of our territorial days, remarks Billon. They were of Irish origin and
settled in and around St. Louis, and even at the present day their
descendants are men of influence in Missouri and Illinois.
We find a Patrick Walsh, from the Town of Sligo, in St. Louis in 1820.
Having been a merchant, he was commissioned by the governor a justice of
the peace for the Township of St. Louis.
Patrick Dillon, from Londonderry, came to the United States in 1809. We
find him engaged in the mercantile business in St. Louis as early as
1817. He laid out several additions to St. Louis, and one of the streets
is named in his honor.
Patrick K. Dowling, a Waterford man, came to St. Louis in 1817. One of
his sons, Richard, who died not many years ago, was a very interesting
personage. He possessed a rich fund of historical reminiscences.
Thomas Hanley, who was the first secretary of the Irish Benevolent
Society, came to St. Louis in 1816. He was a merchant.
John Finney and his family came to St. Louis about the year 1818. He and
his sons acquired prominence and position in social and mercantile life.
Arthur McGinnes, born in County Antrim, Ireland, came to St. Louis in
the year 1818. He was a young lawyer of considerable ability and force
of character. He pushed his way to the front, attaining much social
prominence. He removed to Washington, D. C., about the year 1840, where
he continued to reside until his death, in 1848.
William Higgins came with his wife and family from Ireland to St. Louis
in 1820. His youngest daughter, Winifred, married a Mr. Patterson. She
became noted in later years for her princely gifts to charity. She
deserves to have her name perpetuated in marble and bronze.
James Nagle and Hugh Johnson came to St. Louis in 1820. “They were two
young Irishmen of good education,” remarks our annalist. They carried on
a successful mercantile business for many years. After the death of Mr.
Johnson, in 1825, Mr. Nagle entered into the practice of law.
And thus did the exiled children of Erin come to this Key City of the
Mississippi Valley to grace every sphere of life. There is one sphere to
which I have not alluded—that of the sanctuary. And here let me mention
the illustrious name of Most Rev. Peter Richard Kenrick, who was born in
Dublin in 1806, ordained for that diocese in 1832, and soon changed the
field of his labors for America at the earnest solicitation of his
illustrious brother, Francis Patrick, Archbishop of Philadelphia. Bishop
Rosati of St. Louis, desiring a coadjutor, his choice fell on this
brilliant young Irish priest. He was consecrated coadjutor-bishop of St.
Louis in 1841.
DANIEL MORGAN—ABLE TRIBUTE TO THE MOST UNIQUE FIGURE IN THE ANNALS OF
AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS.
_An address delivered before the Society, copy for which was received
too late for publication in Vol. VIII of the Journal._
BY HON. JOSEPH T. LAWLESS, NORFOLK, VA.
_Mr. President and Fellow Members_:
By the grace of your invitation, I have the honor of addressing this
Society a second time. With the invitation was coupled the admonition
that I should devote myself to the subject which our distinguished
President has just announced. Deeply distrusting my ability to
discharge the commission to your entertainment and within the
limitation of time the occasion prescribes, but taking courage from
your desire to have recorded the facts of unwritten history as they
affect the objects of this organization, and relying upon your
patience to hear, though your interest should wane, I have come
tonight in obedience to your summons to speak of the most unique
figure in the annals of American Commonwealths. The place of his birth
unknown even to himself—his parentage wrapped in an oblivion which he
steadfastly refused to penetrate—a farm laborer in the Valley of
Virginia in 1755—a teamster in the British army in the French and
Indian war—he advanced without the aid of adventitious circumstances
to the command of an army of his compatriots and fought and won at the
Cowpens the battle which made possible the triumph at Yorktown!
All this, indeed, did Daniel Morgan. But he did more. He conquered his
own weaknesses, and scorned the allurements of unworthy preferments.
He overcame the excesses of youthful appetite; he flouted the
proffered temptations of a commission in the royal army of Great
Britain while a ragged prisoner of war amidst the snows of Quebec; and
in the hour of his subsequent glory on the field at Saratoga, he
disdained the persuasions of Gates to join the “Conway Cabal” and
remained loyal to Washington and to the liberties of his country.
With his lineage unknown, his birthplace unestablished, his advent
unheralded, and his history but sparsely written, no man can speak
with certainty of the race from which he sprung. But if there be aught
distinctive in racial characteristics; or aught indicative in that
accent of human speech which makes the Irish brogue sound as music on
the ear, Daniel Morgan was of that race which has ennobled Celtic
history, and the lullaby which first soothed him into sleeping was the
crooning of a mother’s voice that spake the Irish tongue. But, my
countrymen, whatever his lineage and wherever the place of his birth,
tonight, on the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of his
greatest battle, when we have assembled in New York’s banquet hall to
honor his memory and to make better known a renown which should be as
firmly established as the liberties of his country, we may well pause
to trace the course of those wonderful activities which have no
parallel in Revolutionary lore.
The earliest, and perhaps his sole biographer, James Graham, declares
he was of Welsh extraction, and that he went to Virginia from the
banks of the Delaware. This declaration is based on a manuscript
prepared for the biographer by Dr. William Hall, of Winchester, who
knew General Morgan in his lifetime and attended his bedside during
his last illness. The uniform refusal of Morgan to discuss his
parentage and the resultant uncertainty which surrounds his racial
extraction, entitle such a statement on the part of a person who was
his friend in life to consideration and respect. But I submit a
statement of another person who knew him during life to substantiate
the belief which exists in Virginia that he was of Irish blood.
The grandmother of Colonel Charles Triplett O’Ferrall, a late Governor
of that Commonwealth, lived near and knew Daniel Morgan. During a
close association at Richmond, Governor O’Ferrall frequently told me
anecdotes of him which he learned from the lips of his grandmother,
who in her early life saw much of Morgan and was present at his
funeral. In reciting some of these anecdotes the Governor would
imitate the Irish brogue which appeared to distinguish the accent of
Morgan. Born within a few miles of Morgan’s home, O’Ferrall lived in
the Valley all his life and for twelve years represented that District
in the House of Representatives of the United States. Three times in
that body he introduced a bill having for its object the erection of a
monument to mark the grave of Morgan. No citizen gave more thought to
the personality of the man and his career as a soldier than did
Governor O’Ferrall. In his published memoirs he closes the last
chapter with a tribute to him and expresses the hope that some
successor in Congress from the Valley District will be able to
persuade Congress to mark his lowly grave. “I had set my heart on its
passage,” he says, on page 358; “every emotion of my soul was aroused
in its behalf. I had carefully studied the hero’s life and character
and it read like a romance to me.” Concerning Morgan’s brogue, he
could not have been misinformed by his grandmother. _Res ipsa
loquitur._ Himself of Irish extraction and as game a cavalryman as
ever drew a blade, who can doubt that it was because of the blood that
ran in Morgan’s veins, scarcely less than his services to his country,
that impelled O’Ferrall to so interest himself in his career?
When about the age of seventeen, in the year 1753, a tall, raw-boned
boy, calling himself Daniel Morgan, “turned up” near the village of
Winchester in Virginia. There was nothing about him to excite the good
opinion of those frontiersmen, except his willingness to work. He had
scant acquaintance with the three R’s. His writing was barely legible;
his reading, painful to everybody who heard—especially to himself; his
knowledge of the simplest principles of arithmetic, was small; his
manners were rude; and his conversation so unpolished as to class him
with the humblest order of men. The only occupation he understood was
that of a land-grubber and rail-splitter, and it was at these hard
tasks that he sought employment. He found it. And such was his
strength and his industry that no man engaged Daniel Morgan to clear a
piece of new land or to split white-oak rails for a snake-fence and
ever regretted his contract! Within a year he became a wagoner for
Nathaniel Burwell, Esquire. In a little more than two years his
industry and thrift enabled him to purchase a wagon and team of his
own; and then—a forerunner of the Wells Fargo—he established an
express between the Valley and points beyond the Blue Ridge, east of
the Range.
As his fortunes improved, there came improvement in his mind. His
manners, too, changed. The raw-boned boy of seventeen had developed
into the man of twenty-one, and with the development came a reputation
for great physical strength and a courage that was dauntless—great
virtues, always, on the frontier. With these qualities he coupled a
natural wit, a quick intelligence, a manliness, and a frankness of
manner which won the admiration of his sturdy neighbors.
When Braddock landed his army on the upper banks of the Potomac to
make good the claim of his sovereign to the fertile region west of the
Alleghanies, Morgan became a teamster with the ill-fated soldiers and
accompanied the baggage train of the Second Division. In 1756 he was
sent to Fort Chiswell with a wagon-load of supplies. It was while at
this post that he received the terrible beating on his bare back which
would have cost a less hardy man his life. A British lieutenant
insulted him by striking him with the flat of his sword and was
immediately stretched senseless on the ground by a blow from the
teamster’s fist. A drum-head courtmartial sentenced him to receive
five hundred lashes. He was forthwith stripped and tied to a white-oak
tree. At the end of the castigation his flesh hung in tags. But his
spirit was unbroken and King George was never forgiven for the cruelty
his soldiers then inflicted.
When he arrived at about the age of twenty-three, he was a strikingly
handsome man. In height, he was upward of six feet; his frame was
massive and symmetrical; and, without carrying an ounce of superfluous
flesh, his weight was two hundred pounds. But his conduct was not
exemplary. He became at this time a trencherman of distinction. Yet so
powerful was his constitution he was able to bear excess of liquor
without becoming entirely under its influence. As a card player, he
was as skillful as the most skillful, and he used his talent to add to
his estate. So great was his prowess at fisticuffs and so constant his
engagements thereat, that the little town of Berryville in the County
of Clarke, where these combats were always held, is called
“Battletown” to this day by the older residents of the Valley.
This, indeed, was the most unpromising time of Daniel Morgan’s life.
To most of the vices which end in ruin, he was addicted. But, in the
Providence of God, he was not overwhelmed. Grave faults, indeed, he
had in plenty; but they appear to have proceeded, not from a depraved
heart but from the rollicking, devil-may-care nature of a young
frontiersman. Without parents to advise or friends to admonish, his
bold wayward spirit was conscious of no restraint when impulse
impelled it to action. What he needed to round the man was adventurous
enterprise—dangerous commissions! The dash within him—the spirit of
command—needed war. And, war came! Like Hotspur, he must have blows
and “pass them current, too.”
First it was “Lord Dunmore’s War” for the protection of the frontier
against the Indians under Chief Logan and Cornstalk. General Andrew
Lewis, an Irishman born and thirteen years of age before he left
Ireland for Virginia, was ordered to raise four regiments in the
Southwestern counties; and while Lewis was organizing his forces,
Morgan, now holding a commission by grace of William Nelson, Esquire,
President of His Majesty’s Council and Commander-in-chief of the
Colony and Dominion of Virginia, took the field under Major Angus
McDonald. He became at once an active factor. His splendid judgment,
his knowledge of woodcraft, his understanding of the Indian character
and their methods of warfare, his boldness and his courage, soon
distinguished him among his comrades in arms as a man fit for
leadership.
“Lord Dunmore’s War” ended with the defeat of Cornstalk at Point
Pleasant and Morgan’s command turned homeward. When they reached the
mouth of the Hockhocking, those stupendous events which had been
happening in England and the Colonies during their absence became
known to these Virginians, fresh from the wilderness. They learned
that the Parliament of Great Britain had ordered the port of Boston to
be closed. They were informed that the General Assembly of the mother
colony had protested against such despotic legislation. They were told
with solemn voices that representatives of the people were then
assembled at Philadelphia to consider ways and means to resist the
encroachments of the crown. And then and there, amidst the solitude of
that wilderness, far from the outposts of civilization, Daniel Morgan
and his band of liberty-loving Virginians resolved upon their course.
“Upon hearing these things,” he wrote in an all-too-inadequate sketch
of his military services, “we, as an army victorious, formed ourselves
into a society, pledging our words of honor to each other to assist
our brethren of Boston in case hostilities should commence.” I need
not ask you New Englanders tonight how well they kept that pledge!
On the 22d day of June, 1775, by a unanimous vote of the Committee of
Safety of Frederick County, he was appointed to command one of the two
companies of Riflemen which the Continental Congress had ordered to be
raised in Virginia. “In less than ten days after the receipt of his
commission,” says Graham, “he raised a company of ninety-six young,
hardy woodsmen, full of spirit and enthusiasm and practised marksmen
with the rifle. John Humphreys, who was killed in the assault on
Quebec, was his first lieutenant. William Heth, afterwards a Colonel,
who greatly distinguished himself in the subsequent events of the war,
was his second lieutenant. His ensign was Charles Porterfield,
afterwards a Colonel, and an officer who by his many brilliant and
daring achievements had earned a proud name among the defenders of his
country, and was rapidly rising to distinction when he fell in the
bloody field of Camden. A finer body of men than those who composed
his company are seldom seen. One that rendered better service, or that
shed a brighter lustre on the arms of their country, never had
existence.”
In twenty-one days, Morgan, at the head of this company, each Rifleman
wearing a cap with the legend “Liberty or Death,” marched a distance
of six hundred miles to Boston, and when the roll was called every
member of the command was present and ready for duty.
He was now come for the first time on that broader field of action in
which he won a renown which will never die. It is not my purpose to
dwell on the hardships of that extraordinary march into Canada led by
Arnold. The sufferings endured by the Americans in the midst of the
snow’s and ice of the Canadian winter are beyond the power of human
speech to depict. Half-clad, bare of foot or shod only with moccasins,
half-starving, with their comrades in arms dropping in their weary
tracks to die—such sufferings could only be endured by men whose
natural hardihood and love of country could not be overwhelmed by the
agonies of physical torture. At intervals, some helpless hero would be
overcome by the hardships of the march and tenderly laid aside to die,
with a single devoted comrade to hunt for a squirrel or jay or to
gather wild herbs for his food, the while he watched his expiring
breath and caught the last whispered message of affection for the
loved ones at home. Morgan himself was dressed in a costume similar to
that of an Indian. He wore leggings and a cloth about the middle. His
thighs were bare and their laceration because of it was painfully
obvious. But he appeared to be impervious to pain. Judge Henry, who
was a member of the expedition, in his “Campaign” describes Morgan at
this time as being “a large, strong-bodied personage”—“with a
stentorian voice”—“whose appearance gave the idea history has left us
of Belisarius.” Those high qualifications for command, which became
more and more distinguished as the war progressed, manifested
themselves on this occasion. He led the vanguard. And in eight weeks’
time he penetrated an unexplored wilderness for six hundred miles and
stood ready with his Riflemen to assault the fortified walls of
gun-fringed and snow-crowned Quebec.
If the fame of Daniel Morgan as one of the most intrepid of soldiers
depended alone on his conduct at the storming of Quebec, it would live
as long as the heroic deeds of the Revolution are remembered of men.
At the height of a tempest in which the blinding snow was driven with
terrible effect, in the early hours of the first day of the New Year,
1775, the assault began. Armed with scaling-ladders and spontoons, as
well as rifles, Morgan’s men, with their captain at their head, were
first over the walls. With a sublime courage and a voice which rang
above the roar of the tempest he commanded his men, and they, with a
devotion as faithful as it was unquestioning, obeyed. Into the heart
of the town they fought their way. But, alas, the brave fellows were
not supported. The disastrous results of the assault—the wounding of
Arnold at its commencement, the death of Montgomery, the brave, while
leading those sixty heroes from New York, and the capture of Morgan,
of the lion’s heart—are tales of devotion which every American
schoolboy knows and which were so extraordinary as to become the
subject of public eulogy in the Commons of Great Britain. With “the
flower of the rebel army,” Morgan was “cooped up” in the town. His
half-starved and poorly clad men were all but frozen in the terrible
northeast storm. Their eyes could not endure the hail; their faces
were “hoar with frost” and weird with pendant icicles; their rifles
were practically useless. Finding himself alone with a few of his men
and a sprinkling of brave Pennsylvanians, and confronted in a narrow
street by his massed enemies, he resolved to cut his way through. The
attempt was madness itself. At last, he stood at bay with his back to
a wall. With tears streaming down his face, he refused to surrender
and challenged his enemies to come and take his sword. A hundred
muskets were levelled at his breast, when several of his men begged
him to resist no further. Denouncing his enemies as cowards, he
acquiesced in the importunities of his followers, but refused to
surrender his sword to any person save a noncombatant priest who
chanced to be near.
The heroism of the Americans in this assault attracted the admiration
of the world. Frederick, of Prussia, praised Montgomery as a military
chieftain. In the British Parliament, Barrè, Montgomery’s veteran
friend and comrade in the war with France which annexed Canada to the
crown, “wept profusely,” in extolling his virtues and the bravery of
his men. Edmund Burke pronounced him a hero and his men brave
patriots. Lord North, in reply for government, cursed the virtues of
the Americans and denounced them as rebels. “The term rebel,” retorted
Fox, “is no certain mark of disgrace. The great assertors of liberty,
the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind in all ages
have been called rebels. We owe the constitution which enables us to
sit in this house to a rebellion.” And North was silent!
It was during his confinement in “The Seminary,” following his
capture, that Morgan was tempted by the British to desert the cause of
his country. Had he been made of common clay he might have yielded. He
was half-naked; the few garments he wore were in tatters; he was a
thousand miles from home; he was a prisoner of war with no prospect of
release. But beneath the ragged hunting shirt of this nobleman from
the Virginia forests beat a heart as full of loyalty as of love for
his country. The polished and generous Governor-General, Sir Guy
Carleton, knew of his wonderful courage in the assault. Through the
mediation of a subordinate, he tendered Morgan in delicate and
diplomatic language “the commission, rank and emoluments of a colonel”
in the British Army. “I hope, sir,” was his disdainful reply, “I hope,
sir, you will never again insult me in my present distressed and
unfortunate situation by making me offers which plainly imply that you
think me a scoundrel.”
On the 10th day of August, 1776, the prisoners of war in Quebec were
released on parole, and a month later landed from the transports at
Elizabethtown Point. General Washington gave Morgan a flattering
reception. His high qualifications as an officer had become known
throughout the army, and the Commander-in-chief desired to avail of
his talents at once. From the Heights of Harlem, on the 20th day of
September, 1776, General Washington addressed a communication to the
President of Congress urging the appointment of Morgan to succeed
Colonel Hugh Stephenson of the Rifle Regiment lately ordered to be
raised. He stated “his conduct as an officer, in the expedition with
General Arnold last fall, his intrepid behavior in the assault on
Quebec, when the brave Montgomery fell, the inflexible attachment he
professed to our cause during his imprisonment, and which he
perseveres in,” all entitled him “to the favor of Congress.” After his
release from his parole, Congress acted on the recommendation and
Captain Morgan became “a Colonel of the Eleventh Regiment of Virginia
in the army of the United States.” Before the year 1776 closed he was
once more in the field of active operations.
He was ordered northward with a regiment of his own recruiting to
check the ravages of the Indians attached to Burgoyne’s army. During
that ever memorable campaign under Gates, Morgan and his men were in
the thick of every engagement until the capitulation of the British at
Saratoga. “Sir, you command the finest regiment in the world,” was
Burgoyne’s outburst to him when they were introduced after the
surrender. And in his “Review of the Evidence taken before the House
of Commons,” in which Burgoyne’s conduct was a subject of
investigation, in speaking of Morgan’s regiment having driven the
British light infantry from the field and attacked them in their
entrenchments, Burgoyne remarks: “If there can be any person who,
after considering that circumstance and the positive proof of the
subsequent obstinacy of the attack on the post of Lord Balcarras, and
various other actions of the day, continue to doubt that the Americans
possess the _quality_ and _faculty_ of fighting (call it by whatever
term they please) they are of a prejudice that it would be very absurd
longer to contend with.”