Part 10

Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut, January 3, 1740. He was in command of a volunteer company at the outbreak of the Revolution, and marched at once to Cambridge. He served with great bravery on Lake Champlain, in Canada, and at Stillwater. After his treason he received a brigadier-general’s commission in the British army. At the close of the war he went to England, where he resided most of the time until his death, June 14, 1801. The second battle of Stillwater (sometimes called Bemis’s Heights and sometimes Saratoga) was fought October 7, 1777. Of Arnold’s part in this battle George William Curtis says, in his Centennial Oration: “The British, dismayed, bewildered, overwhelmed, were scarcely within their redoubts, when Benedict Arnold, to whom the jealous Gates, who did not come upon the field during the day, had refused a command, outriding an aide whom Gates had sent to recall him, came spurring up: Benedict Arnold--whose name America does not love,--whose ruthless will had dragged the doomed Canadian expedition through the starving wilderness of Maine, who, volunteering to relieve Fort Stanwix, had, by the mere terror of his coming, blown St. Leger away, and who on the 19th of September had saved the American left. Benedict Arnold, whom battle stung to fury, now whirled from end to end of the American line, hurled it against the great redoubt, driving the enemy at the point of the bayonet; then flinging himself to the extreme right, and finding there the Massachusetts brigade, swept it with him to the assault, and streaming over the breastworks, scattered the Brunswickers who defended them, killed their colonel, gained and held the point which commanded the entire British position, while at the same moment his horse was shot under him, and he sank to the ground wounded in the leg that had been wounded at Quebec. Here, upon the Hudson, where he tried to betray his country; here, upon the spot where, in the crucial hour of the Revolution, he illustrated and led the American valor that made us free and great, knowing well that no earlier service can condone for a later crime, let us recall for one brief instant of infinite pity the name that has been justly execrated for a century.”

Horatio Gates, who commanded the American forces at the battle of Stillwater, was an Englishman by birth, and had served under Braddock. He was made adjutant-general at the opening of the Revolution, and accompanied Washington to Cambridge when “the great Virginian” went thither to take charge of the army. Just before the battle of Stillwater Gates superseded General Schuyler in the command of the army of the north. He suffered a disastrous defeat at Camden, when at the head of the southern forces. His patriotism was undoubted, but he lacked the judgment of a great commander.

Burgoyne (John, 1723-1792), who commanded the British forces at the battle of Stillwater, had distinguished himself in Portugal, and had also been a member of the British Parliament before coming to America. Much was expected of his expedition. It was intended to cut the colonies in twain, and thus crush the rebellion. Burgoyne was at one time commander-in-chief in Ireland. During the closing years of his life he devoted himself to literature.

=Stanza 5.= =Poor= (Enoch), a New Hampshire brigadier-general who served with distinction in the Continental army until 1780, when he died at Hackensack, New Jersey.

=Learned= (Ebenezer), a Massachusetts brigadier-general who had served in the French and Indian War.

=Stanza 6.= =Cilley= (Joseph), a New Hampshire colonel who was later in the commands of General Wayne and General Sullivan.

=Stanza 7.= =Major Ackland=, of the Grenadier corps, a most gallant British officer, was shot through both legs in this battle. He recovered, but after his return to England he was slain in a duel into which he was drawn through his defence of the bravery of the Americans.

=Stanza 12.= =Armstrong= (John), a Pennsylvania major, at first attached to the staff of General Hugh Mercer, and later to that of General Gates, with whom he remained until the close of the war.

=Stanza 16.= =Brooks= (John), a Massachusetts colonel who afterward became adjutant-general.

=Wesson= (James), a Massachusetts colonel who commanded a regiment in Learned’s brigade.

=Livingston= (James), a New York colonel who commanded a regiment in Learned’s brigade.

=Morgan= (Daniel), a native of New Jersey whose family removed to Virginia while he was yet young. He served with much distinction throughout the Revolution, and rose to the rank of major-general.

7. THE YANKEE MAN-OF-WAR. Anonymous.

Of this spirited ballad Alfred M. Williams, in his “Studies in Folk Song and Popular Poetry,” says: “To this period, however [the Revolution], belongs what is perhaps the very best of American sea-songs. We do not know whether its authorship was of that time or not, although it probably was, and from internal evidence it would seem to have been composed by one of the very crew of the _Ranger_, Paul Jones’s ship, which escaped from a British squadron in the Irish Channel in 1778. It was first published, in 1883, by Commodore Luce, in his collection of ‘Naval Songs,’ with the statement that it was taken down from the recitation of a sailor.” To this fact is doubtless due the very evident break in the form of the fifth stanza. Most of the places mentioned in the poem (save Dunmore, a promontory on the southwestern coast) are situated on the southeastern coast of Ireland.

The spirit of the piece, the frequent recurrence of technical expressions, together with the swinging measure, remind one (albeit somewhat remotely) of the work of the foremost balladist of our day,--Rudyard Kipling.

8. THE RIDE OF JENNIE M’NEAL. By Will Carleton.

Will Carleton was born in Hudson, Michigan, October 21, 1845. He is best known by his domestic ballads, “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse” and “Betsey and I Are Out.”

The “Neutral Ground” of the poem--Westchester County, New York--was so called because it was held neither by the British nor the American armies during the Revolutionary War. This locality is the scene of some of the most stirring passages in Cooper’s _Spy_.

=Last stanza.= =Putnam.= See “Mary Butler’s Ride.”

9. THE SONG OF MARION’S MEN. By William Cullen Bryant.

William Cullen Bryant, “the father of American song,” was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794. For fifty years he was the editor of the New York _Evening Post_. He died in New York City, June 12, 1878. In “Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl” his genius finds its highest expression.

Francis Marion, one of the most noted partisan leaders of the Revolution, was born near Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1732. He was of Huguenot ancestry. He took part in the Cherokee war of 1761, and rendered conspicuous service throughout the struggle of the colonies for independence, particularly during the last two years. It is said that the brilliant British cavalry leader, Colonel Tarleton, first gave him the name of “swamp-fox.” He died at his plantation near Eutaw, South Carolina, in February, 1795.

10. HOW WE BURNED THE “PHILADELPHIA.” By Barrett Eastman.

Barrett Eastman, a Chicago journalist, was born in Chicago, January 25, 1869.

“The destruction of the _Philadelphia_, which Lord Nelson, then commanding the British blockading fleet off Toulon, called ‘the most bold and daring act of the age,’ was effected on the night of February 9, 1804. In the party, numbering but seventy-five officers and men all told, were Stephen Decatur, Jr., James Lawrence, Joseph Bainbridge, Thomas Macdonough, and many others who rose to distinction.”--B. E.

Stephen Decatur, who commanded the expedition against the _Philadelphia_, was of French descent, and was born in Sinnepuxent, Maryland, January 5, 1779. He first saw service against the French, was active in the war of 1812, and chastised the Algerines in 1815. He was killed in a duel by Commodore James Barron on March 22, 1820.

11. THE “SHANNON” AND THE “CHESAPEAKE.” By Thomas Tracy Bouvé.

Thomas Tracy Bouvé was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, June 23, 1875. He is the author of several other stirring ballads.

Lawrence (James), was born in Burlington, New Jersey, October 1, 1781. He was prominent in Decatur’s expedition to destroy the _Philadelphia_. He commanded the _Hornet_, which sank the brig-of-war _Peacock_, a victory which led to his being appointed to the _Chesapeake_. It was from Boston harbor that he sailed to meet the _Shannon_, June 1, 1813. He died at sea five days later.

=Stanza 5.= =Hingham=, a town of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, fourteen miles southeast of Boston, on Massachusetts Bay.

=Stanza 10.= =Broke= (Philip Bowes Vere), the captain of the _Shannon_, who was knighted for his victory over the _Chesapeake_, and became a popular hero in England.

12. THE FIGHT OF THE “ARMSTRONG” PRIVATEER. By James Jeffrey Roche.

James Jeffrey Roche, a journalist and ballad writer of much vigor, was born in Queens County, Ireland, May 31, 1847. His early life was spent on Prince Edward Island. He removed to Boston in 1866, and on the death of John Boyle O’Reilly succeeded him as editor of the _Pilot_.

The memorable “Fight of the _Armstrong_ Privateer” took place September 26 and 27, 1814. The British lost one hundred and twenty men killed and one hundred and eighty wounded, while the Americans had but two killed and seven wounded.

Samuel Chester Reid, who commanded the _Armstrong_, was the son of a lieutenant in the British navy. He was at one time harbor-master and warden of the port of New York, and was the designer of the present form of the United States flag, proposing to retain the original thirteen stripes and add a new star whenever a new State was admitted to the Union.

=l. 10.= =Nelson= (Horatio), England’s most noted naval commander, the hero of Copenhagen, Aboukir Bay, Egypt, where he destroyed the French fleet, and of Trafalgar, where he was victorious over the combined fleets of France and Spain, and where he met his death, October 21, 1805.

=l. 12.= =Dundonald= (Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, 1749-1831), a distinguished Scottish seaman.

=l. 31.= =Dartmoor=, an English prison in Devonshire. It was built in 1806, during the Napoleonic wars, for the retention of prisoners. Seven Americans were killed here, and sixty wounded, on April 16, 1815, a brutal and unprovoked act.

=l. 40.= =Pico=, one of the middle group of the Azores.

=l. 42.= =Lloyd= (Captain Robert), of the _Plantagenet_, the commander of the English fleet.

13. THE MEN OF THE ALAMO. By James Jeffrey Roche.

James Jeffrey Roche. See note on “The Fight of the _Armstrong_ Privateer.”

The Alamo was a Spanish Mission at San Antonio, founded early in the 18th century. Later it was transformed into a fortress. In addition to the church, with adjacent buildings used as quarters for the soldiers and for the magazine, there was a rectangular space about one hundred and fifty yards long and fifty yards wide protected by a stone wall from six to eight feet in height and nearly three feet in thickness. This enclosure was defended by fourteen or more cannon. The storming of the Alamo took place on the morning of the 6th of March, 1836. There were 188 Texans defending the place, while the Mexican force numbered from 2500 to 5000. Three women, a child, and a negro servant survived the fight. The statement in the last line of the poem refers to the defenders.

=l. 1.= =Houston= (Samuel, 1793-1863), a Virginian by birth, the commander-in-chief of the army of the Texas republic. He was the second president (first by regular election) of the Republic of Texas, and afterward United States senator and the governor of the State.

=l. 4.= =Nueces=, a river of southern Texas emptying into Corpus Christi Bay.

=l. 5.= =Castrillon=, a Mexican general (a Spaniard by birth) who was killed at San Jacinto, where he had command of the artillery. It was he who had charge of the assault on the Alamo.

=Cos= (Martin Perfecto de), a Mexican general, and brother-in-law of Santa Anna. He was in command at San Antonio when the place was surrendered to the Texans in December, 1835. He was released upon parole under the promise that he would not oppose the re-establishment of the Federal Constitution of 1824. He returned with Santa Anna the following year, and participated in the attack upon the Alamo, hence the epithet “perjured.”

=Sesmá= (Ramirez y), a Mexican general.

=Almontê= (Juan Nepomunceno), the son of a Mexican priest and patriot. He was a colonel in the Mexican army, and Santa Anna’s secretary. He at one time served as the Mexican minister to the United States. He was an upholder of Maximilian and served in his cabinet. When that ill-fated prince fell, Almontê escaped to France, where he died two or three years later.

=l. 6.= =Santa Anna= (Antonio Lopez de, 1795-1876), several times president of Mexico, and when not in power usually a conspirator against the head of the government. He was in command of the Mexican army in the war against the Texans, and again in the war with the United States. He served under Maximilian, and against him. No less than six times he was exiled, or fled the country.

=l. 13.= =Travis= (William Barrett, 1811-1836), the colonel who commanded at the defence of the Alamo, by birth an Alabamian. He practiced law in his native State in his early manhood, but emigrated to Texas in 1832, and there became interested in the cause of independence. He was of fine stature, and noted for his intrepidity.

=l. 16.= =Bowie= (James, 1790-1836), a Georgian who gained notoriety on account of his part in a bloody mêlée which followed a duel fought opposite Natchez, on the Mississippi, in August, 1827. It is said that it was in this encounter that the famous knife which afterward bore Bowie’s name was first used. The original weapon was made from a blacksmith’s broken rasp or file. Bowie emigrated from Louisiana, where he was living at the time of the duel, to Texas, and was active in the Texan struggle till his death.

=l. 17.= =Evans= (Robert), a Texan major of artillery who was shot when on the point of firing a train to blow up the magazine of the Alamo at Travis’s order.

=l. 29.= =Crockett= (David, familiarly known as “Davy,” 1786-1836). This noted frontiersman was a Tennesseean. He was prominent in the Creek war, and after a wild life as a scout and hunter became a member of the State legislature, and then of Congress. His waning influence with his constituents, owing to the fact that he opposed Jackson, caused him to join the Texans in their struggle for liberty.

=l. 54.= =San Jacinto.= See note on following poem.

=l. 57.= =Thermopylæ=, the pass from Thessaly into Locris where Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans fell, B.C. 480.

14. THE FIGHT AT THE SAN JACINTO. By John Williamson Palmer.

John Williamson Palmer. See note on “The Maryland Battalion.”

The San Jacinto is a river in southern Texas which joins Buffalo Bayou very near where that stream empties into Galveston Bay. The battle by which the Texans gained their independence took place on the 21st of April, 1836. The Texan army numbered exactly seven hundred and eighty-three men, while the Mexicans had more than double that force.

=Stanza 1.= =Harman= (Clark M.), a member of the Texan artillery corps.

=Stanza 2.= For =Santa Anna=, =Castrillon=, =Almontê= and =Cos=, see “The Men of the Alamo.”

=Portilla= (J. N. de la), the Mexican colonel, a native of Yucatan, in command at Goliad, who carried out Santa Anna’s infamous order, and executed Colonel Fannin and his men. See Fannin, p. 205.

=Houston.= See “The Men of the Alamo.”

=Stanza 4.= =Deaf Smith= (Erastus, called “Deaf” from his infirmity, 1787-1837), a New Yorker by birth, and a guide and spy in the Texan army. His parents early emigrated to Mississippi, and he visited Texas in 1817, but did not settle there until 1821. His courage and coolness in battle were remarkable, and his familiarity with the country rendered his services of the greatest value to the Texan cause.

=Karnes= (Henry W.), a Tennesseean, who rose to the rank of colonel in the Texan service. He served with “Deaf” Smith as a scout on various occasions, and was a captain of cavalry at San Jacinto. He died at San Antonio in 1840.

=Stanza 6.= For =Travis=, =Bowie=, and =Crockett=, see “The Men of the Alamo.”

=Milam= (Benjamin R.), one of the most distinguished and valorous of the Texan patriots who was killed while conducting the attack on San Antonio, December 7, 1835. (See Cos.). Milam was a Kentuckian, and was one of the first citizens of the United States to visit Texas. He was prominent in the Mexican War for Independence, but later suffered much at the hands of the Mexicans. The subjoined tribute to his memory is by William H. Wharton.

Oft shall the soldier think of thee, Thou dauntless leader of the brave, Who on the heights of Tyranny Won Freedom and a glorious grave.

And o’er thy tomb shall pilgrims weep, And pray to heaven in murmurs low That peaceful be the hero’s sleep Who conquered San Antonio.

Enshrined on Honor’s deathless scroll, A nation’s thanks will tell thy fame; Long as her beauteous rivers roll Shall Freedom’s votaries hymn thy name.

For bravest of the Texan clime, Who fought to make her children free, Was Milam, and his death sublime Linked with undying Liberty!

=Fannin= (James W., 1800-1835), a Texan colonel, born in North Carolina, who, with nearly four hundred men, was shot down in cold blood at Goliad, on the San Antonio River, after he had surrendered at the battle of Coleto Creek.

=Millard= (Henry), a Texan lieutenant-colonel.

=Lamar= (Mirabeau B.), the third president of the Republic of Texas, a Georgian by birth. He had command of the cavalry at San Jacinto.

15. MONTEREY. By Charles Fenno Hoffman.

Charles Fenno Hoffman, one of our most versatile and voluminous writers until his brain became affected in 1849, was born in New York City in 1806. He died in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, June 7, 1884.

Monterey is the capital of the Mexican State Nuevo Leon. The famous battle was fought on September 21, 22, and 23, 1846. The place was defended by ten thousand men under General Ampudia. The American force is estimated to have been about six thousand five hundred.

16. THE DEFENSE OF LAWRENCE. By Richard Realf.

Richard Realf was born in Framfield, Sussex, England, June 14, 1834. He emigrated to America in 1855, and was connected with John Brown and his men in Kansas and Iowa during the two years following. He served with the 88th Illinois Volunteer Infantry throughout the Civil War, and then became a newspaper writer and lecturer. Unfortunate domestic relations led to his suicide in San Francisco, October 28, 1878. The lyric “Indirection” is usually regarded as Realf’s finest poem.

“The Defense of Lawrence” commemorates “the resistance made, in September, 1856, to the last pro-slavery attack on Lawrence, Kansas, when a small number of Free State men successfully held the place against twenty-four hundred armed Missourians, and drove back their advance of three hundred men.”

=Stanza 6.= =Gideon.= See Judges, chapters 6, 7, and 8.

=Stanza 7.= The river referred to in the last line of the stanza is the Wakarusa.

17. BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER. By Wallace Rice.

Wallace Rice, a Chicago critic and poet, was born in Hamilton, Ontario, November 10, 1859, of American parents temporarily resident there.

“The treaty obtained from China by the English in 1858 was to be returned, by its terms, to the Chinese capital for final ratification by June 26, 1859. The British forces assembled at the mouth of Pei-Ho River, on the direct road to Pekin, for that purpose, June 25, 1859. Their heavier vessels were kept in the gulf by a bar, but the lighter gunboats went on up the stream until their progress was stopped by the obstructions placed at the fort. The U. S. S. _Powhatan_, Flag Officer Tattnall, bore John E. Wade and his suite, who were to represent the United States at similar negotiations then pending. The size of the _Powhatan_ did not permit her entry upon the river, so Tattnall secured the small unarmed merchant steamer _Toey-Wan_ to take the representative of our government to Pekin. The rest of the story is told substantially as it occurred, the British loss being 89 killed and 345 wounded, out of 1,100 engaged. But for the _Toey-Wan_ and Tattnall’s interference--wholly unwarranted by all considerations save those which he himself brought forward--there can be no doubt that England’s entire force would have been killed or captured.” W. R.

Josiah Tattnall, the hero of the “Blood is Thicker than Water” episode, was the son of a Georgia soldier and statesman, and was born in Bonaventure, Georgia, November 9, 1795. He entered the navy at seventeen, and served in the War of 1812, in the war with Algiers, and in the Mexican War. Soon after the outbreak of the Rebellion he offered his services to the Confederates. It was he who, in March, 1862, succeeded Franklin Buchanan in command of the _Merrimac_, and it was he who destroyed that noted vessel to prevent her capture. He died in Savannah, Georgia, June 14, 1871.

Stephen Decatur Trenchard, who was wounded at the Pei-Ho engagement, entered the navy in 1834, and served until 1880, when he was retired, being at the time a rear-admiral. He was a lieutenant when he fought with Tattnall.

The Gulf of Pechi-Li is a land-locked extension of the Yellow Sea between the base of the Corean peninsula and the Chinese province of Shan-Tung.

The Pei-Ho is a Chinese river that rises near the borders of Mongolia, and flows northeast and southeast past Pekin and Tientsin into the Gulf of Pechi-Li.

=Stanza 3.= =Hope= (Admiral Sir James, 1808-1881). He was twice severely wounded in the Pei-Ho action, but remained personally in command throughout the fight. The year following, he led an expedition which successfully attacked the forts, and opened the river for navigation.

=Stanza 4.= =Rason= and =McKenna=, officers in Hope’s fleet, the one a lieutenant-commander, the other a captain.

18. BETHEL. By Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne.

Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1823. He was a colonel of New York volunteers during the Civil War. He was afterward employed upon the staff of the New York _Tribune_. He died in New York City, October 20, 1884.

The battle of Big Bethel, near Fortress Monroe, Virginia, was the first action of the Civil War, and was fought June 10, 1861. The Union forces were under the command of a militia brigadier from Massachusetts, General E. W. Pierce, to whose incapacity and inexperience the Confederate success was largely due. Winthrop (Major Theodore, the author of “John Brent” and “Cecil Dreeme”) led an assault upon the rebel works, and was shot dead while standing upon a log, cheering his men to the charge. Says Horace Greeley of him in “The American Conflict,”--“His courage and conduct throughout the fight rendered him conspicuous to, and excited the admiration of, his enemies.” The Duryea mentioned in the poem (Colonel Abram) was in command of a regiment of New York volunteers. Later, he was made a brigadier-general, participated in several important battles, and at the close of the war was breveted major-general.

19. THE CHARGE BY THE FORD. By Thomas Dunn English.

Thomas Dunn English. See note on “Arnold at Stillwater.”

An incident that occurred in 1861, in the Gauley River region, West Virginia.

20. THE LITTLE DRUMMER. By Richard Henry Stoddard.