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THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY
Every Child Can Read
Edited by
REV. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D.
Illustrated
[Illustration: STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK IN CULEBRA CUT, PANAMA CANAL.]
[Illustration]
The John C. Winston Co.
Philadelphia
Copyright, 1910, By
The John C. Winston Co.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
A Talk with the Young Reader 9
CHAPTER I
COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR
Bold Sailors of the Northern Countries--The
Northmen--Columbus the Little Boy--Columbus
and the Egg--He Crosses the Atlantic, Braves
the Sea and Discovers New Land 15
CHAPTER II
THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS
John and Sebastian Cabot--Balboa Discovers the
Pacific--The Fountain of Youth and Ponce de
Leon--The Naming of America 27
CHAPTER III
THREE EARLY HEROES
The Story of John Smith and First English
Settlement--Miles Standish and the Pilgrims--Roger
Williams, the Hero Preacher 36
CHAPTER IV
HOW THE DUTCH AND QUAKERS CAME TO AMERICA
Captain Hudson and His Ship, the _Half Moon_--The
Trip up the Hudson--Adventures with the
Indians--William Penn and the Quakers--How They
Settled on the Delaware River 48
CHAPTER V
THE CAVALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH
The Cavaliers and Lords of England--They Settle
in Virginia--The Catholics Come to Maryland--Strange
Form of Government in Carolina--Paupers Settle
Georgia--An Old Spanish Town in Florida 59
CHAPTER VI
THE RED MEN, HOW THEY LIVED AND WERE TREATED
They Were the First Americans--Their Strange Customs
and Manners--How They Followed a Trail--How they
Fought--Indian Massacres 70
CHAPTER VII
ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS
How the Governor was Treated in Connecticut--The
Charter Oak--An Exciting Time in Virginia 81
CHAPTER VIII
OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES
When a Tallow Candle Gave the Light--Old-Time
Houses--The Story of the Famous Hunter, and How
he Escaped from the Indians 91
CHAPTER IX
A HERO OF THE COLONIES
Two Boys who Crossed the Mountains--Their Adventures
with the Indians--George Washington, the
Surveyor--Messenger to the French--An Old-Time Hero 101
CHAPTER X
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
The Acadians--Their Home in Nova Scotia--Their
Sufferings--The Story of Evangeline--Why the Indians
Helped the French--The Story of a Cruel War 112
CHAPTER XI
THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION
How the Trouble Began--The Americans Object to Paying
Taxes on Various Articles--The Famous Boston Tea
Party--Battle of Lexington--Declaration of
Independence 121
CHAPTER XII
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
Washington the Commander-in-Chief--Bunker Hill--The
Wonderful Christmas--The Americans Succeed--They
Meet Defeat--"Molly Stark a Widow"--Help from France 133
CHAPTER XIII
PAUL JONES, THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION
Old-Time Warships--A Daring Deed--A Great Sea Fight--The
British Captain Surrenders 143
CHAPTER XIV
MARION, THE SWAMP FOX
How the War Went in the South--The Patriots Hard to
Find--The British Officers Eat Sweet Potatoes--Jack
Davis' Adventure--General Greene and his Famous
Retreat--Cornwallis Surrenders--The War at an End 153
CHAPTER XV
THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE
How the People Rule--Illustrated by a Story--Our First
Trial and Failure--Making a New Form of Government--A
Nation of Thirteen States--The President--The
Congress--The Judges 162
CHAPTER XVI
THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE
Washington the First President--Beloved by
Everyone--Benjamin Franklin's Last Hours--The Kind
of Money They Used--How the Quarrel was
Settled--Washington Dies 170
CHAPTER XVII
THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN
The Power of Steam--Is a Boat Like a Duck--Who
Thought of the First Steamboat--The Cotton Gin
and How it Saves Labor--Where the Cotton Grows 176
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ENGLISH AND AMERICANS FIGHT AGAIN
How We Came to Quarrel with England--Protecting
the American Sailor--Interesting Land
Battles--Adventures at Sea--Peace is Made Again 184
CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO WERE AVENGED
How General Santa Anna Got into Trouble--Massacre
of the Alamo--The Famous Samuel Houston--War with
Mexico--The City of Mexico--Santa Anna is Defeated
and United States is Victorious 193
CHAPTER XX
HOW SLAVERY LED TO WAR
Black and White Slaves--First Slaves Brought to
America in 1619--Why the Slaves were Used in the
South--Why the North did not Believe in Slavery--What
the word Abolitionist Means--John Brown and Harper's
Ferry 201
CHAPTER XXI
HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT
The Ruler of the Republic--The President Chosen from
the People--Why the People Liked Him--Lincoln's School
Days--The North and South Differ--Lincoln, the Great
War President 208
CHAPTER XXII
THE GREAT CIVIL WAR
What Civil War is--Where the War was Fought--Battle of
Bull Run--"Stonewall" Jackson--General Ulysses S.
Grant and How He Came to Command the Army--His
"Unconditional Surrender" Message--Battle of
Gettysburg 215
CHAPTER XXIII
WAR ON SEA AND LAND
Fight Between the "Cheesebox" and the Ram--How the
Monitor Won the Fight--The Battle "Above the
Clouds"--Battle of the Wilderness--Sherman's March
to the Sea--Richmond Surrenders and the War Closes 225
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WASTE OF WAR AND THE WEALTH OF PEACE
What is Seen on the Picture of History--A Reign of
Peace in America--The Ocean Cable and the
Railroad--Alaska and its Treasures--The Burning
of Chicago and other Disasters--Edison and His
Work--The Triumphs of Electricity 234
CHAPTER XXV
THE MARVELS OF INVENTION
Professor Morse, the Famous Inventor--His Struggles
and His Success--The First Message--Telephone and
Other Inventions of Electricity--New Ideas in
Machinery and the Comfort they Bring 242
CHAPTER XXVI
HOW THE CENTURY ENDED FOR THE UNITED STATES
The Nation's Birthplace--Centennial Exhibition and
Columbian World's Fair--Our People's Progress--The
Indians--Trouble in Cuba--War with Spain--Santiago
and its Fleet--Dewey at Manila 253
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW A HUNTER BECAME PRESIDENT
Assassination of President McKinley--Theodore
Roosevelt's Great Ride--His Election by the
People--The Panama Canal--Roosevelt Declines
Re-election and Goes to Africa 266
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK IN CULEBRA CUT, PANAMA CANAL _Frontispiece_
PAGE
COLUMBUS AND THE EGG 25
WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE 137
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 191
THE STORMING OF CHAPULTEPEC 199
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AND THEIR FAMOUS AEROPLANE 242
CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT 258
ROOSEVELT SURPRISED BY A GIANT HIPPOPOTAMUS 266
A TALK WITH THE YOUNG READER ABOUT THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY
IF any of the readers of this book should have the chance to take a
railroad ride over the vast region of the United States, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico, they would see a wonderful display of cities and towns, of
factories and farms, and a great multitude of men and women actively at
work. They would behold, spread out on every side, one of the busiest
and happiest lands the sun shines upon. Here and there, amid the miles
on miles of farms, they might see a forest, here and there a wild beast,
here and there a red-faced Indian, one of the old people of the land;
but these would be almost lost in the rich and prosperous scene.
If our young traveler knew nothing of history he might fancy that it had
been always this way, or that it had taken thousands of years for all
those cities to be built and these great fields to be cleared and
cultivated. Yet if he had been here only three hundred years ago he
would have seen a very different sight. He could not then have gone over
the country by railroad, for such a thing had never been thought of. He
could not have gone by highroad, for there was not a road of any kind in
the whole length and breadth of the land. Nowhere in this vast country
would he have seen a city or town; nowhere a ploughed field, a
farmhouse, or a barn; nowhere a horse, cow, or sheep; nowhere a man with
a white or a black face. Instead of great cities he would have seen only
clusters of rude huts; instead of fertile farms, only vast reaches of
forest; instead of tame cattle, only wild and dangerous beasts; instead
of white and black men, only red-skinned savages.
Just think of it! All that we see around us is the work of less than
three hundred years! No doubt many of you have read in fairy tales of
wonderful things done by the Genii of the East, of palaces built in a
night, of cities moved miles away from their sites. But here is a thing
as wonderful and at the same time true, a marvel wrought by men instead
of magical beings. These great forests have fallen, these great fields
have been cleared and planted, these great cities have risen, these
myriads of white men have taken the place of the red men of the wild
woods, and all within a period not longer than three times the life of
the oldest men now living. Is not this as wonderful as the most
marvelous fairy tale? And is it not better to read the true tale of how
this was done than stories of the work of fairies and magicians? Let us
forget the Genii of the East; men are the Genii of the West, and the
magic of their work is as great as that we read of in the fables of the
"Arabian Nights."
The story of this great work is called the "History of the United
States." This story you have before you in the book you now hold. You do
not need to sit and dream how the wonderful work of building our noble
nation was done, for you can read it all here in language simple enough
for the youngest of you to understand. Here you are told how white men
came over the seas and found beyond the waves a land none of them had
ever seen before. You are told how they settled on these shores, cut
down the trees and built villages and towns, fought with the red men and
drove them back, and made themselves homes in the midst of fertile
fields. You are told how others came, how they spread wider and wider
over the land, how log houses grew into mansions, and villages into
cities, and how at length they fought for and gained their liberty.
Read on and you will learn of more wonderful things still. The history
of the past hundred years is a story of magic for our land. In it you
will learn of how the steamboat was first made and in time came to be
seen on all our rivers and lakes; of how the locomotive was invented and
railroads were built, until they are now long enough in our country to
go eight times round the earth; of the marvels of the telegraph and
telephone--the talking wire; of the machines that rumble and roar in a
thousand factories and work away like living things, and of a multitude
of marvels which I cannot begin to speak of here.
And you will learn how men kept on coming, and wars were fought, and new
land was gained, and bridges were built, and canals were dug, and our
people increased and spread until we came to be one of the greatest
nations on the earth, and our cities grew until one of them was the
largest in the world except the vast city of London. All this and more
you may learn from the pages of this book. It is written for the boys
and girls of our land, but many of their fathers and mothers may find it
pleasant and useful to read.
There are hundreds who do not have time to read large histories, which
try to tell all that has taken place. For those this little history will
be of great service, in showing them how, from a few half-starved
settlers on a wild coast, this great nation has grown up. How men and
women have come to it over the seas as to a new Promised Land. How they
have ploughed its fields, and gathered its harvests, and mined its iron
and gold, and built thousands of workshops, and fed the nations with
the food they did not need for themselves. Year by year it has grown in
wealth, until now it is the richest country in the world. Great it is,
and greater it will be. But I need say no more. The book has its own
story to tell. I only lay this beginning before you as a handy
stepping-stone into the history itself. By its aid you may cross the
brook and wander on through the broad land which lies before you.
THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY
CHAPTER I
COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR
IF any of my young readers live in Chicago they will remember a
wonderful display in that city in 1893. Dozens of great white buildings
rose on the shore of the lake, as beautiful as fairy palaces, and filled
with the finest of goods of all kinds, which millions of people came to
see.
Do you know what this meant? It was what is called a World's Fair, and
was in honor of a wonderful event that took place four hundred years
before.
Some of you may think that white men have always lived in this country.
I hope you do not all think so, for this is not the case. A little more
than four hundred years ago no white man had ever seen this country, and
none knew that there was such a country on the face of the earth.
It was in the year 1492, that a daring sailor, named Christopher
Columbus, crossed a wide ocean and came to this new and wonderful land.
Since then men have come here by the millions, and the mighty nation of
the United States has grown up with its hundreds of towns and cities.
In one of these, which bears the name of Chicago, the grand Columbian
World's Fair was held, in honor of the finding of America by the great
navigator four hundred years before.
This is what I have set out to tell you about. I am sure you will all be
glad to know how this broad and noble land, once the home of the wild
red men, was found and made a home for the white people of Europe.
Some of you may have been told that America was really discovered more
than four hundred years before Columbus was born. So it was. At that
time some of the bold sailors of the northern countries of Europe, who
made the stormy ocean their home, and loved the roll of the waves, had
come to the frozen island of Iceland. And a ship from Iceland had been
driven by the winds to a land in the far west which no man had ever seen
before. Was this not America?
Soon after, in the year 1000, one of these Northmen, named Leif Ericson,
also known as Leif the Lucky, set sail for this new land. There he found
wild grapes growing, and from them he named it Vinland. This in our
language would be called Wineland.
After him came others, and there was fighting with the red men, whom
they called Skrellings. In the end the Northmen left the country, and
before many years all was forgotten about it. Only lately the story has
been found again in some old writings. And so time went on for nearly
five hundred years more, and nothing was known in Europe about the land
beyond the seas.
Now let us go from the north to the south of Europe. Here there is a
kingdom called Italy, which runs down into the Mediterranean Sea almost
in the shape of a boot. On the western shore of this kingdom is a famous
old city named Genoa, in which many daring sailors have dwelt; and here,
long ago, lived a man named Columbus, a poor man, who made his living by
carding wool.
This poor wool-carder had four children, one of whom (born about 1436)
he named Christopher. Almost everybody who has been at school in the
world knows the name of this little Italian boy, for he became one of
the most famous of men.
Many a boy in our times has to help his father in his shop. The great
Benjamin Franklin began work by pouring melted tallow into moulds to
make candles. In the same way little Columbus had to comb wool for his
father, and very likely he got as tired of wool as Franklin did of
candles.
The city he lived in was full of sailors, and no doubt he talked to many
of them about life on the wild waters, and heard so many stories of
danger and adventure that he took the fancy to go to sea himself.
At any rate we are told that he became a sailor when only fourteen
years old, and made long and daring voyages while he was still young.
Some of those were in Portuguese ships down the coast of Africa, of
which continent very little was known at that time. He went north, too;
some think as far as Iceland. Who knows but that he was told there of
what the Northmen had done?
Columbus spent some time in the island of Madeira, far out in the
Atlantic ocean, and there the people told him of strange things they had
seen. These had come over the seas before the west winds and floated on
their island shores. Among them were pieces of carved wood, and canes so
long that they would hold four quarts of wine between their joints. And
the dead bodies of two men had also come ashore, whose skins were the
color of bronze or copper.
These stories set Columbus thinking. He was now a man, and had read many
books of travel, and had studied all that was then known of geography.
For a time he lived by making maps and charts for ship captains. This
was in the city of Lisbon, in Portugal, where he married and settled
down and had little boys of his own.
At that time some of the most learned people had odd notions about the
earth. You may have seen globes as round as an orange, with the
countries laid out on them. But the people then had never seen such a
globe, and the most of them thought that the earth was as flat as a
table, and that any one who sailed too far over the ocean would come to
the edge of the earth and fall off.
This seems very absurd, does it not? But you must remember that people
then knew very little about the earth they lived on, and could not
understand how people could keep on a round globe like flies on a ball
of glass.
But there were some who thought the earth to be round, and Columbus was
one of these.
At that time silk and spices and other rich goods were brought from
China and India, thousands of miles to the east, by caravans that
traveled overland. Columbus thought that by sailing west, over the broad
Atlantic, he would come to these far countries, just as a fly may walk
around the surface of an orange, and come to the place it started from.
The more Columbus thought about this, the more certain he became that he
was right. He was so sure of it that he set out to try and make other
people think the same way. He wanted ships with which to sail across the
unknown seas to the west, but he had no money of his own to buy them
with.
Ah! what a task poor Columbus now had. For years and years he wandered
about among the kings and princes of Europe, but no one would believe
his story, and many laughed at him and mocked him.
First he tried Genoa, the city where he was born, but the people there
told him he was a fool or had lost his senses.
Then he went to the king of Portugal. This king was a rascal, and tried
to cheat him. He got his plans from him, and sent out a vessel in
secret, hoping to get the honor of the discovery for himself. But the
captain he sent was a coward and was scared by the rolling waves. He
soon came back, and told the king that there was nothing to be found but
water and storm. King John, of Portugal, was very sorry afterward that
he had tried to rob Columbus of his honor.
Columbus was very angry when he heard what the king had done. He left
Portugal for Spain, and tried to get the king and queen of that country
to let him have ships and sailors. But they were at war with a people
called the Moors, and had no money to spare for anything but fighting
and killing.
Columbus stayed there for seven long years. He talked to the wise men,
but they made sport of him. "If the earth is round," they said, "and you
sail west, your ships will go down hill, and they will have to sail up
hill to come back. No ship that was ever made can do that. And you may
come to places where the waters boil with the great heat of the sun; and
frightful monsters may rise out of the sea and swallow your ships and
your men." Even the boys in the street got to laughing at him and
mocking him as a man who had lost his wits.
After these many years Columbus got tired of trying in Spain. He now set
out for France, to see what the king of that country would do. He sent
one of his brothers to England to see its king and ask him for aid.
He was now so poor that he had to travel along the dusty roads on foot,
his little son going with him. One day he stopped at a convent called La
Rabida, to beg some bread for his son, who was very hungry.
The good monks gave bread to the boy, and while he was eating it the
prior of the convent came out and talked with Columbus, asking him his
business. Columbus told him his story. He told it so well that the prior
believed in it. He asked him to stay there with his son, and said he
would write to Isabella, the queen of Spain, whom he knew very well.
So Columbus stayed, and the prior wrote a letter to the queen, and in
the end the wandering sailor was sent for to come back to the king's
court.
Queen Isabella deserves much of the honor of the discovery of America.
The king would not listen to the wandering sailor, but the queen
offered to pledge her jewels to raise the money which he needed for
ships and sailors.
Columbus had won. After years and years of toil and hunger and
disappointment, he was to have ships and sailors and supplies, and to be
given a chance to prove whether it was he or the wise men who were the
fools.
But such ships as they gave him! Why, you can see far better ones every
day, sailing down your rivers. Two of them did not even have decks, but
were like open boats. With this small fleet Columbus set sail from
Palos, a little port in Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492, on one of the
most wonderful voyages that has ever been known.
Away they went far out into the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic ocean
was then called. Mile after mile, day after day, on and on they went,
seeing nothing but the endless waves, while the wind drove them steadily
into the unknown west.
The sailors never expected to see their wives and children again. They
were frightened when they started, and every day they grew more scared.
They looked with staring eyes for the bleak fogs or the frightful
monsters of which they had been told. At one place they came upon great
tracts of seaweed, and thought they were in shallow water and would be
wrecked on banks of mud. Then the compass, to which they trusted,
ceased to point due north and they were more frightened than ever. Soon
there was hardly a stout heart in the fleet except that of Columbus.
The time came when the sailors grew half mad with fear. Some of them
made a plot to throw Columbus overboard and sail home again. They would
tell the people there that he had fallen into the sea and been drowned.
It was a terrible thing to do, was it not? But desperate men will do
dreadful things. They thought one man had better die than all of them.
Only good fortune saved the life of the great navigator.
One day a glad sailor called his comrades and pointed over the side. A
branch of a green bush was floating by with fresh berries on it. It
looked as if it had just been broken off a bush. Another day one of them
picked from the water a stick which had been carved with a knife. Land
birds were seen flying over the ships. Hope came back to their hearts.
They were sure now that land must be near.
October 11th came. When night fell dozens of men were on the lookout.
Each wanted to be the first to see land. About 10 o'clock that night,
Columbus, who was looking out over the waves, saw a light far off. It
moved up and down like a lantern carried in a man's hand.
Hope now grew strong. Every eye looked out into the darkness. About two
o'clock in the morning came the glad cry of "Land! Land!" A gun was
fired from the leading vessel. One of its sailors had seen what looked
like land in the moonlight. You may be sure no one slept any more that
night.
When daylight came the joyful sailors saw before them a low, green
shore, on which the sunlight lay in beauty; men and women stood on it,
looking in wonder at the ships, which they thought must be great
white-winged birds. They had never seen such things before. We can
hardly think what we would have done if we had been in their place.
When the boats from the ships came to the shore, and Columbus landed,
clad in shining armor, and bearing the great banner of Spain, the simple
natives fell to the ground on their faces. They thought the gods had
come from heaven to visit them.
Some of the red-skinned natives wore ornaments of gold. They were asked
by signs where they had got this gold, and pointed south. Soon all were
on board again, the ships once more spread their sails, and swiftly they
flew southward before the wind.
Day by day, as they went on, new islands arose, some small, some large,
all green and beautiful. Columbus thought this must be India, which
he had set out to find, and he called the people Indians. He never
knew that it was a new continent he had discovered.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.]
The month of March of the next year came before the little fleet sailed
again into the port of Palos. The people hailed it with shouts of joy,
for they had mourned their friends as dead.
Fast spread the news. When Columbus entered Barcelona, where the king
and queen were, bringing with him new plants, birds and animals, strange
weapons, golden ornaments, and some of the red-skinned natives, he was
received as if he had been a king. He was seated beside the king; he
rode by his side in the street; he was made a grandee of Spain; all the
honors of the kingdom were showered on him.
We here recall the incident of Columbus and the egg. A dinner was given
in his honor and many great men were there. The attention Columbus
received made some people jealous. One of them with a sneer asked
Columbus if he did not think any one else could have discovered the
Indies. In answer Columbus took an egg from a dish on the table and
handing it to the questioner asked him to make it stand on end.
After trying several times the man gave it up. Columbus, taking the egg
in his hand, tapping it gently on one end against the top of the table
so as to break the shell slightly, made it balance.
"Any one could do that," said the man. "So any one can discover the
Indies after I have shown him the way," said Columbus.
It was his day of pride and triumph. Poor Columbus was soon to find out
how Spain treated those who had given to it the highest honor and the
greatest riches. Three times again he sailed to the New World, and once
a base Spanish governor sent him back to Spain with chains upon his
limbs. Those chains he kept hanging in his room till he died, and asked
that they should be buried with him.
They who had once given him every honor, now treated him with shameful
neglect. He who had ridden beside the king and dined with the highest
nobles of Spain, became poor, sad and lonely.
He died in 1506, fourteen years after his great discovery.
Then Spain, which had treated him so badly, began to honor his memory.
But it came too late for poor Columbus, who had been allowed to die
almost like a pauper, after he had made Spain the richest country in
Europe.