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HERO TALES 
 FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 112L 
 
HERO TALES 
 
 FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE 
 
 AND 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 — "And high deeds 
 Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, 
 But the pell-mell of men." 
 
 CLOUGH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1895 
 
■ 
 
 Copyright, 1895, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
GENERAL GRANT RECONNOITERING THE CONFEDERATE POSITION. 
 FROM A SKETCH MADE AT THE TIME. 
 
TO 
 
 E. K. R. 
 
 To you we owe the suggestion of writing this book. Its 
 purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in sim- 
 ple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they 
 knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by 
 their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qual- 
 ities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race 
 the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence 
 to an ideal. 
 
 It is a good thing for all Americans, and it is an espe- 
 cially good thing for young Americans, to remember the men 
 who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of 
 their fellow-countrymen, and to keep in mind the feats of dar- 
 ing and personal prowess done in time past by some of the 
 many champions of the nation in the various crises of her his- 
 tory. Thrift, industry, obedience to law, and intellectual cul- 
 tivation are essential qualities in the make-up of any successful 
 people; but no people can be really great unless they possess 
 also the heroic virtues which are as needful in time of peace as 
 in time of war, and as important in civil as in military life. 
 As a civilized people we desire peace, but the only peace worth 
 having is obtained by instant readiness to fight when wronged 
 — not by unwillingness or inability to fight at all. Intelligent 
 foresight in preparation and known capacity to stand well in 
 battle are the surest safeguards against war. America will 
 
cease to be a great nation whenever her young men cease to 
 possess energy, daring, and endurance, as well as the wish 
 and the power to fight the nation's foes. No citizen of a free 
 state should wrong any man; but it is not enough merely to 
 refrain from infringing on the rights of others; he must also be 
 able and willing to stand up for his own rights and those of his 
 country against all comers, and he must be ready at any time 
 to do his full share in resisting either malice domestic or for- 
 eign levy. 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 Washington, 
 
 April 19, 1895. 
 
HERO TALES 
 FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
" Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. 
 
 Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 
 I shall not look upon his like again." 
 
 — Hamlet. 
 
""OSev Y) sv nua-fl eXeoflspia TEf)pap.|j.£vot 6t T(Lv8e te itatepe? xai 
 YjfxlTjpoi xai aoxoi ootoc xal xaXu>? {povtec noXXa Syj xai xaXa epva 
 ajce^iTjOavto ei? rcavcac av8pa«too? xal JSia xai or^o-la, o'.ofjuvo'. Sslv 
 oirlp ttjc, eXeuSepias xai "EXXtjoiv orclp TiIXXtjvwv jxd/ssOai xac Bap^a- 
 
 po'.? orcep aTravcwv T(Lv 'EXXyjvcdv." 
 
 " Hence it is that the fathers of these men and ours also, and they them- 
 selves likewise, being nurtured in all freedom and well born, have shown 
 before all men many and glorious deeds in public and private, deeming it 
 their duty to fight for the cause of liberty and the Greeks, even against 
 Greeks, and against Barbarians for all the Greeks." 
 
 — plato: "MENEXENUS." 
 
 1, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 George Washington i 
 
 Daniel Boone and the Founding of Kentucky . 17 
 George Rogers Clark and the Conquest of the 
 
 Northwest 29 
 
 The Battle of Trenton 43 
 
 Bennington 57 
 
 King's Mountain 69 
 
 The Storming of Stony Point , . . 79 
 
 gouverneur morris 91 
 
 The Burning of the "Philadelphia" 101 
 
 The Cruise of the "Wasp" 115 
 
 The "General Armstrong" Privateer 127 
 
 The Battle of New Orleans 137 
 
 John Quincy Adams and the Right of Petition . 149 
 
 Francis Parkman 161 
 
 "Remember the Alamo" 171 
 
 Hampton Roads 183 
 
 The Flag-Bearer 197 
 
 The Death of Stonewall Jackson 211 
 
 The Charge at Gettysburg 225 
 
 General Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign . . 237 
 
 Robert Gould Shaw 249 
 
 Charles Russell Lowell 261 
 
 Sheridan at Cedar Creek 279 
 
 Lieutenant Cushing and the Ram "Albemarle" . 291 
 
 Farragut at Mobile Bay 301 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 323 
 
HERO TALES 
 FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 THE brilliant historian of the English people* 
 has written of Washington, that " no nobler 
 figure ever stood in the fore-front of a nation's 
 life." In any book which undertakes to tell, no 
 matter how slightly, the story of some of the 
 heroic deeds of American history, that noble 
 figure must always stand in the fore-front. But 
 to sketch the life of Washington even in the bar- 
 est outline is to write the history of the events 
 which made the United States independent and 
 gave birth to the American nation. Even to give 
 a list of what he did, to name his battles and re- 
 count his acts as president, would be beyond the 
 limit and the scope of this book. Yet it is always 
 possible to recall the man and to consider what 
 he was and what he meant for us and for man- 
 
 * John Richard Green. 
 
2 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 kind. He is worthy the study and the remem- 
 brance of all men, and to Americans he is at once 
 a great glory of their past and an inspiration and 
 an assurance of their future. 
 
 To understand Washington at all we must first 
 strip off all the myths which have gathered about 
 him. We must cast aside into the dust-heaps all 
 the wretched inventions of the cherry-tree vari- 
 ety, which were fastened upon him nearly seventy 
 years after his birth. We must look at him as he 
 looked at life and the facts about him, without any 
 illusion or deception, and no man in history can 
 better stand such a scrutiny. 
 
 Born of a distinguished family in the days 
 when the American colonies were still ruled by 
 an aristocracy, Washington started with all that 
 good birth and tradition could give. Beyond 
 this, however, he had little. His family was poor, 
 his mother was left early a widow, and he was 
 forced after a very limited education to go out 
 into the world to fight for himself. He had 
 strong within him the adventurous spirit of his 
 race. He became a surveyor, and in the pursuit 
 of this profession plunged into the wilderness, 
 where he soon grew to be an expert hunter and 
 backwoodsman. Even as a boy the gravity of 
 his character and his mental and physical 
 vigor commended him to those about him, and 
 responsibility and military command were put 
 
WASHINGTON 3 
 
 in his hands at an age when most young men 
 are just leaving college. As the times grew 
 threatening on the frontier, he was sent on a 
 perilous mission to the Indians, in which, after 
 passing through many hardships and dangers, 
 he achieved success. When the troubles came 
 with France it was by the soldiers under his 
 command that the first shots were fired in the 
 war which was to determine whether the North 
 American continent should be French or English. 
 In his earliest expedition he was defeated by the 
 enemy. Later he was with Braddock, and it was 
 he who tried to rally the broken English army on 
 the stricken held near Fort Duquesne. On 
 that day of surprise and slaughter he displayed 
 not only cool courage but the reckless daring 
 which was one of his chief characteristics. He 
 so exposed himself that bullets passed through 
 his coat and hat, and the Indians and the French 
 who tried to bring him down thought he bore a 
 charmed life. He afterwards served with distinc- 
 tion all through the French war, and when peace 
 came he went back to the estate which he had 
 inherited from his brother, the most admired man 
 in Virginia. 
 
 At that time he married, and during the ensu- 
 ing years he lived the life of a Virginia planter, 
 successful in his private affairs and serving the 
 public effectively but quietly as a member of the 
 
4 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 House of Burgesses. When the troubles with 
 the mother country began to thicken he was slow 
 to take extreme ground, but he never wavered 
 in his belief that all attempts to oppress the colo- 
 nies should be resisted, and when he once took 
 up his position there was no shadow of turning. 
 He was one of Virginia's delegates to the first 
 Continental Congress, and, although he said but 
 little, he was regarded by all the representatives 
 from the other colonies as the strongest man 
 among them. There was something about him 
 even then which commanded the respect and the 
 confidence of every one who came in contact 
 with him. 
 
 It was from New England, far removed from 
 his own State, that the demand came for his 
 appointment as commander-in-chief of the Amer- 
 ican army. Silently he accepted the duty, and, 
 leaving Philadelphia, took command of the army 
 at Cambridge. There is no need to trace him 
 through the events that followed. From the time 
 when he drew his sword under the famous elm 
 tree, he was the embodiment of the American 
 Revolution, and without him that revolution would 
 have failed almost at the start. How he carried 
 it to victory through defeat and trial and every 
 possible obstacle is known to all men. 
 
 When it was all over he found himself facing- a 
 new situation. He was the idol of the country 
 
WASHINGTON 5 
 
 and of his soldiers. The army was unpaid, and 
 the veteran troops, with arms in their hands, were 
 eager to have him take control of the disordered 
 country as Cromwell had done in England a little 
 more than a century before. With the army at 
 his back, and supported by the great forces which, 
 in every community, desire order before every- 
 thing else, and are ready to assent to any arrange- 
 ment which will bring peace and quiet, nothing 
 would have been easier than for Washington to 
 have made himself the ruler of the new nation. 
 But that was not his conception of duty, and he 
 not only refused to have anything to do with such 
 a movement himself, but he repressed, by his 
 dominant personal influence, all such intentions 
 on the part of the army. On the 23d of Decem- 
 ber, 1783, he met the Congress at Annapolis, and 
 there resigned his commission. What he then 
 said is one of the two most memorable speeches 
 ever made in the United States, and is also mem- 
 orable for its meaning and spirit among all 
 speeches ever made by men. He spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 Mr. President : — The great events on which my resigna- 
 tion depended having at length taken place, I have now the 
 honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and 
 of presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands 
 the trust committed to me and to claim the indulgence of 
 retiring from the service of my country. 
 
 Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sov- 
 
6 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United 
 States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfac- 
 tion the appointment I accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence 
 in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, how- 
 ever, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our 
 cause, the support of the supreme power of the Union, and the 
 patronage of Heaven. 
 
 The successful termination of the war has verified the most 
 sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition 
 of Providence and the assistance I have received from my 
 countrymen increases with every review of the momentous 
 contest. 
 
 While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I 
 should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in 
 this place, the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the 
 Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the 
 war. It was impossible that the choice of confidential officers 
 to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Per- 
 mit me, sir, to recommend in particular those who have con- 
 tinued in service to the present moment as worthy of the favor- 
 able notice and patronage of Congress. 
 
 I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn 
 act of my official life by commending the interests of our 
 dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those 
 who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. 
 
 Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from 
 the great theatre of action, and, bidding an affectionate fare- 
 well to this august body, under whose orders I have so long 
 acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all 
 the employments of public life. 
 
 The great master of English fiction, writing of 
 this scene at Annapolis, says: "Which was the 
 most splendid spectacle ever witnessed — the 
 opening feast of Prince George in London, or the 
 
WASHINGTON 7 
 
 resignation of Washington ? Which is the noble 
 character for after ages to admire — yon fribble 
 dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who 
 sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, 
 a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable and 
 a consummate victory ? " 
 
 Washington did not refuse the dictatorship, or, 
 rather, the opportunity to take control of the 
 country, because he feared heavy responsibility, 
 but solely because, as a high-minded and patriotic 
 man, he did not believe in meeting the situation 
 in that way. He was, moreover, entirely devoid 
 of personal ^ambition, and had no vulgar longing 
 for personal) power. After resigning his commis- 
 sion he returned quietly to Mount Vernon, but 
 he did not hold himself aloof from public affairs. 
 On the contrary, he watched their course with the 
 utmost anxiety. He saw the feeble Confedera- 
 tion breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that 
 that form of government was an utter failure. In 
 a time when no American statesman except 
 Hamilton had yet freed himself from the local 
 feelings of the colonial days, Washington was 
 thoroughly national in all his views. Out of the 
 thirteen jarring colonies he meant that a nation 
 should come, and he saw — what no one else saw 
 — the destiny of the country to the westward. 
 He wished a nation founded which should cross 
 the Alleghanies, and, holding the mouths of the 
 
8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Mississippi, take possession of all that vast and 
 then unknown region. For these reasons he 
 stood at the head of the national movement, and 
 to him all men turned who desired a better union 
 and sought to bring order out of chaos. With 
 him Hamilton and Madison consulted in the pre- 
 liminary stages which were to lead to the forma- 
 tion of a new system. It was his vast personal 
 influence which made that movement a success, 
 and when the convention to form a constitution 
 met at Philadelphia, he presided over its delibera- 
 tions, and it was his commanding will which, 
 more than anything else, brought a constitution 
 through difficulties and conflicting interests which 
 more than once made any result seem well-nigh 
 hopeless. 
 
 When the Constitution formed at Philadelphia 
 had been ratified by the States, all men turned to 
 Washington to stand at the head of the new gov- 
 ernment. As he had borne the burden of the 
 Revolution, so he now took up the task of bring- 
 ing the government of the Constitution into exist- 
 ence. For eight years he served as president. 
 He came into office with a paper constitution, the 
 heir of a bankrupt, broken-down confederation. 
 He left the United States, when he went out of 
 office, an effective and vigorous government. 
 When he was inaugurated, we had nothing but 
 the clauses of the Constitution as agreed to by the 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
WASHINGTON u 
 
 Convention. When he laid down the presidency, 
 we had an organized government, an established 
 revenue, a funded debt, a high credit, an efficient 
 system of banking, a strong judiciary, and an army. 
 We had a vigorous and well-defined foreign pol- 
 icy ; we had recovered the western posts, which, 
 in the hands of the British, had fettered our march 
 to the west ; and we had proved our power to 
 maintain order at home, to repress insurrection, 
 to collect the national taxes, and to enforce the 
 laws made by Congress. Thus Washington had 
 shown that rare combination of the leader who 
 could first destroy by revolution, and who, having 
 led his country through a great civil war, was 
 then able to build up a new and lasting fabric 
 upon the ruins of a system which had been over- 
 thrown. At the close of his official service he 
 returned again to Mount Vernon, and, after a few 
 years of quiet retirement, died just as the century 
 in which he had played so great a part was 
 closing. 
 
 Washington stands among the greatest men 
 of human history, and those in the same rank 
 with him are very few. Whether measured by 
 what he did, or what he was, or by the effect of 
 his work upon the history of mankind, in every 
 aspect he is entitled to the place he holds among 
 the greatest of his race. Few men in all time 
 have such a record of achievement. Still fewer 
 
12 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 can show at the end of a career so crowded with 
 high deeds and memorable victories a life so free 
 from spot, a character so unselfish and so pure,' a 
 fame so void of doubtful points demanding either 
 defense or explanation. Eulogy of such a life is 
 needless, but it is always important to recall and 
 to freshly remember just what manner of man he 
 was. In the first place he was physically a strik- 
 ing figure. He was very tall, powerfully made, 
 with a strong, handsome face. He was remark- 
 ably muscular and powerful. As a boy he was 
 a leader in all outdoor sports. No one could fling 
 the bar further than he, and no one could ride 
 more difficult horses. As a young man he became 
 a woodsman and hunter. Day after day he could 
 tramp through the wilderness with his gun and 
 his surveyor's chain, and then sleep at night 
 beneath the stars. He feared no exposure or 
 fatigue, and outdid the hardiest backwoodsman 
 in following a winter trail and swimming icy 
 streams. This habit of vigorous bodily exercise 
 he carried through life. Whenever he was at 
 Mount Vernon he gave a large part of his time 
 to fox-hunting, riding after his hounds through 
 the most difficult country. His physical power 
 and endurance counted for much in his success 
 when he commanded his army, and when the 
 heavy anxieties of general and president weighed 
 upon his mind and heart. 
 
WASHINGTON 13 
 
 He was an educated, but not a learned man. 
 He read well and remembered what he read, but 
 his life was, from the beginning, a life of action, 
 and the world of men was his school. He was 
 not a military genius like Hannibal, or Caesar, or 
 Napoleon, of which the world has had only three 
 or four examples. But he was a great soldier of 
 the type which the English race has produced, 
 like Marlborough and Cromwell, Wellington, 
 Grant, and Lee. He was patient under defeat, 
 capable of large combinations, a stubborn and 
 often reckless fighter, a winner of battles, but 
 much more, a conclusive winner in a long war of 
 varying fortunes. He was, in addition, what very 
 few great soldiers or commanders have ever been, 
 a great constitutional statesman, able to lead a 
 people along the paths of free government with 
 out undertaking himself to play the part of the 
 strong man, the usurper, or the savior of society. 
 
 He was a very silent man. Of no man of 
 equal importance in the world's history have we 
 so few sayings of a personal kind. He was ready 
 enough to talk or to write about the public duties 
 which he had in hand, but he hardly ever talked 
 of himself. Yet there can be no greater error 
 than to suppose Washington cold and unfeeling, 
 because of his silence and reserve. He was by 
 nature a man of strong desires and stormy pas- 
 sions. Now and again he would break out, even 
 
14 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 as late as the presidency, into a gust of anger 
 that would sweep everything before it. He was 
 always reckless of personal danger, and had a 
 fierce fighting spirit which nothing could check 
 when it was once unchained. 
 
 But as a rule these fiery impulses and strong 
 passions were under the absolute control of an 
 iron will, and they never clouded his judgment 
 or warped his keen sense of justice. 
 
 But if he was not of a cold nature, still less was 
 he hard or unfeeling. His pity always went out 
 to the poor, the oppressed, or the unhappy, and 
 he was all that was kind and gentle to those 
 immediately about him. 
 
 We have to look carefully into his life to learn 
 all these things, for the world saw only a silent, 
 reserved man, of courteous and serious manner, 
 who seemed to stand alone and apart, and who 
 impressed every one who came near him with a 
 sense of awe and reverence. 
 
 One quality he had which was, perhaps, more 
 characteristic of the man and his greatness than 
 any other. This was his perfect veracity of mind. 
 He was, of course, the soul of truth and honor, but 
 he was even more than that. He never deceived 
 himself. He always looked facts squarely in the 
 face and dealt with them as such, dreaming no 
 dreams, cherishing no delusions, asking no impos- 
 
WASHINGTON 15 
 
 sibilities, — just to others as to himself, and thus 
 winning alike in war and in peace. 
 
 He g"ave dignity as well as victory to his coun- 
 try and his cause. He was, in truth, a "character 
 for after ages to admire." 
 
DANIEL BOONE 
 AND THE FOUNDING OF KENTUCKY 
 
. . . Boone lived hunting up to ninety ; 
 
 And, what 's still stranger, left behind a name 
 For which men vainly decimate the throng, 
 
 Not only famous, but of that good fame, 
 
 Without which glory 's but a tavern song, — 
 
 Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame, 
 
 Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong; 
 
 'T is true he shrank from men, even of his nation ; 
 
 When they built up unto his darling trees, 
 He moved some hundred miles off, for a station 
 
 Where there were fewer houses and more ease : 
 
 But where he met the individual man, 
 He showed himself as kind as mortal can. 
 
 The freeborn forest found and kept them free, 
 And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 
 
 And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, 
 Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions, 
 
 Because their thoughts had never been the prey 
 
 Of care or gain ; the green woods were their portions 
 
 Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 
 Though very true, were yet not used for trifles. 
 
 Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 
 Of this unsighing people of the woods. 
 
 — Byron. 
 
DANIEL BOONE 
 AND THE FOUNDING OF KENTUCKY 
 
 DANIEL BOONE will always occupy a 
 unique place in our history as the archetype 
 of the hunter and wilderness wanderer. He was 
 a true pioneer, and stood at the head of that class 
 of Indian-fighters, game -hunters, forest-fellers, 
 and backwoods farmers who, generation after gen- 
 eration, pushed westward the border of civili- 
 zation from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. As 
 he himself said, he was "an instrument ordained 
 of God to settle the wilderness." Born in Penn- 
 sylvania, he drifted south into western North 
 Carolina, and settled on what was then the 
 extreme frontier. There he married, built a log 
 cabin, and hunted, chopped trees, and tilled the 
 ground like any other frontiersman. The Alle- 
 ghany Mountains still marked a boundary beyond 
 which the settlers dared not go ; for west of them 
 lay immense reaches of frowning forest, uninhab- 
 ited save by bands of warlike Indians. Occa- 
 sionally some venturesome hunter or trapper 
 
20 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 penetrated this immense wilderness, and returned 
 with strange stories of what he had seen and 
 done. 
 
 In 1769 Boone, excited by these vague and 
 wondrous tales, determined himself to cross the 
 mountains and find out what manner of land it 
 was that lay beyond. With a few chosen com- 
 panions he set out, making his own trail through 
 the gloomy forest. After weeks of wandering, 
 he at last emerged into the beautiful and fertile, 
 country of Kentucky, for which, in after years, 
 the red men and the white strove with such obsti- 
 nate fury that it grew to be called "the dark and 
 bloody ground." But when Boone first saw it, it 
 was a fair and smiling land of groves and glades 
 and running waters, where the open forest grew 
 tall and beautiful, and where innumerable herds 
 of game grazed, roaming ceaselessly to and fro 
 along the trails they had trodden during countless 
 generations. Kentucky was not owned by any 
 Indian tribe, and was visited only by wandering 
 war-parties and hunting-parties who came from 
 among the savage nations living north of the 
 Ohio or south of the Tennessee. 
 
 A roving war-party stumbled upon one of 
 Boone's companions and killed him, and the others 
 then left Boone and journeyed home ; but his 
 brother came out to join him, and the two spent 
 the winter together. Self-reliant, fearless, and 
 
DANIEL HOONE IN THE FRONTIER WOODS. AT CLOSK QUARTERS. 
 
DANIEL BOONE 23 
 
 possessed of great bodily strength and hardihood, 
 they cared little for the loneliness. The teeming 
 myriads of game furnished abundant food ; the 
 herds of shaggy-maned bison and noble-antlered 
 elk, the bands of deer and the numerous black 
 bear, were all ready for the rifle, and they were 
 tame and easily slain. The wolf and the cougar, 
 too, sometimes fell victims to the prowess of the 
 two hunters. 
 
 At times they slept in hollow trees, or in some 
 bush lean-to of their own making ; at other times, 
 when they feared Indians, they changed their 
 resting-place every night, and after making a fire 
 would go off a mile or two in the woods to sleep. 
 Surrounded by brute and human foes, they owed 
 their lives to their sleepless vigilance, their keen 
 senses, their eagle eyes, and their resolute hearts. 
 
 When the spring came, and the woods were 
 white with the dogwood blossoms, and crimsoned 
 with the red-bud, Boone's brother left him, and 
 Daniel remained for three months alone in the 
 wilderness. The brother soon came back again 
 with a party of hunters; and other parties like- 
 wise came in, to wander for months and years 
 through the wilderness ; and they wrought huge 
 havoc among the vast herds of game. 
 
 In 1 771 Boone returned to his home. Two 
 years later he started to lead a party of settlers 
 to the new country; but while passing through 
 
24 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the frowning defiles of Cumberland Gap, they 
 were attacked by Indians, and driven back — two 
 of Boone's own sons being slain. In 1775, how- 
 ever, he made another attempt ; and this attempt 
 was successful. The Indians attacked the new- 
 comers ; but by this time the parties of would-be 
 settlers were sufficiently numerous to hold their 
 own. They beat back the Indians, and built 
 rough little hamlets, surrounded by log stockades, 
 at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg ; and the per- 
 manent settlement of Kentucky had begun. 
 
 The next few years were passed by Boone 
 amid unending- Indian conflicts. He was a 
 leader among the settlers, both in peace and in 
 war. At one time he represented them in the 
 House of Burgesses of Virginia ; at another time 
 he was a member of the first little Kentucky par- 
 liament itself; and he became a colonel of the 
 frontier militia. He tilled the land, and he 
 chopped the trees himself; he helped to build 
 the cabins and stockades with his own hands, 
 wielding the long-handled, light-headed frontier 
 ax as skilfully as other frontiersmen. His main 
 business was that of surveyor, for his knowledge 
 of the country, and his ability to travel through 
 it, in spite of the danger from Indians, created 
 much demand for his services among people who 
 wished to lay off tracts of wild land for their own 
 future use. But whatever he did, and wherever 
 
DANIEL BOONE 25 
 
 he went, he had to be sleeplessly on the lookout 
 for his Indian foes. When he and his fellows 
 tilled the stump-dotted fields of corn, one or more 
 of the party were always on guard, with weapon 
 at the ready, for fear of lurking savages. When 
 he went to the House of Burgesses he carried his 
 long rifle, and traversed roads not a mile of which 
 was free from the danger of Indian attack. The 
 settlements in the early years depended exclu- 
 sively upon game for their meat, and Boone was 
 the mightiest of all the hunters, so that upon him 
 devolved the task of keeping his people supplied. 
 He killed many buffaloes, and pickled the buffalo 
 beef for use in winter. He killed great numbers 
 of black bear, and made bacon of them, precisely 
 as if they had been hogs. The common game 
 were deer and elk. At that time none of the 
 hunters of Kentucky would waste a shot on any- 
 thing so small as a prairie-chicken or wild duck ; 
 but they sometimes killed geese and swans when 
 they came south in winter and lit on the rivers. 
 But whenever Boone went into the woods after 
 game, he had perpetually to keep watch lest he 
 himself might be hunted in turn. He never lay 
 in wait at a game-lick, save with ears strained to 
 hear the approach of some crawling red foe. He 
 never crept up to a turkey he heard calling, with- 
 out exercising the utmost care to see that it was 
 not an Indian ; for one of the favorite devices of 
 
 3 
 
26 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the Indians was to imitate the turkey call, and 
 thus allure within range some inexperienced 
 hunter. 
 
 Besides this warfare, which went on in the midst 
 of his usual vocations, Boone frequently took the 
 field on set expeditions against the savages. 
 Once when he and a party of other men were 
 making salt at a lick, they were surprised and 
 carried off by the Indians. The old hunter was 
 a prisoner with them for some months, but finally 
 made his escape and came home through the 
 trackless woods as straight as the wild pigeon 
 flies. He was ever on the watch to ward off the 
 Indian inroads, and to follow the war-parties, and 
 try to rescue the prisoners. Once his own daugh- 
 ter, and two other girls who were with her, were 
 carried off by a band of Indians. Boone raised 
 some friends and followed the trail steadily for 
 two days and a night; then they came to where 
 the Indians had killed a buffalo calf and were 
 camped around it. Firing from a little distance, 
 the whites shot two of the Indians, and, rushing 
 in, rescued the girls. On another occasion, when 
 Boone had gone to visit a salt-lick with his bro- 
 ther, the Indians ambushed them and shot the 
 latter. Boone himself escaped, but the Indians 
 followed him for three miles by the aid of a track- 
 ing dog, until Boone turned, shot the dog, and then 
 eluded his pursuers. In company with Simon 
 
DANIEL BOONE 27 
 
 Kenton and many other noted hunters and wil- 
 derness warriors, he once and again took part in 
 expeditions into the Indian country, where they 
 killed the braves and drove off the horses. Twice 
 bands of Indians, accompanied by French, Tory, 
 and British partizans from Detroit, bearing the 
 flag of Great Britain, attacked Boonesborough. 
 In each case Boone and his fellow-settlers beat 
 them off with loss. At the fatal battle of the Blue 
 Licks, in which two hundred of the best riflemen 
 of Kentucky were beaten with terrible slaughter 
 by a great force of Indians from the lakes, Boone 
 commanded the left wing. Leading his men, 
 rifle in hand, he pushed back and overthrew the 
 force against him ; but meanwhile the Indians 
 destroyed the right wing and center, and got 
 round in his rear, so that there was nothing left 
 for Boone's men except to flee with all possible 
 speed. 
 
 As Kentucky became settled, Boone grew rest- 
 less and ill at ease. He loved the wilderness ; 
 he loved the great forests and the great prairie- 
 like glades, and the life in the little lonely cabin, 
 where from the door he could see the deer come 
 out into the clearing at nightfall. The neighbor- 
 hood of his own kind made him feel cramped and 
 ill at ease. So he moved ever westward with the 
 frontier; and as Kentucky filled up he crossed 
 the Mississippi and settled on the borders of the 
 
28 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 prairie country of Missouri, where the Spaniards, 
 who ruled the territory, made him an alcalde, or 
 judge. He lived to a great age, and died out on 
 the border, a backwoods hunter to the last. 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE 
 CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST 
 
Have the elder races halted ? 
 Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the 
 
 seas ? 
 We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, 
 
 Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 
 
 All the past we leave behind, 
 We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world ; 
 Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, 
 
 Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 
 
 We detachments steady throwing, 
 Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, 
 Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go the unknown 
 ways, 
 
 Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 
 
 The sachem blowing the smoke first towards the sun and then 
 towards the earth, 
 
 The drama of the scalp dance enacted with painted faces and gut- 
 tural exclamations, 
 
 The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march, 
 
 The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter 
 of enemies. 
 
 — Whitman. 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE 
 CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST 
 
 IN 1776, when independence was declared, the 
 United States included only the thirteen origi- 
 nal States on the sea-board. With the exception 
 of a few hunters there were no white men west of 
 the Alleghany Mountains, and there was not even 
 an American hunter in the great country out of 
 which we have since made the States of Illinois, 
 Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. All this 
 region north of the Ohio River then formed a part 
 of the Province of Quebec. It was a wilderness 
 of forests and prairies, teeming with game, and 
 inhabited by many warlike tribes of Indians. 
 
 Here and there through it were dotted quaint 
 little towns of French Creoles, the most impor- 
 tant being Detroit, Vincennes on the Wabash, 
 and Kaskaskia and Kahokia on the Illinois. These 
 French villages were ruled by British officers com- 
 manding small bodies of regular soldiers or Tory 
 rangers and Creole partizans. The towns were 
 completely in the power of the British govern- 
 
32 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ment; none of the American States had actual pos- 
 session of a foot of property in the Northwestern 
 Territory. 
 
 The Northwest was acquired in the midst of 
 the Revolution only by armed conquest, and if it 
 had not been so acquired, it would have remained 
 a part of the British Dominion of Canada. 
 
 The man to whom this conquest was due was 
 a famous backwoods leader, a mighty hunter, a 
 noted Indian-fighter, George Rogers Clark. He 
 was a very strong man, with light hair and blue 
 eyes. He was of good Virginian family. Early in 
 his youth, he embarked on the adventurous career 
 of a backwoods surveyor, exactly as Washington 
 and so many other young Virginians of spirit did 
 at that period. He traveled out to Kentucky soon 
 after it was founded by Boone, and lived there for 
 a year, either at the stations or camping by him- 
 self in the woods, surveying, hunting, and making 
 war against the Indians like any other settler ; but 
 all the time his mind was bent on vaster schemes 
 than were dreamed of by the men around him. 
 He had his spies out in the Northwestern Terri- 
 tory, and became convinced that with a small force 
 of resolute backwoodsmen he could conquer it for 
 the United States. When he went back to Vir- 
 ginia, Governor Patrick Henry entered heartily 
 into Clark's schemes and gave him authority to fit 
 out a force for his purpose. 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 33 
 
 In 1778, after encountering endless difficulties 
 and delays, he finally raised a hundred and fifty 
 backwoods riflemen. In May they started down 
 the Ohio in flatboats to undertake the allotted 
 task. They drifted and rowed downstream to the 
 Falls of the Ohio, where Clark founded a log- 
 hamlet, which has since become the great city of 
 Louisville. 
 
 Here he halted for some days and was joined 
 by fifty or sixty volunteers ; but a number of the 
 men deserted, and when, after an eclipse of the sun, 
 Clark again pushed off to go down with the cur- 
 rent, his force was but about one hundred and 
 sixty riflemen. All, however, were men on whom 
 he could depend — men well used to frontier war- 
 fare. They were tall, stalwart backwoodsmen, 
 clad in the hunting-shirt and leggings that formed 
 the national dress of their kind, and armed with 
 the distinctive weapon of the backwoods, the long- 
 barreled, small-bore rifle. 
 
 Before reaching the Mississippi the little flotilla 
 landed, and Clark led his men northward against 
 the Illinois towns. In one of them, Kaskaskia, 
 dwelt the British commander of the entire district 
 up to Detroit. The small garrison and the Creole 
 militia taken together outnumbered Clark's force, 
 and they were in close alliance with the Indians 
 roundabout. Clark was anxious to take the town 
 by surprise and avoid bloodshed, as he believed 
 
34 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 he could win over the Creoles to the American 
 side. Marching cautiously by night and gener- 
 ally hiding by day, he came to the outskirts of the 
 little village on the evening of July 4, and lay in 
 the woods near by until after nightfall. 
 
 Fortune, favored him. That evening the offi- 
 cers of the garrison had given a great ball to the 
 mirth-loving Creoles, and almost the entire pop- 
 ulation of the village had gathered in the fort, 
 where the dance was held. While the revelry was 
 at its height, Clark and his tall backwoodsmen, 
 treading silently through the darkness, came into 
 the town, surprised the sentries, and surrounded 
 the fort without causing any alarm. 
 
 All the British and French capable of bearing 
 arms were gathered in the fort to take part in or 
 look on at the merrymaking. When his men were 
 posted Clark walked boldly forward through the 
 open door, and, leaning against the wall, looked 
 at the dancers as they whirled around in the light 
 of the flaring torches. For some moments no one 
 noticed him. Then an Indian who had been lying 
 with his chin on his hand, looking carefully over 
 the gaunt figure of the stranger, sprang to his feet, 
 and uttered the wild war-whoop. Immediately 
 the dancing ceased and the men ran to and fro 
 in confusion ; but Clark, stepping forward, bade 
 them be at their ease, but to remember that 
 henceforth they danced under the flag of the 
 
"ALL DAY LONG THE TROOPS WADED IN ICY WATER." 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 37 
 
 United States, and not under that of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The surprise was complete, and no resistance 
 was attempted. For twenty-four hours the Creoles 
 were in abject terror. Then Clark summoned 
 their chief men together and explained that he 
 came as their ally, and not as their foe, and that if 
 they would join with him they should be citizens of 
 the American republic, and treated in all respects 
 on an equality with their comrades. The Creoles, 
 caring little for the British, and rather fickle of 
 nature, accepted the proposition with joy, and with 
 the most enthusiastic loyalty toward Clark. Not 
 only that, but sending" messengers to their kins- 
 men on the Wabash, they persuaded the people 
 of Vincennes likewise to cast off their allegiance 
 to the British king, and to hoist the American 
 flag. 
 
 So far, Clark had conquered with greater ease 
 than he had dared to hope. But when the news 
 reached the British crovernor, Hamilton, at De- 
 troit, he at once prepared to reconquer the land. 
 He had much greater forces at his command than 
 Clark had ; and in the fall of that year he came 
 down to Vincennes by stream and portage, in a 
 great fleet of canoes bearing five hundred fight- 
 ing men — British regulars, French partizans, and 
 Indians. The Vincennes Creoles refused to fight 
 
 against the British, and the American officer who 
 
 4 
 
38 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 had been sent thither by Clark had no alternative 
 but to surrender. 
 
 If Hamilton had then pushed on and struck 
 Clark in Illinois, having more than treble Clark's 
 force, he could hardly have failed to win the vic- 
 tory ; but the season was late and the journey so 
 difficult that he did not believe it could be taken. 
 Accordingly he disbanded the Indians and sent 
 some of his troops back to Detroit, announcing 
 that when spring came he would march against 
 Clark in Illinois. 
 
 If Clark in turn had awaited the blow he would 
 have surely met defeat ; but he was a greater man 
 than his antagonist, and he did what the other 
 deemed impossible. 
 
 Finding- that Hamilton had sent home some 
 of his troops and dispersed all his Indians, Ciark 
 realized that his chance was to strike before Ham- 
 ilton's soldiers assembled again in the spring. 
 Accordingly he gathered together the pick of his 
 men, together with a few Creoles, one hundred 
 and seventy all told, and set out for Vincennes. 
 At first the journey was easy enough, for they 
 passed across the snowy Illinois prairies, broken 
 by great reaches of lofty woods. They killed 
 elk, buffalo, and deer for food, there being no 
 difficulty in getting all they wanted to eat ; and 
 at night they built huge fires by which to sleep, 
 and feasted "like Indian war-dancers," as Clark 
 said in his report. 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 39 
 
 But when, in the middle of February, they 
 reached the drowned lands of the Wabash, where 
 the ice had just broken up and everything was 
 flooded, the difficulties seemed almost insuperable, 
 and the march became painful and laborious to a 
 degree. All day long the troops waded in the 
 icy water, and at night they could with difficulty 
 find some little hillock on which to sleep. Only 
 Clark's indomitable courage and cheerfulness 
 kept the party in heart and enabled them to per- 
 severe. However, persevere they did, and at 
 last, on February 23, they came in sight of the 
 town of Vincennes. They captured a Creole 
 who was out shooting ducks, and from him learned 
 that their approach was utterly unsuspected, and 
 that there were many Indians in town. 
 
 Clark was now in some doubt as to how to 
 make his fight. The British regulars dwelt in a 
 small fort at one end of the town, where they had 
 two light guns ; but Clark feared lest, if he made 
 a sudden night attack, the townspeople and In- 
 dians would from sheer fright turn against him. 
 He accordingly arranged, just before he himself 
 marched in, to send in the captured duck-hunter, 
 conveying a warning to the Indians and the Cre- 
 oles that he was about to attack the town, but 
 that his only quarrel was with the British, and 
 that if the other inhabitants would stay in their 
 own homes they would not be molested. 
 
40 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Sending the duck-hunter ahead, Clark took up 
 his march and entered the town just after night- 
 fall. The news conveyed by the released hunter 
 astounded the townspeople, and they talked it 
 over eagerly, and were in doubt what to do. The 
 Indians, not knowing how great might be the force 
 that would assail the town, at once took refuge 
 in the neighboring woods, while the Creoles re- 
 tired to their own houses. The British knew 
 nothing of what had happened until the Ameri- 
 cans had actually entered the streets of the lit- 
 tle village. Rushing forward, Clark's men soon 
 penned the regulars within their fort, where they 
 kept them surrounded all night. The next day 
 a party of Indian warriors, who in the British in- 
 terest had been ravaging the settlements of Ken- 
 tucky, arrived and entered the town, ignorant 
 that the Americans had captured it. Marching 
 boldly forward to the fort, they suddenly found it 
 beleaguered, and before they could flee they were 
 seized by the backwoodsmen. In their belts 
 they carried the scalps of the slain settlers. The 
 savages were taken red-handed, and the Ameri- 
 can frontiersmen were in no mood to show mercy. 
 All the Indians were tomahawked in sight of the 
 fort. 
 
 For some time the British defended themselves 
 well; but at length their guns were disabled, all 
 of the gunners being picked off by the backwoods 
 
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 41 
 
 marksmen, and finally the garrison dared not so 
 much as appear at a port-hole, so deadly was the 
 fire from the long rifles. Under such circum- 
 stances Hamilton was forced to surrender. 
 
 No attempt was afterward made to molest the 
 Americans in the land they had won, and upon 
 the conclusion of peace the Northwest, which had 
 been conquered by Clark, became part of the 
 United States. 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 
 
And such they are — and such they will be found : 
 
 Not so Leonidas and Washington, 
 
 Their every battle-field is holy ground 
 
 Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. 
 
 How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound ! 
 
 While the mere victor's may appal or stun 
 
 The servile and the vain, such names will be 
 
 A watchword till the future shall be free. 
 
 Byron. 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 
 
 IN December, 1776, the American Revolution 
 was at its lowest ebb. The first burst of enthu- 
 siasm, which drove the British back from Concord 
 and met them hand to hand at Bunker Hill, which 
 forced them to abandon Boston and repulsed their 
 attack at Charleston, had spent its force. The un- 
 disciplined American forces called suddenly from 
 the workshop and the farm had given way, under 
 the strain of a prolonged contest, and had been 
 greatly scattered, many of the soldiers returning to 
 their homes. The power of England, on the other 
 hand, with her disciplined army and abundant re- 
 sources, had begun to tell. Washington, fighting 
 stubbornly, had been driven during the summer 
 and autumn from Long Island up the Hudson, and 
 New York had passed into the hands of the 
 British. Then Forts Lee and Washington had 
 been lost, and finally the Continental army had re- 
 treated to New Jersey. On the second of Decem- 
 ber Washington was at Princeton with some three 
 thousand ragged soldiers, and had escaped de- 
 
46 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 struction only by the rapidity of his movements. 
 By the middle of the month General Howe felt 
 that the American army, unable as he believed 
 either to fight or to withstand the winter, must 
 soon dissolve, and, posting strong detachments at 
 various points, he took up his winter quarters in 
 New York. The British general had under his 
 command in his various divisions twenty-five thou- 
 sand well-disciplined soldiers, and the conclusion 
 he had reached was not an unreasonable one ; 
 everything, in fact, seemed to confirm his opinion. 
 Thousands of the colonists were coming in and 
 accepting his amnesty. The American militia had 
 left the field, and no more would turn out, despite 
 Washington's earnest appeals. All that remained 
 of the American Revolution was the little Conti- 
 nental army and the man who led it. 
 
 Yet even in this dark hour Washington did not 
 despair. He sent in every direction for troops. 
 Nothing was forgotten. Nothing that he could do 
 was left undone. Unceasingly he urged action 
 upon Congress, and at the same time with indomi- 
 table fighting spirit he planned to attack the 
 British. It was a desperate undertaking in the 
 face of such heavy odds, for in all his divisions he 
 had only some six thousand men, and even these 
 were scattered. The single hope was that by his 
 own skill and courage he could snatch victory from 
 a situation where victory seemed impossible. With 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 47 
 
 the instinct of a oreat commander he saw that his 
 only chance was to fight the British detachments 
 suddenly, unexpectedly, and separately, and to do 
 this not only required secrecy and perfect judg- 
 ment, but also the cool, unwavering courage of 
 which, under such circumstances, very few men 
 have proved themselves capable. As Christmas 
 approached his plans were ready. He determined 
 to fall upon the British detachment of Hessians, 
 under Colonel Rahl, at Trenton, and there strike 
 his first blow. To each division of his little army 
 a part in the attack was assigned with careful fore- 
 thought. Nothing was overlooked and nothing 
 omitted, and then, for some reason good or bad, 
 every one of the division commanders failed to do 
 his part. As the general plan was arranged, Gates 
 was to march from Bristol with two thousand men ; 
 Ewing was to cross at Trenton ; Putnam was to 
 come up from Philadelphia ; and Griffin was to 
 make a diversion against Donop. When the mo- 
 ment came, Gates, who disapproved the plan, was 
 on his way to Congress ; Griffin abandoned New 
 Jersey and fled before Donop ; Putnam did not 
 attempt to leave Philadelphia ; and Ewing made 
 no effort to cross at Trenton. Cadwalader came 
 down from Bristol, looked at the river and the 
 floating ice, and then gave it up as desperate. 
 Nothing remained except Washington himself 
 with the main army, but he neither gave up, nor 
 
48 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 hesitated, nor stopped on account of the ice, or the 
 river, or the perils which lay beyond. On Christ- 
 mas Eve, when all the Christian world was feasting 
 and rejoicing, and while the British were enjoying 
 themselves in their comfortable quarters, Wash- 
 ington set out. With twenty- four hundred men 
 he crossed the Delaware through the floating ice, 
 his boats managed and rowed by the sturdy fisher- 
 men of Marblehead from Glover's regiment. The 
 crossing was successful, and he landed about nine 
 miles from Trenton. It was bitter cold, and the 
 sleet and snow drove sharply in the faces of the 
 troops. Sullivan, marching by the river, sent word 
 that the arms of his soldiers were wet. " Tell your 
 general," was Washington's reply to the message, 
 " to use the bayonet, for the town must be taken." 
 When they reached Trenton it was broad day- 
 light. Washington, at the front and on the right 
 of the line, swept down the Pennington road, and, 
 as he drove back the Hessian pickets, he heard 
 the shout of Sullivan's men as, with Stark leading 
 the van, they charged in from the river. A com- 
 pany of jaegers and of light dragoons slipped 
 away. There was some fighting in the streets, 
 but the attack was so strong and well calculated 
 that resistance was useless. Colonel Rahl, the 
 British commander, aroused from his revels, was 
 killed as he rushed out to rally his men, and in a 
 few moments all was over. A thousand prisoners 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 51 
 
 fell into Washington's hands, and this important 
 detachment of the enemy was cut off and de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 The news of Trenton alarmed the British, and 
 Lord Cornwallis with seven thousand of the best 
 troops started at once from New York in hot pur- 
 suit of the American army. Washington, who had 
 now rallied some five thousand men, fell back, skir- 
 mishing heavily, behind the Assunpink, and when 
 Cornwallis reached the river he found the Ameri- 
 can army awaiting him on the other side of the 
 stream. Night was falling, and Cornwallis, feeling 
 sure of his prey, decided that he would not risk an 
 assault until the next morning. Many lessons had 
 not yet taught him that it was a fatal business to 
 give even twelve hours to the great soldier opposed 
 to him. During the night Washington, leaving 
 his fires burninsf and taking a roundabout road 
 which he had already reconnoitered, marched to 
 Princeton. There he struck another British de- 
 tachment. A sharp fight ensued, the British divi- 
 sion was broken and defeated, losing some five 
 hundred men, and Washington withdrew after this 
 second victory to the highlands of New Jersey to 
 rest and recruit. 
 
 Frederick the Great is reported to have said 
 that this was the most brilliant campaign of the 
 century. With a force very much smaller than 
 that of the enemy, Washington had succeeded in 
 
52 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 striking the British at two places with superior 
 forces at each point of contact. At Trenton he 
 had the benefit of a surprise, but the second time 
 he was between two hostile armies. He was 
 ready to fight Cornwallis when the latter reached 
 the Assunpink, trusting to the strength of his 
 position to make up for his inferiority of numbers. 
 But when Cornwallis gave him the delay of a 
 night, Washington, seeing the advantage offered 
 by his enemy's mistake, at once changed his 
 whole plan, and, turning in his tracks, fell upon 
 the smaller of the two forces opposed to him, 
 wrecking and defeating it before the outgeneraled 
 Cornwallis could get up with the main army. 
 Washington had thus shown the highest form of 
 military skill, for there is nothing that requires so 
 much judgment and knowledge, so much certainty 
 of movement and quick decision, as to meet a 
 superior enemy at different points, force the fight- 
 ing, and at each point to outnumber and over- 
 whelm him. 
 
 But the military part of this great campaign 
 was not all. Many great soldiers have not been 
 statesmen, and have failed to realize the political 
 necessities of the situation. Washington pre- 
 sented the rare combination of a great soldier and 
 a great statesman as well. He aimed not only 
 to win battles, but by his operations in the field 
 to influence the political situation and affect pub- 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 53 
 
 lie opinion. The American Revolution was going 
 to pieces. Unless some decisive victory could be 
 won immediately, it would have come to an end 
 in the winter of 1776-77. This Washington 
 knew, and it was this which nerved his arm. The 
 results justified his forethought. The victories of 
 Trenton and Princeton restored the failing spirits 
 of the people, and, what was hardly less impor- 
 tant, produced a deep impression in Europe in 
 favor of the colonies. The country, which had 
 lost heart, and become supine and almost hos- 
 tile, revived. The militia again took the field. 
 Outlying parties of the British were attacked 
 and cut off, and recruits once more began to 
 come in to the Continental army. The Revolu- 
 tion was saved. That the English colonies in 
 North America would have broken away from 
 the mother country sooner or later cannot be 
 doubted, but that particular Revolution of 1776 
 would have failed within a year, had it not been 
 for Washington. It is not, however, merely the 
 fact that he was a great soldier and statesman 
 which we should remember. The most memo- 
 rable thing to us, and to all men, is the heroic 
 spirit of the man, which rose in those dreary De- 
 cember days to its greatest height, under condi- 
 tions so adverse that they had crushed the hope 
 of every one else. Let it be remembered, also, 
 that it was not a spirit of desperation or of ig- 
 
54 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 norance, a reckless daring which did not count 
 the cost. No one knew better than Washington 
 — no one, indeed, so well — the exact state of 
 affairs ; for he, conspicuously among great men, 
 always looked facts fearlessly in the face, and 
 never deceived himself. He was under no illu- 
 sions, and it was this high quality of mind as 
 much as any other which enabled him to win 
 victories. 
 
 How he really felt we know from what he wrote 
 to Congress on December 20, when he said : " It 
 may be thought that I am going a good deal out 
 of the line of my duty to adopt these measures or 
 to advise thus freely. A character to lose, an es- 
 tate to forfeit, the inestimable blessing of liberty 
 at stake, and a life devoted, must be my excuse." 
 These were the thoughts in his mind when he 
 was planning this masterly campaign. These 
 same thoughts, we may readily believe, were with 
 him when his boat was making its way through 
 the ice of the Delaware on Christmas Eve. It 
 was a very solemn moment,. and he was the only 
 man in the darkness of that night who fully un- 
 derstood what was at stake ; but then, as always, 
 he was calm and serious, with a high courage 
 which nothing could depress. 
 
 The familiar picture of a later day depicts 
 Washington crossing the Delaware at the head 
 of his soldiers. He is standing up in the boat, 
 
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 
 
 55 
 
 looking forward in the teeth of the storm. It 
 matters little whether the work of the painter is 
 in exact accordance with the real scene or not. 
 The daring courage, the high resolve, the stern 
 look forward and onward, which the artist strove 
 to show in the great leader, are all vitally true. 
 For we may be sure that the man who led that 
 well-planned but desperate assault, surrounded 
 by darker conditions than the storms of nature 
 which gathered about his boat, and carrying with 
 him the fortunes of his country, was at that mo- 
 ment one of the most heroic figures in history. 
 
 THE MARCH TO TRENTON. 
 
BENNINGTON 
 
We are but warriors for the working-day ; 
 Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd 
 With rainy marching in the painful field ; 
 There 's not a piece of feather in our host 
 (Good argument, I hope, we shall not fly), 
 And time hath worn us into slovenry. 
 But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim, 
 And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night 
 They '11 be in fresher robes. 
 
 — Henry V. 
 
T 
 
 BENNINGTON 
 
 *HE battle of Saratoga is included by Sir Ed- 
 X ward Creasy among his fifteen decisive battles 
 which have, by their result, affected the history of 
 the world. It is true that the American Revolu- 
 tion was saved by Washington in the remarkable 
 Princeton and Trenton campaign, but it is equally 
 true that the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, 
 in the following autumn, turned the scale deci- 
 sively in favor of the colonists by the impression 
 which it made in Europe. It was the destruction 
 of Burgoyne's army which determined France to 
 aid the Americans against England. Hence came 
 the French alliance, the French troops, and, what 
 was of far more importance, a French fleet, by 
 which Washington was finally able to get control 
 of the sea, and in this way cut off Cornwallis at 
 Yorktown and brine the Revolution to a successful 
 close. That which led, however, more directly 
 than anything else to the final surrender at Sara- 
 toga was the fight at Bennington, by which Bur- 
 goyne's army was severely crippled and weakened, 
 and by which also, the hardy militia of the North- 
 
60 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 eastern States were led to turn out in large num- 
 bers and join the army of Gates. 
 
 The English ministry had built great hopes upon 
 Burgoyne's expedition, and neither expense nor 
 effort had been spared to make it successful. He 
 was amply furnished with money and supplies as 
 well as with English and German troops, the lat- 
 ter of whom we're bought from their wretched little 
 princes by the payment of generous subsidies. 
 With an admirably equipped army of over seven 
 thousand men, and accompanied by a large force 
 of Indian allies, Burgoyne had started in May, 
 1777, from Canada. His plan was to make his 
 way by the lakes to the head waters of the Hudson, 
 and thence southward along the river to New 
 York, where he was to unite with Sir William 
 Howe and the main army ; in this way cutting the 
 colonies in two, and separating New England from 
 the rest of the country. 
 
 At first all went well. The Americans were 
 pushed back from their posts on the lakes, and by 
 the end of July Burgoyne was at the head waters 
 of the Hudson. He had already sent out a force, 
 under St. Leger, to take possession of the valley 
 of the Mohawk — an expedition which finally re- 
 sulted in the defeat of the British by Herkimer, 
 and the capture of Fort Stanwix. To aid St. 
 Leger by a diversion, and also to capture certain 
 magazines which were reported to be at Benning- 
 
BENNINGTON 61 
 
 ton, Burgoyne sent another expedition to the east- 
 ward. This force consisted of about five hundred 
 and fifty white troops, chiefly Hessians, and one 
 hundred and fifty Indians, all under the command 
 of Colonel Baum. They were within four miles of 
 Bennington on August 13, 1777, and encamped 
 on a hill just within the boundaries of the State 
 of New York. The news of the advance of Bur- 
 goyne had already roused the people of New York 
 and New Hampshire, and the legislature of the lat- 
 ter State had ordered General Stark with a brigade 
 of militia to stop the progress of the enemy on the 
 western frontier. Stark raised his standard at 
 Charlestown on the Connecticut River, and the 
 militia poured into his camp. Disregarding Schuy- 
 ler's orders to join the main American army, which 
 was falling back before Burgoyne, Stark, as soon 
 as he heard of the expedition against Bennington, 
 marched at once to meet Baum. He was within 
 a mile of the British camp on August 14, and 
 vainly endeavored to draw Baum into action. On 
 the 15th it rained heavily, and the British forces 
 occupied the time in intrenching themselves 
 strongly upon the hill which they held. Baum 
 meantime had already sent to Burgoyne for rein- 
 forcements, and Burgoyne had detached Colonel 
 Breymann with over six hundred regular troops 
 to go to Baum's assistance. On the 16th the 
 weather cleared, and Stark, who had been rein- 
 
62 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 forced by militia from western Massachusetts, de- 
 termined to attack. 
 
 Early in the day he sent men, under Nichols 
 and Herrick, to get into the rear of Baum's posi- 
 tion. The German officer, ignorant of the country 
 and of the nature of the warfare in which he was 
 engaged, noticed small bodies of men in their shirt- 
 sleeves, and carrying guns without bayonets, mak- 
 ing their way to the rear of his intrenchments. 
 With singular stupidity he concluded that they 
 were Tory inhabitants of the country who were 
 coming to his assistance, and made no attempt to 
 stop them. In this way Stark was enabled to mass 
 about five hundred men in the rear of the enemy's 
 position. Distracting the attention of the British 
 by a feint, Stark also moved about two hundred 
 men to the rigiit, and having thus broucrht his 
 forces into position he ordered a general assault, 
 and the Americans proceeded to storm the British 
 intrenchments on every side. The fight was a 
 very hot one, and lasted some two hours. The 
 Indians, at the beginning of the action, slipped 
 away between the American detachments, but the 
 British and German regulars stubbornly stood 
 their ground. It is difficult to get at the exact 
 numbers of the American troops, but Stark seems 
 to have had between fifteen hundred and two thou- 
 sand militia. He thus outnumbered his enemy 
 nearly three to one, but his men were merely 
 
AT THE BAYONET'S POINT. 
 
BENNINGTON 65 
 
 country militia, farmers of the New England 
 States, very imperfectly disciplined, and armed 
 only with muskets and fowling-pieces, without 
 bayonets or side-arms. On the other side Baum 
 had the most highly disciplined troops of England 
 and Germany under his command, well armed and 
 equipped, and he was moreover strongly in- 
 trenched with artillery well placed behind the 
 breastworks. The advantage in the fight should 
 have been clearly with Baum and his regulars, 
 who merely had to hold an intrenched hill. 
 
 It was not a battle in which either military strat- 
 egy or a scientific management of troops was dis- 
 played. All that Stark did was to place his men 
 so that they could attack the enemy's position on 
 every side, and then the Americans went at it, fir- 
 ing as they pressed on. The British and Germans 
 stood their ground stubbornly, while the New 
 England farmers rushed up to within eight yards 
 of the cannon, and picked off the men who manned 
 the guns. Stark himself was in the midst of the 
 fray, fighting with his soldiers, and came out of 
 the conflict so blackened with powder and smoke 
 that he could hardly be recognized. One desperate 
 assault succeeded another, while the firing on both 
 sides was so incessant as to make, in Stark's own 
 words, a "continuous roar." At the end of two 
 hours the Americans finally swarmed over the in- 
 trenchments, beating down the soldiers with their 
 
66 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 clubbed muskets. Baum ordered his infantry 
 with the bayonet and the dragoons with their 
 sabers to force their way through, but the Ameri- 
 cans repulsed this final charge, and Baum himself 
 fell mortally wounded. All was then over, and 
 the British forces surrendered. 
 
 It was only just in time, for Breymann, who 
 had taken thirty hours to march some twenty- four 
 miles, came up just after Baum's men had laid 
 down their arms. It seemed for a moment as if all 
 that had been gained might be lost. The Amer- 
 icans, attacked by this fresh foe, wavered ; but 
 Stark rallied his line, and putting in Warner, with 
 one hundred and fifty Vermont men who had just 
 come on the field, stopped Breymann's advance, 
 and finally forced him to retreat with a loss of 
 nearly one half his men. The Americans lost in 
 killed and wounded some seventy men, and the 
 Germans and British about twice as many, but 
 the Americans took about seven hundred prison- 
 ers, and completely wrecked the forces of Baum 
 and Breymann. 
 
 The blow was a severe one, and Burgoyne's 
 army never recovered from it. Not only had he 
 lost nearly a thousand of his best troops, besides 
 cannon, arms, and munitions of war, but the de- 
 feat affected the spirits of his army and destroyed 
 his hold over his Indian allies, who began to desert 
 in large numbers. Bennington, in fact, was one of 
 
BENNINGTON 67 
 
 the most important fights of the Revolution, con- 
 tributing as it did so largely to the final surrender 
 of Burgoyne's whole army at Saratoga, and the 
 utter ruin of the British invasion from the North. 
 It is also interesting as an extremely gallant bit of 
 fighting. As has been said, there was no strategy 
 displayed, and there were no military operations of 
 the higher kind. There stood the enemy strongly 
 intrenched on a hill, and Stark, calling his undis- 
 ciplined levies about him, went at them. He 
 himself was a man of the highest courage and a 
 reckless fighter. It was Stark who held the rail- 
 fence at Bunker Hill, and who led the van when 
 Sullivan's division poured into Trenton from the 
 river road. He was admirably adapted for the 
 precise work which was necessary at Bennington, 
 and he and his men fought well their hand-to- 
 hand fight on that hot August day, and carried 
 the intrenchments filled with regular troops and 
 defended by artillery. It was a daring feat of 
 arms, as well as a battle which had an important 
 effect upon the course of history and upon the 
 fate of the British empire in America. 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
Our fortress is the good greenwood. 
 
 Our tent the cypress tree ; 
 We know the forest round us 
 
 As seamen know the sea. 
 We know its walls of thorny vines, 
 
 Its glades of reedy grass, 
 Its safe and silent islands 
 Within the dark morass. 
 
 — Bryant. 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 THE close of the year 1780 was, in the South- 
 ern States, the darkest time of the Revolu- 
 tionary struggle. Cornwallis had just destroyed 
 the army of Gates at Camden, and his two for- 
 midable lieutenants, Tarlton the light horseman, 
 and Ferguson the skilled rifleman, had destroyed 
 or scattered all the smaller bands that had been 
 fighting for the patriot cause. The red dragoons 
 rode hither and thither, and all through Georgia 
 and South Carolina none dared lift their heads 
 to oppose them, while North Carolina lay at the 
 feet of Cornwallis, as he started through it with 
 his army to march into Virginia. There was no 
 organized force against him, and the cause of the 
 patriots seemed hopeless. It was at this hour 
 that the wild backwoodsmen of the western bor- 
 der gathered to strike a blow for liberty. 
 
 When Cornwallis invaded North Carolina he 
 sent Ferguson into the western part of the State 
 to crush out any of the patriot forces that might 
 still be lingering among the foot-hills. Ferguson 
 was a very gallant and able officer, and a man of 
 
72' HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 much influence with the people wherever he went, 
 so that he was peculiarly fitted for this scrambling 
 border warfare. He had under him a battalion 
 of regular troops and several other battalions of 
 Tory militia, in all eleven or twelve hundred men. 
 He shattered and drove the small bands of Whies 
 that were yet in arms, and finally pushed to the 
 foot of the mountain wall, till he could see in his 
 front the high ranges of the Great Smokies. 
 Here he learned for the first time that beyond 
 the mountains there lay a few hamlets of fron- 
 tiersmen, whose homes were on what were then 
 called the Western Waters, that is, the waters 
 which flowed into the Mississippi. To these he 
 sent word that if they did not prove loyal to the 
 king, he would cross their mountains, hang their 
 leaders, and burn their villages. 
 
 Beyond the mountains, in the valleys of the 
 Holston and Watauga, dwelt men who were stout 
 of heart and mighty in battle, and when they 
 heard the threats of Ferguson they burned with a 
 sullen flame ofano-er. Hitherto the foes against 
 whom they had warred had been not the British, 
 but the Indian allies of the British, Creek, and 
 Cherokee, and Shawnee. Now that the army 
 of the king had come to their thresholds, they 
 turned to meet it as fiercely as they had met his 
 Indian allies. Among the backwoodsmen of this 
 region there were at that time three men of special 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN j$ 
 
 note : Sevier, who afterward became governor of 
 Tennessee ; Shelby, who afterward became gov- 
 ernor of Kentucky ; and Campbell, the Virginian, 
 who died in the Revolutionary War. Sevier had 
 given a great barbecue, where oxen and deer 
 were roasted whole, while horse-races were run, 
 and the backwoodsmen tried their skill as marks- 
 men and wrestlers. In the midst of the feasting 
 Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of 
 the approach of Ferguson and the British. Im- 
 mediately the feasting was stopped, and the 
 feasters made ready for war. Sevier and Shelby 
 sent word to Campbell to rouse the men of his 
 own district and come without delay, and they 
 sent messengers to and fro in their own neigh- 
 borhood to summon the settlers from their log 
 huts on the stump-dotted clearings and the hunters 
 from their smoky cabins in the deep woods. 
 
 The meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals. 
 On the appointed day the backwoodsmen gath- 
 ered sixteen hundred strong, each man carrying 
 a long rifle, and mounted on a tough, shaggy 
 horse. They were a wild and fierce people, ac- 
 customed to the chase and to warfare with the 
 Indians. Their hunting-shirts of buckskin or 
 homespun were girded in by bead-worked belts, 
 and the trappings of their horses were stained 
 red and yellow. At the gathering there was a 
 black-frocked Presbyterian preacher, and before 
 
74 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 they started he addressed the tall riflemen in words 
 of burning zeal, urging them to stand stoutly in 
 the battle, and to smite with the sword of the 
 Lord and of Gideon. Then the army started, 
 the backwoods colonels riding in front. 
 
 Two or three days later, word was brought to 
 Ferguson that the Back-water men had come 
 over the mountains ; that the Indian-fighters of 
 the frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on 
 the Western Waters, had crossed by wooded and 
 precipitous defiles to the help of the beaten men 
 of the plains. Ferguson at once fell back, send- 
 ing out messengers for help. When he came to 
 King's Mountain, a wooded, hog-back hill on the 
 border line between North and South Carolina, 
 he camped on its top, deeming that there he was 
 safe, for he supposed that before the backwoods- 
 men could come near enough to attack him help 
 would reach him. But the backwoods leaders 
 felt as keenly as he the need of haste, and choos- 
 ing out nine hundred picked men, the best war- 
 riors of their force, and the best mounted and 
 armed, they made a long forced march to assail 
 Ferguson before help could come to him. All 
 night long they rode the dim forest trails and 
 splashed across the fords of the rushing rivers. 
 All the next day, October 16, they rode, until in 
 mid-afternoon, just as a heavy shower cleared 
 away, they came in sight of King's Mountain. 
 
nana 
 
 4 C'a -V 1 ■ 
 
 n ehh 
 
 1^ 7 « tfsTjt 
 
 ^"?vl5 
 
 ii,'X'.'*'"S^^ 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 77 
 
 The little armies were about equal in numbers. 
 Ferguson's regulars were armed with the bayonet, 
 and so were some of his Tory militia, whereas 
 the Americans had not a bayonet among them ; 
 but they were picked men, confident in their skill 
 as riflemen, and they were so sure of victory that 
 their aim was not only to defeat the British but 
 to capture their whole force. The backwoods 
 colonels, counseling together as they rode at the 
 head of the column, decided to surround the moun- 
 tain and assail it on all sides. Accordingly the 
 bands of frontiersmen split one from the other, 
 and soon circled the craggy hill where Ferguson's 
 forces were encamped. They left their horses in 
 the rear and immediately began the battle, swarm- 
 ing forward on foot, their commanders leading 
 the attack. 
 
 The march had been so quick and the attack 
 so sudden that Ferguson had barely time to mar- 
 shal his men before the assault was made. Most 
 of his militia he scattered around the top of the 
 hill to fire down at the Americans as they came 
 up, while with his regulars and with a few picked 
 militia he charged with the bayonet in person, 
 first down one side of the mountain and then 
 down the other. Sevier, Shelby, Campbell, and 
 the other colonels of the frontiersmen, led each 
 his force of riflemen straight toward the summit. 
 Each body in turn when charged by the regulars 
 
78 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 was forced to give way, for there were no bayonets 
 wherewith to meet the foe ; but the backwoods- 
 men retreated only so long as the charge lasted, 
 and the minute that it stopped they stopped too, 
 and came back ever closer to the ridpe and ever 
 with a deadlier fire. Ferguson, blowing a silver 
 whistle as a signal to his men, led these charges, 
 sword in hand, on horseback. At last, just as he 
 was once again rallying his men, the riflemen of 
 Sevier and Shelby crowned the top of the ridge. 
 The gallant British commander became a fair 
 target for the backwoodsmen, and as for the last 
 time he led his men against them, seven bullets 
 entered his body and he fell dead. With his fall 
 resistance ceased. The regulars and Tories hud- 
 dled together in a confused mass, while the exul- 
 tant Americans rushed forward. A flag of truce 
 was hoisted, and all the British who were not 
 dead surrendered. 
 
 The victory was complete, and the backwoods- 
 men at once started to return to their lop- hamlets 
 and rough, lonely farms. They could not stay, 
 for they dared not leave their homes at the mercy 
 of the Indians. They had rendered a great ser- 
 vice ; for Cornwallis, when he heard of the disaster 
 to his trusted lieutenant, abandoned his march 
 northward, and retired to South Carolina. When 
 he again resumed the offensive, he found his path 
 barred by stubborn General Greene and his troops 
 of the Continental line. 
 
THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 
 
In their ragged regimentals 
 Stood the old Continentals, 
 
 Yielding not, 
 When the grenadiers were lunging, 
 And like hail fell the plunging 
 Cannon-shot ; 
 When the files 
 Of the isles 
 From the smoky night encampment bore the banner of the ram- 
 pant Unicorn, 
 And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drum- 
 mer, 
 
 Through the morn ! 
 
 Then with eyes to the front all, 
 And with guns horizontal, 
 
 Stood our sires ; 
 And the balls whistled deadly, 
 And in streams flashing redly 
 Blazed the fires ; 
 As the roar 
 On the shore 
 Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded acres 
 
 Of the plain ; 
 And louder, louder, louder cracked the black gunpowder, 
 Cracked amain ! 
 
 — Guy Humphrey Mc Master. 
 
THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 
 
 ONE of the heroic figures of the Revolution 
 was Anthony Wayne, Major- General of 
 the Continental line. With the exception of 
 Washington, and perhaps Greene, he was the 
 best general the Americans developed in the con- 
 test ; and without exception he showed himself to 
 be the hardest fighter produced on either side. 
 He belongs, as regards this latter characteristic, 
 with the men like Winfield Scott, Phil Kearney, 
 Hancock, and Forrest, who reveled in the danger 
 and the actual shock of arms. Indeed, his eager 
 love of battle, and splendid disregard of peril, have 
 made many writers forget his really great quali- 
 ties as a general. Soldiers are always prompt to 
 recognize the prime virtue of physical courage, 
 and Wayne's followers christened their daring 
 commander " Mad Anthony," in loving allusion 
 to his reckless bravery. It is perfectly true that 
 Wayne had this courage, and that he was a born 
 fighter ; otherwise, he never would have been a 
 great commander. A man who lacks the fond- 
 ness for fighting, the eager desire to punish his 
 
82 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 adversary, and the willingness to suffer punish- 
 ment in return, may be a great organizer, like 
 McClellan, but can never become a great general 
 or win great victories. There are, however, plenty 
 of men who, though they possess these fine manly 
 traits, yet lack the head to command an army ; 
 but Wayne had not only the heart and the hand 
 but the head likewise. No man could dare as 
 greatly as he did without incurring the risk of an 
 occasional check ; but he was an able and bold 
 tactician, a vigilant and cautious leader, well fitted 
 to bear the terrible burden of responsibility which 
 rests upon a commander-in-chief. 
 
 Of course, at times he had some rather severe 
 lessons. Quite early in his career, just after the 
 battle of the Brandywine, when he was set to 
 watch the enemy, he was surprised at night by 
 the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, 
 who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a num- 
 ber of his men, and forced him to fall back some 
 distance from the field of action. This mortifying 
 experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's 
 courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a 
 valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he 
 had learned by the skill with which, many years 
 later, he conducted the famous campaign in which 
 he overthrew the Northwestern Indians at the 
 Fight of the Fallen Timbers. 
 
 Wayne's favorite weapon was the bayonet, and, 
 
THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 83 
 
 like Scott, he taught his troops, until they were 
 able in the shock of hand-to-hand conflict to 
 overthrow the renowned British infantry, who 
 have always justly prided themselves on their 
 prowess with cold steel. At the battle of Ger- 
 mantown it was Wayne's troops who, falling on 
 with the bayonet, drove the Hessians and the 
 British light infantry, and only retreated under 
 orders when the attack had failed elsewhere. At 
 Monmouth it was Wayne and his Continentals 
 who first checked the British advance by repul- 
 sing the bayonet charge of the guards and gren- 
 adiers. 
 
 Washington, a true leader of men, was prompt 
 to recognize in Wayne a soldier to whom could 
 be intrusted any especially difficult enterprise 
 which called for the exercise alike of intelligence 
 and of cool daring. In the summer of 1780 he 
 was very anxious to capture the British fort at 
 Stony Point, which commanded the Hudson. It 
 was impracticable to attack it by regular siege 
 while the British frigates lay in the river, and the 
 defenses were so strong that open assault by day- 
 light was equally out of the question. Accord- 
 ingly Washington suggested to Wayne that he 
 try a night attack. Wayne eagerly caught at the 
 idea. It was exactly the kind of enterprise in 
 which he delighted. The fort was on a rocky 
 promontory, surrounded on three sides by water, 
 
84 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and on the fourth by a neck of land, which was 
 for the most part mere morass. It was across 
 this neck of land that any attacking column had 
 to move. The garrison was six hundred strong. 
 To deliver the assault Wayne took nine hundred 
 men. 
 
 The American army was camped about fourteen 
 miles from Stony Point. One July afternoon 
 Wayne started, and led his troops in single file 
 along the narrow rocky roads, reaching the hills 
 on the mainland near the fort after nightfall. He 
 divided his force into two columns, to advance one 
 along each side of the neck, detaching- two com- 
 panies of North Carolina troops to move in 
 between the two columns and make a false at- 
 tack. The rest of the force consisted of New 
 Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and Virginians. 
 Each attacking column was divided into three 
 parts, a forlorn hope of twenty men leading, 
 which was followed by an advance guard of one 
 hundred and twenty, and then by the main 
 body. At the time commanding officers still 
 carried spontoons, and other old-time weapons, 
 and Wayne, who himself led the right column, 
 directed its movements spear in hand. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when the Americans 
 began to press along the causeways toward the 
 fort. Before they were near the walls they were 
 discovered, and the British opened a heavy fire of 
 
THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 87 
 
 great guns and musketry, to which the Caro- 
 linians, who were advancing between the two 
 columns, responded in their turn, according to 
 orders; but the men in the columns were forbidden 
 to fire. Wayne had warned them that their work 
 must be done with the bayonet, and their muskets 
 were not even loaded. Moreover, so strict was 
 the discipline that no one was allowed to leave the 
 ranks, and when one of the men did so an officer 
 promptly ran him through the body. 
 
 No sooner had the British opened fire than the 
 charging columns broke into a run, and in a mo- 
 ment the forlorn hopes plunged into the abattis 
 of fallen timber which the British had constructed 
 just without the walls. On the left, the forlorn 
 hope was very roughly handled, no less than sev- 
 enteen of the twenty men being either killed or 
 wounded, but as the columns came up both burst 
 through the down timber and swarmed up the 
 long, sloping embankments of the fort. The Brit- 
 ish fought well, cheering loudly as their volleys 
 rang, but the Americans would not be denied, and 
 pushed silently on to end the contest with the 
 bayonet. A bullet struck Wayne in the head. He 
 fell, but struggled to his feet and forward, two of 
 his officers supporting him. A rumor went among 
 the men that he was dead, but it only impelled 
 them to charge home more fiercely than ever. 
 
 With a rush the troops swept to the top of the 
 
88 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 wall. A fierce but short fight followed in the in- 
 tense darkness, which was lit only by the flashes 
 from the British muskets. The Americans did not 
 fire, trusting solely to the bayonet. The two col- 
 umns had kept almost equal pace, and they swept 
 into the fort from opposite sides at the same mo- 
 ment. The three men who first got over the walls 
 were all wounded, but one of them hauled down 
 the British flag. The Americans had the advan- 
 tage which always comes from delivering an at- 
 tack that is thrust home. Their muskets were 
 unloaded and they could not hesitate ; so, running 
 boldly into close quarters, they fought hand to 
 hand with their foes and speedily overthrew them. 
 For a moment the bayonets flashed and played ; 
 then the British lines broke as their assailants 
 thronged against them, and the struggle was over. 
 The Americans had lost a hundred in killed and 
 wounded. Of the British sixty-three had been 
 slain and very many wounded, every one of the 
 dead or disabled having suffered from the bayonet. 
 A curious coincidence was that the number of the 
 dead happened to be exactly equal to the number 
 of Wayne's men who had been killed in the night 
 attack by the English general, Grey. 
 
 There was great rejoicing among the Americans 
 over the successful issue of the attack. Wayne 
 speedily recovered from his wound, and in the joy 
 of his victory it weighed but slightly. He had 
 
THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 89 
 
 performed a most notable feat. No night attack 
 of the kind was ever delivered with greater bold- 
 ness, skill, and success. When the Revolutionary 
 War broke out the American armies were com- 
 posed merely of armed yeomen, stalwart men, of 
 good courage, and fairly proficient in the use of 
 their weapons, but entirely without the training 
 which alone could enable them to withstand the 
 attack of the British regulars in the open, or to 
 deliver an attack themselves. Washington's vic- 
 tory at Trenton was the first encounter which 
 showed that the Americans were to be feared 
 when they took the offensive. With the excep- 
 tion of the battle of Trenton, and perhaps of 
 Greene's fight at Eutaw Springs, Wayne's feat 
 was the most successful illustration of daring and 
 victorious attack by an American army that oc- 
 curred during the war; and, unlike Greene, who 
 was only able to fight a drawn battle, Wayne's 
 triumph was complete. At Monmouth he had 
 shown, as he afterward showed against Corn- 
 wallis, that his troops could meet the renowned 
 British regulars on even terms in the open. At 
 Stony Point he showed that he could lead them 
 to a triumphant assault with the bayonet against 
 regulars who held a fortified place of strength. No 
 American commander has ever displayed greater 
 energy and daring, a more resolute courage, or 
 readier resource, than the chief of the hard-fighting 
 Revolutionary generals, Mad Anthony Wayne. 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. PARIS. AUGUST 10, 1792. 
 
 Justum et tenacem propositi virum 
 Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni 
 
 Mente quatit solida, neque Auster 
 Dux inquieti turbidus Hadrias, 
 Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis: 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse. 
 
 —Hot., Lib. III. Carm. III. 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 THE ioth of August, 1792, was one of the 
 most memorable days of the French Revo- 
 lution. It was the day on which the French mon- 
 archy received its death-blow, and was accompa- 
 nied by fighting and bloodshed which filled Paris 
 with terror. In the morning before daybreak the 
 tocsin had sounded, and not long after the mob 
 of Paris, headed by the Marseillais, " Six hun- 
 dred men not afraid to die," who had been sum- 
 moned there by Barbaroux, were marching upon 
 the Tuileries. The king, or rather the queen, 
 had at last determined to make a stand and to 
 defend the throne. The Swiss Guards were there 
 at the palace, well posted to protect the inner 
 court ; and there, too, were the National Guards, 
 who were expected to uphold the government 
 and guard the king. The tide of people poured 
 on through the streets, gathering strength as they 
 went — the Marseillais, the armed bands, the Sec- 
 tions, and a vast floating mob. The crowd drew 
 nearer and nearer, but the squadrons of the Na- 
 tional Guards, who were to check the advance, did 
 
94 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 not stir. It is not apparent, indeed, that they made 
 any resistance, and the king and his family at 
 eight o'clock lost heart and deserted the Tuileries, 
 to take refuge with the National Convention. 
 The multitude then passed into the court of the 
 Carrousel, unchecked by the National Guards, 
 and were face to face with the Swiss. Deserted 
 by their king, the Swiss knew not how to act, but 
 still stood their ground. There was some parley- 
 ing, and at last the Marseillais fired a cannon. 
 Then the Swiss fired. They were disciplined 
 troops, and their fire was effective. There was a 
 heavy slaughter and the mob recoiled, leaving 
 their cannon, which the Swiss seized. The Revo- 
 lutionists, however, returned to the charge, and 
 the fight raged on both sides, the Swiss holding 
 their ground firmly. 
 
 Suddenly, from the legislative hall, came an 
 order from the king to the Swiss to cease firing. 
 It was their death-warrant. Paralyzed by the order, 
 they knew not what to do. The mob poured in, 
 and most of the gallant Swiss were slaughtered 
 where they stood. Others escaped from the Tuile- 
 ries only to meet their death in the street. The 
 palace was sacked and the raging mob was in pos- 
 session of the city. No man's life was safe, least 
 of all those who were known to be friends of the 
 king, who were nobles, or who had any connec- 
 tion with the court. Some of these people whose 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 95 
 
 lives were thus in peril at the hands of the blood- 
 stained and furious mob had been the allies of the 
 United States, and had fought under Washington 
 in the war for American independence. In their 
 anguish and distress their thoughts recurred to 
 the country which they had served in its hour of 
 trial, three thousand miles away. They sought 
 the legation of the United States and turned to 
 the American minister for protection. 
 
 Such an exercise of humanity at that moment 
 was not a duty that any man craved. In those ter- 
 rible days in Paris, the representatives of foreign 
 governments were hardly safer than any one else. 
 Many of the ambassadors and ministers had al- 
 ready left the country, and others were even then 
 abandoning their posts, which it seemed impossi- 
 ble to hold at such a time. But the American 
 minister stood his ground. Gouverneur Morris 
 was not a man to shrink from what he knew to 
 be his duty. He had been a leading patriot in 
 our revolution ; he had served in the Continental 
 Congress, and with Robert Morris in the difficult 
 work of the Treasury, when all our resources 
 seemed to be at their lowest ebb. In 1 788 he had 
 gone abroad on private business, and had been 
 much in Paris, where he had witnessed the begin- 
 ning of the French Revolution and had been con- 
 suited by men on both sides. In 1790, by Wash- 
 ington's direction, he had gone to London and 
 
96 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 had consulted the ministry there as to whether 
 they would receive an American minister. Thence 
 he had returned to Paris, and at the beginning 
 of 1792 Washington appointed him minister of 
 the United States to France. 
 
 As an American, Morris's sympathies had run 
 strongly in favor of the movement to relieve 
 France from the despotism under which she was 
 sinking, and to or-ive her a better and more liberal 
 government. But, as the Revolution progressed, 
 he became outraged and disgusted by the methods 
 employed. He felt a profound contempt for both 
 sides. The inability of those who were conduct- 
 ing the Revolution to carry out intelligent plans 
 or maintain order, and the feebleness of the king 
 and his advisers, were alike odious to the man 
 with American conceptions of ordered liberty. 
 He was especially revolted by the bloodshed and 
 cruelty, constantly gathering in strength, which 
 were displayed by the revolutionists, and he had 
 gone to the very verge of diplomatic propriety in 
 advising the ministers of the king in regard to 
 the policies to be pursued, and, as he foresaw what 
 was coming, in urging the king himself to leave 
 France. All his efforts and all his advice, like 
 those of other intelligent men who kept their 
 heads during the whirl of the Revolution, were 
 alike vain. 
 
 On August 10 the gathering storm broke with 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 97 
 
 full force, and the populace rose in arms to sweep 
 away the tottering throne. Then it was that 
 these people, fleeing for their lives, came to the 
 representative of the country for which many of 
 them had fought, and on both public and private 
 grounds besought the protection of the Ameri- 
 can minister. Let me tell what happened in the 
 words of an eye-witness, an American gentleman 
 who was in Paris at that time, and who published 
 the following account of his experiences : 
 
 On the ever memorable 10th of August, after viewing the 
 destruction of the Royal Swiss Guards and the dispersion of 
 the Paris militia by a band of foreign and native incendiaries, 
 the writer thought it his duty to visit the Minister, who had 
 not been out of his hotel since the insurrection began, and, as 
 was to be expected, would be anxious to learn what was pass- 
 ing without doors. He was surrounded by the old Count 
 d'Estaing, and about a dozen other persons of distinction, of 
 different sexes, who had, from their connection with the United 
 States, been his most intimate acquaintances at Paris, and who 
 had taken refuge with him for protection from the bloodhounds 
 which, in the forms of men and women, were prowling in the 
 streets at the time. All was silence here, except that silence 
 was occasionally interrupted by the crying of the women and 
 children. As I retired, the Minister took me aside, and ob- 
 served : " I have no doubt, sir, but there are persons on the 
 watch who would find fault with my conduct as Minister in 
 receiving and protecting these people, but I call on you to 
 witness the declaration which I now make, and that is that they 
 were not invited to my house, but came of their own accord. 
 Whether my house will be a protection to them or to me, God 
 only knows, but I will not turn them out of it, let what will 
 happen to me " ; to which he added, " You see, sir, they are all 
 9 
 
98 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 persons to whom our country is more or less indebted, and it 
 would be inhuman to force them into the hands of the assas- 
 sins, had they no such claim upon me." 
 
 Nothing can be added to this simple account, 
 and no American can read it or repeat the words 
 of Mr. Morris without feeling even now, a hun- 
 dred years after the event, a glow of pride that 
 such words were uttered at such a time by the 
 man who represented the United States. 
 
 After August 10, when matters in Paris became 
 still worse, Mr. Morris still stayed at his post. Let 
 me give, in his own words, what he did and his 
 reasons for it : 
 
 The different ambassadors and ministers are all taking their 
 flight, and if I stay I shall be alone. I mean, however, to stay, 
 unless circumstances should command me away, because, in 
 the admitted case that my letters of credence are to the mon- 
 archy, and not to the Republic of France, it becomes a matter 
 of indifference whether I remain in this country or go to Eng- 
 land during the time which may be needful to obtain your 
 orders, or to produce a settlement of affairs here. Going hence, 
 however, would look like taking part against the late Revolu- 
 tion, and I am not only unauthorized in this respect, but I am 
 bound to suppose that if the great majority of the nation adhere 
 to the new form, the United States will approve thereof; be- 
 cause, in the first place, we have no right to prescribe to this 
 country the government they shall adopt, and next, because 
 the basis of our own Constitution is the indefeasible right of the 
 people to establish it. 
 
 Among those who are leaving Paris is the Venetian ambas- 
 sador. He was furnished with passports from the Office of 
 Foreign Affairs, but he was, nevertheless, stopped at the bar- 
 
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 99 
 
 rier, was conducted to the Hotel de Ville, was there questioned 
 for hours, and his carriages examined and searched. This 
 violation of the rights of ambassadors could not fail, as you may 
 suppose, to make an impression. It has been broadly hinted 
 to me that the honor of my country and my own require that 
 I should go away. But I am of a different opinion, and rather 
 think that those who give such hints are somewhat influenced 
 by fear. It is true that the position is not without danger, but 
 I presume that when the President did me the honor of naming 
 me to this embassy, it was not for my personal pleasure or 
 safety, but to promote the interests of my country. These, 
 therefore, I shall continue to pursue to the best of my judg- 
 ment, and as to consequences, they are in the hand of God. 
 
 He remained there until his successor arrived. 
 When all others fled, he was faithful, and such 
 conduct should never be forgotten. Mr. Morris 
 not only risked his life, but he took a heavy re- 
 sponsibility, and laid himself open to severe attack 
 for having protected defenseless people against 
 the assaults of the mob. But his courageous hu- 
 manity is something which should ever be remem- 
 bered, and ought always to be characteristic of 
 the men who represent the United States in 
 foreign countries. When we recall the French 
 Revolution, it is cheering to think of that fearless 
 figure of the American minister, standing firm and 
 calm in the midst of those awful scenes, with 
 sacked palaces, slaughtered soldiers, and a blood- 
 stained mob about him, regardless of danger to 
 himself, determined to do his duty to his country, 
 and to those to whom his country was indebted. 
 
THE BURNING OF THE 
 "PHILADELPHIA" 
 
And say besides, that in Aleppo once, 
 Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk 
 Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, 
 I took by the throat the circumcised dog 
 And smote him, thus. 
 
 — Othello. 
 
THE BURNING OF THE 
 "PHILADELPHIA" 
 
 IT is difficult to conceive that there ever was a 
 time when the United States paid a money 
 tribute to anybody. It is even more difficult to 
 imagine the United States paying blackmail to a 
 set of small piratical tribes on the coast of Africa. 
 Yet this is precisely what we once did with the 
 Barbary powers, as they were called — the States of 
 Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, lying along 
 the northern coast of Africa. The only excuse to 
 be made for such action was that we merely fol- 
 lowed the example of Christendom. The civilized 
 people of the world were then in the habit of pay- 
 ing sums of money to these miserable pirates, in 
 order to secure immunity for their merchant ves- 
 sels in the Mediterranean. For this purpose Con- 
 gress appropriated money, and treaties were made 
 by the President and ratified by the Senate. On 
 one occasion, at least, Congress actually revoked 
 the authorization of some new ships for the navy, 
 and appropriated more money than was required 
 
104 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 to build the men-of-war in order to buy off the 
 Barbary powers. The fund for this disgraceful pur- 
 pose was known as the " Mediterranean fund," 
 and was intrusted to the Secretary of State to 
 be disbursed by him in his discretion. After we 
 had our brush with France, however, in i 798, and 
 after Truxtun's brilliant victory over the French 
 frigate Ulnsurgente in the following year, it oc- 
 curred to our government that perhaps there was 
 a more direct as well as a more manly way of 
 dealing with the Barbary pirates than by feebly 
 paying them tribute, and in 1801 a small squad- 
 ron, under Commodore Dale, proceeded to the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 At the same time events occurred which showed 
 strikingly the absurdity as well as the weakness of 
 this policy of paying blackmail to pirates. The 
 Bashaw of Tripoli, complaining that we had given 
 more money to some of the Algerian ministers 
 than we had to him, and also that we had presented 
 Algiers with a frigate, declared war upon us, and 
 cut down the flag-staff in front of the residence of 
 the American consul. At the same time, and for the 
 same reason, Morocco and Tunis began to grumble 
 at the treatment which they had received. The fact 
 was that, with nations as with individuals, when 
 the payment of blackmail is once begun there is no 
 end to it. The appearance, however, of our little 
 squadron in the Mediterranean showed at once the 
 
THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 105 
 
 superiority of a policy of force over one of cow- 
 ardly submission. Morocco and Tunis immedi- 
 ately stopped their grumbling and came to terms 
 with the United States, and this left us free to deal 
 with Tripoli. 
 
 Commodore Dale had sailed before the decla- 
 ration of war by Tripoli was known, and he was 
 therefore hampered by his orders, which permitted 
 him only to protect our commerce, and which for- 
 bade actual hostilities. Nevertheless, even under 
 these limited orders, the Enterprise, of twelve 
 guns, commanded by Lieutenant Sterrett, fought 
 an action with the Tripolitan ship Tripoli, of 
 fourteen guns. The engagement lasted three 
 hours, when the Tripoli struck, having lost her 
 mizzenmast, and with twenty of her crew killed 
 and thirty wounded. Sterrett, having no orders 
 to make captures, threw all the guns and ammu- 
 nition of the Tripoli overboard, cut away her 
 remaining masts, and left her with only one spar 
 and a single sail to drift back to Tripoli, as a hint 
 to the Bashaw of the new American policy. 
 
 In 1803 the command of our fleet in the Medi- 
 terranean was taken by Commodore Preble, who 
 had just succeeded in forcing satisfaction from 
 Morocco for an attack made upon our merchant- 
 men by a vessel from Tangier. He also pro- 
 claimed a blockade of Tripoli and was preparing 
 to enforce it when the news reached him that 
 
106 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the frigate Philadelphia, forty-four guns, com- 
 manded by Captain Bainbridge, and one of the 
 best ships in our navy, had gone upon a reef in 
 the harbor of Tripoli, while pursuing a vessel there, 
 and had been surrounded and captured, with all 
 her crew, by the Tripolitan gunboats, when she 
 was entirely helpless either to fight or sail. This 
 was a very serious blow to our navy and to our 
 operations against Tripoli. It not only weakened 
 our forces, but it was also a great help to the 
 enemy. The Tripolitans got the Philadelphia 
 off the rocks, towed her into the harbor, and 
 anchored her close under the guns of their forts. 
 They also replaced her batteries, and prepared to 
 make her ready for sea, where she would have 
 been a most formidable danger to our shipping. 
 Under these circumstances Stephen Decatur, 
 a young lieutenant in command of the Enter- 
 prise, offered to Commodore Preble to go into 
 the harbor and destroy the Philadelphia. Some 
 delay ensued, as our squadron was driven by se- 
 vere gales from the Tripolitan coast ; but at last, 
 in January, 1804, Preble gave orders to Decatur 
 to undertake the work for which he had volun- 
 teered. A small vessel known as a ketch had 
 been recently captured from the Tripolitans by 
 Decatur, and this prize was now named the In- 
 trepid, and assigned to him for the work he had 
 in hand. He took seventy men from his own 
 
THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 109 
 
 ship, the Enterprise, and put them on the hi- 
 trepid, and then, accompanied by Lieutenant 
 Stewart in the Siren, who was to support 
 him, he set sail for Tripoli. He and his crew 
 were very much cramped as well as badly fed on 
 the little vessel which had been given to them, 
 but they succeeded, nevertheless, in reaching Tri- 
 poli in safety, accompanied by the Siren. 
 
 For nearly a week they were unable to ap- 
 proach the harbor, owing to severe gales which 
 threatened the loss of their vessel ; but on Feb- 
 ruary 16 the weather moderated and Decatur 
 determined to go in. It is well to recall, briefly, 
 the extreme peril of the attack which he was 
 about to make. The Philadelphia, with forty 
 guns mounted, double-shotted, and ready for fir- 
 ing, and manned by a full complement of men, 
 was moored within half a Qrunshot of the Ba- 
 shaw's castle, the mole and crown batteries, and 
 within range of ten other batteries, mounting, al- 
 together, one hundred and fifteen guns. Some 
 Tripolitan cruisers, two galleys, and nineteen 
 gunboats also lay between the Philadelphia 
 and the shore. Into the midst of this powerful 
 armament Decatur had to go with his little vessel 
 of sixty tons, carrying four small guns and hav- 
 ing a crew of seventy-five men. 
 
 The Americans, however, were entirely undis- 
 mayed by the odds against them, and at seven 
 
no HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 o'clock Decatur went into the harbor between the 
 reef and shoal which formed its mouth. He 
 steered on steadily toward the Philadelphia, 
 the breeze getting constantly lighter, and by half- 
 past nine was within two hundred yards of the 
 frigate. As they approached Decatur stood at 
 the helm with the pilot, only two or three men 
 showing on deck and the rest of the crew lying 
 hidden under the bulwarks. In this way he 
 drifted to within nearly twenty yards of the 
 Philadelphia. The suspicions of the Tripoli- 
 tans, however, were not aroused, and when they 
 hailed the Intrepid, the pilot answered that 
 they had lost their anchors in a gale, and asked 
 that they might run a warp to the frigate and 
 ride by her. While the talk went on the In- 
 trepid' s boat shoved off with the rope, and pull- 
 ing to the fore-chains of the Philadelphia, 
 made the line fast. A few of the crew then began 
 to haul on the lines, and thus the Intrepid was 
 drawn gradually toward the frigate. 
 
 The suspicions of the Tripolitans were now at 
 last awakened. They raised the cry of " Ameri- 
 canos ! " and ordered off the Intrepid, but it 
 was too late. As the vessels came in contact, 
 Decatur sprang up the main chains of the Phila- 
 delphia, calling out the order to board. He 
 was rapidly followed by his officers and men, and 
 as they swarmed over the rails and came upon 
 
THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" m 
 
 the deck, the Tripolitan crew gathered, panic- 
 stricken, in a confused mass on the forecastle. 
 Decatur waited a moment until his men were be- 
 hind him, and then, placing- himself at their head, 
 drew his sword and rushed upon the Tripolitans. 
 There was a very short struggle, and the Tripoli- 
 tans, crowded together, terrified and surprised, 
 were cut down or driven overboard. In five min- 
 utes the ship was cleared of the enemy. 
 
 Decatur would have liked to have taken the 
 Philadelphia out of the harbor, but that was 
 impossible. He therefore gave orders to burn 
 the ship, and his men, who had been thoroughly 
 instructed in what they were to do, dispersed into 
 all parts of the frigate with the combustibles 
 which had been prepared, and in a few minutes, 
 so well and quickly was the work done, the 
 flames broke out in all parts of the Philadelphia. 
 As soon as this was effected the order was eiven 
 to return to the Intrepid. Without confusion the 
 men obeyed. It was a moment of great danger, 
 for fire was breaking out on all sides, and the 
 Intrepid herself, filled as she was with powder 
 and combustibles, was in great peril of sudden 
 destruction. The rapidity of Decatur's move- 
 ments, however, saved everything. The cables 
 were cut, the sweeps got out, and the Intrepid 
 drew rapidly away from the burning frigate. It 
 was a magnificent sight as the flames burst out 
 
112 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 over the Philadelphia and ran rapidly and 
 fiercely up the masts and rigging. As her guns 
 became heated they were discharged, one battery 
 pouring its shots into the town. Finally the 
 cables parted, and then the Philadelphia, a 
 mass of flames, drifted across the harbor and 
 blew up. Meantime the batteries of the ship- 
 ping and the castle had been turned upon the 
 Intrepid, but although the shot struck all 
 around her, she escaped successfully with only 
 one shot through her mainsail, and, joining the 
 Siren, bore away. 
 
 This successful attack was carried through by 
 the cool courage of Decatur and the admirable 
 discipline of his men. The hazard was very 
 great, the odds were very heavy, and everything 
 depended on the nerve with which the attack 
 was made and the completeness of the surprise. 
 Nothing miscarried, and no success could have 
 been more complete. Nelson, at that time in the 
 Mediterranean, and the best judge of a naval ex- 
 ploit as well as the greatest naval commander 
 who has ever lived, pronounced it " the most 
 bold and daring act of the age." We meet no 
 single feat exactly like it in our own naval his- 
 tory, brilliant as that has been, until we come to 
 Cushing's destruction of the Albetnarle in the 
 war of the rebellion. In the years that have 
 elapsed, and among the great events that have 
 
THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 113 
 
 occurred since that time, Decatur's burning of 
 the Philadelphia has been well-nigh forgotten ; 
 but it is one of those feats of arms which illus- 
 trate the hitrh courage of American seamen, and 
 which ought always to be remembered. 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 
 
A crash as when some swollen cloud 
 
 Cracks o'er the tangled trees ! 
 With side to side, and spar to spar, 
 
 Whose smoking decks are these? 
 I know St. George's blood-red cross, 
 
 Thou mistress of the seas, 
 But what is she whose streaming bars 
 
 Roll out before the breeze ? 
 
 Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, 
 
 Whose thunders strive to quell 
 The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, 
 
 That pealed the Armada's knell ! 
 The mist was cleared, — a wreath of stars 
 
 Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, 
 And, wavering from its haughty peak, 
 
 The cross of England fell ! 
 
 — Holmes. 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 
 
 IN the war of 1 8 1 2 the little American navy, 
 including only a dozen frigates and sloops of 
 war, won a series of victories against the Eng- 
 lish, the hitherto undoubted masters of the sea, 
 that attracted an attention altogether out of pro- 
 portion to the force of the combatants or the actual 
 damage done. For one hundred and fifty years 
 the English ships of war had failed to find fit rivals 
 in those of any other European power, although 
 they had been matched against each in turn ; and 
 when the unknown navy of the new nation grow- 
 ing up across the Atlantic did what no European 
 navy had ever been able to do, not only the Eng- 
 lish and Americans, but the people of Continental 
 Europe as well, regarded the feat as important 
 out of all proportion to the material aspects of the 
 case. The Americans first proved that the Eng- 
 lish could be beaten at their own eame on the 
 sea. They did what the huge fleets of France, 
 Spain, and Holland had failed to do, and the great 
 
u8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 modern writers on naval warfare in Continental 
 Europe — men like Jurien de la Graviere — have 
 paid the same attention to these contests of frig- 
 ates and sloops that they give to whole fleet 
 actions of other wars. 
 
 Among the famous ships of the Americans in 
 this war were two named the Wasp. The first 
 was an eighteen-gun ship-sloop, which at the very 
 outset of the war captured a British brig-sloop of 
 twenty guns, after an engagement in which the 
 British fought with great gallantry, but were 
 knocked to pieces, while the Americans escaped 
 comparatively unscathed. Immediately afterward 
 a British seventy-four captured the victor. In 
 memory of her the Americans gave the same name 
 to one of the new sloops they were building. 
 These sloops were stoutly made, speedy vessels 
 which in strength and swiftness compared favor- 
 ably with any ships of their class in any other 
 navy of the day, for the American shipwrights 
 were already as famous as the American gunners 
 and seamen. The new Wasp, like her sister ships, 
 carried twenty-two guns and a crew of one hun- 
 dred and seventy men, and was ship-rigged. 
 Twenty of her guns were 3 2 -pound carronatles, 
 while for bow-chasers she had two 'Tone Toms." 
 It was in the year 18 14 that the Wasp sailed from 
 the United States to prey on the navy and com- 
 merce of Great Britain. Her commander was a 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 119 
 
 gallant South Carolinian named Captain Johnson 
 Blakeley. Her crew were nearly all native Ameri- 
 cans, and were an exceptionally fine set of men. 
 Instead of staying near the American coasts or 
 of sailing the high seas, the Wasp at once headed 
 boldly for the English Channel, to carry the war 
 to the very doors of the enemy. 
 
 At that time the English fleets had destroyed 
 the navies of every other power of Europe, and 
 had obtained such complete supremacy over the 
 French that the French fleets were kept in port. 
 Off these ports lay the great squadrons of the Eng- 
 lish ships of the line, never, in gale or in calm, 
 relaxing their watch upon the rival war- ships of 
 the French emperor. So close was the blockade 
 of the French ports, and so hopeless were the 
 French of making headway in battle with their 
 antagonists, that not only the great French three- 
 deckers and two-deckers, but their frigates and 
 sloops as well, lay harmless in their harbors, and 
 the English ships patroled the seas unchecked in 
 every direction. A few French privateers still 
 slipped out now and then, and the far bolder and 
 more formidable American privateersmen drove 
 hither and thither across the ocean in their swift 
 schooners and brigantines, and harried the Eng- 
 lish commerce without mercy. 
 
 The Wasp proceeded at once to cruise in the 
 English Channel and off the coasts of England, 
 
120 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 France, and Spain. Here the water was traversed 
 continually by English fleets and squadrons and 
 single ships of war, which were sometimes con- 
 voying detachments of troops for Wellington's 
 Peninsular army, sometimes guarding fleets of 
 merchant vessels bound homeward, and sometimes 
 merely cruising for foes. It was this spot, right 
 in the teeth of the British naval power, that the 
 
 Wasp chose for her cruising ground. Hither and 
 thither she sailed through the narrow seas, cap- 
 turing and destroying the merchantmen, and by 
 the seamanship of her crew and the skill and vigi- 
 lance of her commander, escaping the pursuit of 
 frigate and ship of the line. Before she had been 
 long on the ground, one June morning, while in 
 chase of a couple of merchant ships, she spied a 
 sloop of war, the British brig Reindeer, of eigh- 
 teen guns and a hundred and twenty men. The 
 Reindeer was a weaker ship than the Wasp, her 
 guns were lighter, and her men fewer ; but her 
 commander, Captain Manners, was one of the 
 most gallant men in the splendid British navy, 
 and he promptly took up the gage of battle which 
 the Wasp threw down. 
 
 The day was calm and nearly still ; only a light 
 wind stirred across the sea. At one o'clock the 
 
 Wasp's drum beat to quarters, and the sailors 
 and marines gathered at their appointed posts. 
 The drum of the Reindeer responded to the chal- 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 121 
 
 lenge, and with her sails reduced to fighting trim, 
 her guns run out, and every man ready, she came 
 down upon the Yankee ship. On her forecastle 
 she had rigged a light carronade, and coming up 
 from behind, she five times discharged this point- 
 blank into the American sloop ; then in the light 
 air the latter luffed round, firing her guns as they 
 bore, and the two ships engaged yard-arm to yard- 
 arm. The guns leaped and thundered as the 
 grimy gunners hurled them out to fire and back 
 again to load, working like demons. For a few 
 minutes the cannonade was tremendous, and the 
 men in the tops could hardly see the decks for 
 the wreck of flying splinters. Then the vessels 
 ground together, and through the open ports the 
 rival gunners hewed, hacked, and thrust at one 
 another, while the black smoke curled up from 
 between the hulls. The English were suffering 
 terribly. Captain Manners himself was wounded, 
 and realizing that he was doomed to defeat unless 
 by some desperate effort he could avert it, he 
 gave the signal to board. At the call the board- 
 ers gathered, naked to the waist, black with pow- 
 der and spattered with blood, cutlas and pistol 
 in hand. But the Americans were ready. Their 
 marines were drawn up on deck, the pikemen 
 stood behind the bulwarks, and the officers 
 watched, cool and alert, every movement of the 
 foe. Then the British sea-dogs tumbled aboard, 
 
122 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 only to perish by shot or steel. The com- 
 batants slashed and stabbed with savage fury, 
 and the assailants were driven back. Manners 
 sprang to their head to lead them again himself, 
 when a ball fired by one of the sailors in the 
 American tops crashed through his skull, and he 
 fell, sword in hand, with his face to the foe, dying 
 as honorable a death as ever a brave man died in 
 fighting against odds for the flag of his country. 
 As he fell the American officers passed the word 
 to board. With wild cheers the fighting sailor- 
 men sprang forward, sweeping the wreck of the 
 British force before them, and in a minute the 
 Reindeer -was in their possession. All of her offi- 
 cers, and nearly two thirds of the crew, were killed 
 or wounded ; but they had proved themselves as 
 skilful as they were brave, and twenty-six of the 
 Americans had been killed or wounded. 
 
 The Wasp set fire to her prize, and after retir- 
 ing to a French port to refit, came out again to 
 cruise. For some time she met no antagonist of 
 her own size with which to wage war, and she 
 had to exercise the sharpest vigilance to escape 
 capture. Late one September afternoon, when 
 she could see ships of war all around her, she 
 selected one which was isolated from the others, 
 and decided to run alongside her and try to sink 
 her after nightfall. Accordingly she set her sails 
 in pursuit, and drew steadily toward her antago- 
 nist, a big eighteen-gun brig, the Avon, a ship 
 
"THE FIGHTING SAILOR-MEN SPRANG FORWARD." 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 125 
 
 more powerful than the Reindeer. The Avon 
 kept signaling to two other British war vessels 
 which were in si«-ht — one an eighteen- sain brie 
 and the other a twenty-gun ship ; they were so 
 close that the Wasp was afraid they would inter- 
 fere before the combat could be ended. Never- 
 theless, Blakeley persevered, and made his attack 
 with equal skill and daring. It was after dark 
 when he ran alongside his opponent, and they 
 began forthwith to exchange furious broadsides. 
 As the ships plunged and wallowed in the seas, 
 the Americans could see the clusters of topmen 
 in the rigging of their opponent, but they knew 
 nothing of the vessel's name or of her force, save 
 only so far as they felt it. The firing was fast 
 and furious, but the British shot with bad aim, 
 while the skilled American gunners hulled their 
 opponent at almost every discharge. In a very 
 few minutes the Avon was in a sinking condition, 
 and she struck her flag and cried for quarter, 
 having lost forty or fifty men, while but three of 
 the Americans had fallen. Before the Wasp could 
 take possession of her opponent, however, the 
 two war vessels to which the Avon had been sig- 
 naling came up. One of them fired at the Wasp, 
 and as the latter could not fight two new foes, she 
 ran off easily before the wind. Neither of her 
 new antagonists followed her, devoting themselves 
 to picking up the crew of the sinking Avon. 
 It would be hard to find a braver feat more 
 
126 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 skilfully performed than this ; for Captain Blake- 
 ley, with hostile foes all round him, had closed 
 with and sunk one antagonist not greatly his in- 
 ferior in force, suffering hardly any loss himself, 
 while two of her friends were coming to her help. 
 
 Both before and after this the Wasp cruised 
 hither and thither making prizes. Once she came 
 across a convoy of ships bearing arms and mu- 
 nitions to Wellington's army, under the care of 
 a great two-decker. Hovering about, the swift 
 sloop evaded the two-decker's movements, and 
 actually cut out and captured one of the trans- 
 ports she was guarding, making her escape un- 
 harmed. Then she sailed for the high seas. She 
 made several other prizes, and on October 9 spoke 
 a Swedish brig. 
 
 This was the last that was ever heard of the 
 gallant Wasp. She never again appeared, and 
 no trace of any of those aboard her was ever 
 found. Whether she was wrecked on some desert 
 coast, whether she foundered in some furious gale, 
 or what befell her none ever knew. All that is 
 certain is that she perished, and that all on board 
 her met death in some one of the myriad forms 
 in which it must always be faced by those who go 
 down to the sea in ships ; and when she sank 
 there sank one of the most gallant ships of the 
 American navy, with as brave a captain and crew 
 as ever sailed from any port of the New World. 
 
THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG 
 PRIVATEER 
 
We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 
 
 As may never be fought again ! 
 
 We have won great glory, my men : 
 
 And a day less or more 
 
 At sea or ashore, 
 
 We die — does it matter when ? 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" 
 PRIVATEER 
 
 IN the revolution, and again in the war of 1812, 
 the seas were covered by swift-sailing Ameri- 
 can privateers, which preyed on the British trade. 
 The hardy seamen of the New England coast, and 
 of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, turned 
 readily from their adventurous careers in the 
 whalers that followed the giants of the ocean in 
 every sea and every clime, and from trading voy- 
 ages to the uttermost parts of the earth, to go 
 into the business of privateering, which was more 
 remunerative, and not so very much more dan- 
 gerous, than their ordinary pursuits. By the end 
 of the war of 181 2, in particular, the American 
 privateers had won for themselves a formidable 
 position on the ocean. The schooners, brigs, 
 and brigantines in which the privateersmen sailed 
 were beautifully modeled, and were among the 
 fastest craft afloat. They were usually armed with 
 one heavy gun, the " long Tom," as it was called, 
 arranged on a pivot forward or amidships, and 
 
130 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 with a few lighter pieces of cannon. They carried 
 strong crews of well-armed men, and their com- 
 manders were veteran seamen, used to brave every 
 danger from the elements or from man. So boldly 
 did they prey on the British commerce, that they 
 infested even the Irish Sea and the British Chan- 
 nel, and increased many times the rate of insurance 
 on vessels passing across those waters. They also 
 often did battle with the regular men-of-war of 
 the British, being favorite objects for attack by 
 cutting-out parties from the British frigates and 
 ships of the line, and also frequently encountering 
 in fight the smaller sloops-of-war. Usually, in these 
 contests, the privateersmen were worsted, for they 
 had not the training which is obtained only in a 
 regular service, and they were in no way to be 
 compared to the little fleet of regular vessels which 
 in this same war so gloriously upheld the honor of 
 the American flag. Nevertheless, here and there 
 a privateer commanded by an exceptionally brave 
 and able captain, and manned by an unusually 
 well-trained crew, performed some feat of arms 
 which deserves to rank with anything ever per- 
 formed by the regular navy. Such a feat was the 
 defense of the brig General Armsti'ong, in the 
 Portuguese port of Fayal, of the Azores, against 
 an overwhelming British force. 
 
 The General A rmstrong- haWed from New York, 
 and her captain was named Reid. She had a crew 
 
THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" PRIVATEER 131 
 
 of ninety men, and was armed with one heavy 32- 
 pounder and six lighter guns. In December, 1 8 1 4, 
 she was lying in Fayal, a neutral port, when four 
 British war-vessels, a ship of the line, a frigate and 
 two brigs, hove into sight, and anchored off the 
 mouth of the harbor. The port was neutral, but 
 Portugal was friendly to England, and Reid knew 
 well that the British would pay no respect to the 
 neutrality laws if they thought that at the cost of 
 their violation they could destroy the privateer. 
 He immediately made every preparation to resist 
 an attack. The privateer was anchored close to 
 the shore. The boarding-nettings were got ready, 
 and were stretched to booms thrust outward from 
 the brig's side, so as to check the boarders as they 
 tried to climb over the bulwarks. The guns were 
 loaded and cast loose, and the men went to 
 quarters armed with muskets, boarding-pikes, and 
 cutlases. 
 
 On their side the British made ready to carry 
 the privateer by boarding. The shoals rendered 
 it impossible for the heavy ships to approach, and 
 the lack of wind and the bafflino- currents also 
 interfered for the moment with the movements of 
 the sloops-of-war. Accordingly recourse was had 
 to a cutting-out party, always a favorite device 
 with the British seamen of that age, who were 
 accustomed to carry French frigates by boarding, 
 and to capture in their boats the heavy privateers 
 
132 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and armed merchantmen, as well as the lighter 
 war- vessels of France and Spain. 
 
 The British first attempted to get possession of 
 the brig by surprise, sending out but four boats. 
 These worked down near to the brig, under pre- 
 tense of sounding, trying to get close enough to 
 make a rush and board her. The privateersmen 
 were on their guard, and warned the boats off; 
 and after the warning had been repeated once or 
 twice unheeded, they fired into them, killing and 
 wounding several men. Upon this the boats 
 promptly returned to the ships. 
 
 This first check greatly irritated the British cap- 
 tains, and they decided to repeat the experiment 
 that night with a force which would render resis- 
 tance vain. Accordingly, after it became dark, a 
 dozen boats were sent from the liner and the 
 frigate, manned by four hundred stalwart British 
 seamen, and commanded by the captain of one of 
 the brigs of war. Through the night they rowed 
 straight toward the little privateer lying dark and 
 motionless in the gloom. As before, the privateers- 
 men were ready for their foe, and when they came 
 within range opened fire upon them, first with the 
 long gun and then with the lighter cannon; but 
 the British rowed on with steady strokes, for they 
 were seamen accustomed to victory over every 
 European foe, and danger had no terrors for 
 them. With fierce hurrahs they dashed through 
 
THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" PRIVATEER 135 
 
 the shot-riven smoke and grappled the brig ; and 
 the boarders rose, cutlas in hand, ready to spring 
 over the bulwarks. A terrible struorcrle followed. 
 The British hacked at the boarding-nets and strove 
 to force their way through to the decks of the pri- 
 vateer, while the Americans stabbed the assailants 
 with their long pikes and slashed at them with their 
 cutlases. The darkness was lit by the flashes 
 of flame from the muskets and the cannon, and 
 the air was rent by the oaths and shouts of the 
 combatants, the heavy trampling on the decks, 
 the groans of the wounded, the din of weapon 
 meeting weapon, and all the savage tumult of a 
 hand-to-hand fight. At the bow the British burst 
 through the boarding-netting, and forced their way 
 to the deck, killing or wounding all three of the 
 lieutenants of the privateer ; but when this had 
 happened the boats had elsewhere been beaten 
 back, and Reid, rallying his grim sea-dogs, led 
 them forward with a rush, and the boarding party 
 were all killed or tumbled into the sea. This put 
 an end to the fight. In some of the boats none 
 but killed and wounded men were left. The others 
 drew slowly off, like crippled wild-fowl, and disap- 
 peared in the darkness toward the British squad- 
 ron. Half of the attacking force had been killed 
 or wounded, while of the Americans but nine had 
 fallen. 
 
 The British commodore and all his officers were 
 
136 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 maddened with anger and shame over the repulse, 
 and were bent upon destroying the privateer at 
 all costs. Next day, after much exertion, one of 
 the war-brigs was warped into position to attack 
 the American, but she first took her station at long 
 range, so that her carronades were not as effective 
 as the pivot gun of the privateer ; and so well was 
 the latter handled, that the British brig was repeat- 
 edly hulled, and finally was actually driven off. A 
 second attempt was made, however, and this time 
 the sloop-of-war got so close that she could use 
 her heavy carronades, which put the privateer 
 completely at her mercy. Then Captain Reid 
 abandoned his brig and sank her, first carrying 
 ashore the guns, and marched inland with his men. 
 They were not further molested ; and, if they had 
 lost their brig, they had at least made their foes 
 pay dear for her destruction, for the British had 
 lost twice as many men as there were in the whole 
 hard-fighting crew of the American privateer. 
 
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 
 
The heavy fog of morning 
 
 Still hid the plain from sight, 
 When came a thread of scarlet 
 
 Marked faintly in the white. 
 We fired a single cannon, 
 
 And as its thunders rolled, 
 The mist before us lifted 
 
 In many a heavy fold. 
 The mist before us lifted, 
 
 And in their bravery fine 
 Came rushing to their ruin 
 
 The fearless British line. 
 
 — Thomas Dunn English. 
 
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 
 
 WHEN, in 1 8 14, Napoleon was overthrown 
 and forced to retire to Elba, the British 
 troops that had followed Wellington into south- 
 ern France were left free for use against the 
 Americans. A great expedition was organized 
 to attack and capture New Orleans, and at its 
 head was placed General Pakenham, the brilliant 
 commander of the column that delivered the fatal 
 blow at Salamanca. In December a fleet of 
 British war-ships and transports, carrying thou- 
 sands of victorious veterans from the Peninsula, 
 and manned by sailors who had grown old in a 
 quarter of a century's triumphant ocean warfare, 
 anchored off the broad lagoons of the Mississippi 
 delta. The few American gunboats were car- 
 ried after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, the 
 troops were landed, and on December 23 the ad- 
 vance-guard of two thousand men reached the 
 banks of the Mississippi, but ten miles below 
 New Orleans, and there camped for the night. 
 
i4o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 It seemed as if nothing could save the Creole 
 City from foes who had shown, in the storming 
 of many a Spanish walled town, that they were 
 as ruthless in victory as they were terrible in 
 battle. There were no forts to protect the place, 
 and the militia were ill armed and ill trained. 
 But the hour found the man. On the afternoon 
 of the very day when the British reached the 
 banks of the river the vanguard of Andrew Jack- 
 son's Tennesseeans marched into New Orleans. 
 Clad in hunting-shirts of buckskin or homespun, 
 wearing wolfskin and coonskin caps, and carry- 
 ing their long rifles on their shoulders, the wild 
 soldiery of the backwoods tramped into the little 
 French town. They were tall men, with sinewy 
 frames and piercing eyes. Under " Old Hick- 
 ory's " lead they had won the bloody battle of 
 the Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks ; they 
 had driven the Spaniards from Pensacola ; and 
 now they were eager to pit themselves against 
 the most renowned troops of all Europe. 
 
 Jackson acted with his usual fiery, hasty deci- 
 sion. It was absolutely necessary to get time in 
 which to throw up some kind of breastworks or 
 defenses for the city, and he at once resolved on a 
 night attack against the British. As for the Brit- 
 ish, they had no thought of being molested. They 
 did not dream of an assault from inferior numbers 
 of undisciplined and ill-armed militia, who did 
 
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 141 
 
 not possess so much as bayonets to their guns. 
 They kindled fires along the levees, ate their 
 supper, and then, as the evening fell, noticed a 
 big schooner drop down the river in ghostly 
 silence and bring up opposite to them. The 
 soldiers flocked to the shore, challenging the 
 stranger, and finally fired one or two shots at 
 her. Then suddenly a rough voice was heard, 
 " Now give it to them, for the honor of Amer- 
 ica ! " and a shower of shell and grape fell on the 
 British, driving them off the levee. The stranger 
 was an American man-of-war schooner. The 
 British brought up artillery to drive her off, but 
 before they succeeded Jackson's land troops 
 burst upon them, and a fierce, indecisive struggle 
 followed. In the night all order was speedily 
 lost, and the two sides fought singly or in groups 
 in the utmost confusion. Finally a fog came up 
 and the combatants separated. Jackson drew off 
 four or five miles and camped. 
 
 The British had been so roughly handled that 
 they were unable to advance for three or four 
 days, until the entire army came up. When they 
 did advance, it was only to find that Jackson had 
 made good use of the time he had gained by his 
 daring assault. He had thrown up breastworks 
 of mud and logs from the swamp to the river. 
 At first the British tried to batter down these 
 breastworks with their cannon, for they had 
 
142 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 many more guns than the Americans. A terrible 
 artillery duel followed. For an hour or two the 
 result seemed in doubt ; but the American gun- 
 ners showed themselves to be far more skilful 
 than their antagonists, and gradually getting the 
 upper hand, they finally silenced every piece of 
 British artillery. The Americans had used cotton 
 bales in the embrasures, and the British hogs- 
 heads of sugar ; but neither worked well, for the 
 cotton caught fire and the sugar hogsheads were 
 ripped and splintered by the round-shot, so that 
 both were abandoned. By the use of red-hot 
 shot the British succeeded in setting on fire the 
 American schooner which had caused them such 
 annoyance on the evening of the night attack ; 
 but she had served her purpose, and her destruc- 
 tion caused little anxiety to Jackson. 
 
 Having failed in his effort to batter down the 
 American breastworks, and the British artillery 
 having been fairly worsted by the American, 
 Pakenham decided to try open assault. He had 
 ten thousand regular troops, while Jackson had 
 under him but little over five thousand men, who 
 were trained only as he had himself trained them 
 in his Indian campaigns. Not a fourth of them 
 carried bayonets. Both Pakenham and the troops 
 under him were fresh from victories won over 
 the most renowned marshals of Napoleon, and 
 over soldiers that had proved themselves on a 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 145 
 
 hundred stricken fields the masters of all others 
 in Continental Europe. At Toulouse they had 
 driven Marshal Soult from a position infinitely 
 stronger than that held by Jackson, and yet 
 Soult had under him a veteran army. At Bada- 
 joz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and San Sebastian they 
 had carried by open assault fortified towns 
 whose strength made the intrenchments of the 
 Americans seem like the mud walls built by chil- 
 dren, though these towns were held by the best 
 soldiers of France. With such troops to follow 
 him, and with such victories behind him in the 
 past, it did not seem possible to Pakenham that 
 the assault of the terrible British infantry could 
 be successfully met by rough backwoods riflemen 
 fighting under a general as wild and untrained 
 as themselves. 
 
 He decreed that the assault should take place 
 on the morning of the eighth. Throughout the 
 previous night the American officers were on the 
 alert, for they could hear the rumbling of artillery 
 in the British camp, the muffled tread of the bat- 
 talions as they were marched to their points in 
 the line, and all the smothered din of the prepa- 
 ration for assault. Long before dawn the rifle- 
 men were awake and drawn up behind the mud 
 walls, where they lolled at ease, or, leaning on 
 their long rifles, peered out through the fog to- 
 ward the camp of their foes. At last the sun rose 
 
146 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and the fog lifted, showing the scarlet array of 
 the splendid British infantry. As soon as the air 
 was clear Pakenham gave the word, and the 
 heavy columns of red-coated grenadiers and 
 kilted Highlanders moved steadily forward. From 
 the American breastworks the great guns opened, 
 but not a rifle cracked. Three fourths of the dis- 
 tance were covered, and the eager soldiers broke 
 into a run ; then sheets of flame burst from the 
 breastworks in their front as the wild riflemen 
 of the backwoods rose and fired, line upon line. 
 Under the sweeping hail the head of the British 
 advance was shattered, and the whole column 
 stopped. Then it surged forward again, almost 
 to the foot of the breastworks ; but not a man 
 lived to reach them, and in a moment more the 
 troops broke and ran back. Mad with shame 
 and rage, Pakenham rode among them to rally 
 and lead them forward, and the officers sprang 
 around him, smiting the fugitives with their 
 swords and cheering on the men who stood. For 
 a moment the troops halted, and again came for- 
 ward to the charge ; but again they were met by 
 a hail of bullets from the backwoods rifles. One 
 shot struck Pakenham himself. He reeled and 
 fell from the saddle, and was carried off the field. 
 The second and third in command fell also, and 
 then all attempts at further advance were aban- 
 doned, and the British troops ran back to their 
 
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 147 
 
 lines. Another assault had meanwhile been made 
 by a column close to the river, the charging sol- 
 diers rushing to the top of the breastworks ; but 
 they were all killed or driven back. A body of 
 troops had also been sent across the river, where 
 they routed a small detachment of Kentucky mi- 
 litia ; but they were, of course, recalled when the 
 main assault failed. 
 
 At last the men who had conquered the conquer- 
 ors of Europe had themselves met defeat. Andrew 
 Jackson and his rough riflemen had worsted, in 
 fair fight, a far larger force of the best of Wel- 
 lington's veterans, and had accomplished what 
 no French marshal and no French troops had 
 been able to accomplish throughout the long war 
 in the Spanish peninsula. For a week the sullen 
 British lay in their lines ; then, abandoning their 
 heavy artillery, they marched back to the ships 
 and sailed for Europe. 
 
JOHN OUINCY ADAMS AND THE 
 RIGHT OF PETITION 
 
He rests with the immortals ; his journey has been long : 
 For him no wail of sorrow, but a paean full and strong ! 
 So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do, 
 To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true. 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
JOHN OUINCY ADAMS AND THE 
 RIGHT OF PETITION 
 
 THE lot of ex- Presidents of the United States, 
 as a rule, has been a life of extreme retire- 
 ment, but to this rule there is one marked ex- 
 ception. When John Ouincy Adams left the 
 White House in March, 1829, it must have seemed 
 as if public life could hold nothing more for him. 
 He had had everything apparently that an Amer- 
 ican statesman could hope for. He had been 
 Minister to Holland and Prussia, to Russia and 
 England. He had been a Senator of the United 
 States, Secretary of State for eight years, and 
 finally President. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
 the greatest part of his career, and his noblest ser- 
 vice to his country, were still before him when he 
 gave up the Presidency. 
 
 In the following year (1830) he was told that 
 he might be elected to the House of Representa- 
 tives, and the gentleman who made the proposition 
 ventured to say that he thought an ex- President, 
 by taking such a position, " instead of degrading 
 
152 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the individual would elevate the representative 
 character." Mr. Adams replied that he had "in 
 that respect no scruples whatever. No person 
 can be degraded by serving the people as Repre- 
 sentative in Congress, nor, in my opinion, would 
 an ex-President of the United States be degraded 
 by serving as a selectman of his town if elected 
 thereto by the people." A few weeks later he 
 was chosen to the House, and the district con- 
 tinued to send him every two years from that time 
 until his death. He did much excellent work in 
 the House, and was conspicuous in more than one 
 memorable scene ; but here it is possible to touch 
 on only a single point, where he came forward as 
 the champion of a great principle, and fought a 
 battle for the right which will always be remem- 
 bered among the great deeds of American public 
 men. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Adams took his seat in Con- 
 gress, the movement for the abolition of slavery 
 was begun by a few obscure agitators. It did 
 not at first attract much attention, but as it went 
 on it gradually exasperated the overbearing tem- 
 per of the Southern slaveholders. One fruit of 
 this agitation was the appearance of petitions for 
 the abolition of slavery in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. A few were presented by Mr. Adams 
 without attracting much notice ; but as the pe- 
 titions multiplied, the Southern representatives 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 153 
 
 became aroused. They assailed Mr. Adams for 
 presenting them, and finally passed what was 
 known as the gag rule, which prevented the re- 
 ception of these petitions by the House. Against 
 this rule Mr. Adams protested, in the midst of the 
 loud shouts of the Southerners, as a violation of 
 his constitutional rights. But the tyranny of slav- 
 ery at that time was so complete that the rule 
 was adopted and enforced, and the slaveholders 
 undertook in this way to suppress free speech in 
 the House, just as they also undertook to prevent 
 the transmission through the mails of any writings 
 adverse to slavery. With the wisdom of a states- 
 man and a man of affairs, Mr. Adams addressed 
 himself to the one practical point of the contest. 
 He did not enter upon a discussion of slavery or 
 of its abolition, but turned his whole force toward 
 the vindication of the right of petition. On every 
 petition day he would offer, in constantly increas- 
 ing numbers, petitions which came to him from 
 all parts of the country for the abolition of slavery, 
 in this way driving the Southern representatives 
 almost to madness, despite their rule which pre- 
 vented the reception of such documents when 
 offered. Their hatred of Mr. Adams is something 
 difficult to conceive, and they were burning to 
 break him down, and, if possible, drive him from 
 the House. On February 6, 1837, after present- 
 ing the usual petitions, Mr. Adams offered one 
 
154 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 upon which he said he should like the judgment 
 of the Speaker as to its propriety, inasmuch as it 
 was a petition from slaves. In a moment the 
 House was in a tumult, and loud cries of " Expel 
 him ! " " Expel him ! " rose in all directions. One 
 resolution after another was offered looking to- 
 ward his expulsion or censure, and it was not until 
 February 9, three days later, that he was able to 
 take the floor in his own defense. His speech 
 was a masterpiece of argument, invective, and 
 sarcasm. He showed, among other things, that 
 he had not offered the petition, but had only asked 
 the opinion of the Speaker upon it, and that the 
 petition itself prayed that slavery should not be 
 abolished. When he closed his speech, which 
 was quite as savage as any made against him, and 
 infinitely abler, no one desired to reply, and the 
 idea of censuring him was dropped. 
 
 The greatest struggle, however, came five years 
 later, when, on January 21, 1842, Mr. Adams pre- 
 sented the petition of certain citizens of Haver- 
 hill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution of 
 the Union on account of slavery. His enemies 
 felt that now, at last, he had delivered himself 
 into their hands. Again arose the cry for his ex- 
 pulsion, and again vituperation was poured out 
 upon him, and resolutions to expel him freely in- 
 troduced. When he got the floor to speak in his 
 own defense, he faced an excited House, almost 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 157 
 
 unanimously hostile to him, and possessing, as he 
 well knew, both the will and the power to drive 
 him from its walls. But there was no wavering 
 in Mr. Adams. " If they say they will try me," 
 he said, " they must try me. If they say they 
 will punish me, they must punish me. But if they 
 say that in peace and mercy they will spare me 
 expulsion, I disdain and cast away their mercy, 
 and I ask if they will come to such a trial and 
 expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to 
 go to, and they will have something to say if this 
 House expels me, nor will it be long before the 
 gentlemen will see me here again." The fight 
 went on for nearly a fortnight, and on February 7 
 the whole subject was finally laid on the table. 
 The sturdy, dogged fighter, single-handed and 
 alone, had beaten all the forces of the South and 
 of slavery. No more memorable fight has ever 
 been made by one man in a parliamentary body, 
 and after this decisive struggle the tide began to 
 turn. Every year Mr. Adams renewed his motion 
 to strike out the gag rule, and forced it to a vote. 
 Gradually the majority against it dwindled, until 
 at last, on December 3, 1844, his motion pre- 
 vailed. Freedom of speech had been vindicated 
 in the American House of Representatives, the 
 right of petition had been won, and the first great 
 blow against the slave power had been struck. 
 Four years later Mr. Adams fell, stricken with 
 
158 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 paralysis, at his place in the House, and a few 
 hours afterward, with the words, "This is the last 
 of earth ; I am content," upon his lips, he sank into 
 unconsciousness and died. It was a fit end to a 
 great public career. His fight for the right of 
 petition is one to be studied and remembered, and 
 Mr. Adams made it practically alone. The slave- 
 holders of the South and the representatives of 
 the North were alike against him. Against him, 
 too, as his biographer, Mr. Morse, says, was the 
 class in Boston to which he naturally belonged by 
 birth and education. He had to encounter the 
 bitter resistance in his own set of the " conscience- 
 less respectability of wealth," but the great body 
 of the New England people were with him, as were 
 the voters of his own district. He was an old 
 man, with the physical infirmities of age. His eyes 
 were weak and streaming; his hands were trem- 
 bling; his voice cracked in moments of excite- 
 ment ; yet in that age of oratory, in the days of 
 Webster and Clay, he was known as the " old man 
 eloquent." It was what he said, more than the 
 way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind 
 never worked more surely and clearly than when 
 he stood alone in the midst of an angry House, 
 the target of their hatred and abuse. His ar<ni- 
 ments were strong, and his large knowledge and 
 wide experience supplied him with every weapon 
 for defense and attack. Beneath the lash of his 
 
JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 159 
 
 invective and his sarcasm the hottest of the slave- 
 holders cowered away. He set his back against 
 a great principle. He never retreated an inch, 
 he never yielded, he never conciliated, he was al- 
 ways an assailant, and no man and no body of men 
 had the power to turn him. He had his dark 
 hours, he felt bitterly the isolation of his position, 
 but he never swerved. He had good right to set 
 down in his diary, when the gag rule was repealed, 
 " Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God." 
 
FRANCIS PARKMAN 
 
He told the red man's story ; far and wide 
 He searched the unwritten annals of his race ; 
 
 He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, 
 
 He tracked the hunter through his wild-wood chase. 
 
 High o'er his head the soaring eagle screamed ; 
 
 The wolfs long howl rang nightly ; through the vale 
 Tramped the lone bear; the panther's eyeballs gleamed; 
 
 The bison's gallop thundered on the gale. 
 
 Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife, 
 Two proud, sttong nations battling for the prize : 
 
 Which swarming host should mould a nation's life ; 
 Which royal banner flout the western skies. 
 
 Long raged the conflict ; on the crimson sod 
 Native and alien joined their hosts in vain ; 
 
 The lilies withered where the lion trod, 
 
 Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain, 
 
 A nobler task was theirs who strove to win 
 
 The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold ; 
 
 To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin ; 
 These labors, too, with loving grace he told. 
 
 Halting with feeble step, or bending o'er 
 
 The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well, 
 
 While through long years his burdening cross he bore, 
 From those firm lips no coward accents fell. 
 
 A brave bright memory ! His the stainless shield 
 
 No shame defaces and no envy mars ! 
 When our far future's record is unsealed, 
 
 His name will shine among its morning stars. 
 
 — Holmes. 
 
FRANCIS PARKMAN 
 
 (1822-1893) 
 
 THE stories in this volume deal, for the most 
 part, with single actions, generally with deeds 
 of war and feats of arms. In this one I desire to 
 give if possible the impression, for it can be no 
 more than an impression, of a life which in its con- 
 flicts and its victories manifested throughout heroic 
 qualities. Such qualities can be shown in many 
 ways, and the field of battle is only one of the 
 fields of human endeavor where heroism can be 
 displayed. 
 
 Francis Parkman was born in Boston on Sep- 
 tember^, 1822. He came of a well-known family, 
 and was of a orood Puritan stock. He was rather 
 a delicate boy, with an extremely active mind and 
 of a highly sensitive, nervous organization. Into 
 everything that attracted him he threw himself 
 with feverish energy. His first passion, when he 
 was only about twelve years old, was for chemistry, 
 and his eager boyish experiments in this direction 
 were undoubtedly injurious to his health. The 
 interest in chemistry was succeeded by a passion 
 
 for the woods and the wilderness, and out of this 
 
 163 
 
1 64 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 came the longing to write the history of the men 
 of the wilderness, and of the great struggle be- 
 tween France and England for the control of the 
 North American continent. All through his col- 
 lege career this desire was with him, and while in 
 secret he was reading widely to prepare himself 
 for his task, he also spent a great deal of time in 
 the forests and on the mountains. To quote his 
 own words, he was " fond of hardships, and he was 
 vain of enduring them, cherishing a sovereign 
 scorn for every physical weakness or defect ; but 
 deceived, moreover, by the rapid development of 
 frame and sinew, which flattered him into the be- 
 lief that discipline sufficiently unsparing would 
 harden him into an athlete, he slighted the pre- 
 cautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired old 
 foresters with long marches, stopped neither for 
 heat nor for rain, and slept on the earth without 
 blankets." The result was that his intense energy 
 carried him beyond his strength, and while his 
 muscles strengthened and hardened, his sensitive 
 nervous organization began to give way. It was 
 not merely because he led an active outdoor life. 
 He himself protests against any such conclusion, 
 and says that " if any pale student glued to his 
 desk here seek an apology for a way of life whose 
 natural fruit is that pallid and emasculate scholar- 
 ship, of which New England has had too many 
 examples, it will be far better that this sketch had 
 
FRANCIS PAKKMAN. 
 
FRANCIS PARKMAN 167 
 
 not been written. For the student there is, in its 
 season, no better place than the saddle, and no 
 better companion than the rifle or the oar." 
 
 The evil that was done was due to Parkman's 
 highly irritable organism, which spurred him to 
 excess in everything he undertook. The first 
 special sign of the mischief he was doing to him- 
 self and his health appeared in a weakness of sight. 
 It was essential to his plan of historical work to 
 study not only books and records but Indian life 
 from the inside. Therefore, having graduated from 
 college and the law-school, he felt that the time 
 had come for this investigation, which would enable 
 him to gather material for his history and at the 
 same time to rest his eyes. He went to the Rocky 
 Mountains, and after great hardships, living in the 
 saddle, as he said, with weakness and pain, he 
 joined a band of Ogallalla Indians. With them 
 he remained despite his physical suffering, and from 
 them he learned, as he could not have learned in 
 any other way, what Indian life really was. 
 
 The immediate result of the journey was his 
 first book, instinct with the freshness and wild- 
 ness of the mountains and the prairies, and called 
 by him " The Oregon Trail." Unfortunately, the 
 book was not the only outcome. The illness in- 
 curred during his journey from fatigue and ex- 
 posure was followed by other disorders. The 
 light of the sun became insupportable, and his ner- 
 
i68 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 vous system was entirely deranged. His sight 
 was now so impaired that he was almost blind, 
 and could neither read nor write. It was a terri- 
 ble prospect for a brilliant and ambitious man, 
 but Parkman faced it unflinchingly. He devised 
 a frame by which he could write with closed eyes, 
 and books and manuscripts were read to him. In 
 this way he began the history of " The Conspi- 
 racy of Pontiac," and for the first half-year the 
 rate of composition covered about six lines a day. 
 His courage was rewarded by an improvement 
 in his health, and a little more quiet in nerves 
 and brain. In two and a half years he managed 
 to complete the book. 
 
 He then entered upon his great subject of 
 " France in the New World." The material was 
 mostly in manuscript, and had to be examined, 
 gathered, and selected in Europe and in Canada. 
 He could not read, he could write only a very 
 little and that with difficulty, and yet he pressed 
 on. He slowly collected his material and digested 
 and arranged it, using the eyes of others to do 
 that which he could not do himself, and always 
 on the verge of a complete breakdown of mind 
 and body. In 1851 he had an effusion of water 
 on the left knee, which stopped his outdoor exer- 
 cise, on which he had always largely depended. 
 All the irritability of the system then centered in 
 the head, resulting in intense pain and in a rest- 
 less and devouring activity of thought. He him- 
 
FRANCIS PARKMAN 169 
 
 self says: "The whirl, the confusion, and strange, 
 undefined tortures attending this condition are 
 only to be conceived by one who has felt them." 
 The resources of surgery and medicine were ex- 
 hausted in vain. The trouble in the head and 
 eyes constantly recurred. In 1858 there came a 
 period when for four years he was incapable of 
 the slightest mental application, and the attacks 
 varied in duration from four hours to as many 
 months. When the pressure was lightened a 
 little he went back to his work. When work was 
 impossible, he turned to horticulture, grew roses, 
 and wrote a book about the cultivation of those 
 flowers which is a standard authority. 
 
 As he grew older the attacks moderated, al- 
 though they never departed. Sleeplessness pur- 
 sued him always, the slightest excitement would 
 deprive him of the power of exertion, his sight 
 was always sensitive, and at times he was bor- 
 dering on blindness. In this hard-pressed way 
 he fought the battle of life. He says himself 
 that his books took four times as long to prepare 
 and write as if he had been strong and able 
 to use his faculties. That this should have been 
 the case is little wonder, for those books came 
 into being with failing sight and shattered nerves, 
 with sleeplessness and pain, and the menace of 
 insanity ever hanging over the brave man who, 
 nevertheless, carried them through to an end. 
 
 Yet the result of those fifty years, even in 
 
i7o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 amount, is a noble one, and would have been 
 great achievement for a man who had never 
 known a sick day. In quality, and subject, and 
 method of narration, they leave little to be desired. 
 There, in Parkman's volumes, is told vividly, 
 strongly, and truthfully, the history of the great 
 struggle between France and England for the 
 mastery of the North American continent, one 
 of the most important events of modern times. 
 This is not the place to give any critical estimate 
 of Mr. Parkman's work. It is enough to say that 
 it stands in the front rank. It is a great contri- 
 bution to history, and a still greater gift to the 
 literature of this country. All Americans cer- 
 tainly should read the volumes in which Parkman 
 has told that wonderful story of hardship and 
 adventure, of fighting and of statesmanship, which 
 gave this great continent to the English race and 
 the English speech. But better than the liter- 
 ature or the history is the heroic spirit of the man, 
 which triumphed over pain and all other physical 
 obstacles, and brought a work of such value to his 
 country and his time into existence. There is a 
 great lesson as well as a lofty example in such a 
 career, and in the service which such a man ren- 
 dered by his life and work to literature and to his 
 country. On the tomb of the conqueror of Que- 
 bec it is written : " Here lies Wolfe victorious." 
 The same epitaph might with entire justice be 
 carved above the grave of Wolfe's historian. 
 
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 
 
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 
 
 The soldier's last tattoo ; 
 No more on life's parade shall meet 
 
 That brave and fallen few. 
 On fame's eternal camping-ground 
 
 Their silent tents are spread, 
 And glory guards with solemn round 
 
 The bivouac of the dead. 
 
 The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 
 
 The bugle's stirring blast, 
 The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 
 
 The din and shout are past ; 
 Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal 
 
 Shall thrill with fierce delight 
 Those breasts that never more may feel 
 
 The rapture of the light. 
 
 — Theodore O'Hara. 
 
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 
 
 THERMOPYLAE; had its messengers of 
 death, but the Alamo had none." These 
 were the words with which a United States sena- 
 tor referred to one of the most resolute and ef- 
 fective fights ever waged by brave men against 
 overwhelming odds in the face of certain death. 
 Soon after the close of the second war with 
 Great Britain, parties of American settlers began 
 to press forward into the rich, sparsely settled 
 territory of Texas, then a portion of Mexico. At 
 first these immigrants were well received, but the 
 Mexicans speedily grew jealous of them, and op- 
 pressed them in various ways. In consequence, 
 when the settlers felt themselves strong enough, 
 they revolted against Mexican rule, and declared 
 Texas to be an independent republic. Immedi- 
 ately Santa Anna, the Dictator of Mexico, gath- 
 ered a large army, and invaded Texas. The 
 slender forces of the settlers were unable to meet 
 his hosts. They were pressed back by the Mex- 
 icans, and dreadful atrocities were committed by 
 Santa Anna and his lieutenants. 
 
174 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 In the United States there was great enthusiasm 
 for the struggling Texans, and many bold back- 
 woodsmen and Indian-fighters swarmed to their 
 help. Among them the two most famous were 
 Sam Houston and David Crockett. Houston 
 was the younger man, and had already led an ex- 
 traordinary and varied career. When a mere lad 
 he had run away from home and joined the Cher- 
 okees, living among them for some years ; then 
 he returned home. He had fought under Andrew 
 Jackson in his campaigns against the Creeks, and 
 had been severely wounded at the battle of the 
 Horse-shoe Bend. He had risen to the highest 
 political honors in his State, becoming governor 
 of Tennessee ; and then suddenly, in a fit of moody 
 longing for the life of the wilderness, he gave up 
 his governorship, left the State, and crossed the 
 Mississippi, going to join his old comrades, the 
 Cherokees, in their new home along the waters 
 of the Arkansas. Here he dressed, lived, fought, 
 hunted, and drank precisely like any Indian, 
 becoming one of the chiefs. 
 
 David Crockett was born soon after the Revo- 
 lutionary War. He, too, had taken part under 
 Jackson in the campaigns against the Creeks, and 
 had afterward become a man of mark in Tennes- 
 see, and gone to Congress as a Whig ; but he 
 had quarreled with Jackson, and been beaten for 
 Congress, and in his disgust he left the State and 
 
''REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 175 
 
 decided to join the Texans. He was the most 
 famous rifle-shot in all the United States, and the 
 most successful hunter, so that his skill was a 
 proverb all along the border. 
 
 David Crockett journeyed south, by boat and 
 horse, making his way steadily toward the distant 
 plains where the Texans were waging their life- 
 and-death fight. Texas was a wild place in those 
 days, and the old hunter had more than one hair- 
 breadth escape from Indians, desperadoes, and 
 savage beasts, ere he got to the neighborhood of 
 San Antonio, and joined another adventurer, a 
 bee-hunter, bent on the same errand as himself. 
 The two had been in ignorance of exactly what 
 the situation in Texas was ; but they soon found 
 that the Mexican army was marching toward 
 San Antonio, whither they were going. Near the 
 town was an old Spanish fort, the Alamo, in which 
 the hundred and fifty American defenders of the 
 place had gathered. Santa Anna had four thou- 
 sand troops with him. The Alamo was a mere 
 shell, utterly unable to withstand either a bom- 
 bardment or a regular assault. It was evident, 
 therefore, that those within it would be in the ut- 
 most jeopardy if the place we.re seriously assaulted, 
 but old Crockett and his companion never wav- 
 ered. They were fearless and resolute, and 
 masters of woodcraft, and they managed to slip 
 through the Mexican lines and join the defenders 
 
176 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 within the walls. The bravest, the hardiest, the 
 most reckless men of the border were there ; among 
 them were Colonel Travis, the commander of the 
 fort, and Bowie, the inventor of the famous bowie- 
 knife. They were a wild and ill-disciplined band, 
 little used to restraint or control, but they were 
 men of iron courage and great bodily powers, 
 skilled in the use of their weapons, and ready to 
 meet with stern and uncomplaining indifference 
 whatever doom fate miofht have in store for them. 
 Soon Santa Anna approached with his army, 
 took possession of the town, and besieged the 
 fort. The defenders knew there was scarcely a 
 chance of rescue, and that it was hopeless to 
 expect that one hundred and fifty men, behind 
 defenses so weak, could beat off four thousand 
 trained soldiers, well armed and provided with 
 heavy artillery ; but they had no idea of flinch- 
 ing, and made a desperate defense. The days 
 went by, and no help came, while Santa Anna 
 got ready his lines, and began a furious cannon- 
 ade. His gunners were unskilled, however, and 
 he had to serve the guns from a distance ; for 
 when they were pushed nearer, the American ri- 
 flemen crept forward under cover, and picked off 
 the artillerymen. Old Crockett thus killed five 
 men at one gun. But, by degrees, the bombard- 
 ment told. The walls of the Alamo were battered 
 and riddled ; and when they had been breached 
 
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 179 
 
 so as to afford no obstacle to the rush of his 
 soldiers, Santa Anna commanded that they be 
 stormed. 
 
 The storm took place on March 6, 1836. The 
 Mexican troops came on well and steadily, break- 
 ing through the outer defenses at every point, 
 for the lines were too long to be manned by the 
 few Americans. The frontiersmen then retreated 
 to the inner building, and a desperate hand-to- 
 hand conflict followed, the Mexicans thronging 
 in, shooting the Americans with their muskets, 
 and thrusting at them with lance and bayonet, 
 while the Americans, after firing their long rifles, 
 clubbed them, and fought desperately, one against 
 many ; and they also used their bowie-knives and 
 revolvers with deadly effect. The fight reeled to 
 and fro between the shattered walls, each Amer- 
 ican the center of a group of foes ; but, for all 
 their strength and their wild fighting courage, the 
 defenders were too few, and the struggle could 
 have but one end. One by one the tall riflemen 
 succumbed, after repeated thrusts with bayonet 
 and lance, until but three or four were left. Col- 
 onel Travis, the commander, was among them ; 
 and so was Bowie, who was sick and weak from 
 a wasting disease, but who rallied all his strength 
 to die fighting, and who, in the final struggle, 
 slew several Mexicans with his revolver, and with 
 his big knife, of the kind to which he had given 
 
180 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 his name. Then these fell too, and the last man 
 stood at bay. It was old Davy Crockett. Wounded 
 in a dozen places, he faced his foes with his back 
 to the wall, ringed around by the bodies of the 
 men he had slain. So desperate was the fight he 
 waged, that the Mexicans who thronged round 
 about him were beaten back for the moment, and 
 no one dared to run in upon him. Accordingly, 
 while the lancers held him where he was, for, 
 weakened by wounds and loss of blood, he could 
 not break through them, the musketeers loaded 
 their carbines and shot him down. Santa Anna 
 declined to give him mercy. Some say that when 
 Crockett fell from his wounds, he was taken alive, 
 and was then shot by Santa Anna's order; but his 
 fate cannot be told with certainty, for not a single 
 American was left alive. At any rate, after 
 Crockett fell the fight was over. Every one of 
 the hardy men who had held the Alamo lay still 
 in death. Yet they died well avenged, for four 
 times their number fell at their hands in the battle. 
 Santa Anna had but a short while in which to 
 exult over his bloody and hard- won victory. Al- 
 ready a rider from the rolling Texas plains, going 
 north through the Indian Territory, had told 
 Houston that the Texans were up and were striv- 
 ing for their liberty. At once in Houston's mind 
 there kindled a longing to return to the men of 
 his race at the time of their need. Mounting his 
 
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 181 
 
 horse, he rode south by night and day, and was 
 hailed by the Texans as a heaven-sent leader. 
 He took command of their forces, eleven hundred 
 stark riflemen, and at the battle of San Jacinto, 
 he and his men charged the Mexican hosts with 
 the cry of " Remember the Alamo." Almost im- 
 mediately, the Mexicans were overthrown with 
 terrible slaughter ; Santa Anna himself was cap- 
 tured, and the freedom of Texas was won at a 
 blow. 
 
 16 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 
 
Then far away to the south uprose 
 
 A little feather of snow-white smoke, 
 And we knew that the iron ship of our foes 
 Was steadily steering its course 
 To try the force 
 Of our ribs of oak. 
 
 Down upon us heavily runs, 
 
 Silent and sullen, the floating fort; 
 Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, 
 And leaps the terrible death, 
 With fiery breath, 
 From her open port. 
 
 Ho ! brave hearts, that went down in the seas ! 
 
 Ye are at peace in the troubled stream ; 
 Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these, 
 Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
 Shall be one again, 
 And without a seam ! 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 
 
 THE naval battles of the Civil War possess an 
 immense importance, because they mark 
 the line of cleavage between naval warfare under 
 the old, and naval warfare under the new, condi- 
 tions. The ships with which Hull and Decatur 
 and McDonough won glory in the war of 1812 
 were essentially like those with which Drake and 
 Hawkins and Frobisher had harried the Spanish 
 armadas two centuries and a half earlier. They 
 were wooden sailing-vessels, carrying many guns 
 mounted in broadside, like those of De Ruyter 
 and Tromp, of Blake and Nelson. Throughout 
 this period all the great admirals, all the famous 
 single-ship fighters, — whose skill reached its high- 
 est expression in our own navy during the war oi 
 181 2, — commanded craft built and armed in a 
 substantially similar manner, and fought with the 
 same weapons and under much the same condi- 
 tions. But in the Civil War weapons and methods 
 were introduced which caused a revolution Greater 
 even than that which divided the sailing-ship from 
 
 the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships 
 
 185 
 
1 86 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 in iron armor, and the employment of the tor- 
 pedo, the ram, and the gun of high power, pro- 
 duced such radically new types that the old ships 
 of the line became at one stroke as antiquated as 
 the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades. Some of 
 these new engines of destruction were invented, 
 and all were for the first time tried in actual com- 
 bat, during our own Civil War. The first occasion 
 on which any of the new methods were thoroughly 
 tested was attended by incidents which made it 
 one of the most striking of naval battles. 
 
 In Chesapeake Bay, near Hampton Roads, 
 the United States had collected a fleet of wooden 
 ships ; some of them old-style sailing-vessels, 
 others steamers. The Confederates were known 
 to be building a great iron-clad ram, and the 
 wooden vessels were eagerly watching for her ap- 
 pearance when she should come out of Gosport 
 Harbor. Her powers and capacity were utterly 
 unknown. She was made out of the former 
 United States steam-frigate Merrimac, cut down 
 so as to make her fore and aft decks nearly flat, 
 and not much above the water, while the guns 
 were mounted in a covered central battery, with 
 sloping flanks. Her sides, deck, and battery were 
 coated with iron, and she was armed with for- 
 midable rifle-guns, and, most important of all, with 
 a steel ram thrust out under water forward from 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 187 
 
 her bow. She was commanded by a gallant and 
 efficient officer, Captain Buchanan. 
 
 It was March 8, 1862, when the ram at last 
 made her appearance within sight of the Union 
 fleet. The day was calm and very clear, so that 
 the throngs of spectators on shore could see every 
 feature of the battle. With the great ram came 
 three light gunboats, all of which took part in the 
 action, harassing the vessels which she assailed ; 
 but they were not factors of importance in the 
 fight. On the Union side the vessels nearest 
 were the sailing-ships Cumberland and Congress, 
 and the steam -frigate Minnesota. The Congress 
 and Cumberland were anchored not far from each 
 other ; the Minnesota got aground, and was some 
 distance off. Owing to the currents and shoals 
 and the lack of wind, no other vessel was able to 
 get up in time to take a part in the fight. 
 
 As soon as the ram appeared, out of the har- 
 bor, she turned and steamed toward the Congress 
 and the Cumberland, the black smoke rising- from 
 her funnels, and the great ripples running from 
 each side of her iron prow as she drove steadily 
 through the still waters. On board of the Con- 
 gress and Cumberland there was eager anticipa- 
 tion, but not a particle of fear. The officers in 
 command, Captain Smith and Lieutenant Morris, 
 were two of the most gallant men in a service 
 where gallantry has always been too common to 
 
188 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 need special comment. The crews were com- 
 posed of veterans, well trained, self-confident, and 
 proud beyond measure of the flag whose honor 
 they upheld. The guns were run out, and the 
 men stood at quarters, while the officers eagerly 
 conned the approaching ironclad. The Congress 
 was the first to open fire ; and, as her volleys flew, 
 the men on the Ctimberland were astounded to 
 see the cannon-shot bound off the sloping sides 
 of the ram as hailstones bound from a window- 
 pane. The ram answered, and her rifle-shells 
 tore the sides of the Congress ; but for her first 
 victim she aimed at the Cumberland, and, firing 
 her bow guns, came straight as an arrow at the 
 little sloop-of-war, which lay broadside to her, 
 It was an absolutely hopeless struggle. The 
 Cumberland was a sailing-ship, at anchor, with 
 wooden sides, and a battery of light guns. 
 Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her 
 heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless 
 as if she had been a rowboat ; and from the mo- 
 ment the men saw the cannon-shot bound from 
 the ram's sides they knew they were doomed. 
 But none of them flinched. Once and again they 
 fired their guns full against the approaching ram, 
 and in response received a few shells from the 
 great bow-rifles of the latter. Then, forging 
 ahead, the Merrimac struck her antagonist with 
 her steel prow, and the sloop-of-war reeled and 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 191 
 
 shuddered, and through the great rent in her side 
 the black water rushed. She foundered in a few 
 minutes ; but her crew fought her to the last, 
 cheering as they ran out the guns, and sending 
 shot after shot against the ram as the latter 
 backed off after delivering her blow. The rush 
 of the water soon swamped the lower decks, but 
 the men above continued to serve their guns until 
 the upper deck also was awash, and the vessel 
 had not ten seconds of life left. Then, with her 
 flags flying, her men cheering, and her guns 
 firing, the Ctcmberland sank. It was shallow 
 where she settled down, so that her masts re- 
 mained above the water. The glorious flag for 
 which the brave men aboard her had died flew 
 proudly in the wind all that day, while the fight 
 went on, and throughout the night ; and next 
 morning it was still streaming over the beautiful 
 bay, to mark the resting-place of as gallant a ves- 
 sel as ever sailed or fought on the high seas. 
 
 After the Cumberland sank, the ram turned 
 her attention to the Congress. Finding it diffi- 
 cult to get to her in the shoal water, she began 
 to knock her to pieces with her great rifle-guns. 
 The unequal fight between the ironclad and the 
 wooden ship lasted for perhaps half an hour. By 
 that time the commander of the Congress had 
 been killed, and her decks looked like a slaughter- 
 house. She was utterly unable to make any im- 
 
192 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 pression on her foe, and finally she took fire and 
 blew up. The Minnesota was the third victim 
 marked for destruction, and the Merrimac began 
 the attack upon her at once ; but it was getting 
 very late, and as the water was shoal and she 
 could not get close, the ram finally drew back to 
 her anchorage, to wait until next day before re- 
 newing and completing her work of destruction. 
 
 All that night there was the wildest exultation 
 among the Confederates, while the gloom and 
 panic of the Union men cannot be described. It 
 was evident that the United States ships-of-war 
 were as helpless as cockle-shells against their 
 iron -clad foe, and there was no question but that 
 she could destroy the whole fleet with ease and 
 with absolute impunity. This meant not only the 
 breaking of the blockade, but the sweeping away 
 at one blow of the North's naval supremacy, 
 which was indispensable to the success of the 
 war for the Union. It is small wonder that 
 during that nio-ht the wisest and bravest should 
 have almost despaired. 
 
 But in the hour of the nation's greatest need 
 a champion suddenly appeared, in time to play 
 the last scene in this great drama of sea warfare. 
 The North, too, had been trying its hand at build- 
 inof ironclads. The most successful of them was 
 the little Monitor, a flat-decked, low, turreted 
 ironclad, armed with a couple of heavy guns. 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 193 
 
 She was the first experiment of her kind, and 
 her absolutely flat surface, nearly level with the 
 water, her revolving turret, and her utter unlike- 
 ness to any preexisting- naval type, had made 
 her an object of mirth among most practical sea- 
 men ; but her inventor, Ericsson, was not dis- 
 heartened in the least by the jeers. Under the 
 command of a gallant naval officer, Captain Wor- 
 den, she was sent South from New York, and 
 though she almost foundered in a gale she man- 
 aged to weather it, and reached the scene of the 
 battle at Hampton Roads at the moment when her 
 presence was all-important. 
 
 Early the following morning the Merri7nac, 
 now under Captain Jones (for Buchanan had 
 been wounded), again steamed forth to take up 
 the work she had so well begun and to destroy 
 the Union fleet. She steered straight for the 
 Minnesota; but when she was almost there, to 
 her astonishment a strang-e-lookinQf little craft 
 advanced from the side of the big wooden frig- 
 ate and boldly barred the Merrimacs path. For 
 a moment the Confederates could hardly believe 
 their eyes. The Monitor was tiny, compared to 
 their ship, for she was not one fifth the size, and 
 her queer appearance made them look at their 
 new foe with contempt ; but the first shock of 
 battle did away with this feeling. The Merri- 
 mac turned on her foe her rifle-guns, intending 
 
194 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 to blow her out of the water, but the shot glanced 
 from the thick iron turret of the Monitor. Then 
 the Monitors guns opened fire, and as the great 
 balls struck the sides of the ram her plates started 
 and her timbers gave. Had the Monitor been 
 such a vessel as those of her type produced later 
 in the war, the ram would have been sunk then 
 and there ; but as it was her shot were not quite 
 heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around 
 and around the two strange combatants hovered, 
 their guns bellowing without cessation, while the 
 men on the frigates and on shore watched the re- 
 sult with breathless interest. Neither the Mer- 
 rimac nor the Monitor could dispose of its an- 
 tagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the 
 turret, and the Monitor was able dexterously to 
 avoid the stroke of the formidable prow. On the 
 other hand, the shot of the Monitor could not 
 penetrate the Merrimac s tough sides. Accord- 
 ingly, fierce though the struggle was, and much 
 though there was that hinged on it, it was not 
 bloody in character. The Merrimac could neither 
 destroy nor evade the Monitor. She could not 
 sink her when she tried to, and when she aban- 
 doned her and turned to attack one of the other 
 wooden vessels, the little turreted ship was 
 thrown across her path, so that the fight had 
 to be renewed. Both sides grew thoroughly 
 exhausted, and finally the battle ceased by mu- 
 tual consent. 
 
HAMPTON ROADS 195 
 
 Nothing more could be done. The ram was 
 badly damaged, and there was no help for her 
 save to put back to the port whence she had 
 come. Twice afterward she came out, but 
 neither time did she come near enough to the 
 Monitor to attack her, and the latter could not 
 move off where she would cease to protect the 
 wooden vessels. The ram was ultimately blown 
 up by the Confederates on the advance of the 
 Union army. 
 
 Tactically, the fight was a drawn battle — 
 neither ship being able to damage the other, 
 and both ships being fought to a standstill ; but 
 the moral and material effects were wholly in 
 favor of the Monitor. Her victory was hailed 
 with exultant joy throughout the whole Union, 
 and exercised a correspondingly depressing ef- 
 fect in the Confederacy ; while every naval man 
 throughout the world, who possessed eyes to see, 
 saw that the fight in Hampton Roads had inau- 
 gurated a new era in ocean warfare, and that the 
 Moiiitor and Merrimac, which had waged so gal- 
 lant and so terrible a battle, were the first ships 
 of the new era, and that as such their names 
 would be forever famous. 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 
 
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; 
 
 He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are 
 
 stored ; 
 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword ; 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; 
 They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps ; 
 I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ; 
 His day is marching on. 
 
 He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never beat retreat; 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat ; 
 Oh ! be swift, my soul, to answer him ! be jubilant, my feet ! 
 Our God is marching on. 
 
 —Julia Ward Howe. 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 
 
 IN no war since the close of the great Napole- 
 onic struggles has the fighting been so obsti- 
 nate and bloody as in the Civil War. Much has 
 been said in song and story of the resolute cour- 
 age of the Guards at Inkerman, of the charge of 
 the Light Brigade, and of the terrible fighting and 
 loss of the German armies at Mars La Tour and 
 Gravelotte. The praise bestowed upon the British 
 and Germans for their valor, and for the loss that 
 proved their valor, was well deserved ; but there 
 were over one hundred and twenty regiments, 
 Union and Confederate, each of which, in some one 
 battle of the Civil War, suffered a greater loss than 
 any English regiment at Inkerman or at any other 
 battle in the Crimea, a greater loss than was suf- 
 fered by any German regiment at Gravelotte or 
 at any other battle of the Franco- Prussian war. 
 No European regiment in any recent struggle has 
 suffered such losses as at Gettysburg befell the 
 i st Minnesota, when 82 per cent, of the officers 
 
200 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and men were killed and wounded; or the 141st 
 Pennsylvania, which lost 76 per cent. ; or the 26th 
 North Carolina, which lost 72 per cent. ; such as at 
 the second battle of Manassas befell the 101st 
 New York, which lost 74 per cent., and the 21st 
 Georgia, which lost 76 per cent. At Cold Harbor 
 the 25th Massachusetts lost 70 per cent., and the 
 10th Tennessee at Chickamauga 68 per cent. ; 
 while at Shiloh the 9th Illinois lost 63 per cent., 
 and the 6th Mississippi 70 per cent.; and at An- 
 tietam the 1st Texas lost 82 per cent. The loss of 
 the Lio-ht Brigade in killed and wounded in its fa- 
 mous charge at Balaklava was but $"] per cent. 
 
 These figures show the terrible punishment en- 
 dured by these regiments, chosen at random from 
 the head of the list which shows the slaughter-roll 
 of the Civil War. Yet the shattered remnants of 
 each regiment preserved their organization, and 
 many of the severest losses were incurred in the 
 hour of triumph, and not of disaster. Thus, the 1st 
 Minnesota, at Gettysburg, suffered its appalling 
 loss while charging a greatly superior force, which 
 it drove before it ; and the little huddle of wounded 
 and unwounded men who survived their victorious 
 charge actually kept both the flag they had cap- 
 tured and the ground from which they had driven 
 their foes. 
 
 A number of the Continental regiments under 
 Washington, Greene, and Wayne did valiant 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 201 
 
 fighting and endured heavy punishment. Several 
 of the regiments raised on the northern frontier 
 in 1 8 14 showed, under Brown and Scott, that they 
 were able to meet the best troops of Britain on 
 equal terms in the open, and even to overmatch 
 them in fair fight with the bayonet. The regi- 
 ments which, in the Mexican war, under the lead 
 of Taylor, captured Monterey, and beat back Santa 
 Anna at Buena Vista, or which, with Scott as 
 commander, stormed Molino Del Rey and Cha- 
 pultepec, proved their ability to bear terrible loss, 
 to wrest victory from overwhelming numbers, and 
 to carry by open assault positions of formidable 
 strength held by a veteran army. But in none of 
 these three wars was the fiofhtinpf so resolute and 
 bloody as in the Civil War. 
 
 Countless deeds of heroism were performed by 
 Northerner and by Southerner, by officer and by 
 private, in every year of the great struggle. The 
 immense majority of these deeds went unrecorded, 
 and were known to few beyond the immediate 
 participants. Of those that were noticed it would 
 be impossible even to make a dry catalogue in ten 
 such volumes as this. All that can be done is to 
 choose out two or three acts of heroism, not as 
 exceptions, but as examples of hundreds of others. 
 The times of war are iron times, and bring- out all 
 that is best as well as all that is basest in the 
 human heart. In a full recital of the civil war, as 
 
202 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 of every other great conflict, there would stand out 
 in naked relief feats of wonderful daring and self- 
 devotion, and, mixed among them, deeds of cowar- 
 dice, of treachery, of barbarous brutality. Sadder 
 still, such a recital would show strange contrasts 
 in the careers of individual men, men who at one 
 time acted well and nobly, and at another time ill 
 and basely. The ugly truths must not be blinked, 
 and the lessons they teach should be set forth by 
 every historian, and learned by every statesman 
 and soldier ; but, for our good fortune, the lessons 
 best worth learning in the nation's past are lessons 
 of heroism. 
 
 From immemorial time the armies of every war- 
 like people have set the highest value upon the 
 standards they bore to battle. To guard one's 
 own flag against capture is the pride, to capture 
 the flag of one's enemy the ambition, of every 
 valiant soldier. In consequence, in every war 
 between peoples of good military record, feats of 
 daring performed by color-bearers are honorably 
 common. The Civil War was full of such incidents. 
 Out of very many two or three may be mentioned 
 as noteworthy. 
 
 One occurred at Fredericksburg on the day 
 when half the brigades of Meagher and Caldwell 
 lay on the bloody slope leading up to the Con- 
 federate entrenchments. Among the assaulting 
 regiments was the 5th New Hampshire, and it 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 203 
 
 lost one hundred and eighty-six out of three hun- 
 dred men who made the charge. The survivors 
 fell sullenly back behind a fence, within easy range 
 of the Confederate rifle-pits. Just before reaching 
 it the last of the color guard was shot, and the flag 
 fell in the open. A Captain Perry instantly ran 
 out to rescue it, and as he reached it was shot 
 through the heart ; another, Captain Murray, 
 made the same attempt and was also killed ; and 
 so was a third, Moore. Several private soldiers 
 met a like fate. They were all killed close to the 
 flag, and their dead bodies fell across one another. 
 Taking advantage of this breastwork, Lieutenant 
 Nettleton crawled from behind the fence to the 
 colors, seized them, and bore back the blood-won 
 trophy. 
 
 Another took place at Gaines' Mill, where 
 Gregg's 1st South Carolina formed part of the 
 attacking force. The resistance was desperate, 
 and the fury of the assault unsurpassed. At one 
 point it fell to the lot of this regiment to bear the 
 brunt of carrying a certain strong position. Mov- 
 ing forward at a run, the South Carolinians were 
 swept by a fierce and searching fire. Young 
 James Taylor, a lad of sixteen, was carrying the 
 flag, and was killed after being shot down three 
 times, twice rising and struggling onward with 
 the colors. The third time he fell the flag was 
 seized by George Cotchet, and when he, in turn, 
 
204 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY ■ 
 
 fell, by Shubrick Hayne. Hayne was also 
 struck down almost immediately, and the fourth 
 lad, for none of them were over twenty years old, 
 grasped the colors, and fell mortally wounded 
 across the body of his friend. The fifth, Gadsden 
 Holmes, was pierced with no less than seven balls. 
 The sixth man, Dominick Spellman, more fortu- 
 nate, but not less brave, bore the flag throughout 
 the rest of the battle. 
 
 Yet another occurred at Antietam. The 7th 
 Maine, then under the command of Major T. W. 
 Hyde, was one of the hundreds of regiments that 
 on many hard-fought fields established a reputa- 
 tion for dash and unyielding endurance. Toward 
 the early part of the day at Antietam it merely 
 took its share in the charging and long-range 
 firing, together with the New York and Vermont 
 reeiments which were its immediate neighbors in 
 the line. The fighting was very heavy. In one 
 of the charges, the Maine men passed over what 
 had been a Confederate regiment. The gray- 
 clad soldiers were lying, both ranks, privates and 
 officers, as they fell, for so many had been killed 
 or disabled that it seemed as if the whole regi- 
 ment was prone in death. 
 
 Much of the time the Maine men lay on the 
 battle-field, hugging the ground, under a heavy 
 artillery fire, but beyond the reach of ordinary 
 musketry. One of the privates, named Knox, 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 205 
 
 was a wonderful shot, and had received permis- 
 sion to use his own special rifle, a weapon accu- 
 rately sighted for very long range. While the 
 regiment thus lay under the storm of shot and 
 shell, he asked leave to go to the front ; and for 
 an hour afterward his companions heard his rifle 
 crack every few minutes. Major Hyde finally, 
 from curiosity, crept forward to see what he was 
 doing, and found that he had driven every man 
 away from one section of a Confederate battery, 
 tumbling over gunner after gunner as they came 
 forward to fire. One of his victims was a general 
 officer, whose horse he killed. At the end of an 
 hour or so, a piece of shell took off the breech of 
 his pet rifle, and he returned disconsolate ; but 
 after a few minutes he gathered three rifles that 
 were left by wounded men, and went back again 
 to his work. 
 
 At five o'clock in the afternoon the regiment 
 was suddenly called upon to undertake a hopeless 
 charge, owing to the blunder of the brigade 
 commander, who was a gallant veteran of the 
 Mexican war, but who was also given to drink. 
 Opposite the Union lines at this point were some 
 haystacks, near a group of farm buildings. They 
 were right in the center of the Confederate posi- 
 tion, and sharpshooters stationed among them 
 were picking off the Union gunners. The briga- 
 dier, thinking that they were held by but a few 
 
206 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 skirmishers, rode to where the 7th Maine was 
 lying on the ground, and said : " Major Hyde, 
 take your regiment and drive the enemy from 
 those trees and buildings." Hyde saluted, and 
 said that he had seen a large force of rebels go 
 in among the buildings, probably two brigades in 
 all. The brigadier answered, "Are you afraid 
 to go, sir ? " and repeated the order emphatically. 
 " Give the order so the regiment can hear it, and 
 we are ready, sir," said Hyde. This was done, 
 and " Attention " brought every man to his feet. 
 With the regiment were two young boys who 
 carried the marking guidons, and Hyde ordered 
 these to the rear. They pretended to go, but as 
 soon as the regiment charged came along with it. 
 One of them lost his arm, and the other was killed 
 on the field. The colors were carried by the color 
 corporal, Harry Campbell. 
 
 Hyde gave the orders to left face and forward, 
 and the Maine men marched out in front of a 
 Vermont regiment which lay beside them ; then, 
 facing to the front, they crossed a sunken road, 
 which was so filled with dead and wounded Con- 
 federates that Hyde's horse had to step on them 
 to get over. 
 
 Once across, they stopped for a moment in the 
 trampled corn to straighten the line, and then 
 charged toward the right of the barns. On they 
 went at the double-quick, fifteen skirmishers ahead 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 207 
 
 under Lieutenant Butler, Major Hyde on the 
 right on his Virginia thoroughbred, and Adjutant 
 Haskell to the left on a big white horse. The 
 latter was shot down at once, as was his horse, 
 and Hyde rode round in front of the regiment 
 just in time to see a long line of men in gray rise 
 from behind the stone wall of the Hagerstown 
 pike, which was to their right, and pour in a vol- 
 ley; but it mostly went too high. He then or- 
 dered his men to left oblique. 
 
 Just as they were abreast a hill to the right of 
 the barns, Hyde, being some twenty feet ahead, 
 looked over its top and saw several regiments of 
 Confederates, jammed close together and waiting 
 at the ready ; so he gave the order left flank, and, 
 still at the double quick, took his column past the 
 barns and buildings toward an orchard on the 
 hither side, hoping that he could get them back 
 before they were cut off, for they were faced by 
 ten times their number. By going through the 
 orchard he expected to be able to take advantage 
 of a hollow, and partially escape the destructive 
 flank fire on his return. 
 
 To hope to keep the barns from which they had 
 driven the sharpshooters was vain, for the single 
 Maine regiment found itself opposed to portions 
 of no less than four Confederate brigades, at least 
 a dozen regiments all told. When the men got 
 to the orchard fence, Sergeant Benson wrenched 
 
208 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 apart the tall pickets to let through Hyde's horse. 
 While he was doing this, a shot struck his haver- 
 sack, and the men all laughed at the sight of the 
 flying hardtack. 
 
 Going into the orchard there was a rise of 
 ground, and the Confederates fired several vol- 
 leys at the Maine men, and then charged them. 
 Hyde's horse was twice wounded, but was still 
 able to go on. 
 
 No sooner were the men in blue beyond the 
 fence than they got into line and met the Con- 
 federates, as they came crowding behind, with a 
 slaughtering fire, and then charged, driving them 
 back. The color corporal was still carrying the 
 colors, though one of his arms had been broken ; 
 but when half way through the orchard, Hyde 
 heard him call out as he fell, and turned back 
 to save the colors, if possible. 
 
 The apple-trees were short and thick, and he 
 could not see much, and the Confederates, speedily 
 got between him and his men. Immediately, with 
 the cry of" Rally, boys, to save the Major," back 
 surged the regiment, and a volley at arm's length 
 again destroyed all the foremost of their pursuers ; 
 so they rescued both their commander and the 
 flag, which was carried off by Corporal Ring. 
 
 Hyde then formed the regiment on the colors, 
 sixty-eight men all told, out of two hundred and 
 forty who had begun the charge, and they slowly 
 
THE FLAG-BEARER 209 
 
 marched back toward their place in the Union 
 line, while the New Yorkers and Vermonters rose 
 from the ground cheering and waving their hats. 
 Next day, when the Confederates had retired a 
 little from the field, the color corporal, Campbell, 
 was found in the orchard, dead, propped up against 
 a tree, with his half-smoked pipe beside him. 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL 
 JACKSON 
 
Like a servant of the Lord, with his bible and his sword, 
 Our general rode along us, to form us for the fight. 
 
 — Macau lay. 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL 
 JACKSON 
 
 THE Civil War has left, as all wars of broth- 
 er against brother must leave, terrible and 
 heartrending memories ; but there remains as 
 an offset the glory which has accrued to the 
 nation by the countless deeds of heroism per- 
 formed by both sides in the struggle. The cap- 
 tains and the armies that, after long years of 
 dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn fight- 
 ing, brought the war to a close, have left us more 
 than a reunited realm. North and South, all 
 Americans, now have a common fund of glori- 
 ous memories. We are the richer for each grim 
 campaign, for each hard-fought battle. We are 
 the richer for valor displays ' dike by those who 
 fought so valiantly for the i ^ht, and by those 
 who, no less valiantly, fought for what they 
 deemed the right. We have in us nobler capa- 
 cities for what is gTea* ari d good because of the 
 infinite woe ?jk1 suff~ rm £. an d because of the 
 splendid ultimate triumph- We hold that it was 
 
O TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the welfare, not only of our people on 
 anent, but of the whole human race, that 
 .ion should be preserved and slavery abol- 
 oiieu ; that one flag should fly from the Great 
 Lakes to the Rio Grande ; that we should all be 
 free in fact as well as in name, and that the 
 United States should stand as one nation — the 
 greatest nation on the earth. But we recognize 
 gladly that, South as well as North, when the 
 fight was once on, the leaders of the armies, and 
 the soldiers whom they led, displayed the same 
 qualities of daring and steadfast courage, of dis- 
 interested loyalty and enthusiasm, and of high 
 devotion to an ideal. 
 
 The greatest general of the South was Lee, 
 and his greatest lieutenant was Jackson. Both 
 were Virginians, and both were strongly opposed 
 to disunion. Lee went so far as to deny the right 
 of secession, while Jackson insisted that the South 
 ought to try to get its rights inside the Union, and 
 not outside. But when Virginia joined the South- 
 ern Confederacy, and the war had actually begun, 
 both men cast their lot with the South. 
 
 It is often said that the Civil War was in one 
 sense a repetition of the old struggle between the 
 Puritan and the Cavalier ; 'uit Puritan and Cava- 
 lier types were common to thj two armies. In 
 dash and light-hearted daring Cutter and Kear- 
 ney stood as conspicuous as ^uart and Morgan ; 
 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 215 
 
 and, on the other hand, no Northern general ap- 
 proached the Roundhead type — the type of the 
 stern, religious warriors who fought under Crom- 
 well — so closely as Stonewall Jackson. He was a 
 man of intense religious conviction, who carried 
 into every thought and deed of his daily life the 
 precepts of the faith he cherished. He was a 
 tender and loving husband and father, kind- 
 hearted and gentle to all with whom he was 
 brought in contact ; yet in the times that tried 
 men's souls, he proved not only a commander of 
 genius, but a fighter of iron will and temper, 
 who joyed in the battle, and always showed at 
 his best when the danger was greatest. The 
 vein of fanaticism that ran through his charac- 
 ter helped to render him a terrible opponent. 
 He knew no such word as falter, and when he 
 had once put his hand to a piece of work, he did 
 it thoroughly and with all his heart. It was quite 
 in keeping with his character that this gentle, 
 high-minded, and religious man should, early in 
 the contest, have proposed to hoist the black flag, 
 neither take nor give quarter, and make the war 
 one of extermination. No such policy was prac- 
 tical in the nineteenth century and in the Ameri- 
 can Republic ; but it would have seemed quite 
 natural and proper to Jackson's ancestors, the 
 grim Scotch- Irish, who defended Londonderry 
 against the forces of the Stuart king, or to their 
 
216 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 forefathers, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the 
 Puritans who in England rejoiced at the behead- 
 ing - of King - Charles I. 
 
 In the first battle in which Jackson took part, 
 the confused struggle at Bull Run, he gained his 
 name of Stonewall from the firmness with which 
 he kept his men to their work and repulsed the 
 attack of the Union troops. From that time 
 until his death, less than two years afterward, 
 his career was one of brilliant and almost unin- 
 terrupted success ; whether serving with an in- 
 dependent command in the Valley, or acting under 
 Lee as his right arm in the pitched battles with 
 McClellan, Pope, and Burnside. Few generals 
 as great as Lee have ever had as great a lieuten- 
 ant as Jackson. He was a master of strategy and 
 tactics, fearless of responsibility, able to instil into 
 his men his own intense ardor in battle, and so 
 quick in his movements, so ready to march as 
 well as fight, that his troops were known to the 
 rest of the army as the " foot cavalry." 
 
 In the spring of 1863 Hooker had command 
 of the Army of the Potomac. Like McClellan, 
 he was able to perfect the discipline of his forces 
 and to organize them, and as a division com- 
 mander he was better than McClellan, but he 
 failed even more signally when given a great in- 
 dependent command. He had under him 1 20,000 
 men when, toward the end of April, he prepared 
 
STONEWALL JACKSON GOING FORWARD ON THE PLANK ROAD IN 
 ADVANCE OF THE LINE OF BATTLE. 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 219 
 
 to attack Lee's army, which was but half as 
 strong. 
 
 The Union army lay opposite Fredericksburg, 
 looking at the fortified heights where they had re- 
 ceived so bloody a repulse at the beginning of the 
 winter. Hooker decided to distract the attention 
 of the Confederates by letting a small portion of 
 his force, under General Sedgwick, attack Fred- 
 ericksburg, while he himself took the bulk of the 
 army across the river to the right hand so as to 
 crush Lee by an assault on his flank. All went 
 well at the beginning, and on the first of May 
 Hooker found himself at Chancellorsville, face-to- 
 face with the bulk of Lee's forces; and Sedgwick, 
 crossing the river and charging with the utmost 
 determination, had driven out of Fredericksburg 
 the Confederate division of Early ; but when 
 Hooker found himself in front of Lee he hesi- 
 tated, faltered instead of pushing on, and allowed 
 the consummate general to whom he was op- 
 posed to take the initiative. 
 
 Lee fully realized his danger, and saw that his 
 only chance was, first to beat back Hooker, and 
 then to turn and overwhelm Sedgwick, who was 
 in his rear. He consulted with Jackson, and Jack- 
 son begged to be allowed to make one of his 
 favorite flank attacks upon the Union army ; at- 
 tacks which could have been successfully delivered 
 only by a skilled and resolute general, and by 
 
22o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 troops equally able to march and to fight. Lee 
 consented, and Jackson at once made off. The 
 country was thickly covered with a forest of rather 
 small growth, for it was a wild region, in which 
 there was still plenty of game. Shielded by the 
 forest, Jackson marched his gray columns rapidly 
 to the left along the narrow country roads until 
 he was square on the flank of the Union right 
 wing, which was held by the Eleventh Corps, 
 under Howard. The Union scouts got track of 
 the movement and reported it at headquarters, 
 but the Union generals thought the Confederates 
 were retreating ; and when finally the scouts 
 brought word to Howard that he was menaced 
 by a flank attack he paid no heed to the informa- 
 tion, and actually let his whole corps be surprised 
 in broad daylight. Yet all the while the battle 
 was going on elsewhere, and Berdan's sharp- 
 shooters had surrounded and captured a Georgia 
 regiment, from which information was received 
 showing definitely that Jackson was not retreat- 
 ing, and must be preparing to strike a heavy 
 blow. 
 
 The Eleventh Corps had not the slightest idea 
 that it was about to be assailed. The men were 
 not even in line. Many of them had stacked their 
 muskets and were lounging about, some playing 
 cards, others cooking supper, intermingled with 
 the pack-mules and beef cattle. While they were 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 221 
 
 thus utterly unprepared Jackson's gray-clad vete- 
 rans pushed straight through the forest and rushed 
 fiercely to the attack. The first notice the troops 
 of the Eleventh Corps received did not come from 
 the pickets, but from the deer, rabbits and foxes 
 which, fleeing from their coverts at the approach 
 of the Confederates, suddenly came running over 
 and into the Union lines. In another minute the 
 frightened pickets came tumbling back, and right 
 behind them came the long files of charging, yell- 
 ing Confederates. With one fierce rush Jackson's 
 men swept over the Union lines, and at a blow 
 the Eleventh Corps became a horde of panic- 
 struck fugitives. Some of the regiments resisted 
 for a few moments, and then they too were car- 
 ried away in the flight. 
 
 For a while it seemed as if the whole army would 
 be swept off; but Hooker and his subordinates 
 exerted every effort to restore order. It was im- 
 perative to gain time so that the untouched por- 
 tions of the army could form across the line of 
 the Confederate advance. 
 
 Keenan's regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry, 
 but four hundred sabers strong, was accordingly 
 sent full against the front of the ten thousand 
 victorious Confederates. 
 
 Keenan himself fell, pierced by bayonets, and 
 the charge was repulsed at once ; but a few price- 
 less moments had been saved, and Pleasanton 
 
222 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 had been given time to post twenty-two guns, 
 loaded with double canister, where they would 
 bear upon the enemy. 
 
 The Confederates advanced in a dense mass, 
 yelling and cheering, and the discharge of the 
 guns fairly blew them back across the works 
 they had just taken. Again they charged, and 
 a^ain were driven back ; and when the battle once 
 more began the Union reinforcements had arrived. 
 
 It was about this time that Jackson himself was 
 mortally wounded. He had been leading and 
 urging on the advance of his men, cheering them 
 with voice and gesture, his pale face flushed with 
 joy and excitement, while from time to time as he 
 sat on his horse he took off his hat and, looking 
 upward, thanked heaven for the victory it had 
 vouchsafed him. As darkness drew near he was. 
 in the front, where friend and foe were mingled 
 in almost inextricable confusion. He and his staff 
 were fired at, at close range, by the Union troops, 
 and, as they turned, were fired at again, through 
 a mistake, by the Confederates behind them. 
 Jackson fell, struck in several places. He was put 
 in a litter and carried back ; but he never lost 
 consciousness, and when one of his generals com- 
 plained of the terrible effect of the Union cannon- 
 ade he answered : 
 
 " You must hold your ground." 
 
 For several days he lingered, hearing how 
 
THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 223 
 
 Lee beat Hooker, in detail, and forced him back 
 across the river. Then the old Puritan died. At 
 the end his mind wandered, and he thought he 
 was again commanding in battle, and his last 
 words were. 
 
 " Let us cross over the river and rest in the 
 shade." 
 
 Thus perished Stonewall Jackson, one of the 
 ablest of soldiers and one of the most upright of 
 men, in the last of his many triumphs. 
 
THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 
 
For the Lord 
 
 On the whirlwind is abroad ; 
 In the earthquake he has spoken ; 
 
 He has smitten with his thunder 
 
 The iron walls asunder, 
 And the gates of brass are broken ! 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 With bray of the trumpet, 
 
 And roll of the drum, 
 And keen ring of bugle 
 
 The cavalry come : 
 Sharp clank the steel scabbards, 
 
 The bridle-chains ring, 
 And foam from red nostrils 
 
 The wild chargers fling ! 
 
 Tramp, tramp o'er the greensward 
 
 That quivers below, 
 Scarce held by the curb bit 
 
 The fierce horses go ! 
 And the grim-visaged colonel, 
 
 With ear-rending shout, 
 Peals forth to the squadrons 
 
 The order, "Trot Out"! 
 
 — Francis A. Durivaire. 
 
THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 
 
 ^T^HE battle of Chancellorsville marked the 
 X. zenith of Confederate good fortune. Im- 
 mediately afterward, in June, 1863, Lee led the 
 victorious army of Northern Virginia into Penn- 
 sylvania. The South was now the invader, not 
 the invaded, and its heart beat proudly with hopes 
 of success; but these hopes went down in bloody 
 wreck on July 4, when word was sent to the world 
 that the high valor of Virginia had failed at last 
 on the field of Gettysburg, and that in the far 
 West Vicksburg had been taken by the army of 
 the " silent soldier." 
 
 At Gettysburg Lee had under him some seventy 
 thousand men, and his opponent, Meade, about 
 ninety thousand. Both armies were composed 
 mainly of seasoned veterans, trained to the high- 
 est point by campaign after campaign and battle 
 after battle ; and there was nothing to choose 
 between them as to the fighting power of the rank 
 and file. The Union army was the larger, yet 
 
228 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 most of the time it stood on the defensive ; for 
 the difference between the generals, Lee and 
 Meade, was greater than could be bridged by 
 twenty thousand men. For three days the battle 
 raged. No other battle of recent time has been 
 so obstinate and so bloody. The victorious Union 
 army lost a greater percentage in killed and 
 wounded than the allied armies of England, Ger- 
 many, and the Netherlands lost at Waterloo. 
 Four of its seven corps suffered each a greater 
 relative loss than befell the world-renowned Brit- 
 ish infantry on the day that saw the doom of the 
 French emperor. The defeated Confederates at 
 Gettysburg lost, relatively, as many men as the 
 defeated French at Waterloo ; but whereas the 
 French army became a mere rabble, Lee with- 
 drew his formidable soldiery with their courage 
 unbroken, and their fighting power only dimin- 
 ished by their actual losses in the field. 
 
 The decisive moment of the battle, and perhaps 
 of the whole war, was in the afternoon of the third 
 day, when Lee sent forward his choicest troops 
 in a last effort to break the middle of the Union 
 line. The center of the attacking force was Pick- 
 ett's division, the flower of the Virginia infantry ; 
 but many other brigades took part in the assault, 
 and the column, all told, numbered over fifteen 
 thousand men. At the same time, the Confeder- 
 ates attacked the Union left to create a diversion. 
 
THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 229 
 
 The attack was preceded by a terrific cannonade, 
 Lee gathering one hundred and fifteen guns, and 
 opening a fire on the center of the Union line. 
 In response, Hunt, the Union chief of artillery, 
 and Tyler, of the artillery reserves, gathered 
 eighty guns on the crest of the gently sloping 
 hill, where attack was threatened. For two hours, 
 from one till three, the cannonade lasted, and 
 the batteries on both sides suffered severely. In 
 both the Union and Confederate lines caissons 
 were blown up by the fire, riderless horses dashed 
 hither and thither, the dead lay in heaps, and 
 throngs of wounded streamed to the rear. Every 
 man lay down and sought what cover he could. 
 It was evident that the Confederate cannonade 
 was but a prelude to a great infantry attack, 
 and at three o'clock Hunt ordered the fire to 
 stop, that the guns might cool, to be ready for the 
 coming assault. The Confederates thought that 
 they had silenced the hostile artillery, and for a 
 few minutes their firing continued ; then, suddenly, 
 it ceased, and there was a lull. 
 
 The men on the Union side who were not at the 
 point directly menaced peered anxiously across 
 the space between the lines to watch the next 
 move, while the men in the divisions which it was 
 certain were about to be assaulted, lay hugging 
 the ground and gripping their muskets, excited, 
 but confident and resolute. They saw the smoke 
 
230 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 clouds rise slowly from the opposite crest, where 
 the Confederate army lay, and the sunlight glinted 
 again on the long line of brass and iron guns 
 which had been hidden from view during the can- 
 nonade. In another moment, out of the lifting 
 smoke there appeared, beautiful and terrible, the 
 picked thousands of the Southern army coming on 
 to the assault. They advanced in three lines, each 
 over a mile long, and in perfect order. Pickett's 
 Virginians held the center, with on their left the 
 North Carolinians of Pender and Pettigrew, and 
 on their right the Alabama regiments of Wilcox ; 
 and there were also Georgian and Tennessee reo;i- 
 ments in the attacking force. Pickett's division, 
 however, was the only one able to press its charge 
 home. After leaving the woods where they started, 
 the Confederates had nearly a mile and a half to 
 go in their charge. As the Virginians moved, 
 they bent slightly to the left, so as to leave a gap 
 between them and the Alabamians on the right. 
 
 The Confederate lines came on magnificently. 
 As they crossed the Emmetsburg Pike the eighty 
 guns on the Union crest, now cool and in good 
 shape, opened upon them, first with shot and then 
 with shell. Great gaps were made every second 
 in the ranks, but the gray-clad soldiers closed up 
 to the center, and the color-bearers leaped to the 
 front, shaking and waving the flags. The Union 
 infantry reserved their fire until the Confederates 
 
THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 233 
 
 were within easy range, when the musketry 
 crashed out with a roar, and the big guns began 
 to fire grape and canister. On came the Con- 
 federates, the men falling by hundreds, the colors 
 fluttering in front like a little forest ; for as fast 
 as a color-bearer was shot some one else seized 
 the flag from his hand before it fell. The North 
 Carolinians were more exposed to the fire than 
 any other portion of the attacking force, and 
 they were broken before they reached the line. 
 There was a gap between the Virginians and the 
 Alabama troops, and this was taken advantage 
 of by Stannard's Vermont brigade and a demi- 
 brigade under Gates, of the 20th New York, who 
 were thrust forward into it. Stannard changed 
 front with his regiments and fell on Pickett's forces 
 in flank, and Gates continued the attack. When 
 thus struck in the flank, the Virginians could not 
 defend themselves, and they crowded off toward the 
 center to avoid the pressure. Many of them were 
 killed or captured ; many were driven back ; but 
 two of the brigades, headed by General Armi- 
 stead, forced their way forward to the stone wall 
 on the crest, where the Pennsylvania regiments 
 were posted under Gibbon and Webb. 
 
 The Union guns fired to the last moment, until 
 of the two batteries immediately in front of the 
 charging Virginians every officer but one had 
 been struck. One of the mortally wounded offi- 
 
234 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 cers was young dishing, a brother of the hero 
 of the Albemarle fight. He was almost cut in 
 two, but holding his body together with one hand, 
 with the other he fired his last gun, and fell dead, 
 just as Armistead, pressing forward at the head 
 of his men, leaped the wall, waving his hat on his 
 sword. Immediately afterward the battle-flags 
 of the foremost Confederate regiments crowned 
 the crest ; but their strength was spent. The 
 Union troops moved forward with the bayonet, 
 and the remnant of Pickett's division, attacked on 
 all sides, either surrendered or retreated down 
 the hill again. Armistead fell, dying, by the body 
 of the dead Cushing. Both Gibbon and Webb 
 were wounded. Of Pickett's command two thirds 
 were killed, wounded or captured, and every bri- 
 gade commander and every field officer, save one, 
 fell. The Virginians tried to rally, but were 
 broken and driven again by Gates, while Stan- 
 nard repeated, at the expense of the Alabamians, 
 the movement he had made against the Virgin- 
 ians, and, reversing his front, attacked them in 
 flank. Their lines were torn by the batteries in 
 front, and they fell back before the Vermonter's 
 attack, and Stannard reaped a rich harvest of 
 prisoners and of battle-flags. 
 
 The charofe was over. It was the greatest 
 charge in any battle of modern times, and it had 
 failed. It would be impossible to surpass the gal- 
 
THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 235 
 
 lantry of those that made it, or the gallantry of 
 those that withstood it. Had there been in com- 
 mand of the Union army a general like Grant, it 
 would have been followed by a counter-charge, 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER. 
 
 and in all probability the war would have been 
 ■shortened by nearly two years ; but no counter- 
 charge was made. 
 
 As the afternoon waned, a fierce cavalry fight 
 took place on the Union right. Stuart, the famous 
 Confederate cavalry commander, had moved for- 
 ward to turn the Union right, but he was met by 
 
236 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Gregg's cavalry, and there followed a contest, at 
 close quarters, with " the white arm." It closed 
 with a desperate melee, in which the Confeder- 
 ates, charging under Generals Wade Hampton 
 and Fitz Lee, were met in mid career by the 
 Union generals Custer and Mcintosh. All four 
 fought, saber in hand, at the head of their troop- 
 ers, and every man on each side was put into the 
 struggle. Custer, his yellow hair flowing, his face 
 aflame with the eager joy of battle, was in the 
 thick of the fight, rising in his stirrups as he called 
 to his famous Michigan swordsmen : " Come on, 
 you Wolverines, come on ! " All that the Union 
 infantry, watching eagerly from their lines, could 
 see, was a vast dust-cloud where flakes of light 
 shimmered as the sun shone upon the swinging 
 sabers. At last the Confederate horsemen were 
 beaten back, and they did not come forward again 
 or seek to renew the combat ; for Pickett's charge 
 had failed, and there was no longer hope of Con- 
 federate victory. 
 
 When night fell, the Union flags waved in tri- 
 umph on the field of Gettysburg ; but over thirty 
 thousand men lay dead or wounded, strewn 
 through wood and meadow, on field and hill, 
 where the three days' fight had surged. 
 
GENERAL GRANT AND THE 
 VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 
 
What flag is this you carry 
 
 Along the sea and shore? 
 The same our grandsires lifted up — 
 
 The same our fathers bore. 
 In many a battle's tempest 
 
 It shed the crimson rain — 
 What God has woven in his loom 
 
 Let no man rend in twain. 
 To Canaan, to Canaan, 
 
 The Lord has led us forth, 
 To plant upon the rebel towers 
 
 The banners of the North. 
 
 — Holmes. 
 
GENERAL GRANT AND THE VICKS- 
 BURG CAMPAIGN 
 
 ON January 29, 1863, General Grant took 
 command of the army intended to operate 
 against Vicksburg, the last place held by the 
 rebels on the Mississippi, and the only point at 
 which they could cross the river and keep up 
 communication with their armies and territory in 
 the southwest. It was the first high ground be- 
 low Memphis, was very strongly fortified, and was 
 held by a large army under General Pemberton. 
 The complete possession of the Mississippi was 
 absolutely essential to the National Government, 
 because the control of that great river would cut 
 the Confederacy in two, and do more, probably, 
 than anything else, to make the overthrow of the 
 Rebellion both speedy and certain. 
 
 The natural way to invest and capture so strong 
 a place, defended and fortified as Vicksburg was, 
 would have been, if the axioms of the art of war 
 had been adhered to, by a system of gradual 
 approaches. A strong base should have been 
 
240 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 established at Memphis, and then the army and 
 the fleet moved gradually forward, building store- 
 houses and taking strong positions as they went. 
 To do this, however, it first would have been nec- 
 essary to withdraw the army from the positions 
 it then held not far above Vicksburg, on the west- 
 ern bank of the river. But such a movement, at 
 that time, would not have been understood by 
 the country, and would have had a discouraging 
 effect on the public mind, which it was most 
 essential to avoid. The elections of 1862 had 
 gone against the government, and there was great 
 discouragement throughout the North. Volun- 
 tary enlistments had fallen off, a draft had been 
 ordered, and the peace party was apparently 
 gaining rapidly in strength. General Grant, 
 looking at this grave political situation with the 
 eye of a statesman, decided, as a soldier, that 
 under no circumstances would he withdraw the 
 army, but that, whatever happened, he would 
 " press forward to a decisive victory." In this 
 determination he never faltered, but drove straight 
 at his object until, five months later, the great 
 Mississippi stronghold fell before him. 
 
 Efforts were made through the winter to reach 
 Vicksburg from the north by cutting canals, and 
 by attempts to get in through the bayous and 
 tributary streams of the great river. All these 
 expedients failed, however, one after another, as 
 
GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 241 
 
 Grant, from the beginning - , had feared that they 
 would. He, therefore, took another and widely dif- 
 ferent line, and determined to cross the river from 
 the western to the eastern bank below Vicksburg, 
 to the south. With the aid of the fleet, which 
 ran the batteries successfully, he moved his army 
 down the west bank until he reached a point be- 
 yond the possibility of attack, while a diversion by 
 Sherman at Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, kept 
 Pemberton in his fortifications. On April 26, 
 Grant began to move his men over the river and 
 landed them at Bruinsburg. "When this was ef- 
 fected," he writes, " I felt a degree of relief scarcely 
 ever equaled since. Vicksburg was not yet taken, 
 it is true, nor were its defenders demoralized by 
 any of our previous movements. I was now in 
 the enemy's country, with a vast river and the 
 stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base 
 of supplies, but I was on dry ground, on the same 
 side of the river with the enemy." 
 
 The situation was this : The enemy had about 
 sixty thousand men at Vicksburg, Haines' Bluff, 
 and at Jackson, Mississippi, about fifty miles east 
 of Vicksburg. Grant, when he started, had about 
 thirty-three thousand men. It was absolutely 
 necessary for success that Grant, with inferior 
 numbers, should succeed in destroying the smaller 
 forces to the eastward, and thus prevent their 
 union with Pemberton and the main army at 
 
242 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Vicksburg. His plan, in brief, was to fight and 
 defeat a superior enemy separately and in detail. 
 He lost no time in putting his plan into action, 
 and pressing forward quickly, met a detachment 
 of the enemy at Port Gibson and defeated them. 
 Thence he marched to Grand Gulf, on the Mis- 
 sissippi, which he took, and which he had planned 
 to make a base of supply. When he reached 
 Grand Gulf, however, he found that he would be 
 obliged to wait a month, in order to obtain the 
 reinforcements which he expected from General 
 Banks at Port Hudson. He, therefore, gave up 
 the idea of making Grand Gulf a base, and Sher- 
 man having now joined him with his corps, Grant 
 struck at once into the interior. He took nothing 
 with him except ammunition, and his army was 
 in the lightest marching order. This enabled him 
 to move with great rapidity, but deprived him 
 of his wagon trains, and of all munitions of war 
 except cartridges. Everything, however, in this 
 campaign, depended on quickness, and Grant's de- 
 cision, as well as all his movements, marked the 
 genius of the great soldier, which consists very 
 largely in knowing just when to abandon the 
 accepted military axioms. 
 
 Pressing forward, Grant met the enemy, num- 
 bering between seven and eight thousand, at 
 Raymond, and readily defeated them. He then 
 marched on toward Jackson, fighting another ac- 
 
GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 245 
 
 tion at Clinton, and at Jackson he struck General 
 Joseph Johnston, who had arrived at that point 
 to take command of all the rebel forces. John- 
 ston had with him, at the moment, about eleven 
 thousand men, and stood his ground. There was 
 a sharp fight, but Grant easily defeated the enemy, 
 and took possession of the town. This was an im- 
 portant point, for Jackson was the capital of the 
 State of Mississippi, and was a base of military sup- 
 plies. Grant destroyed the factories and the muni- 
 tions of war which were gathered there, and also 
 came into possession of the line of railroad which 
 ran from Jackson to Vicksburg. While he was thus 
 engaged, an intercepted message revealed to him 
 the fact that Pemberton, in accordance with John- 
 ston's orders, had come out of Vicksburg with 
 twenty-five thousand men, and was moving east- 
 ward against him. Pemberton, however, instead 
 of holding a straight line against Grant, turned at 
 first to the south, with the view of breaking the 
 latter's line of communication. This was not a 
 success, for, as Grant says, with grim humor, " I 
 had no line of communication to break " ; and, 
 moreover, it delayed Pemberton when delay was 
 of value to Grant in finishing Johnston. After 
 this useless turn to the southward Pemberton re- 
 sumed his march to the east, as he should have 
 done in the beginning, in accordance with John- 
 ston's orders; but Grant was now more than 
 
246 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ready. He did not wait the coming of Pember- 
 ton. Leaving Jackson as soon as he heard of the 
 enemy's advance from Vicksburg, he marched 
 rapidly westward and struck Pemberton at Cham- 
 pion Hills. The forces were at this time very 
 nearly matched, and the severest battle of the 
 campaign ensued, lasting four hours. Grant, how- 
 ever, defeated Pemberton completely, and came 
 very near capturing his entire force. With a 
 broken army, Pemberton fell back on Vicksburg. 
 Grant pursued without a moment's delay, and 
 came up with the rear guard at Big Black River. 
 A sharp engagement followed, and the Confed- 
 erates were again defeated. Grant then crossed 
 the Big Black and the next day was before Vicks- 
 burg, with his enemy inside the works. 
 
 When Grant crossed the Mississippi at Bruins- 
 burg and struck into the interior, he, of course, 
 passed out of communication with Washington, 
 and he did not hear from there again until May 
 1 1, when, just as his troops were engaging in the 
 battle of Black River Bridge, an officer appeared 
 from Port Hudson with an order from General 
 Halleck to return to Grand Gulf and thence co- 
 operate with Banks against Port Hudson. Grant 
 replied that the order came too late. " The bearer 
 of the despatch insisted that I ought to obey the 
 order, and was giving arguments to support the 
 position, when I heard a great cheering to the 
 
GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 247 
 
 right of our line, and looking in that direction, 
 saw Lawler, in his shirt-sleeves, leading a charge 
 on the enemy. I immediately mounted my horse 
 and rode in the direction of the charge, and saw- 
 no more of the officer who had delivered the mes- 
 sage ; I think not even to this day." When Grant 
 reached Vicksburg, there was no further talk of 
 recalling him to Grand Gulf or Port Hudson. The 
 authorities at Washington then saw plainly enough 
 what had been done in the interior of Mississippi, 
 far from the reach of telegraphs or mail. 
 
 As soon as the National troops reached Vicks- 
 burg an assault was attempted, but the place was 
 too strong, and the attack was repulsed, with 
 heavy loss. Grant then settled down to a siege, 
 and Lincoln and Halleck now sent him ample re- 
 inforcements. He no longer needed to ask for 
 them. His campaign had explained itself, and in 
 a short time he had seventy thousand men under 
 his command. His lines were soon made so strong 
 that it was impossible for the defenders of Vicks- 
 burg to break through them, and although John- 
 ston had gathered troops again to the eastward, 
 an assault from that quarter on the National army, 
 now so largely reinforced, was practically out of 
 the question. Tighter and tighter Grant drew 
 his lines about the city, where, every day, the suf- 
 fering became more intense. It is not necessary 
 to give the details of the siege. On July 4, 1863, 
 
248 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Vicksburg surrendered, the Mississippi was in 
 control of the National forces from its source to 
 its mouth, and the Confederacy was rent in twain. 
 On the same day Lee was beaten at Gettysburg, 
 and these two great victories really crushed the 
 Rebellion, although much hard fighting remained 
 to be done before the end was reached. 
 
 Grant's campaign against Vicksburg deserves 
 to be compared with that of Napoleon which re- 
 sulted in the fall of Ulm. It was the most bril- 
 liant single campaign of the war. With an inferior 
 force, and abandoning his lines of communica- 
 tion, moving with a marvelous rapidity through 
 a difficult country, Grant struck the superior forces 
 of the enemy on the line from Jackson to Vicks- 
 burg. He crushed Johnston before Pemberton 
 could get to him, and he flung Pemberton back 
 into Vicksburg before Johnston could rally from 
 the defeat which had been inflicted. With an in- 
 ferior force, Grant was superior at every point of 
 contest, and he won every fight. Measured by 
 the skill displayed and the result achieved, there 
 is no campaign in our history which better de- 
 serves study and admiration. 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 
 
Brave, good, and true, 
 
 I see him stand before me now, 
 
 And read again on that young brow, 
 
 Where every hope was new, 
 
 How sweet were life ! Yet, by the mouth firm-set, 
 
 And look made up for Duty's utmost debt, 
 
 I could divine he knew 
 
 That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, 
 
 In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched designs, 
 
 Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue. 
 
 Right in the van, 
 
 On the red rampart's slippery swell, 
 
 With heart that beat a charge, he fell, 
 
 Foeward, as fits a man ; 
 
 But the high soul burns on to light men's feet 
 
 Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet ; 
 
 His life her crescent's span 
 
 Orbs full with share in their undarkening days 
 
 Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise 
 
 Since valor's praise began. 
 
 We bide our chance, 
 
 Unhappy, and make terms with Fate 
 
 A little more to let us wait ; 
 
 He leads for aye the advance, 
 
 Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good 
 
 For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood ; 
 
 Our wall of circumstance 
 
 Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight, 
 
 A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right 
 
 And steel each wavering glance. 
 
 I write of one, 
 
 While with dim eyes I think of three ; 
 
 Who weeps not others fair and brave as he ? 
 
 Ah, when the fight is won, 
 
 Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn 
 
 (Thee from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn), 
 
 How nobler shall the sun 
 
 Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, 
 
 That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare 
 
 And die as thine have done. 
 
 — Lowell. 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 
 
 ROBERT GOULD SHAW was born in Bos- 
 ton on October 10, 1837, the son of Francis 
 and Sarah Sturgis Shaw. When he was about 
 nine years old, his parents moved to Staten Island, 
 and he was educated there, and at school in the 
 neighborhood of New York, until he went to Eu- 
 rope in 1853, where he remained traveling and 
 studying for the next three years. He entered 
 Harvard College in 1856, and left at the end of 
 his third year, in order to accept an advantageous 
 business offer in New York. 
 
 Even as a boy he took much interest in politics, 
 and especially in the question of slavery. He 
 voted for Lincoln in i860, and at that time en- 
 listed as a private in the New York 7th Regiment, 
 feeling that there was likelihood of trouble, and 
 that there would be a demand for soldiers to de- 
 fend the country. His foresight was justified only 
 too soon, and on April 19, 1861, he marched with 
 his regiment to Washington. The call for the 7th 
 
252 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Regiment was only for thirty days, and at the ex- 
 piration of that service he applied for and obtained 
 a commission as second lieutenant in the 2d Mas- 
 sachusetts, and left with that regiment for Virginia 
 in July, 1 861. He threw himself eagerly into his 
 new duties, and soon gained a good position in 
 the regiment. At Cedar Mountain he was an aid 
 on General Gordon's staff, and was greatly ex- 
 posed in the performance of his duties during the 
 action. He was also with his regiment at Antie- 
 tam, and was in the midst of the heavy fighting 
 of that great battle. 
 
 Early in 1863, the Government determined to 
 form negro regiments, and Governor Andrew 
 offered Shaw, who had now risen to the rank of 
 captain, the colonelcy of one to be raised in Mas- 
 sachusetts, the first black regiment recruited under 
 State authority. It was a great compliment to 
 receive this offer, but Shaw hesitated as to his 
 capacity for such a responsible post. He first 
 wrote a letter declining, on the ground that he 
 did not feel that he had ability enough for the 
 undertaking, and then changed his mind, and tel- 
 egraphed Governor Andrew that he would accept. 
 It is not easy to realize it now, but his action then 
 in accepting this command required high moral 
 courage, of a kind quite different from that which 
 he had displayed already on the field of battle. 
 The prejudice against the blacks was still strong 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 253 
 
 even in the North. There was a great deal of 
 feeling among certain classes against enlisting 
 black regiments at all, and the officers who un- 
 dertook to recruit and lead negroes were exposed 
 to much attack and criticism. Shaw felt, however, 
 that this very opposition made it all the more in- 
 cumbent on him to undertake the duty. He 
 wrote on February 8 : 
 
 After I have undertaken this work, I shall feel that what I 
 have to do is to prove that the negro can be made a good sol- 
 dier. ... I am inclined to think that the undertaking will 
 not meet with so much opposition as was at first supposed. All 
 sensible men in the army, of all parties, after a little thought, 
 say that it is the best thing that can be done, and surely those 
 at home who are not brave or patriotic enough to enlist should 
 not ridicule or throw obstacles in the way of men who are going 
 to fight for them. There is a great prejudice against it, but 
 now that it has become a government matter, that will probably 
 wear away. At any rate I sha'n't be frightened out of it by its 
 unpopularity. I feel convinced I shall never regret having 
 taken this step, as far as I myself am concerned ; for while I 
 was undecided, I felt ashamed of myself as if I were cowardly. 
 
 Colonel Shaw went at once to Boston, after ac- 
 cepting his new duty, and began the work of 
 raising and drilling the 54th Regiment. He met 
 with great success, for he and his officers labored 
 heart and soul, and the regiment repaid their ef- 
 forts. On March 30, he wrote : " The mustering 
 officer who was here to-day is a Virginian, and 
 has always thought it was a great joke to try to 
 
254 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 make soldiers of ' niggers,' but he tells me now 
 that he has never mustered in so fine a set of 
 men, though about twenty thousand had passed 
 through his hands since September." On May 
 28, Colonel Shaw left Boston, and his march 
 through the city was a triumph. The appearance 
 of his regiment made a profound impression, and 
 was one of the events of the war which those who 
 saw it never forgot. 
 
 The regiment was ordered to South Carolina, 
 and when they were off Cape Hatteras, Colonel 
 Shaw wrote : 
 
 The more I think of the passage of the 54th through Bos- 
 ton, the more wonderful it seems to me. Just remember our 
 own doubts and fears, and other people's sneering and pitying 
 remarks when we began last winter, and then look at the per- 
 fect triumph of last Thursday. We have gone quietly along, 
 forming the first regiment, and at last left Boston amidst greater 
 enthusiasm than has been seen since the first three months' 
 troops left for the war. Truly, I ought to be thankful for all 
 my happiness and my success in life so far ; and if the raising 
 of colored troops prove such a benefit to the country and to 
 the blacks as many people think it will, I shall thank God a 
 thousand times that I was led to take my share in it. 
 
 He had, indeed, taken his share in striking one 
 of the most fatal blows to the barbarism of slavery 
 which had yet been struck. The formation of the 
 black regiments did more for the emancipation of 
 the negro and the .recognition of his rights, than 
 almost anything else. It was impossible, after 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 257 
 
 that, to say that men who fought and gave their 
 lives for the Union and for their own freedom 
 were not entitled to be free. The acceptance of 
 the command of a black regiment by such men 
 as Shaw and his fellow-officers was the ereat act 
 which made all this possible. 
 
 After reaching South Carolina, Colonel Shaw 
 was with his regiment at Port Royal and on the 
 islands of that coast for rather more than a month, 
 and on July 18 he was offered the post of honor 
 in an assault upon Fort Wagner, which was or- 
 dered for that night. He had proved that the 
 negroes could be made into a good regiment, and 
 now the second great opportunity had come, to 
 prove their fighting quality. He wanted to de- 
 monstrate that his men could fight side by side 
 with white soldiers, and show to somebody beside 
 their officers what stuff they were made of. He, 
 therefore, accepted the dangerous duty with glad- 
 ness. Late in the clay the troops were marched 
 across Folly and Morris islands and formed in line 
 of battle within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner. 
 At half-past seven the order for the charge was 
 given, and the regiment advanced. When they 
 were within a hundred yards of the fort, the rebel 
 fire opened with such effect that the first battalion 
 hesitated and wavered. Colonel Shaw sprang to 
 the front, and waving his sword, shouted : " For- 
 ward, 54th! " With another cheer, the men rushed 
 
258 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 through the ditch, and gained a parapet on the 
 ricrht. Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale 
 the walls. As he stood erect, a noble figure, or- 
 dering his men forward and shouting to them to 
 press on, he was shot dead and fell into the fort. 
 After his fall, the assault was repulsed. 
 
 General Haywood, commanding the rebel for- 
 ces, said to a Union prisoner: "I knew Colonel 
 Shaw before the war, and then esteemed him. 
 Had he been in command of white troops, I should 
 have given him an honorable burial. As it is, I 
 shall bury him in the common trench, with the 
 negroes that fell with him." He little knew that 
 he was divine the dead soldier the most hon- 
 orable burial that man could have devised, for 
 the savage words told unmistakably that Robert 
 Shaw's work had not been in vain. The order to 
 bury him with his " niggers," which ran through 
 the North and remained fixed in our history, 
 showed, in a flash of light, the hideous barbarism 
 of a system which made such things and such 
 feelings possible. It also showed that slavery 
 was wounded to the death, and that the brutal 
 phrase was the angry snarl of a dying tiger. Such 
 words rank with the action of Charles Stuart, 
 when he had the bones of Oliver Cromwell and 
 Robert Blake torn from their graves and flung 
 on dunghills or fixed on Temple Bar. 
 
 Robert Shaw fell in battle at the head of his 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 259 
 
 men, giving his life to his country, as did many 
 another gallant man during those four years of 
 conflict. But he did something more than this. 
 He faced prejudice and hostility in the North, 
 and confronted the blind and savage rage of the 
 South, in order to demonstrate to the world that 
 the human beings who were held in bondage 
 could vindicate their right to freedom by fighting 
 and dying for it. He helped mightily in the great 
 task of destroying human slavery, and in uplifting 
 an oppressed and down-trodden race. He brought 
 to this work the qualities which were particularly 
 essential for his success. He had all that birth 
 and wealth, breeding, education, and tradition 
 could give. He offered up, in full measure, all 
 those things which make life most worth living. 
 He was handsome and beloved. He had a serene 
 and beautiful nature, and was at once brave and 
 simple. Above all things, he was fitted for the 
 task which he performed and for the sacrifice 
 which he made. The call of the country and of 
 the time came to him, and he was ready. He has 
 been singled out for remembrance from anion ^ 
 many others of equal sacrifice, and a monument 
 is rising to his memory in Boston, because it was 
 his peculiar fortune to live and die for a great 
 principle of humanity, and to stand forth as an 
 ideal and beautiful figure in a struggle where the 
 onward march of civilization was at stake. He 
 
260 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 lived in those few and crowded years a heroic life, 
 and he met a heroic death. When he fell, sword 
 in hand, on the parapet of Wagner, leading his 
 black troops in a desperate assault, we can only 
 say of him as Bunyan said of " Valiant for Truth " : 
 " And then he passed over, and all the trumpets 
 sounded for him on the other side." 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
Wut 's wurds to them whose faith an' truth 
 
 On war's red techstone rang true metal, 
 Who ventered life an' love an' youth 
 
 For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
 To him who, deadly hurt, agen 
 
 Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
 Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 
 
 Thet rived the rebel line asunder ? 
 
 — Lowell. 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL was born 
 in Boston, January 2, 1835. He was the 
 eldest son of Charles Russell and Anna Cabot 
 (Jackson) Lowell, and the nephew of James Rus- 
 sell Lowell. He bore the name, distinguished in 
 many branches, of a family which was of the best 
 New England stock. Educated in the Boston 
 public schools, he entered Harvard College in 
 1850. Although one of the youngest members 
 of his class, he went rapidly to the front, and 
 graduated not only the first scholar of his year, 
 but the foremost man of his class. He was, how- 
 ever, much more than a fine scholar, for even then 
 he showed unusual intellectual qualities. He read 
 widely and loved letters. He was a student of 
 philosophy and religion, a thinker, and, best of 
 all, a man of ideals — " the glory of youth," as he 
 called them in his valedictory oration. But he 
 was something still better and liner than a mere 
 
 idealist ; he was a man of action, eager to put his 
 
 263 
 
264 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ideals into practice and bring them to the test of 
 daily life. With his mind full of plans for raising 
 the condition of workingmen while he made his 
 own career, he entered the iron mills of the Ames 
 Company, at Chicopee. Here he remained as 
 a workingman for six months, and then received 
 an important post in the Trenton Iron Works of 
 New Jersey. There his health broke down. Con- 
 sumption threatened him, and all his bright hopes 
 and ambitions were overcast and checked. He 
 was obliged to leave his business and go to Eu- 
 rope, where he traveled for two years, fighting 
 the dread disease that was upon him. In 1858 
 he returned, and took a position on a Western 
 railroad. Although the work was new to him, 
 he manifested the same capacity that he had al- 
 ways shown, and more especially his power over 
 other men and his ability in organization. In two 
 years his health was reestablished, and in i860 
 he took charge of the Mount Savage Iron Works, 
 at Cumberland, Maryland. He was there when 
 news came of the attack made by the mob upon 
 the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, in Baltimore. 
 Two days later he had made his way to Washing- 
 ton, one of the first comers from the North, and 
 at once applied for a commission in the regular 
 army. While he was waiting, he employed him- 
 self in looking after the Massachusetts troops, 
 and also, it is understood, as a scout for the Gov- 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 265 
 
 ernment, dangerous work which suited his bold 
 and adventurous nature. 
 
 In May he received his commission as captain 
 in the United States cavalry. Employed at first 
 in recruiting and then in drill, he gave himself up 
 to the study of tactics and the science of war. The 
 career above all others to which he was suited 
 had come to him. The field, at last, lay open be- 
 fore him, where all his great qualities of mind and 
 heart — his high courage, his power of leadership 
 and of organization, and his intellectual powers 
 — could find full play. He moved rapidly for- 
 ward, just as he had already done in college and 
 in business. His regiment, in 1862, was under 
 Stoneman in the Peninsula, and was engaged in 
 many actions, where Lowell's cool bravery made 
 him constantly conspicuous. At the close of the 
 campaign he was brevetted major, for distin- 
 guished services at Williamsburg and Slatersville. 
 
 In July, Lowell was detailed for duty as an aid 
 to General McClellan. At Malvern Hill and 
 South Mountain his gallantry and efficiency were 
 strongly shown, but it was at Antietam that he 
 distinguished himself most. Sent with orders to 
 General Sedgwick's division, he found it retreat- 
 ing in confusion, under a hot fire. He did not 
 stop to think of orders, but rode rapidly from 
 point to point of the line, rallying company after 
 company by the mere force and power of his word 
 
266 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and look, checking the rout, while the storm of 
 bullets swept all round him. His horse was shot 
 under him, a ball passed through his coat, another 
 broke his sword-hilt, but he came off unscathed, 
 and his service was recognized by his being sent 
 to Washington with the captured flags of the 
 enemy. 
 
 The following winter he was ordered to Bos- 
 ton, to recruit a regiment of cavalry, of which he 
 was appointed colonel. While the recruiting was 
 going on, a serious mutiny broke out, but the 
 man who, like Cromwell's soldiers, "rejoiced 
 greatly " in the day of battle was entirely capable 
 of meeting this different trial. He shot the ring- 
 leader dead, and by the force of his own strong 
 will quelled the outbreak completely and at once. 
 
 In May, he went to Virginia with his regiment, 
 where he was engaged in resisting and following 
 Mosby, and the following summer he was opposed 
 to General Early in the neighborhood of Wash- 
 ington. On July 14, when on a reconnoissance, 
 his advance guard was surprised, and he met 
 them retreating in wild confusion, with the enemy 
 at their heels. Riding into the midst of the fum- 
 tives, Lowell shouted, " Dismount ! " The sharp 
 word of command, the presence of the man him- 
 self, and the magic of discipline prevailed. The 
 men sprang down, drew up in line, received the 
 enemy with a heavy fire, and as the assailants 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 269 
 
 wavered, Lowell advanced at once, and saved the 
 day. 
 
 In July, he was put in command of the " Pro- 
 visional Brigade," and joined the army of the 
 Shenandoah, of which in August General Sheri- 
 dan took command. He was so struck with Low- 
 ell's work during the next month that in Sep- 
 tember he put him in command of the " Reserved 
 Brigade," a very fine body of cavalry and artil- 
 lery. In the fierce and continuous fighting that 
 ensued Lowell was everywhere conspicuous, and 
 in thirteen weeks he had as many horses shot 
 under him. But he now had scope to show 
 more than the dashing gallantry which distin- 
 guished him always and everywhere. His genu- 
 ine military ability, which surely would have led 
 him to the front rank of soldiers had his life been 
 spared, his knowledge, vigilance, and nerve all 
 now became apparent. One brilliant action suc- 
 ceeded another, but the end was drawing near. 
 It came at last on the famous day of Cedar 
 Creek, when Sheridan rode down from Winches- 
 ter and saved the battle. Lowell had advanced 
 early in the morning on the right, and his attack 
 prevented the disaster on that wing which fell 
 upon the surprised army. He then moved to 
 cover the retreat, and around to the extreme left, 
 where he held his position near Middletown 
 against repeated assaults. Early in the day his 
 
270 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 last horse was shot under him, and a little later, 
 in a charge at one o'clock, he was struck in the 
 right breast by a spent ball, which embedded 
 itself in the muscles of the chest. Voice and 
 strength left him. "It is only my poor lung," 
 he announced, as they urged him to go to the 
 rear ; " you would not have me leave the field 
 without having shed blood." As a matter of fact, 
 the "poor" lung had collapsed, and there was 
 an internal hemorrhage. He lay thus, under a 
 rude shelter, for an hour and a half, and then 
 came the order to advance along the whole line, 
 the victorious advance of Sheridan and the ral- 
 lied army. Lowell was helped to his saddle. 
 " I feel well now," he whispered, and, giving 
 his orders through one of his staff, had his bri- 
 gade ready first. Leading the great charge, he 
 dashed forward, and, just when the fight .was 
 hottest, a sudden cry went up: "The colonel is 
 hit ! " He fell from the saddle, struck in the neck 
 by a ball which severed the spine, and was borne 
 by his officers to a house in the village, where, 
 clear in mind and calm in spirit, he died a few 
 hours afterward. 
 
 " I do not think there was a quality," said Gen- 
 eral Sheridan, " which I could have added to 
 Lowell. He was the perfection of a man and a 
 soldier." On October 19, the very day on which 
 he fell, his commission was signed to be a briea- 
 dier-general. 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 271 
 
 This was a noble life and a noble death, worthy 
 of much thought and admiration from all men. 
 Yet this is not all. It is well for us to see how 
 such a man looked upon what he was doing, and 
 what it meant to him. Lowell was one of the 
 silent heroes so much commended by Carlyle. 
 He never wrote of himself or his own exploits. 
 As some one well said, he had " the impersonality 
 of genius." But in a few remarkable passages in 
 his private letters, we can see how the meaning 
 of life and of that great time unrolled itself before 
 his inner eyes. In June, 1861, he wrote: 
 
 I cannot say I take any great pleasure in the contemplation 
 of the future. I fancy you feel much as I do about the profit- 
 ableness of a soldier's life, and would not think of trying it, 
 were it not for a muddled and twisted idea that somehow or 
 other this fight was going to be one in which decent men ought 
 to engage for the sake of humanity, — I use the word in its or- 
 dinary sense. It seems to me that within a year the slavery 
 question will again take a prominent place, and that many cases 
 will arise in which we may get fearfully in the wrong if we put 
 our cause wholly in the hands of fighting men and foreign 
 legions. 
 
 In June, 1863, he wrote: 
 
 I wonder whether my theories about self-culture, etc., would 
 ever have been modified so much, whether I should ever have 
 seen what a necessary failure they lead to, had it not been for 
 this war. Now I feel every day, more and more, that a man 
 has no right to himself at all ; that, indeed, he can do nothing 
 useful unless he recognizes this clearly. 
 
272 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Here again, on July 3, is a sentence which it is 
 well to take to heart, and for all men to remember 
 when their ears are deafened with the cry that 
 war, no matter what the cause, is the worst thing 
 possible, because it interferes with comfort, trade, 
 and money-making: "Wars are bad," Lowell 
 writes, "but there are many things far worse. 
 Anything immediately comfortable in our affairs 
 I don't see ; but comfortable times are not the 
 ones that make a nation great." On July 24, he 
 says : 
 
 Many nations fail, that one may become great; ours will 
 fail, unless we gird up our loins and do humble and honest 
 days' work, without trying to do the thing by the job, or to get 
 a great nation made by a patent process. It is not safe to say 
 that we shall not have victories till we are ready for them. We 
 shall have victories, and whether or no we are ready for them 
 depends upon ourselves ; if we are not ready, we shall fail, — 
 vot'/a tout. If you ask, what if we do fail ? I have nothing- to 
 say ; I should n't cry over a nation or two, more or less, gone 
 under. 
 
 Finally, on September 10, a little more than a 
 month before his death, he wrote to a disabled 
 officer : 
 
 I hope that you are going to live like a plain republican, 
 mindful of the beauty and of the duty of simplicity. Nothing 
 fancy now, sir, if you please; it 's disreputable to spend money 
 when the government is so hard up, and when there are so many 
 poor officers. I hope that you have outgrown all foolish ambi- 
 tions, and are now content to become a " useful citizen." Don't 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 273 
 
 grow rich ; if you once begin, you will find it much more diffi- 
 cult to be a useful citizen. Don't seek office, but don't " disre- 
 member " that the " useful citizen " always holds his time, his 
 trouble, his money, and his life ready at the hint of his country. 
 The useful citizen is a mighty, unpretending hero; but we are 
 not going to have any country very long, unless such heroism 
 is developed. There, what a stale sermon I 'm preaching. But, 
 being a soldier, it does seem to me that I should like nothing 
 so well as being a useful citizen. Well, trying to be one, I 
 mean. I shall stay in the service, of course, till the war is 
 over, or till I 'm disabled ; but then I look forward to a pleas- 
 anter career. 
 
 I believe I have lost all my ambitions. I don't think I would 
 turn my hand to be a distinguished chemist or a famous math- 
 ematician. All I now care about is to be a useful citizen, with 
 money enough to buy bread and firewood, and to teach my 
 children to ride on horseback, and look strangers in the face, 
 especially Southern strangers. 
 
 There are profound and lofty lessons of patriot- 
 ism and conduct in these passages, and a very 
 noble philosophy of life and duty both as a man 
 and as a citizen of a great republic. They throw 
 a flood of light on the great underlying forces 
 which enabled the American people to save them- 
 selves in that time of storm and stress. They are 
 the utterances of a very young man, not thirty 
 years old when he died in battle, but much be- 
 yond thirty in head and heart, tried and taught 
 as he had been in a great war. What precisely 
 such young men thought they were fighting for is 
 put strikingly by Lowell's younger brother James, 
 
274 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 who was killed at Glendale, July 4, 1862. In 1861, 
 James Lowell wrote to his classmates, who had 
 given him a sword : 
 
 Those who died for die cause, not of die Constitution and 
 the laws, — a superficial cause, the rebels have now the same, 
 — but of civilization and law, and the self-restrained freedom 
 which is their result. As the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, 
 Charles Martel and the Franks at Tours, and the Germans at 
 the Danube, saved Europe from Asiatic barbarism, so we, at 
 places to be famous in future times, shall have saved America 
 from a similar tide of barbarism ; and we may hope to be 
 purified and strengthened ourselves by the struggle. 
 
 This is a remarkable passage and a deep 
 thought. Coming from a young fellow of twenty- 
 four, it is amazing. But the fiery trial of the times 
 taught fiercely and fast, and James Lowell, just 
 out of college, could see in the red light around 
 him that not merely the freedom of a race. and 
 the saving of a nation were at stake, but that be- 
 hind all this was the forward movement of civili- 
 zation, brought once again to the arbitrament of 
 the sword. Slavery was barbarous and barbarizing. 
 It had draped down the civilization of the South 
 to a level from which it would take Generations to 
 rise up again. Was this barbarous force now to 
 prevail in the United States in the nineteenth 
 century ? Was it to destroy a great nation, and 
 fetter human progress in the New World ? That 
 was the great question back of, beyond and 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 275 
 
 above all. Should this force of barbarism sweep 
 conquering over the land, wrecking an empire 
 in its onward march, or should it be flung back 
 as Miltiades flung back Asia at Marathon, and 
 Charles Martel stayed the coming of Islam at 
 Tours ? The brilliant career, the shining courage, 
 best seen always where the dead were lying thick- 
 est, the heroic death of Charles Lowell, are good 
 for us all to know and to remember. Yet this 
 imperfect story of his life has not been placed here 
 for these things alone. Many thousand others, 
 officers and soldiers alike, in the great Civil War 
 gave their lives as freely as he, and brought to 
 the service of their country the best that was in 
 them. He was a fine example of many who, like 
 him, offered up all they had for their country. But 
 Lowell was also something more than this. He 
 was a high type of a class, and a proof of certain 
 very important things, and this is a point worthy 
 of much consideration. 
 
 The name of John Hampden stands out in the 
 history of the English-speaking people, admired 
 and unquestioned. He was neither a great states- 
 man, nor a great soldier ; he was not a brilliant 
 orator, nor a famous writer. He fell bravely in 
 an unimportant skirmish at Chalgrove Field, fight- 
 ing for freedom and what he believed to be right. 
 Yet he fills a great place in the past, both for 
 what he did and what he was, and the reason for 
 
276 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 this is of high importance. John Hampden was 
 a gentleman, with all the advantages that the ac- 
 cidents of birth could give. He was rich, educated, 
 well born, of high traditions. English civilization 
 of that day could produce nothing better. The 
 memorable fact is that, when the time came for 
 the test, he did not fail. He was a type of what 
 was best among the English people, and when 
 the call sounded, he was ready. He was brave, 
 honest, high-minded, and he gave all, even his 
 life, to his country. In the hour of need, the rep- 
 resentative of what was best and most fortunate 
 in England was put to the touch, and proved to 
 be current gold. All men knew what that meant, 
 and Hampden's memory is one of the glories of 
 the English-speaking people. 
 
 Charles Eowell has the same meaning for us 
 when rightly understood. He had all that birth, 
 breeding, education, and tradition could give. 
 The resources of our American life and civilization 
 could produce nothing better. How would he 
 and such men as he stand the great ordeal when 
 it came? If wealth, education, and breeding were 
 to result in a class who could only carp and criti- 
 cize, accumulate money, give way to self-indul- 
 gence, and cherish low foreign ideals, then would 
 it have appeared that there was a radical unsound- 
 ness in our society, refinement would have been 
 proved to be weakness, and the highest education 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 277 
 
 would have been shown to be a curse, rather than 
 a blessing. But Charles Lowell, and hundreds of 
 others like him, in greater or less degree, all over 
 the land, met the great test and emerged trium- 
 phant. The Harvard men may be taken as fairly 
 representing the colleges and universities of 
 America. Harvard had, in i860, 4157 living 
 graduates, and 823 students, presumably over 
 eighteen years old. Probably 3000 of her stu- 
 dents and graduates were of military age, and not 
 physically disqualified for military service. Of 
 this number, 1230 entered the Union army or 
 navy. One hundred and fifty-six died in service, 
 and 67 were killed in action. Many did not go 
 who might have gone, unquestionably, but the rec- 
 ord is a noble one. Nearly one man of every two 
 Harvard men came forward to serve his country 
 when war was at our gates, and this proportion 
 holds true, no doubt, of the other universities of 
 the North. It is well for the country, well for 
 learning, well for our civilization, that such a 
 record was made at such a time. Charles Lowell, 
 and those like him, showed, once for all, that the 
 men to whom fortune had been kindest were ca- 
 pable of the noblest patriotism, and shrank from 
 no sacrifices. They taught the lesson which can 
 never be heard too often — that the man to whom 
 the accidents of birth and fortune have given most 
 is the man who owes most to his country. If 
 
278 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 patriotism should exist anywhere, it should be 
 strongest with such men as these, and their service 
 should be ever ready. How nobly Charles Lowell 
 in this spirit answered the great question, his life 
 and death, alike victorious, show to all men. 
 
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 
 
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 
 
 And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
 
 — Addison. 
 
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 
 
 (GENERAL SHERIDAN took command of 
 X the Army of the Shenandoah in August, 
 1864. His coming" was the signal for aggressive 
 fighting, and for a series of brilliant victories over 
 the rebel army. He defeated Early at Winches- 
 ter and again at Fisher's Hill, while General Tor- 
 bert whipped Rosser in a subsequent action, where 
 the rout of the rebels was so complete that the 
 fight was known as the " Woodstock races." 
 Sheridan's plan after this was to terminate his 
 campaign north of Staunton, and, returning thence, 
 to desolate the Valley, so as to make it untenable 
 for the Confederates, as well as useless as a gran- 
 ary or storehouse, and then move the bulk of his 
 army through Washington, and unite them with 
 General Grant in front of Petersburg. Grant, 
 however, and the authorities at Washington, were 
 in favor of Sheridan's driving Early into Eastern 
 Virginia, and following up that line, which Sheri- 
 dan himself believed to be a false move. This 
 important matter was in debate until October 16, 
 when Sheridan, having left the main body of his 
 
282 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 army at Cedar Creek under General Wright, de- 
 termined to go to Washington, and discuss the 
 question personally with General Halleck and the 
 Secretary of War. He reached Washington on 
 the morning of the i 7th about eight o'clock, left 
 there at twelve, and got back to Martinsburg the 
 same night about dark. At Martinsburg he spent 
 the night, and the next day, with his escort, rode 
 to Winchester, reaching that point between three 
 and four o'clock in the afternoon of the 18th. He 
 there heard that all was quiet at Cedar Creek and 
 along the front, and went to bed, expecting to 
 reach his headquarters and join the army the next 
 day. 
 
 About six o'clock, on the morning of the 19th, 
 it was reported to him that artillery firing could 
 be heard in the direction of Cedar Creek, but as 
 the sound was stated to be irregular and fitful, he 
 thought it only a skirmish. He, nevertheless, 
 arose at once, and had just finished dressing when 
 another officer came in, and reported that the firing 
 was still going on in the same direction, but that 
 it did not sound like a general battle. Still Sher- 
 idan was uneasy, and, after breakfasting, mounted 
 his horse between eight and nine o'clock, and 
 rode slowly through Winchester. When he 
 reached the edge of the town he halted a moment, 
 and then heard the firing of artillery in an unceas- 
 ing roar. He now felt confident that a o-eneral 
 
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 283 
 
 battle was in progress, and, as he rode forward, 
 he was convinced, from the rapid increase of 
 the sound, that his army was falling back. After 
 he had crossed Mill Creek, just outside Winches- 
 ter, and made the crest of the rise beyond the 
 stream, there burst upon his view the spectacle 
 of a panic-stricken army. Hundreds of slightly 
 wounded men, with hundreds more unhurt, but 
 demoralized, together with baggage wagons and 
 trains, were all pressing to the rear, in hopeless 
 confusion. 
 
 There was no doubt now that a disaster had 
 occurred at the front. A fugitive told Sheridan 
 that the army was broken and in full retreat, and 
 that all was lost. Sheridan at once sent word to 
 Colonel Edwards, commanding a brigade at Win- 
 Chester, to stretch his troops across the valley, 
 and stop all fugitives. His first idea was to make 
 a stand there, but, as he rode alono-, a different 
 plan flashed into his mind. He believed that his 
 troops had great confidence in him, and he deter- 
 mined to try to restore their broken ranks, and, 
 instead of merely holding the ground at Winches- 
 ter, to rally his army, and lead them forward again 
 to Cedar Creek. He had hardly made up his 
 mind to this course, when news was brought to 
 him that his headquarters at Cedar Creek were 
 captured, and the troops dispersed. He started 
 at once, with about twenty men as an escort, and 
 
284 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 rode rapidly to the front. As he passed along, 
 the unhurt men, who thickly lined the road, recog- 
 nized him, and, as they did so, threw up their 
 hats, shouldered their muskets, and followed him 
 as fast as they could on foot. His officers rode 
 out on either side to tell the stragglers that the 
 general had returned, and, as the news spread, 
 the retreating men in every direction rallied, and 
 turned their faces toward the battle-field they had 
 left. 
 
 In his memoirs, Sheridan says, in speaking of 
 his ride through the retreating troops : "I said 
 nothing, except to remark, as I rode among them, 
 'If I had been with you this morning, this disas- 
 ter would not have happened. We must face 
 the other way. We will go back and recover our 
 camp."' Thus he galloped on over the twenty 
 miles, with the men rallying behind him, and fol- 
 lowing" him in ever increasing numbers. As he 
 went by, the panic of retreat was replaced by the 
 ardor of battle. Sheridan had not overestimated 
 the power of enthusiasm or his own ability to rouse 
 it to fighting pitch. He pressed steadily on to 
 the front, until at last he came up to Getty's divi- 
 sion of the 6th Corps, which, with the cavalry, 
 were the only troops who held their line and were 
 resisting the enemy. Getty's division was about 
 a mile north of Middletown on some slightly rising 
 ground, and were skirmishing with the enemy's 
 
ffi^^l^e^-S*- 
 
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 287 
 
 pickets. Jumping a rail fence, Sheridan rode to 
 the crest of the hill, and, as he took off his hat, 
 the men rose up from behind the barricades with 
 cheers of recognition. 
 
 It is impossible to follow in detail Sheridan's 
 actions from that moment, but he first brought up 
 the 19th Corps and the two divisions of Wright 
 to the front. He then communicated with Colonel 
 Lowell, who was fighting near Middletown with 
 his men dismounted, and asked him if he could 
 hold on where he was, to which Lowell replied 
 in the affirmative. All this and many similar 
 quickly-given orders consumed a great deal of 
 time, but still the men were getting into line, and 
 at last, seeing that the enemy were about to 
 renew the attack, Sheridan rode along the line so 
 that the men could all see him. He was received 
 with the wildest enthusiasm as he rode by, and 
 the spirit of the army was restored. The rebel 
 attack was made shortly after noon, and was 
 repulsed by General Emory. 
 
 This done, Sheridan again set to work to get- 
 ting his line completely restored, while General 
 Merritt charged and drove off an exposed battery 
 of the Confederates. By half-past three Sheridan 
 was ready to attack. The fugitives of the morning, 
 whom he had rallied as he rode from Winchester, 
 were again in their places, and the different divi- 
 sions were all disposed in their proper positions. 
 
288 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 With the order to advance, the whole line pressed 
 forward. The Confederates at first resisted stub- 
 bornly, and then began to retreat. On they went 
 past Cedar Creek, and there, where the pike made 
 a sharp turn to the west toward Fisher's Hill, 
 Merritt and Custer fell on the flank of the retreat- 
 ing- columns, and the rebel army fell back, routed 
 and broken, up the Valley. The day had begun 
 in route and defeat ; it ended in a great victory 
 for the Union army. 
 
 How near we had been to a terrible disaster can 
 be realized by recalling what had happened before 
 the general galloped down from Winchester. 
 
 In Sheridan's absence, Early, soon after dawn, 
 had made an unexpected attack on our army at 
 Cedar Creek. Surprised by the assault, the na- 
 tional troops had given way in all directions, and 
 a panic had set in. Getty's division with Lowell's 
 cavalry held on at Middletown, but, with this ex- 
 ception, the rout was complete. When Sheridan 
 rode out of Winchester, he met an already beaten 
 army. His first thought was the natural one to 
 make a stand at Winchester and rally his troops 
 about him there. His second thought was the 
 inspiration of the great commander. He believed 
 his men would rally as soon as they saw him. He 
 believed that enthusiasm was one of the great 
 weapons of war, and that this was the moment of 
 all others when it miefht be used with decisive 
 
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 289 
 
 advantage. With this thought in his mind he 
 abandoned the idea of forming his men at Win- 
 chester, and rode bareheaded through the fugi- 
 tives, swinging his hat, straight for the front, and 
 calling on his men as he passed to follow him. 
 As the soldiers saw him, they turned and rushed 
 after him. He had not calculated in vain upon 
 the power of personal enthusiasm, but, at the same 
 time, he did not rely upon any wild rush to save 
 the day. The moment he reached the field of 
 battle, he set to work with the coolness of a great 
 soldier to make all the dispositions, first, to repel 
 the enemy, and then to deliver an attack which 
 could not be resisted. One division after another 
 was rapidly brought into line and placed in posi- 
 tion, the thin ranks filling fast with the soldiers 
 who had recovered from their panic, and followed 
 Sheridan and the black horse all the way down 
 from Winchester. He had been already two hours 
 on the field when, at noon, he rode along the line, 
 again formed for battle. Most of the officers and 
 men then thought he had just come, while in 
 reality it was his own rapid work which had put 
 them in the line along which he was riding. 
 
 Once on the field of battle, the rush and hurry 
 of the desperate ride from Winchester came to an 
 end. First the line was reformed, then the enemy's 
 assault was repulsed, and it was made impossible 
 
 for them to again take the offensive. But Sheri- 
 
 25 
 
290 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 dan, undazzled by his brilliant success up to this 
 point, did not mar his work by overhaste. Two 
 hours more passed before he was ready, and then, 
 when all was prepared, with his ranks established 
 and his army ranged in position, he moved his 
 whole line forward, and won one of the most bril- 
 liant battles of the war, having, by his personal 
 power over his troops, and his genius in action, 
 snatched a victory from a day which began in 
 surprise, disaster, and defeat. 
 
LIEUTENANT CUSHING AND THE 
 RAM "ALBEMARLE" 
 
God give us peace ! Not such as lulls to sleep, 
 But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit ! 
 And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, 
 Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, 
 And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap ! 
 
 — Lowell. 
 
LIEUTENANT CUSHING AND THE RAM 
 "ALBEMARLE" 
 
 THE great Civil War was remarkable in many 
 ways, but in no way more remarkable than 
 for the extraordinary mixture of inventive mechan- 
 ical genius and of resolute daring shown by the 
 combatants. After the first year, when the con- 
 testants had settled down to real fig-hting-, and the 
 preliminary mob work was over, the battles were 
 marked by their extraordinary obstinacy and 
 heavy loss. In no European conflict since the 
 close of the Napoleonic wars has the fighting been 
 anything like as obstinate and as bloody as was 
 the fighting in our own Civil War. In addition to 
 this fierce and dogged courage, this splendid fight- 
 ing capacity, the contest also brought out the 
 skilled inventive power of engineer and mechani- 
 cian in a way that few other contests have ever 
 done. 
 
 This was especially true of the navy. The fight- 
 ing under and against Farragut and his fellow- 
 admirals revolutionized naval warfare. The Civil 
 War marks the break between the old style and 
 the new. Terrible encounters took place when 
 
294 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the terrible new engines of war were brought into 
 action for the first time ; and one of these en- 
 counters has given an example which, for heroic 
 daring combined with cool intelligence, is unsur- 
 passed in all time. 
 
 The Confederates showed the same skill and 
 energy in building their great ironclad rams as 
 the men of the Union did in building the monitors 
 which were so often pitted against them. Both 
 sides, but especially the Confederates, also used 
 stationary torpedoes, and, on a number of occa- 
 sions, torpedo-boats likewise. These torpedo- 
 boats were sometimes built to go under the water. 
 One such, after repeated failures, was employed 
 by the Confederates, with equal gallantry and 
 success, in sinking a Union sloop of war off 
 Charleston harbor, the torpedo-boat itself going 
 down to the bottom with its victim, all on board 
 being drowned. The other type of torpedo-boat 
 was simply a swift, ordinary steam-launch, oper- 
 ated above water. 
 
 It was this last type of boat which Lieuten- 
 ant W. B. Cushing brought down to Albemarle 
 Sound to use against the great Confederate ram 
 Albemarle. The ram had been built for the pur- 
 pose of destroying the Union blockading forces. 
 Steaming down river, she had twice attacked the 
 Federal gunboats, and in each case had sunk or 
 disabled one or more of them, with little injury to 
 
CUSHING AND THE "ALBEMARLE" 295 
 
 herself. She had retired up the river again to lie 
 at her wharf and refit. The gunboats had suffered 
 so severely as to make it a certainty that when 
 she came out again, thoroughly fitted to renew 
 the attack, the wooden vessels would be destroyed ; 
 and while she was in existence, the Union vessels 
 could not reduce the forts and coast towns. Just 
 at this time Cushing came down from the North 
 with his swift little torpedo-boat, an open launch, 
 with a spar rigged out in front, the torpedo being 
 placed at the end. The crew of the launch con- 
 sisted of fifteen men, CushinQ- beino- in command. 
 He not only guided his craft, but himself handled 
 the torpedo by means of two small ropes, one of 
 which put it in place, while the other exploded it. 
 The action of the torpedo was complicated, and it 
 could not have been operated in a time of tre- 
 mendous excitement save by a man of the utmost 
 nerve and self-command ; but Cushing had both. 
 He possessed precisely that combination of reck- 
 less courage, presence of mind, and high mental 
 capacity necessary to the man who leads a forlorn 
 hope under peculiarly difficult circumstances. 
 
 On the night of October 27, 1864, Cushing 
 slipped away from the blockading fleet, and 
 steamed up river toward the wharf, a dozen miles 
 distant, where the great ram lay. The Confede- 
 rates were watchful to guard against surprise, for 
 they feared lest their foes should try to destroy 
 
296 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the ram before she got a chance to come down 
 and attack them again in the Sound. She. lay un- 
 der the guns of a fort, with a regiment of troops 
 ready at a moment's notice to turn out and defend 
 her. Her own guns were kept always clear for 
 action, and she was protected by a great boom of 
 logs thrown out roundabout ; of which last defense 
 the Northerners knew nothing. 
 
 Cushing went up-stream with the utmost cau- 
 tion, and by good luck passed, unnoticed, a Con- 
 federate lookout below the ram. 
 
 About midnight he made his assault. Steaming 
 quietly on through the black water, and feeling 
 his way cautiously toward where he knew the 
 town to be, he finally made out the loom of the 
 Albemarle through the night, and at once drove 
 at her. He was almost upon her before he was 
 discovered ; then the crew and the soldiers on the 
 wharf opened fire, and, at the same moment, he 
 was brought-to by the boom, the existence of 
 which he had not known. The rifle balls were 
 singing round him as he stood erect, guiding his 
 launch, and he heard the bustle of the men aboard 
 the ram, and the noise of the great guns as they 
 were got ready. Backing off, he again went all 
 steam ahead, and actually surged over the slippery 
 logs of the boom. Meanwhile, on the Albemarle 
 the sailors were running to quarters, and the sol- 
 diers were swarming down to aid in her defense ; 
 
THE BLOWING-UP OF THE "ALBEMARLE. 
 
CUSHING AND THE "ALBEMARLE" 299 
 
 and the droning bullets came always thicker 
 through the dark night. Cushing still stood up- 
 right in his little craft, guiding and controlling 
 her by voice and signal, while in his hands he 
 kept the ropes which led to the torpedo. As the 
 boat slid forward over the boom, he brought the 
 torpedo full against the somber side of the huge 
 ram, and instantly exploded it, almost at the same 
 time that the pivot-gun of the ram, loaded with 
 grape, was fired point-blank at him not ten yards 
 off. 
 
 At once the ram settled, the launch sinking at 
 the same moment, while Cushing and his men 
 swam for their lives. Most of them sank or were 
 captured, but Cushing reached mid-stream. Hear- 
 ing something splashing in the darkness, he swam 
 toward it, and found that it was one of his crew. 
 He went to his rescue, and they kept together for 
 some time, but the sailor's strength ^ave out, and 
 he finally sank. In the pitch darkness Cushing 
 could form no idea where he was ; and when, 
 chilled through, and too exhausted to rise to his 
 feet, he finally reached shore, shortly before dawn, 
 he found that he had swum back and landed but 
 a few hundred feet below the sunken ram. All 
 that day he remained within easy musket- shot of 
 where his foes were swarming about the fort and 
 the great drowned ironclad. He hardly dared 
 move, and until the afternoon he lay without food, 
 
3 oo HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 and without protection from the heat or venomous 
 insects. Then he managed to slip unobserved 
 into the dense swamp, and began to make his 
 way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out 
 on a small stream, near a camp of Confederate 
 soldiers. They had moored to the bank a skiff, 
 and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed 
 to steal this and to paddle down-stream. Hour 
 after hour he paddled on through the fading light, 
 and then through the darkness. At last, utterly 
 worn out, he found the squadron, and was picked 
 up. At once the ships weighed ; and they speedily 
 captured every coast town and fort, for their 
 dreaded enemy was no longer in the way. The 
 fame of Cushing's deed went all over the North, 
 and his name will stand forever among the bright- 
 est on the honor-roll of the American navy. 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 
 
 26 
 
Ha, old ship, do they thrill, 
 
 The brave two hundred scars 
 
 You got in the river wars ? 
 
 That were leeched with clamorous skill 
 
 (Surgery savage and hard), 
 
 At the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 
 
 How the guns, as with cheer and shout, 
 
 Our tackle-men hurled them out, 
 
 Brought up in the waterways 
 
 ... As we fired, at the flash 
 
 'T was lightning and black eclipse 
 
 With a bellowing sound and crash. 
 
 The Dahlgrens are dumb, 
 Dumb are the mortars ; 
 Never more shall the drum 
 Beat to colors and quarters — 
 The great guns are silent. 
 
 — Henry Howard Browne 11. 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 
 
 DURING the Civil War our navy produced, 
 as it has always produced in every war, 
 scores of capable officers, of brilliant single-ship 
 commanders, of men whose daring courage made 
 them fit leaders in any hazardous enterprise. In 
 this respect the Union seamen in the Civil War 
 merely lived up to the traditions of their service. 
 In a service with such crlorious memories it was a 
 difficult thing to establish a new record in feats of 
 personal courage or warlike address. Biddle, in 
 the Revolutionary War, fighting his little frigate 
 against a ship of the line until she blew up with 
 all on board, after inflicting severe loss on her 
 huge adversary ; Decatur, heading the rush of 
 the boarders in the night attack when they swept 
 the wild Moorish pirates from the decks of their 
 anchored prize ; Lawrence, dying with the words 
 on his lips, " Don't give up the ship " ; and Perry, 
 triumphantly steering his bloody sloop-of-war to 
 victory with the same words blazoned on his ban- 
 
 3°3 
 
304 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ner — men like these, and like their fellows, who 
 won glory in desperate conflicts with the regular 
 warships and heavy privateers of England and 
 France, or with the corsairs of the Barbary States, 
 left behind a reputation which was hardly to be 
 dimmed, though it might be emulated, by later 
 feats of mere daring. 
 
 But vital though daring is, indispensable though 
 desperate personal prowess and readiness to take 
 chances are to the make-up of a fighting navy, 
 other qualities are needed in addition to fit a man 
 for a place among the great sea-captains of all 
 time. It was the good fortune of the navy in the 
 Civil War to produce one admiral of renown, one 
 peer of all the mighty men who have ever waged 
 war on the ocean. Farragut was not only the 
 greatest admiral since Nelson, but, with the sole 
 exception of Nelson, he was as great an admiral 
 as ever sailed the broad or the narrow seas. 
 
 David Glasgow Farragut was born in Tennes- 
 see. He was appointed to the navy while living 
 in Louisiana, but when the war came he remained 
 loyal to the Union flag. This puts him in the 
 category of those men who deserved best of their 
 country in the Civil War ; the men who were 
 Southern by birth, but who stood loyally by 
 the Union; the men like General Thomas of Vir- 
 ginia, and like Farragut's own flag-captain at the 
 battle of Mobile Bay, Drayton of South Carolina. 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 305 
 
 It was an easy thing in the North to support the 
 Union, and it was a double disgrace to be, like 
 Vallandigham and the Copperheads, against it ; 
 and in the South there were a great multitude of 
 men, as honorable as they were brave, who, from 
 the best of motives, went with their States when 
 they seceded, or even advocated secession. But 
 the highest and loftiest patriots, those who de- 
 served best of the whole country, were the men 
 from the South who possessed such heroic cou- 
 rage, and such lofty fealty to the high ideal of the 
 Union, that they stood by the flag when their 
 fellows deserted it, and unswervingly followed a 
 career devoted to the cause of the whole nation 
 and of the whole people. Among all those who 
 fought in this, the greatest struggle for righteous- 
 ness which the present century has seen, these 
 men stand preeminent ; and among them Farra- 
 gut stands first. It was his good fortune that by 
 his life he offered an example, not only of patriot- 
 ism, but of supreme skill and daring in his pro- 
 fession. He belongs to that class of commanders 
 who possess in the highest degree the qualities 
 of courage and daring, of readiness to assume 
 responsibility, and of willingness to run great 
 risks ; the qualities without which no commander, 
 however cautious and able, can ever become really 
 great. He possessed also the unwearied capacity 
 for taking thought in advance, which enabled him 
 
306 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY . 
 
 to prepare for victory before the day of battle 
 came ; and he added to this an inexhaustible fer- 
 tility of resource and presence of mind under no 
 matter what strain. 
 
 His whole career should be taught every Amer- 
 ican schoolboy, for when that schoolboy becomes 
 a voter he should have learned the lesson that the 
 United States, while it ought not to become an 
 overgrown military power, should always have a 
 first-class navy, formidable from the number of its 
 ships, and formidable still more from the excel- 
 lence of the individual ships and the high charac- 
 ter of the officers and men. Farragut saw the 
 war of 1812, in which, though our few frigates 
 and sloops fought some glorious actions, our coasts 
 were blockaded and insulted, and the Capitol at 
 Washington burned, because our statesmen and 
 our people had been too short-sighted to build a 
 big fighting navy ; and Farragut was able to per- 
 form his great feats on the Gulf coast because, 
 when the Civil War broke out, we had a navy 
 which, though too small in point of numbers, was 
 composed of ships as good as any afloat. 
 
 Another lesson to be learned by a study of his 
 career is that no man in a profession so highly 
 technical as that of the navy can win a great suc- 
 cess unless he has been brought up in and spe- 
 cially trained for that profession, and has devoted 
 his life to the work. This fact was made plainly 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 309 
 
 evident in the desperate hurly-burly of the night 
 battle with the Confederate flotilla below New 
 Orleans — the incidents of this hurly-burly being, 
 perhaps, best described by the officer who, in his 
 report of his own share in it, remarked that " all 
 sorts of things happened." Of the Confederate 
 rams there were two, commanded by trained offi- 
 cers formerly in the United States navy, Lieuten- 
 ants Kennon and Warley. Both of these men 
 handled their little vessels with remarkable cou- 
 rage, skill, and success, fighting them to the last, 
 and inflicting serious and heavy damage upon the 
 Union fleet. The other vessels of the flotilla were 
 commanded by men who had not been in the reg- 
 ular navy, who were merely Mississippi River 
 captains, and the like. These men were, doubt- 
 less, naturally as brave as any of the regular offi- 
 cers ; but, with one or two exceptions, they failed 
 ignobly in the time of trial, and showed a fairly 
 startling contrast with the regular naval officers 
 beside or against whom they fought. This is a 
 fact which may well be pondered by the ignorant 
 or unpatriotic people who believe that the United 
 States does not need a navy, or that it can impro- 
 vise one, and improvise officers to handle it, when- 
 ever the moment of need arises. 
 
 When a boy, Farragut had sailed as a midship- 
 man on the Essex in her famous cruise to the 
 South Pacific, and lived through the murderous 
 
310 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 fight in which, after losing three fifths of her crew, 
 she was captured by two British vessels. Step by 
 step he rose in his profession, but never had an 
 opportunity of distinguishing himself until, when 
 he was sixty years old, the Civil War broke out. 
 He was then made flag officer of the Gulf squad- 
 ron ; and the first success which the Union forces 
 met with in the southwest was scored by him, 
 when one night he burst the iron chains which 
 the Confederates had stretched across the Missis- 
 sippi, and, stemming the swollen flood with his 
 splendidly-handled steam-frigates, swept past the 
 forts, sank the rams and gunboats that sought to 
 bar his path, and captured the city of New Or- 
 leans. After further exciting service on the Mis- 
 sissippi, service in which he turned a new chapter 
 in the history of naval warfare by showing the 
 possibilities of heavy sea-going vessels when used 
 on great rivers, he again went back to the Gulf, 
 and, in the last year of the war, was allotted the 
 task of attempting the capture of Mobile, the only 
 important port still left open to the Confederates. 
 In August, 1864, Farragut was lying with his 
 fleet off Mobile Bay. For months he had been 
 eating out his heart while undergoing the wearing 
 strain of the blockade ; sympathizing, too, with 
 every detail of the doubtful struggle on land. " I 
 get right sick, every now and then, at the bad 
 news," he once wrote home ; and then again, " The 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 311 
 
 victory of the Kearsarge over the Alabama raised 
 me up ; I would sooner have fought that fight 
 than any ever fought on t^e ocean." As for him- 
 self, all he wished was a chance to fight, for he 
 had the fighting temperament, and he knew that, 
 in the long run, an enemy can only be beaten by 
 being out-fought, as well as out-manceuvered. 
 He possessed a splendid self-confidence, and 
 scornfully threw aside any idea that he would be 
 defeated, while he utterly refused to be daunted 
 by the rumors of the formidable nature of the de- 
 fenses against which he was to act. " I mean to 
 be whipped or to whip my enemy, and not to be 
 scared to death," he remarked in speaking of these 
 rumors. 
 
 The Confederates who held Mobile used all 
 their skill in preparing for defense, and all their 
 courage in making that defense good. The mouth 
 of the bay was protected by two fine forts, heavily 
 armed, Morgan and Gaines. The winding chan- 
 nels were filled with torpedoes, and, in addition, 
 there was a flotilla consisting of three gunboats, 
 and, above all, a big ironclad ram, the Tennessee, 
 one of the most formidable vessels then afloat. 
 She was not fast, but she carried six high- power 
 rifled guns, and her armor was very powerful, 
 while, being of light draft, she could take a posi- 
 tion where Farragut's deep-sea ships could not 
 get at her. 
 
3 i2 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Farragut made his attack with four monitors, 
 — two of them, the Tecumseh and Manhattan, 
 of large size, carrying 15-inch guns, and the other 
 two, the Winnebago and Chickasaw, smaller and 
 lighter, with 11 -inch guns, — and the wooden ves- 
 sels, fourteen in number. Seven of these were 
 big sloops-of-war, of the general type of Farra- 
 gut's own flagship, the Hartford. She was a 
 screw steamer, but was a full-rigged ship likewise, 
 with twenty-two 9-inch shell guns, arranged in 
 broadside, and carrying a crew of three hundred 
 men. The other seven were ligfht cfunboats. 
 When Farragut prepared for the assault, he ar- 
 ranged to make the attack with his wooden ships 
 in double column. The seven most powerful were 
 formed on the right, in line ahead, to engage Fort 
 Morgan, the heaviest of the two forts, which had 
 to be passed close inshore to the right. The light 
 vessels were lashed each to the left of one of the 
 heavier ones. By this arrangement each pair of 
 ships was given a double chance to escape, if ren- 
 dered helpless by a shot in the boiler or other 
 vital part of the machinery. The heaviest ships 
 led in the fighting column, the first place being 
 taken by the Brooklyn and her gunboat consort, 
 while the second position was held by Farragut 
 himself in the Hartfoi'd, with the little Metacomet 
 lashed alongside. He waited to deliver the attack 
 until the tide and the wind should be favorable, 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 313 
 
 and made all his preparations with the utmost 
 care and thoughtfulness. Preeminently a man 
 who could inspire affection in others, both the offi- 
 cers and men of the fleet regarded him with fer- 
 vent loyalty and absolute trust. 
 
 The attack was made early on the morning of 
 August 5. Soon after midnight the weather be- 
 came hot and calm, and at three the Admiral 
 learned that a light breeze had sprung up from 
 the quarter he wished, and he at once announced, 
 " Then we will go in this morning." At day- 
 break he was at breakfast when the word was 
 brought that the ships were all lashed in couples. 
 Turning quietly to his captain, he said, " Well, 
 Drayton, we might as well get under way ; " and 
 at half-past six the monitors stood down to their 
 stations, while the column of wooden ships was 
 formed, all with the United States flag hoisted, 
 not only at the peak, but also at every masthead. 
 The four monitors, trusting in their iron sides, 
 steamed in between the wooden ships and the 
 fort. Every man in every craft was thrilling with 
 the fierce excitement of battle ; but in the minds 
 of most there lurked a vacnie feeling of unrest over 
 one danger. For their foes who fought in sight, 
 for the forts, the gunboats, and the great ironclad 
 ram, they cared nothing ; but all, save the very 
 boldest, were at times awed, and rendered uneasy 
 by the fear of the hidden and the unknown. Dan- 
 
314 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ger which is great and real, but which is shrouded 
 in mystery, is always very awful ; and the ocean 
 veterans dreaded the torpedoes — the mines of 
 death — which lay, they knew not where, thickly 
 scattered through the channels along which they 
 were to thread their way. 
 
 The tall ships were in fighting trim, with spars 
 housed, and canvas furled. The decks were strewn 
 with sawdust; every man was in his place; the 
 guns were ready, and except for the song of the 
 sounding-lead there was silence in the ships as 
 they moved forward through the glorious morn- 
 ing. It was seven o'clock when the battle began, 
 as the Tecumseh, the leading monitor, fired two 
 shots at the fort. In a few minutes Fort Morgan 
 was ablaze with the flash of her guns, and the 
 leading wooden vessels were sending back broad- 
 side after broadside. Farragut stood in the port 
 main-rigging, and as the smoke increased he grad- 
 ually climbed higher, until he was close by the 
 maintop, where the pilot was stationed for the 
 sake of clearer vision. The captain, fearing lest 
 by one of the accidents of battle the great admiral 
 should lose his footing, sent aloft a man with a 
 lasher, and had a turn or two taken around his 
 body in the shrouds, so that he might not fall if 
 wounded ; for the shots were flying thick. 
 
 At first the ships used only their bow guns, and 
 the Confederate ram, with her great steel rifles, 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 315 
 
 and her three consorts, taking station where they 
 could rake the advancing fleet, caused much loss. 
 In twenty minutes after the opening of the fight 
 the ships of the van were fairly abreast of the fort, 
 their guns leaping and thundering ; and under 
 the weight of their terrific fire that of the fort vis- 
 ibly slackened. All was now uproar and slaugh- 
 ter, the smoke drifting off in clouds. The decks 
 were reddened and ghastly with blood, and the 
 wreck of flying splinters drove across them at each 
 discharge. The monitor Tecumsch alone was si- 
 lent. After firing the first two shots, her com- 
 mander, Captain Craven, had loaded his two big 
 guns with steel shot, and, thus prepared, reserved 
 himself for the Confederate ironclad, which he 
 had set his heart upon taking or destroying sin- 
 gle-handed. The two columns of monitors and 
 the wooden ships lashed in pairs were now ap- 
 proaching the narrowest part of the channel, where 
 the torpedoes lay thickest ; and the guns of the 
 vessels fairly overbore and quelled the fire from 
 the fort. All was well, provided only the two col- 
 umns could push straight on without hesitation ; 
 but just at this moment a terrible calamity befell 
 the leader of the monitors. The Tecumseh, stand- 
 ing straight for the Tennessee, was within two 
 hundred yards of her foe, when a torpedo suddenly 
 exploded beneath her. The monitor was about 
 five hundred yards from the Hartford, and from 
 
316 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 the maintop Farragut, looking at her, saw her 
 reel violently from side to side, lurch heavily over, 
 and go down head-foremost, her screw revolving 
 wildly in the air as she disappeared. Captain 
 Craven, one of the gentlest and bravest of men, 
 was in the pilot-house with the pilot at the time. 
 As she sank, both rushed to the narrow door, but 
 there was time for only one to get out. Craven 
 was ahead, but drew to one side, saying, " After 
 you, pilot." As the pilot leaped through, the water 
 rushed in, and Craven and all his crew, save two 
 men, settled to the bottom in their iron coffin. 
 
 None of the monitors were awed or daunted by 
 the fate of their consort, but drew steadily on- 
 ward. In the bigger monitors the captains, like 
 the crews, had remained within the iron walls ; 
 but on the two light crafts the commanders had 
 found themselves so harassed by their cramped 
 quarters, that they both stayed outside on the 
 deck. As these two steamed steadily ahead, 
 the men on the flagship saw Captain Stevens, of 
 the Winnebago, pacing calmly, from turret to tur- 
 ret, on his unwieldy iron craft, under the full fire of 
 the fort. The captain of the Chickasaw, Perkins, 
 was the youngest commander in the fleet, and as 
 he passed the Hartford, he stood on top of the 
 turret, waving his hat and dancing about in wild- 
 est excitement and delight. 
 
 But, for a moment, the nerve of the commander 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 317 
 
 of the Brooklyn failed him. The awful fate of the 
 Tecumseh and the sight of a number of objects in 
 the channel ahead, which seemed to be torpedoes, 
 caused him to hesitate. He stopped his ship, 
 and then backed water, making- sternway to the 
 Hartford, so as to stop her also. It was the crisis 
 of the fiorht and the crisis of Farragait's career. 
 The column was halted in a narrow channel, right 
 under the fire of the forts. A few moments' delay 
 and confusion, and the golden chance would have 
 been past, and the only question remaining would 
 have been as to the magnitude of the disaster. 
 Ahead lay terrible danger, but ahead lay also 
 triumph. It might be that the first ship to go 
 through would be sacrificed to the torpedoes ; it 
 might be that others would be sacrificed ; but go 
 through the fleet must. Farra^ut signaled to the 
 Brooklyn to go ahead, but she still hesitated. Im- 
 mediately, the admiral himself resolved to take the 
 lead. Backing hard he got clear of the Brooklyn, 
 twisted his ship's prow short round, and then, 
 going ahead fast, he dashed close under the 
 Brooklyn's stern, straight at the line of buoys in 
 the channel. As he thus went by the Brookly?t, 
 a warning cry came from her that there were tor- 
 pedoes ahead. " Damn the torpedoes ! " shouted 
 the admiral ; " go ahead, full speed ; " and the 
 Hartford and her consort steamed forward. As 
 they passed between the buoys, the cases of the 
 
3i8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 torpedoes were heard knocking against the bot- 
 tom of the ship ; but for some reason they failed 
 to explode, and the Hartford went safely through 
 the gates of Mobile Bay, passing the forts. Far- 
 ragut's last and hardest battle was virtually won. 
 After a delay which allowed the flagship to lead 
 nearly a mile, the Brooklyn got her head round, 
 and came in, closely followed by all the other 
 ships. The Tennessee strove to interfere with the 
 wooden craft as they went in, but they passed, 
 exchanging - shots, and one of them striving to 
 ram her, but inflicting only a glancing blow. The 
 ship on the fighting side of the rear couple had 
 been completely disabled by a shot through her 
 boiler. 
 
 As Farragut got into the bay he gave orders 
 to slip the gunboats, which were lashed to each 
 of the Union ships of war, against the Confed- 
 erate gunboats, one of which he had already dis- 
 abled by his fire, so that she was run ashore and 
 burnt. Jouett, the captain of the Metacomet, had 
 been eagerly waiting this order, and had his men 
 already standing at the hawsers, hatchet in hand. 
 When the signal for the gunboats to chase was 
 hoisted, the order to Jouett was given by word 
 of mouth, and as his hearty "Aye, aye, sir," came 
 in answer, the hatchets fell, the hawsers parted, 
 and the Metacomet leaped forward in pursuit. A 
 thick rain-squall came up, and rendered it impos- 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 319 
 
 sible for the rear gunboats to know whither the 
 Confederate flotilla had fled. When it cleared 
 away, the watchers on the fleet saw that one of 
 the two which were uninjured had slipped off to 
 Fort Morgan, while the other, the Selma, was un- 
 der the guns of the Metacomet, and was promptly 
 carried by the latter. 
 
 Meanwhile the ships anchored in the bay, about 
 four miles from Fort Morgan, and the crews were 
 piped to breakfast ; but almost as soon as it was 
 begun, the lookouts reported that the great Con- 
 federate ironclad was steaming down, to do battle, 
 single-handed, with the Union fleet. She was 
 commanded by Buchanan, a very gallant and able 
 officer, who had been on the Merrimac, and who 
 trusted implicitly in his invulnerable sides, his 
 heavy rifle guns, and his formidable iron beak. 
 As the ram came on, with splendid courage, the 
 ships got under way, while Farragut sent word 
 to the monitors to attack the Tennessee at once. 
 The fleet surgeon, Palmer, delivered these orders. 
 In his diary he writes : 
 
 " I came to the Chickasaw ; happy as my friend Perkins 
 habitually is, I thought he would turn a somerset with joy, 
 when I told him, ' The admiral wants you to go at once and 
 fight the Tennessee? " 
 
 At the same time, the admiral directed the 
 wooden vessels to charge the ram, bow on, at full 
 speed, as well as to attack her with their guns. 
 
320 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 The monitors were very slow, and the wooden 
 vessels began the attack. The first to reach the 
 hostile ironclad was the Monongahela, which 
 struck her square amidships ; and five minutes 
 later the Lackawanna, going at full speed, de- 
 livered another heavy -blow. Both the Union 
 vessels fired such guns as would bear as they 
 swung round, but the shots glanced harmlessly 
 from the armor, and the blows of the ship pro- 
 duced no serious injury to the ram, although their 
 own stems were crushed in several feet above and 
 below the vater line. The Hartford then struck 
 the Tennessee, which met her bows on. The two 
 antagonists scraped by, their port sides touching. 
 As they rasped past, the Hartford 's guns were 
 discharged against the ram, their muzzles only 
 half a dozen feet distant from her iron-clad sides ; 
 but the shot made no impression. While the three 
 ships were circling to repeat the charge, the Lack- 
 awanna ran square into the flagship, cutting the 
 vessel down to within two feet of the water. For 
 a moment the ship's company thought the vessel 
 sinking, and almost as one man they cried : "Save 
 the admiral ! get the admiral on board the Lack- 
 awanna." But Farragut, leaping actively into the 
 chains, saw that the ship was in no present dan- 
 ger, and ordered her again to be headed for the 
 Tennessee. Meanwhile, the monitors had come 
 up, and the battle raged between them and the 
 
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 321 
 
 great ram. Like the rest of the Union fleet, they 
 carried smooth-bores, and their shot could not 
 break through her iron plates ; but by sustained 
 and continuous hammering, her frame could be 
 jarred and her timbers displaced. Two of the 
 monitors had been more or less disabled already, 
 but the third, the Chickasaw, was in fine trim, and 
 Perkins got her into position under the stern of 
 the Tennessee, just after the latter was struck by 
 the Hartford ; and there he stuck to the end, 
 never over fifty yards distant, and keeping up a 
 steady rapping of 11 -inch shot upon the iron 
 walls, which they could not penetrate, but which 
 they racked and shattered. The Chickasaw fired 
 fifty-two times at her antagonist, shooting away 
 the exposed rudder-chains and the smokestack, 
 while the commander of the ram, Buchanan, was 
 wounded by an iron splinter which broke his leg. 
 Under the hammering, the Tennessee became 
 helpless. She could not be steered, and was un- 
 able to bring a gun to bear, while many of the 
 shutters of the ports were jammed. For twenty 
 minutes she had not fired a shot. The wooden 
 vessels were again bearing down to ram her ; and 
 she hoisted the white flag. 
 
 Thus ended the battle of Mobile Bay, Farra- 
 gut's crowning victory. Less than three hours 
 elapsed from the time that Fort Morgan fired its 
 first gun to the moment when the Tennessee hauled 
 
322 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 down her flag. Three hundred and thirty-five 
 men had been killed or wounded in the fleet, and 
 one vessel, the Tecumseh, had gone down ; but 
 the Confederate flotilla was destroyed, the bay 
 had been entered, and the forts around it were 
 helpless to do anything further. One by one they 
 surrendered, and the port of Mobile was thus 
 sealed against blockade runners, so that the last 
 source of communication between the Confederacy 
 and the outside world was destroyed. Farragut 
 had added to the annals of the Union the page 
 which tells of the greatest sea-fight in our history. 
 
LINCOLN 
 

 
 O captain. My captain. Our fearful trip is done ; 
 
 The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is 
 
 won; 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
 
 daring : 
 But O heart ! Heart ! Heart ! 
 Leave you not the little spot, 
 Where on the deck my captain lies, 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 O captain. My captain. Rise up and hear the bells ; 
 
 Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills ; 
 
 For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 
 
 a-crowding; 
 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
 
 turning; 
 O captain. Dear father. 
 This arm I push beneath you ; 
 It is some dream that on the deck, 
 You 've fallen cold and dead. 
 
 My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; 
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will : 
 But the ship, the ship is anchor'd safe, its voyage closed and 
 
 done; 
 From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won : 
 Exult O shores, and ring, O bells. 
 But I with silent tread, 
 Walk the spot the captain lies, 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 — Walt Whitman. 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 AS Washington stands to the Revolution and 
 JTx. the establishment of the government, so 
 Lincoln stands as the hero of the mightier strugf- 
 gle by which our Union was saved. He was born 
 in 1809, ten years after Washington, his work 
 done, had been laid to rest at Mount Vernon. No 
 great man ever came from beginnings which 
 seemed to promise so little. Lincoln's family, for 
 more than one generation, had been sinking, in- 
 stead of rising, in the social scale. His father was 
 one of those men who were found on the frontier 
 in the early days of the western movement, always 
 changing from one place to another, and dropping 
 a little lower at each remove. Abraham Lincoln 
 was born into a family who were not only poor, 
 but shiftless, and his early days were days of ig- 
 norance, and poverty, and hard work. Out of 
 such inauspicious surroundings, he slowly and 
 painfully lifted himself. He gave himself an edu- 
 cation, he took part in an Indian war, he worked 
 
326 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 in the fields, he kept a country store, he read and 
 studied, and, at last, he became a lawyer. Then 
 he entered into the rough politics of the newly- 
 settled State. He grew to be a leader in his 
 county, and went to the legislature. The road 
 was very rough, the struggle was very hard and 
 very bitter, but the movement was always upward. 
 
 At last he was elected to Congress, and served 
 one term in Washington as a Whig with credit, 
 but without distinction. Then he went back to 
 his law and his politics in Illinois. He had, at 
 last, made his position. All that was now needed 
 was an opportunity, and that came to him in the 
 great anti-slavery struggle. 
 
 Lincoln was not an early Abolitionist. His 
 training had been that of a regular party man, 
 and as a member of a great political organization, 
 but he was a lover of freedom and justice. Slav- 
 ery, in its essence, was hateful to him, and when 
 the conflict between slavery and freedom was 
 fairly joined, his path was clear before him. He 
 took up the anti- slavery cause in his own State, 
 and made himself its champion against Douglas, 
 the great leader of the Northern Democrats. He 
 stumped Illinois in opposition to Douglas, as a 
 candidate for the Senate, debating the question 
 which divided the country in every part of the 
 State. He was beaten at the election, but, by 
 the power and brilliancy of his speeches, his own 
 
LINCOLN 327 
 
 reputation was made. Fighting the anti-slavery 
 battle within constitutional lines, concentrating his 
 whole force against the single point of the exten- 
 sion of slavery to the Territories, he had made it 
 clear that a new leader had arisen in the cause of 
 freedom. From Illinois his reputation spread to 
 the East, and soon after his great debate he de- 
 livered a speech in New York which attracted 
 wide attention. At the Republican convention 
 of 1856, his name was one of those proposed for 
 vice-president. 
 
 When 1S60 came, he was a candidate for the 
 first place on the national ticket. The leading 
 candidate was William H. Seward, of New York, 
 the most conspicuous man of the country on the 
 Republican side, but the convention, after a sharp 
 struggle, selected Lincoln, and then the great po- 
 litical battle came at the polls. The Republicans 
 were victorious, and, as soon as the result of the 
 voting was known, the South set to work to dis- 
 solve the Union. In February Lincoln made his 
 way to Washington, at the end coming secretly 
 from Harrisburg to escape a threatened attempt 
 at assassination, and on March 4, 1861 assumed 
 the presidency. 
 
 No public man, no great popular leader, ever 
 faced a more terrible situation. The Union was 
 breaking, the Southern States were seceding, trea- 
 son was rampant in Washington, and the Govern- 
 
328 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 ment was bankrupt. The country knew that 
 Lincoln was a man of great capacity in debate, de- 
 voted to the cause of anti-slavery and to the main- 
 tenance of the Union. But what his ability was 
 to deal with the awful conditions by which he was 
 surrounded, no one knew. To follow him through 
 the four years of civil war which ensued is, of 
 course, impossible here. Suffice it to say that no 
 greater, no more difficult, task has ever been faced 
 by any man in modern times, and no one ever 
 met a fierce trial and conflict more successfully. 
 
 Lincoln put to the front the question of the 
 Union, and let the question of slavery drop, at 
 first, into the background. He used every exer- 
 tion to hold the border States by moderate meas- 
 ures, and, in this way, prevented the spread of the 
 rebellion. For this moderation, the anti-slavery 
 extremists in the North assailed him, but nothing 
 shows more his far-sighted wisdom and strength 
 of purpose than his action at this time. By his 
 policy at the beginning of his administration, he 
 held the border States, and united the people of 
 the North in defense of the Union. 
 
 As the war went on, he went on, too. He had 
 never faltered in his feelings about slavery. He 
 knew, better than any one, that the successful dis- 
 solution of the Union by the slave power meant, 
 not only the destruction of an empire, but the vic- 
 tory of the forces of barbarism. But he also saw, 
 
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LINCOLN 331 
 
 what very few others at the moment could see, 
 that, if he was to win, he must carry his people 
 with him, step by step. So when he had rallied 
 them to the defense of the Union, and checked 
 the spread of secession in the border States, in the 
 autumn of 1862 he announced that he would issue 
 a proclamation freeing the slaves. The extrem- 
 ists had doubted him in the -beginning - , the con- 
 servative and the timid doubted him now, but 
 when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, 
 on January 1, 1863, it was found that the people 
 were with him in that, as they had been with him 
 when he staked everything upon the maintenance 
 of the Union. The war went on to victory, and 
 in 1864 the people showed at the polls that they 
 were with the President, and reelected him by 
 overwhelming majorities. Victories in the field 
 went hand in hand with success at the ballot-box, 
 and, in the spring of 1865, all was over. On 
 April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, 
 and five days later, on April 14, a miserable assas- 
 sin crept into the box at the theater where the 
 President was listening to a play, and shot him. 
 The blow to the country was terrible beyond 
 words, for then men saw, in one bright flash, how 
 great a man had fallen. 
 
 Lincoln died a martyr to the cause to which he 
 had given his life, and both life and death were 
 heroic. The qualities which enabled him to do 
 
332 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 his great work are very clear now to all men. 
 His courage and his wisdom, his keen perception 
 and his almost prophetic foresight, enabled him 
 to deal with all the problems of that distracted 
 time as they arose around him. But he had some 
 qualities, apart from those of the intellect, which 
 were of equal importance to his people and to the 
 work he had to do. His character, at once 
 strong and gentle, gave confidence to every one, 
 and dignity to his cause. He had an infinite pa- 
 tience, and a humor that enabled him to turn aside 
 many difficulties which could have been met in 
 no other way. But most important of all was 
 the fact that he personified a great sentiment, 
 which ennobled and uplifted his people, and made 
 them capable of the patriotism which fought the 
 war and saved the Union. He carried his people 
 with him, because he knew, instinctively, how they 
 felt and what they wanted. He embodied, in his 
 own person, all their highest ideals, and he never 
 erred in his judgment. 
 
 He is not only a great and commanding figure 
 among the great statesmen and leaders of history, 
 but he personifies, also, all the sadness and the 
 pathos of the war, as well as its triumphs and its 
 glories. No words that any one can use about 
 Lincoln can, however, do him such justice as his 
 own, and I will close this volume with two of 
 Lincoln's speeches, which show what the war and 
 all the great deeds of that time meant to him, 
 
LINCOLN 333 
 
 and through which shines the great soul of the 
 man himself. On November 19, 1863, he spoke 
 as follows at the dedication of the National cem- 
 etery on the battle-field of Gettysburg: 
 
 Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 
 this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedi- 
 cated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
 
 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
 that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can 
 long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. 
 We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- 
 ing place for those who here gave their lives that that nation 
 might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
 do this. 
 
 But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot con- 
 secrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, 
 living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
 above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little 
 note or long remember what we say here, but it can never for- 
 get what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to, 
 dedicated here to the unfinished work which they hnv e^iought 
 here, have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to 
 be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that 
 from the honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
 for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we 
 here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; 
 that this nation, under God, shall have anew birth of freedom ; 
 and that government of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
 ple, shall not perish from the earth. 
 
 On March 4, 1865, when he was inaugurated 
 the second time, he made the following address : 
 
 Fellow-countrymen : At this second appearing to take the 
 oath of presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended 
 
334 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 address than there was at the first. Then a statement, some- 
 what in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed proper. 
 Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public dec- 
 larations have been constantly called forth on every point and 
 phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
 engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
 presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
 depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, 
 I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 
 high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ven- 
 tured. 
 
 On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
 thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. 
 All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural 
 address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether 
 to saving the Union without war — seeking to dissolve the 
 Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties depre- 
 cated war ; but one of them would make war rather than let it 
 perish. And the war came. 
 
 One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not 
 distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the south- 
 ern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and power- 
 ful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the 
 cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this 
 interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
 Union, even by war ; while the government claimed no right 
 to do more than to restrict the Territorial enlargement of it. 
 Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the dura- 
 tion which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
 the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the 
 conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, 
 and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the 
 same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each invokes his 
 aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should 
 dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from 
 the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we 
 
LINCOLN 335 
 
 be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — \ 
 that of neither has been answered fully. 
 
 The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the world / 
 because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come ; 
 but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we 
 shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 
 which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, 
 having continued through his appointed time, he now wills 
 to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this ter- 
 rible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offenses come, 
 shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attri- 
 butes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to 
 him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this 
 mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God 
 wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond- 
 man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
 sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall 
 be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
 thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments of 
 the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 
 
 With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness 
 in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on 
 to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; 
 to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
 widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
 cherish a just, a lasting, peace among ourselves and with all 
 nations. 
 
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