Battle of Fallen Timbers

“ Destruction of American Forests.—It has been for some years apparent that the United States supply of timber must fail at no distant day, unless some concerted measures are taken for growing new forests or in some way preserving the old. ”

“ The dense growth of young timber completely obscured all view of the operations at a little distance, and, indeed, rebel scouting parties were able to hang close upon our flanks, and even penetrate our lines, protected from view and from pursuit by the tangled forest. ”

“ When in less than one hundred yards of the timber, the enemy concealed behind the ridge of earth thrown up by long-ago plowing around the field, and also favored by the descent of the ground, let loose upon them one of the most deadly fires of musketry it was my fortune to witness during the war. ”

“ Its form admitted, however, of a good defense. The walls are of hewn timber about six inches thick, and bullet-proof. On the north-east, and where the timbers were ten inches thick, they have rotted away under their long exposure to the weather. I observed a loop-hole or two that had not been closed up, and that the roof frame was of oak, with the bark adhering to it. [80]
In one room was an old hand-loom; in another a spinning-wheel lay overturned; and in the fire-place the iron crane, blackened with soot, was still fixed as it might have been when the garrison was beset in '92. ”

“ The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. A large portion of the best timber is thus shattered and destroyed, and, with the huge, knotty tops, is left in ruins for tremendous fires that kill every tree within their range, great and small. ”

“ Now if it should happen that the enemy’s stones come over the battlements with such violence that the men cannot remain in the open to defend the wall, it is a good plan to set up strong posts cut from thick oak and to lay large and tough cross beams upon these, then to roof the whole over with firm oak timbers, and finally to cover the roofing with a layer of earth not less than three or four ells in depth, upon which the rocks may be allowed to drop. ”

“ Wave after wave of living valor rolled up that slope, only to roll back again under the deadly fire of our artillery and infantry. It was on this hill, a little to the right of the cemetery, where the 'Louisiana Tigers' made their famous charge. It was their boast that they were never yet foiled in an attempt to take a battery; but on this occasion they suffered a defeat, and were nearly annihilated. Sad and dispirited, they mourn their repulse and their terrible losses in the assault.
"From the summit of this hill a large portion of the battle-ground is spread out before the spectator. ”

“ There is indeed among the higher orders—of course with a few exceptions—a prejudice against felling Timber, older than the oldest Timber Tree in existence; and as strong as the most enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of landscape scenery can desire it to be: and so far is this feeling carried, that, by many, Timber of the most unsightly character, and in situations where it can be associated with no idea connected with the scenery, is religiously spared, and spared long after it has ceased to be either useful or ornamental where it stands. ”

“ The old people, women and others, then began to preserve the timber which was their own; but the devastators proceeded with the greatest celerity, demolishing all before them, and when they had overthrown all the houses in a large tract of country they set fire to the wreck. Timber, furniture, and every other article that could not be instantly removed was consumed by fire or otherwise utterly destroyed. The proceedings were carried on with the greatest rapidity and the most reckless cruelty. ”

“ Forty men attacked the jam at a dozen places, encouraging the movement, twisting aside the timbers that threatened to lock anew, directing pigmy-like the titanic forces into the channel of their efficiency. ”

“ On coming out of the timber, they marched forward, one after the other, with a proud step, that showed the confidence they placed in their great size and strength—as well as in the pointed weapons which they carried upon their heads, and which they can use upon an enemy with terrible effect. ”

“ Following the falling of the timber, the trimmers begin their work. Starting at the base end of the tree, one on each side, they walk up the sides of the fallen monarch of the forest, and trim the branches off as far as they are able. Many of the branches on the under side of the tree are broken in the fall, others are only splintered and many of them are just bent. A dozen men then seize their peavy sticks, as they are called in Maine, or cant dogs in some other places where lumbering is done, and roll the tree over. ”

“ The felling of timber is a work that must receive particular attention, as this is required for the repair of the Company’s vessels, at least such parts of them as stand above the water level. For repairs under water no timber has so far been obtained in the Wanni that is serviceable, as the timber there is liable to be attacked by a kind of worm under water. Timber can be transported to the Castle only once a year during the rainy season, when the rivers swell so much that the timber which has been felled during the dry season can be brought down to the Passes and from there to the Fort. ”

“ Rodes's skirmishers were thrown to the front, driving those of the enemy to the cover of the works, and we proceeded to examine the fortifications in order to ascertain if it was practicable to carry them by assault. They were found to be exceedingly strong. The timber had been felled within cannon range all round, and left on the ground, making a formidable obstacle, and every possible approach was raked by artillery. ”

“ Timber is growing scarce, while the arts and manufactures, which have taken such deep root among us, are calling for a more enlarged supply. Timber has now to be brought from afar, at an annually increasing expense; while large tracts of land are approaching a state of barrenness, by being laid bare to the searching influence of the sun and wind. We have destroyed our forests with recklessness, and posterity must feel the consequences! Indeed, our bleak pastures and bare hills begin to reproach us for not making some effort to shelter the one, and clothe the other. ”

“ In large woods—particularly where there is much fir—jays are so numerous that to destroy them seems almost impossible. Another bird that has defied the gun and trap is the green woodpecker, which used to be killed for alleged destruction of timber. ”

“ When the workmen were employed some years back in sinking a well to supply the garrison with water, the aid of gunpowder was required to blast the fossil timber, it having attained, by elementary action and the repose of ages, the hard compactness of rock or granite stone. ”

“ There was another reason for our rapid advance: all of us were under the extreme agony of thirst—literally gasping for water; and thus physical suffering impelled us to ride forward as fast as our jaded horses could carry us over the ground.
Timber was at length before our eyes—green foliage—looking all the fresher and brighter from contrast with the black plain which it bounded. It was a grove of cottonwoods, skirting a prairie-stream ”

“ Some of their bodies broken, their limbs broken off, wounded and bruised, and stripped of their beautiful foliage. The noise of their fall and the force with which they struck the earth made the ground tremble and shake, and let the neighbors know that father and I were chopping, and that we were slaying the timber.
The grand old forest was melting away. The sides of many a tree had been cleft, and the chips bursted out, and they had disappeared all but their stumps. The timber was tall, I cut one whitewood that was about a foot through at the butt, and measured eighty-three feet to a limb. ”

“ It is the timber thief—making haste to strip the public domain of what he can lay his hands on, lest another timber thief get ahead of him—and, in doing this, destroying sometimes far more than he steals. It is the tourist, the hunter, the mining prospector who, lighting his camp-fire in the woods to boil water for his coffee or to fry his bacon, and leaving that fire unextinguished when he proceeds, sets the woods in flames and delivers countless square miles of forest to destruction. ”

“ This formidable force, once clear of the timber, halted, drawn up in a kind of battle line, possibly expecting to strike terror by reason of its numerical strength and sinister aspect, and those watching reckoned it to consist of not less than five hundred men. ”

“ In less than a generation two fifths of the standing timber has been destroyed in one of the richest timber regions on the continent, and of the destruction more than half has been caused by fire. Assuming that the timber would, if standing, have the value of 75 cents per thousand feet, not less than $30,000,000 worth has gone lip in smoke, a dead loss to the people of the state. ”

“ He threw a rough breastwork of tree-trunks across the narrow neck of a spur springing from a densely wooded hill, the approach to which was flanked by steep ravines, leaving so narrow a ridge that it could only be passed abreast by a very limited force of men. This wooden rampart, which presented so imposing a front to an enemy, was liberally perforated with loopholes, through which the defenders were able to concentrate their fire with deadly effect upon any approaching force. ”

“ Comrades of the trap line, come down to camp and let us talk over this question of the fast disappearance of the furbearing animals. The fact of timber becoming scarce has made nearly every one timber-mad--no, that is not right, I mean money-mad--and they wish to secure this money through the fast increasing value of timber. In the late sixties, right here in sight of where I am sitting, I saw as nice white pine cut and put into log heaps, burned up for the purpose of clearing the land, as ever grew. ”

“ As late as 1910 twenty-five million dollars' worth of natural timber was destroyed, partly in the Far West and partly in the East. Of late, too, certain insects have made havoc with large tracts, and hills have been left bare and brown where they have been. ”

“ Timber, for instance, is required for building gun-pits, so are steel girders and brick rubble and brushwood. Well, do not the winds that shriek across this flat country blow down trees sometimes? Is there not a derelict railway station less than a mile away, and are not piles of rubble placed along the roadsides for mending purposes? It is pleasant, too, to have a real door to one's dug-out instead of a hanging corn sack: there is more than one partially ruined cottage near at hand. We are beyond the borderland of civilisation here ”

“ The ground is hard to dig, clearing involves great labour; and communication, at the best, is cramped. Nowadays a wood can hardly be considered a strong defensive element in a line. The front of it is an excellent ranging mark for artillery, and positions within the wood are not easily made, because of the difficulty of trenching, and the fact that no reasonable amount of timber will make a breastwork proof against the modern bullet. Once an enemy gets a footing within a wood, the position is more favourable to offensive than to defensive action. ”

“ These defects in timber are sometimes so far within the body of the tree, as to elude the scrutiny of the keenest eye, proving, in some very old trees, that pruning is not an evil of modern date. In a still greater proportion, as to the whole quantity, however, the eye of Ship-builders, or Timber Merchants—all of whom have frequently been bitten—will detect, from external appearances, the snag-pruning, covered over both with wood and bark ”

“ Messengers riding for help, or settlers trying to reach [109] their families, have often to run the gauntlet perilously on tracks which the fire has reached or is crossing. They gallop through when they can, sometimes with hair and beard singed and clothes smelling of the fire. Men, however, very seldom lose their lives. For one who dies by fire in the bush, fifty are killed by falling timber in the course of tree-felling. ”

“ Besides this difficulty there was no safe way of working either above or below these sets, in the vein. To take out ore, either under or over the timbers, loosened them and caused a disastrous cave. Many accidents happened and many men lost their lives while this method of timbering was practiced, but no lives have ever been lost in timbering by the square-set or Deidesheimer plan. In the mines at Gold Hill was where the timbers thirty-five feet in length were used, and there was where the greatest number of accidents happened; but in the Ophir mine, timbers sixteen feet long had been used. ”

“ Some timber having caught fire, slender fragments of burning wood fell in masses, covering the men as they went, and falling on the barrels, whence the soldiers brushed them off with cool indifference. The dense, thick smoke, too, obscuring every object a few paces distant, added to the confusion, and occasionally bringing the going and returning parties into collision, a loud shout, or cry, would ensue ”

“ Around lay the mysterious big timber, and somewhere in the unknown depths of this wide stretch of woods bordering the Rocky Mountain foothills their comrade was camping in solitude, doubtless a prey to lively fears. ”

“ Abner had no time for words. Throwing aside his rifle he sprang forward.
“He’s going to set a back fire,” cried Bub. “Nick has started his at the edge of the swamp, intending to burn up the mountain, not only destroying our timber but our lives. Git busy over by that boulder and start a blaze. For your life don’t let it eat up the mountain.” ”