Garnishee

“ You have made a long speech on the occasion of your visit, which, stripped of all its superfluities, amounts to this: that you come from a British colonel to the commandant of this garrison, to tell him that, if he does not deliver up the garrison into the hands of your colonel, he will send his Indians to murder our women and children. You will please to reflect, sir, that their blood will be upon your heads, not upon ours. We are doing our duty; this garrison is committed to our care, and we will take care of it. ”

“ It only remains for me, in conformity with that Act, and in the name of the Royal Court, to thank you, Major White, and, through you, the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the 70th regiment, for the uniform tenor of your and their conduct, as honorable to the regiment, and as conducive to the peace and harmony of the island. The good wishes of the inhabitants of Guernsey will accompany the 70th at all times and in all places. ”

“ E. garrison (M. E. garnison) , garment (M. E. garnement) , and garniture. The last of these is, in fact, nothing but the O. F. warnisture in a more modern form. Hence we obtain the sense by consulting Cotgrave, who gives: 'Garniture, garniture, garnishment, furniture; provision, munition, store, necessary implements.' It also appears that the word is properly a substantive, with the spelling warnisture; it became warnistore or warnestore by confusion with O. F. estor, a store; and, as the word store was easily made into a verb, it was easy to treat warnestore in the same way. ”

“ Many of the garrison began to hint at surrender, fearing massacre by the Indians should the fort be taken by assault. Gansevoort, despairing of further successful resistance, had decided upon a desperate attempt to cut through the enemy's lines. Suddenly, on the 22d, there came a sudden lull in the siege. The guns ceased their fire; quick and confused movements could be seen; there were signs of flight. Away went the besiegers, Indians and whites alike, in panic disarray, and with such haste that their tents, artillery, and camp equipage were left behind. ”

“ J. Lawrence Meem, of Lynchburg, who, until Garland's promotion was adjutant of the Eleventh Regiment, and was now General Garland's chief of staff, met us with word from the front to "hurry." By this time all were well out of breath, but rushed on at increased speed through mud and water almost knee-deep in some places. Again a messenger is sent from Gen. D. H. Hill to "hurry, it is a critical time at the front; the enemy has been driven from his breastworks and camps, but there are not enough men of the assaulting column left to occupy and hold the works. ”

“ On assuming the command he found that the garrison consisted but of one thousand men, horse and foot. They were hardy troops, seasoned in rough mountain-campaigning, but reckless and dissolute, as soldiers are apt to be when accustomed to predatory warfare. They would fight hard for booty, and then gamble it heedlessly away or squander it in licentious revelling. Alhama abounded with hawking, sharping, idle hangers-on, eager to profit by the vices and follies of the garrison. ”

“ The assault was abandoned, and a precipitate retreat succeeded—a retreat galled by a fire of cannon, muskets, and arquebuses, from the ramparts of the tower and its outworks; while the stubborn Swiss, the fierce Imperialists, and infuriated Lorrainers, who composed the garrison, about eight hundred in all, raised a wild and tumultuous hurrah; for never before had the regiment de Picardy been known to retreat. Schreckhorn flung down his musket and drew his rapier, exclaiming, 'Lorraine and the Emperor! the Emperor and Lorraine! A sortie! volunteers for a sortie! Fall in, my comrades! ”

“ Why, the —th Madras Light Infantry—he remembered now—it was Langrishe's regiment. How extraordinary that he should not have remembered before! It was the regiment sent in pursuit. Langrishe would fall in for some fighting—he would find it ready-made to his hand. Those little frontier wars were endless things once they started. And what toll they took of precious human lives! In the last one more young fellows of the General's acquaintance had been killed than he liked to remember. Such deaths, too! Even the bravest soldier might well shrink from the fiendish things the Wazees were capable of. ”

“ The British got over the fausse-braye, climbed up the rampart with great difficulty,—pulled up the palisades from the parapet, ascended the rampart, and captured the fort sword in hand, making thirty officers and one hundred and seventy soldiers prisoners; the remainder of the garrison, which consisted of six hundred men, were either killed in the attack, or drowned in attempting to escape across the river, excepting twelve men, who passed the stream in small boats. ”

“ The regiment was afterwards employed in the siege of Bouchain, in which service obstacles of the greatest magnitude had to be overcome, and the abilities of the commanders, with the valour of the troops, were put to a severe test. These qualities were found in the besieging army; on more than one occasion the soldiers fought up to their middle in water, and by a gallant perseverance, which reflected honor on all the corps engaged in the siege, every difficulty was overcome; and the garrison surrendered on the 13th of September. ”

“ One of the officers then presented the message of General St. Leger, which was in substance a threat, couched in polite language, that if the fort was not surrendered, the [35] Indians would be turned loose upon the country, and not only the men but all the women and children would be tomahawked. Not one should escape. But if the garrison would capitulate, not only would these evils be averted, but none of the garrison should be injured or made prisoners. ”

“ You see the garrison only amounted to a serjeant and eleven men, and they didn't expect an attack; so that Warner had only to come suddenly upon them, and make a bold show, and they surrendered. More than one hundred cannon were taken at that place, and thus, you see, we had something to begin the war with. Colonel Arnold gave up the idea of commanding at Ticonderoga, but he would command somewhere, and so he soon after undertook an expedition against St. John's. It appears to me, Arnold was very wrong in attempting to remove such a man as Allen from the command. ”

“ The grenadiers of the army were, as had now become usual, massed together and organised in two divisions, those of the regiments in garrison at Louisburg being known as the Louisburg grenadiers. [314] Another separate corps was composed of the best marksmen in the several regiments, and was called the Light Infantry, while six companies of Provincial rangers furnished a proportion of irregular troops. The whole strength of the force was thus brought up to about eight thousand five hundred men. ”

“ You told us at that time to bring forward our families to this place, and we did so, and you promised to take care of them and that they should want for nothing, while the men would go and fight the enemy; that we need not trouble ourselves about the enemy's garrisons; that we knew nothing about them and that our father would attend to that part of the business. You also told your red children that you would take good care of your garrison here, which made our hearts glad. ”

“ Our way was up the French Broad river, through western North Carolina and South Carolina, marching leisurely where there were abundant supplies. We reached Georgia as Sherman was preparing to move. On the 9th day of May, just north of Dalton, we [Pg 79] were ordered to charge a force of the enemy, which proved to be our old acquaintance, La Grange’s brigade of Indiana cavalry. We went at them in our usual style, at top speed, every fellow yelling as loud as he could. They broke and retreated precipitately. We took more than sixty prisoners, including the brigade commander, Colonel La Grange. ”

“ While the regiment was at Surinam, the post occupied by a detachment of the light company and a few men of the fourth West India regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Richard Greene, of the SIXTEENTH, at Armena, was attacked by a large force of predatory negroes and banditti, and defended with great gallantry, the greater part of the garrison being killed in the successful resistance made to the assailants. ”

“ They procured a skiff, crossed the creek, and inadvertently strayed within the enemy’s lines, where they were all made prisoners.
HOW THE ENEMY WAS TO BE ATTACKED. General Garnett had at this time nearly 10,000 men under his command, and occupied a position at Beverly, on Tygart’s Valley river, Randolph Co., in a valley of the Alleghany Mountains. Two good roads unite at an acute angle at this place, one leading westwardly to Buckhannon, and the other north-west to Phillipi. ”

“ The intentions of the three venerable colonels were the same. They stood behind their lines, quiet, stern, courteous, old fellows, admonishing their regiments to be very pretty in the face of such a hail of magazine-rifle and machine-gun fire as has never in this world been fronted, save by the beardless savages when the white man has found occasion to take his burden to some new place. ”

“ They are warriors, and warriors respect a chieftain.”
Small as his escort was, the commander at Fort Buford respected it. He received The Sitting Bull like a chief, and said, “I have orders to take you as military prisoner to Fort Yates.”
“I know the road home,” my chief haughtily replied. Then he handed his gun to me and added, in a milder tone: “I do not come in anger toward the white soldiers. I am very sad. My daughter went this road. Her I am seeking. I will fight no more. I do not love war. I never was the aggressor. I fought only to defend my women and children. ”

“ I turned and looked to our rear, but no reinforcements were seen coming to the succor of the garrison. Every man is needed at his post, and no reserves are at [Pg 21] hand. The repulsed assailants, animated by the sight of reinforcements, reform, and, as their comrades come up in battle array, march forth again in unbroken ranks. As they gain the hill-top, two hundred yards from the fort, the artillery within the fort belches forth from the embrasures, and the effect of its canister can be plainly seen in the heaps of dead and dying that strew the ground. ”

“ The enemy must be held back a day, or the Federals, under an active commander, could overwhelm the divided Confederates. In this position, early in the fight, he received a mortal wound, from which he died on the field. "Had he lived," wrote Gen. D. H. Hill, "his talents, pluck, energy and purity of character must have put him in the front rank of his profession, whether in civil or military life."
Brigadier-General Richard Brooke Garnett, a cousin of Gen. R. S. Garnett, was a native of Virginia and a graduate of the same West Point class in which his cousin was a member. ”

“ General Henry A. Wise (formerly Governor of Virginia) took the Kanawha route, and General Robert S. Garnett (lately Lee's own adjutant-general) marched to Beverly. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 908, 915.] Upon Porterfield's retreat to Beverly, Garnett, who had also been an officer in the United States Army, was ordered to assume command there and to stimulate the recruiting and organization of regiments from the secession element of the population. Some Virginia regiments raised on the eastern slope of the mountains were sent with him, and to these was soon added the First Georgia. ”

“ A thin, wiry man, the gas fumes affected his heart. Stout men get the poison in the lungs.
Henry La Grange went to France at the outbreak of war and was ordered to the Foreign Legion: “No,” he said, “I want to go to my grandfather’s regiment, the 8th. If I can’t join that I will not go at all.” His great-grandfather had fought in Egypt. The grandson, following the old man’s footsteps, rose to the rank of sergeant. He was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and, later, detailed to America to instruct the growing army in artillery observation. ”

“ The garrison within the massive walls of the castle and fort had been strengthened by fresh accessions of troops from Sorel and Newfoundland, and was now quite eighteen hundred strong. These were made up of regulars, militia, and marines. Many have wondered that so superior a force did not at once saUy out and destroy the weaker one; but it is to be remembered that a majority of the militia were ready to desert to the Americans, in case an opportunity was offered them, and it was not deemed safe to run the risk of giving them the opportunity. ”

“ Since the return of the Eighty-seventh from service, they have shown, that to gallantry in the field, they add the most essential requisite in a soldier, orderly and correct conduct in garrison, which has acquired for them the approbation of every general officer under whom they have served, and the good wishes and esteem of the inhabitants with whom they have been placed. ”

“ Here the soldiers were joined by a few seamen and marines, under the command of a naval officer; and the whole having made good their landing under cover of darkness, advanced briskly to the assault. The enemy were taken by surprise; only a few shots were fired on either side; and in the space of five minutes, the small fort, mounting four guns, with an officer and thirty men, the whole of the garrison, fell without bloodshed into the hands of the assailants.
So trifling, indeed, was the resistance offered by the French garrison, that it disturbed not the slumbers of the troops in camp. ”