The Battle of New Orleans Part 8

"'But, I said, you know, General Jackson, that the Treaty of Ghent, which had been signed fifteen days before the decisive battle, provided for the restoration of all territory, places and possessions, taken by either nation from the other, during the war, with certain unimportant exceptions.

"'Yes, of course, Jackson replied, but the minutes of the conference at Ghent, as kept by Mr. Gallatin, represent the British commissioners as declaring in exact words: "We do not admit Bonaparte's construction of the law of nations; we can not accept it in relation to any subject-matter before us."

"'At that moment, pursued General Jackson, none of our commissioners knew what the real meaning of those words was. When they were uttered the British commissioners knew that Pakenham's expedition had been decided on; our commissioners did not know it. Now, since I have been Chief Magistrate, I have learned, from diplomatic sources of the most unquestionable authority, that the British ministry did not intend the Treaty of Ghent to apply to the Louisiana Purchase at all. The whole corporation of them,--Pitt, the Duke of Portland, Grenville, Perceval, Lord Liverpool, and Castlereagh, denied in toto the legal right of Napoleon to sell Louisiana to us. They held, therefore, that we had no right to that Territory. So you see, Allen, that the words of Mr. Gouldburn, on behalf of the British commissioners, which I have quoted to you from Albert Gallatin's minutes of the conference, had a far deeper significance than our commissioners could penetrate.

These words were meant to lay the foundation for a claim on the Louisiana Purchase, entirely external to the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent. And in that way, the British government was signing a treaty with one hand in front, whilst the other hand, behind its back, was dispatching Pakenham's army to seize the fairest of our possessions.

"'You can also see, my dear Allen, said the old General, waxing warmer, you can also see what an awful mess such a situation would have been, if the British programme had been carried out in full. But Providence willed otherwise. All the tangled web that the cunning of English diplomacy could weave around our unsuspecting commissioners at Ghent was torn to pieces, and soaked with British blood, in half an hour, at New Orleans, by the never-missing rifles of my Tennessee and Kentucky pioneers; and that ended it. British diplomacy could do wonders; but it could not provide against such a contingency as that.

Now, Allen, you have the whole story; and know why Arkansas was saved to the Union.'"

JUST LIKE JACKSON.

During the war of 1812-15, the officials of the English Government, civil and military, distinguished themselves by their haughty arrogance and insulting tone of superiority toward the American people; and were, with revengeful malice, guilty of vandalism, spoliations, and cruelties, which were a disgrace to civilization, not to speak of the ma.s.sacres and butcheries of thousands of women and children by the savage Indians, whom they employed and paid to commit these crimes. Andrew Jackson soon put an end to these English barbarisms wherever he commanded the American armies. An incident, ill.u.s.trative of his summary methods of dealing with the insolence of his enemies in authority, occurred at Pensacola. The English fleet and army had come in and quartered there in the Spanish capital, with the approval and aid of the Spanish governor, though Spain was at peace with the United States. The British a.s.sured him that they would soon be in possession of Louisiana and the coast country, and would fully protect the Spaniard as an ally and friend.

When Jackson marched his army to Pensacola, and sent in a message to the governor to expel the British soldiers from the city and order their fleet out of the harbor, the reply of the Spaniard was truckling to the English in tone and evasive and insolent toward the American officer in command. General Jackson replied in the following language:

Your Excellency has been candid enough to admit your having supplied the Indians with arms. In addition to this, I have learned that a British flag has been seen flying on one of your forts. All this is done while you are pretending to be neutral. You can not be surprised then; but on the contrary will provide a fort in your town for my soldiers and Indians, should I take it into my head to pay you a visit. In future, I beg you to withhold your insulting charges against my government, for one more inclined to listen to slander than I am; nor consider me any more as a diplomatic character, unless so proclaimed to you from the mouths of my cannon.

The old hero meant all he said; for he marched upon the town, forced a surrender, sent the British flying to their s.h.i.+ps for safety, and compelled the fleet to put to sea.

HUMILIATION OF ENGLAND.

No event in the modern history of her military operations brought a deeper disappointment and a keener sense of humiliation to the English Government, and to the nation, than did the disastrous failure of this expedition, fitted out in haughty pride for the invasion and conquest of Louisiana. The true story of the campaign and battles was in the main suppressed by the Tory press, in the interest of the reigning dynasty and to save the pride and prestige of a really great and imperial people. A coincidence occurred to aid in diverting the mind of the public from the contemplation of the deplorable event. On the 23d of February, 1815, news of the defeat at New Orleans reached London. On the same day arrived the intelligence of the escape of Napoleon from Elba, and of his landing on the sh.o.r.es of France. Public attention was diverted by the new sensation. The government press fostered the illusion, and the horrors of New Orleans were not so fully known or felt.

William Cobbett, the noted Liberal essayist and author, of England, wrote of the event: "And this was all the people of the duped nation ever heard of the matter. Bonaparte had landed from Elba, and the battle of Waterloo soon succeeded. Both the Government and the people were glad to forget all about this unmerciful beating in America. This battle of New Orleans broke the heart of European despotism. The man who won it did, in that one act, more for the good and the honor of the human race than ever was done by any other man."

The author, discussing the incidents and issues of this remarkable campaign, in the light of the vast superiority in both military and naval forces of the British over the Americans, their more thorough equipment, and their veteran discipline under the best-trained officers in the world, put the inquiry: "How can we account for the repeated reverses, and the final over-whelming defeat and expulsion from the country, of such a vast and formidable armament by an inferior body of raw recruits, suddenly improvised for defense from the militia of the country, and but poorly armed and equipped?" "Providence!" was the reply; nothing less than Providence could have baffled and beaten such a powerful foe, bent on conquest and spoliation for a wicked purpose, with a wicked spirit, and in a wicked cause. England's boastful pride and intolerant and cruel insolence toward her American kindred was humbled at last. The G.o.d of battle had once again in time punished a strong nation for its stubborn crimes, and given victory to the oppressed. Providence was with Jackson and his militia!

DEATH OF LORD PAKENHAM.

Pakenham died the death of the brave soldier, the heroic Briton, and the beloved commander. His wounds were mortal, and he was at once borne back to headquarters unconscious and dying. No last words came down to us through the grief-stricken aids who ministered to him in his last hour.

The British accounts of his wounding and death-scenes are conflicting and unsatisfactory. Judge Walker, in his work, "Jackson and New Orleans," after much research, says that Pakenham was wounded first while attempting to rally the Forty-fourth Regiment, whose chief officer, Colonel Mullins, had failed to lead it to a second attack, after the first repulse by the Tennessee and Kentucky infantry. A musket-ball broke his right arm, and another killed his horse. His aid, Captain McDougall, a.s.sisted him to mount his own horse, a creole pony, and led him forward by the bridle-rein, the General's wounded arm hanging helpless at his side. Pakenham continued in front, and to encourage his men. As the Ninety-third Highlanders came up, he raised his hat in his left hand, waved it in the air with enthusiasm, and shouted:

"Hurrah! Hurrah! brave Highlanders!"

A discharge of grape-shot almost annihilated the group. One shot pa.s.sed through the General's thigh, and at the same time through the body of the pony, and both went down, never to rise again. As the aid raised him once again in his arms, the chief received a third and fatal wound in the groin. He was borne back then, near to his headquarters, and placed under a large oak tree, where, beyond the surgeon's skill, he shortly breathed his last.

BRITISH SOLDIERS WON LAURELS IN EUROPEAN WARS.

From English authorities we learn that there were in the English army, under Pakenham, regiments that had won laurels at Martinique, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse. The English chronicler, Cooke, says of some of these veterans, who touched, on their way to America from the coasts of France, the sh.o.r.e of Old England for a few days, that "sc.r.a.ps from our colors, or other little souvenirs, were craved for with outstretched hands, to find a resting place in the fair bosoms of the ladies of Devons.h.i.+re."

Others again were but recently transported from the fiery ordeals of Corunna, Busaco, and Ciudad Rodrigo, says the same author. England never sent forth from her borders a braver or better-disciplined body of soldiers, as was proven in every trial of campaign and battle of the invasion of Louisiana. No other troops in the world could have behaved with more st.u.r.dy gallantry or fought with superior courage. Their defeat was destiny. Providence and General Jackson did it!

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON.

Andrew Jackson was born in the Waxhaw settlement on the 15th of March, 1767, so near the border of North and South Carolina as to leave it a question of contention as to which State may claim the honor of his nativity. His father, Andrew Jackson, came over from Carrickfergus, on the north coast of Ireland, in 1765. His mother was Elizabeth Hutchinson. The father died before the birth of Andrew. His birthplace was a rude log cabin of the border. His education was limited to the elementary studies of the country schools of his day. At the age of fourteen he entered the colonial army, and, young as he was, displayed the same spirit of patriotic courage and indomitable will that made him famous. Two elder brothers had entered the army before him, and both gave their lives a sacrifice to the cause of liberty. The mother died soon, of grief and the hards.h.i.+ps of war. Young Andrew was taken prisoner, and roughly treated by his captors. He was nearly starved in prison at Camden. While thus confined, an English officer insolently ordered him one day to black his boots. Jackson indignantly refused, for which offense the brutal officer beat him over his head with his sword, inflicting injuries which caused suffering in after life. This incident is related to have greatly intensified Jackson's hatred of the English throughout his life. An orphan, and alone in the world, when the War of the Revolution was over he was apprenticed to learn the saddler's trade.

At eighteen he began the study of law, in the office of McCoy, in Salisbury.

In 1788, Jackson was appointed public prosecutor for western North Carolina, now Tennessee. He removed and located at Nashville, and very soon was engaged in an active and remunerative practice. In 1796, he sat as a delegate in the convention at Knoxville, to frame a const.i.tution for Tennessee, admitted into the Union as a State in that year. He was the first representative in Congress of the new State. But one year afterward, he was elected a senator of the United States Congress. In 1798, he resigned his seat in the Senate to accept an appointment as judge of the Supreme Court of his State, which office he held for six years. He engaged repeatedly in personal rencounters and duels, and in the latter received wounds that caused him great physical suffering during life.

Since 1801, he had been commander of the Tennessee militia. On the declaration of war against England, Jackson offered his services, with twenty-five hundred troops, to the Government for the defense of the country. He was ordered to Natchez with two thousand men to operate against any movement of the enemy on New Orleans. No enemy appearing on the coast, he was ordered by Secretary Armstrong, of the War Department, to disband his army. This foolish order Jackson disobeyed, and very properly led his men back to Tennessee before dismissing them. His famous campaign against the great Creek nation, in 1814, and his repeated victories over these savage allies of England, breaking their power and compelling peace; his Gulf Coast campaign and battles around New Orleans, crus.h.i.+ng the British army and driving it from the country; his successful career as President of the United States, are well known in the history of our nation, and distinguish him as one of the ablest and most forceful characters our country has ever produced. He died at the Hermitage, full of honors and renown, on the 8th of June, 1845, having lived a patriot citizen, an able military chieftain, and a great leader in the civic affairs of State and nation.

ISAAC SHELBY, GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY.

Fortunate was it for Kentucky and for the nation that Isaac Shelby directed the military affairs of the Commonwealth during the period of the second war with England. This famous pioneer of the famous pioneers of Kentucky was born in Maryland, on the 11th of December, 1750, near Hagerstown. Early in life he was employed as a land surveyor. On the threatened invasion of Virginia by the federated army of the Northwest tribes under the celebrated chief, Cornstalk, he was lieutenant of a company in the command of his father, General Evan Shelby, and gained distinction for gallant services in the great victory won at Point Pleasant on the 10th of October, 1774, which forced the Indians to sue for peace. He visited Kentucky in 1775, with the vanguard of pioneer explorers, and marked the lands which afterward, in 1780, he returned and secured by entry and upon which he settled with his family after the Revolutionary War.

When he removed from Maryland, he settled near the borderline of Virginia and North Carolina, then not well defined. Believing his residence on Virginia soil, he was elected to the Virginia Legislature in 1779. But the survey of the boundary line determined him a citizen of North Carolina, and as such he was officially known after until his final removal to Kentucky. In the gloomiest period of the War for Independence, in the southern colonies, after the defeat at Camden and the surrender of Charleston, Shelby became famous as a border leader of what seemed the forlorn hope of the colonists, and for his frequent victories over the enemy. With Colonels Sevier and Clarke, he led his command to the attack and capture of a strong fort in the Cherokee country, which had, garrisoned by British, Tories, and Indians, greatly hara.s.sed the settlers in west North Carolina. Soon after, in August, 1780, he inflicted a loss of several hundred by an attack on the British at Musgrove's Mill, South Carolina, and escaped with little loss of his own men. But his greatest victory, and one of the most decisive of the war, was won at King's Mountain. Joining forces with Colonels Sevier and Campbell, a bold attack was planned and made on the notorious General Ferguson, encamped on King's Mountain. Without artillery, these frontiersmen, with their flint-lock rifles, boldly attacked Ferguson's veterans, advancing on the enemy up the mountain side, and keeping up the fight until Ferguson and nearly four hundred of his men were slain, and over seven hundred made prisoners.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISAAC SHELBY.

First and Sixth Governor of Kentucky.]

After the close of the war, in the winter of 1782-3, General Shelby removed to Kentucky and settled in Lincoln County, where he remained through life at his elegant home and upon his ample estate, the model citizen and patriot. His civic and military fame preceded him, for many of his soldiers of the Revolution were his emigrant neighbors. When Kentucky took the initial steps toward Statehood in the Union, Shelby was a member of the convention of 1787-8, and also of the convention to frame the first const.i.tution, of 1792. By unanimous consent, he became the first Governor of the Commonwealth, in 1792, and was inaugurated as Governor at Lexington on the first of June. On the sixth of June, in courtly style, the Governor appeared in person in presence of the legislators, in joint a.s.sembly, and read to the august body his first message, formally delivering to the Speakers of each House a copy in ma.n.u.script, and then retired in dignified state, when the Speakers each adjourned the members to their respective halls. This was in imitation of the custom of the British monarchs, followed by the colonial governors in America, and by Was.h.i.+ngton himself in his first inaugural ceremonies.

So much had Governor Shelby established himself in the esteem and confidence of the people, that with unanimity he was elected a second time to serve as Governor in the critical period of 1812, when a second war with England became a certainty. His indomitable and patriotic zeal counted no costs and reckoned at no sacrifice to punish the invaders and drive them from our soil during the three years of hostilities. In this time, under his several calls, over twenty thousand volunteers were sent to the Army of the Northwest under Harrison, from Kentucky. By these mainly, the shameful surrender of Hull, at Detroit, was retrieved, the victory of the Thames won, and the British and their Indian allies driven from the borders, from Detroit to Buffalo, for the remainder of the war. At the battle of the Thames, won by Kentuckians, Governor Shelby led the three thousand volunteers whom he had called out for this campaign, in person, though in his sixty-fourth year of age. On his return to the capital of his State, when a last requisition was made by the Secretary of War, in 1814, thousands of volunteers answered his call for troops to reinforce the army of General Jackson in the Southwest, of whom three regiments, of twenty-two hundred men, were accepted and sent to New Orleans. Governor Shelby notified the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton that, if ten thousand soldiers were needed to repel the enemy and drive him from our soil in the Southwest, Kentucky was ready to supply them on brief notice.

Peace once again reigned when his second term as Governor ended. He retired to his country home, where he spent the evening of his life, honored and esteemed by a grateful and devoted const.i.tuency of citizens.h.i.+p as few men were. He died at his home on the 26th of July, 1826, in the ripeness of years and of honors.

GENERAL JOHN ADAIR.

John Adair was born in Chester County, S.C., in 1759, and was the son of Baron William Adair, of Scotland, whose wife was a Moore. After remaining some years in South Carolina, Baron Adair returned to Scotland. The son became a soldier in the Revolutionary War when quite a youth, and served with gallantry in the colonial army. He was made prisoner, and was treated with repeated cruelties by the enemy. He was a member of the convention which ratified the Const.i.tution of the United States. He removed to Kentucky in 1787, and settled in Mercer County. He took an active and prominent part in the Indian border wars, having been appointed major by General Wilkinson. He was in many frays with the savages, in one of which, after several repulses of a body of Indians largely outnumbering his own forces, he was defeated by Chief Little Turtle, though he brought off his men after inflicting more serious losses on the enemy than his own. This was near Fort St. Clair, in Ohio.

In 1793, General Scott appointed him a lieutenant-colonel. He represented Mercer County in the Legislature several times, and was once Speaker of the House.

Adair's name became involved with Aaron Burr's in the military movements in Kentucky and the Southwest which have become known in history as "Burr's Conspiracy," as did the names of Andrew Jackson and other prominent men of this country, of unquestioned loyalty to our nation.

Burr's designs, with all the lights thrown upon the question, have remained a mystery to this day. If he contemplated ultimate treason, he did not fully disclose it to many who were disposed to sympathize with and to lend aid to what they were persuaded was a legitimate expedition to wrest from Spanish rule territory in dispute, or which "manifest destiny" determined should come under the rule of the United States as against the aggressions of Spain or England. Burr undoubtedly misled many good and patriotic men, who abandoned his fortunes when the intimations of treasonable designs were charged against him, which brought him to trial.

In 1805, when John Breckinridge resigned his seat in the United States Senate to become attorney-general under Jefferson, Adair was elected to fill the unexpired term. He entered the military service again, and at the battle of Thames River acted as volunteer aid to Governor Shelby.

For gallant conduct on this occasion he was made a brigadier-general in 1814. He took a leading part in recruiting the volunteer troops for the reinforcement of Jackson's army at New Orleans, and in their transportation down the river. General Thomas, in chief command of these, being prostrated with illness, the command fell upon General Adair. He displayed courage and military skill in the disposition of his troops, and especially in the final contest on the eighth of January, under difficulties that were seriously embarra.s.sing.

In 1820, he was elected governor of Kentucky, and held this office when the great questions of relief, and Old Court and New Court, began to disturb the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth. In 1831, he was elected a member of Congress, and in the national house served on the Committee on Military Affairs. He died on the 19th of May, 1840, and was buried in the State cemetery at Frankfort, where a monument, erected at the cost of the State, with proper inscription, stands over his grave. A fine oil portrait of him hangs on the wall of the capitol, at Frankfort.

COLONEL GABRIEL SLAUGHTER.

Who commanded a regiment of Kentucky troops in the battle of New Orleans, was a native of Virginia, but immigrated to Kentucky in pioneer days and settled in Mercer County, about four miles east of Harrodsburg, on the turnpike road leading to Lexington. Though a man of ability, and much esteemed, he seems to have lived in the retirement of private life until the maturity of middle age. He early became a member of the Baptist church, in which he led a consistent and zealous life, taking a prominent part as a layman in the promotion of the interests of religion and of the denomination with whom he fraternized. His character and worth made him prominent among the brotherhood. He often represented his church as its messenger, and was usually called to preside as moderator over the a.s.sociations within the jurisdictions of which he lived. His hospitality was of that warm and generous kind which was characteristic of pioneer days. His ample and comfortable country mansion, situated upon a much-frequented highway, came to be known far and wide as the "Wayfarer's Rest."

Under the call of Governor Shelby, in 1814, he enlisted a regiment of volunteers for the army of the Southwest from Mercer County and the counties adjacent, which was one of three regiments accepted for this service. The gallant and distinguished part taken at New Orleans, in the great battle of the eighth of January, by Colonel Slaughter and his regiment, has been set forth in the pages of this book. No troops engaged on the American side on that day did more fatal execution upon the enemy's rank and file than did these. Every man of the regiment was in rifle-range, and all did deadly work.

Though courteous and gentle in manner, Colonel Slaughter was possessed of invincible firmness and independence when occasion required or a sense of duty urged. An incident ill.u.s.trates. General Jackson, who held him in high esteem, appointed him to preside over a court-martial. The decision did not meet with the favor of the chief, and he ordered a reconsideration and reversal of proceedings. Colonel Slaughter declined to comply, saying: "I know my duty, and have performed it." Jackson's esteem was not lessened by the manliness of the answer.

His gallantry at New Orleans brought the name of Colonel Slaughter prominently to political notice, and the next year, 1816, he was nominated and elected lieutenant-governor, on the ticket with George Madison for governor. Madison was not destined to wear the civic honors which an ardent const.i.tuency had woven to crown him. He died in October, a few months after the election. Slaughter succeeded him, and was duly installed as governor. An active opposition party made an open issue of the question as to whether the lieutenant-governor was eligible to become governor by succession, under the Const.i.tution, or that a successor should be chosen at an election to be called by act of the Legislature. There had been no precedent to this date. The question was fiercely agitated, in and out of the legislative halls, during two years of the executive term, before a subsidence of partisan feeling ended the contest. Governor Slaughter held firmly to his convictions of const.i.tutional right, came safely through the angry waves of opposition, and served out his term of four years with credit to himself and the Commonwealth. The question was settled by this precedent, no more to be raised, that, under the const.i.tutional provisions then in force, the lieutenant-governor should succeed to the office of governor upon the "death, resignation, or refusal to qualify" of the governor-elect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GABRIEL SLAUGHTER,