The Story of American History Part 26

by which name her exploits have been celebrated from that day until this in oratory and song. Many years ago the government planned to break her up and sell her timbers. This prompted Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to write his famous poem beginning:--

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high.

These stirring lines had a powerful influence upon the public mind, and the n.o.ble-vessel was saved. She may be seen now (1900), carefully protected, in the navy yard at Charlestown, Ma.s.s.

Slowly but surely the idea dawned upon many minds in Europe that a nation was springing up on the other side of the Atlantic that would sometime dispute with England, the "mistress of the seas," the supremacy of the ocean.

=280. Battle between the Chesapeake and Shannon.=--The year 1813 opened with hopeful prospects, but the scale turned less in our favor than during 1812. A brilliant young officer, Captain James Lawrence, was given in reward for his bravery the command of the Chesapeake, then lying in Boston Harbor. She was one of the finest frigates in our young navy, but had the name among the sailors of being an "unlucky" craft.

Lawrence had hardly taken charge of his new s.h.i.+p when he received a challenge from the British frigate Shannon, cruising outside, daring him to come out and fight. He hastily made ready for sea, collected such a crew as he could, part landsmen and part foreigners, and sailed out.

This was really very unwise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES LAWRENCE.]

The Shannon's crew were picked men, and had had long and careful drill, while Lawrence's men were fresh and unprepared. Lawrence was young, proud of his late victory, and full of courage. The hostile s.h.i.+ps fought fiercely and with terrible effect. In a few minutes every one of the Chesapeake's officers was either killed or wounded.

While Lawrence was giving an order, a musket ball inflicted upon him a fatal wound. As he was carried below, his dying words were,

"DON'T GIVE UP THE s.h.i.+P!"

--a stirring battle-cry, which has ever since been a source of inspiration to our navy.

The battle was soon over. The torn rigging of the Chesapeake was entangled with that of the Shannon, the enemy's officers leaped on board and raised the British flag. The Chesapeake was taken to Halifax, where Lawrence was buried with military honors.

=281. Commodore Perry and his Brilliant Victory on Lake Erie.=--The story of Perry's brilliant victory on Lake Erie has been told in prose and verse ever since it took place. The control of this inland sea between two hostile countries was very important. The British already had a little fleet of six vessels with sixty-three guns, to oppose which we had hardly anything in the shape of vessels or trained men.

A naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry of Rhode Island, not quite twenty-eight years old and who had never been in action before, was appointed to take charge of the whole matter in behalf of the United States. First, he must have an armed flotilla to meet the enemy.

With remarkable energy the young captain put a large force of wood-choppers and s.h.i.+p carpenters at work for months near Erie, Pa., felling huge trees and building war vessels of the green timber. Soon he had launched nine, with fifty-four cannon--more vessels than the enemy, but fewer guns.

One beautiful September morning the British fleet was seen on the horizon.

"Sail ho!" rang out from the masthead of the American flags.h.i.+p.

"Enemy in sight!" "Get under way!" was the signal sent to each vessel.

Perry stripped his flags.h.i.+p, the Lawrence, for action. At her masthead he raised a blue battle-flag, upon which had been painted in large white letters the dying words of the brave Lawrence, "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p."

"My brave lads," said Perry, "this flag has on it the dying words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?"

"Aye, aye, sir," shouted every man, and cheer after cheer echoed and reechoed through the fleet. This was the signal for battle.

The enemy's fire was directed mostly upon Perry's vessel, which fought the two largest British s.h.i.+ps till the Lawrence was almost a helpless wreck--cannon dismounted, masts shot away, and most of the crew either killed or wounded.

Should Perry surrender? NOT HE!

Taking his motto banner, he sprang into his only open boat, with his little brother and four stout sailors, and standing erect with his battle-flag half folded about him, b.a.l.l.s flying all around him, he was rowed through the thickest of the fight to another of his s.h.i.+ps, the Niagara, half a mile distant.

A mighty shout went up from all our fleet at the sight of this heroic deed.

"Fire upon that boat," ordered the British commander.

The enemy at once poured a hail of cannon-b.a.l.l.s, grapeshot, and musket bullets around the men in the open boat. Strange to say, not a person was hurt. Perry sprang on board of the Niagara, took command, sailed his vessels into the enemy's line, and thundered a series of broadsides right and left into five of their best s.h.i.+ps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLIVER HAZARD PERRY.]

In fifteen minutes from this moment the work was over! For the first time in history an American fleet had met a British fleet in a fair fight--and captured it!

The battle had lasted three hours. The victory was complete. Then with singular pride Perry returned to the shattered Lawrence and there received the enemy's surrender! When he was sure of victory, he wrote in pencil on the back of an old letter, resting the paper on his cap, and sent to General Harrison (afterwards President in 1841) that remarkable despatch, the first sentence of which has been so often repeated:

"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY ARE OURS!"

This victory, so astonis.h.i.+ng for its daring act of valor, turned the scales of war. It saved the western states from further inroads by the British, and paved the way for General Harrison to recover what was lost in General Hull's surrender of Detroit.

=282. Other Events of this War.=--The next year, 1814, which saw the end of the war, was marked by events few but important. In the summer the British with their vast fleet blockaded all our most important ports, and sailing up rivers and into unprotected harbors, they plundered without mercy the defenseless cities and towns.

In August one of their fleet sailed up to Was.h.i.+ngton, the city being entirely unguarded. President Madison, the officers of the government, and many citizens fled, and General Ross marched unopposed into the city. Obeying instructions from his government, he burned the Capitol, the President's house, the Treasury, and other public buildings, with vast amounts of valuable books and records. This shameful act has always received the sharpest condemnation from the civilized world.

Next the British army marched to Baltimore, where the fleet bombarded Fort McHenry all day and all night, but without avail. The next morning Francis Scott Key, then a prisoner on a British s.h.i.+p, seeing the flag still flying over the fort, hastily wrote in pencil, on the back of an old letter, the stirring song that we all know so well, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The British General Ross was killed, and his army hastened to the s.h.i.+ps and sailed away.

In September the English, with an army of fourteen thousand veterans, tried to force a way from Canada to New York through Lake Champlain.

Their army marched from Quebec, while the fleet sailed down the lake, and both were at Plattsburg together. But our gallant flotilla under Commodore McDonough utterly destroyed the British squadron, far superior to ours.

=283. How General Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans.=--Later in the year the British made a vigorous effort to capture New Orleans. More than ten thousand trained veterans, believed to be the finest troops in the world, were met by less than half that number of men under Andrew Jackson, afterwards President. The battle was short but decisive.

The British general repeated the fatal error of Bunker Hill in marching his soldiers to attack men who were behind breastworks, and who knew how to hit every time they fired. Jackson's wall of cotton bales was a.s.saulted time and again, but the red-coat lines broke and ran before the withering fire of the backwoods rifles. The sharpshooters of the South-west had worsted British veterans who had defeated the best soldiers of Napoleon.

In less than an hour the enemy's leader, General Packenham, was killed, seven hundred of his men lay dead on the field, and the contest was over. The British lost over two thousand in all, the Americans only thirteen! Never had a British army met a more decisive defeat.

This battle, fought on the eighth of January, 1815, was really needless; for peace had been made in Europe about two weeks before.

=284. Results of the War.=--The war of 1812 was not fought in vain. It put an end at once to searching American vessels and kidnapping American sailors on the high seas. Foreign nations saw that we were determined to maintain our rights on the ocean, and have never thought it best since then to insult our country. This war also served to strengthen the American feeling of nationality.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE PACIFIC COAST.

=285. The Great Rush Westward.=--Shortly after the close of the Revolution, long processions of emigrant wagons, with their white canvas covers and their companies of hardy men and women, began to move westward on all the main roads through New England, over the highways of New York toward the lakes, over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and through the valley of the Ohio.

Thousands of thrifty settlers followed just behind the pioneers and cleared the forests, bridged the streams, built villages, and tilled the rich valleys. Thousands left their homes in the Carolinas and went over the mountains to settle on the rich lands of Kentucky and Tennessee.

The hards.h.i.+ps which these early settlers endured are beyond description.