Chapter 11

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 shore of Old England for a few days, that "scraps 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 Devonshire."

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 sturdy 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 hardships 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 constitution 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, crushing 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 harassed 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.

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 constitution, 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 assembly, and read to the august body his first message, formally delivering to the Speakers of each House a copy in manuscript, 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 constituency of citizenship 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 Constitution 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 embarrassing.

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 associations 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 illustrates. 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 constituency 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 Constitution, 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 constitutional 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 constitutional 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.

On the expiration of his term Governor Slaughter retired to his country home, and resumed his occupation as a farmer, leading a quiet and useful citizen life until the end. He died at his home in 1830, aged sixty-three years.

KENTUCKY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR OF 1812-15.

It is worthy of mention to the credit of Kentucky that, with a population of four hundred thousand, she furnished for the nation's defense, during the three years of war with England and the savages who allied with her, forty regiments of volunteer militia, besides a number of battalions and companies, over twenty-four thousand men in all, from 1812 to 1815. Excepting a small force of volunteers from the then Territory of Ohio, and a few regulars, her troops made up the entire body of the army of General Harrison in the Northwest campaign, ending with the decisive and crushing victory at the battle of Thames River, over the combined army of British under General Proctor, and Indians under Tecumseh. That battle was fought and won by the impetuous charges of the Kentuckians, under Colonel Richard M. Johnson, against the Indians, and his brother, Colonel James Johnson, against the British, before the forces in the rear, mainly Kentuckians also, could be brought into action. Before Commodore Perry met the English fleet on Lake Erie, he called for one hundred riflemen from Harrison's army to perch upon the masts and rigging of his ships, as sharpshooters, to pick off the seamen and gunners from the enemy's decks. One hundred Kentuckians volunteered in this perilous service, and others vied with them the honors of the place, though all were landsmen and strangers to the sea. The British commodore made a similar call on Proctor's men and Tecumseh's Indians, but none cared to confront the dangers of such a service. The fleets coming to close quarters, the deadly fire of the riflemen in the rigging helped to strew the decks of the enemy's ships with dead and wounded, and to silence the guns by shooting down the gunners.

APPENDIX

LIST OF KENTUCKIANS IN THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

I

ROLL OF FIELD AND STAFF, MITCHUSSON'S REGIMENT OF KENTUCKY DETACHED MILITIA, WAR OF 1812, COMMANDED BY LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WILLIAM MITCHUSSON

WILLIAM MITCHUSSON, Lieut.-colonel. SAMUEL PARKER, Lieutenant-colonel. REUBEN HARRISON, Major. THOMPSON CRENSHAW, Major. JOSIAH RAMSEY, Adjutant. CHRISTOPHER G. HONTS, Quartermaster. WILLIAM PRINCE, Paymaster. JOHN C. PENTECOST, Surgeon. STEPHEN C. DORRIS, Surgeon's Mate. ISAAC CALDWELL, Sergeant-major. MOSES THOMPSON, Quartermaster-sergt. JOHNSON LOUGHLIN, Fife Major.

CAPTAIN THOMAS GRIFFIN'S COMPANY

THOMAS GRIFFIN, Captain. BOSWELL PULLIAM, Lieutenant. ALLEN HAYS, Ensign. DAVENPORT VENABLE, Sergeant. TERENCE KIRBY, Sergeant. SIMEON ACTON, Sergeant. SAMUEL SPILMAN, Sergeant. WILLIAM BAIRD, Corporal. JOHN O'NEAL, Corporal. JONATHAN EWBANK, Corporal. ALEXANDER CHAMBERS, Corporal. JAMES C. PULLIAM, Drummer. JOSEPH RIGHT, Fifer.

PRIVATES

Brown, James, Baird, David, Bigsby, John, Biggs, David, Berry, John, Button, John, Button, Zacheus, Bardwell, James, Bass, Isaac, Creek, David, Chayson, David, Cowin, James, Cowen, John, Dobson, Thomas, Dry, John, Deal, Henry, Doke, William, Dowell, David, Emberton, John, Fraley, Nicholas, Garrett, Joseph, Grisane, Samuel, Gibson, John, Gressom, Thomas, Hobach, Mark, Highsmith, William, Horton, Daniel, Hamilton, Robert, Hoofman, Elam, Huckaboy, Joseph, Huckaboy, Nathan, James, Jacob, Jackson, Elijah, Johnson, Luther, Johnson, Robert, Kirby, John, Kirby, Leonard, Kirby, Isaiah, Lee, Mathias, Miller, Samuel, Morris, Miles, Meadows, Jesse, Noles, Robert, Nelson, William, Oliver, Dury, Pruett, Moses, Pinkerton, James, Rigsby, John, Ragland, Benjamin, Sayres, John, Stovall, Dury, Seagrave, John, Springer, John, Slaton, Ezekiel, Stamp, Charles, Thompson, John, Wetherspoon, James, Williams, Milam, Weatherspoon, Wiley, Welch, Thomas, Weatherspoon, Major, Wooten, Daniel, Wiley, John, Wildman, Burnell.

CAPTAIN ROBERT SMITH'S COMPANY

ROBERT SMITH, Captain. MORTON A. RUCKER, Lieutenant. ASA TURNER, Ensign. THOMAS KILGORE, Sergeant. PETER CASH, Sergeant. DANIEL POWELL, Sergeant. JOHN PETERS, Sergeant. WILLIAM SANDEFEW, Sergeant. CHRISTOPHER HARDESTY, Corporal. CHARLES W. BROWN, Corporal. JAMES MILLER, Corporal. JAMES BRUNTS, Corporal. SAMUEL SKINNER, Drummer.

PRIVATES

Arnet, William, Butler, Samuel, Barnes, John, Bramley, Daniel, Capps, Joshua, Crabtree, John F., Clements, John, Crabtree, James, Calender, Isaac, Cross, Joseph, Ducate, James, Dixon, Payne, Ezell, Harrison, Fickas, John, Fugudy, Benjamin, Gillum, William H., Gibson, John, Hawthorn, Robert, Holifield, William, Hardin, Ennis, Hardesty, Clemons, Hendrix, Thomas, Keatch, Ovid, Lambert, Joel, Lambert, William, Mayo, John, Martin, Daniel, Miller, William, McNamer, Philip, McGraw, John, McCoy, James, Pullom, John, Parrick, Thomas, Rolls, Abijah, Read, James R., Stephens, George, Smith, Matthew, Skillett, Thomas, Sutherland, Ransom, Scott, James W., Stephens, Jesse, Tarpin, William, Weathers, John, Wiggins, Joshua.

CAPTAIN THOMAS STERRETT'S COMPANY

THOMAS STERRETT, Captain. JOHN AUSTIN, Lieutenant. HENRY MINES, Ensign. JOHN BREWER, Sergeant. NATHAN YOUNG, Sergeant. JAMES B. REVILL, Sergeant. NICHOLAS KING, Sergeant. DAVID C. FEELDING, Sergeant. THOMAS BRIDGES, Corporal. NATHAN JOHNSON, Corporal. STEPHEN WADE, Corporal. JOHN COSTILOW, Drummer. BENJAMIN TEMPLER, Fifer.

PRIVATE

Bratton, George, Brown, Henry, Condra, William, Carter, William, Coal, Joseph, Calvert, John, Cunningham, Brackett C., Dawson, James, Dawson, Jonas, Dawson, John, Dawson, Johnson, Davis, Thomas, Evans, Richard, Ethell, James, Forkner, Martin, Fegert, Alexander, Franklin, Stephen, Galloway, William, Hay, James S., Heavener, John, Hammond, Thomas, Harris, Elijah, Hendrick, James, Holloway, Thomas, Harlan, George, Jenkins, Samuel, Johnson, Richard, Kown, William, Kown, Nathan, Kimble, William S., Kidwell, James, Kelsey, David, Lawrence, James H., Long, Abner, Marshall, James, Mannon, Thomas, Moge, Jacob, McClammon, James W., McClammon, John S., Miller, Philip, Mannon, William, McMurry, William, Newman, Jacob, Newman, William, Owensby, Nicholas, Pollard, Elijah, Paulk, Moses, Pitman, William, Roundtree, Turner, Roundtree, Kelly B., Srader, John, Stroude, Doran, Stagner, Jeremiah, Summons, George, Stone, John, Stroud, John, Templer, Jesse, Thompson, Edward, Wilkinson, James, Wood, Mark D., Wood, William, Wiley, Elijah, Whitlow, Henry.

CAPTAIN SAMUEL F. MALONE'S COMPANY