THE BOY-GENERAL
Boys are apt to think that they must wait until they are men before
they can claim the great rewards which life holds in store for all of
us. History shows that courage, high endeavor, concentration and the
sacrifice of self will give the prizes of a high calling to boys as
well as to men. One is never too young or too old to seek and find and
seize opportunity. Alexander Hamilton was only a boy when in New York
at the outbreak of the Revolution, white-hot with indignation and
patriotic zeal, he climbed up on a railing and in an impassioned speech
to a great crowd which had collected, put himself at once in the
forefront along with Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Otis and other
patriots who were to be the leaders of a new nation. David was only a
boy of seventeen when he was sent to take provisions to his brethren in
the army of the Israelites then encamped on the heights around the
great battle-valley of Elah. There he heard the fierce giant-warrior of
a lost race challenge the discouraged army. By being brave and ready
enough to seize the opportunity which thousands of other men had passed
by, he that day began the career which won for him a kingdom.
George Washington was only a boy when he saved what was left of
Braddock's ill-fated army in that dark and fatal massacre and was
hardly of age when the governor of Virginia sent him on that dangerous
mission to the Indian chiefs and the French commander at Venango. On
that mission he showed courage that no threats could weaken and an
intelligence that no treachery could deceive and he came back a man
marked for great deeds. As a boy he showed the same forgetfulness of
self which he afterward showed as a man when he refused to take any pay
for his long services as general of the Continental Army and even
advanced heavy disbursements from his own encumbered estate.
Napoleon was only a boy when, as a young lieutenant, he first showed
that military genius, that power of grasping opportunities, of breaking
away from outworn rules which made him one of the greatest generals of
all time and which laid Europe at his feet. If only to his bravery and
genius had been added the high principle and the unselfishness of
Washington, of Hamilton, of David, he would not have died in exile
hated and feared by millions of men and women and children whose
countries he had harried and whose lives he had burdened.
In the Civil War the youngest general in both the Union and the
Confederate forces was Major-General Galusha Pennypacker, who still
lives in Philadelphia. He became a captain and major at seventeen, a
colonel at twenty and a full brigadier-general a few months before he
became twenty-one. His last and greatest fight was at Fort Fisher and
the story of that day, of which he was the hero, is typical of the
bravery and readiness which made him the only boy-general in the world.
By the end of 1864 the Union forces had captured one by one the great
naval ports of the Confederacy, the gates through which their armies
were fed by the blockade-runners of Europe. New Orleans, Mobile and
Savannah had at last fallen. By December, 1864, Wilmington, South
Carolina, was the only port left through which the Confederacy could
receive provisions from outside. In that month an expedition was sent
against the city by sea and land. The river-forces were commanded by
Admiral Porter while Generals Ben Butler and Witzel had charge of the
land-forces. General Butler conceived the fantastic idea of exploding
an old vessel filled with powder close to the ramparts. In the
confusion which he thought would result, he hoped to carry the place by
assault. Fort Fisher was the strongest fortress of the Confederacy.
Admiral Porter afterward said that it was stronger than the famous
Russian fortress Malakoff, which next to Gibraltar was supposed to be
the most impregnable fortification in the world. Fort Fisher consisted
of a system of bomb-proof traverses surrounded by great ramparts of
heavy timbers covered with sand and banked with turf, the largest
earthworks in the whole South and which were proof against the heaviest
artillery of that day. The powder-boat was an abandoned vessel which
was loaded to the gunnels with kegs of powder and floated up to within
four hundred yards of the fort. When it was finally exploded, its
effect upon the fortress was so slight that the Confederate soldiers
inside thought it was merely a boiler explosion from one of the
besieging vessels. General Butler and his assistant, General Witzel,
however, landed their forces, hoping to find the garrison in a state of
confusion and discouragement. General Butler found that the explosion
had simply aroused rather than dismayed the besieged. From all along
the ramparts as well as from the tops of the inner bastions a
tremendous converging fire was poured upon the attacking force. Back of
these fortifications were grouped some of the best sharp-shooters of
the whole Confederate Army and after a few minutes of disastrous
fighting, General Butler was glad enough to withdraw his forces back to
the safety of the ships. He refused to renew the battle and reported to
General Grant that Fort Fisher could not be taken by assault. General
Grant was so disgusted by this report that he at once relieved General
Butler of the command and this battle was the end of the latter's
military career and he went back to civil life in Massachusetts.
President Lincoln too was deeply disappointed at the unfortunate ending
of this first assault on the last stronghold of the Confederacy.
General Grant sent word to Admiral Porter to hold his position and sent
General Alfred H. Terry to attack the fort again by land with an
increased force. General Robert E. Lee learned of the proposed attack
and sent word to Colonel Lamont, who commanded the fort, that it must
be held, otherwise his army would be starved into surrender.
On January 13, 1865, Admiral Porter ran his ironclad within close range
of the fort and concentrating a fire of four hundred heavy guns rained
great shells on every spot on the parapets and on the interior
fortifications from which came any gun-fire. The shells burst as
regularly as the ticking of a watch. The Confederates tried in vain to
stand to their guns. One by one they were broken and dismounted and the
garrison driven to take refuge in the interior bomb-proof traverses.
The attacking forces were divided into three brigades. The attack was
commenced by one hundred picked sharp-shooters all armed with repeating
rifles and shovels. They charged to within one hundred and seventy-five
yards of the fort, quickly dug themselves out of sight in a shallow
trench in the sand and tried to pick off each man who appeared in the
ramparts. Next came General Curtis' brigade to within four hundred
yards of the fort and laid down and with their tin-cups and plates and
knives and sword-blades and bayonets, dug out of sight like moles.
Close behind them was Pennypacker's second brigade and after him Bell's
third brigade. In a few moments, Curtis and his brigade advanced at a
run to a line close behind the sharp-shooters while Pennypacker's
brigade moved into the trench just vacated and Bell and his men came
within two hundred yards of Pennypacker. All this time men were
dropping everywhere under the deadly fire from the traverses. It was
not the blind fire with the bullets whistling and humming overhead
which the men had learned to disregard, but it was a scattering
irregular series of well-aimed shots of which far too many took effect.
The loss in officers especially was tremendous and equal to that of any
battle in the war. More than half of the officers engaged were shot
that day while one man in every four of the privates went down.
When the men had at last taken their final positions, the fire of the
vessels was directed to the sea-face of the fort and a strong naval
detachment charged, with some of Ames' infantry of the land-forces, at
the sea angle of the fort. The besieged ran forward a couple of light
guns loaded with double charges of canister and grape and rushed to the
angle all of their available forces. The canister and the heavy
musketry fire were too much for the bluejackets and they were compelled
to slowly draw back out of range while the Confederates shouted taunts
after them.
"Come aboard, you sailors," they yelled; "the captain's ladder is right
this way. What you hangin' back for?"
[Illustration: Attacking the Inner Traverses of Fort Fisher]
The last words were drowned in a tremendous Rebel yell as they saw the
bluejackets break and retreat out of range. The Confederates, however,
had cheered too soon. In manning the sea-wall they had weakened too
much the defenses on the landward side and the word was given for all
three brigades to attack at once. The color-bearers of all the
regiments ran forward like madmen, headed by the officers and all
sprinting as if running a two hundred and twenty-yard dash. The
officers and the color-bearers of all three brigades reached the outer
lines almost at the same time. With a rush and a yell they were up over
the outer wall and forming inside for the attack on the inner traverses
which yet remained. It was desperate work and the hardest fighting of
the day was done around these inner bomb-proofs, each one of which was
like a little fort in miniature. The crisis came when the first brigade
was barely keeping its foothold on the west end of the parapet while
the enemy which had repulsed the bluejackets were moving over in a
heavy column to drive out Curtis' panting men. It was at this moment
that the boy-general Pennypacker showed himself the hero of the day. He
had already carried the palisades and the sally-port and had taken four
hundred prisoners and then wheeled and charged to the rescue of Curtis'
exhausted men. Ahead of them was the fifth traverse which must be
stormed and crossed before Curtis' men could be relieved. Already the
men were wavering and it was a moment which called for the finest
qualities of leadership. Pennypacker himself seized the colors of the
97th Pennsylvania, his old regiment, and calling on his men to follow,
charged up the broken side of the fifth traverse. His troops swarmed up
after him side by side with the men of the 203d Pennsylvania and the
soldiers of the 117th New York, but Pennypacker was the first man to
fix the regimental flag on the parapet and shouted to Colonel Moore of
the other Pennsylvania regiment:
"Colonel, I want you to take notice that the first flag up is the flag
of my old regiment."
Before Colonel Moore had time to answer, he pitched over with a bullet
through his heart and Colonel Bell was killed at the head of his
brigade as he came in. The gigantic Curtis was fighting furiously with
the blood streaming down from his face. Just at that moment, at the
head of his men, General Pennypacker fell over, so badly wounded that
never from that time to this was a day to pass free from pain. His work
was done, however. His men fought fiercely to avenge his fall, broke up
the enemies' intended attack, freed the first brigade and all three
forces joined and swept through the traverses, capturing them one by
one until the last and strongest fort of the Confederacy had fallen.
The only remaining gateway to the outer world was closed. After the
fall of Fort Fisher, it was only a few months to Appomattox. One of the
bloodiest and most successful assaults of the war had succeeded.
General Grant ordered a hundred-gun salute in honor of the victory from
each of his armies. The Secretary of War, Stanton, himself, ran his
steamer into Wilmington and landed to thank personally in the name of
President Lincoln the brave fighters who had won a battle which meant
the close of the war.
General Pennypacker was to survive his wounds. This was the seventh
time that he had been wounded in eight months. At the close of the war
he was made colonel in the regular army, being the youngest man who
ever held that rank, and was placed in command of various departments
in the South and was the first representative of the North to introduce
the policy of conciliation. Later on he went abroad and met Emperor
William of Germany, the Emperor of Austria and Prince Bismarck and von
Moltke, that war-worn old general, who shook hands with him and said
that as the oldest general in the world, he was glad to welcome the
youngest.
So ends the story of a great battle where a boy showed that he could
fight as bravely and think as quickly and hold on as enduringly as any
man. What the boys of '64 could do, the boys of 1915 can and will do if
ever a time comes when they too must fight for their country.