Wayne commanded the forces that took possession of Savannah and Charleston, after their evacuation by the British. Having freed the South from all marauders, Wayne returned, much shattered in health from the effect of a low fever, to his old home in Pennsylvania, and settled down to civil life, desiring, as he puts it, "to pass many happy hours in domestic felicity with a few of our friends, unfettered by any public employ and consequently unenvied." He was, however, made a member of the Council of Censors, and in 1784 represented his county in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. He was likewise, in 1787, a member of the Convention of the State called to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

To better look after an estate given him by the State of Georgia, in recognition of the services he rendered that State, Wayne settled there, and was elected a member of Congress on January 3, 1791. He served from October, 1791, to March, 1792, when, a contest being made, Congress decided his election illegal and declared his seat vacant. Almost immediately after this action, on April 3, 1792, President Washington appointed Wayne Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, with the rank of Major-General; an appointment confirmed by the Senate on the same day. No more signal act could have marked the approval of Wayne's great services to the nation in the War of the Revolution, than this great mark of approbation conferred by his illustrious Chief. To him was intrusted the settlement of the difficulties then existing with the Indians in the Northwestern Territory. These savages, stirred up by the British, armed with British guns, and often led by British officers, continued the warfare on the Americans after peace had been declared between the contending countries. Efforts to subjugate them under Generals Harmar and St. Clair had failed.

General Wayne, whose entire life clearly shows a man prepared for what may come, wisely drilled the force he collected to undertake this work, for a year. He knew the value of a well-drilled and disciplined army. Having perfected his troops, he, by easy stages, advanced into the disturbed territory, establishing posts at various points, which he cleverly fortified, and upon every occasion and opportunity offered the savages peace. These offers were as often rejected. From Fort Defiance, a fort he built and named, at the junction of the Miami and Le Glaize rivers, he, in August, 1794, went down the Miami River, with about one thousand men, until he came close to a British post, at the foot of the rapids of the river. Here he sent a last overture to the Indians, promising peace if they would lay down their arms. Upon their rejecting this, he, on August 20th, moved to the head of the rapids, and attacked them with such vigor, using again his favorite weapon, the bayonet, that their defeat was overwhelming. The entire surrounding country was laid waste. The army advanced to the junction of the St. Joseph's and St. Mary's rivers, where a strong fort was built and named Fort Wayne. The present flourishing city of that name in Indiana now stands upon this spot. The winter was spent in Greeneville, at which place the Indians, on August 3, 1795, against the wishes of their leaders and English allies, signed a treaty of peace, in which twelve tribes took part—a peace which was never broken, and by which an immense territory was ceded to the United States and opened up for settlement. Wayne returned early in 1796, on a short visit to Pennsylvania, and everywhere en route received the plaudits of his fellow-citizens. His reception in Philadelphia was exceedingly brilliant. The unsettled condition of affairs in the Northwest, however, made his stay brief. Having been appointed sole commissioner to treat with the disaffected parties there, and directed to take possession of all forts held by the British in that country, he returned in June of the same year. With great tact he performed wisely and well the difficult mission intrusted to him. In November he left Detroit to visit the last of the posts included in his orders. This was then called Presque Isle, but is now the site of the city of Erie. When within a short sail of this post a severe and sudden attack of the gout came on. He was carried into the block-house at Presque Isle, in a dying condition, and lingered in great agony until December 15, 1796, when he died. By his own desire he was buried "at the foot of the flag-staff on a high hill called 'Garrison Hill,' north of the present Soldiers' Home." (Stille, 343.) In 1809, his son, Colonel Isaac Wayne, removed the body to the family burying-ground at St. David's Church, Radnor, Penn., where, on July 4th of the same year, the Society of the Cincinnati erected a monument in his honor.

So lived, so died, Anthony Wayne; gentleman, soldier, statesman, patriot. "Mad," "Dandy," "Black Snake," "Tornado." Angry with traitors—Neat-Courageous—Irresistible. None can study his life without feeling the nobleness of his character. Courtly in manners, honorable to a degree, high in aspirations, unselfishly for country, magnanimous in victory, loyal to authority, affectionate to family, pure in morality, and earnest for the right, Anthony Wayne's life is a bright example and legacy to the American youth of all times.

[Signature of the author.]



FRANCIS MARION

(1732-1795)

]

Francis Marion, the partisan general of South Carolina, was of Huguenot descent, the first American settlers of the name being Benjamin Marion and Judith Balnet, his wife, who came from France in 1690, and established themselves in a plantation on one of the tributaries of the Cooper River, near Charleston. Gabriel, the son of Benjamin, married Esther Cordes. These were the parents of Francis Marion. He was born, it would appear, in St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, probably in 1732. His early life was passed, till his twenty-seventh year, in agricultural pursuits, when we first hear of him in connection with military matters in the period of the old French war. He took the field with Moultrie, and fought gallantly by the side of that officer in the Cherokee country against the savages at the battle of Etchoee. He then returned to his farm, near Eutaw Springs, ripening for the work of the Revolution, which found him at the height of manhood, at the age of forty-three. The people of his district relied upon his understanding, for we find them sending him as their delegate to the Provincial Congress of 1775, when he was appointed captain in the regiment of his former superior officer, Colonel Moultrie. His first duty was to gather a company, which he speedily effected in the Eastern region, where he was well known. He was then employed in the neighborhood of Charleston; being engaged in the occupation of Fort Johnson and the command of Dorchester.

He was with Moultrie, at Sullivan's Island in May, 1776, during that fierce day of battle when the British were driven from the southern colonies, and particularly distinguished himself in the gallant defence.

At the ill-managed attack upon Savannah, by the combined forces of D'Estaing and Lincoln, which ended so disastrously for the Americans, Marion was present with his regiment, which did much by its gallantry to redeem the honor, if not the fortunes, of the day. Next came, in the winter of 1780, the siege of Charleston, by Sir Henry Clinton. It was evident from the beginning that the city must fall, and it has been a point much discussed whether Lincoln should have attempted to defend it, whether it would not have been better for the cause that he should withdraw his troops, and besiege the British from the open country. This was what afterward took place when the conquerors were reduced almost to starvation. An accident which happened to Marion has been esteemed a piece of singular good fortune to the cause, in saving him from surrender. He was in command of the small body of light troops, outside of the city, when he was called to aid in the defence. During the first days of the very deliberate investment, he was dining with some friends in the town, when, according to a custom not unusual in those hard-drinking times, the door was locked that no one should avoid his share of the conviviality. Determined to escape the infliction, he threw himself from the window into the street. The fall fractured his ankle and incapacitated him from service. In obedience to an order of Lincoln, commanding all officers unfit for duty to retire from the city, he left while the country was still open, and took refuge in his native region of St. John. His freedom was thus preserved for the service of his country.

Now came the incursions of Tarleton and the devastating warfare of Cornwallis—a policy of savage extermination which would have driven a people with less capability of exertion to despair. But it happened, as it has before, that the very means employed to crush, excited the spirit of resistance, and deliverers were raised up for the oppressed. It was a peculiar species of warfare which was now entered upon, requiring novel resources both for attack and defence. A thinly inhabited country was the scene of operations, cut up in all directions by rivers and their branches, and innumerable swamps. Large bodies of troops could move only with difficulty; it was a service for small parties of cavalry always in movement, making up by rapidity for want of numbers. On the side of the British, Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton, an officer of spirit, whose fiery youth has been vividly handed down to us in the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was the leading representative of this method of warfare, harrying the land with his mounted troops, and overcoming by his activity and unscrupulousness. Success added terror to his name, as he gained victory after victory, and seemed destined to sweep the land of its patriot defenders. He was the right arm of Cornwallis, in his movements in the interior, and began to be deemed invincible, when his course was arrested by Morgan, the Virginian, and his resolute companies of native defenders of the State, at the battle of Cowpens. But it was in Marion that the chief spirit of resistance was incorporated. On the arrival of Gates from the North, in command of the Southern army, having partially recovered from his lameness, he presented himself before the hero of Saratoga, on his march toward the fatal field of Camden. American commanders were accustomed to odd sights of dress and equipment in the patriot soldiery who enlisted under their banners, and Gates must have been used to appearances with which the eye of Washington himself was but too familiar. The little band of Marion, however, seems to have astonished even their American brethren-in-arms. As for the well-equipped British, they always held the ragged American regiments in contempt, till they were soundly flogged by them. An intelligent looker-on at the camp, Colonel Otho Williams, in his narrative of the campaign, speaks of Colonel Marion's arrival, "attended by a very few followers, distinguished by small leather caps and the wretchedness of their attire; their number did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped. Their appearance was, in fact, so burlesque, that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the regular soldiery was restrained by the officers; and the general himself was glad of an opportunity of detaching Colonel Marion, at his own instance, toward the interior of South Carolina, with orders to watch the motions of the enemy, and furnish intelligence."

It was while Marion was engaged on this service, that the battle of Camden was fought; but luckily, he had no share in the misadventure. He was employed, in fact, in quite an independent career of his own, organizing his own forces and acting at his own discretion. He was at the head of that system of partisan warfare, which, in its developments, was to rid the State of the foreign foe. His present command, "Marion's Brigade," was formed from the hardy spirited population of Irish descent, settled between the Santee and the Pedee, in the territory of Williamsburg. They were convinced of the intentions of the British rulers at Charleston to reduce them to political servitude; they knew their rights, and knowing, dared to maintain them. Their movement was voluntary, as they gathered their small but resolute force of picked men, and called Marion to its command. He had already assumed it, and caused the Tories to feel his new authority when the defeat of Gates took place. It roused him at once to a new effort to redeem the fortunes of war. He was already in the neighborhood of the field, and hearing that a British guard was on its way with a considerable body of prisoners, he determined to arrest the party on its march. Two days after the battle, he concerted an attack, and with the loss of but one man, killed and took 22 regulars and 2 Tories prisoners, and retook 150 continentals of the Maryland line. He was now a recognized leader in the field, and the British commander-in-chief directed his efforts to his overthrow. "I most sincerely hope," wrote Cornwallis to Tarleton, "that you will get at Mr. Marion." But Mr. Marion was not so easily to be caught. On the appearance of a superior force, under the command of Tarleton, which it would have been vain to resist, the skilful partisan turned his forces in another direction, to the borders of North Carolina, where he overawed the Scotch Tories in that disaffected region. The ruthless conduct of the British whom he had left behind, now raised the South Carolinians to fresh resistance, when Marion, ever mindful of his opportunity, returned to the State with speed, accomplishing sixty miles in one day, and in a bold night attack, defeated a large body of Tories on the Black Mingo. Following this up with some smaller successes of the kind, he again attracted the attention of Tarleton, who issued out of Charleston in force for his capture, and when he was fairly on his heels, wearied out and perplexed by the windings of his foe, gave up the chase, it is said, with the exclamation, "Come, my boys! let us go back. We will soon find the Game Cock [Marion's brother partisan, Sumter], but as for this damned Swamp-fox, the devil himself could not catch him."

The tide was now turning, as the people felt their strength. King's Mountain, in the autumn of this memorable 1780, brought a vast accession of strength to the popular cause, in the proof that the best British troops were not invincible before an aroused yeomanry; but there was much yet to be done before the day of final deliverance was secured. It was a slow, weary, harassing policy which was to be pursued, of surprises and escapes, of self-denial and endurance, of the watchful, unyielding virtue of Marion and his men. They took post in an island fortress of wooded swamp land, at the junction of the Pedee and Lynch's Creek, known as the "camp of Marion," where he recruited his forces, husbanded his strength, and sallied forth on his raids against the foe. This is the spot where the popular admiration of Marion finds its home and centre. "His career as a partisan," says his faithful biographer, the novelist Simms, "in the thickets and swamps of Carolina, is abundantly distinguished by the picturesque; but it was while he held his camp at Snow's Island that it received its highest colors of romance. In this snug and impenetrable fortress, he reminds us very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on a castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own. The resemblance is good in all respects but one. The plea and justification of Marion are complete. His warfare was legitimate." It is in this place the scene is laid of an interview with the British officer, so familiar to the public in popular narratives and pictorial illustration. A flag from the enemy, at the neighboring post of Georgetown, is received with the design of an exchange of prisoners. The officer is admitted blindfold into the encampment, and on the bandage being taken from his eyes, is surprised equally at the diminutive size of the General and the simplicity of his quarters. He had expected, it is said, to see some formidable personage of the sons of Anak of the standard military figure, which, as Mr. Simms remarks, averaged, in the opposing generals during the war, more than two hundred pounds. On the contrary, he saw "a swarthy, smoke-dried little man, with scarcely enough of threadbare homespun to cover his nakedness, and instead of tall ranks of gay-dressed soldiers, a handful of sunburnt, yellow-legged militiamen, some roasting potatoes, and some asleep, with their black firelocks and powder-horns lying by them on the logs." This is Weems's narrative, a little colored with his full brush, but true enough as to detail. The improvement which he works up from the plain potato presented as a dinner to the officer, is equally sound as a moral, though we will not vouch for the exact expression of the sentiment. As a specimen of Weems, it is characteristic; but certainly Marion never talked in the fashion of this zealous biographer.

The Briton, however, entrenched at Charleston, and with his double line of forts encompassing the interior, was not all at once driven out. When he was compelled to leave, it was by the slow process of an exhaustion, to which even victory contributed; for every British conquest in that region was as costly as a defeat. Greene came with his Fabian policy, acquired in the school of Washington, to repair the errors of Gates. It was a course with which the policy of Marion was quite in agreement, attacking the enemy when they were vulnerable; at other moments retreating before them. Both officers knew well how to drain the vitality of the British army. Greene appreciated Marion. "I like your plan," he wrote to him, "of frequently shifting your ground. We must endeavor to keep up a partisan war." He sent Lieutenant-Colonel Lee to his aid, and together they attempted the capture of Georgetown in a night attack, which was but partially successful, in consequence of a loss of time and the want of artillery. Though not fully carried out, it served as a diversion and alarm in the rear of Cornwallis, who now, after the defeat of an important portion of his force under Tarleton, was advancing rapidly through North Carolina at the heels of Greene. Lee was recalled to join his commander, and Marion continued his partisan warfare in South Carolina. He was after a while reinforced by Greene on his return to the State, and assisted that general greatly in the movements which resulted in imprisoning the enemy in Charleston. After a brilliant affair with the British, in conjunction with Lee and Sumter, and other bold spirits, he hastened to Greene in time for the battle of Eutaw, in which engagement he commanded the right of the South Carolina militia, and gallantly sustained the fierce attack of the enemy. Toward the close of the war, he took his seat in the Legislative Assembly which met at Jacksonborough, as the representative of St. John, Berkeley. He was engaged in one or two further conflicts with the enemy, and the struggle which he had so manfully sustained was at an end.

He now retired to his plantation, to find it broken up by the incursions of the British. While engaged in its restoration, he was sent as representative of the district to the Senate of the State. It is recorded to his credit that he displayed in this situation a ready magnanimity toward Tory offenders in preserving their lands from confiscation.



"It was war, then," said he; "it is peace now. God has given us the victory. Let us show our gratitude to heaven, which we shall not do by cruelty to man." In the same lofty spirit, he refused to receive any advantages from a bill exempting the soldiers of the militia from prosecution for acts committed in the service. He felt that his conduct needed no shelter. The Legislature rewarded him with thanks, and the more substantial appointment of Commandant of the Port of Charleston, a nominal office, with the salary of L500, which were cut down to dollars. A timely marriage, however, with a wealthy lady of Huguenot descent, Miss Mary Videau, a spinster of fifty, who was attracted by the hero, relieved him of pecuniary anxieties, leaving him an old age of ease in agricultural pursuits. He still represented his parish in the State Senate, and sat in 1790 in the Convention for forming the Constitution. In 1794 he resigned his military commission given to him by Rutledge, and the following year, yielding to a gradual decline, expired on February 27th, at the age of sixty-three.

Marion was a true, unflinching patriot—a man of deeds, and not of words; a prudent, sagacious soldier, not sudden or quick in quarrel, but resolute to the end; a good disciplinarian, and beloved by his men, who came at his call.

There was no power of coercion, such as restrains the hired soldier, in his little band; it was held together only by the cohesive force of patriotism and attachment to the leader. We hear of no acts of cruelty to stain the glory of his victories, but much of his magnanimity.



PAUL JONES

(1747-1792)

]

Paul Jones, the popular naval hero of the Revolution, the son of John Paul, a gardener in Scotland, was born July 6, 1747, at a cottage on the estate of his father's employer, Mr. Craik, at Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean. His parents belonged to a respectable class of the population of the country. The boy, as is wont with Scottish boys, however humble, received the elements of education, but could not have advanced very far with his books, since we find him at the age of twelve apprenticed to the sea. The situation of Kirkbean, on the shore of the Solway, naturally gave a youth of spirit an inclination to life on the ocean; and he had not far to seek for employment in the trading-port of Whitehaven, in the opposite county of Cumberland. Paul's first adventure—the appendix of Jones was an after-thought of his career—was in the service of Mr. Younger, a merchant in the American trade, who sent his apprentice on a voyage to Virginia, where an elder brother of Paul had profitably established himself at Fredericksburg. This gave him an early introduction to the country with which the fame of the future soldier of fortune was to be especially identified.

The apprenticeship of Paul was of short duration. The failure of his employer threw the youth upon his own resources; but he lost no time in taking care of himself. His studies on shipboard had already qualified him for the higher duties of the mercantile service; the slave-trade, the active pursuit of those days, offered him an engagement; he sailed for the African coast in the King George, a vessel engaged in this infamous traffic, out of Whitehaven, and in his nineteenth year was trusted as chief mate of the Two Friends, another vessel of the trade, belonging to Jamaica. Having carried his human cargo to the island, sickening of the pursuit, he sailed as a passenger to Kirkcudbright, in his native district. Opportunities are always presenting themselves to the watchful and the initiated. The chief officers of the vessel died of the fever; Paul took command and carried the ship in safety to the owners. They put him in command of the brig, the John, on another West India voyage.

Finally, in 1771, he left Scotland never to return to it, save to carry terror among its population. He proceeded to London; found employment in the West India trade, and in 1773 settled himself for a while in Virginia on the estate of his brother, to whom he had now become heir. This was a grand turning-point of his career, and to signalize it properly, Paul, who was somewhat of a fanciful turn, added the name Jones to his proper appellation, John Paul.

On the organization of the infant navy of the United States, in 1775, John Paul Jones, as he is henceforth to be called, received the appointment of first of the first lieutenants in the service, in which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of being the foremost, on the approach of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old device of a rattle-snake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto, Don't tread on me, which is yet partially retained in the seal of the war-office.

The first service of the new squadron was the attack upon the island of New Providence, in which Jones rendered signal assistance. On the return voyage, the unsatisfactory encounter with the Glasgow occurred, which afterward resulted in the dismissal of one of the American officers, and Jones's appointment in his place to the command of the Providence, of twelve guns and seventy men. His exploits in this vessel gained him his first laurels. He now received the rank of captain, and sailed on various expeditions, transporting troops, conveying merchantmen, out-sailing British frigates, and greatly harassing the enemy's commercial interests. His success in these enterprises induced Commodore Hopkins to put him in command of the Alfred and other vessels on an expedition to the eastward, which resulted in the capture of various important prizes of transport and other ships, and extensive injury to the fisheries at Canso. On his return, he was superseded in the command of the Alfred, his seniority in the service being set aside, a grievance which led to remonstrance on his part, and a correspondence with the Committee of Congress, in the course of which Jones made many valuable suggestions as to the service, and gained the friendship of that eminent business man of the old Confederacy, Robert Morris. There appear to have been several appointments for him in progress, when his somewhat unsettled position became determined by the resolve of Congress to send him to France for the purpose of taking command of a frigate to be provided for him by the Commissioners at Paris. By the resolution of June 14, 1777, he was appointed to the Ranger, newly built at Portsmouth, and—a second instance of the kind—had the honor of hoisting for the first time the new flag of the stars and stripes; at least he claimed the distinction, for the bristling vanity of Jones made him punctilious in these accidental matters of personal renown.

It took some time to prepare the Ranger for sea, but Jones got off on his adventure in November, made a couple of prizes by the way, and at the end of a month reached Nantes. Disappointed in obtaining the large vessel which he expected, and obliged to be contented with the Ranger, he employed his time in making acquaintance with the French navy at Quiberon Bay, and offering valuable suggestions for the employment of D'Estaing's fleet on the American coast. He soon determined to put to sea on an adventure of spirit. On April 10, 1778, he sailed from Brest on a cruise in British waters. Directing his course to the haunts of his youth, he captured a brigantine off Cape Clear, and a London ship in the Irish Channel; planned various bold adventures on the Irish coast, which he was not able to carry out from adverse influences of wind and tide, but well-nigh succeeded in burning a large fleet of merchantmen in the docks of Whitehaven. In this last adventure, he made a landing at night, and advanced to the capture of the town-batteries, leaving his officers to fire the ships, of which there were about two hundred in the port. His orders were not obeyed, either from insufficient preparations or the relenting of his agents, when he himself set fire to one of the largest of the vessels. It was now day, and the people were warned by a deserter from his force, but Jones managed to hold the whole town at bay till he made good his retreat. This daring affair was an impromptu of Jones's genius, justified in his view by similar depredations of the British on the American coast; but it had an ugly look of ingratitude to the place which had sheltered his youth, and first given him promotion in the world.

Nor was this all. He immediately crossed to his native shore of Scotland, with the intention of seizing the Earl of Selkirk, at his seat on the promontory of St. Mary's Isle, on the Solway, near Kirkcudbright. Landing at the spot he ascertained that the earl was from home. Disappointed in his object, he would have returned, when the officers in his boat insisted upon a demand for the family plate. Jones demurred, but yielded with the proviso that the thing was to be done in the most delicate manner possible. His lieutenant, Simpson, undertook the business, and introduced himself to Lady Selkirk, who was, conveniently enough for his purposes, engaged at breakfast. She had at first taken the party for a press-gang, and had offered them refreshments; on being informed of the nature of their visit, their request, backed by the armed crew at the door, was complied with.

It is said that Jones apologized personally to Lady Selkirk, and we shall presently find him, at the first interval of leisure, taking measures to repair the act. For the moment, however, he had more serious work on hand. In his upward voyage along the Irish coast, he had looked into Belfast Lough, after his Majesty's sloop-of-war Drake, of twenty guns, which he attempted to board in a night attack by a bold manoeuvre, which came within an ace of success. Immediately after the affair of St. Mary's, he ran across the channel and had the fortune to meet the Drake coming out of Carrickfergus. She was getting to sea to check the exploits of the Ranger, which had now alarmed the whole region. Jones desired nothing more than an encounter. As the ship drew up she hailed the Ranger. Jones gave the reply through his sailing-master: "The American continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you. Come on. The sun is little more than an hour high, and it is time to begin!" A broadside engagement commenced, and continued at close quarters for an hour, when the Drake surrendered. Her captain and first lieutenant were mortally wounded, her sails and rigging terribly cut up, and hull much shattered. The loss of the Ranger was 2 killed and 6 wounded; that of the Drake, 42. The Drake had two guns the advantage of her adversary. The action took place on April 24th; on May 8th, Jones having traversed the channel, carried his prize safely into Brest.

His first thought now was to make some amends to Lady Selkirk and his own reputation for the plundering visit of his lieutenant. He therefore addressed to her, the very day of his landing, an extraordinary letter—Jones was fond of letter-writing—full of high-sounding phrases, and professions of gallantry and esteem, in the midst of which he failed not to recite the splendid victory of the Ranger. He drew a picture of the terrors inflicted by the British in America; and in respect to that unfortunate plate, expressed his intention to purchase it, in the sale of the prize, and restore it at his own expense to the family. This, after delays and obstacles, he finally accomplished some years later, when we are told it was all returned as it was taken, the very tea-leaves of the parting breakfast clinging to the tea-pot.



The affair of the Ranger, so brilliantly conducted, the short, energetic cruise in narrow seas, so near the British naval stations, gave Jones a great reputation for gallantry in Paris. The delays and difficulties, however, incidental to the wretched state of the American finances abroad, and the imperfect relation of his country with the French court, were well calculated to cool any enthusiasm excited by his conquest; and a man of less vivacity and perseverance than Jones might have dropped the service. He persevered. His lieutenant, Simpson, after various refractory proceedings, had sailed home in the Ranger, when an arrangement was finally made with Le Ray de Chaumont, the negotiator of the French court, to furnish a jointly equipped and officered fleet, of which Jones was to take command. Five vessels were thus provided, including the American frigate Alliance. An old Indiaman, the Duke de Duras, fell to the lot of Jones. In compliment to Dr. Franklin, one of the commissioners, and especially in gratitude for a hint which he had accidentally lighted upon in an odd number of that philosopher's almanac, to the effect that whoever would have his business well done must do it himself—a suggestion by which Jones had greatly profited in giving a final spur to his protracted negotiations—he changed the name of his vessel, by permission of the French Government, to the Bon Homme Richard.

Jones at length set sail, on August 14th, with his squadron. Landais, an incompetent Frenchman in the American service, was in command of the Alliance. It was altogether a weak, mongrel affair. The Bon Homme Richard was unseaworthy, her armament was defective, and in her motley crew Englishmen and foreigners outnumbered the Americans. The plan of the cruise was to sail round the British Islands from the westward. At Cape Clear the commander parted with two of the smaller vessels of the squadron, which now consisted of his own ship, the Alliance, the Pallas, and the Vengeance. The service was, however, far more impaired by the insubordination of Landais, who evinced great jealousy of his superior. Several prizes were taken, one of them by Jones off Cape Wrath, at the extremity of Scotland. Traversing the eastern coast, he arrived, with the Pallas and the Vengeance, at the Firth of Forth, and entertained the bold idea of attacking the armed vessels at the station, and putting not only Leith, but possibly the capital, Edinburgh itself, under contribution. He would certainly have made the attempt—indeed, it was in full progress—when it was defeated by a violent gale of wind.

Jones now continued his course southwardly, casting longing eyes upon Hull and Newcastle, when, having been joined by the Alliance, the squadron suddenly, off Flamborough Head, fell in with the Baltic cruisers, the Serapis, forty-four. Captain Pearson, and the Countess of Scarborough, twenty, Captain Piercy, convoying a fleet of merchantmen. Jones at once prepared for action. The combat which ensued, between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, is one of the most remarkable in the annals of naval warfare, for the circumstances under which it was fought, the persistence of the contest, and the well-matched valor of the commanders. The engagement was by moonlight, on a tranquil sea, within sight of the shore, which was crowded with spectators, who thronged the promontory of Flamborough Head and the piers of Scarborough. After various preliminary manoeuvres on the part of the English commander to shelter the merchantmen, the engagement began at half-past seven in the evening, with a series of attempts of the Bon Homme Richard to come to close quarters with her antagonist. At the first broadside of Jones's vessel, two of the old eighteen-pounders mounted in her gun-room burst, with fearful destruction to the men. This accident compelled the closing of the lower ports, and produced a still greater inequality between the combatants than at the start, for the Serapis was not only a well-constructed, well-furnished man-of-war, thoroughly equipped, while the Bon Homme Richard had even-disadvantage in these respects: but the absolute weight of metal was, at the outset, greatly in favor of the Englishman. The Richard then passed to windward of the Serapis, receiving her fire, which did much damage to the rotten hull of the old Indiaman. Jones next attempted a movement to get into position to rake his antagonist from stem to stern, which resulted in a momentary collision. There was an effort to board the Serapis, which was repulsed, when Captain Pearson called out, "Has your ship struck?" and Jones instantly replied, "I have not yet begun to fight." The ships then separating, were brought again to a broadside encounter, when Jones, feeling the superior force of the Serapis, and her better sailing, was fully prepared to take advantage of the next position as the ships fell foul of one another, to grapple with his opponent. He himself assisted in lashing the jib-stay of the Serapis to the mizzenmast of the Richard.

The ships became now closely entangled for their full length on their starboard sides; so near were they together, that the guns of one touched the sides of the other, and in some places where the port-holes met, the guns were loaded by passing the rammers into the opposite vessel. Every discharge in this position was of course most deadly, and told fearfully upon the rotten hull of the Richard. To add to Jones's embarrassment, he was repeatedly fired upon by Landais, from the Alliance, which always kept her position with the Richard between her and the enemy. This extraordinary circumstance is only to be accounted for by an entire lack of presence of mind in the confusion, or by absolute treachery. The Serapis poured in her fire below from a full battery, while the Richard was confined to three guns on deck. She had efficient aid, however, in clearing the deck of the Serapis, from the musketry and hand-grenades of her men in the tops. One of these missiles reached the lower gun-deck of the Serapis, and there setting fire to a quantity of exposed cartridges, produced a destruction of life, an offset to the fearful loss of the Richard by the bursting of her guns in the opening of the engagement. The injury to the Richard, from the wounds inflicted upon her hull, was at this time so great that she was pronounced to be sinking, and there was a cry among the men of surrender; not, however, from Jones, who was as much himself at this extremity as ever. Seeing the English prisoners, who had been released below, more than a hundred in number, rushing upon deck, where in a moment they might have leaped into the Serapis, and put themselves under then country's flag, he coolly set them to working the pumps, to save the sinking ship. Human courage and resolution have seldom been more severely tried than in the exigencies of this terrible night on board the Richard. Jones continued to ply his feeble cannonade from the deck, levelled at the mainmast of the adversary. Both vessels were on fire, when, at half-past ten, the Serapis struck.

The loss in this extraordinary engagement, which outstrips and exaggerates the usual vicissitudes of naval service, was of course fearful. The entire loss of the Richard is estimated by Cooper at one hundred and fifty, nearly one-half of all the men she had engaged. Captain Pearson reported at least one hundred and seventeen casualties. The Bon Homme Richard was so riddled by the enemy's fire, and disembowelled by the gun-room explosion, that she could not be saved from sinking. When the wind freshened, the day after the victory, she became no longer tenable; her living freight was taken from her, and Jones, in the forenoon of the 25th, "with inexpressible grief," saw her final plunge into the depths of the ocean.

While the engagement of the Richard and Serapis was going on, the Pallas, better officered than the Alliance, captured the other English vessel, the Countess of Scarborough. The two prizes were carried to the Texel, where the squadron enjoyed the uneasy protection of Holland. Jones himself had a more satisfactory reception in an enthusiastic greeting on the Exchange at Amsterdam, and a brilliant triumph, illuminated by the smiles of the fair sex, shortly after in Paris. In October, 1780, he left for America in the Ariel, bearing with him a gift from the king, a gold-mounted sword, with the inscription on the blade: Vindicati Maris Ludovicus XVI. Remunerator Strenuo Vindici—"Louis XVI., rewarder, to the valiant defender of a liberated sea." The voyage was interrupted, at its outset, by a severe storm off the harbor, in which Jones displayed his usual heroism. The vessel was refitted, and after a partial action on the high seas with a mysterious stranger, reached Philadelphia in February, 1781.

In 1787 he left America with the intention of serving under Louis. When he reached Paris, he was met by a proposition to enter the service of Catherine of Russia, in which he was induced to engage by prospects of rank and glory. On his journey to St. Petersburg, he had a characteristic adventure in his passage from Stockholm to Revel, which he made while the navigation was interrupted by ice, traversing the sea, with great hardihood, in an open boat, extorting the labors of the boatmen by his threats of violence. He was well received by the Empress, who forwarded him to Potemkin, then in command on the Black Sea, in a war with the Turks. It is not necessary to recount the movements of a small squadron, with a divided command and jealous counsels, presided over by a whimsical, despotic court favorite. Many as were the vexations encountered by Jones in the inefficient resources, the shifts and expedients of foreign allies, and the straits of the American commissioners, they were light compared with the stifling restraints of Russian tyranny. Jones did much fighting, in his command of the Wolodomer, on the Black Sea, against the Pasha, but retired with little glory. Persecution followed at St. Petersburg—there was an assault upon his moral character, which was triumphantly disproved—various projects flitted through his teeming mind, and his connection with the country closed after a residence of fifteen months. It is sad to watch the last years of Paul Jones, not, indeed, of age, but of growing weariness and disease, as he renews his broken Russian hopes, and revives the old, faded, pecuniary claims on the French court. A gleam of sunshine appears in his aspirations to serve his country—for he still looked across the Atlantic—in the removal of the chains from the American sailors imprisoned at Algiers. His country listened to his cry; he was charged to treat with the Regency for their ransom, but before the commission reached him, he had passed to that land where the weary cease from sighing, and prisoners are at rest. Here, with Mercy bending over the scene, let the curtain fall. Paul Jones died at Paris, at the age of forty-five, of a dropsical affection, July 18, 1792.

The person of Paul Jones is well known by the numerous prints devoted to his brilliant exploits. You will see him, a little active man of medium height, not robust but vigorous, a keen black eye, lighting a dark, weather-beaten visage, compact and determined, with a certain melancholy grace.

He was one of nature's self-made men; that is, nature gave the genius, and he supplied the industry, for he knew how to labor, and must have often exerted himself to secure the attainments which he possessed. He was a good seaman, as well as a most gallant officer; sagacious in the application of means; vain, indeed, and expensive, but natural and generous; something of a poet in verse, much more in the quickness and vivacity of his imagination, which led him to plan nobly; an accomplished writer; and as he was found worthy of the warm and unchanging friendship of Franklin, that sage who sought for excellence while he looked with a kindly eye upon human infirmity, we, too, may peruse the virtues of the man and smile upon his frailties.



TECUMSEH[5]

By JAMES A. GREEN

(1776-1813)

[Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

It would be a difficult matter for a well-read American to recall the names of more than four or five notable Indians, leaving, of course, contemporaneous red men out of the question. The list might comprise Pocahontas, best known, probably, for something she did not do; Powhatan, that vague and shadowy Virginian chief; King Philip, who had a war named after him and so succeeded in having his name embalmed in history; Pontiac, whose great conspiracy Parkman has made immortal, and Tecumseh. But, of them all, Tecumseh is easily foremost. He was a man who, had he been born to great position among civilized nations, would have stamped his name and fame upon the world. He was not a mere savage of the ordinary type, bloodthirsty, brutal beyond description, going upon one aimless raid after another to glut his passion for rapine and murder. These savage traits were not his, though all the good qualities of the Indian he possessed in double measure. He was fearless, he was untiring, and when once started toward an end he knew no rest until he had accomplished his design. He had a primitive dignity of thought and expression that marked him as a great orator. At the famous council at Vincennes, when Tecumseh had finished his speech and was about to sit down with his braves, the interpreter, pointing to General W. H. Harrison, said, "Your father wishes you to take a chair." But the ordinary courtesy of calling the white Governor the father of the red men was repugnant to Tecumseh, and with lofty mien and unpremeditated eloquence he declined the proffered seat. "No," he exclaimed, "the sun is my father, the earth is my mother, and I will rest on her bosom." And he sat down on Mother Earth with his assembled warriors, this act and fiery speech more than ever binding them to his fortunes.

Tecumseh was in reality the first of the great Ohio men. He was a Shawnee Indian, and his tribe, in the middle of the eighteenth century, had emigrated from Florida to what is now the State of Ohio, Tecumseh being born in what is now Clarke County, near the present city of Springfield, in an Indian town that bore the name of Piqua. This must not be confounded with the present Ohio town of Piqua, which is in another county altogether, the birthplace of Tecumseh now being the site of a straggling village bearing the name, West Boston. In his boyhood there was nothing unusual. He grew up in the stirring times when Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and the other hardy Kentucky pioneers. Long Knives the Indians called them—were leading their forces into the West. It was a time when the Indians were constantly fighting. They did not live in Kentucky, but they regarded the fertile woods and prairies south of the Ohio River as their hunting-grounds, and they attacked with savage cruelty all the whites that dared to encroach upon this territory. The whites in turn crossed the Ohio in reprisal, burnt the Indian towns, tomahawked women and children, destroyed corn-fields, and were as unrelenting and barbarous in their revenge as their savage foes.

Tecumseh was born about 1776, and in 1780 the village of Piqua was attacked by a party of 1,000 Kentuckians, who, after a fierce battle, drove out the Indians and destroyed the place. It was amid such scenes that the Indian boy grew to manhood. In that wild time, war was the only science, and butchery the only trade that an Indian could follow. One of the favorite Indian pursuits of the day was the capture of parties of emigrants and traders who came floating down the Ohio in canoes or "broadhorns." For miles the Indians would secretly follow such a party, and then when their opportunity came would strike their deadly blow. When a boy of seventeen Tecumseh was in a party making an attack on some boats near the present site of Maysville, Ky. The boats were captured and all the people in them slaughtered on the spot except one person, who was spared and later burnt alive. The horror of the spectacle so impressed Tecumseh that he then and there said he would never again be guilty of such cruelty, and the vigorous manner in which he protested against it so moved his companions that they agreed with him to not repeat the act. This resolution Tecumseh never altered; time and time again he protected women and children from his infuriated followers. At the battle of Fort Meigs a party of Americans was captured by the British and Indians. Though they had surrendered as prisoners of war, yet the savages were firing into them promiscuously, or selecting such as they chose to tomahawk in cold blood. This dreadful scene was interrupted by Tecumseh, who came spurring up and, springing from his horse to the ground, dashed aside two Indians who were about to murder an American, threatening to slay anyone who would dare to injure another prisoner. Turning to the British General, Proctor, he asked why such a massacre had been permitted. "Sir," said Proctor, "your Indians cannot be commanded." "Begone," was the angry reply of the outraged Tecumseh, "you are unfit to command. Go, put on petticoats." This was only one incident of many showing how far he was above the ordinary Indian in magnanimity of character. At the already mentioned Vincennes conference Tecumseh agreed with General William Henry Harrison—his unrelenting foe and who judged him as harshly as any of the frontiersmen who feared and hated him—that in case of an outbreak of hostilities the women and children on both sides were to be protected and respected. Certain it is that General Harrison would have made no such agreement had he not believed that his adversary would keep it.



To understand the life and work of Tecumseh it is necessary to look into the history of his times. His career was embraced between the period of the Revolution and our second war with Great Britain. The destiny of the Great West was not then assured. Ohio and Kentucky were frontier States, vastly farther from the seat of government than is the most remote of our Western outposts to-day. They could be reached only by a toilsome journey over the Alleghanies and a trip down the Ohio. A journey to-day to the Yellowstone, or to the regions beyond the Black Hills, does not mean, in the way of time, danger, or adventure, one-tenth what a journey to Fort Washington (Cincinnati) meant in 1800. Indiana was a Territory, and the Territorial Governor, first of the Northwest, and then of Indiana, was William Henry Harrison, a born fighter, a palaverer, and who, in the difficult position which he occupied in dealing with unruly settlers on the one hand and turbulent Indians on the other hand, displayed singular tact and ability. He was eminently the right man in the right place. But in spite of the claims the United States made of the West, the country was but little known, nor was its real importance even suspected. That the Mississippi Valley would one day be peopled by millions, and be the greatest, wealthiest, and most productive part of the country, was not thought of even by the most sanguine of Americans. The Eastern States in those days had affairs enough of their own on hand, and the Western frontier was not regarded as essentially important. The national idea—the Nation with a big N, as recent humorous newspaper writers have put it—had not been evolved. It was difficult for even a man of the persuasive powers of General Harrison, to induce the General Government to furnish half enough troops to adequately guard the outposts. If there was serious work to do the settlers had to do it themselves. There was little grumbling over this state of affairs, however, as the Kentuckians and Westerners generally had been brought up to do their own fighting and not to wait for the Government at Washington to do it for them. In those days British agents were actively at work among the Northern Indians to keep them in a state of disaffection toward the United States. Meanwhile, the Indians were in the midst of the great tragedy that has been enacted since the days of Columbus. They were the victims of traders who sold them fire-water, and for poor and cheap weapons, demanded furs whose value was out of all proportion to that given in return. Many of their women married white renegades who corrupted the morals of the tribes. They were being dispossessed of the finest homes and best hunting grounds in America, for the buffalo was then found in Kentucky in great herds, and their position was thoroughly unhappy. They had then—and happily this is not wholly the case at present—no rights that a white man was bound to respect. But the Indians were still many and the settlers were few. To a great leader, who of course could not take into account the mighty force behind the Anglo-Saxon ranks that first marched over the Alleghenies, it would still seem practical to band the red men together in a vast confederation and drive the invaders back again beyond the Ohio and the mountains. This was Tecumsch's splendid plan. This was the design to which he devoted his life, and which he pursued with such ardor and genius as to do what an Indian had never before accomplished. Pontiac, it is true, at the siege of Detroit gathered a number of tribes under his leadership, but he never dreamed of a continental confederacy, as did Tecumseh. In this vast design he was materially aided by his brother, best known by the name of the Prophet, who, while lacking in judgment, was none the less a man of extraordinary force of character. He proclaimed that he had received power from the Great Spirit to confound the enemies of the Indians, stay the march of disease and death, and that he was the Messiah to lead his people to new and greater things. But as conditions to success the Indians must stop drinking fire-water, they must cease intermarrying with the whites or trading with them, and they must hold all things as the property of all. They must return to their original dress and manners, and forget that they had ever seen or known the "pale faces." The fame and influence of the Prophet spread with almost miraculous rapidity, and young men and warriors came from afar in crowds to receive inspiration from him. Tecumseh with rare ability turned this influence to advance his own plans. And of course this constant stream of visitors to his brother, enabled the chief to spread his racial idea far and wide. One of the things that Tecumseh maintained was that the Indians held the land in common, that no one tribe owned this or that territory, but that the Great Spirit had given it equally to all. This he said at the conference at Vincennes, but General Harrison ridiculed the idea and stated that if the Great Spirit had intended to make one nation of the Indians, he would not have put different languages into their heads, but would have taught them all to speak alike. Tecumseh bitterly replied that no one tribe had the right to give away what was the joint property of all, and not until the United States agreed to cease purchasing lands from the Indians and restored the lands recently bought, would peace be possible. Pointing to the moon that had risen on the council, Governor Harrison said that the moon would sooner fall to earth than the United States would give up anything fairly acquired. "Then," said Tecumseh, "I suppose that you and I will have to fight it out."

But these councils ended in nothing except a manly and impressive statement by Tecumseh of his position, and a strong and terribly just indictment of the whites for their treatment of the Indians. Tecumseh was constantly on the move. Now on the Lakes, now on the Wabash, then on the Mississippi or the plains to the westward, then on the Ohio or the hills that roll to the south from it. Everywhere the Indians received him graciously. But an accident destroyed his plans, and one defeat dashed his confederation to pieces. During his absence Governor Harrison, alarmed at the gathering of warriors at the Prophet's town of Tippecanoe, on the Wabash River, in Indiana, marched against it. There was no necessity for a battle. It might easily have been avoided. Toward the close of day the Americans reached Tippecanoe. The Indians disclaimed any hostile ideas, and it was settled that the terms of peace were to be arranged the next day. That night, however, the Indians treacherously attacked the Americans. The conflict was fierce and bloody. The Indian braves were animated by the promises of the Prophet, who declared that they would be victorious and that he had rendered the bullets of the white men of no avail. During the battle he stood on a neighboring hill and chanted a war song, to further fill his warriors with courage and enthusiasm. But though the red men fought gallantly, they were doomed to defeat. They were scattered up and down the Wabash, their town was burnt, and the power of the Western Indians was by this one blow shattered. So complete was the victory and so far-reaching in its effects, that General Harrison at once became the popular idol, and the glorification of the battle of Tippecanoe, a generation later carried him into the Presidential chair. It was this battle that gave the West to the whites.

As for Tecumseh, he returned suddenly from the West to find that despite his commands, the Prophet had permitted a battle. In his rage and disappointment he took his brother, now fallen and disgraced, by the hair and shook him. But no longer was it possible to hold his tribes together. The victory of the United States at Tippecanoe took the ardor for battle and resistance quite out of them. There were hundreds of them, however, who in the war of 1812, which broke out immediately, followed Tecumseh into the British service, in which he was commissioned as a major-general. In that service he was doomed to continued disaster. The English commander. General Proctor, was incompetent and, in all the qualities of real manhood, the inferior of his savage ally. After the battle of Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie, he started to retreat. Tecumseh protested, and was induced to go on only by the promise that winter supplies would be delivered a few miles up the Thames. It was on this stream that Proctor finally determined to make a stand, but at the outset of the action he, coward-like, retreated with his red coats, leaving the Indians to bear the brunt of the battle. Tecumseh had gone into the fight saying that he would be killed, and his prediction was verified. But how he died no one can say with certainty. No less than four Americans claimed the honor of having killed him. Among the slain, in that time of fierce pursuit and confusion, his body was not even identified. But there it was, on the banks of that quiet Canadian stream, some thirty-five miles from Detroit, that the greatest Indian in statecraft, diplomacy, devotion to his people, and in dignity of thought and intellectual gifts, found his unmarked grave. No one yet has written a biography of him that does full justice to his great abilities and lofty character. But his name is the most familiar of all Indian names, and he is the only Indian after whom Western fathers and mothers have ever named their sons. The late General of the United States Army, William Tecumseh Sherman, bore his name, as have hundreds of other boys born in Ohio, Kentucky, and the great States that roll westward from them.

[Signature of the author.]



JAMES LAWRENCE

(1781-1813)

]

Captain James Lawrence was one of that band of chivalrous spirits who, concentrating all their life in the work, with insufficient means, in the face of powerful enemies, raised our infant navy in an instant, as it were, to an honored rank in the world. The force and energy of the free national development were felt in the spontaneous movement that placed so many ardent, courageous spirits at the service of the country. These men, Barry, Barney, Decatur, Bainbridge, Perry, Somers, and the rest—the list is a long one—were volunteers in the cause, fighting more for glory than for pay. Such spirits were not to be hired—theirs was no mercenary service. It was limited by no prudential considerations. They went forth singly or united, the commissioned champions of the nation, with their lives in their hands, ready to sacrifice themselves in that cause. Punctilious on all points of honor, they sought but one reward—victory. There was but one thing for them to do—to conquer; and, failing that, to die. Of these fiery-souled heroes, who carried their country in their hearts, the men of courtesy and courage, of equal humanity and bravery, true sons of chivalry, Lawrence will ever be ranked among the noblest.

He was born October 1, 1781, at Burlington, on the banks of the Delaware, in New Jersey. His father, John Lawrence, was an eminent counsellor at law at that place. The death of his mother, shortly after his birth, threw the charge of the child upon his elder sisters, by whom he was tenderly cared for. His disposition answered to this gentle culture. The boy was dutiful and affectionate, amiable in disposition and agreeable in manners. Such a soil is peculiarly favorable to the growth of the manly virtues where nature has assisted by her generous physical gifts. The bravest men have often been the gentlest. It is the union of the two conditions which, as in Sir Philip Sidney, makes the perfect warrior.

Young Lawrence early showed a liking for the sea, and would have led a life on the waters from the age of twelve, had not his father firmly turned his attention to books and education. It was his intention to prepare him for his own profession, the law, and his desire that he should enjoy the usual preparatory finished education. This was, however, prevented by his pecuniary misfortunes, and the youth passed from his primary school at once to the law office of his brother, John Lawrence, then residing at Woodbury. He spent two years in this situation, between thirteen and fifteen, or thereabout, vainly endeavoring to reconcile his humors to the onerous duties of the unwelcome position. The death of his father left him, in a measure, free to follow his own inclinations, and his brother, perceiving his strong bent for the sea, placed him under the care of a Mr. Griscomb, at Burlington, to study navigation, evidently with a view to enter the naval service of the country, for we find him, after a brief three months' instruction, in possession of a midshipman's warrant. This was dated September 4, 1798, the year when Congress seriously directed its attention to the protection of our commerce, then so wantonly pillaged by the two great belligerents of Europe, by the creation of a distinct navy department, and the enlargement of our naval force. The movement was specially directed to the French aggressions on the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. Indeed, in all but the name, war existed with France. It was called a quasi war.

Lawrence's first service was a cruise to the West Indies, in the Ganges, a twenty-four gun ship, then commanded by Captain Tingey. He showed in this and other voyages such aptitude for his duties that he was made an acting lieutenant by his commander previous to his receiving his commission from Government. In 1802 he was appointed first lieutenant in the Enterprise, of twelve guns, one of the fleet of Commodore Morris, sent to the Mediterranean to prosecute the war with Tripoli. He particularly distinguished himself in that service, by his adventures with Lieutenant David Porter, of the New York, in an attack in open day on certain coasters or feluccas laden with wheat, which took refuge in Old Tripoli, where they were defended by a land force. The attack was made in boats, at close quarters, under a heavy fire of the enemy.

Lawrence had a second opportunity of distinguishing himself in this war in an action likely to be better remembered by the public, the glorious adventure of Decatur, in the destruction of the wrecked and captured Philadelphia, in the harbor of Tripoli, in February, 1804. Lawrence was the first lieutenant of that officer in this brilliant adventure, and shared its full dangers and glories.

Lawrence was also engaged in the Enterprise, in Preble's bombardment of Tripoli, the same year. He returned in the winter to the United States, with that commodore, in the John Adams. In the following spring of 1805, Lawrence successfully carried across the Atlantic one of the fleet of gunboats, No. 6, of which he was commander, destined for service in the Mediterranean. It was a small vessel, mounting two guns, not at all adapted for ocean navigation. The voyage was looked upon as a marvel. When near the Western Islands, Mr. Cooper, in his "Naval History" tells, he "fell in with the British frigate Lapwing, 28, Captain Upton which ran for him, under the impression that the gunboat was some wrecked mariners on a raft, there being a great show of canvas and apparently no hull."

After the war with Tripoli was ended, Lawrence returned to the United States, and in the interval, when the war with England, after the affair with the Leopard and Chesapeake, was daily becoming more imminent, we find him, in 1808, appointed first lieutenant of the Constitution. About the same time he married Miss Montaudevert, the daughter of a respectable merchant of New York. He was on duty in the Vixen, Wasp, and Argus; and, at the commencement of the war of 1812, was promoted to the command of the Hornet. While in this last vessel he sailed with Bainbridge, who had the flag-ship Constitution, on a cruise along the coast of South America, and, having occasion to look in at the port of San Salvador, found there the British sloop-of-war, Bonne Citoyenne, of eighteen guns, ready to sail for England with a large amount of specie. Lawrence, whose ship mounted an equal number of guns, was exceedingly anxious to engage with this vessel. He sent a challenge to its commander, Captain Green, through the American consul, inviting him to "come out," and pledging his honor that neither the Constitution, nor any other American vessel, should interfere, which Commodore Bainbridge seconded by promising to be out of the way, or at least non-combatant. The English captain, however, declined.

It was an unhappy precedent which Lawrence thus established, injurious to the service and destined to act fatally against himself in the end, when from the challenger he became the challenged.

The Constitution meanwhile sailed away, to close the year with her brilliant engagement with the Java, leaving the Hornet engaged in the blockade of the Bonne Citoyenne. Eighteen days since the departure of the flag-ship had passed while her consort was thus engaged, waiting till her expected prize should issue from the harbor, when the Hornet was robbed of her chances of victory by the arrival of his majesty's seventy-four, the Montague. Escape now became the policy of Lawrence, who luckily managed to get from the harbor in safety, and turned his course to the northward, along the coast. While cruising in this direction, after capturing a small English brig, he fell in with, on February 24, 1813, off the mouth of the Demerara, two brigs of war, with one of which, the Peacock, Captain Peake, he speedily became engaged. The American vessel on this occasion had somewhat the advantage in armament. In the words of Lawrence's dispatch, which gives a modest and forcible account of the affair, after mentioning his attempt to get at the first vessel he discovered at anchor off the bar, he says: "At half-past three P.M., I discovered another sail on my weather quarter, edging down for us. At twenty minutes past four she hoisted English colors, at which time we discovered her to be a large man-of-war brig; beat to quarters and cleared ship for action; kept close by the wind, in order if possible, to get the weather gage. At ten minutes past five, finding I could weather the enemy, I hoisted American colors and tacked. At twenty minutes past five, in passing each other, exchanged broadsides within half pistol shot. Observing the enemy in the act of wearing, I bore up, received his starboard broadside, ran him close on board on the starboard quarter, and kept up such a heavy and well-directed fire, that in less than fifteen minutes he surrendered, being literally cut to pieces, and hoisted an ensign, union down, from his fore-rigging, as a signal of distress."

The hull of the Peacock was so riddled that she sank, while every exertion was made by her captors to save her by throwing over her guns and stopping the shot-holes. Nine of her crew went down with her, and three of the Hornet's men. Captain Peake was found dead on board. The loss of the Hornet was trifling compared with that of her adversary; but one man killed and four wounded or injured, one of whom afterward died. This superiority is attributed by Cooper, who sums up the testimony, "to the superior gunnery and rapid handling of the Hornet."

This victory brought Lawrence a harvest of honors, public and private. Before he sailed, he had felt called upon to protest to the Secretary of the Navy against what he thought an injustice done him in the promotion of a younger officer to a captaincy, while he remained simply lieutenant-commander. He now found that the promotion had been conferred upon him in his absence, and was offered the command of the Constitution. He would have been pleased to sail in this vessel, but, much to his annoyance, immediately after receiving the appointment was ordered to the Chesapeake, then lying at Boston.

Captain Lawrence took the command of the Chesapeake at Boston toward the end of May, 1813. The Shannon frigate, Captain Broke, a superior vessel of the British navy, had been for some time off the port, and her commander, assured of his strength, was desirous of a conflict. "You will feel it as a compliment," he wrote, "if I say that the result of our meeting may be the most grateful service I can render to my country; and I doubt not that you, equally confident of success, will feel convinced that it is only by triumphs in equal combats that your little navy can now hope to console your country for the loss of that trade it can no longer protect."



It would be complimenting the valor of Lawrence at the expense of his judgment, if we were to pronounce him ardent for the fight, with the circumstances under which it took place. In fact, as Mr. Cooper states, "he went into the engagement with strong reluctance, on account of the undisciplined state of his crew, to whom he was personally unknown." The challenging vessel, on the contrary, carried a picked crew, with every advantage of discipline and equipment. The presumption, of course, is that he was fully prepared. The armament of the two vessels was about equal, mounting forty-nine guns each.

At noon, then, on June 1st, Lawrence weighed anchor and left his station in the bay to proceed to sea with a southwesterly breeze. The Shannon was in sight, and the two ships stood off the shore till about half-past four in the afternoon, when the Chesapeake fired a gun, which was the signal for a series of manoeuvres, bringing the vessels within range of each other about a quarter before six. The Shannon hove to, and the Chesapeake bore down toward her. It was Lawrence's intention to bring his ship fairly alongside of the enemy for a full discharge of his battery. He consequently first received the enemy's fire from the cabin guns, as, the wind having freshened, his ship came up to measure her length with her antagonist, which lay with her head to the southeast. Then the Chesapeake poured in her full fire, inflicting considerable damage, which was repeated in the successive discharges for several minutes. In this commencement of the action it was considered that the Shannon received most injury, particularly in her hull. Unhappily, the Chesapeake in turn lost the command of her sails. The ship was consequently brought up into the wind, and fell aboard of the enemy, with her mizzen rigging foul of the Shannon's fore-chains. This accident exposed the Chesapeake to a raking fire, which swept her deck, and, as she was already deprived of the services of the officers who had fallen in the first discharges, her guns in turn were deserted by the men. Captain Lawrence had already received a wound in the leg; his first lieutenant, Ludlow, was wounded; the sailing-master was killed, and other important officers were mortally wounded. As the ships became entangled, Lawrence gave orders to summon the boarders, who were ready below; but unhappily, the negro whose duty it was to call them up by his bugle, was too much frightened to sound a note. A verbal message was sent, and before it could be executed Lawrence was a second time struck, receiving a grapeshot in his body. The deck was thus left with no officer above the rank of a midshipman. The men of the Shannon now poured in and gained possession of the vessel. As Lawrence was borne below, mortally wounded, his dying thoughts were of his command, uttering his order not to strike the flag of his ship, or some equivalent expression, which is handed down in the popular phrase, "Don't give up the ship!" He lingered and died of his wounds on board on June 6th. The Chesapeake was carried into Halifax, and there the remains of her gallant captain were borne from the frigate with military honors, with every mark of respect which a generous enemy could pay to a fallen hero.



STEPHEN DECATUR[6]

By EDWARD S. ELLIS, A.M.

(1779-1820)

[Footnote 6: Copyright 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

Stephen Decatur was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, Worcester County, January 5, 1779. The family was of French extraction in the paternal line, and of Irish on the maternal side. The grandfather was a native of La Rochelle, in France, and married a lady of Newport, R. I., where Stephen, the son of the commodore, was born. When a very young man he removed to Philadelphia and married the daughter of an Irish gentleman named Pine. Decatur was bred to the sea and commanded a merchantman out of the port of Philadelphia, until appointed to the sloop-of-war, Delaware. Upon the completion of the frigate Philadelphia, the command of it was given to him.

The elder Decatur had one daughter and three sons. The daughter was twice married, her first husband having been killed in a duel. The sons were Stephen, James, and John P., all of whom grew to manhood. The boys were educated at the old Philadelphia Academy in Fourth Street. Admiral Charles Stewart attended the same school and was an intimate friend of Decatur through life. Many of the incidents of this sketch were received by the writer from Stewart, who fully appreciated the manliness, courage, and nobility of the sailor, now accepted as the foremost type of the heroes and founders of the American navy.

"Decatur was a born fighter," said Stewart; "I never knew a boy so fond of a bout as he. I sat near him at school and have known weeks to pass, without a single day in which he did not arrange a contest with one of the boys. We generally adjourned to the Quaker burying-ground opposite, and had it out among the tombs. Decatur despised meanness of every description, and rarely was beaten in a fight. When only fifteen, he half killed a partially intoxicated man who insulted his mother and refused to apologize. He never knew when he was whipped, but would hang on like a bull-dog. I was a few months older than he, but we were appointed midshipmen in the same year, 1798. Our intimacy was never broken by the slightest incident."

Upon entering the navy, in March of the year named, Decatur joined the frigate United States, under command of Commodore Barry, who had obtained the warrant for him. He served with Barry until promoted to a lieutenancy. The United States needed repairs, and not wishing to stay in port, Decatur applied for orders to join the brig Norfolk, then bound to the Spanish Main. After one cruise he returned again to port and resumed his station on the United States, where he stayed until our naval troubles with France terminated. He was next ordered to the Essex and sailed with Commodore Dale's squadron to the Mediterranean. Returning home once more, he was appointed to the New York, one of the second squadron under command of Commodore Morris. When he again came back, he was ordered to command the Argus, to proceed with her to join Commodore Preble's squadron in the Mediterranean, and on his arrival there to resign the Argus to Lieutenant Hull and take charge of the schooner Enterprise, then commanded by that officer.

The exchange being made, Decatur sailed to Syracuse where the squadron was to rendezvous. There he learned of the disaster to the Philadelphia. That frigate, as the reader will recall, ran aground while blockading Tripoli (with which country we were at war), and was captured by the Turks. Commodore Bainbridge and his crew of more than three hundred, among whom were Porter, Jones, and Biddle, were made prisoners and immured in a gloomy dungeon. Decatur quickly formed a plan for capturing or destroying the frigate. Preble, to whom the proposal was submitted, refused at first to give his consent, but his impetuous lieutenant won him over and was allowed to lead the expedition.

Decatur selected the ketch Intrepid, which he had captured a few weeks before, and manned her with seventy volunteers, chiefly his own crew. He sailed from Syracuse, February 3, 1804, accompanied by the United States brig Siren, Lieutenant Stewart, who was to aid with his boats and to receive the crew of the ketch, should it be found expedient to use her as a fireship.

The weather was so tempestuous that it required fifteen days to reach the harbor of Tripoli. It was arranged by Decatur and Stewart that the ketch should enter the harbor about ten o'clock that night, attended by the boats of the Siren. A change of wind threw the Siren six or eight miles away from the Intrepid, and, fearing to wait for the boats, Decatur decided to adventure alone in the harbor, which he did about eight o'clock.

The Philadelphia lay within one-half gunshot of the Bashaw's castle and of the principal battery; two of the enemy's cruisers were only a couple of cables' length away on the starboard quarter, and their gunboats were within one-half gunshot on the starboard bow. All the guns of the frigate were mounted and loaded.

Although it was only three miles from the entrance of the harbor to the frigate, the wind was so light that the Intrepid did not get within hail until eleven o'clock. At the distance of two hundred yards, the frigate hailed the ketch and ordered her to anchor under threat of being fired into. Decatur's Maltese pilot, by his direction, replied they had lost their anchor in a gale of wind off the coast and were unable to do as commanded. When within fifty yards Decatur sent a small boat with a rope to make fast to the frigate's fore-chains. This was done and the Americans began warping the ketch alongside. Not until that moment did the Tripolitans suspect the character of the Intrepid. They were thrown into confusion, during which the two vessels came together. Decatur was the first to leap aboard, followed immediately by Midshipman Charles Morris. A minute passed before their companions could join them, but the Turks were too terrified to sweep the daring officers from the deck, as they might have done in the twinkling of an eye.

As soon as Decatur could form a line equal to that of the enemy, the charge was made. Twenty of the Turks were killed, many jumped overboard, and the rest scurried to the main deck whither they were pursued and driven into the hold.

The Americans had hardly gained possession of the frigate, when a number of launches were seen hurrying about the harbor. Decatur decided that the best defence could be made by staying on the frigate, and he prepared to receive their attack. Meanwhile, the enemy had opened fire from the batteries and the castle and from two corsairs lying near. As the launches did not approach, the lieutenant ordered the ship to be set on fire in several places. The flames spread so fast that it was with the utmost difficulty the Americans were able to reach the ketch. At that critical moment, a propitious breeze sprang up and carried the Intrepid out of the harbor. She had not lost a man, only four being wounded.

For this exploit, Decatur was promoted to the rank of post captain, there being no intermediate grade. The honor was specially gratifying, since the promotion was made with the consent of every officer over whose head he was raised. It should be stated that at that time the rank of captain was the highest in the navy. A commodore was simply the senior officer of a squadron and might be a master, commandant, a lieutenant, or midshipman.

It was decided some weeks later to make an attack on Tripoli. The King of Naples loaned six gunboats and two lombards to Commodore Preble. These were formed in two divisions, Decatur commanding one and Lieutenant Somers the other. The squadron which sailed from Syracuse included the frigate Constitution, the brig Siren, the schooners Nautilus and Vixen, and the gunboats. Adverse winds deferred the attack for several days. Finally, on the morning of August 3d, the weather being favorable, the signal was given from the commodore's vessel to prepare for action. This signal to open the bombardment was made at nine o'clock. The gunboats were cast off and advanced in a line ahead, led by Captain Decatur and covered by the frigate Constitution and the brigs and schooners. The enemy's gunboats were moored along the harbor under the batteries and within musket-shot. Their sails had been taken from them and they were ordered to sink rather than abandon their position. They were aided and covered also by a brig of sixteen and a schooner of ten guns.

Before entering into close action, Decatur went alongside each of the boats and directed them to unship their bowsprits and follow him, as it was his intention to board the enemy's boats. Lieutenant James Decatur commanded one of the boats belonging to Commodore Preble's division, but being farther to the windward than the rest of his division, he joined and took orders from his brother.

When Captain Decatur in the leading boat came within range of the batteries, they and the gunboats opened fire. He returned it and pushed his way among the boats. At this juncture, Commodore Preble, fearing the results of Decatur's rashness, ordered the signal to be made for retreat. This command brought to light the singular fact, that in making out the signals before going into battle, no one had thought of that which ordered a retreat. It was impossible, therefore, to recall the daring Decatur.

The enemy's gunboats contained forty men each and ours the same. Decatur had twenty-seven Americans and thirteen Neapolitans. On boarding the enemy, the latter held back, but our countrymen charged eagerly forward. Ten minutes sufficed to clear the deck. Eight of the Turks plunged into the hold, some fell while fighting, and others leaped into the sea. Only three of the Americans were wounded.

As Decatur was about to withdraw with his prize, his brother's boat came under the stern. The men called to him that they had engaged and captured one of the enemy, but her commander, after surrendering, had treacherously shot Lieutenant James Decatur, pushed off while the crew were recovering the body, and was at that moment making all haste for the harbor.

Decatur was infuriated on hearing this and resolved that the miscreant should not escape. With his single boat he pressed with all possible speed within the enemy's line, and running aside the offending boat, bounded over the gunwale, followed by eleven Americans, all that were left to him. Then followed the most desperate hand to hand fight conceivable, the issue being in doubt for twenty minutes.

There have been many accounts of Decatur's exploit on this Tripolitan gunboat, with considerable variation as to particulars. That which follows is the story as it was told to me by Admiral Stewart, who received it from Decatur himself, immediately after the fight. Decatur presented the weapon, called an espontoon, to Stewart, and I naturally examined it with great interest. The handle was of ivory and the blade perhaps eight or ten inches long, being very narrow and curved like a scimetar. It had no edge, was sharply pointed, and evidently made for thrusting.

Nothing could stay the fury of Decatur. He easily identified the commander by his immense size and gorgeous uniform. He eagerly sought out the American and they instantly came together in the fight to the death. Decatur had a cutlass, and the Turk a pike. The latter inflicted a slight wound on Decatur's breast, and in parrying the stroke his sword broke off at the hilt. Flinging the weapon aside, the American sprang like a tiger at his antagonist. The two fell to the deck, Decatur under, and flat on his back. The Turk had the weapon I have described in the front of his sash and attempted to withdraw it to give the finishing thrust. Decatur flung his legs over his back and with one arm held his enemy so tight against his body that he could not force his hand between. In this position, Decatur with his free arm drew a pistol from near his hip, reached over the back of the Turk and fired downward, directly toward himself.

"It was just like Decatur," said Stewart; "the chances were ten to one that the bullet would pass through both their bodies, but luckily it met a bone and the huge barbarian rolled off dead. The two were half-smothered by others fighting and tumbling over them, and it was with the utmost difficulty that Decatur freed himself from them and rose to his feet."

While this fierce struggle was going on, a Turk fought his way forward and aimed a fearful blow at Decatur, who was not aware of his danger. Reuben Jones, an American sailor, so desperately wounded that he could not use his arms, flung himself between them and received the blow on his skull, which was fractured. It is a pleasure to record, however, that the brave fellow finally recovered and lived many years on a pension from his government.

Decatur succeeded in withdrawing with both prizes, and the next day was honored with the highest commendation in general orders from Commodore Preble. When the latter was superseded in command of the squadron, he gave the command of the Constitution to Decatur, who had some time before received his commission. From that ship he was removed to the Congress, returning home on her on the conclusion of peace with Tripoli.

Decatur was next employed as superintendent of gunboats, and March 6, 1806, was married to Miss Susan Wheeler of Norfolk, the only child of wealthy and cultured parents. The union was a most happy one, though no children were born to the couple.

In the month of June, 1807, the British frigate Leopard, while cruising off the coast of Virginia, poured several broadsides into the American frigate Chesapeake, commanded by Captain James Barron. England, as will be remembered, insisted on the "right of search," and the British Captain Humphreys claimed that the American had several English deserters on board. The Chesapeake had three men killed and eighteen wounded, and being unprepared for action, struck her colors.

Captain Barron was court-martialed and sentenced to five years' suspension without pay from the service, for what was deemed a cowardly act on his part. Commodore Decatur succeeded him in command of the ship, being transferred to the United States, when she was again put in commission.

October 25, 1812, in latitude 29 deg. N., longitude 29 deg. 30' W., Decatur fell in with the British ship Macedonian, of 49 carriage guns (the odd one shifting). This frigate was the largest of her class, two years old, four months out of dock, and reputed one of the best sailers in the English service. Taking advantage of the wind, the enemy fought at her own distance. The battle lasted one hour and fifty minutes. The United States poured such an incessant fire into the Macedonian that the shouts of her crew were plainly heard. She lost her mizzenmast, fore and main topsails and main yard, and was much damaged in the hull. Her official list was, 36 killed and 48 wounded, that of the Americans being 5 killed and 7 wounded. Decatur could have continued his cruise, but was obliged to accompany his crippled prize into port, where she was equipped as an American frigate. The young officer, as may be supposed, was hailed by the country as its foremost naval hero. Congress and several of the States voted him valuable testimonials for his gallantry.



The following year, Decatur attempted to gain the open sea from New York, through Long Island Sound, with the Macedonian and Hornet. A British squadron of superior force, however, compelled him to run into the Thames River in Connecticut, and he lay off New London for months unable to get to sea. He was naturally impatient at being thus cooped up, and bitterly complained that traitors on shore, by means of "blue lights," warned the enemy whenever at night he prepared to break out of his imprisonment. He sent a challenge to Commander Sir Thomas Hardy of the blockading squadron, offering to fight two of the British frigates with two of his own, but the offer was declined and Decatur's frigates were afterward dismantled.