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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gentlemen Rovers
+
+Author: E. Alexander Powell
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2011 [EBook #37812]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENTLEMEN ROVERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by paksenarrion, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       GENTLEMEN ROVERS
+  [Illustration: Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds.]
+
+
+                       GENTLEMEN ROVERS
+
+               BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S.
+              AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FRONTIER," ETC.
+
+                         ILLUSTRATED
+
+                   CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+                        NEW YORK 1913
+
+                     COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
+                   CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+                  Published September, 1913
+
+                        [Illustration]
+
+                              To
+                 THE FINEST GENTLEMAN I KNOW
+                          MY FATHER
+
+
+           "There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
+           That carries no colors or crest,
+           But, split in a thousand detachments,
+           Is breaking the road for the rest.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           The ends o' the Earth were our portion,
+           The ocean at large was our share,
+           There was never a skirmish to windward
+           But the Leaderless Legion was there.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           We preach in advance of the Army,
+           We skirmish ahead of the Church,
+           With never a gunboat to help us
+           When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.
+           But we know as the cartridges finish
+           And we're filed on our last little shelves,
+           That the Legion that never was 'listed
+           Will send us as good as ourselves.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           Then a health (we must drink it in whispers)
+           To our wholly unauthorized horde--
+           To the line of our dusty foreloopers,
+           To the Gentlemen Rovers abroad!"
+
+           --_The Lost Legion._
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+This book is written as a tribute to some men who have been overlooked
+by History and forgotten by Fame. Though they won for us more than half
+the territory comprised within our present-day borders, not only have no
+monuments been erected to perpetuate their exploits in bronze and
+marble, but they lie for the most part in forgotten and neglected
+graves, some of them under alien skies. Boyd, Truxtun, Eaton, Reed,
+Lafitte, Smith, Ide, Ward, Walker--even their names hold no significance
+for their countrymen of the present generation, yet they played great
+parts in our national drama. After two decades of history-making in
+Hindustan, Boyd came back to his own country and ably seconded William
+Henry Harrison in breaking the power of the great Indian confederation
+which threatened to check the white man's westward march. When both
+France and England were our enemies, and the gloom of despondency hung
+like a cloud over the land, it was Truxtun and his bluejackets who put
+new heart into the nation by their victories. Eaton and his motley army
+marched across six hundred miles of African desert, and by bringing the
+Barbary despots to their knees accomplished that which had been
+unsuccessfully attempted by every naval power in Europe. Captain Reed,
+of the _General Armstrong_, after holding off a British force twenty
+times the strength of his own, sunk his vessel rather than surrender. To
+a pirate and smuggler named Jean Lafitte, more than any other person
+save Andrew Jackson, we owe our thanks for saving New Orleans from
+capture and Louisiana from invasion. Jedediah Smith blazed the route of
+the Overland Trail and showed us the way to California, and a quarter of
+a century later Frémont, Ide, Sloat, and Stockton made the land beyond
+the Sierras ours. William Walker came within an ace of changing the map
+of Middle America, and made the name of American a synonym for courage
+from the Rio Grande to Panama, while on the other side of the world
+another American, Frederick Townsend Ward, raised and led that ever
+victorious army whose exploits were General Gordon's chief claim to
+fame. There was not one of these men of whom we have not reason to be
+proud. But because they did their work unofficially, in what might
+aptly be described as "shirt-sleeve warfare," and because they went
+ahead without waiting for the tardy sanction of those who guided our
+ship of state, the deeds they performed have never received befitting
+recognition from those who follow by the trails they made, who grow rich
+from the mines that they discovered, who dwell upon the lands they won.
+And that is why I am going to ask you, my friends, as in the following
+pages I lead these forgotten heroes before you in imaginary review, to
+raise your hats in respect and admiration to this company of brave
+soldiers and gallant gentlemen who so stoutly upheld American prestige
+and American traditions in many far corners of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+    FOR RENT: AN ARMY ON ELEPHANTS                             1
+    WHEN WE FOUGHT NAPOLEON                                   19
+    WHEN WE CAPTURED AN AFRICAN KINGDOM                       45
+    THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"                 73
+    THE PIRATE WHO TURNED PATRIOT                             89
+    THE MAN WHO DARED TO CROSS THE RANGES                    125
+    THE FLAG OF THE BEAR                                     153
+    THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS                              179
+    CITIES CAPTURED BY CONTRACT                              217
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds               _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                    FACING
+                                                                     PAGE
+    The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam          12
+
+    The battle of Tippecanoe                                          16
+
+    The frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of
+    Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge
+    and his entire crew                                               54
+
+    But even in those days the fame of American gunners
+    was as wide as the seas                                           86
+
+    The battle of New Orleans                                        120
+
+    Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the
+    sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah                         136
+
+    The Sacramento Valley in 1845                                    164
+
+    General William Walker and his men, after a long and stormy
+    voyage, landing at Virgin Bay, en route to Costa Rica            196
+
+    General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza, Granada      200
+
+    The programme was always the same: the sudden rush
+    of the filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the
+    taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza            206
+
+    "Come on, boys!" shouted Ward. "We're going in!" and plunged
+    through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand              230
+
+
+
+
+FOR RENT: AN ARMY ON ELEPHANTS
+
+
+The pitiless Indian sun had poured down upon the Hyderabad _maidan_
+until its sandy surface glowed like a stove at white heat. Drawn up in
+motionless ranks, which stretched from end to end of the great
+parade-ground, was a division of cavalry: squadron after squadron of
+scarlet-coated troopers on sleek and shining horses; row after row of
+brown and bearded faces peering stolidly from under the white turbans.
+The rays of the sun danced and sparkled upon ten thousand lance-points;
+the feeble breeze picked up ten thousand pennons and fluttered them into
+a white-and-scarlet cloud. Now and then the silence would be broken by a
+clash of steel as a horse tossed its head or a _sowar_ stirred uneasily
+in his saddle. Sitting a white Arab, a score of paces in advance of the
+foremost rank, very stiff and soldierly in his gorgeous uniform, was a
+tall young man whose ruddy cheeks and pleasant eyes looked strangely out
+of place in so Oriental a setting.
+
+From somewhere within the city walls a bugle spoke shrilly and was
+answered by another and then another, each nearer than the one
+preceding. The young man in the splendid uniform barked an order, and
+men and horses stiffened into rigidity as sharply as though an electric
+current had gone through them. Through the twin-towered gateway of the
+city advanced a procession, colorful as a circus, dazzling as a durbar.
+The two figures who rode at the head of the glittering cortege formed an
+almost startling contrast. One of them answered in every detail the
+popular conception of an Asiatic potentate: haughty of manner, portly of
+person, with a clear, dark skin and wonderfully piercing eyes and a
+great black beard, spreading fan-wise upon his breast. An aigret of
+diamonds flashed and scintillated in his flame-colored turban; rubies,
+large as robin's eggs, gleamed in his ears, and hanging from his neck
+over his pale blue surtout was a rope of pearls which would have roused
+the envy of an empress. His companion, to whom he paid marked attention,
+was equally noticeable, though in quite a different fashion: a lean,
+smooth-shaven, lantern-jawed man, still in the middle thirties, very
+cold and reserved of manner, with a great beak of a nose and a jaw like
+a granite crag. It did not need the cocked hat and gold epaulets of a
+British general to mark him as a soldier.
+
+As the cortege cantered onto the _maidan_ the massed bands of the
+cavalry burst into a wild, barbaric march, brass and kettle-drums
+crashing together in stirring discord. The strains ceased as abruptly as
+they began, and the youthful commander, rising in his stirrups, shot his
+blade into the air and called in a voice like a trumpet:
+
+"Cheers for his Highness!"
+
+And back came a guttural roar from ten thousand throats:
+
+"Long live the Nizam!"
+
+Obviously gratified at the warmth of his greeting, the ruler of the
+Deccan wheeled his horse and came cantering up to the cavalryman, whose
+sword flashed in salute.
+
+"Boyd Sahib," he said, "you are a veritable magician. You turn ryots
+into soldiers as readily as a fakir turns a stone into bread. Your men
+are admirable. I congratulate you on their appearance."
+
+Then, turning to his taciturn companion:
+
+"Sir Arthur Wellesley, permit me to present to you Boyd Sahib, commander
+of my cavalry and my trusted friend. General Boyd," he added, glancing
+at the Englishman with a malicious smile, "is a very brilliant
+soldier--and an American."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus met, when the nineteenth century was still in its
+swaddling-clothes, two extraordinary men: Sir Arthur Wellesley, who in
+later years, as the Duke of Wellington, was to gain undying fame by
+conquering Napoleon; and General John Parker Boyd, an American soldier
+of fortune, who rendered most gallant service to his own people, but
+whose very name has been forgotten by them.
+
+Jack Boyd, as his boyhood companions in Newburyport used to call him,
+was born with the spirit of adventure strong within him. Almost before
+he had graduated from dresses to knee-trousers he would linger about the
+wharfs of the quaint old town, drinking in the stories of strange places
+and stranger doings told him by the seafarers who were wont to
+congregate along the water-front, or staring wistfully at the big, black
+merchantmen about to sail for foreign parts. He was wont to say that it
+was a perverse and unkind fate which caused him to be born in so
+inauspicious a year as 1764, for, though there was no more ardent
+youngster in all New England, his youth caused the recruiting sergeants
+of the Continental Army to whom he applied for enlistment to pat him on
+the shoulder and remark encouragingly: "Come again, son, when you're a
+few years older."
+
+Thus it was that he saw unroll before him that marvellous moving-picture
+of the birth of a nation, which began on the greensward at Lexington and
+ended before the British lines at Yorktown, without being able to play
+any greater part in those stirring events than does a spectator in the
+thrilling scenes which he pays his five cents to see depicted on a
+screen. Indeed, a twelve-month passed after the last British soldier
+left our shores before young Boyd achieved the ambition of his life by
+obtaining an ensign's commission in the 2d Regiment of Foot and donned
+the blue coat and buff breeches of an officer in the American army.
+Although within a year he had been promoted to lieutenant, his was not
+the temperament which could long endure the monotony of garrison life,
+with its unending round of guard-mounting and small-arms practice and
+company drill. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that before
+the gold braid on his lieutenant's uniform had time to tarnish he had
+handed in his papers and had booked passage on an East Indiaman sailing
+out of Boston for Madras. The year 1788, then, saw this youngster of
+four-and-twenty landed on the coast of Coromandel, poor in acquaintances
+and pocket but rich in adventurousness and pluck.
+
+He could have taken his military talents to no better market, for at
+this period of India's troubled history a brilliant career awaited a man
+whose wits were as sharp as his sword. The last quarter of the
+eighteenth century found all India ablaze with racial and religious
+hatred. Wars were as frequent as strikes are in the United States.
+Though the French were still supreme in the south of the peninsula, the
+English power was steadily rising in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. There
+were really two distinct struggles in progress: the English were
+fighting the French and the Hindus were fighting the Mohammedans. The
+most powerful of the native princes at this time were the Nizam of
+Hyderabad, and the Peishwa, as the ruler of the Mahratta tribes was
+called--both of whom had, for reasons of policy, espoused the English
+cause--and Tippoo Sahib, the son of a Mohammedan military adventurer who
+had made himself Sultan of Mysore, who was an ally of the French. Ranged
+on the one side, then, were the British, with their allies, the Nizam
+and the Peishwa, while opposed to them were the French and Tippoo of
+Mysore. All of the reigning princes of India maintained extensive
+military establishments, and soldiers of fortune found at their courts
+rapid promotion and lavish pay. When Boyd landed in India he was
+confronted with the problem which of the rival causes he should make his
+own, and it speaks well for his sagacity and foresight that he promptly
+decided to offer his services to the allies of the English, for at that
+time most students of politics, in India and out of it, believed that
+the future of the peninsula was to be Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon.
+
+From Madras Boyd made his way on horseback to the Mahratta country,
+where his attractive personality and soldierly appearance so impressed
+the Peishwa that he gave the young American the command of a cavalry
+brigade of fifteen hundred men. Boyd was now in possession of the raw
+material for which he had hankered, and he forthwith proceeded to show
+his extraordinary skill in welding, tempering, and sharpening it. From
+daybreak until dark his camp resounded to the call of bugles, the words
+of command, and the clatter of galloping hoofs. He hammered his men into
+shape as a blacksmith hammers a bar of iron, until they combined the
+inflexible discipline of Prussian foot-guards with the mobility and
+endurance of Texas rangers. His chance to test the quality of his
+handiwork came in 1790, when Tippoo Sultan, failing in his attempt to
+bring on a renewal of the war between England and France, turned loose
+his hordes and overran the land. In the three years' war which followed,
+the British, under Lord Cornwallis, who was striving to regain in India
+the reputation he had lost at Yorktown, were aided by the Mahrattas and
+the Nizam, who were induced by fear and jealousy to join in the struggle
+against their powerful neighbor. Thus Opportunity knocked sharply on
+Boyd's door. Commanding a body of as fine horsemen as ever threw leg
+across saddle, his name quickly became a synonym for audacity and
+daring. Riding, wholly without support, into the very heart of Tippoo's
+dominions, he would strike a series of paralyzing blows, burn a dozen
+towns, capture or destroy immense stores of ammunition, exact a huge
+indemnity, and be back in his own territory again before any troops
+could be brought up to oppose him. Boyd's flying columns played no small
+part, indeed, in the campaign which ended in 1792 with the defeat of
+Tippoo--a defeat for which the Sultan had to pay by ceding half his
+dominions, paying an indemnity of three thousand lacs of rupees (one
+hundred million dollars), and giving his two sons as hostages for his
+future good behavior.
+
+Boyd, meanwhile, had never let slip an opportunity for improving his
+knowledge of Hindustani and its kindred dialects or familiarizing
+himself with the complex conditions, racial, religious, and political,
+which prevailed in Hindustan. Realizing that the Mahratta power was on
+the wane, he resigned from the service of the Peishwa, and, bearing
+letters of the highest commendation from that ruler to the British envoy
+at the court of the Nizam, he turned his horse's head toward Hyderabad.
+In a letter to his father, written at this time, he says: "On my arrival
+I was presented to his Highness in form by the English consul. My
+reception was as favorable as my most sanguine wishes had anticipated.
+After the usual ceremony was over he presented me with the command of
+two _kansolars_ of infantry, each of which consists of five hundred
+men." Continuing, he described in detail the army of the Nizam, which at
+that time consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand infantry, sixty
+thousand cavalry, and five hundred elephants, each of which bore a
+"castle" containing a nabob and his attendants. Can't you picture the
+scene when that letter, with its strange foreign postmarks, reached the
+old brick house in the quaint New England town; how the parents read and
+re-read that message from the son who was adventuring in foreign parts,
+and how the neighbors dropped in of evenings to hear the latest news of
+the boy they all knew, who was carving out a career with his sword half
+the world away? Success is, after all, a rather tasteless thing if there
+are no home folks to rejoice in it.
+
+Fortuna, that capricious beauty whose favor so many brave men have
+sought in vain, seemed to have lost her heart to the stalwart American,
+for in 1799, when Tippoo and his savage soldiery once more broke loose
+and swept across the peninsula, leaving a trail of corpses and burning
+villages behind them, the Nizam, recalling the tales he had heard of
+Boyd's exploits as a cavalry leader, gave him the command of a division
+of ten thousand turbaned troopers. Nor did the fair goddess desert him
+even when he was captured by a body of Mysore horsemen, taken before
+Tippoo Sahib himself, and, upon his stoutly refusing to turn traitor to
+the Nizam, condemned to death by torture. And the torturers of the
+tyrant of Mysore bore a most evil reputation. Overpowering the sentries
+who were set to guard him, he succeeded in making his way, thanks to his
+fluency in Hindustani, through the enemy's lines, rejoining the Nizam's
+forces in time to take part in the storming of the Sultan's capital of
+Seringapatam, Tippoo being killed in a hand-to-hand struggle after a
+last stand at the city gates. Thus died, as he would have wished--with
+his boots on--the most dangerous adversary with whom Britain had to
+contend in the winning of her Eastern empire.
+
+[Illustration: The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam.
+
+From a painting by R. de Moraine.]
+
+Early in the nineteenth century Boyd, who, as the result of the generous
+rewards he had received from his royal employers, had by this time
+become possessed of considerable means, left the service of the Nizam,
+much against the wishes of that monarch, and organized an army of his
+own. Numerically, it wasn't much of an army, as armies go, having at no
+time exceeded two thousand men, but it was as businesslike a force as
+ever responded to a bugle. Boyd, whose reputation as a cavalry leader
+extended from Bengal to Malabar, had the horsemen of all India to draw
+from, and he recruited nothing but the best, the men with whom he filled
+his ranks being as hard as nails and as keen as razors. His second in
+command was an Irish soldier of fortune named William Tone, a brother of
+Wolf Tone, the famous rebel patriot.
+
+As Boyd reckoned on counterbalancing the smallness of his force by its
+extreme mobility, he adopted the novel expedient of transporting his
+artillery on the backs of elephants, thus making it possible for the
+guns to keep pace with the cavalry even on his whirlwind raids, for an
+elephant, though burdened with a field-piece and half a dozen soldiers,
+can put mile after mile behind it at a swinging, ungainly gait which it
+will tax any horse to maintain. Military history presents no more
+fantastic picture than that of this sun-tanned Yankee adventurer
+spurring across an Indian countryside with a brigade of beturbaned
+lancers and a score or so of lumbering elephants, the muzzles of brass
+field-guns frowning from their howdahs, tearing along behind him. What a
+pity that the folk in Newburyport could not have seen him!
+
+The entire outfit--elephants, horses, cannon, and weapons--was Boyd's
+personal property, and he rented it to those princes who had need of and
+were able to pay for its service precisely as a garage rents an
+automobile. The prices he obtained for it were enormous, and ere long he
+became a wealthy man. From one end of the country to the other he led
+his scarlet-coated mercenaries, selling their services in turn to his
+former employers, the Nizam and the Peishwa, and to the rulers of
+Gwalior and Indore. When a force was needed for a particularly desperate
+service or for a hopeless hope they sent for Boyd. And he always
+delivered the goods. Fighting was going on everywhere, and he never
+lacked employment. But he was far too discerning not to recognize the
+fact that the power of England was steadily, if slowly, increasing, and
+that her complete domination of India, which could not much longer be
+delayed, must inevitably put an end to independent soldiering as a
+profitable profession. In 1808, therefore, he sold his army, elephants
+and all, to Colonel Felose, a Neapolitan who had seen service under many
+flags, and with misted eyes and a choking throat for the last time rode
+along the lines of his faithful troopers. A few days later he set sail
+for Paris, for, with the Corsican's star high in the heavens, there
+seemed no better place for such a man to seek adventure and advancement.
+Disappointed in his hope of obtaining a commission under the Napoleonic
+eagles, he turned his face toward home, and in 1810, after an absence of
+more than twenty years, he felt the cobblestones of his native
+Newburyport beneath his feet once more.
+
+Boyd's adventurous career under his own flag and in the service of his
+own people forms quite another though a scarcely less thrilling story.
+Trained and experienced officers being in those days few and far
+between, the government offered him the colonelcy of the 4th Regiment of
+Infantry, which he promptly accepted, displaying such energy in drilling
+his men that when his regiment marched through the streets of Boston on
+its way to Pittsburg the local papers commented editorially on the
+smartness of its appearance. When William Henry Harrison, then governor
+of the Territory of Indiana (which included the present States of
+Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin), realizing the imperative
+necessity of smashing the great Indian confederation which Tecumseh, the
+Shawnee warrior-statesman, was so painstakingly building to oppose the
+white man's further progress westward, called for troops to do the
+business, Boyd put his men on flat-boats, floated them down to the falls
+of the Ohio, and marched them overland to Vincennes, his dusty, footsore
+column tramping into Harrison's stockaded headquarters almost before
+that veteran frontiersman had realized that they had started. Boyd was
+in direct command, under Harrison, of the little expeditionary force of
+nine hundred men throughout the whirlwind campaign which culminated on a
+drizzling November morning in 1811 on the banks of the Tippecanoe
+River. Tippecanoe was, I suppose, the only battle which our army ever
+fought in high hats, for the absurd uniform of the American infantry,
+discarded a few months later, consisted of blue, brass-buttoned
+tail-coats, skin-tight pantaloons, and "stovepipe" hats with red, white,
+and blue cockades. Though taken by surprise and outnumbered six to one,
+Boyd's soldiery showed the result of their training by standing like a
+stone wall against the onset of the whooping redskins, pouring in a
+volley of buckshot at close range which left the hordes of warriors
+wavering, undecided whether to come on or to retreat. At this
+psychological moment Boyd ordered up the squadron of dragoons which he
+had been holding in reserve for just such an opportunity. "Right into
+line!" he roared in the voice which had resounded over so many fields in
+far-off Hindustan. "Trot! Gallop! _Charge!_ Hip, hip, here we go!" It
+was the charge of the cavalry, delivered with all the smashing
+suddenness with which a boxer delivers a solar-plexus blow, which did
+the business. The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight of the oncoming
+troopers in their brass helmets and streaming plumes of horsehair, broke
+and ran. Tippecanoe was won; Harrison was started on the road which was
+to end in the White House; the peril of Tecumseh's Indian confederation
+was ended forever, and the civilization of the West was advanced a
+quarter of a century.
+
+[Illustration: The battle of Tippecanoe.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+In the following year, upon the outbreak of our second war with England,
+Boyd, who had been commissioned a brigadier-general, commanded a
+division of Wilkinson's army in the abortive American invasion of Upper
+Canada, and, on November 11, 1813, fought the drawn battle of Chrysler's
+Field. "Taps" were sounded to his picturesque career on October 4, 1830.
+He died, not as he would have wished, sword in hand at the head of
+charging squadrons, but quite peacefully in his bed, holding the prosaic
+position of port officer of Boston, to which post he had been appointed
+by that other gallant fighter, President Andrew Jackson. As the end
+approached I doubt not that in mind he was far away from the brick and
+plaster of the New England city, and that his thoughts harked back to
+those mad, glad days when he and his lancers rode across the plains of
+Hindustan and his elephants rocked and rolled behind him.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN WE FOUGHT NAPOLEON
+
+
+This is the story of some forgotten fights and fighters in a forgotten
+war. The governments of the two nations which did the fighting--France
+and the United States--refused, indeed, to admit that there was any war
+at all, and, in a sense, they were right, for there was never any
+declaration of hostilities, and there was never signed a treaty of
+peace. But it was a very real war, nevertheless, with some of the
+fiercest battles ever fought on deep water, and when it was over we had
+laid the foundations of a navy, we had won the respect of the European
+powers, and we had humbled the pride of Napoleon as it had been humbled
+only once before, when Nelson annihilated the French fleet in the battle
+of the Nile.
+
+At the time that this narrative opens Bonaparte had just finished his
+wonderful campaign in northern Italy, and the French nation, flushed
+with confidence by his remarkable series of victories, was swaggering
+about with a chip on its shoulder, and defying the nations of the world
+to knock it off. In fact, the leaders of the Reign of Terror, drunk with
+unaccustomed power, had lost their heads as completely as the victims
+whom they had guillotined on the Place de la Révolution. Thoroughly
+typical of this insolent and arrogant attitude was the French
+Directory's peremptory demand that we instantly abrogate the treaty
+which John Jay, our minister to England, had just concluded with that
+country, basing its unwarrantable interference with our affairs on the
+ground that the terms of the treaty were injurious to the commercial
+interests of France. Upon our curt refusal to accede to this
+preposterous demand, Charles C. Pinckney, our minister at Paris, was
+notified by the French Government that it would hold no further
+intercourse with him, and the very next mail-packet brought the news
+that he had been expelled from France. Not content with this
+extraordinary and uncalled-for affront to a friendly nation, French
+cruisers began seizing our ships under a decree of their government
+authorizing the capture of neutral vessels having on board any of the
+products of Great Britain or her colonies, for at this time, remember,
+France and England were at war, as they were, indeed, throughout nearly
+the whole of Napoleon's reign. As the bulk of our trade at this period
+was with the British colonies in the West Indies, it was evident that
+this decree was aimed directly at us. Every packet that came from West
+Indian waters brought news of American ships overhauled and plundered,
+of sailors beaten and kidnapped, and of cargoes seized and confiscated
+by the French, the authenticated despatches to the State Department
+naming nearly a thousand vessels which had been captured. So bold did
+the French become that one of their privateers actually had the audacity
+to sail into Charleston Roads and, almost under the guns of the
+batteries, to burn to the water's edge a British vessel which was lying
+in the harbor.
+
+Though it was evident that nothing short of a miracle could avert war,
+President Adams, appreciating the ill-preparedness of the United States,
+which had only recently emerged from the Revolution in a weakened and
+impoverished condition, determined to make one more try for peace by
+despatching to France a special mission composed of Minister Pinckney,
+Elbridge Gerry, and John Marshall, the last-named later Chief Justice of
+the United States. Though in all our diplomatic history we have sent
+abroad no more able or distinguished embassy, the reception its members
+received at the hands of the French Government was as disgraceful as it
+was ludicrous. The French Directory at this time was composed of low
+and irresponsible politicians of the ward-heeler type who had climbed to
+power during the French Revolution, so that, incredible as such a state
+of affairs may seem in these days, the negotiations soon degenerated
+into an attempt to fleece the American envoys, who were informed quite
+frankly that their success depended entirely upon their agreeing to
+bribe--or, as the French politely put it, to give a _douceur_
+to--certain avaricious members of the Directory. Not only this, but the
+American diplomatists were told that, if the bribes demanded were not
+forthcoming, orders would be given to the war-ships on the French West
+Indian station to ravage the coasts of the United States. The chronicles
+of our foreign relations contain nothing which, for sheer impudence and
+insult, even approaches this attempt to levy blackmail on the nation.
+Even the astute Talleyrand, at that time French Foreign Minister, so far
+misjudged the characters of the men with whom he was dealing as to
+insinuate that a gift of money to members of the government was a
+necessary preliminary to the negotiations, and that a refusal would
+bring on war. Then all the pent-up rage and indignation of Pinckney
+burst forth. "War be it, then!" he exclaimed. "Millions for defence,
+sir, but not one cent for tribute!"
+
+Upon learning of this crowning insult to his representatives, President
+Adams, on March 19, 1798, informed Congress that the mission on which he
+had built his hopes of peace had proved a failure. Then the war-fever,
+which had temporarily been held in abeyance, swept over the country like
+fire in dry grass. Talleyrand's attempt to whip America into a
+revocation of Jay's treaty had ignominiously failed. He had made the
+inexcusable mistake of underestimating the spirit and resources of his
+opponents. Congress promptly abrogated all our treaties with France,
+prohibited American vessels from entering French ports, and French
+vessels from coming into American waters, and voted a large sum for
+national defence. The land forces were increased, the coastwise
+fortifications strengthened, ships of war were hurriedly laid down,
+volunteers from every walk of life besieged the recruiting stations,
+Washington reassumed command of the army. At Portland, Portsmouth,
+Salem, Chatham, Norwich, Philadelphia, and Baltimore the shipyards
+resounded to the clatter of tools, for those were before the days of big
+guns and armor-plate, and a man-of-war could, if necessary, be built and
+equipped in ninety days.
+
+Out from behind this war-cloud rose the thrilling strains of "Hail,
+Columbia." When the war-fever was at its height, a young actor and
+singer named Fox--a vaudeville artist, we should call him nowadays--who
+was appearing at a Philadelphia theatre, called one morning on his
+friend Joseph Hopkinson, a young and clever lawyer, and a son of that
+Francis H. Hopkinson whose signature may be seen at the bottom of the
+Declaration of Independence.
+
+"Look here, Joe," said Fox, dropping into a chair, "I need some help and
+you're the only man I know who can give it to me. No, no, old man, it's
+not money I'm after. To-morrow night I'm to have a benefit at the
+theatre, but not a single box has been sold; so, unless something can be
+done to attract public attention, I'm afraid I shall have a mighty thin
+house. Now it strikes me that, with all this war-fever in the air, if I
+could get some patriotic verses, something really fiery and inspiriting,
+written to the tune of 'The President's March,' I might draw a crowd.
+Several of the people around the theatre have tried it, but they have
+all given it up as a bad job, and say that it can't be done. So you're
+my last hope, Joe, and I think you could do it."
+
+Shutting himself up in his study, within an hour Hopkinson had completed
+the first verse and chorus of what was to prove one of the greatest of
+our national songs, and had submitted them to his wife, who sang them
+to a harpsichord accompaniment. The tune and the words harmonized. A few
+hours later the song was completed and was being memorized by Fox. The
+next morning Philadelphia was placarded with announcements that that
+evening Mr. Fox would sing, for the first time on any stage, a new
+patriotic song. The house was packed to the doors. As the orchestra
+broke into the familiar opening bars of "The President's March," and
+Fox, slender and debonair, bowed from behind the footlights, the
+audience grew hushed with expectancy. When the now familiar words,
+
+    "Immortal patriots, rise once more!
+    Defend your rights, defend your shore!"
+
+went rolling through the theatre from pit to gallery, the audience went
+wild. Eight times they made him sing it through, and the ninth time they
+rose and joined in the rousing chorus:
+
+    "Firm, united let us be,
+    Rallying round our Liberty.
+    Like a band of brothers joined,
+    Peace and safety we shall find."
+
+Night after night the singing of "Hail, Columbia," in the theatres was
+applauded by audiences delirious with enthusiasm, and within a few days
+it was being sung by boys in the streets of every city from Portland to
+Savannah. Never since the days of Bunker Hill had the nation been so
+stirred as it was in that summer of 1798.
+
+On July 6, with the red-white-and-blue ensign streaming proudly from her
+main truck, the sloop of war _Delaware_, twenty guns, of Baltimore,
+under Stephen Decatur, Sr., put to sea to an accompaniment of booming
+cannon. Cape Henry had scarcely sunk below the horizon before she was
+hailed by a merchantman which had been boarded and plundered by a French
+privateer only the day before. Upon hearing this news Decatur set off in
+a pursuit as eager as that with which a bloodhound follows the trail of
+a fugitive criminal. A few hours later his lookouts reported four
+vessels dead ahead. Being unable to determine which was the privateer,
+he ran in his guns, closed his ports, and keeping on his course until he
+was sure that he had been seen, stood hurriedly off, as though afraid of
+being captured. Just as he had anticipated, the Frenchman fell into the
+trap, and piling on his canvas, bore down upon him. It was not until the
+privateersman drew close enough to make out the gun-ports and the
+unusual number of men on the American's decks, that he discovered
+Decatur's ruse and attempted to escape. But it was too late. The
+_Delaware's_ superior speed enabled her easily to overhaul the
+Frenchman, which proved to be _La Incroyable_, fourteen guns and seventy
+men. So accurate and deadly was the fire poured into her by the
+_Delaware's_ gunners (forerunners, remember, of those bluejackets who
+handle the twelve-inch guns on the dreadnaught _Delaware_ to-day) that
+within ten minutes after the action had commenced the French tricolor
+came fluttering down. We had struck our first blow against the power of
+France.
+
+The captured vessel was sent into port under a prize crew, was refitted,
+added to the American Navy as the _Retaliation_--fitting name!--went to
+sea under command of William Bainbridge (the same who a few years later
+was to lose the war-ship _Philadelphia_ to the Barbary pirates in the
+harbor of Tripoli), and shortly afterward was recaptured by the French
+frigate _l'Insurgente_, being the only vessel of our little navy taken
+by the French.
+
+By the beginning of 1799 the West Indian waters were as effectually
+patrolled by American war-ships as a great city is patrolled by
+policemen. The newly built American frigates were objects of great
+amusement and derision to the French and British officers stationed in
+the West Indian colonies, for they were far too heavily armed,
+according to European ideas, carrying almost double the number of guns
+usual to vessels of their class. It is interesting to recall the fact,
+however, that sixty-odd years later European officers were equally
+derisive and sceptical of another American innovation in war-ships which
+was destined to revolutionize naval warfare--the monitor. But before
+long the sceptics were compelled to revise their opinions of the
+fighting qualities of our infant navy. Our fleet was at this time
+divided into two squadrons, both of which made their headquarters at St.
+Christopher, or, as it was more commonly called, St. Kitts, on the
+island of Antigua; one, under Commodore Barry, running as far south as
+the Guianas, while the other, under Commodore Truxtun, cruised northward
+to Santo Domingo, thus effectually cutting off from commercial
+intercourse with the mother country the rich French colonies in the
+Caribbean.
+
+Truxtun was a most picturesque and romantic figure. Short and stout,
+red-faced, gray-eyed, loud-voiced, gallant with women and short-tempered
+with men, he was as typical a sea fighter as ever trod a quarter-deck
+with a brass telescope tucked under his arm. From the time when, as a
+boy of twelve, he ran away to sea, until, a national hero, he was laid
+to rest in Christ Church graveyard in Philadelphia, his life was as full
+of hair-breadth escapes and hair-raising adventures as that of one of
+Mr. George A. Henty's heroes. A sailor before the mast when scarcely in
+his teens, he was impressed into the British Navy, where his ability
+attracted such attention that he was offered a midshipman's warrant,
+which he refused. When only twenty years of age he commanded his own
+ship, in which he succeeded, though at great personal hazard, in
+smuggling large quantities of much-needed powder into the rebellious
+colonies. Eventually his ship was captured and he was made a prisoner.
+Escaping from the British prison in the West Indies where he was
+confined, he made his way to the United States, obtained letters of
+marque from the first Continental Congress, and was the first to get to
+sea of that long line of privateersmen who, first in the Revolution, and
+afterward in the War of 1812, practically drove British commerce from
+the Atlantic. At the close of the Revolution Truxtun returned to the
+merchant service, in which he rose to wealth and position. When the
+American Navy was organized under the stimulus of French aggression, he
+was offered and accepted the command of the thirty-eight-gun frigate
+_Constellation_, a new and very beautiful vessel, splendidly officered
+and manned, and with heels as fast as her gun-fire was heavy.
+
+While cruising off Antigua, on February 9, 1799, the _Constellation's_
+lookout reported a French war-ship, which, upon being overhauled, proved
+to be _l'Insurgente_, forty guns, which had the reputation of being one
+of the fastest ships in the world, and was commanded by Captain
+Barreault, an officer celebrated in the French Navy as a desperate
+fighter and a resourceful sailor. As the _Constellation_, with her crew
+at quarters and her decks cleared for action, came booming down upon
+him, Captain Barreault broke out the French tricolor at his masthead and
+fired a gun to windward, which signified, in the language of the seas,
+that he was ready for a yard-arm to yard-arm combat. Truxtun's reply was
+to range alongside his adversary, a flag of stripes and stars at every
+masthead, and pour in a broadside which raked _l'Insurgente's_ decks
+from stem to stern. The first great naval action in which the American
+Navy ever bore a part had begun.
+
+Waiting until the _Constellation_ was well abreast of her, at a distance
+of perhaps thirty feet (modern war-ships seldom fight at a range of less
+than three miles), _l'Insurgente_ replied, firing high in an attempt to
+disable the American by bringing down her rigging. Midshipman David
+Porter, a youngster barely in his teens, was stationed in the foretop.
+Seeing that the top-mast, which had been seriously damaged by the French
+fire, was tottering and about to fall, but being unable to make himself
+heard on deck above the din of battle, he himself assumed the
+responsibility of lowering the foretopsail yard, thus relieving the
+strain on the mast and preventing a mishap which would probably have
+changed the result of the battle. That midshipman rose, in after years,
+to be an admiral and the commander-in-chief of the American Navy.
+
+Barreault, who had a much larger crew than his adversary, soon saw that
+his vessel was in danger of being pounded to pieces by the American
+gunners who were making every shot tell, and that his only hope of
+victory lay in getting alongside and boarding, depending upon his
+superior numbers to take the American vessel with the cutlass. With this
+in view, he ordered the boarding parties to their stations, sent men
+into the rigging with grappling-irons with which to hold the ships
+together when they touched, directed the guns to be loaded with small
+shot that they might cause greater execution at close quarters, and
+then, putting his helm hard down, attempted to run alongside the
+_Constellation_. But Truxtun had anticipated this very manoeuvre, and
+was prepared for it. Seizing his opportunity--and in sea-battles
+opportunities do not last long or come often--he whirled his ship about
+as a polo player whirls his pony, and ran squarely across the enemy's
+bows, pouring in a rain of lead as he passed, which all but annihilated
+the boarding parties drawn up on the deck of _l'Insurgente_.
+
+Foiled in his attempt to get to hand-grips with his enemy, the Frenchman
+sheered off and the duel at short range continued, the _Constellation_,
+magnificently handled, sailing first along _l'Insurgente's_ port side,
+firing as she went, and then, crossing her bows, repeating the manoeuvre
+on her starboard quarter. Nothing is more typical of the iron discipline
+enforced by the American naval commanders in those early days than an
+incident that occurred when this duel between the two frigates was at
+its height. As a storm of shot from the Frenchman's batteries came
+crashing and smashing into the _Constellation_, a gunner, seeing his
+mate decapitated by a solid shot, became so demoralized that he
+retreated from his gun, whereupon an officer drew his pistol and shot
+the man dead.
+
+Time after time Truxtun repeated his evolution of literally sailing
+around _l'Insurgente_, until every gun in her main batteries had been
+dismounted, her crew being left only the small guns with which to
+continue the action. It speaks volumes for Barreault's bravery that,
+with half his crew dead or wounded, and with a terribly battered and
+almost defenceless ship, he did continue the action, his weary,
+blood-stained, powder-blackened men loading and firing their few
+remaining guns dauntlessly. Seeing the weakened condition of his enemy,
+Truxtun now prepared to end the battle. Before the French had time to
+grasp the full significance of his manoeuvre, he had put his helm hard
+down, and the _Constellation_, suddenly looming out of the battle smoke,
+bore down upon _l'Insurgente_ with the evident intention of crossing her
+stern and raking her with a broadside to which she would be unable to
+reply. Though no braver man than Barreault ever fought a ship, he
+instantly appreciated that this would mean an unnecessary slaughter of
+his men; so, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he ordered his
+colors to be struck, and in token of surrender the flag of France
+slipped slowly and mournfully down. The young republic of the West had
+avenged the insult of Talleyrand.
+
+It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the desperate fighting
+which characterized this battle, the _Constellation_ had only two of her
+crew killed and three wounded, while the French loss was nearly twenty
+times that number. Lieutenant Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were
+immediately sent aboard the captured vessel with a prize crew of only
+eleven men. After the dead had been buried at sea, the wounded cared for
+by the American surgeons, and about half of the prisoners transferred to
+the _Constellation_, Rodgers set such sails on _l'Insurgente_ as the
+wrecked rigging would permit, and laid his course for St. Christopher,
+it being understood that Truxtun would keep within hail in case his
+assistance was needed. During the night a heavy gale set in, however,
+and when day broke upon the heaving ocean the _Constellation_ was
+nowhere to be seen. It was a ticklish situation in which the thirteen
+Americans found themselves, for they had their work cut out for them to
+navigate a leaking, shattered, and dismasted ship, while below decks,
+awaiting the first opportunity which offered to rise and overpower their
+captors, were nearly two hundred desperate and determined prisoners.
+There were neither shackles nor handcuffs on board, and the hatchcovers
+had been destroyed in the action, so that the prisoners were perfectly
+aware that, could they once force their way on deck by a sudden rush,
+the ship would again be theirs. But they reckoned without Rodgers, for
+the first men who put their heads above the hatchway found themselves
+looking into the muzzles of a pair of pistols held by the American
+lieutenant, whose fingers were twitching on the triggers. During the
+three days and two nights which the voyage to St. Christopher lasted, a
+guard of American bluejackets stood constantly around the open hatchway,
+a pile of loaded small arms close at hand, and a cannon loaded with
+grape-shot trained menacingly into the prisoner-filled hold. On the
+evening of the third day, after Truxtun had given her up for lost,
+_l'Insurgente_ limped into port with the flag of the United States
+flaunting victoriously above that of France.
+
+The 1st of February of the following year found the _Constellation_,
+still under the command of Commodore Truxtun, cruising off Guadaloupe in
+the hope of picking up some of the French privateers which were using
+that colony as a base from which to prey on our West Indian commerce.
+While loitering off the port of Basse Terre, and praying that something
+would turn up to pay him for his patience, Truxtun sighted a vessel
+coming up from the southeast, which from her size and build was
+evidently a French frigate of the first class. As she approached, the
+keen-eyed American naval officers, scanning her through their glasses,
+recognized her as the fifty-two-gun frigate _La Vengeance_, one of the
+most formidable vessels in the French Navy. It was evident from the
+first, however, that she would much rather run than fight, this anxiety
+to avoid an encounter being due to the fact that she had on board a
+large number of officials, high in the colonial service, whom she was
+bringing out to the colonies from the mother country. No sooner did she
+perceive the character of the _Constellation_, therefore, than she piled
+on every yard of canvas and headed for Basse Terre and the protecting
+guns of its forts. Never had the _Constellation_ a better opportunity to
+display her remarkable sailing qualities, and never did she display them
+to better advantage. It was well after nightfall, however, before she
+was able to overhaul the flying Frenchman, so that it was by the light
+of a full moon, which illumined the scene almost as well as though it
+were day, that the preparations were completed for the combat. The sea,
+which was glasslike in its smoothness, as is so often the case in
+Caribbean waters, seemed to be covered with a veil of shimmering silver,
+while the battle-lanterns which had been lighted on both vessels swung
+like giant fireflies across the purple sky.
+
+Seeing that escape was hopeless, the French commander hove to and
+prepared for a desperate resistance. Now, Truxtun had made up his mind
+that this was to be no long-range duel, in which the Frenchman's heavier
+metal could not fail to give him an advantage, but a fight at close
+quarters, in which the smashing broadsides which the _Constellation_ was
+specially designed to deliver could not fail to tell. Just before the
+beginning of the battle the stout commodore, red-faced, white-wigged,
+cock-hatted, clad in the blue tail-coat and buff breeches of the
+American Navy, descended to the gun-deck and walked slowly through the
+batteries, acknowledging the cheers of the gunners, but emphatically
+warning them against firing a shot until he gave the word. No one knew
+better than Truxtun the demoralizing effect of a smashing broadside
+suddenly delivered at close quarters, and it was this demoralization
+which he intended to create aboard the enemy. "Load with solid shot," he
+ordered, and added, speaking to his officers so that the men could hear:
+"If a man fires a gun before I give the order, shoot him on the spot."
+Then with boarding-nettings triced up, decks sanded, magazines opened,
+and the tops filled with marines whose duty it was to pick off the
+French gunners, the _Constellation_, stripped to her fighting canvas,
+swept grandly into action. As she came within range the French commander
+opened with his stern-chasers, and in an instant the ordered decks of
+the American were turned into a shambles. The wounded were carried
+groaning to the cockpit, where the white-aproned surgeons, their arms
+bared to the elbow, awaited their grim work, while the dead were hastily
+ranged along the unengaged side--rows of stark and staring figures
+beneath the placid moon. Again and again the guns of _La Vengeance_
+belched smoke and flame, and redder and redder grew the sand with which
+the _Constellation's_ decks were spread, but she still kept coming on.
+Not until she was squarely abreast of the Frenchman did Truxtun, leaping
+into the shrouds, bellow through his speaking-trumpet: "Now, boys, give
+'em hell!" The American gunners answered with a broadside which made _La
+Vengeance_ reel. The effect was terrible. On the decks of the Frenchman
+the dead and dying lay in quivering, bleeding heaps. But not for an
+instant did the French sailors flinch from their guns. Broadside
+answered broadside, cheer answered cheer, while the men, French and
+American alike, toiled and sweated at their work of carnage. So rapidly
+were the American guns fired that the men actually had to crawl out of
+the ports, in the face of a withering fire, for buckets of water with
+which to cool them off.
+
+The different tactics adopted by the two commanders soon began to show
+results, for, whereas Truxtun had given orders that his men were to
+disregard the upper works and to concentrate their fire on the main-deck
+batteries and the hull, the French commander had from the first directed
+his fire upon the American's rigging in the hope of crippling her.
+Shortly after midnight the French fire, which had grown weaker and
+weaker under the terrible punishment of the _Constellation's_ successive
+broadsides, ceased altogether, and an officer was seen waving a white
+flag in token of surrender. Twice before, in fact, _La Vengeance_ had
+struck her colors, but owing to the smoke and darkness the Americans had
+not perceived it. And there was good reason for her surrender, for she
+had lost one hundred and sixty men out of her crew of three hundred and
+thirty, while the _Constellation_ had but thirty-nine casualties out of
+a crew of three hundred and ten. Though the French fire had done small
+damage to the _Constellation's_ hull, and had killed a comparatively
+small number of her crew, it had worked terrible havoc in her rigging,
+it being discovered, just as she was preparing to run alongside her
+capture and take possession, that every shroud and stay supporting her
+mainmast had been shot away, and that the mast was tottering and about
+to fall. The men in the top were under the command of a little
+midshipman named James Jarvis, who was only thirteen years old. He had
+been warned by one of his men that the mast was likely to fall at any
+moment, and had been implored to leave the top while there was still
+time, which he would have been entirely justified in doing, particularly
+as the battle was over. But that thirteen-year-old midshipman had in him
+the stuff of which heroes are made, and resolutely refused to leave his
+post without orders. The orders never came, for before the crew had time
+to secure it the great mast crashed over the side, carrying with it to
+instant death little Jarvis and all of his men save one. Though his name
+and deed have long since been forgotten by the nation for which he died,
+he was no whit less a hero than that other boy-sailor, Casabianca, whose
+self-sacrifice at the battle of the Nile has been made familiar by song
+and story.
+
+The falling of the _Constellation's_ mast reversed conditions in an
+instant, for the surrendered frigate, taking prompt advantage of the
+victor's temporary helplessness, crowded on all sail and slowly
+disappeared into the night. By the time the wreck had been chopped away
+any pursuit of her was hopeless. A few days later she put into the Dutch
+port of Curaçao in a sinking condition.
+
+Thus continued until February, 1801, an unbroken series of American
+successes, French war-ships, French privateers, and French merchantmen
+alike being sunk, captured, or driven from the seas. France's trade with
+her West Indian colonies was paralyzed, and the prestige of her navy was
+enormously diminished. Napoleon, as First Consul, had abolished the
+Directory, and was now the virtual ruler of France, having entire
+command of all administrative affairs, both civil and military. Forced
+to admit that from first to last his ships had been out-sailed,
+out-fought, and out-manoeuvred by the despised Americans, and that a
+continuance of the war could only result in further disaster and loss of
+prestige, he began negotiations which led, about the time that the
+nineteenth century passed its first birthday, to a suspension of
+hostilities.
+
+During the two and a half years of this unofficial war with the most
+powerful military nation in the world our infant navy had captured
+eighty-four armed French vessels, mounting over five hundred guns--a
+success all the more remarkable when it is remembered that our entire
+naval establishment at the outbreak of hostilities comprised but
+twenty-two vessels, with four hundred and fifty-six guns. In other
+words, we had captured almost four times as many ships as we possessed.
+Not only had we practically destroyed French commerce on this side of
+the Atlantic, but our own commerce had risen, under the protection of
+our guns, from fifty-seven million dollars in 1797 to more than
+seventy-eight million dollars in 1799. Most important of all, however,
+we had shown to France and to Europe that, when occasion demanded, we
+both would and could, in the words of our national song, defend our
+rights and defend our shore.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN WE CAPTURED AN AFRICAN KINGDOM
+
+
+Did you ever, by any chance, leave the Boston State House by the back
+door? If so, you found yourself in a quiet and rather shabby
+thoroughfare, cobble-paved and lined on the farther side by
+old-fashioned red-brick houses, with white, brass-knockered doors, and
+iron balconies, and green blinds. That is Derne Street. Though a man
+standing on Boston Common could break one of its violet-glass windows
+with a well thrown ball, it is, as it were, a placid backwater of the
+busy streams of commerce which flow so noisily a few rods away. I wonder
+how many of the smug frock-coated politicians who hurry through it as a
+short cut daily have any idea how it got its name; I wonder if any of
+the people who live upon it know. Though the exploit which this Boston
+byway was named to commemorate has been overlooked by nearly all our
+historians, perhaps because its scene was laid in a remote and barbarous
+country, yet it was a feat which, for picturesqueness, daring, and
+indomitable courage, is deserving of a more generous share of the
+calcium light of public appreciation. Though I am perfectly aware that
+history only too often makes dull reading, this chronicle, I promise
+you, is as bristling with romance and adventure as a hedgehog is with
+quills.
+
+You must understand, in the first place, that the declining years of the
+eighteenth century found a perfectly astounding state of affairs
+prevailing in the Mediterranean, where the four Barbary states--Morocco,
+Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli--which stretched along its African shore,
+collected tribute from every nation whose vessels sailed that sea as
+methodically as a street-car conductor collects fares. Asserting that
+they were no common, vulgar buccaneers who plundered vessels
+indiscriminately, the Barbary corsairs, claiming for themselves the
+virtual ownership of the Mediterranean, turned it into a sort of
+maritime toll-road, and professed themselves at war with all who refused
+to pay roundly for using it. Nor was their boast that they were the
+masters of the Middle Sea a vain one, scores of captured merchantmen and
+thousands of European slaves laboring under the African sun proving
+indubitably that they were amply capable of enforcing their demands. As
+far as the question of economy was concerned, it was about as cheap for
+a nation to be at war with these bandits of the sea as at peace, for so
+heavy was the tribute they demanded that their friendship came almost as
+high as their enmity. It cost Spain, at that time a rich and powerful
+empire, upward of three million dollars to obtain peace with the Dey of
+Algiers in 1786. Though England boasted herself mistress of the seas,
+and in token thereof English admirals carried brooms at their mastheads,
+she nevertheless spent four hundred thousand dollars annually in
+propitiating these African despots. Previous to the Revolution there
+were close on a hundred American vessels, manned by more than twelve
+hundred seamen, in the Mediterranean, but with the withdrawal of British
+protection this commerce was entirely abandoned. The ink was scarcely
+dry on the treaty of peace, however, before we had despatched diplomatic
+agents to the Barbary coast to purchase the friendship of its rulers,
+and had taken our place in the line of regular contributors. We were in
+good company, too, for England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
+Denmark, and the Italian states had been paying tribute so long that
+they had acquired the habit. Think of it, my friends! Every great
+seafaring nation in the world meekly paying tribute to a few thousand
+Arab cutthroats for the privilege of using one of the seven seas, and
+humbly apologizing if the payment happened to become overdue!
+
+Our friendly relations with the Dey of Algiers were of short duration,
+however, and by 1793 his swift-sailing, heavily armed cruisers had
+captured thirteen American vessels, and sixscore American slaves were at
+work on the fortifications of his capital. In his prison-yard, indeed,
+one could hear every American inflection, from the nasal twang of Maine
+to the drawl of Carolina. After two years of procrastination, Congress,
+spurred to action by public indignation, purchased the liberty of the
+captives and peace with Algiers for eight hundred thousand dollars,
+though the Dey remarked gloomily, as he scrawled his Arabic flourish at
+the foot of the treaty: "If I keep on making peace at this rate, there
+will soon be no one left to fight. Then how shall I occupy my corsairs?
+What shall I do with my fighting men? If they have no one else to rob
+and slaughter, they will rob and slaughter me!"
+
+The Bashaw of Tripoli at this time was a peculiarly insolent and
+tyrannical Arab named Yussuf Karamanli, who had gained the throne by
+the effective method of winning over the body-guard, quietly
+surrounding the palace one night, and deposing his elder brother, Ahmet,
+whom he promptly exiled. Despite the annual tribute of twenty-two
+thousand dollars which we were paying to the Bashaw, not to mention the
+seventeen thousand dollars' worth of presents which we presented
+biennially to the officers and officials of his court, he complained
+most bitterly to the American consul at Tripoli that he was not getting
+as much as his neighboring rulers, and that unless the matter was
+remedied immediately, he would have to get some American slaves to teach
+him English. Now, Yussuf was a bad man to have for an enemy, for his
+cruisers were numerous and loaded to the gunwales with pirates who would
+rather fight than eat, and he had, in addition, the reputation of being
+most inconsiderate to those sailors who fell into his hands, sometimes
+going so far as to wall a few of them up in the fortifications which he
+was constantly building. To put it bluntly, he was not popular outside
+of his own circle. As Mr. Cathcart, the American consul, did not take
+his demands for a larger tribute very seriously, the Bashaw wrote to
+President Jefferson direct, mincing no words in saying that the American
+government had better grant his request, and be quick about it, or
+American seamen would find the Mediterranean exceedingly unhealthy for
+them.
+
+Incredible as it may seem in this day and age, the authorities at
+Washington ordered a vessel to be loaded with the arms, ammunition, and
+naval stores demanded by the Bashaw, their total value being thirty-four
+thousand dollars, and hurriedly despatched it to Tripoli, with profuse
+apologies for the delay. A few months later the Bashaw, who evidently
+knew a good thing when he saw it, suggested that a token of our esteem
+for him in the form of jewels would be highly acceptable, whereupon the
+American minister in London was instructed to purchase jewelry to the
+value of ten thousand dollars and have it hurried to Tripoli by special
+messenger. Emboldened by his undreamed-of success in shaking the
+republican tree, the Bashaw reached the very height of audacity by again
+sending a peremptory note to President Jefferson, demanding that the
+United States immediately present him with a thirty-six-gun war-ship! As
+no attention was paid to this modest request (and in view of the other
+outrageous concessions made by our government, it is somewhat surprising
+that this demand was not granted also), the Bashaw ordered the flagstaff
+of the American consulate to be chopped down as a sign of war, and
+turned his corsairs loose on American commerce in the Mediterranean. The
+war opened most disastrously for the United States, for a few months
+later the frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli,
+the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew. No
+wonder the Bashaw went to the mosque that day to give thanks to Allah,
+for had he not received an even larger war-ship than he had demanded,
+and did he not have two hundred American slaves to instruct him in the
+English tongue? "God is great!" exclaimed the Bashaw devoutly, as he
+knelt on his silken prayer-rug, and "God is great!" echoed the rows of
+corsairs who knelt behind him.
+
+It was shortly after this American misfortune that William Eaton,
+soldier, diplomat, and Indian-fighter, swaggered upon the scene, and
+things began to happen with a rapidity that made the Bashaw's turbaned
+head whirl. By birth and upbringing Eaton was a Connecticut Yankee, and
+he possessed all the shrewdness, hardihood, and perseverance so
+characteristic of that race. The son of a schoolmaster farmer, before he
+was sixteen he had run away from home to join the Continental Army,
+which he left at the close of the Revolution with the chevrons of a
+sergeant on his coat-sleeve. Far-sighted enough to see the value of a
+college education, he went from the camp straight to the college
+classroom. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1790, he re-entered the army as
+a captain, served against the Indians in Georgia and Ohio, and in 1798
+received an appointment as American consul at Tunis. Resolute,
+energetic, and daring, impatient with any one who did not agree with his
+views, no better man could have been selected for the place. Thoroughly
+understanding the Arab character, from the very outset he took a high
+hand in his dealings with the Tunisian ruler. He alternately quarrelled
+with and patronized the Bey, bullyragged his ministers, and actually
+horsewhipped an insolent official of the court in the palace courtyard,
+for five years keeping up an uninterrupted series of altercations,
+provocations, and procrastinations over the payment of tribute-money. He
+acted with such energy and boldness, however, that he secured to the
+commerce of his country complete immunity from the attacks of Tunisian
+cruisers, and made the name American respected on that part of the
+Barbary coast at least. In 1801, as I have already remarked, the
+American flagstaff in the adjoining kingdom of Tripoli came crashing
+down at the Bashaw's order, and war promptly began between that
+country and the United States. Two years later the Bey of Tunis, harried
+beyond endurance by the half-insolent, half-patronizing fashion in which
+Eaton treated him, ordered that gentleman to leave the country.
+
+[Illustration: The frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of
+Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire
+crew.]
+
+Returning to the United States, Eaton went immediately to Washington and
+laid before President Jefferson and his Cabinet a scheme for bringing
+the war with Tripoli to a successful conclusion, and exchanging our
+humiliating position as a contributor to a gang of pirates for one more
+consistent with American ideals. The plan which he proposed was,
+briefly, that the United States should assist in restoring to the
+Tripolitan throne the exiled Bashaw, Ahmet Karamanli, on the
+understanding that, upon his restoration, the exaction of tribute from
+the American government and the depredations on American commerce should
+cease. Eaton was outspoken in urging the desirability of carrying out
+this plan, arguing that the dethronement of one of the Barbary despots
+would impress the people of all that region as nothing else could do. I
+can see him standing there beside the long table in the Cabinet room of
+the White House, his lean Yankee face aglow with enthusiasm, his every
+motion bespeaking confidence in himself and his plan, while Jefferson
+and his sedate, conservative advisers lean far back in their chairs and
+regard this visionary half curiously, half amusedly, as he outlines his
+schemes for overturning thrones and reapportioning kingdoms. From the
+President and his Cabinet he received the sort of treatment which timid
+governments are apt to bestow on men of spirit and action. He was given
+to understand that he was at liberty to carry out his plans, but that,
+if he was successful, the government would take all the credit, and
+that, if he failed, he would have to take all the blame. The only way to
+explain the astounding apathy of the American government to events in
+the Mediterranean is that a bitter political struggle was then in
+progress in the United States, and that the very remoteness of the
+theatre of war probably lessened its importance in the eyes of the
+administration. At any rate, President Jefferson signed the appointment
+of Eaton as American naval agent in the Mediterranean, and, happy as a
+schoolboy at the beginning of the long vacation, at the wide latitude of
+action conferred upon him by this purposely vague commission, he sailed
+a few days later with the American fleet for Egypt. His great adventure
+had begun.
+
+Aware that the dethroned Bashaw had fled to Cairo, Eaton landed at
+Alexandria, and, hastening to the Egyptian capital by camel, succeeded
+in locating the exiled Ahmet, whom he found in the depths of poverty and
+despair. Seated cross-legged beside him in a native coffee-house, Eaton
+outlined his plan and proposition. He told Ahmet that the United States
+would undertake to restore him to the Tripolitan throne upon his
+agreeing to repay the expenses of the expedition immediately upon his
+restoration, and upon the condition that Eaton should be
+commander-in-chief of the land forces throughout the campaign, Ahmet and
+his followers to promise him implicit obedience. Ahmet snapped at the
+chance, slim though it was, to regain his kingdom, as a starving dog
+snaps at a proffered bone. Eaton's plan of campaign was as simple as it
+was reckless. He proposed to recruit a force of Greek and Arab
+mercenaries, officered by Americans, in Alexandria, and, following the
+North African coast-line westward across the Libyan Desert, to surprise
+and capture Derna (or, as it was spelled in those days, Derne), the
+capital of the easternmost and richest province of Tripoli. With Derna
+as a base of operations, and with the co-operation of the American
+fleet, he held that it would be a comparatively simple matter to push on
+along the coast, taking in turn Benghazi, Tobruk, and the city of
+Tripoli itself. The chief merit of the scheme lay in its sheer
+audacity, for of all the leaders who have invaded Africa, this unknown
+American was the only one who had the courage to face the perils of a
+march across a waterless, trackless, sun-scorched, and uninhabited
+desert. But there was in Eaton the stuff of which great conquerors are
+made, and instead of letting his mind dwell on the dangers which the
+desert had to offer, he dreamed of the triumphs which awaited him beyond
+it.
+
+To raise the men for so hazardous an expedition, Eaton had need of all
+the energy and magnetism at his command, alternately employing the
+specious promises of a recruiting sergeant and the persuasive arguments
+of a campaign orator. On March 3, 1805, Eaton and the man to whom he had
+promised a kingdom reviewed their forlorn hope--and it was very forlorn
+indeed--at a spot called the Arab's Tower, some forty miles southwest of
+Alexandria. I doubt if so strangely assorted a force ever marched and
+fought under the shadow of our flag. The army, if army it could be
+called, consisted of eight Americans besides Eaton: Lieutenant O'Barron,
+Sergeant Peck, and six marines borrowed from the American fleet;
+thirty-four Greeks, who went along professedly because they wanted to
+fight the Moslem, but really because they needed the money; twenty-five
+Egyptian Copts, Christians at least in name, who claimed to be trained
+artillerymen, and to lend color to their assertion brought with them a
+small brass field-gun; those of Ahmet's personal adherents who had fled
+with him into exile, numbering about ninety men; and a squadron of Arab
+mercenaries, whose services had been obtained by the promise of
+unlimited opportunities for loot--these with the drivers of the
+baggage-camels bringing the total strength of the "Army of North Africa"
+to less than four hundred men. With this motley and ill-disciplined
+force behind him, and six hundred miles of yellow sand in front, Eaton
+turned his horse's nose Tripoliward, so that at about the time President
+Jefferson was delivering his second inaugural address the adventurous
+American was leading his little army across the desert, with the courage
+of an Alexander the Great, to conquer an African kingdom.
+
+The task which lay before him was one which great military leaders, all
+down the ages, had declared impossible. For a distance equal to that
+from Philadelphia to Chicago stretched an unbroken expanse of pitiless,
+sun-scorched desert, boasting no single living thing save an occasional
+band of nomad Arabs or a herd of gazelles. Midway between Alexandria
+and Derna was the insignificant port of Bomba, where, according to a
+prearranged plan, the _Argus_, under Captain Isaac Hull--the same who
+became famous a few years later for his victories over the British in
+the War of 1812--was to meet the expedition with supplies. Unless you
+have seen the desert it will be difficult for you to appreciate how
+hazardous this adventure really was. Imagine a sea of yellow sand with
+billow after billow stretching in every direction as far as the eye can
+see; without a tree, a shrub, a plant, a blade of grass; without a
+river, a brook, a drop of water except, at long intervals, a stagnant,
+green-scummed pool; the air like a blast from an open furnace-door and
+overhead a sky pitiless as molten brass! During the seven weeks of the
+march the thermometer never dropped during the day below 120 degrees.
+
+The arrangements for the transport had been left to Ahmet Pasha, and it
+was not until the expedition was two hundred miles into the desert, and
+the camel-drivers abruptly halted and announced that they were going
+back to Egypt, that Eaton learned that they had been engaged only to
+that point. As the desertion of the camel-drivers and the consequent
+inability to transport the tents, ammunition, and supplies would wreck
+the expedition, Eaton pleaded with the men to stick by him two or three
+days longer, until he could reach an encampment of Arabs with whom he
+could make another contract. This they consented to do on condition that
+they were paid in advance. By borrowing every piaster which his
+Americans and Greeks had to lend, Eaton succeeded in raising six hundred
+and seventy-three dollars, and with this the camel-drivers were
+apparently content. Nothing shows more strikingly the shoe-string on
+which the enterprise was being run than the fact that this unexpected
+disbursement reduced Eaton's war-chest to three Venetian
+sequins--equivalent to six dollars and fifty-four cents! Despite this
+payment, all but four of the camel-drivers deserted the very next night,
+and the four that remained sullenly refused to go any farther. In the
+darkness of the following night they, too, quietly untethered their
+camels and slipped silently away. Here, then, were three hundred and
+fifty men, with a rapidly diminishing supply of food and water and
+absolutely no means of transport, as completely marooned as though they
+were on a desert island.
+
+To make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Eaton learned that
+Ahmet had induced his Tripolitans and the Arabs to refuse to advance
+until they had news of the arrival of the _Argus_ at Bomba. Eaton,
+striding across to Ahmet's tent, shook his fist menacingly in the face
+of the cringing Tripolitan. "I know you're a coward," said he, "and I
+suspect that you're a traitor and I've a damned good mind to have you
+shot." The Pasha, now thoroughly frightened, replied that his men were
+too tired to march any farther. "You can take your choice between
+marching and starving," Eaton retorted, turning on his heel, and placing
+a guard of American marines around the tent containing the provisions,
+he ordered them to shoot the first Arab who approached it. This resolute
+action had an immediate effect, for the Pasha and his men lost their
+tired feeling with amazing quickness, fifty of the camel-drivers
+returned, and the desperate march was resumed. It was but a day or two,
+however, before the Arabs became as turbulent and unruly as ever. Then
+another mutiny broke out, Ahmet and his people announcing that they
+preferred to be well-fed cowards rather than starved heroes, and that
+they were going back to the flesh-pots of Egypt forthwith. Just as they
+were on the point of departure, however, a messenger who had been
+despatched to Bomba reached camp with the news that the _Argus_ was
+awaiting them in the harbor. These unexpected delays had wholly
+exhausted the supplies, which were slim enough, goodness knows, in the
+beginning, so that during the remainder of the march to Bomba they were
+compelled to kill some of the camels for food, living upon them and upon
+such roots as they could gather on the way.
+
+It was a half-starved and utterly exhausted expedition that plodded up
+the sand dunes which overlook the little port of Bomba, so what must
+their despair have been when they found no vessel awaiting them in the
+harbor, and that the town itself had been deserted. Captain Hull,
+apparently having given them up as lost, had departed. This time a more
+serious mutiny occurred, the Arabs, desperate with hunger and furious
+from disappointment, preparing to attack Eaton and his handful of
+Europeans. Appreciating the peril of his position, Eaton hastily formed
+his men into a hollow square. Just as the Arabs were preparing to charge
+down upon them the musket of one of the marines was prematurely
+discharged, the bullet whistling in uncomfortable proximity to the
+Pasha's ear. So terror-stricken was that worthy that he called off his
+men and attempted to parley with Eaton, who, standing alone well in
+front of his command, relieved his mind by telling Ahmet his opinion of
+him in what, according to the accounts of those who heard it, must have
+been an epic in objurgation. While the two factions were growling at
+each other like angry bull-dogs one of the Americans, happening to
+glance seaward, suddenly broke the dangerous tension by shouting: "A
+sail! A sail!" Hull, true to his promise, was returning, and the
+expedition was saved. Supplies were quickly landed from the _Argus_ for
+the starving men; with full stomachs the courage of the Arabs returned,
+and Eaton and his little band once more turned their faces toward the
+setting sun.
+
+On the evening of April 25 the vanguard sighted the walls of Derna. A
+feat that veteran soldiers had jeered at as impossible had been
+accomplished, and Eaton, without the loss of a man, had brought his army
+across six hundred miles of desert, in the heat of an African spring,
+and in the remarkable time, when the scantiness of the rations and the
+many delays are considered, of fifty-two days. With their goal actually
+in sight, still another mutiny took place, the craven Arabs claiming
+that they were too few in number to attempt the capture of a walled and
+heavily garrisoned city, and it was not until Eaton promised them a
+bonus of two thousand dollars if they succeeded in taking it that they
+could be induced to advance. The more one learns of this man the more
+one must admire his unfailing resource, his tenacity of purpose, and his
+bull-dog courage; for, in addition to the appalling natural obstacles
+which he overcame, he was constantly harried by intrigue, treachery, and
+cowardice.
+
+On the morning of the 26th a message was sent to the governor of Derna,
+under a flag of truce, offering him full amnesty if he would surrender
+and declare his allegiance to his rightful sovereign, Ahmet. The answer
+that came back was as curt as it was conclusive: "My head or yours," it
+read. Just as the sun was rising above the sand-dunes the following
+morning the _Argus_, the _Nautilus_, and the _Hornet_ swept grandly into
+the harbor, their crews at quarters, their decks cleared for action, and
+the red-white-and-blue ensign of the oversea republic floating defiantly
+from their main trucks. Under cover of a terrific bombardment by the
+war-ships, Eaton's force advanced upon the city, planning, with their
+single field-piece, to effect a breach in the walls and carry the place
+by storm. So murderous was the fire that the Tripolitan riflemen poured
+into them from the walls and housetops, however, that they were thrown
+into confusion, their single piece of artillery was put out of action
+by a well-directed cannon-shot, and Eaton himself was severely wounded.
+Seeing that his raw troops were on the verge of panic, and knowing that
+his only chance of holding them together lay in a charge, Eaton ordered
+his buglers to sound the advance, and with a cheer like the roar of a
+storm his whole line--Americans, Greeks, and Arabs--swept forward on a
+run. "Come on, boys!" shouted Eaton, as he raced ahead, sword in one
+hand, pistol in the other. "At the double! Follow me! Follow me!" And
+follow him they did. Cheering like madmen they crossed a field swept by
+a withering rifle-fire. They clambered over the ramparts, and by the
+very fury of their assault drove back the defenders, who outnumbered
+them twenty to one. They fought with them hand to hand, sabre against
+cimiter, bayonet against clubbed matchlock. Swarming into the batteries,
+they cut down the gunners and turned their guns upon the town. The
+defences of the city once in his possession, Eaton directed an assault
+upon the palace, where the governor had taken refuge, utilizing his Arab
+cavalry meanwhile to cut off the retreat of the flying garrison. Before
+the sun had disappeared into the Mediterranean, Eaton, at a cost of only
+fourteen killed and wounded (all of whom, by the way, were Americans
+and Greeks), had made himself master of Derna. His moment of triumph
+came when, still begrimed with dirt and powder, his arm in a
+blood-stained sling, he stood with drawn sword before the line formed by
+his ragged soldiers and the trim bluejackets from the fleet, and,
+watching a ball of bunting creep up that palace flagstaff from which so
+recently had flaunted the banner of Tripoli, saw it suddenly break out
+into the Stars and Stripes. Our flag, for the first and only time, flew
+above a fortification on that side of the Atlantic.
+
+Reinforced by a party of bluejackets from the fleet, Eaton wasted not a
+moment in preparing the city for defence. He was none too soon, either,
+for the Bashaw, learning of the loss of his richest province, despatched
+an overwhelming force for its recapture. This army arrived before the
+walls of Derna on May 13, and immediately made an assault, which Eaton
+repulsed, as he did a second one a few weeks later. By this time the
+news of Eaton's victory had spread across North Africa as fire spreads
+in dry grass, and thousands of natives, many of them deserters from the
+Bashaw's forces, hastened to assert their undying loyalty and to offer
+their services to Ahmet, for your Arab is far-seeing and takes good care
+to be found on the side which he believes to be the winning one. With
+his army thus largely augmented, with ample supplies, with Derna as a
+base of operations, and with his own prestige equivalent to an
+additional regiment, Eaton had completed the preparations for continuing
+his victorious advance along the African coast-line. There is little
+doubt, indeed, that with the co-operation of the fleet he could have
+marched on to Benghazi, taken that city as easily as he did Derna, and
+in due time planted the American flag on the castle of Tripoli itself.
+
+So it was with undisguised amazement and indignation that on June 12 he
+received orders from Commodore Rodgers to evacuate Derna and to withdraw
+his forces from Tripoli, Colonel Tobias Lear, the American consul at
+Algiers, having, in the face of Eaton's successes, signed an inglorious
+treaty of peace with the Bashaw of Tripoli. No more degrading terms were
+ever assented to by a civilized power. The Bashaw at first demanded two
+hundred thousand dollars for the release of Bainbridge and the
+_Philadelphia's_ crew, but as Eaton had captured a large number of
+Tripolitans in the storming of Derna, an exchange was eventually
+arranged, the United States agreeing to pay the pirate ruler sixty
+thousand dollars to boot. The city of Derna and the great province of
+which it was the capital were surrendered without so much as the mention
+of an equivalent, not even the relinquishment of the ransom of the
+American prisoners. The unfortunate Ahmet Pasha, who had been decoyed
+from his refuge in Egypt on the promise of American assistance in
+effecting his restoration, was deserted at a moment when success was
+actually ours, and had to fly for his life to Sicily, his wife and
+children being held as hostages by his brother and the heads of his
+adherents being exposed on the walls of the Tripolitan capital. Thus
+shamefully ended one of the most gallant and romantic exploits in the
+history of American arms; thus terminated an episode which, more than
+any other agency, compelled the rulers of the Barbary coast to respect
+the citizens and fear the wrath of the United States. Though an
+expedition of scarcely four hundred men may sound insignificant, the
+humbling of a Barbary power was an achievement which every European
+nation had attempted and which none of them had accomplished.
+
+Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to the United States in
+November, 1805, to find himself a national hero. From the moment he set
+his foot on American soil he was greeted with cheers wherever he
+appeared; it was "roses, roses all the way." The cities of Washington
+and Richmond honored him with public dinners; Massachusetts, "desirous
+to perpetuate the remembrance of an heroic enterprise," granted him ten
+thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston named a street after the city
+which he had captured against such fearful odds; President Jefferson
+lauded him in his annual message; and in recognition of his services in
+effecting the release of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was
+presented by the King of Denmark with a jewelled snuff-box. He was
+complimented everywhere except at the seat of government, and received
+every honor except that which he most deserved--a vote of thanks from
+Congress. Though his expedition had involved an expense of twenty-three
+thousand dollars, for which he had given his personal notes and the
+repayment of which exhausted all his means, Congress never reimbursed
+him. Notwithstanding the astounding indifference and ingratitude of the
+nation on whose flag he had shed such lustre, he indignantly rejected
+the advances of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist him in his
+conspiracy to establish an empire beyond the Mississippi, and died,
+poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Though the most
+modest of monuments marks his resting-place in Brimfield churchyard, and
+though not one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen have so much as
+heard his name, his fame still lives in that wild and far-off region
+where it took an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat the
+exploit which he accomplished with four hundred.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"
+
+
+We leaned over the rail of the _Hamburg_, Colonel Roosevelt and I, and
+watched the olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea. Houses
+white as chalk began to peep from among the orange groves; what looked
+at first sight to be a yellow snake turned into a winding road; then we
+rounded a headland, and the U-shaped harbor, edged by a sleepy town and
+commanded by a crumbling fortress, lay before us. "In there," said the
+ex-President, pointing eagerly as our anchor rumbled down, "was waged
+one of the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one of the least
+known; in there lies the wreck of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer
+that stood off twenty times her strength in British men and guns, and
+thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is a story that should make
+the thrills of patriotism run up and down the back of every
+right-thinking American."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Everything about her, from the carved and gilded figure-head, past the
+rakish, slanting masts to the slender stern, indicated the privateer.
+As she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in the afternoon of
+September 26, 1814, black-hulled and white-sparred, carrying an amazing
+spread of snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a grunt of
+approval even from the surly Azorian pilot. Hardly had the
+red-white-and-blue ensign showing her nationality fluttered to her peak
+before a harbor skiff bearing the American consul, Dabney, shot out from
+shore; for these were troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from
+the States were few and far between. Rounding her stern, he read, with a
+thrill of pride, "_General Armstrong, New York_."
+
+The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth escape. For of all
+the two-hundred-odd privateers that put out from American ports at the
+outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British commerce, none had won so
+high a place in the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled
+schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a spread of canvas at which most
+skippers would have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled
+privateer afloat, and had always been able to show her heels to the
+enemy on the rare occasions when the superior range of her seven guns
+had failed to pound him into submission. Her list of captures had made
+rich men of her owners, and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on
+a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to thirteen guineas in the
+hundred.
+
+The story of her desperate encounter off the mouth of the Surinam River
+with the British sloop of war _Coquette_, with four times her weight in
+guns, had fired the popular imagination as had few other events of the
+war. Although her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his
+thirtieth birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring fighter ever
+trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of ninety men--Down-East fishermen,
+old man-o'-war's men, Creole privateersmen who had fought under Lafitte,
+reckless adventurers of every sort and kind--would have warmed the heart
+of bluff old John Paul Jones himself.
+
+Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch reported a sail in the
+offing, and Reid and the consul, hurrying on deck, made out the British
+brig _Carnation_, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels in her
+wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigate _Rota_, and the _Plantagenet_, of
+seventy-four. Now, as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor, where a
+dead calm prevailed, while the three British ships were fast approaching
+before the brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid, who knew the
+line which marks foolhardiness from courage, appreciating that the
+chances of his being able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of the
+harbor before the British squadron arrived to block the entrance were
+almost infinitesimal, decided to stay where he was and trust to the
+neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed by the assurances
+of Consul Dabney that the British would not dare to attack a vessel
+lying in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was mistaken, for
+throughout the entire duration of the war the British as cynically
+disregarded the observance of international law and the rights of
+neutrals as though they did not exist.
+
+The _Carnation_, learning the identity of the American vessel from the
+pilot, hauled close into the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she
+was within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_. Instantly a string of
+signal-flags fluttered from her mast, and the message was promptly
+acknowledged by her approaching consorts, which thereupon proceeded to
+stand off and on across the mouth of the harbor, thus barring any chance
+of the privateer making her escape. So great was the commotion which
+ensued on the _Carnation's_ deck that Reid, becoming suspicious of the
+Englishman's good faith, warped his ship under the very guns of the
+Portuguese fort.
+
+About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen, Captain Reid saw four
+boats slip silently from the shadow of the _Carnation_ and pull toward
+him with muffled oars. If anything more were needed to convince him of
+their hostile intentions, the moon at that moment appeared from behind a
+cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutlasses and musket-barrels in
+all four of the approaching boats. As they came within hailing distance
+Reid swung himself into the shrouds.
+
+"Boats there!" he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands. "Come no
+nearer! For your own safety I warn you!"
+
+At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision, and their
+commanders held a whispered consultation. Then, apparently deciding to
+take the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer unprepared,
+they gave the order: "Give way all!" The oars caught the water together,
+and the four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors and marines,
+came racing on.
+
+"Let 'em have it, boys!" roared Reid, and at the word a stream of flame
+leaped from the dark side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept
+the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the crews and sending the
+others, crippled and bleeding, back to the shelter of their ship.
+
+By this time the moon had fully risen, and showed the heights
+overlooking the harbor to be black with spectators, among whom were the
+Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle, either from weakness
+or fear, showed no signs of resenting the outrageous breach of
+neutrality to which the port had been subjected. Angered and chagrined
+at their repulse, the British now threw all caution aside. The
+long-boats and gigs of all three ships were lowered, and into them were
+crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, and
+cutlasses. Reid, seeing that an attack was to be made in force,
+proceeded to warp his vessel still closer inshore, mooring her stem and
+stern within a few rods of the castle. Moving two of the nine-pounders
+across the deck, and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he brought
+five guns, in addition to his famous "long tom," to bear on the enemy.
+With cannon double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks cleared
+for action, the crew of the _General Armstrong_ lay down beside their
+guns to await the British attack.
+
+It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of the old Portuguese
+cathedral boomed twelve, a dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with
+sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons were like so many mirrors
+under the rays of the moon, swung around a promontory behind which they
+had been forming and, with measured stroke of oars, came sweeping down
+upon the lone privateer. The decks of the _General Armstrong_ were black
+and silent, but round each gun clustered its crew of half-naked gunners,
+and behind the bulwarks knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes
+sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close against the butts. Up
+and down behind his men paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's
+morning.
+
+"Hold your fire until I give the word, boys," he cautioned quietly.
+"Wait till they get within range, and then teach 'em better manners."
+
+Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of boats, the oars rising and
+falling with the faultless rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's
+man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans could make out the
+gilt-lettered hat-bands of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and
+the brass buttons on the tunics of the marines. A moment more and those
+on the _Armstrong's_ deck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather
+shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British boarders.
+
+"Now, boys!" roared Captain Reid; "let 'em have it for the honor of the
+flag!" and from the side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame and
+lead, cannon and musketry crashing in chorus. Never were men taken more
+completely by surprise than were those British sailors, for they had
+expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of the port, would be
+quite unprepared to resist them. But, though the American fire had
+caused terrible havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog courage
+for which the British sailors were justly famous, they kept indomitably
+on. "Give way! Give way all!" screamed the boy-coxswains, and in the
+face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering from their
+momentary panic, bent grimly to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm
+of lead, right up to the side of the privateer, they swept. Six boats
+made fast to her quarter and six more to her bow. "Boarders up and
+away!" bellowed the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings with
+their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank into the faces they
+saw above them. The _Armstrong's_ gunners, unable to depress the muzzles
+of their guns enough so that they could be brought to bear, lifted the
+solid shot and dropped them from the rail into the British boats,
+mangling their crews and crashing through their bottoms. From the
+shelter of the bulwarks the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired
+again, while the negro cook and his assistant played their part in the
+defence by pouring kettles of boiling water over the British who were
+attempting to scramble up the sides, sending them back into their boats
+again scalded and groaning with pain.
+
+There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals of the sea. The
+Yankee gunners, some of them gray-haired men who had seen service with
+John Paul Jones in the _Bon Homme Richard_, changed from cannon-balls to
+grape, and from grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the
+British boats drew alongside they were little more than floating
+shambles. The dark waters of the harbor were lighted up by spurts of
+flame from muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of the Yankee
+privateersmen rose above the deep-throated hurrahs of the English
+sailors; the air was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants,
+the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the incessant trampling of
+struggling men upon the decks, the splash of dead and injured falling
+overboard, the clash and clang of steel on steel, and all the savage,
+overwhelming turmoil of a struggle to the death. Urged on by their
+officers' cries of "No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!" the
+British division which had attacked the bow hacked its way through the
+nettings, and succeeded by sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing
+on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants being killed or
+disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.
+
+At this critical juncture, when the Americans on the forecastle, their
+officers fallen and their guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly
+back by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having repulsed the attack
+on the _Armstrong's_ quarter, led the after division forward at a run,
+the privateersmen, though outnumbered five to one, driving the English
+overboard with the resistless fury of their onset. As the British boats,
+now laden with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into safety, they
+were raked again and again with showers of lead; two of them sank, two
+of them were captured by the Americans. Finally, with nearly three
+hundred of their men--three-quarters of the cutting-out force--dead or
+wounded, the British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly and
+painfully out of range. Some of the most brilliant victories the British
+navy has ever gained were far less dearly purchased.
+
+At three in the morning Reid received a note from Consul Dabney asking
+him to come ashore. He then learned that the governor had sent a letter
+to the British commander asking him to desist from further hostilities,
+as several buildings in the town had been injured by the British fire
+and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To this request Captain Lloyd
+had rudely replied that he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to
+knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning on board, Reid ordered
+the dead and wounded taken ashore, and told the crew to save their
+personal belongings.
+
+At daybreak the _Carnation_, being of lighter draught than the other
+vessels, stood close in for a third attack, opening on the privateer
+with every gun she could bring to bear. But even in those days the fame
+of American gunners was as wide as the seas, and so well did the crew of
+the _General Armstrong_ uphold their reputation that the _Carnation_ was
+compelled to beat a demoralized retreat, with her rigging cut away, her
+foremast about to fall, and with several gaping holes between wind and
+water. But Reid, appreciating that there was absolutely no chance of
+escape, and recognizing that further resistance would entail an
+unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by which nothing could be
+gained, ordered the crew to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered
+such valiant service overboard and to leave the ship. The veteran
+gunners, who were as much attached to their great black guns as a
+cavalryman is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing
+furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks. Then Reid with his own hand
+trained the long-tom down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the lanyard
+sent a charge of grape crashing through her bottom, from which she at
+once began to sink. Ten minutes later, before a British crew could reach
+her side, the _General Armstrong_ went to the bottom with her flag still
+defiantly flying.
+
+Few battles have been fought in which the odds were so unequal, and in
+few battles have the relative losses been so astounding. The three
+British war-ships carried two thousand men and one hundred and thirty
+guns, and of the four hundred men who composed the boarding party they
+lost, according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred killed and
+wounded. Of the American crew of ninety men, two were killed and seven
+wounded. This little crew of privateersmen had, in other words, put out
+of action more than three times their own number of British, and had
+added one more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.
+
+The Americans had scarcely gained the shore before Captain Lloyd--who,
+by the way, had been so severely wounded in the leg that amputation was
+necessary--sent a peremptory message to the governor demanding their
+surrender. But the men who could not be taken at sea were not the men to
+be captured on land, and the Americans, retreating to the mountainous
+centre of the island, took possession of a thick-walled convent, over
+which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from which they defied
+British and Portuguese alike to come and take them. No one tried.
+
+[Illustration: But even in those days the fame of American gunners was
+as wide as the seas.]
+
+All of the following day was spent by the British in burying their one
+hundred and twenty dead--you can see the white gravestones to-day if you
+will take the trouble to climb the hill behind the little town--but it
+took them a week to repair the damage caused by the battle. And so deep
+was their chagrin and mortification that when two British ships put into
+Fayal a few days later, and were ordered to take home the wounded, they
+were forbidden to carry any news of the disaster back to England.
+
+To Captain Reid and his little band of fighters is due in no small
+measure the credit of saving New Orleans from capture and Louisiana from
+invasion. Lloyd's squadron was a part of the expedition then gathering
+at Pensacola for the invasion of the South, but it was so badly crippled
+in its encounter with the privateer that it did not reach the Gulf of
+Mexico until ten days later than the expedition had planned to sail.
+The expedition waited for Lloyd and his reinforcements, so that when it
+finally approached New Orleans, Jackson and his frontiersmen, who had
+hastened down by forced marches from the North, had made preparations to
+give the English a warm reception. Had the expedition arrived ten days
+earlier it would have found the Americans unprepared, and New Orleans
+would have fallen.
+
+Captain Reid and his men, landing on their native soil at Savannah,
+found their journey northward turned into a triumphal progress. The
+whole country went wild with enthusiasm. There was not a town or village
+on the way but did them honor. The city of Richmond gave Captain Reid a
+great banquet, and the State of New York presented him with a sword of
+honor. But of all the tributes which were paid to the little band of
+heroes, none had the flavor of the concluding line of a letter written
+by one of the British officers engaged in the action to a relative in
+England. "If this is the way the Americans fight," he wrote, "we may
+well say, 'God deliver us from our enemies.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE PIRATE WHO TURNED PATRIOT
+
+
+How many well-informed people are aware, I wonder, that the fact that
+the American flag, and not the British, flies to-day over the
+Mississippi valley is largely due to the eleventh-hour patriotism of a
+pirate? Of the many kinds of men of many nationalities who have played
+parts of greater or less importance in the making of our national
+history, none is more completely cloaked in mystery, romance, and
+adventure than Jean Lafitte. The last of that long line of buccaneers
+who for more than two centuries terrorized the waters and ravaged the
+coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, his exploits make the wildest fiction
+appear commonplace and tame. Although he was as thorough-going a pirate
+as ever plundered an honest merchant-man, I do not mean to imply that he
+was a leering, low-browed scoundrel, with a red bandanna twisted about
+his head and an armory of assorted weapons at his waist, for he was
+nothing of the sort. On the contrary, from all I can learn about him, he
+appears to have been a very gentlemanly sort of person indeed, tall and
+graceful and soft-voiced, and having the most charming manners. Though
+he regarded the law with unconcealed contempt, there came a crisis in
+our national history when he placed patriotism above all other
+considerations, and rendered an inestimable service to the country whose
+laws he had flouted and to the State which had set a price on his head.
+Indeed, we are indebted to Jean Lafitte in scarcely less measure than we
+are to Andrew Jackson for frustrating the British invasion and conquest
+of Louisiana.
+
+Though the palmy days of piracy in the Gulf of Mexico really ended with
+the seventeenth century, by which time the rich cities of Middle America
+had been impoverished by repeated sackings and the gold-freighted
+caravels had taken to travelling under convoy, even at the beginning of
+the nineteenth century these storied waters still offered many
+opportunities to lawless and enterprising sea-folk. But the pirates of
+the nineteenth century, unlike their forerunners of the seventeenth,
+preyed on slave-ships rather than on treasure-galleons. Consider the
+facts. On January 1, 1808, Congress passed an act prohibiting the
+further importation of slaves into the United States. By this act the
+recently acquired territory of Louisiana, over which prosperity was
+advancing in three-league boots, was deprived of its supply of labor.
+With crops rotting in the fields for lack of laborers, the price of
+slaves rose until a negro fresh from the coast of Africa would readily
+bring a thousand dollars at auction in New Orleans. At the same time,
+remember, shiploads of slaves were being brought to Cuba, where no such
+restrictions existed, and sold for three hundred dollars a head. Under
+such conditions smuggling was inevitable. At first the smugglers bought
+their slaves in the Cuban market, and running them across the Gulf of
+Mexico, landed them at obscure harbors on the Louisiana coast, whence
+they were marched overland to New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The smugglers
+soon saw, however, that the slavers carried small crews, poorly armed,
+and quickly made up their minds that it was a shameful waste of money to
+buy slaves when they could get them for nothing by the menace of their
+guns. In short, the smugglers became buccaneers, and as such drove a
+thriving business in captured cargoes of "black ivory," as the slaves
+were euphemistically called.
+
+As the demand was greatest on the rich new lands along the Mississippi,
+it was at New Orleans that the buccaneers found the most profitable
+market for their human wares, for they could easily sail up the river to
+the city, dispose of their cargoes, and be off again with the quick
+despatch of regular liners to resume their depredations. But the
+buccaneers did not confine their attention to slave-ships, so that in a
+short time, despite the efforts of British, French, and American
+war-ships, the waters of the Gulf became as unsafe for all kinds of
+merchant-vessels as they were in the days of Morgan and Kidd.
+
+As a base for their piratical and smuggling operations, as well as for
+supplies and repairs, the buccaneers chose Barataria Bay, a place which
+met their requirements as though made to order. The name is applied to
+all of the Gulf coast of Louisiana between the mouth of the Mississippi
+and the mouth of another considerable stream known as the Bayou La
+Fourche, the latter a waterway to a rich and populous region. The Bay of
+Barataria is screened from the Gulf, with which it is connected by a
+deep-water pass, by the island of Grande Terre, the trees on which were
+high enough to effectually hide the masts of the buccaneers' vessels
+from the view of inquisitive war-ships cruising outside. Between the
+Mississippi and the La Fourche there is a perfect network of small but
+navigable waterways which extend almost to New Orleans, so that the
+buccaneers thus had a back-stairs route, as it were, to the city, which
+brought their rendezvous at Grande Terre within safe and easy reach of
+the great mart of the Mississippi valley.
+
+Such supplies as the buccaneers did not get from the ships they
+captured, they obtained by purchase in New Orleans. For the chains which
+were used in making up the caufles of slaves for transportation into the
+interior, they were accustomed to patronize the blacksmith-shop of the
+Brothers Lafitte, which stood--and still stands--on the northeast corner
+of Bourbon and St. Philippe Streets. Of the history of these brothers
+prior to their arrival in New Orleans nothing is definitely known. From
+their names, and because they spoke with the accent peculiar to the
+Garonne, they are credited with having been natives of the south of
+France, though whence they came and where they went are questions which
+have never been satisfactorily answered. They were quite evidently men
+of means, and might have been described as gentlemen blacksmiths, for
+they owned the slaves who pounded the iron. Being men of exceptional
+business shrewdness, it is not to be wondered at that from doing the
+buccaneers' blacksmithing they gradually became their agents and
+bankers, the smithy in St. Philippe Street coming in time to be a sort
+of clearing-house for many questionable transactions. Now Jean Lafitte
+was an extremely able man, combining a remarkable executive ability with
+a genius for organization, and had he lived a century later these
+traits, together with his predatory instincts and his utter contempt for
+the law, would undoubtedly have made him the president of a trust.
+Through success in managing their affairs, he gradually increased his
+usefulness to the buccaneers until he obtained complete control over
+them, and ruled them as despotically as a tribal chieftain. This was
+when his genius for organization had succeeded in uniting their
+different, and often rival, efforts and interests into a sort of
+pirates' corporation, composed of all the buccaneers, privateers, and
+freebooters doing business in the Gulf, this combination of outlaws,
+incredible as it may seem, as effectually controlling the price of
+slaves and many other things in the Mississippi valley as the Standard
+Oil Company controls the price of petroleum to-day.
+
+The influence of this new element in the buccaneer business soon made
+itself felt. At that time New Orleans was a sort of cross between an
+American frontier town and a West Indian port, its streets and barrooms
+being filled with swaggering adventurers, gamblers, and soldiers of
+fortune from every corner of the three Americas, the presence of most of
+whom was due to the activity of the sheriffs in their former homes. It
+was from these men, cool, reckless, resourceful, that Lafitte recruited
+his forces. Leaving his brother Pierre in charge of the New Orleans
+branch of the enterprise, Jean Lafitte took up his residence on Grande
+Terre, where, under his directions, a fort was built, around which there
+soon sprang up a veritable city of thatched huts for the shelter of the
+buccaneers, and for the accommodation of the merchants who came to
+supply their wants or to purchase their captured cargoes. Within a year
+upward of a dozen armed vessels rendezvoused in Barataria Bay, and their
+crews addressed Jean Lafitte as "_bosse_." One of the Baratarians, a
+buccaneer of the walk-the-plank-and-scuttle-the-ship school named
+Grambo, who boldly called himself a pirate, and jeered at Lafitte's
+polite euphemism of privateer, was one day unwise enough to dispute the
+new authority. Without an instant's hesitation Lafitte drew a pistol and
+shot him through the heart in the presence of the whole band. After that
+episode there was no more insubordination.
+
+By 1813 the Baratarians, who had long since extended their operations to
+include all kinds of merchandise, were driving such a roaring trade that
+the commerce and shipping of New Orleans was seriously diminished (for
+why go to New Orleans for their supplies, the sea-captains and the
+plantation-owners argued, when they could get what they wanted at
+Barataria for a fraction of the price), the business of the banks
+decreased alarmingly under the continual lessening of their deposits,
+while even the National Government began to feel its loss of revenue.
+The waters of Barataria, on the contrary, were alive with the sails of
+incoming and outgoing vessels; the wharfs which had been constructed at
+Grande Terre resounded to the creak of winches and the shouts of
+stevedores unloading contraband cargoes, and the long, low warehouses
+were filled with merchandise and the log stockades with slaves waiting
+to be sold and transported to the up-country plantations. So defiant of
+the law did Lafitte become that the streets of New Orleans were
+placarded with handbills announcing the auction sales at Barataria of
+captured cargoes, and to them flocked bargain-hunters from all that part
+of the South. An idea of the business done by the buccaneers at this
+time may be gained from an official statement that four hundred slaves
+were sold by auction in the Grande Terre market in a single day.
+
+Of course the authorities took action in the matter, but their efforts
+to enforce the law proved both dangerous and ineffective. In October,
+1811, a customs-inspector succeeded in surprising a band of Baratarians
+and seizing some merchandise they had with them, but before he could
+convey the prisoners and the captured contraband to New Orleans Lafitte
+and a party of his men overtook him, rescued the prisoners, recovered
+the property, and in the fight which ensued wounded several of the
+posse. Some months later Lafitte killed an inspector named Stout, who
+attempted to interfere with him, and wounded two of his deputies. Then
+Governor Claiborne issued a proclamation offering a reward for the
+capture of Lafitte dead or alive, at the same time appealing to the
+legislature for permission to raise an armed force to break up the
+buccaneering business for good and all. The cautious legislators
+declined to take any action, however, because they were unwilling to
+interfere with an enterprise that, however illegal it might be, was
+unquestionably developing the resources of lower Louisiana, and
+incidentally adding immensely to the fortunes of their constituents. As
+for the Baratarians, they paid as scant attention to the governor's
+proclamation as though it had never been written. Surrounded by groups
+of admiring friends, Lafitte and his lieutenants continued to swagger
+through the streets of New Orleans; his men openly boasted of their
+exploits in every barroom of the city, and in places of public resort
+announcements of auctions at Barataria continued to be displayed.
+
+Then Governor Claiborne played his last card, and secured indictments of
+the Lafittes on the charge of piracy. Pierre Lafitte was arrested in his
+blacksmith-shop and confined without bail in the calaboose. Jean Lafitte
+promptly trumped the governor's card by retaining the services of Edward
+Livingston and John R. Grymes, the two most distinguished members of the
+Louisiana bar, at the enormous fee of twenty thousand dollars apiece.
+Grymes was then the district attorney, but he resigned his office for
+the fee. When his successor accused him in open court of having bartered
+his honor for pirate gold Grymes challenged him to a duel, and crippled
+him for life with a pistol bullet through the hip. When the two eminent
+lawyers had cleared their poor, innocent, persecuted clients of the
+unfounded and outrageous charges brought against them, and had taught
+them certain legal tricks whereby they could continue doing business at
+the old stand and still keep on the right side of the bars, Pierre
+Lafitte sent them an invitation to visit Barataria and collect their
+fees in person. Livingston, a cautious gentleman who had no desire to
+risk himself among the pirates whose virtues he had just extolled so
+highly to a jury, declined the invitation with thanks, offering his
+colleague a commission of ten per cent to collect his fee for him.
+Grymes, who was a hard-drinking, high-living Virginian, and afraid of
+nothing on two feet or four, accepted the invitation with alacrity, and
+until the end of his life was wont to convulse his friends with lurid
+descriptions of the magnificent entertainment which Lafitte provided for
+him. After a carouse which lasted for a week, and which, from Grymes's
+accounts, was a combination of the feasts of Lucullus with the orgies of
+Nero, Lafitte sent his legal adviser back to New Orleans in a sailing
+vessel, together with several huge chests containing his fee in Spanish
+gold pieces. It is an interesting commentary on the customs which
+prevailed in those days that by the time Grymes reached New Orleans,
+after having visited the various plantations along the lower Mississippi
+and tried his luck at their card-tables, not a dollar of his fee
+remained.
+
+Now, it should be understood that the feebleness which characterized all
+the attempts of the Federal Government to break the power of the
+buccaneers was not due to any reluctance to prosecute them, but to the
+fact that it already had its attention taken up with far more pressing
+matters, for we were then in the midst of our second war with Great
+Britain. The long series of injuries which England had inflicted on the
+United States, such as the plundering and confiscation of our ships, the
+impressment into the British Navy of our seamen, and the interruption of
+our commerce with other nations, had culminated on June 18, 1812, by
+Congress declaring war. So unexpected was this action that it found the
+country totally unprepared. Our military establishment was barely large
+enough to provide garrisons for the most exposed points on our far-flung
+borders; the numerous ports on our seaboard were left unprotected and
+unfortified; and our navy consisted of but a handful of war-ships. The
+history of the first two years of the struggle, which was marked by
+brilliant American victories at sea, but by a disastrous attempt to
+invade Canada, has no place in this narrative. Early in the summer of
+1814, however, the British Government, exasperated by its failure to
+inflict any vital damage in the northern States, determined to bring
+the war to a quick conclusion by the invasion and conquest of Louisiana.
+The preparations made for this expedition were in themselves startling.
+Indeed, few Americans have even a faint conception of the strength of
+the blow which England prepared to deal us, for with Napoleon's
+abdication and exile to Elba, and the ending of the war with France, she
+was enabled to bring her whole military and naval power against us. The
+British armada consisted of fifty war-ships, mounting more than a
+thousand guns. It was commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane,
+under whom was Sir Thomas Hardy, the friend of Nelson, Rear-Admiral
+Malcolm, and Rear-Admiral Codrington, and was manned by the same sailors
+who had fought so valorously at the Nile and at Trafalgar. This great
+fleet acted as convoy for an almost equal number of transports, having
+on board eight thousand soldiers, which were the very flower of the
+British Army, nearly all of them being veterans of the Napoleonic
+campaigns. Such importance did the British Government attach to the
+success of this expedition that it seriously considered giving the
+command of it to no less a personage than the Duke of Wellington. So
+certain were the British that the venture would be successful that they
+brought with them a complete set of civil officials to conduct the
+government of this new country which was about to be annexed to his
+Majesty's dominions, judges, customs-inspectors, revenue-collectors,
+court-criers, printers, and clerks, together with printing-presses and
+office paraphernalia, being embarked on board the transports. A large
+number of ladies, wives and relatives of the officers, also accompanied
+the expedition, to take part in the festivities which were planned to
+celebrate the capture of New Orleans. And, as though to cap this
+exhibition of audacity, a number of ships were chartered by British
+speculators to bring home the booty, the value of which was estimated
+beforehand at fourteen millions of dollars. Whether the British
+Government expected to be able to permanently hold Louisiana is
+extremely doubtful, for it must have been fully aware that the Western
+States were capable of pouring down a hundred thousand men, if
+necessary, to repel an invasion. It is probable, therefore, that they
+counted only on a temporary occupation, which they expected to prolong
+sufficiently, however, to give them time to pillage and lay waste the
+country, a course which they felt confident would quickly bring the
+government at Washington to terms.
+
+This formidable armada set sail from England early in the summer of 1814
+and, reaching the Gulf of Mexico, established its base of operations,
+regardless of all the laws of neutrality, at the Spanish port of
+Pensacola. One morning in the following September a British brig hove to
+off Grande Terre, and called attention to her presence by firing a
+cannon. Lafitte, darting through the pass in his four-oared barge to
+reconnoitre, met the ship's gig with three scarlet-coated officers in
+the stern, who introduced themselves as bearers of important despatches
+for Mr. Lafitte. The pirate chief, introducing himself in turn, invited
+his unexpected guests ashore, and led the way to his quarters with that
+extraordinary charm of manner for which he was noted even among the
+punctilious Creoles of New Orleans. After a dinner of Southern
+delicacies, which elicited exclamations even from the blasé British
+officers, Lafitte opened the despatches. They were addressed to Jean
+Lafitte, Esquire, commandant at Barataria, from the commander-in-chief
+of the British forces at Pensacola, and bluntly offered him thirty
+thousand dollars, payable in Pensacola or New Orleans, a commission as
+captain in the British Navy, and the enlistment of his men in the naval
+or military forces of Great Britain if he would assist the British in
+their impending invasion of Louisiana. Though it was a generous offer,
+no one knew better than the British commander that Lafitte's
+co-operation was well worth the price, for, familiar with the network of
+streams and navigable swamps lying between Barataria Bay and New
+Orleans, he was capable of guiding a British expedition through these
+secret waterways to the very gates of the city before the Americans
+would have a hint of its approach. It is not too much to assert that at
+this juncture the future of New Orleans, and indeed of the whole
+Mississippi Valley, hung upon the decision of Jean Lafitte, a pirate and
+a fugitive from justice with a price upon his head.
+
+Whether Lafitte seriously considered accepting the offer there is, of
+course, no way of knowing. That it must have sorely tempted him it seems
+but reasonable to suppose, for he was not an American, either by birth
+or naturalization, and the prospect of exchanging his hazardous outlaw's
+life, with a vision of the gallows ever looming before him for a
+captain's commission in the royal navy, with all that that implied,
+could hardly have failed to appeal to him strongly. That he promptly
+decided to reject the offer speaks volumes for the man's strength of
+character and for his faith in American institutions. Appreciating that
+at such a crisis every hour gained was of value to the Americans, he
+asked time to consider the proposal, requesting the British officers to
+await him while he consulted an old friend and associate whose vessel,
+he said, was then lying in the bay. Scarcely was he out of sight,
+however, before a band of buccaneers, acting, of course, under his
+orders, seized the officers and hustled them into the interior of the
+island, where they were politely but forcibly detained. Here they were
+found some days later by Lafitte, who pretended to be highly indignant
+at such unwarrantable treatment of his guests. Releasing them with
+profuse apologies, he saw them safely aboard their brig, and assured
+them that he would shortly communicate his decision to the British
+commander. But that officer's letter was already in the hands of a
+friend of Lafitte's in New Orleans, who was a member of the legislature,
+and accompanying it was a communication from the pirate chief himself,
+couched in those altruistic and patriotic phrases for which the rascal
+was famous. In it he asserted that, though he admitted being guilty of
+having evaded the payment of certain customs duties, he had never lost
+his loyalty and affection for the United States, and that,
+notwithstanding the fact that there was a price on his head, he would
+never miss an opportunity of serving his adopted country. A few days
+later Lafitte forwarded through the same channels much valuable
+information which his agents had gathered as to the strength, resources,
+and plans of the British expedition, enclosing with it a letter
+addressed to Governor Claiborne in which he offered the services of
+himself and his men in defence of the State and city on condition that
+they were granted a pardon for past offences.
+
+Receiving no reply to this communication, Lafitte sailed up the river to
+New Orleans in his lugger and made his way to the residence of the
+governor. Governor Claiborne was seated at his desk, immersed in the
+business of his office, when the door was softly opened, and Lafitte,
+stepping inside, closed it behind him. Clad in the full-skirted,
+bottle-green coat, the skin-tight breeches of white leather, and the
+polished Hessian boots which he affected, he presented a most graceful
+and gallant figure. As he entered he drew two pistols from his pockets,
+cocked them, and covered the startled governor, after which ominous
+preliminaries he bowed with the grace for which he was noted.
+
+"Sir," he remarked pleasantly, "you may possibly have heard of me. My
+name is Jean Lafitte."
+
+"What the devil do you mean, sir," exploded the governor, "by showing
+yourself here? Don't you know that I shall call the sentry and have you
+arrested?"
+
+"Pardon me, your Excellency," interrupted Lafitte, moving his weapons
+significantly, "but you will do nothing of the sort. If you move your
+hand any nearer that bell I shall be compelled to shoot you through the
+shoulder, a necessity, believe me, which I should deeply regret. I have
+called on you because I have something important to say to you, and I
+intend that you shall hear it. To begin with, you have seen fit to put a
+price upon my head?"
+
+"Upon the head of a pirate, yes," thundered the governor, now almost
+apoplectic with rage.
+
+"In spite of that fact," continued Lafitte, "I have rejected a most
+flattering offer from the British government, and have come here, at
+some small peril to myself, to renew in person the offer of my services
+in repelling the coming invasion. I have at my command a body of brave,
+well-armed, and highly disciplined men who have been trained to fight.
+Does the State care to accept their services or does it not?"
+
+The governor, folding his arms, looked long at Lafitte before he
+answered. Then he held out his hand. "It is a generous offer that you
+make, sir. I accept it with pleasure."
+
+"At daybreak to-morrow, then," said Lafitte, replacing his pistols, "my
+men will be awaiting your Excellency's orders across the river." Then,
+with another sweeping bow, he left the room as silently as he had
+entered it.
+
+Governor Claiborne immediately communicated Lafitte's offer to General
+Andrew Jackson, then at Mobile, who had been designated by the War
+Department to conduct the defence of Louisiana. Jackson, who had already
+issued a proclamation denouncing the British for their overtures to
+"robbers, pirates, and hellish bandits," as he termed the Baratarians,
+promptly replied that the only thing he would have to do with Lafitte
+was to hang him. Nevertheless, when the general arrived in New Orleans a
+few days later, Lafitte called at his headquarters and requested an
+interview. By this time Jackson was conscious of the feebleness of the
+resources at his disposal for the defence of the city and of the
+strength of the armament directed against it, which accounts, perhaps,
+for his consenting to receive the "hellish bandit." Lafitte, looking the
+grim old soldier squarely in the eye, repeated his offer, and so
+impressed was Jackson with the pirate's cool and fearless bearing that
+he accepted his services.
+
+On the 10th of December, 1814, ten days after Jackson's arrival in New
+Orleans, the British armada reached the mouth of the Mississippi. Small
+wonder that the news almost created a panic in the city, for the very
+names of the ships and regiments composing the expedition had become
+famous through their exploits in the Napoleonic wars. It was a
+nondescript and motley force which Jackson had hastily gathered to repel
+this imposing army of invasion. Every man capable of bearing arms in New
+Orleans and its vicinity--planters, merchants, bankers, lawyers--had
+volunteered for service. To the local company of colored freedmen was
+added another one composed of colored refugees from Santo Domingo, men
+who had sided with the whites in the revolution there and had had to
+leave the island in consequence. Even the prisoners in the calaboose had
+been released and provided with arms. From the parishes round about came
+Creole volunteers by the hundred, clad in all manner of clothing and
+bearing all kinds of weapons. From Mississippi came a troop of cavalry
+under Hinds, which was followed a few hours later by Coffee's famous
+brigade of "Dirty Shirts," composed of frontiersmen from the forests of
+Kentucky and Tennessee, who after a journey of eight hundred miles
+through the wilderness answered Jackson's message to hurry by covering
+the one hundred and fifty miles between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in
+two days. Added to these were a thousand raw militiamen, who had been
+brought down on barges and flat-boats from the towns along the upper
+river, four companies of regulars, Beale's brigade of riflemen, a
+hundred Choctaw Indians in war-paint and feathers, and last, but in many
+respects the most efficient of all, the corps of buccaneers from
+Barataria, under the command of the Lafittes. The men, dragging with
+them cannon taken from their vessels, were divided into two companies,
+one under Captain Beluche (who rose in after years to be
+admiral-in-chief of Venezuela) and the other under a veteran
+privateersman named Dominique You. These men were fighters by
+profession, hardy, seasoned, and cool-headed, and as they swung through
+the streets of New Orleans to take up the position which Jackson had
+assigned them, even that taciturn old soldier gave a grunt of
+approbation.
+
+Jackson had chosen as his line of defence an artificial waterway known
+as the Rodriguez Canal, which lay some five miles to the east of the
+city, and along its embankments, which in themselves formed pretty good
+fortifications, he distributed his men. On the night of December 23 a
+force of two thousand British succeeded, by means of boats, in making
+their way, through the chain of bayous which surrounds the city, to
+within a mile or two of Jackson's lines, where they camped for the
+night. Being informed of their approach (for the British, remember, had
+the whole countryside against them), Jackson, knowing the demoralizing
+effect of a night attack, directed Coffee and his Tennesseans to throw
+themselves upon the British right, while at the same moment Beale's
+Kentuckians attacked on the left. Trained in all the wiles of Indian
+warfare, the frontiersmen succeeded in reaching the outskirts of the
+British camp before they were challenged by the sentries. Their reply
+was a volley at close quarters and a charge with the tomahawk--for they
+had no bayonets--which drove the British force back in something closely
+akin to a rout.
+
+Meanwhile Jackson had set his other troops at work strengthening their
+line of fortifications, so that when the sun rose on the morning of the
+day before Christmas it found them strongly intrenched behind
+earthworks, helped out with timber, sand-bags, fence-rails, and
+cotton-bales--whence arose the myth that the Americans fought behind
+bales of cotton. The British troops were far from being in Christmas
+spirits, for the truth had already begun to dawn upon them that men can
+fight as well in buckskin shirts as in scarlet tunics, and that these
+raw-boned wilderness hunters, with their powder-horns and abnormally
+long rifles, were likely to prove more formidable enemies than the
+imposing grenadiers of Napoleon's Old Guard, whom they had been fighting
+in Spain and France. On that same day before Christmas, strangely
+enough, a treaty of peace was being signed by the envoys of the two
+nations in a little Belgian town, four thousand miles away.
+
+On Christmas Day, however, the wonted confidence of the British soldiery
+was somewhat restored by the arrival of Sir Edward Pakenham, the new
+commander-in-chief, for even in that hard-fighting day there were few
+European soldiers who bore more brilliant reputations. A brother-in-law
+of the Duke of Wellington, he had fought side by side with him through
+the Peninsular War; he had headed the storming party at Badajoz; and at
+Salamanca had led the charge which won the day for England and a
+knighthood for himself. An earldom and the governorship of Louisiana, it
+was said, had been promised him as his reward for the American
+expedition.
+
+Pakenham's practised eye quickly appreciated the strength of the
+American position, which, after a council of war, it was decided to
+carry by storm. During the night of the 26th the storming columns, eight
+thousand strong, took up their positions within half a mile of the
+American lines. As the sun rose next morning over fields sparkling with
+frost, the bugles sounded the advance, and the British army, ablaze with
+color, and in as perfect alignment as though on parade, moved forward to
+the attack. As they came within range of the American guns, a group of
+plantation buildings which masked Jackson's front were blown up, and the
+British were startled to find themselves confronted by a row of ship's
+cannon, manned as guns are seldom manned on land. Around each gun was
+clustered a crew of lean, fierce-faced, red-shirted ruffians, caked with
+sweat and mud: they were Lafitte's buccaneers, who had responded to
+Jackson's orders by running in all the way from their station on the
+Bayou St. John that morning. Not until he could make out the brass
+buttons on the tunics of the advancing British did Lafitte give the
+command to fire. Then the great guns of the pirate-patriots flashed and
+thundered. Before that deadly fire the scarlet columns crumbled as
+plaster crumbles beneath a hammer, the men dropping, first by twos and
+threes, then by dozens and scores. In five minutes the attacking
+columns, composed of regiments which were the boast of the British army,
+had been compelled to sullenly retreat.
+
+The British commander, appreciating that the repulse of his forces was
+largely due to the fire of the Baratarian artillery, gave orders that
+guns be brought from the fleet and mounted in a position where they
+could silence the fire of the buccaneers. Three days were consumed in
+the herculean task of moving the heavy pieces of ordnance into position,
+but when the sun rose on New Year's morning it showed a skilfully
+constructed line of intrenchments, running parallel to the American
+front and armed with thirty heavy guns. While the British were thus
+occupied, the Americans had not been idle, for Jackson had likewise
+busied himself in constructing additional batteries, while Commodore
+Patterson, the American naval commander, had gone through the sailors'
+boarding-houses of New Orleans with a fine-tooth comb, impressing every
+nautical-looking character on which he could lay his hands, regardless
+of nationality, color, or excuses, to serve the guns. With their
+storming columns sheltered behind the breastworks, awaiting the moment
+when they would burst through the breach which they confidently expected
+would shortly be made in the American defences, the British batteries
+opened fire with a crash which seemed to split the heavens. Throughout
+the artillery duel which ensued splendid service was rendered by the men
+under Lafitte, who trained their guns as carefully and served them as
+coolly as though they were back again on the decks of their privateers.
+The storming parties, which were waiting for a breach to be made, waited
+in vain, for within an hour and thirty minutes after the action opened
+the British batteries were silenced, their guns dismounted, and their
+parapets levelled with the plain. The veterans of Wellington and Nelson
+had been out-fought from first to last by a band of buccaneers,
+reinforced by a few-score American bluejackets and a handful of
+nondescript seamen.
+
+Pakenham had one more plan for the capture of the city. This was a
+general assault by his entire army on the American lines. His plan of
+attack was simple, and would very probably have proved successful
+against troops less accustomed to frontier warfare than the Americans.
+Colonel Thornton, with fourteen hundred men, was directed to cross the
+river during the night of January 7, and, creeping up to the American
+lines under cover of the darkness, to carry them by assault. His attack
+was to be the signal for a column under General Gibbs to storm Jackson's
+right, and for another, under General Keane, to throw itself against the
+American left, General Lambert, who had just arrived with two fresh
+regiments, being held in reserve. So carefully had the British
+commanders perfected their plans that the battle was already won--in
+theory.
+
+No one knew better than Jackson that this was to be the deciding round
+of the contest, and he accordingly made his preparations to win it with
+a solar-plexus blow. He also had received a reinforcement, for the
+long-expected militia from Kentucky, two thousand two hundred strong,
+had just arrived, after a forced march of fifteen hundred miles, though
+in a half-naked and starving condition. Our history contains nothing
+finer, to my way of thinking, than the story of how these mountaineers
+of the Blue Ridge, foot-sore, ragged, and hungry, came pouring down from
+the north to repel the threatened invasion. The Americans, who numbered,
+all told, barely four thousand men, were scattered along a front of
+nearly three miles, one end of the line extending so far into a swamp
+that the soldiers stood in water to their waists during the day, and at
+night slept on floating logs made fast to trees.
+
+Long before daybreak on the morning of the 8th of January the divisions
+of Gibbs and Keane were in position, and waiting impatiently for the
+outburst of musketry which would be the signal that Thornton had begun
+his attack. Thornton had troubles of his own, however, for the swift
+current of the Mississippi, as though wishing to do its share in the
+nation's defence, had carried his boats a mile and a half down-stream,
+so that it was daylight before he was able to effect a landing, when a
+surprise was, of course, out of the question. But Pakenham, naturally
+obstinate and now made wholly reckless by the miscarriage of his plans,
+refused to recall his orders; so, as the gray mists of the early morning
+slowly lifted, his columns were seen advancing across the fields.
+
+"Steady now, boys! Steady!" called Jackson, as he rode up and down
+behind his lines. "Don't waste your ammunition, for we've none to spare.
+Pick your man, wait until he gets within range, and then let him have
+it! Let's get this business over with to-day!" His orders were obeyed
+to the letter, for not a shot was fired until the scarlet columns were
+within certain range. Then the order "Commence firing" was repeated down
+the line. Neither hurriedly, nor excitedly, nor confusedly was it
+obeyed, but with the utmost calmness and deliberation, the frontiersmen,
+trained to use the rifle from boyhood, choosing their targets, and
+calculating their ranges as unconcernedly as though they were hunting in
+their native forests. Still the British columns pressed indomitably on,
+and still the lean and lantern-jawed Jackson rode up and down his lines,
+cheering, cautioning, exhorting, directing. Suddenly he reined up his
+horse at the Baratarian battery commanded by Dominique You.
+
+"What's this? What's this?" he exclaimed. "You have stopped firing? What
+the devil does this mean, sir?"
+
+"Of course we've stopped firing, general," said the buccaneer, touching
+his forelock man-o'-war fashion. "The powder's good for nothing. It
+might do to shoot blackbirds with, but not redcoats."
+
+Jackson beckoned to one of his aides-de-camp.
+
+"Tell the ordnance officer that I will have him shot in five minutes as
+a traitor if Dominique complains again of his powder," and he
+galloped off. When he passed that way a few minutes later the rattle
+of the musketry was being punctuated at half-minute intervals with the
+crash of the Baratarian guns. "Ha, friend Dominique," called Jackson,
+"I'm glad to see you're at work again."
+
+[Illustration: The battle of New Orleans.
+
+From a painting by D.M. Carter.]
+
+"Pretty good work, too, general," responded the buccaneer. "It looks to
+me as if the British have discovered that there has been a change of
+powder in this battery." He was right. Before the combined rifle and
+artillery fire of the Americans the British columns were melting like
+snow under a spring rain. Still their officers led them on, cheering,
+pleading, threatening, imploring. Pakenham's arm was pierced by a
+bullet; at the same instant another killed his horse, but, mounting the
+pony of his aide-de-camp, he continued to encourage his disheartened and
+wavering men. Keane was borne bleeding from the field, and a moment
+later Gibbs, mortally wounded, was carried after him. The panic which
+was just beginning to seize the British soldiery was completed at this
+critical instant by a shot from one of the Baratarians' big guns which
+burst squarely in the middle of the advancing column, causing terrible
+destruction in the solid ranks. Pakenham's horse fell dead, and the
+general reeled into the arms of an officer who sprang forward to catch
+him. Terribly wounded, he was carried to the shelter of a spreading
+oak, beneath which, five minutes later, he breathed his last. Then the
+ebb-tide began. The shattered regiments, demoralized by the death of
+their commander, and themselves fearfully depleted by the American fire,
+broke and ran. Ten minutes later, save for the crawling, agonized
+wounded, not a living foe was to be seen. But the field, which had been
+green with grass half an hour before, was carpeted with scarlet now, and
+the carpet was made of British dead. Of the six thousand men who took
+part in the attack, it is estimated that two thousand six hundred were
+killed or wounded. Of the Ninety-third Regiment, which had gone into
+action nine hundred strong, only one hundred and thirty-nine men
+answered to the roll-call. The Americans had eight men killed and
+thirteen wounded. The battle had lasted exactly twenty-five minutes. At
+eight o'clock the American bugles sounded "Cease firing," and
+Jackson--whom this victory was to make President of the United
+States--followed by his staff, rode slowly down the lines, stopping at
+each command to make a short address. As he passed, the regimental fifes
+and drums burst into "Hail, Columbia," and the rows of weary,
+powder-grimed men, putting their caps on the ends of their long rifles,
+swung them in the air and cheered madly the victor of New Orleans.
+
+There is little more to tell. On March 17 the British expedition,
+accompanied by the judges and customs-inspectors and revenue-collectors,
+and by the officers' wives who had come out to take part in the
+festivities which were to mark the conquest, set sail from the mouth of
+the Mississippi, reaching Europe just in time to participate in the
+Waterloo campaign. In the general orders issued by Jackson after the
+battle the highest praise was given to the Lafittes and their followers
+from Barataria, while the official despatches to Washington strongly
+urged that some recognition be made of the extraordinary services
+rendered by the erstwhile pirates. A few weeks later the President
+granted a full pardon to the inhabitants of Barataria, his message
+concluding: "Offenders who have refused to become the associates of the
+enemy in war upon the most seducing terms of invitation, and who have
+aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United
+States, can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as
+objects of generous forgiveness." Taking advantage of this amnesty, the
+ex-pirates settled down to the peaceable lives of fishermen and
+market-gardeners, and their descendants dwell upon the shores of
+Barataria Bay to this day. As to the future movements of the brothers
+Lafitte, beyond the fact that they established themselves for a time at
+Galveston, whence they harassed Spanish commerce in the Gulf of Mexico,
+nothing definite is known. Leaving New Orleans soon after the battle,
+they sailed out of the Mississippi, and out of this story.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WHO DARED TO CROSS THE RANGES
+
+
+About the word frontiersman there is a pretty air of romance. The very
+mention of it conjures up a vision of lean, sinewy, brown-faced men, in
+fur caps and moccasins and fringed buckskin, slipping through virgin
+forests or pushing across sun-scorched prairies--advance-guards of
+civilization. Hardy, resolute, taciturn figures, they have passed
+silently across the pages of our history and we shall see their like no
+more. To them we owe a debt that we can never repay--nor, indeed, have
+we even publicly acknowledged it. We followed by the trails which they
+had blazed for us; we built our towns in those rich valleys and pastured
+our herds on those fertile hillsides which theirs were the first white
+men's eyes to see. The American frontiersman was never a self-seeker.
+His discoveries he left as a heritage to those who followed him. In
+almost every case he died poor and, more often than not, with his boots
+on. David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley, the two Englishmen who did
+more than any other men for the opening up of Africa, lie in Westminster
+Abbey, and thousands of their countrymen each year stand reverently
+beside their tombs. To Cecil Rhodes, another Anglo-African pioneer, a
+great national memorial has been erected on the slopes of Table
+Mountain. Far, far greater parts in the conquest of a wilderness, the
+winning of a continent, were played by Daniel Boone, William Bowie, Kit
+Carson, Davy Crockett; yet how many of those who to-day enjoy the fruits
+of the perils they faced, the hardships they endured, know much more of
+them than as characters in dime novels, can tell where they are buried,
+can point to any statues or monuments which have been erected to their
+memories?
+
+There are two million four hundred thousand people in the State of
+California, and most of them boast of it as "God's own country." They
+have more State pride than any people that I know, yet I would be
+willing to wager almost anything you please that you can pick a hundred
+native sons of California, and put to each of them the question, "Who
+was Jedediah Smith?" and not one of them would be able to answer it
+correctly. The public parks of San Francisco and Los Angeles and San
+Diego and Sacramento have innumerable statues of one kind and another,
+but you will find none of this man with the stern old Puritan name; they
+are starting a hall of fame in California, but no one has proposed
+Jedediah Smith as deserving a place in it. Yet to him, perhaps more than
+to any other man, is due the fact that California is American: he was
+the greatest of the pathfinders; he was the real founder of the Overland
+Trail; he was the man who led the way across the ranges. Had it not been
+for the trail he blazed and the thousands who followed in his footsteps
+the Sierra Nevadas, instead of the Rio Grande, might still mark the line
+of our frontier.
+
+The westward advance of population which took place during the first
+quarter of the nineteenth century far exceeded the limits of any of the
+great migrations of mankind upon the older continents. The story of the
+American onset to the beckoning West is one of the wonder-tales of
+history. Over the natural waterway of the great northern lakes, down the
+road to Pittsburg, along the trail which skirted the Potomac, and then
+down the Ohio, over the passes of the Cumberland into Tennessee, round
+the end of the Alleghanies into the Gulf States, up the Missouri, and so
+across the Rockies to the head waters of the Columbia, or south-westward
+from St. Louis to the Spanish settlements of Santa Fé, the hardy
+pioneers poured in an ever-increasing stream, carrying with them little
+but axe, spade, and rifle, some scanty household effects, a small store
+of provisions, a liberal supply of ammunition, and unlimited faith,
+courage, and enterprise.
+
+During that brief period the people of the United States extended their
+occupation over the whole of that vast region lying between the
+Alleghanies and the Rockies--a territory larger than all of Europe,
+without Russia--annexed it from the wilderness, conquered, subdued,
+improved, cultivated, civilized it, and all without one jot of
+governmental assistance. Throughout these years, as the frontiersmen
+pressed into the West, they continued to fret and strain against the
+Spanish boundaries. The Spanish authorities, and after them the Mexican,
+soon became seriously alarmed at this silent but resistless American
+advance, and from the City of Mexico orders went out to the provincial
+governors that Americans venturing within their jurisdiction should be
+treated, whenever an excuse offered, with the utmost severity. But,
+notwithstanding the menace of Mexican prisons, of Indian tortures, of
+savage animals, of thirst and starvation in the wilderness, the pioneers
+pushed westward and ever westward, until at last their further progress
+was abruptly halted by the great range of the Sierra Nevada,
+snow-crested, and presumably impassable, which rose like a titanic wall
+before them, barring their further march.
+
+It was at about the time of this halt in our westward progress that
+Captain Jedediah Smith came riding onto the scene. You must picture him
+as a gaunt-faced, lean-flanked, wiry man, with nerves of iron, sinews of
+rawhide, a skin like oak-tanned leather, and quick on his feet as a
+catamount. He was bearded to the ears, of course, for razors formed no
+part of the scanty equipment of the frontiersman, and above the beard
+shone a pair of very keen, bright eyes, with the concentrated wrinkles
+about their corners that come of staring across the prairies under a
+blazing sun. He was sparing of his words, as are most men who dwell in
+the great solitudes, and, like them, he was, in an unorthodox way,
+devout, his stern and rugged features as well as his uncompromising
+scriptural name betraying the grim old Puritan stock from which he
+sprang. His hair was long and black, and would have covered his
+shoulders had it not been tied at the back of the neck by a leather
+thong. His dress was that of the Indian adapted to meet the
+requirements of the adventuring white man: a hunting-shirt and trousers
+of fringed buckskin, embroidered moccasins of elkhide, and a cap made
+from the glossy skin of a beaver, with the tail hanging down behind. On
+hot desert marches, and in camp, he took off the beaver-skin cap and
+twisted about his head a bright bandanna, which, when taken with his
+gaunt, unshaven face, made him look uncommonly like a pirate. These
+garments were by no means fresh and gaudy, like those affected by the
+near-frontiersmen who take part in the production of Wild West shows;
+instead they were very soiled and much worn and greasy, and gave
+evidence of having done twenty-four hours' duty a day for many months at
+a stretch. Hanging on his chest was a capacious powder-horn, and in his
+belt was a long, straight knife, very broad and heavy in the blade--a
+first cousin of that deadly weapon to which William Bowie was in after
+years to give his name; in addition he carried a rifle, with an
+altogether extraordinary length of barrel, which brought death to any
+living thing within a thousand yards on which its foresight rested. His
+mount was a plains-bred pony, as wiry and unkempt and enduring as
+himself. Everything considered, Smith could have been no gentle-looking
+figure, and I rather imagine that, if he were alive and ventured into a
+Western town to-day, he would probably be arrested by the local
+constable as an undesirable character. I have now sketched for you, in
+brief, bold outline, as good a likeness of Smith as I am able with the
+somewhat scanty materials at hand, for he lived and did his pioneering
+in the days when frontiersmen were as common as traffic policemen are
+now, added to which the men who were familiar with his exploits were of
+a sort more ready with their pistols than with their pens.
+
+The dates of Smith's birth and death are not vital to this story, and
+perhaps it is just as well that they are not, for I can find no record
+of when he came into the world, and only the Indian warrior who wore his
+scalp-lock at his waist could have told the exact date on which he went
+out of it. It is enough to know that, just as the nineteenth century was
+passing the quarter mark, Smith was the head of a firm of fur-traders,
+Smith, Jackson & Soublette, which had obtained from President John
+Quincy Adams permission to hunt and trade to their hearts' content in
+the region lying beyond the Rocky Mountains. It would have been much
+more to the point to have obtained the permission of the Mexican
+governor-general of the Californias, or of the great chief of the
+Comanches, for they held practically all of the territory in question
+between them. Those were the days whose like we shall never know again,
+when the streams were alive with beaver, when there were more elk and
+antelope on the prairies than there are cattle now, and when the noise
+made by the moving buffalo herds sounded like the roll of distant
+thunder. They were the days when a fortune, as fortunes were then
+reckoned, awaited the man with unlimited ammunition, a sure eye, and a
+body inured to hardships. What the founder of the Astor fortune was
+doing in the Puget Sound country, Smith and his companions purposed to
+do in the Rockies; and, with this end in view, established their base
+camp on the eastern shores of the Great Salt Lake, not far from where
+Ogden now stands. This little band of pioneers formed the westernmost
+outpost of American civilization, for between them and the nearest
+settlement, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers,
+stretched thirteen hundred miles of savage wilderness. Livingstone, on
+his greatest journey, did not penetrate half as far into unknown Africa
+as Smith did into unknown America, and while the English explorer was at
+the head of a large and well-equipped expedition, the American was
+accompanied by a mere handful of men.
+
+In August, 1826, Smith and a small party of his hunters found
+themselves in the terrible Painted Desert, that God-forsaken expanse of
+sand and lava where the present States of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada
+meet. Water there was none, for the streams had run dry, and the horses
+and pack-mules were dying of thirst and exhaustion; the game had
+entirely disappeared; the supplies were all but finished--and five
+hundred miles of the most inhospitable country in the world lay between
+them and their camp on Great Salt Lake. The situation was perilous,
+indeed, and a decision had to be made quickly if any of them were to get
+out alive.
+
+"What few supplies we have left will be used up before we get a quarter
+way back to the camp," said Smith. "Our only chance--and I might as well
+tell you it's a mighty slim one, boys--is in pushing on to California."
+
+"But California's a good four hundred miles away," expostulated his
+companions, "and the Sierras lie between, and no one has ever crossed
+them."
+
+"Then I'll be the first man to do it," said Smith. "Besides, I've always
+had a hankering to learn what lies on the other side of those ranges.
+Now's my chance to find out."
+
+"I reckon there ain't much chance of our ever seeing Salt Lake or
+California either," grumbled one of the hunters, "and even if we do
+reach the coast the Mexicans 'll clap us into prison."
+
+"Well, so fur's I'm concerned," said Smith decisively, "I'd rather be
+alive and in a Greaser prison than to be dead in the desert. I'm going
+to California or die on the way."
+
+History chronicles few such marches. Westward pressed the little troop
+of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah, over
+the arid deserts and the barren ranges of southern Nevada, and so to the
+foot-hills of that great Sierran range which rears itself ten thousand
+feet skyward, forming a barrier which had theretofore separated the
+fertile lands of the Pacific slope from the rest of the continent more
+effectually than an ocean. The lava beds gave way to sand wastes dotted
+with clumps of sage-brush and cactus, and the cactus changed to stunted
+pines, and the pines ran out in rocks, and the rocks became covered with
+snow, and still Smith and his hunters struggled on, emaciated, tattered,
+almost barefooted, lamed by the cactus spines on the desert, and the
+stones on the mountain slopes, until at last they stood upon the very
+summit of the range and, like that other band of pioneers in an earlier
+age, looked down on the promised land after their wanderings in the
+wilderness. No explorer in the history of the world, not Columbus, nor
+Pizarro, nor Champlain, nor De Soto, ever gazed upon a land so fertile
+and so full of beauty. The mysterious, the jealously guarded, the
+storied land of California lay spread before them like a map in
+bas-relief. Then the descent of the western slope began, the transition
+from snow-clad mountain peaks to hillsides clothed with subtropical
+vegetation amazing the Americans by its suddenness. Imagine how like a
+dream come true it must have been to these men, whose lives had been
+spent in the less kindly climate and amid the comparatively scanty
+vegetation of the Middle West, to suddenly find themselves in this
+fairyland of fruit and flowers!
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier & Son._
+
+Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava
+beds of southwestern Utah.]
+
+"It is, indeed, a white man's country," said Smith prophetically, as,
+leaning on his long rifle, he gazed upon the wonderful panorama which
+unrolled itself before him. "Though it is Mexican just now, sooner or
+later it must and shall be ours."
+
+Heartened by the sight of this wonderful new country, and by the
+knowledge that they must be approaching some of the Mexican settlements,
+but with bodies sadly weakened from exposure, hunger, and exhaustion,
+the Americans slowly made their way down the slope, crossed those
+fertile lowlands which are now covered with groves of orange and lemon,
+and so, guided by some friendly Indians whom they met, came at last to
+the mission station of San Gabriel, one of that remarkable chain of
+outposts of the church founded by the indefatigable Franciscan, Father
+Junipero Serra. The little company of worn and weary men sighted the
+red-tiled roof of the mission just at sunset, and though Smith and his
+followers came from stern New England stock which prided itself on
+having no truck with Papists, I rather imagine that as the sweet, clear
+mission bells chimed out the angelus they lifted their hats and stood
+with bowed heads in silent thanksgiving for their preservation.
+
+I doubt if there was a more astonished community between the oceans than
+was the monastic one of San Gabriel when this band of ragged strangers
+suddenly appeared from nowhere and asked for food and shelter.
+
+"You come from the South--from Mexico?" queried the father superior,
+staring, half-awed, at these gaunt, fierce-faced, bearded men who spoke
+in a strange tongue.
+
+"No, padre," answered Smith, calling to his aid the broken Spanish he
+had picked up in his trading expeditions to Santa Fé, "we come from the
+East, from the country beyond the great mountains, from the United
+States. We are Americans," he added a little proudly.
+
+"They say they come from the East," the brown-robed monks whispered to
+each other. "It is impossible. No one has ever come from that direction.
+Have not the Indians told us many times that there is no food, no water
+in that direction, and that, moreover, there is no way to cross the
+mountains? It is, indeed, a strange and incredible tale that these men
+tell. But we will offer them our hospitality in the name of the blessed
+St. Francis, for that we withhold from no man; but it is the part of
+wisdom to despatch a messenger to San Diego to acquaint the governor of
+their coming, for it may well be that they mean no good to the people of
+this land."
+
+Had the good monks been able to look forward a few-score years, perhaps
+they would not have been so ready to offer Smith and his companions the
+shelter of the mission roof. But how were they to know that these ragged
+strangers, begging for food at their mission door, were the skirmishers
+for a mighty host which would one day pour over those mountain ranges to
+the eastward as the water pours over the falls at Niagara; that within
+rifle-shot of where their mission stood a city of half a million souls
+would spread itself across the hills; that down the dusty Camino Real,
+which the founder of their mission had trudged so often in his sandals
+and woollen robe, would whirl strange horseless, panting vehicles,
+putting a mile a minute behind their flying wheels; that twin lines of
+steel would bring their southernmost station at San Diego within twenty
+hours, instead of twenty days, of their northernmost outpost at Sonoma;
+and that over this new land would fly, not the red-white-and-green
+standard of Mexico, but an alien banner of stripes and stars?
+
+The four years which intervened between the collapse of Spanish rule in
+Mexico and the arrival of Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel were marked by
+political chaos in the Californias. When a governor of Alta California
+rose in the morning he did not know whether he was the representative of
+an emperor, a king, a president, or a dictator. As a result of these
+perennial disorders, the Mexican officials ascribed sinister motives to
+the most innocent episodes. No sooner, therefore, did Governor Echeandia
+learn of the arrival in his province of a mysterious party of Americans
+than he ordered them brought under escort to San Diego for examination.
+Though those present probably did not appreciate it, the meeting of
+Smith and Echeandia in the palace at San Diego was a peculiarly
+significant one. There sat at his ease in his great chair of state the
+saturnine Mexican governor, arrogant and haughty, beruffled and
+gold-laced, his high-crowned sombrero and his velvet jacket heavy with
+bullion, while in front of him stood the American frontiersman, gaunt,
+unshaven, and ragged, but as cool and self-possessed as though he was at
+the head of a conquering army instead of a forlorn hope. The one was as
+truly the representative of a passing as the other was of a coming race.
+Small wonder that Echeandia, as he observed the hardy figures and
+determined faces of the Americans, thought to himself how small would be
+Mexico's chance of holding California if others of their countrymen
+began to follow in their footsteps. He and his officials cross-examined
+Smith as closely as though the frontiersman was a prisoner on trial for
+his life, as, in a sense, he was, for almost any fate might befall him
+and his companions in that remote corner of the continent without any
+one being called to account for it. Smith described the series of
+misfortunes which had led him to cross the ranges; he asserted that he
+desired nothing so much as to get back into American territory again,
+and he earnestly begged the governor to provide him with the necessary
+provisions and permit him to depart. His story was so frank and
+plausible that Echeandia, with characteristic Spanish suspicion,
+promptly disbelieved every word of it, for why, he argued, should any
+sane man make so hazardous a journey unless he were a spy and well paid
+to risk his life? For even in those early days, remember, the Mexicans
+had begun to fear the ambitions of the young republic to the eastward.
+So, despite their protests, he ordered the Americans to be
+imprisoned--and no one knew better than they did that, once within the
+walls of a Mexican prison, there was small chance of their seeing the
+outside world again. Fortunately for the explorers, however, it so
+happened that there were three American trading-schooners lying in San
+Diego harbor at the time, and their captains, determined to see the
+rights of their fellow countrymen respected, joined in a vigorous and
+energetic protest to the governor against this high-handed and
+unjustified action. This seems to have frightened Echeandia, for he
+reluctantly gave orders for the release of Smith and his companions, but
+ordered them to leave the country at once, and by the same route by
+which they had come.
+
+When the year 1827 was but a few days old, therefore, the Americans
+turned their faces northward, but instead of retracing their steps in
+accordance with Echeandia's orders, they crossed the coast range,
+probably through the Tejon Pass, and kept on through the fertile region
+now known as the San Joaquin Valley, in the hope that by crossing the
+Sierra farther to the northward they would escape the terrible rigors of
+the Colorado desert. When some three hundred miles north of San Gabriel
+they attempted to recross the ranges, but a feat that had been hazardous
+in midsummer was impossible in midwinter, and the entire expedition
+nearly perished in the attempt. Several of the men and all the horses
+died of cold and hunger, and it was only by incredible exertions that
+Smith and his few remaining companions, terribly frozen and totally
+exhausted, managed to reach the Santa Clara Valley and Mission San José.
+So slow was their progress that the news of their approach preceded them
+and caused considerable disquietude to the monks. Learning from the
+Indians that he and his tatterdemalion followers were objects of
+suspicion, Smith sent a letter to the father superior, in which he gave
+an account of his arrival at San Gabriel, of his interview with the
+governor, of his disaster in the Sierras, and of his present pitiable
+condition. "I am a long way from home," this pathetic missive
+concludes, "and am anxious to get there as soon as the nature of the
+case will permit. Our situation is quite unpleasant, being destitute of
+clothing and most of the necessaries of life, wild meat being our
+principal subsistence. I am, reverend father, your strange but real
+friend and Christian brother, Jedediah Smith." As a result of this
+appeal, the hospitality of the mission was somewhat grudgingly extended
+to the Americans, who were by this time in the most desperate condition.
+
+Hardships that would kill ordinary men were but unpleasant incidents in
+the lives of the pioneers, however, and in a few weeks they were as fit
+as ever to resume their journey. But, upon thinking the matter over,
+Smith decided that he would never be content if he went back without
+having found out what lay still farther to the northward, for in him was
+the insatiable curiosity and the indomitable spirit of the born
+explorer. But as his force, as well as his resources, had become sadly
+depleted, he felt it imperative that he should first return to Salt Lake
+and bring on the men, horses, and provisions he had left there.
+Accordingly, leaving most of his party in camp at San José, he set out
+with only two companions, recrossed the Sierra at one of its highest
+points (the place he crossed is where the railway comes through to-day)
+and after several uncomfortably narrow escapes from landslides and from
+Indians, eventually reached the camp on Great Salt Lake, where he found
+that his people had long since given him and his companions up for dead.
+
+Breaking camp on a July morning, in 1827, Smith, with eighteen men and
+two women, turned his face once more toward California. To avoid the
+snows of the high Sierras, he chose the route he had taken on his first
+journey, reaching the desert country to the north of the Colorado River
+in early August. It was not until the party had penetrated too far into
+the desert to retreat that they found that the whole country was burnt
+up. For several days they pushed on in the hope of finding water. Across
+the yellow sand wastes they would sight the sparkle of a crystal lake,
+and would hasten toward it as fast as their jaded animals could carry
+them, only to find that it was a mirage. Then the horrors preliminary to
+death by thirst began: the animals, their blackened tongues protruding
+from their mouths, staggered and fell, and rose no more; the women grew
+delirious and babbled incoherent nothings; even the hardiest of the men
+stumbled as they marched, or tried to frighten away by shouts and
+gestures the fantastic shapes which danced before them. At last there
+came a morning when they could go no farther. Such of them as still
+retained their faculties felt that it was the end--that is, all but
+Jedediah Smith. He was of the breed which does not know the meaning of
+defeat, because they are never defeated until they are dead. Loading
+himself with the empty water-bottles, he set out alone into the desert,
+determined to follow one of the numerous buffalo trails, for he knew
+that sooner or later it must lead him to water of some sort, even if to
+nothing more than a buffalo-wallow. Racked with the fever of thirst, his
+legs shaking from exhaustion, he plodded on, under the pitiless sun,
+mile after mile, hour after hour, until, struggling to the summit of a
+low divide, he saw the channel of a stream in the valley beneath him.
+The expedition was saved. Stumbling and sliding down the slope in his
+haste to quench his intolerable thirst, he came to a sudden halt on the
+river-bank. It was nothing but an empty watercourse into which he was
+staring--the river had run dry! The shock of such a disappointment would
+have driven most men stark, staring mad. Only for a moment, however, was
+the veteran frontiersman staggered; he knew the character of many
+streams in the West--that often their waters run underground a few feet
+below the surface, and in a moment he was on his knees digging
+frantically in the soft sand. Soon the sand began to grow moist, and
+then the coveted water slowly began to filter upward into the little
+excavation he had hollowed. Throwing himself flat on the ground, he
+buried his burning face in the muddy water--and as he did so a shower of
+arrows whistled about him. A war-party of Comanches, unobserved, had
+followed and surrounded him. He had but exchanged the danger of death by
+thirst for the far more dreadful fate of death by torture. Though struck
+by several of the arrows, he held the Indians off until he had filled
+his water-bottles; then, retreating slowly, taking advantage of every
+particle of cover, as only a veteran plainsman can, blazing away with
+his unerring rifle whenever an Indian was incautious enough to show a
+portion of his figure, Smith succeeded in getting back to his companions
+with the precious water. With their dead animals for breastworks, the
+pioneers succeeded in holding the Indians at bay for six-and-thirty
+hours, but on the second night the redskins, heavily reinforced, rushed
+them in the night, ten of the men and the two women being killed in the
+hand-to-hand fight which ensued, and the few horses which remained alive
+being stampeded. I rather imagine that the women were shot by their own
+husbands, for the women of the frontier always preferred death to
+capture by these fiends in paint and feathers.
+
+How Smith, calling all his craft and experience as a plainsman to his
+assistance, managed to lead his eight surviving companions through the
+encircling Indians by night, and how, wounded, horseless, and
+provisionless as they were, he succeeded in guiding them across the
+ranges to San Bernardino, is but another example of this forgotten
+hero's courage and resource. Having lost everything that he possessed,
+for the whole of his scanty savings had been invested in the ill-fated
+expedition, Smith, with such of his men as were strong enough to
+accompany him, set out to rejoin the party he had left some months
+previously at Mission San José. Scarcely had he set foot within that
+settlement, however, before he was arrested and taken under escort to
+Monterey, where he was taken before the governor, who, he found to his
+surprise and dismay, was no other than his old enemy of San Diego, Don
+José Echeandia. This time nothing would convince Echeandia that Smith
+was not the leader of an expedition which had territorial designs on
+California, and he promptly ordered him to be taken to prison and kept
+in solitary confinement as a dangerous conspirator. Thereupon Smith
+resorted to the same expedient he had used so successfully, and begged
+the captains of the American vessels in the harbor of Monterey for
+protection. So forcible were their representations that Echeandia
+finally agreed to release Smith on his swearing to leave California for
+good and all. To this proposal Smith willingly agreed and took the oath
+required of him, but, upon being released from prison, was astounded to
+learn that the governor had given orders that he must set out
+alone--that his hunters would not be permitted to accompany him. His and
+their protestations were disregarded. Smith must start at once and
+unaccompanied. He was given a horse and saddle, provisions, blankets, a
+rifle--and nothing more. It was a sentence of death which Echeandia had
+had pronounced on this American frontiersman, and both he and Smith knew
+it. Without having committed any crime--unless it was a crime to be an
+American--Jedediah Smith was driven out of the territory of a supposedly
+friendly nation, and told that he was at perfect liberty to make his way
+across two thousand miles of wilderness to the nearest American
+outpost--if he could.
+
+Striking back into that range of the Sierras which lies southeast of
+Fresno, Smith succeeded in crossing them for a fourth time, evidently
+intending to make his way back to his old stamping-ground on the Great
+Salt Lake. Our knowledge of what occurred after he had crossed the
+ranges for the last time is confined to tales told to the settlers in
+later years by the Indians. While emerging from the terrible Death
+Valley, where hundreds of emigrants were to lose their lives during the
+rush to the gold-fields a quarter of a century later, he was attacked at
+a water-hole by a band of Indians. For many years afterward the
+Comanches were wont to tell with admiration how this lone pale-face,
+coming from out of the setting sun, had knelt behind his dead horse and
+held them off with his deadly rifle all through one scorching summer's
+day. But when nightfall came they crept up very silently under cover of
+the darkness and rushed him. His scalp was very highly valued, for it
+had cost the lives of twelve Comanche braves.
+
+But Jedediah Smith did not die in vain. Tales of the rich and virgin
+country which he had found beyond the ranges flew as though with wings
+across the land; soon other pioneers made their way over the mountains
+by the trails which he had blazed; long wagon-trains crawled westward
+by the routes which he had taken; strange bands of horsemen pitched
+their tents in the valleys where he had camped. The mission bells grew
+silent; the monk in his woollen robe and the _caballero_ in his
+gold-laced jacket passed away; settlements of hardy, energetic,
+nasal-voiced folk from beyond the Sierras sprang up everywhere. Then one
+day a new flag floated over the presidio in Monterey--a flag that was
+not to be pulled down. The American republic had reached the western
+ocean, and thus was fulfilled the dream of Jedediah Smith, the man who
+showed the way.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLAG OF THE BEAR
+
+
+Because the battles which marked its establishment were really only
+skirmishes, in which but an insignificant number of lives were lost, and
+because it boasted less than a thousand citizens all told, certain of
+our historians have been so undiscerning as to assert that the Bear Flag
+Republic was nothing but a travesty and a farce. Therein they are wrong.
+Though it is doubtless true that the handful of frontiersmen who raised
+their home-made flag, with its emblem of a grizzly bear, over the
+Californian presidio of Sonoma on that July morning in 1846 took
+themselves much more seriously than the circumstances warranted, it is
+equally true that their action averted the seizure of California by
+England, and by forcing the hand of the administration at Washington was
+primarily responsible for adding what is now California, Nevada,
+Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and more than half of Wyoming and Colorado to
+the Union. The series of intrigues and affrays and insurrections which
+resulted in the Pacific coast becoming American instead of European
+form a picturesque, exciting, and virtually unwritten chapter in our
+national history, a chapter in which furtive secret agents and haughty
+_caballeros_, pioneers in fringed buckskin, and naval officers in
+gold-laced uniforms all played their greater or their lesser parts.
+
+To fully understand the conditions which led up to the "Bear Flag War,"
+as it has been called, it is necessary to go back for a moment to the
+first quarter of the last century, when the territory of the United
+States ended at the Rocky Mountains and the red-white-and-green flag of
+Mexico floated over the whole of that vast, rich region which lay
+beyond. Under the Mexican régime the territory lying west of the Sierra
+Nevadas was divided into the provinces of Alta (or Upper) and Baja (or
+Lower) California, the population of the two provinces about 1845
+totalling not more than fifteen thousand souls, nine-tenths of whom were
+Mexicans, Spaniards, and Indians, the rest American and European
+settlers. The foreigners, among whom Americans greatly predominated,
+soon became influential out of all proportion to their numbers. This was
+particularly true of the Americans, who, solidified by common interests,
+common dangers, and common ambitions, obtained large grants of land,
+built houses which in certain cases were little short of forts,
+frequently married into the most aristocratic of the Californian
+families, and before long practically controlled the commerce of the
+entire territory.
+
+It was only to be expected, therefore, that the Mexicans should become
+more and more apprehensive of American ambitions. Nor did President
+Jackson's offer, in 1835, to buy Southern California--an offer which was
+promptly refused--serve to do other than strengthen these apprehensions.
+And to make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Commodore T.
+ApCatesby Jones, having heard a rumor that war had broken out between
+the United States and Mexico, and having reason to believe that a
+British force was preparing to seize California, landed a force of
+bluejackets and marines, and on October 21, 1842, raised the American
+flag over the presidio at Monterey. Although Commodore Jones, finding he
+had acted upon misinformation, lowered the flag next day and tendered an
+apology to the provincial officials, the incident did not tend to
+relieve the tension which existed between the Mexicans and the
+Americans, for it emphasized the ease with which the country could be
+seized, and hinted with unmistakable plainness at the ultimate
+intentions of the United States. That our government intended to annex
+the Californias at the first opportunity that offered the Mexicans were
+perfectly aware, for, aroused by the descriptions of the unbelievable
+beauty and fertility of the country as sent back by those daring souls
+who had made their way across the ranges, the hearts of our people were
+set upon its acquisition. The great Bay of San Francisco, large enough
+to shelter the navies of the world and the gateway to the Orient, the
+fruitful, sun-kissed land beyond the Sierras, the political domination
+of America, and the commercial domination of the Pacific--such were the
+visions which inspired our people and the motives which animated our
+leaders, and which were intensified by the fear of England's designs
+upon this western land.
+
+As the numbers of the American settlers gradually increased, the
+jealousy and suspicion of the Mexican officials became more pronounced.
+As early as 1826 they had driven Captain Jedediah Smith, the first
+American to make his way to California by the overland route, back into
+the mountains, in the midst of winter, without companions and without
+provisions, to be killed by the Indians. In 1840 more than one hundred
+American settlers were suddenly arrested by the Mexican authorities on
+a trumped-up charge of having plotted against the government, marched
+under military guard to Monterey, and confined in the prison there under
+circumstances of the most barbarous cruelty, some fifty of them being
+eventually deported to Mexico in chains. Thomas O. Larkin, the American
+consul at Monterey, upon visiting the prisoners in the local jail where
+they were confined, found that the cells had no floors, and that the
+poor fellows stood in mud and water to their ankles. Sixty of the
+prisoners he found crowded into a single room, twenty feet long and
+eighteen wide, in which they were so tightly packed that they could not
+all sit at the same time, much less lie down. The room being without
+windows or other means of ventilation, the air quickly became so fetid
+that they were able to live only by dividing themselves into platoons
+which took turns in standing at the door and getting a few breaths of
+air through the bars. These men, whose only crime was that they were
+Americans, were confined in this hell-hole, without food except such as
+their friends were able to smuggle in to them by bribing the sentries,
+for eight days. And this treatment was accorded them, remember, not
+because they were conspirators--for no one knew better than the Mexican
+authorities that they were not--but because it seemed the easiest means
+of driving them out of the country. Throughout the half-dozen years that
+ensued American settlers were subjected to a systematic campaign of
+annoyance, persecution, and imprisonment on innumerable frivolous
+pretexts, being released only on their promise to leave California
+immediately. By 1845, therefore, the harassed Americans, in sheer
+desperation, were ready to grasp the first opportunity which presented
+itself to end this intolerable tyranny for good and all.
+
+It was not only the outrageous treatment to which they were subjected,
+however, nor the weakness and instability of the government under which
+they were living, nor even the insecurity of their lives and property
+and the discouragements to industry, which led the American settlers to
+decide to end Mexican rule in the Californias. Texas had recently been
+annexed by the United States against the protests of Mexico, an American
+army of invasion was massed along the Rio Grande, and war was certain.
+It required no extraordinary degree of intelligence, then, to foresee
+that the coming hostilities would almost inevitably result in Mexico
+losing her Californian provinces. Now it was a matter of common
+knowledge that the Mexican Government was seriously considering the
+advisability of ceding the Californias to Great Britain, and thus
+accomplishing the threefold purpose of wiping out the large Mexican debt
+due to British bankers, of winning the friendship and possibly the
+active assistance of England in the approaching war with the United
+States, and of preventing the Californias from falling into American
+hands. The danger was, therefore, that England would step in before us.
+Nor was the danger any imaginary one. Her ships were watching our ships
+on the Mexican coast, and her secret agents who infested the country
+were keeping their fingers constantly on the pulse of public opinion.
+Though it remains to this day a matter of conjecture as to just how far
+England was prepared to go to obtain this territory, there is little
+doubt that she had laid her plans for its acquisition in one way or
+another. If California was to be added to the Union, therefore, it must
+be by a sudden and daring stroke.
+
+Meanwhile the authorities at Washington had not been idle. Though Larkin
+was ostensibly the American consul at Monterey and nothing more, in
+reality he was clothed with far greater powers, having been hurried from
+Washington to California for the express purpose of secretly encouraging
+an insurrectionary movement among the American settlers, and of keeping
+our government informed of the plans of the Mexicans and British.
+Receiving information that a powerful British fleet--the largest, in
+fact, which had ever been seen in Pacific waters--was about to sail for
+the coast of California, the administration promptly issued orders for a
+squadron of war-ships under Commodore John Drake Sloat to proceed at
+full speed to the Pacific coast, the commander being given secret
+instructions to back up Consul Larkin in any action which he might take,
+and upon receiving word that the United States had declared war against
+Mexico to immediately occupy the Californian ports. Then ensued one of
+the most momentous races in history, over a course extending half-way
+round the world, the contestants being the war-fleets of the two most
+powerful maritime nations, and the prize seven hundred thousand square
+miles of immensely rich territory and the mastery of the Pacific.
+Commodore Sloat laid his course around the Horn, while the English
+commander, Admiral Trowbridge, chose the route through the Indian Ocean.
+The first thing he saw as he entered the Bay of Monterey was the
+American squadron lying at anchor in the harbor.
+
+Never was there a better example of that form of territorial expansion
+which has come to be known as "pacific penetration" than the American
+conquest of California; never were the real designs of a nation and the
+schemes of its secret agents more successfully hidden. Consul Larkin, as
+I have already said, was quietly working, under confidential
+instructions from the State Department, to bring about a revolution in
+California without overt aid from the United States; the Californian
+coast towns lay under the guns of American war-ships, whose commanders
+likewise had secret instructions to land marines and take possession of
+the country at the first opportunity that presented itself; and, as
+though to complete the chain of American emissaries, early in 1846 there
+came riding down from the Sierran passes, at the head of what pretended
+to be an exploring and scientific expedition, the man who was to set the
+machinery of conquest actually in motion.
+
+The commander of the expedition was a young captain of engineers, named
+John Charles Frémont, who, as the result of two former journeys of
+exploration into the wilderness beyond the Rockies, had already won the
+sobriquet of "The Pathfinder." Born in Savannah, of a French father and
+a Virginian mother, he was a strange combination of aristocrat and
+frontiersman. Dashing, debonair, fearless, reckless, a magnificent
+horseman, a dead-shot, a hardy and intrepid explorer, equally at home
+at a White House ball or at an Indian powwow, he was probably the most
+picturesque and romantic figure in the United States. These
+characteristics, combined with extreme good looks, a gallant manner, and
+the great public reputation he had won by the vivid and interesting
+accounts he had published of his two earlier journeys, had completely
+captured the popular imagination, so that the young explorer had become
+a national idol. In the spring of 1845 he was despatched by the National
+Government on a third expedition, which had as its ostensible object the
+discovery of a practicable route from the Rocky Mountains to the mouth
+of the Columbia River, but which was really to lend encouragement to the
+American settlers in California in any secession movement which they
+might be planning and to afford them active assistance should war be
+declared. Just how far the government had instructed Frémont to go in
+fomenting a revolution will probably never be known, but there is every
+reason to believe that his father-in-law, United States Senator Benton,
+had advised him to seize California if an opportunity presented itself,
+and to trust to luck (and the senator's influence) that the government
+would approve rather than repudiate his action.
+
+[Illustration: The Sacramento Valley in 1845.
+
+From a steel engraving of the period.]
+
+All told, Frémont's expedition numbered barely threescore men--no
+great force, surely, with which to overthrow a government and win an
+empire. In advance of the little column rode the four Delaware braves
+whom Frémont had brought with him from the East to act as scouts and
+trackers, and whose cunning and woodcraft he was willing to match
+against that of the Indians of the plains. Close on their heels rode the
+Pathfinder himself, clad from neck to heel in fringed buckskin, at his
+belt a heavy army revolver and one of those vicious, double-bladed
+knives to which Colonel Bowie, of Texas, had already given his name, and
+on his head a jaunty, broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which his long,
+yellow hair fell down upon his shoulders. At his bridle arm rode Kit
+Carson, the most famous of the plainsmen, whose exploits against the
+Indians were even then familiar stories in every American household.
+Behind these two stretched out the rank and file of the
+expedition--bronze-faced, bearded, resolute men, well mounted, heavily
+armed, and all wearing the serviceable dress of the frontier.
+
+Frémont found the American settlers scattered through the interior in a
+state of considerable alarm, for rumors had reached them that the
+Mexican Government had decided to drive them out of the country, and
+that orders had been issued to the provincial authorities to incite the
+Indians against them. As they dwelt for the most part in small, isolated
+communities, scattered over a great extent of country, it was obvious
+that, if these rumors were true, their lives were in imminent peril.
+They had every reason to expect, moreover, that the news of war between
+Mexico and the United States would bring down on them those forms of
+punishment and retaliation for which the Mexicans were notorious. They
+were confronted, therefore, with the alternative of abandoning the homes
+they had built and the fields they had tilled and seeking refuge in
+flight across the mountains, or of remaining to face those perils
+inseparable from border warfare. Nor did it take them long to decide
+upon resistance, for they were not of the breed which runs away.
+
+Leaving most of his men encamped in the foot-hills, Frémont pushed on to
+Monterey, then the most important settlement in Upper California, and
+the seat of the provincial government, where he called upon Don José
+Castro, the Mexican commandant, explained the purposes of his
+expedition, and requested permission for his party to proceed northward
+to the Columbia through the San Joaquin valley. This permission Castro
+grudgingly gave, but scarcely had Frémont broken camp before the
+Mexican, who had hastily gathered an overwhelming force of soldiers and
+vaqueros, set out upon the trail of the Americans with the avowed
+purpose of surprising and exterminating them. Fortunately for the
+Americans, Consul Larkin, getting wind of Castro's intended treachery,
+succeeded in warning Frémont, who instead of taking his chances in a
+battle on the plains against a greatly superior force, suddenly occupied
+the precipitous hill lying back of and commanding Monterey, known as the
+Hawk's Peak, intrenched himself there, and then sent word to Castro to
+come and take him. Although the Mexican commander made a military
+demonstration before the American intrenchments, he was wise enough to
+refrain from attempting to carry a position of such great natural
+strength and defended by such unerring shots as were Frémont's
+frontiersmen. Four days later Frémont, feeling that there was nothing to
+be gained by holding the position longer, and confident that the
+Mexicans would be only too glad to see his back, quietly broke camp one
+night and resumed his march toward Oregon.
+
+Scarcely had he crossed the Oregon line, however, before he was
+overtaken by a messenger on a reeking horse, who had been despatched by
+Consul Larkin to inform him that an officer with urgent despatches from
+Washington had arrived at Monterey and was hastening northward to
+overtake him. Frémont immediately turned back, and on the shores of the
+Greater Klamath Lake met Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, who had
+travelled from New York to Vera Cruz by steamer, had crossed Mexico to
+Mazatlán on horseback, and had been brought up the Pacific coast to
+Monterey in an American war-ship. The exact contents of the despatches
+with which Gillespie had been intrusted will probably never be known,
+for having reason to believe that his mission was suspected by the
+Mexicans, and being fearful of arrest, he had destroyed the despatches
+after committing their contents to memory. These contents he
+communicated to Frémont, and the fact that the latter immediately turned
+his horse's head Californiawards is the best proof that they contained
+definite instructions for him to stir up the American settlers to revolt
+and so gain California for the Union by what some one has aptly
+described as "neutral conquest."
+
+The news of Frémont's return spread among the scattered settlers as
+though by wireless, and from all parts of the country hardy, determined
+men came pouring into camp to offer him their services. But his hands
+were tied. His instructions from Washington, while ordering him to lend
+his encouragement to an insurrectionary movement, expressly forbade him
+to take the initiative in any hostilities until he received word that
+war with Mexico had been declared--and that word had not yet come. These
+facts he communicated to the settlers. Frémont's assurance that the
+American Government sympathized with their aspirations for independence,
+and could be counted upon to back up any action they might take to
+secure it, was all that the settlers needed. On the evening of June 13,
+1846, some fifty Americans living along the Sacramento River met at the
+ranch of an old Indian-fighter and bear-hunter named Captain Meredith,
+and under his leadership rode across the country in a northwesterly
+direction through the night. Dawn found them close to the presidio of
+Sonoma, which was the residence of the Mexican general Vallejo and the
+most important military post north of San Francisco. Leaving their
+horses in the shelter of the forest, the Americans stole silently
+forward in the dimness of the early morning, overpowered the sentries,
+burst in the gates, and had taken possession of the town and surrounded
+the barracks before the garrison was fairly awake. General Vallejo and
+his officers were captured in their beds, and were sent under guard to
+a fortified ranch known as Sutter's fort, which was situated some
+distance in the interior. In addition to the prisoners, nine field-guns,
+several hundred stands of arms, and a considerable supply of ammunition
+fell into the hands of the Americans. The first blow had been struck in
+the conquest of California.
+
+The question now arose as to what they should do with the town they had
+captured, for Frémont had no authority to take it over for the United
+States, or to muster the men who took it into the American service. The
+embattled settlers found themselves, in fact, to be in the embarrassing
+position of being men without a country. After a council of war they
+decided to organize a _pro-tem_. government of their own to administer
+the territory until such time as it should be formally annexed to the
+United States. I doubt if a government was ever established so quickly
+and under such rough-and-ready circumstances. After an informal ballot
+it was announced that William B. Ide, a leading spirit among the
+settlers, had been unanimously elected governor and commander-in-chief
+"of the independent forces"; John H. Nash, who had been a justice of the
+peace in the East before he had emigrated to California, being named
+chief justice of the new republic.
+
+For a full-fledged nation not to have a flag of its own was, of course,
+unthinkable; so, as most of its citizens were hunters and adventurers,
+when some one suggested that the grizzly bear, because of its
+indomitable courage and tenacity and its ferocity when aroused, would
+make a peculiarly appropriate emblem for the new banner, the suggestion
+was adopted with enthusiasm and a committee of two was appointed to put
+it into immediate execution. A young settler named William Ford, who had
+been imprisoned by the Mexicans in the jail at Sonoma, and who had been
+released when his countrymen captured the place; and William Todd, an
+emigrant from Illinois, were the makers of the flag. On a piece of
+unbleached cotton cloth, a yard wide and a yard and a half long, they
+painted the rude figure of a grizzly bear ready to give battle. This
+strange banner they raised, at noon on June 14, amid a storm of cheers
+and a salute from the captured cannon, on the staff where so recently
+had floated the flag of Mexico, and from it the Bear Flag Republic took
+its name.
+
+Scarcely had Frémont received the news of the capture of Sonoma and the
+proclamation of the Bear Flag Republic than word reached him that a
+large force of Mexicans was on its way to retake the town. Disregarding
+his instructions from Washington, and throwing all caution to the
+winds, Frémont instantly decided to stake everything on giving his
+support to his imperilled countrymen. His own men reinforced by a number
+of volunteers, he arrived at Sonoma after a forced march of thirty-six
+hours, only to find the Bear Flag men still in possession. The number of
+the enemy, as well as their intentions, had, it seems, been greatly
+exaggerated, the force in question being but a small party of troopers
+which Castro had despatched to the Mission of San Rafael, on the north
+shore of San Francisco Bay, to prevent several hundred cavalry remounts
+which were stabled there from falling into the hands of the Americans.
+Realizing the value of these horses to the settlers in the guerilla
+campaign, which seemed likely to ensue, Frémont succeeded in capturing
+them after a sharp skirmish with the Mexicans. Hurrying back to Sonoma,
+he learned that during his absence Ide and his men had repulsed an
+attack by a body of Mexican regulars, under General de la Torre,
+reinforced by a band of ruffians and desperadoes led by an outlaw named
+Padilla, inflicting so sharp a defeat that the only enemies left in that
+part of the country were the scattered fugitives from this force; these
+being hunted down and summarily dealt with by the frontiersmen. Having
+now irrevocably committed himself to the insurgent cause, and feeling
+that, if he were to be hanged, it might as well be for a sheep as for a
+lamb, Frémont decided on the capture of San Francisco. The San Francisco
+of 1846 had little in common with the San Francisco of to-day, remember,
+for on the site where the great Western metropolis now stands there was
+nothing but a village consisting of a few-score adobe houses and the
+Mexican presidio, or fort, the latter containing a considerable supply
+of arms and ammunition. Accompanied by Kit Carson, Lieutenant Gillespie,
+and a small detachment of his men, Frémont crossed the Bay of San
+Francisco in a sailing-boat by night, and took the Mexican garrison so
+completely by surprise that they surrendered without firing a shot. The
+gateway to the Orient was ours.
+
+Frémont now prepared to take the offensive against Castro, who was
+retreating on Los Angeles, but just as he was about to start on his
+march southward a messenger brought the great news that Admiral Sloat,
+having received word that hostilities had commenced along the Rio
+Grande, had landed his marines at Monterey, and on July 7, to the
+thunder of saluting war-ships, had raised the American flag over the
+presidio, and had proclaimed the annexation of California to the Union.
+When the Bear Flag men learned the great news they went into a frenzy of
+enthusiasm; whooping, shouting, singing snatches of patriotic songs,
+and firing their pistols in the air. Quickly the standard of the
+fighting grizzly was lowered and the flag of stripes and stars hoisted
+in its place, while the rough-clad, bearded settlers, who had waited so
+long and risked so much that this very thing might come to pass, sang
+the Doxology with tears running down their faces. As the folds of the
+familiar banner caught the breeze and floated out over the flat-roofed
+houses of the little town, Ide, the late chief of the three-weeks
+republic, jumping on a powder barrel, swung his sombrero in the air and
+shouted: "Now, boys, all together, three cheers for the Union!" The
+moist eyes and the lumps in the throats brought by the sight of the old
+flag did not prevent the little band of frontiersmen from responding
+with a roar which made the windows of Sonoma rattle.
+
+Now, as a matter of fact, Admiral Sloat had placed himself in a very
+embarrassing position, for he had based his somewhat precipitate action
+in seizing California on what he had every reason to believe was
+authentic news that war between the United States and Mexico had
+actually begun, but which proved next day to be merely an unconfirmed
+rumor. If a state of war really did exist, then both Sloat and Frémont
+were justified in their aggressions; but if it did not, then they might
+have considerable difficulty in explaining their action in commencing
+hostilities against a nation with which we were at peace. So Sloat began
+"to get cold feet," asserting that he was forced to act as he had
+because he had received reliable information that the British, whose
+fleet was lying off Monterey, were on the point of seizing California
+themselves. Frémont, on his part, claimed to have acted in defence of
+the American settlers in the interior, who without his assistance would
+have been massacred by the Mexicans. At this juncture Commodore Stockton
+arrived at Monterey in the frigate _Congress_, and as Sloat was now
+thoroughly frightened and only too glad to transfer the responsibility
+he had assumed to other shoulders, Stockton, who was the junior officer,
+asked for and readily obtained permission to assume command of the
+operations. Frémont, who had reached Monterey with several hundred
+riflemen, was appointed commander-in-chief of the land forces by
+Stockton, and was ordered to embark his men on one of the war-ships and
+proceed at once to capture San Diego, at that time by far the most
+important place in California. Stockton himself, after raising the
+American flag over San Francisco and Santa Barbara, sailed down the
+coast to San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, where he disembarked a
+force of bluejackets and marines for the taking of the latter city,
+within which the Mexican commander, General Castro, had shut himself up
+with a considerable number of troops, and where he promised to make a
+desperate resistance.
+
+As Stockton came marching up from San Pedro at the head of his column he
+was met by a Mexican carrying a flag of truce and bearing a message from
+Castro warning the American commander in the most solemn terms that if
+his forces dared to set foot within Los Angeles they would be going to
+their own funerals. "Present my compliments to General Castro," Stockton
+told the messenger, "and ask him to have the kindness to have the church
+bells tolled for our funerals at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, for at
+that hour I shall enter the city." Upon receipt of this disconcerting
+message Castro slipped out of Los Angeles that night, without firing a
+shot in its defence, and at eight o'clock on the following morning,
+Stockton, just as he had promised, came riding in at the head of his
+men.
+
+After garrisoning the surrounding towns and ridding the countryside of
+prowling bands of Mexican guerillas, Stockton officially proclaimed
+California a Territory of the United States, instituted a civil
+government along American lines, and appointed Frémont as the first
+Territorial governor. Before the year 1846 had drawn to a close these
+two Americans, the one a rough-and-ready sailor, the other a youthful
+and impetuous soldier, assisted by a few hundred marines and
+frontiersmen, had completed the conquest and pacification of a territory
+having a greater area and greater natural resources than those of all
+the countries conquered by Napoleon put together. Thus ended the happy,
+lazy, luxury-loving society of Spanish California. Another society, less
+luxurious, less light-hearted, less contented, but more energetic, more
+progressive, and better fitted for the upbuilding of a nation, took its
+place. There are still to be found in California a few men, white-haired
+and stoop-shouldered now, who were themselves actors in this drama I
+have described, and who delight to tell of those stirring days when
+Frémont and his frontiersmen came riding down from the passes, and the
+embattled settlers of Sonoma founded their short-lived Republic of the
+Bear.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS
+
+
+In one of the public squares of San José, which is the capital of Costa
+Rica, there is a marble statue of a stern-faced young woman, with her
+foot planted firmly on a gentleman's neck. The young woman is symbolic
+of the Republic of Costa Rica, and the gentleman ground beneath her heel
+is supposed to represent the American filibuster and soldier of fortune,
+William Walker. Now, before going any farther, justice requires me to
+explain that Walker's downfall was not due to Costa Rica, as the
+citizens of that little republic would like the world to believe, and as
+the bombastic statue in the plaza of its capital would lead one to
+suppose, but to a far greater and richer power, whose victories were won
+with dollars instead of bayonets, whose capital was New York City, and
+whose name was Cornelius Vanderbilt.
+
+To the younger generation the name of William Walker carries no
+significance, but to the gray-heads whose recollections antedate the
+Civil War the mention of it brings back a flood of thrilling memories,
+while throughout the length and breadth of that wild region lying
+between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Isthmus of Panama it is still
+a synonym for unfaltering courage. His weakness was ambition; his fault
+was failure. Had he succeeded in realizing his ambitions--and he failed
+only by the narrowest of margins--he would have been lauded as another
+Cortez, and would have received stars and crosses instead of bullets.
+Had his life not been cut short by a Honduran firing-party, it is
+possible, indeed probable, that, instead of there being six states in
+Central America there would be but one, and in that one the institution
+of slavery might still exist. Though I have scant sympathy with the
+motives which animated Walker, and though I believe that his death was
+for the best good of the Central American peoples, he was the very
+antithesis of the cutthroat and blackguard and outlaw which he has been
+painted, being, on the contrary, a very brave and honest gentleman, of
+whom his countrymen have no reason to feel ashamed, and that is why I am
+going to tell his story.
+
+The eldest son of a Scotch banker, Walker was born in 1824 in Nashville,
+Tennessee. His father, a stiff-necked Presbyterian who held morning and
+evening prayers, asked an interminable grace before every meal, and
+took his family to church three times on Sunday, had set his heart on
+his son entering the ministry, and it was with a pulpit and parish in
+view that young Walker was educated. By the time that he was ready to
+enter the theological school, however, he decided that he preferred M.D.
+instead of D.D. after his name, whereupon, much to his father's
+disappointment, he insisted on taking the medical course at the
+University of Tennessee, following it up by two years at the University
+of Edinburgh. Thoroughly equipped to practise his chosen profession, he
+opened an office in Philadelphia, but in a few months the routine of a
+doctor's life palled upon him, so, taking down his brass door-plate, he
+went to New Orleans, where, after two years of study, he was admitted to
+the bar. But he soon found that briefs and summonses were scarcely more
+to his liking than prescriptions and pills, so, with the prompt decision
+which was one of his most marked characteristics, he closed his
+law-office and obtained a position as editorial writer on a New Orleans
+newspaper. Within a year the restlessness which had led him to abandon
+the church, medicine, and the bar caused him to give up journalism in
+its turn. At this time, 1852, the Californian gold fever was at its mad
+height, and to the Pacific coast were pouring streams of
+fortune-seekers and adventure-lovers from every quarter of the globe.
+One of the latter was Walker, and it was while editor of the San
+Francisco _Herald_, when only twenty-eight years old, that his amazing
+career really began.
+
+Walker was not of the sort who could content himself for any length of
+time within the stuffy walls of an editorial sanctum. His fingers were
+made to grasp something more virile than the pen. Nor did he make any
+attempt to win a fortune with pick and shovel in the gold fields. His
+ambitions were neither intellectual nor mercenary, but political, for
+from his boyhood days in Nashville he had dreamed, as all boys worth
+their salt do dream, of some day founding a state, with himself as its
+ruler, in that wild and savage region below the Rio Grande. Enlisting
+half a hundred kindred souls from the hordes of the reckless, the
+adventurous, and the needy which were pouring into California by boat
+and wagon-train, Walker chartered a small vessel and set sail from San
+Francisco for the coast of Mexico. His avowed object was a purely
+humanitarian one: to protect the women and children living along the
+Mexican frontier from massacre by the Indians, the state of Sonora being
+at that time more under the dominion of the Apaches than it was under
+that of Mexico. But it was not the protection of the women and
+children--though they needed protection badly enough, goodness
+knows--which led Walker to embark on this hare-brained expedition. He
+was lured southward by a dream of empire, an empire of which he should
+be the ruler, and which should be founded on slavery. By this time,
+remember, the slavery question in the United States had become
+exceedingly acute, the future of the institution on this continent
+largely depending upon whether the next States admitted to the Union
+should be slave or free. Walker was a sincere, even fanatical, believer
+in slavery. Born and reared in an atmosphere of slavery, to Walker it
+was as sacred, as God-given an institution as the Fast of Ramadan is to
+the Moslem or the Feast of the Passover to the Jew. Convinced that
+friction over this question would sooner or later force the
+slave-holding States to secede from the Union, he determined to extend
+the area of slavery by conquering that portion of northern Mexico
+immediately adjacent to the United States, to establish an independent
+government there, and eventually to annex his country to the South, thus
+counteracting the growing movement for abolition, which, with the
+admission of new Northern territories, already hinted at the overthrow
+of slavery.
+
+Financed by Southern friends whose motives were probably considerably
+less altruistic than his own, Walker landed at Cape San Lucas, the
+extreme southern point of the Mexican territory of Southern California,
+in October, 1852, with an "army of invasion" of forty-five men. Instead
+of hastening to protect the women and children of whom he had talked so
+feelingly, he sailed up the coast to the territorial capital of La Paz,
+which he seized, where he issued a proclamation announcing the
+annexation of the neighboring state of Sonora, in which he had not yet
+set foot, giving to the two states the name of the "Republic of Sonora,"
+and proclaiming himself its first president. As soon as the news of this
+initial success reached San Francisco, Walker's sympathizers there
+busied themselves in recruiting reinforcements, three hundred
+desperadoes who boasted that they were afraid of nothing "on two feet or
+four" being shipped to him at La Paz a few weeks later. These men were
+looked upon as hard cases even in the San Francisco of the early
+fifties, and, if they had not consented to leave the country to assist
+Walker, many of them would probably have left it sooner or later at the
+end of a rope in the hands of the local vigilance committee. When this
+force of scoundrels arrived at La Paz and found themselves under the
+command of a quiet, mild-mannered, beardless youth of twenty-eight,
+instead of the brawny, foul-mouthed, swashbuckling leader whom they had
+expected, they promptly hatched a scheme to blow up the magazine, seize
+the ship and the stores of the expedition in the ensuing confusion, and
+make their way back to the United States, leaving Walker to shift for
+himself. Warning of the conspiracy reaching him, however, Walker
+displayed for the first time those traits which were later to make his
+name a word of terror in the ears of men who bragged that they feared
+neither God nor man. Arresting the ringleaders, he had two of them tried
+by court-martial and shot within an hour; two of the others he ordered
+flogged and drummed out of camp, to take their chances among the hostile
+Mexicans and Indians. But, though this act gained Walker the fear and
+respect of his followers, the newcomers among them had no stomach for a
+leader who could punish, so when he called for volunteers to accompany
+him in the conquest of Sonora less than a hundred men offered to follow
+him.
+
+From the very first the shadow of failure hung over the enterprise. To
+begin with, there is no more savage and desolate region on the American
+continent than the peninsula of Lower California, it being so barren and
+destitute that even the lizards have to scramble for an existence.
+Mexicans and Indians hung upon the flanks of the little column night and
+day, as buzzards follow a dying steer. There was neither medicine nor
+medical instruments with the expedition, and the wounded died from lack
+of the most elementary care. Their shoes gave out and the men marched
+bare-foot over sun-scorched rocks and needle cactus, leaving a trail of
+crimson behind them in the sand. Their provisions were soon exhausted,
+and their only food was beef which they killed on the march. For years
+afterward the route of that ill-fated expedition could be traced from La
+Paz to the Colorado River by the bleaching skeletons of the men who fell
+by the way. By the time the head of the Gulf of California was reached
+the expedition had dwindled to barely twoscore men. It was no longer a
+question of conquering Sonora; it was a question of getting back to the
+States alive.
+
+With sinking heart, but imperturbable face, Walker led his little band
+of starving, fever-racked, exhausted men toward the Californian line.
+Three miles of road led through a mountain pass into the United States
+and safety. But the pass was held by a force of Mexican soldiery under
+Colonel Melendrez, and his Indian allies were scattered over the plain
+below. And, as though to give a final touch of irony to the situation in
+which Walker and his men found themselves, from their position on the
+Mexican hillside they could look across into American territory, could
+see the American flag, their flag, fluttering over the military post
+south of San Diego, could even see the sun glinting upon the bits and
+sabres of the troop of American cavalry drawn up along the border. Four
+Indians bearing a flag of truce approached. They bore a message from the
+Mexican commander to the filibusters. If they would surrender their
+leader and give up their arms, Melendrez sent word, they would be
+permitted to leave the country unmolested. But after you have fought and
+bled and marched and starved with a man for a year, you are not likely
+to abandon him, particularly when the end is in sight, so they sent back
+word to Melendrez that if he wanted their arms he would have to come and
+take them. Meanwhile the American commander, Major McKinstry, had drawn
+up his troopers along the boundary-line and awaited the result of the
+unequal struggle like an umpire at a foot-ball game. Walker, who knew
+perfectly well that he deserved no aid from the United States, and that
+he would get none, appreciated that if he was to get out of this
+predicament alive it must be by his own wits. Concealing a dozen of his
+men among the rocks and sage-brush which lined the road on either side,
+with the remainder of his force he pretended to beat a panic-stricken
+retreat. Melendrez, confident that it was now all over but the shouting,
+swept down the road in pursuit. But as the Mexicans rode into the ambush
+which Walker had prepared for them the hidden filibusters emptied a
+dozen saddles at a single volley, and the soldiers, terrified and
+demoralized, wheeled and fled for their lives. Thirty minutes later the
+President, the Cabinet, and all that remained of the standing army of
+the late Republic of Sonora stumbled across the American boundary and
+surrendered to Major McKinstry. It was May 8, 1854, and in such fashion
+Walker celebrated his thirtieth birthday.
+
+Sent to San Francisco as a political prisoner, Walker was tried for
+violating the neutrality laws of the United States, was acquitted--for
+the members of a Californian jury could not but sympathize with such a
+man--and once again found himself writing editorials for the San
+Francisco _Herald_. His narrow escape from death in Mexico had only
+served to whet his appetite for adventure, however, so when he was not
+doing his newspaper work he was poring over an atlas in search of some
+other land where a determined man might carve out a career for himself
+with his sword. Staring at the map of Middle America, his finger again
+and again paused, as though by instinct, on Nicaragua. Here was indeed a
+fertile field for the filibuster. Not only was the country enormously
+rich in every form of natural resources, but it had a kindly and
+moderately healthy climate, and, what was the most important of all,
+owing to its peculiar geographical position, it commanded what was at
+that time one of the great trade-routes of the world. At this time there
+were three routes to the Californian gold-fields: one, the long and
+weary voyage around the Horn; another, by the dangerous and costly
+Overland Trail; and the third, which was the shortest, cheapest, and
+most popular, across Nicaragua. If you will glance at the map, you will
+see that, barring the Isthmus of Panama, which is several hundred miles
+farther south, Nicaragua is the narrowest neck of land between the two
+great oceans, and that in the middle of this neck is the great Lake
+Nicaragua, which is upward of fifty miles in width. An American
+corporation known as the Accessory Transit Company, of which the first
+Cornelius Vanderbilt was president, had obtained a concession from the
+Nicaraguan Government to transport passengers across Central America by
+this route. Passengers _en route_ from New York or New Orleans to the
+gold-fields were landed by the company's steamers at Greytown, on the
+Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, and transported thence by light-draught
+steamers up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. Here they were
+transferred to larger steamers and taken across the lake to Virgin Bay,
+the twelve-mile journey from there to the port of San Juan del Sur, on
+the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, being performed in carriages or on the
+backs of mules. During a single year twenty-five thousand passengers
+crossed Nicaragua by this route. It did not take Walker long to
+appreciate, therefore, that the man who succeeded in making himself
+master of this, the shortest route to California, would be in a position
+of considerable strength. Not only this, but Nicaragua was torn by
+internal dissensions; the army was divided into a dozen factions; the
+peasantry were down-trodden and poverty-stricken; the government was
+inconceivably corrupt; and the usual revolution was, of course, in
+progress, in which the sister republics of Honduras and Costa Rica were
+preparing to take a hand. Everything considered, Nicaragua's only hope
+of salvation from anarchy lay in finding for a ruler a man with an
+inflexible sense of justice and an iron hand. Walker determined to be
+that man.
+
+In view of what I have already told of his exploits, you have doubtless
+pictured Walker as a tall, broad-shouldered man of commanding presence.
+As a matter of fact, he was nothing of the sort. In height he was but
+five feet five inches, and correspondingly slender. A remarkably square
+jaw and a long chin lent strength and determination to features which
+were plain almost to the point of coarseness. His eyes, which were of a
+singularly light gray, are universally spoken of as having been his most
+noticeable feature, for they were so large and fixed that the eyelids
+scarcely showed, and so penetrating that they seemed to bore holes into
+the person at whom they were looking. He was extremely taciturn, and
+when he did speak it was briefly and to the point. He had an unusual
+command of English, however, and his words were always carefully chosen.
+A stranger to fear, men who followed him on his campaigns assert that
+even under the most trying and perilous circumstances they had never
+seen him change countenance or betray emotion by so much as the
+contraction of a muscle. He was wholly lacking in personal vanity, and
+when in the field wore his trousers tucked into his boots, a flannel
+shirt open at the neck, and a faded black campaign hat. In a land where
+all three habits were universal, he neither drank, smoked, nor swore; he
+never looked at women; his word, once given, was never broken; the
+justice he meted out to disobedient followers, though stern to the point
+of brutality, was absolutely impartial. Highly ambitious, it is paying
+but the barest justice to his memory to say that his aspirations,
+however little we may sympathize with them, were wholly political and
+never mercenary, his whole career showing him to be utterly careless of
+wealth. Taking everything into consideration, we have good reason to be
+proud that William Walker was an American.
+
+In 1854, as I have already remarked, Nicaragua was split asunder by
+civil war. The opposing parties were the Legitimists and the Democrats.
+What they were fighting about is of no consequence; perhaps they did not
+know themselves. In any event, in August of that year an American named
+Byron Cole, acting as an agent for Walker, arrived at the headquarters
+of the Democratic forces with a novel offer. Briefly, he agreed to
+contract to supply the Democratic party with three hundred American
+"colonists liable to military duty," these settlers to receive a grant
+of fifty-two thousand acres of land, and to have the privilege of
+becoming citizens of Nicaragua. This contract was approved and signed by
+General Castillon, the Democratic leader, and with it in his pocket Cole
+hastened to San Francisco and Walker. After taking the precaution of
+submitting the contract to the civil and military authorities in San
+Francisco, and receiving their assurances that it did not violate the
+neutrality laws of the United States, Walker immediately set about
+recruiting his "colonists," and in May, 1855, just a year after his
+escape from Mexico, he was ready to sail. Although, as I have said, the
+Federal authorities had passed upon the legality of the contract, it was
+a noticeable fact that the peaceable settlers took with them Winchester
+rifles instead of spades, and Colt's revolvers instead of hoes, and that
+the hold of the brig _Vesta_, on which they sailed from San Francisco,
+was filled with ammunition and machine guns instead of agricultural
+implements and machinery.
+
+After a long and stormy voyage down the Pacific coast Walker and his
+men landed, on June 16, at the port of Realejo, in Nicaragua, where he
+was met by Castillon. Walker was at once commissioned a colonel;
+Achilles Kewen, who had just come from Cuba, where he had been fighting
+under the patriot Lopez, a lieutenant-colonel; and Timothy Crocker, a
+fighting Irishman, who was a veteran of Walker's Sonora expedition, a
+major; the corps being organized as an independent command under the
+name of _La Falange Americana_--the American Phalanx. At this time the
+Transit route from the Atlantic to the Pacific was held by the
+Legitimist forces, and these Walker was ordered to dislodge, it being
+essential to the success of the Democrats that they gain possession of
+this interoceanic highway. Accordingly, a week after setting foot in
+Nicaragua, Walker, at the head of fifty-seven of his Americans and one
+hundred and fifty native soldiers, set out for Rivas, a town on the
+western shore of Lake Nicaragua held by twelve hundred of the enemy. The
+first battle of his Nicaraguan campaign ended in the most complete
+disaster. At the first volley his native allies bolted, leaving the
+Americans surrounded by ten times their number of Legitimists. The enemy
+instantly perceived this defection, and pressed the Phalanx so hard
+that its members were driven to take shelter behind a row of adobe huts.
+No one knew better than Walker that if the enemy charged he and his men
+were done for, so he decided to do the charging himself. Out from behind
+the huts dashed the red-shirted filibusters, firing as they came, and so
+ferocious was their onslaught that they succeeded in cutting their way
+through the encircling army and escaping into the jungle. Though six of
+the Americans were killed, including Walker's two lieutenants, Kewen and
+Crocker, and twice as many wounded, the battle of Rivas established the
+reputation of Americans in Central America for years to come, for a
+hundred and fifty of the enemy fell before their deadly fire.
+
+[Illustration: General William Walker and his men, after a long and
+stormy voyage, landing at Virgin Bay, en route to Costa Rica.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Bleeding and exhausted from battle and travel, Walker and his men, after
+an all-night march through the jungle, limped into the port of San Juan
+del Sur, and, finding a Costa Rican vessel in the harbor, they seized it
+for their own use. Still bearing in mind the necessity of getting
+control of the Transit route, Walker gave his men only a few days in
+which to recover from their wounds and weariness, and then was off
+again, this time for Virgin Bay, the halting-place for passengers going
+east or west. Though in the fight which ensued Walker was outnumbered
+five to one, his losses were only three natives killed and a few
+Americans wounded, while one hundred and fifty of the enemy fell before
+the rifles of the filibusters. This disparity of losses emphasizes, as
+does nothing else, the deadliness of the American fire.
+
+After the fight at Virgin Bay Walker received from California fifty
+recruits, thus bringing the force under his command up to some four
+hundred men, about a third of whom were Americans. The Legitimists,
+learning that he was planning to again attack Rivas, hastened to
+reinforce the garrison of that town by hurrying troops there from their
+headquarters at Granada, which was farther up the lake, planning to give
+Walker a warm and unexpected reception. But it was Walker who did the
+surprising, for, having his own channels of secret information, he no
+sooner learned of the weakened condition of Granada than he determined
+to direct his efforts against that place, instead of Rivas, and by
+capturing it to give the Legitimist cause a solar-plexus blow. Embarking
+his men on a small steamer with the announced intention of attacking
+Rivas, as soon as night fell he turned in the opposite direction and,
+with lights out and fires banked, steamed silently up the lake. Dawn
+found him off Granada, the garrison and inhabitants of which were
+sleeping off a drunken debauch with which they had celebrated a recent
+victory. Even the sentries drowsed at their posts. Unobserved, the
+Americans landed in the semi-darkness of the early dawn, and it was not
+until they had reached the very outskirts of the town that a sentry
+suddenly awakened to their presence and gave the alarm by letting off
+his rifle, the shot being instantly answered by a crackle of musketry as
+the Americans opened fire. "Charge!" shouted Walker, "Get at 'em! Get at
+'em!" and dashed forward at a run, a revolver in each hand, with his
+followers, cheering like madmen, close at his heels. "Los Filibusteros!
+Los Filibusteros!" screamed the terror-stricken inhabitants, catching
+sight of the red shirts and scarlet hat-bands of the Americans. "Run for
+your lives!" The demoralized garrison made a brief and ineffective stand
+in the Plaza, and then threw down their arms. Walker was master of
+Granada. He at once instituted a military government, released over a
+hundred political prisoners confined in the local jail, policed the town
+as effectually as though it were a New England village, and when he
+caught one of his native soldiers in the act of looting, ran him through
+with his sword.
+
+Walker was now in a position to dictate his own terms of peace, and,
+four months after he and his fifty-seven followers landed in Nicaragua,
+an armistice was arranged and the side to which the Americans had lent
+their aid was in power. A native named Rivas was made provisional
+president, and Walker was appointed commander-in-chief of the army,
+which at that time numbered about twelve hundred men. Though
+insignificant in numbers when judged by European standards, this was
+really a remarkable force, and perhaps the most effective for its size
+known to military history. The officers had all seen service under many
+flags and in many lands--in Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Algeria,
+Italy, Egypt, Russia, India, China--and the men, nearly all of whom had
+been recruited in San Francisco, boasted that "California was the pick
+of the world, and they were the pick of California." There was scarcely
+a man among them who could not flick the ashes from a cigar with his
+revolver at a hundred feet, or with his rifle hit a dollar held between
+a man's thumb and forefinger at a hundred yards. All the strange, wild
+natures for whom even the mining-camps of California had grown too tame
+were drawn to Walker's flag as iron filings are drawn to a magnet.
+Frederick Townsend Ward, the New England youth who raised, trained, and
+led the Ever-Victorious Army, who rose to be an admiral-general of
+China, and who performed the astounding exploits for which General
+Charles Gordon received the credit, gained much of his military training
+under Walker; Joaquin Miller, "the poet of the Sierras," was another of
+his devoted followers, while scores of the other men who fought under
+the blue-and-white banner with the scarlet star in later years achieved
+name and fame in many different lands.
+
+[Illustration: General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza,
+Granada.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Says General Charles Frederic Henningsen, the famous English soldier of
+fortune who was Walker's second in command: "I have heard two greasy
+privates disputing over the correct reading and comparative merits of
+Ćschylus and Euripides. I have seen a soldier on guard incessantly
+scribbling strips of paper, which turned out to be a finely versified
+translation of his dog's-eared copy of the _Divina Commedia_." The same
+officer, who had fought with distinction under Don Carlos in Spain,
+under Schamyl in the Caucasus, and under Kossuth in Hungary, who had
+introduced the Minié rifle into the American service, and was a
+recognized authority on the use of artillery, and therefore knew whereof
+he spoke, also testifies to the heroism and astounding fortitude of
+Walker's men. "I have often seen them marching with a broken or a
+compound-fractured arm in splints, and using the other to fire the
+rifle or revolver. Those with a fractured thigh, or with wounds which
+rendered them incapable of removal, often (or rather, in early times,
+always) shot themselves, sooner than fall into the hands of the enemy.
+Such men do not turn up in the average of every-day life, nor do I ever
+expect to see their like again. I was on the Confederate side in many of
+the bloodiest battles of the late war, but I aver that if, at the end of
+that war I had been allowed to pick five thousand of the bravest
+Confederate or Federal soldiers I ever saw, and could resurrect and pit
+against them one thousand of such men as lie beneath the orange-trees of
+Nicaragua, I feel certain that the thousand would have scattered and
+utterly routed the five thousand within an hour. All military science
+failed, on a suddenly given field, before assailants who came on at a
+run, to close with their revolvers, and who thought little of charging a
+battery, pistol in hand." As a matter of fact, at the first battle of
+Rivas, ten Americans, all officers of the Phalanx, armed only with
+bowie-knives and revolvers, actually did charge and capture a battery
+manned by more than a hundred Costa Ricans, half of the little band
+being killed in that astounding exploit. Some estimate of the deeds of
+these unsung heroes, so many of whom lie in unmarked graves beneath an
+alien sky, may be gathered from the surgical reports, which showed that
+the proportion of wounds treated was _one hundred and thirty-seven to
+every hundred men_.
+
+For several months after the taking of Granada and the establishment of
+a provisional government, the dove of peace hovered over Nicaragua as
+though desirous of alighting, but in February, 1856, it was driven away,
+at least for a time, by a fresh splutter of musketry along the southern
+frontier, where Costa Rica, alarmed by Walker's reputed ambition to make
+himself master of all Middle America, had begun an invasion with the
+expressed purpose of driving the _gringos_ from Central American soil.
+After a few months of desperate fighting, in which the Americans fully
+maintained their reputation for reckless bravery, the Costa Ricans were
+driven across the border, and for a brief time the harassed Nicaraguans
+were able to exchange their rifles for their hoes. The country now being
+for the moment at peace, Rivas called a presidential election,
+announcing himself as the candidate of the Democrats. The Legitimists,
+recognizing in Walker the one strong man of the country, had the
+political shrewdness to choose him, their former enemy, to head their
+ticket. Two other candidates, Ferrer and Salazar, were also in the
+field. The election was regular in every respect, the voting being
+entirely free from the usual disturbances. According to the Nicaraguan
+constitution, every male inhabitant over eighteen years of age,
+criminals excepted, is entitled to the suffrage. When the votes were
+counted it was found that Rivas had received 867 votes; Salazar, 2,087;
+Ferrer, 4,447; and Walker, 15,835. By such an overwhelming majority, and
+in an absolutely fair election, was William Walker made President of
+Nicaragua--the first and only time an American has ever been chosen
+ruler of a foreign and independent state.
+
+In all its troubled history Nicaragua has never been governed so justly
+and so wisely as it was by the American soldier of fortune. Had he been
+free from foreign interference there is little doubt that he would have
+made Nicaragua a progressive, prosperous, and contented country, and
+that he would in time have brought under one government and one flag all
+the states lying between Yucatan and Panama. But that was precisely what
+the peoples of those states were fearful of, so that, a few weeks after
+Walker was inaugurated, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, and San
+Salvador declared war. This time Walker took the field with three
+thousand trained and seasoned veterans, while opposed to him were
+twenty-one thousand of the allies. To describe the campaign that ensued
+would be as profitless as it would be tedious. The programme was always
+the same: the march by night through the silent, steaming jungle, and
+the stealthy surrounding of the threatened town in the early dawn; the
+warning crack of a startled sentry's rifle; the sudden rush of the
+filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and
+the cathedral in the Plaza, nearly always at the pistol's point; and the
+panic-stricken retreat of the little brown men in their uniforms of
+soiled white linen. Everywhere the arms of Walker were triumphant, and
+had he not at this time deliberately crossed the path of a soldier of
+fortune of quite another kind, in a few months more he would have
+realized his life-dream and have made himself the ruler of a Central
+American empire.
+
+Upon investigating national affairs after his election, Walker found
+that the Accessory Transit Company had not lived up to the terms of its
+concession from the government of Nicaragua. By the terms of its charter
+it had agreed to pay to the Nicaraguan Government ten thousand dollars
+annually, and ten per cent of its net profits. The company claimed, and
+the government as stoutly denied, that the ten thousand dollars had been
+regularly paid, though the concessionaires admitted that the ten per
+cent on the profits had not been paid, giving as their excuse that there
+had been no profits. Upon an examination of the books it was quickly
+discovered that the company had so juggled with the accounts as to make
+it appear that there were no profits, when, as a matter of fact, the
+enterprise was an enormously profitable one. Upon discovering the fraud
+which had been perpetrated upon the government and people of Nicaragua,
+Walker demanded back payments to the amount of two hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars, and upon the company insolently refusing to pay them,
+he promptly revoked its charter, and seized its steamboats, wharves, and
+warehouses as security for the debt. Though this action was perfectly
+justifiable under the circumstances, it was, in view of the instability
+of Walker's position, an unwise move, for it made an implacable enemy of
+one of the most powerful and perhaps the most unscrupulous of the
+financiers of the time.
+
+[Illustration: The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the
+filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and
+the cathedral in the Plaza.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Cornelius Vanderbilt was not a person who could be bluffed or
+frightened. Infuriated at the action of the filibuster President, he
+immediately withdrew from service the ships of the Transit Company in
+both oceans, thus cutting off communication between Nicaragua and the
+United States, and thereby Walker's source of supplies. But the grim old
+financier was not content with that. Recruiting a force of foreign
+adventurers on his own account, he despatched them to Central America
+with orders to assist the Costa Ricans, whom he liberally supplied with
+money, arms, and ammunition, in their war against Walker. Turning then
+to Washington, he had little difficulty in inducing Secretary of State
+Marcy, who was known to be one of his creatures, to use the government
+forces in driving Walker out of Nicaragua. To Commodore Mervin, who was
+his personal friend, Secretary Marcy communicated his wishes, or rather
+Vanderbilt's wishes, and these Mervin in turn transmitted to Captain
+Davis, commanding the man-of-war _St. Mary's_, who was ordered to
+proceed at full speed to San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast of
+Nicaragua, and to force Walker out of that country. Never has the
+government of the United States lent itself to the designs of predatory
+wealth so disgracefully and so flagrantly as it did when, at the
+dictation of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and without a shadow of right or
+excuse, it used the American navy to oust William Walker from the
+presidency to which he had been legally elected by a sovereign people.
+Its unjustified persecution of Walker to serve the spite of a money-lord
+forms one of the darkest stains on our national history.
+
+When Davis arrived in Nicaragua he found Walker, his forces terribly
+reduced by death, fever, and desertion (for his means of supply had, as
+I have said, been stopped), besieged by the allies in the town of Rivas.
+Food was running short, the hospital was filled with wounded, and many
+of his men were helpless from fever. Captain Davis demanded that Walker
+surrender to him upon the ground of humanity, but the indomitable
+filibuster replied that when he did not have enough men left to man the
+guns he intended to take refuge on board his little schooner, the
+_Granada_, which lay in the harbor, and seek his fortune elsewhere. "You
+will not do that," answered Davis, "for I am going to seize your
+vessel." With his only hope of escape thus cut off, there was nothing
+for Walker to do but capitulate. Therefore, on May 1, 1857, William
+Walker, President of Nicaragua, whose title was as legally sound as that
+of any ruler in the world, surrendered to the forces his own country had
+sent against him, and one more argument was given to those who claimed
+that it was not liberty which we upheld and worshipped, but the almighty
+dollar. When Walker arrived in New York a few weeks later he found the
+city bedecked with flags and bunting in his honor. On but two other
+occasions has the American metropolis given such a reception to a
+visitor: once when Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, rode up Broadway, and
+years later, when Dewey returned, fresh from his victory at Manila.
+Walker's drive from the Battery to Madison Square was like a triumphal
+progress, for his gallantry in action and his successes against
+overwhelming odds had aroused the admiration of his countrymen, just as
+his outrageous treatment by the government had excited their
+indignation. Though legally he had serious grounds for complaint, he
+received scant consideration when he placed his demands for reparation
+before the Department of State at Washington. But the cold shoulder
+turned toward him by official Washington was more than made up for by
+the welcome he received in the South, where he was acclaimed as a hero
+and a martyr. He was banqueted in every town and city from Baltimore to
+New Orleans, and when he entered a box in the opera-house of the latter
+place, the audience, forgetting the play, rose as one man to cheer him.
+
+Within a month Walker had raised enough money and recruits in the South
+to enable him to try his fortunes once more in Nicaragua. Sailing from
+New Orleans with one hundred and fifty men, he landed at San Juan del
+Norte, on the Caribbean side, marched upon and captured the town of
+Castillo Viejo together with four of the Transit Company's steamers, and
+was, indeed, in a fair way to again make himself master of Nicaragua
+when the United States once more interfered, the frigate _Wabash_, under
+command of Commodore Hiram Pawlding, dropping anchor in a position where
+her guns commanded the filibusters' camp, her commander demanding
+Walker's immediate surrender. The flag-officer who presented Walker with
+Pawlding's demand tactlessly remarked: "General, I'm sorry to see you
+here. A man like you deserves to command better men." "If I had even a
+third of the force you have brought against me," Walker responded
+grimly, "I'd soon show you who commands the better men." For the third
+time in his career Walker was forced to surrender to his own countrymen,
+and was sent north under parole as a prisoner of war. But, although
+Pawlding had acted precisely as Davis had done, President Buchanan,
+instead of thanking him, not only publicly reprimanded him, but retired
+him from active service, and when Walker presented himself at the White
+House as a prisoner, refused to receive his surrender, or to recognize
+him as being in the custody of the United States. All of which, however,
+was scant consolation for Walker.
+
+To regain the presidency of which he had been unjustly deprived had now
+become an obsession with Walker. In spite of a proclamation issued by
+President Buchanan forbidding him to take further part in Central
+American affairs, he sailed from Mobile, on December 1, 1858, with a
+hundred and fifty of his veterans. His voyage was brought to a sudden
+and wholly unlooked-for termination, however, for he was wrecked in a
+gale off the coast of Honduras, whence he was rescued by a British
+war-ship which happened to be in the vicinity and brought back to the
+United States. By this time Walker had become almost as much of a
+nightmare to the governments of the United States and Great Britain (for
+the latter, both because of the proximity of her colony of British
+Honduras and of her large financial interests in the other Central
+American countries, had no desire to see that region again plunged into
+war) as Napoleon was to the Holy Alliance, and as a result both the
+Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Nicaragua were patrolled by the
+war-ships of the two nations to prevent Walker's return. Appreciating
+that, under the circumstances, it was about as easy for him to land on
+Nicaraguan soil as it was to land on the moon, Walker, with a hundred of
+his devoted followers, slipped silently out of Mobile harbor on an
+August night in 1860, and landed, a few days later, on a little island
+off the coast of Honduras known as Ruatan.
+
+And so we come to the last chapter in this extraordinary man's
+extraordinary career. Within a day after his landing at Ruatan, Walker
+had crossed to the mainland and captured the important seaport of
+Trujillo. But the ill-fortune which from the beginning had dogged him
+like a shadow was not to desert him now, for scarcely had the flag of
+Honduras which fluttered above the barracks been replaced by the
+blue-and-white banner of the filibusters when a British frigate dropped
+anchor off the town. Twenty minutes later a boat's crew of British
+bluejackets tossed their oars as they ran alongside Trujillo wharf, and
+a naval officer immaculate in white and gold, stepping ashore, inquired
+for General Walker, and presented him with a message. It was from
+Captain Salmon, commanding the British man-of-war _Icarus_, which lay
+outside, and demanded the immediate evacuation of the city by the
+filibusters, as the British Government held a mortgage on the revenues
+of the port and intended to protect them, by force if necessary. Walker
+answered that as he had made Trujillo a free port, the British claims
+were no longer valid. "Captain Salmon instructs me to inform you, sir,"
+replied the British officer, as he prepared to re-enter his gig, "that
+he will give you until to-morrow morning to make your decision. If you
+do not then surrender he will be compelled to bombard the town." As a
+strong force of Hondurans had in the mean time appeared on the land side
+of the city and were preparing to attack, Walker realized that his
+position had become untenable, so that night he and his men slipped
+silently out of the sleeping city and started down the coast with the
+intention of making their way overland to Nicaragua. When the British
+landed the next morning they were only just in time to prevent the sick
+and wounded whom Walker had been forced to leave behind him in his
+retreat from falling into the hands of the ferocious Hondurans. Learning
+of Walker's flight, Salmon immediately started down the coast on the
+_Icarus_ in pursuit.
+
+They overtook Walker at a little fishing village near the mouth of the
+Rio Negro, several boat-loads of sailors and marines being sent up the
+river to take him. But the coast of Honduras is a good second to the
+Gold Coast in the deadliness of its climate, so that when the landing
+party reached the little cluster of wretched hovels where Walker and his
+men had taken refuge, they found the filibusters too far gone with fever
+to oppose them. To Captain Salmon's demand for an unconditional
+surrender, Walker, who was so weak that he could scarcely stand,
+inquired if he was surrendering to the English or to the Hondurans.
+Captain Salmon twice assured him distinctly that it was to the English,
+whereupon the filibusters, at Walker's orders, laid down their arms and
+were taken aboard the _Icarus_. No sooner had he arrived back at
+Trujillo, however, than Captain Salmon, breaking the word he had given
+as an officer and a gentleman, and in defiance of every law of humanity,
+turned his prisoners over to the Honduran authorities. Salmon, who was
+young and pompous and had a life-size opinion of himself and his
+position, interceded for all of the prisoners except Walker, and
+obtained their release, but he informed the filibuster chieftain that he
+would plead for him only on condition that he would ask his intercession
+as an American citizen. But Walker, imbittered by the treatment he had
+received at the hands of his own government and disdaining to turn to it
+for assistance in his adversity, answered proudly: "The President of
+Nicaragua is a citizen of Nicaragua," and turned his back upon the
+Englishman who had betrayed him.
+
+He was tried by court martial on September 11, 1860, and after the
+barest formalities was sentenced to be shot at daybreak the next
+morning. The place selected for his execution was a strip of sandy
+beach, and to it the condemned man walked as coolly as though taking a
+morning stroll. Before him tramped a detachment of slovenly Honduran
+infantry, who, with their brown, wizened faces, their ill-fitting
+uniforms, and their jaunty caps, looked more like monkeys than men;
+behind him marched the firing-party, with weapons at the charge; beside
+him was a priest bearing a crucifix and murmuring the prayers for the
+dying. As the little procession came to a halt within the hollow square
+of soldiery, Walker waved away the handkerchief with which they would
+have blindfolded him, and, cool and straight and soldierly as though in
+command of his Phalanx, took his stand before the firing-party.
+
+"I die a Roman Catholic," he said in Spanish in a voice clear and
+unafraid. "The war which I made upon you was wrong and I take this
+opportunity of asking your pardon. I die with resignation, though it
+would be a consolation for me to feel that my death is for the good of
+society." As he ceased speaking, the officer in command of the troops
+dropped the point of his sword, the levelled rifles of the firing-party
+spoke as one, and Walker fell. But, though every bullet entered his
+body, he still lived. So a sergeant stepped forward with a cocked
+revolver and blew out his brains. With that shot there passed the soul
+of a very brave and gallant gentleman who deserved from his country
+better treatment than he received.
+
+
+
+
+CITIES CAPTURED BY CONTRACT
+
+
+I have known men who, from need of money or from love of adventure, have
+contracted to do all sorts of seemingly impossible things. Some
+conquered apparently unconquerable chasms by means of daring bridges;
+others built railways across waterless, yellow deserts, where experts
+had asserted that no railway could go; one contracted to find and raise
+a treasure galleon sunk three hundred years ago; another agreed to
+compose an opera in a week; while still another engaged to find a man
+who for two years had been lost in equatorial Africa. It took a New
+Englander, however, to sign a contract to capture walled and hostile
+cities, at a stipulated price per city, just as a Chicago meat-packer
+would contract to supply a government with beef at so much a pound.
+
+The man who entered into this amazing agreement was baptized Frederick
+Townsend Ward, but bore at his death the adopted name of Hwa. Though
+born within biscuit-throw of Salem wharves he was by residence a citizen
+of the world, and by profession a soldier of fortune. Now the trouble
+with most soldiers of fortune is that they don't make good in the end.
+They are generally entertaining fellows, with vast stores of information
+on an amazing variety of subjects, wide acquaintanceships with
+personages whose names you see in the daily papers, and an intimate
+knowledge of the little-known places, but they rarely save any money,
+they seldom rise to high positions, and they usually end their checkered
+careers by being ingloriously arrested for breaking the neutrality laws,
+or by dying, picturesquely but quite uselessly, between a stone wall and
+a firing-party.
+
+That Frederick Ward was a striking exception merely proves the soundness
+of my remarks. Though he was a soldier of fortune (he fought under at
+least six flags) he did make money, for he capitalized his remarkable
+military genius by signing a contract to capture rebellious cities, at
+seventy-five thousand dollars a city, and took a dozen of them, one
+after another; he rose to be an admiral-general of China, and a Mandarin
+of the Red Button, which was equivalent to being a Dewey, a Kitchener,
+and a Cromer rolled into one; and though he died when scarcely thirty,
+it was on the walls of a captured city, directing a victorious charge.
+Though the Manchu dynasty of China, to which he gave an additional
+half-century of existence, has fallen, the soldiers of the new republic
+continue to invoke his spirit as that of a god of battles, and the
+priests of Confucius still burn incense before his tomb.
+
+The story of how this adventurous American youth recognized the splendid
+fighting material into which the Chinese were capable of being
+transformed; how he took that material and heated and hammered and
+tempered it into a serviceable weapon, and gave that weapon a keen
+cutting edge; how, with a force which never numbered more than six
+thousand men, he broke the backbone of a rebellion which turned China
+into a shambles; and how his battalions came to be known, in the annals
+of time, as the "Ever-Victorious Army," forms a chronicle of courage and
+thrilling incident the like of which can not be found in history. If the
+almost incredible exploits of Ward have escaped the notice of our
+historians, it is because, at the time they took place, Americans were
+too intent on the business of their own great slaughter-house to be
+interested in a similar performance going on, in much less workmanlike
+fashion, half the world away. Though British writers slightingly allude
+to Ward as "an obscure Yankee adventurer," the officer who succeeded
+him, General Charles George Gordon, merely completed the work which his
+predecessor had begun, and built his military reputation on the
+foundations which the American had laid. Though the name of Frederick
+Townsend Ward holds but little meaning for the vast majority of his
+countrymen, it is still a name to conjure with in that country which he
+saved from anarchy.
+
+Though a youth in appearance and in years, Ward was a seasoned veteran
+long before he set out on his last campaign. Before he was
+five-and-twenty he had had enough experiences to satisfy a dozen
+ordinary men. Coming from New England seafaring stock, it was only to be
+expected that a passion for adventure should course through his veins.
+From the time he donned short trousers he dreamed of a cadetship at West
+Point, and a commission under his own flag. But it was destined that his
+military genius should profit another country than his own, and that he
+should fight and die under an alien banner. His father, a stern old
+merchant captain, held that there was no training for a boy like that to
+be had in the school of the sea, and so, when young Ward was scarce
+half-way through his teens, he was packed off aboard a sailing-vessel
+bound for the China seas. By the time he was twenty he held a first
+mate's warrant, and had paid for it with three long voyages. Joining
+Garibaldi's famous Foreign Legion, he saw service under that great
+soldier in the war between the Republic of the Rio Grande and Brazil.
+Afterward he helped the young Republic of Uruguay to defeat Manuel
+Rosas, the Argentine dictator. At the outbreak of the Crimean War he
+obtained a lieutenant's commission in a regiment of French zouaves, and
+followed the tricolor until the Treaty of Paris brought that bloody
+campaign to an end. Turning his steps toward Latin America again, he
+joined William Walker in his ill-fated Nicaraguan adventure, and after
+that leader's execution in Honduras he offered his sword and services to
+Juarez, and helped to win for him the presidency of Mexico. With the
+triumph of Juarez, peace settled for a time upon the western hemisphere,
+and Ward, finding no market for his military talents, was driven by
+financial necessities to take up the occupation of a ship-broker in New
+York City. But the shackles of trade soon proved intolerable to this man
+of action. He was like a race-horse harnessed to a milk-wagon. Though
+his talk was of cargoes and bottomry and tonnage, his thoughts were far
+away, on those distant seaboards of the world where history was in the
+making. At the beginning of 1859, the only country in the world where
+fighting on a large scale was going on was China, which was being
+devastated by the great Taiping Rebellion. In the spring of that year
+Ward, unable to longer resist the call to action which was forever
+sounding in his ears, turned the key in the door of his New York office,
+saddled his horse, and, unaccompanied, rode across the continent to San
+Francisco, where he booked a passage for Shanghai. It was no random
+adventure which he had undertaken. He had laid his plans carefully and
+knew exactly what he intended doing. Nor did the magnitude of his
+project dishearten him. He had set out to save an empire, and he
+intended to win fame and fortune in doing it.
+
+The conditions which prevailed in China between 1850 and 1863 can be
+compared only to the French Reign of Terror, or to the rule of the Mahdi
+in the Sudan. About the time that the nineteenth century was approaching
+the half-way mark, a Chinese schoolmaster named Hung-siu-Tseuen,
+inflamed by the partially comprehended teachings of Christian
+missionaries, had inaugurated a propaganda to overthrow the Confucian
+religion, and incidentally the reigning dynasty. There speedily rallied
+to his banners all the floating scoundrelism of China. In 1852 the rebel
+hordes had moved into the province of Hunan, murdering, pillaging, and
+burning as they went; advanced down the Kiang River to the Yang-tse,
+down which they sailed, capturing and sacking the cities on its banks.
+Making Nanking his capital, the rebel leader assumed the title of Tien
+Wang, or "Heavenly King," and proclaimed the rule of the Ping Chao, or
+"Peace Dynasty," which, with the prefix Tai ("great") gave the rebellion
+its name, Taiping. Wang's great hordes of tatterdemalions, flushed with
+their unbroken series of successes, gradually overran the silk and tea
+districts, the richest in the empire, threatened Peking, and advanced
+almost to the gates of Shanghai, carrying death and destruction over
+fifteen of the eighteen provinces of China. Perhaps it will give a
+better idea of the magnitude of this rebellion when I add that reliable
+authorities estimate that it cost China _two billion five hundred
+million dollars, and twenty million human lives_. By the autumn of 1859
+such of the imperial forces as remained loyal had been whipped to a
+stand-still, and the European powers having interests in China had their
+work cut out to defend the treaty ports; the rebels were undisputed
+masters of all Central China; the rivers were literally choked with
+corpses, and the smoke of burning cities overhung the land. The
+atrocities committed by order of the Taiping leader shocked even the
+dulled sensibilities of China. On one occasion, six thousand people,
+suspected of an intention to desert, were gathered in the public square
+of Nanking. A hundred executioners stood among the prisoners with bared
+swords, and, at a signal from the Wang, slashed off heads until their
+arms were weary, and blood stood inches deep in the gutters. Ward had
+indeed chosen a good market in which to sell his services.
+
+Through an English friend in the Chinese service, Ward obtained an
+introduction to Wu, the Taotoi of Shanghai, and to a millionaire
+merchant and mandarin named Tah Kee. The plan he proposed was as simple
+as it was daring. He offered to recruit a foreign legion, with which he
+would defend Shanghai, and at the same time attack such of the Taiping
+strongholds as were within striking distance, stipulating that for every
+city captured he was to receive seventy-five thousand dollars in gold,
+that his men were to have the first day's looting, and that each place
+taken should immediately be garrisoned by imperial troops, leaving his
+own force free for further operations. Wu on behalf of the government,
+and Tah Kee as the representative of the Shanghai merchants, promptly
+agreed to this proposal, and signed the contract. They had, indeed,
+everything to gain and nothing to lose. It was also arranged that Tah
+Kee should at the outset furnish the arms, ammunition, clothing, and
+commissary supplies necessary to equip the legion. These preliminaries
+once settled, Ward wasted no time in recruiting his force, for every day
+was bringing the Taipings nearer. A number of brave and experienced
+officers, for the most part soldiers of fortune like himself, hastened
+to offer him their services, General Edward Forester, an American, being
+appointed second in command. The rank and file of the legion was
+recruited from the scum and offscourings of the East, Malay pirates,
+Burmese dacoits, Tartar brigands, and desperadoes, adventurers, and
+fugitives from justice from every corner of the farther East being
+attracted by the high rate of pay, which in view of the hazardous nature
+of the service, was fixed at one hundred dollars a month for enlisted
+men, and proportionately more for officers. The non-commissioned
+officers, who were counted upon to stiffen the ranks of the Orientals,
+were for the most part veterans of continental armies, and could be
+relied upon to fight as long as stock and barrel held together. The
+officers carried swords and Colt's revolvers, the latter proving
+terribly effective in the hand-to-hand fighting which Ward made the
+rule; while the men were armed with Sharp's repeating carbines and the
+vicious Malay _kris_. Everything considered, I doubt if a more
+formidable aggregation of ruffians ever took the field. Ward placed his
+men under a discipline which made that of the German army appear like a
+kindergarten; taught them the tactics he had learned under Garibaldi,
+Walker, and Juarez; and finally, when they were as keen as razors and as
+tough as rawhide, he entered them in battle on a most astonished foe.
+
+The first city Ward selected for capture was Sunkiang, on the banks of
+the Wusung River, some twenty-five miles above Shanghai. In choosing
+this particular place as his first point of attack, Ward showed himself
+a diplomatist as well as a soldier, for it was one of the seven sacred
+cities of China, and to it had been wont to come thousands of pilgrims
+from the most distant provinces, to prostrate themselves in the temple
+of Confucius, the oldest and most revered shrine in the empire. Its
+capture by the Taipings and their desecration of its altars had sent a
+thrill of horror through the imperialists, such as was not even caused
+by the loss of the great metropolis of Nanking.
+
+Ward, who appreciated the necessity of winning the recognition and
+confidence of the higher authorities, well knew that the regaining of
+this sacred city would endear him to the religious heart of China as
+nothing else could do. But Sunkiang, with its walls twenty feet high and
+five miles in circumference, and with a garrison of five thousand
+fanatics to defend those walls, was no easy nut to crack even for a
+powerful force well supplied with artillery. The idea of its being taken
+by Ward and his five hundred desperadoes was preposterous, unthinkable,
+absurd. He first tried the weapon he had so painstakingly forged on a
+July morning, in 1860. Just as his European critics in Shanghai had
+prophesied, the attack on Sunkiang proved the most dismal of failures.
+His stealthy approach being discovered by the Taipings, he was greeted
+with such a withering fire upon reaching the walls that, being without
+supports, and perceiving the hopelessness of the situation, he ordered
+his buglers to sound the retreat.
+
+But Ward was one of those rare men to whom discouragements and disasters
+are but incidents, annoying but not disheartening, in the day's work. He
+spent a fortnight in strengthening the weakened _morale_ of his force,
+and then he tried again, making his onset with the suddenness and fury
+of a tiger's spring just at break of day. Slipping like ghosts through
+the grayness of the dawn, Ward and his men stole across the surrounding
+rice-fields, and were almost under the city walls before the Taiping
+sentries discovered their approach. As the first rifle cracked, Ward and
+one of his lieutenants raced ahead with bags of powder, placed them
+beneath the main gate of the city, and lighted the fuse. Like an echo of
+the ensuing explosion rose the shrill yell of the legionaries, who
+dashed forward like sprinters in a race. Instead of the gates being
+blown to pieces as they had expected, they found that they had been
+forced apart only enough for one man to pass at a time--and on the other
+side of that door of death five thousand rebels waited eagerly for the
+first of the attackers to appear. "Come on, boys!" roared Ward, his
+voice rising above the crash of the musketry, "We're going in!" and
+plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand. Hard on his
+heels crowded his legionaries. Though they were going to what was almost
+certain death, such was the magnetism of their leader that not a man
+hung back, not a man faltered. Before half a dozen men were through they
+were attacked by hundreds, but, so deadly was the fire they poured in
+with their repeaters, they were able to hold off the defenders until
+the whole attacking force was within the gate. Then began one of the
+most desperate and unequal fights in history. The key to the city was
+the howitzer battery, which was stationed on the top of the massive main
+gate, forty feet above. Up the narrow ramps the legionaries fought their
+way, five hundred against five thousand, hacking, stabbing, firing, at
+such close range that their rifles set fire to their opponents'
+clothing, driving their bayonets into the human wall before them as a
+field-hand pitchforks hay. Wherever there was space for a man to plant
+his feet or swing his sword, there a Taiping was to be found. The
+passageway was choked with them, but they sullenly gave way before the
+frenzy of Ward's attack as a hillside slowly disintegrates before the
+stream from a hydraulic nozzle. Ward was wounded, and his men were
+falling about him by dozens, but those that were left, mad with the lust
+of battle, fought on, until with a final surge and cheer they reached
+the top, and the position which commanded the city was in their hands.
+Then the Taipings broke and fled, some to be overtaken and slaughtered
+by the legionaries, others throwing themselves into the streets below.
+Bayoneting the rebel gunners, the howitzers were turned upon the city,
+raking the streets, sweeping the crowded walls and house-tops, and
+leaving heaps of dead and dying where Taiping regiments had stood
+before.
+
+[Illustration: "Come on, boys!" shouted Ward. "We're going in!" and
+plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand.]
+
+For four-and-twenty hours Ward and the exhausted survivors of his
+legion, without food and without water, held the gate in the face of the
+most desperate efforts to retake it. Then the Chinese reinforcements for
+which he had asked tardily arrived, and Sunkiang was an Imperial city
+again. The American had taken the first trick in the great game he was
+playing. It was at fearful cost, however, for of the five hundred men
+who followed him into action, but one hundred and twenty-eight remained
+alive, and of these only twenty-seven were without wounds. In other
+words, the casualties amounted to _more than ninety-four per cent of the
+entire force_. Ward had ridden out of Shanghai a despised adventurer to
+whom the foreign officers refused to speak. He returned to that city a
+hero and a power in China. The priesthood acclaimed him as the saviour
+of the sacred city; the emperor made him a Mandarin of the Red Button;
+the merchants of Shanghai voiced their relief by adding a splendid
+estate to the promised reward of seventy-five thousand dollars. His
+reputation would have been secure if he had never fought another
+battle.
+
+Leaving Sunkiang heavily garrisoned by imperial troops, Ward withdrew to
+Shanghai for the purpose of recruiting his shattered forces. Such a
+glamour of romance now surrounded the legion that Ward was fairly
+besieged by European as well as Oriental volunteers. Shortly after the
+capture of Sunkiang, Ward had occasion to visit Shanghai with reference
+to the care of his wounded. While riding through the streets of the city
+he was arrested by a British patrol, and despite his protestations that
+he was an officer in the imperial service, was hustled aboard the
+flag-ship of Admiral Sir James Hope, which lay in the harbor, and was
+placed in close confinement. In reply to his inquiries he was told that
+he was to be tried for recruiting British man-o'-war's-men for service
+in his legion. Though the arrest was high-handed and unjustified, there
+seemed no immediate prospect of release, for the American consul-general
+refused to interfere on the ground that Ward, by taking service under
+the Chinese government, had forfeited his right to American protection;
+the imperial authorities were powerless to take any action; while the
+British were notoriously fearful of the dangerous ascendancy which this
+American might gain if his successful career was permitted to continue.
+The only hope for Ward--and for China--lay in his escape. A friend
+perfected a plan of flight. While visiting Ward, who was confined in an
+outside cabin of the flag-ship, with a marine constantly on guard at the
+door, he synchronized his watch with that of the cabin clock, and
+whispered to the prisoner that he would be in a sampan under his cabin
+window at precisely two o'clock in the morning. Taking off his coat and
+shoes that he might be unhampered in the water, Ward sat on the edge of
+his berth with his eyes on the face of the clock. Just as the
+minute-hand touched the figure II, Ward made a dash for the window and
+sprang head-foremost through the sash, for the windows of the old
+fashioned men-of-war were much larger than the ports of modern
+battle-ships. He had hardly touched the water before he was pulled
+aboard a sampan, which disappeared in the darkness long before the
+flag-ship's boats could be manned and lowered. This daring exploit
+enormously increased Ward's prestige among both Chinese and Europeans,
+with whom the British, as a result of their insolent and overbearing
+attitude, were intensely unpopular. Some days later Admiral Hope sent a
+message to Ward requesting an interview, and, upon Ward assuring him
+that he would no longer recruit his ranks from the British navy, the
+old sea fighter became his strong partisan and friend.
+
+With his ranks once more repleted, Ward made preparations for a second
+venture. This time it was the city of Sing-po toward which he turned;
+but the Taipings, getting wind of his intentions, secretly threw an
+overwhelming force into the place under a renegade Englishman named
+Savage. Ward was without artillery with which to breach the walls, and,
+after several desperate assaults, in leading which he was severely
+wounded, he was forced to retire. Ten days later, regardless of his
+wounds, he tried again, but this time he was taken in the rear by a
+Taiping army of twenty thousand men, his little force being completely
+surrounded. So certain was the rebel leader that the famous general was
+within his grasp, that he consulted with his officers as to what methods
+of torture they should use upon him. But he was a trifle premature, for
+Ward struck the Taiping cordon at its weakest point, fought his way
+through, and reached Shanghai with a loss of only one hundred men. His
+secret agents bringing him word that the powerful force from which he
+had just escaped was to be used in the recapture of Sunkiang, Ward, by
+making night marches, slipped unperceived into that city. When the
+Taipings attempted to carry it by storm a few days later, instead of
+meeting with the half-hearted resistance which they had grown to expect
+from Chinese garrisons, they were astounded to see the helmeted figure
+of the dreaded American upon the walls, and were greeted with a blast of
+rifle fire which swept away their leading columns and crumpled up their
+army as effectually as though it had encountered an earthquake.
+
+Dangerously weakened by half a dozen wounds, Ward was reluctantly
+compelled to go to Paris in the fall of 1860 for surgical attention.
+Back at Shanghai again at the beginning of the following summer, he
+found that the Taipings, emboldened by his absence, were flaunting their
+banner within sight of the city walls. From end to end of the empire
+there existed an unparalleled reign of terror, the rebels now having
+grown so strong that they demanded the recognition of the European
+powers. Ward, meanwhile, had become convinced that the true solution of
+the problem lay in raising an army of natives, rather than foreigners,
+for not only was the supply of Chinese unlimited, but his experience had
+shown him that there was splendid fighting material in them if they were
+properly drilled and led. When he asked permission of the imperial
+government to raise and drill a Chinese force, therefore, it was gladly
+granted.
+
+An opportunity to put his theories regarding the fighting capabilities
+of the Chinese to a test soon came. Learning that a force of rebels, ten
+thousand strong, was advancing in the direction of Shanghai, Ward
+sallied forth from his headquarters at Sunkiang with two thousand five
+hundred men, struck the Taiping army, curled it up like a withered leaf,
+and drove it a dozen miles into the interior. Pressing on, he captured
+the city of Quan-fu-ling, which the rebels had garrisoned and fortified,
+and with it several hundred junks loaded with supplies. Throughout these
+actions his Chinese displayed all the steadiness and courage of European
+veterans. That he showed sound judgment in pinning his faith to natives
+is best proved by the fact that from that time on he never met with a
+reverse. His motto was "Cold steel," and his tactics would have
+delighted the old-time sea fighters, for, appreciating the fact that few
+Oriental troops are capable of remaining steady under a galling
+long-range fire, he invariably threw his men against the enemy in an
+overwhelming charge, and finished the business at close quarters with
+the bayonet.
+
+Moving up from Sunkiang with a thousand of his men, Ward joined a
+combined force of French and British bluejackets, who had with them a
+light howitzer battery, in an attack on Kaschiaou, just opposite
+Shanghai, which was the city's main source of supplies, and which the
+rebels had seized and fortified. Using the contingent from the war-ships
+as a reserve, Ward and his Chinamen did the work alone, carrying the
+stockades by storm and capturing two thousand rebels, as a result of
+which the enemy fell back from the neighborhood of Shanghai. So strongly
+impressed were the British officers with the behavior of Ward's soldiery
+that Sir James Mitchel, the commander-in-chief on the China station,
+strongly urged that the task of suppressing the rebellion be placed in
+the American's hands, and that he be empowered to raise his force to ten
+thousand men. A few weeks later Ward received an imperial rescript
+acknowledging his great services to China, and appointing him an
+admiral-general of the empire, the highest rank that the emperor could
+bestow. With this came the authority to recruit his force to six
+thousand men, and its baptism, by imperial order, with the sonorous and
+thrilling title of _Chun Chen Chun_, or the Ever-Victorious Army.
+
+As the barometer of Ward's fortunes steadily rose, that of his native
+country began to fall, the dark cloud of secession hanging
+threateningly over the land. It has been said of Ward that he
+denationalized himself by marrying a Chinese wife and adopting a Chinese
+name, but there is no doubt that it was only his stern sense of duty
+which kept him at the task he had undertaken in China when the guns of
+Sumter boomed out the beginning of the Civil War. He immediately sent a
+contribution of ten thousand dollars to the Union war fund, however,
+with a message that his services were at the disposal of the North
+whenever they were required. At the time of the _Trent_ affair, when war
+between England and the United States was momentarily expected, and the
+British in China had laid plans to seize American shipping and other
+property in the treaty ports, Ward effected a secret organization of
+American sympathizers and prepared to surprise and capture every British
+war-ship and merchant vessel in Chinese waters. In view of his success
+in equally daring exploits, there is good reason to believe that he
+would have accomplished even so startling a _coup_ as this.
+
+While recruiting his army to its newly authorized strength, Ward did not
+give the Taipings a moment's rest. He kept several flying columns
+constantly in the field, attacking the rebels at every opportunity,
+cutting up their outposts, harrying their pickets, breaking their lines
+of communication, and demoralizing them generally. One day Ward would be
+reported as operating in the south, and the Wang would draw a momentary
+breath of relief, but the next night, without the slightest warning, he
+would suddenly fall upon a city a hundred miles to the northward and
+carry it by storm. By such aggressive tactics as these Ward struck fear
+to the heart of the Taiping leader, who saw the despotism he had built
+up crumbling about him before the American's smashing blows. It was
+said, indeed, that the mere sight of Ward's white helmet in the van of a
+storming party was more effective than a brigade of infantry. With a
+thousand men of his own corps and six hundred royal marines he attacked
+and captured Tsee-dong, a walled city of considerable strength, and
+cleared the rebels from the surrounding region as though with a
+fine-tooth comb. The town of Wong-kadza was in the possession of the
+Taipings, and Ward decided to capture it. General Staveley, who had
+succeeded Sir James Mitchel in command of the British forces, offered to
+co-operate with him. It was agreed that they should rendezvous outside
+the town. Ward reached there first with six hundred of his men. Without
+waiting for the British to come up, he ordered his bugles to sound the
+charge, and after a quarter of an hour of desperate fighting he carried
+the stockade, and the rebels broke and ran, Ward's men killing more of
+them in the pursuit than they themselves numbered. When General Staveley
+arrived a few hours later he was chagrined to see the imperial standard
+flying over the city and to find that the impetuous American had done
+the work and reaped the glory. The allied forces now pressed on to the
+Taiping stronghold of Tai-poo, which was held by a strong and well-armed
+garrison. While the British engaged the attention of the rebels in front
+with a fierce artillery fire, Ward and his Chinamen made a détour to the
+rear of the city, and were at and over the walls almost before the
+garrison realized what had happened.
+
+The Ever-Victorious Army now numbered nearly six thousand men. It was
+well drilled and under an iron discipline; it was fairly well armed; it
+was magnificently officered; it was emboldened with repeated successes.
+The man who was the maker and master of such a force might well go a
+long way. That Ward dreamed of eventually making himself dictator of
+China there can be but little doubt. Louis Napoleon, remember, climbed
+to a throne on the bayonets of his soldiers. By this time the American
+soldier of fortune had become by long odds the most popular figure in
+the empire; the army was with him to a man; he possessed the confidence
+of the great mandarins and merchant princes; and he had to his credit an
+almost unparalleled succession of victories. Dictator of the East! What
+American ever had a more ambitious dream and was within such measurable
+distance of realizing it? It is no exaggeration to say that, had Ward
+lived, the whole history of the Orient would have been changed, and
+China, rather than Japan, would doubtless have held the balance of power
+in the Farther East.
+
+In April, 1862, Ward, the Viceroy Lieh, and the French and British
+commanders held a council of war in Shanghai. Ward suggested a plan of
+campaign designed to break the Taiping power in that part of China for
+good and all. Briefly put, his scheme was to capture a semicircle of
+cities within a radius of fifty miles of Shanghai and the coast. This
+would result in the rebels being held within their own lines by a cordon
+of bayonets, and, as they had utterly devastated the regions they had
+overrun, would mean starvation for them. Thus cut off from the seaboard,
+Ward argued, they would be unable to obtain ammunition and supplies,
+and the rebellion would soon wither. The series of operations was
+carried out as planned, Ward's corps being reinforced by three thousand
+French and British. It ended in the capture, in rapid succession, of the
+cities of Kah-ding, Sing-po, Najaor, and Tsaolin. In every case Ward
+insisted on being given the post of honor; he and his Chinamen, who
+fought with an appalling disregard for life, carrying the defences at
+the bayonet's point, while his European allies covered his advance with
+artillery fire and supported his whirlwind attacks. Leaving garrisons
+barely large enough to hold the captured cities, he pushed on by forced
+marches to Ning-po, which was a large and strongly fortified city. Twice
+his storming parties were driven back. The third time the men, exhausted
+by the continuous fighting in which they had been engaged and the long
+marches they had been called upon to perform, momentarily faltered in
+the face of the terrible fire which greeted them. Instantly Ward ordered
+the recall sounded, formed them into line within easy rifle-range of the
+city walls, and calmly put them through the manual of arms with as much
+precision as though they were on parade, while a storm of bullets
+whistled round them, and men were momentarily dropping in the ranks.
+Then, his men once more in hand, the bugles screamed the charge and the
+yellow line roared on to victory.
+
+Ward gave his last order to advance--he had forgotten how to give any
+other--on September 21, 1862. With a regiment of his men he was about to
+attack Tse-Ki, a small fortified coast town a few miles from Ning-po.
+With his habitual contempt for danger he was standing with General
+Forester, his chief of staff, well in advance of his men, inspecting the
+position through his field-glasses. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his
+breast. "I've been hit, Ed!" he exclaimed, and fell forward into the
+arms of his friend. Very tenderly his devoted yellow men carried him
+aboard the British war-ship _Hardy_, which was lying in the harbor, but
+the naval surgeons shook their heads when an examination showed that the
+bullet had passed through his lungs. "Don't mind me," whispered Ward.
+"Take the city." So Forester, heavy at heart, ordered forward the
+storming parties. That night the great captain died. The last sound he
+heard was his Chinamen's shrill yell of triumph.
+
+With extraordinary solemnity the dead soldier was laid to rest in the
+temple of Confucius in Sunkiang, the most sacred shrine in China and
+the very spot where he had established his headquarters after his first
+great victory. His body, which was followed to the grave by imperial
+viceroys, European admirals, generals, and consuls, and Chinese
+mandarins, was borne between the silent lines of his Ever-Victorious
+Army. By order of the emperor his name was placed in the pantheon of the
+gods. Temples to commemorate his victories were built at Sing-po and
+Ning-po, and a magnificent mausoleum was erected in his honor in
+Sunkiang. In it the yellow priests of Confucius still burn incense
+before his tomb. In all his history there can be found no hint of
+dishonor, no trace of shame. He was a great soldier and a very gallant
+gentleman, but he has been forgotten by his own people. To paraphrase
+the lines of Matthew Arnold:
+
+    "Far hence he lies,
+    Near some lone Chinese town,
+    And on his grave, with shining eyes,
+    The Eastern stars look down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Punctuation normalized.
+
+    Page 66: "cimiter" retained as printed.
+
+    Various: retained as printed "Tippo-Sahib" and "Tippoo Sahib".
+
+    Page 104: "govenment" replaced with "government" in "government
+    of this new country which was about to be annexed".
+
+    Page 115: "alignement" changed to "alignment".
+
+    Page 116: "caufles" retained as printed.
+
+    Page 157: "lowered the flag next day" and "Commodore T. ApCatesby
+    Jones" retained as printed.
+
+    Duplicate chapter headings removed.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander PowelL, F.R.G.S.
+    </title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gentlemen Rovers
+
+Author: E. Alexander Powell
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2011 [EBook #37812]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENTLEMEN ROVERS ***
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+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="300" height="507" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>GENTLEMEN
+ROVERS</h1>
+
+<p class="venti">BY<br />
+E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S.<br />
+<small>AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FRONTIER," ETC.</small></p>
+
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br />
+NEW YORK 1913</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;"><a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a>
+<img src="images/gs01leaped.jpg" width="447" height="504" alt="Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1913, by</span><br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Published September, 1913</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/005.png" width="100" height="115" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="tall">To<br />
+
+THE FINEST GENTLEMAN I KNOW<br />
+
+MY FATHER<br /></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There's a Legion that never was 'listed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That carries no colors or crest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, split in a thousand detachments,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is breaking the road for the rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ends o' the Earth were our portion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ocean at large was our share,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was never a skirmish to windward<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the Leaderless Legion was there.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We preach in advance of the Army,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We skirmish ahead of the Church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With never a gunboat to help us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we know as the cartridges finish<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we're filed on our last little shelves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the Legion that never was 'listed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will send us as good as ourselves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; *<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then a health (we must drink it in whispers)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To our wholly unauthorized horde&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the line of our dusty foreloopers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the Gentlemen Rovers abroad!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="sig">
+&mdash;<i>The Lost Legion.</i><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FOREWORD</h2>
+
+
+<p>This book is written as a tribute to some men
+who have been overlooked by History and forgotten
+by Fame. Though they won for us more
+than half the territory comprised within our
+present-day borders, not only have no monuments
+been erected to perpetuate their exploits in bronze
+and marble, but they lie for the most part in forgotten
+and neglected graves, some of them under
+alien skies. Boyd, Truxtun, Eaton, Reed,
+Lafitte, Smith, Ide, Ward, Walker&mdash;even their
+names hold no significance for their countrymen
+of the present generation, yet they played
+great parts in our national drama. After two
+decades of history-making in Hindustan, Boyd
+came back to his own country and ably seconded
+William Henry Harrison in breaking the
+power of the great Indian confederation which
+threatened to check the white man's westward
+march. When both France and England were
+our enemies, and the gloom of despondency hung
+like a cloud over the land, it was Truxtun and his
+bluejackets who put new heart into the nation
+by their victories. Eaton and his motley army
+marched across six hundred miles of African desert,
+and by bringing the Barbary despots to their
+knees accomplished that which had been unsuccessfully
+attempted by every naval power in
+Europe. Captain Reed, of the <i>General Armstrong</i>,
+after holding off a British force twenty times the
+strength of his own, sunk his vessel rather than
+surrender. To a pirate and smuggler named
+Jean Lafitte, more than any other person save
+Andrew Jackson, we owe our thanks for saving
+New Orleans from capture and Louisiana from
+invasion. Jedediah Smith blazed the route of the
+Overland Trail and showed us the way to California,
+and a quarter of a century later Frémont,
+Ide, Sloat, and Stockton made the land beyond
+the Sierras ours. William Walker came within
+an ace of changing the map of Middle America,
+and made the name of American a synonym for
+courage from the Rio Grande to Panama, while
+on the other side of the world another American,
+Frederick Townsend Ward, raised and led that
+ever victorious army whose exploits were General
+Gordon's chief claim to fame. There was not one
+of these men of whom we have not reason to be
+proud. But because they did their work unofficially,
+in what might aptly be described as "shirt-sleeve
+warfare," and because they went ahead
+without waiting for the tardy sanction of those
+who guided our ship of state, the deeds they performed
+have never received befitting recognition
+from those who follow by the trails they made,
+who grow rich from the mines that they discovered,
+who dwell upon the lands they won. And
+that is why I am going to ask you, my friends, as
+in the following pages I lead these forgotten heroes
+before you in imaginary review, to raise your
+hats in respect and admiration to this company
+of brave soldiers and gallant gentlemen who so
+stoutly upheld American prestige and American
+traditions in many far corners of the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><b>PAGE</b></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">For Rent: An Army on Elephants</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">When We Fought Napoleon</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">When We Captured an African Kingdom</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Last Fight of the "General Armstrong"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Pirate Who Turned Patriot</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Man Who Dared to Cross the Ranges</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Flag of the Bear</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The King of the Filibusters</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cities Captured by Contract</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Illustrations" width="60%">
+<tr><td align="left">Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds</td><td align="right"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><b>FACING<br />PAGE&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The battle of Tippecanoe</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The frigate <i>Philadelphia</i> ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">But even in those days the fame of American gunners was as wide as the seas</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The battle of New Orleans</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Sacramento Valley in 1845</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">General William Walker and his men, after a long and stormy voyage, landing at Virgin Bay, en route to Costa Rica</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza, Granada</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_200">200</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Come on, boys!" shouted Ward. "We're going in!" and plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_230">230</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FOR RENT: AN ARMY ON ELEPHANTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>The pitiless Indian sun had poured down
+upon the Hyderabad <i>maidan</i> until its sandy
+surface glowed like a stove at white heat. Drawn
+up in motionless ranks, which stretched from end
+to end of the great parade-ground, was a division
+of cavalry: squadron after squadron of scarlet-coated
+troopers on sleek and shining horses; row
+after row of brown and bearded faces peering
+stolidly from under the white turbans. The rays
+of the sun danced and sparkled upon ten thousand
+lance-points; the feeble breeze picked up
+ten thousand pennons and fluttered them into a
+white-and-scarlet cloud. Now and then the silence
+would be broken by a clash of steel as a horse
+tossed its head or a <i>sowar</i> stirred uneasily in his
+saddle. Sitting a white Arab, a score of paces
+in advance of the foremost rank, very stiff and
+soldierly in his gorgeous uniform, was a tall young
+man whose ruddy cheeks and pleasant eyes looked
+strangely out of place in so Oriental a setting.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From somewhere within the city walls a bugle
+spoke shrilly and was answered by another and
+then another, each nearer than the one preceding.
+The young man in the splendid uniform barked
+an order, and men and horses stiffened into rigidity
+as sharply as though an electric current had
+gone through them. Through the twin-towered
+gateway of the city advanced a procession, colorful
+as a circus, dazzling as a durbar. The two
+figures who rode at the head of the glittering cortege
+formed an almost startling contrast. One of
+them answered in every detail the popular conception
+of an Asiatic potentate: haughty of manner,
+portly of person, with a clear, dark skin and
+wonderfully piercing eyes and a great black beard,
+spreading fan-wise upon his breast. An aigret of
+diamonds flashed and scintillated in his flame-colored
+turban; rubies, large as robin's eggs, gleamed
+in his ears, and hanging from his neck over his
+pale blue surtout was a rope of pearls which would
+have roused the envy of an empress. His companion,
+to whom he paid marked attention, was
+equally noticeable, though in quite a different
+fashion: a lean, smooth-shaven, lantern-jawed
+man, still in the middle thirties, very cold and
+reserved of manner, with a great beak of a nose
+and a jaw like a granite crag. It did not need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+the cocked hat and gold epaulets of a British
+general to mark him as a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>As the cortege cantered onto the <i>maidan</i> the
+massed bands of the cavalry burst into a wild,
+barbaric march, brass and kettle-drums crashing
+together in stirring discord. The strains ceased
+as abruptly as they began, and the youthful commander,
+rising in his stirrups, shot his blade into
+the air and called in a voice like a trumpet:</p>
+
+<p>"Cheers for his Highness!"</p>
+
+<p>And back came a guttural roar from ten thousand
+throats:</p>
+
+<p>"Long live the Nizam!"</p>
+
+<p>Obviously gratified at the warmth of his greeting,
+the ruler of the Deccan wheeled his horse and
+came cantering up to the cavalryman, whose
+sword flashed in salute.</p>
+
+<p>"Boyd Sahib," he said, "you are a veritable
+magician. You turn ryots into soldiers as readily
+as a fakir turns a stone into bread. Your men
+are admirable. I congratulate you on their appearance."</p>
+
+
+<p>Then, turning to his taciturn companion:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Arthur Wellesley, permit me to present to
+you Boyd Sahib, commander of my cavalry and
+my trusted friend. General Boyd," he added,
+glancing at the Englishman with a malicious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+smile, "is a very brilliant soldier&mdash;and an American."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Thus met, when the nineteenth century was
+still in its swaddling-clothes, two extraordinary
+men: Sir Arthur Wellesley, who in later years,
+as the Duke of Wellington, was to gain undying
+fame by conquering Napoleon; and General John
+Parker Boyd, an American soldier of fortune, who
+rendered most gallant service to his own people,
+but whose very name has been forgotten by them.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Boyd, as his boyhood companions in Newburyport
+used to call him, was born with the
+spirit of adventure strong within him. Almost
+before he had graduated from dresses to knee-trousers
+he would linger about the wharfs of
+the quaint old town, drinking in the stories of
+strange places and stranger doings told him by
+the seafarers who were wont to congregate along
+the water-front, or staring wistfully at the big,
+black merchantmen about to sail for foreign parts.
+He was wont to say that it was a perverse and
+unkind fate which caused him to be born in so
+inauspicious a year as 1764, for, though there
+was no more ardent youngster in all New England,
+his youth caused the recruiting sergeants of
+the Continental Army to whom he applied for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+enlistment to pat him on the shoulder and remark
+encouragingly: "Come again, son, when
+you're a few years older."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that he saw unroll before him that
+marvellous moving-picture of the birth of a nation,
+which began on the greensward at Lexington
+and ended before the British lines at Yorktown,
+without being able to play any greater part
+in those stirring events than does a spectator in
+the thrilling scenes which he pays his five cents
+to see depicted on a screen. Indeed, a twelve-month
+passed after the last British soldier left
+our shores before young Boyd achieved the ambition
+of his life by obtaining an ensign's commission
+in the 2d Regiment of Foot and donned
+the blue coat and buff breeches of an officer in
+the American army. Although within a year he
+had been promoted to lieutenant, his was not the
+temperament which could long endure the monotony
+of garrison life, with its unending round
+of guard-mounting and small-arms practice and
+company drill. It is scarcely to be wondered at,
+therefore, that before the gold braid on his lieutenant's
+uniform had time to tarnish he had
+handed in his papers and had booked passage on
+an East Indiaman sailing out of Boston for Madras.
+The year 1788, then, saw this youngster of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+four-and-twenty landed on the coast of Coromandel,
+poor in acquaintances and pocket but rich
+in adventurousness and pluck.</p>
+
+<p>He could have taken his military talents to
+no better market, for at this period of India's
+troubled history a brilliant career awaited a man
+whose wits were as sharp as his sword. The last
+quarter of the eighteenth century found all India
+ablaze with racial and religious hatred. Wars
+were as frequent as strikes are in the United
+States. Though the French were still supreme
+in the south of the peninsula, the English power
+was steadily rising in Bombay, Calcutta, and
+Madras. There were really two distinct struggles
+in progress: the English were fighting the
+French and the Hindus were fighting the Mohammedans.
+The most powerful of the native princes
+at this time were the Nizam of Hyderabad, and
+the Peishwa, as the ruler of the Mahratta tribes
+was called&mdash;both of whom had, for reasons of policy,
+espoused the English cause&mdash;and Tippoo Sahib,
+the son of a Mohammedan military adventurer
+who had made himself Sultan of Mysore,
+who was an ally of the French. Ranged on the
+one side, then, were the British, with their allies,
+the Nizam and the Peishwa, while opposed to
+them were the French and Tippoo of Mysore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+All of the reigning princes of India maintained
+extensive military establishments, and soldiers of
+fortune found at their courts rapid promotion
+and lavish pay. When Boyd landed in India he
+was confronted with the problem which of the
+rival causes he should make his own, and it speaks
+well for his sagacity and foresight that he promptly
+decided to offer his services to the allies of the
+English, for at that time most students of politics,
+in India and out of it, believed that the future of
+the peninsula was to be Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon.</p>
+
+<p>From Madras Boyd made his way on horseback
+to the Mahratta country, where his attractive personality
+and soldierly appearance so impressed the
+Peishwa that he gave the young American the
+command of a cavalry brigade of fifteen hundred
+men. Boyd was now in possession of the raw
+material for which he had hankered, and he forthwith
+proceeded to show his extraordinary skill in
+welding, tempering, and sharpening it. From
+daybreak until dark his camp resounded to the
+call of bugles, the words of command, and the
+clatter of galloping hoofs. He hammered his men
+into shape as a blacksmith hammers a bar of
+iron, until they combined the inflexible discipline
+of Prussian foot-guards with the mobility and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+endurance of Texas rangers. His chance to test
+the quality of his handiwork came in 1790, when
+Tippoo Sultan, failing in his attempt to bring on
+a renewal of the war between England and France,
+turned loose his hordes and overran the land. In
+the three years' war which followed, the British,
+under Lord Cornwallis, who was striving to regain
+in India the reputation he had lost at Yorktown,
+were aided by the Mahrattas and the Nizam,
+who were induced by fear and jealousy to join
+in the struggle against their powerful neighbor.
+Thus Opportunity knocked sharply on Boyd's
+door. Commanding a body of as fine horsemen
+as ever threw leg across saddle, his name quickly
+became a synonym for audacity and daring. Riding,
+wholly without support, into the very heart
+of Tippoo's dominions, he would strike a series
+of paralyzing blows, burn a dozen towns, capture
+or destroy immense stores of ammunition, exact
+a huge indemnity, and be back in his own territory
+again before any troops could be brought
+up to oppose him. Boyd's flying columns played
+no small part, indeed, in the campaign which
+ended in 1792 with the defeat of Tippoo&mdash;a defeat
+for which the Sultan had to pay by ceding
+half his dominions, paying an indemnity of three
+thousand lacs of rupees (one hundred million dollars),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+and giving his two sons as hostages for his
+future good behavior.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd, meanwhile, had never let slip an opportunity
+for improving his knowledge of Hindustani
+and its kindred dialects or familiarizing himself
+with the complex conditions, racial, religious,
+and political, which prevailed in Hindustan.
+Realizing that the Mahratta power was on the
+wane, he resigned from the service of the Peishwa,
+and, bearing letters of the highest commendation
+from that ruler to the British envoy at the court
+of the Nizam, he turned his horse's head toward
+Hyderabad. In a letter to his father, written at
+this time, he says: "On my arrival I was presented
+to his Highness in form by the English
+consul. My reception was as favorable as my
+most sanguine wishes had anticipated. After
+the usual ceremony was over he presented me
+with the command of two <i>kansolars</i> of infantry,
+each of which consists of five hundred men."
+Continuing, he described in detail the army of
+the Nizam, which at that time consisted of one
+hundred and fifty thousand infantry, sixty thousand
+cavalry, and five hundred elephants, each
+of which bore a "castle" containing a nabob and
+his attendants. Can't you picture the scene when
+that letter, with its strange foreign postmarks,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+reached the old brick house in the quaint New
+England town; how the parents read and re-read
+that message from the son who was adventuring
+in foreign parts, and how the neighbors dropped in
+of evenings to hear the latest news of the boy they
+all knew, who was carving out a career with his
+sword half the world away? Success is, after all,
+a rather tasteless thing if there are no home folks
+to rejoice in it.</p>
+
+<p>Fortuna, that capricious beauty whose favor so
+many brave men have sought in vain, seemed to
+have lost her heart to the stalwart American, for
+in 1799, when Tippoo and his savage soldiery once
+more broke loose and swept across the peninsula,
+leaving a trail of corpses and burning villages behind
+them, the Nizam, recalling the tales he had
+heard of Boyd's exploits as a cavalry leader, gave
+him the command of a division of ten thousand
+turbaned troopers. Nor did the fair goddess desert
+him even when he was captured by a body
+of Mysore horsemen, taken before Tippoo Sahib
+himself, and, upon his stoutly refusing to turn
+traitor to the Nizam, condemned to death by
+torture. And the torturers of the tyrant of Mysore
+bore a most evil reputation. Overpowering
+the sentries who were set to guard him, he
+succeeded in making his way, thanks to his fluency in Hindustani, through the enemy's lines,
+rejoining the Nizam's forces in time to take part
+in the storming of the Sultan's capital of Seringapatam,
+Tippoo being killed in a hand-to-hand
+struggle after a last stand at the city gates. Thus
+died, as he would have wished&mdash;with his boots
+on&mdash;the most dangerous adversary with whom
+Britain had to contend in the winning of her
+Eastern empire.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/gs02death.jpg" width="450" height="500" alt="The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam.
+
+From a painting by R. de Moraine." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam.<br />
+
+From a painting by R. de Moraine.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Early in the nineteenth century Boyd, who, as
+the result of the generous rewards he had received
+from his royal employers, had by this time become
+possessed of considerable means, left the service
+of the Nizam, much against the wishes of that
+monarch, and organized an army of his own.
+Numerically, it wasn't much of an army, as armies
+go, having at no time exceeded two thousand
+men, but it was as businesslike a force as ever
+responded to a bugle. Boyd, whose reputation
+as a cavalry leader extended from Bengal to Malabar,
+had the horsemen of all India to draw from,
+and he recruited nothing but the best, the men
+with whom he filled his ranks being as hard as
+nails and as keen as razors. His second in command
+was an Irish soldier of fortune named William
+Tone, a brother of Wolf Tone, the famous
+rebel patriot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As Boyd reckoned on counterbalancing the
+smallness of his force by its extreme mobility, he
+adopted the novel expedient of transporting his
+artillery on the backs of elephants, thus making
+it possible for the guns to keep pace with the
+cavalry even on his whirlwind raids, for an elephant,
+though burdened with a field-piece and
+half a dozen soldiers, can put mile after mile behind
+it at a swinging, ungainly gait which it will
+tax any horse to maintain. Military history presents
+no more fantastic picture than that of this
+sun-tanned Yankee adventurer spurring across an
+Indian countryside with a brigade of beturbaned
+lancers and a score or so of lumbering elephants,
+the muzzles of brass field-guns frowning from
+their howdahs, tearing along behind him. What
+a pity that the folk in Newburyport could not
+have seen him!</p>
+
+<p>The entire outfit&mdash;elephants, horses, cannon,
+and weapons&mdash;was Boyd's personal property, and
+he rented it to those princes who had need of
+and were able to pay for its service precisely as
+a garage rents an automobile. The prices he obtained
+for it were enormous, and ere long he
+became a wealthy man. From one end of the
+country to the other he led his scarlet-coated
+mercenaries, selling their services in turn to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+former employers, the Nizam and the Peishwa,
+and to the rulers of Gwalior and Indore.
+When a force was needed for a particularly desperate
+service or for a hopeless hope they sent
+for Boyd. And he always delivered the goods.
+Fighting was going on everywhere, and he never
+lacked employment. But he was far too discerning
+not to recognize the fact that the power of
+England was steadily, if slowly, increasing, and
+that her complete domination of India, which
+could not much longer be delayed, must inevitably
+put an end to independent soldiering as a
+profitable profession. In 1808, therefore, he sold
+his army, elephants and all, to Colonel Felose,
+a Neapolitan who had seen service under many
+flags, and with misted eyes and a choking throat
+for the last time rode along the lines of his faithful
+troopers. A few days later he set sail for
+Paris, for, with the Corsican's star high in the
+heavens, there seemed no better place for such a
+man to seek adventure and advancement. Disappointed
+in his hope of obtaining a commission
+under the Napoleonic eagles, he turned his face
+toward home, and in 1810, after an absence of
+more than twenty years, he felt the cobblestones
+of his native Newburyport beneath his feet once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd's adventurous career under his own flag<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+and in the service of his own people forms quite
+another though a scarcely less thrilling story.
+Trained and experienced officers being in those
+days few and far between, the government offered
+him the colonelcy of the 4th Regiment of
+Infantry, which he promptly accepted, displaying
+such energy in drilling his men that when his
+regiment marched through the streets of Boston
+on its way to Pittsburg the local papers commented
+editorially on the smartness of its appearance.
+When William Henry Harrison, then governor
+of the Territory of Indiana (which included
+the present States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
+and Wisconsin), realizing the imperative necessity
+of smashing the great Indian confederation which
+Tecumseh, the Shawnee warrior-statesman, was
+so painstakingly building to oppose the white
+man's further progress westward, called for troops
+to do the business, Boyd put his men on flat-boats,
+floated them down to the falls of the Ohio,
+and marched them overland to Vincennes, his
+dusty, footsore column tramping into Harrison's
+stockaded headquarters almost before that veteran
+frontiersman had realized that they had
+started. Boyd was in direct command, under
+Harrison, of the little expeditionary force of nine
+hundred men throughout the whirlwind campaign
+which culminated on a drizzling November<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+morning in 1811 on the banks of the Tippecanoe
+River. Tippecanoe was, I suppose, the only battle
+which our army ever fought in high hats, for
+the absurd uniform of the American infantry, discarded
+a few months later, consisted of blue,
+brass-buttoned tail-coats, skin-tight pantaloons,
+and "stovepipe" hats with red, white, and blue
+cockades. Though taken by surprise and outnumbered
+six to one, Boyd's soldiery showed the
+result of their training by standing like a stone
+wall against the onset of the whooping redskins,
+pouring in a volley of buckshot at close range
+which left the hordes of warriors wavering, undecided
+whether to come on or to retreat. At
+this psychological moment Boyd ordered up the
+squadron of dragoons which he had been holding
+in reserve for just such an opportunity. "Right
+into line!" he roared in the voice which had resounded
+over so many fields in far-off Hindustan.
+"Trot! Gallop! <i>Charge!</i> Hip, hip, here we
+go!" It was the charge of the cavalry, delivered
+with all the smashing suddenness with which a
+boxer delivers a solar-plexus blow, which did the
+business. The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight
+of the oncoming troopers in their brass helmets
+and streaming plumes of horsehair, broke and ran.
+Tippecanoe was won; Harrison was started on the
+road which was to end in the White House; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+peril of Tecumseh's Indian confederation was
+ended forever, and the civilization of the West
+was advanced a quarter of a century.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs03battle.png" width="600" height="376" alt="The battle of Tippecanoe.
+From a print in the New York Public Library." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The battle of Tippecanoe.<br />
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the following year, upon the outbreak of our
+second war with England, Boyd, who had been
+commissioned a brigadier-general, commanded a
+division of Wilkinson's army in the abortive
+American invasion of Upper Canada, and, on
+November 11, 1813, fought the drawn battle of
+Chrysler's Field. "Taps" were sounded to his
+picturesque career on October 4, 1830. He died,
+not as he would have wished, sword in hand at
+the head of charging squadrons, but quite peacefully
+in his bed, holding the prosaic position of
+port officer of Boston, to which post he had been
+appointed by that other gallant fighter, President
+Andrew Jackson. As the end approached I doubt
+not that in mind he was far away from the brick
+and plaster of the New England city, and that
+his thoughts harked back to those mad, glad days
+when he and his lancers rode across the plains of
+Hindustan and his elephants rocked and rolled
+behind him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>WHEN WE FOUGHT NAPOLEON</h2>
+
+
+<p>This is the story of some forgotten fights and
+fighters in a forgotten war. The governments
+of the two nations which did the fighting&mdash;France
+and the United States&mdash;refused, indeed,
+to admit that there was any war at all, and, in a
+sense, they were right, for there was never any
+declaration of hostilities, and there was never
+signed a treaty of peace. But it was a very real
+war, nevertheless, with some of the fiercest battles
+ever fought on deep water, and when it was over
+we had laid the foundations of a navy, we had
+won the respect of the European powers, and we
+had humbled the pride of Napoleon as it had
+been humbled only once before, when Nelson
+annihilated the French fleet in the battle of the
+Nile.</p>
+
+<p>At the time that this narrative opens Bonaparte
+had just finished his wonderful campaign
+in northern Italy, and the French nation, flushed
+with confidence by his remarkable series of victories,
+was swaggering about with a chip on its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+shoulder, and defying the nations of the world to
+knock it off. In fact, the leaders of the Reign of
+Terror, drunk with unaccustomed power, had lost
+their heads as completely as the victims whom
+they had guillotined on the Place de la Révolution.
+Thoroughly typical of this insolent and arrogant
+attitude was the French Directory's peremptory
+demand that we instantly abrogate the treaty
+which John Jay, our minister to England, had
+just concluded with that country, basing its unwarrantable
+interference with our affairs on the
+ground that the terms of the treaty were injurious
+to the commercial interests of France. Upon our
+curt refusal to accede to this preposterous demand,
+Charles C. Pinckney, our minister at Paris,
+was notified by the French Government that it
+would hold no further intercourse with him, and
+the very next mail-packet brought the news that
+he had been expelled from France. Not content
+with this extraordinary and uncalled-for affront to
+a friendly nation, French cruisers began seizing
+our ships under a decree of their government authorizing
+the capture of neutral vessels having on
+board any of the products of Great Britain or her
+colonies, for at this time, remember, France and
+England were at war, as they were, indeed,
+throughout nearly the whole of Napoleon's reign.
+As the bulk of our trade at this period was with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+the British colonies in the West Indies, it was evident
+that this decree was aimed directly at us.
+Every packet that came from West Indian waters
+brought news of American ships overhauled and
+plundered, of sailors beaten and kidnapped, and
+of cargoes seized and confiscated by the French,
+the authenticated despatches to the State Department
+naming nearly a thousand vessels which had
+been captured. So bold did the French become
+that one of their privateers actually had the
+audacity to sail into Charleston Roads and, almost
+under the guns of the batteries, to burn to
+the water's edge a British vessel which was lying
+in the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was evident that nothing short of a
+miracle could avert war, President Adams, appreciating
+the ill-preparedness of the United States,
+which had only recently emerged from the Revolution
+in a weakened and impoverished condition,
+determined to make one more try for peace by
+despatching to France a special mission composed
+of Minister Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry, and John
+Marshall, the last-named later Chief Justice of
+the United States. Though in all our diplomatic
+history we have sent abroad no more able or distinguished
+embassy, the reception its members
+received at the hands of the French Government
+was as disgraceful as it was ludicrous. The French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+Directory at this time was composed of low and
+irresponsible politicians of the ward-heeler type
+who had climbed to power during the French
+Revolution, so that, incredible as such a state of
+affairs may seem in these days, the negotiations
+soon degenerated into an attempt to fleece the
+American envoys, who were informed quite frankly
+that their success depended entirely upon their
+agreeing to bribe&mdash;or, as the French politely put
+it, to give a <i>douceur</i> to&mdash;certain avaricious members
+of the Directory. Not only this, but the
+American diplomatists were told that, if the bribes
+demanded were not forthcoming, orders would be
+given to the war-ships on the French West Indian
+station to ravage the coasts of the United States.
+The chronicles of our foreign relations contain
+nothing which, for sheer impudence and insult,
+even approaches this attempt to levy blackmail
+on the nation. Even the astute Talleyrand, at
+that time French Foreign Minister, so far misjudged
+the characters of the men with whom he
+was dealing as to insinuate that a gift of money to
+members of the government was a necessary preliminary
+to the negotiations, and that a refusal
+would bring on war. Then all the pent-up rage
+and indignation of Pinckney burst forth. "War
+be it, then!" he exclaimed. "Millions for defence,
+sir, but not one cent for tribute!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Upon learning of this crowning insult to his
+representatives, President Adams, on March 19,
+1798, informed Congress that the mission on
+which he had built his hopes of peace had proved
+a failure. Then the war-fever, which had temporarily
+been held in abeyance, swept over the
+country like fire in dry grass. Talleyrand's attempt
+to whip America into a revocation of Jay's
+treaty had ignominiously failed. He had made
+the inexcusable mistake of underestimating the
+spirit and resources of his opponents. Congress
+promptly abrogated all our treaties with France,
+prohibited American vessels from entering French
+ports, and French vessels from coming into American
+waters, and voted a large sum for national
+defence. The land forces were increased, the
+coastwise fortifications strengthened, ships of
+war were hurriedly laid down, volunteers from
+every walk of life besieged the recruiting stations,
+Washington reassumed command of the army.
+At Portland, Portsmouth, Salem, Chatham, Norwich,
+Philadelphia, and Baltimore the shipyards
+resounded to the clatter of tools, for those were
+before the days of big guns and armor-plate, and
+a man-of-war could, if necessary, be built and
+equipped in ninety days.</p>
+
+<p>Out from behind this war-cloud rose the thrilling
+strains of "Hail, Columbia." When the war-fever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+was at its height, a young actor and singer
+named Fox&mdash;a vaudeville artist, we should call him
+nowadays&mdash;who was appearing at a Philadelphia
+theatre, called one morning on his friend Joseph
+Hopkinson, a young and clever lawyer, and a son
+of that Francis H. Hopkinson whose signature
+may be seen at the bottom of the Declaration of
+Independence.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Joe," said Fox, dropping into a
+chair, "I need some help and you're the only man
+I know who can give it to me. No, no, old man,
+it's not money I'm after. To-morrow night I'm
+to have a benefit at the theatre, but not a single
+box has been sold; so, unless something can be
+done to attract public attention, I'm afraid I shall
+have a mighty thin house. Now it strikes me
+that, with all this war-fever in the air, if I could
+get some patriotic verses, something really fiery
+and inspiriting, written to the tune of 'The President's
+March,' I might draw a crowd. Several
+of the people around the theatre have tried it,
+but they have all given it up as a bad job, and say
+that it can't be done. So you're my last hope,
+Joe, and I think you could do it."</p>
+
+<p>Shutting himself up in his study, within an hour
+Hopkinson had completed the first verse and
+chorus of what was to prove one of the greatest
+of our national songs, and had submitted them to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+his wife, who sang them to a harpsichord accompaniment.
+The tune and the words harmonized.
+A few hours later the song was completed and
+was being memorized by Fox. The next morning
+Philadelphia was placarded with announcements
+that that evening Mr. Fox would sing, for the
+first time on any stage, a new patriotic song.
+The house was packed to the doors. As the orchestra
+broke into the familiar opening bars of
+"The President's March," and Fox, slender and
+debonair, bowed from behind the footlights, the
+audience grew hushed with expectancy. When
+the now familiar words,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Immortal patriots, rise once more!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Defend your rights, defend your shore!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>went rolling through the theatre from pit to gallery,
+the audience went wild. Eight times they
+made him sing it through, and the ninth time they
+rose and joined in the rousing chorus:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Firm, united let us be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rallying round our Liberty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a band of brothers joined,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peace and safety we shall find."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Night after night the singing of "Hail, Columbia,"
+in the theatres was applauded by audiences delirious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+with enthusiasm, and within a few days it
+was being sung by boys in the streets of every
+city from Portland to Savannah. Never since
+the days of Bunker Hill had the nation been so
+stirred as it was in that summer of 1798.</p>
+
+<p>On July 6, with the red-white-and-blue ensign
+streaming proudly from her main truck, the sloop
+of war <i>Delaware</i>, twenty guns, of Baltimore, under
+Stephen Decatur, Sr., put to sea to an accompaniment
+of booming cannon. Cape Henry
+had scarcely sunk below the horizon before she
+was hailed by a merchantman which had been
+boarded and plundered by a French privateer only
+the day before. Upon hearing this news Decatur
+set off in a pursuit as eager as that with which a
+bloodhound follows the trail of a fugitive criminal.
+A few hours later his lookouts reported four vessels
+dead ahead. Being unable to determine
+which was the privateer, he ran in his guns, closed
+his ports, and keeping on his course until he was
+sure that he had been seen, stood hurriedly off,
+as though afraid of being captured. Just as he
+had anticipated, the Frenchman fell into the trap,
+and piling on his canvas, bore down upon him.
+It was not until the privateersman drew close
+enough to make out the gun-ports and the unusual
+number of men on the American's decks,
+that he discovered Decatur's ruse and attempted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+to escape. But it was too late. The <i>Delaware's</i>
+superior speed enabled her easily to overhaul the
+Frenchman, which proved to be <i>La Incroyable</i>,
+fourteen guns and seventy men. So accurate and
+deadly was the fire poured into her by the <i>Delaware's</i>
+gunners (forerunners, remember, of those
+bluejackets who handle the twelve-inch guns on
+the dreadnaught <i>Delaware</i> to-day) that within
+ten minutes after the action had commenced the
+French tricolor came fluttering down. We had
+struck our first blow against the power of France.</p>
+
+<p>The captured vessel was sent into port under a
+prize crew, was refitted, added to the American
+Navy as the <i>Retaliation</i>&mdash;fitting name!&mdash;went to
+sea under command of William Bainbridge (the
+same who a few years later was to lose the war-ship
+<i>Philadelphia</i> to the Barbary pirates in the
+harbor of Tripoli), and shortly afterward was recaptured
+by the French frigate <i>l'Insurgente</i>, being
+the only vessel of our little navy taken by the
+French.</p>
+
+<p>By the beginning of 1799 the West Indian waters
+were as effectually patrolled by American war-ships
+as a great city is patrolled by policemen.
+The newly built American frigates were objects
+of great amusement and derision to the French
+and British officers stationed in the West Indian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+colonies, for they were far too heavily armed, according
+to European ideas, carrying almost double
+the number of guns usual to vessels of their class.
+It is interesting to recall the fact, however, that
+sixty-odd years later European officers were
+equally derisive and sceptical of another American
+innovation in war-ships which was destined
+to revolutionize naval warfare&mdash;the monitor. But
+before long the sceptics were compelled to revise
+their opinions of the fighting qualities of our infant
+navy. Our fleet was at this time divided
+into two squadrons, both of which made their
+headquarters at St. Christopher, or, as it was
+more commonly called, St. Kitts, on the island
+of Antigua; one, under Commodore Barry, running
+as far south as the Guianas, while the other,
+under Commodore Truxtun, cruised northward
+to Santo Domingo, thus effectually cutting off
+from commercial intercourse with the mother
+country the rich French colonies in the Caribbean.</p>
+
+<p>Truxtun was a most picturesque and romantic
+figure. Short and stout, red-faced, gray-eyed,
+loud-voiced, gallant with women and short-tempered
+with men, he was as typical a sea fighter
+as ever trod a quarter-deck with a brass telescope
+tucked under his arm. From the time when,
+as a boy of twelve, he ran away to sea, until,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+a national hero, he was laid to rest in Christ
+Church graveyard in Philadelphia, his life was as
+full of hair-breadth escapes and hair-raising adventures
+as that of one of Mr. George A. Henty's
+heroes. A sailor before the mast when scarcely
+in his teens, he was impressed into the British
+Navy, where his ability attracted such attention
+that he was offered a midshipman's warrant,
+which he refused. When only twenty years of
+age he commanded his own ship, in which he succeeded,
+though at great personal hazard, in smuggling
+large quantities of much-needed powder into
+the rebellious colonies. Eventually his ship was
+captured and he was made a prisoner. Escaping
+from the British prison in the West Indies where
+he was confined, he made his way to the United
+States, obtained letters of marque from the first
+Continental Congress, and was the first to get to
+sea of that long line of privateersmen who, first
+in the Revolution, and afterward in the War of
+1812, practically drove British commerce from
+the Atlantic. At the close of the Revolution
+Truxtun returned to the merchant service, in
+which he rose to wealth and position. When the
+American Navy was organized under the stimulus
+of French aggression, he was offered and accepted
+the command of the thirty-eight-gun frigate <i>Constellation</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+a new and very beautiful vessel, splendidly
+officered and manned, and with heels as
+fast as her gun-fire was heavy.</p>
+
+<p>While cruising off Antigua, on February 9, 1799,
+the <i>Constellation's</i> lookout reported a French
+war-ship, which, upon being overhauled, proved
+to be <i>l'Insurgente</i>, forty guns, which had the reputation
+of being one of the fastest ships in the
+world, and was commanded by Captain Barreault,
+an officer celebrated in the French Navy as
+a desperate fighter and a resourceful sailor. As
+the <i>Constellation</i>, with her crew at quarters and
+her decks cleared for action, came booming down
+upon him, Captain Barreault broke out the
+French tricolor at his masthead and fired a gun
+to windward, which signified, in the language of
+the seas, that he was ready for a yard-arm to
+yard-arm combat. Truxtun's reply was to range
+alongside his adversary, a flag of stripes and stars
+at every masthead, and pour in a broadside
+which raked <i>l'Insurgente's</i> decks from stem to
+stern. The first great naval action in which the
+American Navy ever bore a part had begun.</p>
+
+<p>Waiting until the <i>Constellation</i> was well abreast
+of her, at a distance of perhaps thirty feet (modern
+war-ships seldom fight at a range of less than
+three miles), <i>l'Insurgente</i> replied, firing high in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+attempt to disable the American by bringing down
+her rigging. Midshipman David Porter, a youngster
+barely in his teens, was stationed in the foretop.
+Seeing that the top-mast, which had been
+seriously damaged by the French fire, was tottering
+and about to fall, but being unable to make
+himself heard on deck above the din of battle,
+he himself assumed the responsibility of lowering
+the foretopsail yard, thus relieving the strain on
+the mast and preventing a mishap which would
+probably have changed the result of the battle.
+That midshipman rose, in after years, to be an
+admiral and the commander-in-chief of the
+American Navy.</p>
+
+<p>Barreault, who had a much larger crew than his
+adversary, soon saw that his vessel was in danger
+of being pounded to pieces by the American gunners
+who were making every shot tell, and that his
+only hope of victory lay in getting alongside and
+boarding, depending upon his superior numbers to
+take the American vessel with the cutlass. With
+this in view, he ordered the boarding parties to
+their stations, sent men into the rigging with grappling-irons
+with which to hold the ships together
+when they touched, directed the guns to be loaded
+with small shot that they might cause greater execution
+at close quarters, and then, putting his helm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+hard down, attempted to run alongside the <i>Constellation</i>.
+But Truxtun had anticipated this very
+man&oelig;uvre, and was prepared for it. Seizing his opportunity&mdash;and
+in sea-battles opportunities do not
+last long or come often&mdash;he whirled his ship about
+as a polo player whirls his pony, and ran squarely
+across the enemy's bows, pouring in a rain of lead
+as he passed, which all but annihilated the boarding
+parties drawn up on the deck of <i>l'Insurgente</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Foiled in his attempt to get to hand-grips with
+his enemy, the Frenchman sheered off and the
+duel at short range continued, the <i>Constellation</i>,
+magnificently handled, sailing first along <i>l'Insurgente's</i>
+port side, firing as she went, and then,
+crossing her bows, repeating the man&oelig;uvre on
+her starboard quarter. Nothing is more typical
+of the iron discipline enforced by the American
+naval commanders in those early days than an
+incident that occurred when this duel between the
+two frigates was at its height. As a storm of
+shot from the Frenchman's batteries came crashing
+and smashing into the <i>Constellation</i>, a gunner,
+seeing his mate decapitated by a solid shot,
+became so demoralized that he retreated from
+his gun, whereupon an officer drew his pistol and
+shot the man dead.</p>
+
+<p>Time after time Truxtun repeated his evolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+of literally sailing around <i>l'Insurgente</i>, until every
+gun in her main batteries had been dismounted,
+her crew being left only the small guns with which
+to continue the action. It speaks volumes for
+Barreault's bravery that, with half his crew dead
+or wounded, and with a terribly battered and
+almost defenceless ship, he did continue the action,
+his weary, blood-stained, powder-blackened men
+loading and firing their few remaining guns dauntlessly.
+Seeing the weakened condition of his enemy,
+Truxtun now prepared to end the battle.
+Before the French had time to grasp the full significance
+of his man&oelig;uvre, he had put his helm
+hard down, and the <i>Constellation</i>, suddenly looming
+out of the battle smoke, bore down upon <i>l'Insurgente</i>
+with the evident intention of crossing her
+stern and raking her with a broadside to which
+she would be unable to reply. Though no braver
+man than Barreault ever fought a ship, he instantly
+appreciated that this would mean an unnecessary
+slaughter of his men; so, with the tears
+streaming down his cheeks, he ordered his colors
+to be struck, and in token of surrender the flag of
+France slipped slowly and mournfully down. The
+young republic of the West had avenged the insult
+of Talleyrand.</p>
+
+<p>It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+the desperate fighting which characterized this
+battle, the <i>Constellation</i> had only two of her crew
+killed and three wounded, while the French loss
+was nearly twenty times that number. Lieutenant
+Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were immediately
+sent aboard the captured vessel with a
+prize crew of only eleven men. After the dead
+had been buried at sea, the wounded cared for
+by the American surgeons, and about half of the
+prisoners transferred to the <i>Constellation</i>, Rodgers
+set such sails on <i>l'Insurgente</i> as the wrecked rigging
+would permit, and laid his course for St.
+Christopher, it being understood that Truxtun
+would keep within hail in case his assistance was
+needed. During the night a heavy gale set in,
+however, and when day broke upon the heaving
+ocean the <i>Constellation</i> was nowhere to be seen.
+It was a ticklish situation in which the thirteen
+Americans found themselves, for they had their
+work cut out for them to navigate a leaking, shattered,
+and dismasted ship, while below decks,
+awaiting the first opportunity which offered to
+rise and overpower their captors, were nearly
+two hundred desperate and determined prisoners.
+There were neither shackles nor handcuffs on
+board, and the hatchcovers had been destroyed
+in the action, so that the prisoners were perfectly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+aware that, could they once force their way on
+deck by a sudden rush, the ship would again be
+theirs. But they reckoned without Rodgers, for
+the first men who put their heads above the hatchway
+found themselves looking into the muzzles of
+a pair of pistols held by the American lieutenant,
+whose fingers were twitching on the triggers.
+During the three days and two nights which the
+voyage to St. Christopher lasted, a guard of American
+bluejackets stood constantly around the open
+hatchway, a pile of loaded small arms close at
+hand, and a cannon loaded with grape-shot trained
+menacingly into the prisoner-filled hold. On the
+evening of the third day, after Truxtun had given
+her up for lost, <i>l'Insurgente</i> limped into port with
+the flag of the United States flaunting victoriously
+above that of France.</p>
+
+<p>The 1st of February of the following year found
+the <i>Constellation</i>, still under the command of
+Commodore Truxtun, cruising off Guadaloupe in
+the hope of picking up some of the French privateers
+which were using that colony as a base from
+which to prey on our West Indian commerce.
+While loitering off the port of Basse Terre, and
+praying that something would turn up to pay him
+for his patience, Truxtun sighted a vessel coming
+up from the southeast, which from her size and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+build was evidently a French frigate of the first
+class. As she approached, the keen-eyed American
+naval officers, scanning her through their
+glasses, recognized her as the fifty-two-gun frigate
+<i>La Vengeance</i>, one of the most formidable vessels
+in the French Navy. It was evident from the
+first, however, that she would much rather run
+than fight, this anxiety to avoid an encounter
+being due to the fact that she had on board a
+large number of officials, high in the colonial
+service, whom she was bringing out to the colonies
+from the mother country. No sooner did she perceive
+the character of the <i>Constellation</i>, therefore,
+than she piled on every yard of canvas and headed
+for Basse Terre and the protecting guns of its
+forts. Never had the <i>Constellation</i> a better opportunity
+to display her remarkable sailing qualities,
+and never did she display them to better
+advantage. It was well after nightfall, however,
+before she was able to overhaul the flying Frenchman,
+so that it was by the light of a full moon,
+which illumined the scene almost as well as though
+it were day, that the preparations were completed
+for the combat. The sea, which was glasslike in
+its smoothness, as is so often the case in Caribbean
+waters, seemed to be covered with a veil of
+shimmering silver, while the battle-lanterns which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+had been lighted on both vessels swung like giant
+fireflies across the purple sky.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that escape was hopeless, the French
+commander hove to and prepared for a desperate
+resistance. Now, Truxtun had made up his mind
+that this was to be no long-range duel, in which
+the Frenchman's heavier metal could not fail to
+give him an advantage, but a fight at close quarters,
+in which the smashing broadsides which the
+<i>Constellation</i> was specially designed to deliver
+could not fail to tell. Just before the beginning
+of the battle the stout commodore, red-faced,
+white-wigged, cock-hatted, clad in the blue tail-coat
+and buff breeches of the American Navy,
+descended to the gun-deck and walked slowly
+through the batteries, acknowledging the cheers
+of the gunners, but emphatically warning them
+against firing a shot until he gave the word. No
+one knew better than Truxtun the demoralizing
+effect of a smashing broadside suddenly delivered
+at close quarters, and it was this demoralization
+which he intended to create aboard the enemy.
+"Load with solid shot," he ordered, and added,
+speaking to his officers so that the men could
+hear: "If a man fires a gun before I give the
+order, shoot him on the spot." Then with boarding-nettings
+triced up, decks sanded, magazines<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+opened, and the tops filled with marines whose
+duty it was to pick off the French gunners, the
+<i>Constellation</i>, stripped to her fighting canvas,
+swept grandly into action. As she came within
+range the French commander opened with his
+stern-chasers, and in an instant the ordered decks
+of the American were turned into a shambles.
+The wounded were carried groaning to the cockpit,
+where the white-aproned surgeons, their arms
+bared to the elbow, awaited their grim work, while
+the dead were hastily ranged along the unengaged
+side&mdash;rows of stark and staring figures beneath
+the placid moon. Again and again the guns of
+<i>La Vengeance</i> belched smoke and flame, and redder
+and redder grew the sand with which the
+<i>Constellation's</i> decks were spread, but she still
+kept coming on. Not until she was squarely
+abreast of the Frenchman did Truxtun, leaping
+into the shrouds, bellow through his speaking-trumpet:
+"Now, boys, give 'em hell!" The
+American gunners answered with a broadside
+which made <i>La Vengeance</i> reel. The effect was
+terrible. On the decks of the Frenchman the
+dead and dying lay in quivering, bleeding heaps.
+But not for an instant did the French sailors flinch
+from their guns. Broadside answered broadside,
+cheer answered cheer, while the men, French and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+American alike, toiled and sweated at their work
+of carnage. So rapidly were the American guns
+fired that the men actually had to crawl out of the
+ports, in the face of a withering fire, for buckets
+of water with which to cool them off.</p>
+
+<p>The different tactics adopted by the two commanders
+soon began to show results, for, whereas
+Truxtun had given orders that his men were to
+disregard the upper works and to concentrate
+their fire on the main-deck batteries and the hull,
+the French commander had from the first directed
+his fire upon the American's rigging in the hope
+of crippling her. Shortly after midnight the
+French fire, which had grown weaker and weaker
+under the terrible punishment of the <i>Constellation's</i>
+successive broadsides, ceased altogether,
+and an officer was seen waving a white flag in
+token of surrender. Twice before, in fact, <i>La
+Vengeance</i> had struck her colors, but owing to the
+smoke and darkness the Americans had not perceived
+it. And there was good reason for her
+surrender, for she had lost one hundred and
+sixty men out of her crew of three hundred and
+thirty, while the <i>Constellation</i> had but thirty-nine
+casualties out of a crew of three hundred and
+ten. Though the French fire had done small damage
+to the <i>Constellation's</i> hull, and had killed a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+comparatively small number of her crew, it had
+worked terrible havoc in her rigging, it being discovered,
+just as she was preparing to run alongside
+her capture and take possession, that every
+shroud and stay supporting her mainmast had
+been shot away, and that the mast was tottering
+and about to fall. The men in the top were under
+the command of a little midshipman named
+James Jarvis, who was only thirteen years old.
+He had been warned by one of his men that the
+mast was likely to fall at any moment, and
+had been implored to leave the top while there
+was still time, which he would have been entirely
+justified in doing, particularly as the battle was
+over. But that thirteen-year-old midshipman
+had in him the stuff of which heroes are made,
+and resolutely refused to leave his post without
+orders. The orders never came, for before the
+crew had time to secure it the great mast crashed
+over the side, carrying with it to instant death
+little Jarvis and all of his men save one. Though
+his name and deed have long since been forgotten
+by the nation for which he died, he was no whit
+less a hero than that other boy-sailor, Casabianca,
+whose self-sacrifice at the battle of the Nile has
+been made familiar by song and story.</p>
+
+<p>The falling of the <i>Constellation's</i> mast reversed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+conditions in an instant, for the surrendered
+frigate, taking prompt advantage of the victor's
+temporary helplessness, crowded on all sail and
+slowly disappeared into the night. By the time
+the wreck had been chopped away any pursuit of
+her was hopeless. A few days later she put into
+the Dutch port of Curaçao in a sinking condition.</p>
+
+<p>Thus continued until February, 1801, an unbroken
+series of American successes, French war-ships,
+French privateers, and French merchantmen
+alike being sunk, captured, or driven from
+the seas. France's trade with her West Indian
+colonies was paralyzed, and the prestige of her
+navy was enormously diminished. Napoleon, as
+First Consul, had abolished the Directory, and
+was now the virtual ruler of France, having entire
+command of all administrative affairs, both civil
+and military. Forced to admit that from first to
+last his ships had been out-sailed, out-fought, and
+out-man&oelig;uvred by the despised Americans, and
+that a continuance of the war could only result
+in further disaster and loss of prestige, he began
+negotiations which led, about the time that the
+nineteenth century passed its first birthday, to a
+suspension of hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>During the two and a half years of this unofficial
+war with the most powerful military nation in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+world our infant navy had captured eighty-four
+armed French vessels, mounting over five hundred
+guns&mdash;a success all the more remarkable
+when it is remembered that our entire naval establishment
+at the outbreak of hostilities comprised
+but twenty-two vessels, with four hundred and
+fifty-six guns. In other words, we had captured
+almost four times as many ships as we possessed.
+Not only had we practically destroyed French
+commerce on this side of the Atlantic, but our
+own commerce had risen, under the protection of
+our guns, from fifty-seven million dollars in 1797
+to more than seventy-eight million dollars in 1799.
+Most important of all, however, we had shown to
+France and to Europe that, when occasion demanded,
+we both would and could, in the words
+of our national song, defend our rights and defend
+our shore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h2>WHEN WE CAPTURED AN AFRICAN KINGDOM</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Did you ever, by any chance, leave the
+Boston State House by the back door?
+If so, you found yourself in a quiet and rather
+shabby thoroughfare, cobble-paved and lined on
+the farther side by old-fashioned red-brick houses,
+with white, brass-knockered doors, and iron balconies,
+and green blinds. That is Derne Street.
+Though a man standing on Boston Common
+could break one of its violet-glass windows with
+a well thrown ball, it is, as it were, a placid backwater
+of the busy streams of commerce which
+flow so noisily a few rods away. I wonder how
+many of the smug frock-coated politicians who
+hurry through it as a short cut daily have any
+idea how it got its name; I wonder if any of the
+people who live upon it know. Though the exploit
+which this Boston byway was named to
+commemorate has been overlooked by nearly all
+our historians, perhaps because its scene was laid
+in a remote and barbarous country, yet it was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+feat which, for picturesqueness, daring, and indomitable
+courage, is deserving of a more generous
+share of the calcium light of public appreciation.
+Though I am perfectly aware that history only
+too often makes dull reading, this chronicle, I
+promise you, is as bristling with romance and
+adventure as a hedgehog is with quills.</p>
+
+<p>You must understand, in the first place, that
+the declining years of the eighteenth century found
+a perfectly astounding state of affairs prevailing
+in the Mediterranean, where the four Barbary
+states&mdash;Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli&mdash;which
+stretched along its African shore, collected
+tribute from every nation whose vessels sailed that
+sea as methodically as a street-car conductor collects
+fares. Asserting that they were no common,
+vulgar buccaneers who plundered vessels indiscriminately,
+the Barbary corsairs, claiming for
+themselves the virtual ownership of the Mediterranean,
+turned it into a sort of maritime toll-road,
+and professed themselves at war with all who refused
+to pay roundly for using it. Nor was their
+boast that they were the masters of the Middle
+Sea a vain one, scores of captured merchantmen
+and thousands of European slaves laboring under
+the African sun proving indubitably that they
+were amply capable of enforcing their demands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+As far as the question of economy was concerned,
+it was about as cheap for a nation to be at war
+with these bandits of the sea as at peace, for so
+heavy was the tribute they demanded that their
+friendship came almost as high as their enmity.
+It cost Spain, at that time a rich and powerful
+empire, upward of three million dollars to obtain
+peace with the Dey of Algiers in 1786. Though
+England boasted herself mistress of the seas, and
+in token thereof English admirals carried brooms
+at their mastheads, she nevertheless spent four
+hundred thousand dollars annually in propitiating
+these African despots. Previous to the Revolution
+there were close on a hundred American
+vessels, manned by more than twelve hundred
+seamen, in the Mediterranean, but with the withdrawal
+of British protection this commerce was
+entirely abandoned. The ink was scarcely dry
+on the treaty of peace, however, before we had
+despatched diplomatic agents to the Barbary
+coast to purchase the friendship of its rulers, and
+had taken our place in the line of regular contributors.
+We were in good company, too, for England,
+France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark,
+and the Italian states had been paying
+tribute so long that they had acquired the habit.
+Think of it, my friends! Every great seafaring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+nation in the world meekly paying tribute to a
+few thousand Arab cutthroats for the privilege
+of using one of the seven seas, and humbly apologizing
+if the payment happened to become overdue!</p>
+
+<p>Our friendly relations with the Dey of Algiers
+were of short duration, however, and by 1793 his
+swift-sailing, heavily armed cruisers had captured
+thirteen American vessels, and sixscore American
+slaves were at work on the fortifications of his
+capital. In his prison-yard, indeed, one could
+hear every American inflection, from the nasal
+twang of Maine to the drawl of Carolina. After
+two years of procrastination, Congress, spurred to
+action by public indignation, purchased the liberty
+of the captives and peace with Algiers for eight
+hundred thousand dollars, though the Dey remarked
+gloomily, as he scrawled his Arabic flourish
+at the foot of the treaty: "If I keep on making
+peace at this rate, there will soon be no one left
+to fight. Then how shall I occupy my corsairs?
+What shall I do with my fighting men? If they
+have no one else to rob and slaughter, they will
+rob and slaughter me!"</p>
+
+<p>The Bashaw of Tripoli at this time was a peculiarly
+insolent and tyrannical Arab named Yussuf
+Karamanli, who had gained the throne by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+effective method of winning over the body-guard,
+quietly surrounding the palace one night, and deposing
+his elder brother, Ahmet, whom he promptly
+exiled. Despite the annual tribute of twenty-two
+thousand dollars which we were paying to the
+Bashaw, not to mention the seventeen thousand
+dollars' worth of presents which we presented biennially
+to the officers and officials of his court, he
+complained most bitterly to the American consul
+at Tripoli that he was not getting as much as his
+neighboring rulers, and that unless the matter was
+remedied immediately, he would have to get some
+American slaves to teach him English. Now,
+Yussuf was a bad man to have for an enemy, for
+his cruisers were numerous and loaded to the gunwales
+with pirates who would rather fight than
+eat, and he had, in addition, the reputation of
+being most inconsiderate to those sailors who fell
+into his hands, sometimes going so far as to wall
+a few of them up in the fortifications which he
+was constantly building. To put it bluntly, he
+was not popular outside of his own circle. As
+Mr. Cathcart, the American consul, did not take
+his demands for a larger tribute very seriously,
+the Bashaw wrote to President Jefferson direct,
+mincing no words in saying that the American
+government had better grant his request, and be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+quick about it, or American seamen would find the
+Mediterranean exceedingly unhealthy for them.</p>
+
+<p>Incredible as it may seem in this day and age,
+the authorities at Washington ordered a vessel to
+be loaded with the arms, ammunition, and naval
+stores demanded by the Bashaw, their total value
+being thirty-four thousand dollars, and hurriedly
+despatched it to Tripoli, with profuse apologies
+for the delay. A few months later the Bashaw,
+who evidently knew a good thing when he saw it,
+suggested that a token of our esteem for him in
+the form of jewels would be highly acceptable,
+whereupon the American minister in London was
+instructed to purchase jewelry to the value of ten
+thousand dollars and have it hurried to Tripoli
+by special messenger. Emboldened by his undreamed-of
+success in shaking the republican tree,
+the Bashaw reached the very height of audacity
+by again sending a peremptory note to President
+Jefferson, demanding that the United States immediately
+present him with a thirty-six-gun war-ship!
+As no attention was paid to this modest
+request (and in view of the other outrageous concessions
+made by our government, it is somewhat
+surprising that this demand was not granted also),
+the Bashaw ordered the flagstaff of the American
+consulate to be chopped down as a sign of war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+and turned his corsairs loose on American commerce
+in the Mediterranean. The war opened
+most disastrously for the United States, for a few
+months later the frigate <i>Philadelphia</i> ran aground
+in the harbor of Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing
+Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew. No
+wonder the Bashaw went to the mosque that day
+to give thanks to Allah, for had he not received
+an even larger war-ship than he had demanded,
+and did he not have two hundred American slaves
+to instruct him in the English tongue? "God is
+great!" exclaimed the Bashaw devoutly, as he
+knelt on his silken prayer-rug, and "God is
+great!" echoed the rows of corsairs who knelt
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>It was shortly after this American misfortune
+that William Eaton, soldier, diplomat, and Indian-fighter,
+swaggered upon the scene, and things began
+to happen with a rapidity that made the
+Bashaw's turbaned head whirl. By birth and upbringing
+Eaton was a Connecticut Yankee, and
+he possessed all the shrewdness, hardihood, and
+perseverance so characteristic of that race. The
+son of a schoolmaster farmer, before he was sixteen
+he had run away from home to join the Continental
+Army, which he left at the close of the
+Revolution with the chevrons of a sergeant on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+coat-sleeve. Far-sighted enough to see the value
+of a college education, he went from the camp
+straight to the college classroom. Graduating
+from Dartmouth in 1790, he re-entered the army
+as a captain, served against the Indians in Georgia
+and Ohio, and in 1798 received an appointment
+as American consul at Tunis. Resolute, energetic,
+and daring, impatient with any one who did not
+agree with his views, no better man could have
+been selected for the place. Thoroughly understanding
+the Arab character, from the very outset
+he took a high hand in his dealings with the Tunisian
+ruler. He alternately quarrelled with and
+patronized the Bey, bullyragged his ministers, and
+actually horsewhipped an insolent official of the
+court in the palace courtyard, for five years
+keeping up an uninterrupted series of altercations,
+provocations, and procrastinations over the payment
+of tribute-money. He acted with such energy
+and boldness, however, that he secured to
+the commerce of his country complete immunity
+from the attacks of Tunisian cruisers, and made
+the name American respected on that part of the
+Barbary coast at least. In 1801, as I have already
+remarked, the American flagstaff in the
+adjoining kingdom of Tripoli came crashing down
+at the Bashaw's order, and war promptly began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+between that country and the United States. Two
+years later the Bey of Tunis, harried beyond
+endurance by the half-insolent, half-patronizing
+fashion in which Eaton treated him, ordered that
+gentleman to leave the country.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/gs04frigate.png" width="450" height="661" alt="The frigate Philadelphia ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli,
+the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge
+and his entire crew." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The frigate Philadelphia ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli,
+the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge
+and his entire crew.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Returning to the United States, Eaton went
+immediately to Washington and laid before President
+Jefferson and his Cabinet a scheme for bringing
+the war with Tripoli to a successful conclusion,
+and exchanging our humiliating position as a contributor
+to a gang of pirates for one more consistent
+with American ideals. The plan which he proposed
+was, briefly, that the United States should
+assist in restoring to the Tripolitan throne the
+exiled Bashaw, Ahmet Karamanli, on the understanding
+that, upon his restoration, the exaction
+of tribute from the American government and
+the depredations on American commerce should
+cease. Eaton was outspoken in urging the desirability
+of carrying out this plan, arguing that
+the dethronement of one of the Barbary despots
+would impress the people of all that region as
+nothing else could do. I can see him standing
+there beside the long table in the Cabinet room of
+the White House, his lean Yankee face aglow with
+enthusiasm, his every motion bespeaking confidence
+in himself and his plan, while Jefferson and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+his sedate, conservative advisers lean far back in
+their chairs and regard this visionary half curiously,
+half amusedly, as he outlines his schemes
+for overturning thrones and reapportioning kingdoms.
+From the President and his Cabinet he
+received the sort of treatment which timid governments
+are apt to bestow on men of spirit and
+action. He was given to understand that he was
+at liberty to carry out his plans, but that, if he
+was successful, the government would take all the
+credit, and that, if he failed, he would have to
+take all the blame. The only way to explain the
+astounding apathy of the American government
+to events in the Mediterranean is that a bitter
+political struggle was then in progress in the United
+States, and that the very remoteness of the theatre
+of war probably lessened its importance in the
+eyes of the administration. At any rate, President
+Jefferson signed the appointment of Eaton
+as American naval agent in the Mediterranean,
+and, happy as a schoolboy at the beginning of the
+long vacation, at the wide latitude of action conferred
+upon him by this purposely vague commission,
+he sailed a few days later with the American
+fleet for Egypt. His great adventure had begun.</p>
+
+<p>Aware that the dethroned Bashaw had fled to
+Cairo, Eaton landed at Alexandria, and, hastening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+to the Egyptian capital by camel, succeeded in
+locating the exiled Ahmet, whom he found in
+the depths of poverty and despair. Seated cross-legged
+beside him in a native coffee-house, Eaton
+outlined his plan and proposition. He told Ahmet
+that the United States would undertake to restore
+him to the Tripolitan throne upon his agreeing to
+repay the expenses of the expedition immediately
+upon his restoration, and upon the condition that
+Eaton should be commander-in-chief of the land
+forces throughout the campaign, Ahmet and his
+followers to promise him implicit obedience. Ahmet
+snapped at the chance, slim though it was,
+to regain his kingdom, as a starving dog snaps at
+a proffered bone. Eaton's plan of campaign was
+as simple as it was reckless. He proposed to
+recruit a force of Greek and Arab mercenaries,
+officered by Americans, in Alexandria, and, following
+the North African coast-line westward across
+the Libyan Desert, to surprise and capture Derna
+(or, as it was spelled in those days, Derne), the
+capital of the easternmost and richest province of
+Tripoli. With Derna as a base of operations, and
+with the co-operation of the American fleet, he
+held that it would be a comparatively simple
+matter to push on along the coast, taking in turn
+Benghazi, Tobruk, and the city of Tripoli itself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+The chief merit of the scheme lay in its sheer
+audacity, for of all the leaders who have invaded
+Africa, this unknown American was the only one
+who had the courage to face the perils of a march
+across a waterless, trackless, sun-scorched, and
+uninhabited desert. But there was in Eaton the
+stuff of which great conquerors are made, and
+instead of letting his mind dwell on the dangers
+which the desert had to offer, he dreamed of the
+triumphs which awaited him beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>To raise the men for so hazardous an expedition,
+Eaton had need of all the energy and magnetism
+at his command, alternately employing the
+specious promises of a recruiting sergeant and the
+persuasive arguments of a campaign orator. On
+March 3, 1805, Eaton and the man to whom he had
+promised a kingdom reviewed their forlorn hope&mdash;and
+it was very forlorn indeed&mdash;at a spot called
+the Arab's Tower, some forty miles southwest of
+Alexandria. I doubt if so strangely assorted a
+force ever marched and fought under the shadow
+of our flag. The army, if army it could be called,
+consisted of eight Americans besides Eaton: Lieutenant
+O'Barron, Sergeant Peck, and six marines
+borrowed from the American fleet; thirty-four
+Greeks, who went along professedly because they
+wanted to fight the Moslem, but really because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+they needed the money; twenty-five Egyptian
+Copts, Christians at least in name, who claimed
+to be trained artillerymen, and to lend color to
+their assertion brought with them a small brass
+field-gun; those of Ahmet's personal adherents who
+had fled with him into exile, numbering about
+ninety men; and a squadron of Arab mercenaries,
+whose services had been obtained by the promise
+of unlimited opportunities for loot&mdash;these with the
+drivers of the baggage-camels bringing the total
+strength of the "Army of North Africa" to less
+than four hundred men. With this motley and ill-disciplined
+force behind him, and six hundred miles
+of yellow sand in front, Eaton turned his horse's
+nose Tripoliward, so that at about the time President
+Jefferson was delivering his second inaugural
+address the adventurous American was leading his
+little army across the desert, with the courage of
+an Alexander the Great, to conquer an African
+kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The task which lay before him was one which
+great military leaders, all down the ages, had declared
+impossible. For a distance equal to that
+from Philadelphia to Chicago stretched an unbroken
+expanse of pitiless, sun-scorched desert, boasting
+no single living thing save an occasional
+band of nomad Arabs or a herd of gazelles. Midway<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+between Alexandria and Derna was the insignificant
+port of Bomba, where, according to a
+prearranged plan, the <i>Argus</i>, under Captain Isaac
+Hull&mdash;the same who became famous a few years
+later for his victories over the British in the War
+of 1812&mdash;was to meet the expedition with supplies.
+Unless you have seen the desert it will be difficult
+for you to appreciate how hazardous this adventure
+really was. Imagine a sea of yellow sand
+with billow after billow stretching in every direction
+as far as the eye can see; without a tree, a
+shrub, a plant, a blade of grass; without a river,
+a brook, a drop of water except, at long intervals,
+a stagnant, green-scummed pool; the air like a
+blast from an open furnace-door and overhead a
+sky pitiless as molten brass! During the seven
+weeks of the march the thermometer never dropped
+during the day below 120 degrees.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangements for the transport had been
+left to Ahmet Pasha, and it was not until the
+expedition was two hundred miles into the desert,
+and the camel-drivers abruptly halted and announced
+that they were going back to Egypt, that
+Eaton learned that they had been engaged only to
+that point. As the desertion of the camel-drivers
+and the consequent inability to transport the tents,
+ammunition, and supplies would wreck the expedition,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+Eaton pleaded with the men to stick by
+him two or three days longer, until he could reach
+an encampment of Arabs with whom he could
+make another contract. This they consented to
+do on condition that they were paid in advance.
+By borrowing every piaster which his Americans
+and Greeks had to lend, Eaton succeeded in raising
+six hundred and seventy-three dollars, and
+with this the camel-drivers were apparently content.
+Nothing shows more strikingly the shoe-string
+on which the enterprise was being run than
+the fact that this unexpected disbursement reduced
+Eaton's war-chest to three Venetian sequins&mdash;equivalent
+to six dollars and fifty-four cents!
+Despite this payment, all but four of the camel-drivers
+deserted the very next night, and the four
+that remained sullenly refused to go any farther.
+In the darkness of the following night they,
+too, quietly untethered their camels and slipped
+silently away. Here, then, were three hundred
+and fifty men, with a rapidly diminishing supply
+of food and water and absolutely no means of
+transport, as completely marooned as though they
+were on a desert island.</p>
+
+<p>To make matters worse, if such a thing were
+possible, Eaton learned that Ahmet had induced
+his Tripolitans and the Arabs to refuse to advance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+until they had news of the arrival of the <i>Argus</i> at
+Bomba. Eaton, striding across to Ahmet's tent,
+shook his fist menacingly in the face of the cringing
+Tripolitan. "I know you're a coward," said
+he, "and I suspect that you're a traitor and I've
+a damned good mind to have you shot." The
+Pasha, now thoroughly frightened, replied that
+his men were too tired to march any farther.
+"You can take your choice between marching and
+starving," Eaton retorted, turning on his heel,
+and placing a guard of American marines around
+the tent containing the provisions, he ordered
+them to shoot the first Arab who approached it.
+This resolute action had an immediate effect,
+for the Pasha and his men lost their tired feeling
+with amazing quickness, fifty of the camel-drivers
+returned, and the desperate march was resumed.
+It was but a day or two, however, before the
+Arabs became as turbulent and unruly as ever.
+Then another mutiny broke out, Ahmet and
+his people announcing that they preferred to be
+well-fed cowards rather than starved heroes, and
+that they were going back to the flesh-pots of
+Egypt forthwith. Just as they were on the point
+of departure, however, a messenger who had been
+despatched to Bomba reached camp with the
+news that the <i>Argus</i> was awaiting them in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+harbor. These unexpected delays had wholly exhausted
+the supplies, which were slim enough,
+goodness knows, in the beginning, so that during
+the remainder of the march to Bomba they were
+compelled to kill some of the camels for food,
+living upon them and upon such roots as they
+could gather on the way.</p>
+
+<p>It was a half-starved and utterly exhausted
+expedition that plodded up the sand dunes which
+overlook the little port of Bomba, so what must
+their despair have been when they found no vessel
+awaiting them in the harbor, and that the town
+itself had been deserted. Captain Hull, apparently
+having given them up as lost, had departed.
+This time a more serious mutiny occurred, the
+Arabs, desperate with hunger and furious from
+disappointment, preparing to attack Eaton and
+his handful of Europeans. Appreciating the peril
+of his position, Eaton hastily formed his men
+into a hollow square. Just as the Arabs were preparing
+to charge down upon them the musket of
+one of the marines was prematurely discharged,
+the bullet whistling in uncomfortable proximity
+to the Pasha's ear. So terror-stricken was that
+worthy that he called off his men and attempted
+to parley with Eaton, who, standing alone well in
+front of his command, relieved his mind by telling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+Ahmet his opinion of him in what, according to
+the accounts of those who heard it, must have
+been an epic in objurgation. While the two factions
+were growling at each other like angry bull-dogs
+one of the Americans, happening to glance
+seaward, suddenly broke the dangerous tension
+by shouting: "A sail! A sail!" Hull, true to
+his promise, was returning, and the expedition
+was saved. Supplies were quickly landed from
+the <i>Argus</i> for the starving men; with full stomachs
+the courage of the Arabs returned, and Eaton and
+his little band once more turned their faces toward
+the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of April 25 the vanguard sighted
+the walls of Derna. A feat that veteran soldiers
+had jeered at as impossible had been accomplished,
+and Eaton, without the loss of a man, had brought
+his army across six hundred miles of desert, in the
+heat of an African spring, and in the remarkable
+time, when the scantiness of the rations and the
+many delays are considered, of fifty-two days.
+With their goal actually in sight, still another
+mutiny took place, the craven Arabs claiming
+that they were too few in number to attempt the
+capture of a walled and heavily garrisoned city,
+and it was not until Eaton promised them a bonus
+of two thousand dollars if they succeeded in taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+it that they could be induced to advance. The
+more one learns of this man the more one must
+admire his unfailing resource, his tenacity of purpose,
+and his bull-dog courage; for, in addition to
+the appalling natural obstacles which he overcame,
+he was constantly harried by intrigue, treachery,
+and cowardice.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the 26th a message was
+sent to the governor of Derna, under a flag of
+truce, offering him full amnesty if he would surrender
+and declare his allegiance to his rightful
+sovereign, Ahmet. The answer that came back
+was as curt as it was conclusive: "My head or
+yours," it read. Just as the sun was rising above
+the sand-dunes the following morning the <i>Argus</i>,
+the <i>Nautilus</i>, and the <i>Hornet</i> swept grandly into
+the harbor, their crews at quarters, their decks
+cleared for action, and the red-white-and-blue
+ensign of the oversea republic floating defiantly
+from their main trucks. Under cover of a terrific
+bombardment by the war-ships, Eaton's force
+advanced upon the city, planning, with their
+single field-piece, to effect a breach in the walls
+and carry the place by storm. So murderous was
+the fire that the Tripolitan riflemen poured into
+them from the walls and housetops, however,
+that they were thrown into confusion, their single<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+piece of artillery was put out of action by a well-directed
+cannon-shot, and Eaton himself was
+severely wounded. Seeing that his raw troops
+were on the verge of panic, and knowing that his
+only chance of holding them together lay in a
+charge, Eaton ordered his buglers to sound the
+advance, and with a cheer like the roar of a storm
+his whole line&mdash;Americans, Greeks, and Arabs&mdash;swept
+forward on a run. "Come on, boys!"
+shouted Eaton, as he raced ahead, sword in one
+hand, pistol in the other. "At the double! Follow
+me! Follow me!" And follow him they did.
+Cheering like madmen they crossed a field swept
+by a withering rifle-fire. They clambered over the
+ramparts, and by the very fury of their assault
+drove back the defenders, who outnumbered them
+twenty to one. They fought with them hand
+to hand, sabre against cimiter, bayonet against
+clubbed matchlock. Swarming into the batteries,
+they cut down the gunners and turned their guns
+upon the town. The defences of the city once in
+his possession, Eaton directed an assault upon the
+palace, where the governor had taken refuge,
+utilizing his Arab cavalry meanwhile to cut off
+the retreat of the flying garrison. Before the sun
+had disappeared into the Mediterranean, Eaton, at
+a cost of only fourteen killed and wounded (all of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+whom, by the way, were Americans and Greeks),
+had made himself master of Derna. His moment
+of triumph came when, still begrimed with dirt
+and powder, his arm in a blood-stained sling, he
+stood with drawn sword before the line formed by
+his ragged soldiers and the trim bluejackets from
+the fleet, and, watching a ball of bunting creep up
+that palace flagstaff from which so recently had
+flaunted the banner of Tripoli, saw it suddenly
+break out into the Stars and Stripes. Our flag,
+for the first and only time, flew above a fortification
+on that side of the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>Reinforced by a party of bluejackets from the
+fleet, Eaton wasted not a moment in preparing
+the city for defence. He was none too soon, either,
+for the Bashaw, learning of the loss of his richest
+province, despatched an overwhelming force for
+its recapture. This army arrived before the walls
+of Derna on May 13, and immediately made an
+assault, which Eaton repulsed, as he did a second
+one a few weeks later. By this time the news of
+Eaton's victory had spread across North Africa
+as fire spreads in dry grass, and thousands of natives,
+many of them deserters from the Bashaw's
+forces, hastened to assert their undying loyalty
+and to offer their services to Ahmet, for your
+Arab is far-seeing and takes good care to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+found on the side which he believes to be the
+winning one. With his army thus largely augmented,
+with ample supplies, with Derna as a
+base of operations, and with his own prestige
+equivalent to an additional regiment, Eaton had
+completed the preparations for continuing his
+victorious advance along the African coast-line.
+There is little doubt, indeed, that with the co-operation
+of the fleet he could have marched on
+to Benghazi, taken that city as easily as he did
+Derna, and in due time planted the American
+flag on the castle of Tripoli itself.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with undisguised amazement and indignation
+that on June 12 he received orders from
+Commodore Rodgers to evacuate Derna and to
+withdraw his forces from Tripoli, Colonel Tobias
+Lear, the American consul at Algiers, having, in
+the face of Eaton's successes, signed an inglorious
+treaty of peace with the Bashaw of Tripoli. No
+more degrading terms were ever assented to by a
+civilized power. The Bashaw at first demanded
+two hundred thousand dollars for the release of
+Bainbridge and the <i>Philadelphia's</i> crew, but as
+Eaton had captured a large number of Tripolitans
+in the storming of Derna, an exchange was eventually
+arranged, the United States agreeing to pay
+the pirate ruler sixty thousand dollars to boot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+The city of Derna and the great province of which
+it was the capital were surrendered without so
+much as the mention of an equivalent, not even
+the relinquishment of the ransom of the American
+prisoners. The unfortunate Ahmet Pasha, who
+had been decoyed from his refuge in Egypt on the
+promise of American assistance in effecting his
+restoration, was deserted at a moment when success
+was actually ours, and had to fly for his life
+to Sicily, his wife and children being held as hostages
+by his brother and the heads of his adherents
+being exposed on the walls of the Tripolitan capital.
+Thus shamefully ended one of the most
+gallant and romantic exploits in the history of
+American arms; thus terminated an episode which,
+more than any other agency, compelled the rulers
+of the Barbary coast to respect the citizens and
+fear the wrath of the United States. Though an
+expedition of scarcely four hundred men may
+sound insignificant, the humbling of a Barbary
+power was an achievement which every European
+nation had attempted and which none of them
+had accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to
+the United States in November, 1805, to find
+himself a national hero. From the moment he
+set his foot on American soil he was greeted with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+cheers wherever he appeared; it was "roses, roses
+all the way." The cities of Washington and
+Richmond honored him with public dinners;
+Massachusetts, "desirous to perpetuate the remembrance
+of an heroic enterprise," granted him
+ten thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston
+named a street after the city which he had captured
+against such fearful odds; President Jefferson
+lauded him in his annual message; and in
+recognition of his services in effecting the release
+of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was presented
+by the King of Denmark with a jewelled
+snuff-box. He was complimented everywhere except
+at the seat of government, and received every
+honor except that which he most deserved&mdash;a vote
+of thanks from Congress. Though his expedition
+had involved an expense of twenty-three thousand
+dollars, for which he had given his personal
+notes and the repayment of which exhausted all
+his means, Congress never reimbursed him. Notwithstanding
+the astounding indifference and ingratitude
+of the nation on whose flag he had shed
+such lustre, he indignantly rejected the advances
+of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist
+him in his conspiracy to establish an empire beyond
+the Mississippi, and died, poverty-stricken
+and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+the most modest of monuments marks his resting-place
+in Brimfield churchyard, and though not
+one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen
+have so much as heard his name, his fame still
+lives in that wild and far-off region where it took
+an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat
+the exploit which he accomplished with four
+hundred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"</h2>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>We leaned over the rail of the <i>Hamburg</i>,
+Colonel Roosevelt and I, and watched the
+olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea.
+Houses white as chalk began to peep from among
+the orange groves; what looked at first sight to
+be a yellow snake turned into a winding road;
+then we rounded a headland, and the U-shaped
+harbor, edged by a sleepy town and commanded
+by a crumbling fortress, lay before us.
+"In there," said the ex-President, pointing eagerly
+as our anchor rumbled down, "was waged one of
+the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one
+of the least known; in there lies the wreck of the
+<i>General Armstrong</i>, the privateer that stood off
+twenty times her strength in British men and guns,
+and thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is
+a story that should make the thrills of patriotism
+run up and down the back of every right-thinking
+American."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Everything about her, from the carved and
+gilded figure-head, past the rakish, slanting masts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+to the slender stern, indicated the privateer. As
+she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in
+the afternoon of September 26, 1814, black-hulled
+and white-sparred, carrying an amazing spread of
+snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a
+grunt of approval even from the surly Azorian
+pilot. Hardly had the red-white-and-blue ensign
+showing her nationality fluttered to her peak before
+a harbor skiff bearing the American consul,
+Dabney, shot out from shore; for these were
+troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from
+the States were few and far between. Rounding
+her stern, he read, with a thrill of pride, "<i>General
+Armstrong, New York</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth
+escape. For of all the two-hundred-odd
+privateers that put out from American ports at
+the outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British
+commerce, none had won so high a place in
+the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled
+schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a
+spread of canvas at which most skippers would
+have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled
+privateer afloat, and had always been able
+to show her heels to the enemy on the rare occasions
+when the superior range of her seven guns
+had failed to pound him into submission. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+list of captures had made rich men of her owners,
+and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on
+a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to
+thirteen guineas in the hundred.</p>
+
+<p>The story of her desperate encounter off the
+mouth of the Surinam River with the British sloop
+of war <i>Coquette</i>, with four times her weight in guns,
+had fired the popular imagination as had few other
+events of the war. Although her commander,
+Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his thirtieth
+birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring
+fighter ever trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of
+ninety men&mdash;Down-East fishermen, old man-o'-war's
+men, Creole privateersmen who had fought
+under Lafitte, reckless adventurers of every sort
+and kind&mdash;would have warmed the heart of bluff
+old John Paul Jones himself.</p>
+
+<p>Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch
+reported a sail in the offing, and Reid and the consul,
+hurrying on deck, made out the British brig
+<i>Carnation</i>, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels
+in her wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigate
+<i>Rota</i>, and the <i>Plantagenet</i>, of seventy-four. Now,
+as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor,
+where a dead calm prevailed, while the three
+British ships were fast approaching before the
+brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid,
+who knew the line which marks foolhardiness from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+courage, appreciating that the chances of his being
+able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of
+the harbor before the British squadron arrived to
+block the entrance were almost infinitesimal, decided
+to stay where he was and trust to the
+neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed
+by the assurances of Consul Dabney that
+the British would not dare to attack a vessel lying
+in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was
+mistaken, for throughout the entire duration of
+the war the British as cynically disregarded the
+observance of international law and the rights of
+neutrals as though they did not exist.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Carnation</i>, learning the identity of the
+American vessel from the pilot, hauled close into
+the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she was
+within pistol-shot of the <i>General Armstrong</i>. Instantly
+a string of signal-flags fluttered from her
+mast, and the message was promptly acknowledged
+by her approaching consorts, which thereupon
+proceeded to stand off and on across the mouth
+of the harbor, thus barring any chance of the
+privateer making her escape. So great was the
+commotion which ensued on the <i>Carnation's</i> deck
+that Reid, becoming suspicious of the Englishman's
+good faith, warped his ship under the very
+guns of the Portuguese fort.</p>
+
+<p>About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+Captain Reid saw four boats slip silently from the
+shadow of the <i>Carnation</i> and pull toward him
+with muffled oars. If anything more were needed
+to convince him of their hostile intentions, the
+moon at that moment appeared from behind a
+cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutlasses
+and musket-barrels in all four of the approaching
+boats. As they came within hailing distance
+Reid swung himself into the shrouds.</p>
+
+<p>"Boats there!" he shouted, making a trumpet
+of his hands. "Come no nearer! For your own
+safety I warn you!"</p>
+
+<p>At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision,
+and their commanders held a whispered
+consultation. Then, apparently deciding to take
+the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer
+unprepared, they gave the order: "Give way
+all!" The oars caught the water together, and the
+four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors
+and marines, came racing on.</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em have it, boys!" roared Reid, and at
+the word a stream of flame leaped from the dark
+side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept
+the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the
+crews and sending the others, crippled and bleeding,
+back to the shelter of their ship.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the moon had fully risen, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+showed the heights overlooking the harbor to be
+black with spectators, among whom were the
+Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle,
+either from weakness or fear, showed no signs of
+resenting the outrageous breach of neutrality to
+which the port had been subjected. Angered and
+chagrined at their repulse, the British now threw
+all caution aside. The long-boats and gigs of all
+three ships were lowered, and into them were
+crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with
+muskets, pistols, and cutlasses. Reid, seeing that
+an attack was to be made in force, proceeded to
+warp his vessel still closer inshore, mooring her
+stem and stern within a few rods of the castle.
+Moving two of the nine-pounders across the deck,
+and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he
+brought five guns, in addition to his famous
+"long tom," to bear on the enemy. With cannon
+double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks
+cleared for action, the crew of the <i>General Armstrong</i>
+lay down beside their guns to await the
+British attack.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of
+the old Portuguese cathedral boomed twelve, a
+dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with
+sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons
+were like so many mirrors under the rays of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+moon, swung around a promontory behind which
+they had been forming and, with measured stroke
+of oars, came sweeping down upon the lone privateer.
+The decks of the <i>General Armstrong</i> were
+black and silent, but round each gun clustered its
+crew of half-naked gunners, and behind the bulwarks
+knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes
+sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close
+against the butts. Up and down behind his men
+paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your fire until I give the word, boys," he
+cautioned quietly. "Wait till they get within
+range, and then teach 'em better manners."</p>
+
+<p>Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of
+boats, the oars rising and falling with the faultless
+rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's
+man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans
+could make out the gilt-lettered hat-bands
+of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and
+the brass buttons on the tunics of the marines.
+A moment more and those on the <i>Armstrong's</i>
+deck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather
+shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British
+boarders.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, boys!" roared Captain Reid; "let 'em
+have it for the honor of the flag!" and from the
+side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+lead, cannon and musketry crashing in chorus.
+Never were men taken more completely by surprise
+than were those British sailors, for they had
+expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of
+the port, would be quite unprepared to resist them.
+But, though the American fire had caused terrible
+havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog
+courage for which the British sailors were justly
+famous, they kept indomitably on. "Give way!
+Give way all!" screamed the boy-coxswains, and
+in the face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering
+from their momentary panic, bent grimly
+to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm of lead,
+right up to the side of the privateer, they swept.
+Six boats made fast to her quarter and six more
+to her bow. "Boarders up and away!" bellowed
+the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings
+with their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank
+into the faces they saw above them. The
+<i>Armstrong's</i> gunners, unable to depress the muzzles
+of their guns enough so that they could
+be brought to bear, lifted the solid shot and
+dropped them from the rail into the British
+boats, mangling their crews and crashing through
+their bottoms. From the shelter of the bulwarks
+the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired
+again, while the negro cook and his assistant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+played their part in the defence by pouring kettles
+of boiling water over the British who were attempting
+to scramble up the sides, sending them back
+into their boats again scalded and groaning with
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals
+of the sea. The Yankee gunners, some of
+them gray-haired men who had seen service with
+John Paul Jones in the <i>Bon Homme Richard</i>,
+changed from cannon-balls to grape, and from
+grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the
+British boats drew alongside they were little more
+than floating shambles. The dark waters of the
+harbor were lighted up by spurts of flame from
+muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of
+the Yankee privateersmen rose above the deep-throated
+hurrahs of the English sailors; the air
+was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants,
+the shrieks and groans of the wounded,
+the incessant trampling of struggling men upon the
+decks, the splash of dead and injured falling overboard,
+the clash and clang of steel on steel, and
+all the savage, overwhelming turmoil of a struggle
+to the death. Urged on by their officers' cries of
+"No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!"
+the British division which had attacked the bow
+hacked its way through the nettings, and succeeded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+by sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing
+on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants
+being killed or disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand
+struggle that ensued.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical juncture, when the Americans
+on the forecastle, their officers fallen and their
+guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly back
+by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having
+repulsed the attack on the <i>Armstrong's</i> quarter,
+led the after division forward at a run, the privateersmen,
+though outnumbered five to one, driving
+the English overboard with the resistless fury
+of their onset. As the British boats, now laden
+with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into
+safety, they were raked again and again with
+showers of lead; two of them sank, two of them
+were captured by the Americans. Finally, with
+nearly three hundred of their men&mdash;three-quarters
+of the cutting-out force&mdash;dead or wounded, the
+British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly
+and painfully out of range. Some of the most
+brilliant victories the British navy has ever gained
+were far less dearly purchased.</p>
+
+<p>At three in the morning Reid received a note
+from Consul Dabney asking him to come ashore.
+He then learned that the governor had sent a
+letter to the British commander asking him to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+desist from further hostilities, as several buildings
+in the town had been injured by the British fire
+and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To
+this request Captain Lloyd had rudely replied that
+he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to
+knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning
+on board, Reid ordered the dead and wounded
+taken ashore, and told the crew to save their personal
+belongings.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak the <i>Carnation</i>, being of lighter
+draught than the other vessels, stood close in for
+a third attack, opening on the privateer with every
+gun she could bring to bear. But even in those
+days the fame of American gunners was as wide
+as the seas, and so well did the crew of the <i>General
+Armstrong</i> uphold their reputation that the <i>Carnation</i>
+was compelled to beat a demoralized retreat,
+with her rigging cut away, her foremast
+about to fall, and with several gaping holes between
+wind and water. But Reid, appreciating
+that there was absolutely no chance of escape,
+and recognizing that further resistance would entail
+an unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by
+which nothing could be gained, ordered the crew
+to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered
+such valiant service overboard and to leave the
+ship. The veteran gunners, who were as much attached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+to their great black guns as a cavalryman
+is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing
+furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks.
+Then Reid with his own hand trained the long-tom
+down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the
+lanyard sent a charge of grape crashing through
+her bottom, from which she at once began to sink.
+Ten minutes later, before a British crew could
+reach her side, the <i>General Armstrong</i> went to the
+bottom with her flag still defiantly flying.</p>
+
+<p>Few battles have been fought in which the odds
+were so unequal, and in few battles have the relative
+losses been so astounding. The three British
+war-ships carried two thousand men and one
+hundred and thirty guns, and of the four hundred
+men who composed the boarding party they lost,
+according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred
+killed and wounded. Of the American crew
+of ninety men, two were killed and seven wounded.
+This little crew of privateersmen had, in other
+words, put out of action more than three times
+their own number of British, and had added one
+more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans had scarcely gained the shore
+before Captain Lloyd&mdash;who, by the way, had been
+so severely wounded in the leg that amputation
+was necessary&mdash;sent a peremptory message to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+governor demanding their surrender. But the
+men who could not be taken at sea were not the
+men to be captured on land, and the Americans,
+retreating to the mountainous centre of the island,
+took possession of a thick-walled convent, over
+which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from
+which they defied British and Portuguese alike to
+come and take them. No one tried.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs05gunners.png" width="600" height="359" alt="But even in those days the fame of American gunners was as wide as the seas." title="" />
+<span class="caption">But even in those days the fame of American gunners was as wide as the seas.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>All of the following day was spent by the British
+in burying their one hundred and twenty dead&mdash;you
+can see the white gravestones to-day if you
+will take the trouble to climb the hill behind the
+little town&mdash;but it took them a week to repair the
+damage caused by the battle. And so deep was
+their chagrin and mortification that when two
+British ships put into Fayal a few days later, and
+were ordered to take home the wounded, they
+were forbidden to carry any news of the disaster
+back to England.</p>
+
+<p>To Captain Reid and his little band of fighters
+is due in no small measure the credit of saving
+New Orleans from capture and Louisiana from
+invasion. Lloyd's squadron was a part of the
+expedition then gathering at Pensacola for the invasion
+of the South, but it was so badly crippled
+in its encounter with the privateer that it did not
+reach the Gulf of Mexico until ten days later than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+the expedition had planned to sail. The expedition
+waited for Lloyd and his reinforcements, so
+that when it finally approached New Orleans,
+Jackson and his frontiersmen, who had hastened
+down by forced marches from the North, had made
+preparations to give the English a warm reception.
+Had the expedition arrived ten days earlier
+it would have found the Americans unprepared,
+and New Orleans would have fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Reid and his men, landing on their native
+soil at Savannah, found their journey northward
+turned into a triumphal progress. The whole
+country went wild with enthusiasm. There was
+not a town or village on the way but did them
+honor. The city of Richmond gave Captain Reid
+a great banquet, and the State of New York presented
+him with a sword of honor. But of all the
+tributes which were paid to the little band of
+heroes, none had the flavor of the concluding line
+of a letter written by one of the British officers engaged
+in the action to a relative in England. "If
+this is the way the Americans fight," he wrote,
+"we may well say, 'God deliver us from our
+enemies.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE PIRATE WHO TURNED PATRIOT</h2>
+
+<p>How many well-informed people are aware,
+I wonder, that the fact that the American
+flag, and not the British, flies to-day over the
+Mississippi valley is largely due to the eleventh-hour
+patriotism of a pirate? Of the many kinds
+of men of many nationalities who have played
+parts of greater or less importance in the making
+of our national history, none is more completely
+cloaked in mystery, romance, and adventure than
+Jean Lafitte. The last of that long line of buccaneers
+who for more than two centuries terrorized
+the waters and ravaged the coasts of the
+Gulf of Mexico, his exploits make the wildest
+fiction appear commonplace and tame. Although
+he was as thorough-going a pirate as ever plundered
+an honest merchant-man, I do not mean to
+imply that he was a leering, low-browed scoundrel,
+with a red bandanna twisted about his head and
+an armory of assorted weapons at his waist, for
+he was nothing of the sort. On the contrary, from
+all I can learn about him, he appears to have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+a very gentlemanly sort of person indeed, tall
+and graceful and soft-voiced, and having the most
+charming manners. Though he regarded the law
+with unconcealed contempt, there came a crisis
+in our national history when he placed patriotism
+above all other considerations, and rendered an
+inestimable service to the country whose laws he
+had flouted and to the State which had set a
+price on his head. Indeed, we are indebted to
+Jean Lafitte in scarcely less measure than we are
+to Andrew Jackson for frustrating the British invasion
+and conquest of Louisiana.</p>
+
+<p>Though the palmy days of piracy in the Gulf
+of Mexico really ended with the seventeenth century,
+by which time the rich cities of Middle
+America had been impoverished by repeated sackings
+and the gold-freighted caravels had taken to
+travelling under convoy, even at the beginning of
+the nineteenth century these storied waters still
+offered many opportunities to lawless and enterprising
+sea-folk. But the pirates of the nineteenth
+century, unlike their forerunners of the seventeenth,
+preyed on slave-ships rather than on
+treasure-galleons. Consider the facts. On January
+1, 1808, Congress passed an act prohibiting
+the further importation of slaves into the United
+States. By this act the recently acquired territory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+of Louisiana, over which prosperity was advancing
+in three-league boots, was deprived of
+its supply of labor. With crops rotting in the
+fields for lack of laborers, the price of slaves rose
+until a negro fresh from the coast of Africa would
+readily bring a thousand dollars at auction in
+New Orleans. At the same time, remember, shiploads
+of slaves were being brought to Cuba, where
+no such restrictions existed, and sold for three
+hundred dollars a head. Under such conditions
+smuggling was inevitable. At first the smugglers
+bought their slaves in the Cuban market, and running
+them across the Gulf of Mexico, landed them
+at obscure harbors on the Louisiana coast, whence
+they were marched overland to New Orleans and
+Baton Rouge. The smugglers soon saw, however,
+that the slavers carried small crews, poorly armed,
+and quickly made up their minds that it was a
+shameful waste of money to buy slaves when they
+could get them for nothing by the menace of their
+guns. In short, the smugglers became buccaneers,
+and as such drove a thriving business in captured
+cargoes of "black ivory," as the slaves were
+euphemistically called.</p>
+
+<p>As the demand was greatest on the rich new
+lands along the Mississippi, it was at New Orleans
+that the buccaneers found the most profitable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+market for their human wares, for they could
+easily sail up the river to the city, dispose of their
+cargoes, and be off again with the quick despatch
+of regular liners to resume their depredations.
+But the buccaneers did not confine their attention
+to slave-ships, so that in a short time, despite
+the efforts of British, French, and American
+war-ships, the waters of the Gulf became as unsafe
+for all kinds of merchant-vessels as they were
+in the days of Morgan and Kidd.</p>
+
+<p>As a base for their piratical and smuggling operations,
+as well as for supplies and repairs, the buccaneers
+chose Barataria Bay, a place which met
+their requirements as though made to order.
+The name is applied to all of the Gulf coast of
+Louisiana between the mouth of the Mississippi
+and the mouth of another considerable stream
+known as the Bayou La Fourche, the latter a
+waterway to a rich and populous region. The
+Bay of Barataria is screened from the Gulf, with
+which it is connected by a deep-water pass, by
+the island of Grande Terre, the trees on which
+were high enough to effectually hide the masts of
+the buccaneers' vessels from the view of inquisitive
+war-ships cruising outside. Between the
+Mississippi and the La Fourche there is a perfect
+network of small but navigable waterways which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+extend almost to New Orleans, so that the buccaneers
+thus had a back-stairs route, as it were, to
+the city, which brought their rendezvous at
+Grande Terre within safe and easy reach of the
+great mart of the Mississippi valley.</p>
+
+<p>Such supplies as the buccaneers did not get
+from the ships they captured, they obtained by
+purchase in New Orleans. For the chains which
+were used in making up the caufles of slaves for
+transportation into the interior, they were accustomed
+to patronize the blacksmith-shop of the
+Brothers Lafitte, which stood&mdash;and still stands&mdash;on
+the northeast corner of Bourbon and St.
+Philippe Streets. Of the history of these brothers
+prior to their arrival in New Orleans nothing
+is definitely known. From their names, and because
+they spoke with the accent peculiar to the
+Garonne, they are credited with having been
+natives of the south of France, though whence
+they came and where they went are questions
+which have never been satisfactorily answered.
+They were quite evidently men of means, and
+might have been described as gentlemen blacksmiths,
+for they owned the slaves who pounded
+the iron. Being men of exceptional business
+shrewdness, it is not to be wondered at that from
+doing the buccaneers' blacksmithing they gradually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+became their agents and bankers, the smithy
+in St. Philippe Street coming in time to be a sort of
+clearing-house for many questionable transactions.
+Now Jean Lafitte was an extremely able man, combining
+a remarkable executive ability with a genius
+for organization, and had he lived a century later
+these traits, together with his predatory instincts
+and his utter contempt for the law, would undoubtedly
+have made him the president of a
+trust. Through success in managing their affairs,
+he gradually increased his usefulness to the buccaneers
+until he obtained complete control over
+them, and ruled them as despotically as a tribal
+chieftain. This was when his genius for organization
+had succeeded in uniting their different,
+and often rival, efforts and interests into a sort of
+pirates' corporation, composed of all the buccaneers,
+privateers, and freebooters doing business in
+the Gulf, this combination of outlaws, incredible as
+it may seem, as effectually controlling the price
+of slaves and many other things in the Mississippi
+valley as the Standard Oil Company controls the
+price of petroleum to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of this new element in the buccaneer
+business soon made itself felt. At that
+time New Orleans was a sort of cross between an
+American frontier town and a West Indian port,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+its streets and barrooms being filled with swaggering
+adventurers, gamblers, and soldiers of fortune
+from every corner of the three Americas, the presence
+of most of whom was due to the activity of
+the sheriffs in their former homes. It was from
+these men, cool, reckless, resourceful, that Lafitte
+recruited his forces. Leaving his brother Pierre
+in charge of the New Orleans branch of the enterprise,
+Jean Lafitte took up his residence on Grande
+Terre, where, under his directions, a fort was
+built, around which there soon sprang up a veritable
+city of thatched huts for the shelter of the
+buccaneers, and for the accommodation of the
+merchants who came to supply their wants or to
+purchase their captured cargoes. Within a year
+upward of a dozen armed vessels rendezvoused
+in Barataria Bay, and their crews addressed Jean
+Lafitte as "<i>bosse</i>." One of the Baratarians, a
+buccaneer of the walk-the-plank-and-scuttle-the-ship
+school named Grambo, who boldly called
+himself a pirate, and jeered at Lafitte's polite
+euphemism of privateer, was one day unwise
+enough to dispute the new authority. Without
+an instant's hesitation Lafitte drew a pistol and
+shot him through the heart in the presence of the
+whole band. After that episode there was no
+more insubordination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By 1813 the Baratarians, who had long since
+extended their operations to include all kinds of
+merchandise, were driving such a roaring trade
+that the commerce and shipping of New Orleans
+was seriously diminished (for why go to New
+Orleans for their supplies, the sea-captains and
+the plantation-owners argued, when they could
+get what they wanted at Barataria for a fraction
+of the price), the business of the banks decreased
+alarmingly under the continual lessening of their
+deposits, while even the National Government
+began to feel its loss of revenue. The waters of
+Barataria, on the contrary, were alive with the
+sails of incoming and outgoing vessels; the wharfs
+which had been constructed at Grande Terre resounded
+to the creak of winches and the shouts of
+stevedores unloading contraband cargoes, and the
+long, low warehouses were filled with merchandise
+and the log stockades with slaves waiting to be
+sold and transported to the up-country plantations.
+So defiant of the law did Lafitte become
+that the streets of New Orleans were placarded
+with handbills announcing the auction sales at
+Barataria of captured cargoes, and to them flocked
+bargain-hunters from all that part of the South.
+An idea of the business done by the buccaneers at
+this time may be gained from an official statement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+that four hundred slaves were sold by auction in
+the Grande Terre market in a single day.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the authorities took action in the
+matter, but their efforts to enforce the law proved
+both dangerous and ineffective. In October, 1811,
+a customs-inspector succeeded in surprising a band
+of Baratarians and seizing some merchandise they
+had with them, but before he could convey the
+prisoners and the captured contraband to New
+Orleans Lafitte and a party of his men overtook
+him, rescued the prisoners, recovered the property,
+and in the fight which ensued wounded several of
+the posse. Some months later Lafitte killed an
+inspector named Stout, who attempted to interfere
+with him, and wounded two of his deputies.
+Then Governor Claiborne issued a proclamation
+offering a reward for the capture of Lafitte dead
+or alive, at the same time appealing to the legislature
+for permission to raise an armed force to
+break up the buccaneering business for good and
+all. The cautious legislators declined to take any
+action, however, because they were unwilling to
+interfere with an enterprise that, however illegal
+it might be, was unquestionably developing the
+resources of lower Louisiana, and incidentally adding
+immensely to the fortunes of their constituents.
+As for the Baratarians, they paid as scant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+attention to the governor's proclamation as though
+it had never been written. Surrounded by groups
+of admiring friends, Lafitte and his lieutenants
+continued to swagger through the streets of New
+Orleans; his men openly boasted of their exploits
+in every barroom of the city, and in places of
+public resort announcements of auctions at Barataria
+continued to be displayed.</p>
+
+<p>Then Governor Claiborne played his last card,
+and secured indictments of the Lafittes on the
+charge of piracy. Pierre Lafitte was arrested in
+his blacksmith-shop and confined without bail
+in the calaboose. Jean Lafitte promptly trumped
+the governor's card by retaining the services of
+Edward Livingston and John R. Grymes, the two
+most distinguished members of the Louisiana bar,
+at the enormous fee of twenty thousand dollars
+apiece. Grymes was then the district attorney,
+but he resigned his office for the fee. When his
+successor accused him in open court of having
+bartered his honor for pirate gold Grymes challenged
+him to a duel, and crippled him for life
+with a pistol bullet through the hip. When the
+two eminent lawyers had cleared their poor, innocent,
+persecuted clients of the unfounded and outrageous
+charges brought against them, and had
+taught them certain legal tricks whereby they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+could continue doing business at the old stand
+and still keep on the right side of the bars, Pierre
+Lafitte sent them an invitation to visit Barataria
+and collect their fees in person. Livingston, a
+cautious gentleman who had no desire to risk himself
+among the pirates whose virtues he had just
+extolled so highly to a jury, declined the invitation
+with thanks, offering his colleague a commission of
+ten per cent to collect his fee for him. Grymes,
+who was a hard-drinking, high-living Virginian,
+and afraid of nothing on two feet or four, accepted
+the invitation with alacrity, and until the end of
+his life was wont to convulse his friends with lurid
+descriptions of the magnificent entertainment
+which Lafitte provided for him. After a carouse
+which lasted for a week, and which, from Grymes's
+accounts, was a combination of the feasts of Lucullus
+with the orgies of Nero, Lafitte sent his legal
+adviser back to New Orleans in a sailing vessel,
+together with several huge chests containing his
+fee in Spanish gold pieces. It is an interesting
+commentary on the customs which prevailed in
+those days that by the time Grymes reached New
+Orleans, after having visited the various plantations
+along the lower Mississippi and tried his
+luck at their card-tables, not a dollar of his fee
+remained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now, it should be understood that the feebleness
+which characterized all the attempts of the
+Federal Government to break the power of the
+buccaneers was not due to any reluctance to
+prosecute them, but to the fact that it already
+had its attention taken up with far more pressing
+matters, for we were then in the midst of our
+second war with Great Britain. The long series
+of injuries which England had inflicted on the
+United States, such as the plundering and confiscation
+of our ships, the impressment into the
+British Navy of our seamen, and the interruption
+of our commerce with other nations, had culminated
+on June 18, 1812, by Congress declaring war.
+So unexpected was this action that it found the
+country totally unprepared. Our military establishment
+was barely large enough to provide garrisons
+for the most exposed points on our far-flung
+borders; the numerous ports on our seaboard
+were left unprotected and unfortified; and our
+navy consisted of but a handful of war-ships.
+The history of the first two years of the struggle,
+which was marked by brilliant American victories
+at sea, but by a disastrous attempt to invade
+Canada, has no place in this narrative. Early in
+the summer of 1814, however, the British Government,
+exasperated by its failure to inflict any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+vital damage in the northern States, determined
+to bring the war to a quick conclusion by the invasion
+and conquest of Louisiana. The preparations
+made for this expedition were in themselves
+startling. Indeed, few Americans have even a
+faint conception of the strength of the blow which
+England prepared to deal us, for with Napoleon's
+abdication and exile to Elba, and the ending
+of the war with France, she was enabled to bring
+her whole military and naval power against us.
+The British armada consisted of fifty war-ships,
+mounting more than a thousand guns. It was
+commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane,
+under whom was Sir Thomas Hardy, the
+friend of Nelson, Rear-Admiral Malcolm, and
+Rear-Admiral Codrington, and was manned by
+the same sailors who had fought so valorously at
+the Nile and at Trafalgar. This great fleet acted
+as convoy for an almost equal number of transports,
+having on board eight thousand soldiers,
+which were the very flower of the British Army,
+nearly all of them being veterans of the Napoleonic
+campaigns. Such importance did the British Government
+attach to the success of this expedition
+that it seriously considered giving the command
+of it to no less a personage than the Duke of Wellington.
+So certain were the British that the venture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+would be successful that they brought with
+them a complete set of civil officials to conduct
+the government of this new country which was
+about to be annexed to his Majesty's dominions,
+judges, customs-inspectors, revenue-collectors,
+court-criers, printers, and clerks, together with
+printing-presses and office paraphernalia, being
+embarked on board the transports. A large number
+of ladies, wives and relatives of the officers,
+also accompanied the expedition, to take part in
+the festivities which were planned to celebrate the
+capture of New Orleans. And, as though to cap
+this exhibition of audacity, a number of ships were
+chartered by British speculators to bring home the
+booty, the value of which was estimated beforehand
+at fourteen millions of dollars. Whether the
+British Government expected to be able to permanently
+hold Louisiana is extremely doubtful,
+for it must have been fully aware that the Western
+States were capable of pouring down a hundred
+thousand men, if necessary, to repel an invasion.
+It is probable, therefore, that they counted only
+on a temporary occupation, which they expected
+to prolong sufficiently, however, to give them time
+to pillage and lay waste the country, a course
+which they felt confident would quickly bring the
+government at Washington to terms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This formidable armada set sail from England
+early in the summer of 1814 and, reaching the
+Gulf of Mexico, established its base of operations,
+regardless of all the laws of neutrality, at the
+Spanish port of Pensacola. One morning in the
+following September a British brig hove to off
+Grande Terre, and called attention to her presence
+by firing a cannon. Lafitte, darting through the
+pass in his four-oared barge to reconnoitre, met
+the ship's gig with three scarlet-coated officers in
+the stern, who introduced themselves as bearers
+of important despatches for Mr. Lafitte. The
+pirate chief, introducing himself in turn, invited
+his unexpected guests ashore, and led the way
+to his quarters with that extraordinary charm
+of manner for which he was noted even among
+the punctilious Creoles of New Orleans. After a
+dinner of Southern delicacies, which elicited exclamations
+even from the blasé British officers,
+Lafitte opened the despatches. They were addressed
+to Jean Lafitte, Esquire, commandant at
+Barataria, from the commander-in-chief of the
+British forces at Pensacola, and bluntly offered
+him thirty thousand dollars, payable in Pensacola
+or New Orleans, a commission as captain in the
+British Navy, and the enlistment of his men in
+the naval or military forces of Great Britain if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+he would assist the British in their impending invasion
+of Louisiana. Though it was a generous
+offer, no one knew better than the British commander
+that Lafitte's co-operation was well worth
+the price, for, familiar with the network of
+streams and navigable swamps lying between
+Barataria Bay and New Orleans, he was capable
+of guiding a British expedition through these secret
+waterways to the very gates of the city before
+the Americans would have a hint of its approach.
+It is not too much to assert that at this
+juncture the future of New Orleans, and indeed
+of the whole Mississippi Valley, hung upon the
+decision of Jean Lafitte, a pirate and a fugitive
+from justice with a price upon his head.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Lafitte seriously considered accepting
+the offer there is, of course, no way of knowing.
+That it must have sorely tempted him it seems
+but reasonable to suppose, for he was not an
+American, either by birth or naturalization, and
+the prospect of exchanging his hazardous outlaw's
+life, with a vision of the gallows ever looming before
+him for a captain's commission in the royal
+navy, with all that that implied, could hardly
+have failed to appeal to him strongly. That he
+promptly decided to reject the offer speaks volumes
+for the man's strength of character and for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+his faith in American institutions. Appreciating
+that at such a crisis every hour gained was of
+value to the Americans, he asked time to consider
+the proposal, requesting the British officers to
+await him while he consulted an old friend and
+associate whose vessel, he said, was then lying in
+the bay. Scarcely was he out of sight, however,
+before a band of buccaneers, acting, of course,
+under his orders, seized the officers and hustled
+them into the interior of the island, where they
+were politely but forcibly detained. Here they
+were found some days later by Lafitte, who pretended
+to be highly indignant at such unwarrantable
+treatment of his guests. Releasing them with
+profuse apologies, he saw them safely aboard their
+brig, and assured them that he would shortly communicate
+his decision to the British commander.
+But that officer's letter was already in the hands
+of a friend of Lafitte's in New Orleans, who was
+a member of the legislature, and accompanying
+it was a communication from the pirate chief
+himself, couched in those altruistic and patriotic
+phrases for which the rascal was famous. In it he
+asserted that, though he admitted being guilty
+of having evaded the payment of certain customs
+duties, he had never lost his loyalty and affection
+for the United States, and that, notwithstanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+the fact that there was a price on his head, he
+would never miss an opportunity of serving his
+adopted country. A few days later Lafitte forwarded
+through the same channels much valuable
+information which his agents had gathered
+as to the strength, resources, and plans of the
+British expedition, enclosing with it a letter
+addressed to Governor Claiborne in which he
+offered the services of himself and his men in
+defence of the State and city on condition that
+they were granted a pardon for past offences.</p>
+
+<p>Receiving no reply to this communication,
+Lafitte sailed up the river to New Orleans in his
+lugger and made his way to the residence of the
+governor. Governor Claiborne was seated at his
+desk, immersed in the business of his office, when
+the door was softly opened, and Lafitte, stepping
+inside, closed it behind him. Clad in the full-skirted,
+bottle-green coat, the skin-tight breeches
+of white leather, and the polished Hessian boots
+which he affected, he presented a most graceful
+and gallant figure. As he entered he drew two
+pistols from his pockets, cocked them, and covered
+the startled governor, after which ominous preliminaries
+he bowed with the grace for which he
+was noted.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," he remarked pleasantly, "you may possibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+have heard of me. My name is Jean Lafitte."</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil do you mean, sir," exploded
+the governor, "by showing yourself here? Don't
+you know that I shall call the sentry and have
+you arrested?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, your Excellency," interrupted
+Lafitte, moving his weapons significantly, "but
+you will do nothing of the sort. If you move
+your hand any nearer that bell I shall be compelled
+to shoot you through the shoulder, a
+necessity, believe me, which I should deeply
+regret. I have called on you because I have
+something important to say to you, and I intend
+that you shall hear it. To begin with, you have
+seen fit to put a price upon my head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the head of a pirate, yes," thundered
+the governor, now almost apoplectic with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of that fact," continued Lafitte, "I
+have rejected a most flattering offer from the
+British government, and have come here, at some
+small peril to myself, to renew in person the offer
+of my services in repelling the coming invasion.
+I have at my command a body of brave, well-armed,
+and highly disciplined men who have
+been trained to fight. Does the State care to
+accept their services or does it not?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The governor, folding his arms, looked long at
+Lafitte before he answered. Then he held out
+his hand. "It is a generous offer that you make,
+sir. I accept it with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"At daybreak to-morrow, then," said Lafitte,
+replacing his pistols, "my men will be awaiting
+your Excellency's orders across the river." Then,
+with another sweeping bow, he left the room as
+silently as he had entered it.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Claiborne immediately communicated
+Lafitte's offer to General Andrew Jackson, then
+at Mobile, who had been designated by the War
+Department to conduct the defence of Louisiana.
+Jackson, who had already issued a proclamation
+denouncing the British for their overtures to "robbers,
+pirates, and hellish bandits," as he termed
+the Baratarians, promptly replied that the only
+thing he would have to do with Lafitte was to
+hang him. Nevertheless, when the general arrived
+in New Orleans a few days later, Lafitte
+called at his headquarters and requested an interview.
+By this time Jackson was conscious of the
+feebleness of the resources at his disposal for the
+defence of the city and of the strength of the armament
+directed against it, which accounts, perhaps,
+for his consenting to receive the "hellish bandit."
+Lafitte, looking the grim old soldier squarely in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+the eye, repeated his offer, and so impressed was
+Jackson with the pirate's cool and fearless bearing
+that he accepted his services.</p>
+
+<p>On the 10th of December, 1814, ten days after
+Jackson's arrival in New Orleans, the British
+armada reached the mouth of the Mississippi.
+Small wonder that the news almost created a
+panic in the city, for the very names of the ships
+and regiments composing the expedition had become
+famous through their exploits in the Napoleonic
+wars. It was a nondescript and motley
+force which Jackson had hastily gathered to repel
+this imposing army of invasion. Every man
+capable of bearing arms in New Orleans and its
+vicinity&mdash;planters, merchants, bankers, lawyers&mdash;had
+volunteered for service. To the local company
+of colored freedmen was added another one
+composed of colored refugees from Santo Domingo,
+men who had sided with the whites in the revolution
+there and had had to leave the island in
+consequence. Even the prisoners in the calaboose
+had been released and provided with arms.
+From the parishes round about came Creole
+volunteers by the hundred, clad in all manner
+of clothing and bearing all kinds of weapons.
+From Mississippi came a troop of cavalry under
+Hinds, which was followed a few hours later by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+Coffee's famous brigade of "Dirty Shirts," composed
+of frontiersmen from the forests of Kentucky
+and Tennessee, who after a journey of eight
+hundred miles through the wilderness answered
+Jackson's message to hurry by covering the one
+hundred and fifty miles between Baton Rouge
+and New Orleans in two days. Added to these
+were a thousand raw militiamen, who had been
+brought down on barges and flat-boats from the
+towns along the upper river, four companies of
+regulars, Beale's brigade of riflemen, a hundred
+Choctaw Indians in war-paint and feathers, and
+last, but in many respects the most efficient of
+all, the corps of buccaneers from Barataria, under
+the command of the Lafittes. The men, dragging
+with them cannon taken from their vessels, were
+divided into two companies, one under Captain
+Beluche (who rose in after years to be admiral-in-chief
+of Venezuela) and the other under a
+veteran privateersman named Dominique You.
+These men were fighters by profession, hardy,
+seasoned, and cool-headed, and as they swung
+through the streets of New Orleans to take up the
+position which Jackson had assigned them, even
+that taciturn old soldier gave a grunt of approbation.</p>
+
+<p>Jackson had chosen as his line of defence an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+artificial waterway known as the Rodriguez Canal,
+which lay some five miles to the east of the
+city, and along its embankments, which in themselves
+formed pretty good fortifications, he distributed
+his men. On the night of December 23
+a force of two thousand British succeeded, by
+means of boats, in making their way, through
+the chain of bayous which surrounds the city, to
+within a mile or two of Jackson's lines, where
+they camped for the night. Being informed of
+their approach (for the British, remember, had
+the whole countryside against them), Jackson,
+knowing the demoralizing effect of a night attack,
+directed Coffee and his Tennesseans to throw
+themselves upon the British right, while at the
+same moment Beale's Kentuckians attacked on
+the left. Trained in all the wiles of Indian warfare,
+the frontiersmen succeeded in reaching the
+outskirts of the British camp before they were
+challenged by the sentries. Their reply was a
+volley at close quarters and a charge with the
+tomahawk&mdash;for they had no bayonets&mdash;which
+drove the British force back in something closely
+akin to a rout.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jackson had set his other troops at
+work strengthening their line of fortifications, so
+that when the sun rose on the morning of the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+before Christmas it found them strongly intrenched
+behind earthworks, helped out with timber, sand-bags,
+fence-rails, and cotton-bales&mdash;whence arose
+the myth that the Americans fought behind bales
+of cotton. The British troops were far from being
+in Christmas spirits, for the truth had already
+begun to dawn upon them that men can fight as
+well in buckskin shirts as in scarlet tunics, and
+that these raw-boned wilderness hunters, with
+their powder-horns and abnormally long rifles,
+were likely to prove more formidable enemies than
+the imposing grenadiers of Napoleon's Old Guard,
+whom they had been fighting in Spain and France.
+On that same day before Christmas, strangely
+enough, a treaty of peace was being signed by the
+envoys of the two nations in a little Belgian town,
+four thousand miles away.</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas Day, however, the wonted confidence
+of the British soldiery was somewhat restored
+by the arrival of Sir Edward Pakenham,
+the new commander-in-chief, for even in that hard-fighting
+day there were few European soldiers who
+bore more brilliant reputations. A brother-in-law
+of the Duke of Wellington, he had fought side
+by side with him through the Peninsular War;
+he had headed the storming party at Badajoz;
+and at Salamanca had led the charge which won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+the day for England and a knighthood for himself.
+An earldom and the governorship of Louisiana,
+it was said, had been promised him as his
+reward for the American expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Pakenham's practised eye quickly appreciated
+the strength of the American position, which,
+after a council of war, it was decided to carry
+by storm. During the night of the 26th the
+storming columns, eight thousand strong, took up
+their positions within half a mile of the American
+lines. As the sun rose next morning over fields
+sparkling with frost, the bugles sounded the advance,
+and the British army, ablaze with color,
+and in as perfect alignment as though on parade,
+moved forward to the attack. As they came
+within range of the American guns, a group
+of plantation buildings which masked Jackson's
+front were blown up, and the British were startled
+to find themselves confronted by a row of ship's
+cannon, manned as guns are seldom manned on
+land. Around each gun was clustered a crew of
+lean, fierce-faced, red-shirted ruffians, caked with
+sweat and mud: they were Lafitte's buccaneers,
+who had responded to Jackson's orders by running
+in all the way from their station on the Bayou
+St. John that morning. Not until he could make
+out the brass buttons on the tunics of the advancing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+British did Lafitte give the command to fire.
+Then the great guns of the pirate-patriots flashed
+and thundered. Before that deadly fire the scarlet
+columns crumbled as plaster crumbles beneath a
+hammer, the men dropping, first by twos and
+threes, then by dozens and scores. In five minutes
+the attacking columns, composed of regiments
+which were the boast of the British army,
+had been compelled to sullenly retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The British commander, appreciating that the
+repulse of his forces was largely due to the fire of
+the Baratarian artillery, gave orders that guns be
+brought from the fleet and mounted in a position
+where they could silence the fire of the buccaneers.
+Three days were consumed in the herculean task
+of moving the heavy pieces of ordnance into position,
+but when the sun rose on New Year's morning
+it showed a skilfully constructed line of intrenchments,
+running parallel to the American
+front and armed with thirty heavy guns. While
+the British were thus occupied, the Americans had
+not been idle, for Jackson had likewise busied
+himself in constructing additional batteries, while
+Commodore Patterson, the American naval commander,
+had gone through the sailors' boarding-houses
+of New Orleans with a fine-tooth comb, impressing
+every nautical-looking character on which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+he could lay his hands, regardless of nationality,
+color, or excuses, to serve the guns. With
+their storming columns sheltered behind the
+breastworks, awaiting the moment when they
+would burst through the breach which they confidently
+expected would shortly be made in the
+American defences, the British batteries opened
+fire with a crash which seemed to split the heavens.
+Throughout the artillery duel which ensued splendid
+service was rendered by the men under Lafitte,
+who trained their guns as carefully and served
+them as coolly as though they were back again
+on the decks of their privateers. The storming
+parties, which were waiting for a breach to be
+made, waited in vain, for within an hour and
+thirty minutes after the action opened the British
+batteries were silenced, their guns dismounted,
+and their parapets levelled with the plain. The
+veterans of Wellington and Nelson had been out-fought
+from first to last by a band of buccaneers,
+reinforced by a few-score American bluejackets
+and a handful of nondescript seamen.</p>
+
+<p>Pakenham had one more plan for the capture
+of the city. This was a general assault by his
+entire army on the American lines. His plan of
+attack was simple, and would very probably have
+proved successful against troops less accustomed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+to frontier warfare than the Americans. Colonel
+Thornton, with fourteen hundred men, was directed
+to cross the river during the night of January 7,
+and, creeping up to the American lines under cover
+of the darkness, to carry them by assault. His
+attack was to be the signal for a column under
+General Gibbs to storm Jackson's right, and for
+another, under General Keane, to throw itself
+against the American left, General Lambert, who
+had just arrived with two fresh regiments, being
+held in reserve. So carefully had the British
+commanders perfected their plans that the battle
+was already won&mdash;in theory.</p>
+
+<p>No one knew better than Jackson that this was
+to be the deciding round of the contest, and he
+accordingly made his preparations to win it with
+a solar-plexus blow. He also had received a reinforcement,
+for the long-expected militia from Kentucky,
+two thousand two hundred strong, had just
+arrived, after a forced march of fifteen hundred
+miles, though in a half-naked and starving condition.
+Our history contains nothing finer, to my
+way of thinking, than the story of how these mountaineers
+of the Blue Ridge, foot-sore, ragged, and
+hungry, came pouring down from the north to
+repel the threatened invasion. The Americans,
+who numbered, all told, barely four thousand men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+were scattered along a front of nearly three miles,
+one end of the line extending so far into a swamp
+that the soldiers stood in water to their waists
+during the day, and at night slept on floating logs
+made fast to trees.</p>
+
+<p>Long before daybreak on the morning of the
+8th of January the divisions of Gibbs and Keane
+were in position, and waiting impatiently for the
+outburst of musketry which would be the signal
+that Thornton had begun his attack. Thornton
+had troubles of his own, however, for the swift
+current of the Mississippi, as though wishing to
+do its share in the nation's defence, had carried
+his boats a mile and a half down-stream, so that
+it was daylight before he was able to effect a
+landing, when a surprise was, of course, out of
+the question. But Pakenham, naturally obstinate
+and now made wholly reckless by the miscarriage
+of his plans, refused to recall his orders; so, as the
+gray mists of the early morning slowly lifted, his
+columns were seen advancing across the fields.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady now, boys! Steady!" called Jackson,
+as he rode up and down behind his lines.
+"Don't waste your ammunition, for we've none
+to spare. Pick your man, wait until he gets
+within range, and then let him have it! Let's get
+this business over with to-day!" His orders were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+obeyed to the letter, for not a shot was fired until
+the scarlet columns were within certain range.
+Then the order "Commence firing" was repeated
+down the line. Neither hurriedly, nor excitedly,
+nor confusedly was it obeyed, but with the utmost
+calmness and deliberation, the frontiersmen,
+trained to use the rifle from boyhood, choosing
+their targets, and calculating their ranges as unconcernedly
+as though they were hunting in their
+native forests. Still the British columns pressed
+indomitably on, and still the lean and lantern-jawed
+Jackson rode up and down his lines, cheering,
+cautioning, exhorting, directing. Suddenly he
+reined up his horse at the Baratarian battery
+commanded by Dominique You.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this? What's this?" he exclaimed.
+"You have stopped firing? What the devil does
+this mean, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we've stopped firing, general," said
+the buccaneer, touching his forelock man-o'-war
+fashion. "The powder's good for nothing. It
+might do to shoot blackbirds with, but not redcoats."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson beckoned to one of his aides-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the ordnance officer that I will have him
+shot in five minutes as a traitor if Dominique
+complains again of his powder," and he galloped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+off. When he passed that way a few minutes later
+the rattle of the musketry was being punctuated
+at half-minute intervals with the crash of the
+Baratarian guns. "Ha, friend Dominique," called
+Jackson, "I'm glad to see you're at work again."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs06orleans.png" width="600" height="361" alt="The battle of New Orleans.
+From a painting by D.M. Carter." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The battle of New Orleans.<br />
+From a painting by D.M. Carter.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Pretty good work, too, general," responded the
+buccaneer. "It looks to me as if the British have
+discovered that there has been a change of powder
+in this battery." He was right. Before the combined
+rifle and artillery fire of the Americans the
+British columns were melting like snow under a
+spring rain. Still their officers led them on, cheering,
+pleading, threatening, imploring. Pakenham's
+arm was pierced by a bullet; at the same instant
+another killed his horse, but, mounting the pony
+of his aide-de-camp, he continued to encourage
+his disheartened and wavering men. Keane was
+borne bleeding from the field, and a moment
+later Gibbs, mortally wounded, was carried after
+him. The panic which was just beginning to seize
+the British soldiery was completed at this critical
+instant by a shot from one of the Baratarians'
+big guns which burst squarely in the middle of
+the advancing column, causing terrible destruction
+in the solid ranks. Pakenham's horse fell
+dead, and the general reeled into the arms of an
+officer who sprang forward to catch him. Terribly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+wounded, he was carried to the shelter of a
+spreading oak, beneath which, five minutes later,
+he breathed his last. Then the ebb-tide began.
+The shattered regiments, demoralized by the
+death of their commander, and themselves fearfully
+depleted by the American fire, broke and ran.
+Ten minutes later, save for the crawling, agonized
+wounded, not a living foe was to be seen. But
+the field, which had been green with grass half an
+hour before, was carpeted with scarlet now, and
+the carpet was made of British dead. Of the six
+thousand men who took part in the attack, it is
+estimated that two thousand six hundred were
+killed or wounded. Of the Ninety-third Regiment,
+which had gone into action nine hundred
+strong, only one hundred and thirty-nine men
+answered to the roll-call. The Americans had
+eight men killed and thirteen wounded. The
+battle had lasted exactly twenty-five minutes.
+At eight o'clock the American bugles sounded
+"Cease firing," and Jackson&mdash;whom this victory
+was to make President of the United States&mdash;followed
+by his staff, rode slowly down the lines,
+stopping at each command to make a short address.
+As he passed, the regimental fifes and
+drums burst into "Hail, Columbia," and the rows
+of weary, powder-grimed men, putting their caps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+on the ends of their long rifles, swung them in the
+air and cheered madly the victor of New Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>There is little more to tell. On March 17 the
+British expedition, accompanied by the judges and
+customs-inspectors and revenue-collectors, and by
+the officers' wives who had come out to take part
+in the festivities which were to mark the conquest,
+set sail from the mouth of the Mississippi, reaching
+Europe just in time to participate in the Waterloo
+campaign. In the general orders issued by
+Jackson after the battle the highest praise was
+given to the Lafittes and their followers from Barataria,
+while the official despatches to Washington
+strongly urged that some recognition be made of
+the extraordinary services rendered by the erstwhile
+pirates. A few weeks later the President
+granted a full pardon to the inhabitants of Barataria,
+his message concluding: "Offenders who
+have refused to become the associates of the enemy
+in war upon the most seducing terms of invitation,
+and who have aided to repel his hostile invasion
+of the territory of the United States, can no longer
+be considered as objects of punishment, but as
+objects of generous forgiveness." Taking advantage
+of this amnesty, the ex-pirates settled down
+to the peaceable lives of fishermen and market-gardeners,
+and their descendants dwell upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+shores of Barataria Bay to this day. As to the
+future movements of the brothers Lafitte, beyond
+the fact that they established themselves for a
+time at Galveston, whence they harassed Spanish
+commerce in the Gulf of Mexico, nothing definite
+is known. Leaving New Orleans soon after the
+battle, they sailed out of the Mississippi, and out
+of this story.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MAN WHO DARED TO CROSS THE RANGES</h2><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>About the word frontiersman there is a
+pretty air of romance. The very mention
+of it conjures up a vision of lean, sinewy, brown-faced
+men, in fur caps and moccasins and
+fringed buckskin, slipping through virgin forests
+or pushing across sun-scorched prairies&mdash;advance-guards
+of civilization. Hardy, resolute, taciturn
+figures, they have passed silently across the pages
+of our history and we shall see their like no more.
+To them we owe a debt that we can never repay&mdash;nor,
+indeed, have we even publicly acknowledged
+it. We followed by the trails which they had
+blazed for us; we built our towns in those rich
+valleys and pastured our herds on those fertile
+hillsides which theirs were the first white men's
+eyes to see. The American frontiersman was
+never a self-seeker. His discoveries he left as a
+heritage to those who followed him. In almost
+every case he died poor and, more often than not,
+with his boots on. David Livingstone and Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+M. Stanley, the two Englishmen who did more
+than any other men for the opening up of Africa,
+lie in Westminster Abbey, and thousands of their
+countrymen each year stand reverently beside
+their tombs. To Cecil Rhodes, another Anglo-African
+pioneer, a great national memorial has
+been erected on the slopes of Table Mountain.
+Far, far greater parts in the conquest of a wilderness,
+the winning of a continent, were played by
+Daniel Boone, William Bowie, Kit Carson, Davy
+Crockett; yet how many of those who to-day
+enjoy the fruits of the perils they faced, the hardships
+they endured, know much more of them than
+as characters in dime novels, can tell where they
+are buried, can point to any statues or monuments
+which have been erected to their memories?</p>
+
+<p>There are two million four hundred thousand
+people in the State of California, and most of them
+boast of it as "God's own country." They have
+more State pride than any people that I know,
+yet I would be willing to wager almost anything
+you please that you can pick a hundred native
+sons of California, and put to each of them the
+question, "Who was Jedediah Smith?" and not
+one of them would be able to answer it correctly.
+The public parks of San Francisco and Los
+Angeles and San Diego and Sacramento have innumerable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+statues of one kind and another, but
+you will find none of this man with the stern old
+Puritan name; they are starting a hall of fame
+in California, but no one has proposed Jedediah
+Smith as deserving a place in it. Yet to him, perhaps
+more than to any other man, is due the fact
+that California is American: he was the greatest
+of the pathfinders; he was the real founder of the
+Overland Trail; he was the man who led the way
+across the ranges. Had it not been for the trail
+he blazed and the thousands who followed in his
+footsteps the Sierra Nevadas, instead of the Rio
+Grande, might still mark the line of our frontier.</p>
+
+<p>The westward advance of population which took
+place during the first quarter of the nineteenth
+century far exceeded the limits of any of the great
+migrations of mankind upon the older continents.
+The story of the American onset to the beckoning
+West is one of the wonder-tales of history. Over
+the natural waterway of the great northern lakes,
+down the road to Pittsburg, along the trail which
+skirted the Potomac, and then down the Ohio,
+over the passes of the Cumberland into Tennessee,
+round the end of the Alleghanies into the Gulf
+States, up the Missouri, and so across the Rockies
+to the head waters of the Columbia, or south-westward
+from St. Louis to the Spanish settlements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+of Santa Fé, the hardy pioneers poured in
+an ever-increasing stream, carrying with them
+little but axe, spade, and rifle, some scanty household
+effects, a small store of provisions, a liberal
+supply of ammunition, and unlimited faith, courage,
+and enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>During that brief period the people of the United
+States extended their occupation over the whole
+of that vast region lying between the Alleghanies
+and the Rockies&mdash;a territory larger than all of
+Europe, without Russia&mdash;annexed it from the
+wilderness, conquered, subdued, improved, cultivated,
+civilized it, and all without one jot of
+governmental assistance. Throughout these years,
+as the frontiersmen pressed into the West, they
+continued to fret and strain against the Spanish
+boundaries. The Spanish authorities, and after
+them the Mexican, soon became seriously alarmed
+at this silent but resistless American advance, and
+from the City of Mexico orders went out to the
+provincial governors that Americans venturing
+within their jurisdiction should be treated, whenever
+an excuse offered, with the utmost severity.
+But, notwithstanding the menace of Mexican
+prisons, of Indian tortures, of savage animals, of
+thirst and starvation in the wilderness, the pioneers
+pushed westward and ever westward, until at last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+their further progress was abruptly halted by the
+great range of the Sierra Nevada, snow-crested,
+and presumably impassable, which rose like a
+titanic wall before them, barring their further
+march.</p>
+
+<p>It was at about the time of this halt in our
+westward progress that Captain Jedediah Smith
+came riding onto the scene. You must picture
+him as a gaunt-faced, lean-flanked, wiry man,
+with nerves of iron, sinews of rawhide, a skin
+like oak-tanned leather, and quick on his feet as
+a catamount. He was bearded to the ears, of
+course, for razors formed no part of the scanty
+equipment of the frontiersman, and above the
+beard shone a pair of very keen, bright eyes, with
+the concentrated wrinkles about their corners that
+come of staring across the prairies under a blazing
+sun. He was sparing of his words, as are most
+men who dwell in the great solitudes, and, like
+them, he was, in an unorthodox way, devout, his
+stern and rugged features as well as his uncompromising
+scriptural name betraying the grim
+old Puritan stock from which he sprang. His hair
+was long and black, and would have covered his
+shoulders had it not been tied at the back
+of the neck by a leather thong. His dress was
+that of the Indian adapted to meet the requirements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+of the adventuring white man: a hunting-shirt
+and trousers of fringed buckskin, embroidered
+moccasins of elkhide, and a cap made from the
+glossy skin of a beaver, with the tail hanging down
+behind. On hot desert marches, and in camp, he
+took off the beaver-skin cap and twisted about his
+head a bright bandanna, which, when taken with
+his gaunt, unshaven face, made him look uncommonly
+like a pirate. These garments were by no
+means fresh and gaudy, like those affected by the
+near-frontiersmen who take part in the production
+of Wild West shows; instead they were very
+soiled and much worn and greasy, and gave evidence
+of having done twenty-four hours' duty a
+day for many months at a stretch. Hanging on
+his chest was a capacious powder-horn, and in his
+belt was a long, straight knife, very broad and
+heavy in the blade&mdash;a first cousin of that deadly
+weapon to which William Bowie was in after years
+to give his name; in addition he carried a rifle,
+with an altogether extraordinary length of barrel,
+which brought death to any living thing within a
+thousand yards on which its foresight rested. His
+mount was a plains-bred pony, as wiry and unkempt
+and enduring as himself. Everything considered,
+Smith could have been no gentle-looking figure,
+and I rather imagine that, if he were alive and ventured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+into a Western town to-day, he would probably
+be arrested by the local constable as an undesirable
+character. I have now sketched for you,
+in brief, bold outline, as good a likeness of Smith
+as I am able with the somewhat scanty materials
+at hand, for he lived and did his pioneering in the
+days when frontiersmen were as common as traffic
+policemen are now, added to which the men who
+were familiar with his exploits were of a sort more
+ready with their pistols than with their pens.</p>
+
+<p>The dates of Smith's birth and death are not
+vital to this story, and perhaps it is just as well
+that they are not, for I can find no record of when
+he came into the world, and only the Indian warrior
+who wore his scalp-lock at his waist could have
+told the exact date on which he went out of it.
+It is enough to know that, just as the nineteenth
+century was passing the quarter mark, Smith was
+the head of a firm of fur-traders, Smith, Jackson
+&amp; Soublette, which had obtained from President
+John Quincy Adams permission to hunt and trade
+to their hearts' content in the region lying beyond
+the Rocky Mountains. It would have been much
+more to the point to have obtained the permission
+of the Mexican governor-general of the Californias,
+or of the great chief of the Comanches, for they
+held practically all of the territory in question<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+between them. Those were the days whose like we
+shall never know again, when the streams were
+alive with beaver, when there were more elk and
+antelope on the prairies than there are cattle now,
+and when the noise made by the moving buffalo
+herds sounded like the roll of distant thunder.
+They were the days when a fortune, as fortunes
+were then reckoned, awaited the man with unlimited
+ammunition, a sure eye, and a body inured
+to hardships. What the founder of the Astor
+fortune was doing in the Puget Sound country,
+Smith and his companions purposed to do in the
+Rockies; and, with this end in view, established
+their base camp on the eastern shores of the
+Great Salt Lake, not far from where Ogden now
+stands. This little band of pioneers formed the
+westernmost outpost of American civilization, for
+between them and the nearest settlement, at the
+junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers,
+stretched thirteen hundred miles of savage wilderness.
+Livingstone, on his greatest journey, did
+not penetrate half as far into unknown Africa
+as Smith did into unknown America, and while
+the English explorer was at the head of a large
+and well-equipped expedition, the American was
+accompanied by a mere handful of men.</p>
+
+<p>In August, 1826, Smith and a small party of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+hunters found themselves in the terrible Painted
+Desert, that God-forsaken expanse of sand and
+lava where the present States of Arizona, Utah,
+and Nevada meet. Water there was none, for
+the streams had run dry, and the horses and pack-mules
+were dying of thirst and exhaustion; the
+game had entirely disappeared; the supplies were
+all but finished&mdash;and five hundred miles of the
+most inhospitable country in the world lay between
+them and their camp on Great Salt Lake.
+The situation was perilous, indeed, and a decision
+had to be made quickly if any of them were to get
+out alive.</p>
+
+<p>"What few supplies we have left will be used
+up before we get a quarter way back to the camp,"
+said Smith. "Our only chance&mdash;and I might as
+well tell you it's a mighty slim one, boys&mdash;is in
+pushing on to California."</p>
+
+<p>"But California's a good four hundred miles
+away," expostulated his companions, "and the
+Sierras lie between, and no one has ever crossed
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll be the first man to do it," said Smith.
+"Besides, I've always had a hankering to learn
+what lies on the other side of those ranges. Now's
+my chance to find out."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon there ain't much chance of our ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+seeing Salt Lake or California either," grumbled
+one of the hunters, "and even if we do reach the
+coast the Mexicans 'll clap us into prison."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so fur's I'm concerned," said Smith decisively,
+"I'd rather be alive and in a Greaser
+prison than to be dead in the desert. I'm going
+to California or die on the way."</p>
+
+<p>History chronicles few such marches. Westward
+pressed the little troop of pioneers, across
+the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah,
+over the arid deserts and the barren ranges of
+southern Nevada, and so to the foot-hills of that
+great Sierran range which rears itself ten thousand
+feet skyward, forming a barrier which had theretofore
+separated the fertile lands of the Pacific
+slope from the rest of the continent more effectually
+than an ocean. The lava beds gave way to
+sand wastes dotted with clumps of sage-brush and
+cactus, and the cactus changed to stunted pines,
+and the pines ran out in rocks, and the rocks became
+covered with snow, and still Smith and his
+hunters struggled on, emaciated, tattered, almost
+barefooted, lamed by the cactus spines on the
+desert, and the stones on the mountain slopes, until
+at last they stood upon the very summit of the
+range and, like that other band of pioneers in an
+earlier age, looked down on the promised land after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+their wanderings in the wilderness. No explorer
+in the history of the world, not Columbus, nor
+Pizarro, nor Champlain, nor De Soto, ever gazed
+upon a land so fertile and so full of beauty. The
+mysterious, the jealously guarded, the storied land
+of California lay spread before them like a map
+in bas-relief. Then the descent of the western
+slope began, the transition from snow-clad mountain
+peaks to hillsides clothed with subtropical
+vegetation amazing the Americans by its suddenness.
+Imagine how like a dream come true it
+must have been to these men, whose lives had been
+spent in the less kindly climate and amid the
+comparatively scanty vegetation of the Middle
+West, to suddenly find themselves in this fairyland
+of fruit and flowers!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs07westward.png" width="600" height="379" alt="Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah. Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier &amp; Son." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah.<br />
+Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier &amp; Son.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It is, indeed, a white man's country," said
+Smith prophetically, as, leaning on his long rifle,
+he gazed upon the wonderful panorama which unrolled
+itself before him. "Though it is Mexican
+just now, sooner or later it must and shall be ours."</p>
+
+<p>Heartened by the sight of this wonderful new
+country, and by the knowledge that they must
+be approaching some of the Mexican settlements,
+but with bodies sadly weakened from exposure,
+hunger, and exhaustion, the Americans slowly
+made their way down the slope, crossed those fertile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+lowlands which are now covered with groves
+of orange and lemon, and so, guided by some
+friendly Indians whom they met, came at last to
+the mission station of San Gabriel, one of that remarkable
+chain of outposts of the church founded
+by the indefatigable Franciscan, Father Junipero
+Serra. The little company of worn and weary men
+sighted the red-tiled roof of the mission just at
+sunset, and though Smith and his followers came
+from stern New England stock which prided itself
+on having no truck with Papists, I rather
+imagine that as the sweet, clear mission bells
+chimed out the angelus they lifted their hats and
+stood with bowed heads in silent thanksgiving for
+their preservation.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt if there was a more astonished community
+between the oceans than was the monastic
+one of San Gabriel when this band of ragged
+strangers suddenly appeared from nowhere and
+asked for food and shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"You come from the South&mdash;from Mexico?"
+queried the father superior, staring, half-awed, at
+these gaunt, fierce-faced, bearded men who spoke
+in a strange tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"No, padre," answered Smith, calling to his aid
+the broken Spanish he had picked up in his trading
+expeditions to Santa Fé, "we come from the East,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+from the country beyond the great mountains,
+from the United States. We are Americans," he
+added a little proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"They say they come from the East," the
+brown-robed monks whispered to each other.
+"It is impossible. No one has ever come from
+that direction. Have not the Indians told us
+many times that there is no food, no water in that
+direction, and that, moreover, there is no way to
+cross the mountains? It is, indeed, a strange and
+incredible tale that these men tell. But we will
+offer them our hospitality in the name of the
+blessed St. Francis, for that we withhold from
+no man; but it is the part of wisdom to despatch
+a messenger to San Diego to acquaint the governor
+of their coming, for it may well be that they mean
+no good to the people of this land."</p>
+
+<p>Had the good monks been able to look forward
+a few-score years, perhaps they would not have
+been so ready to offer Smith and his companions
+the shelter of the mission roof. But how were
+they to know that these ragged strangers, begging
+for food at their mission door, were the skirmishers
+for a mighty host which would one day pour over
+those mountain ranges to the eastward as the
+water pours over the falls at Niagara; that within
+rifle-shot of where their mission stood a city of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+half a million souls would spread itself across
+the hills; that down the dusty Camino Real,
+which the founder of their mission had trudged
+so often in his sandals and woollen robe, would
+whirl strange horseless, panting vehicles, putting
+a mile a minute behind their flying wheels; that
+twin lines of steel would bring their southernmost
+station at San Diego within twenty hours, instead
+of twenty days, of their northernmost outpost at
+Sonoma; and that over this new land would fly,
+not the red-white-and-green standard of Mexico,
+but an alien banner of stripes and stars?</p>
+
+<p>The four years which intervened between the
+collapse of Spanish rule in Mexico and the arrival
+of Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel were marked by
+political chaos in the Californias. When a governor
+of Alta California rose in the morning he
+did not know whether he was the representative
+of an emperor, a king, a president, or a dictator.
+As a result of these perennial disorders, the Mexican
+officials ascribed sinister motives to the most
+innocent episodes. No sooner, therefore, did Governor
+Echeandia learn of the arrival in his province
+of a mysterious party of Americans than
+he ordered them brought under escort to San
+Diego for examination. Though those present
+probably did not appreciate it, the meeting of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+Smith and Echeandia in the palace at San Diego
+was a peculiarly significant one. There sat at his
+ease in his great chair of state the saturnine Mexican
+governor, arrogant and haughty, beruffled
+and gold-laced, his high-crowned sombrero and
+his velvet jacket heavy with bullion, while in front
+of him stood the American frontiersman, gaunt,
+unshaven, and ragged, but as cool and self-possessed
+as though he was at the head of a conquering
+army instead of a forlorn hope. The one was
+as truly the representative of a passing as the other
+was of a coming race. Small wonder that Echeandia,
+as he observed the hardy figures and determined
+faces of the Americans, thought to himself
+how small would be Mexico's chance of holding
+California if others of their countrymen began to
+follow in their footsteps. He and his officials
+cross-examined Smith as closely as though the
+frontiersman was a prisoner on trial for his life,
+as, in a sense, he was, for almost any fate might
+befall him and his companions in that remote
+corner of the continent without any one being
+called to account for it. Smith described the
+series of misfortunes which had led him to cross
+the ranges; he asserted that he desired nothing so
+much as to get back into American territory again,
+and he earnestly begged the governor to provide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+him with the necessary provisions and permit him
+to depart. His story was so frank and plausible
+that Echeandia, with characteristic Spanish suspicion,
+promptly disbelieved every word of it, for
+why, he argued, should any sane man make so
+hazardous a journey unless he were a spy and well
+paid to risk his life? For even in those early days,
+remember, the Mexicans had begun to fear the
+ambitions of the young republic to the eastward.
+So, despite their protests, he ordered the Americans
+to be imprisoned&mdash;and no one knew better than
+they did that, once within the walls of a Mexican
+prison, there was small chance of their seeing
+the outside world again. Fortunately for the explorers,
+however, it so happened that there were
+three American trading-schooners lying in San
+Diego harbor at the time, and their captains, determined
+to see the rights of their fellow countrymen
+respected, joined in a vigorous and energetic
+protest to the governor against this high-handed
+and unjustified action. This seems to have frightened
+Echeandia, for he reluctantly gave orders for
+the release of Smith and his companions, but ordered
+them to leave the country at once, and by
+the same route by which they had come.</p>
+
+<p>When the year 1827 was but a few days old,
+therefore, the Americans turned their faces northward,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+but instead of retracing their steps in accordance
+with Echeandia's orders, they crossed
+the coast range, probably through the Tejon Pass,
+and kept on through the fertile region now known
+as the San Joaquin Valley, in the hope that by
+crossing the Sierra farther to the northward they
+would escape the terrible rigors of the Colorado
+desert. When some three hundred miles north of
+San Gabriel they attempted to recross the ranges,
+but a feat that had been hazardous in midsummer
+was impossible in midwinter, and the entire
+expedition nearly perished in the attempt. Several
+of the men and all the horses died of cold and
+hunger, and it was only by incredible exertions that
+Smith and his few remaining companions, terribly
+frozen and totally exhausted, managed to reach the
+Santa Clara Valley and Mission San José. So
+slow was their progress that the news of their
+approach preceded them and caused considerable
+disquietude to the monks. Learning from the
+Indians that he and his tatterdemalion followers
+were objects of suspicion, Smith sent a letter to
+the father superior, in which he gave an account
+of his arrival at San Gabriel, of his interview with
+the governor, of his disaster in the Sierras, and
+of his present pitiable condition. "I am a long
+way from home," this pathetic missive concludes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+"and am anxious to get there as soon as the nature
+of the case will permit. Our situation is quite unpleasant,
+being destitute of clothing and most of
+the necessaries of life, wild meat being our principal
+subsistence. I am, reverend father, your
+strange but real friend and Christian brother,
+Jedediah Smith." As a result of this appeal, the
+hospitality of the mission was somewhat grudgingly
+extended to the Americans, who were by
+this time in the most desperate condition.</p>
+
+<p>Hardships that would kill ordinary men were but
+unpleasant incidents in the lives of the pioneers,
+however, and in a few weeks they were as fit as
+ever to resume their journey. But, upon thinking
+the matter over, Smith decided that he would
+never be content if he went back without having
+found out what lay still farther to the northward,
+for in him was the insatiable curiosity and the indomitable
+spirit of the born explorer. But as his
+force, as well as his resources, had become sadly
+depleted, he felt it imperative that he should first
+return to Salt Lake and bring on the men, horses,
+and provisions he had left there. Accordingly,
+leaving most of his party in camp at San José, he
+set out with only two companions, recrossed the
+Sierra at one of its highest points (the place he
+crossed is where the railway comes through to-day)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+and after several uncomfortably narrow escapes
+from landslides and from Indians, eventually
+reached the camp on Great Salt Lake, where he
+found that his people had long since given him
+and his companions up for dead.</p>
+
+<p>Breaking camp on a July morning, in 1827,
+Smith, with eighteen men and two women, turned
+his face once more toward California. To avoid
+the snows of the high Sierras, he chose the route
+he had taken on his first journey, reaching the
+desert country to the north of the Colorado River
+in early August. It was not until the party had
+penetrated too far into the desert to retreat that
+they found that the whole country was burnt
+up. For several days they pushed on in the hope
+of finding water. Across the yellow sand wastes
+they would sight the sparkle of a crystal lake, and
+would hasten toward it as fast as their jaded
+animals could carry them, only to find that it was
+a mirage. Then the horrors preliminary to death
+by thirst began: the animals, their blackened
+tongues protruding from their mouths, staggered
+and fell, and rose no more; the women grew delirious
+and babbled incoherent nothings; even the
+hardiest of the men stumbled as they marched, or
+tried to frighten away by shouts and gestures the
+fantastic shapes which danced before them. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+last there came a morning when they could go no
+farther. Such of them as still retained their faculties
+felt that it was the end&mdash;that is, all but Jedediah
+Smith. He was of the breed which does not
+know the meaning of defeat, because they are
+never defeated until they are dead. Loading himself
+with the empty water-bottles, he set out alone
+into the desert, determined to follow one of the
+numerous buffalo trails, for he knew that sooner
+or later it must lead him to water of some sort,
+even if to nothing more than a buffalo-wallow.
+Racked with the fever of thirst, his legs shaking
+from exhaustion, he plodded on, under the pitiless
+sun, mile after mile, hour after hour, until, struggling
+to the summit of a low divide, he saw the
+channel of a stream in the valley beneath him.
+The expedition was saved. Stumbling and sliding
+down the slope in his haste to quench his
+intolerable thirst, he came to a sudden halt on
+the river-bank. It was nothing but an empty
+watercourse into which he was staring&mdash;the
+river had run dry! The shock of such a disappointment
+would have driven most men stark,
+staring mad. Only for a moment, however,
+was the veteran frontiersman staggered; he knew
+the character of many streams in the West&mdash;that
+often their waters run underground a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+few feet below the surface, and in a moment he
+was on his knees digging frantically in the soft
+sand. Soon the sand began to grow moist, and
+then the coveted water slowly began to filter upward
+into the little excavation he had hollowed.
+Throwing himself flat on the ground, he buried
+his burning face in the muddy water&mdash;and as he
+did so a shower of arrows whistled about him. A
+war-party of Comanches, unobserved, had followed
+and surrounded him. He had but exchanged the
+danger of death by thirst for the far more dreadful
+fate of death by torture. Though struck
+by several of the arrows, he held the Indians
+off until he had filled his water-bottles; then,
+retreating slowly, taking advantage of every particle
+of cover, as only a veteran plainsman can,
+blazing away with his unerring rifle whenever
+an Indian was incautious enough to show a portion
+of his figure, Smith succeeded in getting back
+to his companions with the precious water. With
+their dead animals for breastworks, the pioneers
+succeeded in holding the Indians at bay for six-and-thirty
+hours, but on the second night the
+redskins, heavily reinforced, rushed them in the
+night, ten of the men and the two women being
+killed in the hand-to-hand fight which ensued,
+and the few horses which remained alive being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+stampeded. I rather imagine that the women
+were shot by their own husbands, for the women
+of the frontier always preferred death to capture
+by these fiends in paint and feathers.</p>
+
+<p>How Smith, calling all his craft and experience
+as a plainsman to his assistance, managed to lead
+his eight surviving companions through the encircling
+Indians by night, and how, wounded,
+horseless, and provisionless as they were, he succeeded
+in guiding them across the ranges to San
+Bernardino, is but another example of this forgotten
+hero's courage and resource. Having lost
+everything that he possessed, for the whole of his
+scanty savings had been invested in the ill-fated
+expedition, Smith, with such of his men as were
+strong enough to accompany him, set out to rejoin
+the party he had left some months previously at
+Mission San José. Scarcely had he set foot within
+that settlement, however, before he was arrested
+and taken under escort to Monterey, where he was
+taken before the governor, who, he found to his
+surprise and dismay, was no other than his old enemy
+of San Diego, Don José Echeandia. This time
+nothing would convince Echeandia that Smith
+was not the leader of an expedition which had
+territorial designs on California, and he promptly
+ordered him to be taken to prison and kept in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+solitary confinement as a dangerous conspirator.
+Thereupon Smith resorted to the same expedient
+he had used so successfully, and begged the captains
+of the American vessels in the harbor of
+Monterey for protection. So forcible were their
+representations that Echeandia finally agreed to
+release Smith on his swearing to leave California
+for good and all. To this proposal Smith
+willingly agreed and took the oath required
+of him, but, upon being released from prison,
+was astounded to learn that the governor had
+given orders that he must set out alone&mdash;that his
+hunters would not be permitted to accompany him.
+His and their protestations were disregarded.
+Smith must start at once and unaccompanied.
+He was given a horse and saddle, provisions,
+blankets, a rifle&mdash;and nothing more. It was a
+sentence of death which Echeandia had had pronounced
+on this American frontiersman, and both
+he and Smith knew it. Without having committed
+any crime&mdash;unless it was a crime to be an
+American&mdash;Jedediah Smith was driven out of the
+territory of a supposedly friendly nation, and told
+that he was at perfect liberty to make his way
+across two thousand miles of wilderness to the
+nearest American outpost&mdash;if he could.</p>
+
+<p>Striking back into that range of the Sierras<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+which lies southeast of Fresno, Smith succeeded
+in crossing them for a fourth time, evidently
+intending to make his way back to his old
+stamping-ground on the Great Salt Lake. Our
+knowledge of what occurred after he had crossed
+the ranges for the last time is confined to tales
+told to the settlers in later years by the Indians.
+While emerging from the terrible Death Valley,
+where hundreds of emigrants were to lose their
+lives during the rush to the gold-fields a quarter
+of a century later, he was attacked at a water-hole
+by a band of Indians. For many years
+afterward the Comanches were wont to tell with
+admiration how this lone pale-face, coming from
+out of the setting sun, had knelt behind his dead
+horse and held them off with his deadly rifle all
+through one scorching summer's day. But when
+nightfall came they crept up very silently under
+cover of the darkness and rushed him. His scalp
+was very highly valued, for it had cost the lives
+of twelve Comanche braves.</p>
+
+<p>But Jedediah Smith did not die in vain. Tales
+of the rich and virgin country which he had found
+beyond the ranges flew as though with wings
+across the land; soon other pioneers made their
+way over the mountains by the trails which he
+had blazed; long wagon-trains crawled westward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+by the routes which he had taken; strange bands
+of horsemen pitched their tents in the valleys
+where he had camped. The mission bells grew
+silent; the monk in his woollen robe and the
+<i>caballero</i> in his gold-laced jacket passed away;
+settlements of hardy, energetic, nasal-voiced folk
+from beyond the Sierras sprang up everywhere.
+Then one day a new flag floated over the presidio
+in Monterey&mdash;a flag that was not to be pulled
+down. The American republic had reached the
+western ocean, and thus was fulfilled the dream
+of Jedediah Smith, the man who showed the way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE FLAG OF THE BEAR</h2>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Because the battles which marked its establishment
+were really only skirmishes, in
+which but an insignificant number of lives were
+lost, and because it boasted less than a thousand
+citizens all told, certain of our historians have
+been so undiscerning as to assert that the Bear
+Flag Republic was nothing but a travesty and a
+farce. Therein they are wrong. Though it is
+doubtless true that the handful of frontiersmen
+who raised their home-made flag, with its emblem
+of a grizzly bear, over the Californian presidio of
+Sonoma on that July morning in 1846 took themselves
+much more seriously than the circumstances
+warranted, it is equally true that their action
+averted the seizure of California by England, and
+by forcing the hand of the administration at
+Washington was primarily responsible for adding
+what is now California, Nevada, Arizona, New
+Mexico, Utah, and more than half of Wyoming
+and Colorado to the Union. The series of intrigues
+and affrays and insurrections which resulted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+in the Pacific coast becoming American
+instead of European form a picturesque, exciting,
+and virtually unwritten chapter in our national
+history, a chapter in which furtive secret agents
+and haughty <i>caballeros</i>, pioneers in fringed buckskin,
+and naval officers in gold-laced uniforms all
+played their greater or their lesser parts.</p>
+
+<p>To fully understand the conditions which led
+up to the "Bear Flag War," as it has been called,
+it is necessary to go back for a moment to the first
+quarter of the last century, when the territory of
+the United States ended at the Rocky Mountains
+and the red-white-and-green flag of Mexico floated
+over the whole of that vast, rich region which lay
+beyond. Under the Mexican régime the territory
+lying west of the Sierra Nevadas was divided into
+the provinces of Alta (or Upper) and Baja (or
+Lower) California, the population of the two
+provinces about 1845 totalling not more than
+fifteen thousand souls, nine-tenths of whom were
+Mexicans, Spaniards, and Indians, the rest American
+and European settlers. The foreigners, among
+whom Americans greatly predominated, soon became
+influential out of all proportion to their
+numbers. This was particularly true of the
+Americans, who, solidified by common interests,
+common dangers, and common ambitions, obtained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+large grants of land, built houses which in
+certain cases were little short of forts, frequently
+married into the most aristocratic of the Californian
+families, and before long practically controlled
+the commerce of the entire territory.</p>
+
+<p>It was only to be expected, therefore, that the
+Mexicans should become more and more apprehensive
+of American ambitions. Nor did President
+Jackson's offer, in 1835, to buy Southern
+California&mdash;an offer which was promptly refused&mdash;serve
+to do other than strengthen these apprehensions.
+And to make matters worse, if such a
+thing were possible, Commodore T. ApCatesby
+Jones, having heard a rumor that war had broken
+out between the United States and Mexico, and
+having reason to believe that a British force was
+preparing to seize California, landed a force of
+bluejackets and marines, and on October 21, 1842,
+raised the American flag over the presidio at Monterey.
+Although Commodore Jones, finding he
+had acted upon misinformation, lowered the flag
+next day and tendered an apology to the provincial
+officials, the incident did not tend to relieve
+the tension which existed between the Mexicans
+and the Americans, for it emphasized the ease
+with which the country could be seized, and hinted
+with unmistakable plainness at the ultimate intentions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+of the United States. That our government
+intended to annex the Californias at the first
+opportunity that offered the Mexicans were perfectly
+aware, for, aroused by the descriptions of
+the unbelievable beauty and fertility of the country
+as sent back by those daring souls who had
+made their way across the ranges, the hearts of
+our people were set upon its acquisition. The
+great Bay of San Francisco, large enough to shelter
+the navies of the world and the gateway to
+the Orient, the fruitful, sun-kissed land beyond
+the Sierras, the political domination of America,
+and the commercial domination of the Pacific&mdash;such
+were the visions which inspired our people
+and the motives which animated our leaders, and
+which were intensified by the fear of England's
+designs upon this western land.</p>
+
+<p>As the numbers of the American settlers gradually
+increased, the jealousy and suspicion of the
+Mexican officials became more pronounced. As
+early as 1826 they had driven Captain Jedediah
+Smith, the first American to make his way to
+California by the overland route, back into the
+mountains, in the midst of winter, without companions
+and without provisions, to be killed by
+the Indians. In 1840 more than one hundred
+American settlers were suddenly arrested by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+Mexican authorities on a trumped-up charge of
+having plotted against the government, marched
+under military guard to Monterey, and confined
+in the prison there under circumstances of the
+most barbarous cruelty, some fifty of them being
+eventually deported to Mexico in chains. Thomas
+O. Larkin, the American consul at Monterey, upon
+visiting the prisoners in the local jail where they
+were confined, found that the cells had no floors,
+and that the poor fellows stood in mud and water
+to their ankles. Sixty of the prisoners he found
+crowded into a single room, twenty feet long and
+eighteen wide, in which they were so tightly packed
+that they could not all sit at the same time, much
+less lie down. The room being without windows
+or other means of ventilation, the air quickly became
+so fetid that they were able to live only by
+dividing themselves into platoons which took turns
+in standing at the door and getting a few breaths
+of air through the bars. These men, whose only
+crime was that they were Americans, were confined
+in this hell-hole, without food except such
+as their friends were able to smuggle in to them
+by bribing the sentries, for eight days. And this
+treatment was accorded them, remember, not because
+they were conspirators&mdash;for no one knew
+better than the Mexican authorities that they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+not&mdash;but because it seemed the easiest means of
+driving them out of the country. Throughout the
+half-dozen years that ensued American settlers
+were subjected to a systematic campaign of annoyance,
+persecution, and imprisonment on innumerable
+frivolous pretexts, being released only
+on their promise to leave California immediately.
+By 1845, therefore, the harassed Americans, in
+sheer desperation, were ready to grasp the first
+opportunity which presented itself to end this
+intolerable tyranny for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the outrageous treatment to
+which they were subjected, however, nor the weakness
+and instability of the government under
+which they were living, nor even the insecurity of
+their lives and property and the discouragements
+to industry, which led the American settlers to
+decide to end Mexican rule in the Californias.
+Texas had recently been annexed by the United
+States against the protests of Mexico, an American
+army of invasion was massed along the Rio Grande,
+and war was certain. It required no extraordinary
+degree of intelligence, then, to foresee that
+the coming hostilities would almost inevitably result
+in Mexico losing her Californian provinces.
+Now it was a matter of common knowledge that
+the Mexican Government was seriously considering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+the advisability of ceding the Californias to
+Great Britain, and thus accomplishing the threefold
+purpose of wiping out the large Mexican debt
+due to British bankers, of winning the friendship
+and possibly the active assistance of England in
+the approaching war with the United States, and
+of preventing the Californias from falling into
+American hands. The danger was, therefore, that
+England would step in before us. Nor was the
+danger any imaginary one. Her ships were
+watching our ships on the Mexican coast, and her
+secret agents who infested the country were keeping
+their fingers constantly on the pulse of public
+opinion. Though it remains to this day a matter
+of conjecture as to just how far England was prepared
+to go to obtain this territory, there is little
+doubt that she had laid her plans for its acquisition
+in one way or another. If California was to
+be added to the Union, therefore, it must be by a
+sudden and daring stroke.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the authorities at Washington had
+not been idle. Though Larkin was ostensibly the
+American consul at Monterey and nothing more,
+in reality he was clothed with far greater powers,
+having been hurried from Washington to California
+for the express purpose of secretly encouraging an
+insurrectionary movement among the American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+settlers, and of keeping our government informed
+of the plans of the Mexicans and British. Receiving
+information that a powerful British fleet&mdash;the
+largest, in fact, which had ever been seen
+in Pacific waters&mdash;was about to sail for the coast
+of California, the administration promptly issued
+orders for a squadron of war-ships under Commodore
+John Drake Sloat to proceed at full speed to
+the Pacific coast, the commander being given
+secret instructions to back up Consul Larkin in
+any action which he might take, and upon receiving
+word that the United States had declared war
+against Mexico to immediately occupy the Californian
+ports. Then ensued one of the most
+momentous races in history, over a course extending
+half-way round the world, the contestants
+being the war-fleets of the two most powerful
+maritime nations, and the prize seven hundred
+thousand square miles of immensely rich territory
+and the mastery of the Pacific. Commodore Sloat
+laid his course around the Horn, while the English
+commander, Admiral Trowbridge, chose the
+route through the Indian Ocean. The first thing
+he saw as he entered the Bay of Monterey was the
+American squadron lying at anchor in the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>Never was there a better example of that form
+of territorial expansion which has come to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+known as "pacific penetration" than the American
+conquest of California; never were the real designs
+of a nation and the schemes of its secret
+agents more successfully hidden. Consul Larkin,
+as I have already said, was quietly working, under
+confidential instructions from the State Department,
+to bring about a revolution in California
+without overt aid from the United States; the
+Californian coast towns lay under the guns of
+American war-ships, whose commanders likewise
+had secret instructions to land marines and take
+possession of the country at the first opportunity
+that presented itself; and, as though to complete
+the chain of American emissaries, early in 1846
+there came riding down from the Sierran passes,
+at the head of what pretended to be an exploring
+and scientific expedition, the man who was to set
+the machinery of conquest actually in motion.</p>
+
+<p>The commander of the expedition was a young
+captain of engineers, named John Charles Frémont,
+who, as the result of two former journeys
+of exploration into the wilderness beyond the
+Rockies, had already won the sobriquet of "The
+Pathfinder." Born in Savannah, of a French
+father and a Virginian mother, he was a strange
+combination of aristocrat and frontiersman. Dashing,
+debonair, fearless, reckless, a magnificent
+horseman, a dead-shot, a hardy and intrepid explorer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+equally at home at a White House ball
+or at an Indian powwow, he was probably the
+most picturesque and romantic figure in the
+United States. These characteristics, combined
+with extreme good looks, a gallant manner, and
+the great public reputation he had won by the
+vivid and interesting accounts he had published
+of his two earlier journeys, had completely captured
+the popular imagination, so that the young
+explorer had become a national idol. In the spring
+of 1845 he was despatched by the National Government
+on a third expedition, which had as its ostensible
+object the discovery of a practicable route
+from the Rocky Mountains to the mouth of the
+Columbia River, but which was really to lend
+encouragement to the American settlers in California
+in any secession movement which they
+might be planning and to afford them active assistance
+should war be declared. Just how far
+the government had instructed Frémont to go in
+fomenting a revolution will probably never be
+known, but there is every reason to believe that
+his father-in-law, United States Senator Benton,
+had advised him to seize California if an opportunity
+presented itself, and to trust to luck (and
+the senator's influence) that the government would
+approve rather than repudiate his action.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs08sacramento.png" width="600" height="379" alt="The Sacramento Valley in 1845.
+
+From a steel engraving of the period." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Sacramento Valley in 1845.<br />
+
+From a steel engraving of the period.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>All told, Frémont's expedition numbered barely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+threescore men&mdash;no great force, surely, with
+which to overthrow a government and win an
+empire. In advance of the little column rode the
+four Delaware braves whom Frémont had brought
+with him from the East to act as scouts and
+trackers, and whose cunning and woodcraft he was
+willing to match against that of the Indians of
+the plains. Close on their heels rode the Pathfinder
+himself, clad from neck to heel in fringed
+buckskin, at his belt a heavy army revolver and
+one of those vicious, double-bladed knives to
+which Colonel Bowie, of Texas, had already given
+his name, and on his head a jaunty, broad-brimmed
+hat, from beneath which his long, yellow hair fell
+down upon his shoulders. At his bridle arm rode
+Kit Carson, the most famous of the plainsmen,
+whose exploits against the Indians were even then
+familiar stories in every American household.
+Behind these two stretched out the rank and file
+of the expedition&mdash;bronze-faced, bearded, resolute
+men, well mounted, heavily armed, and all
+wearing the serviceable dress of the frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Frémont found the American settlers scattered
+through the interior in a state of considerable
+alarm, for rumors had reached them that the Mexican
+Government had decided to drive them out
+of the country, and that orders had been issued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+to the provincial authorities to incite the Indians
+against them. As they dwelt for the most part
+in small, isolated communities, scattered over a
+great extent of country, it was obvious that, if
+these rumors were true, their lives were in imminent
+peril. They had every reason to expect,
+moreover, that the news of war between Mexico
+and the United States would bring down on them
+those forms of punishment and retaliation for
+which the Mexicans were notorious. They were
+confronted, therefore, with the alternative of abandoning
+the homes they had built and the fields
+they had tilled and seeking refuge in flight across
+the mountains, or of remaining to face those perils
+inseparable from border warfare. Nor did it take
+them long to decide upon resistance, for they were
+not of the breed which runs away.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving most of his men encamped in the foot-hills,
+Frémont pushed on to Monterey, then the
+most important settlement in Upper California,
+and the seat of the provincial government, where
+he called upon Don José Castro, the Mexican commandant,
+explained the purposes of his expedition,
+and requested permission for his party to proceed
+northward to the Columbia through the San Joaquin
+valley. This permission Castro grudgingly
+gave, but scarcely had Frémont broken camp before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+the Mexican, who had hastily gathered an
+overwhelming force of soldiers and vaqueros, set
+out upon the trail of the Americans with the
+avowed purpose of surprising and exterminating
+them. Fortunately for the Americans, Consul
+Larkin, getting wind of Castro's intended treachery,
+succeeded in warning Frémont, who instead
+of taking his chances in a battle on the plains
+against a greatly superior force, suddenly occupied
+the precipitous hill lying back of and
+commanding Monterey, known as the Hawk's
+Peak, intrenched himself there, and then sent
+word to Castro to come and take him. Although
+the Mexican commander made a military demonstration
+before the American intrenchments, he
+was wise enough to refrain from attempting to
+carry a position of such great natural strength
+and defended by such unerring shots as were
+Frémont's frontiersmen. Four days later Frémont,
+feeling that there was nothing to be gained
+by holding the position longer, and confident
+that the Mexicans would be only too glad to see
+his back, quietly broke camp one night and resumed
+his march toward Oregon.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he crossed the Oregon line, however,
+before he was overtaken by a messenger on
+a reeking horse, who had been despatched by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+Consul Larkin to inform him that an officer with
+urgent despatches from Washington had arrived
+at Monterey and was hastening northward to
+overtake him. Frémont immediately turned back,
+and on the shores of the Greater Klamath Lake
+met Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, who had
+travelled from New York to Vera Cruz by steamer,
+had crossed Mexico to Mazatlán on horseback,
+and had been brought up the Pacific coast to
+Monterey in an American war-ship. The exact
+contents of the despatches with which Gillespie
+had been intrusted will probably never be known,
+for having reason to believe that his mission was
+suspected by the Mexicans, and being fearful of
+arrest, he had destroyed the despatches after
+committing their contents to memory. These
+contents he communicated to Frémont, and the
+fact that the latter immediately turned his horse's
+head Californiawards is the best proof that they
+contained definite instructions for him to stir up
+the American settlers to revolt and so gain California
+for the Union by what some one has aptly
+described as "neutral conquest."</p>
+
+<p>The news of Frémont's return spread among the
+scattered settlers as though by wireless, and from
+all parts of the country hardy, determined men
+came pouring into camp to offer him their services.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+But his hands were tied. His instructions
+from Washington, while ordering him to
+lend his encouragement to an insurrectionary
+movement, expressly forbade him to take the initiative
+in any hostilities until he received word
+that war with Mexico had been declared&mdash;and
+that word had not yet come. These facts he
+communicated to the settlers. Frémont's assurance
+that the American Government sympathized
+with their aspirations for independence, and could
+be counted upon to back up any action they might
+take to secure it, was all that the settlers needed.
+On the evening of June 13, 1846, some fifty Americans
+living along the Sacramento River met at
+the ranch of an old Indian-fighter and bear-hunter
+named Captain Meredith, and under his leadership
+rode across the country in a northwesterly
+direction through the night. Dawn found them
+close to the presidio of Sonoma, which was the
+residence of the Mexican general Vallejo and the
+most important military post north of San Francisco.
+Leaving their horses in the shelter of the
+forest, the Americans stole silently forward in the
+dimness of the early morning, overpowered the
+sentries, burst in the gates, and had taken possession
+of the town and surrounded the barracks before
+the garrison was fairly awake. General Vallejo
+and his officers were captured in their beds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+and were sent under guard to a fortified ranch
+known as Sutter's fort, which was situated some
+distance in the interior. In addition to the prisoners,
+nine field-guns, several hundred stands of
+arms, and a considerable supply of ammunition
+fell into the hands of the Americans. The first
+blow had been struck in the conquest of California.</p>
+
+<p>The question now arose as to what they should
+do with the town they had captured, for Frémont
+had no authority to take it over for the United
+States, or to muster the men who took it into the
+American service. The embattled settlers found
+themselves, in fact, to be in the embarrassing position
+of being men without a country. After a
+council of war they decided to organize a <i>pro-tem</i>.
+government of their own to administer the territory
+until such time as it should be formally annexed
+to the United States. I doubt if a government
+was ever established so quickly and under
+such rough-and-ready circumstances. After an
+informal ballot it was announced that William B.
+Ide, a leading spirit among the settlers, had been
+unanimously elected governor and commander-in-chief
+"of the independent forces"; John H. Nash,
+who had been a justice of the peace in the East
+before he had emigrated to California, being named
+chief justice of the new republic.</p>
+
+<p>For a full-fledged nation not to have a flag of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+its own was, of course, unthinkable; so, as most of
+its citizens were hunters and adventurers, when
+some one suggested that the grizzly bear, because
+of its indomitable courage and tenacity and its
+ferocity when aroused, would make a peculiarly
+appropriate emblem for the new banner, the
+suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm and a
+committee of two was appointed to put it into
+immediate execution. A young settler named
+William Ford, who had been imprisoned by the
+Mexicans in the jail at Sonoma, and who had
+been released when his countrymen captured the
+place; and William Todd, an emigrant from Illinois,
+were the makers of the flag. On a piece of
+unbleached cotton cloth, a yard wide and a yard
+and a half long, they painted the rude figure of a
+grizzly bear ready to give battle. This strange
+banner they raised, at noon on June 14, amid a
+storm of cheers and a salute from the captured
+cannon, on the staff where so recently had floated
+the flag of Mexico, and from it the Bear Flag
+Republic took its name.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Frémont received the news of the
+capture of Sonoma and the proclamation of the
+Bear Flag Republic than word reached him that
+a large force of Mexicans was on its way to retake
+the town. Disregarding his instructions
+from Washington, and throwing all caution to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+the winds, Frémont instantly decided to stake
+everything on giving his support to his imperilled
+countrymen. His own men reinforced by a number
+of volunteers, he arrived at Sonoma after a
+forced march of thirty-six hours, only to find the
+Bear Flag men still in possession. The number
+of the enemy, as well as their intentions, had, it
+seems, been greatly exaggerated, the force in question
+being but a small party of troopers which
+Castro had despatched to the Mission of San
+Rafael, on the north shore of San Francisco Bay,
+to prevent several hundred cavalry remounts
+which were stabled there from falling into the
+hands of the Americans. Realizing the value of
+these horses to the settlers in the guerilla campaign,
+which seemed likely to ensue, Frémont succeeded
+in capturing them after a sharp skirmish with the
+Mexicans. Hurrying back to Sonoma, he learned
+that during his absence Ide and his men had repulsed
+an attack by a body of Mexican regulars,
+under General de la Torre, reinforced by a band
+of ruffians and desperadoes led by an outlaw
+named Padilla, inflicting so sharp a defeat that
+the only enemies left in that part of the country
+were the scattered fugitives from this force; these
+being hunted down and summarily dealt with by
+the frontiersmen. Having now irrevocably committed
+himself to the insurgent cause, and feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+that, if he were to be hanged, it might as well be
+for a sheep as for a lamb, Frémont decided on the
+capture of San Francisco. The San Francisco of
+1846 had little in common with the San Francisco
+of to-day, remember, for on the site where the
+great Western metropolis now stands there was
+nothing but a village consisting of a few-score
+adobe houses and the Mexican presidio, or fort,
+the latter containing a considerable supply of arms
+and ammunition. Accompanied by Kit Carson,
+Lieutenant Gillespie, and a small detachment of
+his men, Frémont crossed the Bay of San Francisco
+in a sailing-boat by night, and took the Mexican
+garrison so completely by surprise that they
+surrendered without firing a shot. The gateway
+to the Orient was ours.</p>
+
+<p>Frémont now prepared to take the offensive
+against Castro, who was retreating on Los Angeles,
+but just as he was about to start on his march
+southward a messenger brought the great news
+that Admiral Sloat, having received word that
+hostilities had commenced along the Rio Grande,
+had landed his marines at Monterey, and on July 7,
+to the thunder of saluting war-ships, had raised
+the American flag over the presidio, and had
+proclaimed the annexation of California to the
+Union. When the Bear Flag men learned the
+great news they went into a frenzy of enthusiasm;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+whooping, shouting, singing snatches of patriotic
+songs, and firing their pistols in the air. Quickly
+the standard of the fighting grizzly was lowered
+and the flag of stripes and stars hoisted in its
+place, while the rough-clad, bearded settlers, who
+had waited so long and risked so much that this
+very thing might come to pass, sang the Doxology
+with tears running down their faces. As the folds
+of the familiar banner caught the breeze and
+floated out over the flat-roofed houses of the little
+town, Ide, the late chief of the three-weeks republic,
+jumping on a powder barrel, swung his
+sombrero in the air and shouted: "Now, boys, all
+together, three cheers for the Union!" The moist
+eyes and the lumps in the throats brought by the
+sight of the old flag did not prevent the little
+band of frontiersmen from responding with a roar
+which made the windows of Sonoma rattle.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as a matter of fact, Admiral Sloat had
+placed himself in a very embarrassing position,
+for he had based his somewhat precipitate action
+in seizing California on what he had every reason
+to believe was authentic news that war between
+the United States and Mexico had actually begun,
+but which proved next day to be merely an unconfirmed
+rumor. If a state of war really did
+exist, then both Sloat and Frémont were justified
+in their aggressions; but if it did not, then they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+might have considerable difficulty in explaining
+their action in commencing hostilities against a
+nation with which we were at peace. So Sloat began
+"to get cold feet," asserting that he was forced
+to act as he had because he had received reliable
+information that the British, whose fleet was lying
+off Monterey, were on the point of seizing California
+themselves. Frémont, on his part, claimed
+to have acted in defence of the American settlers
+in the interior, who without his assistance would
+have been massacred by the Mexicans. At this
+juncture Commodore Stockton arrived at Monterey
+in the frigate <i>Congress</i>, and as Sloat was now
+thoroughly frightened and only too glad to transfer
+the responsibility he had assumed to other
+shoulders, Stockton, who was the junior officer,
+asked for and readily obtained permission to assume
+command of the operations. Frémont,
+who had reached Monterey with several hundred
+riflemen, was appointed commander-in-chief of
+the land forces by Stockton, and was ordered to
+embark his men on one of the war-ships and proceed
+at once to capture San Diego, at that time
+by far the most important place in California.
+Stockton himself, after raising the American flag
+over San Francisco and Santa Barbara, sailed
+down the coast to San Pedro, the port of Los
+Angeles, where he disembarked a force of bluejackets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+and marines for the taking of the latter
+city, within which the Mexican commander, General
+Castro, had shut himself up with a considerable
+number of troops, and where he promised to
+make a desperate resistance.</p>
+
+<p>As Stockton came marching up from San Pedro
+at the head of his column he was met by a Mexican
+carrying a flag of truce and bearing a message
+from Castro warning the American commander in
+the most solemn terms that if his forces dared to
+set foot within Los Angeles they would be going
+to their own funerals. "Present my compliments
+to General Castro," Stockton told the messenger,
+"and ask him to have the kindness to have the
+church bells tolled for our funerals at eight o'clock
+to-morrow morning, for at that hour I shall enter
+the city." Upon receipt of this disconcerting
+message Castro slipped out of Los Angeles that
+night, without firing a shot in its defence, and at
+eight o'clock on the following morning, Stockton,
+just as he had promised, came riding in at the
+head of his men.</p>
+
+<p>After garrisoning the surrounding towns and
+ridding the countryside of prowling bands of
+Mexican guerillas, Stockton officially proclaimed
+California a Territory of the United States, instituted
+a civil government along American lines,
+and appointed Frémont as the first Territorial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+governor. Before the year 1846 had drawn to a
+close these two Americans, the one a rough-and-ready
+sailor, the other a youthful and impetuous
+soldier, assisted by a few hundred marines and
+frontiersmen, had completed the conquest and
+pacification of a territory having a greater area
+and greater natural resources than those of all
+the countries conquered by Napoleon put together.
+Thus ended the happy, lazy, luxury-loving society
+of Spanish California. Another society, less luxurious,
+less light-hearted, less contented, but more
+energetic, more progressive, and better fitted for
+the upbuilding of a nation, took its place. There
+are still to be found in California a few men,
+white-haired and stoop-shouldered now, who
+were themselves actors in this drama I have described,
+and who delight to tell of those stirring
+days when Frémont and his frontiersmen came
+riding down from the passes, and the embattled
+settlers of Sonoma founded their short-lived
+Republic of the Bear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS</h2>
+
+
+<p>In one of the public squares of San José, which
+is the capital of Costa Rica, there is a marble
+statue of a stern-faced young woman, with her
+foot planted firmly on a gentleman's neck. The
+young woman is symbolic of the Republic of Costa
+Rica, and the gentleman ground beneath her heel
+is supposed to represent the American filibuster
+and soldier of fortune, William Walker. Now,
+before going any farther, justice requires me to
+explain that Walker's downfall was not due to
+Costa Rica, as the citizens of that little republic
+would like the world to believe, and as the bombastic
+statue in the plaza of its capital would lead
+one to suppose, but to a far greater and richer
+power, whose victories were won with dollars instead
+of bayonets, whose capital was New York
+City, and whose name was Cornelius Vanderbilt.</p>
+
+<p>To the younger generation the name of William
+Walker carries no significance, but to the gray-heads
+whose recollections antedate the Civil War
+the mention of it brings back a flood of thrilling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+memories, while throughout the length and breadth
+of that wild region lying between the Isthmus of
+Tehuantepec and the Isthmus of Panama it is
+still a synonym for unfaltering courage. His
+weakness was ambition; his fault was failure.
+Had he succeeded in realizing his ambitions&mdash;and
+he failed only by the narrowest of margins&mdash;he
+would have been lauded as another Cortez, and
+would have received stars and crosses instead of
+bullets. Had his life not been cut short by a
+Honduran firing-party, it is possible, indeed
+probable, that, instead of there being six states in
+Central America there would be but one, and in
+that one the institution of slavery might still
+exist. Though I have scant sympathy with the
+motives which animated Walker, and though I
+believe that his death was for the best good of the
+Central American peoples, he was the very antithesis
+of the cutthroat and blackguard and outlaw
+which he has been painted, being, on the contrary,
+a very brave and honest gentleman, of whom
+his countrymen have no reason to feel ashamed,
+and that is why I am going to tell his story.</p>
+
+<p>The eldest son of a Scotch banker, Walker was
+born in 1824 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father,
+a stiff-necked Presbyterian who held morning and
+evening prayers, asked an interminable grace before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+every meal, and took his family to church
+three times on Sunday, had set his heart on his
+son entering the ministry, and it was with a pulpit
+and parish in view that young Walker was educated.
+By the time that he was ready to enter the
+theological school, however, he decided that he
+preferred M.D. instead of D.D. after his name,
+whereupon, much to his father's disappointment,
+he insisted on taking the medical course at the
+University of Tennessee, following it up by two
+years at the University of Edinburgh. Thoroughly
+equipped to practise his chosen profession,
+he opened an office in Philadelphia, but in a few
+months the routine of a doctor's life palled upon
+him, so, taking down his brass door-plate, he went
+to New Orleans, where, after two years of study, he
+was admitted to the bar. But he soon found that
+briefs and summonses were scarcely more to his
+liking than prescriptions and pills, so, with the
+prompt decision which was one of his most marked
+characteristics, he closed his law-office and obtained
+a position as editorial writer on a New
+Orleans newspaper. Within a year the restlessness
+which had led him to abandon the church,
+medicine, and the bar caused him to give up
+journalism in its turn. At this time, 1852, the
+Californian gold fever was at its mad height, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+to the Pacific coast were pouring streams of fortune-seekers
+and adventure-lovers from every
+quarter of the globe. One of the latter was
+Walker, and it was while editor of the San Francisco
+<i>Herald</i>, when only twenty-eight years old,
+that his amazing career really began.</p>
+
+<p>Walker was not of the sort who could content
+himself for any length of time within the stuffy
+walls of an editorial sanctum. His fingers were
+made to grasp something more virile than the
+pen. Nor did he make any attempt to win a fortune
+with pick and shovel in the gold fields. His
+ambitions were neither intellectual nor mercenary,
+but political, for from his boyhood days in Nashville
+he had dreamed, as all boys worth their salt
+do dream, of some day founding a state, with
+himself as its ruler, in that wild and savage region
+below the Rio Grande. Enlisting half a hundred
+kindred souls from the hordes of the reckless, the
+adventurous, and the needy which were pouring
+into California by boat and wagon-train, Walker
+chartered a small vessel and set sail from San
+Francisco for the coast of Mexico. His avowed
+object was a purely humanitarian one: to protect
+the women and children living along the Mexican
+frontier from massacre by the Indians, the state
+of Sonora being at that time more under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+dominion of the Apaches than it was under that
+of Mexico. But it was not the protection of the
+women and children&mdash;though they needed protection
+badly enough, goodness knows&mdash;which led
+Walker to embark on this hare-brained expedition.
+He was lured southward by a dream of empire,
+an empire of which he should be the ruler, and
+which should be founded on slavery. By this
+time, remember, the slavery question in the
+United States had become exceedingly acute, the
+future of the institution on this continent largely
+depending upon whether the next States admitted
+to the Union should be slave or free. Walker was
+a sincere, even fanatical, believer in slavery.
+Born and reared in an atmosphere of slavery, to
+Walker it was as sacred, as God-given an institution
+as the Fast of Ramadan is to the Moslem or
+the Feast of the Passover to the Jew. Convinced
+that friction over this question would sooner or
+later force the slave-holding States to secede from
+the Union, he determined to extend the area of
+slavery by conquering that portion of northern
+Mexico immediately adjacent to the United States,
+to establish an independent government there, and
+eventually to annex his country to the South, thus
+counteracting the growing movement for abolition,
+which, with the admission of new Northern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+territories, already hinted at the overthrow of
+slavery.</p>
+
+<p>Financed by Southern friends whose motives
+were probably considerably less altruistic than his
+own, Walker landed at Cape San Lucas, the extreme
+southern point of the Mexican territory of
+Southern California, in October, 1852, with an
+"army of invasion" of forty-five men. Instead
+of hastening to protect the women and children
+of whom he had talked so feelingly, he sailed
+up the coast to the territorial capital of La Paz,
+which he seized, where he issued a proclamation
+announcing the annexation of the neighboring
+state of Sonora, in which he had not yet set
+foot, giving to the two states the name of the
+"Republic of Sonora," and proclaiming himself
+its first president. As soon as the news of this
+initial success reached San Francisco, Walker's
+sympathizers there busied themselves in recruiting
+reinforcements, three hundred desperadoes who
+boasted that they were afraid of nothing "on two
+feet or four" being shipped to him at La Paz a
+few weeks later. These men were looked upon
+as hard cases even in the San Francisco of the
+early fifties, and, if they had not consented to
+leave the country to assist Walker, many of them
+would probably have left it sooner or later at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+end of a rope in the hands of the local vigilance
+committee. When this force of scoundrels arrived
+at La Paz and found themselves under the
+command of a quiet, mild-mannered, beardless
+youth of twenty-eight, instead of the brawny,
+foul-mouthed, swashbuckling leader whom they
+had expected, they promptly hatched a scheme to
+blow up the magazine, seize the ship and the stores
+of the expedition in the ensuing confusion, and
+make their way back to the United States, leaving
+Walker to shift for himself. Warning of the conspiracy
+reaching him, however, Walker displayed
+for the first time those traits which were later to
+make his name a word of terror in the ears of men
+who bragged that they feared neither God nor
+man. Arresting the ringleaders, he had two of
+them tried by court-martial and shot within an
+hour; two of the others he ordered flogged and
+drummed out of camp, to take their chances among
+the hostile Mexicans and Indians. But, though
+this act gained Walker the fear and respect of his
+followers, the newcomers among them had no
+stomach for a leader who could punish, so when
+he called for volunteers to accompany him in the
+conquest of Sonora less than a hundred men
+offered to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>From the very first the shadow of failure hung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+over the enterprise. To begin with, there is no
+more savage and desolate region on the American
+continent than the peninsula of Lower California,
+it being so barren and destitute that even the lizards
+have to scramble for an existence. Mexicans
+and Indians hung upon the flanks of the little column
+night and day, as buzzards follow a dying
+steer. There was neither medicine nor medical
+instruments with the expedition, and the wounded
+died from lack of the most elementary care.
+Their shoes gave out and the men marched bare-foot
+over sun-scorched rocks and needle cactus,
+leaving a trail of crimson behind them in the sand.
+Their provisions were soon exhausted, and their
+only food was beef which they killed on the march.
+For years afterward the route of that ill-fated
+expedition could be traced from La Paz to the
+Colorado River by the bleaching skeletons of the
+men who fell by the way. By the time the head
+of the Gulf of California was reached the expedition
+had dwindled to barely twoscore men. It
+was no longer a question of conquering Sonora;
+it was a question of getting back to the States
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>With sinking heart, but imperturbable face,
+Walker led his little band of starving, fever-racked,
+exhausted men toward the Californian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+line. Three miles of road led through a mountain
+pass into the United States and safety. But
+the pass was held by a force of Mexican soldiery
+under Colonel Melendrez, and his Indian
+allies were scattered over the plain below. And,
+as though to give a final touch of irony to the
+situation in which Walker and his men found
+themselves, from their position on the Mexican
+hillside they could look across into American territory,
+could see the American flag, their flag,
+fluttering over the military post south of San
+Diego, could even see the sun glinting upon the
+bits and sabres of the troop of American cavalry
+drawn up along the border. Four Indians bearing
+a flag of truce approached. They bore a message
+from the Mexican commander to the filibusters.
+If they would surrender their leader and give up
+their arms, Melendrez sent word, they would be
+permitted to leave the country unmolested. But
+after you have fought and bled and marched and
+starved with a man for a year, you are not likely
+to abandon him, particularly when the end is in
+sight, so they sent back word to Melendrez that
+if he wanted their arms he would have to come
+and take them. Meanwhile the American commander,
+Major McKinstry, had drawn up his
+troopers along the boundary-line and awaited the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+result of the unequal struggle like an umpire at a
+foot-ball game. Walker, who knew perfectly well
+that he deserved no aid from the United States,
+and that he would get none, appreciated that if
+he was to get out of this predicament alive it
+must be by his own wits. Concealing a dozen of
+his men among the rocks and sage-brush which
+lined the road on either side, with the remainder
+of his force he pretended to beat a panic-stricken
+retreat. Melendrez, confident that it was now
+all over but the shouting, swept down the road in
+pursuit. But as the Mexicans rode into the ambush
+which Walker had prepared for them the
+hidden filibusters emptied a dozen saddles at a
+single volley, and the soldiers, terrified and demoralized,
+wheeled and fled for their lives. Thirty
+minutes later the President, the Cabinet, and all
+that remained of the standing army of the late
+Republic of Sonora stumbled across the American
+boundary and surrendered to Major McKinstry.
+It was May 8, 1854, and in such fashion Walker
+celebrated his thirtieth birthday.</p>
+
+<p>Sent to San Francisco as a political prisoner,
+Walker was tried for violating the neutrality laws
+of the United States, was acquitted&mdash;for the members
+of a Californian jury could not but sympathize
+with such a man&mdash;and once again found himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+writing editorials for the San Francisco <i>Herald</i>.
+His narrow escape from death in Mexico had only
+served to whet his appetite for adventure, however,
+so when he was not doing his newspaper work he
+was poring over an atlas in search of some other
+land where a determined man might carve out a
+career for himself with his sword. Staring at the
+map of Middle America, his finger again and again
+paused, as though by instinct, on Nicaragua.
+Here was indeed a fertile field for the filibuster.
+Not only was the country enormously rich in
+every form of natural resources, but it had a
+kindly and moderately healthy climate, and, what
+was the most important of all, owing to its peculiar
+geographical position, it commanded what was at
+that time one of the great trade-routes of the
+world. At this time there were three routes to
+the Californian gold-fields: one, the long and weary
+voyage around the Horn; another, by the dangerous
+and costly Overland Trail; and the third,
+which was the shortest, cheapest, and most popular,
+across Nicaragua. If you will glance at the
+map, you will see that, barring the Isthmus of
+Panama, which is several hundred miles farther
+south, Nicaragua is the narrowest neck of land
+between the two great oceans, and that in the
+middle of this neck is the great Lake Nicaragua,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+which is upward of fifty miles in width. An American
+corporation known as the Accessory Transit
+Company, of which the first Cornelius Vanderbilt
+was president, had obtained a concession from
+the Nicaraguan Government to transport passengers
+across Central America by this route. Passengers
+<i>en route</i> from New York or New Orleans
+to the gold-fields were landed by the company's
+steamers at Greytown, on the Atlantic coast
+of Nicaragua, and transported thence by light-draught
+steamers up the San Juan River to Lake
+Nicaragua. Here they were transferred to larger
+steamers and taken across the lake to Virgin Bay,
+the twelve-mile journey from there to the port of
+San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua,
+being performed in carriages or on the backs of
+mules. During a single year twenty-five thousand
+passengers crossed Nicaragua by this route.
+It did not take Walker long to appreciate, therefore,
+that the man who succeeded in making himself
+master of this, the shortest route to California,
+would be in a position of considerable strength.
+Not only this, but Nicaragua was torn by internal
+dissensions; the army was divided into a dozen
+factions; the peasantry were down-trodden and
+poverty-stricken; the government was inconceivably
+corrupt; and the usual revolution was, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+course, in progress, in which the sister republics
+of Honduras and Costa Rica were preparing to
+take a hand. Everything considered, Nicaragua's
+only hope of salvation from anarchy lay in finding
+for a ruler a man with an inflexible sense of
+justice and an iron hand. Walker determined to
+be that man.</p>
+
+<p>In view of what I have already told of his exploits,
+you have doubtless pictured Walker as a
+tall, broad-shouldered man of commanding presence.
+As a matter of fact, he was nothing of the
+sort. In height he was but five feet five inches,
+and correspondingly slender. A remarkably square
+jaw and a long chin lent strength and determination
+to features which were plain almost to the
+point of coarseness. His eyes, which were of a
+singularly light gray, are universally spoken of as
+having been his most noticeable feature, for they
+were so large and fixed that the eyelids scarcely
+showed, and so penetrating that they seemed to
+bore holes into the person at whom they were
+looking. He was extremely taciturn, and when he
+did speak it was briefly and to the point. He had
+an unusual command of English, however, and
+his words were always carefully chosen. A
+stranger to fear, men who followed him on his
+campaigns assert that even under the most trying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+and perilous circumstances they had never seen
+him change countenance or betray emotion by so
+much as the contraction of a muscle. He was
+wholly lacking in personal vanity, and when in
+the field wore his trousers tucked into his boots, a
+flannel shirt open at the neck, and a faded black
+campaign hat. In a land where all three habits
+were universal, he neither drank, smoked, nor
+swore; he never looked at women; his word, once
+given, was never broken; the justice he meted
+out to disobedient followers, though stern to the
+point of brutality, was absolutely impartial.
+Highly ambitious, it is paying but the barest justice
+to his memory to say that his aspirations,
+however little we may sympathize with them,
+were wholly political and never mercenary, his
+whole career showing him to be utterly careless
+of wealth. Taking everything into consideration,
+we have good reason to be proud that William
+Walker was an American.</p>
+
+<p>In 1854, as I have already remarked, Nicaragua
+was split asunder by civil war. The opposing
+parties were the Legitimists and the Democrats.
+What they were fighting about is of no consequence;
+perhaps they did not know themselves.
+In any event, in August of that year an American
+named Byron Cole, acting as an agent for Walker,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+arrived at the headquarters of the Democratic
+forces with a novel offer. Briefly, he agreed to
+contract to supply the Democratic party with
+three hundred American "colonists liable to military
+duty," these settlers to receive a grant of
+fifty-two thousand acres of land, and to have the
+privilege of becoming citizens of Nicaragua. This
+contract was approved and signed by General
+Castillon, the Democratic leader, and with it in
+his pocket Cole hastened to San Francisco and
+Walker. After taking the precaution of submitting
+the contract to the civil and military authorities
+in San Francisco, and receiving their assurances
+that it did not violate the neutrality laws of
+the United States, Walker immediately set about
+recruiting his "colonists," and in May, 1855, just
+a year after his escape from Mexico, he was ready
+to sail. Although, as I have said, the Federal
+authorities had passed upon the legality of the
+contract, it was a noticeable fact that the peaceable
+settlers took with them Winchester rifles instead
+of spades, and Colt's revolvers instead of
+hoes, and that the hold of the brig <i>Vesta</i>, on which
+they sailed from San Francisco, was filled with
+ammunition and machine guns instead of agricultural
+implements and machinery.</p>
+
+<p>After a long and stormy voyage down the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+Pacific coast Walker and his men landed, on
+June 16, at the port of Realejo, in Nicaragua,
+where he was met by Castillon. Walker was at
+once commissioned a colonel; Achilles Kewen, who
+had just come from Cuba, where he had been
+fighting under the patriot Lopez, a lieutenant-colonel;
+and Timothy Crocker, a fighting Irishman,
+who was a veteran of Walker's Sonora expedition,
+a major; the corps being organized as an
+independent command under the name of <i>La
+Falange Americana</i>&mdash;the American Phalanx. At
+this time the Transit route from the Atlantic to
+the Pacific was held by the Legitimist forces, and
+these Walker was ordered to dislodge, it being
+essential to the success of the Democrats that
+they gain possession of this interoceanic highway.
+Accordingly, a week after setting foot in Nicaragua,
+Walker, at the head of fifty-seven of his
+Americans and one hundred and fifty native soldiers,
+set out for Rivas, a town on the western
+shore of Lake Nicaragua held by twelve hundred
+of the enemy. The first battle of his Nicaraguan
+campaign ended in the most complete disaster.
+At the first volley his native allies bolted, leaving
+the Americans surrounded by ten times their
+number of Legitimists. The enemy instantly
+perceived this defection, and pressed the Phalanx<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+so hard that its members were driven to take
+shelter behind a row of adobe huts. No one knew
+better than Walker that if the enemy charged he
+and his men were done for, so he decided to do the
+charging himself. Out from behind the huts
+dashed the red-shirted filibusters, firing as they
+came, and so ferocious was their onslaught that
+they succeeded in cutting their way through the
+encircling army and escaping into the jungle.
+Though six of the Americans were killed, including
+Walker's two lieutenants, Kewen and Crocker,
+and twice as many wounded, the battle of Rivas
+established the reputation of Americans in Central
+America for years to come, for a hundred and
+fifty of the enemy fell before their deadly fire.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs09wwalker.png" width="600" height="353" alt="General William Walker and his men, after a long and stormy voyage, landing at Virgin Bay,
+en route to Costa Rica.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library." title="" />
+<span class="caption">General William Walker and his men, after a long and stormy voyage, landing at Virgin Bay,
+en route to Costa Rica.<br />
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Bleeding and exhausted from battle and travel,
+Walker and his men, after an all-night march
+through the jungle, limped into the port of San
+Juan del Sur, and, finding a Costa Rican vessel in
+the harbor, they seized it for their own use. Still
+bearing in mind the necessity of getting control
+of the Transit route, Walker gave his men only a
+few days in which to recover from their wounds
+and weariness, and then was off again, this time
+for Virgin Bay, the halting-place for passengers
+going east or west. Though in the fight which
+ensued Walker was outnumbered five to one, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+losses were only three natives killed and a few
+Americans wounded, while one hundred and fifty
+of the enemy fell before the rifles of the filibusters.
+This disparity of losses emphasizes, as does nothing
+else, the deadliness of the American fire.</p>
+
+<p>After the fight at Virgin Bay Walker received
+from California fifty recruits, thus bringing the
+force under his command up to some four hundred
+men, about a third of whom were Americans.
+The Legitimists, learning that he was planning to
+again attack Rivas, hastened to reinforce the garrison
+of that town by hurrying troops there from
+their headquarters at Granada, which was farther
+up the lake, planning to give Walker a warm and
+unexpected reception. But it was Walker who did
+the surprising, for, having his own channels of
+secret information, he no sooner learned of the
+weakened condition of Granada than he determined
+to direct his efforts against that place,
+instead of Rivas, and by capturing it to give the
+Legitimist cause a solar-plexus blow. Embarking
+his men on a small steamer with the announced
+intention of attacking Rivas, as soon as night
+fell he turned in the opposite direction and, with
+lights out and fires banked, steamed silently up the
+lake. Dawn found him off Granada, the garrison
+and inhabitants of which were sleeping off a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+drunken debauch with which they had celebrated
+a recent victory. Even the sentries drowsed at
+their posts. Unobserved, the Americans landed
+in the semi-darkness of the early dawn, and it
+was not until they had reached the very outskirts
+of the town that a sentry suddenly awakened to
+their presence and gave the alarm by letting off
+his rifle, the shot being instantly answered by a
+crackle of musketry as the Americans opened fire.
+"Charge!" shouted Walker, "Get at 'em! Get at
+'em!" and dashed forward at a run, a revolver in
+each hand, with his followers, cheering like madmen,
+close at his heels. "Los Filibusteros! Los Filibusteros!"
+screamed the terror-stricken inhabitants,
+catching sight of the red shirts and scarlet hat-bands
+of the Americans. "Run for your lives!" The demoralized
+garrison made a brief and ineffective
+stand in the Plaza, and then threw down their arms.
+Walker was master of Granada. He at once instituted
+a military government, released over a
+hundred political prisoners confined in the local
+jail, policed the town as effectually as though it
+were a New England village, and when he caught
+one of his native soldiers in the act of looting, ran
+him through with his sword.</p>
+
+<p>Walker was now in a position to dictate his own
+terms of peace, and, four months after he and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+fifty-seven followers landed in Nicaragua, an
+armistice was arranged and the side to which the
+Americans had lent their aid was in power. A
+native named Rivas was made provisional president,
+and Walker was appointed commander-in-chief
+of the army, which at that time numbered
+about twelve hundred men. Though insignificant
+in numbers when judged by European standards,
+this was really a remarkable force, and perhaps
+the most effective for its size known to military
+history. The officers had all seen service under
+many flags and in many lands&mdash;in Cuba, Mexico,
+Brazil, Spain, Algeria, Italy, Egypt, Russia, India,
+China&mdash;and the men, nearly all of whom had been
+recruited in San Francisco, boasted that "California
+was the pick of the world, and they were
+the pick of California." There was scarcely a
+man among them who could not flick the ashes
+from a cigar with his revolver at a hundred feet,
+or with his rifle hit a dollar held between a man's
+thumb and forefinger at a hundred yards. All
+the strange, wild natures for whom even the mining-camps
+of California had grown too tame
+were drawn to Walker's flag as iron filings are
+drawn to a magnet. Frederick Townsend Ward,
+the New England youth who raised, trained, and
+led the Ever-Victorious Army, who rose to be an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+admiral-general of China, and who performed the
+astounding exploits for which General Charles
+Gordon received the credit, gained much of his
+military training under Walker; Joaquin Miller,
+"the poet of the Sierras," was another of his devoted
+followers, while scores of the other men who
+fought under the blue-and-white banner with the
+scarlet star in later years achieved name and fame
+in many different lands.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs10reviewing.jpg" width="600" height="454" alt="General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza, Granada.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library." title="" />
+<span class="caption">General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza, Granada.<br />
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Says General Charles Frederic Henningsen,
+the famous English soldier of fortune who was
+Walker's second in command: "I have heard two
+greasy privates disputing over the correct reading
+and comparative merits of Ćschylus and Euripides.
+I have seen a soldier on guard incessantly scribbling
+strips of paper, which turned out to be a
+finely versified translation of his dog's-eared copy
+of the <i>Divina Commedia</i>." The same officer, who
+had fought with distinction under Don Carlos in
+Spain, under Schamyl in the Caucasus, and
+under Kossuth in Hungary, who had introduced
+the Minié rifle into the American service, and
+was a recognized authority on the use of artillery,
+and therefore knew whereof he spoke, also
+testifies to the heroism and astounding fortitude
+of Walker's men. "I have often seen them marching
+with a broken or a compound-fractured arm in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+splints, and using the other to fire the rifle or revolver.
+Those with a fractured thigh, or with
+wounds which rendered them incapable of removal,
+often (or rather, in early times, always)
+shot themselves, sooner than fall into the hands
+of the enemy. Such men do not turn up in the
+average of every-day life, nor do I ever expect to
+see their like again. I was on the Confederate
+side in many of the bloodiest battles of the late
+war, but I aver that if, at the end of that war I
+had been allowed to pick five thousand of the
+bravest Confederate or Federal soldiers I ever saw,
+and could resurrect and pit against them one thousand
+of such men as lie beneath the orange-trees
+of Nicaragua, I feel certain that the thousand
+would have scattered and utterly routed the five
+thousand within an hour. All military science
+failed, on a suddenly given field, before assailants
+who came on at a run, to close with their revolvers,
+and who thought little of charging a battery,
+pistol in hand." As a matter of fact, at the first
+battle of Rivas, ten Americans, all officers of the
+Phalanx, armed only with bowie-knives and revolvers,
+actually did charge and capture a battery
+manned by more than a hundred Costa Ricans,
+half of the little band being killed in that astounding
+exploit. Some estimate of the deeds of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+unsung heroes, so many of whom lie in unmarked
+graves beneath an alien sky, may be gathered
+from the surgical reports, which showed that the
+proportion of wounds treated was <i>one hundred and
+thirty-seven to every hundred men</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For several months after the taking of Granada
+and the establishment of a provisional government,
+the dove of peace hovered over Nicaragua
+as though desirous of alighting, but in February,
+1856, it was driven away, at least for a time, by
+a fresh splutter of musketry along the southern
+frontier, where Costa Rica, alarmed by Walker's
+reputed ambition to make himself master of all
+Middle America, had begun an invasion with the
+expressed purpose of driving the <i>gringos</i> from
+Central American soil. After a few months of
+desperate fighting, in which the Americans fully
+maintained their reputation for reckless bravery,
+the Costa Ricans were driven across the border,
+and for a brief time the harassed Nicaraguans
+were able to exchange their rifles for their hoes.
+The country now being for the moment at peace,
+Rivas called a presidential election, announcing
+himself as the candidate of the Democrats. The
+Legitimists, recognizing in Walker the one strong
+man of the country, had the political shrewdness
+to choose him, their former enemy, to head their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+ticket. Two other candidates, Ferrer and Salazar,
+were also in the field. The election was regular
+in every respect, the voting being entirely free
+from the usual disturbances. According to the
+Nicaraguan constitution, every male inhabitant
+over eighteen years of age, criminals excepted, is
+entitled to the suffrage. When the votes were
+counted it was found that Rivas had received 867
+votes; Salazar, 2,087; Ferrer, 4,447; and Walker,
+15,835. By such an overwhelming majority, and
+in an absolutely fair election, was William Walker
+made President of Nicaragua&mdash;the first and only
+time an American has ever been chosen ruler of a
+foreign and independent state.</p>
+
+<p>In all its troubled history Nicaragua has never
+been governed so justly and so wisely as it was by
+the American soldier of fortune. Had he been
+free from foreign interference there is little doubt
+that he would have made Nicaragua a progressive,
+prosperous, and contented country, and that he
+would in time have brought under one government
+and one flag all the states lying between
+Yucatan and Panama. But that was precisely
+what the peoples of those states were fearful of,
+so that, a few weeks after Walker was inaugurated,
+Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, and San
+Salvador declared war. This time Walker took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+the field with three thousand trained and seasoned
+veterans, while opposed to him were twenty-one
+thousand of the allies. To describe the campaign
+that ensued would be as profitless as it would be
+tedious. The programme was always the same:
+the march by night through the silent, steaming
+jungle, and the stealthy surrounding of the threatened
+town in the early dawn; the warning crack
+of a startled sentry's rifle; the sudden rush of the
+filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking
+of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza,
+nearly always at the pistol's point; and the panic-stricken
+retreat of the little brown men in their
+uniforms of soiled white linen. Everywhere the
+arms of Walker were triumphant, and had he not
+at this time deliberately crossed the path of a
+soldier of fortune of quite another kind, in a few
+months more he would have realized his life-dream
+and have made himself the ruler of a Central
+American empire.</p>
+
+<p>Upon investigating national affairs after his
+election, Walker found that the Accessory Transit
+Company had not lived up to the terms of its concession
+from the government of Nicaragua. By
+the terms of its charter it had agreed to pay to the
+Nicaraguan Government ten thousand dollars annually,
+and ten per cent of its net profits. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+company claimed, and the government as stoutly
+denied, that the ten thousand dollars had been
+regularly paid, though the concessionaires admitted
+that the ten per cent on the profits had
+not been paid, giving as their excuse that there
+had been no profits. Upon an examination of the
+books it was quickly discovered that the company
+had so juggled with the accounts as to make it appear
+that there were no profits, when, as a matter
+of fact, the enterprise was an enormously profitable
+one. Upon discovering the fraud which had been
+perpetrated upon the government and people of
+Nicaragua, Walker demanded back payments to
+the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars, and upon the company insolently refusing
+to pay them, he promptly revoked its charter,
+and seized its steamboats, wharves, and warehouses
+as security for the debt. Though this
+action was perfectly justifiable under the circumstances,
+it was, in view of the instability of Walker's
+position, an unwise move, for it made an
+implacable enemy of one of the most powerful
+and perhaps the most unscrupulous of the financiers
+of the time.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs11programme.jpg" width="600" height="392" alt="The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the filibusters with their high,
+shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the filibusters with their high,
+shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza.<br />
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Cornelius Vanderbilt was not a person who
+could be bluffed or frightened. Infuriated at the
+action of the filibuster President, he immediately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+withdrew from service the ships of the Transit
+Company in both oceans, thus cutting off communication
+between Nicaragua and the United States,
+and thereby Walker's source of supplies. But the
+grim old financier was not content with that. Recruiting
+a force of foreign adventurers on his own
+account, he despatched them to Central America
+with orders to assist the Costa Ricans, whom he
+liberally supplied with money, arms, and ammunition,
+in their war against Walker. Turning then
+to Washington, he had little difficulty in inducing
+Secretary of State Marcy, who was known to be
+one of his creatures, to use the government forces
+in driving Walker out of Nicaragua. To Commodore
+Mervin, who was his personal friend,
+Secretary Marcy communicated his wishes, or
+rather Vanderbilt's wishes, and these Mervin in
+turn transmitted to Captain Davis, commanding
+the man-of-war <i>St. Mary's</i>, who was ordered to
+proceed at full speed to San Juan del Sur, on the
+Pacific coast of Nicaragua, and to force Walker
+out of that country. Never has the government
+of the United States lent itself to the designs of
+predatory wealth so disgracefully and so flagrantly
+as it did when, at the dictation of Cornelius Vanderbilt,
+and without a shadow of right or excuse,
+it used the American navy to oust William Walker<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+from the presidency to which he had been legally
+elected by a sovereign people. Its unjustified
+persecution of Walker to serve the spite of a
+money-lord forms one of the darkest stains on
+our national history.</p>
+
+<p>When Davis arrived in Nicaragua he found
+Walker, his forces terribly reduced by death, fever,
+and desertion (for his means of supply had, as I
+have said, been stopped), besieged by the allies in
+the town of Rivas. Food was running short, the
+hospital was filled with wounded, and many of
+his men were helpless from fever. Captain Davis
+demanded that Walker surrender to him upon the
+ground of humanity, but the indomitable filibuster
+replied that when he did not have enough men
+left to man the guns he intended to take refuge
+on board his little schooner, the <i>Granada</i>, which
+lay in the harbor, and seek his fortune elsewhere.
+"You will not do that," answered Davis, "for
+I am going to seize your vessel." With his
+only hope of escape thus cut off, there was
+nothing for Walker to do but capitulate. Therefore,
+on May 1, 1857, William Walker, President
+of Nicaragua, whose title was as legally sound as
+that of any ruler in the world, surrendered to the
+forces his own country had sent against him, and
+one more argument was given to those who claimed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+that it was not liberty which we upheld and worshipped,
+but the almighty dollar. When Walker
+arrived in New York a few weeks later he found
+the city bedecked with flags and bunting in his
+honor. On but two other occasions has the
+American metropolis given such a reception to a
+visitor: once when Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot,
+rode up Broadway, and years later, when
+Dewey returned, fresh from his victory at Manila.
+Walker's drive from the Battery to Madison Square
+was like a triumphal progress, for his gallantry in
+action and his successes against overwhelming
+odds had aroused the admiration of his countrymen,
+just as his outrageous treatment by the government
+had excited their indignation. Though
+legally he had serious grounds for complaint, he
+received scant consideration when he placed his
+demands for reparation before the Department
+of State at Washington. But the cold shoulder
+turned toward him by official Washington was
+more than made up for by the welcome he received
+in the South, where he was acclaimed as a
+hero and a martyr. He was banqueted in every
+town and city from Baltimore to New Orleans,
+and when he entered a box in the opera-house of
+the latter place, the audience, forgetting the play,
+rose as one man to cheer him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Within a month Walker had raised enough
+money and recruits in the South to enable him to
+try his fortunes once more in Nicaragua. Sailing
+from New Orleans with one hundred and fifty
+men, he landed at San Juan del Norte, on the Caribbean
+side, marched upon and captured the
+town of Castillo Viejo together with four of the
+Transit Company's steamers, and was, indeed, in
+a fair way to again make himself master of Nicaragua
+when the United States once more interfered,
+the frigate <i>Wabash</i>, under command of
+Commodore Hiram Pawlding, dropping anchor in
+a position where her guns commanded the filibusters'
+camp, her commander demanding Walker's
+immediate surrender. The flag-officer who
+presented Walker with Pawlding's demand tactlessly
+remarked: "General, I'm sorry to see you
+here. A man like you deserves to command better
+men." "If I had even a third of the force you
+have brought against me," Walker responded
+grimly, "I'd soon show you who commands the
+better men." For the third time in his career
+Walker was forced to surrender to his own countrymen,
+and was sent north under parole as a
+prisoner of war. But, although Pawlding had
+acted precisely as Davis had done, President
+Buchanan, instead of thanking him, not only publicly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+reprimanded him, but retired him from
+active service, and when Walker presented himself
+at the White House as a prisoner, refused to
+receive his surrender, or to recognize him as being
+in the custody of the United States. All of which,
+however, was scant consolation for Walker.</p>
+
+<p>To regain the presidency of which he had been
+unjustly deprived had now become an obsession
+with Walker. In spite of a proclamation issued
+by President Buchanan forbidding him to take
+further part in Central American affairs, he
+sailed from Mobile, on December 1, 1858, with a
+hundred and fifty of his veterans. His voyage
+was brought to a sudden and wholly unlooked-for
+termination, however, for he was wrecked in a
+gale off the coast of Honduras, whence he was
+rescued by a British war-ship which happened to
+be in the vicinity and brought back to the United
+States. By this time Walker had become almost
+as much of a nightmare to the governments of the
+United States and Great Britain (for the latter,
+both because of the proximity of her colony of
+British Honduras and of her large financial interests
+in the other Central American countries, had
+no desire to see that region again plunged into
+war) as Napoleon was to the Holy Alliance, and
+as a result both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+of Nicaragua were patrolled by the war-ships of
+the two nations to prevent Walker's return. Appreciating
+that, under the circumstances, it was
+about as easy for him to land on Nicaraguan soil
+as it was to land on the moon, Walker, with
+a hundred of his devoted followers, slipped silently
+out of Mobile harbor on an August night in 1860,
+and landed, a few days later, on a little island off
+the coast of Honduras known as Ruatan.</p>
+
+<p>And so we come to the last chapter in this extraordinary
+man's extraordinary career. Within
+a day after his landing at Ruatan, Walker had
+crossed to the mainland and captured the important
+seaport of Trujillo. But the ill-fortune
+which from the beginning had dogged him like
+a shadow was not to desert him now, for scarcely
+had the flag of Honduras which fluttered above the
+barracks been replaced by the blue-and-white
+banner of the filibusters when a British frigate
+dropped anchor off the town. Twenty minutes
+later a boat's crew of British bluejackets tossed
+their oars as they ran alongside Trujillo wharf,
+and a naval officer immaculate in white and
+gold, stepping ashore, inquired for General Walker,
+and presented him with a message. It was
+from Captain Salmon, commanding the British
+man-of-war <i>Icarus</i>, which lay outside, and demanded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+the immediate evacuation of the city by
+the filibusters, as the British Government held a
+mortgage on the revenues of the port and intended
+to protect them, by force if necessary. Walker
+answered that as he had made Trujillo a free port,
+the British claims were no longer valid. "Captain
+Salmon instructs me to inform you, sir,"
+replied the British officer, as he prepared to re-enter
+his gig, "that he will give you until to-morrow
+morning to make your decision. If you
+do not then surrender he will be compelled to
+bombard the town." As a strong force of Hondurans
+had in the mean time appeared on the land
+side of the city and were preparing to attack,
+Walker realized that his position had become untenable,
+so that night he and his men slipped
+silently out of the sleeping city and started down
+the coast with the intention of making their way
+overland to Nicaragua. When the British landed
+the next morning they were only just in time to
+prevent the sick and wounded whom Walker had
+been forced to leave behind him in his retreat from
+falling into the hands of the ferocious Hondurans.
+Learning of Walker's flight, Salmon immediately
+started down the coast on the <i>Icarus</i> in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>They overtook Walker at a little fishing village<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+near the mouth of the Rio Negro, several boat-loads
+of sailors and marines being sent up the
+river to take him. But the coast of Honduras is
+a good second to the Gold Coast in the deadliness
+of its climate, so that when the landing party
+reached the little cluster of wretched hovels where
+Walker and his men had taken refuge, they found
+the filibusters too far gone with fever to oppose
+them. To Captain Salmon's demand for an unconditional
+surrender, Walker, who was so weak that
+he could scarcely stand, inquired if he was surrendering
+to the English or to the Hondurans.
+Captain Salmon twice assured him distinctly that
+it was to the English, whereupon the filibusters,
+at Walker's orders, laid down their arms and were
+taken aboard the <i>Icarus</i>. No sooner had he arrived
+back at Trujillo, however, than Captain
+Salmon, breaking the word he had given as an
+officer and a gentleman, and in defiance of every
+law of humanity, turned his prisoners over to the
+Honduran authorities. Salmon, who was young
+and pompous and had a life-size opinion of himself
+and his position, interceded for all of the
+prisoners except Walker, and obtained their release,
+but he informed the filibuster chieftain that
+he would plead for him only on condition that
+he would ask his intercession as an American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+citizen. But Walker, imbittered by the treatment
+he had received at the hands of his own
+government and disdaining to turn to it for assistance
+in his adversity, answered proudly: "The
+President of Nicaragua is a citizen of Nicaragua,"
+and turned his back upon the Englishman who
+had betrayed him.</p>
+
+<p>He was tried by court martial on September 11,
+1860, and after the barest formalities was sentenced
+to be shot at daybreak the next morning.
+The place selected for his execution was a strip
+of sandy beach, and to it the condemned man
+walked as coolly as though taking a morning
+stroll. Before him tramped a detachment of
+slovenly Honduran infantry, who, with their
+brown, wizened faces, their ill-fitting uniforms,
+and their jaunty caps, looked more like monkeys
+than men; behind him marched the firing-party,
+with weapons at the charge; beside him was a
+priest bearing a crucifix and murmuring the prayers
+for the dying. As the little procession came to a
+halt within the hollow square of soldiery, Walker
+waved away the handkerchief with which they
+would have blindfolded him, and, cool and straight
+and soldierly as though in command of his
+Phalanx, took his stand before the firing-party.</p>
+
+<p>"I die a Roman Catholic," he said in Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+in a voice clear and unafraid. "The war which I
+made upon you was wrong and I take this opportunity
+of asking your pardon. I die with resignation,
+though it would be a consolation for me to feel
+that my death is for the good of society." As he
+ceased speaking, the officer in command of the
+troops dropped the point of his sword, the levelled
+rifles of the firing-party spoke as one, and Walker
+fell. But, though every bullet entered his body,
+he still lived. So a sergeant stepped forward with
+a cocked revolver and blew out his brains. With
+that shot there passed the soul of a very brave
+and gallant gentleman who deserved from his
+country better treatment than he received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CITIES CAPTURED BY CONTRACT</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>I have known men who, from need of money
+or from love of adventure, have contracted to
+do all sorts of seemingly impossible things. Some
+conquered apparently unconquerable chasms by
+means of daring bridges; others built railways
+across waterless, yellow deserts, where experts had
+asserted that no railway could go; one contracted
+to find and raise a treasure galleon sunk three
+hundred years ago; another agreed to compose
+an opera in a week; while still another engaged
+to find a man who for two years had been lost in
+equatorial Africa. It took a New Englander,
+however, to sign a contract to capture walled and
+hostile cities, at a stipulated price per city, just
+as a Chicago meat-packer would contract to supply
+a government with beef at so much a pound.</p>
+
+<p>The man who entered into this amazing agreement
+was baptized Frederick Townsend Ward,
+but bore at his death the adopted name of
+Hwa. Though born within biscuit-throw of Salem
+wharves he was by residence a citizen of the world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+and by profession a soldier of fortune. Now the
+trouble with most soldiers of fortune is that they
+don't make good in the end. They are generally entertaining
+fellows, with vast stores of information
+on an amazing variety of subjects, wide acquaintanceships
+with personages whose names you see
+in the daily papers, and an intimate knowledge
+of the little-known places, but they rarely save
+any money, they seldom rise to high positions,
+and they usually end their checkered careers by
+being ingloriously arrested for breaking the neutrality
+laws, or by dying, picturesquely but quite
+uselessly, between a stone wall and a firing-party.</p>
+
+<p>That Frederick Ward was a striking exception
+merely proves the soundness of my remarks.
+Though he was a soldier of fortune (he fought
+under at least six flags) he did make money, for
+he capitalized his remarkable military genius by
+signing a contract to capture rebellious cities, at
+seventy-five thousand dollars a city, and took a
+dozen of them, one after another; he rose to be
+an admiral-general of China, and a Mandarin of
+the Red Button, which was equivalent to being a
+Dewey, a Kitchener, and a Cromer rolled into
+one; and though he died when scarcely thirty, it
+was on the walls of a captured city, directing a
+victorious charge. Though the Manchu dynasty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+of China, to which he gave an additional half-century
+of existence, has fallen, the soldiers of the
+new republic continue to invoke his spirit as that
+of a god of battles, and the priests of Confucius
+still burn incense before his tomb.</p>
+
+<p>The story of how this adventurous American
+youth recognized the splendid fighting material
+into which the Chinese were capable of being
+transformed; how he took that material and
+heated and hammered and tempered it into a
+serviceable weapon, and gave that weapon a keen
+cutting edge; how, with a force which never numbered
+more than six thousand men, he broke the
+backbone of a rebellion which turned China into
+a shambles; and how his battalions came to be
+known, in the annals of time, as the "Ever-Victorious
+Army," forms a chronicle of courage and
+thrilling incident the like of which can not be
+found in history. If the almost incredible exploits
+of Ward have escaped the notice of our historians,
+it is because, at the time they took place,
+Americans were too intent on the business of their
+own great slaughter-house to be interested in a
+similar performance going on, in much less workmanlike
+fashion, half the world away. Though
+British writers slightingly allude to Ward as "an
+obscure Yankee adventurer," the officer who succeeded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+him, General Charles George Gordon,
+merely completed the work which his predecessor
+had begun, and built his military reputation on
+the foundations which the American had laid.
+Though the name of Frederick Townsend Ward
+holds but little meaning for the vast majority of
+his countrymen, it is still a name to conjure with
+in that country which he saved from anarchy.</p>
+
+<p>Though a youth in appearance and in years,
+Ward was a seasoned veteran long before he set
+out on his last campaign. Before he was five-and-twenty
+he had had enough experiences to satisfy
+a dozen ordinary men. Coming from New England
+seafaring stock, it was only to be expected
+that a passion for adventure should course through
+his veins. From the time he donned short trousers
+he dreamed of a cadetship at West Point, and a
+commission under his own flag. But it was destined
+that his military genius should profit another
+country than his own, and that he should fight
+and die under an alien banner. His father, a stern
+old merchant captain, held that there was no
+training for a boy like that to be had in the school
+of the sea, and so, when young Ward was scarce
+half-way through his teens, he was packed off
+aboard a sailing-vessel bound for the China seas.
+By the time he was twenty he held a first mate's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+warrant, and had paid for it with three long voyages.
+Joining Garibaldi's famous Foreign Legion,
+he saw service under that great soldier in the war
+between the Republic of the Rio Grande and
+Brazil. Afterward he helped the young Republic
+of Uruguay to defeat Manuel Rosas, the Argentine
+dictator. At the outbreak of the Crimean
+War he obtained a lieutenant's commission in a
+regiment of French zouaves, and followed the tricolor
+until the Treaty of Paris brought that bloody
+campaign to an end. Turning his steps toward
+Latin America again, he joined William Walker
+in his ill-fated Nicaraguan adventure, and after
+that leader's execution in Honduras he offered
+his sword and services to Juarez, and helped to
+win for him the presidency of Mexico. With the
+triumph of Juarez, peace settled for a time upon
+the western hemisphere, and Ward, finding no
+market for his military talents, was driven by
+financial necessities to take up the occupation of
+a ship-broker in New York City. But the shackles
+of trade soon proved intolerable to this man of
+action. He was like a race-horse harnessed to a
+milk-wagon. Though his talk was of cargoes and
+bottomry and tonnage, his thoughts were far
+away, on those distant seaboards of the world
+where history was in the making. At the beginning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+of 1859, the only country in the world where
+fighting on a large scale was going on was China,
+which was being devastated by the great Taiping
+Rebellion. In the spring of that year Ward, unable
+to longer resist the call to action which was
+forever sounding in his ears, turned the key in
+the door of his New York office, saddled his horse,
+and, unaccompanied, rode across the continent to
+San Francisco, where he booked a passage for
+Shanghai. It was no random adventure which he
+had undertaken. He had laid his plans carefully
+and knew exactly what he intended doing. Nor
+did the magnitude of his project dishearten him.
+He had set out to save an empire, and he intended
+to win fame and fortune in doing it.</p>
+
+<p>The conditions which prevailed in China between
+1850 and 1863 can be compared only to the
+French Reign of Terror, or to the rule of the Mahdi
+in the Sudan. About the time that the nineteenth
+century was approaching the half-way mark, a
+Chinese schoolmaster named Hung-siu-Tseuen,
+inflamed by the partially comprehended teachings
+of Christian missionaries, had inaugurated a propaganda
+to overthrow the Confucian religion, and
+incidentally the reigning dynasty. There speedily
+rallied to his banners all the floating scoundrelism
+of China. In 1852 the rebel hordes had moved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+into the province of Hunan, murdering, pillaging,
+and burning as they went; advanced down the Kiang
+River to the Yang-tse, down which they sailed,
+capturing and sacking the cities on its banks.
+Making Nanking his capital, the rebel leader assumed
+the title of Tien Wang, or "Heavenly King,"
+and proclaimed the rule of the Ping Chao, or "Peace
+Dynasty," which, with the prefix Tai ("great")
+gave the rebellion its name, Taiping. Wang's
+great hordes of tatterdemalions, flushed with their
+unbroken series of successes, gradually overran
+the silk and tea districts, the richest in the empire,
+threatened Peking, and advanced almost to the
+gates of Shanghai, carrying death and destruction
+over fifteen of the eighteen provinces of China.
+Perhaps it will give a better idea of the magnitude
+of this rebellion when I add that reliable authorities
+estimate that it cost China <i>two billion five hundred
+million dollars, and twenty million human lives</i>.
+By the autumn of 1859 such of the imperial forces
+as remained loyal had been whipped to a stand-still,
+and the European powers having interests
+in China had their work cut out to defend the
+treaty ports; the rebels were undisputed masters
+of all Central China; the rivers were literally
+choked with corpses, and the smoke of burning
+cities overhung the land. The atrocities committed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+by order of the Taiping leader shocked
+even the dulled sensibilities of China. On one
+occasion, six thousand people, suspected of an
+intention to desert, were gathered in the public
+square of Nanking. A hundred executioners
+stood among the prisoners with bared swords, and,
+at a signal from the Wang, slashed off heads until
+their arms were weary, and blood stood inches
+deep in the gutters. Ward had indeed chosen a
+good market in which to sell his services.</p>
+
+<p>Through an English friend in the Chinese service,
+Ward obtained an introduction to Wu, the
+Taotoi of Shanghai, and to a millionaire merchant
+and mandarin named Tah Kee. The plan he
+proposed was as simple as it was daring. He
+offered to recruit a foreign legion, with which he
+would defend Shanghai, and at the same time
+attack such of the Taiping strongholds as were
+within striking distance, stipulating that for every
+city captured he was to receive seventy-five thousand
+dollars in gold, that his men were to have
+the first day's looting, and that each place taken
+should immediately be garrisoned by imperial
+troops, leaving his own force free for further operations.
+Wu on behalf of the government, and Tah
+Kee as the representative of the Shanghai merchants,
+promptly agreed to this proposal, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+signed the contract. They had, indeed, everything
+to gain and nothing to lose. It was also
+arranged that Tah Kee should at the outset furnish
+the arms, ammunition, clothing, and commissary
+supplies necessary to equip the legion.
+These preliminaries once settled, Ward wasted no
+time in recruiting his force, for every day was
+bringing the Taipings nearer. A number of brave
+and experienced officers, for the most part soldiers
+of fortune like himself, hastened to offer him their
+services, General Edward Forester, an American,
+being appointed second in command. The rank
+and file of the legion was recruited from the scum
+and offscourings of the East, Malay pirates, Burmese
+dacoits, Tartar brigands, and desperadoes,
+adventurers, and fugitives from justice from every
+corner of the farther East being attracted by the
+high rate of pay, which in view of the hazardous
+nature of the service, was fixed at one hundred
+dollars a month for enlisted men, and proportionately
+more for officers. The non-commissioned
+officers, who were counted upon to stiffen the ranks
+of the Orientals, were for the most part veterans
+of continental armies, and could be relied upon to
+fight as long as stock and barrel held together.
+The officers carried swords and Colt's revolvers,
+the latter proving terribly effective in the hand-to-hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+fighting which Ward made the rule; while
+the men were armed with Sharp's repeating carbines
+and the vicious Malay <i>kris</i>. Everything considered,
+I doubt if a more formidable aggregation
+of ruffians ever took the field. Ward placed his
+men under a discipline which made that of the
+German army appear like a kindergarten; taught
+them the tactics he had learned under Garibaldi,
+Walker, and Juarez; and finally, when they were
+as keen as razors and as tough as rawhide, he entered
+them in battle on a most astonished foe.</p>
+
+<p>The first city Ward selected for capture was
+Sunkiang, on the banks of the Wusung River,
+some twenty-five miles above Shanghai. In
+choosing this particular place as his first point of
+attack, Ward showed himself a diplomatist as
+well as a soldier, for it was one of the seven sacred
+cities of China, and to it had been wont to come
+thousands of pilgrims from the most distant provinces,
+to prostrate themselves in the temple of
+Confucius, the oldest and most revered shrine in
+the empire. Its capture by the Taipings and their
+desecration of its altars had sent a thrill of horror
+through the imperialists, such as was not even
+caused by the loss of the great metropolis of
+Nanking.</p>
+
+<p>Ward, who appreciated the necessity of winning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+the recognition and confidence of the higher authorities,
+well knew that the regaining of this
+sacred city would endear him to the religious heart
+of China as nothing else could do. But Sunkiang,
+with its walls twenty feet high and five miles in
+circumference, and with a garrison of five thousand
+fanatics to defend those walls, was no easy nut
+to crack even for a powerful force well supplied
+with artillery. The idea of its being taken by
+Ward and his five hundred desperadoes was preposterous,
+unthinkable, absurd. He first tried the
+weapon he had so painstakingly forged on a July
+morning, in 1860. Just as his European critics in
+Shanghai had prophesied, the attack on Sunkiang
+proved the most dismal of failures. His stealthy
+approach being discovered by the Taipings, he
+was greeted with such a withering fire upon reaching
+the walls that, being without supports, and
+perceiving the hopelessness of the situation, he
+ordered his buglers to sound the retreat.</p>
+
+<p>But Ward was one of those rare men to whom
+discouragements and disasters are but incidents,
+annoying but not disheartening, in the day's
+work. He spent a fortnight in strengthening the
+weakened <i>morale</i> of his force, and then he tried
+again, making his onset with the suddenness and
+fury of a tiger's spring just at break of day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+Slipping like ghosts through the grayness of the
+dawn, Ward and his men stole across the surrounding
+rice-fields, and were almost under the city
+walls before the Taiping sentries discovered their
+approach. As the first rifle cracked, Ward and
+one of his lieutenants raced ahead with bags of
+powder, placed them beneath the main gate of
+the city, and lighted the fuse. Like an echo of
+the ensuing explosion rose the shrill yell of the
+legionaries, who dashed forward like sprinters in
+a race. Instead of the gates being blown to pieces
+as they had expected, they found that they had
+been forced apart only enough for one man to
+pass at a time&mdash;and on the other side of that door
+of death five thousand rebels waited eagerly for
+the first of the attackers to appear. "Come on,
+boys!" roared Ward, his voice rising above the
+crash of the musketry, "We're going in!" and
+plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver
+in each hand. Hard on his heels crowded his
+legionaries. Though they were going to what was
+almost certain death, such was the magnetism of
+their leader that not a man hung back, not a man
+faltered. Before half a dozen men were through
+they were attacked by hundreds, but, so deadly
+was the fire they poured in with their repeaters,
+they were able to hold off the defenders until the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+whole attacking force was within the gate. Then
+began one of the most desperate and unequal fights
+in history. The key to the city was the howitzer
+battery, which was stationed on the top of the
+massive main gate, forty feet above. Up the
+narrow ramps the legionaries fought their way,
+five hundred against five thousand, hacking, stabbing,
+firing, at such close range that their rifles
+set fire to their opponents' clothing, driving their
+bayonets into the human wall before them as a
+field-hand pitchforks hay. Wherever there was
+space for a man to plant his feet or swing
+his sword, there a Taiping was to be found.
+The passageway was choked with them, but
+they sullenly gave way before the frenzy of
+Ward's attack as a hillside slowly disintegrates
+before the stream from a hydraulic nozzle. Ward
+was wounded, and his men were falling about him
+by dozens, but those that were left, mad with the
+lust of battle, fought on, until with a final surge
+and cheer they reached the top, and the position
+which commanded the city was in their hands.
+Then the Taipings broke and fled, some to be
+overtaken and slaughtered by the legionaries,
+others throwing themselves into the streets below.
+Bayoneting the rebel gunners, the howitzers
+were turned upon the city, raking the streets,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+sweeping the crowded walls and house-tops, and
+leaving heaps of dead and dying where Taiping
+regiments had stood before.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/gs12comeboys.png" width="600" height="407" alt="&quot;Come on, boys!&quot; shouted Ward. &quot;We&#39;re going in!&quot; and plunged through the narrow
+opening, a revolver in each hand." title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Come on, boys!&quot; shouted Ward. &quot;We&#39;re going in!&quot; and plunged through the narrow
+opening, a revolver in each hand.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>For four-and-twenty hours Ward and the exhausted
+survivors of his legion, without food and
+without water, held the gate in the face of the
+most desperate efforts to retake it. Then the
+Chinese reinforcements for which he had asked
+tardily arrived, and Sunkiang was an Imperial
+city again. The American had taken the first
+trick in the great game he was playing. It was at
+fearful cost, however, for of the five hundred men
+who followed him into action, but one hundred
+and twenty-eight remained alive, and of these
+only twenty-seven were without wounds. In
+other words, the casualties amounted to <i>more than
+ninety-four per cent of the entire force</i>. Ward had
+ridden out of Shanghai a despised adventurer to
+whom the foreign officers refused to speak. He
+returned to that city a hero and a power in China.
+The priesthood acclaimed him as the saviour of the
+sacred city; the emperor made him a Mandarin of
+the Red Button; the merchants of Shanghai voiced
+their relief by adding a splendid estate to the
+promised reward of seventy-five thousand dollars.
+His reputation would have been secure if he had
+never fought another battle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Leaving Sunkiang heavily garrisoned by imperial
+troops, Ward withdrew to Shanghai for the
+purpose of recruiting his shattered forces. Such
+a glamour of romance now surrounded the legion
+that Ward was fairly besieged by European as
+well as Oriental volunteers. Shortly after the
+capture of Sunkiang, Ward had occasion to visit
+Shanghai with reference to the care of his wounded.
+While riding through the streets of the city he
+was arrested by a British patrol, and despite his
+protestations that he was an officer in the imperial
+service, was hustled aboard the flag-ship of Admiral
+Sir James Hope, which lay in the harbor, and was
+placed in close confinement. In reply to his inquiries
+he was told that he was to be tried for
+recruiting British man-o'-war's-men for service in
+his legion. Though the arrest was high-handed
+and unjustified, there seemed no immediate prospect
+of release, for the American consul-general
+refused to interfere on the ground that Ward, by
+taking service under the Chinese government,
+had forfeited his right to American protection;
+the imperial authorities were powerless to take
+any action; while the British were notoriously
+fearful of the dangerous ascendancy which this
+American might gain if his successful career was
+permitted to continue. The only hope for Ward&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+for China&mdash;lay in his escape. A friend
+perfected a plan of flight. While visiting Ward,
+who was confined in an outside cabin of the flag-ship,
+with a marine constantly on guard at the
+door, he synchronized his watch with that of the
+cabin clock, and whispered to the prisoner that he
+would be in a sampan under his cabin window at
+precisely two o'clock in the morning. Taking off
+his coat and shoes that he might be unhampered
+in the water, Ward sat on the edge of his berth
+with his eyes on the face of the clock. Just as
+the minute-hand touched the figure II, Ward
+made a dash for the window and sprang head-foremost
+through the sash, for the windows of the
+old fashioned men-of-war were much larger than
+the ports of modern battle-ships. He had hardly
+touched the water before he was pulled aboard a
+sampan, which disappeared in the darkness long
+before the flag-ship's boats could be manned and
+lowered. This daring exploit enormously increased
+Ward's prestige among both Chinese and
+Europeans, with whom the British, as a result of
+their insolent and overbearing attitude, were intensely
+unpopular. Some days later Admiral
+Hope sent a message to Ward requesting an interview,
+and, upon Ward assuring him that he would
+no longer recruit his ranks from the British navy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+the old sea fighter became his strong partisan and
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>With his ranks once more repleted, Ward made
+preparations for a second venture. This time it
+was the city of Sing-po toward which he turned;
+but the Taipings, getting wind of his intentions,
+secretly threw an overwhelming force into the
+place under a renegade Englishman named Savage.
+Ward was without artillery with which to breach
+the walls, and, after several desperate assaults, in
+leading which he was severely wounded, he was
+forced to retire. Ten days later, regardless of his
+wounds, he tried again, but this time he was taken
+in the rear by a Taiping army of twenty thousand
+men, his little force being completely surrounded.
+So certain was the rebel leader that the famous
+general was within his grasp, that he consulted
+with his officers as to what methods of torture
+they should use upon him. But he was a trifle
+premature, for Ward struck the Taiping cordon
+at its weakest point, fought his way through, and
+reached Shanghai with a loss of only one hundred
+men. His secret agents bringing him word that
+the powerful force from which he had just escaped
+was to be used in the recapture of Sunkiang,
+Ward, by making night marches, slipped unperceived
+into that city. When the Taipings attempted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+to carry it by storm a few days later,
+instead of meeting with the half-hearted resistance
+which they had grown to expect from Chinese
+garrisons, they were astounded to see the helmeted
+figure of the dreaded American upon the
+walls, and were greeted with a blast of rifle fire
+which swept away their leading columns and
+crumpled up their army as effectually as though it
+had encountered an earthquake.</p>
+
+<p>Dangerously weakened by half a dozen wounds,
+Ward was reluctantly compelled to go to Paris in
+the fall of 1860 for surgical attention. Back at
+Shanghai again at the beginning of the following
+summer, he found that the Taipings, emboldened
+by his absence, were flaunting their banner within
+sight of the city walls. From end to end of the
+empire there existed an unparalleled reign of
+terror, the rebels now having grown so strong
+that they demanded the recognition of the European
+powers. Ward, meanwhile, had become
+convinced that the true solution of the problem
+lay in raising an army of natives, rather than foreigners,
+for not only was the supply of Chinese
+unlimited, but his experience had shown him that
+there was splendid fighting material in them if
+they were properly drilled and led. When he
+asked permission of the imperial government to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+raise and drill a Chinese force, therefore, it was
+gladly granted.</p>
+
+<p>An opportunity to put his theories regarding the
+fighting capabilities of the Chinese to a test soon
+came. Learning that a force of rebels, ten thousand
+strong, was advancing in the direction of
+Shanghai, Ward sallied forth from his headquarters
+at Sunkiang with two thousand five hundred
+men, struck the Taiping army, curled it up
+like a withered leaf, and drove it a dozen miles
+into the interior. Pressing on, he captured the
+city of Quan-fu-ling, which the rebels had garrisoned
+and fortified, and with it several hundred
+junks loaded with supplies. Throughout these
+actions his Chinese displayed all the steadiness
+and courage of European veterans. That he
+showed sound judgment in pinning his faith to
+natives is best proved by the fact that from that
+time on he never met with a reverse. His motto
+was "Cold steel," and his tactics would have delighted
+the old-time sea fighters, for, appreciating
+the fact that few Oriental troops are capable of
+remaining steady under a galling long-range fire,
+he invariably threw his men against the enemy in
+an overwhelming charge, and finished the business
+at close quarters with the bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>Moving up from Sunkiang with a thousand of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+his men, Ward joined a combined force of French
+and British bluejackets, who had with them a
+light howitzer battery, in an attack on Kaschiaou,
+just opposite Shanghai, which was the city's main
+source of supplies, and which the rebels had seized
+and fortified. Using the contingent from the war-ships
+as a reserve, Ward and his Chinamen did the
+work alone, carrying the stockades by storm and
+capturing two thousand rebels, as a result of which
+the enemy fell back from the neighborhood of
+Shanghai. So strongly impressed were the British
+officers with the behavior of Ward's soldiery that
+Sir James Mitchel, the commander-in-chief on the
+China station, strongly urged that the task of suppressing
+the rebellion be placed in the American's
+hands, and that he be empowered to raise his force
+to ten thousand men. A few weeks later Ward
+received an imperial rescript acknowledging his
+great services to China, and appointing him an
+admiral-general of the empire, the highest rank
+that the emperor could bestow. With this came
+the authority to recruit his force to six thousand
+men, and its baptism, by imperial order, with the
+sonorous and thrilling title of <i>Chun Chen Chun</i>,
+or the Ever-Victorious Army.</p>
+
+<p>As the barometer of Ward's fortunes steadily
+rose, that of his native country began to fall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+the dark cloud of secession hanging threateningly
+over the land. It has been said of Ward that he
+denationalized himself by marrying a Chinese
+wife and adopting a Chinese name, but there is
+no doubt that it was only his stern sense of duty
+which kept him at the task he had undertaken in
+China when the guns of Sumter boomed out the
+beginning of the Civil War. He immediately
+sent a contribution of ten thousand dollars to the
+Union war fund, however, with a message that his
+services were at the disposal of the North whenever
+they were required. At the time of the <i>Trent</i>
+affair, when war between England and the United
+States was momentarily expected, and the British
+in China had laid plans to seize American shipping
+and other property in the treaty ports, Ward
+effected a secret organization of American sympathizers
+and prepared to surprise and capture
+every British war-ship and merchant vessel in
+Chinese waters. In view of his success in equally
+daring exploits, there is good reason to believe
+that he would have accomplished even so startling
+a <i>coup</i> as this.</p>
+
+<p>While recruiting his army to its newly authorized
+strength, Ward did not give the Taipings a
+moment's rest. He kept several flying columns
+constantly in the field, attacking the rebels at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+every opportunity, cutting up their outposts, harrying
+their pickets, breaking their lines of communication,
+and demoralizing them generally.
+One day Ward would be reported as operating in
+the south, and the Wang would draw a momentary
+breath of relief, but the next night, without the
+slightest warning, he would suddenly fall upon a
+city a hundred miles to the northward and carry
+it by storm. By such aggressive tactics as these
+Ward struck fear to the heart of the Taiping
+leader, who saw the despotism he had built up
+crumbling about him before the American's
+smashing blows. It was said, indeed, that the
+mere sight of Ward's white helmet in the van of
+a storming party was more effective than a brigade
+of infantry. With a thousand men of his own
+corps and six hundred royal marines he attacked
+and captured Tsee-dong, a walled city of considerable
+strength, and cleared the rebels from the surrounding
+region as though with a fine-tooth comb.
+The town of Wong-kadza was in the possession
+of the Taipings, and Ward decided to capture it.
+General Staveley, who had succeeded Sir James
+Mitchel in command of the British forces, offered
+to co-operate with him. It was agreed that they
+should rendezvous outside the town. Ward
+reached there first with six hundred of his men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+Without waiting for the British to come up, he
+ordered his bugles to sound the charge, and after
+a quarter of an hour of desperate fighting he carried
+the stockade, and the rebels broke and ran,
+Ward's men killing more of them in the pursuit
+than they themselves numbered. When General
+Staveley arrived a few hours later he was chagrined
+to see the imperial standard flying over the city
+and to find that the impetuous American had
+done the work and reaped the glory. The allied
+forces now pressed on to the Taiping stronghold
+of Tai-poo, which was held by a strong and well-armed
+garrison. While the British engaged the
+attention of the rebels in front with a fierce artillery
+fire, Ward and his Chinamen made a détour
+to the rear of the city, and were at and over the
+walls almost before the garrison realized what had
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>The Ever-Victorious Army now numbered
+nearly six thousand men. It was well drilled and
+under an iron discipline; it was fairly well armed;
+it was magnificently officered; it was emboldened
+with repeated successes. The man who was the
+maker and master of such a force might well go a
+long way. That Ward dreamed of eventually
+making himself dictator of China there can be
+but little doubt. Louis Napoleon, remember,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+climbed to a throne on the bayonets of his soldiers.
+By this time the American soldier of fortune had
+become by long odds the most popular figure in
+the empire; the army was with him to a man;
+he possessed the confidence of the great mandarins
+and merchant princes; and he had to his
+credit an almost unparalleled succession of victories.
+Dictator of the East! What American
+ever had a more ambitious dream and was within
+such measurable distance of realizing it? It is
+no exaggeration to say that, had Ward lived, the
+whole history of the Orient would have been
+changed, and China, rather than Japan, would
+doubtless have held the balance of power in the
+Farther East.</p>
+
+<p>In April, 1862, Ward, the Viceroy Lieh, and the
+French and British commanders held a council of
+war in Shanghai. Ward suggested a plan of campaign
+designed to break the Taiping power in
+that part of China for good and all. Briefly put,
+his scheme was to capture a semicircle of cities
+within a radius of fifty miles of Shanghai and the
+coast. This would result in the rebels being held
+within their own lines by a cordon of bayonets,
+and, as they had utterly devastated the regions
+they had overrun, would mean starvation for
+them. Thus cut off from the seaboard, Ward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+argued, they would be unable to obtain ammunition
+and supplies, and the rebellion would soon
+wither. The series of operations was carried out
+as planned, Ward's corps being reinforced by
+three thousand French and British. It ended in
+the capture, in rapid succession, of the cities of
+Kah-ding, Sing-po, Najaor, and Tsaolin. In every
+case Ward insisted on being given the post of
+honor; he and his Chinamen, who fought with an
+appalling disregard for life, carrying the defences
+at the bayonet's point, while his European allies
+covered his advance with artillery fire and supported
+his whirlwind attacks. Leaving garrisons
+barely large enough to hold the captured cities,
+he pushed on by forced marches to Ning-po, which
+was a large and strongly fortified city. Twice his
+storming parties were driven back. The third
+time the men, exhausted by the continuous fighting
+in which they had been engaged and the long
+marches they had been called upon to perform,
+momentarily faltered in the face of the terrible
+fire which greeted them. Instantly Ward ordered
+the recall sounded, formed them into line within
+easy rifle-range of the city walls, and calmly put
+them through the manual of arms with as much
+precision as though they were on parade, while a
+storm of bullets whistled round them, and men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+were momentarily dropping in the ranks. Then,
+his men once more in hand, the bugles screamed
+the charge and the yellow line roared on to victory.</p>
+
+<p>Ward gave his last order to advance&mdash;he had
+forgotten how to give any other&mdash;on September
+21, 1862. With a regiment of his men he was
+about to attack Tse-Ki, a small fortified coast
+town a few miles from Ning-po. With his habitual
+contempt for danger he was standing with General
+Forester, his chief of staff, well in advance of his
+men, inspecting the position through his field-glasses.
+Suddenly he clapped his hand to his
+breast. "I've been hit, Ed!" he exclaimed, and
+fell forward into the arms of his friend. Very
+tenderly his devoted yellow men carried him
+aboard the British war-ship <i>Hardy</i>, which was
+lying in the harbor, but the naval surgeons shook
+their heads when an examination showed that the
+bullet had passed through his lungs. "Don't
+mind me," whispered Ward. "Take the city."
+So Forester, heavy at heart, ordered forward the
+storming parties. That night the great captain
+died. The last sound he heard was his Chinamen's
+shrill yell of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>With extraordinary solemnity the dead soldier
+was laid to rest in the temple of Confucius in Sunkiang,
+the most sacred shrine in China and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+very spot where he had established his headquarters
+after his first great victory. His body,
+which was followed to the grave by imperial viceroys,
+European admirals, generals, and consuls,
+and Chinese mandarins, was borne between the
+silent lines of his Ever-Victorious Army. By
+order of the emperor his name was placed in the
+pantheon of the gods. Temples to commemorate
+his victories were built at Sing-po and Ning-po,
+and a magnificent mausoleum was erected in his
+honor in Sunkiang. In it the yellow priests of
+Confucius still burn incense before his tomb. In
+all his history there can be found no hint of dishonor,
+no trace of shame. He was a great soldier
+and a very gallant gentleman, but he has been
+forgotten by his own people. To paraphrase the
+lines of Matthew Arnold:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Far hence he lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Near some lone Chinese town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on his grave, with shining eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Eastern stars look down."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 75%;" />
+<p><b>
+Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
+<ul>
+<li>Punctuation normalized.</li>
+<li>Page 66: "cimiter" retained as printed.</li>
+<li>Various: retained as printed "Tippo-Sahib" and "Tippoo Sahib".</li>
+<li>Page 104: "govenment" replaced with "government" in "government of this new country which was about to be annexed".</li>
+<li>Page 115: "alignement" changed to "alignment".</li>
+<li>Page 116: "caufles" retained as printed.</li>
+<li>Page 157: "lowered the flag next day" and "Commodore T. ApCatesby Jones" retained as printed.</li>
+<li>Duplicate chapter headings removed.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,5009 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gentlemen Rovers
+
+Author: E. Alexander Powell
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2011 [EBook #37812]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENTLEMEN ROVERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by paksenarrion, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       GENTLEMEN ROVERS
+  [Illustration: Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds.]
+
+
+                       GENTLEMEN ROVERS
+
+               BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S.
+              AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FRONTIER," ETC.
+
+                         ILLUSTRATED
+
+                   CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+                        NEW YORK 1913
+
+                     COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
+                   CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+                  Published September, 1913
+
+                        [Illustration]
+
+                              To
+                 THE FINEST GENTLEMAN I KNOW
+                          MY FATHER
+
+
+           "There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
+           That carries no colors or crest,
+           But, split in a thousand detachments,
+           Is breaking the road for the rest.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           The ends o' the Earth were our portion,
+           The ocean at large was our share,
+           There was never a skirmish to windward
+           But the Leaderless Legion was there.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           We preach in advance of the Army,
+           We skirmish ahead of the Church,
+           With never a gunboat to help us
+           When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.
+           But we know as the cartridges finish
+           And we're filed on our last little shelves,
+           That the Legion that never was 'listed
+           Will send us as good as ourselves.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+           Then a health (we must drink it in whispers)
+           To our wholly unauthorized horde--
+           To the line of our dusty foreloopers,
+           To the Gentlemen Rovers abroad!"
+
+           --_The Lost Legion._
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+This book is written as a tribute to some men who have been overlooked
+by History and forgotten by Fame. Though they won for us more than half
+the territory comprised within our present-day borders, not only have no
+monuments been erected to perpetuate their exploits in bronze and
+marble, but they lie for the most part in forgotten and neglected
+graves, some of them under alien skies. Boyd, Truxtun, Eaton, Reed,
+Lafitte, Smith, Ide, Ward, Walker--even their names hold no significance
+for their countrymen of the present generation, yet they played great
+parts in our national drama. After two decades of history-making in
+Hindustan, Boyd came back to his own country and ably seconded William
+Henry Harrison in breaking the power of the great Indian confederation
+which threatened to check the white man's westward march. When both
+France and England were our enemies, and the gloom of despondency hung
+like a cloud over the land, it was Truxtun and his bluejackets who put
+new heart into the nation by their victories. Eaton and his motley army
+marched across six hundred miles of African desert, and by bringing the
+Barbary despots to their knees accomplished that which had been
+unsuccessfully attempted by every naval power in Europe. Captain Reed,
+of the _General Armstrong_, after holding off a British force twenty
+times the strength of his own, sunk his vessel rather than surrender. To
+a pirate and smuggler named Jean Lafitte, more than any other person
+save Andrew Jackson, we owe our thanks for saving New Orleans from
+capture and Louisiana from invasion. Jedediah Smith blazed the route of
+the Overland Trail and showed us the way to California, and a quarter of
+a century later Fremont, Ide, Sloat, and Stockton made the land beyond
+the Sierras ours. William Walker came within an ace of changing the map
+of Middle America, and made the name of American a synonym for courage
+from the Rio Grande to Panama, while on the other side of the world
+another American, Frederick Townsend Ward, raised and led that ever
+victorious army whose exploits were General Gordon's chief claim to
+fame. There was not one of these men of whom we have not reason to be
+proud. But because they did their work unofficially, in what might
+aptly be described as "shirt-sleeve warfare," and because they went
+ahead without waiting for the tardy sanction of those who guided our
+ship of state, the deeds they performed have never received befitting
+recognition from those who follow by the trails they made, who grow rich
+from the mines that they discovered, who dwell upon the lands they won.
+And that is why I am going to ask you, my friends, as in the following
+pages I lead these forgotten heroes before you in imaginary review, to
+raise your hats in respect and admiration to this company of brave
+soldiers and gallant gentlemen who so stoutly upheld American prestige
+and American traditions in many far corners of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+    FOR RENT: AN ARMY ON ELEPHANTS                             1
+    WHEN WE FOUGHT NAPOLEON                                   19
+    WHEN WE CAPTURED AN AFRICAN KINGDOM                       45
+    THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"                 73
+    THE PIRATE WHO TURNED PATRIOT                             89
+    THE MAN WHO DARED TO CROSS THE RANGES                    125
+    THE FLAG OF THE BEAR                                     153
+    THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS                              179
+    CITIES CAPTURED BY CONTRACT                              217
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    Commodore Truxtun leaped into the shrouds               _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                    FACING
+                                                                     PAGE
+    The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam          12
+
+    The battle of Tippecanoe                                          16
+
+    The frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of
+    Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge
+    and his entire crew                                               54
+
+    But even in those days the fame of American gunners
+    was as wide as the seas                                           86
+
+    The battle of New Orleans                                        120
+
+    Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the
+    sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah                         136
+
+    The Sacramento Valley in 1845                                    164
+
+    General William Walker and his men, after a long and stormy
+    voyage, landing at Virgin Bay, en route to Costa Rica            196
+
+    General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza, Granada      200
+
+    The programme was always the same: the sudden rush
+    of the filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the
+    taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza            206
+
+    "Come on, boys!" shouted Ward. "We're going in!" and plunged
+    through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand              230
+
+
+
+
+FOR RENT: AN ARMY ON ELEPHANTS
+
+
+The pitiless Indian sun had poured down upon the Hyderabad _maidan_
+until its sandy surface glowed like a stove at white heat. Drawn up in
+motionless ranks, which stretched from end to end of the great
+parade-ground, was a division of cavalry: squadron after squadron of
+scarlet-coated troopers on sleek and shining horses; row after row of
+brown and bearded faces peering stolidly from under the white turbans.
+The rays of the sun danced and sparkled upon ten thousand lance-points;
+the feeble breeze picked up ten thousand pennons and fluttered them into
+a white-and-scarlet cloud. Now and then the silence would be broken by a
+clash of steel as a horse tossed its head or a _sowar_ stirred uneasily
+in his saddle. Sitting a white Arab, a score of paces in advance of the
+foremost rank, very stiff and soldierly in his gorgeous uniform, was a
+tall young man whose ruddy cheeks and pleasant eyes looked strangely out
+of place in so Oriental a setting.
+
+From somewhere within the city walls a bugle spoke shrilly and was
+answered by another and then another, each nearer than the one
+preceding. The young man in the splendid uniform barked an order, and
+men and horses stiffened into rigidity as sharply as though an electric
+current had gone through them. Through the twin-towered gateway of the
+city advanced a procession, colorful as a circus, dazzling as a durbar.
+The two figures who rode at the head of the glittering cortege formed an
+almost startling contrast. One of them answered in every detail the
+popular conception of an Asiatic potentate: haughty of manner, portly of
+person, with a clear, dark skin and wonderfully piercing eyes and a
+great black beard, spreading fan-wise upon his breast. An aigret of
+diamonds flashed and scintillated in his flame-colored turban; rubies,
+large as robin's eggs, gleamed in his ears, and hanging from his neck
+over his pale blue surtout was a rope of pearls which would have roused
+the envy of an empress. His companion, to whom he paid marked attention,
+was equally noticeable, though in quite a different fashion: a lean,
+smooth-shaven, lantern-jawed man, still in the middle thirties, very
+cold and reserved of manner, with a great beak of a nose and a jaw like
+a granite crag. It did not need the cocked hat and gold epaulets of a
+British general to mark him as a soldier.
+
+As the cortege cantered onto the _maidan_ the massed bands of the
+cavalry burst into a wild, barbaric march, brass and kettle-drums
+crashing together in stirring discord. The strains ceased as abruptly as
+they began, and the youthful commander, rising in his stirrups, shot his
+blade into the air and called in a voice like a trumpet:
+
+"Cheers for his Highness!"
+
+And back came a guttural roar from ten thousand throats:
+
+"Long live the Nizam!"
+
+Obviously gratified at the warmth of his greeting, the ruler of the
+Deccan wheeled his horse and came cantering up to the cavalryman, whose
+sword flashed in salute.
+
+"Boyd Sahib," he said, "you are a veritable magician. You turn ryots
+into soldiers as readily as a fakir turns a stone into bread. Your men
+are admirable. I congratulate you on their appearance."
+
+Then, turning to his taciturn companion:
+
+"Sir Arthur Wellesley, permit me to present to you Boyd Sahib, commander
+of my cavalry and my trusted friend. General Boyd," he added, glancing
+at the Englishman with a malicious smile, "is a very brilliant
+soldier--and an American."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus met, when the nineteenth century was still in its
+swaddling-clothes, two extraordinary men: Sir Arthur Wellesley, who in
+later years, as the Duke of Wellington, was to gain undying fame by
+conquering Napoleon; and General John Parker Boyd, an American soldier
+of fortune, who rendered most gallant service to his own people, but
+whose very name has been forgotten by them.
+
+Jack Boyd, as his boyhood companions in Newburyport used to call him,
+was born with the spirit of adventure strong within him. Almost before
+he had graduated from dresses to knee-trousers he would linger about the
+wharfs of the quaint old town, drinking in the stories of strange places
+and stranger doings told him by the seafarers who were wont to
+congregate along the water-front, or staring wistfully at the big, black
+merchantmen about to sail for foreign parts. He was wont to say that it
+was a perverse and unkind fate which caused him to be born in so
+inauspicious a year as 1764, for, though there was no more ardent
+youngster in all New England, his youth caused the recruiting sergeants
+of the Continental Army to whom he applied for enlistment to pat him on
+the shoulder and remark encouragingly: "Come again, son, when you're a
+few years older."
+
+Thus it was that he saw unroll before him that marvellous moving-picture
+of the birth of a nation, which began on the greensward at Lexington and
+ended before the British lines at Yorktown, without being able to play
+any greater part in those stirring events than does a spectator in the
+thrilling scenes which he pays his five cents to see depicted on a
+screen. Indeed, a twelve-month passed after the last British soldier
+left our shores before young Boyd achieved the ambition of his life by
+obtaining an ensign's commission in the 2d Regiment of Foot and donned
+the blue coat and buff breeches of an officer in the American army.
+Although within a year he had been promoted to lieutenant, his was not
+the temperament which could long endure the monotony of garrison life,
+with its unending round of guard-mounting and small-arms practice and
+company drill. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that before
+the gold braid on his lieutenant's uniform had time to tarnish he had
+handed in his papers and had booked passage on an East Indiaman sailing
+out of Boston for Madras. The year 1788, then, saw this youngster of
+four-and-twenty landed on the coast of Coromandel, poor in acquaintances
+and pocket but rich in adventurousness and pluck.
+
+He could have taken his military talents to no better market, for at
+this period of India's troubled history a brilliant career awaited a man
+whose wits were as sharp as his sword. The last quarter of the
+eighteenth century found all India ablaze with racial and religious
+hatred. Wars were as frequent as strikes are in the United States.
+Though the French were still supreme in the south of the peninsula, the
+English power was steadily rising in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. There
+were really two distinct struggles in progress: the English were
+fighting the French and the Hindus were fighting the Mohammedans. The
+most powerful of the native princes at this time were the Nizam of
+Hyderabad, and the Peishwa, as the ruler of the Mahratta tribes was
+called--both of whom had, for reasons of policy, espoused the English
+cause--and Tippoo Sahib, the son of a Mohammedan military adventurer who
+had made himself Sultan of Mysore, who was an ally of the French. Ranged
+on the one side, then, were the British, with their allies, the Nizam
+and the Peishwa, while opposed to them were the French and Tippoo of
+Mysore. All of the reigning princes of India maintained extensive
+military establishments, and soldiers of fortune found at their courts
+rapid promotion and lavish pay. When Boyd landed in India he was
+confronted with the problem which of the rival causes he should make his
+own, and it speaks well for his sagacity and foresight that he promptly
+decided to offer his services to the allies of the English, for at that
+time most students of politics, in India and out of it, believed that
+the future of the peninsula was to be Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon.
+
+From Madras Boyd made his way on horseback to the Mahratta country,
+where his attractive personality and soldierly appearance so impressed
+the Peishwa that he gave the young American the command of a cavalry
+brigade of fifteen hundred men. Boyd was now in possession of the raw
+material for which he had hankered, and he forthwith proceeded to show
+his extraordinary skill in welding, tempering, and sharpening it. From
+daybreak until dark his camp resounded to the call of bugles, the words
+of command, and the clatter of galloping hoofs. He hammered his men into
+shape as a blacksmith hammers a bar of iron, until they combined the
+inflexible discipline of Prussian foot-guards with the mobility and
+endurance of Texas rangers. His chance to test the quality of his
+handiwork came in 1790, when Tippoo Sultan, failing in his attempt to
+bring on a renewal of the war between England and France, turned loose
+his hordes and overran the land. In the three years' war which followed,
+the British, under Lord Cornwallis, who was striving to regain in India
+the reputation he had lost at Yorktown, were aided by the Mahrattas and
+the Nizam, who were induced by fear and jealousy to join in the struggle
+against their powerful neighbor. Thus Opportunity knocked sharply on
+Boyd's door. Commanding a body of as fine horsemen as ever threw leg
+across saddle, his name quickly became a synonym for audacity and
+daring. Riding, wholly without support, into the very heart of Tippoo's
+dominions, he would strike a series of paralyzing blows, burn a dozen
+towns, capture or destroy immense stores of ammunition, exact a huge
+indemnity, and be back in his own territory again before any troops
+could be brought up to oppose him. Boyd's flying columns played no small
+part, indeed, in the campaign which ended in 1792 with the defeat of
+Tippoo--a defeat for which the Sultan had to pay by ceding half his
+dominions, paying an indemnity of three thousand lacs of rupees (one
+hundred million dollars), and giving his two sons as hostages for his
+future good behavior.
+
+Boyd, meanwhile, had never let slip an opportunity for improving his
+knowledge of Hindustani and its kindred dialects or familiarizing
+himself with the complex conditions, racial, religious, and political,
+which prevailed in Hindustan. Realizing that the Mahratta power was on
+the wane, he resigned from the service of the Peishwa, and, bearing
+letters of the highest commendation from that ruler to the British envoy
+at the court of the Nizam, he turned his horse's head toward Hyderabad.
+In a letter to his father, written at this time, he says: "On my arrival
+I was presented to his Highness in form by the English consul. My
+reception was as favorable as my most sanguine wishes had anticipated.
+After the usual ceremony was over he presented me with the command of
+two _kansolars_ of infantry, each of which consists of five hundred
+men." Continuing, he described in detail the army of the Nizam, which at
+that time consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand infantry, sixty
+thousand cavalry, and five hundred elephants, each of which bore a
+"castle" containing a nabob and his attendants. Can't you picture the
+scene when that letter, with its strange foreign postmarks, reached the
+old brick house in the quaint New England town; how the parents read and
+re-read that message from the son who was adventuring in foreign parts,
+and how the neighbors dropped in of evenings to hear the latest news of
+the boy they all knew, who was carving out a career with his sword half
+the world away? Success is, after all, a rather tasteless thing if there
+are no home folks to rejoice in it.
+
+Fortuna, that capricious beauty whose favor so many brave men have
+sought in vain, seemed to have lost her heart to the stalwart American,
+for in 1799, when Tippoo and his savage soldiery once more broke loose
+and swept across the peninsula, leaving a trail of corpses and burning
+villages behind them, the Nizam, recalling the tales he had heard of
+Boyd's exploits as a cavalry leader, gave him the command of a division
+of ten thousand turbaned troopers. Nor did the fair goddess desert him
+even when he was captured by a body of Mysore horsemen, taken before
+Tippoo Sahib himself, and, upon his stoutly refusing to turn traitor to
+the Nizam, condemned to death by torture. And the torturers of the
+tyrant of Mysore bore a most evil reputation. Overpowering the sentries
+who were set to guard him, he succeeded in making his way, thanks to his
+fluency in Hindustani, through the enemy's lines, rejoining the Nizam's
+forces in time to take part in the storming of the Sultan's capital of
+Seringapatam, Tippoo being killed in a hand-to-hand struggle after a
+last stand at the city gates. Thus died, as he would have wished--with
+his boots on--the most dangerous adversary with whom Britain had to
+contend in the winning of her Eastern empire.
+
+[Illustration: The death of Tippo-Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam.
+
+From a painting by R. de Moraine.]
+
+Early in the nineteenth century Boyd, who, as the result of the generous
+rewards he had received from his royal employers, had by this time
+become possessed of considerable means, left the service of the Nizam,
+much against the wishes of that monarch, and organized an army of his
+own. Numerically, it wasn't much of an army, as armies go, having at no
+time exceeded two thousand men, but it was as businesslike a force as
+ever responded to a bugle. Boyd, whose reputation as a cavalry leader
+extended from Bengal to Malabar, had the horsemen of all India to draw
+from, and he recruited nothing but the best, the men with whom he filled
+his ranks being as hard as nails and as keen as razors. His second in
+command was an Irish soldier of fortune named William Tone, a brother of
+Wolf Tone, the famous rebel patriot.
+
+As Boyd reckoned on counterbalancing the smallness of his force by its
+extreme mobility, he adopted the novel expedient of transporting his
+artillery on the backs of elephants, thus making it possible for the
+guns to keep pace with the cavalry even on his whirlwind raids, for an
+elephant, though burdened with a field-piece and half a dozen soldiers,
+can put mile after mile behind it at a swinging, ungainly gait which it
+will tax any horse to maintain. Military history presents no more
+fantastic picture than that of this sun-tanned Yankee adventurer
+spurring across an Indian countryside with a brigade of beturbaned
+lancers and a score or so of lumbering elephants, the muzzles of brass
+field-guns frowning from their howdahs, tearing along behind him. What a
+pity that the folk in Newburyport could not have seen him!
+
+The entire outfit--elephants, horses, cannon, and weapons--was Boyd's
+personal property, and he rented it to those princes who had need of and
+were able to pay for its service precisely as a garage rents an
+automobile. The prices he obtained for it were enormous, and ere long he
+became a wealthy man. From one end of the country to the other he led
+his scarlet-coated mercenaries, selling their services in turn to his
+former employers, the Nizam and the Peishwa, and to the rulers of
+Gwalior and Indore. When a force was needed for a particularly desperate
+service or for a hopeless hope they sent for Boyd. And he always
+delivered the goods. Fighting was going on everywhere, and he never
+lacked employment. But he was far too discerning not to recognize the
+fact that the power of England was steadily, if slowly, increasing, and
+that her complete domination of India, which could not much longer be
+delayed, must inevitably put an end to independent soldiering as a
+profitable profession. In 1808, therefore, he sold his army, elephants
+and all, to Colonel Felose, a Neapolitan who had seen service under many
+flags, and with misted eyes and a choking throat for the last time rode
+along the lines of his faithful troopers. A few days later he set sail
+for Paris, for, with the Corsican's star high in the heavens, there
+seemed no better place for such a man to seek adventure and advancement.
+Disappointed in his hope of obtaining a commission under the Napoleonic
+eagles, he turned his face toward home, and in 1810, after an absence of
+more than twenty years, he felt the cobblestones of his native
+Newburyport beneath his feet once more.
+
+Boyd's adventurous career under his own flag and in the service of his
+own people forms quite another though a scarcely less thrilling story.
+Trained and experienced officers being in those days few and far
+between, the government offered him the colonelcy of the 4th Regiment of
+Infantry, which he promptly accepted, displaying such energy in drilling
+his men that when his regiment marched through the streets of Boston on
+its way to Pittsburg the local papers commented editorially on the
+smartness of its appearance. When William Henry Harrison, then governor
+of the Territory of Indiana (which included the present States of
+Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin), realizing the imperative
+necessity of smashing the great Indian confederation which Tecumseh, the
+Shawnee warrior-statesman, was so painstakingly building to oppose the
+white man's further progress westward, called for troops to do the
+business, Boyd put his men on flat-boats, floated them down to the falls
+of the Ohio, and marched them overland to Vincennes, his dusty, footsore
+column tramping into Harrison's stockaded headquarters almost before
+that veteran frontiersman had realized that they had started. Boyd was
+in direct command, under Harrison, of the little expeditionary force of
+nine hundred men throughout the whirlwind campaign which culminated on a
+drizzling November morning in 1811 on the banks of the Tippecanoe
+River. Tippecanoe was, I suppose, the only battle which our army ever
+fought in high hats, for the absurd uniform of the American infantry,
+discarded a few months later, consisted of blue, brass-buttoned
+tail-coats, skin-tight pantaloons, and "stovepipe" hats with red, white,
+and blue cockades. Though taken by surprise and outnumbered six to one,
+Boyd's soldiery showed the result of their training by standing like a
+stone wall against the onset of the whooping redskins, pouring in a
+volley of buckshot at close range which left the hordes of warriors
+wavering, undecided whether to come on or to retreat. At this
+psychological moment Boyd ordered up the squadron of dragoons which he
+had been holding in reserve for just such an opportunity. "Right into
+line!" he roared in the voice which had resounded over so many fields in
+far-off Hindustan. "Trot! Gallop! _Charge!_ Hip, hip, here we go!" It
+was the charge of the cavalry, delivered with all the smashing
+suddenness with which a boxer delivers a solar-plexus blow, which did
+the business. The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight of the oncoming
+troopers in their brass helmets and streaming plumes of horsehair, broke
+and ran. Tippecanoe was won; Harrison was started on the road which was
+to end in the White House; the peril of Tecumseh's Indian confederation
+was ended forever, and the civilization of the West was advanced a
+quarter of a century.
+
+[Illustration: The battle of Tippecanoe.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+In the following year, upon the outbreak of our second war with England,
+Boyd, who had been commissioned a brigadier-general, commanded a
+division of Wilkinson's army in the abortive American invasion of Upper
+Canada, and, on November 11, 1813, fought the drawn battle of Chrysler's
+Field. "Taps" were sounded to his picturesque career on October 4, 1830.
+He died, not as he would have wished, sword in hand at the head of
+charging squadrons, but quite peacefully in his bed, holding the prosaic
+position of port officer of Boston, to which post he had been appointed
+by that other gallant fighter, President Andrew Jackson. As the end
+approached I doubt not that in mind he was far away from the brick and
+plaster of the New England city, and that his thoughts harked back to
+those mad, glad days when he and his lancers rode across the plains of
+Hindustan and his elephants rocked and rolled behind him.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN WE FOUGHT NAPOLEON
+
+
+This is the story of some forgotten fights and fighters in a forgotten
+war. The governments of the two nations which did the fighting--France
+and the United States--refused, indeed, to admit that there was any war
+at all, and, in a sense, they were right, for there was never any
+declaration of hostilities, and there was never signed a treaty of
+peace. But it was a very real war, nevertheless, with some of the
+fiercest battles ever fought on deep water, and when it was over we had
+laid the foundations of a navy, we had won the respect of the European
+powers, and we had humbled the pride of Napoleon as it had been humbled
+only once before, when Nelson annihilated the French fleet in the battle
+of the Nile.
+
+At the time that this narrative opens Bonaparte had just finished his
+wonderful campaign in northern Italy, and the French nation, flushed
+with confidence by his remarkable series of victories, was swaggering
+about with a chip on its shoulder, and defying the nations of the world
+to knock it off. In fact, the leaders of the Reign of Terror, drunk with
+unaccustomed power, had lost their heads as completely as the victims
+whom they had guillotined on the Place de la Revolution. Thoroughly
+typical of this insolent and arrogant attitude was the French
+Directory's peremptory demand that we instantly abrogate the treaty
+which John Jay, our minister to England, had just concluded with that
+country, basing its unwarrantable interference with our affairs on the
+ground that the terms of the treaty were injurious to the commercial
+interests of France. Upon our curt refusal to accede to this
+preposterous demand, Charles C. Pinckney, our minister at Paris, was
+notified by the French Government that it would hold no further
+intercourse with him, and the very next mail-packet brought the news
+that he had been expelled from France. Not content with this
+extraordinary and uncalled-for affront to a friendly nation, French
+cruisers began seizing our ships under a decree of their government
+authorizing the capture of neutral vessels having on board any of the
+products of Great Britain or her colonies, for at this time, remember,
+France and England were at war, as they were, indeed, throughout nearly
+the whole of Napoleon's reign. As the bulk of our trade at this period
+was with the British colonies in the West Indies, it was evident that
+this decree was aimed directly at us. Every packet that came from West
+Indian waters brought news of American ships overhauled and plundered,
+of sailors beaten and kidnapped, and of cargoes seized and confiscated
+by the French, the authenticated despatches to the State Department
+naming nearly a thousand vessels which had been captured. So bold did
+the French become that one of their privateers actually had the audacity
+to sail into Charleston Roads and, almost under the guns of the
+batteries, to burn to the water's edge a British vessel which was lying
+in the harbor.
+
+Though it was evident that nothing short of a miracle could avert war,
+President Adams, appreciating the ill-preparedness of the United States,
+which had only recently emerged from the Revolution in a weakened and
+impoverished condition, determined to make one more try for peace by
+despatching to France a special mission composed of Minister Pinckney,
+Elbridge Gerry, and John Marshall, the last-named later Chief Justice of
+the United States. Though in all our diplomatic history we have sent
+abroad no more able or distinguished embassy, the reception its members
+received at the hands of the French Government was as disgraceful as it
+was ludicrous. The French Directory at this time was composed of low
+and irresponsible politicians of the ward-heeler type who had climbed to
+power during the French Revolution, so that, incredible as such a state
+of affairs may seem in these days, the negotiations soon degenerated
+into an attempt to fleece the American envoys, who were informed quite
+frankly that their success depended entirely upon their agreeing to
+bribe--or, as the French politely put it, to give a _douceur_
+to--certain avaricious members of the Directory. Not only this, but the
+American diplomatists were told that, if the bribes demanded were not
+forthcoming, orders would be given to the war-ships on the French West
+Indian station to ravage the coasts of the United States. The chronicles
+of our foreign relations contain nothing which, for sheer impudence and
+insult, even approaches this attempt to levy blackmail on the nation.
+Even the astute Talleyrand, at that time French Foreign Minister, so far
+misjudged the characters of the men with whom he was dealing as to
+insinuate that a gift of money to members of the government was a
+necessary preliminary to the negotiations, and that a refusal would
+bring on war. Then all the pent-up rage and indignation of Pinckney
+burst forth. "War be it, then!" he exclaimed. "Millions for defence,
+sir, but not one cent for tribute!"
+
+Upon learning of this crowning insult to his representatives, President
+Adams, on March 19, 1798, informed Congress that the mission on which he
+had built his hopes of peace had proved a failure. Then the war-fever,
+which had temporarily been held in abeyance, swept over the country like
+fire in dry grass. Talleyrand's attempt to whip America into a
+revocation of Jay's treaty had ignominiously failed. He had made the
+inexcusable mistake of underestimating the spirit and resources of his
+opponents. Congress promptly abrogated all our treaties with France,
+prohibited American vessels from entering French ports, and French
+vessels from coming into American waters, and voted a large sum for
+national defence. The land forces were increased, the coastwise
+fortifications strengthened, ships of war were hurriedly laid down,
+volunteers from every walk of life besieged the recruiting stations,
+Washington reassumed command of the army. At Portland, Portsmouth,
+Salem, Chatham, Norwich, Philadelphia, and Baltimore the shipyards
+resounded to the clatter of tools, for those were before the days of big
+guns and armor-plate, and a man-of-war could, if necessary, be built and
+equipped in ninety days.
+
+Out from behind this war-cloud rose the thrilling strains of "Hail,
+Columbia." When the war-fever was at its height, a young actor and
+singer named Fox--a vaudeville artist, we should call him nowadays--who
+was appearing at a Philadelphia theatre, called one morning on his
+friend Joseph Hopkinson, a young and clever lawyer, and a son of that
+Francis H. Hopkinson whose signature may be seen at the bottom of the
+Declaration of Independence.
+
+"Look here, Joe," said Fox, dropping into a chair, "I need some help and
+you're the only man I know who can give it to me. No, no, old man, it's
+not money I'm after. To-morrow night I'm to have a benefit at the
+theatre, but not a single box has been sold; so, unless something can be
+done to attract public attention, I'm afraid I shall have a mighty thin
+house. Now it strikes me that, with all this war-fever in the air, if I
+could get some patriotic verses, something really fiery and inspiriting,
+written to the tune of 'The President's March,' I might draw a crowd.
+Several of the people around the theatre have tried it, but they have
+all given it up as a bad job, and say that it can't be done. So you're
+my last hope, Joe, and I think you could do it."
+
+Shutting himself up in his study, within an hour Hopkinson had completed
+the first verse and chorus of what was to prove one of the greatest of
+our national songs, and had submitted them to his wife, who sang them
+to a harpsichord accompaniment. The tune and the words harmonized. A few
+hours later the song was completed and was being memorized by Fox. The
+next morning Philadelphia was placarded with announcements that that
+evening Mr. Fox would sing, for the first time on any stage, a new
+patriotic song. The house was packed to the doors. As the orchestra
+broke into the familiar opening bars of "The President's March," and
+Fox, slender and debonair, bowed from behind the footlights, the
+audience grew hushed with expectancy. When the now familiar words,
+
+    "Immortal patriots, rise once more!
+    Defend your rights, defend your shore!"
+
+went rolling through the theatre from pit to gallery, the audience went
+wild. Eight times they made him sing it through, and the ninth time they
+rose and joined in the rousing chorus:
+
+    "Firm, united let us be,
+    Rallying round our Liberty.
+    Like a band of brothers joined,
+    Peace and safety we shall find."
+
+Night after night the singing of "Hail, Columbia," in the theatres was
+applauded by audiences delirious with enthusiasm, and within a few days
+it was being sung by boys in the streets of every city from Portland to
+Savannah. Never since the days of Bunker Hill had the nation been so
+stirred as it was in that summer of 1798.
+
+On July 6, with the red-white-and-blue ensign streaming proudly from her
+main truck, the sloop of war _Delaware_, twenty guns, of Baltimore,
+under Stephen Decatur, Sr., put to sea to an accompaniment of booming
+cannon. Cape Henry had scarcely sunk below the horizon before she was
+hailed by a merchantman which had been boarded and plundered by a French
+privateer only the day before. Upon hearing this news Decatur set off in
+a pursuit as eager as that with which a bloodhound follows the trail of
+a fugitive criminal. A few hours later his lookouts reported four
+vessels dead ahead. Being unable to determine which was the privateer,
+he ran in his guns, closed his ports, and keeping on his course until he
+was sure that he had been seen, stood hurriedly off, as though afraid of
+being captured. Just as he had anticipated, the Frenchman fell into the
+trap, and piling on his canvas, bore down upon him. It was not until the
+privateersman drew close enough to make out the gun-ports and the
+unusual number of men on the American's decks, that he discovered
+Decatur's ruse and attempted to escape. But it was too late. The
+_Delaware's_ superior speed enabled her easily to overhaul the
+Frenchman, which proved to be _La Incroyable_, fourteen guns and seventy
+men. So accurate and deadly was the fire poured into her by the
+_Delaware's_ gunners (forerunners, remember, of those bluejackets who
+handle the twelve-inch guns on the dreadnaught _Delaware_ to-day) that
+within ten minutes after the action had commenced the French tricolor
+came fluttering down. We had struck our first blow against the power of
+France.
+
+The captured vessel was sent into port under a prize crew, was refitted,
+added to the American Navy as the _Retaliation_--fitting name!--went to
+sea under command of William Bainbridge (the same who a few years later
+was to lose the war-ship _Philadelphia_ to the Barbary pirates in the
+harbor of Tripoli), and shortly afterward was recaptured by the French
+frigate _l'Insurgente_, being the only vessel of our little navy taken
+by the French.
+
+By the beginning of 1799 the West Indian waters were as effectually
+patrolled by American war-ships as a great city is patrolled by
+policemen. The newly built American frigates were objects of great
+amusement and derision to the French and British officers stationed in
+the West Indian colonies, for they were far too heavily armed,
+according to European ideas, carrying almost double the number of guns
+usual to vessels of their class. It is interesting to recall the fact,
+however, that sixty-odd years later European officers were equally
+derisive and sceptical of another American innovation in war-ships which
+was destined to revolutionize naval warfare--the monitor. But before
+long the sceptics were compelled to revise their opinions of the
+fighting qualities of our infant navy. Our fleet was at this time
+divided into two squadrons, both of which made their headquarters at St.
+Christopher, or, as it was more commonly called, St. Kitts, on the
+island of Antigua; one, under Commodore Barry, running as far south as
+the Guianas, while the other, under Commodore Truxtun, cruised northward
+to Santo Domingo, thus effectually cutting off from commercial
+intercourse with the mother country the rich French colonies in the
+Caribbean.
+
+Truxtun was a most picturesque and romantic figure. Short and stout,
+red-faced, gray-eyed, loud-voiced, gallant with women and short-tempered
+with men, he was as typical a sea fighter as ever trod a quarter-deck
+with a brass telescope tucked under his arm. From the time when, as a
+boy of twelve, he ran away to sea, until, a national hero, he was laid
+to rest in Christ Church graveyard in Philadelphia, his life was as full
+of hair-breadth escapes and hair-raising adventures as that of one of
+Mr. George A. Henty's heroes. A sailor before the mast when scarcely in
+his teens, he was impressed into the British Navy, where his ability
+attracted such attention that he was offered a midshipman's warrant,
+which he refused. When only twenty years of age he commanded his own
+ship, in which he succeeded, though at great personal hazard, in
+smuggling large quantities of much-needed powder into the rebellious
+colonies. Eventually his ship was captured and he was made a prisoner.
+Escaping from the British prison in the West Indies where he was
+confined, he made his way to the United States, obtained letters of
+marque from the first Continental Congress, and was the first to get to
+sea of that long line of privateersmen who, first in the Revolution, and
+afterward in the War of 1812, practically drove British commerce from
+the Atlantic. At the close of the Revolution Truxtun returned to the
+merchant service, in which he rose to wealth and position. When the
+American Navy was organized under the stimulus of French aggression, he
+was offered and accepted the command of the thirty-eight-gun frigate
+_Constellation_, a new and very beautiful vessel, splendidly officered
+and manned, and with heels as fast as her gun-fire was heavy.
+
+While cruising off Antigua, on February 9, 1799, the _Constellation's_
+lookout reported a French war-ship, which, upon being overhauled, proved
+to be _l'Insurgente_, forty guns, which had the reputation of being one
+of the fastest ships in the world, and was commanded by Captain
+Barreault, an officer celebrated in the French Navy as a desperate
+fighter and a resourceful sailor. As the _Constellation_, with her crew
+at quarters and her decks cleared for action, came booming down upon
+him, Captain Barreault broke out the French tricolor at his masthead and
+fired a gun to windward, which signified, in the language of the seas,
+that he was ready for a yard-arm to yard-arm combat. Truxtun's reply was
+to range alongside his adversary, a flag of stripes and stars at every
+masthead, and pour in a broadside which raked _l'Insurgente's_ decks
+from stem to stern. The first great naval action in which the American
+Navy ever bore a part had begun.
+
+Waiting until the _Constellation_ was well abreast of her, at a distance
+of perhaps thirty feet (modern war-ships seldom fight at a range of less
+than three miles), _l'Insurgente_ replied, firing high in an attempt to
+disable the American by bringing down her rigging. Midshipman David
+Porter, a youngster barely in his teens, was stationed in the foretop.
+Seeing that the top-mast, which had been seriously damaged by the French
+fire, was tottering and about to fall, but being unable to make himself
+heard on deck above the din of battle, he himself assumed the
+responsibility of lowering the foretopsail yard, thus relieving the
+strain on the mast and preventing a mishap which would probably have
+changed the result of the battle. That midshipman rose, in after years,
+to be an admiral and the commander-in-chief of the American Navy.
+
+Barreault, who had a much larger crew than his adversary, soon saw that
+his vessel was in danger of being pounded to pieces by the American
+gunners who were making every shot tell, and that his only hope of
+victory lay in getting alongside and boarding, depending upon his
+superior numbers to take the American vessel with the cutlass. With this
+in view, he ordered the boarding parties to their stations, sent men
+into the rigging with grappling-irons with which to hold the ships
+together when they touched, directed the guns to be loaded with small
+shot that they might cause greater execution at close quarters, and
+then, putting his helm hard down, attempted to run alongside the
+_Constellation_. But Truxtun had anticipated this very manoeuvre, and
+was prepared for it. Seizing his opportunity--and in sea-battles
+opportunities do not last long or come often--he whirled his ship about
+as a polo player whirls his pony, and ran squarely across the enemy's
+bows, pouring in a rain of lead as he passed, which all but annihilated
+the boarding parties drawn up on the deck of _l'Insurgente_.
+
+Foiled in his attempt to get to hand-grips with his enemy, the Frenchman
+sheered off and the duel at short range continued, the _Constellation_,
+magnificently handled, sailing first along _l'Insurgente's_ port side,
+firing as she went, and then, crossing her bows, repeating the manoeuvre
+on her starboard quarter. Nothing is more typical of the iron discipline
+enforced by the American naval commanders in those early days than an
+incident that occurred when this duel between the two frigates was at
+its height. As a storm of shot from the Frenchman's batteries came
+crashing and smashing into the _Constellation_, a gunner, seeing his
+mate decapitated by a solid shot, became so demoralized that he
+retreated from his gun, whereupon an officer drew his pistol and shot
+the man dead.
+
+Time after time Truxtun repeated his evolution of literally sailing
+around _l'Insurgente_, until every gun in her main batteries had been
+dismounted, her crew being left only the small guns with which to
+continue the action. It speaks volumes for Barreault's bravery that,
+with half his crew dead or wounded, and with a terribly battered and
+almost defenceless ship, he did continue the action, his weary,
+blood-stained, powder-blackened men loading and firing their few
+remaining guns dauntlessly. Seeing the weakened condition of his enemy,
+Truxtun now prepared to end the battle. Before the French had time to
+grasp the full significance of his manoeuvre, he had put his helm hard
+down, and the _Constellation_, suddenly looming out of the battle smoke,
+bore down upon _l'Insurgente_ with the evident intention of crossing her
+stern and raking her with a broadside to which she would be unable to
+reply. Though no braver man than Barreault ever fought a ship, he
+instantly appreciated that this would mean an unnecessary slaughter of
+his men; so, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he ordered his
+colors to be struck, and in token of surrender the flag of France
+slipped slowly and mournfully down. The young republic of the West had
+avenged the insult of Talleyrand.
+
+It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the desperate fighting
+which characterized this battle, the _Constellation_ had only two of her
+crew killed and three wounded, while the French loss was nearly twenty
+times that number. Lieutenant Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were
+immediately sent aboard the captured vessel with a prize crew of only
+eleven men. After the dead had been buried at sea, the wounded cared for
+by the American surgeons, and about half of the prisoners transferred to
+the _Constellation_, Rodgers set such sails on _l'Insurgente_ as the
+wrecked rigging would permit, and laid his course for St. Christopher,
+it being understood that Truxtun would keep within hail in case his
+assistance was needed. During the night a heavy gale set in, however,
+and when day broke upon the heaving ocean the _Constellation_ was
+nowhere to be seen. It was a ticklish situation in which the thirteen
+Americans found themselves, for they had their work cut out for them to
+navigate a leaking, shattered, and dismasted ship, while below decks,
+awaiting the first opportunity which offered to rise and overpower their
+captors, were nearly two hundred desperate and determined prisoners.
+There were neither shackles nor handcuffs on board, and the hatchcovers
+had been destroyed in the action, so that the prisoners were perfectly
+aware that, could they once force their way on deck by a sudden rush,
+the ship would again be theirs. But they reckoned without Rodgers, for
+the first men who put their heads above the hatchway found themselves
+looking into the muzzles of a pair of pistols held by the American
+lieutenant, whose fingers were twitching on the triggers. During the
+three days and two nights which the voyage to St. Christopher lasted, a
+guard of American bluejackets stood constantly around the open hatchway,
+a pile of loaded small arms close at hand, and a cannon loaded with
+grape-shot trained menacingly into the prisoner-filled hold. On the
+evening of the third day, after Truxtun had given her up for lost,
+_l'Insurgente_ limped into port with the flag of the United States
+flaunting victoriously above that of France.
+
+The 1st of February of the following year found the _Constellation_,
+still under the command of Commodore Truxtun, cruising off Guadaloupe in
+the hope of picking up some of the French privateers which were using
+that colony as a base from which to prey on our West Indian commerce.
+While loitering off the port of Basse Terre, and praying that something
+would turn up to pay him for his patience, Truxtun sighted a vessel
+coming up from the southeast, which from her size and build was
+evidently a French frigate of the first class. As she approached, the
+keen-eyed American naval officers, scanning her through their glasses,
+recognized her as the fifty-two-gun frigate _La Vengeance_, one of the
+most formidable vessels in the French Navy. It was evident from the
+first, however, that she would much rather run than fight, this anxiety
+to avoid an encounter being due to the fact that she had on board a
+large number of officials, high in the colonial service, whom she was
+bringing out to the colonies from the mother country. No sooner did she
+perceive the character of the _Constellation_, therefore, than she piled
+on every yard of canvas and headed for Basse Terre and the protecting
+guns of its forts. Never had the _Constellation_ a better opportunity to
+display her remarkable sailing qualities, and never did she display them
+to better advantage. It was well after nightfall, however, before she
+was able to overhaul the flying Frenchman, so that it was by the light
+of a full moon, which illumined the scene almost as well as though it
+were day, that the preparations were completed for the combat. The sea,
+which was glasslike in its smoothness, as is so often the case in
+Caribbean waters, seemed to be covered with a veil of shimmering silver,
+while the battle-lanterns which had been lighted on both vessels swung
+like giant fireflies across the purple sky.
+
+Seeing that escape was hopeless, the French commander hove to and
+prepared for a desperate resistance. Now, Truxtun had made up his mind
+that this was to be no long-range duel, in which the Frenchman's heavier
+metal could not fail to give him an advantage, but a fight at close
+quarters, in which the smashing broadsides which the _Constellation_ was
+specially designed to deliver could not fail to tell. Just before the
+beginning of the battle the stout commodore, red-faced, white-wigged,
+cock-hatted, clad in the blue tail-coat and buff breeches of the
+American Navy, descended to the gun-deck and walked slowly through the
+batteries, acknowledging the cheers of the gunners, but emphatically
+warning them against firing a shot until he gave the word. No one knew
+better than Truxtun the demoralizing effect of a smashing broadside
+suddenly delivered at close quarters, and it was this demoralization
+which he intended to create aboard the enemy. "Load with solid shot," he
+ordered, and added, speaking to his officers so that the men could hear:
+"If a man fires a gun before I give the order, shoot him on the spot."
+Then with boarding-nettings triced up, decks sanded, magazines opened,
+and the tops filled with marines whose duty it was to pick off the
+French gunners, the _Constellation_, stripped to her fighting canvas,
+swept grandly into action. As she came within range the French commander
+opened with his stern-chasers, and in an instant the ordered decks of
+the American were turned into a shambles. The wounded were carried
+groaning to the cockpit, where the white-aproned surgeons, their arms
+bared to the elbow, awaited their grim work, while the dead were hastily
+ranged along the unengaged side--rows of stark and staring figures
+beneath the placid moon. Again and again the guns of _La Vengeance_
+belched smoke and flame, and redder and redder grew the sand with which
+the _Constellation's_ decks were spread, but she still kept coming on.
+Not until she was squarely abreast of the Frenchman did Truxtun, leaping
+into the shrouds, bellow through his speaking-trumpet: "Now, boys, give
+'em hell!" The American gunners answered with a broadside which made _La
+Vengeance_ reel. The effect was terrible. On the decks of the Frenchman
+the dead and dying lay in quivering, bleeding heaps. But not for an
+instant did the French sailors flinch from their guns. Broadside
+answered broadside, cheer answered cheer, while the men, French and
+American alike, toiled and sweated at their work of carnage. So rapidly
+were the American guns fired that the men actually had to crawl out of
+the ports, in the face of a withering fire, for buckets of water with
+which to cool them off.
+
+The different tactics adopted by the two commanders soon began to show
+results, for, whereas Truxtun had given orders that his men were to
+disregard the upper works and to concentrate their fire on the main-deck
+batteries and the hull, the French commander had from the first directed
+his fire upon the American's rigging in the hope of crippling her.
+Shortly after midnight the French fire, which had grown weaker and
+weaker under the terrible punishment of the _Constellation's_ successive
+broadsides, ceased altogether, and an officer was seen waving a white
+flag in token of surrender. Twice before, in fact, _La Vengeance_ had
+struck her colors, but owing to the smoke and darkness the Americans had
+not perceived it. And there was good reason for her surrender, for she
+had lost one hundred and sixty men out of her crew of three hundred and
+thirty, while the _Constellation_ had but thirty-nine casualties out of
+a crew of three hundred and ten. Though the French fire had done small
+damage to the _Constellation's_ hull, and had killed a comparatively
+small number of her crew, it had worked terrible havoc in her rigging,
+it being discovered, just as she was preparing to run alongside her
+capture and take possession, that every shroud and stay supporting her
+mainmast had been shot away, and that the mast was tottering and about
+to fall. The men in the top were under the command of a little
+midshipman named James Jarvis, who was only thirteen years old. He had
+been warned by one of his men that the mast was likely to fall at any
+moment, and had been implored to leave the top while there was still
+time, which he would have been entirely justified in doing, particularly
+as the battle was over. But that thirteen-year-old midshipman had in him
+the stuff of which heroes are made, and resolutely refused to leave his
+post without orders. The orders never came, for before the crew had time
+to secure it the great mast crashed over the side, carrying with it to
+instant death little Jarvis and all of his men save one. Though his name
+and deed have long since been forgotten by the nation for which he died,
+he was no whit less a hero than that other boy-sailor, Casabianca, whose
+self-sacrifice at the battle of the Nile has been made familiar by song
+and story.
+
+The falling of the _Constellation's_ mast reversed conditions in an
+instant, for the surrendered frigate, taking prompt advantage of the
+victor's temporary helplessness, crowded on all sail and slowly
+disappeared into the night. By the time the wreck had been chopped away
+any pursuit of her was hopeless. A few days later she put into the Dutch
+port of Curacao in a sinking condition.
+
+Thus continued until February, 1801, an unbroken series of American
+successes, French war-ships, French privateers, and French merchantmen
+alike being sunk, captured, or driven from the seas. France's trade with
+her West Indian colonies was paralyzed, and the prestige of her navy was
+enormously diminished. Napoleon, as First Consul, had abolished the
+Directory, and was now the virtual ruler of France, having entire
+command of all administrative affairs, both civil and military. Forced
+to admit that from first to last his ships had been out-sailed,
+out-fought, and out-manoeuvred by the despised Americans, and that a
+continuance of the war could only result in further disaster and loss of
+prestige, he began negotiations which led, about the time that the
+nineteenth century passed its first birthday, to a suspension of
+hostilities.
+
+During the two and a half years of this unofficial war with the most
+powerful military nation in the world our infant navy had captured
+eighty-four armed French vessels, mounting over five hundred guns--a
+success all the more remarkable when it is remembered that our entire
+naval establishment at the outbreak of hostilities comprised but
+twenty-two vessels, with four hundred and fifty-six guns. In other
+words, we had captured almost four times as many ships as we possessed.
+Not only had we practically destroyed French commerce on this side of
+the Atlantic, but our own commerce had risen, under the protection of
+our guns, from fifty-seven million dollars in 1797 to more than
+seventy-eight million dollars in 1799. Most important of all, however,
+we had shown to France and to Europe that, when occasion demanded, we
+both would and could, in the words of our national song, defend our
+rights and defend our shore.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN WE CAPTURED AN AFRICAN KINGDOM
+
+
+Did you ever, by any chance, leave the Boston State House by the back
+door? If so, you found yourself in a quiet and rather shabby
+thoroughfare, cobble-paved and lined on the farther side by
+old-fashioned red-brick houses, with white, brass-knockered doors, and
+iron balconies, and green blinds. That is Derne Street. Though a man
+standing on Boston Common could break one of its violet-glass windows
+with a well thrown ball, it is, as it were, a placid backwater of the
+busy streams of commerce which flow so noisily a few rods away. I wonder
+how many of the smug frock-coated politicians who hurry through it as a
+short cut daily have any idea how it got its name; I wonder if any of
+the people who live upon it know. Though the exploit which this Boston
+byway was named to commemorate has been overlooked by nearly all our
+historians, perhaps because its scene was laid in a remote and barbarous
+country, yet it was a feat which, for picturesqueness, daring, and
+indomitable courage, is deserving of a more generous share of the
+calcium light of public appreciation. Though I am perfectly aware that
+history only too often makes dull reading, this chronicle, I promise
+you, is as bristling with romance and adventure as a hedgehog is with
+quills.
+
+You must understand, in the first place, that the declining years of the
+eighteenth century found a perfectly astounding state of affairs
+prevailing in the Mediterranean, where the four Barbary states--Morocco,
+Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli--which stretched along its African shore,
+collected tribute from every nation whose vessels sailed that sea as
+methodically as a street-car conductor collects fares. Asserting that
+they were no common, vulgar buccaneers who plundered vessels
+indiscriminately, the Barbary corsairs, claiming for themselves the
+virtual ownership of the Mediterranean, turned it into a sort of
+maritime toll-road, and professed themselves at war with all who refused
+to pay roundly for using it. Nor was their boast that they were the
+masters of the Middle Sea a vain one, scores of captured merchantmen and
+thousands of European slaves laboring under the African sun proving
+indubitably that they were amply capable of enforcing their demands. As
+far as the question of economy was concerned, it was about as cheap for
+a nation to be at war with these bandits of the sea as at peace, for so
+heavy was the tribute they demanded that their friendship came almost as
+high as their enmity. It cost Spain, at that time a rich and powerful
+empire, upward of three million dollars to obtain peace with the Dey of
+Algiers in 1786. Though England boasted herself mistress of the seas,
+and in token thereof English admirals carried brooms at their mastheads,
+she nevertheless spent four hundred thousand dollars annually in
+propitiating these African despots. Previous to the Revolution there
+were close on a hundred American vessels, manned by more than twelve
+hundred seamen, in the Mediterranean, but with the withdrawal of British
+protection this commerce was entirely abandoned. The ink was scarcely
+dry on the treaty of peace, however, before we had despatched diplomatic
+agents to the Barbary coast to purchase the friendship of its rulers,
+and had taken our place in the line of regular contributors. We were in
+good company, too, for England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
+Denmark, and the Italian states had been paying tribute so long that
+they had acquired the habit. Think of it, my friends! Every great
+seafaring nation in the world meekly paying tribute to a few thousand
+Arab cutthroats for the privilege of using one of the seven seas, and
+humbly apologizing if the payment happened to become overdue!
+
+Our friendly relations with the Dey of Algiers were of short duration,
+however, and by 1793 his swift-sailing, heavily armed cruisers had
+captured thirteen American vessels, and sixscore American slaves were at
+work on the fortifications of his capital. In his prison-yard, indeed,
+one could hear every American inflection, from the nasal twang of Maine
+to the drawl of Carolina. After two years of procrastination, Congress,
+spurred to action by public indignation, purchased the liberty of the
+captives and peace with Algiers for eight hundred thousand dollars,
+though the Dey remarked gloomily, as he scrawled his Arabic flourish at
+the foot of the treaty: "If I keep on making peace at this rate, there
+will soon be no one left to fight. Then how shall I occupy my corsairs?
+What shall I do with my fighting men? If they have no one else to rob
+and slaughter, they will rob and slaughter me!"
+
+The Bashaw of Tripoli at this time was a peculiarly insolent and
+tyrannical Arab named Yussuf Karamanli, who had gained the throne by
+the effective method of winning over the body-guard, quietly
+surrounding the palace one night, and deposing his elder brother, Ahmet,
+whom he promptly exiled. Despite the annual tribute of twenty-two
+thousand dollars which we were paying to the Bashaw, not to mention the
+seventeen thousand dollars' worth of presents which we presented
+biennially to the officers and officials of his court, he complained
+most bitterly to the American consul at Tripoli that he was not getting
+as much as his neighboring rulers, and that unless the matter was
+remedied immediately, he would have to get some American slaves to teach
+him English. Now, Yussuf was a bad man to have for an enemy, for his
+cruisers were numerous and loaded to the gunwales with pirates who would
+rather fight than eat, and he had, in addition, the reputation of being
+most inconsiderate to those sailors who fell into his hands, sometimes
+going so far as to wall a few of them up in the fortifications which he
+was constantly building. To put it bluntly, he was not popular outside
+of his own circle. As Mr. Cathcart, the American consul, did not take
+his demands for a larger tribute very seriously, the Bashaw wrote to
+President Jefferson direct, mincing no words in saying that the American
+government had better grant his request, and be quick about it, or
+American seamen would find the Mediterranean exceedingly unhealthy for
+them.
+
+Incredible as it may seem in this day and age, the authorities at
+Washington ordered a vessel to be loaded with the arms, ammunition, and
+naval stores demanded by the Bashaw, their total value being thirty-four
+thousand dollars, and hurriedly despatched it to Tripoli, with profuse
+apologies for the delay. A few months later the Bashaw, who evidently
+knew a good thing when he saw it, suggested that a token of our esteem
+for him in the form of jewels would be highly acceptable, whereupon the
+American minister in London was instructed to purchase jewelry to the
+value of ten thousand dollars and have it hurried to Tripoli by special
+messenger. Emboldened by his undreamed-of success in shaking the
+republican tree, the Bashaw reached the very height of audacity by again
+sending a peremptory note to President Jefferson, demanding that the
+United States immediately present him with a thirty-six-gun war-ship! As
+no attention was paid to this modest request (and in view of the other
+outrageous concessions made by our government, it is somewhat surprising
+that this demand was not granted also), the Bashaw ordered the flagstaff
+of the American consulate to be chopped down as a sign of war, and
+turned his corsairs loose on American commerce in the Mediterranean. The
+war opened most disastrously for the United States, for a few months
+later the frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli,
+the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew. No
+wonder the Bashaw went to the mosque that day to give thanks to Allah,
+for had he not received an even larger war-ship than he had demanded,
+and did he not have two hundred American slaves to instruct him in the
+English tongue? "God is great!" exclaimed the Bashaw devoutly, as he
+knelt on his silken prayer-rug, and "God is great!" echoed the rows of
+corsairs who knelt behind him.
+
+It was shortly after this American misfortune that William Eaton,
+soldier, diplomat, and Indian-fighter, swaggered upon the scene, and
+things began to happen with a rapidity that made the Bashaw's turbaned
+head whirl. By birth and upbringing Eaton was a Connecticut Yankee, and
+he possessed all the shrewdness, hardihood, and perseverance so
+characteristic of that race. The son of a schoolmaster farmer, before he
+was sixteen he had run away from home to join the Continental Army,
+which he left at the close of the Revolution with the chevrons of a
+sergeant on his coat-sleeve. Far-sighted enough to see the value of a
+college education, he went from the camp straight to the college
+classroom. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1790, he re-entered the army as
+a captain, served against the Indians in Georgia and Ohio, and in 1798
+received an appointment as American consul at Tunis. Resolute,
+energetic, and daring, impatient with any one who did not agree with his
+views, no better man could have been selected for the place. Thoroughly
+understanding the Arab character, from the very outset he took a high
+hand in his dealings with the Tunisian ruler. He alternately quarrelled
+with and patronized the Bey, bullyragged his ministers, and actually
+horsewhipped an insolent official of the court in the palace courtyard,
+for five years keeping up an uninterrupted series of altercations,
+provocations, and procrastinations over the payment of tribute-money. He
+acted with such energy and boldness, however, that he secured to the
+commerce of his country complete immunity from the attacks of Tunisian
+cruisers, and made the name American respected on that part of the
+Barbary coast at least. In 1801, as I have already remarked, the
+American flagstaff in the adjoining kingdom of Tripoli came crashing
+down at the Bashaw's order, and war promptly began between that
+country and the United States. Two years later the Bey of Tunis, harried
+beyond endurance by the half-insolent, half-patronizing fashion in which
+Eaton treated him, ordered that gentleman to leave the country.
+
+[Illustration: The frigate _Philadelphia_ ran aground in the harbor of
+Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire
+crew.]
+
+Returning to the United States, Eaton went immediately to Washington and
+laid before President Jefferson and his Cabinet a scheme for bringing
+the war with Tripoli to a successful conclusion, and exchanging our
+humiliating position as a contributor to a gang of pirates for one more
+consistent with American ideals. The plan which he proposed was,
+briefly, that the United States should assist in restoring to the
+Tripolitan throne the exiled Bashaw, Ahmet Karamanli, on the
+understanding that, upon his restoration, the exaction of tribute from
+the American government and the depredations on American commerce should
+cease. Eaton was outspoken in urging the desirability of carrying out
+this plan, arguing that the dethronement of one of the Barbary despots
+would impress the people of all that region as nothing else could do. I
+can see him standing there beside the long table in the Cabinet room of
+the White House, his lean Yankee face aglow with enthusiasm, his every
+motion bespeaking confidence in himself and his plan, while Jefferson
+and his sedate, conservative advisers lean far back in their chairs and
+regard this visionary half curiously, half amusedly, as he outlines his
+schemes for overturning thrones and reapportioning kingdoms. From the
+President and his Cabinet he received the sort of treatment which timid
+governments are apt to bestow on men of spirit and action. He was given
+to understand that he was at liberty to carry out his plans, but that,
+if he was successful, the government would take all the credit, and
+that, if he failed, he would have to take all the blame. The only way to
+explain the astounding apathy of the American government to events in
+the Mediterranean is that a bitter political struggle was then in
+progress in the United States, and that the very remoteness of the
+theatre of war probably lessened its importance in the eyes of the
+administration. At any rate, President Jefferson signed the appointment
+of Eaton as American naval agent in the Mediterranean, and, happy as a
+schoolboy at the beginning of the long vacation, at the wide latitude of
+action conferred upon him by this purposely vague commission, he sailed
+a few days later with the American fleet for Egypt. His great adventure
+had begun.
+
+Aware that the dethroned Bashaw had fled to Cairo, Eaton landed at
+Alexandria, and, hastening to the Egyptian capital by camel, succeeded
+in locating the exiled Ahmet, whom he found in the depths of poverty and
+despair. Seated cross-legged beside him in a native coffee-house, Eaton
+outlined his plan and proposition. He told Ahmet that the United States
+would undertake to restore him to the Tripolitan throne upon his
+agreeing to repay the expenses of the expedition immediately upon his
+restoration, and upon the condition that Eaton should be
+commander-in-chief of the land forces throughout the campaign, Ahmet and
+his followers to promise him implicit obedience. Ahmet snapped at the
+chance, slim though it was, to regain his kingdom, as a starving dog
+snaps at a proffered bone. Eaton's plan of campaign was as simple as it
+was reckless. He proposed to recruit a force of Greek and Arab
+mercenaries, officered by Americans, in Alexandria, and, following the
+North African coast-line westward across the Libyan Desert, to surprise
+and capture Derna (or, as it was spelled in those days, Derne), the
+capital of the easternmost and richest province of Tripoli. With Derna
+as a base of operations, and with the co-operation of the American
+fleet, he held that it would be a comparatively simple matter to push on
+along the coast, taking in turn Benghazi, Tobruk, and the city of
+Tripoli itself. The chief merit of the scheme lay in its sheer
+audacity, for of all the leaders who have invaded Africa, this unknown
+American was the only one who had the courage to face the perils of a
+march across a waterless, trackless, sun-scorched, and uninhabited
+desert. But there was in Eaton the stuff of which great conquerors are
+made, and instead of letting his mind dwell on the dangers which the
+desert had to offer, he dreamed of the triumphs which awaited him beyond
+it.
+
+To raise the men for so hazardous an expedition, Eaton had need of all
+the energy and magnetism at his command, alternately employing the
+specious promises of a recruiting sergeant and the persuasive arguments
+of a campaign orator. On March 3, 1805, Eaton and the man to whom he had
+promised a kingdom reviewed their forlorn hope--and it was very forlorn
+indeed--at a spot called the Arab's Tower, some forty miles southwest of
+Alexandria. I doubt if so strangely assorted a force ever marched and
+fought under the shadow of our flag. The army, if army it could be
+called, consisted of eight Americans besides Eaton: Lieutenant O'Barron,
+Sergeant Peck, and six marines borrowed from the American fleet;
+thirty-four Greeks, who went along professedly because they wanted to
+fight the Moslem, but really because they needed the money; twenty-five
+Egyptian Copts, Christians at least in name, who claimed to be trained
+artillerymen, and to lend color to their assertion brought with them a
+small brass field-gun; those of Ahmet's personal adherents who had fled
+with him into exile, numbering about ninety men; and a squadron of Arab
+mercenaries, whose services had been obtained by the promise of
+unlimited opportunities for loot--these with the drivers of the
+baggage-camels bringing the total strength of the "Army of North Africa"
+to less than four hundred men. With this motley and ill-disciplined
+force behind him, and six hundred miles of yellow sand in front, Eaton
+turned his horse's nose Tripoliward, so that at about the time President
+Jefferson was delivering his second inaugural address the adventurous
+American was leading his little army across the desert, with the courage
+of an Alexander the Great, to conquer an African kingdom.
+
+The task which lay before him was one which great military leaders, all
+down the ages, had declared impossible. For a distance equal to that
+from Philadelphia to Chicago stretched an unbroken expanse of pitiless,
+sun-scorched desert, boasting no single living thing save an occasional
+band of nomad Arabs or a herd of gazelles. Midway between Alexandria
+and Derna was the insignificant port of Bomba, where, according to a
+prearranged plan, the _Argus_, under Captain Isaac Hull--the same who
+became famous a few years later for his victories over the British in
+the War of 1812--was to meet the expedition with supplies. Unless you
+have seen the desert it will be difficult for you to appreciate how
+hazardous this adventure really was. Imagine a sea of yellow sand with
+billow after billow stretching in every direction as far as the eye can
+see; without a tree, a shrub, a plant, a blade of grass; without a
+river, a brook, a drop of water except, at long intervals, a stagnant,
+green-scummed pool; the air like a blast from an open furnace-door and
+overhead a sky pitiless as molten brass! During the seven weeks of the
+march the thermometer never dropped during the day below 120 degrees.
+
+The arrangements for the transport had been left to Ahmet Pasha, and it
+was not until the expedition was two hundred miles into the desert, and
+the camel-drivers abruptly halted and announced that they were going
+back to Egypt, that Eaton learned that they had been engaged only to
+that point. As the desertion of the camel-drivers and the consequent
+inability to transport the tents, ammunition, and supplies would wreck
+the expedition, Eaton pleaded with the men to stick by him two or three
+days longer, until he could reach an encampment of Arabs with whom he
+could make another contract. This they consented to do on condition that
+they were paid in advance. By borrowing every piaster which his
+Americans and Greeks had to lend, Eaton succeeded in raising six hundred
+and seventy-three dollars, and with this the camel-drivers were
+apparently content. Nothing shows more strikingly the shoe-string on
+which the enterprise was being run than the fact that this unexpected
+disbursement reduced Eaton's war-chest to three Venetian
+sequins--equivalent to six dollars and fifty-four cents! Despite this
+payment, all but four of the camel-drivers deserted the very next night,
+and the four that remained sullenly refused to go any farther. In the
+darkness of the following night they, too, quietly untethered their
+camels and slipped silently away. Here, then, were three hundred and
+fifty men, with a rapidly diminishing supply of food and water and
+absolutely no means of transport, as completely marooned as though they
+were on a desert island.
+
+To make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Eaton learned that
+Ahmet had induced his Tripolitans and the Arabs to refuse to advance
+until they had news of the arrival of the _Argus_ at Bomba. Eaton,
+striding across to Ahmet's tent, shook his fist menacingly in the face
+of the cringing Tripolitan. "I know you're a coward," said he, "and I
+suspect that you're a traitor and I've a damned good mind to have you
+shot." The Pasha, now thoroughly frightened, replied that his men were
+too tired to march any farther. "You can take your choice between
+marching and starving," Eaton retorted, turning on his heel, and placing
+a guard of American marines around the tent containing the provisions,
+he ordered them to shoot the first Arab who approached it. This resolute
+action had an immediate effect, for the Pasha and his men lost their
+tired feeling with amazing quickness, fifty of the camel-drivers
+returned, and the desperate march was resumed. It was but a day or two,
+however, before the Arabs became as turbulent and unruly as ever. Then
+another mutiny broke out, Ahmet and his people announcing that they
+preferred to be well-fed cowards rather than starved heroes, and that
+they were going back to the flesh-pots of Egypt forthwith. Just as they
+were on the point of departure, however, a messenger who had been
+despatched to Bomba reached camp with the news that the _Argus_ was
+awaiting them in the harbor. These unexpected delays had wholly
+exhausted the supplies, which were slim enough, goodness knows, in the
+beginning, so that during the remainder of the march to Bomba they were
+compelled to kill some of the camels for food, living upon them and upon
+such roots as they could gather on the way.
+
+It was a half-starved and utterly exhausted expedition that plodded up
+the sand dunes which overlook the little port of Bomba, so what must
+their despair have been when they found no vessel awaiting them in the
+harbor, and that the town itself had been deserted. Captain Hull,
+apparently having given them up as lost, had departed. This time a more
+serious mutiny occurred, the Arabs, desperate with hunger and furious
+from disappointment, preparing to attack Eaton and his handful of
+Europeans. Appreciating the peril of his position, Eaton hastily formed
+his men into a hollow square. Just as the Arabs were preparing to charge
+down upon them the musket of one of the marines was prematurely
+discharged, the bullet whistling in uncomfortable proximity to the
+Pasha's ear. So terror-stricken was that worthy that he called off his
+men and attempted to parley with Eaton, who, standing alone well in
+front of his command, relieved his mind by telling Ahmet his opinion of
+him in what, according to the accounts of those who heard it, must have
+been an epic in objurgation. While the two factions were growling at
+each other like angry bull-dogs one of the Americans, happening to
+glance seaward, suddenly broke the dangerous tension by shouting: "A
+sail! A sail!" Hull, true to his promise, was returning, and the
+expedition was saved. Supplies were quickly landed from the _Argus_ for
+the starving men; with full stomachs the courage of the Arabs returned,
+and Eaton and his little band once more turned their faces toward the
+setting sun.
+
+On the evening of April 25 the vanguard sighted the walls of Derna. A
+feat that veteran soldiers had jeered at as impossible had been
+accomplished, and Eaton, without the loss of a man, had brought his army
+across six hundred miles of desert, in the heat of an African spring,
+and in the remarkable time, when the scantiness of the rations and the
+many delays are considered, of fifty-two days. With their goal actually
+in sight, still another mutiny took place, the craven Arabs claiming
+that they were too few in number to attempt the capture of a walled and
+heavily garrisoned city, and it was not until Eaton promised them a
+bonus of two thousand dollars if they succeeded in taking it that they
+could be induced to advance. The more one learns of this man the more
+one must admire his unfailing resource, his tenacity of purpose, and his
+bull-dog courage; for, in addition to the appalling natural obstacles
+which he overcame, he was constantly harried by intrigue, treachery, and
+cowardice.
+
+On the morning of the 26th a message was sent to the governor of Derna,
+under a flag of truce, offering him full amnesty if he would surrender
+and declare his allegiance to his rightful sovereign, Ahmet. The answer
+that came back was as curt as it was conclusive: "My head or yours," it
+read. Just as the sun was rising above the sand-dunes the following
+morning the _Argus_, the _Nautilus_, and the _Hornet_ swept grandly into
+the harbor, their crews at quarters, their decks cleared for action, and
+the red-white-and-blue ensign of the oversea republic floating defiantly
+from their main trucks. Under cover of a terrific bombardment by the
+war-ships, Eaton's force advanced upon the city, planning, with their
+single field-piece, to effect a breach in the walls and carry the place
+by storm. So murderous was the fire that the Tripolitan riflemen poured
+into them from the walls and housetops, however, that they were thrown
+into confusion, their single piece of artillery was put out of action
+by a well-directed cannon-shot, and Eaton himself was severely wounded.
+Seeing that his raw troops were on the verge of panic, and knowing that
+his only chance of holding them together lay in a charge, Eaton ordered
+his buglers to sound the advance, and with a cheer like the roar of a
+storm his whole line--Americans, Greeks, and Arabs--swept forward on a
+run. "Come on, boys!" shouted Eaton, as he raced ahead, sword in one
+hand, pistol in the other. "At the double! Follow me! Follow me!" And
+follow him they did. Cheering like madmen they crossed a field swept by
+a withering rifle-fire. They clambered over the ramparts, and by the
+very fury of their assault drove back the defenders, who outnumbered
+them twenty to one. They fought with them hand to hand, sabre against
+cimiter, bayonet against clubbed matchlock. Swarming into the batteries,
+they cut down the gunners and turned their guns upon the town. The
+defences of the city once in his possession, Eaton directed an assault
+upon the palace, where the governor had taken refuge, utilizing his Arab
+cavalry meanwhile to cut off the retreat of the flying garrison. Before
+the sun had disappeared into the Mediterranean, Eaton, at a cost of only
+fourteen killed and wounded (all of whom, by the way, were Americans
+and Greeks), had made himself master of Derna. His moment of triumph
+came when, still begrimed with dirt and powder, his arm in a
+blood-stained sling, he stood with drawn sword before the line formed by
+his ragged soldiers and the trim bluejackets from the fleet, and,
+watching a ball of bunting creep up that palace flagstaff from which so
+recently had flaunted the banner of Tripoli, saw it suddenly break out
+into the Stars and Stripes. Our flag, for the first and only time, flew
+above a fortification on that side of the Atlantic.
+
+Reinforced by a party of bluejackets from the fleet, Eaton wasted not a
+moment in preparing the city for defence. He was none too soon, either,
+for the Bashaw, learning of the loss of his richest province, despatched
+an overwhelming force for its recapture. This army arrived before the
+walls of Derna on May 13, and immediately made an assault, which Eaton
+repulsed, as he did a second one a few weeks later. By this time the
+news of Eaton's victory had spread across North Africa as fire spreads
+in dry grass, and thousands of natives, many of them deserters from the
+Bashaw's forces, hastened to assert their undying loyalty and to offer
+their services to Ahmet, for your Arab is far-seeing and takes good care
+to be found on the side which he believes to be the winning one. With
+his army thus largely augmented, with ample supplies, with Derna as a
+base of operations, and with his own prestige equivalent to an
+additional regiment, Eaton had completed the preparations for continuing
+his victorious advance along the African coast-line. There is little
+doubt, indeed, that with the co-operation of the fleet he could have
+marched on to Benghazi, taken that city as easily as he did Derna, and
+in due time planted the American flag on the castle of Tripoli itself.
+
+So it was with undisguised amazement and indignation that on June 12 he
+received orders from Commodore Rodgers to evacuate Derna and to withdraw
+his forces from Tripoli, Colonel Tobias Lear, the American consul at
+Algiers, having, in the face of Eaton's successes, signed an inglorious
+treaty of peace with the Bashaw of Tripoli. No more degrading terms were
+ever assented to by a civilized power. The Bashaw at first demanded two
+hundred thousand dollars for the release of Bainbridge and the
+_Philadelphia's_ crew, but as Eaton had captured a large number of
+Tripolitans in the storming of Derna, an exchange was eventually
+arranged, the United States agreeing to pay the pirate ruler sixty
+thousand dollars to boot. The city of Derna and the great province of
+which it was the capital were surrendered without so much as the mention
+of an equivalent, not even the relinquishment of the ransom of the
+American prisoners. The unfortunate Ahmet Pasha, who had been decoyed
+from his refuge in Egypt on the promise of American assistance in
+effecting his restoration, was deserted at a moment when success was
+actually ours, and had to fly for his life to Sicily, his wife and
+children being held as hostages by his brother and the heads of his
+adherents being exposed on the walls of the Tripolitan capital. Thus
+shamefully ended one of the most gallant and romantic exploits in the
+history of American arms; thus terminated an episode which, more than
+any other agency, compelled the rulers of the Barbary coast to respect
+the citizens and fear the wrath of the United States. Though an
+expedition of scarcely four hundred men may sound insignificant, the
+humbling of a Barbary power was an achievement which every European
+nation had attempted and which none of them had accomplished.
+
+Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to the United States in
+November, 1805, to find himself a national hero. From the moment he set
+his foot on American soil he was greeted with cheers wherever he
+appeared; it was "roses, roses all the way." The cities of Washington
+and Richmond honored him with public dinners; Massachusetts, "desirous
+to perpetuate the remembrance of an heroic enterprise," granted him ten
+thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston named a street after the city
+which he had captured against such fearful odds; President Jefferson
+lauded him in his annual message; and in recognition of his services in
+effecting the release of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was
+presented by the King of Denmark with a jewelled snuff-box. He was
+complimented everywhere except at the seat of government, and received
+every honor except that which he most deserved--a vote of thanks from
+Congress. Though his expedition had involved an expense of twenty-three
+thousand dollars, for which he had given his personal notes and the
+repayment of which exhausted all his means, Congress never reimbursed
+him. Notwithstanding the astounding indifference and ingratitude of the
+nation on whose flag he had shed such lustre, he indignantly rejected
+the advances of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist him in his
+conspiracy to establish an empire beyond the Mississippi, and died,
+poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Though the most
+modest of monuments marks his resting-place in Brimfield churchyard, and
+though not one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen have so much as
+heard his name, his fame still lives in that wild and far-off region
+where it took an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat the
+exploit which he accomplished with four hundred.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"
+
+
+We leaned over the rail of the _Hamburg_, Colonel Roosevelt and I, and
+watched the olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea. Houses
+white as chalk began to peep from among the orange groves; what looked
+at first sight to be a yellow snake turned into a winding road; then we
+rounded a headland, and the U-shaped harbor, edged by a sleepy town and
+commanded by a crumbling fortress, lay before us. "In there," said the
+ex-President, pointing eagerly as our anchor rumbled down, "was waged
+one of the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one of the least
+known; in there lies the wreck of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer
+that stood off twenty times her strength in British men and guns, and
+thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is a story that should make
+the thrills of patriotism run up and down the back of every
+right-thinking American."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Everything about her, from the carved and gilded figure-head, past the
+rakish, slanting masts to the slender stern, indicated the privateer.
+As she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in the afternoon of
+September 26, 1814, black-hulled and white-sparred, carrying an amazing
+spread of snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a grunt of
+approval even from the surly Azorian pilot. Hardly had the
+red-white-and-blue ensign showing her nationality fluttered to her peak
+before a harbor skiff bearing the American consul, Dabney, shot out from
+shore; for these were troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from
+the States were few and far between. Rounding her stern, he read, with a
+thrill of pride, "_General Armstrong, New York_."
+
+The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth escape. For of all
+the two-hundred-odd privateers that put out from American ports at the
+outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British commerce, none had won so
+high a place in the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled
+schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a spread of canvas at which most
+skippers would have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled
+privateer afloat, and had always been able to show her heels to the
+enemy on the rare occasions when the superior range of her seven guns
+had failed to pound him into submission. Her list of captures had made
+rich men of her owners, and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on
+a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to thirteen guineas in the
+hundred.
+
+The story of her desperate encounter off the mouth of the Surinam River
+with the British sloop of war _Coquette_, with four times her weight in
+guns, had fired the popular imagination as had few other events of the
+war. Although her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his
+thirtieth birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring fighter ever
+trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of ninety men--Down-East fishermen,
+old man-o'-war's men, Creole privateersmen who had fought under Lafitte,
+reckless adventurers of every sort and kind--would have warmed the heart
+of bluff old John Paul Jones himself.
+
+Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch reported a sail in the
+offing, and Reid and the consul, hurrying on deck, made out the British
+brig _Carnation_, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels in her
+wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigate _Rota_, and the _Plantagenet_, of
+seventy-four. Now, as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor, where a
+dead calm prevailed, while the three British ships were fast approaching
+before the brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid, who knew the
+line which marks foolhardiness from courage, appreciating that the
+chances of his being able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of the
+harbor before the British squadron arrived to block the entrance were
+almost infinitesimal, decided to stay where he was and trust to the
+neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed by the assurances
+of Consul Dabney that the British would not dare to attack a vessel
+lying in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was mistaken, for
+throughout the entire duration of the war the British as cynically
+disregarded the observance of international law and the rights of
+neutrals as though they did not exist.
+
+The _Carnation_, learning the identity of the American vessel from the
+pilot, hauled close into the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she
+was within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_. Instantly a string of
+signal-flags fluttered from her mast, and the message was promptly
+acknowledged by her approaching consorts, which thereupon proceeded to
+stand off and on across the mouth of the harbor, thus barring any chance
+of the privateer making her escape. So great was the commotion which
+ensued on the _Carnation's_ deck that Reid, becoming suspicious of the
+Englishman's good faith, warped his ship under the very guns of the
+Portuguese fort.
+
+About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen, Captain Reid saw four
+boats slip silently from the shadow of the _Carnation_ and pull toward
+him with muffled oars. If anything more were needed to convince him of
+their hostile intentions, the moon at that moment appeared from behind a
+cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutlasses and musket-barrels in
+all four of the approaching boats. As they came within hailing distance
+Reid swung himself into the shrouds.
+
+"Boats there!" he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands. "Come no
+nearer! For your own safety I warn you!"
+
+At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision, and their
+commanders held a whispered consultation. Then, apparently deciding to
+take the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer unprepared,
+they gave the order: "Give way all!" The oars caught the water together,
+and the four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors and marines,
+came racing on.
+
+"Let 'em have it, boys!" roared Reid, and at the word a stream of flame
+leaped from the dark side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept
+the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the crews and sending the
+others, crippled and bleeding, back to the shelter of their ship.
+
+By this time the moon had fully risen, and showed the heights
+overlooking the harbor to be black with spectators, among whom were the
+Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle, either from weakness
+or fear, showed no signs of resenting the outrageous breach of
+neutrality to which the port had been subjected. Angered and chagrined
+at their repulse, the British now threw all caution aside. The
+long-boats and gigs of all three ships were lowered, and into them were
+crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, and
+cutlasses. Reid, seeing that an attack was to be made in force,
+proceeded to warp his vessel still closer inshore, mooring her stem and
+stern within a few rods of the castle. Moving two of the nine-pounders
+across the deck, and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he brought
+five guns, in addition to his famous "long tom," to bear on the enemy.
+With cannon double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks cleared
+for action, the crew of the _General Armstrong_ lay down beside their
+guns to await the British attack.
+
+It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of the old Portuguese
+cathedral boomed twelve, a dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with
+sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons were like so many mirrors
+under the rays of the moon, swung around a promontory behind which they
+had been forming and, with measured stroke of oars, came sweeping down
+upon the lone privateer. The decks of the _General Armstrong_ were black
+and silent, but round each gun clustered its crew of half-naked gunners,
+and behind the bulwarks knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes
+sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close against the butts. Up
+and down behind his men paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's
+morning.
+
+"Hold your fire until I give the word, boys," he cautioned quietly.
+"Wait till they get within range, and then teach 'em better manners."
+
+Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of boats, the oars rising and
+falling with the faultless rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's
+man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans could make out the
+gilt-lettered hat-bands of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and
+the brass buttons on the tunics of the marines. A moment more and those
+on the _Armstrong's_ deck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather
+shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British boarders.
+
+"Now, boys!" roared Captain Reid; "let 'em have it for the honor of the
+flag!" and from the side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame and
+lead, cannon and musketry crashing in chorus. Never were men taken more
+completely by surprise than were those British sailors, for they had
+expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of the port, would be
+quite unprepared to resist them. But, though the American fire had
+caused terrible havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog courage
+for which the British sailors were justly famous, they kept indomitably
+on. "Give way! Give way all!" screamed the boy-coxswains, and in the
+face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering from their
+momentary panic, bent grimly to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm
+of lead, right up to the side of the privateer, they swept. Six boats
+made fast to her quarter and six more to her bow. "Boarders up and
+away!" bellowed the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings with
+their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank into the faces they
+saw above them. The _Armstrong's_ gunners, unable to depress the muzzles
+of their guns enough so that they could be brought to bear, lifted the
+solid shot and dropped them from the rail into the British boats,
+mangling their crews and crashing through their bottoms. From the
+shelter of the bulwarks the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired
+again, while the negro cook and his assistant played their part in the
+defence by pouring kettles of boiling water over the British who were
+attempting to scramble up the sides, sending them back into their boats
+again scalded and groaning with pain.
+
+There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals of the sea. The
+Yankee gunners, some of them gray-haired men who had seen service with
+John Paul Jones in the _Bon Homme Richard_, changed from cannon-balls to
+grape, and from grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the
+British boats drew alongside they were little more than floating
+shambles. The dark waters of the harbor were lighted up by spurts of
+flame from muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of the Yankee
+privateersmen rose above the deep-throated hurrahs of the English
+sailors; the air was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants,
+the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the incessant trampling of
+struggling men upon the decks, the splash of dead and injured falling
+overboard, the clash and clang of steel on steel, and all the savage,
+overwhelming turmoil of a struggle to the death. Urged on by their
+officers' cries of "No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!" the
+British division which had attacked the bow hacked its way through the
+nettings, and succeeded by sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing
+on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants being killed or
+disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.
+
+At this critical juncture, when the Americans on the forecastle, their
+officers fallen and their guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly
+back by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having repulsed the attack
+on the _Armstrong's_ quarter, led the after division forward at a run,
+the privateersmen, though outnumbered five to one, driving the English
+overboard with the resistless fury of their onset. As the British boats,
+now laden with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into safety, they
+were raked again and again with showers of lead; two of them sank, two
+of them were captured by the Americans. Finally, with nearly three
+hundred of their men--three-quarters of the cutting-out force--dead or
+wounded, the British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly and
+painfully out of range. Some of the most brilliant victories the British
+navy has ever gained were far less dearly purchased.
+
+At three in the morning Reid received a note from Consul Dabney asking
+him to come ashore. He then learned that the governor had sent a letter
+to the British commander asking him to desist from further hostilities,
+as several buildings in the town had been injured by the British fire
+and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To this request Captain Lloyd
+had rudely replied that he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to
+knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning on board, Reid ordered
+the dead and wounded taken ashore, and told the crew to save their
+personal belongings.
+
+At daybreak the _Carnation_, being of lighter draught than the other
+vessels, stood close in for a third attack, opening on the privateer
+with every gun she could bring to bear. But even in those days the fame
+of American gunners was as wide as the seas, and so well did the crew of
+the _General Armstrong_ uphold their reputation that the _Carnation_ was
+compelled to beat a demoralized retreat, with her rigging cut away, her
+foremast about to fall, and with several gaping holes between wind and
+water. But Reid, appreciating that there was absolutely no chance of
+escape, and recognizing that further resistance would entail an
+unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by which nothing could be
+gained, ordered the crew to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered
+such valiant service overboard and to leave the ship. The veteran
+gunners, who were as much attached to their great black guns as a
+cavalryman is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing
+furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks. Then Reid with his own hand
+trained the long-tom down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the lanyard
+sent a charge of grape crashing through her bottom, from which she at
+once began to sink. Ten minutes later, before a British crew could reach
+her side, the _General Armstrong_ went to the bottom with her flag still
+defiantly flying.
+
+Few battles have been fought in which the odds were so unequal, and in
+few battles have the relative losses been so astounding. The three
+British war-ships carried two thousand men and one hundred and thirty
+guns, and of the four hundred men who composed the boarding party they
+lost, according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred killed and
+wounded. Of the American crew of ninety men, two were killed and seven
+wounded. This little crew of privateersmen had, in other words, put out
+of action more than three times their own number of British, and had
+added one more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.
+
+The Americans had scarcely gained the shore before Captain Lloyd--who,
+by the way, had been so severely wounded in the leg that amputation was
+necessary--sent a peremptory message to the governor demanding their
+surrender. But the men who could not be taken at sea were not the men to
+be captured on land, and the Americans, retreating to the mountainous
+centre of the island, took possession of a thick-walled convent, over
+which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from which they defied
+British and Portuguese alike to come and take them. No one tried.
+
+[Illustration: But even in those days the fame of American gunners was
+as wide as the seas.]
+
+All of the following day was spent by the British in burying their one
+hundred and twenty dead--you can see the white gravestones to-day if you
+will take the trouble to climb the hill behind the little town--but it
+took them a week to repair the damage caused by the battle. And so deep
+was their chagrin and mortification that when two British ships put into
+Fayal a few days later, and were ordered to take home the wounded, they
+were forbidden to carry any news of the disaster back to England.
+
+To Captain Reid and his little band of fighters is due in no small
+measure the credit of saving New Orleans from capture and Louisiana from
+invasion. Lloyd's squadron was a part of the expedition then gathering
+at Pensacola for the invasion of the South, but it was so badly crippled
+in its encounter with the privateer that it did not reach the Gulf of
+Mexico until ten days later than the expedition had planned to sail.
+The expedition waited for Lloyd and his reinforcements, so that when it
+finally approached New Orleans, Jackson and his frontiersmen, who had
+hastened down by forced marches from the North, had made preparations to
+give the English a warm reception. Had the expedition arrived ten days
+earlier it would have found the Americans unprepared, and New Orleans
+would have fallen.
+
+Captain Reid and his men, landing on their native soil at Savannah,
+found their journey northward turned into a triumphal progress. The
+whole country went wild with enthusiasm. There was not a town or village
+on the way but did them honor. The city of Richmond gave Captain Reid a
+great banquet, and the State of New York presented him with a sword of
+honor. But of all the tributes which were paid to the little band of
+heroes, none had the flavor of the concluding line of a letter written
+by one of the British officers engaged in the action to a relative in
+England. "If this is the way the Americans fight," he wrote, "we may
+well say, 'God deliver us from our enemies.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE PIRATE WHO TURNED PATRIOT
+
+
+How many well-informed people are aware, I wonder, that the fact that
+the American flag, and not the British, flies to-day over the
+Mississippi valley is largely due to the eleventh-hour patriotism of a
+pirate? Of the many kinds of men of many nationalities who have played
+parts of greater or less importance in the making of our national
+history, none is more completely cloaked in mystery, romance, and
+adventure than Jean Lafitte. The last of that long line of buccaneers
+who for more than two centuries terrorized the waters and ravaged the
+coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, his exploits make the wildest fiction
+appear commonplace and tame. Although he was as thorough-going a pirate
+as ever plundered an honest merchant-man, I do not mean to imply that he
+was a leering, low-browed scoundrel, with a red bandanna twisted about
+his head and an armory of assorted weapons at his waist, for he was
+nothing of the sort. On the contrary, from all I can learn about him, he
+appears to have been a very gentlemanly sort of person indeed, tall and
+graceful and soft-voiced, and having the most charming manners. Though
+he regarded the law with unconcealed contempt, there came a crisis in
+our national history when he placed patriotism above all other
+considerations, and rendered an inestimable service to the country whose
+laws he had flouted and to the State which had set a price on his head.
+Indeed, we are indebted to Jean Lafitte in scarcely less measure than we
+are to Andrew Jackson for frustrating the British invasion and conquest
+of Louisiana.
+
+Though the palmy days of piracy in the Gulf of Mexico really ended with
+the seventeenth century, by which time the rich cities of Middle America
+had been impoverished by repeated sackings and the gold-freighted
+caravels had taken to travelling under convoy, even at the beginning of
+the nineteenth century these storied waters still offered many
+opportunities to lawless and enterprising sea-folk. But the pirates of
+the nineteenth century, unlike their forerunners of the seventeenth,
+preyed on slave-ships rather than on treasure-galleons. Consider the
+facts. On January 1, 1808, Congress passed an act prohibiting the
+further importation of slaves into the United States. By this act the
+recently acquired territory of Louisiana, over which prosperity was
+advancing in three-league boots, was deprived of its supply of labor.
+With crops rotting in the fields for lack of laborers, the price of
+slaves rose until a negro fresh from the coast of Africa would readily
+bring a thousand dollars at auction in New Orleans. At the same time,
+remember, shiploads of slaves were being brought to Cuba, where no such
+restrictions existed, and sold for three hundred dollars a head. Under
+such conditions smuggling was inevitable. At first the smugglers bought
+their slaves in the Cuban market, and running them across the Gulf of
+Mexico, landed them at obscure harbors on the Louisiana coast, whence
+they were marched overland to New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The smugglers
+soon saw, however, that the slavers carried small crews, poorly armed,
+and quickly made up their minds that it was a shameful waste of money to
+buy slaves when they could get them for nothing by the menace of their
+guns. In short, the smugglers became buccaneers, and as such drove a
+thriving business in captured cargoes of "black ivory," as the slaves
+were euphemistically called.
+
+As the demand was greatest on the rich new lands along the Mississippi,
+it was at New Orleans that the buccaneers found the most profitable
+market for their human wares, for they could easily sail up the river to
+the city, dispose of their cargoes, and be off again with the quick
+despatch of regular liners to resume their depredations. But the
+buccaneers did not confine their attention to slave-ships, so that in a
+short time, despite the efforts of British, French, and American
+war-ships, the waters of the Gulf became as unsafe for all kinds of
+merchant-vessels as they were in the days of Morgan and Kidd.
+
+As a base for their piratical and smuggling operations, as well as for
+supplies and repairs, the buccaneers chose Barataria Bay, a place which
+met their requirements as though made to order. The name is applied to
+all of the Gulf coast of Louisiana between the mouth of the Mississippi
+and the mouth of another considerable stream known as the Bayou La
+Fourche, the latter a waterway to a rich and populous region. The Bay of
+Barataria is screened from the Gulf, with which it is connected by a
+deep-water pass, by the island of Grande Terre, the trees on which were
+high enough to effectually hide the masts of the buccaneers' vessels
+from the view of inquisitive war-ships cruising outside. Between the
+Mississippi and the La Fourche there is a perfect network of small but
+navigable waterways which extend almost to New Orleans, so that the
+buccaneers thus had a back-stairs route, as it were, to the city, which
+brought their rendezvous at Grande Terre within safe and easy reach of
+the great mart of the Mississippi valley.
+
+Such supplies as the buccaneers did not get from the ships they
+captured, they obtained by purchase in New Orleans. For the chains which
+were used in making up the caufles of slaves for transportation into the
+interior, they were accustomed to patronize the blacksmith-shop of the
+Brothers Lafitte, which stood--and still stands--on the northeast corner
+of Bourbon and St. Philippe Streets. Of the history of these brothers
+prior to their arrival in New Orleans nothing is definitely known. From
+their names, and because they spoke with the accent peculiar to the
+Garonne, they are credited with having been natives of the south of
+France, though whence they came and where they went are questions which
+have never been satisfactorily answered. They were quite evidently men
+of means, and might have been described as gentlemen blacksmiths, for
+they owned the slaves who pounded the iron. Being men of exceptional
+business shrewdness, it is not to be wondered at that from doing the
+buccaneers' blacksmithing they gradually became their agents and
+bankers, the smithy in St. Philippe Street coming in time to be a sort
+of clearing-house for many questionable transactions. Now Jean Lafitte
+was an extremely able man, combining a remarkable executive ability with
+a genius for organization, and had he lived a century later these
+traits, together with his predatory instincts and his utter contempt for
+the law, would undoubtedly have made him the president of a trust.
+Through success in managing their affairs, he gradually increased his
+usefulness to the buccaneers until he obtained complete control over
+them, and ruled them as despotically as a tribal chieftain. This was
+when his genius for organization had succeeded in uniting their
+different, and often rival, efforts and interests into a sort of
+pirates' corporation, composed of all the buccaneers, privateers, and
+freebooters doing business in the Gulf, this combination of outlaws,
+incredible as it may seem, as effectually controlling the price of
+slaves and many other things in the Mississippi valley as the Standard
+Oil Company controls the price of petroleum to-day.
+
+The influence of this new element in the buccaneer business soon made
+itself felt. At that time New Orleans was a sort of cross between an
+American frontier town and a West Indian port, its streets and barrooms
+being filled with swaggering adventurers, gamblers, and soldiers of
+fortune from every corner of the three Americas, the presence of most of
+whom was due to the activity of the sheriffs in their former homes. It
+was from these men, cool, reckless, resourceful, that Lafitte recruited
+his forces. Leaving his brother Pierre in charge of the New Orleans
+branch of the enterprise, Jean Lafitte took up his residence on Grande
+Terre, where, under his directions, a fort was built, around which there
+soon sprang up a veritable city of thatched huts for the shelter of the
+buccaneers, and for the accommodation of the merchants who came to
+supply their wants or to purchase their captured cargoes. Within a year
+upward of a dozen armed vessels rendezvoused in Barataria Bay, and their
+crews addressed Jean Lafitte as "_bosse_." One of the Baratarians, a
+buccaneer of the walk-the-plank-and-scuttle-the-ship school named
+Grambo, who boldly called himself a pirate, and jeered at Lafitte's
+polite euphemism of privateer, was one day unwise enough to dispute the
+new authority. Without an instant's hesitation Lafitte drew a pistol and
+shot him through the heart in the presence of the whole band. After that
+episode there was no more insubordination.
+
+By 1813 the Baratarians, who had long since extended their operations to
+include all kinds of merchandise, were driving such a roaring trade that
+the commerce and shipping of New Orleans was seriously diminished (for
+why go to New Orleans for their supplies, the sea-captains and the
+plantation-owners argued, when they could get what they wanted at
+Barataria for a fraction of the price), the business of the banks
+decreased alarmingly under the continual lessening of their deposits,
+while even the National Government began to feel its loss of revenue.
+The waters of Barataria, on the contrary, were alive with the sails of
+incoming and outgoing vessels; the wharfs which had been constructed at
+Grande Terre resounded to the creak of winches and the shouts of
+stevedores unloading contraband cargoes, and the long, low warehouses
+were filled with merchandise and the log stockades with slaves waiting
+to be sold and transported to the up-country plantations. So defiant of
+the law did Lafitte become that the streets of New Orleans were
+placarded with handbills announcing the auction sales at Barataria of
+captured cargoes, and to them flocked bargain-hunters from all that part
+of the South. An idea of the business done by the buccaneers at this
+time may be gained from an official statement that four hundred slaves
+were sold by auction in the Grande Terre market in a single day.
+
+Of course the authorities took action in the matter, but their efforts
+to enforce the law proved both dangerous and ineffective. In October,
+1811, a customs-inspector succeeded in surprising a band of Baratarians
+and seizing some merchandise they had with them, but before he could
+convey the prisoners and the captured contraband to New Orleans Lafitte
+and a party of his men overtook him, rescued the prisoners, recovered
+the property, and in the fight which ensued wounded several of the
+posse. Some months later Lafitte killed an inspector named Stout, who
+attempted to interfere with him, and wounded two of his deputies. Then
+Governor Claiborne issued a proclamation offering a reward for the
+capture of Lafitte dead or alive, at the same time appealing to the
+legislature for permission to raise an armed force to break up the
+buccaneering business for good and all. The cautious legislators
+declined to take any action, however, because they were unwilling to
+interfere with an enterprise that, however illegal it might be, was
+unquestionably developing the resources of lower Louisiana, and
+incidentally adding immensely to the fortunes of their constituents. As
+for the Baratarians, they paid as scant attention to the governor's
+proclamation as though it had never been written. Surrounded by groups
+of admiring friends, Lafitte and his lieutenants continued to swagger
+through the streets of New Orleans; his men openly boasted of their
+exploits in every barroom of the city, and in places of public resort
+announcements of auctions at Barataria continued to be displayed.
+
+Then Governor Claiborne played his last card, and secured indictments of
+the Lafittes on the charge of piracy. Pierre Lafitte was arrested in his
+blacksmith-shop and confined without bail in the calaboose. Jean Lafitte
+promptly trumped the governor's card by retaining the services of Edward
+Livingston and John R. Grymes, the two most distinguished members of the
+Louisiana bar, at the enormous fee of twenty thousand dollars apiece.
+Grymes was then the district attorney, but he resigned his office for
+the fee. When his successor accused him in open court of having bartered
+his honor for pirate gold Grymes challenged him to a duel, and crippled
+him for life with a pistol bullet through the hip. When the two eminent
+lawyers had cleared their poor, innocent, persecuted clients of the
+unfounded and outrageous charges brought against them, and had taught
+them certain legal tricks whereby they could continue doing business at
+the old stand and still keep on the right side of the bars, Pierre
+Lafitte sent them an invitation to visit Barataria and collect their
+fees in person. Livingston, a cautious gentleman who had no desire to
+risk himself among the pirates whose virtues he had just extolled so
+highly to a jury, declined the invitation with thanks, offering his
+colleague a commission of ten per cent to collect his fee for him.
+Grymes, who was a hard-drinking, high-living Virginian, and afraid of
+nothing on two feet or four, accepted the invitation with alacrity, and
+until the end of his life was wont to convulse his friends with lurid
+descriptions of the magnificent entertainment which Lafitte provided for
+him. After a carouse which lasted for a week, and which, from Grymes's
+accounts, was a combination of the feasts of Lucullus with the orgies of
+Nero, Lafitte sent his legal adviser back to New Orleans in a sailing
+vessel, together with several huge chests containing his fee in Spanish
+gold pieces. It is an interesting commentary on the customs which
+prevailed in those days that by the time Grymes reached New Orleans,
+after having visited the various plantations along the lower Mississippi
+and tried his luck at their card-tables, not a dollar of his fee
+remained.
+
+Now, it should be understood that the feebleness which characterized all
+the attempts of the Federal Government to break the power of the
+buccaneers was not due to any reluctance to prosecute them, but to the
+fact that it already had its attention taken up with far more pressing
+matters, for we were then in the midst of our second war with Great
+Britain. The long series of injuries which England had inflicted on the
+United States, such as the plundering and confiscation of our ships, the
+impressment into the British Navy of our seamen, and the interruption of
+our commerce with other nations, had culminated on June 18, 1812, by
+Congress declaring war. So unexpected was this action that it found the
+country totally unprepared. Our military establishment was barely large
+enough to provide garrisons for the most exposed points on our far-flung
+borders; the numerous ports on our seaboard were left unprotected and
+unfortified; and our navy consisted of but a handful of war-ships. The
+history of the first two years of the struggle, which was marked by
+brilliant American victories at sea, but by a disastrous attempt to
+invade Canada, has no place in this narrative. Early in the summer of
+1814, however, the British Government, exasperated by its failure to
+inflict any vital damage in the northern States, determined to bring
+the war to a quick conclusion by the invasion and conquest of Louisiana.
+The preparations made for this expedition were in themselves startling.
+Indeed, few Americans have even a faint conception of the strength of
+the blow which England prepared to deal us, for with Napoleon's
+abdication and exile to Elba, and the ending of the war with France, she
+was enabled to bring her whole military and naval power against us. The
+British armada consisted of fifty war-ships, mounting more than a
+thousand guns. It was commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane,
+under whom was Sir Thomas Hardy, the friend of Nelson, Rear-Admiral
+Malcolm, and Rear-Admiral Codrington, and was manned by the same sailors
+who had fought so valorously at the Nile and at Trafalgar. This great
+fleet acted as convoy for an almost equal number of transports, having
+on board eight thousand soldiers, which were the very flower of the
+British Army, nearly all of them being veterans of the Napoleonic
+campaigns. Such importance did the British Government attach to the
+success of this expedition that it seriously considered giving the
+command of it to no less a personage than the Duke of Wellington. So
+certain were the British that the venture would be successful that they
+brought with them a complete set of civil officials to conduct the
+government of this new country which was about to be annexed to his
+Majesty's dominions, judges, customs-inspectors, revenue-collectors,
+court-criers, printers, and clerks, together with printing-presses and
+office paraphernalia, being embarked on board the transports. A large
+number of ladies, wives and relatives of the officers, also accompanied
+the expedition, to take part in the festivities which were planned to
+celebrate the capture of New Orleans. And, as though to cap this
+exhibition of audacity, a number of ships were chartered by British
+speculators to bring home the booty, the value of which was estimated
+beforehand at fourteen millions of dollars. Whether the British
+Government expected to be able to permanently hold Louisiana is
+extremely doubtful, for it must have been fully aware that the Western
+States were capable of pouring down a hundred thousand men, if
+necessary, to repel an invasion. It is probable, therefore, that they
+counted only on a temporary occupation, which they expected to prolong
+sufficiently, however, to give them time to pillage and lay waste the
+country, a course which they felt confident would quickly bring the
+government at Washington to terms.
+
+This formidable armada set sail from England early in the summer of 1814
+and, reaching the Gulf of Mexico, established its base of operations,
+regardless of all the laws of neutrality, at the Spanish port of
+Pensacola. One morning in the following September a British brig hove to
+off Grande Terre, and called attention to her presence by firing a
+cannon. Lafitte, darting through the pass in his four-oared barge to
+reconnoitre, met the ship's gig with three scarlet-coated officers in
+the stern, who introduced themselves as bearers of important despatches
+for Mr. Lafitte. The pirate chief, introducing himself in turn, invited
+his unexpected guests ashore, and led the way to his quarters with that
+extraordinary charm of manner for which he was noted even among the
+punctilious Creoles of New Orleans. After a dinner of Southern
+delicacies, which elicited exclamations even from the blase British
+officers, Lafitte opened the despatches. They were addressed to Jean
+Lafitte, Esquire, commandant at Barataria, from the commander-in-chief
+of the British forces at Pensacola, and bluntly offered him thirty
+thousand dollars, payable in Pensacola or New Orleans, a commission as
+captain in the British Navy, and the enlistment of his men in the naval
+or military forces of Great Britain if he would assist the British in
+their impending invasion of Louisiana. Though it was a generous offer,
+no one knew better than the British commander that Lafitte's
+co-operation was well worth the price, for, familiar with the network of
+streams and navigable swamps lying between Barataria Bay and New
+Orleans, he was capable of guiding a British expedition through these
+secret waterways to the very gates of the city before the Americans
+would have a hint of its approach. It is not too much to assert that at
+this juncture the future of New Orleans, and indeed of the whole
+Mississippi Valley, hung upon the decision of Jean Lafitte, a pirate and
+a fugitive from justice with a price upon his head.
+
+Whether Lafitte seriously considered accepting the offer there is, of
+course, no way of knowing. That it must have sorely tempted him it seems
+but reasonable to suppose, for he was not an American, either by birth
+or naturalization, and the prospect of exchanging his hazardous outlaw's
+life, with a vision of the gallows ever looming before him for a
+captain's commission in the royal navy, with all that that implied,
+could hardly have failed to appeal to him strongly. That he promptly
+decided to reject the offer speaks volumes for the man's strength of
+character and for his faith in American institutions. Appreciating that
+at such a crisis every hour gained was of value to the Americans, he
+asked time to consider the proposal, requesting the British officers to
+await him while he consulted an old friend and associate whose vessel,
+he said, was then lying in the bay. Scarcely was he out of sight,
+however, before a band of buccaneers, acting, of course, under his
+orders, seized the officers and hustled them into the interior of the
+island, where they were politely but forcibly detained. Here they were
+found some days later by Lafitte, who pretended to be highly indignant
+at such unwarrantable treatment of his guests. Releasing them with
+profuse apologies, he saw them safely aboard their brig, and assured
+them that he would shortly communicate his decision to the British
+commander. But that officer's letter was already in the hands of a
+friend of Lafitte's in New Orleans, who was a member of the legislature,
+and accompanying it was a communication from the pirate chief himself,
+couched in those altruistic and patriotic phrases for which the rascal
+was famous. In it he asserted that, though he admitted being guilty of
+having evaded the payment of certain customs duties, he had never lost
+his loyalty and affection for the United States, and that,
+notwithstanding the fact that there was a price on his head, he would
+never miss an opportunity of serving his adopted country. A few days
+later Lafitte forwarded through the same channels much valuable
+information which his agents had gathered as to the strength, resources,
+and plans of the British expedition, enclosing with it a letter
+addressed to Governor Claiborne in which he offered the services of
+himself and his men in defence of the State and city on condition that
+they were granted a pardon for past offences.
+
+Receiving no reply to this communication, Lafitte sailed up the river to
+New Orleans in his lugger and made his way to the residence of the
+governor. Governor Claiborne was seated at his desk, immersed in the
+business of his office, when the door was softly opened, and Lafitte,
+stepping inside, closed it behind him. Clad in the full-skirted,
+bottle-green coat, the skin-tight breeches of white leather, and the
+polished Hessian boots which he affected, he presented a most graceful
+and gallant figure. As he entered he drew two pistols from his pockets,
+cocked them, and covered the startled governor, after which ominous
+preliminaries he bowed with the grace for which he was noted.
+
+"Sir," he remarked pleasantly, "you may possibly have heard of me. My
+name is Jean Lafitte."
+
+"What the devil do you mean, sir," exploded the governor, "by showing
+yourself here? Don't you know that I shall call the sentry and have you
+arrested?"
+
+"Pardon me, your Excellency," interrupted Lafitte, moving his weapons
+significantly, "but you will do nothing of the sort. If you move your
+hand any nearer that bell I shall be compelled to shoot you through the
+shoulder, a necessity, believe me, which I should deeply regret. I have
+called on you because I have something important to say to you, and I
+intend that you shall hear it. To begin with, you have seen fit to put a
+price upon my head?"
+
+"Upon the head of a pirate, yes," thundered the governor, now almost
+apoplectic with rage.
+
+"In spite of that fact," continued Lafitte, "I have rejected a most
+flattering offer from the British government, and have come here, at
+some small peril to myself, to renew in person the offer of my services
+in repelling the coming invasion. I have at my command a body of brave,
+well-armed, and highly disciplined men who have been trained to fight.
+Does the State care to accept their services or does it not?"
+
+The governor, folding his arms, looked long at Lafitte before he
+answered. Then he held out his hand. "It is a generous offer that you
+make, sir. I accept it with pleasure."
+
+"At daybreak to-morrow, then," said Lafitte, replacing his pistols, "my
+men will be awaiting your Excellency's orders across the river." Then,
+with another sweeping bow, he left the room as silently as he had
+entered it.
+
+Governor Claiborne immediately communicated Lafitte's offer to General
+Andrew Jackson, then at Mobile, who had been designated by the War
+Department to conduct the defence of Louisiana. Jackson, who had already
+issued a proclamation denouncing the British for their overtures to
+"robbers, pirates, and hellish bandits," as he termed the Baratarians,
+promptly replied that the only thing he would have to do with Lafitte
+was to hang him. Nevertheless, when the general arrived in New Orleans a
+few days later, Lafitte called at his headquarters and requested an
+interview. By this time Jackson was conscious of the feebleness of the
+resources at his disposal for the defence of the city and of the
+strength of the armament directed against it, which accounts, perhaps,
+for his consenting to receive the "hellish bandit." Lafitte, looking the
+grim old soldier squarely in the eye, repeated his offer, and so
+impressed was Jackson with the pirate's cool and fearless bearing that
+he accepted his services.
+
+On the 10th of December, 1814, ten days after Jackson's arrival in New
+Orleans, the British armada reached the mouth of the Mississippi. Small
+wonder that the news almost created a panic in the city, for the very
+names of the ships and regiments composing the expedition had become
+famous through their exploits in the Napoleonic wars. It was a
+nondescript and motley force which Jackson had hastily gathered to repel
+this imposing army of invasion. Every man capable of bearing arms in New
+Orleans and its vicinity--planters, merchants, bankers, lawyers--had
+volunteered for service. To the local company of colored freedmen was
+added another one composed of colored refugees from Santo Domingo, men
+who had sided with the whites in the revolution there and had had to
+leave the island in consequence. Even the prisoners in the calaboose had
+been released and provided with arms. From the parishes round about came
+Creole volunteers by the hundred, clad in all manner of clothing and
+bearing all kinds of weapons. From Mississippi came a troop of cavalry
+under Hinds, which was followed a few hours later by Coffee's famous
+brigade of "Dirty Shirts," composed of frontiersmen from the forests of
+Kentucky and Tennessee, who after a journey of eight hundred miles
+through the wilderness answered Jackson's message to hurry by covering
+the one hundred and fifty miles between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in
+two days. Added to these were a thousand raw militiamen, who had been
+brought down on barges and flat-boats from the towns along the upper
+river, four companies of regulars, Beale's brigade of riflemen, a
+hundred Choctaw Indians in war-paint and feathers, and last, but in many
+respects the most efficient of all, the corps of buccaneers from
+Barataria, under the command of the Lafittes. The men, dragging with
+them cannon taken from their vessels, were divided into two companies,
+one under Captain Beluche (who rose in after years to be
+admiral-in-chief of Venezuela) and the other under a veteran
+privateersman named Dominique You. These men were fighters by
+profession, hardy, seasoned, and cool-headed, and as they swung through
+the streets of New Orleans to take up the position which Jackson had
+assigned them, even that taciturn old soldier gave a grunt of
+approbation.
+
+Jackson had chosen as his line of defence an artificial waterway known
+as the Rodriguez Canal, which lay some five miles to the east of the
+city, and along its embankments, which in themselves formed pretty good
+fortifications, he distributed his men. On the night of December 23 a
+force of two thousand British succeeded, by means of boats, in making
+their way, through the chain of bayous which surrounds the city, to
+within a mile or two of Jackson's lines, where they camped for the
+night. Being informed of their approach (for the British, remember, had
+the whole countryside against them), Jackson, knowing the demoralizing
+effect of a night attack, directed Coffee and his Tennesseans to throw
+themselves upon the British right, while at the same moment Beale's
+Kentuckians attacked on the left. Trained in all the wiles of Indian
+warfare, the frontiersmen succeeded in reaching the outskirts of the
+British camp before they were challenged by the sentries. Their reply
+was a volley at close quarters and a charge with the tomahawk--for they
+had no bayonets--which drove the British force back in something closely
+akin to a rout.
+
+Meanwhile Jackson had set his other troops at work strengthening their
+line of fortifications, so that when the sun rose on the morning of the
+day before Christmas it found them strongly intrenched behind
+earthworks, helped out with timber, sand-bags, fence-rails, and
+cotton-bales--whence arose the myth that the Americans fought behind
+bales of cotton. The British troops were far from being in Christmas
+spirits, for the truth had already begun to dawn upon them that men can
+fight as well in buckskin shirts as in scarlet tunics, and that these
+raw-boned wilderness hunters, with their powder-horns and abnormally
+long rifles, were likely to prove more formidable enemies than the
+imposing grenadiers of Napoleon's Old Guard, whom they had been fighting
+in Spain and France. On that same day before Christmas, strangely
+enough, a treaty of peace was being signed by the envoys of the two
+nations in a little Belgian town, four thousand miles away.
+
+On Christmas Day, however, the wonted confidence of the British soldiery
+was somewhat restored by the arrival of Sir Edward Pakenham, the new
+commander-in-chief, for even in that hard-fighting day there were few
+European soldiers who bore more brilliant reputations. A brother-in-law
+of the Duke of Wellington, he had fought side by side with him through
+the Peninsular War; he had headed the storming party at Badajoz; and at
+Salamanca had led the charge which won the day for England and a
+knighthood for himself. An earldom and the governorship of Louisiana, it
+was said, had been promised him as his reward for the American
+expedition.
+
+Pakenham's practised eye quickly appreciated the strength of the
+American position, which, after a council of war, it was decided to
+carry by storm. During the night of the 26th the storming columns, eight
+thousand strong, took up their positions within half a mile of the
+American lines. As the sun rose next morning over fields sparkling with
+frost, the bugles sounded the advance, and the British army, ablaze with
+color, and in as perfect alignment as though on parade, moved forward to
+the attack. As they came within range of the American guns, a group of
+plantation buildings which masked Jackson's front were blown up, and the
+British were startled to find themselves confronted by a row of ship's
+cannon, manned as guns are seldom manned on land. Around each gun was
+clustered a crew of lean, fierce-faced, red-shirted ruffians, caked with
+sweat and mud: they were Lafitte's buccaneers, who had responded to
+Jackson's orders by running in all the way from their station on the
+Bayou St. John that morning. Not until he could make out the brass
+buttons on the tunics of the advancing British did Lafitte give the
+command to fire. Then the great guns of the pirate-patriots flashed and
+thundered. Before that deadly fire the scarlet columns crumbled as
+plaster crumbles beneath a hammer, the men dropping, first by twos and
+threes, then by dozens and scores. In five minutes the attacking
+columns, composed of regiments which were the boast of the British army,
+had been compelled to sullenly retreat.
+
+The British commander, appreciating that the repulse of his forces was
+largely due to the fire of the Baratarian artillery, gave orders that
+guns be brought from the fleet and mounted in a position where they
+could silence the fire of the buccaneers. Three days were consumed in
+the herculean task of moving the heavy pieces of ordnance into position,
+but when the sun rose on New Year's morning it showed a skilfully
+constructed line of intrenchments, running parallel to the American
+front and armed with thirty heavy guns. While the British were thus
+occupied, the Americans had not been idle, for Jackson had likewise
+busied himself in constructing additional batteries, while Commodore
+Patterson, the American naval commander, had gone through the sailors'
+boarding-houses of New Orleans with a fine-tooth comb, impressing every
+nautical-looking character on which he could lay his hands, regardless
+of nationality, color, or excuses, to serve the guns. With their
+storming columns sheltered behind the breastworks, awaiting the moment
+when they would burst through the breach which they confidently expected
+would shortly be made in the American defences, the British batteries
+opened fire with a crash which seemed to split the heavens. Throughout
+the artillery duel which ensued splendid service was rendered by the men
+under Lafitte, who trained their guns as carefully and served them as
+coolly as though they were back again on the decks of their privateers.
+The storming parties, which were waiting for a breach to be made, waited
+in vain, for within an hour and thirty minutes after the action opened
+the British batteries were silenced, their guns dismounted, and their
+parapets levelled with the plain. The veterans of Wellington and Nelson
+had been out-fought from first to last by a band of buccaneers,
+reinforced by a few-score American bluejackets and a handful of
+nondescript seamen.
+
+Pakenham had one more plan for the capture of the city. This was a
+general assault by his entire army on the American lines. His plan of
+attack was simple, and would very probably have proved successful
+against troops less accustomed to frontier warfare than the Americans.
+Colonel Thornton, with fourteen hundred men, was directed to cross the
+river during the night of January 7, and, creeping up to the American
+lines under cover of the darkness, to carry them by assault. His attack
+was to be the signal for a column under General Gibbs to storm Jackson's
+right, and for another, under General Keane, to throw itself against the
+American left, General Lambert, who had just arrived with two fresh
+regiments, being held in reserve. So carefully had the British
+commanders perfected their plans that the battle was already won--in
+theory.
+
+No one knew better than Jackson that this was to be the deciding round
+of the contest, and he accordingly made his preparations to win it with
+a solar-plexus blow. He also had received a reinforcement, for the
+long-expected militia from Kentucky, two thousand two hundred strong,
+had just arrived, after a forced march of fifteen hundred miles, though
+in a half-naked and starving condition. Our history contains nothing
+finer, to my way of thinking, than the story of how these mountaineers
+of the Blue Ridge, foot-sore, ragged, and hungry, came pouring down from
+the north to repel the threatened invasion. The Americans, who numbered,
+all told, barely four thousand men, were scattered along a front of
+nearly three miles, one end of the line extending so far into a swamp
+that the soldiers stood in water to their waists during the day, and at
+night slept on floating logs made fast to trees.
+
+Long before daybreak on the morning of the 8th of January the divisions
+of Gibbs and Keane were in position, and waiting impatiently for the
+outburst of musketry which would be the signal that Thornton had begun
+his attack. Thornton had troubles of his own, however, for the swift
+current of the Mississippi, as though wishing to do its share in the
+nation's defence, had carried his boats a mile and a half down-stream,
+so that it was daylight before he was able to effect a landing, when a
+surprise was, of course, out of the question. But Pakenham, naturally
+obstinate and now made wholly reckless by the miscarriage of his plans,
+refused to recall his orders; so, as the gray mists of the early morning
+slowly lifted, his columns were seen advancing across the fields.
+
+"Steady now, boys! Steady!" called Jackson, as he rode up and down
+behind his lines. "Don't waste your ammunition, for we've none to spare.
+Pick your man, wait until he gets within range, and then let him have
+it! Let's get this business over with to-day!" His orders were obeyed
+to the letter, for not a shot was fired until the scarlet columns were
+within certain range. Then the order "Commence firing" was repeated down
+the line. Neither hurriedly, nor excitedly, nor confusedly was it
+obeyed, but with the utmost calmness and deliberation, the frontiersmen,
+trained to use the rifle from boyhood, choosing their targets, and
+calculating their ranges as unconcernedly as though they were hunting in
+their native forests. Still the British columns pressed indomitably on,
+and still the lean and lantern-jawed Jackson rode up and down his lines,
+cheering, cautioning, exhorting, directing. Suddenly he reined up his
+horse at the Baratarian battery commanded by Dominique You.
+
+"What's this? What's this?" he exclaimed. "You have stopped firing? What
+the devil does this mean, sir?"
+
+"Of course we've stopped firing, general," said the buccaneer, touching
+his forelock man-o'-war fashion. "The powder's good for nothing. It
+might do to shoot blackbirds with, but not redcoats."
+
+Jackson beckoned to one of his aides-de-camp.
+
+"Tell the ordnance officer that I will have him shot in five minutes as
+a traitor if Dominique complains again of his powder," and he
+galloped off. When he passed that way a few minutes later the rattle
+of the musketry was being punctuated at half-minute intervals with the
+crash of the Baratarian guns. "Ha, friend Dominique," called Jackson,
+"I'm glad to see you're at work again."
+
+[Illustration: The battle of New Orleans.
+
+From a painting by D.M. Carter.]
+
+"Pretty good work, too, general," responded the buccaneer. "It looks to
+me as if the British have discovered that there has been a change of
+powder in this battery." He was right. Before the combined rifle and
+artillery fire of the Americans the British columns were melting like
+snow under a spring rain. Still their officers led them on, cheering,
+pleading, threatening, imploring. Pakenham's arm was pierced by a
+bullet; at the same instant another killed his horse, but, mounting the
+pony of his aide-de-camp, he continued to encourage his disheartened and
+wavering men. Keane was borne bleeding from the field, and a moment
+later Gibbs, mortally wounded, was carried after him. The panic which
+was just beginning to seize the British soldiery was completed at this
+critical instant by a shot from one of the Baratarians' big guns which
+burst squarely in the middle of the advancing column, causing terrible
+destruction in the solid ranks. Pakenham's horse fell dead, and the
+general reeled into the arms of an officer who sprang forward to catch
+him. Terribly wounded, he was carried to the shelter of a spreading
+oak, beneath which, five minutes later, he breathed his last. Then the
+ebb-tide began. The shattered regiments, demoralized by the death of
+their commander, and themselves fearfully depleted by the American fire,
+broke and ran. Ten minutes later, save for the crawling, agonized
+wounded, not a living foe was to be seen. But the field, which had been
+green with grass half an hour before, was carpeted with scarlet now, and
+the carpet was made of British dead. Of the six thousand men who took
+part in the attack, it is estimated that two thousand six hundred were
+killed or wounded. Of the Ninety-third Regiment, which had gone into
+action nine hundred strong, only one hundred and thirty-nine men
+answered to the roll-call. The Americans had eight men killed and
+thirteen wounded. The battle had lasted exactly twenty-five minutes. At
+eight o'clock the American bugles sounded "Cease firing," and
+Jackson--whom this victory was to make President of the United
+States--followed by his staff, rode slowly down the lines, stopping at
+each command to make a short address. As he passed, the regimental fifes
+and drums burst into "Hail, Columbia," and the rows of weary,
+powder-grimed men, putting their caps on the ends of their long rifles,
+swung them in the air and cheered madly the victor of New Orleans.
+
+There is little more to tell. On March 17 the British expedition,
+accompanied by the judges and customs-inspectors and revenue-collectors,
+and by the officers' wives who had come out to take part in the
+festivities which were to mark the conquest, set sail from the mouth of
+the Mississippi, reaching Europe just in time to participate in the
+Waterloo campaign. In the general orders issued by Jackson after the
+battle the highest praise was given to the Lafittes and their followers
+from Barataria, while the official despatches to Washington strongly
+urged that some recognition be made of the extraordinary services
+rendered by the erstwhile pirates. A few weeks later the President
+granted a full pardon to the inhabitants of Barataria, his message
+concluding: "Offenders who have refused to become the associates of the
+enemy in war upon the most seducing terms of invitation, and who have
+aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United
+States, can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as
+objects of generous forgiveness." Taking advantage of this amnesty, the
+ex-pirates settled down to the peaceable lives of fishermen and
+market-gardeners, and their descendants dwell upon the shores of
+Barataria Bay to this day. As to the future movements of the brothers
+Lafitte, beyond the fact that they established themselves for a time at
+Galveston, whence they harassed Spanish commerce in the Gulf of Mexico,
+nothing definite is known. Leaving New Orleans soon after the battle,
+they sailed out of the Mississippi, and out of this story.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WHO DARED TO CROSS THE RANGES
+
+
+About the word frontiersman there is a pretty air of romance. The very
+mention of it conjures up a vision of lean, sinewy, brown-faced men, in
+fur caps and moccasins and fringed buckskin, slipping through virgin
+forests or pushing across sun-scorched prairies--advance-guards of
+civilization. Hardy, resolute, taciturn figures, they have passed
+silently across the pages of our history and we shall see their like no
+more. To them we owe a debt that we can never repay--nor, indeed, have
+we even publicly acknowledged it. We followed by the trails which they
+had blazed for us; we built our towns in those rich valleys and pastured
+our herds on those fertile hillsides which theirs were the first white
+men's eyes to see. The American frontiersman was never a self-seeker.
+His discoveries he left as a heritage to those who followed him. In
+almost every case he died poor and, more often than not, with his boots
+on. David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley, the two Englishmen who did
+more than any other men for the opening up of Africa, lie in Westminster
+Abbey, and thousands of their countrymen each year stand reverently
+beside their tombs. To Cecil Rhodes, another Anglo-African pioneer, a
+great national memorial has been erected on the slopes of Table
+Mountain. Far, far greater parts in the conquest of a wilderness, the
+winning of a continent, were played by Daniel Boone, William Bowie, Kit
+Carson, Davy Crockett; yet how many of those who to-day enjoy the fruits
+of the perils they faced, the hardships they endured, know much more of
+them than as characters in dime novels, can tell where they are buried,
+can point to any statues or monuments which have been erected to their
+memories?
+
+There are two million four hundred thousand people in the State of
+California, and most of them boast of it as "God's own country." They
+have more State pride than any people that I know, yet I would be
+willing to wager almost anything you please that you can pick a hundred
+native sons of California, and put to each of them the question, "Who
+was Jedediah Smith?" and not one of them would be able to answer it
+correctly. The public parks of San Francisco and Los Angeles and San
+Diego and Sacramento have innumerable statues of one kind and another,
+but you will find none of this man with the stern old Puritan name; they
+are starting a hall of fame in California, but no one has proposed
+Jedediah Smith as deserving a place in it. Yet to him, perhaps more than
+to any other man, is due the fact that California is American: he was
+the greatest of the pathfinders; he was the real founder of the Overland
+Trail; he was the man who led the way across the ranges. Had it not been
+for the trail he blazed and the thousands who followed in his footsteps
+the Sierra Nevadas, instead of the Rio Grande, might still mark the line
+of our frontier.
+
+The westward advance of population which took place during the first
+quarter of the nineteenth century far exceeded the limits of any of the
+great migrations of mankind upon the older continents. The story of the
+American onset to the beckoning West is one of the wonder-tales of
+history. Over the natural waterway of the great northern lakes, down the
+road to Pittsburg, along the trail which skirted the Potomac, and then
+down the Ohio, over the passes of the Cumberland into Tennessee, round
+the end of the Alleghanies into the Gulf States, up the Missouri, and so
+across the Rockies to the head waters of the Columbia, or south-westward
+from St. Louis to the Spanish settlements of Santa Fe, the hardy
+pioneers poured in an ever-increasing stream, carrying with them little
+but axe, spade, and rifle, some scanty household effects, a small store
+of provisions, a liberal supply of ammunition, and unlimited faith,
+courage, and enterprise.
+
+During that brief period the people of the United States extended their
+occupation over the whole of that vast region lying between the
+Alleghanies and the Rockies--a territory larger than all of Europe,
+without Russia--annexed it from the wilderness, conquered, subdued,
+improved, cultivated, civilized it, and all without one jot of
+governmental assistance. Throughout these years, as the frontiersmen
+pressed into the West, they continued to fret and strain against the
+Spanish boundaries. The Spanish authorities, and after them the Mexican,
+soon became seriously alarmed at this silent but resistless American
+advance, and from the City of Mexico orders went out to the provincial
+governors that Americans venturing within their jurisdiction should be
+treated, whenever an excuse offered, with the utmost severity. But,
+notwithstanding the menace of Mexican prisons, of Indian tortures, of
+savage animals, of thirst and starvation in the wilderness, the pioneers
+pushed westward and ever westward, until at last their further progress
+was abruptly halted by the great range of the Sierra Nevada,
+snow-crested, and presumably impassable, which rose like a titanic wall
+before them, barring their further march.
+
+It was at about the time of this halt in our westward progress that
+Captain Jedediah Smith came riding onto the scene. You must picture him
+as a gaunt-faced, lean-flanked, wiry man, with nerves of iron, sinews of
+rawhide, a skin like oak-tanned leather, and quick on his feet as a
+catamount. He was bearded to the ears, of course, for razors formed no
+part of the scanty equipment of the frontiersman, and above the beard
+shone a pair of very keen, bright eyes, with the concentrated wrinkles
+about their corners that come of staring across the prairies under a
+blazing sun. He was sparing of his words, as are most men who dwell in
+the great solitudes, and, like them, he was, in an unorthodox way,
+devout, his stern and rugged features as well as his uncompromising
+scriptural name betraying the grim old Puritan stock from which he
+sprang. His hair was long and black, and would have covered his
+shoulders had it not been tied at the back of the neck by a leather
+thong. His dress was that of the Indian adapted to meet the
+requirements of the adventuring white man: a hunting-shirt and trousers
+of fringed buckskin, embroidered moccasins of elkhide, and a cap made
+from the glossy skin of a beaver, with the tail hanging down behind. On
+hot desert marches, and in camp, he took off the beaver-skin cap and
+twisted about his head a bright bandanna, which, when taken with his
+gaunt, unshaven face, made him look uncommonly like a pirate. These
+garments were by no means fresh and gaudy, like those affected by the
+near-frontiersmen who take part in the production of Wild West shows;
+instead they were very soiled and much worn and greasy, and gave
+evidence of having done twenty-four hours' duty a day for many months at
+a stretch. Hanging on his chest was a capacious powder-horn, and in his
+belt was a long, straight knife, very broad and heavy in the blade--a
+first cousin of that deadly weapon to which William Bowie was in after
+years to give his name; in addition he carried a rifle, with an
+altogether extraordinary length of barrel, which brought death to any
+living thing within a thousand yards on which its foresight rested. His
+mount was a plains-bred pony, as wiry and unkempt and enduring as
+himself. Everything considered, Smith could have been no gentle-looking
+figure, and I rather imagine that, if he were alive and ventured into a
+Western town to-day, he would probably be arrested by the local
+constable as an undesirable character. I have now sketched for you, in
+brief, bold outline, as good a likeness of Smith as I am able with the
+somewhat scanty materials at hand, for he lived and did his pioneering
+in the days when frontiersmen were as common as traffic policemen are
+now, added to which the men who were familiar with his exploits were of
+a sort more ready with their pistols than with their pens.
+
+The dates of Smith's birth and death are not vital to this story, and
+perhaps it is just as well that they are not, for I can find no record
+of when he came into the world, and only the Indian warrior who wore his
+scalp-lock at his waist could have told the exact date on which he went
+out of it. It is enough to know that, just as the nineteenth century was
+passing the quarter mark, Smith was the head of a firm of fur-traders,
+Smith, Jackson & Soublette, which had obtained from President John
+Quincy Adams permission to hunt and trade to their hearts' content in
+the region lying beyond the Rocky Mountains. It would have been much
+more to the point to have obtained the permission of the Mexican
+governor-general of the Californias, or of the great chief of the
+Comanches, for they held practically all of the territory in question
+between them. Those were the days whose like we shall never know again,
+when the streams were alive with beaver, when there were more elk and
+antelope on the prairies than there are cattle now, and when the noise
+made by the moving buffalo herds sounded like the roll of distant
+thunder. They were the days when a fortune, as fortunes were then
+reckoned, awaited the man with unlimited ammunition, a sure eye, and a
+body inured to hardships. What the founder of the Astor fortune was
+doing in the Puget Sound country, Smith and his companions purposed to
+do in the Rockies; and, with this end in view, established their base
+camp on the eastern shores of the Great Salt Lake, not far from where
+Ogden now stands. This little band of pioneers formed the westernmost
+outpost of American civilization, for between them and the nearest
+settlement, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers,
+stretched thirteen hundred miles of savage wilderness. Livingstone, on
+his greatest journey, did not penetrate half as far into unknown Africa
+as Smith did into unknown America, and while the English explorer was at
+the head of a large and well-equipped expedition, the American was
+accompanied by a mere handful of men.
+
+In August, 1826, Smith and a small party of his hunters found
+themselves in the terrible Painted Desert, that God-forsaken expanse of
+sand and lava where the present States of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada
+meet. Water there was none, for the streams had run dry, and the horses
+and pack-mules were dying of thirst and exhaustion; the game had
+entirely disappeared; the supplies were all but finished--and five
+hundred miles of the most inhospitable country in the world lay between
+them and their camp on Great Salt Lake. The situation was perilous,
+indeed, and a decision had to be made quickly if any of them were to get
+out alive.
+
+"What few supplies we have left will be used up before we get a quarter
+way back to the camp," said Smith. "Our only chance--and I might as well
+tell you it's a mighty slim one, boys--is in pushing on to California."
+
+"But California's a good four hundred miles away," expostulated his
+companions, "and the Sierras lie between, and no one has ever crossed
+them."
+
+"Then I'll be the first man to do it," said Smith. "Besides, I've always
+had a hankering to learn what lies on the other side of those ranges.
+Now's my chance to find out."
+
+"I reckon there ain't much chance of our ever seeing Salt Lake or
+California either," grumbled one of the hunters, "and even if we do
+reach the coast the Mexicans 'll clap us into prison."
+
+"Well, so fur's I'm concerned," said Smith decisively, "I'd rather be
+alive and in a Greaser prison than to be dead in the desert. I'm going
+to California or die on the way."
+
+History chronicles few such marches. Westward pressed the little troop
+of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah, over
+the arid deserts and the barren ranges of southern Nevada, and so to the
+foot-hills of that great Sierran range which rears itself ten thousand
+feet skyward, forming a barrier which had theretofore separated the
+fertile lands of the Pacific slope from the rest of the continent more
+effectually than an ocean. The lava beds gave way to sand wastes dotted
+with clumps of sage-brush and cactus, and the cactus changed to stunted
+pines, and the pines ran out in rocks, and the rocks became covered with
+snow, and still Smith and his hunters struggled on, emaciated, tattered,
+almost barefooted, lamed by the cactus spines on the desert, and the
+stones on the mountain slopes, until at last they stood upon the very
+summit of the range and, like that other band of pioneers in an earlier
+age, looked down on the promised land after their wanderings in the
+wilderness. No explorer in the history of the world, not Columbus, nor
+Pizarro, nor Champlain, nor De Soto, ever gazed upon a land so fertile
+and so full of beauty. The mysterious, the jealously guarded, the
+storied land of California lay spread before them like a map in
+bas-relief. Then the descent of the western slope began, the transition
+from snow-clad mountain peaks to hillsides clothed with subtropical
+vegetation amazing the Americans by its suddenness. Imagine how like a
+dream come true it must have been to these men, whose lives had been
+spent in the less kindly climate and amid the comparatively scanty
+vegetation of the Middle West, to suddenly find themselves in this
+fairyland of fruit and flowers!
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier & Son._
+
+Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava
+beds of southwestern Utah.]
+
+"It is, indeed, a white man's country," said Smith prophetically, as,
+leaning on his long rifle, he gazed upon the wonderful panorama which
+unrolled itself before him. "Though it is Mexican just now, sooner or
+later it must and shall be ours."
+
+Heartened by the sight of this wonderful new country, and by the
+knowledge that they must be approaching some of the Mexican settlements,
+but with bodies sadly weakened from exposure, hunger, and exhaustion,
+the Americans slowly made their way down the slope, crossed those
+fertile lowlands which are now covered with groves of orange and lemon,
+and so, guided by some friendly Indians whom they met, came at last to
+the mission station of San Gabriel, one of that remarkable chain of
+outposts of the church founded by the indefatigable Franciscan, Father
+Junipero Serra. The little company of worn and weary men sighted the
+red-tiled roof of the mission just at sunset, and though Smith and his
+followers came from stern New England stock which prided itself on
+having no truck with Papists, I rather imagine that as the sweet, clear
+mission bells chimed out the angelus they lifted their hats and stood
+with bowed heads in silent thanksgiving for their preservation.
+
+I doubt if there was a more astonished community between the oceans than
+was the monastic one of San Gabriel when this band of ragged strangers
+suddenly appeared from nowhere and asked for food and shelter.
+
+"You come from the South--from Mexico?" queried the father superior,
+staring, half-awed, at these gaunt, fierce-faced, bearded men who spoke
+in a strange tongue.
+
+"No, padre," answered Smith, calling to his aid the broken Spanish he
+had picked up in his trading expeditions to Santa Fe, "we come from the
+East, from the country beyond the great mountains, from the United
+States. We are Americans," he added a little proudly.
+
+"They say they come from the East," the brown-robed monks whispered to
+each other. "It is impossible. No one has ever come from that direction.
+Have not the Indians told us many times that there is no food, no water
+in that direction, and that, moreover, there is no way to cross the
+mountains? It is, indeed, a strange and incredible tale that these men
+tell. But we will offer them our hospitality in the name of the blessed
+St. Francis, for that we withhold from no man; but it is the part of
+wisdom to despatch a messenger to San Diego to acquaint the governor of
+their coming, for it may well be that they mean no good to the people of
+this land."
+
+Had the good monks been able to look forward a few-score years, perhaps
+they would not have been so ready to offer Smith and his companions the
+shelter of the mission roof. But how were they to know that these ragged
+strangers, begging for food at their mission door, were the skirmishers
+for a mighty host which would one day pour over those mountain ranges to
+the eastward as the water pours over the falls at Niagara; that within
+rifle-shot of where their mission stood a city of half a million souls
+would spread itself across the hills; that down the dusty Camino Real,
+which the founder of their mission had trudged so often in his sandals
+and woollen robe, would whirl strange horseless, panting vehicles,
+putting a mile a minute behind their flying wheels; that twin lines of
+steel would bring their southernmost station at San Diego within twenty
+hours, instead of twenty days, of their northernmost outpost at Sonoma;
+and that over this new land would fly, not the red-white-and-green
+standard of Mexico, but an alien banner of stripes and stars?
+
+The four years which intervened between the collapse of Spanish rule in
+Mexico and the arrival of Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel were marked by
+political chaos in the Californias. When a governor of Alta California
+rose in the morning he did not know whether he was the representative of
+an emperor, a king, a president, or a dictator. As a result of these
+perennial disorders, the Mexican officials ascribed sinister motives to
+the most innocent episodes. No sooner, therefore, did Governor Echeandia
+learn of the arrival in his province of a mysterious party of Americans
+than he ordered them brought under escort to San Diego for examination.
+Though those present probably did not appreciate it, the meeting of
+Smith and Echeandia in the palace at San Diego was a peculiarly
+significant one. There sat at his ease in his great chair of state the
+saturnine Mexican governor, arrogant and haughty, beruffled and
+gold-laced, his high-crowned sombrero and his velvet jacket heavy with
+bullion, while in front of him stood the American frontiersman, gaunt,
+unshaven, and ragged, but as cool and self-possessed as though he was at
+the head of a conquering army instead of a forlorn hope. The one was as
+truly the representative of a passing as the other was of a coming race.
+Small wonder that Echeandia, as he observed the hardy figures and
+determined faces of the Americans, thought to himself how small would be
+Mexico's chance of holding California if others of their countrymen
+began to follow in their footsteps. He and his officials cross-examined
+Smith as closely as though the frontiersman was a prisoner on trial for
+his life, as, in a sense, he was, for almost any fate might befall him
+and his companions in that remote corner of the continent without any
+one being called to account for it. Smith described the series of
+misfortunes which had led him to cross the ranges; he asserted that he
+desired nothing so much as to get back into American territory again,
+and he earnestly begged the governor to provide him with the necessary
+provisions and permit him to depart. His story was so frank and
+plausible that Echeandia, with characteristic Spanish suspicion,
+promptly disbelieved every word of it, for why, he argued, should any
+sane man make so hazardous a journey unless he were a spy and well paid
+to risk his life? For even in those early days, remember, the Mexicans
+had begun to fear the ambitions of the young republic to the eastward.
+So, despite their protests, he ordered the Americans to be
+imprisoned--and no one knew better than they did that, once within the
+walls of a Mexican prison, there was small chance of their seeing the
+outside world again. Fortunately for the explorers, however, it so
+happened that there were three American trading-schooners lying in San
+Diego harbor at the time, and their captains, determined to see the
+rights of their fellow countrymen respected, joined in a vigorous and
+energetic protest to the governor against this high-handed and
+unjustified action. This seems to have frightened Echeandia, for he
+reluctantly gave orders for the release of Smith and his companions, but
+ordered them to leave the country at once, and by the same route by
+which they had come.
+
+When the year 1827 was but a few days old, therefore, the Americans
+turned their faces northward, but instead of retracing their steps in
+accordance with Echeandia's orders, they crossed the coast range,
+probably through the Tejon Pass, and kept on through the fertile region
+now known as the San Joaquin Valley, in the hope that by crossing the
+Sierra farther to the northward they would escape the terrible rigors of
+the Colorado desert. When some three hundred miles north of San Gabriel
+they attempted to recross the ranges, but a feat that had been hazardous
+in midsummer was impossible in midwinter, and the entire expedition
+nearly perished in the attempt. Several of the men and all the horses
+died of cold and hunger, and it was only by incredible exertions that
+Smith and his few remaining companions, terribly frozen and totally
+exhausted, managed to reach the Santa Clara Valley and Mission San Jose.
+So slow was their progress that the news of their approach preceded them
+and caused considerable disquietude to the monks. Learning from the
+Indians that he and his tatterdemalion followers were objects of
+suspicion, Smith sent a letter to the father superior, in which he gave
+an account of his arrival at San Gabriel, of his interview with the
+governor, of his disaster in the Sierras, and of his present pitiable
+condition. "I am a long way from home," this pathetic missive
+concludes, "and am anxious to get there as soon as the nature of the
+case will permit. Our situation is quite unpleasant, being destitute of
+clothing and most of the necessaries of life, wild meat being our
+principal subsistence. I am, reverend father, your strange but real
+friend and Christian brother, Jedediah Smith." As a result of this
+appeal, the hospitality of the mission was somewhat grudgingly extended
+to the Americans, who were by this time in the most desperate condition.
+
+Hardships that would kill ordinary men were but unpleasant incidents in
+the lives of the pioneers, however, and in a few weeks they were as fit
+as ever to resume their journey. But, upon thinking the matter over,
+Smith decided that he would never be content if he went back without
+having found out what lay still farther to the northward, for in him was
+the insatiable curiosity and the indomitable spirit of the born
+explorer. But as his force, as well as his resources, had become sadly
+depleted, he felt it imperative that he should first return to Salt Lake
+and bring on the men, horses, and provisions he had left there.
+Accordingly, leaving most of his party in camp at San Jose, he set out
+with only two companions, recrossed the Sierra at one of its highest
+points (the place he crossed is where the railway comes through to-day)
+and after several uncomfortably narrow escapes from landslides and from
+Indians, eventually reached the camp on Great Salt Lake, where he found
+that his people had long since given him and his companions up for dead.
+
+Breaking camp on a July morning, in 1827, Smith, with eighteen men and
+two women, turned his face once more toward California. To avoid the
+snows of the high Sierras, he chose the route he had taken on his first
+journey, reaching the desert country to the north of the Colorado River
+in early August. It was not until the party had penetrated too far into
+the desert to retreat that they found that the whole country was burnt
+up. For several days they pushed on in the hope of finding water. Across
+the yellow sand wastes they would sight the sparkle of a crystal lake,
+and would hasten toward it as fast as their jaded animals could carry
+them, only to find that it was a mirage. Then the horrors preliminary to
+death by thirst began: the animals, their blackened tongues protruding
+from their mouths, staggered and fell, and rose no more; the women grew
+delirious and babbled incoherent nothings; even the hardiest of the men
+stumbled as they marched, or tried to frighten away by shouts and
+gestures the fantastic shapes which danced before them. At last there
+came a morning when they could go no farther. Such of them as still
+retained their faculties felt that it was the end--that is, all but
+Jedediah Smith. He was of the breed which does not know the meaning of
+defeat, because they are never defeated until they are dead. Loading
+himself with the empty water-bottles, he set out alone into the desert,
+determined to follow one of the numerous buffalo trails, for he knew
+that sooner or later it must lead him to water of some sort, even if to
+nothing more than a buffalo-wallow. Racked with the fever of thirst, his
+legs shaking from exhaustion, he plodded on, under the pitiless sun,
+mile after mile, hour after hour, until, struggling to the summit of a
+low divide, he saw the channel of a stream in the valley beneath him.
+The expedition was saved. Stumbling and sliding down the slope in his
+haste to quench his intolerable thirst, he came to a sudden halt on the
+river-bank. It was nothing but an empty watercourse into which he was
+staring--the river had run dry! The shock of such a disappointment would
+have driven most men stark, staring mad. Only for a moment, however, was
+the veteran frontiersman staggered; he knew the character of many
+streams in the West--that often their waters run underground a few feet
+below the surface, and in a moment he was on his knees digging
+frantically in the soft sand. Soon the sand began to grow moist, and
+then the coveted water slowly began to filter upward into the little
+excavation he had hollowed. Throwing himself flat on the ground, he
+buried his burning face in the muddy water--and as he did so a shower of
+arrows whistled about him. A war-party of Comanches, unobserved, had
+followed and surrounded him. He had but exchanged the danger of death by
+thirst for the far more dreadful fate of death by torture. Though struck
+by several of the arrows, he held the Indians off until he had filled
+his water-bottles; then, retreating slowly, taking advantage of every
+particle of cover, as only a veteran plainsman can, blazing away with
+his unerring rifle whenever an Indian was incautious enough to show a
+portion of his figure, Smith succeeded in getting back to his companions
+with the precious water. With their dead animals for breastworks, the
+pioneers succeeded in holding the Indians at bay for six-and-thirty
+hours, but on the second night the redskins, heavily reinforced, rushed
+them in the night, ten of the men and the two women being killed in the
+hand-to-hand fight which ensued, and the few horses which remained alive
+being stampeded. I rather imagine that the women were shot by their own
+husbands, for the women of the frontier always preferred death to
+capture by these fiends in paint and feathers.
+
+How Smith, calling all his craft and experience as a plainsman to his
+assistance, managed to lead his eight surviving companions through the
+encircling Indians by night, and how, wounded, horseless, and
+provisionless as they were, he succeeded in guiding them across the
+ranges to San Bernardino, is but another example of this forgotten
+hero's courage and resource. Having lost everything that he possessed,
+for the whole of his scanty savings had been invested in the ill-fated
+expedition, Smith, with such of his men as were strong enough to
+accompany him, set out to rejoin the party he had left some months
+previously at Mission San Jose. Scarcely had he set foot within that
+settlement, however, before he was arrested and taken under escort to
+Monterey, where he was taken before the governor, who, he found to his
+surprise and dismay, was no other than his old enemy of San Diego, Don
+Jose Echeandia. This time nothing would convince Echeandia that Smith
+was not the leader of an expedition which had territorial designs on
+California, and he promptly ordered him to be taken to prison and kept
+in solitary confinement as a dangerous conspirator. Thereupon Smith
+resorted to the same expedient he had used so successfully, and begged
+the captains of the American vessels in the harbor of Monterey for
+protection. So forcible were their representations that Echeandia
+finally agreed to release Smith on his swearing to leave California for
+good and all. To this proposal Smith willingly agreed and took the oath
+required of him, but, upon being released from prison, was astounded to
+learn that the governor had given orders that he must set out
+alone--that his hunters would not be permitted to accompany him. His and
+their protestations were disregarded. Smith must start at once and
+unaccompanied. He was given a horse and saddle, provisions, blankets, a
+rifle--and nothing more. It was a sentence of death which Echeandia had
+had pronounced on this American frontiersman, and both he and Smith knew
+it. Without having committed any crime--unless it was a crime to be an
+American--Jedediah Smith was driven out of the territory of a supposedly
+friendly nation, and told that he was at perfect liberty to make his way
+across two thousand miles of wilderness to the nearest American
+outpost--if he could.
+
+Striking back into that range of the Sierras which lies southeast of
+Fresno, Smith succeeded in crossing them for a fourth time, evidently
+intending to make his way back to his old stamping-ground on the Great
+Salt Lake. Our knowledge of what occurred after he had crossed the
+ranges for the last time is confined to tales told to the settlers in
+later years by the Indians. While emerging from the terrible Death
+Valley, where hundreds of emigrants were to lose their lives during the
+rush to the gold-fields a quarter of a century later, he was attacked at
+a water-hole by a band of Indians. For many years afterward the
+Comanches were wont to tell with admiration how this lone pale-face,
+coming from out of the setting sun, had knelt behind his dead horse and
+held them off with his deadly rifle all through one scorching summer's
+day. But when nightfall came they crept up very silently under cover of
+the darkness and rushed him. His scalp was very highly valued, for it
+had cost the lives of twelve Comanche braves.
+
+But Jedediah Smith did not die in vain. Tales of the rich and virgin
+country which he had found beyond the ranges flew as though with wings
+across the land; soon other pioneers made their way over the mountains
+by the trails which he had blazed; long wagon-trains crawled westward
+by the routes which he had taken; strange bands of horsemen pitched
+their tents in the valleys where he had camped. The mission bells grew
+silent; the monk in his woollen robe and the _caballero_ in his
+gold-laced jacket passed away; settlements of hardy, energetic,
+nasal-voiced folk from beyond the Sierras sprang up everywhere. Then one
+day a new flag floated over the presidio in Monterey--a flag that was
+not to be pulled down. The American republic had reached the western
+ocean, and thus was fulfilled the dream of Jedediah Smith, the man who
+showed the way.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLAG OF THE BEAR
+
+
+Because the battles which marked its establishment were really only
+skirmishes, in which but an insignificant number of lives were lost, and
+because it boasted less than a thousand citizens all told, certain of
+our historians have been so undiscerning as to assert that the Bear Flag
+Republic was nothing but a travesty and a farce. Therein they are wrong.
+Though it is doubtless true that the handful of frontiersmen who raised
+their home-made flag, with its emblem of a grizzly bear, over the
+Californian presidio of Sonoma on that July morning in 1846 took
+themselves much more seriously than the circumstances warranted, it is
+equally true that their action averted the seizure of California by
+England, and by forcing the hand of the administration at Washington was
+primarily responsible for adding what is now California, Nevada,
+Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and more than half of Wyoming and Colorado to
+the Union. The series of intrigues and affrays and insurrections which
+resulted in the Pacific coast becoming American instead of European
+form a picturesque, exciting, and virtually unwritten chapter in our
+national history, a chapter in which furtive secret agents and haughty
+_caballeros_, pioneers in fringed buckskin, and naval officers in
+gold-laced uniforms all played their greater or their lesser parts.
+
+To fully understand the conditions which led up to the "Bear Flag War,"
+as it has been called, it is necessary to go back for a moment to the
+first quarter of the last century, when the territory of the United
+States ended at the Rocky Mountains and the red-white-and-green flag of
+Mexico floated over the whole of that vast, rich region which lay
+beyond. Under the Mexican regime the territory lying west of the Sierra
+Nevadas was divided into the provinces of Alta (or Upper) and Baja (or
+Lower) California, the population of the two provinces about 1845
+totalling not more than fifteen thousand souls, nine-tenths of whom were
+Mexicans, Spaniards, and Indians, the rest American and European
+settlers. The foreigners, among whom Americans greatly predominated,
+soon became influential out of all proportion to their numbers. This was
+particularly true of the Americans, who, solidified by common interests,
+common dangers, and common ambitions, obtained large grants of land,
+built houses which in certain cases were little short of forts,
+frequently married into the most aristocratic of the Californian
+families, and before long practically controlled the commerce of the
+entire territory.
+
+It was only to be expected, therefore, that the Mexicans should become
+more and more apprehensive of American ambitions. Nor did President
+Jackson's offer, in 1835, to buy Southern California--an offer which was
+promptly refused--serve to do other than strengthen these apprehensions.
+And to make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Commodore T.
+ApCatesby Jones, having heard a rumor that war had broken out between
+the United States and Mexico, and having reason to believe that a
+British force was preparing to seize California, landed a force of
+bluejackets and marines, and on October 21, 1842, raised the American
+flag over the presidio at Monterey. Although Commodore Jones, finding he
+had acted upon misinformation, lowered the flag next day and tendered an
+apology to the provincial officials, the incident did not tend to
+relieve the tension which existed between the Mexicans and the
+Americans, for it emphasized the ease with which the country could be
+seized, and hinted with unmistakable plainness at the ultimate
+intentions of the United States. That our government intended to annex
+the Californias at the first opportunity that offered the Mexicans were
+perfectly aware, for, aroused by the descriptions of the unbelievable
+beauty and fertility of the country as sent back by those daring souls
+who had made their way across the ranges, the hearts of our people were
+set upon its acquisition. The great Bay of San Francisco, large enough
+to shelter the navies of the world and the gateway to the Orient, the
+fruitful, sun-kissed land beyond the Sierras, the political domination
+of America, and the commercial domination of the Pacific--such were the
+visions which inspired our people and the motives which animated our
+leaders, and which were intensified by the fear of England's designs
+upon this western land.
+
+As the numbers of the American settlers gradually increased, the
+jealousy and suspicion of the Mexican officials became more pronounced.
+As early as 1826 they had driven Captain Jedediah Smith, the first
+American to make his way to California by the overland route, back into
+the mountains, in the midst of winter, without companions and without
+provisions, to be killed by the Indians. In 1840 more than one hundred
+American settlers were suddenly arrested by the Mexican authorities on
+a trumped-up charge of having plotted against the government, marched
+under military guard to Monterey, and confined in the prison there under
+circumstances of the most barbarous cruelty, some fifty of them being
+eventually deported to Mexico in chains. Thomas O. Larkin, the American
+consul at Monterey, upon visiting the prisoners in the local jail where
+they were confined, found that the cells had no floors, and that the
+poor fellows stood in mud and water to their ankles. Sixty of the
+prisoners he found crowded into a single room, twenty feet long and
+eighteen wide, in which they were so tightly packed that they could not
+all sit at the same time, much less lie down. The room being without
+windows or other means of ventilation, the air quickly became so fetid
+that they were able to live only by dividing themselves into platoons
+which took turns in standing at the door and getting a few breaths of
+air through the bars. These men, whose only crime was that they were
+Americans, were confined in this hell-hole, without food except such as
+their friends were able to smuggle in to them by bribing the sentries,
+for eight days. And this treatment was accorded them, remember, not
+because they were conspirators--for no one knew better than the Mexican
+authorities that they were not--but because it seemed the easiest means
+of driving them out of the country. Throughout the half-dozen years that
+ensued American settlers were subjected to a systematic campaign of
+annoyance, persecution, and imprisonment on innumerable frivolous
+pretexts, being released only on their promise to leave California
+immediately. By 1845, therefore, the harassed Americans, in sheer
+desperation, were ready to grasp the first opportunity which presented
+itself to end this intolerable tyranny for good and all.
+
+It was not only the outrageous treatment to which they were subjected,
+however, nor the weakness and instability of the government under which
+they were living, nor even the insecurity of their lives and property
+and the discouragements to industry, which led the American settlers to
+decide to end Mexican rule in the Californias. Texas had recently been
+annexed by the United States against the protests of Mexico, an American
+army of invasion was massed along the Rio Grande, and war was certain.
+It required no extraordinary degree of intelligence, then, to foresee
+that the coming hostilities would almost inevitably result in Mexico
+losing her Californian provinces. Now it was a matter of common
+knowledge that the Mexican Government was seriously considering the
+advisability of ceding the Californias to Great Britain, and thus
+accomplishing the threefold purpose of wiping out the large Mexican debt
+due to British bankers, of winning the friendship and possibly the
+active assistance of England in the approaching war with the United
+States, and of preventing the Californias from falling into American
+hands. The danger was, therefore, that England would step in before us.
+Nor was the danger any imaginary one. Her ships were watching our ships
+on the Mexican coast, and her secret agents who infested the country
+were keeping their fingers constantly on the pulse of public opinion.
+Though it remains to this day a matter of conjecture as to just how far
+England was prepared to go to obtain this territory, there is little
+doubt that she had laid her plans for its acquisition in one way or
+another. If California was to be added to the Union, therefore, it must
+be by a sudden and daring stroke.
+
+Meanwhile the authorities at Washington had not been idle. Though Larkin
+was ostensibly the American consul at Monterey and nothing more, in
+reality he was clothed with far greater powers, having been hurried from
+Washington to California for the express purpose of secretly encouraging
+an insurrectionary movement among the American settlers, and of keeping
+our government informed of the plans of the Mexicans and British.
+Receiving information that a powerful British fleet--the largest, in
+fact, which had ever been seen in Pacific waters--was about to sail for
+the coast of California, the administration promptly issued orders for a
+squadron of war-ships under Commodore John Drake Sloat to proceed at
+full speed to the Pacific coast, the commander being given secret
+instructions to back up Consul Larkin in any action which he might take,
+and upon receiving word that the United States had declared war against
+Mexico to immediately occupy the Californian ports. Then ensued one of
+the most momentous races in history, over a course extending half-way
+round the world, the contestants being the war-fleets of the two most
+powerful maritime nations, and the prize seven hundred thousand square
+miles of immensely rich territory and the mastery of the Pacific.
+Commodore Sloat laid his course around the Horn, while the English
+commander, Admiral Trowbridge, chose the route through the Indian Ocean.
+The first thing he saw as he entered the Bay of Monterey was the
+American squadron lying at anchor in the harbor.
+
+Never was there a better example of that form of territorial expansion
+which has come to be known as "pacific penetration" than the American
+conquest of California; never were the real designs of a nation and the
+schemes of its secret agents more successfully hidden. Consul Larkin, as
+I have already said, was quietly working, under confidential
+instructions from the State Department, to bring about a revolution in
+California without overt aid from the United States; the Californian
+coast towns lay under the guns of American war-ships, whose commanders
+likewise had secret instructions to land marines and take possession of
+the country at the first opportunity that presented itself; and, as
+though to complete the chain of American emissaries, early in 1846 there
+came riding down from the Sierran passes, at the head of what pretended
+to be an exploring and scientific expedition, the man who was to set the
+machinery of conquest actually in motion.
+
+The commander of the expedition was a young captain of engineers, named
+John Charles Fremont, who, as the result of two former journeys of
+exploration into the wilderness beyond the Rockies, had already won the
+sobriquet of "The Pathfinder." Born in Savannah, of a French father and
+a Virginian mother, he was a strange combination of aristocrat and
+frontiersman. Dashing, debonair, fearless, reckless, a magnificent
+horseman, a dead-shot, a hardy and intrepid explorer, equally at home
+at a White House ball or at an Indian powwow, he was probably the most
+picturesque and romantic figure in the United States. These
+characteristics, combined with extreme good looks, a gallant manner, and
+the great public reputation he had won by the vivid and interesting
+accounts he had published of his two earlier journeys, had completely
+captured the popular imagination, so that the young explorer had become
+a national idol. In the spring of 1845 he was despatched by the National
+Government on a third expedition, which had as its ostensible object the
+discovery of a practicable route from the Rocky Mountains to the mouth
+of the Columbia River, but which was really to lend encouragement to the
+American settlers in California in any secession movement which they
+might be planning and to afford them active assistance should war be
+declared. Just how far the government had instructed Fremont to go in
+fomenting a revolution will probably never be known, but there is every
+reason to believe that his father-in-law, United States Senator Benton,
+had advised him to seize California if an opportunity presented itself,
+and to trust to luck (and the senator's influence) that the government
+would approve rather than repudiate his action.
+
+[Illustration: The Sacramento Valley in 1845.
+
+From a steel engraving of the period.]
+
+All told, Fremont's expedition numbered barely threescore men--no
+great force, surely, with which to overthrow a government and win an
+empire. In advance of the little column rode the four Delaware braves
+whom Fremont had brought with him from the East to act as scouts and
+trackers, and whose cunning and woodcraft he was willing to match
+against that of the Indians of the plains. Close on their heels rode the
+Pathfinder himself, clad from neck to heel in fringed buckskin, at his
+belt a heavy army revolver and one of those vicious, double-bladed
+knives to which Colonel Bowie, of Texas, had already given his name, and
+on his head a jaunty, broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which his long,
+yellow hair fell down upon his shoulders. At his bridle arm rode Kit
+Carson, the most famous of the plainsmen, whose exploits against the
+Indians were even then familiar stories in every American household.
+Behind these two stretched out the rank and file of the
+expedition--bronze-faced, bearded, resolute men, well mounted, heavily
+armed, and all wearing the serviceable dress of the frontier.
+
+Fremont found the American settlers scattered through the interior in a
+state of considerable alarm, for rumors had reached them that the
+Mexican Government had decided to drive them out of the country, and
+that orders had been issued to the provincial authorities to incite the
+Indians against them. As they dwelt for the most part in small, isolated
+communities, scattered over a great extent of country, it was obvious
+that, if these rumors were true, their lives were in imminent peril.
+They had every reason to expect, moreover, that the news of war between
+Mexico and the United States would bring down on them those forms of
+punishment and retaliation for which the Mexicans were notorious. They
+were confronted, therefore, with the alternative of abandoning the homes
+they had built and the fields they had tilled and seeking refuge in
+flight across the mountains, or of remaining to face those perils
+inseparable from border warfare. Nor did it take them long to decide
+upon resistance, for they were not of the breed which runs away.
+
+Leaving most of his men encamped in the foot-hills, Fremont pushed on to
+Monterey, then the most important settlement in Upper California, and
+the seat of the provincial government, where he called upon Don Jose
+Castro, the Mexican commandant, explained the purposes of his
+expedition, and requested permission for his party to proceed northward
+to the Columbia through the San Joaquin valley. This permission Castro
+grudgingly gave, but scarcely had Fremont broken camp before the
+Mexican, who had hastily gathered an overwhelming force of soldiers and
+vaqueros, set out upon the trail of the Americans with the avowed
+purpose of surprising and exterminating them. Fortunately for the
+Americans, Consul Larkin, getting wind of Castro's intended treachery,
+succeeded in warning Fremont, who instead of taking his chances in a
+battle on the plains against a greatly superior force, suddenly occupied
+the precipitous hill lying back of and commanding Monterey, known as the
+Hawk's Peak, intrenched himself there, and then sent word to Castro to
+come and take him. Although the Mexican commander made a military
+demonstration before the American intrenchments, he was wise enough to
+refrain from attempting to carry a position of such great natural
+strength and defended by such unerring shots as were Fremont's
+frontiersmen. Four days later Fremont, feeling that there was nothing to
+be gained by holding the position longer, and confident that the
+Mexicans would be only too glad to see his back, quietly broke camp one
+night and resumed his march toward Oregon.
+
+Scarcely had he crossed the Oregon line, however, before he was
+overtaken by a messenger on a reeking horse, who had been despatched by
+Consul Larkin to inform him that an officer with urgent despatches from
+Washington had arrived at Monterey and was hastening northward to
+overtake him. Fremont immediately turned back, and on the shores of the
+Greater Klamath Lake met Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, who had
+travelled from New York to Vera Cruz by steamer, had crossed Mexico to
+Mazatlan on horseback, and had been brought up the Pacific coast to
+Monterey in an American war-ship. The exact contents of the despatches
+with which Gillespie had been intrusted will probably never be known,
+for having reason to believe that his mission was suspected by the
+Mexicans, and being fearful of arrest, he had destroyed the despatches
+after committing their contents to memory. These contents he
+communicated to Fremont, and the fact that the latter immediately turned
+his horse's head Californiawards is the best proof that they contained
+definite instructions for him to stir up the American settlers to revolt
+and so gain California for the Union by what some one has aptly
+described as "neutral conquest."
+
+The news of Fremont's return spread among the scattered settlers as
+though by wireless, and from all parts of the country hardy, determined
+men came pouring into camp to offer him their services. But his hands
+were tied. His instructions from Washington, while ordering him to lend
+his encouragement to an insurrectionary movement, expressly forbade him
+to take the initiative in any hostilities until he received word that
+war with Mexico had been declared--and that word had not yet come. These
+facts he communicated to the settlers. Fremont's assurance that the
+American Government sympathized with their aspirations for independence,
+and could be counted upon to back up any action they might take to
+secure it, was all that the settlers needed. On the evening of June 13,
+1846, some fifty Americans living along the Sacramento River met at the
+ranch of an old Indian-fighter and bear-hunter named Captain Meredith,
+and under his leadership rode across the country in a northwesterly
+direction through the night. Dawn found them close to the presidio of
+Sonoma, which was the residence of the Mexican general Vallejo and the
+most important military post north of San Francisco. Leaving their
+horses in the shelter of the forest, the Americans stole silently
+forward in the dimness of the early morning, overpowered the sentries,
+burst in the gates, and had taken possession of the town and surrounded
+the barracks before the garrison was fairly awake. General Vallejo and
+his officers were captured in their beds, and were sent under guard to
+a fortified ranch known as Sutter's fort, which was situated some
+distance in the interior. In addition to the prisoners, nine field-guns,
+several hundred stands of arms, and a considerable supply of ammunition
+fell into the hands of the Americans. The first blow had been struck in
+the conquest of California.
+
+The question now arose as to what they should do with the town they had
+captured, for Fremont had no authority to take it over for the United
+States, or to muster the men who took it into the American service. The
+embattled settlers found themselves, in fact, to be in the embarrassing
+position of being men without a country. After a council of war they
+decided to organize a _pro-tem_. government of their own to administer
+the territory until such time as it should be formally annexed to the
+United States. I doubt if a government was ever established so quickly
+and under such rough-and-ready circumstances. After an informal ballot
+it was announced that William B. Ide, a leading spirit among the
+settlers, had been unanimously elected governor and commander-in-chief
+"of the independent forces"; John H. Nash, who had been a justice of the
+peace in the East before he had emigrated to California, being named
+chief justice of the new republic.
+
+For a full-fledged nation not to have a flag of its own was, of course,
+unthinkable; so, as most of its citizens were hunters and adventurers,
+when some one suggested that the grizzly bear, because of its
+indomitable courage and tenacity and its ferocity when aroused, would
+make a peculiarly appropriate emblem for the new banner, the suggestion
+was adopted with enthusiasm and a committee of two was appointed to put
+it into immediate execution. A young settler named William Ford, who had
+been imprisoned by the Mexicans in the jail at Sonoma, and who had been
+released when his countrymen captured the place; and William Todd, an
+emigrant from Illinois, were the makers of the flag. On a piece of
+unbleached cotton cloth, a yard wide and a yard and a half long, they
+painted the rude figure of a grizzly bear ready to give battle. This
+strange banner they raised, at noon on June 14, amid a storm of cheers
+and a salute from the captured cannon, on the staff where so recently
+had floated the flag of Mexico, and from it the Bear Flag Republic took
+its name.
+
+Scarcely had Fremont received the news of the capture of Sonoma and the
+proclamation of the Bear Flag Republic than word reached him that a
+large force of Mexicans was on its way to retake the town. Disregarding
+his instructions from Washington, and throwing all caution to the
+winds, Fremont instantly decided to stake everything on giving his
+support to his imperilled countrymen. His own men reinforced by a number
+of volunteers, he arrived at Sonoma after a forced march of thirty-six
+hours, only to find the Bear Flag men still in possession. The number of
+the enemy, as well as their intentions, had, it seems, been greatly
+exaggerated, the force in question being but a small party of troopers
+which Castro had despatched to the Mission of San Rafael, on the north
+shore of San Francisco Bay, to prevent several hundred cavalry remounts
+which were stabled there from falling into the hands of the Americans.
+Realizing the value of these horses to the settlers in the guerilla
+campaign, which seemed likely to ensue, Fremont succeeded in capturing
+them after a sharp skirmish with the Mexicans. Hurrying back to Sonoma,
+he learned that during his absence Ide and his men had repulsed an
+attack by a body of Mexican regulars, under General de la Torre,
+reinforced by a band of ruffians and desperadoes led by an outlaw named
+Padilla, inflicting so sharp a defeat that the only enemies left in that
+part of the country were the scattered fugitives from this force; these
+being hunted down and summarily dealt with by the frontiersmen. Having
+now irrevocably committed himself to the insurgent cause, and feeling
+that, if he were to be hanged, it might as well be for a sheep as for a
+lamb, Fremont decided on the capture of San Francisco. The San Francisco
+of 1846 had little in common with the San Francisco of to-day, remember,
+for on the site where the great Western metropolis now stands there was
+nothing but a village consisting of a few-score adobe houses and the
+Mexican presidio, or fort, the latter containing a considerable supply
+of arms and ammunition. Accompanied by Kit Carson, Lieutenant Gillespie,
+and a small detachment of his men, Fremont crossed the Bay of San
+Francisco in a sailing-boat by night, and took the Mexican garrison so
+completely by surprise that they surrendered without firing a shot. The
+gateway to the Orient was ours.
+
+Fremont now prepared to take the offensive against Castro, who was
+retreating on Los Angeles, but just as he was about to start on his
+march southward a messenger brought the great news that Admiral Sloat,
+having received word that hostilities had commenced along the Rio
+Grande, had landed his marines at Monterey, and on July 7, to the
+thunder of saluting war-ships, had raised the American flag over the
+presidio, and had proclaimed the annexation of California to the Union.
+When the Bear Flag men learned the great news they went into a frenzy of
+enthusiasm; whooping, shouting, singing snatches of patriotic songs,
+and firing their pistols in the air. Quickly the standard of the
+fighting grizzly was lowered and the flag of stripes and stars hoisted
+in its place, while the rough-clad, bearded settlers, who had waited so
+long and risked so much that this very thing might come to pass, sang
+the Doxology with tears running down their faces. As the folds of the
+familiar banner caught the breeze and floated out over the flat-roofed
+houses of the little town, Ide, the late chief of the three-weeks
+republic, jumping on a powder barrel, swung his sombrero in the air and
+shouted: "Now, boys, all together, three cheers for the Union!" The
+moist eyes and the lumps in the throats brought by the sight of the old
+flag did not prevent the little band of frontiersmen from responding
+with a roar which made the windows of Sonoma rattle.
+
+Now, as a matter of fact, Admiral Sloat had placed himself in a very
+embarrassing position, for he had based his somewhat precipitate action
+in seizing California on what he had every reason to believe was
+authentic news that war between the United States and Mexico had
+actually begun, but which proved next day to be merely an unconfirmed
+rumor. If a state of war really did exist, then both Sloat and Fremont
+were justified in their aggressions; but if it did not, then they might
+have considerable difficulty in explaining their action in commencing
+hostilities against a nation with which we were at peace. So Sloat began
+"to get cold feet," asserting that he was forced to act as he had
+because he had received reliable information that the British, whose
+fleet was lying off Monterey, were on the point of seizing California
+themselves. Fremont, on his part, claimed to have acted in defence of
+the American settlers in the interior, who without his assistance would
+have been massacred by the Mexicans. At this juncture Commodore Stockton
+arrived at Monterey in the frigate _Congress_, and as Sloat was now
+thoroughly frightened and only too glad to transfer the responsibility
+he had assumed to other shoulders, Stockton, who was the junior officer,
+asked for and readily obtained permission to assume command of the
+operations. Fremont, who had reached Monterey with several hundred
+riflemen, was appointed commander-in-chief of the land forces by
+Stockton, and was ordered to embark his men on one of the war-ships and
+proceed at once to capture San Diego, at that time by far the most
+important place in California. Stockton himself, after raising the
+American flag over San Francisco and Santa Barbara, sailed down the
+coast to San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, where he disembarked a
+force of bluejackets and marines for the taking of the latter city,
+within which the Mexican commander, General Castro, had shut himself up
+with a considerable number of troops, and where he promised to make a
+desperate resistance.
+
+As Stockton came marching up from San Pedro at the head of his column he
+was met by a Mexican carrying a flag of truce and bearing a message from
+Castro warning the American commander in the most solemn terms that if
+his forces dared to set foot within Los Angeles they would be going to
+their own funerals. "Present my compliments to General Castro," Stockton
+told the messenger, "and ask him to have the kindness to have the church
+bells tolled for our funerals at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, for at
+that hour I shall enter the city." Upon receipt of this disconcerting
+message Castro slipped out of Los Angeles that night, without firing a
+shot in its defence, and at eight o'clock on the following morning,
+Stockton, just as he had promised, came riding in at the head of his
+men.
+
+After garrisoning the surrounding towns and ridding the countryside of
+prowling bands of Mexican guerillas, Stockton officially proclaimed
+California a Territory of the United States, instituted a civil
+government along American lines, and appointed Fremont as the first
+Territorial governor. Before the year 1846 had drawn to a close these
+two Americans, the one a rough-and-ready sailor, the other a youthful
+and impetuous soldier, assisted by a few hundred marines and
+frontiersmen, had completed the conquest and pacification of a territory
+having a greater area and greater natural resources than those of all
+the countries conquered by Napoleon put together. Thus ended the happy,
+lazy, luxury-loving society of Spanish California. Another society, less
+luxurious, less light-hearted, less contented, but more energetic, more
+progressive, and better fitted for the upbuilding of a nation, took its
+place. There are still to be found in California a few men, white-haired
+and stoop-shouldered now, who were themselves actors in this drama I
+have described, and who delight to tell of those stirring days when
+Fremont and his frontiersmen came riding down from the passes, and the
+embattled settlers of Sonoma founded their short-lived Republic of the
+Bear.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS
+
+
+In one of the public squares of San Jose, which is the capital of Costa
+Rica, there is a marble statue of a stern-faced young woman, with her
+foot planted firmly on a gentleman's neck. The young woman is symbolic
+of the Republic of Costa Rica, and the gentleman ground beneath her heel
+is supposed to represent the American filibuster and soldier of fortune,
+William Walker. Now, before going any farther, justice requires me to
+explain that Walker's downfall was not due to Costa Rica, as the
+citizens of that little republic would like the world to believe, and as
+the bombastic statue in the plaza of its capital would lead one to
+suppose, but to a far greater and richer power, whose victories were won
+with dollars instead of bayonets, whose capital was New York City, and
+whose name was Cornelius Vanderbilt.
+
+To the younger generation the name of William Walker carries no
+significance, but to the gray-heads whose recollections antedate the
+Civil War the mention of it brings back a flood of thrilling memories,
+while throughout the length and breadth of that wild region lying
+between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Isthmus of Panama it is still
+a synonym for unfaltering courage. His weakness was ambition; his fault
+was failure. Had he succeeded in realizing his ambitions--and he failed
+only by the narrowest of margins--he would have been lauded as another
+Cortez, and would have received stars and crosses instead of bullets.
+Had his life not been cut short by a Honduran firing-party, it is
+possible, indeed probable, that, instead of there being six states in
+Central America there would be but one, and in that one the institution
+of slavery might still exist. Though I have scant sympathy with the
+motives which animated Walker, and though I believe that his death was
+for the best good of the Central American peoples, he was the very
+antithesis of the cutthroat and blackguard and outlaw which he has been
+painted, being, on the contrary, a very brave and honest gentleman, of
+whom his countrymen have no reason to feel ashamed, and that is why I am
+going to tell his story.
+
+The eldest son of a Scotch banker, Walker was born in 1824 in Nashville,
+Tennessee. His father, a stiff-necked Presbyterian who held morning and
+evening prayers, asked an interminable grace before every meal, and
+took his family to church three times on Sunday, had set his heart on
+his son entering the ministry, and it was with a pulpit and parish in
+view that young Walker was educated. By the time that he was ready to
+enter the theological school, however, he decided that he preferred M.D.
+instead of D.D. after his name, whereupon, much to his father's
+disappointment, he insisted on taking the medical course at the
+University of Tennessee, following it up by two years at the University
+of Edinburgh. Thoroughly equipped to practise his chosen profession, he
+opened an office in Philadelphia, but in a few months the routine of a
+doctor's life palled upon him, so, taking down his brass door-plate, he
+went to New Orleans, where, after two years of study, he was admitted to
+the bar. But he soon found that briefs and summonses were scarcely more
+to his liking than prescriptions and pills, so, with the prompt decision
+which was one of his most marked characteristics, he closed his
+law-office and obtained a position as editorial writer on a New Orleans
+newspaper. Within a year the restlessness which had led him to abandon
+the church, medicine, and the bar caused him to give up journalism in
+its turn. At this time, 1852, the Californian gold fever was at its mad
+height, and to the Pacific coast were pouring streams of
+fortune-seekers and adventure-lovers from every quarter of the globe.
+One of the latter was Walker, and it was while editor of the San
+Francisco _Herald_, when only twenty-eight years old, that his amazing
+career really began.
+
+Walker was not of the sort who could content himself for any length of
+time within the stuffy walls of an editorial sanctum. His fingers were
+made to grasp something more virile than the pen. Nor did he make any
+attempt to win a fortune with pick and shovel in the gold fields. His
+ambitions were neither intellectual nor mercenary, but political, for
+from his boyhood days in Nashville he had dreamed, as all boys worth
+their salt do dream, of some day founding a state, with himself as its
+ruler, in that wild and savage region below the Rio Grande. Enlisting
+half a hundred kindred souls from the hordes of the reckless, the
+adventurous, and the needy which were pouring into California by boat
+and wagon-train, Walker chartered a small vessel and set sail from San
+Francisco for the coast of Mexico. His avowed object was a purely
+humanitarian one: to protect the women and children living along the
+Mexican frontier from massacre by the Indians, the state of Sonora being
+at that time more under the dominion of the Apaches than it was under
+that of Mexico. But it was not the protection of the women and
+children--though they needed protection badly enough, goodness
+knows--which led Walker to embark on this hare-brained expedition. He
+was lured southward by a dream of empire, an empire of which he should
+be the ruler, and which should be founded on slavery. By this time,
+remember, the slavery question in the United States had become
+exceedingly acute, the future of the institution on this continent
+largely depending upon whether the next States admitted to the Union
+should be slave or free. Walker was a sincere, even fanatical, believer
+in slavery. Born and reared in an atmosphere of slavery, to Walker it
+was as sacred, as God-given an institution as the Fast of Ramadan is to
+the Moslem or the Feast of the Passover to the Jew. Convinced that
+friction over this question would sooner or later force the
+slave-holding States to secede from the Union, he determined to extend
+the area of slavery by conquering that portion of northern Mexico
+immediately adjacent to the United States, to establish an independent
+government there, and eventually to annex his country to the South, thus
+counteracting the growing movement for abolition, which, with the
+admission of new Northern territories, already hinted at the overthrow
+of slavery.
+
+Financed by Southern friends whose motives were probably considerably
+less altruistic than his own, Walker landed at Cape San Lucas, the
+extreme southern point of the Mexican territory of Southern California,
+in October, 1852, with an "army of invasion" of forty-five men. Instead
+of hastening to protect the women and children of whom he had talked so
+feelingly, he sailed up the coast to the territorial capital of La Paz,
+which he seized, where he issued a proclamation announcing the
+annexation of the neighboring state of Sonora, in which he had not yet
+set foot, giving to the two states the name of the "Republic of Sonora,"
+and proclaiming himself its first president. As soon as the news of this
+initial success reached San Francisco, Walker's sympathizers there
+busied themselves in recruiting reinforcements, three hundred
+desperadoes who boasted that they were afraid of nothing "on two feet or
+four" being shipped to him at La Paz a few weeks later. These men were
+looked upon as hard cases even in the San Francisco of the early
+fifties, and, if they had not consented to leave the country to assist
+Walker, many of them would probably have left it sooner or later at the
+end of a rope in the hands of the local vigilance committee. When this
+force of scoundrels arrived at La Paz and found themselves under the
+command of a quiet, mild-mannered, beardless youth of twenty-eight,
+instead of the brawny, foul-mouthed, swashbuckling leader whom they had
+expected, they promptly hatched a scheme to blow up the magazine, seize
+the ship and the stores of the expedition in the ensuing confusion, and
+make their way back to the United States, leaving Walker to shift for
+himself. Warning of the conspiracy reaching him, however, Walker
+displayed for the first time those traits which were later to make his
+name a word of terror in the ears of men who bragged that they feared
+neither God nor man. Arresting the ringleaders, he had two of them tried
+by court-martial and shot within an hour; two of the others he ordered
+flogged and drummed out of camp, to take their chances among the hostile
+Mexicans and Indians. But, though this act gained Walker the fear and
+respect of his followers, the newcomers among them had no stomach for a
+leader who could punish, so when he called for volunteers to accompany
+him in the conquest of Sonora less than a hundred men offered to follow
+him.
+
+From the very first the shadow of failure hung over the enterprise. To
+begin with, there is no more savage and desolate region on the American
+continent than the peninsula of Lower California, it being so barren and
+destitute that even the lizards have to scramble for an existence.
+Mexicans and Indians hung upon the flanks of the little column night and
+day, as buzzards follow a dying steer. There was neither medicine nor
+medical instruments with the expedition, and the wounded died from lack
+of the most elementary care. Their shoes gave out and the men marched
+bare-foot over sun-scorched rocks and needle cactus, leaving a trail of
+crimson behind them in the sand. Their provisions were soon exhausted,
+and their only food was beef which they killed on the march. For years
+afterward the route of that ill-fated expedition could be traced from La
+Paz to the Colorado River by the bleaching skeletons of the men who fell
+by the way. By the time the head of the Gulf of California was reached
+the expedition had dwindled to barely twoscore men. It was no longer a
+question of conquering Sonora; it was a question of getting back to the
+States alive.
+
+With sinking heart, but imperturbable face, Walker led his little band
+of starving, fever-racked, exhausted men toward the Californian line.
+Three miles of road led through a mountain pass into the United States
+and safety. But the pass was held by a force of Mexican soldiery under
+Colonel Melendrez, and his Indian allies were scattered over the plain
+below. And, as though to give a final touch of irony to the situation in
+which Walker and his men found themselves, from their position on the
+Mexican hillside they could look across into American territory, could
+see the American flag, their flag, fluttering over the military post
+south of San Diego, could even see the sun glinting upon the bits and
+sabres of the troop of American cavalry drawn up along the border. Four
+Indians bearing a flag of truce approached. They bore a message from the
+Mexican commander to the filibusters. If they would surrender their
+leader and give up their arms, Melendrez sent word, they would be
+permitted to leave the country unmolested. But after you have fought and
+bled and marched and starved with a man for a year, you are not likely
+to abandon him, particularly when the end is in sight, so they sent back
+word to Melendrez that if he wanted their arms he would have to come and
+take them. Meanwhile the American commander, Major McKinstry, had drawn
+up his troopers along the boundary-line and awaited the result of the
+unequal struggle like an umpire at a foot-ball game. Walker, who knew
+perfectly well that he deserved no aid from the United States, and that
+he would get none, appreciated that if he was to get out of this
+predicament alive it must be by his own wits. Concealing a dozen of his
+men among the rocks and sage-brush which lined the road on either side,
+with the remainder of his force he pretended to beat a panic-stricken
+retreat. Melendrez, confident that it was now all over but the shouting,
+swept down the road in pursuit. But as the Mexicans rode into the ambush
+which Walker had prepared for them the hidden filibusters emptied a
+dozen saddles at a single volley, and the soldiers, terrified and
+demoralized, wheeled and fled for their lives. Thirty minutes later the
+President, the Cabinet, and all that remained of the standing army of
+the late Republic of Sonora stumbled across the American boundary and
+surrendered to Major McKinstry. It was May 8, 1854, and in such fashion
+Walker celebrated his thirtieth birthday.
+
+Sent to San Francisco as a political prisoner, Walker was tried for
+violating the neutrality laws of the United States, was acquitted--for
+the members of a Californian jury could not but sympathize with such a
+man--and once again found himself writing editorials for the San
+Francisco _Herald_. His narrow escape from death in Mexico had only
+served to whet his appetite for adventure, however, so when he was not
+doing his newspaper work he was poring over an atlas in search of some
+other land where a determined man might carve out a career for himself
+with his sword. Staring at the map of Middle America, his finger again
+and again paused, as though by instinct, on Nicaragua. Here was indeed a
+fertile field for the filibuster. Not only was the country enormously
+rich in every form of natural resources, but it had a kindly and
+moderately healthy climate, and, what was the most important of all,
+owing to its peculiar geographical position, it commanded what was at
+that time one of the great trade-routes of the world. At this time there
+were three routes to the Californian gold-fields: one, the long and
+weary voyage around the Horn; another, by the dangerous and costly
+Overland Trail; and the third, which was the shortest, cheapest, and
+most popular, across Nicaragua. If you will glance at the map, you will
+see that, barring the Isthmus of Panama, which is several hundred miles
+farther south, Nicaragua is the narrowest neck of land between the two
+great oceans, and that in the middle of this neck is the great Lake
+Nicaragua, which is upward of fifty miles in width. An American
+corporation known as the Accessory Transit Company, of which the first
+Cornelius Vanderbilt was president, had obtained a concession from the
+Nicaraguan Government to transport passengers across Central America by
+this route. Passengers _en route_ from New York or New Orleans to the
+gold-fields were landed by the company's steamers at Greytown, on the
+Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, and transported thence by light-draught
+steamers up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. Here they were
+transferred to larger steamers and taken across the lake to Virgin Bay,
+the twelve-mile journey from there to the port of San Juan del Sur, on
+the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, being performed in carriages or on the
+backs of mules. During a single year twenty-five thousand passengers
+crossed Nicaragua by this route. It did not take Walker long to
+appreciate, therefore, that the man who succeeded in making himself
+master of this, the shortest route to California, would be in a position
+of considerable strength. Not only this, but Nicaragua was torn by
+internal dissensions; the army was divided into a dozen factions; the
+peasantry were down-trodden and poverty-stricken; the government was
+inconceivably corrupt; and the usual revolution was, of course, in
+progress, in which the sister republics of Honduras and Costa Rica were
+preparing to take a hand. Everything considered, Nicaragua's only hope
+of salvation from anarchy lay in finding for a ruler a man with an
+inflexible sense of justice and an iron hand. Walker determined to be
+that man.
+
+In view of what I have already told of his exploits, you have doubtless
+pictured Walker as a tall, broad-shouldered man of commanding presence.
+As a matter of fact, he was nothing of the sort. In height he was but
+five feet five inches, and correspondingly slender. A remarkably square
+jaw and a long chin lent strength and determination to features which
+were plain almost to the point of coarseness. His eyes, which were of a
+singularly light gray, are universally spoken of as having been his most
+noticeable feature, for they were so large and fixed that the eyelids
+scarcely showed, and so penetrating that they seemed to bore holes into
+the person at whom they were looking. He was extremely taciturn, and
+when he did speak it was briefly and to the point. He had an unusual
+command of English, however, and his words were always carefully chosen.
+A stranger to fear, men who followed him on his campaigns assert that
+even under the most trying and perilous circumstances they had never
+seen him change countenance or betray emotion by so much as the
+contraction of a muscle. He was wholly lacking in personal vanity, and
+when in the field wore his trousers tucked into his boots, a flannel
+shirt open at the neck, and a faded black campaign hat. In a land where
+all three habits were universal, he neither drank, smoked, nor swore; he
+never looked at women; his word, once given, was never broken; the
+justice he meted out to disobedient followers, though stern to the point
+of brutality, was absolutely impartial. Highly ambitious, it is paying
+but the barest justice to his memory to say that his aspirations,
+however little we may sympathize with them, were wholly political and
+never mercenary, his whole career showing him to be utterly careless of
+wealth. Taking everything into consideration, we have good reason to be
+proud that William Walker was an American.
+
+In 1854, as I have already remarked, Nicaragua was split asunder by
+civil war. The opposing parties were the Legitimists and the Democrats.
+What they were fighting about is of no consequence; perhaps they did not
+know themselves. In any event, in August of that year an American named
+Byron Cole, acting as an agent for Walker, arrived at the headquarters
+of the Democratic forces with a novel offer. Briefly, he agreed to
+contract to supply the Democratic party with three hundred American
+"colonists liable to military duty," these settlers to receive a grant
+of fifty-two thousand acres of land, and to have the privilege of
+becoming citizens of Nicaragua. This contract was approved and signed by
+General Castillon, the Democratic leader, and with it in his pocket Cole
+hastened to San Francisco and Walker. After taking the precaution of
+submitting the contract to the civil and military authorities in San
+Francisco, and receiving their assurances that it did not violate the
+neutrality laws of the United States, Walker immediately set about
+recruiting his "colonists," and in May, 1855, just a year after his
+escape from Mexico, he was ready to sail. Although, as I have said, the
+Federal authorities had passed upon the legality of the contract, it was
+a noticeable fact that the peaceable settlers took with them Winchester
+rifles instead of spades, and Colt's revolvers instead of hoes, and that
+the hold of the brig _Vesta_, on which they sailed from San Francisco,
+was filled with ammunition and machine guns instead of agricultural
+implements and machinery.
+
+After a long and stormy voyage down the Pacific coast Walker and his
+men landed, on June 16, at the port of Realejo, in Nicaragua, where he
+was met by Castillon. Walker was at once commissioned a colonel;
+Achilles Kewen, who had just come from Cuba, where he had been fighting
+under the patriot Lopez, a lieutenant-colonel; and Timothy Crocker, a
+fighting Irishman, who was a veteran of Walker's Sonora expedition, a
+major; the corps being organized as an independent command under the
+name of _La Falange Americana_--the American Phalanx. At this time the
+Transit route from the Atlantic to the Pacific was held by the
+Legitimist forces, and these Walker was ordered to dislodge, it being
+essential to the success of the Democrats that they gain possession of
+this interoceanic highway. Accordingly, a week after setting foot in
+Nicaragua, Walker, at the head of fifty-seven of his Americans and one
+hundred and fifty native soldiers, set out for Rivas, a town on the
+western shore of Lake Nicaragua held by twelve hundred of the enemy. The
+first battle of his Nicaraguan campaign ended in the most complete
+disaster. At the first volley his native allies bolted, leaving the
+Americans surrounded by ten times their number of Legitimists. The enemy
+instantly perceived this defection, and pressed the Phalanx so hard
+that its members were driven to take shelter behind a row of adobe huts.
+No one knew better than Walker that if the enemy charged he and his men
+were done for, so he decided to do the charging himself. Out from behind
+the huts dashed the red-shirted filibusters, firing as they came, and so
+ferocious was their onslaught that they succeeded in cutting their way
+through the encircling army and escaping into the jungle. Though six of
+the Americans were killed, including Walker's two lieutenants, Kewen and
+Crocker, and twice as many wounded, the battle of Rivas established the
+reputation of Americans in Central America for years to come, for a
+hundred and fifty of the enemy fell before their deadly fire.
+
+[Illustration: General William Walker and his men, after a long and
+stormy voyage, landing at Virgin Bay, en route to Costa Rica.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Bleeding and exhausted from battle and travel, Walker and his men, after
+an all-night march through the jungle, limped into the port of San Juan
+del Sur, and, finding a Costa Rican vessel in the harbor, they seized it
+for their own use. Still bearing in mind the necessity of getting
+control of the Transit route, Walker gave his men only a few days in
+which to recover from their wounds and weariness, and then was off
+again, this time for Virgin Bay, the halting-place for passengers going
+east or west. Though in the fight which ensued Walker was outnumbered
+five to one, his losses were only three natives killed and a few
+Americans wounded, while one hundred and fifty of the enemy fell before
+the rifles of the filibusters. This disparity of losses emphasizes, as
+does nothing else, the deadliness of the American fire.
+
+After the fight at Virgin Bay Walker received from California fifty
+recruits, thus bringing the force under his command up to some four
+hundred men, about a third of whom were Americans. The Legitimists,
+learning that he was planning to again attack Rivas, hastened to
+reinforce the garrison of that town by hurrying troops there from their
+headquarters at Granada, which was farther up the lake, planning to give
+Walker a warm and unexpected reception. But it was Walker who did the
+surprising, for, having his own channels of secret information, he no
+sooner learned of the weakened condition of Granada than he determined
+to direct his efforts against that place, instead of Rivas, and by
+capturing it to give the Legitimist cause a solar-plexus blow. Embarking
+his men on a small steamer with the announced intention of attacking
+Rivas, as soon as night fell he turned in the opposite direction and,
+with lights out and fires banked, steamed silently up the lake. Dawn
+found him off Granada, the garrison and inhabitants of which were
+sleeping off a drunken debauch with which they had celebrated a recent
+victory. Even the sentries drowsed at their posts. Unobserved, the
+Americans landed in the semi-darkness of the early dawn, and it was not
+until they had reached the very outskirts of the town that a sentry
+suddenly awakened to their presence and gave the alarm by letting off
+his rifle, the shot being instantly answered by a crackle of musketry as
+the Americans opened fire. "Charge!" shouted Walker, "Get at 'em! Get at
+'em!" and dashed forward at a run, a revolver in each hand, with his
+followers, cheering like madmen, close at his heels. "Los Filibusteros!
+Los Filibusteros!" screamed the terror-stricken inhabitants, catching
+sight of the red shirts and scarlet hat-bands of the Americans. "Run for
+your lives!" The demoralized garrison made a brief and ineffective stand
+in the Plaza, and then threw down their arms. Walker was master of
+Granada. He at once instituted a military government, released over a
+hundred political prisoners confined in the local jail, policed the town
+as effectually as though it were a New England village, and when he
+caught one of his native soldiers in the act of looting, ran him through
+with his sword.
+
+Walker was now in a position to dictate his own terms of peace, and,
+four months after he and his fifty-seven followers landed in Nicaragua,
+an armistice was arranged and the side to which the Americans had lent
+their aid was in power. A native named Rivas was made provisional
+president, and Walker was appointed commander-in-chief of the army,
+which at that time numbered about twelve hundred men. Though
+insignificant in numbers when judged by European standards, this was
+really a remarkable force, and perhaps the most effective for its size
+known to military history. The officers had all seen service under many
+flags and in many lands--in Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Algeria,
+Italy, Egypt, Russia, India, China--and the men, nearly all of whom had
+been recruited in San Francisco, boasted that "California was the pick
+of the world, and they were the pick of California." There was scarcely
+a man among them who could not flick the ashes from a cigar with his
+revolver at a hundred feet, or with his rifle hit a dollar held between
+a man's thumb and forefinger at a hundred yards. All the strange, wild
+natures for whom even the mining-camps of California had grown too tame
+were drawn to Walker's flag as iron filings are drawn to a magnet.
+Frederick Townsend Ward, the New England youth who raised, trained, and
+led the Ever-Victorious Army, who rose to be an admiral-general of
+China, and who performed the astounding exploits for which General
+Charles Gordon received the credit, gained much of his military training
+under Walker; Joaquin Miller, "the poet of the Sierras," was another of
+his devoted followers, while scores of the other men who fought under
+the blue-and-white banner with the scarlet star in later years achieved
+name and fame in many different lands.
+
+[Illustration: General Walker reviewing troops on the Grand Plaza,
+Granada.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Says General Charles Frederic Henningsen, the famous English soldier of
+fortune who was Walker's second in command: "I have heard two greasy
+privates disputing over the correct reading and comparative merits of
+AEschylus and Euripides. I have seen a soldier on guard incessantly
+scribbling strips of paper, which turned out to be a finely versified
+translation of his dog's-eared copy of the _Divina Commedia_." The same
+officer, who had fought with distinction under Don Carlos in Spain,
+under Schamyl in the Caucasus, and under Kossuth in Hungary, who had
+introduced the Minie rifle into the American service, and was a
+recognized authority on the use of artillery, and therefore knew whereof
+he spoke, also testifies to the heroism and astounding fortitude of
+Walker's men. "I have often seen them marching with a broken or a
+compound-fractured arm in splints, and using the other to fire the
+rifle or revolver. Those with a fractured thigh, or with wounds which
+rendered them incapable of removal, often (or rather, in early times,
+always) shot themselves, sooner than fall into the hands of the enemy.
+Such men do not turn up in the average of every-day life, nor do I ever
+expect to see their like again. I was on the Confederate side in many of
+the bloodiest battles of the late war, but I aver that if, at the end of
+that war I had been allowed to pick five thousand of the bravest
+Confederate or Federal soldiers I ever saw, and could resurrect and pit
+against them one thousand of such men as lie beneath the orange-trees of
+Nicaragua, I feel certain that the thousand would have scattered and
+utterly routed the five thousand within an hour. All military science
+failed, on a suddenly given field, before assailants who came on at a
+run, to close with their revolvers, and who thought little of charging a
+battery, pistol in hand." As a matter of fact, at the first battle of
+Rivas, ten Americans, all officers of the Phalanx, armed only with
+bowie-knives and revolvers, actually did charge and capture a battery
+manned by more than a hundred Costa Ricans, half of the little band
+being killed in that astounding exploit. Some estimate of the deeds of
+these unsung heroes, so many of whom lie in unmarked graves beneath an
+alien sky, may be gathered from the surgical reports, which showed that
+the proportion of wounds treated was _one hundred and thirty-seven to
+every hundred men_.
+
+For several months after the taking of Granada and the establishment of
+a provisional government, the dove of peace hovered over Nicaragua as
+though desirous of alighting, but in February, 1856, it was driven away,
+at least for a time, by a fresh splutter of musketry along the southern
+frontier, where Costa Rica, alarmed by Walker's reputed ambition to make
+himself master of all Middle America, had begun an invasion with the
+expressed purpose of driving the _gringos_ from Central American soil.
+After a few months of desperate fighting, in which the Americans fully
+maintained their reputation for reckless bravery, the Costa Ricans were
+driven across the border, and for a brief time the harassed Nicaraguans
+were able to exchange their rifles for their hoes. The country now being
+for the moment at peace, Rivas called a presidential election,
+announcing himself as the candidate of the Democrats. The Legitimists,
+recognizing in Walker the one strong man of the country, had the
+political shrewdness to choose him, their former enemy, to head their
+ticket. Two other candidates, Ferrer and Salazar, were also in the
+field. The election was regular in every respect, the voting being
+entirely free from the usual disturbances. According to the Nicaraguan
+constitution, every male inhabitant over eighteen years of age,
+criminals excepted, is entitled to the suffrage. When the votes were
+counted it was found that Rivas had received 867 votes; Salazar, 2,087;
+Ferrer, 4,447; and Walker, 15,835. By such an overwhelming majority, and
+in an absolutely fair election, was William Walker made President of
+Nicaragua--the first and only time an American has ever been chosen
+ruler of a foreign and independent state.
+
+In all its troubled history Nicaragua has never been governed so justly
+and so wisely as it was by the American soldier of fortune. Had he been
+free from foreign interference there is little doubt that he would have
+made Nicaragua a progressive, prosperous, and contented country, and
+that he would in time have brought under one government and one flag all
+the states lying between Yucatan and Panama. But that was precisely what
+the peoples of those states were fearful of, so that, a few weeks after
+Walker was inaugurated, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, and San
+Salvador declared war. This time Walker took the field with three
+thousand trained and seasoned veterans, while opposed to him were
+twenty-one thousand of the allies. To describe the campaign that ensued
+would be as profitless as it would be tedious. The programme was always
+the same: the march by night through the silent, steaming jungle, and
+the stealthy surrounding of the threatened town in the early dawn; the
+warning crack of a startled sentry's rifle; the sudden rush of the
+filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and
+the cathedral in the Plaza, nearly always at the pistol's point; and the
+panic-stricken retreat of the little brown men in their uniforms of
+soiled white linen. Everywhere the arms of Walker were triumphant, and
+had he not at this time deliberately crossed the path of a soldier of
+fortune of quite another kind, in a few months more he would have
+realized his life-dream and have made himself the ruler of a Central
+American empire.
+
+Upon investigating national affairs after his election, Walker found
+that the Accessory Transit Company had not lived up to the terms of its
+concession from the government of Nicaragua. By the terms of its charter
+it had agreed to pay to the Nicaraguan Government ten thousand dollars
+annually, and ten per cent of its net profits. The company claimed, and
+the government as stoutly denied, that the ten thousand dollars had been
+regularly paid, though the concessionaires admitted that the ten per
+cent on the profits had not been paid, giving as their excuse that there
+had been no profits. Upon an examination of the books it was quickly
+discovered that the company had so juggled with the accounts as to make
+it appear that there were no profits, when, as a matter of fact, the
+enterprise was an enormously profitable one. Upon discovering the fraud
+which had been perpetrated upon the government and people of Nicaragua,
+Walker demanded back payments to the amount of two hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars, and upon the company insolently refusing to pay them,
+he promptly revoked its charter, and seized its steamboats, wharves, and
+warehouses as security for the debt. Though this action was perfectly
+justifiable under the circumstances, it was, in view of the instability
+of Walker's position, an unwise move, for it made an implacable enemy of
+one of the most powerful and perhaps the most unscrupulous of the
+financiers of the time.
+
+[Illustration: The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the
+filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and
+the cathedral in the Plaza.
+
+From a print in the New York Public Library.]
+
+Cornelius Vanderbilt was not a person who could be bluffed or
+frightened. Infuriated at the action of the filibuster President, he
+immediately withdrew from service the ships of the Transit Company in
+both oceans, thus cutting off communication between Nicaragua and the
+United States, and thereby Walker's source of supplies. But the grim old
+financier was not content with that. Recruiting a force of foreign
+adventurers on his own account, he despatched them to Central America
+with orders to assist the Costa Ricans, whom he liberally supplied with
+money, arms, and ammunition, in their war against Walker. Turning then
+to Washington, he had little difficulty in inducing Secretary of State
+Marcy, who was known to be one of his creatures, to use the government
+forces in driving Walker out of Nicaragua. To Commodore Mervin, who was
+his personal friend, Secretary Marcy communicated his wishes, or rather
+Vanderbilt's wishes, and these Mervin in turn transmitted to Captain
+Davis, commanding the man-of-war _St. Mary's_, who was ordered to
+proceed at full speed to San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast of
+Nicaragua, and to force Walker out of that country. Never has the
+government of the United States lent itself to the designs of predatory
+wealth so disgracefully and so flagrantly as it did when, at the
+dictation of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and without a shadow of right or
+excuse, it used the American navy to oust William Walker from the
+presidency to which he had been legally elected by a sovereign people.
+Its unjustified persecution of Walker to serve the spite of a money-lord
+forms one of the darkest stains on our national history.
+
+When Davis arrived in Nicaragua he found Walker, his forces terribly
+reduced by death, fever, and desertion (for his means of supply had, as
+I have said, been stopped), besieged by the allies in the town of Rivas.
+Food was running short, the hospital was filled with wounded, and many
+of his men were helpless from fever. Captain Davis demanded that Walker
+surrender to him upon the ground of humanity, but the indomitable
+filibuster replied that when he did not have enough men left to man the
+guns he intended to take refuge on board his little schooner, the
+_Granada_, which lay in the harbor, and seek his fortune elsewhere. "You
+will not do that," answered Davis, "for I am going to seize your
+vessel." With his only hope of escape thus cut off, there was nothing
+for Walker to do but capitulate. Therefore, on May 1, 1857, William
+Walker, President of Nicaragua, whose title was as legally sound as that
+of any ruler in the world, surrendered to the forces his own country had
+sent against him, and one more argument was given to those who claimed
+that it was not liberty which we upheld and worshipped, but the almighty
+dollar. When Walker arrived in New York a few weeks later he found the
+city bedecked with flags and bunting in his honor. On but two other
+occasions has the American metropolis given such a reception to a
+visitor: once when Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, rode up Broadway, and
+years later, when Dewey returned, fresh from his victory at Manila.
+Walker's drive from the Battery to Madison Square was like a triumphal
+progress, for his gallantry in action and his successes against
+overwhelming odds had aroused the admiration of his countrymen, just as
+his outrageous treatment by the government had excited their
+indignation. Though legally he had serious grounds for complaint, he
+received scant consideration when he placed his demands for reparation
+before the Department of State at Washington. But the cold shoulder
+turned toward him by official Washington was more than made up for by
+the welcome he received in the South, where he was acclaimed as a hero
+and a martyr. He was banqueted in every town and city from Baltimore to
+New Orleans, and when he entered a box in the opera-house of the latter
+place, the audience, forgetting the play, rose as one man to cheer him.
+
+Within a month Walker had raised enough money and recruits in the South
+to enable him to try his fortunes once more in Nicaragua. Sailing from
+New Orleans with one hundred and fifty men, he landed at San Juan del
+Norte, on the Caribbean side, marched upon and captured the town of
+Castillo Viejo together with four of the Transit Company's steamers, and
+was, indeed, in a fair way to again make himself master of Nicaragua
+when the United States once more interfered, the frigate _Wabash_, under
+command of Commodore Hiram Pawlding, dropping anchor in a position where
+her guns commanded the filibusters' camp, her commander demanding
+Walker's immediate surrender. The flag-officer who presented Walker with
+Pawlding's demand tactlessly remarked: "General, I'm sorry to see you
+here. A man like you deserves to command better men." "If I had even a
+third of the force you have brought against me," Walker responded
+grimly, "I'd soon show you who commands the better men." For the third
+time in his career Walker was forced to surrender to his own countrymen,
+and was sent north under parole as a prisoner of war. But, although
+Pawlding had acted precisely as Davis had done, President Buchanan,
+instead of thanking him, not only publicly reprimanded him, but retired
+him from active service, and when Walker presented himself at the White
+House as a prisoner, refused to receive his surrender, or to recognize
+him as being in the custody of the United States. All of which, however,
+was scant consolation for Walker.
+
+To regain the presidency of which he had been unjustly deprived had now
+become an obsession with Walker. In spite of a proclamation issued by
+President Buchanan forbidding him to take further part in Central
+American affairs, he sailed from Mobile, on December 1, 1858, with a
+hundred and fifty of his veterans. His voyage was brought to a sudden
+and wholly unlooked-for termination, however, for he was wrecked in a
+gale off the coast of Honduras, whence he was rescued by a British
+war-ship which happened to be in the vicinity and brought back to the
+United States. By this time Walker had become almost as much of a
+nightmare to the governments of the United States and Great Britain (for
+the latter, both because of the proximity of her colony of British
+Honduras and of her large financial interests in the other Central
+American countries, had no desire to see that region again plunged into
+war) as Napoleon was to the Holy Alliance, and as a result both the
+Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Nicaragua were patrolled by the
+war-ships of the two nations to prevent Walker's return. Appreciating
+that, under the circumstances, it was about as easy for him to land on
+Nicaraguan soil as it was to land on the moon, Walker, with a hundred of
+his devoted followers, slipped silently out of Mobile harbor on an
+August night in 1860, and landed, a few days later, on a little island
+off the coast of Honduras known as Ruatan.
+
+And so we come to the last chapter in this extraordinary man's
+extraordinary career. Within a day after his landing at Ruatan, Walker
+had crossed to the mainland and captured the important seaport of
+Trujillo. But the ill-fortune which from the beginning had dogged him
+like a shadow was not to desert him now, for scarcely had the flag of
+Honduras which fluttered above the barracks been replaced by the
+blue-and-white banner of the filibusters when a British frigate dropped
+anchor off the town. Twenty minutes later a boat's crew of British
+bluejackets tossed their oars as they ran alongside Trujillo wharf, and
+a naval officer immaculate in white and gold, stepping ashore, inquired
+for General Walker, and presented him with a message. It was from
+Captain Salmon, commanding the British man-of-war _Icarus_, which lay
+outside, and demanded the immediate evacuation of the city by the
+filibusters, as the British Government held a mortgage on the revenues
+of the port and intended to protect them, by force if necessary. Walker
+answered that as he had made Trujillo a free port, the British claims
+were no longer valid. "Captain Salmon instructs me to inform you, sir,"
+replied the British officer, as he prepared to re-enter his gig, "that
+he will give you until to-morrow morning to make your decision. If you
+do not then surrender he will be compelled to bombard the town." As a
+strong force of Hondurans had in the mean time appeared on the land side
+of the city and were preparing to attack, Walker realized that his
+position had become untenable, so that night he and his men slipped
+silently out of the sleeping city and started down the coast with the
+intention of making their way overland to Nicaragua. When the British
+landed the next morning they were only just in time to prevent the sick
+and wounded whom Walker had been forced to leave behind him in his
+retreat from falling into the hands of the ferocious Hondurans. Learning
+of Walker's flight, Salmon immediately started down the coast on the
+_Icarus_ in pursuit.
+
+They overtook Walker at a little fishing village near the mouth of the
+Rio Negro, several boat-loads of sailors and marines being sent up the
+river to take him. But the coast of Honduras is a good second to the
+Gold Coast in the deadliness of its climate, so that when the landing
+party reached the little cluster of wretched hovels where Walker and his
+men had taken refuge, they found the filibusters too far gone with fever
+to oppose them. To Captain Salmon's demand for an unconditional
+surrender, Walker, who was so weak that he could scarcely stand,
+inquired if he was surrendering to the English or to the Hondurans.
+Captain Salmon twice assured him distinctly that it was to the English,
+whereupon the filibusters, at Walker's orders, laid down their arms and
+were taken aboard the _Icarus_. No sooner had he arrived back at
+Trujillo, however, than Captain Salmon, breaking the word he had given
+as an officer and a gentleman, and in defiance of every law of humanity,
+turned his prisoners over to the Honduran authorities. Salmon, who was
+young and pompous and had a life-size opinion of himself and his
+position, interceded for all of the prisoners except Walker, and
+obtained their release, but he informed the filibuster chieftain that he
+would plead for him only on condition that he would ask his intercession
+as an American citizen. But Walker, imbittered by the treatment he had
+received at the hands of his own government and disdaining to turn to it
+for assistance in his adversity, answered proudly: "The President of
+Nicaragua is a citizen of Nicaragua," and turned his back upon the
+Englishman who had betrayed him.
+
+He was tried by court martial on September 11, 1860, and after the
+barest formalities was sentenced to be shot at daybreak the next
+morning. The place selected for his execution was a strip of sandy
+beach, and to it the condemned man walked as coolly as though taking a
+morning stroll. Before him tramped a detachment of slovenly Honduran
+infantry, who, with their brown, wizened faces, their ill-fitting
+uniforms, and their jaunty caps, looked more like monkeys than men;
+behind him marched the firing-party, with weapons at the charge; beside
+him was a priest bearing a crucifix and murmuring the prayers for the
+dying. As the little procession came to a halt within the hollow square
+of soldiery, Walker waved away the handkerchief with which they would
+have blindfolded him, and, cool and straight and soldierly as though in
+command of his Phalanx, took his stand before the firing-party.
+
+"I die a Roman Catholic," he said in Spanish in a voice clear and
+unafraid. "The war which I made upon you was wrong and I take this
+opportunity of asking your pardon. I die with resignation, though it
+would be a consolation for me to feel that my death is for the good of
+society." As he ceased speaking, the officer in command of the troops
+dropped the point of his sword, the levelled rifles of the firing-party
+spoke as one, and Walker fell. But, though every bullet entered his
+body, he still lived. So a sergeant stepped forward with a cocked
+revolver and blew out his brains. With that shot there passed the soul
+of a very brave and gallant gentleman who deserved from his country
+better treatment than he received.
+
+
+
+
+CITIES CAPTURED BY CONTRACT
+
+
+I have known men who, from need of money or from love of adventure, have
+contracted to do all sorts of seemingly impossible things. Some
+conquered apparently unconquerable chasms by means of daring bridges;
+others built railways across waterless, yellow deserts, where experts
+had asserted that no railway could go; one contracted to find and raise
+a treasure galleon sunk three hundred years ago; another agreed to
+compose an opera in a week; while still another engaged to find a man
+who for two years had been lost in equatorial Africa. It took a New
+Englander, however, to sign a contract to capture walled and hostile
+cities, at a stipulated price per city, just as a Chicago meat-packer
+would contract to supply a government with beef at so much a pound.
+
+The man who entered into this amazing agreement was baptized Frederick
+Townsend Ward, but bore at his death the adopted name of Hwa. Though
+born within biscuit-throw of Salem wharves he was by residence a citizen
+of the world, and by profession a soldier of fortune. Now the trouble
+with most soldiers of fortune is that they don't make good in the end.
+They are generally entertaining fellows, with vast stores of information
+on an amazing variety of subjects, wide acquaintanceships with
+personages whose names you see in the daily papers, and an intimate
+knowledge of the little-known places, but they rarely save any money,
+they seldom rise to high positions, and they usually end their checkered
+careers by being ingloriously arrested for breaking the neutrality laws,
+or by dying, picturesquely but quite uselessly, between a stone wall and
+a firing-party.
+
+That Frederick Ward was a striking exception merely proves the soundness
+of my remarks. Though he was a soldier of fortune (he fought under at
+least six flags) he did make money, for he capitalized his remarkable
+military genius by signing a contract to capture rebellious cities, at
+seventy-five thousand dollars a city, and took a dozen of them, one
+after another; he rose to be an admiral-general of China, and a Mandarin
+of the Red Button, which was equivalent to being a Dewey, a Kitchener,
+and a Cromer rolled into one; and though he died when scarcely thirty,
+it was on the walls of a captured city, directing a victorious charge.
+Though the Manchu dynasty of China, to which he gave an additional
+half-century of existence, has fallen, the soldiers of the new republic
+continue to invoke his spirit as that of a god of battles, and the
+priests of Confucius still burn incense before his tomb.
+
+The story of how this adventurous American youth recognized the splendid
+fighting material into which the Chinese were capable of being
+transformed; how he took that material and heated and hammered and
+tempered it into a serviceable weapon, and gave that weapon a keen
+cutting edge; how, with a force which never numbered more than six
+thousand men, he broke the backbone of a rebellion which turned China
+into a shambles; and how his battalions came to be known, in the annals
+of time, as the "Ever-Victorious Army," forms a chronicle of courage and
+thrilling incident the like of which can not be found in history. If the
+almost incredible exploits of Ward have escaped the notice of our
+historians, it is because, at the time they took place, Americans were
+too intent on the business of their own great slaughter-house to be
+interested in a similar performance going on, in much less workmanlike
+fashion, half the world away. Though British writers slightingly allude
+to Ward as "an obscure Yankee adventurer," the officer who succeeded
+him, General Charles George Gordon, merely completed the work which his
+predecessor had begun, and built his military reputation on the
+foundations which the American had laid. Though the name of Frederick
+Townsend Ward holds but little meaning for the vast majority of his
+countrymen, it is still a name to conjure with in that country which he
+saved from anarchy.
+
+Though a youth in appearance and in years, Ward was a seasoned veteran
+long before he set out on his last campaign. Before he was
+five-and-twenty he had had enough experiences to satisfy a dozen
+ordinary men. Coming from New England seafaring stock, it was only to be
+expected that a passion for adventure should course through his veins.
+From the time he donned short trousers he dreamed of a cadetship at West
+Point, and a commission under his own flag. But it was destined that his
+military genius should profit another country than his own, and that he
+should fight and die under an alien banner. His father, a stern old
+merchant captain, held that there was no training for a boy like that to
+be had in the school of the sea, and so, when young Ward was scarce
+half-way through his teens, he was packed off aboard a sailing-vessel
+bound for the China seas. By the time he was twenty he held a first
+mate's warrant, and had paid for it with three long voyages. Joining
+Garibaldi's famous Foreign Legion, he saw service under that great
+soldier in the war between the Republic of the Rio Grande and Brazil.
+Afterward he helped the young Republic of Uruguay to defeat Manuel
+Rosas, the Argentine dictator. At the outbreak of the Crimean War he
+obtained a lieutenant's commission in a regiment of French zouaves, and
+followed the tricolor until the Treaty of Paris brought that bloody
+campaign to an end. Turning his steps toward Latin America again, he
+joined William Walker in his ill-fated Nicaraguan adventure, and after
+that leader's execution in Honduras he offered his sword and services to
+Juarez, and helped to win for him the presidency of Mexico. With the
+triumph of Juarez, peace settled for a time upon the western hemisphere,
+and Ward, finding no market for his military talents, was driven by
+financial necessities to take up the occupation of a ship-broker in New
+York City. But the shackles of trade soon proved intolerable to this man
+of action. He was like a race-horse harnessed to a milk-wagon. Though
+his talk was of cargoes and bottomry and tonnage, his thoughts were far
+away, on those distant seaboards of the world where history was in the
+making. At the beginning of 1859, the only country in the world where
+fighting on a large scale was going on was China, which was being
+devastated by the great Taiping Rebellion. In the spring of that year
+Ward, unable to longer resist the call to action which was forever
+sounding in his ears, turned the key in the door of his New York office,
+saddled his horse, and, unaccompanied, rode across the continent to San
+Francisco, where he booked a passage for Shanghai. It was no random
+adventure which he had undertaken. He had laid his plans carefully and
+knew exactly what he intended doing. Nor did the magnitude of his
+project dishearten him. He had set out to save an empire, and he
+intended to win fame and fortune in doing it.
+
+The conditions which prevailed in China between 1850 and 1863 can be
+compared only to the French Reign of Terror, or to the rule of the Mahdi
+in the Sudan. About the time that the nineteenth century was approaching
+the half-way mark, a Chinese schoolmaster named Hung-siu-Tseuen,
+inflamed by the partially comprehended teachings of Christian
+missionaries, had inaugurated a propaganda to overthrow the Confucian
+religion, and incidentally the reigning dynasty. There speedily rallied
+to his banners all the floating scoundrelism of China. In 1852 the rebel
+hordes had moved into the province of Hunan, murdering, pillaging, and
+burning as they went; advanced down the Kiang River to the Yang-tse,
+down which they sailed, capturing and sacking the cities on its banks.
+Making Nanking his capital, the rebel leader assumed the title of Tien
+Wang, or "Heavenly King," and proclaimed the rule of the Ping Chao, or
+"Peace Dynasty," which, with the prefix Tai ("great") gave the rebellion
+its name, Taiping. Wang's great hordes of tatterdemalions, flushed with
+their unbroken series of successes, gradually overran the silk and tea
+districts, the richest in the empire, threatened Peking, and advanced
+almost to the gates of Shanghai, carrying death and destruction over
+fifteen of the eighteen provinces of China. Perhaps it will give a
+better idea of the magnitude of this rebellion when I add that reliable
+authorities estimate that it cost China _two billion five hundred
+million dollars, and twenty million human lives_. By the autumn of 1859
+such of the imperial forces as remained loyal had been whipped to a
+stand-still, and the European powers having interests in China had their
+work cut out to defend the treaty ports; the rebels were undisputed
+masters of all Central China; the rivers were literally choked with
+corpses, and the smoke of burning cities overhung the land. The
+atrocities committed by order of the Taiping leader shocked even the
+dulled sensibilities of China. On one occasion, six thousand people,
+suspected of an intention to desert, were gathered in the public square
+of Nanking. A hundred executioners stood among the prisoners with bared
+swords, and, at a signal from the Wang, slashed off heads until their
+arms were weary, and blood stood inches deep in the gutters. Ward had
+indeed chosen a good market in which to sell his services.
+
+Through an English friend in the Chinese service, Ward obtained an
+introduction to Wu, the Taotoi of Shanghai, and to a millionaire
+merchant and mandarin named Tah Kee. The plan he proposed was as simple
+as it was daring. He offered to recruit a foreign legion, with which he
+would defend Shanghai, and at the same time attack such of the Taiping
+strongholds as were within striking distance, stipulating that for every
+city captured he was to receive seventy-five thousand dollars in gold,
+that his men were to have the first day's looting, and that each place
+taken should immediately be garrisoned by imperial troops, leaving his
+own force free for further operations. Wu on behalf of the government,
+and Tah Kee as the representative of the Shanghai merchants, promptly
+agreed to this proposal, and signed the contract. They had, indeed,
+everything to gain and nothing to lose. It was also arranged that Tah
+Kee should at the outset furnish the arms, ammunition, clothing, and
+commissary supplies necessary to equip the legion. These preliminaries
+once settled, Ward wasted no time in recruiting his force, for every day
+was bringing the Taipings nearer. A number of brave and experienced
+officers, for the most part soldiers of fortune like himself, hastened
+to offer him their services, General Edward Forester, an American, being
+appointed second in command. The rank and file of the legion was
+recruited from the scum and offscourings of the East, Malay pirates,
+Burmese dacoits, Tartar brigands, and desperadoes, adventurers, and
+fugitives from justice from every corner of the farther East being
+attracted by the high rate of pay, which in view of the hazardous nature
+of the service, was fixed at one hundred dollars a month for enlisted
+men, and proportionately more for officers. The non-commissioned
+officers, who were counted upon to stiffen the ranks of the Orientals,
+were for the most part veterans of continental armies, and could be
+relied upon to fight as long as stock and barrel held together. The
+officers carried swords and Colt's revolvers, the latter proving
+terribly effective in the hand-to-hand fighting which Ward made the
+rule; while the men were armed with Sharp's repeating carbines and the
+vicious Malay _kris_. Everything considered, I doubt if a more
+formidable aggregation of ruffians ever took the field. Ward placed his
+men under a discipline which made that of the German army appear like a
+kindergarten; taught them the tactics he had learned under Garibaldi,
+Walker, and Juarez; and finally, when they were as keen as razors and as
+tough as rawhide, he entered them in battle on a most astonished foe.
+
+The first city Ward selected for capture was Sunkiang, on the banks of
+the Wusung River, some twenty-five miles above Shanghai. In choosing
+this particular place as his first point of attack, Ward showed himself
+a diplomatist as well as a soldier, for it was one of the seven sacred
+cities of China, and to it had been wont to come thousands of pilgrims
+from the most distant provinces, to prostrate themselves in the temple
+of Confucius, the oldest and most revered shrine in the empire. Its
+capture by the Taipings and their desecration of its altars had sent a
+thrill of horror through the imperialists, such as was not even caused
+by the loss of the great metropolis of Nanking.
+
+Ward, who appreciated the necessity of winning the recognition and
+confidence of the higher authorities, well knew that the regaining of
+this sacred city would endear him to the religious heart of China as
+nothing else could do. But Sunkiang, with its walls twenty feet high and
+five miles in circumference, and with a garrison of five thousand
+fanatics to defend those walls, was no easy nut to crack even for a
+powerful force well supplied with artillery. The idea of its being taken
+by Ward and his five hundred desperadoes was preposterous, unthinkable,
+absurd. He first tried the weapon he had so painstakingly forged on a
+July morning, in 1860. Just as his European critics in Shanghai had
+prophesied, the attack on Sunkiang proved the most dismal of failures.
+His stealthy approach being discovered by the Taipings, he was greeted
+with such a withering fire upon reaching the walls that, being without
+supports, and perceiving the hopelessness of the situation, he ordered
+his buglers to sound the retreat.
+
+But Ward was one of those rare men to whom discouragements and disasters
+are but incidents, annoying but not disheartening, in the day's work. He
+spent a fortnight in strengthening the weakened _morale_ of his force,
+and then he tried again, making his onset with the suddenness and fury
+of a tiger's spring just at break of day. Slipping like ghosts through
+the grayness of the dawn, Ward and his men stole across the surrounding
+rice-fields, and were almost under the city walls before the Taiping
+sentries discovered their approach. As the first rifle cracked, Ward and
+one of his lieutenants raced ahead with bags of powder, placed them
+beneath the main gate of the city, and lighted the fuse. Like an echo of
+the ensuing explosion rose the shrill yell of the legionaries, who
+dashed forward like sprinters in a race. Instead of the gates being
+blown to pieces as they had expected, they found that they had been
+forced apart only enough for one man to pass at a time--and on the other
+side of that door of death five thousand rebels waited eagerly for the
+first of the attackers to appear. "Come on, boys!" roared Ward, his
+voice rising above the crash of the musketry, "We're going in!" and
+plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand. Hard on his
+heels crowded his legionaries. Though they were going to what was almost
+certain death, such was the magnetism of their leader that not a man
+hung back, not a man faltered. Before half a dozen men were through they
+were attacked by hundreds, but, so deadly was the fire they poured in
+with their repeaters, they were able to hold off the defenders until
+the whole attacking force was within the gate. Then began one of the
+most desperate and unequal fights in history. The key to the city was
+the howitzer battery, which was stationed on the top of the massive main
+gate, forty feet above. Up the narrow ramps the legionaries fought their
+way, five hundred against five thousand, hacking, stabbing, firing, at
+such close range that their rifles set fire to their opponents'
+clothing, driving their bayonets into the human wall before them as a
+field-hand pitchforks hay. Wherever there was space for a man to plant
+his feet or swing his sword, there a Taiping was to be found. The
+passageway was choked with them, but they sullenly gave way before the
+frenzy of Ward's attack as a hillside slowly disintegrates before the
+stream from a hydraulic nozzle. Ward was wounded, and his men were
+falling about him by dozens, but those that were left, mad with the lust
+of battle, fought on, until with a final surge and cheer they reached
+the top, and the position which commanded the city was in their hands.
+Then the Taipings broke and fled, some to be overtaken and slaughtered
+by the legionaries, others throwing themselves into the streets below.
+Bayoneting the rebel gunners, the howitzers were turned upon the city,
+raking the streets, sweeping the crowded walls and house-tops, and
+leaving heaps of dead and dying where Taiping regiments had stood
+before.
+
+[Illustration: "Come on, boys!" shouted Ward. "We're going in!" and
+plunged through the narrow opening, a revolver in each hand.]
+
+For four-and-twenty hours Ward and the exhausted survivors of his
+legion, without food and without water, held the gate in the face of the
+most desperate efforts to retake it. Then the Chinese reinforcements for
+which he had asked tardily arrived, and Sunkiang was an Imperial city
+again. The American had taken the first trick in the great game he was
+playing. It was at fearful cost, however, for of the five hundred men
+who followed him into action, but one hundred and twenty-eight remained
+alive, and of these only twenty-seven were without wounds. In other
+words, the casualties amounted to _more than ninety-four per cent of the
+entire force_. Ward had ridden out of Shanghai a despised adventurer to
+whom the foreign officers refused to speak. He returned to that city a
+hero and a power in China. The priesthood acclaimed him as the saviour
+of the sacred city; the emperor made him a Mandarin of the Red Button;
+the merchants of Shanghai voiced their relief by adding a splendid
+estate to the promised reward of seventy-five thousand dollars. His
+reputation would have been secure if he had never fought another
+battle.
+
+Leaving Sunkiang heavily garrisoned by imperial troops, Ward withdrew to
+Shanghai for the purpose of recruiting his shattered forces. Such a
+glamour of romance now surrounded the legion that Ward was fairly
+besieged by European as well as Oriental volunteers. Shortly after the
+capture of Sunkiang, Ward had occasion to visit Shanghai with reference
+to the care of his wounded. While riding through the streets of the city
+he was arrested by a British patrol, and despite his protestations that
+he was an officer in the imperial service, was hustled aboard the
+flag-ship of Admiral Sir James Hope, which lay in the harbor, and was
+placed in close confinement. In reply to his inquiries he was told that
+he was to be tried for recruiting British man-o'-war's-men for service
+in his legion. Though the arrest was high-handed and unjustified, there
+seemed no immediate prospect of release, for the American consul-general
+refused to interfere on the ground that Ward, by taking service under
+the Chinese government, had forfeited his right to American protection;
+the imperial authorities were powerless to take any action; while the
+British were notoriously fearful of the dangerous ascendancy which this
+American might gain if his successful career was permitted to continue.
+The only hope for Ward--and for China--lay in his escape. A friend
+perfected a plan of flight. While visiting Ward, who was confined in an
+outside cabin of the flag-ship, with a marine constantly on guard at the
+door, he synchronized his watch with that of the cabin clock, and
+whispered to the prisoner that he would be in a sampan under his cabin
+window at precisely two o'clock in the morning. Taking off his coat and
+shoes that he might be unhampered in the water, Ward sat on the edge of
+his berth with his eyes on the face of the clock. Just as the
+minute-hand touched the figure II, Ward made a dash for the window and
+sprang head-foremost through the sash, for the windows of the old
+fashioned men-of-war were much larger than the ports of modern
+battle-ships. He had hardly touched the water before he was pulled
+aboard a sampan, which disappeared in the darkness long before the
+flag-ship's boats could be manned and lowered. This daring exploit
+enormously increased Ward's prestige among both Chinese and Europeans,
+with whom the British, as a result of their insolent and overbearing
+attitude, were intensely unpopular. Some days later Admiral Hope sent a
+message to Ward requesting an interview, and, upon Ward assuring him
+that he would no longer recruit his ranks from the British navy, the
+old sea fighter became his strong partisan and friend.
+
+With his ranks once more repleted, Ward made preparations for a second
+venture. This time it was the city of Sing-po toward which he turned;
+but the Taipings, getting wind of his intentions, secretly threw an
+overwhelming force into the place under a renegade Englishman named
+Savage. Ward was without artillery with which to breach the walls, and,
+after several desperate assaults, in leading which he was severely
+wounded, he was forced to retire. Ten days later, regardless of his
+wounds, he tried again, but this time he was taken in the rear by a
+Taiping army of twenty thousand men, his little force being completely
+surrounded. So certain was the rebel leader that the famous general was
+within his grasp, that he consulted with his officers as to what methods
+of torture they should use upon him. But he was a trifle premature, for
+Ward struck the Taiping cordon at its weakest point, fought his way
+through, and reached Shanghai with a loss of only one hundred men. His
+secret agents bringing him word that the powerful force from which he
+had just escaped was to be used in the recapture of Sunkiang, Ward, by
+making night marches, slipped unperceived into that city. When the
+Taipings attempted to carry it by storm a few days later, instead of
+meeting with the half-hearted resistance which they had grown to expect
+from Chinese garrisons, they were astounded to see the helmeted figure
+of the dreaded American upon the walls, and were greeted with a blast of
+rifle fire which swept away their leading columns and crumpled up their
+army as effectually as though it had encountered an earthquake.
+
+Dangerously weakened by half a dozen wounds, Ward was reluctantly
+compelled to go to Paris in the fall of 1860 for surgical attention.
+Back at Shanghai again at the beginning of the following summer, he
+found that the Taipings, emboldened by his absence, were flaunting their
+banner within sight of the city walls. From end to end of the empire
+there existed an unparalleled reign of terror, the rebels now having
+grown so strong that they demanded the recognition of the European
+powers. Ward, meanwhile, had become convinced that the true solution of
+the problem lay in raising an army of natives, rather than foreigners,
+for not only was the supply of Chinese unlimited, but his experience had
+shown him that there was splendid fighting material in them if they were
+properly drilled and led. When he asked permission of the imperial
+government to raise and drill a Chinese force, therefore, it was gladly
+granted.
+
+An opportunity to put his theories regarding the fighting capabilities
+of the Chinese to a test soon came. Learning that a force of rebels, ten
+thousand strong, was advancing in the direction of Shanghai, Ward
+sallied forth from his headquarters at Sunkiang with two thousand five
+hundred men, struck the Taiping army, curled it up like a withered leaf,
+and drove it a dozen miles into the interior. Pressing on, he captured
+the city of Quan-fu-ling, which the rebels had garrisoned and fortified,
+and with it several hundred junks loaded with supplies. Throughout these
+actions his Chinese displayed all the steadiness and courage of European
+veterans. That he showed sound judgment in pinning his faith to natives
+is best proved by the fact that from that time on he never met with a
+reverse. His motto was "Cold steel," and his tactics would have
+delighted the old-time sea fighters, for, appreciating the fact that few
+Oriental troops are capable of remaining steady under a galling
+long-range fire, he invariably threw his men against the enemy in an
+overwhelming charge, and finished the business at close quarters with
+the bayonet.
+
+Moving up from Sunkiang with a thousand of his men, Ward joined a
+combined force of French and British bluejackets, who had with them a
+light howitzer battery, in an attack on Kaschiaou, just opposite
+Shanghai, which was the city's main source of supplies, and which the
+rebels had seized and fortified. Using the contingent from the war-ships
+as a reserve, Ward and his Chinamen did the work alone, carrying the
+stockades by storm and capturing two thousand rebels, as a result of
+which the enemy fell back from the neighborhood of Shanghai. So strongly
+impressed were the British officers with the behavior of Ward's soldiery
+that Sir James Mitchel, the commander-in-chief on the China station,
+strongly urged that the task of suppressing the rebellion be placed in
+the American's hands, and that he be empowered to raise his force to ten
+thousand men. A few weeks later Ward received an imperial rescript
+acknowledging his great services to China, and appointing him an
+admiral-general of the empire, the highest rank that the emperor could
+bestow. With this came the authority to recruit his force to six
+thousand men, and its baptism, by imperial order, with the sonorous and
+thrilling title of _Chun Chen Chun_, or the Ever-Victorious Army.
+
+As the barometer of Ward's fortunes steadily rose, that of his native
+country began to fall, the dark cloud of secession hanging
+threateningly over the land. It has been said of Ward that he
+denationalized himself by marrying a Chinese wife and adopting a Chinese
+name, but there is no doubt that it was only his stern sense of duty
+which kept him at the task he had undertaken in China when the guns of
+Sumter boomed out the beginning of the Civil War. He immediately sent a
+contribution of ten thousand dollars to the Union war fund, however,
+with a message that his services were at the disposal of the North
+whenever they were required. At the time of the _Trent_ affair, when war
+between England and the United States was momentarily expected, and the
+British in China had laid plans to seize American shipping and other
+property in the treaty ports, Ward effected a secret organization of
+American sympathizers and prepared to surprise and capture every British
+war-ship and merchant vessel in Chinese waters. In view of his success
+in equally daring exploits, there is good reason to believe that he
+would have accomplished even so startling a _coup_ as this.
+
+While recruiting his army to its newly authorized strength, Ward did not
+give the Taipings a moment's rest. He kept several flying columns
+constantly in the field, attacking the rebels at every opportunity,
+cutting up their outposts, harrying their pickets, breaking their lines
+of communication, and demoralizing them generally. One day Ward would be
+reported as operating in the south, and the Wang would draw a momentary
+breath of relief, but the next night, without the slightest warning, he
+would suddenly fall upon a city a hundred miles to the northward and
+carry it by storm. By such aggressive tactics as these Ward struck fear
+to the heart of the Taiping leader, who saw the despotism he had built
+up crumbling about him before the American's smashing blows. It was
+said, indeed, that the mere sight of Ward's white helmet in the van of a
+storming party was more effective than a brigade of infantry. With a
+thousand men of his own corps and six hundred royal marines he attacked
+and captured Tsee-dong, a walled city of considerable strength, and
+cleared the rebels from the surrounding region as though with a
+fine-tooth comb. The town of Wong-kadza was in the possession of the
+Taipings, and Ward decided to capture it. General Staveley, who had
+succeeded Sir James Mitchel in command of the British forces, offered to
+co-operate with him. It was agreed that they should rendezvous outside
+the town. Ward reached there first with six hundred of his men. Without
+waiting for the British to come up, he ordered his bugles to sound the
+charge, and after a quarter of an hour of desperate fighting he carried
+the stockade, and the rebels broke and ran, Ward's men killing more of
+them in the pursuit than they themselves numbered. When General Staveley
+arrived a few hours later he was chagrined to see the imperial standard
+flying over the city and to find that the impetuous American had done
+the work and reaped the glory. The allied forces now pressed on to the
+Taiping stronghold of Tai-poo, which was held by a strong and well-armed
+garrison. While the British engaged the attention of the rebels in front
+with a fierce artillery fire, Ward and his Chinamen made a detour to the
+rear of the city, and were at and over the walls almost before the
+garrison realized what had happened.
+
+The Ever-Victorious Army now numbered nearly six thousand men. It was
+well drilled and under an iron discipline; it was fairly well armed; it
+was magnificently officered; it was emboldened with repeated successes.
+The man who was the maker and master of such a force might well go a
+long way. That Ward dreamed of eventually making himself dictator of
+China there can be but little doubt. Louis Napoleon, remember, climbed
+to a throne on the bayonets of his soldiers. By this time the American
+soldier of fortune had become by long odds the most popular figure in
+the empire; the army was with him to a man; he possessed the confidence
+of the great mandarins and merchant princes; and he had to his credit an
+almost unparalleled succession of victories. Dictator of the East! What
+American ever had a more ambitious dream and was within such measurable
+distance of realizing it? It is no exaggeration to say that, had Ward
+lived, the whole history of the Orient would have been changed, and
+China, rather than Japan, would doubtless have held the balance of power
+in the Farther East.
+
+In April, 1862, Ward, the Viceroy Lieh, and the French and British
+commanders held a council of war in Shanghai. Ward suggested a plan of
+campaign designed to break the Taiping power in that part of China for
+good and all. Briefly put, his scheme was to capture a semicircle of
+cities within a radius of fifty miles of Shanghai and the coast. This
+would result in the rebels being held within their own lines by a cordon
+of bayonets, and, as they had utterly devastated the regions they had
+overrun, would mean starvation for them. Thus cut off from the seaboard,
+Ward argued, they would be unable to obtain ammunition and supplies,
+and the rebellion would soon wither. The series of operations was
+carried out as planned, Ward's corps being reinforced by three thousand
+French and British. It ended in the capture, in rapid succession, of the
+cities of Kah-ding, Sing-po, Najaor, and Tsaolin. In every case Ward
+insisted on being given the post of honor; he and his Chinamen, who
+fought with an appalling disregard for life, carrying the defences at
+the bayonet's point, while his European allies covered his advance with
+artillery fire and supported his whirlwind attacks. Leaving garrisons
+barely large enough to hold the captured cities, he pushed on by forced
+marches to Ning-po, which was a large and strongly fortified city. Twice
+his storming parties were driven back. The third time the men, exhausted
+by the continuous fighting in which they had been engaged and the long
+marches they had been called upon to perform, momentarily faltered in
+the face of the terrible fire which greeted them. Instantly Ward ordered
+the recall sounded, formed them into line within easy rifle-range of the
+city walls, and calmly put them through the manual of arms with as much
+precision as though they were on parade, while a storm of bullets
+whistled round them, and men were momentarily dropping in the ranks.
+Then, his men once more in hand, the bugles screamed the charge and the
+yellow line roared on to victory.
+
+Ward gave his last order to advance--he had forgotten how to give any
+other--on September 21, 1862. With a regiment of his men he was about to
+attack Tse-Ki, a small fortified coast town a few miles from Ning-po.
+With his habitual contempt for danger he was standing with General
+Forester, his chief of staff, well in advance of his men, inspecting the
+position through his field-glasses. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his
+breast. "I've been hit, Ed!" he exclaimed, and fell forward into the
+arms of his friend. Very tenderly his devoted yellow men carried him
+aboard the British war-ship _Hardy_, which was lying in the harbor, but
+the naval surgeons shook their heads when an examination showed that the
+bullet had passed through his lungs. "Don't mind me," whispered Ward.
+"Take the city." So Forester, heavy at heart, ordered forward the
+storming parties. That night the great captain died. The last sound he
+heard was his Chinamen's shrill yell of triumph.
+
+With extraordinary solemnity the dead soldier was laid to rest in the
+temple of Confucius in Sunkiang, the most sacred shrine in China and
+the very spot where he had established his headquarters after his first
+great victory. His body, which was followed to the grave by imperial
+viceroys, European admirals, generals, and consuls, and Chinese
+mandarins, was borne between the silent lines of his Ever-Victorious
+Army. By order of the emperor his name was placed in the pantheon of the
+gods. Temples to commemorate his victories were built at Sing-po and
+Ning-po, and a magnificent mausoleum was erected in his honor in
+Sunkiang. In it the yellow priests of Confucius still burn incense
+before his tomb. In all his history there can be found no hint of
+dishonor, no trace of shame. He was a great soldier and a very gallant
+gentleman, but he has been forgotten by his own people. To paraphrase
+the lines of Matthew Arnold:
+
+    "Far hence he lies,
+    Near some lone Chinese town,
+    And on his grave, with shining eyes,
+    The Eastern stars look down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Punctuation normalized.
+
+    Page 66: "cimiter" retained as printed.
+
+    Various: retained as printed "Tippo-Sahib" and "Tippoo Sahib".
+
+    Page 104: "govenment" replaced with "government" in "government
+    of this new country which was about to be annexed".
+
+    Page 115: "alignement" changed to "alignment".
+
+    Page 116: "caufles" retained as printed.
+
+    Page 157: "lowered the flag next day" and "Commodore T. ApCatesby
+    Jones" retained as printed.
+
+    Duplicate chapter headings removed.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gentlemen Rovers, by E. Alexander Powell
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #37812 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37812)