UH vy y/j f/.M W ITS History Achievements -^^ '■' ,y John White. By permission o/ the British Museum.) wm/^^ LINCOLN AMD HIS SON " TAj>. OUR OWN COUNTRY; ITS HISTORY AND ACHIEVEMENTS AND OUR NOTED MEN AND WOMEN. BARON STEUBEN. GOV. ARTHURbl LLAIR. bFC \ SAMUEL A OTIS ROGI K sH LhM \ •, CHANCELLOR ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. GEORGE WASHINGTON. UOV. GEORGE CLIN ION. GBN'l henry KNOX. WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH AS PRESIDENT, APRIL 30, I7S9, ON THE SITE OF THE PRESENT TREASURY BUILDING, WALL STREET, NEW VORK CITY. Virginia gave us this imperial man, Cast in the massive mould Of those high-statured ages old Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran ; Mother of States and undiminished men, Thou gavest us a Country, giving him. —James Russell Lowell. LEVICI, IN THE KAY OF GENOA. CHAPTER I. KINDINQ THE NEW COUNTRY. HILE Discovery, whether disclosing unknown lands beyond untried seas, or revealing the method of subduing and utilizing to man's service some one of the mighty forces of Nature, has startled the world more than Conquest, scarcely less surprising than some discoveries is the fact that the world has so often and for so long a time seemed to call for a discoverer in vain. Notably this is the case with the two most important discoveries that have ever been made, and both in the fifteenth century — that of the art of printing and the finding of a new world. For thousands of years the world had transcribed its thought into permanent legible characters by means of the stylus, the stalk of the papyrus, or the chisel. Slow and laborious were these methods, yet the splendid civilizations of the great Eastern Empires, the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and the Medo-Persian, had produced their literature without the aid of the printing press, while the later civilizations of Greece and Rome — countries that gave to all coming time the noblest litera- tures — transcribed them by the painful process of the pen. The wonderful brain of the Greek could construct a Parthenon, the wonder of the age ; and the Roman reared that pile, so noble in its simplicity — the Pantheon ; yet neither could discern the little type that should make the rapid 21 22 THE STORY OF AMERICA. multiplying of letters easy, nor place in relief upon a block of wood the tracery of a single leaf ; and the wonder is no less, but increases as we consider the fact that two vast continents, the half of an entire planet, had for so many centuries eluded the gaze of men who went down to the sea in ships, who for centuries had navigated an inland sea for two thousand miles, while from Iceland and Judand intrepid mariners and Buccaneers had plowed the ocean with their keels. For nearly three centuries before the angels sung at Bethlehem, Aristotle, following the teachings of the Pythagoreans, had asserted the spheroidicity of the earth, and had declared that the great Asiatic Empire could be reached by sailing westwardly, a view that was confirmed by Seneca, the Spaniard, who affirmed that India could be reached in this way ; and all down the centuries the probability of discovery, as we now look back upon those times, seems to be increasing ; but, somehow. Discovery still refused to enter the open gate leading to the New World, and this, notwithstanding the fact that the Canary and Madeira Islands had been discovered some years before, and the Portuguese navigators had followed the coast of Africa for thousands of miles, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus himself having skirted the coast to the Cape of Storms. The spheroidicity of the earth was generally accepted by enlightened men, though the Copernican system was not known, and it was believed that there must be a large unknown continent to the west. There was such a continent — two of them indeed- — and they were nearer the African coast, along which Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian navigators had coursed, than the distance they had covered from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cape of Good Hope. Yet, though the times wanted a discoverer, he was not to be found. WAS AMERICA DISCOVERED BY THE NORSEMEN ? This has long been a disputed question. Norse scholarship has always insisted upon the discovery ; scholars looking upon the matter from the outside have disputed the claim. One of the principal chains of evidence offered here- tofore has been supplied by the Norse Sagas — stories of mingled fact, romance and myth ; but they have been distrusted, and up to recent time the preponderance of evidence has rather been against the Icelandic claim. But latterly new evidence has been brought to light, which seems to fully establish the fact of the discovery of America by the Norsemen from Iceland, about A. D. I GOO. To cite the testimony of the Sagas, one must suffice for evidence in that direction. The Eyrbyggia Saga — the oldest extant manuscript, remains of which date back to about the year 1300 — has the following: "After the recon- ciliation between Steinhor and the people of Alpta-firth, Thorbrand's sons. Cnorri and Thorleif, went to Greenland. Snorri went to Wineland the Good with WAS AMERICA DISCOVERED BY THE NORSEMEN? 23 Karlsefni ; and when they were fighting with the Skreliings there in Wineland, Thorbrand Snorrason, a most vahant man, was killed." In the Icelandic Annals, also, the oldest of which is supposed to have been written in the south of Iceland about the year 1280, mention is made of Vineland. In the year 1121 it is recorded that " Bishop Eric Uppsi sought Wineland." The same entry is found in the chronological lists. These would seem to supply historical references to the Norse discovery of America, set down in such a manner as to indicate that the knowledge of the fact was widely diffused. One of the most interesting accounts taken from the Norse records is that found in a parchment discovered in a Monastery library of the Island of Flato, ON THE COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. and which was transferred to Copenhagen and submitted to the inspection of Professor Rafn and other noted Icelandic scholars. Professor Rafn reproduces the record in his "Antiquities." The story is as follows: "In the year 996, while sailing from Iceland to Greenland, Biarne Heriulfson was driven southward by a storm, when they came in sight of land they had never before seen. Biarne did not try to land, but put his ship about and eventually reached Greenland. Four years after, in A. D. 1000, Leif the son of Eric the Red, sailed from Brattahlid in search of the land seen by Biarne. This land Leif soon discovered ; he landed, it is supposed, on the coast of Labrador, which he named Helluland, because of the numerous flat stones found there, from the word hclla, a flat stone. Finding the shore inhospitable, he again set sail and soon reached a coast 24 ■ THE STORY OF AMERICA. corresponding to Nova Scotia. This he called Markland (Woodland). Leif put to sea a third time, and after two days' buffeting landed, it is supposed, in Mount Hope Bay, in Rhode Island. Here the adventurers wintered, and noted that on the shortest day the sun rose at 7.30 a. m., and set at 4.30 p. m. After naming the newly discovered land Vineland, on account of the profusion of wild grapes, he returned in the following spring to Greenland." But it is only just to cite opinions on the other side. In his History Mr. Bancroft denies that the alleged discovery of the North American mainland is established by any clear historical evidence. He admits, indeed, that there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the notion that the colonizers of Greenland (and the early colonization of Greenland is admitted) may have explored the coast to the South. But the assertion that they actually did so rests, he says, on narratives "mythological in form, obscure in meaning, ancient, yet not contemporary." Mr. Justin Winsor, the well-known historian, seems unwilling to admit the trustworthiness of the epical accounts of the voyages of the Northmen to the so-called Vineland. But a recent writer, Mr. Arthur Middleton Reeves, well versed in Scandi- navian and Icelandic literature, has lately come forward to maintain the reality of the discovery ascribed to the Northmen, and has set forth an imposing array of evidence and argument in support of his belief. Mr. Reeves finds his proofs not in the Sagas alone, which Bancroft and Winsor reject, but he has also gathered together the preceding references to the Vineland voyages, which are scattered through the early history of Iceland. From these last mentioned data it seems clearly demonstrable that the discovery of the American mainland took place, as has been claimed, about A. D. 1000, and was well known in Greenland and Iceland long before any of the three Sagas dealing with the theme were penned, for there is documentary proof reaching so far back as about the year 1 1 10. Among the proofs brought forward, is the story as told by the Icelandic scholar, Ari the Learned, who was born in Iceland in the year 1067, and who died in 1148. In Ari's book, narrating the colonization of Greenland, he says that the settlers perceived, from the dwellings, the fragments of boats, and the stone implements, that the people had been there who inhabited Wineland, and whom the Greenlanders called " Skrellings." Furthermore, in the Collectanea of Middle-age Wisdom, a manuscript written partly in Icelandic and partly in Latin, between the years 1400 and 1450, it is stated that "southward from Greenland is Helluland ; thence is Markland ; thence it is not far to Wineland the Good. Leif the Lucky first found Greenland." In another historical vellum document it is stated that " from Greenland to the southward lies Helluland, then Markland, thence it is not far to Wineland ;" and in another vellum of the year 1400, it is said "south from Greenland lies Helluland, then Markland, THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. -5 thence it is not far to Vineland." Still again — and the evidence must end with this citation — in an old manuscript, written according to the Icelandic scholar Dr. Vigfasson, as early as 1 260-1 280, referring to the date A. D. 1000, the manu- script records : "Wineland the Good found. That summer King Olaf sent Leif to Greenland, to proclaim Christianity there. He sailed that summer to Green- land. He found in the sea men upon a wreck, and helped them. There found he also Wineland the Good, and arrived in the autumn at Greenland." It is objected to the discovery of America from Greenland that no runic (Scandinavian) inscriptions have been found in any part of the North American continent. But the answer to this objection is that the Northmen never pretended that they had colonized Vineland ; they simply recounted their discovery of the country and their unsuccessful attempts to colonize it. Runic inscriptions, therefore, and other archccolocrical remains, are not to be expected in a region where no perma- nent settlements were made. Besides, as Mr. Reeves points out, the rigorous application of the test would make the discovery of Iceland itself disputable. In conclusion, as to this matter, we have only to add that the statements put forth seem not only to confirm what we meet with in the Sao-as, but, taken o by themselves alone, they seem to fully establish the fact of the discovery of America by the Icelanders, even had the Sagas never been written, coveries we come to THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. It was the glory of Italy to furnish the greatest of the discoverers of the New World. Not only Columbus, but Vespucci (or Vespucius), the Cabots, and Verazzani were born under Italian skies ; yet singularly enough the country of the Caesars was to gain not a square foot of territory for herself where other nations divided majestic continents between them. So, too, in the matter of Columbus biography and investigation, up to the present time but one Italian, Professor Francesco Tarducci, has materially added to the sum of the world's knowledge in a field pre-eminently occupied by Washington Irving, Henry Harrisse, and Roselly de Lorgues, a Frenchman, — these comprising the powerful original writers in Columbian biography. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. And now leaving the Norsemen and their dis- z6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. In treating our subject we naturally begin at the starting point of biography, the birthplace. The generally accepted statement has been that Columbus was born at Genoa, especially as Columbus begins his will with the well-known declaration, "I, being born in Genoa." But it has been asserted by numerous writers that in this Columbus was mistaken, just as for a long time General Sheridan was mistaken In supposing himself to have been born in a little Ohio town, when he learned, within a year or two of his death, that he was born in Albany, N. Y. But passing this, it remains to be said that the evidence of the Geno- ese birth of Columbus may now be considered as fully established. As to the time of his birth there has been not a little question. Henry Harrisse, the American scholar al- ready referred to, placed it between March 25th, 1446, and March 20th, 1447. This, however, we can hardly accept, especially as it would make Columbus at the time of his first naval venture only thirteen years of age. Tarducci gives 1435 or 1436 as the year of his birth. This is also the date given by Irving, and it would seem to be the most proba- ble. This is the almost decisive tesdmony of Andres Bernaldez, bet- ter known as the Curate of Los Palacios, who was most intim.ate with Columbus and had him a great deal in his house. He says the death of Columbus took place in his seven- tieth year. His death occurred May 20th, 1506, which would make the year of his birth probably about 1436. And now starting with Genoa as the birthplace of Columbus and about the year 1435 or 1436 as the dme of his birth, we proceed with our story. Christopher Columbus (or Columbo in Italian) was the son of Dominico Columbo and Susannah Fontanarossa his wife. The father was a wool carder, a business which seems to have been followed by the family through several generations. He was the oldest of four children, having two brothers, MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS AT GENUA. COLUMBUS AT PORTUGAL. 27 Bartholomew and Giacomo (James in English, in Spanish, Diego), and one sister. Of the early years of Columbus little is known. It is asserted by some that Columbus was a wool comber — no mean occupation in that day — and did not follow the sea. On the other hand, it is insisted — and Tarducci and Harrisse hold to that view — that, whether or not he enlisted in expeditions against the Venetians and Neapolitans (and the whole record is misty and uncertain), Columbus at an early age showed a marked inclination for the sea, and his education was largely directed along the lines of his tastes, and included such studies as geography, astronomy, and navigation. Certain it is that when Columbus arrived at Lisbon he was one of the best geographers and cosmographers of his age, and was accustomed to the sea from infancy.* Happily his was an age favorable for discovery. The works of travel were brought to the front. Pliny and Strabo, sometime forgotten names, were more than Sappho and Catullus, which a later but not a better age affected. The closing decade of the fifteenth century was a time of heroism, of deeds of daring, and discovery. Rude and unlettered to some extent, it m.ay be conceded it was ; yet it was far more fruitful, and brought greater blessings to the world than are bestowed by the effeminate luxury which often character- izes a civilization too daintily pampered, too tenderly reared. Life then was at least serious. Right here it may be in place to state how invention promoted Columbian discovery. The compass had been known for six hundred years. But at this time the quadrant and sextant were unknown ; it became necessary to discover some means for finding the altitude of the sun, to ascertain one's distance from the equator. This was accomplished by utilizing the Astrolabe, an instrument only lately used by astronomers in their stellar work. This inven- tion gave an entirely new direction to navigation, delivering seamen from the necessity of always keeping near the shore, and permitting the little ships — small vessels they were — to sail free amidst the immensity of the sea, so that a ship that had lost its course, formerly obliged to grope its way back by the uncertain guidance of the stars, could now, by aid of compass and astralobe, retrace its course with ease. Much has justly been ascribed to the compass as a promoter of navigation ; but it is a question if the astralobe has not played quite as important a part. The best authorities place the arrival of Columbus at Lisbon about the year 1470. It is probable Columbus was known by reputation to Alfonso V, King of Portugal. It Is unquestionable that Columbus was attracted to Portugal by the spirit of discovery which prevailed throughout the Iberian peninsula, fruits of which were just beginning to be gathered. Prince Henry of Portugal, * Tarducci, I, 41. 28 THE STORY OF AMERICA. tt'ho was one of the very first of navigators, if not the foremost explorer of his day, had estabHshed a Naval College and Observatoiy, to which the most learned men were invited, while under the Portuguese flag the greater part of the African -coast had been already explored. Having settled in Lisbon, at the Convent of All Saints, Columbus formed an acquaintance with Felipa Monis de Perestrello, daughter of Bartholomew de Perestrello, an able navigator but poor, with whom and two others Prince Henry h^d made his first discovery. The acquaintance soon ripened into love, and Columbus made her his wife Felipa's father COLUMBUS'S ARRIVAL AT THE CONVENT OF LA RABIDA. soon died, and then with his wife and her mother Columbus moved to Porto Santo, where a son was born to them, whom they named Diego. Felipa hence forth disappears from history ; there is no further record of her. At Porto Santo Columbus supported his family and helped sustain his aged father, who was living poorly enough off at Savona, and who was forced to sell the little property he had, and whose precarious living led him to make new loans and incur new debts. COLUMBUS AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL. 29 Meanwhile Columbus was imbibing to the full the spirit of discovery so widely prevalent. It was not his wife who materially helped him at this time, as has been asserted, but his mother-in-law, who, observing the deep interest that Columbus took in all matters of exploration and discovery, gave him all the manuscripts and charts which her husband had made, which, with his own voyages to some recently discovered places, only renewed the burning desire for exploration and discovery. The leaven was rapidly working. But the sojourn at Portugal must be briefly passed over. The reports that came to his ears while living at Porto Santo only intensified his convictions of the existence of an empire to the West. He heard of great reeds and a bit of curiously carved wood seen at sea, floating from the West ; and vague rumors reached him at different times, of " strange lands " in the Atlantic — most if not all of them mythical. But they continued to stimulate interest as they show the state of public thought at that time respecting the Atlantic, whose western regions were all unknown. All the reports and all the utterances of the day Columbus watched with closest scrutiny. He secured old tomes for fullest information as to what the ancients had written or the moderns discovered. All this served to keep the subject fresh in his mind, nor would it "down," for his convictions were constantly ministered to by contemporary speculators. Toscanelli, an Italian mathematician, had written, at the instance of King Alfonso, instructions for a western route to Asia. With him Columbus entered into correspondence, which greatly strengthened his theories. Now they came to a head. Constant thought and reflection resulted in his conception of an especial course to take, which, followed for a specific time, would result in the discovery of an empire. And the end ! He would subdue a great trans-Atlantic empire, and from its riches he would secure the wealth to devote to expeditions for recovering the Holy Land, and so he would pay the Moors dearly for their invasion of the Iberian peninsula, — a truly fanciful but not a wholly unreasonable conception, as the times were. COLUMBUS AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL. At last he found means to lay his project before the King of Portugal. But the royal councillors treated the attempt to cross the Atlantic as rash and dangerous, and the conditions required by Columbus as exorbitant. The adventurous King, John II, — Alfonso had died in 1481 — had more faith in his scheme than his wise men, and, with a dishonesty not creditable to him, attempted at this time to reap the benefit of Columbus' studies and plans by sending out an expedition of his own in the direction and by the way traced in his charts. But the skill and daring of Columbus were wanting, and at the first mutterings of the sea the expedition sought safety in flight. It turned back to the Cape de Verde islands, and the officers took revenge for their 30 THE STORY OF AMERICA. disappointment by ridiculing the project of Columbus as the vision of a day dreamer. O, valiant voyagers ! — New Worlds are not discovered by such men as you ! Columbus's brother Bartholomew had endeavored about this time to interest the British monarch in the project, but the first of the Tudors had too much to do in quelling insurrection at home, and in raising revenues by illegal means, to spend any moneys on visionary projects. Henry III would have none of him. Meantime, indigriant at the infamous treatment accorded him, and with his ties to Portugal already sundered by the death of his wife, he determined to shake the dust of Portugal off his feet, and seek the Court of Spain. He would start at once for Cordova, where the Spanish Court then was. Leaving Lisbon secretly, near the close of 1484, he chose to follow the sea coast to Palos, instead of taking the direct inland route, and most happily so ; for, in so doing he was to gain a friend and a most important ally ; this circumstance the unthinking man will ascribe to chance, but the believer to Providence. Weary and foot-sore, on his journey, he finally arrived at Palos, then a small port on the Atlantic, at the mouth of the Tinto, in Andalusia ; here hunger and want drove him to seek assistance from the charity of the Monks, and ascending the steep mountain road to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria de La Rabida, he met the pious prior, Father Juan Perez, who, struck with his imposing presence, despite his sorry appearance, entered into conversation with him. As the interview grew in interest to both the parties, Columbus was led to impart to the prior his great project, to the prior's increasing wonder, for in Palos the spirit of exploration was as regnant as in Lisbon. Columbus was invited to make the Convent his place of sojourn, an invitation he was only too glad to accept. Then Father Perez sent for his friend, a well known geographer of Palos, and, deeply interested in all that related to exploration and the discovery of new lands, the three took the subject into earnest consideration, thorough discussion of the question being had. It was not long before Father Perez — all honor to his name ! — became deeply interested in the plans of Columbus. To glorify God is the highest aim to which one can address himself ; of that feeling Father Perez was thoroughly possessed ; and how could he more fully glorify him than by aiding in the discovery of new lands and the spreading of Christianity there ? Impelled by this feeling, he urged Columbus to proceed at once to Cordova, where the Spanish Court then was, giving him money for his journey, and a letter of commendation to his friend, the father prior of the monastery of El Prado Fernando de Talavera, the queen's Confessor, and a person of great influence at Court. There was hope;' and there was a period of long and weary waiting yet before him. COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. 31 Arriving at Cordova, Columbus found the city a great military camp, and all Spain aroused in a final effort to expel the Moors. Fernando, the Confessor, was a very different man from Perez, and instead of treating Columbus kindly, received him coolly, and for a long while actively prevented him from meeting the king. The Copernican theory, though held by some, was not at this time established, and the chief reason why the Confessor opposed Columbus's plan was unquestionably because he measured a scientific theory by appeal to the Scriptures — just as the Sacred Congregation did in Galileo's case a century and a half later — just as some well-meaning but mistaken souls do to-day. At length, through the friendship of de Ouintanilla, Comptroller of the Castilian Treasury, Geraldini, the Pope's nuncio, and his brother, Allessandro, tutor of the children of Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus was made known to Cardinal Mendoza, who introduced him to the king. Ferdinand listened to him patiently, and referred the whole matter to a council of learned men, mostly composed of ecclesiastics, under the presidency of the Confessor. Here again dogma supplanted science, and controverted Columbus's theories by Scriptural texts, and caused delay, so it was not till 1491 — Columbus had now been residing in Spain six years — that the Commission reported the project "vain and impossible, and not becoming great princes to engage in on such slender grounds as had been adduced." The report of the Commission seemed a death-blow to the hopes of Columbus. Disappointed and sick at heart, and disgusted at six years of delay, Columbus turned his back on Spain, "indignant at the thought of having been beguiled out of so many precious years of waning existence." Deter- mined to lay his project before Charles VIII, of France, he departed, and stopped over at the little Monastery of La Rabida, from whose Prior, Juan Perez, six years before, he had departed with such sanguine hopes, for Cordova. The good friar was greatly moved. Finally he concluded to make another and final effort. Presuming upon his position as the queen's Confessor, Perez made an appeal direct to Isabella, and this time with the result that an inter- view was arranged, at which Isabella was present. His proposals would have at once been accepted but that Columbus demanded powers '■' which even * His principal stipulations were (i) that he should have, for himself during his life, and his heirs and successors forever, the office of admiral in all the lands and continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, with similar honors and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the high admiral of Castile in his district. (2) That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all the said lands and continents, with the privilege of nominating three candidates for the government of each island or province, one of whom should be selected by the sovereigns. (3) That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one-tenth of all pearls, precious stones, gold, silver. 32 THE STORY OF AMERICA. de Talavera pronounced "arbitrary and presumptuous," though they were of like character with those conceded by Portu- oral to Vasco de Gamba. Anjrered and in- dignant at the rejection of his terms, which were conditioned only upon his success, Columbus impulsively left the royal presence, and taking leave of his friends, set out for France, determined to offer his services to Louis XII. ISABELLA HAS A SOBER SECOND THOUGHT. But no sooner had Columbus gone, than the queen, who we may believe reg-retted the loss of possible glory of discovery, hastily despatched a messen- ger after him, who overtook him when two leagues away and brought him back. Although Ferdinand spices, and all other articles and merchan- dises, in whatever manner found, bought, bartered, or gained within his admiralt\', the cost being first deducted. (4) That he, or his lieutenant, should be the sole judge in all causes and disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain, provided the high admiral of Castile had similar jurisdiction in his district. COLUMBUS AND THE MESSENGER. FITTING OUT THE EXPEDITION. 33 was opposed to the project, Isabella concluded to yield to Columbus his terms and agreed to advance the cost, 14,000 florins, about ^7,000, from her own revenues, and so to Spain was saved the empire of a New World. On May 12 Columbus took leave of the king and queen to superintend the fitting out of the expedition at the port of Palos. The hour and the man had at last met. FITTING OUT THE EXPEDITION. What thoughts and apprehensions filled the heart and mind of Columbus as he at last saw the yearning desires of years about to be met, may be to some extent conceived ; they certainly cannot be expressed. Not a general at the head of his great army who, at a critical moment in battle, sees the enemy make the false move which insures him the victory, could feel more exultant than Columbus must have felt when he left the pres- ence of the Spanish Court, and, after seven years of weary and all but hopeless waiting at last saw the possibilities of the great unknown opening up before him, and beheld, in a vision to him as clear and radiant as the sun shining in the heavens, a New World extending its arms and welcoming him to her embrace. It would seem as if everything now conspired to atone for the disappointing past. His old tried friend, Perez, prior of the La Rabida monastery, near Palos, received him with open arms, and well he might, for had not his kind offices made success possible ? And the authorities, as if to make good the disappointments of seven years, could not now do too much. All public officials, of all ranks and conditions in the maritime borders of Andalusia were commanded to furnish supplies and assistance of all kinds. Not only so, but as superstition and fear made ship owners reluctant to send their vessels on the expedition, the necessary ships and men were to be provided, if need be, by impressment, and it was in this way vessels and men were secured. In three months the expedition was ready to sail. The courage of Columbus in setting sail in untried waters becomes more evident when we consider the size of the ships comprising the little expedition. They were three in number ; the largest of them, the Santa Maria, was only ninety feet long, being about the size of our modern racing yachts. Her smaller consorts, the Pinta and the Nina, were little caravels, very like our fishing smacks, without any deck to keep the water out. The Santa Maria had four masts, of which two were square rigged, and two fitted with lateen sails like those 3 CARAVELS OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. {After an engraznng published in 1384.) 34 THE STORY OF AMERICA. used on the Nile boats ; this vessel Columbus commanded. Martin Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, and his brother, Vincente Yanez Pinzon, the Nina. The fleet was now all ready for sea ; but before setting sail Columbus and most of his officers and crew confessed to Friar Juan Perez, and partook of the Sacrament. Surely such an enterprise needed the blessing of heaven, if any did ! It was before sunrise on Friday morning, August 3, 1492, that Columbus, with 30 officers and adventurers and 90 seamen, in all 120 souls, set sail, "in the name of Christ," from behind the little island of Saltes. Those inclined to be superstitious regarding Friday will do well to note that it was on a Friday Columbus set sail from Palos ; it was on Friday, the 12th of October, that he landed in the New World ; on a Friday he set sail homeward ; on a Friday, again, the 15th of February, 1493, land was sighted on his return to Europe, and that on Friday, the 1 5th of March, he returned to Palos. The story of that eventful trip has never ceased to charm the world, nor ever will so long as the triumphs of genius, the incentives of religion, and the achievements of courage have interest for mankind. It was Columbus's intention to steer southwesterly for the Canary Islands, and thence to strike due west — due to misconception occasioned by the very incorrect maps of that period. On the third day out the Pinta's rudder was found to be disabled and the vessel leaking, caused, doubtless, by her owner, who did not wish his vessel to go, — the ship having been impressed — and thinking to secure her return. Instead of this, Columbus continued on his course and decided to touch at the Canaries, which he reached on the 9th. Here he was detained for some weeks, till he learned from a friendly sail that three Portuguese war vessels had been seen hovering off the island Gomera, where he was taking in wood, water, and provisions. Apprehensive, and probably rightly so, that the object was to capture his fleet, Columbus lost no time in putting to sea. AND NOW FOR THE NEW WORLD. It was early morning on the 6th of September that Columbus again set sail, steering due west, on an unknown sea. He need fear no hostile fleets, and he was beyond the hindrance of plotting enemies on shore ; and yet so far from escaping trouble it seemed as if he had but plunged into deeper tribulations and trials than ever. As the last trace of land faded from view the hearts of the crews failed them. They were going they knew not where ; would they ever return ? Tears and loud lamentings followed, and Columbus and his officers had all they could do to calm the men. After leaving the Canaries the winds were light and baffling, but always from the East. On the iith of September, when about AN ASTRONOMIC DISCOVERY. 35 450 miles west of Ferro, they saw part of a mast floating by, which, from its size, appeared to have belonged to a vessel of about 1 20 tons burden. To the crew this meant the story of wreck ; why not pro- phetic of their own ? The discover^' only added to their fears. And now a remark- able and unprecedented phenomenon pre- ,^Hi e^. i'*ii'\' '\\\% i,ii *. i'_ #- WS?:'-:\ 3,'| ■,W- Mm Cjil,':!:;: J ^J I sented itself "As true as the needle to the pole" may be a pretty simile, but it is false in fact For, on the 13th of September, at night- fall, Columbus, for the first time in all his experience, discovered that the needle did not point to the North star, but varied about half a point, or five and a half degrees to the northwest. As he gave the matter close attention Columbus found the variation «jmLU ,1/ w ia THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, AS PREDICTED B\ LULU.MbUi. 36 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to increase with every day's advance. This discovery, at first kept secret, was early noticed by the pilots, and soon the news spread among the crews, exciting their alarm. If the compass was to lose its virtues, what was to become of them on a trackless sea ? Columbus invented a theory which was ingenious but failed wholly to allay the terror. He told them that the needle pointed to an exact point, but that the star Polaris revolved, and described a circle around the pole. Polaris does revolve around a given point, but its apparent motion is slow, while the needle does not point to a definite fixed point. The true expla- nation of the needle variations — sometimes it fluctuates thirty or forty degrees — is to be found in the flowing- of the electrical currents through the earth in different directions, upon which the sun seems to have an effect. Columbus took observations of the sun every day, with an Astrolabe, and shrewdly kept two logs every day. One of these, prepared in secret, contained the true record of the daily advance ; the other, showing smaller progress, was for the crew, by which means they were kept in ignorance of the great distance they were from Spain. INDICATIONS OF LAND. On the 14th of September the voyagers discovered a water-wagtail and a heron hovering about the ships, signs which were taken as indicating the nearness of land, and which greatly rejoiced the sailors. On the night of the 15th a meteor fell within five lengths of the Santa Maria. On the i6th the ships entered the region of the trade winds ; with this propitious breeze, directly aft, the three vessels sailed gently but quickly over a tranquil sea, so that for many days not a sail was shifted. This balmy weather Columbus constantly refers to in his diary, and observes that "the air was so mild that it wanted but the song of nightingales to make it like the month of April in Andalusia." On the i8th of September the sea, as Columbus tells us, was "as calm as the Guadalquiver at Seville." Air and sea alike continued to furnish evidences of life and indications of land, and Pinzon, on the Pinta, which, being the fastest sailer, generally kept the lead, assured the admiral that indications pointed to land the following day. On the 19th, soundings were taken and no bottom found at two hundred fathoms. On the 20th, several birds visited the ships ; they were small song birds, showing they could not have come a very long distance ; all of which furnished cause for encouragement. But still discontent was growing. Gradually the minds of the men were becoming diseased through terror, even the calmness of the weather increasing their fears, for with such light winds, and from the east, too, how were they ever to get back ? However, as if to allay their feelings, the wind soon shifted to the southwest. A little after sunset on the 25th, Columbus and his officers were examining INDICATIONS OF LAND. 37 their charts and discussing the probable location of the island Cipango,* which the admiral had placed on his map, when from the deck of the Pinta arose the cry of " Land ! Land ! " At once Columbus fell on his knees and gave thanks to Heaven. Martin Alonzo and his crew of the Pinta broke out into the "Gloria in Excelsis," in which the crew of the Santa Maria joined, while the men of the Nina scrambled up to the masthead and declared that they, too, saw land. At once Columbus ordered the course of the vessels to be changed toward the supposed land. In impatience the men waited for the dawn, and when the morning appeared, lo ! the insubstantial pageant had faded, the cloud-vision, for such it was, had vanished into thin air. The, disappoint- ment was as keen as the enthusiasm had been intense ; silently they obeyed the admiral's order, and turned the prows of their vessels to the west again. A week passed, marked by further variations of the needle and flights of birds. The first day of October dawned with such amber weather as is common on the Atlantic coast in the month of "mists and yellow fruitfulness." The pilot on Columbus's ship announced sorrowfully that they were then 520 leagues, or 1560 miles, from Ferro. He and the crew were little aware that they had accomplished 707 leagues, or nearly 2200 miles. And Columbus had a strong incentive for this deception ; for, had he not often told them that the length of his voyage would be 700 leagues ? — and had they known that this distance had already been made, what might they not have done ! On the 7th of October the Nina gave the signal for land, but instead of land, as they advanced the vision melted and their hopes were again dissipated. The ship had now made 750 leagues and no land appeared. Possibly he had made a mistake in his latitude ; and so it was that, observing birds flying to the southward, Columbus changed his course and followed the birds, recalling, as he says in his journal, that by following the flight of birds going to their nesting and feeding grounds the Portuguese had been so successful in their discoveries. On Monday, the 8th, the sea was calm, with fish sporting every- where in great abundance ; flocks of birds and wild ducks passed by. Tuesday and Wednesday there was a continual passage of birds. On the evening of this day, while the vessels were sailing close together, mutiny suddenly broke out. The men could trust to signs no longer. With cursing and imprecation * Cipango was an imaginative island based upon the incorrect cosmography of Toscanelli, whose map was accepted in Columbus's time as the most nearly correct chart of any extant. The Ptolemaic theory of 20,400 geographical miles as the Equatorial girth was accepted by Columbus, which lessened his degrees of latitude and shortened the distance he would have to sail to reach Asia. The island Cipango was supposed to be over 1000 miles long, running north and south, and the distance placed at 52 degrees instead of the 230 degrees which actually separates the coast of Spain from the eastern coast of Asia. The island was placed in about the latitude of the Gulf of Mexico. SURKENDER OF GRAN'ADA. 38 LAND, HO! 39 they declared they would not run on to destruction, and insisted upon returning to Spain. Then Columbus showed the stuff he was made of. He and they, he said, were there to obey the commands of their Sovereigns ; they must find the Indies. With unruffled calmness he ordered the voyage continued. On Thursday, the iith, the spirit of mutiny gave way to a very different feeling, for the signs of the nearness of land multiplied rapidly. They saw a green fish known to feed on the rocks, then a branch with berries on it, evidently recently separated from a tree, floated by them, and above all, a rudely carved staff was seen. Once more gloom and mutiny gave way to sanguine expectation. All the indications pointing to land in the evening, the ships stood to the west, and Columbus, assembling his men, addressed them. He thought land might be made that night, and enjoined that a vigilant lookout be kept, and ordered a double watch set. He promised a silken doublet, in addition to the pension guaranteed by the Crown, to the one first seeing land. LAND, HO ! That night, the ever memorable night of Thursday, opening into the morning of Friday, the 12th of October, not a soul slept on any vessel. The sea was calm and a good breeze filled the sails, moving the ships along at twelve miles an hour ; they were on the eve of an event such as the world had never seen, could never see again. The musical rippling of the waves and the creaking of the cordage were all the sounds that were audible, for the birds had retired to rest. The hours passed slowly by. It was just past midnight when the admiral, with restless eye, sought to penetrate the darkness. Then a far-off light came to his vision. Calling Guiterrez, a court officer, he also saw it. At two in the morning a gun from the Pinta, which led the other boats, gave notice that land was at last found. A New World had indeed been discovered. The hopes of years had attained their fruition. It was Rodrigo de Triana, a seaman, who first saw land — though, alas ! he received neither promised doublet nor pension. Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, corresponding to the 2 1 St of October, 1492, of the present calendar, was the ever memorable day. The morning light came, and, lifting the veil that had concealed the supreme object of their hopes, revealed a low, beautiful island, not fifty miles long, and scarcely two leagues away. Columbus gave the signal to cast anchor and lower the boats, the men to carry arms. Dressed in a rich costume of scarlet, and bearing the royal standard, upon which was painted the image of the crucified Christ, he took the lead, followed by the other captains, Pinzon and Yanez. Columbus was the first to land ; and as soon as he touched the shore he fell down upon his knees and fervently kissed "the blessed ground" three times, returning thanks to God for the great favor bestowed upon him. The C thers followed his example ; and then, recognizing the Providence which had THE NEWLY FOUND LAND. 41 crowned his efforts with success, he gave the name of the Redeemer — San Salvador — to the discovered island, which was called by the natives " Guana- hani." * And now the crews, who but a few days previously had reviled and cursed Columbus, gathered around, asking pardon for their conduct and prom- ising complete submission in future. Columbus supposed at last he had reached the opulent land of the Indies, and so called the natives Indians. But it was an island, not a continent or an Asiatic empire, he had found; an island "very large and level, clad with the freshest trees, with much water in it, a vast lake in the middle, and no mountains." The natives dwelling on the island were found to be a well-proportioned people with fine bodies, simple in their habits and customs, friendly, though shy in manner, and they were perfectly naked. They thought the huge ships to be monsters risen from the sea or gods come down from heaven. Presents were exchanged with them, including gold bracelets worn by the natives. Inquiry was made as to where the gold came from. For answer the natives pointed by gestures to the southwest. Columbus tried to induce some of the natives to go with him and show where the land of gold was to be found. But this they refused to do; so on the next day (Sunday, the 14th), taking along by force seven natives, that he might instruct them in Spanish and make interpreters of them, he set sail to discover, if possible, where gold was to be had in such abundance, and which, he thought, must be Cipango. * It is simply impossible to say which one of that long stretch of islands, some 3000 in number, extending from the coast of Florida to Haiti, as if forming a breakwater for the island of Cuba, Guanahani is. Opinion greatly varies. San Salvador, or Cat Island, was in early favor ; Humboldt and Irving — the latter having the problem worked out for him by Captain A. S. Mackenzie, U. S. N. — favored that view. The objections are that it is not "a small island" as Columbus called it, and it does not answer to the description of having "a vast lake in the middle" as Columbus says of Guanahani in his journal. Navette advocates the Grand Turk Island which has the lake. Watling's Island was first advocated by Munoz and accepted by Captain Beecher, R. N., in 1856, and Oscar Perchel in 1S5S. Major, of the British Museum, has taken up with Watling's Island, as did Lieutenant J. B. Murdoch, U. S. N., after a careful examination in 1884. This view is accepted by C. A. Schott of the U. S. Coast Survey. On the other hand. Captain G. V. Fox, U. S. N., in 1880, put forth an elaborate claim for Samana, based upon a very careful examination of the route as given in Columbus's journal. This claim, with careful consideration of other conditions, has been very carefully examined by Mr. Charles H. Rockwell, an astronomer, of Tarrytown, N. Y. Mr. Rockwell assents to Captain Fox's view, which he finds confirmed by the course Columbus took in bringing his ship to land. He also traverses Captain Beecher's claim for Watling's Island, which he finds to be inconsistent with Columbus's narrative. As we have said, the problem is beset with difficulties, both as relates to the sailing course, and the extent and topography of the island ; and at the present time it appears to be well-nigh insoluble. Where the external conditions are met, the internal conditions, including the large lake, seem wanting ; the difficulties in the case seem to be irresistible. 42 THE STORY OF AMERICA. He was, of course, in the midst of the Bahama group, and did not have to sail far to discover an island. On the 15th he discovered the island Conception. On the third day he repeated the forms of landing and took possession, as he did also on the i6th, when he discovered an island which he called Fernandina, known to be the island at present called Exuma. On the 19th another island was discovered, which Columbus named Isabella, and which he declared to be " the most beautiful of all the islands " he had seen. The breezes brought odors as spicy as those from Araby the Blest ; palm trees waved their fringed banners to the wind, and flocks of parrots obscured the sky. It was a land where every prospect pleased and Nature bestowed her largesse, from no stinted hand. But no — it was not a land of gold. Leaving Isabella after a five days' sojourn, on Friday, the 26th of October, he entered the mouth of a beautiful river on the northeast terminus of the island of Cuba, where sky and sea seem to conspire to produce endless halcyon days, for the air was a continual balm and the sea bathes the grasses, which grow to the water's edge, whose tendrils and roots are undisturbed by the sweep of the tides. Upon the delights that came to Columbus in this new-found paradise we cannot dwell ; admiration and rapture mingled with the sensations that swept over the soul of the great navigator as he contemplated the virgin charms of a new world won by his valor. But the survey of succeeding events must be rapid. From the 28th of October till November 12th Columbus explored the island, skirting the shore in a westerly direction. He discovered during that time tobacco, of which he thought little, but which, singularly enough, proved more productive to the Spanish Crown than the gold which he sought but did not find. On the 20th of November Columbus was deserted by Martin Pinzon, whose ship, the Pinta, could outsail all the others. Martin would find gold for himself. This was a kind of treachery which too often marred the story of Spanish exploration in the New World. For two weeks after the Pinta's desertion Columbus skirted slowly along the coast of Cuba eastwardly till he doubled the cape. Had he only kept on what was now a westerly course he would have discovered Mexico. But it was not to be. Before sailing he lured on board six men, seven women, and three children, a proceeding which nothing can justify. Taking a southwesterly course, on Wednesday, December 5th, Columbus discovered Haiti and San Domingo, which he called Hispaniola, or Little Spain. The next day he discovered the island Tortuga, and at once returned to Haiti, exploring the island ; there, owing to disobedience of orders, on Christmas morning, between midnight and dawn, the Santa Maria was wrecked upon a sand-bank, near the present site of Port au Paix. A sorry Christmas for Columbus, indeed ! The situation was now critical. The Pinta, with her mutinous commander COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN. 43 and crew, was gone ; the Santa Maria was a wreck. But one little vessel remained, the little, undecked Nina. Suppose she should be lost, too ? — how would Spain ever know of his grand discoveries ? Two things were necessary : he must at once set out on his return voyage, and some men must be left behind. The first thing he did was to build, on a bay now known as Caracola, a fort, using the timbers of the wrecked Santa Maria. In this he placed thirty- nine men. Nature would surely give them all the shelter and provisions they needed. COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN. It was not until Friday, January 4, 1493, that the weather was sufficiently favorable so that Columbus could hoist sail and stand out of the harbor of the Villa de Navidad, as he named the fort, because of his shipwreck, which occurred on the day of the Nativity. Two days later the ship Pinta was encoun- tered. Pinzon on the first opportunity boarded the Nina, and endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to explain his desertion and satisfy the admiral. The two vessels put into a harbor on the island of Cuba for repairs, and continued to sail along the coast, now and then making a harbor. On Wednesday, the i6th day of January, 1493, they bade farewell to the Queen of the Antilles, and then the prows of the Nina and the Pinta, the latter the slower sailer because of an unsound mast, were turned toward Spain, 1450 leagues away. It is not possible within the limits of this chapter to follow Columbus from day to day as he sails a sea now turbulent and tempestuous, as if to show its other side, in marked contrast to the soft airs and smooth waters that had greeted the voyagers when their purpose held — "To sail beyond the sunset and the baths Of all the western stars." Nor can we follow with minuteness Columbus in his subsequent career. He had made the greatest discovery of his or any other age : he had found the New World, and this, more than anything else, has to do with " The Story of America." It was on Friday, March 15, 1493, just seven months and twelve days aftei leaving Palos, that Columbus dropped anchor near the island of Saltes. It was not until the middle of April that he reached Barcelona, where the Spanish Court was sitting. As he journeyed to Court his procession was a most imposing one as it thronged the streets, his Indians leading the line, with birds of brilliant plumage, the skins of unknown animals, strange plants and orna- ments from the persons of the dusky natives shimmering in the air. When he reached the Alcazar or palace of the Moorish Kings, where Ferdinand and Isabella were seated on thrones, the sovereigns rose and received him standingf. Then they commanded him to sit, and learned from him the story of his discovery. Then and there the sovereigns confirmed all the dignities previously bestowed. 44 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The rejoicing over, the good news spread everywhere, and Columbus was the hero of the civilized world. Ferdinand and Isabella at once addressed themselves to the task of preserving and extending their conquests, and a fleet of seventeen vessels and fifteen hundred men was organized to prosecute further discovery. It was on September 25, 1493, that Columbus set sail with his fleet. On the 3d of November he sighted land, a small, mountainous island, which Columbus called Dominica, after Sunday, the day of discovery. Then again they set sail, and in two weeks discovered several islands in the Caribbean waters. It was not till November 27th that Columbus arrived in the harbor of La Navidad. He fired a salute, but there was no response. On landing the next morning, he found the fortress gone to pieces and the tools scattered, with evidences of fire. Buried bodies were discovered — twelve corpses — those of white men. Of the forty who had been left there, not one was present to tell the tale. But all was soon revealed, and a harrowing, sorrowful tale it was. From a friendly chief Guacanagari — whom Columbus at first suspected of treachery, and was never quite satisfied of his innocence — it was learned that mutiny, perfidy, and lust had aroused resentments and produced quarrels, resulting in a division into two parties, who, separating and wandering off, were easily overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the incensed natives. Having discovered the Windward Islands, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, he founded a new colony in Hispaniola (Haiti or San Domingo), which he named Isabella, in honor of his queen. The place had a finer harbor than the ill-fated port of the Nativity. He named his brother Bartolommeo lieutenant governor, to govern when he should be absent on his explorations. On February 2, 1494, Columbus sent back to Spain twelve caravels under the command of Antonio de Torres, retaining the other five for the use of the colony, with which he remained. The vessels carried specimens of gold and samples of the rarest and most notable plants. Besides these, the ships carried to Spain five hundred Indian prisoners, who, the admiral wrote, might be sold as slaves at Seville — an act which places an indelible stain upon the brilliant renown of the great admiral : that one inhuman act admits of no palliation whatever. Of the troubles that ensued it is impossible to give any account in detail. Men returning, disappointed at not finding themselves enriched, complained of Columbus as a deceiver, and he was charged with cruelty, and, indeed, there was scarcely a crime that presumably was not laid at his door. Then troubles broke out in the colony ; the friar, incensed at Columbus, excommunicated him, and the admiral, in return, cut off his rations. Then the men, in the absence of Columbus, off on trips of exploration, gave way to rapine and passion, and the poor natives had no other means than flight to save their wives and daughters. Matters proceeded from bad to worse, the colony growing weaker through dissension. COLUMBUS SETS FORTH ON A THIRD EXPEDITION. 45 Finally four vessels from Spain arrived at Isabella, in October, 1495, laden with welcome supplies. These were in charge of Torres, who was accompanied by a royal commissioner, Aquado, who was empowered to make full investigation of the charges brought against Columbus. It was evident to the admiral that he should take early occasion to return to Spain and make explanation to his sovereigns. Accordingly, in the spring of 1496, Columbus set sail for Cadiz, where he arrived on June 11, 1496. He was well received, and was successful in defending himself against the many charges and the clamor raised against him. Ships for a third voyage were promised him, but it was not until the late spring of 1498 that the expedition was ready for sailing. COLUMBUS SETS FORTH ON A THIRD EXPEDITION. On May 30, 1498, with six ships, carrying two hundred men, besides sailors, Columbus set out on his third expedition. Taking a more southerly course, Colum- bus discovered the mouth of the Orinoco, which he imagined to be the great river Gihon, . men- tioned in the Bible (Genesis ii, 13) as the second river of Paradise; so sadly were our admiral's geo- graphy and topography awry ! Columbus also discovered the coast of Para and the islands of Trinidad, Margarita, and Cabaqua, and then bore awayforHispaniola. It was the old story told over again, with sickening disappointment. He found the colony was more disorganized than ever. For more than two years Columbus did his best to remedy the fortunes of the colony. At last an insurrection broke out. It was necessary to act promptly and decisively. Seven ringleaders were hanged and five more were sentenced to death. At this time the whole colony was surprised by the arrival at St. Domingo of Francisco de Bobadilla, sent out by Ferdinand and Isabella as governor, and bearing authority to receive from Columbus the surrender of all fortresses and public property. Calumny had done its work ! Bobadilla then released the five HAYTIAN INDIAN GIRL SPINNING. 46 THE STORY OF AMERICA. men under sentence of death, and finally, when Columbus and Bartholo- mew arrived at St. Domingo, Bobadilla caused them both to be put in chains, to be sent to Spain. Seldom has a more touching, more cruel, more pathetic picture been presented in the world's sad history of cruelty and Shocked as the master of the ship was at the spectacle of Columbus in irons, he would have taken them off, but Columbus would not allow it ; those bracelets should never come off but at the command of his Sovereigns ! It was early in October, 1500, that the ships with the three prisoners, Columbus and COLUMBUS IN IRONS. his brothers, Bartholomew and Diego, left Isabella. On the 25th of November, after an unusually comfortable passage, the vessels entered the harbor of Cadiz. The sight of the venerable form of Columbus in chains as he passed through the streets of Cadiz, where he had been greeted with all the applause of a conqueror, was more than the public would suffer. Long and loud were the indignant protests that voiced the popular feeling. The news of the state of affairs coming to Isabella, a messenger was dispatched with all haste to Cadiz, commanding his instant release. When the poor broken-hearted admiral came into the queen's presence Isabella could not keep the tears back — while he, HIS LAST VOYAGE. 47 affected at the sight, threw himself at the feet of his sovereigns, his emotion bursting out in uncontrollable tears and sobs — and this was Columbus's reward for discovering a new world ! HIS LAST VOYAGE. The rest is soon told. The acts of the miserable creature, Bobadilla, were instantly disapproved, and he was recalled, but was drowned on his way home. Columbus, however, was not allowed to return to Hispaniola, but after two years' waiting sailed from Cadiz, May 9, 1502, with four vessels and a hundred and fifty men, to search for a passage through the sea now known as the Gulf of Mexico. It was the middle of June when Columbus touched at San Domingo, where he was not permitted to land. He set sail, and was dragged by the currents near Cuba. Here he reached the little island of Guanaja, opposite Honduras, and voyaged along the Mosquito coast, having discovered the mainland, of which he took possession. After suffering from famine and many other forms of hardship, he went to Jamaica and passed a terrible year upon that wild coast. In June, 1504, provision was made for returning to Spain, and on November 7th of that year, after a stormy voyage and narrow escape from shipwreck, Columbus landed at San Lucar de Barrameda, and made his way to Seville. He found himself without his best friend and pro- tector, for Isabella was then on her death-bed. Nineteen days later she breathed her last. Ferdinand would do nothing for him. A year and a half of poverty and disappointment followed, and then his kindliest friend. Death, came to his relief and his sorrows were at an end. Columbus died on Ascension Day, May 20, 1506, at Valladolid, in the act of repeating. Pater, in manus tuas depono spiritum inezmi, — "Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit." Death did not end his voyages. His remains, first deposited in the Monastery of St. Francis, were transferred, in 15 13, to the Carthusian Monastery, of Las Cuevas. In 1536 his body, with that of his son, Diego, was removed to Hispa- niola and placed in the cathedral of San Domingo, where it is believed, and pretty nearly certain, they were recently discovered. There seems no sufificient evidence that they were ever taken to Havana. Thus passed away the greatest of all discoverers, a man noble in purpose, daring in action, not without serious faults, but one inspired by deep religious feeling, and whose character must be leniently measured by the spirit of the age in which he lived. He received from his country not even the reward of the flattering courtier, for he was deprived of the honors his due, and for which the royal word had gone forth ; and in the end, when the weight of years was upon him and there was nothing more he could discover, he was allowed by Ferdinand to die in poverty, "with no place to repair to except an inn." But if Ferdinand was not a royal giver Columbus was more than one. For the world will never 48 THE STORY OF AMERICA. forget the inscription that, for very shame, was placed upon a marble tomb over his remains — he was now seven years dead — and which reads : — " A Castilla y a Leon Nuevo mundo dio Colon." To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world. As to the character of Columbus, there is wanting space here for consider- ing the subject at any length ; nor does it at all seem necessary. Time has given the great navigator a character for courage, daring, and endurance, which no modern historian can take from him — least of all can the statement, that the falsification of the record of his voyage was reprehensible, stand. It was no more reprehensible than the act of Washington in deceiving the enemy at Princeton ; and in Columbus's case his foes were the scriptural ones " of his own household." Living in an age when buccaneering was honorable and piracy reputable, it will not do to gauge Columbus by the standard of our day. It is sufficient to say that he was great, in the fact that he put in practice what others had only dreamed of Aristotle was sure of the spheroidicity of the earth, and was certain that " strange lands " lay to the west : Columbus sailed and fotmd ; — he went, he saw, he conquered. And these pages cannot better be brought to a close than by quoting what one of the most thoughtful of recent poets, Arthur Hugh Clough, has expressed in his lines, prompted no doubt by his visit to this country : — " What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy, Judged that the earth like an orange was round. None of them ever said, ' Come along, follow me, Sail to the West and the East will be found ' Many a day before Ever they'd come ashore, From the ' San Salvador,' Sadder and wiser men, They'd have turned back again ; And that he did not, but did cross the sea, Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. ' ' M. H. B. CHAPTER II. POST-COLUMBIAN EXPLORERS AND DISCOVERERS. ^, O SOONER had the news of the successful results achieved by Columbus reached Spain, than it spread like wild-fire ^ through the then civilized world. The three other great maritime powers, — Portugal, England, and France, — were es- pecially aroused to discover, if possible, lands for themselves. On the one side were Ferdinand and Isabella, who were determined to acquire and hold "the strange lands to the west," whose possession had been guaranteed them by the Pope. On the other hand, there were the three other great powers, with whom desire of conquest and dominion existed no less strongly than with Spain. These nations were resolved to do all that lay in their power to acquire dominion ; whatever difficulty might arise with Spain could be settled later. The first country to compete with Spain in western discovery was England, and the first one to follow in the footsteps of Columbus was John Cabot; who, with his son Sebastian, was destined to make important discoveries which would hand the name of Cabot down to history as surely as that of the great pioneer discoverer, Columbus, himself It was as early as 1492 that Senor Puebla, then the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of England, wrote to his Sovereigns that "a person had come, like Columbus, to propose to the King of England an enterprise like that of the Indies." The Spanish King immediately instructed his minister that he should inform Henry VII that the prior claims of Spain and Portugal would be interfered with if he commissioned any such adventurer. But the warning came too late. It is possible that the unsuccessful mission of Bartholomew Columbus to England, while the future Admiral was besieging the Spanish Court, may have been the means of arousing in John Cabot's mind a desire to test the truth of the new theory of a westward path to the Indies. When the accomplished feat of the first voyage to the West Indies fired the imagination of Europe and became the chief topic of interest among the maritime nations, even cool- 4 49 50 THE STORY OF AMERICA. blooded England was measurably excited, and her parsimonious King yielded to the urgent prayers of a Genoese navigator, and authorized John Cabot and his three sons "to sail to the East, West, or North, with five ships, carrying the English flag, to seek and discover all the islands, countries, regions, or provinces of pagans in whatever part of the world." We do not learn that this generous permission to sail and discover unknown countries was accompanied by anything more than a meagre provision for carrying it out, although the King in return for the commission given and the single vessel equipped was to have one-fifth of the profits of the voyage. According to at least one authority, Cabot had a little fleet of three or four vessels fitted out by private enterprise, "wheryn dyvers merchaunts as well of London as Bristowe aventured goodes and sleight merchaundise wh departed from the West cuntrey in the begynnyng of somer — ." We are only sure, however, of one vessel, the Matthews, which left Bristol in May of 1497. Choosing the most probable of several vague accounts of Cabot's course in starting out, we find the sturdy adventurer, with his son and eighteen followers, standing to the northward, after leaving the Irish coast, and then westerly into the unknown sea. The plan was that which Columbus followed, when he sailed from the Island of Ferro in the Canaries, of striking a certain parallel of latitude and sticking to it. The transatlantic liners of to-day call that "great-circle saiUng." We have absolutely no record of the month or more spent upon the outward course. What strange experiences the Gulf Stream or the Labrador current presented to Cabot we can only surmise. There were no summer isles and turquoise seas for him. Instead of the song birds, the spicy breezes and silver sands that Columbus found, his less fortunate countryman came upon the forbidding coast of Labrador, bleak even in the summer time, where he saw no human beings. It was on the 24th of June, 1497, that those on board of the Matthews unexpectedly caught sight of that strange, unknown land. They had no more notion than had Columbus of the magnitude of the discovery. This was to their appreciation no new world, but rather the extreme coast of the kingdom of the Grand Khan — a remote and desolate shore of India. But their imagination peopled it with strange beings ; demons, griffins, and all the uncouth creatures of mediaeval mythology dwelt there with the bear and the walrus. If the South was the scene of brighter illusions, of kingdoms where the rulers lived in golden halls and fountains which could confer upon the bather the gift of perpetual youth, the glamour and legend which the cold crags of the North conjured up were not less characteristic. Haunted islands and capes, where the clamor of men's voices were heard at night, were known to all the sailors and pilots that followed after the Cabots. JOHN SEBASTIAN CABOT. 51 The land that John Cabot first reached, wherever it was, he called " Terra Firma." There he planted the royal standard of England, after which he seems to have sailed southward ; presumably to reverse the course by which he came over. Peter Martyr, in relating the wonders that Cabot discovered, recounts that "in the seas thereabouts he found so great multitudes of certain Bigge fishes much like unto Tunies (which the inhabitants called baccalaos) that they sometimes stayed his shippes." Another writer stated that the ^" " Beares also be as bold which will not spare at mid-day to take your fish before your face." Coasting probably for three hundred leagues, with the land to starboard, Cabot seems to have discovered New- foundland on the mainland side and to have passed through the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He named several islands and prominent points, but the names are uncertain and the localities problematical. We only know that in his opinion England would no longer have to go to Iceland for her fish, and that he relied upon his crew to corroborate his state- ments when he returned to England, because his unsup- ported word would not have established the fact of his dis- coveries. Royalty is not al- ways liberal, despite the phrase "a royal giver" ; for we learn right here of the munificence of the English King, who gave this intrepid sailor and discoverer ten pounds as a reward for his labor, and afterwards added a yearly pension of twenty pounds, or $100. There is something pathetic in this fragmentary story of the second continent-finder. The little spasm of approval and excitement which his success occasioned soon died away, and even at its height was utterly inadequate to the magnitude of his work. The simple sailor must have made as great a show as possible upon the stipend granted by the CABOT ON THE SHORES OF LABR.-iUOR. 52 THE STORY OF AMERICA. king, for we read in a letter of the Venetian, Pasqualigo, that "he is dressed in silk and the English run after him like a madman." A second voyage of John and Sebastian Cabot to discover the island of Cipango, — that illusory land that Columbus had so hopefully sought, — was undertaken ; but a storm came up and one of the vessels was much damaged, finally seeking refuge in an Irish port. The others sailed into a fog of tradition and mystery as dense as that which wrapped the new-found land. We read that the expedition returned and that Sebastian Cabot lived to engage in further adventures, but of his father we know nothing further, the supposition being that he died upon this second expedition. Whether the third traditional voyage of Sebastian Cabot in the fifteenth century is fact or fable is not known. His subsequent career was mainly in the service of other sovereigns. The profits of the second voyage of the Cabots were so meagre as to fail to arouse any enthusiasm ; they were so small, in fact, that almost all interest died out in England. We read of one or two minor adventures, as those of Rut and Grube, the former of whom went to find the northern passage to Cathay, in which voyage his two ships encountered vast icebergs, by which one of them was lost and the other "durst go no further," and after visiting Cape Race returned to England. With these few exceptions England took no part in the great work of discovery, by which, little by little, with here an island and there a headland, now a river and then a bit of coast, the results of that great discovery were combined into that which came to be known, though not at first, as the New World. Yet Newfoundland was not deserted. Almost from the first the Breton and Basque fishermen, hardy and adventurous, frequented its shores. The Isle of Demons and other uncanny places in the new country were visited by fleets of French fishermen's boats, and plenteous cargoes of "Baccalois," or cod-fish, were taken eastward yearly for the Lenten market. AMERICUS VESPUCIUS AND HIS VOYAGES. The year 1500 was one of extreme importance in the making of New World history. The Spanish and Portuguese had already settled their dispute over the division of territory, the Pope's decision, to which all good Catholics in. that day yielded unhesitating obedience, having given to Spain all land dis- covered west of a certain meridian line, and to Portugal whatever lay to the eastward. In this way Portugal acquired her right to the Brazils ; and she also laid claim to Newfoundland. But the great element, time, had just begun to work. It was destined, under the ordering of Providence, that Spain and Portugal should make conquests, but not hold them. The Anglo-Saxon was only then a potentiality; his greatness was becoming recognized: he was yet to sweep the Atlantic, and, finally, settling on the stormy coast to the west, was AMERICUS VESPUCIUS AND HIS VOYAGES. S3 to lay the foundations of a great empire, which was to make it possible to tell the inspiring and unique Story of America. We now come to Americus Vespucius, who was, singularly enough, and through no scheming of his own, to give his name to a country that should rightly have borne the name Columbia. And he was to do this though he headed but one expedition. The story must necessarily be brief Vespucius was a Florentine — another conspicuous illustration of the fact that he was to discover even as Columbus had discovered, but Italy was to reap no benefit. He was, indeed, to sow the seed, but the strong arms of others were to reap the harvest. On the 9th day of March, 1451, Vespucius was born, in the citj' of Florence. Of a noble but not at all wealthy family, he received a liberal education, devoting himself to astronomy and cosmography. The fortunes of business took him to Seville, where he became the agfent of the powerful Medici family. It was in 1490 that he became acquainted with Columbus, and was concerned in fitting out four caravels for voyages of dis- covery ; he took an active part in assisting Columbus in preparing for his second voyage. Vespucius makes the statement, which we are prepared to accept, that in 1497 he sailed, and probably as astronomer, with one of the numerous expeditions that the success of Columbus had called into existence, leaving Cadiz on the loth of May of that year. After twenty-seven days of sailing, the fleet, consisting of four vessels, reached "a coast which we thought to be that of a continent," traversing which they found themselves in "the finest harbor in the world." Just what that harbor is it is impossible to say. Some writers have placed it as far south as Campeachy Bay ; Chesapeake Bay has also been designated, Cape Charles being the point of entering. It is impossible, however, owing to Vespucius's loose manner of writing, to fix the place with any certainty. But he states that he doubled Cape Sable, the southernmost point on the peninsula of Florida. Vespucius tells us that while in " the finest harbor " mentioned the natives were very friendly, and implored the aid of the whites in an expedition against a fierce race of cannibals who had invaded at different times their coasts, carrying away human victims whom they sacrificed by the score. The island in question was one of the Bahamas, one hundred leagues away. The fleet accordingly bore away, the Spaniards being piloted by seven friendly Indians. The Spaniards arrived off an island called Iti, and landed. Here they encountered fierce cannibals, who fought bravely but unsuccess- fully against firearms. More than two hundred prisoners were made captive, seven of them being presented to the seven Indian guides. But nearly a year had passed since they had left Cadiz. The vessels were leaky ; it was time to return. Accordingly, leaving some point of the coast line of the United States, the fleet reached Cadiz on the 15th of October, 1498, with two hundred and AN ITIAN CANNIBAL CHIEF OFFERING A HUMAN SACRIFICE TO THE SUN. 54 HOW AMERICA CAME TO BE NAMED. 55 twenty-two cannibal prisoners as slaves, where they were well received and sold their slaves for a good sum. Still following Vespucius's statement, on the i6th of May, 1499, he started on a second voyage in a fleet of three ships, under Alonzo de Ojeda. In this voy- age Ojeda reached the coast of Brazil, and being compelled to turn to the north because of the strong equatorial current, they went as far as Cayenne, thence to Para, Maracaibo, and Cape de la Vela. They also touched at Saint Domingo. The expedition returned to Cadiz on the 8th of September, 1500. Three months later Yanez Pinzon, taking a like course, discovered the greatest river on the earth, the Amazon, as will be seen a little further on in this chapter. Ojeda just missed that discovery. A year later, for some reason dissatisfied with his position — and Vespucius seems to have passed at pleasure from one command to another — he entered the service of Emanuel, King of Portugal, and took part in an expedition to the coast of Brazil. He wrote a careful account of this voyage, which he addressed to some member of the Medici family, to whom, in 1504, he sent a fuller narrative of his expedition, which was published at Strasbourg. This gave him high reputation as a navigator and original discoverer. Under the command of Coelho, a Portuguese navigator, on either May loth or June loth, 1503, a little squadron, with Vespucius, left the Tagus to discover, if possible, Malacca somewhere on the South American coast ; but through mishap the fleet was separated, and Vespucius, with his own vessel, and later joined by another, proceeded to Bahia. Thence they sailed for Lisbon, arriving there, after about a year's absence, on the i8th of June, 1504. HOW AMERICA CAME TO BE NAMED. In a letter written from Lisbon, in 1 504, to Rene, Duke of Lorraine, Ves- pucius gives an account of four voyages to the Indies, and says that the first expedition in which he took part sailed from Cadiz May 20, 1497, and returned in October, 1498. This letter has provoked endless discussions among his- torians as to the first discovery of the mainland of America, and it has been charged against Vespucius that after his return from his first voyage to Brazil he prepared a chart, giving his own name to that part of the country. It is high time the name of Vespucius was rid of this stain. It seems to be established that at this time the Duke Rene, of Lorraine, a scholar, and one deeply inter- ested in the discoveries of the age, caused a map to be prepared for him by an energetic young student of geography, a young man named Waldsee-Miiller, who innocently affixed the name America to the Brazil country. In this way the name became fixed, and was eventually taken up by others. It was not till nearly thirty years afterward — in 1535 — that the charge of discrediting Colum- bus by affixing his own name was brought, and most unjustly so, against Vespu- 56 THE STORY OF AMERICA. cius. Latter-day opinion acquits Vespucius of this charge, and now with the fact established, at this time of our Columbian anniversary, it should no more be brought against the distinguished navigator, whose discoveries were important, if he did not accomplish all that was expected, and that through no fault of his. Vespucius died in Seville, February 2, 151 2 — six years after his predecessor, the first Admiral, had passed away. YANEZ PINZON AS A VOYAGER. The first man of importance to sail after Ojeda and Vespucci was Vincent Yenez Pinzon, who with his brother Ariez Pinzon, built four caravels, little deck- less or half-decked yachts, with which he sailed from Palos in the month of December, 1499. Going further south than his predecessors, Pinzon bore away toward the coast of Brazil, his first land being discovered at a point eight degrees north of the equator, near where the town of Pernambuco was afterwards built : he was the first Spaniard to cross the equinoctial line. We read that he lost sight of the pole-star, a circumstance which must have alarmed his sailors. More wonderful still, — most miraculous it must have seemed, — was the finding of a great flood of fresh water, at the Equator, out of sight of land, which induced the navigator to seek for a very large river, and he found it ! — for there was the mighty Amazon with its mouth a hundred miles wide and sending a great tide of fresh water a hundred miles out to sea. At their first landing Pinzon's sailors cut the names of their ships and of their sovereign on the trees and the rocks, while he took possession of the land in behalf of Spain. Here Pinzon seized some thirty Indians as slaves. The mighty Amazon, with its hundred-mile wide mouth, filled the explorers with wonder, as well it might. But the capturing of the Indians had created difficulties which endangered the safety of the fleet, so that Pinzon deemed it prudent to shorten his stay. Accordingly he set sail, and skirting along the coast discovered the Orinoco River and Trinidad ; after which they stood across to Hispaniola. A hurricane overtaking the little fleet nearly put an end to Pinzon's adventure, but he finally escaped with the loss of two of his vessejs. With the others he returned to Spain, only to find that Diego de Lepe had sailed after him and returned before him, with a report of the continuance of the South American continent far to the southward. Rightly Da Gama has no place here, save as a discoverer in time^ of discovery. A skilled Portuguese mariner, he coasted the eastern shores of Africa and visited India. In a second voyage he became involved in hostilities with the towns of the Malabar coast. In 1499 he was made Admiral of the Indies. He died at Cochin, India, Christmas Day, 1524. In 1499, the same year that the Pinzons and Lepe sailed, Pedro Alvarez de Cabral was commissioned by the Portuguese King, Emanuel, to follow Vasco da PORTUGAL IN THE FIELD. 57 Gama's course and establish a trading station on the Malabar coast. Gomez, for some reason unknown, sailed by the way of the Cape Verde Islands, and taking from thence a much more westerly course than he intended, came, quite by accident, upon the Continent that Pinzon and Lepe had so lately left. Probably the real cause of Cabral's deflection from his original course was to avoid the calms of the Guinea shore. He had no sooner made the strange land than he resolved to cruise along it, and concluded that this wonderful coast was a continent. Despatching a ship home to Portugal with the news — with Caspar de Lemos in com- mand — he pursued his voyage. When Pinzon returned, therefore, he not only found that Lepe had been there before, but ascertained that Portugal pressed its prior claim to the coast he had discov- ered, based on the Pope's edict as well as the voyage of Cabral. The King of Portugal, on receiv- ing Cabral's message, soon des- patched a fleet to discover new territory for his crown ; and Americus Vespucius, till then in the Spanish service, accepted his overtures and went with the ex- pedition. When Caspar de Lemos started for Portugal with the news of the discovery of the southern continent, Cabral waited only a few days and then sailed southward. The result of this second part of his voyage was the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. There the fleet, heretofore so successful, was overtaken by a terrific storm, in the course of which four of his vessels went down, among them being one which was commanded by the navigator Bar- tholomew Diaz. The name which Cabral gave to this new country was Vera Cruz. The appellation by which it was afterwards known, of "Brazil" or "the Brazils," was taken from the dye wood found there ; an Arabic word being borrowed for the purpose. Columbus discovered the new world without knowing he had done so, although his work was in pursuance of carefully laid plans. Cabral however, like Vespucius off" the North American coast. VASCO DA GAMA. I^Fram the MSS. of Psdro Barretto lie Resdiuda.) 58 THE STORY OF AMERICA. was aware from the first that the land he accidentally discovered was the main- land of a great continent. After his adventure at the Cape of Good Hope Cabral went as far as Hindostan and returned with laden ships, in which were immense quantities of spices, jewels and rare merchandise. " Verily," said Vespucius, who met him in the Cape Verde Islands upon his return voyage, "God has prospered King Emanuel." The same year [1500] that the Pinzons and Cabral sailed from their respective countries, Portugal sent the brothers Caspar and Miguel Cortereal on the first of a series of new expeditions to explore the Northwest. The papal line of demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese possessions was called Borgia's meridian, and the suspicion that Cabot's discoveries' lay to the eastward of this was sufficient cause for an expedition from Lisbon. These were unfortunate voyages, for although the region already explored by the Cabots was revisited and the flag of Portugal planted in the chill domain of the griffins and demons of Breton fancy, yet the wild men and curiosities which they brought home were but a sorry exchange for the lives that they cost. From Caspar Cortereal's second voyage he never returned. Two of his ships came home, and when his brother Miguel went in search of him his flag-ship also was lost, with all on board. OTHER DISCOVERERS. Rodigero de Bastidas and John de la Cosa, sailing with two ships from Cadiz, in 1502, discovered the Gulf of Darien, which point Ojeda on his second voyage also touched, thence proceeding to the West Indies. Following these, after a number of smaller adventurers that tried their fortune upon the Atlantic, Juan de Soils and Vincent Yaiiez Pinzon sailed from the Port of Saville, six years later. They directed their two caravels toward the coast of Brazil, going to the thirty-fifth degree south latitude, where they discovered the Rio de la Plata, — the River of Silver, — which they at first called Paranaguaza. To them also is due the credit for the discovery of Yucatan, on this same voyage. De Solis was by some considered the very ablest navigator of his time, and his fame at last induced the King of Spain to appoint him to the command of two ships fitted out to discover a passage to the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, for which he sailed in October, five years after he and Pinzon had made the trip just alluded to. He returned to the la Plata River, which stream he entered in January, 15 16, but a tragic fate awaited him. Attempting to ascend the river and explore its banks, de Solis and a number of his crew were surprised and overpowered by the savages, who with barbaric heartlessness roasted and ate the unfortunate Spaniards in the sight of their companions on the vessels. The survivors, sickened and terrified by such a spectacle, lost no time in escaping from the land of these cannibals. They stopped only at Cape San Augustin, where they loaded their vessels with Brazil PONCE DE LEON DISCOVERS FLORIDA. 59 wood, and made the best of their way back to Europe with the sad news. In the following year Charles V sent Cordova, with a command of no men in three caravels, into that distant but no longer dreaded West, which still had its rewards for the adventurer. Upon the shore of Yucatan, where he first landed, at Cape Catoche, the Spaniards saw with surprise people who in one respect differed very greatly , from the natives who had so far been met with in the western voyages, inasmuch as they dressed in cotton and other fabrics, instead of going naked and painting their bodies. Not only in their dress but in their houses they exhibited signs of civilization that excited the wonder of Cordova and his men. PONCE DE LEON DISCOVERS FLORIDA. Six years had passed after the death of Columbus, when, in 1512, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed from Puerto Rico in a northerly direction and discovered the peninsula which the Admiral had so nearly found upon his first voyage. De Leon first sighted land at about the boundary line separating Florida from Georgia. Landing, he took possession in the name of his sovereign, calling the new country Florida ; for it was in April, when the Cherokee roses, the wild jessamine, and all the multitudinous blossoms of a Floridian spring-time were filling the air with their fragrance. The discoverer of this paradise returned to Spain, and, obtaining the governorship of the new coast, undertook to enter upon its possession. But the savages were otherwise minded. The followers of Ponce de Leon were hunted through the tangled growth of the luxuriant forests or harassed in their defences behind the sand-dunes, till many of them had been killed, and their leader was glad to escape with the little remnant of his force. So he re-embarked, abandoning the country ; but the Spaniards claimed Florida from that day, in spite of a counter-claim which England presented in virtue of the discoveries of the Cabots. Later, in 1527, Pamphilo de Narvaes repeated Ponce de Leon's experiment, with a similar result. Then Ferdinand de Soto, who had been Governor of Cuba, obtained the title of Marquis of Florida, and, with nearly a thousand men and ten ships, he landed, in 1539, on the west coast of the peninsula. Five years later a little handful of broken, impoverished, beaten, disheartened Spaniards, less than a third of the number that had sailed so proudly to the conquest of Florida, left its shores to the sole occupancy of the jealous natives who inhabited it. There was no perpetual "fountain of youth" there for de Soto, but aeeinof, weariness, and disaster instead. When Charles V, of Spain, was beginning to feel the benefit of the con- quest in the New World, and Cortez and the Spanish captains and adventurers were planting the standard of Spain in rich territory, Francis the First, of France, chafed at the necessity of acknowledging the success of his rival. Francis was 6o THE STORY OF AMERICA. one of the most curious characters of European history, a combination of good and evil traits. Vanity, culture, sensibility to the influences of art and literature, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness distinguished him. He was the friend of philosophers and of those who were far from being philosophers. From Florence came Verazzano, a navigator of repute who, unlike most of the new world-finders, was by birth a gentleman, descended from men who had been prominent in Florentine history. He was appointed to sail westward from Dieppe with four ships, in the year 1523, to seek a new passage to that Cathay which still lured the hopes of Christendom ; and in passing we may remark upon the curious irony of fortune which permitted Italy to lend to other nations the men who should win the greenest laurels as discoverers, when she herself was unable to claim a foot of territory in the new world. The beginning of Verazzano's voyage was puzzling enough. He had not proceeded far from Dieppe when a storm overtook him and he escaped with two of his vessels to Brittany ; thence he cruised against the Spaniards and finally, having but one vessel left out of the four with which he started, he set sail for the island of Madeira, and on the 17th of January, 1524, turned the prow of his caravel, the Dolphin, westward, to cross the Atlantic. After a passage of forty-five days, during which the strange experiences common to such an adventure were not lacking, he sighted a low shore where vast forests of pine and cypress rose from the sandy soil. This was not far from the present site of Wilmington, North Carolina. Among other things the Florentine noticed the presence of many fragrant plants " which yeeld most sweete savours farr from the shore." The savages who appeared on shore attracted the greatest attention from the voy- agers since they were not at all sure what their reception might be when they landed for the supply of water of which they stood in need. A boat approached as near as possible to the beach, when one of the sailors, taking some gifts as a propitiatory offering, jumped overboard and swam through the surf But as he neared the beach and saw the throng of screeching red men who awaited him his courage failed, and flinging his presents among them he endeavored to return ; but the savages succeeded in capturing him and returned to the sand, where in the sight of the terrified captive they built a great fire. Instead, how- ever, of cooking him, as he expected, they warmed and dried him, showed him every mark of affecdon, and then led him to the shore and let him go. At the next place they touched, the crew of the Dolphin showed their appreciation of the courtesy of the Indians by stealing one of their children. From the Carolinas Verazzano's course was northward along the coast, his first anchorage being in the bay of New York. Into that beautiful harbor, through the Narrows and under the green and tree-covered banks of Staten Island, he rowed, being met by numerous canoes filled with Indians who came out to welcome him. From New York the Dolphin followed the Long Island THE FRENCH VISIT NEW ENGLAND. 6i coast as far as Block Island, and from there to the harbor of Newport, where for fifteen days they rested, being entertained by two savage chiefs, who did all that lay in their power to dazzle the eyes of their white visitors with the signs of opu- lence, as evidenced by copper bracelets, wampum belts, the skins of wild beasts, etc. From here the little vessel steered along the New England coast, neither offi- cers nor seamen finding much to attract them. The Indians were suspicious and inhospitable, driving them back with shouts and showers of arrows when they ventured ashore in their boats. The seaboard of Maine was visited, and then the banks of Newfoundland, from which last point Verazzano, whose expedition was for us, perhaps, the most significant of all, sailed back for France, having explored the American coast from Hatteras to Newfoundland. In the following year Verazzano sailed again from France with a fleet, but no news of that expedition ever came back, and the mystery of its loss chilled the ardor for discovery in that country, so that for several years we hear of no further adventures to the new world. But in 1534 the persuasions of Admiral Chabot led to the issuing of a commission to Jacques Cartier, of St. Malo, who sailed from that port in the same year with two ships and one hundred and twenty-two men. He circumnavigated Newfoundland and explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and upon a second voyage sailed up the river of the same name for three hundred leagues, as far as the "great and swift Fall." On the site of Montreal he visited an Indian town. Having attempted the settlement for which he had been sent out, Cartier went back to France only to return with a larger expedition to Canada five years later. Half a century of discovery and adventure had elapsed. The map-makers of Europe during that time were kept busy by the changes made necessary from fresh data requiring the readjustment of old lines. From Columbus to Verazzano and Cartier, the whole coast, with a few exceptions, had been discov- ered, from the stony crags of Labrador to the Cape of Good Hope. It only remained now for the round-up of this magnificent hunt, which was accom- plished by the intrepid Magellan, prince of navigators, who, first turning west- wardly across the Pacific found the true path to far-off Cathay, which the mighty Genoese had sought so patiently, so grandly, so mistakenly, among the isles of June and the pearl banks of the Caribbean Sea. More than ordinary romance and interest attend the story of Vasco Nunez de Balboa. His appearance in the story of Spanish conquest in America, if not dignified, is captivating to the imagination. Martin Fernandez de Enciso, the geographer, sailed from St. Domingo to go to the relief of the explorer, Ojeda, who was dying of famine at San Sebastian. Among the stores in his vessel was a cask which contained something more valuable than the bread which it was invoiced as containing. When Enciso's ships had got fairly out 62 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to sea, Balboa crept out of his cask and presented himself to the commander, who could, after all, do nothing but scold, as it was then too late to return the fugitive to the creditors from whom he had taken that means of escaping. FERDINAND CORTEZ. {From Painting in possession of the Marquis de Salamanca,') There were some threats of putting the culprit ashore on a small desert island, but that was not done, or one of the most popular stories of the New World would have been unwritten. THE STORY OF BALBOA. 63 But by the time the expedition in search of Ojeda had been abandoned and the followers of Enciso, reinforced by the haggard remnant of Ojeda's force, had reached the Gulf of Uraba, Balboa was no inconsiderable figure in that company. When the building of Santa Maria del Darien had commenced and Enciso' s temper provoked an insurrection, the stowaway, Balboa, was spoken of as his successor. The new-comers had encroached on the province of Nicuesa, who had been given a province in Darien, of which he was Governor, at the same time that Ojeda was similarly favored by King Ferdinand. Some of them, therefore, were for giving their allegiance to that Governor. The matter was settled by giving Balboa charge till Nicuesa should come. Nicuesa, embittered by famine and all manner of hardship, was rejected by the men of Darien when he finally came to them, and, turning his poor little brigantine seaward, was never heard from again. The cruelty shown to him at this time was afterward charged upon Balboa, but he was cleared by the court. He, however, showed little kindness to the irate Enciso, who went home to Spain an avowed enemy, complaining bitterly of the treatment he had received at the hands of the stowaway, whom, doubtless, he regretted not having "marooned," ?'. e., cast on a desert island, when he had the chance. Balboa next explored Darien. He married a native princess, thus making the old chief Comogre, her father, his firm friend. The first evidence which the Spaniards had of the superior claims of the people of Central America to civil- ization, was at Comogre's house, where "finely wrought floors and ceilings," a chapel occupied by ancestral mummies, and other signs of ease and leisure, appeared. But dearer than anything else was the sight of ornaments and flakes of virgin gold. This the Spaniards, with their usual propensity, acquired, and marveled at the strange tales which were told them of a land further to the west- ward where the people made bowls and cups of the yellow metal. This was the first news they had received of the kingdom of Peru. Balboa sent the whole of the story and a fifth of the gold to Spain as Ferdinand's share, but the ship went down on the voyage. Its arrival at Court would have done more than anything else to check the legal proceedings which were being commenced against him at home. However, Balboa was appointed Captain-General of Darien, by the Government of Hispaniola, which was some little comfort to him. Balboa next advanced across the Isthmus to find "the ereat sea" of which he had heard. On the twenty-fifth of September, in 15 13, after some trouble with the Indians, Vasco Nunez de Balboa stood where the poet Keats has made Cortez stand for some years past, on a peak in Darien, a mountain in the country of Ouarequa, and looked with the glad eyes of a discoverer on the blue waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean, that till then had had no herald in the 64 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Eastern world. Having shortly after this gained the Pacific coast, Balboa returned to Darien with the news of his great discovery, which micfht have gained him the gratitude and reward it mer- ited had not Pedrarias Davila succeeded in gaining the royal ear, and with a band of cava- liers, lured to new fields by the golden rumors of Peru, started for Darien. By his commission Davila was Admiral and Gov- Mit ^*uM- ^WM "i^^'^m ,r BALBOA DISt(i\iK^ I hi; I'ACIFIC. ■vxt^^^" ernor ; he was a leading figure on the Isthmus for sixteen years, and during that time committed so many crimes that the his- torian Oviedo computes that he would have to face two million souls at the judgment day ! Oviedo, like the humane Las Casas, believed that the Indians possessed souls ; and though we know how given the Spanish chronic- DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 65 lers were to exaggeration and even downright mendacity, still we cannot doubt BALBOA TAKES POSSESSION OF THE PACIFIC, IN THE NAME OF HIS SOVEREIGNS. that enough murders were committed during the governorship of Davila to make even the conscience of a Spaniard feel uncomfortable. With the cava- 5 66 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Hers who came over with Davila were Oviedo, the historian already named, and Enciso, Balboa's old commander. The first thing that the jealous Davila did was to arrest Balboa on trumped-up charges, but they did not suffice to insure his conviction, and about this time the news of his great discoveries was beginning to turn the tide in Spain in his favor. It is to be said to Balboa's credit that he was very politic in his treatment of the Indians, using kindness where the new Governor practiced the utmost cruelty. As a result Balboa was regarded with friendly feelings and his rival hated, — a condition of affairs that could not fail to engender jealousy and danger. The Spanish bishop, who had come with the expedition, strove to patch up matters by suggesting a betrothal between Balboa and the daughter of the Governor. As the daughter was in Spain, and the alliance could not be con- summated for some time, Balboa consented, though we have no evidence that he really contemplated abandoning his beloved Indian wife. The proposed marriage was but one article in an important treaty, without which the younger man would have been crushed by the elder. Before long, however, Balboa again incurred the hatred of his enemy, and accepting a treacherous invitation to visit him, was arrested by his old comrade, Pizarro, and beheaded, at the age of forty-two, in the land with which his name and fame are indissolubly connected. It was just before his last quarrel with Davila, which resulted in his untimely end, that Balboa performed one of the most astonishing feats in Spanish-American annals : having taken his ships apart, he transported them across the Sierras, and launched them on the Pacific. Ferdinand de Soto was born in Xeres, Spain, in 1 500. We first meet with him, so far as American exploration is concerned, on accompanying his friend and patron Davila [previously referred to in the account of Balboa], on his expedition to Darien, of which Davila was governor, and whose offensive administration De Soto was the first to resist. He supported Hernandez in Nicaragua in 1527, who perished by the hand of Davila for not obeying his instructions. Withdrawing from the service of Davila, in 1528 he explored the coasts of Guatemala and Yucatan for 700 miles, in search of the strait which was supposed to connect the two oceans. In 1532, by special request of Pizarro. he joined him in his enterprise of conquering Peru. He was present at the seizure of the Peruvian Inca, and took part in the massacre which followed, berving the usual apprenticeship in butchery which hardened the hearts and made callous the nerves of those who followed the Sanish conquerors : but we are told he condemned the murder of the Inca Alahualpa, as well he might ! — Prescott has pictured the infamy of this crime in indelible colors. In 1537, De Soto was appointed Governor of Cuba, and two years later he crossed the Gulf of Mexico to attempt the conquest of Florida at his own expense, believing it to be the richest province yet discovered. Anchoring in FERDINAND DE SOTO. 67 Tampa Bay, May 25th, 1539, his route was through a country made hostile by the violence of the Spanish invader, Navarez. It was fighting all the time, but it was not conquest. He continued to march northward, reaching, October 1 8th, 1540, the present site of Mobile, Alabama, and finally arriving at the mouth of the Savannah river. That country was then, as it is now, flat and sandy, its low forests of pine interspersed with cypress swamps and knolls where the live-oaks flourished. Frequent streams intersect portions of it. Traveling with such means as De Soto had at his disposal was very slow and trouble- some. From the Savannah he turned inland, fighting the Indians at almost every step, and overcoming mighty obstacles. With nearly a third of his men slain or lost, after a winter spent on the Yazoo, and disap- pointment following disappointment as he searched in vain, in his westward course, for the cities of gold which he saw in glowing but illusory vision, after a year and a half of unparalleled hardships and constant marching, in April, 1542, he discovered the Mississippi, that mighty stream whose current flows for four thousand miles, upon which the eyes of a white man had never before rested. This he explored for a short distance above and belov/ Chickasaw Bluft's. Here his great career ended, for he died of malignant fever. To 68 THE STORY OF AMERICA. conceal his death from the Indians, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and in the stillness of midnight was silently sunk in the middle of the stream. His soldiers pronounced his eulogy by grieving for their loss, while the priests chanted the first requiem ever heard on the waters of the Mississippi. THE BANKS OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO-DAY. OLD GATES AT ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA. CHAPTER III. SETTLING THE NEW COUNTRY. FEW years cover the beginnings of westward migration from Europe and tlie British Isles. Great impulses seem to be epidemic. The variety of causes which led to the planting of the American colonies became operative under diverse national and race conditions, so that they appear in history as the synchronous details of a common plan. As the reader follows these pages and appropriates all the wonderful and inspiring details of this unequaled record of four centuries, his interest will deepen and his amazement will keep pace with his interest. Finding a barren shore, broken only by the roar of the surf the cries of birds and animals, and the whoop of the Indian, he will lay down the volume, having discovered that civilization has followed the sun until the two oceans have met — connected by an unbroken tide of humanity ebbing and flowing from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and westward the Star of Empire still takes its way ! A minute account of the social and political situations in the various kingdoms of Europe during the sixteenth century is not within the scope of this work, but it will be well to make a very brief statement of the questions that agitated Christendom at this time, and to notice the temper of the times. Cupidity and a love of adventure led the Spaniard to the conquest of the New World. Spain was then paramount in Europe, most powerful as well as most Catholic ; and the controlling motive of her sovereigns was conquest. It was not reformation nor revolution that sent her people over seas, but 69 70 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the love of power and wealth. In France, on the contrary, the spirit of revolt against established dogmas had led to persecution, so that the Hugue- nots were glad to find an asylum in the wilderness of the New World. Under these conditions the first colonies were attempted in the middle of the sixteenth century. Thirty years later a second planting, more general and more effectual, was begun. At that time Protestant England had a Catholic king. Henry of Navarre was upon the throne of France, which he had gained by his apostacy. Holland, the mighty little republic, was, under the wise leadership of John of Barne- veld and the States General, keeping Catholic Europe in check. Spain had been for years planning the conquest, of England "as a stepping- stone to the recovery of the Netherlands." It will be seen that the very causes which led emigrants to colonize the new continent forbade friendship or common interests between those of different races, the animosities of the Old World being very carefully transplanted to the new along with other possessions. France made the first attempt at colonization in 1555. One of the leaders in the enterprise was Coligny, the Huguenot admiral ; John Ribault and Laudoniere were masters of successive expeditions, seeking first the Florida coast and afterward establishing a settlement in Carolina. The French have seldom made good colonists, and those of Carolina were no exception to the general rule. It is probable that their quarrelsome dispositions would have destroyed them in time had not the Spanish claimants of the country, led by Menendez, hastened the event. This expedition of the Spaniards was not only noteworthy because of the cruel massacre of Ribault and his Huguenot followers, but also as the occasion of the founding of the most ancient of North American cities, St. Augustine. This occurred in 1564. The settlement of St. Augustine was followed by a hiatus in which nothing was done toward the colonization of America. This was due to the great religious war which was then raging in Europe. But in the interval the mis- sionary expeditions of the Spanish Franciscans, Ruyz and Espejio, in 1582, resulted in the building of Santa Fe in New Mexico. There had also been the establishment by adventurers of various fishing and trading stations, notably the one on the island of New Foundland. During the interval England had been steadily growing as a marine power, and her navigators had directed men's eyes anew towards the land where so many of their countrymen should find refuge. Finally Raleigh, following in the footsteps of his famous half-brother. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth, by the terms of which he should become pro- prietor of six hundred miles radially from any point which he might discover or take, provided he did not encroach upon territory otherwise granted by any IN INDUN ATTACK ON BROOKFIELD. 72 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Christian sovereign. As an auxiliary to this grant the queen gave her favorite a monopoly of the sale of sweet wines, by the profits of which business he was soon enabled to fit out what was known as the Lane expedition, that sailed under the command of Grenville in 1585, and landed at Roanoke, in Virginia. THE ROANOKE COLONY. Grenville's first act upon landing was to rouse the animosity of the Indians by burning one of their villages and some cornfields, after which he left Lane, the Governor, with only an hundred and ten men and returned to England. Scarcity of provisions, a constant quarrel with their Indian neighbors, and a general feeling of discouragement led these first Virginia colonists to hail the navigator, Drake, who ap- peared on the coast a few months after, as a deliverer, and rejecting his offers of a vessel and provi- sions, they insisted upon returning with him to the mother country. Their departure was almost imme- diately followed by the arrival of reinforcements and supplies from Raleigh, brought by Grenville, who, when he found the place deserted, left fifteen men to guard it and himself proceeded southward to pillage the Spaniards of the West Indies. j£-/ '^■Kc^/nmc'f^k an/-rucfrrT:\^-ft>^y^r . d^lcii feffK-wrtia^s.ni^j.-^.' «' Lir'Ai'-^ ,. -j^j^^dcjyi 'f^/M.i^f^^AW ^ j.v./^; ■" ■ —'•■^ A second expedition, dis- IM'H . ; II I Ai ,L 1 ... I "M 1. Willi r u HAUKS. . . '■ (From the original drazuing in the British Museum, mnJe by John patched by Raleigrh, Included many White in isSs) ^ \ r •!• • 1 , women, that lamilies might be formed on the new soil and the colonists be satisfied to remain. This enter- prise was led by John White and eleven others, having a company charter. Upon arrival in Virginia White found only a skeleton to show where the former settlement had been. Indian treachery was assigned as the reason for its disappearance. Actuated probably by a nervous anxiety. White massacred some friendly Indians, under the impression that they were hostiles, and in August of 1587 returned to England for supplies, leaving behind him eighty- nine men, seventeen women, and eleven children, the youngest being his own granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first white child born in America. White arrived in England to find the nation preparing for a struggle with Spain. His return to the colonies was therefore delayed. Raleigh, finding THE FRENCH ATTEMPT COLONIZATION. 7Z himself impoverished by the former expeditions, which had cost him 5^200,000, made an assignment, under his patent, to a company which inckided White and one Thomas Smith. A new fleet was procured, though with considerable trouble, and again the adventurers sought the Virginia coast, in 1590, only to find that the unfortunate settlement of three years before had been utterly wiped out of existence. So ended the first English attempt to settle America. • THE FRENCH ATTEMPT COLONIZATION. About the same time de La Roche, a Marquis of Brittany, obtained from Henry IV of France a commission to take Canada. His company consisted largely of convicts and criminals. Following him came Chauvin de Chatte, but he accomplished little of permanent value. For some years following the last attempt of Raleigh to colonize Virginia, a desultory trade with the Indians of the coast was pursued, the staples being sassafras, tobacco, and furs. Richard Hakluyt, one of the assignees of Raleigh, was most active in promoting this traffic ; and among others employed was Bartholomew Gosnold, who, taking a more northerly course than the one usually followed, discovered Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands. Following Gosnold, in 160^, came Martin Prine, exploring Penobscot Bay, tracing the coast thence as far south as Martha's Vineyard. A French grant of the same year gave to Sieur de Monts, a Protestant, the whole of North America between the 40th and 46th parallels of north latitude. This domain was named Acadie. De Monts looked for a monopoly of the fur trade on what is now the New England and Canadian coast. His Lieutenants in the expeditions which he soon commenced, were Poutrincourt and Champlain, of whom the latter became famous for several discoveries, but in particular for the lake which bears his name. So it will be noticed that both the French and English were stretching out their hands to acquire the same territory. De Monts and Champlain settled their colony at St. Croix, but soon shifted, trying various points along the coast, and even attempted to inhabit Cape Cod, but were driven away by the savages. At last they transferred the setdement to Port Royal (Annapolis), where it endured for about a year. De Monts' commission or patent was recalled in 1606, and but a little while previously Raleigh's grant was forfeited by attainder, he having been imprisoned by King James on a charge of treason. The frequent failures to effect a permanent settlement in America did not discourage adventurers, whose desire to possess the new world seemed to grow stronger every year. Soon two new companies were incorporated under Royal charter, to be known as the First and Second Colonies of Virginia. The 74 THE STORY OF AMERICA. former was composed of London men, and the latter of Plymouth people principally. The charter authorized the Companies to recruit and ship colonists, to engage in mining operations and the like, and to trade ; their exports to be free of duties for seven years and duties to be levied by themselves for their own use for a period of twenty years. They might also coin money and protect themselves araitist invasion. Their lands were held of the King. HARD TIMES COME AGAIN. Hardly had the charter been granted when James began to make regu- lations or instructions for the government of the colonies, which gave a shadow of self rule, established the church of England, and decreed, among other things, that the fruits of their industries were to be held in common stock by the colo- nists for five years. These instructions, along with the names of the "Council" appointed by James for the government of the settlement, were carried, sealed in a tin box, by Captain Christopher Newport, who commanded the three vessels which con- stituted the initial venture of the London Company. An ill chosen band landed at last at Old Point Comfort, after a stormy voyage. Of the one hundred and five men there were forty-three "gentlemen ", twelve laborers, half a dozen mechanics and a number of soldiers. These quarreled during the voyage, so that John Smith, who it afterward appeared was one of the Councillors appointed by the Crown, entered Chesapeake Bay a prisoner, charged with con- spiracy. As might have been expected, this company did not fare well. They were consumed with laziness and jealousy ; there were cabals in the council and bickerings outside of it. Repeatedly the men tried to desert ; deaths were fre- quent and want stared them in the face. During this time it is hardly too much to say that the energy and wisdom of John Smith held the discouraged adventurers together. New arrivals of the same sort as the first added to, rather than diminished, the difficulties of the situation, so that at length Smith wrote that thirty workmen would be worth more than a thousand of such people as were being sent out. Not till the third lot of emigrants arrived did any women visit the new settlement, and then only two. The Indians became more and more troublesome, and the London Company, dissatisfied at receiving no returns from their investment, threatened to leave the settlers to shift for themselves. In 1609 the London Company succeeded in obtaining a new charter, by the terms of which it organized as a stock company, with officers chosen for life, a governor appointed by the Company's Council in England, and a territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific in a strip four hundred miles in width. During the interval between the granting of the charter and the organization POCAHONTAS. 75 of the new government anarchy reigned in Virginia. Smith did everything possible to restore order, but was at last wounded by an accidental explosion of powder and forced to return to England. At this time Jamestown, which was the name of the settlement, contained five hundred men, sixty dwellings, a fort, "^- «-«^ --- store and church. The people possessed a little live stock and about thirty acres of cultivated land, but as this was all AN INDIAN COUNCIL OF WAR. inadequate to their support there followed what is known in the annals of the colony as the " Starving time." These earlier days in Virginia, while historically valuable only as a warning, have afforded an unusual share of romance, much of which centres about the unromantic name of Smith. The historian gladly concedes to this remarkable. man his full share of credit for the survival of one of the most ill assorted 76 THE STORY OF AMERICA. parties that ever attempted to settle a new land. But, added to what is known of Smith's adventures, struggles and escapes, is a great deal that rests solely upon his own authority, and much of this is probably apocryphal. One hesitates, for instance, to examine the Pocahontas legend too closely. There is no doubt of the existence of that aboriginal princess, of her marriage to the Englishman, Rolfe, of her enthusiastic reception by English society, or of the fact that some of her proud descendants live to-day in Virginia. But the pretty story of her devotion in saving the life of John Smith by protecting him with her own person when the club of the executioner was raised by chief Powhatan's order may be questioned. The account was not given in Smith's first narratives, and was subsequently written by him several years after the death of the lady in question. The multitude of hairbreadth escapes and marvelous adventures of which Smith made himself the centre, have laid him open to the suspicion of drawings a long^er bow than Powhatan himself. JOHN SMITH. Clearing away the romance, and allowing all that is necessary to one who is so often the hero of his own narrative, it may not be uninteresting to briefly note some of the unquestioned services that John Smith performed for the struggling colony. We have seen how he arrived under suspicion and arrest, landing on the site of the little settlement which was destined to owe so much to him, like a felon. The opening of the hitherto secret instructions given under the broad seal of England, disclosed the fact that he was one of the Councillors named in o that document. But it was his own clear head and strong courage rather than any royal appointment which won him the leadership in the affairs of the settle- ment. The quarrels and incompetency of the two governors, Wingfield and Ratcliffe, acted as a foil to display his superior quality. Although believing to the full in the common creed of his time, that the inducements of wealth were the only ones which would lead men to sacrifice home and comfort for the wilderness, yet he evinced a genius for hard work and a contempt for hard knocks worthy of a nobler purpose. It was in his first extended exploration of the Chickahominy that the Poca- hontas affair is supposed to have occurred. That he was taken prisoner then, and by some means escaped from his captors, is undeniable. And in passing, we may observe the curious misapprehension regarding the width of the Amer- ican continent which Smith's journey up the Chickahominy betrayed. He was actually looking for the Pacific ocean ! In keeping with this error is that clause in the American charters which would make the land grants like long, narrow ribbons reaching from ocean to ocean. In 1608 Smith ascended Chesapeake Bay and explored the larger rivers emptying into it. In an open boat, he traveled over two thousand miles on fresh BACON IIKMANDING HIS COMMISSION OK l.OVtRNOR BEKKELEY. 77 78 THE STORY OF AMERICA. water. He parleyed with the Mohawks, and returned to subdue the much more unmanageable colonists at Jamestown. When the half-starved and wholly- discouraged adventurers became mutinous, his methods of dealing with them were dictatorial and effectual. As already stated, Smith, upon his departure from Virginia, left nearly five hundred people there. In six months there remained only sixty. Many had died, some thirty or more seized a small vessel and sailed South on a piratical expedition, and a number wandered into the Indian country and never came back. Sick and disheartened, the remainder resolved to abandon Virginia and seek Newfoundland. Indeed, they had actually made all preparations and were starting upon their voyage, when they were met by the new governor from England, Lord De La War, with ships, recruits and provisions. The charter under which De La War assumed the government of Virginia was sufficiently liberal. It was that granted to Raleigh. But in the years that followed, the colony began to be prosperous and to excite the jealousy of the king — the same base, faithless king that had beheaded Raleigh. James began to conspire against the Virginia charter. It was too liberal : he dreaded the power it conferred. By 1620 colonists were pouring into Jamestown at the rate of a thousand a year, and thence being distributed through the country. To try to condense the early colonial history of Virginia to the limits of our space would result in a bare recital of names, or a repetition of the narrative of ignorance, vice, and want, occasionally relieved by some deed of devotion or daring. At first, in spite of the liberal provisions of the charter, the conditions were, to a large extent, those of vassalage. In 1623 James ordered the Com- pany's directors to surrender their charter, a demand which they naturally refused. He then brought suit against the Company, seized their papers so that they should have no defence, and finally, through foul means obtained a decision dissolving the Company. After that the government of the colony consisted in a governor and two councils, one of which sat in Virginia and the other in London. The governor and councils were by royal appointment. bacon's rebellion. Here we must be allowed to digress a little, to give the part played by one Nathaniel Bacon in the affairs of Virginia. It was the year 1676, when Bacon became the leader of a popular movement instituted by the people of Kent County, whose purpose was twofold — first, to protect themselves against the Indians, which the Government failed to do ; and, secondly, to resist the unjust taxes and the oppressive laws enacted by the existing legislative assembly, and also to recover their liberties lost under the arbitrary proceedings of Sir William Berkeley, then Governor. Bacon, a popular, quiet man, who had come over from England a year before, was selected as their leader by the people, who. GOVERNOR BERKELEY REMOVED. 79 enrolling themselves 300 strong, were led by Bacon against the Indians. Bacon's success increased the jealousy of Sir William, who, because of Bacon's irregular leadership, — he having no proper commission, — proclaimed Bacon a rebel. Finally, the people rose en masse, and demanded the dissolution of the old assembly, whose acts had caused so much trouble. Berkeley was forced to yield, and a new assembly was elected, who, condoninof Bacon's irregular leader- ship, promised him a regular com- mission as General. This commission Berkeley refused to issue, whereupon Bacon, assembling his forces, at the head of 500 men, appeared before BURNING 111- lA.MESTOVVN. ' " Berkeley and demanded his commission, which Berkeley, who was a real coward, made haste to grant. But, as if repenting of his concession, Berkeley determined to oppose Bacon by force. In this he was unsuccessful, and in July of that year, Bacon entered Jamestown, the Capital, and burned the town. A little later, in October, Bacon died, and with him the "rebellion," or "popular uprising" as it had been variously called, subsided. Shortly afterward Berkeley was removed, for oppression and cruelty — a cruel, bloodthirsty man he was — and, sailing for England, died soon after his arrival, and the world's population of scoundrels was lessened by just one. While the curious mixture of cavalier and criminal was working out the 8o THE STORY OF AMERICA. early destinies of Virginia, a deeply religious element in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, England, were being educated by adversity for an adventure of a very different sort. At Scrooby, in 1606, a congregation of Separatists or Bronnists, who were ultra Puritans, used to meet secretly for worship at the house of their elder, William Brewster. King James, like most renegades, was a good persecutor, and he finally drove the Scrooby church to flee. Led by their pastor, that wisest and gendest of the Puritans, John Robinson, the litde com- pany escaped to Holland. The history of their ten years of sorrow and hard-' ship in Amsterdam and Leyden is too well known to require repetition here. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of such a man as Robinson, or to question the permanency of the impression which his character and teaching made upon his flock. Procuring a patent from the London company, the Scrooby-Leyden Sepa- ratists prepared for their adventure. Only about half the Holland company could get ready, and it fell to the pastor's lot to stay with those who were left behind. Embarking on the Speedwell, at Delft Haven, the colonists bade good-by to their friends and directed their course to England, where they were joined by the Mayflower. ARRIVAL OF THE MAYFLOWER. The Speedwell was found to be unseaworthy, so at length most of her passengers were transferred to the Mayflower, which proceeded on the voyage. To those who know how small a vessel of 1 80 tons is, the fact that one hundred souls, besides the crew, were upon a stormy ocean in her for more than si.xty days, will be as eloquent as any descripdon of their discomforts could be. The objecdve point was far to the southward of the land that they finally fell upon, which was not within the limits of their patent from the Virginia Company. But they dropped anchor in Cape Cod harbor, sick and weary with the voyage, and landed, giving thanks for their deliverance. With wisdom and frugality the plans for the home in the wilderness were made. Being too far North to be bound or protected by the provisions of the Virginia charter, the Pilgrims, as they called themselves, made a compact which was mutually protective. The terms of the contract foreshadowed republican institutions. Thus in character, purpose and outward surroundings the Puritan of Plymouth and the Cavalier of Jamestown differed essendally. The after development of the two settlements followed logically along these lines, empha- sizing these differences. Of the hundred souls left in Plymouth only fifty per cent, remained alive when the supplies from England came, a year later. Scurvy, famine and exposure to the severe climate had killed most of the weakest of them. Not a household but had suffered loss. Yet not one off'ered to go back. Men and THE PILGRIMS OF THE "MAYFLOWER." 8i women alike stood to their posts with a heroism that has never been excelled in the world's history. We read how they planted their corn in the graveyard when planting time came, so that the Indians might not discover the greatness of their loss. Cotton Mather, in writing of this dark time says, with that provoking, cold-blooded philosophy that can bear other people's troubles with equanimity : "If disease had not more easily fetched so many away to heaven," all must have died for lack ^ _ _, , of provisions. The Indians were at first very hostile, owing to depredations com- mitted by a previous navi- gator, but they were too few in number to be very trouble- some. Squanto, who became the interpreter, and Samoset, a sagamore from the east- ern coast, were their first friends among the red men. Squanto was their- tutor in husbandry and fishing. Then, too, came Hobba- mock, whom Longfellow has immortalized as the "friend of the white man." The names of those who formed this little colony have be- come household words all over the land. Miles Stan- dish, John Alden, Priscilla, Elder Brewster, Bradford, — where are these names not known ? Frugal as the Pilgrims were, and industrious, they ARMOR WORN BV THE PILGRIMS IN I620. found that their ine.xperience in planting maize, together with other drawbacks, kept them on the edge of starvation for several years. Clams became at one time the staple diet, and were about all that the settlers had to regale their friends with, when a new ship-load of those that had been left behind in Leyden, arrived. A description of Plymouth, given in 1626, shows the situation of the town : A broad street, "about a cannon shot of eight hundred yards long," bordered 82 THE STORY OF AMERICA. by the houses of hewn planks, followed by a brook down the hillside. A second road crossed the first, and at the intersection stood the Governor's house. Upon ^x^- the mound known as "burial hill" was a building which served the double purpose of a fort and a church. A stockade surrounded the whole. At first the agricultural and other labors of the people had been communistic, in accordance with the conditions of the London Company's charter. But in 1624 this plan was done away with and the lands thereafter held separately. Still the people, unlike those of Virginia, continued to dwell in towns, and their habits in this respect descended to their children. ■\ ^ -i^ MILES STANDISH HOLDS A COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS. BOUNDARY DISPUTES AND INDIAN WARS. 83 The second New England colony was that of Massachusetts Bay, which was sent out by a company provided with a charter very much like that of Vir- ginia. The provisions of this patent allowed for the appointment of officers by the company, but it was not stated where the headquarters of the company were to be. This important oversight allowed the transplanting of the company, with officers, elective power, and other democratic rights, to New England. The company, which pretended to be a commercial organization, was really composed of Puritans, who, though not Separatists, were strict to the point of fanaticism. The leader of the first emigrants was John Endicott. His followers numbered less than a hundred souls, with which little force he planted Salem. The Salem colonists, though they had known less persecution and hardship than those of Ply- mouth, or perhaps for that reason, yet were more intol- erant and Quixotic in their rules for self government, in social observances, and especially in their dealings with people of other reli- gious sects. The transfer- ence of the government of the company, together with the addition of over eight hundred new colonists, was made in 1630. As the Massachusetts colonies grew they excited the jealousy or animosity of two very different classes of people. These were their Dutch neighbors and the Indians, with the aborigines was, in fact. A PIONEER FLEEING FROM ENRAGED PEQUOTS. The most serious of the early difficulties the effect of Dutch interference. These people had purchased the Connecticut river lands from the Pequots. The Pequots only held the territory by usurpation and the original owners obtained the Puritan protection, giving them a rival title. The enraged Pequots com- menced hostilities which were promptly resented by the Puritan Governor, Endicott, who led his men into the Indian country, punishing the assailants severely. This act, however necessary it may have been, laid the colony open 84 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to all the cruelty of a long-continued war, which lasted until the final rem- nant of the Pequot tribe had been extinguished. The war with Philip, Massasoit's son, occurred in 1675, when the col- ony was stronger and better able to bear the tax upon its vigor, but during the year in which it lasted the settle- H END RICK HUDSON. 85 merits were frightfully crippled. Six hundred houses had been burned, the fighting force of the English had been decimated, and the fruits of years of labor wasted. The whole difficulty arose from the Puritans' " lust for inflicting justice," and might have been avoided. One of the most significant, as well as beneficial, of early New England institutions was the "town meeting," which ranked next to " the meeting house worship " in importance to the colonist ; for while in one he indulged liberty of conscience, the other allowed him Hberty of speech. Having both his speech and his conscience under control, the Puritan took a sober delight in their indulorence. The town meeting was in the New Englander's blood, and it needed only the peculiar conditions of his new life to bring it out. His ancestors had had their Folkmotes where all questions of public policy and government were freely discussed. So it came natural to him to gather in unsmiling earnestness with his neighbors, and attend to their plans or suggest others for their mutual guidance and safety. This ventilation of grievances and expression of views did more, in all probability, to prepare for the part which New England should take in future political movements than any other one agency. HENDRICK HUDSON. The discovery of the Hudson River, and that of Lake Champlain occurred at nearly the same time, each discoverer immortalizing himself by the exploit. That of Hudson has, however, been of vastly more importance to America and the world than that of his French contemporary. Hudson was known as a great Arctic explorer prior to his discover}' of the site of America's metropolis. He had previously sailed under English patronage, but now he and his little " Half-Moon " were in the service of the Dutch East India Company, and in search of a northwest passage, which he essayed to find by way of Albany, but failed. At the same time Smith was searching the waters of the Chesapeake. In 16 14, the charter granting all of America between Virginia and Canada was received by the " Company of the New Netherlands " from the lately formed States General of Holland. The command of so magnificent a river system as that of the Hudson and its tributaries established almost at once the status and success of the Dutch colony. The States General held complete control of their American dependency. They appointed governors and councillors and provided them with laws. Ordinarily, the people seemed to care as little to mix with politics as does the modern average New Yorker, a good deal of bad government being considered better than a little trouble. Once in a while a governor got in some difficulty over the Indian question, and called a council of citizens to help him, but ordinarily he was despotic. 86 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The colonists were content to wax fat without kicking. They were honest, shrewd, good-natured, tolerant bodies, as different from the New Englander as from the Vireinian, or as either of these neighbors was from the other. Primarily traders, they found themselves in one of the best trading grounds in the world, with nothing serious to prevent them from growing rich and multiplying. This they proceeded to do with less noise and more success than either of the other contemporary settlements. In the fifty years of Dutch rule, the population of New Amsterdam reached eight thousand souls. The character of the city was so cosmopolitan that it has been estimated that no less than twelve languages were spoken there. Free trade obtained, in contrast to the policy of New England and Virginia. The boundary difficulties with the Puritan colonies were a constant irritation, but were allowed to slumber when it was necessary to make common cause against the Indians, THE DUTCH LOSE NEW AMSTERDAM. In the time of Petrus Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch governors, the rivalry which existed between the English and Dutch nations regarding the trade of the new world led the treacherous Charles II of England to send an armament in a time of profound peace to take the colony of a friendly nation. Colonel Richard Nichols commanded the expedition. His orders caused him to stop at the Massachusetts Bay for reinforcements. The colonists there were reluctant to aid him, but those of Connecticut joined eagerly with the expedition, and Governor Winthrop took part in it. The colony passed, without a blow, with hardly a murmur on the part of the people, though considerably to the rage of Governor Stuyvesant, into the hands of the English, to be known thenceforth as New York. Notwithstanding the success of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, it was unquestionably a most important advantage in the after history of America that it should have fallen into the hands of the Encrlish. As a conservative element, the peaceful, prosperous Friend was of immense value in colonial development. The grant which William Penn obtained in 1681 gave him a tract of forty thousand square miles between the estates of York and Baltimore. Penn's charter was in imitation of that granted to Maryland, with important differences. With the approval of Lord Baltimore, laws passed by the Maryland Assembly were valid, but the king reserved the right to approve the laws of Pennsylvania. The same principle was applied to the right of taxation. There was about fifty years between the two charters. The settlement of New Jersey by Quakers was that which first drew Penn's attention to America. In drawing up the plans for his projected State he did so in accordance with Quaker ideas, which in point of humanity were far in advance of the times. The declaration that governments exist for the sake of the 88 . THE STORY OF AMERICA. governed, that the purpose of punishment is reformation, that justice to Indians as well as to white men should be considered, were startling in their novelty. The success of this enterprise was instant and remarkable. In three years the colony numbered eight thousand people. The applications for land poured in and the affairs of the colonists were wisely administered, and before the death of her great founder, Pennsylvania was firmly established. Education was a matter of care from the very start in Philadelphia, although throughout the rest of the state it was neglected for many years. Indian troubles were scarcely known. The great blot on the scutcheon of the Quaker colony was the use of white slaves, for whom Philadelphia became the chief market in the new world. Not less remarkable than the unity of time which characterized the planting of several American settlements was the unity of race into which they all finally merged, with few and slight exceptions, so that in after years all of the various lines of development which have been indicated in this chapter should combine to form a more complete national life. Penn made a treaty with the Indians, and kept it ; and herein lies the secret of his success. If only all treaties had been kept, what bloodshed might not have been avoided ! CHAPTER IV. NIAKING THE NEW PEOPLE. is A NEW ENGLAND \VEA\ER WINDING THE SPOOLS. AFTER the colonists had forced the issue with fortune and had got more in touch with their new surroundings, they began to discover the fallacy of most of their first notions and to adjust themselves to the new problems as best they could. The day when the settlement of a new world could be regarded as an experi- ment with possible fabulous results was over. They had come to stay, and they understood that staying meant winning and winning- meant workingf. The early notion that great fortunes were waiting to be picked up in the New Land, and that gold and silver and precious stones were almost to be had for the asking, had given place to a settled conviction that intelligent labor only would enable the settler to retain his foothold. Aid from the mother countries could not be depended upon, precarious as it was, nor was it to be desired. There were object lessons in frugality and industry that the colonist had set before him every day ; lessons that he finally learned by heart. As has been very wisely said, the problem which confronted the new people was one of changed conditions. Whereas in England harvests were reckoned at their cost per acre, in America they were counted at their cost per man, because in the old country labor was plentiful and land scarce, and in the new it was just the reverse. So he who cultivated the soil after old country methods must, of necessity, find want oppressing him and starvation lurking with the wolves and bears in his forests. Successful farming must be " skim- ming" the plentiful new land. To cut and burn wood-land, cultivate grain between the stumps, and abandon old holdings for new, was the necessity of the hour. Elsewhere we will speak of the influence of a staple upon the social and 89 go THE STORY OF AMERICA. political life of Virginia. The first staple was tobacco. The growth of rice in the south did not begin till some years after the establishment of tobacco ; and cotton culture was never really begun, except in a small way for domestic demands, till after independence was achieved, when the invention of Whitney's cotton gin had made it possible to minimize the immense labor of hand-cleaning. The cultivation of rice, which had previously been grown in Madagascar, began in South Carolina in 1696, when a planter named Thomas Smith got from the captain of a brigantine a bag of rice for seed. Smith had been in Madagascar, and the appearance of some black wet soil in his garden suggested to him the soil of the rice plantations on that island. The experiment was a complete and instant success. Smith's rice grew luxuriantly and multiplied so that he was able to provide his neighbors with seed. This at first they attempted to grow upon the higher ground, but shortly found that the swamps were better adapted for the staple. In three years from the time of the first distribution of seed Thomas Smith had been made Governor of the colony. The people of South Carolina who had borrowed a staple for years and who had not made the advance in pros- perity that other colonists had, at last were blessed with a product all their own, one which was perfectly adapted to the soil. They learned to husk the rice, at first by hand but afterwards by horse power and tide mills. Then rice culture began to spread to Georgia, to Virginia, even as far North as New Jersey, but nowhere did it succeed as well as in the Carolinas. Even to-day the people of that section have cause to bless the forethought of Smith and the head winds that blew the brirantine with her rice cargo into a harbor on that coast. Carolina also tried indigo growing, which became profitable about the middle of the i8th century. Miss Eliza Lucan, afterwards Mrs. Pinckney, mother of General Pinckney, deserves the credit of its introduction. The Northern farmer, from the first, cultivated only a few acres compared with the large Southern plantations. His efforts were confined to the produc- tion of wheat and corn. Indian corn was grown from the very earliest New England days ; the Indians had taught the white men their own method of manuring the corn hills by putting in each a codfish. Rye, little used as a food grain, was cultivated by certain Scotch and Irish settlers as a basis for whiskey. New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were the great bread producers. In the year 1770, or thereabouts, the value of flour and bread exports reached $3,000,000. This was the result of a century and a half of patient, intelligent labor. All along the northern coast the importance of the fisheries was felt, from the early French settlements on Newfoundland, that antedated any successful planting of colonists on the main land of North America, till the development of the great fisheries of New England. The astonishment of those who described THE STAPLES. 91 the countr)' at an early period was occasioned by the teeming life, the marvelous fertility, of all creatures, either in the ocean or on the land. The immense schools of cod gave to the inhabitants of the coast employment which soon rose to the dignity of an industry. From Salem, Cape Cod and many other points, fleets of small vessels went and returned, till a generation of sailors who should accomplish more important voyages and adventures was bred on the fishing banks. One of the most curious chapters in the history of husbandry in the New World is that of the attempt to force a staple. Some one conceived the idea FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE — A TYPICAL VIRGINIA COURT HOUSE. that the heavy duties that made the silk of France and Southern Europe so expensive might be avoided by raising the silk-worm and manufacturing the fabric in the British colonies. About 162^ the silk-worm was brought to Virginia, and a law was enacted making the planting of mulberry trees, the food of the silk-worm, compulsory. The House of Burgesses passed resolutions of the most exacting character. It also offered premiums for the production of silk, and in other ways endeavored to foster the new industry. It was required that every citizen should plant one mulberry tree to every ten acres of ground. Among the rewards offered was one of ten thousand pounds of tobacco for 92 THE STORY OF AMERICA. fifty pounds of silk. This was in 1658. That seemed to be a generous year with the Burgesses, for they also offered the same amount of tobacco for the production of a certain small quantity of wine from grapes grown in the colony. The silk laws were withdrawn in Virginia in 1666. Georgia, too, had a silk craze, and Pennsylvania and Delaware also went heavily into the production. Charles II wore a complete court dress of Amer- ican silk, which, it is said, must have cost its weight in gold to produce. The efforts to revive the silk industry were several times attempted, but without Except that we occasionally hear that some member of the British success. .N Ol.l) riMK CIILONIAL HOUSE. {Btdlt in 1034, Bdd/oril, Mass.] royal family was clad in American silk, we might almost doubt the existence of the industry. Vine planting and wine making were among the " encouraged " industries. All of these Utopian schemes for the acquisition of sudden wealth failed because they were not based upon any true appreciation of natural conditions in the New World. Fruits and vegetables were grown very early in the seventeenth century. In the latter part of the century a fresh impetus was given to horticulture by John Bartram, the Quaker, at Philadelphia. FEUDALISM IN AMERICA. 93 Horses and cattle, especially in the South, were allowed to run wild in the woods till the forests were full of them, and hunting this large game became a favorite amusement. Horses were so numerous in some places as to be a nuisance. New England adopted an old English custom, and the people herded their live stock in common, appointing general feeding places and overseers for it. The laws of England were such as to discourage sheep raising in the New World, and the wolves seconded the laws, but the farmers persisted, neverthc less, though they were not so successful in this as in some other pursuits. As soon as the immediate necessity for the guns and stockades of the town were removed, those of the more favored colonists of V^irginia who had obtained land grants began to separate, forming manorial estates and engaging in the production of staples, principal among which was tobacco. The tenants were practically serfs at first, and the introduction of slave labor made the proprietor even more independent, if possible, than he had been before, giving him authority almost absolute within his own domains, even to the power over human life. It has been truly said that "that which broke down representation by boroughs and made the parish a vast region with very little corporate unity, was the lighting upon a staple." Tobacco and rice were the responsible agents for Virginia's social and political conditions, which resulted in the production of strong, self-reliant, and brave, though impetuous and uncontrollable men. From the first, none of the great colonies bore so close a resemblance to England in the development of a feudal system as Virginia. The ownership of what would be to us vast tracts of land, was due to the way in which Virginia was settled. Men of no especial note held estates of ten, twenty, or thirty thou- sand acres. This was the result of the very rapid increase in the cultivation of the great staple. For a great many years the white servants were much more numerous than the blacks, and with indentured servitude, which was equal to slavery in all points but that of perpetuity ; then arose the great class distinctions, which were almost unknown in the New England colonies, although originally the rural Virginia land-owner and the New England settler were of the same class. The effect of environment on social development can nowhere be traced more distinctly than in the first two great English colonies in America. Town life, as remarked elsewhere, was not known in Virginia. Up to the time of the war for independence her largest towns numbered only a very few thousand souls — not more than many a Northern village. There were very few roads and very many water-ways, so that the trading vessels could reach the individual plantation much more easily than the plantations could reach each other. The English custom of entail was early transplanted to Virginia, with some adaptations to suit the new conditions. The abolition of this system was due to Thomas Jefferson, as late as 1776. 94 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The Virginia substitute for the New England town meeting, committees, etc., was the vestry and parisli system, modeled in part after the English parish. The vestrymen in each parish, however, were twelve representatives chosen by the people of the parish. This at least was the case at first, till by obtaining power to fill vacancies they became practically self-elective. The vestrymen were apportioners and collectors of taxes, overseers of the poor, and governors of the affairs of the church. Their presiding officer was the minister. Mr. John Fiske, in his admirable text-book, "Civil Government in the United States,'" makes this observation: "In New England, the township was the unit of representation, but in Virginia the parish was not the unit of repre- sentation ; the county was that unit. In the colonial legislature of Virginia the representatives sat not for parishes but for counties." The county was arbitrarily OLD SPANISH HOUSE ON BOURBON STREET, NEW ORLEANS. defined as to physical limits, nor were any particular number of parishes required to constitute it. There might be one parish or a dozen. The machinery of county government consisted principally of a court which met once a month in some central place, where a court-house was erected. There it tried minor criminal offences and major civil actions. The court also was one of probate, and had the supervision of highways, appointing the necessary servants and officials. Like the parishes, the county courts, in course of time, became self-elective. The taxes, like many other obligations, were paid in tobacco, of which the sheriff was the collector and custodian. He also presided at elections for representatives to the colonial assembly. There were eight justices of the peace in each county. These were WHITE SLAVERY. 95 nominated by the court {i. e., by their own body), and appointed by the Governor. The election, or rather appointment of the sheriff was conducted in the same way practically, so that we see how little voice the people really had in either parochial or county government. On July 30, 1619, Virginia's first General Assembly convened; as the English historian said, "A House of Burgesses broke out in Virginia." These Burgesses were at first the representatives of plantations, of which each chose two. The duty of the Assembly was to counsel the Governor ; or, more nearly in accordance with the facts, to keep him in check and make his life miserable. In 1634 the Burgesses first sat for counties, upon the new political formation. So it will be seen that the earliest form of representative government in the Colonies began in Virginia ; and that it was not government by the voice of the people, is apparent. The poor whites, or "white trash," as they were called at a later day, had little or no voice. The rights and liberties that were contended for were those of the rich and powerful. As in England, civil liberty began with the barons and did not extend to those in the humbler walks of life, so in Virginia, it was the planter, the proprietor of acres, the owner of slaves, who first guarded his own rights against despotism. In New England, on the contrary, such a thing as caste was hardly known. Town life induced a development very different from that of plantation life. Perhaps the individual was less aggres- sively independent. Perhaps the long course of bickering and obstruction on the part of Virginia's Burgesses against her governors, was as good a school as possible for future essays — the direction of national liberty ; but it is certain that New England could show a high level of intelligence all along the line. She had no " poor whites." While the distinctly influential class was not so prominently developed, each man had influence. He counted one, always. The practice of sending criminals and the offscouring of England to the Colonies under articles of bondage became established. Men were sold, some voluntarily, and others by force, for a term of years. The broken-down gentlemen, soldiers, and adventurers who composed the bulk of the inhabitants, found this system of white slavery to their temporary advantage, and the AN OLD VIRGINIA MANSION. 96 THE STORY OF AMERICA. exodus of those creatures from London was doubtless a relief to the authorities there. Sandys, the Treasurer of the Virginia Company, sent, in 1619, thirty young women, whose moral characters were vouched for, who were bought as wives by the colonists upon their arrival ; the price of passage being the value set upon each damsel. As the years went by, the evil of this system of bondage became more and more apparent, and spread to other parts of the country. Philadelphia, the THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND. Quaker refuge, was a white slave mart. Such terms as "Voluntary sales," " Redemptioners," "Soul Drivers," "Kids," "Free Willers," "Trepanning," etc., were familiar throughout the new land. Kidnapping in England, for the Colonies, was so common that it became the cause of violent agitation. Even youth of rank were not exempt from the danger and degradation. Those who carried on the business of trepan- ning were known as "Spirits." Criminals under sentence of death, might have the sentence commuted to seven years' servitude. Artisans and laborers COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHES. 97 who were unemployed could be "retained" by force, under certain conditions. Of course, these bond-servants were a source of moral and social trouble and danger to the colonists. The usual impression regarding the Puritans is that they were austere, unsmiling men, with much hard fanaticism and little of the milk of human kindness. That they did suffer much and cause others to suffer for conscience sake is undoubtedly true, but no special pleading should be required to convince those who read the early history of New England carefully, that the highest of Christian virtues flourished quite as much in the Boston of the seventeenth century as in the Boston of the eighteenth or nineteenth. The good John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts, who was firm and even severe in his administration of the government, so that he frequently felt the results of unpopularity, was, as one writer calls him, "most amiable" in his private character. A neighbor, accused of stealing from Winthrop' s wood- pile, was brought before him. The Governor had announced that he would take such measures that the thief should never be able to rob him aeain, so, of course, the case attracted attention. " You have taken my wood," said Winthrop, in effect; "You have my permission to keep on doing so. Help yourself as long as the winter lasts." We can imagine the scene when his servant, who used to be sent with messages to the poorer neighbors about dinner time, returned from one of his visits. The Governor's interest quickened as he listened to the details of the meals at which the servant had acted as a spy. Mr. So-and-so was without meat, this one lacked bread, and that other ate his bread dry. The good man expressed his sympathy in the best possible way, by sharing his larder. The man who had been one of Winthrop's angry opponents owned himself vanquished when he received from the object of his animosity a cow, in his time of need. In a quaint fashion he expressed himself: "Sir, by overcoming yourself you have overcome me." The best early history of the colony of Massachusetts is that written by Governor Winthrop. Next to that work in value is Cotton Mather's Magnalia Cliristi Americana, which is a history of the colony in all its interests and affairs, from the year 1620 to 1689. COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHES. Cotton Mather's name is perhaps most widely known as the great instigator of persecution in the time of the witchcraft terror. A man of great and varied learning, he was singularly devoid of common sense, and allowed himself to be swayed by opinions that bear a close resemblance to those of insanity. Unfortunately, through his great influence, and perhaps by virtue of that quality which we have learned to call "personal magnetism," he succeeded in inoculat- 7 98 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ing a majority of the most influential people of Massachusetts with his singular craze. There had been executions for witchcraft in New England before Doctor Mather's time, but in the revival of persecution he was most prominent. Especially severe have some New York writers of later years been, in com- menting upon this reign of terror in New England, yet New York's history has had a darker chapter of cruelty. Twenty hangings for witchcraft occurred in Salem ; nearly double that number of persons were burned at the stake in New York City, upon the ground until recently known as the " Five Points." Both of these occurrences were in the same generation, but the one was the result of delusion, while the other resulted from abject terror, caused by one Mary A PROTEST AGAINST PERSECUTION. 99 Burton, a criminal character, wlio pretended to have information of a negro insurrection, and then for a few pounds swore away forty Hves. Virginia, too, had her witch trials, though not carried to the lengths that those of Salem were, and even tolerant Maryland has her record of witch hanging. And surely none can fail to honor Samuel Sewell, of Massachusetts, whose public expression of sorrow for the part he had taken in the witch executions was one of the first signs of recovery from the popular delusion. In like manner the persecutions of the Friends were due to the same sombre, sadly mistaken views of religious duty. Undoubtedly the New England Quakers were guilty of some actions which must have greatly annoyed the Puritans. The gentlest, kindliest, and, in some respects, the most enlightened people in the New World showed sometimes a most exasperating obstinacy in doing things which should shock the strict ideas of propriety which the Pilgrims possessed. For instance, in New London Pastor Mather Byles was greatly annoyed by having Quaker men sit with their hats on and women with their spinning wheels in the aisles, industriously working during service on the Lord's day. As soon as the Quakers were settled, when no one opposed them the aggressive side of their character, as shown in symbolic acts of an exaggerated kind, does not seem to have manifested itself at all. A PROTEST AGAINST PERSECUTION. In the middle of the century the beginning of the protest against Quaker persecution began to be felt. Nicholas Upsall, pastor of the Boston Church, first opposed it. He was promptly fined twenty pounds and banished. He was refused a home in Plymouth and returned to Cape Cod, where he succeeded in inoculating a number of other people with his views. Robinson, son of the Leyden pastor, was sent by the General Court of Massachusetts to visit the Quakers and expostulate with them. He decided that there was no harm in them and made an able defence of them, for which he was disfranchised. The prejudice, once started, took years to eradicate. Perhaps a few lines from Cotton Mather on this subject may not be out of place. He says : — "It was also thot that the very Quakers themselves would say that, if they had got into a corner of the world and with immense toyl and change made a wilderness habitable in order there to be undisturbed in the exercise of their worship, they would never hear to have New Englanders come among them and interrupt their public worship, endeavor to seduce their children from it, yea, and repeat such endeavors after mild entreaties first and then just banishment." It is probable that in an age when we are more fond of finding causes for things than of suffering for conscience sake we will blame neither party in this obsolete quarrel. It was incompatibility of temper. Another of the matters about which the public is apt to be severe upon the lOO THE STORY OF AMERICA. Puritans is the code known as " Blue Laws," concerning which a great deal has been said by people who value themselves upon their "liberal " views. Rules relating to Sabbath observances are quoted. We are told indig- nantly that the Puritan could not kiss his wife or children on the Sabbath, nor walk in his garden, nor do any one of a number of things that are innocent and proper. There is just one answer to these strictures. The Blue laws were wholly unknown to the Puritans. They were invented by that Tory wag. Dr. Samuel Peters, whose humorous " History of Connecticut" was as seriously taken by some folks as was Washington Irving's " Knickerbocker" a generation later. It is not probable that Dr. Peters ever supposed that they would be taken seriously. Of Puritans, Quakers, and other religionists of the olden time we are apt to think as though they were separate varieties of the human race, not to be under- stood by the light of any common experience of human nature, while in fact they were very human — and (perhaps in consequence) very much lied about. THE HUDSON RIVER ESTATES. Washington Irving has humorously dwelt upon facts in his relation of the differences which occurred between the Dutch Government in New Amsterdam and the Patroons whose little principalities were further up the Hudson River. The grants to the patroons were such as to insure to them almost absolute con- trol upon their estates, with only the shadow of allegiance. The fact that the great patroons allowed a semblance of subserviency to the metropolitan governor was rather a question of their advantage than of their necessity. The holdings were immense. The Livingstone estate was sixteen by twenty-eight miles in extent ; the Van Courtlandts owned eight hundred square miles ; the Rensselaer manor contained five hundred and seventy-five square miles. Sir Vredryk Flypse, the richest man in the colony, possessed the fairest portion of the river from Spuyten Duyvel Creek to the Croton River. From the mill on his manor he shipped grain and other commodities direct to Holland and to the West Indies, and received rum and other exchanges from those countries, without either clearing or entering at the port of New Amsterdam (or New York as it afterwards was called). Flypse, Van Courtlandt, and Bayard were keen politicians as well as successful traders. To them is credited the hanging of Governor Zeisler, and they were hotly charged with receiving from Kidd, whose privateering commission they had procured, a share of his piratical booty. Upon the great estates, the exactions of the lords proprietors drove many tenants out of the colony. Some of the patroons even went to the length of asserting their right to eject tenants and reassume the land at will. This course of procedure retarded the growth and development of the Hudson River SCHOOLS IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. lOI Settlements for many years tion of feudal authority in New York were very much like the monopolies of land and power in the South. But in one thing New Am- sterdam differed very much from Virginia ; that was in the possession of a thriving, busy city that should coun- In some respects the great estates and assump- terbalance the spirit of feudalism by its democratic disposi- tion. How can we close this chapter better than by refer- ence to the beginnings of what we hold most precious of all the legacies which the fore- fathers of the American people left to their descendants ? In Virg-inia Governor Berkeley, in 1671 thanked God that there were no free schools, nor were likely to be for a hundred years. But less than twenty years afterward, a different feeling began to prevail. William's and Mary's College was founded by James Blair in 1692. But already a university was in THE ATTACK ON RIOTERS AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS., IN I786. I02 THE STORY OF AMERICA. existence in the North, and the first common-school system, probably, that the world had ever known, had been established half a century in Massachusetts. Salem's free-school dates back to 1640, and the state adopted a general plan for common schools seven years later ; a plan, the purpose of which was set forth in language so remarkable, that it should be preserved through all time — a few sentences we can give : "That learning may not be buried in the grave of our faith in the church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, — It is therefore ordered, that every township in this jurisdiction after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to write and to read, . . . and it is further ordered that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families they shall set up a grammar-school to instruct youth so far that they may be fitted for the university." Maryland was nearly a century in following this lead. Rhode Island, beginning where Massachusetts did, fell from grace in educational matters till 1800. Philadelphia had good schools at a very early date, and New Amsterdam, or New York, moved very slowly, doubtless feeling confident that, whatever their attitude toward letters, her children would instinctively learn the use of figures. But we cannot pursue this matter widiout trenching upon another chapter. It is difficult to conceive that from the various forma- tive elements in the lives of the early colonists, a single one could have been well spared in the making of the new people. But Virginia was not the only State troubled with insurrection. Massachu- setts had a like experience. It was in 1786 that the movement broke out, Daniel Shay, a Revolutionary captain, having been rather forced to the head as leader, so that it became known as Shay's Rebellion. The pretext of the rebellion was the high salary paid the Governor, the aristocratic character of the Senate, the extortions of lawyers, and the oppressive taxation. In December, 1786, he led a considerable force of rioters to Worcester, where he prevented the holding of the U. S. Court, and with 2000 men traveled to Springfield, Mass., January, 1787, to capture the arsenal [see engraving], but was repulsed by the militia under General Shepard. Finally, defeated, he fled the State, but he was pardoned the following year by Governor Bowdoin. Ultimately he received a pension for Revolutionary services. He died September 29th, 1825, at Sparta, N. Y., whither he had removed. CHAPTER V. OIvD COLONY DAYS AND WAYS. MANY were the varieties of New England life before the American Revolution. Each township maintained its own peculiar laws ; clung to its own peculiar cus- toms ; cherished its own peculiar traditions. Never, perhaps, except in Greece, were local self-government and local patriotism pushed to such an extreme. Not only did commonwealth hold itself separate from com- monwealth, but township from township, and often, village from village. Long stretches of uninhabited land effectively divided these self-reliant communities from one another. "The road to Boston," says one of the most graphic of New England's local historians,* when speaking of the route from Buzzard's Bay, in 1743, was "narrow and tortuous — a lane through a forest — having rocks and quagmires and long reaches of sand, which made it almost impassable to wheels, if any there were to be ventured upon it. Branches of large trees were stretched over it, so that it was unvisited by sunlight, except at those places where it crossed the clearings on which a solitary husbandman had established his homestead, or where it followed the sandy shores of some of those picturesque ponds which feed the rivers emptying into Buzzard's Bay. Occasionally a deer bounded across the path, and foxes were seen running into the thickets." Such roads, pictur- esque as they were, naturally discouraged travel. Occasionally a Congregational council called together the ministers of several towns at an installation or an ordination. Once a year the meeting of the General Court tempted the rural authorities up to the capital ; during a week's time a few travelers may have *Mr. W. R. Bliss, in his "Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay," an excellent depiction of early New England life, from which other quotations will appear later in this chapter. 103 ANCIENT HORSE-SHOES PLOWED UP IN SCHENECTADY CO., N. Y. (/« the New York Stuie Agricultural Museum.) I04 THE STORY OF AMERICA. COLONIAL PLOW WITH WOODEN MOLD-BOARD. {State Agricultural Museum, Albany, N. V. 1706. ridden by on horseback and baited at the village inn ; now and then a visitor came to town, making no little stir, or perhaps a new immigrant settled on the confines of the parish. But there were then no Methodist preachers, with short and frequent pastorates, and no commercial travelers, with boxes of the latest goods, who could serve as conductors of thought and gossip from village to village and make them homogeneous. America was not then a land of travelers. What little travel there might have been, was often still further discouraged by local ordinances, and in many a town, a citizen had to have a special permit from the Selectmen before he could enter- tain a guest for anything over a fort- night. Thus one father was fined ten shillings for showing hospitality to his daughter beyond the legal period. In many a spot in early New England the protectionist principle was so thoroughly localized that the importation of labor, as well as of merchandise, was rigorously restricted. Towns so insulated naturally took on distinctive traits. Even religious customs, literal scripturalists as these people were, differed in different places. The Puritan Sabbath began on Saturday night in one commonwealth, on Sunday morning in another. In brief no picture of any one town can serve as a picture of any other. To describe a typical Puritan home, therefore, is not easy. Yet it is not impossible. For the New England Puritans were a peculiar and easily distin- guished people. The fundamental differences in character which set them off from the rest of the world, are far more prominent to the eye than are the local differences which divided town from town. A Connecticut settler, or even a Rhode Island Baptist, mieht be taken for a Massachusetts Puritan, but a Knickerbocker could be mistaken for neither. To begin with, the New Englanders were the ANCIENT HAND-MADE SPADE. (State Agricultural Museum, Albany, N. y.) most truly benevolent and unselfish people of their time. They had hardly set foot on New England's shore before their history was marked by a magnanimous act of genuine forgiveness of injuries. It was in the middle of the landing at Plymouth Rock, when the colony was prostrated by illness and was exposed to the worst inclemencies oi a new and inclement climate. "Destitute of every provision which the weak- THE CHARACTER OF THE NEW ENGLANDER. 105 IRISH IMMIGRANT S KLAX- WHEEL. ness and daintiness of the invalid require," so runs the description of a well-known historian, " the sick lay crowded in the unwholesome vessel or in half-built cabins, heaped around with snow-drifts. The rude sailors refused them even a share of those coarse sea-stores which would have given a little variety to their d'-;t, till disease spread among the crew and the kind ministrations of those whom they had neglected and affronted brought them to a better temper." There could be no better example of Christian forbearance than this. At the start the Indians also came within the scope of the Puritan's charity. He nursed them assiduously in times of small- pox, rescued many a child from a plague-stricken wigwam, helped them through times of famine. Christianized and partially civilized some of them, and in business dealings treated them not only justly but with a sincere though tactless kindness. The Puritan's home life was unselfish ; he was profoundly regardful of his children, though he evinced that regard not by indulging them, but by pains- taking discipline and a rigorous thrift, the better to provide for their future. It was a French Jesuit of the last century who testified that the New Englander, unlike the Canadian, labored for his heirs. These early settlers made staunch neighbors. They were ready at almost any time to leave their work to drive a pin or nail in a young home-maker's new dwelling-house as a token of their good will, while they found their greatest pleas- ures in such means of mutual helpfulness as corn-huskings, quilting-bees, and barn- raisings. They were, no doubt, exacting and unsympathetic masters, but in the commands which they enjoined they kept in view the moral welfare of their slaves and servants as of far greater importance than their own material prosperity. Never were slaves better treated than in New England. The Puritans were strenuously intent on making the world, not only better, but, as they thought, happier. It was to guard the more solid pleasures of a pure home-Hfe and of an honest pride in one's country, that they bulwarked themselves against the encroachments of sordid self-indulgences. But they went A COLONIAL FLAX-WHEEL. io6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. A CUMFUKTltK, UK CHAFING-DISH. {New York State Cabinet of Natural History y Albany ) about their task in crude fashion. They recognized, for instance, quite wisely, that there is no more insidious enemy of happiness than vanity, which makes a man utterly miserable whenever he is ignored and only uneasily pleased even when he is admired the most, but they tried to eradicate vanity from the human heart not by planting something better in its place, but by such petty sumptuary laws as prohibiting the wearing of lace. They simply attempted to cut off whatever might minister to vanity's indul- gence. Their chief reliance for improving the condition of the world was in a countless number of minute restrictions and self-limitations. The more law there is, however, the more there needs to be, for prohibit nine-pins and soon there will be a new game of ten-pins to prohibit also. So it was with the Puritans. Restriction was placed here and restriction was placed there, until restriction became constriction and grew intolerable. The children were never allowed to lose sight of parental regula- tions, the parents of township ordinances, the town of state laws. But it was in the number and pettiness of these laws,' not any cruelty in them, which made them intolerable, for the humanity of New England's legislators is evinced in the fact that there were only ten crimes punish- able with death in New England when there were one hundred and sixty in Old England. The New Enorlanders were swaddled, not chained. The best that was in them did not have full play, but it had more play than it could have had in any other country, except Great Britain and Holland. From the start New England was a country of homes. The typical New England dwelling was the work of several generations. It had begun perhaps as a solidly built but plain rectangular house of one story and two rooms. In one of them the good wife cooked the meals on the hearth — and simple cooking was never better done — laid the table, as meal-time approached, with the neat wooden bowls, plates, platters, and spoons and primitive knives of the time, or, the meal over, received a neighbor dropping DUTCH HOUSE IN ALBANY, N. Y. {Front an Old Print.) THE HOUSE AND THE HOME. 107 in on a friendly errand, or perhaps the minister gravely making the rounds of his parish. This was the living room, the centre of the family life. The other room contained two great bedsteads with their puffy feather-beds, while the trundle-bed in the corner betrayed the presence of little children in the household. If the family was large, a rude ladder led the way to a sleeping- place in the garret, the very spot for a boy with a romantic turn. Slowly but faithfully the farmer added to the size and to the comforts of his home. What a place the hearth soon became! "In the wide fireplace and over the massive back-log, crane, jack, spit and pot-hook did substantial work. PRIMITIVE MODE OF GRINDING CORN. while the embers kept bake-kettle and frying-pan in hospitable exercise." Here was the place for the iron, copper or brass andirons, often wrought into curious devices and religiously kept bright and polished. In front of the fire was the broad wooden seat for four or five occupants, with its generously high back to keep off the cold. This was the famous New England settle, making an inviting and cozy retreat for the parents in their brief rests from labor, or perhaps for lovers when the rest of the house was still. On each side of the hearth, in lieu of better seats were wooden blocks on which the children sat as they drew close to the fire on winter evenings to work or read by its blaze. Perhaps, in some corner of the room could be seen the brass warming-pan, which every winter's evening io8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. was filled with embers and carried to the sleeping chambers to give a temporary warmth to the great feather-beds. There was a place near at hand for the snow-shoes, while matchlocks, swords, pikes, halbert, and some pieces of armor fixed against the wall showed that the farmer obeyed the town ordinances and kept himself prepared against Indian raids. For like all frontiersmen, these farmers never felt secure. The Indians, instigated by the French, and exasperated by the cheating and bullying English adventurers, who had crept into New England against the colonists' will, were not only the crudest of foes, they were the most treacherous of friends. They had pillaged and destroyed more than one secluded and unsuspecting settle- ment, murdering, torturing, or carrying into captivity, as they pleased, the peaceful inhabitants. The big, vasjue rumors of such midnioht raids exercised their uncanny spell over many a household as it gathered about the hearth of a winter's evening. There was the Deerfield massacre, for instance. Just before the dawn of a cold winter's night the Indians fell upon the fated village. They spent twenty-four hours in wanton destruction, slaughtered sixty help- less prisoners, and carried a hun- dred back with them for an eight weeks' cruel march to the north, durino- which nineteen victims were murdered on the way and two were starved to death. Such was the story associated with the arms upon the wall ; but a happier story was told by the ears of corn, the crooknecks, the dried fruit, and the flitches of bacon hanging from the beams and ceiling of the room. They were a perpetual reminder of Thanksgiving Day. If the Puritan discountenanced Christmas observances as smacking of "papishness" — such was the narrow- mindedness of the times — he showed by this feast-day, his appreciation of the good things of earth. It was characteristic of the early New Englanders to make much of little things. The housewife was rightfully proud of her simple but nice cooking, and her husband of his plain but substantial produce. There is something appetizing in the very thought of their homely but choice dishes, their hasty-pudding, their Yankee breads, their pumpkin and mince pies. These simple people cultivated to an unsurpassed extent the wholesome pleasure OLD FRENCH HOUSE. HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES. 109 which comes from a full appreciation of nature's wealth of gifts. They were lovers and cultivators of the wholesome fruits. It was a custom often observed in New England to give a favorite tree or bush a special and appropriate name, as a token of affection and so to make it seem the more companionable. The Puritan, indeed, had strong local affections and attachments. He found his pleasures in what came to his hand and made pleasures often out of the work he had to do. He provided little that was even amusement for his children, but this misfortune was alleviated by the abundant outlet for youthful energies which they found in the activities of the household. There was little time which could be spent in mere amusennent. The home was a hive of busy workers. The planting, cultivating and harvesting of his crops consumed perhaps the smaller portion of the farmer's time. Cattle raising for the West Indies and sheep growing took much of his attention. He was something of a lumberman, as well, and still more of a mechanic. Per- haps he bought iron rods and, when debarred from outdoor labor, hammered them into nails at the kitchen fireside. It was much more important, however, that he should have some skill at carpentry. Often too, he carved out of wood his table dishes. In the diverse indus- tries of his house was the orerm ofmany a nucleus factory. From his wife's busy loom came home- spun cloth for the family. In the kitchen were distilled her favorite remedies. The children of the family were not only kept busy ; they were kept thinking ; their inventive faculties were constantly on the alert. Hardly a week passed but a new device was needed. Early in the history of New England, to be sure, there were tanners who would keep half the skins they received and return the other half in leather, brickmakers, masons, carpenters, millers with very busy wind-mills, curriers, sawyers, smiths, fullers, malsters, shoe- makers, wheelwrights, weavers and other artisans to do the work of specialists in the community, yet the farmer did not a little for himself in every one of these trades. His home was an industrial community in and of itself The fisherman who dwelt upon the sea-coast needed quite as active and versatile a family as did his inland brother. He left them to build the boats, hoop the casks, forge the irons, and manage the many other industries pre- slLK WINDING. {.Fac-sitnile 0/ a Fie tier e in Edward li'iltiams' s " Virginia Truly Valued." Ibso.) no THE STORY OF AMERICA. requisite to the complete outfit of a vessel for a long and hazardous voyage. At any time they might be obliged to support themselves entirely or be thrown upon the town, for all fishing out at sea is a dangerous vocation, and whaling had its peculiar perils. Occasionally a boat and crew were sunk by the tremendous blows with which some great whale lashed the sea in his death agony. Now and then one of these tormented giants would turn madly upon his pursuers. Then, so says one careful historian, "he attacked boats, deliberately, crushing them like egg-shells, killing and destroying whatever his massive jaws seized in their horrid nip. His rage was as tremendous as his bulk ; when will brought a purpose to his movement, the art of man was no match for the erratic creature." One such fighting monster attacked the good ship "Essex," striking with his head just forward of her fore-chains. The ship, says the mate, " brought up as sud- denly and violently as if she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few seconds like a leaf" She had already begun to settle when the whale came again, crashing with his head through her bows. There was bare time to provision and man the small boats before the vessel sank. The crew suffered from long exposure and severe privations, and only a part of them were ever saved. Such tales as this reached inland and attracted boyish lovers of adventure to the sea. There were other and different tales of the sea, as well, to allure them — tales of great wealth amassed in the India trade, of prizes captured from the French by audacious privateersmen, or of pirates, then scourging the sea, or, more boldly still, entering Boston harbor and squandering their ill-gotten gains at the Boston taverns. The ocean was then the place for the brave and the ambitious. It is a significant fact that probably the first book of original fiction ever published in New England was "The Algerine Captive," a story of a sailor's slavery among the Moors. Yet this story was long in coming. New England produced no fiction of its own and reprinted little of old England's until ten years after the close of the American Revolution. In the early farm- houses, the library consisted of two or three shelves of Puritan theology. As time went on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a few ecclesiastical and local histories, one or more records of witchcraft trials, and some dooforerel verse from the New England poets were added to the dry and scant supply of reading. Yet the enterprising and imaginative reader, though a child, could ferret out not a few exciting episodes from such uninviting volumes as Josephus's " History of the Jews," or Rev. Mr. Williams's record of Indian Captivity, while by 1720 a few of the more fortunate little ones had a printed copy of Mother Goose jingles for their amusement. But, although this was all the reading the farmer had — for the newspapers were wretched and were seldom seen fifty miles from Bos- ton — it must not be supposed that he underestimated the value of books. He read far more than the modern farmer does — indeed all he could afford to get and had the time for ; the clergy of the time often had substantial libraries of THE YOUNG LADY. Ill one or two or even three hundred voUimes ; while in the Revolutionary period, any young lady in a well-to-do family could easily obtain the best writings of Dryden, Pope, Addison, Swift, Thomson, and the other classic writers of the eighteenth century. A Tuw cf y Industry cfJStavtn afCaiuida in mdkin^X>ami » jutp y Courst irfmirutct. in order to form ayreatXrakt , about ir. tfuy huiCd thiir a^ahitationj . Xa XifiCt this : thty ieUlar^Tnet uHth th^irTe^th. in stuh a rnanntr ^■' to makt th^m ccmt CrvjSy^^u* Ut. to lay y Jbundatian afyj>atn; thiy makeJHsrtar, uvrk up, and finish y u^hoU wiA^rsat order and uvnd/rfuU :^xt£rity. Vht Ztavtrj havt tun Jhnn to Ouir Irod^ej , one tc the Ttritttr and the otfur ta thtXfOnd jide .Ata>rdin^ay^n£h.Saoitntt. NIAGARA AND THE EEAVER DAMS. {From Moll's "New and Exact Map" jyiS-) Indeed, the " young lady," as the feature of human society, was not alto- gether neglected, even in earlier times. To be sure, she could not dance with- out shocking most, if not all, of the community ; she could not act in church charades — for all dramatic exhibitions were forbidden by law ; but in the inter- 112 THE STORY OF AMERICA. vals between her sewing and her housekeeping cares, she played battledore and shuttlecock with her sister or friends, or practised the meeting-house tunes on the old-fashioned and quaint spinet or virginal. If she were so fortunate as to be born in the eighteenth century instead of the seventeenth, she was regularly escorted by her swain to the singing-school, which not only furnished training in psalmody, but was the occasion of much social companionship among the young people of the village, and of not a little match-makino;. These gatherings often started incidentally other intellectual interests besides those of music, and books were discussed and recommended. Here was FROZEN NIAGARA. the birth-place of the reading circle and the modern lecture system. Awkward and restrained as their society manners were, the Puritans were a social people ; jealously as they preserved their home-life, they joined quite as readily as do modern farmers in general village pleasures. The barn raisings for men, the quilting-bees for women and the merry corn-huskings and house-warmings for both, were not the only social gatherings of young and old. Every ordination or installation of a new minister — it came seldom, to be sure, — was the occasion of feasting and a sociable assembling by the congregation. Training day was another time when the township was agog with excitement. Every male citi- zen of the village, from the boy of sixteen to the man of sixty, was compelled on these occasions to shoulder his musket and march in the militia. An awkward SCHOOL AND MEETING HOUSE. 113 squad of amateur soldiers they were, as they paraded the village, complacent and valiant in fair weather, but bedraggled, crestfallen and wofully diminished in numbers in wet. Yet the women and children were proud of them and fol- lowed along the route. In honor of the occasion special booths were erected for the sale of gingerbread and harmless drinks to the on-lookers. The tavern too was kept busy, for every settlement of any pretensions had a tavern, where the passing traveler might get refreshment for himself and his horse. Here the selectmen planned the village policy for the consideration of the town-meeting. Here too were held public debates between rival theological disputants, sitting over their mild spirituous beverages. Here too was disseminated the latest news from Boston and the old world. The two other public buildings of the place were the school-house and the meeting-house. As early as 1647, every Massachusetts village of fifty house- holders was required by state law to maintain a school, in which the catechism and the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic should be taught, while every town which boasted a hundred householders was obliged to establish a grammar school. But New England was not dependent upon these schools alone for her education. Massachusetts and Connecticut each had its college, in which learned and often eminent men trained the more ambitious youth of the land. One hundred thousand graduates were among the early emigrants from England and mingled with the people, while in the first days of the church, the pulpits even in the smaller towns, were almost without exception filled with men accomplished in the best learning of the time. The church was the centre of the community's social and political life. Attendance on public worship was enforced, during many decades and in many places, by village ordinance. Church and state were curiously confused. Only church members were allowed to vote at town-meetings, and the selectmen of the village assigned the seats to the congregation, according to the peculiar regulations of the town-meeting. Customs differed in different places. In some villages, just before service began, the men would file in on one side of the church and the women on the other, while the boys and girls, separated from each other as scrupulously, were uncomfortably fixed in the gallery, or placed on the gallery stairs, or on the steps leading up to the pulpit. It was in one of these churches that the following ordinance was enforced : — "Ordered that all ye boys of ye town are and shall be appointed to sitt upon ye three paii of stairs in ye meeting-house on the Lord's day, and Wm. Lord is appointed to look to the boys yt sit upon ye pulpit stairs, and ye other stairs Reuben Guppy is to look to." In other meeting-houses, each household had a curious box pew of its own, fashioned according to the peculiar tastes of its occupants. The assignment of 8 114 THE STORY OF AMERICA. pew room in these places of worship was determined by the most careful class distinctions, for democratic as the Puritans were in their political institutions and commercial methods, each family jealously guarded whatever aristocratic pre- tensions it might have inherited. To the plain seats in the gallery were relegated the humbler members of the parish ; a few young couples had pews of their own set off for them there, while a special gallery was occasionally provided for the negro slaves. There was no method of heating the edifice ; to warm their feet the women had recourse to foot-stoves, carried to the meeting-house by the children or apprentices ; the men to the more primitive method of pinching their shins together. When the hour-glass in the pulpit had marked the passage of an hour and a half, the sermon usually came to a close, and the people in the CHAMPLATN's fortified CAMP; THE FIRST HOUSE ERECTED IN QUEBEC. gallery descended and marched two abreast up one aisle and past the long pew which directly faced the pulpit and in which the elders and deacons sat. Here was the money-box, into which each person dropped his shilling or more, as the case might be, while the line was turning down the other aisle. There was an intermission of service at noon, when the people ate their luncheon in the adjacent school-house, where a wood-stove could be found, and discussed the village gossip and the public notices posted on the meeting- house door. In every family the minister of the parish was received with an awe and reverence which seemed suitable not only to the dignity of his calling, but to the extreme gravity of his deportment and the impressive character of his learn- ing. In weight and authority he was the oeer of the village officials. Only the MINISTER AND SQUIRE. "5 squire, the appointee of the Crown, was his superior ; for he held his office as representative of the Crown. If offenders did not pay the fines imposed upon them, this village dignitary could place them in the stocks, or order them to be whipped. Persons who lived disorderly, "misspending their precious time, he could send to work-house, to the stocks, or to the whipping-post, at his discre- tion. He could break open doors where liquors were concealed to defraud His Majesty's excise. He could issue hue-and-cries for runaway ser\'ants and thieves. There are instances on record in which a justice of the peace issued COLONIAL MANSIO.N. RESIDENCE OF THE LATE WILLIAM BULL PRINGLE, ESQ., CHARLLslnN, his warrant to arrest the town minister, about whose orthodoxy there were dis- tressing rumors, and required him to be examined upon matters of doctrine and faith. But a more pleasing function of his office was to marry those who came to him for marriage, bringing the town clerk's certificate that their nuptial inten- tions had been proclaimed at three religious meetings in the parish during the preceding fortnight." The Squire's office, however, was an English, not an American institution, and did not long survive on our soil. What was peculiar to New England public life was the town meeting, held in the parish church. Every freeman of the Ii6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. township was obliged to attend it, under penalty of a fine. It distributed in early days the land among the settlers ; it regulated, often according to com- munistic and often according to protectionist principles, the industries of the community ; and it repressed gay fashions and undue liberties in speech and deportment. Its representatives were the selectmen and town-clerk, and were held in high esteem, from the respect due to their office. Yet none of these dignitaries, much as they were held in awe, could per- manently suppress the instincts of youth for gayer fashions and happier times. It is impossible on any rational basis to explain the inconsistent Puritan standards of right and wrong amusements. The most conscientious of Puritans would go, merely out of curiosity, to a hanging, and see no harm in it, but he looked with grave suspicion on church chimes as a worldly frivolity. Feasting he encouraged and religious services he discourap-ed at a funeral. Marriage he made a secular O O *-> function ; the franchise religious. To dancing he objected as improper and to card-playing as dangerous, but he saw no harm in kissing-games and lotteries. Finally the influence of the city proved too much for him. Boston customs were imitated in the provincial towns. Young and old indulged in the fashionable disfigurements of the day. The women wore black patches on their faces to set off their complexions and the men slashed the sleeves of their coats to show the fine quality of their underclothes, and even funeral services became occasions for display. Sumptuary laws were ignored or repealed. The country towns became social centres. By the time of the American Revolution, New England was already merging from Puritanism, with its virtues and limitations, into a new Americanism, with its new merits and its new defects. CHAPTER VI. THi£ BUCCANEERS AND PIRATES OE ANIERICA. O the north of Cuba, between that island and the Great Bahama banks is a navigable channel known as the old Bahama passage. Three centuries ago it had its day, a rich day, when freighted Spanish merchantmen and galleons, < y^y 1^" seeking in the new world the riches which impoverished Spain fiaSk W grasped so eagerly for, "dropped down with costly bales" from Cuba and the American coast, finding their way by the Caicos passage to the ocean. Between Cuba and Haiti, or Hispaniola, is what is known as " the windward passage," almost at the intersection of which with the Bahama channel, at the northwest end of Haiti, is Tortura del Mar, — the sea tortoise. As it was described in the sixteenth century, so it is to-day, — a wooded, rocky island, with few inhabitants and much game. Its only good harbor is on the south, and the blue water that surrounds it is as clear as a mountain spring and deeper than the mountain itself. It covers the entrance to the little for- tified Haitian town of Port au Paix, with a strait ten miles wide between them. With its beauty of foliage, mild, sea-tempered, tropical climate, and advantage of position, nature evidently intended Tortuga for a little insular heaven, but man succeeded in making quite the reverse of it. On Tortuga the Buccaneers (formerly known as Boucaniers and Buccaniers) started and developed, till Spain rang with the terror and fame of their achievements, and throughout the Antilles and the Spanish Main they enacted one of the most terrific romances of history. Boucaning, from which we get Buccanier, originally meant to prepare beef in a peculiar way, by smoking ; and the Buccaneers were cow-boys, who were a part of the French settlement that had driven the Spanish owners from Tortuga. The horses and cattle of the latter, running wild in large droves, afforded the material for their adventurous trade. It was not long before these old time "cowpunchers" became a separate and peculiar people, living much of their lives in camp, and returning to town only to dispose of their spoils and to ■commit untold debaucheries. Spain, in possession of Hispaniola, naturally was 117 Ii8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. jealous of her interloping French neighbors. France disclaimed any responsi- bility for their acts, on the ground that she neither governed nor received tribute in Tortuga. Then the Spaniards tried to eject the Buccaneers, and only succeeded in incurring their undying enmity. At last a destruction of cattle drove the Frenchmen to more desperate adventures. The first departure was that of Pierre Le Grand, who, tired of the waning activity of the beef business, took a small vessel, and with twenty-eight men, cruised towards Caicos, with the purpose of surprising some Spanish merchant- man. Finally discovering a war vessel, instead of such game as he was i.c search of this Peter the Great approached to examine his prey more closely, and succeeded in exciting the suspicions of some of the Spaniards on board of the stranger, who told their captain that they believed the little vessel to be a pirate ; but the commander, who was vice-admiral of the Spanish fleet; laughed at their anxiety, replying that even if the Frenchman was near their own vessel's size they would have nothing to fear. Waiting till cover of evening, the Buccaneers approached so close to the Spaniard that they could not have withdrawn without discovery and suspicion. In order to insure success, Pierre made the pirates' chances desperate by scuttling his own vessel ; thereupon they closed with the man-of-war and boarded her with such adroitness and celerity that they succeeded in surprising the captain and some of his officers in the cabin, and, after a short struggle, shooting down those that opposed them, possessed themselves of the gun room. It was an easy but brilliant victory, an achievement that set the hot blood of the Tortuga Buccaneers in a sudden blaze, and freebootine on the o o high seas became at once a fashionable and much-followed profession. As for Pierre le Grand, the pioneer in piracy, he was content with his first venture, and, having taken his rich prize to France, remained there, never revisiting the Western World. Doubtless the Spaniards passing Cape de Alvarez in their little tobacco boats, or hide-laden vessels from Havana, were surprised and, not pleasantly so, by the sudden appearance and activity of canoes and small boats manned with murderous Frenchmen from Tortuga. The Buccaneer was beginning his trade of piracy in a small way, ndustriously accumulating the capital with which to venture on greater enterprises. The small vessels he converted into little freebooting ships ; the small cargoes he took home and sold in Tortuga, till he had enough saved to equip them properly. When everything was ready, and agreements as to the share of each man had been entered into, and every man had chosen his side partner, who should share his good and evil fortune and stand by him in a fracas, the notice was given to assemble. Whereupon every pirate brought his powder and arms to the appointed place, and off they went. That was the fashion of it. As we would plan a little jaunt down the river, or across the DEEDS OF DARING. 119 lake, or up to the top of a mountain to see the moon rise, these jolly Buccaneers got ready and went a-pirating. Let us not be misled at the outset by a glamour of romance which time and a partial historian have thrown about the deeds of the buccaneers. No more utterly debased, bestial, merciless, and bloodthirsty set of fiends ever figured in history ; but it is no less true that their physical fearlessness led them to deeds which, by their audacity and atrocity, set the world ringing with their fame. The first four great prizes were made within a month. Two of these were Spanish merchantmen and two were vessels loaded with plate at Campeche. Success so great, the proofs of which were at once brought to Tortuga, as to arouse the wildest enthusiasm. In a little time there were twenty vessels in the buccaneer fleet. Spain, disgusted at this new state of affairs, sent two men-of-war to guard her shipping. It is impossible to say how much more mischief might have been done had it not been for this precaution. As it was, the commerce of His Most Catholic Majesty suffered frightfully. A second Pierre, called Fran^ofs, led a crew of twenty-six men in a little vessel against the pearl fleet, near the river De La Plata, where they lay at work under the protection of a gun-boat. The man-of-war was barely half a league away from the fleet, but Frangois resolved to attempt a swoop. He feigned to be a Spanish vessel coming up the coast from Maracaibo. On reaching the fleet he assaulted the vessel of the vice-admiral, of eight guns and sixty men, and forced a surrender. He then resolved to take the man-of-war. So he sunk his own boat and, compelling the Spaniards to assist him, set sail in the prize, with Spanish colors flying. Thinking that some of the sailors were trying to run away with what they had got, the man-of-war gave chase. This did not suit Frangois at all. It is one thing to fight a surprised and unsuspecting enemy, and quite another to combat a foe that greatly outweighs and outmeasures one's self when he is suspicious and advancing. Francois tried to get away. That he would have succeeded in escaping had his rigging stood, there is little doubt. As it was the mainmast gave way under the sudden strain of canvas, and the freebooters were at the mercy of their enemy. On being overhauled Frangois and his men — twenty-two of whom could fight — made a fierce resistance, but were at length overcome, but only yielded on favorable terms, which were that they were to be put, uninjured, on shore, on free land. It is estimated that the booty which they obtained and lost that day was worth about 100,000 pistoles, or about $400,000. In course of time, and no very long time. Port Royal, in Jamaica, became the chief rendezvous for the pirates. On the harbor where Kingston now stands there is a little town to remind one of the city that was engulfed by the great earthquake — a city said to be the wickedest in the world. Near Port Royal, upon the same harbor, is a landing by which one could go, and still I20 THE STORY OF AMERICA. can, by a short cut of half a dozen miles, to the capital city, Santiago de la Vega, now known as Spanish-Town. Near this landing there are large caverns and fissures of enormous depth, into which one may cast a stone and hear it bound and rebound, till the sound is lost in the distance. These caverns, tradition says, were the hiding places and silent accomplices in murder of the Buccaneers when they were hard pressed. Some are still supposed to contain vast treasure. Attracted by the great success of the Frenchmen, accessions from English, Portuguese, and Dutch mariners joined the ranks of those who preyed upon Spanish com- merce. Nearly always the buccaneers appear to have sailed under some semi- official letters of marque granted by the colonial governors. Bartholomew Portu- gues, a man of cat-like cunning, courage, and ferocity, was among the first to arrive. He had been a noted desperado in the old world before he ventured his fortunes in the new. With a small vessel, about thirty men, and four small cannon, he attacked a large Spaniard running from Maracaibo to Havana, and after being once repulsed succeeded in taking her. Her force of men was more than double his own, and her armament vastly larger, but she finally struck her flag to the pirate, who had lost ten or twelve men. Being bothered by head winds, Portugues sailed for a cape on the west end of Cuba, to repair and take in supplies. Just as he rounded the cape, he ran into the midst of three large Spanish vessels, by whom he was taken. Shortly afterward a storm arose and separated the ships, but the one which bore the desperado put into Campeche, where he was recognized by some {From the Portrait in '' De Americaensche Zee Roovers.") BRAZILIANO. I2i Spaniards who had suffered at his hands in other waters. He was condemned without trial, to be hung at daybreak, and for safe keeping was confined that night on the ship ; but having a friend and accomplice near, he procured a knife, murdered his guard and escaped to land, floating on earthen wine jars, for he could not swim. Hiding in the woods for three days without food other than that the forest afforded, the pirate saw the parties sent in search of him, and afterward traveled nearly forty leagues, living on what \vt could glean on the shore, and exposed to all the discomforts, which only those who have traveled in a tropical country can at all appreciate. On his journey he performed, it is said, a remarkable feat which illustrated his tenacity of purpose, and power of will. Coming to a considerable river and being unable to cross it by swimming, he shaped rude knives from some great nails which he found attached to a piece of wreckage on the shore, and with no other instrument, cut branches with which he constructed a sort of boat. When he reached Golfo Triste and found there others of his own kidney, he told them of his sufferings and adventures and begged a small boat and twenty men with which to return to Campeche. In the meantime the Spaniards, having supposed their foe dead, made a great rejoicing, which was summarily cut short by his unexpected return. In the dead of night he encountered the very vessel which had lately captured him, and from which he had escaped. She was lying in the mouth of the river. Softly the pirates steal across the starlit water, slipping from shadow to shadow along the shore, starting at the whistle of the duck or the hoarse cry of the flamingo, till they are in position to pounce upon their prey. Then a sudden dash, a few shots and frroans, and Portusjues is asrain the successful Buccaneer, the master of a rich prize. But he did not keep it long. He was wrecked on his way to Jamaica, and returned to that evil place as empty as when he started out, and although he engaged in several expeditions and made brilliant efforts to regain his advantages he never did so, but was always followed by the ill fortune he so richly deserved. Braziliano — a Dutchman, long resident in Brazil — had his share of notoriety. He won a rich prize or two and spent his money so recklessly that a fortune slipped through his fingers in three months. At this time Port Royal was so choicely wicked that only the quaint chronicler of three hundred years ago would dare to put in words the details of its debaucher)', and only in the old fashioned style of that early day would the account be readable. Literally, wine flowed in the streets like water, was thrown over the persons of passers by, who were ordered, at the pistol mouth, to partake. Murder, lust, and drunkenness, in forms indescribably beyond all precedent or comparison, were the order of the day. And this tremendous reputation for crime and 122 THE STORY OF AMERICA. debauchery, that is pre-eminent after the lapse of centuries, was won in less than half a generation. After a little the Spaniards, grown wary, were too well convoyed and armed to be easy conquests, and a new era was inaugurated. Lewis Scott was the first of the Buccaneers to attempt the adventures upon land which added so greatly to the fame of the freebooters. He attacked and almost destroyed the town of Campeche. His example incited the Dutchman, Mansvelt, who invaded Grenada, the island of St. Catherine, which he took, and which was for some time a pirate rendezvous, and Carthagena. Nor must we forget John Davis, whose fame is only second to that of Morgan himself Davis was a Jamaican by birth. His first great exploit was the sack of Nicaragua. He had in all forty men, of whom he left ten to guard the vessel, and with the remainder, in three boats, approached the city. Sending a captive Indian slave in advance to murder the sentry, the party landed and went from house to house, knocking and entering, putting the in- mates to death and looting all they could lay their hands on. They pillaged the churches and took prisoners for ransom, escaping when the hue and cry was raised, and the uproar in the suddenly awakened city taught them that it was time to retreat. The Spaniards followed them to the seashore, but too late to recover their townsmen or treasure, though not too late to receive a warm parting salute from the guns of the pirate. The value of booty acquired on this raid is said to have exceeded ^300,000 in gold, besides much plate and jewels — probably all told reaching ^75,000 more. We next learn of Davis as the commander of a fleet of half a dozen or more pirate vessels, and among other adventures is that of the capture of St. Augustine, Florida. LOLONOIS AND HIS ADVENTURES. The plans and exploits of the pirates continued to grow in magnitude. Their vessels became fleets and their fleets almost navies. One of the great leaders was Lolonois, who began in the early days of buccaneering on Tortuga, and rose to be a freebooter of great prominence and reputation. The Gov. ernor of Tortuga, Monsieur de la Place, was so struck with his qualities that he gave him his first ship. He so beset the Spaniards in her that it is said by his biographer that "the Spaniards, in his time, would rather die fighting than surrender, knowing they should have no mercy at his hands." He gained great wealth, but after awhile lost his ship on the coast of Cam- peche, where he and his crew, after escaping from the wreck, were beset and almost destroyed by the Spaniards. Lolonois himself being wounded, feigned death and was passed over by his foes. Afterwards escaping, by the aid of some negroes to whom he made great promises, the captain got back to Tor^ tuga, and after some trouble succeeded in getting another vessel and crew. LOLONOIS AND HIS ADVENTURES. 123 With these he put into the port of Cayos, and learning the channel from some captive fishermen, lay in wait for a vessel which the governor of Cuba sent to capture him. After nightfall, while the vessel lay at anchor, several boats approached her, and were hailed with the inquiry whether they had seen any pirates. The fishermen in the boat replied that they had not. But beside the fishermen were pirates, compelling them to answer so. Thereupon the boats drew nearer, and presently the Buccaneers assaulted, swarming up both sides of the great vessel and forced the Spaniards be- low hatches. From below decks they were ordered out one by one and deca- pitated at Lolonois' order. One man alone was saved, to bear a message back to the governor, to the effect that the pirate cap- tain would never spare any Spaniard thereafter, and hoped shortly to make an end of the governor himself While cruising in this ship, another vessel was taken near Maracaibo — a ship loaded with plate and merchandise. With this Lolonois returned to Tor- tuga to receive the con- gratulations and praise that usually await the suc- cessful. His next venture was with eight vessels, ten guns and nearly seven hundred men. His first prize was a ship of sixteen guns with fifty fighting men on board. She yielded after hot fighting for three hours, the flag-ship of the pirate fleet having engaged her singly without assistance from the others. She contained, besides a rich cargo, a treasure of over fifty thousand pistoles, of $200,000 in value. Other prizes soon put the fleet in a position to attempt more extensive operations. The Gulf of Venezuela or Bay of Maracaibo, as it was called, afforded a {From the Portrait in "Z>tf Americaensche Zee Roovers.") 124 THE STORY OF AMERICA. peculiarly tempting field for the freebooter, Lolonois. Its narrow channel, protected by the watch tower and fortress on the islands at its mouth, led to a lake near which the Spaniards had settled several towns and cities, whose wealth came to be quite disproportioned to their size or populations. Maracaibo, Gibralter, Merida — all had much to recommend them to the hungry pirate. One can hardly understand at first how so much silver and other valuable booty could have been gathered from the insignificant settlements of the Spanish Main ; but when we consider that from Peru and the Pacific settlements to the islands of the Caribbean there was almost constant communication, that the inhabitants of all were reaping the full advantage of being first in a rich treasure field, and that there were no banks, each man holding or hoarding his own gains and keeping his capital under his own roof the mystery grows less. To Maracaibo Lolonois shaped his fleet's course. Arriving at the entrance, he landed and took the fort or earthworks by storm, in a fight which lasted for several hours, then, sailing through the passage, brought his whole fleet into the lake and towards Maracaibo, which lay about six leagues beyond. Becalmed in sight of the town, the inhabitants saw the fleet and had time to flee with much of their treasure towards Gibralter. But on the following day the invaders landed and Lolonois sent a company of men into the woods to follow the fugitives, whose houses, with stores of food and drink, stood open. By the time the search party returned with such prisoners and booty as they could recover, the remain- der of the crews were not of the soberest, as might be imagined. Then began one of those revolting scenes of cruelty and crime, the details of which we follow shudderingly. Men were tortured in every conceivable way, their limbs broken, their bodies mutilated, their most sacred feelings outraged, to force them to a confession of hidden riches. Many a poor wretch died under the torments inflicted, protesting with his dying breath that he could not reveal what he had never known. For fifteen days Maracaibo was occupied, till like a lemon whose juice is exhausted and the rind flung away, it was abandoned and the murderers proceeded towards Gibralter, which was a smaller town than Maracaibo, but in communication with Merida, to which place the pirates advanced last, after having treated Gibralter as they had Maracaibo. The governor of Merida, who had been a soldier in Flanders and who made no doubt that he could hold his own in a fight with the freebooters, barricaded the roads, felled trees in the passages through the swamps and planted batteries where they would be of most avail. Over these obstructions Lolonois and his men were obliged to fight their way step by step, now taking the woods and anon the road, but swearing with curses loud and deep that the Spaniards would have to pay for their discoriifiture. It came near being a defeat for the buccaneers, as they were outnumbered and overmatched, and would probably have been totally destroyed, or at least have MORGAN, THE PRINCE OF BUCCANEERS. 125 escaped only with severe loss, but for a very old stratagem. Pretending to flee, they drew the enemy from one of his strongest batteries, and then turning, overpowered and defeated him. After Merida had been taken and new cruelties devised for its sufferinor inhabitants the captors rested there four weeks, until the increasing death-rate among them warned them to escape from a climate to which their excesses made them easy victims. Sending parties then into the woods for those whc had still preserved their lives there, the pirate captain demanded a ransom for the town, promising to burn it to the ground if 10,000 pistoles were not imme- diately forthcoming. Finally this sum was secured, but only after part of Merida had been consumed with fire. A similar ransom was e.xtorted from the already exhausted Maracaibo as the fleet passed out of the gulf and then the buccaneers sailed away, having 260,000 pistoles in ready money and an immense booty in merchandise. It would be impossible and not very instructive to follow Lolonois through his further adventures. He sacked many cities, killed and tortured numberless Spaniards, won and wasted an almost countless treasure, and at last died a miserable death of ling^ering- torture at the hands of some enrag^ed Indians. Following Lolonois came Henry Morgan, the last and greatest of the Buccaneers, whose crimes and adventures have made him, in the popular conception a sort of nautical demi-god ; only second in fame to Sir Francis Drake, and much greater in exploits. Without question, Morgan was a remarkable man. A Welsh boy, sold for his passage to the New World, after the fashion of those days, he was a naval commander who belonged to no navy, a conqueror to whom conquest and pillage were equal terms, a genius in murder and robbery. He commanded at times many ships and hundreds of pirates, yet was one of those instrumental in putting down piracy. He was utterly lawless, yet always claimed that he sailed under commission from the Governor of Jamaica. He was knighted for one of his most outrageous acts of piracy at a time when the Governor who had given him his commission was in prison for doing so. He was Acting-Governor of the very island where most of the fruits of his lawlessness had been exhibited, and where he was said to have wisely maintained the laws. He became a planter of wealth and repute, and finally languished in an English prison for the crimes so long condoned. Certainly, romance need not seek further than this for material. One of Morgan's earliest exploits was the taking of Puerto Bello, in Costa Rica. This he effected partly by stratagem, causing the sentry to be seized and approaching the strong walls of the city under cover of darkness. He also managed to surprise the inmates of some religious houses, priests and nuns, whom he afterwards put forward as a defense to his soldiers when scaling 126 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ladders were brought into use. But never was a more obstinate defense made and never was Henry Morgan more nearly defeated than that day at Puerto Bello. The Spaniards fought with fury, the Governor especially showing no mercy and finally refusing all quarter, dying with his sword in his hand, crj'ing that he would rather fall a soldier than live a coward. St. Catherine's Island was taken by Morgan, to be used as a pirate ren- dezvous, but the Governor of that place, while agreeing to capitulate before a blow had been struck, insisted on a sham battle to save his credit. To this Morgan good-naturedly acceded. Following the example of Lolonois and others, he attacked ill-fated Maracaibo and put the inhabitants to torture worse than that which they had before suffered. We will not go into details, having already supped on horrors. More interesting is the account of the dilemma in which the buccaneer found himself upon seeking to leave the Gulf of Vene- zuela with his ships loaded with booty and prisoners. He had eight little vessels. He found opposing him several war ships in the narrow passage already so well guarded by the guns of the fortress on the island. The Admiral of the Spanish fleet sent a letter to Morgan telling him that he might be allowed to escape on condition of leaving all his plunder behind, but that other- wise he would be treated without mercy. The Buccaneer might have said, as General Sheridan is reported to have said on a much later occasion, "I am in a bottle and the enemy have the neck of it." However, he made a bold front and resolved to perish in fighting his way out rather than abandon his ill-gotten gains. By means of a fire ship, cunningly manned and armed with dummies, he managed to deceive and destroy the largest of the Spanish ships and then defeated the others. This accomplished, he waited for a favorable opportunity to pass the fort, the guns of which still pointed too ominously across the e.xit. The question was how to turn those guns the other way. Finally he hit upon a scheme. Sending boat after boat to the shore filled with men and return- ing apparently empty to the ships, but in reality with their crews lying covered in the bottoms, he deceived the Spaniards into believing that he meditated a night attack on the fort from the landward side. In consequence all the great guns were turned that way, in expectation. Then the crafty captain stood out to sea, firing a salute of bullets, to which the disgusted garrison did not attempt to reply. When Morgan had reduced Puerto Bello he had a passage of arms with the Governor of Panama, who had come vainly to the relief of that place. A little bit of theatrical civility or courtesy took place at the time, the Governor sendine a message to Morgan, to know bv what arms he had succeeded in overcoming so strong a fortress ; and the captain politely returning a pistol and bullets with a message to the effect that he would come for them in a year. raT;reiI»!l|lll1inlipP!ll(i)lr yigjiH 128 THE STORY OF AMERICA. After awhile Morgan went for that pistol. This was in 1670. Sending some vessels in advance, which took the town of Chagres, the leader presently came and led them across the Isthmus, where they met with almost unbearable hardships on the march. It was the month of August. A little army of twelve hundred men, with artillery and ammunition, pushed on foot across a country where men have since ridden and thought it hardship. They had no food ; the fatigue was great ; hostile Indians added their unwelcome addresses to the pangs of starvation ; yet the intrepid pirates kept on as though they expected in some way to be miracu- lously saved from the death that in different disguises peered at them from the ambushes along the way. One would suppose that their ardor would have been tamed ; but on the contrary, when they came in sight of Panama, these irrepressi- ble freebooters cheered and threw up their hats as though they had been out for a holiday. This was on the ninth or tenth day of the march. Almost within sight of the city they found food, which they devoured like wild beasts. They had one or two skirmishes, and at last were rejoiced to see a company of the Spaniards coming to meet them. These men, who were mounted, came near enough to call names and shout unpleasant things to them, but soon retired and left the way clear to the city. But Morgan, a schemer himself feared an ambuscade. He made a detour to avoid the batteries which he judged rightly, the enemy had put in the way. Then the Spaniards left BLACKBEARD, THE PIRATE. KIDD AND BLACKBEARD. I2g these works and came to meet him. There were four regiments of foot, a body of horse and a large number of wild bulls that were driven by Indians. There was somethintr humorous in the idea of sending cattle against buccaneers ; but there was ^k DIGGING FOR KIDD S TREASURES. very little military judgment in it, as the sequel showed. The bulls ran away. The Spanish forces, nearly if not quite three thousand strong, were vanquished after a sanguinary battle, and the I30 THE STORY OF AMERICA. city of Panama was taken and looted, after which Captain Morgan put it to the torch. Two churches, eig^ht monasteries, two hundred warehouses, and a grreat number of residences were the prizes which this richest of American cities offered. They were all utterly stripped, and the usual tortures resorted to in order to extort confessions concerning the treasure which might possibly be hidden. People were burned alive, eyes dug out, ears and noses cut off, arms dislocated, and all imagined or unheard-of barbarities practiced. Then the greatest of all pirates and freebooters went away with a hundred and seventy beasts laden with precious metals and jewels and merchandise of value, besides six hundred prisoners. He made, when he reached the coast, a false division of spoils among his men, and escaping with the lion's share abjured piracy and became, as has been before said, a knight of Charles the Second's creation, and an exemplary planter and Governor of the island of Jamaica ! We have dwelt long-, — too long-, — with the Buccaneers. There were other pirates of a later time whose names are not less familiar, and one at least of the number whose fame is world wide. I mean Captain Kidd, who stood upon a sort of middle ground between the buccaneers and the marooners proper. Teach, or Blackbeard, made his headquarters among the Bahama Islands and was a past-master of claptrap. He created theatrical effects with burned brim- stone and paint, and not only tortured others but himself as well, giving us every reason to believe him an insane man. That he took and buried treasure at different points is certain, and probably the half of his villanies have never been told. But of Blackbeard and Avery and Roberts we can say very little ; they were roaring, ranting, raving pirates, per sc. Their stories lack the tiavor of courage and dash of romance that make us willing to endure the recital of the crimes of Morgan, Lolonois or the rest of the Buccaneers. But we may not leave Kidd so. Along every mile of Atlantic coast in the United States his money has been dreamed about and often searched for. The. story of how he " Murdered William More And left him in his gore As he sailed," is part of our nursery education. There were pirates troubling the shipping of the very good Dutch-English town of New York long ago, and some very good and very rich merchants obtained a commission from Lord Bellamont for William Kidd to go out and look for pirates, which he did, and found one. It was a little hard on the respectable merchants aforementioned, that they should have been suspected by an envious world of sharing in the profits of the piratical voyages. More was a gunner, or gunner's mate, whom Captain Kidd THE MAROONERS. 131 put to death ; and it is one of the curious examples of the working of law that Kidd after his capture would have escaped under a general amnesty to pirates had he not been held on the charge of murder. He enjoyed the unenviable dis- tinction of being the one of very few pirates who have been hung. But, nevertheless, though the fame of Kidd and Morgan is so pre-eminent, there are others only second to them in renown — others whose names and deeds have also been chronicled by Captain Johnson, the famous historian of scoundreldom. Captain Bartholomew Roberts, for instance, if he may not have had the fortune to be so famous as the two above-mentioned worthies, yet, in his marvelous escapes and deeds of daring, he well deserves to stand upon the same pedestal of renown. And Captain Avery, though his his- tory is, perhaps, more apocryphal in its nature, nevertheless there is sufficient stamina of trust in the account of his exploits to grant him also a place with his more famous brothers, for the four togfether — Blackbeard, Kidd, Roberts, and Avery — form a galaxy the like of which is indeed hard to match in its own peculiar brilliancy. Through circumstances the hunter name of buccaneers was given to the seventeenth century pirates and freebooters ; the term "marooners" was bestowed upon those who followed the same trade in the century succeeding. The name has in itself a terrible significance. The dictionary tells us that to maroon is to put ashore as upon a desert island, and It was from this that the title was derived. These later pirates, the marooners, not being under the protection of the West Indian Governors, and having no such harbor for retreat as that, for instance, of Port Royal, were compelled to adopt some means for the disposal of prisoners captured with their prizes other than taking them into a friendly port. CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS. 132 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Occasionally such unhappy captives were set adrift in the ship's boats — with or without provisions, as the case might be. A method of disposing of them, maybe more convenient, certainly more often used, was to set them ashore upon some desert coast or uninhabited island, with a supply of water perhaps, and perhaps a gun, a pinch of powder, and a few bullets — there to meet their fate, either in the slim chance of a passing vessel or more probably in death. Nor was marooning the fate alone of the wretched captives of their piracy ; sometimes it was resorted to as a punishment among themselves. Many a mutinous pirate sailor and not a few pirate captains have been left to the horrors of such a fate, either to die under the shriveling glare of the tropical sun upon some naked sand-spit or to consume in the burning of a tropical fever amid the rank wilderness of mangroves upon some desert coast. Hence the name marooners. The Tudor sea-captains were little else than legalized pirates, and in them we may see that first small step that leads so quickly into the smooth down- ward path. The buccaneers, in their semi-legalized piracy, succeeded them as effect follows cause. Then, as the ultimate result, followed the marooners — fierce, bloody, rapacious, human wild beasts, lusting for blood and plunder, godless, lawless, the enemy of all men but their own wicked kind. Is there not a profitable lesson to be learned in the history of such a human extreme of evil — all the more wicked from being- the rebound from civilization ? Even to this day imaginative fishermen and oystermen on Connecticut and Long Island shores occasionally see a phantom ship sailing, with all sail set, across some neck of land ; and more than one will tell how he started to dig for a treasure, and was driven away by having the pirate vessel bear down upon him, which goes to show that once in awhile fiction is stranger than fact. CHAPTER VII. CUTTING LOOSE RROVt EUROPE. ma^jTO ONE SIXTH OFA SPANISH MUlU HalUfr-orihcVkliW Ihtreof Cn GoldorSilver /a ^c given in exchange at Treasury o£ VlRGITflA, Fursuavt fo ACT oj CK^ /^^ RGINIA CUR KETsrc y^ THE causes which made possible the assertion of American National Inde- pendence must be sought, not merely in the oppres- sive legislation w h i c h directly harried the colon- ists into revolt, but, back of that, in the political institutions they had evolved for themselves ; in the self-dependence made necessary by the distance and indifference of the mother country' ; in the inherited instinct for self-government common to all of the English race ; in their ardor for commercial and territorial expansion, and in the occasional and temporary unity of action to which they were from time to time forced for mutual defense against a common enemy. When the struggle which ended in the Revolution began, the thirteen colonies were, as regards internal affairs, to all ends and purposes representative democracies. All of them elected legislatures, which made laws, laid taxes, levied troops, provided for grants, and formed a real government of the people by the people. Two of the colonies, Connecticut and Rhode Island, held charters which allowed them to choose their own Governors r,o well. So com- plete were these tv.'o charter-grants that when the Union was formed no change was needed in the political structure of the two States ; and, in fact, no change was made for many years. Massachusetts originally held an equally liberal charter, but was deprived of it by an arbitrary act of the Crown, as we shall see. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland were still proprietary^ colonies, but through self-interest the nominal proprietors granted a large measure of self-government ^Z2, 134 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The other colonies had elective legislatures, but in each the Royal Governor had an absolute veto power over legislation. In all the bond to the English Crown was the charter or royal grant. Naturally, the colonists construed these grants very strictly, confining the power of the Governor to the closest legal construction of the charter, and assuming for themselves every power not specifically withheld. Above all, the colonists well understood the immense advantage that their power to grant or withhold supplies of money gave them. In reality, government in local matters practically rested with the Assemblies. The Royal Governors might, and did, fume and fret, complain to the English Government, and denounce their subjects as turbulent and obstinate, but they were met by passive resistance and, in more than one case, by actual force. Looking more closely into the political structure of the colonies, we find in New England, in full swing, the purest democracy the world has ever known, in the town-meeting system. In these town meetings every citizen had his right to speak and his vote, and the meeting assumed the fullest authority over all local matters, forming, also, the unit for legislative representation. In the Southern colonies the county took the place of the New England town as the political unit, but here, also, the democratic idea had taken strong hold. Massachusetts and Virginia were by far the most advanced examples of these two types of local government. As might naturally be expected, therefore, we find them always in the lead in resenting arbitrary actions of the Royal Governors and of the Crown. They were not only the largest and oldest of the colonies, but their peoples were far the most hornogeneous. In each the population was almost wholly English, and in large part was made up of the third and fourth generations of the original settlers. Differing as widely as possible in origin — the one people coming mainly from the Roundheads, the other largely from the Cavaliers ; differing widely, also, in social and religious matters and in habits — the one being austere and simple in life, the other almost aristocratic ; — yet each had unified, had become distinctly American, and was free from close dependence on the mother country. Massachusetts and Virginia had also in common the bitter recollection of actual conflict with the royal authority. In Virginia Bacon's Rebellion had left the seeds of discontent. It originated in the wish of the Virginia colonists to put down Indian disturbances without waiting for the tardy action of the Governor. Nathaniel Bacon boldly led his neighbors to an attack on these Indians without due authority from Governor Berkeley,''' who had promised him a commission, but had failed in this and other promises of assistance to the distressed colonists. Berkeley forthwith proclaimed Bacon a rebel, and war on a small scale ensued and continued until the latter's sudden death. Massa- * See illustration on page 77. CUTTING LOOSE FROM EUROPE. 135 chusetts had a still more irritating memory in the Andros tyranny and the loss of her charter. When Charles the Second mounted the throne his re- sentment at the Puritan sympathies of New England led him to lend a willing ear to various complaints against the province ; his commissioners were re- fused recognition by the General Court of the colony, which " pleaded his Majesty's charter ;" the controversy became so intense that it is recorded that in 1 67 1 the colony was "almost on the brink of renouncing its dependence on the Crown ;" finally in 1684 the charter was declared forfeited by the Eng- lish Court of Chancery, and Sir Edmund Andros was sent out as "President of New England," a new and quite unconstitutional office. Connecticut, as every school-boy knows, saved her charter by hiding it in the historic oak tree ; Massachusetts was less fortunate, and something very like anarchy followed until the news came of the be^innin^r of the reig-n of William and Mary, when Sir Edmund was seized and thrown into prison, and an as- sembly of representatives at Boston provisionally resumed the old charter. In the end the colony was forced to accept a new charter by which a Royal Governor was granted a veto power. But Massachusetts never forgot her old and more perfect form of liberty, and never was as well disposed as before to the Crown. The colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Carolinas were in population comparatively mixed, were less unified ; and in them, therefore, we find, when the Revolution begins, a strong Tory element, which made their action uncertain and often reluctant. Generally speaking, the Royal Governors of the colonies were not in sympathy with the peoples ; they were usually arrogant, sometimes mere adventurers, often weak and vacil- lating. Their quarrels with the Assemblies usually turned on grants of money. And here, even in early times, we find everywhere cropping up the principle which later was voiced in the watchword of the Revolution, " No taxation with- out representation." It has been said that this watchword was illogical ; that in point of fact not all people in England who were taxed were represented in Parliament, and that, on the other hand, the American colonies had no real wish for representation in Parliament. Both statements are true, but the representa- tion demanded by the Americans was that which they already had — that of their own legislatures. The idea was succinctly expressed as far back as 1728, when the Massachusetts General Court refused to grant a fi.xed salary for Gov- ernor Burnet "because it is the undoubted right of all Englishmen, by Magna Charta, to raise and dispose of money for the public service, of their own free accord without compulsion." And the converse of it was seen in Pennsylvania when, the Governor having refused his assent to a bill containing a scheme of taxation, the Assembly demanded his assent as a right. The doctrine, in short, was simply that money raised from the people should be expended by the 136 THE STORY OF AMERICA. people, that the Assemblies were the legal representatives of the people, and tliat they, and they only, could know what taxes the people could bear and how the sums thus raised could be expended to public advantage. The expression of this theory varied continually up to the Declaration of Independence, but its substance was consistently maintained. From the position that parliament had no riorht to interfere in internal taxation the colonies in the end advanced to the o position that their allegiance was to the Crown ; that the parliament was in no sense an Imperial Parliament ; that the Crown stood for English rule over all British dominions ; but that while the laws of England were to be enacted by the English parliament, the laws of the American colonies were to be formulated by their own representatives in legislatures assembled. It was only as a last resort and when driven to extremity that the colonies threw off that loyal alle- giance to the Crown which they had held to be quite consistent with the main- tenance of this basic principle of their liberties. Let us look now for a moment at the imperfect and temporary union entered into from time to time by the colonists for mutual defense, and which in a way foreshadowed the greater and permanent union of the future. Along the coast the English power had become continuous ; the Dutch power at New Amsterdam had been swept away ; the Spaniards had been pushed back to the South ; the Indians and the French were held at bay on the West and North. In King Philip's War the New England colonies had combined to raise two thousand troops and had conquered by concerted action. In the early French and Indian wars military operations had also been carried on in concert by the colonies with varying successes. Thus, the New England colonies and New York had captured Port Royal in 1690, and had even attempted an attack on Quebec, and in 1 709 and 1 7 1 2 expeditions were planned against Canada and Acadia, in which the colonies united. Both of these latter comparative failures led, by the way, to the issue of paper money to cancel the heavy debts incurred. When Great Britain was at war with Spain the Southern colonies — Georgia, Carolina and Virginia — had also united in an unsuccessful expedition led by Oglethorpe against Florida. In King George's War the colonies planned and carried out almost without help from England the expedition by which the French stronghold Louisburg was seized. Encouraged by this notable triumph of their four thousand troops, they projected the conquest of Canada — an under- taking so vast that it is not surprising that it was soon abandoned. But the most serious emergency arose when France and England were for a short time at peace, after the treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle (1748). The French plan of extension of territory in America was one of unbounded ambition and of unity of purpose. From New Orleans to Quebec the French had gradually erected a line of fortified posts along the course of the explorations of La Salle, joliet, Marquet and D'Iberville. Following their theory that the discoverers of SIl ;NING the declaration of AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 138 THE STORY OF AMERICA. a river were entitled to all the territory drained by it, they were occupying the Mississippi valley and were moving eastward toward the Alleghanies, thus draw- ing close round the English territory and threatening to invade it. Fortunately their line of outposts from Quebec to New Orleans was only as strong as its weakest part ; otherwise English supremacy on the Continent had been over- thrown. With their Indian allies the French were now face to face with the pioneers of the colonies who were pressing westward, and who on their side were strengthened by the Indian alliance of the Six Nations. The Ohio Com- pany had been formed for the purpose of colonizing the valley of the Ohio River and to check the progress of the French eastward. It was believed that the territory of the company was infringed upon by French settlements, and George Washington, then a young surveyor, was sent by Governor Dinwiddle, of Virginia, to examine the actual condition of affairs on the frontier. The wily French crave him fair words but no satisfaction. In this, Washington's first ser- vice to the country, he showed on a small scale the calmness, firmness and cour- age that made him a few years later the hope and support of a nation. His report on the frontier situation was so serious that the colonists determined on immediate war and Virginia called the other provinces to her aid. How to raise men and money was a serious question. It was to solve the difficulty of conducting the campaign that Benjamin Franklin proposed, at a meeting of commissioners of the several colonies held at Albany, a plan of confederation, commonly called the Albany Plan. It provided for a form of federal govern- ment which should not interfere with the internal affairs of any colony but should have supreme power in matters of mutual defense and in whatever concerned the colonies as a body. The Albany Plan included a President or Governor- General who should be appointed and paid by the King, and a Grand Council to be made up of delegates elected once in three years by the colonial legislatures. This scheme found favor neither with the Crown nor with the colonial assem- blies ; each party considered that too much power was given the other, and the colonies also objected to accepting taxes imposed upon them by a body in a sense foreign to each though composed of delegates from all. Yet the project is of immense interest and significance, historically, because it shows in what way men's minds were turning and how the leaven of National unity was work- ing almost without the knowledge of the people themselves. The war that ensued was at first carried on in America alone, though aftet two years it became a part of the great Seven Years War between France and England (1755-63). At the outset the key of the territorial struggle lay at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, near where Pitts- burgh now stands. Here Washington was besieged in Fort Necessity and was compelled to capitulate by overwhelming forces, but under honorable con- ditions. The French still held Fort Du Ouesne, and against this Braddock's CUTTING LOOSE FROM EUROPE. 139 unfortunate expedition was directed. Now at last the colonists were dispos- sessed of their old idea of the invincibility of British troops. The regulars, disregarding the advice of the Americans, who understood Indian and French warfare, fell into an ambuscade and were all but cut to pieces. The lesson must have been a startling one to the untrained, half-armed provincial troops. As one writer has said, "The provincial who had stood his ground, firing from behind trees and stumps, while the regulars ran past him in headlong retreat, came home with a sense of his own innate superiority which was sure to bring its results." Thus and in many other ways throjghout the war the Americans learned their own possibilities as soldiers on their own ground. The details of the war need not here be reviewed. With the great battle on the Plains of Abraham and the death of the heroic Wolfe and the not less intrepid Mont- calm, French dominion in the new world perished forever. It is well known that the mortification of the French statesmen was allayed by the astute reflection that the now undisputed power of Great Britain was likely to be but temporary. Said the Duke de Choiseul, " Well, so we are gone ; it will be England's turn next." He saw — and other French statesmen pre- dicted the same thing — that the very fact that no external enemies threatened the provinces would bring them face to face with the mother country for the final struggle. Indeed, the treaty of Paris was not even signed when the mutterings of the storm were heard. Now, thought England, was the time to enforce her dis- regarded authority ; now, thought the colonies, was the time to insist on their rights of expansion and of self-government. England's whole theory of the relation of colonies was radically wrong, though she held it in common with other great Powers. This theory was that the colony was merely a commercial dependency — a place where the mother country could extend its trade ; while by no means was the colony to be allowed to compete in trade at home or in the world's markets. To this end had been enacted years before the so-called Navi- gation Laws. By these Americans were forbidden to export their products to other countries than England, to buy the products of other countries except from English traders, to manufacture goods which could compete in the colonies with English importations (for instance, there was even a law against the making of hats), or to ship goods from colony to colony except in British MARTELI.O TOWER ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, WHERE WOLFE WAS KILLED. I40 THE STORY OF AMERICA. vessels ; while a high protective tariff prevented the colonists fiom selling grain and other raw products to England. A peculiarly ingenious and an- noying repressive measure was that known as the Molasses Act, aimed to stop that extensive trade which consisted in taking dried fish to the French West Indies, receiving molasses in return, bringing it to New England, there turn- ing it into rum, and finally, taking the rum to Africa, where it was often traded for slaves, who in turn were usually sold again in the West Indies. The Mo- lasses Act insisted that the Yankee traders should carry their fish only to the British West Indies ; and as these islands did not wish the fish there was an end, theoretically, to a very profitable if not altogether moral system. In point of fact, all these laws had been constantly disregarded ; smuggling and surreptitious trading were universal. But now it was suddenly attempted to enforce them, and that by the obnoxious Writs of Assistance — search warrants made out in blank, so that they could be filled out and used by any officer, against any person, at any time. This was quite contrary to the spirit of the English law, and met with such a sturdy resistance that, though the courts did not dare to declare the writs illegal, the practice was abandoned. James Otis, in particular, thundered against the Writs of Assistance (rather than to defend which he had thrown up his office as King's Prosecutor) in a speech at the utterance of which John Adams declared "the child. Independence, was born." Almost simultaneously with this excitement in Boston, Patrick Henry was delivering his maiden speech in Virginia against the royal veto of a bill dimin- ishing the salaries of the clergy. He denounced any interference with Virginia's law-making power, and boldly proclaimed that when a monarch so acted he " from being the father of his people degenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all rights to obedience." While yet the bickering about the old laws continued, a quite novel form of taxation was rushed through Parliament, "with less opposition than a turnpike bill." The Stamp Act was indeed a firebrand such as its originators little suspected. Great Britain had been at great expense during the recent wars, and naturally thought that the Colonies should bear their share of the cost. On their side, the Colonies maintained that they had done all that with their feeble means was possible. George III had lately (1760) mounted the throne. He was narrow-minded, obstinate, a thorough believer in kingly authority ; and, as he could not strive for personal supremacy by the means which proved so fatal to Charles I, he adopted the methods of wholesale political bribery, of continual intrigue, and of relentless partisan enmity to those who opposed him. It was because these opponents of his, or some of them, sympa- thized with America that he grew fixed in his determination to exact obedience. He hated the liberty-loving Colonists chiefly because he hated the New Whigs in Eno-land. His minister, Grenville, thought to please his royal master, and at 142 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the same time not to offend beyond endurance the Americans, by his invention of the Stamp Act. This ordered that in the Colonies all contracts, legal papers, wills, real-estate transfers, as well as newspapers, should be printed on stamped paper, or on paper to which stamps had been affixed. Coincident with it was passed a law ordering the colonial assemblies to support in various ways the royal troops which should be sent to them. So that this whole scheme proposed, first, to tax the Colonies illegally (as they held), then to send soldiers among OLD BUILDING AT BOSTON WHERE THE TEA-PLOT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN. HATCHED. them to enforce the tax, and, finally, to compel them to pay for the support of these very soldiers. No wonder that a storm of indignation raged from Maine to Georgia. Grenville himself was amazed at the result. In Massachusetts Samuel Adams declared that this was violating the liberty of self-government, to which subjects in America were entitled to the same extent as subjects in Britain. Patrick Henry, in Virginia, presented resolutions declaring that, "The taxation of the people by themselves or by persons chosen by themselves to CUTTING LOOSE FROM EUROPE. 143 represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom," and that the General Assembly of Virginia, therefore, had the sole and exclusive right and power to lay taxes upon the inhabitants of the Colony. A congress of delegates from nine of the Colonies soon met at New York and set forth the same principle of Colonial rights in a petition to the Crown. No attempt was made by this Stamp Act Congress to do more than declare the feelings of the united Colonies. But it was a distinct advance in the direction of union. Meanwhile, the people at large showed a disposition to take the matter in their own hands, without regard to Parliament or Congress, or lawyers, or finespun theories of constitu- tional right. When the stamps arrived they were burned or thrown into the sea ; stamp officers were compelled to resign their offices ; mobs in a few cases injured the property of obnoxious persons; the "Sons of Liberty" formed themselves into clubs and warned all to " touch not the unclean thing " under penalty of mob law. When the time came for the Stamp Act to go into operation there were no stamp officers to enforce it. One of them has left it on record that when he rode into Hartford to deposit his resignation, with a thousand armed farmers at his heels, he felt "like Death on the pale horse with all hell following him." No doubt there were some acts of mob law at this time which a strict sense of justice could not approve, but, as Macaulay has said, "the cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty;" and so, in the end, it proved in this case. On May i6th, 1766, a Boston paper published what we should call to-day an "extra," in which, under the heading "Glorious News," it reported the arrival of a vessel belonging to John Hancock, with news of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Grenville's Ministry had fallen, and with it fell his measure. Rejoicings in London were, the paper stated, general. Ships in the river had displayed all their colors, and illuminations and bonfires were going on all over the city. This shows how widespread at that time was the English sympathy for Ameri- cans ; even during the war it was not wholly suppressed. The "extra" from which we have quoted ends its account by saying, "It is impossible to express the joy the town is now in, on receiving the above great, glorious, and import- ant news. The bells in all the churches were immediately set a ringing, and we hear the day for a general rejoicing will be the beginning of next week." But even this change of front on the part of Parliament was accompanied by a gratuitous declaration to the effect that it had the power " to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever." Lord Rockingham's Ministry, which had repealed the futile and fruitless Stamp Act, lasted but a year ; it was followed by that of which the Duke of Grafton was nominally the head, but in which the unscrupulous and audacious Lord Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the real leader. He 144 THE STORY OF AMERICA. at once proposed and carried a law imposing on the American Colonies import taxes on glass, paper, painters' colors, lead and tea. To such laws as this, he cunningly argued, the Colonies had often before submitted. In a way they sub- mitted to this also ; that is to say, they did not at first resist its constitutionality, but retorted by entering into "non-importation" agreements, by which they bound themselves as individuals not to purchase the taxed articles. Merchants who persisted in selling the obnoxious goods were boycotted, as we call it now, and found placards posted up in which it was demanded that — to quote one of these notices literally — " the Sons and Daughcers of Liberty would not buy any one thing of him, for in so doing they will bring Disgrace upon themselves and their Posterity, for ever d^nd ever, Amen." It was not denied that it was the intention to use the sums raised by these taxes to pay the salaries of the royal governors and of the colonial judges, and to maintain British troops in the colonies. This was emphatically subversive of free government. New York refused to make provision for troops quartered upon it, and only consented tardily and imperfectly when its legislature was, as a penalty, suspended by the Crown. Massachusetts threw all kinds of technical legal obstructions in the way of providing for the two British regiments which arrived at Boston. Pro- tests against the Townshend Act made in an orderly meeting in Boston were denounced in Great Britain as treasonable, and it was proposed that colonists guilty of such offenses should be brought to England and there tried for trea- son. If anything were needed to inflame still further the colonists' indignation it was this. Massachusetts sent out a circular letter to other colonies asking them to unite in petitions and remonstrances to the king ; this in turn was treated as also treasonable ; a disturbance caused by the seizure of a sloop be- longing to John Hancock for customs' offenses was magnified into a riot ; the dreaded act providing for the trial of accused colonists in England was passed ; in every way the situation was becoming critical. The presence of the British troops in Boston was irritating in the extreme to the masses of the citizens ; quarreHng between soldiers and citizens of the rougher class was constantly going on, and finally in March, 1770, a street brawl ended in the so-called Boston Massacre, when the troops, not without very great provocation, fired upon the citizens, killing five and wounding six. From that day the hearts of the common people were ready for armed resistance at any minute. Looking back on the " massacre " from the cool standpoint of history, it must be admitted that it was not quite the merciless and causeless act of brutality which it seemed then to the inflamed minds of the populace, but its influence at the time was enormous. The year of the Boston Massacre saw also the accession of the subservient Lord North as the Prime Minister and tool of George III. With him began a new chapter in the attempt to enforce taxation without representation. The CUTTING LOOSE FROM EUROPE. 145 non-importation pledges were beginning to fall into disuse, and Lord North was led to hope that by removing all the taxes except that on tea the colonists would yield the point of principle involved. George III himself had said, " I am clear there must always be one tax to keep up the right," and it was thought that the threepence per pound would be regarded as a trifle not worth fighting for. But the colonists were not fighting for money but for a principle ; and in 1772 it was found that the tea tax was yielding only $400 a year, while it was costing over a million of dollars to collect it. A last cunning trick was attempted by Lord North ; he gave the East India Company a rebate on teas taken to America, thus making it possible for the colonists to buy the tea with the threepenny tax still on it and yet pay less than before the tax was laid. It is to the honor of our forefathers that the subterfuge was instantly detected and the new proposal resented as the deepest insult. Cargoes of tea were sent to Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In the first city the tea was stored in damp cellars and purposely spoiled ; New York and Philadelphia refused to allow the tea to be landed ; Boston held her famous tea party ; and in still other ports the tea was burned. The destruction of the tea in Boston harbor was not one of those mob acts (like the brawl which led to the Boston Massacre, or the burning of the revenue schooner " Gaspe " in Rhode Island) which are the inevitable but regretable accompaniments of a great popular movement ; it was rather a deliberate act, agreed on by the wisest leaders and carried out or sanctioned by the people at large. Thousands of sober citizens stood upon the shore and watched the party, disguised as Indians, who hurled the hated tea overboard ; so eminent a man as Samuel Adams led the party, and to this day no American has felt otherwise than proud of the significant and patriotic deed. Events now hurried rapidly one upon another. The British Parliament's reply to the Boston Tea Party was the Boston Port Bill, which absolutely forbade any trade in or out of the port. Simultaneously the charter of Massachusetts was changed so as to give the Crown almost unlimited power and to abolish town meetings, while it was made legal to quarter troops in Boston itself and General Gage, the commander-in-chief of the British troops in the colonies, was made Governor of Massachusetts. This attack upon one of the colonies was regarded as a challenge to all. The system of correspondence committees, started locally in Massachusetts and extended, at Virginia's suggestion, between the colonies, for counsel and mutual support, was made the means of calling together at Philadelphia the first Continental Congress (September 5th, 1774). In this all the colonies but Georgia were represented, and among the delegates were George Washington and Patrick Henry, of Virginia ; John and Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts ; John Jay, of New York, and many others famous in our historical annals. This first really National Congress was moderate but firm 146 THE STORY OF AMERICA. in its action. It drew up a declaration of rights, wliich was a splendid recital of the wrongs complained of, prepared an address to the King, and adopted what was called the American Association, an agreement to prevent all importation from and exportation to Great Britain until justice was done ; it ad- journed with the expressed re- solve to meet again, if necessary, the following year. England now considered the colonies as in open rebellion, and indeed they were, at least in arms ; Massachusetts alone had rURSUIT OF I'Al'I, REVl'KE, THE .SDH'T. twenty thousand "minute men" ready to respond to the first call. And that call soon came. General Gage sent troops to the number of eight hundred to Concord, to destroy military stores there accumulated and to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, to be sent for trial as traitors to CUTTING LOOSE FROM EUROPE. 147 England. The events of that expedition are familiar to us all. Boston was at that time a city of 17,000 inhabitants, guarded by 3000 British regulars. The inhabitants had patiently waited for the troops to strike the first blow, until the latter attributed their inaction to cowardice. But this expedition to arrest the American leaders would bring -matters to the long-waited-for crisis. On that night (April 18) Paul Revere, in company with Davies and Prescott, started with a message from Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the leading spirits in Boston. The message was flashed by a lantern across the Charles river ; it was to tell the farmers and townsfolk that the hour for resistance was come. A handful of colonists collected on the Lexington Green were fired upon by the British, and eight or ten were killed ; the troops pressed on to Concord and seized the stores ; but their retreat to Lexington was one lonof fight with the " embattled farmers " posted behind stone walls and trees and hidden in houses. When, reaching- Lexington, the British were reinforced from Boston, they were so exhausted that a British writer says they laid down on the ground in the hollow square made by the fresh troops, " with their tongues hang- ing out of their mouths like those of dogs after a chase." The British had lost two hundred and seventy-three men ; the Americans one hundred and three. Paul Revere' s midnight ride had fulfilled its mission. The " shot heard round the world " had been fired. The war for independence had begun. MEETING OF WASHINGTON AND ROCHAMBEAU. CHAPTER VIII. THE \V-A.R. KOR INDEPENDENCE. WITTY foreigner, watching the course of the American Revo- lution, wrote to Benjamin Franklin that Great Britain was undertaking the task "of catching two millions of people in a boundless desert with fifty thousand men." This was a crude and inaccurate way of putting it, but it expresses succinctly the magnitude and difficulty of the campaign that lay before the British generals. They had to contend with an illusive enemy in his own country, constantly strengthened by uprisings of the people in each vicinity where the war was at the minute going on ; they were unable to move far from their bases of supplies, which were necessarily the great seaport towns they might capture ; they were hampered by lack of real heartiness in the English people for the struggle ; and they were self- deceived as to the assistance they might hope for from Tory sympathizers in this country. When Parliament rather reluctantly authorized the raising of twenty-five thousand men for the war, Great Britain was still forced to obtain most of this number by subsidizing German mercenaries from the small princi- palities, who were indiscriminately called Hessians by the colonists, and the employment of whom did much to still further provoke bitterness of feeling. At one time in the Revolution Great Britain had over three hundred thousand men in arms, the world over, but of this number not more than one-tenth could be sent to America. But the greatest obstacle to British success lay in the fact that the English leaders, military and civil, constantly underrated the courage, endurance, and earnestness of their opponents. That raw militia could stand their ground against regulars was a hard lesson for the British to learn ; that men from civil life could show such aptitude for strategy as did Washington, Schuyler, and Greene, was a revelation to the professional military men the significance of which they grasped only when It was too late. Above all, the one thing that made the colonists the victors was the indom- itable energy, self-renunciation, and strategic ability of George Washington. We are so accustomed to think of Washington's moral qualities, that It is only 149 ISO THE STORY OF AMERICA. Congress, danger of when we come close to the history of the war that we fully recognize how great was his military genius — a genius which justly entitles him to rank with the few truly great soldiers of his- tory, such as Alexander, Caisar, Napoleon, and Von Moltke. Almost alone among the American gen- erals of the Revolution, he was always willing to subor- dinate his own personal glory to the final success of his deep laid and com- prehensive plans. Again and again he risked his standing with and ran the being superseded by one or another jealous general of lower rank, rather than yield in a particle his de- liberate scheme of cam- paign. Others received the popular honors for bril- liant single movements while he waited and plan- ned for the final result. What the main lines of his strategy were we shall en- deavor to make clear in the following sketch : — When the news of the running fight from Con- cord to Lexington spread through the country, the militia hurried from every direction toward Boston. Israel Putnam literally left his plough in the field ; John Stark, with his sturdy New Hampshire volunteers, reached the spot in three days ; Nathaniel Greene headed fifteen hundred men from Rhode Island ; Benedict Arnold led a band WASHINGTON'S RECEPTION AT TRENTON. 152 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of patriots from Connecticut ; the more distant colonies showed equal eager- ness to aid in the defense of American liberties. Congress displayed deep wisdom in appointing George Washington Commander in Chief, not only because of his personal ability and the trust all men had in him, but because it was politically an astute measure to choose the leader from some other State than Massachusetts. But before Washington could reach the Con- tinental forces, as they soon began to be called, the battle of Bunker Hill had been fought. And before that, even, Ethan Allen, with his Green Moun- tain Boys, had seized Fort Ticonderoga " in the name of Jehovah and the Con- tinental Congress" — which Congress, by the way, showed momentarily some reluctance to sanction this first step of aggressive warfare. The occupation by Allen and Arnold of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, at the southern end of Lake Champlain, was of great military importance, both because of the large quantities of ammunition stored there, and because these places defended the line of the Hudson River valley against an attack from Canada. The battle of Bunker Hill, looked at from the strictly military point of view, was a blunder on both sides, astonishing as was its moral effect. The hill, properly named Breed's Hill, but to which the name of Bunker Hill is now forever attached, rises directly back of Charlestown, on a peninsula con- nected with the main land by a narrow isthmus. The American forces seized this on the night of June i6th, 1775, and worked the night through intrenching themselves as well as they could. With the morning came the British attack. The position might easily have been reduced by seizing the isthmus, and for this reason the Americans had hardly shown military sagacity in their occupation of the hill. But the British chose rather to storm the works from the front. Three times the flower of the English army in battle line swept up the hill ; twice they were swept back with terrible loss, repulsed by a fire which was reserved until they were close at hand ; the third time they seized the position, but only when the Americans had exhausted their ammunition, and even then only after a severe hand to hand fight. The British loss was over a thousand men ; the American loss about four hundred and fifty. When Washington heard of the battle he instantly asked if the New England militia had stood the fire of the British regulars, and when the whole story was told him he exclaimed, "The liberties of the country are safe." The spirit shown then and thereafter by our sturdy patriots is well illustrated by the story (chosen as the subject of one of our pictures) of the minister, who when in one battle there was a lack of wadding for the guns, brought out an armful of hymn books and exclaimed " Give them Watts, boys ! " The next clash of arms came from Canada. General Montgomery led two thousand of the militia against Montreal, by way of Lake Champlain, and easily captured it (November 12, 1775). Thence he descended the St. Lawrence to THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. IS3 Quebec, where he joined forces with Benedict Arnold, who had brought twelve hundred men through the Maine wilderness, and the two Generals attacked the British stronghold of Quebec. The attempt was a failure ; Arnold was wounded, Montgomery was killed, and though the Americans fought gallantly they were driven back from Canada by "~-^=-<=-^__ TlH^^^^^g^^ " GIVE THEM WATTS, BOYS ! " superior forces. Meanwhile the siege of Boston was syste- matically carried on by Wash- ington, and in the spring of 1776 the American General gained a commanding position by seizing Dor- chester Heights (which bore much the same relation to Boston on the South that Breed's Hill did on the North) and General Howe found himself forced to evacuate the city. He sailed with his whole force for Halifax, taking with him great numbers of American sym- pathizers with British rule, together with their property. 154 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The new Congress met at Philadelphia in May. During the first month of its sessions it became evident that there had been an immense advance in pub- lic opinion as to the real issue to be maintained. Several of the colonies had expressed a positive conviction that National independence must be demanded. Virginia had formally instructed her delegates to take that ground, and it was on the motion of Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, seconded by John Adams, of Massachusetts, that Congress proceeded to consider the resolution "That these 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." This bold utterance was adopted on July 2d by all the colo- nies except New York. The opposition came mainly from Pennsylvania and New York, and was based, not on lack of patriotism, but on a feeling that the time for such an assertion had not yet come, that a stronger central government should first be established, and that attempts should be made to secure a for- eign alliance. It should be noticed that the strongest opponents of the measure, John Dickinson and Robert Morris, of Pennsylvania, were among the most patriotic supporters of the Union. To Robert Morris in particular, whose skill as a financier steered the young Nation through many a difficulty, the country owes a special debt of gratitude. The Declaration of Independence, formally adopted two days later, was written mainly by the pen of Thomas Jefferson. It is unique among State papers — a dignified though impassioned, a calm though eloquent, recital of injuries inflicted, demand for redress, and avowal of liberties to be maintained with the sword. Its adoption was hailed, the country through, as the birth of a new Nation. Never before has a country about to appeal to war to decide its fate put upon record so clear-toned and deliberate an assertion of its purposes and its reasons, and thus summoned the world and posterity to witness the justice and righteousness of its cause. Thus far in the war the engagements between the opposing forces had been of a detached kind — not related, that is, to any broad plan of attack or defense. Of the same nature also was the British expedition against South Carolina, led by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. Their fleet attacked Charleston, but the fort was so bravely defended by Colonel Moultrie, from his palmetto-log fortifications on Sullivan's Island, that the fleet was forced to aban- don the attempt and to return to New York. But the British now saw that it was imperative to enter upon a distinct and extensive plan of campaign. That adopted was sagacious and logical ; Its failure was due, not to any inherent defect in itself but to lack of persistency in adhering to it. Washington under- stood it thoroughly from the first, and bent all his energies to tempting the enemy to diverge from the main object in view. The plan, in brief was this : New York City was to be seized and held as a base of supplies and centre of THE BRITISH PLAN FEASIBLE. 155 operations ; from it a stretch of country to the west was to be occupied and held, thus cutting off communication between New York and the New England States on the one side and Pennsylvania and the Southern States on the other. Meanwhile a force was to be pushed down from Canada to the head of the Hudson River, to be met by another force pushed northward up the Hudson, In this way New England would be practically surrounded, and it was thought that its colonies could be reduced one by one, while simultaneously or later an army could march southward upon Philadelphia. The plan was quite feasible, but probably at no time did the British have sufficient force to carry it out in detail. They wofully over-estimated, also, the assistance they might receive from the Tories in New York State. And they still more wofully under-esti- mated Washington's abihty as a strategist in blocking their schemes. General Howe, who was now Commander-in-Chief of the British army, drew his forces to a head upon Staten Island, combining there the troops which had sailed from Boston to Halifax, with Clinton's forces which had failed at Charleston, and the Hessians newly arrived. In all he had over thirty thousand soldiers. Washington, who had transferred his headquarters from Boston to the vicinity of New York after the former city had been evacuated by the British, occupied the Brooklyn Heights with about twenty thousand poorly equipped and undrilled colonial troops. To hold that position against the larger forces of regulars seemed a hopeless task ; but every point was to be contested. In point of fact, only five thousand of the Americans were engaged in the battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776) against twenty thousand men brought by General Howe from Staten Island. The Americans were driven back after a hotly contested fight. Before Howe could follow up his victory Washington planned and executed one of those extraordinary, rapid movements which so often amazed his enemy ; in a single night he withdrew his entire army across the East River into New York in boats, moving so secretly and swiftly that the British first found out what had happened when they saw the deserted camps before them on the following morning. Drawing back through the city Washington made his next stand at Harlem Heights, occupying Fort Washing- ton on the east and Fort Lee on the west side of the Hudson, thus guarding the line of the river while prepared to move southward toward Philadelphia if occasion should require. In the battle of White Plains the Americans suffered a repulse, but much more dispiriting to Washington was the disarrangement of his plans caused by the interference of Congress. That over-prudent body sent special orders to General Greene, at Fort Washington, to hold it at all odds, while Washington had directed Greene to be ready on the first attack to fall back upon the main army in New Jersey. The result was the capture of Fort Washington, with a loss of three thousand prisoners. To add to the misfortune. General Charles Lee, who commanded a wing of the American RECKONED WITHOUT HIS HOST 157 army on the east side of the river, absolutely ignored Washington's orders to join him. Lee was a soldier of fortune, vain, ambitious, and volatile, and there is little doubt that his disobedience was due to his hope that Washington was irretrievably ruined and that he might succeed to the command. Gathering his scattered troops together as well as he could, Washington retreated through New Jersey, meeting everywhere with reports that the colonists were in despair, that many had given in their allegiance to the British, that Congress had fled to Baltimore, and that the war was looked on as almost over. In this crisis it was an actual piece of rare good fortune that Charles Lee should be captured by soldiers while spending the night at a tavern away from his camp, for the result was that Lee's forces were free to join Washington's command, and at once did so. Altogether some six thousand men were left in the army, and were drawn into something like coherence on the other side of the Delaware River. General Howe announced that he had now nothing to do but wait the freezing of the Delaware, and then to cross over and "catch Washington and end the war." But he reckoned without his host. Choosing, as the best time for his bold and sudden movement, Christmas night, when revelry in the camp of the enemy might be hoped to make them careless, Washington crossed the river. Leading in person the division of twenty-five hundred men, which alone suc- ceeded in making the passage over the river, impeded as it was with great blocks of ice, he marched straight upon the Hessian outposts at Trenton and captured them with ease. Still his position was a most precarious one. Corn- wallis was at Princeton with the main British army, and marching directly upon the Americans, penned them up, as he thought, between Trenton and the Delaware. It is related that Cornwallis remarked, " At last we have run down the old fox, and we will bag him in the mornino-." But before morning came Washington had executed another surprising and decisive manoeuvre. Main- taining a great show of activity at his intrenchments, and keeping camp-fires brightly burning, he noiselessly led the main body of his army round the flank of the British force and marched straight northward upon Princeton, capturing as he went the British rear guard on its way to Trenton, seizing the British post of supplies at New Brunswick, and in the end securing a strong position on the hills in Northern New Jersey, with Morristown as his headquarters. There he could at last rest for a time, strengthen his army, and take advantage of the prestige which his recent operations had brought him. Let us turn our attention now to the situation further north. General Burgoyne had advanced southward from Canada through Lake Champlain and had easily captured Ticonderoga. His object was, of course, to advance in the same line to the south until he reached the Hudson River ; but this was a very different matter from what he had supposed it. General Schuyler was in com- 158 THE STORY OF AMERICA. mand of the Americans, and showed the highest mihtary skill in opposing Bur goyne's progress, cutting off his sup- plies and harassing hmi generall\. An expedition to assist Burgoyne had been ^^ sent down the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, thence to march eastward to the head of the Hudson, gathering aid as it went from the Indians and lories. \ 3iJijl' • '-' ^'''^^i00 ' *-i^Tik /r >v^^ - *^*^lKaMM^^^^^^^^^^^^MBy' This expedi tion was an utter failure ; a t Oriskany the Tories and British were defeated in a fiercely fought battle, in which a greater proportion ^^^. SURRENDER OF BURGOY.NE. SURRENDER OF GENERAL BURGOYNE. 159 of those engaged were killed than in any other battle of the war. Disheart- ened at this, and at the near approach of Benedict Arnold, St. Leger, who was at the head of the expedition, fled in confusion back to Canada. Meanwhile Burgoyne had sent out a detachment to gather supplies. This was utterly routed at Bennington by the Vermont farmers under General Stark. Through all the country round about the Americans were flocking to arms, their patriotism enforced by their horror at the atrocities committed by Burgoyne's Indian allies and by the danger to their own homes. Practically, Burgoyne was surrounded, and though he fought bravely in the battles of Still- water (September 19, 1777) and Bemis's Heights (October 7th), he was over- matched. Ten days after the last-named battle he surrendered with all his forces to General Gates, who was now at the head of the American forces in that vicinity and thus received the nominal honor of the result, although it was really due rather to the skill and courage of General Schuyler and General Arnold. Almost six thousand soldiers laid down their arms, and the artillery, small arms, ammunition, clothing, and other military stores which fell into Gen- eral Gates's hands were immensely valuable. Almost greater than the prac- tical gain of this splendid triumph was that of the respect at once accorded throughout the world to American courage and military capacity. General Burgoyne had every right to lay the blame for the mortifying failure of his expedition upon Howe, who had totally failed to carry out his part of the plan of campaign. It was essential to the success of this plan that Howe should have pushed an army up the Hudson to support Burgoyne. In leaving this undone he committed the greatest blunder of the war. Why he acted as he did was for a long while a mystery, but letters brought to light eighty years after the war was over show that he was strongly influenced by the traitorous arguments of his prisoner, Charles Lee, who for a time, at least, had decided to desert the American cause. While in this frame of mind he convinced Howe that there was plenty of time to move upon and seize Philadelphia and still come to Burgoyne's aid in season. Howe should have known Washington's methods better by this time. At first the British General attempted a march through New Jersey, but for nearly three weeks Washington blocked his movements, out-manceuvred him in the fencingf for advantaofe of position, and finally compelled him to withdraw, baffled, to New York. Though no fighting of consequence occurred in this period, it is, from the military standpoint, one of the most interesting of the entire war. The result was that Howe, unwilling to give up his original design, transported his army to the mouth of the Delaware by sea, then decided to make his attempt by way of Chesapeake Bay, and finally, after great delay, landed his forces at the head of that bay, fifty miles from Philadelphia. Washington interposed his army between the enemy and the city and for several weeks delayed its inevitable i6o THE STORY OF AMERICA. capture. In the Battle of Brandywine the Americans put eleven thousand troops in the field against eighteen thousand of the British, and were defeated, though by no means routed (September ii, 1777). After Howe had seized the city he found it necessary to send part of his army to capture the forts on the Delaware River, and this gave the Americans the opportunity of an attack with evenly balanced forces. Unfortunately, the battle of Germantown was, by reason of a heavy fog, changed into a confused conflict, in which some Americar regiments fired into others, and which ended in the retreat of our forces. Washington drew back and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Con- gress, on the approach of the enemy, had fled to York. Howe had accomplished his immediate object, but at what a cost ! The possession of Philadelphia had not appreciably brought nearer the subjugation of the former colonies, while the opportunity to co-operate with Burgoyne had been irretrievably lost, and, as we have seen, a great and notable triumph had been gained by the Americans in his surrender. The memorable winter which Washington spent at Valley Forge he often described as the darkest of his life. The course of the war had not been altogether discouraging, but he had to contend with the inaction of Congress, with cabals of envious rivals, and with the wretched lack of supplies and food. He writes to Congress that when he wished to draw up his troops to fight, the men were unable to stir on account of hunger, that 2898 men were unfit for duty because they were barefooted and half naked, that " for seven days past there has been little else than a famine in the camp." Meanwhile an intrigue to supersede Washington by Gates was on foot and nearly succeeded. The whole country also was suffering from the depreciated Continental currency and from the lack of power in the general government to lay taxes. What a contrast is there between Washington's position at this time and the enthusiasm with which the whole country flocked to honor him in the autumn of the first year of his Presidency (17S9), when he made a journey which was one long series of ovations. An Idea of the character of these is given in the accom- panying picture of his reception at Trenton, where the date on the triumphal arch recalled that famous Christmas night when he outwitted the British. But encouragement from abroad was at hand. Perhaps the most im- portant result of Burgoyne's surrender was its influence in procuring us the French Alliance. Already a strong sympathy had been aroused for the Amer- ican cause in France. The nobility were influenced in no small degree by the .sentimental and philosophical agitation for ideal liberty which preceded the brutal reality of the French Revolution. Lafayette, then a mere boy of eighteen, had fitted out a ship with supplies at his own e.xpense, and had laid his services at Washington's command. Our Commissioners to France — John Adams, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin^had labored night and CLINTON ABANDONS PHILADELPHIA. i6i day for the alliance. Franklin, in particular, had, by his shrewd and homely wit, his honesty of purpose and his high patriotism, made a profound im- pression upon the French people. We read that on one occasion he was made to embrace the role of an Apostle of Liberty at an elegant fcic where " the most beautiful of three hundred women was designated to go and place on the philosopher's white locks a crown of laurel, and to give the old man two kisses on his cheeks." Very "French" this, but not without its significance. But after all, the thing which turned the scale with the French Govern- ment was the partial success of our armies. France was only too willing, under favoring circumstances, to obtain its revenge upon Great Britain for many recent defeats and slights. So it was that in the beginning of 1778 the. independence of the United States was recognized by France and a fleet was ' sent to our assistance. During the winter, meanwhile, the thirteen States had adopted in Congress articles of confederation and perpetual union, which were slowly and hesitatingly ratified by the legislatures of the several States. The news of the reinforcements on their way from France, led Sir Henry Clinton, who had now succeeded Howe in the chief command of the British, to abandon Philadelphia, and mass his forces at New York. This he did in June, 1778, sending part of the troops by sea and the rest northward, through New Jersey. Washington instantly broke camp, followed the enemy, and overtook him at Monmouth Court House. In the battle which followed the forces were equally balanced, each having about fifteen thousand men. The American attack was entrusted to Charles Lee, who had been exchanged, and whose treachery was not suspected. Again Lee disobeyed orders, and directed a retreat at the critical minute of the fight. Had Washington not arrived, the retreat would have been a rout ; as it was he turned it into a victory, driving the British from their position, and gained the honors of the day. But had it not been for Lee, this victory might have easily been made a crushing and final defeat for the British army. A court-martial held upon Lee's conduct expelled him from the army. Years later he died a disgraced man, though it is only in our time that the full extent of his dishonor has been understood. The scene of the most important military operations now changes from the Northern to the Southern States. But before speaking of the campaign which ended with Cornwallis's surrender, we may characterize the fighting in the North, which went on in the latter half of the war, as desultory and unsystem- atic in its nature. The French fleet under Count d'Estaing was unable to cross the New York bar on account of the depth of draught of its greatest ships ; and for that reason the attempt to capture New York City was aban- doned. Its next attempt was to wrest Rhode Island from the British. This also was defeated, partly because of a storm at a critical moment, partly through a misunderstanding with the American allies. After these two failures, 1 62 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the French fleet sailed to the West Indies to injure British interests there. The assault on the fort at Stony Point by " Mad Anthony " Wayne has importance as a brilliant and thrilling episode, and was of value in strengthening our position on the Hudson River. All along the border the Tories were ^ii inciting the Indians to barbarous attacks. The . ^ S| most important and '* deplorable of these at- , • WASHINGTON REPRO\ ING LEE AT MONMOUTH ''*— r-^" " ■ — tacks were those which ended in the massacres at Wyoming, and Cherry Valley. Reprisals for these atrocities were taken '""■"'il by General Sullivan's expedi- tion, which defeated the Tories and Indians combined, near Elmira, with great slaughter. But all these events, like the British sudden attacks on the Connecticut ports of New Haven, BRITISH CONCESSION REPELLED. 163 Fairfield, and Norwalk, were, as we have said, rather detached episodes than related parts of a campaign. We should also note before entering upon the final chapter of the war, that Great Britain had politically receded from her position. Of her own accord she had offered to abrogate the offensive legislation which had provoked the colonies to war. But it was too late ; the proposition of peace commissioners sent to America to acknowledge the principle of taxation by colonial assemblies NEGRO .VILLAGE IN GEORGIA. was not for a moment considered. The watchword of America was now Independence, and there was no disposition in any quarter to accept anything less than full recoo-nition of the rigfhts of the United States as a Nation. The second and last serious and concerted effort by the British to subjugate the American States had as its scene of operations our Southern territory. At first it seemed to succeed. A long series of reverses to the cause of independ- ence were reported from Georgia and South Carolina. The plan formed by i64 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Sir Henry Clinton and Cornwallis was, in effect, to begin at the extreme South and overpower one State after another until the army held in reserve about New York could co-operate with that advancing victoriously from the South. Savannah had been captured in 1778, while General Lincoln, who commanded our forces, was twice defeated with great loss — once at Brier Creek, in an advance upon Savannah, when his lieutenant. General Ashe, was actually routed with very heavy loss ; and once when Savannah had been invested by General Lincoln himself by land, while the French fleet under d'Estaing besieged the city by sea. In a short time Georgia was entirely occupied by the British. They were soon reinforced by Sir Henry Clinton in person, with an army, and the united forces moved upward into South Carolina with thirteen thousand men. Lincoln was driven into Charleston, was there besieged, and (May 12, 1780) was forced to surrender not only the city but his entire army. A desultory but brilliant guerrilla warfare was carried on at this time by the Southern militia and light cavalry under the dashing leadership of Francis Marion, " the Swamp Fo.x," and the partisan, Thomas Sumter. These men were privateers on horseback. Familiar with the tangled swamps and always well mounted, even though in rags themselves, they were the terror of the invaders. At the crack of their rifles the pickets of Cornwallis fled, leaving a score of dead behind. The dreaded cavalry of Tarleton often came back from their raids with many a saddle emptied by the invisible foes. They were here, they were everywhere. Their blows were swift and sure ; their vigilance sleepless. Tarleton had been sent by Cornwallis with a force of seven hundred cavalry to destroy a patriot force in North Carolina, under Bu~ ford, which resulted in his utterly destroying about four hundred of the patriots at Waxhaw, the affair being more of a massacre than a battle. Thus the name of Tarleton came to be hated in the South as that of Benedict Arnold was in the North. He was dreaded for his celerity and cruelty. As illustrative of the spirit of the Southern colonists, we may be pardoned for the digression of the following anecdote. The fiofhtingf of Marion and his men was much like that of the wild Apaches of the southwest. When hotly pursued by the enemy his command would break up into small parties, and these as they were hard pressed would subdivide, until nearly every patriot was fleeing alone. There could be no successful pursuit, therefore, since the subdivision of the pursuing party weakened it too much. " We will give fifty pounds to get within reach of the scamp that galloped by here, just ahead of us," exclaimed a lieutenant of Tarleton's cavalry, as he and three other troopers drew up before a farmer, who was hoeing in the field by the roadside. The farmer looked up, leaned on his hoe, took off his old hat and mopping his forehead with his handkerchief looked at the angry soldier and said : — AN INTERESTING ANECDOTE i6s "Fifty pounds is a big lot of money." "So it is in these times, but we'll give it to you in gold, if you'll show us where we can get ^,,...:..:.: = a chance at the rebel ; did you see him ? " "He was all alone, was he? And TAULETON'S UEUTKNANT AND THE FARMER (JACK DAVIS). he was mounted on a black horse with a white star in his forehead, and he was going like a streak of lightning, wasn't he ?" i66 THE STORY OF AMERICA. " That's the fellow!" exclaimed the questioners, hoping they were about to get the knowledge they wanted. " It looked to me like Jack Davis, though he went by so fast that I couldn't get a square look at his face, but he was one of Marion's men, and if I ain't greatly mistaken it was Jack Davis himself" Then looking up at the four British horsemen, the farmer added, with a quizzical expression : — " I reckon that ere Jack Davis has hit you chaps pretty hard, ain't he ? " " Never mind about that" replied the lieutenant ; "what we want to know is where we can get a chance at him for just about five minutes." The farmer put his cotton handkerchief into his hat, which he now slowly replaced, and shook his head : " I don't think he's hiding round here," he said ; "when he shot by Jack was going so fast that it didn't look as if he could stop under four or five miles. Strangers, I'd like powerful well to earn that fifty pounds, but I don't think you'll get a chance to squander it on me." After some further questioning, the lieutenant and his men wheeled their horses and trotted back toward the main body of Tarleton's cavalry. The farmer plied his hoe for several minutes, gradually working his way toward the stretch of woods some fifty yards from the roadside. Reaching the margin of the field, he stepped in among the trees, hastily took off his clothing, tied it up in a bundle, shoved it under a flat rock from beneath which he drew a suit no better in quality, but showing a faint semblance to a uniform. Putting it on and then plunging still deeper into the woods, he soon reached a dimly-marked track, which he followed only a short distance, when a gentle whinney fell upon his ear. The next moment he vaulted on the back of a bony but blooded horse, marked by a beautiful star in his forehead. The satin skin of the steed shone as though he had been traveling hard, and his rider allowed him to walk along the path for a couple of miles, when he entered an open space where, near a spring, Francis Marion and fully two hundred men were encamped. They were eating, smoking and chatting as though no such horror as war was known. You understand, of course, that the farmer that leaned on his hoe by the roadside and talked to Tarleton's lieutenant about Jack Davis and his exploits was Jack Davis himself Marion and his men had many stirring adventures. A British officer, sent to settle some business with Marion, was asked by him to stay to dinner. Marion was always a charming gentleman, and the visitor accepted the invitation, but he was astonished to find that the meal consisted only of baked sweet potatoes served on bark. No apology was made, but the guest could not help asking his host whether that dinner was a specimen of his regular bill of fare. "It is," replied Marion, "except that to-day, in honor of your presence, we have more than the usual allowance." CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH. 167 North Carolina was now in danger, and it was to be defended by the overrated General Gates, whose campaign was marked by every in- _ dication of military incapacity. His , " "^f ' ■*- "^ • ^- =- attacks were invariably made reck- lessly, and his positions were ill- chosen. At Camden he -,e*=. -=^1^* _ ESCAPE OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. was utterly and disgracefully defeated by Lord Cornwallis (August 16, 1780). It seemed now as if the British forces could easily hold the territory already won and could advance safely into Virginia. This was, indeed, one of the darkest periods in the history of our war, and even Washington was inclined to despair. i68 THE STORY OF AMERICA. To add to the feeling of despondency came the news of Benedict Arnold's infamous treachery. In the early part of the war he had served, not merely with credit but with the highest distinction. Ambitious and passionate by temper, he had justly been indignant at the slights put upon him by the promotion over his head of several officers who were far less entitled than he to such a reward. He had also, perhaps, been treated with undue severity in his trial by court- rnartial on charges relating to his accounts and matters of discipline. No doubt he was greatly influenced by his marriage to a lady of great beauty, who was in intimate relations with many of the leading Tories. It is more than probable, still further, that he believed the cause of American independence could never be won. But neither explanations nor fancied wrongs in the least mitigate the baseness of his conduct. He deliberately planned to be put in command of West Point, with the distinct intention of handing it over to the British in return for thirty thousand dollars in money and a command in the British army. It was almost an accident that the emissary between Arnold and Clinton, Major Andre was captured by Paulding and his rough but incorruptible fellows. Andre's personal charm and youth created a feeling of sympathy for him, but it cannot be for a moment denied that he was justly tried and executed, in accor- dance with the law of nations. Had Arnold's attempt succeeded, it is more than likely that the blow dealt our cause would have been fatal. His subse- quent service in the British army only deepened the feeling of loathing with which his name was heard by Americans ; while even his new allies distrusted and despised him, and at one time Cornwallis posidvely refused to act in concert with him. A bright and cheering contrast to this dark episode is that of the glorious victories at sea won by John Paul Jones, who not only devastated British com- merce, but, in a desperately fought naval battle, captured two British men-of-war, the " Serapis " and the "Countess of Scarborough," and carried the new American flag into foreign ports with the prestige of having swept everything before him on the high seas. Here was laid the foundation of that reputation for intrepidity and gallantry at sea which the American navy so well sustained in our second war with Great Britain. As the year 1780 advanced, the campaign in the South began to assume a more favorable aspect. General Greene was placed in command of the American army and at once began a series of rapid and confusing movements, now attacking the enemy in front, now cutting off his communications in the rear, but always scheming for the advantage of position, and usually obtaining it. He was aided ably by " Light Horse Harry " Lee and by General Morgan. Even before his campaign began the Bridsh had suffered a serious defeat at King's Mountain, just over the line between North and South Carolina, where a body of southern and western backwoodsmen had cut to pieces and finally THE END APPROACHING. 169 captured a British detachment of twelve hundred men. Greene followed up this victory by sending Morgan to attack one wing of Cornwallis's army at Cowpens, near by King's Mountain, where again a large body of the enemy were captured with a very slight loss on the part of the Americans. Less decisive was the battle of Guilford Court House (March 15, 1781), which was contested with great persistency and courage by both armies. At the end of the day the British held the field, but the position was too perilous for Corn- wallis to maintain longf, and he retreated forthwith to the coast. General Greene continued to seize one position after another, driving the scattered bodies of the British through South Carolina and finally meeting them face to face at Eutaw Springs, where another equally contested battle took place ; in which, as at Guilford, the British claimed the honors of the day, but which also resulted in their ultimately giving away before the Americans and intrenching themselves in Charleston. Now, indeed, the British were to move into V^irmnia, not as they had originally planned, but because the more southern States were no longer tenable. It seemed almost as if Greene were deliberately driving them northward, so that in the end they might lie between two American armies. But they made a strong stand at Yorktown, in which a small British army under Benedict Arnold was already in possession and had been opposed by Lafayette. Washington, who had been watchingf the course of events with the keen eye of the master strategist, saw that the time had come for a decisive blow. The French fleet was sent to the Chesapeake, and found little difficulty in re- ducing the British force and approaching Yorktown by sea. Washington's own army had been lying along the Hudson, centered at West Point, ready to meet any movement by Sir Henry Clinton's army at New York. Now Washington moved southward down the Hudson into the upper part of New Jersey. It was universally believed that he was about to attack the British at New York. Even his own officers shared this belief But with a rapidity that seems astonishing, and with the utmost skill in handling his forces, Washington led them swiftly on, still in the line toward the south, and before Clinton had grasped his inten- tion he was well on his way to Virginia. Cornwallis was now assailed both by land and by sea ; he occupied a peninsula, from which he could not escape e.xcept by forcing a road through Washington's united army of sixteen thousand men. The city of Yorktown was bombarded for three weeks. An American officer writes : "The whole peninsula trembles under the incessant thunderings of our infernal machines." General Rochambeau who had been placed in com- mand of the French forces in America, actively co-operated with Washington. The meeting of the two great commanders forms the subject of one of our illustrations. Good soldier and good general as Cornwallis was, escape was impossible. On October 19, 1781, he suffered the humiliation of a formal sur- I70 THE STORY OF AMERICA. render of his army of over seven thousand men, with two hundred and forty cannon, twenty-eight regimental standards, and vast quantities of mihtary stores and provisions. When Lord North, the Enghsh Minister, heard of the surrender, we are told, he paced the floor in deep distress, and cried, "O God, it is all over ! " And so it was, in fact. The cause of American independence had practi- tically been won. Hostilities, it is true, continued in a feeble and half-hearted way, and it was not until September, 1783, that the Treaty of Peace secured by John Jay, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin was actually signed — a treaty which was not only honorable to us, but which, in the frontier boundaries adopted, was more advantageous than even our French allies were inclined to approve, giving us as it did the territory westward to the Mississippi and southward to Florida. Great Britain as a nation had become heartily sick and tired of her attempt to coerce her former colonies. As the war progressed she had managed to involve herself in hostilities not only with France, but with Spain and Holland, and even with the native princes of India. Lord North's Ministry fell, the star of the younger Pitt arose into the ascendency, and George the Third's attempt to establish a purely personal rule at home and abroad was defeated beyond redemption. As we read of the scanty recognition given by the American States to the soldiers who had fought their battles ; as we learn that it was only Wash- ington's commanding influence that restrained these soldiers, half starved and half paid, from compelling that recognition from Congress by force ; as we perceive how many and serious were the problems of finance and of govern- ment distracting the State Legislatures ; as, in short, we see the political disintegration and chaotic condition of affairs in the newly born Nation, we recognize the fact that the struggle which had just ended so triumphantly was but the prelude to another, more peaceful but not less vital, struggle — that for the founding of a strong, coherent, and truly National Government. The latter struggle began before the Revolution was over and lasted until, in 1787, by mutual concession and mutual compromise was formed the Constitution of the United States. VIEW OF THE CAFllOL, WASHINGTON. CHAPTER IX. THE STRUGQLE KOR LIBERTY AND GOVERNNIENT BEFORE AND AETER THE REVOLUTION. BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, Ph. D., Professor of American Constitutional History, University of Pennsylvania, At the time of the colonization of America the land of Great Britain was controlled, if not owned, by not more than a hundred men, and political privileges were exercised by less than a thousand times as many. The principal rights of the masses were of a civil nature. The jury trial was an ancient right guaranteed by Magna Charta, but by the union of church and state, the thought and the activities of the Eng-lish people were authoritatively uniform, and any departure from traditional belief, either in matters ecclesiastical or civil, was viewed with disapproval. But a people of so diversified a genius for good government as are the people of Anglo-Saxon stock could not long remain subject to serious limitations on their prosperity. America was the opportunity for liberty, the first opportu- nity for the diversification of Anglo-Saxon energies, and for the realization of the hopes of mankind. There is a uniformity in the development of human affairs. Agriculture is improved in means and Methods by improvements in manufactures, and a larger conception of the nature of the State always finds response in the home comforts of the people. The opportunities of America caused greater comfort and happiness among the English people who stayed at home. The colonization of America by the English was after two systems, that of the 173 Till >i-;i'F, I'll. n. 174 THE STORY OF AMERICA. commercial enterprise, that of the religious undertaking : the commercial system was illustrated in the Virginia enterprise, the religious undertaking, in the New- England. Sir Walter Raleigh had conceived of planting a colony in the Carolinas, but his colony, had it succeeded, would have been a repetition of an English shire, continuing the limitations on the common life, the limitations of property and condition incident to English life at the close of the sixteenth century. Providence saved America for larger undertakings, and though the ideas of Raleigh were at the foundation of the first Virginia adventure, the charter of 1606 gave larger privileges to the adventurers than had the charter to Raleigh or to Gilbert of nearly a quarter of a century before ; and the first adventure to Virginia demonstrated that a new age had come, for the conditions of life in the wilderness would not permit the transplanting of the feudal system, and the enterprise failed because it lacked men and women who were willing to work and to make homes for themselves. The second charter of three years later gave larger inducements to embark in the undertaking, but little guarantee of privilege to individuals who might seek their fortunes in Virginia. It was yet two years before King James granted the third charter empowering the little colony at Jamestown to enter upon the serious undertaking of local self-government. As soon as the instincts of the Anglo-Saxon could have room in America for the exercise of those persistent ideas which make the glory of the race, the winning of American liberty was assured. A little Parliament was called in Virginia, and this assembly of a score of men began the long history of free legislation, which, in spite of many errors, has given expression to the wishes of millions of men in America who have toiled in its fields, worked in its fac- tories, instructed in its schools, directed its finances, controlled its trade, devel- oped its mines, and spread its institutions westward over the continent. But the first victory of liberty was in the forum, not in the field. The ancient and undoubted rights of the people of England gave to the inhabitants of each borough the right to representation in Parliament, and the plantations in Virginia, becoming the first shires of the New World, became also the first units of civil jurisdiction. The planters claimed and exercised the right to choose deputies to meet in General Court in the colony for the purpose of considering the wants of the various plantations, and particularly for the pur- pose of levying such taxes as might be required for the general welfare. The long struggle for liberty in America began when the House of Burgesses in Virginia asserted and assumed its right to levy the taxes of the colony, to vote the supplies to the governor, and to control the financial affairs of the plantations. The New England settlements from Plymouth to Portland, following hard after the settlements in Virginia, began local government after the same model. liENTAMIN FRANKLIN. 275 176 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The town-meeting was the local democracy which examined and discussed freely all matters of local interest. In the town-meeting assembled the free- men who wrote and spoke as they thought; elected "men of their own choos- ing," and made laws to please themselves ; chose both servants to execute and to administer the laws, and held their representatives responsible for their pubhc service. But the local communities in New England, — the several towns, —soon applied the representative principle in government, and each town chose its deputies to meet with the deputies of other towns in General Assembly for the purpose of taking info consideration the affairs of the colony. The settlers in Salem and Boston, when they arrived with John Winthrop, had brouoht with them a Great Charter, transferrino; the gfov- ernment from old England to Massachusetts, and there they enlarged the member- ship of the Company of Massachusetts Bay.and trans- formed the government into a representative republic. The inhabitants of Virginia had not authority to elect their own governor, save for a short time during the days of the Commonwealth in England, but for more than THE LIBERTY BELL, AS EXHIBITED AT THE NEW ORLEANS EXPOSITION. half a CentUry thc pCOple of Massachusetts chose all their public officers and instructed them at their pleasure. The immediate responsi- bility of the representative of the town to the townsmen was the fundamental notion in the New England idea of government. But the representative republic, the commonwealth, of New England, was not composed of freemen only, for there were many inhabitants of Massachu- setts who were excluded from participation in the political life of the colony. During the half century of government under the old charter, the people of Massachusetts comprised both church members and non-church members, THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY. 177 but only the church members were eligible to public office. Persons dis- senting from the congregational polity in church and state, persons not communicants in the orthodox establishment, were excluded from direct participation in the government ; they could not vote, they could not hold office, their children could not be baptized. When Charles II caused the forfeiture of the Massachusetts charter in 1684, although the liberty of Massachusetts seemed greatly endangered, yet a nearer approach to the definition of liberty was made ; for the careless King, in order to win approval of his procedure among the colonists, had already intimated his desire to enlarge the franchise in Massachusetts, and to open the privileges of freedom more liberally to the inhabitants of the colony. This proposition to enlarge the liberties of the inhabitants met with disfavor among the conservatives, and the voice of the established church in the colony was raised against the in- novation. In spite, however, of the limitations on the political rights of the inhabitants of Massachusetts, their civil rights were carefully guarded and freely exercised. It should be observed that throughout the history of America the ancient civil rights under Anglo-Saxon institutions have generally been carefully observed. The winning of liberty in America has been largely the liberty of exercising political rights, until it has become common to estimate all privileges in America by the standard of political freedom. We should not forget that there are other rights than those political ; there are moral, civil, and industrial rights, whose, exercise is as important for the welfare of the citizen as is the exercise of rights political. The winning of civil independence is the glory of the barons of 1215 ; for it was impossible for them to win civil rights for themselves without winning civil rights for the whole nation, and the application of the principle for which they struggled was necessarily universal, so that the humble tenant of the landed estate must participate in the privileges of civil liberty. The New England colonists, moving westward and southwestward over the domain which we call New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, spread the customs of civil privilege and carried with them the constitution of government to which they had been accustomed. Williams, in Rhode Island, attempted a pure democracy, which in its early days was a tumultuous assem- blage, but taught by experience became a happy and prosperous community. Connecticut, differing but slightly in its colonial ideas from those of Massachu- setts, was empowered by its liberal charter of 1663 to become almost an independent commonwealth. The whole spirit of the New England people in government was to exercise liberty in civil affairs and a qualified liberty in political affairs. The civil rights of the inhabitants of New England down to the time of the Revolution were quite uniform, but their political rights were 1/8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. determined by qualifications of property, of religious opinion, of sex, of age, and of residence. The old English idea of political right carried with it similar qualifications, and the conservative Virginians, like the conservative people of New England, could not conceive of citizenship apart from a landed estate and estabUshed re- ligious opinions. Were we to use the language of our day we should say that the voter in colonial times was required, whether citizen of a northern or of a southern colony, to subscribe to a creed and to possess an acreage. At a time when land was to be had without cost, save of labor and cultivation, the qualifica- tion of real property was not a heavy burden, and so long as the earnest judg- ment of the majority of the inhabitants favored the supremacy of any ecclesiastical system, conformity to that system was equally easy ; but as soon as free investi- gation of the questions of church and state became the spirit of the age, there would necessarily follow modification in the requirements for citizenship, and the qualifications for an elector would necessarily change. In all the charters establishing colonial governments there was inserted a provision that the legislation permitted to the colonial Assemblies created by the charters should be as nearly as may be according to the laws of England. This provision recognized the necessity for a liberal interpretation of legislative grants to the colonial Assemblies. Isolated from the home government and left to themselves, the colonists learned the habits of self-government and they made most liberal interpretations of their charters. The House of Burgesses in Vir- ginia and its successors throughout the land construed the privileges of legisla- tion practically as the admission of their independence, and colonial legislation was a departure from parliamentary control. The local American Assemblies, the colonial legislatures, were composed of two branches : the upper, consisting of the governor and his council ; the lower, of the representatives, or delegates, from the counties or towns. The latter, after the manner of the English burgesses, the representatives of the counties and towns in the colony, took control of the taxing power in America. England, by her navigation laws, compelled the colonies to transport all their productions in English ships, manned by Englishmen and sailing to English ports ; no manufacturing was allowed in the colonies, and inter-colonial trade was discouraged. The immediate consequence of the navigation acts, which to the number of about thirty were passed from time to time in the British Parliament, was to keep the colonies in an agricultural condition, to strip them of srold and silver coin, and to leave them to their own devices to find substi- tutes for money ; for, unable to manufacture the articles they needed, they were obliged to buy these articles principally in England, and to pay for them either with the raw productions which they exported or with coin, and the exportation of coin from the colonies was relatively as great as the exportation of produce. ■ ^^^^^■j^--, ^^K^' ' ^^K^' H i r =a^* ' .G-Vx-kS ... ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 179 i8o THE STORY OF AMERICA. Money is the instrument of exchange and the means of association ; the colonists were compelled to exchange, and to seek that economic association which is the assurance and the health of civil life. REAR VIEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, rHlLADELPHL\. The people were constantly clamoring for more money and for the issuing of a circulating medium. Massachusetts, in the middle of the seventeenth ' century had set up a mint, which coined a small quantity of shillings ; but the i ISSUE OF PAPER MONEY. i8i mint was a trespass upon the sovereign right of the king and had no legal standing in the kingdom. The colonists, therefore, soon entered upon the experiment of making substitutes for money. Paper money, in a great variety of forms, was issued by the colonial Assemblies, and the issues_ were made chiefly for local circulation. The paper money of New Jersey circulated in New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and to a less amount as the distance from New Jersey increased. New England money was little known in the southern colonies, and the paper issues of the Carolinas were rarely seen in New York. There was no acquaintance, no public faith common to the colonies, and although sanguinary laws were made to maintain the value of paper issues, there is evidence that counterfeits were almost as common as the original bills. So long as the issue of paper money was limited, and the colony which is- sued it had perfect faith in its value, the issue circulated, though its value con- stantly tended to depreciate throughout the colony ; but there was no unit of measure, no fixed standard of values, and it was quite impossible to fix the value of the issue in one colony by that of any issue in another colony. By the time the American Revolution was passed, the over-issue of paper moneys was evident to all thoughtful people, but there was no production of gold or silver ; there was little export of commodities which brought in coin, and the Legislatures of the various States — for so the General Assemblies of the colonies had now become — were compelled to enter upon a course of legislation, having in view the maintenance of a truly valuable circulating medium. Another great question had meantime been brought forward : the relation of the local communities to the common or general government. As early as 1643 the New England colonies, comprising committees of "like membership in the church," had consolidated for the purpose of defense and general wel- fare, and the principle which led to the union was the principle which led to the "more perfect union" of a hundred and thirty years later. If any change should come over the colonies by which the people should become like minded, as were the inhabitants of the New England colonies in 1643, then a union of the people of the colonies could be made. One of the causes which led to the American Revolution was this latent but powerful tendency in the colonies toward a common understandino- of their character, conditions, and wants. The local Assemblies of the colonies had assumed unto themselves gradu- ally what may be called the prerogatives of legislation. They enacted laws on the whole range of subjects political, industrial, social, and ecclesiastical. They did not hesitate to attempt to solve any of the questions which arose from time to time, and as they attempted the solution of the economic questions of the colonies, they departed further and further from the strict interpretation of their charters, and made laws less and less "as near as may be conformable to the laws of England." But the Assemblies were uniform in claiming and in exercis- 1 82 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ing the right of levying taxes. As delegates of the people, they assumed the exclusive right of distributing the burden of the State upon the inhabitants. This assumption was never acknowledged by the King or by Parliament ; for it was an assumption which denied the sovereignty of the King, and the su- premacy of Parliament in legislation. The liberty to levy taxes was the greatest privilege in practical government claimed by the Americans of the colonial era, and the winning of colonial independence was the victory of freedom in taxation. While the latent tendency in the colonies was undoubtedly toward union, it may be said that there never existed colonies which exhibited stronger tendencies to diversity than the English colonies in America. The whole range of American life was toward individualism, and the freedom from those restrictions which ever characterize older communities favored the tendency. As the New England people went into the west, planting civil institutions in New York and along the southern shores of the Great Lakes, the individualistic tendencies in religion, in politics, in education, and invention strengthened with every wave of population. As the Virginians and the Carolinians passed over the mountains, they also were strengthened in their individualistic notions, and the founders of Kentucky and of Tennessee, while following their instincts and the customs of the tide-water region whence they came, enlarged upon their notions, and organized government under more liberal provisions than those which prevailed eastward over the mountains. While the continental troops were winning the victories of the Revolution, the settlers in the State of Franklin were claiming independence. It is an error to suppose that the people of the colonies were unanimous in demanding independence, or that the majority of them supported the idea or, it may be said, ever understood its true meaning. The thirteen Colonies entered upon the struggle at a time when the United Kingdom was unable to compel them to submit to the legislation of Parliament. England possessed no great soldiers who could direct her armies in America ; the colonies were therefore free to convert all the advantages of their isolation into a strong self-defense. Colonial legislation had isolated them, the imperfect facilities in transportation isolated them, and the whole tendencies of colonial institu- tions strengthened them in this isolation. The assumption of the taxing power by the Lower House in the several colonies, and its persistent exercise for more than a century and a half, neces- sarily brought Parliament and the local Assemblies into collision. The Navi- gation Acts and the Stamp Act were financial measures of Parliament for the purpose of raising an imperial revenue in the colonies. A clearer idea is gained of the reasons for the hostility against this Parllmentary measure when we reflect that no common taxing power was known to the colonists ; the HENKY CLAY. 183 1 84 THE STORY OF AMERICA. local Legislature of each colony was supreme within its jurisdiction ; a propo- sition for a continental power which could levy a tax for continental pur- poses had never been entertained by the colonists and they would have resented a proposition emanating from among themselves for continental tax- ation quite as quickly as they resented the proposition in Parliament to levy a tax on tea. The continuous legislation of the local Assemblies had taught the Americans to believe that local interests were supreme. It can now be seen that the Stamp Act and the Tea Tax operated to compel the colonies toward the union which they would in all probability never have made of themselves without this external pressure. The throwing overboard of the tea in Boston harbor is a picturesque incident in American history, because it stands for the fundamental idea of American right — the right of the taxpayer to levy taxes through his represent- ative. As soon as Parliament closed the port of Boston, a latent tendency in American affairs was displayed in various parts of the country, and nowhere more clearly than in Virginia, where Patrick Henry, in an address to the Con- vention of delegates, with vision enlarged by the tendency of affairs, declared the relations of the colonies to the home government. Petitions, remonstrances, supplications, and prostrations before the throne had been in vain; "the inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending," the privi- leges of independent colonial taxation and of choosing delegates to levy the taxes, could be preserved only by war ; "three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us." For the first time Massachusetts and Virginia were united in a common sense of danger, and the danger consisted chiefly in the denial of the right of the local legisla- ture, chosen by qualified electors, to levy a tax, and the assumption of the exclusive right of the British Parliament to levy a continental tax directly, ignoring the popular branch of the colonial Legislatures. From a consideration of colonial finances it seems clear that the Americans were not so unwilling to pay a trifling duty on tea, on legal papers, and on painters' material, as they were to admit the right of the British Parliament itself to levy the tax. Had the proposition to tax America embodied a provision that the tax should be levied by the local Legislatures, the American Revolution would have been long delayed. It cannot be said that the Americans would have accepted representation in Parliament as a compensation for the tax. The first Declaration of Rights, in 1765, had settled that point. The American colonists were English subjects, and entitled to all the rights and liberties of natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain, and, exercising the undoubted rights of Englishmen they insisted " that no tax be imposed on them but with THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF OUR HISTORY 185 their own consent, given personally or by their representatives," and " that the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great Britain," and "that the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been or can be constitutionally imposed on them but by their respective Legislatures." All supplies to the crown were "the free gifts of the people." The claim of the Americans at that time might be illustrated if the people of the United States should now insist that the revenue for the National Government should be collected through the lower branch of the State Legislatures, but to make the illustration go on all fours we should have to suppose that the people of the several States were not represented and did not care to be represented in Congress. The objection to an imperial tax involved the whole issue of the war, for it involved the fundamental idea of government in America, the idea of represen- tative government. It was not representation of the Americans in the British parliament, it was the representation of the Americans in their own Legislatures. One of the tests of independence is the possession of the right to levy taxes ; if England withdrew her claim to levy a continental tax directly through Parlia- ment, the independence of the colonies was at once acknowledged. It is evident then that the question of taxation goes to the foundation of American institu- tions, and from the time of the calling of the House of Burgesses in 1619 unto the present hour, the definition of liberty in America has depended upon the use or the abuse of the taxing power. As soon as the Continental Congress attempted to levy a tax, it became unpopular. The time from the revolt against the stamp duties in 1775 to the inaugura- tion in 1 789 of the National Government under which we live has been called the critical period of American history. It was a period which displayed all the inaptitude of the Americans for sound financiering. There is hardly an evil in finances that cannot be illustrated by some event in American affairs at that time. The Americans began the war without any preparation, they conducted it on credit, and at the end of fourteen years three millions of people were five hundred millions of dollars or more in debt. The exact amount will never be known. Congress and the State Legislatures issued paper currency in unlimited quantities and upon no security. The Americans were deceived themselves in believing that their products were essential to the welfare of Europe, and all European nations would speedily make overtures to them for the control of American commerce. It may be said that the Americans wholly over-estimated their importance in the world at that time ; they thought that to cut off England from American commerce would ruin England ; they thought that the bestowal of their commerce upon France would enrich France so much 1 86 THE STORY OF AMERICA. that the French King, for so inestimable a privilege, could well afford to loan them, and even to give them, money. The doctrine of the rights of man ran riot in America. Paper currency became the infatuation of the day. It was thought that paper currency would meet all the demands for money, would win American independence. Even so practical a man as Franklin, then in France, said: "This effect of paper cur- rency is not understood on this side the water ; and, indeed, the whole is a mystery even to the politicians, how we have been able to continue a war four years without money, and how we could pay with paper that had no previously fixed fund appropriated specifically to redeem it. This currency, as we manage it, is a wonderful machine : it performs its office when we issue it ; it pays and clothes troops and provides victuals and ammunition, and when we are obliged to issue a quantity excessive, it pays itself off by depreciation." If the taxing power is the most august power in government, the abuse of the taxing power is the most serious sin government can commit. No one will deny that the Americans are guilty of committing most grievous financial offenses during the critical period of their history. They abused liberty by demanding and by exercising the rights of nationality, and at the same time by neglecting or refusing to burden themselves with the taxation necessary to support nationality. It has long been the custom to describe the American Revolution as a righteous uprising of an abused people against a cruel despot ; we were taught in school that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that our fathers fought the war out on this broad principle. Much of this assumption is true, but it is also true that the winning of American independence was not complete until Americans had adequately provided for the wants of nationality by authorizing their representatives in State Legislatures and in the Congress of the United States to support the dignity which liberty had conferred, by an adequate system of common taxation. We now consider the American Revolu- tion as the introduction to American nationality. The hard necessities which brought the Americans to a consciousness of their obligations, led to the calling of the Constitutional Convention in Phila- delphia in 1787. If the liberty of self-government was won by the war, it was secured by the Constitution ; for the first effort toward a national government, the old Confederation, utterly failed, for lack of a Supreme Legislative, a Supreme Executive, and a Supreme Judiciary. The government under the Articles of Confederation broke down wholly in its effort to collect money. This collapse of the Confederation emphasized the difference between the theory and the admin- istration of government, for the articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence emanated from two committees appointed the same day : the report of one committee was the Declaration of Independence, which was DANIEL WEBSTER. 187 1 88 THE STORY OF AMERICA. debated but little and universally adopted a few days after it was reported ; the report of the other committee, the Articles of Confederation, was debated in Congress for more than a year and in the State Legislatures for nearly five years, and when at last adopted, it was found that the Articles were wholly inadequate for the wants of the people. The reason for the different fate of these two instruments is clear ; the Declaration formulated a theorj' of gov- ernment, it created no officers, it called for no taxes, it stated in a pleasing form opinions common to thoughtful men in the country, it formulated a pleasing theory for the foundation of government. On the other hand the Articles attempted to provide for the administration of government, it estab- lished offices and it called for taxes, and necessarily provoked support and hostility ; for while men might agree as to the common theory of government in America, they speedily fell to differing about the methods of civil administration. The inability of the Congress of the Confederation to legislate under the provisions of the Articles compelled their amendment ; for while the exigencies of war had forced the colonies into closer union, — a " perpetual league of friend- ship," they had also learned additional lessons in the theory and administration of local government, for each of the colonies, with the exception of Connecticut and Rhode Island, had transformed colonial government into government under a constitution. The people had not looked to Congress as a central power, they considered it as a central committee of the States. The individualistic tendencies of the colonies strengrthened when the colonies transformed them- selves into commonwealths. The struggle, which began between the thirteen colonies and the imperial Parliament, was now transformed into a struggle between two tendencies in America : the tendency toward sovereign commonwealths and the tendency toward nationality. The first commonwealth constitutions did not acknowledge the supreme authority of Congress ; there was yet lacking that essential bond between the people and their general government, the power of the general government to address itself directly to individuals. Interstate relations in 1787 were scarcely more perfect than they had been fifteen years before. The understanding of American affairs was more common, but intimate political association between the commonwealths was yet unknown. The liberty of nationality had not yet been won. A peculiar tendency in American affairs from their beeinnine is seen in the succession of written constitutions, instru- ments peculiar to America. The commonwealths of the old Confederation demonstrated the necessity for a clearer definition of their relations to each other and of the association of the American people in nationality. A sense of the necessity for commercial integrity led to the calling of the Philadelphia Convention to amend the old Articles, but when the Convention assembled it was found that an adequate solution of the large problem of STRUGGLE BETWEEN NATIONAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. 189 nationality compelled the abandonment of the idea of amending the Articles and the formulation of a new constitution. As the Convention proceeded to frame the Supreme Law of the land, it moved in accord with the whole tendency of American affairs, establishing a National Government upon the representative idea, organizing a tripartite government, a Supreme Executive, a Supreme Legislative, and a Supreme Judiciary. In the organization of the legislative department the representative idea was expressed in the Congress ; the Upper House of which represented the commonwealths as corporations ; the Lower House representing the people as individuals. Liberty in America received a more perfect definition in this arrangement ; for had representation been based wholly on that which created the Senate or on that which created the House of Representatives, representation would not have been equitable. But the equities of representation were preserved by establishing two houses. In creating two houses, however, the peculiar power of the lower branch of the colonial Legislatures was con- tinued by giving to the national House of Representatives the sole power " to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, and to pay the debt, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." The complaint against the tea tax can never be raised against any tax levied by Congress, for the members of the House of Representatives are elected directly by the taxpayers, and the right of individual representation was forever secured. Not only does the National Constitution guarantee this individual immu- nity, — the right of representation, but it also guarantees all the civil rights now known to civilized society. The " rights of man " so frequently on the lips of Americans of the Revolutionary period are defined in our National Constitution, particularly in the amendments which forever warrant to the citizens of the United States all that range of constitutional liberty which assures the largest definition of civil life. Freedom of speech and of conscience, the right of jury trial, exemption from unreasonable searches and seizures, the reservation to the people of all powers not delegated by them, the sovereignty of freedom as universally declared in the abolition of slavery, and the exercise of the franchise, show how the definition of liberty has become more and more perfect in the United States during the century. But the people who were capable of receiving a National Constitution like our own would not long endure the constitutions of commonwealths which fixed unreasonable limits on the rights of citizens. The first State consti- tutions were less liberal in their provisions than the National Constitution ; nearly all of them limited the electorate in the commonwealth to a small body whose holding of real estate and whose religious notions were in accord with the conservative ideas of the colonial time. At the time of the making of the National Constitution, the property required of an elector varied in the dif- igo THE STORY OF AMERICA. ferent commonwealths. In New Jersey he must have property to the value of fifty pounds, in Maryland and the Carolinas an estate of fifty acres, in Delaware a freehold estate of known value, in Georgia an estate of ten dollars or follow a mechanic trade ; in New York, would he vote for a member of Assembly he must possess a freehold estate of twenty pounds, and if he would vote for State Senator, it must be a hundred. Massachusetts required an elector to own a freehold estate worth sixty pounds or to possess an annual income of three pounds. Connecticut was satisfied that his estate was of the yearly value of seven dollars, and Rhode Island required him to own the value of one hundred and thirty-four dollars in land. Pennsylvania required him to be a freeholder, but New Hampshire and Vermont were satisfied with the payment of a poll-ta.x. The number of electors was still further affected by the religious opinions required of them. In New Jersey, in New Hampshire, in Vermont, in Connecticut, and in South Carolina, no Roman Catholic could vote ; Maryland and Massa- chusetts allowed "those of the Christian religion " to exercise the franchise, but the " Christian religion " in Massachusetts was of the Congregational Church. North Carolina required her electors to believe in the divine authority of the Scriptures ; Delaware was satisfied with a belief in the Trinity and in the inspiration of the Bible ; Pennsylvania allowed those, otherwise qualified, to vote who believed " in one God, in the reward of good, and the punishment of evil, and in the inspiration of the Scriptures." In New York, in Virginia, in Georgia, and in Rhode Island, the Protestant faith was predominant, but a Roman Catholic, if a male resident, of the age of twenty-one years or over, could vote in Rhode Island. The property qualifications which limited the number of electors were higher for those who sought office. Would a man be governor of New Jersey or of South Carolina, his real and personal property must amount to ten thou- sand dollars ; in North Carolina to one thousand pounds ; in Georgia an estate of two hundred and fifty pounds or of two hundred and fifty acres of land ; in New Hamsphire of five hundred pounds ; in Maryland of ten times as much, of which a thousand pounds must be of land ; in Delaware he must own real estate ; in New York it must be worth a hundred pounds ; in Rhode Island, one hundred and thirty-four dollars ; and in Massachusetts a thousand pounds. Connecticut required her candidate for governor to be qualified as an elector, as did New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In all the com- monwealths the candidate for office must possess the religious qualifications required of electors. From these things it followed that the suffrage in the United States was limited when, after the winning of American independence, the Constitution of the United States was framed and the commonwealths had adopted their first JOHN C. CALHOUN. 191 192 THE STORY OF AMERICA. constitutions of government. It may be said that in 1787 the country was bankrupt, America was without credit, and that of a population of three milHon souls, who, by our present ratio, would represent six hundred thousand voters, less than one hundred and fifty thousand possessed the right to vote. African slavery and property qualifications excluded above four hundred thousand men from the exercise of the franchise. It is evident then, at the time when American liberty was won, American liberty had only begun ; the offices of the country were in the possession of the few, scarcely any provision existed for common education, the roads of the country may be described as impassable, the means for transportation, trade, and commerce were feeble. If the struggle for liberty in America was not to be in vain, the people of the United States must address themselves directly to the payment of their debts, to the enlarge- ment of the franchise, to improvements in transportation, and to the creation, organization, and support of a national system of common taxation. It is these great changes which constitute the history of this country during the present century. By 1830 the people had moved westward, passing over the Appalachian mountains whose forests had so long retarded the movements of population, and having reached the eastern edge of the great central prairie, they rapidly spread over the Northwest Territory, successively founding the five great com- monwealths which were created north of the river Ohio. This vast migration of not less than five millions of people carried westward the New England idea of government modified by the ideas prevailing in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in New York. Along the highway which extends from Boston to Chicago sprang up a cordon of thriving towns which have since become prosperous cities. The school-house, the church, and the printing-press were at the foundation of the civil structure. The forests of western New York, in the first decade of the century, were burned in order to clear the land, and from the ashes were made the pearlash or "salts," which, after great labor, were delivered in Canada or at Pittsburgh, and the silver money in payment was returned as taxes and for payment of the homestead. A generation later and the pine forests of New York were no longer burned, but among them were built innumerable mills which speedily transformed them into lumber which, floated down the Genesee, found an outlet in the Erie Canal, and a market in New York. The great canal of 1826 be- tween Albany and Buffalo brought the Northwest to the market of the Atlantic seaboard, and raised the value of land, of labor, and of all productions through- out the northern States. By this time too the children of the Old Dominion had passed over the mountains and had located plantations in Kentucky and in Missouri, and the territory south of the river (Dhio had become a region of prosperous communities. SUFFRAGE QUALIFICATION. 193 About the time of the building of the Erie Canal, property qualifications had disappeared from nearly all the American commonwealths. It was in 1829, in the Convention of Virginia, called to frame a new Constitution for the people 1 THE STATUE OF LIBERTY IN NEW YORK HARBOR. i^Presetited to the United States by Bartholdi.') of that commonwealth, that one of the last debates in America discussed the retention of the property qualification. It was said in that Convention, by President Monroe, " My object is to confine the elective franchise to an interest in land ; to some interest of moderate value in the territory of the Common- 's 194 THE STORY OF AMERICA. wealth. What is our country ? Is it anything more than our territory ; and why are we attached to it ? Is it not the effect of our residence in it, either as the land of our nativity or the country of our choice, our adopted country ; and of our attachment to its institutions ? And what excites and is the best evidence of such attachment ? Some hold in the territory, which is some interest in the soil, something that we own, not as passengers or voyagers who have no prop- erty in the State and nothing to bind them to it ; the object is to give firmness and permanency to our attachment, and these (the property qualification) are the best means by which it may be accomplished." The conservative opinions of the distinguished Monroe were supported by the Convention and the Constitution framed for Virginia at that time required of the elector that he should be a white male citizen of the Common- wealth, twenty-one years of age and upward, and possess "an estate of freehold in land of the value of twenty-five dollars." By the middle of the century public opinion had changed the provisions in the State Constitutions and abolished the property qualification of the elector : this limitation on citizenship disappeared about thirty years after the disappear- ance of the religious qualifications. From the introduction of government into the colonies these two qualifications had been intimately associated together. But liberty was not complete so long as the right to vote was limited to "free male white citizens." The history of the winning of universal suffrage is the history of the United States till the thirtieth of March, 1S70, when the right of citizens of the United States to vote, a right that cannot be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was proclaimed in force by Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State in the administration of President Grant. With this provision inserted in the Constitution of the United States, all commonwealth constitutions at once, as subordinate to the Supreme Law of the land, were made to conform, and although the National Constitution did not give the right to vote, it led practically to the admission of male persons of any race or color or from a previous condition of servitude to the body of the American electorate. Universal suffrage, against which earnest patriots like Monroe had at one time raised their voices, at last became the common condition of American political life. The struggle for liberty of 1776 was not ended as an effort to realize the "political rights of man " until 1870. Within recent years the Union has become a Union of forty-four States. The stream of population which has developed this Union has moved in three great currents. The northern current is from New England, New York, and Pennsyl- vania, along the line of the forty-second parallel. In the early years of the century this course was a convergence of smaller streams from various parts of New England at Albany, thence westward along the bridle path to Utica, Syracuse,. WESTWARD STREAM OF POPULATION. 195 Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, and Chicago. The " main road " from Boston to Chicago is the original line of this current, which by reason of the increase in travel and transportation has been paralleled successively by the Erie Canal, by sail-boat and steam-boat lines on the Great Lakes, and later by several railroad lines ; the New York Central, the West Shore, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, the Canada Southern, and their connecting lines at Chicago, with the Trunk lines of the Northwest, have given to the entire northern half of the United States a uniform and distinct character in their customs and laws. The width of this northern stream is plainly marked by the northern boundary of the United States, and by the varying line of settlements on the southern edge, of which the principal are from Trenton, New Jersey, to Franklin in Pennsylvania ; Columbus, Ohio ; Indianapolis, Indiana ; Springfield, Illinois ; the southern boundary of Iowa, Kansas City, and thence westward in scattered settlements, including a portion of northern California, northern Oregon, and northern Washington. All the States within this area have been settled by people from the older eastern States, especially from New England, New York, Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The second current of population, which may be called the Virginia cuTent, moved westward and southwestward over the area extending from o the Potomac river and the northern boundary of North Carolina on the east, and widening as it coursed westward to the Ohio river on the north, including the State of Missouri, the southern portion of Kansas and Colorado, and thence to the Pacific, excluding the greater part of northern California. The southern boundary of this stream extended from the Carolinas southwestward, but in- cluded the greater part of Georgia, Alabama, and the States and Territories directly west of the eighty-third meridian (Pittsburg) and from the thirty-first to the forty-first parallel. Within this area the States as settled have con- tributed to the population of the States immediately west of them, imparting uniformity to the government and institutions of the States and Territories within this zone of settlements. The third and more recent line of movement has been along the Atlantic seaboard, beginning at various ports on that line, but especially at ports re- ceiving large numbers of immigrants ; continuing from town to town along that line from Portland Maine, to New Orleans and the eastern towns of Florida, and also Galveston and Austin, Texas, and thence westward into the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, into southern California, and thence northwest- ward into Oregon, Washington and Montana. This line of the movement of population has been marked since 1865 and has been intensified and widened by the rapid construction of railroads. Along the northern or New England line of settlements have also moved the millions of immigrants from European countries in the corresponding latitude: 196 THE STORY OF AMERICA. from Germany, from Scandinavia, from Austria, from Russia, and from the British Isles. Along the middle or Virginia line moved a native population, chiefly from the older southern States, which spent its force at the foot of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The Virginia stream has been second in size to that of New England. The recent coast stream has combined Northern and Southern and foreign elements, and reaching Washington and Montana by a backward flow, it presents for the first time in our national history a meeting of northern and of southern elements north of the latitude of Kansas. With the westward movements of the millions of human beings who have occupied the North American continent have gone the institutions and constitu- tions of the east, modified in their journey westward by the varying conditions of the life of the people. The brief constitutions of 1776 have developed into extraordinary length by successive changes and additions made by the more than seventy Constitutional Conventions which have been held west of the original thirteen States. These later constitutions resemble elaborate legal codes rather than brief statements of the fundamental ideas of government. But these constitutions, of which those of the Dakotas and of Montana and Washington are a type, express very clearly the opinions of the American people in govern- ment at the present time. The earnest desire shown in them for an accurate definition of the theory and the administration of government proves how anxiously the people of this country at all times consider the interpretation of their liberties, and with what hesitation, it may be said, they delegate their powers in government to Legislatures, to Judges, and to Governors. The struggle for liberty will never cease, for with the progress of civilization new definitions of the wants of the people are constantly forming in the mind. The whole movement of the American people in government, from the simple beginnings of representative government in Virginia, when the little Parliament was called, to the present time, when nationality is enthroned and mighty Com- monwealths are become the component parts of the "more perfect union," has been toward the slow but constant realization of the rights and liberties of the people. Education, for which no Commonwealth made adequate provision a century ago, is now the first care of the State. Easy and rapid transportation, wholly unknown to our fathers, is now a necessary condition of daily life. Trade has so prospered that "in the year 1891 the loan and trust companies, the State savings and private banks loaned in personal securities alone two bill- ions and sixty millions of dollars," and the accumulated wealth of the country is sixty billions of dollars. Newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets are now so numerous as to make it impossible to contain them all in one library, and the American people have become the largest class of readers in the world. A century ago there were but six cities of more than eight thousand MATERIAL GROWTH. 197 people in this country ; the number is now four hundred and forty-three. Three milHons of people have become seventy millions. The area of the original United States has expanded from eight hundred and thirty thousand square miles to four times that area. With expansion and growth and the ameliora- tion in the conditions of life, the earnest problems of government have been brought home to the people by the leaders in the State, by the clergy, by the teachers in schools and colleges, and by the press. But though we may be proud of these conquests, we are compelled in our last analysis of our institutions to return to a few fundamental notions of our government. We must continue the representative idea based upon the doc- trine of the equality of rights and exercised by representative assemblies founded on popular elections ; and after our most pleasing contemplation of the institutions of America, we must return to the people, the foundation of our government. Their wisdom and self-control, and these alone, will impart to our institutions that strength which insures their perpetuity. Francis Newton Thorpe- • A PALM GROVE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER X. PATHFINDERS AND PIONEERS. DANIEL BOONE. ^*^~\ .jOONE'S name was among the most prominent and his Hfe one of the most exciting as well as useful of the early pioneers. His name Is indissolubly connected with Kentucky. Boone's father emigrated from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to North Carolina when Daniel was a boy. Grown to manhood, here the future pioneer married Rebecca Bryan, their life being such as was common in the backwoods settlements of that time. A young man marrying then did not start with a competency. Boone, like David Crockett, thought' that when he had offered his broad hand and stout heart to the girl of his choice he had given her property enough to start with. Household furniture was of such simple pattern as could be made with an axe and a saw, while clothes were homespun or shaped from the dressed skins of animals, and dyed by utilizing the butternut and goldenrod. A woman's holiday costume was of her own make from first to last, and a man's best suit had been previously worn by a deer. The political troubles in North Carolina, the imposition of illegal fines and taxes, no doubt made many settlers besides the Boones anxious to escape to some more favored region. Perhaps the love for adventure, the fertility of resource, hardiness, accuracy of aim and coolness in danger which Boone displayed throughout his life was owing somewhat to the training he received during the Indian troubles, and especially the Seven Years' War, in which he served. How- ever it was acquired, we know that he developed a steady and cold character, with great perseverance and a remarkable love of nature. Boone had a forerunner, who was Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia. This gentleman, fired by hunters' accounts of Western lands, now the State of Ten- nessee, started in company with Colonels Woods, Patton, and Buchanan, and a number of hunters and others, on an exploring tour. To diem are due the names of the Cumberland Mountains, Gap, and River, which with one single exception are the only names of purely English origin in earlier Tennessee geography. 199 200 THE STORY OF AMERICA. At that time Tennessee was claimed as part of Virginia, which State made grants of its territories. Twelve years later Dr. Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's Rivers and penetrated into what is now Kentucky. Others followed in his footsteps as far as Tennessee and some probably into Kentucky. That Daniel Boone was with one of these expeditions as far back as 1760 is considered to have been proven by the discovery of his name carved, with a date, upon an old tree near the stage road between Jonesboro and Blountsville, in the valley of Boone's Creek, which is a tributary of the Watauga. The legend inscribed on the tree runs thus : " D. BOON cilled a BAR on tree in THE year 1760." A MUsK-uX HIM. A hunter named John Finley penetrated into Kentucky some time after this and brought back marvelous accounts of the hunter's paradise he found there. Boone resolved to go into this new country. The preparations for his departure took time. Even homespun and deerskin had to be gotten ready; the necessary money for the maintenance of his family had to be provided ; and when, finally, all was ready, Boone shouldered his rifle and started with John Finley, John Steuart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey, and William Cool, to traverse a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. Our pioneer's physique at this time was perfect. He is described as being of full size, hardy, robust, and sinewy, with mild, hazel eyes. A FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY. 20 1 After numerous hardships, which we have not space to chronicle, the explorers finally stood on a mountain crest overlooking the fertile valleys watered by the Kentucky River. There were herds of buffalo and of deer in sight, and evidences of game were everywhere plenty. The country was luxuri- ant almost beyond description in its vegetation, and it seemed indeed, as Finley had described it, "a hunter's paradise." From the cane-brakes in the river bottoms to the forest trees that crowned the wooded hills, it appeared to be a land of peace and plenty. And yet this very territory had among the Indians a DANIEL BOONE AND HIS BROTHER IN " HUNTICKS' TARADISE." name of ominous import ; it was called " The dark and bloody ground." No one tribe made these valleys their home, although they were claimed by the Cherokees ; but both Cherokee, Shawnee, and Chickasaw bands occasionally hunted over them, and they were the scene of many bloody feuds and forest encounters. Boone and his party encamped within view of all this beauty and wealth of nature, in a rock-cleft over which had fallen a giant tree. This camp from time to time they improved and enlarged, as it remained their headquarters during the succeeding summer and autumn. In all that time they roamed and 202 THE STORY OF AMERICA. hunted freely, finding abundance of game, exploring die countr}' thoroughly, but meeting with none of the red men. In the autumn of 1 760 Boone and John Steuart one day left their companions and plunged into the forest for a little longer excursion than usual. One cannot but imagine what the scene must have been at that season of the year in the forest primeval. The rich luxuriance of vegetable life and the plentiful supply of game must have appealed strongly to the feelings of these hunters, whose sense of security had not yet been disturbed by any encounters. Of all this domain they had literally been in peaceful possession until then. Suddenly the feeling of safety was rudely dissipated by the appearance of a band of Indians, who surprised Boone and Steuart so completely that resistance was out of the question, and they were taken prisoners. On the seventh night after the capture the Indians encamped in a cane-brake and built their fire. Perhaps the fatigue of a long march made them abate something of their customary caution ; at all events, as they slept by the fire, Boone, who was always on the alert, saw his opportunity to extricate himself from among them and escape. Refusing, however, to abandon his companion, although knowing that the risk of waking him was very great, as the slightest noise would alarm their captors, he went to where Steuart was sleeping, and taking hold of him, succeeded in rousing him without noise. By morning the hunters were far away on their return to camp, where they arrived without being overtaken, only to find that Finley and the others had disappeared. They were never heard of again. Early in the next year Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, arrived with a companion. On their approach to camp they were sharply challenged, not being at once recognized ; but the meeting was naturally one of great rejoicing when the hermits found who their visitors were. Now, for the first time during his long banishment from home, Boone heard from his family, received messages from his wife, and learned how his boys were progressing with the little farm. It was not long after the arrival of Squire Boone that Boone and Steuart were again attacked by the Indians, and this time Steuart was killed. Following this, Squire Boone's companion strayed from camp and never returned. That left the two brothers entirely alone, and as ammunition was running low the later comer decided to return home and get the necessary supplies. We hardly know which to admire most, the courage of the man who would face the perils of that return journey by himself, or the fordtude of the other who remained alone in that wild country, infested by his enemies, where for three months he constantly shifted his camp to avoid discovery. From his own account of this part of his life we find, however, that those days which he passed alone in the wild woods of Kentucky, depending upon his own skill and vigilance, eluding his enemies and tracking his game, were far from being the least pleasant in his life. After BOONE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCE. 203 three months Squire Boone returned, and together the brothers pursued their calling once more, until finally, with a very thorough knowledge of the country and its capabilities, Daniel Boone returned to his family in North Caro- lina. Boone's account of what he had seen, of the game, the fertility of thei country, the beauty of the mountains and rivers, and of all that had so' impressed his own imagination, is said to have set North Carolina on fire. DEATH OF JOHN STEUART, BOONE'S FAITHFUL COMPANION. And now, while the discoverer is preparing for still another start, we may explain the purpose of these several expeditions. As we have said, Kentucky, — that is, the southern part of it, — nominally belonged to the Cherokee Indians. It was claimed by Virginia and North Carolina and afterwards by Tennessee. A noted character of the day. Colonel Henderson, with several other gentlemen, concerted a scheme for the purchase of all that country from the Cherokees and the founding of an independent State or Republic, which should be called Transylvania. There is hardly a question that Boone's first expedition to 204 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Kentucky and long sojourn there was undertaken in the employ of Colonel Henderson and his Land Company. . The second journey was unquestionably for the purpose of negotiating with the Cherokees, and making all the preliminary arrangements for the purchase of the tract. If his report of the nature of the land induced the formation of the Company, he was no less successful in conducting the second part of the business. When he had arranged terms with the Cherokees, Colonel Henderson joined him on the Watauga to conclude the bargain. There he met the Indians in solemn conclave, took part in their council, smoked the pipe, and paid in merchandise the purchase-money for Kentucky, receiving from the Indians a deed for the same. Colonization was next in order, and Boone undertook with a party to open a road from the Holston River to the Kentucky River, and to erect stations or forts. Gathering a party for the purpose, on April ist they succeeded, after a laborious march through the wilderness, in the course of which they lost several men, in arriving at the spot where Boonesborough now stands. There they fixed their camp and built the foundations for a fort. Near this place was a salt lick. A few days after the commencement of the fort another of the party was killed during an attack by Indians, but after that there was no disturbance for some time. This was the beginning of colonization in Kentucky. It was, of course, commenced under the impression that the Cherokee purchase was good, but the validity of the deed was at once denied by the Governor of North Carolina and also by the Government of Virginia as well as that of Tennessee. Each State, however, granted to the Land Company large tracts of land on the same territory, so that while unsuccessful in founding an independent Republic, Colonel Henderson and his associates became very wealthy. For a long time those who were doing the actual work on the frontier, bearing the hardships and the brunt of battle, did not know that any question had been raised as to the validity of the title under the Indian purchase, and still supposed themselves to be engaged in the founding of a Commonwealth, A KENTUCKY FORT. A fort at that day meant a structure of a very primitive kind. Butler, in his History of Kentucky, says : " A fort in those times consisted of pieces of timber sharpened at the ends and firmly lodged in the ground. Rows of these pickets enclosed the desired space which embraced the cabins of the inhabitants. One or more block houses, of superior care and strength, commanding the sides of the ditch, completed the fortifications or stations, as they were called. Generally, the sides of the interior cabins formed the sides of the fort." About thirty or forty new settlers came to Boonesborough with Colonel Henderson, to whom Boone had written. So far the new-comers were all men. Before long, however, the leader returned for his own family, and others, to the INDIAN CAPTURES. 205 number of twenty-six men, four women, and half a dozen boys and girls, accompanied him back through the Cumberland Gap. Before arriving at Boonesborough the little caravan separated, part of them settling at another point, where they built a fort of their own. Mrs. Boone and her daughters were the first white women to arrive at Boonesborough to settle there. Other settlers followed with new colonies, and these began to make Kentucky their home. One of the stations was called Harrod's Old Cabin ; another was Logan. Among the men of prominence were Simon Kenton, John Floyd, Colonel Richard Callaway, and other names that appear again and again in the early annals of the country. INDIAN CAPTURES. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, the Indians, excited by the British, greatly disturbed and harassed the new settlers, and many of the latter, becoming frightened or discouraged, abandoned the promised land and went back to North Carolina. In 1775 the setders still kept their faith in the Chero- kee purchase, and holding this view, took leases from the Company, established courts of justice, and, through a Convention or Congress which met at Boones- borough made laws and provided for a militia organization. This Convention was the first of its kind ever held in the West. Among the exciting episodes of the first years in Kentucky was the capture of one of Boone's daughters and two of Callaway's daughters by the Indians. The eldest of these girls was about twenty and the youngest fourteen years of age. They were sitting in a canoe under the trees which overhung the opposite bank of the river. There they were surprised by the Indians and taken away before their friends at the Fort discovered their peril. This happened so near nightfall that pursuit was impossible, but in the morning Boone and Floyd started in pursuit. They surprised the Indians that day as they halted to cook, and killing one or two, drove the rest away. Feeling their own force too weak for pursuit, they were glad to return with the almost heart-broken girls. The account of this, affording, as it did, evidence of the renewed hostility of the savages, induced nearly three hundred people to return to their homes during the next few months. We cannot follow the fluctuating fortunes of the colonists or mve a detailed account, interesting as that would be, of the incidents of border warfare. For a long time Kentucky was not recognized as a free State, and its people not acknowledged as citizens. Virginia sdll made claim to the territory, and yet when General George Clark was sent as a Representative to the Virginia House his claim was rejected by that party. Failing to receive recognition, Clark labored to obtain the independence of Kentucky as a State. This he finally suc- ceeded in doing, in opposition to Colonel Henderson and others. The formation of Kentucky politically was first as a county of Virginia. It was the bulwark of 2o6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Virginia during the Indian troubles, and General Clark was nicknamed the Hannibal of the West. In 1786 the Virginia Legislature enacted the necessary provisions for permitting Kentucky to assume the position of a separate State on condition that the United States would admit her to the sisterhood, which was accomplished June i, 1792. Daniel Boone lost all his Kentucky property through carelessness or ignor- ance of legal forms, and after the prosperity and growth of the new State was fully assured he went to Virginia to begin life over again. There he stayed until the accounts brought from Missouri of the rich land and good hunting there aroused his pioneer spirit once more, and he again emigrated to settle in Spanish territory. He made his home in the Femme Osage district, over which, before long, he became military commander with a commission from the Spanish gover- nor. Upon the acquisition of Missouri by the United States our backwoodsman again found himself stripped of his property. The Government under which he had been lately serving had presented him with ten thousand arpents of land (an arpent is eighty-five one-hundredths of an acre) to which he had neglected to secure or record his title. Through the intervention of the Kentucky Legisla- ture in the Congress of the United States by a strong memorial, Boone was finally put in legal possession of the land. Only once did the great Kentucky pioneer return to the country that he had e.xplored and setded, where, according to his own account, he had lost so much. He says : "I may say that I have verified the words of the old Indian who signed Colonel Henderson's deed. Taking me by the hand at the delivery thereof, 'Brother,' he said, 'we have given you a fine land, but I believe you will have much difficulty in settling it.' My footsteps have often been marked by blood, and therefore I can truly subscribe to its original name. Two darling sons and a brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of men, scorched by the summer's sun and pinched by the winter's cold, an instrument to settle the wilderness." Boone's death occurred in 1820 at his home in Missouri. He was then in the eighty-sixth year of his age. DAVID CROCKETT. David Crockett, who died the last of those who were defenders of the Alamo in Texas, is one of the picturesque figures in American history. David, or, as he is familiarly called, " Davy" Crockett was born in 1786, of Irish-American parent- age. His boyhood was spent in his father's cabin in Tennessee, from which he ran away, and, after various vicissitudes, took service with a Quaker, where he remained until his marriage. Then, after several years of hardship, he moved to DAVID CROCKETT. 207 the Elk River country, and when the Creek War broke out he was Hving near Winchester, Tennessee. He became well known as an Indian fighter, one of his earliest services being in 181 3, when at Beatty's Spring he was chosen by his captain to act as a scout with Major Gibson to go into the Creek country and re- connoitre. On the first day of his journey he lost the Major, but pushed on Avith five companions for sixty-five miles into the enemy's country, bringing back news of an important nature. The garrison was hastily fortified and General EXPLORING THE ECHO RIVER, MAMMOTH CAVE, KENTUCKY. Jackson summoned by express. We will not attempt to follow the details of this war. Crockett saw much vigorous fighting, was present at the burning of an Indian village (of the horrors of which he tells in his autobiography without the slightest apparent compunction), acted with Major Russell's "spies," and when he returned to his Tennessee home had quite a reputation as an Indian fighter. After the Creek War Crockett was one of those who tried to bring order out 2o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of the chaotic state hi which Tennessee society was at that time. His home was among a reckless set, and the organization of a temporary government was imperative. Upon its formation Crockett was made Magistrate. Afterwards he became a member of the Legislature, although one of his biographers states that at this time he could hardly read a newspaper. Later in life he showed the acquisition of more "book learning," and the best account of his life and adven- tures is found in the autobiography which he left. His early success as a politi- cian was due principally to his qualities of humor, good story-telling, hard sense, and true marksmanship with a rifle, a combination that is sure to win favor among backwoodsmen. Crockett served in Congress two terms, and won national reputation and popularity as one of the "half horse, half alligator" class. His career in Wash- ington was brought to an end by his quarrel with General Jackson, to whose party he had at first been an adherent. He then cast his lot with those who were battling for Texan independence, and died, as we have already noticed, with Travis and Bowie, at the Alamo. Equally important with the exploration, settlement, and conquest of Ken- tucky and the Southwest were the expeditions of those who found a path through the great mountain divide and were the forerunners of those that should after- wards settle the Pacific slope. LEWIS AND CLARK. Among the earliest explorers of Rocky Mountain fame were Lewis and Clark, who, in 1804, were sent to command the expedition in search of the head- waters of the Columbia River and to mark its course. General Clark was the brother of George R. Clark, of whom mention has been made in an earlier part of this chapter. The family were from Virginia, but had become identified with the early history of Kentucky, and William Clark was known from his youth as an Indian fighter. At eighteen years of age he was made ensign, and in 1 792 became a lieutenant of infantry, being appointed in the following year adjutant and quartermaster. He served on the frontier until 1796, when he resigned on account of ill health and went to reside in St. Louis. Seven years later President Jefferson offered him the rank of second lieutenant of artillery, to assume with Merriwether Lewis the command of the exploring expedition to the Columbia River. Lieutenant Lewis was also a Virginian, whose first service had been in quelling the whiskey insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, in 1794. Afterward entering the regular army he rose to the rank of captain, was then private secretar)' to President Jefferson, and so won the President's respect and favor by his superior qualities of mind that he was appointed to the scientific and general command of the expedition of which we have just spoken. THE SOUTH PASS. 209 Lewis and Clark left St. Louis in the summer of 1803. They encamped for the winter on the bank of the Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Missouri River, The company included nine Kentuckians, who were used to Indian ways and frontier life, fourteen soldiers, /** two Canadian boatmen, an inter- ^ preter, a hunter, and negro boat- man. Besides this, a corporal and guard with nine boatmen, were en- gaged to accom- pany the expedi- tion as far as the territory of the Mandans. The party carried with it the usual groods for trading with the Indians, looking glasses, beads, trinkets, hatchets, etc., and such pro- vision as were necessary for the sustenance of its members. While the greater part of the command em- barked in a fleet of three large canoes, the hun- ters and pack- horses paralleled their course along the shore. In this way, in the spring of 1804, the ascent of the Mississippi was commenced. In June the country of the Osages was reached, then the lands occupied by the Ottawa tribes, and finally, in the fall, the hunting grounds of tlie Sioux. Here the leaders of the expedition 14 THE FAR WEST — YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 2IO THE STORY OF AMERICA. ordered cabins to be constructed, and camped for the winter among the Man- dans, in latitude 27° 21' north. They found in that country plenty of game, buffalo and deer being abundant ; but the weather was intensely cold and the expedition was hardly prepared for the severity of the climate, so that its mem- bers suffered greatly. In April a fresh start was made and they ascended the Missouri, reaching the great falls by June. Here they named the tributary waters and ascended the Northernmost, which they called the Jefferson River, until further navigation was impossible ; then Captain Lewis with three companions left the expedi- tion in camp and started out on foot toward the mountains, in search of the friendly Shoshone Indians, from whom he expected assistance in his projected journey across the mountains. A RIVER WHICH RAN TO THE WEST. On the twelfth of August he discovered the source of the Jefferson River in a defile of the Rocky Mountains and crossed the dividing ridge, upon the other side of which his eyes were gladdened by the discovery of a small rivulet which flowed toward the west. Here was proof irrefutable " that the great backbone of earth" had been passed. The intrepid explorer saw with joy that this little stream danced out toward the settingf sun — toward the Pacific Ocean. Meeting a force of Shoshones and persuading them to accompany him on his return to the main body of the expedition. Captain Lewis sought his companions once more. Captain Clark then went forward to determine their future course, and coming to the river which his companion had discovered he called it the Lewis River. A number of Indian horses were procured from their red-skinned friends and the explorers pushed on to the broad plains of the western slope. The latter part of their progress in the mountains had been slow and painful, because of the early fall of snow, but the plains presented all the charm of early autumn. In October the Kaskaskia River was reached, and leaving the horses and whatever baggage could be dispensed with in charge of the Indians, the command embarked in canoes and descended to the Columbia River, upon the south bank of which, four hundred miles from their starting point, they passed the second winter. Much of the return journey was a fight with hostile Indians, and the way was much more difficult than it had been found while advancing toward the West. Lewis was wounded before reaching home, by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of one of his force. Finally, after an absence of two years, the expedition returned, the leaders reaching Washington while Congress was in session, and grants of land were immediately made to them and to their subordinates. Captain Lewis was re- warded also with the governorship of Missouri. Clark was appointed briga- k 212 THE STORY OF AMERICA. dier general for the territory of upper Louisiana, and in 1813 was appointed gov- ernor of Missouri, holding office till that territory became a state, after which he retired into private life till 1S22, when Mr. Monroe made him Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which office he successfully filled until his death. Lewis's end was a sad one. An inherited tendency to melancholia developed itself and led him, after a long and useful career, to take his own life. Of later, though not less fame, were the successors of Lewis and Clark in the explora- tion of the Rocky Mountains and the plains beyond. We refer to General Fremont and his famous scout, Kit Carson. It may be said without exao-a-eration that in all human probability the reputa- tion achieved by the young lieu- tenant and his subordinate in the South Pass was based upon a love adventure. When in 1S40 General Fre- mont was a second lieutenant, he was called to Washington, and while there met and fell in love with Jessie, the daughter of Thomas H. Benton. Colonel Benton liked the young Lieu- tenant, but thought that a fifteen- year-old daughter was altogether too young to contract an engage- ment, and failing in other efforts, he is thought to have procured the imperative order from the War Department which sent Fremont to explore the Rocky Mountains. Colonel Benton's influence at that time was paramount in Washington. The duty assigned was finished by Lieutenant Fremont, perhaps more speedily than would have been the case under other circumstances, and upon his return the lovers were secretly married ; but the love for adventure and exploration had been fully kindled, and a plan was forming in the brain of the future Pathfinder to explore the whole Western country, to study its topography, facilities, etc. As a part of this THE KAK WEST — GEYSER, YELLOWS lUiNE NATlUiNAE PAKK, IDAHO AND MONTANA. GENERAL FREMONT. 213 general scheme he was ordered, at his own request, to make a geographical survey of the Rocky Mountains, especially the South Pass. While engaged in this work the explorer met Kit Carson, a professional hunter and trapper, who had been for eight years regular hunter for Bent's Fort. Fremont at once en- gaged him as hunter and scout. Many of those who are inclined to detract from the reputation belonging to the former have averred that the credit of the discoveries made was mainly due to Carson ; but a knowledge of the fact that barometric obser- vations, topographical data, and other scien- tific records beyond Carson's capacity were made, and not only so, but excited the admiration and at- tention of foreign as well as American au- thorities, shows such a charge to be with- out foundation. Yet the fame of the sub- sequent candidate for the Presidency will always be linked with thai- rt( t^K* hiimT-il<='r shawan6h, the ute chief who was sent to Washington in 1863 to treat uidL ui Liic nuiiiuier ^j^^ ^^^ united states government. companion whose knowledge of the frontier made so much success possible. Carson was sent to Washington as a bearer of dispatches in 1847, ^"^ there received an appointment as lieutenant in the United States Rifle Corps. He was 214 THE STORY OF AMERICA. afterward appointed Indian agent, a post for which his experience admirably fitted him. Of other Western explorers, discoverers, and pioneers we have not space to speak in this chapter. We have sketched the lives and deeds of a few of the more prominent only, indicating how the West was opened for the march of the millions that have come after. We honor the brave men who risked everything and sacrificed everything to open the way, and cannot but believe, in the words of Daniel Boone, that they were " instruments to settle the wilderness." VOLCANIC REKFS OF ARIZONA. CHAPTER XI. PUSHING BACK THE BOUNDARIES. Ij^'T HE definitive treaty of peace between England and the United States, signed at Paris, France, September 3d, 1 783, by the Duke of Manchester, and David Hartley, son of the great philosopher, accredited representatives of the King of Great Britain, was an exact transcript of the preliminary treaty which had been signed in the same city, November 30th, 1782, by Richard Oswald, com- missioner for the English Ministry, and by Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams, the American commissioners. It was provided by that treaty that the boundary line of the United States should start at the mouth of the St. Croix River (named also the Passamaquoddy, and the Schoodic), which now divides the present State of Maine from British New Brunswick, and running to a point near Lake Madawaska in the highlands separating the Atlantic water-shed from that of the St. Lawrence River, should follow those highlands to the Connecticut River and then descend the middle of that stream to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude ; thence running westward and through the centre of the water communications of the Great Lakes to the Lake of the Woods, and thence to the source of the Mississippi, which was supposed to be west of this lake. This line was marked in red ink, by Oswald, on one of Mitchell's maps of North America, in 1 782, to serve as a memorandum establishing the precise meaning of the words used in the description. It ought to have been accurately fixed in its details, by surveys made upon the spot ; but no commis- sioners were appointed for that purpose. The language relating to the north- eastern portion of this northern boundary line contained some inaccuracies, which were revealed by later surveys, and the map used by Oswald was lost. Hence a further question arose between Great Britain and the United States, which was not settled until the Ashburton treaty in 1842. * The nominal boundaries of many of the colonies with which the King entered into treaty, declaring them to be * Critical Period of American History. By John Fiske. 1S91, pp. 25, 26. 215 2l6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. "free, sovereign and independent States,"* as constituted by their charters, extended to the Pacific Ocean, but in practice they ceased at the Mississippi River. Beyond that river the sovereignty, by discovery, settlement, and active exercise, was vested in the King of Spain. Here, therefore, was the western [boundary Hne, at the Mississippi River. On the south the Spanish possessions ran east from that river, and took in the lower portions of the present States of Mississippi and Alabama, with all the present State of Florida. The eastern line was the Atlantic Ocean, starting from about the thirty-first parallel of latitude and running north and east to the St. Croix, the point of departure. GRANDE AVENUE. It requires effort for one to carry the conception of these facts in mind, and recall the actualities of our national existence and activity as shut within these lines ; — not to say to go behind them, and remember that there was then but very little United States to the west of the Alleghany Mountains. It is the aim of the present chapter to stimulate and aid this effort, pointing out * New Hampshire ; Massachusetts Bay; Rhode Island and Providence Plantations ; Connec- ticut; New York ; New Jersey ; Pennsylvania; Delaware; Maryland; Virginia; North Carolina; South Carolina; Georgia. \ ORDER OF ADMISSION OF THE STATES. 217 the successive increments by which the present domain of the country took on its vast proportions, opening to general apprehension the simple truth of Berkeley's lines : — "Westward the course of Empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; Time's noblest offspring is the last." The following statements exhibit the ADMISSION OF STATES SINCE THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT A. D. 1789 IN THE ORDER OF TIME. A. D, Vermont I79i. (Formed from portions of New York and New Hampshire.) Kentucky, 1792. (Formed from Territory ceded to United States by Virginia.) Tennessee 1796. (Formed from Territory ceded to United States by tlie Carolinas.) Ohio 1802. (Formed from the Northwestern Territory.) Louisiana, 1S12. (Formed from the Louisiana Purchase.) Indiana, 1816. (Formed from the Northwestern Territory.) Mississippi 1817. (Formed from Territory ceded to United States by Georgia.) Illinois, 1818. (Formed from the Northwestern Territory.) Alabama 1819. (Formed from Territory ceded to United States by Georgia.) Missouri, 1820. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) Maine, 1820. (Part of Colony of Massachusetts Bay from A. D. 1651.) Arkansas, 1836. (Formed from the Louisiana Purchase.) Michigan 1837. (Formed from the Northwestern Territory.) Florida 1845 (Formed from Territory ceded by Spain, 1S19.) Texas, 1845. (Annexed by vote of United States Congress.) loWA 1846. , (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) Wisconsin 1848. (Formed from Northwestern Territory.) 2i8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. A. D. California, 1850. (Formed from Territory acquired from Mexico ) Minnesota 1858. (Formed from Louisiana Purcliase and Northwestern Territory.) Oregon 1S58. (Claimed by United States by right of prior discovery.) Kansas 1S61. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) West Virginia, 1S63. (Formed after secession of Virginia, 1S61.) Nevada 1864. (Formed from territory acquired from Mexico.) Nebraska, 1867. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) Colorado 1871. (Formed from Territory acquired from Mexico, and from Louisiana Purchase.) Montana, 1889. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) Washington, 1889. (Claimed by United States by right of prior discovery.) Wyoming, 18S9. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) North Dakota 1889. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) South Dakota, 18S9. ; (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) Idaho, '890. j (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) J For the sake of completeness, let there be added to the foregoing, these ; statements concerning the 1 TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1892. District of Columbia (organized), i79i- (Ceded to the United States by Maryland in 1788, and by Virginia in 17S9; seat of United States Government located there, iSoo.) Indian Territory (set apart), 1830. (Formed from Louisiana Purchase.) New Mexico (organized), 1S50. (Formed from Territory acquired from Mexico.) Ih-AH (organized), • ■ '^5°- (Formed from Territory aciiuired from Mexico.) Arizona (organized), lo&3- (Formed from Territory acquired from Mexico.) Alaska (acquired) 1867. (Purchased from Russia.) Oklahoma (organized) 18S9. (Formed from Indian Territoiy.) LINES OF NATIONAL GROWTH. 219 If we add to these statements that the forty-four States and seven Terri- tories which make the United States of to-day, comprise, in the aggregate, an area of 3,602,990 square miles, and were peopled, in 1890, by 62,049,523 souls, we may have some adequate ground for a just contrast between the status of the country at the present time, and at the time when peace was made between King George III, of England, and our forefathers. For then it covered but 827,844 square miles, and had within it a population of say, 3,000,000 persons. We are to trace, in some detail, the successive acquisitions out of which that increase has been derived which differences the United States wherein we live, and the United States of America at the close of the Revolution of 1775-83. SEAL CATCHING IN ALASKA. It is, doubtless, within the knowledge of few readers outside the closer stu- dents of American history, that before that time the prescient mind of George Washington was grappling, in earnest, with one of the two questions more im- minent than others in the determination of that coming territorial expansion, the greatness and the nearness of which were both hidden from the vision of the men of that period. The first was the provision of lines of inter-communication between the whites who had settled in the Mississippi Valley, westward of the Alleghanies, and the inhabitants of the original thirteen States. This was essen- tial in case the new settlements were to be permanendy held within the Union, and the attention of Washington had doubtless been occupied by its considera- tion, rather than by that of the second, upon which we shall speedily touch. For, 220 THE STORY OF AMERICA. in 1784, a tour to Pittsburg, Pa., and a personal examination of the AUeghanies^ had convinced him that by deepening the Potomac and the James Rivers, on the eastern side, and the headwaters of the Ohio River, on the other side of the AUeghenies, canal communication between the East and West would be practi- cable. Probably the scheme would have offered engineering difficulties almost insurmountable at that time. It had really gone so far, however, as incorporation, in both the States of Virginia and Maryland, when Washington reluctantly suffered himself to be drawn away from it by the voice of the whole country, to the Presidency of the Convention of 1 787, and afterwards of the United States. It was reserved for other men to establish communications between these sections of the country, such in nature and in number as neither Washington or his contemporaries dreamed of Another essential, if the emigrants then settled in the Mississippi Valley and those who should follow them, were to be retained in the Federal Union, was, plainly, that they should be relieved from e.xisting Spanish restrictions upon the free navigation of the Mississippi River and its affluents. The auspicious settle- ment of this point was at hand, — nigher, indeed, than might have been looked for. It came with the acquirement by the United States, in the year 1803 of that which went into history under the name of "The Louisiana Purchase." It had been the fixed policy of Spain to exclude all foreign commerce from the Mississippi. Having had the ownership and control, since 1763, of the vast tract west of that stream, she had been so resolute in this purpose that in 1780- 82 she refused to conclude a treaty with the United States, her main reason being that the United States Minister, John Jay, had then demanded the free naviga- tion of the river. So definite and so determined was her purpose that it was apparent that she designed to confine the area of the United States to the country east of the Alleghanies, using, for pretext, a proclamation which had been issued in 1763 by the King of Great Britain, in which he forbade his North American governors to grant lands west of the sources of the streams that fell into the Atlantic Ocean. By the month of July, 1785, the claims of Spain had been modified to the occupation of the Floridas, all the west bank of the Mississippi, — the east bank to a point considerably north of the present southerly boundary of the State of Mississippi, — and an exclusive navigation thence to the mouth of the river. Her insistence upon this exclusive navigation had been so strenuous that by a vote of seven Northern to five Southern States, the Congress of the American Confederation had, in August, 1786, withdrawn all demand upon Spain for any share in it. Indeed, before the 6th October of that year, John Jay, as Secretary of the Confederation for Foreign Affairs, had agreed with Spain upon an article by which this claim on the part of the Americans was totally withdrawn for twenty-five years, although it was not formally relinquished. But the remonstrances and in some cases the violence, of the rapidly THE FRENCH CESSION. 221 increasing American settlers in the valley east of the Mississippi grew to such frequency and to such proportions, that, in i 793, renewed, but still fruitless efforts were made by the United States government to secure a treaty with Spain that should open the river and relieve the settlers. In the year 1795, the attempt was once more renewed, and Thomas Pinckney, the American envoy, then suc- ceeded in negotiating a treaty which stipulated that navigation of the said river (the Mississippi) from its source to the ocean was thereafter to be free to the subjects of the Spanish ruler, and to the citizens of the United States, and allowed these same citizens "to deposit their merchandise and effects in New Orleans, and to export them thence, without import or export duty, for a space of three years. The Spanish government promised, as well, that this permission should EAGLE GATE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG'S SCHOOL. be continued, if it was found, during the three years, that the arrangement was not prejudicial to Spanish interests ; or, it the arrangement should not be con- tinued, that His Majesty would assign to American citizens, " on another part of the banks of the Mississippi, an equivalent establishment." And with this the western United States people were fairly satisfied. Five years subsequent to this (1800), by the third article of a secret treaty between Spain and France, the former ceded to the latter the whole of the vast province of Louisiana, so-called, stretching from the source to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and thence westward to the Pacific Ocean. As the result of this cession, the United States were thenceforth to be hemmed in between France and England, the " two professional belligerents 222 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of Europe," — and toward the end of iSoi Napoleon Bonaparte, then at the head of French affairs, sent from France a fleet and army intended to take possession of New Orleans, although they were ostensibly to operate against St. Domingo. The excitement in the United States which naturally followed this cession was increased by a Spanish order (October, 1S02) abrogating the right of deposit secured by the Pinckney treaty of 1795, without substituting any place for New Orleans, and a Pennsylvania Senator introduced resolu- tions into the United States Congress authorizing President Jefferson to call out 50,000 militia and occupy New Orleans. Instead of this, however, Congress appropriated <^2,ooo,ooo for the purchase of that place, and (January, 1803) the President sent James Monroe to Paris as Minister Extraordinary, with discretionary powers, to co-operate with Robert R. Livingston, then United States Minister at the French Court, in the proposed purchase. A new war between France and England was on the eve of outbreak, and in that event the omnipotent navy of England would make Louisiana a more than useless possession to France. On the nth of April, Livingston was invited by Napoleon to make an offer for the whole of the vast territory. Monroe reached Paris on the 12th, and the two Ministers decided to offer ^10,000,000. The price was finally fixed at $15,000,000,. one-fourth of it to consist in the assumption by the United States, of $3,750,000 worth of claims by American citizens against France. The treaty for the purchase was signed by the American Ministers and by Barbe Marbois, for France, April 30th (1803). The news came upon Spain like a thunderbolt. She filed a protest against it, because of the fact (as is supposed) that a secret condition that France should not alienate Louisiana had accompanied the Spanish cession to France in 1800. But her protest did not avail, and at an early session of the United States Senate, called for the purpose by the President, the purchase was ratified by that body (October 19, 1803). The acquisition of Louisiana added 1,171,931 square miles to the United States, comprising Alabama and Mississippi south of parallel 31° ; all Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon, North and South Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, and Kansas except the southwest part, south of the Arkansas ; Colorado and Wyom- ing east of the Rocky Mountains, and the Indian Territory, with the Territory of Oklahoma. This purchase of the Louisiana Territory, first in order of time in the acquisition of land by the United States, was by far the largest of all that have succeeded it. The engraving, "The Banks of the Mississippi " (page 68), is a suggestion of the teeming commercial life, which, for many years past has grown in volume and importance along the sides of the great "Father of Waters " then brought within the national domain, and the picture of Great Salt Lake City, the capital of THE SPANISH CESSION. 223 Utah, gives a view of another noted feature in this territorial expansion, to which we add (page 198) a singularly graphic delineation of "The Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park," also within the limits of the purchase made in 1 803. The second addition came to the country in 18 19. On the 2 2d of February of that year the Spanish Minister at Washington signed a treaty, by which his GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. country ceded Florida, in area 59,268 square miles, to the United States in return for the payment by the latter country of the claims of American citizens against Spain, amounting to $5,000,000. The ratification of this cession was obtained from the Spanish Home Government in 1 82 1 . The steps leading up to the acqui- sition may be stated in brief: — At the formation of the United States Government, in 1789, Spain had 224 THE STORY OF AMERICA. possession of both Eastern and Western Florida, separated from each other by the river Appalachicola. These divisions of territory had been created by Great Britain in 1 763, and the two, taken together, ran from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. The retrocession of the Louisiana Territory to France by Spain, in 1800, did not convey to the latter nation any portion of Western Florida, and in Spanish judgment all territory east of the Mississippi and west of the Perdido River was a part of Western Florida. She had, therefore, set up a custom-house at the mouth of the Alabama River, and levied heavy duties on goods to or from the upper country. The United States, however, after the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, in 1803, claimed that this purchase included the territory east of the Mississippi River as far as the Perdido, which is in our day the western boundary of the State of Florida; and in 18 10, after the overthrow of the Government in Spain, and when a part of the people in Western Florida had declared themselves inde- pendent of Spain and had assumed nationality. President Madison sent Governor Claiborne, of the United States Territory of (New) Orleans, into their country, with a sufficient force, and took possession of it, with the exception of the fort and city of Mobile. In 181 2, when Louisiana came into the Union as a State, her eastern boundary was fixed at the Pearl River, and what remained of Western Florida between the Pearl and the Perdido was annexed to the Mississippi Ter- ritory, General James Wilkinson, General-in-Chief of the United States Army, taking possession of Mobile in 181 3. This left only Eastern Florida, then stretching from the Perdido River to the Atlantic Ocean, under Spanish rule. Throughout these years the purpose had grown in the Southern States to gain that portion of Spanish dominion, as well as Western Florida, for the United States. January 15th and March 3d, 181 1, the United States Congress passed, in secret, — and its action was not made known until 1818, — acts which authorized the President of the United States to take "temporary possession" of East Florida. The Commissioners appointed under these acts, Matthews and Mitchell, both Georgians, had stirred up insurrection in the coveted territory, and when the President (Madison) refused to sustain them, the State of Georgia formally pronounced Florida needful to its own peace and welfare, and practically declared war on its private account. But its expedition against Florida came to nothing. In 18 1 4, General Andrew Jackson, then in command of United States forces at Mobile, having, by a raid into Pensacola, driven out a British force which had settled there, restored the place to its Spanish authorises and retired. Four years after (18 18), during the Seminole War, annoyed by Spanish assistance given to the Indians, General Jackson again raided Eastern Florida, captured St. Marks and Pensacola, huno- Arbuthnot and Ambrister, two Englishmen who had aided the Seminoles, as "outlaws and pirates," and again demonstrated the fact that Florida was at the mercy of the United States. It was this series of events which \ THE SPANISH CESSION. •225 led to the Spanish cession already noted. And by the treaty which secured that cession the United States gave up any claim to Texas and the River Rio Grande, Tllli FOUNDERS Ul' LUs ANLiELLi. as its western boundary. These questions of extending territory gave occasion for many debates in Congress. Did space admit, it were easy to show, in some IS 226 THE STORY OF AMERICA. detail, at what an early stage in his career, Andrew Jackson, one of the most picturesque characters in American history, displayed, in these events, his essen- tial peculiarities. His exploits in Florida had stamped upon them the same quali- ties which subse- quently distinguished him. But attention must now be turned to the third increase of United States boundaries, in 1845, by the annexation of Texas to the United States by United States Congressional votes (House, De- cember 1 6th; Senate, December 22d). An admirable statement of the causes and methods by which this annexa- tion came about is to be found in the stand- ard " Cyclopaedia " of Mr. J. J. Lalor,* and we shall condense it for our pages. " The inevitable result of the two previous an- nexations," it is de- clared, "was the an- nexation of Texas." IDOLS TOTEM, OF ALASKA. -p) r . 1 „ ,,„„„ , » ^ ., Before the year 1763 Texas had been claimed by Spain. It had been one of the objects of Aaron * Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States. N. Y., 1888. Vol. I, pp. 96, 97. 11 ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 227 Burr's conspiracy in 1S06. During General Wilkinson's hasty preparations to defend New Orleans from that conspiracy, in October of that year, he had agreed with the Spanish commander upon the Sabine River as a provisional boundary between Spanish and American territory, and the treaty of 1819 (see ante) made this boundary permanent. When Mexico's revolt against Spain was successful, by the treaty of Cordova (1821), Texas and Coahuila became one of the States of the Mexican Republic. As early as that year, however, wild spirits in the southwestern United States endeavored to effect an entrance Into Texas. In 1827 and In 1829 Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren, successive United States Secretaries of State, made offers of ^1,000,000 and 5^5,000,000, respectively, for Texas. April i, 1833, Texas formed a Constitution of its own as one of the Mexican State Re- publics. Two years from that time the Mexican Congress abolished all State Constitutions and created a Dictator. Then (March 2, 1836) Texas declared Its own Independence. In the war that ensued, Houston, the Texan General, defeated Santa Anna, the Mexican Dictator, at San Jacinto, Texas, April loth (1836), and the latter, being, taken prisoner, signed a treaty acknowledging Texan independence. Although this act of the Dictator was repudiated by Mexico, the United States (March, 1837) and, soon after, England, France, and Belgium recognized the new republic. But the finances of Texas fell Into such disorder that annexation to the United States was really as desirable for her as for any portion of the States themselves, and in the month of August, 1837, by her Minister at Washington, she asked to be admitted Into the Federal Union. Attempts were at once made and persistently persevered In In the United States Congress and by existent United States Administrations to secure her admission. The question of Texan annexation became a game skillfully played, in partnership, by United States politicians who wished to Increase the number of Southern States, and Texas land and scrip speculators. Ex-President Andrew Jackson in a letter (March, 1843) warmly commended the annexation. In 1844, Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay alike declared against It. In the same year John C. Calhoun, United States Secretary of State, actually made a treaty of annexation with Texas, but it was rejected In the United States Senate by a vote of sixteen ayes to thirty-five nays. The election of James K. Polk as President, in the fall of the year, determined the adoption of the measure in this country, and it was consum- mated In 1845 by votes already stated. The unanimous assent of the Texan Congress had been given to annexation in June, 1845, and that assent had been ratified (July 4th) by a Texan popular convention. This annexation added 376,133 square miles to the territorial area of the United States. For the purposes of this chapter it will suffice If we consider the fourth and the fifth acquisitions of territory by the United States, that of New 228 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Mexico and Upper California (1848) and tlie Gadsden Purchase, so-called, (1853) under a single head — to be known as "the Mexican Cession." New Mexico and Upper California had been conquered by American Troops, the former by those of General S. W. Kearny, — the latter by the United States Navy and a small land force under Colonel John C. Fremont, — and both were held as conquered territory during the Mexican War. From the opening of hostilities, the acquisition, by force or by purchase, of a liberal tract of Mexican territory as "indemnity for the past and security for the future" had been a principal object of that war. GIANT TREE OF THE VOSEMITE VALLEY, IN CALIFORNIA. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February, 1848), the ter- ritory above named was added to the United States, the price fixed being $15,000,000, besides the as- sumption by the United States of $3,250,000 in claims of American citizens against Mexico. This territory, including that part of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande — which was claimed by Texas, and for which the United States afterward paid $10,000,000 to Texas, — added to the area of the country 545,783 square miles. Disputes which arose between the United States and Mexico during the next five years (i 848-1 853) as to the present southern part of Arizona, the Mesilla Valley, from the Gila River to Chihauhua, were such that a Mexican army was marched into it by Santa Anna, who had regained place and power, and preparations were begun RUSSIAN PURCHASE. 229 for a renewal of war. By a treaty negotiated with Mexico by General James Gadsden, of South Carolina, in 1853, the United States obtained the disputed territory by paying $10,000,000 to Mexico, and secured, as well, the right of the transit of United States troops, mails, and merchandise over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. By this annexation 45,535 square miles were added to the national domain. The accession of the Russian province of Alaska on the northwestern coast of North America, by purchase from that Empire, in the year 1867, was the sixth THE BENCHES OF THE FRASER RIVER, NEAR LILLOET, BRITISH COLUMBIA. and last " push " of the boundaries backward from their original limitations in 1783. Russia ceded the territory, — being all of the North American Conti- tinent west of the 141st degree of west longitude, together with a narrow strip between the Pacific Ocean and the British dominions; also, all the islands near the coast, and the Aleutian Archipelago, except Copper and Behring Islands on the coast of Kamschatka, — to the United States Government, for $7,200,000. It added to our area 577,390 square miles. Its ownership had vested in Russia by reason of her claims to it through the right of discovery, and by the right of her possession of the opposite shores of Siberia and Alaska. She also laid claim 230 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to the Northern Pacific as a sort of inland water. Of this latest addition to the area of the country, it may be said at this writing (1892), that it has already amply paid for itself, more than once, from the proceeds of its fisheries, its fur trade, and more recently from its development of gold-bearing quartz. The striking picture, " The Benches of the Fraser River," is an illustration of the possibilities of surface area in this region of North America, where one may travel for hundreds of miles, and fail to find a level spot large enough to make a Iplace on which to play a game of football. i The following is a summary of the territorial possessions of the United States from their existence as a nation, free and independent, at the close of the American Revolution : — Sqttare Miles. United States in 1783 827,884 Louisiana Purchase (1803), 1,171,931 Florida Purchase (1829), 59,268 Texas Annexation (1S45) 376.133 Mexican Cession (184S) S45.783 Gadsden Purchase (1853) 45.535 Russian Purchase (1867), 577.39° Total, 3,603,884 Between the signing of the treaty of peace by George III and his English subjects and the North American colonies, by which signature their independence and sovereignty were acknowledged, and that year of grace in which the present chapter has been penned, — the American Republic has more than quadrupled its area. The judgment of history, calmer and nearer to truth than the utterances of past or contemporary authority, may pronounce a just verdict of disapproval upon the motives and methods which, in certain cases, made a pathway toward these vast augmentations, but it must always remain a source of gratification to an honest citizen that each square mile which has been added to our original boundaries has been paid for at a valuation agreed on by the buyer and the seller. He would be a bold prophet, indeed, who should assert that the limit of our national expansion has been reached. However that may be, there has already been opened to the American people the opportunity for such good work for God and man, within their own borders, as has not been placed before any other nation since the sun first shone upon the earth. Let the people of the United States rise to the level of their opportunity, and they will accomplish that for the benefit of mankind, which it has not yet been given to any other nation to perform. CHAPTER XII. THE SECOND WAR KOR INDEF-ENDENCE, OR THE WAR OE 1812, ^Y their first war with Great Britain our forefathers asserted and maintained their right to independent national existence ; by their second war with Great Britain, they claimed and obtained equal consideration in international affairs. The War of 1812 was not based on a single cause ; it was rather undertaken from mixed motives, — partly political, pardy commercial, partly pa- triotic. It was always unpopular with a great number of the American people ; it was far from logical in some of its posi- tions ; it was perhaps precipitated by party clamor. But, despite all these facts, it remains true that this war established once for all the position of the United States as an equal power among the powers. Above all — clearing away the petty political and partisan aspects of the struggle — we find that in it the United States stood for a strong, sound, and universally beneficial principle — that of the rights of neutral nations in time of war. "Free ships make free goods" is a maxim of international law now universally recognized, but at the opening of the century it was a theory, supported, indeed, by good reasoning, but practically disregarded by the most powerful nations. It was almost solely to the stand taken by the United States in 18 12 that the final settlement of the disputed principle was due. The cause of the War of 181 2 which appealed most strongly to the patriotic feelings of the common people, though, perhaps, not in itself so intrinsically im- portant as that just referred to, was unquestionably the impressment by Great Britain of sailors from American ships. No doubt great numbers of English sailors did desert from their naval vessels and take refug-e in the easier service and better treatment of the American merchant ships. Great Britain was strain- ing every nerve to strengthen her already powerful navy, and the press-gang was constantly at work in English sea-ports. Once on board a British man-of- war, the impressed sailor was subject to overwork, bad rations, and the lash. That British sailors fought as gallantly as they did under this regime will always remain a wonder. But it is certain that they deserted in considerable numbers, 231 232 THE STORY OF AMERICA. and that they found in the rapidly-growing commercial prosperity of our carry- ing trade a tempting chance of employment. Now, Great Britain, with a large contempt for the naval weakness of the United States, assumed, rather than claimed, the right to stop our merchant vessels on the high seas, to examine the crews, and to claim as her own any British sailors among them. This was bad enough in itself, but the way in which the search was carried out was worse. Every form of insolence and overbearing was exhibited. The pretense of claim- ing British deserters covered what was sometimes barefaced and outrageous kidnaping of Americans. The British officers ivent so far as to lay the burden of proof of nationality in each case upon the sailor himself; if he were without papers proving his identity he was at once assumed to be a British subject. To such an extent was this insult to our flag carried that our Government had the record of about forty five hundred cases of impressment from our ships between the years of 1803 and 1810 ; and when the War of 181 2 broke out the number of American sailors serving against their will in British war vessels was variously computed to be from six to fourteen thousand. It is even recorded that in some cases American ships were obliged to return home in the middle of their voyages because their crews had been so diminished in number by the seizures made by British officers that they were too short-handed to proceed. In not a few cases these depredations led to bloodshed. The greatest outrage of all, and one which stirred the blood of Americans to the fighting point, was the capture of an Ameri- can war vessel, the " Chesapeake," by the British man-of-war, the " Leopard." The latter was by far the more powerful vessel, and the "Chesapeake" was quite unprepared for action ; nevertheless, her commander refused to accede to a demand that his crew be overhauled in search for British deserters. Thereupon the "Leopard" poured broadside after broadside into her until the flag was struck. Three Americans were killed and eighteen wounded ; four were taken away as alleged deserters; of these, three were afterwards returned, while in one case the charge was satisfactorily proved and the man was hanged. The whole affair was without the slightest justification under the law of nations and w'^ in itself ample ground for war. Great Britain, however, in a quite ungrace- ful and tardy way, apologized and offered reparation. This incident took place six years before the actual declaration of war. But the outrage rankled all that time, and nothing did more to fan the anti-Bridsh feeling which was already so strong in the rank and file, especially in the Democratic (or, as it was often called then, Republican) party. It was such deeds as this that led Henry Clay to exclaim, "Not content with seizing upon all our property which falls within her rapacious grasp, the personal rights of our countrymen — rights which must forever be sacred — are trampled on and violated by the impressment of our seamen. What are we to gain by war? What are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character, a nation's best treasure, honor ! " 'PAPER BLOCKADES." 233 The attack on American commerce was also a serious danger to peace. In the early years of the century Great Britain was at war not only with France, but with other European countries. Both Great Britain and France adopted in practice the most extreme theories of non-intercourse between neutral and hostile nations. It was the era of "paper blockades." In 1806 England, for instance, declared that eight hundred miles of the European coast were to be VIEW OF A COTTON-CHUTE. considered blockaded, whereupon Napoleon, not to be outdone, declared the entire Islands of Great Britain to be under blockade. Up to a certain point the interruption of the neutral trade relations between the countries of Europe was to the commercial advantage of America. Our carrying trade grew and pros- pered wonderfully. Much of this trade consisted in taking goods from the colo- nies of European nations, bringing them to the United States, then trans-ship- ping them and conveying them to the parent nation. This was allowable under 234 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the international law of the time, although the direct carrying of goods by the neutral ship from the colony to the parent nation (the latter, of course, being at war) was forbidden. But by her famous "Orders in Council " Great Britain ab- solutely forbade this system of trans-shipment as to nations with whom she was at war. American vessels engaged in this form of trade were seized and con- demned by English prize courts. Naturally, France followed Great Britain's example and even went further. Our merchants, who had actually been earning double freights under the old system, now found that their commerce was wofully restricted. At first it was thought that the unfair restriction might be punished by retaliatory measures, and a quite illogical analogy was drawn from the effect produced on Great Britain before the Revolution by the refusal of the colonies to receive goods on which a ta.K had been imposed. So President Jefferson's Administration resorted to the most unwise measure that could be thought of — an absolute embargo on our own ships. This measure was passed in 1807, and its immediate result was to reduce the exports of the country from nearly fifty million dollars' worth to nine million dollars' worth in a single year. This was evidently anything but profitable, and the act was changed so as to forbid only commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and their colonies, with a proviso that the law should be abandoned as regards either of these countries which should repeal its objectionable decrees. The French Government moved in the matter first, but only conditionally. Our non-intercourse act, however, was after 18 10 in force only against Great Britain. That our claims of wrong were equally or nearly equally as great against France in this matter cannot be doubted. But the popular feeling was stronger against Great Britain ; a war with England was popular with the mass of the Democrats ; and it was the refusal of England to finally accept our conditions which led to the declaration of war. By a curious chain of circumstances it happened, however, that between the time when Congress declared war (June 18, 181 2) and the date when the news of this declaration was received in England, the latter country had already revoked her famous "orders in council." In point of fact, President Madison was very reluctant to declare war, though the Federalists always took great pleasure in speaking of this as " Mr. Madison's war." The Federalists through- out considered the war unnecessary and the result of partisan feeling and un- reasonable prejudice. It is peculiarly grateful to American pride that this war, undertaken in defense of our maritime interests and to uphold the honor of our flag upon the high seas, resulted in a series of naval victories brilliant in the extreme. It was not, indeed, at first thought that this would be chiefly a naval war. Presi- dent Madison was at one time greatly inclined to keep strictly in port our war vessels ; but, happily, other counsels prevailed. The disparity between the Amer- ican and British navies was certainly disheartening. The United States had OUR NAVAL GLORY IN THIS WAR. 235 seven or eight frigates and a few sloops, brigs, and gunboats, while the sails of England's navy whitened every sea, and her ships certainly outnumbered ours by fifty to one. On the other hand, her hands were tied to a great extent by the European wars of magnitude in which she was involved. She had to defend her commerce from formidable enemies in many seas, and could give but a small part of her naval strength to the new foe. That this new foe was despised by LOADING A COTTON STEAMER. the great power which claimed, not without reason, to be the mistress of the seas was not unnatural. But soon we find a lament raised in Parliament about th.e reverses, " which English officers and English sailors had not before been used to, and that from such a contemptible navy as that of America had always been held." The fact is that the restriction of our commerce had made it possible for our navy officers to take their pick of a remarkably fine body of native American seamen, naturally brave and intelligent, and thoroughly well trained in all sea- 236 THE STORY OF AMERICA. manlike experiences. These men were in many instances filled with a spirit of resentment at British insolence, having either themselves been the victims of the aggressions which we have described, or having seen their friends compelled to submit to these insolent acts. The very smallness of our navy, too, was in a measure its strength ; the competition for active service among those bearing commissions was great, and there was never any trouble in finding officers of proved sagacity and courage. At the outset, however, the policy determined on by the Administration was not one of naval aggression. It was decided to attack England from her Canadian colonies. This plan of campaign, however reasonable it might seem to a strategist, failed wretchedly in execution. The first year of the war, so far as regards the land campaigns, showed nothing but reverses and fiascoes. There was a long and thinly settled border country, in which our slender forces struesfled to hold their own against the barbarous Indian onslaughts, making futile expeditions across the border into Canada and resisting with some success the similar expeditions by the Canadian troops. It was one of the complaints which led to the war that the Indian tribes had been incited against our settlers by the Canadian authorities and had been promised aid from Canada. It is certain that after war was declared English officers not only employed Indians as their allies, but in some instances, at least, paid bounties for the scalps of American settlers. The Indian war planned by Tecumseh had just been put down by General, afterward President, Harrison. No doubt Tecumseh was a man of more elevated ambition and more humane instincts than one often finds in an Indian chief His hope to unite the tribes and to drive the whites out of his country has a certain nobility of purpose and breadth of view. But this scheme had failed, and the Indian warriors, still inflamed for war, were only too eager to assist the Canadian forces in a desultory but bloody border war. The strength of our campaign against Canada was dissipated in an attempt to hold Fort Wayne, Fort Harrison, and other garrisons against Indian attacks. Still more disappointing was the complete failure of the attempt, under the command of General Hull, to advance from Detroit as an outpost, into Canada. He was easily driven back to Detroit, and when the nation was confidently waiting to hear of a bold defense of that place it was startled by the news of Hull's surrender without firing a gun, and under circumstances which seemed to indicate either cowardice or treachery. Hull was, in fact, court-martialed, condemned to death, and only pardoned on account of his services in the war of 1776. The mortification that followed the land campaign of 1 8 1 2 was forgotten in joy at the splendid naval victories of that year. Pre-eminent among these was the famous sea-duel between the frigates '-Constitution" and " Guerriere." Every one knows of the glory of " Old Ironsides," and this, though the greatest, was only one of many victories by which the name of the " Constitution " THE ''CONSTITUTION" AND THE "GUERRIEREr 237 became the most famed and beloved of all that have been associated with Amer- ican ships. She was a fine frigate, carrying forty-four guns, and though English journals had ridiculed her as " a bunch of pine boards under a bit of striped bunting," it was not long before they were busily engaged in trying to prove that she was too large a vessel to be prop- erly called a frigate, and that she greatly out-classed her opponent in metal and Iv -J BURNING OF WASHINGTON. men. It is true that the; " Constitution " carried six more guns and a few more men than the " Guerriere," but, all allowances being made, her victory was yet a naval triumph of the first magnitude. Captain Isaac Hull, who commanded her, had just before the engage- ment proved his superior seamanship by escaping from a whole squadron of British vessels, out-sailing and out-manoeuvring them at every point. It was on August 19 when he 238 THE STORY OF AMERICA. descried the " Guerriere." Both vessels at once cleared for action and came together with the greatest eagerness on both sides for the engagement. Though the battle lasted but half an hour, it was one of the hottest in naval annals. At one time the " Constitution " was on fire, and both ships were soon seriously crippled by injury to their spars. Attempts to board each other were thwarted on both sides by the close fire of small arms. Here, as in later sea- fights of this war, the accuracy and skill of the American gunners were some- thing marvelous. At the end of half an hour the "Guerriere" had lost both mainmast and foremast and floated helplessly in the open sea. Her surrender was no discredit to her officers, as she was almost in a sinkins^ condition. It was hopeless to attempt to tow her into port, and Captain Hull transferred his prisoners to his own vessel and set fire to his prize. In the fight the American frigate had only seven men killed and an equal number wounded, while the British vessel had as many as seventy-nine men killed or wounded. The con- duct of the American seamen was throughout gallant in the highest degree. Captain Hull put it on record that " From the smallest boy in the ship to the oldest seaman not a look of fear was seen. They all went into action giving three cheers and requesting to be laid close alongside the enemy." The effect of this victory in both America and England was extraordinary. English papers long refused to believe in the possibility of the well-proved facts, while in America the whole country joined in a triumphal shout of joy, and loaded well-deserved honors on vessel, captain, officers, and men. The chagrin of the English public at the unexpected result of this sea battle was changed to amazement when one after another there followed no less than six combats of the same duel-like character, in which the American vessels were invariably victorious. The first was between our sloop, the "Wasp," and the English brig, the " Frolic," which was convoying a fleet of merchantmen. The fight was one of the most desperate in the war ; the two ships were brought so close together that their gunners could touch the sides of the opposing vessels with their rammers. Broadside after broadside was poured into the " Frolic " by the "Wasp," which obtained the superior position, but her sailors, unable to await the victory which was sure to come from the continued raking of the enemy's vessel, rushed upon her decks without orders and soon overpowered her. Again the British loss in killed and wounded was large ; that of the Ameri- cans very small. It in no wise detracted from the glory of this victory that both victor and prize were soon captured by a British man-of-war of immensely supe- rior strength. Following this action. Commodore Stephen Decatur, in our frigate, the " United States," attacked the " Macedonian," a British vessel of the same kind, and easily defeated her, bringing her into New York harbor on New Year's Day, 1813, where he received an ovation equal to that offered Captain Hull. The .same result followed the attack of the " Constitution," now under the command OTHER SEA-DUELS. 239 of Commodore Bain- "Java;" the latter had her about one hundred wound- that it was decided to blow tion" suffered so little that Ironsides," a name now been in every school-boy's resulted, in the great ma- jority of cases in the same way — in all unstinted praise was awarded by the bridge, upon the English captain and fifty men killed and ed, and was left such a wreck her up, while the " Constitu- she was in sport dubbed " Old ennobled by a poem which has mouth. Other naval combats STATUE OF COMMODORE PERRY. whole world, even including England herself, to the admira- ble seamanship, the wonderful gunnery, and the constant per- sonal intrepitude of our naval forces. When the second year of the war closed our little navy 240 THE STORY OF AMERICA. had captured twenty-six war-ships, armed with 560 guns, while it had lost only seven ships, carrying 119 guns. But, if the highest honors of the war were thus won by our navy, the most serious injury materially to Great Britain was in the devastation of her commerce by American privateers. No less than two hundred and fifty of these sea guerrillas were afloat, and in the first year of the war they captured over three hundred merchant vessels, sometimes even attacking and overcoming the smaller class of war-ships. The privateers were usually schooners armed with a few small guns, but carrying one long cannon mounted on a swivel so that it could be turned to any point of the horizon, and familiarly known as Long Tom. Of course, the crews were influenced by greed as well as by patriotism. Privateering is a somewhat doubtful mode of warfare at the best ; but international law permits it ; and though it is hard to dissociate from it a certain odor, as of legalized piracy, it is legitimate to this day. And surely if it were ever justifiable it was at that time. As Jefferson said, there were then tens of thousands of seamen forced by war from their natural means of support and useless to their country in any other way, while by "licensing private armed vessels the whole naval force of the nation was truly brought to bear on the foe." The havoc wrought on British trade was widespread indeed ; altogether between fifteen hundred and two thousand prizes were taken by the privateers. To compute the value of these prizes is impossible, but some idea may be gained from the single fact that one privateer, the " Yankee," in a cruise of less than two months captured five brigs and four schooners with cargoes valued at over half a million dollars. The men eneag^ed in this form of warfare were bold to recklessness, and their exploits have furnished many a tale to Ameri- can writers of romance. The naval combats thus far mentioned were almost always of single vessels. For battles of fleets we must turn from the salt water to the fresh, from the ocean to the great lakes. The control of the waters of Lake Erie, Lake Onta- rio, and Lake Champlain was obviously of vast importance, in view of the con- tinued land-fighting in the West and of the attempted invasion of Canada and the threatened counter-invasions. The British had the great advantage of being able to reach the lakes by the St. Lawrence, while our lake navies had to be con- structed after the war began. One such little navy had been built at Presque Isle, now Erie, on Lake Erie. It comprised two brigs of twenty guns and sev- eral schooners and gunboats. It must be remembered that everything but the lumber needed for the vessels had to be brought through the forests by land from the eastern seaports, and the mere problem of transportation was a serious one. When finished, the fleet was put in command of Oliver Hazard Perry. Watching his time (and, it is said, taking advantage of the carelessness of the PERRY'S GREAT VICTORY. 241 British commander in going on shore to dinner one Sunday, when he should have been watching Perry's movements), the American commander drew his fleet over the bar which had protected it while in harbor from the onslaughts of the British fleet. To get the brigs over this bar was a work of time and great difficulty; an attack at that hour by the British would certainly have ended in the total destruction of the fleet. Once accomplished, Perry, in his flagship, the " Lawrence," headed a fleet of ten vessels, fifty-five guns, and four hundred men. Opposed to him was Captain Barclay with six ships, sixty-five guns, and also VIEW ON LAKE ONTARIO. about four hundred men. The British for several weeks avoided the conflict, but in the end were cornered and forced to fight. It was at the beeinnine of this battle that Perry displayed the flag bearing Lawrence's famous dying words, " Don't give up the ship ! " No less famous is his dispatch announcing the result in the words, " We have met the enemy and they are ours." The victory was indeed a complete and decisive one ; all six of the enemy's ships were captured, and their loss was nearly double that of Perry's forces. The complete control of Lake Erie was assured ; that of Lake Ontario had already been gained by Commodore Chauncey. 16 242 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Perry's memorable victory opened the way for important land operations by General Harrison, who now marched from Detroit with the design of invading Canada. He engaged with Proctor's mingled body of British troops and Indians, and by the Battle of the Thames drove back the British from that part of Canada and restored matters to the position in which they stood before Hull's deplorable surrender of Detroit — and, indeed, of all Michigan — to the British. In this battle of the Thames the Indian chief, Tecumseh, fell, and about three hundred of the British and Indians were killed on the field. The hold of our enemies on the Indian tribes was greatly broken by this defeat. Previous to this the land cam- paigns had been marked by a succession of minor victories and defeats. In the West a force of Americans under General Winchester had been captured at the River Raisin ; and there took place an atrocious massacre of large numbers of prisoners by the Indians, who were quite beyond restraint from their white allies. On the other hand, the Americans had captured the city of York, now Toronto, though at the cost of their leader, General Pike, who, with two hundred of his men, was destroy.ed by the e.xplosion of a magazine. Fort George had also been captured by the Americans and an attack on Sackett's Harbor had been gal- lantly repulsed. Following the battle of the Thames, extensive operations of an aggressive kind had been planned looking toward the capture of Montreal and the invasion of Canada by way of Lakes Ontario and Champlain. Un- happily, jealousy between the American Generals Wilkinson and Hampton resulted in a lack of concert in their military operations, and the expedition was a complete fiasco. One turns for consolation from the mortifying record of Wilkinson's ex- pedition to the story of the continuous successes which had accompanied the naval operations of 1813. Captain Lawrence, in the " Hornet," won a complete victory over the English brig " Peacock ;" our brig, the " Enterprise," captured the " Boxer," and other equally welcome victories were reported. One distinct defeat had marred the record — that of our fine brig, the "Chesapeake," com- manded by Captain Lawrence, which had been captured after one of the most hard-fought contests of the war by the British brig, the " Shannon." Lawrence himself fell mortally wounded, exclaiming as he was carried away, "Tell the men not to give up the ship but fight her till she sinks." It was a paraphrase of this exclamation which Perry used as a rallying signal in the battle on Lake Erie. Despite his one defeat. Captain Lawrence's fame as a gallant seaman and high- minded patriot was untarnished, and his death was more deplored throughout the country than was the loss of his ship. In the latter part of the war England was enabled to send large reinforce- ments both to her army and navy engaged in the American campaigns. Events in Europe seemed in 18 14 to insure peace for at least a time. Napoleon's power was broken ; the Emperor himself was exiled at Elba ; and Great Britain at last LUNDY'S LANE AND PLATTSBURG. 243 had her hands free. But before the reinforcements reached this country, our army had won greater credit and had shown more mihtary skill by far than were evinced in its earlier operations. Along the line of the Niagara River active WEATHERSFORD AND GENERAL JACKSON. fighting had been going on. In the battle of Chippewa, the capture of Fort Erie, the engagement at Lundy's Lane, and the defense of Fort Erie the troops, under the command of Winfield Scott and General Brown, had held their own, and more, against superior forces, and had won from British ofificers the admission that they 244 THE STORY OF AMERICA. fought as well under fire as regular troops. More encouraging still was the total defeat of the plan of invasion from Canada undertaken by the now greatly strengthened British forces. These numbered twelve thousand men and were supported by a fleet on Lake Champlain. Their operations were directed against Plattsburg, and in the battle on the lake, usually called by the name of that town, the American flotilla under the command of Commodore Macdonough completely routed the British fleet. As a result the English army also beat a rapid and undignified retreat to Canada. This was the last important engagement to take place in the North. Meanwhile expeditions of considerable size were directed by the British against our principal Southern cities. One of these brought General Ross with five thousand men, chiefly the pick of the Duke of Wellington's army, into the Bay of Chesapeake. Nothing was more discreditable in the military strategy of our Administration than the fact that at this time Washington was left unprotected, though in evident danger. General Ross marched straight upon the Capital, easily defeated at Bladensburg an inferior force of raw militia — who yet fought with intrepidity for the most part — seized the city, and carried out his intention of destroying the public buildings and a great part of the town. Most of the public archives had been removed. Ross' conduct in the burning of Washington was probably within the limits of legitimate warfare but has been condemned as semi- barbarous by many writers. The achievement gave great joy to the English papers, but was really of less importance than was supposed. Washington at that time was a straggling town of only eight thousand inhabitants ; its public buildings were not at all adequate to the demands of the future ; and an optimist might even consider the destruction of the old city as a public benefit, for it enabled Congress to adopt the plans which have since led to the making of perhaps the most beautiful city of the country. A similar attempt upon Baltimore was less successful. The people of that city made a brave defense and hastily threw up extensive fortifications. In the end the British fleet, after a severe bombardment of Fort McHenry, were driven off. The British Admiral had boasted that Fort McHenry would yield in a few hours ; and two days after, when its flag was still flying, Francis S. Key was in- spired by its sight to compose the "Star Spangled Banner." A still larger expedition of British troops landed on the Louisiana coast and marched to the attack of New Orleans. Here General Andrew Jackson was in command. He had already distinguished himself in this war by putting down with a strong hand the hostile Creek Indians of the then Spanish territory of Florida, who had been incited by English envoys to warfare against our Southern settlers; and in April, 1814, William Weathersford, the half-breed chief, had surrendered in person to Jackson (see illustration). General Packenham, who commanded the five thousand British soldiers sent against THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 245 New Orleans, expected as easy a victory as that of General Ross at Washington. But Jackson had summoned to his aid the stalwart frontiersmen of Kentucky and Tennessee — men used from boyhood to the rifle, and who made up what was in effect a splendid force of sharp-shooters. Both armies threw up rough fortifications ; General Jackson made great use for that purpose of cotton bales, Packenham employing the still less solid material of sugar barrels. Oddly enough, the final batde, and really the most important of the war, took place after the treaty of peace between the two countries had already been signed. The British were repulsed again and again in persistent and gallant attacks on our fortifications. General Packenham himself was killed, together with many officers and seven hundred of his men. One British officer pushed to the top of our earthworks and demanded their surrender, whereupon he was smilingly asked to look behind him, and turning saw, as he afterward said, that the men he supposed to be supporting him " had vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up." The American losses were inconsiderable. The treaty of peace, signed at Ghent, December 24, 18 14, has been ridiculed because it contained no positive agreement as to many of the questions in dis- pute. Not a word did it say about the impressment of American sailors or the rights of neutral ships. Its chief stipulations were the mutual restoration of ter- ritory and the appointing of a commission to determine our northern boundary line. The truth is that both nations were tired of the war ; the circumstances that had led to England's aggressions no longer existed ; both countries were suffering enormous commercial loss to no avail ; and, above all, the United States had emphatically justified by its deeds its claim to an equal place in the council of nations. Politically and materially, further warfare was illogical. If the two nations had understood each other better in the first place ; if Great Britain had treated our demands with courtesy and justice instead of insolence ; if, in short, international comity had taken the place of international ill-temper, the war might have been avoided altogether. Its undoubted benefits to us were incidental rather than direct. But though not formally recognized by treaty, the rights of American seamen and of American ships were in fact no longer infringed upon by Great Britain. One political outcome of the war must not be overlooked. The New Eng- land Federalists had opposed it from the beginning, had naturally fretted at their loss of commerce, and had bitterly upbraided the Democratic administration for currying popularity by a war carried on mainly at New England's expense. When in the latter days of the war New England ports were closed, Stonington bombarded, Castine in Maine seized, and serious depredations threatened every- where along the northeastern coast, the Federalists complained that the adminis- tration taxed them for the war but did not protect them. The outcome of all this discontent was the Hartford Convention. In point of fact it was a quite 246 THE STORY OF AMERICA. harmless conference which proposed some constitutional amendments, protested against too great centralization of power, and urged the desirability of peace with honor. But the most absurd rumors were prevalent about its intentions ; a regi- ment of troops was actually sent to Hartford to anticipate treasonable outbreaks ; and for many years good Democrats religiously believed that there had been a plot to set up a monarchy in New England with the Duke of Kent as king. Harmless as it was, the Hartford Convention proved the death of the Federalist party. Its mild debates were distorted into secret conclaves plotting treason, and, though the news of peace followed close upon it, the Convention was long an object of opprobrium and a political bugbear. A I'LANTER S HOUSE IN GEORGIA, OUR INDIAN PROBLEM. BY honorable: HEKRY L. DAWES, Chairman Commitlee on Indian Affairs^ Untied States Senate. WITH HISTORICAL SKETCH BY ANNA L. DAWES. CHAPTER XIII. The Story of~ the Indian. CHAPTER XIV. The Indian ok the Nineteenth Century (Or Our Indian Problem). CHAPTER XIII. THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. A CHEYENNE. T the time when our forefathers first landed on these shores, they found the Indian here. Whether at Ply- mouth or Jamestown, at the mouth of the Hudson or in Florida, their first welcome was from the red man. To him the country belonged, and from him the white man secured it, sometimes by form of purchase, some- times as conqueror, more often by the simpler process of taking possession as a settler. For the most part the Indian acquiesced at first. The white man and his ways were new and strange and somewhat fearful to the child of the forest, and it seemed best to propitiate so formidable an antagonist. But the early settlers were men of blood and iron, and both in theory and practice their tender mercies were cruel. On the part of tho settlers the Indian was everywhere so treated that friendship turned to enmity, and on both sides fear became an ally of hate. Now and then a leader, broader minded than his fellows, like Standish or John Smith, met the red man with justice, and cemented bonds that stood the strain of battle ; but. at the beginning, as truly as to-day, the white settler coveted land and pushed the Indian off it that he might dwell thereon in peace. And it "nust be said that in the seventeenth century he violated no tradition, set 247 248 THE STORY OF AMERICA. himself against no law, human or divine, when he did this. Possession was still the right of the stronger, the world over, and the conquest of new countries the chief glory of king and commons alike. To flee away from oppression was the only refuge, and to oppressor as well as oppressed it seemed a natural resort. The country was broad enough for both, thought the white man. If the red man could not live with the new comers on the coast, let him fly to the fresh wilderness of the interior ; and so he did, year after year, until one day there was no more wilderness. Then the nation which in the nineteenth century still kept up the habits of the seven- teenth, found that the weapons of that old time were two-edged ; we could not conquer without fighting, nor oppress without revolt ; and we learned at last that a new day must have new deeds. Our early relations with the Indian may be roughly divided into different periods, covering the time from the first landing on our shores until somewhere about 1830 ; and then again into other periods, from that time until now. In the first or early chapter of our Indian experi- ences we find the period of discov- ery, when the savage met the new comer with wonder and welcome, and the invader plundered and enslaved the savage ; the colonial period, when the savage had grown wiser and more cunning and waited for knowledge of the settler's pur- pose before treating with him, some- times living peaceably by his side, or sometimes uniting in the vain effort to drive him away, but always baffled, defeated and conquered ; and the national period, when the Indian was the accepted enemy of the young nation, or temporarily its ally ; but always their relations were those of fighting and destruction. From the year 1830 onward, we were dictating the terms of those relations and changing them to suit the mood of the hour. It is necessary, however, to first consider the early relations of the two peoples. OLD MISSION INDIAN OF SOUIHKKN CALIFORNIA. PERIOD OF DISCOVERY. 249 When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, in 1620, or Captain John Smith and his followers settled Jamestown, in 1607, they were by no means the first to hold relations with the red men. More than one hundred years had elapsed since Columbus, mistaking our shores for the East Indies, had named the wild inhabitants Indians. In that time one explorer after another had landed on our shores and had taken possession of one tract or another for himself or his king, and held it, or foreotten it, as the case migrht be. But whether French or English, Spanish or Dutch, these men were invariably met with kindness, hos- pitality, friendship ; and invariably they had returned cruelty. The Indians lived in scattered villages in much quiet and friendliness. Game, fish, a few simple vegetables, including maize and wild roots, made up their living. Hos, pitality to friend and stranger was a duty, and to refuse succor a crime. They were nowise anxious to take on the white man's ways, which seemed to them inferior in all that was manly. Nor was it much wonder, for the new comers deceived and cheated the simple Indian, or when occasion offered — some- times without — burned his villages, and killed the inhabitants ; and never a ship sailed away from the new world without its quota of kidnapped red men, carried over seas for trophies and slaves. The Spanish and Portuguese in the South, under Cortereal and Coronado and De Soto and others, the French and English in the north, under Cartier and Cabot and their companions, all came on the same search for gold, and all treated the Indian after the same fashion. When the year 1 600 came in, it beheld a new era in America — the era of settlement — the day of homes and villages, and the new question arose whether the two races could live together in peace and quietness. All the experience of the past was against it in the long memory of the red man. In North Carolina, Sir Walter Raleigh's romantic experiment at colonizing Roanoke Island had come to nothing, and left behind it the memory of an unprovoked and treacherous massacre by the suspicious English. Yet notwithstanding this, the Indian still tried the vain experiment of kindness. When in 1607 a colony appeared at Jamestown, the great warrior Powhatan, whose realms had been invaded by the Carolina colony, " kindly entertained " the Englishmen, feeding them with bread and berries and fish, while his people danced for their entertainment. Shortly becoming convinced, how- ever, that the English occupation boded ill for his people, finding that " the rights of the Indian were little respected, and the English did not disdain to appropriate by conquest the soil, the cabins, and the granaries of the tribe of the Appomattox," Powhatan determined to protect his people, and strove in every way to dispossess the English. The skill and courage of the redoubtable Captain John Smith were too much for him, and an outward peace was maintained, although with some difficulty, by that warrior. At one time Captain Smith was himself taken prisoner and his life threatened, and 250 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the romantic story is told that his Hfe was preserved by the Princess Pocahontas. It is more probable, however, that he owed his life to his native wit, although such a rescue had been the happy fate of a much earlier explorer years before. The beautiful Pocahontas married John Rolfe, and thus helped greatly to bind together the colonists and the Indians. But even this outward kindliness was not of long duration, for the death of Powhatan was shortly followed by a dreadful massacre of the whites, and for twenty years both races in that region rivaled each other in destruction. In New England the story was much the same. Before the Pilgrims reached New England the Indians of Maine had suffered much, and the name of the Englishman was already feared and hated. Thus it was that a shower of arrows was the first welcome Massachusetts gave the white man. But a few months later an Indian, Samoset, walked into Plymouth, saying, "Welcome, Englishmen ! " and was the first of a group of famous red men who be- came the friends of the settlers. Squanto, Hobamok, Massasoit, Ca- nonicus, Uncas, Miantonomah, are names well known to New England annals, names of orreat warriors most of them, men who kept faith with their allies. But as time went on, and the inevitable results of the new occupation appeared, the Indians o-rew more and more unwilling to give up their lands, and now and aeain made a brave stand for their own. Then occurred awful wars, bloody and terrible as only savage wars could be, complicated oftentimes by the jealousies and hereditary enmities of the different tribes. Thus if Miantonomah and the Narragansetts were friendly to the settler, Uncas and his Mohicans were their enemies. Early in sixteen hundred, Sassacus and the proud tribe of the Pequots made an unavailing attempt to destroy the invader, and were utterly extermi- nated. It is hard to tell which were the more barbarous, the colonists or the Indians ; alike they burned defenseless villages, alike they murdered women and children. Fifty years later one of the greatest of all the Indian warriors. King TOMO-CHI-CHI AND HIS NEPHEW. iFrotn a print after the painting by William Verelst.) ABUSE OF HOSPITALITY. 251 Philip, made one more last effort for his country. For a year and a half he kept the English at bay, appearing and reappearing all over Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, fighting with musket and fire as well as with tomahawk and scalping-knife, brave beyond the telling, and as cruel. The colonists suffered untold horrors, and the Indian endured still more, for in the end he saw his power depart and his race disappear from the soil he had loved so long. Meanwhile in New York and west of it, the great confederated tribes of the Iroquois or the " Six Nations " ruled over all the surrounding country. North- ward to Quebec, southward to Maryland, westward to Illinois and Michigan, they controlled the tributary tribes, and by their political ability, their courage AN OLD INDIAN FARM-HOUSE. and their power, they daily established themselves more and more firmly. Mo- hawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Senecas and Tuscaroras, they founded a federation or league, and with an elaborate polity and much advancement in the arts of life, with strong towns and stockaded forts, they thought themselves invincible. The towns were well fortified, and their palisades proved sure de- fenses even against the dreaded powder and balls. For more than a hundred years the Iroquois fought the French in Canada, or defended themselves against the French invasions in New York. The fingers of a single hand will suffice for the victories of the white man, yet in the end the Iroquois were so weakened and decimated by Frontenac, that their power was broken. Partly they owed 252 THE STORY OF AMERICA. this result, however, to the extraordinary diplomatic ability of the chief of the Hurons, their hereditary enemies, who with the skill of a Talleyrand so manipu- lated both French and Indians as to greatly prolong the war. In Pennsylvania alone was there peace. Coming over in the last half of the seventeenth century, William Penn brought with him Quaker principles and Quaker methods. For the first time in the history of our dealings with the aborigines we not only began with justice but maintained it. Penn bought the land with much merchandise, and thereafter held the red man as of one blood with the white man. There were neither wars nor massacres, and in the dark COUKTSUIP AMONG THE INDIANS. Story of the Indian this treaty shines with the light of righteousness. On the Pacific coast, too, was a brief brightness. There Sir Francis Drake landed in the "fair and good bay " of San Francisco, in 1579, and so won the hearts of the natives that they made him king, and wept sore for his departure ; but this was only an episode, and not the long test of daily contact which the Pennsyl- vania Quakers bore so serenely. Other and smaller points of light there were ; stars in the dark night. It was not until 1528 that any man remembered that these savages had souls, but thereafter there were never wanting brave and holy priests who dared unknown dangers and endured all things to teach here THE COLONIAL DAYS. 25J and there a few. Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits, equaled each other in labors and martyrdoms in Florida and New Mexico, while the story of the Jesuits in the North and West is the very romance of heroism. The grants under which the Protestant English took possession of their lands had much to say of the noble work of bringing civilization and Christianity to the "infidels and savages living in these parts," and Virginia early made some efforts to establish schools and induce "the children of those barbarians" to learn the "elements of literature " and " the Christian religion," but we hear little of practical results until the day when that apostle to the red men, John Eliot, first taught the Indians of Massachusetts and Connecticut. For thirty years he BUKYI.NG THE BACKED I'LUME-bTICKi l.\ THE OCEAN A CURIOUS RELIC. OUS CLKE.MO.NY. lived among them and taught them to read, to work, to pray. He gave them a Bible in their own tongue, and amid labors many and perils more, he and his faithful follower, Thomas Mayhew, gathered from among those hunted and fighting savages six Indian churches, whose more than a thousand " praying Indians " once and acrain stood firm arainst fearful odds, and became a bulwark of safety to their pale-faced neighbors. While the colonists were erowine strong in the North, and circumstances were speedily to change the Indian problem, the red men of the South were beginning a career unusual in our annals, since it continues in unbroken sequence unto this day. The Indian has gone from New England and the middle West ;; 254 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the great league of the Iroquois survives only in the legal privileges still accorded the poor remnants of the Six Nations ; the warrior of the plains has hardly a link with Powhatan or Pontiac ; but the Cherokee and the Seminole are still Indian nations, and still treat with us and still keep to their proud isolation, as their forefathers did. Cherokees, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Creeks and Choctaws, in the early days they spread over the South from the hills of Carolina to the plains of Texas. The Spaniards found them there and so did the French. The Choctaws joined themselves to the French to massacre and exterminate their neighbors, the splendid Natchez ; the Chickasaws beat back the invading French- men allied with the Choctaws, and owned no masters. The Cherokees met the friendship of Gov. Oglethorpe in Georgia with like fidelity and friendship, but met treachery and blood in the Carolinas with like treachery and blood, until much fighting and many troops were spent in conquering them. The Creeks and Seminoles kept proud state along the Ohio, in Georgia and in Florida, and during the vicissitudes of their northern brethren, their lives went on more nearly as of old than was possible in the North. The wars between France and England for the possession of the New World in America, brought about new conditions for the Indian. It is no longer conflicts between separate tribes and their white neighbors we have to consider, but battles which were part of a larger plan and attacks inspired from a different motive. The chronicle becomes no longer so much the story of great chiefs, and struggles for tribal existence, but the Indians "were tossed upon the bayonets of the contending parties, courted no allies, used as scourges, and at all times disdained as equals." For nearly fifty years the French and their allies, the Algonquin tribes, made constant and bloody forays all along the English frontier defended by the Iroquois. Through central New York, Massa- chusetts, southern New Hampshire and Maine, there was no rest to the settler. At any moment the dreaded war-whoop might be heard, and an awful death awaited him, while worse captivity was the certain fate of the women and children. The familiar story of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was a twice-told tale all through this wide and thickly-settled region. A remote little town, it was marked for attack because of its unhappy possession of a church bell intended for an Indian village in Canada. To rescue this bell, the ever-ready Indians joined the French soldiers, and amidst the snows of February, the town was burned to the eround, and one hundred and twelve inhabitants all killed or carried in cruel captivity in the eight weeks' march through the deep snows and bitter cold to Canada. Death brought welcome release to many of the party. Thus did the whole country suffer, and thus did the red man make his name feared above all things else. The varying fortunes of France and England, constantly brought similar fluctuations to the peace of the New World, in the fifty years before the treaties FRENCH AND ENGLISH WARS. 255 of Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle ; but that famous peace scarcely more than altered the scene of the fighting on this side the water. English and French alike claimed the country west of the Alleghanies, and the French, with their THE INDIAN'S DFXLARATION OF WAk Indian allies, lost no time in asserting their claims and defendino- their rights. o o Then it was, that in the spring of 1754, one George Washington, the young adjutant general of the Virginia militia, scarcely come to his majority, won his spurs in the unavailing campaign against Fort Duquesne. For more than five 256 THE STORY OF AMERICA. years the desultory war went on. Braddock's defeat was followed by many another French success, with its horrid accompaniment of savage warfare. Under Montcalm still more of the Indians joined the French, even the Iroquois uniting with the other tribes against the English, and it was not until 1760, that Canada was finally surrendered to the British. At last the harassed colonists hoped for peace, and dreamed that the scalping knife was thrown away. Shortly enough it proved a vain dream. As the plantations and towns crowded the hunting grounds farther and farther back, it " threw the Indian who had become possessed of habits modified by contact with the whites, upon the tribes living in the ancient manner, and bred tribal jealousies." The fierce struggle between French and English for the possession of the Mississippi Valley, made a new opportunity, and once more a great warrior arose, determined to make a desperate effort to free his people from the white man. We have hardly given enough credit to the military capacity and the genius for governing, of these great chiefs. They played French against English, Spanish against French, tribe against tribe ; they conspired, manipulated men and armies, fought or covenanted, with the skill and insight and courage of great commanders. What was known as " Pontiac's War" was in its inception and development a revolution worthy to rank with the great uprisings of the old world. The Indian is always and everywhere possessed of the genius of ruling. State-craft is his birthright equally with wood-craft. Pontiac, leader of the Ottawas, Ojibways, and Pottawatomies, inspired by the French to take revenge, and eager to free his people from the hated dominion of the English, dreamed a dream of patriotism. To more than usual ability in many directions, he joined the imperious will and high ambition which mark the conqueror. He had ever been victorious, and he planned on a given day to sweep away the forts and crowd the invader into the sea ; and not without a sense of what he was undertaking, he proposed to do this by bringing back the French. All along the Canadian frontier, and in Pennsylvania and Virginia as well, the war raged for more than three years, before the great chief finally surrendered the hope he so cherished, and in 1 766 made a reluctant treaty with the English. The hundred years which closed with the end of the Colonial period had not been altogether without effort to civilize and Christianize the red heathen. In Pennsylvania and Ohio the Moravians had won the hearts and lives of the Delawares until their towns blossomed with peace and prosperity, and the lives of the people gave goodly witness to the faith they professed. Beset by hostile Indians and worse beset by hostile whites, three times they were driven — these Christian Indians — from their beautiful homes into a new wilderness, and practis- ing to the full the doctrine of love and forgiveness, these converted savages made no resistance. At last they were rewarded with the crown of martyrdom, when REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 257 at Gnaden Huten, without pretext, ninety unresisting and Christian Indians were slaughtered in cold blood by the white men, and no voice of man, woman or child was left to tell the tale. Such instances are in striking contrast with the just dealings of Penn in Pennsylvania. Among the Iroquois the Church of England, the Moravians again, and the Presbyterians made much progress in teaching the children and spreading religion throughout the tribes. From one of their schools arose Hamilton College. In New England too, John Eliot had left worthy successors. The names of Brainard, Jonathan Edwards, Sergeant and PENN S RESIDENCE IN SECOND STREET, BELOW CHESTNUT STREET. Wheelock are known to us still by their labors and their success in teaching the Indian youth ; and from both sides the water came the money to carry on their work. It was the last named. Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, whose determination to start a boarding school for his wards resulted in the establishment of Dartmouth College, and among his pupils was the well known Chief of the Mohawks, Joseph Brant, who became such a figure in the Revolutionary War. When the Colonies finally rebelled against the Mother Country, in 1775, the English had learned much from the French and Indian war as to the military >7 258 THE STORY OF AMERICA. value of the alliance with the Indians. In one way or another they had suc- THE APACHE CHIEFS, GERONIMO, NATCHEZ. ceeded in gaining the friendship of most of the tribes. The Iroquois confedera- tion was their natural ally, through its able chief, Joseph Brant, whose sister had INDIAN STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 259 married the famous governor, Sir William Johnson ; and thus the border line was always open to the British. As the French had thrown the Indian upon the set- tlers in the past, so the English now set their savage allies upon the defenseless towns and unprotected forts. The tomahawk and scalping knife were again the recognized weapons of warfare, and throughout New York and even in Pennsyl- vania terror was again abroad. It was in this struggle that the famous Seneca, Red Jacket, fought with desperation, and opposed to the last the treaty which buried the hatchet, with such eloquence that twenty-five years later Lafayette still remembered his words. In the Northwest, the French influence happily pre- vailed to prevent the Indian defection to any great extent, but in Kentucky and West Virginia there was desperate fighting in a sort of guerrilla warfare be- tween the red braves and such backwoodsmen as Daniel Boone. In the South the warlike Creeks made haste to attack the whites, but met with short shrift. Meanwhile the Continental Congress had placed the affairs of the Indians in three departments, under direction of some of its most famous men, and even employed the Indians in its armies. But only an isolated few were actively on the side of the Colonists. The close of the Revolutionary War brought only a partial cessation of the Indian warfare. The red man was by no means disposed to give up his country without a struggle, and all throughout the interior, in what is now Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and alonof the Ohio River, there were constant outbreaks, and battles of great severity. The conflict in Indiana brought forward the services of a young Lieutenant, William Henry Harrison, who for many years had much to do with Indians, both as officer and as Governor of the new Indian Territory. In 181 1 appeared another of those great Indian chiefs whose abilities and influ- ence are well worth attention and study. Tecumseh, a mighty warrior of mixed Creek and Shawnee blood, once more dreamt the old dream of freeing his people. With eloquence and courage he urged them on, by skill he combined the tribes in a new alliance, and, encouraged by British influence, he looked forward to a great success. While he sought to draw the Southern Indians into his scheme, his brother rashly joined battle with General Harrison, and was utterly defeated in the fight which gained for Harrison the tide of Old Tippecanoe. Disap- pointed and disheartened at this destruction of his life-work, Tecumseh threw all his great influence on the British side in the War of 1 8 1 2, where he dealt much destruction to the United States troops. At Sandusky and Detroit and Chicago, and at other less important forts, the Indian power was severely felt ; at Terre Haute the young Captain Zachary Taylor met them with such courage and read- iness of resources that they were finally repulsed, but rarely did a similar good fortune befall our troops ; and it was more than a month after Commodore Perry won victory for us at Lake Erie, that Tecumseh himself was killed, and the twenty-five hundred Indians of his force were finally scattered in the great fight 26o THE STORY OF AMERICA. of the Thames River, where our troops were commanded by WilHam Henry Harrison and Richard M. Johnson, afterward President and Vice-President of the United States. For a Httle time the Northwest had peace. But in the South the warfare was not over. Tecumseh had stirred up the Creeks and Seminoles against the whites, and throughout Alabama, Georgia, and Northern Florida the Creek War raged with all its horrid accompaniments until 1815 ; even the redoubtable Andrew Jackson could not conquer the brave Creeks until they were almost exterminated, and then a small remnant still remained in the swamps of Florida to be heard of at a later time. Thus ends a brief and hasty chronicle of the American Indians in the early days of our Nation. Thereafter they were a subject race, and a new policy was adopted in which we fixed the terms, and they, rebelling or accepting our de- cision as it might be, in the end could only submit. But as from the beginning so it has gone on until now ; as we pushed the frontier farther and farther back, at every stage the Indian made one more effort for his home and his hunting grounds. As in Massachusetts and Virginia, so in Dakota and New Mexico, Powhatan and King Philip and Sitting Bull and Geronimo have alike fought for their country and their people. Let us honor these patriots and not despise them. And we may well admire them also, for braver warriors, abler states- men, wiser rulers the world has seldom seen. Small was their field, cruel their code, savage their people, but in despair and difficulty they wrought great works. A pity it is that so many great names are forgotten, so many brave rleeds unsung. Anna L. Dawes. ^ ■ CHAPTER XIV. THE INDIAN OK THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Before the new Government of the United States was fully upon its feet it recognized the necessity and duty of caring for its Indian population. In 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress divided the Indians into three Departments, Northern, Middle, and Southern, each under the care of three or more Commissioners, among whom we find no less personages than Oliver Wolcott, Philip Schuyler, Patrick Henry, and Ben- jamin Franklin. As early as 1832 the young nation found itself confronted with an Indian problem, and created a separate Bureau for the charge of the red men, and inaugurated a policy in its treatment of them. Speaking in general, we have altered this policy three times. As a matter of fact, we have certainly altered its details, changed its plans, and adopted a new point of view as changing Adminis- trations have chansfed the administrators of our Indian affairs. But in the large, there have been three great steps in our Indian policy, and these have to some extent grown out of our changing condi- tions. The first plan was that of the reservations. Under that system, as the Indian land was wanted by the white population he was removed across the Mississippi and still further west, pushed step by step beyond and beyond ; and as time went on and the population fol- lowed hard after, he was confined to designated tracts. It was no matter that these tracts were absolutely guaranteed to him, he was still driven off them again and again as the farmer or the miner demanded the land. In time a new policy was attempted, or, rather, an old policy was revived, that of concentrating the 261 HON, HENRY L. DAWES. 262 THE STORY OF AMERICA. whole body ot Indians in one State or Territory, but the obvious impossibility of that scheme soon wrought its own end. Less than twenty years ago the present plan took its place, that of education and eventual absorption. In 1830 the country seemed to stretch beyond any possible need of the young nation, lusty as it was, and the wide wilderness of the Rocky Mountains to furnish hunting grounds for all time. The Mississippi Valley and the Northwest were still unsettled and uneasy, and in the South the Five Nations were greatly in the way of their white neighbors, and the scheme of removing the red inhabitants beyond the Mississippi was begun. The first removals were, like the last, times of trouble and disturbance, and then, as now, there were two parties in the tribes, those who saw there was no way but submission, and those who indulged the fruitless dream of revolt. Thus the Sac and Fox tribe of Wisconsin was divided, and although Keokuk and one band went peaceably to their new home among the lowas, Black Hawk and his followers were slow to depart, and were removed by force. The Indian Department failed to furnish corn enough for the new settlement, and going to seek it among the Winnebagoes, the Indians came into collision with the Government. Thereafter ensued a series of misunder- standings, and consequent fights, and great alarm among the whites and the destruction of the Indians. The story is the same story, almost to details, that every year has seen from that day to this. Under President Monroe several treaties were made with the Five Nations, by which, one after another, they ceded their Southern lands to the Government, and took in exchange the country now known as the Indian Territory. They were already far advanced in civilization, with leaders combining in blood and brain the Indian astuteness and the white man's experience and educa- tion. John Ross, a half-breed chief of the Cherokees, of extraordinary ability, brought about the removal under conditions more favorable than often occurred. He was bitterly opposed by full half the Indians, and it was not without suf- ferings and losses of more than one kind that the great Southern league was removed to the fair and fertile land they had chosen in the far-off West. It was owing to the sagacity of John Ross and his associates that this land was secured to them, as no other land has ever been secured to any Indian tribe. They hold it to-day by patent, as secure in the sight of the law as an old Dutch manor house or Virginia plantation, and all the learning of the highest tribunals has not yet found the way to evade ©r disregard these solemn obligations. To these men, too, and to the missionaries who had long taught these tribes, do they owe an elaborate and effective civili- zation, and a governmental polity which preserves for them alone, among all their red brethren, the title and the state of nations. The Seminoles, who were of the Creek blood, were divided, some of them going west with their brethren. TREATIES. 263 some of them, the larger part, remaining in Florida. With these, about four thousand in all, under Osceola, the Government fought a seven years' war, costing forty millions of dollars and untold lives. After like fashion have all our "re- movals" proceeded, and from like causes — the greed of the white man and the ferocity of the outraged Indian. It is useless and impossible to give the de- tails of all the various tribes that have been pushed about, hither and yon. In 1830 the East was already crowding toward the West, and every decade saw the frontier moved onward with giant strides. Everywhere the Indian was an undesirable neighbor, and when, in 1 849, the discovery of gold began to create a new nation on the Pacific slope, a pressure began from that side also, and the intervening deserts became a thoroughfare for the pilgrims of fortune and the many lovers of adventure. From year to year the United States made fresh treaties with the innumerable tribes ; those in the East were gone already, those in the interior were following fast, and there had arisen the new necessity of dealing with those in the far West. One tribe after another would be planted on a reservation millions of acres in extent and apparently far beyond the home of civilization, and almost in a twelvemonth the settler would be upon its border demanding its broad acres. The reservations were altered, reduced, taken away altogether, at the pleasure of the Govern- ment, with little regard to the rights or wishes of the Indian. Usually this brought about fighting, and it produced a state of permanent discon- tent that wrought harm for both settler and savage. The Indian grew daily more and more treacherous and constantly more cruel. The white settler was daily in greater danger, and constantly more full of revenge. A new complication entered into the problem. The game was fast dis- appearing, and therewith the life of the Indian. It became necessary for the Government to furnish rations and clothes, lest he starve and freeze. Cheating was the rule and deception the every-day experience of these savages. In 1795 General Wayne gained the nickname of General To-morrow, so slow was the Government to fulfill his promises ; and thus for more than a hundred years it has always been to-morrow for the Indian. Exasperated beyond endurance, he was ever ready to retaliate, and the horrors of an Indian war constantly hung over the pioneer. During all this period we treated these Indians as if they were foreign nations, and made solemn treaties with them, agreeing to furnish PEDRO PINO. LAI-IU-AH-TS.\I-LA. FORMERLY GOVERNOR OF ZUNI FOR THIRTY YEARS. 264 THE STORY OF AMERICA. them rations or marking the reservation bounds. We have made more than a thousand of these treaties, and General Sherman is the authority for the state- ment that we have broken every one ourselves. Day by day the gluttonous idleness, the loss of hope and future, the sense of wrong, and the bitter feeling of contempt united to degrade the red man as well as to madden him. The fighting did not cease, for all the promises or the threats of the Government. But always, it is credibly declared, the first cause of an Indian outbreak has been a wrong suffered. And always, in these latter days as in the earlier period, it has meant one more effort on the part of the old warriors to regain the power they saw slipping away so fast. Both these causes entered into the awful Sioux War in Minnesota in 1862. Suffering from piled-up wrones, smartingf under the loss of power, and conscious that the Civil War was their opportunity, a party of one hundred and fifty Sioux began the most horrid massacre of the last fifty years ; the begin- ning of a struggle which lasted more than a year, which was remarkable for the steadfast fidelity of the Christian Indians, to whose help and succor whole bodies of white men owed their lives. Four years later, in 1866, the discovery of gold in Montana caused the inva- sion of the Sioux reservation, and Red Cloud set about defending it. Scarcely more than thirty years old, but no mean warrior, he fought the white man long and desperately and with the cunning of his race. This outbreak was scarcely quieted when another occurred. As was its wont, the Government forgot the promises of its treaty of peace, and a small band of the Cheyennes retaliated with a raid upon their white neighbors. General Sheridan made this the occasion he was seeking for a war of extermination, and in November, 1868, Lieutenant Custer fell upon Black Kettle's village and after a severe fight destroyed the village, killing more than a hundred warriors and capturing half as many women and children. The next year General Sheridan ordered the Sioux and Cheyennes off the KON-IT L, AN INDIAN CHIEF. PLAN OF CONCENTRATION. 265 hunting grounds the treaty had reserved to them, but these were the strongest and bravest of the tribes and they resisted the order. A hst of heroes, Crook, Terry, Custer, Miles, and McKenzie, led our troops, and among the chiefs whom they met in a long and desperate struggle were Crazy Horse and Spotted Tail, notable warriors both. At the battle of the Big Horn, by some misunderstanding or mismanagement General Custer was left with only five companies to meet nearly three thousand savage Sioux. He fought desperately until the last but he himself was killed, and so utterly was his command destroyed that not a single man was left alive. The attempt to remove the Modocs from California to Oregon in 1872 was the signal for a new war ; and a year or two afterward similar results followed when it was attempted to push the Nez Perces from the homes they had sought in Oregon to a new reservation in Idaho. This tribe under their famous leader. Chief Joseph, were hard to conquer. Their military orranization, their civilized method of warfare, their couraee and skill, were publicly complimented by General Sherman and General Howard and General Gibbons, who declared Chief Joseph to be one of the greatest of modern warriors. In 1877, discouraged at all our efforts to hold the Indians in check, it was determined by Secretary Schurz, then in charge of the Department of the Interior, to remove them all to the western part of the Indian Territory, where the Five Nations would cede the necessary land, and there create an Indian State. Great trouble arose from the attempt to carry out this Avell-meant, but impossible, effort. A single story, the story of the Northern Cheyennes, will illustrate the wrongs the Indian suffered as well as those he inflicted. The Cheyennes, as has been seen, were a tribe of great warriors, some of them at home in the hills of the North, some in the hills of the South. Cheyennes and Arapahoes, Kiowas and Comanches, were banded together in a close and common bond, and at first the friends of the Govern- ment, had become frequently its enemies, by reason of broken faith, cruel treatment, injustice, and downright wrong. That chronicle of misery, "A Century of Dishonor," contains forty pages of facts taken from the Government records, which relate the inexcusable and indefensible treatment of this tribe by the Government and the vain effort for endurance of the Cheyennes, inter- spersed with frequent savage outbreaks when human nature could endure no longer. It includes the account of a massacre of helpless Indian women and children under a flag of truce ; a war begun over ponies stolen from the Indians and sold in the open market by the whites in a land where the horse thief counts with the murderer ; another incited by rage against a trader who paid one-dollar bills for ten-dollar bills ; and tells of whole tracts of land seized without compensation by the United States itself The Northern Cheyennes had been taken by force to the Indian Territory, and in its awful heat, with 266 THE STORY OF AMERICA. scant and poor rations, a pestilence came on. Two thousand were sick at once, and many died because there was not medicine enough. At last three hundred braves, old men and young, with their women and children, broke away and, making a raid through Western Kansas, sought their Nebraska home. This was not a mild and peaceable tribe. It was fierce and savage beyond most, and they were wild with long endured injustice and frantic with a nameless terror. Three times they drove back the troops who were sent to face them and, living by plunder, they made a red trail all through Kansas, until they were finally captured in Nebraska in December. They refused to go back to the Indian Territory, and the Department ordered them starved into submission. Food and fuel were taken from those imprisoned Indians. Four days they had neither food nor fire — and the mercury froze at Fort Robinson in that month ! And when at last two chiefs came out under a flag of truce, they were seized and imprisoned. Then pandemonium broke loose inside. The Indians broke up the useless stoves, and fought with the twisted iron. They brought out a few hidden arms, and howling like devils they rushed out into the night and the snow. Seven days later they were shot down like dogs. Experiences like this soon ended the attempt to gather together all our Indian wards, and we returned to the old plan of the reservations, but with little more certainty of peace than before. Again and again starvation was followed by fighting, nameless outrages upon the Indian by cruel outrages upon the white man. Whether Apaches under Geronimo in New Me.xico, or Sioux in Dakota, it was the old story over again. Thus with constant danger menacing the white settler from the infuriated and savage Indian, and constant outrage upon the red man by rapacious and cruel whites, the government found a new policy necessary. By a strange and unusual sequence of events this policy was inaugurated. In 1869 a sharp difference arose between the two Houses of Congress over the appropriations to pay for eleven treaties then just negotiated, and the session closed with no appropriation for the Indian service. The neces- sity for some measure was extreme ; the plan was devised of a bill, which was passed at an extra session, putting two millions of dollars in the hands of Presi- dent Grant, to be used as he saw fit, for the civilization and protection of the Indian. He immediately called to his aid a commission composed of nine phil- anthropic gentlemen to overlook the affairs of the Indian and advise him there- upon. This Commission served without salary and continues to this day its beneficent work. Another valuable measure resulted. At the next Congress a law was passed forbidding any more treaties with Indians, and thenceforth they became our wards, not our rivals. The war of 1876 had indirectly another beneficent result of most far-reach- ing consequences. Among the brave men who had fought the Cheyennes and Kiowas and Comanches, was Captain Richard H. Pratt, who was put in charge CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT. 268 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of the prisoners sent to Fort Marion, Florida, as a punishment worse than death. They were the wildest and fiercest of warriors, who had fought long and desperately. On their long way to the East they had killed their guard, and repeatedly tried, one and another, to kill themselves. But Captain Pratt was a man of wonderful executive ability, of splendid courage and great faith in God and man. By firmness and patience and wondrous tact he gradually taught them to read and to work, and when after three years the Government offered to return them to their homes, twenty-three refused to go. Captain Pratt appealed to the Government to continue their education, and General Arm- strong, with his undying faith in human beings as children of one Father, and with his sublime enthusiasm for humanity, took most of them at Hampton Insti- tute, the rest being sent to the North under the care of Bishop Huntington of New York. In the end these men returned to their tribes Christian men, and with the seventy who returned directly from Florida, every one became a power for peace and industry in his tribe. Out of this small beginning grew the great policy of Indian education, and the long story of death and destruction began to change to the bright chronicle of peace and education. What, then, is the condition of the Indian to-day ? In number there are scarcely more than two hundred and forty thousand in the whole country. Of these less than one-fifth depend upon the Government for support. All told, they are less than the inhabitants of Buffalo or Cleveland or Pittsburgh, but they are not dying out, the rather steadily increasing. They are divided and subdivided into multitudinous tribes of different characteristics and widely differ- ent degrees of civilization. Some are Sioux — these are brave and able and intelligent ; they live in wigwams or tepees, and are dangerous and often hostile. Some are Zunis, and live in houses and make beautiful pottery, and are mild and peaceable, and do not question the ways of the Great Father at Washing- ton. Some are roving bands of Shoshones, dirty, ignorant, and shiftless — the tramps of their race — who are on every man's side at once. Some are Chilcats or Klinkas, whose Alaskan homes offer new problems of new kinds for every day we know them. And some are Cherokees, living in fine houses, dressed in the latest fashion, and spending their winters in Washington or Saint Louis. Yet these, and many more of many kinds, are all alike Indians. They have their own governments, their own unwritten laws, their own customs. As a race they are neither worthless nor degraded. The Indian is not only brave, strong, able by inheritance and practice to endure beyond belief but he is patient under wrong, ready and eager to learn, and willing to undergo much privation for that end ; usually affectionate in his family relations, grateful to a degree, pure and careful of the honor of his wife and daughter ; and he is also patriotic to a fault. He has a great genius for government, and an unusual interest in it. He is full of manly honor, and he is supremely religious. His history and traditions are PRESENT CONDITION OF THE INDIAN 269 but just now discovered, to the delight and the surprise of scientific students. His daily life is a thing of elaborate ceremonial, and his national existence is as carefully regulated as our own, and by an intricate code. It is true that our failure to comprehend his character and our neglect to study his customs have bred many faults in him and have fostered much evil. Our treatment of him, moreover, has produced and increased a hostility which has been manifested in savage methods for which we have had little mercy. But we have not always given the same admiration to warlike virtues when our enemy was an Indian that we have showered without stint upon ancient Gaul or modern German. The popular idea of the Indian not only misconceives his character, but to a large UNHORSED — AN INCIDENT OF CUSTER S FIGHT. degree his habits also. Even the wildest tribes live for the most part in huts or cabins made of logs, with two windows and a door. In the middle is a fire, sometimes with a stovepipe and sometimes without. Here the food is cooked, mostly stewed, in a kettle hung gypsy-fashion, or laid on stones over the fire. Around this fire, each in a particular place of his own, lies or sits the whole family. Sometimes the cooking is done out of doors, and in summer the close cabin is exchanged for a tepee or tent. Here they live, night and day. At night a blanket is hung up, partitioning the tent for the younger women, and if the family is very large, there are often two tents, in the smaller of which sleep the young girls in charge of an old woman. These tents or cabins are clustered 270 THE STORY OF AMERICA. close together, and their inhabitants spend their days smoking, talking, eating, quarreling, as the case may be. Sometimes near them, sometimes miles away, is the agent's house and the Government buildings. These are usually a com- missary building where the food for the Indians is kept, a blacksmith shop, the store of the trader, school buildings, and perhaps a saw-mill. To this place the Indians com.e week by week for their food. The amount and nature of the rations called for by the different treaties vary greatly among different tribes. But everywhere the Indian has come into some sort of contact with the whites, and usually he makes some shift to adopt the white man's ways. A few are rich, some own houses, and almost universally, now. Government schools teach the children something ^^^^^~"^~^~~^"^=~~^ " " of the elements of learning as well as the indispensable English. The immediate control of the reserva- tion Indian is in the hands of the agent, whose power is almost absolute, and, like all despotisms, is very good or intolerable, as the indi- vidual character of the man may be. The agencies are inspected from time to time by Inspectors, who report directly to the Com- missioner [of Indian Affairs], who in his turn is an officer of the Interior Depart- ment and responsible to the Secretary, who is, of course, amenable to the President. In each house of Congress is a committee having charge of all lemslation relating to Indian Affairs. Besides these officials there is the Indian Commission already mentioned. The National Indian Rights Association and the Women's National Indian Association are the unofficial and voluntary guardians of the Indian work. It is their task to spread correct information, to create intelligent interest, to set in motion public and private forces which will bring about legislation, and by public meetings and private labors to prevent wrongs against the Indian, and to further good work for him of many kinds. While the Indian Rights Association does the most public and official work for the race and has large influence over legislation, the Women's Indian Associa- tion concerns itself more largely with various philanthropic efforts in behalf of the individual, and thus the two bodies supplement each other. Hopeless and impossible as it seemed twenty years ago to absorb the INDIAN AGENCY. NATURE OF EDUCATION AND RESULTS. 271 Indian, to-day we see the process more than begun and in some cases half accom- pHshed ; and in this work the Government, philanthropy, education, religion, have all had their share, and so closely have these walked together that neither can be set above or before the others. We began to realize, it is true, that our duty and our safety alike lay in educating these Indians, as early as 18 19, when Congress appro- -; priated ^10,000 for that purpose, and -cif still earlier President Washington de- i^.jjm i'-.s* ATTACK BY MODOCS ON THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS, APRIL II, 1873. clared to a deputation of Indians his belief that industrial education was their greatest need ; but it is only within fifteen years that determined efforts have been made or adequate provision afforded. Beginning with $10,000 in 1819, we had reached only $20,000 in 1877 ; but the appropriation for 1891 for Indian education was $2,291,000. With this money we support thirteen 272 THE STORY OF AMERICA. great industrial training schools established at various convenient points, and five more are about to be added. In them nearly 5000 children are learning not only books, but all manner of industries, and are adding to civilization the train- ing of character. There are no less than seventy boarding schools on the vari- ous reservations teaching and training as many more of these children of the hills and plains, and half as many gather daily at the one hundred little day schools which dot the prairies, some of them appearing to the uninitiated to be miles away from any habitation. This does not include the more than thirty mission schools of the various Churches. But all together it is hoped that in the excellent Government schools now provided, in the splendid missionaiy semi- naries, and in the great centres of light like Hampton and Carlisle and Haskell Institute, we shall in 1892 do something for the education of nearly or quite two-thirds of all the 30,000 Indian children who can be reached with schools. The two great training schools at the East, Hampton and Carlisle, have proved object lessons for the white man as well as the Indian, and the opposi- tion they constantly encounter from those who do not believe that the red man can ever receive civilization is in some sort a proof of their value. In the main, they and all their kind have one end — the thorough and careful training in books and work and home life of the Indian boy and girl, and their methods are much alike. Once a year the Superintendents or teachers of these schools go out among the Indians and bring back as many boys and girls as they can persuade the fathers and mothers to send. At first these children came in dirt and filth, and with little or no ideas of any regular or useful life, but of late many of them have learned some beginnings of civilization in the day schools. They are taught English first, and by degrees to make bread and sew and cook and wash and keep house if they are girls ; the trade of a printer, a blacksmith, a car- penter, etc., if they are boys. They study books, the boys are drilled, and from kind, strong men and gentle, patient women they learn to respect work and even to love it, to turn their hands to any needed effort, to adapt themselves to new situations, the meaning of civilization. It is charged that the Indian educated in these schools does not remain civilized, but shortly returns to his old habits and customs. Can an Indian boy or girl be so far civilized in five years, it is asked, that he will withstand all the forces, personal and social, striving to draw him back to the easy ways of bar- barism when he returns to his old associates ? A detailed examination into the lives of three hundred and eighteen Indian students who have gone out from Hampton Institute has shown that only thirty-five have in any way disappointed the expectations of their friends and teachers, and only twelve have failed altogether ; and the extraordinary test of the last Sioux war, in which only one of these students, and he a son-in-law of Sitting Bull, joined the hostiles, may well settle the question. LAND IN SEVERALTY LAW. 273 With the passage of the Severalty Law, in 1887, a new era opened before the Indian. Under it, if he will, there is secured to him and each member of his family a homestead of eighty acres, inalienable and exempt from taxation for twenty-five years. With this homestead comes citizenship and all its privi- leges and immunities, obligations and opportunities. All these are his, also, without allotment of any land in severalty, whenever he will abandon his tribe and take upon himself the ways of the white man. Nearly twenty thousand have already since the passage of this law taken their place in the citi- zenship of the nation. The transi- tion from a state of dependent wards, whose dwelling place and manner of life, whose food and raiment and very being, were controlled by another, into the independence and responsibilities of United States citizenship, has been so sudden, and in some cases without due prepara- tion for so great a change, as to prove a severe test of the manhood in the Indian. There have been failures, but they have been marvelously i&w, and this way out of barbarism to civilization is becoming plainer and surer every day. The providing of an inalienable home for the Indian, and citizenship, with all that pertains to that royal title, to all who avail themselves of this grant, has brought along with it the necessity for new laws, almost a new code, for the government and protection of this race. Citizenship, provided in the Severalty Law, by its own force brought every one it reached at once into the same forum and under the same shield as every other citizen of the United States. It also defined and guarded the marriage relation and the descent of property, as well as other domestic relations, hitherto shadowy and but little regarded. But the reservation and wild Indian cannot appeal to this law for protection or assertion of his rights. It has been more difficult to bring him within the pale of legal enactment either for restraint or protection. Yet great progress has been made even here. The judicious expenditure of large 18 GENERAL GEOROE CROCIK. 274 THE STORY OF AMERICA. appropriations for the education of the Indian has done much to clear the way and make the brineing^ of this class of Indians under the restraining^ and civilizing influence of law. It has not always been possible, among savages, to do this in strict conformity with the normal methods pointed out in the Consti- tution which governs the States and civilized people, but methods have been adopted suited to the conditions of the several tribes, and best adapted to the maintenance of peace, the protection of person and property, and the lesson of restraint which comes from familiarity with the administration of law in its various forms. This has been accomplished to a remarkable degree through the agency of the Indian himself An Indian police selected from the most trustworthy and efficient Indians, paid and uniformed by the Government, patrol the reservations, preserving the peace and enforcing an observance of law. A "Court of Indian Offenses," presided over by three discreet and influential Indians appointed by and under the constant supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, try and punish those who are charged with the com- mission of minor offenses ; while in the matter of the more serious crimes of murder, arson, robbery, and the Hke, perpetrated either by or upon an Indian, the offender is by law to be tried and punished in all respects as if both parties were white men. In this way substantial security to person and property prevails upon the reservation. It has been said that religion and philanthropy and the Government have gone hand in hand in the work of educating the Indian to a new conception of manhood. Without the work done for him by the missionaries, no progress would have been possible. And if some of the work already described has been labeled philanthropic or legislative or educational, it has been as truly missionary work as any done on the frontier, and its motives and many times its methods have been the missionary zeal and the missionary teaching. Captain Pratt was by no means the first man who ever taught an Indian. The saintly Bishop Whipple had lived among the Minnesota Indians for years, and that other saint, Dr. Rio-g-s, had g-iven his life to the Dakotas lona before, and a greneration had passed since Samuel Wooster suffered in prison for teaching the Cherokees. The Congregationalists at Santee, at Hampton, the Episcopalian Bishop Hare's wonderful schools in Dakota, the Presbyterians in Nebraska and Alaska, the Unitarians among the Crows, the Friends with the Sacs and Foxes in the South, and each of these and others in many other places dotted all over the land, are teaching the Indians of the Great Father, of Him who is the light and life of the world, of the salvation and brotherhood of men ; and they are eager to hear it. Our duty and our interest go hand in hand and the pathway is becoming plainer every day. The irresistible growth of the nation in the increase of its population demanding homes, in the reaching out after every element of wealth and power NECESSITY AND DUTY OF ABSORPTION. 275 lying within its utmost confines, is absorbing, with everything else material, the last unoccupied acre of the heritage of the Indian. Shall it also absorb the race itself, and make it part of its citizenship and body politic ? Either this, or what is left of the Indian race, two hundred and fifty thousand, must be soon turned out, a homeless, penniless band of wandering, savage tramps, the terror of the land. There is no alternative to this outcome but absorption or extermina- tion. The latter being impossible, the former alone is left us. We have wisely accepted it, and the success which has thus far attended the undertaking to fit the race for absorption attests its wisdom. As an Indian of the old time and character he is fast disappearing, and a new strain of blood, rela- tively slight and not void of good elements, is being safely injected into national citizenship. If the work be persisted in patiently and kindly it will soon be ended. But it cannot be accomplished by enactment alone, nor, without that, by educational or missionary effort. All these in harmonious endeavor, with self-supporting citizenship as the end in view, bent on the lift, will surely and speedily raise him from the low condition of helpless and aimless and worse than useless barbarism, to the plane where he can, according to the measure of an ever-increasing capacity, con- tribute to the wealth of citizenship in the land. This is no small labor lightly turned off It is changing into civilized life the barbarism of centuries. The savage must be inspired with new thoughts and aspirations, and to make room for these the passions and tendencies of ages and generations must be driven out. It is not beginning with the tabula rasa of an infant, but with life born and bred a savage life. The infant is to be taught to walk, not only as a white man walks, but to shun the slippery ways toward which all its surround- ings, all its blood, and all the life which it inherits are drawing it. It is a great GENERAL CROOK S APACHE GUIDE. 276 THE STORY OF AMERICA. undertaking, and will cost much in time and money; but it is also a necessity, and in the end will bring full recompense. The Indian race is worthy of our deepest interest. Here is a people full of natural pride and bound together in a national feeling much stronger than we ourselves know anything about, crushed down by the power of a Government which seems to them always their enemy but always professing to be their protector ; full of despair that sees no hope in the future ; perplexed with the present, that seems to their direct ways and simple thought to have no explana- tion, but is always in some manner to be full of sorrow and trouble ; without occupation, with no one to understand their past or care for their heroes and their history ; shot down like dogs for disobeying law they do not comprehend, and execrated for the bravery that all men elsewhere are wont to admire ; losing at once their children and their customs ; these uncomprehended statesmen, these despised knights, this people, who can find no common ground with their destroyers, ask of us at least to know who they are, what they want, why they are as they are, to see where the fault lies, to know what it means when a war arises ; — to put ourselves in their place, and at least to pay attention. A tragedy of nations is going on in our midst and we sit calmly by, never giving it even the idle attention of our leisure. And some of the woes of this tragedy are also the birth-pangs of a new nation. If the sorrows of the past and the present do not affect us, let us at least sympathize with the hopes of the present and the future. We are given the unusual privilege to see. a nation born in our midst. Out of the darkness of the past, its ignorance, its custom-bound barbarism, its wild and splendid bravery of battle, a nation is coming into the light, is begin- ning to know knowledge, to feel the freedom of life under law, to show the less splendid but all-requiring bravery of the new manhood, the every-day fortitude of the new womanhood. CHAPTER XV. THE STORY OK THE NEGRO. THE history of the negro in America is, in brief, the record of slavery agitation, poHtical struggle, civil war, emancipation, and gradual growth into citizenship. When, over two hundred and seventy years ago — it is in doubt whether the correct date is 1619 or 1620 — a few wretched negroes, some say fourteen some say twenty, were bartered for. provisions by the crew of a Dutch man-of-war, then lying off the Virginia coast, it would have seemed incredible that in 1890 the negro population of the Southern States alone should almost reach a total of seven million souls. The peculiarity of the form of slavery, begun almost by chance it seemed, in that act of barter in the feeble little colony of Virginia, was that it was based on the claim of race inferiority. African negroes had, indeed, been sold into slavery among many nations for perhaps three thousand years ; but in its earlier periods slavery was rather the outcome of war than the deliberate subject of trade, and white captives no less than black were ruthlessly thrown into servitude. It has been estimated that in historical times some forty million Africans have been enslaved. The discovery and colonization of America gave an immense stimulus to the African slave trade. The .Spaniards found the Indian an intract- able slave, and for the arduous labors of colonization soon began to make use of negro slaves, importing them in great numbers and declaring that one negro was worth, as a human beast of burden, four Indians. Soon the English adventurers took up the traffic. It is to Sir John Hawkins, the ardent dis- coverer, that the English-speaking peoples owe their participation in the slave trade. He has put it on record as the result of one of his famous voyages, that he found "that negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola and might easily be had on the coast of Guinea." For his early adventures of this kind he was roundly taken to task by Queen Elizabeth. But tradition says that he boldly faced her with argument, and ended by convincing the Virgin Queen that the slave trade was not merely a lucrative but a philanthropic undertaking, 277 278 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Certain it is that she acquiesced in future slave trading, while her successors, Charles II and James II, chartered four slave trading companies and received a share in their profits. It is noteworthy that both Great Britain and the United States recognized the horrors of the slave trade as regards the seizing and transportation from Africa of the unhappy negroes, long before they could bring themselves to deal with the problem of slavery as a domestic institution. Of those horrors nothing can be said in exaggeration. They exist to-day in the interior of Africa, in no less terrible form than a hundred years ago ; and the year 1 89 1 has seen the Great Powers combining in the attempt to eradicate an evil of enormous and growing proportions. The peculiar atrocities attending the expor- tation of slaves from Africa to other countries have, however, happily become a thing of the past. What those atrocities were even in our day may be judged from one of many accounts given by a no means squeamish or over sensitive sailor, Admiral Hobart. He thus describes the appearance of a slaver just captured by a British ship : "There were four hundred and sixty Africans on board, and what a sight it was ! The schooner had been eighty-five days at sea. They were short of water and provisions ; three distinct diseases — namely, small-pox, ophthalmia, and diarrhoea in its worst form — had broken out, while coming across, among the poor, doomed wretches. On opening the hold we saw a mass of arms, legs, and bodies, all crushed together. Many of the bodies to whom these limbs belonged were dead or dying. In fact, when we had made some sort of clearance among them we found in that fearful hold eleven bodies lying among the living freight. Water ! Water ! was the cry. Many of them as soon as free jumped into the sea, partly from the delirious state they were in, partly because they had been told that if taken by the JEnglish they would be tortured and eaten." The institution of slavery, introduced as we have seen into Virginia, grew at first very slowly. Twenty-five years after the first slaves were landed the negro population of the colony was only three hundred. But the conditions of agriculture and of climate were such, that once slavery obtained a fair start, it spread with continually increasing rapidity. We find the Colonial Assembly passing one after another a series of laws defining the condition of the negro slave more and more clearly, and more and more pitilessly. Thus, a distinction was soon made between them and Indians held in servitude. It was enacted, " that all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by shipping, shall be slaves for their lives ; but what shall come by land shall serve, if boyes or girles until thirty years of age, if men or women twelve years and no longer." And before the end of the century a long series of laws so encompassed the negro with limitations and prohibitions, that he almost ceased to have any criminal or civil rights and became a mere personal chattel. In some of the Northern colonies slavery seemed to take root as readily BEGINNING OF THE SLAVE TRAFFIC. 279 and to flourish as rapidly as in the South. It was only after a considerable time that social and commercial conditions arose which led to its gradual abandon- ment. In New York a mild type of negro slavery was introduced by the Dutch. The relation of master and slave seems in the period of the Dutch rule, to have been free from great severity or cruelty. After the seizure of the government by the English, however, the institution was officially recognized and even encouraged. The slave trade grew in magnitude ; and here agam we find a series of oppres- sive laws forbiddine the meet- ing of negroes together, laying down penalties for concealing slaves, and the like. In the early years of the eighteenth century fears of insurrection became prevalent, and these fears culminated in 1741 in the episode of the so-called Negro Plot. Very briefly stated, this plot grew out of a succession of fires supposed to have been the work of negro incendiaries. The most astonishing contradictions and self-inculpations 28o, THE STORY OF AMERICA. are to be found in the involved mass of testimony taken at the different trials. It is certain that the perjury and incoherent accusations of these trials can only be equaled by those of the alleged witches at Salem, or of the famous Popish plot of Titus Oates. The result is summed up in the bare statement that in three months one hundred and fifty negroes were imprisoned, of whom fourteen were burned at the stake, eighteen, hanged, and seventy-one were transported. Another result was the passing of even more stringent legislation, curtailing the rights and defining the legal status of the slave. When the Revolution broke out there were not less than fifteen thousand slaves in New York, a number greatly in excess of that held by any other Northern colony. Massachusetts, the home in later days of so many of the most eloquent abolition agitators, was from the very first, until after the war with Great Britain was well under way, a stronghold of slavery. The records of 1633 tell of the fright of Indians who saw a "Blackamoor" in a tree top whom they took for the devil in person, but who turned out to be an escaped slave. A few years later the authorities of the colony officially recognized the institution. It is true that in 1645 the general court of Massachusetts ordered certain kidnapped negroes to be returned to their native country, but this was not because they were slaves but because their holders had stolen them away from other masters. Despite specious arguments to the contrary, it is certain that, to quote Chief Justice Parsons, "Slavery was introduced into Massachusetts soon after its first settlement, and was tolerated until the ratification of the present constitution in 1780." The curious may find in ancient Boston newspapers no lack of such advertisements as that, in 1728, of the sale of "two very likely negro girls" and of " A likely negro woman of about nineteen years and a child about seven months of age, to be sold together or apart." A Tory writer before the out- break of the Revolution, sneers at the Bostonians for their talk about freedom when they possessed two thousand negro slaves. Even Peter Faneuil, who built the famous " Cradle of Liberty," was himself at that ver}^ time, actively eng-aeed in the slave trade. There is some truth in the once common taunt of the pro-slavery orators that the North imported slaves, the South only bought them. Certainly there was no more active centre of the slave trade than Bris- tol Bay, whence cargoes of rum and iron goods were sent to the African coast and exchanged for human cargoes. These slaves were, however, usually taken, not to Massachusetts, but to the West Indies or to Virginia. One curious out- come of slavery in Massachusetts was that from the gross superstition of a negro slave, Tituba, first sprang the hideous delusions of the Salem witchcraft trials. The negro, it may be here noted, played a not insignificant part in Massachusetts Revolutionary annals. Of negro blood was Crispus Attucks, one of the " martyrs " of the Boston riot ; it was a negro whose shot killed the EXECUTING NEGROES IN NEW YORK. 282 THE STORY OF AMERICA. British General Pitcairn at Bunker Hill ; and it was a negro also who planned the attack on Percy's supply train. As with New York and Massachusetts, so with the other colonies. Either slavery was introduced by greedy speculators from abroad or it spread easily from adjoin'ng colonies. In 1776 the slave population of the thirteen colonies was almost exactly half a million, nine-tenths of whom were to be found in the Southern States. In the War of the Revolution the question of arming the negroes raised bitter opposition. In the end a comparatively few were enrolled, and it is admitted that they served faithfully and with courage. Rhode Island even formed a regiment of blacks, and at the siege of Newport and afterwards at Point's Bridge, New York, this body of soldiers fought not only without reproach but with positive heroism. With the debates preceding the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States the political problem of slavery as a national question began. Under the colonial system the responsibility for the traffic might be charged, with some justice, to the mother country. But from the day when the Declaration of Independence asserted " That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the peoples of the new, self-governing States could not but have seen that with them lay the responsibility. There is ample evidence that the fixing of the popular mind on liberty as an ideal bore results immediately in arousing anti-slavery sentiment. Such sentiment existed in the South as well as in the North. Even North Carolina in 1 786 declared the slave trade of " evil consequences and highly impolitic." All the Northern States abolished slavery, beginning with Vermont, in 1777 and ending with New Jersey in 1804. It should be added, however, that many of the Northern slaves were not freed, but sold to the South. As we have already intimated, also, the agricultural and commercial conditions in the North were such as to make slave o labor less and less profitable, while in the South the social order of things, agricultural conditions, and the climate, were gradually making it seemingly indispensable. When the Constitutional debates began the trend of opinion seemed strongly against slavery. Many delegates thought that the evil would die out of itself One thought the abolition of slavery already rapidly going on and soon to be completed. Another asserted that "slavery in time will not be a speck in our country." Mr. Jefferson, on the other hand, in view of the retention of slavery, declared roundly that he trembled for his country when he remem- bered that God was just. And John Adams urged again and again that " every measure of prudence ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States." The obstinate States in the convention were South Carolina and Georgia. Their delegates declared that their States SLAVERY ESTABLISHED AV THE SOUTH. 283 would absolutely refuse ratification to the Constitution unless slavery were recognized. The compromise sections finally agreed upon avoided the use of the words slave and slavery but clearly recognized the institution and even gave the slave States the advantage of sending representatives to Congress on a basis of population determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, "three-fifths of all other persons." The other persons thus referred to were, it is needless to add, negro slaves. The entire dealing with the question of slavery, at the framing of the Con- stitution, was a series of compromises. This is seen again in the postponement of forbidding the slave trade from abroad. Some of the Southern States had absolutely declined to listen to any proposition which would restrict their freedom of action in this matter, and they were yielded to so far that Congress was forbidden to make the traffic unlawful before the year 1S08. As that time ap- proached, President Jefferson urged Congress to withdraw the country from all " further participation in those violations of human rights which have so long been continued on the unoftending inhabitants of Africa." Such an act was at once adopted, and by it heavy fines were imposed on all persons fitting out vessels for the slave trade and also upon all actually engaged in the trade, while vessels so employed became absolutely forfeited. Twelve years later another act was passed declaring the importation of slaves to be actual piracy. This latter law, however, was of little practical value, as it was not until 1861 that a conviction was obtained under it. Then, at last, when the whole slave question was about to be settled forever, a ship-master was convicted and hanged for piracy in New York for the crime of being engaged in the slave trade. In despite of all laws, however, the trade in slaves was continued secretly, and the profits were so enormous that the risks did not prevent continual attempts to smuggle slaves into the territory of the United States. The first quarter of a century of our history, after the adoption of the Con- stitution, was marked by comparative quietude in regard to the future of slavery. In the North, as we have seen, the institution died a natural death, but there was no disposition evinced in the Northern States to interfere with it in the South. The first great battle took place in 1820 over the so-called Missouri Compromise. Now, for the first time, the country was divided, sectionally and in a strictly political way, upon issues which involved the future policy of the United States as to the extension or restriction of slave territory. State after State had been admitted into the Union, but there had been an alternation of slave and free States, so that the political balance was not disturbed. Thus, Virginia was balanced by Kentucky, Tennessee by Ohio, Louisiana by Indiana, and Mississippi by Illinois. The last State admitted had been Alabama, of course as a slaveholding State. Now it was proposed to admit Missouri, and, to still maintain the equality of political power, it was contended that slavery should be 284 THE STORY OF AMERICA. prohibited within her borders. But the slave power liad by this time acquired great strength, and was deeply impressed with the necessity of establishing itself in the vast territory west of the Mississippi. The Southern States would not tolerate for a moment the proposed prohibition of slavery in the new State of Missouri. On the other hand, the Middle and Eastern States were beginning to be aroused to the danger threatening public peace if slavery were to be allowed indefinite extension. They had believed that the Ordinance of 1787, adopted simultaneously with the Constitution, and which forbade slavery to be established in the territory northwest of the Ohio, had settled this question definitely. A fierce debate was waged through two sessions of Congress, and in the end it was agreed to withdraw the prohibition of slavery in Missouri, but absolutely prohibit it forever in all the territory lying north of 36° 30' latitude. This was a compromise, satisfactory only because it seemed to dispose of the question of slavery in the territories once and forever. It was carried mainly by the great personal influence of Henry Clay. It did, indeed, dispose of slavery as a matter of national legislative discussion for thirty years. But this interval was distinctively the period of agitation. Anti-slavery sentiment of a mild type had long existed. The Quakers had, since Revolu- tionary times held anti-slavery doctrines, had released their own servants from bondage, and had disfellowshiped members who refused to concur in the sacri- fice. The very last public act of Benjamin Franklin was the framing of a memo- rial to Congress deprecating the existence of slavery in a free country. In New York the Manumission Society had been founded in 1 785, with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, in turn, as its presidents. But all the writing and speak- ing was directed against slavery as an institution and in a general way, and with no tone of aggression. Gradual emancipation or colonization were the only remedies suggested. It was with the founding of the "Liberator" by William Lloyd Garrison, in 1831, that the era of aggressive abolitionism began. Garri- son and his society maintained that slavery was a sin against God and man ; that immediate emancipation was a duty ; that .slave owners had no claim to compen- sation ; that all laws upholding slavery were, before God, null and void. Garri- son exclaimed : "I am in earnest. I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard." His paper bore conspicu- ously the motto " No union with slaveholders." The Abolitionists were, in numbers, a feeble band ; as a party they never acquired strength, nor were their tenets adopted strictly by any political party ; but they served the purpose of arousing the conscience of the nation. They were abused, vilified, mobbed, all but killed. Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope around his neck — through those very streets which, in 1854, had their shops closed and hung in black, with flags Union down and a huge coffin suspended in mid-air, on the day when the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, was marched through AGITATION AND AGITATORS. 285 them on his way back to his master, under a guard of nearly two thousand men. Mr. Garrison's society soon took the ground that the union of States with slavery retained was "an agreement with hell and a covenant with death," and openly advocated secession of the non-slaveholding States. On this issue the Abolitionists split into two branches, and those who threw off Garrison's lead maintained that there was power enough under the Constitution to do away with slavery. To the fierce invective and constant agitation of Garrison were, in time, added the splendid oratory of Wendell Phillips, the economic arguments of Horace Greeley, the wise statesmanship of Charles Sumner, the fervid writ- A COTTON FIELD IN GEORGIA. ings of Channing and Emerson, and the noble poetry of Whittier. All these and others, in varied ways and from different points of view, joined in educating the public opinion of the North to see that the permanent existence of slavery was incompatible with that of a free Republic. In the South, meanwhile, the institution was intrenching itself more and more firmly. The invention of the cotton-gin and the beginning of the reign of Cotton as King made the great plantation system a seeming commercial neces- sity. From the deprecatory and half apologetic utterances of early Southern statesmen we come to Mr. Calhoun's declaration that slavery " now preserves 286 THE STORY OF AMERICA. in quiet and security more than six and a half million human beings, and that it could not be destroyed without destroying the peace and prosperity of nearly half the States in the Union." The Abolitionists were regarded in the South with the bitterest hatred. Attempts were even made to compel the Northern States to silence the anti-slavery orators, to prohibit the circulation through the mail of anti-slavery speeches, and to refuse a hearing in Congress to anti-slavery petitions. The influence of the South was still dominant in the North. Though the feeling against slavery spread, there co-e.xisted with it the belief that an open quarrel with the South meant commercial ruin ; and the anti-slavery senti- ment was also neutralized by the nobler feeling that the Union must be pre- served at all hazards, and that there was no constitutional mode of interfering with the slave system. The annexation of Texas was a distinct gain to the slave power, and the Mexican war was undertaken, .said John Ouincy Adams, in order that "the slaveholding power in the Government shall be secured and riveted." The actual condition of the neero over whom such a strife was beinor waQed dift'ered materially in different parts of the South, and under masters of different character, in the same locality. It had its side of cruelty, oppression, and atrocity ; it had also its side of kindness on the part of master and of devotion on the part of slave. Its dark side has been made familiar to readers by such books as " Uncle Tom's Cabin," as Dickens' " American Notes," and as Edmund Kirk's "Among the Pines ;" its brighter side has been charmingly depicted in the stories of Thomas Nelson Page, of Joel Chandler Harris, and of Harry Edwards. On the great cotton plantations of Mississippi and Alabama the slave was often overtaxed and harshly treated ; in the domestic life of Virginia, on the other hand, he was as a rule most kindly used, and often a relation of deep affection sprang up between him and his master. Of insurrections, such as those not uncommon in the West Indies, only one of any extent was ever planned in our slave territory — that of Nat Turner, in Southampton County, Virginia — and that was instantly suppressed. With this state of public feeling North and South, it was with increased bitterness and increased sectionalism that the subject of slavery in new States was again debated in the Congress of 1850. The Liberty Party, which held that slaverv mig-ht be abolished under the Constitution, had been merged in the Free Soil Party, whose cardinal principle was, "To secure free soil to a free people " without interfering with slavery in existing States, but insisting on its exclusion from territory so far free. The proposed admission of California was not affected by the Missouri Compromise. Its status as a future free or slave State was the turning point of the famous debates in the .Senate of 1850, in which Webster, Calhoun, Douglas and Seward won fame — debates which have never been equaled in our history in eloquence and acerbity. It was in the THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 287 course of these debates that Mr. Seward, while denying that the Constitution recognized property in man, struck out his famous dictum, "There is a higher law than the Constitution." The end reached was a compromise which allowed California to settle for itself the question of slavery, forbade the slave trade in the District of Columbia, but enacted a strict fugitive slave law. To the Abolitionists this fugitive slave law, sustained in its most extreme measures by the courts in the famous — or as they called it, infamous — Dred Scott case, was as fuel to fire. They defied it in every possible way. The Underground Rail- way was the outcome of this defiance. By it a chain of secret stations was A NEGRO VILLAGE IN ALABAMA. established, from one to the other of which the slave was guided at night until at last he reached the Canada border. The most used of these routes in the East was from Baltimore to New York, thence north throueh New England ; that most employed in the West was from Cincinnati to Detroit. It has been estimated that not fewer than thirty thousand slaves were thus assisted to freedom. Soon the struggle was changed to another part of the Western territory, now beginning to grow so rapidly as to demand the forming of new States. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill introduced by Douglas was in effect the repeal of the 288 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Missouri Compromise in that it left tlie question as to whether slavery should be carried into the new territories to the decision of the settlers themselves. As a consequence immigration was directed by both the anti-slavery and the pro- slavery parties to Kansas, each determined on obtaining a majority to control the form of the proposed State Constitution. Then began a series of acts of violence which almost amounted to civil war. " Bleeding Kansas " became a phrase in almost every one's mouth. Border ruffians swaggered at the polls and attempted to drive out the assisted emigrants sent to Kansas by the Abolition societies. The result of the election of the Legislature on its face made Kansas a slave State, but a great part of the people refused to accept this result ; and a convention was held at Topeka which resolved that Kansas should be free even if the laws formed by the Legislature should have to be "resisted to a bloody issue." Prominent among the armed supporters of free State ideas in Kansas was Captain John Brown, a man whose watchword was at all times Action. " Talk," he said, "is a national institution ; but it does no good for the slave." He believed that slavery could only be coped with by armed force. His theory was that the way to make free men of slaves was for the slaves themselves to resist any attempt to coerce them by their masters. He was undoubtedly a fanatic in that he did not stop to measure probabilities or to take account of the written law. His attempt at Harper's Ferry was without reasonable hope, and as the intended beginning of a great military movement was a ridiculous fiasco. But there was that about the man that none could call ridiculous. Rash and unreasoning as his action seemed, he was yet, even by his enemies, recognized as a man of unswerving conscience, of high ideals, of deep belief in the brother- hood of mankind. His offense against law and peace was cheerfully paid for by his death and that of others near and dear to him. Almost no one at that day could be found to applaud his plot, but the incident had an effect on the minds of the people altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic character. More and more as time went on he became recognized as a pro-martyr of a cause which could be achieved only by the most complete self-sacrifice of individuals. Events of vast importance to the future of the negro in America now hurried fast upon each other's footsteps — the final settlement of the Kansas dispute by its becoming a free State ; the forming and rapid growth of the Republican party ; the division of the Democratic party into Northern and Southern factions ; the election of Abraham Lincoln ; the secession of South Carolina, and, finally, the greatest civil war the world has known. Though that war would never have been waged were it not for the negro, and though his fate was inevitably involved in its result, it must be remembered that it was not undertaken on his account. Before the struggle began Mr. Lincoln said : " If WAR AND HOW IT EMANCIPATED THE SLAVE. 289 there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to destroy or to save slavery." And the Northern press emphasized over and over again the fact that this was "a white man's war." But the logic of events is inexorable. It seems amazing now that Union generals should have been puzzled as to the question whether they ought in duty to return runaway slaves to their masters. General Butler settled the controversy by one happy phrase when he called the fugitives " contraband of war." Soon it was deemed righl EARLY HOME OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GENTRYVILLE, INDL^NA. to use these contrabands, to employ the new-coined word, as the South was using the negroes still in bondage, to aid in the non-fighting work of the army — on fortification, team driving, cooking, and so on. From this it was but a step, though a step not taken without much perturbation, to employ them as soldiers. At Vicksburg, at Fort Pillow, and in many another battle, the negro showed beyond dispute that he could fight for his liberty. No fiercer or braver charge was made in the war than that upon the parapet of Fort Wagner by Colonel Shaw's gallant colored regiment, the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth. In a thousand ways the negro figures in the history of the war. In its 19 290 THE STORY OF AMERICA. literature he everywhere stands out picturesquely. He sought the flag with the greatest avidity for freedom ; flocking in crowds, old men and young, women and children, sometimes with quaint odds and ends of personal belongings, often empty-handed, always enthusiastic and hopeful, almost always densely ignorant of the meaning of freedom and of self-support. But while the negro showed this avidity for liberty, his conduct toward his old masters was often generous, and almost never did he seize the opportunity to inflict vengeance for his past wrongs. The eloquent Southern orator and writer, Henry W. Grady, said : " History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety and the unprotected homes rested in peace. . . A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern army, but not one was lighted." It was with conditions, and only after great hesitation, that the final step of emancipating the slaves was taken by President Lincoln in September, 1862. The proclamation was distinctly a war measure, but its reception by the North and by the foreign powers and its immediate effect upon the contest were such that its expediency was at once recognized. Thereafter there was possible no question as to the personal freedom of the negro in the United States of America. With the Confederacy, slavery went down once and forever. In the so-called reconstruction period which followed, the negro suffered almost as much from the over-zeal of his political friends as from the prejudice of his old masters. A negro writer, who is a historian of his race, has declared that the Government gave the negro the statute book when he should have had the spelling book ; that it placed him in the legislature when he ought to have been in the school house, and that, so to speak, "the heels were put where the brains ought to have been." A quarter of a century and more has passed since that turbulent period began, and if the negro has become less prominent as a political factor, all the more for that reason has he been advancing steadily though slowly in the requisites of citizenship. He has learned that he must, by force of circumstances, turn his attention, for the time at least, rather to educational, in- dustrial, and material progress than to political ambition. And the record of his advance on these lines is promising and hopeful. In Mississippi alone, for instance, the negroes own one-fifth of the entire property in the State. In all, the negroes of the South to-day possess two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of property. Everywhere throughout the South white men and negroes may be found working together. At the beginning of the war the negro population of the country was about four millions, to-day it is between seven and seven and a-half millions ; in 1880, fifteen-sixteenths of the whole colored population belonged to the Southern States, and the census of 1 890 shows that the proportion has not greatly changed. THE FREE NEGRO. 291 This ratio in itself shows how absurdly trifling in results have been all the move- ments toward colonization or emigration to Northern States. The neero emphatically belongs to the Southern States, and in them and by them his future must be determined. Another point decided conclusively by the census of 1890 is seen in the refutation of an idea based, indeed, on the census of 1880, but due in its origin to the very faulty census of 1870. This idea was that the colored population had increased much more rapidly in proportion than the white population. The new census shows, on the contrary, that the whites in the Southern States increased during the last decade nearly twice as rapidly as the negroes, or, as the census bulletin puts it, in increase of population, "the colored race has not held its own against the white man in a region where the climate and conditions are, of all those which the country affords, the best suited to its development." The promise of the negro race to-day is not so much in the development of men of exceptional talent, such as Frederick Douglas or Senator Bruce, as in the general spread of intelligence and knowledge. The Southern States have very generally given the negro equal educational opportunities with the whites, while the eagerness of the race to learn is shown in the recently ascertained fact that while the colored population has increased only twenty-seven per cent. the enrollment in the colored schools has increased one hundred and thirty-seven per cent. Fifty industrial schools are crowded by the colored youth of the South. Institutions of higher education, like the Atlanta University, and Hampton Institute of Virginia, and Tuskegee College, are doing admirable work in turning out hundreds of negroes fitted to educate their own race. Within a year or two honors and scholarships have been taken by half a dozen colored young men at Harvard, at Cornell, at Phillips Academy and at other Northern schools and colleges of the highest rank. The fact that a young negro, Mr. Morgan, was in 1890 elected by his classmates at Harvard as the class orator has a special significance. Yet there is greater significance, as a negro news- paper man writes, in the fact that the equatorial telescope now used by the Lawrence University of Wisconsin was made entirely by colored pupils in the School of Mechanical Arts of Nashville, Tenn. In other words, the Afro- American is finding his place as an intelligent worker, a property owner, and an independent citizen, rather than as an agitator, a poUtician or a race advocate. In religion, superstition and effusive sentiment are giving way to stricter morality. In educational matters, ambition for the high-sounding and the abstract is giving place to practical and industrial acquirements. It will be many years before the character of the negro, for centuries dwarfed and distorted by oppression and ignorance, reaches its normal growth, but that the race is now at last upon the right path and is being guided by the true principles cannot be doubted. 292 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Says one who has made an exceedingly thorough personal study of the subject in all the Southern States : " The evolution in the condition has kept pace with that of any other races, and I think has been even a little better. The same forces of evolution that have brought him to where he is now will bring him further. One thing is indisputable : the negro knows his destiny is in his own hands. He finds that his salvation is not through politics, but through indus- trial methods. STATUE OF WASHINGTON IN THE GROUNDS OF THE STATE HOUSE, RICHMOND. CHAPTER XVI. the; story ok the civil war. Af^.hr "'•JMlilhi " ''*' IT would be a mistake to suppose that secession sentiments originated and were exclusively maintained in the Southern States. Ideas of State sovereignty and of the consequent right of a State to withdraw from the Union, or at least to resist the acts and laws of Congress on adequate occasion, were held by many states- men in the North as well as in the South. Thus the " Essex Junto," which had openly advocated a dis- solution of the Union and the for- mation of an Eastern Confederacy, were foremost in assembling a con- vention of the Federalists on De- cember 15, 1814, at Hartford, Con- necticut, at which resolutions were passed recommending the State Legislatures to resist Congress in conscripting soldiers for carrying on the war then being waged against England. Threats of disunion were again heard in 182 1, but this time from the South, in case Missouri should be denied admission to the Union on account of her unwillingness to surrender the institution of slavery. Once more, in 1832, a South Carolina convention proceeded to declare the tariff of the United States null and void within her own borders ; but, owing to the decisive action of President Jackson, the State authorities did not venture into an actual collision with Concfress. But the asfitation in favor of disunion reached culmination under the aggressive efforts by the South to extend slavery into new Territories, and the determination by the North to confine it strictly within the States where it already existed. With the formation of anti-slavery societies in the North, the 293 A SKIRMISHER. 294 THE STORY OF AMERICA. nomination of anti-slavery candidates for the Presidency from 1840 onward, the passage of the "Wilmot Proviso" in 1846, the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854, the Dred-Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857, the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas in 1859, and the raid by John Brown at Harper's Ferry in 1859, it became painfully evident that Mr. Seward's prediction of an "irrepressible conflict" between the North and South on the subject of slavery was becoming, had already become, a reality. As to John Brown's raid we have only to recount that on the i6th of Octo- ber, 1859, he took an armed force to Harper's Ferry, capturing the arsenal and armory and killing the men on guard. He was then endeavoring to secure arms for operating against the South. He was, however, captured and executed December 2, 1859. The expedition, it is unnecessary to say, was foolhardy and wholly without justification, and Brown paid for his misguided zeal with his life. But it must be said of him that he was conscientious, and that by his reckless daring he helped to crystallize sentiment on both sides of the slavery question. The election in i860 of Abraham Lincoln as President, on the platform of resistance to all further extension of slavery, was the signal for the previous disunion oratory and menaces to crystallize themselves into action. Seven States, in the following order, viz. : South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, seceded, and by a Congress held at Montgomery, Ala., February 4, 1861, formed a Confederacy with Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, as President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, as Vice- President. The reasons avowed for this perilous course were, "the refusal of fifteen of the States for years past to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery." After Mr. Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Confederacy was increased by the addition of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee ; Kentucky and Missouri, being divided in opinion, had representatives and armies in both sections. The eleven "Confederate States of America" took from the Union nearly, one-half of its inhabited area, and a population of between five and six millions of whites and about four millions of slaves. Their entire force capable of active service numbered 600,000 men. The twenty-four States remaining loyal to the Union had a population of 20,000,000, and the army at the close of the war numbered 1,050,000 ; but as the majority of these were scattered on guard duty over a vast region, only 262,000 were in fighting activity. Whilst the North was more rich and powerful, it was, nevertheless, more inclined to peace. The South was of a military spirit, accustomed to weapons, and altogether eager for o 296 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the fray. The soldiers of both sides were equally brave, resolute, heroic, and devoted to what they respectively deemed a patriotic cause. The Confederates had the advantag-e in the outset, because Mr. Floyd, the Secretary of War under President Buchanan, had dispersed the regular army, com- prising 16,402 officers and men, to distant parts of the country where they were not available, and had sent off the vessels of the navy to foreign stations. Many of the old army offi- cers had passed over to the ate service, and vast quantities pons and ammunition had been ed from Northern to arsenals now in pos- the seceded States, the army at Indian- been surrendered on THE ARTS OF PEACE AND THE ART OF WAR. Confeder- o f w e a - transferr- Southern session of A part of ola had February 18, 1861, by General Twiggs, to the Confederates, and other soldiers Wq' guardmg our Mexi- can and Indian fron- tiers were captured, besides several na- tional vessels and fortresses. The South was, in short, much better prepared for the great conflict, and during the first year the preponderance of success was in its favor. The Confederates opened the war on April 12, 1 861, by bombarding Fort Sumter, which had been occupied by Major Robert Anderson and a company of eighty men. This fort, McCLELLAN. 297 although fiercely pounded by cannon balls and shells and set on fire several times, was gallantly held for two days, when it was obliged to surrender ; but its brave defenders were allowed to march out saluting the old flag, and to depart for the North without being regarded as prisoners of war. The attack on Sumter created the wildest excitement throughout the entire land, and it opened the eyes of the North to the amazing fact of a civil war. A wave of patriotism, as mighty as it was sudden, swept over the United States. President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers for three months, and soon after another call for 64,000 men for the army and 18,000 for the navy, to serve during the war. The need for these calls was urgent enough. On April 20th the Confederates easily captured the great Norfolk Navy Yard, with three or four national vessels, including the frigate " Merri- mac," which subsequently wrought such fearful havoc at Hampton Roads, 2000 cannon, besides small arms, munitions, and stores of immense value, all of which were given up without a shot in defense. The arsenal at Harper's Ferry, with millions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition, was also in their possession ; and before the end of April 35,000 of their soldiers were already in the field, whilst 10,000 of these were rapidly marching northward. General R. E. Lee had been appointed Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of Virginia, and the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts militia had been savagely mobbed in the streets of Baltimore whilst going to the protection of Washington. A Unionist attack on the Confederates at Big Bethel, Va., was repulsed, but the Confederates were driven out of Western Virginia by General G. B. McClellan. Then came, on July 21, the engagement at Bull Run, known also as that of Manassas Junction, one of the most significant battles of the war. General Irwin McDowell, acting under instructions of General Scott, marched against the Confederate army under General Beauregard, and in the outset met with encouraging success ; but just as the Unionists imagined the victory theirs they were vigorously pressed by reinforcements that had come hurriedly up from Winchester under the leadership of General Johnston ; and being ex- hausted from twelve hours of marching and fighting under a sultry sun, they began a retreat which was soon turned into a panic, attended with wild disorder and demoralization. Had the Confederates, among whom at the close of the day was President Davis himself only known the extent of their triumph, they might have followed it and possibly have seized Washington. About 30,000 men fought on each side. The Confederate loss was 378 killed, 1489 wounded, and 30 missing. The Unionists lost 481 killed, loii wounded, and 1460 missing, with 20 cannon and large quantities of small arms. From this moment it was understood that the struggle would be terrible, and that it might be long, not to say doubtful. Congress, then in extra session, authorized the enlistment of 500,000 men and the raising of ^500,000,000. 298 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Many of the States displayed intense patriotism, New York and Pennsylvania, for example, appropriating each ;^3, 000,000, whilst Massachusetts and other New England States sent regiments fully equipped into the field. General McClellan was summoned to reorganize and discipline the multitudes of raw recruits that were thrown suddenly on his hands. His ability and thoroughness were of immense value in preparing them for their subsequent effective service, and he was soon after made Commander-in-chief in place of General Scott, retired. The South was also laboring with tremendous zeal and energy in the endeavor to enlist 400,000 men. FORT MOULTRIE, CHARLESTON, WITH FORT SUMTER IN THE DISTANCE. Early in August the death of General Nathaniel Lyon whilst attacking the Confederate General Ben. McCulloch at Wilson's Creek, and the retreat of his army, threw all Southern Missouri into the hands of the enemy. A few days after, General Butler took Forts Hatteras and Clark, with 700 prisoners, 1000 muskets, and other stores. But victories alternated, for now General Sterling Price surrounded and captured the Unionist Colonel Mulligan and his Irish brigade of 2780, at Lexington, Mo. Worse, however, than this was the near annihilation, October 21st, of a Unionist force of 1 700 under General C. P. Stone and Colonel E. D. Baker at Ball's Bluff. The noble Baker and 300 of the men VICTORY AND DEFEAT. 299 were slain and over 500 taken prisoners. Ten days later Commodore S. F. Dupont, aided by General T. W. Sherman with 10,000 men, reduced the Confederate forts on Hilton Head and Phillips' Island and seized the adjacent Sea Islands. General Fremont, unable to find and engage the Confederate General Price in the West, was relieved of his command of 30,000 men ; but General U. S. Grant, by capturing the Confederate camp at Belmont, Mo., checked the advance of General Jeff. Thompson. On the next day, November 8th, occurred a memorable event which imperiled the peaceful relations between BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING. the United States and Great Britain. Captain Wilkes of the United States frigate, "San Jacinto," compelled the British mail steamer, "Trent," to give up two of her passengers, the Confederate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell, who were on their way respectively to England and France in the interest of the South. A foreign war might have resulted had not Mr. William H. Seward, the astute Secretary of State, promptly disavowed the act and returned the Commissioners to English keeping. General E. O. C. Ord, commanding the Third Pennsylvania Brigade, gained a victory on December 20th at Dranesville over the Confederate 30O THE STORY OF AMERICA. brigade of General J. E. B. Stuart, who lost 230 soldiers, and during the same month General Pope reported the capture of 2500 prisoners in Central Missouri, with the loss of only 100 men ; but 1000 of these were taken by Colonel Jeff C. Davis by surprising the Confederate camp at Milford. The year 1862 was marked by a series of bloody encounters. It opened with a Union army of 450,000 against a Confederate army of 350,000. The fighting began at Mill Spring, in Southern Kentucky, on January 19th, with an assault by the Confederates led by General F. K. ZoUicoffer, acting under General G. B. Crittenden. They were routed by General George H. Thomas, ZoUicoffer being killed and Crittenden flying across the Cumberland River, leaving ten guns and 1500 horses. This victory stirred the heart of the nation, and brought at once into brilliant prominence the great soldier and noble character whose greatnes blazed out like a sun at the close of the war. Another blow was soon struck. Brigadier General Grant, with 15,000 troops, supported by Commodore A. H. Foote with seven gunboats, reduced Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and took its commander, General L. Tilghman, prisoner, but could not prevent the greater portion of the garrison from escaping to Fort Donelson, twelve miles to the east. This stronghold, com- manding the navigation of the Cumberland River and containing 15,000 defenders under General J. B. Floyd, was regarded as impregnable. It fell, however, on February i6th, under a combined attack of Grant and Foote, surrendering 12,000 men and 40 cannon. Generals Floyd and Buckner, with a few of their command, managed to escape across the river by night, and General N. B. Forrest, with 800 cavalry, also got away. This splendid achievement threw Nashville and all Northern Tennessee into possession of the Unionists, and caused the immediate evacuation of the Confederate camp at Bowling Green, Kentucky. In the East, about the same time, General Burnside and Commodore Goldsborough, with 11,500 men on 31 steamboats, captured, with a loss of 300, Roanoke Island, N. C, and 2500 Confederates. On March 14th they carried New Bern by assault, losing 600 but taking 2 steamboats, 69 cannon, and 500 prisoners ; and next they seized Fort Macon, with its garrison of 500 and stores. But the Unionist Generals Reno and Foster were repulsed, respectively, at South Mills and Goldsborough. One of the most notable of naval engagements took place on March 8th and 9th, when the Confederate ironclad, " Virginia," known better by her original name, the " Merrimac," steamed out from Norfolk attended by two gunboats. She plunged her iron ram into the Union frigate, "Cumberland," causing her to sink and to carry down part of her crew; she blew up the " Congress," another Union frigate, destroying more than half of her crew of 434, drove the frigate "Lawrence" under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and bombarded until dusk with terrific energy, aided also by her gunboats, the MONITOR AND MERRIMAC. 301 Union steam frigate " Minnesota," which had got aground. She seemed destined on the next day to work immeasurable and unimpeded havoc. But, providentially, during the night the Union "Monitor," looking like "a cheese box on a raft," which had been built by Captain Ericsson and was commanded with consummate skill by Lieutenant J. L. Worden, steamed into the roadstead on her trial trip from New York. When, therefore, the " Merrimac " approached for new conquests the following morning her surprise was tremendous upon meeting such a strange craft. An unwonted and dramatic naval duel now ANTIETA.M BRIDGE. occurred, from which the Confederate ram retired badly crippled and was soon afterward blown up to prevent her being captured. The " Monitor " was, unfortunately, lost some months afterward, in a storm off Hatteras. The smoke had not vanished from Hampton Roads before news came of an assault at Pea Ridge by from 16,000 to 18,000 Confederates, including 5000 Indians, under General E. Van Dorn, on 10,500 Unionists under General S. R. Curtis, supported by Generals Asboth and Sigel. After three days of severe fighting, in which 1351 Unionists fell, the Confederates fled with precipitation, 302 THE STORY OF AMERICA. leaving- Generals B. McCulloch and Mcintosh dead and having Generals Price and Slack among their wounded. General McClellan having raised his 200,000 or more men to a high degree of efficiency, transferred considerably more than half of them to Fortress Monroe for the purpose of advancing on Richmond by way of the peninsula between the York and James Rivers. He left General Banks with 7000 soldiers to guard the Virginia Valley. This force, at that time under the command of General James Shields, because Banks had gone temporarily to Washington, was fiercely assailed at Kernstown by "Stonewall" Jackson at the head of 4000 men. Jackson was repulsed with a loss of 1000, whilst Shields lost 600. McClellan's advance was checked for a month by Confederate batteries at Warwick Creek and again at Williamsburg by General Magruder's works. Here General Hooker's division fought well for nine hours with heavy losses. Magruder, flanked' by Hancock, whose two brigades fought bravely, was obliged to retreat, leaving 700 of his wounded. The Unionists lost altogether 2228, whilst the Confederates lost not quite so many. In the meantime, on April 6th, General Grant, with an army of 40,000, was surprised at Pittsburg Landing by 50,000 Confederates under General A. S. Johnson. General Grant, instead of being with his troops, was on a boat near Savannah, seven miles below. The Union forces were completely surprised. No intrenchments or earthworks of any kind had been erected — there were no abattis. The Union forces, surprised, were rapidly driven back with heavy loss in guns, killed, wounded, and prisoners, from Shiloh Church to the bluffs of the Tennessee, under which thousands of demoralized men took refuge. General Albert S. Johnson had been killed in the midst of the battle and General Beauregard succeeded to the command. Had General Johnson been alive the result might have been different ; but Beauregard was in command, and he missed the one opportunity of his life in resting on his arms when he should have pressed the enemy to the river and forced a surrender. But relief was at hand, and under a leader who was a master general on the field. Sunday night General Don Carlos Buell arrived on the scene with a part of the Army of the Ohio. Moving- General Nelson's division across the Tennessee in boats, he had them in position by seven o'clock in the evening, ready for the onset in the morning. Two more divisions were crossed early in the morning. At seven o'clock the attack was begun, General Buell leading his troops in person and General Grant advancing with his troops, yesterday overwhelmed by defeat, to-day hopeful and confident. The result is well known. Buell's fresh troops, handled in a masterly manner, were irresistible. By four o'clock the enemy lost all they had gained and were in full retreat, and the day was won. General Buell receiving unstinted praise for his victory. The Union loss was 1735 killed, 7882 wounded, and 3956 missing; total, 13,573. BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVTLLE. JACKSON'S ATTACK ON THE RIGHT WING. 304 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The Confederates' loss was 1728 killed, 8012 wounded, 957 missing; total, 10,699. About the same date General Pope and Commodore Foote captured Island No. 10, with 6700 Confederates under Brigadier General Makall ; and soon after Memphis surrendered to the Unionists, and on April nth Fort Pulaski fell before a bombardment by General Q. A. Gilmore. This same month was notable for naval victories. Admiral Farragut with a fleet of forty-seven armed vessels and 310 guns stormed the Confederate Forts St. Philip and Jackson, destroyed various fire-rafts and gunboats, and after a series of brilliant actions compelled the Confederate General Lovell with 3000 defenders to withdraw from New Orleans, leaving it to be occupied by 15,000 Unionists under General Butler. In the words of another, this "was a contest between iron hearts in wooden vessels, and iron clads with iron beaks, and the iron hearts prevailed." McClellan's army — a part of which had been thrown across the Chicka- hominy — was savagely attacked on May 28th, at Fair Oaks, by General Joseph E. Johnston, now Commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. Although Johnston was badly wounded and his troops after a day of hard fighting were obliged to retire, yet the Union loss was 5739, including five colonels killed and seven generals wounded. McClellan was now reinforced until he had altogether 556,828 men, of whom 1 15,162 were in good condition for'effective service. Noth- ing, however, was accomplished until General Lee, who had succeeded the dis- abled Johnston, forced the fighting on June 26th that led to six horrible battles on as many successive days, known as those of Oak Grove, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mills, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill. In the last one the Confederates were signally defeated by McClellan with a loss of 10,000, while the Union loss was about 5000. During those six battles the Union loss was 1582 killed, 7709 wounded, and 5958 missing, making a total of 15,249. The Confederate loss was perhaps double ; General Griffith and three colonels killed. Nevertheless, McClellan's campaign was unsuccessful ; Richmond was not taken ; and by order of the President he retreated to the Potomac. General Halleck now became Commander-in-chief and a vigorous campaign was opened by the Unionist General .Pope. He was met in several stubbornly fought actions by the Confederates under Generals Lee, Jackson, and Long- street, and was badly routed. * In this bloody affair, known as the second battle of Bull Run, the Unionists lost 25,000, including 9000 prisoners ; the Con- * In accounting for his defeat General Pope attempted to fix the blame upon General Fitz John Porter, a very able and successful commander, charging that he failed to support him, and a court- martial convened in the heat of the discussion cashiered the General. But later, in deference to public opinion, the case was reopened, the previous unjust verdict was set aside, and General Porter's good name was cleared, his conduct being fully justified — an acquittal in entire accord with the riper second thought of public opinion. LEE. 30s federates lost 15,000. General Lee, on September 8th, invaded Maryland, where at South Mountain he was worsted by McClellan, who lost heavily of his own men, but took 1500 prisoners. A few days later Harper's Ferry, with 11,583 Unionists, 73 guns, and immense quantities of war munitions, was surrendered to Stonewall Jackson. McClellan, with 80,000 men at- tacked Lee, posted with 70,000 on a ridge facing Antie- tam Creek. This determined battle ended in Lee's de- feat and retreat. McClellan lost 2010 men killed, 9416 wounded, and 1043 rnissing ; a total of 12,469. Lee lost 1842 killed, 9399 wounded, and 2292 missing; to- tal, 13,533- This is regarded as the bloodiest day in the history of America. There is little doubt that had Mc- Clellan followed up his magnificent victory he could have entered Rich- mond. Here was his mistake ; but this did not justify the Government in retiring him as it did. Surely McClellan's great victory entided him to the further command ; but the opposition, especially that of Secretary Stanton, was too powerful, and he was retired. General Burnside, having succeeded McClellan, assailed Lee at Fredericks- burg, December 13th, but was disastrously beaten. His loss was 1152 killed, GENERAL ROBERT EDMUND LEE. 3o6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 9101 wounded, 3234 missing ; total, 13,771. The Confederate loss was about 5000. General Burnside was relieved in favor of General Hooker in January, 1863, who — having received reinforcements until his army amounted to 100,000 infantry, 13,000 cavalry, and 10,000 artillery — assumed the offensive against Lee on May 2d, 1863, at Chancellorsville, but was terribly defeated. He lost 17,197 men. His defeat was due to a brilliant rear and flank movement executed by Stonewall Jackson, who thus demolished the Eleventh Corps but was himself slain. Jackson's death might well be regarded as an irreparable disaster to the Confederate cause. Lee, with nearly 100,000 men, again marched northward, taking 400a prisoners at Winchester. He was overtaken, July ist, by the Union army, numbering 100,000, now under the command of General George G. Meade, at Gettysburg ; where a gallant and bloody battle was fought, lasting three days and ending in a great victory for the LInionists. One of the features of the battle was a gallant charge of Pickett's Confederate Brigade, when they faced a battery of 100 guns and were nearly annihilated. But it was all American braver)^ They lost 2834 killed, 13,709 wounded, 6643 missing; total, 23,186. The total Confederate loss was 36,000. Had Meade known the extent of his triumph he might have followed and destroyed the retreating Lee, whose army in this campaign dwindled from 100,000 to 40,000. On the same memorable day, July 3d, Vicksburg, after having resisted many and determined assaults, and after finding its defenders on the south surprised and beaten in detail by Grant's army aided by Commodore Porter's naval operations, surrendered, closing a campaign in which Grant had taken 37,000 prisoners, with arms and munitions for 60,000 men. His own loss was 943 killed, 7095 wounded, and 537 missing; a total of 8515. These two notable victories were the turning points in the war. Meantime, in the West the war had been pursued during the year with varying fortunes. The Confederate General Forrest had captured 1500 men at Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Kirby Smith had captured 5000 Unionists at Richmond, Ky. ; General Bragg had captured 4000 prisoners at Mumfordsville, Tenn. ; Generals McCook and Rousseau, having attacked the enemy without the orders of General Buell, and thinking, as General Buell said, to win a victory without his assistance, were defeated by General Bragg at Perryville, whose loss was 2300 : our loss was 4340. General Rosecrans, with a loss of 782, whipped the Confederate General Price, at luka. Miss., whose loss was 1000 men. Rose- crans repulsed again the Confederates on September 17th at Corinth, inflicting a loss of 1423 killed and taking 2248 prisoners. His own loss was 2359 men. A brigade of 2000 Unionists was captured by John Morgan. A campaign of 46,910 men under Rosecrans culminated in the battle of Stone River, January 2d, 1863, against Bragg, who was beaten and forced to retreat. The Unionist 3o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. losses were 1533 killed, 7245 wounded, 2800 missing; a total of 11,578. Bragg's loss was 9000 killed and wounded and over 1000 missing. The Con- federate Van Dorn surprised and took prisoners 2000 men at Holly Springs, and at the same time took ^4,000,000 worth of stores. General Sherman was repulsed at Chickasaw Bayou with a loss of 2000 men ; but General J. A. Mc- Clernand reduced Fort Hindman, capturing 5000 prisoners and 17 guns, while his loss was only 977. Colonel Grierson made a famous raid with 1700 cavalry to Baton Rouge, cutting Confederate communications and taking 500 prisoners. At Milliken's Bend the Unionist General Dennis, having 1400, repelled an attack of the Confederate General H. McCulloch, the loss on either side being 500. At Helena, Arkansas, the Unionist General B. M. Prentiss, with 4000, also repulsed General Holmes with 3646, of whom 1636 were lost. The Con- federate raider, Morgan, with a mounted force of 4000 men, invaded Ohio, July 7th, but was caught by gunboats and obliged to surrender. General Burnside, early in September, at Cumberland Gap, captured General Frazier with fourteen guns and 2000 men. Then came, on September 19th, the great battle of Chickamauga, between Rosecrans and Thomas with 55,000 men on one side, and Bragg and Longstreet with about the same number on the other side. Longstreet annihilated Rosecrans' right wing ; but Thomas by his firmness and skill saved the day. The Confederates lost 18,000, while the Union loss was 1644 killed, 9262 wounded, 4945 missing ; total, 15,581. Our army fell back on Chattanooga. Longstreet's attempt, Nov. 28th, to dislodge Burnside from Knox- ville resulted in his own loss of 800 and retreat. The Unionists lost 100 men. On September 2 2d to 24th the forces of General George H. Thomas, rein- forced by General Sherman, under the command of Grant, assaulted Bragg's army on Mission Ridge, facing Chattanooga. General Sherman crossed the Tennessee to attempt a flank movement but was repulsed. General Hooker moved up Lookout Mountain and drove the Confederates before him, capturing men and guns. Then General G. H. Thomas, in accordance with his original plan of battle, moved his army by the front directly up the heights of Mission Ridge, assailing the enemy in the very teeth of his batteries. The fight was desperate, but Thomas's forces won, driving the enemy, making many prisoners and capturing many guns. The Union losses were 757 killed, 4529 wounded, 330 missing ; total, 5616. There were 6142 prisoners captured from the enemy. During this time Charleston, which had inaugurated the Rebellion, pluckily resisted all attempts to take it. For example, her defenders beat back 6000 Unionists with a loss of 574 men at Secessionville June i6th. Again, they dis- abled two of the blockading gunboats on January ist, 1863 ; again, they forced nine bombarding iron-clads under Commodore Dupont to retire ; again, they repulsed from Fort Wagner a storming party under General Gilmore, inflicting a loss of 1500, while their loss was but 100 men ; again, while obliged to evacuate A GREAT FIGHT. 309 Fort Wagner, leaving 18 guns there, and seven guns in Battery Gregg, they re- pulsed the Unionists' attempt to scale Fort Sumter and slew 200 men. Nor did the Unionists fare better in Florida. They lost under General T. Seymour 2000 of his 6000 troops at Olustee, where the Confederates lost but 730 men. again lost 1600 out of 2000 men under Gen. " The Unionists RETREAT OF LEE S ARMY. Wessels at Plymouth, North Caro- lina, when the Confed- erate General Hoke's loss was but 300 men. In the Southwest, however, the Unionists* cause had gained con- siderable advantages un- der General Banks, having a command of 30,000 men. Aided by Commodore Farragut, at Alexandria, La., he drove General R. Taylor and captured 2000 prisoners, several steam- boats, and 22 guns. His assault, however, on Port Hudson, in June, was re- pelled with a loss of 2000 3IO THE STORY OF AMERICA. men, while the Confederates lost but 300 men. But Port Hudson, as it was about to be cannonaded by the gunboats set free by the fall of Vicksburg, was surren- dered, July 6th, by the Confederate General Gardener, with his garrison of 6408 men. Banks' effective force had been reduced to 10,000. His total captures during the campaign were 10,584 men, •J2> guns, and 6000 small arms. But Brashear City had some days before been surprised and captured by General R. Taylor (Confederate) with a Union loss of 1000 men and 10 guns. The Unionist General Dudley lost near Donaldsonville 300 prisoners, and again, the Unionist General Franklin with a fleet and 4000 men was repelled with a loss of two gun- boats, 15 guns, and 250 men, by less than that number within the fort at Sabine Pass, and at Teche Bayou the 67th Indiana Regiment was captured entire. The Red River expeditions in March and April, 1864, toward Shreveport under General Banks, from New Orleans, with a force of 40,000, and under General Steel, from Little Rock, with 12,000, were disastrous failures. The former had to retreat with a loss of about 5000, and the latter was also beaten back with a loss of 2200; but at Jenkins Ferry he repulsed the Confederate attack led by General Kirby Smith, with a loss of 2300. In August of this year (1864) Commodore Farragut executed one of the fiercest and most heroic naval combats on record. Having lashed himself to the mast of the Hartford, he advanced with a fleet of 14 wooden steamers and gunboats and four iron-clad monitors against Forts Morgan and Gaines, at the entrance of Mobile Bay. He ran the bows of his wooden vessels full speed against the rebel iron-clad Tennessee, gaining a notable victory, which ended in the fall of the forts and the city of Mobile. General Grant was appointed Commander-in-chief of all the Union armies on March i, 1864. Having sent Sherman to conduct a campaign in the West, he himself on May 4 and 5, crossed the Rapidan for a direct southerly advance to Richmond. A campaign of 43 days followed, in which more than 100,000 men, frequently reinforced, were engaged on either side. He was met by Lee in the Wilderness, where, after two days of terrible slaughter, the battle ended without decided advantage to either side. Among the Unionists, General J. S. Wads- worth was killed and seven eenerals were wounded, the entire loss amount- ing to 20,000 men. The Confederates lost 8000 men, with Longstreet badly wounded. Finding Lee's position impregnable, Grant advanced by a flank movement to Spottsylvania Court House. Here, on May nth, Hancock, by a desperate assault, captured Generals Johnson and E. H. Stewart, with 3000 men and 30 guns, while Lee himself barely escaped. But no fighting, however desperate, could carry Lee's works. Sheridan with his cavalry now made a dashing raid toward Richmond. He fought the Confederate cavalry, killed their General, J. E. B. Stuart, and returned, having suffered little damage, to Grant. General A GREAT FIGHT. 311 Butler with 30,000 men steamed up the James River and seized City Point, with the view of seizing Petersburor. He was, however, too slow, and in a fight with Beauregard, near Proctor's Creek, lost 4000 men, while the Confederates lost but 3000. General Grant reached, May 1 7th, the North Anna, where he gained some advantage, but as Lee was strongly intrenched, he moved on again to Cold Harbor. Here an assault on Lee ended with a Union loss of 1705 killed, 9072 wounded and 2406 missing. Sheridan again raided Lee's rear, tore up rail- roads, and burnt stores, and after having lost 735 men he returned to Grant with 370 prisoners. Grant now pressed on toward the James River ; assaults were ENTRANCE TO GETTYSBURG CEMETERY. made on Petersburg with a loss of many killed and 5000 prisoners. The Unionist General Wilson, with 8000 cavalry, while tearing up the Danville railroad, lost 1000 prisoners. Another attempt to take Petersburg by a mine explosion resulted in a Unionist loss of 4400 and Confederate loss of 1000. A series of gallant attacks by the Unionists were as gallandy repulsed. Thus Hancock assailed Lee's left wing below Richmond, losing 5000 men. Warren seized the Weldon Railroad, at the expense of 4450, while the Confederates lost but 1 200. Han- cock's attempt to seize Ream's Station ended in his being driven back and 312 THE STORY OF AMERICA. losing 2400 men. Warren grasped the Squirrel Level Road at a cost of 2500 men. Butler, however, took Port Harrison, with 1 1 5 guns, but failed to take Fort Gilmore after a loss of 300. The Confederates, attempting to retake Fort Harrison, were beaten back with a heavy loss. The Union cavalry under Gen- eral Kautz advanced within five miles of Richmond, but were driven back with a loss of 9 guns and 500 men. Hancock tried to turn the Confederate flank and took 1000 prisoners, but had to retire with a loss of 1500. Thus this campaign of 1864 closed with a loss in the aggregate of 87,387 men from the Army of the Potomac. In West Virginia Sigel was routed at New Market by J. C. Breckinridge with a loss of six guns and 700 men. Hunter, succeeding Sigel, beat the Con- federates, June 8th, at Piedmont, killing General Jones and taking 1500 men, but was himself, with 20,000 men, soon after beaten at Lynchburg, and forced to a disastrous retreat over the Alleghanies to the Potomac. This opened the way for the Confederate, Early, with 20,000 veterans, to march northward. With a loss of but 600 he defeated General Lew Wallace near Frederick, killing and capturing 2000 men. After threatening Baltimore and Washington he retreated South with 2500 captured horses and 5000 catde. He also defeated at Winchester General Crook, whose loss was 1200. Shortly after the Unionist General Averill defeated B. F. Johnson's cavalry and took 500 prisoners. Not long after, on September 19, 1864, Early, after a brilliant attack by Sheridan at Winchester, was routed, losing 6000 men, while the Unionists lost 1000 less. At Fisher's Hill Sheridan again routed him, taking 16 guns and 1 100 prisoners; at Cedar Creek, while Sheridan was absent at Washington, Early made a sudden and determined assault, throwing the Unionists into a panic- stricken mob, capturing 24 guns and 1 200 prisoners. Sheridan, by his famous ride of twenty miles, met his beaten army. He reorganized it, inspired it to make a general and magnificent attack, and won a great victory, recapturing his 24 guns, taking 23 more, and 1500 prisoners. The loss on either side was about 3000. In the Southwest General Sturgis (Union) with 1 2,000 men routed General Forrest at Guntown, Miss., killing and capturing 4000. In East Tennessee the Confederate raider Morgan captured 1600 Unionists at Licking River, but was himself soon after chased away with a loss of half his force. During these operations General Sherman advanced (May 18, 1864) with 100,000 men from Chattanooga. He was stubbornly resisted by General J. E. Johnston with an army of 54,000. At Kenesaw Mountain Sherman lost 3000 men while the Confederates lost 442. He, however, kept flanking and fighting the Confed- erates until he reached Atlanta, during which two months the enemy had lost 14,200 men; but reinforcements kept their numbers up to 51,000. During SHERMAN'S MARCH. 313 these movements the Confederate General Polk, who on accepting his commis- sion in the army had not resigned his position as a Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was killed by a cannon ball while reconnoitring on Pine Mountain, a few miles north of Marietta. Hood succeeded Johnston, and aimed a heavy blow at Thomas, on Sherman's right, losing 4000 and inflicting jf>S,\\ LONGSTREET REPORTING AT BRAGG'S HEADQUARTERS. a loss of but 1500. On the 2 2d occurred another great battle in which McPherson, a very superior Union general, was killed, and 4000 Unionists were lost. The Confederate loss was, however, not less than 8000. General Stoneman whilst raiding Hood's rear was captured, with 1000 of his cavalry. Hood, after suffering a heavy repulse by Logan, and another at Jonesboro by Howard, in the latter of which he lost 2000, and still another by J. C. 314 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Davis, when Jonesboro and many guns and prisoners were taken from him, retreated eastward, leaving Atlanta, September ist, to the Union victors. Being reinforced, however, so as to have about 55,000 troops, he returned for an invasion of Tennessee. At Franklin, November 30th, he made a desperate onset against Schofield, and was baffled, at an expense of 4500 men to himself and of 2320 to the Union. At Nashville, to which he laid siege, he was struck by Thomas, December 15th, with great skill and determination during a two days' battle, and broken to pieces, having lost more than 13,000, besides seventy- two pieces of artillery. The Union loss was 10,000 during the campaign. In November and December Sherman at the head of 65,500, including the cavalry protection of Kilpatrick, executed his famous march to the sea, i.e., from Atlanta to Savannah. His reward was 167 guns and 1328 prisoners and a demoralized South. The Confederate General Hardee, who had already evacuated Savan- nah, was obliged by a new advance of Sherman northward, February, 1865, to evacuate Charleston also, with 12,000 men. A cavalry engagement took place near the north line of South Carolina, between Kilpatrick and Wade Hampton, in which the former was surprised, but the latter finally beat him. Near Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 15th, he was attacked without success by Hardee, now acting under Joseph Johnston, having 40,000 men under his command ; and three days after at Bentonville by Johnston himself Sherman lost 1643, but forced Johnston to retire, leaving 267 dead and 1625 prisoners and wounded. Fort Fisher, that protected the blockade runners at Wilmington, N. C, was bombarded by Commodore Porter and carried by assault by General A. H. Terry, January 16, 1865. This victory, purchased at a cost of 410 killed and 536 wounded, threw into the Union hands 169 guns and 2083 prisoners. And Wilmington itself fell about one month later, under an attack by Schofield. General James H. Wilson, with 15,000 cavalry from the armies of Grant and Thomas, routed General Forrest at Selma, Ala., April 2d, capturing 22 guns and 2700 prisoners and burning 125,000 bales of cotton. Soon after, he captured at Columbus, Ga., 52 guns and 1200 prisoners, besides burning a gunboat, 250 cars, and 115,000 cotton bales. He took Fort Tyler by assault, but ceased operations at Macon, Ga., because by that time the rebellion was crushed. General Grant resumed operations February 6, 1865, when he repulsed at Hatcher's Run, at a cost of 2000 troops, the Confederates, who lost 1000. General Sheridan with 10,000 cavalry routed Early, on March 2d, from Waynes- boro, taking 11 guns and 1600 prisoners, and joined Grant at Petersburg after having passed entirely around Lee's army. An attack by Lee against Fort Stedman was repelled with a loss of 2500 to the Unionists and 4500 to the Confederates. LEE'S SURRENDER. 315 Grant, fearing that Lee might attempt to evacuate Richmond, threw Warren's corps and Sheridan's cavalry to the southwest of Petersburg. Warren, after having his divisions broken by Lee but re-formed by the aid of Griffin, united with Sheridan, who had been foiled the day before, April ist, at Five Forks. Warren and Sheridan now charged the Confederates' works, which were taken, along with 5000 prisoners. A general assault was made by the Union army at daylight, April 2d, when Ord's Corps (Union) carried Forts Gregg and Alexander by storm. A. P. Hill, a brilliant Confederate general, was shot dead. That night Lee evacuated Richmond, burning his warehouses filled with stores. General Weitzel, at 6 a.m. April 3d, entered the city with his men and was soon followed by President Lincoln. Petersburg was at the same time abandoned. Lee halted his army, now dwindled to 35,000 men, at Amelia Court House. Grant rapidly pursued. Ewell was severed from Lee's rear and became one among 6000 prisoners. Lee heroically pushed on to Appomattox Court House, where his flight was intercepted by Sherman marching from the South. Lee was inclined to renew the fighting against Sherman, but his weary and famished army stood no chance against the fearful odds around them. And Lee, to prevent further useless bloodshed, surrendered his army to Grant on April 9, 1865, within three days of four years after the rebellion had been opened by the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Bell ringing, triumphant salutes, and boundless joy throughout the United States hailed this event as the close of the war. Johnston surrendered his army to Sherman at Raleigh, N. C, April 26th, and Dick Taylor his, to Canby at Citronville, Ala., May 4th. The terms of the surrender were magnanimous : " Each officer and man was allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observed their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside." Jefferson Davis, the president of the now destroyed Confederacy, fled from Richmond at the time of its evacuation. Attended at first with a cavalry escort of 2000, which soon dwindled mostly away, he was making his way toward the coast, with his family and "a few faithful followers " when he was captured near Irwinsville, Georgia. After an imprisonment of two years in Fortress Monroe, he was released, and allowed to live without molestation, mourning the lost cause, until he died, December 6, 1889. The Union soldiers numbered during the war 2,666,999, ^^ which 294,266 were drafted, the rest being volunteers. The deaths on the field or from wounds amounted to 5221 officers and 90,868 men, while 2321 officers 182,329 men died from disease or accident. The Confederate armies enrolled were 600,000 men, of whom they lost more than one-half The Confederate cruisers, the "Alabama," "Florida," "Georgia," "Sumter," and "Tallahassee," most of 3i6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. which were fitted out in British ports, well nigh destroyed American commerce. The "Alabama," commanded by Raphael Semmes, went down off the French coast, June 19, 1864, in a memorable action with the U. S. S. " Kearsarge," commanded by Captain Winslow. The greatest act of Abraham Lincoln was his Emancipation Proclamation, issued January i, 1863, giving freedom to 4,000,000 of slaves. And so ended the great internecine conflict, which has made us a strong, consolidated, free nation, never again, let us hope, to be given over to fraternal strife. rVs.tf; f\^ LINCOLN S GRAVE. CHAPTER XVII. SOIVIE) KORQOXXEN LESSONS OK THE WAR. By colonel A. K. McCLURE, Editor and Proprietor of the Philadelphia Times. Before all those who more or less actively participated in the civil or military events of our Civil War shall have passed away, it might be well to crystallize into history some of its forgotten lessons. The young student of to-day, who must turn to history for all knowledge of the dark days of the bloodiest civil war of modern times, can be easily and fully informed as to all important political events and the many battles which were fought between the blue and the gray. But there are many facts and incidents connected with the origin and prosecution of that memo- rable conflict which have no place in the annals of history, but which exercised a very great, and at times a controlling, influence in shaping the policy of the Government, and even in deciding the issues of the war itself It is to some of these apparently forgotten lessons of the great conflict I propose to give a chapter that I hope may be entertaining and instructive. When we turn aside from the beaten historical paths to explore the forgotten issues and movements of more than thirty years ago, we are startled at the magnitude of questions in those days which seem now to be accepted as incapable of controversy. The student of to-day only sees the fact that the issues between slavery and freedom were natural and irrepressible, and that in such a contest, with a vast preponderance of numbers, wealth, and physical and moral power, there could be but one result from such a struggle ; but there are few to-day who have knowledge of the intrenched power of slavery, not only in our commercial cities, but throughout 317 COLONEL A. K. MCCLURE. 3i8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the whole business interests of the country, and it will doubtless surprise many readers when they are told that even as late as September, 1862, when the war had been in progress for nearly two years, scores of thousands of thoroughly loyal supporters of the Government in every State shuddered at the idea of Emancipation. It will be equally sur- prising to the students of American "- history to-day to learn that the great '^ ^»\P ^. - . mass of the people of both sections of the country were so jprofoundly interested in / THh bWAMI' AN(iEL BATTERY BOMBARDING CHARLESTON. a\ erting fraternal conflict that only the madness of the secession leaders forced the North to unite in the support of the war by wantonly firing upon the starving and helpless garrison of Fort Sumter when its peaceable surrender could have been accomplished within a few hours thereafter. So general and •deep-seated was the aversion to war in the North, that had the Government RELUCTANCE OF THE NORTH TO FIGHT. 319 commenced hostilities, even after the capture of the national forts and arsenals which had been seized by the insurgents, the North would have been hope- lessly divided on the question of supporting the Government. While it is probable that the slavery issue would have culminated in civil war some time during the present century, I feel entirely warranted in assuming GENERAL SHERIDAN TURNING DEFEAT INTO VICTORY AT CEDAR CREEK. that the sectional conflict begun in 1861 would not have reached an appeal to the sword but for the fact that both sections mutually believed the other incapa- ble of accepting civil war. Had the Northern and Southern people understood each other then as well as they understood each other after the soldiers of the blue and gray had exhibited their matchless heroism on so many battlefields, the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President would not have 320 THE STORY OF AMERICA. precipitated war. Civil war had been threatened by alarmists and agitators in and out of Congress for many years, and many of the Southern leaders grew offensively arrogant in discussing sectional issues during the debates in Con- gress, for several years before the election of Lincoln. It was not uncommon for Northern men to be taunted as cowards because they refused to accept the code of honor, and finally, when the secession of States began, it was the almost universal belief throughout the South that the Northern people were mere money getters, and incapable of heroic action even in defense of their convictions. The South assumed that the North would not fight, because it was believed that the Northern people were so averse to fighting that they would submit even to dissolution of the government rather than risk their lives for its defense. On the other hand, the Northern people believed the Southerners to be led by bombasts who would take pause in their aggressive actions whenever compelled to face the fearful realities of actual war. I have never forgotten an incident that occurred in a party caucus in the Pennsylvania Legislature, held on the night after the surrender of Sumter. I was then a Senator and in political accord with the majority of both branches of the Legislature that heartily sustained President Lincoln. The occasion was so grave that the caucus met in secret session, and the first half dozen speeches ridiculed the idea of actual war, because the Southern people were bombasts and cowards, and some of the speakers boldly declared that the Northern women could sweep away to the South of the Potomac, with their brooms, these blatant warriors. Having studied the situation both North and South, as Chair- man of the Military Committee of the Senate, I ventured to correct the errone- ous impressions created by the speakers, saying that the Southerners were of our own blood and lineao-e, had shared all our heroism in the achievements of the past, and that if we should become involved in civil war, it would be one of the most desperate and bloody wars of history. My declaration that the South would fight as heroically as the North was hissed from every section of the caucus. How fearfully true my statements and predictions were, was soon attested on the many battlefields, from the first Bull Run to Appomattox. No one then could have believed that the South would marshal and maintain an army of half a million men, to display the highest measure of heroism and sacrifice to overthrow the noblest government of the earth, and none could then have believed that the Northern people would furnish and maintain more than a million men during four long years of the bloodiest conflict, as the price of the perpetuity of the Republic. Had we known each other better then ; had we known that the soldiers of both the North and the South would make Grecian and Roman story Dale before their heroism in fraternal conflict, I doubt not that the Civil War begun in 1861 would have been postponed for a future generation. The first gun fired against Sumter, on the 12th of April, 1861, sounded THE FIRST OVERT ACTS. ?21 the death knell of the Southern Confederacy and of slavery ; and had the first gun of the war been fired by Major Anderson, the commander of Fort Sumter, against any of the Confederate batteries erected to bombard him and his little command, the North would have -^ been divided on the vital issue of supporting the =* Go\ernment, and even _* revolution ~ I* :'-^'sff in the North would have been more than possible. Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated on the 4th of March, and from that time until the bombardment of Sumter the provisional Confederate Govern- ment, then located at Montgomery, Ala- bama, committed acts of war against the National Government, by seizing forts and arsenals, and by erecting batteries at Charleston, within range of Major Anderson's guns, to make his fort defenseless. With all these preparations for war on the part of the South, begun during the last three months of DEATH OF GENERAL POLK. 322 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Buchanan's Administration and continued after Lincoln's inauguration, the Government was entirely helpless to defend its forts and property. The forts could not be reinforced because the small standing army at that day was utterly unequal to the task. Nine important forts in six Southern States were garrisoned by but a handful of men, without supplies in case of siege, or means of defense in case of assault from batteries whose construction could not be impeded, as to fire upon them would have been an act of war. The Govern- ment was not only unable to man its forts and defend them and the arsenals of the South, but neither President Buchanan nor President Lincoln dared to call for an increase of the army. Had either of them done so, it would have been an open menace of war to coerce the rebellious States back into the Union ; it would have inflamed the South into precipitating the conflict, and would not have been sustained by the people in the North. Thus was the Government utterly helpless to hinder preparations for war by the new Confederacy. Many of the ablest and most patriotic men of both parties of the North doubted the right of the Government to coerce a State by the bayonet, and had either Buchanan or Lincoln called for an increase of the army, or attempted to recapture forts and arsenals seized by the South, it would have been regarded as needlessly hastening a conflict that all hoped could be avoided. It was the midsummer madness of the Southern Confed- eracy in precipitating the war by firing upon the starved and feeble garrison of Sumter that, obliterated the issue of "coercion," and that practically united the North in sustaining the Government in an aggressive war policy. So entirely were we unprepared for war, that the President had no authority to call out troops, even after Sumter had been fired upon, and the President's proclamation summoning 75,000 volunteers for three months' service had to be legalized by subsequent act of Congress. The discussion of the propriety or impropriety of war was summarily ended when war was actually declared by the Charleston batteries hurling their hot shot into Sumter ; and from that day until the sur- render of the Confederate armies, after the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and countless treasure, the North was inspired by its patriotism to prosecute the war until the Rebellion should be overthrown and the authority of the Government established in every State of the Union. Had the Confederate Government been content to hold the forts and arsenals it had seized without bloodshed, and waited for the General Govern- ment to precipitate war, the conflict would have been indefinitely postponed and the Confederacy would have become so strong by the passive assent of the Government to its establishment that its overthrow might have been impossible. Certain it is that if President Lincoln had opened the war by firing upon the Southern forces, except in defense of assailed Government troops, he could not have commanded anything approaching a united support from the Northern 324 THE STORY OF AMERICA. people ; he would have been fearfully censured as having wantonly engaged in a great war over issues that might have been adjusted peaceably by patience ; and none can now assume to say what would have been the issue of such a con- flict with the North bitterly divided because of a sectional war precipitated by the aggressive action of the Government. It was the first gun fired against Sumter that crystallized the North, that gave Lincoln the power to summon patriotic armies to defend the Republic, and that assured, in the fullness of time, the utter overthrow of the Confederacy and the re-establishment of the great American Republic without the blot of slavery upon its escutcheon. The naval warfare of the world was revolutionized in a single day by the battle between the " Merrimac " and the " Monitor" at Fortress Monroe, on the 9th of March, 1862. It was the most sudden and startling revolution ever attained in methods of warfare, and it was a revelation to every nation of the earth. The United States steam frigate " Merrimac " was set on fire at the Gosport Navy Yard at the outbreak of the war, when hastily abandoned by the Federal navy officers. It was burned to the water's edge and sunk, but soon after the Confederates raised the hull, which was not seriously damaged, and its engines in yet reasonably good condition, and they hurriedly under- took the then original conception of converting it into an iron clad. A powerful prow of cast iron was attached to its stem, a few feet under water, and projecting sufficiently to enable it to break in the side of any wooden vessel. A low wooden roof two feet thick was built at an incline of about 36 degrees, and this was plated with double iron armor, making a four-inch iron plating. Under this protection were mounted two broadside batteries of four guns each, and a gun at the stem and stern. The Government was soon advised of the raisincr of the hull of the " Merrimac," and without having detailed information on the subject, knew that a powerful iron-clad was being constructed. A board of naval officers had been selected by the Government to consider the various suggestions for the construction of iron-clad vessels, and although, as a rule, naval officers had little faith in the experiment. Congress coerced them into action by the appropriation of half a million dollars for the work. The Naval Board recommended a trial of three of the most acceptable plans presented, and they were put under contract. Among those who pressed the adoption of light iron-clads, capable of penetrating our shallow harbors, rivers, and bayous, was John Ericsson. He was a Swede by birth, but had long been an American citizen, and exhibited uncommon genius and scientific attainments in engineering. The vessel he proposed to build was to be only 127 feet in length, 27 feet in width, and 1 2 feet deep, to be covered by a flat deck rising only one or two feet above water. The only armament of the vessel was to be a revolving turret, about ._....lllil,i]l[lll!l[[lii lllll[lliiiiil;l!!UiL.lilliiliii^llill'Ji[!.il'!il"''iii' i[imliii1t'iii,'i':iiiiiii::i'iiNiii;M.ii;iihmlinLni[i ii!iiii;[iilililiiiliilu ..,i,;i.uiiii!ifciiu.iiu.M.ijLUiiLi — i — J. 326 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 20 feet in diameter and nine feet high, made of plated wrought iron aggre- gating eight inches in thickness, with two eleven-inch Dahlgren guns. The guns were so constructed that they could be fired as the turret revolved, and the port-hole would be closed immediately after firing. The size of the " Merrimac " was well known to the Government to be quite double the length and breadth of the " Monitor," but it had the disadvantage of requiring nearly double the depth of water in which to manoeuvre it. Various sensational reports were received from time to time of the progress made on the " Merrimac," the name of which was changed by the Confederates to "Virginia," and as we had only wooden hulls at Fortress Monroe to resist it, great solicitude was felt for the safety of the fleet and the maintenance of the blockade. While the Government hurried the construction of the new iron-clads to the utmost, little faith was felt that such fragile vessels as the " Monitor " could cope with so powerful an engine of war as the " Merrimac." The most formidable vessels of the navy, including the " Minnesota," the twin ship of the original "Merrimac," the "St. Lawrence," the " Roanoke," the " Concfress," and the " Cumberland," were all there waiting the advent of the " Merrimac." On Saturday, the 8th of March, the "Merrimac" appeared at the mouth of the Elizabeth River and steamed directly for the Federal fleet. All the vessels slipped cable and started to enter the conflict, but the heavier ships soon ran aground and became helpless. The " Merrimac " hurried on, and after firing a broadside at the "Congress," crashed into the sides of the "Cumber- land," whose brave men fired broadside after broadside at their assailant only to see their balls glance from its mailed roof An immense hole had been broken into the hull by the prow of the " Merrimac," and in a very few minutes the "Cumberland" sank in fifty feet of water, her last gun being fired when the water had reached its muzzle, and the whole gallant crew went to the bottom with their flag still flying from the masthead. The "Merrimac" then turned upon the " Congress." It was compelled to flee from such a hopeless struggle, and was finally grounded near the shore ; but the " Merrimac," selecting a position where her guns could rake her antagonist, after a bloody fight of more than an hour, with the commander killed and the ship on fire, the " Congress" struck her flag, and was soon blown up by the explosion of her magazine. Most fortunately for the Federal fleet, the " Merrimac" had not started out on its work of destruction until after midday. Its iron prow had been broken in breaching the "Cumberland," and after the fierce broadsides it had received from the " Cong-ress " and the "Cumberland," with the other vessels firing repeatedly during the hand-to-hand conflict, the "Merrimac" was content to withdraw for the day, and anchored for the night under the Confederate shore batteries on Sewall's Point. ADVENT OF THE ''MONITOR." 327 The night of March 8th was probably the gloomiest period of the war. It was well known at Fortress Monroe and at Washington that the " Merrimac" would resume its work on the following day, and it was equally well known that there were neither vessels nor batteries to offer any serious resistance to its work. With the fleet destroyed and the blockade raised, not only Washing- ton, but even New York, might be at the mercy of this new and invincible engine of war. There did not seem to be even a sil- ver lining to the dark cloud that hung over the Union cause ; but deliverance came most unexpectedly, as some time during the night the litde "Moni- tor" was seen, by the light of the yet burning "Congress," towed into the waters of Hampton Roads. It was viewed with con- tempt by the naval officers and described as "a raft with a cheese box on top of it " ; but Lieutenant Worden, who commanded the little iron-clad, after being advised of the situation, boldly took his position, after midnight, near the still helpless " Minnesota," thus challenging the whole fury of the " Merrimac " upon the " Monitor." On Sunday morning, the 9th of March, the "Merrimac" sailed out defiantly to complete its work of destruction and thus make itself master of the capital, of New York, and, presumably, end the Richmond campaign then contem- MOIST WEATHER AT THE FRONT. 328 THE STORY OF AMERICA, plated, and the little "Monitor" sailed out boldly to meet it. The history of that conflict need not be repeated. To the utter amazement of the commandei of the "Merrimac," the "Monitor" was impervious to its terrible broadsides, while its lightness and shallow draft enabled it to out-manoeuvre its antagonist at every turn ; and while it did not fire one gun for ten of its adversary, its aim was precise and the "Merrimac" was materially worsted in the conflict. After three hours of desperate battle the defiant and invincible " Merrimac " of the day before was compelled to give up the contest and retreat back to Norfolk. It was this single naval conflict, and the signal triumph of the little "Monitor," that revolutionized the whole naval warfare of the world in a single day, and from that time until the present the study of all nations for aggressive or defensive warfare has been the perfection of the Iron-clad. To the people of the present time the iron-clad is so familiar, and its discussion so common, that few recall the fact that only thirty years ago it was unknown, and little dreamed of as an important implement of war. It is notable that neither of those vessels which inaugurated iron-clad warfare, and made it at once the accepted method of naval combat for the world, ever afterward engaged in battle during the three years of war which continued. The "Merrimac" was constantly feared as likely to make a new incursion against our fleet, but her commander never again ventured to lock horns with the "Monitor" and the additional iron-clads which were soon added to the navy. Early in May the capture of Norfolk by General Wool placed the " Merrimac " in a position of such peril that on the i ith of May, 1862, she was fired by her commander and crew and abandoned, and soon after was made a hopeless wreck by the explosion of her magazine. The fate of the "Monitor" was even more tragic. The following December, when being towed off Cape Hatteras, she foundered in a gale and went to the bottom with a portion of her officers and men ; but she had taught the practicability of iron-clads in naval warfare, and when she went down a whole fleet was under construction after her own model, and some vessels already in active service. One of the forgotten lessons of the war is given in the singular fatality that attended the formidable iron-clad vessels constructed by the Confederacy. The South not only furnished the first iron-clad of the war, but it constructed others, which were confidently and reasonably relied upon to raise the blockade in both Savannah and New Orleans. The Confederates had converted the English iron- clad steamer Fingal, one of the successful blockade runners, into one of the most powerful iron-clad war vessels constructed by either side during the war. It was regarded by all as the most dangerous engine of war that had yet been produced ; and when Admiral Dupont ordered two of his best monitors, the " Weehawken " and the " Nahant," to accept the "Atlanta's " challenge of battle, the gravest fears were cherished by the Admiral as to the Issue of the conflict. DEFEAT OF THE "ATLANTA." 329 So confident were the officers of the "Atlanta" and the people of Savannah of the speedy and complete victory of the new Confederate iron-clad, that when the "Atlanta," on the 17th of June, 1863, steamed out to give battle, it was accompanied by steamers brilliantly decorated with flags and crowded with men and women, the elite of the city, to witness the destruction of the Union fleet. DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN. The "Atlanta" opened the battle, but the Federal monitors were silent until they got the exact range desired, when a ball from the " Weehawken "struck the side of the "Atlanta," penetrated its armor, and prostrated half the fighting force of the vessel by the concussion. The second shot struck the "Atlanta and seriously damaged its plating; the third wounded both the pilots and 330 THE STORY OF AMERICA. demolished the pilot house ; and the fourth and final shot crashed through a port shutter. So stunning was the first shot received by the "Atlanta" from the "Weehawken" that the "Atlanta" never again fired a gun, as it became unmanageable and entirely at the mercy of its adversary. Thus in a very few minutes after the battle opened the Confederate iron-clad displaced its colors with the white flag, and it was regarded as one of the grandest naval prizes of the war. The captured iron-clad was towed away by the victors and reconstructed for service in the Federal navy, but on the 6th of December, 1863, when with the fleet within Charleston Harbor, a rough sea caught it, heavily laden with shells, and before relief could come it sunk to the bottom with some twenty-five officers and men. Such was the fate of the two great iron-clads of the Confederacy that were completed and put into action. Each fought one battle and both perished soon thereafter ; but the most formidable of all the iron-clads constructed by the South during the war, was within a few weeks of completion when Admiral Farragut captured New Orleans. The Admiral was advised of the construction of this vessel, and the fear of its completion certainly hastened his aggressive action in attacking the Confederate forts and fleet on the Mississippi, to enter New Orleans. Neither was his information in any degree at fault as to the invulner- able character of the new iron-clad. After the capture of New Orleans, Ad- miral Farragut and General Butler informed themselves minutely of this new engine of war, and both confessed that had it been completed before the capture of the city, it would have been capable of destroying Farragut's entire fleet, raising the blockade and defending New Orleans from capture. Most fortunately for the Union cause, with all the haste that could be practiced in the construc- tion of this vessel, it could not be made serviceable until after Farragut's heroic and successful assault, and it shared the fate of the first of the Confed- erate iron-clads by being blown up by those who had staked the highest hopes upon its achievements. Thus while the Confederates were eminently successful with their free-lance vessels assailing our commerce on the seas of the world, and while they conceived and accomplished much in the construction of great iron-clads, their vessels were all singularly fated to be valueless in promoting the Confederate cause. When it is remembered that had the Federal blockade been raised in any of our leading ports and an open port maintained, as was possible by each of these Confederate iron-clads, the recognition of the Con- federacy by England and France would have speedily followed, we may justly appreciate the magnitude of the succession of disasters that attended these Confederate engines of war. The civilized world dates the emancipation of slaves in the United States with President Lincoln's proclamation of January ist, 1863, and all historians of the future will date the overthrow of bondage in our land with that THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 331 immortal instrument. But the Emancipation Proclamation was not the end of slavery ; it was simply the means that crystallized the forces that led to universal freedom within the limits of the Republic. In point of fact. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not liberate a single slave, and it did not even assume to overthrow slavery in all the States of the Union. Tennessee, Maryland, and Delaware, three slave States then in partial accord with the Government, and nearly one-half the territory of Virginia and BIRD S-EVE VIEW OK THE NORTH END OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. {Front a photograph.) In the middle-ground midway of the swamp is the '* Island " which was covered with shelters after the higher ground had all been occupied. a considerable portion of the territory of Louisiana, were expressly excluded from the operations of the proclamation. It was an exercise of the extreme authority of the Executive under the war powers of the Constitution, and had it been thus carried into effect, it would have left slavery existing in five of the States. Congress had advanced toward emancipation to the extent of giving freedom to every slave that reached the Federal lines whose master was in rebellion against the Government, and the Emancipation 332 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Proclamation practically accomplished nothing more. While it proclaimed freedom to all the slaves within the States and territory named, their actual freedom was not attained until our victorious armies brought them within our lines, and possessed the territory of the slave States. President Lincoln well appreciated the fact that his proclamation was simply the final step toward the utter overthrow of slavery, and that other and most important agencies were essential to the completion of the great work with which his name must ever be associated. A prompt movement was made in Congress to give completeness to the emancipation policy by a constitutional amendment forbidding slavery in every State and Territory of the Union, and one of the most desperate Congressional struggles of the war was precipitated by that effort. It was defeated in 1864, wanting LIBBY PRISON IN 1865. several votes of the necessary two-thirds in the House, but the same House, during the second session, finally adopted it, and thus slavery was abolished throughout the length and breadth of the land, and thus the complete triumph of Lincoln's Emancipation Policy was attained. But none the less will future generations turn back to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, as we do now, to date the deliverance of the great Republic of the world from the blistering stain of human bondage, and throughout all the peoples of the earth where the altar of liberty shall be known, there will the name of Abraham Lincoln be honored, because it gave freedom to 4,000,000 of bondmen. There are very many forgotten lessons taught on the bloody battle fields of our Civil War which will never be recorded in history. The battle of Gettysburg, the Waterloo of the Confederacy, furnishes some most conspicuous THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 333 instances of the apparent accidents which control the destiny of great armies, and possibly the destiny of nations. That great battle-field had not been chosen by the leaders of either army. It was accident or fate, or the omnipotent power that rules over all, that doomed the Confederate army to be defeated when it was most confident of victory and best equipped in numbers, munitions, and confidence for a triumphant campaign. The first day was an appalling disaster to the Federal army. Two army corps, embracing probably one-fourth of Meade's entire force, were not only defeated but routed in that engagement, the commanding officer killed, and the demoralized Federal forces driven through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill. Had they been pursued by the Con- LIBBY PRISON IN 1654, l^l.l'UKE IIS KKMOVAL TO L1UCA(. federate force that had defeated them, they could have been captured or scattered so as to be ineffective in the future battle ; and even after the pursuit had been abandoned and Confederate headquarters established on Seminary Hill, Round Top, that commanded the left of the Federal position, and Culp's Hill, that commanded its right, could have been taken without firing a gun. Had that been done, the most impregnable position between Williamsport and Washington could not have been held an hour the following morning, the great decisive battle of the war, fought between the opposing lines on Cemetery and Seminary Hills, would have been unknown to history, and on no other field chosen by the Federal commander could Lee have been compelled to fight at such a disadvantage. Had Meade been defeated at Gettysburg who could 334 THE STORY OF AMERICA. measure the consequences ? Baltimore, Philadelphia, all the teeming wealth of the Lancaster and Cumberland valleys, and possibly even the Capital itself, would have been at the mercy of the Southern victors. Three days' delay in the arrival of pontoon trains at Fredericksburg not only lost Burnside that battle, but ended in one of the most bloody assaults of the war, and one that was equaled only by Pickett's assault at Gettysburg in the wanton sacrifice of life. Burnside's delay, caused by the failure of his pontoon trains, gave Lee ample time to concentrate his army and entrench himself on the heights of Fredericksburg, and the defeat of the Federal army, with 16,000 killed and wounded, was the sequel of the blunder. The mistake of a single officer in choosino; a road when executingf the orders of General Meade in marching upon Mine Run, in all human probability, saved Lee from a most disastrous defeat, and compelled Meade to retire and close the campaign. Had his plans been executed he would have suddenly thrown his entire army between Lee's divided forces, fought them in detail and defeated them ; but the mistaken march of part of his army separated his own forces and enabled Lee to concentrate at Mine Run, where he was so strongly entrenched that his position was absolutely impregnable. Many such instances might be cited, and results no less momentous frequently depended upon the condition of the roads and bridges, or of the weather, for " moist weather at the front" meant indefinite delay in the movement of trains and utter uncertainty as to the time in which necessary movements could be executed. The most heroic strategy of the war was exhibited by General Grant, when he swung his army away from the Mississippi River around to Jackson, defeated General Johnson in several pitched battles, separated him finally from General Pemberton, and shut Pemberton up in Vicksburg for his memorable siege that ended in the surrender of Pemberton' s army six weeks thereafter. Grant is the only General of the army who would have made that campaign, and he did it against the advice of his subordinate officers and even against the written protest of General Sherman.. It was a most perilous venture, but it meant the surrender and early capture of Vicksburg if successful, and Grant made it a success by his indomitable courage and celerity of movement. How he moved may be understood when it is stated that he was himself entirely without personal baggage, and he was so swift in his marches and in his attacks upon the enemy that when Johnson was defeated in the first battle, he was never given time to concentrate for another. But for that heroic movement it is doubtful whether Vicksburg could have been captured at all, and it is reasonably certain that, if captured, it would have been months later and after fearful sacrifice of life. It was the deep-seated personal prejudice of Jefferson Davis that made Sherman's romantic march to the sea possible, in 1864. General Joseph E. Johnson was not in favor with the Confederate President. A short time before SHERMAN AT ATLANTA. 335 the capture of Atlanta, Davis appeared there in person, removed Johnson from command and substituted General Hood, who was a brave but unskillful General ; and in a public speech Davis gave notice that the Confederate army was to assume the aggressive. Hood speedily justified the prediction of Davis THE CAPTURE OF BOOTH, THE SLAYER OF LINCOLN. by making a desperate assault upon Sherman's lines to raise the siege of Atlanta. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war, and for an hour or more after McPherson fell victory seemed to tremble in the balance, but Hood's army was finally defeated after terrible slaughter, and so impaired in strength that Sherman was soon able to manoeuvre him out of Atlanta without another ereat 336 THE STORY OF AMERICA. battle. Had General Johnson remained in command at Atlanta, it is entirely safe to say that General Sherman never would have attempted his march to the sea. Stonewall Jackson made the most heroic and perilous movement at Chancel- lorsville ever made by the Confederate army. He divided Lee's forces in the face of an enemy overwhelmingly superior in numbers, made a long march to strike General Hooker's right, surprised it, routed it and compelled Hooker's retreat back across the Rapidan without the two great armies meeting face to face in a general engagement. That movement cost Jackson his life and the Confederate army, confessedly, its ablest Lieutenant. Had Jackson opened the battle of Gettysburg there would have been no battle fought on Cemetery Hill. He would have possessed the strong positions on both flanks of that line, and the battle on the second day would not have been delayed until after mid-day. That delay enabled Meade largely to increase his army by the arrival of fresh corps and to make his position impregnable by fortification. It was the absence of the special qualities possessed by Jackson that lost Lee more than an even chance for winning that desperate and decisive conflict. There was but one General in the Union army who could have captured Lee at Appomattox. It was General Sheridan, and Sheridan alone, who made Lee's escape impossible. He was the very fiend of battle, capable of greater endurance than any other officer in the field, and inspired as he was by the hope of making Lee captive, he neither slept nor rested after the battle of Five Forks until the end came at Appomattox. Lee would have been defeated and routed without Sheridan, but he is the only General who would have forced Lee to surrender in an open country. The general public has almost forgotten the latest attempt of a European government to gain a foothold in North America. The brief reign of Maxi- milian as Emperor of Mexico ; his base desertion by the Emperor of the French when it became evident that the United States was to survive the rebellion as a united and powerful nation, and that the continued presence of a European army on American soil was regarded by the great Republic as a demonstration of hostility, and resented as such ; the immediate collapse of the empire when foreign support was withdrawn and the tragic death of Maximilian, form one of the saddest, but one of the most instructive, chapters in American history. Such are some of the forgotten lessons of the war, and if all of them were j carefully studied and faithfully presented, they would fill a large volume of most I interesting history ; but the actors in that crimson drama are rapidly passing . away. Not one of the great chieftains of either the blue or the gray now survives, and each year sadly thins the already narrow circle of those who r can recall the many forgotten lessons which are so romantically or so tragically interwoven with the history of the most heroic conflict ever made in man's WM. T. SHERMAN. 337 338 THE STORY OF AMERICA. struggle for man. It is well to believe that some of its lessons will never be forgotten. The horror of war which so hindered the prompt suppression of the Rebellion grew deeper and took firmer hold upon the minds of our people. To those communities, North and South, which sent out their best and bravest to unknown graves on distant battle-fields ; to those families who waited with fear and trembling to know at what cost to them was purchased the last great victory ; to those who saw their loved ones painfully hobbling upon crutches, or carrying an empty sleeve, or returning, the shadow of their former selves, from the horror of Andersonville or Libby Prison ; to these, and they were our whole people, war was, and is, utterly horrible. It is well to remember how the great man whose election to the presidency precipitated the conflict in those four years oi supreme trial, of sadness and of victory, bound to him the hearts of the people ; and it is well to remember how, even in that terrible time when Lincoln was assassinated, and when his slayer was being pursued and captured, in the hour which might seem to invite anarchy, our national administration was equal to every emergency, and the government was undisturbed. That a government of the people can live through such catastrophes is a lesson not soon to be forgotten. The great lesson of the war is the permanency, the adaptability and the adequacy of republican institutions. A. K. McClure. CHAPTER XVIII. OUR KLAQ AT SEA.. HE origin of the American navy dates from the commencement '^ of the struggle for national independence. Up to that time the colonies had looked to the mother country for protection on the seas. So the outbreak of the Revolution found them entirely without a navy. Their maritime interests were great, and their fishinsf craft and merchant vessels were numerous and were manned by singularly able and daring mariners. But fighting ships they had none, while their opponent was not only the greatest naval power of the world, but was doubtless, at sea, stronger than all others put together. England was therefore able not only to command the American coasts with her fleet, but also largely to thwart whatever feeble efforts toward the construction of a navy were made by the haggling and incompetent Continental Congress. Nevertheless the American navy did then come into existence, and wrought at least one deed as immortal in the history of the sea, as Bunker Hill in that of the war upon the land. In the fall of 1775, the building of thirteen war-cruisers was begun; but only six of them ever got to sea. Only one ship-of-the-line was built, the "America," and she was given to France before she was launched. During the whole war, a total of twenty small frigates and twenty-one sloops flew the American flag ; and fifteen of the former and ten of the latter were either captured or destroyed. What cockle-shells they were, and how slight in armament, compared with the floating fortresses of to-day, may be reckoned from the fact that twelve-pounders were their heaviest guns. Beside these, of course, there were many privateers, sent out to prey upon the enemy's commerce. These swift fishing craft ventured even to cruise along the very coast of England, and down to the time of the French alliance captured more than six hundred Enoflish vessels. In the annals of the regular navy, there are but three great captains' names : Wickes, Conyngham, and Jones. It was Lambert Wickes who, on his little sixteen gun " Reprisal," first bore the American war-flag to the shores of Europe. 339 340 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ami made it a terror to the great power that claimed to "rule the waves." After a brilliant cruise the " Reprisal " went down, with all hands, in the summer of 1777, on the treacherous banks of Newfoundland. Then Gustavus Conyngham took up the work, with his "Surprise" and "Revenge," and that very summer so scourged the might of England in the North Sea and in the British Channel itself, that the ports were crowded with ships that dared not venture out, and the rates of marine insurance rose to fabulous figures. But the one splendid name of that era was that of a canny young Scotch- man, John Paul Jones. Eighteenth he stood on the list of captains commissioned by the Congress, but on the scroll of fame, for those times, first — and there is no second. Coming to Virginia in boyhood, he entered the mercantile marine. When the war broke out he offered his services to the Congress, and was made a captain. And in 1778 he was sent with the "Ranger," of eighteen guns, to follow where Wickes and Conyngham had led. He swept with his tiny craft up and down the Irish Channel, entered Whitehaven and burned the shipping at the docks ; captured oft" Carrickfergus the British war-sloop " Drake," larger than his own ship, and then made his way to Brest with all his prizes in tow. Next year he set out on his immortal cruise, with a squadron of five ships. His flagship was an old merchantman, the "Duras," fitted up for fighting and renamed the "Bon Homme Richard," in honor of Franklin and his " Poor Richard's Almanac." She was a clumsy affair, armed with thirty-two twelve- pounders and six old eighteen-pounders not fit for use, and manned by 380 men of every race, from New Englanders to Malays. The "Pallas" was also a merchantman transformed into a thirty-two gun frigate. The " Vengeance " and the "Cerf" were much smaller; quite insignificant. The "Alliance" was a new ship, built in Massachusetts for the navy, but unhappily commanded by a Frenchman named Landais, half fool, half knave. Indeed, all the vessels save the flagship were commanded by Frenchmen, who were openly insubordinate, refusing half the time to recognize the commodore's authorit}\ and often leaving him to cruise and fight alone. Yet the motley squadron did much execution along the shores of Britain. It all but captured the city of Leith, and entered Humber and destroyed much shipping. But the crowning glory came on September 23, 1779. On that immortal date Jones espied, off Flamborough Head, a fleet of forty British merchantmen, guarded by two frigates, bound for the Baltic. At once he gave chase. He had, besides his own ship, only the " Pallas " and the " Alliance," but they would be sufficient to capture the whole fleet. But the miserable Landais refused to obey the signal, and kept out of the action. So the fight began, two and two. Jones, with the " Bon Homme Richard," attacked the "Serapis," Captain Pear- son, and the " Pallas" engaged the " Countess of Scarborough." The "Sera- pis " had fifty guns and was much faster and stronger than Jones's ship. The JOHN PAUL JONES AND HIS FAMOUS VICTORY. 341 "Countess of Scarborough," on the other hand, was much inferior to the " Pallas " and proved an early victim. It was growing dark, on a cloudy evening, and the sea was smooth as a mill-pond, when the " Bon Homme Richard " and the " Serapis " began their awful duel. Both fired full broadsides at the same instant. Two of Jones's old eighteen-pounders burst, killing twelve men,^and the others were at once aban- doned. So all through the fight, after that first volley, he had only his thirty-two twelve-pounders against the fifty guns — twenty of them eighteen-pounders, twenty nine-pounders, and ten six- pounders — of the " Serapis." For an hour they fought and manoeuvred, then came to- gether with a crash. An instant, the firing ceased. " Have you struck your colors?" demanded Pearson. " I have not yet begun to fight ! " replied Jones. Then with his own hands Jones lashed the two ships together, and inseparably joined, their sides actually touching, they battled on. Solid shot and canister swept through both ships like hail, while musket- men on the decks and in the rigging exchanged storms of bullets. For an hour and a half the conflict raged. Then Landais came up with the "Alliance" and began firing equally on both. Jones ordered him to go to the other side of the " Serapis " and board, and his answer was to turn helm and go out of the fight altogether. Now the fighting ships were both afire, and both leaking and sinking. Most of the guns were disabled, and three-fourths of the men were killed or wounded. The gallant Pearson stood almost alone on the deck of the doomed "Serapis," not one of his men able to fight longer. Jones was as solitary on the "Bon Homme Richard," all his men still able-bodied being at the pumps, striving to keep the ship afloat. With his own hands he trained a gun upon PAUL JONES. 342 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the mainmast of the "Serapis," and cut it down; and then Pearson surren- dered. The "Pallas" and "Alliance" came up and took off the men, and in a few hours the two ships sank, still bound together in the clasp of death. This was not only one of the most desperate and deadly naval battles in history. Its moral effect was epoch-making. John Paul Jones was the hero of the day, and Europe showered honors upon him. The American flag was hailed as a rival to that of England on the seas, and all Europe was encouraged to unite against England and force her to abate her arrogant pre- tensions, and to accede to a more just and liberal code of international maritime law than had before prevailed. In view of this latter fact, this battle must be ranked among the three or four most important in the naval history of the world. It was this battle that inspired Catharine of Russia to enunciate the doctrine of the rights of neutrals in maritime affairs ; and the tardy acquiescence of England, eighty years later, in that now universal principle, was brought about by the blow struck by John Paul Jones off Flamborough Head. There were no other naval operations of importance during the Revolution, save those of the French fleet at Yorktown. But soon after the declaration of peace, new complications arose, threatening a war at sea. England and France were fighting each other, and commerce was therefore diverted to the shipping of other nations. A very large share of Europe's carrying trade was done by A.merican vessels. But these were between two fires. England insisted that she had a right to stop and search American ships and take from them all sailors of English birth ; actually taking whom she pleased ; and France made free to seize any American ships she pleased, under the pretext that there were English goods aboard ; and when she captured an English ship and found on board an American seaman who had been impressed, instead of treating him as a prisoner of war, like the others, she hanged him as a pirate. Naturally indignation rose high, and preparations were made for war with France. In July, 1798, the three famous frigates, the "Constellation," the "United States," and the "Constitution," best known as "Old Ironsides," were sent to sea, and Congress authorized the navy to be increased to include six frigates, twelve sloops, and six smaller craft. Among the officers commissioned, were the illus- trious Bainbridge, Hull, Decatur, Rodgers, and Stewart. Actual hostilities soon began. French piratical cruisers were captured, and an American squadron sailed for the West Indies to deal with the French privateers that abounded there, in which work it was generally successful. In January, 1 799, Congress voted a million dollars, for building six ships of the line and six sloops. Soon after, on February 9, occurred the first engagement between vessels of the American and French navies. The " Constellation," Captain Truxton, over- hauled " L'Insurgente," at St. Kitts, in the West Indies, and after a fight of an hour and a quarter forced her to surrender. The " Constellation " had three SUPPRESSING THE BARBARY PIRATES. 343 men killed and one wounded ; " L'Insurgente " twenty killed and forty-six wounded. Again, on February i, 1800, Truxton with the " Constellation " came up, at Guadeloupe, with the French Frigate " La Vengeance." After chasing her two days he brought on an action. The two ships fought all night. In the morning, "La Vengeance," completely silenced and shattered, drew away and escaped to Curacoa, where she was condemned as unfit for further service. The " Constellation " was little injured save in her rigging. For his gallantry, Truxton received a gold medal from Congress. Later in that year there were some minor engagements, in which Americans were successful. By the spring of 1801, friendly relations with France were restored. The President was accordingly authorized to dispose of all the navy, save thirteen ships, six of which were to be kept constantly in commission, and to dismiss from the service all officers save nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen. At about this time ground was purchased and navy-yards established at Portsmouth, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wash- ington and Norfolk, and half a million dollars was appropriated for the completion of six seventy-four gun ships. Now came on r^al war. For many years the pirate ships of the Barbary States, Algeria and Tripoli, had been the scourge of the Mediterranean. The commerce of every land had suffered. European powers did not venture to suppress the evil, but some of them basely purchased immunity by paying tribute to the pirates. America, too, at first followed this humiliating course, actually thus paying millions of dollars. In September, 1 800, Captain Bainbridge went with the frigate " George Washington " to bear to the Dey of Algeria the annual tribute. The Dey took the money, and then impressed Bainbridge and his ship into his own service for a time, to go on an errand to Constantinople. Bainbridge reported this to Congress, adding, " I hope I shall never again be sent with tribute, unless to deliver it from the mouth of our cannon." However, Bainbridge was received courteously at Constantinople, and his ship was the first to display the American flag there. Captain Dale was sent with a squadron to the Mediterranean in 1801, to repress the pirates of Tripoli. One of his ships, the schooner "Experiment," captured a Tripolitan cruiser, and this checked for a time the ardor of the pirates. But open war was soon declared between the two countries, and Congress authorized the sending of a larger fleet to the Mediterranean. The gallant Truxton was offered the command of it, but declined because the cheese-paring Administration was too parsimonious to allow him a proper staff of subordinates. Thereupon he was dismissed from the service, and Captain Morris sent in his place. But false economy had so enfeebled the navy that the fleet was able to do little. One Tripolitan ship was captured, however, and another destroyed. 344 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Then the Government woke up, and began building new ships, and sent another rquadron over, led by Preble with the " Constitution." He went first to Morocco, whose Sultan at once sued for peace ; and then proceeded to Tripoli. Here he found that the frigate "Philadelphia," with Bainbridge and three hundred men aboard, had been captured and was being refitted by the Tripolitans for their own use. Decatur, commanding the " Enterprise," under Preble, determined upon a bold counter-stroke. Taking a small vessel, the "Intrepid," which he had captured from Tripoli, he sailed boldly into the harbor, flying the Tripolitan flag and pretending to be a merchant of that country. Running alongside the " Philadelphia," he boarded her, set her afire, and sailed away in safety, though amid a storm of shot and shell. The " Phila- delphia " was burned to the water's edge. Nothing more was done at the time, however, save to keep up a blockade, and Bainbridge and his men remained in captivity. In August, 1804, Preble and Decatur made a vigorous attack upon the harbor, and destroyed two and captured three vessels. A few days later other attacks were made. Then a new squadron under Commodore Barron came to the scene, and Preble was superseded. No other naval operations of importance occurred, and peace was finally concluded in 1805. Troubles with England now grew more serious. That country persisted in searching American ships and taking from them all whom she chose to call deserters from the British service. And so the two powers drifted into the war of 181 2. In that struggle, the Americans were badly worsted on land, but won victories of the first magnitude on the lakes and ocean. America had only nine frigates and a score of smaller craft, while England had a hundred ships of the line. Yet the honors of the war on the sea rested with the former. Her triumphs startled the world. The destruction of the "Guerriere" by the "Constitution," Captain Hull, marked an epoch in naval history. Then the " United States," Captain Decatur, vanquished the " Macedonian ;" the "Wasp," Captain Jones, the "Frolic ;" the "Constitution," Captain Bainbridge, the "Java;" and the " Hornet" the "Peacock." On Lake Erie, Commodore Perry won a great victory, which he announced. in the famous message, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." Equally brilliant was the victory of MacDonough on Lake Champlain. The most deplorable reverse was the destruction of the "Chesapeake" by the British ship "Shannon," the "Chesa- peake's" commander, Lawrence, losing his life, but winning fame through his dying words, " Don't give up the ship !" The conflicts of this war are more fully detailed elsewhere in this volume. It is needful here only to mention them briefly, as we have done. The cause of the surprising successes of the Americans may well be explained, however. It was due to that very inventive ingenuity that has made the history of the 346 THE STORY OF AMERICA. world's industrial progress so largely a mere chronicle of "Yankee notions." The Americans had invented and were using sights on their cannon. That was all. But the result was that their aim was far more accurate and their fire far more effective than that of their opponents. This advantage, added to courage and skill in seamanship equal to any the world had known, gave them their victory. This war was ended in February, 1815, and a month later another was begun. This was against the Dey of Algeria, who had broken the peace and seized an American ship, despite the fact that America had continued down to this time to pay tribute to him. It was now determined to make an end of the business ; so Bainbridge was sent, as he had requested, to deliver the final tribute from his cannons' mouths. Before he got there, however, Decatur, did the work. He captured an Algerine vessel ; sailed into port and dictated an honorable peace ; and then imposed like terms on Tripoli and Tunis, thus ending the tyranny of the Barbary States over the commerce of the world. Thereafter for many years the navy had not much to do. Some vessels were used for purposes of exploration and research, and much was thereby added to the scientific knowledge of the world. During the Mexican war, naval opera tions were unimportant. But in 1846 complications with Japan were begun. In that year two ships were sent to the Island empire, on an errand of peaceful negotiation, which proved fruitless. Three years later another went, on a sterner errand, and rescued at the cannon's mouth a number of shipwrecked American sailors who had been thrown into captivity. Finally the task of "opening Japan" to intercourse with the rest of the world, a task no other power had ventured to assume, was undertaken by America. On November 24, 1852, Commodore Perry set sail thither, with a powerful fleet. His commission was to "open Japan"; by peaceful diplomacy if he could, by force of arms if he must. The simple show of force was sufficient, and in 1854, he returned in triumph, bearing a treaty with Japan. The most extended and important services of the United States navy were performed during the War of the Rebellion At the outbreak of that conflict, in 1 86 1, the whole navy comprised only forty-two vessels in commission. Nearly all of these were scattered in distant parts of the world, where they had been purposely sent by the conspirators at Washington. Most of those that remained were destroyed in port, so that there was actually for a time only one serviceable war-ship on the North Atlantic coast. But building and purchase soon increased the navy, so that before the end of the year it numbered two hundred and sixty-four, and was able to blockade all the ports of the Southern Confederacy. They were a motley set, vessels of every imaginable type, ferry- boats and freight steamers, even, being pressed into use ; but they served. The first important naval action was that at Hatteras Inlet, in August, 1861. PASSING THE FORTS. 347 There Commodore Stringham, with a fleet of steam and saUing craft, bombarded a series of powerful forts and forced them to surrender, without the loss of a single man aboard the ships. Next came the storming of Port Royal. At the end of October Commodore Dupont and Commander Rodgers went thither with a strong squadron. They entered the harbor, and formed with their ships an ellipse, which kept constantly revolving, opposite the forts, and constantly pouring in a murderous fire. It was earthworks on land against old-fashioned wooden ships on the water ; but the ships won, and the forts surrendered. A small flotilla of rebel gunboats came to the assistance of the forts, but were quickly repulsed by the heavy fire from the ships. The next year saw much naval activity in many quarters. The blockade of all Southern ports was rigorously maintained, and there were some exciting engagements between the national ships and blockade runners. On the Cumberland, Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers the gunboats of Foote and Porter greatly aided the land forces, in the campaigns against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, at Island No. 10, and Vicksburg. Roanoke Island and New Berne, on the Carolina coast, were taken by a combined naval and military expedition. One of the most striking events of the war was the entrance of the Mississippi and capture of New Orleans by Admiral Farragut. He had a fleet of forty vessels, all told. Opposed to him were two great and strong land forts, Jackson and St. Philip, one on each side of the river, mounting two hundred and twenty- five guns. From one to the other stretched a ponderous iron chain, completely barring the passage, and beyond this was a fleet of iron-clad gun-boats, fire- ships, etc. Military and naval authorities scouted the idea that Farragut's wooden ships could ever fight their way through. But Farragut quietly scouted the authorities. Making his way up to within range of the forts he began a bombardment. On the first day his guns threw 2000 shells at the enemy. A huge fire-raft was sent against him, but his ships avoided it and it passed harmlessly by. Another was sent down that night, a floating mountain of flame. But one of Farragut's captains deliberately ran his ship into it, turned a hose upon it, and towed it out of the way ! For a week the tremendous bombardment was kept up, 16,800 shells being thrown at the forts. Then Farragut cut the chain, and started to run the fiery gauntlet of the forts with his fleet. Before daylight one morning the mortar- boats opened a furious fire, under cover of which the ships steamed straight up the river. The forts opened on them with every gun, a perfect storm of shot and shell, and the ships replied with full broadsides. Five hundred cannon were thundering. One ship was disabled and dropped back. The rest swept on in a cloud of flame. Before they were past the forts, fire-ships came down upon them, and iron-clad gunboats attacked them. The "Varuna," Captain 348 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Boggs, was surrounded by five rebel gunboats, and sank them all. As the last of them sank, a sixth, a huge iron-clad ram, came rushing upon the "Varuna." Boggs saw he could not escape it, so he turned the " Varuna " so as to receive the blow squarely amidships. The ram crushed her like an egg-shell, and in a few minutes she sank. But her fearful broadsides, at such close range, riddled the ram, and the two went down together. In an hour and a half eleven rebel gunboats were sent to the bottom, and the fleet was past the forts. Next SINKING OF THE ALABAMA. morning Farragut raised the national flag above the captured city of New Orleans. This tremendous conflict was not, however, the most significant of that year. There was another which, in a single hour, revolutionized the art of naval warfare. When, at the outbreak of the war, the Norfolk Navy-yard had been destroyed to keep it from falling into rebel hands, one ship partially escaped the flames. This was the great frigate " Merrimac," probably the finest ship in THE ''MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC" 349 the whole navy. The Confederates took her hull, which remained uninjured, and covered it completely with a sloping roof of iron plates four inches thick, backed with heavy timbers, put a great iron ram at her bow, and fitted her with large guns and powerful engines. Then, to protect her further, she was coated thickly with tallow and plumbago. She was regarded as entirely invulnerable to cannon-shot, and her builders believed she would easily destroy all ships sent against her and place New York and all Northern seaports at the mercy of her guns. At the same time a curious little craft was built, hurriedly enough, in New York. It was designed by John Ericsson, and was called the " Monitor." It consisted of a hull nearly all submerged, its flat iron deck only a few inches above the water, and upon this a circular iron tower, which was turned round and round by machinery and which carried two large guns. Naval experts laughed at the "cheese-box on a plank," as they called it, and thought it unworthy of serious consideration. A REVOLUTION IN NAVAL WARFARE. At noon of Saturday, March 8, the mighty " Merrimac," a floating fortress of iron, came down the Elizabeth River to where the National fleet lay in Hampton Roads. The frigate " Congress " fired upon her, but she paid no attention to it, but moved on to the sloop-of-war " Cumberland," crushed her side in with a blow of her ram, riddled her with cannon-balls, and sent her to the bottom. The solid shot from the "Cumberland's" ten-inch guns glanced from the " Merrimac's " armor, harmless as so many peas. Then the monster turned back to the " Congress " and destroyed her. Next she attacked the frigate " Minnesota " and drove her aground, and then retired for the night, intending the next day to return, destroy the entire fleet, and proceed northward to bombard New York. That night the "Monitor" arrived. She had been hurriedly completed. She had come down from New York in a storm, and was leaking and her machinery was out of order. She was not in condition for service. But she was all that lay between the "Merrimac" and the boundless destruction at which she aimed. So she anchored at the side of the " Minnesota " and waited for daylight. It came, a beautiful Sunday morning ; and down came the huge " Merrimac" to continue her deadly work. Out steamed the tiny "Monitor" to meet her. The " Merrimac " sought to ignore her, and attacked the " Minne- lota." But the "Monitor" would not be ignored. Captain Worden ran her alongside the "Merrimac," so that they almost touched, and hurled his i6o-lb. shot at the iron monster as rapidly as the two guns could be worked. Those' shots, at that range, told, as all the broadsides of the frigates had not. The " Merrimac's " armor began to yield, while her own firing had no effect upon the " Monitor." It was seldom she could hit the little craft at all, and when she did the shots glanced off without harm. Five times she tried to 350 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ram the "Monitor," but the latter eluded her. A sixth time she tried it, and the "Monitor" stood still and let her come on. The great iron beak that had crushed in the side of the "Cumberland " merely glanced on the "Moni- tor's " armor and glided upon her deck. The " Merrimac " was so hfted and tilted as to expose the unarmored part of her hull to the " Monitor's " deadly fire, while the "Monitor" quickly slid out from under her, uninjured. Then the " Merrimac " retreated up the river, and her career was ended. She was a mere wreck. But the " Monitor," though .struck by. twenty-two heavy shots, was practically uninjured. The only man hurt on the "Monitor" was the gallant Captain Worden. He was looking through the peep-hole when one of the " Merrimac's" last shots struck squarely just outside. He was stunned by the shock and half-blinded by splinters ; but his first words on regaining consciousness were, " Have we saved the ' Minnesota ' ? " The "Monitor" had saved the "Minnesota," and all the rest of the fleet, and probably many Northern cities. But, more than that, she had, in that grim duel, revolutionized naval warfare. In that hour England saw her great ships of the line condemned. The splendid frigates, with their tiers of guns, were thenceforth out of date and worthless. The "cheese-box on a plank" in a single day had vanquished all the navies of the world. The success of Farragut in passing the Mississippi forts led Dupont, in April, 1863, to attempt in like manner to enter Charleston harbor ; but in vain. The fire from the forts was too fierce, and his fleet was forced to fall back with heavy losses. But in August, 1864, Farragut repeated his former exploit at Mobile. Forming his ships in line of battle, he stood in the rigging of the " Hartford," glass in hand, and directed their movements. As Dupont had done at Port Royal, he swept round and round in a fiery ellipse. At a critical point in the battle the lookout reported, " Torpedoes ahead !" A cry arose to stop the ship. "Go ahead! Damn the torpedoes!" roared the great Admiral, and the ship went on. Then the hug-e iron ram "Tennessee" came forward, to crush them as the "Merrimac" had crushed the "Cumberland." But Farragut, with sublime audacity, turned the bow of his wooden ship upon her and ran her down. Thus the Mobile forts were silenced and the harbor cleared. Nor must the stormingf of Fort Fisher be fororotten. The first attack was made in December, 1864. Admiral Porter bombarded the place furiously, and then General Butler attempted to take it with land forces. He failed, and returned to Fortress Monroe, saying the place could not be taken. But Porter thought otherwise, and remained at his post with his fleet. General Terry then went down with an army. Porter renewed the bombardment, the fort was captured, and the last port of the Confederacy was closed. While the National navy was thus carrying all before it along the coast, the Confederates were active elsewhere. Their swift, armed cruisers, fitted out 352 THE STORY OF AMERICA. in English ports, scoured the seas and preyed upon American commerce every- where, until the American merchant flag was almost banished from the ocean. The most famous of all these cruisers was the "Alabama," commanded by Raphael Semmes. During her career she destroyed more than ten million dollars' worth of American shipping. For a long time her speed and the skill and daring of her commander kept her out of the hands of the American navv But at last, in June, 1864, Captain Winslow, with the ship " Kearsarge," cam up with her in the neutral harbor of Cherbourg, France. Determined to make an end of her, he waited, just outside the harbor, for her to come out. Semmes soon accepted the challenge, and the duel occurred on Sunday, June 19. The shore was crowded with spectators, and many yachts and other craft came out, bearing hundreds anxious to see the battle. The vessels were not far from equal in strength. But the "Kearsarge" had two huge eleven-inch pivot guns, that made awful havoc on the "Alabama." The "Alabama," on the other hand, had more euns than the " Kearsarg^e." But the famous cruiser's time had come. As the two ships slowly circled round and round, keeping up a constant fire, every shot from the " Kearsarge " seemed to find its mark, while those of the "Alabama" went wide. And soon the "Alabama" sank, leaving the "Kearsarge" scarcely injured. A volume might be filled with accounts of notable exploits of the navy which there is not room even to mention here. But one more must be named, so daring and so novel was it. In April, 1864, the great iron-clad ram, "Albe- marle," was completed by the Confederates and sent forth to drive the National vessels from the sounds and harbors of the North Carolina coast. She came down the Roanoke River and boldly attacked the fleet, destroying one ship at the first onset and damaging others, while showing herself almost invulnerable. It was feared that she would actually succeed in raising the blockade, and extraordinary efforts were made to destroy her, but without avail. At last the job was undertaken by a young officer. Lieutenant Cushing, who had already distinguished himself by his daring. He took a small steam launch, manned by himself and fifteen others, armed with a howitzer, and carrying a large torpedo. The "Albemarle" was at her dock at Plymouth, some miles up the river, and botb banks of the narrow stream were closely lined with pickets and batteries. On a dark, stormy night the launch steamed boldly up the river and got within a short distance of the "Albemarle" before it was seen by the pickets. Instantly the alarm was given, and a hail of bullets fell upon the launch, doing, however, little harm. Cushing headed straight for the huge iron-clad, shouting at the top of his voice, in bravado, " Get off the ram ! We're going to blow you up ! " Running the launch up till its bow touched the side of the "Albemarle," he thrust the torpedo, at the end of a pole, under the latter and fired it. The explosion wrecked the " Albemarle " NAVAL ARCHITECTURE REVOLUTIONIZED. 353 and sank her. The launch was also wrecked, and the sixteen men took to the water and sought to escape by swimming. All were, however, captured by the Confederates, save four. Of these, two were drowned, and the other two — one of them being Gushing himself — reached the other shore and got safely back to the fleet. We have said that in the spring of 1861 there were only 42 vessels in com mission in the navy. There were also 27 serviceable ships not in commission, and 2 1 unserviceable, or 90 in all. During the four years of the war there were built and added to the navy 125 unarmored and 68 armored vessels, most of the latter being of the "Monitor" type. A few figures regarding some of the en- gagements will give a vivid idea of the manner in which the ships fought. In the futile attack of the iron-clads on the forts in Charleston harbor, April 7, 1863, nine vessels took part, using 23 guns and firing 139 times, at from 500 to 2100 yards range. They hit Fort Wagner twice. Fort Moultrie 12 times, and Fort Sumter 55 times, doing little damage. Against them the forts used yj guns, firing 2229 times, and hitting the vessels 520 times, but doing little damage except to one monitor, which was sunk. In the second bombardment of Fort Fisher 21,716 projectiles, solid shot and shell, were thrown by the fleet. But the most important thing achieved was the entire transformation effected in naval science. Hitherto the war-ship had been simply an armed merchant- ship, propelled by sails or, latterly, by steam, carrying a large number of small guns. American inventiveness made it, after the duel of the "Monitor" and "• Merrimac," a floating fortress of iron or steel, carrying a few enormously heavy guns. The glory of the old line-of-battle ship, with three or four tiers of guns on each side and a big cloud of canvas overhead, firing rattling broadsides, and manoeuvring to get and hold the weather-gauge of the enemy — all that was relegated to the past forever. In its place came the engine of war, with little pomp and circumstance, but with all the resources of science shut within its ugly, black iron hull. John Paul Jones, with his " Bon Homme Richard," struck the blow that made universal the law of neutrals' rights. Hull, with the " Constitution," send- ing a British frigate to the bottom, showed what Yankee ingenuity in sighting guns could do. Ericsson and Worden, with the " Monitor," sent wooden navies to the hulk-yard and ushered in the era of iron and steel fighting-engines. These are the three great naval events of a century. One of the most thrilling events in naval history occurred in a time of peace. It was in the harbor of Apia, Samoa, in March, 1889. A great storm struck the shipping and destroyed nearly every vessel there. Three German war-ships were wrecked. One English war-ship, by herculean efforts, was saved. Two American war-ships were wrecked, and one was saved after being run on the beach. This was the "Nipsic." The wrecked vessels were the 23 354 THE STORY OF AMERICA. "Trenton " and the " Vandalia." The combined strength of their engines and anchors was not enough to keep them from being driven upon the fateful reefs. The " Vandaha " was already stranded and pounding to pieces, and the "Trenton" was drifting down upon her. "Suddenly," says a witness of the scene, "the Stars and Stripes were seen flying from the gaff of the 'Trenton.' Previous to this no vessel in the harbor had raised a flag, as the storm was raging so furiously at sunrise that that ceremony was neglected. It seemed now as if the gallant ship knew she was doomed, and had determined to go down with the flag of her country floating above the storm. Presently the last faint ray of daylight faded away, and night came down upon the awful scene. The storm was still raging with as much fury as at any time during the day. The poor creatures who had been clinging for hours to the rigging of the ' Vandalia ' were bruised and bleeding, but they held on with the desperation of men who hang by a thread between Hfe and death. The ropes had cut the flesh of their arms and legs, and their eyes were blinded by the salt spray which swept over them. Weak and exhausted as they were, they would be unable to stand the terrible strain much longer. They looked down upon the angry water below them, and knew that they had no strength left to battle with the waves. Their final hour seemed to be upon them. The great black hull of the ' Trenton ' could be seen through the darkness, almost ready to crush into the stranded ' Vandalia ' and grind her to atoms. Suddenly a shout was borne across the waters. The 'Trenton' was cheering the ' Vandalia.' The sound of 450 voices broke upon the air and was heard above the roar of the tempest. ' Three cheers for the " Vandalia ! " ' was the cry that warmed the hearts of the dying men in the rigging. The shout died away upon the storm, and there arose from the quivering masts of the sunken ship a response so feeble that it was scarcely heard on shore. The men who felt that they were looking death in the face aroused themselves to the effort and united in a faint cheer to the flagship. Those who were standing on shore listened in silence, for that feeble cry was the saddest they had ever heard. Every heart was melted to pity. ' God help them ! ' was passed from one man to another. The sound of music next came across the water. The ' Trenton's ' band was playing ' The Star Spangled Banner.' The thousand men on sea and shore had never before heard strains of music at such a time as this." And so the good ships went to wreck, and many a life was lost ; but a standard of endurance and of valor was there set up that shall command the reverence and wonder of the world as long as time shall endure. During fifteen years of peace, following the War of the Rebellion, the navy was much neglected. JMo new ships were built, and the old ones fell into decay. In 1881, however, William H. Hunt, Secretary of the Navy appointed an Advisory Board to plan the building of a new navy adequate to the needs of the 356 THE STORY OF AMERICA. nation. From the deliberations of this Board and its successor, appointed by Secretary Chandler, sprang the splendid new fleet. The Board recom- mended the construction of four steel vessels : the "Chicago," of 4500 tons displacement; the " Boston " and "Atlanta," of 3189 tons displacement each, and the "Dolphin," of 1485 tons displacement. The dates of the acts author- izing these vessels were August 5, 1882, and March 3, 1883, ^.nd the contracts were taken for all four vessels by John Roach & Sons in July, 1883. The pioneer of the new steel navy was the " Dolphin." Although classed as a " dispatch boat " in the Navy Register, she has well earned the title of a first-class cruiser, and would be so classed if she had the tonnage displacement, since she made a most successful cruise around the world, traversing 52,000 miles of sea without a single mishap. The " Dolphin " was launched April 21, and she was finished in November, 1884, and although no material changes were made in her she was kept in continuous service for nearly six years. After her trip around Cape Horn, and after ten months hard cruising, she was thoroughly surveyed, and there was not a plate displaced, nor a rivet loosened, nor a timber strained, nor a spar out of gear. At the end of her cruise around the world she was pronounced "the stanchest dispatch-boat in any navy of the world." The " Dolphin " is a single-screw vessel of the following dimensions : Length over all, 26^j4 feet; breadth of beam, 32 feet; mean draught, 14^ feet; displacement, 1485 tons. Her armament consists of two four-inch rapid- firing guns ; two six-pounder rapid-firing guns ; four forty-seven-millimeter Hotchkiss revolvinof cannon, and two Gatline o-uns. She is also fitted with torpedo tubes. Her cost, exclusive of her guns, was ^315,000. Her comple- ment of crew consists of 10 officers and 98 enlisted men. The first four vessels were called the "A, B, C, and D of the New Navy," because of the first letters of their names — the " Atlanta," " Boston," " Chicago," and "Dolphin." The "Atlanta" and "Boston" are sister ships — that is, they were built from the same designs and their plates, etc., were moulded from the same patterns and they carry the same armament — hence a description of one is a description of the other. They followed the " Dolphin " in service, the "Atlanta" being launched on October 9, 1884, and the " Boston " on December 4, 1884. The "Atlanta" cost ^619,000 and the "Boston" ^617,000. The official description of these vessels is that they "are central superstructure, single-deck, steel cruisers." Their dimensions are : Length over all, 283 feet ; breadth of beam, 42 feet; mean draught, 17 feet; displacement, 3189 tons; sail area, 10,400 square feet. The armament of each consists of two eight-inch and six six-inch breech-loading rifles ; two six-pounder, two two-pounder, and two one-pounder rapid-firing guns ; two 47-millimeter and two 37-millimeter Hotch- kiss revolving cannon, two Catling guns, and a set of torpedo-firing tubes. BUILDING A NEW NAVY. 357 Larger and finer still is the " Chicago," the flagship of the fleet, which was launched on December 5, 1885. She was the first vessel of the navy to have heavy guns mounted in half turrets, her four eight-inch cannon being carried on the spar-deck in half turrets built out from the ship's side, the guns being twenty-four and a-half feet above the water and together commanding the entire horizon. There are six six-inch guns in the broadside ports of the gun-deck and a six-inch gun on each bow. There are also two five-inch guns aft in the after portion of the cabin. Her secondary battery is two Catlings, two six- pounders, two one-pounders, two 47-millimeter revolving cannon, and two 37-millimeter revolving cannon. This auspicious start being made, the work of building the new navy went steadily on. Next came the protected cruisers "Baltimore," "Charleston," "Newark," "San Francisco," and "Philadelphia," big steel ships, costing from a million to nearly a million and a half dollars each. Much smaller cruisers, or gunboats, were the "Yorktown," "Concord," and "Bennington," and, smallest of all, the " Petrel." All these ships, though varying in size, are of the same general type. They are not heavily armored, and are not regarded as regular battle-ships, yet could doubtless give a good account of themselves in any conflict. They are chiefly intended, however, as auxiliaries to the real fighters, and as cruisers, commerce destroyers, etc. The "Vesuvius," launched in April, 1888, is a "dynamite cruiser," a small, swift vessel, carrying three huge guns, each of fifteen inches bore, pointing directly forward and upward. From these, charges of dynamite are to be fired by compressed air. The " Cushing " is a swift torpedo boat, with three tubes for discharging the deadly missiles. It was launched in 1 890, and named after the intrepid destroyer of the "Albemarle," whose feat has already been described. The " Stiletto " is a very small, wooden torpedo boat, of very great speed. The new navy also contains a number of vessels intended for coast-defense, heavily armored for hard fighting. The " Monterey " is a vessel of the "Monitor" type invented by Ericsson. It has two turrets, or barbettes, each carrying two twelve-inch guns, and protected by from eleven to thirteen inches of armor. The bow is provided with a ram. The "Puritan" is a vessel of similar design, with fourteen inches of armor. Besides the four bio- auns there is a secondary battery of twelve rapid-firing guns, four Hotchkiss revolving cannon, and four Catling guns. The " Miantonomah " is another double- turreted monitor. Her four ten-inch rifles have an effective ranae of thirteen miles, and she has a powerful secondary battery. Her big guns can send a five hundred-pound bolt of metal through twenty inches of armor, and she is herself heavily armored. This is a singularly powerful battle-ship, and would probably 358 THE STORY OF AMERICA. prove a match for any war-ship in the world. Several similar vessels are now under construction. The "Maine" is a heavily-armored cruiser, and while intended for sea- going, is really a battle-ship. It has eleven inches of armor and carries four ten-inch rifles, besides numerous smaller guns. The "Texas " is a similar ship. The "Detroit," "Montgomery," and " Marblehead," not yet completed, are small, partially armored cruisers. The "New York" is a mighty armored cruiser, believed to surpass any other ship ever built in the combination of offen- ' CHICAGO," U. S N., ONE OF THE NEW "WHITE SQUADRON" WAR SHIPS. sive and defensive power, coal endurance, and speed. She is 380 feet 6)4. inches long; steams 20 knots per hour; can go 13,000 miles without coaling; has from six to eight inches of armor, and carries six eight-inch and twelve four-inch rifles, and numerous smaller guns. The "Raleigh " and " Cincinnati " are protected cruisers of medium size. There are several other cruisers, not yet named, especially designed as com- merce-destroyers, having great speed, and being made to look as much like merchant-ships as possible. Other gunboats and battle-ships are also being built ; one pracUce cruiser, intended for a school-ship, and a harbor-defense THE ADVANCE OF NAVAL SCIENCE. 359 ram, carrying no guns, but provided with a particularly ugly beak at the bow. Altogether, the new navy, built or building, down to the present date comprises thirteen armored battle-ships, seventeen unarmored but " protected " cruisers,^ and six gunboats, all of them fully equal to any ships of their class in the^ world. In scarcely any department of human industry are the changes produced by the progress of civilization more strikingly seen than in the navy. When America was discovered, the galleon and the caravel were the standard war- ships of the world — clumsy wooden tubs, towering high in air, propelled by sails and even oars, with a large number of small cannons, and men armed with muskets and cross-bows. Such was the famed Armada, "that great fleet invincible," that was vanquished by the smaller, lighter crafts of Britain. Four hundred years have passed, and what is the war-ship of to-day ? A low-lying hulk of iron and steel ; armed with a few big guns, one of which throws a heavier shot than a galleon's whole broadside ; driven resistlessly through the water by mighty steam engines ; lighted and steered by electric apparatus, and using an electric search-light that makes midnight as bright as day. All the triumphs of science and mechanic arts have contributed to the perfection of these dreadful sea monsters, a single one of which could have destroyed the whole Armada in an hour, and laughed to scorn the mieht of Nelson inTrafalear Bay. What the locomotive is to the stage-coach, that is the " Miantonomah " or the " New York " to the " San Philip " or the " Revenge." CHAPTER XIX. DIKKICULXIES WITH KOREIQN POWERS. N a bright spring morning, the date, April 30, 1789, amid the booming of cannon, the plaudits of the multitude, and the general rejoicing of the people of the whole country, Washington had been inaugurated President of the United States. That day saw one of the most significant events accomplished in the history of the world ; for there in the city of New York, where the inauguration took place, a nation was born in a day. The old Confederacy was gone : the new nation stood forth " like a giant ready to run a race." And what a race it has run since that time History has told. It would be strange irideed if the peace that then brooded over the country was to become unbroken, perpetual. No nation up to that time had made such a record, which might well be considered as heralding the Millennium ; and the United States was destined to prove no exception to the course marked out by all other empires since the government of the State had supplanted that of the tribe and clan. The fact is, the seeds of conflict were already sown and were destined to bear fruit, both in civil and foreign war. THE DIFFICULTY WITH THE BARBARY STATES. If the reader will look at any map of Africa he will see on the northern coast, defining the southern limits of the Mediterranean, four States, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, running east and west a distance of 1800 miles. These powers had for centuries maintained a state of semi-independency by paying tribute to Turkey. But this did not suit Algeria, the strongest and most warlike of the North African States; and in the year 1710 the natives overthrew the rule of the Turkish Pasha, expelled him from the country, and united his office to that of the Dey. The Dey thus governed the country by means of a Divan or Council of State chosen from the principal civic function- aries. The Algerians, with the other " Barbary States," as the piratical States were called, defied the Powers of Europe. France alone successfully resisted 361 362 THE STORY OF AMERICA. these depredations, but only partially, for after she had repeatedly chastised the Algerians, the strongest of the northern piratical States, and had induced the Dey to sign a treaty of peace, they would bide their time, and after a time return to their bloody work. It was Algiers which was destined to force the United States to resort to arms in the defense of its persecuted countrymen ; the result is a matter of history. The truth is, this conflict was no less irrepressible than that greater conflict which a century later deluged the land in blood. For, before the Constitution had been adopted, two American vessels flying the flag of thirteen stripes and only thirteen stars, instead of the forty-four which now form our national con- stellation, while sailing the Mediterranean had fallen a prey to the swift, heavily armed Algerian cruisers. The vessels were confiscated and the crews, to the number of twenty-one persons, had been held for ransom, for which an enormous sum was demanded. This sum our Government had been unwilling to pay, as to do so would be to establish a precedent not only with Algeria, but with Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco as well, for each of these African piratical States was in league with the others, and all had to be separately conciliated. But, after all, what else could the Government do? The country had no navy. It could not undertake in improvised ships to go forth and fight the swift, heavily armed cruisers of the African pirates — States so strong that the commercial nations were glad to win exemption from their depredations by annual payments. Why not, then, ransom these American captives by the payment of money and construct a navy sufficientlystrong to resist their en- croachments in the future? This feeling on the part of the Government was shared by the people of the country, and so it was. Congress finally authorized the building of six frigates, and by another act empowered President Washing- ton to borrow a million of dollars for purchasing peace. Eventually the money was paid to all the four Powers, and it was hoped all difiiculty was at an end. The work of constructing the new war-ships was pushed with expedition, and as will be seen, it was well that it was so. We are now brought to the year 1800. Tripoli, angry at not receiving as much money as was paid to Algiers, declared war against the United States ; but now circumstances had changed for the better. For our new navy, a small but most efficient one, was completed, and a squadron consisting of the frigates "Essex," Captain Bainbridge, the "Philadelphia," the "President," and the schooner "Experiment," was in Mediterranean waters. Two TripoHtan cruisers lying at Gibraltar on the watch for American vessels, were blockaded by the " Philadelphia." Cruising off Tripoli the " Experiment " fell in with a TripoHtan cruiser of fourteen guns, and after three hours' hard fighting captured her. The Tripolitans lost twenty killed and thirty wounded ; this brilliant result had a marked effect in quieting the turbulent pirates. A SPLENDID VICTORY. 365; But peace was not yet assured. In 18 15, while this country was at war with England, the Dey of Algiers unceremoniously dismissed the American Consul and declared war against the United States ; and alL because he had not received the articles demanded under the tribute treaty.. This time the Government was well prepared for the issue. The population of the country had increased to over eight millions. The military spirit of the nation had been aroused by the war with Great Britain, ending in the splendid victory at New Orleans under General Jackson. Besides this, the navy had been increased and made far more effective. The Administration, A RAILROAD BATTERY. with Madison at its head, decided to submit to no further extortions from the Mediterranean pirates, and the President sent in a forcible message to Congress on the subject, taking high American ground. The result was a prompt acceptance of the Algerian declaration of war. Events succeeded each other in rapid succession. Ships new and old were at once fitted out. On May 15, 181 5, Decatur sailed from New York to the Mediterranean. His squadron comprised the frigates "Guerriere," "Macedonian," and "Constellation," the new sloop of war " Ontario," and four brigs and two schooners in addition. On June 1 7, the second day after entering the Mediterranean, Decatur 364 THE STORY OF AMERICA. captured the largest frigate in the Algerian navy, having forty-four guns. Tfie next day an Algerian brig was taken, and in less than two weeks after his first capture Decatur, with his entire squadron, appeared off Algiers. The end had come ! The Dey's courage, like that of Bob Acres, oozed out at his fingers' ends. The terrified Dey sued for peace, which Decatur compelled him to sign on the quarter-deck of the " Guerriere." In this treaty it was agreed by the Dey to surrender all prisoners, pay a heavy indemnity, and renounce all tribute from America in the future. Decatur also secured indemnity from Tunis and Tripoli for American vessels captured under the guns of their forts by British cruisers duringr the late war. This ended at once and forever the payment of tribute to the piratical States of North Africa. All Europe, as well as our own country, rang with the splendid achievements of our navy ; and surely the stars and stripes had never before floated more proudly fron: the mast-head of an American vessel, and they are flying as proudly to-day. KING BOMBA BROUGHT TO TERM.S. It was seventeen years later, in 1832, under the administration of General Jackson, that one of the most interesting cases of difficulty with a foreign power arose. As with Algeria and Tripoli, so now, our navy was resorted to for the purpose of exacting reparation. This time the trouble was with Italy, or rather that part of Italy known at that time as the Kingdom of Naples, which had been wrested from Spain by Napoleon, who placed successively his brother Joseph and Murat, Prince, Marshal of France, and brother-in-law of Napoleon, on the throne of Naples and the two Sicilies. During the years 1809-12 the Neapolitan Government under Joseph and Murat successively had confiscated numerous American ships with their cargoes. The total amount of the American claims against Naples, as filed in the State Department, when Jackson's Administration assumed control, was ^1,734,994. They were held by various insurance com- panies and by citizens, principally of Baltimore. Demands for the payment of these claims had from time to time been made by our Government, but Naples had always refused to settle them. Jackson and his Cabinet took a decided stand, and determined that the Neapolitan Government, then in the hands of Ferdinand II — subsequently nick- named Bomba because of his cruelties — should make due reparation for the losses sustained by American citizens. The Hon. John Nelson, of Frederick, Maryland, was appointed Minister to Naples and ordered to insist upon a settlement. Commodore Daniel Patterson,* who aided in the defense of New * Daniel T. Patterson was born on Long Island, New York, March 6, 1786; was appointed midshipman in the navy, 1800; was attached to the frigate "Philadelphia" when she ran upon a reef near Tripoli ; was captured and a prisoner until 1805 ; was made lieutenant in 1807 and KING BO MB A BROUGHT TO' TERMS. 365 Orleans in 1S15, was put in command of the Mediterranean squadron and ordered to cooperate with Minister Nelson in enforcing his demands. But Naples persisted in her refusal to render satisfaction, and a warlike demonstra- tion was decided upon, the whole matter being placed, under instructions, in the hands of Commodore Patterson. The entire force at his command consisted of three fifty-gun frigates and three twenty-gun corvettes. So as not to precipitate matters too hastily, the plan was for three vessels to appear in the Neapolitan waters, one at a time, and UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH WAGON. instructions were given accordingly. The " Brandywine," with Minister Nelson on board, went first. Mr. Nelson repeated the demands for a settlement, and they were refused : there was nothing in the appearance of a Yankee envoy and a single ship to trouble King Bomba and his little kingdom. The " Brandy- master-commandant in 1813. In 1814 he won great credit as commander of naval forces at New Orleans, and received the thanks of Congress. He commanded the flotilla which destroyed the fort and defenses of Lafitte, the pirate. He was made captain in 1815 ; Navy Commissioner, 1828 to 1832, and commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, 1832-1835. He died on August 15, 1839, being then in command of the Washington Navy Yard. 366 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ^wine" cast anchor in the harbor and the humbled Envoy waited patiently for a ifew days. Then another American flag appeared on the horizon, and the frigate "United States" floated into the harbor and came to anchor. Mr. Nelson repeated his demands, and they were again refused. Four days slipped away, and the stars and stripes again appeared off the harbor. King Bomba, looking out from his palace windows, saw the fifty-gun frigate " Concord " sail into the harbor and drop her anchor. Then unmistakable signs of uneasiness began to show themselves. Forts were repaired, troops drilled, and more cannon mounted on the coast. The demands were reiterated, but the Neapolitan Government still refused. Two days later another war-ship made her way into the harbor. It was the "John Adams." When the fifth ship sailed gallantly in, the Bourbon Government seemed almost on the point of yielding ; but three days later Mr. Nelson sent word home that he was still unable to collect the bill. But the end was not yet. Three days later, and the sixth sail showed itself on the blue waters of the peerless bay. It was the handwriting on the wall for King Bomba, •.and his Government announced that they would accede to the American 'demands. The negotiations were promptly resumed and speedily closed, the jpayment of the principal in installments with interest being guaranteed. Pending negotiations, from August 28 to September 15 the entire squadron remained in the Bay of Naples, and then the ships sailed away and separated. So, happily and bloodlessly, ended a difficulty which at one time threatened most •serious results. AUSTRIA AND THE KOSZTA CASE. Another demonstration, less imposing in numbers but quite as spirited, and, "indeed, more intensely dramatic, occurred at Smyrna in 1853, when Captain Dun- can N. Ingraham, with a single sloop-of-war, trained his broadsides on a fleet of Austrian war-ships in the harbor. The episode was a most thrilling one, and "The Story of America " would indeed be incomplete were so dramatic an affair left unrecorded on its pages. And this is the record : — When the revolution of Hungary against Austria was put down, Kossuth, Koszta, and other leading revolutionists fled to Smyrna, and the Turkish Gov- ■ ernment, after long negotiations, refused to give them up. Koszta soon after came to the United States, and in July, 1852, declared under oath his intention of becoming an American citizen. He resided in New York city a year and eleven months. The next year Koszta went to Smyrna on business, where he remained for a time undisturbed. He had so inflamed the Austrian Government against him, however, that a plot was formed to capture him. On June 21, 1853, while he was seated on the Marina, a public resort in Smyrna, a band of Greek mercen- aries, hired by the Austrian Consul, seized him and carried him off to an .Austrian ship-of-wai;, .the Huzzar, then lying in the harbor. On board the vessel CAPTAIN INGRAHAM. 367 Archduke John, brother of the Emperor, was said to be in command. Koszta was put in irons and treated as a criminal. The next day an American sloop-of war, the "St. Louis," commanded by Capt. Duncan N. Ingraham, * sailed into the harbor. Learn- ing what had happened, Capt. Ingraham immediately sent on board the " Huzzar " and courteously asked permission to see Koszta. His request was granted, and Captain Ingraham assured himself that Koszta was entitled to the protection of the Ameri- can flag. He demanded Koszta's release of the Aus- trian commander. When it was refused he communi- cated with the nearest United States official, Consul Brown, at Constantinople. While he was waiting for an answer six Austrian war-ships sailed * Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham was born December 6, 1802, at Charleston, South Carolina. He entered the United States Navy in 1812 as midshipman, and became a captain September 14, 1855. In March, 1856, he was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hy- drography of the Navy Department, a position which he held until South Carolina passed her ordinance of secession in i860. He then resigned his commission in the navy and took service under the Confederate States, in which he rose to the rank of ComrHodore. He died in 1891. 368 THE STORY OF AMERICA. into the harbor and came to anchor in positions near the " Huzzar." On June 29th, before Captain Ingraham had received any answer from the American Consul, he noticed unusual signs of activity on board the " Huzzar," and before long she began to get under way. The American Captain made up his mind immediately. He put the " St. Louis " straight in the " Huzzar's " course and cleared his guns for action. The "Huzzar" hove to, and Captain Ingraham went on board and demanded the meaning of the " Huzzar's " action. "We propose to sail for home," replied the Austrian. "The Consul has ordered us to take our prisoner to Austria." " You will pardon me," said Captain Ingraham, " but if you attempt to leave this port with that American on board I shall be compelled to resort to e.xtreme measures." The Austrian glanced around at the fleet of Austrian war-ships and the single American sloop-of-war. Then he smiled pleasantly, and intimated that the " Huzzar" would do as she pleased. Captain Ingraham bowed and returned to the "St. Louis." He had no sooner reached her deck than he called out : " Clear the guns for action ! " The Archduke of Austria saw the batteries of the " St. Louis " turned on him, and he realized that he was in the wrong. The " Huzzar" was put about and sailed back to her old anchorage. Word was sent to Captain Ingraham that the Austrian would await the arrival of the note from Mr. Brown. The Consul's note, which came on July ist, commended Captain Ingraham's course and advised him to take whatever action he thouorht the situation demanded. At eight o'clock on the morning of July 2d, Captain Ingraham sent a note to the commander of the "Huzzar," formally demanding the release of Mr. Koszta. Unless the prisoner was delivered on board the "St. Louis" before four o'clock the next afternoon, Captain Ingraham would take him from the Austrians by force. The Archduke sent back a formal refusal. At eight o'clock the next morning Captain Ingraham once more ordered the decks cleared for action and trained his batteries on the "Huzzar." The seven Austrian war- vessels cleared their decks and put their men at the guns. At ten o'clock an Austrian officer came to Captain Ingraham and began to temporize. Captain Ingraham refused to listen to him. "To avoid the worst," he said, " I will agree to let the man be delivered to the French Consul at Smyrna until you have opportunity to communicate with your Government. But he must be delivered there, or I will take him. I have stated the time." At twelve o'clock a boat left the " Huzzar" with Koszta in it, and an hour later the French Consul sent word that Koszta was in his keeping. Then several of the Austrian war-vessels sailed out of the harbor. Long negotiations AUSTRIA YIELDS. 369 between the two Governments followed, and in the end Austria admitted that the United States was in the right, and apologized. Scarcely had the plaudits which greeted Captain Ingraham's intrepid course died away, when, the next year, another occasion arose where our Government was obliged to resort to the force of arms. This time Nicaragua was the country involved. Early in June, 1854, after repeated but unsuccessful attempts at a settlement had been made by the United States, our Government — Franklin Pierce was then President — determined to secure a settlement by appeal to arms. Various outrages, it was the contention of our Government, had been committed on the persons and property of American citizens dwelling in Nicaragua. The repeated demands for redress were not complied with. Peaceful negotiations having failed, in June, 1854, with the sloop-of-war "Cyane," was ordered to San Juan, or Grey town, which lies on the Mosquito to insist on favorable action from the Nica- raguan Government. Captain Hollins came to anchor off the coast and placed his de- mands before the authorities. He waited patiently for a response, but no satis- factory one was offered him. After waiting in vain for a number of days he made a final appeal Commander Hollins, proceed to the town of coast of Nicaragua, and LATEST MODEL OF CATLING FIELD GUN. and then proceeded to carry out instructions. On the morning of July 13th he directed his batteries on the town of San Juan and opened fire. Until four o'clock in the afternoon the cannon poured out broadsides as fast as they could be loaded. By that time the greater part of the town had been destroyed. Then a party of marines was put on shore, and they completed the destruction of the place by burning the houses. A lieutenant of the British navy commanding a small vessel of war was in the harbor at the time. England claimed a species of protectorate over the settle- ment, and the British officer raised violent protest against the action taken by America's representative. Captain Hollins, however, paid no attention to the interference and carried out his instructions. The United States Government 24 370 777^ STORY OF AMERICA. later sustained Captain Hollins in everything that he did, and England thereupon thought best to let the matter drop. In this they were unquestionably wise. At this time the United States seems to have entered upon a period of international conflict. For no sooner had the difficulties with Austria and Nicaragua been adjusted, than another war-cloud appeared on the horizon. Here again but a year from the last conflict had elapsed, for in 1855 an offense was committed against the United States by Paraguay. We now have to go back three years. In 1852 Captain Thomas J. Page,* commanding a small light-draught steamer, the "Water Witch," by direction of his Government started for South America to explore the river La Plata and its large tributaries, Avith a view to opening up commercial intercourse between the United States and the . interior States of South America. We have said the expedition was ordered by our Government ; it also remains to be noted that the expedition was undertaken with the full consent and approbation of the countries having jurisdiction over those waters. Slowly, but surely, the little steamer pushed her way up the river, making soundings and charting the river as she proceeded. All went well until February i, 1855, when the first sign of trouble appeared. It was a lovely day in early summer — the summer begins in February in that latitude — and nothing appeared to indicate the slightest disturbance. The little "Water Witch" was quietly steaming up the River Parana, which forms the northern boundary of the State of Corrientes, separating it from Paraguay, when suddenly, without a moment's warning, a battery from Fort Itaparu, on the Paraguayan shore, opened fire upon the little steamer, immediately killing one of her crew who at that time was at the wheel. The "Water Witch" was not fitted for hostilities ; least of all could it assume the risk of attempting to run the batteries of the fort. Accordingly, Captain Page put the steamer about, and was soon out of range. It should here be explained that at that time President Carlos A. Lopez was the autocratic ruler of Paraguay, and that he had previously received Captain Page with every assurance of friendship. A few months previous, however, Lopez had been antagonized by the United States Consul at Ascencion, who, in addition to his official position, acted as agent for an American mercantile company, of which Lopez disapproved and went so far as to break up the business of the company. He also issued a decree forbidding foreign vessels of war from navigating the Parana or any of the waters bounding Paraguay, which he clearly had no right to do, as half the stream belonged to the State bordering on the other side. * Thomas Jefferson Page was born in Virginia in 1815. He entered the navy as midshipman in October, 1827, and was promoted to a lieutenancy in June, 1833. In September, 1855, ^e became a commander. In 1861, his State having passed the ordinance of secession, he resigned from the United States Navy, joining that of the Confederate States, where he attained the rank o£ Commodore. THE PARAGUAYAN TROUBLE. 371 Captain Page, finding it impracticable to prosecute his exploration any further, at once returned to the United States, giving the Washington authori- ties a detailed account of the occurrence. It was claimed by our Government that the "Water Witch" was not subject to the jurisdiction of Paraguay, as the channel was the equal property of the Argentine Republic. It was further claimed that even if she were within the jurisdiction of Paraguay she was not properly a vessel of war, but a Government boat employed for scientific pur- poses. And even were the vessel supposed to be a war vessel, it was contended that it was a gross violation of international right and courtesy to fire shot at the vessel of a friendly power without first resorting to more peaceful meanr. At that time William L. Marcy, one of the foremost statesmen of his day, was Secretary of State. Mr. Marcy at once wrote a strong letter to the Paraguayan Government, stating the facts of the case, declaring that the action of Paraguay in EIGHT-INCH GUN AND CARRIAGE OF THE "BALTIMORE." {Built at the Washington Navy-Yard, of American Steel.) firing upon the " Water Witch " would not be submitted to, and demanding ample apology and compensation. All efforts in this direction, however, proved fruit- less. Lopez refused to give any reparation ; and not only so, but declared no American vessel would be allowed to ascend the Parana for the purpose indicated. The event, as it became known, aroused not a little excitement ; and while there were some who "deprecated a resort to extreme measures " — a euphemistic pLrase frequently resorted to by those who would neither resent an insult nor take umbrage at an intended offense — the general sentiment of the country was decidedly manifested in favor of an assertion of our rights in the premises. Accordingly, President Pierce sent a message to Congress stating that a peace- ful adjustment of the difficulty was impossible, and asking that he be authorized to send such a naval force to Paraguay as would compel her arbitrary ruler to give the full satisfaction demanded. To this request Congress promptly and almost unanimously gave assent, and one of the strongest naval expeditions ever fitted out by the United States up 372 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to that time was ordered to assemble at the mouth of La Plata River. The fleet was a most imposing one and comprised nineteen vessels, seven of which were steamers specially chartered for the purpose, as our largest war vessels were of too deep draught to ascend La Plata and Parana. The entire squad- ron carried 200 guns and 2500 men, and was commanded by Flag Officer, afterward Rear Admiral, Shubrick,* one of the oldest officers of our navy, and one of the most gallant men that ever trod a quarter deck. Flag Officer Shu- brick was accompanied by United States Commissioner Bowlin, to whom was intrusted negotiations for the settlement of the difficulty. Three years and eleven months had now passed since the "Water Witch " was fired upon, and President Buchanan had succeeded Franklin Pierce. The winter of 1859 was just closing in at the North ; the streams were closed by ice, and the lakes were ice-bound, but the palm trees at the South were displaying their fresh green leaves, like so many fringed banners, in the warm tropical air when the United States squadron assembled at Montevideo [Montevideo]. As has been said, the force was an imposing one. There were two United States frigates, the "Sabine" and the "St. Lawrence;" two sloops-of-war, the "Falmouth" and the " Preble ; " three brigs, the " Bainbridge," the " Dolphin," and the " Perry ;" six steamers especially armed for the occasion, the " Memphis," the " Cale- donia," the "Atlanta," the "Southern Star," the " Westernport," the " M. W. Chapin," and the " Metacomet ; " two armed storeships, the " Supply" and the ''Release;" the revenue steamer, "Harriet Lane;" and, lastly, the little "Water Witch" herself, no longer defenseless, but all in fighting trim for hos- tilities. On the 25th of January, 1859, within just one week of four years from the firing upon the " Water Witch," the squadron got under way and came to anchor off Ascencion, the capital of Paraguay. Meanwhile President Urquiza, of the Argentine Republic, who had offered his services to mediate the diffi- culty, had arrived at Ascencion in advance of the squadron. The negotiations were reopened, and Commissioner Bowlin made his demand for instant repara- tion. All this time Flag Officer Shubrick was not idle. With such of our vessels as were capable of ascending the river, taking them through the diffi- culties created by the currents, shoals, and sand bars of the river, he brought * William Branford Shubrick was one of the most illustrious men whose name has appeared on the roll of United States naval officers. He was born in 1790; appointed midshipman United States Navy June 20, 1806; joined the sloop-of-war "Wasp" 1812; a year later was transferred to the frigate "Constellation;" aided in the capture of the British vessels " Cyane " and " Levant ; " and in 1815 was awarded a sword by his native State. In 1820 was made commander ; in 1829 commanded the "Lexington; " in 1846 commanded the Pacific squadron, and filled various prominent positions extending over a period of sixty-one years, till May 12, 1876, when he died. LOPEZ COMES TO TERMS. 373 them to a chosen position, where they made ready in case of necessity to open fire. The force within striking distance of Paraguay consisted of 1740 men, besides the officers, and 78 guns, including 23 nine-inch shell guns and one shell gun of eleven inches. Ships and guns proved to be very strong arguments with Lopez. It did not take the Dictator-President long to see that the United States meant business, and that the time for trifling had passed and the time for serious work had indeed begun. President Lopez's cerebral processes worked with remarkable and encouraging celerity. By February 5th, within less than two weeks of the starting of the squadron from Montevideo, Commissioner Bowlin's demands were all acceded to. Ample apologies were made for firing on the " Water ONE OF THE " MIANTONOMAH's " FOUR TEN-INCH BREECH-LOADING RIFLES. Witch " and pecuniary compensation was given to the family of the sailor who had been killed. In addition to this, a new commercial treaty was made between the two countries, and cordial relations were fully restored between the two governments. When the squadron returned the Secretary of the Navy expressed the satisfaction of the government and the country in the follow- ing terms : — . "To the zeal, energy, discretion, and courteous and gallant bearing of Flag-officer Shubrick and the officers under his command, in conducting an expedition far into the interior of a remote country, encountering not only great physical difficulties, but the fears, apprehensions and prejudices of numerous States; and to the good conduct of the brave men under his command, is the country largely indebted, not only for the success of the enterprise, but for the friendly feeling towards the United States which now prevails in all that part of South America." 374 THE STORY OF AMERICA. To such a happy and peaceful conclusion were our difficulties with Paraguay finally brought. A period of thirty years elapsed before any serious difficulty occurred with any foreign powers. It was in 1891 that a serious difficulty threatened to disrupt our relations with Chili and possibly involve the United States in war with that power. Happily the matter reached a peaceful settlement. In January, 1891, civil war broke out in Chili, the cause of which was a contest between the legislative branch of the government and the executive, for the control of affairs. The President of Chili, General Balmaceda, began to assert authority which the legislature, or " the Congressionalists," as the opposing party was called, resisted as unconstitutional and oppressive, and they accord- ingly proceeded to interfere with Balmaceda's Cabinet in its efforts to carry out the despotic will of the executive. Finally matters came to a point where appeal to arms was necessary. On the 9th of January the Congressional party took possession of the greater part of the Chilian fleet, the navy being in hearty sympathy with the Congression- alists, and the guns of the war-ships were turned against Balmaceda, Valparaiso, the capital, and other ports being blockaded by the ships. For a time Balma- ceda maintained control of the capital and the southern part of the country. The key to the position was Valparaiso, which was strongly fortified, Balma- ceda's army being massed there and placed at available points. At last the Congressionalists determined to attack Balmaceda at his capital^ and on August 21st landed every available fighting man at their disposal at Concon, about ten miles north of Valparaiso. They were attacked by the Dic- tator on the 2 2d, there being twenty thousand men on each side. The Dictator had the worst of it. Then he rallied his shattered forces, and made his last stand at Placillo, close to Valparaiso, on the 28th. The battle was hot, the car- nage fearful ; neither side asked or received quarter. The magazine rifles, with which the revolutionists were armed, did wonders. The odds were agfainst Balmaceda ; both his generals quarreled in face of the enemy ; the army marched against the foe divided and demoralized. In the last battle both Balmaceda's generals were killed. The valor and the superior tactics of General Canto, leader of the Congressional army won the day. Balmaceda fled and eventually com- mitted suicide, and the Congressionalists entered the capital in triumph. Several incidents meantime had conspired, during the progress of this Vvar, to rouse the animosity of the stronger party in Chili against the United States. Before the Congressionalists' triumph the steamship Itata, loaded with American arms and ammunition for Chili, sailed from San Francisco, and as this was a violation of the neutrality laws, a United States war vessel pursued her to the harbor of Iquique, where she surrendered. Then other troubles arose. Our minister at Valparaiso, Mr. Egan, was charged by the Congressionalists, now AMERICAN SEAMEN ATTACKED. 375 in power, with disregarding international law in allowing the American Legation to become an asylum for the adherents of Balmaceda. Subsequently these refugees were permitted to go aboard American vessels and sail away. Then Admiral Brown, of the United States squadron, was, in Chili's opinion, guilty of having acted as a spy upon the movements of the Congressionalists' fleet at Ouinteros, and of bringing intelligence of its movements to Bal- maceda at Valparaiso. This, however, the Admiral stoutly denied. AN ATTACK UPON AMERICAN SEAMEN. The strong popular feeling of dislike which was engendered by this news culminated on the i6th of October, in an attack upon American seamen by a mob in the streets of the Chilian capital. Captain Schley, com- mander of the United States cruiser, Balti- more, had given shore- leave to a hundred and UNITED STATES 12-INCH BREECH-LOADING MORTAR, OR HOWITZER. seventeen petty officers and seamen, some of whom, when they had been on shore for several hours, were set upon by Chilians. They took refuge in a street car, from which, however, they were soon driven and mercilessly beaten, and a subordinate officer named Riggen fell, apparently lifeless. The American sailors, according to Captain Schley's testimony, were sober and conducting themselves with propriety when the attack was made. They were not armed, even their knives having been taken from them before they left the vessel. The assault upon those in the street car seemed to be only a signal for a general uprising ; and a mob which is variously estimated at from one thousand to two thousand people attacked our sailors with such fury that in a little while these men, whom no investigation could find guilty of any breach of the peace, were fleeingr for their lives before an overwhelming- crowd, amongr which were a 376 THE STORY OF AMERICA. number of the police of Valparaiso. In this affray eighteen sailors were stabbed, several dying from their wounds. Of course, the United States Government at once communicated with the Chilian authorities on the subject, expressing an intention to investigate the occurrence fully. The first reply made to the American Government by Signor Matta, the Chilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, was to the effect that Chili would not allow anything to interfere with her own official investigation. An examination of all the facts was made on our part. It was careful and thorough, and showed that our flag had been insulted in the persons of American seamen. Yet, while the Chilian Court of Inquiry could present no extenuating facts, that country refused at first to offer apology or reparation for the affront. In the course of the correspondence Minister Matta sent a note of instruc- tion to Mr. Montt, Chilian representative at Washington, in which he used most offensive terms in relation to the United States, and directed that the letter be given to the press for publication. After waiting for a long time for the result of the investigation at Valpa- raiso, and finding that, although no excuse or palliation had been found for the outrage, yet the Chilian authorities seemed reluctant to offer apology, the Presi- dent of the United States, in a message to Congress, made an extended state- ment of the various incidents of the case and its legal aspect, and stated that on the 2 1 St of January he had caused a peremptory communication to be presented to the Chilian Government, by the American Minister at Santiago, in which severance of diplomatic relations was threatened if our demands for satisfac- tion, which included the withdrawal of Mr. Matta's insulting note, were not complied with. At the time that this message was delivered no reply had been sent to this note. Mr. Harrison's statement of the legal aspect of the case, upon which the final settlement of the difficulty was based was, that the presence of a war-ship of any nation in a port belonging to a friendly power is by virtue of a general invitation which nations are held to extend to each other ; that Commander Schley was invited, with his officers and crew, to enjoy the hospitality of Valpa- raiso ; that while no claim that an attack which an individual sailor may be subjected to raises an international question, yet where the resident population assault sailors of another country's war vessels, as at Valparaiso, animated by an animosity against the government to which they belong, that governmenr must show the same enquiry and jealousy as though the representatives or flag of the nation had been attacked ; because the sailors are there by the order of their government. Finally an ultimatum was sent from the State Department at Washington, on the 25th, to Minister Egan, and was by him transmitted to the proper Chilian authorities. It demanded the retraction of Mr. Matta's note and suit- MATTA'S IMPUDENT LETTER. m able apology and reparation for the insult and injury sustained by the United States. On the 28th of January, 1892, a dispatch from Chili was received, in which the demands of our Government were fully acceded to, the offensive letter was withdrawn and regret was expressed for the trouble. In his relation to this particular case Minister Egan's conduct received the entire approval of his Government. While the United States looked for a peaceful solution of this annoying international episode, the proper preparations were made for a less desirable HARPER S FERRY. outcome. Our naval force was put in as efficient a condition as possible, and the vessels which were then in the navy yard were gotten ready for service with all expedition. If the Chilian war-scare did nothing else, it aroused a whole- some interest in naval matters throughout the whole of the United States, and by focusing attention upon the needs of this branch of the public service, showed at once how helpless we might become in the event of a war with any first-class power. We can thank Chili that to-day the United States Navy, while far from being what it should be, is in a better condition than at any time in our history. REVIEW OF UNION AKMIES AT WASHINGTON, AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. CHAPTER XX. ARCTIC ADVENTURERS. fF the earliest adventurers who first brought the news of Polar seas and Arctic cold to the wonder seeking world of Europe we have not the space to speak. Neither can we dwell upon the trials and triumphs of the adventurous Cabots, devoted Cor- tereals, PVobisher, Willoughby, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Barentz, Hudson or Baffin, who have all associated their names with the frozen regions of the North. Behring and the Russian explorers, Van Wrangel and Anjou, have written their records in the illimitable solitudes of ice. British heroes, Ross and Parry, Buchan and Franklin, as well as other later but not less noble Englishmen, have shown to what lengths men may go when actuated by the call of duty or the summons of a OTeat idea. But with Frenchman, Hollander, Russian or Englishman we must have little to do in this chapter. Sir John Franklin sailed from the Thames on his last voyage on the 9th of May, 1845. His two ships, the " Erebus " and "Terror," were provisioned for three years. On the 26th of July of that year they were seen by a whaler, moored to an iceberg, waiting for an opening in the ice field to advance into Baffin's Bay ; they were then two hundred and ten miles from the entrance to Lancaster sound. Towards the close of 1847 anxiety in England began to grow concerning the fate of the gallant Franklin and his command, and shortly three relief or search expeditions were sent out by the British government to try to obtain news of him. These w^ere unsuccessful but were followed by others, some fitted up by private individuals and some by the government. Lady Franklin did much to keep the search alive, but to no purpose. THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. The fate of the intrepid Englishman was only known after years of careful search, and was learned little by little, hints and clues being fitted together till the outline of the pitiful story of disaster and failure could be read. From the time that the " Erebus" and " Terror" entered the narrow seas over 379 38o THE STORY OF AMERICA. which the grim sentinel bergs stood guard till the latter vessel was nipped in the grinding floe, the peril was unremitting. No sadder sight can we imagine than the lonely graves that mark the desolate shores of Beechy Island ; no more disappointing search than that for the lost records has ever been made. Such men as Ross, Richardson, Collinson, Rae, Killett and McClure, in these unsuccessful efforts, added lustre to the Anglo-Saxon name. The English expeditions, though coming short of success, were not entirely without result. Captains Austin and Penny discovered Franklin's winter quar- ters on Beechy Island, in the winter of 1845-46, but found no clue to his direction upon breaking camp. Dr. Rae brought home tidings also, and even discovered and obtained from the Esquimo, a number of Franklin relics. It is a noteworthy fact that Franklin added more to the world's knowledge of Arctic lands and seas by his death than he could have accomplished by his life, since a large proportion of the work done in that direction in the last half century has been in the course of efforts to discover the records of his last voyage. DR. KANE AND THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION. The first of American explorers to join in the Franklin search was Elisha Kent Kane. His vessel, the "Advance," of 120 tons, was fitted up at the expense of Henry Grinnell and George Peabody, first in 1850. He reached Beechy Island and assisted in the search for Franklin records at the camp already mentioned, but returned without wintering. Later, in 1853, Dr. Kane once more sailed for Smith's Sound, from New York. It was on the last day of May that he left and August found him ice-locked in Smith's Sound, in 78°45' North, only about seventeen miles from the entrance. He wintered in Van Renssellaer Harbor. Though greatly hampered by sickness and want his party made a number of discoveries, that of the Humboldt Glacier being one of these. Traveling parties and even single individuals made excursions from the brig, and among these we must mention Morton, Dr. Kane's steward, who crossed the glacier with a dog team. After a second winter in the now unseaworthy brig, a winter that tried the souls of the brave little party that was sheltered there, — when cold, hunger and scurvy failed to subdue the indomitable courage and cheerfulness of the leader or his men, — the vessel that had come to be so much like home to them was abandoned to her fate and a masterly retreat commenced. With sledges and boats Dr. Kane conducted his command, the well helping the sick. Only one man died on the way to the Danish settlement of Upernevic, the most northerly habitation of civilized man in the world. All the records and instruments were saved, though the perilous journey led over pack and floe, glacier and hummock ice. Lieutenant Hartstene was sent in search of Dr. Kane's party, but reached Van Renssellaer harbor too late, overtaking the explorer, however, on I. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 2. THE " EREBUS " AND "TERROR" ENTERING THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 3. FRANKLIN'S WINTER QUARTERS IN 1845-6. 4. THE "EREBUS" AND "TERROR" AMONG ICEBERGS. 5. THE " TERROR " NIPPED IN THE ICE. 382 THE STORY OF AMERICA. his return trip. Kane's expedition, though not a success so far as the finding of FrankUn was concerned, was yet of great benefit to science, since he added new lands to geography, and completer physical observations than any explorer had previously done ; besides this his valuable notes of the Etah Esquimo have been of benefit to all succeeding travelers in the frozen North. DR. HAYES DISCOVERS GRINNELL LAND. D. J. J. Hayes, Kane's surgeon, was the first white man to put foot on Grinnell Land. During one part of the sojourn in Van Renssellaer Bay, KANE AND HIS COMPANIONS IN THEIR VESSEL. Hayes took a party, and started southward to Upernevic, which, however, he did not reach, and finally returned, almost dead with fatigue, exposure, and hunger, to his chief, who received him with great kindness, though the attempt to leave the main party was unauthorized. Later, Hayes led a separate expedition to the Arctic regions, sailing from Boston for Smith's Sound, in the schooner "United States," in July of i860. THE CREW OF THE "JEANNEITE" LEAVING IN BOATS. 384 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Following up the line of research commenced by Dr. Kane, he proceeded to Port Foulke, where he wintered in 78° 17' North Lat. One of his most note- worthy exploits was crossing Smith's Sound in sledges. Another remarkable American explorer was Charles Hall, of Cincinnati^ whose first voyage was made in i860. He was a man of humble origin, who had made his own way and devoted himself, his money, and his intellect to the search for Franklin, with the purest enthusiasm. His first find was the stone house built by Martin Frobisher on the Countess of Warwick Island. Hall's second expedition was the one most generally known. Begun in 1864, it lasted until 1869, and by the exercise of patience, endurance, and pertinacity seldom equaled, the searcher finally was rejoiced to find the line of Franklin's retreat at Todd's Island and Peffer River, on the south coast of King William Land. Then he learned from the Esquimo the sad story of the wreck of one of the vessels, and that seven bodies were buried at Todd's Island. He brought home the bones of one, supposed to be Lieutenant le Vescount. THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN HALL. Again, in 1871, Hall made his third and, as it proved, his last voyage in the " Polaris." He penetrated 250 miles to the northward of Smith's Sound and was ice-locked on the 30th of August of that year in 82° 16' North. The following winter he spent at a spot called Thank God Bay, a degree further south than his farthest point. While the " Polaris " was ice-locked there. Hall suddenly died and the captain, Budington, prepared to abandon her. While his preparations were being made, and during the time that some of the party were out upon the ice with a quantity of provisions, the vessel broke away, and those upon the ice made one of the most remarkable journeys on record, being rescued only after they had drifted two thousand miles on the floe. While these voyages were being made, Robert Brown, Captain Nares, Nordenskiold, Sir Henry Gore, Booth, Markham, and many other noted foreigners were adding to their fame in the Frigid Zone. Nordenskiold discovered the Northeast passage, that had been the dream of Navigators for more than three centuries. In 1879 Lieutenant Schwatka headed an expedition from the United States, his object being to explore thoroughly the west coast of King William's Land in search of Franklin's records. He wintered in Hudson Bay, near Chesterfield inlet. This expedition was from the outset remarkable for one fact, that it was the first that had subsisted upon the game of the country. The traveling was all by land, or rather ice, and was accomplished without regard to weather or temperature. From the winter camp, overland for the estuary of the great Fish River, Schwatka started in the early spring of 1879, 25 THE FARTHEST NORTH REACHED BY LIEUT. LOCKWOOD ON THE GREELY EXPEDITION 386 THE STORY OF AMERICA. with only one month's provisions. The complete record of this expedition, as told by Mr. Gilder, the second in command, is full of interest. The search over the ground where the survivors of the Franklin party had been traced was minute. Esquimo witnesses were examined, and every cairn, every heap of stones was scrutinized, till at length the inevitable conclusion was forced upon them that the Franklin records were lost forever. During the search the grave of an officer of the "Terror" was discovered and identified by the clothing and trinkets. This was Lieutenant Irvine, the third officer of the ill-fated vessel. THE "JEANNETTE" AND HER COMMANDER. The " Jeannette" left San Francisco on July 8, 1879, with Captain De Long in command. Her crew numbered thirty-three men. She was put into the ice pack in two months from the time of her departure and frozen in before the end of November. For two years her people supported the hardships and deprivations of Arctic winters, and at last, in June, 1881, the "Jeannette" sank. Then began a long, perilous and ill-fated retreat, of which the interesting record is to be found in the journal of the unfortunate Commander. It is a story of heroic endeavors to cross the ice fields, from the time when the loaded boats left the sinking " Jeannette " to the hour when the hand of the writer could no longer hold his pencil. In many respects the narrative of cold and fog, of refractory dogs, broken sledges, sudden immersions and disastrous losses is much like those of other explorers of the Frozen Zone. But its pathos is deeper, because its record of unwavering courage and manliness is so abundant. Yet sometimes De Long uttered a note of regret, as when he writes, on July 4, '81: "Our flags are flying in honor of the day, though to me it is a blue one. Three years ago to-day, at Havre, the 'Jeannette' was christened, and many pleasant things were said and anticipations formed, all of which have gone down with the ship. I did not think then that three years afterwards would see us all out on the ice with nothing accomplished and a story of a lost ship to come back to our well- wishers at home. My duty to those who came with -me is to see them safely back, and to devote all my mind and strength to that end. * * * I must endeavor to look my misfortune in the face and to learn what its application may be. It will be hard, however, to be known hereafter as a man who under- took a polar expedition and sunk his ship in the seventy-seventh parallel." But the " nothing accomplished" was changed to rejoicing on the 29th of that same month, when, after a most critical journey over rough and broken ice, battling almost constantly with an impenetrable fog, he used a piece of floe ice for a ferry boat and from this strange craft landed on the shore of an island hitherto undiscovered. In the journal he records his address to the men of his command. THE GREELY EXPEDITION. 387 " I have to announce to you that this island, toward which we have been strugghng for more than two weeks, is newly discovered land. I therefore take possession of it in the name of the President of the U. S., and name it Bennett Island." Upon the Northern coast of the mainland of Siberia, after untold hardships, De Long landed and then perished. The "Jeannette" expedition was planned and financially backed by James Gordon Bennett, but it had been adopted and made national by an Act of Con- gress, so that the obligation to find and rescue, if possible, those who had survived the sinking of the vessel was imperative. After the separation of the boats, which occurred before reaching the mainland. Lieutenant Melville with part of the crew reached Irkutsch, and as soon as practicable he set out in search of De Long. On March 23,1883, the body of the latter, to- gether with two of his men, was found. They had perished from starvation. Two steamers w e re sent in search of the "Jeannette" party from the United States; one of these, the "Rodgers," un- der Lieutenant Berry, was burned in her winter quarters north of Wrangell Land, after doing excellent work in exploration, having reached the highest point ever attained on that meridian. One of the officers, Mr. Gilder, made a hazardous home journey through Siberia. A suggestion was made, in 1875, by Lieutenant Weyprecht, a German, to establish an international system of polar stations for synchronous meteorological and magnetic observations and records. Weyprecht died too soon to see his plan carried into effect, but, later, eight nations agreed to follow it, and among these was our own. On June 14, 1881, the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, usually known as the Greely expedition, sailed from Baltimore by way of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Smith's Sound. Lieutenant Greely was in command, and second to him was the lamented Lieutenant Lockwood, while Dr. Pavey was the physician of the A FUNERAL IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 388 THE STORY OF AMERICA. party. They proceeded with a full corps of men, on the steamer " Protean," to Lady Franklin Bay, where, finding the season exceptionally favorable, a house was built, in which they stored two years' provisions. The great and fatal mistake of the Government in regard to this expedition was the failure to provide an intermediate supply station which could be visited by vessels from the South, and to which the voyagers might retreat in case of need. From the start two regular sets of observations were made and the scientific work of the party, which was preserved through all the subsequent disasters and hazards, was perfectly successful. History does not present a more heroic story than that of the continuance of the work of observation, when disease and famine had reduced the strength of the party so that the living were not able always to bury the dead, and the gaunt, haggard forms of the survivors staggered to their work till the last vestige of strength had utterly failed. The soldier who stands to his gun through the hot climax of some terrific battle does not achieve such a triumphant mastery over defeat as did the heroes of Cape Sabine. At first all went well. Some brilliant work was done. Dr. Pavey with one companion made a northward excursion that will be ever memorable, and few members of the command failed to distinguish themselves by pluck, endurance and devoted fidelity to comrades. But the crowning success of the expedition, so far as the work of exploration went, was made by Lieutenant Lockwood. He made a journey along the north coast of Greenland, establishing new lines upon that hitherto unchartered waste, and then, turning his sledges north- ward still further, reached a small island in 83° 24' N. and stood in a higher latitude than any to which a human being has penetrated since the first attempt to pierce the Arctic solitudes. Sergeant Brainard who accompanied him, wrote in his journal this note : "We unfurled the glorious stars and stripes to the exhilarating Northern breezes with an exultation impossible to describe." After the return of Lockwood and Brainard with their party, great hard- ships overtook the Greely command. In the summer of 1883 the expected help did not arrive, relieving vessels failing to reach them. Falling back upon Cape Sabine in Smith's Sound, which they reached in August of 1883, they subsisted for a little while upon the stores left there by Sir George Nares and then began to give way to that most dreadful enemy, famine. When at length the steamers " Thetis" and " Bear" arrived and the gallant commander Schley completed the long attempted rescue, only Lieutenant Greely and six companions were left alive, and these were helplessly awaiting the death they had faced so long. Reverently the American reads the record of their daring and suffering, and pays the tribute of admiration both to the few survivors and the many for whom the relief came too late. ■ 2 3 4 i •) 7 S 9 PLACES OF WORSHIP IN NEW YORK IN I742. 2, Lutherap. a. French. 3. Trinity. 4. New Dutch. 5. Old Dutch. 6. Presbyterian. 7. Baptist. 8. Quaker. 9. Synagogue. CHAPTER XXI. RELIGION UNDER NEW CONDITIONS. ""TV HE physical and social conditions bywhich the early settlers of this m\&}j. country were environed after reaching it were hardly more diverse from those to which they had been accustomed than were the new conditions of their religious life. The tendency of their sur- roundings, however clear or vague to their apprehension, was, it is now evident, toward the development of an order of things in their communities akin to, if not identical with, the primitive Hebrew commonwealth. Absolute equality of religious relations among the individuals of the nation was a cardinal principle in the genius of that common- wealth, but the conception of the principle, along with any grasp of what it involved, had lapsed from the minds of most men in Europe before the discovery of America, — where, as is plain enough in our day, it is ultimately to have such illustration as the world has not yet seen. The seeds for its growth came to these shores with some of the settlers, and a survey of facts will emphasize the statement. Protestant Episcopalianism, known in America prior to the American Revolu- tion as the "Church of England," was established in Virginia as early as 1686, its first rector in America being the Rev. Robert Hunt. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of England (i 539-1583), was the first to direct his attention to this country from religious considerations, and when the Virginia Company obtained its charter one of its articles provided for the "preaching of the true Word and the praise of God," not only in the American colonies, but as far as possible among the savages bordering upon them. The Rev. Mr. Whitaker succeeded Rector Hunt, and was denominated the "Apostle of Virginia." He was the first Protestant who baptized an Indian convert, and that convert was Pocahontas, daughter of the Chief Powhatan. In 1787 the American Episcopal Church became independent of the English, and assumed the name of T/ie Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, — Rev. Dr. William White, of Philadelphia, 389 390 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Pa., and Rev. Dr. Samuel Provost, of New York city, its first bishops,* being conse- crated as such by the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth Palace, the archiepiscopal residence in London, England, February 4, of that year. Next in order of time came hither the English Pilgrims, Puritans, and Congregationalists. Their story is well known. The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, in the present State of Massachusetts, and held their first religous services on Sabbath, December 22, 1620, the number of their churches in the world at that date, which can now be identified, being not more than five or six. In 1629 a church was organized at Salem, Mass., one at Charlestown, in 1630; another at Duxbury, in 1632, and others still, soon after, in Connec- ticut. By the census of 1890 the num- ber of Conorrecrational oro^anizations in the United States was 4857, with church property in the denomination valued at ^43,243,962, and a member- ship of 51 1,198 persons. Third in order of arrival were the Lntherans, the earliest settlement of the denomination being made by emi- grants from Holland to New York soon after the first establishment of the Dutch in that city, in 1621. They did not enjoy the services of a pastor of their own faith until after the colony fell into the hands of the English in 1 664. In 1 63S emigrants from Sweden founded a Lutheran church at the present Wilmington, Del. In 1890 the Lutheran Communion in the United States had 8427 organizations or con- its church property was valued at BIBLE BROUGHT OVER IN THE "MAYFLOWER" IN PILGRIM HALL, N£\V PLYMOUTH. gregations, with 6559 church edifices $34,218,234, and its communicants numbered 1,199,514. The first of the American Reformed Protestant Dutch churches (known since 1867 as The First Reformed CJmrch in America) was gathered in New York city in 1628. The minister was Rev. Jonas Michaelius, and the Dutch language was exclusively used in their churches until 1764, when Rev. Archibald Laidlie, a Scotch minister from Flushing, in Holland, connected himself with the * The consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury by Episcopal bishops at Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1784, was for " the churches of the Episcopal persuasion in Connecticut, in North America." NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE SECTS. 391 Dutch Church, was invited to New York, and there commenced services iii the Enghsh tongue. The returns of the eleventh (1890) United States census give the Reformed Dutch Church in the country 572 organizations ; value of church property, $10,340,159 ; members, 92,970. The history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States properly begins with the settlement of Maryland by a colony of Catholics and Protestants under the auspices of Lord Baltimore. These people located at St. Mary's, Md., in 1634. In 1890 this denomination of Christians had within the limits of the United States 10,221 organizations or congregations, 8766 houses of worship, valued at $118,381,516, and 6,250,045 communicants. The Associated Baptists followed next. Rev. Roger Williams, who had been assistant preacher to the Congregational Church at Salem, Mass., going to the present Providence, R. I., after his final banishment from the Massachusetts Colony (1635), s-^'i forming there the first Baptist church in America, in 1639. A second Baptist church organization was effected at Newport, R. I., in 1644. As early as 1640 Irish Presbyterians came to this country, but accredited historians of the denomination are chary of statement as to the time of the organization of the earliest Presbyterian Church in America. Authority, how- ever, establishes the fact that in 1683 R^v. Francis Mackemie came from the North of Ireland and began to gather the people at Rehoboth, in Maryland, and elsewhere, into Presbyterian churches, the first Presbytery being formed of seven ministers, at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1705. The church at Jamaica, L. I., organized in 1662, claims to have been Presbyterian in polity at the date of its formation. The organizations of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1890 are reported from the Census Office as 6717; value of church property as ■$74,445,200; members, 788,224. Methodist Episcopal classes in America were founded by Philip Embury, — the first in New York city, in 1766. The earliest Methodist preaching-place was dedicated on John Street in that city, in 1 768. Two years later the first Metho- dist church edifice in Philadelphia, Pa., was built. December 25, 1784, at Baltimore, Md., sixty Methodist clergymen met in General Conference and formally constituted The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. This body of Christians had in the United States, by the census of 1890, 25,863 ^organizations; church property valued at $86,718,808, and 2,229,281 members. y Concerning each of these sects, which have been the most prominent of those in the United States, — although in a qualified sense as to some of them, — and, in general, of all immigrants who have come to the United States or its Territories, two things of cardinal importance are to be observed in any adequate view of the subject of this chapter. The first is, that they came to America from countries where the union of Church and State, the possession and use of power within the Church by the civil government, and the allowance 392 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to the State of that power within the Church, by the Church itself, in return for benefits received, — with the more or less frequent and large use of power in civil affairs by the Church itself, — prevailed in greater or in less degree. Another fact not to be lost sight of is that most of them came, and come in our day, from lands where they had always felt the dominant authority of a hierarchy or priesthood, in things spiritual, and not seldom in things secular, as an element the activity of which was unremitting. It has well been said that only in the United States of America has the experiment ever been tried (and it began here with the coming of the early settlers) of applying Christianity to man and to society without the intervention of the State, and with a continually lessening power, among the clergy, of imposing their will either upon the Church or upon individuals within the Church. This has made the history of the Christian Church within the United States, more emphatically, of course, in some regions than in others, — but yet within all regions, — a history with such peculiarities as these: " i. its history is not the record of the conversion of a new people, but of the transplanting of old races, already Christianized, to a new theatre, com- paratively untrammeled by institutions and traditions ; 2. independence of the civil power; 3. the voluntary principle applied to the support of religious insti- tutions ; 4. moral and ecclesiastical, but r^fM^MA "°'- *-'^'' power the means of retaining the CHURCH SPIRES OF NEW YORK IN 1746- Hiembers of any communion ; 5. develop- ment of the Christian Church in its prac- tical and moral aspects rather than in its theoretical and theological ; 6. stricter discipline in the churches than is practicable when Church and State are one ; 7. increase of the churches to a considerable extent through revivals of religion rather than by the natural growth of children in an establishment ; 8. excessive multiplication of sects and division on questions of moral reform." * Such has been the tendency of things in this section of the New World from the outset of its settlement by the whites, and if any of the American colonies, for instance that of the Massachusetts Bay, founded their social fabric on the theory of uniting Church and State, or, to speak with precision, by making the Church the State, the attempt was abortive, and in its issue sustained the statements now made. It will assuredly prove interesting to observe the working of these new conditions in certain outer aspects of religious life and experience. Those aspects were not, indeed, directly or solely the fruit of the conditions to which we have referred. Many other conditions conspired with these to produce them, such as the antecedent experience of the settlers in Europe, the untamed Nature that was around them, the perils and exposure incident to pioneer * Professor Henry B. Smith : Tables of Church History. PHASES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 393 life, aggravated by the proximity, and often by the hostility, of the Indians, lords of the soil before the seventeenth century. But a prime fact in this connection is that in large portions of the country the resultant of the influences that moulded the religious life of the early setders was to impart to its spirit a quality of grimness that was almost sombre. This was especially true of the New England settlements, although it is not true to the extent which has ordinarily been alleged. But it existed in New England beyond any other part of the colonies, and the confirmation of the statement is not far to find in more than one direction. As this appeared in the social life of New England communities, one may come near toward gauging it by the influence it had upon the observance of the Sabbath. Very much has been said concerning what have been styled the " blue laws" of the New Haven Colony, founded in 1638, and the three that follow have been most bitterly ridiculed : — "No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath Day. " No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. " No one shall ride on the Sabbath Day, or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting." But since these "laws," so-called, had no existence in any New England code, colonial or other, but are merely citations from a " General History of Connecticut," printed in England, in 1781, by the Rev. Samuel A. Peters, some- time Tory rector of the Episcopal churches at Hartford and at Hebron, in that Colony, after he had been forced to fly from America to England, in which work he poured out the vials of his wrath upon the land from which he had taken his departure, it does not seem worth one's while to dwell upon them. It is not, however, to be gainsaid that among the Puritans in early New England the personal conduct of citizens upon the Sabbath was subject to judicial supervision and animadversion, to such a degree that the suggestion of its imitation in our day would be almost universally regarded as impertinence. This was so not only in Connecticut and Massachusetts, but in other New England Provinces and States. In New London, Connecticut, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, we find that a "wicked fisherman" was prose- cuted before the Court and fined for catching fish on the "Lord's Day," while another was fined 20 s. for sailing a boat on the same day. In 1670, at the same place, two lovers, John Lewis and Sarah Chapman, were tried for sitting together on the " Lord's Day" under an apple tree in Goodman Chapman's orchard, an act not violently unnatural, and surely, in itself considered, without harm. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, a man was sharply whipped for shooting fowl on Sunday ; another man was fined for carrying home a grist of corn on the " Lord's Day," and the miller who allowed him to take it was also fined. Elizabeth 394 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Eddy, of the same town, was fined, in 1652, "ten shillings for wringing and hanging out clothes." A Plymouth, Massachusetts, man, for attending to his tar-pits on the Sabbath, was set in the stocks. James Watt, in 1685, was publicly reproved " for writing a note about common business on the Lord's Day, at least in the evening somewhat too soon!' A Plymouth, Massachusetts, man, who drove a yoke of oxen, was " presented " before the Court, as was also another offender who drove some cows a short distance " without need " on the Sabbath. In Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1646, Aquila Chase and his wife were presented and fined for gathering peas from their garden on the Sabbath, but upon investigation the fines were remitted, and the offenders were only admon- ished. In Wareham, Massachusetts, in 1 772, William Estis acknowledged himself guilty of " raeking hay on the Lord's Day" and was fined ten shillings ; and in 1774 another Wareham citizen, " for a breach of the Sabbath in puling apples," was fined five shillings. A Dunstable, Massachusetts, soldier, for "wetting a piece of an old hat to put in his shoe '' to protect his foot, — for doing this piece of heavy work on the "Lord's Day" was fined, and paid, forty shillings. And Captain Kemble, of Boston, Massachusetts, was, in 1656, set for two hours in the town stocks, for his "lewd and unseemly behavior," which consisted in kissing his wife, " publicquely," on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his house, when he had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years. Similar citations might be multiplied, but this topic may be dismissed by a quotation from another author, who says, truly : " The legislation thrown about the Sabbath was in confirmation of the public opinion regarding its sanctity. The harsher aspects of this observance have been sufficiently dwelt on in our histories ; the effect upon character has been less considered, but the elevation of one day out of the t)'ranny of work, the resolute facing of eternal mysteries, and the with- drawal into a half-brooding, half-active state of mind, must have had a powerful effect upon the imagination and conscience. The " meeting-house " was no holy building, but the Sabbath Day was a holy day, and was the most comprehensive symbol of the Puritan faith. It was what the altar is in the Catholic Church, the holy of holies, about which the whole movement of religious worship gathered. Whatever disturbed the profound stillness of the day was seized on by the law as sacrilegious ; and never, perhaps, has there been a religion which succeeded so completely in investing time with the sacredness which elsewhere had been appropriated by place. Even the approacli to the Sabbath was guarded, and the custom of the observance of Saturday evening appears to have been derived from the backward influence of the day, as the release upon Sunday evening appears to have been a concession to the flesh, which would otherwise have rebelled. Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his " Age of Homespun," tells of his own experi- ence in boyhood, when he was refused a load of apples which he had gone to buy THE PURITAN MINISTER. 395 on Saturday afternoon, because the farmer, on consulting the sun, decided that he could not measure out the fruit before the strict Sabbath began ! * A strong factor, not only in enforcing this observance of the Sabbath, but in fashioning the whole religious character and life of the New England Colonists, was the Puritan minister. The reach of his influence, and the extent to which it was employed by the Puritan minister, take on a grotesque air to modern contemplation, — earnest, pure and noble men, as most of the ministers certainly were, zealous for every enterprise that they believed would promote the common weal, however toilsome, or involving whatever degree of self-sacrifice. Thus, one minister felt it necessary to reprove a money-making parishioner who had stored and was holding in reserve (with the hope of higher prices) a large quantity of corn, which was sadly needed for consumption in the town. The parson preached from the appropriate text, Proverbs xi, 26 : " He that withholdeth his corn, the people shall curse him ; but blessings shall be upon the head of him that selleth it." As the minister grew warmer in his explanation and application of the text, SOME BOSTON SPIRES. 1 758. the money-seeking corn-storer defiantly and unregenerately sat up, stiff and unmoved, until at last, the preacher, provoked out of prudence and patience, roared out, " Colonel Ingraham, Colonel Ingraham ! you know I mean you ; why don't you hang down your head ? " f That, as a class, the Puritan ministers were autocrats in the community, and that they never hesitated to show their authority, in any manner, in the pulpit, and not seldom elsewhere, is plain from a slight knowledge of facts. If any evil-doer, moreover, incredulous of their position, set himself to try conclusions with them, he came off second best in the encounter. In Sandwich, Mass., a man was publicly whipped for speaking deridingly of God's word and ordinances as taught by the Sandwich minister. Mistress Oliver was forced to stand, in public, with a cleft stick on her tongue, for " reproaching the Elders." At New Haven, Conn., a man was severely whipped and fined for declaring that he * H. E. Scudder's " Noah Webster," in series " American Men of Letters," pp. 30, 31. t Cited from "The Sabbath in Puritan New England," by Alice Morse Earle, p. 313. 396 THE STORY OF AMERICA. received no profit from the minister's sermons. A terrible shock was given to the Windham, Conn,, Church, in 1729, by the "vile and slanderous expressions" of one unregenerate Winihamite, who said, "I had rather hear my dog bark, than Mr. Bellamy preach." He was warned that he would be " shaken off and given up ;" and terrified at the prospect of so dire a fate, he read a confession of his sorrow and repentance, and promised to " keep a guard over his tongue," and also to listen to Mr. Bellamy's preaching, which may have been a still more difficult task In 163 1, Philip Ratcliffe, for "speaking against the churches " had his ears cut off was whipped and banished.'-' The reverence entertained for the ministers, which gave them their author- ity, is evidenced by the whimsical epithets and descriptions which were freely applied to the parsons. They were called "holy-heavenly," "sweet-affecting," "soul-ravishing," "heaven-piercing," "angel-rivaling," "subtle," " irrefragible," "angelical," "septemfluous," "holy-savored," "princely," "soul-appetizing," "full of antic tastes" (meaning having the tastes of an antiquary), "God- bearing," etc. Withal, however, many of the Puritan clergy were men of cheery dispo- sitions. Nor did they always hold themselves from the humanities, the hilarities, and the sports of their people. The best cider in Massachusetts, — that which brought the highest price, — was known as the Arminian cider, because the minister who furnished it in the market was suspected of having Arminian tendencies. A very telling compliment to the cider of one of the first New England ministers is thus recorded : " Mr. Whiting had a score of apple-trees, from which he made delicious cyder. And it hath been said yt an Indyan once coming to hys house, and Mistress Whiting giving him a drynk of ye cyder, he did sett down ye pot and say yt Adam and Eve were rightly damned for eating ye appills in ye Garden of Eden ; they should have made them into cyder." Of so much account were the barrels of cider, and so highly prized were they by the ministers, that one honest soul did not hesitate to thank the Lord, in the pulpit, for the "many barrels of cider vouchsafed to us this year."f The Puritan clergyman ordinarily served his flock for very small pecuniary compensation. In 1630, the First Court of Massachusetts set the amount of the minister's annual stipend to be ^20, or ^^^30, according to the wealth of the community, and made it a public charge. A large portion of the salaries in early parishes being paid in corn and labor, the amounts were established by fixed rates upon the inhabitants ; and the amount of land owned and cultivated by each church-member was considered in reckoning his assessment. These amounts were called "voluntary contributions." If however, any citizen refused * Cited from "The Sabbath in Puritan New England," by Alice Morse Earle, pp. 259, 260. t Loc. cit., pp. 287, 2S8. THE PURITAN MINISTER'S PREACHING. 397 to contribute, he was taxed; and if he refused to pay his church-tax, he could be fined, imprisoned, or pilloried. It may be said of the Puritan minister, as we leave him, that with all his traits, he was usually at or near the bottom of every good enterprise where his lot was cast. Patient, self-denying, determined, sincere, he did his work in his day. He has passed from among men, but it is a question worthy of thought, — how many men has he left behind him his equals in the apprehension and discharge of human obligation according to the best standards of duty ? One cannot err in distinctly recognizing the influence of his preaching upon the religious life of his time. Alike its matter and style moulded thought and con- duct. Biblical, clear, pungent as it certainly was, in by far the greater number of cases, its disproportionate emphasis of the doctrines of Divine Sovereignty and God's Election of Grace, made the piety of its hearers, in multitudes of instances, take on a se- verity of aspect which it is to be hoped, in greater or in less degree mis- represented the practi- cal Christian faith that was in them. Many ci- tations could be presen- ted to show the quality of the preaching which produced this. We quote two. Rev.Thomas Hook- er (1586-1647), pastor of the first church at Hartford, Connecticut, was doubtless one of the wisest and ablest of New England Puritan ministers, but in making the point that the conversion of a human soul to Christ is a great and difficult thing, he averred "it is not a litde mercey that will serve the turn The Lord will make all crack before thou shalt find mercey." So he argued on the necessity of a clear view of his own sinfulness, if a man is to be saved, in the followine laneuaee : " As suppose any soul here present were to behold the damned in hell, and if the Lord should give thee a litde peepe-hole into hell, that thou didst see the horror of those damned souls, and thy heart begins to shake in congideradon thereof; then propound this to thy owne heart what pains the damned in hell doe endure for sinne, and thy heart will quake and shake at it; the least sinne that ever thou didst commit, though thou makest a light matter of it, is a greater evill than the paines of the damned in hell, setdng aside their sinne ; all the torments in THE FIRST FRIENDS' MEETING HOUSE, BURLING! i^N, NEW JERSEY. 39S THE STORY OF AMERICA. hell are not so great an evil as the least sinne is ; men begin to shrink at this, and loathe to go down to hell and to be in endless torments." And his son-in- law, Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Newtown, Massachusetts, put the matter thus, in his " Sincere Convert : " "Jesus Christ is not got with a wet finger It is a tough work, a wonderful hard matter to be saved." And again : " 'Tis a thousand to one if ever thou bee one of that small number whom God hath picked out to escape this wrath to come." Something akin to the unloveliness of spirit which manifested itself as being in part, at least, the result of inordinate preaching on the doctrines which have been named, was reflected, in the earlier colonial days, by their church edifices, or " meeting-houses," as the Puritans preferred to call them. Doubdess they built them in given cases, perhaps in most cases, as well as was possible at the time, and with emphasis, it may be said that the impulse which led to their construc- tion was worthy of all praise, but nothing can be conceived more bald and ugly than many of these structures, of which the earliest and most primitive type was a simple, square log-house, with clay-filled chinks, surmounted by steep roofs, thatched with long straw or grass, and often with only the beaten earth for a floor. The second form or type of New England church architecture was a square wooden building, usually unpainted, covered with a truncated pyramidal roof, — surmounted, if the church could afford that, with a belfry or turret contain- ing a bell. The third form of the meeting-house was that of which the "Old South," at Boston, Massachusetts, was a model. This has too many representa- tives in the New England States at the present day, to need any description. In the stage of New England life which followed its first phase, these buildings were usually placed upon the hill-tops, and some of the hills were so steep, especially in one Connecticut parish, that church attendants could not ride down on horseback, but were forced to scramble down, leading their horses, and to mount from a horse-block at the foot of the hill. These early churches were destitute of shade ; curtains and window-blinds were unknown, and they often had grotesque decorations, — grinning wolves' heads nailed under the windows and by the side of the door, while splashes of blood, which had dripped from the severed necks, reddened the logs beneath, — the meeting-house being the place where these ornaments were to be .fastened up to secure the bounty given for hunting and slaying them. Around the meeting-house, upon the " green," stood the stocks, the whipping-post, the pillory and cage, and on the weekly lecture-days, the stocks and pillory were often occupied by convicted wrong-doers. And hard-by were to be seen the "Sabbath-Day Houses," in which small buildings the families of the Puritans took refreshment at noon on the Lord's Day, and in the winters warmed themselves by the fires that had no place in the icy houses of worship ; — the boys, in some parishes, the meanwhile, listening to Biblical E.xpositions, or to the reading of another sermon to keep them quiet during the " nooning." THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH. 399 All this was far away from the Old World surroundings in which many of the settlers had worshiped, and far away, too, from any tendency to aesthetic culture ; but let it not be forgotten that in these homely places the men and women met for Christian services, who, with others, laid broad and deep the foundations alike of civil and religious freedom on this continent. With limitations, a picture somewhat similar to that of the New England Puritan clergyman might truthfully be drawn concerning the clergy of the Reformed Dutch Church in the United States. Although the Dutch came to America for purposes of trade, their West India Company having been chartered COLONIAL MONASTERY, EPHRATA, LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. in Holland in 1621, and although it was the Company itself which formally established the Church of Holland in America, and promised themselves to maintain ministers (no call upon a minister being valid unless endorsed by the Company), the staunch convictions of the Dutch clergy made themselves felt by their people as an element of power for their spiritual development. Thirteen Dutch ministers came out to New Amsterdam (New York) prior to the surrender of that colony to England in 1664, and there were, at that date, eleven Dutch churches in America, served by seven clergymen. If by reason of the facts already stated, the Dutch minister fell in any measure below his New England 400 THE STORY OF AMERICA. clerical brother in the possession and exercise of personal authority, it was by reason of the same facts, in part, that his remove from the ordinary life of the community was less pronounced, and his familiarity with all classes more inti- mate. Historically, the flavor of a Dutch "Dominie's" social and ministerial relations to his people has in it something of especial attractiveness to one keen to apprehend, and broad enough to appreciate it, and the churches of that com- munion, if they do not form in our day one of the largest religious denomina- tions, have, as yet, "kept the 'ancient' faith" in its purity, — always the exponents of soundness in doctrine and in life. Far different, in the outward conditions of his work, from those which have surrounded nearly all other Protestant clergymen in the United States, was the early experience of the Methodist minister, but the effect of his ministry has not been less potent, and has been more far-reaching than that of many other clergy- men, covering with benign results widespread regions of the country. His direct errand, it was long since understood, has been, as the phrase goes, to the masses in the community, and the ecclesiastical system through which its founder in America sought to discharge that errand has been found to be adapted to its end in a remarkable degree. It was Francis Asbury (i 745-181 6) who brought it to our shores, from England. He had learned it from John Wesley. And one does not go aside from the truth who reckons the "circuit riding" feature of the system to have been the life-blood of its power, for many years at least, after the establishment of Methodism in this country. Its essence lay in the setting apart of definite portions of country for steady visitation by the Rider, who was the preacher for that region, and his constant travel through his circuit, for the purpose of holding preaching services whenever and wherever he could 'get a hearing. It is a somewhat curious fact that when he came to the colonies from England, in 1771, Asbury found the very few Methodist preachers who were here disinclined to circuit labor. But he knew its working in England and in Wales by far too well to desist from the attempt to establish it. Always making him- self a practical circuit-rider, whatever his relations to a given church, he traveled thousands of miles each year after his appointment to the Bishopric, in labors and in exposure a measure of which it is far easier to conceive of than it would be to experience, in the performance of his duties. He succeeded in fastening the circuit system upon the polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and the records of its working and results in the newer portions of the country, at the hands of Peter Cartwright and his compeers, are among the most alluring and stimulating in all religious history. "Riders" were from the new converts to Christ, thrust at once into circuit work, trained for their careers by assiduous study of the Bible, by the exercise of prayer, and by actual experience of continuous preaching, which was prosecuted, with little or no intermission, from Sunday morning until the next Sunday night, not seldom to the METHODIST CIRCUIT RIDER. 401 extent of three sermons each day and evening. The Rider met his Presiding Elder and his fellow-preacliers of other circuits, at fixed seasons, to malce and to hear reports of work, and, once a year, to receive or hear of new appointments ; he left behind him in almost every place where he got a hearing a Methodist "Class," ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. (/« this vie^u the spires are shown as they ■will be when complete.) which kept the embers of religious faith and service more or less actively in glow until he came again. The matter and the method of his preaching were, for the most part, intended and adapted to move "the unconverted." His speech was utterly without "enticing words of man's wisdom," nor was the "fear of 26 402 THE STORY OF AMERICA. man" at any time before his eyes in such degree as to rule him. In this last respect, if ever upon earth servants of Christ spoke "not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth the hearts," that was their way of speech. Generally these preach- ers met their "lions by the way." For the most part, the worldly-wise in society scorned them ; " lewd fellows of the baser sort " not only despised, but perse- cuted them, not infrequently to the extent of personal violence. Forbearing, however, to the verge of unlimited patience, the "Rider" endured their opposition with but little attempt at resistance ; although the instances are not wanting in which,- if goaded to the quick, he demonstrated his standing in the Church Mili- tant by encountering the adversary upon his own ground and thrashing him by the arm of physical force. More than once in such case the adversary was afterwards found at the Rider's meetings, and was there led to the adoption of his faith and to entry upon his own kindred career. The work of these circuit preachers, moreover, was successful, tried by the most rigid standards. They did that which was given them to do with effectiveness, bringing men and women, from all classes, into the kingdom of Christ, and planting Methodist churches in every part of the land. That this work was performed with little pecuniary remuneration to the " Riders," * is a matter of secondary moment, save as it witnessed to the fervid zeal of those who wrought it. An American author, Edward Eggleston, in his book, "The Circuit Rider," has painted the facts of this Christian ministry in such guise as not only conserves them, but invests the record of this labor with graphic interest. In cursorily tracing the more prominent of the influences and agencies that have determined religious spirit and history in this country, inquiry as to individuals who have had especial part in its development, is alike pertinent and rewarding. Among men of the former generations who contributed to this, in the pulpit, and through the press, discriminating judgment long ago fixed upon Jonathan Edwards, the elder (1703-1758), as the greatest of all, in more directions than one. Whether Edwards be viewed as preacher, meta- physician, or theologian, his was a mind the equal of which has not often been given to the world. And this may be said, whether estimate be taken of his mental resources, as they were displayed in the work of his life, or rating be had of the influence his writings now exert in America and elsewhere. Extraordinary indeed must have been the preaching quality of a man about whose sermons it has lately been said, — " the traditions still linger in New England of the effect they produced. One man has recorded that as he listened to him discoursing of the Day of Judgment he fully anticipated that the dreadful day would begin when the sermon should come * Asbury's salary as Bishop was never more than J64 per annum, and $ic, to ;J20 in cash, for the same period, was a fair stipend for the " Rider." GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 403 to an end ! " He was the greatest preacher of his age. It is only at rare intervals that a man endowed with such a power appears. His effectiveness did not lie in voice or gesture. He was accustomed to lean, it is said, upon one arm, fastening his eyes upon some distant point in the meeting-house. But beneath the quiet manner were the fires of a volcano. His gravity of character, his profundity of spiritual insight, his intense realism, as if the ideal were the only real, his burning devotion, his vivid imagination, his masterful will, these entered into his sermons. He was like some organ of vast capacity, whose strongest stops or combinations should never have been drawn. The account has been left to us of the impression he produced in the little village of Enfield, in Connecticut, where he went to preach one Sunday morning, in the month of July, 1 741. The congregation had assembled in its usual mood, with no special interest or expectation. The effect of the sermon was as if some supernatural apparition had frightened the people beyond control. They were convulsed in tears of agony and distress. Amid the tears and outcries, the preacher pauses, bidding them to be quiet, in order that he may be heard. This was the sermon which, if New England has forgiven, it has never been able to forget. Its title was, " Sinners in the hands of an angry God." The text was a weird passage from the book of Deuteronomy: — "their feet shall slide in due time."* Of the American ministry of George Whitefield (17 14-1770) it is unneces- sary to speak in detail. Born in England, he made seven visits to the American colonies, and the results of his Evangelistic tours were shared by the Congre- gational, the Presbyterian, and the Baptist churches, from Massachusetts to Georgia. He early became Calvinistic in his views, and association with Calvinistic divines in America deepened his convictions. His repute as perhaps the most marvelous and persuasive of modern pulpit orators fixes his place in religious history. His intense energy and devotion to his work were attested by the fact that he preached his last sermon at Exeter, N. H., although then ill, the day before he died. A friend remarked to him that he was more fit to go to bed than to preach. "Yes," said he ; then pausing, he added, "Lord, Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it." An immense audience gathered to hear him. At first he labored ; but soon all his faculties responded for a last great effort, and he held the multitude spellbound for two hours. He proceeded to Newburyport the same day. In the evening as he took his candle to go to bed, many who were gathered in the hall tempted him to an exhortation, which continued until the candle burned out in the socket. The next morning he was dead. His latest, and perhaps his best biographer is Tyerman : " Life of George Whitefield," London, 1876, 2 vols. Nathaniel Emmons, of Massachusetts (i 745-1840), was another of the lights * Jonathan Edwards: By A. V. G. Allen. Boston, iSgo, pp. 126, 127. 404 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of the New England Ministry. Both by his preaching and by his writings upon theology, he did much to shape the religious thought of his own and of succeed- ing time in New England. To these sources of his power is to be added his effective work as a private instructor of men for the ministry. His house at Franklin, in his native State, was a seminary, and the number of clergymen fitted by him for the pulpit is thought to have been nearly one hundred. The strong common-sense points of his system of theological thought have been so long incarnated in the so-called Orthodox preaching of our own day, that it is a strange sensation by virtue of which we may conceive of them as new in his generation. The distinctive Emmonsian points were as follows : — I. Holiness and sin consist in free voluntary exercises. 2. Men act freely under the Divine agency. 3. The least trans- gression of the Divine Law deserves eternal punishment. 4. Right and Wrong are founded in the nature of things. 5. God exercises mere grace in pardon- ing or justifying penitent be- MORAVIAN EASTER SERVICE, liETHLEHEM, I'ENNSYLVAKIA. lievers through the atonement of Christ, and mere goodness in rewarding them for their good works. 6. Notwithstanding the total depravity of sinners, God has a right to require them to turn from sin unto holiness. 7. Readers of the Gospel ought to exhort sinners to love God, repent of sin, and believe in Christ immediately. 8. Men are active, not passive in regeneration. Practically a disciple of Emmons in his theology, Lyman Beecher, of Connecticut (i 775-1 863), profoundly moved men in his career as minister and educator. Without doubt his most effective work was wrought in his renowned pastorates at Litchfield, Connecticut, and at Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston he encountered and antagonized the prevalent Unitarianism, dealing it heavy HENRY WARD B EEC HER. 405 blows by the strength of his intellect, the fervor of his heart, and the eloquence of his lips, in his defense of the " faith once delivered to the saints." His ministration in the same city, as well as at Litchfield, was marked by remarkable revivals of religion. His "Six Sermons on Intemperance," published in 1826, rang out as a trumpet blast, not only over the land, but were reprinted abroad in more languages than one, and have greatly promoted the temperance reform. He was, moreover, a theological student, and for twenty years was President and theological professor at Cincinnati, Ohio. His "Autobiography and Correspondence," edited by his son, Charles, was published in two volumes in 1865. His son, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1889), was graduated at Amherst College, in 1834, and at Lane Theological Seminary, in Ohio, under his father's teaching and presidency, in 1837. He was pastor, successively, of the Presby- terian churches at Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis, Ind. (1837-1846), and then of Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, N. Y., — his ministry in his last pastorate dating from the founding of the church, in 1847, to his death. For many years he was the most widely known and the most popular preacher in America, — all the more so, it has justly been said, because of his unconven- tionalities. From the first he used his pulpit, as also his extended personal influence, for the promotion of social reforms, — notably as the center of the sharpest opposition to human slavery in the United States. His wit and humor were integral qualities, and had their pronounced place in his sermons, which were profoundly earnest, eloquent, imaginative, poetical. Rare and attractive personality was largely the source of his power, which was always thrown in the direction of freedom, whether of body or of mind. His influence in the Civil War of 1861-65 may fairly be reckoned as one of the stronger elements in the determination of the contest, Mr. Beecher's work in Great Britain in 1863 contributing largely to the enlightenment of public opinion in that country concerning questions at issue in the struggle. The dissemination of his utterances by the public press added immensely to his repute. In 1848 he shared in establishing the New York Independent, of which he was, at the start, an associate editor, and from 1861 to 1863 its responsible editor. From 1870 to 1880 he (nominally) edited The Christian Union. His books were numerous, that which manifests serious study being his " Life of Christ," left incomplete by its author. Without doubt the purpose of his ardent and laborious life was to bring men into fealty and attachment to Jesus Christ, and the tendency of his career as a religious teacher was to loosen the hold upon men of the older tenets of theological doctrine. The work of Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), one of the most influen- tial of American ministers, falls under two heads, — that of revival preacher and theological instructor. In each of these relations his power was extraordinary. 4o6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. His logical force and rhetorical abilitywere such that it is fairly to be questioned if he have not precedence, among American clergy, as the leader of men of all classes to embrace a religious life. His appeals were taken to their consciences, rather than to their emotions, and made the conscience tremble and quake by the most searching analysis of the motives of the heart. During the last seven- teen years of his life he was instructor in theology, pastor, and college president at Oberlin, Ohio. The latest and most compact biography of Mr. Finney is that by Professor G. F. Wright, published in 1 891, but his "Autobiography" (New York, 1876) will never be superseded, either as an interesting portraiture of the man, or as an interpretation of his life and work. It remains to indicate in brief the present standpoints in religious thought and activity of some of the leading Protestant denominations in the country. The Society of Friends, with George Fox, of England (i 624-1 690), as its founder, with one hundred and twenty thousand members in the United States, was divided in 1827 into two bodies, — the Evangelical or Orthodox, and the Liberal or Hicksite, — the last named now num- bering in the United States about 40,000. It has as its most marked peculiarity in doctrine, the belief in the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit of God, and its expectadon of the guidance of the Spirit, in worship, and in all religious acts. This might degenerate into mysticism, were it not corrected by the Society's full recognition of the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scrip- tures. Quakerism, to use its older name, pro- vides that all its members shall receive a good pracdcal education, and cherishes also the higher learning. It has colleges at Haverford, Pa., Richmond, Ind., Wilmington, O., Oskaloosa, la., and Swarth- more. Pa. (the last, Hicksite), and one for girls at Bryn Mawr, Pa. There are excellent boarding schools in most of the yearly meetings. The congregadons are grouped together to constitute monthly, quarterly, and yearly meedngs ; of the last there are sixteen in America. It is esdmated that the Regular or Calvinistic Bapdsts comprise about one-fourth of the Protestants of the United States. These Christians hold that the New Testament furnishes examples of, and enjoins the receipt as candidates for membership in the churches, only from among those who give credible evidence of their faith in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. And they insist, therefore, that only those candidates for bapdsm are to be accepted who are professed believers in Jesus. They have no authoritative creed, OLD DUTCH CHURCH, NEW UTRECHT, LONG ISLAND. METHODISTS— CONG REG A TIONALISTS. 407 and no ecclesiastical government beyond that of each church over its own members. The American Baptist Missionary Union (Boston, Mass.) is the Society through which the Baptists of the Northern States carry on their foreign missionary work. The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptists is also actively at work in Asia, Africa, Italy, South America, and Mexico. Both the Northern and Southern Baptists vigorously sustain home missionary operations. This denomination has also seven theological seminaries, with over four hundred students ; thirty-nine colleges, with more than forty-three hundred students, and seventy-five academies, with over ninety-two hundred students. The Methodist body in this country is at present divided into Methodist Episcopalian (North and South), Methodist Protestant, American Wesleyan, Free Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, and African M. E. Zion Churches. Its doctrine is Arminian as opposed to Calvinistic, and agrees in all essentials with the Wesleyan theology of Great Britain. There is scarcely anything distinctive in these articles, the design of John Wesley (i 703-1 791) being to prepare a broad platform upon which a body of Christian believers might stand and work in love. Their tenets may be found in Wesley's doctrinal sermons, his Notes on the New Testament, and in other writings which have come to be recognized as standards. Its Book Concern, started in 1 789 on a borrowed capital of j^6oo, for the purpose of supplying its members with religious literature, had in 1890 a net capital of $3,000,000, and during the previous forty years its sales had amounted to more than 5^45,000,000. Of its gains for 1890, $100,000 went to the support of superannuated preachers, and to the widows and orphans of deceased ministers. Its Missionary Society, domestic and foreign, organized in 18 19, besides caring for destitute people within the United States, supported missions, in the year 1890, in South America, Mexico, Africa, China, India, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, and Italy. The fact that the Methodist Church in the United States is preeminently the Church of the common people, has been noted, although this merit is shared by the Baptist churches of the country. The Congregational form of church life in the United States, in its latest development, takes its name from the prominence which it gives to the congre- gation of believers, holding that any local company of Christian people con- federated by mutual agreement and by covenant with God, is a Christian church ; which, through such organization, enters a great sisterhood of equal churches of like faith and order, — and every such church governs itself, under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, according to its understanding of the Holy Scriptures. -'As a church polity the system has two fundamental principles; on the one hand the independence of every such local church of all outward control, save that of its Great Head ; and on the other hand its obligation to live in sisterly rela- tion with every other, taking and giving counsel and friendly aid as need requires, 4o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. and working with all others for the glory of God in the redemption of men. By its spirit and its history it is closely associated with the prosecution of missions at home and abroad, and with the promotion of secular edu- cation. At the present time it has in the country, seven theological seminaries, and for the last five years its statistics show a net annual EXECUTION OF REV. STEPHEN BURROUGHS. gain of nearly 1 12 churches, with almost 16,000 members, /^-r ammm. All the Presbyterian churches of the country are understood to hold, in doctrine, to the supreme headship of Jesus Christ ; involving submission to His ROMAN CATHOLICS. 409 law contained in the Christian Scriptures as the only rule of practice ; the parity of the ministry, as ambassadors of the Supreme Head of the Church ; participa- tion of the people in the government of the Church through officers chosen by them ; the unity of the Church involving an authoritative control, not by indi- vidual, but by representative courts. In its General Assembly (Northern) of 1890, a movement was inaugurated for the revision of its doctrinal standards, lookine toward softening some of their more rigid Calvinistic features, but the polity and the spirit of this body of Christian believers is strongly adverse tG haste in changes that have any bearing upon fundamentals in faith and practice. This Church has been, and is to day, the consistent and persistent advocate and promoter of Christian Missions in America and over the world, and the body of its membership has always been found, as it may be found to-day, among the most intelligent and influential men and women in the land. Their zeal and effort for the public welfare is always awake, and is always put forth alike for the establishment and the upholding of piety, righteousness, and good order in the State. Outward development in the Protestant Episcopal churches of the United States has gone forward, of late years, in a swift ratio of increase, which promises well for the future of this, the oldest of the Protestant bodies in America. The new era in its growth and extension dates from 1835, when it awoke to the importance of domestic missions, enlarging and reconstituting its Missionary Board. In the light of recent occurrences it may be questioned whether loyalty to its doctrinal system be as emphatically insisted upon, as at some periods in the past, but the doctrinal flux and reflux which appears in some dioceses may be observed in other communions of Christians, and has ordinarily been a feature of general ecclesiastical development throughout the world's history. Its Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society was founded in 1820, and missions are now sustained by it in Mexico, Africa, China, and Japan. There are some twenty-five colleges and theological seminaries. Of the Roman Catholic organization in this country, — with this peculiarity, that, among all bodies of American Christians, it alone acknowledges the spiritual headship of an official not only a foreigner by birth, but permanently resident abroad, — it is correct to say that the fundamental doctrine of its system is the Church, so defined as to identify it with the visible church, distinguished by the government of the hierarchy or priesthood, and the administration of the sacra- ments. The Church, moreover is infallible. Therefore, Holy Scripture and tra- dition are put by it upon the same level. Through the Church, among true Catholics, men gain a " sense " for truth, and hence in the Church men under- stand the Scriptures and the truth, as is impossible without. The Bible thus becomes but a portion of the complex of Church teaching, which bears with it the authority of God. In doctrine, the Roman Church teaches that justification of j^ 410 THE STORY OF AMERICA. sinners is the making; men righteous, not declaring them to be so ; justification by faith being rejected, and the necessity of good works to salvation being emphasized. The sacra- ments of the Church, more- over, are the means of the conferment of divine grace, and "always and 1 i i I i to^ idfiffH t m ;-*: ^ 4 N v^^iCk a'*^ -iiSsBf THE RECANTATION OF JUDGE SEWALL. to all convey the gface," when they are administered. f The Unitarian school of religious thought has been known in the United ^^ States, as elsewhere, ■j^ V -'-^^ for its opposition to Trinitarianism (popu- larly known as the doctrine of three persons in one God) in the steady assertion UNITARIANS. 411 and maintenance of the unity of the Divine existence. Rev. Dr. Joseph Priestley ( 1 773-1 804), one of its earlier and abler advocates, came to Philadelphia from England in 1792. The general form of doctrine which he preached, rested, in his contention, upon the basis of the Holy Scriptures as an inspired and final authority, but its interpretations of religion were greatly influenced by the philosophy of John Locke (i 632-1 704). Before Priestley reached this country, however, the first Episcopal church in New England (at Boston, Mass.), had become the first distinctively Unitarian church in America — Rev. James Freeman (i 759-1835), the first minister in the United States who assumed the Unitarian name, being ordained their Rector in November, 1 787. Under him all reference to the Trinity was struck out from the book of Common Prayer. When Rev. Henry Ware, of Hingham, Mass., a decided Arminian and Unitarian, was elected (1805) to the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard College, Mass., controversy broke out in New England, which was prosecuted with vigor for many years. Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing (i 780-1 842) was the most distinguished leader and representative of Unitarianism in this discussion. Under his guidance the radonal and ethical movement which he urged had a theology based upon a free interpretation of the New Testament, accepting the Bible as inspired in a special sense, and appealing to miracles in attestadon of the claims of Chrisdanity. Semi-Arian views of the nature and rank of Jesus prevailed. The doctrine of the Trinity was treated as metaphysical speculation. The Evangelical theory of the Atonement was exchanged for one exhibiting the moral example of Jesus. Later on, the dogma of everlasting punishment was abandoned. Under the diffusion of German thought, the rise of transcendentalism and the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-18S2) and Theodore Parker (18 10-1860), Unitarian- ism has passed through important transitions, having ceased to appeal primarily to the Scripture text, and recognizing the Bible rather as a body of sacred literature. "It turns less to tradition and more to the individual reason and conscience; it has ceased to refer to miracles for the evidence of Christianity. Truth, it affirms, furnishes its own verification. Arian views of Jesus have gradually given place to those distinctly humanitarian. Sympathetic in its attitude toward science, Unitarianism was among the first forms of Christianity to welcome the philosophy of evolution. It has been hospitable to studies in comparative mythology and comparative religion. Under these influences there is perhaps more uniformity of doctrine and belief among Unitarians to-day than ever before. Christianity is regarded less as a special revelation from God and more as a manifestation of the one ereat religion."* The American Unitarian Association was ororanized at Boston, Mass., in 1825. The next, bearing distinctively the Unitarian name, was the Western Unitarian Conference, organized at Cincinnati, O., in 1852. The * S. J. Barrows in " Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge," p. 934. 412 THE STORY OF AMERICA. National Conference of Unitarian and other Christian churches was formed in New York city in 1865. Since the close of the Civil War (1861-65) no less than thirty conferences of churches of this denomination have been established in the country, and fifteen other organizations — educational, philanthropic, or missionary in character, — making nearly fifty associations which have sprung from the cooperative work of Unitarian churches (of which there are now about four hundred in the United States) in the last twenty-five years. There is a denomi- national theological school at Meadville, Pa. It is confidently asserted that the " Book of Mormon," the basis of " The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," in the Territory of Utah, where the Mormons settled in 1847, is, in its authorship, the production of some divine of the " Disciple " persuasion — an adherent of Mr. Alexander Campbell, founder of the " Campbellites," who was born in Ireland in 1778 and died in West Virginia (U. S. A.) in 1866. But all authorities agree that Joseph Smith, of New York (i 805-1844), Mormon founder and prophet, obtained possession of the book, September 22, 1827. The doctrine and covenants of this organization are to be found in the third Sacred Book of the Mormon Church. The marvels of its propagandism in various parts of the world have never been surpassed. Their results have demonstrated, among other things, however, that little can be accomplished by Mormon missionaries except in Protestant countries. England, Wales, Scotland, British India, Ceylon, British Guiana, the Cape of Good Hope, the West Indies, Canada, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Malta, Gibraltar, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Scandinavia, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico, Chili, China and Siam, the Sandwich Islands, the Society Islands, and Jerusalem have all been the theatres for the labors of the courageous preachers of this sect. Its comparatively recent dismissal of the doctrine of polygamy from its revelations of the Divine Will, be it reality or pretense, strengthens the hope that this Protestant cancer is to be eliminated from the American body politic at no distant day. The population of the Territory, in 1890, was 207,905, and the Governor of Utah is authority for the statement that the proportion between Mormon and Gentile voters in the Territory was seven to five. This Gentile preponderance is another element which goes toward the solution of the Mormon problem. The "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," which had its first conference in 1852, and now has headquarters, with a large publishing house, at Lamoni, la., which at that conference disowned the leadership of the Mormon officials in Utah, must also help toward this issue. In 1890 it had a total membership in the United States of 21,773, in thirty-six States and three Territories, including that of Utah. It accepts three books as of divine origin : " First, the Bible ; second, the Book of Mormon ; third, the Book of Covenants. The latter consists of the revelations given to the Church in the present century as a guide in church government. The Book of Mormon is CONCLUSION. 413 accepted as a history of the ancient inhabitants of America and the revelation given them by God, beginning at a period 2000 years before Christ and continu- ing until 400 years after Christ. In doctrine they adhere to the Trinity, to the atonement by Jesus Christ, to the resurrection of the dead, to the second coming of Christ, and to the Eternal Judgment, believing that each individual will receive reward or punishment, in strict measure, according to the good or evil deeds done in life. They hold that men are to be saved by faith in God and Christ, by forsaking sin, by immersion for the remission of sin, and by the laying on of hands. They believe that revelations of God are still given by the Holy Spirit for the guidance of the Church, and that the gifts, blessings, and powers of the Holy Spirit in Bible times are continual. Their order of church government is such as they find authority for in the New Testament, and such as they under- stand that the apostolic Church observed. It includes the presidency, consisting, when full, of three persons, which is given jurisdiction over the whole Church as its chief presiding authority ; twelve apostles, whose special duty is to take charge of all missionary work abroad ; one or more quorums of seventy, who are set apart from the body of elders and assist the apostles ; high priests who have charge over States and districts ; priests' or pastors, teachers and deacons and bishops, of whom three are set at the head of the business affairs of the Church. Other bishops and agents assist in collecting the tithes. As to marriage, they believe that it is ordained of God, and that there should be but one companion for man or woman in wedlock, until the contract is broken by death or trans- gression. They characterize the doctrine of polygamy, or plural wives, as an abomination." * The reader who has carefully weighed the statements of this chapter must conclude that the gfrowth of relig-ious life which has marked the first two and a half centuries of history in the United States compels its own recognition by the student of that history, as imperatively as does the advance- ment of the country in any feature of its development. If, in the nature of the case, its successive phases have had less instant, and at times less startling impressiveness, they have not been the less real, less influential, or less susceptible of estimate. Religious sentiment, not to say religious principle, has a deeper hold upon the American people, to-day, than it has ever had. The Churches that are its exponents hold still more and wider power, and are always to be reckoned with in the administration of public affairs. The time has passed, if it ever existed, when public men in the United States venture, by policy or by measure, to affront, for long, this religious sense of their constituents. It is in place to add that, besides the growing persuasion of that absolute equality of * From the Bulletin of Church Statistics, U. S. Census of 1890. 414 THE STORY OF AMERICA. religious relations among individuals in the nation which was a principle in the genius of the old Hebrew Commonwealth, the three most significant aspects of American religious development, in 1892, are the accelerating progress of our Christian Churches toward catholicity of spirit, — their steadily awakening zeal in effort for the welfare of the poorer classes in society, — and the organized agency of woman in the religious and benevolent activities which are the charm and glory of our civilization. PASSOVER SUPPER, AS OBbKK\l-,l' jV THE JEWS IN NEW YORK IN 1S92. CHAPTER XXII. THE PEOPLE UNDER NEW CONDITIONS. ODERN democracy is often looked upon as something peculiarly secular, unreligious, or even irreligious in its origin. In truth, however, it has its origin in religious aspirations quite as much as modern art, or architecture, or literature. To the theology of Calvin, the founder of the Republic of Geneva, grafted upon the sturdy independence of English and Scotch middle classes, our American democracy owes its birth. James I well appreciated that the principles of uncompromising Protestantism were as incompatible with monarchy as with the hierarchy which they swept aside. Each man by this theology was brought into direct personal responsibility to his God, without the intervention of priest, bishop, or Pope, and without any allegiance to his king except so far as it agreed with his allegiance to the King of kings. Macaulay has struck this note of Puritan republicanism when he says that the Puritans regarded themselves as " Kings by the right of an earlier creation ; priests by the interposition of an Almighty hand." As John Fiske says, James Stuart always treasured up in his memory the day when a Puritan preacher caught him by the sleeve and called him " God's silly vassal." "A Scotch Presbytery," he cried, "agreed as well with monarchy as God and the Devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council and all our proceedings ! " But the democracy which was founded in New England as the logical outcome of the religious principles for which the Puritans left Old England was not democracy as we know it to-day. The Puritans for the most part believed in divinely appointed rulers as much as the monarchs against whom they rebelled ; but the divinely appointed rulers were the "elect of God" — those who believed as they did, and joined with their organizations to establish His kingdom on earth. For this reason we find the Massachusetts Colony as early as 1631 decided that "No man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." The government, in short, was simply a democratic theocracy, and 415 4i6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. as the colony grew in numbers, the power came to be lodged in the hands of the minority. There were, however, among the clergy of Massachusetts men who believed in democracy as we understand it to-day. Alexander Johnson in his history of Connecticut says with truth that Thomas Hooker, who led from Massachusetts into Connecticut the colony which established itself at Hartford, laid down the principle upon which the American nation long generations after was to be established. When Governor Winthrop, in a letter to Hooker, defended the restriction of the suffrage on the ground that " the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser," the learned and generous-hearted pastor replied : "In matters which concern the common good, a general council, chosen by all to transact business which concerns all, I conceive most suitable to rule, and most safe for relief of the whole." The principles of our republicanism were never better stated until Lincoln in his oration at Gettysburg made his appeal that this nation might be consecrated anew in the fulfillment of its mission, and that government "from the people, for the people, by the people," might not perish from the earth. Both Hooker and Lincoln had a supreme belief in the wisdom of the plain people in much of the matters which affect their own lives. The rank and file of the people have the surest instinct as to what will benefit or injure the rank and file of the people, and when upon them is placed the responsibility of determining what their government shall be, they are educated for self-government. In the colony which Thomas Hooker founded upon these principles there was found at the time of the Revolution more political wisdom, more genius for self-govern- ment, and more devotion to the patriotic cause than in any other of the thirteen colonies. At the time of the Revolution, however, there was another democracy besides that of New England, which enabled the colonies successfully to resist the Government of George III. It was the democracy of the planters of the South. The democracy of the Southern colonies was not like that in New England, the democracy of collective self-government, but the democracy of individual self-government, or, rather, of individual self-assertion. In fact, it would hardly be too much to say that many of the Virginia planters who espoused so warmly and fought so bravely in the cause of liberty were not inspired by the spirit of democracy at all, but rather by the spirit of an aristocracy which could brook no control. These Southern planters were the aristocrats of the American Revolution. In New York city, and even in Boston and Philadelphia, the wealthiest merchants were strongly Tory in their sympathies. In New York it was affirmed by General Greene that two-thirds of the land belonged to men in sympathy with the English and out of sympathy with their fellow country- men. In these cities it was the plain people and the poorer classes who furnished most of the uncompromising patriots, but in the South men of fortune risked 41 8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. their fortunes in the cause of independence. These men were slave owners, and the habit of mastery made them fiercely rebellious when George III attempted in any way to tyrannize over them. Many of them were the descendants of the English nobility, and as such they acknowledged no superiors. Naturally, then, in the struggle for liberty they furnished the leaders of the colonists, both North and South, and the agricultural classes, whether rich or poor, were naturally on the side of self-government, for their isolation had from the first compelled them to be self-governing. Such, then, was American democracy at the outbreak of the Revolution. It had but one fundamental weakness — there was no external bond of union between the colonies to enable them to act in concert and vigorously. This was the point at which the democracies of ancient Greece had broken down, and the democracies of America seemed for a time in peril of sharing their fate. Each colony had been independent of its neighbors, and united with them only through their common allegiance to Great Britain. It must be remembered that in those days it was a seven days' journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, within the same Commonwealth, so that parts of a single colony were more widely separated than Massachusetts and California are to-day. There was but little commerce between them, and not for half a century were the iron ties of the railroads to begin to join them together. That colonies thus separated should have been able to join together and act as unitedly as they did, brings out better than anything else in history the superiority of the political genius of the Anglo-Sa.xon race to that of the ancient Greeks. Our colonists were able to look beyond their own neighborhoods, their own colonies, and see the common tie of common liberty and common interests which bound them together from Maine to Georgia. It was this tie of federation, which centuries of experience had ingrained upon the English-speaking peoples, which enabled the American colonists to win against a power far greater in comparison with their own than that with which Philip of Macedon destroyed the republics of Southern Greece. Even during the War, however, the National spirit was not strongly enough developed to compel the individual colonies to bear the taxation necessary for the support of our armies. It was for this reason that the issuing of paper money was almost the one resource of the Continental Congress. When the War was over and the sense of common danger no longer held the colonies together, the American Nation seemed almost to have ceased to exist. The enactments of the Federal Congress were simply recommendations which each colony could accept or not as it pleased, and it rarely pleased. The evils due to this disintegration have generally been exaggerated in our popular histories, for the reason that our greatest weakness was at the point at which all other nations concentrated their greatest strength. The National army was reduced THE NECESSITY OF FEDERATION. 419 to a corporal's guard, the National navy to nothing. Foreign powers refused to enter into treaties with us, because there was no central authority to which all of the States were bound to be subservient. When, however, we turn to the condition of the people in the various States, the prosperity of agriculture, and the growth of cities, there was no such National decay as the outer emblems of National power seemed to indicate. It was for this reason that when the Fed- eral Constitution was proposed so large a part of the people in most of the States were slow to accept it. Its acceptance, however, was inevitable. With- DUEL BETWEEN BURR AND HAMILTON. out it we would not only have failed to preserve a solid front toward other nations, but were in danger of internal complications and even wars among ourselves. The different States had begun to enact legislation antagonistic to each other, and this of course always called forth prompt retaliation. The City of New York had already enacted that the farmers of Connecticut and New Jersey could not bring supplies into the New York market without the payment of a tax upon them, and the market boats from what is now Jersey City had to pay entrance fees and obtain clearances at the Custom House, just like ships 420 THE STORY OF AMERICA. from London and Hamburg. Connecticut firewood could not be delivered to the householder in New York without the payment of a heavy duty. New Jersey and Connecticut were quick to resent the injustice and the injury, and the business men of New London agreed, under penalty of ^250 for the first offence, not to send any goods whatever into New York for a period of one year ; while New Jersey gave vent to its indignation by levying a tax of ^1800 upon a small patch of ground on Sandy Hook on which the City of New York had built a light-house. Such bickerings as these were certain soon to have destroyed National spirit and to have resulted in giving us thirteen nations instead of one, and thirteen more or less hostile to each other and helpless in the presence of a foreign enemy. There was again danger that the democracies of this country would fall as did the democracies of Greece, but finally, through the sense of unity which came from a common mother country, common environment, common institutions, and now a common history, aided by the Anglo-Saxon genius for co-operation, a union was established under the Federal Constitution. The first half century of our political history consisted rather in the devel- opment of the political rights of the individual citizen than of the loyalty which all owed to the American nation. Nothing is so difficult as to keep in mind that the government of the colonies at the close of the Revolution was not what it is to-day, and that democracy as we know it was regarded as the dream of theorists. Some of the members of the Federal Convention deeply distrusted the common people. Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, declared that "The people do not want suffrage, but are the dupes of pretended patriots," and those who were at all in sympathy with him prevented, as they imagined, the election of the President by the people themselves, and did prevent the election of the United States Senators by the people. Some of them were even opposed to the election of the House of Representatives directly by the people, but fortu- nately, even Hamilton sided with Madison and Mason, when they urged that our House of Commons ought to have at heart the rights and interests of every class of people, and be bound, by the manner of their election, to be the repre- sentatives of every class of people. But by " every class of people " the framers of the Constitution from the more conservative of the States meant simply every class of freeholders. In Virginia none could vote except those who owned fifty acres of land. In New York, to vote for Governor or State Senator, a freehold worth $250 clear of mortgage was necessary, and to vote for Assemblymen a freehold of $50 or the payment of a yearly rent of $10 was necessary. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was the democratic philosopher of the Revolutionary period, did not strenuously insist that the suffrage must be universal, and it was not for a half century that it became universal, even among the whites. In the State of New York these restrictions existed until the adoption of the Constitution of 182 1, THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 421 and even this Constitution merely reduced the privileges of land owners. Old Chancellor Kent, the author of " Kent's Commentaries," declared in this Convention that he would not "bow before the idol of universal suffrap'e," the theory which he said had " been regarded with terror by the wise men of every age," and whenever tried had brought "corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny." "If universal suffrage were adopted," he declared, "posterity would deplore in sackcloth and ashes the delusion of the day." The horrors of the French Revolution were always held up by conservatives to show that the EXECUTION OF HETHERINGTON AND BRACE AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE COMMITTEE. CALLED '• FORT VIGILANCE." {This building was also called " Fort Gunnybags," from the material of the breastworks in front of it. On the roof were cannon and sentinels, and the alarm bell of the committee.] people could not be trusted, and the learned author of the " Commentaries," which every lawyer has pored over, saw in prophetic vision that, if universal suffrage should be adopted, "The radicals of England, with the force of that mighty engine, would sweep away the property, the laws, and the people of that island like a deluge." Not until between 1840 and 1850 did universal suffrage among the whites come to be accepted in the older States. During the first half century of our history it was the Democratic party, the party of Jefferson, which was on the side of these extensions of popular rights. 422 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The principle of this party was that each State ought to legislate for itself, with the least possible control from the central government ; that each locality ought to have its freedom of local government extended ; and that each individual should be self-governing, with the same rights and privileges for all. As regards foreign affairs, it was characterized by a "passion for peace," and an abiding hostility toward a costly army and navy. Jefferson believed that the way to avoid wars, and the way to be strong, should war become inevitable, was by the devotion of the people to productive industry, and not by burdening them to rival the powers of Europe in the strength of their armaments. In the year 1800, the party which rallied to his support — then called the Republican party, but generally spoken of as the Democratic party — triumphed over the Federalists. In New England alone did Federalism remain strong at the close of Jefferson's first administration. In that section the calvinistic clergy, who had done so much for the establishment of American democracy, fought fiercely against its extension. Jefferson's followers demanded the separation of Church and State and the abolition of the religious qualifications for office holding, which were then almost as general as property qualifications. He was known to be in sympathy with the French revolution, and was therefore denounced as a Jacobin, both in religion and in politics. We cannot wonder, therefore, that in the section in which the clergy were the real rulers, Jeffersonian democracy was regarded with hatred and contempt. Vermont alone, among the New England States, was from the first thoroughly democratic, and this was because in Vermont there was no established aristocracy, either of education or wealth. In Connecticut, which under clerical leadership had once been the stronghold of advanced democracy, we find President Dwight expressing a common sentiment, not only of the clergy but of the educated classes generally, when he declared that "the great object of Jacobinism, both in its political and moral revolution, is to destroy every trace of civilization in the world." " In the triumph of Jeffersonianism," he said, "we have now reached a consummation of democratic blessings ; we have a country governed by blockheads and knaves." But the ideas which in New England were at first received only by the poor and the ignorant, were in the very air which Americans breathed. The new States which were organized at the West were aggressively democratic from the outset. In the Northwest Territory the inequalities against which Jeffersonian democracy protested never gained a foothold. In this, which was made a State during Jefferson's first administration, the union of Church and State was not thought of and no religious qualification whatever for the office of Governor was exacted. Property qualifications were almost as completely set aside. While in some of the older States the Governor had to possess ^^5000, and even ^10,000, Ohio's Governor was simply required to be a resident and an PRIMOGENITURE ABROGATED. 423 owner of land. As regards inheritances, the English law of primogeniture^ which remained unaltered in some of the older States, and in New England generally took the form of a double portion to the oldest son, was completely A LABOR STRIKE. set aside, and all children of the same parents became entitled to the same rights. That Ohio thus led the way in the democratic advance was due to the fact that its constitution was framed when these ideas had already become 424 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ascendant in the hearts of the people, and the failure of the clergy of New England was due to their trying to keep alive institutions which were the off- spring of another age, and could not long survive it. For its distrust of the new democracy New England Federalism paid heavily in the isolation, defeat, and destruction which shortly awaited it. When the new democratic administration had fully reduced Federal taxation and shown its capacity for government, the more liberal-minded of the Federalists went over to the Democrats. Even Massachusetts gave a majority for Jefferson in 1804, and when the e.xtreme Federalists became more extreme through the loss of their Liberal contingent, and called the Hartford Convention, in 1808, Federalism died of its own excesses. The policy of the Democratic Adminis- tration toward England may not have been wise, but the proposal of secession in order to resist it made Federalism almost synonymous with toryism and disloyalty. For a number of years after the war of 181 2, there was really only one political party in the United States. In 1824, when the contest was so close between Jackson, Adams and Clay, each of these contestants was a " Democratic Republican," and it would have been hard to tell what questions of policy divided their followers, though Jackson's followers, as a rule, cared most for the extension of the political rights of the poorer classes, and cared least for the policy of protection which the war had made an important issue by cutting off commerce, and thus calling into being extensive manufactur- ing interests. That the followers of Clay finally voted for Adams may have been due to sympathy upon this question of the tariff. In 1828 something akin to party lines were drawn upon the question of the National Bank, and the victory of Jackson provoked the hostility of the masses toward that institution, which certainly enriched its stockholders to such an extent as to make them a favored class. The Tariff Act, passed in 1828, made the tariff question hence- forth the dividing question in our national politics until slavery took its place. Most of the absolute free-traders were supporters of Jackson, but when South Carolina passed its Nullification Act as a protest against the "tariff of abomi- nations," as it was called. President Jackson promptly declared that "the Union must and shall be preserved," and forced the recalcitrant State to renew its allegiance to the National Government. By the end of Jackson's adminis- tration there were again two distinct parties in the United States — the one advocating a high tariff and extensive National improvements by the Federal Government, and the other advocating a low tariff and the restriction of National expenditures to the lowest possible limit. The former party — the Whig — was, of course, in favor of a literal construction of the Constitution and the extension of powers to the National Government, while the latter advocated "strict construction" and "State rights." THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICS AND PARTIES. 425 Jackson belonged to the latter party, and in 1836 was able to transfer the succession to Van Buren. But in 1840 the Whigs swept the country, electing Harrison and Tyler, after the most picturesque campaign ever fought in America. All the financial ills from which the country was suffering were for the time attributed to Van Buren's economic policy, and his alleged extrava- gance at the White House enabled the Whipfs to arouse the enthusiasm of the poor for their candidate, who lived in a log cabin, and drank hard cider. During the next four years, however, there was a reaction, and in 1844 Polk '/^ ,,^. . was elected upon the plat- \ /^/m form on which Van Buren had stood. It ARBITRATION. is true that in Pennsylvania the Democratic campaign cry was, " Polk, Dallas and the tariff of '42," which was a high tariff, but in most of the country Democracy meant "Free trade and Sailors' rights." From this time on, the Whig party grew weaker and the Democratic party stronger. It is true that the Whigs elected General Taylor in 1848. The 426 THE STORY OF AMERICA. revenue tariff law passed by the Democrats in 1846 was not changed until the still lower tariff of 1857 was enacted. In 1852 the Whig party was hardly stronger than the old Federalist party at the close of Jefferson's first term. But just as the Democratic party, became able to boast of its strength a new party came into being which adopted the principles of the free-soil wing of the old Democratic party, and in its second national campaign elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. In this readjustment of parties the pro-slavery Whigs went over to the Democrats and the anti-slavery Democrats went over to the Republicans. The bolting Democrats claimed, with truth, to follow the principles of their party from the time of Jefferson down, but the party as a whole followed the interests of its most powerful element instead of the princi- ples of its founder. In the States from Ohio west, where upon economic questions the Democratic party had swept everything by increasing majorities since 1840, the bolting element was so great that all of these States were landed in the Republican column. One great Church — the Methodist — which before had been, as a rule, Democratic in politics now became solidly Republican. As the war went on the Republican party became more and more loyally attached to the principles of liberty. It is events which educate, and the hard fight the slave owners made for the perpetuation of their institution educated the north to desire its abolition. The victory of the Secessionists at Bull Run turned out to be their greatest calamity. Had they been defeated there the Union would have been restored and slavery maintained. In emancipating the slaves, Lincoln, as he himself said, did not "claim to have controlled events, but to have been controlled by them." It was impossible to put down the rebellion without emancipating the slaves, and therefore they were emancipated. When the slaves had been given liberty, they were given the ballot with which to maintain it. The immediate results of this are still the subject of hot contention, but no one who has watched the eagerness of the southern negro for education, nor the liberality with which the southern whites are now furnishing it, can fail to recognize that the possession of the ballot has been a protection to the negroes, and a source of advancement in all things which fit men for citizenship. The history of American politics up to the time of the introduction of the new economic questions by the labor unions in the East, and the farmer's unions in the West and South, has been the history of the gradual extension of political rights. The Federalist party gave us the Constitution ; the old Demo- cratic party gave us white manhood suffrage ; the Republican party gave us universal suffrage. The glory of America's past is that she has been continu- ally progressing ; that she has proven to the world the capacity of the whole people for self-government. CHAPTER XXIII. GOLD AND SILVER MININa. HE epoch of adventure which Bret Harte has exhibited through the stained elass of his romances, is not less full of color when seen through the clear air of history. In fact, it has more color, for there is less monotony of hue. California was the scene of daring and often grotesque adventure even before the discovery of gold. The explorations of Lieutenant Fremont, described by him In a vividly truthful report which called the attention of the nation to this new land, will do as much for the enduring fame of "The Pathfinder" as his leadership of the Republican party in its first great national campaign. These explorations made the possession of California a point most worth fighting for in the war with Mexico. The methods by which we obtained it were not entirely consistent with our boasted character as the most just and peace-loving nation of the world ; but the part played in it by the American pioneers who settled in California exhibits our strongest national traits, both good and bad, in a scene half heroic, half comic, which will never be forgotten. The American pioneers though far outnumbered by the Spaniards, found not the slightest difficulty in overthrowing their rulers and establishing the Bear-flag Republic. In the words of Dr. Semple, one of their leaders, they "borrowed" supplies on the faith of the Bear-flag Govern- ment, assured that " their children in generations yet to come will look back with pleasure upon the commencement of a revolution carried on by their fathers upon principles high and holy as the laws of eternal justice." Another of the leaders of the revolutionists crowded the citizens of the captured town of Sonora between the four walls of their " calaboose," and there read to them a proclamation explaining that " though he had for the moment deprived them of the liberty which is the right and privilege of all good and just men, it was only that they might become acquainted with his unalterable purpose to establish a government based upon the common rights of all men." All their proceedings, however, were brimful of the American spirit, and showed how the pioneers were inspired by a purpose which made a handful of them more than a match for the organized forces in guard of the Mexican province. The conquest of 427 428 THE STORY OF AMERICA. California in this war simply prevented the peaceful annexation of the territory io our nation a year or so later. The American pioneers who poured in and developed the country had the might and the right to govern it, and the nation gained nothing which its children prize by violating its best instincts in acting the part of a bully toward our weaker Southern neighbor. With the dis- covery of gold.how- ever, C a 1 i f o r n i a suddenly became a theatre toward which the eyes of the whole world were turned. The discovery was made by James Wilson Marshal, in January, 1848. Marshal had been employed to con- struct a mill on the estate of a hundred square miles which General John A. Sutter had received as a grant from the -Spanish Govern- ment. Sutter's demesne had been the centre of the American colonies in California. Gen- eral Sutter himself, a Swiss by birth, was a minded CLEARING UP UNDER-CURRENTS. Visionary, who had shown himself so hospitable to all American immigrants, that he had attained to a certain pre-eminence in the affairs of the Territory, and was looked upon by many as a great and heroic figure. Up to the time of the discovery of gold upon his land, his fortunes had steadily mounted upward ; from that time they went down, down. Marshal was an American by birth, born in a country town DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 429 in New Jersey. He, too, was a courageous and kindly visionary, though some- times he was aroused from his accustomed dreaminess into fierce action. His fortunes also became worse after his great discovery, and during his later life he was somewhat embittered by what he believed to be the injustice and neglect of his countrymen. "The enterprising energy of which the orators and editors of California's early golden days boasted so much, as belonging to Yankeedom," he wrote in 1857, "was not national but individual. Of the profits derived from the enterprise, it stands thus : Yankeedom, ^600,000,000 ; myself, individually, ^000,000,000. Ask the records of the country for the reason why. They will answer ; I need not. Were I an Englishman, and had made my discovery on English soil, the case would have been different." For this last statement Mar- shal had some reason, for the discoverer of gold in Australia, whom Marshal claimed to have directed thither, received from the British Government, $25,000, and from the Australian Government, $50,000, while Marshal received nothing. So much for the discoverer. Now for the discovery. It took place on the afternoon of the 24th of January, just after Sutter's mill had been completed, and Marshal and his men had made a perilous fight for two weeks to keep the dam from being destroyed by the heavy rains which had set in. In this contest with the water Marshal had exhibited a courage which made him half deserve the accidental fame that came through the finding of the gold. When his men were exhibiting to some amazed Indians the workings of their new saw-mill. Marshal was inspecting the lower end of the mill-race. He came back with the quiet remark, " Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine." He moved off to his cabin, went back to the race, and then again returned to his men, directing them early in the morning to shut down the head-gate and see what would come of it. The next morning the men did as they were told, and presently Marshal came back looking wonderfully pleased, carrying in his arms his old white hat, in the top of whose crown, sure enough, lay flakes and grains of the precious metal. Comparing these pieces with a gold coin one of the men happened to have in his pocket, they saw that the coin was a little lighter in color, and rightly attributed this to the presence of the alloy. Then all the men hurried down the race, and were soon engrossed in picking gold from the seams and crevices laid bare by the shutting down of the head-gate. In the midst of their excitement doubts would sometimes arise, and some of the metal was thrown into vinegar and some boiled in the soap-kettle, to see if it stood these tests. Then Marshal went off to General Sutter, and feverish with excitement, told him of what had come to light. When he returned to the men he said, " O boys, it's the pure stuff! I and the old Cap went into a room and locked ourselves up, 5nd we were half a day trying it, and the regulars there wondered what the devil was up. They thought perhaps I had found quicksilver, as the woman did down toward Monterey. Well, we compared it with the encyclopedia, and it 430 THE STORY OF AMERICA. agreed with it ; we tried aqua fortis, but it would have nothing to do with it Then wc; weighed it in water ; we took scales with silver coins in one side, balanced with the dust in the? other, and gently let them down into a basin of water ; and the gold went down, and the silver came up. That told the story, what it was." That did tell the story, and though .Sutter tried to keep the story a secret until all the work in connection with the mills had been finished, the story would not keep. A Swiss teamster learned it from a woman who did some of the cooking about the mill, received a litde of the gold, spent it for liquor at the nearest store, and then the fame of the discovery swiftly flew to the c;nds of the earth. Gen- eral .Sutter had been right in his endeavor to keep the discovery se- cret as long as was within his power, for no sooner did the gold hunters' invasion set in than it became impossi- ble; for him K.O get UK'U to work the mill which he had constructed. The invaders carried things with a high hand, and ended by setting aside his title to his land and establishing the claims which thc;y had made upon it. Never was money made with anything like such rapidity. Nearly every ravine contained gold in some quantity or other. Nobody waited to get machinery to begin work. Knives, picks, shovels, sticks, tin pans, woodcMi bowls, wicker baskc^ts, were the only implements nettled for scraping the njcky beds, sifting the sand, or washing the dirt for the gold. A letter in the New York yournal of Commerce, toward the end of August, says of the Iiunt for gold : "At present the people are running over the country and picking it out of the eardi her(.' and th(;re, just as dogs and hogs let loose in the forest wouKl root up ground-nuts. Some get even ten ounces a day, and the least active one; or two. They make most who employ the wild Indians to hunt it for them. There is one man who has sixty THE SLUICE. Tflli RUSH /■Oh' T/f/i Cni.n I' I HI. I). 431 Indians under his c;m])loy. Ills profits an; a dollar a iniiini'-. 'i"li<; wild Indians know nolhinj^^ of its valm;, and wonder wliaL tin; pale fa(:(;s want to do with it, and they will },dv(; an ounce oi it f(jr tin; saiin; wjl,iX or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a l>lug o( tobacco." 'Ihis newsf)aper writer had ind<;ed some of the .Vbinchausen rpialilies that his fellow craftsmen have nowadays, and his ojjjjortunities for <:xag^eralion were increased by the remoteness of tin; scene and the inaccessibility of accurate information. California in those days was another |,,irt of the world. The journey to it overland tofjk wr;<;ks, and <;ven months, and was full of |)erils of starvation in case of storm and drouj^ht, and perils of slauj'hter if camps of hostile Indians wf:re encountered. When things went well the li(e was pleasant enough, and is still most picturesque to look back upon. The buffalo hunts, the meetings with Indians, the kindling i){ the camp fires at th<; centre of the great circle of wagons drawn up so as to form a bulwark against attack and a corral for the cattle, the story-telling in the light of these camp-fires — all present a picture which men will love to dwell upon so long as the m<;inory (»f the Argonauts survives. I'ut there were many times when the scenes were those of heart-sickening desolation. The attacks of the Indians w<;re less horrible than attacks of hunger and disease which set in when the emigrant train reached a territory where the grass had been consume-d, or lost their cattle in the terrible snow storms r*f the .Sierras. The journey by sea was hardly safer and was far less glorious. ICvery ship for California was loaded down with emigrants packed together as clos<;ly as so much baggage. .Ships with a capacity for five hundred would crowd in fifteen hundred. The passage money was from %yy:> to $600. Often the ships were unseaworthy, often [tacked with coal in such a way that fires broke out. Against these dangers the passengers could not provide tlier7iselves and could not fight. The companies that were able to get their ships back again simjjly coined money, but it was no easy matter in those days to get a ship out of .San I'Vancisco harbor. The crews would instantly desert for the mines, and the wharves were lined with rotting vessels. 'ITie vessels which did make the return voyagf; were compelled to pay the California rate of wages. One shi[^ in which the com- mander, engaged at New York, received 1(^250 a month, had tf> pay on return $500 a month to the negro cook. San Francisco in these days was the strangest place in the world. In February, 1848, it had hardly more than fifty houses; in August it contiiined five hundred, and had a large population that was not housed, A pamphlet written in the fall of that year says : " I'Vom eight to ten thousand inhabitants may be afloat in the streets of San Francisco ; many live in shanties, many in 432 THE STORY OF AMERICA. tents, and many the best way they can." The best building in the town was the Parker House, an ordinary frame structure, a part of which was rented to gamblers for ^60,000 a year. Even a higher sum than this was said, by Bayard Taylor, to have been paid. The accommodation was fearful. The worst that can be said of bad hotels may here be imagined. The pasteboard houses, hastily put up, were rented at far more than the cost of their construction, for every one figured that the land was as valuable as if it had been solid gold. A correspondent of the New York Evening Post, in November, 1849, pictures in this way the land owners in San Francisco: "The people of San Francisco are mad, stark mad. A dozen times, in my work of the last four weeks, have I been taken by the arm by some of the millionaires — so they call themselves, I call them mad- men — of San Francisco, looking wondrously dirty and out-at-elbows for men of such magnificent pre- tensions. They have dragged me about through the mud and filth almost up to my middle, from one pine-box to another, called man- sions, hotels, banks, and stores, as it may please the imagination, and have told me, with a sincerity that would have done credit to a Bed- lamite, that these splendid struc- tures were theirs, and they, the fortunate proprietors, were worth from three to four hundred thou- sand dollars a year each. There must be nearly two thousand houses besides the tents, which are still spread in numbers. . . . And what do you suppose to be the value, the yearly rental, of this card-house city ? Not less, it is said, than twelve millions of dollars, and this with a population of about twelve thousand. New York, with its five hundred thousand inhabitants, does not give a rental of much more than this, if as much." The greater part of this city was five times destroyed by fire in the first three years of its existence, but the people, with a hopefulness and energy which nothing could put down or burn up, would set to work and rebuild it, almost as quickly as the flames had swept it away. Everybody worked. The poorest THE CRADLE. THE UNEARTHING OF SILVER. . 433 man received unheard-of wages, and the richest man was obhged to do most things for himself. When business of every sort was speculative to a degree so close akin to gambling, it is not strange that gambling itself took possession of the people and half frenzied them with its excitements. Physical insanity was a frequent result of the moral insanity of the community. There were few women in California, and most of these were of the worst sort. As a consequence, the men with no homes to go to in the evenings went into the gambling saloons, where they stayed till late at night. According to some descriptions, everybody gambled, but, as Royce points out in his admirable " History of California," the same men who talk half-boastfully of the recklessness and universality of the gambling, within the next breath speak with great fervor of the strength and genuineness of the religious life which soon showed itself in the community. There is no doubt that the forces for good as well as for evil were strong from the outset, and as the community grew older the forces for good kept growing stronger. More and more wives from the East had joined their husbands, and the young women who came from the East among the emigrants were married almost immediately on their arrival. Many a hotel keeper who engaged a servant girl at ;^200 a month, was disgusted to find that she married and left him before the month was over. With the introduction of family life came a return to saner moral conditions, and by 1853 the old distempered social order began to be spoken of as a thing of the past. The great discovery of silver took place about ten years after the discovery of gold. In 1857 Allen and Hosea Grosch, two educated and serious-minded young men, from Reading, Pennsylvania, came upon the rich vein of silver afterward famous as "The Great Bonanza." These discoverers were even less fortunate than those who found gold in California. Before they could get together the capital necessary for the development of this mine, one of them struck a pick into his foot and died from blood-poisoning, while the other was cauofht in a terrible snow storm, and died as the result of the freezine of his legs, which he would not have amputated. These young men left papers describing their discovery in their cabin, which was placed in the charge of Henry C. T. Comstock. The descriptions were not explicit enough to deter- mine the exact location, but Comstock remained in the canon keeping watch upon the prospectors. During this time, by his constant watchfulness for a great discovery, he obtained the title of "Old Pancake" among the miners, because, as Wright narrates in his "Great Bonanza," "Even as he stirred his pancake batter it is said he kept one eye on the head of some distant peak, and was lost in speculation in regard to the wealth of gold and silver that might rest somewhere beneath its rocky crest." At last on the loth of June, 1859, two prospectors named McLaughlin and O'Riley came upon a stratum of 28 434 THE STORY OF AMERICA. strange-looking earth, the nature of which they did not understand. Comstock, who was immediately on the spot, exclaimed, "You've struck it, boys!" An arrangement was at once made to buy off the owners of the claims on which the vein was located. Three of the four owners were bought off for fifty dollars GOLD-WASHING IN CALIFORNIA. apiece ; the fourth sold at some higher figure to another miner named Winters, who obtained some inkling of the value of the claim. A firm was formed, consisting of Comstock, McLaughlin, O' Riley, Winters, and a man named Penrod, who had been one of Comstock's two partners in IMMENSE DEVELOPMENT. 435 the ownership of a spring necessary to the working of a mine. A third owner of this spring, called "Old Virginia," for whom Virginia City was named, was persuaded to sell his interest for an old blind horse. The new firm began the mining of silver on what came to be called the " Comstock lode." Very soon, however, they sold out to men of larger capital, who in turn sold to Mackay and Fair, famous the world over among America's millionaires. The subsequent fortunes of the firm which Comstock formed are interesting to follow, as they again illustrate the fate which came upon most of the men who brought to light the hidden mineral treasures of the Western territory. Com- stock sold his interest for $1 1,000, became a merchant in Carson City, married the deserting wife of a Mormon, was soon in his turn deserted by her, failed in his business adventure, and ended his life by suicide. McLaughlin sold his interest at $3500, soon spent what he received, and afterward became a cook in a mine in California. Penrod and Winters were also soon poor men, while O'Riley, the last to sell, engaged in stock gambling with the ^40,000 he received, was soon forced to resort to pick and pan for a living, and ended his life in a private asylum. The great fortunes, as has been said, were made by the later comers. Those who bought the mine from the original firm lost most that they made in litigation. Senator Stewart used to receive annually as much as $200,000 in fees as the principal attorney of some of the Comstock companies. He estimated the cost of litigation up to Januar)', 1866, at $10,000,000. When the Comstock mines finally came into the hands of Fair, Mackay, and O'Brien, scientific methods were introduced, and the stock of the " Consolidated Virginia " rapidly rose from $85 a share in January, 1874, to $700 a share in January, 1875. The shares in another mine in the same lode rose to a like figure, and the two together had a market value of $160,000,000. During five years these mines produced over $100,000,000 worth of silver. After 1878 their product fell gradually, and the price of the stock went down. Bancroft, in his " History of Nevada," says that down to January i, 1881, $306,000,000 worth of silver bullion was extracted from the Comstock lode. Yet he doubts whether that mountain of silver has proven a permanent advantage to Nevada. The wealth which came from her mines, he says, was to a large degree squandered by gamblers in New York and Paris, and used for purposes of political bribery and social corruption in Virginia City and San Francisco. The wealth that exists in Nevada to-day has come from improvements made by the people who came and developed the farms, made the roads, established the systems of irrigation, and built the stores, the factories, and the homes. With the introduction of scientific mining, requiring mills and machinery costing vast sums of money, the wage system took the place of the free and independent mining of the earlier days. It is true that the mine laborers still remained their own masters, by organizing as workmen were never organized 436 THE STORY OF AMERICA. before, and compelling mine owners, for years, to pay four dollars a day as the minimum day's wages. But the mining life which came in with the wage system is the orderly life of to-day, not essentially different from that of Eastern com- munities. The life in the mining camps, to which all romances go back, was the life that prevailed when every laborer was his own capitalist, and every capitalist his own laborer. Never were so many men from so many places suddenly AT WORK IN THE SILVER MINES OF NEVADA. thrown together, as in California in '48 and '49. What came afterward in Nevada, and later still- in Colorado, was like it in kind but not in degree. The Californians of the early days were without law, and thousands of miles away from established tribunals. Every man was a law unto himself, except when the community, as a whole, became aroused, and constituted itself a tribunal. The Territory was indeed nominally organized, but to wait for the regular process of law was to grant immunity to crime. The character of " miners* ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 437 justice " may be illustrated by some of the scenes at Sonora, where gold was first discovered. Here there had been law and order previous to the miners' invasion, but with the invasion demoralization set in. In the fall of '48 the newcomers, following the Mexican fashion, elected two Alcaldes, but when one of the storekeepers at the settlement killed a man in a fight, both the officers promptly resigned rather than run the risk of arresting the homicide. Another storekeeper, however, called the people together to take action. This storekeeper was promptly elected Alcalde, and it was decided that one Alcalde was enough. A Prosecuting Attorney was likewise required, but no one was ready to take the office, and each person nominated promptly declined and nominated some one else. Finally the energetic storekeeper was obliged to accept this office also. The meeting succeeded in finding a second man to take the office of Sheriff. The offender was arrested, a jury impaneled, and the trial begun. The prisoner, on being brought in court, was requested to lay his arms on the table, and did so. On this table stood a plentiful supply of brandy and water, to which everybody in the court-room helped himself at pleasure. The trial, however, proceeded with much attempt at legal form, and presently the Judge arose and began a plea for the prosecution. " Hold on, Brannan," said the prisoner, "you are the Judge." "I know it," replied that official, "and I am Prosecuting Attorney, too." He went on with his speech, and ended it by an appeal to himself as Judge In connection with the jury. When he had finished, the prisoner, after helping himself to a glass of brandy, made an able speech in his own defense. Night came on and the jury scattered without bringing in a verdict. The prisoner was admitted to bail, because there was no prison to put him in. The next day the jury met, but disagreed about the verdict. A new trial was held and the prisoner acquitted. In most of the mining camps the administration of justice fell into the hands of the Vigilance Committees. A great many wild stories have been written about the trials they held, and story writers have been fond of depicting scenes where a higher form of justice was carried out than the conventional trials in older communities permit. There were, indeed, occasions when sudden and powerful appeals to the emotions of the Committee produced sudden and good effects, but as a rule the hearts of the Committee were no more open than their reasons. That they had assembled at all usually meant that there had been an accumula- tion of wrongs unpunished, and the gathered indignation of the community vented itself upon the single individual who happened to be brought to trial. Miners' justice was indeed far better than lynch law. As Shinn has pointed out in his book on " Mining Camps ": " Lynch law is carried out at night by a transient mob, which keeps no records, conceals the names of its ministers, and is in its essence disorderly. Miners' justice, on the other hand, was executed in broad daylight, by men well known, who gave the prisoner a hearing, and kept a careful record 438 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of their doings." Yet, in spite of this, the assembling of the Committee was so irregular, its constituency so doubtful, its verdicts either so ferocious or so inadequate, or both — as when the favorite penalty of flogging and banishment was imposed — that the establishment of regular tribunals was in every respect an important gain to the mining communities. This change took place about the time that scientific mining was introduced, with regular pay for regular work. Before that time California, both as regards the rewards of labor and the punish- ment of crime, had seemed a world ruled by chance. WASHINGTON'S GRAVE. CHAPTER XXIV. The Problem of Our National Currency. BY HON. JOHN SHERMAN. Ex-Secretary of the Treasury. Its History and Evolution. By HON. J. K. UPTON, First Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Sherman^ Windom^ and Folger. Money, as used to effect the exchange of commodities, is the greatest labor-saving machine ever invented by man. Without money wealth might exist, but it would bring to the possessor but few comforts. This commercial contrivance is, however, of no recent origin, for we read that in the days of the Patriarchs Abraham used money to pay for the cave of Machpelah, in which to bury his dead. The story of that trans- n action is a siornificant one, showine at what an early date mankind adopted the use of money. Abraham was at the head of a nomadic tribe encamped among the simple people of Hebron, who looked upon him as a mighty prince. Upon the death of his wife he naturally desired to give her a sepulture worthy of his rank and position. Word was therefore sent out that he wished to purchase a lot of ground for such a purpose, preferring the cave of Machpelah, for which he would pay a proper amount of money. Ephron, the owner of the cave, declared that it was worth four hundred shekels of silver, and Abraham therefore weighed them out to him, as "current money among the merchants," and in return received his tide to the cave, the boundaries and transfer duly witnessed. 439 HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 440 THE STORY OF AMERICA. In this transaction are found in effect all the form and methods employed for a like transaction to-day, except that the weighing of the money at the time of the transfer is obviated by the metal having been previously converted into disks of known and uniform weight. But for the general use of money to effect such changes of property Ephron could hardly have found terms in which to express the value of his cave, and Abraham could hardly have paid for it, unless Ephron would have accepted therefor a portion of his flocks, which, though valuable to Abraham, might not have been needed by Ephron, and he might have found trouble in exchanging them for what he did need, as only for "current money" would the merchants surely part with their goods. That silver, out of all the products of the earth and sea, had already been selected for use as money, is especially creditable to the commercial acuteness of these ancient people. A search of three thousand years since made has found no better commodity for that purpose. In recent years it has been supplemented by the use of gold, a metal possessing for money most of the qualities of silver, and its higher value in relation to its weight renders it more serviceable, perhaps, in transactions involving large amounts. Upon one or the other of these metals the commercial exchanges of the world have been effected for centuries, and in the terms of their weight all values of property have come to be expressed. When we say an article is worth so many dollars, pounds, or francs, we only mean that it can be exchanged for so many pieces of gold or silver, the weight of the pieces being known, fixed, and uniform. The experiment of using other commodities for money has, however, often been tried. At different times and in various places, hand-made nails, the shells of clams, tail feathers of birds, skins of animals, cattle, corn and tobacco, and nearly all the products of the field and the chase have been used as money, but their tendency to decay or their inability to withstand the attrition of circulation have soon rendered them worthless, though in some cases they served well the exigencies which brousfht them into such use. Promises to pay certain specified amounts of money on demand have also been issued in recent years for money, both by the State and by private corporations, and though only of paper, have served a valuable auxiliary as long as the promises were promptly redeemed in money. The ancients had none of this so-called paper money, perhaps because they had no paper, but they closely approximated the use of representative money when they cut out from the skin of an animal an irregularly outlined piece and paid it out at the value of the skin itself with the understanding that the holder could at any time obtain the skin therefor, provided that upon presentation for that purpose the piece was found to fit the hole from which it was taken. The use of checks in business, the offsetting of credits against each other THE FUNCTIONS OF MONEY. 441 through the agency of banks and clearing-houses in the centres of trade, have, to a certain extent, reheved money from a portion of its duties ; but financial transactions of every kind are based upon a money standard, and resulting balances paid only by money itself The natural functions of money, of whatever character it consists, are, therefore, to aid in the transfer of property from one party to another, and to furnish a common standard in which all values may be expressed. The State, however, not content with using money for the simple purposes mentioned, has brought it into politics and clothed it with a new function by which it can satisfy a contract with less than the amount called for, or with a new kind of money not contemplated in the contract. This extraordinary endowment is known as the legal tender quality, and it is only effective when backed by the power of the State. Under this illogical and unnatural acquisi- tion forced upon it by law, money springs into prominence as a political factor, and begins to have a history, or rather to create one. From this new legal-tender function three projects have sprung by which money, heretofore an impartial factor in the transfer of property, becomes an aggressive agent by which the most sacred rights of a man to his own accumulations have been destroyed. These projects may be classified as follows : — 1st. To retain the name of the coin, but to take from it a portion of its value, the reduced piece to be equally available in payment of a debt, known as debasing the coinage. 2d. To issue paper promises-to-pay, of certain amounts, the issue to be a full satisfaction for all debts to the amount of its face, known as inflation. 3d. To substitute, at a rate fixed by law, one metal for another, and to give the creditor the option of paying his debts in either, known as bi-metalism. A monetary history of any country is mainly but a recount of the operations of money as a legal tender, for money left to natural laws has no history, no more than has the ceaseless flow of a river or the rise and fall of the tide. In the days of Abraham, with no legal-tender quality, money did its work silently and faithfully, unrestricted by legislation, and we know of its existence only incidentally. To the laws of this country that have intervened to check and misdirect its operations is due the history which this article will relate. Debasing the Coinage. — The early settlers of this country, coming from England, were accustomed to reckon values in pounds, shillings, and pence, and to use the shillings of that country as current money. These pieces have a history worthy to be related : William I, the Norman King, placed in the Tower a bar of silver ^ fine, containing y^ of an ounce troy more than the troy pound of 5760 grains, and declared it to be the standard, both of weights and 442 THE STORY OF AMERICA. values, for his newly acquired realm. As a standard of value, this Tower pound was divided into 240 parts, each part to be known as a penny, and for many years only pennies were coined ; but as trade increased, out of the pound were coined twenty pieces known as shillings, each necessarily containing twelve pence. As a standard of weight, the same pound was also divided into 240 parts, each part to be known as a pennyweight, being of the same weight as a penny ; but for some reason the relation of weight and value was then aban- doned, and the pound was divided into twelve parts, to be known as ounces, " each part, of course, containing twenty pennyweights. This ingenious and admirable combination of the two standards was not permitted to continue long, for Edward 111, finding his crown debts pressing, directed that twenty-two shillings be coined from a pound instead of twenty, and by making the new pieces a legal tender for the same purposes as those pre- viously issued he cheated his creditors out of two shillings on every pound of debt, as the new pieces had no value in the market except what their weight for bullion gave them. The successors of this monarch repeatedly worked this silent and sleek scheme for replenishing their depleted coffers at the expense of their debtors, until Queen Elizabeth by royal proclamation declared that out of the troy pound, which Henry VIII had substituted for the Tower pound, there should be coined sixty-two of these pieces. By this time the shilling contained only about one- third of its original amount of silver, and even the dunderheaded Englishmen began to see there was cheating somewhere around the board, and that royalty alone was winning the stakes. So a great clamor was raised, and since then no debasement of the full legal-tender coins has taken place in Merrie England. The colonists, who brought these pieces with them to this country, were doubtless familiar with this process of debasing coins and the gain that would come therefrom to the State, for as early as 1652 the Massachusetts Colony set up a mint and commenced the coinage of shilling pieces avowedly containing but ten pence worth of silver. The mint master, however, took fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings coined, and then the English Mint declared the silver in the coins was not of an even weight or fineness, and so the pieces circu- lated at twenty-five per cent, discount, though, being a legal tender at their face value, they were worth par in payment of debt. These shillings, however, became the standard by which values were reckoned from that time on, though but few were coined, and those were hoarded or shipped abroad, notwithstanding such shipment was forbidden by severe penalties, for there existed in the colonies a cheaper way of paying debts than that afforded even by debased coins. Clam shells, cattle, corn, and beaver had been made legal tender, and the principle laid down by Sir Thomas Gresham, of Queen Elizabeth's time, that no two <:urrencies of unequal value would circulate together — the poorer driving out DEBASED COINAGE. 443 the better — was the secret of the deportation of the coin. To protect the Treasury against the operations of this law, in 1658 it was ordered that taxes should not be paid in " lank cattle." Of clam shells, also, it was found that only the broken and lustreless ones remained in circulation — the poorer currency driving out the better, whether of cattle or of clam shells. At this opportune moment the Spanish pillar silver dollar, brought to this country mainly by buccaneers, began to circulate throughout the colonies, with its " pieces of eight," or reals. This dollar was a stranger in a strange land, and had nothing to recommend it to favor except that it bore the device of a nation whose commercial integrity had never been questioned. But the colonists reckoned _____ •JK^li-v-tsJtY-JV^ — -'-rj-f^' THE UNITED STATES MINT, NEW ORLEANS. in shillings and pence, and the relation in value between the strange piece and a shilling must necessarily be fixed in some way. The English Mint declared the piece contained four shillings and six pence of sterling silver, and this became the established rate in South Carolina, but the Massachusetts Colony declared it contained six shillings, and of the shillings of that colony this was about right. Virginia adopted the same rating. New York declared that the piece contained eight shillings, though that colony never had a shilling piece of any kind, and nowhere in the world was there one of that value. Pennsylvania, for no reason stated, said it contained seven shillings and six pence, while Maryland adopted the rating of New York. Thus in New England and Virginia the real became a "nine pence," in New York and Maryland a shilling, and in Pennsylvania it 444 THE STORY OF AMERICA. was called eleven pence, or "levy;" and by these names it was known for nearly two centuries. The dollar having taken the place of the pound in reckonings, to a certain extent, it was subdivided into shillings and pence for purposes of accounts, those being the lower denominations in use, and accordingly in Virginia and New England accounts were kept frequently in dollars and 72ds ; in New York and Maryland in dollars and 96ths ; in Pennsylvania in dollars and goths, as seen in the Treasury books of the Confederation, while in South Carolina they were kept in dollars and 54ths, for in every case a shilling still contained twelve pence, and these fractional divisions of the dollar represented the number of pence the several colonies alleged this piece contained. The accounts of Washington as he traveled from Mount Vernon to Boston, filed in the Treasury, show the changes rendered necessary in the reckonings as he passed through the several States, sometimes the local pound, sometimes the dollar, being the unit, but in the end the distinguished traveler reduced the cur- rencies to one standard and determined how much was due him in Spanish dollars and reals, a feat in computation for which the Father of his Country has never received due credit. Of course, these diverse valuations of the shilling gave to the pounds cor- responding variations in values, and as trade was mainly with the mother coun- try, exchanges were conducted with endless confusions in the reckonings. Had the colonists kept the pound sterling for their unit, used the English shillings and pence for their coins, as they were accustomed, all these complications would have been avoided. But contracts were out calling for shillings, and the finding of more shillings in a dollar by law than existed in fact defrauded the cred- itor to that extent of his just dues, the result if not the purpose of the legal- tender quality given these coins, whose existence even was to a certain extent fictitious. The use of silver as a circulating medium was, however, soon aban- doned for paper issues. Paper Money. — The Massachusetts Colony was the first to issue paper money. In 1690, to satisfy the claims of her soldiers who had been on an expe- dition to Canada and came back without booty, 7000 pounds were issued, but being made receivable in payment of taxes, did not suffer great depreciation, though according to Sumner the soldiers disposed of it at t,2i per cent, discount. Other limited issues followed in anticipation of taxes, but in 1 709, to pay for another expedition against Canada, 50,000 pounds were issued. Other colonies joined in the expedition and all issued paper to pay expenses. The issues were made a legal tender and the acceptance of the notes enforced from time to time by stringent enactments. Notwithstanding this, they continued to depreciate. Industries at first stimulated lagged, and a great demand arising for additional issues to make business brisk, the colonial governments or their chartered banks issued bills upon almost any pretext, — as in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, A DUAL STANDARD. 445 upon real estate mortgages, family silver, and other securities. In the latter State interest was made payable in flax and hemp, to encourage those industries, but very few of its loans were ever paid, and the titles to lands fell into inextric- able confusion. New loans were issued by the colonies with which to pay off the old ones, until the issues of the Massachusetts Colony were depreciated to II for I, at which rate the notes were redeemed. The notes of other colonies were also retired upon various scales until 1751, when Parliament prohibited, in most of the colonies, the further issue of legal-tender notes. The depreciated bills out of the way, silver returned, and even some gold appeared in circulation, also brought in by buccaneers. Bi-Mctalism. — The colonists tried a great many commodities for a standard of value, but only twice did they undertake to have two standards in circulation at once, their values to be kept equal by the force of law. Exploring parties of the Massachusetts Colony found on the shores of Long Island a partially civilized community of Indians. Some of them living along the shores were engaged in polishing the shell of the clam and of the periwinkle, which they traded off for ornaments at a pretty well established rate. The shells were called Peag, and they served every purpose of money among the simple natives. One black shell was about equal to two white ones, but in the absence of any law fixing a parity of value both shells circulated, each for what it was worth, the white at about six, the black about three for a penny. The colonists, however, made Peag a legal tender for twelve pence, and im- mediately their deterioration commenced — lusterless and half polished shells being as good as any in payment of debt. Again the law came to its rescue, and, in 1648, provided that only such Peag as was unbroken and of good color should pass as money. A little later it provided that Peag should be a legal tender for forty shillings, the white at eight, the black at six for a penny. Peag was now not only a legal tender in payment of debt in a modest way, but a fixed relation was established between the value of the white and the black shells. The law did all it could to extend the circulation of these shells, but Peag was perverse, and, just as great results were expected from it, it wholly disappeared from circulation, having become so utterly worthless nobody would accept it, doubtless somewhat to the surprise of the " Bi-Shellists," whose faith in the efficacy of a double standard seemed unbounded. The next colonial experiment of the kind was in 1762. The gold which followed in the channels of the depreciated paper, as above mentioned, circu- lated at its own value and was very useful, but it soon attracted the attention of the General Court of Massachusetts, and with the declared purpose to facilitate trade, this court, in that year, made gold a legal tender at two and a half pence silver per grain. At this rating gold was the cheaper metal for paying debts, and, in conformity with the Gresham law, silver promptly dis- 446 THE STORY OF AMERICA. appeared from circulation, leaving gold to circulate alone. The colonists were surprised at the result and were at a loss to know what caused it, but silver would not return to associate with gold on the terms fixed by law, and the colonists had to get along as best they could for a few years, when the necessi- ties of war brought about other forms of currency. In September, 1774, the first Congress of the colonies assembled in Philadelphia with a view to obtain a redress of grievances, not a separation from the mother country. It was composed of delegates from every colony, and had no clearly defined powers. The conflict at Lexington, in April, 1775, while this Congress was holding its second session, dispelled all hopes of a pacific settlement of the difficulties, and preparations for war were promptly begun. To meet expenses money was necessary, but this body had no power to levy a tax. The members, however, were accustomed to the issue of bills as a substitute for money, and to such issue they naturally turned. On the loth of May, 1775, an act was passed authorizing the issue of $3,000,000 on the faith of the "Continent," by which the bills became known as Continental money. They were in form as follows : — CONTINENTAL CURRENCY. No Dollars. This bill entitles the bearer to receive Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to the resolutions of the Congress held at Philadelphia, on the loth day of May, A. D. 1775. Nothing appears on the face of the bill as to its redemption, but the law imposed upon the several colonies the duty to redeem the issue within three years, at a stated amount for each, based upon its population. This was probably as far as this Congress had power to go, but the several colonies, instead of levying a ta.x to meet the redemption of the notes, set up their own printing presses and entered into competition with each other and Congress in the issue of additional notes of their own. Within a year Congress, having issued $9,000,000 of its notes, and their value depreciating, took prompt and harsh measures to force their circulation and maintain their value, imposing severe penalties upon any one refusing to accept them at par in exchange for commodities. In 1777 the colonies, at the urgent request of Congress, stopped their issues, but not until they had put into circulation about $210,000,000. The exact amount was never known, the issue having been so hurried that no count of it was made. How far they ever went in contracting or redeeming their issues it is impossible to discover. Of the Continental issues the limit of $200,000,000 was reached in 1779, of which $65,500,000 were issued the year CONTINENTAL CURRENCY. 447 previous. This was the good-sized straw which broke the back of the patient camel. The next year the notes were worth only two cents on the dollar, practically disappearing from circulation. In Philadelphia they were then used for wall paper, and a dog covered with tar, stuck full of the bills, was chased through the streets amid the jeers of the crowd. The utter lack of value in these notes gave rise to the expression, " Not worth a Continental." THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE, For the ruinous policy pursued, the local colonial governments alone were re- sponsible. To meet the expenses of the war they would neither levy a tax themselves nor authorize their Congress to do so. That in the end the bills were repudiated does not signify that the war to that extent cost the 448 THE STORY OF AMERICA. colonies nothing. The amount of the depreciation was only a form ot a tax paid by every one in proportion to the amount of money he held and the time he held it, thus imposing upon the officers and soldiers who fought the battles, and upon their families, the patriotic and the helpless, the main cost of the war, leaving to the Tories, and those who stayed at home, comparative exemption from its burdens. But the forced issue of such legal-tender bills worked more than pecuniary hardship. Says a prominent writer of the period : " We have suffered more from this cause (paper money) than from any other cause or calamity. It has killed more men, pervaded and corrupted the choicest interests of our country more, and done more injustice than even the arms and artifices of our enemy." This paper being out of the way, specie flowed in to take its place, and there was soon no stringency in the circulation. But the itching for paper money was not cured, and in 1781 the Bank of North America was chartered in Philadelphia, with authority to issue notes with which to purchase rations for the army. The notes were redeemable at sight in the Spanish dollars, and though their redemption was maintained, the people were cautious and slow in taking them. In Rhode Island 100,000 pounds legal tenders were issued on land mortgages. The notes immediately depreciated, endless litigation ensued, and in October, 1789, the depreciation was fixed by law at eighteen for one, but at that rate the debtors were allowed to pay in produce. This ended paper money schemes under the Confederation. Initiatory steps were meanwhile taken toward the establishment of a Mint, that the country might have a distinctive coinage of its own. In 1785 Congress adopted the Spanish dollar as the unit of value, a function it was then performing in many cases by common consent, and the following year declared that it contained of pure silver 375.64 grains. The decimal system was also required in accounts. At the same time the coinage of a ten dollar gold piece, containing 246.268 grains, was authorized — making in law one of weight in gold equal in value to 15.253 of silver, while in the market the ratio was one to 14.89. Why silver should thus have been undervalued when its use was so generally popular and universal does not appear, but the adoption of the Constitution prevented further steps from being taken under this law. Bi-Metalism. — The new Constitution was adopted March 4, 1789. One of its provisions gave Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value. Alexander Hamilton was called to the Treasury, and to him Congress referred the subject for investigation and report. In response he urged that both silver and gold be coined for depositors in unlimited amounts, one pound in weight in gold to be equal to fifteen pounds in silver for coins. He urged a dollar for the unit to contain either ^71% grains of pure silver or 24^ grains of pure gold, the introduction of the decimal system in accounts, and the coinage of halves, BI-METALISM. 449 quarters, and dimes in silver of proportionate weight. Hamilton believed, or at least hoped, that with the relation established both metals would circulate together, though he admitted that if the relation should not prove to be the market one, only the cheaper metal would remain in circulation. Jefferson believed the ratio of one to fifteen to be the proper one, and urged its adoption. The recommendations of Hamilton were soon incorporated into a law, a Mint was established, and coins struck as contemplated. In the market one of gold proved worth nearer 151^ of silver, and, following Gresham's law, only silver coins remained in circulation. Gold coins were hoarded or shipped abroad. But the new silver dollars soon met with competition. The clipped and worn Spanish pieces, having been made a legal tender, entered into circulation and in turn drove out the new silver coins, so that all the output of the Mint was mainly for exportation. To prevent the shipment of silver the Mint gave preference to coining fractional pieces, thus exhausting its capacity upon as little silver in value as possible. In 1805 only 321 dollar pieces were coined, and on May i, 1806, President Jefferson, through James Madison, Secretary of State, sent an order to Robert Patterson, Director of the Mint, "That all the silver to be coined at the Mint shall be of small denomination, so that the value of the largest pieces shall not exceed one-half dollar." The coinage thus entirely suspended was not resumed for thirty years. As a result the country had only bank issues and the light-weight foreign coins, and could not understand why it had to put up with such a poor currency. The Mints were open for the coinage of gold and for the fractional silver, and a large number of pieces were being struck, but none of them found their way into circulation. The Democratic party, headed by Mr. Benton, then a Senator from Missouri, determined to increase the ratio between the two metals with the hope of retaining gold. So an act was passed in 1834 reducing the weight of the gold coins about seven percent. The gold dollar now contained 23.22 grains, making the ratio between the two metals about one to sixteen. It now turned out that silver was the undervalued metal, and even had there been no cheaper foreign coins in existence, it would have fled the country, leaving the gold alone for circulation. But the light-weight foreign coins and depreciated bank-bills circulated freely, and little was seen of either silver or gold coins of this country. The Real pieces became so worn that in every transaction a dispute arose as to whether the pillars could be seen, until somebody scratched an X on the piece, when it passed as a dime, and was over-valued at that. To correct this evil, in 1853 Congress directed a reduction in the weight of the fractional silver pieces, forbade the Mint to coin them for depositors, and directed their 29 450 THE STORY OF AMERICA. coinage to be made only on Government account, and to be issued ^t their face value only in exchange for gold coins or silver dollars. In 1857 the Spanish and Mexican dollars and the Real pieces were authorized to be redeemed at the Mint at a little above their bullion value, — they no longer to be legal tender These latter pieces immediately disappeared, and the bright, new dimes, quarters, and halves, fresh from the Mint, took their places. The bank issues being now well under control, gold coin also began to circulate. Gold pieces for larger transactions, silver pieces for smaller ones, made a very satisfactory currency. The Government received and paid out no other money on public account until 1862, when coin was again largely forced out of circulation by the legal-tender greenbacks. The opening up of new silver mines in the West, however, brought considerable silver to the Mints for coinage into dollars, but not for circulation, — the bullion in a dollar being worth about $1.05, — but for exportation at its bullion value. About this time a revision of the mint laws was made by officials of the Treasury Department, and a bill prepared at the Treasury, after several years of delay, passed Congress and received the approval of the President, February 12, 1873. To aid the producers of silver bullion in finding a market for their product, authority was given to the mint for the manufacture of silver disks or bars, to bear the stamp of the government as a guaranty of their weight and fineness, the depositor to pay the expense of their manufacture ; and the coinacre of the former silver dollars was no longfer authorized. Under this authority coins were manufactured, known as trade dollars, each one seven and one-half grains greater in weight than the other silver dollars. The scheme proved a success, and a large number were manufactured and sent abroad. In China they were used as a circulating medium, creating a special market in which there was little or no competition. Germany, however, having determined to adopt the gold standard, redeemed its enormous issues of silver pieces, melted them down, and thus brought into the market, at once, over 7,000,000 pounds of silver. Large discoveries of the metal were also made in Nevada, and silver became greatly depreciated in the markets of the world. Had not the coinage of the silver dollars been prohibited by the Act of 1873, the silver dollar would again, under the Gresham law, have taken its place as the unit in our currency, driving gold from circulation, and, regardless of its depreciation, would have been a legal tender for even pre- existing contracts. An outcry therefore arose, that in the prohibition of the silver dollar the debtor class had been greatly wronged, although very few of that class, or of any other, had ever seen or expected to see a silver dollar in circulation. Upon the assembling of Congress in 1877, a determined effort was made to restore the silver dollar to free circulation, and a bill to that effect, known as PAPER MONEY. 451 the Bland bill, passed the House, but was so changed in the Senate that the Treasury was authorized to purchase not less than ^2,000,000 nor more than ^4,000,000 worth of silver bullion monthly, at the best rate obtainable, and to coin it into dollars for which certificates might be issued, the dollars to remain in the Treasury untouched to meet their redemption upon presentation ; and thus amended the bill became a law, February 28, 1878. The provisions of this act, however, did not prove satisfactory, and in 1890 another concession was made to the advocates of the unlimited coinage of the silver dollar by authoriz- ing the Government to purchase, at the best rates obtainable, 4,500,000 ounces of silver every month and to issue silver certificates thereon for the amount of the purchase, the metal to be coined into silver dollars only as needed for the redemption of the certificates issued. Under these two acts there have been issued about $400,000,000 of silver dollars, of which about $60,000,000 are in circulation, the remainder are in the Treasury, held to meet the certificates which have been issued thereon, and purchases of bullion are being made every month as required. The price of silver bullion has, however, constantly depreciated until the metal in a silver dollar can be purchased in the market for 70 cents in gold, and the prospect of a parity of value between the two metals, at the present ratio of I to 16, seems as far off as ever. The enforced purchase of such an enormous amount of silver every month, and the issue of certificates thereon for circulation, must cease some day. The amount of money needed for circulation must be left to the necessity of business, not to an act of Congress. Until that time monetary questions, in one form or another, will continue to ve.x the halls of legislation and to needlessly disturb the prosperity of the country. Paper Money. — The Constitution of 1 789 provided that no State should emit bills of credit, make anything legal tender but gold and silver, or change the terms of a pre-existing contract. Consequently, the power to issue paper money, if existing anywhere in the country, was lodged in the general government. As a result, in 1790, Hamilton recommended to Congress the establish- ment of a National Bank, with authority to issue $10,000,000 of bills legally receivable in payment of public dues, and an act for that purpose was promptly approved, but not without grave doubts of the power of the govern- ment to grant such a charter. The bank, gaining public confidence, its notes circulated at par and were accepted as readily in private transactions as though made a legal tender for that purpose. The States, stripped of their power to emit bills directly, also resorted to issues of banks organized under their charters. These bills were alwavs redeemable at sight by the bank issuing them. Not being a legal tender, 452 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the notes had only a commercial value, but a bank in good standing was enabled to keep more or less of them in circulation in its immediate vicinity, and usually maintaining but small reserve, reaped much profit from this use of its credit. Away from their home, however, the bills were subjected to varying rates of discount, sometimes as high as fifty per cent., and specula- tion in them kept business feverish and unsettled. The temptation to profit by such issues led to endless schemes to impose upon the public worthless bills, and these issues became known, in time, as wild-cat currency. In 1809 a crash came, and none too soon, for even in New England, where such issues were best guarded, one bank had out more than ^500,000 in bills with only $84 in specie to meet their redemption, and others were about as weak. Great loss ensued from the panic, and more rigorous restrictive legislation for future issues was enacted, at least in that section. The issues of the National Bank were kept at par, but its charter expiring in 181 1, the bank was unable to obtain a renewal; the influence of the bank in restricting the depreciated issues of the state banks had been too salutary to suit the demands of those who wanted money plenty, regardless of its value. The National Bank out of the way, the mania for bank issues began to develop in the Middle and Western States. In 18 14 all the banks outside of New England suspended paying specie for bills. No excuse for the suspension is apparent, except the war then going on with England. With the return of peace, however, came additional issues of bank paper, and for a while apparent prosperity prevailed. The unequal value of the notes in different sections of the country some- what embarrassed exchanges, but it was thought that in time, when the people were accustomed to such conditions, the difficulties would vanish. In 1814 Pennsyl- vania chartered 41 banks, and in the year following, Kentucky 40 more, their capital aggregating $27,000,000 with little or no restriction as to the issue of notes. This period was considered by many as the golden age of the West, but most of the banks failed within a year or two, and their enormous issues 'became worthless. In 1818 twenty thousand persons in Philadelphia were begging employment. Business was. at a stand-still and property was unsalable at any price. The National Bank, which had obtained a renewal of its charter in 1 816, for twenty years, suspended specie payments with other banks. The depreciated issues drove all the coin from the West into New England, which, having a comparatively stable standard and circulation, soon absorbed pretty much all the trade of the country, for even clipped and light-weight foreign coins, were infinitely preferable to such bank issues. But the demand for. bank issues was renewed throughout the country, and again there could be but' one result. In 1837 another crash came. Even the New York and WILD-CAT CURRENCY. 453 Massachusetts country banks, comparatively conservative, were issuing notes at the rate of twenty-five to After this explosion came of President Jackson, by ury thereafter received of public dues Fortu- have been for the welfare public Treasury and every from the outset treated issues in the same way, upon specie alone for circulation of which there was at all times enough for one of specie reserve. the famous specie order which the public Treas- only specie in payment nate indeed would it of the country if the individual had all the bank X^- MV!\ ^"'^ depended the purpose or the deficiency could have been promptly sup- A RAID ON A BANK. pli^d by the Mint, which was coining silver for exportation. Bank notes, generally at par, continued to furnish the circulation of the country, however, till the outbreak of the Rebellion, with only a brief disturbance 454 THE STORY OF AMERICA. in 1857, but it must be remembered they were at par only in the vicinity of their issue. In 1 86 1 Congress met in special session to find the Capitol a military camp. An army had been called to the field to suppress the uprising of the South, threatening the very existence of the Government. To meet pressing needs the Treasury was authorized to issue ^60,000,000 of notes payable on demand and receivable for public dues. They circulated at par but were looked upon with suspicion. However, they tided over the financial difficulties of the summer, but upon the assembling of Congress in regular session, in the December following, it was evident that measures more efficient must be taken to meet the rapidly increasing expenses of the Government. A bill was, therefore, pre- sented in the House authorizing the issue of % 1 50,000,000 of notes for circulation, to be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, except for customs dues and interest on public debt. The measure was received with consternation and alarm even by the best friends of the new Republican administration, but it became a law February 25, 1862, notwithstanding the opposition of such Republicans as Justin S. Morrill, Roscoe Conkling and William Pitt Fessenden, and of the entire Democratic party. The notes became known as legal tenders or greenbacks. No time for their redemption was fixed, but they were convertible at par into six per cent, gold-bearing interest bonds, authorized by the same act. Before their issue the banks had suspended pay- ment of specie for notes and the new bills soon became the standard of values as well as the unit of accounts. The courts held their issue constitutional and their tender sufficient for the payment of even a pre-existing obligation calling for dollars, though only specie dollars existed when the contract was made. Their convertibility into bonds, as stated, checked somewhat their immediate depreciation, but new issues followed, and when in 1863 the right to convert them into interest-bearing bonds ceased, the notes were worth in coin only sixty-five. Their limit of issue was fixed at $450,000,000 ; that of fractional pieces convertible into legal tenders at $50,000,000. Another new form of paper issues was also authorized. In 1863 an act was passed by the central government, supplemented by another act in 1864, under which banks might be organized, and upon furnishing the Treasurer of the United States with bonds of the Government to a limited extent they would be entitled to receive therefor circulating notes equal in amount to ninety per cent, of the bonds furnished. A tax of ten per cent, per annum was subse- quently imposed upon the issues of the State banks, to take effect July i, 1865, avowedly for the purpose of driving them from circulation. These notes were receivable for government dues to the same e.xtent as the legal tenders, into which they were convertible at par. Consequently these two classes of notes maintained a uniformity of value, though much below that LEGAL-TENDER GREENBACKS. 455 of specie, and fluctuating daily in comparison with that standard, destroyed all stability in values, stimulating speculation, not only in gold itself, but in stocks, cotton, grain, and other farm products, until the machinery of exchange was little better than a wheel of fortune. Certain interest-bearing obligations of the Government were also made legal tender, and their use as a bank reserve liberated to that extent an equal amount of the legal tenders for circulation, thus further inflating the already excessive issues. In 1865, at the close of the rebellion, there were outstanding, of all paper issues, $983,000,000, having a coin value of ;^692,ooo,ooo, gold being worth in paper about 141. At the instance of Hon. Hugh McCulloch, then Secretary of the Treasury, Congress, in April, 1866, authorized the retirement of $10,000,- 000 of legal tenders within six months, and thereafter not more than $4,000,000 per month. By force of taxation the State issues disappeared, and the interest- bearing obligations as they matured were converted into long-time bonds. These steps tended to reduce the volume of paper circulation, notwith- standing the increase of national bank issues, but on June 30, 1866, gold was quoted at 150. The aggregate circulation, however, continued to gradually diminish in amount, and in March, 1869, the question having arisen as to the currency in which the bonds and notes were payable, the faith of the Nation was pledged to pay all interest-bearing obligations in coin, unless by the terms of their issue it had been expressly provided that they might be paid in lawful money, and also that at the earliest practicable date the legal tender notes should be paid in coin. Still, on June 30, 1869, there was outstanding of paper issues $756,000,000, the authority for further retirement of the legal tenders having been suspended in 1868, leaving these notes in circulation, $356,000,000. Gold was then quoted at 137. In the fall of 1874 a stringency in the money market, caused by the financial panic of the previous year, led to the reissue of these notes to $383,000,000, which amount was fixed by law as their limit. To Congress the country now turned for relief from the long unsettled value of its currency. An act, therefore, prepared by a caucus of Republican Senators, of which Hon. John Sherman was Chairman, passed both Houses as a strictly party measure, and was approved January 14, 1875. It provided for the coinage of fractional silver coins and the redemption therein of the fractional notes, for the unlimited circulation of National Bank notes, and for the retirement of legal tenders to the extent of eighty per cent, of any such increase, until only $300,000,000 should remain in circulation, and for the redemption of the notes in coin at the Sub-Treasury in New York, on and after January i, 1879. To carry into effect these provisions, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to use any available cash in the Treasury and to issue at par any of 456 THE STORY OF AMERICA. the bonds authorized by the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, and to apply the proceeds to the purpose of such redemption. For several years the expediency of retaining these notes as part of the permanent circulation of the country had been much discussed, and upon the question as to their disposition after redemption no unanimity of views vv'as reached in the caucus framing the measure, so the matter was purposely left open for future legislation. In March, 1877, Mr. Sherman, to whom had been intrusted the explanation and advocacy of the bill in the Senate, was called to the Treasury. He found the fractional notes had been largely redeemed in silver, and that the retirement of the legal tenders consequent upon the increase of the bank circulation was in satisfactory progress, but that no coin had been accumulated with which to redeem the notes on January i, 1879. Gold was quoted at 106. Through an arrangement with certain bankers who were then purchasing the Government bonds for refunding, the Secretary promptly sold for resumption ^15,000,000 of four and one-half per cent, bonds at par, and later in the sum- mer ^25,000,000 additional of four per cents, at par, the first issue of bonds since the war bearing so low a rate of interest. But a series of adverse circumstances operated against additional sales of these bonds, and all further steps toward secur- ing a fund for resumption were suspended. Gold was now at 103. The continual advance in the value of the money standard had embarrassed to a certain extent the debtor class, and an outcry against a further enhancement of its value was very pronounced. Upon the assembling of Congress in December, thirteen bills were introduced the first day for the repeal of the resumption act, and one of them passed the House and lacked but two votes of passing the Senate. In every direction the outlook was discouraging for the friends of the measure, but the Secretary' announced to Congress and the country that unless the law was repealed he should certainly comply with its provisions and redeem the notes as required by law, on and after January i, 1879. The law was not repealed, but an act was passed forbidding the retirement of the notes beyond the existing amount, $346,681,016, and requiring their reissue after redemption, thus settling a much debated policy. In April, 1878, the Secretary went to New York and sold $50,000,000 of four and one-half per cents, at loi net, thus securing in all $90,500,000 in gold coin for redemption. With this, and an estimated amount of about $40,000,000 surplus cash in the Treasury, he believed he could easily redeem all the notes presented for that purpose. Notwithstanding the ample preparations, the premium on gold did not disappear until December 15th. The ist day of January was Sunday, and no business was transacted. On the following day no little anxiety was felt at the Treasury, but in the evening came a dispatch showing more gold for notes than notes for gold had been presented. The THE CURRENCY OF THE FUTURE. 457 crisis had passed and resumption was accomplished. An era of enterprise and prosperity set in, unparalleled in modern history. Within the next ten years following the taxable wealth of the country increased about ^780,000,000, an amount considerably greater than the total of such wealth in 1850, as shown by the returns of the Seventh Census. The issue limit of these notes still remains unchanged, the redeemability of them in coin unquestioned, and the resumption fund untouched. Meanwhile the issues of the national banks have been greatly reduced, the high price of the collateral bonds rendering their continuance unprofitable to the banks. The experiment of maintaining at par an issue of Government notes, based upon a reasonable reserve in specie and further secured by a pledge of the faith of the Nation, has proved a success in furnishing a part of the currency of the country. The plan will likely attract attention throughout the civilized world, for the circulation of no country is upon an entirely satisfactory basis. At present a no more economical or satisfactory form of currency exists than these notes of the United States. Deprived of their legal-tender quality when not redeemable at par with coin, as are the bank notes of England, which quality alone can ever make them harmful, but which may prove useful as long as their redeemability is maintained, the notes which have already survived the exigencies that brought them into existence may prove the money of the future. HON. JOHN SHERMAN ON THE CURRENCY OF THE FUTURE. The above article was prepared by Mr. Upton upon the recommendation of Senator John Sherman, whose hand has shaped the financial legisladon of the country for the last quarter of a century, and upon its being submitted to him he stated that he found it very interesting and deserving of wide circulation, as no other measure before Congress could compare with that of the currency in its effects upon the business interests of the country ; that it affected every man, woman, and child in our broad land, the rich with his investments, the poor with his labor. At the same time he made the following statement of his views as to the future currency of the country. The employment of either silver or gold for general purposes of circu- lation is growing relatively less every year, in all civilized nations. The use of checks in transferring credits from one party to another, the employment of clearing-houses in commercial centres to offset the checks against each other, to save the labor and risk of individual collections, and lastly, the employment of paper notes payable on demand in specie, in lieu of actual 458 THE STORY OF AMERICA. specie itself, are modern inventions for facilitating exchanges, and they are the greatest labor-saving machines ever brought to human aid. Their use is not yet fully understood or appreciated, but they are rapidly revolutionizing all methods of exchanges, and this country cannot refuse to recognize their superiority over the clumsy machinery of the last century. The expansion of the use of checks and clearing-houses may be left to the education which our rapidly increasing commerce affords. As to the issue of paper notes, it is generally admitted that the metals should be supplemented by some kind of credit money, to avoid absorbing too much of the actual wealth of the country in the machinery of circulation, and the question arises, under what authority, in what manner, and to what extent these issues shall be made. The commerce between the several States is of enormous and unrestricted amount, and demands the issue to be uniform in value throughout the country. The policy of removing the tax upon the issue of State banks, and allowing variegated bills of that character, at best never at par, except in the immediate vicinity of their issue, to again flood the country, meets with little favor in any section. There is, also, a general feeling that when the option on the four per cent, bonds expires, the Government should not issue in their place bonds of a lower rate on which national banks may continue their circulation. If there is any gain in issuing notes, there is a demand, not without justice, that it should be shared in by all the citizens of the Republic, not exclusively by the holders of State or National bank stocks. To purchase gold or silver bullion and to issue certificates thereon, dollar for dollar, would not obviate the great objection to a large part of the present circulation, viz.: the useless storing away of too much of the wealth of the country in the vaults of the Treasury, a policy, however safe it may be, which is expensive, as taking out of productive enterprises a needless amount of capital. The employment of the greenback currency as part of the paper currency since 1879, based upon about thirty per cent, of gold coin or bullion, and the pledge of the faith of the nation to its maintenance at par, has proved satisfactory and economical. By its issue the Government has had the use of ^246,000,000, the excess of the issue over the reserve, for thirteen years, with no charge except the insignificant appropriation for the manufacture of new notes to take the place of those worn or mutilated. Had the greenbacks been converted at that time into four per cent, bonds and other forms of currency substituted as demanded by many high in authority, the Government would already have paid on such bonds to date about $125,000,000 in interest. At present there is outstanding of silver certificates. Treasury notes, gold certificates, and national bank notes ^^770, 000,000, and the query arises, why cannot the issue of the green- backs be gradually extended so as to take the place of these issues, a reserve A UNIFORM MEDIUM. 459 in specie to be maintained equal to ^ of the entire paper circulation, and the faith of the nation to be pledged to keep the notes at par by the sale of bonds, the proceeds to be applied to such maintenance whenever necessary. For thirteen years greenbacks have maintained a specie value, nobody desiring coin for the notes as soon as it was known it could be had upon demand, and there is no reason to suppose that a parity of value cannot be maintained for all the paper circulation, though sustained in part only by the pledged faith of the nation. The amount of circulation needed can be determined only by the necessities of business, but with the privileges of redemption at sight an over issue of paper would not long remain. The metallic reserve might with safety consist of one-half of gold and one-half of silver, the latter at its market value, and the notes be redeemed either in gold or its equivalent in silver, under such regulations as may be deemed necessary to keep them at par and to give no advantage to either metal. Any loss the Government might sustain therefrom by a depreciation in the value of either metal would probably be made more than good from the profit in issuing the remaining one-third part of the notes upon the credit of the country as represented by bonds, of which the Secretary should have unquestioned power to sell a sufficient amount at his discretion. A circulation issued by the General Government and thus secured would be uniform in value throughout the country ; its notes, alike in design, would soon become well known and much preferred to the many kinds now in circulation, of which each has a different appearance, a different basis of redemption, and of debt-paying power. Such a policy is nothing new. It is only the extension of one already tried and which has proved successful, and which can be easily expanded to afford all the circulation which the rapidly growing needs of the country may require. -Wsm HKNRY W. LONGFELLOW. 460 CHAPTER XXV. HO\A,^ WE GOVERN OURSELVES- BY MISS ANNA L. DAWES, Author of Life of Sumner, etc. X HE Government of the United States is unique in three respects : *'^v It is the largest and most successful democracy that has ever existed, it is a federal system, and it has a written Constitu- tion. Perhaps it may be called unique in its methods also, for no other government is made up of three separate and yet equal branches, each in some sense the Government, but all neces- sary to any complete action of the nation ; and still again those departments, the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary, have each their own peculiar and distinctive features. Legislation is representative and not democratic. The Executive has not only the duty of executing the laws, but a power of veto over them, and the Supreme Court stands alone in all the world in its place and importance. The Government of the United States, in the expressive phrase of Abraham Lincoln, is "A government by the people, of the people, and for the people." It is this which is the great glory of our nation, and it must not be forgotten in comparing it with others. It is often claimed that England is more democratic in fact, Germany more attentive to the needs of the people ; but these advan- tages ignore the great fundamental distinction of this republic, the fact that all power is derived from the people. Briton and Germany alike hold that power comes from the throne and its reserved rights remain with the throne. But every American believes that power comes from the people, the Executive is in some sense an agent, and the reserved rights remain with the people. The difference is not only fundamental, but there result from it doctrines and relations which run through all our system and our methods as well. No amount of super- ficial flexibility, as in England, or of temporary advantage, as in Germany, can at all compensate for this great and far-reaching distinction, this confidence in and dependence upon the people. Again, we have two kinds of law — that made by Congress as the needs of the time require, law which may be altered according to 461 462 THE STORY OF AMERICA. occasion, and the great permanent Constitution, which only the people and the States acting together can alter, and that after long and careful process, and to which all other law must conform. This Constitution is truly enough the bulwark of our liberties ; no sudden whims or changing passions can deprive us of the fundamental rights guaranteed by it ; the storm of battle has proved it strong enough to stand against all assaults, and the stress of unequaled growth has shown it broad enough for all demands. It seems, indeed, as if a superhuman wisdom was given to the forefathers. Molded by Hamilton, and Franklin, and the Adamses, and Madison, and Ellsworth, and many another great man, it drew its inspiration from French philosophers and Dutch methods, and the mingled love and hate for English practice. The government of a little Baptist church in Pennsylvania, and the Connecticut town-meeting, and the conflicting interests of different sections, and many other elements entered in to make this great instrument what it is. Under it we have lived for one hundred years, and have stretched our boundaries from one ocean to the other, from the frozen seas of the Arctic Circle to the tropical waters of the Gulf We have endured three wars, and are grown so strong that the great governments of Europe hesitate to encounter us, and sit by our side in equal honor ; we have be- come sixty million people, and our riches are matched with imperial treasuries, but our doors are ever open to the laborer and we give him all opportunity, until he shall stand at the top if it pleases him. Side by side the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the chief among us and the least of all, hold the great gift of governing, and we count them each a man ; and the whole great and glorious structure rests on the firm and enduring rock of the Constitution. The Government is carried on, according to the terms of this Constitution and under its provisions, by three great branches : Congress, which makes the laws ; the Judiciary, which interprets these laws and decides whether they agree with the Constitution ; and the Executive, which carries them out. And since this is a government of the people. Congress, which represents the people and expresses their will, is the centre around which the whole government turns. Congress is composed of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is elected every two years, and each member of it represents somewhat more than 150,000 people. Each State sends as many Congressmen as are necessary to represent its whole population, being divided into districts containing each a population of 150,000, from among which the members of Congress are chosen. The requirement that the representadve shall live within the State is an important distincdon between our system and that of England. An English district or borough may elect a member of Parliament from any part of the nation, and thus it is believed the House of Commons will be composed of the best men in the country ; but it is our purpose to have every part of the country represented, and, therefore, HOW CONGRESS IS COMPOSED. 4t>3 by an unwritten law, never disregarded, we require that each Congressman shall reside in the district which chooses him. Thus, so far as possible, every man in the country is represented. It must always be remembered, however, that the government of the United States is not a pure democracy, but a republic. It is first and foremost a represe7itative government. In every possible way endeavor is made that each man shall be represented, but he must act through a representative. The short term of service insures that these representatives shall reflect the changing will of the people, and furnishes a remedy for all unjust or foolish action. He shows an entire ignorance of our system who complains of the tyranny of government in the United States. The House of Representatives is its chief governing power, and, remade as it is by the people themselves once in two years, it is constantly controlled by the will of the people. , This very fact, the fact that the House of Representatives can be altered so readily, and always will reflect every passing change of public sentiment, made it necessary and highly desirable to add some more permanent element to Congress. For this, among other reasons, a Senate was created. Senators are elected once in six years, and represent the people of a whole State. Thus, because he is more permanent, and because he is chosen by a larger constituency, a senator represents the more stable elements of political thought, not so much the passing feeling of the moment, but the deep underlying opinions and wishes of a large number of people. Moreover, as the Senate is so arranged that only one senator from a State is elected at a time, and only one-third of the senators go out of office on any given year, it becomes in some sense a stable body, and acts as a check upon the excitements and lack of wisdom natural to such a body as the House. Still another reason, and that of great importance, marks the value of the Senate to the people. It is, in fact, more necessary to the preservation of our system than the House itself The senators represent the States directly, and each State has two senators, no more and no less. This places each State on an equal footing with every other, a result obviously an important element in our political system, and of the greatest practical importance to our liberties. By reason of this provision in our Constitution, Delaware or Rhode Island are of equal power in the Senate with Texas or New York, furnishing a check upon the unregulated control of any one section. If the Senate, like the House, JAMES G. BLAINE, E.\-SECRETARY OF STATE. 464 THE STORY OF AMERICA. represented the population and not the States, shortly enough Congress would be controlled by the great cities, or, perhaps, by the great States. The tyranny of New York or Chicago would be replaced by the tyranny of California or Texas. The immense mass of their people would always control the country, and we should be at the mercy of a practical monarchy. The equal power of the small States in the Senate goes far to prevent this result and to preserve the rule of the whole people, an actual as well as a nominal democracy. The Senate is altogether necessary to the coufitry, and he is a false friend who would persuade the country to undermine it or destroy its relations to the States by making it a popular body. So thoroughly was this understood by the men who made the Constitution that a unique provision was inserted forbid- ding any amendment which should deprive the States of their equal representa- tion in the Senate without their own consent, practically a prohibition of such an amendment. Congress has power to raise funds for our necessities by taxes, to borrow money, if necessary, to establish postal facilities, to coin or print our money, to regulate our foreign affairs, to make war, to control many other matters, and to make all the laws relative to these concerns. It requires both houses of Congress to pass the laws that govern us. A bill originates in the House or the Senate, according to its nature, is debated and passed by that body, sent to the other, debated and passed by that, and then sent to the President, who signs it, and thereby it becomes a law. If any of these conditions fail it falls to the ground. Either branch can refuse to pass a measure, and the President may refuse to sign, or veto it. But in this latter case, since the will of the people is the supreme power, the vetoed bill may be passed again, over the head of the President, as the phrase goes, if two-thirds of each house of Congress can be thereafter induced to vote for it. All bills for fur- nishing money must originate in the House of Representatives, that the people, by controlling the purse strings, may still more thoroughly control the Government. The Senate, on the other hand, has the power to consider and pass upon our treaties, and has also the duty of confirming or refusing all appointments of any importance. The officers of the House of Representatives are a Speaker, elected from among its members, who presides over its deliberations, a Clerk, a Sergeant-at- Arms, a Doorkeeper, and several smaller officers necessary to carry on its business. The Senate is presided over by the Vice-President of the United States, and in his absence by one of the senators, chosen by themselves for that duty, and known as the President pro tempore. This body has also a Clerk and Sergeantat-Arms and minor officials. The business of Congress is largely done by its committees, which consider all important subjects before they are brought to the attention of either house. These committees are appointed by DUTIES OF THE CONGRESS. 465 the Speaker in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate are selected by a committee of the senators. Each Congress lasts for two years, although not in session all of the time. Congress meets in the Capitol at Washington on the first Monday in December of every year. The first year the session lasts until both houses can agree to adjourn, thus giving time for free and ample discus- sion of every subject. These "long sessions" usually continue until July or August, and sometimes until October. On the alternate years Congress is directed by the Constitution to adjourn on the fourth day of March, thus pre- SENATE CHAMBER. venting the attempt to make any one Congress permanent. All Congressmen are paid a salary, in order that poor men may have an equal chance with the rich. This salary is ^5000 for both senators and representatives, except in the case of the Speaker and President of the Senate, who each of them receive $8000. No religious tests are allowed, and any man may belong to either house who is a citizen of the United States, who resides in the State which elects him, and who is of suitable age, twenty-five years in the House and thirty years in the Senate. When the laws are made they must be carried out ; and this is the busi- 3° 466 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ness of the Executive department of the Government, a co-equal branch with the Legislative department. The President is the chief executive officer of the nation, and as such is properly the chief personage and principal officer in the land. It is no mistake to style him the " chief ruler" of the United States, for, although the people are our only rulers, they do this ruling through and by means of the President and Congress, and thus depute him to rule over them for the time being. The President is only in a limited sense the agent of the people, but he is their chosen, although temporary, ruler, who is to carr)' out their laws. The President and Vice-President are chosen once in four years and elected HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. by the people, who vote by States and not directly as a nation. The citizens of each State vote for a body of men called electors, equal in number to their Congressmen, who in turn choose the President a few weeks later. As a matter of fact, their choice is always known beforehand, as they are elected on the dis- tinct understanding of their preference. Although the method is somewhat clumsy, the principle is most necessary. In all our affairs, so far as possible, we must continue to act by States. It is only thus that our federal system can be preserved, and in that lies our safety and success. The qualifications for President are that he shall be a native-born Ameri- can, who has resided in the country for fourteen years, and who is thirty-five DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 467 years old. He is inaugurated with much pomp and ceremony on the fourth of March, every four years, and resides at the Executive Mansion, or White House, in Washington, during his term of office. He is paid a salary of $50,000, that he may keep up a suitable state and dignity as our chief ruler. If he is guilty of treason, or other "high crimes and misdemeanors," of such importance that his continuance in office is dangerous to our liberties, he may be impeached by the House of Representatives, tried by the Senate, and, if found guilty, deposed, in which case his office would fall to the Vice-President. An effort was made to impeach President Johnson in 1866, but there being no adequate ground for such action, he was acquitted. THE WHITE HOUSE -MAIN ENTRANCE. The duties of the Executive department are mostly connected with the administration of the laws. The President is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, and he also represents the nation in matters connected with foreign governments. To that end he sends out foreign ministers to other govern- ments, and consuls, to conduct our business affairs in foreign ports. A large body of foreign ministers sent from other countries for a similar purpose reside at Washing-ton, and throughout our cities are scattered foreign consuls for the transaction of commercial business. The President is assisted in his duties by a body of advisers, known as the 468 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Cabinet. This consists of eight officers of great importance, of his own selec- tion and appointment, each of whom has control of affairs of the Government in his particular department. The Secretary of State conducts oui foreign rela- tions ; the Secretary of the Treasury our financial affairs ; the Secretary of War is over our armies ; the Attorney General is the law officer of the Government ; the Postmaster General superintends the postal service ; the Secretary of the Navy commands our navy ; the Secretary of the Interior is concerned with patents, the Indians, the public lands, and many other important matters ; and the Secretary of Agriculture promotes the farming interests of the country. Each of these Secretaries has his office in Washington, where he attends to the enormous business of his department. Under him are an immense number of officers and clerks, all appointed either by the President or the head of the department, to carry on the business of Government. Each department is divided into bureaus, and much of the work is of the highest value and importance. In case of the death or inability of the President, the duties of his office devolve upon the Vice-President, and after him would fall to the Cabinet succes- sively, in the order already named. But should any member of the Cabinet be obliged to take this office, he would fill it only until a new election could be held. We have had a long and remarkable list of Presidents, beginning with George Washington himself There have been in all twenty-three different Presi- dents, by a curious coincidence covering twenty-four terms, and distributed among various political parties. Many of them were men of extraordinary ability. They have been strangely representative, some, like Washington and the Adamses being men of the aristocratic class, while others, like Jackson, and Lin- coln, and Garfield, were proud of their origin from among the poorest of the people. Twice the descendant of a President has filled that high place — John Quincy Adams being the son of John Adams, and Benjamin Harrison the grand- son of Wm. Henry Harrison. Two Presidents have brought beautiful and charm- ing brides to the White House during their term of office — President Tyler, who married Miss Julia Gardner, and President Cleveland, who married Miss Frances Folsom. Many times the people have delighted to honor the heroes of our wars. As one epoch after another passed in our history the laurels of war were placed upon the heads of Washington, of Andrew Jackson, of Wm. Henry 1 Harrison, of Taylor, of Grant, and Hayes, and Garfield, and the second Harrison. Many different States have claimed the honor of the Presidency, but we have never yet had an Executive from the great Western States. Several Presidents have been re-elected, but by an unwritten law no man ever serves but two terms. Four have died in office, two of them, Lincoln and Garfield, having been assassinated. There have been many great men and many wise men in this office, but among them all there are three who stand out beyond their fellows, POWERS OF THE SUPREME COURT. 469 creators of history — George Washington, who founded the Republic ; Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of all our great men in any time, and Ulysses S. Grant, the chief amonor our o-enerals. An elaborate system of courts make up our national judiciary, and secure to the citizens protection and justice. In some respects the most extraordinary feature of our Government is the Supreme Court, which is unique in its power and importance. It is the business of this tribunal to construe the laws, to decide whether they agree with the Constitution, to settle any question as to SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. whether the Constitution has been violated in deed, to decide upon suits between the States and the nation, and to determine legal questions between this and other countries. It is co-ordinate with Congress and the Executive, and yet the highest power in the land, for both bow to its decisions. Law and justice are preserved in its keeping, lest either of the other two great branches of the Government usurp the power, or transcend the Constitution. Any law the constitutionality of which is questioned, may be brought before this court, and its decision is final, confirming it against all opposition, or making it null 470 THE STORY OF AMERICA. and void, and thus of no effect whatever. This court consists of nine judges, or justices as they are called, appointed for life or good behavior, by the President, and confirmed by the Senate. They are paid $10,000 a year, with a pension after they become too old for longer service. The head of the court, or the Chief lustice, administers the oath to the President on his inauo-uration, and many times stands next him in rank and position. Certainly no nobler illus- tration of the might and majesty of law can be given than this court, adjusting the affairs of the nation itself to which President and people alike bow, in token that righteousness and justice are greater than power. No account of our Government would be in any sense complete, nor indeed would it be intelligible, that did not take into account our Federal system. The whole country is divided into States, and each State is a separate and dis- tinct government, having control of its local affairs, and responsible to its own people. In all those larger affairs which concern the whole country, it joins with its fellows in the general Government, but the power of this general Government comes from the States. The States are not oriven more or less power by the United States, but the States give more or less power to the United States and reserve the other rights to themselves. The United States, however, has supreme control over all matters relating to the nation, and will not allow any State to infringe upon the rights or jeopardize the safety of any other. For that reason it will not permit any State or States to secede, because the cooperation of them all is necessary to the safety of the Union. We are States united into a nation, but we are a nation, one and indissoluble. The history of the country makes plain these relations. Thirteen colonies, settled by different peoples of different origins and for widely different reasons, joined each other for the sake of common safety and national prosperity. Practical necessity and political wisdom alike dictated that local affairs should continue under the control of each colony or State, while matters of general interest were decided by the whole acting together. To this end each colony gave up to the nation its general rights but reserved the power over its internal affairs. It is this federal system which makes it possible for a democratic government to rule such an immense country, and it is only this. Therefore, while we are careful to retain the supreme control to the general Government, we must more and more relegate sectional concerns, however large and import- ant, to the States ; and we must guard against the centralizing of our affairs in the hands of the national Government, however much to our temporary advan- tage it may be. In the nature of the case we cannot govern territory of such enormous extent, with so various a population and such varying interest, by democratic methods unless we keep strictly to the federal idea. It is our only safety. Each State has a Governor, Legislature, and Supreme Court of its own ; RELATION OF STATES TO THE NATION. 471 the Governor, Legislature, and, in some States, the Supreme Court, being elected by its own people. Different States require different qualifications in their voters ; in some a man must be able to read and write ; in some be pos- sessed of certain property ; in one there is no distinction between men and women ; and various other requirements are found in the different States. Whatever makes a man a voter in his own State allows him to vote in that State in national elections also. The term of office of State officers varies greatly, some States holding their Legislatures annually, and some biennially ; some Governors being elected for one year and some for longer terms. In all these, its own affairs, the State is supreme. Each has its own courts, under its Supreme Court, for the further- ance of justice. Local affairs also are very variously administered, by townships, counties, parishes, and other subdivisions, many of them very ancient, and in like manner cities are governed in different ways. All this diversity in unity serves to make one homogeneous nation of this heterogeneous multitude of sixty million people. The original thirteen .States, little as they dreamed of the great territory over which the flag of the United States floats so proudly to-day, had no narrow idea of a nation, and provided for its expansion even better than they knew. The common land belonging to the nation, and as yet largely unsettled, is held by the common Government, in Territories. These are governed by officers appointed by tlie President, and are subject to United States laws only. Their own Legislatures arrange their local affairs, and each sends a delegate to Con- gress to look after its interests, but the law does not allow him to vote. As soon as any Territory contains a population large enough. Congress admits it to the Union as a State, with all the rights and privileges of its older sisters, the President proclaims that fact to the world, and a new commonwealth is added to the sisterhood, marked by the new star in the flag we honor. Thus one after another we have already seen thirty-one new States added to that little band of thirteen, some of them great and rich realms many times as large as the whole nation at its beeinnine. c> o The United States is indeed a land of the free, and its great written charter, the Constitution, itself protects the freedom of her citizens. The right to wor- ship God as he will, the right to assemble when and where he will, freedom of speech and press, and of petition, the right to keep and bear arms — all these great gifts the United States gives to every person in all her broad borders. Nor is this enough ; she preserves his house inviolate from search and seizure, and everywhere in all his relations throws the shield of the law over his person and possessions. If indeed he be accused of crime, she makes certain that he shall have justice, for by the right to a trial by jury and by many other careful provisions she protects both his person and property, and in the last and greatest articles 472 THE STORY OF AMERICA. of her great Magna Charta — articles for which she spent blood and treasure beyond the telling — she forbids all slavery within all her borders, and guarantees to every citizen his right to vote without regard to "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." For this is the duty which the United States asks of every man-child within her borders, to help her govern herself This is his proud privilege — to choose her officers, to control her policy, to sustain her laws, and through his representatives to make them ; to develop the Nation, and govern her. This is what it is to vote in the United States of America. -f^-aft^-: BAILEY b DAM ON THE RED RIVER, CHAPTER XXVI. OUR PRESIDENTS. HEN the office of President was to be filled for the first time, grave problems were to be solved. The hardship and suffering of the struggle for independence were yet present in the minds of all men ; the weakness and failure of the Government instituted by the Articles of Confederation had compelled an attempt "to form a more perfect Union;" the eyes of the civilized world were upon the struggling people, and to men who had not an abiding faith in the prin- ciples for which the battles of the Revolution had been fought, it seemed that the experiment of popular Government was to end in early, complete, and appropriate catastrophe. In such circumstances it was well that the public needs were so great and so immediate as to make men willing to forget their diff"erences and consider measures for the common good ; and particularly was it well for the future of our country, that there was one man upon whom all could agree as uniting the wisdom, the moderation, the e.xperience, the dignity necessary to the first President of the United States. George Washington was the only man ever unanimously elected President. Of his personal history and of his character, enough has been said in another place. He undertook the duties of the Chief Magistracy with a deep sense of their importance, and their difficulty, but with the courage and devotion which characterized all his conduct. He selected for his Cabinet men of widely different political views, but men whose names were not new to Americans, men whose past services justified the belief that they would find means of leading the country out of its present difficulties, and of setting the affairs of the Government on a sure foundation. Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox and Randolph, might well be trusted to concert wise measures. Washington's second election was, like the first, without opposition, and for four years more he continued to guide the affairs of State. A national bank had been established early in his first term, and also the Philadelphia Mint, and the currency of the country was now on a fairly satisfactory basis ; a census had 473 GEORGE WASIIINGrON. 1732-1799. Two 'lerm^, lySq-lTaT. JOHN ADAMS. 475 been taken in 1 790 and showed that the country had already begun to grow in population, and the outlook was much more favorable than four years earlier. Upon the announcement of Washington's retirement, the two parties, which had been gradually developing an organization, prepared to contest the election of the second President. The Federalists, who advocated a strong central Government, favored John Adams, and the Republicans, who " claimed to be the friends of liberty and the rights of man, the advocates of economy, and of the rights of the States," desired the election of Thomas Jefferson. The Federalists were in a slight majority, and Mr. Adams was elected. He was a native of Massachusetts, and had borne a leading part in the struggle for independence and the development of the Government. He was one of the leaders in Massachusetts in resisting the oppressive measures which brought on the Revolution ; he seconded the resolution for the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and assisted in framing that remarkable document ; with Franklin and Jay, he negotiated the treaty which established our independence ; he had represented his country as Minister to France, and to Holland, and was the first United States Minister to England ; he had been Vice President during Washington's two administrations, and was now to assume office as the second President. His Presidency opened with every prospect of war with the French. That nation had taken offense because we preserved an attitude of neutrality in their contest with Great Britian. They actually began war by capturing our merchant ships, and the French Directory refused to receive the new United States Minister, while three commissioners, who were sent to make one more effort for peace, were insulted. Under the influence of the war spirit thus excited, the Federalists in Congress passed two acts, known as the Alien and Sedition Laws, which resulted in the downfall of their party. The former gave the President authority to order out of the country any alien whom he considered dangerous to its welfare, and the latter was intended to suppress conspiracies and malicious abuse of the government. They excited great opposition and were almost immediately repealed. The war had already been terminated on the accession of Napoleon Bonaparte to power in France. Mr. Adams failed of re-election, largely because of the division of sentiment in regard to the French war. His great patriotism, high moral courage, and his ability as a statesman, were somewhat marred by a strange lack of tact, and a stupendous vanity, which sometimes made him ridiculous, but his countrymen could well afford to forget such minor faults, and remember only his manifold services in their common cause. He was succeeded by a man no less great. Thomas Jefferson was the son of a Virginia planter, received his education at William and Mary College, studied law and engaged in its practice. He resolved, on entering public life, never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of 476 THE STORY OF AMERICA. enterprise for the improvement of his fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer. When he came to the Presidency his country already owed him much. As a member of the Continental Congress he wrote the draft of the Declaration of Independence ; returning to Virginia, he inaugurated a reformed system of laws in that State, and becoming its Governor rendered in- valuable aid to the armies during the closing years of the Revolution ; he shared with Gouverneur Morris the credit of devising our decimal system of money; he succeeded Franklin as Minister to France, and on his return from that post, was informed that Washington had chosen him for the first Secretary of State. He wished to decline further public service, but "It is not for an individual," said he to the President, "to choose his post; you are to marshal us as may be best for the public good." A difference of three electoral votes made Adams President and Jef- ferson Vice President, but in 1800, a political revolution re- versed the majority and made him the third President. Although a leader of a party, he exerted himself to allay partisan rancor, and he resolutely refused to make official positions for his political friends, by removing from office men whose only offense was a difference of political opinion. Jefferson was re-elected by a largely increased majority. During his administration, the territory of Louisiana was pur- chased from France ; the famous expedition of Lewis and Clarke set out to explore this new domain ; the importation of slaves was forbidden ; the pirates of Tripoli and Algiers were suppressed ; the first steamboat began to navigate the Hudson, and the growing troubles with Great Britain and France caused the enactment of laws called the Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts, intended, by cutting off our commerce with those countries, to compel them to respect our neutrality. These two measures resulted in litde but failure, as they caused great distress at home, and were repealed before they could have much effect abroad. JOHN ADAMS. 1 735-1826. Otte Tfriii, 1797-1801. THOMAS JEFKERSON. 1743-1826. Tivo Terms, 1801-1809. 478 THE STORY OF AMERICA. When James Madison came to be the fourth President, he found the difficulties with Eno-land and France still unsettled. These countries beino- ancient enemies, and being almost continually at war, it was almost impossible to be on friendly terms with one without making an enemy of the other ; neither would respect our rights as a neutral nation ; each was in the habit of seizing and selling our ships and cargoes bound for the ports of the other, and England, in addition, assumed the right to search our vessels, examine their crews, and compel to enter her service any sailor who had been an English subject. These troubles were not new. Jay's treaty, in 1795, had vainly attempted to adjust a part of them, and as our country grew in strength it gradually became impossible for the people longer to submit. The War of 181 2, the "Sec- ond War for Independence," has been treated in another chapter. It occupied most of Madison's administration, and thoueh not vigorously conducted, it demon- strated the military and naval resources of the country and caused the American flag to be respected all over the world ; ind by cutting off the supply of foreign goods it compelled the .starting of cotton and woollen mills in this country, and this resulted in the building up of home manufactures. The presidency of Mr. Madi- son is not the portion of his career upon which his fame rests ; his best services to his countr)' were in his work as a constructive statesman. In the shaping of the Constitution and in securing its adoption he shared with Hamilton the chief honors. He was, doubtless, happy when, at the close of his second administration, he could retire to his Virginia estate and spend the remaining twenty years of his life in scholarly ease. Madison was succeeded by another Virginian, a gallant soldier of the Revo- lution, who had laid down his books at William and Mary College to complete his education in the Continental army. James Monroe was eighteen years old when he took part in the battle of Trenton, and his record justified the confi- JAMES MADISON. 1751-1836. T-vo Terms, 1809-1817. JAMES MONROE. 479 dence with which his countrymen universally regarded him. In his inaugural address he took as a symbol of the enduring character of the Union, the foundation of the Capitol, near which he stood to deliver the address, and which had survived the ruins of the beautiful building recently burnt by the British. So popular was President Monroe, and so wisely did he administer the affairs of State that on his re-election there was no opposing candidate, and he lacked but one of a unanimous vote in the electoral college. This vote was cast for John Ouincy Adams, simply in order "that no later mortal should stand in Washington's shoes " in being unanimously elected. Monroe's two terms comprise an eventful period in our history ; the Government pensioned its Revolutionary sol- diers and their widows, spending in all sixty-five million dollars in this noble work ; Florida was purchased from Spain ; the Na- tional Road was begun at Cum- berland, Md., finally to extend as far as Illinois, and to be of inestimable service in the open- ing and development of the West ; but the subject which took the deepest hold upon the minds of the people was that of the extension of slavery. Follow- ing the "Era of Good Feehng " ushered in by Monroe's adminis- tration, came a serious division in public feeling as to whether slavery should be permitted in the northern part of the territory west of the Mississippi. The question arose so suddenly and was so fiercely debated that Jefferson declared that it terrified him, "like a fire-bell in the night," and he feared serious trouble between the States, the actual outbreak of which was postponed, by a series of compromises, for a period of forty years. Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise quieted the quarrel for some twenty-five years. President Monroe is perhaps most widely renowned as the author of the " Monroe Doctrine " — that no European nation has a right to interfere with the affairs of any American State — a doctrine to which our Government has steadily JAMES MONROE. 175S-1831. T1V0 Tirrnis, 1817-1825. 48o THE SrORY OF AMERICA. adhered. It is interesting to note that the man who had served his country so well in the high position of its Chief Magistrate was willing, after the close of his second term, to accept so humble a post as that of Justice of the Peace, and so continue a public servant; but it is sad to relate that Mr. Monroe's great generosity and public spirit left him, in his old age, embarrassed by debt, and necessitated the giving up of his residence at Oak Hill, in Virginia, to end his days in the home of a son-in-law, in New York. The "Era of Good Feeling" had left no organized national parties in politics, and there were four candidates voted for to succeed Monroe. This resulted in there being no ma- jority in the electoral college, and the final choice was therefore made by the House of Repre- sentatives, John Ouincy Adams thus becoming the sixth Presi- dent. He was, perhaps, as well equipped for the position, at least in breadth of information, knowl- edge of state-craft, and experi- ence in political affairs, as any man who has ever filled it. At the age of fifteen he was secre- tary to the Minister to Russia ; after graduating at Harvard, and practicing law for a few years, he became United States Minister at the Hague, and afterwards at Berlin, St. Petersburg and Lon- don ; he had represented Massa- chusettes in the National Senate, and during the Presidency of Mr. Monroe he had been Secretary of .State. His administration was not marked by any measure of national importance, but is notable as the era in which a number of projects for the promotion of commercial intercourse met with the success they deserved. We have already mentioned the National Road. It was no more impor- 'tant than the Erie Canal, "Clinton's Big Ditch," as it was derisively called, which was opened in 1825; and the experiments with "steam wagons" resulted, in 1828, in the opening of a line of railroad which now forms part of the Baltimore & Ohio system. The first spadeful of earth was turned by the venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the only survivor of the signers of the JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1767-1848. One Term, 1825-1829. ANDREW JACKSON. 481 Declaration of Independence, who remarked in so doing, that he considered this among the most important acts of his Hfe, " second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if second to that." It is also to be noted that this era marks the besfinninor of that social move- ment, which in less than seventy years has resulted in so marked a change in the views of Americans regarding the use of intoxicants. Andrew Jackson, the seventh President, was the first who was not a citizen either of Massachusetts or Virginia. He was also the first who was not already known to his countrymen as a distinguished statesman. He was exceedingly popular, however, owing to his military services and to his ener- getic, honest and fearless, though headstrong, character. He had led a strange and eventful life. In his boyhood he had known all the hardships and privations of absolute poverty ; at the age of fourteen he was a prisoner of war, and nearly starved by his British captors. He studied law and emigrated from North Caro- lina to Tennessee. After that territory became a State he rep- resented it in Congress, and for a short time in the Senate. He was continually involved in quar- rels, fought several duels and made many bitter enemies as well as many warm friends. His success in leading the Tennessee militia against the Indians gained for him the reputation which caused his appointment to command in the .Southwest near the close of the war of 1812, and his brilliant defence of New Orleans gave "Old Hickory" a place in the hearts of his countrymen which resulted in their electing him to succeed John Ouincy Adams as President, and his ability and integrity were so manifest that he was re-elected in 1832 by the electoral votes of all the States except seven. • No period of our history is more interesting than the eight years of Jackson's administration. He was the first President to dismiss large numbers of officials in order to replace them by his own partisans. The anti-slavery 31 ANDREW JACKSON. 1767-1845. Two TervtSf 1829-1837. 482 THE STORY OF AMERICA. movement took definite shape during tliis time, and William Lloyd Garrison began the publication of the famous Liberator, and American literature had it-s beofinnines. At this time came the first serious danger of a rupture between the States. It grew out of the tariff legislation, which South Carolina, under the lead of John C. Calhoun, undertook to nullify. The payment of the duties was refused, but the President sent General Scott to Charleston to enforce the law, and under the advice of Henry Clay a new and more satisfactory tariff was adopted. This difficulty and Jackson's determined opposition to the United States Bank, his fight against it, resulting in its destruction, are the events of this administration which pro- duced the most marked and last- ing effect upon our national his- tory. After the close of his second term he lived in retire- ment at his home, the famous " Hermitage," near Nashville, until his death, eight years later. Martin Van Buren had hardly entered upon the duties of the presidency when the great panic of 1837 occurred. It re- sulted from a variety of causes, among which may be mentioned the wreat number of worthless banks which sprang up after the discontinuance of the United States Bank ; the prevalence of wild speculation, particularly in land, and the action of the Government in demanding that the banks should repay its deposits in coin. One good effect of this great public calamity was the establishment of a Treasury of the United States, independent of any bank or system of banks. It was during this administration that the Mormons formed their setriement in Nauvoo, Illinois, and in 1840 a regular line of steamships was established between Liverpool and Boston. Mr. Van Buren was a native of New York, had served his State in various offces of trust, including that of Governor, had been its Representative in the United States Senate, had been Minister to England, Secretary of State during MA IN \AN BUREN, 1782-1862. One Term, 1837-1841. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON— JOHN TYLER. 483 most of Jackson's first administration, and Vice-President during his second. He continued, for several years after the close of his terms as President, to take an active part in politics, and in 1848 he was the candidate of the anti- slavery Democrats, or "Free Democracy," for President, after which he took no part in public affairs, though he lived at his native place, in Columbia County, New York, until nearly the middle of the war of the Rebellion. For forty years the Democrats had retained control of the national government, but the administration of Van Buren had not been popular, and the change in public sentiment was so great that in the election of 1840 he was defeated by General William Henry Harrison, who had been the unsuccessful candi- date four years before. The political campaign was the most exciting that had yet occurred ; the enthusiasm for the Whig candidate was very great, and the " Log-cabin and Hard Cider " campaign will be long remem- bered. The character of the suc- cessful candidate justified high expectations of his administra- tion. Left at an early age to depend upon himself he had entered the army and won dis- tinction under General Wayne, in the Indian wars ; he had been long identified with the develop- ment of what is now Indiana and Ohio ; had represented Ohio in the United States Senate, and filled several other offices of more or less note, and was living, when elected, on his farm, not far from Cincinnati. He made a judicious selection of Cabinet officers, but within a month after his inauguration, and before any definite line of policy had been established, he died, after a very brief illness, probably caused by the fatigue and excitement of his inauguration. John Tyler was the first Vice President of the United States to become President. He had been made the Whig candidate largely from motives of policy, as he had been an active Democrat, and as a member of that party had been elected Governor of Virginia, and had represented that State in the WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 1773-1841. One Month, 1841. 484 THE STORY OF AMERICA. United States Senate. He had, however, been opposed to both Jackson and Van Buren, and had for some time been acting with the Whigs. He soon quarreled, however, with the Whig Congress, the subject of contention being the proposed revival of the United States Bank. This quarrel continued throughout the Presidential term, to the great hindrance of public business. Two events which marked a new era, the one in our methods of communication, the other in the relief of human suffering, took place during this time ; they were the invention of the electric telegraph, and the use of ether in surgery. The events of greatest political importance were the settlement, by the Ashburton treaty, of a troublesome dispute with "^^ " ' ' " ^ '^ ,v^ \ Great Britain, concerning the northeastern boundary of the United States, and just at the close of Tyler's administration, the annexation of Texas. The latter was a step which had for some time been under discus- sion, it being advocated by the South as a pro-slavery measure, and opposed by the anti-slavery party. Texas had made itself independent of Mexico, and asked to be annexed to the United States, a request which was thus finally granted. Mr. Tyler returned to private life at the close of his Presidential term, and took little part in public affairs until the breaking out of the Civil War. At the time of his death he was a member of the Confederate Congress. The Democrats were again successful in 1844, and on March 4th, 1845, James K. Polk became the eleventh President. He was a native of North Carolina, but in boyhood had removed with his father to Tennessee. He was well educated, and was unusually successful in his profession of the law. He was for fourteen years a member of Congress and was Speaker of the House for five consecutive sessions. On his declining a re-election to Congress he was made Governor of Tennessee, and as a candidate for the Presidency in 1844 was successful in uniting the warring factions of the Democrats. He came to the Presidency at a critical time. The annexation of Texas had JOHN TYLER. 1790-1862. One Partial Term, 1841-1845. ZACHARY TAYLOR. 485 involved the country in difficulties with Mexico, and the question of the northern boundary west of the Rocky Mountains threatened to interrupt the cordial relations between the United States and England. The latter question was settled by accepting the parallel of forty-nine degrees of north latitude, thus making the boundary continuous with that east of the mountains, but the trouble with Mexico culminated in war, which resulted, in less than two years, in the complete conquest of that country. California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States on the payment of fifteen millions of dollars and the assumption of certain debts of Mexico. It was just at this time that gold was discovered in California, and the wonderful emigration to that territory began. Mr. Polk survived his Presidential term only some three months. The pendulum of popular favor had again swung over to the side of the Whigs, and their candidate was elected the twelfth President. General Zachary Tay- lor had grown up amid the pri- vation and difficulties of frontier life in Kentucky. By the in- fluence of Madison, the then Secretary of State, who was a relative of the family, he received an appointment as lieutenant in the United States army, and served with great distinction in the Indian wars which then ha- rassed our frontiers. At the time of the annexation of Texas he was in command of the army in the Southwest, with the rank of Brigadier-General. His management of affairs during the time which preceded the Mexican War was marked by great discretion, and his brilliant conduct of the opening campaign brought him great popularity and led to his nomination for the Presidency by the Whigs, to the great chagrin of some of the leaders of the party, who saw in his success the disappointment of their own ambition, and who distrusted a candidate who had no experience in legislative or executive affairs. This distrust, however, has not been shared by the majority of the people, either in the case of General Taylor, or of other Presidential JAMES KNOX POLK. J795-1849. One Term, 1845-1849. 486 THE STORY OF AMERICA. l|lM.TI,,',rl. candidates of purely military renown, and such a candidate has usually been sure of success. The question of the extension of slavery was again being fiercely agitated, and seemed once more likely to disrupt the country. General Taylor lived only some sixteen months after his inauguration, dying before the heat of the debate in Congress had abated. The Vice-President who by the death of General Taylor came to be the. Chief Magistrate of the country, was Millard Fillmore, of New York. He was an admirable type of the American citizen, owing this high position to his own attainments, and to his own un- aided exertions. He received no pecuniary assistance after his fourteenth year, except a small loan, which he punctually repaid. With exceedingly little previous education, he began, at the age of nineteen, the study of law, which he prosecuted under the most adverse circumstances, but so successfully as to place him in the front rank of the lawyers of the State of New York. He was for several terms a member of the lower house of Congress, where he distinguished himself as a wise, prudent, honest legis- lator. He was Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means which framed the tariff of 1842, and although he claimed no originality for the principles on which it was based, he is justly entitled to be considered its author. His Presidential term is chiefly remembered by the debate in Congress on the extension of slavery in the territory gained by the Mexican War, resulting in the adoption of the compromise measures proposed by Henry Clay, including the Fugitive Slave Law. This law, which gave the owners of runaway slaves the right to call on all citizens to assist in arresting and restoring them to their owners, was exceedingly unpopular in the North, and did much to prevent Mr. Fillmore's renomination, and to increase anti-slavery sentiment in the North. ZACHARY TAYLOR. 1784-1850. One Partial Term^ 1849-1850. FRANKLIN PIERCE. 48 7 Mrs. Stowe's famous story, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was published in 1852, and had a great influence in hastening the impending conflict. At the close of his term Mr. Fillmore retired to Buffalo, where he resided until his death, in 1874. Again the Whigs were retired from control of the national government and a Democratic President elected. Franklin Pierce had been a life-lone resident of New Hampshire. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College, was widely known as an able and successful lawyer, and though his name is not especially connected with any great measure, he had represented his State in both Houses of Congress. He expressed in his inaugural ad- dress the belief that all ques- tions concerning slavery should be considered settled by the compromise measures of 1850, and the hope that "no sectional or ambitious, or fanatical excite ment mi^ht arain threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our pros- perity." Among the notable events of his administration may be mentioned the international ex- hibition in the " Crystal Palace " in New York, in 1853, in which the pre-eminence of Americans in the invention of labor-saving machinery was manifested ; the expedition of Commodore Perry to Japan, which resulted in open- ing to American commerce the ports of that interesting country, which no foreigners had previously been allowed to enter ; and the adjustment of a dispute with Mexico concerning tht western portion of the boundary between the two countries, resulting in the purchase by the United States of a considerable district, included in the present territories of Arizona and New Mexico. But the facts which chiefly characterize this administration concern the irrepressible conflict about slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise, and made the question of slavery in all the Territories optional with the people of the Territories, as had been done by the Compromise of 1850, for the MILLARD FILLMORE. 1800-1874. One Partial Term, 1850-1853. 488 THE STORY OF AMERICA. territory acquired from Mexico. The passage of this law led to much ill- feeling and to great efforts by both Northern abolitionists and Southern slaveholders to encourage the emigration of their sympathizers to Kansas, in order to govern the decision in regard to slavery. The strife of these opposing parties became so serious as to result in much bloodshed, and from 1854 to 1859 that territory deserved the name of " Bleeding Kansas," and during much of that time it was in a state of civil war. Mr. Pierce took no prominent part in public affairs after his retirement from the Presidency. The Whig party had now finally disappeared, and in the election of 1856 the Democrats were once more successful. James Buchanan was a Pennsyl- vania lawyer, a graduate of Dickinson College, and so promi- nent in his profession that his name appears in the " Pennsyl- vania Reports" between 181 2 and 1 83 1 more frequently than that of any other lawyer. He had served ten years in Congress, had represented his country as Minister to Russia and to Eng- land, and as Secretary of State under President Polk had been called upon to adjust questions of the gravest and most delicate character. At the opening of his Ad- ministration the public strife was greatly allayed by the general confidence in the ability and the high patriotism of the President ; " Dred Scott Decision," which had been cause for excitement during a Presidential a degree before unknown. This decision declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and therefore void, that Congress had no right to forbid the carrying of slaves into any State or Territory, and opened all the Free States to at least a temporary establishment of slavery. This was the beginning of the end of the contest. The attempt of John Brown, a citizen of Kansas, with about twenty men, to liberate the slaves in Virginia, their seizure of the Government buildings at Harper's FRANKLIN PIERCE. 1804-1868. Ont Term, 1853-1857. but the announcement of the deferred so as not to eive new campaign, stirred the nation to ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 4S9 Ferry, their capture, and the hanging of the leader, with six of his men, only hastened the final conflict. A great business panic occurred in 1857, and the discovery of silver in Nevada and Colorado the following year ; the no less important discovery of petroleum and natural gas in Pennsylvania occurred in 1859. After the Presidential election of i860 it became evident that the South would not quietly submit to the defeat which they had received, and South Carolina, followed by six other Southern States, adopted "ordinances of seces- sion," assuminof to dissolve their union with the other States, and declaring themselves free and independent nations. The President took no action to prevent secession, and most of the forts, arsenals, and other national property with- in these States were seized. Mr. Buchanan retired to private life at the close of his term as Presi- dent. Of all the men, since Wash- ington, who have been Presi- dents of the United States, Abra- ham Lincoln holds the largest share in the affections of the people. His lowly origin, his early poverty and privation, the never-failino- kindness with which throughout his life he met all classes of men, and the homely and genial wit which enlivened his discussion of grave matters of State as well as his casual and friendly conversation, gave him a place in the hearts of American, while his unequaled JAMES BUCHANAN. 1791-1868. One Term, 1857-1861. the knowledge common people not held by any other of men, his ability to cope with unforeseen difficulties, his lofty purpose and perfect honesty, together with his practical good sense, not only brought him the respect and esteem of all who came to know him. but place him among the greatest statesmen, not of America alone, but of all countries in all times. Born and reared in the backwoods, with nothing- in his surroundings to stimulate ambidon, chopping wood and splitting rails, learning to read from the spelling-book and the Bible, sitting up half the night to read Pilgrim's Progress 41 490 THE STORY OF AMERICA. and ^sop's Fables " by the blaze of the logs his own axe had split," he came to manhood with little education, but with perfect health and gigantic strength. At the age of twenty-five he took up the study of law, and early began to take part in the local political movements. He had represented his district in Congress, but at the time of his nomination for President had little reputation outside of Illinois. He came to the Presidency amid a multitude of adverse circumstances. With seven States already seceded, the border States apparently ready to follow, with the capital surrounded by a hostile population, and without the confidence of the leaders of his own party, his would indeed seem a difficult task. His first measures were intended to convince the people of the South, if they were willing to be convinced, that he had no hostile intention, but at the same time that he proposed to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Union and to main- tain the rights and the authority of the Government. The story of the War of the Rebellion cannot be told here. It is a story the like of which forms part of the history of no other nation — the story of a war engaging at one time 1,700,000 men, the war debt of the North, representing but a part of the cost of the war, amounting to $3,000,000,000, and the expense frequently exceed- ing |3. 500.000 a day. Aside from the essentially military features of the war, the most notable event of Mr. Lincoln's Administration was the freeing of the slaves, which was done as a war measure, by the Emancipation Proclamation, January i, 1863, thus finally, after the expiration of nearly a hundred years, making good in our country the words of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are cre- ated equal." It can be truthfully said that President Lincoln carried the administration of the Government in this troublous time, not only as a load upon his brain, but as a burden in his heart ; a united country was the object of all his efforts, and when, only a month after his second inauguration, he was assassinated by a misguided and mistaken Southern sympathizer, the bullet of the murderer removed as true a friend as the South possessed. The war was already at an end, and had Abraham Lincoln lived to rebuild and reconstruct the Union he had saved, many of the difficulties of the era of reconstruction might have been 'avoided — difficulties whose evil effects have not yet disappeared from our national politics. No fact in our history demonstrates more fully the perfection of our system of government and the hold which it has upon the confidence of our people than the quiet change of Chief Magistrates at the close of a Presidential term. Four times in our history this change has been caused by death, and now, when the beloved President had been assassinated, when the whole country was excited and alarmed, when grave questions were pending and matters of the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1809-1865. 7>/M Terms lD!ed in OlKce'\, 1S61-186S. 492 THE STORY OF AMERICA. utmost delicacy required adjustment, the Vice-President quietly assumed the office, and the routine of government proceeded as before. Andrew Johnson was a native of North Carolina. He was the son of poor parents, and, learning the tailor's trade, he earned his living for a number of years as a journeyman. He taught himself to read, and after emigrating to Tennessee he learned from his wife to write and cipher. He represented his district for several terms in Congress, and was chosen United States Senator in 1857. He was nominated for Vice-President by the Republicans in 1864, mainly to invite votes from the opposite party, as until the war he had been a consistent Democrat. Unfortu- nately, he differed with the lead- ing Republicans in Congress on the question of the manner in which the States lately in rebel- lion were to resume their places in the Government, and the difference grew into a violent quarrel, which lasted till the close of his term, and resulted, in 1868, in the impeachment of the President by Congress. He was acquitted, however, the vote in the Senate lacking one of the two-thirds necessary to convict. The chief political events of the Administration were the read- mission of six of the seceded States and the adoption of three amendments to the Constitution — the Thirteenth, abolishing slavery ; the Fourteenth, making the negro a citizen, and the .g,„. ^^ ,w.^. (See Chapter on Negro.) During this time, also, the Government began the payment of the war debt, the first Atlantic cable was laid, and Alaska was added to our national domain. The success which had attended the Union armies after they passed under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant made him the popular idol, and obvi- ously the most available candidate for President. He was a native of Ohio, a graduate of West Point, and had served in the Mexican War, where he was promoted for meritorious conduct in batde. At the opening of the Civil War ANDRF.W JOHNSON. 1808-1875. One Partial Term, 1865-1869. Fifteenth, giving him the right to vote. ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 49J he raised a company of volunteers in Illinois, of which State he was then a citizen, was soon made a brigadier general, and from that point the story of his life is a part of the history of the war. General Grant was the recipient of honors from foreign rulers and govern- ments such as have been bestowed upon no other American President. His fame as a general was recognized throughout the world, and although he had no experience in civil affairs, he had the tact to call into his Cabinet men of great ability, and while he may have been sometimes misled by designing men, his Administration was so popular that he was re-elected by a greatly-increased majority, and indeed might have been chosen for a third term had not the public feeling been found so strongly opposed to violating the custom inaugurated by Wash- ington of giving to no President more than two terms of office. During these two terms the first Pacific railway was completed ; representatives from all the re- maining seceded States were admitted to Congress ; a treaty was concluded with England providing for the arbitration of the Alabama and other claims, which seemed at one time likely to involve the two countries in war ; the great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed many mil- lions of property ; a panic of almost unprecedented severity occurred (1873), ^"^ the Cen- tennial Exhibition took place at Philadelphia. After the close of his term as President, General Grant made a tour of the world, being everywhere received with the greatest honor, after which he resided in New York until attacked by the disease which ended his life on Mt. MacGregor, in 1885. It has frequently happened that when several rival leaders of the same political party have been candidates for President, the Presidential Convention has found it wisest to nominate some less prominent man, thus avoiding the loss which might result from the choice of either of the more conspicuous aspirants for the office, and the consequent offense to the supporters of the ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 1822-1885. Ttjuo Terms, 1S69-1877. 494 THE STORY OF AMERICA. others. This was the case when a successor to General Grant was to be chosen. While Rutherford B. Hayes had been a Brigadier-general in the Union army, and had twice been elected Governor of Ohio, he was by no means conspicuous as a national leader. There was great dissatisfaction with the course of the men who had obtained control of the political machinery of the Republican party, and the election depended on the counting of the electoral votes of Louisiana and Florida. To settle the legality of these votes, the famous Electoral Commission was appointed by Congress, and decided in favor of General Hayes as against his competitor, Samuel J. Tilden. The quiet and peaceful solution of this dispute is one of the greatest triumphs of our system of Government. The Republican party had been in office for four Presidential terms, had success- fully conducted the affairs of the nation during the trying and dangerous periods of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Many of the measures which had been during this time adopted as a part of our system had been consistently and strenuously op- posed by the Democrats. Under these circumstances the Repub- licans viewed the possible ac- cession to power of the Demo- cratic party with a degree of alarm, which has since proved to be unjustifiable. Each party claimed, and probably believed, that its candidate had been elected, and each was disposed to insist on its rights under the Constitution. Such a dispute in a country where men's passions are less under the control of their reason, would inevitably have led to civil war. The two Houses of Congress were of different politics, and their agreement upon what seemed an equitable method of adjusting the dispute, together with the acquiescence of all parties in the decision of the tribunal thus created, make it a remarkable instance of the adaptability of our institutions, and go far to justify the most complete faith in their permanence. General Hayes was a successful lawyer, a lifelong citizen of Ohio, and while his administration gave great offense to RUTHERFOKD niiRCItARU HAYES. One Term, 1877-18 JAMES A BR AM GARFIELD. 495 many political leaders, it was generally satisfactory to the people. At the close of his term he retired to his native State. The chief events of his Presidency were : his withdrawal of troops from the South, thus leaving the people of that section to settle their own questions in their own way ; the great railroad and coal strikes, during which United States troops had to be employed to suppress violence at Pittsburgh, and the resumption of specie payments, in 1879. (See Chapter on Finance.) The twentieth President was likewise a citizen of Ohio. The early life of James A. Garfield was somewhat similar to that of Abraham Lincoln. He had, however, the advantage of early contact with cultivated people, and while he at one time drove mules upon the tow-path of a canal, and paid for his tuition by acting as janitor of the school- house, he had opportunities for education of which he availed himself to the utmost, paying his own way through school and finally graduating ' at Williams College. At the opening of the war he entered the Union army, and was promoted, for his servi- ces at the battle of Chickamauga, to the rank of Major-general. He left the army to enter Con- gress, where he took a leading part, and was chosen Senator for Ohio, but before taking his seat was elected President. He surrounded himself with able advisers, and high hopes were entertained of a notably successful Administration, when he was shot by a disappointed office-seeker, dying after two months of suffering, during which the public sympathy was excited to an extraordinary degree and was manifested in every possible way. The single event for which the few months of his Presidency are remarkable is the quarrel between the President and Senator Conkling, of New York, as to some of the Federal appointments in that State. The Senator from New York resigned, and the difficulty was not adjusted at the time of the President's death. JAMES AIJKAM GARFIELD. 1831-1881. One Partial Temi, 1881. 496 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The Vice-President elected with Garfield was Chester A. Arthur, of New York. He was not widely known outside his own State before his nomination, and he was made the candidate in order to retain the favor of a large portion of the Republican party in New York which had advocated the claims of another candidate, and it was feared would not otherwise assist in the election of Garfield. Mr. Arthur had great experience as a political manager, but little knowl- edge of the manner in which the Government is conducted ; but he proved a careful, conscientious President, and the country was well satisfied with his administration. As he had been an adherent of the political faction with which President Garfield, at the time of his assassination, was at war, he was placed in an ex- ceedingly delicate position, and grave fears were entertained by many people that backward steps would be taken ; but the new President extricated himself from his difficulties with a dignity and a tact which astonished even those who knew him best, and which gained for him the respect of the entire country. During the term of President Arthur, Congress passed the Civil Service Act, providing for the appointment of subordinate em- ployees of the Government on the basis of merit rather than that of political influence ; the completion of the great East River Bridge united the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and the immense growth and prosperity of the New South justified the brightest anticipations for the future of that section. Mr. Arthur died in New York a few months after' the close of his term. The Republican party had now held control of the Government for twenty- five years, and Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic President since Buchanan. Although a native of New Jersey, he has been since boyhood a citizen of New York. He began the study of law in Buffalo at the age of eighteen, and early took an active part in politics. Having filled several local IHESTER ALAN ARTHUR. 1830-1886. One Partial Term, 1881-1885. G ROVER CLEVELAND— BENJAMIN HARRISON 497 ofifices, he was, in 1882, elected Governor of the State by a phenomenal ma- jority, and in 1884 was the successful candidate for President. The transfer of the Government from the hands of one political party to its opponent resulted in no disturbance to the business or social relations of the people, and although a large number of office-holders were replaced bv men of the opposite political faith, the business of the Government went on as before. During Cleveland's administration laws were enacted providing for the succession to the Presidency of the various members of the Cabinet in case of the death or disability of the President and Vice-President ; laying down rules for the count- ing of the electoral votes, thus supplying the strange deficiency of the Constitution in this re- spect; regulating inter-State com- merce, and forbidding Chinese laborers to emigrate to this country. Events of great im- portance were the extended labor strikes, which occurred in 1886, and the Anarchist riot in Chicago in May of that year. Although his administration had been very satisfactory to the country at large, Mr. Cleveland failed of re-election, the principal ques- tion at issue being that of a protective tariff. He left Wash- ington to take up the practice of law in New York city. Mr. Cleveland was suc- ceeded by General Benjamin Harrison, who secured 233 electoral votes to 168 cast for Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Harrison is the grandson of the ninth President, and the great-grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ ence. He is a native of Ohio, is well educated, and was for many years one of the leading lawyers of Indiana. He entered the Union army in 1862, and was promoted until, near the close of the war, he reached the rank of Brigadier- general. He was made a United States Senator in 1880, and came to the Presidency well equipped for the discharge of its duties. During his four years of service many events have taken place which ■32 STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 1837 First Term, 1885-18S9: Second Term, 1893-^ 498 THE STORY OF AMERICA. promise to have great weight in moulding the future of the country. A Con- gress of the American Republics met in Washington, in 1889, and devised l- measures by which it is hoped to I bring about a closer commercial union between the Americas ; six new States have been added to the Union ; the tariff laws have been revised and clauses added granting to such nations as offer us reciprocal advantages free admission for certain of their exports ; the country is being rapidly furnished with a new and efficient navy ; the long- standing difficulty with England concerning seal fishing in Behring Sea has been adjusted by a treaty providing for arbitration, and annoying difficulties with Germany, Italy and Chili have been happily settled. The twenty-three men who have filled the Presidential chair have varied in ability ; they have represented all classes of our American people and widely different schools of political thought, but in the century of their aggregate terms no country of the world has had better men as chief executives. The Presidential campaign of 1892 was remarkable in several respects. The leading candidates, ex-President Cleveland and President Harrison, were both men of the highest character and integrity, each of whom had served the country with notable ability as President for a term of four years. The people were, therefore, so well acquainted with the candidates that personalities entered little into the campaign, and the canvass was conducted with less popular en- thusiasm and excitement than ever before. The question most largely discussed was that of the McKinley tariff, but other important questions, such as the free coinage of silver and the revival of State banks, entered largely into the dis- cussion, and had much to do with influencing the result, especially in the Western States, where party lines were very largely broken up. The result of the elec- tion was almost a oolitical revolution, ex-President Cleveland being elected by an overwhelming majority. The Populists also polled a very large vote. BENJAMIN HARRISON. 1S33 One Term, 18S9-1S93. CLEVELAND'S SECOND TERM 499 The result of the election was generally accepted as meaning a condemnation of the McKinley tariff. For the first time in thirty years the Democratic party had full possession of all branches of the government. In the spring and summer of 1893 the country experienced an unexpected and remarkable stringency in the money market, which was largely attributed to the operations of what is known as the Sherman Law, by which the Government was compelled to purchase four and one-half million ounces of silver every month. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress to meet early in August, for the purpose of repealing the purchasing clause of the " Sherman Law." This appeared to bring some rehef in the way of restoring confidence, but it did not come until the country had suffered greatly from the general depression of trade and the withdrawal of credits. The banks in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston declined to pay large sums on the checks of their customers in currency, but insisted upon payments being accepted in Clearing House certificates. President Cleveland was very generally commended for his wise and patriotic action in dealing with the questions affecting the public interest during this critical period, though he met with serious opposition within his own party, THE HAWAIIAN DIFFICULTY. One of the most unusual and important events of 1893 was the movement for the annexation of the Sandwich Islands. Early in the year, by a successful revolution, without bloodshed, the native Queen, Liliuokalani, was overthrown, and a provisional government established, the chief officers of which were Americans by birth or parentage. A proposition for annexation was made by them to the United States, and a treaty looking to that end was negotiated under the administration of President Harrison, and sent to the Senate for ratification. On President Cleveland's accession to office in March, he withdrew the treaty, and sent Hon. James H. Blount as commissioner to Hawaii to make further investigation. After some months Mr. Blount made a report, stating that the Hawaiian revolution had been accomplished by the active aid of the American minister, who had used American war vessels and troops for that purpose. The President thereupon made a demand upon the provisional government that the Queen should be restored, and in a special message to Congress urged that view. The provisional government of Hawaii, however, declined to comply, and Congress took no measures to restore the monarchy. The affair occasioned intense feeling in the United States, public opinion in regard to annexation and the pohcy of the President being sharply divided. During the war between China and Japan, in 1894, President Cleveland had a conspicuous opportunity to show to the world the great advantage this country enjoys as a mediator between other belligerent nations, owing to our well known policy of avoiding foreign entanglements. 500 THE STORY OF AMERICA. In July, 1894, occurred the most tremendous conflict between capital and labor that has ever taken place in this country. The American Railway Union, a labor organization of railway employees, ordered a general strike on all railroads running Pullman cars. For two weeks traffic was almost at a standstill, and a reign of terror existed in Chicago, and also in parts of California and other- States of the West. The railroad tracks entering Chicago were besieged by a violent mob ; cars were derailed and burned, switches torn up, miles of loaded freight cars set on fire, and every means employed to stop completely the move- A SCENE DURING THE CHICAGO RHUS, JULY, 1S94. ment of trains. President Cleveland finally sent troops of the regular army to Chicago, and the riot was soon quelled. In December, 1894, Eugene V. Debs and other leaders of the strike were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. The autumn of 1894 brought a political revoludon even greater than that of 1892 ; the Republicans being nearly everywhere victorious. The universal depression of business, and the failure of Congress to deal with the tariff and financial measures, created a great revulsion of feeling against the Democrats, who were overwhelmingly defeated in nearly every State of the Union. The extent of the revolution is shown by the fact that while the House of Repre- sentatives elected in 1892 contained 219 Democrats and 127 Republicans, the House elected in 1894 contains 100 Democrats and 245 Republicans. SOME NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. ULYSSES S. GRANT. THE HERO OF THE CIVIL WAR. When Grant was twelve years old, his father sent him one day into the woods for a load of logs which were to be loaded by the lumbermen. No men were to be found. When he returned, his father asked where the men were. " I don't know, and I don't care," said the plucky boy ; " I got the load without them." In this act we see the boy as " father of the man." A dogged deter- mination to win at whatever cost, and whether he had forces to win with or not, characterized Grant throughout. It was this confidence and boldness of pur- pose that won for him the laurels of a hero during the Civil War. "Wherever Grant is," said Abraham Lincoln, " I have noticed that things move." Grant's first battle was at Belmont, Missouri, which he won. His next victories were at Forts Henry and Donelson, there being ten days between the battles. At Fort Donelson, Grant's words were characteristic and gained for him the name of " Unconditional Surrender Grant." His words were : " No terms but unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Grant was now made a major-general. In April of the same year he won the desperate battle of Shiloh. On July 4th, 1863, after a long and stubborn resistance Vicksburg surrendered to him, with 31,600 prisoners, and the Mississippi was open from its source to its mouth. In October he drove the enemy out of Tennessee. In March, 1864, as lieutenant-general. Grant was assigned to the command of all the armies of the United States, his headquarters being with the Army of the Potomac. His plan of campaign was to concentrate all the National forces, into several distinct armies, which should operate simultaneously against the enemy ; Sherman mov- ing toward Atlanta, while Grant himself proceeded against Richmond. The long campaign began with the three days' battle of the Wilderness. In the same montli, from May 7th to the 12th, the smoke hung over the mighty hosts at Spottsylvania Courthouse. Thus Lee was finally hemmed in, with his forces so reduced and starved that there was nothing left to him but surrender. 501 502 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. This took place at Appomattox Courthouse, April 9th, 1865. In 1866 Grant was made "General of the Army of the U. S." In 1S68 he became President, serving two terms. A little more than a year before his death he was robbed, by his partner. Ward, of all that he possessed. In the hope of providing for his family, he began to write his memoirs. He had cancer of the throat and could not dictate. But with that same " cool persistency of purpose," the dying soldier, suffering constant and, at times, the severest agony, yet struggled suc- cessfully on Four days after the book was complete he died, at Mount Mc- Gregor, near Saratoga, N. Y. His remains lie in Riverside Park, overlooking the Hudson. His book of Memoirs was well written and had an unprecedented sale. The proceeds provided handsomely for his wife and family. ROBERT E. LEE. THE GREAT COMMANDER OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES. Of all the men whose character and ability were developed in the great Civil War, there was, perhaps, not one in either the Union or the Confederate Armies whose greatness is more generally acknowledged than that of Robert E. Lee. His ability as a soldier and his character as a man are alike appreciated; and while it is natural that men of the North should be unable to understand his taking up arms against the government, yet that has not prevented their doing full justice to his greatness. It is not too much to say that General Lee is recog- nized, both North and South, as one of the greatest soldiers, and one of the ablest and purest men, that America has produced. Robert E. Lee was a son of the famous Revolutionary general, "Light Horse Harry Lee." At the breaking out of the war, Lee was much in doubt as to the right course. He disapproved of secession, but he was thoroughly pervaded with the idea of loyalty to his State. He had great difficulty in arriving at a decision. "I have not been able," he said, " to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my com- mission in the United States Army, and serve in defence of my native State. . . . I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword." He was very soon called upon to defend his native State. In the latter part of 1861, General Lee was sent to the coast of South Caro- lina, where he planned the defences which so long proved impregnable to all at- tacks of the Union forces, and which were held until the northern march of Sher- man's army, in 1865, compelled the evacuation of Charleston. Lee then re- turned to Virginia, and in June, 1862, took command of the Confederate forces NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. 503 defending Richmond. Then began that long and terrible series of battles be- tween his forces and the Army of the Potomac, which so splendidly displayed his magnificent abilities as a commander. In defensive warfare he was almost in- vincible. He defeated McClellan, Burnside and Hooker. Not until Grant took command in 1864 had a general been found who could successfully cope with Lee ; and even Grant accomplished Lee's final defeat, not so much by superior generalship as by steadily taking advantage of his own superior resources. It would be difificult to overrate the masterly ability with which Lee, with his ragged and half-starved but devoted soldiers, held out in the defence of Virginia. Love for their commander held the armies together. It was only because his forces were too far exhausted to carry on war that he was willing to accept the result which came at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th, 1865. Lee was loved and respected even more after the war was over. The confiscation of his property had rendered him homeless. Homes without number were offered to him. Though he accepted one for a time, his pride would not allow him to be de- pendent. He soon accepted the presidency of Washington College. Very soon the number of students increased ten-fold and his entire administration was most successful. General Lee died at Lexington, Va., Oct. 17th, 1870. After his death the name of the college over which he had presided was changed in his honor, to " Washington and Lee University," and stands a worthy monument of the great soldier, whose noble qualities were shown as conspicuously in peace as in war. GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. FIRST COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. The first commander of the army of the Potomac has been the occasion of more controversy than any other man in the recent history of the Republic. He has had most able defenders — for probably no general who ever lived had such a power of inspiring those around him with love and admiration ; and, even if the verdict of history be that he lacked some of the qualities essential to the highest success, it must still be admitted that one of the greatest commanders of the Civil War was George B. McClellan. He was a thoroughly trained and equipped soldier, and had every advantage of education. He served in the Mexican war, securing promotion for gallant conduct. After this. Captain McClellan was sent to Europe to study the organ- ization of European armies. He had no superior in his systematic knowledge of war, battles, and tactics. 504 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. In April, iS6i, McClellan offered his services to the Government, and was appointed major-general of Ohio Volunteers. His operations in West Virginia were so brilliantly successtul that after the first battle of Bull Run he was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, and soon after of all the armies of the United States, to the great satisfaction of the whole country, which looked upon him as the greatest military genius within its borders. McClellan's transcendent power to organize great armies, and inspire them with confidence and enthusiasm, was splendidly proved on two occasions — first, after the disastrous battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, when out of the chaos of defeat and disorder he created and equipped the great Army of the Potomac; and again after the second and worse Bull Run disaster, in August, 1862, when, at Lincoln's urgent request, he nobly resumed the command of which he had been deprived, re-organized his beaten and demoralized army with marvelous skill and celerity, and defeated Lee at the memorable battle of Antietam. Between these two memorable battles came the Peninsula campaign, with the advance on Richmond, the battles of Fair Oaks and Gaines's Mill, and the ereat conflict at Malvern Hill, where Lee was defeated. The administration be- lieved that McClellan did not follow up his advantages and he was relieved of command. But in that terrible emergency after the second Bull Run the Govern- ment turned aeain to him as the only man who could restore order. When the soldiers learned that " Little Mac " was once more in command their joy and re- newed hope were unbounded. McClellan has been severely criticised for over-cautiousness, but with later years his reputation has been to a large extent cleared, and he is now given his deserved place among the great leaders of the war. He was the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1S64, receiving a popular vote of 1,800,000 against 2,200,000 for Lincoln. He was elected Governor of New Jersey in 1877. He died at Orange, New Jersey, in 1885. He was a man of irreproachable character — a Christian gentleman in every situation of life. JAMES A. GARFIELD. CITIZEN, STATESMAN, PRESIDENT. The success of James A. Garfield did not come by one brilliant stroke, but was the result of gradual and steady growth. Steadily, inch by inch, he worked his zvay up, never falling back, until the topmost round of the ladder was reached; and never was success more fully deserved or more bravely won. He was but two years old when his father died suddenly, leaving his mother with four children, NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. 505 and her only source of support a small farm, encumbered by debt, in the half- cleared forest of Northern Ohio. He planted corn when he was a mere baby, and at ten years of age he materially increased his mother's income by work on the farms near by. He liked to use carpenter's tools, and he earned money with them and in any way that he could to pay for his schooling. He went through the course at Hiram College, and two years afterward, in his twenty-fifth year, he graduated from Williams College, having worked his way through. Re- turning to Hiram, he became its president, at the same time preaching and study- ing law. He held this office for five years. Under his management the attend- ance was doubled, the faculty strengthened, and the standard of scholarship raised. He was elected to the State Senate of Ohio in 1859, and became a noted mem- ber of that body. On the outbreak of the war, Garfield received the command of the 42d Regiment of the Ohio Volunteers, most of whom were old students of Hiram Colleo^e. He was promoted in 1863 to the grade of major-general for gallant services in the Chattanooga campaign. His salary as major-general would have been more than double what he received as Congressman ; but he was convinced that he could do the country better service in the latter position. Thus he took his place in Congress, at the age of thirty-two, and remained there until 1880. Throughout his whole term of service, his influence steadily increased, and when, in 1887, Mr. Blaine was transferred from the House to the Senate, by com- mon consent Garfield was made the leader of the Republican party in the House. In 1880, Garfield was elected United States Senator by the Ohio Legislature, and on June loth of the same year he was nominated at Chicago for the Presi- dency. He defeated General Hancock by 215 to 155 of the electoral votes. On the 2d of July, just as he was starting off, accompanied by Secretary Blaine, to Massachusetts, to attend the commencement of his old college, he was shot down by Charles Guiteau. For weeks he lingered between life and death, suffering agonies of pain. His brave and patient endurance endeared him to his country- men, and claimed the sympathy and admiration of the world. " But," in the words of Secretary Blaine, "all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. . . . Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death." He died at Elberon, Long Branch, New Jersey, on the 19th of September, 1881. « So6 • NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. SAMUEL J. TILDEN. THE GREAT REFORM GOVERNOR. In 1876, the great Centennial Year of the RepubHc, occurred an extent un- precedented in our history, and so portentous and alarming that for a time it threatened Civil War and the destruction of our government. This was the disputed Presidential contest of Hayes against Tilden, which was finally settled by the Electoral Commission, which decided the election in favor of Mr. Hayes. Mr. Tilden had received a large majority of the popular vote, and he and his supporters sincerely believed that he was duly and legally elected ; and it is not too much to say that his self-command and his patriotic efforts to quiet public excitement and promote acquiescence in the decision of the Commission went far to save the country from anarchy and possible war. Samuel Jones Tilden was a native of New York. He was a born politician. From boyhood he took a keen interest in political and economic questions, studied them thoroughly, and discussed them eagerly and with marked ability. Tilden was a " born lawyer " no less than a born politician. He was admitted to the bar in 1 841, and in his practice acquired both extensive fame and a large fortune. But it was as a reformer in politics that Mr. Tilden acquired his greatest and most lasting fame. In 1869 the " Tweed Ring" of thieves and adventurers had secured the absolute control of New York City. Nearly fifteen millions of dol- lars in fraudulent bills against the city were paid in a single day ! The thieves defied any one to dislodge them. "What are you going to do about it?" was Tweed's famous reply to criticism. Tilden knew what to do about it. He gave his best powers to the work and the ring was broken up, and the most promi- nent of the thieves brought to justice. Mr. Tilden was elected Governor of New York in 1874. In this position he pursued vigorously his work of reform. The " Canal Ring " was a body of cor- rupt men who controlled the Erie and Champlain Canals, and by a system of false accounts had robbed the State of large sums. Tilden exposed and over- threw this ring, recovered large amounts of the stolen money and completely re- formed the whole system of canal administration. He reduced State taxation nearly one-half. Tilden, as Governor of the greatest State of the Union, now stood at the head of the Democratic party, with a national fame as a reformer and a statesman. It was only natural that, in the Presidential campaign of 1876, all eyes should have turned to him as the man to head the Democratic ticket. After this memorable contest was over Mr. Tilden retired to private life. The last work of his life was a plan for a great public library, for which he left the bulk of his large fortune, but his beneficent design was frustrated by legal flaws in his will. He died in New York, August 4th, 1886. NOTED MEN Of RECENT TLMES. 507 JAMES G. BLAINE. THE BRILLIANT AND SUCCESSFUL STATESMAN. The close of the gfreat Civil War of 1S61 marked a new era in American politics. The permanence of the government being assured, the questions of the hour became those of reconstruction and pacification, of the rights of the freed- men, of internal peace and security, of foreign and domestic commerce, of tariffs and finance. Of the many able men who won their fame in the period since the war, there is none more prominent nor more widely admired and beloved than James G. Blaine. Two States of the Union claim Blaine as a son. During most of his manhood and later life he lived in Maine ; but he was born in Pennsylvania, and the latter State always cherished for him the warmest affection, giving him in the Presidential election of 1S84 a popular majority unprecedented in the his- tory of the State. He was born January 31st, 1830. He was always a leader among the boys, especially in debate. It is said that he committed " Cushing's Manual " to memory in one evening, and that he could recite many of the chapters in "Plutarch's Lives." Mr. Blaine became a teacher in the Western Military Institute, in Kentucky, and after four years in this institution he taught for two years in the Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Blind. In 1S54, to please his young wife, Blaine moved to Augusta, Maine. He soon became part owner and editor of the Kennebec Journal. Within three years he was a master spirit in the politics of the State, and through his earnest and incisive editorial discussions of the slavery problem was attracting wide at- tention. Blaine served in the State Legislature from 1S58 to 1862, distinguish- inof himself both on the floor and in the chair. In 1862 he was elected a mem- ber of the famous Thirty-eighth Congress ; and then began that long career in the National Legislature which made him one of the best known and most popular public men of the United States. He took his seat in 1863. Blaine retained his seat in Congress until 1S76, being Speaker in 1869-74. In the latter capacity he was one of the most popular officers that ever filled that exacting position. He was always courteous and fair, and especially quick in the discharge of his functions. Blaine was a very prominent candidate for the Presidential nomination both in 1876 and in 1880, Hayes and Garfield respec- tively being the victors. In 1876 he was elected by a unanimous vote of the Maine Legislature to the United States Senate. Blaine was twice Secretary of State, first under Garfield and afterwards under Harrison. He died on January 27th, 1893. "Blaine will stand in our history as the ablest parliamentarian and most skillful debater of our Congressional history." He possessed in a remarkable degree the " affec- tion and the confidence of his followers." 5o8 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. JOHN JACOB ASTOR. OUR PIONEER BUSINESS MAN AND FIRST MILLIONAIRE. If we look back into the boyhood of John Jacob Astor we will see that once he was as poor as afterwards he was rich. He was born in Waldorf, a little vil- lage of Baden, in 1763, and was the son of a poor German peasant. He helped his father on his farm until, in his sixteenth year, he went to London and worked with his brother, a maker of musical instruments. In 1783, he sailed for America, and by the advice of a dealer in furs, whom he met on the voyage, invested his small capital of a few hundred dollars, part borrowed from his brother, in furs, thus becoming founder of the American Fur Company. He would make journeys, himself, on foot through Western New York, buying skins from farmers, trappers, savages, wherever he could find them. He tramped over nearly the entire State in this way, and is said to have had a better knowledge of its geography and topography than any other living man. By these personal visits to the hunters and trappers, he gained their good will, and he soon had scores of trappers and hunters working for him in the great wilderness. He found a ready market for his furs in the Old World, in England, and in China, taking in exchange goods for which there was demand in New York. A beaver skin which cost him a dollar in New York sold in London for six dollars, and the English goods bought with this six dollars sold in New York for ten dollars. It was by such legitimate trade as this that John Jacob Astor made his money. His profit on a voyage would sometimes reach seventy thousand dollars. In six years he had acquired a fortune of $250,000. He now ventured to fit out two expeditions to the Oregon Territory — one by land, and one by sea — the purpose of which was to open up a regular commercial intercourse with the natives. From this period Astor's commercial connections extended over the entire globe, and his ships were found in every sea. Mr. Astor, with true foresight, in- vested his spare capital in suburban land around New York, then little more than a town. Before the time of his death this land had so much increased in value that it added many millions to the great estate which he left to his children. On his death, the 29th of March, 1S4S, at the age of nearly eighty-five years, he left property estimated at $20,000,000, and a legacy of $350,000 for the establishment of a public library in New York. Waldorf, his native village, received a legacy of $50,000 for its poor. Various other handsome benevolent and charitable dona- tions were made. All of his relatives were made comfortable, but his wealth was mainly inherited by his son William, who is said to have left $50,000,000. John Jacob Astor's wealth was the result of patient, honest toil and unremit- ting industry — not of speculation. Until he was fifty-five years of age, Astor was always in his office before seven o'clock in the morning. NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. 509 CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. THE GREAT RAILROAD MAGNATE. Staten Island lies in tlie beautiful bay of New York, seven miles distant from the great city. A century ago it was a mere country settlement, and its communications with the city were maintained by means of a few sail boats, which made one trip each way per day. One of these boats was owned and navigated by Cornelius Vanderbilt, a thriving farmer, who owned a small but well cultivated estate on Staten Island. Here his son Cornelius was born, on the 27th of May, 1794. Young Cornelius was passionately fond of the water, and was never so well pleased as when his father allowed him to assist in sailing the boat. He had always been anxious to become a sailor, and as he approached his seven- teenth year, he determined to begin life as a boatman in the harbor of New York. On the first of May, he asked his mother to lend him one hundred dol- lars to buy a boat. She had always disapproved of her son's plan to go to sea, and now, as a means of discouraging him, she told him if he would plow, har- row, and plant with corn, a certain ten-acre lot on their farm by the 27th of that month, which was his birthday, she would lend him the money. The field was rough, hard and stony, the worst on the farm, but by the appointed time the work was done and well done, and he received his money. Thus theboybegan his career. Often he worked all ni^ht long. He made a thousand dollars during- each of the next three summers. Gradually extending his enterprise, by the age of forty he had become the owner of beautiful sound and river steamers running to Boston and up the Hudson ; in 1849, he founded a line, via Lake Nicaragua, to Cali- fornia, and during the Crimean war he established a line of ocean steamers to Havre. A little later, he transferred his capital from steamships, and at the age of seventy entered upon a great career of railroad financiering, gradually obtaining a controlling interest in a large number of roads, until he extended his system to Chicago. The Grand Central Depot in New York city was erected by him. In 1862, during the most depressed period of the Union forces of the whole war, he made the munificent gift of his splendid steamer, the "Vanderbilt," to the Government. It is one of the pleasant traits of his character that he never forgot his first home. His first grand house was in Staten Island, built upon a corner of his father's farm, which he had bought when quite a young man. The latter part of his life he lived in New York city. At his death, in 1877, he left a fortune of some ^150,000,000, nearly all to his eldest son, William H. Shortly before his death he had given $1,000,000 to found Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tenn., and other beneficent acts marked his last years. Sio NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. CYRUS W. FIELD. THE SUCCESSFUL PROJECTOR OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE. " How necessary it is to succeed ! " sadly remarked Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, as he stood at the tomb of Washington. Few men have so nobly displayed the elements of success as did Cyrus W. Field in the laying of the Atlantic cable and few have been so richly rewarded. Cyrus W. Field was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Nov. 30th, 1819. He was carefully educated and at the ai^e of fifteen he went to New York to seek his fortune. He was so successful that in 1853 he was able to partially retire from business with a large fortune. On his return home after a few montlis' travel and recreation, he was solicited by his brother Matthew to accord an interview to a Mr. Frederick Lis- borne of Newfoundland, who had conceived a plan to establish telegraphic com- munication between New York and St. John's, Newfoundland, and from the latter point to dispatch swift steamers to London or Liverpool. Mr. Field lis- tened enthusiastically, but did not commit himself. But upon being left alone, suddenly the idea shot through him, thrilling him, as he says, like a veritable shook of electricity — " Instead of steamers, why not run an electric wire through the ocean itself." Thus was the Atlantic Cable conceived. Field could scarcely contain himself, so big was the idea within him. He immediately interested electricians and capitalists and work was begun. He attended in person to every detail. Hu himself went aboard the " Niagara" with the precious burden. As fathom after fathom slipped into the silent sea, the entire crew felt almost as though the cable itself were a thin^ of life and feelino-, so (jreat was their inter- est in it. Suddenly a great calamity came — the cable snapped in mid ocean. Field immediately gave orders for another cable. This time it was successfully laid and worked to pertection for nearly four weeks, when suddenly it became silent! But Cyrus W. Field knew no such word as fail. Again another cable was made ; again it snapped ! A fourth attempt brought success, and the two continents were at last connected. From Heart's Content, Newfoundland, to Valentia, Ireland, the message flew, " Thank God, the cable is laid. Cyrus W. Field." Almost immediately they grappled up the third cable and both have been in use until the present time. Mr. Field said: "It has been a long, hard struggle, nearly thirteen years of anxious watching and ceaseless toil. Often my heart has been ready to sink. One hope has led me on, and I have prayed that I might not taste of death till this work was accomplished. That prayer is answered; and now, beyond all acknowledgments to men, is the feeling of gratitude to Almighty God." It is sad to have to relate that in his last years he was robbed of everything by his own son. He died July 12th, 1892. NOTED MEN OF RECENT ThMES. 51 1 LELAND STANFORD AND THE GREAT UNIVERSITY OF PALO ALTO. Never were so many men from so many different parts of the country thrown together as in California in '48 and '49. Gold had been discovered on the 24th of January, 1848. There were no railroads; there were no laws. The wives and daughters had been left in their homes in the East. The few women who were there were of the worst sort. In San Francisco in February, '48, there were about fifty houses. People lived afloat. Into this strange new life of the Pacific came, in 1852, a man who was destined to bear a great part in its development, and to leave a name forever associated with its history. Leland Stanford was born in the beautiful Mohawk Valley of New York, near the village of Watervliet. His father was a plain farmer, and Leland was brought up to simple country living and hard work. When he was eighteen years old, his father told him that he might have the wood on a tract of ground if he would clear it. He did so and cleared ^2600, with which he gave himself a law education in Albany. He married Miss Jane Lathrop, of Albany, and took her with him to try his fortune in the new Wild West. He soon became one of the most prosperous and prominent men in the State. In 1862 he was elected Governor of the State by a large majority. The idea of running a railroad through those tremendous canons and over the snow-capped heights of the Rocky Mountains seemed to most men absurd in the extreme. But Leland Stanford would not give it up, and it was largely due to him that the great enterprise was accomplished. But this was not Mr. Stanford's greatest work for California. About thirty miles south of San Francisco he owned an immense tract of land, beautifully situated, known as the Palo Alto Ranch, where he built for himself a beautiful home and where he developed a model stock and fruit farm. His vineyard was the largest in the world. In 1884, while Mr. and Mrs. Stanford were traveling in Italy, they lost their only son and child, who was born to them eighteen years after their marriage. It was as a memorial of this son that The Leland Stan- ford, Jr., University was founded in 1887. The buildings are located on the Palo Alto Ranch, about a half mile from the Stanford home. The university owns not only the immense ranch on which it is situated, but also some 78,000 acres in other parts of the State. In addition to this there is an endowment of ^20,000,- 000, and the larger part of the estate of Senator Stanford goes to the university at the death of his widow. Though absent from his son at his death, it is said that Stanford believed firmly that his boy's last words to him then were: "Father, don't say you have nothing left to live for ; you have a great deal to live for." He died on his ranch in Palo Alto in 1893. 512 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. ROBERT FULTON. THE PIONEER OF STEAM NAVIGATION. It is a curious and remarkable fact in the history of invention that between conception and achievement hes a gulf which many men of the greatest genius fail to bridge. The difficulty commonly lies, not in making the invention, but in adapting it to the conditions — in a word, in making \X. practical. Robert Fulton is distinguished as an inventor who has this great title to fame. He was not the inventor of steam navigation ; he was not even the first man to build a steamboat ; but he was the man who brought steamboats into practical use, doing successlully the work needed to be done. Fulton was the son of a Pennsylvania farmer. He was a dull boy at study but very expert at drawing, and always fond of machinery, for which he often neglected his lessons. Havino- determined to be an artist, young Fulton went to Philadelphia, where he formed a friendship with Franklin. His success was rapid, and when only twenty-one he went to England to study. There he met Watt, who had just produced his steam engine. Fulton studied the steam en- gine with intense interest and was convinced that it could be applied to navi- gation. So great was his enthusiasm that he gave up the profession of art. He plunged into experiments, in which he was joined by Robert R. Livingston, then Minister to France, whose daughter, Harriet, afterward became Fulton's wife. A steamer was completed early in 1803 for trial on the Seine. The weight of the machinery broke the boat in half, and it sunk to the bottom ! For twenty- four hours without rest or sleep Fulton worked to raise the machinery. The boat was rebuilt in July of the same year and was launched in August with triumph and success, in the presence of the French National Institute and a vast crowd of the citizens of Paris. Messrs. Fulton and Livingston determined to build a boat on a larger scale in the waters of New York. In the spring of 1807 the boat was launched from the shipyard of Charles Brown, on the East River. She was one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet deep. Fulton was satisfied of his success, and announced that in a few days the steamer would sail from New York to Albany. Precisely as the hour of one struck, on Monday, September iith, 1807, the moorings were thrown off, 'and the " Clermont " moved slowly out into the stream. Volumes of smoke rushed forth from her chimney, and her uncovered wheels scattered the spray far behind her as she moved proudly on. Cheer after cheer went up from the vast throng. She made her return trip from Albany in just thirty hours — ex- actly five miles per hour. The jeers and ridicule that had been hurled at Fulton were silenced forever. Exposure to the weather brought on a fatal illness and he died in the very prime of his life, on the 24th of February, 181 5. NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. 513 THOMAS EDISON. THE GREATEST MODERN INVENTOR. Probably no man in the United States is better known or more universally interesting- than "The Wizard of Menio Park," the inventor of the electric lamp, the dynamo, the phonograph, the stock ticker, the electric pen, and the mimeo- graph, and the discoverer and improver of innumerable things in the field of electricity. In his whole life Thomas had but two months of regular schooling ; the rest of his education was given him by his mother. But he had a restless, in- quiring mind, an insatiable appetite for knowledge. When only ten years old, he read Gibbon and Hume, and was fascinated by books of chemistry. When twelve years of age Edison became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway, Next, having received as a present a lot of worn-out type, he began to publish a paper of his own, called " The Grand Trttnk Herald!' During the war, great crowds of people would gather at the stations, as his train arrived, in order to get the telegraph bulletins which he had persuaded a Chicago operator to send, and the boy sold his papers at an immense profit. In this way Thomas became interested in telegraphing. About this time he saved the life of a child of a telegraph operator. The grateful father rewarded the boy by teaching him telegraphing. When he was eighteen, he secured a position at Indianapolis as operator. While there he worked out his first invention, an automatic register for receiving messages and transferring them to another wire. In this rude machine was contained the germ of the phonograph, which he perfected years after. Edison became ex- tremely swift and expert at telegraphing. But he was too clever to remain at this post. Once, when night operator, he was required to telegraph the word "six" every half hour to show that he was awake. He contrived a machine which did the work for him and he spent the time over his beloved chemistry. By this cleverness he lost his situation. By and by he established himself in New York as an expert in odd jobs pertaining to telegraphing. Edison's first large profits came to him from the "stock ticker," an invention for reporting the prices of stocks on the exchange, which is now in universal use. Soon his suc- cessful experiments with electric lighting established his independence. Edison's idea of luxury when riches came to him was not fine clothes, nor fast horses, but a perfect workshop. This he made for himself at Menlo Park. Here he has gathered every substance known to science. Edison's maxim is, " Whatsoever is, is wrong," and he is one of the busiest men in the world trying to make wrong right. For him, each invention only makes the way for another to be worked out. "These are only tools," he says, "with which we may accomplish still greater wonders." 33 514 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. JOHN WANAMAKER. THE GREAT BUSINESS ORGANIZER. John Wanamaker has not only achieved success, but in achieving it he has wrought changes in the business world which will long remain as marks and monuments of the peculiar powers which distinguish his character. He was born in Philadelphia in 1837. Like many other Americans who have risen to the top, he began at the bottom. His father was a brickmaker, and the boy's first business experience was in " turning bricks." When he was a few years older, he found a place as errand boy in a book store, earning a salary of $1.25 a week. Every morning and evening he trudged over the four miles which lay between his home and the store. Soon he left the book- store and secured employment in a clothing store at $1.50 a week. Once, when asked how he got his education, he answered, " I took it in as I went along, as a locomotive takes up water from a track tank." In April, 1861, he formed a part- nership with his brother-in-law, Nathan Brown, and embarked in the clothing business at Sixth and Market. In 1868 Mr. Brown died. The business was constantly outgrowing its facili- ties, and in 1875, the large block, occupied by the old Pennsylvania freight de- pot, at Thirteenth and Market streets, was bought. This great department store is to-day the largest retail store in the world, and has been the model of the great department stores that have sprung up all over the country. Wana- maker was a pioneer in advertising. It was he who instituted the return of money for unsatisfactory purchases. It is not too much to say that he has revolutionized business. John Wanamaker has not used his powers for him- self alone. He has shared his profits liberally with his employees. He has built a home on Broad street for his female clerks. He has given ^100,000 to the Young Men's Christian Association. He became secretary of this association in Philadelphia when he was only about twenty years old, and afterwards became president. During his presidency, the splendid building of the association, at Fif- teenth and Chestnut streets, was built, which, like his store, became an object lesson for others to copy. But the most characteristic monument to the generosity and Christian labor of this great organizer is Bethany Church and Sabbath School, to which he has given ^100,000 in money — but, much more, he has given himself to the work. While yet a young man he called together a few poor children in a shoemaker's shop in one of the roughest districts of Philadelphia, and taught them. This was the origin of this large Sunday school and church. Through this work the entire district has been transformed. Every Sabbath while he was Postmaster-General he came to Philadelphia to superintend this Sabbath school. In many other ways Mr. Wanamaker has given evidence of his generosity and Christian spirit. NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. 515 MARSHALL FIELD. THE MODERN BUSINESS MAN. The term " New West " to most of us is apt to call up a picture of the growth of a great agricultural country ; of vast acres of land brought under cul- tivation ; of enormous crops raised; of improved processes in farming and min- ing-. But the " New West" includes a orreat deal more than this. With the growth of the country great cities have sprung up, which are just as typical feat- ures of the West as are the mines of Colorado or the wheat farms of Dakota. Marshall Field is one of the men who have identified themselves with the " New West." His influence upon the growth, trade and habits of mercantile life would be hard to measure. Marshall Field was a country boy, born in Conway, Mas- sachusetts, in 1835. His father was able to give him the moderate, but sound, education which every intelligent New England farmer considers indispensable. Marshall was a quiet, thoughtful boy, always inclined to make the most of his op- portunities. He never liked farming, however, but from his earliest years inclined toward a mercantile life. In 1856 he left Massachusetts and made straight for Chicago, where he became a salesman in the wholesale dry goods house of Cooley, For- well & Co. In 1865 the firm was reorganized, and Mr. Field, who had for some time really been the real head, became so in name as well, the title of the firm be- coming Field, Palmer & Leiter. Two years later it changed again to Field, Leiter & Co. In 1881 Mr. Leiter withdrew from the firm and the name became Marshall Field & Co. It consists of Mr. Field and eight junior partners, all of whom have grown up in the house. Through all the great financial panics and through the terrible fire Marshall Field & Co. passed unscathed. It was hard to ruin a house which owed nothing. His policy throughout was to pay cash for goods and to sell for cash. In contemplating the great city of Chicago of to-day, the Chicago that produced the " Magic City," it is difficult to realize what sort of place it was that was called Chicago when Marshall Field came to it, thirty-nine years ago. The houses were shanties and the streets were constant upstairs and downstairs, owing to variations in the grading. The city, as well as the entire country, was in a state of wild unrest and feverish growth. The whole tendency of business was speculative. Men were rich one day and poor the next. A man like Marshall Field, cool, calculating, prudent and conservative, was the excep- tion. Perhaps no man has done more to bring about the change between that Chicago and the Chicago of to-day than Marshall Field. He has been and is still a public-spirited man. His gifts have been large to the New Uni- versity of Chicago. He gave liberally toward the building of the White City. The beautiful art palace now bears the name of " Field Museum." 5i6 NOTED MEN OF RECENT TIMES. HENRY WARD BEECHER. THE GREAT PULPIT ORATOR AND REFORMER. The Beecher family is one of the most remarkable families of America, and Henry Ward Beecher was the most distinguished member of the family. He was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24th, 181 3. When a boy he wanted to be a sailor and at first he even thought he would run away from home, but finally decided that he would ask his father and then go whether he received permission or not. His father, knowing his son's attitude, raised no objection, and quickly sent him to Amherst College to study mathematics and navigation, but remarked, as the boy left home, " I shall have that boy in the ministry yet." The stories of Nelson and of Captain Cook gradually lost their charm, as a new and broader field opened up before him. He studied theology under his father at Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, and then preached for two years at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, a little town on the Ohio river. But he was soon invited to Indianapolis, where he labored for eight years. In 1847 he accepted the call to Plymouth Congregational Church as its first pastor. Here he followed out the same line of conduct in which he had begun at Indianapolis. He had already taken an active interest in the secular questions of the day and had identified himself with the anti-slavery movement in its infancy. He had already declared it to be the duty of every clergyman to preach against slavery. At Plymouth Church, practically ignoring formal creeds, he announced his determination to preach the Gospel of Christ and that he considered temperance and anti-slavery a part of this Gospel. When Wendell Phillips found no place for free speech in New York or Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher invited him to the platform of his church. For nearly forty years from Ply- mouth the words of the great orator pealed forth like thunder, shaking the old foundations to the very bottom. It was a flaming sword that he wielded with voice and pen, in the pulpit, on the lecture platform, and through the press, in behalf of patriotism and liberty. Mr. Beecher was a bold fighter for Abraham Lincoln in i860, and with the first shot at Fort Sumter he sprang to the aid of his country. Soon after this, in great need of rest, he went abroad. But he did not rest in England. Here he fought the mad lion to the teeth. His utterances in behalf of freedom and the cause of the North were sublime and heroic, and completely turned the tide of English opinion. Mr. Beecher's record is an eloquent witness to the truth of his words: "I have attempted all my life long to take the part of those who had no defender." " Lay on his coffin a sword ; for he was a brave, brilliant and effective soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity." §^ -' ■; A ^ 1: ] I il ■I li 1 FRANCES E. WILLARD, THE ORGANIZER AND HEAD OE THE " W. C. T. U." ITH the latter years of this century a new power has made itself felt in the world, — the power of organized womanhood. Fifty years ago such a body as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was not only unknown, but impossible ; and fifty years ago the woman who has done more than any other to bring it into being was a bright, healthy child of five years, living at Oberlin, Ohio, whither her father and mother had moved from Monroe County, New York, where she was born in September, 1839. In 1846 there was another move westward, this time to Forest Home, near Janesville, Wisconsin. Here Miss Willard spent twelve years, in which she grew from a child to a woman. She had wise parents, who gave free rein to the romping, freedom-loving girl, and let her grow up "near to nature's heart." She could ride a horse or fight a prairie fire "just as well as a man." After twelve years of life on Wisconsin prairies, the Willard family moved to Evanston, on the shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago. Here Miss Willard began her work as a teacher, which she pursued in different institutions until 1870, when she was chosen president of Evanston College for Ladies. This place she filled until 1874, when she finally gave up teaching to enter upon a new and still larger work. In 1873 occurred in Ohio the memorable "Women's Crusade" against the rum shops. Bands of devoted women besieged the saloons for days and weeks together, entreating the saloon-keepers to cease selling liquor, praying and sing- ing hymns Incessantly In bar-rooms or on the sidewalks, until the men who kept them agreed to close them up, and in many cases emptied barrels of liquor into the gutters. This movement at once arrested Miss Willard's attention. She saw in it the germ of a mighty power for good. She resigned her position as president of the college at Evanston, and threw all her energies into the anti- liquor movement. With her customary thoroughness she entered upon a sy&- 549 550 FRANCES E. WILLARD. tematic study of the subject of intemperance and the sale of liquor, and of the different measures which had been undertaken to abate this mighty evil. She sought the counsel of Neal Dow and other leaders in the temperance cause. She joined in the crusade against liquor-selling in Pittsburgh, kneeling in prayer on the sawdust -covered floors of the saloons, and leadingf the host in sincrine "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and "Rock of Ages," in strains which awed and melted the hearts of the multitude thronging the streets. The result of her work was a determination to combine in one mighty organization the many sep- arate bands of women temperance workers which had sprung up over the coun- try ; and this was achieved in the autumn of 1874, in the organization at Cleve- land of that wonderful body, the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The resolution which was adopted at that meeting, written by Miss Willard herself beautifully expresses the spirit in which they entered upon the work. It read as follows : — ^'Resolved, That, recognizing that our cause is and will be contested by mighty, determined, and relentless forces, we will, trusting in Him who is the Prince of Peace, meet argument with argu- ment, misjudgraent with patience, denunciation with kindness, and all our difficulties and dangers with prayer." From that time Miss Willard's life is the history of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Like the "handful of corn in the tops of the mountains," all over this and in other lands it has taken root and grown until the fruit does indeed " shake like Lebanon." In almost every corner of the United States is a subordinate organization of some sort, a local union, a children's band, a young woman's circle, or perhaps all of these. It has built the great "Tem- perance Temple," one of the largest of the immense business buildings iti Chicago. It has organized a large publishing business, from whose busy presses temperance literature is constantly being circulated in all parts of the country. It has by its political power made and unmade governors, senators, and representatives ; and it has done much to bring the time when women shall take an equal share in the government of church and state. In all this work the head and guiding spirit has been Frances E. Willard. Overwork has of late somewhat impaired her health, and made travel and rest abroad necessary. But in whatever corner of the world she may dwell, there is always a warm corner kept for her in the many thousand hearts and homes that have been cheered and brightened by her work "for God and home and native land." Miss Willard's friend and co-worker, Hannah Whitall Smith, [Philadelphia] says of her : " Miss Willard has been to me the embodiment of all that is lovely and good and womanly and strong and noble and tender in human nature. She has done more to enlarge our sympathies, widen our outlook, and develop our gifts, than any man or any other woman of our time." FAMOUS AMERICAN WOMEN. BY FRANCES E. WILLARD. President of the IVorld' s W. C. T. U. This book of American biography would be incomplete without some account of what women have done and suffered in helping to make the great republic what it is. I am therefore glad once more to take up my pen to treat of this my favorite theme. There were two distinct early types of women, the Northern and the Southern. Both were patrician in their purity of ethical quality, but the latter more technically so in its environment. Individuality developed earlier in the North, because personal initiative was necessary, owing to financial needs. The Southern woman had a downier nest, and found it so soft and warm that she rested more than she worked. Her features were less distinctive than those of her Northern sister, but more soft ; her tones were deeper and more mellow, but had less of the clarion timbre of conscious power. The line of grace was more pro- nounced in the figure and movement of the Southerner — the line of power was apparent in the expression and bearing of the woman of the North. Each was a noble type, the one more lovely, the other more achieving. As a matter of history, public schools, which were established in New England within 25 years after the landing of the Pilgrims, had no room for girls, and Harvard College, founded twenty years after the Massachusetts landing, 551 HANNAH WHriAI.I. SMITH. 552 WOMAN IN AMERICA. was for young men, not for their sisters. Half a century passed before public schools were granted to the people. It was prophetic that Hartford, Connecticut, should witness the first of these — that beautiful city in which Emma Willard reached her early fame. The date in Hartford was 1771, only five years before the Revolution. In the South, the better class of rirls never dreamed of eoinor to the public school ; like the aristocracy of Great Britain, they were taught by the governess, a shadowy figure who had small Latin and less Greek — indeed, small everything, except a smattering of English, much manner, and unbounded deference. This describes the situation in early days ; but when Emma Willard sent out from her training school in Troy young and forceful women, combining Northern strength with Southern grace, they wrought marvels in the thought and development of the Southern woman in those semi-baronial homes which slave labor rendered possible, even on a new continent. The Dame-School was the source from which Northern eirls imbibed the little that they knew up to the present century. Our highest authority on this subject is Miss Mary F. Eastman, who says that these schools were of an in- ferior order, in which women, often those who themselves could hardly more than read, would gather a few girls about them, teach them to "make their man- ners," according to the ancient phrase, drill the alphabet into their brains, and enough beyond that to enable them to spell out the Catechism, which every well- regulated girl was obliged to learn by heart. Charles Francis Adams says that during the first 150 years of our colonial history "the cultivation of the female mind was regarded with utter indifference," and Abigail Adams in one of her famous letters declares that "it was fashionable to ridicule female learning." These were the days when women given to scolding were condemned to sit in public with their tongues held in cleft sticks, or were thrice dipped from a duck- ing stool. Miss Eastman says, referring to this barbarism, " It would be better that their tongues had been tamed by instruction to becoming speech, or that they had been permitted to drink at the fountain of learning." It is significant that in Northampton, Massachusetts, as late as the year 1788, and in an intelli- gent community, where Smith's College is now located, the village fathers voted "not to be at the expense for schooling girls." In 1792 the Selectmen of Newburyport decided that " during the summer months, when the boys have diminished, the Master shall receive girls for instruction in grammar and read- ing, after the dismission of the boys in the afternoon, for an hour and a half" The visitor to this beautiful and historic seaport is shown with pride the site on which stood the school-house to which it is believed women were first admitted on this continent to an education at public expense. That was just one hundred years ago. The same progressive town voted in 1803 to establish four girls' schools, the first on record, which were to be kept si.x months in the year, from six to eight o'clock in the morning and on Thursday afternoon, — for the CHURCH AND SCHOOLS. 553 boys had the pick of the time as well as the training. We next find it re- corded that in 1 789, when the Revolutionary War had been over for six years, the city of Boston, rising to the occasion, established three reading and writing schools, which were open all the year round to boys, and to girls from April to October. There were no free schools in that city for "that boy's sister" until this date. In Rhode Island girls were not admitted to the public schools till 1828. But little by little the different gates were opened, until in about the first quarter of our century girls were permitted to attend the whole year through, the same as boys ; but it must be remembered that this was in New England, which has always led in everything pertaining to intellectual develop- ment. The more remote States followed at a greater distance. Now came the battle for the higher education — which was much more difficult. The whole woman question was here passed in review, and the conservative cast of mind, as was inevitable from its native limitation, declared that the family relation would be subverted and the new continent depopulated if women were per- mitted to follow their own sweet will in the development of the intellects with which, by some strange inconsistency of fate, they were endowed. Much as it is the fashion to decry the Church as the great conservative force, let it be gratefully remembered by women everywhere, that the first schools of higher education were denominational institutions, and resulted from the enlightened love of generous fathers, who, having girls of promise in their families, felt that they had no right to leave their mental cultivation unprovided for. Happily, competition among the different Churches developed along the line of multiply- ing these seminaries of higher education for girls, for no Church wished its daughters to attend a school founded by some other ! Perhaps this education of the future mothers of our nation is the best result to which we can refer in the everlasting battle among the broken fragments of the body of Christ. High schools for girls did not exist until about the middle of the present century. As in the lower grades, the girls came only at early hours, because it was a settled principle that they must not be in the same school with boys, and they must in nowise inconvenience these latent lords of creation. From the first, however, the girls have proved to be so eager for instruction that their fathers, pleased, perhaps, to see repetitions of themselves in the vigorous intellects of these little ones, have responded to their importunities by establishing separate high schools for their daughters. The first to do this was Newburyport again, in 1842, and Salem, Mass. (where once they hanged the witches), in 1845, but progressive Boston did not found a high school for girls until 1852 — almost two hundred years after she had established a Latin school for boys, and more than two hundred after the founding of Harvard College for young men. The practical outcome of high-school education in these latter years has been the State university, and women owe more to this last-named institution 5b-\ WOMAN IN AMERICA. than to any other single force, for their education, up to this time. By the inevitable processes of thought, the men who had admitted girls to every department of public school instruction could not close to them the doors of that highest school — the university. By parity of reasoning, when the uni- versity added professional schools, it would have been most illogical to deny to the young women, entrance to these ; hence the higher classes of occupation, all of which are taught in various State institutions, and later on professional schools for doctors, lawyers, civil engineers, etc., have been freely opened to young women at State expense. Collegiate training for women was more difficult to gain. The pioneer was Oberlin, founded in Ohio, in 1833 ! woman was welcomed here from the beginning. Mount Holyoke Seminary, in Massa- chusetts, was established in 1836, by the immortal Mary Lyon — that daughter of the people — who, by her unique method of domestic services performed wholly by the students, enabled the farmer's daughter to win as good an intellectual training as Madam Emma Willard provided in Troy for the daughters of the rich. In 1852 Antioch College was founded in Ohio, and women were admitted to all of its advantages. In 1862 Cornell University was established on the same basis, until now there is not a college west of the Alleghanies the advantages of which are not equally offered to the sons and daughters of our people, while the Leland Stanford University, recently opened on the Pacific Coast, near San Francisco, and having an endowment of 55^20,000,000, is in all its departments free to women. The same is true of the great new Chicago University, founded by John D. Rockafeller ; the great Northwestern University, of the Methodist Church, at Evanston, in the suburbs of the city ; while the Annex of Harvard ; Barnard College, in connection with Columbia College, of New York city ; the newly acquired rights of women at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and Middlebury College — that ancient and honorable institution in Vermont, — with the American University of the Methodists, founded by Bishop Hurst, in Washington, D. C, and Evelyn College, which is the Annex of Princeton, in New York — mark the latest open- ings for women in the fields of higher education — collegiate and professional. Vanderbilt, in the South, cannot long resist the oncoming tide, that each day cries more insistently, "Place aux dames!" and "The tools to those that can use them." In 1865 Matthew Vassar founded, in Poughkeepsie, New York, a college for women. This was a real college, and, with Smith, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr, shows the high-water mark of woman's separate education in this country. Nobody questions that before another generation the colleges that have the annex will be themselves annexed, and co-education will universally prevail. There is another phase of the higher education of women which has exerted a vast influence on the public sentiment of the Republic. Nothing SELF-SUPPORT. 555 shows the advance made in a single century from a more salient point of view, than the fact that from having been grudgingly admitted to the lowest grade of the public school, and obliged to attend at the unseemly hour of six o'clock in the morning, woman, when she had the opportunity, proved herself so worthy of it that to-day eighty-two per cent, of all the teachers in the public schools in the United States are wotnen. The normal schools of the forty-four States, with their admirable methods of the latest and most helpful kinds for the acquire ment of thorough training as teachers, swarm with the girl of the period. Recently, when I addressed the Normal School near Chicago, under the care of that famous educator, Colonel Francis W. Parker, seventy-five fair damsels, in graceful reform dress, walked up the aisle to the platform, accompanied by a single specimen of the genus homo attired in black, and I laughingly said to myself, "Is he in mourning by reason of lonesomeness and lost opportunity, or does he serve as an exclamation point to mark the new order of things ? " Southern women have wakened to a new life since the war. Higher edu- cation and self-support are now accepted as a matter of course by all save the most prejudiced minds, while the whole cause of woman, in the large sense herein defined, is supported by the ablest brains among Southern men and women. The White Ribbon movement has been the largest influence thus far introduced into that sunny land, to reveal to the home-folk their privileges and powers in this Christian civilization. Women have been appointed as directors, jointly with men, in the Colum- bian Exposition of 1893, and those mighty "auxiliary" departments, which mean the convening of philanthropic, educational, religious, and other special- ties from every quarter of Christendom for great conventions throughout the World's Fair, means more than we thought possible at first, and especially to the bright women of the South. As a natural outcome of the mental development of women throughout the Republic, they have now the range of almost all forms of industry, and are practically debarred from none they care to follow. The recent census enu- merates over four thousand different branches of employment in which women are now engaged, and the consensus of opinion is, that as a class they do admirably well. It is no longer considered a token of refinement to live upon the toil of others, but women who support themselves have the hearty respect and good will of all sensible women and of all members of the other sex whose good will and respect are worth desiring. As brain-power is the basis of suc- cess in every undertaking,, whether it be baking potatoes or writing sonnets, the immense amplitude given to the activities of woman-kind is the greatest fact of the century. To translate this mass of brain from the dormant to the active stage means, not only to the individuals now living, but through the might\' forces of heredity to coming generations, more than the greatest mind can 556 WOMAN IN AMERICA. \ possibly perceive. The expansion thus given to the total of brain momentum throughout the nation may be trusted to conduct us to such discoveries, inven- i tions, philosophies, applications of religion, as the most adventurous have not I yet dreamed, and will, we believe, be for the universal uplifting of the race in power, in purity, and peace. It is to be remembered that all these mighty opportunities have come to women largely by the permission of men. They might have formed industrial and other guilds and rigidly excluded women from membership. If men, as a class, had been imbued with the spirit manifested by that brilliant writer, Mr. Grant Allen (who deliberately declares that there is nothing that woman has ever done as well as man can do it, except to extend the census list), where would women have been in respect to the development of brain and hand ? Mr. Grant Allen remands them to that one occupation in which they have distinguished themselves, and says they were "told off" like so many soldiers from an army selected to conduct some difficult enterprise, and that, having been thus separated to a special work, they have not in the nature of the case a right to scatter elsewhere. But as he is the only man who has ever said this in public and in so many words, and as our brothers of the journalistic pen have impaled him without mercy on the point of that swift weapon, we may conclude that the common sense of universal manhood has reached the conclusion : Let any woman do whatever thing she can do well. Upon this basis all business colleges and schools for typewriting and shorthand are now open to women ; manual training and industrial schools admit them freely ; colleges and universities, professional schools and art classes, accord them every advantage ; the whole field of journalism is open to them, and but two citadels yet remain to be captured, — those of ecclesiastical and civil power. Sapping and mining are going on vigorously around these citadels, and many of their outposts have been already taken. Twenty-three States have already granted school suffrage ; Kansas has municipal, and Wyoming com- plete suffrage for women. In the younger denominations women stand equal with men in the pulpit as well as out of it, and the question of inducting them into every position in the great denominations is being actively discussed and often favorably commented upon by the great constituency of ministers, editors, and publicists. The place of woman in literature is striking. Here she has won the largest standing room. No publisher asks the question, " Did a woman furnish that manuscript?" but he pays according to its merit. The same is true in journalism. Clubs for women are springing up everywhere, philanthropic guilds are numerous, there are religious societies practically without number, and reform movements are more vigorously directed by women than by the most notable or most distinguished experts among men. IN THE PROFESSIONS. 557 Perhaps no feature of this splendid evolution is more remarkable than the last, namely, the intellectual development of woman as a home-maker. The bright, ■well-disciplined intellects among society women have now found their exact niche. They are somewhat too conservative to take up the temperance reform or the suffrage movement, although we believe that almost without exception these great enterprises have their hearty sympathy, but in the department of woman as a housekeeper and home-maker they find a congenial field. They would help lift this profession from the plane of drudgery. They would so train the household workers, once called servants, that theirs shall be a veritable voca- tion. All that science and art can do to elevate the culinary department of the home, to improve its sanitary conditions, and to embellish its surroundings, these women are determined to see done. The number of new industries and the subdivisions or new avocations that will grow out of this movement are incalculable. We rejoice in it, for while we firmly believe in the old French motto, "Place aux dames!" and "The tools to those that can use them," we always think that the mother is the central figure of our civilization, and to be treated accordingly ; that the home-maker is the genius of what is most holy and happy in our lives. We believe that invention, science, education, and re- ligion should converge in systematic fashion upon the evolution of the home, •which evolution is bound to come, and is rapidly keeping pace with develop- ments in all other lines of human uplift. While it pains a progressive woman to hear any man speak as if the home bounded the sphere of her sex, and while we believe the highest duty of all women is to help make the whole world home-like ; while we believe that woman •will bless and brighten every place she enters, and that she will enter every place, we would sympathize with the possibilities of honorable employment and of high development to those who bring just as much talent, discipline, and de- votion to the building up of home as others do to the larger world outside. In making the transition from woman as a cipher outside of home, to the splendid civilization that welcomes her to every one of its activities, it was necessary for the " present distress " to emphasize out of their due proportion the importance of education, industrial avocations, philanthropic vocations, science, and art for women. But when the pendulum swings to its extreme limit, and Church and State are freely opened to her, we feel sure it will swing to the harmony of a real circuit described by the interests of home, and our brightest brains, most skillful hands, and deepest hearts shall give themselves to the beautiful amen- ities and sacred ministries of that institution which has been called, and not too often, "Our Heaven below." A book is now being written entitled " A Woman of the Nineteenth Century," and is to include one thousand names of American women. It is found entirely practicable to gather up so large a number of notable names W03IAN IN AMERICA. 559 illustrative of the different forms of activity in which women are now engaged. This being true, it is a hopeless endeavor to characterize even the most repre- sentative women in an article like the present. To do so would but invite the criticism of making invidious distinctions. The political activities of women have been perhaps more criticised than any others. Naturally enough, perhaps, as politics is to-day the arena where men fight with ballots rather than with bayonets or bullets. But in England the Primrose Dames and the Women of the Liberal League are a mighty factor in working out the rights of the people on the one hand, and the preservation of aristocratic prerogative on the other. This country has yet had no political uprising of women to match that of the motherland, but the Prohibition party has for years had women as its truest allies, and in the People's party they take equal rank with men, while both declare for the ballot in the hand of woman as her rightful weapon. Conventions, committee meetings, newspaper organs, and the public platform all bear the impress to-day of the growing intelligence and disciplined zeal of women as partisans. This is but the beginning of a new movement, the consequences of which promise to be more vast than any we have yet attained in the mighty development of the multitudinous woman question. There was in the Declaration of Independence the percussive force of giant powder when we deliberately said, "All men are born free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, and among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We then and there invoked that trinity of issues which are to-day involved in the mighty " Human Question," namely, the labor question, temperance question, and the woman question. Not until all these have been wrought out into statutes and constitutions will there be rest for the land. It is a blessed fact that woman cannot rise alone. From the first she has been at the bottom of the human pyramid ; she has the mother heart, and the stream cannot rise higher than its fountain. Whatever lifts and puts better conditions about her in all stages of her earthly life, does the same for every son she gives to the nation by daring to walk the Via Doloroso of Danger when she passes the sacred but terrible ordeal of motherhood. Well has the poet sung that " Men and women rise and fall together, dwarfed or god-like, bond or free." No woman worthy of the name forgets that she had a father and brother in her early home, and for their sake, as much as for mother's and sister's sake, all true women seek to help both men and women in the solution of the great problems of modern civilization. To be strong-minded was once thought a crime in woman, but upon strength of mind there is a premium now. The bread-winning weapon, eagerly sought and firmly held in the delicate but untrembling hand of woman, is the only sword she needs. We would make her thoroughly independent of marriage, that she 560 SPHERE OF WOMAN. still might choose its old and sacred path from motives more complimentary to the man of her choice than that "He will be a good provider." We would educate her thoroughly, that she might be the comrade of her husband and her sons, for while religion and affection form two of the strands in the cable that binds human hearts together in the home, we believe that intellectual sympathy is that third bright strand which this glad age is weaving, and that no charm more holy or enduring survived the curse of Eden. We would endow her with power in Church and State, that these two hierarchies might belong to the many and not to the few, to the people, and not to priest and politician. We would make woman partner in the great world's activi- ties, that she might more greatly endow the children whose gifts depend so largely on her goodness, greatness, and grace. God made woman with her faculties, her traits, her way of looking at all great questions from the highest to the lowest, and he made her to be a helpmeet for man, and he made man to be a helpmeet for her ; he made them to stand in a republic, as I believe, bearing equally its magnificent burdens. The world needs the tender sweetness of the alto voice, the jubilant good-will of the soprano, in sermon as in psalm ; tenor and bass become monotonous at last, and the full diapason of power and inspiration is impossible except we listen to the full chorus of humanity. God hasten that great chorus, in church and state alike, with its deep-hearted love and its celestial hope ! Frances E. Willard. 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