Fort Larned

“ We left Fort Larned a little before noon and arrived at Big Coon Creek, twenty-two miles from Fort Larned, where we stopped for supper at about four o'clock in the afternoon. A lieutenant of my escort in charge of the soldiers put out a guard. While we were eating supper the guards shot off their guns and came rushing into camp with news that a thousand or more Indians were hidden along the banks of Coon Creek. ”

“ When the darkness was deepest on the night of the 9th, Allen and Arnold, with 83 men, pulled across the Lake, landed near the fort, and then sent back the boats for Warner and his men. They had a boy, Nathan Beman, for a guide, and were full of courage. Allen formed his men, made them a little speech, and all was ready, when the question arose as to who should have the honor of entering the fort first. The dispute was warm between Arnold and Allen, but was finally quieted; and, side by side, at daylight, they rushed through the gate of the fort, defended only by sleeping men. ”

“ A line of sharp-shooters, each carrying a shovel in one hand and a gun in the other, spring out from Terry's most advanced lines, rush forward to within 175 yards of the fort and dig pits for their protection before the Confederates can attack them. Then the sharpshooters and the navy occupy the attention of the enemy, while Curtis's brigade dashes forward and digs a trench within 500 yards of the fort. By this time too a party of 2,000 sailors and marines has been landed from the fleet. They are to storm the sea-wall of the fort while the army attacks its landward face. ”

“ Every effort had been made by Johnston to hold the place. He must here fight for the possession of Nashville. Fort Donelson was strongly fortified and garrisoned. Grant moved against it from Fort Henry with 15,000 men; 5,000 less than the enemy. The ground is difficult; the troops are green. But reinforcements and the fleet come to Grant's assistance. The fort is fully invested, under great difficulties from severity of weather and the inexperience of the men. Happily there is not much ability in the defense. Floyd, the senior officer, determines to cut his way out. ”

“ Snap, snap, went the primers of the torpedoes under the bottom of the ship,—the officers and men could hear them,—but no explosion followed, and the Hartford passed safely into the waters above. Meanwhile the four ships lay entangled under Fort Morgan. A collision seemed inevitable, but Captain Jenkins of the Richmond, an officer of cool head and splendid courage, backed away from the others, and began a furious cannonade on the fort with his whole broadside, driving the enemy out of the water-batteries. ”

“ After destroying the fort and vessels, and such stores as could not be brought off, colonel Bradstreet returned to the army which undertook nothing farther during the campaign. The demolition of Fort Frontignac and of the stores which had been collected there, contributed materially to the success of the expedition against fort Du Quêsne. The conduct of this enterprise had been entrusted to General Forbes, who marched from Philadelphia, about the beginning of July, at the head of the main body of the army, destined for this service, in order to join colonel Bouquet at Raystown. ”

“ Unable to capture the fort, which was resolutely defended by the garrison, they ravaged the settlements adjacent, and returned with a number of captives. About the same time, a party of 800 attacked Frontenac, on the site of Kingston, and destroyed and laid waste the plantations and establishments of the French without the fortification. In July of the ensuing year the French were made to feel still more sensibly the power of their revenge. A band of 1,200 warriors, animated with the fiercest resentment, made a descent upon the island of Montreal. ”

“ At a few minutes after eight o'clock the batteries opened fire, and at the end of thirty hours the garrison surrendered. In reporting the capture, General Hunter wrote: "At the end of eighteen hours' firing the fort was breached in the southeast angle, and at the moment of surrender, 2 p. m. on the 11th instant, we had commenced preparations for storming. The whole armament of the fort—47 guns, a great supply of fixed ammunition, 40,000 pounds of powder, and large quantities of commissary stores, have fallen into our hands ”

“ It would require 2,000 men to garrison them in peace, and 50,000 in war. When thus completed and manned, they would avail but little, as all military men agree that when vessels might pass a fort without tacking, though it may annoy, it cannot prevent them. Two modes of effecting the same object might be 'adopted in aid of each other.' 1. Heavy cannon on travelling carriages, with militia trained to the management of them. 2. Floating batteries or gunboats. There were, he estimated, fifteen harbours in the United States needing and deserving defence. ”

“ Kieft, in a far distant province, with a handful of soldiers crowded in a dilapidated fort and a few citizens turbulent and unreliable, surrounded on all sides by savages ever on the alert for rapine and murder, receiving little support from the home government, and having a large territory to defend and two civilized races to contend with, passed the eight years of his administration amid turmoil and dissension within, and such hostile attack from without as to keep the province in continuous peril. ”

“ Early in September, 1857, a part of the troops left Fort Laramie, and on the 15th of the same month Brigham Young, parading audaciously the commission he still held from the United States, forbade all armed forces from entering the territory, and called upon his people to defend themselves against the 'armed mercenary mob' of invaders. His legislature, meeting later, sustained him in his bitter diatribe against the 'profane, drunken, and corrupt officials,' which a Washington administration was trying to force upon Utah territory at the point of the bayonet. ”

“ Men were not only shot in cold blood and drowned, but were even crucified, buried alive, nailed to the floors of houses, which were then set on fire. 'No cruelty,' says this committee, 'which the most fiendish malignity could devise, was omitted by these murderers.' 'From 300 to 400 men are known to have been killed at Fort Pillow, of whom at least 300 were murdered in cold blood after the post was in possession of the rebels, and our men had thrown down their arms and ceased to offer resistance.' ... ”

“ The English returned to Great Meadows, and while waiting for reinforcements from Fry, Washington threw up some entrenchments, which he called Fort Necessity. The men from Fry came without their leader, who had sickened and died, and Washington, succeeding to the command of the regiment, found himself at the head of 300 men, increased soon by an independent company from South Carolina. Washington again advanced toward Gist's settlement, when, fearing an attack, he sent back for Mackay, whom he had left with a company of regulars at Fort Necessity. ”

“ No object could be obtained by a victory on either side, but the temporary occupation of a vacant territory; yet both parties seemed to have selected this as the principal theatre on which to display their military prowess in the year 1814. Lieutenant General Drummond, governor of Upper Canada, concentrated the forces of that province at Fort George, and retained the possession of Niagara. The American Generals Smyth, Hampton, Dearborn, and Wilkinson, under whose auspices the campaigns of 1812 and 1813, on the Canada border, were conducted, had retired from that field ”

“ On an islet, which was flanked on one side by a shoal, a battery of 30 guns, 28 pounders, defended the entrance of the harbor, which was about 400 yards wide, and was also commanded from within by the Grand or Royal Battery, mounting as many guns, of the calibre of 42 pounds. The fort ... was a safe rendezvous and refuge for French fleets and privateers, sailing in the Western Hemisphere. It commanded the maritime way into Canada, and it watched the English settlements all along the coast. It was a standing threat to the great business of New England seamen, which was the fishery on the banks. ”

“ The first outbreak in the Southwest, although there had been some earlier hostilities, was the massacre of the garrison and refugees at Fort Mims, at the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, August 30, 1813. There were 553 persons in the fort, of whom only 5 or 6 escaped. ... The result of the massacre at Fort Mims was that Alabama was almost abandoned by whites. Terror and desire for revenge took possession of Georgia and Tennessee. September 25th the Tennessee Legislature voted to raise men and money to aid the people of Mississippi territory against the Creeks. ”

“ Philip, thus avoiding the elevated guns of the fort, while they swept its bastions with grape and scrapnel, came up to the assistance of the Cayuga. The Oneida ran under full steam into one of the rebel ships, cut her nearly in two, and left her to float down stream a helpless wreck. She fired right and left into the others, and then went to the assistance of the Varuna, which was ashore on the left bank, hard pressed by the Governor Moore and another, said to be the Manassas. ”

“ The medicine men, appealing to the superstition of the Indians, had taught them to believe that no white man could tread the latter ground and live. In April the remnant of the Creeks surrendered or fled to Florida, overcome as much by the impetuous and relentless character of the campaign against them as by actual blows. Fort Jackson was built on the Hickory Ground. The march down through Alabama was a great achievement, considering the circumstances of the country at the time. ”

“ Transport ships were prepared at the expense of the proprietary; 'Queen Elizabeth, the godmother of Virginia,' declined contributing 'to its education.' Embarking in April, in July they arrived on the coast of North Carolina; they were saved from the dangers of Cape Fear; and, passing Cape Hatteras, they hastened to the isle of Roanoke, to search for the handful of men whom Grenville had left there as a garrison. They found the tenements deserted and overgrown with weeds; human bones lay scattered on the field where wild deer were reposing. The fort was in ruins. ”

“ It is the signal for the assault. The sailors on the beach spring to their feet and dash forward at a rapid run; they fire no shot, for they carry no guns. Cutlasses and pistols, the blue-jackets' traditional weapons, are their only arms. Toward the other side of the fort came Terry's troops. ... The fate of the naval column is quickly determined. Upon it is concentrated the fire of the heaviest Confederate batteries, Napoleon guns, Columbiads, and rifles shotted with grape and cannister. ”

“ Leaving Fort Crèveœur and its tiny garrison under command of his faithful lieutenant, Tonty, he set out with four Frenchmen and one Mohegan guide. ... They made their way for a thousand miles across Michigan and Western Canada to Niagara, and so on to Montreal. ... At Niagara La Salle learned that a ship from France, freighted for him with a cargo worth more than 20,000 livres, had been wrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and nothing had been saved. ”

“ In this rash attempt, the killed and wounded of the English amounted to near 2,000 men, of whom not quite 400 were provincials. The French were covered during the whole action, and their loss was inconsiderable. Entirely disconcerted by this unexpected and bloody repulse, General Abercrombie relinquished his designs against Ticonderoga and Crown Point. {375} Searching however for the means of repairing the misfortune, if not the disgrace, sustained by his arms, he readily acceded to a proposition made by colonel Bradstreet, for an expedition against fort Frontignac. ”

“ Humanity dictated the forewarning, that those he did not come to war against could have time to flee. ... The march of General Sullivan, after leaving the Chemung, was bloodless, except in a small degree—just as it should have been, if he could not make victims of those he was sent to punish. The third expedition of this campaign, which has generally been lost sight of by historians, was that of General Broadhead. He left Fort Pitt in August with 600 men, and destroyed several Mingo and Muncey tribes living on the Allegany, French Creek, and other tributaries of the Ohio. ”

“ The National government now desired to complete its work by capturing Fort Fisher, and thus finally shutting off the Confederacy from all communication with the foreign world. The accomplishment of this task was in no wise easy. ... The army and navy co-operated in the attempts to reduce Fort Fisher. There were more than 50 men-of-war tossing on the waves before the lowering sea-front of the work. Six thousand five hundred men were in the military force. They were in command of General B. F. Butler, whom we saw last in New Orleans. ”

“ The only troops available for the service were about 500 regulars recently arrived from the siege of Havana, broken in health." At Bushy Run, 25 miles east of Fort Pitt, Bouquet fought a desperate battle with the savages, and defeated them by the stratagem of a pretended retreat, which drew them into an ambuscade. Fort Pitt was then reached in safety. "On the 29th of July Detroit was reinforced by 280 men under Captain Dalzell, who in June had left Fort Niagara in 22 barges, with several cannon and a supply of provisions and ammunition. ”