IT is the day before Christmas when the General lays out his line for
fortifications. The Roderiquez Canal is no canal at all, but a disused
mill race, which an active man can leap and any one may wade. The
General will make a moat of it, and raise his breastworks along its
mile-length muddy course, between the river and the cypress swamp. He
keeps an army of mules and negroes, with scrapers and carts, hard at
work, heaping up the earth. A boat load of cotton is lying at the levee.
The cotton bales are rolled ashore, and added to the heaped-up earth.
This pleases Papa Plauche.
“It is singular,” he remarks to neighbor St. Geme, “that cotton, which
has been my business support for years, should now defend my life.”
There is a low place to the General's front. He cuts the levee; and
soon the Mississippi furnishes three feet of water, to serve as a wet
drawback to any English advance. The latter, however, are not thinking
on an advance. Supports have come dripping from the swamp, and swollen
their numbers to threefold the General's force; but none the less their
hearts are weak. That horrifying night attack, when their blood was shed
in the dark, has broken the heart of their vanity, and a paralyzing fear
of those dangerous hunting-shirt men lies all across the English like
a cloud. More and worse, the _Carolina_ swings downstream, abreast of
their position, and her broadsides drive them to hide in ditches and the
cypress borders of the swamp. There is no peace, no safety, on the flat,
stubble ground, while light remains by which to point the _Carolina's_
guns.
Nor does nightfall bring relief. Those empty-handed Kentuckians must
be provided for; and, no sooner does the sun go down, than the
hunting-shirt men by two and three go forth in search of English
muskets. They shoot down sentries, and carry away their dead belongings.
Does an English group assemble round a camp fire, it becomes an
invitation seldom neglected. A party of hunting-shirt men creep within
range and begin the butchery. There is never the moment, daylight and
dark, when the unhappy English are not within the icy reach of death.
There is no repose, no safety! A chill dread claims them like a palsy!
The English complain bitterly at this bushwhacking; which, to the
hunting-shirt men, reared in schools of Indian war, is the merest A B C
of battle. The harassed English denounce the General as a barbarian, in
whose savage bosom burns no spark of chivalry. They recall how in their
late campaigns in Spain, English and French pickets spent peace-filled
weeks within fifty yards of one another, exchanging nothing more deadly
than coffee and compliments.
The grim General refuses to be affected by the French-English example.
He continues to pile up his earthworks, while the hunting-shirt men
go forth to pot nightly English as usual. The situation wears away the
courage of the English to a white and paper thinness.
While the General is fortifying his lines, and the hunting-shirt men are
stalking English sentinels, peace is signed in Europe between America
and England. But Europe is far away; and there is no Atlantic cable. And
so the General continues at his congenial labors undisturbed.
Christmas does not go unrecognized in the General's camp. He himself
attempts nothing of festival sort, and only drives his fortifying mules
and negroes the harder. But the hunting-shirt men celebrate by cleaning
their rifles, molding bullets, refilling powder horns, and whetting
knives and tomahawks to a more lethal edge.
As for Papa Plauche and the “Fathers of Families,” they become jocund.
Their wives and daughters purvey them roast fowls in little wicker
baskets, and the warmest wines of Burgundy in bottles. Whereupon Papa
Plauche and his “Fathers” wax blithe and merry, singing the songs of
France and talking of old loves.
And now Sir Edward Pakenham arrives, and relieves General Keane in
command of the English. With him comes General Gibbs. The two listen to
the reports of General Keane, and shrug polite shoulders as he speaks of
the savage valor of the Americans. It is preposterous that peasants
clad in skins, and not a bayonet among them, should check the flower of
England. General Keane does not reply to the polite shrug. He reflects
that the General, with his hunting-shirt men, can be relied upon to
later make convincing answer.
Upon the morning which follows the advent of General Pakenham, the
English see a moment of good fortune. A red-hot shot sets fire to
the _Carolina_, as she swings downstream on her cable for that daily
bombardment, and burns her to the water line. This cheers the English
mightily; and does not discourage Commodore Patterson, who transfers his
activities to the decks of the _Louisiana._
Sir Edward gives the General three uninterrupted days. This the latter
warrior improves so far as to rear his earthworks to a height of four
feet, and mount five guns. On the fourth day the English are led out to
the assault. Sir Edward does not say so, but he expects to march over
those four-foot walls of mud and cotton bales as he might over any other
casual four-foot obstruction, and go up to the city beyond.
The sequel does not justify Sir Edward's optimism. The moment the
English approach within two hundred yards of the General's line, a sheet
of fire hisses all along. The English melt away like smoke. They break
and run, seeking refuge in the cross ditches which drain the stubble
lands. Once in the ditches, they are made to sit fast by the watchful
hunting-shirt men, whose aim is death and who shoot at every exposed two
square inches of English flesh and blood.
All day the English must crouch in the saving mud and water of those
ditches, and it ruffles their self-regard. With darkness for a shield,
Sir Edward brings them off. He explains the disaster to his staff
by calling it a “reconnoissance.” General Keane also calls it a
“reconnoissance”; but there is a satisfied grin on his war-worn face.
Sir Edward has received a taste of the mettle of those “peasants,” and
may now take a more tolerant, and less politely cynical, view of what
earlier setbacks were experienced by General Keane. As for the seventy
dead who lie, faces to the quiet stars, among the sugar stubble, they
say nothing. And whether it be called a “reconnoissance” or a defeat
matters little to them.
“What do you think of it?” asks Sir Edward of his friend, General Gibbs,
as the two confer over a bottle of port.
“Sir Edward,” returns the General, “I should call a council of war.”
Sir Edward winces. It is too great an honor for the brother-in-law of
Lord Wellington to pay a “Copper Captain” like the General. For all that
he calls it; and the call assembles, besides Generals Gibbs and Keane,
those saltwater soldiers, Admirals Cochrane, Codrington and Malcolm,
and Captain Hardy whom Nelson loved. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of
the English engineers, is also there. The solemn debate lasts hours. The
decision is to regard the General's position as “A walled and fortified
place, to be reduced by regular and formal approaches.” Which is
flattering to the General's engineering skill.
The council breaks up. The next morning Sir John Burgoyne commits a
stroke of genius. He rolls out of the storehouses to the English rear
countless hogsheads of sugar. Night sets in, foggy and black. Under its
protecting cover, Sir John trundles his hundreds of hogsheads to a point
not six hundred yards from the General's mud walls. Till daybreak
the English work. They set the hogsheads on end--four close-packed
thicknesses of them, two tier high. Ingenious portholes are left to
receive the muzzles of the guns, and thirty cannon, which have been
dragged through the cypress swamp from the fleet, are placed in
position.
Those hogsheads of sugar, with the thirty black muzzles frowning forth,
impress folk as a most formidable fortalice, when the upshooting sun
rolls back the fog and offers a view of them. The General, however, does
not hesitate; he instantly opens with his five, and the thirty guns
of the English bellow their iron response. Hardly a whit behind the
General, the active Commodore Patterson drops downstream with the
_Louisiana_, and throws the weight of her broadsides against the
English.
The big-gun duel is hot and furious, and the rolling clouds of powder
smoke shut out the fighters from one another. They do not pause for
that, but fire blindly through the smoke, sighting their guns by guess.
When the smoke has cloaked the scene, Sir Edward orders two columns of
the English foot to storm the General's mud walls.
The columns advance, and run headforemost into the hunting-shirt men.
The sleety rain of lead which greets them rolls the columns up like two
red carpets. The recoiling columns break, and the English take cover
for a second time in those saving ditches. They declare among themselves
that mortal man might more easily face the fires of hell itself, than
the flame-filled muzzles of the hunting-shirt men, who seem to be
Death's very agents upon earth.
As the broken English crouch in those ditches the fire of Sir John
Burgoyne's big guns begins to falter. The smoke is so thick that no one
may tell the cause. At last the English volleys altogether end, and the
General orders Dominique and Bluche, with their swarthy pirate crews
from Barrataria, and what other artillerists are serving his quintette
of guns, to cease their stormy work. With that a silence falls on both
sides.
The breeze from the river tears the smoky veil aside; and lo! that
noble fortification of sugar hogsheads is heaped and piled in ruins. The
General's solid shot go through and through those hogsheads of sugar, as
though they are hogsheads of snow. Five of the thirty English guns are
smashed. The proud work of Sir John Burgoyne presents a spectacle of
desolation, while the English who serve the batteries go flying for
their lives. Not all! The three-score dead remain--the only English
whose honor is saved that day!
Sir Edward's cheek is white as death. He blames Sir John Burgoyne, who
has erred, he says, in constructing the works. Sir John did err, and Sir
Edward is right. Forty years later, the same Sir John will repeat the
same mistake at Sebastapol; which shows how there be Bourbons among the
English, learning nothing, forgetting nothing.
As the English skulk in clusters, and ragged, beaten groups for their
old position beyond the General's long reach, the fear of death is
written on their faces. It will take a long rest, and much must be
forgotten, e'er they may be brought front to front with the General
again.
Among the hunting-shirt men are exultation and crowing triumph. Only
Papa Plauche is sad. During the fight, the cotton bales in front of Papa
Plauche and the “Fathers” are sorely knocked about. As though this be
not enough, what must a felon hot shot do but set one of them ablaze!
The smoke fills the noses of Papa Plauche and his “Fathers,” and makes
them sneeze. It burns their eyes until the tears the “Fathers” shed
might make one think them engaged upon the very funeral of Papa Plauche
himself.
In the tearful sneezing midst of this anguish, a vagrant flying flake
of cotton, all afire, explodes an ammunition wagon to the heroic rear of
Papa Plauche and the “Fathers,” and the shock is as the awful shock of
doom.
The fortitude of Hercules would fail at such a pinch! Papa Plauche and
the “Fathers” actually and for the moment think on flight! But whither
shall they fly? They are caught between Satan and a deepest sea--the
ammunition wagon and the English! Also to the right, plying sponge and
rammer, are the pirate Barratarians who are as bad as the English!
While to the left is the General, who is worse than the ammunition
wagon.
“It is written!” murmurs Papa Plauche; “our fate is sure! We must perish
where we stand!” Papa Plauche extends his hands, and cries: “Courage,
my heroes! Give your hearts to heaven, your fame to posterity, and show
history how 'Fathers of Families' can die!” From the cypress swamp a
last detachment of reënforcements emerges, and meets the beaten English
coming back. General Lambert, with the reënforcements, is shocked as he
reads their broken-hearted story in their eyes. “What is it, Colonel?”
he whispers to Colonel Dale of the Highlanders. “In heaven's name, what
stopped you?”
“Bullets, mon!” returns the Scotchman. “Naught but bullets! The fire of
those de'ils in lang shirts wud 'a' stopped Caesar himsel'!”