Mon terey ; and on the 9th, Commodore Montgomery took possession of San Fran cisco. Commodore Stockton arrived on the 15th, and with Colonel Fremont, took possession of the city of Los Angelos on the 17th of August. On receiv ing this information, Kearney sent the main body of his troops to Santa Fe, and with one hundred men he pushed forward to Los Angelos, near the Pacific coast, where he met [Dec, 27, 1847] Stockton and Fremont. In company with these officers, he shared in the honor.-* oi I ho final important events [Jan. 8, 1847], which completed the conquest and pacification of California. Fremont, the real liberator of that country, claimed the right to be governor, and was supported by Stockton and the people ; but Kearney, his superior officer, would not acquiesce. Fremont refused to obey him ; and Kearney departed, sailed to Monterey, and there, in conjunction with Commodore Shubrick, he assumed the office of governor, and proclaimed [Feb. 8, 1847] the annexation of Cali fornia to the United States. Fremont was ordered home to be tried for dis obedience of orders. He was deprived of his commission ; but the President, valuing him as one of the ablest officers in the army, offered it to him again. Fremont refused it, and went again to the wilderness and engaged in explor ation. 3 1 The governor and four thousand Mexicans troops fled at his approach, and the people, num bering about six thousand, quietly submitted. a Kobert F. Stockton is a son of one of the New Jersey signers of the Declaration of Independ ence. He entered the navy in 1811, and was appointed commodore in 1838. He left the navy in May, 1850, and has since been a member of the United States Senate from New Jersey. 3 John Charles Fremont was born at Savannah, Georgia, in January, 1813. His father was a Frenchman ; his mother a native of Virginia. He was born while his parents were on a journey, and his infancy was spent among the wilds of the south-west. At the age of thirteen he commenced the study of law, but was soon afterward placed in a good school for the enlargement of his educa tion. He was very successful ; and after leaving school became a teacher in Charleston, and then instructor in mathematics on board a sloop-of-war. As a civil engineer, he had few equals, and in this capacity he made many explorations, in the service of private individuals and the government, as lieutenant. His several explorations are among the wonders of the age. In 1846, the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, presented him with an elegant sword, in a gold scabbard, as a testi monial of their appreciation of his great services to the country ; and in 1850, the King of Prussia, 488 THE X AT TOST. [1845. Other stirring events were occurring in the same direction at this time. While Kearney was on his way to California, Colonel Doniphan, by his com mand, was engaged, with a thousand Missouri volunteers, in forcing the Nav- ajo Indians to make a treaty of peace. This was accomplished on the 22d of November, 1846, and then Doniphan marched toward Chihuahua, to join Gen eral Wool. At Braceti, in the valley of the Rio del rTorte, they met a large Mexican force on the 22d of December, under General Ponce de Leon. He sent a black flag to Doniphan, with the message, " We will neither ask nor give quarter." The Mexicans then advanced and fired three rounds. The Mis- sourians fell upon their faces, and the enemy, supposing them to be all slain, rushed forward for plunder. The Americans suddenly arose, and delivering a deadly fire from their rifles, killed two hundred Mexicans, and dispersed the remainder in great confusion. Doniphan then pressed forward, and when within eighteen miles of the capital of Chihuahua, he was confronted [Feb. 28, 1847] by four thousand Mexicans. These he completely routed, 1 and then pressing forward to the city of Chihuahua, he entered it in triumph, raised the sent him the grand golden medal struck for those who have made essential progress in science. In 1851, he was elected the first United States senator for California; and, in June, 1856, he was nominated for the office c f President of the United States. He served as Major-General in the National army during a portion of the late Civil War. 1 The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, only eighteen men ; the Mexicans lost about siy hundred. 1849.] POLE S ADMINISTRATION. 489 flag of the United States upon its citadel, in the midst of a population of forty thousand [March 2j, and took possession of the province in the name of his gov ernment. After resting six weeks he marched to Saltillo [May 22], where General Wool was encamped. From thence he returned to New Orleans, hav ing made a perilous march from the Mississippi, of about five thousand miles. The conquest of all Northern Mexico, 1 with California, was now complete, and General Scott was on his march for the great capital. Let us now consider GENERAL SCOTT S INVASION OF MEXICO. The Mexican authorities having scorned overtures for peace made by the government of the United States in the autumn of 1846. it was determined to conquer the whole country. For that purpose General Scott was directed to collect an army, capture Vera Cruz, 3 and march to the Mexican capital. His rendezvous was at Lobos Island, about one hundred and twenty-five miles north from Vera Cruz ; and on the 9th of March, 1847, he landed near the latter with an army of about thirteen thousand men, borne thither by a powerful squadron commanded by Commodore Connor. 3 He invested the city on the 13th ; and five days afterward [March 18], having every thing ready for an attack, 4 he summoned the town and fortress, for the last time, to surrender A refusal was the. signal for opening a general cannon ade, and bombardment from his batteries and tne fleet. The siege continued until the 27th. when the city, the strong castle of San Juan d Ulloa, with five thousand prisoners, and five hundred pieces of artillery, were surren dered to the Americans. The latter had only forty men killed, and about the same number wounded. At least a thousand Mexicans ,.,,,, . , [XTllEXCHMENTS AT VERA CRUZ. were killed, and a great number were maimed. It is estimated that during this siege, not less than six thousand seven hundred shots and shells were thrown by the American batteries, weighing, in the ag gregate, more than forty thousand pounds. Two days after the siege [March 29, 1847], General Scott took possession of Vera Cruz, and on the 8th of April, the advanced force of his army, under General Twiggs. commenced their march for the interior by way of Jalapa. 5 Santa Anna had advanced, with twelve thousand men, to Cerro Gordo, a difii- 1 Some conspiracies in New Mexico against the new government, ripened into revolt, in Janu ary, 1847. Governor Bent and others were murdered at Fernando de Taos on the 19th, and mas sacres occurred in other quarters. On the 23d, Colonel Price, with three hundred and fifty men, marched against and defeated the insurgents at Canada, and finally dispersed them at the mountain gorge called the Pass of Embudo. u This city was considered the key to the country. On an island opposite was a very strong fortress called the castle of San Juan d Ulloa [pronounced San- whan-dah-oo-loo-ah], always cele brated for its great strength, and considered impregnable by the Mexicans. 3 Page 480. 4 The engineering operations were performed very skillfully under the direction of Colonel Tot- ten, an officer of the "War of 1812. For his bravery at Vera Cruz, he was made Brigadier-G-eneral, by brevet, He died at Washington City, April 22, 1864. 6 Pronounced, nan-lah-pah. CATION. [1846 . cult mountain pass at the foot of the eastern chain of the Cordilleras. He was strongly fortified, and had many pieces of cannon well placed for defense Scott had followed Twiggs with the main body. He had left a strong garrison at \ era Cruz, and his whole army now numbered about eight thousand five hundred men. Having skillfully arranged his plans, he attacked the enemy on the 18th of April. The assault was successful. More than a thousand Mex icans were killed or wounded, and three thousand were made prisoners. Hav ing neither men to guard, nor food to sustain the prisoners, General Scott dis missed them on parole. 1 The boastful Santa Anna narrowly escaped capture by fleeing upon a mule taken from his carriage." The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, four hundred and thirty-one. The victors entered Jalapa on the 19th of April; and on the 22d, General Worth unfurled the stars and strides upon the onstle of Perote, on the summit of the eastern Cordilleras, fifty luiies from JuL-.pa. This was considered the strongest fortress in Mexico next to Vera Cruz, yet it was surrendered without resistance. Among the spoils were fifty-four pieces of cannon, and mortars, and a large quantity of munitions of war. Onward the victorious army marched ; and on the 15th of May [1847] it entered the ancient walled and fortified city of Puebla, 3 without opposition from the ddity thousand inhabit ants within. Here the Americans rested, after a series o victories almost un paralleled. V ithin two months, an army averaging only about ten thousand men, had tal: u some or" the strongest fortresses on this continent, made ten thousand prisoners, and captured seven hundred pieces of artillery, ten thou sand stand of arms, and thirty thousand shells and cannon-balls. Yet greater conquests awaited them. General Scott remained at Puebla until August, 4 when, being reinforced by fresh troops, sent by way of Vera Cruz, he resumed his march toward the cap ital, with more than ten thousand men, leaving a large number sick in the hos pital. 5 Their route was through a beautiful region, well watered, and clothed with the richest verdure, and then up the slopes of the great Cordil- ROUTii Of THE U. S. AKMY FKOM VfcKA CKUZ TO Jttbilcu. 1 TT, L 1 P leras. J^rom their lofty summits, and almost from the same spot where Cortez and his followers stood amazed more 1 Note 6, page 311. 2 Before the battle, Santa Anna said. " I will die fighting rather than the Americans shall proudly tread the imperial city of Azteca." So precipitate was his flight that he left all his papers behind him, and his wooden leg. He had been so severely wounded in his leg, while defending Vera Cruz against the French, in 1838, that amputation became necessary, and a wooden one was substituted. 3 Pronounced p w eb-lah. During this long halt of the American army, the government of the United States made un availing efforts to negotiate for peace. The Mexican authorities refused the olive branch, and boasted of their patriotism, valor, and strength, while losing post after post, in their retreat toward the capital. 5 At one time there were eighteen hundred men sick at Puebla ; and at Perote seven hundred died during the summer, notwithstanding the situations of these places, on lofty table-lands were considered exceedingly healthful. in BOUBARDMEMT OF VEKA CRUZ. 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 493 than three centuries before, 1 Scott and his army looked down [August 10, 1847] upon that glorious panorama of intervales, lakes, cities, and villages, in the great valley of Mexico the capital of the Aztec Empire 2 the seat of. " the Halls of the Montezumas." 3 General Twiggs 4 cautiously led the advance of the American army toward the city of Mexico, on the llth of August, and encamped at St. Augustine, on the Acapulco road, eight miles south of the capital. Before him lay the strong fortress of San (or St.) Antonio, and close on his right were the heights of Churubusco, crowned with embattled walls covered with cannons, and to be reached in front only by a dangerous causeway. Close by was the fortified camp of Contreras, containing six thousand Mexicans, under General Valencia ; and between it and the city was Santa Anna, and twelve thousand men, held in reserve. Such was the general position of the belligerents when, a little after midnight on the 20th of August [1847], General Smith 5 marched to the attack of the camp at Contreras. The battle opened at sunrise. It was sanguinary, but brief, and the Americans were victorious. Eighty officers and three thou sand private soldiers were made prisoners ; and the chief trophies were thirty- three pieces of artillery. In the mean while, Generals Pierce 6 and Shields, 7 with a small force, kept Santa Anna s powerful reserve at bay. General Scott now directed a similar movement against Cherubusco. Santa Anna advanced : and the whole region became a battle-field, under the eye and control of the American commander-in-chief. The invaders dealt blow after blow successfully. Antonio yielded, Churubusco was taken, and Santa Anna aban doned the field and fled to the capital. It was a memorable day in Mexico. An army, thirty thou sand strong, had been broken up by another less than one third its strength in numbers; and at almost every step the Americans were successful. Full four thousand of the Mexicans were killed or wounded, three thousand were made prisoners, and thirty seven pieces of cannon were taken, all in one day. The Americans lost, in killed and wounded, almost eleven OPERATIONS NEAR MEXICO. 1 Page 43. a According to the faint glimmerings of ancient Mexican history which have come down to us, the Aztecs, who occupied that country when it first became known to Europeans [page 43], came from the North, and were more refined than any other tribes, which, from time to time, had held possession of the country. They built a city within the borders of Lake Tezcuco, and named it Mexico, in honor of Mexitli, their god of war. Where the present great cathedral stands, they had erected an immense temple, dedicated to the sun, and there offered human sacrifices. It is related, that at its consecration, almost sixty thousand human beings were sacrificed. The temple was built about the year 1480, by the predecessor of Montezuma, the emperor found by Cortez. This expression, referring to the remains of the palace of Montezuma in Mexico, was often used during the war. * David E. Twiggs was born in Georgia, in 1790. He served in the War of 1812, and was retained in the army. He was breveted a Major-General after the battle of Monterey, in Mexico. He deserted his flag, and was dismissed from the army in 1861. Died September 15, 1862. J General Persifer F. Smith, of Louisiana. Page 514. 7 General James Shields, of Illinois, afterward a representative of that State in the Senate of the United States. 494 T II K X. A T I X. [1845. hundred. They might now have entered the city of Mexico in triumph, but General Scott preferred to bear the olive branch, rather than the palm. As he advanced to Tacubaya, [August 21], within three miles of the city, a flag came from Santa Anna to ask for an armistice, preparatory to negotiations for peace. l It was granted, and Nicholas P. Trist, who had been appointed, by the United States government, a commissioner to treat for peace, went into the capital [August 24] for the purpose. Scott made the palace of the archbishop, at Tacubaya, his head-quarters, and there anxiously awaited the result of the con ference, until the 5th of September, when Mr. Trist returned, with the intelli gence that his propositions were not only spurned with scorn, but that Santa Anna had violated the armistice by strengthening the defenses of the city. Disgusted with the continual treachery of his foe, Scott declared the armistice at an end, on the 7th of September, and prepared to storm the capital. The first demonstration against the city was on the morning of the 8th of September, when less than four thousand Americans attacked fourteen thousand Mexicans, under Santa Anna, at El Molinos del Rey (the King s Mills) near Chepultepec. They were at first repulsed, with great slaughter ; but returning to the attack, they fought desperately for an hour, and drove the Mexicans from their position. Both parties suffered dreadfully. The Mexicans left almost a thousand dead on the field, and the Americans lost about eight hundred. And now the proud Chepultepec was doomed. It was a lofty hill, strongly fortified, and the seat of the military school of Mexico. It was the last place to be defended outside the suburbs of the city. Scott erected four heavy batteries to bear upon it, on the night of the llth of September ; and the next day [Sep tember 12, 1847], a heavy cannonade and bombardment commenced. On the 13th, the assailants commenced a furious charge, routed the enemy, with great slaughter, and unfurled the American flag over the shattered castle of Chepul tepec. The Mexicans fled to the city along an aqueduct, pursued by General Quitman 2 to its very gates. That night, Santa Anna and his army, with the officers of government, fled from the doomed capital : and at four o clock the following morning [September 14], a deputation from the city authorities waited upon General Scott, and begged him to spare the town and treat for peace. He would make no terms, but ordered Generals Worth and Quitman 3 to move forward, and plant the stripes and stars upon the National Palace. The victorious generals entered at ten o clock, and on the Grand Plaza, 4 took formal possession of the Mexican Empire. Order soon reigned in the capital. Santa Anna made some feeble efforts to regain lost power, and failed. He appeared before Puebla on the 22d of September, where Colonel Childs had been besieged since the 13th. The approach of General Lane frightened him away ; and in a battle with the troops of that leader at Huamantla, Santa 1 Note 1, page 242. 2 John A. Quitman was a native of Xew York. He led volunteers to the Mexican war, and was presented with a sword by Congress. He was Governor of Mississippi in 1851, and was a leader of secessionists. He died July 15, 1858. 3 The approach of each was along separate aqueducts. See map, page 493. 4 Place. This is the large public square in the city of Mexico. GENERAL SCOTT ENTERING- TIIS CITY OF MEXICO 1849.] FOLK S ADMINISTRATION. 497- Anna was defeated. On the 18th of October he was again defeated at Atlixco, and there his troops deserted him. Before the close of October, he was a fugitive, stripped of every commission, and seeking safety, by flight, to the shores of the Gulf. 1 The president of the Mexican Congress assumed provis ional authority ; and on the 2d of February, 1848, that body concluded a treaty of peace, with commissioners of the United States at Gaudaloupe Hidalgo This treaty was finally agreed to by both governments, and on the 4th of July following, President Polk proclaimed it. It stipulated the evacuation of Mex ico by the American army, within three months ; the payment of three millions of dollars in hand, and twelve millions of dollars, in four annual instalments, by the United States to Mexico, for the territory acquired by conquest ; and in addition, to assume debts due certain citizens of the United States to the amount of three millions five hundred thousand dollars. It also fixed bound aries, and otherwise adjusted matters in dispute. New Mexico and California now became Territories of the United States. During the same month that a treaty of peace was signed at Gaudaloupe Hidalgo, a man employed by Captain Sutter, who owned a mill twenty-five miles up the American fork of the Sacramento River, discovered gold. It was very soon found in other localities, and during the summer, rumors of the fact reached the United States. These rumors assumed tangible form in President Polk s message in December, 1848 ; and at the beginning of 1849, thousands were on their way to the land of gold. Around Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama, and over the great central plains of the continent, men went by hundreds ; and far and wide in California, the precious metal was found. From Europe and South America, hundreds flocked thither ; and the Chinese came also from Asia, to dig gold. The dreams of the early Spanish voyagers, 2 and those of the English who sought gold on the coasts of Labrador, 8 and up the rivers in the middle of the continent, 4 have been more than realized. Emigrants yet [186Y] continue to go thither, and the gold seems inexhaustible. 5 The war with Mexico, and the settlement of the Oregon boundary question 8 with Great Britain, were the most prominent events, having a relation to for eign powers, which distinguished Mr. Polk s administration. Two measures of a domestic character, appear prominently among many others which mark his administration as full of activity. These were the establishment of an inde pendent treasury system, 7 by which the national revenues are collected in gold and silver, or treasury notes, without the aid of banks ; and a revision of the tariff laws in 1846, by which protection to American manufacturers was lessened. It was during the last year of his administration that Wisconsin was admitted [May 29, 1848] into the Union of States, making the whole number thirty. At about this time, the people of the Union were preparing for another presidential election. The popularity which General Taylor had gained by his brilliant victories in Mexico, caused him to be nominated for that exalted sta tion, in many parts of the Union, even before he returned home; 8 and he was 1 Note 6, page 515. * Page 43. 3 Page 52. 4 Page 56. 6 Note 3, page 373. 9 Page 479. 7 Note 2, page 471. e Page 486. 32 498 THE NATION. [1849. chosen to be a candidate for that office, by a national convention held at Phila delphia in June, 1848. His opponent was General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, now [1856] United States senator from that State. 1 General Taylor was elected by a large majority, with Millard Fillmore, of New York, as Vice- President. CHAPTER XIII. TAYLOR S ADMINISTRATION [18491850.] THE 4th of March, 1849, was Sunday, and the inauguration of Zachary Taylor, 3 the twelfth President of the United States, did not tate place until the next day. Again people had gathered at the Federal city from all parts of the Union, and the day being pleasant, though cloudy, a vast concourse were 1 Note 2, page 424. 2 Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia, in November, 1784. He went with his father to Ken tucky the following year, and his childhood was passed near the present city of Louisville. He entered the United States army in 1807. He was a distinguished subaltern during ;,he war of 1812-15, and attained the rank of major. He was of great service in the Florida War [page 468] ; and when hostilities with Mexico appeared probable, he was sent in that direction, and, as we have seen, displayed great skill and bravery. He died in July, 1850, having performed the duties of President for only sixteen months. 1850.] TAYLOR S ADMINISTRATION. 499 assembled in front of the eastern portico of the capitol, long before the appointed hour for the interesting ceremonies. In a clear and distinct voice, he pro nounced his inaugural address, and then took the oath of office administered by- Chief Justice Taney. On the following day he nominated his cabinet officers, 1 and the appointments were immediately confirmed by the Senate. With the heart of a true patriot and honest man, Taylor entered upon his responsible duties with a sincere desire to serve his country as faithfully in the cabinet, as he had done in the field. 2 He had the sympathies of a large majority of the people with him, and his inauguration was the promise of great happiness and prosperity for the country. When President Taylor entered upon the duties of his office, thousands of adventurers were flocking to California from all parts of the Union, and ele ments of a new and powerful State were rapidly gathering there. Statesmen and politicians perceived the importance of the new Territory, and soon the question whether slavery should have a legal existence there, became an absorb ing topic in Congress and among the people. The inhabitants of California decided the question for themselves. In August, 1849, General Riley, the military Governor of the Territory, established a sort of judiciary by proclama tion, with Peter H. Burnet as Chief Justice. Before that time there was no statute law in California. By proclamation, also, Governor Rilej summoned a convention of delegates to meet at Monterey, to form a State Constitution. Before it convened, the inhabitants in convention at San Francisco, voted against slavery ; and the Constitution, prepared and adopted at Monterey, on the first of September, 1849, excluded slavery from the Territory, forever. Thus came into political form the crude elements of a State, the birth and maturity of which seems like a dream. All had been accomplished within twenty months from the time when gold was discovered near Sutter s Mill. Under the Constitution, Edward Gilbert and G. H. Wright, were elected delegates for California in the National House of Representatives ; and the State Legislature, at its first session, elected John Charles Fremont 3 and William M. Gwinn, United States senators. When the latter went to Washington, they carried their Constitution with them, and presented a petition [February, 1850] asking for the admission of that Territory into the Union as a free and independent State. 4 The article of the Constitution which excluded slavery, became a cause for violent debates in Congress, and of bitter sectional feeling in the South against the people of the North. The Union, so strong in the hearts of the people, was shaken to its center, and prophets of evil 1 He appointed John M. Clayton, Secretary of State ; William M. Meredith, Secretary of the Treasury; George "W. Crawford, Secretary of War; William B. Preston, Secretary of the Navy; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior (a new office recently established, in which some of the duties before performed by the State and Treasury departments are attended to) ; Jacob Collamer, Postmaster-General ; and Reverdy Johnson, Attorney- General. 3 Page 481 to page 486, inclusive. * Page 488. 4 At this time our government was perplexed by the claims of Texas to portions of the Terri tory of New Mexico, recently acquired [page 497], and serious difficulty was apprehended. Early in 1850, the inhabitants of New Mexico petitioned Congress for a civil government, and the Mor mons of the Utah region also petitioned for the organization of the country they had recently settled, into a Territory of the United States. 500 THE NATION. [1849. predicted its speedy dissolution. As in 1832, 1 there were menaces of secession from the Union, by Southern representatives, and never before did civil war appear so inevitable. Happily for the country, some of the ablest statesmen and patriots the Republic had ever gloried in. were members of the national Legislature, at that time, and with consummate skill they directed and con trolled the storm. In the midst of the tumult and alarm in Congress, and throughout the land, Henry Clay again 3 appeared as the potent peace-maker between the Hotspurs of the North and South ; and on the 25th of January, 1850, he offered, in the Senate a plan of compromise which met the difficulty. Eleven days afterward [February 5, 1850] he spoke nobly in defense of his plan, denounced secession as treason, and implored his countrymen to make 1 Page 381. 2 Page 464. Henry Clay was born in Hanover county, Virginia, in April, 1777. His early edu cation was defective, and he arose to greatness by the force of his own genius. His extraordinary- intellectual powers began to develop at an early age, and at nineteen he commenced the study of the law. When admitted to practice, at the age of twenty, he went over the mountains to the fertile valleys of Kentucky, and there laid the foundations of his greatness as a lawyer and orator. The latter quality was first fully developed when a convention was called to revise the Constitution of Kentucky. Then he worked manfully and unceasingly to procure the election of delegates who would favor the emancipation of the slaves. He became a member of the Kentucky Legislature in 1803, and there he took a front rank. He was chosen to fill a vacant seat in the United States Senate in 1806, and in 1811 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives, and became its Speaker. From that time until his death, he was continually in public life. He long held a front rank among American statesmen, and died, while a member of the United States Senate, in the city of Washington, at the close of June, 1852. 1850.] PILLMORE S ADMINISTRATION. 501 every sacrifice but honor, in support of the Union. Mr. Clay s plan was warmly seconded by Daniel Webster; 1 and other senators approving of compro mise, submitted propositions. Finally, on motion of Senator Foote of Missis sippi, a committee of thirteen was appointed to consider the various plans and report a bill. The committee consisted of six northern and six southern sen ators, and these chose the thirteenth. The Senate appointed Mr. Clay chairman of the committee, and on the 8th of May following, he reported a bill. It was discussed for four months, and on the 9th of September, each measure included in the bill having been thoroughly considered separately, the famous Compro mise Act of 1850, having passed both Houses of Congress, became a law. Because several measures, distinct in their objects, were embodied in the act, it is sometimes known as the " Omnibus Bill." The most important stipulations of the act were, 1st. That California should be admitted into the Union as a State, with its anti-slavery Constitution, and its territorial extent from Oregon to the Mexican possessions ; 2d. That the vast country east of California, con taining the Mormon settlements near the Great Salt Lake, 2 should be erected into a Territory called Utah, without mention of slavery ; 3d. That New Mex ico should be erected into a Territory, within satisfactory boundaries, and with out any stipulations respecting slavery, and that ten millions of dollars should be paid to Texas from the National treasury, in purchase of her claims ; 4th. That the slave-trade in the Disiriot of Coltimbia should be abolished; 5th. A law providing for the arrest in the northern or free States, and return to their masters, of all slaves who should escape from bondage. The last measure of the Compromise Act produced wide-spread dissatisfaction in the Free-labor States ; and the execution, evasion, and violation of the law, in several instances, have led to serious disturbances and much bitter sectional feeling. While the great Compromise question was under discussion, the nation was called to lament the loss of its Chief Magistrate. President Taylor was seized with a malady, similar in its effects to cholera, which terminated his earthly career on the 9th of July, 1850. In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, 4 he was immediately succeeded in office by MILLARD FILL MORE, 5 who, on the 10th of July, took the oath to " preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." President Taylor s cabinet resigned; but the new President, with great delicacy, declined to consider their resignations 1 Page 503. 2 Page 503. 3 Article II., section 1, of the National Constitution. 4 Millard Fillmore was born in January, 1800, in Cayuga county, New York. His early edu cation was limited, and at a suitable age he was apprenticed to a wool-carder. At the age of nine teen, his talent attracted the attention of Judge Wood, of Cayuga county, and he took the humble apprentice under his charge, to study the science of law. He became eminent in his profession. He was elected to the Assembly of his native State in 1829, and in 1832, was chosen to represent his district in Congress. He was re-elected in 1837, and was continued in office several years. In 1844, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of Governor of his native State, and in 1848 he was elected Vice-President of the United States. The death of Taylor gave him the presidency, and he conducted public affairs with dignity and skill. In the summer of 1856, he was nominated for the office of President of the United States, by the "American" party with A. J. Donelson for Vice-President. See Note 1, page 479. 502 THE NATION. [1850, until after the obsequies of the deceased President had been performed. At his request, they remained in office until the 15th of the month, when President Fillmore appointed new heads of the departments. 1 The administration of President Taylor had been brief, but it was distin- guished by events intimately connected, as we shall observe, by men and measures, with the late Civil War. One of these was an invasion of Cuba by a force under General Lopez, a native of that island, which was organized and officered in the United States, in violation of existing neutrality laws. It was said that the native Cubans were restive under the rule of Spanish Governor- Generals, 2 and that a desire for independence burned in the hearts of many of the best men there. Lopez was ranked among these, and, in forming this invading expedition, he counted largely upon this feeling for co-operation. He 1 Daniel Webster, Secretary of State; Thomas Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury; Charles M. Conrad, Secretary of War; Alexander H. H. Stuart Secretary of the Interior; William A. Graham, Secretary of the Navy ; John J. Crittenden, Attorney-General; Nathan K. Hall, Postmaster-Gen eral. Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, in January, 1*782, and was educated chiefly at the Phillips Academy at Exter, and Dartmouth College at Hanover. He studied law in Boston, and was admitted to the bar in 1805. He commenced practice in his native State, and soon became eminent. He first appeared in public life in 1813, when he took his seat as a member of the National House of Representatives. At that session his speeches were remarkable, and a southern member remarked, " The North has not his equal, nor the South his superior." Although in public life a greater portion of the time from that period until his death, yet he always had an extensive and lucrative law practice. He stood foremost as a constitutional lawyer ; and for many years he was peerless as a statesman. He died at Marshficld, Massachusetts, in October, 1852, at the age of almost seventy-one years. a Page 40. 1853.] FILLMORE S ADMINISTRATION. 503 landed at Cardenas on the 19th of April, 1850, expecting to be joined by some of the Spanish troops and native Cubans, and by concerted action to overturn the Government. But the people and troops did not co-operate with him, and he returned to the United States to prepare for a more formidable expedition. We shall meet him again presently. During Taylor s administration, one State was formed and three Territories were organized; and preparations were made for establishing other local governments within the domain of the United States. That State was California, and the Territories were of those of ISTew Mexico, Utah, and Minne sota. 1 The greater portion of the inhabitants of Utah are of the religious sect called Mormons, who, after suffering much in Missouri and Illinois, from their opposers, left those States in 1848, and penetrated the deep wilderness in the interior of our continent ; and near the Great Salt Lake, in the midst of the savage Utah tribes, they have built a large city, made extensive plantations, and founded an empire almost as large, in territorial extent, as that of 1 Minnesota (sky-colored water) is the Indian name of the river St. Peter, the largest tributary of the Mississippi, in that region. It was a part of the vast Territory of Louisiana, and was organ ized in March, 1849. An embryo village, twelve miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, named St. Paul, was made the capital, and in less than ten years it contained more than ten thousand souls. Its growth was unprecedented, even in the wonderful progress of other cities of the West, and at one tune it promised to speedily equal Chicago in its population. The whole region of Minnesota is very attractive ; and it has been called the New England of the West. 504 THE NATION. [1850. Alexander the Great. 1 The sect was founded in 1827, by a shrewd young man named Joseph Smith, a native of central New York, who professed to have received a special revelation from Heaven, giving him knowledge of a book which had been buried many centuries before, in a hill near the village of Palmyra, whose leaves were of gold, upon which were engraved the records of the ancient people of America, and a new gospel for man. He found dupes, believers, and followers; and now [1867] there are Mormon mission aries in many portions of the globe, and the communion numbers, probably, not less than two hundred and fifty JOSEPH SMITH. thousand souls. There has long been a sufficient number in Utah to entitle them to a State constitution, and admission into the Union, but their social system, which embraces polygamy, sanctioned by authority, is a bar to such admission. Their permission of polygamy, or men having more than one wife, will be a serious bar to their admission, for Christianity and sound morality forbid the custom. The Mormons have poetically called their country Deseret the land of the Honey Bee but Congress has entitled it Utah, and by that name it must be known in history. The country inhabited by the Mormons is one of the most remarkable on the face of the globe. It consists of a series of extensive valleys and rocky mar gins, spread out into an immense basin, surrounded by rugged mountains, out of which no waters flow. It is midway between the States on the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, perfectly isolated from habitable regions, and embracing a domain covering sixteen degrees of longitude in the Utah latitude. On the east are the sterile spurs of the Rocky Mountains, stretching down to the vast plains traversed by the Platte river ; on the west, extending nearly a thousand miles toward the Pacific, are arid salt deserts, broken by barren mountains ; and north and south are immense mountain districts. The valleys afford pe- 1 The Mormon exodus was one of the most wonderful events on record, when considered in all its phases. In September, 1846, the last lingering Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they had built a splendid temple, were driven away at the point of the bayonet, by 1,600 troops. In Febru ary preceding, some sixteen hundred men, women, and children, fearful of the wrath of the people around them, had crossed the Mississippi on the ice, and traveling with ox-teams and on foot, they penetrated the wilderness to the Indian country, near Council Blufis, on the Missouri. The rem nant who started in autumn, many of whom were sick men, feeble women, and delicate girls, were compelled to traverse the same dreary region. The united host, under the guidance of Brigham Young, who is yet their temporal and" spiritual leader, halted on the broad prairies of Missouri the following summer, turned up the virgin soil, and planted. Here leaving a few to cultivate and gather for wanderers who might come after them, the host moved on, making the wilderness vocal with preaching and singing. Order marked every step of their progress, for the voice of Young, whom they regarded as a seer, was to them as the voice of God. On they went, forming Tabernacle Camps, or temporary resting-places in the wilderness. No obstacles impeded their progress. They forded swift-running streams, and bridged the deeper floods ; crept up the great eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and from the lofty summits of the "Wasatch range, they beheld, on the 20th of July, 1847, the valley where they were to rest and build a city, and the placid waters of the Great Salt Lake, glittering in the beams of the setting sun. To those weary wanderers, this moutain top was a Pisgah. From it they saw the Promised Land to them a scene of wondrous interest. "Westward, lofty peaks, bathed in purple air, pierced the sky ; and as far as the eye could reach, north and south, stretched the fertile Yalley of Promise, and here and there the vapors of hot springs, gushing from rocky coverts, curled above the hills, like smoke from the hearth-fires of home. The Pilgrims entered the valley on the 21st of July, and on the 24th the President and High Council arrived. There they planted a city, the Jerusalem the Holy City of the Mormon people. MORMON EMIGRATION. 1851.] FILLMORE S ADMINISTRATION. 597 rennial pasturage, and the soil is exceedingly fertile. "Wild game abounds in the mountains ; the streams are filled with excellent fish ; the climate is delightful at all seasons of the year; and "breathing is a real luxury." Southward, over the rim of the great basin, is a fine cotton-growing region, into which the Mormons are penetrating. The vast hills and mountain slopes present the finest pasturage in the World for sheep, alpacas, and goats. The water-power of the whole region is immense. Iron-mines everywhere abound, and in the Green river basin, there are inexhaustible beds of coal. In these great natural resources and defenses, possessed by a people of such indomitable energy and perseverance as the Mormons have shown, we see the vital ele ments of a powerful mountain nation, in proportions, in the heart of our conti nent, and in the direct pathway from the Atlantic to the Pacific States, that may yet play a most important part, for good or for evil, in the destinies of our country and of the world. The most important measure adopted during the early part of Fillmore s administration was the Compromise Act, already considered. 1 During his offi cial career the President firmly supported the measure, and at the close of his administration, in the spring of 1853, there seemed to be very little disquie tude in the public mind on the subject of slavery. That calm was the lull before a tempest. The Fugitive Slave Law was so much at variance with the spirit of free institutions, Christian ethics, and the civilization of the age, that the hearts of the people of the free-labor States, and of thousands in the slave- labor States, burned with a desire not only to purge the National statute-books of that law, but to stay the further spread of slavery over the domain of the Republic. That desire, and a determination of the slave-holders to extend the area of their labor system, speedily led to terrible results, as we shall observe presently. In the spring of 1851, Congress made important and salutary changes in the general post-office laws, chiefly in the reduction "of letter postage, fixing the rate upon a letter weighing not more than half an ounce, and pre-paid, at three cents, to any part of the United States, excepting California and the Pacific Territories. The exception was afterward abandoned. At the same time, electro-magnetic tele graphing had become quite perfect ; and by means of the subtile agency of electricity, communications were speeding over thousands of miles of iron wire, with the rapidity of lightning. The establishment of this instantaneous communication between distant points is one of the most important achievements of this age of invention and discovery ; and the names of Fulton and Morse 2 will be forever indissolubly connected in the commercial and social history of our republic. -r>. . A , , . S. F. B. MORSE. During the summer of 1 80 1, there was again con- J Page 501. 9 In 1832, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse had his attention directed to the experiments of Franklin, upon a wire a few miles in length on the banks of the Schuylkih\ in which the velocity "508 THE NATION. [185L siderable excitement produced throughout the country because other concerted movements were made, at different points, in the organization of a military force for the purpose of invading Cuba. 1 The vigilance of the government of the United States was awakened, and orders were given to its marshals to arrest suspected men, and seize suspected vessels and munitions of war. Pur suant to these orders, the steamboat Cleopatra was detained at New York ; and several gentlemen, of the highest respectability, were arrested on a charge of a violation of existing neutrality laws. In the mean time the greatest excitement prevailed in Cuba, and forty thousand Spanish troops were concen trated there, while a considerable naval force watched and guarded the coasts. These hindrances caused the dispersion of the armed bands who were pre paring to invade Cuba, and quiet was restored for a while. But in July the excitement was renewed. General Lopez, 2 who appears to have been under the control of designing politicians, made a speech to a large crowd in New Orleans, in favor of an invading expedition. Soon afterward [August, 1851], lie sailed from that port with about four hundred and eighty followers, and landed [August 11] on the northern coast of Cuba. There he left Colonel "William L. Crittenden, of Kentucky, with one hundred men, and proceeded toward the interior. Crittenden and his party were captured, carried to Havana, and on the 16th were shot. Lopez was attacked on the 13th, and his little army was dispersed. He had been deceived. There appeared no signs of a promised revolution in Cuba, and he became a fugitive. He was arrested on the 28th, with six of his followers, taken to Havana, and on the 1st of September was executed. In the autumn of 1851, more accessions were made to the vastly extended of electricity was found to be so inappreciable that it was supposed to be instantaneous. Pro fessor Morse, pondering upon this subject, suggested that electricity might be made the means of recording characters as signs of intelligence at a distance: and in the autumn of 1832 he con structed a portion of the instrumentalities for that purpose. In 1835 he showed the first com plete instrument for telegraphic recording, at the New York City University. In 1837 he completed a more perfect machinery. In 1838 he submitted the matter and the telegraphic instruments to Congress, asking their aid to construct a line of sufficient length "to test its practicability and utility." The committee to whom the subject was referred reported favorably, .and proposed an appropriation of $30.000 to construct the first line. The appropriation, How ever, was not made until the 3d of March, 1843. The posts for supporting the wires were -erected between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. In the spring of 1844 the line was completed, and the proceedings of the Democratic Convention, then sitting in Balti more, which nominated James K. Polk for the Presidency of the United States, was the first use, for public purposes, ever made by the telegraph, whose lines have been extended to ail parts of the civilized world, the total length of which, at this time [18G7], is about 225,000 miles. Pro fessor Morse s system of Recording Telegraphs is adopted generally on the continent of Europe, and has been selected by the government of Australia for the telegraphic systems of that coun try. A very ingenious machine for recording telegraphic communications with printing types, so as to avoid the necessity of copying, was constructed, a few years ago, by House, and is now extensively used. Professor Morse is the eldest son of Rev. Jedediah Morse, the first American geographer. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, and was graduated at Yale College in 1810. He studied painting in England, and was very successful. He was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in New York, and he was the first to deliver a course of lectures upon art in America. He became a professor in the University of the city of New York, and there perfected his magnetic telegraph. Mr. Morse now [1867] resides on hi<? beautiful estate of Locust Grove, near Poughkeepsie, New York, but since the summer of 1866 has spent much time in Europe. He has received many testimonials of appreciation from eminent individuals and societies beyond the Atlantic. 1 Page 502. 2 Page 502. 1851.] FILLMORB S ADMINISTRATION. possessions of the United States. Population was pouring into the regions of the Northwest, beyond the Mississippi, and crowding the dusky inhabitants of the Indian reservations in Minnesota. Negotiations for a cession of those lands to the United States were opened. These resulted in the purchase of many millions of acres from the Upper and Lower Sioux tribes of Indians, 1 their removal to another reservation, and the blooming of the wilderness they occupied under the hands of the white man. And while inter-emigration was seen flowing in a continuous stream in that direction, population was also flowing in large volume from Europe, increasing the inhabitants and wealth of the country. There had been for some time unwonted activity everywhere, and this was one of its many phases. States and Territories were growing. Additional representatives in the National Legislature were crowding its halls. 2: These were becoming too narrow, and Congress made provision for enlarging 1 them. Accordingly, on the 4th of July, 1851, the corner-stone of the addition to the National Capitol was laid by the President, with appropriate cere monies. 3 Circumstances at about the time we are considering, caused a remarkable American expedition to the polar regions. Sir John Franklin, an English navigator, sailed to that part of the globe, with two vessels, in May, 1845, in search of the long-sought northwest passage from Europe to the West Indies. 4 Years passed by, and no tidings of him came. Expe ditions were sent from England in search of him; and in May, 1850, Henry Grinnell, a wealthy mer chant of New York, sent two ships, in charge of Lieu tenant De Haven, to assist in the benevolent effort. They returned, after remarkable adventures, in the autumn of 1851, without success. The effort was renewed by the opulent merchant, in connection with his government, in 1853, and in May of that year two vessels under the command of Elisha Kent Kane, M. D., the surgeon of the first expedition, sailed from vr -r-r i i M -, ,. . E. K. KANE. 5 New York, while a similar expedition was sent out from England. Kane and his party made valuable discoveries, among which was that of the " open polar sea," whose existence was believed in by scien- 1 Page 31. 2 Each State is entitled to two senators. The number of States now [1867] being thirty- eight, the Senate is composed of seventy-six members. The number of Representatives to which each State is entitled, is determined by the number of inhabitants and the ratio of representation. The present number of the members in the House of Representatives is two hundred and fifty- three, including delegates from nine Territories. 3 Note 1, page 388. On the occasion of laying the corner-stone, an oration was pronounced by Daniel Webster, in the course of which he said: "If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundations be upturned, and the deposit beneath this stone brought to the eyes of men, be it then known, that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm that their Constitution still exists unimpaired, and with ah" its usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting, more and more, the admiration of the world." * Note 2, page 47, also page 52, and note 8, page 59. 5 Elisha Kent Kane was born in Philadelphia, in February, 1822, and he took his degree in the Medical University of Pennsylvania in 1843. He entered the American nary as assistant- 510 THE NATION [1851. tific men, but they failed to find Sir John Franklin. 1 They suffered much, and were finally compelled to abandon their ships and make their way in open boats to a Danish settlement in Greenland. Their long absence created fears for their safety, and a relief expedition was sent in search of them. In the vessels of the latter they returned home in the autumn of 1855. 2 The public attention was directed to, and popular sympathy was strongly excited in behalf of Hungary, by the arrival in the United States, toward the close of 1851, of Louis Kossuth, the exiled Governor of that country, whose people, during the revolutions of 1848, 3 had sought independence of the crown of Austria. He came to ask material aid for his country in its struggle which then continued. The sympathy of the people with the Hungarians, and the eloquence of the exile, as he went from place to place pleading the cause of his nation and enunciating important international doctrines, 4 made his mission the chief topic of thought and conversation for a long time. The policy of our government forbade its giving material aid, but Kossuth received the expres sion of its warmest sympathies. 5 His advent among us, and his bold enuncia- surgeon, and was attached as a physician to the first American embassy to China. While in the fcast, he visited many of the Islands, and met with wild adventures. After that he ascended the Nile to the confines of Nubia, and passed a season in Egypt. After traveling through Greece and a part of Europe, on foot, he returned to the United States in 1846. He was immediately sent to the coast of Africa, where he narrowly escaped death from fever. Soon after his recovery he went to Mexico, as a volunteer in the war then progressing, where his bravery and endurance commanded universal admiration. His horse was killed under him, and himself was badly wounded. He was appointed senior surgeon and naturalist to the " Grinnel Expedition," men tioned in the text ; and after his return he prepared an interesting account of the exploration. He was appointed to the command of a second expedition, and he accomplished much in behalf of geographical science. Dr. Kane held an accomplished pencil and ready pen. and his scientific attainments were of a high order. The records of this wonderful expedition, prepared by himself, were published in two superb volumes, illustrated by engravings from drawings by his hand The hardships which he had endured made great inroads on the health of Dr. Kane (who was a very light man, weighing only 106 pounds); and i n October, 1856, he sailed for England, and from thence to Havana, where he died on the 16th of February, 1857. 1 In 1855, an overland exploring party, sent by the Hudson s Bay Fur Company, were informed by the Esquimaux that about four years before a party of white men had perished in the region of Montreal Island. They saw among the Indians articles known to have belonged to Sir John and his party, and the belief is that they perished on the northern borders of North America, so late as the year 1851. 2 In the mean time the great problem, which for three hundred years had perplexed the mari time world, had been worked out by an English navigator. The fact of a northwest passage around the Arctic coast of North America, from Baffin s Bay to Behring s Straits, has been unquestionably demonstrated by Captain McClure, of the ship Investigator, who was sent in search of Sir John Franklin in October, 1853. Having passed through Behring s Straits, and sailed eastward, he reached a point, with sleds upon the ice, which had been penetrated by navigators from the East (Captain Parry and others), thus establishing the fact that there is a water connec tion between Baffin s Bay and those straits. Already the mute whale had demonstrated this fact 3 the satisfaction of naturalists. The same species are found in Behring s Straits and Baffin s Bay, and as the waters of the tropical regions would be like a sea of fire to them, they must have had communication through the polar channels. 3 In February, 1848, the French people drove Louis Philippe from his throne, and formed a temporary republic. The revolutionary spirit spread; and within a few months, almost every country on the continent of Europe was in a state of agitation, and the monarchs made many concessions to the people. Hungary made an effort to become free from the rule of Austria but was crushed by the power of a Russian army. 4 He asserted that grand principle, that one nation has no right to interfere with the domestic concerns of another, and that all nations are bound to use their efforts to prevent such interference. Matters connected with his reception, visit, and desires occupied much of the attention of Congress, and elicited warm debates during the session of 1852. The Chevalier Hulseman, the Austrian minister at Washington, formally protested against the reception of Kossuth by Con- 1852.] FILLMORE S ADMINISTRATION. tion of the hitherto unrecognized national duties, are important and interesting events in the history of our republic. Some ill-feeling between Great Britain and the United States was engen dered during the summer of 1852, when the subject of difficulties concerning the fisheries 1 on the coast of British America was brought to the notice of Con gress, and for several months there were indications of a serious disturbance of the amicable relations between the two governments. American fishers were charged with a violation of the treaty of 1818, which stipulated that they should not cast their lines or nets in the bays of the British possessions, except at a distance of three miles or more from the shore. Now, the British govern ment claimed the right to draw a line from head-land to head-land of these bays, and to exclude the Americans from the waters within that line. 2 An armed naval force was sent to sustain this claim, and American vessels were threatened with seizure if they did not comply. The government of the United States regarded the assumption as illegal, and two steam-vessels of war (Princeton and Fulton) were sent to the coast of Nova Scotia to protect the rights of American fishermen. The dispute was amicably settled by mutual concessions, in October, 1853, and the cloud passed by. During the summer of 1853, another measure of national concern was ma- O tured and put in operation. The great importance of commercial intercourse with Japan, because of the intimate relations which must soon exist between our Pacific coast and the East Indies, had been felt ever since the foundation of Oregon 3 and California. 4 An expedition, to consist of seven ships of war, under the command of Commodore Perry, a brother of the " Hero of Lake Erie," 5 was fitted out for the purpose of carrying a letter from the President of the United States to the emperor of Japan, soliciting the negotiation of a treaty of friendship and commerce between the two nations, by which the ports of the latter should be thrown open to American vessels, for purposes of trade.. The mission of Commodore Perry was highly successful. He negotiated a treaty, by which it was stipulated that ports on different Japanese Islands should be open to American commerce ; 6 that steamers from California to China should be furnished with supplies of coals ; and that American sailors ship wrecked on the Japanese coasts should receive hospitable treatment. Subse quently a peculiar construction of the treaty on the part of the Japanese authorities, in relation to the permanent residence of Americans there, threat ened a disturbance of the amicable relations which had been established. The gress ; and, because his protest was not heeded, he retired from his post, and left the duties of his office with Mr. Auguste Belmonte, of New York. Previous to this, Hulseman issued a written protest against the policy of our government in relation to Austria and Hungary, and that protest was answered, in a masterly manner, in January, 1851, by Mr. Webster, the Secre tary of State. 1 Pages 47 and 453. 2 This stipulation was so construed as to allow American fishermen to catch cod within the large bays where they could easily carry on their avocations at a greater distance than three miles from any land. Such had been the common practice, without interference, until the assumption of exclusive right to their bays was promulgated by the British. 3 Page 479. 4 Page 487. 6 Page 423. 6 Previous to this, the Dutch had monopolized the trade of Japan. See note 5, page 59. 512 THE NATION. [1852. matter was adjusted, and in 1860, a large and imposing embassy from the empire of Japan visited the United States. The intercourse between the two countries is becoming more and more intimate. The relations between the United States and old Spain, on account of Cuba, became interesting in the autumn of 1852. The Spanish authorities of Cuba, being thoroughly alarmed by the attempts at invasion, 1 and the evident sym pathy in the movement of a large portion of the people of the United States, became excessively suspicious, and many little outrages were committed at Havana, which kept alive an irritation of feeling inconsistent with social and commercial friendship. The idea became prevalent, in Cuba and in Europe, that it Avas the policy of the government of the United States to ultimately acquire absolute possession of that island, and thus have the control over the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico (the door to California), and the trade of the West India group of islands, which are owned, chiefly, by France and England. To prevent such a result, the cabinets of France and England asked that of the United States to enter with them into a treaty which should secure Cuba to Spain, by agreeing to disclaim, " now and forever hereafter, all intention to obtain possession of the Island of Cuba," and "to discountenance all such attempts, to that effect, on the part of any power or individual whatever." Edward Everett, then Secretary of State, issued a response [December 1, 1852] to this extraordinary proposition, which the American people universally applauded for its keen logic and patriotic and enlightened views. He told France and England plainly, that the question was an American and not a European one, and not properly within the scope of their interference ; that while the United States government disclaimed all intention to violate existing neutrality laws, it would not relinquish the right to act in relation to Cuba independent of any other power ; and that it could not see with indifference " the Island of Cuba fall into the hands of any other power than Spain." 2 Lord John Russell, the English prime-minister, ansivered this letter [February, 1853], and thus ended the diplomatic correspondence on the subject of the proposed "Tripartite Treaty," as it was called. The most important of the closing events of Mr. Fillmore s administration was the creation by Congress of a new Territory called Washington, out of the northern part of Oregon. 3 The bill for this purpose became a law on the 2d of March, 1853, two days before Fillmore s successor, Franklin Pierce, of New 1 Pages 502 and 508. 2 As early as 1 823, when the Spanish provinces in South America were in rebellion, or forming into independent republics, President Monroe, in a special message upon the subject, promulgated the doctrine, since acted upon, that the United States ought to resist the extension of foreign domain or influence upon the American continent, and not allow any European government, by colonizing or otherwise, to gain a foothold in the New World not already acquired. [See note 5, page 448.] This was directed specially against the efforts expected to be made by the allied sovereigns who had crushed Napoleon, to assist Spain against her revolted colonies in America, and to suppress the growth of democracy there. It became a settled policy of our government, and Mr. Everett reasserted it in its fullest extent. Such expression seemed to be important and seasonable, because it was well known that Great Britain was then making strenuous efforts to obtain potent influence in Central America, so as to prevent the United States from acquiring exclusive property in the routes across the isthmus from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. 1 Page 479- Drawn "by H.L . Stephens - ME tf MHO) TOD? 1853.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. 513 Hampshire, was inaugurated. The latter was nominated for the office by the Democratic convention held at Baltimore early in June, 1852, when William R. King, of Alabama, was named for the office of Vice-President. At the same place, on the 16th of June, Winfield Scott was nominated for President and William A. Graham for Vice-President, by a Whig convention. The Democratic nominees were elected, but failing health prevented the Vice- President taking his seat. He died in April, 1863, at the age of sixty-eight years. CHAPTER XIV. PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. [1853 1857.] A DRIVING sleet tilled the air on the 4th of March, 1853, when Franklin Pierce, 1 the fourteenth President of the United States, stood upon the rude platform of New Hampshire pine, erected for the purpose over the steps of tho eastern portico of the Federal capitol, and took the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Taney. The military display on that occasion was larger 1 Franklin Pierce was born at Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in November, 1 804. He is the son of General Benjamin Pierce, an active officer in the old War for Independence, and one of the most useful men in New Hampshire. In 1820, when sixteen years of age, young Pierce became 33 514 THE NATION. [1853 than had ever been seen in the streets of the National city, and it was estimated that at least twenty thousand strangers were in Washington on the morning of the inauguration. Untrammeled by special party pledges, the new Chief Magistrate entered upon the duties of his office under pleasant auspices ; and his inaugural address, full of promises and patriotic sentiments, received the general approval of his countrymen. Three days afterward [March 7] the Senate, in special session, confirmed his cabinet appointments. 1 The most serious difficulty which President Pierce was called upon to encounter, at the commencement of his administration, was a dispute concern ing the boundary-line between the Mexican province of Chihuahua 2 and New Mexico. 3 The Mesilla valley, a fertile and extensive region, was claimed by both Territories ; and under the direction of Santa Anna, 4 who was again Presi dent of the Mexican Republic in 1854, Chihuahua took armed possession of the disputed territory. For a time war seemed inevitable between the United States and Mexico. The dispute was finally settled by negotiations, and friendly relations have existed between the two governments ever since. Those relations were delicate during a large portion of the late Civil War in the United States, while French bayonets kept the Austrian Archduke Maxi milian in the attitude of a ruler, with the title of emperor, over the Mexican people, whose liberties Napoleon the Third, emperor of France, was thereby trying to destroy. The republican government in power when Maximilian a student in Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine. He was graduated in 1824, chose law as a profession, and was admitted to practice at the bar in 1827. He became a warm politician, and partisan of General Jackson in 1828 ; and the next year, when he was twenty-five years of age, he was elected a member of the Legislature of his native State. There he served four years. He was elected to Congress in 1833, and served his constituents in the House of Representatives for four years. In 1837, the Legislature of New Hampshire elected him to a seat in the Federal Senate. He resigned his seat in June, 1842, and remained in private life until 1845, when he was appointed United States District Attorney for New Hampshire. He was commissioned a Brigadier-GenertJ in March, 1847, and joined the army in Mexico, under General Scott. After the war he retired from public life, where he remained until called to the highest office in the gift of the people. When, in the spring of 1857, he left the chair of state, he again retired into private life, and has never been in public employment since. 1 William L. Marcy, Secretary of State; James Guthrie, Secretary of the Treasury; Robert McClelland, Secretar} r of the Interior; Jefferson Davis. Secretary of War; James C. Dobbin, Sec retary of the Navy ; James Campbell, Postmaster-General ; Caleb Gushing, Attorney-General. 3 Note 7, page 484. 3 Page 497. 4 Antonio Lopez do Santa Anna is a native of Mexico, and first came into public life in 1821, during the excitements of revolution. He has been one of the chief revolutionists in that unhappy country. He was chosen President of the Republic in 1833. After an exciting career as a commanding General, he was again elected President in 1841, but was hurled from power in 1845. After the capture of the city of Mexico by the Americans, under General Scott [page 494], he retired to the West Indies, and finally to Carthagena, where he resided until 1853, when he returned to Mexico, and was elected President again. In the summer of 1854, he was accused of a design to assume imperial power, and violent insurrections were the consequence. These resulted in his SANTA ANNA. being again deprived of power, and he has never been able to regain it. Much of the time since he was driven from public life he has lived in exile in Cuba, and in 1866 he was a resident of the United States. He went to Mexico during the earlier period of 1867. when he was arrested, and thrown into prison. Pew men have experienced greater vicissitudes than Santa Anna. 1853.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. came was steadily recognized by that of the United States as the legitimate government of Mexico, and, diplomatically, Maximilian was unknown to it. The earlier portion of Pierce s administration was distinguished by impor tant explorations by sea and land, in the interest of American commerce. The acquisition of California, and the marvelous rapidity with which it was filling with an enterprising population, opened to the view of statesmen an immense commer cial interest on the Pacific coast, which de manded the most liberal legislation. Con gress seems to have comprehended the importance of the matter, and under its authority four armed vessels and a supply- ship sailed [May, 1853] from Norfolk, under Captain Ringgold, for the eastern coast of TT . AN OCEAN STEAMSHIP. Asia, by the way of Cape Horn. Its chief ob ject was a thorough exploration of those regions of the Pacific Ocean which it was then evident would soon be traversed between the ports of our own western frontier and the East Indies ; also of the whaling-grounds of the Kamtchatka Sea and Leliring s Straits, on the borders of which the United States pur chased from Russia, in 1867, at the cost of $7,200,000 in gold, a large and important territory. Steamships had then just commenced making stated and regular voyages from California to China and Japan. While the expedition just mentioned was away, plans were maturing for the construction of one or more railways across the continent, to connect, by a continuous line of transportation, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Congress authorized surveys for such road or roads, and by midsummer [1853] four expeditions were fitted out for the purpose one to explore from the upper waters of the Mississippi, at St. Paul, to Puget s Sound, on the Pacific ; another to cross the continent from the Mississippi, along a line adjacent to the thirty- sixth parallel of latitude ; another from the Mississippi, by way of the Great Salt Lake, in Utah ; and a fourth from some point on the Lower Mississippi to the coast of Southern California, at San Pedro, Los Angelos, or San Diego. These expeditions performed their duties well, in the midst of great hardships, 1 and over one of the routes then explored, called the Central, which trav erses Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California, a railway was completed in May, 1869. Who can estimate the effect of these gigantic operations upon the destiny of our Republic, so connected in commercial relations with that "Farther India" whose wealth the civilized world so long coveted ? 1 At the time these explorations were going on, Colonel Fremont (see page 488) was at the head of a similar party among the Rocky Mountains. That exploring in the direction of the Great Salt Lake, was in.chasge of Captain Gunnison, of the National army. He found the Indians hostile when he approached the Mormon country, and among the Wasatch mountains they fell upon the explorers and killed a number of them, including the leader. Fremont s party suffered dreadfully for want of food in the midst of deep snow. For forty-five days they fed on the meat of exhausted mules which they slew, and every particle was devoured, even the entrails! They were met and saved by another party in February, 1854. 516 THE NATION. [1853. While the government was putting forth its energies in preparing the way for the triumph of American commerce, private enterprise was busy in the promotion of general industry, and in the noble work of international fraternity in the great interest of Labor. In the year 1851, an immense building, com posed of iron and glass, was created in Hyde Park, London, under royal patronage, for the purpose of giving an exhibition of the results of the industry of all nations. It was a World s Fair, and representatives of every civilized nation on the globe were there mingling together as brothers of one family, and all equally interested in the perfection of each other s productions. The idea was one of great moral grandeur, for it set an insignia of dignity upon labor, hitherto withheld by those who bore scepters and orders. There men of all nations and creeds received a lesson upon the importance of brotherhood among the children of men, such as the pen and tongue could not teach. For the conception and consummation of that noble work, mankind will forever revere its author, Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. The enterprise was repeated in this country in 1853, when, at the expense of the money and energy of private republicans, a " Crystal Palace " was built and a "World s Fair" was held in the city of New York. It was opened in July of that year, with imposing ceremonies, led by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. 1 The emperor of the French has twice imitated the act of the British queen and her consort. During the spring and summer of 1867, an immense "World s Fair" was open in Paris. These are important historical events, for they mark a new and most promising epoch in the annals of mankind. History often has better stories to tell than those of wars and military conquests, and the rise and fall of dynasties and empires. CRYSTAL PALACE IN NEW YORK. 1 On that occasion, a prayer was made by Dr. Wainwright, provisional bishop of the Protest ant Episcopal Church in the diocese of New" York (since deceased); an address was pronounced by Theodore Sedgwick. president of the Association by which the building was erected ; and on the IGth of the month, a grand entertainment was given by the directors to distinguished guests, among whom were the President of the United States and members of his cabinet, Sir Charles Lyell, the eminent English geologist, and others. One of the speakers on that occasion [Elihu Burritt] said: " Worthy of the grandest circum stances which could be thrown around a human assembly, worthy of this occasion and a hundred like this, is that beautiful idea, the coronation of Labor. * * * Not American labor, not British labor, not French labor, not the labor of the New World or the Old, but the labor of man kind as one undivided brotherhood labor as the oldest, the noblest prerogative of duty and humanity." And Rev. E. II. Chapin closed with the beautiful invocation: "0 I genius of Art, fill us with the inspiration of still higher and more spiritual beauty. ! instruments of invention, enlarge our dominion over reality. Let iron and fire become as blood and muscle, and in this electric net-work let heart and brain inclose the world with truth and sympathy. And thou, 0! beautiful dome of light, suggestive of the brooding future, the future of human love and divine communion, expand and spread above the tribes of men a canopy broad as the earth, and glorious as the upfter heaven." 1853.] TIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. When the Thirty-third Congress assembled, on the first Monday in Decem ber, 1853, a greater degree of good feeling seemed to prevail among the mem bers than had been exhibited for the several preceding years, when the chief topics of their deliberations were connected with the subject of Slavery. The country was at peace and amity with all the world, as a general proposition, 1 and the people looked to their representatives for the conception and adoption of measures for the public welfare, which the circumstances of the nation required. The construction of a railway across the continent was expected to absorb much of their attention. Important treaties were pending between our government and those of Mexico and Central America, concerning territory and inter-oceanic communications across the Isthmus between North and South* America ; also concerning boundary-lines in the region of New Mexico and California. There was an interest, too, far away in the Pacific, that demanded serious consideration. The government of the Sandwich Islands was then making earnest overtures for annexing that ocean empire to our republic. This was a matter of great moment, for these Islands are destined to be of vast impor tance in the operations of the future commerce of the Pacific Oeean. A large majority of the white people there are Americans by birth ; and the govern ment, in all its essential operations, is controlled by Americans, riotwithstand- ino* the ostensible ruler is a native sovereign. The consuls of France and O O England, when they perceived a disposition on the part of the reigning monarch to have his domain annexed to the United States, charged the scheme upon certain American missionaries, and officially protested against their alleged conduct. They declared that France and England would not remain indiiferent spectators of such a movement. The missionaries, as well as the United States commissioner, disclaimed any tampering with the native authori ties on the subject ; at the same time, the latter, in a published reply to the 1 There was a little feeling of hostility between our government and that of Austria for a while in 1853, but it soon subsided. It grew out of a circumstance connected with the exercise of the power of our government in defense of a citizen of foreign birth in a foreign port, as follows : When Austria, by aid of Russia, crushed the rebellion in Hungary, in 1 848, many of the active patriots became exiles in foreign lands. A large number came to the United States, and many of them became naturalized citizens that is, after due legal preparation, took an oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, and to perform faithfully all the duties of a citizen. One of these, named Martin Koszta, a native of Hungary, had taken such steps. While engaged in business at Smyrna, on the Mediterranean, lie was seized, by order of the Austrian consul- general, and taken on board an Austrian brig, to be conveyed to Trieste as a rebel refugee, not withstanding he carried an American protection. Captain Ingraham, of the United States sloop- of-war St. Louis, then lying in the harbor of Smyrna, immediately claimed Koszta as an American citizen. On the refusal of the Austrian authorities to release the prisoner. Ingraham cleared his vessel for action [July 2], and threatened to fire upon the brig if Koszta was riot delivered up within a given time. The Austrians yielded to the powerful arguments of forty well-shotted cannon, and Koszta was placed in the custody of the French consul, to await the action of the respective governments. Ingraham s course was everywhere applauded ; and Congress signified its approbation by voting him an elegant sword. The pride of the Austrian government was severely wounded, and it issued a protest against the proceedings of Captain Ingraham, and sent it to all the European courts. Mr. Ilulseman, the Austrian minister at Washington, demanded an apology, or other redress, from our government, and menaced the United States with the dis pleasure of his royal master. But no serious difficulty occurred. It was plainly perceived that the Austrians were in the wrong ; and Koszta, under the protection of the United States flag, returned to this land of free opinions. 518 THE NATION. [1854 protest, denied the right of foreign governments to interfere to prevent such a result, if it should be deemed mutually desirable. Preliminary negotiations Avere commenced, and a treaty was actually formed, when, on the 15th of December, 1854, King Kameharneha died, at the age of forty-nine years, and was succeeded by his son, Prince Alexander Liholiho. The new king imme diately ordered the discontinuance of negotiations with the United States, and the subject of annexation was riot revived until after the visit of Emma, Queen of the Islands, to England and the United States, in 1866. That such annexation will finally occur, seems to be prohesied by the history of the past and the teachings of the present. * Just as the preliminaries were arranged in Congress for entering vigorously upon the business of the session, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories (Mr. Douglas, of Illinois) presented a bill [Jan., 1854] which dis turbed the harmony in Congress, and the quietude of the people. In the center of our continent is a vast region, almost twice as large, in territorial extent, as the original thirteen States, 1 stretching between Missouri, Iowa, and Minne sota, and the Pacific Territories, from the thirty-seventh parallel of north lati tude to the British possessions, 2 and embracing one-fourth of all the public lands of the United States. The bill alluded to proposed to erect this vast region into two Territories, the southern portion, below the fortieth parallel, to be named Kansas, and the northern and larger portion, Nebraska. The bill contained a provision which would nullify the Compromise of 1820, 3 and allow the inhabitants of those Territories to decide for themselves whether they would have the institution of slavery or not. This proposition surprised Con gress and the whole country, and it became a subject of discussion throughout the Union. The slavery agitation was aroused in all its strength and rancor, and the whole North became violently excited. Public meetings were held by men of all parties, and petitions and remonstrances against the measure, especially in its relation to Nebraska, were poured into the Senate, 4 while the debate on the subject was progressing, from the 30th of January [1854] until the 3d of March. On the latter day the bill passed that body by the decisive vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. The measure encountered great opposition in the House of Representatives ; and by means of several amendments, its final defeat seemed almost certain, and the excitement subsided. At about this time a bill was reported in the Senate [March 10], providing for the construction of a railway to the Pacific Ocean ; and on the same day when the Nebraska Bill passed that body [March 3d], the House of Represen tatives adopted one called the Homestead Bill, which provided that any free white male citizen, or any one who may have declared his intentions to become one previous to the passage of this act, might select a quarter section [one hundred and sixty acres] of land on the public domain, and on proof being given that he had occupied and cultivated it for five years, he might receive 1 Page 174. 2 Page 480. 3 Page 452. 4 A petition against the measure was presented to the Senate immediately after the passage f the bill by that body, signed by three thousand clergymen of New England. .1.854.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. a title to it in fee, without being required to pay any thing for it. This bill was discussed in both Houses for several weeks ; and finally an amendment, graduating the prices of all the public lands, was adopted in its stead. 1 The public mind had become comparatively tranquil when, on the 9th of May [1854], the Nebraska bill was again called up in the House of Representatives. It became the absorbing subject for discussion. During a fortnight, violent debates, with great acrimony of feeling, occurred, and on one occasion there was a session of thirty-six consecutive hours duration, when an adjournment took place in the midst of great confusion. The country, meanwhile, was much excited, for the decision of the question was one of great moment in its relation to the future. While it was pending the suspense became painful. But it did not last long. The final question was taken on the 22d, and the bill was passed by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to one hundred. Three days afterward [May 25], the Senate agreed to it as it came from the House by a vote of thirty-five to thirteen, and it received the signature of the Presi dent on the last day of May. 2 New difficulties with the Spanish authorities of Cuba 3 appeared, while the Nebraska subject was under discussion. Under cover of some pretense, the American steamship, Black Warrior, was seized in the harbor of Havana [February 28, 1854], and the vessel and cargo were declared confiscated. The outrage was so flagrant, that a proposition was immediately submitted to the lower House of Congress to suspend the neutrality laws, 4 and compel the Havana officials to behave properly. Under the provisions of such laws, any number of citizens of the United States, who may be engaged in hostilities against Spain, would forfeit the protection of their government, and become liable to punishment for a violation of law. It was on this account that Crit- tenden and his party were shot at Havana, 5 without the right of claiming the interference of the government of the United States in their behalf. The Presi dent sent a special messenger to the government at Madrid, with instructions to the American minister to demand immediate redress, in the form of indem nity to the owners of the .Black Warrior. But the Spanish government justi fied the act of the Cuban authorities, when such formal demand was made. In 1 It provided that all lands which had been in market ten years should be subject to entry at one dollar per acre; fifteen years, at seventy-five cents; and so on, in the same ratio those which had been in market for thirty years being offered at twelve and a half cents. It also pro vided that every person availing himself of the act should make affidavit that he entered the land for his own use ; and no one could acquire more than three hundred and twenty acres, or two quarter-sections. 2 A few days after the final passage of the Nebraska bill, the city of Boston was made a theater of great excitement, by the arrest of a fugitive slave there, and a deputy-marshal was shot dead, during a riot. United States troops from Rhode Island were employed to sustain the officers of the law, and a local military force was detailed, to assist in the protection of the court and the parties concerned, until the proceedings in the case should be completed. The United States Commissioner decided in favor of the claimant of the slave, and he was conveyed to Virginia by a government vessel. This commotion in Boston is known as the Burns Riot the name of the fugitive slave being Burns. 3 Page 502. 4 These are agreements (still existing) made between the governments of the United States and Old Spain, to remain neutral or inactive, when either party should engage in war with another. 5 Page 508. 520 THE NATION. [1854. the mean while the perpetrators of the outrage became alarmed, and the Cap tain-General (or Governor) of Cuba, with pretended generosity, offered to give up the vessel and cargo, on the payment by the owners of a fine of six thou sand dollars. They complied, but under protest. 1 The matter was finally settled amicably between the governments of the United States and Spain, 2 and since then nothing has materially disturbed the friendly relations between the two countries. The irritation caused by the difficulties with Cuban officials was made the pretext, after the passage of the Nebraska bill, for a conference of three of the American ministers plenipotentiary in Europe. In August [1854], the Presi dent directed Mr. Buchanan, then American embassador at London, Mr. Mason, embassador at Paris, and Mr. Soule, embassador at Madrid, to meet at some convenient place, to confer upon the best means of settling the difficulties about Cuba, and gaining possession of the island, by purchase or otherwise. They accordingly met at Ostend, a seaport town in Belgium, on the 9th of October, 1854. After remaining there three days, they adjourned to Aix-la-Chapelle, in Rhenish Prussia, and from thence, on the 18th of the same month, they addressed a letter to the United States government, which embodied their views. That letter is known in history as The Ostend Circular, and is regarded as one of the most disgraceful passages in the history of American diplomacy. Its arguments were the plea of the highway robber, enforced by the doctrine that " Might makes Right." It recommended the purchase of Cuba, if possible ; if not, the acquisition of it by force. " If Spain," said the authors of that infamous letter, " actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States," then " by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power." The bald iniquity of the proposition amazed honest people in both hemispheres. Why it should have been left unrebuked by the government at Washington was a mystery which the light of subsequent events revealed. It seems clear, in that light, that it was a part of the scheme of those conspirators, who, a few years later, attempted to destroy the Repub lic, that they might establish that dazzling empire of Wrong, founded on Human Slavery, of which they dreamed, and which they promised their deluded followers an empire which was to be comprised within what they called The Golden Circle, whose center was Havana, the capital of Cuba. 3 1 Protesting against an act which a party is compelled to perform, leaves the matter open for a future discussion and final settlement. 2 The President of the United States, having 1 been informed that expeditions were preparing in different parts of the Union, for the purpose of invading Cuba, issued a proclamation against such movements, on the 1st of June, 1354, and called upon all good citizens to respect the obligations of existing treaties, between the governments of our Republic and Spain. 3 The Golden Circle, as defined by the conspirators, had a radius of sixteen degrees of latitude and longitude, with its center at Havana. It will be perceived, by drawing that circle on a map, that it included the Slave-labor States of our Republic. It reached northward to the Pennsyl vania line, and southward to the Isthmus of Darien. It embraced the West India Islands, and those of the Caribbean Sea, with a greater part of Mexico and Central America. The plan of the conspirators seems to have been, first, to secure Cuba, and then the other islands of that tropical region, with Mexico and Central America and then to sever the Slave-labor and the Free-labor States of our Republic, making the former a part of the great empire, whose corner-stone, as ono of the 1854.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. 521 While the good name of the government was suffering at the hands of unfaithful citizens, who were plotting mischief against its weaker neighbors, some salutary measures were adopted which gave a little relief to the picture of that dark period in our history. While a conspiracy for obliterating the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, by blotting out the nationality of the latter, was fast ripening, the two governments successfully negotiated a treaty by which that boundary was denned and fixed. The treaty was ratified early in 1854, and it was agreed that the decision of the commis sioners appointed to run the boundary should be final. By that treaty the United States were to be released from all obligations imposed by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1 to defend the Mexican frontier against the Indians, and as a consideration for this release, and for the territory ceded by Mexico, the United States agreed to pay to the latter ten millions of dollars seven millions on the ratification of the treaty, and the remainder as soon as the boundary-line should be established. These conditions were complied with, and a good understanding between the two governments has ever since existed. At about the same time, a reciprocity treaty was negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, which lowered, and in some instances effaced, the barriers to free commerce between the British provinces in America and our Republic. It provided that the fisheries of the provinces, excepting those of Newfoundland, 2 should be open to American citizens ; that disputes respect ing fisheries should be settled by arbitration ; that the British should have a right to participate in the American fisheries as far as the 36th degree of north latitude, and that there should be free commerce between the provinces and the United States, in flour, breadstuffs, fruits, fish, animals, lumber, and a variety of natural productions in their unmanufactured state. It stipulated that the St. Lawrence River and the Canadian canals should be thrown open to American vessels ; and the United States government agreed to urge the respective States to admit British vessels into their canals, upon similar terms. This treaty was submitted to the provincial Legislatures, and to the govern ments of the contracting powers, and was ratified by all. The arrangement was terminated, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty, early in 1866. When the Fugitive Slave Law began to bear the bitter fruit which its author, James M. Mason, of Virginia, desired and expected ; 3 when the Kansas- less reticent of the conspirators avowed, was to bo human slavey. A secret association, known as the Order of the Lone Star, and another subsequently organized as its successor, whose mem bers were called Knights of the Golden Circle, were formed for the purpose of corrupting the people and carrying out the iniquitous design. The latter played a conspicuous part in the Civil War which broke out in 18H1, as the secret mends and efficient allies of the conspirators, who were making open war on the Republic. 1 Page 497. 3 Page 47. 8 Senator Mason, one of the most unscrupulous of the conspirators who brought about the late Civil War, was the author of this Act. The writer was informed by a personal acquaintance of Mason s, at Winchester, that the Senator declared to him that he made the law as obnoxious as possible to the people of the Free-Labor States, in order that it should excite universal disgust and opposition, and cause such violations of it, and a general refusal to comply with its unchristian requirements, as to give a plausible pretext to the slaveholders to revolt and attempt to dissolve the Union. 522 THE NATION. [1854. Nebraska bill had opened afresh the agitation of the Slavery question, and when the barbaric declaration of the " Ostend Circular" appeared to give no offense to the Chief Magistrate of the nation and his ad visers, the conspirators plotted more actively and worked more boldly than ever. The "Great Idea of the Age," as they called it, was the extension of the area of slavery, by the con quest and annexation of countries adjacent to our Republic. Their attempts on Cuba were baffled, and they turned their attention to Mexico and Central America. Their ope rations at first assumed the form of erniora- & tion schemes, and their first theater Avas a region on the great Isthmus, inhabited chiefly by a race of degraded natives, and belonging to the State of Nicaragua, known as the Mosquito coast. It promised to be a terri tory of great importance in a commercial point of view. 1 Under the specious pretext that the British were likely to possess it, armed citizens of the United States, appealing to the -Monroe doctrine 2 for justification, emigrated to that region. Already the great guns of the American navy had been heard on the Mosquito shore, as a herald of conning power. 3 It was in the autumn and early winter of 1854 that the first formidable " emigration " to the Mosquito country was undertaken. It was alleged that JAMES M. MASON. 1 A railway across tho Isthmus of Panama has been constructed. The first trains passed over it, from Aspinwall to Panama, on the 28th of January, 1855. The project of a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Darien. or Panama, has occupied the attention of statesmen and commercial men for many years. The first actual exploration of the Isthmus, with a view to cutting a ship- canal across it, was made in 1853, by a party of twenty-three, under the direction of William Kennish, of New York. They were sent out by J. C. Prevost, commander of the British steam ship Virago, in pursuance of orders from the commander of the British squadron then in the Pacific. They commenced on the Pacific coast, and traveled northward to the Atlantic shore. For ten days they traversed a dense forest, which covered a fine, fertile, and well-watered plain, which at no time rose more than fifty feet above the level of the sea. The party became short of provisions ; and having separated for some prudent purpose, a portion of them were murdered and plundered by the Indians. The survivors returned to the Virago, without accomplishing much. In January, 1854, Lieutenant Strain, of the United States Navy, with a party of twenty, started from the Atlantic side to explore the Isthmus. They suffered dreadfully; and as nothing was heard from them for several weeks, it was supposed that all had perished. Their provisions became exhausted, and some died from famine. The Indians^ however, did not molest them, but fled to the mountains. "When Lieutenant Strain and tho survivors reached the Pacific coast, they were destitute of both clothing and food. Since then no attempt has been made to explore that dreary region. 3 See note 2, page 512. 8 There was a little village on the Mosquito coast called Greytown, in which some American citizens resided. These alleged that they had been outraged by the local authorities, who professed to derive their power directly from tho Mosquito king, or chief of the native tribes. An appeal was made to the commander of a vessel of the United States iiavj^, then lying near. That shallow official, named Hollins, who was always valiant when there was no danger, actually bombarded the little town, as a punishment for the acts of its authorities. This brought out the denuncia tions of P^nglish residents, who alleged that, by arrangements with the Mosquito monarch, their government was the protector of his dominions. The British government itself assumed that position, and for a while the folly of Hollins caused expectations of serious difficulty. 1855.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. 523 a large tract of the territory had been granted by the Mosquito king to two British subjects, 1 and upon this, by arrangement, the emigrants, led by Colonel H. L. Kinney, proceeded to settle. The government of Nicaragua protested against this invasion of that State, in violation of the neutrality laws of the United States. The Nicaraguan minister at Washington called the attention of our government to the subject [January 16, 1855], and especially to the fact of the British claim to political jurisdiction there, and urged that the United States, while asserting the " Monroe doctrine " as a correct political dogma, could not sanction the act complained of, as it was done under guarantees of British authority. Our government, as a matter of policy, interfered, but with a mildness that allowed the emigration scheme to go on, and assume more for midable proportions and aspects. An agent of the conspirators, named William Walker, who had already, with a few followers, invaded the State of Sonora, Mexico, from California, and been repulsed, reappeared on the theater in connection with Kinney, who invited him to assist him "in improving the lands and developing the mineral resources" of his grant on Lake Nicaragua. Ostensibly for that purpose, Walker left San Francisco with three hundred men, and arrived on the coast of Nicaragua on the 27th of June. He cast off all disguise the next day, and attempted to capture the town of Rivas, believing that one of the factions opposed to the Nicaraguan government, which he proposed to unite himself with, would aid in his scheme. In this he was mistaken. Even one hundred and fifty Central Americans, who had joined him, under General Castillon, deserted when they saw the forces of Nicaragua approaching. It was with great difficulty that Walker and his followers retreated to the coast and escaped in a schooner. Walker, who appears to have been the special favorite of Jefferson Davis, the chief leader in the late attempt to destroy our Republic, and who was then the Secretary of War, and ruling spirit in President Pierce s cabinet, was not allowed to remain idle, for the scheme to open Central America to the slave system of our Southern States 2 was to be consummated as far as possible while Davis was in power in the government, and could procure official sanction to the practical operations of the doctrine of the " Ostend Circular." Walker accordingly made his appearance again on the soil of Nicaragua, with armed followers, in August; and on the 5th of September following [1855] the 1 For some time the British had been endeavoring to obtain a controlling influence in this region, and they had induced the chief of the Mosquito nation to assume authority independent of the State of Nicaragua. a While, so early as 1850, Davis and his fellow-conspirators were evidently fostering the scheme for seizing Cuba, that it might become a part of the slave empire already alluded to, they appear to have been plotting for the seizure of the Central American States for the same purpose, and in this scheme the obsequious political friends of Davis and the slave-holding interests in the North were in complicity. A. month before the sailing of the Cuban expedition under Lopez [see page 508], a Pennsylvanian, named John Broadhead, in a letter to Davis, expressed his desire to be appointed a minister to Nicaragua, saying: " I should like to go into that country arid help open it to civilization and niggers. I could get strong recommendations from the President s (Tay lor s) special friends in Pennsylvania for the place, were the mission vacant, and I think I would prove a live minister. I am tired of being a white slave at the North, and long for a home in th9 sunny South." President Taylor was Secretary Davis s father-in-law. 524 THE NATION. [1806. " emigrants " in the Mosquito country, assuming independence of Nicaragua, organized a civil government there by the appointment of Kinney as chief magistrate, with a council of five assistants. At that time the inhabitants of Nicaragua were in a state of revolution, and the government was weak. Taking advantage of this state of things, Walker pushed his scheme of armed occupation vigorously. He fought and vanquished [September 3, 1855] four hundred government troops at Virgin Bay, and marched triumphantly upon and captured Grenada [October 12], the capital of the State. Then he placed General Rivas, a Nicaraguan, in the Presidential chair ; treated Kinney with contempt, and drove him from his Mosquito domain, and busied himself in strengthening his military power by "emigrants" from the United States. A British consul recognized the new government of Nicaragua, and John H. Wheeler, 1 the American minister resident there, gave it the nurture of the sun shine of his kindly regard. This attempt to establish a political power in Central America, by armed adventurers from the United States, created alarm among the other govern ments 011 the Isthmus, and in the winter of 1 856 an alliance of those States against Nicaragua under its foreign usurpers was attempted. Early in March Costa Rica made a formal declaration of war against that State ; and on the O / 10th of the same month Walker, who was the real head of the new govern ment, made a corresponding declaration against Costa Rica. The latter called upon all the Central American States to " unite and destroy the invaders from the North," while Walker shamelessly declared that he was there by invitation of the liberal party in Nicaragua. Hostilities commenced on the 20th of March. The Costa Ricans inarched into Nicaragua, and on the llth of April a sanguinary conflict occurred, in which Walker s troops were victorious, and the invaders were driven from the State. This made the usurper arrogant. He levied a forced loan on the people in support of his power. General Rivas, 2 becoming disgusted with him, finally abdicated the presidency, abandoned Walker, and proclaimed against him. This was followed on the 24th of June [1856] by a new election for President, when Walker received two-thirds of the popular vote. On the 12th of July he was inaugurated President of Nicaragua, and thus the first grand act of the conspiracy against our weak neighbors was accomplished. The government at Washington hastened to acknowledge the new nation, and Walker s embassador, in the person of a 1 John H. Wheeler was a resident of western North Carolina, and while on his way to New Y"ork, to embark for Nicaragua, two of his slaves, who attended him, were detained in Philadel phia [July 18, 1855], through the instrumentality of persons there who sought to make them free. One of these (Passmore Williamson) was ordered by Judge Kane (father of Dr. Kane, tho Arctic explorer), of the United States District Court, to bring the slaves before him. Williamson declared that the slaves had never been in his custody, and of course he could not produce them. On motion of Colonel Wheeler, Judge Kane committed Williamson to prison, for contempt of court, where he remained for several months. This case, in connection with other questions in regard to slavery, produced great excitement throughout the country. Williamson, after his release, prosecuted Kane for false imprisonment. 3 Rivas, who, by Walker s power, had been made President of Nicaragua, as we have seen, had sent a minister to Washington named Parker II. French. The Government refused to receive him. Davis s scheme was not ripe, and would not be until Walker, his pliant instrument of mischief, was at the head of the government, with an army at his back. 1855.] PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. 525 Roman Catholic priest named Vigil, was cordially received by President Pierce and his cabinet. Thus strengthened, Walker ruled with a high hand, offending commercial nations by his interference with trade. The other Cen tral American States coalesced against him, when he declared all their ports in a state of blockade ; and he performed other acts which showed his innate weakness, and led to his ruin. For about two years Walker held possession of Nicaragua by hard strug gling, but the combined power of the other states finally crushed him. On the 20th of May, 1857, he was compelled to surrender two hundred men, the remnant of his army, at Rivas, and by the interposition of Commodore Davis, of our navy, then on that coast, he and a few of his followers were brought away unharmed. So soon as he arrived at New Orleans, he commenced fit ting out another Nicaraguan expedition. He left there in November, 1857, and on the 25th of that month he landed at Puenta Arenas, where Commodore Paulding, of our navy, seized him [Dec. 3] and two hundred and thirty-two of his followers, and took Walker to New York as a prisoner. James Buchanan was then President of the United States. He privately commended Pauld- ing s act, 1 but " for prudential reasons," he said that is, to avoid giving offense to the slavery propagandists he publicly condemned the Commodore, in a special message to Congress [January 7, 1858], for thus "violating the sove reignty of a foreign country !" He declined to hold Walker as a prisoner, and then that willing agent of Davis and his fellow-conspirators Avere allowed to freely traverse the slave-labor States, preaching a new crusade against Cen tral America, and collecting funds for the purpose of a new invasion. Walker sailed from Mobile with a third expedition, and was arrested off the mouths x>f the Mississippi, but only for having left port without a clearance ! He was tried by the United States Court at New Orleans and acquitted, when he recommenced operations, went again to Central America, made much mischief, and was finally captured and shot at Truxillo. Thus ended one of the first acts in the bloody drama of the late Rebellion. While these fillibustering movements were in progress on our Southern frontier, the attention of the government was called to other important matters. Among these was a war by the Indians upon the white settlers in the Territo ries of Oregon and Washington, on the Pacific coast, toward the close of 1855, caused, in a great measure, by the bad conduct of government agents and speculators ; and probably in a measure by the machinations of their English neighbors. 2 United States troops were sent to suppress hostilities, but they failed to accomplish it. They were defeated in battle, and not long afterward 1 Oral statement to the author by Commodore Tatnall (late of the United States Navy), at Sackett s Harbor, New York, in July, 1860. Tatnall expressed much indignation at this dis graceful conduct of the President, so calculated to demoralize the public service, and said : "Few of us will be likely to do our duty hereafter for fear of punishment, by public censure, while the hand that inHicts it gives us a certificate of private approval." 2 Circumstances seemed to give the color of justice to the suspicion, that the savages were incited to war on the settlements by persons connected with the English Hudson s Bay Company, who had married Indian women, and who were desirous of monopolizing the fur-trade of that region. 526 THE NATION. [1855. several white families were murdered by the savages. Finally, Major-General Wool, 1 then stationed at San Francisco, proceeded to Portland, in Oregon, to organize a campaign against them. The Indians had formed a powerful com bination, and during the winter and spring of 1855- 56, hostilities were so gen eral in both Territories, that it appeared at one time as if the settlers would be compelled to abandon the country. This " Indian trouble," as it was called, was brought to a close in Oregon during the ensuing summer, but there was restlessness observed everywhere among the savage tribes westward of the Rocky Mountains. The friendly relations between our Government and that of Great Britain were slightly disturbed early in 1855, by the enlistment, in the United States, of recruits for the British army, then, in connection with a French army, at war with the Russians on the Crimean Peninsula, It was done under the sanction of British officials in this country, in violation of our neutrality laws. In this business the British minister at Washington was implicated, and our government demanded his recall. The British government refused compli ance. After waiting patiently several months, while diplomatic correspond ence was going on, the President dismissed the offending minister ; also the British consuls at New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, who had been guilty of a similar offense. Irritation followed these measures for a while, but law and equity so clearly vindicated the action of the United States, that a new minister was soon sent to Washington, and friendly feeling was restored. The most prominent events to be considered in the history of the adminis tration of President Pierce and his immediate successor, are what may be called the preliminary skirmishes before the late great and final battle waged between the slave power and its opponent. The former, made bold and trucu lent by success, was rapidly bringing not only the government, the commerce, and the varied industries of the Republic in abject subserviency at its feet, but was making the conscience of the nation, as manifested in morals and religion, plastic in its hands, and giving it its own shape and proclivities. The Chief Magistrate at that time appeared to sympathize with its sentiments, and smile complacently upon its deeds; and so, having disposed, as it thought, of all its serious opponents, it began to work its will with a high hand, apparently unconscious of the fact that there were moral forces at work in opposition, which, like those of the material universe, are sometimes, though invisible, intangible, and latent, more potent in action than those which are seen and felt. That such forces existed was speedily made manifest. The virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act 2 and the passage of the Kansas-Xebraska Act 3 left all the territory of the Republic open to the social institutions of every section of the Union. The question immediately arose, Shall the domain of the Republic be the theater of all free or all slave labor, with the corresponding civilization of each as a consequence ? It was evident that one or the other of these social systems must prevail, for the antagonism was so pronounced that one or the other must immediately yield. That ques- 1 Pages 413 and 484. Pages 452 and 501. 3 Page 518. 18 55.1 PIERCE S ADMINISTRATION. 527 tiun was scarcely uttered, when positive action proceeded to answer it. The slave power, complacently viewing its conquests, and the abjectness of its cap- tives in its presence, 1 had no doubt of its supremacy, for on the surface of society there seemed to be only slight ripples to indicate the agitation of serious opposition. So it sounded the trumpet for battle, and the newly organized Territory of Kansas was its chosen field of conflict. The iniquitous Fugitive Slave Act, and the aggressions and arrogance of the slave power, had aroused the Christian manhood of the nation, and the Champion of Wrong, to its utter astonishment, saw the gauntlet it had cast down immediately taken up boldly by the Champion of Right, The latter commenced the contest with the peaceful weapon of the ballot-box. Suddenly emigration began to flow in a copious stream from the free-labor States, and especially from Xew England, into the new Territory. It was obvious that the settlers there from those States would soon out-vote those from the slave-labor States, and the dominant power thus far, alarmed and exasperated, began to organize physical forces in Missouri, to counteract the moral forces of its oppo nent, if necessary. Combinations were formed under various titles, 2 and both parties founded settlements and planted the seeds of towns. 3 The government put forth its strength in that direction in October, 1854, when A. H. Reeder, appointed Governor of the Territory, arrived, and took measures for the elec tion of a territorial legislature. With the election of members for a legislature, at the close of March, 1855, the struggle in Kansas fairly commenced. The men from the Free-labor States plainly perceived that they must contend against fraud and violence in every form. * The Missouri slave-holders were prepared to go into the Territory and secure the election of men in sympathy with them. Already in November [1854], when a delegate to Congress was elected, out of nearly twenty-nine hundred votes cast, over seventeen hundred were put in by Missourians who 1 Merchants having a large " Southern trade," have confessed that for some time before the breaking out of the late civil war, they were careful not to allow the New York Tribune, and sim ilar publications that advocated the righteousness of freedom for all, to be seen in their stores when their "Southern" customers were there! 8 They were respectively called "Social Band," "Friend s Society," "Blue Lodge," "The Sons of the South," et cetera. So early as the 24th of July, 1854, or about two weeks after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act, an "Emigrant Aid Society." under an act of incorpora tion by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in April previous, when the cloud of difficulty was gathering, was formed in Boston, and was efficient in sending settlers to Kansas. This move ment created great exasperation among the slave-holders, and at a meeting held at TVestport, Missouri, early in July [1854], it was resolved that Missourians, who formed the associations there represented, should be ready at all times to assist, when called upon by pro-slavery citizens in Kansas, to remove from the Territory by force every person who should attempt to settle the- "under the auspices of the Northern Emigrant Society." They recommended the slave-holders of other counties in Missouri to take similar action. 3 The settlers from Free-labor States founded the towns of Lawrence. Topeka. Boston (after ward Manhattan), Grasshopper Falls, Pawnee, and one or two others. Those from the Slave- labor States founded Kickapoo, Doniphan. Atcliison, and a few others on or near the Missouri River A few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, hundreds of Missourians went over into Kansas, selected a tract of land, and put a mark upon it, for the purpose of establishing a sort of pre-emption right to it, and finally, at a public meeting, resolved as follows : " That we will afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this Territory. That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in this Territory, and advise slave-holders to introduce their property as early as possible." 52,8 THE NATION. [1855 had no business there. 1 Now, these Missourians were more open in their usur pation of the rights of the citizens of Kansas. While only eight hundred and thirty-one legal electors voted for members of the Legislature, there were no less than six thousand three hundred and twenty votes polled. A thousand men came from Missouri, armed with deadly weapons, two cannon, tents, and other things that appear in time of war, and encamped around Lawrence. 2 These carried the election by the most shameful fraud and violence ; and in like manner such ruffians controlled every other poll in the Territory. Then a rei^n of terror commenced in Kansas, and actual civil war darkened that beau- O tiful land for more than a year. All classes of men carried deadly weapons, and a slight or accidental quarrel frequently produced unusual violence. The Legislature of Kansas, thus illegally chosen, was called by the Gov ernor to meet at Pawnee City, on the Kansas River, nearly a hundred miles from the Missouri line. It immediately adjourned to Shawnee Mission, on the Missouri border, and there proceeded to enact the most barbarous laws for the upholding of slavery in the new Territory. These were regularly vetoed by the Governor, and as regularly passed over his veto. He was so obnoxious to the pro-slavery party, that they asked President Pierce to remove him. He did so, and sent ex-Governor Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, to fill his place. That official was acceptable to the Missourians, for he declared that he was for slavery in Kansas, and that the Kansas Legislature was legal, and its laws were bind ing on the people ! The actual settlers in Kansas, the larger portion of whom were from the Free-labor States, held a mass convention on the 5th of September [1355], when they resolved not to recognize the laws of the Legislature, fraudulently chosen, as binding upon them. They refused to vote for a delegate to Congress at an election appointed by that Legislature, and they called a delegate conven tion at Topeka on the 19th of October. By that convention Governor Reeder 1 A Democrat, named John "W. Whitfield, was elected. He was an officer in the Confederate army during 1 a portion of the late rebellion. David R. Atchison, then a member of the United States Senate from Missouri, was one of the chief promoters of the frauds and ruffianism by which attempts were made to seize Kansas. He, too, was a leader in the rebellion. * This band of lawless men were led by Claiborne F. Jackson, who was elected Governor of Missouri by the Democrats in 1860. He took an active part in the rebellion against his Govern ment, and died a refugee in Arkansas, in 18G2. On the evening before the election we are con sidering, his followers held a meeting at his tent, near Lawrence, and took measures to crush any attempt to have a legal polling of the votes. They threatened to hang an honest judge of the election, should ho appear, and compelled another, under similar threats, to receive every vote offered by a Missourian. Some of these voted several times; and three of the men elected were residents of Missouri. Everyman who did not sympathize with them, if known, was not allowed to vote. The result satisfied the slave-holders. The newspapers in their interest advised the Missourians who had thus "conquered Kansas" to "hold it, or die in the attempt;" and when Governor Reeder refused to give certificates to some of the men thus illegally elected, ancl ordered a new election on the 22d of May, to fill their places, he was threatened with death. " This infernal scoundrel," said a Missouri paper (The Brunswicker), "will have to be wiped out yet." No man was safe who dared to express his views in support of law and order. One example of the methods used by the slave-holders in conquering Kansas, cited by Mr. Greeley in his American Conflict (i. 239), will suffice: "William Phillips, a Free-State lawyer of Leavenworth, saw fit to sign the protest against the wholesale frauds whereby the election at that place was carried. A few days thereafter, he was seized by a crowd of Missouri ruffians, taken by force to AVeston. Missouri, eight miles distant, and there tarred and feathered, ridden on a rail, and finally sold at auction to a negro, who was compelled to purchase him." 1856.] PIKBCE S ADMINISTRATION. 529 was nominated for delegate in place of Whitfield, and was elected by the legal votes of the Territory. On the 23d of the same month a convention of the same party, chosen by the settlers, assembled at Topeka and formed a con stitution, which was approved by the legal votes of the Territory, whereby Kansas should become a Free-labor State, and under this they asked for the admission of their Territory into the Union as such. By this act a portion of the strife between freedom and slavery for supremacy in Kansas was now transferred to Washington City. There Reeder and Whitfield contested the claim of each to a seat. In the mean time elections had been held [January 17, 1856] under the new State Constitution, and matters seemed dark for the pro-slavery party in that State, when President Pierce gave them comfort by sending in a special message to Congress [January 24], in which he represented the action of the legal citizens of Kansas in forming a State Constitution as rebellion ! All through the spring of 1856, violence and bloodshed prevailed in Kansas. Seeing the determination of the actual settlers to maintain their rights, armed men flocked into the Territory from the Slave-labor States, and, under pretext of compelling submission to the laws of the illegal Legislature, they roamed over the land, committing excesses of every kind. 1 Finally, Congress sent a committee of investigation 2 to Kansas, whose majority made a report on the 1st of July [1856], in which the political action of the legal voters of Kansas was fully vindicated, and the frauds by which the pro-slavery Legislature had been chosen, and Whitfield elected a delegate, had been fully exposed. The Missouri member of the committee dissented from the report, and the mission failed to produce positive action, to the great disappointment of the country. As the autumn advanced, and the time for the election of a President of the Republic drew nigh, that question "so absorbed public attention, that troubles in Kansas almost ceased. There were now three distinct political parties, and three candidates for the Chief Magistracy were before the people. A new and powerful party, composed chiefly of the opponents of the extension and exist ence of slavery, had lately appeared. It was formed of men of every political creed, who were willing to cut loose from old organizations for the purpose of opposing the scheme of the slave-holders, and the leaders of the party of which President Pierce was the head, to make slavery a national instead of a sectional institution. This was called the Republican party. In the autumn of 1856, it had assumed vast proportions in the Free-labor States, and was kindly regarded by large numbers of patriotic men in the Slave-labor States. There was another powerful political organization, known as the American or Know-Nothing party, whose proceedings were at first in secret. Its chief bond of union was opposition to foreign influence and the denunciation of Roman Catholicism in our political 1 A regiment of reckless young men, from South Carolina and Georgia, entered the Territory, under a man named Buford, in the spring of 1856, for the purpose, as they said, of making Kansas a Slave-labor State at all hazards. These, with armed men under Atchison, Stringfellow, and other ruffians, traversed the Territory, executing their wicked wills at pleasure, without even a rebuke from the Executive of the nation. a Composed of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri. 34 530 THE CATION. [185G. affairs. The Democratic party, dating its modern organization at the election of General Jackson, in 1828, 1 had been divided and weakened by the slavery question, for many good men had left it when it became the avowed supporter of that institution, or had formed a new organization within its fold ; while the old Whig party 2 was virtually annihilated as a distinct one. On the 22d of February, 1856, a national convention of the American party, held at Philadelphia, nominated ex-President Fillmore 3 for the office of Chief Magistrate, with A. J. Donelson, of Tennessee, for Vice-President. On the 5th of June following, a national Democratic Convention 4 in Cincinnati nomi nated for President of the Republic James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, one of the authors of the " Ostend Circular," 5 with John C. Breckenridge, of Ken tucky, for Vice-President. This nomination was satisfactory to the Slave power, and the convention gave the coveters of Cuba and other territory within the Golden Circle 6 to understand that the party it represented was IP sympathy with their doctrines and schemes. 7 On the 17th of June [1856], a national convention of Republicans, assenr bled at Philadelphia, nominated John C. Fremont, of California, 8 for President, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. That convention put forth strong resolutions, indicative of the creed of the new and powerful party it represented. 9 An exciting canvass followed these several nominations, and the vote [November 4, 1856] resulted in the choice of James Buchanan. After this, nothing of great importance occurred during the remainder of Presi dent Pierce s administration, which expired on the 4th of March, 1857. 1 Page 459. 2 Note 2, page 466. 3 Note 5, page 501. 4 The two wings of the Democratic party (that leaning toward the anti-slavery policy of the Republicans being called the "Free-Soil Democracy") had been reconciled, and the organization was nearly a unit at this time. Delegates from each wing met in this convention, and they gen erally agreed upon measures that were adopted. 5 *Page 520. 8 Note 3, page 520. 7 In a series of resolutions, the convention took ground in favor of the efforts then making by filibusteros, as the Spaniards call small bodies of invaders, in Central America, saying, in allusion to Walker s outrages in Nicaragua: "The people of the United States cannot but sympathize with the efforts which are being made by the people of Central America to regenerate that portion of the continent which covers the passage across the inter-oceanic isthmus." They declared that the next administration would be expected to use every proper effort "to insure our ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico," and "Resolved, That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition of the Island of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves and just to Spain." A. G. Brown, Senator from Mississippi, who was one of a committee appointed to visit Buchanan at his home near Lancaster, and apprise him of his nomination, was so well satisfied that the nominee was in favor of the national policy of the slave-holders, that he wrote a cheerful letter to that effect [June 18. 1856] to S. R. Adams, which he closed by saying: "In my judgment, he is as worthy of Southern confidence and Southern votes as ever Mr. Calhoun was." Mr. Buchanan did not disappoint his most sanguine "Southern" friends. 8 Page 488. 9 In the matter of aggression upon weak neighbors, the convention took direct issue with the Democratic party, by resolving, "That the highwayman s plea that might makes right, embodied in the Ostend Circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor on any government or people that gave it their sanction." 1857.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 531 CHAPTER XV. BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. [18571861.] JAMES BUCHANAN, the fifteenth President of the Republic, took the oath of office at Washington City on the 4th of March, 1857. It was administered to him by the venerable Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the United States. Among the spectators on that occasion was a citizen who bore a near relationship to the great Washington, and who had been present at the inaugu- 1 James Buchanan was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on the 23d of April, 1791. He was educated at Dickenson College, where he was graduated at the age of eighteen years. In 1809 he was admitted to the bar, and was soon in successful practice in his native State. In 1814, when only twenty-three years of age, he was elected to a seat in the Legislature of Pennsylvania. This was his first prominent appearance in public life. In 1815 he distinguished himself in his State Legislature as an opponent of the United States Bank, and became one of the foremost men in the Democratic party. He was elected to Congress in 1820, and there he soon became distin guished as a speaker and debater. Aftei <en years service, he retired from Congress in 1831, when President Jackson appointed him minister to Russia. In 1833 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he also served ten years. President Polk called him to his cabinet, as Sec retary of State ; and in 1849 he again retired to private life. In 1853 lie was appointed minister to England ; and i Joie, 1856, he was nominated for President of the United, States. 532 THE NATION. [1857. ration of every Chief Magistrate of the Republic. 1 Two days afterward, the Senate confirmed Mr. Buchanan s cabinet appointment. 2 The beginning of Buchanan s administration was marked by an event which greatly intensified the sectional strife concerning slavery. Dred Scott, a negro, had been held as a slave in Missouri until 1834, when his master, who was a surgeon in the army, being ordered to a post in Illinois, took him into that Free-labor State. There Scott married the slave girl of another officer, with the consent of the masters. They had two children, born within Free- labor territory. The mother had been bought by the master of Scott, and when he returned to Missouri he held the parents and children in bondage. They were sold, and Scott finally sued for his freedom, on the ground of his involuntary residence for years in a Free-labor region. The State Circuit Court of St. Louis County, in which the case was tried, gave judgment in his favor. This was reversed by the Supreme Court of the State, and the question was carried to and heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, at Washing ton, in May, 1854, Chief Justice Taney presiding. The decision was reserved, for alleged prudential reasons, until after the Presidential election, in the autumn of 1856. 3 That decision, uttered by the Chief Justice, was against Scott, the majority of the court agreeing with its head in denying to any per son, " whose ancestors were imported to this country and sold as slaves," any right to sue in a court of the United States ; in other words, denying the right of citizenship to any person who had been a slave, or was the descendant of a slave. The legitimate business of the court was simply a denial of jurisdiction ; but the Chief Justice took the occasion to give the sanction and aid of that august tribunal to the eiForts of the slave-holders to nationalize the institution of slavery. With a strange disregard of popular intelligence, he asserted, in opposition to testimony to the contrary, found in abundance in our records of legislation and social life, that the framers and supporters of the Declaration of Independence did not include the black race in our country in the great proclamation that " all men are created equal ;" that our Revolutionary fathers and their progenitors, " for more than a century before," regarded the black race among us as " so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" and that they " were never thought or spoken of except ber following he was elected to that high office, and on the 4th of March, 1861, he again retired to private life at his seat, called " Wheatland," near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he still [1867] remains. 1 George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington, the adopted son of the patriot, and the last surviving executor of his will. Mr. Custis died at Arlington House, near Washington City, in the autumn of 1857. 2 He appointed Lewis Cass, Secretary of State ; Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury ; John B. Floyd, Secretary of War; Isaac Toucey, Secretary of the Navy; Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior; Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General; and Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney- General. 3 The majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court at that time, whose sympathies were with the slave-holders, decided that, on account of the excitement produced by the Nebraska bill and events in Kansas, it was best to postpone the decision. "It is quite probable," says the author of The American Conflict, i. 252, "that the action of the court in the premises, if made public at the time originally intended [Term of 1855-6], would have reversed the issue of that Presidential election." 1S57.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 533 as property" He further alleged that the framers of the Constitution " held the same views, as is equally evident from its provisions and language," when in that instrument slaves are always spoken of as " persons," and not as property. Having, with these and other statements, equally discordant with the facts of history, declared the colored people of our country incapable of being citizens, he proceeded to declare also that the Missouri Compromise Act, and all other acts of Congress restricting slavery, were unconstitutional, and that neither Congress, nor local Legislatures, had any authority for restricting the spread of the institution of slavery The majority of the court agreed with the Chief- Justice in these extra-judicial opinions, and the leaders of the dominant politi cal party assumed that the nation was bound to acquiesce in the judgment of these five or six fallible men, who proposed to turn back the tide of Christian civilization into the darker channels of a barbaric age from which it had broken, and was making the desert of humanity " blossom as the rose." The conscience of the nation refused acquiescence. 1 The newly elected President, who appears to have been informed of this decision before its promulgation, regarded it with great favor, and acted accordingly. In his inaugural address, delivered two days before the decision was promulgated, he hinted at the measure as one that would " speedily and finally " settle the slavery question. 2 " The whole Territorial question," he said, " being thus settled upon the principle of popular sovereignty a principle as ancient as free government itself every thing of a practical nature has been decided," and he expressed a hope that the long agitation of the subject of slavery was " approaching its end." A council of priests could not stop the motion of the earth, and Galileo knew it, and said so ; the opinions of a few men could not prevent the great heart of the nation beating with strong desires to have our Republic in fact, as in name " The land of the free and the home of the brave." Kansas was still a battle-field on which Freedom and Slavery were openly contending. The energetic measures of John W. Geary, who had succeeded Shannon as governor of the Territory, had smothered the fires of civil war for a time. He was succeeded by Robert J. Walker, a Mississippian, who was Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk ; and Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, was appointed Secretary of the Territory. The two parties were 1 Roger Brooke Taney was born in Maryland, on the 17th of March, 1777, and was admitted to the bar as a practicing lawyer in 1799. He served, at an early age, in the Senate and Assembly of Maryland. He was appointed Attorney-General of the United States in 1831. and Secretary of the Treasury in 1833. He was appointed Chief Justice of the United States on the death of Judge Marshall, and took his seat as such in January, 1837. He remained in that office until his death, in. the city of Washington, on the 12th of October, 1864, when his place -was filled by Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, the present [1867] incumbent. 2 Discussing the right of the citizens of a Territory to settle the question whether or not slavery should exist in such Territory, he said : It is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit." It should be remembered that the subject of discussion was never before the court for adjudication in any shape, and that the decision was an extra-judicial opinion of the Chief Justice, supported by some of his associates, and of no more binding force in law than the opinion of any other citizen. That opinion was promulgated on the 6th of March, 1857. 534 THE NATION. [1858. working energetically for the admission of Kansas as a State, with opposing ends in view. The pro-slavery party, in convention at Lecompton early in September, 1857, formed a constitution, in which was a clause providing that " the rights of property in slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered with," and forbade any amendments of the instrument until 1864. It was submitted to a vote of the people on the 21st of December following, but, by the terms of the election law, no one might vote against that Consti tution. The vote was taken " For the Constitution, with slavery," or " For the Constitution, without slavery ;" so that, in either case, a Constitution that protected and perpetuated slavery would be voted for. The vote for the Con stitution with slavery was, of course, largely the majority. Meanwhile, an election for a Territorial Legislature was held. Assured by "Walker that justice should rule, the friends of Free labor generally voted, and, notwithstanding enormous frauds, 1 they carried the Legislature and elected a delegate to Congress. The new Legislature, unquestionably legal, ordered the Lecompton Constitution to be submitted to the people of the Territory for their adoption or rejection. The result was its rejection by over ten thousand majority. 2 Regardless of this strong expression of the will of the people of Kansas, the President sent the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution to Con gress [February 2, 1858], wherein was a large Democratic majority, with a message in which he recommended its acceptance and ratification. 3 It was accepted by the Senate (32 yeas, 25 nays), but in the House a substitute pro posed by the venerable Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, was adopted, which provided for the re-submission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people of Kansas. It was done, and that instrument was again rejected by about ten thousand majority. The political power in Kansas was now in the hands of the friends of freedom, and finally, at the close of January, 1861, that Territory was admitted into the Union as a Free-labor State, and the thirty-fourth member of the family. So ended one of the most desperate of the skirmishes before the great battle between Freedom and Slavery, which we shall consider presently. And in 1862, the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, that a descendant of a slave could not become a citizen of the Republic, was practically rejected as unsound, by the issuing of a passport to one, by the Secretary of State, to travel abroad as a "citizen of the United States." While the friends of freedom were anxiously considering how they should save their country from the perils with which the institution of slavery threat ened it, the friends of that system, emboldened by the sympathy of the government, formed plans for its perpetuity, and their own profit and aggran dizement, which would practically disregard the plain requirements of the 1 One or two examples may be given. In a little precinct on the Missouri border, where there were but forty-three legal votes, 1,600 votes were taken; and at another place, where no poll was opened, 1,200 were returned. u The vote was, for the Constitution with slavery, 138; for it without slavery, 24: against it, 10,226. 3 In that message he said, referring to the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, already considered : "It has been solemnly adjudged, by the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws, that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas is, therefore, at this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina." 1857.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 535 National Constitution, and defy the laws of the land and the humane spirit of the time. They resolved to re-open the African slave-trade. In direct viola tion of the laws, native Africans were landed on the coasts of the Southern States, and placed in hopeless bondage. In Louisiana, leading citizens engaged in a scheme for legalizing that horrid traffic, under the deceptive guise of what they called the " African Labor-supply Association," 1 and in Savannah, Georgia, a grand jury, Avho were compelled by law to find several bills against persons charged with complicity in the slave-trade, actually protested against the laws they were sworn to support. 2 Southern newspapers openly advocated the traffic ; 3 and a prominent Southern clergyman asserted his conviction that the horrible African slave-trade was "the most worthy of all missionary societies." 4 Southern legislatures and conventions openly discussed the subject of re-opening the trade. 5 John Slidell, of Louisiana, one of the arch-conspirators against the life of the Republic, urged in the Senate of the United States the propriety of withdrawing Ameri can cruisers from the coast of Africa, that the traffickers in human beings might not be molested; and the administration of Mr. Buchanan was made to favor this scheme of the great cotton-planters, by protest ing against the visitation of suspected slave-bearing vessels, carrying the American flag, by British cruisers. 6 JOHN SLIDELL. 1 he Jb ugitive blave Act was now bear- 1 The President of that association was the late Mr. De Bow, editor of T)e Bavfs Review, pub lished in New Orleans. That magazine was the acknowledged organ of the oligarchy of slave holders, and was one of the chief promoters of the late rebellion. 2 We feel humbled," they said, "as men. in the consciousness that we are freemen but in name, and that we are living, during the existence of such laws, under a tyranny as supreme as that of the despotic governments of the Old World. Heretofore the people of the South, firm in their consciousness of right and strength, have failed to place the stamp of condemnation upon such laws as reflect upon the institution of slavery, but have permitted, unrebuked, the influence of foreign opinion to prevail in their support." 3 The True Foutliron, published in Mississippi, suggested the "propriety of stimulating the zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in favor of free-trade in negroes." This proposition was wideby copied with approval, and in many pulpits professed ministers of the gospel exhibited "zeal" in the service of the slave power, without the stimulus of an offered prize. 4 Doctor James H. Thornwell, President of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. Dr. Thornwell, who died at the beginning of the late rebellion, was distinguished as "the Calhoun of the Church" in the South. 5 The "Southern Commercial Convention," held at Yicksburg, Mississippi, on the llth of May, 1859, resolved, by a vote of 47 to "16, that "all laws, State or Federal, prohibiting the African slave-trade, ought to be abolished." There is ample evidence on record, that Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, William L. Yancey, and other leaders in the late rebellion, were advocates of the foreign slave-trade. 6 By an arrangement between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, the cruisers of each were empowered to board vessels of either nation suspected of being engaged in the African slave-trade. When, in the summer of 1858, it was known that the trade was about to be carried on actively by men of the Slave-labor States, the British cruisers in the Gulf of Mexico were unusually vigilant, and in the course of a few weeks boarded about forty suspected American vessels. Our government, inspired by men like Slidell, protested 536 THE NATION [1857. ing the fruit desired by its author. 1 The evident intention of the slave-holders, assisted by the President and the Chief Justice, to nationalize slavery, increased the sense of its offensiveness ; and the denial of the obvious meaning of the vital doctrine of the Declaration of Independence awakened in the breast of the people, especially in the Free-labor States, strong desires for removing from the national escutcheon the horrid stain of human bondage. 2 The Legis latures of several Free-labor States adopted measures to prevent, by lawful means, its most injurious actions, and in a special manner to prevent the carrying away of free persons of color into slavery, the law denying the right of the alleged fugitive to trial by jury. The Legislature of New York re affirmed the determination of the State authorities to make every slave free that should be brought involuntarily within its borders, and denounced the opinion of the Chief Justice, which denied citizenship to men of color. Ohio passed a bill of similar character; and Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin took strong ground in favor of the freedom of the slave, without assuming an attitude of actual resistance to the obnoxious Act, which all were bound to obey so long as it remained unrepealed. These " Per sonal Liberty Laws," as they were called, exasperated the slave-holders, and they were used by the politicians as a pretext, as it was intended they should be, for kindling the flames of civil war. At about the same time a "National Emancipation Society" was formed at Cleveland, Ohio [August 26, 1857] ? having for its object the maturing of a plan for ending slavery by the purchase of the slaves by the National government. against what it was pleased to call the odious British doctrine of "the right of search," and the British government, for "prudential reasons," put a stop to it, and laid the blame on the officers of the cruisers. 1 See page 521. 2 When the Declaration of Independence was promulgated, its precepts struck at the root of human bondage in every form ; and efforts were made, in several States, to eradicate the institu tion, sometimes in the form of propositions for immediate, and at others for gradual, emancipation. It had been expelled from England by the decision of Lord Mansfield, just before the kindling of the American Revolution. This decision was in the case of James Somerset, a native of Africa, who was carried to Virginia, and sold as a slave, taken to England by his master, and there induced to assert his freedom. The first case of a similar nature on record in England was in 1697, when it was held that negroes "being usually bought and sold among merchants, as mer chandise, and also being infidels, there might be a property in them sufficient to maintain trover." This position was overruled by Chief Justice Holt, who decided that "so soon as a negro lands in England, he is free." To this decision Cowper alludes, when he says, "Slaves cannot breathe in England." In 1702, Justice Holt also decided that "there is no such thing as a slave by the law of England." In 1729, an opinion was obtained, that "negroes legally enslaved elsewhere might be held as slaves in England, and that baptism was no bar to the master s claim." This was held as good law until Mansfield s decision above mentioned. In the English colonies in America, the most enlightened men, regarding slavery with great disfavor, made attempts from time to time to limit or to eradicate it. The utterances and actions of George Washington, Henry Laurens, Thomas Jefferson, and other slave-holders, and of Dr. Franklin, John Jay, and many other leading patriots, directly refute the assertion of Judge Taney, that in their time Africans by descent "were never thought or spoken of except as property." Among the important public acts of those men so misrepresented, was the famous Ordinance of 1787 [see page 362], adopted before the National Constitution was framed, which was the final result of an effort commenced in the Continental Congress some years before [1784] to restrict slavery. That action was in relation to a plan for the government of the Western Territory, then including the whole region west of the old thirteen States, as far south as the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and embracing several of the late Slave-labor States. The plan was submitted by a committee, of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman. It contemplated the ultimate division of that territory into seventeen States, eight of them below the latitude of the present city of 1859.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. The attention of the public mind was somewhat diverted for a while from the absorbing topic of slavery by the movements of the Mormons in Utah, 1 early in 1857. Incensed because their Territory was not admitted as a State, they commenced revolutionary proceedings. They destroyed the records of the United States Court for the District ; and under the instructions of their Governor and spiritual head, Brigham Young, 2 they looked to him for all laws. The President determined to enforce those of the United States. He appointed Colonel Cumming Governor of Utah, and sent an army to uphold his authority. Young issued a proclamation, declaring his intention to resist the troops ; but when Cumming arrived there, in April, 1858, while the army was at Fort Bridger, Young received him with courtesy, and surrendered to him the Seal of the Territory ; at the same time he and his people prepared to leave the country, declaring that they would emigrate to a new land rather than submit to military and Gentile rule. The troops, who had lost a provision train, destroyed by the Mormons, were recalled ; the " Mormon War " ended, and Young and his people were soon again applying for the admission of their Territory as a State. 3 They are yet [1867] unsuccessful. Polygamy is the hindrance. The autumn of 1859 was the witness of a most extraordinary excitement on the subject of slavery. The feverishness in the public mind, produced by the discussions of that topic, had somewhat subsided, and there was unusual calmness in the political atmosphere. Utah was quiet ; difficulties which had arisen between our government and that of Paraguay, in South America, had been settled, and the Indian troubles on the Pacific coast were drawing to a close. 4 Walker s filibustering operations against Nicaragua were losing much of their interest in consequence of his failures, 5 and the National Legislature, during its short session, had been much engaged in action upon the Pacific Railway, Homestead, Soldiers Pension, and other bills of national interest. The summer had passed away in general quietude throughout the country, and the weary in the political field were hoping for rest, when the whole na tion was startled, as by a terrific thunder-peal, by an announcement from Balti- Louisville, in Kentucky. Among the rules for the government of that region, reported by Mr. Jefferson, was the following: "That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted to be personally guilty." This clause was stricken out [April 19, 1784], on motion of Mr. Spaight, of North Carolina, seconded by Mr. Read, of South Carolina. A majority of the States were against striking it out, but the Articles of Confederation required a vote of nine States to carry a proposition. See Journals of Congress. In the Ordinance of 1787 [see page 362], this rule, omitting the words, "after the year 1800 of the Christian era," was incorporated. 1 See page 504. 8 The successor of Joseph Smith [page 504], who was duly appointed Governor of Utah by President Fillmore in 1850, and yet (1867) holds that position. 3 Early in 1862 they formed a new State Constitution, elected senators and representatives under it, and applied for admission when Congress assembled, near the close of the year. No action was had on the application: but Congress passed a law "to punish and prevent the prac tice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States," and in other places, and disapproving and annulling certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah. The la\r against polygamy is a dead letter in our statute-books. 4 Page 525. 6 Page 525. 538 THE CATION. [1859. more [October 17, 1859] that "an insurrection had broken out at Harper s Ferry, 1 where an armed band of Abolitionists have full possession of the Gov ernment Arsenal." This was the celebrated "John Brown s Raid," which kindled a blaze of intense excitement throughout the Slave-labor States, and revived the " slavery agitation " with fiercest intensity. The outline of the story of " John Brown s Raid " may be given in few words. Brown 2 had acted and suffered much in Kansas during the civil war there, where he was a prominent anti-slavery man. He was enthusiastic, fanat ical, and brave, and believed himself to be the destined liberator of the slaves in our land. He went into Canada from Kansas by way of Detroit, with a few followers and twelve slaves from Missouri, whom he led to freedom in the dominions of the British Queen. At Chatham he held a convention [May 8, 1859], whereat a " Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States " was adopted, not, as the instrument itself declared, for the overthrow of any government, " but simply to amend and repeal ;" adding, " and our flag shall be the same that our fathers fought under in the Revolu tion." It was part of a scheme for an uprising of the slaves for the obtaining of their freedom. The summer of 1859 was spent in preparations for a decisive movement, and Brown finally hired a farm a few miles from Harper s Ferry, where he was known by the name of Smith. There a few followers stealthily congregated, and pikes and other weapons were gathered, and ammunition was provided, for the purpose of striking the first blow against slavery in Virginia. The appointed time for delivering that blow was Sunday evening, the 16th of October, when Brown, moving in profound darkness, with seventeen white and five colored men, entered the little village of Harper s Ferry, extinguished the public lights, seized the armory and the railway bridge, and quietly arrested and imprisoned in the government buildings citizens as they appeared in the streets, one by one, in the morning, ignorant of what had happened. The news soon went abroad. Virginia militia flocked to the rescue, and in the course of twenty-four hours Colonel Robert E. Lee was there with government troops and cannon. Struggles between the raiders and the militia and citizens resulted in several deaths. Two of Brown s sons were killed, and the leader was captured. He expected a general uprising of the negroes in that region, but was disappointed. He was indicted for exciting slaves to insurrection, 1 At the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, in Virginia, where the united streams burst through the Blue Ridge. There was a National armory, in which a large quantity of arms were stored at the time we are considering. 2 John Brown was born in Farmington, Connecticut, on the 9th of May, 1800. When he Was five years of age his family settled in Hudson, Ohio, and, as a cattle-driving boy, he was at the surrender of Hull at Detroit, in 1812. His school education was meager, and he learned the trade of tanner and currier. He commenced studying for the ministry, but weak eyes compelled him to desist. He worked at his trade and farming in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. He engaged extensively in wool dealing, and on account of that business went to Europe, incurring heavy loss, and returning a bankrupt. He moved from place to place, and finally went to Kansas with sons by his first wife, where he was active in public matters. He became an abolitionist in early life, and the conviction that he was to be a liberator of the slaves possessed him so early as 1839. He was twice married, and had seven children by his first wife and thirteen by his last, who yet [1867] survives him. 1859.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 539 and for treason and murder. He was tried and found guilty [October 29], and was executed on the 2d of December, under the laws of Virginia. The most exaggerated reports concerning this raid went abroad. Terror spread over Virginia. Its Governor (Henry A. Wise) was almost crazy with excitement, and incurred the pity and ridicule of the whole country. 1 Through out the Slave-labor States there was a wide-spread apprehension of slave insur rections, and every man there from the Free-labor States was suspected of being an emissary of the abolitionists. Attempts were made to implicate leaders of the Republican party, and the inhabitants of the Free-labor States generally, in this scheme for liberating the slaves. The author of the Fugitive Slave law, James M. Mason, 2 was chairman of a committee of the United States Senate appointed to investigate the matter; and Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, then a member of the Lower House, volunteered to aid in proving the charge against the people of the North. The result was positive proof that Brown had no accomplices, and only about twenty follow ers. Although Brown s mad attempt to free the slaves was a total failure in itself, it proved to be one of the important events which speedily brought about the result he so much desired. The elections in 1858 and 1859 indicated a remarkable and growing strength in the Republican party, and it was evident to the slave-holders that their dom ination in the councils of the nation would speedily end. They saw no chance for the election of another President of their choice, and the leaders of that powerful oligarchy, who had been for years conspiring for the overthrow of the Republic by a dissolution of the Union, so as to establish the great slave empire of their dreams within the Golden Circle, 3 perceived that they must strike the blow during or at the immediate close of Mr. Buchanan s adminis tration, or perhaps never. They must have a pretext for the crime, and they set diligently to work to create one more specious than the opposition to the Fugitive Slave law would afford. They were in full political alliance with the 1 The excited Governor was prepared, according to his own words, to make war upon all the Free-labor States, for the honor of Virginia. In a letter to the President [Nov. 25, 1859], after saying that he had good authority for the belief that a conspiracy to rescue John Brown existed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and other States, he said : I protest that my purpose is peaceful, and that I disclaim all threats when I say, with all the might of meaning, that if another invasion assails this State or its citizens from any quarter, I will pursue the invaders wherever they may go, into any territory, and punish them wherever arms can reach them. I shall send a copy of this to the Governors of Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Autograph Letter. Before the close of the late civil war, of which "Wise was one of the fomenters, a daughter of John Brown was a teacher of a school of colored children in the ex-Governor s house, near Norfolk, Virginia, then in possession of the government. Wise was willing to find victims to "punish" by secret and dishonorable means. In a let ter to the President, written twelve days before [November 13] the one above cited, he asked the Executive and the Postmaster-General to aid him in a scheme for seizing and taking to Vir ginia Frederick Douglas, an eminent and widely-known colored citizen, who had escaped from slavery many years before, and was then living in the western part of the State of New York, though Wise, as appears by the letter, supposed him to be in Michigan. Douglas was an elo quent and influential pleader for the emancipation of his race, and was feared and intensely hated by the slave-holders. He was guilty of no crime no act that a slave-holder could complain of but escape from bondage. That was a crime quite sufficient for the crazy Governor of Virginia to have justified himself in hanging Douglas on the same gallows with John Brown. 8 Page 521. 8 Page 520. 540 THE NATION. [1860. Democratic party then in power, and might, by acting with it in good faith, and electing a President of its choice in 1860, maintain its possession of the government for some time longer, but with no certainty of a lasting tenure, for a large faction of that party, under the leadership of Senator Douglas, showed tangible proclivities toward affiliation with the opponents of slavery. So the leaders of the oligarchy resolved to destroy the supremacy of that party, and allow the Republicans to elect their candidate, whoever he might be, and thus, with the pretext that he was a sectional President, and an enemy to the institution of slavery, they might, with plausible appeals to the domi nating passions of their class, "fire the Southern heart," and make a success ful revolution possible. This was a plan formed by conspirators like Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi ; John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana ; William L. Yancey, of Alabama ; Robert Toombs and Howell Cobb, of Geor gia ; the Rhetts, W. P. Miles, and L. M. Keitt, of South Carolina ; T. Cling- man, of North Carolina ; D. L. Yulee, of Florida ; Louis T. Wigfall, of Texas ; and James M. Mason and R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, who appeared most prominently as actors at the opening of the late rebellion. These men, as the ordeal to which their wickedness soon exposed them proved, were lacking in the true elements which constitute statesmen, but had for years assumed the character of such, and were self-constituted leaders of opinion and action in the more southern Slave-labor States, to the mortal hurt of the deceived people. Almost six hundred chosen representatives of the Democratic party assem bled in convention in the hall of the South Carolina Institute, in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 23d of April, 1860, for the purpose of nomi nating candidates for the Presidency and Vice- Presidency of the Repub lic. It was evident from the first hour of the ses sion that the spirit of the slave system was there, full of mischief, and as potential as Ariel in the creation of elementary strife. For months there had been premonitions of a 1 storm which might topple from its foundations the organization known as the Democratic party. Violent discordant elements were now in close con tact, and all felt that a fierce tempest was impending. Caleb Gushing, of Massachusetts, was chosen the Chairman of the Conven tion. The choice was in accordance with the wishes of the slave-holders. In his inaugural speech Mr. Gushing declared it to be the " high and noble part of the Democratic party of the Union to withstand to strike down and con- SOUTII CAROLINA INSTITUTE. I860.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 541 quer " the " banded enemies of the Constitution," as he styled the anti-slavery Republican party. But those in the Convention most clamorous for the Con stitution were not anxious, at that time, to " strike down " the Republican party. They were more intent upon striking down their own great party, for the moment, by dividing it ; and a greater portion of the delegates from the Slave-labor States came instructed, and were resolved to demand from the Convention a candidate and a platform which should promise a guaranty for the speedy practical recognition, by the general government and the people, of the system of slavery as a national institution. Senator Stephen A. Doug las, 1 of Illinois, was the most prominent candidate of the party for a nomina tion before the Convention. It was well known that he was committed to a course that would not allow him or his friends to agree to such a platform of principles. His rejection by the representatives of the slave-holders would split the Democratic party asunder, and then the first great and desired act in the drama of rebellion against their government would be auspiciously begun. They resolved to employ that wedge. The Democratic party throughout the Union had accepted the doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty," of which Douglas was the sponsor and exponent, and which was put forth in the resolutions of the Convention at Cincinnati that nominated Buchanan, 2 as the true solution of the slavery question; but now it was rejected by the slave-holders as too dangerous to their interests. Their experience in Kansas taught them that positive law, and not public opinion, must thereafter be relied on for the support of slavery. So when the Conven tion, by a handsome majority, reaffirmed the Cicinnati platform of principles adopted the "Douglas platform" of Popular Sovereignty preconcerted rebel lion lifted its head defiantly. Le Roy P. Walker, who was Jefferson Davis s so-called " Secretary of War " at the beginning of the late rebellion, declared that he and his associates from Alabama were instructed not to acquiesce in or submit to any such platform, and, in the event of such being adopted, to with draw from the Convention. That contingency had now occurred, and the Alabama delegates formally withdrew. This action of the Alabamians was imitated by delegates from other States. They were followed out of the Convention by all the delegates from Missis sippi, all but two from Louisiana, all from Florida and Texas, three from Arkansas, and all but two from South Carolina. On the following day twenty- six of the thirty-four delegates from Georgia withdrew. Two delegates from Delaware followed, and joined the seceders ; and all met that night in St. Andrew s Hall, to prepare for a new organization. The disruption of the Democratic party represented in the Convention was now complete, and the traitorous intentions of the seceders were foreshadowed by Glenn, of Missis sippi, one of their number, who said to the Convention, before leaving it : " I tell Southern men here, and for them I tell the North, that in less than sixty days you will find a united South standing side by side with us." He was vehemently cheered, especially by the South Carolinians, and Charleston was > Page 518. 2 Page 530. 542 THE NATION. [I860. the scene of great delight that night, because of this auspicious beginning of a rebellion by the arrogant oligarchy of slave-holders. The seceders, with James A. Bayard, of Delaware, as their chosen head, assembled the next day, organized what they called a " Constitutional Con vention," sneeringly called the majority they had deserted a " Rump Conven tion," and prepared for vigorous action. On the evening of the 3d of May, they adjourned to meet in Richmond, Virginia, in June, and invited the " Democracy " who sympathized with them to join them there. The original Convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore, Maryland, in June, to which time the nomination of a candidate was postponed. The latter reassembled in the Front Street Theater, in that city [June 18, 1860], with Mr. Gushing in the chair. There was a stirring time again, the subject of slavery being the exciting cause, and Gushing and most of the Massachusetts delegation with drew. 1 The seceders, who had met at Richmond, were now in Baltimore, and these and the Gushing malcontents organized a Convention in the Maryland Institute. The regular Convention chose David Tod, of Ohio, for their presi dent, and proceeded to nominate Mr. Douglas for the Chief Magistracy. 2 The seceders, calling themselves the National Democratic Convention, nominated John C. Breckenridge, then Vice-President of the Republic, for President. On the 9th of May [1860], representatives of a party then about six months of age assembled in convention in Baltimore, styled themselves the National Constitutional Union Party, and was presided over by the late Washington Hunt. They nominated for President John Bell, of Tennessee, 3 and for Vice- President, Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. They adopted as their platform the National Constitution, with the motto, THE UNION, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAWS. A few days later, chosen representa tives of the Republican party, and a vast concourse of people, assembled [May 16, 1860] in an immense building in Chicago, erected for the purpose, and called a " wigwam," to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, presided. The Convention adopted a platform of principles in the form of seventeen resolutions, 4 and on the 19th nominated 1 Benjamin F. Butler, one of the Massachusetts seceders from the Convention in Baltimore, said before leaving it : " "We put our withdrawal before you upon the simple ground, among others, that there had been a withdrawal, in part, of a majority of the States ; and, further (and that, perhaps, more personal to myself), upon the ground that I will not sit in a convention where the African slave-trade which is piracy, by the laws of my country is approvingly advocated." a James Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was nominated for Vice-President. He declined, and Herschel Y. Johnson, of G-eorgia, was substituted. 3 When the Rebellion broke out, in the spring of 1861, Mr. Bell was one of the earliest, if not the very first, of the professed Unionists of distinction who joined the enemies of his country, in their attempt to overthrow the Constitution, and destroy the nationality of the Republic. Breck enridge, the candidate of the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic party, became a major-general in the army of the conspirators against the life of the Republic. 4 After affirming that the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the National Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions ; congratulating the country that no Republican member of Congress had uttered or countenanced any threats of disunion, " so often made by Democratic members without rebuke, and with applause from their political associates," and denouncing such threats as " an avowal of contemplated treason," the resolutions made explicit declarations upon the topic of slavery, so largely occupying public attention. In a few paragraphs, they declared that each State had the absolute right of control in the management of its own domestic concerns ; that the I860.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 543 Abraham Lincoln, 1 of Illinois, for the Presidency, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, for the Vice-Presidency of the Republic. There, in that " wigwam," war was openly declared against the principles and purposes of the oligarchy of the Slave-labor States, and the standard of revolt was raised against the operations of a tyranny which was rapidly enslaving the nation, materially THE " WIGWAM " AT CHICAGO. and morally. In that " wigwam " Abraham Lincoln was made the standard- bearer in that revolt which resulted in the overthrow of slavery, and the puri fication and strengthening of the nation. And now, in the early summer-time of 1860, the most important political campaign known in this country was opened with four parties in the field, but only two of them (the Republican, and the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic new dogma, that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Terri tories of the United States, was a dangerous political heresy, revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country ; that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom, and that neither Congress nor a Territorial ^Legislature, nor any individuals, have authority to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States, and that the reopening of the African slave-trade, then recently commenced in the Southern States, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, was a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age. 1 Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His ancestors were Quakers in Pennsylvania, When he was seven years of age, his father settled, with his family, in Indiana. He received but little education. He worked hard for ten years on a farm, and, at the age of nineteen years, went to New Orleans as a hired hand on a flat-boat. In 1830 he settled in Illinois, became a clerk in a store, and was a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk war, in 1832. He was elected to the Illinois Legislature in 1834, in which he served four years. He was licensed in 1836 to practice law, and commenced the profession in Spring field in 1837. He rose to distinction. He was elected to Congress in 1840. He was named for the position in which Fremont was placed by the Republicans in 1856 [page 530]. He was always an anti-slavery man, but did not rank with ; Abolitionists." In November, 1860, he was elected President of the United States, and performed the duties of his office with singular fidelity, zeal, and wisdom, during the terrible Civil War that ensued. He was re-elected President in 1864, and was inaugurated for his second term on the 4th of March. 1865. On the evening of the 14th of April next ensuing he was shot by an assassin, and expired early the following morning, at the age of little more than fifty-six years. His remains repose in a vault in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, at Springfield, Illinois. 544 THE NATION. [I860 party) exhibiting tangible convictions, as units, on the great topic which had so long agitated the nation, 1 and these took issue, squarely, definitely, and defiantly. It had been declared by the former, whose standard-bearer was Abraham Lincoln, that there was " an irrepressible conflict between Freedom and Slavery," " that the Republic cannot exist half slave and half free," and that " freedom is the normal condition of all territory." It had been declared by the latter, whose standard-bearer was John C. Breckenridge, that no power existed that might lawfully control slavery in the Territories ; that it existed in any Territory in full force, whenever a slave-holder and his slaves entered it; and that it was the duty of the National government to protect them. This was the issue. The conflict during the canvass, from July to November, was severe. The conspirators against the life of the Republic were with the Breckenridge faction, and they and their followers used every means in their power to excite the slave-holders, and the masses of the people in the Slave- labor States, against those of the Free-labor States. During the summer and autum of 1860, they traversed the latter States, everywhere vindicating the claims put forth by the extremists of the pro-slavery party. Among these orators, in the interest of the oligarchy, William L. Yancey, one of the most daring of the Conspirators, was the most conspicuous. He was treated kindly, and listened to patiently, and then he went back, with treason in his heart and falsehood upon his lips, to deceive and arouse into rebellion the confiding people he was about to betray. Like an incarnation of discord, he cried sub stantially as he had written two years before : 2 " Organize committees all over the Cotton States ; fire the Southern heart ; instruct the Southern mind ; give courage to each other ; and at the proper moment, by one organized, concerted action, precipitate the Cotton States into revolution." Yancey, in principles and action, was a type of politicians in the other Slave-labor States who now worked in co-operation with him in bringing about a rebellion against the government, by the slave-holders. Their pretext was found in the doctrines and practices of the Republican party, as revealed in their convention, during the canvass, and at the election [November 6, 1860], which resulted in the choice of Abraham Lincoln for President. 3 Although Mr. Lin coln had a large majority over each candidate, and was elected in accordance with the letter and spirit of the National Constitution, yet the fact that he received 979,163 votes less than did all of his opponents, gave factitious vigor to 1 The wing of the Democratic party led by Mr. Douglas, in its platform, assumed not to know positively whether slavery might or might not have a lawful existence in the Territories, without the action of the inhabitants thereof, but expressed a willingness to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court in all cases. The National Constitutional Union party, led by John Bell, declined, to express any opinion upon any subject. 2 In a letter to James Slaughter, June 15, 1858. 3 The electoral college [see Article XII. of the Amendments to the Constitution] then chosen was composed of 303 members. Mr. Lincoln received 180 votes, or 57 more than all of his oppo nents. Bell received 39; Douglas, 12; and Breckenridge. 72. Of the popular vote. Lincoln received 491,295 over Douglas, 1,018.499 over Breckenridge, and 1,275.871 over Bell. The votes for the four candidates were, respectively: For Lincoln, 1,866,452 ; for Bell, 590,631 ; for Douglas, 1,375,141 ; and for Breckenridge, 847,953. A fair analysis of this popular vote shows that of the 4,690,180 ballots cast, at least 3,500,000, or three-fourths of the whole, were given by men opposed to the further extension of the institution of slavery. I860.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 545 the plausible cry, which was immediately raised by the conspirators and their friends, that the President-elect would be a usurper when in office, because he had not received a majority of the aggregate vote of the people ; and that his antecedents, the principles of the Republican platform, and the fanaticism of his supporters, pledged him to wage relentless war upon the system of slavery, and the rights of the Slave-labor States. 1 When it was known that Mr. Lincoln was chosen for the Presidency, there was great rejoicing among the politicians in the Slave-labor States. It was the pre-concerted signal for open rebellion. Making that choice and its alleged menaces a pretext, the conspirators and the politicians in their service at once adopted measures for precipitating "the cotton States into revolution." 2 A system of terrorism w r as organized and put in vigorous operation, to crush out all active loyalty to the government. In it the hangman s rope, the incen diary s torch, and the slave-hunter s blood-hound, were prominent features in the region below North Carolina ; and the promise of Senator Clingman, of the latter State, that Union men should be hushed by " the swift attention of vigi lance committees," was speedily fulfilled. In this unholy work the Press and Pulpit became powerful auxiliaries, and thousands upon thousands of men and women, regarding these as oracles of truth and wisdom, followed them reverentially in the broad highway of open treason. " Perhaps there never was a people," wrote a resident of a Slave-labor State in the third year of the war, " more bewitched, beguiled, and befooled, than we were when we drifted into this rebellion." The conspirators, who had been colleagues or were disciples of John C. Calhoun, 3 and had been for years plotting treason against their government, now organized rebellion. They were of one mind in regard to the overt act ; they differed somewhat as to time and manner. Those of South Carolina, who, by common opinion, were expected to lead in the great movement, were anxious for immediate action, and when they found those of sister States hesi tating, they resolved not to wait for their co-operation. For a while this question divided the secessionists, but it was soon settled by general co-opera tion. Every thing was favorable to their plans. The governors of all the Slave-labor States had been elected by the Democratic party, and were ready, with the exception of those of Maryland and Delaware, to act in sympathy, if not in open co-operation with the conspirators. Three, if not four, of the leading conspirators were then members of President Buchanan s cabinet, 4 and the President himself and his Attorney-General (Jeremiah S. Black, of Penn sylvania) were ready to declare that the Constitution gave the Executive no 1 The fact was kept out of sight, that in nine of the Slave-labor States the politicians had not allowed the people to have an electoral ticket, and thereby prevented an expression of the popular will. These States were North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas the States which the politicians of each attempted to sever from the Union. The electors of South Carolina were chosen by the Legislature, and not by the people. 2 Page 544. 3 Page 458. 4 The traitors and conspirators in the cabinet were Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior. Floyd and Cobb became general officers iu the army of the con spirators, and the former perished miserably. Thompson was charged with the most heinoua 35 546 THE NATION. [1860 power to stay the arm of rebellion. Of the President, Jacob Thompson, of his cabinet, said: "Buchanan is the truest friend of the South I have ever known in the North. He is a jewel of a man." 1 Cobb, the Secretary of the Treasury, wished to hold back the blow until the close of Buchanan s term, but he was overruled by the other conspirators, who counted upon the President s passive, if not active, sympathy with them. According to agreement, the politicians of South Carolina took the first Btep toward open rebellion. For that purpose, an extraordinary session of the Legislature was held at the time of the Presidential election [November 6, 1860], and on the morning after, when the result was known, the Governor of that State was the recipient of many congratulatory electographs from officials in Slave-labor States, giving assurance of co-operation. 2 In Charleston, badges called Palmetto cockades 3 were everywhere seen, and they were freely worn even in Washington City. Members of both Houses of Congress, from South Carolina, made trea sonable speeches at the capital of that State, 4 and the Legis lature authorized a convention of delegates, for the purpose of declaring the State separated from the Union, and taking measures for maintaining what they called the "Sove reignty of South Carolina." The members of that Convention were chosen on the 3d of December, and on the 17th of that PALMETTO COCKADE, ^onth they assembled at Columbia, when the prevalence of the small-pox in that city caused them to adjourn to Charles ton. There, on the 20th [December, 1860], they adopted an Ordinance of Secession, 5 and that evening, in the presence of the Governor and his council, crimes during the rebellion, even of complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln. "William H. Trescot, the Assistant Secretary of State, was also one of the conspirators ; and of Mr. Bu chanan s seven cabinet ministers, only two (General Cass, Secretary of State, and Joseph Holt, Postmaster-General) seem to have been wholly disconnected with the plotters against the Gov ernment 1 Autograph letter, November 20, I860. * "The people are much excited. North Carolina will secede," said one. "Large numbers of Bell men," said another, from Montgomery, Alabama, "headed by T. II. "Watts, have declared for secession since the announcement of Lincoln s election. The State will undoubtedly secede." "The State is ready to assert her rights and independence; the leading men are eager for the business," said a dispatch from the capital of Georgia. "If your State secedes," said another, from Richmond, "we will send you troops and volunteers to aid you," and so from other States .came greetings and offers of aid. 9 Made of blue silk ribbon, with a button in the center bearing the image of a palmetto-tree. * James Chestnut, Jr., member of the United States Senate, spoke of the undoubted right of South Carolina to secede, and recommended its immediate action in that direction, saying: "The other Southern States will flock to our standard." W. "W. Boyce, member of Congress, said: "I think the only policy for us is to arm as soon as we receive authentic intelligence of the elec tion of Lincoln. It is for South Carolina, in the quickest manner, and by the most direct means, >to withdraw from the Union. Then we will not submit, whether the other States will act with us or with our enemies." 8 This ordinance was drawn by John A. Inglis, and is as follows: "We, the people of Soiun -Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of the State, ratifying Amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." 1861.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 547 the Legislature, and a vast concourse of citizens, it was signed in the great Hall of the South Carolina Institute, 1 by one hundred and seventy of the mem bers. This action was speedily imitated by the politicians in the interest of the conspirators in the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. 2 On the 4th of February, 1861, delegates appointed by the secession conventions in six of the States in which there had been action on the subject, assembled at Montgomery, in Alabama, and formed a league, with the title of CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. S A provisional constitution was adopted ; Jefferson Davis, 4 of Mississippi, was chosen " Provisional President," and Alexander H. 1 See page 540. This building, and others identified with the treasonable movements of the conspirators and their followers in Charleston, were in ruins early in the Civil "War that ensued, and yet (1867) stand as ghastly illustrations of one of the blackest pages in the history of our Eepublic. On the occasion of the signing of the Ordinance of Secession, a significant banner was hung back of the chair of the president of the convention. Upon it was represented an arch composed of fifteen stars (each indicating a Slave-labor State) rising out of a heap of broken and disordered stones, representing the Free-labor States. The key-stone was South Carolina, on which stood a statue of Calhoun. This banner was a declaration of the intention of the convention to destroy the Republic, and to erect upon its ruins an empire whose corner-stone should be slavery. Beneath the design on the banner were the words: " BUILT FROM THE RUINS." 2 Secession ordinances were passed in the conventions in the eleven States named, in the fol lowing order: South Carolina, December 20, 1860; Mississippi, January 9, 1861; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; Texas, February 1; Vir ginia, April 17; Arkansas, May 6; North, Carolina, May 20; Tennessee, June 8. The case of Arkansas is an example of the method of secession. The conspirators, by means of Knights of the Golden Circle [see page 520], procured the election of a disloyal Legislature and Governor, who called a convention to vote on secession. That convention voted for Union by a majority of over two-thirds. The foiled conspirators, by false promises, gained the consent of the Unionists to an adjournment, subject to the call of the President, who pretended to be a loyal man, but was really one of the traitors. It was agreed to refer the question back to the people, and that the convention should not reassemble before the vote should be taken in August. The President, in violation of that pledge, called the Convention in May, soon after Fort Sumter was taken. The hall in which the members met was filled by an excited crowd. When the roll had been called, a conspirator offered an Ordinance of Secession, and moved that the " yeas " and " nays " on the question should be taken without delate. The President fraudulently declared the motion carried ; and when the vote on the Ordinance was taken, and it was found that there was a majority against it, he arose, and in the midst of cheers and threats of the mob, he urged the Unionists to change their votes to "ay " immediate!} 7 . It was evident that the mob was prepared to execute their threats, and the terrified Unionists complied. There was one exception. His name was Murphy. He was compelled to fly for his life. He was the Union Governor of the State in 1846. Thus, by fraud and violence, Arkansas was placed in the position of a rebellious State. The conspirators at once commenced a system of terrorism. Unionists were murdered, imprisoned, and exiled. Confederate troops from Texas and Louisiana were brought into the State, and Arkansas troops, raised chiefly by fraud and violence, were sent out of the State. The voice of opposition was silenced; and the usurpers, with their feet on the necks of the people, proclaimed the unanimity of the inhabitants of Arkansas in favor of disunion! 3 This name does not express the truth. No States, as States, had withdrawn from the Union for the people, who compose a State in our Republic, had never been asked to sanction such change. Only certain persons in certain States were in rebellion against the National authority. They usurped the power arid suspended the constitutions of several of the States ; but the con federation formed at Montgomery was only a league of confederated rebels, not of States. With this qualification, the name of " Confederate " may be properly applied to the insurgents, and in the sense of that qualification it is used in the narrative of the Civil War that follows this intro duction. 4 Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky, on the 3d of June, 1808. He was educated at the National Military Academy at West Point, where he was graduated in 1824. He remained in the army seven years, and was in the "Black Hawk War" in 1832. He became a cotton-planter in Mississippi in 1835. He was a Democratic Presidential Elector in 1844, and was elected to a seat in Congress in 1845. He was a colonel of a Mississippi regiment in the war with Mexico. He was sent to the National Senate, to fill a vacancy, in 1848, and was regularly elected to that post 548 THE NATION. [1861. JEFFERSON DAVIS. Stephens, 1 of Georgia, " Vice-President." And this organization of conspira tors, wholly the work of politicians (for no ordinance of secession was ever submitted to the people), made war upon the Republic, by seizing forts, arsenals, ships, custom-houses, and other public property, and raising armies for the over throw of the government. In the mean time Congress had assem bled [December 3, 1860] at the National Capital, and the conspirators in both Houses were out-spoken, truculent, and defiant. The President s message pleased nobody. It was full of evidence of faint heartedness and indecision, on points where courage and positive convictions should have been apparent in its treat ment of the great topic then filling all hearts and minds ; and it bore painful indications that its author was involved in some perilous dilemma, from which he was anxiously seeking a way of escape. It contained many patriotic sentiments, which offended the conspira tors, but it contained more that was calculated to alarm the loyal people of the land. It declared substantially, under the advice of the Attorney-General, that the Executive possessed no constitutional power to use the army and navy for the preservation of the life of the Republic ; and from the time of its promulgation until his term of office expired, three months later, the President sat with folded arms, as it were, while the conspirators were perfecting their horrid enginery for destroying the Nation. 2 Encouraged by his declaration of the weakness of the government, and the assurances of leaders of his party in the Free-labor States that they need not fear interference, 3 they worked in in 1851. President Pierce called him to his cabinet, as Secretary of "War, in 1853. He again entered the Senate, on his retirement from the War Department, in 1857, and was there con spicuous as one of the conspirators against the life of the Kepublic. In February, 1861, he was elected "Provisional President of the Confederate States of America," and in 1862, "Permanent President." At the close of the Civil War he was captured, and confined in Fortress Monroe, charged with high crimes. See the closing chapter of this work. 1 Stephens, with an avowed false pretense, had made a plea for the Union, at the capital of Georgia, in November, 1860. By his own private confession it was only a political trick. He and Robert Toombs, one of the leading conspirators in Georgia, were aspirants for the supremacy as political leaders in that State. Toombs was an open rebel. Stephens expected to debase him by taking a stand for the Union, but was defeated ; and within the space of three months he was the second officer in the so-called " government " of the conspirators, and working with them in trying to destroy what he had declared to be the fairest political fabric on the face of the earth. a After arguing that even Congress had no constitutional right to do more than defend the public property, the Attorney-General intimated that if it should attempt to do more, the people of the Slave-labor States interested in the matter would be justified in rebelling " would be com pelled to act accordingly." He wished to know whether, under such circumstances, all the States would " not be absolved from their Federal obligations." He virtually counseled the President to allow the Republic to be destroyed by its internal foes, rather than to use force for its preserva tion ; and the Chief Magistrate followed his advice. 3 At a large political meeting in Philadelphia, on the 16th of January, 1861, one of the resolu tions declared: "We are utterly opposed to any such compulsion as is demanded by a portion of the Republican party ; and the Democratic party of the North will by all constitutional means, 1861.] BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION. 549 open sunshine with the avowed intention of overthrowing the government. They seized public property, and fired upon the National flag, even before they had formed their league at Montgomery; and when their plans were fairly matured, the conspirators in Congress, after rejecting every peaceful proposi tion that might be made, consistent with the dignity and safety of the govern ment, 1 both in that body and in a peace convention held at Washington City 2 [February 4, 1860], they formally withdrew from the National Legislature, with the avowal that treason to their government was their object. And yet there sat the Chief Magistrate of the Republic in passive obedience to some malignant will, holding in his hands the lightning of power confided to him by the people, by which, in a moment, as it were, he might have consumed those enemies of the Constitution and violators of the law. Charleston harbor had now become the seething caldron of rebellion. Major Robert Anderson, a loyal Kentuckian, was in command of the fortifica tions there. He had warned his government of the evident intention of the South Carolina conspirators to seize their strongholds, and had urged it to employ measures for their protection. Floyd, a Virginian conspirator, then Secretary of War, and who had stripped the arsenals of the North and filled those of the South, preparatory to rebellion, paid no attention to his entreaties. Finally, when it was evident to Anderson that the South Carolinians intended to seize the forts, and capture his little garrison of less than one hundred men, he took the latter from the weaker fort, Moultrie, and placed them, with his supplies, in stronger fort Sumter, where he might defy all assailants. This act astounded and exasperated the conspirators. The traitorous Secretary of War rebuked the loyal commander, but the patriotic people blessed him for and with its moral and political influence, oppose any such extreme policy, or a fratricidal war thus to be inaugurated." On the 22d of February, a political State convention was held at Harris- burg, the capital of Pennsylvania, when the members said, in a resolution : " We will, by all proper and legitimate means, oppose, discountenance, and prevent any attempt on the part of the Republicans in power to make any armed aggressions upon the Southern States, especially so long as laws contravening their rights shall remain unrepealed on the statute-books of Northern States [Personal Liberty Laws, see page 536], and so long as the just demands of the South shall con tinue to be unrecognized by the Republican majorities in these States, and unsecured by proper amendatory explanations of the Constitution." Such utterances in the great State of Pennsyl vania, and similar ones elsewhere, by the chosen representatives of a powerful party in conven tions assembled, encouraged the conspirators in a belief that there would be no war made upon them, and for that reason they were defiant everywhere and on all occasions. 1 In the House of Representatives, John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, offered amendments to the Constitution and a series of joint resolutions, known as the "Crittenden Compromise," which formed as perfect a guaranty for the protection and perpetuation of the slave system as the slave holders had ever, hitherto, asked for. Had the conspirators not been determined on the destruc tion of the Republic, this would have been satisfactory. But they rejected it ; nor did it meet with any favor on the part of the Republicans. a For the purpose of gaining time to perfect their treasonable schemes, the conspirators of Virginia planned a conference of delegates from all the States, to consider measures for averting Civil War. The President favored the movement. Delegates from twent}*-one States assembled in Washington City on the 4th of February, 1861. John Tyler, of Virginia [see page 476], was chosen president. A plan was adopted, having all of the essential features of the " Crittenden Compromise." Tyler and his associates from Virginia pretended to acquiesce in this result, and in his closing address, after solemn asseverations of satisfaction, he said : " So far as in me lies, I shall recommend its adoption." Thirty-six hours afterward, in a speech in Richmond, he cast off the mask of hypocrisy, and denounced the Peace Convention and its doings. He thereafter labored with all his might to precipitate Virginia into the vortex of Revolution, and was "suc cessful. 550 THE CATION. [1861. the glorious deed. The intelligence of it increased the excitement in the Na tional capital, caused by the discovery of a heavy robbery of Indian Trust Bonds, held in the Department of the Interior a crime in which the Secretary of War was involved and a session of the cabinet on the 27th was a stormy one. The dismayed conspirators in that council discovered that the President was not disposed to follow them into paths of actual treason. Floyd, fearing the consequences of his exposed villainy, resigned the seals of his office and fled to Virginia, where his fellow- conspirators gave him a public dinner. He was succeeded in office by Joseph Holt. A recon struction of the cabinet, with sounder materials, immediately followed, 1 and the loyal people felt some assurance of safety. The first two months of the year 1861 was a period of great anxiety and gloom. Business was prostrated. Cobb, the conspirator, had used ROBERT ANDERSON. his P ower Secretar > r of the Treasury, in injur ing, as far as possible, the public credit. Pre parations for rebellion were seen on every side. The conspirators in Con gress were withdrawing from that body, and the conspirators in conventions were declaring the secession of States. The President remained a passive spectator of the maturing mischief. The General-in-Chief of the Army (Lieu- tenant-General Scott) was feeble in mind and body, and as the time approached for the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, evidence appeared that the conspirators, in their desperation, had determined to assassinate him. Warned of this, he succeeded in passing through Baltimore, where the tragedy was to be per formed, unnoticed, and, to the chagrin and even consternation of the traitors, he suddenly appeared in Washington City on the morning of the 23d of Feb ruary, and remained there until his inauguration. 1 General Cass, the Secretary of State, who had discovered the treasonable designs of some of his associates, had resigned some time before, and his place was filled by the Attorney-General. Edwin M. Stanton was called to the Attorney-Generalship, and John A. Dix was made Secretary of the Treasury in place of Cobb, who had gone to Georgia to assist in plunging the people of that State into the vortex of rebellion. Holt, Dix, and Stanton were loyal men, and thwarted by their vigilance and energy the schemes of the conspirators to seize the government before the President-elect should be inaugurated. "We intend," said one of the disunionists, "to take pos session of the Army and Navy, and of the archives of the government ; not allow the electoral votes to be counted; proclaim Buchanan Provisional President, if he will do as we wish, and if not, choose another; seize the Harper s Ferry Arsenal and the Norfolk Navy Yard sirmUt^r**- ously, and, sending armed men down from the former, and armed vessels up from the latter, t&lf possession of Washington, and establish a new government," 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 551 CHAPTER XVI. LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. [1861 1865.] ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the sixteenth President of the Republic, was inaugu rated on the 4th day of March, 1861, under circumstances of peculiar interest. In expectation of open violence on the part of the conspirators and their adherents, General Scott had made ample provision for the preservation of order by the strong arm of military power, if it should be necessary. This fact was known, and no disorder occurred. The oath of office was adminis tered by Chief Justice Taney as quietly as on former occasions ; and with a firm voice the new President read from the eastern portico of the Capitol to the assembled thousands his remarkable Inaugural Address. In it he expressed the most kindly feelings toward the people of every portion of the Republic, and his determination to administer the government impartially for the protec tion of every citizen and every interest. At the same time he announced his resolution to enforce the laws, protect the public property, and repossess that which had already been seized by the insurgents. The vast multitude then dispersed, and in the evening the usual pageant of an Inauguration Ball was seen. On the following day the Senate, relieved of most of the conspirators, confirmed the President s cabinet nominations, 2 and the new administration began its memorable career. The first business of the new cabinet was to ascertain the condition of the nation, especially its resources, and its ability to meet the crisis of rebellion, evidently at hand. Cobb had deeply injured the public credit, but the loyal men in Congress had adopted measures for restoring it. The army and navy promised very little aid. The former was composed of only 16,000 men, and these were principally on the frontiers of the Indian country, 3 while sixteen forts had already been seized by the insurgents, with all the arsenals in the cotton-growing States. 4 The little navy, like the army, had been placed far 1 See note 1, page 543. 2 He nominated William H. Seward, of New York, for Secretary of State ; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, for Secretary of the Treasury ; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, for Secretary of War; Gideon Wells, of Connecticut, for Secretary of the Navy ; Caleb Smith, of Indiana, for Secretary of the Interior ; Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, for Postmaster-General ; and Edward Bates, of Missouri, for Attorney-General. 3 Many of the officers of the army were natives of Slave-labor States, and a greater portion of these not only abandoned their flag and joined the insurgents, but attempted to corrupt the patriotism of the common soldiers. Among the most flagrant acts of treason was the conduct of General David E. Tvviggs, whom Floyd had placed in command of the troops in Texas, to assist in the work of rebellion. He first tried to seduce the troops from their allegiance. Failing in this, he betrayed them into the hands of the enemies of their country in February, 1861. His command included nearly one-half of the military force of the United States. They were surrendered to the rebellious authorities of Texas," with public property valued at $1,250,000. 4 The defensive works within the " seceding States," as they were called, were about thirty in number, and mounting over 3,000 guns. The cost of these works and their equipment was at least $20,000,000. It is estimated that the value of National property which the insurgents seized before the close of Buchanan s administration was at least $30,000,000. 552 THE NATION. [1861. beyond the immediate use of the government. Only forty-two vessels were in commission, and the entire force immediately available for the defense of the whole Atlantic coast of the Republic was the Brooklyn, of twenty-five guns, and a store-ship. A large number of naval officers, born in Slave-labor States, had resigned ; and weakness and confusion in that arm of the public service were everywhere visible. The public offices were swarming with disloyal men. It was difficult to decide who were and who were not trustworthy, and as it was necessary for the President to have proper implements to work with, he was engaged for nearly a month after his inauguration in exchanging false for true men in the employment of the government. He knew that rising rebellion could not be suppressed by proclamations, unless the insurgents saw behind them the invincible power of the State, ready to be wielded by the President, with trusty instrumentalities. These he endeavored to find. FORT SUMTER IN 1861. Meanwhile rebellion was open and defiant, especially at Charleston. Soon after Major Anderson transferred his garrison to Fort Sumter, 1 the insurgents, who at once nocked to Charleston, began the erection of fortifications for the purpose of dislodging him. They seized the other forts that were for the defense of the harbor, and when, so early as the second week in January, a government vessel (Star of the West) attempted to enter with men and pro visions for Fort Sumter, and with the National flag at her fore, she was fired 1 Page 519. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 553 upon by great guns and driven to sea. 1 When the Confederation was formed at Montgomery, 2 they commissioned Major P. G. T. Beauregard, a Louisiana Creole, who had deserted his flag, a brigadier-general, and sent him to com mand the insurgents at Charleston. Under his direction Fort Sumter was besieged ; and when, early in April [1861], the government informed the authori ties of South Carolina that supplies would be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably or forcibly, Beauregard was ordered by Davis and his fellow-conspirators to demand its immediate surrender. This was done [April 11], when Anderson, whose supplies were nearly exhausted, agreed to evacuate the fort within five days, if he should receive no relief from his government. Hoping to " fire the Southern heart " by bloodshed, the conspirators would not wait for so peace able a way for gaining possession, and under their direction Beauregard, with thousands of armed men at his back, opened full thirty heavy guns and mor tars upon the fort [April 12], which was defended by only about seventy men. 3 The little garrison gallantly responded, and fought bravely, with a hope that a naval expedition, which they knew had been sent for their relief, might arrive in time to raise the siege. A heavy storm prevented the succor. Pro visions were exhausted. The buildings in the fort were set on fire by the shells of the insurgents, and a greater portion of the gunpowder had to be emptied into the sea, to prevent its ignition by the flames. Finally, hopeless of aid, and almost powerless, Anderson agreed to evacuate the fort. This he did on Sunday, the 14th, and retired with the garrison to the government vessels hovering outside the harbor, bearing away the flag of Fort Sumter. Precisely four years afterward [April 14, 1865] he took it back, and raised it again over the fortress, then an almost shapeless mass of ruins. He evacuated^ but did not surrender Fort /Sumter, and he and its flag, the emblem of the sovereignty of his government, were borne to New York. 4 Thus commenced CIVIL WAR, ix 1861. Twenty-four hours after the evacuation of Fort Sumter, the President Issued a proclamation, in which he called out the militia of the country for three 1 This overt act of treason and of war was commended by the Legislature of South Carolina, which resolved, unanimously, " That this General Assembly learns with pride and pleasure of the successful resistance this day by the troops of this State, acting under the orders of the Governor, to an attempt to re-enforce Fort Sumter." The public press of Charleston said: " We are proud that our harbor has been so honored," and declared that " if the red seal of blood was yet lacking to the parchment of their liberties," there should be "blood enough to stamp it all in red! For, by the God of our fathers," shouted the exultant journalist, "the soil of South Carolina shall fo free!" Charleston Mercury, January 9, 1861. 2 Page 547. 3 A Virginia Congressman, named Roger A. Pryor, made a speech in the streets of Charleston on the night of the 10th. A secession convention was then in session in Virginia, in which the Unionists were holding the conspirators in check. Pryor, in defending the seeming hesitancy of his State, said : " Do not distrust Virginia. Strike a blow ! The very moment that blood is shed, Old Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South." This cry for blood was telegraphed to Montgomery the next morrjing. It was consonant with the diabolical spirit of the more zealous conspirators everywhere. Gilchrist, a member of the Alabama Legislature, said to Davis, Walker, Benjamin, and Memminger : " Gentlemen, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days." And so Davis and his " Cabinet " ordered Beauregard to shed blood, and " fire the Southern heart." 4 F. W. Pickens, then Governor of South Carolina, made the evacuation of Sumter the occa 554 THE NATION. [1861. months service, to the number of seventy-five thousand men, to suppress the rising rebellion. 1 The Secretary of War simultaneously issued a requisition upon the several States for their prescribed quota." 2 These calls were received with unbounded favor and enthusiasm throughout the Free-labor States. In the six Slave-labor States included in the call, they were treated with scorn and defiance, the Governors sending insulting responses to the President, while Davis and his fellow-conspirators at Montgomery received the Proclamation with " derisive laughter." In the Free-labor States there was a wonderful uprising of the people. Nothing like it, in sublimity of aspect, had been seen on the earth since Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban the Second filled all Christian Europe with religious zeal, and sent armed hosts, with the cry of " God wills it ! God walls it !" to rescue the Sepulcher of Jesus from the hands of the infidel. The Republic was to be rescued from the hands of the assassin. Men, women, and children felt the enthusiasm alike ; and, as if by preconcert ed arrangement, the National flag was everywhere displayed, even from the spires of churches and cathedrals. In cities, in villages, at way-side inns, all over the country, it was unfurled from lofty poles in the presence of large assemblies of people, who were addressed frequently by some of the most eminent orators in the land. It adorned the halls of justice and the sanctua ries of religion; and the "Red, White, and Blue," the colors of the flag in combination, became ornaments of w^omen and tokens of the loyalty of men. The uprising in the Slave-labor States at the same time, though less general and enthusiastic, was nevertheless marvelous. The heresy of State supre macy, which Calhoun 3 and his disciples adroitly called State rights, because a right is a sacred thing cherished by all, was a political tenet generally accepted as orthodox. 4 It had been inculcated in every conceivable form, and on every conceivable occasion ; and men who loved the Union and deprecated secession were in agreement with the conspirators on that point. Hence it was that, in the tornado of passion then sweeping over the South, where reason was dis~ eion for an exultant speech in the streets of Charleston, on that Sunday. " Thank God." he exclaimed, " the war is open, and we will conquer or perish. We have humbled the flag of the United States." Alluding to his State as a sovereignty, he said, " That proud flag was never lowered before to any nation on the earth It has been humbled to-day before the glorious little State of South Carolina." The churches of Charleston that day were filled with treasonable harangues. In old St. Philip s the venerable and blind Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church cried out : " Your boys were there, and mine were there, and it was right that they should "be there." Arid in the Roman Catholic Cathedral Bishop Lynch had a Te Dewn chanted in grati tude to God for the beginning of the most horrid civil war on record 1 1 The President s authority for this act may be found in the second and third sections of an act of Congress approved February 28, 1795. That law would not allow the President to hold them to service for more than three months. 3 The quota of each State was as follows, the figures denoting the number of regiments : Maine, 1 ; New Hampshire, 1 ; Vermont, 1 ; Massachusetts, 2 ; Rhode Island. 1 ; Connecticut, 1 ; New York, 17; New Jersey, 6; Pennsylvania, 16; Delaware, 1; Tennessee, 2; Maryland, 4: Virginia, 3; North Carolina, 2; Kentucky, 4; Arkansas, 1; Missouri, 4; Ohio. 13; Indiana, 6; Illinois, 6 ; Michigan, 1 ; Iowa, 1 ; Minnesota, 1 ; Wisconsin, 1 ; See note 3, page 459. 4 This was in the form of a political dogma, which declares that each State is a sovereign: that the Union is only a league of sovereign States, and not a nationality ; that the States are not sub servient to the National government ; were not created by it, do not belong to it, and that thr.y created that government, whose powers they delegate to it, and that to them it is responsible. Such was the essential substance of the old Confederation, before the National Constitution was 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 555 carded, thousands of intelligent men, deceived by the grossest misrepresenta tions respecting the temper, character, and intentions of the people of the Free-labor States, flew to arms, well satisfied that they were in the right, because resisting what they believed to be usurpation, arid an unconstitutional attempt at the subjugation of a free people on the part of the National gov ernment. Within a week after the attack on Fort Sumter the insurrection assumed the huge proportions of a great rebellion. Its forces were at work in all the Slave-labor States, and the most extraordinary exertions were immediately put forth by the conspirators to execute the first and most important part of their plan, namely, the seizure of the National Capital. Thousands of their follow ers, armed with weapons stolen from their government, were pressing into Vir ginia for that purpose. At the time of his inauguration at Montgomery 1 Jef ferson Davis had said : " We are now determined to maintain our position, and make all who oppose us smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel /" and he now began to carry out that threat with a high hand, while his lieuten ant, Alexander H. Stephens, who a few months before had declared and proven that rebellion against the government would be a monstrous crime, 9 now hur ried toward Richmond, making Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia ring with his cry of " On to Washington /" Le Roy Pope Walker, Davis s " Secretary of War," 3 had prophesied on the day when Fort Sum ter was attacked [April 12, 1861], saying: "The flag that now flaunts the breeze here will float over the dome of the old capitol at Washington before the first of May. Let them try Southern chivalry, and test the extent of Southern resources, and it may float eventually over Faneuil Hall, in Boston." The most intense desire to seize Washington City pre- ., -. .1 , * -, -. ^-, i THE CONFEDERATE FLAG. 4 vailed among the insurgent leaders, and the people of the cotton-planting States soon realized the promise uttered by Governor Pickens : " You may plant your seed in peace, for Old Virginia will have to bear the brunt of battle." Virginia did, indeed, bear much of the brunt of battle. It was now in an uproar, and its people was soon made to feel the terrible effects of the treason of some of their leading politicians. They had assembled a convention to consider the subject of secession from the Union. The Unionists were the framed. That Constitution refutes this heresy of State sovereignty and supremacy, in terms and spirit: "We, the People," says its preamble, "do ordain and establish," &c. That Constitution was the work of the people, not of State organizations ; and it is the political creator of every State since admitted into the Union, first as a Territory, and then as a State, solely by the exercise of the potential will of the people, expressed through Congress. "Without the consent of Congress, under the provisions of the Constitution, no State can enter the Union. The National govern ment is the creator of the States. See Section 3, Article IV. of the National Constitution. 1 Page 547. * See Lossing s Pictorial History of the Civil War, vol. I., pages 54 to 57, inclusive. 3 Page 541. 4 This is a picture of the flag of the " Southern Confederacy " adopted by the conspirators, and first unfurled over the State-House at Montgomery on the 4th of March, 1861. 556 THE NATION. [1861. majority in that body. The crisis had now come. The blow had been struck. The bloodshed evoked by the wretched Pryor had occurred. Virginia, within whose ancient embrace was the capitol of the nation to be destroyed, must be actively on the side of the conspirators, or all might be lost. Maryland, on the other side of the District of Columbia, was a doubtful auxiliary, for her loyal Governor and people were holding treason and rebellion in check in that State. The violent spirit of the conspirators everywhere manifested must not be backward in Virginia, the mother of Disunion ; so the politicians, perceiv ing [April 16] that if the seats of ten Unionists in the Convention could be made vacant an ordinance of secession might be passed, waited upon that number of such men and gave them the choice of voting for secession, keeping away from the Convention, or being hanged. They kept away. The secession ordinance was adopted [April 17, 1861], and, in defiance of an order of the convention that it should be submitted to a vote of the people, a committee appointed by that body, with John Tyler at its head, 1 concluded a treaty with Alexander H. Stephens, acting in behalf of Jefferson Davis, by which their commonwealth was placed under the absolute military control of the arch- conspirator. This was done within a week [April 25, 1861] after the Ordinance of Secession was passed, and a month before the time appointed for its submis sion to the people. When that day arrived, fraud and violence deprived the latter of their right. 2 Virginia became a part of the Confederacy, and, by invitation of its politicians, who had dragged the people into the vortex of revolution, the so-called "government" of the conspirators was transferred from Montgomery to Richmond, and there it remained during the war that ensued. While troops were hurrying toward Washington from the Slave-labor States, to seize it, others, in larger numbers, were flocking from the Free-labor States to defend it. The secessionists of Maryland were active, and tried to place a barrier in the way of the loyal men in Baltimore, through which city they were compelled to pass. They slightly assailed some Pennsylvanians (five unarmed companies) who passed through on the 18th of April, and were the first of its defenders to reach the National capital; 3 and on the following day a mob of ten thousand men assailed a single Massachusetts regi ment (the Sixth), as it marched from one railway station to the other. A fight ensued. Lives were lost. 4 The loyal people of the nation were terribly exas perated, and it was with difficulty that the city in which the tragedy occurred 1 The commissioners consisted of John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, S. M. McD. Moore, James P. Holcombe, James C. Bruce, and Lewis E. Harvie. 3 The bayonet was ready everywhere to control the elections. That Union men might be kept from the polls, Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave Law [page 522], addressed a public letter to the people, telling those who were disposed to vote against the Ordinance that they must not vote at all, "and if they retain such opinions they must leave the State." He asserted in another form Jefferson Davis s threat, that all opposers should " smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." 3 There were the Washington Artillery and National Light Infantry companies of Pottsville; the Ringgold Light Artillery, of Reading ; the Logan Guards, of Lewistown ; and the Allen Infantry, of Allentown. 4 The mob, encouraged by the Chief of Police (G. P. Kane) and well-known citizens, assailed 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 557 was preserved from destruction. " Turn upon it the guns of Fort McHenry," said one. " Lay it in ashes !" cried another. " Fifty thousand men may be raised in an hour to march through Baltimore," exclaimed a third ; and one of our popular poets (Bayard Taylor) wrote : " Bow down in haste thy guilty head I God s wrath is swift and sure: The sky with gathering bolts is red Cleanse from thy skirts the slaughter-shed, Or make thyself an ashen bed O Baltimore!" The defenders of the capital were not there any too soon. Already the Virginians had begun to play their part in the plan for seizing Washington. On the passage of the ordinance of secession by the Virginian convention, 1 HARPER S FERRY IN THE SUMMER OF 1861. Governor Letcher proclaimed the independence of the State and his recognition of the Confederacy ; and, less than twenty-four hours afterward, troops were in motion for seizing Harper s Ferry and the Navy Yard near Norfolk. 2 Warned of their approach, and his force too small to make successful resistance, Lieu tenant Jones, who was in command at Harper s Ferry, set fire to the Armory and Arsenal buildings there [April 1 8], and withdrew into Pennsylvania. The the troops with every sort of missile. Two of the troops were killed. One was mortally and several were slightly wounded. Nine citizens of Baltimore were killed, and a considerable num ber were wounded. 1 Page 556. * See note 1, page 550. 558 THE NATION. [1861. insurgents took possession of the post, and were about to march upon Wash ington, when they heard of its armed occupation by loyal men. At the same time, Virginians were before the Navy Yard at Gosport, opposite Norfolk, demanding its surrender. The commander of the station (Commodore McAu- ley) finding treason to be rife among his officers, and apprehending immediate danger from foes without, prepared to abandon the post without resistance, and to scuttle the vessels. Commodore Paulding arrived while the vessels were sinking, and finding it to be too late to save them, he ordered them and the buildings of the navy yard to be fired. An immense amount of property was destroyed, and the Virginians, on taking possession, acquired, as spoils, about two thousand cannon. These armed many a battery throughout the Confederacy soon afterward. The National capital was still in great danger. Thousands of insurgents from below the Roanoke were pouring into Virginia and pressing up toward Washington, while, for about a week, all communication between the capital and the loyal States was cut off. Under the sanction of the Mayor and Chief of Police of Baltimore, the bridges of the railways extending northward from that city were burned on the night after the massacre in its streets, and the telegraph-wires were cut. The President and his cabinet and the General-in- chief of the Army were virtual prisoners in the capital for several days, and were relieved just in time to prevent their actual capture, by the energy of the veteran General John E. Wool, and the Union Defense Committee of New York City, in forwarding troops and supplies in a manner to avoid the blockade of the direct highway at Baltimore, and to secure the capital. The well-known Seventh Regiment of New York and some Massachusetts troops, under General Ben jamin F. Butler, proceeded by water to Annapolis [April 21], seized the railway between that city and its junction with the one leading from Baltimore to Washington [April 25], and took possession a few days later at the Relay House, nine miles from the former city, where the Baltimore and Ohio Railway turns northward toward Harper s Ferry. From that point, on the evening of the 13th of May, Butler, with a little more than one thousand men, went into Baltimore, under cover of intense darkness and a thunder-storm, and quietly took post on Federal Hill, an eminence commanding the city. 1 The first inti mation the citizens received of his presence was a proclamation from him, published in a newspaper the next morning, assuring all peaceable persons of full protection, and intimating that a greater force was at hand, if needed, for the purposes of the outraged government. Troops then passed quietly through Baltimore to Washington City, 9 and at the middle of May the capital was safe. Thus rebellion in Maryland was throttled at the beginning, and it was kept from very serious mischief during the war that ensued. 3 1 Butler s troops consisted of the entire Sixth Massachusetts, which was attacked in Baltimore on the 19th of April [page 556] ; a part of the New York Eighth ; Boston artillerymen, and two field-pieces. They were placed in cars, headed, as a feint, toward Harper s Ferry. At evening they were backed into Baltimore, just as a heavy thunder-storm was about to break over the city, and the troops, well piloted, went quietly to Federal Hill. 3 Three days earlier [May 10] Pennsylvanian troops passed unmolested through Baltimore to "Washington, under Colonel Patterson. 3 General Scott had planned an expedition for the seizure of Baltimore, -to consist of four 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 559 At the beginning of May, by fraud, violence, and treachery, the conspirators and their friends had robbed the government to the amount of forty million dollars ; put about forty thousand armed men in the field, more than half of whom were then concentrating in Virginia ; sent emissaries abroad, with the name of "commissioners," to seek recognition and aid from foreign powers; 1 commissioned numerous pirates to prey upon the commerce of the United States ; 2 extinguished the luminaries of light-houses and beacons along the coasts of the Slave-labor States, from Hampton Roads to the Rio Grande, 3 and enlisted actively in their revolutionary schemes the governors of thirteen States, and large numbers of leading politicians in other States. 4 Encouraged by their success in Charleston harbor, 5 they were investing Fort Pickens, which had been saved from seizure by the vigilance and energy of Lieutenant Slemmer, its commander. 6 INSURRECTION had become REBELLION ; and the loyal people of the country and the National government, beginning to comprehend the magnitude, po tency, and meaning of the movement, accepted it as such, and addressed themselves earnestly to the task of its suppression. The President called [May columns of three thousand men each, to approach it simultaneously from different points. Butler, by bold and energetic action, accomplished the desired end in one night, with a thousand nen. Scott could not forgive him for this independent action. He demanded his removal from the command of that department. The President complied, promoted Butler to Major-General, and gave him a more important command, with his head-quarters at Fortress Monroe. 1 These were William L. Yancey [see page 544], of Alabama; P. A. Host, of Louisiana; A. Dudley Mann, of Virginia, and T. Butler King, of Georgia. Yancey was to operate in England, Rost in France, and Mann in Holland and Belgium. King seems to have had a kind of roving commission. These men so fitly represented their bad cause in Europe, that confidence in its justice and ultimate success was so speedily impaired, that they went wandering about, seeking in vain for willing listeners among men of character in diplomatic circles, and they finally aban doned their missions with disgust, to the relief of European statesmen, who were wearied with their importunities and offended by their duplicity. 2 Davis summoned his so-called "Congress" to meet at Montgomery on the 29th of April. He had already announced, by proclamation [April 17, 1861], his determination to employ pirate vessels against the commerce of the United States, and the " Confederate Congress " now author ized the measure, with the barbarous offer, by the terms of the Act, of a bounty of $20 for the murder, by fire, water, or otherwise, on the high seas, of every man, woman, or child " each person" that might be found by the pirates. That the men engaged in this business, under the sanction of the conspirators, were pirates, is shown by the laws of nations. Piracy is defined as " robbery on the high seas without authority." Davis, Toombs, and their fellow-conspirators had no more authority to commission privateers, as legalized pirates are called, than had Jack Cade, Nat. Turner, or John Brown, for they represented no acknowledged government on the earth. 8 The light-houses and beacons darkened by them, between Cape Henry, in Virginia, and Point Isabel, in Texas, numbered 133. 4 These were Letcher, of Virginia; Magoffin, of Kentucky Ellis, of North Carolina; Harris, of Tennessee. ; Jackson, of Missouri; Pickens, of South Carolina; Brown, of Georgia, Moore, of Ala bama; Pettus, of Mississippi; Rector, of Arkansas ; Moore, of Louisiana; Perry, of Florida; arid Burton, of Delaware. Only Governor Hicks, of Maryland, and Houston, of Texas, of the fifteen Slave-labor States, were loyal to the National government. The former remained so until his death ; but Houston yielded in the course of a few months, and became a reviler of the President and the loyal people. 6 Page 553. Early in January [1861], Lieutenant Slemmer received information that Fort Pickens and other fortifications on Pensacola Bay, under his charge, would be seized by the Governor of Florida. He took measures accordingly. Observing a gathering cloud of danger, he placed all the public property he possibly could, and his garrison, in stronger Fort Pickens. The insurgents seized the Navy Yard on the Main (Fort Pickens is on Santa Rosa Island), and tried to secure the fort, but in vain. Slemmer held it until he was re-enforced, at about the time when Fort Sumter was abandoned, when a large number of troops, under General Bragg (who had aban doned his flag), were besieging it. 560 THE NATION. [1861. 3, 1861] for sixty-four thousand more troops (volunteers) to serve "during the war," and eighteen thousand men for the navy. Forts Monroe and Pickens were re-enforced, and the blockade of the Southern ports, out of which the con spirators were preparing to send cruisers, was proclaimed. The first care of the government was to secure the safety of the capital, and for this purpose Washington City and its vicinity was made the general gath ering-place of all the troops raised eastward of the Alleghany Mountains. When, on the 4th of July, Congress met in extraordinary session, pursuant to the call of the President, in his proclamation for troops on the 15th of April, 1 there were about 230,000 volunteers in the field, independent of the three months men, a larger portion of whom were within ten miles of the capital. Congress approved the act of the President in calling them out, and authorized [July 10, 1861] the raising of 500,000 troops, and an appropriation of $500,000,000 to defray the expenses of the kindling Civil War. 2 Towns, vil lages, cities, and States had made contributions for this service to an immense amount, and the people of the Free-labor States, of every political and religious creed, were united in efforts to save the life of the Republic. At the same time Confederate troops in Virginia, estimated at more than 100,000 in num ber, occupied an irregular line, from Harper s Ferry, by way of Richmond, to Norfolk. Their heaviest force was at Manassas Junction, within about thirty miles of Washington City, and there, very soon, the first heavy shock of war was felt. Congress felt the necessity of bending all its energies to a speedy ending of the rebellion. From the beginning of the trouble it was evident that most of the foreign governments and the ruling classes of Europe would view with satisfaction a Civil War that might destroy the Republic, give a stunning blow to Democracy, and thus renew their lease of power over the people indefinitely. Most of the foreign ministers at Washington, regarding the secession move ments in several States as the beginning of a permanent separation, had announced [February, 1861] to their respective governments the practical 1 Page 553. * Secretary Chase, whose management of the finan cial affairs of the country during a greater portion of the period of the war was considered eminently wise and efficient, asked for $240,000,000 for war purposes, and $80,000, 000 to meet the ordinary demands for the fiscal 3 r ear ending on the 30th of June, 18G2. He proposed to raise the $80,000,000 in addition to $60,000,000 already appropriated, by levying increased duties, and by excise, or by the direct taxation of real and personal property. To raise the amount for war purposes, he proposed loans, to be issued in the form of Treasury notes and bonds, or certificates of debt, to be made redeemable at a future day, not exceeding thirty years distant. Salmon P. Chase is a native of New Hampshire, where he was born in 1808. In 1 830 he commenced the practice of the law in Cincinnati, and was one of the founders of the "Liberty Party " in Ohio, in 1841. In 1849 he was chosen a Senator of the United States, and in 1855 was elected Governor of Ohio. Mr. Lincoln SALMON P. CHASE. appointed him Secretary of the Treasury in 1861, and afterward Chief Justice of the United States. 1861 J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. dissolution of the American Union; and statesmen and publicists abroad affected amazement because of the folly of Congress in legislating concerning tariff and other National measures, when the nation was hopelessly expiring ! And before the representative of the new administration (Charles Francis Adams) could reach England, the British ministry (already having an agree ment with the Emperor of the French that the two governments should act in concert concerning American affairs) procured, in behalf of the conspirators, a Proclamation of Neutrality by the Queen [May 13], by which a Confederate government, as existing, was acknowledged, and belligerent rights were accorded to the insurgents. 1 Other European governments hastened to give the conspirators similar encouragement. Only the Emperor of Russia, of all the reigning monarchs, showed sympathy with our government in its great trouble. Considering this, and the possibility that they might, with equal unseemly haste, recognize the independence of the Confederates, and possibly lend them material aid, Congress worked diligently in preparations to confront the rebellion with ample force. While doing so, that rebellion assumed the proportions of CIVIL WAR in a sanguinary battle fought so near the capital that the sounds of great guns engaged in it were heard there. Blood had already been spilled in conflicts on battle-fields. The importance of holding possession of Western Virginia, and so the control of the Balti more and Ohio Railway, which connected Maryland and the capital with the great West, was apparent to the conspirators. Equally important was it for them to possess Fortress Monroe, and efforts to seize and hold both were early made. The strife for Western Virginia began first. The people of that region were mostly loyal, and had already taken steps toward a separation from the Eastern or rebellious portion of their State. Troops were accordingly sent from Richmond to restrain their patriotism. The people rushed to arms, and under the leadership of Colonel B. F. Kelley, a considerable force was organ ized in the vicinity of Wheeling, where, early in May, a mass convention of citizens had resolved to sever all connection with the conspirators at Rich mond. A delegate convention was held there on the 13th of May, and made provision for a more formal and effective convention on the llth of June. In that body about forty counties were represented, and an ordinance of seces sion from the old Virginia government was adopted. They established a provisional government [June 20, 1861], and elected Francis H. Pierpont Chief Magistrate. The people ratified their acts in the autumn, and in con vention formed a State Constitution. In June, 1863, WEST VIRGINIA was admitted into the Union as a new State. 1 British sympathy for a rebellion avowedly for the purpose of strengthening and perpetuating the institution of slavery, was a strange spectacle. Among the people of the earth, the English appeared pre-eminently the opposers of slavery. And so, in fact, the great body of the people of England were. It was the government and the dominant class in that country the govern ing few as against the governed many who were thus untrue to principle. The Queen and the Prince Consort did not share in the unfriendly feeling toward us. As parents they could not forget the exceeding kindness bestowed by our people upon their son, the heir-apparent of the throne, who visited this country in 1860 ; and it is known that her Majesty restrained her ministers from recognizing the independence of the Confederates, as they were anxious to do. 36 562 THE NATION. [1861 SEAL OF "WEST VIRGINIA. The government perceived the necessity of affording aid to the Western Virginia loyalists, and General George B. McClellan, who had been placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, was ordered to assist Kelley in driving out the Confederate troops. Thus encouraged, the Virginia commander moved on Grafton, when the Confederate leader, Porterfield, fled to Philippi. Thither he was followed by Kelley, and also by Ohio and Indiana troops, under Colonel Du- mont. They drove Porterfield from Philippi [June 3] after a battle (the first after war was proclaimed), in which Kelley was wounded, and for a while matters were quiet in that region. Grafton was made the head-quarters of the National troops in Western Virginia. Meanwhile Confederate troops under Colonel Magruder, who had aban doned his flag, 1 had been moving down the peninsula between the James and York Rivers, for the purpose of attempting to seize Fortress Monroe. General Butler, in command at the latter post, informed that the insurgents were in a fortified camp at Big Bethel, a few miles up the peninsula, resolved to dislodge them, for the two-fold purpose of making Fortress Monroe more secure, and for carrying out a plan he had conceived of seizing the railway between Suffolk and Petersburg, and, menacing the Weldon road which connected Virginia with the Carolinas, draw Confederate troops back from the vicinity of Wash ington. He sent a force under General E. W. Peirce for the purpose, one column moving from Fortress Monroe, and the other from Newport-Newce, on the James River. Meeting in the gloom before dawn, they fired upon each other, alarmed the Confederate outposts, and caused a concentration of all the insurgent forces at Big Bethel. There a conflict occurred [June 10, 1861], in which Lieutenant J. T. Greble, a gallant young artillery officer, was killed. He was the first officer of the regular army who perished in the Civil War. The expedition was unsuccessful, and returned to Fortress Monroe. The misfortune at Bethel was atoned for the next day [June 11], when Col onel (afterward Major-General) Lewis Wallace, with a few Indiana troops, dis persed five hundred Confederates at Romney, in Hampshire County, Virginia. It was a most gallant feat. Its boldness and success so alarmed the insurgents at Harper s Ferry, that they fled to Winchester [June 15], eighteen miles up the Shenandoah Valley, and there, under the direction of their accomplished commander, Joseph E. Johnston, 2 they made preparations for resisting the threatened invasion of that region. The evacuation of Harper s Ferry was followed by its speedy occupation by National troops. On the day after 1 "Mr. Lincoln," said Magruder to the President, at the middle of April, "everyone else may desert you, but / never will." The President thanked him. Two days afterward, having done all in his power to corrupt the troops in "Washington, he fled and joined the insurgents. See Greeley s American Conflict, i. 506. 2 Johnston was a veteran soldier, and had been a meritorious officer in the National army. He had taken command of the Confederates at or near the confluence of the Potomac and Shenan doah Bivers, late in May, and had about 12,000 men under his command. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 553 Johnston s flight, General Robert Patterson threw 9,000 men, from the Penn sylvania militia, across the Potomac at Williamsport, but was compelled to recall them in consequence of a requisition from the General-in-Chief to send his most efficient troops to Washington, then in peril. On the 2d of July Patterson crossed with about 11,000 troops, and took post at Martinsburg. His advance, under General Abercrombie, met, fought, and conquered at Falling Waters a considerable force under the afterward famous " Stonewall " Jackson. In the mean time stirring events were occurring in Western Virginia. For a time it seemed as if Wallace, near Cumberland, must be cut off, and the Bal timore and Ohio Railway pass into the possession of the insurgents. But that vigilant officer gallantly maintained his position against great odds, while General McClellan, advancing southward from Graf ton, was striking the Con federates in the Tygart River region severe blows. Porterfield had 1 been suc ceeded by General Garnett, whose head-quarters were at Beverly, in Randolph County; and the notorious Henry A. Wise, 2 bearing the commission of a Brigadier-General, was with a force in the Valley of the Great Kanawha River, where he was confronted by General J. D. Cox. McClellan s entire command was composed of about 20,000 troops. A portion of these, under General W. S. Rosecrans, fought and conquered a force under Colonel Peg-ram on Rich Mountain, not far from Beverly, on the llth of July. This alarmed Garnett, who, with a portion of his force, fled into the wild mountain region of the Cheat River, pursued by General T. A. Morris, of McClellan s command. Morris overtook Garnett at Carricksford, on a tribu tary of the Cheat River, where a sharp conflict ensued. Garnett was killed and his troops were dispersed. Another portion of his followers, who fled from Beverly toward Staunton, had been pursued to the summit of the Cheat Moun tain range, where an outpost was established under the care of an Indiana regiment. General Cox, in the mean time, had driven Wise out of the Kanawha Valley, and the war in Western Virginia seemed to be at an end. McClellan was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac [July 22], as the forces around Washington were designated, and his own troops were left in charge of General Rosecrans. While these events were occurring beyond the Blue Ridge and the Alle- ghany Mountains, 3 others of great moment were attracting public attention to the National capital and its vicinity. Toward the close of May, it was evident that the Confederates were preparing to plant batteries on Arlington. Heights, which would command Washington City. Robert E. Lee, of Arling ton House, 4 an accomplished engineer officer in the army, had lately abandoned his flag and joined the insurgents under circumstances of peculiar perfidy. 5 He 1 Page 562. 2 Page 539. 8 These are nearly parallel ranges of mountains which divide Virginia between the Ohio and the Atlantic slopes. 4 This was for more than fifty years the residence of the late George Washington Parke Custis [see note 1, page 532], who was the father-in-law of Colonel Lee. It overlooked the Potomac, Washington City, and Georgetown, and batteries on the range of hills on which it stood, called Arlington Heights, would command the National capital completely. 5 Lee was theii a lieutenant-colonel in the cavalry service, stationed in Texas, and, after the 564 THE NATION. [1861. was now chief of the Virginia forces, knew the value of batteries on Arling ton Heights, and had, it is believed, been there with engineers from Rich mond. To prevent that perilous move ment, troops were sent over from Washington City [May 24, 1861] to take possession of Arlington Heights and the city of Alexandria, on the river below. The troops for the occupation of the Heights crossed the bridges from Washington and Georgetown, while those sent from Alexandria went by water. The New York Fire Zouaves 1 were the first to enter Alexandria, where their gallant young commander, Colonel Ellsworth, was speedily killed. 2 At the same time, fortifications were commenced on Arlington Heights, where Fort Corcoran was speedily built by an Irish regiment [Sixty-ninth], and named in honor of their commander, Colonel Corcoran. This and Fort Runyon, near the Long Bridge, built by New Jersey troops, were the first regular works erected by the Nationals at the beginning of the Civil War, and the first over which the flag of the Re public was unfurled. A few days later a flotilla of armed vessels, under Captain Ward, after encountering a battery erected by the insurgents on Sewell s Point, not far from Norfolk, moved up the Potomac, and at Aquia Creek, sixty miles below Washington, had a sharp but unsuccessful engage ment [May 31 and June 1] with Confederate batteries constructed there. ROBERT K. LEE. election of Mr. Lincoln, he was permitted to leave his regiment and return home, when he was cordially greeted by General Scott, who loved him as a son, and gave him his entire confidence. In this relation Lee remained, making himself conversant with all the plans and resources of the government for the suppression of the rebellion, and at the same time keeping up a continual communication with its enemies, until more than a week after the attack on Fort Sumter, and six days after the conspirators at Richmond had promised him the position of commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces. Then [April 20] he resigned his command, hastened to Richmond with his important knowledge of affairs at the National capital, joined the conspirators against his government, and speedily rose to the position of general-in-chief of the Rebel army. 1 These composed a regiment under the command of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth, who were uni formed in the picturesque costume of a French corps, first organized in Algiers, and bearing the name of Zouave. These were famous in the war on the Crimea [page 526], and their drill, adopted by Ellsworth, was exceedingly active. The first Zouave organization in this country was that of a company at Crawfordsville, Indiana, under Captain (afterwards Major-General) Lewis Wallace, in 1860. A few weeks later, Captain Ellsworth organized a company at Chicago. There were many Zouave regiments at the beginning of the war, but the gay colors of their cos tume made them too conspicuous, and that uniform soon fell into disuse. See next page. 2 Ellsworth s death, and the circumstances attending it, produced a profound impression. Over an inn in Alexandria, called the Marshall House, the Confederate flag [page 555] had been flying for several days, and, immediately after landing at the city, Ellsworth proceeded to remove it. He went to the roof, took it down, and, while descending a flight of stairs, the proprietor of the inn, waiting for him in a dark passage, shot him dead. The murderer was instantly killed by one of Ellsworth s companions. On the day previous to the invasion of Virginia [May 23], William McSpeddon> of New York City, and Samuel Smith, of Queen s County, New York, went over from Washington and captured a Confederate flag. This was the first flag taken from the insurgents. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 565 ELLSWORTH ZOUAVE. About a month later [June 27] Captain Ward attacked the Confederates at Matthias Point, farther down the Potomac, where his force was repulsed and lie was killed. At this place, and in its vicinity, the Confederates established batteries that defied the National vessels, and for many months that river, a great highway for supplies for the Army of the Potomac, was effectually blockaded by them. While these stirring events were occurring east ward of the Alleghanies, others equally important were observed in the Mississippi valley. In May and June, 1861, Civil War was kindling furiously wherever the slave-system prevailed, for it was waged in the interest of that institution. In the border Slave-labor States of Kentucky and Mis souri, the contest began early. The governor of sach (Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky, and Claiborne F. Jackson, of Missouri) was in complicity with the conspirators; and in Kentucky, Simon B. Buck- ner, a captain of the National army, who had been placed at the head of a military organization known as the Kentucky State Guard, was em ployed by them, through its potential means, for corrupting the patriotism of the young men of that commonwealth. His work was facilitated by the leading politicians of that State, who claimed to be Union men, but who, at the outset, resolved to withhold all aid to their government in sup pressing the rising rebellion. 1 They succeeded in placing their State in a position of neutrality in the conflict, and the consequence was that it suffered terribly from the ravages of war, which might have been averted had the o-reat majority of the citizens, who were loyal, been allowed to act in accordance with their feelings and judgments. In Missouri the loyalists were the majority, but the disloyal governor and leading politicians, in their endeavors to unite its destinies with the slave holders Confederation, caused that State, too, to be desolated by war. So arly as at the close of February [1861], a State convention was held at the capital, in which not an openly avowed disunionist appeared. It reassembled at St. Louis [March 4], when Sterling Price, a secret enemy to the government, but pretending to be its friend, presided. The loyal men gave a loyal tone to the proceedings, and the Governor, despairing of using that body for his trea- 1 The Louisville Journal, the organ of the so-called Unionists of Kentucky, said of the Presi dent s proclamation calling for troops to put down rebellion: "We are struck with mingled amazement and indignation. The policy announced in the proclamation deserves the unqualified condemnation of ever} 1 " American citizen. It is unworthy, not merely of a statesman, but of a man. It is a policy utterly harebrained and ruinous. If Mr. Lincoln contemplated this policy in his inaugural address, lie is a guilty dissembler; if lie conceived it under the excite ment aroused by the seizure of Fort Sumter, he is a guilty Hotspur. In either case he is miserably unfit for the exalted position in which the enemies of the country have placed him. Let the people instantly take him and his administration into their own hands if they would rescue the land from bloodshed, and the Union from sudden and irretrievable destruction." 566 THE NATION. [1861. =^==^ ARSENAL AT ST. LOUIS. sonable purposes, turned to the more disloyal Legislature for aid. The latter yielded to his wishes, and, under the inspiration of Daniel M. Frost, a native of New York, and a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, they made arrangements for enrolling the militia of the State, and placing in the hands of the governor a strqng military force, to be used against the power of the National government. Arrangements were also made for seizing the National Arsenal at St. Louis, and holding pos session of that chief city of the Mississippi valley. For this purpose, and with the pretext of dis ciplining the militia of that district, Frost, com missioned a brigadier- general by the Gover nor, formed a camp neai* the city. But the plan was frustrated by the vigilant loyalists of St. Louis and Captain Nathaniel Lyon, commanding the military post there. When it became evident that Frost, was about to seize the arsenal, Lyon, with a large number of volunteers, surrounded the traitor s camp, and made him and his followers prisoners. The government and the authorities of Missouri now took open issue. Sat isfied that the conspirators had resolved to secure to their interest that State and Kentucky, the National authorities took possession of and fortified Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and of Bird s Point, a low bluff opposite, on the Missouri side of the " Father of Waters." It was a timely movement, for Governor Jackson speedily called [June 12, 1861] into the service of the State of Missouri fifty thou sand of the militia, "for the purpose of repelling invasion," et cetera, and at Jeffer son City, the capital of the common wealth, he raised the standard of revolt, with Sterling Price 1 as military commander. At the same time the authorities of Tennes see, who, led by the disloyal Governor, Isham G. Harris, had placed that State in a military relation to the Confederacy simi lar to that of Virginia, 2 were working in harmony with Jackson, their troops being under the command of General Gideon J. Pillow. That officer was making earnest efforts for the seizure of Cairo, when, early in July, Leonidas Polk, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of STERLING PRICE. Page 565. 2 Page 556 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 5^ the Diocese of Louisiana, and a graduate of West Point Academy, succeeded him in command. Meanwhile, Lyon, who had been promoted to Major-General, and placed in command of the Department of Missouri, moved a strong force against the insurgents at the State capital. With 2,000 men he went up the Missouri River in two steamers. When he approached Jefferson City the insurgents fled. He hotly pursued, and overtook, fought, and dispersed them near Booneville. The vanquished Missourians again fled, and halted not until they had reached .the southwestern borders of the State. Lyon now held military control of the most important portions of it. 1 There was now great commotion all over the land. War had begun in earnest. Confederate pirate-ships were depredating upon the ocean. The fife and drum were heard in every hamlet, village, and city, from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande. Compromises and concessions seemed no longer possible. The soothing lullaby of the last " Peace Convention " 2 was lost in the din of warlike preparations, and it was evident that the great question before the people, whether the retrogressive barbarism of slave institutions or the progressive civilization of free institutions should prevail in the Republic, could only be settled by the arbitrament of the sword, to which the friends of the former and the enemies of the Union had appealed. A mighty army of defenders of the Republic was rapidly gathering and earnestly drilling at its capital, and was animated by an intense desire (shared by the loyal people) to go forward, disperse the army of the conspirators, and drive their chief and his counselors from Richmond, where, with great energy, they were devising and putting into execution plans for the overthrow of their government. The gratification of that desire was promised when, at the middle of July, the General-in-Chief gave orders for the movement of the army upon the foe at Manassas, then commanded by Beauregard. 3 Lieutenant-General Scott was too feeble to take command of the army in the field, 4 and that duty was assigned to General Irwin McDowell, then at the head of the Department of Virginia. Already Ohio and South Carolina troops 1 He so held the whole region north of the Missouri River, and east of a line running south from Booneville on that stream to the Arkansas border, thus giving the government the control of the important points of St. Louis. Hannibal, St. Joseph, and Bird s Point, as bases of opera- tions, with railways and rivers for transportation. 2 The Virginia conspirators repeated the trick of a Peace Convention" [see page 549] on a more limited scale after they had dragged their State into the Confederation. They proposed a convention of delegates from the border Slave-labor States, to be held in Frankfort, Kentucky. The 27th of May was appointed as the day for their assembling. There were present no dele gates from Virginia, and only five beside those appointed in Kentucky. Those present professed to be eminently " neutral," and talked of "wrongs endured by the South." and the "sectional ism of the North," and regarded the preservation and National protection of the slave-system as "essential to the best hopes of our country." The trick was too apparent to deceive anybody, and had no effect. It was the last peace conference " of its kind. 3 Page 553. On taking command of that army, at the beginning of June, Beauregard, who was noted throughout the war for his official misrepresentations, ludicrous boastings, and signal failures as a military leader, issued a proclamation so infamous and shameless, considering the conduct of himself and his superiors at Richmond, that- honorable Confederate leaders like John ston, Ewell, and Longstreet blushed for shame. 4 He was afflicted with dropsy and vertigo, and for four months previously he had not been able to mount a horse. 568 THE NATION. [1861. had measured strength at Vienna, a few miles from Washington, in an encounter [June 17th] concerning the possession of the railway between Alexandria and Leesburg; 1 and now the National army was eager to repeat the contest on a larger scale. The opportunity speedily offered. A little more than 30,000 troops moved from Arlington Heights and vicinity 2 toward Manassas at the middle of July, and on the 18th a portion of these, under General Tyler, had a severe battle at Blackburn s Ford, on Bull s Run, not far from Centreville, in Fairfax County. The Nationals were re pulsed and saddened, and the Confederates were highly elated. The loss of men WINFIELD SCOTT IN 1865. 3 was about equally divided between the combatants, being about sixty on each side. McDowell s plan was to turn the right flank of the Confederates, and com pel both Beauregard and Johnston to fall back ; and Tyler s movement near Blackburn s Ford was intended as a feint, but ended in a battle. The result of that engagement, and his observations during a reconnoissance on the fol lowing day [July 20], satisfied McDowell that his plan was not feasible. He therefore resolved to make a direct attack on the foe. It was important that it should be done speedily, because the terms of enlistment of his " three months men " 4 were about to expire, and Patterson, yet at Martinsburg, was in a position to give him instant assistance, if necessary. The latter had been ordered to so menace Johnston as to keep him at Winchester and prevent his re-enforcing Beauregard, or to go to the support of McDowell, if necessary. Such being the situation, the commander of the Nationals felt confident of success, and at two o clock on Sunday morning, the 21st of July [1861], he set his army in motion in three columns one under General Tyler, marching to menace the Confederate left at the Stone Bridge over Bull s Run, on the War- renton road, while two others, under Generals Hunter and Heintzelman, taking a wide circuit more to the left, were to cross the stream at different points, and 1 The National troops were commanded by Colonel A. McD. McCook, who had been sent out to picket and guard the road. They were accompanied on this occasion by General Robert C. Schenck. The Confederates were in charge of Colonel Maxcy Gregg, who had been a leading member of the South Carolina Secession Convention. 2 At this time the main body of McDowell s troops, about 45,000 strong, occupied a line, with the Potomac at its back, extending from Alexandria, nine miles below Washington, almost to the Chain Bridge, six miles above the capital. The remainder of the National army, about 18,000 strong, was at or near Martinsburg, under General Patterson. Both armies were liable to a sud den decrease, for the terms of enlistment of the "three months men" were about expiring. The main Confederate army, under Beauregard, was at and near Manassas Junction, in a very strong defensive position, about half way between the more eastern range of the Blue llidge and the Potomac at Alexandria. Johnston s force at "Winchester was larger than Patterson s, and was in a position to re-enforce Beauregard without much difficulty. He made his position quite strong, by casting up earthworks for defense. s See page 485. * Page 551. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 569 make the real attack on Beauregard s left wing, menaced by Tyler. At the same time troops under Colonels Richardson and Davies were to march from near Centreville, and threaten the Confederate right. 1 These movements were duly executed, but with some mischievous delay, and it was well toward noon before the battle was fairly begun. Beauregard had planned an attack on McDowell at Centre ville, the same morn ing. The authori ties at Richmond, informed of the lat- ter s movements, had ordered Johnston to hasten to the aid of Beauregard, who was now compelled to act on the defensive. Af ter several hours hard fighting, with varying fortunes on both sides, and the mutual losses dread- ful, the Nationals, with superior numbers, were on the point of gaining a complete victory, when from the Shenandoah Valley came six thousand of Johnston s fresh troops, and turned the tide of battle. Johnston had managed to elude Patterson, and had hastened to Manassas, followed by his troops, and there, as senior in rank, he took the chief command. Patterson, awaiting promised information and orders from the General-in-Chief (which he did not receive), failed to re-enforce McDowell, and when, at about three o clock in the afternoon, Johnston s troops swelled the ranks of Beauregard to a volume greater than those of his foes, the Nationals were thrown back in confusion, and fled in disastrous rout toward Washington City. 2 Jefferson Davis had just arrived on the battle field when the flight began. He sent an exultant shout by telegraph to his 1 The Confederate army lay along a line nearly parallel to the general course of Bull s Run, from Union Mills, where the Orange and Alexandria railway crosses that stream, to the passage of the "Warrenton turnpike, at the Stone Bridge several miles above. 3 A large number of civilians saw the smoke of battle from Centreville and its vicinity. Sev eral members of Congress, and many others, went out from Washington to see the fight, as they would a holiday spectacle, not doubting the success of the National troops. These were seen flying back in the greatest terror, while Congressman Alfred Ely, and one or two other civilians, were captured, and held as prisoners in Richmond for several months. Among the fugitives was W. H. Russell, correspondent of the London Times, who, notwithstanding he had not seen the battle, wrote an account of it the same night, while in an unfit condition, as he acknowledged, to write any thing truthfully. It was very disparaging to the Nationals, and filled the enemies of the Republic in Europe with joy, because of the assurance it gave of the success of the conspirators. 570 THE NATION. [1861. fellow-conspirators at Richmond, 1 and the whole Confederacy speedily rang with its echoes ; while the remnant of the vanquished army hastened back in fragments to the defenses of Washington, and the gloom of deepest despond ency overshadowed the loyal heart of the nation for a moment. While one section of the Republic was resonant with sounds of exultation, the other was silent and cast down for a moment. The extraordinary session of Congress 2 had not yet closed, when the disas ter at Bull s Run occurred. That event did not disturb the composure or the faith of that body. Friends of the Confederates who yet lingered in the National Legislature were using every means in their power to thwart legisla tion that looked to the crushing of the rebellion ; 3 but the patriotic majority went steadily forward in their efforts to save the Republic. When the battle occurred, they had under consideration a declaratory resolution concerning the object of the war on the part of the government, and while the capital was filled with fugitives from the shattered National army, and it was believed by many that the scat of government was at the mercy of its enemies, Congress deliberated as calmly as if assured of perfect safety, adopted the Declaratory Resolution, 4 and made thorough provisions for prosecuting the war vigorously. The same faith and patriotic action were soon visible among the loyal people. Their despondency was momentary. Almost immediately they recovered from the stunning blow to their hopes and desires. They awakened from the delusive and dangerous dream that their armies were absolutely invincible. There was at once another wonderful uprising of the Unionists, and while the Confederates were wasting golden moments of opportunity in celebrating their victory, thousands of young men were seen flocking toward the National capi tal to join the great Army of Defense. Within a fortnight after the battle just recorded, when the terms of service of the " three months men " had 1 From Manassas Junction he telegraphed, saying: "Night has closed upon a hard-fought field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed, and fled precipitately, abandoning a large amount of arms, ammunition, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewn for miles with those killed, and the farm-houses and the grounds around were filled with the wounded." " Our force," he said, " was 1 5.000 ; that of the enemy estimated at 30,000." This was not only an exaggeration, but a misrepresentation. From the most reliable authorities on both siues, it appears that, in the final struggle, the Nationals had about 13,000 men, and the Confederates about 27,000. The latter had been receiving re-enforcements all day, while not a man crossed Bull s Run after twelve o clock at noon to re-enforce the Nationals. 2 Page 5 GO. 3 Page 549. Slidell, Yulee, and other Senators, remained for some time, for the avowed pur pose of preventing legislation that might strengthen the hands of the government. 4 J. J. Crittenden offered the following joint resolution : " That the present deplorable Civil "War has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional government, and in arms around the capital; that in this National emergency Congress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to its country ; that this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, not for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established usages of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired ; and as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease." This resolution was adopted by an almost unanimous vote in both Houses of Congress. It alarmed the conspirators, for it positively denied those false allegations with which they had deceived the people. They were so fearful that their dupes might see it and abandon their bad cause, that no newspaper in the Confederacy, it is said, was allowed to publish the fact. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 571 expired, more than an equal number of volunteers were in the camp or in the field, engaged for "three years or the war." Nine-tenths of the non-com batants shared in the faith and fervor of those who took up arms, and the people of the Free-labor States presented a spectacle difficult to comprehend. That terrible crisis in the life of the nation was promptly met, and the salva tion of the Republic was assured. At the same time that " United South " against the government, which the conspirators had falsely proclaimed months before, now became a reality. The prestige of victory, the pressure of a ter rible despotism, and the menaces of banishment and confiscation acts, passed by the Confederate " Congress," together with the prospect of the establish ment of a new nation, suddenly carved by the sword out of the Republic, with whose fortunes it seemed their duty and interest to link themselves, so affected the great body of the Unionists at the South, that they yielded to necessity, and the voice of opposition was speedily hushed into silence. 1 On the day after the Battle of Bull s Run [July 22, 1861], General McClel- lan, whose troops had been successful in Western Virginia, 2 was called to the command of the army at Washington. He at once set about the reorganiza tion of that broken force with skill and industry. It was perfected by the middle of October, when seventy-five thousand well-armed 3 and fairly disci plined troops were in a condition to be placed in active service in the field. McClellan s moral power was then tremendous. He had the confidence of the army and the whole country, and he was called a " Young Napoleon." And when, on the 1st of November, General Scott resigned his position, and on his recommendation his place as General-in-Chief was filled by the appointment of McClellan, 4 that act was hailed as a promise of a speedy termination of the rebellion, for he had said that the war should be " short, sharp, and decisive." He spent the remainder of the autumn, and the whole winter, in making preparations for a campaign for the capture of Richmond ; and when, at the beginning of March, his force, which was called the GRAXD ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, was put in motion, it numbered 220,000 men. 5 In the mean time, 1 The pressure brought to bear on the Union men was terrible, and the youth of that class were driven into the army by thousands, because of the social proscription to which they were subjected. The zeal of the women in the cause of rebellion was unbounded, and their influence was extremely potential. Young men who hesitated when asked to enlist, or even waited to be asked, were shunned and sneered at by the young women ; and many were the articles of women s apparel which were sent, as significant gifts, to these laggards at home. Men who still dared to stand firm in their true allegiance were denounced as "traitors to their country," and treated as such. 2 Page 563. 3 We have observed [page 549] that Secretary Floyd, in preparation for the rebellion, had stripped the arsenals and armories of the Free-labor States, and filled those of the Slave-labor States. It was necessary for the government to send to Europe for arms. For that purpose Colonel George L. Schuyler, of General "Wool s staff, was dispatched [July, 1861], and he pur chased 116,000 rifles, 10,000 revolvers, 10,000 cavalry carbines, and 21,000 sabers, at an aggregate cost of little over $2,000,000. Impediments were at first cast in the way of his purchase of arms in England and France, the sympathy of those governments being with the conspirators. He purchased the greater portion of them in Vienna and Dresden. 4 See General Orders, Xo. 94, November 1, 1861. 6 Of this number, about thirty thousand were sick or absent. Among the latter class were several hundred prisoners captured at Bull s Run and Ball s Bluff, on the Upper Potomac. Th prison-life of captives among the Confederates was often very terrible. 572 THE NATION. [1861. the Confederate army, under Johnston, lying between Washington City and Richmond, not more than 40,000 strong at any time, had remained undisturbed, and Washington City had been made impregnable by the erection around it of no less than lifty-two forts and redoubts. While the process of reorganizing the Army of the Potomac was going on, the war was making rapid progress west of the Alleghanies, and especially in Missouri. We left General Lyon, victorious, at Booneville, 1 and the fugitive insurgents, under Price and Jack son, in the south western part of the State. While Lyon was pursu ing the main body of the insurgents, another Union force, under Colo nel Franz Sigel, an ac complished German sol dier, was pushing for ward from St. Louis, by way of Holla. When he heard of the flight of the insurgents toward the borders of Arkansas, he pressed on in that direction, passing through Springfield and Sarcoxie, and near Carthage he fell in with the main body of the Confederates, much superior to him in numbers, and espe cially in horsemen. Sigel had more cannon than his foe, but, in a sharp engagement that ensued [July 5, 1861], the overwhelming force of the insur gents pushed him back, and he retreated in good order to Springfield. To FORTIFICATIONS IN AND AROUND WASHINGTON CITY. Page 567. 1861.1 LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 573 that point Lyon hastened when he heard of the apparent peril that threatened Si^el, and on the 13th he took command of the united forces. Meanwhile the O insurgent Missourians had been largely re-enforced by troops from Texas and Arkansas, and at the close of July the combined force, about 20,000 strong (a large proportion cavalry), under Generals Price, Ben McCulloch, Pearce, Rains, and McBride, were marching on Springfield. Lyoii s force did not exceed 6,000 men (400 cavalry) and eighteen cannon. Feeble as he was, Lyon went out to meet the advancing foe. In a beauti ful valley, at a place called Dug Springs, nineteen miles from Springfield, he met, fought, and vanquished his enemies, under McCulloch and Rains. So desperate were the charges of a few of Lyon s cavalry, under Stanley, that Confederate prisoners inquired : " Are they men or devils ?" Lyon returned to Springfield [August 4], and a few days later [August 9] the Confederate army, under the general command of McCulloch, wearied and half-starved, encamped at Wilson s Creek, about ten miles south of the town. Lyon again went out to meet them, marching his little force in two columns, before dawn the next morning [August 10] ; one led by himself, to attack their front, and the other by Sigel, to fall upon their rear. A battle opened at an early hour* The brunt of it fell upon Lyon s column, for Sigel s, deceived by a trick, 1 was early dispersed or captured. Lyon s troops, inspired by their leader, fought great odds with vigor and gallantry. The commander was everywhere seen, encouraging his men, until at about nine o clock in the morning he fell mor tally wounded, and was succeeded in command by Major Sturgis. The battle ceased at eleven o clock, when the Nationals were victorious. It was not safe for them to remain on the field of victory, nor to risk another encounter, so, on the following morning [July 11], the whole Union force, led by Sigel, retreated in good order toward Rolla, safely conducting to that place a government train valued at a million and a half dollars. The loyal civil authorities of Missouri were now striving against powerful influences to keep the State from the vortex of secession. The popular conven tion, 2 which reassembled at Jefferson City on the 22d of July, declared the government of which the traitor Jackson was the head to be illegal, and organized a provisional government for service until a permanent one should be formed by the people. Meanwhile, Reynolds, Jackson s lieutenant-governor, issued a proclamation at New Madrid, as acting chief magistrate, in which he declared the State to be separated from the Union, and that, by " invitation of Governor Jackson," General Pillow had entered Missouri at the head of Ten nessee troops, to act in conjunction with M. Jeff. Thompson, a native leader, in upholding the secession movement. Jackson was then in Richmond, nego- 1 Sigel s force was composed of twelve hundred men and six guns. He marched so stealthily that the first intimation the Confederates had of his presence was the bursting of the. shells from his guns over Rains s camp. The Confederates fled, and Sigel took possession of their position, when it was reported that some of Lyon s column were approaching. When these, dressed like Sigel s men (they were Confederates in disguise), were within less than musket-shot distance of the latter, they opened a destructive fire upon the Unionists with cannon and small arms, spreading consternation in his ranks. He lost all but about three hundred men and one field- piece. " Page 505. 574 THE NATION. [1861. tiating with the conspirators for the annexation of Missouri to the Confederacy ; and the vain and shallow Pillow 1 assumed the pompous title of " Liberator of Missouri" dating his orders and dispatches, " Head-Quarters Army of Libera tion." Although the conditions of annexation were not complied with, men claiming to represent Missouri performed the farce of occupying seats in the so-called " Congress " of the conspirators at Richmond during a greater portion of the war. At this critical juncture, John C. Fremont, 2 who had lately returned from Europe with some arms for his government, and bearing the commission of Major-General, was appointed to the command of the Western Department, with his head-quarters at St. Louis. He found every thing in confusion, and much that was needed for the public service. He went vigorously at work in the important duty assigned him. He fortified St. Louis, and took measures for making the important posts of Cairo and Bird s Point 3 absolutely secure, for these were menaced by Pillow and his associates. These measures alarmed the disloyal inhabitants and the invading troops, but when the retreat of the Nationals from Springfield and the death of Lyon 4 became known, the seces sionists assumed a bold and defiant attitude. They gathered in armed bands throughout the State. The civil authority was helpless ; so Fremont, seeing no other way to secure the supremacy of the National government than by taking the whole power in his department into his own hands, declared mar tial law [August 31, 1861], and warned the disaffected that it would be rigorously executed. He acted promptly in accordance with his declaration, and the insurgents began to quail, when his vigor was checked by his govern ment. 5 Soon after the battle at Wilson s Creek, Price was abandoned by McCul- loch, with whom he could not agree, when he called upon the Missouri seces sionists to fill his ranks, and early in September he was moving with a con siderable force northward toward the Missouri River, in the direction of Lexington, where nearly three thousand National troops were collected, under Colonel J. A. Mulligan. Colonel Jefferson C. Davis was then at Jefferson City with a larger force, and General John Pope was hastening in the direction of Lexington from the region northward of the Missouri, with about five thousand men. Price, aware of danger near, pressed forward and laid siege to Lexington on the 1 1th of September. Mulligan had cast up some intrenchments there, but his men had only about forty rounds of ammunition each, and his heavy arma ment consisted of six small cannon and two howitzers the latter useless, because he had no shells. Price had an overwhelming force, and opened fire on the 12th. Re-enforcements came to him, and the insurgents finally numbered 1 Page 566. 2 Pages 488 and 530. 3 Page 566. 4 Page 573. 6 In his proclamation of martial law, Fremont declared that whoever should be found guilty of thereafter taking an active part with the enemies of the government in the field, should suffer the penalty of confiscation of their property to the public use, and have their slaves, if they pos sessed any, made forever freemen. This raised a storm of indignation among the so-called Unionists of the Border Slave-labor States, whose good-will the government was then trying to secure, and that efficient measure against the rebellion, which, two years later, the government itself used,- Fremont was then forbidden to employ. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 575 about twenty-five thousand men. Mulligan and his little band made a gallant defense until the morning of the 20th [September, 1861], when he was compelled to surrender. 1 He had held out with hopes of success, but when re-enforce ments approached it was too late for them to penetrate to his lines. This disaster was severely felt, and on the 27th of September Fremont put in motion an army of more than twenty thousand men for the purpose of retrieving it, and driving Price and his insurgents out of the State. AVhile these events were occurring in the heart of Missouri, important ones were taking place in Kentucky. Governor Magoffin 2 encouraged the seces sionists as much as he dared. He allowed them to establish recruiting camps for the Confederate army ; and when the loyal Legislature of the State assem bled [September 2] lie and his political associates, fearing the adverse action of that body, looked with complacency upon the invasion of the State, and the seizure of the strong position of Columbus [September 6], on the Mississippi, by Confederate troops under General (Bishop) Polk. In defiance of their avowed respect for the neutrality of Kentucky, the conspirators at Richmond sanctioned the movement, 3 and thus opened the way for the horrors of war, which filled Kentucky with distress. Columbus was held by the Confederates. The Legislature requested the Governor to call out the militia of the State " to expel and drive out the invaders," and asked the General Government to aid in the work. The Governor resisted, but was compelled to yield. General An derson, 4 in command there, at once prepared to act vigorously, and General Ulysses S. Grant, then in command in the district around Cairo, took military possession of Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee River. Thus ended the " neutrality " of Kentucky, which proved so disastrous to that State. Too late to avoid the consequences of that folly, the State now took a positive stand for the Union, and avoided many evils. Felix K. Zollicoffer, formerly a member of Congress, invaded Kentucky from East Tennessee (where the Unionists were horribly persecuted) 5 on the 1 The private soldiers were paroled and the officers were held as prisoners of war. Mulligan lost 40 killed and 120 wounded. Price s loss was 25 killed and 75 wounded. The spoils were 6 cannon, 2 . howitzers, 3,000 stand of small arms, 750 horses, a large quantity of equipage, and commissary stores valued at $100,000. 2 Page 565. 3 Some of the partisans of Davis, South and North, denied that he ever sanctioned this viola tion of the pledged faith of the Confederates to respect the neutrality of Kentucky. The proof that he did so is undeniable. His so-called Secretary of War, as a cover to the iniquity, tele graphed publicly to Polk, directing him to withdraw his troops from Kentucky soil. At the same time, Davis himself, with supreme power, telegraphed privately to Polk, saying: "The necessity must justify the act." For the proof, see Lossing s Pictorial History of the Civil War, II. 75. 4 The defender of Fort Sumter [page 550] had been promoted to brigadier, and was then in command in Kentucky. 6 Jefferson Davis was quick to act upon the authority given him by the confiscation and ban ishment acts of his " Congress." In districts such as East Tennessee, and other mountain regions, where the blight of slavery was little known, the people were generally loyal to their government. "When the Confederates held sway in such districts, the keenest cruelties were practiced upon the Union inhabitants. East Tennesseans were peculiar sufferers on that account through a greater portion of the war. Loyalists were hunted, not only by armed men, but by bloodhounds, with which fugitive slaves were pursued.* They were taken to military camps, abused by mobs, * In the Memphis Appeal appeared an advertisement, in the autumn of 1SC1, for " fifty well-bred "" and " one pair of thoroughbred bloodhounds, that will take the track of a man. The purpose." said the advertisement, "for which these doss are wanted, is to chase the infernal, cowardly Lincoln bushwhackers [Unionists] of East Ten nessee and Kentucky to their haunts, and capture them. 11 This was signed by F. N. McNairy and H. H. Harris. Confederate officers in camp. 576 THE NATION [1861 day after Polk seized Columbus, 1 and Buckner, already mentioned as the cor- rupter of the patriotism of the young men of that State, 2 who had established a camp in Tennessee just below the Kentucky border, acting in co-operation with the two invaders, attempted to seize Louisville, but was foiled by the vigilance of Anderson and the troops under him. Buckner advanced as far as Elizabethtown, but was compelled to fall back to Bowling Green, on the Nash ville and Louisville railway, where he established an intrenched camp, and made it the nucleus of a powerful force gathered there soon afterward. Let us turn again for a moment to the consideration of affairs in Missouri. We have observed that Fremont set a heavy force in motion to drive the Confederates out of Missouri. He had formed a general plan for driving them out of the Mississippi Valley, and re-opening the navigation of the great stream which the insurgents had obstructed by batteries. 3 It was to capture or disperse the forces under Price, and seize Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, and so. completely turn the position of the forces under Pillow and others, as to cut off their supplies from that region and compel them to retreat, when a flotilla of gun-boats, then in preparation near St. Louis, could easily descend the river and assist in military operations against Memphis. If the latter should be successful, the army and navy might push on and take possession of New Orleans. Fremont accompanied his army in the initial movement of his plan, namely, against Price, and on the llth of October, when well on his way toward Arkansas, his forces marching in five columns, 4 he wrote : "My plan is New Orleans straight. I would precipitate the war forward, and end it soon and victoriously." But he was not allowed to carry out his plan, and at Springfield, where his body-guard, under Zagonyi, had made one of the most memorable charges on record upon the strong foe, 5 he was superseded in com mand by General David Hunter, and the army, instead of going forward, marched sadly back toward St. Louis at the middle of November. Meanwhile detachments of Fremont s army, under various leaders, had been doing gallant service against bands of insurgents in various parts of Missouri, the most nota ble of which were contests with M. Jeff. Thompson and his guerrillas, in the eastern part of the State, who were defeated and dispersed in October, chiefly by Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana troops. thrust into prisons, and some were hanged for no other crime than active loyalty to their govern ment. Among the most notable of these sufferers in East Tennessee was Rev. Dr. Brownlow, a leading citizen, who had been a political editor at Knoxville for many years, was very influential as a citizen, and was feared and hated by the Confederates. His sufferings, and those of his fellow-patriots, form the subject of a volume from his pen, of great interest. At the close of the war he was elected Governor of the State (having been appointed Provisional Governor), and in 1867 he was re-elected by an immense majority of the legal voters of Tennessee. 1 Page 575. 2 Page 565. 3 So early as the 12th of January, 1861, three days after a convention of politicians in Missis sippi had declared that State severed from the Union. Governor Pettus directed a battery to be planted at Vicksburg, with orders to hail and examine every vessel that should attempt to pass. Other batteries were soon planted there and upon other bluffs in the river, and for more than two years the commerce of the Mississippi was suspended. 4 Commanded respectively by Generals David Hunter, John Pope, Franz Sigel, J. McKinstry, and A. Ashboth. 6 Zagonyi charged upon nearly two thousand infantry and cavalry with one hundred and fifty of his men, routed the foe, and came out of the conflict with eighty-four of his little band dead or wounded. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 5*^ Before being deprived of his command, Fremont, in pursuance of his plan, directed General Grant to make a co-operative movement on the line of the Mississippi River. Grant determined to threaten Columbus 1 by attacking Belmont, on the Missouri shore opposite, to prevent Polk assisting Thompson. With about 3,000 troops (mostly Illinois volunteers, under General John A. Mc- Clernand), in transports, accompanied by the wooden gun-boats Tyler and Lex ington, he went down the Mississippi from Cairo, while another force was march ing fromPaducah 2 toward the rear of Columbus, under General Charles F. Smith, to divert Folk s attention from the river expedition. That expedition suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just above Columbus on the morning of the 7th of November, when the gun-boats opened fire on Folk s batteries. The troops were landed on the Missouri shore, three miles above Belmont, and immediately marched upon that place. Polk sent over troops under General Pillow to re-enforce the garrison there. A sharp engagement en sued, and the Nationals were victorious, but the ground being commanded by the batteries on the bluffs at Columbus, it was untenable, and Grant withdrew. Polk determined not to allow him to escape. He opened upon the retiring troops some of his heaviest guns, sent LEONIDAS POLK. Cheatham to re-enforce Pillow, and then led over two regiments himself to swell the ranks of the pursuers. Grant fought his way back to his transports after suffering severely, 3 and re-embarked under cover of the gun-boats and escaped. The battle was gallantly fought on both sides, and many deeds of daring are recorded. Zollicoffer s invasion 4 aroused the Unionists of Eastern Kentucky, and they flew to arms under various leaders. In a picturesque region of the Cumber land Mountains, known as the Rock Castle Hills, they fought and repulsed him. Still farther eastward in Kentucky, loyalists under General William Nelson fought and dispersed a Confederate force under Colonel J. S. Williams, near Piketon. The latter fled to the mountains at Pound Gap, carrying away a large number of cattle. These successes inspired the East Tennessee loyal ists with hopes of a speedy deliverance, but they were compelled to wait long for that consummation. The Confederates, toward the close of 1861, had obtained a firm foothold in Tennessee, and occupied a considerable portion of Southern Kentucky, from the mountains to the Mississippi River, along a line about four hundred miles in length. At the same time the Nationals were preparing to drive them southward. Let us now consider events in the vicinity and eastward of the Alleghany Mountains, and along the sea-coast. 1 Page 575. a Page 575. * Grant lost in killed, wounded, and missing, 485 men, and Polk 632. * Page 575. 37 578 THE NATION. [1861. In the autumn of 1861 the Confederates struggled severely for the posses sion of Western Virginia. General Robert E. Lee had been sent to take com mand of the troops left by Garnett and Pegram in Northern Virginia. 1 He made his head-quarters at Huntersville, in Pocahontas County, and early in August [1861] he found himself at the head of about 16,000 troops. Floyd, the late Secretary of War, 2 had been commissioned a brigadier-general, and sent to the region of the Gauley River, with troops to re-enforce the incompe tent Wise, and to take chief command. Floyd was expected to sweep down the Kanawha Valley, and drive General Cox across the Ohio, while Lee should scatter or capture the National forces under General Rosecrans in Northern Virginia, and open a way into Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Prepara tory to these decisive movements, Floyd took position between Cox and Rose crans at Carnifex Ferry, on the Gauley River, a few miles from Summersville, the capital of Nicholas County, leaving Wise to watch the region nearer the junction of the Gauley and New River, which form the Kanawha. Rosecrans had organized an army of nearly 10,000 men at Clarksburg, on the Baltimore and Ohio railway, and early in September he marched south ward to attack Floyd, wherever he might be, leaving a force under General J. J. Reynolds to confront Lee in the Cheat Mountain region. With great labor Rosecrans s troops climbed over the Gauley Mountains, and on the 10th [Sept.], passing through Summersville, they fell upon the Confederates at Car nifex Ferry. A severe battle for three or four hours ensued. It ceased at dusk. Rosecrans intended to renew it in the morning, but his foes fled under cover of the darkness, and did not halt until they reached the summit of Big Sewell Mountain, thirty miles distant. The battle at Carnifex Ferry was soon followed by stirring movements between Reynolds and Lee. The former was holding the roads and passes of the more westerly ranges of the great Alleghany chain, from Webster, on the Baltimore and Ohio railway, to the head-waters of the Gauley, crossing the spurs of the Greenbrier Mountains. When Rosecrans moved against Floyd, Reynolds was at the western foot of the mountains, not far from Huttonsville. Lee was farther south. His scouts were everywhere active, and it was evi dent, early in September, that he contemplated an attack either upon Reynolds or Rosecrans. He was watched with sleepless vigilance, and on the day after the battle at Carnifex Ferry it was perceived that he was about to strike the Nationals at Elkwater and on the Summit, 3 for the purpose of securing the great Cheat Mountain Pass, through which lay the road to Staunton, and so obtain free communication with the Shenandoah Valley. His troops attacked the two posts just named [Sept. 12, 1861], and were repulsed. Lee then with drew from the Cheat Mountain region and joined Floyd, between the Gauley and New River, where the combined forces under his command amounted 1 Page 563. 2 Page 549. 3 Here, as we have seen [page 563], General McClellan established a post, and left there an Indiana regiment, under Colonel Kimball. It was an important point on the great highway from Huttonsville, over the lofty ranges of mountains to Staunton. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTBATIOff. to about 20,000 men. There he was confronted by Rosecrans with about 10,000 men, composed of the brigades of Cox, Benham, and Schenck. Lee, whose campaign had been thus far a failure, was soon recalled and sent to Georgia. The wretched Wise was ordered to Richmond, and Floyd and Rosecrans again became competitors for victory. Floyd took post on the left or western bank of the New River late in October, from which he was driven [Nov. 12] by the forces under Rosecrans, and pursued about fifty miles southward. There Floyd took leave of his army, and a few months later he was seen in a disgraceful position at Fort Donelson, in Tennessee. Meanwhile General Kelley, who had recovered from his wounds, 1 was performing gallant service in defense of the line of the Baltimore and Ohio railway ; and on the 26th of October he struck the insurgents a blow at Romney that paralyzed the rebellion in that region. General Robert H. Milroy, who had succeeded Reynolds, was also active in the Cheat Mountain region, with his head quarters, at first, at the Summit. In that vicinity he fought the Confederates under Colonel E. Johnston, of Georgia, and was repulsed. He was more suc cessful in an expedition against the Confederates at Huntersville, Lee s old head-quarters. 2 He dispersed the insurgents there late in December, destroyed their stores, and released some Union prisoners. This event closed the cam paign in Western Virginia in 1861. While the events we have just considered were occurring in Western Virginia and in the Mississippi Valley, others even more important in their relations to the great contest were occurring on the sea-coast. We have already considered some hostile movements in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe. 3 In Hampton Roads (the harbor in front of that fortress) and the then smoking ruins of Hampton Village, 4 a large land and naval armament was seen in August, 1861. It was designed for an expedition down the Atlantic coast, the land forces under General B. F. Butler 5 and the naval forces under Commodore Silas H. Stringham. Its destination was Hatteras Inlet, eighteen miles from Cape Hatteras, where the Confederates had erected two forts (Hatteras and Clarke) on the western end of Hatteras Island. The fleet, composed of trans ports for the troops and war vessels, gathered off the Inlet toward the even ing of the 27th of August, and on the following morning the navy opened fire on the forts and some of the land troops were put ashore. The assault was con tinued at intervals by both arms of the service until the 29th, when the forts were formally surrendered to Stringham and Butler by S. Barron, who com- 1 Page 562. 2 Page 578. 3 Page 562. 4 After the battle at Big Bethel [page 562], General Butler abandoned the village of Hamp ton, which he had previously occupied, arid confined his troops to Fortress Monroe and Newport- Newce. The whole country between Old Point Comfort, on which Fortress Monroe lies, and Yorktown, was thus left open to Confederate rule. Magruder, with about 5,000 men, moved down the peninsula and took post near the village of Hampton, for the purpose of closely invest ing the Fortress. Skirmishes ensued at Hampton bridge, and on the night of the 7th of August, Magruder, while drunken with liquor, ordered the village to be burnt. The act was performed by Virginians. So wanton was it that the venerable parish church, standing out of danger from the flames of the town, was fired and destroyed. 5 General Butler was succeeded in the command at Fortress Monroe by the veteran General John E. "Wool. 580 T H E X A T I X [1861. FORT HATTERAS. manded a little squadron in Pamlico Sound, and Colonel Martin and Major Andrews, in command of the Confederate troops. 1 The post was then gar risoned by a portion of Colonel Hawkins s New York Zouave regiment, and the expedition returned to Hampton Roads. General Butler was then com missioned to go to New England to "raise, arm, uniform, and equip a vol unteer force for the war. - 1 It was done. Their im- mediate services will be observed hereafter. Hawkins was re-en forced in September by some Indiana troops, and early in October the lat ter, then a few miles up the Island, were attacked and driven back to the forts by some Confederates, who came over in steamers from Roanoke Island. Meanwhile Hawkins had issued a conciliatory address to the neighboring inhabitants of North Carolina. A convention of loyal citizens- was held [Oct. 12], who called another, when a statement of grievances and a declaration of their independence of the Confederate government of North Carolina was adopted [Nov. 18, 1861]. There was so much promise of good in this movement, that the President ordered an election there for a member of Congress. One was chosen [Nov. 27], but this germ of active loyalty was soon crushed by the heel of Confederate power. 2 But the substantial victory gained by the National forces was a severe blow to the cause of the conspirators, for it opened the way to most important results in favor of the National authorities, as we shall observe hereafter. During the summer of 1861, Fort Pickens and its vicinity were witnesses of stirring scenes. We have observed that the fort was saved from capture early in the year through the vigilance and bravery of Lieutenant Slemmer and his little garrison, and that it was re-enforced. 3 The troops that first went to the relief of Slemmer [April 12, 1861] were marines from the government ves- 1 Barren was a naval officer who had abandoned his flag and joined the insurgents. The cap- tires received the treatment of prisoners of war. They were taken to Xew York, and afterward exchanged. Xot one of the soldiers of the attacking fleet or army was injured in the fray. The loss of the Confederates was twelve or fifteen killed and thirty-five wounded. 3 This movement was brought prominently before the citizens of Xew York by Rev. M. X. Taylor, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, at a meeting over which Mr. Ban croft, the historian, presided. Taylor said that "some 4,000 of the inhabitants living on the narrow strip of land on the coast had, on the first arrival of the troops, flocked to take the oath of allegiance, and this had cut them off from their scanty resources of traffic with the interior. They were a poor race," he said, "living principally by fishing and gathering of yoakum, an evergreen of spontaneous growth, which they dried and exchanged for corn." The yoakum is a plant which is extensively used in that region as a substitute for tea. The appeal of Mr. Taylor in behalf of these people was nobly responded to by generous gifts of money, food, and clothing. 8 See note 6, page 559. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 581 sels Sabine and St. Louis, lying off the fort, and artillerymen under Captain Vogdes, from the Brooklyn? They were there just in time to co-operate with a loyal man at the Xavy Yard in saving the fort from capture. 2 The garrison was again re-enforced, a few days later, by several hundred troops under Colo nel Harvey Brown, who took the command, and Slemmer was furloughed for rest. Still later, while Bragg was gathering a large force in the vicinity, more troops were sent to defend the post. These were the New York Sixth regi ment (Zouaves), Colonel William Wilson, who were encamped [June] on Santa Rosa Island, on which Fort Pickens stands. Early in October the Con federates on the main attempted to surprise and capture them. It was done in the dark, with the cry of " Death to Wilson ! iSTo quarter I* 1 The assailed ; Zouaves fought desperately in the gloom, and with the aid of help from the fort, under Majors Yogdes and Arnold, the invaders, after burning Wilson s camp, were driven to their boats with a loss of one hundred and fifty men, including some who were drowned. The Nationals lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners, sixty-four men. 1 Lieutenant Worden, of the Navy, was sent by the government overland with a message to the commander of the fleet off Pensacola, directing the re-enforcement of Pickens. On his return he was treacherously used by Bragg, and suffered a long captivity, as a prisoner of war. in the jail at Montgomery. 2 This was Richard Wilcox. The Confederates were in possession of the Navy Yard at War- rington, opposite Fort Pickens, where "Wilcox, unsuspected of loyalty, was employed as a watch man. He discovered that one of Slemmer s sergeants was in complicity with the Confederate commander in a plan for capturing the fort. Wilcox found means to apprise Slemmer of the fact. It was to have been executed on the night after Worden s arrival. 3 It was the general impression that Wilson s Zouaves were composed of New York " roughs," nd the Southern people were taught to believe that they were sent for the purposes of plunder and rapine. 582 THE NATION. [1861. Fort Pickens had been silent since the spring-time. Late in November its utterances were heard for miles along the Gulf coast, mingled with the thun der of cannon on war-vessels, co-operating in an attack upon the forts and batteries of the Confederates on the Florida main, then manned by about seven thousand troops under Bragg. The fort, and the steamers Niagara and Rich mond^ opened on the Confederate works on the morning of the 22d of Novem ber. In the course of forty-eight hours, the heavy guns of the foe were silenced, and most of the Navy Yard, and the villages of Wolcott and War- rington, adjoining, were laid in ashes by shells from the fort. After that there was quiet in Pensacola Bay until the first of January [1862], when another artillery duel occurred, lasting about twelve hours, but with little effect. Farther westward along the Gulf coast little sparks of war were seen at this time. The most notable of these was occasioned by a collision at the mouth of the Mississippi River [October 12], between the National blockading squadron, at the Southwest Pass, and a flotilla under Captain Hollins, of Grey- town notoriety. 1 By a telegraphic dispatch to the conspirators at Richmond, that startled the whole country, Hollins claimed a great victory, when the fact was that the only damage he had inflicted on his foe was slight bruises on a coal-barge, while he was driven up the river to Fort Jackson in great terror, because of the danger of his being caught and hanged as a traitor. 2 Pie was in command of a rum 3 called Manassas, which promised to be formidable in competent hands, and this fact hastened preparations for sending an expedition to the Lower Mississippi. There was another land and naval armament in Hampton Road sin October, more formidable and imposing than the one seen there in August. 4 There were fifty war-vessels and transports, and on the latter were 15,000 troops, under General T. W. Sherman. The fleet was commanded by Commodore S. F. Du- pont, and all went to sea on a beautiful autumnal day (October 29, 1861), the flag-ship WabnsJi leading. Their des tination was unknown to all but the chief commander, but each ship carried S. F. DUPOXT. 1 See note 3, page 522. 2 The following is a copy of the dispatch, dated at Fort Jackson, below New Orleans, Octo ber 12, 1861: "Last night I attacked the blockaders with my little fleet. I succeeded, after a very short struggle, in driving them all aground on the Southwest Pass bar. except the Preble, which I sunk. I captured a prize from them, and after they were fast in sand, I peppered them well. There were no casualties on our side. It was a complete success. HOLLINS." This dis patch and the facts caused the silly Hollins to be " peppered " well with ridicule. 3 A " ram " was an iron-clad vessel with a long, strong, sharp-pointed iron beak extending from its bow, by which, when the vessel, impelled by steam, was in full motion, another might be pushed, penetrated, and sunk. These were very formidable weapons of war on the rivers. 4 See page 579. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 583 sealed orders, to be opened in the event of a dispersion. That contingency occurred. The expedition had just passed Cape Hatteras, when a terrible storm arose, and on the morning of the 2d of November only one of the other ves sels might be seen from the deck of the flag-ship. 1 The sealed orders were opened. These directed a general rendezvous off Port Royal entrance, on the coast of South Carolina, and there all of the vessels, excepting four trans ports, were gathered around their leader by the evening of the 4th. The four transports had been lost, but no life was sacrificed, in the great storm. Port Royal entrance is between Hilton Head and Phillip s Island, and on each was a fort that commanded the channel. In Port Royal Sound was a small flotilla under Commodore Tattnall, and this, with the hind troops who garrisoned the forts, comprised the obstacles to the entrance of the expedition. These were soon removed. On the morning of the 7th [Nov. 1861] every thing Avas in readiness. Dupont s war-vessels moved in, and, making an elliptical course, poured upon the forts 2 a storm of shell that soon silenced them. Tatt- nalPs little fleet fled to the shelter of narrower waters ; the land troops under Generals Wright and Stevens went on shore and took possession, and the Con federates abandoned the region and hastened to the main. The National forces took possession of Beaufort and the surrounding islands which the white peo ple had abandoned, 3 and the last effort of the Confederates to defend them was at Port Royal Ferry, where, after a severe engagement [January 1, 1862], they were defeated and dispersed. Du- ^^ pont, meanwhile, had taken possession of _jjj% Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savan nah River, without opposition ; and at the close of 1861 the National authority was supreme over the coast islands, from Wassaw Sound to the North Edisto River, Avell up toward Charleston. At about the same time an ineffectual attempt was made to temporarily close the harbor of Charleston, as a part of the method of blockade, by sinking vessels laden with stones in its channels of ap- PORT ROYAL FERRY. 1 This storrn gave great hope of disaster to the National cause, among the Confederates, to whom the departure of the expedition was known. They declared that the elements were assist ing them. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," said a jubilant Richmond journal, and added, " So the winds of heaven fight for the good cause of Southern Independence. Let the Deborahs of the South sing a song of deliverance." 2 The work on Hilton Head was named Fort Walker, in honor of the Confederate " Secretary of "War; and that on Bay Point of Phillip s Island, Fort Beauregard, in honor of an insurgent leader. 3 The negroes, generally, remained, excepting those whose masters had compelled them to accompany them in their flight. Those who remained were soon organized into industrial com munities, and a large quantity of the valuable "Sea-Island Cotton," which the owners had not burnt on leaving, was secured. The faith of the slaves in the National government, and their belief that the invaders were their friends, and were to be their deliverers from bondage, were here first exhibited in a remarkable degree. They had been assured that the a Yankees," as all the inhabitants of the Free-labor States were called, were coming to steal them and sell them into 584 THE NATION. [1861. proach. 1 While the " stone fleet," as these vessels were called, was approach ing, a fearful conflagration laid a large portion of the city of Charleston in ruins. Let us now turn from the sea-coast, and observe the current of events at and near the National capital. The new organization of the Army of the Potomac, as we have observed, 2 was perfected at the middle of October. The Confederates, under Johnston, were yet lying in comparative inactivity near the field of their victory at Bull s Run, in July, 3 with the head-quarters of their leader at Centreville. Because of a lack of cavalry and adequate subsistence, Johnston had been compelled to lie idle, and see the army of his opponent grow immensely in the space of a few weeks. He knew it would be simple rashness to do as the shal low Beauregard desired, and attack the intrenched Nationals at Washington ; and because of the interference of Davis, as Confederate experts say, he had not the means for executing his favorite scheme of crossing the Potomac into Maryland, and taking the National capital in reverse. So for several months these principal armies of the combatants lay within thirty miles of each other, without coming into a general collision. The people on both sides became impatient of delay. In the hearts of the loyalists still burned the desire which had given to their lips the cry of " On to Richmond !" but the memory of the disasters at Bull s Run 4 made them circumspect and quiet. From time to time they were cheered by rumors and movements which promised an immediate advance. There were grand reviews, active drills, and sometimes skirmishes with the Confederates, whose audacity became amazing as the autumn advanced and the Nationals remained quiet. Their pickets approached within cannon-shot of Washington City, and for weeks they held Hanson s Hill, where their flag might be seen from the dome of the Capitol. We have observed 5 that the Confederate batteries blockaded the Potomac. So early as June [1861] the Navy Department had called the attention of the military authorities to the possibility and danger of such an event, but noth ing was done to prevent it until the close of September, when Confederate bat teries were planted along the Virginia shore of the stream. Preparations were then made by McClellan to act in conjunction with the gun-boats on the Potomac in removing these perilous obstructions, but his delays, and his failure to co-operate with the naval force at the proper moment, paralyzed all efforts, and that blockade, so disgraceful to the government, and especially to the great army near the capital, was continued until the Confederates voluntarily evacuated their position in front of Washington, in March following. worse bondage in Cuba; and horrible tales were told to them of the "Northerners," who were described as monsters intent upon killing them and burying them in the sand. But that simple people did not believe a word of these tales. They universally believed that the Lord had sent the " Yankees " to take them out of bondage ; and when our ships appeared, they were seen with little bundles of clothing on the shores, desiring to go on board. 1 The "stone fleet " was composed of twenty-five old vessels, chiefly whalers, which sailed from New England heavily laden with granite. These were sunken in the four channels, but Were soon removed by the currents or lost in quicksands, for their presence was scarcely percep tible after a few days. a Page 571. 8 Page 569. 4 Page 570. 6 Page 565. LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION 585 The Army of the Potomac was judiciously posted for offensive or defensive .measures from Budd s Ferry, >n the Lower Potomac, to Poolesville, near the Upper Potomac. As it increased in numbers, it needed more space on the Vir ginia side of the river than the narrow strip between the Potomac and the Confederate outposts. Measures were accordingly taken for pushing back the foe, and these resulted in skirmishes. One occurred near Lewinsville [Sept. 12,. 1861] between the National troops, under General W. F. Smith, and Confede rates, under Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, afterward the famous cavalry leader, in which the Nationals were victors. A little later [September 15] some Confed erates crossed the Potomac and attacked troops under Colonel J. "W. Geary, not far from Darnestown, in Maryland, and were repulsed. Emboldened by successes, the Nationals advanced, and at the middle of October they per manently occupied a line from Fairfax Court House well up toward Lees- burg. The Confederates retired from Munson s Hill [Sept. 28] and other .advanced posts, 1 and fell back to Ccntreville without firing a shot. Early in October some National troops crossed the Potomac at Harper s Ferry, 2 to seize some wheat at mills near there belonging to the Confederates. Menaced by approaching foes, they called for help. Colonel Geary led six hun dred men to their aid, and on the hills back of the village of Harper s Ferry, he had a severe contest [Oct. 16, 1861] with a superior force on his front and the heights near. He finally repulsed his foe, and the whole invading force recrossed the river into Maryland. This movement was speedily followed by a more important one. For some time the left wing of the Confederate army under General Evans had been lying at Leesburg, confronted by a considera ble National force under General Charles P. Stone, encamped between Conrad s and Edward s ferries, on the Upper Potomac. On being informed (errone ously) that the Confederates had left the vicinity of Leesburg, McClellan ordered General McCall to make a reconnoissance from Drainsville in that direction, and telegraphed to Stone to aid the movement by a feint indicative of an intention to cross with his whole force. This was done at both ferries, and a part of a Massachusetts regiment, under Colonel Devens, was ordered to Harrison s Island, in the Potomac, abreast of Ball s Bluff. A reserve of three thousand men, under Colonel E. D. Baker, a member of the National Senate, acting as brigadier, was held in readiness to cross promptly, if necessary. Misinformed concerning the position of the Confederates, and supposing McCall to be near to assist, if necessary, Stone ordered some Massachusetts troops, under Colonels Devens and Lee, to cross to the Virginia main from Har rison s Island. They found no foe between Ball s Bluff and Leesburg. But Evans was near in strong force, watching them, and at little past noon [Oct. 1 For several weeks the Confederate works on Munson s Hill had been looked upon with much respect, because of their apparently formidable character. They were really slight earth- structures, inclosing, by an irregular line around the brow of the hill, about four acres of ground, and the principal armament, which had inspired the greatest awe, consisted of one stove-pipe and two logs, the latter with a black disc painted on the middle of the sawed end of each, giving them the appearance, at a short distance, of the muzzles of 100-pounder Parrott guns! These "Quaker guns," like similar ones at Manassas, had for six weeks defied the Army of the Potomac. 3 Page 557. 586 THE NATION. [1861. 21, 1861] he assailed the invading troops, who had fallen back to the vicinity of Ball s Bluff. Baker had already been sent with reserves to Harrison s Island, clothed with discretionary power to withdraw the other troops, or re-enforce them. Supposing the force under McCall and others to be near, he concluded to go forward. On reaching the field, he took the chief command by virtue of his rank, and was soon afterward instantly killed. 1 His troops, unsupported, 2 were overwhelmed by a superior force, and pushed back in great disorder toward the bluff. They were driven down the declivity at twilight, where, unable to cross the swollen flood for want of transportation, they fought desperately a short time, when they were overpowered, and a large number were made prisoners. Many perished in trying to escape. 3 The entire National loss was full a thousand men, and two pieces of cannon. It was a disaster inexplicable to the public mind. An explanation was loudly called for, but the General-in-Chief declared that an inquiry " at that time would be injurious to the public service." It was stifled, and General Stone, whom McClellan at the time acquitted of all blame, 4 was afterward made a victim to appease the popular indignation. 5 1 Eye-witness said that a tall, red-haired man suddenly emerged from the smoke, and when within rive feet of Baker discharged into his body the contents of a self-cocking revolving pistol, and at the same moment a bullet pierced his skull just behind his ear. His death produced a profound sensation, and public honors were paid to his memory afterward. He was one of the most eloquent men in the National Senate. 2 McClellan had ordered McCall, the previous evening, to fall back to Drainsville. He neg lected to inform Stone of this order. Had he done so, Baker would have recalled the troops on the Virginia side, and the disaster at Ball s Bluff would have been prevented. 3 Only one large flat-boat was there, and that, with an overload of wounded and others, at the beginning of its first voyage, was riddled by bullets and sunk. The smaller vessels had dis appeared in the gloom, and there was no means of escape for the Unionists but by swimming. Some, attempting this, were shot in the water, others were drowned, and a few escaped. 4 On the evening of October 22, 1861, McClellan, who had gone to the head-quarters of Stone, telegraphed to the President, saying, "I have investigated this matter, and General Stone is without blame." 5 A hundred days after the battle, when General Stone, in command of about 12,000 men, was preparing to strike the Confederates under D. H. Hill, lying opposite his camp, he was arrested at midnight in "Wash ington City, by order of General McClellan, who directed him to be conveyed immediately to Fort Lafayette, near New York, then used as a prison for persons charged with treasonable acts. There he was kept in close confinement fifty-four days, when he was transferred to Fort Hamilton, near. He was released on the 16th of August, 1862, but for nearly a year afterward he was denied em ployment in the field. General Stone was never informed why he was arrested, and no charge FORT LAFAYETTE. of misconduct of any kind was ever officially made against him. He appears to have been made a scape-goat for the sins of his superiors. "Without any apparent cause, that faithful officer and zealous friend of the country was made to suffer, unjustly, the cruel suspicion of being a traitor For a full vindication of his loyalty, made upon evidence, see Los- sing s Pictorial History of the Civil War, ii. 146. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION 587 For the space of nearly two months after the disaster at Ball s Bluff, the public ear was daily teased with the unsatisfactory report : " All is quiet on the Potomac !" The roads leading toward the Confederate camps near Bull s Run were never in better condition. The entire autumn had been a magnifi cent one in Virginia. Regiment after regiment was rapidly swelling the ranks of the Army of the Potomac to the number of two hundred thousand men, thoroughly equipped and fairly disciplined, Avhile at no time did any reliable report make the number of the Confederate army over sixty thousand. Plain people wondered why so few, whom politicians called "ragamuffins" and a " mob," could so tightly hold the National capital in a state of siege, while so large a number of " the bravest and best men of the North " were in and around it. But what did plain people know about war? Therefore it was. that when, late in December, the " quiet on the Potomac " was slightly dis turbed by General E. O. C. Ord, who, with his brigade, fought a smaller number of Confederate foragers [Dec. 20, 1861], under J. E. B. Stewart, near Drainsville, and whipped them soundly, after a severe contest, the loyal people were delighted, for it gave them assurance that the Army of the Potomac was ready to fight bravely, whenever permitted to encounter the foe. While the friends of the government were anxiously waiting for the almost daily promised movement of the Grand Army toward Richmond as the year [1861] was drawing to a close, and hearts were growing sick with hope deferred, two events, each having an important bearing on the war, were in progress one directly affecting the issue, and the other affecting it incidentally, but powerfully. One was an expedition that made a permanent lodgment of the National power on the coast of North Carolina, and the other was inti mately connected with the foreign relations of the government. Let us first consider the last-mentioned event. We have already observed that the conspirators, at an early period of their operations, sent commissioners to Europe to seek recognition and aid from foreign governments. 1 Their employers soon perceived the incompetency of these men to serve their bad cause acceptably, and they commissioned James M. Mason- and John Slidell, 3 two of their ablest and most unscrupulous com peers, full " embassadors," the former accredited to the British government and the latter to the French government. These conspirators, each accom panied by a secretary, left Charleston in a blockade-runner on a stormy night [October 12, 1861] and proceeded to Cuba, where they took passage in the English steamer Trent for St. Thomas, intending to go from there in the regular packet to England. Off the northern coast of Cuba the Trent was intercepted [November 8] by the National war-steamer San Jacinto, Captain Charles Wilkes, 4 who took from the British vessel the two " embassadors " and their secretaries, and conveyed them in the San Jacinto to Boston harbor, where they were placed in Fort Warren, then used, like Fort Lafayette, 5 as a prison for political offenders. 1 Page 559. 2 Page 522. Page 335. 4 The commander of the South Sea Exploring Expedition, mentioned on page 476. 6 Page 586. 588 THE NATION. [1861. CHARLES WILKES. The act of Captain Wilkes was applauded by all loyal men, and was justified and commended by the Secretary of the Navy, who assured him that it had the " emphatic approval of the Department." It was in strict con formity to the British interpretation, theoretically and practically, of inter national law, but it was in violation of often uttered American principles in rela tion to the rights of neutrals princi ples for the maintenance of which the United States declared war against Great Britain in 1812. 1 With great inconsistency, the British government regarded it as a national insult, and, before any communication could be had with our government, made exten sive preparations for war, with the same unseemly haste which characterized it in procuring the Queen s proclamation of neutrality. 2 A peremptory demand was made for the delivery of Mason and Slidell, and, when the matter became a subject for calm discussion, that demand was complied with, not because it was made in a truculent spirit, but because fidelity to American principles required it. 3 The conspirators were delivered [January 1, 1862] on board the British gun-boat Rinaldo, in which they were conveyed to St. Thomas, where 1 Page JO 9. 2 Page 561. The British press and British speakers in the interest of the government, led by the London Times, indulged in the coarsest abuse of the government and loyal people of the United States. So urgent seemed the necessity for preparations for war, that on Sunday, the day after the arrival of the news of the "Trent outrage," as it was called, reached England, men were engaged in the Tower of London in packing 2,500 muskets to be sent to Canada. Orders were issued for a large increase in the naval squadrons on the Xorth American and "West India stations, and the great steam-packet Persia was taken from the mail service to be employed in cr.rrying troops to Canada. American securities were depressed, and fortunes were thereby made by wise persons, under the shadow of high places, who purchased and held them for a rise. The whole warlike movement w r as made to appear still more ridiculous, when our Secretary of State (William PI. Seward), with inimitable irony, offered [January 12, 1862] the use of the railway that extends through the United States ter ritory from Portland, Maine, into Canada, for the trans portation of British troops to be sent to fight us, the St. Lawrence at that winter season being frozen, and therefore useless as a channel for British transports. 3 The calm thoughtfulness of President Lincoln, in the midst of the storm of passion that pre vailed on the reception of the news of the capture of Mason and Slidell, was a salutary power. To the writer, who had an interview with him a few hours after the news reached Washington, he said: "I fear the traitors will prove to be white elephants. We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for insisting, by theory and practice, on the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done. If Great Britain shall now protest against the act, and demands their release, we must give them up, WILLIAM II. SEWAHD. 1861.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 589 they embarked for England. They were treated with merited contempt in Great Britain, and soon passed into obscurity. 1 This act of our government disappointed the hopes of the conspirators, for they expected great advantages to accrue to their cause by a war between Great Britain and our Republic. It silenced the arrogant pretensions of Great Britain concerning its right of search and of impressment, and made its hasty and belligerent actions in thr> premises appear like an extremely ridiculous farce. CHAPTER XVII THE CIVIL WAR. [18611865.] THE public mind was just becoming tranquil after the excitement caused by the " Trent affair," when its attention was keenly fixed on another expedi tion to the coast of North Carolina, already alluded to. The land and naval armaments of which it was composed were assembled in Hampton Roads early in January, 1862. It comprised over one hundred steam and sailing vessels (warriors and transports), and about sixteen thousand troops, mostly recruited in New England. Of this expedition General Ambrose E. Burnside was com- mander-in-chief, and the naval opera tions were intrusted to flag-officer Louis M. Goldsborough, then the commander of the North Atlantic Naval Squadron. Burnside s lieutenants were Generals Foster, Reno, and Parke, each in com mand of a brigade. The fleet was in two sections, in charge respectively of Commanders Rowan and Hazard. The expedition went to sea on the llth of January [1862]. Its destination had been kept a profound secret. This, like the other expeditions, encountered gales in the vicinity of stormy Cape Hatteras. Pamlico Sound and Roanoke Island was its destination, and it was several days before tb apologize for the act as a violation of our doctrines, and thus forever bind her over to keeptl> peace in relation to neutrals, and so acknowledge that she has been wrong for at least sixty yeara. ; This was the key to the admirable action of our government by the able Secretary of State. 1 " Already," said a leading Liverpool journal, on their arrival, "the seven weeks heroes have shrunk to their natural dimensions;" and the London Times, speaking of the demand made by the government, and of their release, spoke of them as "worthless booty," and said, " England would have done just as much for two negroes." A. E. BTJRXSIDE. 590 THE NATION. [1862. vessels, dispersed by the wind, had entered Hatteras Inlet. It was February before the expedition moved to an attack upon Roanoke Island, which the Confederates had. fortified. They had also obstructed the channels near it, and within these was a little flotilla of armed vessels, under the command of Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, who had abandoned his flag. The batteries planted at different points numbered about forty heavy guns, which had been taken from the Navy Yard at Gosport, 1 and were manned by North Carolina troops, under the chief command of Colonel H. M. Shaw. 2 Upon the principal one of these (Fort Bartow), Goldsborough opened fire toward noon of the 6th of February, and that night, in the midst of a cold storm of rain, about eleven thousand troops were landed. These moved early the next morning to attack intrenchments that stretched across the narrower part of the island, General Foster leading. The Confederates made a gallant defense, but were driven before the Nationals, who outnumbered them. 3 One after another of the other works yielded, the Confederate flotilla fled up Albemarle Sound, and Roanoke Island passed into the possession of the National forces. 4 This was the severest blow the Confederates had yet experienced. It exposed the entire main of North Carolina bordering on Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds to the National power, and opened a door of entrance to Norfolk in the rear. 5 The Confederate flotilla was followed [February 9] by Rowan, and in the Pasquotank River, near Elizabeth City, not far from the Dismal Swamp, it and land batteries were attacked by the National gun-boats. The vessels were abandoned, the batteries were silenced, and Lynch, with his men and the land troops, retired into the interior. The National flag was then planted on one of the shore batteries, and this was the portion of the main of North Carolina first " re-possessed " by the government. The conquest was followed by others for securing the control of the Sounds and the adjacent country ; and Burnside and Goldsborough jointly issued a proclamation [February 18, 1861] to the peaceable inhabitants, assuring them that the government forces were there as their friends and not as enemies, and inviting them to separate them selves from the rule of the conspirators and return to their allegiance. This was met by a savage counter-proclamation by the Governor of North Carolina, and the poor, oppressed people, who longed for deliverance, were held firmly under the yoke of the Confederate despotism. Here we will leave the National forces in the waters of North Carolina, preparing for other victories soon, and 1 Page 558. 2 General Henry A. "Wise had been the chief commander, but at this time he was on Nag s Head, a sand-spit outside of Roanoke Island, and reported ill. 8 In this attack a part of the Ninth New York (Hawkins s Zouaves), led by Major E. A. Kim- ball, made a gallant charge across a narrow causeway and drove the garrison from the redoubt. These, and portions of the Fifty-first New York and Twenty-first Massachusetts, entered the works at about the same time, and the colors of the Fifty-first were first planted on the battery. 4 The National loss incurred in the capture of Eoanoke Island was about 50 killed and 222 wounded. That of the Confederates was 143 killed, wounded, and missing. The spoils of vic tory were forty-two heavy guns, three being 100-pounders. 6 The disaster spread consternation throughout the Confederacy. Davis, in a communication to his "congress," casts reflections upon the Confederate troops engaged in the fight, but a com mittee of that body charged the loss of the island to the remissness of Benjamin, the " Secretary of War." 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 01 observe the course of military events in the Valley of the Mississippi. There we left Fremont s dispirited army marching toward St. Louis, 1 Southern and Western Kentucky in the hands of the Confederates, 2 and all Tennessee under the heel of their military power. Late in 1861, the Department of Missouri was enlarged, 3 and General H. W. Halleck, who had been called from California, was placed in command of it, and General Hunter was assigned to the command of the Department of Kansas. 4 General Don Carlos Buell was placed in charge of the Department of the Ohio, 5 and the Department of New Mexico was intrusted to Colonel E. R. S. Canby. Such were the military divisions of the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains at the close of 1861, when Halleck, with his head-quarters at St. Louis, was holding the secessionists and insurgents in check with a vigorous hand. General Pope was assigned to all the National troops between the Missouri and Osage Rivers, in which region Price had been gathering recruits, after Hunter s retrograde movement. 6 Detachments from Pope s army smote these banded recruits here and there ; and finally, at a bridge on the Black- water Creek, near Milford, Colonel Jeiferson C. Davis fought and captured about a thousand insurgents, 7 and secured as spoils nearly as many horses and mules, and a large quantity of munitions of war. By vigorous movements, Pope swept over the State west of Sedalia, toward Kansas, far enough to foil the attempt of organized recruits to join Price, and to compel that leader to withdraw, in search of subsistence and safety, to the borders of Arkansas. Late in December, Price, encouraged by promises of re-enforcements from Arkansas, concentrated about twelve thousand men at Springfield. Against these a strong force under General S. R. Curtis, assisted by Generals Asboth, Sigel, Davis, and Prentiss, moved in three columns early in February. Price fled with his army on the night of the 12th and 13th of that month, and did not halt until he reached a good position at Cross Hollows, in Northern Arkansas. He was driven a little farther south by the advance of the pursuing Curtis, and from near Pea Rid^e, in Arkansas, he O / reported to Governor Jackson that he was " confident of the future." "With s. R. CURTIS. 1 Page 576. 2 Pages 575 and 577. 3 It now included Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, "Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, and that portion of Kentucky lying west of the Cumberland River. 4 This included the State of Kansas, the Indian Territory west of Arkansas, and the Terri tories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota. 5 This included the State of Ohio and the portion of Kentucky lying eastward of the Cumber land River. 6 Page 576. 7 Among the captives was Colonel Magoffin, brother of the Governor of Kentucky. 592 THE NATION. [1862. equal confidence of the future, Halleck reported that he had purged Mis souri of armed insurgents, and that the flag of the Republic was waving in triumph over the soil of Arkansas. Curtis had crossed the line on the 1 8th of February, his soldiers cheering with delight as they saw the old banner waving in another of the so-called Confederate States. Curtis pushed on after Price, capturing squads of Missouri recruits, skir mishing with the rear-guard of the fugitives at several places, and finally driv ing the whole Confederate force over the range of hills known as the Boston Mountains. Then he fell back to Sugar Creek, not far from Bentonville, and encamped in a strong position. Price, meanwhile, had been joined by McCul- loch ; and early in March Earl Van Dorn, the Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and one of the most dashing and energetic offi cers in that region, arrived at his camp and took chief command. There, too^ he was joined by the notorious Albert Pike with a band of Indians, trained by him for savage warfare, 1 and these forces combined, almost twenty-five thousand strong, prepared to fall upon Curtis and drive him out of Arkansas. The force of the latter did not exceed eleven thousand men, with forty-nine pieces of artillery. Yan Dorn advanced so cautiously that Curtis was not aware of his approach until he was very near [March 5], when the latter concentrated his forces near Mottsville, a short distance from Pea Ridge, a spur of the Ozark Mountains. There, on the morning of the 7th of March, Van Dorn, who was assisted by Generals Price, McCulloch, Mclntosh, and Pike, having accomplished a flank movement, in which a part of his force had a sharp contest with some troops under Sigel, proceeded to attack Curtis s main body in the rear. The latter promptly changed front to meet him, and took the initiative of battle. The struggle that ensued was very severe, and resulted in the loss to the Confede rates of Generals McCulloch and Mclntosh, who were mortally wounded, and many brave soldiers on both sides. The battle was renewed the next morning, when the Confederates were soon routed, and Yan Dorn s army was so suddenly broken into fragments, and so scattered in its flight, that Curtis was puzzled to know which way to pursue. The victory for the Nationals was complete, but the spoils were few. 2 Curtis held the battle-field. Yan Dorn retired behind the mountains, and disappeared on the borders of the Indian country. At length the victor, perceiving no formidable foe in that region, moved leisurely toward the Mississippi River, in the direction of Helena. 1 Pike was a native of Boston, but long a resident in the Slave-labor States. He was com missioned by Governor Rector to organize the most savage of the Indian tribes (Choctaws and Chickasaws) on the borders of Arkansas. He raised two regiments, was commissioned a briga dier, and with them he joined the army of the conspirators. He dressed himself in gaudy cos tume, and wore a large plume on his head to please tho Indians ; and before the battle at Pea Ridge, it is said, lie maddened them with liquor, that they might allow the savage nature of their race to have unchecked development. In their fury they respected none of the usages of civi lized warfare, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to men tion. After the war this man was among the earliest of the most conspicuous rebels, who was " pardoned " (as relief from amenability to law was called) without trial by President Johnston. 3 Curtis lost 1,351 killed, wounded, and missing. Yan Dorn never reported his loss officially, but estimated it at about 600. The brunt of the strife fell upon the division of Colonel Carr, composed chiefly of Iowa and Missouri troops. He lost 701 men. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 593 While these events were occurring in Missouri and Arkansas, Hunter was busily engaged in suppressing rebellion on the borders of Kansas, and war was kindling in Canby s Department of Texas. 1 We have seen how Twiggs betrayed his army in the latter State ; 2 now the instruments of the conspira tors attempted similar measures for attaching New Mexico to the Confederacy. Colonel Loring, a North Carolinian, had been sent there for the purpose, in 1860, by Floyd, the traitorous Secretary of War. 3 He was made commander of the Department of New Mexico, and he employed Colonel George B. Crit- tenden, an unworthy son of Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, 4 to corrupt the troops in that region. He failed, and Loring and Crittenden were compelled to flee from the country to avoid the wrath of the loyal soldiery. The fugi tive officers found those of a garrison on the frontiers of Texas ready to aid them in their treasonable designs. By these the troops were led out from the fort and betrayed into the hands of Texas insurgents, when it was believed New Mexico Avould fall an easy prey to the Confederate power. Otero, the delegate of that Territory in Congress, was in practical complicity with the conspirators, and all seemed working well for their cause, when Canby 5 arrived and changed the aspect of affairs. The loyal people gathered around him. His regular troops, New Mexican levies, and volunteers, soon made a respecta ble force, and these were speedily called to action, for Major H. H. Sibley, a Louisianian, who had abandoned his flag, invaded the Territory at the middle of February with 2,300 Texans, most of them rough "Rangers," when Canby was at Fort Craig, on the Rio Grande. Near that post (at Yalverde), on the 21st of Febru ary [1862], Canby and Sibley had a battle. The former, defeated, fled to Fort Craig, but the latter, alarmed at Canby s developed strength, instead of following, hurried toward Santa Fe, the capital of the Territory. Can- by followed. Sibley captured but could not hold Santa Fe, and he was soon driven over the mountains into Texas. The area of the active rebellion now extended from Maryland to New Mexico, and was everywhere marked by vigor and terrible malevolence. Let us now sec what was further done to ward the execution of Fremont s plan for TEXAS RANGER. crushing the rebellion in the Mississippi Valley. 6 We have observed how the Confederates obtained a foothold in Southern and Western Kentucky. 7 Under the shadow of military power there, a con vention of secessionists was held [November 18, 1861], at which, with ludicrous gravity, a declaration of independence and an ordinance of secession were adopted, a provisional government was organized, and delegates were chosen 1 Page 591. 6 Page 591. Note 3, page 551. 3 Page 549. ft T- *> t* n 6 Page 576. 38 4 Note I, page 549. 7 Pages 575 and 576. 594 THE NATION. [1862. to the "Congress" of conspirators 1 at Richmond [Nov. 20, 1861]. Bowling Green, where Buckncr had made his head-quarters, 2 and where Albert Sidney Johnston, an able officer, who had abandoned his flag, was now in chief com mand, was made the capital of the new State. Meanwhile Johnston Avas con centrating troops there, and General Ilardee was called from Southwestern Missouri to supersede Buckner. The position of Polk, at Columbus, 3 was strengthened. Zollicofter 4 was firmly planted at the important Pass of Cum berland Gap a passage-way between Kentucky and East Tennessee and for tified posts were established between the extremes of the army, the most important of which were Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River, and Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River. In the mean time General Buell had organized a large force at Louisville. 5 These were thrown forward along the line of railway toward Bowling Green, 40,000 strong, under General A. McD. McCook, and pushed the Confederate outposts beyond the Green River. In the mean time stirring events had occurred in Eastern Kentucky, where, near Prestonburg, on the Big Sandy, General Garfield fought [January 7, 1862] insurgents under Humphrey Mar shall, and scattering them put an end to the military career of the latter leader. Farther westward a severe battle Avas fought [January 19], near Mill Spring, on the Cumberland River, between the Nationals, under General George H. Thomas, and Confederates led by Generals Zollicoffer and Crittenden. 6 In this engagement Thomas was victorious. Zollicoffer was killed, 7 and the Confede rates fled into Northeastern Tennessee through a country almost barren of sub sistence. The battle was fought desperately by both parties, for victory was specially desirable to both. It proved to be a great advantage to the winner, and disastrous to the cause of the loser, for it broke the Confederate line in Kentucky, 8 opened a door of deliverance for the East Tennesseeans, and pre pared the way for a series of successful operations by which, very soon after ward, the invaders were driven from both States. By order of the President, the Secretary of War said, in a public thanksgiving to the officers, " In the prompt and spirited movements and daring at Mill Spring, the nation will realize its hopes." 1 George "W. Johnson was chosen provisional governor, with a legislative council of ten, a treasurer, and an auditor. The farce of representing Kentucky in the Confederate Congress, now commenced, was kept up during the entire war. The people had no voice in their appointment, and of such usurpers a greater portion of the so-called " Confederate Congress " was continually composed. 2 Page 576. 3 Page 575. 4 Page 577. 6 General Buell had under his command, early in January, 1862, about 114.000 men, chiefly citizens of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and loyalists of Kentucky and Tennessee, with about 12G pieces of artillery. This force was arranged in four grand divisions, commanded respectively by Brigadier-Generals Alexander McDowell McCook, Ormsby M. Mitchel, George II. Thomas, and Thomas L. Crittenden, acting as major-generals, aided by twenty brigade commanders. These divisions occupied an irregular line across the State, nearly parallel to that held by the Confederates. c This was the Crittenden employed to corrupt the army in New Mexico. See page 593. 7 Thomas lost 247 men killed and wounded. The Confederate loss was 349, of whom 89 were prisoners. The spoils of victory for Thomas were considerable, including twelve pieces of artillery, many small arms, and more than a thousand horses and mules. 8 Page 577. 18G2.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 595 It was now determined to concentrate the forces of Halleck and Buell in a grand forward movement against the main bodies and fortifications of the Con federates. Thomas s victory at Mill Spring had so paralyzed that line east ward of Bowling Green, that it was practically shortened at least one-half, and the bulk of the Confederates and their chief fortifications were between Nashville and Bowling Green, and the Mississippi River. During the autumn and early winter a naval armament, pro jected by Fremont for service on that river, had been in preparation at St. Louis and Cairo, for co-operation with the western armies, and at the close of January [1862] it consisted of twelve , . H. W. HALLECK. gun-boats, carrying one hundred and twenty-six heavy cannon, and some lighter guns, the whole commanded by flag-officer A. II. Foote, of the National navy. Seven of these were covered with plates of iron, and were built wide, so that, on the still waters of the rivers, when attacking fortifications, their guns might have almost the steadi ness of those in land batteries. Some movements preliminary to the grand advance puzzled the Confede rates and perplexed loyal spectators. There were reconnoissances down both sides of the Mississippi River from Cairo, and Thomas feigned a march in force into East Tennessee. Meanwhile an expedition against Forts Henry and Don- elson 1 had been arranged. Halleck s troops, destined for the enterprise, were placed under the chief command of General U. S. Grant. Foote Avas sum moned to the Tennessee River with his flotilla of gun-boats, and at dawn on the 3d of February, 1862, he was up that stream a few miles below Fort Henry, and Grant s army was landing from transports near. At noon on the 6th the flotilla opened its guns on the fort. The army was then in motion to co-operate, but before it could reach the scene of action the post was in pos session of Foote, by surrender. The Confederate troops outside of the fort, panic-stricken > fled without firing a gun. The Commander (General Tilghman), and less than one hundred artillerists, had made a gallant defense, but were compelled to yield. This, and Fort Hieman, on the opposite side of the river, with all their armament, became spoils of victory 2 a victory most important in its immediate and more remote effects. It not only gave a formidable post into the possession of the Nationals, but it proved the efficiency of gun-boats on the narrow rivers of the West. The National troops were now firmly planted in the rear of Columbus, and there was nothing left to obstruct the 1 Pago 594. * The National loss was 2 killed and 38 wounded. Of the latter, 29 of them were wounded arid scalded on board the gun-boat Essex. Captain W. D. Porter, whose boiler was exploded by a shot that entered it. The Confederate loss, was five killed and ten wounded. 596 THE NATION. [1862. passage of gun-boats up the Tennessee to the fertile regions of Northern Ala bama, and carrying the flag of the Republic far toward the heart of the Con federacy. The fall of Fort Henry was followed by immediate preparations for an attack on Fort Donelson, a formidable work among the hills near the village of Dover, the capital of Stewart County, on the Cumberland River. The object was to reduce that stronghold, and then sweep over Tennessee with a large force into Northern Alabama. Foote had hurried back to Cairo to bring up his mortar-boats for the new enterprise, and Grant was equally active in pre- VIEW AT FORT DONELSON. 1 paring soldiers for the work. He reorganized his army into three divisions, commanded respectively by Generals John A. McClernand, C. F. Smith, and Lewis Wallace, and on the evening of the 12th [February, 1862] the divisions of the first two, which had moved from Fort Henry that morning, invested Fort Donelson, which was then in command of ex-Secretary Floyd, 2 assisted by Generals Pillow 3 and Buckner. 4 Early the next morning picket-skirmishing speedily developed into a general battle between the investing troops arid the 1 This is a view sketched by tho author in May, 1866, from the river-bank within the fort overlooking the mounds of the water-batteries below, and down the river to the place where Foote s gun-boats lay, here indicated by the little steamboat in the distance. Pages 549 and 574. 3 Page 566. * Page 565. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 597 garrison, 1 in which the former were beaten and fell back, 8 determined to wait for the arrival of Foote s flotilla, with which was coming a portion of Wallace s division. Wallace (who had been left at Fort Henry) was summoned to Fort Donelson by Grant, and at noon the next day he reported his whole division as on the field and ready for action. Meanwhile Foote s flotilla had arrived, but without the mortar-boats, and during the afternoon of the 14th it fought the water-batteries and guns from others bearing on the river with great gallantry, until the vessels were so much injured that they were withdrawn. 3 The night of the 14th was one of anxiety in both, camps. Foote hastened back to Cairo to have damages repaired and to bring up his mortar-boats, and Grant determined to wait for his return. The Confederates in the fort held a council of war, and resolved to make a sortie the next morning to rout or destroy the investing army, or to cut through it and escape to the open coun try in the direction of Nashville. The troops selected for this desperate measure, about ten thousand in number, were placed under Pillow and Buckner. Those led by the former were to strike McClernand on the right of the Na tional line, while Buckner should fall upon Wallace s division in the center. The movement was attempted. McClernand, sore pressed, called upon Wallace for aid. It was promptly given, and, after a desperate and gallant fight by all, the Confederates were driven back to their trenches. " I speak advisedly," wrote Hill- yer, Grant s aid-de-camp, to Wallace, the next day, with a pencil on a slip of paper, " God bless you ! You did save the day on the right." Meanwhile, Smith had been vigorously and suc cessfully striking the right of the Confederates, and when darkness fell at evening the National troops were victorious, the vanquished garrison were imprisoned within the lines, and their leaders were busied with endeavors to solve the important question, How shall we escape ? In a midnight conference, when it was found that they must surrender, Floyd and Pillow exhibited the greatest cowardice. Only Buckner acted like a man. The other two fled from the fort, 4 and left the latter to surrender it the next morning [February 16, 1862]. LEWIS WALLACE. 1 The Caronddet, Captain Walke, of Foote s flotilla, had gallantly contended with the water- batteries of the Fort. 2 There had been a great change in the weather, and the troops, not prepared for it, suffered terribly from intense cold, and a lack of clothing and tents. A little snow had fallen, and insuf ficient food and shelter made their sufferings most severe. 3 Never was a little squadron exposed to a more severe fire. Twenty heavy guns were trained upon it, those from the hillsides, on which the main works of the fort lay, hurling plung ing shot with awful precision and effect, when only twelve guns could reply. The four armored vessels in the fight (St. Louis, the flag-ship, Carondelet, Pitteburg, and Louisville) received in the aggregate no less than 141 wounds from the Confederate shot and shell, and lost 54 men killed and maimed. 4 The council of war was held at Pillow s head-quarters, in Dover. Between Floyd and Pillow there were criminations and recriminations, and each, fearing to fall into the hands of the Na tionals, seemed to think of little else than his personal safety. When it was decided that they 598 THE NATION. [1862. That was a happy Sabbath for the Union troops. They had won a most important victory for the National cause. 1 Intelligence of it filled the con spirators with despair, arid from that time no European court entertained serious thoughts of acknowledging the independence of the Confederate States, or recognizing them as a nation. 2 The victory produced great joy among the loyal people of the Republic. They and the government were satisfied that a withering blow had been given to the rebellion, and that henceforth its propor tions would be less, and its malignity not so dangerous to the life of the Republic. 3 When Fort Donelson fell, Kentucky and Missouri, and all of Northern and Middle Tennessee, were lost to the Confederates, and the more southern States, whose inhabitants expected to have the battles for their defense fought in the border Slave-labor States, were exposed to the inroads of the National armies. Johnston now clearly perceived that Bowling Green 4 and Columbus 5 were both untenable, and that the salvation of the Confederate troops at those places required their immediate evacuation. He issued orders accordingly. The troops at Bowling Green marched in haste to Nashville, followed by Buell, and at the same time National gun-boats moved up the Cumberland to Clarksville, to co-operate with the land troops from Fort Donelson, under would be compelled to surrender, Floyd quickly said; "Gentlemen, I cannot surrender; you know my position with the Federals [his treasonable acts while in Buchanan s cabinet] : it wouldn t do, it wouldn t do." Pillow, whose vanity made him over-estimate his importance, took a similar stand, and when Floyd offered to resign the command to him, he quickly replied: "I will not accept it I will never surrender myself or my command." While speaking-, lie turned toward Buckrier, who said: " I will accept, and share the fate of my command." Floyd and Pillow both stole away from the fort during the night, and saved themselves ; and an epigram matist of the day wrote concerning the former s infamous desertion of his troops, saying: "The thief is a coward by Nature s law; Who betrays the State, to no one is true ; And the brave foe at Fort Donelson saw Their light-fingered Floyd was light-footed too. 1 Buckner sent a flag of truce to ask upon what terms Grant would accept the surrender of the troops and post. Regarding them simply as rebels, Grant replied : " No terms other than an unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Buckner made a foolish reply, saying that he should feel impelled, notwithstanding "the brilliant success of the Confederate arms " the day before, " to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms " proposed. This was followed by the speedy surrender of the fort, with 13,500 men (including the sick and wounded) as prisoners of war, with 8,000 horses, 48 field pieces, 17 heavy guns, 20,000 muskets, and a great quantity of military stores. The National loss was estimated at 446 killed, 1,745 wounded, and 150 prisoners. 2 The ehief conspirators at Richmond received the intelligence with emotions of mingled dismay and anger. Following so close upon the fall of Roanoke Island (page 590), it greatly perplexed them. Notwithstanding Johnston tried to excuse the cowardice and perfidy of Pillow and Floyd, Davis ordered them to bo suspended from command. 8 At Fort Donelson was successfully begun that system of army mail service devised by Colonel (afterward General) A. 11. Markland, which was one of the wonders and among the most salutary measures of the war. "Within one hour after the troops began to march into Fort Donelson," General Grant wrote to the author, in July, 1866, "the mail was being distributed to them from the mail-wagons." Under the direction of Colonel Markland, this service was continued through out the war, linking the army with home, and keeping off that terrible home-sickness which so often prostrates the volunteer soldier, physically and morally. For months an average of two hundred and fifty thousand military letters were received at and sent from the post-office at the National capital, daily. * Page 576. 6 Page 575. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 599 General Smith, in movements against Nashville. Meanwhile, the panic in the latter place became fearful. The terrified Governor (Harris) fled, Johnston s army passed farther southward, and on the 26th of February Nashville w r as formally surrendered by the civil authorities and the National troops took possession. 1 Provision was at once made at Washington City for civil gov ernment in Tennessee, and Andrew Johnson was appointed Provisional Governor, with the military rank of Brigadier-General. He entered upon the duties of his office on the 4th of March, 1862, with the avowal that he should see to it that " intelligent and conscious treason in high places " should be punished. Another bloodless victory soon followed the evacuation of Nashville. It was the taking possession by National troops, without opposition, of Colum bus. Beauregard was then in command of the Department of Mississippi, and out-ranked Polk. The former, obedient to instructions from Richmond, ordered the latter to transfer his command, and as much of the munitions of war as possible, from Columbus to a safer place, when Polk went to New Madrid, Madrid Bend, and Island Number Ten, there to prepare for defense. ISLAND NUMBER TEN. Meanwhile Foote had moved down the Mississippi with a flotilla of gun-boats and transports, the latter bearing about two thousand men under General W. T. Sherman, and when they approached Columbus [March 4, 1862] they saw the National flag waving over its fortifications, having been planted there the evening before by a scouting party of Illinois troops, from Paducah. A garrison was left to hold the post, and Foote returned to Cairo to prepare for a siege of the new position of the Confederates, which the latter hoped to make impregnable. New Madrid, at a great bend in the river, with Island Number Ten, a few 1 Floyd and Pillow, who fled from Fort Donelson, were in command at Nashville, the order for their suspension not having yet reached head-quarters. As the Nationals approached they were again overcome with terror, when they fired the bridges over the Cumberland at Nashville, in defiance of the protests of the citizens, and scampered away southward by the light of the conflagration, leaving the more courageous Forrest with his cavalry to cover their inglorious flight. Floyd died miserably not long afterward, and Pillow sunk into merited obscurity. 00 THE NATION. [1862. miles above, was a thousand miles, by the current, from New Orleans, yet it was now regarded as the key to the Lower Mississippi. Its importance was per ceived by both parties. General McCown was placed in command there, and General Beauregard commanded in person at first on Island Number Ten. 1 They were there just in time to prevent the occupation of these places by the Nationals, for while Johnston was flying southward from Bowling Green, Gene ral Pope, dispatched from St. Louis [February 22] by General Halleck, was press ing toward New Madrid with Ohio and Illinois troops. He appeared before that post on the 3d of March, and found it occupied by McCown, supported by a Confederate flotilla of gun-boats under Captain Hollins. 2 He sent to Bird s Point 3 for siege-guns, and on the 13th [March, 1862] he opened a heavy fire on the Confederate works and Hollins s gun-boats. That night, during a violent thunder-storm, the Confederates evacuated New Madrid and retired to Island Number Ten, with a loss unknown. Pope lost fifty-one killed and wounded. Island Number Ten now became the chief objective of attack and defense. Beauregard had thoroughly fortified it. Pope desired to cross the Mississippi at New Madrid with his troops, and to march over Madrid Bend and attack the post, while Foote should assail it from the river. He begged the latter to allow gun-boats to run by and come to his aid, but Foote thought it too peri lous to do so, and while the navy was pounding away at the defenses of the Island, 4 Pope was chafing with impatience to do something to help the besiegers. At length he caused the execution of a plan suggested by General Schuyler Hamilton for flanking the Island. This was the cutting of a canal through a swamp, from the river above the Island to a bayou that flows into the Mississippi at New Madrid, below the Island. 5 Through this transports and gun-boats might pass. Perceiving this, and the peril threatened by it, the Confederates sunk steamers in the river to prevent the passage of vessels, and endeavored to flee from the Island. They were intercepted and captured by Pope s troops under Stanly, Hamilton, and Paine ; and Island Number Ten, with its batteries and supports, and over 7,000 prisoners, became the spoils of victory for Pope and Foote. 6 This was another severe blow to the Confede- 1 At about this time Beauregard sent out a proclamation to the planters of the Mississippi Valley, calling upon them to consecrate to the use of the Confederacy their church, plantation, and other bells, to be converted into cannon. There was a liberal response to the appeal, and the contributions were all sent to New Orleans. There they were found by General Butler, who sent them to Boston, where they were sold by auction and devoted to peaceful uses. 2 Page 582. 3 Page 566. 4 Foote began the siege on Sunday morning, the IGth of March, and opened upon the Confede rate works heavy shells from rifled guns and thirteen-inch mortars. " Island Number Ten," wrote Foote to the Secretary of the Navy on the 19th of March, " is harder to conquer than Colum bus, as the island shores are lined with forts, each fort commanding the one about it." 6 This canal was twelve miles in length, and was cut in the space of nineteen days, half the distance through a growth of heavy timber. The width of the canal through this timber was fifty feet, and in some places the trees were sawed off four feet under water. It was a wonderful monument to the engineering skill and indomitable perseverance of the Americans. On the night before its completion [April :>], Pope s wishes concerning the aid of gun-boats were partially gratified. The gallant Commander Walke performed the perilous feat of running by the batteries with the Oarondelet, at midnight, during a heavy thunder-storm. This, with steamers that came through the canal, enabled Pope to operate on the river below New Madrid, iu connection with Foote. 6 The number of prisoners taken by Foote and Pope together was 7,273, including three i862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION 601 rates, from which they never recovered. They almost despaired. It seemed probable that Memphis, one of their strongholds on the Mississippi, where they had .mmense workshops and armories, would soon share the fate of Co lumbus, and that the great river would be patroled by National gun-boats from Cairo to New Orleans, and the rich trans-Mississippi country be separated from the rest of the Confederacy. Panic prevailed all the way down to the Gulf, for already, as we have seen, Curtis had broken the power of the Con- ^ederates in Arkansas, 1 and a heavy force was making its way up the Tennes see River, in the direction of Alabama. Grant newly organized his forces after the capture of Fort Donelson, and made vigorous preparations for ascending the Tennessee from Fort Henry, where General Wallace was in command, and where head-quarters were tem porarily established. Immediately after the fall of Fort Henry 2 Grant had sent three gun-boats up the Ten nessee, under Lieutenant-Commander Phelps, who penetrated the country as far as Florence, in Alabama. Phelps reported the existence of much loyal feeling in that region, and this made the Unionists anxious to push on and occupy the country. That movement was now attempted. Corinth, on the Memphis and Charles ton railway, was the grand objective, the possession of which, with the rail ways running east and west, and north and south, and intersecting there, would give immense power to the army. Troops in large number were sent up the Tennessee in transports to Savannah and its vicinity, and some, under General Sherman, went much farther up the river. Finally, at the beginning of April [1862], the main body of Grant s army was encamped between Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh Meeting-House, eighteen or twenty miles from Corinth. At the latter place Beauregard had been for some time gathering an opposing force, and at the period in question General A. S. John ston was there, and in chief command. YVhile this movement up the Tennessee was occurring, General Buell s army was slowly making preparations to march southward, overland, and join Grant s at Savannah. He left Nashville late in March, leaving General Negley in com mand there. A part of his force, under the energetic General Mitchel, pushed rapidly southward, captured Huntsville [April 11], on the Memphis and Charleston railway, and secured control of that road for a hundred miles, generals and 273 field and company officers. The spoils of victory were nearly 20 batteries, with 123 cannon and mortars, the former ranging from 32 to 100-pounders; 7,000 small arms; many hundred horses and mules; an immense amount of ammunition, and four steamers afloat. 1 Page 592. 3 Page 595. U. S. GRANT. (502 THE NATION [1862. between Tuscumbia on the west and Stevenson on the east. Mitchel had thus placed his little array midway between Corinth and Nashville, opened commu nication with Buell, and controlled the navigation of the Tennessee for more than one hundred miles. His swift marches and his conquests had been accom plished without the loss of a single life. 1 Meanwhile very important events had occurred on the Tennessee River. The bulk of the National army, under Grant, was encamped, as we have observed, between Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh Meeting-House. 2 The division of Gen eral Lewis Wallace was stationed at Crump s Landing, below, to watch the movements of the Confederates west of the Tennessee in that region. On the memorable Sunday morning, the 6th of April [1862], the main army, lying near the river, stretched across the roads leading from Corinth to Pittsburg and Hamburg Landings, from the Snake Creek to the Lick Creek. It was com manded by Generals Sherman, McClernand, Prentiss, W. II. L. Wallace, and Hurlbut. At that time the Confederate forces under General A. S. Johnston, led by Generals Beauregard, Polk, Bragg, Hardee, and Breckcnridge, as prin cipal commanders, had advanced from Corinth to a point Avithin four miles of the National camp, without being discovered. Almost the first intimation given of their near approach Avas their vigorous attack, early on that beautiful spring morning, first upon Sherman, and then upon Prentiss, on his left. The columns of the latter Avere broken up, and the general and a larger portion of his men Avere captured. All day long the battle raged. Grant had come upon the field early from his head-quarters below, and directed the storm of conflict on the part of the Nationals as Avell as he could, but night found his army terribly smitten and pushed back to the verge of the Tennessee RiA^er, then full to the brim with a spring flood, and Beauregard, Avho had succeeded Johnston, slain on the field that day, telegraphing a shout of victory to his employers at Richmond. 3 One more blow, vigorously given, might have driven the Nationals into the turbulent Avaters, or caused their captivity. A blow was given, but so feebly, on account of prompt and effective responses by tAvo gun-boats (Tyler and Lexington], and some heavy guns hastily placed in battery, that the Nationals stood firm. 4 1 In a stirring address to his troops, Mitchel said: "You have struck blow after blow with a rapidity unparalleled. Stevenson fell, sixty miles to the east of Huntsville. Decatur and Tus cumbia have been in like manner seized, and are now occupied. In three days you have extended your front of operations more than one hundred miles, and your morning guns at Tuscumbia may now be heard by your comrades on the battle-field made glorious by their victory before Corinth." This address was on the 16th of April, when the battle of Shiloh. recorded in the text on the next page, had been fought and won by the Nationals. 2 Page 601. 3 The following is a copy of the dispatch, dated "Battle-field of Shiloh, April 6, 1862: We have this morning attacked the enemy in a strong position in front of Pittsburg, and after a severe battle often hours, thanks to Almighty God, gained a complete victory, driving the enemy from every position. The loss on both sides is heavy, including our comrnander-in-chief, Genera) Albert Sidney Johnston, who fell gallantly leading his troops into the thickest of the fight." 4 During a lull in the battle, toward evening, three light earthworks were thrown up, in semicircular form, half a mile back from the river-bluff, and twenty-two heavy guns were mounted on them. The gun-boats had been brought up to the mouth of a little creek that traverses a ravine at Pittsburg Landing, and up that hollow they hurled 7-inch shells and 64-pound shot in curves that caused them to drop into the midst of the Confederates. At nine o clock in tli6 evening the battle ceased. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 603 Buell had been slowly advancing to join Grant. His vanguard appeared on the opposite side of the Tennessee toward the evening of the day of battle. These crossed ; and all night long other battalions of Buell s army were com ing up the river. At midnight General Lewis Wallace, who had been ordered up from Crump s Landing, arrived with his division. Grant s army was now safe. The fruits of victory were snatched from Beauregard. Before sunrise next morning Wallace opened the contest anew on the Confederate left, where Beau- regard commanded in person. Others speedily co-operated, and again the bat- tie became general along the whole line. The Confederates were steadily pressed back by a superior force, all the while fighting most gallantly. They were pushed through and beyond the National camps seized by them on Sun day morning. Perceiving that all was lost, they fled, in the midst of a cold storm of rain and sleet, to the heights of Monterey, in the direction of Corinth, covered by a strong rear-guard under Breckenridge, 1 and there encamped. They had lost over 10,000 men in battle, and full 300 of the wounded died during that terrible re treat of nine miles. 2 Fif teen thousand of the Nationals were killed, wounded, and prisoners, and the hospital steamers that went down the Ten nessee were crowded with the sick and maimed. The slain troops were speedily buried, the dead horses were burned, and every sanitary precaution was observed. The Confederates were not pursued far in their flight ; and both parties, one on the battle-field and the other at Corinth, prepared for a renewal of the struggle. Beanregard s army was so shattered, that he sent an imploring cry from Corinth to Richmond for help. 3 The way seemed opened for his immediate destruction, and Grant was anxious to walk vigorously in it. But his superior, General Halleck, who now came from St. Louis [April 12] and took command BURNING HORSES ON SIIILOH BATTLE-GROUND. 1 Ilia force was about 12,000 men. Beauregard said to him, " This retreat must not bo a rout. You must hold the enemy back, if it requires the loss of your last man." 2 An eye-witness wrote : " I passed long wagon-trains rilled with wounded and dying sol diers, without even a blanket to shield them from the driving sleet and hail." Beauregard reported his loss at 1,728 killed, 8.012 wounded, and 957 missing total, 10,697 Grant reported his loss 1,7:15 killed, 7,882 wounded, and 3,956 prisoners total, 13,573. Subsequent statements show that the loss on each side was about 15,000. 3 He said he could not then muster more than 35,000 effective men, but that Earl Yan Dorn [see page 592] might join him in a few days with 15,000. He asked for re-enforcements, and said. "If defeated here we lose the Mississippi Valley, and probably our cause." This dis patch, written in cipher, General Mitchel intercepted at Huntsville, when he seized the telegraph office there. 604 THE NATION. [18G2. of the victorious army, thought otherwise, and the impatient troops loitered near Corinth until their foe had fully prepared for another contest. Twenty days after the battle, the Grand Army of Tennessee, as it was now called, moved [April 27] nine miles, and a week later [May 3d] it moved near to Corinth, making vigorous use all the while of pick-ax and spade. On that day troops under Generals Paine and Palmer pushed on to Farmino;ton, east of Corinth, and fought and conquered Confederates at an out-post there, but they in turn were driven back to their lines. For twenty-seven days longer the Nationals kept digging and piling the earth, in a siege of the Confederates, who were everyday growing stronger, and continually annoying the besiegers by sorties. Finally, on the 29th of May, the Confederates were expelled from their advanced batteries, and Halleck prepared for a sanguinary battle the next morning. All that night the vigilant ears of his sentinels heard the con tinuous roar of moving cars at Corinth, and their lips reported to their chief. At dawn [May 30] skirmishers were sent out, but no foe confronted them. Then the earth was shaken by a series of ex plosions, and dense smoke arose from the bosom of Corinth. "I cannot explain it," said Halleck to an inquiry made by Sherman, when told to "advance and feel the enemy." There was no enemy there to feel. Beauregard had evacuated Corinth during the night, burned and blew up what he could not carry away, and after an exciting flight before pur suers for a short distance, the ridiculous boaster 1 gathered his scattered troops at Tupelo, many miles southward of Corinth, and there left them (as he sup posed temporarily) in charge of Bragg, while he retired to Bladen Springs, in Alabama, to find repose and health. 2 Halleck took possession of Corinth, and shortly afterward he was called to Washington City, to perform the duties of General-in-Chief of all the armies of the Republic. Meanwhile there had been stirring events on the shores of the Mississippi. Soon after the capture of Xew Madrid and Island Number Ten, 3 Commodore Foote went down the river with his flotilla, and General Pope s army on P. G. T. HEAUEBGARD. 1 On the 8th of May Beauregard issued a pompous address to his army, then composed of his own and the forces of Tan Porn. " Shall we not drive back to Tennessee," he said, "the pre sumptuous mercenaries collected for our subjugation? One more manly effort, and, trusting in God and the justness of our cause, we shall recover more than we lately" lost. Let the sound of our victorious guns be re-echoed by those of Virginia on the historic battle-field at Yorktown." On that day the Confederates fled from Yorktown before McClellan s troops. 8 Jefferson Davis, whose will was now law, took this occasion to get rid of Beauregard. and put Bragg in permanent command of the army. He -passionately declared." said the Confede rate General Jordan, that Beauregard should not be reinstated, " though all the world should urge mm to the measure." 3 Page 599. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 605 A MORTAR-BOAT. transports, to attempt the capture of Memphis. At Fort Pillow, on the first Chickasaw bluffs, eighty miles above Memphis by the river, the expedition was confronted by a Confederate flotilla under Hollins, 1 and three thou sand troops under M. Jeff. Thompson. 2 The post was besieged by Foote on the 14th of April, with gun-boats and mortar-boats, while Pope s troops obeyed Ilalleck s call to Shiloli. The navy was left to do the work ; but there was no serious fighting until the 10th of May, when Hollins attacked the flotilla. A sharp fight ensued between the armored vessels, while the heavy guns of the fort assisted Hollins, but he was repulsed; and for more than a fortnight afterward the two flotillas lay watching each other. Then a " ram" squadron under Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr. 3 joined the National flotilla, and preparations were made for another battle, when, on the night of the 4th of June, the Confederates, having heard of the retreat of Beauregard from Corinth, fled from Fort Pillow, fleet and army, as fast as steam could carry them, and took position for the defense of Memphis. Commodore Davis (Foote s successor 4 ) followed, and in a very severe engagement with the Confederate flotilla in front of Memphis [June 6, 1862] was victorious. Thompson and his troops fled, and the National stand ard was soon seen floating in the air over the affrighted town. This event was soon followed by the entrance and occupation of the city by troops under General Wallace, fresh from the successful siege of Corinth. All Kentucky, Western Tennessee, and Northern Mississippi and Alabama, were now in the possession of the National authorities, and it was confidently expected that East Tennessee would almost immediately be in the same posi tion. When. Buell joined Mitchel, after the close of the siege of Corinth, the latter urged his superior to march directly into and occupy that region. But Buell would not consent, and various efforts which Mitchel had made, pre paratory to such an expedition, were rendered almost fruitless. His com manders had been keeping danger from his rear and making the foe on his front exceedingly circumspect. Negley, Turchin, Lytle, and others had been operating in the region of the railway between Decatur and Columbia; and the first-named had climbed over the mountains northeast of Stevensen, drove the 1 Pago 600. 2 Page 573. 3 This squadron had been suggested by Colonel Ellet, who was the eminent civil engineer who constructed the Niagara Suspension Bridge, and under his superintendence the rams had been built. They were river boats, some with stern wheels and some with side wheels, whose bows were strengthened by additions of heavy timber, and covered with plates of iron. 4 At the siege of Fort Donelson Commodore Foote s ankle had received a severe contusion from a piece of falling timber. It became so painful, that on the 9th of May he was compelled to withdraw from active service. On retiring, he left the command of the flotilla with Captain C. H. Davis. G06 THE NATION. [1862. Confederates before him near Jasper, and on the 7th of June [1862] appeared on the Tennessee River, opposite Chattanooga. With a little help, that key to East Tennessee and Northern Georgia might have been captured and held, but it was refused ; and ten days afterward, when the Confederates, without a struggle, evacuated Cumberland Gap, the " Gibraltar of the Mountains," and allowed General George W. Morgan, with a few Ohio and Kentucky troops, to occupy it, Buell refused to march in at the open door, to the relief of East Tennessee, and the persecuted inhabitants of that loyal region were compelled to wait much longer for deliverance. The cautious Buell and the fiery Mitchel 1 did not work well together, and the latter was transferred to another field of duty. For a short time now there was a lull in the storm of war westward of the Alleghanies, but it was only the calm before a more furious tempest. Let us now turn to a consideration of events on the coast of North Caro lina, where we left Burnside and the accompanying naval force, 2 preparing for more conquests. That expedition appeared in the Neuse River, below New Berne, on the evening of the 12th of March [1862], and early the next morning about fifteen thousand land troops went ashore, and marched toward the defenses of that city, Avhich were in charge of a force under General Branch. At daylight on the 14th the Nationals moved to the attack in three columns, commanded respectively by Generals Foster, Reno, and Parke, the gun-boats in the river, under Commodore Rowan, co-operating. A very severe battle ensued, in which the Nationals were conquerors. Pressed on all sides by a superior force, the Confederates fled from the field across the Trent, burning the bridges behind them, and escaped, with the exception of the killed and wounded and two hundred made prisoners. 3 The Nationals took posses- 1 With the sanction of General Buell, Mitchel sent out an important expedition toward the middle of April. It was composed of twent}--two picked men, led by ,T. J. Andrews, and their duty was to destroy the railway between Chattanooga and Atlanta. They went in detach ments to Marietta, in Georgia, where they joined, and at a station a few miles northward of that town they seized the train in which they were traveling, while the conductor and passengers were at breakfast, and started for Chattanooga, doing what damage they could to the road. They were pursued, and were finally so closely pressed that they abandoned the train and fled to the woods. Some escaped, some were captured, and nine of them, including Andrews, the leader, were hung. a Page 590. 3 The National loss was about one hundred killed and four hundred wounded. The loss of the Confederates, in killed and wounded, was less. The spoils of victory were important, con sisting of the town and harbor of New Berne ; eight batteries, mounting forty-six heavy guns ; three batteries of light artillery, of six guns each ; a number of sailing vessels ; wagons, horses, and mules; a large quantity of ammunition and army supplies; the entire camp equipage of the Confederates, and much turpentine, rosin, and cotton. Most of the white inhabitants fled to Goldsboro , on the Weldon Railway. ORMSBY M. MITCHEL. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. sion of the city of New Berne, and then proceeded to attempt the capture of Fort Macon, at the entrance to the harbor of Beaufort. The expedition was intrusted to the command of General Foster, who effected a lodgment on Bogue Island, a long sand-spit on which Fort Macon stands, and from bat teries which he planted there he began a bombardment of the fort on the morning of the 25th of April. Some gun-boats, under Commander Lockwood, participated in the attack. At four o clock in the afternoon the garrison gave tokens of submission, and early the next day the fort and its occupants were surrendered to the Nationals. 2 At the same time troops under General Reno were quietly taking possession of important places along the waters of Albe- marle Sound and threatening Norfolk in the rear. At a place called South Mills, near Camden Court House, Reno s troops encountered the Confederates in a sharp engagement, and defeated them. Winton, at the head of the Chowan ; Plymouth, at the mouth of the Roanoke, and Washington, at the head of the Pamlico River, were all seized and occupied by the National troops. Burnside now held almost undisputed sway over the coast region, from the Dismal Swamp nearly to the Cape Fear River, until called to the Virginia Peninsula, in July, to assist McClellan. While Burnside and Rowan were operating on the coast of North Carolina, Sherman and Dupont 3 were engaged in important movements on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, having for their first object the capture of Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur Island, near the mouth of the Savannah River. Bat teries were planted on Big Tybee Island, under the skillful direction of General Q. A. Gillmore, so as to command the fort; 4 and on the 10th of April [1862] 1 Burnside made his head-quarters at the fine old Stanley mansion in the suburbs of New Berne. Almost before the smoke of battle was dissipated, the Christian spirit of the friends of the government was made conspicuous in acts of benevolence. Vincent Colyer, a citizen of New York, and originator of the Christian Commission of the army, was with the expedition on an errand of mercy. Under the sanction of Burnside, lie dis tributed to the sick and wounded the generous contributions of the loyal citizens of the North, and assumed a fostering care of the poor and ignorant colored people, from whoso limbs the hand of the victor had just unloosed the shackles of hopeless slavery. He opened evening schools, and had over eight hundred eager pupils, when Edward Stanley, a North Carolinian, who had been appointed Military Governor of the State, making use of one of the barbarous slave-laws of that commonwealth, which made it " a criminal offense to teach the blacks to read," closed them. Stanley also made zealous ef forts to return fugitive slaves to their masters; and the hopes of that down-trodden race in that region, COLTER S HEAD-QUARTERS. which were so delightfully given in promises, were suddenly extinguished. Stanley s administration was happily a short one. 2 The fruits of the victory were the fort and five hundred prisoners, the command of the important harbor of Beaufort, twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder, and a large amount of other ordnance stores. 3 Page 582. 4 The planting of these batteries, all things considered, was a wonderful feat of engineering skill. The island is a marsh, and the armament had to be carried over it on causeways built with great labor. "No one," said Gillmore, in his report, "can form any but a faint conception of tho 08 THE NATION. [1862 General Hunter, then in command of the Department, summoned the garri son to surrender. It was refused, and thirty-six heavy rifled cannon and mortars, constituting eleven batteries, opened fire upon it. The bom bardment continued un til late the next day, when the fort was so shattered and its maga zines so exposed to fiery missiles, that it was un tenable. 1 On the morn ing of the 12th, the fort, with its garrison of three hundred men and considerable spoil, was surrendered to the Nationals. The battle had been a hard-fought but almost bloodless one. 2 The victory was important, for it enabled the Nationals to close the port of Savannah against blockade-runners. 3 While Gillmore and Viele were besieging Fort Pulaski, Commodore Dupont and General Wright were making easy conquests on the coast of Florida. They captured Fort Clinch, on the northern end of Amelia Island, early in February [1862], and this was the first of the old National fortifications " repossessed" by the government. The Confederates fled from the fort, and from the town of Fernandina near. They abandoned other forts along the coast in the same way, and the Nationals took possession of them. A flotilla of gun-boats and transports, with troops, under Lieutenant Thomas Holdup Stevens, was sent up the St. John s River to capture Jacksonville (March 11), and was successful. At about the same time Commander C. R. P. Rogers FORT PULASKI BREACHED. herculean labor by which mortars of eight nncl a half tons weight, and columbiads but a trifle lighter, were moved in the dead of night over a narrow causeway bordered by swamps on each side, and liable at any moment to be overturned and buried in the mud beyond reach. The causeways were built of poles and planks, and the guns were placed in battery on heavy plank platforms. 1 Ten of the guns of the fort were dismounted; and so destructive of masonry had been the Parrott projectiles, that there was imminent danger of their penetrating the magazine. Some of these projectiles went through six or seven feet of solid brick wall ! 2 The assailing troops were under the immediate command of General Yiele. Ho had but one man killed. The spoils were, the fort, forty-seven heavy guns, fort} - thousand pounds of gun powder, and a large supply of fixed ammunition and commissary stores. 3 We have seen [page 561] how the British government proclaimed its neutrality at the beginning. British subjects at once entered into the dishonorable business of violating the blockade, not only declared [page 5GO], but well sustained by force, and supplying the insurgents with arms, ammunition, and necessaries of every kind. Fast-sailing steamers were built for the dur- pose, and painted a gray color, so as not to be distinguished in even a light fog. They frequently eluded the blockaders, and rendered great service to the enemies of our government. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. took possession of St. Augustine ; and the Confederates abandoned Pensacola and the fortifications on the main opposite Fort Pickens. Dupont returned to Port Royal at the close of March, and found Sherman in possession of Edisto Island, well up toward Charleston. And so it was, that before the first anni versary of the fall of Fort Sumter, the whole Atlantic coast, from Cape Hat- teras to Perdido Bay, excepting the harbor of Charleston and its immediate surroundings, had been abandoned by the insurgents. Turning again to Hampton Roads, we see General Butler there at the head of another expedition. 1 He had completed his recruiting in New England, 2 and on the 23d of February [1862] he received orders, as commander of the Department of the Gulf, to co-operate with the navy, first in the capture of New Orleans and its approaches, and then in the reduction of Mobile, Galves- ton, and Baton Rouge, with the ultimate design of occupying Texas. On the 25th of February he sailed from Hampton Roads witli nearly 14,000 men; and thirty days later he re-embarked on Ship Island, off the coast of Missis sippi, in the Gulf of Mexico. It was already in possession of National troops, under General Phelps, and a naval force was there under Commodores Farragut and Bailey. With these officers Butler arranged a plan of operations against New Orleans. A fleet of bomb-vessels under Commander David D. Porter had been prepared to co-operate with the forces which rendezvoused at Ship Island, and early in April an extensive armament was in the Mississippi River, 3 prepared to attack Forts Jackson and St. Philip, on the banks of that stream, at a sharp bend, seventy-five miles above the passes of the river into the Gulf. General Mansfield Lovell, formerly a New York politician, was in command 1 at New Orleans and of its defenses, among which were the forts just named. 4 He and the people of that region sup- D D PORTER> posed these defenses to be impregnable, 5 and they rested in fancied security until late in April, when startling events undeceived them. All things were in readiness for an assault oh the forts on the 1 7th [April, 1862], and a battle with these fortifications began on the morning of the 18th, 1 Page 579. Pa?e 5go> 3 The fleets of Farragut and Porter comprised forty-seven armed vessels, eight of which were large and powerful steam sloops of war. Butler s troops, composed of Massachusetts, Connecti cut, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan men. were borne on five transports. 4 Fort Jackson was built by the government. Fort St. Philip was an old Spanish work, which figured somewhat in the war of 1812. They were near each other, on opposite sides of the river. The general command of these, and other river defenses below New Orleans, was intrusted to General J. R. Duncan, formerly an office-holder in the city of New York. 6 A leading newspaper said: "Our only fear is that the Northern invaders may not appear. "We have made such extensive preparations to receive them, that it were vexatious if their invin- 39 THE NATION. [1862. Farragut commanding the squadron of gun-boats, and Porter the mortar fleet, the former being the chief oflicer. Soon perceiving but little chance for redu cing the forts, Farragut made arrangements to run by them with his gun-boats. This was attempted on the night of the 23d, the mortar-boats keeping their position and covering the advance with their fire. It was a most perilous undertaking. Obstructions below the fort were first removed, and then, under the heavy fire of the Confederates, the squadron moved up the swift current (the Mississippi was full to the brim), and soon encountered a formidable fleet of rams and gun-boats lying just above the forts. One of the most terrific naval fights on record ensued, 1 in which Farragut and commanders Bailey and Boggs were most conspicuous. It resulted in victory for the Nationals. Within the space of an hour and a half after the National vessels left their anchorage, the forts were passed, the struggle had occurred, and eleven of the Confederate vessels, or nearly the whole of their fleet, were destroyed. 2 The National loss was thirty men killed, and not more than one hundred and twenty-five wounded. All of Farragut s vessels which had passed the forts, thirteen in number, rendezvoused at the Quarantine, which was the first gov ernment property in Louisiana "repossessed " by the National forces. While this desperate battle was raging, the land troops under Butler were preparing to perform their part in the drama. They were landed in the rear of Fort St. Philip, and in small boats they made their way to the Quarantine on the Mississippi [April 27] through narrow and shallow bayous. Their appearance alarmed the Confederates, and a mutiny in the garrison of Fort Jackson, caused by their menace, compelled the surrender of the forts. 3 Meanwhile Farragut had gone up to New Orleans with his fleet. He had been preceded by intelligence of disasters below, and there was a fearful panic in the city. Four millions of specie was sent away by the banks, and a vast amount of private property, with many citizens, was soon on the wing. cible armada escapes the fate we have in store for it." In and around New Orleans was a force of about 10,000 armed men. In order to deceive the people, it was given out by the authorities that there were more than 30,000 troops ready for the defense of the city; and the redoubtable Hollins was spoken of as "a Nelson in his way I" 1 "Combine," said Major Bell, of Butler s staff, who was present, "all that you have ever heard of thunder, and add to it all you have ever seen of lightning, and you have, perhaps, a conception of the scene." And all this noise and destruc tive energy blazing fire-rafts sent down upon the current to destroy the National vessels ; the floating volcanoes sending forth fire, and smoke, and bolts of death, and the thundering forts and ponderous rams were all crowded, in the gloom of night, within the space of a narrow river. * Among the vessels destroyed was the ram Manassas. which was set on RAM MANASSAS " ON FIRE. %*> * nd ^ ent ^ ^ down tiie stream. Finally, like a huge amphibious mon ster, it gave a plunge, and disappeared in the turbulent waters. 3 The number of prisoners, including some taken at the Quarantine, was about 1,000. The entire loss of the Nationals, from the beginning of this contest until the capture of New Orleans, was 40 killed and 177 wounded. 1862,] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 611 THE LEVEE AT NEW ORLEANS. Women were seen in the streets crying, "Burn the city! burn the city!" Vehicles were everywhere observed carrying cotton to the levee to be destroyed; and when, on the 25th, Farragut, with nine vessels, approached the town, a sheet of flame and pall of smoke, caused by the burning of cotton, sugar, and other property, was seen along the levee a distance of five miles. 1 The city was utterly defenseless. The troops had mostly fled, and Farragut held the rebellious citizens in check by the fear of his shells, 2 until the arrival of General Butler with his troops on the first of May. These were landed. The General made his head-quarters at the St. Charles Hotel, and there, in conference with the city authorities and some leading citizens, he foreshadowed a policy that proved effectual in maintaining order. By the most vigorous action the rebellious spirit of leading politicians was subdued, the refractory were punished, the poor were relieved, and the peaceful were protected. 3 The capture of New 1 More than a dozen large ships, some of them laden with cotton, and as many magnificent steam-boats, with unfinished gun-boats and other vessels, were seen in flames. In this confla gration no less than 15,000 bales of cotton, valued at $1,500,000, were consumed. 3 Captain Bailey was sent ashore with a flag to demand the surrender of the city, and the taking down of the Confederate flag from the government custom-house and mint. This was refused, when a force landed, and unfurled the National flag over the mint. As soon as the force retired, some young men, led by a notorious gambler named Mumford, pulled it down and dragged it in derision through the streets. When Butler, who arrived soon afterward and took command, heard of this, he wrote to the Secretary of War, saying: - ;i This outrage will be punished in such manner as in my judgment will caution both the perpetrators and abettors of the act, so that they shall fear the stripes if they do not reverence the stars of our banner." Mumford was afterward active in inciting a mob to violence, when he was arrested, tried for and convicted of treason by a court-martial, and hung. 3 The Mayor of the city, John T. Monroe, one of the most unworthy men of our time, was very refractory for a while, but, with all others like him, he was soon compelled to be quiet. Butler discovered a list of subscribers, composed of bankers, merchants, and other wealthy citi zens, to a fund for carrying on the rebellion. These he assessed for the benefit of the poor, to the amount of twenty-five per cent, on their subscription. Foolish women, of the wealthy and rebellious class, defied the military authority ; and one of these, with the low manners of the degraded of her sex, deliberately spat in the faces of two officers in the street. Forbearance was no longer a virtue, and Butler issued an order which effectually cured the growing evil. It pub licly directed the treatment of women, so acting, to be such as would be given to the abandoned of their sex.* This order, which was perverted and misrepresented, produced the most intense * The followins is a copy of the document called the " Woman Order" dated New Orleans Mav 15 1862: u General Order No. 28: " As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the \vomen (call ing themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter, when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall "be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation. " By command of Mai or- General BUTLER. "GEOEGB C. STEONG. Assistant Adjutant-General, Chief of Staffs 612 T II E N A T ION. [1862. GEO. B. M CLELLAN. Orleans was the heaviest blow the Confederacy had yet received, and for a while it staggered under its infliction. 1 Let us now return to a consideration of the Army of the Potomac, which we left in a quiet condition after the little flurry at Drainsville. At the beginning of 1862, when the Grand Army numbered full 200,000 men, the prospect of its advance seemed more remote than ever, for the fine autumn weather had been succeeded by storms and frost, and the roads were becoming wretched in Virginia. The people were impatient and the Presi dent was dissatisfied. He could get no satisfaction from the General-in-Chief (McClellan) when he inquired why that army did not move. He therefore summoned [January 10, 1862] Generals McDowell and Franklin to a conference with himself and cabinet, for lie had resolved that something must be done by the Army of the Potomac, either with or without the General-in-Chief. Other conferences were held, in which McClellan participated ; and in a gene ral order on the 27th of January, the President directed a simultaneous for ward movement of all the " hind and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces." This order sent a thrill of joy through every loyal heart. It was heightened by another order, directing McClellan to form all of the disposable forces of the army, after providing for the safety of Wash ington, into an expedition for operating against the Confederates at Manassas. But the General-in-Chief had other plans, and, instead of obeying, he remon strated. He proposed to take his army to Richmond, by way of the Chesa peake Bay and the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, instead of falling upon the Confederates at Manassas. Discussion followed. A council of officers decided in favor of McClellan s plan. The President dissented from their views, but acquiesced in their decision. Orders were issued for the move ment. Still there was delay, and finally, on the 8th of March, the Executive issued an order for the army to advance by the Chesapeake as early as the 18th of that month. At that moment events were occurring which caused a material modifica tion of the plans of the General-in-Chief. The Confederates suddenly evacuated Manassas [March 8 and 9] and hastened toward Richmond. The Army of the excitement throughout the Confederacy, and Davis issued a proclamation of outlawry against Butler. 1 " It annihilated us in Louisiana," said a Confederate historian of the war, " diminished our resources and supplies by the loss of one of the greatest grain and cattle countries within the limits of the Confederacy, gave to the enemy the Mississippi River, with all its means of naviga tion, for a base of operations, and finally led, by plain and irresistible conclusion, to our virtual abandonment of the great and fruitful Valley of the Mississippi." 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. Potomac followed as far as the deserted post, and some cavalry a little beyond ; and the loyal people rejoiced because the march on Richmond had begun. They were instantly disappointed. The whole Grand Army of the Potomac was ordered back, and the few Confederates w T ho had been keeping it in check for months 1 were allowed to make their way peacefully to Richmond, and there prepare to hold that grand army in check for many months at another point. The government was now satisfied that the burden of care which had been laid upon the General-in-Chief was greater than he was able to bear, and the President kindly relieved him [March 11, 1862] of much of it, by dividing the great labor of command, and leaving in McClellan s charge only the Army of the Potomac. 2 The evacuation of Manassas was simultaneous with the sudden appearance of a new naval power in Hampton Roads, the operations of which formed one of the causes for a modification of McClellan s plans for moving against Richmond. It was the notable iron gun-boat culled the Monitor, constructed on a novel plan for oifensive and defensive war. It was then known that the Merrimack, sunk at Norfolk, 4 had been raised and converted into a formidable iron-clad warrior. Its speedy appearance in Hampton Roads was expected, and dreaded, because it would greatly imperil the wooden vessels of the government there. On the 8th of March it suddenly made its appearance. It moved directly upon the sailing frigates Congress and Cum berland, at the mouth of the James River, and destroyed them. It also attacked other armed vessels, and then seemed to take a little rest for the task of utterly destroying the warriors and transports in Hampton Roads on. the following morning. The intervening night was consequently passed in great anxiety by the National commanders on land and water in that region. There seemed to be no competent human agency to avert the threatened disasters, 1 Johnston, informed of the strength of the Army of the Potomac, was satisfied that he could not withstand its advance, and had been preparing for the evacuation for several weeks, but with such skill that McClellan was not aware of it. This was necessary, for his troops were so few that he could not form a respectable rear-guard to cover his retreat, with his supplies. Wooden guns took the place of some of his heavy ones at Manassas, when his ordnance was sent away. So well had Johnston managed to deceive McClellan as to his force, that on the day when he evacuated Manassas. the chief of McClellan s secret service corps reported 98,000 Confede rate soldiers "within twenty miles of Manassas." and a total of 115.000 in Virginia, with 300 field-pieces, and twenty-six to thirty siege-guns -before "Washington." At the same time Gen eral Wool, at Fortress Monroe, and General AVadsworth, back of Arlington Heights, gave the government (what were subsequently proven to be truthful) statements, from reliable information, that not over 50,000 troops were then in front of the Army of the Potomac, The actual number seems to have been but 40,000. 2 By the President s order, dated March 11, 1862, General McClellan was relieved of the com mand of other military departments. To General Halleck was given the, command of the troops in the Valley of the Mississippi and westward of the longitude of Knoxville, in Tennessee ; and a Mountain Department, consisting of the region between Halleck and McClellan, was created, and placed in charge of General Fremont. The commanders of departments were ordered to report directly to the Secretary of War. 3 This vessel presented the appearance on the water of a simple platform, sharp at each end, lying just above the surface, on which was a round revolving iron Martello tower, twenty feet in diameter and ten feet in height above the deck, and pierced for two guns. This turret, or tower, was made to revolve, so that the guns could be brought to bear independent of the position of the hull of the vessel. The hull ,an.d turret were of heavy iron, and impervious to shot and shell. This vessel was the invention of Captain John Ericsson, a scientific Swede, who had then been a resident of this country full twenty years. 4 Page 558. 614 THE NATION. [1862. when, at a little past midnight [March 9, 1862], a mysterious thing came in from the sea between the capes of Virginia, lighted on its way by the blazing Congress. 1 It was the Monitor on its trial trip, commanded by Lieutenant John L. Worden. 2 That gallant officer was soon made acquainted with the situation, and prepared to meet the devouring monster in the morning. Before sunrise, on that beautiful Sabbath day, it came sweeping down the Elizabeth River. The Monitor, like a little David, hastened to meet the Confederate Goliath. As it drew near, its invulnerable citadel began to move, and from it were hurled ponderous shot in quick succession. These were answered by broadsides from the M&rrimack. The combat was terrible. From the turret COMBAT BETWEEN THE MONITOR AND MERRIMACK. and deck of the Monitor heavy round shot and conical bolts glanced off as pebbles would fly from contact with solid granite. The Merrimack was finally disabled by its mysterious antagonist, and fled up to Norfolk. 3 The safe navi gation of Hampton Roads, and, to some extent, that of the James River, was secured to the National vessels. The event produced joy in every loyal heart, and Ericsson, the inventor, and Worden, the commander, shared in the public gratitude. 4 Impressed with the belief that the navigation of the James River was now 1 The Cumberland was sunk and the Congress was set on fire by the M&rrimack. The maga zine of the latter exploded, and destroyed what was left of her by the flames. Nearly one-half of the officers and crews of both vessels were killed or wounded. Of the 434 men of the Congress, only one-half responded to their names the next morning at Newport-Newce. The dead were buried at that place, and their remains are among those of scores of Union soldiers. On a board, in the form of a cross, at the head of one of the latter, whose name and history are unknown, might have been read in 1866 one of the most touching and poetical epitaphs ever inscribed. It read: "A SOLDIER OF THE UNION MUSTERED OUT." 2 Note 1, page 581. 3 Franklin Buchanan, a veteran officer of the National navy, who had abandoned his flag, was the commander of the Merrimack (which the Confederates named Virginia), and was so badly wounded in the engagement that he was unfitted for service for some time. 4 Worden was severely injured during the engagement. In the turret of the Monitor was a small peep-hole, out of which the commander might see how to direct the turning of it, so as to bring the guns properly to bear. "While "Worden was looking through this, a heavy shot struck squarely in front of the peep-hole, shivering some cement there and casting it violently into the face and 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. free for the National gun-boats, McClellan, in accordance with the decision of a council of officers [March 13], proceeded to transfer the Army of the Potomac to Fortress Monroe, from which, as a base, it might march on Richmond. It was important for the security of Washington City, at the same time, to hold the Confederates in check in the Shenandoah Valley. Already the dashing General Lander, by a successful attack on " Stonewall Jackson " T at Blooming Gap [February 14, 1862], had made that leader circumspect. Now General K P. Banks was in command in the Valley. When Johnston evacuated Manassas, Jackson, who had taken post at Winchester, moved farther up the Valley, followed by some of Banks s troops. The latter fell back, and a con siderable force under General Shields took post at Winchester. Jackson returned, and at Kernstown, near Winchester, he and Shields had a severe eno-ao-ement on the 22d of March, 2 at the close of which the defeated Confede- ^ ^ T rates went in swift retreat up the Valley, followed far by Banks, who remained in that region to watch the foe, while McClellan should move on Richmond by way of the Virginia Peninsula. At the beginning of April McClellan was at Fortress Monroe, and began his march [April 5] up the Peninsula, with fifty thousand men, in two columns, led respectively by Generals Heintzelmair and Keyes, one in the direction of Yorktown and the other toward Warwick Court House, nearer the James River. The Confederates, under Magruder, 4 about eleven thousand strong, were stretched across McClellan s path, from the York to the James, and by a skillful and deceptive display of strength in numbers, kept the Army of the Potomac before them (which speedily numbered one hundred thousand men) at bay for a month, 5 its leader calling earnestly for re-enforcements to enable him to move forward. He closely besieged his foes at Yorktown, and when the latter perceived that it was no longer prudent to remain, they fled up the Peninsula [May -3, 1862] and made a stand behind a strong line of works in front of Williamsburg. The bulk of the National army pursued, under the directions of General Sunnier, while McClellan remained at Yorktown, to superintend the forwarding of an expedition up the York River, under General Franklin, to flank the Confederates. eyes of the commander. The shock was so great that the persons in the turret were prostrated. Only AVorden was seriously hurt. For several days afterward his life was in great peril. He recovered, and did gallant service afterward on the Southern coast. 1 Thomas J. Jackson, who became one of the most renowned of the Confederate leaders, was in command of a brigade at the battle of Bull s Run, where his men gallantly withstood all assaults. "See!" exclaimed another leader (General Bee), when trying to rally panic-stricken troops, "there stands Jackson like a stone wall!" The latter was ever afterward called "Stone wall Jackson," and his troops the "Stonewall Brigade." 2 Shields reported his loss at nearly 600 men, of whom 103 were killed. Jackson s loss was over 1,000. It was estimated at 1,500 by Shields. 3 In Heint/elman s column were the divisions of Fitz-John Porter, Hamilton, and Sedgwick; and with Keyes were the divisions of Generals Couch and "W. F. Smith. 4 Page 562. 6 The tedious operations of a regular siege, by casting up intrenchments, were under the direction of General Porter. Frequent skirmishes occurred during the siege, but only one that had the semblance of a battle. That was on the 16th of April, when General Smith attacked the Confederates on the Warwick River, between the mills of Lee and Winn. He was repulsed, with the loss of one hundred men on his part and of seventy-five on the part of his foe. McClel lan s army suffered much from sickness during the month s detention in that swampy region. 616 THE NATION. [1862. The works in front of Williamsburg were strong, extending across that narrowest part of the Peninsula from estuaries of the York and James Rivers. There the Confederate leader left a strong rear-guard to check the pursuers, while the main body (a greater portion of which had not been below Williams- burg), then under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, who had come down from Richmond, should retreat up the Peninsula. Johnston s intention was to concentrate all his troops near Rich mond, and then give battle. The pur suing force, after their advance under General Stoneman had been checked in front of the Confederate works, pushed boldly up to attack them under such leaders as Hooker, Kearney, and Han cock, who were conspicuous on that occa sion. Hooker began the assault early on the morning of the 6th [May, 1862], and bore the brunt of battle almost nine JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. consecutive hours, when Kearney came to his assistance, and Hancock turned the left of the Confederates. The latter, overpowered, retreated, and such was their haste, that they left nearly eight hundred of their wounded behind. 1 McClellan came upon the battle-field toward the close of the engagement, and the next morning he sent tidings of the victory to the government from the ancient capital of Virginia. Johnston was then pressing on toward the Chick- ahominy, with fearful anticipation of disaster if again struck in his retreat by the Nationals; but the pursuit there ended, and McClellan s army, during the succeeding ten or fifteen days, made its wny leisurely to the Chickahominy, behind which Johnston was then safely encamped/ 2 In the mean time Frank lin s expedition, too long held at Yorktown by the Commander-in-Chief to win the advantages of a flank movement, had secured a strong footing near the head of the York River, and there, on the bank of the Pamunkey River, Gene- ral McClellan established his base of supplies for the Army of the Potomac. On the 20th of May [1862], McClellan s army was on the borders of the Chickahominy River, and a portion of it, under General Casey, occupied the heights on the Richmond side of the stream, on the New Kent road. In the mean time important events had occurred in the rear of the Army of the Poto- 1 So vigorous was the assault of Hooker, that Johnston sent back a greater part of his force to the assistance- of his rear-guard. The final retreat was made under the lead of General Long- street, one of the best of the Confederate generals. 2 On the evening after the battle, McClellan telegraphed to the Secretary of "War that the Con federates were before him in force probably greater than his own, and strongly intrenched, and assured the Secretary that he should "run the risk of holding them in check there." At that time Johnston s 30,000 men were fleeing as rapidly as possible toward the Chickahominy before McClellan s victorious 100,000 men. Experts on both sides declared that had the pursuit been continued, in the morning after the battle at Williamsburg, the National army might have crushed that of the Confederates, or followed them directly into Richmond. 1802.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION, 617 mac. General Wool, 1 in command at Fortress Monroe, had long desired to attempt the capture of Norfolk. Permission was at length given him by the President and Secretary of War. 2 With a few regiments he landed [May 10, 1862] in the rear of the Confederate works below Norfolk, and marched tri umphantly toward the city. The Confederate forces there, under General Hu^er, destroyed the MerrimacJcf and fled toward Petersburg and Richmond. Norfolk was surrendered to Wool by the civil authorities. The Confederate vessels of war in the James River fled up toward Richmond, and were followed by National gun-boats, under Commodore Rogers, to Drewry s Bluff, eight miles below the capital of the Confederates, where they were checked [May 15] by a strong fort. Important events had also been occurring in the Shenandoah Valley and the adjacent region. At about the time of the siege of Yorktown, General Fremont was at Franklin, among the mountains of Western Virginia. Gene ral Banks was at Strasburg, in the Shenandoah Valley, and General McDowell was at Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock, for the double purpose of cover ing Washington and co-operating with McClellan. Jackson had been joined by the skillful Ewell, in the vicinity of Harrisonburg. Other troops were near, and lie was watching Banks closely. At McDowell [May 8], west of Staunton, he struck one of Fremont s brigades, under General Milroy, a severe blow, while Ewell pressed Banks back to Strasburg. Jackson and Ewell soon after ward captured and dispersed [May 23] a National force under Colonel Kenly, at Front Royal, and sent Banks flying down the Shenandoah Valley from Strasburg, hotly pursued to Winchester. There Ewell attacked him [May 25], and after a severe contest he continued his flight to the banks of the Potomac, near Wil- liamsport. The National capital was now in peril, and McDowell was ordered to send a large force over the Blue Ridge, to intercept the Confederates, if they should retreat, while Fremont should march on Strasburg from the west, for the same purpose. Jackson perceived his peril, and his whole force fled up the valley in time to elude the troops on their flank. Fremont pursued them up the main valley, and Shields, with a considerable force, marched rapidly up the parallel Luray Valley. At a place called Cross Keys, near Harrisonburg, Fremont overtook Ewell, when a severe but undecisive battle ensued [June 7]. Jackson was then at Port Republic, a few T. J. JACKSOX, miles distant, sorely pressed by Generals Carroll and Tyler, to his aid. The latter moved off in the ni^ht. (1 Ewell Fremont followed ; but Ewell 1 Page 413, and note 5, page 579. 2 Wool s command was not under the direction of McClellan. one so long as that veteran was at the head of that department. 8 Page 614. It remained an independent THE NATION. [1862. managed to cross the Shenandoah and burn the bridge behind him before Fre mont could reach that stream. Meanwhile Jackson s assailants had been repulsed, and on the 9th of June the whole National army on the Shenandoah retraced their steps. So ended the second great race of the National and Con federate troops in the Shenandoah Valley. When Rogers went up to Drewry s Bluff, 1 the James and York Rivers were both opened as highways for supplies for the Army of the Potomac. McClellan determined to continue his base at the head of York, until he should form a junction with McDowell. That event was postponed by others in the Shenandoah Valley, just recorded, and the two great armies stood face to face near Richmond toward the close of May, with little expectation of aid from their respective comrades in that Valley. Their first collision was on the 23d, near Mechanicsville, when the Confederates were driven, and the army and loyal people were thrilled by a general order issued by McClellan the next day, which indicated an immediate advance upon Richmond. Every thing was in readiness for the movement, and the Confederates were trembling: in O anticipation of it. 2 McClellan hesitated, and the golden moments of opportu nity were spent in flank movements, which resulted in severe struggles, that were fruitless of good to the National army. 3 The skillful and vigilant Johnston, soon perceiving the perilous position of the National forces, divided by the fickle Chickahominy, 4 and the timidity of their chief, marched boldly out from his strong intreiichments before Rich mond to attack them. On the afternoon of the 31st [May, 1862], a heavy force of the Confederates fell furiously upon the most advanced National troops, under General Casey, and a sanguinary battle ensued. Casey fought his foe most gallantly, until one-third of his division was disabled, and he was 1 Page 617. 2 The appearance of Rogers s flotilla before Drewry s Bluff simultaneously with McClellan s advance toward the Chickahominy produced the greatest consternation in Richmond, especially among the conspirators. Davis, their chief, almost despaired, and the general expectation that the National forces would speedily march into Richmond, caused the chief leaders to make preparations for flight. The "archives of the government," so called, were sent to Columbia, South Carolina, and to Lynchburg. The railway tracks over the bridges at Richmond were covered with planks, so as to facilitate the passage of artillery, and every man who was active in the rebellion trembled with fear. The Legislature of Virginia, then in session, disgusted with the cowardice and perfidy of Davis and his chief associates in crime, passed resolutions calling upon them to act with manliness and honor, and to stay and protect at all hazards the people they had betrayed. This action, it is believed, was inspired by the manly Johnston, then at the head of the army, whose virtues were a standing rebuke to the cold selfishness of the chief con spirator. 3 The troops engaged were regular cavalry under General Emory ; Benson s horse-battery ; MorreU s division, composed of the brigades of Martindale, Butterfield, and McQuade, and Ber- dan s sharp-shooters; three batteries under Captain Griffin, and a "provisional brigade," under Colonel G. K. "Warren, in support. Their first encounter was near Hanover Court House [May 27], when a charge by Butterfield s brigade dispersed the Confederates. At the same time Gen eral Martindale was contending with fresh troops that came up from Richmond, and attacked him while moving between Peake s Station and Hanover Court House. Porter sent assistance to Martindale, when the Confederates, outnumbered, fell back, with a loss of 200 men dead on the field, and 700 made prisoners. The National loss was 350. 4 The Chickahominy River is a narrow stream, and liable to a sudden and great increase of volume and overflow of its banks by rains. For this reason it might, in a few hours, become an impassable barrier between bodies of troops where bridges did not exist. In this instance the Confederates had destroyed the bridges. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. driven back by an overwhelming force. Troops sent to his aid by Keyes could not withstand the pressure, and all were driven back to Fair Oaks Sta tion, on the Richmond and York River Railway, where the struggle continued. Heintzelman and Kearney pressed forward with re-enforcements, but fresh Confederates were there to meet them, and it seemed at one time as if the whole of the National forces on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy were doomed to destruction. At that critical moment the veteran General Sumner appeared, with the divisions of Sedgwick and Richardson, and checked the Confederate advance by a storm of canister-shot from twenty-four guns. But they soon pressed forward again and fought gallantly, notwithstanding John ston, their chief, who was directing the battle, was severely wounded and borne away. Finally, at eight o clock in the evening, a bayonet charge by five regiments broke the Confederate line into dire confusion. The contest was renewed in the morning [June l], and after a struggle for several hours, in which Hooker s command also was engaged, the Confederates withdrew, and retired to Richmond that night. So ended the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines. For nearly a month after this the Army of the Potomac lay along the Chickahominy, a few miles from Richmond, in a very unhealthful situation, quietly besieging the Confederate capital. Robert E. Lee 1 succeeded John ston, and he was joined by Jackson and Ewell, with a force so considerable that he prepared to strike McClellan a deadly blow. Fifteen hundred of his cavalry, under J. E. B. Stewart, 2 made a complete circuit of the Army of the Potomac at the middle of June, threatening its supplies at the White House, 3 near the head of York River, and gaining valuable information. Meantime the public expectation was kept on the alert by frequent assurances that the decisive battle would be fought "to-morrow." For that purpose re-enforce ments were called for, and sent ; yet the cautious commander hesitated until Lee made a movement which compelled him to take a defensive position, and prepare to abandon the siege and retreat to the James River. That movement was made on the 26th of June. Jackson, with a considerable force, marched from Hanover Court House to turn McClellan s right, and fall upon his com munications with his supplies at the White House ; and at the same time a heavier force, under Generals Longstreet and D. H. and A. P. Hill, crossed the Chickahominy near Mechanicsville, and assailed the National right wing, com manded by General Fitz John Porter. A terrific battle ensued near Ellison s 1 Page 564. a Page 585. 3 The White House was the name of an estate on the Pamunkey River, that belonged to the Custis family by inheritance from Mrs. Washington, whose first husband owned it. Her great- grand-daughter was the wife of Robert E. Lee, and this property was in the possession of the latter s eldest son when the Civil "War broke out. The name was derived from the color of the mansion on the estate at the time Washington was married to Mrs. Custis. It was white, and thus distinguished from others. That mansion was demolished between thirty and forty years ago, and near its site was another, of modest form and dimensions, which was called the "White House." This was held sacred, for some time, by the Union troops, in consequence of a false impression given by the family that it was the original "White House." When McClellan changed his base to the James River, and his stores were fired, the modern "White House" was consumed. 620 THE NATION. [1862. Mill, which resulted in the defeat of the Confederates, who suffered a fearful loss. 1 Notwithstanding this victory, McClellan decided that the time had come for him to fly toward the James River, if he would save his army. He was left to choose between a concentration of his whole force on the left bank of the Chick- ahominy, and give general battle to Lee s army ; to concentrate it on the right bank, and march directly on Richmond, or to trans fer his right wing to that side of the stream, and with his supplies retreat to the James River. He chose the latter course, and made preparations accord ingly. 2 He ordered the stores at the White House to be destroyed if they could not be removed, and held Porter s corps in a strong position near Gaines s Mills, a short distance from Ellison s Mill, to give protection as far as possible to the supplies, and to the remainder of the troops in the removal of the siege-guns, their pas sage of the river, and their march toward the James. There, between C>ol Arbor 3 and the Chickahominy, in line of battle on the arc of a circle, Porter stood when attacked by the Hills and Longstreet, 4 on the afternoon of the 7th of June. Very severe was the battle that ensued. Porter, hard pressed, sent to McClellan, then on the opposite side of the Chickahominy, for aid, but the commander, believing Magruder s 25,000 men at Richmond to be 60,000 in number, could spare only Slocum s division of Franklin s corps. Later, the brigades of Richardson and Meaghcr were sent, and these arrived just in time to save Porter from annihilation, for his shattered and disheartened army was VIEW ON THE CHICKAIIOMIXY NEAR MECIIANICSVILLE. 1 It was between 3,000 and 4,000 men. The National loss was about 400. The latter were well posted on an eminence ; the former were much exposed in approaching over lower and open ground. a According to official and other statements by the Confederates, Richmond was at that time entirely at the mercy of the Army of the Potomac, it being defended by only 25,000 men under Magruder, who in his report declared that if McClellan had massed his force^and moved on Rich mond while Lee was beyond the Chickahominy, he might easily have captured it. " His failure to do so," said Magruder in his report, "is the best evidence that our wise commander fully understood the character of his opponent/ 3 The place of an ancient tavern and summer resort for the inhabitants of Richmond two .generations before. 4 Page 619. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMIXISTKATION. falling back to the river in disorder, closely pressed by the foe. The appear ance and cheers of the fresh troops encouraged the fugitives, who re-formed, checked the alarmed pursuers, and drove them back to the field they had won. So ended the battle of Gaines s Mills. 1 During that night Porter s corps with drew to the right bank of the Chickahominy, destroying the bridges behind them. McClellan now turned his back upon Richmond, with his face toward the James, and gave orders for his army to move through the White Oak Swamp in the direction of Turkey Bend, on that river. Keyes led the way [June 28]. Porter followed ; and after these moved a train of 5,000 wagons, laden with ammunition, provisions, and baggage, and a drove of 2,500 beef cattle. 2 So well was this movement masked from Lee, that he had no suspicion of it until more than twenty-four hours after it began. 3 He had observed, in the morning, some singular movements of the divisions which remained behind, and some skirmishes had taken place, but he supposed McClellan might be preparing to move his forces and give battle in defense of his stores at the White House, or, if he retreated, would take the route on the left bank of the Chickahominy, by which Johnston came up from Williamsburg. 4 But on the night of the 28th the amazing fact was disclosed to Lee that a greater portion of the Army of the Potomac had departed, not to give battle on the north side of the Chicka hominy, nor to retreat down the Peninsula, but to take a new position on the James River. Scouts had already informed him that a large portion of the supplies at the White House had been removed, and that the remainder, and the mansion itself, were then in flames. McClellan had full twenty-four hours the start of Lee, yet he found himself compelled to struggle for life in that retreat. His rear-guard, under Sumner, was struck at Savage s Station, where a severe battle was fought [June 29]. It continued until late in the evening, when the Confederates recoiled; and before morning [July l], the whole of McClellan s army was well on its way toward the James. Franklin, with a rear-guard, had been left to hold the main bridge over White Oak Swamp Creek, and so to cover the withdrawal of the army to the high open country of the Malvern Hills ; and at that point and at Glendale, 5 a short distance to the right, severe engagements ensued. The battle at the latter place was very sanguinary, in which the Pennsyl- vanians under McCall suffered much. That leader was captured, and General Meade was severely wounded. By the timely arrival of fresh troops under 1 The National loss was about 8,000 men, of whom about 6,000 were killed and wounded. The Confederate loss was about 5,000. Porter lost twenty-two siege-guns. 2 The sick and wounded men, who could not march, were left behind, with surgeons, rations, and medical stores. These fell into the hands of the Confederates, and the men suffered terribly. The reason given for this abandonment of the helpless, and the sending away of the ambulances empty, was, that so large a number (about 2,500) of wounded and sick men would embarrass the army in its flight, and its escape might be impossible. 3 All day long Magruder and Huger had reported to Lee that the National fortifications on their front were as fully manned as usual, and Lee supposed his foe was preparing for an offensive movement. 4 Page 616. 5 The name of an estate. The battle occurred on the rroj/erty of several owners. Jt is some times called the Battle of Frazier s Farm. 22 THE CATION". [1862. Hooker, Meagher, and Taylor, victory was given to the Nationals ; and early the next day the Army of the Potomac, united for the first time since the Chickahominy first divided it, 1 was in a strong position on Malvern Hills, 2 in sight of the James River. It was not considered a safe place for the army to halt, for it was too far separated from its supplies ; so, on the morning of the 1st [July, 1862], McClellan went on board the gun-boat Galena^ and pro ceeded down the river to " select the final location for the army and its depots." This was fixed at Harrison s Bar, a short distance from Malvern Hills. Preparations were made on Malvern Hills for a battle. Lee concentrated his troops at Glendale for that purpose on the morning of the 1st [July, 1862], and resolved, with a heavy line under Jackson, Ewell, "Whiting, the Hills, Longstreet, "Iagruder, and Huger, to carry the intrenched camp of the Nationals by storm, and "drive tho invaders," he said, "into the James." This was attempted. A furious battle ensued, in which Porter, Couch, and Kearney were the chief leaders of fighting troops on the part of the Nationals, and these were assisted by gun-boats in the river. The struggle was intense and destruc tive, and did not cease until almost nine o clock in the evening, when the Con federates were driven to the shelter of the ravines and swarnps, utterly broken and despairing. The victory for the Nationals was decisive, and the Union leaders expected to follow it up, pursue Lee s shattered columns, and enter Richmond within twenty-four hours, when they were overwhelmed with disappointment by an order from the Commander-in-Chief (who had been on the Galena most of the day) for the victorious army to "fall back still farther" to Harrison s Landing. 3 This seemed like snatching the palm of victory from the hand just opened to receive it, but it was obeyed, and on the evening of the 3d of July the Army of the Potomac, broken and disheartened, was resting on the James River, and on the 8th what was left of Lee s Army of Northern Virginia was behind the de fenses of Richmond. 4 Very grievous was the disappoint ment of the loyal people when they heard THE HARRISON MANSION. o f this disastrous result of the campaign against Richmond, and most astounding to the government was the assurance of 1 Pago GIG. 2 These form a high rolling plateau, sloping toward Richmond from bold banks toward the river, and bounded by deep ravines, making an excellent defensive position. 3 McClellan s order produced consternation and great dissatisfaction among the officers and men. The veteran General Kearney was very indignant, and in the presence of several officers said : "I, Philip Kearney, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for a retreat. We ought, instead of retreating, to follow up the enemy and take Richmond ; and, in full view of all the responsibilities of such a declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason." 4 The aggregate loss of the National army during the seven days contest before Richmond, or from the battle near Mechanicsville [May 23] until the posting of the army at Harrison s Bar, was 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 023 the commander of the Army of the Potomac, three days after the battle on Malvern Hills, that he had not " over 50,000 men left, with their colors !" Within the space of a hundred days 160,000 men had gone to the Peninsula. What had become of the vast remainder ? The anxious President hastened to the head-quarters of McClellan for an answer to that question, for the latter was now calling for more troops, to enable him to " capture Richmond and put an end to the Rebellion." The President found nearly 40,000 more men there than the general had reported, and yet 75,000 were missing. He could get no satisfactory statement from McClellan, 1 and he found that several of the corps commanders had lost confidence in the chief. In view of this fact, the con centration of Confederate troops in the direction of Washington, and the assurance of McClellan that his army was not strong enough to capture Rich mond by " one hundred thousand men, more rather than less," it was thought advisable by the President to withdraw that army from the Peninsula and concentrate it in front of the National capital. Orders were given accord ingly. McClellan was opposed to the measure, and at once took steps to defeat it. Here we will leave the Army of the Potomac for a little while, and observe events nearer the National capital, with which its movements were intimately connected. To give more efficiency to the troops covering Washington, they were formed into an organization called the Army of Virginia, and placed under the command of Major-General John Pope, who was called from the West 2 for that purpose. The new army was arranged in three corps, com manded respectively by Major-Generals McDowell, Banks, and Sigel. 3 In addition to these, a force under General S. D. Sturgis was in process of forma tion at Alexandria ; and the troops in and around Washington were placed under Pope s command. He also had about five thousand cavalry. His army for field-service, at the close of June, numbered between forty and fifty thousand effective men. He wrote to McClellan, cordially offering his co-opera tion with him, and asking for suggestions. The cold and vague answer assured Pope that he need not expect any useful co-working with the com mander of the Army of the Potomac. Immediately after the retreat of McClellan to Harrison s Landing, 4 the con spirators formed plans for the capture of Washington City ; and when, at the close of July, Halleck 5 ordered the Army of the Potomac to prepare to move reported by McClellan at 1,582 killed, 7,709 wounded, and 5.598 missing, making a total of 15,249. Lee s loss was never reported. He declared that he captured 10,000 prisoners, and took 52 pieces of cannon and 35,000 small arms. 1 After his return to Washington, the President wrote to McClellan [July 13], asking him for an account of the missing numbers. He reported 88,665 "present and fit for duty;" absent by authority, 34,472; absent without authority, 3.778; sick, 16,665, making a total of 143,580. The government was much disturbed by one item in this report, namely, that over 34,000 men, or more than three-fifths of the entire number of the army which he had reported on the 3d, were absent on furloughs granted by permission of the commanding general, when he was continually calling for re-enforcements and holding the government responsible for the weakness of his army. The President said to him: "If you had these men with you, you could go into Richmond in the next three days." 3 Page 600. 3 Page 572. 4 Page 622. fi Halleck was now acting G-eneral-in-Chief. See page 604. 624 THE NATION. [1862. to the front of the National capital, and join Pope in its defense, Lee moved with energy to execute the orders of his masters, before the junction of the two Union armies could be effected. Satisfied that no further movements against Richmond were then contemplated, he was left free to act in full force. In the plan of the conspirators was the expulsion of the National troops from the soil of Slave-labor States, the invasion and plunder of Ohio and Pennsyl vania, and the dictation of terms of peace at Cincinnati and Philadelphia ; and the people of the " Confederate States " were made to expect a speedy vision of Davis in the chair of Dictatorship at Washington City. These dreams were almost realized before the heats of summer had departed. Pope moved vigorously toward the advancing Confederates, in the direc tion of Richmond, at the middle of July, and some of his cavalry destroyed railway-tracks and bridges within thirty-five miles of the Confederate capital. Meanwhile a heavy force under " Stonewall " Jackson had gathered at Gor don sville, and Pope s main army was near Culpepper Court-House, between the Rappahannock and Rapid Anna 1 Rivers. They each advanced in force, and at the foot of Cedar, or Slaughter Mountain, a few miles west of Culpep per Court-House, they had a severe battle on the 9th of August. The Nation als were under the general command of Banks, ably assisted by Generals Crawford, Geary, Auger, and others. They were finally pressed back by overwhelming numbers and pursued, when the Confederates were checked by the timely arrival of Ricketts division of McDowell s corps. The strife had been one of the most desperate of the war, a part of it hand to hand in the darkness, and under a pall of smoke that obscured the moon. 2 Two days afterward Jackson retreated precipitately to Gordonsville, leaving some of his dead unburied. He was chased, but a sudden rise of the Rapid Anna placed a barrier between the pursuers and the pursued. Both parties claimed the palm of victory in the battle of Cedar Mountain. Soon after this conflict Pope and Jackson were both re-enforced. The former was joined by troops under Burnside, from North Carolina, 3 and others under Stevens, from the coast of South Carolina ; and the latter was strength ened by divisions under Longstreet, some troops under Hood, and Stuart s cavalry. Pope moved to the Rapid Anna, with the intention of holding that position until the arrival of the Army of the Potomac in his rear ; but before that event occurred, he was compelled to fall back by the advance of Lee in crushing force. He retired behind the forks of the Rappahannock, closely pur- 1 The name of this river has generally been spelled Rapidan. It is one of three rivers in that portion of Virginia bearing the name of Anna namely, the Rapid Anna, North Anna, and South Anna. The first is the chief tributary of the Rappahannock, and the two latter form the Pamun- key River. a General Crawford s brigade came out of that terrible fight a mere remnant. Some regiments lost half their number. General Geary, with Pennsylvania and Ohio troops, made desperate charges, and was severely wounded. General Auger was also wounded, and General Price was made prisoner. The National loss was about two thousand in killed and wounded, and that of the Confederates about the same. 3 Page 590. These had first gone to the Peninsula to aid McClellan. and were the first of the troops there who promptly obeyed the summons of the Army of the Potomac to the defense of Washington City. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 625 sued by Lee s cavalry, and along the line of that river, above Fredericksburg, there was an artillery duel for two days [August 20 and 21, 1862]. Lee found that he could not force a passage of that stream, so he moved toward the mountains, for the purpose of flanking the Nationals. Pope made skillful and energetic efforts to thwart the design of his enemy, but the danger became greater every hour. Pope s force had been greatly weakened by fighting and inarching, and the Army of the Potomac was coining to his relief so tardily, that he almost despaired of its arrival in time to be useful. 1 The National capital was now, late in August, in great peril. Pope, encouraged by the belief that McClellan s fresh troops, which had been resting for a month, would almost immediately re-enforce him, massed his army near Rappahannock Station [Aug. 23, 3862], for the purpose of falling upon a heavy flanking force. Movements to this end were made. Franklin, of the Army of the Potomac, had lately arrived with troops, and Heintzelman and Porter, of the same army, were also near, so that, on the 25th, Pope s army, and its re-en forcements at hand, with their backs on Washington and their faces to the foe, were about sixty thousand strong, but still somewhat scattered. On that day " Stonewall Jackson," leading the great flank movement, crossed the Rappa- hannock, and with his ac customed celerity made his way over the Bull s Run Mountains at Tho roughfare Gap. At twi light on the 2Gth he was on the railway in Pope s rear, and between his army and Washington City. The Confederate cavalry swept over the country in the direction of Washington, as far as Fairfax Court-Housc and Centreville, and Jackson, taking possession in strong force of Manassas Junction, 2 awaited the arrival of an approaching heavy column under Longstreet. Both armies were now in a critical situation. Pope took vigorous measures THOROUGHFARE GAP. 1 At the close of July, Halleck ordered preparations for the removal of the Army of the Poto mac from the Peninsula, and on the 3d of August he issued a positive order for it to move at once. McClellan protested. He told his government that the force under Pope was " not necessary to maintain a strict defensive in front of Washington and Harper s Ferry ; ;: instructed his superiors that the u true defense of Washington was on the banks of the James, where the fate of the Union was to be decided ;" and then awaited further orders. Halleck repeated his com mand, and urged McClellan to use all possible diligence in effecting the departure of his troops. After the battle of Cedar Mountain he told him there must be no further delay" in his move ments, for Washington was in danger. It was twenty days after McClellan received orders to transfer his army to Aquia Creek, on the Potomac, before they were executed, and that army t p ailed to give Pope timely and sufficient aid. a Pages 5G7 and 572. 40 626 THE NATION. for capturing Jackson, or at the least preventing the junction of his and Longr- street s forces. His plans, experts say, were well chosen, and, had they been as well executed by all of his subordinates, success must have crowned his efforts. But they were not, and disaster was the consequence. Longstreet, with the van of Lee s army, joined Jackson [August 29] near Grovcton, not far from the Bull s Run battle-ground, and there the combined forces fought the whole of Pope s army, excepting Banks s command, then at Bristow s Sta tion. The battle was very severe, but not decisive. The loss was about seven MONUMENT AND BATTLE-GROUND NEAR GROVETON. 1 thousand on each side. Prudence counseled a retreat for Pope, but, still expecting immediate re-enforcements, he prepared for a renewal of the strug gle in the morning. When morning came he w r as assured of no further aid from McClellan, 2 and he had then no alternative. .He must fight. He prepared for battle. A movement of the enemy deceived him, and supposing Lee to be retreating, he ordered a pursuit. On a portion of the Bull s Run battle-ground, near Groveton, his advance was assailed [August 30] by a heavy force in ambush. A sanguinary conflict ensued, in which the Nationals were defeated and driven across Bull s Run by way of the Stone Bridge. 3 At Centre ville they Avere joined by the corps of Franklin and Surnner. Lee was not disposed to attack them there, so he sent Jackson [August 31], with his own and E well s divisions, to make another flank movement. This brought on another battle on 1 After tho war, Union soldiers, stationed near this battle-ground, erected a monument of the sand-stone of the vicinity, on the field of strife, to the memory of their comrades. The above picture shows the monument and the battle-field, looking toward Manassas Junction. a Pope had received no re-enforcements or supplies since the 26th. lie confidently expected rations and forage from McClellan, who was at Alexandria, and had been ordered to supply them, but on the morning of the 30th, when it was too late to retreat and perilous to stand still, Pope received information that supplies would be "loaded into available wagons and cars," so soon as he should send a cavalry escort for the train ! a thing utterly impossible. Meanwhile the corps of Sumner and Franklin, of McClellan s command, which might on that day have secured victory for the Nationals, were not permitted to go within supporting distance of the struggling army until the next day, when Pope, for want of support, had lost every advantage. 3 Page 569. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 62 the 1st of September, at Chant illy, not far from Fairfax Court-House, in which Generals Kearney and Stevens were shot dead, and many gallant officers and men were mortally wounded. 1 The Nationals held the field that night, and on the fol lowing day [Sept. 2] fell back within the fortifications around Washington City. 2 Thus ended Pope s campaign in Virginia, and also his military career in the East, He had labored hard under many difficul ties, and he bitterly complained of a lack of co-operation with him, in his later struggles, by McClellan and some of his subordinates. 3 The Republic now seemed to be in great danger, and the loyal people were very anxious. Already the President, by a call on the 1st of June, had drawn forty thousand men for three months from Xew England. Already the loyal governors of eighteen States, acting under the conviction of a large portion of their constituents, who were evidently losing confidence in the leader of the Army of the Potomac, had requested the President to call for three hundred thousand volunteers "for the war," 4 and he had complied [July 1] ; and when Pope was struggling with Jackson near the Rapid Anna, he called [August 9th] for three hundred thousand men for nine months, with the understanding that an equal number of men would be drafted from the great body of the citizens who were over eighteen and less than forty-five years of age, if they did not appear as volunteers. These calls met with hearty responses, for the loyal people had determined to save the Republic. Thousands of volunteers were now flocking to the standard of their country. The conspirators were alarmed, and Lee was instructed to take advantage of the reverses to the National arms, and act boldly, vigorously, and even desperately, if necessary, in an attempt to capture Washington City. He was re-enforced by the divi- PHILIP KEARNEY. 1 The National loss in Pope s campaign in Virginia, from the battle of Cedar Mountain to that of Chantilly, was never officially reported in full. Careful estimates make it (including an immense number of stragglers who were returned to their regiments) 30,000. Lee s loss was probably about 15,000. 2 See map on page 572. 3 During the last few days in which the Army of Virginia was struggling for life, the authori ties at Washington, by commands and assistance, made every effort to induce McClellan to aid Pope, but in vain. And when, on the 29th of August. Halleck telegraphed to McClellan, saying, >; I want Franklin s corps to go far enough to find out something about the enem3 r ," the latter telegraphed to the President, saying: "I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted: First, to concentrate all our available forces to open communication with Pope. Second, to leave Pope to get out of Ms scrape, and at once use all our means to make the capital safe." 4 Clamors began to arise on every side. Men of influence, whose faith in the " young Napo leon," as McClellan was fondly called, had been unbounded, now shook their heads doubtingly. They clearly perceived that if 150.000 to 200,000 men could not make more headway in the work of crushing the rebellion than they had done under his leadership, during full ten months, more men must be called to the field at once, and put under a more efficient leader, or all would be lost 628 THE NATION. [1862 sion of D. II. Hill, and then, operating upon the original plan of General John ston, of pushing into Maryland and getting in the rear of Washington, 1 he crossed the Potomac with almost his entire force by the 7th of September, with the belief that thousands of the citizens of Maryland would join his standard. - The Army of Virginia had now disappeared as a separate organization, and, became a part of the Army of the Potomac, with McClellan still at its head. When the latter was informed of Lee s movement into Maryland, he left Gene ral Banks in command in Washington City, and with a greater part of his army, nearly 00,000 in number, lie went in pursuit. He moved very cautiously, but was soon advised that Lee s plan was to take possession of Harper s Ferry, and open communication with Richmond by way of the Shenandoah Valley ; and meanwhile to draw McClellan far toward the Susquehanna, and, turning suddenly upon him, defeat him and march upon Washington. 3 McClellan fol lowed him through Frederick and over South Mountain into the Antietam Valley. At Turner s Gap, on the South Mountain, a portion of the National army, led byBurnside, had a severe light [September 14] with a part of Lee s, and at the same time another portion, under Franklin, was striving to force its way over the same range of hills at Cramp- ton s Gap, nearer Har per s Ferry. In the battle on South Moun tain, the gallant Gene ral Reno was killed. 4 The strife ceased at evening, and the Na tionals were prepared to renew it in the morn ing. Daring the night the Confederates with drew from the emi nence, and Lee concen trated his forces near the Antietam Creek, in the vicinity of Sharpsburg. BATTLE-FIELD ON SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 6 1 Page 584. * Lee issued a proclamation [Sept. 8], and raised the standard of revolt. He called upon the Marylariders to join his invading host, assuring them that he had come to assist them in throw ing off "the foreign yoke" they were compelled to bear, and to "restore the independence and sovereignty of their State." He discoursed as fluently of the "outrages" inflicted by their gen erous government, as Jefferson Davis, his coadjutor in the monstrous crime, ever did, but he soon found, to his shame and confusion, that the few disloyal Marylanders who had joined his army in Virginia did not represent the great mass of the people of that State. He lost more by desertion than he gained by recruits in Maryland. 3 McClellan s advance, on entering Frederick, found a copy of Lee s general order, issued on the 9th, which revealed his plan. 4 McClellan reported his loss in this engagement at 1,5GS, of whom 312 were killed. Th<? Confederates lost about the same number in killed and wounded, and 1,500 prisoners. 6 This shows the part of the battle-field where General Reno was killed. The stone near the 18G2.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. All eyes were now turned toward Harper s Ferry, then in command of Colonel I). H. Miles, a Marylander. Franklin fought his way over the moun tain at Crampton s Pass into Pleasant Valley, and on the evening of the 14th of September he was within six miles of Harper s Ferry, then strongly invested by troops under " Stonewall Jackson." They had possession of Maryland and London Heights, which completely commanded that post. Its salvation from capture depended upon the ability of the garrison to hold out until relief should come. But Miles, either incompetent or disloyal, sent off his cavalry, two thousand strong, on the night of the 14th, and surrendered to Jackson the next morning, before the victorious Franklin could make his way thither. 1 McClellan followed the Confederates in their flight from South Mountain on the morning of the loth [Sept., 1862], but was so impressed with the idea that they were on his front in overwhelming numbers, that he deferred an attack until the next day. The Confederates were posted along the right bank of the Antietam, and the Nationals on its left; and on the morning of the 16th the former opened artillery upon the latter. It was past noon before McClellan was ready, there being a lack of ammunition and rations, for which he waited. Finally, Hooker crossed the Antietam on the extreme left of the Confederates, and other troops were sent over during the night. Hooker s force had a sharp and successful fight, and rested on their arms that night ; and both armies pre pared for a decisive struggle in the morning. Hooker opened it at dawn on the Confederate left, and with varying fortunes the battle raged on that wing and along the center until late in the afternoon. Meanwhile the National left, under Burnside, had been contending with the Confederate right under Long- street, with varied success ; and when darkness fell upon the scene that night, both armies, sorely smitten, rested where for twelve or fourteen hours they had contended, the advantage being with the Nationals. 2 The Confederates were now in a perilous position. Lee could not easily call re-enforcements to his aid, his supplies were nearly exhausted, and his army was terribly shattered and disorganized. McClellan, on the contrary, had fourteen thousand fresh troops near, and these joined him the next morn ing. It would have been an easy matter, it seems, to have captured the whole of Lee s army by a vigorous movement. Prudential considerations restrained McClellan, 3 and when he was ready to move on his foe, thirty-six hours after the battle [Sept. 18], Lee, with his shattered legions, were behind strong bat teries on the Virginia side of the Potomac, Avhither they had fled under the figure with a cane marks the spot where he fell. The chestnut tree was scarred by bullets when the writer visited the field, in the autumn of 186G . 1 The number of men surrendered was 11,583, most of them new levies. The spoils were 73 cannon, 13,000 small arms, 200 wagons, and a large quantity of supplies. 2 In this battle McClellan s effective force was 87.000, and Lee s 60,000. McClellan reported his entire loss at 12,469 men, of whom 2.010 were killed. Among the latter was General J. K. F. Mansfield, and General Richardson was mortally wounded. Lee s loss was probably somewhat larger. Six thousand of his men were made prisoners, and the spoils were 15,000 small arms, 13 cannon, and 39 battle-flags. 3 In his report he said : >-" Virginia was lost, Washington menaced, Maryland invaded the National cause could afford no risks of defeat." He therefore hesitated, and, in opposition to the advice of Franklin and others, deferred a renewal of the battle until Lee had placed the Poto mac between the two armies. 03Q THE NATION. [1862. cover of darkness the night before. A feeble attempt to follow was made, and quickly abandoned [Sept. 19], when Lee moved leisurely up the Shenandoah Valley, and McClellan took possession of Harper s Ferry. He now called for re-enforcements and supplies, and ten days after the battle, the government and the loyal people, who hourly expected the announcement that the Army of the Potomac was in swift pursuit of Lee s broken columns, Avere sadly dis appointed by McClellan s declaration that he intended to hold his army where it Avas, and "attack the enemy should he attempt to recross into Maryland." The President hastened to McClellan s head-quarters [Oct. 1], and there became VIEW OP THE ANTIETAM BATTLE-GROUXD. so well satisfied that the army Avas competent to move at once in pursuit of Lee, that he instructed its leader to cross the Potomac immediately for that purpose. Twenty days were spent in correspondence between the commander of the Army of the Potomac and the National authorities before that order was obeyed, during Avhich time the beautiful October Aveather, Avhen the roads \vere good in Virginia, had passed by, and Lee s army had become thoroughly recruited, strengthened, and supplied, and his communication with Richmond was re-established. On the 2d of November McClellan announced that his 1 This was the appearance of that portion of the battle-ground where the struggle was most severe, on the Confederate left, as it appeared when the author sketched it, early in October, 1 8GG. The five birds seen in the distance are over the spot where Mansfield was killed. The Antietam Creek is seen in the foreground. The view is from near the house of Mr. Pry, where McClellan had his head-quarters. ] 862. J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 631 whole army was once more in Virginia, prepared to move southward, on the east side of the Blue Ridge, instead of pursuing Lee up the Shenandoah Val ley, on the western side. The faith of the government and of the loyal people in McClellan s ability or disposition to achieve a victory by such movement was now exhausted, and on the 5th of November he was relieved of command, and General Burnside was put in his place. Thus ended McClellan s unsuccess ful military career. Burnside now reorganized the Army of the Potomac (then numbering about one hundred and twenty thousand men) and changed the plan of operations, by which the capture of Richmond, rather than the immediate destruction of Lee s army, was the objective. He made Aquia Creek, on the Potomac, his base of supplies, and took position at Fredericksburg, from which he intended to advance. Before he had accomplished that movement and was prepared to cross the Rappahannock, Lee had occupied the heights in rear of Fredericks- burg, in full force, full eighty thousand strong. The bridges were destroyed, and Burnside could pass the river only on pontoons or floating bridges. These were constructed, and under cover of a heavy fire of artillery from Stafford Heights, the National columns crossed over. A sanguinary battle ensued on the 1 3th of December. Ter rible was the roar of three hundred Confede rate cannon and half that number of Na- tional guns. The city was battered and fired. The Nationals were re pulsed. 1 Two days more [December 1 4- 15] they remained on the city side of * the river, and then with drew under cover of the darkness, and Lee took possession of Fred ericksburg. Burnside was soon afterward superseded in com mand [January 26, I860] by General Joseph Hooker. Here we will leave the Army of the Potomac, in winter quarters on the Rappahannock, and consider the stirring events in the great Valley of the Mississippi We left the Lower Mississippi, from its mouth to New Orleans, in posses- 8CEXE IX FREDERICKSBURG ON THE MORNING OP THE 12TH. 1 The National loss was about 15,000 men. A large number of tho wounded (seventy per cent.) soon rejoined the army, their hurts being slight. There were 3,234 of the total loss reported " missing," many of whom soon returned, so that the absolute loss to the nnny. other than temporary, was not very lar^o. The Confederate loss was probably about 7,000. 632 THE NATION. [1862. sion of the National forces under Butler and Farragut 1 at the beginning of the summer of 1862, and at the same time the river was held by the same power from Memphis to St. Louis. Southern Tennessee and Northern Alabama and Mississippi were also held by the Nationals, and the Confederate army, driven from Corinth, was at Tupelo. 2 At about this time a Kentuckian, named John II. Morgan, and a notorious leader of a guerrilla band who had penetrated his native State from East Tennessee, Avas raiding through that commonwealth, preparatory to the advent, under K. Kirby Smith, of an invading force of Confederates, the advance of an army under General Bragg. Another bold leader of Confederate horsemen was N. B. Forrest, who swept through Ten nessee in various directions, and finally, at the middle of July, threatened FORTIFICATIONS OF THK STATE-HOUSE AT NASHVILLE. 3 Nashville, then in command of General Negley, w r ho had caused fortifications to be built at points around the city, and breastworks to be thrown up around the State capitol in its midst. In the mean time Bragg was moving through the State eastward of Nashville, toward Kentucky, while General Buell was moving in the same direction, on a nearly parallel line, to foil his intentions. General E. Kirby Smith, with a considerable force, entered Kentucky from East Tennessee, and pushed on in the direction of Frankfort, the capital of the 1 Page 611. 2 Page 604. 3 This is a view of the breastworks at one of tho fronts of the capitol. seen near the three smaller figures, with a portion of the city, the Cumberland River, and the country around, as they appeared when sketched by the writer in May, 18G6. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 633 State. He fought a severe battle [August 30, 1862] with Union troops under General M. D. Manson, near Richmond, where General Nelson 1 took command. The Nationals were routed and scattered, and Smith passed on to Lexington. The affrighted Legislature of Kentucky, then in session at Frankfort, fled to Louisville. The secessionists of that region warmly welcomed the invader, and the conqueror pushed vigorously toward the Ohio, with the intention of capturing and plundering Cincinnati. He was unexpectedly confronted there by strong fortifications constructed and a large force collected on the southern side of the Ohio, under the direction of the energetic General Lewis Wallace. By these the career of the invader was checked, the city was saved, and Wal lace received the thanks of the authorities of Cincinnati and of the Legislature of Ohio, for " the promptness, energy, and skill exhibited by him in organizing the forces and planning the defenses " which saved the soil of that State from invasion. 2 Foiled in this attempt, Smith turned his face toward Louisville. He captured Frankfort, 3 and there awaited the arrival of Bragg, who for almost three weeks had been moving northward from Chattanooga, with over forty regiments of all arms and forty cannon. His destination was Louisville. Bragg crossed the Cumberland River at Carthage, and entered Kentucky on the 5th of September, his advance, eight thousand strong, pushing toward the railway between Nashville and Louisville. At Mumfordsville, on that railway, a National force under Colo nel T. J. Wilder fought [September 14] some of the troops of the traitor Buck- ner for five hours, and repulsed them. Two days afterward, a strong Confede rate force under General Polk appeared, and, after another severe battle [Sep tember 16], Wilder was compelled to surrender. Bragg was elated by this event. Buell, then at Bowling Green, had sent no relief to Wilder, and he seemed to be so exceedingly tardy, that the Confederate leader had no doubt of an easy march upon Louisville. On the 1st of October he formed a junction with Kirby Smith s troops at Frank fort, and his marauding bands were out plundering the people in all direc tions. 4 Then Buell, who had kept abreast of Bragg, turned upon the latter, DON CARLOS BUELL. 1 Page 577. 2 Wallace was satisfied that nothing but the most vigorous measures would save the city. He declared martial law, and ordered the citizens, under the direction of the Mayor, to assemble an hour afterward, in convenient public yjlaces, to be organized for work on intrenchments on the south side of the river. "The willing," he said, "shall be properly credited, the unwilling promptly visited. The principle adopted is : citizens for labor soldiers for the battle." 3 There Bragg performed the farce of making a weak citizen, named Hawes, "Provisional Governor of Kentucky." * On the 15th of September Bragg issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Kentucky, assu ring them that ho came as their " liberator from the tyranny of a despotic ruler." He told them (534 THE NATION. [1862. and r:ear Perry villc they had a severe battle on the 8th [October, 1862], in which the Confederates were so roughly handled that they fled during the night, and made their way as rapidly as possible toward East Tennessee. 1 Bragg pretended that he expected a general uprising in Kentucky in favor of the Confederate cause on his arrival, and was greatly disappointed. His invasion proved a disaster rather than a benefit. It might have proved utterly ruinous had the invaders been vigorously pursued in their retreat, but General Buell, like General McClellan, was too cautious to secure all of the advantages of a victory. The government perceived this, and at the close of October relieved him of his command, and gave it to General Rosecrans. 2 Then the title of his large force, called the Army of the Ohio, was changed to that of the Army of the Cumberland. Simultaneously with the movement of Bragg toward Kentucky, was an advance of Generals Van Dorn and Price (who had been left in Mississippi) toward Tennessee ; and strong bands of Confederates, under different leaders, were raiding through the western portion of that State, all working in aid of Bragg s movement. Rosecrans was then at the head of the Army of the Mississippi, whose duty was to hold the region in Northern Mississippi and Alabama which the capture of Corinth 3 and the operations of Mitchel 4 had secured to the Nationals. He was at Tuscumbia when word came from Grant that danger was gathering west of him. He moved his main force toward Corinth, when Price advanced to luka Springs, 5 and captured a large amount of National property there. General Grant, in chief command in that region, had watched these move- O / merits very vigilantly, and now he sent a force under General Ord to co operate with Rosecrans against Price. Before Ord s arrival, Rosecrans, with a greatly inferior force, attacked Price [September 19], and, in a severe battle near the village of luka Springs, the Confederates were beaten. 6 he must have supplies for his army, but that they should be fairly paid for. He had neither means nor intention to do so. He plundered the people, without inquiring whether they were his friends or foes ; and he started to flee from the State with a wagon train of stolen sup plies forty miles in length, but so fearful was he of capture that he left a large portion of his plunder behind. In truth, the invasion of Kentucky by Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg was nothing but a great plundering raid, and the wealth of that State and of Southern Indiana and Ohio was the chief object of their march from the Tennessee toward the Ohio River. 1 Buell s entire army numbered at this time about 100.000 men. Bragg s force in Kentucky was about G5,000. Only portions of each army were in the battle near Perry ville. Buell reported that his force which advanced on Bragg was 58.000 strong, of whom 22,000 were raw troops. He reported his loss in the battle at 4,348, of whom 916 were killed. Among the slain were Generals Jackson and Terrell. The Confederate loss is supposed to have been nearly the same. Bragg claimed to have captured 15 guns and 400 prisoners. a Page 563. 3 Page 604. 4 Page 601. 6 This is a celebrated summer resort for the people in the Gulf region. It is on the Memphis and Charleston railway, a few miles east of Corinth. The disparity of numbers in this engagement was very great. "I say boldly," reported General Hamilton, on the 23d of September, "that a force of not more than 2.8(>0 met and con fronted a rebel force of 11.000, on a field chosen by Price, and a position naturally very strong." Only a small portion of Rosecrans s force was engaged, and these won the victory, but with fearful loss to the few National regiments in the fight. The men of the llth Ohio Battery suffered dreadfully. Seventy-two were slain or wounded, and all the horses were killed before the guns were abandoned. The appearance of their burial-place on the battle-field, when the writer visited the spot, in the spring of 1866, is seen in the engraving on the next page. Rosecrans reported his 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 635 GRAVKS OF THE ELEVENTH OHIO BATTERY-MEN. They fled southward, pursued some distance by the victors, and at Ripley, in Mississippi, the forces of Van Dorn and Price were united. Then they moved upon Corinth, now occu pied by Rosecrans, and there, on the 3d and 4th of October [1862], a san guinary battle was fought, in which both parties dis played the greatest valor. The Nationals were be hind the fortifications, and had some advantage in that respect. 1 The struggle was fearful, and ended in the repulse of the assailants, who fled southward, vigorously pursued as far as Ripley. The repulse of the Confederates at Corinth was followed by brief repose in the department over which General Grant had chief command. But there were stirring scenes lower down the Mississippi River. The hills about the city of Yicksburg had been covered with fortifications, and the capture of this point, and the works at Port Hudson below, which constituted the only for midable obstructions to a free navigation of the river, was now an object toward which military movements in the Southwest were tending. Curtis, whom we left, after the battle of Pea Ridge, marching eastward, 3 was making his way toward Helena for that purpose, and the forces under Butler and Farrasjut were at work for the same end. So early as the 7th of May [1862], Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, had been captured, and Far- loss in this battle at 7 82, of whom 1 44 were killed. Ho estimated the Confederate loss at 1 ,438. He captured jfrom them 1.629 small arms and 13.000 rounds of ammunition and other war materials. 1 The fortifications thrown up around Corinth by the Confederates had been strengthened by the Nationals and new batteries constructed. At one of these, called Fort Robinet, the struggle was very severe. In four lines Texans and Missis- sippians approached to assail it, in the face of a terrible storm of grape and canister shot. They reached the ditch, paused for a moment, and then, with a brave leader (Colonel Rogers) bearing the new Confederate flag* in his hand, they attempted to scale the parapet, when the concealed Nationals behind suddenly arose, and poured murderous volleys of bullets upon them that swept them down by scores. 8 In this retreat troops under General Ord had a severe battle at Davis a Bridge, on the Hatcheo River, with a part of Van Dorirs column, in which the Union general was severely wounded. Rosecrans reported his loss in the battle at Corinth and in the pursuit at 2,359 T of whom 315 were killed. Ho estimated the Confederate loss, including 2,248 prisoners, at a little more than 9.000. Among the trophies were fourteen flags, two guns, and 3,363 small arms. Rosecrans reported that, according to Confederate authority, they had 38.000 men in the battle, and that his own force was less than 20,000. a Page 592. CONFEDERATE FI.AU * By a recent Act of the Confederate " Congress," the " Stars and Bars" of the first Confederate flag [page 5551 had been superseded by n white flag, the stars on a blue field arranged in the form of a cross. THE NATION. [18C2. ragut s vessels went up to Yicksburg and exchanged greetings with others that came down from Memphis. Vicksburg was attacked 011 the 26th of June, and Farragut, with his flag-ship (Hartford) and other vessels, ran by and above it. He besieged Vicksburg, and attempted to cut a canal across the peninsula in front of it, so as to avoid the city and its fortifications altogether. But these operations failed, and the fleet went down the river. Kot long afterward the National troops at Baton Rouge, under General Williams, were assailed [August 5, 1862] by Confede rates under Breckinridge. Williams was killed, but the Confederates were repulsed, 1 and this result was followed DAVID G. FARRAGUT. b y the destruction f the formidable Confederate ram Arkansas* [August 6] by the Essex, Captain Porter, and two other gun-boats. Then Porter went up the river to rconnoiter, and on the 7th of September he had a sharp flght with the growing batteries at Port Hudson. At the beginning of September General Butler was satisfied that the Con federates had abandoned all idea of attempting to retake New Orleans, so he sent out some aggressive expeditions. The most important of these was for the purpose of " repossessing " the rich La Fourche district of Louisiana. The command of it was intrusted to General Godfrey Weitzel. He soon accom plished the task, after a sharp engagement [October 27] near Labadieville, in which he lost eighteen killed and seventy-four wounded, and captured two hundred and sixty-eight prisoners. A large portion of Louisiana, bordering on the western shore of the Mississippi, was brought under the National control before the close of the year, 3 when General Butler was relieved of the command of the Department of the Gulf, and General Banks became [Decembei* 16] his successor. In the mean time there had been active military movements in Missouri and Arkansas. Since the autumn of 1861, General J. M. Schofield had been in command in the former State, and with twenty or thirty thousand men, scat tered over the commonwealth, he made successful warfare on the Confederate 1 The National loss was 371, of whom 82 were killed. The Confederate loss is unknown. One hundred of the latter were made prisoners. 9 This ram was built in the Yazoo River, in the rear of Vicksburg, and was intended to sweep the National gun-boats from the Mississippi. She came down to assist Breckinridge in the assault on Baton Rouge. Five miles above that place she was attacked, driven ashore, set on fire by her commander, and by the explosion of her magazine was blown into fragments. 3 The rebellion had paralyzed the industrial operations in that region, and General Butler thought it expedient, as a State policy, and for the sake of humanity, to confiscate the entire property of La Fourche district, lie appointed a commission to take charge of it, who employed the negroes and saved the crops. Two Congressional districts were "repossessed," and in De cember the loyal citizens of New Orleans elected two members of Congress. 1862.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 63T guerrilla bands late in the summer of 1862. From April until September of that year, about one hundred battles and skirmishes occurred in Missouri. Troops from Arkansas, who came thither to aid their insurgent brethren, were driven back. These formed a nucleus for a force which, late in September, was gathered in Arkansas, full forty thousand strong, under T. C. Hindman, a former member of Congress. Against these Schofield marched with what was called the Army of the Frontier. Joining General J. G. Blunt, in the southern part of ]\Iissouri, the combined forces, ten thousand strong, sought the insur gents. The latter were shy, and hovered cautiously among the Ozark Hills. A portion of them were attacked near Maysville [October 22] by Blunt, and driven in disorder into the Indian country. Six days afterward, another por tion, mostly cavalry, were struck by General Francis J. Ilerron, and driven to the mountains. Soon after this ill health compelled Schofield to leave the field, and the command devolved on General Blunt. Hindman now determined to strike a decisive blow for the recovery of his State. Toward the close of November he had collected an army about twenty thousand strong on its western border. His advance Avas attacked by Blunt on the Boston Mountains on the 26th of that month, and were driven toward Van Buren, when Blunt took position at Cave Hill. Hindman, with about eleven thousand men, marched from Van Buren to crush him. Blunt sent for Herron, then in Missouri, to come and help him. He did so, and at a little settlement called Prairie Grove, on Illinois Creek, they utterly defeated Hind man in a severe battle, and drove his shattered army over the mountains. In the mean time there was bloody strife in Texas, where Confederate rule was supreme, and the Unionists there suffered the rigors of a reign of terror unparalleled in atrocity. Some attempts had been made to " repossess" impoi- tant points of that State, especially the city of Galveston. So early as May, 1862, a demand for the surrender of that city had been made by the com mander of a little squadron and refused, and so matters remained until the 8th of October, when the civil authorities of Galveston surrendered it to Com mander Renshaw, of the National navy. Let us now see what was occurring eastward of the Mississippi, bearing upon the capture of Vicksburg, at the close of 1862. Grant had then moved the bulk of his army to the region of Holly Springs, in Mississippi, where he was confronted by Van Doru; and Rosecrans, who succeeded Buell, 1 Avas moving southward from Xashville. Rosecrans found the Army of the Ohio (now the Army of the Cumberland) WILLIAM S. ROSKCRANS. Page 634. 088 THE NATION. [1862. in a sad condition wasted in substance by marches and conflicts, and de moralized by lack of success "its spirit broken, its confidence destroyed, its discipline relaxed, its courage weakened, and its hopes shattered." 1 Its effective force was only sixty-five thousand, and its cavalry was weak in number and equipment, while the rough-riders of Forrest and Morgan were very strong and bold. That army was in the vicinity of Bowling Green and Glasgow when Rosecrans took command of it, and Bragg had concentrated his forces at Murfreesboro , below Nashville, from Avhich went out expeditions that seriously threatened the latter city. Perceiving its peril, Rosecrans moved in that direction at the beginning of November, and very severe encounters between his forces and Bragg s warned the latter that he had now a loyal, earnest, and energetic leader to deal with, and he became circumspect. Rosecrans prepared to move upon Bragg, and on the morning of the 26th of December, the bulk of his army, about forty-five thousand in number, went forward, and, after various preliminary operations, it appeared before the Con federate post at Murfreesboro on the 29th of December. Both armies made vigorous preparations for battle. Rosecrans had among his subordinate leaders Generals McCook,Thomas, Crittenden, Rousseau, Harker, Palmer, Sheridan, J. C. Davis, Wood, Van Cleve, Hazen, Negley, Mathews, and others ; and Bragg had Polk, Breckinridgc, Ilardee, Kirby Smith, Cheatham, Withers, Cleborne, and Wharton. The armies lay upon each side of Stone s River, Avithin cannon-shot distance of Murfreesboro . There a most sanguinary battle was begun on the morning of the 31st [Dec., 1862], and raged until evening with varied success, when the Nationals had lost very heavily in men and guns, but were not disheartened. 2 The gallant Rosecrans had been seen at every post of danger during the battle, and his men had perfect confidence in him. Bragg that night felt sure of victory, and expected to find his foe in full retreat before morning. He was mis taken. There was Rose crans ready for battle. The astonished Bragg moved cautiously, and MONUMENT EULCTEO P.Y IIAZEN S BRIGADE. 1 Annals of the Army of the. Cunibe.iiand, by John Fitch. a To the brigade of Acting Brigadier-General W. B. Hazen was freely given the honor of saving the duy for the Nationals. Upon his gallant band the brunt of battle fell at a critical moment, when his thirteen hundred men, skillfully handled, kopt thousands at bay, and stayed 18G2] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 539 the sum of that day s [Jan. 1, 1803] operations was some heavy skirmishing. On the following morning [Jan. 2] the conflict was renewed. The struggle was terrific. Both sides massed their batteries and plied them with destruc tive effect. For a time it seemed as if mutual annihilation would be the result. Finally, a charge by seven National regiments 1 decided the day. The Con federates were scattered by it, and in the space of twenty minutes they lost two thousand men. So ended, in complete victory for the Nationals, the battle of Stone s River or Murfreesboro . 2 Bragg retreated to Tullahoma, in the direc tion of Chattanooga, and Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro . Such continued to be the relative position of the two armies for several months afterward. While for more than a year and a half the National armies had been striv ing to crush the gigantic rebellion, the loyal people and the government had been contemplating the propriety of striking a withering blow at the unrigh teous Labor System, for the spread and perpetuation of which the war was waged by the conspirators and their friends. The subject of slavery, and its abolition, as a war measure, occupied much of the attention of Congress dur ing its session in the winter of 1861-62. The public mind had been for a long time excited by the conduct of several military commanders who had returned fugitive slaves to their masters. This was forbidden by law ; and the Republican party 3 in Congress pressed with earnestness measures looking to the emancipation of the slaves as a necessary means for suppressing the rebellion. The President, kind and forbearing, proposed to Congress to co-ope rate with any State government whose inhabitants might adopt measures for emancipation, by giving pecuniary aid ; but the slave-holders everywhere refused to listen to any propositions tending to such result. So Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, over which it had control ; -and finally that body gave the Chief Magistrate discretionary power to declare the emancipation of all slaves in States where rebellion existed, under certain con ditions, and to employ them in the armies of the Republic. Accordingly, on the 22d of September, 1862, the Chief Magistrate declared it to be his purpose to issue a proclamation on the first of January, 1863, pronouncing forever free the slaves within any State or designated parts of a State, the people whereof should then be in rebellion. At this the conspirators sneered and their friends raved, comparing the proclamation to " the Pope s bull against a comet," and on the designated day the rebellion was more rampant than ever. The Presi dent, who had hoped that kindness might affect the rebellious people, saw that the tide of victory for the Confederates, which had been rolling steadily forward for hours. On the spot where the struggle occurred Hazen s men erected a monument to the memory of their slain comrades. 1 The 19th Illinois, 18th, 21st, and 74th Ohio. 78th Pennsylvania, llth Michigan, and 37th Indiana. 2 Rosecrans officially reported his loss at nearly 12,000 men, while Bragg estimated it at 24,000. Rosecrans had 1,5H3 killed. Bragg admitted a loss of 10,000 on his part, of whom 9,000 were killed and wounded. Among the killed were Generals Rains and Hanson. While the movements of the two armies were tending toward the decisive battle, Bragg s superior cavalry were raiding over Western Tennessee, to prevent communication between Grant and Rosecrans, and to strike the communications of the latter with Nashville. At about the same lime a successful counter-raid into East Tennessee was made by General S. P. Carter. 8 Page 529. C)40 THE NATION. [1863. every concession was spurned with scorn, and on the designated day [January 1, 1863], he issued the threatened Proclamation of Emancipation. 1 Then the shackles fell from the limbs of three millions of slaves ; and from that hour when the nation, by its chosen head, proclaimed that act of justice, the power of the rebellion began to wane. The conspirators were struck with dismay, for they well knew that it was a blow fatal to their hopes. It touched with mighty power a chord of sympathy among the aspirants for genuine freedom in the elder world ; and from that hour the prayers of true men in all civilized 1 The following is a copy of that proclamation : Whereas, On the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation Avas issued by the ^President of the United States, containing among other things, the following, to wit : "That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, nnd for ever free ; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. ^That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States : and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln. President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do. on this first first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate, as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas. Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaqucmines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption. Terre Bonne, Lafourche. Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans). Mississippi, Alabama-, Florida, Georgia] South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley. Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all per sons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to bo free to abstain from all violence, unless n^ necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be eceived into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, ipon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States ;o bo affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord [L. s.J one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President. WILLIAM II. SEWARD, Secretary of State. 13G3.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 641 lands went up to the throne of God in supplication for the success of the armies of the Republic against its enemies. 1 While the National government was thus working for the good of man kind, the Confederate "government," so called, at Richmond, was putting forth amazing energies in the prosecution of schemes for an opposite result. Their " Provisional Constitution " 2 had been succeeded by a " Permanent Constitution," and Jefferson Davis had been elected [Feb. 22d, 1862] "Perma nent President " of the Confederacy for six years. 3 In the " Congress " at Richmond were delegates from all the Slave-labor States excepting Maryland and Delaware, and resolutions were adopted and measures were devised for prosecuting the war with the greatest vigor, declaring that they would never, " on any terms, politically affiliate Avith a people who were guilty of an inva sion of their soil and the butchery of their citizens." With this spirit they prosecuted the war on land, and by the aid of some of the British aristocracy, merchants, and ship-builders, they kept afloat piratical craft 011 the ocean, that for a time drove most of the carrying trade between the United States and Europe to British ships. One of the most noted of these piratical vessels was the Alabama, built, equipped, armed, pro visioned, coaled, and manned by the British, 4 and commanded by Raphael Semmes. She roamed the ocean a simple sea-robber ; 5 and during the last ninety days of 1862, she destroyed by fire no less than twenty-eight helpless American merchant vessels. While her incendiarism was thus illuminating the sea, the George Griswold, laden with pro visions, furnished by the citizens of Xew York who had suffered most by the piracies, was out upon the ocean, bearing a gift of food from them, valued at one hundred thou sand dollars, to the starving English opera tives in Lancashire, who had been deprived of work by the rebellion. And that ship of mercy was convoyed by an American 1 The first regiment of colored troops raised by the authority of an act of Congress was organized in Beaufort District, South Carolina; and on the clay when this proclamation was issued, a native of that district (Dr. Brisbane), who had been driven away many _years before because he emancipated his slaves, announced to these troops and other freed people the great fact that they were no longer in bonds. 2 Page 547 3 His immediate advisers, to whom he gave the titles of the cabinet ministers of his govern ment at Washington, were Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State;" George W. Randolph, "Secretary of War;" S. R. Mallory, "Secretary of the Navy;" C. G-. Memminger, "Secretary of the Treasury;" Thomas H. Watts, "Attorney-General;" and John H. Reagan, "Postmaster- General." 4 While these vessels were a-building in England, and their destination was known, the American minister in London called the attention of the British government to the fact. He failed to elicit any action that might prevent their going to sea, fully manned and armed. It was painfully evident that the government was willing they should go to sea in "aid of the rebellion. 5 Immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter [page 558], Jefferson Davis recommended, and his fellow-conspirators in "Congress" authorized, the employment of armed vessels to destroy RAPHAEL SEMMES. 642 THE NATION. [1863. ship of war to protect her from the torch of a pirate lighted by British hands. The subsequent career of the Alabama will be considered hereafter. Let us now turn again to a consideration of military events. At the close of 1862, the Civil War was in full career. Up to that time the loyal people had furnished for the contest, wholly by volunteering, more than one million two hundred thousand soldiers, of whom, at the beginning of 1863, about seven hundred thousand were in the service. The theater of strife was almost co-extensive with the Slave-labor States, but the most important movements were those connected with preparations for a siege of Yicksburg, and the capture of Port Hudson, twenty-five miles above Baton Rouge. Between these places only, the Mississippi was free from the patrol of National war- vessels, and it was determined to break that link between the Confederates east and west of the river. For that purpose Grant concentrated his troops near the Tallahatchee, where the Confederates were strongly posted. Troops under Hovey and Washburne came over from Arkansas to co-operate with him, and early in December his main army was at Oxford, and an immense amount of his supplies were at Holly Springs. The latter, through the carelessness or treachery of the commander of their guard, were captured by Van Dorn on the 20th. This loss compelled Grant to fall back and allow a considerable Confederate force, under General J. C. Pemberton, to concentrate at Vicks- burg. Meanwhile, in accordance with Grant s instructions, General W. T. Sherman moved down the Mississippi from Memphis, with a strong force, and siege-guns, to beleaguer Yicksburg. JOHN c. PEMBERTON. Troops from Helena joined him at Friar s Point [Dec. 20], and there he was met by Admiral D. D. Porter, whose naval force was at the mouth of the Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg. The two commanders arranged a plan for attacking Yicksburg in the rear, by passing up the Yazoo a few miles and American shipping on the high seas. These, according to the laws of nations and the proper definition of the word, were pirates. A pirate is defined as "a robber on the high seas," and piracy, as "taking property from others by open violence, and without authority, on the sea." These vessels, and their officers and crews, answered this definition, for Davis and Toorabs, who signed their commissions, were not " authorized" to do so by any real government on the face of the earth. The conspirators they represented had no more "authority" than Jack Cade, Daniel Shays, Nat Turner, or John Brown. Hence these Confederate marauders were not " privateers," but " pirates." Semmes s vessel had neither register nor record, and no ship captured by her was ever sent into any port for adjudication. She had no acknowledged flag or recognized nationality. All the regulations of public justice which discriminate the legalized naval vessel from the pirate were disregarded. She had no accessible port into which to send her captives, iior any legal tribunal to adjudge her captures. She was an outlaw roving the seas, an enemy to mankind, and her commander was a pirate in the worst sense of that term. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 543 reducing batteries along a line of bluffs, by which approaches to it were defended. This was undertaken, but after a severe battle on the Chickasaw Bayou [Dec. 28, 1862], in which Sherman lost about 2,000 men, and his foe only 207, the Nationals were compelled to abandon the enterprise. At that inoment [January 2, 1863] General McClernand 1 arrived, and, ranking Sher man, took the chief command. Toward the middle of January the army and navy in the vicinity of Yicks- burg went up the Arkansas River and captured Fort Hindman, at Arkansas Post [January 11, 1863], a very important position. The fort and much valu able property was destroyed. 2 Meanwhile Grant had come down the river from Memphis, and arrangements were at once made for a vigorous prosecu tion of the siege of Yicksburg. He organized his army into four corps, 3 and encouraged the enlistment of colored men. He weighed well all proposed plans for the siege, and being satisfied that the post was too well fortified to warrant an attack on its river front, he determined to get in its rear. First the canal begun by Farragut 4 received his attention. It was a failure, and that project was abandoned. Other passages among the neighboring bayous were sought, and finally a strong land and naval force made its way into the Yazoo, with the intention of descending that stream, carrying the works at Haines s Bluff, 5 and so gaining the rear of Yicksburg. The expedition was repulsed at Fort Pemberton, near Greenwood, late in March, and the enterprise was aban doned. Porter, with amazing energy and perseverance, tried other channels, but failed. A record in detail of the operations of the army and navy in that region, during the winter and spring of 1863, would fill a volume. In the mean time there were stirring scenes on the bosom of the Missis-? sippi. Some of the war- vessels passed by the batteries at Yicksburg [Feb., 1863], for the purpose of destroying Confederate gun-boats below, but were themselves captured. 6 Later, when Grant had sent a strong force down the west side of the river, under McClernand and McPherson, toward New Car thage, Porter determined to run by Yicksburg with nearly his whole fleet, and the transports and barges. This was successfully done on the ni^ht of the 16th of April. Six more transports performed the same perilous feat on the night of the 22d, and Grant prepared for vigorous operations against Yicks burg on the line of the Big Black River, on its flank and rear. Let us now turn for a moment, and see what was occurring in the Depart ment of the Gulf under General Banks, the successor of General Butler, who 1 Page 577. 2 The National loss was 980 men. The Confederates, to the number of 5,000, were made prisoners, and the spoils were 17 cannon, 3,000 small arms, and a large quantity of stores. 3 These were commanded respectively by Generals McClernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, and McPherson. 4 Page 636. 5 This was at the end of the range of bluffs extending from Yicksburg to the Tazoo. 6 One of them was the powerful iron-clad Indianola. She was attacked, injured, and captured. "While the Confederates were repairing her, Porter, one evening, sent down the river an old flat- boat, arranged so as to imitate a gun-boat or ram. It seemed very formidable, and drew the fire of the Vicksburg batteries as it passed sullenly by them. Word was sent to warn Confederate vessels below, and the Jndianola was blown into fragments to prevent her being captured by this supposed ram. 644 THE M ATI ON. [1863. was co-operating with Grant against Vicksburg, and was also charged with the task of gaining possession of Louisiana and Texas. Galveston, as we have seen, was in possession of a National naval force. 1 Banks sent troops to its support, and on the morning of the first of January, 1863, the Confederates, under General Magruder, 8 attacked the troops and the war-vessels. A severe struggle ensued, which resulted in the defeat of the Nationals. Galveston was repossessed by the Confederates, but on account of a vigorous blockade, at once established by Farragut, the victory was almost a barren one. Banks now turned his attention to the recovery of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and along its shores. Already a force under General Grover occu pied Baton Rouge; and early in January [1863] a land and naval force under General \Veitzel and Commodore Buchanan was sent into the Teche region, a country composed of fertile plantations, extensive forests, sluggish lagoons and bayous, and almost impassable swamps. The expedition was successful. Banks now concentrated his forces, about 12,000 strong, at Baton Rouge, for the purpose of co-operating with. Admiral Farragut in an attempt to pass the now formidable batteries at Port Hudson. This was attempted on the night of the 13th of March, when a terrible contest occurred in the gloom between the vessels and the land batteries. Only the flag ship (Hartford) and com- pardon (Albatross) passed by. Then Banks again sent a large portion of his available force into the interior of Louisiana, where General Richard Taylor wiis in command of the Confederates. The troops were concentrated at Brashear City early in April, and moved trium phantly through the country to the Red River, accompanied by the Depart ment commander. At the close of the first week in May they were at Alexandria, on the Red River, where Banks announced that the power of the Confederates in Central and Northern Louisiana was broken. With this impression he led his troops to and across the Mississippi, and late in May invested Port Hudson. We left Grant, late in April, below Vicksburg, prepared for new operations against that post. 3 By a most wonderful raid, performed by cavalry under S.VAHP. Page G37. Page 562. Page 643. 1863.] LINCOLN AD MINI STRATI OX. 645 Colonel Grierson, in the heart of Mississippi, 1 he was satisfied that the bulk of the Confederate soldiers of that region were near Vicksburg, under Pember- ton. So he prepared to act with vigor. .Porter attacked and ran by [April 29] the batteries at Grand Gulf, and Grant s army crossed the river at Bruins- burg, a little below, pushed on, and near Port Gibson gained a decisive vic tory [May 1] over the Confederates, 2 Meanwhile Sherman, who had been left to operate in the Yazoo region, and had made another unsuccessful attempt to capture Raines s Bluff, 3 was ordered to march down the west side of the Mis sissippi and join the main army. This June-lion was effected on the 8th of May, near the Big Black River, and the whole army pressed on toward Jack son, the capital of Mississippi, where General Joseph E. Johnston was in com mand. In a severe battle at Raymond [May 12], on the way, the Confederates were defeated. 4 Such, also, was the result of a battle at Jackson [May 14], when the Confederates were driven northward, the city was seized, and a large amount of public property was destroyed. Then the victors turned toward Vicksburg, and fought [May 1C] a severe battle with the Confederates under Pemberton at Champion Hills, and were victorious. 5 Grant pressed forward, and after a battle at the passage of the Big Black Paver [May 17], the Confede rates were again driven. Grant crossed that stream, and on the 10th of May his army, which for a fortnight had subsisted off the country, invested Vicks burg, and received sup plies from a base on the Yazoo established by Admiral Porter. Grant made an un successful assault upon Vicksburg on the day of his arrival. Another, with disastrous effect on the Nationals, was made three days later [May 22], when Porter with his fleet co-operated, and then Grant commenced a regular siege, which continued until the first CAVE-LI7E IX VICKSBURG. 1 Grierson left Lagrange, Tennessee, on the 17th of April, with a body of cavalry, and swept through the country southward, between the two railways running parallel with the Mississippi River, striking them here and there, smiting Confederate outposts, and destroying public property. At times his troops were scattered on detached service, and often rode fifty and sixty miles a day, over an exceedingly difficult country to travel in. They killed and wounded about 100 of the foe ; captured and paroled full 500 ; destroyed 3,000 stand of arms, and inflicted a loss on the Confed erates of property valued at about $6.000.000. Grierson s loss was 27 men, and a number of horses. a The National loss was 840 men. They captured 3 guns. 4 flags, and 580 prisoners. 3 Page 643. 4 The National loss was 442 men, and that of the Confederates 823. 5 The National loss was 2,457. The loss of the Confederates in the battle was about the same, besides 2,000 prisoners. THE NATION. [1863. week in July, and produced the greatest distress in the city, and in the belea- gured camps. Shot and shell were hurled upon it daily from land and water, and the inhabitants were compelled to live in caves 1 cut in the clay hills on which Yicksburg is built, as the only safe place for their persons. At length one of the principal forts was blown up by a mine made under it by the Nationals, and other mines were ready for their infernal work. Famine was stalking through the city and the camps. Fourteen ounces of food had become the allowance for each person for forty-eight hours, and the flesh of mules Ijad been pro nounced a savory dish. 2 Pemberton now lost all hope of aid from Johnston, in Grant s rear (who had been watching for an opportunity to strike the besiegers), or the salvation of his army, and on the 3d of July he offered to surrender. That event took place on the morning of the 4th, when 27,000 men became prisoners of war, and the stronghold of Vicksburg passed into the possession of the National power. 3 This victory, won simultaneously with another at Gettysburg, in Pennsyl vania, produced unbounded joy in all loyal hearts. It was followed a few days later by the surrender of Port Hudson, which had been besieged by General Banks for forty days, his gallant troops at times performing great achievements of valor and fortitude. He had been ably supported by Farragut and his squad ron. The missiles sent by the a/my and navy had caused great destruction within the fortifications. The ammunition and provisions of the garrison were nearly exhausted, and when news came of the fall of Vicksburg, General Gardner, the commander of Port Hudson, despairing of succor, surrendered the post, and its occupants and spoils, on the 9th of July. Then, for the first time in 1 The streets of Vicksburg are cut through the hills, and houses are often seen far above the street passengers. In the perpendicular banks formed by these cuttings, and composed of clay, caves were dug at the beginning of the siege, some of them sufficiently large to accommodate whole families, and in some instances communicating with each other by corridors. Such was the character of some made on Main Street, opposite the house of Colonel Lyman J. Strong, for the use of his family and others, and of which the writer made the sketch on page 645, in April, 1866. These caves were then in a partially ruined state, as were most of them in and around Yicksburg, for rains had washed the banks away, or had caused the filling of the entrances. In this picture the appearance of the caves in their best estate is delineated, with furniture in accordance with descriptions given to the writer by the inhabitants. 2 "This daj^," wrote a citizen of Vicksburg in his diary, under date of June 30, "we heard of the first mule meat being eaten. Some of the officers, disgusted with the salt junk, proposed to slaughter some of the fat mules as an experiment ; as, if the siege lasted, we must soon come to- that diet. The soup from it was quite rich in taste and appearance. Some of the ladies ate of it without knowing the difference." 3 Grant and Pemberton met under a live-oak tree, on a slope of the hill on which the fort that was blown up was situated, and there agreed upon terms of surrender. That tree was soon afterward cut down and converted into canes and other forms, as mementoes of the event. A marble monument, with suitable inscriptions, was afterward placed on the spot. It soon became mutilated, and in its place a 100-pounder iron cannon was erected, and suitably inscribed. General Grant thus stated the result of the operations of his army from Port Gibson to Vicksburg: " The result of this campaign has been the defeat of the enemy in five battles outside- of Vicksburg ; the occupation of Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, and the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison and munitions of war ; a loss to the enemy of thirty-seven thousand (37,000) prisoners, among whom were fifteen general officers; at least ten thousand killed and wounded (among the killed Generals Tracy, Tilghman, and Green), and hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of stragglers, w r ho can never be collected and reorganized. Arms and munitions of war for an army of sixty thousand men have fallen into our hands, besides a large amount of other public property, consisting of railroads, locomotives, cars, steamboats, cotton, &c., and much was destroyed to prevent our capturing it. ? n,NY Dr awn "by li "L . 5 teplu 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. more than two years, every impediment to the free navigation of the Missis sippi was removed. Powerful portions of the Confederacy were thus severed and weakened, and the loyal people of the land were jubilant with the hope and expectation that the end of the terrible strife was nigh. The blow dis mayed the Conspirators, and the wiser men in the Confederacy clearly perceived that all was lost. 1 CHAPTER XVIII. THE CIVIL WAR. [18611865.] WHILE a portion of the National troops were achieving important vic tories on the banks of the Lower Mississippi, 2 those composing the Army of the Potomac were winning an equally important victory not far from the banks of the Susquehanna. We left that army in charge of General Joseph Hooker after sad disasters at Fredericksburg ; 3 let us now observe its move ments from that time until its triumphs in the conflict at Gettysburg, between the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers. From January until early in April, Hooker was employed in preparing the weakened and demoralized Army of the Potomac for a vigorous campaign. It lay on the northern side of the Rappahannock River, nearly opposite Freder icksburg, and, with the exception of some slight cavalry movements, it remained quiet during nearly three months of rest and preparation. It was reorganized, 4 1 The blow was unexpected to the Conspirators. They knew how strong Yicksburg was, and were confident that the accomplished soldier, General Johnston, would compel Grant to raise the siege. Even the Daily Citizen, a paper printed in Vicksburg, only two days before the surrender (July 2), talked as boastfully as if perfectly confident of success. In a copy before the writer, printed on wall-paper, the editor said: "The great Ulysses the Yankee generalissimo surnamed Grant has expressed his intention of dining in Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the Fourth of July by a grand dinner, and so forth. When asked if he would invite General Joe Johnston to join him, he said, No 1 for fear there will be a row at the table. Ulysses must get into the city before he dines in it. The way to cook a rabbit is, first catch the rabbit, &c." In another paragraph, the Citizen eulogized the luxury of mule-meat and fricasseed kitten. 2 See page 646. 3 See page 631. 4 The army was arranged in seven corps, named, respectively, the 1st, 2d, 3d, 5th, 6th, llth, and 12th, and each was distinguished by peculiar badges, worn on the hat or cap, and composed of scarlet, white, and blue cloth, made in the forms shown in the engraving, whose numbers cor respond with those of the respective corps, as follow : The corps composed twenty-three divisions; and at the close of April [1863], the army consisted of 110,000 infantry and artillery, with 400 guns, and a well-equipped cavalry force, 13,000 strong. The corps commanders were Generals J. F. Reynolds, D. 1ST. Couch, D. E. Sickles, G. G. Meade, J. Sedgwick, 0. 0. Howard, and H. "W. Slocum. 648 T E NATION, tl863 . and weeded of incompetent and disloyal officers. 1 Measures were taken to prevent desertions and to recall a vast number of absentees. 2 Order and dis cipline were thoroughly established ; and, at the close of April, Hooker found himself at the head of an army more than one hundred thousand in number, well disciplined, and in fine spirits. General Lee, in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, then lying on the Fredericksburg side of the Rappahan- nock, l^ad been equally active in reorganizing, strengthening, and disciplining his forces. A vigorous conscription act was then in operation throughout the Confederacy, and in April, Lee found himself at the head of an army of little more than sixty thousand men of all arms, 3 unsurpassed in discipline, and full of enthusiasm. A part of his army, under General Long-street, was absent in Southeastern Virginia, confronting the troops of General J. J. Peck, in the vicinity of Norfolk. Yet with his forces thus divided, Lee felt competent to cope \vith his antagonist, for he was behind a strong line of intrenchments reaching from Port Royal to Banks s Ford, a distance of about twenty-five mi 1 , os. We have observed that only some cavalry movements disturbed the quiet of the Army of the Potomac in the winter aud spring of 1 803. Early in Feb ruary the Confederate General TV. IT. F. Lee made an unsuccessful attempt to surprise and capture National forces at Gloucester, opposite Yorktown ; and at a little past midnight of the 8th of March, the notorious guerrilla chief, Moseby, with a small band of mounted men, dashed into the village of Fairfax Court-ITouse, and carried away the Union commander there and some others. A few days later the first purely cavalry battle of the war occurred not far from Kelly s Ford, on the Rappahannock, between National troops under Gen eral W. W. Averill and Confederates led by Fitz-Hugh Lee. Averill encoun tered Lee while he was pushing on toward Culpepper Court-ITouse, from the Rappahannock, when a severe contest ensued, and continued until late in the evening, when Averill retreated across ilie river, pursued to the water s edge by his foe. Each lost between seventy and one hundred men. Early in April, before the ranks of his army "were full, Hooker determined to advance, his objective being Richmond, for the terms of enlistment of a large portion of his men would soon expire. He ordered General Stoneman to 1 There were officers in that army, high in rank, who were opposed to the policy of eman cipating the slaves as a war measure, which, from the beginning, had been contemplated by the government. The proclamation of the President to that effect developed this opposition in con siderable strength, and this in connection with the active influence of a part of the Opposition party, known as the Peace Faction, upon the friends of the soldiers at home, had a most depress ing effect upon the army. The men were impressed with the idea that it was becoming a "war for the negro," instead of "a war for the Union." Officers known to be inclined to give such a tone of feeling to their men were replaced by loyal men. in active sympathy with the government in its efforts to crush the rebellion. 2 When Hooker took command of the army, he found the number of reported absentees to be 2,922 commissioned officers and 81,964 non-commissioned officers and privates. This, doubtless, included all the deserters since the organization of the Army of the Potomac, and the sick and wounded in the hospitals. It is estimated that 50,000 men, on the rolls of that army, were absent at the time we are considering, namely, the close of January, 1863. 3 Lee s army was composed of two corps, commanded respectively by Generals J. Longstreet and T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson. His artillery was consolidated into one corps, under the com mand of General Pendleton as chief. IS (53, 1 LINCOLN S ADMINIST R A T I OX. 649 JOSEPH HOOKER. cross the Rappahannoek with a large force of cavalry, strike and disperse the horsemen of Fitz-Hugh Lee, of Stuart s cavalry, known to be at Culpepper Court-House, and then, pushing on to Gordonsville, turn to the left, and destroy the railways in the rear of Lee s army. Heavy rains, which made the streams brimful, foiled the move ment at its beginning, and Stoiieman si nd his followers swam their horses across the Rappahannock, and returned to camp. Hooker then paused for a fortnight, when he put his whole army in motion, for the purpose of turning Lee s flank. He sent ten thousand mounted men to raid on his rear, and threw a large portion of his army (Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps) across the Rappahannock, above Frecl- <nicksburg, with orders to concentrate at Chancellorsville, in Lee s rear, ten miles from that city. This was accomplished on the evening of the 30th [April, 1863], when over thirty-six thousand troops threatened the rear of the Confederate army. Meanwhile, the left wing of Hookers army (First, Third, and Sixth Corps), under General Sedgwick, left near Fredericksburg, had so completely masked the movements of the turning column, by demonstrations on Lee s front, that the latter was not aware of the peril that threatened his army until that column had crossed the Rappahannock, and was in full march on Chancellors ville. Hooker expected Lee would turn and fly toward Richmond when he should discover this peril, but he did no such tiling. On thv contrary, he pro ceeded to strike his antagonist a heavy blow, lor the twofold purpose of securing the direct line of communication between the parts of Hooker s now severed army, and to compel him to fight, with only a part of his force, in a disadvantageous position, at Chancellorsville, which was in the midst of a region covered with a dense forest of shrub-oaks and pines, and tangled under- growths, broken by morasses, hills, and ravines, called The Wilderness. For this purpose, Lee put " Stonewall " Jackson s column in motion [May 1] toward Chancellorsville, at a little past midnight. Early in the morning Jackson was joined by other troops, and the whole force moved upon Chancellorsville by two roads. Hooker sent out a greater part of the Fifth and the whole of the Twelfth Corps, with the Eleventh in its support, to meet the advancing columns. A battle ensued; and the efforts of Lee to seize the communications between the parts of Hooker s army, just alluded to, were foiled. But the Nationals were pushed back to their intrench- ments at Chancellorsville, and there took a strong defensive position. Both commanders now felt a sense of impending danger, for both armies were in a critical position in relation to each other. Hooker decided to rest on the 650 THE NATION. [1863. defensive, but Lee, in accordance with the advice of Jackson, took the bold aggres sive step of detaching the whole of that leader s corps and sending it on a secret flank movement, to gain the rear of the National army. The movement was successfully made, though not entirely unobserved ; but the troops seen moving behind the thick curtain of The Wilderness thickets were supposed to be a part of Lee s army in retreat. While General Sickles, in command of that portion of the line where the discovery was made, was seeking positive knowl edge in the matter, Jackson, who had gained the National rear, solved the problem by bursting suddenly from behind that curtain with twenty-five thou sand men, failing suddenly and firmly upon Hooker s right, crumbling it into atoms, and driving the astounded column in wild confusion upon the remainder of the line. A general battle ensued, in which the residue of the Confederate army, under the direct command of General Lee, participated, he having attacked Hooker s left and center. The conflict continued until late in the evening, when the Confederates sustained an irreparable loss in the death of Jackson, who was accidentally shot, in the gloom, by his own men. 1 Hooker made new dispositions to meet the inevitable attack the following morning [May 3, 1863]. He had called from Sedgwick the First Corps, full twenty thousand strong, and it arrived that evening and swelled the National force at Chancellorsville to about sixty thousand men. He had also ordered Sedgwick to cross the Rappahannock at once, seize and hold the town and heights of Fredericksburg, and push the bulk of his force with all possible haste along the roads to Chancellorsville, He also changed a portion of the front of his own line so as to receive the expected attack. During the night Lee effected a slight connection between the two wings of his army, and soon afterward, Stuart, at dawn, shouted at the head of the Confederate column on Hooker s right, " Charge, and remember Jackson !" whose troops he was lead ing, and fell furiously upon a portion of the line commanded by General Sickles. Lee attacked Hooker s left and center again. The struggle was severe and sanguinary, and when, toward noon, Sickles, finding himself sorely pressed, sent to Hooker for re-enforcements, the chief had just been prostrated by an accident, and for a brief space the army was without a head. 2 There was an injurious delay, and finally, after long and hard fighting, the whole National army was pushed from the field, and took a strong position on the roads back of Chancellorsville, leading to the Rapid Anna and Rappahannock. Lee s army was now united, while Hooker s remained divided. Sedgwick had endeavored to obey Hooker s command to join him, but failed to do so. He had thrown his army across the river on the morning of the 2d [May], and was lying quietly when he received the order at midnight. He moved immediately, and took possession of Fredericksburg. General 1 Jackson had been reconnoitering in front of his forces, and, when retiring in the darkness, he and his companions were mistaken by their friends for Union cavalry, and were fired upon. Jackson fell, pierced by their bullets, and some of his staff were killed. His arm was shattered, and afterward amputated. He died on the 10th of May. 2 A cannon-ball struck a pillar of the Chancellor House, and hurled it with such force> against Hooker, that it stunned him. The command then devolved on Couch, but Hooker was. able to resume it in the course of a few hours. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. Early was then in command on the heights. Sedgwick formed storming col umns in the morning, drove the Confederates from the fortified ridge, and with nearly his entire force pushed on toward Chancellorsville. At Salem Church,, a few miles from Fredericksburg, he was met and checked, by a force sent by Lee, after a sharp fight, by which he lost, that day, including the struggle for the heights in the morning, about five thousand men. Instead of joining- Hooker, Sedgwick found himself compelled, the next day, in order to save his- army, to fly across the Rappahannock, which he did, near Banks s Ford, on the night of the 4th and 5th of May. Hooker, meanwhile, had heard of the perilous situation of Sedgwick, and, on consultation with his corps command ers, it was determined to retreat to the north side of the river. Lee had pre pared to strike Hooker a heavy blow on the oth. A violent rain-storm, prevented, and that night the Nationals passed the river in safety without molestation. On the same day the Confederate army resumed its position on. the heights at Fredericksburg. Both parties had suffered very severe losses. 1 While Hooker and Lee were contending at Chancellorsville, a greater por tion of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Stoneman,. KUINS OP THE CHANCELLOR MANSION. 2 were raiding on the communications of the Army of Northern Virginia. They crossed the Rappahannock [April 29], and swept down toward Rich mond in the direction of Gordonsville. Unfortunately for the efficiency of" the expedition, the command was divided, and raided in various directions,, one party, under Kilpatrick, approaching within two miles of Richmond. They destroyed much property, but the chief object of the expedition, namely, the breaking up of the railways between Lee and Richmond, was not accomplished, and the week s work of the cavalry had very little bearing on the progress of the war. 1 The National loss was reported at 17,197, including about 5,000 prisoners. They left behind, in their retreat, their dead and wounded, 13 pieces of artillery, about 20,000 small-arras, 17 colors, and a large quantity of ammunition. The Confederate loss was probably about 15,000, of whom 5,000 were prisoners, with 15 colors, and 7 pieces of artillery. 3 The villa and out-buildings of Mr. Chancellor constituted " Chancellorsville." That man sion was beaten into ruins during the battle. The picture gives its appearance when the writer sketched it, in June, 1866. 652 THE NATION. [1863. We have observed 1 that Longstreet was operating against General Peck in the vicinity of Norfolk. The latter officer, with a considerable force, was in a strongly fortified position at Suffolk, at the head of the Nansemond River, from which he kept watch over Norfolk and the mouth of the James River, and furnished a base for operations against Petersburg and the important Wel- don railway. Early in April [1863], Longstreet made a sudden and vigorous movement against Suffolk, expecting to drive the Nationals from that post, seize Norfolk and Portsmouth, and perhaps make a demonstration against Fortress JMonroe. But Peck met his foe with such skill and valor that Longstreet was compelled to resort to a siege. In this he failed, and on hearing of the battle at Chancellorsville, lie withdrew and joined Lee, making that commander s army nearly as strong as that of his antagonist. Hookers losses, and the expiration of the terms of his nine months and two years men, to the number of almost 30,000, about to occur, greatly reduced his num bers. Lee s army was buoyant, 2 and Hooker s was desponding. Impelled by false notions of the temper of the people of the Free-labor States, and the real resources and strength of the government, and elated by the events at Chancellorsville, the Conspirators now ordered Lee to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania again. Hooker suspected such intention, and so reported, but the authorities at Washington were slow to believe that Lee would repeat the folly of the previous year. But he did so. By a flank movement he caused Hooker to break up his encampment on the Rappahan- nock, and move toward Washington, after there had been some sharp cavalry engagements near the river, above Fredericksburg. Lee sent his left winjj, under Ewell, through Chester Gap of the Blue Ridge, into the Shenandoah Valley. He swept down rapidly to Winchester, and drove Milroy [June 15, 1863], who was there with seven thousand men, across the Potomac into Mary land and Pennsylvania, with the loss of nearly all of his artillery and ammu nition. He also lost many men in the race from Winchester to the Potomac, but saved his trains. Hooker, at the same time, had moved from the Rappahannock to Centre- ville, for the purpose of covering Washington, while Longstreet marched on a 1 See page 648. 2 The Confederates and their friends were full of hope at this time. The repulse of the Army of the Potomac seemed to promise security to Richmond for some time. Yicksburg and Port Hudson [see page 646] then seemed impregnable ; and the promises of the disloyal Peace Faction At the North, of a counter-revolution in the Free-labor States, seemed likely to be soon fulfilled. The news of the Battle of Chancellorsville inspirited the friends of the Confederates in England, and these were clamorous for their government to acknowledge the Confederacy as an inde pendent nation; and in the spring of 1864 a large body, representing the ruling classes in Eng land, formed a league, to assist the Confederates, called the Southern Independence Association. But the British government wisely hesitated, and only the Pope of Rome, of all the rulers of the -earth, ever recognized the Arch-Conspirator as the head of a nation, whom, in a friendly letter, he addressed as "the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America." At this time a scheme of the French Emperor for destroying the Republic of Mexico and aiding the Conspirators, was in operation, 20,000 French troops and 5,000 recreant Mexicans being engaged in the work. The Austrian Archduke Maximilian was made Emperor of Mexico by means of French bayonets, but when the Civil War closed, in 1865, and the scheming Napoleon saw that our Republic was stronger than ever, he abandoned the enterprise and his dupe, and Maximilian, overthrown, was shot by order of the legitimate Republican Chief Magistrate of Mexico. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 653 parallel line along the eastern bases of the Blue Ridge, watching for an oppor tunity to pounce upon the National Capital. Cavalry skirmishes often occurred, for the hostile forces were continually feeling each other. Meanwhile fifteen hundred Confederate cavalry had dashed across the Po,tomac in pursuit of Milroy s wagon : train, swept up the Cumberland Valley to Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, destroyed the railway in that region, and plundered the people. This raid produced great alarm. Governor Curt in issued a call for the Penn sylvania militia to turn out in defense of their State, and the National authori ties had taken measures to meet the peril. When, a little later, the Confederate army was streaming across the Potomac, about fifty thousand troops, or one half the number the President had called for from the States nearest the Capi tal, were under arms. Almost one half of these were from Pennsylvania, and fifteen thousand were from New York. The apathy shown by Pennsylvanians when danger seemed remote, now disappeared. By skillful movements, Lee kept Hooker in doubt as to his real intentions, until Ewell s corps had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport and Shepards- town [June 22 and 23], and was pressing up the Cumberland Valley. Ewell advanced with a part of his force to within a few miles of the capital of Peim^ sylvania, on the Susquehanna, while another portion, under Early, reached that river farther down, after passing through Emmettsburg, Gettysburg, and York, and levying contributions on the people. These movements created an intense panic, and with reason, for at one time it seemed as if there was no power at hand to prevent the invaders from marching to the Schuylkill, and even to the Hudson. Three days after Ewell crossed the Potomac, Longstreet and Hill followed, and on the 25th of June [1863] the whole of Lee s army was again in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Army of the Potomac was thrown across the river at and near Edwards s Ferry, one hundred thousand strong, having been re-enforced by troops in the vicinity of Washington. A difference of opinion now arose be tween Generals Hooker and Halleck (the latter then General-in-Chief of the armies), concerning the occupation of Harper s Ferry. Their views were ir reconcilable, and the former offered his resignation. It was accepted, and Gen eral George G. Meade was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, and did not relinquish it until the close of the war. A change in the com manders of an army in the presence of an enemy is a perilous act, but in this case no evil followed. General Meade GEORGE G ME IDE. assumed the command on the 28th of June, when the army was lying at Frederick, in Maryland, in a position to dart through the South Mountain Gaps upon Lee s line of communication, or 54 THE NATION. [1863. upon his columns in retreat, or to follow him on a parallel line toward the Susquehanna. Lee was about to cross the Susquehanna at Harrisburg, and march on Philadelphia, when he was alarmed by information of the position of the Army of the Potomac in increased force, which was threatening his flank and rear. He observed at the same time the rapid gathering of the yeomanry of Penn sylvania, and troops from other States on his front, and he thought it prudent to abandon his scheme of further invasion. He immediately recalled Ewell, and ordered a concentration of the Army of Northern Virginia in the vicinity of Gettysburg, with a view of falling upon the Nationals with crushing force, and then marching on Baltimore and Washington, or, in the event of defeat, to have a direct line of retreat to the Potomac. In the mean time Meade had put- his army in motion toward the Susque hanna, but it was not until the evening of the 30th of June that he was advised of Lee s evident intention to give battle in full force. Satisfied of this, he prepared to meet the shock on a line south of Gettysburg. He had already sent his cavalry forward to reconnoiter. At Hanover, east of Gettysburg, Kilpatrick s command encountered [June 29] and defeated, in a sharp fight, some of Stuart s cavalry, and on the same day Buford and his horsemen entered Gettysburg. Tire Confederates were not yet there, and on the follow ing day the First Corps, commanded by General J. F. Reynolds, reached that place. General Hill was then approaching from Chambersburg, and that night Buford lay between the Confederates and Gettysburg. On the following morning [July 1] he met the van of the Confederates. A hot skirmish ensued. Reynolds hastened forward to the scene of action, and on Oak or Seminary Ridge a severe battle was fought, in which Reynolds was killed. Meanwhile the Eleventh (Howard s) Corps came up, and the conflict assumed grander proportions, for Lee s troops were concentrating there. The Nationals were finally pressed back, and under the direction of Howard took an advantageous position on a range of rocky heights back of but close to Gettysburg, forming two sides of a triangle, whereof Cemetery Hill, nearest the town, was the apex. There the Nationals bivouacked that night, and Meade and the remainder of the troops hastened to join them. Lee s army occupied Seminary Ridge that night. Both commanders were averse to taking the initiative of battle, and it was between three and four o clock in the afternoon of the 2d before the struggle was renewed. Then Lee fell heavily upon Meade s left, commanded by Sickles. A sanguinary contest ensued, which gradually extended to the center, where Hancock was in command. The chief struggle was for a rocky eminence, called Round Top Ridge, or Little Round Top ; but the Nationals firmly held it against fierce assaults. Heavy masses were thrown against Hancock, but these were cast back with heavy losses ; and, at sunset, the battle ended on the left and center of the Nationals. When the sounds of conflict died away on that part of the field, they were heard on the right and right center, where Slocum and Howard were in command. Howard was on Cemetery Hill, and Slocum on Gulp s Hill. Against these Early and Johnson, of Swell s corps, 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. C55 advanced with great vigor. They were thrown back from Cemetery Hill, but succeeded in penetrating, and holding for the night, the works on the extreme right of Slocum s command. It was near ten o clock at night [July 2, 1863] when the battle ended, and the advantage seemed to be with the Confederates, Both parties now prepared for another struggle the next day. It was begun at four o clock in the morning [July 3], when Slocum drove the Con federates out of his lines, and some distance back. It required a hard fight foi four hours to accomplish it, but it was done. Then Ewell was firmly held in check. Round Top Ridge, on Meade s extreme left, was impregnable, and so Lee determined to assail his more vulnerable center. He spent the whole fore noon in preparations for an attack, and, at one o clock, he opened upon Cem etery Hill and its immediate vicinity one hundred and forty-five cannon. A hundred National guns quickly responded, and for the space of two hours Gettysburg and the surrounding country were made to tremble by the thunder of more than two hundred cannon. Then, like a stream of lava, the Confed erates, preceded by a cloud of skirmishers, swept over the plain, and assailed the National line. Fearful was the struggle, and fearful the loss. At near sunset the assailants were repulsed at every point, and the great and decisive Battle of Gettysburg was won by the Army of the Potomac. It had been fought with amazing courage and fortitude by both armies, and each was dreadfully shattered by the collision. 1 The writer was upon the ground a few days after the battle, when full two hundred dead horses were still unburied. The annexed picture shows a group of them as they fell in the road in front of a farm house, near General Meade s head-quarters. On the evening of the day after the battle [July 4, 1863], Lee began are- treat toward Virginia, and, the next day, was followed by Meade, who chased him to the Potomac, at Williamsport, above Harper s Ferry. There, by strong intrenchments and a show of force, Lee kept Meade at bay until he could construct pontoon bridges, when, over these, and by fording the river above, the whole remnant of his army, his artillery and trains, passed into Virginia, and escaped, much to the disappointment of the loyal people. When it was known that the Confederates had been beaten at Gettysburg, and were in full retreat, 1 The National loss during the three days of conflict was 23,186 men, of whom 2,834 were killed, 13,709 wounded, and 6,643 were missing. Lee, as usual, made no report of his losses. He spoke of them as having been "severe." A careful estimate, made from various statements, places it at about 30,000, of whom 14,000 were prisoners. SCENE ON THE GETTYSBURG BATTLE-GROUND. 5(5 THE NATION. [1863. it was expected they would be captured at the margin of the swollen Potomac. But that disappointment speedily gave way to a feeling of satisfaction because of the important victory. That battle proved to be the pivotal one of the war the turning point in the rebellion. The scale of success was then turned in favor of the National cause. It was so regarded at the time, and in view of the importance of the victory, the President, as the representative of the nation, recommended the observance of a day [Aug. 15] "for National thanks giving, praise, and prayer." * While the loyal people were rejoicing because of the great deliverance at Gettysburg, and the government was preparing for a final and decisive struggle with its foes, leading politicians of the Peace Faction, evidently in affiliation with the disloyal secret organization, known as Itniyhts of the Golden Circle? were using every means in their powder to defeat the patriotic purposes of the Administration, and to stir up the people of -the Free-labor States to a counter-revolution. This had been their course for several months during the dark hours of the Republic, before the dawn at Gettysburg ; and the more strenuous appeared the efforts of the government to suppress the rebellion, more intense was their zeal in opposing it. This opposition was- specially active, when the President, according to the authority of Congress, found it necessary, in consequence of the great discouragements to volunteering produced by the Peace Faction, to order [May 8, 1863] a draft or conscription to be made, to fill up the ranks of the army. This measure, the suspension of the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and arbitrary arrests, were severely denounced. These, and the arrest and punishment, for treasonable practices, of C. L. Vallandigham, a citizen of Ohio and late member of Congress, one of the 1 The Secretary of State, satisfied that the rebellion would soon be ended, addressed [August 12, 1863] a cheering circular to the diplomatic agents of the government abroad, in which he recited the most important events in the history of the war thus far, and declared that the country showed no signs of exhaustion of money, men, or materials ;" and mentioned the fact that our loan was purchased, at par, by our citizens at the average of SI, 200, 000 daily, and that gold was selling in our market at 23 and 28 per cent, premium, : while in the insurrectionary region it commanded 1.200 per cent, premium." According to the report of the Confederate "Secretary of the Treasury/ at that time, the Confederate debt was over $000,000.000. At about the same time Davis, the Arch-Conspirator, sent forth an address, for the purpose of " firing the Southern heart," and reconciling the people to the merciless conscription they were then subjected to, filled with the most malignant misrepresentations. He told them, in effect, that the Northern people were little better than savages. " Their malignant rage," he said, "aims at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, your wives, and your children. They seek to destroy what they cannot plunder. They propose as spoils of victory that your homes shall be partitioned among wretches whose atrocious cruelty has stamped infamy on their government. They design to incite servile insurrection, and light the rlres of incendiarism whenever they can reach your homes ; and they debauch an inferior race, heretofore docile and contented, by promising them the indulgence of the vilest passions as the price of their treachery." Davis was then exasperated by the failure of an attempt of his to gain an official recognition by the government, by means of a trick. He sent his lieutenant, Alexander H. Stephens, under a false pretense, at the moment when Lee, as he thought, was marching triumphantly on Phila delphia, to seek an interview with the President, as the representative of the "government." so- called, at Richmond. Stephens went to Fortress Monroe, but was not permitted to go farther. His mission to Washington doubtless had a twofold object, namely, an official recognition of the Confederacy by the act of treating with it, and for the purpose of proclaiming the " Confederate government. 1 with Jefferson Davis as Dictator, from the portico of the Capitol, when Lee should seize Washington, as it was confidently believed he was about to do. 2 See page 520. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 557 most conspicuous leaders of the Peace Faction, 1 furnished that active fragment of the Democratic party 2 with pretenses for the most bitter denunciations of the government, and violent opposition to its measures. The inflammatory appeals of politicians excited the passions of the more dangerous classes in cities, and finally led to a fearful riot in the city of New York, at the middle of July, the immediate pretext being opposition to the Draft, which commenced there on Monday, the 13th. A mob suddenly collected, destroyed the apparatus for making the Draft, and burned the build ing. Like a plague this pub lic disorder seemed to break out simultaneously at diiferent points in the northern part of the city, and for three days the commercial metropolis was at the mercy of lawless men and women, chiefly na- DRAFTING. tives of Ireland of the lower class, and disloyal men from Slave-labor States. The cry against the Draft soon ceased, and was followed with that of, " Down with the Abolitionists ! Down with the Nigger ! Hurrah for Jeif. Davis !" Arson and plunder became the business of the rioters, and maiming and murder was their recrea tion. The colored population of the city were special objects of their wrath. These were hunted down, bruised, and killed, as if they had been noxious wild beasts. Men, women, and children shared a common fate. An asylum for colored children was sacked and burned, while the poor, affrighted orphans, some beaten and maimed, fled in terror to whatever shelter they could find. Finally, the police, aided by some troops, quelled the riot with the strong arm of power, after a sacrifice of full four hundred human lives, and the destruction of property valued at $2,000,000. After that, the Draft was resumed, and went quietly on. 3 1 General Burnside, in command of the Department of the Ohio, issued an order for the sup pression of sedition and treasonable speech and conduct. Vallandigham, whose sympathy with the cause of the Conspirators had been conspicuously shown from the beginning, denounced this order, and openly violated it. He was arrested, tried by a military commission, found guilty, and, by orders of the President, was sent within the Confederation, with a penalty of imprisonment should he return. He was treated with contempt by his "Southern friends," and soon made his way in a blockade-runner to Halifax, and thence into Canada. 2 The Peace Faction of the "Democratic" or Opposition party did not fairly represent the great mass of the members of that party. It was essentially disloyal : they were loyal. Yet the influence of that faction was so potent, that it controlled the policy of the party as an organi zation. Its aims appeared no higher than the control of the emoluments and offices of the gov ernment ; and the encouragement it continually held out to the Conspirators, by falsely repre senting the Opposition party as friendly to their cause, and discouraging volunteering and other efforts for putting down the rebellion, prolonged the war at least two years, and, as a consequence, tens of thousands of precious lives, and tens of millions of treasure, were wasted. 3 Horatio Seymour, who was one of the ablest of the leaders of the Peace Faction, and then Governor of the State of New York, had denounced the government as a despot, because of the 42 58 THE CATION. [1863. There appears to be ample evidence that preparations had been made among the disloyal politicians of the Free-labor States, at the time we are con sidering, for a counter-revolution, which should compel the government to make terms of peace with the Conspirators, on the basis of a dissolution of the Union and the independence of the so-called Confederate States. The invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, so as to encourage the Peace Faction, was a part of the drama; 1 and chiefly for the encouragement of the same class in the Western States, and form a nucleus for armed opponents of the govern ment in that region, the notorious guerrilla chief, John H. Morgan, was sent into Indiana and Ohio at the close of June, with over three thousand mounted men. He crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky into Indiana, some distance below Louisville, and, pushing a little into the interior, made a plundering raid eastward through that State and Ohio, well toward the Pennsylvania border. There was an uprising of the people because of his presence, but not such a one as the Peace Faction had led him to expect. Within forty-eight hours after Morgan entered Indiana, sixty thousand of its citizens had re sponded to the call of the Governor to turn out and drive him out of it. Equally patriotic were the people of Ohio. Morgan was pursued, and finally captured, with a remnant of his band, nearly all of whom were killed or made prisoners. The truth seemed to be that the reverse of Lee at Gettys burg had disconcerted the leaders of the Peace Faction, and they were com pelled, by prudence, to postpone their revolutionary operations. The riot in New York seems to have been an irregular manifestation of an organized out break in that city, when, as it was expected, the neighing of the horses of Lee s cavalry would be heard on the opposite banks of the Hudson. When Lee escaped into Virginia [July 14, 1863], and moved up the Shen- andoah Valley, Meade determined to follow him along the route pursued by arrest and punishment of Vallandigham, "not," he said, "for an offense against law, but for a disregard of an invalid order, put forth in an utter disregard of the principles of civil liberty." He opposed the Draft; mildly and without effect he interposed his authority as Governor to quell the riot, and sent his adjutant-general to Washington to demand the suspension of the Draft. This he told the mob, and said : " Wait till my adjutant returns from Washington, and you shall be satisfied." He wanted the Draft postponed until the courts should decide whether it was con stitutional, but this obvious advantage to the Conspirators, who were then rilling their ranks by a rigorous conscription, the President refused to give, and the Draft went on. 1 Lee s invasion was counted on largely as an aid to the Peace Faction in carrying out their plans. And after his failure, and he was lying quietly near the Rapid Anna, in September, the Richmond Enquirer said: "The success of the Democratic party [at the approaching election] would be no longer doubtful, should General Lee once more advance on Meade. . . . He may so move and direct his army as to produce political results, which, in their bearing upon this war, will prove more effectual than the bloodiest victories. Let him drive Meade into Washing ton, and he will again raise the spirits of the Democrats, confirm their timid, and give confidence to their wavering. He will embolden the Peace party should he again cross the Potomac, for he will show the people of Pennsylvania how little security they have from Lincoln for the protection of their homes." Matthew F. Maury, formerly Superintendent of the National Observatory, and one of the most unworthy traitors to his country, said, in a letter to the London Times, on the 17th of August, 1863: "There is already a Peace party in the North. All the embarrassments with which that party can surround Mr. Lincoln, and all the difficulties that it can throw in the way of the War party in the North, operate directly as so much aid and comfort to the South. . . . New York is becoming the champion of State Rights in the North, and to that extent is taking Southern ground. . . . Vallandigham waits and watches over the border, pledged, if elected -Governor of Ohio, to array it against Lincoln and the war, and go for peace." 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. $59 McClellan in his race for the Rappahannock with the same foe the year before, 1 keeping close to the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, and using its gaps as circum stances might dictate. The Army of the Potomac crossed the river on the 1 7th and 18th of July, and moved rapidly forward, getting the start of its antagonist, which had lingered between the Potomac and Winchester. Lee tried to recall Meade, by threatening another invasion of Maryland. He failed, and then marched rapidly up the Shenandoah Valley to meet the dangers that threatened his front and flank. There were skirmishes in the mountain-passes during this exciting race, one of which, at Manassas Gap, so detained Meade s army, that Lee, by a quick movement, went through Chester Gap, and took position in front of the Nationals, between the Rappahannock and Rapid Anna rivers. Meade slowly advanced to the Rappahannock, and then the two armies rested for some time. Both were somewhat weakened by drafts upon them for men to serve elsewhere. Finally, at the middle of September, Meade crossed the river and drove Lee beyond the Rapid Anna, where the latter took a strongly defensive position. In the mean time Meade s cavalry had not been idle, and divisions under Buford and Kilpatrick had considerable skirmishing with those of Stuart between the two rivers. General Meade contemplated a forward movement for some time, and Lee, feeling able to cope with his antagonist, proposed to march directly on Wash ington, at the risk of losing Richmond, but he was overruled by his " govern ment." So he proceeded to employ the more cautious measure of turning Meade s right flank, and attempting to get in his rear and seize the National Capital. He had moved some distance for this purpose, and was on Meade s flank before the latter was aware of it. Then a close race in the direction of Washington, by the two armies, occurred for the third time. The Army of the Potomac was the winner, and reached the heights at Centreville, the first objective [October 15, 1863], before its antagonist. There had been some eevere collisions on the way. Gregg s cavalry was routed, with a loss of five hundred men, at Jeffersonton. Stuart, with about two thousand men, hung closely upon the rear flank of Meade s army, and at Auburn he came near being captured, with all his men. He escaped, however ; and from that point to Bristow Station there was a sharp race. There a battle occurred between the corps of Generals Warren and Hill, in which the pursuing Confederates were repulsed, and the Union force moved on and joined the main army, then at Centreville. At Bristow Station Lee gave up the race, and fell back to the Rappahannock, destroying the Orange and Alexandria railway behind him. Meade slowly followed, after the railway was repaired, attacked the Confed erates at Rappahannock Station, on the river, and, after a severe battle, drove them toward Culpepper Court-House. Lee now took post again behind the Rapid Anna, and Meade s army lay quietly between the two rivers until late in November, while he was watching for a favorable opportunity to advance on his foe, whose forces, he had observed, were spread over a considerable surface, in the direction 1 See page 631. G60 THE NATION of Gordonsville. But Lee had begun the construction of strong defenses along the line of Mine Run, and Meade determined to advance and attempt to turn his position. It would be a perilous undertaking at that season of the year, for it involved the necessity of cutting loose from his supplies, which could not be carried with safety to the south side of the Rapid Anna. The risk was taken. The troops were provided with ten days rations, and, crossing the river on the 26th [November, 1883], pushed on in the direction of Mine Run, along the line of which were strong intrenchments, defended by heavy abatis. ABATIS. 1 General Warren, in the advance, opened a battle, but it was soon found that the Confederates were too strongly intrenched to promise a successful assault. So Meade suspended the attack, withdrew, and established his army in winter quarters on the north side of the Rapid Anna. So ended the campaign of the Army of the Potomac in 1863. In Western Virginia, adjoining the great theater on which the armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia were performing, there had been very few military movements of importance since the close of 1861. In the summer of 1863 a raiding party, under Colonel To-Hand, went over the mountains from the Kanawha Valley, arid struck the Virginia and Tennessee railway at Wytheville. Finding sharp resistance, they retraced their steps with great suffering. A little later, General W. W. Averill went over the mountain- ranges from Tygart s Valley, with a strong cavalry force, destroyed Confed erate salt-works and other property, and menaced Staunton. lie fought Con federate cavalry near White Sulphur Springs for nearly two days [August 26 and 27], and was compelled to retreat. Early in November he started $n 1 Abatis is a French term in Fortification, for obstructions placed in front of works, composed of felled trees, with their branches pointing outward. Such obstruction is represented in the engraving. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. another expedition, pushing the Confederates before him in the mountain regions, and nearly purging West Virginia of armed rebels. He pushed for ward for the purpose of breaking up the Virginia and Tennessee railway, which was the chief communication between the armies of Lee and Bragg, and on the 16th of December, after a perilous march, over icy roads, he struck that highway at Salem, and destroyed the track and other property over an extent of about fifteen miles. The Confederates in all that region were aroused, and no less than seven different leaders combined in an attempt to intercept AverilPs return, but failed. The raider escaped, with two hun dred prisoners, and a loss of only six men drowned, five wounded, and ninety missing. Let us now turn our attention to events in Tennessee, where we left the large armies of Rosecrans and Bragg, after the Battle of Stone s River, the former at Murfreesboro and the latter a little further southward. 1 Bragg s line was along the general direction of the Duck River, from near the Cumberland mountains westward, 2 and in that relative position the two armies lay from January until June [1863], Rosecrans waiting to complete full preparations for an advance, before moving. Meanwhile, detachments of the two armies, chiefly of mounted men, were active in minor operations. At the beginning of Feb ruary, General Wheeler, Bragg s chief of cavalry, with Wharton and Forrest as brigadiers, concentrated his forces, over four thousand strong, at Franklin, a little south of Nashville, and, advancing rapidly to the Cumberland River, attempted to capture the post of Fort Donelson, 3 then commanded by Colonel Harding. They were repulsed, after considerable loss on both sides. General J. C. Davis was operating in Wheeler s rear, and hastened his departure from the region of the Cumberland. A little later, General Earl Van Dora was found hovering around Franklin with a considerable force of cavalry and infantry, and against these General Sheridan and Colonel Colburn were sent. The latter was compelled to surrender [March 5] to superior numbers, while the former drove Van Dorn southward across the Duck River. There was a severe struggle eastward of Murfreesboro [March 1 8] between troops under Colonel Hall and those of Morgan, the guerrilla chief, in which the latter were worsted, and lost between three and four hundred men. Early in April Van Dorn was again in the vicinity of Franklin, with a force estimated at nine thousand men, the object being to seize that post, preliminary to an attack on Nashville, the great depository of Rosecrans s supplies. Gen eral Gordon Granger was then in command at Franklin, where he was building a fort on the bank of the Harpeth River, and, being forewarned, he was pre pared for an attack, which Van Dorn made on the 10th [April, 1863]. The Confederates were repulsed and retired to Spring Hill, after a loss of about 1 See page 639. 3 Bragg s line extended from Columbia, on the west, to McMinnville, on the east. His infantry occupied the space between "Wartrace and Shelbyville ; his cavalry, on his right, stretched out to McMinnville, and on his left as far as Spring Hill, between Franklin and Columbia. 8 Forrest had been operating at one or two other points on the Cumberland, for the purpose of cutting off Rosecrans s supplies by way of that river, for his army was chiefly subsisted by provisions that came down from the region of the Ohio River. G62 THE NATION. [1863. three hundred men. The Union loss was less than forty. 1 A few days later a detachment of Rosecrans s army, under General J. J. Reynolds, drove a band of Morgan s men from McMinnville [April 20], and destroyed a good deal of Confederate property there; and these and lesser expeditions, sent out from time to time, while Rosecrans was procuring cavalry horses and making other preparations for an advance, caused great circumspection on the part of the Confederates. A more ambitious expedition than any previously sent out by Rosecrans, moved toward the middle of April, under Colonel A. D. Streight, for the pur pose of crippling the resources of the foe. He left Nashville in steamers [April 11], and, debarking at Fort Donelson, crossed over to the Tennessee River at Fort Henry, and ascended that stream to the borders of Mississippi and Ala bama, gathering horses for his use on the way. At Tuscumbia, most of his troops being then mounted, Streight turned southward, and, sweeping through Alabama in a curve bending eastward, pushed on toward Rome, in Northern Georgia, where extensive iron-works were in operation, and Atlanta, an import ant railway center. The cavalry of Forrest and Roddy followed. The parties skirmished and raced; and finally, when near Rome, Streight s exhausted command was struck and mostly captured [May 3, 1863], when \ LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND. they were sent to Richmond, and confined in the famous Libby Prison. From that loathsome place the leader and one hundred of his officers escaped, in February following, by burrowing under the foundations of the building As June wore away, and the Army of the Cumberland (Rosecrans^s) was tho bit? D T WaS ne f tbe m St dashin of the Confederate^d^T He was shot soon after had ^ 6 JUSt C n8ldered b r an indi ? nant husband - ^ose wife the Confederate leader 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. yet lying at Murfreesboro , the public, unable to comprehend the obstacle to its advance, became impatient of the delay. The cavalry of that army was then in a fair condition, and its supplies being abundant, Rosecrans, on the 23d of June, ordered an advance, his grand objective being Chattanooga Bragg, his antagonist, was strongly intrenched among hills favorable for defensive operations. Yet the Army of the Cumberland, moving in three corps, commanded respectively by Generals Thomas, McCook, and Crittenden, was so skillfully managed, that the Confederates were soon pushed from their position along the line of the Duck River, back to Tullahoma. When Bragg saw Rosecrans seize the mountain passes on his front, and threaten his flanks in his new position, he fled [June 30, 1863] without offering to give a blow in defense of a line of most formidable works which he had cast up in the course of several months. Rosecrans now pressed hard upon the rear of the fugitive Confederates, but the latter having the railway for transportation, kept out of his reach, and pushed as rapidly as possible over the Cumberland Mountains toward the Ten nessee River, which they crossed at Bridgeport, destroyed the bridge behind them, and hastened to Chattanooga. 1 Rosecrans advanced his army to the base of the mountains, when, finding Bragg too far ahead to be easily over taken, he halted his entire force, and rested more than a month while gathering supplies for his army at proper places, 2 and repairing the railway from the high table-land at Decherd, down through the mountain pass of Big Crow Creek, to Stevenson. At the middle of August he moved forward, his army stretched over a long line east and west, with cavalry on its flanks. In the course of four or five days it crossed the mountain ranges and stood along the shores of the Tennessee from above Chattanooga westward for a hundred miles, startling [August 21, 1863] Bragg by its apparition, the thunder of can non on the eminences opposite that town, and the screaming of shells over the Confederate camp. Early in September, Thomas and McCook crossed the Tennessee with their corps at points each side of Bridgeport, where the railway spans it, and by the 8th had secured the passes of Lookout Mountain as far as Valley Head, while Crittenden s corps took post at Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, nearer the river. Informed of these threatening movements, Bragg abandoned Chat tanooga, passed through the gaps of the Missionaries Ridge 3 to the West Chickamauga River, in Northern Georgia, and posted his army in a strong position near Lafayette, to meet the National forces expected to press through 1 This expulsion of Bragg s army from Middle Tennessee, by which a greater portion of that State and Kentucky was left under the absolute control of the National authority, was a dis heartening event for the Confederates, and they now felt that every thing depended upon their holding Chattanooga, the key of East Tennessee, arid, indeed, of all Northern Georgia. 2 Bragg had stripped that mountain region of forage, so Rosecrans waited until the Indian corn, in cultivated spots, was sufficientl} 1 " grown to furnish a supply. Meanwhile he gathered supplies at Tracy City and Stevenson, and thoroughly picketed the railway from Cowan to Bridgeport. * The writer was informed by the late John Ross, the venerable Chief of the Cherokee Nation, that this undulating ridge, lying back of Chattanooga and rising about 300 feet above the Tennessee River, was named the Missionaries Ridgo because missionaries among the Cherokeea had a station on the southeastern slope of it. 664 THE NATION. [1863. the mountain passes. This was done in expectation of precisely what Rose- crans proceeded to do, namely, pass through the mountains, and threaten his enemy s communications between Dalton and Resaca. Rosecrans came to this determination with the mistaken idea, when informed by Crittenden that Bragg had left Chattanooga, that the latter had commenced a retreat toward Rome, Crittenden, who had made a reconnoissance on Lookout Mountain, and from its lofty summit looked down upon Chattanooga and observed that Bragg had retreated from it, immediately moved his corps into the Chatta nooga Valley, and on the evening of the 10th of September, encamped at Rossville, within three or four miles of the deserted village. Thus, without a battle, the chief object of the movement of the Army of the Cumberland over the mountains w T as gained. With great ease Bragg had been expelled from Middle Tennessee, and was now held at bay in an unfortified position, away from the coveted stronghold and strategic position of Chattanooga. General Burnside, who was in command of the Army of the Ohio, was now brought into active co-operation with Rosecrans, having been ordered to pass over the mountains into East Tennessee to assist that leader in his struggle with Bragg. When summoned to that field, he concentrated his command, then in hand, about twenty thousand in number, at Crab Orchard, in South eastern Kentucky. He prepared for a rapid movement. His infantry were mostly mounted ; his cavalry and artil lery had good horses, and his supplies were carried on pack-mules, that more facile movements might be made than a wagon-train would allow. On the day when Bragg was startled by the great guns of his pursuer at Chattanooga [August 21, 1863], Burnside began his march over the Cumberland mountains, a cavalry brigade in advance. They soon passed the great ranges, and were speedily posted on the line of the rail way southwesterly from Loudon, on the Tennessee River, so as to connect with Rosecrans at Chattanooga. General Buckner, who commanded about twenty thousand troops in East Tennessee, had retired on Burnside s approach, and joined Bragg, and the important moun tain pass of Cumberland Gap was soon in possession of the Nationals. The great valley between the Alleghany and Cumberland mountains, from Cleve land to Bristol, seemed to be permanently rid of armed Confederates. 1 1 The magnificent Yalley of East Tennessee has an average width of seventy-five miles, and a length of two hundred miles. The loyal inhabitants of that region received the National troops with open arms. It is difficult to conceive the intensity of the feelings of the Union peo ple along the line of Burnside s march. "Everywhere," wrote an eye-witness, "the people flocked to the roadsides, and, with cheers and wildest demonstrations of welcome, saluted the flag of the Republic and the men who had borne it in triumph to the very heart of the Confed eracy. Old men wept at the sight, which they had waited for through months of suffering; PACK-MULES. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 665 Believing, as we have observed, that Bragg had begun a retreat toward Rome, Rosecrans pushed his troops through the gaps of Lookout Mountain to strike his flank, but he soon ascertained that his foe, instead of retreating, was concentrating his forces at Lafayette, to attack the now attenuated line of the Army of the Cumberland, whose left was at Rlnggold and its right near Alpine points, by the National line, about fifty miles apart. Rosecrans immediately ordered the concentration of his own troops, to avoid and meet perils that threatened them. This was quickly done, and at a little past the middle of September [1863], the contending forces confronted each other, in battle array, on each side of the Chickamauga Creek, in the vicinity of Crawford s Spring and Lee and Gordon s Mill, the line of each stretching northward to the slopes of the Missionaries Ridge. General Thomas took position on the extreme National left, and opened battle on the morning of the 19th [September], by attacking the Confederate right. The conflict raged almost without intermission until four o clock in the afternoon, when there was a lull. It was renewed by the Confederates at five o clock, and continued until dark. On the right center there had been some severe fighting, and when night fell the advantage appeared to be with the Nationals. In the mean time Long- street, who had been sent from Vir ginia, by Lee, with his corps, to help Bragg, and had passed through the Carolinas and Georgia to Atlanta, was now coming up with his forces. He arrived on the field that night, and assumed command of Bragg s left, and on the morning of the 20th the Con federates had full seventy thousand men opposed to fifty-five thousand Nationals. Both parties prepared to renew the struggle in the morning. Thomas s troops intrenched during the night. GEORGE H. THOMAS. A heavy fog enveloped the armies in the morning, and when it lifted, between eight and nine o clock, a most san guinary battle was commenced on the wing where Thomas was in command. It soon raged furiously along the whole line. Finally a desperate charge was made upon the temporarily weakened right center of the Nationals, when the line was broken. The right wing was shattered into fragments, and fled in disorder toward Rossville and Chattanooga, carrying along upon its turbulent and resistless tide Rosecrans, Crittenden, and McCook, while Sheridan and children, even, hailed with joy the sign of deliverance. Nobly have these persecuted people stood by their faith, and all loyal men will rejoice with them in their rescue at last from the clutch of the destroyer." "They were so glad to see Union soldiers," wrote another, " that they cooked every thing they had, and gave it freely, not asking pay, and apparently not thinking of it. Women etood by the roadside with pails of water, and displayed Union flags. The wonder was where all the Stars and Stripes came from." THE NATION. [1863. Davis rallied a portion of it upon another road. Rosecrans, unable to join Thomas, and believing the whole army would be speedily hurrying, pell-mell, toward Chattanooga, pushed on to that place to make provision for holding it, if possible. But Thomas stood firm, and for awhile fought a greater part of the Confederate army, enduring shock after shock, and keeping it at bay until he could withdraw his forces, in obedience to an order from Rosecrans. This was done in good order, and the worn and wearied troops took position in the Rossville and Dry Valley gaps of the Missionaries Ridge, where they bivouacked that night. On the following evening the whole army fell back to Chattanooga ; and within forty-eight hours after the battle it was so strongly intrenched that it defied Bragg, who had not thought it prudent to follow the retreating forces from the battle-field. He contented himself with taking pos session of the Missionaries Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Victory was won by the Confederates in the battle of Chickamauga, but at a fearful cost to both armies. 1 The Army of the Cumberland was now closely imprisoned at Chattanooga. By holding Lookout Mountain, which abuts upon the Tennessee River, Bragg commanded that stream and cut off Rosecrans s communication with his sup plies at Bridgeport and Stevenson, and compelled him to transport them in wagons, over the rough mountains, fifty or sixty miles. This was a severe and precarious service. For awhile the army was on short allowance, and not less than ten thousand horses and mules were worked or starved to death in the service. In the mean time a change in the organization of the army was effected. It was determined by the government to hold Chattanooga, and for that purpose it was ordered that the armies under Burnside, Rosecrans, and Grant, should be concentrated there. Over these combined forces Grant was placed. His field of command was called the Military Division of the Missis sippi. 2 When Grant arrived at Chattanooga, late in October, he found Thomas alive to the importance of securing a safe and speedy way for supplies to reach that post. Nearly the whole of Bragg s cavalry had been operating against 1 Tho National loss was reported at 16,326, of whom 1,687 were killed. The total loss of officers was 974. It is probable the entire Union loss was 19,000. The Confederate loss was 20,950, of whom 2,674 were killed. Rosecrans brought off from the field 2,003 prisoners, 36 guns, 20 caissons, and 8,450 small-arms. 3 Rosecrans was relieved of the command of the Army of the Cumberland, and was succeeded by Thomas, and General W. T. Sherman was promoted to the command of Grant s Army of the Tennessee. Rosecrans was ordered to St. Louis, and was placed in command of the Department of Missouri. Before Grant was called to his enlarged command, he had taken measures for securing every advantage of the victories at Vicksburg and Port Hudson. He sent his paroled prisoners (see page 646) to the Confederate lines at Jackson, and on the same day ordered Sherman to lead a heavy force against Johnston, whose troops were hovering in the rear of Vicksburg. His head quarters was at Jackson, and when Sherman advanced, he concentrated his forces there, behind intrenchments. From there he was driven on the 13th of July, when he fled toward the interior of Mississippi. Grant cast up a line of fortifications around Vicksburg, and with these, and the expulsion of Johnston, that post was made secure. On the day of the fall of Vicksburg, the important post of Helena, in Arkansas, farther up the Mississippi, was attacked by a heavy force of Confederates, but they were repulsed with heavy loss; and when Grant was summoned to the command at Chattanooga, the freedom of navigation on the Mississippi River seemed to be per manently secured. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 667 his line of communications among the mountains. They had seized and destroyed wagon-trains, and, notwithstanding they were driven here and there by Union cavalry, these raiders made the safe transportation of supplies so doubtful, that the troops at Chattanooga were threatened with famine. Thomas had already devised a method of relief. General Hooker had been sent with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps (Howard s and Slocum s), from the Army of the Potomac, to guard Rosecrans s communications. He was now at Bridge port with a part of these forces, and it was proposed that he should cross the Tennessee with them, and, pushing into Lookout Valley, threaten Bragg s left, and cover the river to a point where a short route by land to Chattanooga might be obtained. Grant approved the plan, and it was executed. Hooker reached Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, after some fighting, on the 28th of October, and at the same time General W. F. Smith came down from Chatta nooga, and threw a pontoon bridge across the river at a point only a few miles from that town. 1 This movement, a Richmond journal said, deprived the Confederates " of the fruits of Chickamauga." From the hour when Hooker entered Lookout Valley, his movements had been keenly watched by the Confederates on Lookout Mountain, and at mid night [October 28, 29] a strong body of them swept down from the hills and fell suddenly upon the Nationals at Wauhatchie, commanded by General Geary, expecting to surprise them. They were mistaken. Geary was awake, and met the attack bravely; and, with the help of troops from Howard s (Eleventh) corps, repulsed the assailants, and scattered them in every direc tion. From that time the safe passage of the river, from Bridgeport to Brown s Ferry, was secured. Bragg s plans for starving the National army were defeated, and a little steamboat, called Chattanooga, was soon carry ing provisions up the river, in abun dance. 2 While these events were occurring near Chattanooga, others of importance were seen in the great Valley of East Tennessee. Burnside s forces were busied in endeavors to drive the armed rebels out of that region, and in so doing sev eral skirmishes and heavier engagements occurred, the most prominent of which were at Blue Springs and Rogersville. Meanwhile, Longstreet was sent by 1 Eighteen hundred troops, under General Hazen, went down the river in batteaux at about- midnight [October 26 and 27], gliding unobserved by the Confederate sentinels along the base of Lookout Mountain, where the Tennessee sweeps around Moccasin Point, and, with other troops that went down by land, seized Brown s Ferry and threw a pontoon bridge across the river there. Hooker s troops coming up, connected with those at the ferry, and secured its possession to tho Nationals. a There was no steamboat to be found on the Tennessee Eiver in that region, so mechanics of the army built one for the public service, and called it Chattanooga. THE CHATTANOOGA. THE NATION. [1863. Bragg to sel^e Knoxville and drive the Nationals out of East Tennessee. He advanced swiftly and secretly, and on the 20th of October struck the first startling blow at the outpost of Philadelphia, and drove the Nationals to the Tennessee, at Loudon. Below that point he crossed, and moved on Knoxville, but was temporarily checked by Burnside in a severe fight at Campbell s Sta tion, each losing between three and four hundred men. Burnside fell back to Knoxville, where he was strongly intrenched, closely followed by Longstreet, who began a regular siege of the place. While the Confederates were besieging Knoxville, stirring events were occurring near Chattanooga. Grant had been waiting for the arrival of forces under Sherman, to enable him to advance on Bragg and send relief to Burn- side. So early as the 22d of September, that commander had been ordered, with as many troops as could be spared from the line of the Mississippi, to proceed to the help of Rosecrans. These troops were on the line of the Mem phis and Charleston railway, at the middle of October, and toward the close of the month they were summoned by Grant to Stevenson, to head off an anticipated flank movement by Bragg, in the direction of Nashville. When Sherman arrived there, events were in such shape that Grant thought it proper to attack Bragg as speedily as possible, for the twofold purpose of preventing his flight southward, which he suspected was his design, and to demoralize or weaken Long-street s force and compel him to abandon the siege of Knoxville. Grant determined to aim his first heavy blow at Bragg s right, on the Mis sionaries Ridge. Sherman was directed to cross the Tennessee, and menace his right on Lookout Mountain, and then secretly recross, move to a point above Chattanooga, cross again, and advance on the Ridge. All this was satisfactorily done. Meanwhile, it was thought best to make a movement from the center, at Chattanooga. This was performed [November 23] by Thomas, when a commanding eminence in front of the Missionaries Ridge, called Orchard Knob, was seized by the Nationals and fortified. Hooker was then ordered to attack Bragg s right on Lookout Mountain early the next morning, so as to attract the attention of the Confederates while Sherman should cross the Tennessee above Chattanooga. Hooker performed his prescribed duty with vigor and success. He opened his guns upon the breastworks and rifle-pits of the Confederates along the steep, wooded, and broken slopes of the mountain, and then his troops, dash ing vigorously forward, swept every thing before them, and captured a large portion of their foes on their front. Then the victors scaled the rugged sides of the mountain, up to the muzzles of cannon planted in a hollow far toward its summit, and driving the Confederates there around an arable belt in the direc tion of the Chattanooga Valley, established a line firmly on the eastern face of the mountain, with its right resting at the palisades at its top. During a greater part of the struggle which ended in this advantage to the Nationals, Lookout Mountain was hooded in a mist that went up from the Tennessee in the morning, and Hooker s troops were literally fighting in the clouds, and were hidden from their listening brethren at Chattanooga below, who heard the thunders of the cannon, but could only get an occasional glimpse of the 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 669 Union banners. 1 Perceiving the danger of having their only way of retreat to the Chattanooga Valley cut off, the Confederates occupying the summit of the mountain fled at midnight, masking their retreat by an attack on the Nationals, in the gloom. In the bright sunlight and crisp morning air the next day, the National flag was seen by delighted eyes below, wav ing over Pulpit Rock, on the top of Lookout Mountain, where, only a few days before, Jef ferson Davis had stood and assured the assem bled troops that all was well with the Con federacy. While Hooker was fighting on Lookout Mountain, Sherman s troops were crossing the Tennessee on pontoon bridges. They were all over at noonday, and, pressing for ward, secured a position on the northern end of the Missionaries Ridge. That night [No vember 24] both armies prepared for a struggle in the morning. Bragg withdrew all of his forces from Lookout Mountain, and concen trated them on the Missionaries Ridge ; and on the following day [November 25, 1803] they were attacked there in flank and front. Sherman moved early along the ridge, with flank columns at the base on each side. Hooker descended from Lookout Mountain, and, entering Ross s Gap, made a similar movement upon Bragg s THE MISSIONARIES RIECE, FROM THE CEMETERY AT CHATTANOOGA." right, in the afternoon. A terrible struggle ensued, which Grant, standing on 1 During this struggle, a battery, planted on Moccasin Point, under Captain Naylor, did excellent service. It actually dismounted one of the guns in a Confederate battery, on the summit of the mountain, 1,500 feet above the river. 2 This ridge is made up of a series of small hills, with gaps or passes between. Tho hill more in the foreground, at the left, is Orchard Knob, on which Grant made his quarters during tha battle of the 25th. 670 THE NATION. [1863. Orchard Knob, watched with the most intense interest. The center, under Thomas, was ordered forward. The eager soldiers cleared the rifle-pits at the foot of the ridge, and then scaled the acclivity. The Confederates were speedily driven from their stronghold, and fled in the direction of Ringgold ; and that night the Missionaries Ridge blazed with the camp-fires of the victors. 1 Early the next morning, Sherman, Palmer, and Hooker went in pursuit of Bragg s flying army. His rear-guard, under Cleburne, the " Stonewall Jackson of the South," was struck at Ringgold, and, after sharp fighting, was driven. Then Grant s troops fell back, and General Sherman was sent to the relief of Burn- side. Bragg retreated to Dalton, established a fortified camp there, and was succeeded in command by General Joseph E. Johnston. Davis made Bragg General-in-Chief of the Confederate armies. Immediately after his arrival before Knoxville, Longstreet opened some of his guns [November 18, 1863] upon the National works, and sharply attacked their advance, under General W. P. Sanders, who was in immediate com mand there. A severe but short en gagement ensued, in which Sanders was killed, and his troops were driven back to their works. From that time until the dark night of the 28th, Longstreet closely invested Knoxville. 2 Then, alarmed by the news of Bragg s disaster at Chattanooga, and being re-enforced by nearly all of the Con federate troops then in East Tennessee, he proceeded, at midnight, to assail Fort Sanders, the principal work of the defenses of Knoxville. It was a strong, bastioned earth-work. The troops that defended it, as well as others there, were under the immediate command of General Ferrero. A gallant defense was made. A heavy storming party of Confederates, who made a most courageous attack, were repulsed 1 The Union loss was 5,616, of whom 757 were killed. The Confederate loss was a little over 9,000, of whom 6,000 were prisoners. G-rant captured, 40 pieces of cannon and 7,000 small-arms. General Halleck said, in a report of the operations of the army: "Considering the strength of the rebel position and the difficulty of storming his intrenchments, the Battle of Chattanooga must be regarded as the most remarkable in history. Not only did the officers and men exhibit great skill and daring in their operations in the field, but the highest praise is also due to the commanding general for his admirable dispositions for dislodging the enemy from a position apparently impregnable." a When the siege commenced there was in the commissary department little more than one day ; s rations, and supplies could then be received only from the south side of the Holston, across a pontoon bridge, the foe holding the avenues of approach to Knoxville on the north side of the river. Burn side s efforts were directed to keeping open the country between the Holston and the French Broad, and every attempt of Longstreet to seize it was promptly met. A considerable quantity of corn and wheat, and some pork, was soon collected in Knoxville, but almost from the beginning of the siege the soldiers were compelled to subsist on half and quarter rations, without coffee or sugar. Indeed, during the last few days of the siege, the bread of their half-rations was made of clear bran. JAMES LONGSTREET. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. with fearful loss, and Knoxville was saved. 1 Sherman s forces were then pressing forward, and on the morning of the 3d of December, when Long- street perceived that his army was flanked, he raised the siege, and withdrew toward Virginia. Then Sherman and his troops returned to Chattanooga. Because of the victory at the latter place and the salvation of Knoxville, the President recommended the loyal people to give public thanks to Almighty God " for the great advancement of the National cause." Let us now turn again to the Atlantic coast, and consider the most prom inent events there after the departure of Burnside from North Carolina and the seizure of the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 2 Burnside left General Foster in command of the troops in North Carolina ; and from New Berne, which was his principal head-quarters, the latter sent out expeditions from time to time to break up rendezvous of Confederates and scatter their forces, for it was evident that they were watching opportunities to recapture lost posts in that State. Sometimes sharp skirmishes would ensue, and heavy losses occur. In one of his raids to Goldsboro [December, 1862], for the pur pose of damaging the Weldon and Wilmington railway, Foster lost over five hundred men. He attempted to establish communication with the National forces at Suffolk and Norfolk, but when Burnside was repulsed at Fredericks- burg, 3 and Confederate troops sent from North Carolina to assist Lee in that campaign were thereby released, he abandoned further attempts at that time. Finally, General D. H. Hill was ordered to make a diversion in favor of Long- street at Suffolk, 4 where, with a considerable force, he first menaced New Berne, and then marched on Little Washington. He invested that place [March 30, 1863], and the little garrison of twelve hundred men were speedily cut off from the outside world. Finally, the Fifth Rhode Island Regiment went to its relief, from New Berne [April 8], by water. The blockade of the river was run [April 13], and the garrison was relieved; and when, a little later, Foster marched upon Hill, the latter withdrew to the interior of the State. During the succeeding summer Foster kept up his raids, until he was called to take the place of General Dix, in command at Fortress Monroe. Looking farther down the Atlantic coast, we observe vigorous preparations for an attempt to take Charleston. Admiral Dupont was working with Gen eral Hunter to that end, in the spring of 1863, when, at the middle of May, a slave named Robert Small (a pilot), and a few fellow-bondmen, came out of the harbor of Charleston in the Confederate steamer, Planter, delivered her to Dupont, and communicated information concerning military affairs at Charles- 1 The charge of the storming party was greatly impeded by a novel contrivance. Between tho abatis and rifle-pits in front of Fort Sanders, the ground was covered with the stumps of recently felled trees. Extending from one to another of these stumps were strong wires, about a foot above the ground, and these tripped the assailants at almost every step. Whole companies were prostrated by this wire net-work, and at the same time the double-shotted guns of the fort were playing fearfully upon them. Yet the assailants pressed up, gained the ditch, and one officer actually reached the parapet and planted the Confederate flag there. He soon rolled dead into the ditch, which was swept by a bastion cannon. Lieutenant Benjamin, chief of artillery in the fort, actually took bomb-shells in his hand, ignited the fuses, and threw them over into the ditch, where they produced great destruction of life. 8 See pages 607 and 608. s See page 631. * See page 652. TIIE CATION. [1863. ton of great value. Hunter concentrated troops on Edisto Island, preparatory to throwing them suddenly upon James s Island, and marching swiftly on the deeply offending city, while other troops were sent to break up the railway connecting the cities of Charleston and Savannah. Meanwhile the Confed erates prepared to meet the Nationals on James s Island ; and, finally, when Union troops crossed over to that island, under the direction of General Ben- ham, and attacked [June 16, 1863] Confederate works at Secessionville, they were repulsed with great loss. This event postponed the intended march on Charleston, and in September Hunter was superseded by the energetic General O. M. Mitchel. That officer was making preparations for vigorous measures for indirect operations against Charleston, when he sickened and died [Oct. 30]. General Brannan attempted to carry out his plans against the Charleston and Savannah railway, but he found that road so well guarded at points to which he penetrated that he could not accomplish his purpose. After Mitchel s death little was done by the military in the Department of the South until the following spring. The navy in that region was some what active in other than mere blockading service. Late in February [1863], the famous blockade runner, JVashville, imprisoned in the Ogeechee River, below Savannah, was attacked by the " monitor " Montauk, commanded by Captain John L. Worden, and destroyed [Feb. 28, 1863]. She had been lying under the protection of the guns of Fort McAllister, and upon this work Com mander Drayton tried the guns of some armored vessels a few days later, but without serious effect. Meanwhile Admiral Dupont was preparing for a vigor ous attack on Charleston. Hunter was again in command of the Department of .the South, and was strengthened, for co-operation with Dupont, by twelve thousand troops from North Carolina. Four thousand men, under General Truman Seymour, were stationed in a masked position on Folly Island at the beginning of April, and on the 6th of that month Dupont crossed Charleston bar with nine " monitor " vessels, leaving five gun-boats outside as a reserve squadron. It had been determined by the government to speedily reduce the rebellious city to subjection, for resisting forces were yet intensely active there. 1 Dupont moved up to attack Fort Sumter, the most formidable obstacle in the way to Charleston. The Confederate batteries near were ominously silent, until the advanced vessels became entangled in a terrible net-work of torpe^ does and other obstructions. Then Fort Sumter, an$ other batteries, bearing an aggregate of nearly three hundred guns, opened a concentric fire upon the assailants, repulsed them after a sharp fight, and destroyed the Ifeokuk, one of the smaller but most daring of the monitors. The fact was, the harbor was filled with formidable obstructions, and around it were guarding batteries 1 At the close of January [1863] two formidable "rams" darted out of Charleston harbor in the obscurity of darkness and fog, and attacked the blockading squadron. Two of the ships were quickly disabled, and compelled to strike their colors. Although the assailants fled back to Charleston without taking possession of the disabled vessels, the Conspirators at Richmond actually proclaimed to the world that the blockade of Charleston harbor was raised. 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION of great strength, 1 and the attempt to enter it was necessarily a failure. The land troops were not in a condition to co-operate, excepting in the event of the reduction of Fort Sumter. There Avas comparative quiet along the coasts of South Carolina and Geor gia for some time after Dupont s attack on Fort Sumter. General Hunter was succeeded [June 12, 1863] by General Q. A. Gillmore. 2 He found a little less than eighteen thousand troops in the Department, with arduous duties to per form. 3 There were eighty effective cannon and an ample supply of small-arms, munitions and stores, at his command. With these forces and supplies he set about organizing an expedition for the capture of Charleston by troops and ships. He determined to seize Morris Island and its fortifications, .and from it batter down Fort Sumter and lay the city in ashes by his shells, if not surrendered. Dupont, having no faith in the scheme so far as the navy w^as concerned, was relieved of the command of the fleet there, and was succeeded by Admiral Dahlgren on the 6th of July. 4 Gillmore found Folly Island, next to Morris Island, well occupied by Union troops on his arrival. He caused batteries to be erected to bear upon the lat ter, so as to make way for his forces to cross Light-House In let to that island, and attack Fort Wagner. These fortifica tions were well made behind a curtain of pine-trees, under the direction of General Vogdes, and a large number of cannon, A PARRQTT mostly Parrott guns, were planted on them. Then General Terry was sent to James s Island with a force 1 The fortifications consisted of two batteries on Sullivan s Island seaward from Fort Moultrie, and Battery Bee, landward from it. On Mount Pleasant, on the main near the mouth of Cooper River, was a heavy battery. In front of the city was Castle Pinckney ; and on a submerged sand-bank, between this work and Fort Johnson, was Fort Ripley, or Middle-ground Battery. Along the southern border of the harbor were Fort Johnson and some batteries. On Morris Island, not far from Fort Sum ter, was Battery Gregg, on Cummings s Point, from which the first shot was hurled at Fort Sumter in 1861 ; and back of it was Fort Wagner, a very strong work, stretching entirely across Morris Island at that point. Across the channels of TORPEDO. the harbor, rows of piles had been driven, and there were chains composed of railway iron linked ; and across the main channel a cable was stretched, from which hung festoons of torpedoes in the form given in the engraving, which were to be exploded by electricity, through wires extending from apparatus at Forts Sumter and Moultrie. At one point, where a space in the row of piles had been left open, inviting a ship to enter, was a submerged mine containing 5,000 pounds of gunpowder. a See page 607. 3 The Department did not extend far in the interior, but its line parallel with the coast was about two hundred and fifty miles in length. This was to be picketed, and posts at different points were to be maintained. 4 At about the time of Gillmore s arrival, rumors reached Dupont that a powerful " ram " was nearly ready, at Savannah, to make a raid on his blockading squadron, near the mouth of the Savannah River. This was the swift blockade-runner Fingal, which, unable* to escape to sea, had been converted into an armored warrior of the most formidable kind, and named Atlanta. Dupont sent two monitors ( Weehawken and Nahant) to "Warsaw Sound to watch her. She appeared in those waters on the morning of the 17th of June. She was supposed by the Confederates to be an overmatch for both monitors ; and gun-boats, filled with spectators, accompanied her to tow 43 674 THE NATION. [1863. to mask the real intentions of the Nationals, when General Strong, with two thousand men, went in boats to Morris Island, landed suddenly [July 10, 1863], and, with the help of the batteries on Folly Island, drove the Confed erates to Fort Wagner. Strong allowed his troops to rest until the next morn ing, w T hen he assailed Fort Wagner, but was repulsed. These movements greatly alarmed the Confederates, and Beauregard and the Mayor of Charles ton advised all non-combatants to leave the city. Fort Wagner was stronger than Gillmore suspected it to be, and he deter mined to attempt to reduce it, first by a bombardment, and if that failed, then by a regular siege. A line of batteries were erected across the island within range of Fort Wagner, and Dahlgren s fleet took position to open fire on that work. This was done by the land and naval forces on the 18th [July], with a hundred great guns ; and while, at sunset, a heavy thunderstorm was sweeping by, arrangements were made for another assault on the fort. Terry had with drawn from James s Island after a sharp fight, and now Gillmore s troops were concentrated for the important work. Two assaulting columns moved upon the fort. The first, under General Strong, was repulsed with great slaughter. The second, and smaller one, under Colonel H. S. Putnam, met a similar fate. 1 Gillmore now abandoned the plan of direct assault, and began a regular siege, approaching the fort by parallels. He also, with great labor, planted a battery in the midst of a marsh between Morris and James s Islands, on which was mounted a 200-pounder Parrott gun, called " The Swamp An gel," from which shells were hurled into Charles ton, a distance of five miles. 2 Finally, Gill more s preparations for attack on Fort Wagner were completed, and on the 17th of August fire from twelve batteries, and from Dahlgren s fleet, was opened upon it and Fort Sumter. Before night the walls of the latter began to crumble, and its guns back to Savannah the captured iron-clads. She first encountered the Weehawlcen. Four shots from the latter caused the Atlanta to haul down her colors; and instead of sweeping the block ading squadron from the coast, and opening southern ports to the commerce of the world, as was expected by the Confederates, she was sent to Philadelphia, and exhibited for the benefit of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon of that city. 1 Strong was mortally wounded, and Putnam was killed. In this assault a regiment of col ored troops from Massachusetts, under Colonel Shaw, performed gallant deeds. Shaw was killed, and the Confederates, supposing they were disgracing the young hero, buried him in a pit in the sand under a large number of his slain negro troops. 2 The mud on which this battery was constructed was about sixteen feet in depth. Pilea were driven through it to the solid earth, and on these, timbers were laid. Colonel Serrell, of New York, had the matter in charge, and he assigned to a lieutenant the superintendence of the work. When the spot chosen for building the battery was shown to the latter, he said the thing was impossible. "There is no such word as impossible in the matter," the colonel answered, THE SWAMP ANGEL, 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. were silenced, under the pounding of Dahlgren s cannon. The land troops pushed the parallels closer to Fort Wagner, and at near midnight, of September 6th, Terry was prepared to storm the works. It was soon ascertained that the Confederates had abandoned them. Gillmore immediately took possession of Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg, turned their guns upon Fort Sumter and Charleston, and made the " Cradle of Secession " a desolation in the world of business. Fort Sumter was made apparently harmless, yet a garrison remained there, and when one night [Sept. 8] a party from the fleet attempted to sur prise and capture the fort, they were repulsed with terrible loss. Finally, late in October, Gillmore opened heavy guns upon it, and made it a sloping heap of rubbish from the parapet to the water. 1 Let us now change our field of observations, in the extended theater of the war, from the sea-coast to the region beyond the Mississippi River, a thousand miles farther westward, and see what of importance occurred there since the battle of Prarrie Grove, 2 the re-occupation of all Texas by the Confederates, 3 Banks s march to the Red River, 4 and the battle at Helena, 5 in July, 1863. Missouri and Arkansas, after brief repose, were convulsed by the machinations of disloyal citizens and the contests of hostile troops. Marmaduke, a noted leader, suddenly burst out of Arkansas, and fell upon Springfield, in Missouri, early in 1863, when he was repulsed with a loss of two hundred men. After reverses at other points, he fled back into Arkansas early in February. There were some stirring movements in Northwestern Arkansas at about the same time. Two thousand Confederates attacked a Union force under Colonel Har rison, at Fayetteville [April 18, 1863], when the assailants were repulsed, and fled over the Ozark mountains. Marmaduke, meanwhile, had gone to Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, and there, with the chief leaders in that region, planned a raid into Missouri, chiefly for the purpose of capturing National stores at Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi River. With about eight thousand men, he pushed rapidly into that State, and following the general line of the St. Francis River to Freder- icton, turned eastward, and moved on Cape Girardeau. General McNeil was there to receive him, and after a severe engagement [April 26, 1863], drove Marmaduke out of the State. In May, three thousand Confederates, under Colonel Cofiey, menaced Fort Blunt [May 20] in the Indian country just west of Arkansas, but did not ven- and directed the lieutenant to build the battery, and to call for every thing required for the work. The next day the lieutenant, who was something of a wag, made a requisition on the quarter master for one hundred men, eighteen feet in height, to wade through mud sixteen feet deep, and then went to the surgeon to inquire if he could splice the eighteen-feet men, if they were furnished him. This pleasantry caused the lieutenant s arrest, but he was soon released, and constructed the work with men of usual height. Davis s History of the One Hundred and Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, page 253. 1 In his annual report to Congress, in December, 1863, the Secretary of the Navy, in summing up the operations of that arm of the service on the Southern coast, said : " Not a blockade runner has succeeded in reaching the city for months, and the traffic which had been to some extent, and with large profits, previously carried on, is extinguished. As a commercial mart, Charleston has no existence ; her wealth, her trade, has departed. In a military or strategic view, the place is of little consequence ; and whether the rebels are able, by great sacrifice and exhaustion, to hold out a few weeks, more or less, is of no importance." 2 See page 637. 8 See page 644. * See page 644. 5 See note 2, page 666. . THE NATION. [1863. ture to attack. So they moved off, with a large drove of cattle, for some weaker prey. A little more than a month later, a wagon-train for Fort Blunt was attacked [July 1] by Texans and Creek Indians. These were repulsed, and the train reached the fort in safety. Just then a great peril threatened that post. Six thousand Confederates were approaching to assail it. General Blunt had just arrived. He at once led three thousand troops, with twelve light cannon, to attack the Confederates. He found them at Honey Springs, under General Cooper, where he fell upon them suddenly. After two hours hard fighting [July 17], the Confederates gave way. Only an hour afterward, General Cabell, whom Cooper was expecting, came up with three thousand Texan cavalry. It was too late. Cabell did not think it prudent to attack Blunt, and so he moved across the Canadian River into Texas. Guerrilla bands were now active in Blunt s rear. Early in August, about three hundred of these, composed chiefly of desperate characters of Missouri, and led by a white savage, who had assumed the name of Quantrell, crossed into Kansas, and attacked the town of Lawrence [August 13], inhabited chiefly by Unionists. The town was wholly without defenders, and the guerrillas murdered people and destroyed property without hinderance. In the course of a few hours, one hundred and forty persons were murdered, and one hun dred and eighty-five buildings were in flames. This crime produced horror and indignation ; and when, ten days afterward, the guerrilla chief, M. Jeff. Thompson, was captured, it was very difficult to shield him from personal injury. Soon after the capture of Vicksburg, General Steele organized an expedi tion at Helena for the capture of Little Rock. He moved, on the 10th of August, with about twelve thousand men and forty cannon. He crossed the White River at Clarendon, and pushing back the Confederates under Marma- duke, reached the Arkansas, below Little Rock, on the 7th of September. A part of his forces, under General Davidson, crossed to the south bank, and upon opposite sides of the river the two columns moved on Little Rock. Mar- maduke made some opposition, but with General Price and others, and all the troops in that vicinity, he abandoned the Arkansas capital, leaving several steamers on fire. On the evening of the 10th [Sept., 1863], Steele s forces occupied the city and the fortifications. The Confederates retreated rapidly to Arkadelphia, on the Washita River. This successful campaign occupied forty days. Blunt, meanwhile, was trying to bring the Confederates and Indians in the region west of Arkansas to battle, but failed to do so ; and Cabell, with a large force, hastened to the aid of Price at Little Rock. He did not reach there in time, but joined Price in his retreat to Arkadelphia. Blunt took possession of Fort Smith, and garrisoned it ; and early in October, w r hen on his way from Kansas to that post, with an escort of a hundred cavalry, he was attacked [October 4], near Baxter s Springs, by Quantrell and six hundred guerrillas. The escort was demolished ; an accompanying train was plundered and burned, and Blunt, with about a dozen followers, barely escaped with their lives to Little Fort Blair. The Confederates in that region, now finding their supplies 1863.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 677 to be nearly exhausted, a part of CabelFs command, under Colonel Shelby, undertook a raid into Missouri, to procure some. In the southwestern part of that State they were joined by a considerable force under Coffey, when the combined army was twenty-five hundred strong. They penetrated the State to Booneville [October 1, 1863], on the Missouri River, but were quickly driven back into Arkansas by Generals Brown and McNeil, when the latter was placed in command of the Army of the Frontier. Comparative quiet prevailed in Missouri and Arkansas after that for some time, the only hostile movement of note being an attack [Oct. 25] by Marmaduke upon Pine Bluff, on the Arkansas River, with two thousand men and twelve guns. The little garrison, under Colonel Clayton, with the help of two hundred negroes in making barricades, drove off the assailants, after a contest of several hours. Let us now see what was occurring west of the Mississippi, in the Gulf Department, commanded by General N. P. Banks. When that commander withdrew from Alexan dria, on the Red River, to invest Port Hudson, 1 General Dick Taylor, whom he had driven into the wilds of Western Louisiana, returned, took possession of the aban doned towns of Alexan dria and Opelousas, and garrisoned Fort de Rus- sy, early in June [1863]. Then he swept rapidly through the State toward the Mississippi, and in the direction of New Orleans, causing Banks to draw in his outposts to Brashear City. But this post was soon captured [June 24, 1863], with an immense amount of public property, and a thousand prisoners. 2 A few days later, a Confederate force, under General Green, attempted to seize Fort Butler [June 20], at Donaldsonville, on the Mississippi, but were repulsed, with a loss of over three hundred men ; and, on the 12th of July, the same leader attacked some troops under General Dudley, in the rear of Donaldson ville, when, after a partial success, the Confederates were driven, and retreated out of that district. This was about the last struggle of Taylor s troops to gain a foothold on the Mississippi, for Banks s force, released by the fall of Port Hudson, 3 quickly expelled the Confederates from the region eastward of the Atchafalaya. - 1 See page 644. 2 The Confederates took possession of the fort there, with its ten guns ; also, a large amount of smal-larms, munitions of war, provisions. &e., the whole valued at full $2,000,000. A thousand refugee negroes were also seized there, and remanded into slavery worse than they had endured before. 3 See page 646. THE NATION. [1863, Banks now turned his thoughts to aggressive movements. Grant visited him early in September, when the two leaders united in an earnest expression of a desire to move, with their combined forces, on Mobile. But the represent ations of Texan loyalists, then in Washington City, caused the government to order an expedition for the recovery of Texas. Banks fitted out one, to make a lodgment in that State at Sabine Pass, on the boundary-line between Louisiana and Texas. He sent four thousand veteran troops for the purpose, under General Franklin ; and Admiral Farragut detailed, as a co-operative naval force, four gun-boats, under Lieutenant Crocker. The expedition crossed the bar at Sabine Pass on the 8th of September [1863], when, instead of the troops landing, according to instructions, and taking the Confederate works in reverse, the gun-boats proceeded to make a direct attack. They were repulsed by a handful of men behind a small work, armed with eight guns, 1 and the expedition returned to New Orleans, leaving behind two steamers, with fifteen rifled-guns, two hundred men as prisoners, and fifty men killed and wounded. The notice given to the Confederates by this unfortunate expedition, of a design to invade Texas coastwise, caused an abandonment of the scheme at that time, and Banks concentrated his forces on the Atchafalaya, for the purpose of penetrating that State by way of Shreveport, on the Red River. There appeared insuperable obstacles to an expedition over that route. Banks deter mined to make an attempt to seize and hold the harbors of that commonwealth on the coast. General C. C. Washburn was ordered to mask the movement by marching from Brashear toward Alexandria, and, on the 26th of October, an expedition, consisting of about six thousand troops and some war-vessels, sailed from New Orleans directly for the Rio Grande. The troops, under the immediate command of General Dana, landed at Brazos Santiago, drove some Confederate cavalry toward Brownsville, thirty miles up the river, and, fol lowing them, reached that post on the 6th of November. Detachments were sent to other points, and in the space of a month National troops took posses sion of Texan seaports and fortified posts on the coast, from the Rio Grande eastward, to near the mouth of the Brazos. Only the latter place, and Galves- ton Island, were now held by the foe. There they had formidable works. At the close of the year all Texas west of the Colorado was abandoned by them. 2 1 This fort had a garrison of 200 men ; but, at the time of the attack, all but forty-two were absent. Those present were chiefly Irishmen, and belonged to an organization known as the "Davis Guards." For their gallantry on this occasion, Jefferson Davis presented each man with a small silver medal, a representation of which may be found in Lossing s Pictorial Field-Book of the Civil War, iii., 222. 2 While the events we have just noticed were occurring in the region westward of the Lower Mississippi, others, having a slight bearing upon the war, occurred on the same side of the great river, in the region of its upper waters. This was a war with the Sioux tribe of Indians, in the State of Minnesota. It broke out in the summer of 1862, when Little Crow, a saintly-looking savage in civilized costume, led his fellow- savages in the butchery of the white inhabitants at different places along the frontier settlements. These warriors besieged Forts Ripley and Aber- crombie in the autumn, and in that region they massacred about five hundred white people men, women, and children. Finally, troops under General Sibley captured about five hundred of the savages, and thirty-seven of the worst offenders were hanged. Little Crow was shot by a private citizen while the savage was picking blackberries. His skeleton is preserved in the Minnesota Historical Society. The war was not ended until the summer of 1863, when General Pope was- in command of that Department. 1863.J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. Before proceeding to a consideration of military affairs in 1864, let us take a brief glance at the aspect of civil affairs at the beginning of that year. The management of the finances of the nation were yet in the hands of Mr. Chase. 1 The public debt had then reached the appalling sum of considerably over $1,000,000,000 ; 2 the great war was in full career, and the debt was increasing every day ; and yet the public credit, among American citizens, never stood higher. " The history of the world," said the Secretary of the Treasury, a year later, when he had been fully sustained by the people, " may be searched in vain for a parallel case of popular financial support to a National move ment." The Secretary, in his report to Congress in 1862, had shown that, to meet all demands to the close of the fiscal year, at the end of June, 1864 (eighteen months), provision must be made for raising over $900,000,000 more. Such a demand would have appalled the representatives of a less hopeful people. But they met the matter firmly, and took measures for raising the money. The people manifested their confidence in the government, by lending it, within the space of two months after the adjournment of Congress [March 3, 1863], $169,000,000. The finances of the Confederates were in a deplorable condition at the beginning of 1864. Their public debt, in round numbers, was $1,000,000,000, with a prospective increase at the end of the year to full $2,000,000,000. The currency in circulation amounted to $600,000,000, and was so depreciated that the Conspirators could see nothing but ruin ahead. Few persons, besides de ceived and sympathizing Europeans, particularly Englishmen, 3 could be induced to take the " government " bonds willingly. The producers of the Confederacy were unwilling to take the promises to pay of the Conspirators for their products, and want had threatened their army with destruction. So the authorities at Richmond had boldly adopted the measure of seizing supplies for their armies ; and, for the purpose of keeping their ranks full, had passed a law declaring, in substance, every white man in the Confederacy, liable to bear arms, to be in the military service, and that upon failure to report for duty at a military sta tion within a certain time, he was liable to the penalty of death as a deserter. 4 Notwithstanding these disabilities and the fading away of every hope of recognition by foreign governments, or the moral support of any civilized people, 5 the Conspirators at Richmond, holding the reins of despotic power 1 See page 560. 3 The National debt on the first of July, 1863, was $1,098,793,181. It was estimated that at the same period in 1864 it would be $1,686,956,190. The average rate of interest on the whole debt, without regard to the varying margin between coin and notes, had been reduced from 4 36 per cent., on the first of July, 1862, to 3 77 per cent, on the first of July, 1863. 3 The Confederates negotiated a loan in Europe of $15,000,000, on the security of cotton to be sent abroad and sold. Members of the Southern Independence Association, in England, com posed of persons of the ruling class, were heavy losers by the transaction. 4 The history of civilized nations has no parallel to this despotic act. Davis and his fellow- conspirators had then reached a critical point in their wicked game, and seemed willing to sacrifice every man, ruin every family, waste all the property in the Confederacy, and see their section of the Republic converted into a wilderness, in a desperate effort to win, well knowing that failure would be ruin to themselves. They seemed to regard the " common people " as of no account, excepting as docile instruments for the aggrandizement of the slave-holding Oligarchy. 6 On the first of April, 1864, Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, forwarded to Jefferson Davis, by permission of our government, a letter from Earl Russell, the British Foreign Secretary, in which, in the name of "her Majesty s government, 1 he protested against the further THE NATION. [1863. with firm grasp, resolved to carry on the war regardless of consequences to their deluded and abused victims. They employed the President s Proclama tion of Emancipation l as a means for " firing the Southern heart," and they put forth the grossest misrepresentations to deceive the people. They devised schemes for retaliation, and the most cruel measures toward negro troops and their white commanders were proposed. They refused to recognize captive negro soldiers as prisoners of war, and sought, by threats of vengeance, to deter negroes from enlisting. But more prudent counsels prevailed, for it was seen that such measures might be retorted with fearful effect. The President stood firm concerning emancipation. His proclamation was the exponent of the future policy of the government. Congress passed laws in consonance with it. The organization of negro troops for military service was authorized and carried out, and the government took the just ground that all its soldiers should have equal protection. The slave-holding Oligarchy raved. The Peace Faction protested. The loyal people said to the government, Be firm. "The signs," the President said, "look better." More than fifty thousand square miles had been recovered from the Confederates in the West. The autumn elections [18G3] showed that the friends of the government, who had spoken at the ballot-box, were overwhelming in numbers and moral strength. The government took fresh courage, and adopted measures for a vigorous military campaign in 1864. The President, with the hope of weakening the moral strength of the Conspirators, issued a generous Amnesty Proclamation, 2 procuring of pirate vessels within the British dominions by tho Confederates. After courteously reciting facts connected with the matter. Russell said: "Under these circumstances, her Majesty s government protests and remonstrates against any Turther efforts being made on the part of the so-called Confederate States, or the authorities or agents thereof, to build, or cause to be built, or to purchase, or cause to be purchased, any such vessels as those styled rams, or any other ves sels to be used for war purposes against the United States, or against any country with which the United Kingdom is at peace and on terms of amity; and her Majesty s government further protest and remonstrates ag. inst all acts in violation of the neutrality laws of the realm." These words from one who, personally and as the representative of the British government, had given the insurgents all the " aid and comfort " a wise business prudence would allow, kindled the hottest indignation of the Conspirators, and Jerferson Davis instructed one of his assistants (Burton N. Harrison) to reply that it - would be inconsistent with the dignity of the position he [J. Davis] fills as Chief Magistrate of a nation comprising a population of more than twelve mil lions, occupying a territory many times larger than the United Kingdom, and possessing resources unsurpassed by those of any other country on the face of the globe, to allow the attempt of Earl Russell to ignore the actual existence of the Confederate States, and to contemptuously style them so-called, to pass without a protest and a remonstrance. The President, therefore, does pro test and remonstrate against this studied insult ; and he instructs me to say that in future any document in which it may be repeated will be returned unanswered and unnoticed." The scribe of the irate "President" added: "Were, indeed, her Majesty s government sincere in a desire and a determination to maintain neutrality, the President would not but feel that they would neither be just nor gallant to allow the subjugation of a nation like the Confederate States, by such a barbarous, despotic race as are now attempting it." 1 See page 640. 2 The President offered full pardon, and restoration of all rights of property, excepting as to slaves, to all persons (with specilied exceptions), who had participated in the rebellion, who should take a prescribed oath of allegiance to the government. The persons excepted were all who were or had been civil or diplomatic agents of the so-called Confederate government ; all who had left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion ; all who were or had been military or naval officers of the so-called Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army and lieutenant in the navy ; all who left seats in the National Congress to aid the rebellion ; all who resigned commissions in the National Army or Navy, and afterward aided the rebellion ; and all who had engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war. 18G4.J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. and a prescription for the reorganization of States wherein rebellion existed. The new Congress (XXXVIIIth) had heavy majorities of loyal members in both Houses. The National forces in the field at the opening of 1864 numbered about 800,000. Those of the Confederates were about half that number. The former were ready and disposed to act on the offensive ; the latter, generally, stood on the defensive. The government and people were tired of delays and the almost indecisive warfare of posts, as the struggle had been up to this time. It was evident that proper vigor in the control of the armies could only be obtained by placing that control in the hands of one competent man in the field. For this purpose Congress created the office of Lieutenant-General. The President nominated Ulysses S. Grant to fill it. The Senate confirmed the nomination [March 2, 1864], and that successful leader was commissioned [March 8] General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States, and made his head-quarters in the field, with the Army of the Potomac. Grant had no sympathy with a system of warfare half coercive and half persuasive. That had been tried too long for the public good. He believed his government to be right and the Conspirators wrong. He regarded sharp and decisive blows as the most merciful in the end, and calculated to save life and treasure, and so he resolved to make war with all the terrible intentions of war, and end it. He at once organized two grand expeditions, having for their geographical objectives the capture of Richmond in Virginia and Atlanta in Georgia; and their prime object was the destruction of the two great armies of the Conspirators, commanded by Lee and Johnston. The Army of the Potomac, destined to conquer Lee, was placed under the command of General George G. Meade ; that intended to fight Johnston was intrusted to General W. T. Sherman. Events proved the wisdom of Grant s choice. Before considering these great campaigns, let us notice, briefly, other important movements in the country between the mountains and the Missis sippi River, and the region beyond that stream. When Sherman went to the assistance of Rosecrans, 1 he left General J. B. McPherson in command at Yicksburg. Late in October [1863] that officer went out with about eight thousand men, to drive the Confederates from the line of the railway between Jackson and Canton, but was met by a superior force [October 21], and returned without fighting. Meanwhile, the Confed erate guerrilla chief, Forrest, with about four thousand men, broke into West Tennessee from Northern Mississippi, and making Jackson, in that State, his head-quarters [December], sent out foraging parties in various directions. Troops were sent by Hurlbut, at Memphis, to catch him, but he managed to escape with much plunder. Sherman soon afterward reappeared in Mississippi, and on the 3d of February he left Vicksburg with about twenty-three thou sand effective men, for a grand raid through that State, in the direction of Montgomery, in Alabama, and to march on Mobile, if circumstances should warrant the movement. General (Bishop) Polk was then in command in that 1 See page 668. 682 THE NATION. [1864. region, with a large force of infantry and cavalry. He made but a feeble resistance, and fell back as Sherman moved victoriously to Meridian, at the intersection of important railways. There the latter halted, and waited for a division, chiefly of cavalry, under General W. S. Smith, expected from Tennessee. Sherman s path from Jackson to Meridian, was marked by the destruction of the railway, its station-houses and rolling stock, besides stores and other public property; and during a week that he staid at Meridian he made the most complete destruction of railroads each way from that point. In the mean time Smith failed to join him. He started late, and was driven back by a Confederate force under Forrest and others. Sherman, at the end of a week, laid Meridian in ashes, and returned to Vicksburg with four hun dred prisoners, a thousand white Union refugees, and about five thousand negroes. His raid spread dismay throughout the Confederacy, from the Mis sissippi to the Savannah, and inflicted a heavy loss on the foe. 1 Sherman s raid caused Johnston, at Dalton, in Northern Georgia, to send troops to the aid of Polk. Informed of this, Grant, at Chattanooga, sent the Fourteenth Army Corps, under General Palmer, to menace Johnston and compel him to recall his detachments. The retrograde movement of Sherman caused these detachments to fall back, when Palmer, confronted by a superior force, after some severe fighting [February, 1864], between Ringgold and Dalton, returned to Chattanooga. Forrest, whose sphere of duty had been enlarged, was now charged with that of preventing re-enforcements from reaching Johnston s opponent, from the region of the Mississippi, by keeping them employed there. Late in March he made a rapid raid through Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Ohio at Paducah, Avith about five thousand men, capturing Union City and Hickman by the way. He assailed the fort and garrison at Paducah, under Colonel Hicks, and was repulsed, when he hurried to attack Fort Pillow, on the Ten nessee, above Memphis, commanded by Major L. F. Booth, with a garrison composed largely of col ored troops. This post Forrest besieged on the 13th of April. Booth was assisted in the defense by the gun-boat New Era, Captain Marshall, but was overcome by a trick rather than by arms. Forrest sent in a flag of truce, demanding a surrender of the fort, and while it was NEW ERA. 1 The sum of injury done to the Confederates during Sherman s raid, including that of Smith and an expedition which Porter sent simultaneously to attack Yazoo City and distract the Con- 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. there, and the summons was under consideration, he secretly placed large numbers of his troops in ravines near, where they might effectually fall upon the fort from points where their presence was least expected. This was done, with the cry of " No quarter," when a large number of the garrison, who threw down their arms, were slaughtered by methods most cruel. The poor negro troops were objects of the direst vengeance of the assailant. 1 "Forrest s motto," said Major C. "W. Gibson, one of his men, to the writer, " was, War means fight, and fight means kill we want but few prisoners. " This principle was fully illustrated by Forrest by his foul deed at Fort Pillow. 2 An attempt was made to intercept Forrest in his retreat southward from Fort Pillow. It failed. Some weeks later General Sturgis was sent out from Memphis with a large force into Mississippi, to hunt up and beat him, when the former was attacked near Gun Town, on the Mobile and Ohio rail way, by Forrest, and, after a severe battle [June 10], was compelled to fly federates, may be stated in general terms as follows : The destruction of 150 miles of railway, 67 bridges, 700 trestles, 20 locomotives, 28 cars, several thousand bales of cotton, several steam mills, and over 2,000,000 bushels of corn. About 500 prisoners were taken, and over 8,000 negroes and refugees followed the various columns back to Vicksburg. The expedition sent to Yazoo City consisted of some gun-boats, under Lieutenant Owen, and a detachment of troops under Colonel Osband. They did not then capture the place, but inflicted considerable damage, and returned with a loss of not more than 50 men. Yazoo City was soon afterward occupied by a Union force, composed of the 8th Louisiana and 200 of the Seventh Mis sissippi colored troops, and the llth Illinois. They were attacked by a superior force on the 5th of March. A desperate fight ensued. The assailants were finally driven away by some re-en forcements from below, and soon afterward the town was evacuated. The Union loss in this struggle was 130. That of the Confederates was about the same. 1 There was much opposition to the employment of negroes as soldiers, until quite a late period of the war. At the breaking out of the rebellion, colored men in the Free-labor States offered their services as soldiers, but they were not accepted. "When General Hunter took com mand in the Department of the South, he proclaimed the freedom of the slaves, and was about to organize regiments of colored men. The government would not sanction his proceedings. When General Phelps, commanding a short distance from New Orleans, proposed to make fighters of those colored men who fled into his camp from their masters, and was ordered by General Butler to employ them only as servants, he declared that he was not " willing to become a mere slave- driver," and threw up his commission and returned to Vermont. But, as the war went on, and prejudice gave way to necessity, the enlistment of colored men into the army was authorized. Their usefulness was proven at Milliken s Bend, Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, and other places. In March, 1863, the Adjutant-General of the armies was sent to the Mississippi Valley for the purpose of promoting the enlistment of colored troops. During the war full 200.000 of these dusky soldiers were seen in the uniform of the armies of the Republic. For awhile the Confed erates refused to consider them as prisoners of war and subjects of equal exchange with white captives. But they were finally compelled to acknowledge their equality as soldiers, and accept the conditions imposed by necessity. 2 In a report of a sub-committee of the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, made shortly after the deed, the perpetration of the most horrible cruelties were proven. One or two illustrative instances will suffice: "All around were heard cries of No quarter! Kill the damned niggers! Shoot em down ! and all who asked for mercy were answered by the most cruel taunts and sneers. Some were spared for a time, to be murdered under circumstances of the greatest cruelty One negro, who had been ordered by a rebel officer to hold his horse, was killed by him when he remounted ; another, a mere child, whom an officer had taken up behind him, was seen by Chalmers [General Chalmers, one of Forrest s leaders], who at once ordered the officer to put him down and shoot him, which was done." They burned huts and tents in which the wounded had sought shelter, and were still in them. " One man was deliber ately fastened down to the floor of a tent, face upward, by means of nails driven through his clothing and into the boards under him, so that he could not possibly escape, and then the tent set on fire. Another was nailed to the side of a building outside of the fort, and then the build ing set on fire and burned These deeds of murder and cruelty ceased when night came on, only to be renewed the next morning, when the demons carefully sought among the dead, lying about in all directions, for any of the wounded yet alive, and those they found were deliberately shot." THE NATION. [1864. back to Memphis as rapidly as possible, with very heavy loss. Another expe dition, under General A. J. Smith, composed of about twelve thousand men, was sent on a similar errand. He fought and defeated Forrest near Tupelo [July 14], and then returned to Memphis. Three weeks afterward Smith returned to Mississippi, with ten thousand men, in search of Forrest, but while he was there, that bold leader, with three thousand picked men, flanked him, dashed into Memphis in broad daylight, hoping to capture some Union generals at the Gayosa House, and then fled back to Mississippi. Let us now look across the Father of Waters, and see what was occurring there in 1864. Early in January, General Banks received orders from Halleck, the General- in-Chief of the armies, to organize an expedition for the recovery of Texas, to go by way of the Red River, to Shreveport, in the vicinity of which was a considerable Confederate force, under General E. Kirby Smith and other leaders. It was proposed to have troops from Sherman s command, and a fleet of gun-boats under Admiral Porter, to co-operate directly with Banks, while Steele, at Little Rock, 1 should more remotely aid the expedition. Accordingly, early in March, Porter was at the mouth of the Red River [March 7], with his fleet, and transports with Sherman s troops under General A. J. Smith. The latter were landed at Simms s Port on the Atchafalaya. They marched to Fort de Russy 2 and captured it [March 14, 1864], and then, on transports, went up the river to Alexandria, and took possession of the town [March 16]. Banks s column had marched, meanwhile, from the vicinity of Brashear City, under General Franklin, and moving by way of Opelousas, arrived at Alex andria on the 26th. Banks had arrived there two days before. Smith s troops went forward, driving the Confederates who were gathering on their front, and took post twenty miles farther up the river, in the direction of Shreveport. The water in the Red River was low, and falling, and it was with much difficulty that the fleet and transports got above the rapids at Alexandria. They did so after a few days of hard labor. Banks s column, meanwhile, had advanced to Natchitoches, eighty miles above Alexandria [April 3], the Con federates, in increasing numbers, falling back as they advanced. Smith s troops on transports, and the fleet, advanced to Grand Ecore, near Natchi- toches, and from that point the great body of the expedition moved toward Shreveport. The larger gun-boats could go no further, so a detachment of Smith s command, under General T. Kilby Smith, accompanied the transports and lighter gun-boats, with supplies for the army. The expedition encountered the Confederates on the way, now and then, but they invariably fell back, until they reached Sabine Cross Roads, not far from Mansfield, where they made a stand in heavy force. There Banks s cavalry, and part of his infantry and artillery, engaged in a sharp struggle [April 8], when they were forced to retreat a short distance by overwhelming numbers. Franklin came up with re-enforcements late in the afternoon, when the whole body of National troops were routed with heavy loss of men and 1 See page 676. " See page 677. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 685 materials of war. Fortunately the fine division of General Emory was near, and took a stand at Pleasant Grove to receive the fugitives and resist the Confederates. Another heavy battle ensued, when the Nationals were again victorious. They thought it prudent, however, after the battle, to fall back to Pleasant Hill, fifteen miles in the rear, for it was not certain that General Smith would come up in time to aid the wearied troops on the field of victory. There the united forces took a strong position. The Confederates had fol lowed, closely, and there another severe battle was fought [April 9, 1864], which resulted in another victory for the Nationals. Banks proposed to move again toward Shreveport, in the morning, but the unanimous opinion of the officers of his and Smith s command, was that it would be best for the expedi tion to fall back to the Red River, at Grand Ecore. 1 The transports and guarding troops, and the lighter gun-boats, which had gone up to Loggy Bayou, after some fighting on the way with Confederates on the banks of the river, joined the army at Grand Ecore. The troubles of the expedition were not at an end. It was determined to fall back to Alexandria, and it was an easy matter for the army to do so, but the water in the Red River was so low, and still falling, that it was difficult to get the fleet over the bar at Grand Ecore. This was accomplished, however, and on the 17th of April the fleet started down the river, when one of the vessels was sunk by a torpedo. The army moved on the 21st [April, 1864], but was met at the passage of the Cane River, where the Confederates, on Monet s Bluff", confronted them. These were dislodged by skillful maneuvers and sharp fighting, and the National forces entered Alexandria on the 27th, after an absence of twenty-four days. Some of the fleet had a severe struggle with a battery at the mouth of Cane River, but the vessels ran by it in the darkness, excepting a pump-boat. The expedition against Shreveport was now abandoned, and it was determined to return to the Mississippi. The fleet encountered a most serious obstacle at Alexandria. The water was so low that it was impossible for the vessels to pass over the rapids. A means had been suggested, by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, Engineer of the Nineteenth Corps, so early as the day of the battle at Pleasant Hill, when a retreat was thought of. It was to dam the river at the foot of the rapids, so as to deepen the water on them, and thus, when the vessels were there, open a sluice and allow them to go down with the deep current. 2 This 1 The chief reasons offered were: (1.) The difficulty in bringing his trains which had been sent forward on the road toward Grand Ecore, in time to move quickly after the flying Confede rates; (2.) A lack of water for man or beast in that region, excepting such as the wells afforded; (3.) The fact that all surplus ammunition and supplies of the army were on board the transports sent up the river, and the impossibility of knowing whether these had reached their destination ~ (4.) The falling of the river, which imperiled the naval part of the expedition ; and (5.) The report of a scouting party, on the day of the battle, that no tidings could be heard of the fleet. " These considerations," said Banks, "the absolute deprivation of water for man or beast, the exhaustion of rations, and the failure to effect a connection with the fleet on the river, made it necessary for the army, although victorious in the struggle through which it had just passed, to retreat to a point where it would be certain of communicating with the fleet, and where it would have an opportunity for reorganization." 2 Admiral Porter, in his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy, said : " The work was com menced by running out from the left bank of the river a tree-dam, made of the bodies of ver7 86 THE NATION. [1864. was done successfully. All of the vessels passed the rapids safely into the deep water below, made so by an upward current of the brimful Mississippi, one hundred and fifty miles distant. With very little further trouble, the whole expedition moved down to the Mississippi. At Simms s Port on the BAILEY S RED RIVER DAM. Atchafalaya, General Canby appeared, and took command of Banks s troops, and the latter returned to New Orleans. General Smith returned to Missis sippi, and Porter resumed the service of patrolling the Mississippi River. General Steele had not been able to co-operate with the expedition, as was expected. He started southward from Little Rock late in March with about eight thousand troops, and was soon joined by General Thayer, commander of the Army of the Frontier. They pushed back Price, Marmaduke, and others, who opposed them in considerable force, and captured the important post of Camden [April 15, 1864], on the Washita River. It was a difficult one to hold, and Steele soon abandoned it, and returned to Little Rock, after a severe battle at Jenkinson s Ferry on the Sabine River. So ended, in all its parts, the disastrous campaign against Shreveport for the repossession of Texas. It failure was owing to a radically defective plan, over which the leaders had no control. 1 large trees, brush, brick, and stone, cross-tied with other heavy timber, and strengthened in every way ingenuity could devise. This was run about three hundred feet into the river. Four large coal-barges were then filled with brick, and sunk at the end of it. From the right bank of the river cribs filled with stone were built out to meet the barges." 1 General Banks had so often objected to taking the route of the Red River, for Texas, that when Halleck again urged it, he did not feel at liberty to demur. He laid before the General-in- Chief a memorial, in which were explicitly stated the obstructions to be encountered, and the measures necessary to accomplish the object in view. It recommended as indispensable to success: (1.) Such complete preliminary organization as would avoid the least delay in move ments after the campaign had opened ; (2.) That a line of supply be established from the Missis sippi, independent of water-courses, because these would become unmanageable at certain seasons of the year ; (3.) The concentration of the forces west of the Mississippi, and such other force as should be assigned to this duty from General Sherman s command, in such a manner as to expel the enemy from Northern Louisiana and Arkansas ; (4.) Such preparation and concert of action among the different corps engaged as to prevent the enemy, by keeping him constantly employed, from operating against our positions or forces elsewhere; and (5.) That the entire force should be placed under the command of a single general. Preparations for a long campaign was also advised, and the month of May was indicated as the point of time when the occupation of 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. The failure of the Red River expedition, and the expulsion of Steele from the region below the Arkansas River, emboldened the Confederates, and they soon had almost absolute control of the State. Raiding parties roamed at will ; and very soon the Unionists were awed into silence, and the civil power, in a great degree, passed into the hands of the enemies of the Republic. 1 This condition of affairs was favorable to a long-contemplated invasion of Missouri by Price, which had both a military and political object in view. In the Western States, and particularly in Missouri, were secret associations in sympathy with the Conspirators, known as Knights of the Gplden Circle* and "Sons of Liberty." An arrangement appears to have been made for an armed uprising of the members of these associations, when Price should enter the State, and he was induced to do so by promises of being joined by over twenty thousand of these disloyal men. The vigilant Rosecrans, then commander of the Department of Missouri, 3 discovered their plans, made some arrests, and so frightened the great mass of these secret enemies of the government, that when Price appeared, he found very few recruits. Price, and Shelby, with nearly twenty thousand followers, entered South eastern Missouri, late in September, and pushed on to Pilot Knob, half way to St. Louis from the Arkansas line. There General Ewing, with a single brigade, struck him an astounding blow that made him very circumspect. Fortunately Rosecrans had just been re-enforced by volunteers from the surrounding region, and by troops under General A. J. Smith, which had been stopped at Cairo on their way to join Sherman in Northern Georgia, with others under General Mower, which speedily arrived. Price saw that a web of peril was rapidly weaving around him, so he abandoned his design of marching upon St. Louis. He hastened toward Jefferson City, but passed on without touching it, and fled toward Kansas, closely pursued. It was an exciting chase, and was made lively, at times, by sharp encounters. Finally, early in November, Price was driven into Western Arkansas with a broken and dispirited army. It was the last invasion of Missouri. Turning our attention eastward, at about this time, we observe some stirring events in East Tennessee. After Longstreet s retirement from Knox- ville 4 he lingered some time .between there and the Virginia border. General Foster took Burnside s place as the commander of the Union troops there. Some severe skirmishing occurred at different places, but no pitched battle ; and, finally, Longstreet withdrew into Virginia, to re-enforce the menaced army of General Lee. The notorious Morgan and his guerrilla band lingered in Shreveport might be anticipated. "Not one of these suggestions," said General Banks in his report, " so necessary in conquering the inherent difficulties of the expedition, was carried into execution, nor was it in my power to establish them." There existed that bane of success, a divided command. Banks, Porter, and Smith, acted independently of each other, as far as they pleased, there being no supreme authority to compel unity or co-operation in action. 1 After Steele took possession of Little Eock in the autum of 1863, the Unionists of Arkansas held a Convention there, and proceeded to re-establish civil government according to the prescrip tion contained in the President s Amnesty Proclamation. Now the State was so absolutely under the control of the Confederates, that the disloyal government called a session of the old Legis lature [September 22, 1864], and elected a representative ia the so-called "Senate" of the Con spirators, at Richmond. 2 See page 520. 3 See note 2, page 666. * See page 671. 688 THE NATION. [1864. East Tennessee a few months longer. At the close of May he went over the mountains into Kentucky, and raided through the richest portions of that State, well up toward the Ohio, for the purpose of drawing Union troops, then threatening Southeastern Virginia, in that direction. General Burbridge hastened after him, and struck him such blows that his shattered column went reeling back into East Tennessee. At Greenville, early in September, Morgan was surprised, and was shot dead while trying to escape. Soon after this, Breckinridge moved into East Tennessee with a considerable force ; and from Knoxville to the Virginia line, was a theater of stirring minor events of the war. Early in 1864, there were some movements having in view the capture of Richmond, and the release of Union prisoners in the Libby, and on more hor rible Belle Isle in the James River. The first of these which attracted much attention, occurred in February, when General B. F. Butler, then in command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, sent about fifteen hundred troops against Richmond. The expedition, owing to treachery, was fruitless. Later, General Kilpatrick, with five thousand cavalry, swept around Lee s right flank, down to Rich mond, and into its out er line of fortifications [March 1, 1864], but was compelled to retire. At about the same time Colonel Dahlgren, with a part of Kilpatrick s com mand, appeared before Richmond [March 2, 1864], at another point, but was repulsed, and while retiring, was killed. The Confederate authori ties were so exasperated by the audacity of Kilpatrick, that they contemplated the summary execution of ninety of Dahlgren s command, who were captured ; and they actually placed gunpowder under Libby Prison for the purpose of blowing it up with its hundreds of captive Union soldiers, should they attempt to escape ! 2 A few days later, General Carter, with a considerable force, 1 A Rebel War Clerk s [J. B. Jones] Diary, March 5, 1864. The Richmond press, in the interest of the Conspirators, strongly recommended the measure. "Let them die," said the Richmond Whig, not by court-martial, not as prisoners, but as hostes humani generis by general order from the President, Commander-in-Chief." a A Rebel War Clerk s Diary, March 2, 1864. "Last night," says the Diary, "when it was supposed probable that the prisoners of war at the Libby might attempt to break out, General Winder ordered that a large amount of powder be placed under the building, with instructions to blow them up if the attempt were made." Seddon would not give a written order for the diaboli cal work to be done, but he said, significantly, "the prisoners must not be allowed to escape, under any circumstances." "which," says the diarist, "was considered sanction enough. Captain obtained an order for and procured several hundred pounds of gunpowder, which was placed in readiness. Whether the prisoners were advised of this I know not ; but I told Captain it would not be justifiable to spring such a mine in the absence of their knowledge of the BELLE ISLE. J864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. threatened Lee s communications in the direction of Charlottesville and the Shenandoah Valley. We now come to the consideration of one of the great campaigns, planned by General Grant, namely, that of the Army of the Potomac under General Meade, against the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee, and Rich mond, the head-quarters of the Conspirators. Grant, as we have seen, 1 made his head-quarters with the Army of the Potomac, which was re-organized, and divided into three corps, commanded, respectively, by Generals Hancock, Warren, and Sedgwick, and known in the order of the commanders named, as the Second, Fifth, and Sixth. General Burnside, who, since his retirement from East Tennessee, had been re-organizing his old Ninth Corps, was ordered forward, and joined the Army of the Potomac, on the Rapid Anna. Re-enforce ments rapidly filled the armies, and at the close of April [1864], Grant gave orders for Meade in Virginia, and Sherman in Northern Georgia, to advance. The Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapid Anna, into the tangled region known as The Wilderness, on the morning of the 4th of May. At that time Lee s army lay strongly intrenched behind Mine Run, 2 and extending from the Rapid Anna almost to Gordonsville. It was also divided into three corps, under Ewell, Hill, and Longstreet. Grant intended to move swiftly by Lee s flank, masked by The Wilderness, and plant the Union army between that of the Confederates and Richmond; but the latter was vigilant, and boldly leaving his intrenchments, attacked the Nationals in The Wilderness. A very sanguinary battle ensued [May 5 and 6], on that strange battle-field, 3 by which both armies were shattered, but without any decided advantage gained by either. It continued two days, when Lee withdrew behind his intrenchments, and Meade prepared to get out of The Wilderness, into the open country near Spottsylvania Court-House, as soon as possible. In this sanguinary battle, the gallant Union General Wadsworth was killed, and the Confederate General Longstreet was wounded. General Warren led the movement out of The Wilderness, and Grant s plan of flanking Lee would doubtless have been successful, but for delays. When, on the morning of the 8th [May, 1864], Warren emerged into the open country two or three miles from Spottsylvania Court-House, he found a part of Lee s army across his path, in strong position behind intrenchments previously cast up, and the remainder rapidly arriving. Before the whole of the Army of the Potomac could arrive, that of Northern Virginia was there and ready to oppose Grant in flanking movement. Dispositions were made for battle, fate awaiting them in the event of their attempting to break out, because such prisoners are not to be condemned for striving to regain their liberty. Indeed it is the duty of a prisoner of war to escape if he can." 1 See page 681. 2 See page 660. 3 Covered with a thick growth of pine, cedars, and shrub-oaks, and tangled under-brush, it was a country in which maneuvering, in the military sense, was almost impossible, and where by the compass alone, like mariners at murky midnight, the movements of troops were directed. The three hundred guns of the combatants had no avocation there, and the few horsemen not away on outward duty were compelled to be almost idle spectators. Of the two hundred thou sand men there ready to fall upon and slay each other, probably no man s eyes saw more than a thousand at one time, so absolute was the concealments of the thickets. Never in the history of war was such a spectacle exhibited. 44 690 THE NATION. [1864. after some skirmishing on the morning of the 9th, and that day was spent in preparations. The gallant Sedgwick was killed while superintending the arrangement of a battery. Every thing was in readiness for battle on the morning of the 10th. It opened vigorously, and raged furiously all day, with dreadful losses on both sides. On the following morning [May 11, 1864], General Grant sent to the government that famous dispatch in which occurred his declaration, "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer" Early on the 12th, another and equally sanguinary contest ensued, when Hancock broke through the Confederate lines, gained a great advantage, and held it. Another day of terrible fighting ensued, and did not wholly cease until midnight, when Lee suddenly withdrew behind his second line of intrench- ments, and was apparently as strong as ever. In the space of eight days, the Army of the Potomac had lost nearly thirty thousand men. Yet Grant, sent a cheering dispatch to the government ; and the whole country was listening with the deepest anxiety for tidings from the two great armies. Finally, Grant determined to turn Lee s present position, and made dispositions accord ingly. Lee proceeded to thwart him, and a severe battle occurred on the 19th of May, in which the Nationals were successful in repulsing Lee, but with fearful loss to themselves. About forty thousand of the army that crossed the Rapid Anna was now disabled. Lee had lost about thirty thousand. TILE PLACE WHERE SEDGWICK WAS KILLED. When the Army of the Potomac emerged from The Wilderness, General Philip H. Sheridan, with a greater portion of the National cavalry, went upon a raid on Lee s rear. He swept down into the outer line of works before Richmond, fighting and killing on the Avay, a few miles north of the city, the eminent cavalry officer, General J. E. B. Stuart, and destroying the railways and a vast amount of public property. He pushed on to the James River below, and then returned to the army. In the mean time a co-operating force, under General Sigel, in the Shenandoah and Kanawha Valleys, was active. A part of 1 This is from a sketch made by the author in June, 1866, taken from the breastworks in front of the Union line. Toward the right is seen the logs of the battery, the construction of which Sedgwick was superintending, and near which he fell. The bullet came from the clump of trees on the knoll seen more to the right, on rising ground. 18G4.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. it under Sigev. in person, fought Confederates under Breckinridge, at New Market [May 15], when tne Nationals were routed. Another part, under Generals Crooke and Averill, moved out of the Kanawha Valley, and pro ceeded toward the Virginia Central railway, to destroy it, and also some lead mines near Wytheville. But little was accomplished. Later than this, General Hunter, who had succeeded Sigel in command, fought [June 5] the Confeder ates at Piedmont, not far from Staunton, where he was joined by Crook and Averill. Then the whole body, twenty thousand strong, went over the mount ains to capture Lynchburg. It was too strong ; and Hunter, after destroying a vast amount of property in that region, withdrew into West Virginia, and was not able to join in the campaign for several weeks afterward. While the Army of the Potomac was struggling with Lee, General Butler, who had been joined by troops, under General Gillmore, which had been called up from Charleston, made effective co-operative movements. He went up the James River [May 4, 1864], in armed transports, with about twenty-five thousand men, followed by a squadron of gun-boats under Admiral Lee, and unarmed transports. Fort Powhatan, Wilson s Landing, and City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox River, were seized, and Butler proceeded at once to take possession of and hold the peninsula of Bermuda Hundred between the rivers James, and Appomattox. Simultaneously with this movement up the James, General Kautz, with five thousand cavalry, went out from Suffolk, to break up the railways south and west of Petersburg ; while Colonel West, with fifteen hundred mounted men went up the Peninsula, forded the Chick- ahominy, and took post on the James River, opposite City Point. All this was done with scarcely any opposition, for Confederate troops were then few in that region. General Butler proceeded to cast up a strong line of intrenchments across the peninsula of Bermuda Hundred, and to destroy the railway between Peters burg and Richmond. The former place was then at his mercy, and might have been easily taken, but misinformation from Washington made Butler move cautiously. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of Gillmore s troops having relieved Charleston of immediate danger, left the Confederate forces there free to act elsewhere. So, when Butler moved up the James, Beauregard was summoned to Richmond with all the troops he could collect. He passed over the Weldon road before Kautz struck it, and filled Petersburg With defenders before Butler could move upon it in force. His columns were receiving acces sions of strength every hour, and while Butler was intrenching, Beauregard was massing a heavy force on his front along the line of the railway. Finally, on the morning of the 16th [May], while a dense fog shrouded the country, he attempted to turn Butler s right flank, which was connected with the James by a thin line. A National brigade was utterly overwhelmed by the first heavy blow, when two regiments, standing firmly at the junction of roads, checked the victors. At the same time a force that had fallen on Butler s front, was repulsed. The assault was renewed, on the National right, when the Union troops all fell back to their intrenchments. In this collision the Nationals lost about four thousand of their number, and the Confederates, about three thou- 692 THE NATION. [1864. sand. For several days afterward there was some sharp fighting in front of Butler s line. Kautz, meanwhile, had been on the railway communications in the rear of Petersburg, inflicted considerable but not very serious damage, and returned to head-quarters. And now Grant s flanking column was moving grandly forward. Lee had the advantage of higher ground, and a more direct road to Richmond, and when the Army of the Potomac approached the North Anna River, near the Fredericksburg railway crossing, it found its antagonist strongly posted on the opposite side, to dispute its passage. A heavy battle ensued [May 23], when Lee withdrew a little to a stronger position. Grant became satisfied, after careful examination of that position, that he could not carry it. So he with drew [May 26], and resumed his march on Richmond, well eastward of his foe, Sheridan, with the cavalry, in the advance; and on the 28th the entire Army of the Potomac was south of the Pamunkey River, with an unobstructed com munication with its new base of supplies at White House, near the mouth of that stream. But Lee, moving by a shorter road, was again in a strongly intrenched position on the National front, covering the turnpike and the two railways to Richmond. There heavy battles were fought [May 28, 29], when Grant, again find i no- Lee s position too strong to be carried, began another flanking movement, with the intention of crossing the Chickahominy near Cool Arbor. Sheridan had seized an eligible position at Cool Arbor, and there, on the following day, the Army of the Potomac was re-enforced [May 31] by ten thousand men under Gen eral W. F. Smith, sent up by Butler from the Army of the James at Ber muda Hundred. Meade now gave orders for an advance upon the foe, and the forcing of a passage of the Chickahominy. Here was the old battle-ground where PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. McClellan and Lee fought two years before, and here were now some san guinary engagements preparatory to the final struggle which occurred on the 3d of June, when the Army of the Potomac attempted to break through the lines of the Army of Northern Virginia, and cross the Chickahominy. The struggle was fearful and bloody, but brief. Twenty minutes after the first shot was fired, full ten thousand Union men were killed or wounded. The Nationals lost no ground, but did not attempt to advance farther. They were attacked that night, but repulsed their assailants. Another attack the next day, and also at night, had a similar result, but with heavy losses on both sides. 1 Mean- 1 The total loss of the Unionists in the struggle around Cool Arbor, was 13,153, of whom 1,705 were killed, 9,042 wounded, and 2,405 missing. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. (393 while the Nationals were gradually moving to the left, and on the 7th [June] that wing touched the Chickahominy. Then Sheridan was dispatched with two divisions of cavalry around Lee s left. He tore up the railways in that direction, and scattered all Confederate forces that opposed him until he reached Gordonsville, where he found them so numerous that he retraced his steps. Grant now formed the bold resolution to cross the Chickahominy far to Lee s right, and then pass the James River and attack Richmond from the south. This resolution startled the authorities at Washington with fears that Lee might turn back and seize that city. Grant had considered all the contin gencies incident to such a bold movement, and feared no evil from it. 1 To this end the whole army was put in motion [June 12, 13]. The most of the troops crossed the Chickahominy at Long Bridge, and moved toward the James by way of Charles City Court-House, carrying with them the iron work of the railway between the Chickahominy and White House. The passage of the river was safely made by the army on ferry-boats and pontoon bridges on the 14th and 15th of June. At the same time unsuccessful efforts were made by a portion of the Army of the James to seize Petersburg before aid should come down to Beauregard from Lee. The failure to do so was a sad misfor tune, and from that time, for about ten months, Petersburg and Richmond sus tained a most pressing siege. General Grant established his head-quarters at City Point, and thither Meade hastened, after posting his army [June 16], to consult him, when it was determined to make a general assault that evening on Petersburg. It was done by the combined corps of Warren, Hancock, and Burnside, at a heavy cost of life, but with the gain of a slight advance of the National line. It was evident that a greater portion of Lee s army was now south of the James River. A force under Terry, sent out by Butler to seize and hold the railway, was driven by Long-street and Pickett. Another general assault was ordered on the morn ing of the 18th, when it was found that the Confederates had withdrawn to a stronger line of works nearer Petersburg. The attack was made in the after noon, and resulted in no gain to the Nationals, but in a heavy loss of men. It was now evident that Petersburg could not be carried by a direct assault, so a flanking movement was made for the purpose of seizing and cutting the Weldon road, and turning the Confederate right. The turning column was heavily attacked [June 22, 1864] by General A. P. Hill, and were falling back, when Meade arrived. Then the line was restored, and, by an advance at nightfall, nearly all of the lost ground was recovered. The Weldon road was reached the next morning, but just as destructive operations upon it were com menced, Hill struck the Nationals a stunning blow, which made them recoil. In this unsuccessful flank movement, the Unionists lost about four thousand men, mostly by capture. At the same time General Wilson, with his own and Kautz s cavalry, struck the Weldon railway at Reams s Station, destroyed the 1 The country between Lee s shattered army and Washington, was thoroughly exhausted by the troops that had passed over it, and had Lee attempted such a movement, Grant could have sent troops from the James by way of the Potomac for the protection of the capital much sooner than Lee could have marched to the attack. 694 THE NATION. [1864. buildings and track, and then pushed on to the Lynchburg road. This wa* also destroyed over a distance of twenty-two miles. In the prosecution of this destructive business, the cavalry went on to the Staunton River, when they turned, and found themselves compelled to fight their way back. Wearied and worn, the shattered column reached the army, with a loss of their guns, train, and nearly a thousand men made captive. Butler now threw a pontoon bridge across the James River at Deep Bottom, over which troops passed and menaced Richmond. Lee sent a force to con- POXTOOX BRIDGE AT DEEP BOTTOM. front them, when Hancock crossed over, flanked the Confederate outpost, and drove them back to the shelter of strong works at Chapin s Bluif, not fa* below Fort Darling, on Drewry s Bluff. These Sheridan attempted to flank. Lee was so alarmed by these movements within a few miles of Richmond, that he withdrew a large portion of his army from the south side of the river to meet the menace, when Grant took the opportunity to make a vigorous attempt to carry the Confederate lines before Petersburg. He had secretly run a mine under one of their principal forts, in front of Burnside s position, and this was sprung on the morning of the 30th of June. The explosion produced a large crater where the fort stood, and by it about three hundred inmates of the work perished. At the same moment the National Artillery was opened along the whole line, but a simultaneous assault that was to have been made at the point of the explosion for the purpose of penetrating the Confederate works, was not undertaken in time, and the scheme failed. 1 * Owing to a lack of readiness on the part of the attacking column, the assault was not made until the Confederates had recovered from the shock, and massed troops at the breach. These 1864] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 595 There was now a brief lull in operations before Petersburg and Richmond, during which there were some stirring events in Maryland. When Hunter disappeared beyond the mountains, 1 General Early, who had been sent by Lee to drive the former from Lynchburg, hastened to the Shenandoah Valley, and, with about fifteen thousand men, swept down to and across the Potomac, driv ing General Sigel into Maryland. Early did not stop to molest some of Sigel s command on Maryland Heights at Harper s Ferry, but pushed on to Hagers- town and Frederick. His was a powerful raid, for the purposes of plunder and a possible seizure of Baltimore and Washington, but chiefly to cause Grant to send heavy bodies of troops for the defense of the latter city, and so compel him to raise the siege of Petersburg. At that time the only force at hand to confront Early were a few troops commanded by General Lewis Wallace, whose head-quarters were at Baltimore. That energetic officer proceeded at once to a judicious use of the small force under his control, in which he was ably seconded by the gallant General E. B. Tyler. On hearing of Early s movement, General Grant had sent the Sixth Corps, under General Wright, to Washington, and, fortunately, the Nineteenth Corps, under General Emory, 2 arrived at this juncture at Fortress Monroe, from "New Orleans. The division of General Ricketts, of that corps, was imme diately sent to Baltimore, and with these, and such troops as he could gather in his department, Wallace made a stand behind the Monocacy River, not far from Frederick. There, with his handful of men, he fought Early [July 8, 1864], whose cavalry were making demonstrations on his flanks. Wallace was compelled to fall back on Baltimore after heavy loss. 3 Then Early pushed on toward Washington, but the check and lesson given him by Wallace so retarded his movements that the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps arrived there in time to save the city from capture. Early withdrew from in front of Wash ington on the night of the 12th, and with much booty crossed the Potomac into Virginia at Edwards s Ferry. General Wright pursued him through Snicker s Gap to the Shenandoah River, where, after a sharp conflict [July 19], Early began a retreat up the Valley, and Wright returned to Washington. Threatenings in that valley caused both the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps to be quickly sent there, and soon afterward occurred Sheridan s brilliant campaign in that region, which will be noticed presently. A fortnight after the failure of the mining operations at Petersburg, Grant sent another expedition to the north side of the James, at Deep Bottom, com posed of the divisions of Birney and Hancock, and cavalry under Gregg. As before, Richmond was seriously threatened, but in engagements on the 13th and 16th of August, no decided advantage to the Unionists was gained, except ing the incidental one of assisting similar demonstrations on the right of the Confederates, against which Warren was impelled, for the purpose of seizing repulsed the assaulting column when it moved forward, and inflicted a loss on the Unionists of about 4,400 men. 1 See page 691. 2 See page 684. 3 He lost nearly two thousand men, including 1,282 who were made prisoners, or were other wise missing. His killed numbered 98, and his wounded 579. 696 THE X ATI OX. [1864. the Weldon road. This he effected [August 18], with a loss of a thousand men. There he commenced intrenching, when a stronger force than he had encountered endeavored to regain the road. In so doing they temporarily, broke [August 19] Warren s > line, and captured twenty-five hundred of his men, including General J. Hayes. But the Nationals held the road in spite of all efforts to dislodge them. They repulsed another heavy attack on the 21st, and on the same day Hancock, who had returned from the north side of the James, struck the "Weldon road at Reams s Station, and destroyed the track for some distance. The Confederates attacked them in heavy force, when they were most gallantly opposed by Miles and others. The Nationals were finally driven off after a loss of 2,400 men out of 8,000 men ; also five guns. For a month after this there was comparative quiet along the lines, when National troops moved simultaneously upon the right and left flanks of the Con federates. That of Warren, on their right, was more for the purpose of mask ing a more formidable one by Butler on their left, on the north side of the James, with the Tenth Corps, under Birney, and Eighteenth, under Ord. Warren gained some advantage by pushing forward the National lines, but that gained by Butler was of far more importance. He stormed and captured their strongest work [September 29, 1864] on that side of the river, known as Fort Harrison, with fifteen guns and a line of intrenchments. In an attack upon another fort near, immediate ly afterward, the Nationals were repulsed, and General Burnhani was killed. The gallant behavior of colored troops in this charge was such that General Butler, after the war, caused a number of silver medals to be struck and given to the most distinguished amono- them, ^ in testimony of their valor on that occasion. Now there was another pause for a month, when an attempt was made to turn the Con federate right, while Butler menaced their left on the north side of the James River. The bulk of the Army of the Potomac was massed on Lee s right, and moved [October 27] upon his works on Hatcher s Run, west THE BUTLER MEDAL. oi the vv eldon road. For that position there was a severe struggle, which resulted in a repulse of the Nationals, and their final withdrawal [October 29] to their intrenchments in front of Petersburg From that time until the opening of the spring cam- 3 So 4. LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 697 paign, little was done by the Nationals immediately in front of Petersburg and Richmond, excepting an extension of their line to Hatcher s Run. Up to the first of November, from the fifth of May, the losses of the Army of the Potomac had been fearful a little more than 88,000 men. Probably the entire loss among troops engaged in the campaign against Richmond during that tmie was 100,000 men. In the mean time there had been stirring events in the Shenandoah Valley. On the day after Wright and Early fought, 1 Averill, moving up from Martins- burg, had a contest with and worsted a Confederate force near Winchester [July 20], taking prisoners and guns. Two or three days afterward, Crook was driven back from that neighborhood by a strong attacking party, and it was evident that Early had not, as was expected, hastened to rejoin Lee, but was in full force in the Valley, and ready to fight. His own estimate of his power w^as evinced by his sending General McCansland and others on a raid into Maryland and Western Pennsylvania, at which time they burned about two-thirds of the city of Chambersburg. When the raiders turned again toward the Potomac, Averill, who was in the vicinity of Chambersburg, fol lowed, but they went back to Virginia with plunder, without much molesta tion. When information of this daring raid reached Washington, the Sixth ami Ninth Corps were sent first in quest of the invaders, and then into the Shenan- VIEW AT CEDAR CREEK. doah Valley, where they were joined by Hunter s troops. The whole force, about 30,000 strong, was placed under the command of General Sheridan early in August. After a month s preparation, he assumed the offensive against Early, and by a series of brilliant movements and a sharp battle, he sent him 1 See page 695. 698 THE NATION. [1864. " whirling up the Valley," as he expressed it. First there was a severe battle near Winchester [Sept. 19], when Early retreated to the strong position of Fisher s Hill, not far from Strasburg. He was driven from this vantage ground on the 21st, with heavy loss, and fled to the mountains with not more thaja half his army with which he had at first met Sheridan. The latter fell back to a position behind Cedar Creek, near Strasburg, where, on the 19th of October, Early, who had been re-enforced, and had come down to Fisher s Hill, fell suddenly and crushingly upon the Nationals, and came near over whelming them witli destruction. They fell back to Middletown and beyond, where, under the chief direction of General Wright, they turned upon their pursuers. Sheridan had just come up from Winchester. A sharp conflict ensued, when the tide was turned, and Early was again sent in swift retreat up the Shcnandoah Valley, with heavy loss. Sheridan s short campaign in the Valley was a brilliant success, and ended hostilities in that region, for he nearly annihilated Early s army, and Lee could spare no more men for warfare away from Richmond. CHAPTER XIX. THE CIVIL WAR. [18611865.] LET us here turn from a consideration of the campaign against Richmond, and its defenders, for awhile, and observe the progress of that against Atlanta and the army that stood in the way of the National advance. General William T. Sherman was chosen by Grant, to lead the troops in the campaign in Georgia, and he set out from the vicinity of Chattanooga, at the be ginning of May, with nearly 100,000 men. 1 His antagonist, General Joseph E. Johnston, then at Dalton, had about 55,000 men. 2 Johnston was in a strong position at Dalton, the ap proaches to it, through gaps in a mountain range, being strongly forti fied. Sherman, when he moved for ward, was satisfied that a direct attack on Johnston s front, through Buzzard s Roost Pass in Rocky Face Ridge, w^ould be disastrous to his w. T. SHERMAN. men, so he began that series of mas- 1 ^ Sherman was the commander of the Military Division of the Missisippi, which Grant held at the time of his promotion. His force for the campaign comprised three armies, namely : Army of the Cumberland, led by General George H. Thomas, 60,773; Army of the Tennessee, General McPherson. 24.465; and Army of the Ohio, General Schofield, 13,559; total, 98,797. 2 Johnston s army was divided into three corps, commanded respectively by Generals Hardee,. Hood, and Polk. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. terly flank movements by which he compelled his adversary (who was deter mined to save his army), to abandon one strong position after another. Sherman menaced Johnston on front and flank, on the *7th of May, when the latter abandoned his position at Dalton, and fell back behind strong works at Resaca, which extended from the Oostenaula River, northward. When Sherman approached, Johnston sent out troops to attack a portion of his com mand. A sharp fight occurred [May 15], about two miles from Resaca Station, in which the Confederates were driven, and retreated, across the Oostenaula covered by the corps of Hardee. The Nationals closely pursued, Thomas following directly in the rear of the fugitives, while McPherson and Schorield took routes to their right and left. General J. C. Davis and his division pushed on to Rome, where they destroyed mills and founderies of great importance. Near Adairsville, Johnston made a brief stand against the central pursuing column, but on the near approach of the Nationals, he continued his retreat to- a strong and fortified position at Cassville. There he evidently intended to give battle, but he thought it prudent to move on [May 1 9], when he crossed the Etowah River, burnt the bridges behind him, and took another good position coveJng the Allatoona Pass, in a mountainous region. Sherman now rested his army a little. He perceived that Johnston s posi tion was almost impregnable, so he determined to flank him out of it, by moving well to the right, and concentrating his army at Dallas. Johnston attempted to thwart the movement, and in that vicinity a severe but indecisive battle was fought [May 25]. Johnston s army, meanwhile, had been very busy in casting up intrenchments between Dallas and Marietta, over a broken wooded region, in which it was very difficult for troops to operate. In that region much skirmishing and fighting occurred, and finally, on the first of June, Johnston was compelled to evacuate the Allatoona Pass. He also, soon after ward, abandoned his intrenchments near New Hope Church and Ackworth. Sherman now garrisoned Allatoona Pass, and made it a secondary base of sup plies, he having caused the railway and its bridges between there and Chatta nooga to be put in order. He was now re-enforced by infantry, and cavalry,, making his army nearly as strong as when it left Chattanooga ; and he moved forward [June 9] to Big Shanty, not far from the great Kenesaw Mountain,, around and upon which, as well as upon Lost Mountain and Pine Mountain, the Confederates had lines of intrenchments. In this region there was much maneuvering and fighting, for a few days, in the midst of almost incessant rain, during which General (Bishop) Polk was killed. By persistent assaults, Sherman compelled Johnston to abandon, first, Pine Mountain [June 15], then Lost Mountain [June 17]; and finally, after some sanguinary engagements, in which both parties suffered terribly, he was compelled to evacuate the great Kenesaw Mountain [July 2], overlooking Marietta. At dawn on the 3d, the National banner was seen waving over that peak, and at eight o clock in the morning Sherman rode into Marietta, close upon the rear guard of Johnston s army, then hastening to the Chattahoochee River, near Atlanta, closely pursued by the Nationals. Sherman hoped to strike Johnson a fatal blow while he was crossing that stream, but that skillful 700 THE NATION. [1864. leader so quickly covered the passage by strong intrenchments, that his army was all across, excepting troops holding the works, early on the mornino- of the 5th, without having been molested. SUMMIT OF GREAT KENESAW MOUNTAIN. 1 Sherman promptly advanced to the Chattahoochee, where quick and success ful turning movements by Schofield and Howard, caused Johnston to abandon the line of the river, and retreat toward Atlanta [July 10, 1864]. He formed a new line, covering that town, with the Chattahoochee on his left, and Peach- tree Creek on his right. Now the two armies rested a little ; and at that time Johnston was relieved of command, and General J. B. Hood, of Texas, was appointed to fill his place. The former had been careful to preserve his army. His force was every way inferior to that of his antagonist, and he knew that in pitched battles he would doubt less lose a large portion of his men and materials. The Conspirators at Richmond were dissatisfied with his wise caution, and committed his army to a dashing and brave soldier, who preferred the quick work of brute force to the slower achievements of mili tary science. Hood received from Johnston full fifty thousand effective With these he resolved to fight, and not J. B. HOOD. men, of whom 10,000 were cavalry retreat. On the 16th of July, General Rousseau joined Sherman with 2,000 cavalry; 1 This is from a sketch made by the author in May. 1866. The high peak in the distance is Lost Mountain. The eminence on the extreme right is Pine Mountain, on which General Polk was killed while watching the movements of troops. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. and on the 19th such of the National forces as had not crossed the Chatta- hoochee, passed over it. Then the left, led by Schofield and McPherson s advanced with the intention of striking the railway east of Decatur, that connects Atlanta with Augusta. Thomas, at the same time, crossed Peach-tree Creek at several places, and heavy skirmishing occurred along the entire front of the advancing columns. McPherson struck and destroyed the railway for several miles, and Schofield reached Decatur. Hood had determined to give battle at an auspicious moment, and on the afternoon of the 20th he fell heavily upon the corps of Howard and Hooker, and a part of Palmer s, but was repulsed after a most gallant struggle, in which both sides suffered severely. 1 On the morning of the 22d [July, 1864], Sherman discovered that the Con federates had abandoned the heights along Peach-tree Creek, and it was con cluded that Hood, following the example of Johnston, was about to evacuate Atlanta. The army was at once moved rapidly toward that city, when, at an average of two miles from it, it encountered a very heavy line of intrench- ments, which had been cast up the previous year, with Hood and his army behind them. General Blair, commanding the Seventeenth Corps, had carried an important point the night before, and was in full view of the city, and preparations were made for assailing the Confederate lines in heavy force,, when they were compelled to perform less acceptable service. Hood had been holding the Nationals in check with a small part of his army, and had made a long night march around with his main body, and now he fell with crushing force upon Sherman s rear. The first assault was made by Hardee ; and at about the same time, McPherson, who was riding about alone in the woods, and in fancied safety, making observations, was shot dead, wher* General Logan succeeded to the command of his troops. A terrible battle,, that lasted for hours, succeeded Hardee s assault, when, toward evening, the Confederates, who had lost very heavily, unable to carry the coveted points,, desisted. The assault was soon renewed, and after another desperate struggle, the Nationals were victorious, and the Confederates retired to their works. 2 Hood now seemed more disposed to be quiet, and Sherman dispatched cavalry to make raids on the railways in the rear of his antagonist. Generals A. D. McCook and Stoneman were sent on this business, on different routes, but with the intention of co-operating. Failing in this, their operations, though important, fell short of Sherman s expectations. Stoneman effected very little, and his force, divided and weakened, was captured or dispersed, and himself made prisoner. Meanwhile Sherman made dispositions for flanking Hood out of Atlanta, when the latter attacked the Nationals [July 28], and a sanguinary battle ensued. Hood was repulsed with heavy loss, and soon perceiving that Sherman was gradually getting possession of the railroads by 1 The Union loss, mostly of Howard s corps, was about 1,500 men. Sherman estimated the Confederate loss at 5,000. They left 500 dead, and 1,000 severely wounded, on the field, besides many prisoners. 2 The National loss in the struggles of that day was 3,722, of whom about 1.000 were prisoners. Sherman estimated Hood s total loss at not less than 8,000. He left 2,200 dead on the field, within the Union lines, and 1,000 prisoners. 70! THE NATION. [1864. which the Confederates in Atlanta received their supplies, he sent his cavalry to retaliate in kind, by striking Sherman s communications. This absence of Hood s cavalry gave Sherman a coveted opportunity to harm his antagonist seriously. He dispatched Kilpatrick at the middle of August with 5,000 horsemen, to break up the railways leading, one toward Montgomery, in Alabama, and the other to Macon, in Georgia. This raid was successful, and was followed by a movement of nearly the whole army from Atlanta to the railways in its rear, when Hood, fatally dividing his army, sent a part under Hardee, to fight Howard at Jonesboro , twenty miles south, on the Macon road, while he, with the remainder, staid at Atlanta. There was a desperate battle at Jonesboro [August 31], in which the Nationals were victorious. Howard lost about 500 men, and Hardee 2,500. The Confederate works covering Jonesboro were captured, and Hardee retreated. On hearing of the disaster at Jonesboro , Hood blew up his magazines at Atlanta, and fled to a point of junction with Hardee. Sherman took possession of the city and fortifications, and found that Hood had not only left the place desolate by the destruction of factories, founderies, and other industrial establish ments, but had left scarcely any food for the inhabitants. It was impossible for Sherman to subsist both them and his army, so he humanely ordered them to leave for the North or the South, as their inclinations might lead them. 1 While Sherman was resting his army at Atlanta, Hood flanked his right, crossed the Chattahoochee, and made a raid upon his communications. With a strong force he threatened Sherman s supplies at Allatoona Pass, then lightly guarded, but General Corse hastening up from Rome assisted in saving them. Not doubting it to be Hood s intention to push up into Tennessee, Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville, so soon as he heard of Hood s flank movements ; and leaving Slocum (who had succeeded Hooker) in command at Atlanta, he pushed the bulk of his army in the direction of Allatoona Pass, and from the top of Great Kenesaw, told Corse, by signal, that help was near, and to hold out until it should reach him. The Confederates were repulsed, and then Hood moved northward, threatening posts along the line of the railway, under instructions, to entice his adversary out of Georgia. Sherman closely followed him, well up toward Chattanooga, when the route of the chase deflected westward. In Northern Alabama, Sherman relinquished it, and sending Schofield, and most of his cavalry, under Wilson, to Thomas at Nashville, he returned to Atlanta, taking with him the garrisons of posts, dismantling the 1 In government wagons, and at the cost of the government, over 2,000 persons with much furniture and clothing were carried south as far as Rough and Heady, and those who desired to go north, were kindly taken to Chattanooga. SHERMAN S HEAD-QUARTERS IN ATLANTA. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 703 4. railway, and burning founderies, &c. He cut loose from all his communi cations on the north, and prepared for a march to the sea. Sherman s great march to the sea was begun, with 65,000 men of all arms, on the llth of November, 1864, on which day he cut his telegraphic communi cations with the North, and was not heard from for some time, excepting through Confederate newspapers. His army moved in two grand divisions, the right led by General O. O. Howard, and the left by General H. W. Slocum. General Kilpatrick led, with 5,000 cavalry. Much of Atlanta was destroyed before they left it, and the railways and public property were made desolate in the track of the two heavy columns. Wheeler s cavalry afforded the chief annoyance to the army on its march. Feints were made here and there, to distract the Confederates, and were successful. The destination of the Nationals from the beginning, had been Savannah or its vicinity, but the foe sometimes thought it was Augusta, and then Milledgeville. They passed on, and on the 13th of December, [1864], General Hazen captured Fort McAllister, on the Ogeechee River, not far from Savannah. That city was immediately invested, and on the night of the 20th, Hardee, in command there with 15,000 troops, evacuated it, and fled to Charleston, after destroying much public property. On the following day the National troops took possession of Savannah, 1 and there rested. The army had marched two hundred and fifty-five miles in the space of six weeks, inflicting much injury on the Confederates, but receiving very little injury in return. 2 As Sherman approached the coast, Gen eral Foster, commanding in that region, made valuable co-operative movements; and when Hardee fled to Charleston, ho occupied strong positions on the rail way between the two cities, at Pocotaligo, and other places. There were some stirring scenes in 1864, in the region of the Atlantic coast between the Pamlico and St. John s rivers, which had passed into history when Sherman reached the estuaries of the sea at the close of that year. We left Gillmore easily holding Charleston with a tight grasp at the close of 1863. 3 Information had then reached him, and the government, that Florida was ready to step back into the Union, through the open door of amnesty, but needed a military escort, for there were some active Confederate troops, under SHERMAN S HEAD-QUARTERS ix SAVANNAH. 1 Sherman, in a dispatch to the President, said : "I beg to present yon, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton. 2 Sherman lost during the march, 567 men, whereof only 63 were killed. He captured 1,328 men, and 167 guns. He found and used ample subsistence on the route, amounting, in the aggregate, to 13,000 beeves, 160,000 bushels of corn, and over 5,000 tons of fodder; also 5,000 horses, and 4,000 mules. He burned about 20,000 bales of cotton, and captured 25,000 bales, at Savannah. 3 See page 675. 704 THE NATION. [1864, General Finnegan, yet within her borders. General Gillmore accordingly sent General Truman Seymour, with about six thousand troops, horse and foot, to assist in the restoration of Florida to the Union. 1 He entered the St. John s River on a fleet of steamers and sailing vessels, with an imposing display, and on the 7th of February, took possession of the ruined city of Jacksonville, from which Finnegan had fled on Seymour s approach. Finnegan was immediately pursued, Colonel Henry, with cavalry, leading in the chase. He drove the Confederates from place to place, capturing their guns, their stores, and men, and was closely followed by Seymour with the residue of the army. Finally, Seymour concentrated his forces at Sanderson, and, with about five thousand men, moved toward the Suwannee River. At Olustee Station, where the railway that crosses the peninsula passes through a cypress swamp, he encountered Finnegan [February 20, 1864], in a strong position, and in a severe battle that ensued, was repulsed. He retreated to Jacksonville in good order, burning, on the way, stores valued at $1,000,000. In that unfortunate expedition Seymour lost about two thousand men. At about that time Rear-Admiral Bailey destroyed important salt-works, on the Florida coast, which were valued at $3,000,000. There were some raids in Florida in the course of the summer, but after the battle at Olustee, very little was done toward the restoration of Florida to its place in the Union. 2 In Georgia, Sherman s invasion was absorbing all interest. In South Carolina, very little of importance, bearing upon the progress of the war, was accomplished. There were some unsuccessful offensive movements in the vicinity of Charleston. Gillmore s guns kept watch and ward over the harbor and city, while he and some of his troops went up the James, to assist in operations against Petersburg, and Richmond, as we have seen. 3 There were some events a little more stirring, in North Carolina, early in 1864. On the first of February, a Confederate force under General Pickett, menaced New Berne, and destroyed a fine gun-boat lying there. A few weeks later, General Hoke marched seven thousand men against Plymouth [April 1 7, 1864], near the mouth of the Roanoke River, where General Wessells was in command of -a garrison of about twen ty-four hundred men, with some fortifica tions. A formidable "ram," called the Al- bemarle* lying in the THE ALBEMARLE. Roanoke, assisted in the attack, and on the 20th, "Wessells was compelled to 1 The President commissioned, John Hay, one of his private secretaries, as major, and sent him [January 1 3], to Hilton Head, for the purpose of accompanying the expedition, to act in a civil capacity, if circumstances should require him to. a On the 20th of May there was a Union Convention, at Jacksonville, to take measures for the restoration of civil authority in Florida. No practical advantage resulted from the gathering. 8 See page 691. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. surrender the place, with sixteen hundred men, twenty-five guns, and a large quantity of small-arms and stores. After the fall of Plymouth, General Palmer abandoned [April 28] Washington, at the head of Pamlico Sound, and Hoke summoned New Berne to surrender, expecting the co-operation of the Albemarle in a siege. She was enticed from her safe anchorage under the guns at Plymouth, and after a severe fight with the Sassacus, was compelled to flee for safety up the Roanoke. The siege of New Berne was abandoned, and Hoke was galled to the James River. Several months later, the gallant Lieutenant Gushing, of the navy, destroyed [October 27], the dreaded Albe marle with a torpedo, in the Roanoke. Four days afterward, the National troops re-entered Plymouth. After that the war in that region consisted chiefly of a series of encounters between Union raiders and detachments of Confederates. When Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville, he gave him the widest dis cretionary powers. These were used with great judgment, and Thomas pre pared for the stirring events which soon followed, with wise skill. Hood, as Sherman had anticipated, pushed across the Tennessee River, Forrest s cavalry heralding his advance. That active leader went raiding up the railway that leads from Decatur to Nashville, when he was met at Pulaski by Rousseau, and compelled to turn eastward to the Chattanooga road. Rousseau again confronted him at Tullahoma. At the same time General Steedman was marching against him in considerable force from another direction. Forrest eluded them, and for awhile, in September and October [1864], there were stirring scenes between the Tennessee and Duck rivers, for several detach ments of National troops were vainly endeavoring to catch the bold raiders. At length, late in October, Hood appeared near Decatur, in Northern Alabama, then held by General Gordon Granger. He menaced that post, but only as a mask to the passage of his army over the Tennessee, near Florence. Forrest was again on the war-path, co-operating with Hood, and caused the destruc tion, at Johnsonville, on the Tennessee River, of National stores and other property, valued at $1,500,000. Hood had been re-enforced by a part of Dick Taylor s army, and he now pressed vigorously northward with more than 50,000 men, a large number of them natives of Tennessee and Kentucky. Thomas had about 30,000 im.^3- diately available troops, with nearly as many more scattered over Tennessee and Northern Alabama. He sent troops forward to impede rather than pre vent Hood s march on Nashville, and was successful. Schofield, with a strong force at Pulaski, fell back, as Hood advanced, across Duck River, with his train ; and at Columbia he kept the Confederates on the south side of that stream until his wagons were well on toward Franklin, where he tool? a posi tion on the 30th of November, and, casting up intrenchments, prepared to fight, if necessary, until his trains should be safely on their way to Nashville. Hood came up in the afternoon, and attempted to crush his opponent by the mere weight of numbers. A most desperate struggle ensued. At the first onset the Confederates drove the whole National line, capturing the works and guns, and gaining, apparently, a complete victory. A counter charge was 706 THE NATION. [1864. made, when the Confederates were driven out of the captured works, the guns were recovered, ten flags and three hundred men were captured from the assailants, and the National line was restored, chiefly through the skill and VIEW ON THE BATTLEGROUND AT FRANKLIN. bravery of General Opdyke, directing gallant soldiers. Hood made desperate but unavailing attempts to retake the works, and the battle raged until toward midnight. Hood s loss was terrible at least one-sixth of his effective force. 1 Schofield now fell back to Nashville, carrying with him all of his guns, when Hood advanced and invested that post with about 40,000 men. Thomas had been re-enforced by General A. J. Smith s troops, which had just come from assisting in chasing Price out of Missouri. 2 Thomas s infantry was fully equal in numbers to those of his adversary, but he was deficient in cavalry. Rousseau was in Fort Rosecrans, at Murfreesboro , to hold the railway to Chattanooga, and Thomas allowed Hood to remain in front of him as long as possible, so as to give himself time to increase his own supply of horses and obtain means for transportation. Finally, on the 15th of December, Thomas moved out upon Hood. The battle was opened by the Fourth Corps, under General T. J. Wood. The Confederates were driven out of their works, and pressed back to the foot of the Harpeth hills with a loss of 1,200 prisoners and 16 guns. Wood again advanced the next day [Dec. 16, 1864], and with other troops, after a severe battle, drove the Confederates through the Brentwood Pass. They left behind them most of their guns, and a large number of their companions as prisoners. 3 They were hotly pursued for several days, Hood turning occasionally to fight. Forrest joined him at Columbia, and formed a covering party ; and at near the close of the month Hood escaped across the Tennessee River with his shattered columns. So ended, in complete victory 1 The Confederate loss was reported by General Thomas at 6,252, of whom 1,150 were killed. The National loss was 2,326, whereof 189 were killed. Nearly 1,000 were captured. 3 See page 687. In the two days battles, Thomas captured 4,462 prisoners, of whom 287 were officers, one of them a major-general ; also fifty-three guns and many small-arms. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. for the Nationals, Thomas s admirably managed campaign in Tennessee. 1 Hood s army had now ceased to be formidable in numbers or spirit, and at Tupelo, in Mississippi, that commander was relieved, at his own request, on the 23d of January, 1865, and was succeeded by Beauregard. Let us now turn a moment from the consideration of the struggle on the land, to some events of the war on the ocean. We have already noticed the pirate ship Alabama? commanded by Raphael Semmes. The same man had previously commanded the pirate ship Sumter, which, after a brief but destruct ive career on the ocean, was blockaded by the ship-of-war Tuecarora at Gibral tar, and there sold early in 1862. A superior cruiser, built for the Conspirators, in England, called the Florida, afterward roamed the sea in charge of J. N". Maffit. Also the Georgia, built in Great Britain, and sailing under British colors. These freebooters captured and destroyed scores of ships, and cargoes valued at many millions of dollars ; and they drove at least two-thirds of the carrying trade between the United States and Europe into British bottoms. They were heartily welcomed into all British ports ; and the remonstrances of the American Minister in London against the building, fitting out, and encour agement of these marauders, as we have seen, 3 were of no avail. Three others were added by British shipmasters in 1864 (Tallahassee, Olustee, and ChicJca- maugd), whose ravages quickly swelled the sum total of damage inflicted upon American commerce by Anglo-rebel pirates. 4 The new cruisers were equally destructive, and great efforts were made to capture them. The Georgia was seized off the port of Lisbon in August [1864], by the Niagara, Captain Craven; and on the 7th of October, the Wachusetts, Captain Collins, captured the Florida in a Brazilian port. 5 The 1 Thomas had sent Stoneman from his army, and Burbridge from Eastern Kentucky, in No vember, to confront Breckinridge in East Tennessee. They drove him out of that region, and captured Abingdon, in Virginia, where they destroyed a large quantity of Confederate stores. In these movements there had been severe skirmishes. These were continued. The Confederate cavalry was commanded by General Vaughan, and these were repeatedly attacked by General Gillem in that mountain region. Stoneman, who had been followed in his advance on Wytheville, by Breckinridge, turned upon him at Marion, when the latter fled over the mountains into North Carolina. East Tennessee was now entirely cleared of Confederate troops. General Thomas reported that during his campaign, from September 7, 1864, to January 20, 1865, when all was quiet in the region of his command, he had captured, including officers, 11,587 prisoners, besides 1,332, who had been exchanged. He had also administered the oath of allegiance to 2,207 deserters from the Confederate armies, and captured 72 serviceable guns and 3,079 small-arms. His total loss during the campaign was about ten thousand men, which he estimated to be less than half that of the enemy. 2 See page 641, and note 5, same page. s See note 4, page 641. 4 At the beginning of 1864 the pirates then on the ocean had captured 193 American merchant ships, whereof all but 17 were burnt. The value of their cargoes, in the aggregate, was esti mated at $13,445,000. So dangerous became the navigation of the ocean for American vessels, that about 1,000 of them were sold to foreign merchants, chiefly British. 6 This act the Secretary of State disavowed in behalf of our government, on the ground of the unlawfulness of any unauthorized exercise of force by this country within a Brazilian harbor. At the same time, while making this reparation, he declared that Brazil justly owed reparation to the United States for harboring the pirate. On that point he said that the government main tained that the Florida, "like the Alabama, was a pirate, belonging to no nation or lawful belligerent, and, therefore, the harboring and supplying of these piratical ships and their crews, in belligerent ports, were wrongs and injuries for which Brazil justly owes reparation to the United States, as ample as the reparation she now receives from them." 708 T II E X A T I UK [1864. JOHN A. WIN BLOW. Alabama had already been sent to the bottom of the sea by the Iearsarge, Captain Winslow, off the French port of Cherbourg, where the two vessels had a combat on Sunday, the 19th of June. After a mutual cannonade for an hour, the Alabama was disabled and in a sinking condition, when she struck her flag, and in twenty minutes went down. The Alabama had a British tender near, named the Deer- hound, which was active in rescuing Semmes and his officers, so that they might not be captured and become prisoners of war. 1 The " common people" of the ship were rescued by the Jearsarye and a French vessel. Soon after the destruction of the Ala bama, measures were taken for further diminishing the aid continually given to the Confederates by British vessels, by closing, against the blockade-runners, the ports of Mobile and Wilmington, the only ones now remain ing open to them. These having double entrances, made it difficult for block ading squadrons to pre vent the swift, light-draft blockade-runners, from slipping in with valuable cargoes of supplies, and slipping out with cargoes of cotton. 2 It was re solved to seal up Mobile first, and for that purpose Admiral Farragut appeared [August 5, 1864] off the entrance of Mobile Bay, with a fleet of eighteen vessels, four of them iron-clad, while a land force, sent from N"ew Orleans, under General Gordon Granger, was planted upon Dauphin 1 The Deerhound was a yacht belonging to one of the British aristocracy, named Lancaster, who was in her, and watched with eagerness the fight between his friend Semmes and Winslow. It appears clear that he was there by previous arrangement, to afford the pirate any needed assist- ance in his power, and especially, in the event of disaster, to keep him out of the hands of the victor. This was done. He carried Semmes and his officers to England At Southamp ton a public dinner was offered to Semmes ; and a British admiral (Anson) headed a list of subscribers to a fund raised for the purpose of purchasing an elegant sword to present to the corsair. 2 These vessels were generally painted a light gray, so that it was not easy to discern them in a fog, or the light haze that often lay upon the waters around the seaports. They were built for speed, with raking smoke-stacks, and were generally more nimble m a chase than their pur suers. A very large number of these vessels were captured, and it is believed that a balance- sheet, illustrative of the pecuniary results of the business, in tho aggregate, would show a loss to the violators of law, BLOCKADE-RUNNES. 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION". Island for the purpose of co-operating. Early on that day the fleet sailed in between Forts Morgan and Gaines, the vessels tethered to each other in couples, and the Admiral himself lashed to the rigging at the main-top of his flag-ship, the Hartford, that he might overlook his whole fleet, and not be thrown down by the shocks of battle. 1 All went safely, in spite of the opened guns of the fort, excepting the iron-clad Tecumseh, which was destroyed by a torpedo. 2 They drove before them three Confederate gun-boats. The forts were passed, their fire had become almost ineffectual, and the battle seemed to be over, when a Confederate " ram," called the Tennessee, commanded by Buchanan, of Merrimac fame, 3 came swiftly down the bay, accompanied by the other gun boats, and made a dash at the fleet. A brief but furious naval engagement now ensued, which resulted in the capture of the Tennessee, and a complete victory for the Nationals. 4 Farragut now turned his attention to the forts. He shelled Fort Gaines, on Dauphin Island; and on the following day [August 7, 1864] it was surrendered, for Granger and his troops were threatening its rear. Then Farragut turned upon Fort Morgan, the far stronger work, situated on Mobile Point, on the site of Fort Bowyer. 5 Granger s troops were transferred to that peninsula [August 17], and invested the fort, and on the 23d, its commander, seeing no chance for relief or escape, surrendered it. 6 With the two forts the victors received one hundred and four guns, and 1,464 men. By this victory the port of Mobile was effectually closed, and the land operations against the city, which occurred some months later, became easier and more speedily effectual. The victories at Mobile and Atlanta, 7 following close upon each other, with minor successes elsewhere, and the noble response given to the call of the President a few weeks before [July 18] for three hundred thousand men to re-enforce the two great armies in the field, gave assurance that the end of the Civil War and the return of peace was nigh. Because of these triumphs, and the hopeful aspect of affairs, the President issued a proclamation [Sept. 3, 1864] in which he requested the people to make a special recognition of divine goodness, by offering thanksgivings in their respective places of worship on the following Sabbath [Sept. 11]. And on the same day he issued orders for salutes of one hundred guns to be fired at several places in the Union. 8 While the National armies were struggling desperately, but almost every- 1 By means of a tube extending from his lofty position to the deck, Farragut communicated his orders. He exemplified in this act a characteristic remark of his own, that " exposure is one of the penalties of rank in the navy." 2 The Tecumseh was commanded by Captain Craven. She was sunk almost instantly, and Craven and nearly all of his officers and crew went down in her. Only 17 men out of 130 were saved. 3 See page 614. 4 The Union loss in this contest was 335, of whom 165 were killed, including the 113 who went down in the Tecumseh. The Confederates lost nearly 300, chiefly in prisoners. Admiral Buchanan was severely wounded. "With him were captured 190 men. 6 See page 438. 6 These forts were about thirty miles from Mobile. Into Fort Morgan about three thousand shells were cast before it surrendered. 7 See page 702. 8 At Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Newport (Ken tucky), St. Louis, New Orleans, Mobile Bay, Pensacola, Hilton Head, and New Berne. THE NATION. [1864. where successfully, during the summer and autumn of 1864, the people in the Free-labor States were violently agitated by a political campaign, the chief objective of which, to use a military phrase, was the election of a President of the Republic, as Mr. Lincoln s term of office would expire early in the ensuing spring. At a " Union " National Convention, held at Baltimore on the 7th of June, a series of ten resolutions were adopted, by which the party there represented were pledged to sustain the government in its war against rebel lion, and to uphold its position in regard to slavery. The acts of the President touching the prosecution of the Avar for the life of the Republic, were heartily approved, and an amendment of the Constitution, so as to do away with slavery forever, was recommended. 1 Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presi dency by a unanimous vote of the delegates, and Andrew Johnson, of Ten nessee, then Military Governor of that State, was nominated for the Vice- Presidency. 2 On the 29th of August, the Opposition, or "Democratic" party held a National Convention at Chicago, over which Governor Seymour, of New York, presided, and who, in his address on taking the chair, took strong ground against the war. Besides the delegates gathered there, a vast concourse of members of the " Knights of the Golden Circle," and other secret associations in sympathy with the Conspirators, together with Confederate officers from Canada, crowded Chicago, and the most inflammatory speeches were made at outside meetings. 3 It is asserted that the gathering of these disloyal men, and these inflammatory harangues, were parts of a scheme for making that the occa sion for inaugurating a counter-revolution in the West, the first act to be the liberating and arming of 8,000 Confederate prisoners then in Camp Douglas, near Chicago, and at Indianapolis. These schemes were frustrated by the vigi lance and energy of Colonel B. J. Sweet, then in command over Camp Douglas. 4 1 Tn these resolutions the noble services of the soldiers and sailors were recognized; the employment of freedmen in the public service was recommended; the duty of the government to give equal protection to all its servants was asserted ; and the rigid inviolability of the National faith pledged for the redemption of the public debt, was enjoined as a solemn duty. 2 Already there had been a convention at Cleveland [May 31, 1864], composed, as the call for it directed, of "the radical men of the nation." About 350 delegates were present, and after adopting a series of thirteen resolutions, they nominated General John C. Fremont for President, and John Cochrane of Nejv York, for Yice-President. When, at a later period, it was seen that these nominations might make divisions in the Union ranks, both candidates withdrew. 3 Mr. G-reeley, in his American Conflict, ii. 667, gives specimens of speeches by two clergymen belonging to the Peace Faction, at outside meetings in Chicago. One of them, named Chauncey C. Burr, said that Mr. Lincoln "had stolen a good many thousand negroes; but for every negro he had thus stolen he had stolen ten thousand spoons. It had been said that if the South would lay down their arms, they would be received back into the Union. The South could not honor ably lay down their arms, for she was fighting for her honor. Two millions of men had been sent down to the slaughter-pens of the South, and the army of Lincoln could not again be filled, either by enlistments nor conscription." The other clergyman alluded to, named Henry Clay Dean, exclaimed: "Such a failure has never been known. Such destruction of human life had never been seen since the destruction of Sennacherib by the breath of the Almighty. And still the monster usurper wants more men for his slaughter-pens. . . . Ever since the usurper, traitor, and tyrant had occupied the Presidential chair, the Republican party had shouted War to the knife. and the knife to the hilt! Blood has flowed in torrents; and yet the thirst of the old monster was not quenched." 4 Mr. Greeley says (American Conflict, ii. 668, note 19) : " Weeks later, with larger means and a better organization, the Conspirators had prepared for an outbreak on the day of the Presidential election ; but Sweet, fully apprised of their designs, pounced upon them on the night of Novem- Hi. Stephens. .stusWbin.NY 1864.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. C. L. VALLAXDIGHAM. In the Convention there prevailed a decidedly anti-war feeling. C. L. Val- landigham 1 had come boldly from his exile in Canada, 2 and was the master spirit of that body. He was the most active man on the committee appointed to prepare a platform or declaration of principles for the coming canvass, whereof James Guthrie, of Kentucky, was chairman. This was in the form of six resolutions, the second of which declared the war to be a failure, and that "humanity, liberty, and the pub lic welfare," demanded its immediate cessation. The last resolution tendered the " sympathy of the Democratic par ty" for the soldiers in the field, and assured them that if that party should obtain power, they should " receive all the care and protection, regard and kindness," which they deserved. The Convention then proceeded to nominate General George B. McClellan for President, and George H. Pendleton for Vice-President. The latter, next to Vallandigham, had been the most bitter opponent of the war, in Congress. The former had once been general-in-chief of the armies for crushing the rebel lion. He accepted the nomination, and, with such candidates and such plat forms, the two parties went into the canvass. The voice of the Convention, declaring the war a failure, had scarcely died away, when a shout went over the land, announcing the victories of Sherman and Farragut, and great guns thundered a joyful accompaniment to anthems of thanksgiving chanted by the loyal people. Mr. Lincoln was re-elected by an unprecedented majority, McClellan securing the electoral vote of only the two Slave-labor States of Delaware and Kentucky, and the State of New Jersey. The offer of sympathy and protection to the soldiers in the field, by the Chicago Convention, was answered by the votes of those soldiers in overwhelming numbers against the nominee of that Convention. They did not regard the war they had so nobly waged as " a failure," and they required no " sympathy and protection " from any political party. 3 ber 6, making prisoners of Colonel G. St. Leger G-renfell, who had been John Morgan s adjutant ; Colonel Vincent Marmaduke [brother of the rebel general of that name] ; Captain Cantrill, of Morgan s old command, and several Illinois traitors, thus completely crushing out the conspiracy, just as it was on the point of inaugurating civil war in the North." 1 See page 656. 2 See note 1, page 657. 3 On account of the secret operations of the Peace Faction, in giving "aid and comfort" to the enemies of the Republic, those who belonged to it were called, by the Unionists, Copperheads, in allusion to the habit of the venomous American snake of that name, which, unlike its equally venomous but more magnanimous fellow-reptile, that gives warning of danger to its intended vic tim, always bites from a hidden place and without any notice. The epithets ( of "Copperhead" and " Black Republican " (the latter in allusion to the desire of the Republican party to give freedom to the negro slaves), were rife among politicians during a greater portion of the Civil War. 712 THE NATION. [1864. Let us now return to the consideration of military events. General Sherman gave his army more than a month s rest at Savannah, when he began his memorable march northward through the Carolinas. Gen eral Blair was sent, with the Seventeenth Corps, by water to Port Royal, and then to Pocotaligo, to menace Charleston, while the bulk of the army crossed the Savannah River, into South Carolina, at different points at about the first of February [1865], the extreme left under General Sloeum, with Kilpatrick s cavalry, passing it at Sister Ferry. These forward movements at widely separated points, distracted the Confederates, and prevented their concentrating a large force anywhere. Incessant rains had flooded the whole low country by the overflow of rivers, and Wheeler s cavalry, hovering around the National advance, had felled trees everywhere in their path. Steadily and irresistibly the entire army moved nearly due north in the direction of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, which was surrendered to Sherman on the 1 7th of February. There had been, thus far, no formid able resisting force in front of the National army ; and that which opposed it in the vicinity of Columbia, being under the command of the incompetent Beauregard, 1 was easily swept away. The flag of the Republic was raised over the old State House, and also the unfinished new one. Wade Hampton, in command of the Confederate rear-guard, had ordered all the cotton in the city to be piled in the public streets, and fired, notwithstanding the wind was blowing a gale. The consequence was that the city was set on fire, and a large portion of that beautiful town was laid in ashes. The fall of Columbia was the signal for the Confederates to evacuate Charleston, which Sherman s army had now flanked. Hardee fled, and on the 18th [February, 1865], colored Union troops marched in and took possession of the city, which they found in flames, the torch having been applied by the Confederates when they left. Then the National flas; was raised over Fort , O Sumter, where it was first dishonored by the Conspirators, 2 and on the fourth anniversary of the evacuation of that fortress, General Anderson, 3 witli his own hand, raised over the fort the identical flag which he had been compelled to pull down, but not to surrender. Sherman moved onward into North Carolina, making a track of almost absolute desolation, forty miles in width, across South Carolina. The chief obstacles to his march, for some time, were the cavalry of Wheeler and Hamp ton, with whom Kilpatrick had some sharp skirmishes. The whole army reached Fayetteville, in North Carolina, on the 12th of March, and there Sherman communicated with the troops under General Schofield, on the coast. And now Johnston was on his front with a concentrated force drawn from the west and the coast region, together with Hardee s from Charleston, and cavalry, making an aggregate of not less than 40,000 men, mostly veterans. 1 Beauregard was placed ill command of Hood s shattered army. [See page 107], and he was afterward succeeded by General Joseph E. Johnston, its old commander. At the timo we are considering, the bulk of that army was pressing forward, under General Cheatham, to gain Sherman s front. 2 See page 553. 3 See pa^e 550. 18..5.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 713 In view of this formidable obstruction to his northward progress, and the necessity for giving rest to his army, Sherman halted at Fayetteville three days. While Sherman was moving through the interior of South Carolina, there had been efficient and important co-operative movements on the coast of North Carolina. When it was determined to close up the harbor of Mobile l it was also determined to seal up that of Wilmington, the more difficult one to blockade effectually. An expedition was fitted out against the fortifications that guarded the entrance to it, in the autumn of 1864, composed of a powerful INTERIOR OF FORT FISHER. fleet under Admiral D. D. Porter, and land troops under the immediate command of General Godfrey Weitzel. This expedition, accompanied by General Butler, the commander of the Department, appeared off Fort Fisher late in December [1864], and made a combined movement against that work, the main fortification, on Christmas day. The fleet opened a terrible bombard ment of the fort ; and at the middle of the a*fternoon, a little over 2,000 troops were landed upon the narroAV tongue of land on which the fortress stood; but its many guns, with one exception, having been untouched by the shells from the fleet, and being ready to sweep the peninsula with murderous effect, it was thought prudent not to make an attack ; so the troops withdrew. The fleet remained, and General Grant promptly sent another land force, under General A. H. Terry, to co-operate with it in an attack on the fort. Profiting by the experience of Christmas-day, Porter took a position for more effectual work on the fort, and under cover of a fire from the fleet, Terry landed, with 8,000 men on the 13th of January. A bombardment of more than thirty hours silenced a greater portion of the guns which commanded the peninsula, when the army y skillfully handled, and bravely acting in conjunction with 2,000 sailors and marines, assaulted and carried the works on the 15th. There Terry, who Avas too weak to advance, was joined on the 9th of February by General Schofield, who had been called from Tennessee, by Grant, and sent down the coast in steamers, from the Potomac. This re-enforcement raised the number of the land troops to about 20,000 men. Schofield, the senior officer, took command. Throwing a portion of the troops across the Cape Fear River, the Nationals advanced on Wilmington, the Confederates abandon- * 1 See page 709. THE NATION. [1865. ing Fort Anderson, and burning the pirate steamers Tallahassee and Chicka- mauga* lying in the river. They also fled from Wilmington, after burning cotton, and naval military stores there ; and on the 22d of February [1865], the victorious Nationals entered that city. Soon after this an army tug and a gun boat went up the Cape Fear, from Wilmington, and opened communication between Sherman and Schofield. 2 At the end of three days of rest, Sherman s army advanced from Fayette- ville, where they had destroyed the government armory, and the costly machinery which had been taken there from Harper s Ferry. 3 The army moved, as before, in a deceptive and distracting way, a portion of the left wing covered by Kilpatrick, marching in the direction of Raleigh, while the remainder of the left, with the right wing, moved eastward toward Goldsboro , the real destination of the army. Rains had made the roads almost impassable, yet the troops moved steadily forward, and on the morning of the 16th [March, 1865], not far from Averysboro , Confederates under Hardee, about 20,000 strong, were encountered by Slocum. A severe battle ensued, which lasted until night, when the Nationals were victorious. Each party lost about four hundred and fifty men. The Confederates retreated toward Smithfield, under cover of darkness, when Slocum moved on toward Goldsboro . He was soon attacked [March 18], near Bentonville, by nearly the whole of Johnston s army. That able leader fully expected to crush Slocum, before he could receive support ; but he was mistaken. Six desperate assaults made by Johnston were repulsed, and when night fell, Slocum held his ground firmly. That night he was re-enforced, and the next day Johnston s forty thousand men were confronted by sixty thousand Nationals, who, in endeavoring to gain the flank and rear of their antagonist, frightened him away. Johnston retreated [March 21] rapidly on Raleigh. 4 Sherman then moved on to Goldsboro , where he met Generals Schofield and Terry, who had fought their way from Wilmington, driving the Confederates before them, and entered that town on the 20th of March. Sherman now went in a swift steamer from New Berne to City Point, where he held a consultation [March 27] with the President, and Generals Grant and Meade, and returned to Goldsboro three days afterward. Let us now turn our attention to the Gulf region again. There we have seen Farragut and Granger, preparing the way for the capture of Mobile. After that, arrangements were made for securing the repossession of all Ala bama. For this purpose General Canby, in command of the Gulf Department, moved [March, 1 865] over twenty-five thousand troops against Mobile : while General Wilson, of Thomas s army, with fifteen thousand men, whereof thirteen thousand were mounted, swept down into Alabama, at about the same time, from the Tennessee River, with sixty days supplies carried by a train of two hundred and fifty wagons. Wilson left Eastport, on the Tennessee, late in February, and pushed rapidly into Northern Alabama, across the head-waters of the Tombigbee River, and by quick movements menaced simultaneously 1 See page 708. * See page 713. 3 See page 557. 4 In the Engagement near Bentonville, the Nationals lost 1,643 men, of whom 191 were killed. They buried 267 of their foes, left on the field, and took 1,625 prisoners. 1865.J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. Columbus, in Mississippi, and Tuscaloosa, and Selma, in Alabama. He first encountered Confederates in force, under Roddy, on the banks of the Cahawba. Forrest was in chief command in that region, and strained every nerve to cover Selma, on the Alabama River, where the Confederates had an arsenal and armory, and very extensive founderies. His efforts were vain. He was there with a motley force of about seven thousand horsemen, when Wilson arrived [April 2, 1865], with nine thousand cavalry. A sharp conflict ensaed, but Wilson soon took the city, and the public works of the Confederates there were utterly destroyed. 1 Wilson moved toward Montgomery on the 10th, and reached that city, the capital of Alabama, on the 12th, when he found that the Confederates had just burned 125,000 bales of cotton. The city was instantly surrendered, and was spared. Then the raiders moved eastward [April 14], destroying rail ways and other public property, all the way to the Chattahoochee ; and near Columbus, Georgia, they had a severe fight, captured the place and twelve hundred prisoners, and destroyed a large amount of property. 2 On the same day a part of Wilson s force captured Fort Tyler, a strong work commanding the railway crossing of the Chattahoochee at West Point. On the following morning, nearly the whole of his command were across that stream, on their way toward Macon, in Georgia, where they arrived on the 21st [March, 18G5]. The remainder, under Cuxton, reached there on the 30th, after a destructive raid over a route of six hundred and fifty miles, in the space of thirty days. This march through Alabama and Georgia, so slightly resisted everywhere, made Wilson readily believe the assurance of General Howell Cobb, in com mand at Macon, that the war was virtually ended. 3 While Wilson was on his triumphant ride, Canby was busy in the reduc tion of Mobile. The Seventeenth Corps reached Dauphin Island on the 1 2th of March, when Canby moved his entire disposable force against the Confed erate defenses of that city. The Thirteenth Corps, General Granger, moved up from Mobile Point, to strike the post from the east, and General Steele,. moved from Pensacola, with a division of colored troops, on Blakely. At the 1 Wilson s loss in the encounter, was about 500 men. He captured 32 guns, and 2,700 prisoners, with vast stores of every kind. The Confederates had just burned 25,000 bales of cotton, and Wilson burned 10,000 more. The arsenal, foundries, and workshops of every kind were destroyed, and the town was sacked. When the writer was there a year later the place- presented a scene of great desolation. 2 The Confederate u ram" Jackson was destroyed; 15 locomotives, 250 cars, 115,000 bales of cotton, were burnt, and a vast amount of stores were consigned to destruction. With the prisoners were captured 52 field guns. Wilson s loss was only 24 killed and wounded. 3 There had been some important raids in Mississippi three or four months earlier than this, designed, chiefly, to attract attention from General Sherman s march through Georgia. One of these, under General Dana, went out from Vicksburg, to Jackson, fought a Confederate force on the Big Black River, and destroyed the railway [November 25, 1864], and a great deal of other property. Another, under General Davidson, went out from Baton Rouge, doing similar work, and alarming the garrison at Mobile. Another, led by General Grierson, went out from Memphis, [Dec. 21], and sweeping southeasterly through Northern Alabama to Tupelo, broke up the Mobile and Ohio railway some distance southward from Okolona, and destroyed a large quantity of stores. At the little railway station of Egypt he had a sharp fight, in which he routed his foes, and then went raiding through Mississippi. The expedition finally made its way to Yicks burg with 500 prisoners, 800 beeves, and 1,000 negroes. A great amount of property had been.i destroyed. *flQ THE NATION. [1865. same time a brigade was transported to Cedar Point, on the west side of the "bay, under a heavy fire of shells from the National iron-clad vessels. After a preliminary struggle, a siege was begun [March 25] in front of Blakely and Spanish Fort, the chief defenses of Mobile, in which the land troops and the fleet co-operated. These posts fell on the 9th of April. General Maury, in command at Mobile, now saw that the works immediately around the city were no longer tenable, and on the 10th and llth, he fled up the Alabama, with nine thousand troops, leaving five thousand prisoners in the hands of the victors, with one hundred and fifty guns. The victory had cost the Nationals about twenty-five hundred men. 1 General Grant s chief business throughout the winter of 1864-65, was to hold the Confederate army and " Government " in Virginia, and prevent the former joining forces with Johnston in North Carolina, to crush Sherman. So, while Sherman was making his way from the Savannah, around to the Cape Fear and the Neuse rivers, Grant was holding Lee and his fifty thousand men, with a tight grasp, upon the James River. The Confederates well knew the reason of Grant s comparatively defensive attitude during the winter months, but were powerless either to strike him a damaging blow, or to compel him to be an aggressor. Only twice, during the winter, did he show a disposition to attack. Early in December Warren was sent out [Dec. 7, 1864] by Meade to destroy the Weldon road near the North Carolina line, which the Confederates were using to advantage ; and again in February two corps, with cavalry, were sent [Feb. 5, 1865] across that road, to Dinwiddie Court-House, apparently for the purpose of feeling the strength of the Confederates in that direction, which resulted in a severe action, with a loss of about 2,000 men on the part of the Unionists, and 1,000 by the Confederates. The National gain was the extension of their line, permanently, to Hatcher s Run. In the mean time, the Confederates, perceiving the withdrawal of a large part of the naval force on the James River, for service against Fort Fisher, 2 sent a squadron 3 down that stream, under cover of darkness [January 23, 1865], to do what mis chief they might. They gained nothing, and lost one of their wooden gun-boats. The Confederate horsemen, under Mosby, Rosser, McNeil, and others, were somewhat active in West Virginia, and in the vicinity of the Baltimore and Ohio railway, during the winter. Sheridan was then at Winchester, in the Shenandoah Valley. He easily brushed away these annoyances on his flank, and at the close of February, he left head-quarters with 10,000 mounted men for a grand raid, ordered by Grant, on Lee s communications generally, and against Lynchburg, his great store-house of supplies, especially. Sheridan swept through Staunton [March 2], scattered Early s forces at Waynesboro , 4 and proceeded to Charlottsville, destroying the railroad on the way. There 1 Before he evacuated the city, Maury sunk two powerful rams which had been built there. In addition to the loss of men, the Nationals had four gun-boats, and one transport sunk by torpedoes. 2 See page 713. 3 The squadron consisted of three iron-clad, and five wooden gun-boats, and three torpedo boats. 4 Early had 2,500 men. Sheridan captured 1,600 of them, with 11 guns, 17 battle-flags, and :200 loaded wagons. 1865.J LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 717 he demolished manufactories, bridges, and other property, when, satisfied that Lynchburg was too strong for him, he divided his forces, one column for the destruction of the railway in the direction of Lynchburg, and the other for the demolition of the James River Canal. Then he passed around Lee s left to White House, and joined the Army of the Potomac on the 27th of March. Sheridan s raid was most destructive, and it thoroughly alarmed Lee, who clearly perceived that he must break through the armies encircling him, and form a junction with Johnston, or his own army, and with it the Confederacy, must perish. For that purpose he concentrated his forces near Grant s center, in front of Petersburg, and made a desperate attack on Fort Steadman, for the purpose of cutting in two the Army of the Potomac. They carried that work, but were no further suc cessful, and the assault was not only repulsed, with heavy loss to the Confederates, 1 but it re> suited in the gain to the Nationals of a portion of their antagonists line. Lee s chance for escape into North Carolina was made more remote, by this movement. Grant had now prepared for a gen eral advance by his left, and for that purpose, large bodies of troops were called from the Army of the James on the north side of the river. The grand movement was begun on the 29th [March, 1865], when Sheridan, with 10,000 cavalry, was on the extreme left of the Union army, joined on his right by the Second and Fifth Corps, under Humphreys and Warren, while General Parke held the extended lines. Lee perceived the imminent peril of his army, and hastened to attempt to avert it. Leaving Longstreet with 8,000 troops to hold Richmond against the depleted Army of the James, he massed his forces on his endangered right. A desperate struggle ensued, chiefly by Warren, on the Union side, in which, at one time, Lee was almost victorious. Meanwhile Sheridan was vigorously co-operating, but was driven at Five Forks, to Din- widdie Court-House [April 1, 1865], where he held his position until his foe withdrew under cover of night. The heavy fighting in that vicinity resulted in final success for the Nationals. On the evening of the first of April, Grant ordered the guns all along the front of Petersburg to open upon the Confederate works and the city. It was done, and an awful night it was for the Confederate troops in the trenches, and the few inhabitants in the town. At dawn [April 2, 1865], the works were INTERIOR OF FORT STEADMAN. Each army lost about 2,500 men in the struggle. 718 THE NATION. [1865. -assailed by infantry, and some of them were carried. Equal success was attending similar efforts on the extreme left. Longstreet had come down from Richmond to help, but it was too late. Lee held Petersburg, but his right was too much crushed to hope to retrieve disasters in that direction. He had lost 10,000 men; and he now saw but a narrow door through which there was any possibility for his army to escape into North Carolina, and that was liable to be shut any moment. So he telegraphed to Davis, at Richmond, in substance : " My lines are broken in three places ; we can hold Petersburg no longer; Richmond must be evacuated this evening." 1 A scene of wildest confusion appeared in the Confederate Capital that afternoon, when it became known that the city was to be evacuated by the troops. Consternation filled the minds and hearts of all friends of the Con spirators, and hundreds fled from the doomed town. Davis and his " Cabinet " were speedily on the wing to secure their personal safety ; and, at midnight, a lurid glare shot up from the brink of the river. The Confederate authorities, in disregard of the danger to the city, had ordered the burning of warehouses containing military stores. These were then in flames ; and before sunrise a greater portion of the principal business part of Richmond was a crumbling, smoking ruin. At an early hour, General Weitzel (who was in command of the troops on the north side of the river), with his staff, entered the aban doned and burning city, followed by colored troops ; and then Lieutenant J. L. De Peyster, of Weitzel s military family, raised the flag of the Republic over the State Capitol. General G. F. Shepley was appointed Military Governor of Richmond, and Lieutenant-Colonel Manning was made Provost-Marshal. 2 Davis and his " Cabinet " his more immediate associates in the Great Crime fled to Danville, whither Lee hoped to follow with his army. But loyal men, with trusty arms, stood in his way. Petersburg had also been evacuated, and the Army of Northern Virginia, re duced to about 35,000 men, was concentrated at Chesterfield. They moved rapidly westward, but were confronted by Sheridan not far from Amelia Court - House. There were active move ments and considerable THE CAPITOL AT RICHMOND. fighting for three or four 1 This was on Sunday forenoon, April 2, 1865. The message found Davis in the house of worship he was in the habit of attending. He left the church immediately, without saying a word to any one, but nobody misinterpreted his exit. 2 Weitzel took 1,000 prisoners in the city, besides 5,000 sick and wounded, in the hospital. Also 500 guns, full 5,000 small-arms, 30 locomotives, 300 cars, and a large amount of other pub lic property. 1865.] LINCOLN S ADMINISTRATION. 719 days afterward, while Lee was making desperate efforts to escape. Finally, near Appomattox Court-House, the last charge of the Army of Northern Vir ginia, with the hope of breaking through the National lines, was made on the morning of the 9th of April. It was unsuccessful ; and on that day, Grant M LEAN S HOUSE. and Lee met at the house of W. McLean, 1 near the Court-House, where terms of surrender on the part of Lee, were agreed upon. These terms were very generous. 2 1 It is a curious fact that Mr. McLean, whose residence at the beginning of the war was on a portion of the battle-field of Bull s Run, and had left that region for another that promised more quiet, was again disturbed by the clash of arms at the close of the war. 2 The Confederate army, officers and men, were paroled on the condition that they were not to take up arms against their government until properly exchanged. The arms, artillery, and public property," ran Grant s letter to Lee [April 9, 1865], 4> to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside. , This generous offer of full amnesty for Lee and his companions-in-arms, who had been waging war for four years against their government, was gladly accepted by them ; and on the following day [April 10, 1865] Lee, regardless of that generosity, and under the shield of that sacred promise, issued an address to his troops, commendatory of their devotion to the cause of the Conspirators in the following words : " After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them ; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must have attended a continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past ser vices have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of agreement, officers and men can. return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merci ful God will extend to you his blessing and protection. With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell." 720 THE NATION. [1865. President Lincoln had been at City Point several days previous to the evacuation of Richmond, and two days after that event [April 4] he was con veyed to that city in a gun-boat, and with Admiral Porter and a small escort went to the head-quarters of General Weitzel, in the house lately occupied by Jefferson Davis, where he received a large number of army officers and citizens. He afterward rode around the city in an open carriage, and then returned to City Point. This visit was repeated two days afterward [April 5,] when Mr. Lincoln returned to Washington City, full of joy because of the prospect of a speedy return of peace. There was gladness throughout the Republic ; and the sounds of rejoicing were swelling louder and louder everywhere, when they were suddenly hushed into silence by the awful tidings that the hand of an assassin had taken the life of the good President. While Mr. Lincoln was seated, with his wife, in a private box in a theater at Washington City, on the evening of the 14th of April, a man named John Wilkes Booth crept stealthily behind him, and shot him through the head with a pistol-ball. Then leaping upon the stage with the cry of " Sic semper tyrannis " the legend of Virginia s State seal Booth turned to the audience, brandishing a dagger, and exclaimed, " The South is avenged!" and imme diately fled out of the theater by a back passage. The murderer was soon afterward mortally wounded in an attempt to capture him ; and several of his confederates, one of whom attempted to assassinate the Secretary 01 State, the same evening, were arrested, tried by a military commission, and hung. 2 Mr. Lincoln expired on the morning of the 15th of April, and less than six hours afterward, his constitutional successor, Andrew Johnson, the Yice-Presi- dent, took the oath of office as President of the Republic. 2 Thoughtful people, 1 There appears to have been a conspiracy for assassinating not only the President, but other members of the Executive Department of the government ; also General Grant and distinguished leaders of the Republican party. The object seems to have been to put out of the way men in high places opposed to the Conspirators who, on the death of the President, might administer the government, hoping thereby to produce anarchy which in some way might lead to the accession to power of the leaders of the rebellion. By a strange oversight in the managers of the scheme, the Vice-President, who would legally succeed the murdered President, seems to have been omitted in their list of victims, there being no evidence that any attempt was made to take his life. He immediately assumed the reins of government without any disturbance of its functions ; and on the 2d of May he issued a proclamation which was countersigned by William Hunter, "acting Secretary of State," charging that the crime of Booth and his associates had been "incited, concerted, and procured, between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, W. C. Cleary, and other rebels and traitors against the government of the United States, harbored in Canada." He offered a reward of $100,000 for the arrest of Davis, and from $10,000 to $25,000 each for the arrest of the other persons named. 2 Mr. Johnson requested Mr. Lincoln s Cabinet ministers (see note 2, page 551) to remain, and they did so. At that time they consisted of William H. Seward, Secretary of State ; Hugh McCullough, Secretary of the Treasury ; Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War ; Gideon Welles r Secretary of the Navy; John P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior; James Speed, Attorney- General; and William Dennison, Postmaster-General. Mr. Chase, the former Secretary of the Treasury, had been elevated to the seat of Chief-Justice of the United States, on the death of Judge Taney. Mr. Stanton had suceeeded Mr. Cameron in the War Department, early in 1862^ and President Lincoln, satisfied that the public good required the removal of Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster-General, had asked him to resign. The request was granted, and Mr. Dennison was put in his place. Caleb Smith had died, and Mr. Usher had taken his place. 1865.] JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. 721 who regarded private virtue as the basis of public integrity, and who sadly re membered the conduct of the Yice-President at his inauguration only a few weeks before, which shocked the moral sense of right-minded citizens, were filled with gloomy forebodings concerning the fu ture of the Republic, for the most pro found wisdom and exalted virtue in the Chief Magistrate were needed at that critical time. But the new incumbent of the chair of Washington made the most satisfactory promises with so much apparent sincerity, that the people trusted him. How that confidence was requited, the history of his administra tion reveals. 1 On the surrender of Lee, the Con federacy fell, and the war was speedily ended. Sherman, immediately on hear ing the glad news, moved from Golds- boro against Johnston. Stoneman, meanwhile, had been making a successful raid in the rear of Johnston, and in aid of Sherman. He proceeded from Knoxville, in East Tennessee, late in March, to destroy the railway in the direction of Lynchburg, from Wytheville. There he turned sou tli ward, and swept down into North Carolina, where he struck and destroyed the railway between Danville and Greensboro , and then pushed on toward Salisbury, where a large number of Union prisoners had been confined. He was met ten. miles from that town by a Confederate force, which he routed, capturing all their guns (14) and 1,364 prisoners. In Salisbury he destroyed a vast amount of public property. Sherman ordered him to remain operating in Johnston s rear, in aid of his own movement against the Confederate front, but Stoneman refused to do so, and returned to East Tennessee. On the 10th of April, Sherman moved upon Johnston at Smithfield. The latter burned the bridge over the Neuse, and retreated on Raleigh, destroying the railway behind him. Sherman followed him sharply. The pursued and pursuers pushed on, in heavy rains, in the direction of Hillsboro , where the chase was ended by a note from Johnston to Sherman [April 14], inquiring whether the latter was willing, for the purpose of stopping the further effusion of blood, to agree to a temporary suspension of hostilities until General Grant 1 Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 29th of December, 1807. He was taught the business of a tailor at an early age. During his apprenticeship he learned to read, but was not able to write or cipher until, at the age of twenty years, he was taught by his young wife, when he was settled in Greenville, in East Tennessee, in the business of garrnent- maKing. He became an Alderman of that village, and was Mayor for three years. He was chosen a member of the Tennessee Legislature, and was a Presidential elector in 1840. In 1843 he was elected to Congress, and in 1853, was chosen Governor of Tennessee. In 1857 he was elected a National Senator. In 1863 he was appointed Military Governor of Tennessee, and in the autumn of 1864, was chosen to be Vice-President of the United States. He arose to the Presidency on the death of Mr. Lincoln. His career in that office is noticed in the text 46 722 THE NATION. [1865. should be asked to take action in regard to the other armies, similar to that had in the case of general Lee s. Sherman promptly complied with Johnston s wishes, and met that general at Durham Station on the 1 7th. On the follow ing day an agreement was signed by the two generals, which would, in effect, instantly restore to all persons who had been engaged in the rebellion every right and privilege, political and social, they had enjoyed before they rebelled, without any liability to punishment. It proposed an utter forgetfulness, prac tically, of the events of the war, and made it a hideous farce with the features of a dreadful tragedy. The government, of course, rejected it, and sent Grant to Sherman to direct an immediate resumption of hostilities. This was fol lowed by the surrender of Johnston s army to Sherman, on the 26th, on the generous terms accorded to Lee. The surrender of other bodies of troops speedily followed, and early in May the armed Rebellion was ended. 1 "* Expecting Lee and his army at Danville, the fugitive " President of the Confederacy " attempted to set up a government there, but when he heard of the surrender of Lee and his army, he and his " cabinet," fled in the direction of Mississippi. Difficulties lay in their way, and they turned southward with a daily diminishing cavalry escort. The " government " soon dissolved, each member seeking safety as best he might. Davis, accompanied by his family, and by Reagan, his "Postmaster-General," pushed on toward the Gulf of Mexico, over whose waters he hoped to escape from the country. His flight had been made known to the vigilant Wilson, at Macon, 2 who sent out cavalry forces in quest of him. Lieutenant Pritchard, of the Fourth Michigan, leading one of these de tachments, found the fugitive encamped near Ir wins ville, the capital of Irwin County, in Georgia, and captured him on the llth of May. 3 Pritchard conveyed Davis and his party, to Macon, whence the fallen chief was sent to Fortress Monroe. 4 There he was confined in one of the casemates a most comfortable prison and treated DAVIS S PRISON, FORTRESS MONROE. w i tn marked kindness during a long cap tivity, when he was admitted to bail, charged with the crime of Treason. The armies of the Republic, whose fortitude, valor, and skill had saved 1 E. Kirby Smith, commanding in Texas, was disposed to longer resistance. On hearing of the surrender of Lee, he issued an address to his troops, urging them to a continuance of the struggle in that region. The last fight of the Civil War occurred not far from Brazos Santiago, in Texas, on the 13th of May. Soon after that, Smith and others were fugitives in Mexico. 2 See page 716. 3 Davis was found in a disguise, composed of a wrapper, and a woman s shawl thrown over his head, and was making his way, with a bucket, toward a spring where his horses and arms were. In this disguise, and seeming avocation, he appeared like a woman, but it did not save him. 4 Alexander H. Stephens, the " Vice-President of the Confederacy " (who was arrested at about this time, at his home in Crawfordsville), and " Postmaster-General " Reagan, were sent to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. They were released in the autumn. 1865.] JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. its life, and achieved the freedom of an enslaved race, were now seen making their way homeward, everywhere received with the warmest demonstrations of affection. The military prisons were opened, and the captive Confederate soldiers were set free and kindly sent to their homes at the expense of the government. 1 On the 2d of June General Grant issued a stirring farewell address to the " Soldiers of the Armies of the United States ;" 2 and by mid autumn [1865], the wonderful spectacle was exhibited of vast armies of soldiers, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of War, transformed, in the space of one hundred and fifty days into a vast army of citizens, engaged in the blessed pursuits of Peace. 3 No argument in favor of free institutions, and a repub- 1 The number of Confederate prisoners released, after the close of hostilities, was 63,442. The number surrendered and paroled in the several Confederate armies, was 174.223. It is a fact, susceptible of the clearest proof, that the treatment of Confederate prisoners, as a rule, waa humane, and even generous, while the treatment of Union prisoners was exactly the reverse. The sufferings of captives at Richmond, Salisbury in North Carolina, Danville in Virginia, and especially at Andersonville, in Georgia, were awful, and without excuse. It is plainly evident that a system of treatment, intended, if not actually to murder, surely to permanently disable the Union prisoners of war, by unwholesome and insufficient diet, was inaugurated and carried out. The records of Andersonville show this. There the prisoners were actually tortured, and starved to death, in the midst of plenty, as the march of Sherman through that State in the autumn of 1864, developed. See note 2, page 703. It may be well to note, in this connection, the fact, shown by the records of the War Department, that 220,000 Confederate soldiers were captured during the war, of whom, 26,436 died of wounds or diseases, during their captivity, while of 126,940 Union soldiers captured, nearly 23,000 died while prisoners. It is estimated that the whole number of Union captives was about 196,000, of whom 41,000 died while prisoners. In this connection it is also proper to speak of the glorious work of two benevolent organiza tions : The United States Sanitary Commission, and the United States Christian Commission. The first was organized at the beginning of the war ; the second soon afterward. We can only allude to their work here. They were organized and carried on for the temporal and spiritual help of the soldiers who were fighting for the Republic. Their resources found their springs in the hearts of the loyal people of the land, who contributed supplies to the United States Sanitary Commission, valued at $15,000,000, and cash to the amount of almost $5,000,000. The receipts of the United States Christian Commission, amounted in value to over $6,000,000. This organi zation not only gave temporal relief to the soldiers, in the way of food and clothing, but dis tributed immense numbers of useful books, and pamphlets, for the intellectual, moral and religious comfort of the soldiers in the field, the camp, and the hospital. It is safe to estimate the money value of the free gifts of the loyal people, to the soldiers of the armies, during the war, at $500,000,000. 2 The following is a copy of General Grant s address : " Soldiers of the Armies of the United States: By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, your magnificent fighting, bravery and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union, and the Constitution, overthrown all armed opposition to the enforcement of the laws, and of the proclamation for ever abolishing slavery the cause and pretext of the Rebellion and opened the way to the rightful authorities to restore order, and inaugurate peace on a permanent and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. Your inarches, sieges, and battles, in distance, duration, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dims the luster of the world s past military achieve ments, and will be the patriot s precedent in defense of liberty and right, in all time to come. In obedience to your country s call, you left your homes and families, and volunteered in her defense. Victory has crowned your valor, and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts ; and, with the gratitude of your countrymen, and the highest honors a great and free nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs, and secure to yourselves, your fellow-countrymen, and posterity, the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy with their blood. The graves of these, a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and will ever cherish and support their stricken families." 3 The records of the War Department show that, on the first of March, 1865, the muster-rolls of the army exhibited an aggregrate force of 965,591 men; of whom, 602,593 were present for duty, and 132,538 were on detached service. By the middle of October following, 785,205 were mustered out of the service. The whole number of men called into the service during the war, was 2,628,523. Of these, THE CATION. [1865. lican form of government, so conclusive and potential as this, was ever before presented to the feelings and judgment of the nations of the earth. The great political problem of the nineteenth century, was solved by the Civil War. Our Republic no longer appeared as an experiment but as a demonstration. After the terrible convulsion of the Civil War the paralysis of State governments, and the entire disruption of the industrial and social system of a large portion of the Republic came the business of reorganization, not of reconstruction, for no institution worthy of preservation had been destroyed. No State, as a component part of the Republic, had been annihilated. Those in which rebellion had existed were simply in a condition of suspended animation. They were all equal, living members of the Commonwealth, incapacitated by derangements for healthful functional action, and awaiting resuscitation at the hands of the only healer, the National Government. To that resuscitation that reorganization, and fitting for active life, the govern ment was now called upon to employ its powers. A preliminary step toward reorganization was taken by the President on the 29th of April, 1865, when he proclaimed the removal of restrictions on commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of States in which rebellion had existed. A month later [May 29], he issued a proclamation, stating the terms by which the people of the paralyzed States, with specified exceptions, might receive full amnesty and pardon, and be reinvested with the right to exercise the functions of citizenship. This was followed by the appointment by the President of provincial governors for seven of those States, 1 clothed with authority to assemble citizens in convention, who had taken the amnesty oath, with power to reorganize State governments, and secure the election of repre sentatives in the National Congress. The plan was to restore to the States named, their former position in the Union without any provision for securing to the freedman the right to the exercise of citizenship, which the amendment to the National Constitution, then bell) re the State Legislatures, would justly entitle them to. 2 The reorganized State governments were bound only to respect their freedom. about 1,490,000 were in actual service. Of this number, nearly 60,000 were killed on the field, and about 35,000 were mortally wounded. Disease in camps and hospitals slew 184,000. It is estimated that 300,000 Union soldiers perished during the war. Full that number of the Confed erate soldiers perished ; and the aggregate number of men, including both armies, who were crippled, or permanently disabled by disease, was estimated at 400,000. The actual loss to the country, of able-bodied men, in consequence of the Rebellion, was full 1,000,000. 1 These were North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. a On the 3 1st of January, 1865, the House of Representatives passed a joint resolution, already adopted by the Senate at a previous session, for an amendment to the National Constitution, in the following words : "SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. " SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." This amendment was adopted by a vote of 119 yeas, against 56 nays. Eight members did not vote. Senator "Wilson, one of the most earnest and able of the public men of the country, in labors for this consummation, says, in his Anti Slavery Measures in Congress, page 393, that when the Speaker announced that the required two-thirds majority had voted in favor of the joint resolution, the House and the spectators gave expression to their satisfaction by an outburst of applause. " The Republican members," he says, " instantly sprang to their feet, and applauded 1865.] JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. This total disregard of the highest interests of the freedmen, and the fact that the President was making haste to pardon a large number of those who had been active in the rebellion, and would exercise a controlling influence in the States which he was equally in haste to reorganize on his plan, startled the loyal men of the country, and made them doubt the sincerity of his vehement declarations of intention to punish traitors and to make treason odious. 1 They felt that Justice, not Expediency, should be the rule in the readjustment of the affairs of the Republic ; and it was demanded, as an act of National honor, that the freedman, when made a citizen by the Constitution, should have equal civil and political rights and privileges with other citizens, such as the elective franchise. It soon became evident that the President was willing to take issue, upon vital points of principle and policy, with the party which had carried the country triumphantly through the great Civil War, and had given him the second office in the Republic. 2 And, at the close of the year, it was plain to sagacious observers that the Chief Magistrate was more friendly to the late enemies of his country than consistency with his profession, or the safety of the Republic, would allow. As a consequence of that friendliness, it was per ceived that the politicians who had worked in the interest of the rebellion, and newspapers which had advocated the cause of the Conspirators, had assumed a belligerent tone toward Congress and the loyal people, which disturbed the latter by unpleasant forebodings. Meanwhile measures for perfecting peaceful relations throughout the Republic had been taken. The order for a blockade of the Southern ports was rescinded [June 23, 1865] ; more of the restrictions with cheers and clapping of hands. The spectators in the crowded galleries waved their hats, and made the chambers ring with enthusiastic plaudits. Hundreds of ladies, gracing the galleries with their presence, rose in their seats, and, by waving their handkerchiefs, and participating in the general demonstration of enthusiasm, added to the intense excitement and interest of a scene that will long be remembered by those who were fortunate enough to witness it." "When this crowning act of Emancipation was accomplished. Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois, said : " In honor of this immortal and sublime event, I move that the House adjourn." The motion was carried by 121 to 24. On the following day, it was resolved to send the Act to the State legislatures for ratification ; and on the 13th day of December following, the Secretary of State, by proclamation, certified that three-fourths of the" legislatures had ratified it. 1 The fiery zeal with which the new President denounced treason and traitors, made moderate men fear that he would deal too harshly with them. To a delegation from New Hampshire, who waited upon him soon after his inauguration, he said : " Treason is a crime, and must be punished as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must not _be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be overlooked and be forgiven. It is a crime before which all other crimes sink into insignificance." Similar, and even severer language toward those who had lately tried to destroy the Republic, was used by him at that time. a So early as August, or about four months after his accession to the Presidency, Mr. Johnson manifested an unfriendly feeling toward the most earnest men of the Eepublican party, and who had been most zealous supporters of the government during the war. In a telegraphic dispatch to Mr. Sharkey, whom he had appointed provisional governor of Mississippi, he recommended [August 15, 1865] the extension of the elective franchise to all persons of color in that State, who could read the National Constitution or possessed property valued at $250. This would affect but very few people of that class, who, in that State, were kept enslaved and poor by the laws, sole motive for the recommendation, as appears in the dispatch, was expressed in these words : " Do this, and, as a consequence, the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be com pletely foiled in their attempt to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union." More than a year before, Mr. Lincoln had suggested similar action to the Governor of Louisiana, but with a different motive. " They would probably help," he said, almost propheti cally, " in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of Liberty in the family of Freedom." Letter to Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864. THE NATION. [1865. on internal commerce were removed [August 29] ; State prisoners were paroled [October 12]; and the act suspending the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus was annulled [December 1]. The provisional governors appointed by the President were diligent in carrying out his policy of reorganization, and before Congress met, in Decem ber, conventions in five of the disorganized States had ratified the Amendment of the Constitution concerning slavery ; formed new constitutions for their respective States, and caused the election of representatives in Congress. The President had hurried on the work by directing the provisional governors of the five States to resign their power into the hands of others elected under the new constitutions. Some of these had been active participants in the rebellion, and some of the Congressmen elect, in those States, had been hard workers, it was said, in the service of the enemies of the Republic. The loyal people were filled with anxiety because of these events, and the assumptions of powers by the President in doing that which, as prescribed by the Constitution, belongs exclusively to the representatives of the people to do. Yet they waited, with the quieting knowledge that Congress had a right to judge of the qualifications of its members, and with the belief that disloyal men would not be allowed to enter that body over the bar of a test oath prescribed by law. 1 When Congress assembled [Dec. 4, 1865], the subject of reorganization was among the first business of the session, and by a joint resolution a com mittee of fifteen was appointed 2 to make inquiries and report. This was known as the " Reconstruction Committee." This action offended the Presi dent. It was an interference of the representatives of the people with his chosen policy of reorganization, and hostility to Congress was soon openly manifested by him. This was vehemently declared by the President in a speech to the populace in front of the Presidential Mansion on the 22d of Feb ruary [1866] a speech which Americans would gladly blot from the record of their country in which, forgetting the dignity of his position and the gravity of the questions at issue, he denounced, by name, leading members of Con gress, and the party which had given him their confidence. The American people felt humiliated by this act ; but it was a small matter when compared with what occurred later in the year [August and September, 1866], when the 1 By an Act passed on the 22d of July, 1862, Congress prescribed that every member should make oath that he had not " voluntarily borne arms against the United States since he had been a citizen thereof," or " voluntarily given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in hostility thereto," and had never "yielded voluntary support to any pretended gov ernment, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto." 3 On the first day of the session, the House of Representatives, by a vote of 133 against 36, proposed, and agreed to a joint resolution to appoint a joint committee, to be composed of nirm members of the House and six of the Senate, to "inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress, with leave to report at any time, by bill or otherwise ; and until such report shall have been made and finally acted upon by Congress, no member shall be received in either House from any of the so-called Confederate States ; and all papers relating to the representatives of the said States, shall be referred to the said committee." The resolution was adopted by the Senate on the 14th. The House appointed Messrs. Stevens, "Washburne, Morrill, Grider, Bingham, Conkling, Boutwell, Blow, and Kogers, as its representa tives in the committee, and the Senate appointed Messrs. Fessenden, Grimes, Harris, Howland, Johnson, and Williams. 1866.] JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. 727 President and a part of his Cabinet, with the pretext of honoring the deceased Senator Douglas by being present at the dedication of a monument to his memory at Chicago, on the 6th of September, made a journey to that city and beyond. He harangued the people in language utterly unbecoming the chief magistrate of a nation, and attempted to sow the dangerous seeds of sedition, by denouncing Congress as an illegal body, deserving of no respect from the people, and the majority of its members as traitors, " trying to break up the government." That journey of the President, so disgraceful in all its features its low partisan object, its immoral performances, and its pitiful results forms a dark paragraph in the history of the Republic. 1 Having laid aside the mask of assumed friendship for those who had labored most earnestly for the suppression of the rebellion and for the freed- men, the President used his veto power to the utmost in trying to thwart the representatives of the people in their efforts to reorganize the disorganized States, and to quickly secure a full and permanent restoration of the Union on the basis of equal and exact justice. 2 He made uncompromising war upon the legislative branch of the government, and caused members of his cabinet, who could not agree with him, to resign, with the exception of the Secretary of War. The friends of the Republic urged that officer to remain, believing his retention of his bureau at that critical period in the life of the nation would be for the public benefit. He did so, and became the object of the President s hatred. On the 2d of April, the President, by proclamation, declared the Civil War to be at an end. Congress, meanwhile, was working assiduously in per fecting its plans for reorganization. Tennessee was formally restored to the Union by that body on the 23d of July ; and on the 29th of that month, after a long and arduous session, Congress adjourned. Meanwhile notable events in the foreign relations of the government had occurred. The Emperor of the French had been informed that the continuation of French troops in Mexico was not agreeable to the United States, and on the 5th of April [1866], Napo leon s Secretary for Foreign Affairs gave assurance to our government that 1 A convention had just been held [Aug. 14] in Philadelphia, composed chiefly of men who had been engaged in the rebellion, and the enemies of the Republican party, for the purpose of organizing a new party, with President Johnson as its standard-bearer. So discordant were the elements there gathered, that no one was allowed to debate questions of public interest, for fear of producing a disruption and consequent failure of the scheme. It utterly failed. A convention of loyal men from the South was held in Philadelphia soon afterward, in which representatives of the Republican party in the North participated. The President s journey being wholly for a political purpose, members of the latter convention followed in his track, making speeches in many places in support of the measures of Congress for effecting reorganization. So disgraceful was the conduct of the President at Cleveland and St. Louis, in the attitude of a mere demagogue making a tour for partisan purposes, that the common council of Cincinnati, on his return journey, refused to accord him a public reception. The common council of Pitts- burg, in Pennsylvania, did the same. When, on the 15th of September, the erring President and his traveling party returned to "Washington, the country felt a relief from a sense of deep mortification. 2 On the 19th of February, 1866, he vetoed the act for enlarging the operations oi the Freed- man s Bureau, established for the relief of freedmen, refugees, and abandoned lands. On the 27th of March he vetoed the act known as the Civil Rights Law, which was intended to secure to all citizens, without regard to color or a previous condition of slavery, equal civil rights in the Republic. This Act became a law, after it was vetoed by the President, by the vote of a constitu tional majority, on the 9th of April. THE NATION. [1866. those troops should be withdrawn within a specified time. 1 A military organ ization of Irish residents of the United States, known as the Fenian Brother hood, with the ostensible aim of procuring the independence of Ireland from England, made movements in May and June [1866] for a formidable invasion of the neighboring British provinces. Our government interfered, and the effort was a failure. With England, at about the same time, a peaceful bond of Union was formed, by the successful laying of a telegraphic cable between the two countries. The first dispatch, announcing the conclusion of a treaty of peace between Prussia and Austria, passed over it on the 29th of July, and on the following day the President of the United States received by it, from Queen Victoria, a message of congratulation because of the completion of the great work, which she hoped " might serve as an additional bond between the United States and England." So early as October, 1862, telegraphic commu nication had been opened across this continent between the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans ; and while the great Civil War was in progress, our government cordially promoted an enterprise having for its object a line of telegraphic communication around the world, by connecting Asia and America, with the delicate cord, at Behrinsj s Straits. O The State elections held in the autumn of 1866 indicated the decided approval by the people, of the reorganization plans of Congress as opposed to that of the President, who was now openly affiliated with the Democratic party and the late enemies of the government in the South and elsewhere. The majority in Congress felt strengthened by the popular approval of their course, and went steadily forward in perfecting measures for the restoration of the Union. They took steps for restraining the action of the President, who, it was manifest, had determined to carry out his own policy in defiance of that of Congress. And as an indication of the general policy of the latter, con cerning suffrage, a bill was passed [December 14] by a large majority of both Houses for granting the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, over which Congress has direct control, to persons, " without any distinction on account of color or race." The President vetoed the bill [January V, 1867], when it was re-enacted by the constitutional vote of two-thirds of the mem bers of both Houses in its favor. On the same day [January 7], Mr. Ashley, Representative from Ohio, arose in his seat, and charged "Andrew Johnson, Yice-President and Acting-President of the United States, with the commis sion of acts which, in the estimation of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors, for which he ought to be impeached." He offered specifications and a resolution instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to make inquiries on the subject. 2 The resolution was adopted by a vote of one hundred and thirty-seven to thirty-eight, forty-five members not voting. This was the first 1 This was done, and the Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, whom Louis Napoleon had placed on a throne in Mexico, with the title of Emperor, was deserted by the perfidious ruler of France, and after struggling against the native Republican government for awhile, was captured and shot. 2 Mr. Ashley presented the following: "I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Yice-President and acting President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors. I charge him with usurpation of power and violation of law : (1) In that he has corruptly used the appointing power ; (2) In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power ; (3) In that he has corruptly used 1SG7.] JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. ^99 public movement in the matter of the impeachment of the President, which resulted in his trial in May, 1868. At a former session of Congress, bills were passed for the admission of the Territories of Colorado and Nebraska as States of the Union. The President interposed. Now similar bills were passed, prescribing as a preliminary to admission a provision in their constitutions granting impartial suffrage to theft- citizens, and the ratification of the Amendment to the Constitution. The President vetoed them ; when that for the admission or Nebraska was passed over his veto. That Territory became a State on the first of March, making the thirty-seventh. A bill limiting the authority of the President in making official appointments and removals from office, known as the " Tenure-of-Office Act," was passed, and was vetoed by the President, when it was passed over the veto. 1 Another bill was passed, vetoed, and passed over the veto, repealing so much of an Act of July 17, 1862, as gave the President power to grant amnesty and pardon to those who had been engaged in the rebellion. A bill was also passed, with the same opposition from the President, for the military govern ment of the disorganized States. 2 The Thirty-ninth Congress closed its last 4session on the 3d of March, and the Fortieth Congress began its first session immediately thereafter. In view of the conduct of the President, which threatened the country with revolution, this action of the National Legislature was deemed necessary for the public good. It adjourned on the 31st of March, to meet on the first Wednesday in July. Congress assembled on the 4th of July, and on the 20th adjourned to meet on the 21st of November. The chief business of the short session was to adopt measures for removing the obstructions cast by the President in the way of a restoration of the disorganized States. A bill supplementary to the one for the military government of those States was passed over the usual veto of the President, and it was believed that the Chief Magistrate would refrain the veto power; (4) In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of the United States; and (5) In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and committed acts which, in contempla tion of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors." On the 14th of January, Representative Loan, from Missouri, in the course of a debate con cerning the duty of the House to proceed to the impeachment of the President, said that the leaders of the rebellion comprehended the advantages of having such a man as the then incum bent, in the Presidential chair. "Hence," he said, "the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. The crime was committed. The way was made clear for the succession. An assassin s hand, wielded and directed by rebel hand, and paid for by rebel gold, made Andrew Johnson President of the United States of America. The price that he was to pay for his promotion was treachery to the Republic and fidelity to the party of treason and rebellion." Mr. Loan was called to order. The Speaker decided that he was nut out of order, the subject of debate being the charges against the President of high crimes and misdemeanors," a member having the right, on his own responsi bility, to make a specific charge. This decision was appealed from, when the Speaker was sus tained by a vote of 101 to 8. 1 It took from the President, among other things, the power to remove a member of his cabinet, excepting by permission of the Senate, declaring that they should hold office " for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the consent of the Senate." The act was passed over the veto by a vote in the Senate of 35 to 11, and in the House of!31to37. 2 Those States were divided into five military districts, and the following commanders were appointed: First District, Virginia, General J. M. Schofield; Second District, North and South Carolina, General D. E. Sickles ; Third District, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, General J. Pope ; Fourth District, Mississippi and Arkansas, General E. 0. C. Ord ; Fifth District, Louisiana and Texas, General P. H. Sheridan. 730 THE NATION. [1867. from further acts calculated to disturb the public peace. Not so. Immedi ately after the adjournment of Congress, he proceeded, in defiance of that body, arid in violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act, to remove the Secretary of War [Mr. Stanton], and to place General Grant in his place. The President first asked [August 5, 1867] the Secretary to resign. Mr. Stanton refused. 1 A week later the President directed General Grant to assume the duties of Secre tary of War. Grant obeyed. Stan- ton retired, under protest, well satisfied that his office was left in the hands of a patriot whom the President could not corrupt nor unlawfully control. 2 The removal of the Secretary of War was followed by the removal of General Sheridan from the command of the Fifth District, and General Sickles from that of the Second Dis trict, by which the country was notified that the most faithful officers, who were working with the representatives of the people for the proper and speedy restoration of the Union, would be deprived of power to be useful. Gen eral Grant protested against these acts, but in vain. The country was greatly excited, and the loyal people waited with impatience the reassembling of Con gress, upon which they relied in that hour of seeming peril to the Republic. That body met at the appointed time, and on the 12th of December the Presi dent sent to the Senate a statement of his reasons for removing the Secretary of War. They were not satisfactory, and on the 13th of January the Senate reinstated Mr. Stanton, and General Grant retired from the War Department. Already Congress had made much progress toward the restoration of the dis organized States, to the Union, by providing for conventions for framing con stitutions and electing members of Congress ; and a few days after the restora tion of Mr. Stanton, a new bill for the further reorganization of those States was passed by the House of Representatives, in which larger powers were EDWI.V M. STANTOX. 1 The President addressed a note to the Secretary, in which he said : " Grave public consider ations constrain me to request your resignation as Secretary of War." The Secretary replied : "Grave public considerations constrain me to continue in the office of Secretary of War until the next meeting- of Congress." It was believed that the President was then contemplating a revo lutionary scheme, in favor of the late enemies of the country, and was seeking to use the army for that purpose. 3 The President was angry with General Grant for quietly giving up the office to Stanton, at the bidding of the Senate, and he charged the General-in-Chief with having broken his promises, and tried to injure his reputation as a soldier and a citizen. A correspondence ensued, which speedily found its way to the public. It assumed the form of a question of veracity between the President and the General-in-Chief. Finally, Grant felt compelled to say to the President : " When my honor as a soldier and integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole matter, from beginning to end, as an attempt to involve me in the resistance of law, for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country. The President did not deny this charge. ]8G8.j JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. given to the General-in-Chief of the armies, in their military government, and depriving the President of all power to interfere in the matter. On the 21st of February, the President caused a new and more intense excitement throughout the country, by a bolder step in opposition to the will of Congress than lie had hitherto ventured to take. On that day he issued an order to Mr. Stanton, removing him from the office of Secretary of War, and another to Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General, appointing him Secretary of War, ad interim. These orders were officially communicated to the Senate,. whereupon that body passed a resolution that the President had no authority under the Constitution and laws to remove the Secretary of War. In the mean time Thomas had appeared at the War Department and demanded the position to which the President hiul assigned him, when Mr. Stanton, his supe- : THE NATIONAL CAPITOL. rior, refused to yield it, and ordered him to return to his proper office. The President being satisfied that he would not be permitted to use military force in the matter, did not attempt to eject Mr. Stanton by force, and so that officer retained his place. This action of the President was so manifestly in violation of law, that on the following day [February 22, 1868], the House of Repre sentatives, by a vote of 126 to 4V, 1 " Resolved that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors." ; On the 29th [February, 1868], a committee of the House, appointed for the pur- 1 This was an almost strictly party vote. Only two Republicans (Gary of Ohio, and Stewart of New York) voted in the negative, while all the Democrats voted against the resolution. 2 We have seen (page 728) that the subject of the impeachment of the President was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. That committee submitted reports (Nov. 25, 1867) whi< were acted upon on the 7th of December, when the House of Representatives, taking into c< sideration the gravity of such a proceeding, and indulging a hope that the President would cease making war upon Congress and attend to his legitimate duties as simply the Executor ot poeple s will, expressed by their representatives, refused, by a large majority, to entertain a pro- THE NATION. [1868. pose, 1 presented articles of impeachment, nine in number, and these, with slight alterations, were accepted on the 2d of March. 2 The House then proceeded to the appointment of Managers, to conduct the business before the Senate, 3 when the Democratic members of the House, to the number of forty-five, entered a formal protest against the whole proceedings. On the 5th of March [1868], the Senate was organized as a jury for the trial of the President. Chief-Justice Salmon P. Chase presided. 4 On the 7th the President was summoned to appear at the bar ; and on the 13th, when the Senate was formally opened for the inquest, he did so appear, by his counsel, who asked for a space of forty days wherein to prepare an answer to the indictment. Ten days were granted, and on the 23d the President s counsel presented an answer. The House of Representatives, the accuser, simply denied every averment in the answer, when the President s counsel asked for a postponement of the trial for thirty days. The Senate allowed seven days, and on Monday, the 30th of March, the trial began. The examination of position for impeachment. Now, so flagrant was the act of the President, that the Republican members were eager to place him upon trial, and several who were not present when the vote recorded in the text was taken, afterward entered their votes in favor of impeachment. 1 The committee consisted of Messrs. Boutwell, Stevens (who made the motion for im peachment), Bingharn, Wilson, Logan. Julian, and Ward. Messrs. Stevens and Bingham were appointed a committee to announce to the Senate the action of the House. This they did on the 25th (Feb.), when the Senate, by unanimous vote, referred the subject to a select committee of seven, to consider it. a The following is a brief summary of the charges in the Articles of Impeachment : Article 1. Unlawfully ordering the removal of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War, in violation of the provisions of the Tenure-of- Office Act. Article 2. Unlawfully appointing General Lorenzo Thomas as Secretary of War, ad interim. Article 3. Substantially the same as Article 2, with the additional averment that there was at the time of the appointment of G-eneral Thomas, no vacancy in the office of Secretary of War. Article 4. Conspiring with one Lorenzo Thomas, and other persons to the House of Representatives unknown, to prevent, by intimidation and threats, Mr. Stanton, the legally appointed Secretary of War, from holding that office. Article 5. Con spiring with General Thomas and others to hinder the execution of the Tenure-of-Office Act ; and in pursuance of this conspiracy, attempting to prevent Mr. Stanton from acting as Secretary of War. Article G. Conspiring with General Thomas and others to take forcible possession of the property in the War Department. Article 7. Repeated the charge of conspiring to hinder the execution of the Tenure-of-OffiGe Act, and prevent Mr. Stanton from executing the office of Secre tary of War. Article 8. Repeated the charge of conspiring to take possession of the War Department. Article 9. Charged that the President called before him the commander of the forces in the Department of Washington and declared to him that a law, passed on the 30th of June, 1867 (see page 729). directing that "all orders and instructions relating to military opera tions, issued by the President or Secretary of War, shall be issued through the General of the Army, and in case of his inability, through the next in rank," was unconstitutional, and not bind ing upon the commander of the Department of Washington; the intent being to induce that com mander to violate the law. and to obey orders issued directly from the President. On the 3d of March, the managers presented two additional articles, which were adopted by the House. The first charged that the President had, by inflammatory speeches, during his jour ney from Washington to Chicago, already mentioned (page 727), attempted, with a design to set aside the authority of Congress, to bring it into disgrace, and to excite the odium and resentment, of the people against Congress and the laws it enacted. The second charged that in August, 18G6, the President, in a public speech at Washington City, declared that Congress was not a body authorized by the Constitution to exercise legislative powers ; and then went on to specify his offenses in endeavoring by unlawful means, to prevent the execution of laws passed by Con gress. These formed the 10th and llth Articles of Impeachment. 3 The following members of the House of Representatives were chosen to be the managers, on its part, of the impeachment case: Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania; Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts; John A. Bingham, of Ohio; George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts ; James F. Wilson, of Iowa; Thomas Williams, of Pennsylvania, and John A. Logan, of Illinois. The chief management of the case, on the part of the House, as prosecutor, was intrusted to Mr. Butler. 4 See clause 6, section 3, of Article I., of the National Constitution, in the Supplement. 1868.1 JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION. witnesses was closed on the 22d of April, and on the following day the argu ments of counsel began. These closed on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 6th of May, when the case was submitted to the judgment of the Senate. Its decision was given on the 26th of the same month. Every member of the Senate was present and voted. Thirty-five pronounced the President guilty, and nineteen declared him not guilty. So he escaped conviction by one vote. 1 THE NATIONAL SENATE CHAMBER. The political campaign preparatory to an election of a new President of. the Republic, had begun about a week before the final act in the impeach ment case. On the 20th of May, a national convention of representatives of the Republican party assembled at Chicago, and by unanimous voice nominated General Ulysses S. Grant 2 for the presidency, and Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for Vice-President. The party was immediately organized for action. The Opposition deferred their nominations until the 4th of July, when, in a national convention 1 The vote of the Senate was as follows : For Conviction Messrs. Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Cor- bett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Vermont, Morrill of Maine, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Suinner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson and Yates. These were all " Republicans." For Acquittal Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hcndricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and Vickers. Eight of these, namely, Bayard, Buckalew, Davis, Hen- dricks, Johnson, McCreery, Saulsbury, and Vickers, were elected to the Senate as "Democrats."" The remainder were elected as " Republicans." 2 See portrait of General Grant, on page 601. THE NATION. [1868. held in Tammany Hall, in New York City, Horatio Seymour of New York, 1 was named for President, and Francis P. Blair of Missouri, for Vice-Pres- ident. The canvass was carried on with great warmth on both sides. 2 The elections in November resulted in the choice of Grant and Colfax for the respective high offices, by very large majorities. In the meantime, important events in the process of the reorganization of the national Government had taken place. The subject of a fourteenth amendment of the Constitution proposed by Congress in July, 1866, for securing the rights of citizenship to all persons " born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;" disabling a certain class of chief offenders in the late rebellion ; declaring the validity of the national debt, and forbidding the payment of any part of the so- called " Confederate debt," had been before the people and the State Legislatures for several months. 3 On the 20th of July, the Secretary of State publicly certified that the requisite number of States had ratified the proposed amendment, and on the following day, Congress, warned by the active opposition of the President to the measure, 4 declared, by a concur rent resolution, the amendment to be a part of the National Constitution. On the 28th of the same month, the Secretary of State issued a proclama tion to that effect. As the work of reorganization had now been accom plished in all but three States, and civil governments therein established, the General-in-Chief of the armies issued a proclamation (July 28, 1868) declaring that so much of the Reconstruction acts as provided for the organization of military districts, subject to the military authority of the United States, had become inoperative. iSee Note3, page 657. 2 Wade Hampton, N. B. Forrest (see pages 682, 683,) and several other prominent leaders in the rebellion wore members of the Democratic Convention, and were controlling architects of its platform, in which the acts of Congress for the re-organization of the Government were declared to be "usurpations, unconstitutional, revolutionary and void." In a letter written by Francis P. Blair, the nominee for Vice-President, a few days before the Convention, to Colonel James O. Brodhead, he laid down a plan for the inauguration of another civil war, in the event of the elec tion of the Democratic nominees, in these words : " There is but one way to restore the Govern ment and the Constitution, and that is for the President elect to declare these acts [of Congress] null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the Carpet-bag State Governments, [established under the authority of Congress,] allow the white people to re-organize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution." The Convention having approved this plan for usurpation, revolution and civil war, by the lan guage of a portion of its platform, and the nomination of its author for the second office in the Government, large numbers of the patriotic and thinking men of the Opposition refused to accept that platform, and to vote for the nominees. In accordance with the feelings of all true Ameri cans, General Grant, in his letter of acceptance, had said, " Let us have peace," and with that desire an immense majority of the people gave him and Colfax their support. 3 See Article XIV of the Amendments of the Constitution, in Supplement. 4 The President took the position that the State Governments in the South, established by Con gress, were illegal and could have no voice in national affairs ; consequently, the amendment was not ratified. He had also, on the 4th of July, issued a proclamation of general and unconditional pardon and amnesty for all who had been engaged in acts of rebellion, excepting a few who were under presentment or indictment for the offence. This was calculated to weaken the force of a part of the amendment. l^ -j JOHNSON S ADMINISTRATION ^35 Congress took a recess in August to meet again in September, if the public good should seem to require. The recess continued until near the time of the regular session, in December. Before the adjournment, the Senate had ratified an important treaty with the Emperor of China, by which mutual intercourse between the citizens of the United States and China, and mutual privileges of trade, travel, education and religion, should be secured to each. This was a concession never made by the Chinese to any nation. 1 During a greater part of the recess, the attention of the people was absorbed by the Presidential election ; and the result was such, that when Congress re-assembled, the Republicans in that body were very strong, not only in numbers, but in the moral power of a majority well sustained by the people. A condition of such strength is great responsibility. There was in the aspect of public affairs at home and abroad, reasons for the exercise of the greatest caution and wisdom. Among other perplexing and important duties was the devising ways for ending a war with the Indians which had been raging a long time on the great plains of the West, without positive results. To this end ; to the further security of rights to all citizens of the Republic ; and to the strengthening of the public credit, the attention of Congress was specially directed. The military leaders engaged in war with the Indians, recommended the most rigorous and unrelenting measures, and for that purpose it was pro posed to vest the entire control of the Indians * in the War Department. But a more humane policy, promising excellent results, was finally adopted on the recommendation of General Grant after he became President. Recognizing the fact that the chief cause of wars with the Indians has been the injustice the red men were subjected to at the hands of dishonest or incompetent officers in charge of them, and of the traders and con tractors with whom they are compelled to deal, the President recommended the appointment of a number of members of the Society of Friends or Quakers, who are noted for their general uprightness and peaceful princi ples and conduct, as Indian Agents. Congress approved, and in April, (1869,) on the nomination of the President, sixteen Friends were chosen for the important service. A fifteenth amendment of the Constitution, intended to secure the exer cise of the right of suffrage to all citizens of the Republic, without regard 1 This treaty was negotiated, and brought from China by Minister Burlingame who, having been appointed by the Emperor a general commissioner to several of the Christian powers of the Earth, came attended by high officials of the Chinese Empire. After concluding the business of his mission at home, he went to Europe with the embassadors. 2 In one of his reports, General Sheridan, who was in command of the forces employed against the Indians, said : " Indian tribes should not be dealt with as independent nations. They are wards of the Government, and should be made to respect the lives and property of citizens. The Indian history of this country for the last three hundred years shows that of all the great nations of Indians, only remnants have been saved. The same fate awaits those now hostile ; and the best way for the Government is to make them poor by the destruction of their stock, and then settle them on the lands allotted to them." 7C6 THE NATION. [1SC9. co race, color, or previous condition, was recommended by a joint resolu tion of both houses of Congress, on the 26th of February, 1869. 1 It was immediately submitted to the authorities of the several States, for action, and was ratified by the required number. At about the same time, an important financial bill was passed in the lower house of Congress, (and afterward in the Senate, and became a law,) the chief provision of which was as follows : " The faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin or its equiva lent, of all interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money or other currency than gold and silver." This was intended to strengthen the public credit at home and abroad, and such was its effect in a remarkable degree. The administration of Mr. Johnson closed on the 4th of March, and on that day Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated the eighteenth President of the Republic. 2 The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Chase. At noon, the same day, the Forty-first Congress assembled ; and on the 5th, the Senate promptly confirmed the President s Cabinet ap pointments. 3 The new administration began its career under circum stances apparently very auspicious for the future prosperity of the nation. At home, the work of reorganization and pacification was going on pros perously. Abroad, the relations of our Government were eminently peaceful. The only subject that promised difficulty in the future, was the claims against Great Britain for damages inflicted by the Anglo-Con federate ship Alabama, and others. 4 The special business of Reverdy Johnson, lately appointed minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, was the negotiation of a treaty for, the settlement of those claims. It was ac complished, but the treaty was so unsatisfactory to our government and people that the Senate promptly rejected it by a vote of 54 to 1, and Mr. Motley, the historian, was sent to England to supersede Mr. Johnson. *The following is a cony of the Amendment : "Article 15. The ri^nt of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. "Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." 2 Ulysses S, Grant was born in Clermont County, Ohio, on the 27th of April, 1822. When a boy he was employed in his father s tannery. He entered the West Point Military Academy in 1 839, and was graduated in 1 843, when he entered the army as brevet second lieutenant. His conduct as a brave soldier, was conspicuous during his services in the war with Mexico, at the close of which he bore the brevet rank of captain. He received a commission as full captain in 1853 He left the army the next year, and settled near St. Louis. Five years later he became a partner with his father, in the leather trade, at Galena, Illinois. When the civil war broke out in 1861, he entered the service in the field as colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers. His promotion from rank to rank was rapid. How he performed the duties of each position in which he was placed, these pages reveal, in brief outline. From a comparatively obscure leather dealer in 1861, he has arisen, in the course of eight years, to the highest official dignity in the Republic. 3 It was found necessary to make some changes in the appointments. The following named gentlemen composed the cabinet as finally chosen : Secretary of Staff, Hamilton Fish. Secretary of the Treasury, George S. Boutwell. Secretary <>f War, John A. Rawlins. Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie. Secretary of the Interior ; Jacob D. Coxe Postmaster-General, John A. J. Creswell. Attorney- General, E. Rockwood Hoar. - See page 707. 1872.] GRANT S ADMINISTRATION. 737 CHAPTEE XX. WHEN President Grant 1 entered upon his duties lie found the reor ganization of the Union incomplete, and on the 7th of April, 1869, he sent a message to Congress, urging that body to take steps for accom plishing an object so important at as early a period as possible. 2 The special session of the new Congress, which had been called, ended on the 10th of April, when the Senate was convened for executive business, and continued in session until the 22d. The President and Congress took measures for securing the desired Union, and did all in their power under the restrictions of the amended National Constitution to induce the people of the States not represented in Congress to assist in bringing about that result. It was accomplished in the spring of 1872. On the 23d of May every seat in Congress was filled, for the first time since the winter of 1861, when members from several of the slave-holding States abdicated. On the previous day (May 22, 1872) an Amnesty Bill was passed, for removing the political disa bilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution from all persons excepting members of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, heads of departments, members of diplo matic corps, and officers of the army and navy, who had engaged in the rebellion. The political reorganization of the republic was now com plete. At about the same time a most important event occurred in the social and commercial history of our country. It was the completion of a railway communication across our continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, by which the States bordering on the two seas and those between, were firmly linked in interest, and by which, also, a vast over land trade with China and Japan, and the islands of the sea, was inaugu rated. The last " tie " was laid, and the last spikes were driven, on the 10th of May, 1869, in a grassy valley at the head of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. That " tie " was made of polished laurel wood, its ends bound with silver bands. A spike of gold was sent by California ; one of silver 1 See portrait on page 601. 2 In that message the President said : " It is desirable to restore the States which were engaged in the rebellion to their proper relations to the government and the country, at as early a period as the people of those States shall be found willing to become peaceful and orderly communities, and to adopt and maintain such constitu tions and laws as will effectually secure the civil and political rights of all persons within their borders." 47 738 THE NATION. [lf-69. v by Nevada, and one of gold, silver, and iron by Arizona; and these were driven in the presence of three thousand people. So was com pleted what is commonly known as the Union Pacific Railroad. 1 An insurrection in Cuba had now assumed such proportions that the Americans, naturally sympathizing with a colony struggling for freedom, were disposed to give the insurgents moral and material aid, and expedi tions were fitted out, under the general directions of a " Cuban Junta " in JSTew York City, for the purpose of carrying men and materials of war to the Cubans. Our government wisely resolved to maintain its neutrality, at least until the Cubans should show their ability to maintain their independence, and took measures to suppress all filibustering move ments, at the same time, keeping faith with other governments. The United States authorities seized a large number of Spanish gunboats that had been built in this country, on suspicion that they were intended for war against Peru. They were soon released. These relations with Cuba and Spain gave the government of the United States much trouble, and, at times, war seemed inevitable. Finally, late in 1873, the steamship Virginius, flying the flag of this republic, suspected of Carrying men and supplies to the Cubans, was captured by a Spanish cruiser off the coast of Cuba, taken into port, and many of her passengers, with her captain and some of her crew, were shot by the local military authorities. The affair produced intense ex citement in the United States. But the difficulties involved in it were wisely settled by diplomacy. The vessel was surrendered to the United States, and ample reparation offered. "While the Virginius was on her way, under an escort, to New York, she sprung a leak and went to the ^bottom of the sea off Cape Fear, at near the close of December, 1873. An organization of Irishmen in the United States, known as " Fe nians," prepared to invade the British dominions on our frontiers, for the avowed purpose of liberating Ireland from British rule how, in that way, is not clearly seen. In the last week in May, 1870, between two and three thousand of them had assembled on the borders of Canada, in Vermont, and there invaded that province. The authorities of both governments interfered, the leaders were arrested, and no similar viola tion of the neutrality laws of the republic has since been attempted by adopted citizens. The possession of territory by the United States, among the West India Islands, has been considered desirable for a long time ; and in the year 1869 our government and that of Hayti conferred upon the subject 1 To aid in the construction of this railway from Kansas to the Pacific, the na tional government offered a subsidy of $52,000,000. The distance by railway between New York and San Francisco, by way of Chicago, is, in round numbers, about 3,400 miles. 1873.] ADMINISTRATION. 739 of the annexation of the island to our domain. The President was de cidedly in favor of the measure. In November, that year, a treaty for annexation was made, but the Senate of the United States refused to ratify it. More information was needed, and in December, 1870, the President appointed a commission, composed of eminent and judicious citizens, to proceed to San Domingo and inquire concerning the resources, the political condition, and the disposition of the government and people of that republic on the subject of annexation. The report of the Com mittee in the spring of 1872 did not lead to the ratification of the treaty, and the subject was droppecfcas a national measure. A private company made a treaty with the authorities of San Domingo in December, 1873, by which that government ceded to them a large portion of the island with valuable franchises and privileges. All the public lands on the peninsula of Samana, and the waters of Samana Bay, were ceded to the " Samana Bay Company." An inter-oceanic ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien has been a subject before the public a long time. During President Grant s admin istration some steps were taken in connection w T ith such a project. In July, 1871, Commander Selfridge returned from an exploration of a route which he considered feasible. It was from the Napipi river, a con fluent of the Atrato river that empties into the Gulf of Darien, across the Isthmus to Limon Bay on the Pacific coast. The entire length of the canal would be thirty-two miles. Its cost he estimated at about $130,000,000, and the time to be occupied in its construction about twelve years. In March, 1872, the President appointed a commission to exam ine all plans and proposals for an inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus. 1 Explorations are now (1875) in progress, which may result in a feasible proposition. In October, 1871, one of the most destructive fires on record con sumed a large part of the business section of Chicago. It raged about twenty-eight hours ; spread over two thousand acres of ground ; laid twenty-five hundred buildings in ruins, and consumed property, real and personal, to the amount of about $200,000,000. Of this amount, $90,- 000,000 worth was insured. In November the following year a fire in the heart of Boston swept over sixty acres of ground, and destroyed property to the amount of $75,000,000, on which was an insurance of $50,000,000. Mormonism, in its political relations to the state, remains a vexatious question. It seems to be strongly intrenched, in the heart of the conti nent, among the everlasting hills ; and it appears to be popular among 1 Composed of Major-General A. A. Humphreys, Professor Benjamin Pierce, and Captain Daniel Ammen. 740 THE NATION. [1871. the sex which the practice of polygamy most degrades. In 1871 the delegate in Congress from Utah presented to that body a petition fifty feet in length, signed by twenty-five hundred Mormon women, in favor of polygamy. The elective franchise has been given to women in that territory (as well as in Wyoming territory) ; and of the 215,324 votes cast in favor of a state constitution in Utah in 1872, nearly one-half were by women. They have enough citizens to entitle them to a state organization, but the moral sense of Congress has been strong enough to deny the polygamists a place in the Union of States. We have observed, on page 736, that the settlement of claims against Great Britain, on account of the depredations of the Alabama and other Anglo-Confederate vessels, was an open question when Grant became President. He proposed a joint commission to negotiate a treaty for the adjustment of all pending difficulties between the two governments. Great Britain acceded to it, and each government appointed commis sioners. 1 This -Joint High Commission," as it was called, met at Washington city, and on the 8th of May, 1871, completed a treaty which both governments promptly ratified. That treaty provided for the settle ment, by arbitration by a mixed commission, of all claims on both sides for injuries by either government to the citizens of the other, during the Civil War; for the permanent regulation of the American coast-fish eries ; for the free navigation of certain rivers, including the ^t. Law rence, and for determining which of two channels between "V anuuaver s Island and the mainland, on the Pacific coast, constituted the boundary- line between the territory of the United States and Great Britain. In accordance with the provisions of this treaty, arbitrators were appointed. 2 The Tribunal of Arbitration, as this was called, met at Geneva, in Switzerland, on the 15th of December, 1871, and organized by the appointment of Count Sclopis president of the board. After two meetings the Tribunal adjourned to the 15th of June following. The final meeting of the Tribunal was held on the 14th of September, 1872, when the decision was announced. The sum of fifteen million five hun dred thousand dollars in gold was awarded to the government of the United States, to pay to its citizens for losses incurred by the depreda tions of the Alabama and other Anglo-Confederate vessels. That amount was paid into the Treasury of the United States in September, J The United States appointed Hamilton Fish, Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Nelson, Ebenezer R. Hoar, and George H. Williams. Great Britain appointed Earl de Grey and Ripon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir Edward Thornton, Sir John McDonald, and Professor Montague Bernard. 2 The United States appointed Charles Francis Adams ; Great Britain appointed Sir Alexander Cockburn ; the King of Italy appointed Count Frederic Sclopis ; the President of the Swiss Confederation named Jacob Stsempfli, and the Emperor of Brazil the Baron d ltazuba. J. C. Bancroft Davis was appointed agent of the United States, and Lord Tenterden of Great Britain. 1872.] GRANT S ADMINISTRATION. 741 18T3. 1 So was settled, by the Christian-like method of diplomacy, serious difficulties between two powerful nations. The Emperor of Germany, to whom the question of boundary on the Pacific coast was referred, decided in favor of the claim of the United States, which gives to our territory the island of San Juan, the domain in dispute. On the nrst of May, 1872, a national convention of politicians styled " Liberal Republicans," held at Cincinnati, nominated Horace Greeley for President ^of the United States, and B. Gratz Brown for Vice-Presi dent. At a convention held at Baltimore on the 9th of July, the " Democrats " coalesced with the " Liberal Republicans," and nominated the same candidates. Meanwhile a convention of " Republicans " had assembled at Philadelphia (June 5th) and nominated President Grant for a second term, with Henry "Wilson for Yice-President. Grant and Wilson were elected in the autumn by a large majority over the coalition candidates. During President Grant s first term several important measures were adopted, besides those already mentioned. A system of weather signals by means of the Morse electro-magnetic telegraph was established, under the superintendence of the National Signal Bureau, by which the changes in the weather in all parts of the republic are noted simultaneously at various hours of the day, and predictions given concerning those changes for about twelve hours ahead. This is a most important branch of the public service, and is especially useful to the commercial and agricultural interests of the country. A new apportionment in representation was established, making the ratio 137,800, and giving a House of Representa tives of 283 members. A new Pension Bill was passed, giving eight dol lars a month to all surviving officers, enlisted and drafted men and volun teers in the wars of the Revolution and of 1812, or their surviving widows. 1 The banking firms of Drexel, Morgan & Co., Morton, Bliss & Co., and Jay. Cooke & Co., made a contract with the British government to pay this award on or before the 10th of September, 1873. The contracting bankers, from time to time, bought exchange, which they deposited in comparatively small amounts and received coin certificates for such deposits, and purchased United States bonds. These bonds and coin certificates they finally exchanged with the Secretary of the Treasury for a single certificate for $15,500,000, which reads as follows: "It is hereby certified that fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars have been deposited with the Treasurer of the United States, payable in gold at his office to Drexel, Morgan & Co., Bliss & Co., Jay Cooke & Co., or their order." This was endorsed by an order by these parties to pay the amount to the British Minister at Washington (Sir Ed ward Thornton) and the Acting Consul General at New York (E. B. Archibald). The Minister and Consul endorsed it with <in order to pay the amount to Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, and he in turn endorsed it with an order to pay it to W. A. Richardson, Secretary of the Treasury. This was the method of payment of the award into the Treasury of the United States, without moving a dollar of coin. A commission was afterward appointed to distribute the award among the just claim ants for damages. The money was immediately invested in the then new five per cent, bonds of the United States of the funded loan, redeemable after the first day of May, 1881. 7tt2 THE NATION. [1872. At the beginning of 1875, our government was paying for pensions at the rate of about thirty million dollars annually. Early in 1873 the Frank ing privilege was abolished, by which the mails have been relieved and money saved for the government to the amount of two and a quarter mil lion dollars annually. During that first term, an important embassy came from Japan (1872) to inquire about the renewal of former treaties be tween our government and that. It consisted of twenty-one persons, composed of the heads of the several departments of the Japanese gov ernment, and their secretaries. In the same year the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Emperor of Russia, visited the United States. Steps had also been taken by the government for a celebration of the centennial anniversary of the national independence, by a display at Philadelphia of the products of all nations. This matter will be more fully mentioned hereafter. Grant and Wilson took the prescribed oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Chase, on the 4th of March, 1873, and the Senate imme diately confirmed the President s nominations for the heads of the several departments. 1 The future of the country appeared bright and prom ising. There was a stead} improvement in the tone of public feeling after the irritations caused by the Civil War, for the government, in its dealings with the leaders in the insurrection, had been exceedingly lenient. 2 There was a gradual lightening of the burden of taxation 3 which that war had imposed, and recuperative energy was visible every where. In January, 1875, Congress passed a law providing for the resumption of specie payments, suspended in 1861, beginning with the redemption of legal tender notes on the first of January, 1879, silver coin being meanwhile substituted for fractional paper currency. We have noticed, on page 735, the more humane policy toward the Indians, inaugurated by President Grant. Owing to the unwise feature of that policy in treating the Indians as foreigners, keeping them on 1 The following named gentlemen composed the President s cabinet at the begin ning of his second term of office : Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State ; William W. Belknap, Secretary of War; William A. Richardson, Secretary of the Treasury; George M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy ; Columbus Delano, Secretary of the In terior; John A. J. Cresswell, Postmaster-General; George H. Williams, Attorney- General. 2 Of the thousands of the citizens of the republic who consciously and willingly committed "treason against the United States," according to the prescription of the National Constitution (see clause 1, section 3, Article III.), not one had been pun ished for the crime, and only one offender had been indicted when this record was closed. That one was Jefferson Davis, the acting head of the Rebellion, who was released from peril by a proclamation of amnesty made by President Johnson on Christmas day, 1868. 3 Taxation was reduced, as compared with 1869, at the rate of $170,000,000, whilst the revenue had increased from $371,000,000 in 18G9, to $430,000,000 in 1873. The exports of 1872 showed an increase, as compared with 1869, of more than twenty-five per cent., whilst the value of imports had increased $155,000,000. 1872.] GRANT S ADMINISTRATION. 743 reservations, and so making necessary the emplpyment of agents and contractors, who are not always true men, that policy has not worked so well as its friends had hoped. There exist the same causes for irritation on the part of the savages, and always will exist so long as the system of reservations and agencies is sustained. 1 Make the Indians citizens of the republic, and hold every individual responsible to the laws, and the evil will be cured. It is estimated that about three hundred thousand Indians are living within the domain of our republic, of whom ninety- seven thousand are civilized, one hundred and twenty-five thousand are semi-civilized, and seventy-eight thousand are wholly barbarous or savage. To reclaim these to civilize and Christianize them the most earnest efforts of the Church and State should be given. Ever since the close of the Civil "War, that caused a radical change in the social system and condition of the late Slave-holding States, there has been much irritation of feeling in consequence of the changed politi cal and civil relations of the two races inhabiting those States. Much trouble has ensued ; but there are indications that all difficulties will, before long, be amicably adjusted, and that peace and good will shall reign throughout our borders. The mineral and agricultural resources of our country, known and hidden, are enormous, and industry and skill are rapidly developing them. The national debt is gradually diminish ing. 2 Population is spreading over the vast wildernesses of mid-continent and the Pacific slope, 3 hying the sure foundations for future territories and states to be added to the galaxy already in existence. 4 The process is continually going on. Statesmen and gospel-bearers, brave soldiers and gentle women, join with the rougher toilers in the glorious work, whilst the children of the forest, gradually diminishing in numbers, look 1 Tlie number of reservations is ninety-two, upon which are seated about 180,000 Indians. They aggregate 168,000 square miles. Of these reservations thirty-one are east of the Mississippi river, aggregating 2,700 square miles. Between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains are forty-two reservations, aggregating nearly 144,000 square miles; and upon the Pacific slope are nineteen, aggregating 20,000 square miles. There are 40,000 Indians who have no lands awarded to them by treaty, but have reservations set apart upon the public lands of the republic, to the number of fifteen, aggregating about 60, 000 square miles. It is estimated that the potentially hostile tribes at this time (1875) number about 64,000. The wonder is that there are not more hostile Indians, when we consider the horrible injustice which these natives of the country have suffered at the hands of the European races. 2 At the close of 1874, it amounted, in round numbers, to $2,285,000,000. Of this amount $1,719,799,900 bears interest in coin; $14,678,000 bears interest in law ful currency ; and $409 650, 320 bears no interest. 3 The population of the republic, at the close of 1874, was about 40,000,000. 4 The republic at the beginning of 1875 contained 88 States and 10 Territories. Two of the latter the Indian Territory and Alaska had not then been organized. Alaska is on the extreme northwestern portion of the continent of North America. It was purchased from Russia, by our government, in the autumn of 1867, for the sum of $7, 200, 000 in gold. 744 THE NATION. [1S75. on in sorrow, for they hear in the ring of the hammer upon every corner-stone of the structures of civilization, the knell of their race. Never was a state gifted by God with better opportunities than ours at this moment. "We are the heirs and stewards of a magnificent patri mony. Over all our vast domain there should prevail the mutual love and kindness, tender consideration, and the forgiveness of real or fancied injuries which mark a family of generous individuals, for we, as citizens of a great republic, have interests in common, and the solid welfare of each person is identified with the public good. If we shall be faithful and true to the requirements of Justice and Mercy, we may become rich in all the manifold and precious results of well-doing, and be the almoners of a thousand blessings to posterity w r hich flow out of the abundant fountains of Civil and Religious Liberty. FOUNDING NEW STATES. SUPPLEMENT. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. So early as July, 1775, Doctor Franklin submitted to the consideration of Congress a sketch of articles of confederation between the colonies, 1 limiting the duration of their vitality to the time when reconciliation with Great Britain should take place ; or, in the event of the failure of that desirable result, to be perpetual. At that time, Congress seemed to have no fixed plans for the future the teeming present, with all its vast and novel concerns, engrossed their whole attention and Dr. Franklin s plan seems not to have been discussed at all in the National Council. But when a Declaration of Independence was proposed, that idea alone suggested the necessity of a confederation of the States to carry forward the work to a successful consummation. Con gress, therefore, on the llth of June, 1776. resolved that a committee should be appointed to prepare, and properly digest, a form of confederation to be entered into by the several States. The committee appointed under the resolution consisted of one delegate from each State. 2 John Dickenson. of Pennsylvania, was chosen chairman, and through him the committee reported a draft of Articles of Confederation on the 12th of July. Almost daily debates upon the subject ensued until the 20th of August, when the report was laid aside, and was not taken up again for consideration until the 8th of April, 1777. In the mean while, several of the States had adopted Constitutions for their respective government, and Congress was practically acknowledged the supreme head in all matters appertaining to the war, public finances, &c. It emitted bills of credit, or paper money, appointed foreign ministers, and opened negotiations with foreign govern ments. From the 8th of April until the 15th of November following, the subject was debated two or three times a week, and several amendments were made. As the confederation might be a per manent bond of union, of course local interests were considered prospectively. If the union had been designed to be temporary, to meet the exigences arising from the state of war in which the colonies then were, local questions could hardly have had weight enough to have elicited debate ; but such was not the case, and of course" the sagacious men who were then in Congress looked beyond the present, and endeavored to legislate accordingly. From the 7th of October until the 15th of November the debates upon it were almost daily, and the conflicting interests of the sev eral States were strongly brought into view by the different speakers. On that day the following draft, containing all of the amendments, was laid before Congress, and after a spirited debate was adopted : ARTICLE 1. The style of this confederacy shall be, "The United States of America." 1. Page 267. 2. The committee consisted of Messrs. Bartlett, Samuel Adams, Hopkins, Sherman, R. R, Livingston, Dickenson, McKean, Stcne, Nelioo, Hewes, Edward Rutledge, and Qwtonett. j- SUPPLEMENT. ARTICLE 2. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States .in Congress assembled. ARTICLE 3. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general wel fare ; binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. ARTICLE 4. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States ; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and com merce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the inhabitants thereof respect ively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant ; provided, also, that no imposition, duties, or restriction shall be laid by any State on the property of the United States, or either of them. If any person guilty of or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor, in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall upon demand of the Governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed *to the State having jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State. ARTICLE 5. For the more convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others Jn their stead for the remainder of the year. No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven members ; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years ; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emoluments of any kind. Each State shull maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the States, and while they act as members of the committee of the States. In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress ; and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on Con gress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. ARTICLE G. No State, without tile consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty, with any king, prince, or State ; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State ; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility. No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into and how long it shall continue. No State shall lay any imposts or duties which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties entered into by the United States, in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or State, in pur. suance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts of France and Spain. No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only as shall be deemed necessary by the United States, in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State or its trade ; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. {{{ such number only as in the judgment of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall be- deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State ; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and have constantly ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field-pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage. No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled,, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a reso lution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States, in Congress assembled, can be consulted ; nor shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal,, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States, in Congress assembled, and then only against the kingdom or State, and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so- declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the United States, in Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted, out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States, in Congress assembled, shall determine otherwise. ARTICLE 7. When land forces are raised by any State for the common defense, all officers of or under the rank of Colonel shall be appointed by the Legislature of each State respectively by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. ARTICLE 8. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion, to the value of all land within each State granted to or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated, according to such mode as the United States, in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be paid and levied by the authority and direction of the Legislatures of the several States, within the time agreed upon by the United States, in. Congress assembled. ARTICLE 9. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war. except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article ; of sending and receiving embassadors ; entering into treaties and alliances provided that no- treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities what soever; of establishing rules for deciding in all cases what captures on land or water shall be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States, shall be divided or appropriated ; of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace ; ap pointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and establishing courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures; provided that no- member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also be the last resort, on appeal, in all dis putes and differences now subsisting, or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever ; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following: whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another shall present a petition to Congress, stating the matter in question, and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties, by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determin ing the matter in question; but if they can not agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen ; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names, as Congress shall direct, shall, in the presence of Congress, be drawn out by lot ; and the persons whose names shall be so drawn, or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, iv SUPPLEMENT. so always as a major part of the judges, who shall hear the cause, shall agree in the determina tion ; and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons which Congress shall judge sufficient, or, being present, shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the Secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such person absent or refusing ; and the judgment and sentence of the court, to be appointed in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive ; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear, or to defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence or judgment, which shall in like manner be final and decisive the judgment or sentence and other proceedings being in either case transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the parties concerned ; provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take an oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the Supreme or Superior Court of the State, where the cause shall be tried, "well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgment, without favor, affection, or hope of reward ;" provided, also, that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. All controversies concerning the private right of soil, claimed under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdiction as they may respect such lands, and the States which passed euch grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally determined, as near as may be, in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different States. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy t and value of coin struck by their own authority or by that of the respective States ; fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States ; regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated; establishing and regulating post-offices from one State to another throughout all the United States, ;in<l exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray tho expenses of the said office ; appointing. all officers of the land forces in the service of the Unite;! States, excepting regimental officers ; appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States ; making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have authority to appoint a committee to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated " a Committee of the States," and to consist of one delegate from each State ; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction ; to appoint one of their number to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of President more than one year in any term of three years ; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses ; to borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the United States transmitting every half year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted ; to build and equip a navy ; to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State, which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the Legis lature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men, and clothe, arm, and equip them, in a soldier-like manner, at the expense of the United States ; and the officers and men so clothed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States, in Congress assembled ; but if the United States, in Congress assembled, shall, on consideration of circumstances, judge proper that any State should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number than its quota, or that any other State should raise a greater number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, clothed, armed, and equipped, in the same manner as the quota of such State, unless the Legis lature of such State shall judge that such extra number can not be safely spared out of the same ; in which case they shall raise, officer, clothe, arm, and equip, as many of such extra num ber as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so clothed, armed, and ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. V equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States, in Congress assembled. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for the defense and welfare of the United States, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commande- in-chief of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same ; nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day, be determined unless by the votes of a majority of the United States, in Congress assembled. The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months; and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances, or military operations, as in their judgment require secresy ; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any question, shall be entered on the journal when it is desired by any delegate ; and the delegates of a State or any of them, at his or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the Legislatures of the several States. ARTICLE 10. The committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States, in Congress assembled, by the consent of nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, bj the articles of confederation, the voice of nine States, in the Congress of the United States assembled, is requisite. ARTICLE 11. Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to, all the advantages of this union ; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States. ARTICLE 12. All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts contracted, by or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged. ARTICLE 13. Every State shall abide by the decision of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which, by this confederation, are submitted to them. And the articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual ; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterward confirmed by the Legislature of every State. Congress directed these Articles to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, and, if approved of by them, they were advised to authorize their delegates to ratify the same in Congress, by affixing their names thereto. Notwithstanding there was a general feeling that something must be speedily done, the State Legislatures were slow to adopt the Articles. In the first place, they did not seem to accord with the prevailing sentiments of the people, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence ; and in many things that Declaration and the Articles of Confederation were manifestly at variance. The former was based upon declared right; the foundation of the latter was asserted power. The former was based upon a superintending Providence, and the inalienable rights of man ; the lat ter resting upon the " sovereignty of declared power ; one ascending from the foundation of human government, to the laws of nature and of nature s God, written upon, the heart of man ; the other resting upon the basis of human institutions, and prescriptive law, and colonial char ters." 1 Again, the system of representation proposed was highly objectionable, because each 1. John Quincy Adams s Jubilee Discourse, 1839. yj SUPPLEMENT. State was entitled to the same voice in Congress, whatever might be the difference in population.. But the most objectionable feature of all was, that the limits of the several States, and also in? whom was vested the control or possession of the crown-lands, was not only unadjusted, but wholly unnoticed. These and other defects caused most of the States to hesitate, at first, to- adopt the Articles, and several of them for a long time utterly refused to accept them. On the 22d of June, 1*778, Congress proceeded to consider the objections of the States to the Articles of Confederation, and on the 27th of the same month, a form of ratification was adopted and ordered to be engrossed upon parchment, with a view that the same should be signed by such delegates as were instructed so to do by their respective Legislatures. On the 9th of July, the delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Khode Island, Connecti cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina signed the Articles. The delegates from New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were not yet empowered to ratify and sign. Georgia and North Carolina were not represented, and the ratification of New York was conditioned that all the other States should ratify. The delegates from North Carolina signed the Articles on the 21st of July ; those of Georgia on the 24th of the same month; those of New Jersey, on the 26th of November; and those of Delaware, on the 22d of February and 5th of May, 1779. Maryland still firmly refused to ratify, until the question of the conflicting claims of the Union and of the separate States to the crown-lands should be fully adjusted. This point was finally settled by cessions of claiming States to the United States, of all unsettled and unappropriated lands for the benefit of the whole Union. This cession of the crown-lands to the Union originated the Terri torial system, and the erection of the Northwestern Territory into a distinct government, similar to the existing States, having a local legislature of its own. The insuperable objection of Maryland having been removed by the settlement of this question, her delegates signed the- Articles of Confederation on the first day of March, 1781, four years and four months after they were adopted by Congress. 1 By this act of Maryland, they became the organic law of the Union, and on the 2d of March Congress assembled under the new powers. 1. The following are the names of the delegates from the several States appended to the Articlea of Confederation:- New Hampshire, Josiah Bartlett, John Wentworth, Jr. Massachusetts Bay, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Francis Dana, James Lovell, Samuel Holten. Rhode Island, William Ellery, Henry Merchant, John Collins. Connecticut, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, Oliver Wolcott, Titus Hosmer, Andrew Adains. New York, James Duane, Francis Lewis, William Duer, Gouverneur Morris. New Jersey, John Witherspoon, Nathaniel Scudder. Pennsylvania, Robert Morris, Daniel Roberdeau, Jonathan Bayard Smith, William Clingan, Joseph Reed. Delaware, Thomas McKean, John Dickenson, Nicholas Van Dyke. Maryland, John Hanson, Daniel Carroll. Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, John Banister, Thomas Adams, John Harvie, Francis Lightfoot Lee. North. Carolina, John Penn, Cornelius Harnett, John Williams. South Carolina, Henry Laurens, William Henry Drayton, Jonathan Matthews, Richard Hutsom, Thomas Hsyward, Jr. Georgia, John Walton, Edward Telfair, Edward Langworthy. II. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. 1 WE the People of the United States, 2 in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, 1. In 1853, the writer made a very careful copy of the Constitution of the United States, from the original in the State Department at Washington City, together with the autographs of the members of the Convention who signed it. In orthography, capital letters, and punc tuation, the copy here given may be relied upon as correct, it having been subsequently carefully compared with a copy published by Mr. Hickey, in his useful little volume, entitled The Constitution of the United States of America, etc., and attested, on the 20th of July, 1846, by Nicholas P. Trist, Chief Clerk of the State Department. The most prominent American writers upon constitutional law, are the late Justice Story and Chancellor Kent. Joseph Story was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts, in September, 1779, and was educated at Harvard University. He studied law ; and soon, on entering upon his practice, took a prominent position. He was a member of his State Legislature, and of the National Congress, and was chiefly instrumental ia effecting the repeal of the Embargo Act (page 403). He was only th rty-rwo years of age when President Madison made him an associate of the Supreme Court of the United Statts. From that time he discarded politics. In commercial and constitutional law he was peerless. Hia Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, published in three volumes, in 1833, will ever be a standard work. Judge Story died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in September, 1845, at the age of sixty-six years. HU own words, applied to another, may be appropriately said of him : " Whatever subject he touched was touched with a master s hand and spirit. He employed his eloquence to adorn his learning, and his learning to give solid weight to his eloquence. He was always instructive and interesting, and rarely without producing an instantaneous conviction. A lofty ambition of excellence, that stirring spirit which breathes the breath of Heaven, and pants for immortality, sustained hi genius in its perilous course." 2. Previous to the Revolution, there were three forms of gjvernment i j the ColonUs, namely Charter, Proprietary, and Provincial. The 48 iii SUPPLEMENT. insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote Objects. the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, 1 do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America. ARTICLE I. SECTION 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Con- Legislative Powers, gress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 2 SECTION 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State Howe, ofRepresenta- g j iall j laye tlie Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. 3 No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 4 Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective. Numbers, Apportionment of Hep- which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, resentaUves. including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. 6 The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shah 1 by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand ; but each State shall have at Least one Representative ; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 6 "When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Execu- " tive Authority thereof shall issue "Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. Speaker, how The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Offi- appointed. cers . an( j s } ia ^ j iave ^he sole Power of Impeachment. SECTION 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. 7 charter governments were Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. They had power to make laws not inconsistent with those of Eng land. The proprietary governments were Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Their governors were appointed by their proprietors, and these and the proprietors usually made the laws. The provincial were New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. In these the governor and his council were appointed by the crown, and these, with chosen representatives of the people, made the laws. The Union is older than the Constitution. It was formed in the first Continental Congress (page 228), by the representatives of thirteen separate but not independent nor sovereign provinces, for they had ever been subject to the British crown. Then the inhabitants of those colonies were solemnly leagued as one people, and two years later (see page 252) they declared themselves collectively independent of Great Britain, and recognized the supremacy of the Continental Congress as a central government. See Curtis s History of the Constitution, i. 39, 40. The plan of independent State governments then adopted having failed, a national one was formed, and the framers of the Constitu tion, to give emphasis to the fact, said in the preamble of the instrument, " We the people of the United States," instead of " We the people of Massachusetts, New York," et cetera. So argued the Supreme Court. See Wkeaton s S. C. Reports, \. 304, 1. Six objects, it is seen, were to be obtained, each having a national breadth of purpose. 2. The members of the House of Representatives are elected to seats therein for two years, and they hold two regular sessions or sittings during that time. Each full term is called a Congress. Senators are elected by the State legislatures, to serve for six years. 3. There is a Senate and House of Representatives, or Assembly, in each State. Any person qualified to vote for a member of his State Assembly, may vote for a member of the National House of Representatives. 4. A person born in a foreign country, may be elected a representative after he has been for seven years a citizen of the United States. 5. It has been decided that this does not restrict the power of imposing direct taxes, to States only. The Congress of the United State* has power to do BO, but only for the purpose of paying the national debts and providing for the national welfare. See Kent s Commentariet on the Constitution, abridged edition, page 330. Direct taxes had been laid three times by the National^ongress, previous to the Great Civil War that broke out in 1861, namely, in 1798, 1813, and 1815. The "other persons" here mentioned were slaves. In making the apportion ment, every five slaves were accounted three persons. The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution (see page 756) renders this sentence a dead letter. 6. The apportionment is made as soon as practicable after each enumeration of the inhabitants is completed. The ratio based on the cen- aus of 1790, was one Representative for every 33,000 persons. The ratio according to the census of I860, was one for every 127,316 persons. 7. This gives perfect equality to the States, in one portion of the legislative branch of the Government. The small Utes of Rhode Island and Delaware have as much power in the National Senate as the larg. ones of New York and Ohio. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. J x Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the Second Year, of Classification of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class Senators. at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second year; 1 , and if Vacancies happen by Resignation or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, 2 and who Qualification of shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be Senators. chosen. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, tut shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. 3 The Senate shall choose their other Officers, 4 and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice- President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments: 5 When Senate a court for sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath, or Affirmation. When trial f im P 6achments - the President of the United States is tried, the Chief-Justice shall preside : and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to Judgment in case of removal from Office, and Disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States : but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, accord ing to Law. 6 SECTION 4. The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Sen ators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legis- Elections of Senators lature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such < V fld Representatives. Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators. 7 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law Meeting of Congress. appoint a different day. 8 SECTION 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do Business ; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may Organisation of be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such man- Congress. ner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide. Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds^ Rules of proceeding. expel a Member. Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to Journal of Congress. time publish the same, 9 excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment 1. This is a wise provision. It leaves representatives of the people in that branch, at all times, familiar with the legislation thereof, and therefore more efficient than if an entirely new delegation should be chosen at the end of six years. 2. This was to allow a foreign-born citizen to make himself familiar with our institutions, before he should be eligible to a seat in that highest legislative halL 3. He is not a representative of any State. By this arrangement, the equality of the States is preserved. 4. Secretary, clerk, sergeant-at-arms, door-keeper, and postmaster. 5. The House of Representatives, it will be observed, accuse the alleged offender, and the Senate constitutes the court wherein he is tried. 6. This was a modification of the British Constitution, giving greater exclusive jurisdiction to the National Judiciary. In Great Britain, the House of Commons accuses, and the House of Lords (answering to our Senate) tries the offender. The latter is also invested with power to punish in every form known to the laws, by ordering the infliction of fines, imprisonments, forfeiture of goods, banishment, and death. 7. This provisien was to prevent the mischief that might arise at a time of intense party excitement, when the very existence of the National Congress might be at the mercy of the State Legislatures. Tke place of choosing the Senators is where the State Legislature shall be in session at the time. 8. This secured an annual meeting of the National Legislature beyond the control of State legislation. Th second, or last session of every Congress (note 3, page 366), expires at twelve o clock at noon on the 4th of March. 9. The object is to preaervs, for the use of the sovereign people, and make public for their benefit, every act of Congress. x SUPPLEMENT. require Secresy; 1 and the Teas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. 2 Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Con- Congress. sent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. 3 SECTION 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. 4 Compensation and They shall in all cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileges of members, privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their re spective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 5 No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have Plurality of offices been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during prohibited. guc } 1 tmie . an( j no p er son holding any office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in office. 6 SECTION 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Bills, Time originated. Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. 7 Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, snail, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States: if he e a PP rove he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. 8 If, after such Reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be deter mined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. Tf any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sunday excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjourn ment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. Every Order, Resolution, or A r ote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment), Approval and veto shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the powers of President. g amo shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall bo repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representa tives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill. 9 SECTION 8. The Congress shall have power Power* vested in To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises ; to pay the Debts Congress. an( j p rov i(j e f or the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States : but all Duties, Imposts, and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 10 1. There are occasions when the public good requires secret legislation, and a withholding from the people a knowledge of measures dis cussed and adopted in Congress, as in a time of war, of insurrection, or of very important diplomatic negotiations. 2. The object of this is to make a permanent record of the votes of members, so that the constituents of each may know their action on important questions. It is a salutary regulation. 3. This is to prevent a majority, in either House, from interrupting, for more than three days, the legislation of Congress. 4. Formerly the members were paid a certain amount per day, with a specified amount for each mile traveled in going to and returning from the National capital. The present compensation is a fixed sum for each Congress, with mileage. 5 This was to prevent the interruption of their duties, during th session of Congress, and to give them perfect freedom of speech. 6. This serves as a check to the increase of the power of the executive over the legislative department of the Government, by the means of appointment to office. It prevents wide-spread political corruption. A person holding an office, when elected to Congress, is compelled to resign it before he can tike his seat. 7. The members of the House of Representatives are more immediately elected by the people, and are supposed to better understand the wishes an.i wants of their constituents, th.m those of the Senate. The Senate, being the representative of the equality of the States, stands as a check to legislation that might impose too heavy taxation on the smaller States. 8. This power is given to the President to arrest hasty or unconstitutional legislation, and to operate as a check on the encroachment on the- Tights and powers of one department over another, by legislation. It is not absolute, as the context shows, as it may be set aside by a vote of two thirds of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, who passed it. 9. This requirement is made that Congress may not pass, with the name of order, resolution, or vote, what, as a bill, the President has already vetoed, as his method of returning a bill, with his objections, is called. 10. The power of Congress to lay and collect duties, &c., for national purposes, extends to the District of Columbia, and to the Territories THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. Jxl To borrow Money on the credit of the United States ; ! To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; 2 To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, 3 and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankrupt cies 4 throughout the United States ; To coin Money, regulate the Yalue thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of "Weights and Measures ; 5 To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States ; To establish Post Offices and Post Roads ; To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries ; 6 To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations ; 7 To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water ; To raise and support Armies ; but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years ; To provide and maintain a Navy ; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the Land and Naval Forces ; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrec tions, and repel Invasions ; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States reserving to the States respect ively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the Discipline prescribed by Congress ; 8 To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, 9 and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for Mie Erec tion of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dockyards, and other needful Buildings ; And To make -all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the fore going Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. SECTION 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the Immigrants, how States now existing shall think proper to admit, shah 1 not be prohibited by of the United States, as well as to the States ; but Congress is not bound to extend a direct tax to the District and Territories. The stipula tion that the taxes, &c., shall be uniform throughout the United States, is to prevent favors being shown to one State orsection of the Repub lic, and not to another. 1. This was to enable the Government to provide for its expenses at a time of domestic insurrection or a foreign war, when the sources of revenue by taxation and impost, might be obstructed. 2. This power was lacking, under the Articles of Confederation. It is one of the most important powers delegated by the people to their representatives, for it involves national development and prosperity. 3. The power of naturalization was possessed by each State under the Confederation. There was such want of uniformity of laws on the subject, that confusion was already manifested, when the people, by the Constitution, vested the power exclusively in Congress. Thus a State is prohibited from discouraging emigration, or casting hinderances in the way of obtaining citizenship. By a recent decision of the Attorney-General of the Republic, every person born within its borders is entitled to the rights of citizenship. It is a birthright. 4. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, a State has authority to pass a bankrupt law, provided such law does not impair the obligations of contracts within the meaning of the Constitution (art. L, sec. 10), and provided there be no act of Congress in force to establish a uniform system of bankruptcy conflicting with such law. 5. This was to insure uniformity in the metallic currency of the Republic, and of weights and measures, for the benefit of the people in commercial operations. 6. The first copy-right law was enacted in 1790, on the petition of David Ramsay, the historian, and others. A copy-right, or patent-right to an invention, is given for a specified time. A copy-right is granted for 28 years, and a renewal for 14 years. Patents are granted for 17 years, without the right of extension. 7. Congress has power to provide for the punishment of offences committed by persons on board of an American ship, wherever that ship may be. 8. Clauses 11 to 16 inclusive, define the war powers of the Government, such as granting licenses to privateers (see page 377, and note 5, page 641), raising and supporting armed forces on land and sea, calling out the militia, &c. See Article II. of the Amendments to this Con stitution. These powers, used by the hand of an efficient and judicious Executive, are quite sufficient. The President cannot exercise any of them, until the power is given him by Congress, when he is bound by his oath to take care that all the laws shall be executed. 9. Congress has authority to impose a direct tax on the District of Columbia (note 1, page 388), in proportion to Ihe census directed by th Constitution to be taken. Xii SUPPLEMENT. the Congress prior to the Tear one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or Duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. 1 The Privilege of the "Writ of -Habeas Corpus 2 shall not be suspended, Habeas Corpus. un i es s when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. Attainder. j^ o Bill of Attainder 3 or ex post Facto law shall be passed. 4 No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to Taxes. ^ e Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. 5 No Tax or Duty shah 1 be laid on articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Regulations regard- Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another ; nor shall Yessels ing duties. bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another. 6 No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Ap- Money, how drawn. p rO priations made by law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. 7 No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States : And no Titles of nobility Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the prohibited. Consent of the Congress, accept of any Present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or Foreign State. 8 SECTION 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation ; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal ; coin Money ; emit Bills of Credit ; make any Thing- Powers of States but gold and. silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of defined. Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what maybe absolutely necessar} - for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States ; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships-of-War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in "War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of Delay. 9 ARTICLE II. Executive power, in SECTION 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the whom vested. United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of 1. The object of this clause was to end the slave-trade, or the importation of negroes from Africa, to become slaves in the United States, after the first of January, 1808. The Articles of Confederation allowed any State to continue the traffic indefinitely, for the States were inde pendent of each other, and the organic law was silent on the subject. The importation of slaves after the beginning of 1808, was prohibited under severe penalties by the Act of March 2, 1807. Acts on the subject have since been passed by Congress from time to time. That of 18itf> declared the foreign slave-trade to be piracy. In July, 1862, Congress made provisions for carrying into effect a treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade. A domestic slave-trade was kept up until the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861. It was Virginia s largest source of revenue. 2. This is a writ for delivering a person from false imprisonment, or for removing a person from one court to another. The act of sus pending the privilege of the writ must be done by the Executive, in the cases specified, under the authority of an Act of Congress. 3. A deprivation of power to inherit or transmit property, a loss of civil rights, .fee. 4. Declaring an act criminal or penal, which was innocent when committed. 5. This was to secure uniformity in taxes laid on persons or on lands. 6. To secure free trade between the States, that one might not have an advantage over another, was the object of these two clauses. 7. This gives to Congress the control of the money belonging to the Republic, and places it beyond the reach of the Executive. 8. This was to secure equality of rights and privileges among the citizens, and to check the bad effects of foreign influences in the form of aristocratic distinctions. 9. By this section the people of the several States who, in conventions, ratified the National Constitution, invested the General Govern - ment with the supreme attributes of sovereignty exclusively, while reserving to themselves, or their respective commonwealths, the power* peculiar to the municipal authority of a State, which are essential to the regulation of its internal affairs, and the preservation of its domestic institutions from interference by another State, or by the National Government in a time of domestic tranquillity. The National Government is hereby empowered to act for the people of the whole Republic as a nation. Having no superior, it is sovereign. See Story s Commentaries on the Constitution, chapter xxxv. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. x iii four Years, 1 and together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows : Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress : but no Senator or Repre- presidential electors, sentative, or Person holding an OfBce of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. [The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with them selves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the Pre pf e l^^ d jJ^ ce number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and trans- elected. mit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immedi ately chuse by ballot One of them for President ; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the votes shall be taken by States the representation from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Yice-President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President. 2 ] The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Time ofclioosing Day on which they shall give their Votes ; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. 3 No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have at tained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President 4 and the Congress may by Law provide Resort in case of his for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the Presi dent and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. 5 The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compen sation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for Salary of the Presi- which he shall have been elected, and he shall .not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. 6 Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the follow- Oath of Office. ing Oath or Affirmation : 1 The Executive is a co-ordinate but not coequal branch of the Government with the legislative, for he is the agent provided in the Con- titution for executing the laws of a superior, the Congress or legislature. 2 This clause was afterward annulled, and Article XII. of the Amendments to this Constitution was substituted for it. Originally tni electors voted by ballot, for two persons, one of whom, at least, should not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. The one who received the highest number of votes was declared to be President, and the one receiving the next highest number was declared to be President. For an example, see page 383. 3. See Amendments to the Constitution, Article XII. By an Act passed in 1845 (January 23), the electors must be chosen, m each . bate, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be elected. In the preceding portion of this history, when the election of a President is spoken of, it is meant that electors favorable to such candidates were chosen at that time. 4. For examples, see pages 476, 501, and 721. 5. Provision has been made for the President of the Senate, for the time being, or if there shall be no such officer, the Speaker of f Representatives, shall perform the executive functions. 6. The salary of the President was fixed by the first Congress at $25,000 a year, and that of the Vice-President at $3,000, and such they are at present, The salary for each entire term was so fixed, that the executive might be independent of the legislative department for it. xiv SUPPLEMENT. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." SECTION 2. The President shall be Commander in chief of the Army and Duties of the Presi- Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when dent - called into the actual Service of the United States; 1 he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Depart ments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Eeprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. 2 He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur ; and he shall nominate, Hi* power to make an d by an d with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Am- treaites, appoint em- bassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein hitherto provided for, and which shall be established by Law: 3 but the Con gress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall ex pire at the End of their next Session. 4 SECTION 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall Power to convene judge necessary and expedient; 5 he may, on extraordinary Occasions, con- Congress. vene both Houses, or either of them, 6 and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, ho may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; 7 he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the officers of the United States. SECTION 4. The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the ** United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Con viction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes or Misdemeanors. ARTICLE III. SECTION 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold veSSST their Offices durin g good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. 8 1. This was to insure unity and efficiency in action, when foreign war or domestic insurrection should call for the services of the army and navy. His large powers as Executive are directed by constitutional provisions. He is the arm of the nation to execute its bidding. 2. It is presumed that the Executive is above the personal, local, or sectional influences that might be brought to bear, in these cases, on the courts or on legislative bodies. The Executive, according to a decision of the Supreme Court, has power to grant a pardon before trial or conviction. See Brightley s Analytical Digest of the Laws of the United States, page 7, note (e). 3. The President is presumed to be more fully informed concerning the foreign relations of the Republic, and the fitness of men for the highest offices. The Senate represents the legislative department of the Government in treaty-making and the appointment of high officers, and is a check on the Executive against any encroachments on the rights of Congress in the matter. 4. This limitation to. executive appointments is to prevent the President from neutralizing the action of the Senate as a co-ordinate power. 5. It is the practice of the President to submit to Congress, at the opening of each session, a statement of national affairs. This is called his Annual Message. Washington and John Adams read their messages in person to the assembled Congress. Jefferson first sent his message to them, by his private secretary. That practice is still kept up. 6. The President, with his better information concerning national affiiirs, can best judge when an extraordinary session of Congress may be necessary. 7. He may also refuse to receive them, and thereby annul or prevent diplomatic relations between the United States and any country. 8. See page 368, and note 1, page 369. This section provides that the Supreme Court shall be a co-ordinate branch of the National Gov ernment, yet independent of and distinct from both the legislative and executive departments. The powers of the National Government, it will be seen, are threefold, namely, legislative, judicial, and executive. The first enacts laws, the second interprets them, and the third enforces them. The Supreme Court consists of one chief-justice and several associate justices, who hold an annual session at the national tapital, commencing on the day when Congress meets first Wednesday in December. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. xv SECTION 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority ; to all cases affecting Ambassadors, TO what cases it other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and mari- extends. time Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party ; to Controversies between two or more States ; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; 1 between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appel- jurisdiction of the late Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under Supreme Court. such Regulations as the Congress shall make. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury ; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed ; but when not committed within any State, the Trial Rules respecting shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. 2 SECTION 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levy ing War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Treason defined. Comfort. 3 No Person shall be convicted of Treason, unless on the Testimony of two "Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture How punished. except during the Life of the Person attainted. 4 ARTICLE IY. SECTION 1 . Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. 5 And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings J? ^ / shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. 6 SECTION 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges Privileges of citizens. and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. 7 A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of Executive requisition. the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. 8 1. A citizen of the District of Columbia (note 1, page 38S) is not a citizen of a State, within the meaning of this Constitution. The Dis trict is under the immediate control of Congress, and has neither a legislature or governor. 2. See Amendments to the Constitution, Articles V., VI., VII., VIII. 3. At the trial of Aaron Burr (see page 393), Chief-Justice Marshall said: "Any combination to subvert by force the Government of the United States ; violently to dismember the Union ; to compel a change in the administration, to coerce the repeal or adoption of a general law, is a conspiracy to levy war. And if conspiracy be carried into effect by the actual employment of force, by the embodying and assembling of men for the purpose of executing the treasonable design which was previously conceived, it amounts to levying war." 4. The limit as to forfeiture applies only to the real estate of the criminal, which, at his death, must be restored to his heirs or assigns The dower right of his wife also remains untouched. See Kent s Commentaries on American Law, ii. 464. This is more humane than the English law of treason. It does not punish the innocent wife and children of a criminal on account of his crimes. 5. A judgment of a State court has the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court within the United States, which it .had in the court where it was rendered ; and whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such State, and none others, can be pleaded in any other court within the United States. Hampton v. McConnell, 3 Wheaton, 234. 6. On the 26th of May, 1790, Congress, by act, gave effect to this section. 7. This is a recognition of nationality the supreme rights of the people as citizens of the United States. It decrees the right to all funda mental privileges and immunities which any State grants to its citizens, excepting those granted to corporations, or conferred by special local legislation. It is intended to secure and perpetuate a friendly intercourse throughout the Republic. It sets aside the erroneous as sumption that National citizenship is subordinate to State citizenship. 8. This is to aid the claims of justice, by preventing one portion of the Republic becoming an asylum for the criminals of another portion. XV J SUPPLEMENT. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof escaping to another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from Law regulating^ermce guch gervice or Labour) but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. 1 SECTION 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this New States, how Union; 2 but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction formed and admitted. o f any o ther State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. 3 The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules Power of Congress ancl Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the over public lands. United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. 4 SECTJOX 4. The Constitution shall guaranty to every State in this Union Republican govern- a Republican Form of Government, 5 and shall protect each of them against ment guarantied. Invasion ; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when, the Legislature can not be convened) against domestic violence. 6 ARTICLE V. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures Constitution, how to be of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing amended. Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Pur poses, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification maybe proposed by the Congress; 7 Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Tear one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article ; 8 and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. 9 ARTICLE VI, All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption Validity of Debts f this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this. recognised. Constitution, as under the Confederation. 10 1. This is the clause of the Constitution, on which was based the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. See page 501. It applied to runaway slaves and apprentices. Congress gave effect to it by an act on the 12th of February, 1793, and another on the 18th of September, 1850. At the time when the Constitution was framed, slavery existed in all the States of the Union, excepting Massachusetts. By the operation of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution (which see on page 756) this clause has no relation to any other persons excepting fugitive indentured apprentices. 2. The Congress is not compelled to admit a new State. It is left to the option of that body, whether any new State shall be admitted, 3. States have been admitted in three ways : 1. By joint action of the Congress and a State, by which a portion of a State has been made a separate commonwealth, as in the case of Vermont, Kentucky, Maine, and Virginia. 2. By an act of Congress, creating a s tate directly from a Territory of the United States, as in the case of Tennessee. 3. By a joint resolution of Congress and a foreign State, such State may be admitted, as in the case of Texas. 4. This provides for the establishment, under the authority of Congress, of Territorial governments, which is the first step toward the for mation of a State or States. The first government of the kind was that of the Northwestern Territory (see page 362), established in 1787, and adopted by Congress under the National Constitution of the 7th of August 1789. 5. No other form of government could exist within the United Stntes, without peril to the Republic. By this section, the National Government is empowered to assume positive sovereignty as to the fundamental character of the State Government, leaving to the State terri torial sovereignty, as to its municipal laws and domestic institutions, so long as they are consonant with a republican form of government. 6. The States are prohibited from keeping troops as a standing army, or ships of war, in time of peace, individually; therefore it is made the duty of the sovereign power of the United States to protect the States against invasion and " domestic violence," such as treason, rebel lion, or insurrection. When these exist in any State, it is the duty of the Naiional Government to use its power in suppressing it. 7. This articie effectually checks any fundamental change in the Constitution, excepting in a way which recognizes the source of all true sovereignty, the PEOPLE, unless it be by sudden and violent revolution. 8. See section 9, page 747. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution (see page 756) renders this section a dead letter. 9. Here, again, is a provision for securing the smaller States from encroachments on their rights by the larger States. 10. This was for the security to the creditors of the United States, of the payment of debts incurred during the Revolution. It was national and positive recognition of the postulate in international law, that " Debte due to foreigners, and obligations to other creditors, sur vive a change in the Government." THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. XV11 This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges Supreme law of the in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws land deftMd. of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. 1 The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support Oath, of whom reguir- this Constitution ; 2 but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualift- ed and what for. cation to any Office or public Trust under the United States. 3 ARTICLE VII. The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. 4 Ratification. DONE in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present, the Seventeenth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States the Twelfth. IN WITNESS whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names. GEO. WASHINGTON, President, and deputy from NEW HAMPSHIRE. JOHN LANGDON, NICHOLAS GILMAN. MASSACHUSETTS. NATHANIEL GORHAM, RUFUS KING. CONNECTICUT. WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON, ROGER SHERMAN. NEW YORK. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. NEW JERSEY. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, DAVID B RE A RLE Y, WILLIAM PATERSON, JONATHAN DAYTON. PENNSYLVANIA. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THOMAS MIFFLIN, ROBERT MORRIS, GEORGE CLYMER, THOMAS FITZSIMONS, JARED INGERSOLL, JAMES WILSON, GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. DELAWARE. GEORGE REED, GUNNING BEDFORD, JR., JOHN DICKINSON, RICHARD BASSETT, JACOB BROOM. MARYLAND. JAMES M HENRY, DANIEL OF ST. THOS. JENIFER, DANIEL CARROLL. Attest : VIRGINIA. JOHN BLAIR, JAMES MADISON, JR. NORTH CAROLINA. WILLIAM BLOUNT, RICHARD DOBBS SPAIGHT, HUGH WILLIAMSON. SOUTH CAROLINA. CHARLES C. PINCKNEY, CHARLES PINCKNEY, JOHN RUTLEDGE, PIERCE BUTLEE. GEORGIA. WILLIAM FEW, ABRAHAM BALDWIN. WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary. 1. A clear and positive declaration of the supremacy of the National Government, resistance to which is treason. 2. State officers are bound to support the Constitution because they may be required to perform some service in giving effect to that supreme law of the land," in other words, of the Republic. 3. This is to prevent a political union of Church and State, which is alwav prejudicial to the best interests of both. 4. See note 1, page 360. SUPPLEMENT. AMENDMENTS 1 TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, RATIFIED ACCORDING- TO THE PROVISIONS OF THE FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE FOREGOING- CONSTITUTION. ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or freedom in religion prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or Q/tid speech, ana of trie _ . press. Of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to peti tion the Government for a redress of grievances. 2 ARTICLE II. Militia. "^ well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. ARTICLE III. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the Soldiers. consent of the Owner, nor in a time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 3 ARTICLE IY. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no "Warrants Search-warrants, shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized. 4 1. At the first session of the First Congress, begun and held in the city of New York, on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1789, many Amendments to the National Constitution were offered for consideration. The Congress proposed ten of them to the legislatures of the seve ral States. These were ratified by the constitutional number of State Legislatures in the middle of December, 1791. Another was proposed, on the 5th of March, 1794, and was ratified in 1798; and still another on the 12th of December, 1803, which was ratified in 1804. These, with the other ten, became a part of the National Constitution. A thirteenth amendment was proposed by Congress on the 1st of May, 1810, but has never been ratified. It was to prohibit citizens of the United States accepting, claiming, receiving, or retaining any title of nobility or honor, or any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any "person, king, prince, or foreign "Power," without the consent of Congress, under the penalty of disfranchisement, or ceasing to be a citizen of the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment was adopted by Congress or. the 31st of January, 1865, and its ratification by the requisite number of State Legislatures was announced on the 18th of December following. A Fourteenth Amendment was proposed by a joint resolution adopted on the 13th of June, 1866, the object of which was to complete the work done by the Thirteenth Amendment, by guaranteeing to all citizens an equality of civil and political rights, and the payment of the public debt , also to forbid the payment, by the general or any State govern ment, of any debt or obligation incurred in aid of the rebellion, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave. This amendment was ratified by twenty-two States (five less than the required number), when this record closed, in May, 1868. The Amendments to the Constitution, excepting the Twelfth, are authoritative declarations securing to the people and the several State, certain rights, against any possible encroachments of Congress. They form a Bill of Rights. 2. This article gives an additional assurance of religious freedom. See clause 3d, Article VI., of the Constitution. It also secures the invaluable right of the freedom of speech and of the press ; and the privilege for the people of making their grievances known to the National Government. 3. This is to protect citizens, in time of peace, from the oppressions of military power, and to secure uniformity in the rules for quartering eoldiers upon citizens in time of war. 4. The security of the private citizen from an infringement of his rights by public officers, herein guaranteed, is in accordance with th English maxim that " Every man s house is his castle." See page 212. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. x x ARTICLE Y. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a pre sentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or Capital crimes. public danger ; ! nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 2 ARTICLE VI. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, . and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be con fronted with the witnesses against him ; to have Compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. ARTICLE YII. In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be other wise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the Sfwiu at w law - rules of the common law. ARTICLE VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 3 ARTICLE IX. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con- c&ri(tin right8 denned strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 4 ARTICLE X. The powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to Rights reS6rv6d - the people. 5 ARTICLE XI. The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the judicial power United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any foreign State. 1. In such cases offenses are within the jurisdiction of the military and naval courts-martial. 2. These prohibitions do not relate to State governments, but to the National Government, according to a decision of the Supreme Court The several States make their own laws on these subjects. 3. These several amendments, concerning the operations of law through the instrumentality of the courts, are all intended to secure the citizen against the arbitrary exercise of power on the part of the judiciary. 4. That is to say, because certain rights and powers of the people are not enumerated in the Constitution, it is not to be inferred that they are denied. 5. This is simply an enunciation of the broad democratic principle, that the people are the true sources of all political power. 6. This is to limit the judicial power of the National courts." Previous to the adoption of this amendment, the Supreme Court had decided that the power of the National judiciary extended to suits brought by or against a State of the Republic. Now, no person has a right to com mence a personal suit against a State, in the Supreme Court of the United States, for the recovery of property seized and iold by a State, SUPPLEMENT. ARTICLE XII. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves ; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President and Vice President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Yice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Yice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to The President of the Senate; The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted ; the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose imme diately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall con sist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next fol lowing, then the Yice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other con stitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Yice President shall be the Yice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Yice President ; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Yice President of the United States. ARTICLE XIII. SECTION \. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party OT,/: , f^hiHrian shall have bceu duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or in anyplace >iavety JWOK len. eub j ect to thelr jurisdiction. SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation. ARTICLE XIV. i SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdic tion thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein Citizenship. they . resid(3i No gtate ghall make Qr en f orce any i aw which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. . SECTION 2. Representatives slinll be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, Apportionment reg- excluding i ndians not taxed; but when the right to vote at any election mated by the elective . ,, 7. , . _. . , , TT r -,-. . , ,i , TT *. j franchise choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, (being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States,) or in any way abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 1 The Joint Resolution of Couprsss, proposing this amendment, was passed on the 13th of June, 1866; and on the 20th of July, 1868, the secretary of State proclaimed that the required number of States had ratified it, to make it a part of the National. Constitution. THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. X ,.-J SECTION 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector, or Presi dent, or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the Disabilities. United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; but Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. SECTION 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, includ ing debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties, for services in Inviolability of the suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned; but neither national faith. the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obliga tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss of or emancipation of any slave. But all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. SECTION 5. Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of the Article. ARTICLE XV. SECTION 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, or Right to -vote. previous condition of servitude. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation. III. THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. Here, on the verge of the Centennial anniversary of the birth of our Republic, let us take a brief review of the Material and Intellectual progress of our country during the first hundred years of its political independence. The extent of the conceded domain of the United States, in 1776, was not more than half a, million square miles ; now x it is mor^ than three million three hundred thousand square miles. Its population then was about a million and a half ; now it is forty million. The products of the soil are the foundations of the material wealth of a nation. It has been eminently so with us, notwithstanding the science of agriculture and the construction of good implements of labor were greatly neglected until the early part of the present century. A hundred years ago the Agricultural interests of our country were mostly in the hands of uneducated men. Science was not applied to husbandry. A spirit of improvement was scarcely known. The son copied the ways of his father. He worked with no other implements and pursued no other methods of cultivation ; and he who attempted a change was regarded as a visionary or an innovator. Very little associated effort for improvement in the business of farming was then seen. The first association for such a purpose was formed in the South, and was known as the " South Carolina Agricultural Society," organized in 1784. A similar society was formed in Pennsylvania the following year. Now there are State, county, and even town agricultural societies, in almost every part of the Union. Agricultural implements were rude and simple. They consisted chiefly of the plough, harrow, spade, hoe, hand-rake, scytho, sickle, and wooden fork. The plough had a clumsy wrought-iron share with wooden mould-board, which was sometimes plated with pieces of old tin or sheet-iron. The rest of the structure was equally clumsy ; and the implement required, in its use, twice the amount of strength, of man and beast, that the present plough does. Im provements in the construction of ploughs during the past fifty years, save to the country an nually, in work and teams, at least $13,000,000. The first patent for a cast-iron plough was issued in 1797. To the beginning of 1875, about 400 patents have been granted. A hundred years ago the seed was sown by hand, and the entire crop was harvested by hard manual labor. The grass was cut with a scythe, and "cured " and gathered with a fork and hand-rake. The grain was cut with a sickle, threshed with a flail or the treading of horses, and was cleared of the chaff by a large clamshell-shaped fan of wicker-work, used in a gentle breeze. The drills, seed-sowers, cultivators, mowers, reapers, threshing-machines, and fauning- mills of our day, were all unknown. They are the inventions of a time within the memory of living men. Abortive attempts were made toward the close of the last century to introduce a threshing-machine from. England, but the flail held sway until two generations ago. 2 Indian corn, tobacco, wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and hay were staple products of the farm a hundred years ago. Timothy and orchard grass had then just been introduced. The cultiva tion of all these has been greatly increased. Then nearly the whole products, excepting tobacco, were consumed by the million and a half people ; now forty million are supported by them 1 When the word noio appears in this relation, it means the year 1875. 2 Washington, in a letu r to General H nry Lee. written in tae autumn of 1793, remarks : " The model [of a threshing machine] brought ov r by the English farmer- , may also be a good one, but the utility of it among carc-le-s negroes and ignorant overseers wi 1 depend absolutely upon the simplicity of construc tion : for if there is anything complex in the machinery, it wi 1 be no longer in use than a mushroom is in existence. I have eeen so much of the beginning and ending of nt>w inventions, that I have almost resolved to po on in the old way of treading uutil I get settled again at home, and can attena myself to the management of one." O THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. and vast amounts of agricultural products are exported to foreign countries. At the present time these products amount annually, on an average, in round numbers as follows : Indian corn, 900,000,000 bushels ; wheat, 270,000,000 ; rye, 22,000,000 ; oats, 300,000,000 ; potatoes, 165,000,000 ; and buckwheat (introduced within the century), 15,000,000. The hay crop averages about 28,000,000 tons; the tobacco crop about 285,000,000 pounds; flax, 28,000,000 pounds, and hemp, 12,000 tons. To these agricultural products have been addoi within the century, barley, cotton, and sugar. Of barley the average crop is about 28,000,000 bushels; cotton about 2,000,000,000 pounds, and sugar 120,000 hogsheads of 1,000 pounds each. The expansion of the cotton culture has been marvellous. In 1784, eight bales of cotton sent to England from Charleston, were seized by the custom-house authorities in Liverpool on the ground that so large a quantity could not have come from the United States. The progress of its culture was slow until the invention of the gin, by Mr. Whitney, for clearing the seed from the fibre. It did the work of many persons. The cultivation of cotton rapidly spread. From 1793 to 1800 the amount of cotton raised had increased from 133,000 pounds to 18,000,000 pounds, all of which was wanted in England, where improved machinery was manufacturing it into cloth. The value of slave labor was increased, and a then dying institution li ved in vigor until killed by the Civil War. The value of the cotton crop in 1792 was $30, 000 ; now its average annual value is about $180,000,000. Fruit culture a hundred years ago was very little thought of. Inferior varieties of apples, pears, peaches, plums, and cherries were cultivated for family use. It was nob until the begin ning of the present century that any large orchards were planted. The cultivation of grapes and berries was almost wholly unknown fifty years ago. The first horticultural society was formed in 1829. Before that time fruit was not an item of commercial statistics in our country. Now the average annual value of fruit is estimated at $80,000,000. Our grape crop alone exceeds in value $30,000,000. Improvements in live stock have all been made within the present century. The native breeds were descended from stock sent over to the colonies, and were generally inferior. In 1772 Washington wrote in his diary : " With one hundred milch cows on my farm, I have to buy butter for my family." Now 11,000,000 cows supply 40,000,000 inhabitants with milk, butter, and cheese, and allow large exports of the latter article. At least 225,000,000 gallons of milk are sold annually. The annual butter product of our country now is more than 500,000,000 pounds, and of cheese 70,000,000. There are now about 30,000,000 horned cattle in the United States, equal in average quality to those of any country in the world. A hundred years ago mules and asses were chiefly used for farming purposes and ordinary transportation. Carriage-horses were imported from Europe. Now our horses of every kind are equal to those of any other country. It is estimated that there are about 10,000,000 horses in the United States, or one to every four persons. Sheep husbandry has greatly improved. The inferior breeds of the last century, raised only in sufficient quantity to supply the table, and the domestic looms in the manuf acture of yarns and coarse cloth, have been superseded by some of the finer varieties. Merino sheep were introduced early in this century. The embargo before the war of 1812, and the establish ment of manufactures here afterward, stimulated sheep and wool-raising, and these have been, important items in our national wealth. There are now about 30,000,000 sheep in the United States. Calif ornia is taking the lead as a wool-producing State. In 1870, the wool product of the United States amounted to 100,000,000 pounds. Improvements in the breed of swine during the last fifty years have been very great. They have become a large item in our national commercial statistics. At this time there are about 26,000,000 head of swine in this country. Enormous quantities of pork, packed and in the form of bacon, are exported annually. These brief statistics of the principal products of agriculture, show its development in this country, and its importance. Daniel Webster said, "Agriculture feeds ; to a great extent it clothes us ; without it we should not have manufactures ; we should not have commerce. They all stand together like pillars in a cluster, the largest in the centre, and that largest AGBICULTURE." The great manufacturing interests of our country are tho product of the century now- closing. The policy of the British government was to suppress manufacturing in the English- American colonies, and cloth-making was confined to the household. When non-importation agreements cut off supplies from Great Britain, the Irish flax- wheel and the Dutch wool- wheel SUPPLEMENT. were made active in families. All other kinds of manufacturing were of small account in this country until the concluding decade of the last century. In Great Britain the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, had stimulated the cotton and woollen manufactures, and the effects finally reached the United States. Massachusetts offered a grant of money to promote the establishment of a cotton-mill, and one was built at Beverly in 1787, the first erected in the United States. It had not the improved English machinery. In 1789 Samuel Slater came from England with full knowledge of that machinery, and in connection with, Messrs. Almy and Brown, of Providence, R. I., established a cotton factory there in 1790, wi jh. the improved implements. Then was really begun the manufacture of cotton in the United States. Twenty years later the number of cotton mills in our country was 168, with 90,003 spindles. The business has greatly expanded. In Massachusetts, the foremost State in the manufacture ot cotton, there are now over 200 mills, employing, in prosperous times, 50,000 persons, and a capital of more than $30,000,000. The city of Lowell was founded by the erec tion of a cotton mill there in 1822; and there the printing of calico was first begun in the United States soon afterward. With wool as with cotton, the manufacture into cloth was confined to households, for homo use, until near the close of the last century. The wool was carded between two cards held in the hands of the operator, and all the processes were slow and crude. In 1797, Asa Whitte- more, of Massachusetts, invented a carding-machine, and this led to the establishment of woollen manufactures outside of families. In his famous report on manufactures, in 1791, Alexander Hamilton said that of woollen goods, hats only had reached maturity. The busi ness had been carried on with success in colonial times. The wool was felted by hand, and furs were added by the same slow process. This manual labor continued until a little more than thirty years ago, when it was supplanted by machinery. Immense numbers of hats of every kind are now made in qur country. At the time of Hamilton s report there was only one woollen-mill in the United States. It was at Hartford, Connecticut. In it were made cloths and cassimeres. Now woollen fac tories may be found in almost every State in the Union, turning out annually the finest cloths, cassimeres, flannels, carpets, and every variety of goods made of wool. In this business, as in- cotton, Massachusetts has taken the lead. The value of manufactured woollens in the United States, at the close of the Civil War, was estimated at about 00,000,000. The supply of wooi in the United States has never been equal to the demand. The smelting of iron ore, and the manufacture of iron, has become an immense business in our country. The development of ore deposits, and of coal used in smelting, are among the marvels of our history. English navigation laws discouraged iron manufacture in the colonies. Only blast-furnaces for making pig-iron were allowed. This product was nearly all sent to England in exchange for manufactured articles ; and the whole amount of such exportation, at the beginning of the old war for independence, was less than 8,000 tons annually. The colonists were wholly dependent upon Great Britain for articles manufactured of iron and steel^excepting rude implements made by blacksmiths for domestic use. During the war the Continental Congress were compelled to establish manufactures of iron and steel. These were chiefly in Northern New Jersey, the Hudson Highlands, and Western Connecticut, where excellent ore was found, and forests in abundance for making charcoal. The first use of anthracite coal for smelting iron was in the Continental armory at Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, in 1775. But charcoal was universally used until 1840 for smelting ores. Now iron is manufactured in our country in every form from a nail to a locomotive. A vast number of machines have been invented for carrying on these manufactures ; and the products in cutlery, fire-arms, railway materials, and machinery of every kind, employ vast numbers of men and a great amount of capital. Oar locomotive builders are regarded as the best in the world ; and no nation on the globe can compete with us in the construction of steam-boats of every kind, from the iron-clad war steamer to the harbor tug. In the manufacture of copper, silver, and gold, there has been great progress. At the close of the Revolution no manufactures of the kind existed in our country. Now the manu facture of copper ware yearly, of every kind, jewelry and watches, has become a large item in our commercial tables. The manufacture of paper is a very large item in the business of our country. At the close of the Revolution there were only three mills in the United States. At the begin ning of the war a demand sprung up, and Willcox, in his mill near Philadelphia, mad 3 the first writing-paper produced in this country. He manufactured the thick, coarsa paper on which the Continental money was printed. So early as 1794 the business had so THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. XXvii increased that there were in Pennsylvania alone forty-eight paper-mills. There has been a steady increase in the business ever since. Within the last twenty-five years that increase has been enormous, and yet not sufficient to meet the demand. Improvements in printing presses have cheapened the production of books and newspapers, and the circulation of these has greatly increased. It is estimated that the amount of paper now manufactured annually in the United States for these, for paper-hangings, and for wrapping paper, is full 800,000,000 pounds. The supply of raw material here has not been equal to the demand, and rags to the value of about $2,000,000 in a year have been imported. The manufacture of ships, carriages, wagons, clocks and watches, pins, leather, glass, Indian rubber, silk, wood, sewing-machines, and a variety of other things wholly unknown or feebly carried on a hundred years ago, now flourish and form very important items in our domestic commerce. The sewing-machine is an American invention, and the first really prac tical one was first offered to the public by Elias Howe, Jr., about thirty years ago. A patent had been obtained for one five years before. Great improvements have been made, and now a very extensive business in the manufacture and sale of sewing-machines is carried on by different companies, employing a large amount of capital and costly machinery, and a great number of persons. The mining interests of the United States have become an eminent part of the national wealth. The extraction of lead, iron, copper, and the precious metals, and coal from the bosom of the earth, is a business that has almost wholly grown up within the last hundred years. In 1754 a lead mine was worked in Southwestern Virginia; and in 1778, Dubuque, a French miner, worked lead ore deposits on the western bank of the Upper Mississippi. The Jesuit missionaries discovered copper in the Lake Superior region more than two hundred years ago, and that remains the chief source of our native copper ore. That metal is produced in smaller quantities in other States, chiefly in the West and Southwest. A lust for gold, and the knowledge of its existence in America, was the chief incentive to emigration to these shores. But within the domain of our republic very little of it was found, until that domain was extended far toward the Pacific ocean. It was unsuspected until long after the Revolution. Finally gold was discovered among the mountains of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and in Georgia. North Carolina was the first State in the Union to send gold to the mint in Philadelphia. Its first small contribution was in 1804. From that time until 1823 the average amount produced from North Carolina mines did not exceed $2,500 annually. Virginia s first contribution was in 1829, when that of North Carolina, for that year, was $128,000. Georgia sent its first contribution in 1830. It amounted to $212,000. The product so increased that branch mints were established in North Carolina and Georgia in 1837 and 1838, and another at New Orleans. In 1848 gold was discovered on the American fork of the Sacramento river in California, and soon afterward elsewhere in that region. A gold fever seized the people of the United States, and thousands rushed to Calif ornia in search of the precious metals. Within a year from the discovery, nearly 50,000 people were there. Less than five years afterward Califor nia, in one year, sent to the United States mint full $40,000,000 in gold. Its entire gold pro duct to this time is^estimated at more than $800,000,000. Over all the far western States and Territories the precious metals gold and silver seem to be scattered in profusion, and the amount of mineral wealth yet to be discovered there seems to be incalculable. Our coal fields seem to be inexhaustible ; and out of the bosom of the earth, in portions of our country, flow millions of barrels annually of petroleum or rock oil, affording the cheapest illuminating material in the world. Mineral coal was first discovered and used in Pennsylvania at the period of the Revolution. A boat load was sent down the Susquehanna from Wilkes-Barre" for the use of the Continental Works at Carlisle. But it was not much used before the War of 1812 ; and the regular busi ness of mining this fuel did not become a part of the commerce of the country before the year 1820, when 365 tons were sent to Philadelphia. At the present time the amount of coal sent to market from the American mines of all kinds is equal to full 15,000,000 tons annually. The commerce of the United States has had a wonderful growth. Its most active develop ment was seen in New England. British legislation imposed heavy burdens upon it in Colonial times, and, like manufactures, it was greatly depressed. The New Englanders built many vessels for their own use, but more for others ; and, just before the breaking out of the Revo lution, there was quite a brisk trade carried on between the English- American Colonies and the West Indies, as well as with the mother country. The Colonists exported tobacco, lumber, shingles, staves, masts, turpentine, hemp, flax, pot and pearl ashes, salted fiih in great q-aanti- xxv iii SUPPLEMENT. ties, some corn, live stock, pig-iron, and skins and furs procured by traffic with the Indians. Whale and cod fishing was an important branch of commerce. In the former, there were 160 vessels employed at the beginning of 1775, and sperm candles and whale oil were exported to Great Britain. In exchange for New England products, a large amount of molasses was brought from the West Indies and made into rum to sell to the Indians and fishermen, and to exchange for slaves on the coast of Africa. The entire exports of the Colonies in the year 1770 amounted in value to $14,2(32,000. At the close of the war, the British government refused to enter into commercial relations with the United States government, believing that the weak League of States would soon be dissolved ; but when a vigorous national government was formed in 1789, Great Britain, for the first, sent a resident minister to our government, and entered into a commercial arrange ment with us. Meanwhile a brisk trade had sprung up between the Colonies and Great Britain, as well as with other countries. From 1784 to 1790 the exports from the United States to Great Britain amounted to $33,000,000, and the imports from Great Britain to $87,000,000. At the same time several new and important branches of industry had appeared and flour ished with great rapidity. From that time the expansion of American commerce was marvellous, in spite of the checks it received from British jealousy, wars, piracies in the Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere, and the effects of embargoes. The tonnage of American ships, which, in 1789, was 201,562, was in 1870 more than 7,000,000. The exports from the United States in 1870 amounted to about $464,000,000, and the imports to about $395,000,000 in gold. The domestic commerce of the United States is immense. A vast sea-coast line, great lakes, large rivers, and many canals, afford scope for interstate commerce and with adjoining coun tries, not equalled by those of any nation. The canal and railway systems in the United States are the product chiefly of the present century. So also is navigation by steam, on which river commerce chiefly relies for transportation. This was begun in the year 1807. The first canals made in this country were two short ones, for a water passage around the South HacLey and Montague Falls, in Massachusetts. These were constructed in 1792. At about the same time the Inland Lock Navigation Companies, in the State of New York, began their work. The Middlesex Canal, connecting Lowell with Boston harbor, was completed in 1808, and the great Erie Canal, 363 miles in length, was finished in 1825, at a cost of almost $8,000,000. The aggregate length of canals built in the United States is 3,200 miles. The first railway built in the United States was one three miles in length, that connected the granite quarries at Quincy, Massachusetts, with the Ncponset River. It was completed in 1827; horse-power was used. The first use of a locomotive in this country was in 1829, when ono was put upon a railway that connected the coal mines of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company with Honesdale. Now railways for m a thick network all over the United States east of the Mississippi, and are rapidly spreading over the States and Territories beyond, to the Pacific Ocean. To these facilities for commercial operations, must be added the Electro- Magnetic Telegraph, an American invention, as a method of transmitting intelligence, and giving warning signals to the shipping and agricultural interests concerning the actual and probable state of the weather each day. The first line, forty miles in length, was constructed between Baltimore and Washington, hi 1844. Now the lines are extended to every part of our Union, and all over the civilized world, traversing oceans and rivers, and bringing Persia and New York within one hour s space of intercommunication. Banking institutions and insurance companies are intimately connected with commerce. The first bank in the United States was established in 1781, as a financial aid to the govern ment. It was called the Bank of North America. The Bank of New York and Bank of Massachusetts were established soon afterward. On the recommendation of Hamilton in 1791, a national bank was established at Philadelphia, with a capital of $10,000,000, of which sum the government subscribed $2,000,000. Various banking systems, under State charters, have since been tried. During the Civil War a system of national banking was established, by which there is a uniform paper currency throughout the Union. The number of national banks at the close of 1863 was 68; the number at the close of 1874 was not far from 1,700, involv ing capital to the amount of almost $500,000,000. Fire, marine, and life insurance companies have flourished greatly in the United States. The first incorporated company was established in 1792, in Philadelphia, and known as the " Fire Insurance Company of North America. " Another was established in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1799, and another in New York, in 1806. The first life insurance company was char tered in Massachusetts in 1825, and the "New York Life Insurance andTru^t Company" was THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. xx i x 3stablished in 1829. All others are of recent organization. As a rule, the business of insurance of every kind is profitable to the insurers and the insured. The amount of capital engaged in It is enormous. The fire risks alone, at the close of 1874, amounted to about $200,000,000. Our growth in population has been steadily increased by immigration from Europe. It began very moderately after the Revolution. From 1784 to 1794 the average number of immigrants a year was 4,000. During the last ten years the number of persons who have emigrated to the United States from Europe is estimated at over 2,000,000, who brought with them, in the aggregate, $200,000,000 in money. This capital and the productive labor of the immigrants, have added much to the wealth of our country. This emigration and wealth is less than during the ten years preceding the Civil War, during which time there came to this country from Europe 2,814,554 persons, bringing with them an average of at least $100, or an aggregate of over $281,000,000. The Arts, Sciences, and Invention have made great progress in our country during the last hundred years. These, at the close of the Revolution, were of little account in estimating the advance of the race. The practitioners of the Arts of Design, at that period, were chiefly Euro peans. Of native artists, C. W. Peale and J. S. Copley stood at the head of painters. There were no sculptors, and no engravers of any eminence. Architects, in the proper sense, there were none. After the Revolution a few good painters appeared, and these have gradually increased in numbers and excellence, without much encouragement, except in portrait ure, until within the last twenty-five years. We have now good sculptors, architects, engravers, and lithographers ; and in all of these departments, as well as in photography, very great progress has been made within the last thirty or forty years. In wood engraving, especially, the improvement has been wonderful. Forty years ago there were not more than a dozen practitioners of the art in this country ; now there are between four and five hundred. At the head of that class of artists stands the name of Dr. Alexander Anderson, who was the first man who engraved on wood in the United States. He died in 1370 at the age of ninety- five years. In bank note engraving we have attained to greater excellence than any other people. It is considered the most perfect branch of the art in design and execution. Associations have boen formed for improvements in the Arts of Design. The first was organized in Philadelphia in 1791, by C. W. Peals, in connection with Ceracchi, the Italian sculptor. It failed. In 1802 the American Academy of Fine Arts was organized in the city of New York, and in 1807 the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, yet in existence, was estab lished in Philadelphia. In 1826 the American Academy of Fine Arts was superseded by the National Academy of Design, in the city of New York, which is now a flourishing institution. In education and literature our progress has kept pace with other things. At the very beginning of settlements, the common school was made the special care of the State in New England. Not so much attention was given to this matter elsewhere in the Colonies. The need of higher institutions of learning was early felt ; and eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims from the May-Flower, Harvard College was founded. When the war for inde pendence began there were nine colleges in the Colonies, namely, Harvard at Cambridge, Mass. ; William and Mary at Williamsburg, Va. ; Yale at New Haven, Conn. ; College of New Jersey, at Princeton; University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia ; King s (now Columbia) in the city of New York ; Brown University at Providence, R. I. ; Dartmouth at Hanover, N. H. ; and Rutgers at New Brunswick, N. J. There are now about 300 colleges in the United States. At the period of the Revolution, teaching in the common schools was very meagre, and remained so for full thirty years. Only reading, spelling, and arithmetic were regularly taught. The Psalter, the New Testament, and the Bible constituted the reading-books. No history was read ; no geography or grammar were taught ; and until the putting forth, of Webster s Spelling Book in 1783, pronunciation was left to the judgment of teachers. That book produced a revolution. As the nation advanced in wealth and intelligence, the necessity for correct popular educa tion became more and more manifest, and associated efforts were made for the improvement of the schools by providing for the training of teachers, under the respective phases of Teachers Associations, Educational Periodicals, Normal Schools, and Teachers Institutes. The first of these societies in this country was the "Middlesex County Association for the Improvement of Common Schools," established at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1799. But little of importance was done in that direction until within the last forty-five years. Now provision is made in all sections of the Union, not only for the support of common schools, but for training-schools for teachers. Since the Civil War, great efforts have been made to establish common school XXX SUPPLEMENT. systems in the late slave-labor States, that should include among the beneficiaries the colored population. Much has beea done in that regard. Very great improvements have been made in the organization and discipline of the public schools in cities within the last thirty years. Free schools are rapidly spreading their benefi cent influence over the whole Union, and in some States laws have been made that compel all children of a certain age to go to school. Institutions for the special culture of young women in all that pertains to college education, have been established within a few years. The pioneer in this work is Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., which was first opened in the year 1805. Besides the ordinary means for education, others have been established for special purposes. There are Law, Scientific, Medical, Theological, Military, Commercial, and Agricultural Schools, and seminaries for the deaf, dumb, and blind. In many States school district libra ries have been established. There are continually enlarging means provided for the education of the whole people. Edmund Burke said, "Education is the cheap defence of nations." Our literature is as varie.l as the tastes of the people. No subject escapes the attention of our native scholars and authors. At the period of the Revolution, books were few in variety and numbers. A larger portion of them were devoted to theological subjects. Booksellers were few, and were only found in the larger cities. Various subjects were discussed in pam phlets not generally in no wspapers as now. The editions of books were small, and as stereo typing was unknown, they became rare in a few years, because there was only a costly way of reproduction. In tl:3 year 1301, a new impetus was given to the book trade by the formation of the "American Company of Booksellers "a land of "union." Twenty years later competition broke up the association. Before the War of 1812 the book trade in the United States was small. School books only had very large sales. Webster s Spelling Book was an example of the increasing demand for such helps to education. During the twenty years he was engaged on his Dictionary, the income from his Spelling Book supported him and his family. It was published in 17S3, and its sales have continually increased to the present time, when they amount to over 1,000,000 copies a year. Other school books of every kind now have an im mense annual circulation. The general book trade in this country is now immense in the number of volumes issued and the capital and labor employed. Readers are rapidly increasing. An ardent thirst for knowledge or entertainment to be found in books, magazines, and news papers, makes a very large demand for these vehicles, while, at the same time, they produce widespread intelligence. The magazine literature, now generally healthful, is a powerful coadjutor of books in this popu lar culture ; and the newspaper, not always so healthful, supplies the daily and weekly demand for ephemerals in literature and general knowledge. To supply that de mand required great improvements in printing machinery, and these have been supplied. The printing press at the time of the Revolution is shown in that used by Franklin, in which the pressure force was. obtained by means of a screw. The ink was applied by huge balls ; and an expert workman could furnish about fifty im pressions an hour. This was improved by Earl Stanhope in 1815, by substituting for the screw a jointed lever. Then came inking machines, and one man could work off 250 copies an hour. Years passed on, and the cylinder press was invented ; and in 1847 it was perfected by Richard M. Hoe, of New York. This has been fur ther unproved lately, and a printing press is now used which will strike off 15,000 newspapers, printed on both sides, every hour. The newspapers printed in the United States at the beginning; of the Revolution were few in number, small in size, and very meagre in information of any kind. They were issued FRANKLIN S PRINTING PRESS. THE NATIONAL PROGRESS. xxx { weekly, semi-weekly, and tri-weekly. The first daily newspaper issued in this country was the American Daily Advertiser, established in Philadelphia in 1784 In 1775 there were 37 news papers and periodicals in the United States, with an aggregate issue that year of 1,200,000 copies. In 1870 the number of daily newspapers in the United States was 542; and of weeklies, 4,425. Of the dailies, 800,000,000 were issued that year ; of the weeklies, 600,000,000, and of other serial publications 100,000,000, making an aggregate of full 1,500,000,000 copies. To these figures should be made a large addition at the close of 1875. There are now about forty news papers in the United States which have existed over fifty years. In the providing of means for moral and religious culture and benevolent enterprises, there has been great progress in this country during the century now closing. The various religious denominations have increased in membership fully in proportion to the increase of population- Asylums of every kind for the unfortunate and friendless have been multiplied in an equal ratio, and provision is made for all. One of the most conspicuous examples of the growth of our republic is presented by the postal service. Dr. Franklin had been Colonial Postmaster-General, and he was appointed to the same office for one year by the Continental Congress in the Summer of 1775. He held tho position a little more than a year, and at the end of his official term there were about 50 post- offices in the United States. All the accounts of the General Post-Office Department during that period were contained in a small book consisting of about two quires of foolscap paper, which is preserved in the Department at Washington City. Through all the gloomy years of the weak Confederacy the business of the Department was comparatively light ; and when the national government began its career in 1789 there were only about seventy-five post-offices, with an aggregate length of post-roads of about 1,900 miles. The annual income was $28,000, and the annual expenditures were $32,000. The mails were carried by postmen on horseback, and sometimes on foot. Now the number of post-offices is over 33,000 ; the aggregate length of post-routes 256,000 miles ; the annual revenue $23,000,000, and the annual expenditures $29,- 000,000. "We may safely claim for our people and country a progress in all that constitutes a vigorous and prosperous nation during the century just passed, equal, if not superior to that of any other on the globe. And to the inventive genius and skill of the Americans may be fairly awarded a large share of the honor acquired by the construction of machinery which has so largely taken the place of manual labor. In that progress the American citizen beholds a tangible prophecy of a brilliant future for his country. THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. IV. When the Civil War in America had ended, and the experiment of the strength and stability of a republican form of government, had thereby become a demonstration, American citizens looked back with honest pride over the ninety years of their national history which had then elapsed since independence had been declared. Many felt a wish that the one hun dredth anniversary of that event might be celebrated in an appropriate manner ; and between the years 1865 and 1870 several articles appeared in the newspapers suggesting and advocating such a celebration. Among those who led in these suggestions were Mr. John Bigelow, formerly American minister at the French Court ; G-eneral Charles B. Norton, United States Commissioner at the Paris Exhibition ; Professor John L. Campbell, of Wabash College, Indiana ; and Colonel M. Richards Muckle, of Philadelphia. Finally, a communication from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, addressed to the municipal authorities of that city, asking for the use of a portion of Fairmount Park for a Centennial Celebration, was presented to the Select Council by lur. John L. Shoemaker, a member of that body. He oifered a resolution, which was adopted, for the appointment of a joint committee of seven from each Chamber, to take the subject into consideration. Mr. Shoemaker was appointed chairman of the joint commission. The Committee proceeded to lay the subject before Congress. The Legislature of Pennsyl vania passed a resolution soliciting Congress to take action in favor of an international cele bration at the city of Philadelphia on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of American independence. They also appointed a committee of ten to join the Philadelphia committee in a visit to Washington City to present a memorial on the subject to Congress. It was laid before that body by the Hon. Mr. Kelley, a representative from Pennsylvania, who urged the selection of Philadelphia as the most appropriate place, for there the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Congress of 1776, and signed. Hon. Daniel J. Morrell, another representative of Pennsylvania, presented a bill early in March, 1870, which, in a modified form, was passed and became a law on the 3d of March, 1871. It provided for the appointment by the President of the United States of a Commissioner and alternate Commis sioner from each State and Territory of the Union, who were to be nominated by the respec tive governors of the States and Territories. It also provided that the Exhibition should take place at Philadelphia in the year 1876. l The Act also provided that the United States should not be liable for any expenses attending the Exhibition. i The following preamble to the Act sets forth the object of the movement : " WHEREAS, The Declaration of independence of the United States of America was prepared, signed, and promulgated in the year 1776, in the city of Philadelphia ; and " WHEREAS, It behooves the people of the United States to celebrate, by appropriate ceremonies, the cen tennial anniversary of this memorable and decisive event, which constituted the 4th day of July, A D 177(5 the birthday of the nation ; and " WHEREAS, It is deemed fitting that the completion of the first century of our national existence shall be commemorated by an exhibition of the national resources of the country and their development, and of its progress in those arts which benefit mankind in comparison with those of older nations ; and "WHEREAS, No place is so appropriate for such exhibition as the city in which occurred the event it is designed to commemorate ; and "WHEREAS, As the exhibition should be a national celebration, in which the people of the whole country should participate, it should have tne sanction of the Congress of the United States ; therefore," etc. CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. XXX1U The Commissioners and alternate Commissioners having been appointed by the President, l they were invited to assemble at Philadelphia on the 4th of March, 1872. Members from twenty-four States, three Territories, and the District of Columbia, met on that day at the Continental Hotel, in Philadelphia, where they were temporarily organized by the ap pointment of Mr. Atwood, of Wisconsin, Chairman, and J. N. Baxter, of Vermont, Secretary. They then proceeded in a body to Independence Hall, where they were re ceived by Mayor Stokeley, who made a speech of welcome. To this General Hawley, of Connecticut, responded. They then went into session in the Chamber of the Common Coun cil, and proceeded to business after a prayer by the Rev. Dr. Hutter. On the following day, permanent officers of the Commission were also appointed, and nine Standing Com mittees. 2 So the United States Centennial JOSEPH R. HAWLEY. Commission was organized. i There have bsen some changes since that time. The members for 1875 are as follows : Alabama, James L. Cooper. Arizona, Kichard C. M Cormick, John Wasson. Arkansas, George W. Lawrence, Alex. M Donald. California. John Dunbar Creigh, Benjamin P. Kooser. Colorado, J. Marshall Paul, N. C. Meeker. Connecticut, Joseph R. Ha .vley, Wm. Phipps Blake. Dakotah, J. A. Burbank, Solomon L. Spink. Delaware, Henry F. Askew, John H. Rodney. District of Columbia, James E. Dexter, Lawrence A. Gobright. Florida, John S. Adams, J. T. Bernard. Georgia, George Hillyer, Richard Peters, Jr. Idaho, Thomas Donaldson, C. W. Moore. Illinois, Frederick L. Matthews, Lawrence Weldon. Indiana, John L. Campbell, Franklin C. Johnson. Iowa, Robert Lowry, Coker F. Clarkson. Kansas, John A. Martin, George A. Crawford. Kentucky, Robert Mallory, Smith M. Hobbs. Louisiana, John Lynch, Edward Pennington. Maine, Joshua Nye, Charles P. Kimball. Maryland, James T. Earle, S. M. Shoemaker. Massachusetts, George B. Loring, William B. Spooner. Michigan, James Birney, Claudius B. Grant. Minnesota, J. Fletcher Williams, W. W. Folwell. Mississippi, O. C. French. Missouri, John M Neil, Samuel Hays. Montana, J. P. Woolman, Patrick A. Largey. Nebraska, Henry S. Moody, R. W. Furnas. Nevada, William Wirt McCoy, James W. Haines. New Hampshire, EzeMel A. Straw, Asa P. Cate. New Jersey, Orestes Cleveland, John G. Stevens. " " "" " ~ Elkins. ia, Samuel F. Phillips, Jonathan W. Albertson, Ohio, Alfred T. Goshorn, Wilson W. Griffith. Oregon, James W. Virtue, Andrew J. Dufur. Pennsylvania, Daniel J. Morrell, Asa Packer. Rhode Island, George H. Corliss, Samuel Powel. South Carolina, William Gurney.Archibald Cameron. Tennessee, Thomas H. Coldwell, William F. Prosser. Texas, William Henry Parsons, John C. Chew. Utah, John H. Wickizer, William Haydon. Vermont, Middleton Goldsmith, Henry Chase. Virginia, Walter W. Wood, Edmund R. Bagwell. Washington Territory, Elhvood Evans, Alex. S. Abernethy. West Virginia, Alex. R. Boteler, Andrew J. Sweeney. Wisconsin, David Atwood, Edward D. Holton. Wyoming, Joseph M. Carey, Robert H. Lamborn. 2 The following is a list of the officers then appointed : eveUmd. Hon. Alfred T. Goshorn Hon. William M Byrd Eon John Dunbar Creigh, and Hon. Robert Lowry. [In 1875, Mr. Goshora was first Vice-President, and *^^ [John L. Campbell Is now ^SSfffSfS Executive Commissioner, Hon. William Phipps Blake. [This office was succeeded by that of tor-General of the Exhibition, which position Mr. Goshorn now bolds.] Counsellor and Solicitor, John L. Shoemaker. XXXIV SUPPLEMENT. On the first of June, 1873, Congress provided for the creation of a Centennial Board of Finance, who were to be authorized to issue stock not exceeding the sum of ten miUion dol lars, in shares of ten dollars each. The Commissioners adopted rules for the organization and government of this Board, and provided for the opening of the books for subscription to the stock on the 21st of November, 1872, to remain open one hundred days. At about the time of the opening of the books, an address to the people of the United States was sent out by the President and Secretary of the Commission explaining the organization of the Commission and the general design of the Exhibition. Soon after that, a design for an official seal of the Commission was adopted in ac cordance with a pattern furnished by a com mittee appointed for the purpose. It is simple and elegant as seen in the annexed engraving, which is the exact size of the original. 1 At a meeting of the stockholders in April, 1873, a Centennial Board of Finance was ap pointed, of whom more than one half were residents of Philadelphia, for obvious reasons. 2 This board was authorized to issue bonds to an amount not exceeding the capital, to be secured upon the building and other property of the Commission or its prospective revenue. They were also authorized to proceed to the preparation of the grounds and buildings in Fainnount Park, which work was immediate ly begun ; and on the 4th of July following the Commissioners of that Park formally sur rendered to the custody of the Commission, the portion of the rrounds which had been designated for the purpose. It is a grand plateau of four hundred and sixty-five acres. The ceremony of transfer took place on these grounds. After a prayer and invocation by Bishop Simpson of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Hon. Marton M Michael, President of the Park Commission, made the formal surrender with an. eloquent address. An equally eloquent address of acceptance was mado by Hon. Joseph R. Hawley, President of the Centennial Commission. Ha closed with these words: "In token, that the United States Centennial Commission now takes possession of these grounds for the purpose we have described, let the flag be unfurled and duly saluted." As the American, standard fluttered in the breeze, the trumpeter of the City Troop gave a signal, and the Key stone Battery fired thirteen guns in honor of the event. These ceremonies were followed by a grand military review, a notable banquet, and a brilliant display of fireworks. On the day before the transfer, the President of the United States issued a proclamation in, which, after reciting a portion of the Act of Congress on the subject, and stating the fact that he had official notice of the provision that had been made for the grounds and buildings, he said : "Now, therefore, be it known that I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, in conformity with the provisions of the Act of Congress aforesaid, do hereby declare and pro- SEAL OF THE CENTENNIAL COMMISSION. Beckwith, J . New Jersey j Alex. R. Boteler, , West Virginia: Richard C. ^. v ~ v,. M ^, ,~,,,,^ J . Louisiana; James Birney, Michigan; Charles P. Kimball, M:iim, and Samuel F. Phillips, Nort In concentric circles around the edge of the seal is the title of the organization" THE UNI CENTENNIAL COMMISSION." In the centre of the seal is a view of the State House as it appeare Hampshire; N. M. John G. Stevens,, M. Cormick, Arizona; John Lynch, rth Carol na f HE UNITED STATES -_,, ^ t Uiiv , a^u,,. ic , , i^, f wl uia ^ State House as it appeared when the Declaration of Independence was signed in its great hall. Beneath the building are the words which were cast on the State House bell in Colonial times : "PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE LAND, AND TO ALL. THE INHABITANTS THEREOF. 1 2 The following named gentlemen composed that Board in 1875: President, John Welsh, Philadelphia Vice-Presidents, William Sellers, Pfuladr-lp7iia, and John S. Barbour, of Vlrtfnla. Direcfor.^ Samuel M. F,-lton, Daniel M. Fox, Thomas Cochran, Clement M. Biddle, N. Parker Shortridge, dames M.Robb, Edward T. St33l, Jo m Wanamaker, John Price Wetherill, Henry Winsor, Henry Lewis, Amos R. Little, John Baird, all of Philadelphia. Thomas H. Dudley, Nflio Jer*"/ : A. S. Hewitt, New York; John Cummings, MiwrJi-w ^ John Gorham, H wle I-^ind; Charles W. Cooper and William. Bigler, Pennsylvania , Robert M. Patton, Alabama; J. B. Drake, Illinois; George Bain, Missouri. Secretary and Treasurer, Frederick Fral -v, Ph Jadelnhia Engineers and Architects, Henry Pettit, Joseph M. Wilson, H. J. Schwarzmann. CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. XXXV claim that there will bo held, at the city of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, an International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, to be opened on the nineteenth day of April, Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and seventy-six, and to be closed on the nineteenth day of October in the same year." " And, in the interest of peace, civilization, and domestic and international friendship and intercourse, I commend the Celebration and Exhibition to the people of the United States ; and in behalf of the government and people, I cordially commend them to all nations who may be pleased to take part therein." On the 5th of July the Secretary of State (Hon. Hamilton Fish) sent a note to all the foreign ministers in the United States, enclosing copies of the President s proclamation and the regula tions adopted by the Commission, setting forth the occasion and objects of the Exhibition, and saying: " The President indulges the hope that the Government of will be pleased to notice the subject, and may daem it proper to bring the Exhibition and its objects to the attention of the people of that country, and thus encouragetheir cooperation in the proponed Celebration. And he further hopes that the opportunity afforded by the Exhibition for the interchange of national sentiment and friendly intercourse between the people of both nations may result in new and still greater advantages to Science and Industry, and at the same time serve to strengthen the bonds of peace and friendship which already happily subsist between the Gov ernment and people of and those of the United States." CENTENNIAL MEDAL. On the 23d of January, 1874, the President of the United States issued an order for arrange ments to be made for an appearance at the Exhibition of such objects pertaining to each of the Executive Departments of the Government as should " illustrate the functions and admin istrative faculties of the Government i:i time of peace and its resources as a war power, and thereby serve to demonstrate the nature of our institutions, and their adaptation to the wants of the people." He ordered that a Board, to be composed of one person to ba named by the head of each of the Executive Departments which may have articles and materials to be exhibited, and also one person to be named in behalf of the Smithsonian Institute, and one to be named in behalf of the Department of Agriculture, should be charged with the preparation, arrangement, and safe keeping of such articles and materials. On the 5th of June, 1874, the National Congress passed an Act requesting the President to extend, in the name of the United States, "a respectful and cordial invitation to the Govern ments of other nations to be represented and take part in the Centennial Exposition." On the 10th of the same month Congress passed an Act authorizing medals commemorating the One Hundredth Anniversary of the first meeting of the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence, to be prepared at the mint in Philadelphia for the Centennial Board of Finance, " upon the payment of a sum not less than the cost thereof." Annexed is a copy of 50 SUPPLEMENT. the m -rbl commemorative of Independence. 1 On the 18th of the s-ame month Congress passed an Act for the admission, free of duties, of all articles intended for the International Exhibi tion. The principal edifices for the Exhibition consist of a Main Building covering about twenty- one and a half acres ; an Art Gallery covering a little more than an acre ; a Machinery Building covering fourteen acres ; Horticultural Building covering a little more than an acre, and an Agricultural Building covering a little more than ten acres. The position and general structure of these buildings externally, as seen in the engravings, are as follows : THE MAIN EXHIBITION BUILDING is in the form of a parallelogram, extending east and west 1,880 feet in length, and north and south 404 feet in width. The larger portion of the structure is one story in height, and shows the main cornice upon the outside at 45 feet above the ground, the interior height being TO feet. At the centre of the longer sides are projections 410 feet in length, and in the centre of the shorter sides or ends of the building are projections 216 feet in length. In these projections, in the centre of the four sides, are located the main entrances, which are provided with arcades upon the ground floor, and central facades extending to the height of 90 feet. Upon the comers of the building there are four towers 75 feet in height, and between the towers and the central projecting entrance there is a lower roof introduced, showing a cornice at 24 feet above the ground. In order to obtain a central feature for the building as a whole, the roof over the central part, for 184 feet square, hits been raised above the surrounding portion, and four towers, 48 feet square, rising to 120 feet in height, have been introduced at the comers of the elevated roof. THE ART GALLERY is located on a line parallel with and northward of the main Exhibition Building. It is in the most commanding portion of great "Landsdowno Plateau," 116 feet above the surface of the Schuylkill River, and looks southward over the city. The materials of the building are granite, glass, and ircn. No wood is used in the construction, and it is entirely fire-proof. The buildiag is 365 feet in length, 210 feet in width, and 59 feet in height, over a basement 12 feet in height, the whole surmounted by a dome rising from the centre of the structure to the height of 150 feet from the ground. This dome is of glass and iron, and terminates in a colossal ball from which the figure of Columbia -rises with protecting hands. At each corner of the base of the dome stands a figure, of colossal size, typifying the four quarters of the globe. The main front displays three distinctive features, namely, (1) a main entrance in the centre of the structure, consisting of three colossal arched doorways of equal dimensions ; (3) a pavilion at each end, and (3) two arcades connecting the pavilions with the centre. The central section is 95 feet long and 72 feet high; the pavilions, 45 feet long and 60 feet high; the arcades, each, 90 feet long and 40 feet high. The front or south face of the central section displays a rise of thirteen steps to the entrance, 70 feet wide. The entrance is by three arched doorways, each 40 feet high and 15 feet wide, opening into a hall. Between the arches of the doorways are clusters of columns terminating in emblematic designs illustrative of science and art. The doors, which arc of iron, are relieved by bronze panels, having the coats-of-arms of all the States and Territories. In the centre of the main frieze is the United States coat-of- arms. The main cornice is surmounted by a balustrade with candelabra. At each end is an allegorical figure representing Science and Art. Each pavilion displays a window 30 feet in height and 12 feet in width. It is also ornamented with tile work, wreaths of oak and laurel, 13 stars in the frieze, and a colossal eagle at each of its four corners. The arcades, a general feature in the old Roman villa, are intended to screen the long walls of the gallery. These consist of five groined arches and four promenades looking outward over the grounds and in ward over open gardens which extend back to the main wall of the building. These garden plats aro each 90 feet long and 36 feet deep, ornamented in the centre with fountains and designed lor the display of statuary. A stairway from the gardens reaches the upper line of 1 On one side is a feminine figure representing the Genius of Liberty with a sword buckled to her girdle, the shield of the Stars and Stripes leaning at rest, whilst Math each hand she extends a welcome and a chaplet to other feminine figures, representing Art and Science, who present evidences of their skill and , - - - , - . to .. representing the Genius of America rising from a recumbent position, grasping with her right hand the sword which is to enforce her demands, and raising her left in appealing pride to the galaxy of thirteen stars, which, indicating the original Colonies and States, are blazing in the firmament Beneath is the date 17TG, and around the whole the kernel of the resolution for independence, in these words, " THESE COLONIES ARE, AND OF EIGHT OUGHT TO BE, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." > fflSfer "" " . !, I IwroftfisHe .rf-^-vi.^wSv ..- - CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. xxxvii these arcades, forming a second promenade 35 feet above the ground. Its balustrade is orna mented with vases, and is designed for statues. THE MACHINERY BUILDING is west of the intersection of Belmont and Elm Avenues, 543 feet from the west front of the Main Exhibition Building, the north front upon the same line as the latter. It presents a front of 3,824 feet upon the principal avenue within the grounds. The building consists of the Main Hall, 360 feet wide by 1,403 feet long, and an annex of 398 feet by 310 feet. Including the upper floors, the building provides 14 acres of floor space. The principal portion of the structure is one story in height, showing the main cornice upon the outside, at 40 feet from the ground, the interior height to the top of the ventilators in the avenue being 70 feet, and hi the aisles, 40 feet. The main entrances are finished with facades extending to 78 feet in height. Along the south side is tlie boiler-house and other buildings. There is an annex for hydraulic machines, containing a tank 60 by 100 feet, with a depth of water of 10 feet. THE HORTICULTURAL BUILDING is furnished by the city of Philadelphia, and will remain a permanent ornament of Fairmount Park. It is on the Landsdowne Terrace, a snort distance north of the Main Building and Art G-allery, and has a commanding view of the Schuylkill River and the northwestern portion of the city. The design is after a style of architecture of the twelfth century, and the principal materials, externally, are iron and glass. The length of the building is 3S3 feet ; width 193 feet, and height to the top of the lantern, 73 feat. The east and west entrances are approached by flights of blue marble steps from terraces 83 by 30 feet, in the centre of which stands an open kiosk, or Turkish summer-house, 30 f sot in diameter. The- angles of the main conservatory are adorned witli eight ornamental fountains. The mam floor is occupied by the central conservatory, 230 by 80 feet, and 55 feet in height, surmounted by a lantern 170 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 14 feet high. Running entirely around this con servatory, at a height of 30 feet from the floor, is a gallery five feet wide. There are forcing- houses attached to the conservatories. THE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING is north of the Horticultural Building, and on the eastern side of Belmont Avenue. Its materials are of wood and glass. It consists of a long nave crossed by three transepts, both nave and transept being composed of truss arches of Gothic form. The nave is 830 feet in length by 125 feet in width, with a height of 75 feet from the floor to the point of the arch. The central transept is of the same height, and a breadth of 100 feet ; the two end transepts 70 feet high and 80 feet wide. In its immediate vicinity are stock-yards for the exhibition of horses, cattle, sheep, s*,vlne, poultry, etc. Besides these main buildings there "will be a variety of pavilions and ornamental structures erected by manufacturers and by Commissioners of foreign governments, as well as useful buildings for places of exhibition. Fountains, memorial statues, and other decorative objects give additional attractions to the Park. ADDRESS OF GENERAL HAWLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMISSION, To THB GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF CONNECTICUT, JUKE, 1875. Mr. Chairman and Fellow-citizens of the General Assembly of Connecticut: I was very much pleased, as all others were who had this enterprise at heart, when, tfoe com mittee offered to visit Philadelphia and examine the grounds, and also invited us to come her and address you. The work on hand is one of great moment, the magnitude and importance ot which were not at first fully appreciated even by those engaged in advancing it. You have sometimes perhaps toiled up a steep acclivity without pausing to look around, and having reached the summit, have been astonished at the magnificence of the view. I do not know whafc I should have done if I had seen all the difficulties ahead when four years ago Governor Jewell invited me to represent this State upon the Centennial Commission. I shall not attempt at present to make a set speech, the time does not permit, but shall endeavor briefly to lay before you the history, progress, and prospects of the great work. It has been quite certain for a long timo past that some great celebration would be made of our Centennial Anniversary. That there would be an unusual general observance of the Nation s birthday, with the speeches, guns, bells, and bonfires of which the elder Adams spoke, was certain, but as the time drew nearer the idea expanded. In the last fifty years there has been a wonderful progress in the ert"!, sciences, and all the industries which go to make up our civilization. Moreover, the great International Exhibitions, each more important than its predecessors, have turned thought in SUPPLEMENT. that direction, and the suggestion was made and immediately accepted that our centennial should take the shape of a great exhibition. The first design was for a national exhibition, where the different States should meet and show the progress each had made, and its peculiar resources. Having settled this much there was one step further. "We had accepted the invita tions of the other nations to their great expositions, and we could not in common decency hold an exhibition of our own without returning the invitations. The two expositions, national and international, are in a measure distinct. Foreign nations may not take special interest in the exercises of Fourth of July week, the giving of thanks for our national independence, but no American who exhibited at London complained because the flag of St. George floated over him, or felt insulted when the tens of thousands united in singing "God Save the Queen." Inter national courtesies are freely exchanged. The day of barbarous hostility and jealousy has passed away. Our invitations have been accepted more promptly and cordially than those of any other exhibition. Thirty-eight nations, including nearly the whole civilized world, have accepted, and the fact is fixed that the nations are coming to see us and to exhibit their choicest productions. " General Hawley then ref 3rred to the origin of the Centennial Commission, which was created by Act of Congress, approved March 3, 1871, because "it behooves the people of the United States to celebrate by appropriate ceremonies the completion of the first century of our national existence, by an exhibition of the natural resources of the country and their develop ment, and of its progress in those arts which benefit mankind, in comparison with those of older nations. Subsequently a board of finance was established by Act of Congress, composed of twenty-five of the most honorable and able men in the country, who have entire charge of the financial management of the exhibition. This board is a sort of trust company. It cannot be charged that any corruption or dishonesty has been practised in carrying on the work thus far, and we intend that such a charge shall not be justly raised in tlie future We thought at first that the general government, which gave largely to the foreign exhibitions, might have contributed more liberally to our own, but the idea prevailed that the expenses of the work should fall upon the different States. And there are advantages in this. It makes it the work of the people. It was claimed that demagogues and dishonest men would be likely to control the matter under a government such as ours, while under the monarchical govern ment such a scheme would be sure of success from the fact that only persons loyal to the crowned heads would have charge of all the details of the work. We can demonstrate the con trary of this. We hold that whatever can be done by a whole people can be best done by a free people. The hard times embarrassed our operations for a time ; but it also has had this good effect, it reduced the price of materials, and caused us also to modify our ideas to some extent, and take such precautions as will enable us to avoid the extravagance shown in pre vious exhibitions of this character. It is possible that Congress may, the coming Winter, make a direct appropriation for the work. A national board has been appointed, made up of per sons representing all the departments of the general government. The patent office will ex- 1 - hibit the original models of all celebrated American inventions; the war department will show all the improvements in ordnance for the past hundred years; the navy will exhibit models, and naval ordnance ; and the other departments will be fully represented. The advantages of the locality were then dwelt upon, the beauty of Fairmount Park, the largest and best park for such a purpose in the world, with unsurpassed facilities for access by railroad and steamboat. The goods for exhibition will be conveyed on cars directly into the buildings where they are to be exhibited. Two hundred acres are now enclosed. Reference was made to the exhibition that this nation would make, and the following was quoted from a recent address by President Barnard of Columbia College : " There is hardly an industry to the progress of which we have not largely contributed. The cotton-gin, without which the machine-spinner and the power-loom would be helpless, is American. The power-shuttle, which permits an unlimited enlargement of the breadth of the web, is American. The planing-machine is American. Navigation by steam is American. The mower and reaper are American. The rotary prin ting-presses are American. The hot-air engine is American. The sowing-machine is American. The machine-manufacture of wool- cards is American. The whole India rubber industry is American. The hand-saw originated, I beh eve, in America. The machine-manufacture of horse-shoes is American. The sand-blast is American. The gauge-lathe is American. The only successful composing-machine for prin ters is American. The grain-elevator is American. The artificial manufacture of ice, which you saw exhibited here two years ago under the name of the Carre" process, was originally invented by Professor Alexander S. Twining, an American. The electro-magnet was invented, CENTEITITIAL EXHIBITION. XXxix and immediately aftar its invention was first practically applied in transmitting telegraphic sisals, by Professor Joseph Henry, an American. The telegraphic instrument introduced a few years later into public use, and which has since obtained universal acceptance, was invented "by Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, an American." The speaker continued: How did we succeed at London in 1851 ? Why, we had only six or seven hundred exhibitors there, and yet the London Times said that the American department was second in interest in the Crystal Palace. The Europeans looked with astonishment upon our Colt s revolvers, our reapers, sewing-machines, and the numerous other American inven tions which are blessing mankind and revolutionizing the labor of production. For twenty years there was an offer in the streets of London of two hundred guineas to any mechanic who would open one of Bramah s locks. Hobtes, an American, opened it in two days, and then opened and shut it at pleasure. There was a similar challenge in the streets of London to any mechanic to open Chubb s lock; Hobbs opened it in twenty-five minutes. Then Steers s little schooner went over from this country. John Bull thought that if Britannia was queen anywhere it was upon the sea. But when the yachts came home in the race John Bull tele graphed to London that the yacht America was ahead and the rest nowhere. Again, too, at tho London exposition, the English artists and critics dwelt with rapture on the work of an Ohio man, the beautiful statue of the Greek slave, the most notable and best-remembered sculp ture in that exhibition. We gained ten times our meed of honor in proportion to the number of exhibitors we had there. But will the exhibition pay ? I believe that even from the lowest material standpoint none other ever paid so "well as this will. The boundless resources of our nation will be shown and advertised to the world. As a result immigration will be stimulated. It will be a low figure to place the consequent increase at 20,000 a year, 200,000 in the next ten years. The ablest political economists place the value of an immigrant at $1,000, and this would make a gain to the country of $200,000,000 for the ten years. But this is only one item of the resulting gain. There are some who call in question our capacity to conduct such an enterprise. There is a provoking and often disgusting tone of general denunciation of the present times. It is not true. We are better to-day than we were five years ago, better than a hundred years ago. We look back with pride to the old revolutionary clays, but there was greater corruption, more speculation and fraud then than in the worst of modern times. The spirit of patriotism was never stronger than to-dav. Do you doubt our ability to manage such an exposition? Look at our committees: there is Governor Straw of New Hampshire, with forty acres of flooring in the Amoskeag mills, and with four thousand operatives. Governor Straw, a civil engineer by profession, sits there and drives that great establishment with its four thousand operatives, working up twenty-five thousand bales of cotton a year as easily as the speaker presides over this house. Then there is Mr. Corliss of Rhocb Island, proprietor of one of the 4 most extensive boiler factories in the world. There is Mr. Blake of this State, with experience gained by a thorough study of the expositions at Paris and Vienna. Our exhibition at most will require but ten millions of dollars. How many corporations are there in the country representing three or four times that amount. Look at our seventy thousand miles of rail ways. We have forty railroad companies in this country that have within tlieir own organi zation the men and the discipline that could carry out a great exhibition as easily as they can run an extra machine shop. " General Hawley then exhibited engravings of the various buildings, making brief descrip tions of their size and arrangement. In concluding General Hawley referred to the great benefit which would result to the nation from the success of the centennial enterprise in restoring fraternal feelings. It would produce a perfect and lasting reconciliation " In that summer of 1876 we of these States will meet under one flag and one name, avowing one purpose and one destiny, looking back far beyond the fierce and bloody quarrels that have tortu~oi our hearts and reddened our fields. Our friends of the South will come, and from the North, the East, and the West, there to compare and talk over our progress. The result of the six months gather ing will overreach all the money that will be expended. He also referred to several Confed erate officers who were warm friends of the enterprise. They see, he said, in this thing a method for reconciliation and a promise of fraternity. They feel that there is an unkind feeling for them at the North; but there is no hatred anywhere here, and I want this demon strated. Now, gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. I am sorry that I have talked so long, and yet I reproach myself that I have not presented the subject as it should have been, and have not said a hundredth part of what was in my mind. " I 1ST DE Abenakes Indians, Tribes of, 17, 22. ABERCROMRIE, General, his expedition, 191. Aboriginals of America, 9, 33. Taken to England, 58. Acadia, settlement of. 80, 121. Annexed to the British realm, 136. The name of, changed to Nova Scotia, 132 Expedition against, 185. Accohannock Indians, 20. Accomac Indians, 20. Act of Supremacy, 75. ADAMS JOHN, defends Capt. Preston, 222. Member oJ the first Continental Congress, 5S8. Suggests the appointment of Washington as Commander-in-Chief, 238. On the Committee to draft the Declaration ol Independence, 251, 252. 589. Signer of it, 602. Chair man of the Board of War, 294. On the Committee to confer with Lord Howe, 257. Commissioner of the Treaty of Peace, 348. First Minister to Great Britain, 349. Vice-President. 364. Ee-elected, 377. President of United States, 382, 3S3. Death of, 457. Notices of, 883, 589. ADAMS. JOHN QUINCY, his letter to Jefferson on the embargo, 403. Envoy, 419. Commissioner at Ghent, 443. Secretary of State, 447. His treaty with Spain, 451. President of the United States, 454. Notice of, 454. ADAMS, SAMUEL. 219, 221, 227, 234. ADAMS, WILLIAM, British Commissioner, 443. ADDISON, E. C , Commissioner at Panama. Admiralty, Massachusetts Board of, 307. Continental Board of, 808. Agua Nueva. 485. Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 138. Conference at, respect ing Cuba, 522, Alabama, State of, 448. Alabama Indians, In the Creek Confederacy, 30. Alabama, Confederate cruiser, 641. Alabama, Secession of, 547. In possession of Union. Army, 605. Albany, 144. Dutch Fort and Store House at, 72,140, Walloons ut, 73. Albemarle, steam ram, 704. ALBERT, Prince, and the World s Fair, 517. Aleutian Islands, 11. ALEXANDER, SIR WILLIAM, Earl of Stirling, SO. See Stirling. ALEXANDER, son of Massasoit, 124. Algerine Pirates, 381, 444, 445. Algiers, The United States at war with, 390, 445. Decaturat, 445. Peace between the United States and, 381. Algonquin Indians, Discovery of the, 17. Their tribes and territory, 17, With Samuel Champlain, 59. In the Indian confederacy to exterminate the white people, IS. Alien Law of the United States, 386. Allatoona Pass, 699. Alleghany Mountains, Extent and name of the, 19. ALLEN, ETHAN, Colonel, 234. At Montreal, 240. Notice of, 240. ALLEN, Colonel, in the Indian war in 1813, 416, 418. ALLEN, Captain, of the brig Argus, 429. Amboy, New Jersey. AMBRTSTER, ROBERT C., 448, 451. Amelia Island, 448. America, Discovery of, 34. Origin of the name, 41, First colony in, 42. Intercourse of, with the Old World. 11. American. Agriculture, 457. Association, 228. Col onies, cost of, to England, 206. Commerce, protected in 1801, 390, 391. Manufactures, 447. System, 458 459 Party, 531. AMES, FISHER, Notice of, 380. AMHERST, JEFFREY, Lord, his expedition asainst Louis- burgh, 196. Captures Ticonderoga, and Crown Point, 199, 200. At Quebec, 203. Notices of, 196, 199. AMIDAS, PHILIP, his expedition to America, 55. AMPUDIA, General, 481. Surrenders Monterey, 484. Amsterdam, Henry Hudson sails from, 59. Charter to merchants of, 72, Andantes Indians, 19, 23, 24. ANDERSON, JOHN, (Major Andre). 325. ANDERSON, EOBERT, Major, 549, 552. ANDRE, Major, Arnold s bargain with, 325. Captured and executed ; memorial to, 326. ANDROS, SIR EDMUND, arrives at Boston, 129. Impris oned, 130. Governor of New York, 147 : and of New Jersey, 159, 160. Usurpations by, 155, 156. Androscoggin Indians, 22. Annapolis, The Continental Congress meets at, 588. ANNAWAN, Famous New England Indian, 21. Antietam. Battle of, 639. ANVILLE, Duke D., 138. See D Horville. Apache Indians, 83. Appalachian Indians, Moore s expedition against the, 169, 170. Appalachian Mountains, 19. De Soto crosses the, 44. Appomattox Court-House, 719. Aquiday Island, Indian name of Ehode Island, 91. Aquinuschioni, A name given to the Five Nations, 23. AKBUTHNOT, Admiral, besiesres Charleston, 309, 310. Attacks the French fleet, &30. ARBUTHNOT. ALEXANDER, 448, 451. ARCHDALE, JOHN, Governor, 165, 167. ARGALL, SAMUEL, Captain, his piracies, 58. Captures Pocahontas, 70. Deputy-Governor of Virginia, 70. Story of him and Dutch traders, 72. Argus" brig, 429, 430. "Ariel" schooner, 420. ARISTA, General, at Matamoras, 481. Arkansas Indians, 32. Arkansas, State of, 451. Added to the Union, 469. Secession of, 547, 675. ARLINGTON, Earl of, 110. A.RMISTEAD, Major, At Fort M Henry, 437. ARMSTRONG. JOHN, General, 193. Author of the Newburg^ Address, 349. Secretary of War, 426. Notices of, 349, 426. ARMSTRONG, JOHN, Colonel, 193. Army, United States, condition of, 257, 261. Dis banded, 350, 681. 4.rmy, British, in America, number of men in the, 258, Sums granted for the, 206. State of, 285. ARNOLD, BENEDICT, Gov. of Ehode Island, 158. RNOLD, BENEDICT, General, at Fort Stanwix, 278; Lake Champlain, 234. 261 ; Penn s House, 162 i Philadelphia, 287; Quebec, wounded, 241, 242; Eidirefield, 270; Saratoga, 282. Eepritnanded by Washington, 325. Treason of, 324, 325, 326. Escapes to the Vulture, 326, Depredations committed by, in Virginia, 330 ; and in New England, 340. xlii INDEX. Article* of Confederation, 266, 26T, 853, 355. AsiinuKTON, Lord, 4T2. ASHE, General, 295. Miss and Colonel Tarleton, 332. Ashley River, 98, 99. Assiniboin Indians, 31, 32. ASTOR. JOHN JACOB, his trading station, 479 At/id pascas Indians, 17. ATKINSON. HENRY, General, 463. Atlanta,, 665, 700. Battle at, 701. T03. Atlantic Cable, 72S. Atli-xco. Defeat of Santa Anna at, 497. Attainder, Bill of. 619. Attionaudiron Indians, 23. ATTITCKS, CRISPUS. 221. Augusta, Georgia, Captured by Lee, 336, 337. AUSTIN, ANN. the Quakeress, 122. AUSTIN, STEPHEN F., 477. Austria, Consul General of. and Martin Koszta, 518. Autossee. Ala., Battle at, 428. Avalon, Territory of. SI. AVERILL. W. W., Gen., Raids of, 660, 697. AXEL, Count. 93. AYLLON, See. D Ayllon. BACON, Lord, his expedition to New Foundland, 74. BACON, NATHANIEL, 110, 111, 112. BAINBRIDGE, Commodore, Protects Am. Com. 390, 391, Captured by Tripolitans, 391. Notice of, 391. BALDWIN, ABRAHAM, 356, 629. BALFOUR, Colonel, at Charleston, 337. BALTIMORE, Lord, 152, 209. Baltimore, Md, Capt. John Smith on the site of, 67. Gen. Eoss approaches, 436, 437. Congress meets at, 262. Massachusetts troops attacked in~ 556. XafFs Bin/, Battle of, 585. Bank, Of Massachusetts, 372. National, 372. Of New York, 372. Of North America, 329. 372. BANKS, N. P., Gen., 624. Commander at New Orleans, 636. 644, 677, 684, 686. Baptists, the, compelled to pay fines, in Virginia, 110. Bai bary Powers, The U. S. at war with, 390. " BARCLAY, EGBERT. Governor of New Jersey, 160. BARCLAY, Commodore, 420. His tribute to Commodore Perry, 423. BARLOW, ARTHUR, his expedition to America, 55. BARLOW, JOEL, 399. BARNEY, Commodore, his flotilla, 436. Notice of, 436. BARKE. Colonel. 217, 225, 282. BARROX. Commodore, 401. BARRY, Captain. 30a BARTON, WILLIAM. Colonel, 271. BARTRAM, JOHN, 210. BASSETT,.EICHARD, 356. BAYARD, JAMES A., Envoy, 419, 443, 542. Bear Tribe of Indians, 15. Bea itfort Island. 93. Beaufort, U. S. Army takes possession of, 583. BEAUMARCIIAIS. M., 266. BEAUREGARD, P. G., General, 553, 601, 603, 712. BEDELL, Colonel, 240. BKDTORD, GUNNING, jr., 356, 629. Beekmaris Swamp, 148. BEERS, Captain, 126. BELCHER, Governor, 136, 178. Belgium, Treaty with, 469. BELKNAP, JEREMY, Dr., 57. BELL, JOHN, Secretary of War, 474, 542. Bell, Church, removed from Deerfield to Caughna- waga, 135. BELLEMONT, Earl of, 194. Belt, Wampum, 13. Bemis s Heights, Battle of, 281. BENNET, RICHARD, 109. Bentonville, Battle near, 714. BERKELEY, Lord, 95, 159. BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM, 98, 108, 110, 111, 112. BERKELEY, Admiral, 401. Bermuda Islands, Gates, Newport, and Somers wrecked on the, 68. Bermuda Hundred, 691. BERNARD, Governor, 220. Bethlehem, La Fayette at, 273. BEVERLY, EGBERT, Major, 112. Bible, the, The Statute book in Conn., 154. BIDDLE. EDWARD, 588. BiDDLE, Captain, 308. Biff Bethel. Battle at, 562. Bill of Rights of the Continental Congress, 228. BILLINGE, EDWARD, 160. BILLOP, Captain, 257. BINGHAM, Captain, 407. Birmingham Meeting House, 273. Blackfeet Indians, 33. BLACK HAWK, 18, 32. 463. Black Hawk War, 463. Black Rock Village, burnt, 427. BLACKSTONE, WILLIAM, Eev., 89. Black Warrior, Steam Ship, 519. BLAIR, JOHN, 356, 369. BLAKELEY, Captain. 440. BLENNERHASSET, 397. BLOCK. ADRIAN, 72, 82. Blockade Runners, 708. Block Ilouxe, Bin-net s 192. Block Island, Origin of the name of, 87. BLOEMART, SAMUEL, 139. Bloody Creek, Connecticut, 126. Moody Marsh, Florida, 173. Bloody Pond, 190. BLOOMFIELD, JOSEPH, 410. BLOUNT, WILLIAM, 355, 356. BLUCHER, 431. BLYTHE, Captain, 430. Board, of Admiralty, See Admiralty. Of Trade, 183, 184. Of trade and plantations, 134. Of war, appointed by Congress. 294. BOLIVAR, General, 457. BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON, Emperor, 399. His decrees at Berlin. 400 ; Milan, 402 ; and Rambouillet, 406. Treaty with, 386, 603. "Bonhomme RicJiard" 307. Booksellers in the American Colonies, 179. BOONE, DANIEL. 300. BOOTH, WILKES, Assassin, 720. BOSCAWEN. Admiral, 189, 195, 196. Boston, Mass, Norwegians explore the region near, 35. Founded. 118. Expedition from, to Port Eoyal, 135, 136. Revolutionary proceedinss there, 221. Boston, Port Bill, 225, 226. Boston Neck, 229. Forti fied by Gaare. 229. Cannonaded, 247. Evacuated by .the British. 247. BONQUET, Colonel, 19, 198. At Pittsburg, 205. Notice of, 205. BOWDOIN, Governor, 353. "Boxer," United States Brig, 430. BOYD, Colonel. 295. BOYD, John. 319. BRADDOCK, EDWARD. General, 184. Meeting with the Governors of the Colonies. 185. Expedition to Fort Du Quesne, 186. Death of, 186. BRADFORD, WILLIAM, Governor, 115, 118. BRADRORD, WILLIAM, Editor of the New York Gazette, 150. BRADSTREET, Colonel, 197, 198. At Detroit, 205. BRAGG, General, 632, 634, 63S, 663, 665, 666. Brandywine, Battle of, 273. " BrandyiKine? 1 frigate, 453. BRANT, JOSEPH, 290", 291. Brashear City, 684. BREARLY, DAVID, 356. Ht-eed^s Hill, 234. BRENT, CHARLES, 489. BREWSTER, ELDER, 77, 116. BREYMAN, Colonel, 277. Bri<l gewater, Battle at, 433. Bristol, England, Cabot sails from, 46. British Agents among the Indians, 373. Fleet, depre dations by the, in the United States, 430; and in 1814, 436. 437. Fleet on Lake Champlain, 435. Claims to Oregon, 479. BROCK, SIR ISAAC, General, 411, 414. BROOKE, Lord, 85. BROOKE, Colonel, 437. ohfield^ Connecticut. 126. Brooklyn, New Yock, Walloons at, 73. BROWN, JACOB, 356. BROWN, JACOB, General, at Chippewa, 433. At Pres. cott, 426. At Sackett s Harbor, 426, 432. Notice of, 433. BROWN, JOHN, Eaid of, 538. Notice of, 538. BROWN, JOHN, 808. BROWN, Major, at Fort Brown, 482. Mortally wounded, 492. BBOWN, General, (British), 336, 837. INDEX. xliii BROWNE, JOHN AND SAMUEL, 119, BUCHANAN, JAMES, Secretary of State, 478. Elected President, 530. Notice of, 530. Cabinet of, 532. BUCKNER, General, 596. BUENA VISTA, Battle of, 485. BUELL, Don Carlos, 591, 595, 603, 606, 633. Buffalo, New York, burnt, 427. BTTFORD, ABRAHAM, Colonel, his troops slaughtered by Tarleton, 313. Bull, Brought to America by Columbus, 41. Bull s Run, First battle of, 56S. Bunkers Hill, 234. Battle of, 236. Burgesses, The Virginia House of, 106. BURGOYNE, JOHN, General, 234. At Fort Edward, 276, 277. At Lake Cham plain, 272. At St. John, 271. At Ticonderoga, 275. Surrenders at Saratoga, 2S1. Dines with General Schuyler, 2S1. Notice of, 282. BURKE, EDMUND, 217, 221, 2S2. Burlington, Count Donop at, 262. BUKNKT, PETER H., 499. BURNSIDE, AMBROSE E., General, 589, 606. Head quarters of, 607. Takes command of the Army, 681. Is super seded, 631, 664. BURNS, ANTHONY, Fugitive Slave, arrest of, 519. BURR, AARON, in Arnold s expedition to Quebec, 241. Vice-President, 388. Duel with Hamilton, 361, 396. Proposed invasion of Mexico, 396. Tried for treason, 398. His conduct towards Blennerhasset, 397. Notice of, 397. BUREINGTON, GEORGE, Governor of North Croliana, 171. BURROUGHS, Rev,, The. executed as a wizard, 133. BURROWS, Lieut., Captures the British brig " Boxer," 432. BUSHNELL, DAVID, his torpedo, 252. BUTE, Lord, 213. BUTLER, BENJAMIN, F., 483, 579, 609. Commander of New Orleans, 6 11, 632, 635. Relieved of the Department of the Gulf. 636, 688, 691. Colored troops under, 696. BUTLER, JOHN, Colonel, 278, 290. BUTLER, PIERCE, 356. BUTLER, WALTER N.. 291. BUTLER, ZEISULON, Colonel, Notice of, 290. BYRON, Admiral, 305. Succeeds Lord Howe, 292. c. CABOT, GEORGE, 444. CABOT, JOHN, Notice of, 60. CABOT, SEBASTIAN, his commission from Henry VII, 46. Sails for America in 1497, 46. His second expedition, in 1498, 47. Discovers Labrador, Newfoundland and n;ions of New England, 41. Explores the coast from rador to the Carolinas, 47. Navigates the northern coast of Hudson s Bay. Explores the coast of Brazil, 47. Discovers the Rio de la Plata. 47. Notices of, 47, 60. CADWALADER, LAMBERT, Colonel, 355. CADWALLADER, JOHN, General, at Trenton, 263, 268. Cahokia, captured by Major Clarke, 303. Cahokia Indiana, 19. CALDWELL, Rev. Dr., 334. CALDWELL, JAMES, 221. "Caledonia" The, one of Perry s vessels, 420. CALEF, Mr., of Boston, 133. CALHOUN, JOHN C., his views of the war of 1812, 409. Secretary of War, 447. Vice-president, 454, 459. No tices of, 458, 459. California, Conquest of, 487. Discovery of Gold, 497. Admitted to the Union, 501. Excludes slavery, 499. CALUMETS, Indian, 14. CALVERT, CHARLES, 153. CALVERT, GEORGE, Lord Baltimore, 81. CALVERT, LEONARD, 82, 151. Cambridge, England, Meeting at, respecting the Ply mouth Colony" 118.. Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded, 118. The college founded at, 121. Provincial Congress at, 230. Camden, New Jersey, 93. CAMPHELL, WILLIAM. Colonel, 319. CAMPBKLL, Colonel, (British), 291, 292, 294. Camp Douglas. Prisoners at, 710. Canada, Attempted conquest of, 131, 136. Pitt s scheme for conquering, 199. Measures for the conquest of, 203, 204. End of French dominion in, 22. Address of Congress to the people of, 239. Proposed invasion of, 194. ~ Hull s invasion of, 410. Wellington s troops sent to, 432. Revolutionary movement in, 471, 472. Canary Islands, Columbus delayed at the, 39. CANBY, E. R. S., General, 591, 686. Canonchet, Treaty of Peace with, 125. His perfidy and death, 127. Canonicus, Narraganset chief, 21, 90, 91, 115. Canterbury, Archbishop of, 121. Cape Ann, colony at, 116. Bajador, 86. Breton, 137, 138. Charles, origin of the name, 64. Cabot passes, 46. Cod. origin ot the name, 57. Farewell, 46. Fear, origin of the name, 55. Of Good Hope, origin of the name, 37. Henlopen, 93. Henry, origin of the name, 64. May, 35; purchase of, and origin of the name, 94. Capital of the United States, 388. CARAMELLI, HAMET. 892,395. Carcass, described, 236. CARDON, Lord, 166. CARLETON, Sir GUY, Governor of Canada, 373. At St. John s, 240. At Quebec, 241. His propositions for reconciliation, 345. CARLISLE, Earl of. Commissioner to America, 1778, 286. Carnifeao Ferry, Battle at, 578. Carolina, Amidas and Barlow off the shores of, 55. Colonies founded n, 62. Origin of the name, 50, 55, 98. The colonies of, 97, 163. 164; Separated, 171. Grant from Parliament to, 206. Opposes taxation, 223, Carolina, Fort, 98. Caroline, 1 1 steamboat, 472. Carpenter * Hall, Philadelphia, 288, 588. CARR, Sir ROBERT, 123. CARROLL, CHARLES, of Carrollton, 252, 602. CARROLL, DANIEL, 356. CARROLL, JOHN, Archbishop, 354. Notice of, 354. CAHTERET, Sir GEORGE, 98, 159. Purchases New Jersey. 159. CARTERET, PHILIP, Governor of New Jersey, 94, 159. Carter et County Colony, 98, 164, 165. CARTIER, JAMES, his expeditions, 48,49. CAKTWRIGHT, GEORGE, 123. CARVER, JOHN, Governor, 77, 78. His interview with Massasoit, 114. Death of, 115. Notice of, 78. Cascades, Oregon, Attacked by Indians, 528. Casco Village, attacked by the French and Indians, 131. CASEY, General. 616. CASS, LEWIS, General, at Detroit, 424. Candidate for the Presidency, 1848, 498. CASTILLON, General, deserts Colonel Walker at Rivas, 525. CASTINE, Baron de, 134. CASTINE. Admiral Griffith seizes the town of, 1814, 438. Castle William, 220. CASTRO, General. 487. CASWELL, RICHARD, 356, 588. Catawba Indians, 26, 27. Allies of North Carolina Col ony, 168, 170. Catawba River, 27. Cat Island, See Guanahama. Cattle, First, in Connecticut, S6. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 47. Caughnawaga, The church bell at, 135. Cayuga Indians, 23, 24. Cedar Mountain, Battle at, 624. Census, 371, 388. Cent, U. S Coin. 372. CHAMPE. Serjeant, attempts to capture Arnold, 326. CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL, his expedition, 59. Discovers Lake Cham plain, 59; and Lake Huron 59. His pub lications, 59. Champlain, Lake, discovered, 59. Chancellorsville, Battle of, 649. Chanco, 106. Chandler. Notice of, 426. CHARLKS I. of England, 74, 107. 116. CHARLES II., of England, 109, 110. His Gifts to Lord CuU pepper, and the Earl of Arlington, 110. Grants a neir charter to Connecticut, 155. "Declares the Massachu setts charter void. 129. Makes judges independent of the people. 110. Reproaches Governor Berkeley, 112. Gives New Netherland to his brother James, 144. Death of. 113. CHARLES IX., of France, 49, 51. His commission to Co- ligny, 50. harles Charleston, South Carolina, founded, 99, 117. French and Spanish expedition against, 169. Seige of, 309, 311. Captured by the British, 312. Evacuated, 348. at Oglethorpe, 100, 703. Charlestoicn, Mass., 236. Charter of Liberties, William Penn s, 162. Of New- York, 147. Chatham, The Earl of, 218. His conciliatory measures, 231. His denunciations in the House of Lords, 282. xliv INDEX. His letter to Sayre, 228. His opinion of the Conti nental Congress, 228. Death of, 286. Notice of, 217. See Pitt. CHASE, SALMON P., Secretary of the Treasury, 560. Notice of, 560, 679. Chief-Justice of United States, 732. Chattanooga, 606, 682. CHAUNCEY, Commodore, 420, 425. CHEKSEMAN, General Montgomery s Aid, 242. Chepultepec, Battle of, 1847, 494. Clteraw Indians. 20. Cherry Valley devastated, 290. " Cherub " sloop-of-war, 481. Cherubusco, General Scott at, 493. CHESTNUT, JAMKS, 546. Chesapeake Bay explored by Captain John Smith, 67. Gosnold in the, 64. Indians on the, 20. " Chesapeake " frigate, 401, 429. Chester. Pennsylvania. William Penn at, 97. Chevaux-de-fr isG described, 274. At Charleston, 311. Chevy Chase. 233. C[/i-e icing Tobacco invented by white people, 14. Chicago. Wigwam at, 543. Convention at, 710. Chickahominy River, 66, 616. Battle of the, 620, 692. * , C hicka-manga" Confederate pirate, 714. Battle of, 666. Chickasaw Bayou, Battle at. 643. Chickasaw Indians, 29, 30, 44. Chiekasaw River, 29. CHICKELEY, Sir HENRY, 113. Child, Scandinavian, born on Ehode Island, 85. CHILDS, Colonel, at Puebla, 494. Chimney Point, 189. CMppewa Indians. 17, 18, 24, 205. Chippewa, Battle ot. 433. Choctaw Indians, 29, 30. Choican Indians, 23. Chowan River, 97. Christians. Indian, converted by French Jesuits,22. Christian Commission, 723. Christina, in Delaware, 93. CHRONICLE, WILLIAM, Mayor, 319. Chrysler s Field, Battle of, 427. CHURCH BENJAMIN, Captain, 127. Death of, 127. Church of England in the reign of Charles II., 110. Established in Maryland, 154. In North Carolina, 168. In South Carolina. 169. Church and State, in Massachusetts, 118. Churchmen, persecuted by Puritans, 119. Cincinnati Society, instituted, 352. Order of the, 352. Cipher Writing of the New York tories, 309. City Hall of New York, 366. City Hall Park, 148. Civilization. New period of, in America, 52. CLAI BORNE, WILLIAM C. C., Governor, 440. Notice of, Clan*. Indian, 17. CLARENDON, Lord, 98. Clarendon County Colony, 98. CLARK, ABRAHAM, 356, 602. CLARKE, GEORGE K., General, his operations in South Carolina and Georgia, 314, 315, 319, 336. His expedi tion against the Indians, 303. Captures Kaskaskia, and Cahokia, 303. Notice of, 303. CLARKE, Captain, his tour of exploration with Captain Lewis, in 1S04, 479. CLAY, GREEN, General, at Fort Meigs, 418, 419. CLAY, HENRY, United States Commissioner at Ghent, 443. Nominated for the Presidency, 454. Secretary of State. 454. His compromise bill, 464. Nominated for the Presidency, 478. Notice of, 500. CLAY, Lieutenant-Colonel, 486. CLAYBORNE. WILLIAM, 82, 151. " ClermonV 1 Fulton s first steamboat, 399. CLEVELAND. BENJAMIN, 319. CLINCH, General, 467. CLINGMAN, WILLIAM, 611. CLINTON, De WITT, 416. His part in the Erie Canal, 457. Notice of, 457. CLINTON, Sir HENRY, General, at Boston, 234, 236. Joins Sir Peter Parker, 248. On Long Island, 253. At New York, 272. Captures Forts Clinton and Montgomery, 2S3. At Monmouth, 287. His moonlight dispatch, 238. His marauding expeditions, 296. Succeed- Howe, 287. Evacuates Rhode Island, and proceeds to the Carolinas, 306, 309. In New Jersey, 320. Deceives Washington, 320. At the Seige of Charleston, 309. Sends emissaries to the Pennsylvania mutineers, 328 329. CLINTON, JAMES, General, at Tioga Point, 304. CLINTON, GEORGE, Governor, 287. Vice-President, 396, 404, With General Knox, 350. Notice of, 350. CLYMER, GEORGE, 356, 602, 629. COBB, HOWELL, General, 715. COCKBURN, Admiral, His marauding expeditions, 430, Cod Fishery, 47, 116. CODDINGTON, WlLLIAM, 91. COFFEE, General, in the expedition against the Creeks, 428. Notice of, 428. COFFEY, Colonel, 675. Coins and Currency of the United States, 372. Copper coins, 372. COLDEN, CADWALLADER, 215. COLIGNY, Admiral, 49. 50. Sir Walter Raleigh studies the art of war with, 52. The friend of Huguenots, 49. COLLETON, JAMES, Governor, 166. COLLETON, SIR JOHN, 98. COLLIER, SIR GEORGE, 297. Colonies, American, History of the, 51, 52, 104, 174. American population of the, 179. New England, pro posed Union of the, 121 ; the Union dissolved, 122. Colony, The earliest in America, 42. Colorado, 678. Columbia, District of, 388. Columbia River, 279. Columbia, S. C., Fall of, 712. COLUMBUS,. CHRISTOPHER, 37. His voyage to Iceland, 37. Queen Isabella fits out a fleet for him, 37. He sails from Palos, 39. His voyages and discoveries, persecu tions and death, 41. Comanche Indians, 33. Territory of the, 45. Conibahee River, D Ayllon at the mouth of, 43. Commerce- of the American colonies. Restrictions fin- posed on the, 212. American, 381, 382, 390, 391 ; Pro tected, 391 ; Injured by England and France, 400, 401; Injured by pirates, 453. Of Great Britain and the United States, 367. Committee of Safety of Massachusetts, 234. Com mittees of Correspondence, 226. Como, Witchcraft at, 132. Company of Free Traders, 96. "Concessions" The, of Berkeley and Carteret, 159. Confederation, American Articles of, 266, 267, 353, 355. Confederation of New England colonies, 121. Confederates, Finances of, 679. Confederacy, Excitement in, 545. Congaree Indians hostile to the South Carolina col onies, 170. Congress, First Continental, at Philadelphia, 227, 228. Second Continental, 215, 238; Appoints a Committee to confer with Washington, 239; Measures of, 245; Armed Marine of, 307 ; Committee on Naval Affairs 307 ; Continental Naval Board of Marine Committee, and Board of Admiralty of, 308; Resolution on Inde pendence, and Committee on the Declaration of Inde pendence, 251; Committee for conferring with Lord Howe, 259; Sends an embassy to France and to other European courts, 266; Rejects Lord North s Concilia tory Bills, 286. Of the United States, resolution of the, to allow military officers half pay for life, 349 ; Disbands the army, 350 ; Efforts of, at New York. 362 ; Recom mends the appointment of a day for thaiiKogiving and prayer, 370; Measures of the, respecting Revenues, 366, 367 : Extraordinary Sessions of, 475. Provincial, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 230; Makes salutary change in postal arrangements, 507; (Sends steam ves sels to coast of China and round Cape Horn, 515 ; Re construction policy of, 726; Passes tenure of office bill, 729; Impeaches the President, 729, 732. Congress Mexican, Assumes provisional authority, 497. "Congress" frigate, 414. Connecticut, Origin and signification of the word, 85. Settlement of, 62. Pequod Indians in, 21. History of the Colony of, 154. Constitution of, 154. Charter of, 155. Takes part in the war against King Philip, 155. Refuses to surrender its charter, 156. Joins the con federacy of colonies, 121. Grant to, from Parliament. 206. Connecticut River, Discovered by Block, 72, 82. Col ony at the, 85, 86. Canonchet, 21. CONNOR, Commodore. Sails for the Gnlf of Mexico, 480. Captures Tampico, Tabasco, and Tuspan, 485. At Vera Cruz, 489. "Constellation," frigate, 382. Captures the frigate L* Insurgente, 385. Action of the, with the frigate La Vengeance, 385. INDEX xlv Constitution of the United /States, "Washington sug gests a convention on the subject of a; history of the, 355; articles of the, 359, 860, 361. Amendments, 758. Constitution of Government, Pilgrim, 78. " Constitution , 1 frigate, 382, 415, 440. Action of the, with the Guerriere, 414. Continental, Army, 238. Congress: see Congress. Money, 245; Depreciation of, 293, 328; Counterfeited, 293. CONTRECOSUR, M., attacks the Ohio Company s men, 1S2. Contreras, Battle of, 1847. 493. Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. At Albany, 1754, 183. CONWAY, THOMAS, General, 255. CONWAY, HENRY SEYMOUR, General, his motion in Par liament, 346, 347. COODE, The insurgent, 153. COPLEY, .) cmx SINGLETON, 209. COPLEY, LIONEL, Royal Governor, 153. COPPIN, Pilot of the Mayflower, 78. Copp s Hill, 235. COOPER, ASHLEY, Lord, 98. Cooper River, Origin of the name, 99. CORDOVA, FRANCISCO FERNANDEZ DE, discovers Mxico, 43. Cor ee Indians, 17, 20, 57. Conspire against the North Carolina settlements, 168. Corinth, Battle at, 635. . Evacuation of, 604. CORNBUKY, Lord, 149, 161. Cornplanter, 26, 304. CORNSTALK unites with Logan against the white men, 20. His bravery and death, 20. CORNWALLIS, CHARLES, Lord, on Long Island, 253, 254. Captures Fort Lee, 259. Pursues Washington, 260. At New York, 262. . At Princeton, 268. At Charleston, 311. In South Carolina, 313. At Sander s Creek, 315. In command of the British Army at the South, 315. At Charlotte, 318. At Winnsborough, 319. Suc ceeds Phillips, 330. Pursues Morgan, 332. Abandons North Carolina, 334. At Wilmington and Petersburg, 338. His operations in Virginia, 3SS. Surrenders at Yorktown, 341. His cruelty, 318. Notice of, 318. Corpus Christi village, Mexico, 480. CORTEZ, FERNANDO, his expedition to Mexico, 43. De thrones Montezuma, 10. Notice of, 43. CORTOREAL, GASPER, his expedition to America, in 1500, 47. COSBY, WILLIAM, Governor, 150. COSTA RICA declares war against Nicaragua, 1856, 526. COTTON, Rev. Mr., 118. Comes to America, 86. Cotton, Cultivation of, in the United States, 368. Council of Plymouth, 117, 120. Council Indian, how composed, 16. "Countess of /Scarborough 1 captured by Paul Jones, 307. Counties, Origin of, 73. Cowpens, Battle of, 331, 332. Co^cs brought to America by Columbus, 41. Taken to Virginia, 68. COXE, TENCH, 369. Notice of, 368. CRAIG, Major, 345. CRAIK, Dr.. his anecdote of Washington s escape from death, 186. CRAMPTEN, Mr., British Minister, dismissed, 528, 529. Craney Island, 430. CRAVEN, Lord, 98. CRAVEN. CHARLES, Governor of South Carolina, 170. CRAWFORD. WILLIAM H., Minister to France, 429. Secre- . tary of the Treasury, 447. Nominated for the Presi dency, 454. Creek Indians, 29, 30, 103, 168, 427, 428, 455, 456. Creoles, Origin of the, 41. Crescent City, steamboat, 512. Crimea, the, Enlistments in American cities, for the English Army in, 528. CRITTENDEN, GEORGE B., Colonel, 593. CRITTENDEN, WILLIAM L., at Cuba; executed, 508. CROGHAN, Major, Notice of, 420. CROMWELL, OLIVER, 155. His supposed intention to mi grate to America, 120, 130. Opposed by Virginia, 108. Notice of, 108. Cross of St. George 144. Of St. Andrew, 144. Pine, erected by De Soto, 44. Planted on the shore of Gaspe inlet. 48. Grow Indians, 32, 33. Crown Point, 199. Champlain at, 59. Johnson s expe dition against, 185. CRUGER, Lieutenant-Colonel, 335. In South Carolina, 313 315. Cuba, Discovery of, 40. Fears of invasion of, 508. Difficulties about settlement of, 520. CULPEPPER, Lord, Grants to by Charles II., 110. CULPEPPER JOHN, 99. The revolt led by, 164. Lays out the city of Charleston, 165. Currency, National, Of the United States, 372. CURTIN, Governor, calls out Militia, 653, CURTIS, S. R., General. 591. CUSHING, CALEB, 540. CUSHING, THOMAS, 588. CUSHING, WILLIAM, Judge, 369 CUSHMAN. ROBERT, 77. " Cyane" frigate, 440. D. DACRES, Captain, 414. DADE, FRANCIS L., Major, massacred, 467. Notice ot, 467. Dahcotah Indians, 31, 32. DALE, SIR THOMAS, arrives at Jamestown, with supplies, 69. Governor of Virginia, 70. DAHLGREN, Admiral, 688, 673. Dalton, Georgia, Raid at, 682. Danvers, Witchcraft at, 183. DARE, ELEANOR, her daughter Virginia, 56. Dartmouth College, 178. Daughters of Liberty, 216. DAVENPORT, JOHN, 88. DAVIE, WILLIAM RICHARDSON, Colonel, 318, 356. Envoy to France, 385. DAVIS, JEFFERSON, Secretary of War, 523. Notice of 547, 569. Elected President of Confederacy, 641 Flies from Richmond, 718. Taken prisoner, 722. DAVIS, JEFERSON C., 591. D HANVILLE, 138. D AYLLON, LUCAS VASQUEZ, 42. DAYTON, JONATHAN, 856, 629. DEANE, SILAS, Member of the first Continental Congress, 588. Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, 307, 308. American Agent in France, 266. On the American embassy to France, 266. DEARBORN, HENRY. 390. Commands the Army of the North, 412. At York, Canada, 425. Notice of, 410. Debt of United States, 679. In 1868, 734. DECATUR, STEPHEN, Commodore, 415. In the Mediter ranean; at Algiers; at Tunis, 445. His exploit at Tripoli, notice of, 392. Captured, 440. Declaration of Rights, 215. Deerfteld, 126. Attacked by Rouville, 135. DE HART. JOHN, 588. DE HEISTER, 253, 254. DE KALB, Baron, in the Southern campaign, 309, 314. Death of, 316. Notice of, 316. DELANCEY, JAMES, Governor, 183, 185. Favors a Stamp Delaware, Settlement of, 92. Colonies, 144. Swedes in, 62. Yields to the Dutch, 147. An independent colony, 159. Delaware Bay, Verrazani anchors in, 48. Delaware Indians-, 17, 21, 161, 363. DE LA WARR, Lord, Governor of Virginia, 68. At James town, 69. Character of; death of, 69. Delft-Haven, Holland, Puritans sail from, 77. DE MONTS, 58. Deseret, the country of the Mormons; signification of the name, 504. DE SOTO, FERDINAND, 44,45. D ESTAING ; see Estaing. DETROIT, Capture of, 424. DEVENS, CHARLES, General, 585. DE VRIES, Captain. 92. His plantation, 140. DEXTER, SAMUEL, 389. DICKENSON, JOHN, Chairman of the convention on the Constitution of the United States, 355. His letters O1 Q DIESKAU, Baron, Fate of his expedition, 189, 190. Death of, 190. Dime, United States coin, 372. Dinwiddie Court House, 717. DINWIDDIE, ROBERT, Governor, 185. His letter to St. Pierre, 181. His independent companies, 184. Directory, The French, 383, 384. DOBBS, Governor. 185. Dobtfs Ferry, 257. Dollar, American, 372. xlvi INDEX. Dominion, The Old : see Old Dominion. Donelson, fort, Victory at, 597. DONGAN, THOMAS, Governor, 147. DONIPHAN, Colonel. 488, 489. DONOP, Count, at Burlington, 262. Death of, 295. DOUGLAS, STEPHEN A., 541. Dover, attacked by the French and Indians, 1689, 130. DOWNIE, Commodore, 434. Death of, 435. Dpaft, 657. DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS, 56. At St. Augustine, 57. Dis covers the tobacco-plant : introduces it into England, 70. DRUMMOND, General, 432, 433. At Burlington Heights, 438. At Fort Erie, 434. DRUMMOND, WILLIAM, Rev., 111. Executed, 97, 112. DUANE, WILLIAM J., refuses to withdraw the Govern ment funds from the United States Bank, 465. DUCHE, JACOB, Rev., 228. DUDLEY, JOSEPH, 129. DUDLEY, THOMAS, 117. DUNBAR, Colonel, 186. DUNMORE, Lord, 237, 243, 589. DUPONT, S. F., Commodore, 582, 609, 671. DUSTAN, Mrs, captured by the French and Indians 134. DUTCH, The, their maritime enterprise, 71. East India Company of, send a ship to the Hudson River, 71. Purchase Manhattan Island from the Manhattan Indians, 21. Settle at New Amsterdam, 62. In New Netherland, send a friendly salutation to the Massa chusetts Colony, 118. Their friendly intercourse with the Puritans, 85. Oppose Captain Holmes, 85. Purchase Long Island, 114. Claim jurisdiction upon the Connecticut, 121. Settle in South Carolina, 99. Take possession of New York, 147. Dutch East India Company, 59, 71. Dutch West India Company, 72, 93, 139, 144. Dutch Point, Connecticut, 85. Eagle, American gold coin, 372. EARLY, General, 695, 698. East India Company send tea to America ; notice of the, 224. East Jersey, 160. EATON, THEOPHILUS, Governor, 88,154. EATON, WILLIAM. Captain, Consul at Tripoli, 892. Edda, Indian, 23. EDEN, WILLIAM, 286. Edenton, North Carolina, First popular assembly at, 98. Edisto Island, 609. Education fostered by the Massachusetts Colony, 121. In the colonies, 178. EDWARDS, JONATHAN, 210. EFFING H AM, Governor, Character of, 113. Elba, Bonaparte at, 431. Electors for President and Yice-President of the United States, 361. ELIOT, JOHN, Rev., 123. ELIZABETH, Queen of England, 51, 76. Elisabeth Islands discovered, 57. Ettzabethtown, New Jersey, 159. ELLET, CHARLKS, Jr., Colonel, 605. ELLIOTT, SUSANNA, Mrs., 305. Ellison s Mill, Battle at, 619, 620. ELLSWORTH. Colonel, takes first secession flag, 564. ELLSWORTH, OLIVER, 356, 359. Envoy to France, 1799, 385. On the Judicary of the United States, 368. No tice of, 359. Elm, Penn s Treaty, 96, 161. Emancipa tion, Proclamation of, 639, 640, 680. ENDICOT, JOHN, 117. England, see Great Britain. " Enterprise " brig, 430. " Epervier " brig, "440. Erie Indians, 19, 23. Erie Canal, 456, 457. Erie, Lake ; See Lake Erie. Emucfau, Battle at. 428. ERSKINE, General, at Trenton, 268. ERSKINE, Mr., British Minister to the United States, 406. Eeopu* Indians, 143. Esquimaux Indians, 17, 509. " Essex " frigate, 414, 430, 431. ESTAING, Count d 1 , sent with a fleet to America, 286. His fleet disabled by a storm, 289. In the West Indies, 292. Off the coast of Georgia, 305. At the siego of Savannah, 305. Notice of, 289. Estramadura, Cortez died at, in 1554, 48. Etchemin Indians, 22. Eutaw Springs, Battle of, 338. EVERETT. EDWARD. Mass., 542. EWELL, General, 617, 654. EWING, JAMES, General, at Trenton, 263. Exeter, New Hampshire, founded, 80. F. Fairfield, Connecticut, 88. Fair Oaks, Battle at, 619. falls of the James River, 105, 108. Famine in the Virginia Colony, 69. FARRAGUT, Commodore, 610, 630, 632, 678, 708. FAUCHET, M., succeeds M. Genet, 378. FAULKNER, Major, 430. FAUST, JOHN, his printing office, 62. Fayetteville, Engagement at, 675. Federalist Party, 377. " Federalist," The, 361. Felucca Gun-boat, 401. FENDALL. Governor, 153. Fenian Brotherhood, 728. FERDINAND and ISABELLA, 88, 60. FERGUSON, ADAM, 286. FERGUSON, Captain, 336. FERGUSON, Mrs., her attempt to bribe General Reed, 286. FERGUSON, PATRICK, Major, at King s Mountain, 1780, 319. Death and grave of, 319. Fernando de Taos, Massacre at, 489. FERRAR, NICHOLAS, 107. FEW, WILLIAM, 355, 856. Fidelity, The Order of, 352. FILLMORE, MILLARD, Vicc-President, 498. President, 501. Notice of, 501. Cabinet of, 502. Close of administra tion of, 512. Fine Arts ^n America, 209. Finances of the United States, 679. FISHER, MARY, Quakeress, arrives at Boston, 122. FISHERIES, 349. Prohibitory Act of Parliament respect ing the, 231. Difficulties between Great Britain and the United States respecting the, 511, 523. Fishing Creek, 27. FITZSIMOXS, THOMAS, 356, 629. Five Nations, The, History of, 23. Captain John Smith s friendly relations with, 67. Allies of Governor Winthrop, 131. Attempts of James II. to introduce French priests among them, 147. Their treaty of neutrality, 135. Flag Cul pepper, 243. Royal, of Great Britain, 144. Union, 245. Of the thirteen stripes, unfurled by Washington at Cambridge, 144. Flag, Secession, 555. Flathead Indians, 33. FZaaj, American, 206. FLEMING, Captain, Death of, 269. FLETCHER, BENJAMIN, Governor, 149, 156, 164. Flint River, De Soto on the banks of the, 44. Floating Batteries described, 201. Florida, Discovery of; origin of the name, 42. Narvaez, Governor of, 43, 44. Melendez s expedition to, 50, 51. Offlethorpe s expedition to, 172. Ceded to England, 204. Restored to Spain, 349. Ceded to the United States, 1S19, 451. State of, added to the Union, 478. Secession of, 547. FOOTE, A. H., Commander, 595. Wounded, 605. Forts: Adams, 874. Amsterdam, 139. Andrew, 173. Bower, 438. Brooke, 467. Brown, 481. Butler, 677. Carolina, 51, 98. Casimir, 142, 143. Clinton, 283, 324. Cumberland, 198. Darling, 694. Dearborn, 412. De fiance, 374, 416. Deposit, 416. De Russy, 677 T Diego, 172. Donelson, 595, Drane, 467. Du Quesne, 27, 182, 185, 186. Edward, 189, 190, 191, 192, 275. Erie. 433, 434. Fisher, 713. Forty Fort, 290. Frederica. 173. Frontenac, 198. Gaines, 709. Galphin, 336. George, on Lake George, 198, 414, 425, 426. 427, Georse, New York City, "248, 351. Granby, 235. Gris- wold, 340. Hamilton, 253. Harrison. 416, Hatteras., 580. Henry, 595. Hindman. 643. Independence. 20, 220. Jackson, 610. Kins. 467. La Fayette. 298, 586. Leavenworth, 483, 486. Le Bceuf, 181. Lee, 259. Ly- man, 189. Mackinaw. 411. Macon. 607. Maiden, 410. Meigs, 418. Mercer, 274, 275. Mifflin, 274. M Henry t INDEX. xlvii 437. Mimms, 427. Monroe, 615, 695. Montgomery 283. Morgan, 438. Moosa, 172. Motte, 335. Moultrie. 249, 810, 46S. Nassau. 72, 93, 94. Necessity, 183i Niagara. 199, 200, 427. Ninety-Six, 316, 335, 336. Ontario, 189, 192. Orange, 72, 139, 144, 14S. Oswego, 189, 192. Pemherton, 643. Pepperell, 1S9. Pickens, 580. Pillow, 605. 682. Pitt, 198. Powhatan, 691. Presque Isle, 181. Prince George, 335. Putnam, 2S3, 324. Recovery, 874. Republic. 617. St. Frederick, 189. St. Philip. 440, 610. Sandusky, 419. Schuyler, 278. Simon, 173. Stanwix, 278. Steadman, 717. Stephenson, 419. Stoddart. 398. Sullivan, 249. Trumbull. 340. Venanso, 1S1. Wagner, 673, 674. Warren. 5S7. Washington, 258. Watson, 335, Wayne, 374, 416. William, 173. William Henry, 191, 194" FORREST, N. B., Guerilla Chief, 632, 681. FOSTER, General, 671. Fox, CHARLES, his opposition to the measures of Great Britain, 282. His remark respecting the battle of Guilford, 333. Fox, GEORGE, visits his Quaker brethren in America, 94. Notice of. 122. Fox Indians, 17. Conspire against the English, 205. See Sacs and Foxes. France, First American embassy to, 266. Alliance of, with the United States, 2S3. Fleet of, sent to America, 286. Secret treaty of, with Spain, 306. Depredations by, on American commerce, 382. Fleet of, attacked by Arbuthnot, 330. War with United States, 385. Its commerce, 401. Negotiation with United States, 406. United States Minister to, 429. Claims of the United States against, 468. France, Emperor of, 727. FRANCIS I., his expedition to America, 47. FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, 210. His plan of Colonial Confed eration, 183. A Colonel, 193. At Boston, on the sub ject of the invasion of Canada, 239. Circulates in Eng land the State-papers of the Continental Congress, 230. On the Committee to confer with Lord Howe. 257. On the Committe to draft a Declaration of Independence, 251, 252. On the embassy to France Issues commis sions to Naval Offlcers.SOS. Commissioner on the Treaty of Peace, 348. The Pope s Nuncio makes overtures to, respecting an Apostolic Vicar in the United States. 353. Member of the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. His proposition respecting prayers at the Convention, 359. His account of the father of Cotton Mather, 134. FRANKLIN, General, 625, 684. FRANKLIN, SIR JOHN, Search for, 509, 510. Franklin, Battle at, 705. Frankfort, Capture of, 633. ERASER, General, 276. FREDERICK THE GREAT, his opinion of Washington, 269. FREDERICK III, of Prussia, 431. Fredericksburg, 625. Battle of, 631. Battle near, 692. Free Institutions, Growth of, 114. Freedom, Ideas of, in Massachusetts, 118. FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES, Colonel, his exploits in Califor nia, 487 ; at Los Angeles ; at San Gabriel ; deprived of his commission, 487. Senator from California, 499. Notice of, 487. Explorations of 510, 574. FRENCH, PARKER II.. Colonel, 427. French Colony on Sable Island, 57. Acadia, 121. Possessions in North America, between the Penobscot and St Croix, 129. In Carolina, 55. Revolution, 377. Settlement, the earliest in the New World, 58, 59. Spoliations, 468. French, The, in Canada, discover the Algonquins, 17. First visit of. to the Sioux Indians. 32. Earliest Ex plorers of the Middle and Upper Mississippi, 81. Sub jugation of, in North America, 204. Assailed by the Natchez Indians, 29. Their expedition against Charles ton, 169. French and, Indian War, 19, 104, 138, 179. Frenchtmvn, burned. 430. Fresh Water River, 85. FROBISHER, SIR MARTIN, his expedition, 52. The ship used by, 60. Notice of, 51. "F/-oWc," brig. 415. FRONTENAC. M.. Governor of Canada, 131. Burns Sche- nectody, 130, 131, Repelled by Schuyler, 149. FRY, JOSHUA A., Colonel, 182. Oeath of, 183. Fugitive Slave Law, 507, 521, 527. FULTON, ROBERT, Notice of, 398, 399. "Fundamental Constitutions. The, of Shaftsbury and Locke, 164, 165, 167. 51 Funeral Ceremonies, Indian, 15. Pyre Algonquin, 15. Furs, Trade in, 72, 116, 139, 140. G. GAEDSDEN, CHRISTOPHER, Lieutenant Governor, 312. GAGE, THOMAS, General, A Lieutenant-Colonel at the battle of Monongahela, 186. Governor of Montreal, 203. Enters Boston with soldiers, 220. Governor of Massachusetts, 226. Sends his secretary to dissolve the General Assembly of Massachusetts, 227. Fortifies Boston, 229. Notice of, 229. GAINES, EDMUND P., General, Arrests Aaron Burr, 398. At Fort Erie, 733. His expedition against the Semi- noles; joined by General Jackson, 443. Assailed by the Serninoles, near Withlacoochee, 467. Notices of, 448, 467. GALLATIN, ALBERT, Member of the House of Representa tives, 339. Secretary of the Treasury, 390,400. Envoy, 419. United States Commissioner at Ghent, 1814, 433. GALLOWAY, JOSEPH, 260, 588. Galneston, Pirates and slave-dealers at, 448. GAMBIER, Lord, British Commissioner at Ghent, 1814 433. GANSEVOORT, Colonel, At Fort Stanwix, 278. Garangnla, 26. GARDINER. Colonel, 295. Gaxpe Inlet, 48. U fap4? schooner, 223, 310. GATES, HORATIO, General, His appointment as Adjutant General, 238. Succeeds General Thomas, 261. Super sedes General Sehuyler, 277. At Bemis s Heights. 278. Bursroyne surrenders to, 281. Chairman of the Board of War, 294. His flisrht to Charlotte, 316. Trial of, 330. Notice of, 314. GATES, Sir THOMAS, 63. At Jamestown. Returns to England. GEIGER, EMILY, 337. GENET. EDMUND CHARLES, Minister from France to the United States, 377. Fits out privateers, 377. Recalled, in 1798, 378. Notice of, 377. GEORGE I, of England, 186, 137. GEORGE II, of England, Accession of, 137. Charter granted by, for the proposed Georgia Colony, 100. GEORGE HL of England. Accession of, 212. His insan ity, 93. Leaden "statue of, at New York, pulled down, 252. GEORGE, Prince of Denmark, 136. George Washington."" frigate, 391. Georgetown, Burnt, 430 Georgia. S -tiletnent of, 99 Colony in. founded by Oglethorpe, 62. Colony of; origin of the name, 100. Invaded by the Spaniards, 172. Receives Parliamentary aid, 209. Claims of, to Cherokee lands. 461. Contro versy in. co icerning the Creek lands, 455, 456. Seces- sion of, 547. Quiet in. 673. GERARD, M., French Minister to the United States, 287. Germans in North Carolina, 168. GERRY, ELBRIDGE, 356. Envoy, 885. Vice-President, 497. GERMAINE, GEORGE, Lord. 282, 345. Germantown, Battle of. 275. Gettysburg, Battle of, 655. GIBSON, C. W., Major, 683. GIDDINGS, Major, at Ceralvo, 486. GILBERT, EDWARD, 499. GILBERT, "SiR HUMPHREY, 52, 63. His expedition to America ; notice of, 52. GILBERT, SIR JOHN, 63. GILBERT. RALEIGH, 63. OILMAN, NICHOLAS, 356, 629. GILMORE, Q. A., General, 607, 673, GIST, General, 347. Glendale, Battle at, 621. Gloucester, Virginia, fortified by Cornwallis, 840. Goats, The first, taken to Virginia, 68. GODFREY, THOMAS, 209. GODYN, SAMUEL, 92, 139. GOFFE, WILLIAM, The regicide judge, 123, 126. Gold, Thirst for, in the Virginia Colony, 67. Dia> covery of, California, 497. Golden Circle, Knights of, 656, 687, 710. Goldsboro 1 , Raid on, 671. Battle at, 714. Goldsmith* among the Virginia colonists, 67. GORE, CHRISTOPHER, 222. GEORGES, SIR FERNANDO, 63, 79, 129. Associated with John Mason, 79. GOKHAM, NATHANIEL, 356, 359. xlviii INDEX. GOSNOLD, BARTHOLOMEW, 57, 63, 65. His discoveries; his fort, 57. Death of, 65. GOULDBOURNE, HENRY, British Commissioner at Ghent, 448. GOUKGES. DOMINIC DE. Surprises and captures Fort Car olina, 51. Government, Three forms of, in America, 211. GRAFFENREID, Count, 168. GRANT, JAMES, Colonel, 204. GRANT, General, (British), 253. His reply to Ball, 262. GRANT, ULYSSES S., General, 595, makes vigorous pre parations for ascending the Tennessee river. 601. 634, 642. Begins siege of Vicksburg, 645, 666, 67S. Com- mandcr-in-chiefTeSl, 6S9, 690, 69 2, 693, 716, 719. Fare well address of, 723. Placed in charge of the War Department, 730. Elected President of the U. S. 733. GRASSE, Count de, 339, 340. GRAVES, Admiral, 340. GRAY, SAMUEL, killed at Boston, by Preston s men, 221. GRAYSON, WILLIAM. 355. Great Britain acknowledges the Independence of the United States, 348. Non-intercourse with the United States, 399. Injures the commerce of the United States, 401. Navy of, 414. At war with the United States, 409 ; Treaty of Peace. 443. Claims of, to terri tory in North America, 17, 63, ISO, 478, 479. Eoyal standard of, 144. Ill feeling against, 511. Friendly relations with disturbed, 526. Her sympathy with re bellion, 561. Demands return of Mason and Slidell, 588. Great Horseshoe Bend, General Jackson at the, 1S41, 428. Great Kanawha River, Battle at the, 19 GREEN, ROGER, 97. Green Bay, Indians on the western shores of, IS. GREEN. CHRISTOPHER, Lieutenant-Colonel, of Ehode Island, 275. GREENE. NATHANIEL, General, appointed Brigadier- General, 238. At Fort Lee, 259. At Trenton, 259. Ac companies La Fayette to Ehode Island, 289. At Springfield, 320. Succeeds Gutes; his operations, 330. Joins Morgan at the Yadkin; his retreat from Virginia. 332. Opposes Cornwallis at Guilford court house, 333. Pursues Cornwailis ; at the battle of Hobkirk s Hill; his letter to M. Luzerne, 334. At the siege of Fort Ninety-Six, 336. Pursues Stewart, 837. At the battle of Eutaw Springs, 338. Eeceives intelligence of the capture of Cornwallis, 345. Takes possession of Charleston, 347. GREENE, ZECIIARIAH. Eev., 252. Greenrille, Treaty of, in 1795, 24. GREXVILLE, GEORGE, Author of the Stamp Act, 221. GRENVILLE. SIR EICHARD, his Expedition to America, 55, 56. Grenoille, Georgia, 213. GREY, General, his Marauding Expedition, 290. GREY, Captain, of Boston, 479. GRIDLKY, EICHARD, Engineer of the Continental Army, 138, 190, 198. 234. GRIEKSON, Colonel, Eaid of, 645. GRIER, Mrs., Judge Henry s account of, 241. GRIFFITH, Admiral, at Castine, 428. GRIJALVA, JUAN DE, his Expedition to Mexico, 43. Groveton, Battle near, 626. Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 521. Guanahama, The place of Columbus s first landing in America, 40. GUDRIDA, Wife of a Scandinavian Navigator, 35. GUESS, GEORGE, a native Cherokee, invents an alphabet of his language, 28. Guilford, Battle of, 333. Gun-boats of the United States, 401. " GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS," The assumed name of Arnold, 92, 325. GWINN, WILLIAM M., Senator, 499. H. Habeas Corpus, Suspension of writ of, 656. Harries Bluff, 643. HAKLUYT, EICHARD, 63. HALE, SIR MATTHEW, condemns persons accused of witchcraft, 132. HALE, NATHAN, Captain, executed, 258. "Half-Moon," The, 48, 59, 71. HALLECK, H. W., General, 595, 591, 623, 625, 653. HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, General, Washington s favorite Aid and Secretary, 360, 361. Member of the Con vention on the Articles of Confederation, 1787, 356. Signer of the Constitution of the United States. Ono of the. authors of " The Federalist," 361. Secretary ot the Treasury, 370; his financial Eeports, 370, 371. His Scheme respecting Public Lands, 372. His dis agreement with Jett erson, 374. His duel with Burr, 396. Notice of, 360. HAMPDEN, JOHN, 85. His supposed intention to migrate to America, 120. HAMPTON, WADE, General, 410, 427. Hampton Roads, The British fleet in, 430. Armament in, 582. A naval force in. 613. Hancock. JOHN, at Salem, 230. Gage s purpose to hang him, 234. Leads troops to Ehode Island, 289. His^sloop Liberty," 220. Notice of, 230, 231. HANCOCK, General, 654, 689. HANSFOED, CHARLES, executed, 112. HARDY , Commodore, 430, 437. Harlem Heiglils, Washington at, 257. Harlem Plains, Skirmish at, 258. HAEMER, General, his Expedition against the Indians, 873. Harper s Ferry, Insurrection, 438. In 1861, 557, 629. HARPER, JOHN, A., 409. HARRINGTON, JONATHAN, 222. HARRIOT, his " Eeport on the new found land of Vir ginia;" notice of, 55, 56. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, National Convention at, 458. HARRISON, BENJAMIN, at Boston, 239. Harrison s landing, 622. HARRISON, WILLIAM HENRY, at the battle of Tippecanoe, 408. Commands the army of the North-east, 412. His Expedition against the Indians, 416. Ac Fort Meigs, 418. Attacks Maiden, 423. President of the United States; his administration, 473. Death of, 475. Notice of, 473. Hartford, Connecticut, SS. Convention at, 444 HARTLEY, DAVID. 348. HARVARD, EBENEZER, 22, 373. HARVARD, JOHN, Eev., 121. Harvard. College, , 121, 178. HARVEY, SIR JOHN, 107, 165. Impeached, 207 HASLETT, Colonel, Death of. 269. Hxtteras Indians, 20, 55, 167. Hatteras Inlet, Fight at, 579. Havana, The body of Culumbus removed to, 41. Ila-verhill, Massachusetts, 134. HAVILAND, Colonel, 203. Havre-de- Grace, Maryland, 82,430. HAWLEY, JESSE, 456. HAYNE, ISAAC, Colonel. 387. HAYNE, EOIJERT Y., 463, 464. HAYES, J., General. 696. IIAZZARD, W. W., his plantation, 173. Head of Elk, Maryland, 340. HEALD, Captain, 412. HEATH, SIR EUKEUT. 97,93. HEATH, WILLIAM, General, 23S. In the Highlands, 259. At Peekskill, 260. In New Jersey, 264, 265. HECKEWELDER, his History of the Indian Nations, 33. Heights of Abraham, 202. HEINTZELMAN, General, 619. Hell Gate, New York, navigated by Block, 72. HENDERSON, General, 4S3. HENDRICK, Death of, 190. HENRY, Prince, of Portugal, patron of navigators, 36. HENRY IV., of France, his edict of Nantes, 166. HENRY IV., of Castile and Leon, 38. HENRY VII., of England, 46. HENRY VIII., of England, defies the Pope; Defender of the Faith, 75. Revival of an obsolete statute of, 221. Punishes witchcraft, 132. HENRY, PATRICK, member of the First Continental Con gress, 228. His eloquence, 237. His regiment at the battle of the Great Bridge, 243. Member of the Con vention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. De clines the appointment of Envoy to France, 385. Notice of, 214. HENRY, Judge, 241. HERKIMER, General, At Oriskauy, 278. HERRERA, President, 481. Hexsians, the, account of, 246. Marauders, 296, 297. Capture of, at Trenton, by Washington, 263. With Burgoyne, 281. HEYES^ PETER, 92. 94. Hi-a-wat-ha, Legend of, 23. 24. Hichittie Indians, 30. HIGGINSON, Eev. Mr., 117. Death of, 118. INDEX. xlix High Hills of Santee, 337. Highlanders in Georgia, 171. HILL, A. P., General, 619, 693. HILL, D. H., General, 619, 620, 671. Hilton Head, 704. HIND MAN, T. C., 637. HINMAN, Captain, 308. Hi-o-ka-too, Seneca Chief, 25. HobkirVs Hill, Battle of, 334. Hoboken, Slaughter of Indians at, 141. HOBOMOK, a famous New England Indian, 21 Hochelaga, Cartier at, 48. HOKE, General, 704. HOOD, J. B., General, 700, 702, 705. HOOKER, J., General, 616, 622, 629. Placed in command of the army, 631, 647. Eesigns command of the army, 658, 667, 668, 701. HOOKER, THOMAS, Rev., his colony, 86. HOLBORNE, Admirai, 194. Holland, Expedition from, to America, 71, 72. War with England, 147, 327. HOLMES, Admiral, 201. HOLMES, WILLIAM, Captain, So. HOPKINS, EDWARD. Governor, 88, 155. HOPKINS, EZEK. first Commander-in-chief of the Amer ican Navy, 308. HOPKINSON, FRANCIS, Notice of, 285. HOPKINSON. JOSEPH, author of Hail Columbia," 285. Hornet," sloop of war, 414, 428, 429. HORRY, Colonel, 336. Horse, The first taken to Virginia, 63. Columbus takes horses to America, 41. Taken from Cuba to Florida ; their fate, 44. Taken by De Soto to Florida, 44. HOTHAM, Admiral, 292. Jlousatonio Indians, 189. House of JBurgesses, Virginia, the beginning of the, 106. House of Representatives of Massachusetts Colony, 122. HOUSTON, WILLIAM, 356. HOUSTON, WILLIAM CHURCHILL, 356. HOUSTON, General, at the battle of San Jacinto. 478. HOWARD. JOHN EAGER, Colonel, at the battle of the Cow- pens, 332. HOWARD, Admiral, 57. HOWARD, O. O., General, 701, 703. HOWE, GEORGE, Lord, Notice of, 197. HOWE, EICIIARB, Lord, at Boston, 247. At New York, 252. Prepares to attack New York ; paroles General Sullivan ; asks Congress to appoint a Committee of Conference/257. His letter to Washington, 253. Meets the Committee appointed by Congress. 257. In Eari- tan Bay, 287. His fleet disabled by a stown in, 289. HOWE, EGBERT, General. 244, 292, 298. Suppresses the mutiny at Pompton, 329. HOWE, SIR WILLIAM, General, 202, 234, 235. At Quebec, 202. At New York, 252. His Proclamation, 260. Perplexes Washington, 272. At Brandywine, 273. At Elktou, 173. Attempts to entice Washington from his encampment, 183. Knighted, after the battle of Brooklyn, 273. Huamantla, Battle of, 494. HUDSON, HENRY, Captain, his glowing account of his discoveries, 71. Fate of, 59. HUGER, Colonel, defeated by Tarleton, 311. Huguenots, the, Persecution of, in France, 166. Ad miral Coligny, the friend of, 49. In North Carolina, 163. In South Carolina, 166. Influence of, in Amer ica, 52. HULL, ISAAC, Commodore, 414. HULL. WILLIAM, General, 410, 411. HULSEMAN, Chevalier, 510. Letter of, 517. HUMPHREY, ALEXANDER, SO. HUMPHREY, JOHN, 117. HUNT, Captain, kidnaps Indians, 74. HUNTER, EGBERT, Governor, 150. " Hunter s Lodges" 472. HUNTER, General, 593, 608, 672, 673. Huron, Lake : see Lake Huron. HURON, KING, dies in France. 49. Huron Indians, 21, 23. With Samuel Champlain, 59. Huron- Iroquois Indians, 22-26. Their territory, 23. Their Language, 12. Huron County, invaded by the Five Nations, 24. HUTCHINSON, Governor, 222. His famous "Letters" 224, 225. HUTCHINSON, Captain, 126. HUTCHINSON, ANNE, Mrs., 80, 91, 120. Murder of, 141. Hutchinaon Controversy, 88. Iceland, 34, 35. Ile-aux-Noix, 203. Illinois Indians, 17, 18, 19. Invaded by the Sacs and Foxes, 18. Illinois, Territory and State of, 390, 448. Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 732. Verdict given, 733. Independence, American. General desire for, in 1776, 250. War for, 229. Asserted by the Committee of Conference witli Lord Howe, 257. Acknowledged by Great Britain, 348. Indians alliances against the Colonies, 124. Chiefs dine with Governor Winthrop, 118. Confederacy against South Carolina. 170. Presents received from Great Britain, 206. Eeligion, 15. Treaties, 362, 363. Treaty of Peace, 374. Policy toward, 735, 743. Indians, The, 11. Eesemblance of, to Asiatics, 11. Ac count of the Aboriginal tribes of, 12. Employments of women among, 12. 13. Extreme Western. 32, 33. Population of, in the United States, 32. Their plan to exterminate the white people; slaughter of. 106. Troublesome in Oregon and Washington Territory, 525. Indian War, 462. Indies, the, Columbus s voyage in quest of a western passage to, 34. The trade of, monopolized by the Italian cities, 36. Indigo, American, 206. Industry, private. Effects of, in Virginia, and in Ply mouth, 70. INGOLDSBY, ETCIIARD, 158, 150. Intolerance in Massachusetts, 118, 119, 123. lu Mary land, New York, and New England, 132, 133. " Intrepid.! The, Tripolitan vessel, 392. Iowa Indians, 32. loioa, State of, added to the Union, 478. Iron chain across the Hudson, 324. Iroquois Indians, 24, 31. IRVIN, Colonel, at Agua Frio, 486. IRVIXE, WILLIAM. 355. ISABELLA, Queen, Sister of Henry IV., of Castile and Leon, 38. Columbus s personal interview with, 38. Italian Cities, their monopoly of the trade of the In dies, 36. luka Springs, Battle near, C34. IZARD, General, Succeeds Wilkinson, 432. Notice of, 434. J. JACKSON, ANDREW, General, anecdote of him, when a boy, 814. The mother of, 314. His confidence won by Burr, 397. His expedition against the Creeks, in 1813, 428. Storms Pensacola, 438. At New Orleans, 438, 439. His treaty with the Creek Indians, 438. His expedition against the Seminoles, 448. Captures Pen sacola, 451. Subdues the Seminoles, 30, 464, 459, 461. JACKSON, STONEWALL, 573, 624, 625. 629. JACKSON, T. J., 617. JACKSONVILLE, Attack on, 608. JACKSOX, JAMES, Notice of, 347, 348. JACKSON, EGBERT, 314. Jacksonbo rough, South Carolina Legislature at, 338. Jalapa, Generals Scott and Twiggs at, 489, 490. JAMES I, of England, Character of; persecutes Puri tans, 76. His proposal to contract for the whole crop of tobacco in Virginia. 107. His acts of usurpation in Virginia, 107. Death of, 116. Patents granted by, 63. 64. JAMES II, of England, Accession of; his character, 113, 147. Oppressive measures of, 129. His arbitrary pro ceedings respecting the Jerseys, 160. Driven into exile, 162. Jameson River, Origin of the name, 64. English navi gators enter the, 20, 61. Indians on the, 17. JAMES, Colonel. 326. Jamestown, Virginia, founded, 166. Origin of the name, 64. Cultivation of tobacco at, 70. Famine at, saved by Pocahontas, 69; saved by Chanco, 106. Na thaniel Bacon at, 111. Destruction of, by Bacon, 112. James Island, Fight at, 674. Japan opened to United States trade, 511. Sends Em bassy to United States, 512. JASPER, Sergeant, 249, 305. "Java." frigate, 415. JAY, JOHN, one of the authors of the Federalist, 861. Commissioner on the Treaty of Peace, 348. First INDEX Chief Justice of the United States. 369. Special En voy to Great Britain, 379. His treaty, 379, 3SO. Notice of, 379. JEFFERSON, THOMAS, on the Committee to draft the De claration of Independence, 251. Tarleton s attempt to capture, 339. Commissioner on the Treaty of Peace, 348. Secretary of Foreign Affairs. 370. His disagree ment with Hamilton, 374. His remarks respecting Algerine piracies. 381 ; and on Coins and Coinage, 372. Vice-President, 383. President, 3S8. 396. His embargo, 402, 403. His account of Logan, 26. Death of, 457. Notice of, 388, 389. JEFFREYS, Colonel. 112, 113. JENNINGS. Colonel, 416. JENIFER, DANIEL, of St. Thomas, 256. Jersey, Grant from Parliamen* to, 206. West, 139. Union of the Jerseys. 161. Jersey Prison- S dp. 259. JESSUFF, Bashaw of Tripoli. 392. JESUP. THOMAS S., at Fort Dade; notice of, 468. Jesuits, the, Origin of, 130. Missionaries, ISO. Their influence over the Indians. 22. 130. JOHN. Kins of Portugal, his expedition to America, 47. Names the Cape of Good Hope, 37. "John Adam*? frigate, 438. JOHNSTON, ALBERT SYDNEY. 594. JOHNSON, ANDREW, appointed provisional Governor of Tennessee, 599. Elected Vice-President, 710. Sworn as President, 720. Cabinet of, 720. Sketch of, 721. Total disregard of the interests of freedmen, 725. Pro claims civil war at an end, 727. Vetoes bill for negro suffrage, 728. Impeachment of, 732. Pronounced not guilty; 733. Retires from office, 735. JOHNSTON. JOSEPH E., 616, CIS, 645, 698. JOHNSON. ISAAC, and Lady Arabella, 118. JOHNSON, Siu JOHN, 278. 373. JOHNSON, SIR NATHANIEL, Governor. 169. JOHNSON, RICHARD M., Colonel, 424. Vice- President, 469. JOHNSON, ROBERT. Governor, 171. JOHNSON, THOMAS, nominates Washington as Com mander-in-chief, 238. JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM, his exploit against Dieskau, 190. His expedition against Crown Point, 185, 1S9. Ac companies Prideaux to Fort Niagara, 200. At the bat tle of Quebec. 203. Notice of, 278. JOHNSON, WILLIAM SAMCEL, 356. 556, 629. JOHNSTONS, GEORGE, Commissioner to America, 2S6. Jbneaboro , Capture of, 702. JONES, JOHN PAUL, Commodore, His exploits 306. 307. Sails for Holland. 307. His fleet. 308. Congress pre sents a gold medal to, 308. Notice of, 306. JONES. SIR WILLIAM, decides against the Duke of York s claim to New Jersey, 160. JONES. Captain, of the sloop "Wasp." 1 415. Judician/ the United Mates, 368, 369. JPMONVILLE, M., Death of, 183. Jury, Trial by, established in the Colony of Virginia, 106. K. KANE, ELISHA KENT, Explorer, Sketch of, 509. Kansas, Territory of, 518. Open to slavery. 526. Legis lature of. 528. Violence and bloodshed in 529 Kansas Indians. 20, 32. Kaskaskia Indians, 19. Kaskaskia captured by Major Clarke, 303. Kayingehaga Indians, 23. KEANE, General 439. KEARNEY, STEPHEN W., Colonel, at Santa F6 486 At San Gabriel, 487. Notice of, 486. KEARNY, PHILIP, 619. Death of, 627. "Kearsarge," American man of war, 708. Kegs, Battle of the, 285. KEITH, SIR WILLIAM, advises Stamp Act, 541 KENDALL, AMOS. Postmaster-General, 470. Kenesaic Mountain. 699. Kennebec, Sir John Popham at, 63. Kensington, Philadelphia, 96. Kent Island. 82. KENTON, SIMON, joins Major Clarke, 303. Kentucky added to the Union, 377. Confederates obtain foothold in, 593. Lost to Confederates, 598. In possession of Union Army, 605. KEPPEL. Admiral, 185. Kettle Creek. Skirmish at, 295. KEY, FRANCIS S., 437. Kickapoo Indians, 17, 18, KIDD, Captain, 149. KIEFT, SIR WILLIAM, Governor, 140, 141. KILPATRICK, General, 651, 6SS, 702. KING, RUFUS. 356. American Minister at London, 401 404, 446. Notice of, 396. King Georges War, 136. KING PHILIP, 21. Arouses the New England tribes- against the English. 22. His hostility to the White Men. 125. His war of extermination, 126, 127. Death, 22, 128. His son, sold as a slave, 128. King s Mountain, Major Ferguson at, 319. Battle of, 319. Kingston, New York. Burned, 283, 297. King William s War, 134. Kipp s Bay, 258, KIRKLAND, SAMUEL, Eev. Missionary to the Six Na tions; Notice of, 25, 26. Kittanning, chastisement of the Indians at, 193. Knisteneaum Indians, 17. KNOWLTON, Colonel. Death of, 258. Know- Nothings, 529. KNOX, HENRY, General. Takes possession of Fort George, 350, 351. At Washington s last Interview with his officers, 352. Secretary" of War, 370. Notice. 350. Knoxville, Saved, 671. KNYPHAITSEN, General. At Brandywine. 273. At Springfield, 320. At Westchester, 259. AtNesvYork, 309. ~ KONOSCHIONI. the name of the Five Nations, 23. KOSCIUSZKO, TUADDEUS, 336. Notice of, 336. KOSSUTU, Louis, Visit of, 510. Labrador , Discovered by Cabot, 46. Coast of, ex- plored by Weymouth. 58. La Colle , Battle at, 432. Laconia , Territory of, 79, 80. LA FAYETTE. General, His first interview with Wash ington, 272. At Brandywine, 272, 453. At Bethle hem, 273. At Monmouth, 288. In Rhode Island, 289. Obtains aid from France, for the American cause, 306. His return from France, 321. In Virginia, 330, 339. Pursues Cornwallis, 339. Visits the United States, 453. Lays the corner-stone of a monument to De Kalb. 316. Notice of, 273. Lake CJuirnplain, Discovered. 59. Lake Erie, Battle near. 190. Indians on, 19. Lake Huron , Discovered, 59. Indians on, 17. LAMB, JOHN, Colonel, 242, 270. Lancaster. Massachusetts. Burnt, 127. Lander, Gen., 615. Lands, Public, of the United States, 372. Indian, ceded to the United States, 24. LANE, RALPH. Governor, 55. LANE, General , At Puebla, 494. LANGDON, JOHN. 356. 629. Languages, Indian, 12. LANSING, JOHN J., 356. LA PLACE, M., 234. LATHROP, Captain, 126. LAUDONNIERE. His expedition to America, 50. LAURENS. HENRY, Commissioner on the Treaty of Peace, 348. LAURENS, JOHN, Colonel, 329. Death of, 348. LA VEGA, General, 482, 4S3. LAWRENCE, Governor, Expedition against Acadie, 185. LAWRENCE, JAMKS, Captain, Notice of, 429. LAWRNECE, RICHARD, Colonel, 111. Executed, 112. Lawrence, " 1 ship, 420. LEAR, TOBIAS, Colonel, Consul-General in the Mediter ranean, 395. Compelled to purchase his freedom, 445. LEDYARD, WILLIAM, Colonel, 340. LEE, ARTHUR, American Ambassador to France, 266. LEE, CHARLES. General, A Captain at Ticonderoga, wounded, 197. Major-General, 238. At Boston, 239. At New York, 248. At North Castle, 259. At Mon mouth, 288. His letter to Wayne, 298. LEE, CHARLES. Attorney-General, 1796, 383. Notices of, 248, 2SS. LEE, HENRY, General, His exploit at Paulus s Hook, 94, 29S. With General Marion, 335. At Fort Ninety- six, 337. Suppresses the Whiskey Insurrection, 37& His funeral oration on Washington, 387. Notice of, INDEX. LEE, EGBERT E., General, 53S. 563,619,623, 631, 648, 652, 690, 713. Surrender of. 719. LEE, RICHARD HKNRY, His Resolution on American In dependence, 250, 251. Notice of, 250. LEE, W. H. F.. General, 643. LEISLER. JACOB, Governor. 131,148. LEITCH, Major, Death of, 258. LE MOYNE, JAMES, 50. Lenni Lenape Indians, IT, 20, 21. LEON, PONCE DE, General, At Braceti, 4SS, " Leopard " frigate. 402. LESLIE, General. 332. At Charleston, 347. " Levant" sloop-of-war, 440. LEVI, M. Successor to Montcalm. 203. LEWIS, ANDREW, General , Notice of, 244. LEWIS, Colonel , At Frenchtown, 416, 418. LEWIS and CLARKE S Expedition, 395. Lewiston, Delaware, 92. 94. 430. Lewiston, New York. Burnt, 427. Lexington, Battle of, 232. 233. Lei/den. Netherlands. Puritans at, 77. Libby Prison, 662. Plan to blow up, 6SS. "Liberty" sloop. 220. Liberty-pole, At Plymouth, Massachusetts, 79. Ligonia, Agricultural settlement of, 80. LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, Sketch of. 543. Elected President, 544. Inaugurated, 551. Calls for troops, 560. Deliv ers Emancipation Proclamation, 640. Visits City Point, 720. Ee-elected, 710. Murdered, 720. LINCOLN, Earl of, 113. LINCOLN, BENJAMIN, General, At Boundbrook, 270. Commands the Southern Army, 204. At Charleston, 296. Besieges Savannah, 305. At Charleston. 809. Surrenders to Clinton, 311. At the siege of Yorktown, 342. Suppresses Shay s Rebellion. 353. Notice of. 295. * L lnsuratente " frigate, Captured bv Constellation" 3S5. " Little Bell, sloop of war, 407. Little Rock, Arkansas, 675. 676. Little Wabash Major Clark.- at the, 303. LIVINGSTON, EDWARD Author of the penal code of Louisiana, 451. His defense of General Jackson, 443. Notice of. 451. 452. LIVINGSTON, ROBERT, Patroon, 149. LIVINGSTON. Robert R. His connection with Robert Fulton, 399. Notice of. 366. LIVINGSTON WILLIAM , His Address to the Anglo- Amer ican Colonies. 2-23. Member of the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. LLOYD, THOMAS, 102. XOCKE, JOHN His Fundamental Constitutions," 99, 164. London Company, Send Henry Hudson on an expedi tion to America, 59. Send Captain Newport to Roan- oke Island, 64. New charter of the. 63. Third char ter of the, 70. Dissolved, SI, 106, 107. LONDON Crys tal palace in 516. LONGSTREET, JAMES, General. 619. 620, 652, 667, 670, 639, 717. LOGAN. JOHN. Mingo Chief, 20. 26. 27. Long Island, 59. Granted to the Earl of Stirling, 144. Battle of, 254. Long Island, Indians. 21, 141. Long Inland Sound. Explored by Captain Block, 72. Long Parliament. The, 152. Confirms the charter of Rhode Island, 157. Lords of Trade, 134. L Orient, Naval expedition fitted out at, 303. Lookout Mountain, Events at. 663. Battle of, 663. Los ANGELOS, Stockton and Fremont take possession of, 437. Lottery authorized by Congress, 293. LOUDON, Lord, 191, 192, 193. 194. Loins XIV., of France, revokes the Edict of Nantes, 166. James II., of England, flees to the court of, 130. Ac knowledges Charles Edward, as king of England, 134. Louisburg, Captured, 136, 133, 196. Louisiana, Ceded to France in 1300; sold to the United States, by Napoleon, 204. Territory ; State. 451. Ad mitted to the Union, 409. Secession of, 547. Opera tions in, 644. Louis PHILIPPE, Driven from the throne of France, 510. LOVELL, MANSFIELD, General, 609. LUDLOW, Captain, Death of, 429. LITDWET.L. PHILIP, 165, 167. Ltt,ndy s Lane, Battle of, 433. Lutherans, Persecuted and slaughtered by Melendez, 51. LUZEBNE, M., General Greene s letter to, 334. LYFORD, Persecuted by the Pilgrims, 119. LYMAN, General, At Fort Edward, 189, 191. LYON, NATHANIEL, General 572, 573, 566. McCLELLAN, GEORGE B., General, 562, 563. Takes com mand of U. S. Army, 571, 585, 612, 618, 620. Retreat of, 621. Wants more men, 623, 628. Relieved of his command, 631. McCLERNAND. JOHN A., General, 596, 643. McCooK, A. McD., General, 594, 701. M CLURE, JAMES, In Convention on the Articles of Con federation, 356. M CLURE, General, At Fort George, 427. M ; CREA, JANE, 277. McCotiN, General, 600. McCtiLLOCK, BEN., General, 573. MCDONALD, DONALD and FLORA, 248. McDouuALL, General, At Peekskill, 270. Secretary of the Continental Board of Admiralty, 308. MCDOWELL, CHARLES. At King s Mountain, 319. MCDOWELL, IRVIN,. 567,618. McPiiERSON, General, 643. M llENBY, JAMES, 356, 384. MACOMB, General, At Plattsburgh, notice of, 434. MACDONOUGH, Commodore, Notice of, 434, 435. MADISON, JAMES, 356. One of the authors of the Feder alist, 361. His view of the Revenues of the United States, 367. Secretary of State, 390. President of the United States, 404, 415. Notice of, 405. MAG AW, Colonel, At Fort Washington, 258. MAGOFFIN, Governor, encourages secession, 575. MAGRUDER, Colonel, 562. Maine, Discovered, 53. Indian tribes of, 127. Settle ment of, 80, 122. A part of Massachusetts until 1820, 129. A State, 452. Boundary of, 452. Maize, The first that was found by Miles Standish, 115. Mifwn [lill*, Battle of, 622. Manchester, Burnt, 427. Manhattan Indians, 21. Manhattan Island, Sold to the Dutch by the Manhattan Indians, 21. Purchased by Minuit, 139. Origin of the name, 43. The fort at the" southern extremity of, 72. MANLY, Captain, 303. Manahoae Indiana, 17. Manassas, Evacuated by the Rebels, 612. MANNING, JOHN. The traitor, 147. Huns-field, Battle near, 684. MANSFIELD, Lord, His decision respecting slavery, 533. MANSFIELD, Captain. 481. MAXSON, M. D., General, 633. MANTEO, Indian Chief, Lord of Roanoke, 55, 56. Manufactures, American, 177, 178, 216, 447, 458. Mariana,. Territory of, 79. Marine Committee of Congress, 303. MARION, General, 204. In South Carolina, 314. Exploits of, 317, 313, 319, 320, 333. Refuses to drink wine. 317. His first appearance at Gates s camp, 318. Anecdote of him and a British officer at Charleston, 320. His camp destroyed, 320; his brigade defeated, in his ab sence, 345. MARKHAM, WILLIAM, 96. 161, 162, 163. Maryborough, Massachusetts, Burnt, 127. Marriage Contracts. Restraints on, by Andros, 130. MARSH. Colonel, Expedition against Port Royal, 135. MARSHALL, JOHN, Envoy to France, 335. Announces the death of Washington, 336. Administers the oath of office to President Monroe, 446; Adams, 454, 461. No tice of, 351. Martha s Vineyard, Discovered, 57, 53. Christian In dians at, 123. MARTIN, ALEXANDER, In the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. MARTIN, LUTHER. In the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. " MARY JOHNSON," the assumed name of Arthur Lee, 266. Maryland, settlement of, 80-82. Origin of the name of 81. The first settlement in, 62. The Seneca Indi ans make war upon the colonists, 82, 110. Declaration of Rights, in 1639, 151. Civil war in, Toleration Act ; an asylum for persecuted Churchmen and Puritans, 151. Colonial government of; civil war in, 152. History of, 151. MASON, GEORGE, in the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. Hi INDEX. MASON, JOHN, merchant and naval commander, 79. Governor of Portsmouth, England, SO. Controversy of the heirs of, 129. MASON, JOHN, Captain, exterminates the Pequods, 87. SS. MASON, JAMES M-, author of the Fugitive Slave Law, 521. Confederate Commissioner, 587. Goes to England, 589. Massachusetts Indians. 22. Massachusetts, settlement of, C2. History of, 114. Colony ; charter, 117. Character of the colony, 119 ; rapid growth of the colony, creates alarm in England, 120. Fortifications in, 121. Joins the confederacy of colonists, 121. Government of; commerce of, with the West Indies, 122. Growth of the colony, 129. Controversy of, with the heirs of Gorges and Mason, 129. A royal province, 132. Cost of settling, 209. Early legislation of, 175. Grant from Parliament to, 200. Assembly s view of taxation, 219. A flotilla fitted out by, in 299. Board of Admiralty of, 807. Re bellion in, 353. MASSASOIT, chief of the Wampanoags, 90. Sachem, 114, 115. His sons, 21. 124. MATHF.K. COTTON, 133. Notice of. 134. MATTHEWS, SAMUEL, Governor of Virginia, 109. MATTHEWS, General (British). 297, 820. Mauritius the, Origin of the name, 71. MAVERICK, RICHARD, 123. MAWHOOD, Lieutenant-Colonel, at Princeton, 268. MAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Mexico, death of, 728. MAT, CORNELIUS JACOBSEN, First Director of New Netherland, 73. MAY, Captain, Captures General La Vega, 4S2. "May-FI-mb&r" Puritan vessel. 77. MEADK, GEORGE G., General, 621, 622. Takes command of the army, (55:3, 659, 681, 692. Meckleribury Declaration of Independence. 237. Medal. Presented by Congress to Washington, after the battle of German town, 275; to General Wayne. 298; to the captors of Andre 327. Struck by Louis, XIV., after the repulse of Phipps. 131. Medford, Massachusetts, Burned, 127. MEDIC!, LORENZO DE, Vespucius s letter to. 41. Meeting^ IJouse. First, at Hartford, Connecticut, 86. Meherrin Indians. 23. MEIGS. Colonel. 271. u Mtlampus."" 1 ship, 401. MELENDEZ. PEDRO, Governor of Florida, 50. 51. Memorial to Parliament, Livingston s, 215. Memphis, 683. MENDOZA. Cardinal, 33, 45. Menornonee Indians, 17, 19. MERCER, HUGH. General, 192. 259. Notice of, 2G9. MEROER, JOHN FRANCIS. 356. MEREDITH, WILLIAM M., Secretary of the Treasnrv, 499. METACOMET: see King Philip. Metamoras, General Ampudia at, 481. Mexico, Origin of the name, 593. Civilization and the arts in, 43. Burr s proposed invasion of, 396. War with. 4^0. The City of. 494. Treaty of Peace, 497. Miami Indians, 17, 24, 25. Treaty with the, 408. Their territory, 19. Conspire against the English, 1763, 205. MiANTONoMOH,Narrf,ganset Sachem. 21, 87, 91, 125. MICANOPY, Head Sachem of the Seminoles, 466. Michigan, Peninsula, Indians on the, 18. Territory, 396. State of, admitted to the Union, 469. Michigan Indians, 19. Micmuc Indians, 22. Middle Plantations, The, 111. MIFFLIN, THOMAS, General. 254, 257, 268, 356. . His ad dress to Washington, notice of, 352. MILBORNE, Deputy Governor, 134, 14S. Executed, 148, MILLER, Colonel, Defeats Tecumtha,near Brownstown, 411. At the battle of Lundy s Lane, 433. Mill Spring, Victory at, 594. Mine River, Abatis on, 660. Minetaree Indians, 31, 32. Mingo Indians. 23. Losran, the Min?o Chief, 20. Minqua Indians : see Mohawk Indians. MIXON, General, Driven from Santillo, 486. Minsi Indians, Their territory, 21. Mint, Of the United States. 372. 373. MINUIT, PETER, Governor, 85. 93, 139. Miwhiansa, The, at Philadelphia, 2S5. Mishatran, The foundation of Charleston laid at, 117. Misnissagues Indians, 17, 205. Mississippi, Territory, 368. State admitted to the Un ion, 448. Session of. 547. In possession of the Union, 605. Mississippi River, Events beyond, 684. Valley of, 591. War in, 565. Jflsxouri Indians, 32. Missouri, 11. State, 448, 452, 576. Raid into, 677. Lost to Confederates, 598. Missouri Compromise" The, 452. Repeal of, 526. MITCIIEL, ORMBSY M., 606. AlrrcHELL, Colonel, 432. Mobile, The British repulsed at, 438, 708. Fleet at, 709. Surrender of, 716. Mobilian Indians, 29, 31. Mohaivk Indians, 21, 23. Active enemies of the Ameri cans, 26. Hi-a-wat-ha s address to the, 24. Refuse to join King Philip, 127. At New Amsterdam, 141. Claim sovereignty over the Riverlndians, 141. Allies of Colonel Williams, 190. Join St. Leger, 278. Mohaick Valley, Devastation of the, 290. MoJiegan Indians, 17. 21, 85, 86. irolinos del Rey, Battle, 494. MONCKTON, Colonel, 185, 201. Grave of, 288. Money, Continental, 245. The first coined in the United States, 122. Monitor and Merrimack, Combat between, 614. MONK. General, 98. Monmouth. New Jersey. Battle of, 287. Jwnecan Indians, 17. MONROE; JAMES. His treaty with Great Britain, 401. President of the United States. 446. Re-elected Presi dent, 453. "Monroe doctrine." 448. Notice of, 446. MONROE, Colonel, At Fort William, Henry, 194. MONROE, Major, At Point Isabel, 481. Montagues Indians. 17. Mont auk Indian*. 21. u Montatik, " Monitor, 672. MONTCALM, MARQUIS HE. 192, 194. Notice of, 120, 202. Montgomery, Ala. Surrender of, 715. Monterey, Battle of. 4S4. MONTEZUMA, 1>. His deputation to Cortez, 43. MONTGOMERY, JOHN, Governor, 150. MONTGOMERY, Colonel (British). In the Cherokee coun try. 2(14. MONTGOMERY, RICHARD, General, 238, 241. Assaults Quebec. 242. Notice of, 240. MONTGOMERY, Commodore, Takes possession of San Francisco. 487. Montreal. Origin of the name. 48. Surrender of, ia 203. MOOJKRS, General. 4"5. MOORE, JAMES, Governor of South Carolina, 168, 170. MOORE, Colonel, 1(58. Moravians and La Fayette, after his being wounded at Brandywine, 274. MORGAN, JOHN H.. Guerrilla Chief. 632. 65S, 661, 688. MORGAN, DANIEL, General, at Quebec, 242. At Saratoga 282. At the Cowpens 331. Notice of, 331. MORGAN WILLIAM, 457. MORGAN Colonel, At Agua Frio, 486. Morocco. War of the United States with, 1801, 390. Mormons. The, 499, 504. Their movements. 537, 749. MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR, 185, 356. His remarks on Coins and Currency, 372. His part in the Erie Canal, 457. Notice of, 364. Morris Island, 673. MORRIS, LEWIS, First Royal Governor of New Jersey, 161. MORRIS ROBERT, Supplies Washington with money, at Trenton, 263. Agent of Marine f his privateers, 308. His National Bank, 329. At the Convention, on the Articles of Confederation, 356. His views of harmonis ing the money of the United States, 372. Notice of, 264. MORRIS, ROGER, Notice of, 259. MORRIS, Commodore, His exploit on the Penobscot River, 438. MORRIS. Major. Death of, 269. Morristown, New Jersey. Washington s winter quar ters at, 269, 306. Sufferings of the American troops at, 306. MORSE, S. F. B., Sketch of, 507, 508. MOTTE, REBECCA, Notice of, 335, 336. MOULTRIE, General, 204, 295. Notice of, 249. Mount Hope Bay, A Scandinavian child born on th< shore of. 35. Mount Independence, 276. Mount Vernon, Leonard Calvert at, 82. Mumfordsville, Battle at, 633. INDEX. liii Murfreesboro\ Battle at, 638, 706. MURRAY, General, 201, 20a MURRAY, W. V.. Envoy to France, 385. Muskogee Indians, 29. N, Nahant, 57. Captain Block at, 72. Nansemond River, Settlement on the, 97. Nantes, The Edict of, 166. Nnnticokf. Indian*, Allies of the Five Nations, 17, 20. Nantucket, Discovery of, 57. Christian Indians at, 123. NVPOLEON: see BONAPARTE. Narraganset Indians, 21, 22, 86 Propose to exter minate the white people. 87. Treaty of Peace with the, 125. Join King Philip, 127. Narraganset Bay, Penetrated by Captain Block 72. NA.RVAEZ, PAMPHILO, Governor of Florida, 43, 44. N VSH Governor, 330. Nashville, Tenn., Evacuation of, 599. Threatened, 632, Natchez Indians, 29, 30. Population of, 31. Language National "Bank of the United States, 372. Currency, t 372. Debt, 739, 743. Naumkeag Colony. 117. * Nautilus " bri2, 414. Navajo Indians.4SS. Naval Stores, Imported from America into Great Bi Naval ^Engagement in Charleston Harbor, 672. Navigation Act, The, 109, 128. 177. Nan/, American, Origin of the. 245. 246, 382. Rank of Commau tiers, 303. State of, 407, 414, 445. Ironclads, 595. Ships of, 636. Navy, British. 206. 445. NEAL, Captain, Death of. 269. Nebraska, Territory of, 518. Opened to Slavery, 526. Negro Plot, in New York, 150. Negro Slaves : see Slaves. Negro Troops. Medal for, 596. NEILSON. JOHN. 356. Neosno Indians, 24 Neutral Indians, 23. Nevada. Becomes a State, 765. New Amsterdam, Meeting of Dutch deputies at, in 143. New Berne, N. C., Battle at 606. Seige abandoned, (Oo. New H-itnvwick, Origin of the name of, SS. Boundary of, 472. Ntwburg Addresses, 349. Newcastle, Delaware, 93, 143. William Penn at, 96. New England Indians, 17, 22. Invaded by the Five Neio England, Scandinavians visit thr coast of, 34. Ex plored by Captain John Smith. Origin of the name, 74 Proposed union of the colonies ot, in 121. Popu lation of; in 1675, 126. Effects of King Philip s War in 129. New Era Gunboat, 682. Newfoundland, Portuguese settlement in, 4. Seen by Cabot, 46. Cod-fishery at, discovered by Cabot, 47. Visits to, by early navigators, 52. New France, The name given by Verazzam to the r< gions discovered by him. 4S. New Sweden, 93, 143. New Winsdc-,, Washington head-quarters at, 328. New York City, Dutch settlement at, 62. Origin of, 72, 144. Expedition from, to Canada, 131. Colony at, 139. The Dutch taken possession of, 147. Evacuated, 3oO. Great fire at, 471. Crystal Palace in, 516. Eiot in, Neio York, History of the Colony of, 139. Grants from Parliament to, 206. General Knyphausen at, 309. New York Bay, 48. 57. Nezperce Indians. 33. Niagara Falls, Battle at, 433. Village at, burnt 427. Niagara frontier. Shirley s expedition to the, 185, 169 "Niagara " ship, 425. Niantic Indians, 87. Nicaragua, State of, 5^2. i NICHOLSON, FRANCIS, Governor, 148, 171. NICHOLSON, Colonel, 136. NICOLA, Colonel. His letter to Washington, 349. I NICOLAS, Father, Kemoves the Church-bell from Deer- field, 135. ! NICOLLS, EICHARD, Colonel, 123, 144. j Ninety-six, Origin of the name, 335. Siege ol, Dy j NINIGRET. 21. At New Amsterdam, 141, 142, 154, 155. I NipmuQ Indians, 22, 125. Norfolk, Virginia, 244, 297. North Carolina, Secession of, 547. Events in, 704. Sherman s march through, 712. NORTH Lord, His Conciliatory Bills, 286. The news of the capture of Cornwallis, 345. Ketires from office, 345. Notice of, 224. North-Eastern Boundary Question, 476. North Carolina, 98. Colony, 167. Opposed taxation, i 223 Joins the TJniou 171. ! North Cattle, The American camp at, 259. ! North-field, Connecticut, 126. i Northman, 34,35. I North Point, Battle of, 437. North Virgina, 63. North West Territory. 363. Norridgewock Indians, 22. , . New namplt!re, Origin of the name, SO. Settlement of 62 1-22 A royal province, SO, 129. Grant to, 206. New Ilaren Colony, 121. 127. 154 ew aren oony, . . . ew Jersey, Orisjin of the name, 159. Wampum manu factured in, 13. Swedes in, 62. Founded, 93, Io9. Sale of, bv the Duke of York, 144. The Dutch take possession of, 147. Discontents in 159. Invaded by Matthews, 320. History of the colony of, 159. New London. Burnt by Arnold, 340. New Madrid, Evacuated by the Confederates, 600 New Mexico A Territory of the United States, 497, 501. Claims of Texas to portions of, 499. Petition of, for a civil government, 499. , New Netherland, 72, 73. Founded 139. Given by Charles II. to the Duke of York. 113, 144. New Orleans, Ceded to Spain, 204. Battle of, 439. Naval battle at, 610. Fearful panic in, 611. NEWPORT, CHRISTOPHER, Captain. 65, 68. Newport, Rhode Isjand, 48. Ternay s fleet at, 321. Tower at: see Tower. New Rochelle, Mrs. Hutcheson takes refuge at ,120. Newspapers, in the American colonies; in the United States, 179. J6. Origin of, 80. Portuguese settlement in, 47. Nova Ccesarea, 93. Nueces. The, General Taylor at, 481. Nulliiiers of South Carolina, 463. Number Ten Island, 599. Capture of, 604. 0. Oconee River, 28. Octracock Inlet, 54. Ogdensburg, Capture of, 425. Ogeechee River, 28. Oriiviu Captain, at Queenstown. 41d. ^?i7rFESL5Fls test with the Spaniards, 172. Notice of, 99. O HARA, General, At the siejre ^""g^MSa II a Ohio Company, The, Organized, 363. treor e . grant to, 181. OJEDA, Accompanies Vespucius, 41, 60. Old Dominion, The, Origin of the name, 1<iy - nas. Favor the Americans,^ the Revolution, 26. Hi-a-wat-ha s address to the, 24 OPECHANCANOTTGH, 66. Captures Captain John Smith, 106. Hostile to the Virginia Colony, 108. ORD, General, 635. Orders in Council, 400, 402. . British claims to, 479. Settle- ment of the boundary question, 497. Orphan House, Whitfield s, 171, 172. Osage Indians, 32. OSCEOLA, 466. 408. Eiglisb Commissioner on thoTr<*t y 11. Attempt to e *er ml n,te the liv INDEX. white people in 1763, 18, 205 Aid the French against the Sacs and Foxes, IS. Their war with the Five Nations, 18, 26. Outagamie Indians. See Fox Indians. Oyster Point, South Carolina, 99, 166. Oyster River, incursion of French and Indians at, 134. P. PACKENHAM. General, at New Orleans, 439, 440. Paducah, 682. PAINE, THOMAS, his " Common Sense," 250. Paio Alto, battle of, 482. Palo*, Columbus sails from, 34, 89, 40. Pamunkey Indians, 111. Panama, Commissioners at, 457. Eailroad in, 522. Panuco River, the followers of De Sota at the, 45. Paper Blockades, 444. Paper Money, issued by Massachusetts, 122, 132. PAPINEAU, Louis JOSEPH, 472. PAKKDES, General, succeeds Ilcrrera, 4S1. Paris, treaty of peace at. 1:04, 343. The allied armies enter, 431. PAKKEB, SIR PETF.R. 243. 201. Parliament, its Act of Supremacy, 75. Its appropria tion to Georgia. 100. Grants by, during the Seven Years War in America, 206. PattHumaquoddy Indians, 22. PATKRSON, WILLIAM, 856, 359. Patroon& Account of the, 139. PAILIHNG, JOHN. 326. Pa ul us y Hook, 94. PAUW, MICHAEL, 94, 139. Pavonia, territory of, 94. Pawnee Indians, 33. Pawtucket Indians, 22. PAYNE, General. 416. " Peace- Makers " in Pennsylvania, 162. Peace-Party, of 1812, 410. Peace, Treaty of, Gnadalupe Hidalgo. 497. Pea Ridge, battle of, 592, 635. " Peacock.: brig, 429, 440. PEARCE, Colonel, at York, Canada, 425. Pearl River, 29. Peers of England, cannot be arrested for debt, 150. PEIKCE, E. W., General, 562. " Pelican: 1 sloop of war, 430. PEMHKIITON, JOHN C., 642. Pemaqnid, Point, SO, 131. Capture of the garrison at, Pensacola, abandoned by the Confederates, 609. PJENDLBTON, NATHANIEL, 356. " Penguin:" 1 brig. 440. PENN, WILLI AM," his charter from Charles II. ; purchases part of New Jersey, 95. His voyage to America, his government, 96. His advice to* the Duke of York, respecting an assembly of Representatives, 147. His purchases of parts of New Jersey, 160. His arrival in Pennsylvania; his treaty with the Delaware Indians, 161. His Charter of Liberties ; his return to England, 162. Deprived of his provisional government; his rights restored in ; returns to England, 163. Philadel phia founded by, 162. Suggests a Union of the Colo nies, 183. involved in debt, 209. His sons, 163. No tice of, 95. Pennacook Indians, 22. Pennsylvania, origin of the name, 96. Swedes in, 62. History of the Colony of, 161. Mutiny of the troops of, 328. Penolscot Indians, 22. Pensacola, Florida, stormed, 438. Captured, 451. Peoria Indians, 19. PEPPEBELL, WILLIAM, 137. Pequod Indians, 21, 86, 87. PERCY, GEORGE, Acting-Governor of Virginia, 68, 69 PERRY, Commodore, expedition to Japan, 500. Perryville, battle near, 634. PERRY, OLIVER H., Commodore , His exploits, 423, 430. His expedition against pirates, 453. Notice of. 423. PERRY, M. C., Commodore, captures Tampico, Tabasco, and Tu span. 485. Petersburg, attack on, 691. Seige of, 693, 717. Perth Amboy, New Jersey, origin of the name, 160. PETERS, HUGH, 86, 119. PETERS, RICHARD, Secretary of the Board of War, 294. Petrel*, seen by Columbus and his crew, 39. Philadelphia, founded, 162. "Philadelphia," the, 391. Decatur s exploit in firing the, 392. PHILIP II., of Spain, his measures against the French Protestants in America, 50. PHILIP, King; see KING PHILIP; notice of, 124. PHILLIPS, Genera!, joins Arnold ; death of, 330. PHILLIPSE, MARY, Miss, 259. PHIPPS, SIR WILLIAM, his expedition against the French, 131. At Quebec, 131. Sent to England, 132. "PAatbe," frigate, 431. Piankeshaw Indians, 17, 19. PICKENS, General, 295, 314, 315, 319. At Ninety-six, 336. Notice of, 337. PICKERING, JOHN, member of the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. Picture Writing, Indian, 13. PIERCE, FRANKLIN, in the army in Mexico, 493. Inau gurated President, 512. Notice of, 513. PIERCE, WILLIAM, in the Convention on the Articles of Confederation. 356. PIGOT, General, 289, 335. PIKE, ALBERT, notice of, 592. PIKE, ZEHULON M., notice of, 425. " Pilgrims: The ; voyage of to America, 77, 78. Names of; fabulous story of, 78. Salutation of, by Samosel, 114. PILLOW, GIDEON J., 566, 596. Pilot Knob, 687. PINCKNEY, CHARLES, in the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 1787, 35(5. PINCKNEY, CHARLES COTESWORTII, in the Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. Envoy to France, 1797, 385. Candidate for the Presidency, 388, 396, 404. Notice of, 3S5. Pine Tree Money, 122. PINKNEY, WILLIAM, His Treaty with Great Britain, 400. Notice of, 401. Pipe of Peace, Indian, 14. Piscaiaqua, Letters from the King s commissioner at, 118. Piracy. The Earl of Bellemont s efforts to suppress, 149. In the We^t Indies, 149. PITCAIRN. Major. 232. PITT WILLIA.V. 195. His views of taxation, 217, 544. His scheme for conquering Canada, 199. Resigns his otiicL- as Prime Minister, 213. Notice of, 217. See CHATHAM. PITT WILLIAM, the younger, 367. Plains of Abraham, 201, 202, 241. Planetarium, liittenhouse s, 210, 269. P attsburg Bay, Naval action in, 435. Pleasant Hill, Battle near, 6S.!>. ri : /mouth Colony, Its Government, 11G. Joins the Confederacy of Colonies, 121. Plymouth Company, 63, 64. Explore North Virginia, 78. Employ Captain John Smith, new charter of the, 1620; superseded by the Council of Plymouth, 74. Consent to the establishment of a Puritan Colony in North Virginia, 77. Plymouth, Council of, 74. Plymouth Rock, 79. POCAIIONTAS, The story of, 66. Guardian angel of the Virginia colony, 69. Captmed by Captain Argall; baptized: marries John Rolfe, 70. John Randolph, decended from, 404. Portrait 01, 66. " PoieUers," ship 415. Point Comfort, 64. Point Isabel, 481. Point Pleasant, The Shawnoese Indians subdued at, 19. Pokonet Indians, 22. POLK JAMES K., President of the United States, 478. Proclaims Peace With Mexico, 497. Notice of, 478, 479. POLK, LEONID AS, General, 566, 577. 681 POMEROY, SETH, General, 198, 238. Pompton, New Jersey troops at, 328, 329. PONCE DE LEON, Juan. Discovers Florida, 42, 43. PONTIAC, Ottawa Chief, 18. 204, 205. Pope,, The, His Apostolic Vicar in the United States, 353. Bulls of, 46. POPE, JOHN, General., 591, 600, 623, 624. POPHAM, GEORGE, Member of the Plymouth Com pany, 63. POPHAM. Sir JOHN, At Kennebec, 73. Death of, 74. Popular Rights, in Virgina, 112, 118. Population, Of the American colonies, 179. Increase INDEX. of, in the United States, 447, 448. Of Indian Tribes 81, 32. " Porcupine" schooner, 420. POKEY, Secretary of Virginia, 97. PORTER, DAVID, Commodore, 430. His Expedition against pirates, 453. Notice of, 431, 609, 642. PORTER, FITZ JOHN, 619, 620. Port Hudson, 635, Surrender of, 646. Port Royal, Nova Scotia. Founded, 58. Seized by Phipps, 131. Expedition against, 135, 136. Port Royal, South Carolina, Oglethorffe at, 100. Lord Cardon settles at; claimed by the Spaniards, 166. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Founded, SO. Portugal, Claims of, against the United States, 468. Portuguese, Settle in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, Porto Rico, Exploring voyages to, 41. Ponce de Leon Governor of; his return to," 42. Post Office, of the United States, 373, 507. Potomac, Army of The : losses in, 679, 571, 647, 623. Potomac River, blockade of, 584. POTTER, Colonel, Death of, 269. Pottowatomie Indians, 17, 18. Conspire against the English, 205. POTTS, ISAAC, and General Washington, 285. POUTRINCOURT, M. At Port Royal, Nova Scotia, 58. POWHATTAN, 65. His history. 20. His eldest brother, 66. His daughter, Pocahontas, 20, 66. His hostility, and friendship, 70. Death of, 106. Powhatan Indiana, 17, 20, 107, 10S. Powhatan River, 64. Prayer, in the Continental Congress, 228. In the Con vention on the Articles of Confederation, 359. Mac donough 8,435. PREBLE JEDEDIAII, General, 230. PREBLE, Commodore. In the Mediterranean, 391. PRESCOTT, General (British). Captured: exchanged for General Charles Lee. 261, 271. PRESCOTT, WILLIAM, Colonel, 234, 235, 236. Notice of, 234. "President 1 1 frigate. 407, 414, 440. Press, Freedom of the, restrained by Andros, 130. PRESTON, Captain, 221, 222. PROVOST, AUGUSTINE, General. In East Florida, in 294. At Brier Creek, 295. Prepares to invade South Carolina. 296. PREVOST, Sir GEORGE, General. Succeeds General Brock, 416. At Sacketfs Harbor, 426. At Plattsburg, 434. PRICE, Colonel, In New Mexico, 4S9. PRICE, STERLING, General. 566, 591, 676. PRIDEAUX, General, 199, 200. Prince of Orange, The, Friendly to America, 266. Princeton, New Jersev, Captured by Cormvalls, 260. Battle of, 269. " Princeton" steamer, 475. PRING, MARTIN, His Expedition to America, 58, 73. Printing, Effects produced by the art of, 62. Forbid den in New York, by James II., 147. In the Ameri can colonies, prohibited by William III., 153. Printing Press, The First established in Virginia, 114. Prison Ship, Jersey, 259. Privateering, 149, Account of, 246. Privateers fitted out by Robert Morris, 80S; and by M. Genet, 337. Private Judgment, Doctrine of, at "Plymouth, 116. PROCTOR, General, 416. At Fort Meigs,"41S, 419. Routed, 424. " Propliet," The, 408. Protestant, Origin of the word, 62. Eeformation, 62. Feeling aroused in England, by the cruelties of Me- lendez, 52. French Protestants in Carolina, 55. Prot estantism in England, 75. Providence Plantation, 91. Providence, Ehode Island. Founded, 90. Burned, 127. Public Lands of the United States, 372. Puebla, The City of, Captured by General Scott, 490. PULASKI, Count, 274. Notice of, 3*05. Pulas/ci Fort, taking of, 603. Pulpit Rock. Lookout mountain, 669. Puncah Indians, 32. Puritans. 75, 76. Friendly intercourse of the, with the Dutch, 85. Of Massachusetts colony, 118. Settle in New Netherland, 148. PUTNAM, ISRAEL, General, 194, 234, 235, 238. In the French and Indian War, 198. Enters Boston, 247. On Long Island, 2.53. At the house of Roger Morris, 259. His exploit at Greenwich, 297. Notice of, 253. PUTNAM, RUFUS, General, Notice of, 363. PUTNAM, H. P., Colonel, 674. PYLE, Colonel, Defeated by Colonel Henry Lee, 333. Quaboag, Englishmen slain at, 126. Quakers, Origin of the name, 94. Their tenets, 123. In Pennsylvania, 94. In Massachusetts Bay, 122. In North Carolina. 168, 231. In New Jersey, 160. Com pelled to pay fines, 110. Persecuted, 94, 122, 123. Quaker Hill, Battle of, 290. Quebec, Algonquins at, 17. Founders of 74. Military operations at, 201. Surrender of, to General Murray, 203. " Quebec Act," The, 225. QUEEN ANNE, of England, 134. Queen Anne s War, 135. Queenstoicn, Battle of, 413, 414. QUINCY, JOSIAH, Defends Captain Preston, 222. Quinipiac Creek, 88. QUITMAN. General, 483, 494. Notice of, 494. Quon-eh-ta-cut, or Connecticut, 85. ! Raisin River, 417. ! RALEIGH, Sir WALTER, Studies the art of war, under Coligny, 52. Introduces tobacco into England, 70. Historical error respecting. 100. Notice of, 55, 56. Raleigh Tavern, The, 226,* RALL, Colonel, With his Hessians at Trenton, 262 RAMSAY, DAVID, Notice of, 312, 617. RANDOLPH, EDWARD, 129. RANDOLPH, EDMUND, 856, 359. Attorney General of the United States, 369. RANDOLPH, JOHN, Notice of, 403, 404. RANDOLPH, PEYTON, 228. Rank, Of American Naval and Military commanders, 308. RAPEL.TE, SARAH, 78. Rappahannock Station, battle of, 659. Rappahannock River, explored by Captain John Smith, Raritan Indians, 140. RATCLIFFE. President of the Plymouth Colony, 65. RAWDON, Lord, on the Santee River ; at Sanders s Creek, 815. At Hobkirk s Hill. 834. Embarks for England, 337. READ, GEORGE, 856. Rebellion, preparations for, 550. Red C/ ossof St. Gronre, 144. Red River, campaign of. 644. Expedition to, 684. Red River. De Soto s followers wander among tributary streams of the. 45. Reformation, the Protestant, 62. Effects of iii France, 49. " Regulators^ the, 223. Rehoboth. Rhode Island, founded, 89. RENO. General, killed, 628. Republican Party, the, 377. Republicanism in Maryland, 152. Representatives in Congress. 366. Rexaca de la Palma, battle of, 482. Retaliation, 1 schooner, captured, 385. Revenue of the United States, 388. REVERE, PAUL, 232. Revolution, American, history of the, 207. The Shaw- uoese aid the British in the, 19. The Lenni-Lenapes loin the British, 21. Officers and soldiers of the. Dro- Vided for, 453. Revolution. English, of 1688,162. RHETT, Colonel, 169. Rhode Inland, explored by Scandinavians, 35. Origin of, 89, 91. Founded, 62, 119. Origin of the name, 91. Seal of, 91. Colony of, proposes "to join the Confed eracy of Colonies, 121. History of, 157. Charter of, 158. Refuses to be included in Connecticut Colony, 155. Religious toleration in, 151. Persecution of Roman Catholics and Quakers in, 158. Sir Peter Parker at, 261. Evacuated by the British, 306. Joins the Union, 371. State Constitution of, 157, 447. RIALL, General, at Chippewa, 433. LliBAULT, JOHN, sails with Huguenots for America, 50. Fate of and his party, 50, 51. Rice, orisrin of the culture of, in South Carolina, 167. Richmond, McClellan turns back from, 621. Events at, Ivi INDEX. 679. Seige of, 693. Campaign against, 698. Evacua tion of, 718. EIEDESEL, Baron, -with Burgoyne, 281. EILEY, General. Governor of California, 499. Ring, presented by Winthrop to Charles II., 155. EIKGGOLD, Major, 482. EINGGOLD, Captain, his expedition, 415. Rio del Norte, Coronada s expedition to the head waters of the, 45. Rio Grande, 480, 481. Boundary of the Aztec Empire, 10, 678. EIPLEY, General, at Fort Erie, in 1814, 433. EISINGII, Governor, 143. EITTEXIIOUSE, David, 210, 211. River Indians, 140, 141. EOANOKE, Lord of. 56. Roanoke Island, 55, 64. Attack on, 90. EOBB, WILLIAM, at the battle of King s Mountain, 319. EOBERTVAL, Lord, his expedition to New France ; arrives at Newfoundland ; his second expedition, 1549, 49. EOBINSON, JOHN, Eev., at Leyden, 77. His remark respecting Btandish s slaughter of Indians, 115, 116. His family join the Plymouth colonists, 116. EOCHAMBEAU, Count de, arrives at Newport, 321. His first interview with Washington, 323. At Dobbs s Ferry, 339. At Yorktown, 341. Notice of, 339. EOCHE", Marquis de la, 57. Rockets, used in war, described, 437. EOCKIXGHAM, Marquis of, 217. EODNEY, CAESAR, Attorney-General of the United States, 406. EOLFE, JOHN, marries Pocahontas, 70. EOGERS, C. E. P., Commodore, 407, 60S. EOGERS, Major, 194. His expedition against the St. Francis Indians, 200. Roman Catholics, auricular confession of, 38. Punish witchcraft, 132. Found a colony in Maryland, 62, 81, 151, 152. Persecuted by Puritans, 119 ; and in Mary land, New York, and New England, 131, 132, 154. Provincial offices in New York filled by, 147. The prevalence of their faith in Lower Canada, 203. Par liamentary concessions to, 225. EOQUE, FRANCIS DE LA, see EOBERTVAL. EOSE, Mr., British Envoy to the United States, 402. EOSECKANS, W. S., General, 563, 634, 637, 662, 665. Eoss, General, 436. Death of, 437. Roxbury, Massachusetts, founded, 118 EOUSSEAIT, General, 706. Royal Standard of England, 144. EUGGLES, TIMOTHY, 190, 215. Rum, Indians supplied with by the Dutch, 140. EUSH, BENJAMIN, Dr., his letter to General Wayne, 298. Notice of, 250, 251, ETJSSEL, JOHN, United States Commissioner at Ghent, 443. EUSSELL, LORD JOHN, 512. Russia, England s first maritime connection with, 47. Vassalage in, 63. The Emperor of enters Paris, 431. Treaty of the United States with, 469. EUTHERFORD, General, 295. EUTLEDGE, EDWARD, on the committee to confer with Lord Howe, 257. EUTLEDGE, JOHN, in Convention on the Articles of Con federation, 356, 359. Defends Charleston, 810. His proceedings after the capture of Lord Cornwallis, 345. Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, 369. Notice of, 310. Ryswick, the treaty at, 134. S. Sacs and Foxes, 17, 18. St. Augustine, Florida, Ponce de Leon lands near, 42. Eibault s expedition arrives at, 50. Founded, 51. Spanish military post at, 61, 609. St. Augustine, Mexico, General Twijrgs at, 493. St. Glair, General, 275. His expedition against the In dians, 1791, 374. St. Croix River, De Monts at the, 58. St. Domingo, discovery of, by Columbus, 40. Exploring voyages to, 41. D Ayllon dies at, 43. The body of Columbus removed to, 41. St. Francis Indians, Major Eogers s expedition against the, 200. St. John s, Newfoundland, Gilbert at, 52. St. John s River, named by Eibault " Eiver of May," 50. St. Lawrence Ewer, origin of the name, 48. Indians on the, 32. ST. LEGER, Colonel, in the Mohawk Valley, 278. Invests Fort Stanwix, 278. St. Mary s, Florida, pirates and slave-dealers at, 448. St. Mary^s, Maryland, 151, Founded; legislative As sembly convened at, 82. ST. PIERKE, M. DE Governor Dinwiddie s letter to, 181, 182. St. Regis, General Wilkinson at, 427. Salem, Massachusetts, colony, 117. The General As sembly of Massachusetts meets at, 226, 227. Witch craft at, 132, 133. Salem, New Jersey, origin of the name, 95. Salmon Falls, village attacked by the French and In dians, 181. Saltillo, General Wool and Colonel Doniphan at, 484, 488. SALTONSTALL, SIR EICHARD, 117, 118. SAMOSET salutes the Pilgrim Fathers, 114. Teaches Standish how to cultivate Indian corn, 115. San Antonio, 483, 493. Sanitary Commission, 723. Sand era s Creek, battle at, 315. SANDYS, SIR EDWARD, 77, 105. San Gabriel, battle at, 487. San Juan a" 1 Ulloa, Castle of, 489. San Luis Potosi, 485. San Salvador, see GuanaJiama. SANTA ANNA, ANTONIO Loraz UE, 477, 485, 486, 489, 490. Sketch of, 514. "Saratoga" ship, 435. SARGENT, WINTHROP, 363. Sasco Swamp, 88. SASSACUS, Pequod Sachem, 21, 87, 88. SASSAMON, JOHN, 124. SATINDERS, Admiral, 201. Savannah Indians, 30. Sarannah, Georgia, founded, 62, 101, 103. Siege of, 305. Evacuated by the British, 348, 703. SAY-AND-SEAL, Lord, 85. Saylrook, Connecticut, settlement at, 86. Andros s ex pedition to, 147. Colony at, 154. SAYLE, WILLIAM, his colony ; death of, 98. SAYRE, STEPHEN, Chatham s letter to, 228. Scandinavian Voyages, 34. Child born at Ehode Is land, 35. Schenectaday, Desolated, 131, 148. SCHOFIELD, J. M., General, 635, 705, 713. Schoharie Valley, Devastation of, 290. Schools, Established in Mass., 121. SCHUYLER, PHILIP, General, Conveys to Albany the re mains of Lord Howe, 197. At He aux Noix/240. At Fort Edward, 276. Superseded by Gates, 277. Notice of, 239, 240. "Scorpion," The, One of Commodore Perry s vessels, 420. SCOTT, DRED, Fugitive Slave, decision concerning, 532. SCOTT, WINFIELD, General, At Fort George, 426. Cap. tures Fort Erie, 433. His mission to remove the Cherokees; his expedition against the Seminoles, 467. On the Canada frontier, in Maine, 472. Plan of his Mexican campaign, 483. At Vera Cruz, 485, 489. At Cerro Gordo, 489, 490. At Cherubusco, 1847, 493. At Chepultepec, 494. At Mexico, 494, 495. Nomin ated President of the United States, 513. Notice of, 485, 507. SEABURY, SAMUEL, Bishop of Connecticut, 354. SEARS, ISAAC, 232. SEAVER, EBENEZER, of Massachusetts, 409. Secession, Authors of, 540. SEDGWICK, General, 650. Killed, 690. SEDGWICK, THEODORE, Address of, 516. Sedition Law of the United States, 386. Seekonk River, 89, 90. SiitiiiioJe Indians, Subdued by General Jackson, 30. Deputations of, 448, 466. Treaties of the, with the United States, 468. SEMMES, EAPHAEL, Captain of " Alabama," 641, 707. Seneca Indians, 23,110. Eed Jacket Chief of the 14. At Genesee Flats, 304. Conspire against the English, 205. Hi-a-wat-ha s address to the, 24. " Scrap-is" ship Captured by Paul Jones, 307. Settlement, Era of, in North Ameriea, 61. Seven Years 1 War in America, 179. Cost of the, 204, 206. Seven Pines, Battle of, 619. SEVIER, JOHN, At King s Mountain, 319. SEWARD, WILLIAM H., 5SS. INDEX. Ivii Shackamaxon. Pennsylvania, 96. "Shade* of Death." The, 291. SHAFTESBCRY. Earl, of, 98, 99. His "Fundamental Con stitutions, " 164. "Shannon," frigate, 429. SHARPE, Governor, 184, 185. SHAW ROBERT G. Jr., Colonel, 674 Shawmut. Massachusetts, 89, 118. The site of Boston, visited bv Standish, 115. Shawwese Indian*, 17, 19. Join the French in the Zfiawnoe ^ ^ Aid ^ Britishi 19> Con . against the English, 205. Treaty with the, 363. At York Canada 425 SHELBY ISAAC, Governor, At King s Mountain, 819. Sanctions Hopkin s Expedition against the. Indians, 416. Declines the appointment of becretary ol \V or, 447 . Not! ce s of, 41 7, 423. SJu-llt/, Gloucester County, \ irginia. 86. Shenandoah Valley 6S9. Campaign in 697, 6o2. SHERIDAN PHILIP II., General, 690, t>92, 697. SHERMAN ROGER, On the Committee to draft the Declar- atiou of Independence, 251. In Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. of, 49.3. - The c,a 6S of, used V the early cx- B.SS O^Ll Arnold marries the daughter SHIPPEN Captain, Death of, 269. S^TTTPT w Wn 1 1 VM Governor, 137, 1S4, 186. His &x- redHion ,"unst Xia-ara, 185, 189; and against Acadie, 1st SucfeedsBraddock; Governor of the Bahamas, SHUBRICK, Commodore, With Colonel Kearney, at Monterey. 4*7. SHUTE, Governor, 136. SIBLEY, II. B.. 593. SICKLES. DANIEL. 650. SIEVES, The Abbe, 386. SIGEL, General. 573, 691. Silk, Culture of. in Georgia, 100 by the Plymouth Company ; captured by a French pirate 74. Offers his services to the Puritans, 77. The Indian capturer of 106. His History of Virginia, 65. Notice of, 65. SMITH, JOSEPH, founds Mormon sect, 504. SMITH, T. KIKBY, 684. SMITH PERSIFER F., General, at Contreras, 493. SMITH, SAMUEL, General, at FortMifflin, 275. Notice of r 436. SMITH, W. F , General, 692, 682. S ,IYTH, ALEXANDER, General, 414. Snake Indian*, 83. SNORRE, the child of Gndrida, 35. SOMERS, SIR GEORGE, 68. Somers" the, one of Commodore Perry s vessels, 420. Sonora, Colonel Fremont at. in 1846, 487. Sons of Liberty, political associations, 215. Ot Massa chusetts, 233. Of New York. 248. SOTIIEL, SETII, Governor, 165, 167. Southampton. England, Puritans sail from, 1 1. South Carolina. Catawbas in, 27. Colony, 168. Occu pied by the British, in 1780, 313. Secession of, 540. Quiet in. 672. South Mountain, battle of. 62s. South River, or Delaware River, 94. 1 South Sea, origin of the name, 42. outh Virginia, 63, 68. pain cecK-s the Floridas to England, 204. At war with England : secret treaty of, with France, 306. Treaty of, with the United States, 381, 451. Difficulties with, naniards claim Port Royal, 166. Menace South Caro lina settlements, 167. Moore s expedition against, 169. Contests of, with Oglethorpe, 172. panish voyages and discoveries, 36-45. pecie payments, suspended, 471. Speedwell? Puritan ship, 77, 115. PENCER, JOSEPH, General, 238, 289. poitsylvania Court House, battle at, _ 689. i AiGHT,* RICHARD DOBBS, 356. 534, 629. iwmg, at Shawmut, 118. Williams s, at Providence, Rhode Island, 90. print/field Indians, 127. 283? Coins, the first, in the United States, 122. SIMCOE. Colonel, 339. jrisin and History of the, 26. The British "Government advises the colonies to secure the friend. hln of iho 1S3 Neutrality of the, 192, 198. Their & o U f friendship, 199, 363 Jjf Amhcrst, 203 Sullivan s Expedition against the, 303, 304. SKEN E ,.PinLn.,275._ itchaii2T6> Vmerica used as, by Commons 74. Sold to the Virginia planters States 371 Debates on slavery in Congress, Ch-irles Fenton Mercers Resolution, declaring th Save- radcf u l" piracy. 593. The Ashburton treaty re?pecUngs!lvttrade.-472. Excluded from California 499. Reopening of, 535. Commissioners, 585, 58 IJ1 Eeturns t() England, 589. SLOAT, Commodore, Captures Monterey, 461. SLOCUM, II. W.. General. 703. _ ^ ^ js portrait-paintin ^"JOHN Member of the Committee of Congres on the Wai- of 1812, 409. SMITH, A. J., 687. SMITH, C. F., 596. Indians saved by Pocahontas. 60. i^emonsuc R^S f ^E42S t 3ft , . pringfield, Connecticut, 86 127. Springfield, New Jersey, skirmish at, 320, 321. QUANTO, Indian Chief, 74, 114 tamp Act, the. becomes a law, 213. Fate of, in Ameri ca. 215. Repealed, 217. TANTON, EDWIN, M.. attempted removal ol, i30. TANDISH, MILKS, Captain. 78. 115. SSTARK. JOHX, General, 198, 234, 277. ar-Spangled Banner, origin of the, 4o7. "L? State Rights Doctrine, 463, 464 Approve the Slave System, 535, Disapprove it o*. State Scmks, the public funds distributed among the, 470. STEELE, General, 676. 686. STEPHENS, ALEXANDER H., 54s. Arrest ol, JJCfi. 381. Pursued by Notice o 339 Notice of, 291. Greene, 337. 338. death of, 627. with a corps u , STIRLING, Colonel (British), 2o9. 389. STONEMAN. General, 643. STONE. WILLIAM. Governor, 152. the Stony Creek, skirmish at 426. Stony Point, capture of, 297, 298. " of thename S oU62. STRONG, CALEB, 356. SIUEGIS, General, 6bd. Iviii INDEX. STUYVESANT, PETER, Governor. 93, 141, 142. Captures Swedish forts; chastises the Esopus Indians, 143. Sub- Treasury Scheme, 471, 475. Sugar Bill, the, 213. SULLIVAN, JOHN, General, 23S. At Brooklyn, 253. Pa roled, 257. Succeeds General Charles Lee: joins Washington, 261. At Trenton, 262. At Brandywine, 273. Supersedes General Spencer, 2S9. At the battle of Quaker Hill, 290. His expedition against the Six Nations. 303, 304. At Tioga Point ; at Chemung, 304. SUMNER, General, 615, 621. bultan, the, Mary Fisher s mission to, 123. SUMNER, JETHRO, General, 337. SU.MTER, THOMAS, General, in South Carolina, 314. On the Catawba; at Hanging Eock, 315. At Fishing Creek, 316. Eeturns to South Caroline, 17SO, 319". The South Carolina Gamecock. 319. Sumter, Fort, first gun fired at, 553. Susquehanna Indians, 17, 110. SUTTER, Captain, of California, gold discovered near the mill of, in 1^8,497. JStvanzey, King Philip attacks the men of Plymouth at, 125. Swamp Angel, the, 674. JSwede-s seize Fort Casimir, 142. Subjugated by the Dutch, 143. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 62. Swedish Colony in America, 92. Fortresses, captured by Stuyvesant, 14-3. West India Company, 93. Swine, taken to America, 44; to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 47, 58 ; to Virginia, 68. Sycamores, at Providence, Ehode Island, 90. SYMMES, JOHN CLEVES, 363. Syracuse, New York, great Council Fire at, 23. T. Tabaco, Yucatan, 70. Talladega, battle at, 428. * Tallahassee, 1 1 Confederate privateer, T14. Tallushatchee, General Coffee at, 428. Tamarona Indians, 19. Tampa Bay, De Soto lands at, 44. Tampico, Captured by Commodore Conner, 485. TANEY, ROGER B., Chief Justice, Removes the Govern ment funds from the United States Bank, 465. Ad ministers the oath of office to President Van Buren, 470 ; to President Harrison, 474 ; to President Taylor, 499. Sketch of, 533. Tariff Bill. Of 1828, 459, 463, 464. Modifications of the, 476, 477, 497. TARLETON, Colonel, Loss of his cavalry horses on Cape Hatteras, 309. Defeats Colonel Huger, 311. His slaughter of Buford s troops. 313. At Sanders s Creek, 316. At Fishing Creek, 316. At the Cowpens, 331. Notice of, 316. Taxation, Without representation, is tyranny, 104, 165, 211, 212. William Pitt s opinion of, 217. Views of in the Carol! nas, 164, 165; and in Massachusetts, 219. TAYLOR, BAYARD. Poem of, 557. TAYLOR, DICK, 677. TAYLOR, ZACIIARY, General, Succeeds General Jesup in the Seminole war, 468. His army of occupation, 480. At Point Isabel. 481. Captures Matamoras. 483. At Monterey, 4S4; Victoria, 485; Buena Vista. 486. Map of the region of his operations, 486. President of the United States, 1849, 490. Death of, 501. Notice of, TAYLOR, General, 622. Tea, Tax on by the British Government, 222. De struction of at Boston, 225. TECUMTHA, 20, 4u8, 411. Defeated by Colonel Miller, 411. Rouses the Southern tribes of Indians, 427. Death, 425. Notice of, 424. Te Deum, The, Sung after victories and deliverances, 265. Tennessee, Secession of, 547. Persecution of Union men, 575. Lost to Confederates, 598. In possession of the Union Army, 608. Events in, 661. Restored to the Union, 727. Tenure of Office, Bill of, 729. TERNAY, Admiral, His fleet at Newport, 321. His death 339. TERRY, A. II., Admiral, 713. Territory, Indian, Claimed by England, 17. Southwest of the Ohio, 372. Territorial Government of the United States, 362. The Territories," 96. Texas, Retained by Spain, 451. Annexation of to the | United States, 477, 478. State Constitution of, 479. Claims of, 499. Secession of, 547. Expedition for the recovery of, 678. Thames River, Connecticut, Discovered by Block, 72, 87. Mohegan Indians on the, 21. Thames River, Canada, Battle on the, 424. TJianksgiving and Prayer, Congress recommends the appointment of a day for, 370. National, after the Peace of 1814, 444. TlIAYENDANEGA : SC6 BRANT, JOSEPH. THOMAS, GEORGE II., General, 594, 663, 665, 705. THOMAS, JOHN, General, 238. In Canada; Notice of, 243. THOMAS, LORENZO, Appointed Secretary of War, 731. THOMPSON BENJAMIN, Colonel, Count Rumford ; and notice of, 346. THOMPSON, Colonel, At Sullivan s Island, 249. THOMPSON, DAVID, His colony of fishermen, 79. THOMPSON, M. JEFF , Guerilla Chief, 676. THOMPSON, WILLEY, General, His expedition to Florida, 1834,466. Death of, 467. THOMSON, CHARLES, Secretary of the Continental Con gress ; Congress presents an urn to his wife, 228. THORNTON, Captain, At the Rio Grande, 481, 482. Thoroughfare Gap, 625. TIHTRY, M., The Jesuit, 130. Ticonderoga, Samuel Champlain at, 59. Abercrombie s Expedition against, 196. Ruins of, 197. Captured by Allen and Arnold, 238. " Tigress," schooner, 420. Tinicum Island, 93. Tippecanoe, Battle of, 408. Tobacco, Its use among the aboriginals, 14. Introduced into England, 70. A circulating medium in Virginia, 105. James I. proposes to contract for the whole crop of, in Virginia, 107. Culture of, at Plymouth, 116. Tobasco. Cortez lands at, 43. Captured by Commodore Perry, 485. TO-MO-CHI-CHI, Creek Sachem ; his speech to Oglethorpe, 103. TOMPKLNS, DANIEL D., Governor, 412. Vice-President of the United States; notice of, 446. Tonomy IHU. Rhode Island, 125. Torpedoes, 673. Tories, In the Carolinas, 309.- The term Tory explained 226. TOTTEN, Colonel, at Vera Cruz ; notice of. 489. TOWNSHEND, CHARLES, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 218. TOWNSHEND, General, 201. At Quebec, 201-203. TREAT, ROBERT, Governor, 156. Treaties. Indian, 362, 363. Treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, 443, 444, Treaty between Spain and the United States, 451. Trent, British steamer. Trenton, New Jersey, Captured by Cornwallis, 260. Battle of, 262. Tri-Mountain, or Boston, 118. Tripartite Treaty, The, 513. Tripoli, The United States at war with, 390, 391. De- catur at. 445. " Trippe" sloop, 420. TRIST, NICHOLAS P., United States Commissioner to treat for peace with Mexico, 494. TROUP. Governor, 456. TRUMBULL, JONATHAN, notice of, 324. TRYON, Governor, 223. Driven from New York, 243. At Compo, 270. Atrocities committed by, 270, 271. His marauding expeditions, 296. TUCKER. President of the New Jersey Convention, 260. Tunis, The United States at war with, 1801, 390. De- catur at, 445. TUPPER, General 416. Tuscarora Indians, 20, 23. Defeated by the Caroli nians ; Join the Five Nations, 25. Conspire against the North Carolina settlements, 168. Tuspan, captured by Commodore Percy, 485. TWIGGS, General, 483. 489. At Cerro Gordo, 489, 490. At St. Augustine, 493. Notice of, 493. TYLER, JOHN, Vice-President of the United States, 473. Succeeds President Harrison ; Notice of, 475. u. Uc7iee Indians, their territory and language, 12, 28. UNCAS, Mohegan Chief, 87. His rumor against the Nar- ragansetts, 155. INDEX. lix UNDERBILL, JOHN, Captain, 87, 141. Union Flag, 144. Unitarians, persecuted in Maryland, 82, 151. United States, Confederation, Articles of, 266, 267, 353, 355. Constitution, 355. Mint, 373, 373. Post-office, 373. Navy, origin of, 382. Commerce, 381, 3S2. Non- intercourse with Great Britain, 309. Injured by England and France, 400, 401, by pirates, 453. Bank, 446. Oposed by President Jackson, 462, 465, 466. Government in great danger, 627. Treaties with Great Britain, 348, 380, 443 ; France, 386; Russia, 469: Spain, 881; Belgium, 469; Mexico, 497; Algiers, 381 ; Tripoli,395. Seminole Indians, 46S. Wars : England 409; France, 885; Mexico, 480, 522; Morocco, 390; Tripoli and Tunis, 390; Algiers, 390. Claims of the, against France and Portugal, 468. Dispute of the, with Great Britain respecting Oregon, 405, 406, 479, 480. Exploring expeditions return to, 476. Indian population of. 32. Jnited S\ United Stales, debt of, 678. Finances of, 678. Debt in 1868. 734. " United States" frigate. 382,414,415. Utah, 499. Territory of, 537. Utrecht, Peace of, 136. V. .VALENCIA, General, at Contreras, 493. YALLANDIC.IIAM, CLEMENT L., 656,711. Valley -Forge, Washington in winter quarters at, 284. Valparaiso, Naval action at, 431. VAN .UREX, MARTIN, Secretary of State, 461. Vice- President of the United States, 464. President, 469. Notice of. 469. VAN DAM, KIP, 158. VAN DORN, MARCH, Earl, 592. VANE, HENRY, 86. Governor; favors Anne Hutchinson, 120. VAN HORNK, Major, 411. VAN EENSSELAE R, SOLOMON, Colonel, 413. VAN EENSSELAER. STEPHEN, General, commands the Army of the Centre, 412, 413. Notice of, 412. VAN RENSSELAER. KILLIAN, 139. VAN TWILLER, WOUTER, 139. VAN WAIIT, ISAAC. 326. VARNUM, JAMES M.. General, 355. VASCO DE GAM A, passes the Cape of Good Hope, in 37. VANDREUIL, Governor-General of Canada, 203. VAUGHA.V, JOHX, General, burns Kingston, 283, 297. VELASQUEZ, expeditions to Mexico, 43, Vera Cruz, its fortress: capture of, by General Scott, 489. VERGENNES, Count de, his dissatisfaction respecting the Treaty of Peace, 348. Vermont, added to the United States, in 1791, 371. VerplancK s Point, capture of the fortress at, 297. VERAZZANI. JOHN, his expedition to America, 47. Versche River, or Connecticut River, 82. Vesper Hymn, sung by Columbus and his crew, 39. VESPUCIUS, AMERICUS, account of, 40, 41. Visits the West Indies, and South America, 41. Discoveries by, 60. Vicksburg, 635, 642. Assault on, 645. Surrender of, 646, 681. VICTORIA, General, 477. VILLIERS, M. de, 183. Vincennes, Captured, and re-captured, 1779, 303. " Viper" brig, 414. Virginia, Origin of the name of, 55. Capes of, 59. North, 63. South, 63, 68. First settlement of, 62. The colonists of, subdue the Shawnoese at Point Pleas ant, 19. Lord De la Warr. governor of, 68. Famine in, 69. Representative Assembly in, 71, 105. Tobacco a circulating medium in, 105. Opposes Cromwell ; invites Charles II. to be king of Virginia, 109. The Seneca Indians make war upon, 110. Response of the Burgesses of, to Jeffries, 113. Militia of, counties and parishes of, 114. Takes measures against the French, 182, 183. Grant from Parliament to, 206. Lord Dun- more driven from, 243. The Virgina Plan, 359. Se cession of, 547. " Vixen" brig. 414. Volunteer*, call for, 554. Voyages and Discoveries, Spanish, 36-45. " Vulture, " sloop-of-war, 326. w. WADSWORTII, Captain, 156, 157. WADSWORTH, General, killed, 689. WALDRON, Major, Death of, 130. WALKER, Governor, 165. WALKER, SIR HOVENDEN, at Boston, 136. WALKER, WILLIAM, Colonel, his military operations, 523, 524, 525. WALKER, Captain, of the Texan Rangers, 481, 482. WALLACE, SIR JAMES, 223. WALLACE, LEWIS. General, 590, 633, 695. Walla- WallaRiver, Battle at the, 528. Walloons, arrive at Manhattan, in 73. Walnut Springs, 484. WALPOLE, ROBERT, 213. WALTON, GEORGE, in Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. Wfimpanoag Indians, 22, 114, 124. ; WANCHESE, Indian chief. 55. I War, of the Spanish Succession. 235. Of the Austrian I Succession, 137. See United States. War Civil, end of, 553, 721. WARD, ARTEMAS, General, in the French and Indian War, 198. His appointment as General, 230, 234, 238. At Boston, 239. Enters Boston, after its evacuation. 247 WARNER, SETII, Colonel, 234. 240, 176, 277. WARREN, JOSEPH, Dr.. 232, 233. WARREN, Admiral, 137, 138, 191. WARREN, General, 660. WARWICK, Earl of, 85. Warwick, "Rhode Island, burned, 127. WASHIUTRN-CRNE, C. C., General, 678. Washington City, burned by General Ross, 1814, 436. The Seat of Government of the United States, 388. Addition made to the Capitol at, 509. In great dan ger. 558. Plans for the capture of, 623. In great peril, 625. WASHINGTON, GEORGE, Bearer of Governor Dinwiddie s letter to M. St. Pierre, 181. Colonel Fry s Lieutenant, in the French and Indian War, 182. At Great Mead ows, 183. Resigns his Commission, 184. Braddock s Aid, in the battle of Monongahela; his wonderfii[ escape from death, 186. With General Forbes against Fort Du Quesne, 198. Commander-in-chief at Cambridge, 238. Causes the Declaration of Indepen dence to be read to each of his brigades, 252. His return from Long Island, 254. 257. At Harlem Heights, 257. Exposure" at Kip s bay. at the house of Roger Morris, 259. Crosses the Delaware, 260. Captures Hessians at Trenton ; invested with the power of Military dicta torship, 264. His victory at Princeton, 268. Opinion of his exploits in New Jersey, expressed by Frederic of Prussia, 269. Perplexc-d by Howe; his first interview with La Fayette, 272. Crosses the Schuylkill, 274. At White Marsh, 283. Pursues Clinton at White Plains, Middlebrook, 2SS. Disapproves of a proposed invasion of Canada, 294. At Valley Forge, 274, 284. Scheme for superseding him, 285. At Monmouth, 287. Called; by the Indians, u Town Destroyer;" Cornplanter s Ad dress to, 304. In winter quarters at Morris town, 306. Fits out armed vessels at Boston, 307. Lieutenant- General of the French empire ; his first interview with Rochambeau, 323. Reprimands Arnold, 325. Proposes to attack New YorK, 839. Writes deceptive letters to General Greene, at Yorktown, 340, 341. At New York, after the capture of Corn wallis, 346. Suppresses the general discontent in the army, 349. Quells the mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops, 350. Nicola s let ter to him, 349. His Farewell Address to his com panions in arms, 85t>. and His farewell to his officers, 351,352. Resigns his commission ; President of the Cincinnati Society. 352. President of the Convention to fevise the Articles of Confederation, 35t>. President of the United States; his administration 364. His journey to New York, 304, 365. Takes the oath of office, 3C6. His tour through the northern and eastern States, 1789, 370. His Farewell Address to his country men, 3S2. Retires to Mount Vernon, 383. Death of, 386, 3S7. Lee s Funeral Oration on, 887. Bonaparte s tribute to, 387, 3SS. Tribute to, by the British fleet, 388. WASHINGTON, MARTHA, notice of, 386. WASHINGTON, WILLIAM AUGUSTINE, Colonel, 334. No tice of, *32. Washington Territory, 480, 513. " Wasp," sloop, 414, 415, 440. WATSON, Colonel, on the Pedee, 820. Waterford, Henry Hudson at, 59. I X D E X . WAYNE, General, Surprised by General Gray, 274. Re strains a meeting of 1 eunsy Ivania troops, 328. Pursues Cormvallis, 339. At Savannah, 346. His Expedition against the Indians, 374. Crushes an Indian Confede racy, 21. Notice of, 298. WEBB, General. 194. WEBSTER, DANIEL, Secretary of State, 474, 502. His negotiation with Lord Ashburton, 472. WEBSTER. FLETCHER, Announces the death of President Harrison. 475. WEBSTER, Lieutenant-Colonel, 334. WEBSTER, Captain, at Saltillo, 4S6. WEITZEL, GODFREY, General, 713. Entered Eichmond, 718. " Welcome" ship, 96. WELLINGTON, Lord, enters Paris, 431. WELLS, Colonel, one of chief leaders against the savages, 416. Welsh Indians, 32. WEKYSS, Major, at the Broad River, 319. Weroworomocco, Virginia, 66. WESLEY, John, Rev., in Georgia. 171. WEST JOSEPH, his colony, 98. Westchester, New York. General Knyphansen at, 259. Western Virgina, admitted as a State, 561. Struggle to get possession of, 578. Close of Campaign in, 579 660. West Indies, The, Voyages of Columbus and Vespucius to. 40, 41. Trade of, 367. West Jersey, Eemarkable law enacted by the Assembly of, 160. Westons Colony, 115. West Point, New York, Arnold appointed to the com mand of. 325. WEYMOUTIJ GEORGE, Captain, 53. Weymoutli, Massachusetts, burned, 127. Whaleboat Warfare, 308. WHALLEY, EDWARD, Regicide Judge, 123. WHEELER, Captain, 126. W T HEELOOK, Rev. Dr., his School at Lebanon, 25. WHEELWRIGHT, JOHN, Rev., founds Exeter, SO. Favors the religious views of Mrs. Kutchinson, 120. Whiff ana Tory, explanation of the terms, 226. WHIPPLE ABRAHAM, Commodore, 223. His flotilla, notice of, 310. Whisky Insurrection, The, 378. WHITE, JOHN, Governor, 56. 57. WHITE, PKIIEGRINE, the first English child born in New England, 78. WHILE, Colonel, on the Santee River, 311. WHITEFIELD, GEORGE, Rev., in Georgia, 171. White, Plains, New York, Washington at, 253. Wife, price of a, in Virginia, in 1620, 105, Wilder ness, The, 6S9. Battle of, 690. WILKES, Commodore, his Expedition, 476, 477. Takes Mason and Slidell prisoners, 587. WILKINSON, JAMES, General, sent by Gates with a verbal message to Congress, 282. His Expedition against the Indians, 374. Burr s associate, 396. With General Dearborn, 810. Succeeds Dearborn; his operations, 426. At Prescott. 426, 427. At. St. Regis ; at French Mills, 427. At Plattsburs. 432. Notice of, 426. WILLETT, Colonel, 278. WILLIAM III., and MARY, accession of, 130, 148. Their war with France, 130. William prohibits printing in the American colonies, 153. Interested in Captain Kidd s Expedition, 149. William and Mary College, 178. WILLIAMS DAVID, cne of the captors of Andre, 326. WILLIAMS, EPIIRAIM, Colonel, death of, 190. WILLIAMS, JAMES, Colonel, at King s Mountain, 319. WILLIAMS, JOHN, Rev., captured by Indians: fate of his wife, 135. WILLIAMS, OTIIO H., Colonel, 318. WILLIAMS, ROGER, 87, 158. Founder of Rhode Island, 81), 119, Persecuted, 119. Pacifies hostile Indians at New Netherland, 141. Notice of, 89. William s College, founded, 190. Williams * Spring, 90. Williamsburg, Virginia, 111. Battle of, 616. WILLMOT, Captain, death of, 348. WILSON JAMES, in Convention on the Articles of Con federation, 356, 359. Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, 869. WILSON, Rev. Mr., Saltoustall s letter to, 118. WILSON, ROBERT, Ensign, 342. Wilson s Creek, battle at, 574. Wittwyck, Indians massacre the inhabitants of. 148. WINCHESTER, General, 416, 417. Notice of, 418. WINDER, General, 426. At Bladensburg, 436. WINGFIELD, EDWARD M., His conduct toward Captain John Smith ; deposed, 65. Winnebago Indinas conspire against the English.205. WINSLOW. EDWARD, Governor, 85, 185. Received by Massasoit, 114. Cows and a bull imported by, 116. His letter to Governor Winthrop, 142. [ WINSLOW, JOHN A. Captain of the Kearsage, 708. I WINSLOW, JOHN. General, 1S5, 191. WINSTON, JOSEPH. Colonel, at King s Mountain, 319. Winter, severe, of 1777-1778, 284. WINTHROP, JOHN, Governor, 117, 118. His expedition against Canada, 131. Applies to Charles II. for a new- charter, 155. Indian chiefs at the table of, 118. No tice of, 118. Winy aw JBay, La Fayette lands on the shore of, 273. Wisconsin, admitted to the Union in 1S4S, 497. WISE, HENRY A., 539 565. Wissagusset Settlement, 115. 116. Witchcraft, in Massachusetts, 132, 133. WOLFE, JAMES, General, 196, 199, 200. At Quebec, 201. Death of; monument to, 202. Wolfe s Cove, 202,241. Wolfe s Ravine, 202. Women, Indian, condition of, 14. 15. The first two on the James River, 67. A hundred and fifty, become wives of Virginia planters, 71. No white, in Virginia, in 1619; ninety sent by Sandys, in 1620; sixty "sent, in 1621, 105. , (See Wife.} WOODFORD, General, 244, 311. WOODHULL, NATHANIEL, General, 198, 254. WOOL. JOHN ENLIS, General, 413. At Monclova; at Pan-as. 484. At Braceti, 488. At Saltillo, 489. No tice of, 434, 526, 617 Wool Means used to prevent the scarcity of, in Amer ica, 216. WOOLSEY, Captain, 482. WOOSTER, DAVID, General, 238, 243, 271. WORDEN, JOHN L. Lieut, 672. WORTH, WILLIAM J., General, at Monterey, 483. At Saltillo, 434. At the Castle of Perote, 490. At Mex ico. 494. Notice of, 493. Writs of Assistance, 212. Wyandot Indians, 23, 24. Cede their lands to the United States. 24. Conspire against the English, 1763, 205. Treaty with the. 363. Wyandot County invaded by the Five Nations, 24. WYATT, SIR FRANCIS, 106, 108. Wyiming Valley, devastation of, in 1778, 290, 291. WYTHE, GEORGE, in Convention on the Articles of Confederation, 356. Y. YALE, ELISHA, Benefactor of Yale College, 178. Yale College, 158, 178. Yamacraw Bluff, 100, 103. Yamasee Indians, 80, 168, 170. Yankee Doodle, the National Song, 220. YATES, ROBERT, in Convention on Articles of Confed eration, 856. Yazoo City, 683. Yazoo River t De Soto on the banks of the, 44. YEAMENS, SIR JOHN, 98. YEARDLEY, GEOKGR, Governor, 70, 107. His Represent ative Assembly, 105 YEO, SIR JAMES, 432. YORK, Duke of, 94. His American possessions, 129. Sells New Jersey, 159. Yorktoicn, Virginia, fortified by Cornwallis, 340. Sur render of, 341^ 342, 345. Yowngstown burnt, 427. Z. ZENGER, JOHN PETER, Editor of the New Tork Weekly Journal, arrested, 150. ZOLLIOOFFER, FELIX K , 575, 577. 595, SUPPLEMENTARY IKDEX. A. Aea&ama Claims, how settled, 740. Amnesty Bill, 737. Apportionment, a new, 741. B. Boston, Great Fire in, 739. C. Chicago, Great fire in, 739. Commission, Joint High, 740. Cuba, Trouble with, 738. D. Darien, Proposed Canal across, 739. Embassy from Japan, 742. F. Fenian Brotherhood, Raid of, 738. Franking Privilege abolished, 742. G. GRAND DUKE of Russia, visit of, 742. GRANT, ULYSBBS S., Message of, on Reorganization 737. Re-elected President, 740. J. Japan, Embassy from, 742. Joint nigh Commission, 740. N. Nominations for the Presidency, 741. P. Pacific Coast Boundaries ar^ fettled, 741. Pacific Railway completed, 737. Pension Bill, 741. Presidency, Nominations for the, 741. R. Reorganization, Message of President Grant on, 737. Of Union Flag, 737. San Domingo, proposed Annexation of, 738. Southern States, Feeling in, 743. TJ. Union Flag, Reorganization of, 737. W. Weather Signals established, 741. WILSON, HENKY, elected Vice-Preeident of the United States, 742. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due Renewed books are subject to immediate recall " General Library University of California Berkeley LD21A-10m-8, 73 (R1902S10)476 A-31