Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

They then proceeded against Baltimore. The land troops were almost in sight of the city of their desires, when they were halted and held in check by American troops under General Sticker, whose name, it may be said, meant as it sounded, and who effectually prevented their further advance. But the fleet on the waters sailed into the bay of Baltimore and up to Fort McHenry at the mouth of the Patapsco River, in the determination to bombard the fortress and compel entrance to the city in that way. The British admiral had boasted the fort would fall to his hand an easy prey.

Prior to this, Dr. William Beane, a citizen of Baltimore and a non-combatant, had been captured at Marlboro and was held a prisoner on one of the vessels of the British fleet. To secure his release, Francis Scott Key and John Skinner set out from Baltimore on the ship _Minden_ flying a flag of truce. The British admiral received them kindly and released Dr. Beane; but detained the three on board ship pending the bombardment of the fort, lest in their return to land the intentions of the British might be frustrated.

Thus from the side of the enemy they were constrained to witness the efforts of destruction urged against the protecting fortress of their own city. From sunrise to sunset they watched the shot and shell poured into the fort and noted with infinite joy that the flag still flew. Through the glare of the artillery, as the night advanced, they caught now and then the gleam of the flag still flying. Would it be there at another sunrise? Who could tell! Suddenly the cannonading ceased. The British, despairing of carrying the fort, abandoned the project. In the emotion of the hour and inspiration born of the victory, Key composed the immortal lines now become our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The flag is preserved in the museum of Washington and is distinctive in having fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, one of the very few national flags with this number.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

OH, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thro' the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner; oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that land who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and wild war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the Heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

THE DEFENSE OF THE CRESCENT CITY

UPON every recurrence of January the eighth, the city of New Orleans dons gala attire and shouts herself hoarse with rejoicing. She chants the _Te Deum_ in her Cathedrals; and lays wreaths of immortelles and garlands of roses and sweet-smelling shrubs upon the monument of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square.

"The Saviour of New Orleans," the inhabitants called Jackson in the exuberance of their gratitude for his defense of the city, and their deliverance from threatened peril, that fateful day of January, 1815. From capture and pillage and divers evil things he saved her, and the Crescent City has not forgotten.

Neither indeed has the nation become unmindful of his great achievement, but upon each succeeding anniversary of the battle of New Orleans--that remarkable battle that gloriously ended the War of 1812, and restored the national pride and honor so sorely wounded by the fall of Washington--celebrates the event in the chief cities of the United States.

During our second clash of arms with England, the Creek War, wherein the red man met his doom, brought Jackson's name into prominence. At one bound, as it were, he sprang from comparative obscurity into renown.

In 1814 he was appointed a major general in the United States army, and established his headquarters at Mobile. He repulsed the English at Fort Bowyer, on Mobile Point, and awaited orders from Washington to attack them at Pensacola, where, through the sympathy of the Spaniards who were then in possession of the Florida peninsula, they had their base of operations.

Receiving no orders from Washington, he became impatient of delay, and upon his own responsibility marched his troops against Pensacola and put the British to flight. "This," says Sumner, "was the second great step in the war in the Southwest."

Washington had been captured and her principal public buildings burned, and New Orleans, the Crescent City, would now, it was thought, be the next point of attack by the British.

To New Orleans, therefore, "to defend a defenseless city, which had neither fleets nor forts, means nor men," came Jackson.

His entrance into the city was quiet and unostentatious and so devoid of the pomp and pageantry of a victorious general as to cause question in the minds of some as to whether or not this was the man expected. His dress was plain in the extreme, and bore upon it no insignia of rank; yet those there were, of insight, who saw in his every aspect the man of power.

From eye and posture and gesture emanated a certain indefinable force that attracted men to him, and created in them an enthusiasm for his cause. Old and young who came under his influence were ready to do his bidding.

To the terrified women and children of New Orleans who appealed to him for protection from the enemy, he replied:--

"The British shall not enter the city except over my dead body."

His words and his presence inspired confidence. And when his flag was run up above his headquarters in Royal Street a sense of security was felt by the inhabitants.

The conditions about him, however, were far from promising, and to a less determined spirit than that of Jackson would have been appalling.

The troops under him were few in number and poorly equipped for battle. The Crescent City was ill equipped for defense. The governor and the Legislature were at loggerheads.

As was his way in a crisis, General Jackson took matters into his own hands.

He placed the city under martial law and made every man a sailor or a soldier compelled to the restrictions and the rules governing the army.

He was aware that his action was open to severe censure, but in the face of the object to be attained he held this as of little consequence.

While engaged in examining a situation for a fortification in one direction, the British effected a landing in another. They had captured the American flotilla guarding the entrance to Lake Borgne and were making ready to advance upon the city.

This information brought consternation to the inhabitants but not to the indomitable Jackson. Obstacles to him were but objects to be overcome. He swung his troops into line and went out to meet the enemy. The advance was checked by a sharp engagement with little loss to either side.

He then set the little schooner _Carolina_, in the Mississippi, to bombarding the levee where the British gunners had taken refuge. With her guns continuously roaring she kept the Britishers at bay for three whole days, when she succumbed to their heavy fire and exploded. Her entire crew escaped with the exception of one man killed and six wounded.

On the field of Chalmette, a few miles below New Orleans, the opposing armies threw up intrenchments from the same soft ooze and mud, so close they now stood to each other. From an upper room of the McCarte mansion house--the home of a wealthy Creole--General Jackson surveyed the operations of the enemy; and directed the movements of his own troops.

December the 28th an advance was made by the British on the American lines but without significant results. On New Year's Day another attack was made.

In the interim between these assaults went out an order from General Jackson to Governor Claiborne that involved the general for years thereafter in legal complications with the Louisiana Legislature. News was borne to General Jackson on the field that the Legislature was preparing to capitulate New Orleans in the belief that the city would be captured.

"Tell Claiborne," said the irate Jackson, "to blow them up."

Later, he wrote to Governor Claiborne, in case the report was true, to place a guard at the door of the legislative hall and keep the members in it; where they could, he satirically remarked to a friend, have full time to make some wholesome laws for the State without distraction from outside matters.

Through mistake in the execution of the order, the enraged lawmakers were kept outside of the assembly hall instead of in it, and the session was broken up.

* * * * *

At break of dawn that memorable day of January 8th, 1815, the British were prepared to attack.

Jackson and his valorous volunteers were ready. A pygmy force were they against a mighty one! Raw recruits contending against the trained veterans of Wellington's army, led by the gallant Pakenham!

The signal rocket went up.

The long red lines advanced over the field.

But to what a fate!

"Don't shoot till you can see the whites of their eyes!"--Jackson had instructed.

"_Fire!_"

When the smoke cleared, British soldiers, dead and dying, thickly strewed the ground.

Intrenched behind their barricades of cotton bales and sand and mud, the Americans were scarcely touched.

The murderous fire went on.

The British columns reeled and broke.

General Pakenham heroically waved his troops forward and fell, wounded to death.

General Gibbs, second in command, was struck down.

General Keane was disabled.

The leaders were fallen! The troops were disordered.

In the distance the red lines receded.

_Jackson had won._

* * * * *

In less than thirty minutes the unequal conflict had ended, save in the silencing of the guns, which required two hours to accomplish.

Never in the annals of history has such a victory been recorded.

The loss to the English was two thousand killed, wounded, and captured. The American loss was but eight killed and thirteen wounded.

General Jackson marched his victorious troops into New Orleans, where he was received with the wildest enthusiasm.

The whole country applauded and rejoiced.

_Andrew Jackson had become the Hero of the Nation._

At Ghent, two weeks before the battle, the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States had been signed; but the ship bearing the news had not then reached this country.

But--Jackson had finished the war--had "finished the war in GLORY!"

THE CIVIL WAR

(1861)

THE War between the States in 1861 was one of the most terrible conflicts known to modern times.

Many causes led up to it, chief among which was a difference in the interpretation of the Constitution by the people of the North and of the South. The slavery question was also a point of dispute; and several minor causes brought about a dissension in the two sections that resulted in the gigantic struggle of friend against friend, brother against brother, father against son.

The early engagements of the contending forces were ones of signal victory to the South. The disunion of the nation was so seriously threatened as to bring grave concern to the Federal government. As the weeks and months wore away, victory perched above the banner of the Federals, and the climax was reached in the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, after four years of deadly strife.

Both sides fought valiantly. Both won; in that the glory of the Republic was to stand henceforth supreme among foreign nations, the greatness of the combatants to receive a recognition never to be effaced.

Through a perspective of fifty years of peace, the heroism displayed on either field by those engaged therein is, to the most partisan observer, silhouetted upon the mental vision in glowing lines of light. Justly we term it "Our most Heroic Period."

Not the least remarkable of this aftermath, transcending all experiences of other nations, is the brotherhood, the kindly feeling of sympathy and understanding, that after the passage of but half a century now binds the once warring sections in indissoluble bonds of unity.

CHARLESTON

CALM as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds,
The city bides the foe.

As yet, behind their ramparts, stern and proud,
Her bolted thunders sleep,--
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
Looms o'er the solemn deep.

No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war
Above the level sand.

And down the dunes a thousand guns lie couched,
Unseen, beside the flood,--
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and watch for blood.

Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,
Walk grave and thoughtful men,
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.

And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim,
Over a bleeding hound,
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.

Thus girt without and garrisoned at home,
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome,
Across her tranquil bay.

Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands
And spicy Indian ports,
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands,
And summer to her courts.

But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail floating oak.

Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in smiles,
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?

We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom:
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.

HENRY TIMROD.

FREDERICKSBURG

Dec. 13, 1862

THE increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,
And on the church-yard by the road, I know
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow.
'Twas such a night two weary summers fled;
The stars, as now, were waning overhead.
Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow
Where the swift currents of the river flow
Past Fredericksburg: far off the heavens are red
With sudden conflagration: on yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath:
A signal-rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath:
Hark! the artillery massing on the right,
Hark! the black squadrons wheeling down to Death!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

CIVIL WAR[2]

"RIFLEMAN, shoot me a fancy shot
Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette;
Ring me a ball in the glittering spot
That shines on his breast like an amulet!"

"Ah, Captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead,
There's music around when my barrel's in tune!"
Crack! went the rifle, the messenger sped,
And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon.

"Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch
From your victim some trinket to handsel first blood;
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud!"

"O, Captain! I staggered, and sunk on my track,
When I gazed on the face of that fallen vidette,
For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back,
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet."

"But I snatched off the trinket,--this locket of gold;
An inch from the center my lead broke its way,
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."

"Ha! Rifleman, fling me the locket!--'tis she,
My brother's young bride, and the fallen dragoon
Was her husband--Hush! soldier, 'twas Heaven's decree,
We must bury him there, by the light of the moon!

"But hark! the far bugles their warnings unite;
War is a virtue,--weakness a sin;
There's a lurking and loping around us to-night;
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in!"

CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY.

[2] The above has been sometimes entitled "The Fancy Shot." It
appeared first in a London weekly and is commonly attributed to
Charles Dawson Shanly, who died in the late seventies.

'ROUND SHILOH CHURCH

WITHIN Shiloh Church that fateful day of 1862, no sound of song or praise was heard. But all without the leaden missiles rang and sang in chorus of red death. Green blades of grass, dew-tipped, sprang up to greet the sun that April morn, but ere night fell were bowed to earth with weight of human blood. Ne'er before had little church looked out on such a scene. Ten thousand homes and hearts of North and South were there made desolate; and twice ten thousand men gave up their lives. The world looked on and wondered.

Albert Sidney Johnston, the hero of three wars, had staked his life and cause that April day, for victory or defeat.

He met--both.

It was recognized by both the Northern and Southern armies that Johnston was a formidable antagonist. That he was a man of most magnetic personality as well as a brave officer.

Where he led men followed.

The Black Hawk War made his name familiar throughout the country. In the War with Mexico he won distinction.

As he reviewed his troops at Shiloh, he beheld on every side his friends of other days, and men who had served under him on other fields.

When the War between the States came on, Johnston was a brigadier general in the United States Army; and although he was offered any position he might desire with the Federal government, he resigned to cast his lot with the South, and against the land of his ancestry, for he was a son of Connecticut. Texas had been his home, and to the Lone Star State he felt his allegiance due.

Disappointment, as pertained to his life ambitions, had often before waited upon his footsteps when the thing desired seemed ready to his grasp. Yet, seeing his duty clearly, he did it.

To his sister by marriage, when she, in surprise at his action in resigning, wrote him in California, where he was then stationed, he replied that he was deeply sensible of the "calamitious condition" of the country; and that whatever his part thereafter regarding it, he congratulated himself that no act of his had aided in bringing it about; that the adjustment of the difficulties by the sword was not in his judgment the remedy.

Secession was to him a grievous thing.

Arriving at Richmond from the West, General Johnston was given the command of the Western Department of the Confederacy.

From September to February, 1862, he held the line against heavy odds at Bowling Green, Ky., when he retreated to Corinth, Miss., where he assembled his entire army and attacked Grant at Shiloh Church near Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.

In the flush tide of a great victory, he was struck by a Minie ball and expired in a few moments.

He rode a magnificent black animal called "Fire-eater." On horseback General Johnston appeared to distinct advantage. The masterly manner in which he sat his horse attracted the attention of the commander in chief of the army, Thomas J. Rusk, during the Texan Revolution, and procured him the appointment of adjutant general over several eager aspirants for the position.

As he passed along the lines to the front of the troops at Shiloh, he raised his hat and cried out,

"I will lead you!"

To this the men responded with a mighty cheer and quickened movement, albeit they knew he was leading many of them to death.

Hard up the slopes they pressed.

Nor shot, nor shell, nor falling men deterred them.

The summit was reached. The Federals were in retreat. A little apart from the others, a fine target for the deadly marksman, the figure of General Johnston on "Fire-eater" was plainly visible.

His clothing was torn in places. His boot sole was slashed by a ball, but he himself was uninjured.

In his countenance was reflected a satisfaction of the day's results.

The wisdom of his decisions had been proven; his judgment justified.

From the last line of the retreating Federals a bullet whistled back, whistled back and cut him down, did its fatal work in the very moment in which he felt the conviction that success now lay with the Confederate cause.

* * * * *

His death seemed for a time to paralyze the further efforts of his troops, to whom his presence had been a continual inspiration.

General Beauregard took command.

Night fell and the battle was stayed.

The Federals had been driven to the banks of the Tennessee River, where the gunboats afforded but meager protection.

From Nashville, General Buell arrived before daybreak with the needed reenforcements. Lew Wallace came in. Grant assumed the offensive; and the afternoon of the second day of the hard-fought contest the final victory swept to the Federals.

What would have been the result to the Confederate cause had the great leader not fallen that first day, who can say?

"In his fall, the great pillar of the Southern Confederacy was crushed," says Jefferson Davis in his _Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, "and beneath its fragments the best hope of the Southland lay buried."

ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON