INDEX
INTRODUCTION
As my journey was among scenes and things hallowed to the feelings of
every American, I felt a hope that a record of the pilgrimage,
interwoven with that of the facts of past history, would attract the
attention, and win to the perusal of the chronicles of our Revolution
many who could not be otherwise decoyed into the apparently arid and
flowerless domains of mere history. I accordingly determined to make the
record of the tour to the important localities of the Revolution a
leading feature in the work. Here another difficulty was encountered. So
widely scattered are those localities, and so simultaneous were many of
the events, that a connected narrative of the journey must necessarily
break up the chronological unity of the history, and, at times, produce
some confusion. To give incidents of the journey, and sketches and
descriptions of the scenery and relics as they appear at present, in
fragmentary notes, would deny to the work the charm of a book of travel,
and thus almost wholly remove the prime object in view in giving such
narrative. The apparently less objectionable course was chosen, and the
history was broken into fragments, arranged, in the exhibition, in
accordance with the order in which each locality was visited, the
fragments individualized as much as possible, yet always maintaining a
tie of visible relationship with the whole. The apparent difficulties in
the way of the student which this plan suggests, are removed by the aid
of a complete Analytical Index at the close of the work, while the
narrative of the tour remains unbroken, except by the continually
recurring appendices of history. How far this arrangement shall
accomplish the desired result the candid judgment of the reader must
determine.
To collect the pictorial and other materials for this work, I traveled
more than eight thousand miles in the Old Thirteen States and Canada,
and visited every important place made memorable by the events of the
war; yet, in all that long and devious journey, through cities and
villages, amid mountains and vast pine forests, along rivers and over
fertile plantations, from New England to Georgia, with no passport to
the confidence, no claim to the regard of those from whom information
was sought, except such as the object of my errand afforded, and
communing with men of every social and intellectual grade, I never
experienced an unkind word or cold repulsion of manner. On the contrary,
politeness always greeted my first salutation, and, when the object of
my visit was announced, hospitality and friendly services were freely
bestowed. Every where the memorials of our Revolution are cherished with
devotional earnestness, and a feeling of reverence for these things
abounds, though kept quiescent by the progressive spirit of the age. To
those who thus aided and cheered me in my enterprise, I here proffer my
sincere thanks. I can not name them all, for they are too numerous, but
they will ever remain cherished "pictures on memory's wall."
It has been said that "diligence and accuracy are the only merits which
a historical writer may ascribe to himself." Neither labor nor care has
been spared in the collection of materials, and in endeavors to produce
a work as free from grave errors as possible. It has imperfections; it
would be foolish egotism to assert the contrary. In the various
histories of the same events many discrepancies appear; these I have
endeavored to reconcile or correct by documentary and other reliable
testimony; and if the work is not more accurate than its predecessors,
it is believed to be equally so with the most reliable. Free use has
been made of the available labors of others in the same department of
literature, always accrediting the source from whence facts were
derived. I have aimed to view men and events with an impartial eye,
censuring friends when they deserved censure, and commending enemies
when truth and justice demanded the tribute. The historical events
recorded were those of a family quarrel concerning vital principles in
jurisprudence; and wisely did a sagacious English statesman console
himself, at the close of the war, with the reflection, " We have been
subdued, it is true, but, thank Heaven, the brain and the muscle which
achieved the victory were nurtured by English blood; Old England, upon
the Island of Great Britain, has been beaten only by Young England, in
America." .
In the pictorial department, special care has been observed to make
faithful delineations of fact. If a relic of the Revolution was not
susceptible of picturesque effect in a drawing, without a departure from
truth, it has been left in its plainness, lor my chief object was to
illustrate the subject, not merely to embellish the book. I have
endeavored to present the features of things as I found them, whether
homely or charming, and have sought to delineate all that fell in my way
worthy of preservation. To do this, it was necessary to make the
engravings numerous, and no larger than perspicuity demanded, else the
work would be filled with pictures to the exclusion of essential reading
matter.
The plans of military movements have been drawn chiefly from British
sources, for very few were made by the engineers in the Continental
service. These appear to be generally pretty correct, so far as they
represent the immediate movements of the armies in actual conflict; but
the general topographical knowledge possessed by those engineers, was
quite defective. I have endeavored to detect and correct their
inaccuracies, either in the drawings or in the illustrative
descriptions.
With these general remarks respecting the origin and construction of the
work, it is submitted to the reading public. If a perusal of its pages
shall afford as much pleasure and profitable knowledge as were derived
from the journey and in the arrangement of the materials for the press,
the effort has not been unfruitful of good results. With an ardent
desire that it may prove a useful worker in the maintenance and growth
of true patriotism.
Far o'er yon azure main thy view extend,
Where seas and skies in blue confusion blend..
Lo, there a mighty realm, by Heaven design'd,
The last retreat for poor, oppress'd mankind;
Form'd with that pomp which marks the hand divine,
And clothes yon vault, where worlds unnumber'd shine.
Here spacious plains in solemn grandeur spread;
Here cloudy forests cast eternal shade;
Rich valleys wind, the sky-tall mountains brave,
And inland seas for commerce spread the wave
With nobler floods the sea-like rivers roll,
And fairer luster purples round the pole.
Timothy Dwight.
EVERY nation eminent for its refinement, displayed in the cultivation of
the arts, had its heroic age; a period when its first physical and moral
conquests were achieved, and when rude society, with all its impurities,
was fused and refined in the crucible of progress. When civilization
first set up its standard as a permanent ensign in the Western
hemisphere, northward of the Bahamas and the great Gulf, and the
contests for possession began between the wild Aborigines, who thrust no
spade into the soil, no sickle into ripe harvests, and those earnest
delvers from the Old World, who came with the light of Christianity to
plant a new empire and redeem the wilderness by cultivation, then
commenced the heroic age of America. It ended when the work of the
Revolution, in the eighteenth century, was accomplished; when the bond
of vassalage to Great Britain was severed by her colonies, and when the
thirteen confederated States ratified a federal Constitution, and upon
it laid the broad foundation of our Republic.
Those ancient civilizations, registered by the stylus of history, were
mere gloamings of morning compared with the noontide radiance which now
lights up the Western World; and even the more modern nations of Europe,
brilliant as they appear, have so many dark spots upon the disk of their
enlightenment, that their true glory is really less than that of the
waxing Star in the West. These ancient and modern civilizations, now
past or at their culminating points, were the results of the slow
progress of centuries; the heroic age {xvi}of America, meteor-like, was
brilliant and rapid in its course, occupying the space of only a century
and a half of time from the permanent implanting of a British colony,
weak and dependent, to the founding of our government, which, like
Pallas Athena, was, at its birth, full panoplied, strong, eminently
individual in its character, and full of recuperative energies. The head
of Britannia was cleft by the Vulcan of the Revolution, and from its
teeming brain leaped the full-grown daughter, sturdy and defiant.
Long anterior to the advent of Europeans in America, a native empire,
but little inferior to Old Rome in civilization, flourished in that
region of our continent which now forms the southwestern portion of the
Republic. The Aztec empire, which reached the acme of its refinement
during the reign of Montezuma, and crumbled into fragments when Cortez
dethroned and murdered that monarch, extended over the whole of Central
America: and when 1521. the Spaniards came it was gradually pushing its
conquests northward, where all was yet darkness and gloom. To human
apprehension, this people, apparently allied by various ties to the wild
nations of North America, appeared to be the most efficient instruments
in spreading the light of civilization over the whole continent; yet
they were not only denied this glorious privilege, but, by the very race
which first attempted to plant the seeds of European refinement in
Florida and among the Mobilian tribes, and to shed the illumination of
their dim Christianity over the dreary regions of the North, was their
own bright light extinguished. The Aztecs and their neighbors were
beaten into the dust of debasement by the falchion blows of avarice and
bigotry, and they form, apparently, not the most insignificant atom of
the chain of events which connects the history of the empires of the Old
World with that of our Republic.
It is believed that, two hundred years before the Aztecs subdued the
more ancient people of the Mexican valley and founded Tenochtitlan, * a
handful of rough, half-civilized adventurers from the wintery shores of
Iceland and the neighboring main, driven by adverse winds they knew not
whither, touched upon the bleak shores of Labrador, and traversed the
American continent southward as far as Rhode Island, and, it may be, the
capes of Virginia. ** These supposed first modern discoverers of America
were the children of the "mighty sea kings" of the Teutonic romances-the
Scandinavian _reguli_, who, scorning to own _Gorm the Old_ of Norway,
and _Harold Fairhair_ of Denmark, their conquerors, as masters, forsook
their country and colonized Iceland, Greenland, Shetland, and the Orkney
Islands, whence they sent forth piratical expeditions, which became a
terror to Western Europe. They traded as well as plundered, and by
commerce and conquest became potential. Every coast was visited by their
squadrons, either for war or traffic. They swept over Denmark and
Germany, and by conquest obtained possession of the best portions of
Gaul. *** They invaded the British Islands, and placed the renowned
Canute upon the throne of Alfred. Long before Christianity had shed its
genial rays over their frozen territory of the North, and banished the
barbarous rites of Pagan worship, the lamp of learning had been
* This city was founded about the year 1210, and was afterward called
Mexico, which signifies the place of Mexitli, the Aztec god of war. The
present capital of Mexico is upon the site of that ancient city. The
Aztecs, at that time, were settled in Lower California. They were
divided into six tribes. The Mexican tribe wandered off southward,
subdued the Toltecs, and founded the city around which the whole Aztec
nation subsequently gathered. The Toltecs were far more refined than
their conquerors, and from members of that dispersed nation the Aztecs
were first made acquainted with painting, sculpture, astronomy, and many
of the useful arts, such as working in metals, building bridges and
aqueducts, agriculture, &c.
** See note on page 633.
*** Charles III., called the Simple, the eighth of the Carlovingian
kings of France, ceded to Rolf or Rollo, one of the Northmen chiefs, the
large province called by them Normandy. This event occurred in the year
918. Rollo and his subjects embraced Christianity, and became the
guardians of France against further invasion from the Northmen.
HE story of the American Revolution has been well and often told, and
yet the most careless observer of the popular mind may perceive that a
large proportion of our people are but little instructed in many of the
essential details of that event, so important for every intelligent
citizen to learn. Very few are ignorant of the more conspicuous
circumstances of that period, and all who claim to be well-informed have
a correct general knowledge of the history of our war for independence.
But few even of that intelligent class are acquainted with the location
of the various scenes depicted by the historian, in their relation to
the lakes and rivers, towns and cities, whose names are familiar to the
ears of the present generation. For example: the citizen of Saratoga may
have a thorough knowledge of the memorable places in his own vicinage,
and of the incidents which have hallowed them, yet how puzzled he would
be if asked to tell the inquiring stranger, or his more inquisitive
children, upon what particular stream, or lofty height, or broad plain,
or in what mountain gorge, occurred the battles of Rocky Mount, King's
Mountain, Eutaw Springs, or the Cowpens. These are places widely known
in their respective districts, and the events connected with them form
as important links in the chain of circumstances which were developed in
the progress of the colonies toward independence, as the surrender of
Burgoyne and his army upon the plain at Saratoga. Among this class,
claiming to be generally informed, but ignorant in many particulars,
especially in relation to the character and situation of localities, the
writer places himself; and to an appreciation of the necessity of a more
thorough knowledge of these places, and of the men who are identified
with the Revolution, the reader is partially indebted for the pages
which follow this confession.
To obtain this accurate chorographical knowledge of our early history as
a confederation of states, was not the only incentive to undertake a
journey to the battlefields and other localities hallowed by the events
of the Revolution. My limited observation had perceived many remaining
physical vestiges of that struggle. Half- {viii}hidden mounds of old
redoubts; the ruined walls of some stronger fortification; dilapidated
buildings, neglected and decaying, wherein patriots met for shelter or
in council; and living men, who had borne the musket and knapsack day
after day in that conflict, occasionally passed under the eye of my
casual apprehension. For years a strong desire was felt to embalm those
precious things of our cherished household, that they might be preserved
for the admiration and reverence of remote posterity. I knew that the
genius of our people was the reverse of antiquarian reverence for the
things of the past; that the glowing future, all sunlight and eminence,
absorbed their thoughts and energies, and few looked back to the
twilight and dim valleys of the past through which they had journeyed. I
knew that the invisible fingers of decay, the plow of agriculture, and
the behests of Mammon, unrestrained in their operations by the
prevailing spirit of our people, would soon sweep away every tangible
vestige of the Revolution, and that it was time the limner was abroad.
I knew that, like stars at dawn which had beamed brightly through a long
night, the men of old were fast fading away, and that relics associated
with their trials and triumphs would soon be covered up forever. Other
men, far more competent. than myself to use the pen and pencil, appeared
indisposed to go out into the apparently shorn and unfruitful field upon
which I looked with such covetous delight, except to pick up a grain
here and there for special preservation. I knew that the vigorous
reapers who had garnered the products of that broad field, must have let
fall from their full hands many a precious ear loaded with choice grain,
and I resolved to go out as a gleaner, carefully gather up what they had
left behind, and add the winnings to their store. Like the servants of
Boaz, when Ruth followed the reapers, they seem to have "let fall also
some of the handfuls of purpose for me, that I might glean them," for I
found a far greater abundance than hope had promised. I have "gleaned in
the field until even, and beat out that I have gleaned," and here is my
"ephah of barley."
In the arrangement of a plan for presenting the result of these labors
to the public in an acceptable form many difficulties were perceptible.
Other histories of our Revolution had been written, embellished, and
read; what could be produced more attractive than they? The exciting
literature of the day, ranging in its intoxicating character from the
gross pictures of sensual life drawn by the French writers of fiction,
to the more refined, but not less intoxicating works of popular and
esteemed novelists, so cheaply published and so widely diffused, has
produced a degree of mental dissipation throughout our land,
destructive, in its tendency, to sober and rational desires for imbibing
useful knowledge. Among the young, where this dissipation is most rife,
and deleterious in its effects, it seemed most desirable to have the
story of our Revolution known and its salutary teachings pondered and
improved, for they will be the custodians of our free institutions when
the active men of the present generation shall step aside into the quiet
shadows of old age. Next to tales of love and gallantry, the young mind
is most charmed by the narratives of the traveler. The woof of our
history is too sacred to be interwoven with the tinsel filling of
fiction, and we should have too high a regard for truth to seek the
potential aid of its counterfeit in gaining audience in the ear of the
million; but to the latter taste we may consistently pay court, and in
behalf of sober history, use its {xvii}taken from the cloisters of the
South and placed within their temples, and upon dreary and desolate
Iceland and Norway civilization erected its humanizing altars. Ardent,
imaginative, and devotional, they eagerly accepted Christianity, and it
became to them really a "Star in the East," leading to where "the infant
Jesus laid." It was not to them sr much a personal treasure to he valued
for its immortal blessings, as a glorious idea full of temporal
advantage. It became an intense passion, not a sober belief, and its
warmth generated mighty events. Among them the spirit of chivalry had
its birth and early nurture, and in those unholy wars against the
possessors of the land of Palestine and of the sepulcher of Christ,
called the Crusades, which shook the nations during three consecutive
centuries, these Northmen furnished the bravest leaders.
From such a people, possessed of every attribute necessary to the
successful founding of new empires, having the ocean pathway to a broad
and fertile continent made clear before them, what great results might
not be expected? But, with the prize just within their grasp, they, too,
were denied the honor of first peopling our land; yet their mixed
descendants, the Anglo-Saxons, now possess it. It is supposed that they
attempted settlements, but failed, and in the lapse of centuries their
voyages were forgotten, or only remembered in the songs of their bards
or the sagas of their romancers. For more than five hundred years after
the voyages of those navigators, America was an unknown region; it had
no place upon maps, unless as an imaginary island without a name, nor in
the most acute geographical theories of the learned.** It was reserved
for the son of an humble wool-carder of Genoa to make it known to the
world.
During the first half of the fifteenth century, maritime discoveries
were prosecuted with untiring zeal by the people inhabiting the great
peninsula of Southwestern Europe. The incentives to make these
discoveries grew out of the political condition of Europe and the
promises of great commercial advantages. The rich commerce of the East
centered in Rome, when that empire overshadowed the known world; when it
fell into fragments, the Italian cities continued their monopoly of the
trade of the Indies. Provinces which had become independent kingdoms
became jealous of these cities, so rapidly outstripping them in power
and opulence; and Castile and Portugal, in particular, engaged in
efforts to open a direct trade with the East. The ocean was the only
highway for such commerce toward which they could look with a hope of
success. The errors of geographical science interposed their obstacles;
the belief that a belt of impassable heat girdled the earth at the
equator intimidated mariners, and none were willing to double Cape
Bojador, beyond which was the fancied region of fire.
Prince Henry of Portugal, son of John the First and Philippa of
Lancaster (sister of Henry the Fourth of England), having accompanied
his father into Africa, in an expedition against the Moors, received
much information concerning the mineral riches and fertility of Guinea
and other portions of the coast. The idea of making discoveries along
the African shores filled his mind, and on his return to Portugal he
abandoned the court, retired to a secluded spot near Cape St. Vincent,
in full view of the ocean, and drawing around him the most eminent
scientific men in the kingdom, pursued geographical and nautical
inquiries with untiring zeal. He became convinced that Africa was
circumnavigable, and that the
** "The [Atlantic] Ocean," observes Xerif al Edrisi, an eminent Arabian
writer, quoted by Irving, "encircles the ultimate bounds of tbe
inhabited earth, and all beyond is unknown. No one has been able to
verify any thing concerning it, on account of its difficult and perilous
navigation, its great obscurity, its profound depth, and frequent
tempests; through fear of its mighty fishes and its haughty winds; yet
there are many islands in it, some of which are peopled and others
uninhabited. There is no mariner who dares to enter into its deep
waters; or, if any have done so, they have merely kept along its coasts,
fearful of departing from them. The waves of this ocean, although they
roll as high as mountains, yet maintain themselves without breaking, for
if they broke, it would be impossible for a ship to plow through them."
{xviii}Indies might be leached by doubling its most southerly headlands.
Expeditions were fitted out; the Cape de Verd and the Azore Islands were
discovered; Cape Bojador was passed; the tropical region was penetrated,
and divested of its terrors; and at length the lofty promontory which
terminates Africa on the south, was descried. It was hailed as a
harbinger of the coveted passage to the Indian Seas, and on that account
King John gave it the appellation of the Cape of Good Hope.
The Spaniards were also making maritime discoveries at the same time,
but Lisbon was the point of great attraction to the learned, the
curious, and the adventurous, who were desirous to engage in the
expeditions then continually fitting out there. Among them came
Christopher Columbus, or Colombo, a native of Genoa, then in the vigor
of maturity. * Already he had made many a perilous voyage upon the
ocean, having engaged in the life of a mariner at the age of fourteen
years. The bent of his mind for such pursuits was early discovered by
his father, and in the University of Pavia he was allowed, by a short
course of study, to obtain sufficient elementary knowledge of geometry,
astronomy, geography, and navigation, and of the Latin language,.to
enable him to make those sciences afterward subservient to his genius.
From the commencement of his nautical career to his landing in Portugal,
his history ** is very obscure.
* There is some obscurity and doubt respecting the precise year in which
Columbus was born. Munoz, in his History of the New World, places it in
1446. Mr. Irving, relying upon the authority of Bernaldez, who says that
"he died in 1506, in a good old age, at the age of seventy, a little
more or less," places it in 1436, which would make him about forty-
eight years old when he landed in Portugal.
** This peculiar signature of Columbus is attached to various documents
written by him subsequent to his first voyage. It was customary, in his
time, to precede a signature with the initials (and sometimes with the
words in full) of some pious ejaculation. We accordingly find the
signature of Columbus with initial prefixes, thus:
S
S A S X M Y Xpo FERENS
The interpretation is supposed to be "Sancta! Sancta, Ave, Sancta!
Christo, Maria, Yoseph id est, Christ, Mary, Joseph. The xP° are Greek
letters; the word FERENS Roman capitals. X, or a cross, is the sign for
Christo or Christ, and xp° is an abbreviation of (Greek), anointed, and
expressed the first and chief portion of the Christian name of Columbus.
The Latin word ferens (bearing, carrying, or enduring) expressed not
only the latter portion of his name, but also his character, according
to his own lofty conceptions of his mission. He believed himself to be
Christo ferons, Christ-bearer or Gospel-bearer, to the heathen
inhabitants of an unknown world. It may be added, that Colombo
(Columbus), a dove or pigeon, was doubtless associated, in his
imagination, with the carrier-bird, and had its due weight, not only in
his conceptions of his destiny, but in forming his sign-manual. The
signature to his will is EL ALMI-RANTE (the Admiral), with the above
letters, instead of xp° FERENS.
{xix}In person, Columbus was tall and commanding; in manners,
exceedingly winning and graceful for one unaccustomed to the polish of
courts or the higher orders in society. He was a strict observer of the
rituals of his religion. His piety was not a mere form, but an elevated
and solemn enthusiasm, born of a deep conviction of the vital truths of
Christianity. While in Lisbon, he never omitted religious duties in the
sanctuary. At the chapel of the Convent of _All Saints_, where he was
accustomed to worship, he became acquainted with a young lady of rank
named Donna Felipa, the daughter of Monis de Palestrello, an Italian
cavalier, who had been one of the most distinguished navigators in the
service of Prince Henry. They loved, and were married. His wife's sister
was married to Pedro Correo, a navigator of note. In the family of his
mother-in-law he learned all the incidents of the voyages of her
husband; and the charts, journals, and other manuscripts of that
navigator she delivered to Columbus. These possessions awakened new
aspirations in his mind. He had made himself familiar, by study and
large experience, with all the nautical knowledge of the day, and, in
common with the most enlightened men of his time, he was disposed to
credit the narratives of Plato and other ancient writers respecting the
existence of a continent beyond a glorious island called Atlantis, * in
the waste of waters westward of Europe. Such a continent was necessary
to make his own geographical theory perfect. The gorgeous pictures of
Zipango or Cipangi and Cathay, on the eastern coast of Asia, drawn by
Marco Polo and Mandeville, also excited his warm imagination; and the
alleged apparitions of land seen to the westward by the people of the
Canary Isles were treasured in his mind as great realities. ** His
comprehensive genius constructed a new and magnificent theory, and his
bold spirit stood ready to act in unison with his genius. He based his
whole theory upon the fundamental principle that the earth was a
terraqueous globe, which might be traveled round from east to west, and
that men stood foot to foot at opposite points.
* Ancient writers speak of an island which existed at a very early
period in the Atlantic Ocean, and said to have been eventually sunk
beneath its waves. Plato, who gave the first account of it, says he
obtained his information from the priests of Egypt. The island was
represented to be larger than Asia and Africa, as they were then known,
and beyond it was a large continent. Nine thousand years before Plato's
time, this island was thickly inhabited and very powerful, its sway
extending over all Africa, including Egypt, and also a large portion of
Europe. A violent earthquake, which lasted for the space of a day and a
night, and was accompanied by inundations of the sea, caused the island
to sink, and, for a long period subsequent to this, the sea in this
quarter was impassable by reason of slime and shoals. Learned men of
modern times have been disposed to believe in the ancient existence of
such an island, and suppose the West India Islands to be the higher
portions of the sunken land. If this belief is correct, then the
continent beyond was America.
According to the account given to Plato, Atlantis was the most
productive region upon the earth. It produced wine, grain, and delicious
fruits in abundance. It had wide-spread forests, extensive pasture-
grounds, mines of gold and silver, hot springs, and every luxury for
human enjoyment. It was divided into ten kingdoms, governed by as many
kings, all descendants of Neptune, and living in perfect harmony with
each other. It had splendid cities, rich and populous villages, vast
fortifications, arsenals, and equipments for navies. There was a temple
in the island a stadium (six hundred and six feet nine inches) in
length, dedicated to Neptune. It was ornamented with gold, silver,
orichalcium, and ivory. It contained a golden statue of Neptune,
representing the god as standing in his chariot, and holding the reins
of his winged steeds. Such was the ancient vision.
** So confident were the people of the Canaries that land lay to the
westward of them, that they sought and obtained permission from the King
of Portugal to fit out various expeditions in search of it. A belief was
so prevalent that a Scottish priest named Brandon discovered an island
westward of the Canaries, in the sixth century, that maps, in the time
of Columbus, had the Island of St. Brandon upon them. It was placed
under the equator. {xx}This was seventy years before Copernicus
announced his theory of the form and motion of the planets,a and one
hundred and sixty years before Galileo was obliged, before the court of
the Inquisition at Home, to renounce his belief in the diurnal
revolution of the earth.
Columbus divided the circumference of the earth at the equator,
according to Ptolemy's system, into twenty-four hours of fifteen degrees
each, making three hundred and sixty degrees. Of these he imagined that
fifteen hours had been known to the ancients, extending from the
Fortunate or Canary Islands to the city of Thinoe in Asia, the western
and eastern boundaries of the known world. By the discovery of the Cape
de Verd and the Azore Islands, the Portuguese had advanced the western
frontier one hour, leaving about one eighth of the circumference of the
globe yet to be explored. The extent of the eastern region of Asia was
yet unknown, although the travels of Polo in the fourteenth century had
extended far beyond the Oriental boundary of Ptolemy's map. Columbus
imagined that the unexplored part of Asia might occupy a large portion
of the yet undefined circumference of the earth, and that its eastern
headlands might approach quite near to those of Western Europe and
Africa. He therefore concluded that a navigator, pursuing a direct
course from east to west, must arrive at the extremity of Asia by a far
easier and shorter route than following the coast of Africa around the
Cape of Good Hope. Fortunately, he adopted the opinions of Aristotle,
Pliny, and other writers, who considered the ocean as but of moderate
breadth, so that it might be crossed from Europe in the space of a few
days. A knowledge or suspicion of its actual extent would have deterred
even the bold enterprise of Columbus from attempting an exploration of
its waters in the small ships of that day. Reports of strange trees,
reeds of immense size, curiously-carved pieces of wood, and the bodies
of two men-unlike, in color and visage, any of the known races extant-
having drifted ashore upon the Canary and Azore Islands by westerly
winds, confirmed him in his belief, and a desire and determination to
undertake a demonstration of his theory by an exploring voyage absorbed
his whole attention. "He never spoke in doubt or hesitation," says
Irving, "but with as much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the
Promised Land. A deep religious sentiment mingled with his thoughts, and
gave them at times a tinge of superstition, but of a sublime and lofty
kind. He looked upon himself as standing in the hand of Heaven, chosen
from among men for the accomplishment of its high purpose. He read, as
he supposed, his contemplated discovery foretold in Holy Writ, and
shadowed forth darkly in the prophecies. The ends of the earth were to
be brought together, and all nations, and tongues, and languages united
under the banner of the Redeemer." * The prophetic passage in Pulci's
"Morgante Maggiore" was to him full of promise:
"Know that this theory is false; his bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The Western wave, a smooth and level plain,
Albeit the earth is fashion'd like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mold,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
Beyond the limits he had vainly set **
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way.
Men shall descry another hemisphere,
Since to one common center all things tend.
So earth, by curious mystery divine
* Life and Voyages of Columbus.
** Calpe and Abila, or Gibraltar, on the Spanish, and Cape Serra, on the
African shore of the Straits of Gibraltar, were called the Pillars of
Hercules; it being said, in ancient fable, that Hercules placed them
there as monuments of his progress westward, and beyond which no mortal
could pass.
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
At our antipodes are cities, states,
And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore.
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light."
Prescott's translation of stanza 229, 230, canto xxv.
{xxi}While maturing his plans, Columbus extended the bounds of his
observation and study by a voyage to Thule, or Iceland, from which
remote point he says he advanced one hundred leagues northward,
penetrated the polar circle, and convinced himself of the fallacy of the
popular belief that the frozen zone was uninhabitable.1 Whether he saw,
in Iceland, written accounts of the voyages of the Northmen to America,
or heard of them as related by tradition or chanted in songs, we have no
means of determining. If he did, it is singular, as Prescott remarks,
that they were not cited by him in support of his hypothesis, while
earnestly pressing his suit for aid before the courts of Portugal and
Spain; and it is equally surprising that he did not, in his first voyage
to America, pursue the route traversed by those early navigators. He
probably heard little more than vague rumors of their voyages, such as
presented insufficient data even for a plausible opinion. His
magnificent idea was all his own, sustained by the opinions of a few
learned men, and confirmed by his observations while on this northern
voyage.
Filled with his noble resolutions and lofty anticipations, Columbus
submitted the theory on which rested his belief in a practicable western
route to Asia, to King John the Second of Portugal. That monarch's
sagacity perceived the promised advantages to be derived from such an
enterprise, and he eagerly sought the counsel of his ministers and wise
men. But his court and the college of scientific sages could not
comprehend the sublime project; and after a long and fruitless
negotiation, during which the Portuguese meanly attempted to avail
themselves clandestinely of his information, Columbus quitted Lisbon in
disgust, determined to submit his proposals to Ferdinand and Isabella,
the Spanish sovereigns, whose wisdom and liberal views were the
admiration of men of science and learning. His wife was dead; his
feelings had no hold upon Portugal, and he quitted it forever.
It was toward the close of 1484 when Columbus appeared at the Spanish
court. ** It was an unpropitious hour, for the whole resources of the
nation were then employed in prosecuting a war with the Moors. For a
long time he awaited the decision of the sovereigns, employing his
leisure in the alternate pursuits of science, and engagements in some of
the military campaigns. He was treated with great deference, and, after
much delay, a council of learned men were convened at Salamanca to
consider his plans and propositions. After mature deliberation, they
pronounced his scheme "vain, impracticable, and resting on grounds too
weak to merit the support of government." A minority of the council were
far from acquiescing in this decision, and, with the Cardinal Mendoza
and other officers of government, and Fray Juan Perez de Marchena,
guardian of the ancient monastery of La Rabida,
* In the age of Columbus, Greenland was laid down upon the maps as a
continuation or projection westward of Scandinavia. Columbus discovered
this error in his northern voyage, which discovery was a new fact in
support of his theory of a continent lying westward from Europe, or at
least a proximity of the eastern coast of Asia. At that time the climate
of Iceland and Greenland was far more genial than at present, and there
is reason to believe that those portions of the latter country which for
two or three hundred years have been ice-bound and uninhabitable, were
then tillable. Philosophers of our day, who have studied the phenomena
of terrestrial magnetism with care, have advanced a plausible theory
whereby to explain this fact.
** It is asserted, but without positive proof, that Columbus, before
going to Spain, made application to the authorities of his native city,
Genoa, for aid in his enterprise; but failing in this he went to Venice,
and also sent his brother Bartholomew to England, to lay his plans
before Henry the Seventh. If these statements are true, they exhibit his
perseverance in a still stronger light than truthful history presents
it. {xxii}they induced the sovereigns to soften the decisions of the
council by a promise to give the proposition a fair audience when their
pressing state engagements should be ended. Columbus, wearied by
procrastination, at length lost all hope of effecting any thing with the
Spanish court. He turned from it with disgust, and made application to
two wealthy and enlightened Southern dukes, who had ample means at
command. He was unsuccessful, and with a heavy heart he left Spain, to
carry his proposals to the King of France.
Isabella of Castile and Leon, sister of the profligate Henry the Fourth,
was the successor October 19,1469. of that monarch to the throne. She
married Ferdinand, the son of old John the Second of Aragon, and,
associating him with herself in the government, united the two
monarchies into one great kingdom, the renowned modern Spain. Isabella
was eminently virtuous, and her piety and daily goodness were the fruit
of a deep religious feeling. Ferdinand was ambitious, and, in the.midst
of his perplexity with the Moors, he felt a strong desire to advance the
interests and glory of the new kingdom, by maritime discoveries; yet he
could not comprehend the vast plans of Columbus, and he looked coldly
upon the project. To the pious sentiments of the queen, Father Perez, a
former confessor of Isabella and a friend of Columbus, appealed with
success; and before the navigator had entered the dominions of France,
he was summoned back to the court, then in the camp at Santa Fé. He
arrived in time to witness the surrender of Grenada. Joy and exultation
pervaded all classes. Columbus took advantage of this state of things,
and while he excited the acquisitiveness of the nobles by reciting
wonderful tales of the riches of Cipangi and Cathay, he eloquently
portrayed to the queen the glorious prospect of extending the influence
of the Gospel over benighted heathens, promising to devote the profits
of the enterprise to the recovery of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem
from the hands of the Paynim. His eloquence was seconded by that of
Louis de St. Angel, a favorite officer of the crown. The religious zeal
of Isabella was fired, and, notwithstanding the extravagant demands of
Columbus,1 2 she resolved, in opposition to the wishes of Ferdinand, to
aid him in fitting out an ex-
* Isabella was of middle size, and well formed, with a fair complexion,
auburn hair, and clear, blue eyes. There was a mingled gravity and
sweetness in her countenance, and a singular modesty, gracing, as it
did, great firmness of purpose and earnestness of spirit. Though
strongly attached to her husband, and studious of his fame, yet she
always maintained her distinct rights as an allied prince. She exceeded
him in beauty, personal dignity, acuteness of genius, and grandeur of
soul. Combining the active and resolute qualities of man with the softer
charities of woman, she mingled in the warlike councils of her husband,
and, being inspired with a truer idea of glory, infused a more lofty and
generous temper into his subtile and calculating policy.- Washington
Irving.
** Columbus, in the demands set forth in his proposition, stipulated for
himself and heirs the title and authority of admiral and viceroy over
all lands discovered by him. This demand was inadmissible, yet the
navigator persisted in it, though it appeared an effectual bar to any
arrangement with the queen. His stipulations were finally acceded to,
and Columbus always regarded the queen with feelings of the liveliest
gratitude. "In the midst of the general incredulity," he said in a
letter, "the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of
intelligence and energy, and while every one else, in his ignorance, was
expatiating only on the inconvenience and cost, her highness approved
it, on the contrary, and gave it all the support in her power."
These demands almost frustrated his designs, and Columbus had again
turned his back upon the Spanish court, when, through the wise counsels
of friends, the queen's objections were overcome, and the warmest
impulses of her nature aroused. "I will assume the undertaking," she
said, when opposed by her husband and his counselors, "for my own crown
of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expense of it,
if the funds in the treasury shall appear inadequate."
All preliminaries being arranged, the queen lost no time in fitting out
two vessels, * and Columbus, aided chiefly by the wealthy and
enterprising family of the Pinzons equipped a third.
With this feeble squadron, manned with timid mariners, Columbus left the
little port of Palos, upon the Tinto River, in Andalusia, on Friday, the
third of August, 1492, and, spreading his sails to an easterly breeze,
turned his prow toward the waste of Avaters in the direction of the
setting sun.
He had no reliable chart for his guidance, no director in his course but
the sun and stars, and the imperfect mariner's compass, then used only
by a few in
* The vessels furnished by Isabella were only caravels, light coasting
ships, without deeks, and furnished with oars like the ancient galleys.
The picture here given is from a low relief sculpture, on the tomb of
Fernando Columbus, a son of the navigator, in the Cathedral of Seville.
Such a vessel would be considered quite inadequate to perform a coasting
voyage at the present day. The larger vessel, with a deck, fitted out by
Columbus and his friends, was called the Santa Maria; the caravels were
named respectively Pinta and Mina. Martin Alonzo Pinzon commanded the
Pinta, and Vincent Yanez Pinzon the Mina. Garcia Fernandez, the
physician of Palos, accompanied the expedition as steward. The whole
number of persons that embarked was one hundred and twenty. The whole
expenditure of the queen in fitting out the caravels amounted to only
seventeen thousand florins, or between eight and nine thousand dollars.
*** These were small preparations for an exploring expedition of such
vast extent and importance.
The descendants of the Pinzons are still quite numerous in the vicinity
of Palos. When Mr. Irving visited that town in 1828, he saw the ruins of
a family mansion which belonged to one of the two Pinzons who sailed
with Columbus on his first voyage. Mr. Irving was accompanied in his
visit to Palos, the monastery of Ribida, and other localities in the
vicinity, by Juan Fernandez Pinzon, a descendant of one of. the
companions of Columbus.
** The pile of buildings in this view, standing upon the bluff, is the
ancient Church of St. George. For some misdemeanor, the people of Palos
were obliged to serve the crown for one year with two armed caravels.
They were under this penalty when Columbus made his arrangement with
Isabella, and they were ordered to fit out the two caravels for the
expedition. In the porch of the old Church of St. George, Columbus first
proclaimed this order to the inhabitants of Palos. Mr. Irving, who
visited Palos in 1828, says of this edifice, "It has lately been
thoroughly repaired, and, being of solid mason-work, promises to stand
for ages, a monument of the discoverers. It stands outside of the
village, on the brow of a hill, looking along a little valley to the
river. The remains of a Moorish arch prove it to have been a mosque in
former times. Just above it, on the crest of the hill, is the ruin of a
Moorish castle."
*** This is the amount given by Munoz, one of the most reliable of
Spanish authors. Others have named s much higher sum Dr. Robertson rates
the amount at £4000 sterling, or about $00,000, but docs not give his
authority.
{xxiv}navigating the pleasant seas of the Old World. After various
delays at the Canary Islands, they passed and lost sight of Ferro, the
most westerly one of the group, on Sunday, the ninth of September. Now
Europe was left behind, and the broad Atlantic, mysterious and unknown,
was before them. As the space widened between them and their homes, the
hearts September, 1492. of mariners failed; and when, on the thirteenth,
the commander and his pilots discovered the variations of the magnetic
needle, misgivings, arose in the stout hearts of the explorer and his
friends, the Pinzons. They were now six hundred miles westward of the
Canaries, in an unknown sea. It was a phenomenon unknown to the world of
science, and Columbus tried in vain to satisfy himself respecting the
cause. He could not long conceal the fact from his seamen. It filled
them with consternation and awe; for they believed they were entering
another world, subject to the influence of laws unknown and dreadful.
Columbus quieted their apprehensions by telling them that the needle did
not point to the north star, but to an invisible point around which that
star revolved daily. Thus he explained a phenomenon now well known; and
his companions, relying upon his astronomical knowledge, received his
theory as truth, and their alarm subsided.
For several days after this event they were wafted pleasantly by the
trade winds, which blow continually from east to west. The air was
balmy, and soon vast fields of sea-weeds, and an occasional petrel upon
the wing, heralded an approach to land; but head winds and days of
profound calm deferred the joyful consummation of their hopes; and the
seamen, wearied and home-sick, resolved to retrace their path, and seek
the shores of Spain. Even the little land birds that came upon the
spars, and sung merrily their welcome to the New World, and then left at
evening for their distant perches in the orange groves, failed to
inspire the mariners with confidence in the truth of their commander's
reasonings, and open mutiny manifested itself. With gentle words,
promises of rewards, and threats of punishment against the most
refractory, Columbus kept them from actual violence for several days.
One evening, just at sunset, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, mounted on September,
25. the stern of the Pinta, shouted, "Land! land! Senor, I claim the
reward!"
Along the southwestern horizon was stretched an apparent island.
Columbus, throwing himself upon his knees, with all the crews, chanted
_Gloria in Excelsis!_ In the morning the island had vanished, for it was
nothing but a cloud. For a fortnight longer they floated upon an almost
unruffled sea, when land birds came singing again, and green herbage
floated by; but days passed on, and the sun, each evening, set in the
waves. Again the seamen mutinied, and Columbus was in open defiance with
his crew; for he told them that the expedition had been sent by their
sovereigns, and, come what might, he was determined to accomplish his
purpose. They were on the point of casting him into the sea, when, just
at sunset, a coast-fish glided by; a branch of thorn, with berries upon
it, floated near; and a staff, artificially carved, came upon the waters
to tell them of human habitations not far off. The vesper hymn to the
Virgin was now sung, and Columbus, after recounting the blessings of God
thus far manifested on the voyage, assured the crews that he confidently
expected to see land in the morning. On the high poop of his vessel he
sat watching.
* Columbus agreed to give a silk waistcoat, besides the royal pension of
thirty dollars, to the person who first discovered land.-Munoz {xxv}near
midnight, when he saw the glimmer of moving lights upon the verge of the
horizon. Fearing his hopes might have deceived his vision, he called
Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king's bed-chamber, and also Rodrigo
Sanchez, of Segovia, to confirm his discovery. They also saw the gleams
of a torch.
All night the overjoyed Columbus watched. At dawn, beautiful wooded
shores were in full view; the perfumes of flowers came upon the light
land breeze; and birds in gorgeous plumage hovered around the vessels,
caroling morning hymns, which seemed like the voices of angels to the
late despair-October 12, 1492 seamen. In small boats they landed, the
naked natives, who stood upon the beach in wonder, fleeing to the deep
shadows of the forest in alarm. Columbus, dressed in gold-embroidered
scarlet, bearing the royal standard, first stepped upon the shore.
He was followed by the Pinzons, each bearing the banner of the
enterprise.1 On reaching the land, they all fell upon their knees,
kissed the earth, and, with tears of joy in their eyes, chanted the _Te
Deum Laudamus._ Rising from the ground, Columbus displayed the royal
standard, drew his sword, and took possession of the land in the name of
the Spanish sovereigns, giving the island the title of San Salvador **
With the most extravagant demonstrations of joy, his followers crowded
around him. The most insolent in the mutinous displays were the most
abject in making vows of service and faithfulness. All present took an
oath of obedience to him as admiral and viceroy, and representative of
Ferdinand and Isabella. The triumph of Columbus was complete.
The natives had beheld the approaching ships at dawn with fear.
* This was a white banner, emblazoned with a green cross, having on each
side the letters F. and Y., the Spanish initials of Ferdinand and
Ysabel, surmounted by golden crowns.
** The island on which Columbus first set his foot in the New World is
one of the Lucayas or Bahama group, and was called by the natives
Guanahana. The Spaniards and others still call it San Salvador; the
English have given it the vulgar name of Cat Island. It lies between the
twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth degrees of north latitude, and the second
and third degrees of longitude east of the meridian of Washington city,
eighty or ninety miles northeast of Havana, Cuba. Munoz, a learned
Spanish writer, thinks Watling's Island, and not the one called San
Salvador on our maps, was the first landing-place.
*** This is copied, by permission of the author, from Irving's Life of
Columbus. It is a fac-simile of a sketch supposed to have been made by
Columbus, in a letter written by him to Don Raphael Xansis, treasurer of
the King of Spain {xxvi}in awe regarding them as monsters of the deep.
By degrees their alarm subsided, and they approached the Europeans. Each
party was a wonder to the other. The glittering armor, shining lace, and
many-colored dresses of the Spaniards filled the natives with admiration
and delight; while they, entirely naked, with skins of a dark copper
hue, painted with a variety of colors and devices, without beards and
with straight hair, were objects of great curiosity to the Spaniards.
They were unlike any people of whom they had knowledge. Not doubting
that he was upon an island near the coast of Farther India, Columbus
called these wild inhabitants _Indians_, a name which all the native
tribes of America still retain.
It is not within the scope of my design to relate, in detail, the
subsequent career of Columbus in the path of discovery, nor of those
navigators who succeeded him, and share with him the honor of making
known our continent to the Old World. He was the bold pioneer who led
the way to the New World, and as such, deserves the first and highest
reward; yet he was not truly the first discoverer of the _continent_ of
North America. Eager in his search for Cathay, he coasted almost every
island composing the groups now known as the West Indies, during his
several voyages, but he never saw the shores of the Northern August,
1498 Continent. He did, indeed, touch the soil of South America, near
the mouth of the Oronoco, but he supposed it to be an island, and died
in the belief that the lands he had discovered were portions of Farther
India. *
Intelligence of the great discovery of Columbus, though kept concealed
as much as possible by the Spanish court, for reasons of state policy,
nevertheless went abroad, and aroused the ambition of other maritime
powers. The story that Columbus had found vast and populous gold-
producing regions in the Western Ocean excited the cupidity of
individuals.
* Columbus returned to Europe in March, 1493. Ferdinand and Isabella
bestowed upon him every mark of honor and distinction, and the nobles
were obsequious in their attentions to the favorite of royalty. On the
25th of September, 1493, he left Cadiz, on a second voyage of discovery.
He had three large ships and fourteen caravels under his command. His
discoveries were principally among the West India Islands, where he
founded settlements. He returned to Spain in June, 1496. Misfortunes had
attended him, yet the sovereigns treated him with distinguished favor.
On the 30th of May, 1498, Columbus sailed from San Lucar de Barraraeda,
with a squadron of six vessels, on a third voyage of discovery. He found
the settlements which had been planted in great confusion, and civil war
among the Spaniards and natives was rife in Hispaniola. In the mean
while, intrigues against him were having due weight in the Spanish
court. It was alleged that Columbus designed to found an empire in the
New World, cast off all allegiance to Spain, and assume the title and
pomp of king. He had already offended the conscientious Isabella by
persisting in making slaves of the natives, and she readily gave her
consent to send out a commissioner to investigate the conduct of the
navigator. Bobadilla, a tool of Columbus's enemies, was intrusted with
that momentous duty; and, as might have been expected, he found Columbus
guilty of every charge made against him. Bobadilla seized Columbus, and
sent him in chains to Spain. His appearance excited the indignation of
the sovereigns, and they declared to the world that Bobadilla had
exceeded his instructions; yet justice was withheld, through the
influence of Ferdinand, and Columbus was not reinstated as viceroy of
Hispaniola.
While these events were occurring, Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese
navigator, had reached Calicut, in the East Indies, by doubling the Cape
of Good Hope, and traversing the Indian Ocean. But Columbus still
persevered in his determination to reach Asia by a western route. He
induced Isabella to fit out a fourth expedition for him, and on the 9th
of May, 1502, he sailed for Hispaniola. After many troubles and
hardships, he returned to Spain in 1504. His patron and best friend, the
queen, died that same year. Old age had made its deep furrows, and, in
the midst of disappointment and neglect, the great discoverer died on
the 20th of May, 1506, at the age of seventy. He never realized his
grand idea of reaching India by a western route. The honor of that
achievement was reserved for the expedition of Magellan, fourteen years
after the death of Columbus. That navigator passed through the straits
which bear his name, at the southern extremity of our continent, and
launched boldly out upon the broad Pacific. He died on the ocean, but
his vessels reached the Philippine Islands, near the coast of India, in
safety. Magellan gave the tame of Pacific to the pleasant ocean over
which he was sailing. {xxvii}many adventurers offered their services to
sovereigns and men of wealth. Almost simultaneously, Sebastian Cabot, of
Bristol, and Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, sailed for the lands
discovered by Columbus; the former under the auspices, of Henry the
Seventh of England, and the latter in the employment of Spanish
merchants, with the sanction of Ferdinand. Cabot's father was an
Italian, and had been long a resident of Bristol, then the chief
commercial mart of England. The Northwestern seas were often traversed
as far as Iceland by the Bristol mariners, and they had probably
extended their voyages westward to Greenland in their fishing
enterprises. Cabot seems to have been familiar with those seas, and the
English merchants had great confidence in his abilities. He obtained a
commission from Henry the Seventh, similar, in its general outline, to
that given to Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella. It empowered him and
his three sons, their heirs or deputies, to discover and settle unknown
lands in the Eastern, Northern, or Western seas, such lands to be taken
possession of in the name of the King of England. He fitted out two
vessels at his own expense, which were freighted by merchants of London
and Bristol; and it was stipulated that, in lieu of all customs and
imposts, Cabot was to pay to the King one fifth part of all the gains.
Cabot's son, Sebastian, a talented young man of only twenty years, with
about three hundred men, sailed from harbor of Bristol in May, 1497. He
directed his course to the northwest, until he reached the fifty-eighth
degree of north latitude, when floating ice and intense cold induced him
to steer to the southwest. Fair winds produced a rapid voyage, and he
discovered land on the twenty-fourth of June, which he called Prima
Vista, because it was his _first view_ of a new region. The exact point
of this first discovery is not certainly known; some supposing it to
have been on the coast of Labrador, and others the Island of
Newfoundland or the peninsula of Nova Scotia.
He touched at other points, but did not attempt a settlement: the
climate seemed too rigorous, the people too fierce, and he returned to
Bristol.
Cabot made arrangements for a February, 1498 second voyage. He did not
go in person, but fitted out vessels for the purpose. His son,
Sebastian, was placed at the head of the expedition, and in May, 1498,
the month in which De Gama reached Calicut, in the East Indies, byway of
the Cape of Good Hope, he sailed for the New World with several ships.
He visited the region first discovered by his father and himself, and
called it Newfoundland. It was not rich in gold and spices, but its
shoals abounded with vast schools of codfish; and within a few years
after his return to England a permanent fishery was established there.
Cabot sailed along the whole coast of the present United States,
beginning at latitude fifty-six degrees, and terminating at about
thirty-six degrees, or Albemarle Sound. His provisions ailing, he
returned to England. He made another voyage in 1517, as far south as the
{xxviii}Brazils; but failing to discover a western passage to the East
Indies, he again returned to England. *
In the same month when young Cabot sailed from Bristol, Amerigo Vespucci
departed from Cadiz on his first voyage to the New World. In that voyage
he appears May, 1497 to have held a subordinate station.
The expedition under Ojeda, which Amerigo calls his _second_ voyage, was
not undertaken until 1499. Whether any vessel in that expedition was
under his command is questionable. Spanish writers assert to the
contrary, and say that he was first a captain when in the service of
Emanuel of Portugal; but it is not my province to inquire into this
disputed matter. Spanish historians, jealous of the fame of Columbus,
charge Vespucci with falsehood and fraud; but early Spanish authors were
not always scrupulous in regard to truth when national pride demanded
prevarication, or even absolute falsehood. ** It was
* After his second voyage, Sebastian Cabot was invited to Spain, and
sailed on a voyage of discovery, in the service of the Spanish monarch,
in 1525. He visited Brazil, and, coasting southward to the thirty-fifth
degree, he entered a large river, which he called Rio de la Plata. Up
this river he sailed one hundred and twenty leagues. After an absence of
six years, he returned to Spain, but seems not to have been well
received by the sovereign. He made other, but less conspicuous voyages,
and in his old age retired to. Bristol, where he died about the year
1557, at the age of eighty years. He received a pension from Edward the
Sixth, and was appointed governor of a company of merchants associated
for the purpose of making discoveries.
** The name of the Florentine is variously spelled, Amerigo Vespucci,
Americus Vespucius, Amerigo Vespuche. The latter orthography is
according to the entry in an account-book containing the expenditure of
the treasurer of the royal mercantile house of Seville, quoted by Munoz,
tome i., page xix of the Introduction. It appears by that account, that
on the 24th of February, 1512, was paid to Manuel Catano, executor of
the will of Amerigo, "10937 and a half maravedis," which was due to him
for services as chief steersman to his majesty. Amerigo was appointed to
that office in March, 1508, with a salary of 50,000 maravedis a year.
Whether he ever commanded an expedition in the Spanish service is a
disputed question. He made several voyages to the New World between 1497
and 1512, the year of his death. With an expedition under the command of
Ojeda, in 1499, he visited the Antilles and the coast of Guiana and
Venezuela. On his return, Emanuel, king of Portugal, invited him to his
capital, and gave him the command of three ships for a voyage of
discovery. He left Lisbon May 10th, 1501, visited Brazil, and traversed
the coast of South America as far as Patagonia, but failed to discover
the straits through which Magellan passed at a later day. He returned to
Lisbon in 1502. He made a fourth voyage, and returned to Portugal in
1504. Soon after this he wrote an account of his voyage. The book was
dedicated to Rene II., duke of Lorraine. He again entered the service of
the King of Spain, who appointed him to draw sea-charts, and gave him
the title and salary of chief steersman or pilot, which commission he
held until his death. According to some accounts, he died in the Island
of Terceria, one of the Azores, in 1514; others affirm that his death
occurred at Seville.
The portrait of the navigator, here given, was copied, by permission,
from the original picture by Bronzino, now in possession of C. Edwards
Lester, Esq., late United States consul at Genoa. It was committed to
his care by the Vespucci family, to be placed in the possession of our
government. No arrangement for its purchase has yet been made. I
believe.
An Italian woman named Elena Vespucci, bearing proofs of her lineal
descent from the famous navigator, came to America a few years ago, and
made application to our Congress for a grant of land, on account of her
relationship to the Florentine from whom our continent derived its name.
Subsequently, her brother and two sisters, Amerigo, Eliza, and Teresa
Vespucci, made a similar petition to Congress. They mention the fact
that Elena, "possessing a disposition somewhat indocile and
unmanageable, absented herself from her father's house, and proceeded to
London. Hence she crossed the ocean, and landed upon the shores of
Brazil, at Rio Janeiro. From that city she proceeded to Washington, the
capital of the United States." Elena Vespucci was treated with respect.
Possessed of youth and beauty, she attracted much attention at the
metropolis, but the prayer in the petition of both herself and family
was denied. She was living at Ogdensburgh, New York, when I visited that
place in 1848.
natural that they should be tender of the reputation of Columbus,
although he was not a Spaniard, for his discoveries reflected great
luster upon the Spanish crown. For this reason they have ever disputed
the claims of Vespucci, and denounced him as a liar and a charlatan.
These denunciations, however, prove nothing, and the fame of Columbus
loses none of its brightness by admitting the claims of the Florentine;
claims, it must be acknowledged, that have sound logic and fair
inferences as a basis. Amerigo seems to have been the first who
published an account of the discoveries in the New World, and for this
priority the narrow and selfish policy of the Spanish government is
responsible. His first announcement was made in a letter to Lorenzo de
Medici, 1504 and soon afterward he published a volume giving an account
of his four voyages, which he dedicated to the Duke of Lorraine.1507 In
these he claims the merit of discovering the continent, having landed
upon the coast of Paria,(1497) in Colombia, South America, and traversed
the shores, according to his own account, as far northward as the Gulf
of Mexico. If this statement is true, he visited the continent nearly a
year previous to the landing of Columbus at the mouth of the Oronoco, in
the same district of Paria. From the circumstance of Amerigo making the
first publication on the subject, and claiming to be the discoverer of
the continent, the New World was called America, and the Florentine
bears the honor of the name; but to neither Columbus nor Vespucci does
the honor of first discoverer of America properly belong, but to young
Cabot, for he and his crew first saw its soil and inhabitants. He alone,
of all those voyagers in the fifteenth century, beheld North America.
Whether to Columbus, Vespucci, or Cabot, truth should award the palm,
Italy bears the imperishable and undisputed honor of giving birth to all
three.
The expeditions of the Cabots turned attention to the regions north of
the West India Islands. Emanuel of Portugal dispatched some vessels,
under the command of Caspar Cortereal, in 1501, to follow in the track
of the English. Cortereal sailed between two and three hundred leagues
along the North American coast, but his voyage was fruitless of good
results, either to science or humanity. He made few discoveries of land,
carried on no traffic, planted no settlements, but kidnapped and carried
to Portugal several friendly natives, to be sold as slaves! Perfidy and
cruelty marked the first intercourse of the whites with the tribes of
our continent; is it to be wondered that the bitter fruits of suspicion
and hostility should have flourished among them?
Ponce de Leon, one of the companions of Columbus, and first governor of
Porto Rico, a small island sixty miles east of Haiti, sailed on a voyage
of discovery among the Bahamas, in search of the fabled Fountain of
Youth. It was generally believed in Porto Rico, and the story had great
credence in Old Spain, that the waters of a clear spring, bubbling up in
the midst of a vast forest, upon an island among the Bahamas, possessed
the singular property of restoring age and ugliness to youth and beauty,
and perpetuating the lives of those who should bathe in its stream. De
Leon was an old man, and, impressed with the truth of this legend, he
sought that wonderful fountain. After cruising for a while among the
Bahamas, he landed upon the peninsula of Florida, in the harbor of St.
Augustine. It was on Palm Sunday when he debarked. That day is called by
the Spaniards _Pasqua de Flores_, and, partly from that circumstance,
and partly on account of the great profusion of flowers which, at that
early season of the year, were blooming on every side, 1520 {xxx}Ponce
de Leon gave the country (which he supposed to be a large island like
Cuba) the name of Florida. He took formal possession in the name of the
Spanish monarch; but, feeling unauthorized to proceed to making
conquests without a royal commission, he sailed for Spain to obtain one,
after failing in his search after the Fountain of Youth.
He had plunged into every stream, however turbid, with the vain
expectation of rising from it young and blooming; but, according to
Oviedo, instead of returning to vigorous youth, he arrived at a second
childhood within a few years. He was afterward appointed Governor of
Florida, and was killed while on an expedition against the natives.
While Ponce de Leon was in Europe, where he remained several years, some
wealthy gentlemen of Haiti fitted out two vessels to explore the
Bahamas. The squadron was commanded by Lucas Vasquez d'Aillon or Allyon,
a Spanish navigator. Their vessels were driven northward by a hurricane,
and came near being stranded upon the low coasts. They finally made land
in St. Helen's Sound, near the mouth of the Combahee River, in South
Carolina, about half way between Charleston and Savannah. D'Aillon
called the river Jordan, and the country Chicora. He carried off several
natives, whom he enticed on board his ships, with the intention of
selling them as slaves in Haiti. A storm destroyed one of the vessels,
and the captured Indians in the other voluntarily starved themselves to
death, so the avaricious whites were disappointed in their expectations
of gain. D'Aillon afterward returned, with three ships, to conquer the
whole of Chicora. The natives feigned friendship, decoyed the whites on
shore, and then, with poisoned arrows, massacred nearly the whole of
them, in revenge for their former perfidy. But few returned with
D'Aillon to Haiti. This was the first discovery of the Carolina coast.
While these events were in progress, Cortez, at the head of an
expedition fitted out by Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, was destroying
the empire of Montezuma, in Mexico, then recently discovered. The
success of Cortez excited the jealousy of Velasquez, for he feared a
renunciation of his authority by that bold leader. He sent Pamphilo de
Narvaez, with a strong force, to arrest and supersede Cortez; but he was
defeated, and most of his troops joined his enemy. Narvaez afterward
obtained from the Spanish court a commission as _adelantado_ or Governor
of Florida, a territory quite indefinite in extent, reaching from the
southern capes of the peninsula to the Panuco River in Mexico. With a
force of three April 22, 1528 hundred men, eighty of whom were well
mounted, Narvaez landed in Florida, where he raised the royal standard,
and took possession of the country for the crown of Spain. With the hope
of finding some wealthy region like Mexico and Peru, he penetrated the
vast swamps and everglades in the interior of the flat country along the
northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. His men suffered terribly from the
almost daily attacks of the natives and the nightly assaults of the
deadly malaria of the fens. They reached the fertile regions of the
Appalachians; but the capital of the tribe, instead of being a gorgeous
city like Mexico or Cuzco, was a mean village of two hundred huts and
wigwams. Disappointed, and one third of his number dead, Narvaez turned
southward, reached the Gulf near the present site of St. Mark's, on the
Appalachie Bay, constructed five frail barks, and launched upon the
waters. Nearly all his men, with himself, perished during a storm. Four
of the crew, who were saved, wandered for years through the wild regions
of Louisiana and Texas, and finally reached a Spanish settlement in
Northern Mexico. These men gave the first intelligence of the fate of
the expedition.
Two years after the return of these members of the expedition of
Narvaez, Fernando de Soto planned an expedition to explore the interior
of Florida, as all North America was then called, in search of a
populous and wealthy region supposed to exist there. By permission of
the Spanish monarch, he undertook the exploration and conquest of
Florida 1538. {xxxi}at his own risk and expense. He was commissioned
governor-general of that country and of Cuba for life. Leaving his wife
to govern Cuba during his absence, he sailed in June, 1539, and landed
at Tampa Bay with a force of six hundred men in complete June 25, 1539
armor.
There he established a small garrison, and then sent most of the vessels
of his fleet back to Cuba. He found a Spaniard, one of Narvaez's men,
who had learned the native language. Taking him with him as interpreter,
De Soto marched with his force into the interior. For five months they
wandered among the swamps and everglades, fighting their way against the
natives, when they reached the fertile region of the Flint River, in the
western part of Georgia. There they passed the winter, within a few
leagues of the Gulf, making, through exploring parties, some new
discoveries, among which was the harbor of Pensacola. Early in May they
broke up their encampment, and, marching northeasterly, readied the
head-waters of the Savannah River. After a brief tarry there, they
turned their faces westward, and, on the twenty-eighth of October, came
upon a fortified town, near the junction of the Alabama and Tombeckbee
Rivers. A severe battle of nine hours' duration ensued. Several
thousands of the half-naked Indians were slain, and their village
reduced to ashes. Several of the mailed Spaniards were killed, and the
victory availed De Soto nothing. All his baggage was consumed, and much
provision was destroyed.
The wild tribes, for many leagues around, were aroused by this event. De
Soto went into winter quarters in a deserted Indian village on the
Yazoo. There he was attacked by the swarming natives, bent on revenge.
The town was burned, all the clothing of the Spaniards, together with
many horses and nearly all the swine which they brought from Cuba, were
destroyed or carried away, and several of the whites were killed. Early
in the spring the shorn invaders pushed westward, and discovered the
Mississippi. They crossed it at the Chickasaw Bluffs, and traversed the
country on its western shore up to the thirty-seventh degree, nearly
opposite the mouth of the Ohio. They penetrated the wilderness almost
three hundred miles west of the Mississippi during the summer, and
wintered upon the Washita, in Arkansas. They passed down the Red River
to the Mississippi in the spring, where De Soto sickened and died. (May
31, 1542) He had appointed a successor, who now attempted to lead the
remnant of the expedition to Spanish settlements in Mexico.
For several months they wandered in the wilderness, but returned in
December,(1543) to winter upon the Mississippi, a short distance above
the mouth of the Red River.
There they constructed seven large boats, and in July following embarked
in them. On reaching the Gulf of Mexico, they crawled cautiously along
its sinuous coast, until the twentieth of September, when, half naked
and almost famished, they reached a white settlement near the mouth of
the Panueo River, about thirty miles north of Tampico.
While the Spaniards were making these useless discoveries of the
southern regions of our Republic along the Gulf of Mexico, the French
fitted out several expeditions to explore the coast between the
peninsula of Florida and the banks of Newfoundland. John Verrazzani, a
celebrated Florentine navigator, proceeded to America with a squadron of
four ships, under {xxxii}the auspices of Francis the First of France, in
1523. Three of his vessels were so damaged by a storm that they were
sent hack; in the fourth, he proceeded on his voyage.
Weathering a terrible tempest, he reached our coast near the mouth of
Cape Fear River, in North Carolina. He explored the whole coast, from
the Carolinas to Nova Scotia, and taking formal possession of the
country in the name of the French king, he called it New France, the
title held by Canada while it remained in possession of the French.
Verrazzani was followed, the next year, by Cartier (also in the service
of the French king), who discovered the Gulf and River St. Lawrence; and
soon afterward by the Lord of Roberval, a wealthy nobleman, who proposed
to plant a colony in the New World. Roberval failed in his undertaking,
and returned to France. He sailed on another voyage, and was never heard
of afterward. Other efforts at settlement along the southern coasts were
made by the French, but were unsuccessful. A Protestant French colony,
planted in Florida, was destroyed by the Spaniards in 1564, and over the
dead bodies of the Huguenots the murderers placed the inscription, "We
do this not as unto Frenchmen, but as unto Heretics." In 1567, De
Gourgues, a Gascon soldier, fitted out an expedition at his own expense,
to avenge this out rage. He surprised the Spanish forts erected near St.
Augustine, and hung the soldiers of the garrison upon the trees. Over
them he placed the inscription, "I do this not as unto Spaniards or
mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers." Thus white
people were exterminated by white people, and Indians again possessed
the land.
The history of the early discoveries in North America forms a wonderful
chapter in the great chronicle of human progress and achievements, and
in its details there are narratives of adventure, prowess, love, and all
the elements of romance, more startling and attractive than the most
brilliant conceptions of the imagination ever evolved. The story of the
progress of settlements which followed is equally marvelous and
attractive. These tempt the pen on every side, but as they are connected
only incidentally with my subject, I pass them by with brevity of
notice. In the preceding pages I have taken a very brief survey of
events in the _progress of discovery_ which opened the way to
settlements in the New World; a brief survey of the _progress of
settlements_ will be found interwoven with the records upon the pages
which follow. They are all united by the often invisible threads of
God's providence; and each apparently insignificant event in the
wondrous history of our continent is a link as important in the great
chain of human deeds, directed by divine intelligence, as those which
arrest the attention and command the admiration of the world. Never was
this truth oftener and more strikingly illustrated than in our history
of the war for independence; and the student of that history, desirous
of understanding its true philosophy, should make himself familiar with
the antecedents which have a visible relation thereto.
** See page 178, vol. i.
PICTORIAL FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION.
CHAPTER I.
"Our young wild land, the free, the proud!
Uncrush'd by power, unawed by fear,
Her knee to none but God is bow'd,
For Nature teaches freedom here:
From gloom and snow to light and flowers
Expands this heritage of ours:
Life with its myriad hopes, pursuits,
Spreads sails, rears roofs, and gathers fruits.
But pass two fleeting centuries back;
This land, a torpid giant, slept,
Wrapp'd in a mantle thick and black
That o'er its mighty frame had crept,
Since stars and angels sang, as earth
Shot, from its Maker, into birth."
Street.
HE love of country, springing up from the rich soil of the domestic
affections, is a feeling coexistent and coextensive with social n
itself. Although a dreary climate, barren lands, and unrighteous laws,
wickedly administered, may repress the luxuriant growth of this
sentiment, it will still maintain firm root in the heart, and hear with
patience the most cruel wrongs. Man loves the soil that gave him birth
as the child loves the mother, and from the same inherent impulses. When
exiled from his father-land, he yearns for it as a child yearns for
home; and though he may, by legal oath, disclaim allegiance to his own
and swear fealty to another government, the invisible links of
patriotism which hind him to his country can not be severed; his lips
and hand hear false witness against his truthful heart.
Stronger far is this sentiment in the bosom of him whose country is a
pleasant land, where nature in smiling beauty and rich beneficence woos
him on every side; where education quickens into refining activity the
intellect of society; and where just laws, righteously administered,
impress all possession, whether of property or of character, with the
broad seal of security. An honest, justified pride elevates the spirit
of the citizen of a land so favored; makes him a vigilant guardian of
its rights and honor, and inspires him with a profound reverence for the
men and deeds consecrated by the opinions of the just as the basis upon
which its glory rests.
Classic Localities.-- Departure for Saratoga.-- Voyage up the Hudson.
034It was under the influence of this sentiment, so natural to every
American, and a strong desire to make a personal visit to the classic
grounds of my country, and portray their features before every ancient
lineament should he effaced, that, during the sultriness of midsummer, I
left behind me the cares of business life within the confines of our
commercial metropolis, and commenced a pilgrimage to the most important
localities connected with the events of the war for our national
independence. For many years, as I occasionally saw some field
consecrated by revolutionary blood, or building Hallowed as a shelter of
the heroes of that war, I have felt emotions of shame, such as every
American ought to feel, on seeing the plow leveling the breast-works and
batteries where our fathers bled, and those edifices, containing the
council-chambers of men who planned the attack, the ambuscade, or the
retreat, crumbling into utter ruin. While England erects a monument in
honor of the amputated leg of a hero who fought for personal renown, we
allow these relics, sanctified by the deeds of soldiers who were more
than heroes as the world regards heroism, to pass away and be forgotten.
Acquisitiveness is pulling down walled fortresses; the careless
agriculturist, unmindful of the sacredness of the ditch and mound that
scar his fields, is sowing and reaping where marble monuments should
stand; and improvement, a very Cambyses among achievements of labor of
former times, under the fair mask of refined taste, is leveling nearly
all that remains of the architecture of the Revolution. To delineate
with pen and pencil what is left of the physical features of that
period, and thus to rescue from oblivion, before it should be too late,
the mementoes which another generation will appreciate, was my
employment for several months; and a desire to place the result of those
journeyings, with a record of past events inseparably connected with
what I have delineated, in an enduring form before my countrymen, has
given birth to these pages.
I resolved to visit the scenes of the northern campaigns during the
summer and early autumn. With the exception of the historic grounds
lying around New York and among the Hudson Highlands, the fields of
Saratoga, in point of importance and distance, invited the initial
visit.
1848 I left New York on the evening of the 24th of July for
Poughkeepsie, on the banks of the Hudson, there to be joined by a young
lady, my traveling companion for the summer. For many days the hot sun
had been unclouded, and neither shower nor dew imparted grateful
moisture to town or country.
"The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the woods and on the deep
The smiles of Heaven lay."
Shelley.
During the afternoon the barometer indicated a change, and portents of a
gathering storm arose in the west. At twilight we entered the great
amphitheater of the Highlands, and darkness came down suddenly upon us
as a tempest of wind, thunder, and rain burst over the Dunderberg and
the neighboring heights. A thunder-storm at night in the Hudson
Highlands! It is a scene of grandeur and sublimity vouchsafed to few,
and never to be forgotten. The darkness became intense, and echo
confused the thunder-peals into one continuous roar. The outlines of the
hills disappeared in the gloom, and our vessel seemed the only object
wrapped in the bosom of the tempest, except when, at every flash of
lightning, high wooded cones, or lofty ranges, or rocky cliffs burst
into view like a sudden creation of the Omnipotent fiat, and then melted
into chaos again. The storm continued until we passed West Point. The
clouds then broke, and as we emerged from the upper gate of the
Highlands into the beautiful expanse of Newburgh Bay, the moon came
forth, like a queen from her pavilion, in beauty and majesty, the winds
were quiet, the waters placid, and the starry sky serene, for
"The thunder, tramping deep and loud
Had left no foot-marks there."
Returning Volunteers.-- Albany.-- Troy.-- Fulton's Steam-boat
035The next morning the air was clear and cool as in September. At noon
we took passage in one of those floating palaces which are the pride of
the Hudson River. What a contrast to the awkward contrivance-the mere
germ of the steam-boat of the present day--that gave such glory to
Fulton, and astonished the world. * Her saloon, like a ducal drawing-
room; her table, spread as with a royal banquet; her speed, like that of
the swift bird, are all the creations of one generation, and seem like
works of magic. Among the passengers there were a few-plain and few
indeed-who attracted general attention. They were a remnant of a
regiment of Volunteers returning home, weary and spirit-broken, from the
battle-fields of Mexico. Of the scores who went with them, these alone
returned to tell of havoc in battle and slaughter by the deadly
_vomito_. They were young, but the lesson of sad experience might be
read on each brow, and the natural joy of the homeward-bound beamed not
in their eyes. To them military, glory was a bubble burst; and the
recollections of the recent past brought not to them that joy which the
soldier feels who has battled in defense of country and home. At Albany
preparations had been made to receive them, and for half a mile the
wharves, bridges, vessels, and houses were thickly covered with people
anxious to see the returning heroes. We landed with difficulty in the
midst of the excitement and noise, for cannon-peals, and drum and fife,
and the rattle of military accouterments, and wild huzzas of the crowd,
and the coaxing and swearing of porters and coachmen, were enough to
confound confusion itself. How changed was the scene when we returned, a
few weeks later. Wharves, bridges, and houses had been swept by
conflagration, and acres of the dense city were strewn with smoking
ruins.
Early on the morning of the 26th we left Albany for Bemis's Heights,
near the village of Stillwater. An omnibus ride of an hour, over a fine
McAdam road, placed us in Troy, where we took stage for the Waterford
ferry at Lansingburgh, four miles above. The day was excessively warm,
and eleven passengers occupied "seats for nine." Not a zephyr stirred
the waters or the leaves. A funny little water-man; full of wine and
wit, or something stronger and coarser, offered to row us across in his
rickety skiff. I demanded the price for ferriage.
* For the gratification of the curious, I here present a drawing of the
"Clermont," Fulton's experiment boat, with some notices of her earlier
voyages.
It was constructed under the personal supervision of Fulton, in 1807. It
was one hundred feet long, twelve feet wide, and seven feet deep. In
1808 it was lengthened to one hundred and fifty feet, widened to
eighteen, and its name changed to North River. The engine was
constructed by Watt & Bolton, England, and the hull by David Brown, of
New York. In August, 1807, the boat was propelled from the East River to
the Jersey shore; and about the first of September it was started on its
first trip to Albany.
The following advertisement appeared in the Albany Gazette, September
1st, 1807:
"The North River steam-boat will leave Paulus's Hook [Jersey City] on
Friday, the 4th of September, at 9 in the morning, and arrive at Albany
on Saturday, at 9 in the afternoon. Provisions, good berths, and
accommodations are provided. The charge to each passenger is as follows:
To Newburgh, dolls. 3, time 14 hours.
" Poughkeepsie, " 4, " 17 "
" Esopus, " 5, " 20 "
" Hudson. " 6 " 30 "
" Albany, " 7, " 36 "
It is noticed in the same paper, of October 5th, 1807, that "Mr.
Fulton's new steam-boat left New York on the 2d, at 10 o'clock A.M.,
against a strong tide, very rough water, and a violent gale from the
north. She made a headway against the most sanguine expectations, and
without being rocked by the waves." What a change in about forty years!
Forty years ago a steam-boat voyage from Albany to New York, one hundred
and sixty miles, was accomplished in thirty-six hours, at an expense of
seven dollars, exclusive of cost of meals. Now the passage is easily and
often made in nine and a half hours, at a cost of one dollar, and
frequently for less. Now our first class steam-boats are nearly four
hundred feet long, and of proportionate depth and breadth of beam.
Crossing the Hudson.-- Cohoes' Falls.-- Van Schaick's Island.-- State of
Affairs in 1777.
036"Five thousand dollars," hiccoughed the Charon. I did not object to
the price, but valuing safety at a higher figure, sought the owner of a
pretty craft near by, while the little votary of Bacchus was tugging
manfully, but unsuccessfully, at a huge trunk, to lift it into his boat.
Before he was fairly conscious that he was not yet toiling at our
luggage, we were out upon the stream in the "Lady of the Lake." I
compensated the tipsy boatman for his labor of love by a brief
temperance lecture; but the seed doubtless fell upon "stony ground," for
he had the hard-heartedness to consign me to the safe keeping of him
whom
"The old painters limned with a hoof and a horn,
A beak and a scorpion tail."
We pushed across the Hudson to the upper mouth or "sprout" of the
Mohawk, anu, gliding under the rail-road bridge and along a sluice of
the Champlain Canal, clambered up a high bank, and reached the packet
office at Waterford * toward noon. The suppressed roar of Cohoes' Falls,
two miles distant, wooed us to the pleasures of that fashionable resort,
to while away the three hours before the arrival of the canal packet.
These falls, though not so grand as many others either in volume or
altitude of cataract, or in the natural scenery around, nevertheless
present many points of beauty and sublimity exceedingly attractive to
the tourist. The Mohawk is here more than one hundred yards wide, and
perfectly rock-ribbed on both sides. The fall is nearly seventy feet
perpendicular, in addition to the turbulent rapids above and below. A
bridge, eight hundred feet long, spans the river half a mile below the
falls, from which a fine view may be obtained of the whole scene.
Before entering the Hudson, the river is divided into four mouths or
_sprouts_, as they are called, by three rocky islands, Haver's, Van
Schaick's or Cohoes', and Green's or Tibbetts's Islands, which form a
scene that is singularly picturesque. It is generally supposed that
Henry Hudson, the discoverer of the river bearing his name, ascended as
far as this point in 1609, and that he and his boat's crew were the
first white men who beheld the cataract of Cohoes.
The mouth of the Mohawk was a point of much interest toward the close of
the summer of 1777, when Van Schaick's Island was fortified by General
Schuyler, then in command of the northern division of the Continental
army. Properly to understand the position of affairs at that period, it
is necessary to take a brief view of events immediately antecedent to,
and intimately connected with, the military operations at this point,
and at Stillwater a few weeks later.
Incensed at the audacity of the American Congress in declaring the
colonies free and independent states; piqued at the consummate
statesmanship displayed by the members of that Congress, and foiled in
every attempt to cajole the Americans by delusive promises, or to crush
the spirit of resistance by force of arms, the British ministry, backed
by the stubborn king and a strong majority in both Houses of Parliament,
determined to open the campaign of 1777 with such vigor, and to give to
the service in America such material, as should not fail to put down the
rebellion by midsummer, and thus vindicate British valor, which seemed
to be losing its invincibility. So long as the Americans were tolerably
united; so long as there remained a free communication between
Massachusetts and Virginia, or, in other words, between the Eastern and
the Middle and Southern States, permanent success of the British arms in
America was very questionable. The rebellion was hydra-headed, springing
into new life and vigor suddenly and powerfully, from the inherent
energies of union, in places where it seemed to be subdued and
destroyed. To sever that union, and to paralyze the vitality dependent
thereon, was a matter of great importance, and to effect this was a
paramount object of the British government.
General Howe was then in the quiet possession of the city of New York
and its vicinity.
* Waterford is on the west bank of the Hudson, at the head of sloop
navigation.
English Preparations tor the Campaign of 1777.-- Instructions of Lord
George Germain.-- Biographical Sketch of Burgoyne
037A strong British force occupied Rhode Island and overawed the eastern
coast; the patriot insurgents had been driven out of Canada by General
Carleton, and nothing remained to complete the separation of the two
sections of the American States but to march an invading army from the
north, which, forming a junction with Howe, should secure the country
and the strong-holds upon Lakes Champlain and George and the Hudson
River.
Such an expedition was planned jointly by the king, Lord George Germain,
* and General Burgoyne, and agreed upon in council. ** The general
command was intrusted to Burgoyne, who was a natural son of Lord
Bingley, and at that time high in the confidence of the king and his
advisers. *** He was brave, skillful, and humane, proud of distinction,
sanguine of success, and eager for military renown. If the tactics of
European warfare had been appropriate for the expedition, success might
have attended his efforts. But in his appointment, as well as in the
minute and positive instruction-given him, without reference to any
contingency that might demand a wide departure from their letter and
spirit, the British ministry, always at fault in the management of
* Lord George Germain, then colonial secretary, in a letter to Governor
Carleton, of Canada, dated March 26th, 1777, observes, "With a view of
quelling the rebellion as soon as possible, it is become ( highly
necessary that the most speedy junction of the two armies should be
effected [the forces from Canada and those of General Howe at New York];
and, therefore, as the security and good government of Canada absolutely
require your presence there, it is the king's determination to leave
about 3000 men under your command for the defense and duties of that
province, and to employ the remainder of your army upon two expeditions,
the one under the command of Lieutenant General Burgoyne, who is to
force his way to Albany, and the other under Lieutenant Colonel St.
Leger, who is to make a diversion on the Mohawk River."--Burgoyne's
Statement of the Expedition from Canada, &c. (Appendix), p. xiii.,
London, 1780.
** Pictorial History of George III., vol. i., p. 306.
*** Lieutenant General Burgoyne was an illegitimate son of Lord Bingley.
He entered the army at an early age, and his education and the influence
of his father soon placed him in the line of promotion. In 1762 he was
sent into Portugal with an English force to assist in the defense of
that kingdom against the Spaniards. He then held the commission of a
brigadier, and distinguished himself in the capture of the garrison of
Almeida. After his return to England, he became a privy councillor, and
was elected to a seat in Parliament as representative for Preston, in
Lancashire. He came over to America in 1775, and was at Boston at the
time of the battle of Bunker Hill. He was sent to Canada the same year,
but early in 1776 returned to England. Through the influence of the king
and Lord George Germain, he was appointed to the command of the northern
British army in America in the spring of 1777. After some successes, he
was captured, with all his army, at Saratoga, in October of that year.
After some delay, he was allowed to return to England on parole, and he
was actually engaged in debates upon the floor of the British House of
Commons at the very time he was a prisoner to the Americans. His
misfortunes lost him the friendship of the king, and he was denied
access to his presence. In 1780 he published a narrative of his
Expedition, together with the proceedings of his trial before a
committee of Parliament, in which he well vindicated his character. He
soon afterward resigned his emoluments from government, amounting to
$15,000 a year. In 1781 he joined the opposition in Parliament, and
opposed the further prosecution of the war against the Americans as
impolitic and cruel. From the conclusion of peace until his death, he
devoted his time to pleasure and literary pursuits. He died of an attack
of gout, on the 4th of August, 1792. Among his literary productions are
_The Maid of the Oaks, Bon Ton, and The Heiress_, dramas which at one
time were highly popular. Benevolence and humanity were strong features
in Burgoyne's character, and I think the fierce anathema of Philip
Freneau, a poet of the Revolution, was altogether too severe. After
giving Burgoyne several hard rubs in the course of his epic, he
describes an ice- bound, fog-covered, dreary island north of Scotland,
and there consigns the Tories, with Burgoyne at their head, as follows:
"There, Loyals, there, with loyal hearts retire,
There pitch your tents, and kindle there your fire,
There desert Nature will her stings display,
And fiercest hunger on your vitals prey;
And with yourselves let John Burgoyne retire,
To reign your monarch, whom your hearts desire."
Freneau's Poems, p. 246
Burgoyne s Arrival in Canada.-- His Preparations for the Campaign.--
Appointment of General Schuyler to the Command.
038American affairs, made a most egregious blunder. Sir Guy Carleton,
then Governor of Canada, and perfectly acquainted with the people and
country, should have been placed in command. Burgoyne was almost totally
ignorant of the Canadians and Indians, who formed a large part of his
force, and he knew absolutely nothing of the true character and temper
of the people he was sent to oppose and oppress.
Burgoyne arrived at Quebec, in March, 1777, bearing the commission of a
lieutenant general. Carleton, though greatly aggrieved, nobly aided
Burgoyne in preparing the expedition. By extraordinary activity, vessels
were constructed, stores were collected, and a force of more than seven
thousand men was mustered at St. John's, at the foot of Lake Champlain,
on the first of June. Lieutenant Colonel St. Leger, with a detachment of
seven hundred Bangers, was sent up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to
Oswego, to penetrate the country from that point, arouse and conciliate
the Indians, capture Fort Schuyler, * sweep the valley of the Mohawk
with the aid of Johnson and his Tories, and join Burgoyne at Albany when
Lake Champlain and the valley of the Upper Hudson should lie prostrate
at his feet.
As soon as Congress perceived the storm that was gathering on the
northern frontier, they felt the necessity of prompt action and the
services of an influential commander. Fear, loyalty, British gold, would
undoubtedly lead the van of the invading army, and none but a wise and
tried man could quiet the alarm of the people and command the fidelity
of the militia.
Philip Schuyler, ** a gentleman of fortune, and possessed of military
skill, experience, sound judgment, prudent forethought, and lofty
patriotism, was reappointed to the command of the forces of the north,
in which position he had been superseded, in effect, a few weeks before,
by Horatio Gates, the Adjutant General of the Continental army. No
appointment could have been more popular with the people of Northern New
York, who were in a state of great excitement and alarm. In the late
campaigns against the French and Indians upon Lakes George and
Champlain, he had rendered essential service to the colony and to the
people of the northern frontier, and his many virtues endeared him to
all who knew him. His large estate was lying directly in the path of the
invader; and if a mercenary feeling could have existed in a soul so
noble as his, the defense of his own broad acres and costly mansion
would have made him vigilant and brave.
1777.
General Schuyler arrived in Albany on the third day of June, where he
met General Gates, and, with all the frankness of a generous and
unsuspecting
* Fort Schuyler stood at the head of boat navigation, on the Mohawk,
where the village of Rome now is. It was erected in 1758, and was then
called Fort Stanwix. It was repaired in 1776, and named Fort Schuyler,
in honor of General Schuyler, in whose military department it was
located.
** General Philip Schuyler was born at Albany, on the 22d of November,
1733. His grandfather, Peter Schuyler, was Mayor of Albany, and
commander of the northern militia in 1690. His father, John Schuyler,
married Cornelia Van Courtlandt, a woman of strong mind, and Philip was
their eldest son. By virtue of primogeniture law, he inherited the real
estate of his father at his death, but he generously shared it with his
brothers and sisters. His father died when Philip was young, and to the
thorough training of his gifted mother he was greatly indebted for his
success in life. He entered the army against the French and Indians in
1755, and commanded a company which attended Sir William. Johnson to
Fort Edward and Lake George. He soon attracted the attention of Lord
Howe, who commanded the first division of the British army against the
forts on Lake George and Lake Champlain, and was placed in the
commissariat department. When Lord Howe fell at Ticonderoga, to Colonel
Schuyler was intrusted the duty of conveying.the body of that greatly-
beloved young nobleman to Albany for sepulture. After the peace of 1763,
he was much in active service in the civil government of his state. In
the Colonial Assembly of New York, he was one of the warmest opponents
of the British government in its attempts to tax the colonies without
their consent. He was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress
which assembled in May, 1775, and in June following he was appointed by
that body one of the major generals (the third) of the American army. He
was charged by Washington with the command of the army in the province
of New York, and directed to secure the lakes and prepare for invading
Canada. He was taken sick, and the command devolved on Montgomery.
During 1776, he was active in Indian affairs, and in perfecting the
order and discipline of the northern army. For causes quite
inexplicable, he was superseded, in effect, by Gates in March, 1777, but
was reinstated in May. Again, when Burgoyne drove St. Clair from
Ticonderoga, and prudence caused General Schuyler to retreat with his
army from Fort Edward down the Hudson River, calumny, that had
successfully poisoned the minds of the Eastern people and the militia,
became so clamorous for his removal, that Congress placed Gates again in
charge of the army in August. Injured and insulted, the patriot still
continued to devote his services and his fortune in aid of his country.
He demanded a court of inquiry, and its verdict, acquitting him of all
blame, conferred as much honor upon him as his successes won at
Saratoga. He was urged by Washington to accept military command, but he
preferred to lend his aid to his country in another way. He was a member
of the old Congress under the Confederation; and after the adoption of
the Constitution of the United States, he was a senator from New York,
with Rufus King. He was again a senator, in place of Aaron Burr, in
1797. He died at Albany, November 18th, 1804, aged 71 years. He has two
daughters still living-Elizabeth, the venerable widow of General
Alexander Hamilton, and now (1849) ninety-two years of age; and
Catharine, his youngest daughter, widow of the late Major Cochrane, of
Oswego, son of Dr. Cochrane, the distinguished Surgeon General of the
Revolutionary Army. See page 199, Vol. II.
Schuyler and Gates.-- Advance of Burgoyne.-- Condition of the
Continental Army
039nature, sought the aid of his counsel and his sword. But he
encountered a smaller mind than his own, and both counsel and sword were
refused. He was coldly received by the adjutant general, who was deeply
offended because Congress had not allowed him to retain his command. A
brave soldier always seeks the post of greatest danger; and General
Schuyler, not doubting the courage or devotion of Gates, offered him the
command of Ticonderoga, the point where the first conflict with Burgoyne
would inevitably take place, and where the first laurels were to be won.
But the pride of Gates stifled his patriotism. He refused to serve under
Schuyler, and, at his own request, had leave to withdraw from the
department, where, indeed, he had done literally nothing.
All was terror and alarm among the inhabitants of the north, as Burgoyne
victoriously swept Champlain from St. John's to Crown Point, and with
his formidable force, daily augmented by loyalists and savage allies,
prepared to beleaguer the strong fortress of Ticonderoga.
Mount Hope, commanding the road to Lake George, was occupied; the
American outposts were driven in; the lake was studded with armed
vessels, and the formidable height of Mount Defiance was scaled, and
artillery planted upon its very summit, seven hundred feet above the
fort below.
General St. Clair, who commanded the garrison, when he saw the battery
above him, and the girdle of strong battalions that was closing around
him, knew that resistance would be madness. Under cover of night, he
retreated across to Mount Independence, and, with the small garrison
there, fled toward Fort Edward by the way of Castleton and
Skenesborough, leaving the stores and ammunition behind. The British
eagerly pursued the flying Americans. The battle of Hubbardton, so
disastrous to the patriots, was fought. The boom across the lake at
Ticonderoga was broken, and a free passage made for the vessels of the
enemy. They swept the lake to Skenesborough (now Whitehall), when the
American works and the stores that were left became an easy prey to the
invaders.
The army under General Schuyler was in a wretched condition, and daily
diminishing. Food, clothing, ammunition, and artillery were all wanting.
The pecuniary resources and credit of Congress were daily failing, and
all the future seemed dark, and foreboding of evil. The Eastern militia,
sick and disheartened by late reverses, became restless and insubordi-
Retreat of Schuyler to the Mohawk.-- St. Leger in the Mohawk Valley.--
Relief of the Valley proposed by Schuyler.
040nate, and nearly all of them left the army and returned home. These
things were exceedingly discouraging to the commander, yet his stout
heart never failed. "Should it be asked," July 24, 1777 he said a letter
to the Albany Committee, from Moses's Creek, four miles below Fort
Edward, "what line of conduct I mean to hold amid this variety of
difficulties and distress, I would answer, _to dispute every inch of
ground with General Burgoyne, and retard his descent into the country as
long as possible_."
Burgoyne's force, in the mean while, was constantly augmented by
accessions from the families of the loyal and the timid. Slowly and
surely he advanced from Skenesborough to Fort Anne, and was pressing
onward, in the midst of fearful obstacles, toward the Hudson.
Under all these circumstances, General Schuyler thought it prudent to
retreat until new recruits, or a re-enforcement from Washington, should
give more strength to his army. He accordingly fell back from Fort
Edward, the general rendezvous of his forces after the evacuation of
Ticonderoga, Mount Independence, and Fort George. As Burgoyne
approached, the people fled, in terror and dismay, toward Albany,
leaving their ripe harvest fields and pleasant homes to be trodden down
or burned by the enemy. Burgoyne at length reached Fort Edward; and as
he marched slowly down the valley of the Hudson, Schuyler retreated in
good order to Saratoga, then to Stillwater, and finally to Cohoes'
Falls.
In the mean while the people in the Mohawk Valley were in the greatest
consternation. St. Leger had arrived from Oswego, and was besieging Fort
Schuyler, while the Tories and Indians were spreading death and
desolation on every hand. Colonel Gansevoort, with a handful of men, was
closely shut up in the fort; General Herkimer, with the brave militia of
Tryon county, had been defeated at Oriskany, and the people below hourly
expected August 6 the flood of destroyers to pour down upon them. It was
a fearful emergency. Without aid all must be lost. Brave hearts were
ready for bold deeds, and during a night of fearful tempest of thunder
and rain, Colonel Willett and Lieutenant Stockwell crept stealthily from
the fort, through groups of sleeping besiegers, beyond their lines, and
at dawn on the second day, mounted upon fleet horses, sped down the
valley to the headquarters of General Schuyler, at Stillwater, and, in
the name of the beleaguered garrison and the people of Tryon county,
implored assistance.
Not a moment was to be lost. The subjugation of the whole valley would
inevitably follow the surrender of Fort Schuyler, and the victors,
gathering strength, would fall like an avalanche upon Albany, or, by
junction, swell the approaching army of Burgoyne. The prudent foresight
and far-reaching humanity of General Schuyler at once dictated his
course. He called a council, * and proposed sending a detachment
immediately to the relief of Fort Schuyler. His officers opposed him,
with the plea that his whole force was not then sufficient to stay the
oncoming of Burgoyne. The clearer judgment of Schuyler made him persist
in his opinion, and he earnestly besought them to agree with him. While
pacing the floor in anxious solicitude, he overheard the half-whispered
remark, "He means to weaken the army." ** Treason in the heart of Philip
Schuyler! Never was a thought more foul
* General Schuyler was then quartered in the house of Derrick Swart,
Esq., at Stillwater. The house is still standing, just at the foot of
the hill.- Charles Neilson, Esq.
** At this time jealousy had created secret enemies for General
Schuyler, and he was even charged with being associated with St. Clair
in preliminary acts of treason, about the time the latter evacuated
Ticonderoga. The ridiculous story got abroad that they had been paid for
their treason by the enemy in silver balls, shot from Burgoyne's guns
into the American camp!-See Thatcher's Military Journal, p. 86.
Note.-It will be observed that, in this rapid view of events connected
with the American encampment at the mouth of the Mohawk, I have avoided
all details, where, perhaps, the reader may have wished more minute
information. The necessity for this course arises from the nature of the
plan of my work, which is to notice in detail the various important
localities, in the order in which I visited them, and not in
chronological succession, as the mere historian would do. For example, I
visited Cohoes' and Bemis's Heights before Fort Edward and Ticonderoga.
I therefore describe the scenery and events of the former places
minutely, and reserve similar minute details concerning the latter
until, in the order of the narrative of my tour, I reach them. This
explanation is necessary, as some might suppose that important places
are to be slightly noticed, while others of less moment have an undue
share of attention. I have visited all the most important localities of
the Revolution, and each in its turn, in the course of the work, will
receive its full share of notice.
It is my intention to give in notes, in the course of the work, brief
biographical sketches of all the most important actors in our
Revolutionary war, both domestic and foreign. These sketches will be
introduced at points where the record exhibits the most prominent events
in the life of the subject. Prominent men will, therefore, be mentioned
often before a biography will be given; but the reader may rely upon
finding it in the work, if a memoir can be found.
Volunteers for the Relief of Fort Schuyler.-- Position of the Americans
at Cohoes.-- Active Preparations to oppose Burgoyne.
041or charge more wicked. Wheeling suddenly toward the slanderer and
those around him, and unconsciously biting into several pieces a pipe he
was smoking, he indignantly exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I shall take the
responsibility upon myself; where is the brigadier that will take
command of the relief? I shall beat up for volunteers to-morrow." The
brave and impulsive Arnold, ever ready for deeds of daring, at once
stepped forward and offered his services. The next morning the drum
beat, and eight hundred stalwart men August 15, 1777were enrolled for
the service before meridian. Fort Schuyler was saved, and the forces of
St. Leger scattered to the winds. In after years the recollection of
those burning words of calumny always stirred the breast of the veteran
patriot with violent emotions If ever a bosom glowed with true devotion
to country, it was that of Philip Schuyler.
Such, in brief, were the events which placed the remnant of the main
army of the north at the mouth of the Mohawk in August, 1777, and caused
Van Schaick's and Haver's Islands to be fortified. That seemed to be the
most eligible point at which to make a stand in defense of Albany
against the approaches of the enemy from the north and from the west.
Nowhere else could the comparatively feeble force of the Americans so
effectually oppose the overwhelming number of the invaders. At that time
there were no bridges across the Hudson or the Mohawk, and both streams
were too deep to be fordable except in seasons of extreme drought. There
was a ferry across the Mohawk, five miles above the falls, * and one
across the Hudson at Half Moon Point, ** or Waterford. The "sprouts" of
the Mohawk, between the islands, were usually fordable; and as Burgoyne
would not, of course, cross tho Hudson, or attempt the ferry upon the
Mohawk, where a few resolute men could successfully oppose him, his path
was of necessity directly across the mouth of the river. Fortifications
were accordingly thrown up on the islands and upon the main land, faint
traces of which are still visible.
In this position, with his headquarters at Stillwater, in advance of his
army, General Schuyler brought all his energies and resources into
requisition for the augmentation and discipline of his troops,
preparatory to a first determined conflict with Burgoyne. His private
purse was freely opened, *** and by unwearied exertions day and night
the army rapidly improved in numbers, discipline, and spirits. His
correspondence at that time with men of every degree, from the President
of Congress and the commander-in-chief to subordinate officers and
private gentlemen, was very extensive, all having relation to the one
great wish of his heart, the checking of the progress of the British
army. He addressed the civil and military authorities in every
direction, urging them to assist him with men and arms. The Council of
Safety, at Albany, was appealed to. "Every militia-man," he said, "ought
to turn out without delay in a crisis the most alarming since the
contest began." He appealed to the Eastern States. "If," he said, in a
letter to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, "the Eastern militia do not
turn out with spirit and behave better, we shall be ruined." To
Washington he repeated, in substance, what he had said on the 12th of
July previous. "If my countrymen will support me with vigor and
dexterity, and do not meanly despond,
* Loudon's ferry. At this place the left wing of the army rested, under
the command of General Arnold.
** So called from the name of Henry Hudson's ship, the Half Moon.
*** General Schuyler never allowed his private interest to interfere in
the least degree with the public good. When the Continental army was
retreating from Fort Edward, Mrs. Schuyler rode up from Albany to their
beautiful country seat at Saratoga, and superintended the removal of
their furniture. While there she received direction from her husband to
set fire with her own hands to his extensive fields of wheat, and to
request his tenants to do the same, rather than suffer them to be reaped
by the enemy.- Women of The Revolution, vol. i., p. 60.
Schuyler superseded by Gates.-- Factions in Congress.-- Noble Conduct of
Schuyler.
042 we shall he able to prevent the enemy from penetrating much further
into the country." At the same time all was life and activity in his
camp. From his own state recruits were constantly filling his thinned
regiments, and the heart of the patriot was cheered with the prospect of
soon winning back those laurels which, by the late reverses and the
events of the last campaign, had been, in a measure, stripped from his
brow.
But secret enemies had been for some time plotting his disgrace by
poisoning the minds of the Eastern people, and raising a clamor in favor
of the reinstatement of Gates, who as yet, for obvious reasons, had met
with no reverses. The friends of that officer were an active faction in
Congress at that time, _sub rosa_, but the next year were far more
undisguised in favoring the scheme for giving Gates the chief command in
place of Washington. We are so accustomed to look upon all the men of
the Revolution who took sides with the friends of America as pure and
holy in all their thoughts and actions, that we reluctantly yield to the
conviction that they were ever actuated by motives less worthy and
exalted than those of the loftiest patriotism. This is claiming too much
for human nature. While we may award to them all that is noble and
disinterested in feeling, when the good of the common cause demanded
personal sacrifice and pliancy of opinion, it is folly to deny that the
spirit of faction was rife among the members of the Old Continental
Congress, and that selfish motives often controlled their actions.
Congress, listening to the clamors from the East, the importunities of
Gates's friends, and the suggestions of a false military philosophy,
deprived General Schuyler of his command just as he was about to lead
his troops to victory.
General Gates, with his new commission, arrived at Van Schaick's on the
19th of August, three days after the battle of Bennington, a battle
which, in its effect upon the British army, gave full assurance of
future victory to the Americans. How nobly did the conduct of Schuyler
on this occasion contrast with that of Gates a few weeks previous. On
Gates's arrival, without the slightest indication of ill humor, the
patriot resigned his command, communicated all the intelligence he
possessed, and put every interesting paper into his hands simply adding,
"I have done all that could he done, as far as the means were in my
power, to injure the enemy, and to inspire confidence in the soldiers of
our own army, and, I flatter myself, with some success; but the palm of
victory is denied me, and it is left to you, general, to reap the fruit
of my labors. I will not fail, however, to second your views; and my
devotion to my country will cause me with alacrity to obey all your
orders." * "I am sensible," he said, in a letter to Congress, "of the
indignity of being ordered from the command of the army at the time when
an engagement must soon take place yet he preferred to suffer reproach
in silence rather than allow his bleeding country to be injured by the
withdrawal of a single arm from its support. Although disgraced by the
act of Congress, he persevered assiduously in strengthening the army and
preparing for the coming conflict. "I shall go on," he said to
Washington, "in doing my duty and endeavoring to deserve your esteem."
And when General Gates arrived, he cordially proffered his co-operation,
was very active in promoting the success of the battles which soon after
took place, was present at Saratoga when Burgoyne surrendered his sword,
and rejoiced, because his country was the gainer, when the laurels which
should have graced his brow were placed upon that of another. Warmed by
such impulses, who can doubt that the bosom of the generous patriot on
that day heaved with nobler pride and purer joy than that of the lauded
victor?
* Garden, p. 359.