Vermont Part 15

Many cunning devices were resorted to by the smugglers. One of the most notable was the fitting out of a pretended privateer by one John Banker of New York. Obtaining letters of marque from the collector of that city, he began cruising on the lake in a little vessel named the Lark, of less than one ton burden, and armed with three muskets. After evincing her warlike character by firing on the Ess.e.x ferry-boat, she ran down the lake to Rouse's Point, and there lay in wait for prizes. A barge heavily laden with merchandise presently fell a prey to the bold privateer; her cargo was conveyed to New York by Banker's confederate, and delivered to the owners. The government officials soon learned that the goods had not been received at the United States storehouse, the Lark was seized, and the brief career of privateering on these waters came to an end. In March, 1814, Colonel Clark of the 11th, with 1,100 Green Mountain Boys, took possession of the frontier from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut, establishing his headquarters at Missisquoi Bay, hara.s.sing the enemy as opportunity offered, and making vigilant efforts for the suppression of smuggling. After successfully accomplishing this, he joined Wilkinson at the La Colle.

In the brave but unsuccessful attack on the La Colle Mill, upon whose strong stone walls our two light pieces of artillery made no impression, Clark led the 600 Green Mountain Boys who composed the advance. Their loss was eleven of the thirteen killed, and one third of the 128 wounded. The Vermonters of this army had no further opportunity to distinguish themselves until September, but those of the 11th regiment gallantly bore their part in the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie. In the first, General Scott called on the 11th to charge upon the enemy, who had declared that the Americans "could not stand cold iron," and the regiment dashed impetuously upon the scarlet line and swept it back with their bayonets.

A formidable British army, 15,000 strong, largely composed of veterans, flushed with their European victories, was near the Richelieu, under command of Sir George Prevost, and their fleet had been strengthened by additional vessels.

Though there were at the time but about 6,000 troops fit for duty, to oppose the enemy's advance in this quarter, early in August the secretary of war ordered General Izard to march with 4,000 of them to the Niagara frontier. Protesting against an order which would leave the Champlain region so defenseless, Izard set forth from Champlain and Chazy with his army on the 29th, halting two days at Lake George in the hope that the order might yet be revoked.

On the 30th the British general Brisbane occupied Champlain, and four days later Sir George Prevost arrived there with his whole force; while Plattsburgh was held by the insignificant but undaunted army of the Americans under General Macomb, abandoned to its fate by a government that did not desire the conquest of Canada. The three forts and block-house were strengthened, and the general made an urgent call on New York and Vermont for reinforcements, which was promptly responded to, while small parties were sent out to r.e.t.a.r.d, as much as possible, the advance of the enemy. But the skirmishers were swept back by the overwhelming strength of the invading army, and retired across the Saranac, destroying the bridges behind them.

Governor Chittenden did not consider himself authorized to order the militia into service outside the State, but called for volunteers. There was a quick response. Veterans of the Revolution and their grandsons, exempt by age and youth from service, as well as the middle-aged, each with the evergreen badge of his State in his hat, turned out. With the old smooth-bores and rifles that had belched buckshot and bullet at Hubbardton and Bennington, and with muskets obtained from the town armories, they flocked towards the scene of impending battle, on foot, in wagons, singly, in squads, and by companies, crossing the lake at the most convenient points, of which Burlington was the princ.i.p.al one.

General Strong was put in command of the Vermont volunteers. On the 10th of September he reported 1,812 at Plattsburgh, and on the 11th 2,500, while only 700 of the New York militia had arrived.

When the morning of the 11th of September broke, the American army stood at bay on the south bank of the Saranac. Fifteen hundred regulars and about 3,200 hastily collected militia and volunteers, confronted by 14,000 of the best troops of Great Britain, proudly wearing the laurels won in the Napoleonic wars, and confident of victory over the despised foe that now opposed them.

Early that morning the British fleet collected at Isle La Motte weighed anchor, and sailed southward. At eight o'clock it rounded c.u.mberland Head, and with sails gleaming in the sunlight, swept down toward the American fleet like a white cloud drifting across the blue lake.

Macdonough's vessels were anch.o.r.ed in a line extending north from Crab Island and parallel with the west sh.o.r.e, the Eagle, Captain Henly, at the head of the line, next the Saratoga, Commodore Macdonough's flagship; the schooner Ticonderoga next; and at the south end of the line the sloop Preble, so close to Crab Island Shoal as to prevent the enemy from turning that end of the line. Forty rods in the rear of this line lay ten gunboats, kept in position by their sweeps; two north and in rear of the Eagle, the others opposite the intervals between the larger craft.

At nine o'clock the hostile fleet came to anchor in a line about three hundred yards from ours, Captain Downie's flagship, the Confiance, opposed to the Saratoga; his brig Linnet to the Eagle; his twelve galleys to our schooner, sloop, and a division of galleys; while one of the sloops taken from us the year before a.s.sisted the Confiance and Linnet, the other the enemy's galleys. The British fleet had 95 guns, and 1,050 men; the American, 86 guns, and 820 men. In such position of the fleets the action began.

The first broadside of the Confiance killed and disabled forty of the Saratoga's crew. The head of one of his men, cut off by a cannon-shot, struck Macdonough in the breast and knocked him into the scuppers. A shot upset a coop and released a c.o.c.k, which flew into the shrouds and crowed l.u.s.tily, and the crew, cheering this augury of victory, served the guns with increased ardor. The Eagle, unable to bring her guns to bear, cut her cable and took a position between the Saratoga and the Ticonderoga, where she greatly annoyed the enemy, but left the flagship exposed to a galling fire from the British brig. Nearly all the Saratoga's starboard guns were dismounted, and Macdonough winded her, bringing her port guns to bear upon the Confiance, which ship attempted the same manoeuvre, but failed. After receiving a few broadsides, her gallant commander dead, half her men killed and wounded, with one hundred and five shots in her hull, her rigging in tatters on the shattered masts, the British flagship struck her colors.

The guns of the Saratoga were now turned on the Linnet, and in fifteen minutes she surrendered, as the Chub, crippled by the Eagle's broadsides and with a loss of half her men, had done some time before.

The Finch, driven from her position by the Ticonderoga, drifted upon Crab Island Shoals, where, receiving the fire of a battery on the island manned by invalids, she struck and was taken possession of by them. The galleys remaining afloat made off. Our galleys were signaled to pursue, but were all in a sinking condition, unable to follow, and, the other vessels being crippled past making sail, the galleys escaped.

The havoc wrought in this conflict proves it to have been one of the hottest naval battles ever fought. A British sailor who was at Trafalgar declared that battle as "but a flea-bite to this." The British lost in killed and wounded one fifth of their men, the commander of the fleet, and several of his officers; the Americans, one eighth of their men.

Among the killed were Lieutenant Stansbury of the Ticonderoga, and Lieutenant Gamble of the Saratoga. The Saratoga was twice set on fire by the enemy's hot shot, and received fifty-five shots in her hull. At the close of the action, not a mast was left in either squadron on which a sail could be hoisted.[97]

The result, so glorious to the Americans, was due to the superior rapidity and accuracy of their fire.

For more than two hours the unremitting thunder-peal of the battle had rolled up the Champlain valley to thousands who listened in alternating hope and fear. For a time, none but the combatants and immediate spectators knew how the fight had gone, till the lifting smoke revealed to the anxious watchers on the eastern sh.o.r.e the stars and stripes alone floating above the shattered ships; then hors.e.m.e.n rode in hot speed north, east, and south, bearing the glad tidings of victory.

The opening of the naval fight was the signal for the attack of the British land force. A furious fire began from all the batteries. At two bridges, and at a ford above Plattsburgh, its strength was exerted in attempts to cross the Saranac. The attacks at the bridges were repulsed by the American regulars, firing from breastworks formed of planks of the bridges. At the ford, the enemy were met by the volunteers and militia. A considerable number succeeded in crossing the river, but an officer riding up with news of the naval victory, the citizen soldiers set upon the enemy in a furious a.s.sault, and with cheers drove them back.

A fire was kept up from the English batteries until sundown, but when the evening, murky with the cloud of battle, darkened into the starless gloom of night, the British host began a precipitate retreat, abandoning vast quant.i.ties of stores and munitions, and leaving their killed and wounded to the care of the victors. They had lost in killed, wounded, prisoners, and deserters 2,500; the Americans, 119. But bitterest of all to the vanquished invaders was the thought that they who had overcome the armies of Napoleon were now beaten back by an "insignificant rabble" of Yankee yeomen.

The retreat had been for some hours in progress before it was discovered, and a pursuit begun, which, after the capture of some prisoners, and covering the escape of a number of deserters, was stopped at Chazy by the setting in of a drenching rainstorm.

Three days later, their present service being no longer necessary, the Vermont volunteers were dismissed by General Macomb, with thanks of warm commendation for their ready response to his call, and the undaunted spirit with which they had met the enemy.

Through General Strong they received the thanks of Governor Chittenden, and, later, the thanks of the general government "to the brave and patriotic citizens of the State for their prompt succor and gallant conduct in the late critical state of the frontier."

Their promptness was indeed commendable, for they had rallied to Macomb's aid, and the battle was fought, four days before the government at Washington had issued its tardy call for their a.s.sistance. The State of New York presented to General Strong an elegant sword in testimony of "his services and those of his brave mountaineers at the battle of Plattsburgh," and the two States united in making a gift to Macdonough of a tract of land on c.u.mberland Head lying in full view of the scene of his brilliant victory.

The army of Sir George Prevost was beaten back to Canada, but it was still powerful, and the danger of another invasion was imminent.

Governor Chittenden issued another proclamation, unequivocal in its expressions of patriotism, enjoining upon all officers of the militia to hold their men in readiness to meet any invasion, and calling on all exempts capable of bearing arms to equip themselves and unite with the enrolled militia when occasion demanded.

As there was nothing to apprehend from any naval force which could be put afloat this season by the British, Macdonough requested that he might be employed on the seaboard under Commodore Decatur. On the approach of winter, the fleet was withdrawn to Fiddler's Elbow, near Whitehall, never again to be called forth to battle. There, where the unheeding keels of commerce pa.s.s to and fro above them, the once hostile hulks of ship and brig, schooner and galley, lie beneath the pulse of waves in an unbroken quietude of peace.

There were rumors of a projected winter invasion from Canada to destroy the flotilla while powerless in the grip of the ice. It was reported that an immense artillery train of guns mounted on sledges was preparing; that a mult.i.tude of sleighs and teams for the transportation of troops, with thousands of buffalo robes for their warmth, had been engaged and bought. Vermont did not delay preparation for such an attack.

The rancor of politics among her people had given place to a n.o.bler spirit of patriotism, and, without distinction of parties, all good men stood forth in defense of their country, and those who had opposed the war were now as zealous as its advocates in prosecuting it to an honorable close.

Major-General Strong issued a general order to the militia to be ready for duty at any moment, requested the exempts to aid them, and urged the selectmen to make into cartridges the ammunition with which the towns were supplied, and place them at convenient points for distribution. All responded promptly, and, moreover, matrons and maids diligently plied their knitting-needles in the long winter evenings to make socks and mittens for the brave men who would need them in the bitter weather of such a campaign.

But, instead of the expected invasion, came the good news of the treaty of peace, signed at Ghent on the twenty-fourth day of December.

Peace was welcome to the nation, though the treaty was silent concerning the professed causes of the declaration of war, and the only compensation for the losses and burdens entailed by the conflict, so wretchedly conducted by our government, was the glory of the victories gained by our little navy and undisciplined troops over England's invincible warships and armies of veterans.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] _Niles' Register._

[96] October 27, 1812.

[97] Macdonough's report, Palmer's _Lake Champlain_.

CHAPTER XX.

OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES.

Peace was indeed welcome to a people so long deprived of an accessible market as had been the inhabitants of Vermont.

The potash fires were relighted; the lumberman's axe was busy again in the bloodless warfare against the giant pines; new acres of virgin soil were laid bare to the sun, and added to the broadening fields of tilth.

White-winged sloops and schooners, and unwieldy rafts, flocked through the reopened gate of the country, and the clumsy Durham boat spread its square sail to the favoring north wind, and once more appeared on the broad lake where it had so long been a stranger. The sh.o.r.es were no longer astir with military preparations, but with the bustle of awakened traffic; soldiers had again become citizens; the ravages of war had scarcely touched the borders of the State, and in a few months there remained hardly a trace of its recent existence.

There had not been, nor was there for years after this period, a marked change in the social conditions of the people, for the old fraternal bonds of interdependence still held pioneer to pioneer almost as closely as in the days when the strong hand was more helpful than the long purse.

Cla.s.s distinctions were marked vaguely, if at all, and there was no aristocracy of idleness, for it was held that idleness was disgraceful.

The farmer who owned five hundred acres worked as early and as late as he who owned but fifty, and led his half-score of mowers to the onslaught of herdsgra.s.s and redtop with a ringing challenge of whetstone on scythe, and was proud of his son if the youngster "cut him out of his swathe."

The matron taught her daughters and maids how to spin and weave flax and wool. The beat of the little wheel, the hum of the great wheel, the ponderous thud of the loom, were household voices in every Vermont homestead, whether it was the old log-house that the forest had first given place to, or its more pretentious framed and boarded successor.

All the womenfolk knitted stockings and mittens while they rested or visited, the click of the needles accompanied by the chirp of the cricket and the buzz of gossip.

For workday and holiday, the household was clad in homespun from head to foot, save what the hatter furnished for the first and the traveling cobbler for the last.

Once a year the latter was a welcome visitor of every homestead in his beat, bringing to it all the gossip for the womenfolk, all the weighty news for the men, and all the bear stories for the children which he had gathered in a twelve months' "whipping of the cat," as his itinerant craft was termed. These he dispensed while, by the light of the wide fireplace, he mended old foot-gear or fashioned new, that fitted and tortured alike either foot whereon it was drawn on alternate days.

The old custom of making "bees," inst.i.tuted when neighborly help was a necessity, was continued when it was no longer needed, for the sake of the merry-makings which such gatherings afforded. There were yet logging-bees for the piling of logs in a clearing, and raising-bees when a new house or barn was put up; drawing-bees when one was to be moved to a new site, with all the ox-teams of half a township; and bees when a sick or short-handed neighbor's season-belated crops needed harvesting.

When the corn was ripe came the husking-bee, in which old and young of both s.e.xes took part, their jolly labor lighted in the open field by the hunter's moon or a great bonfire, around which the shocks were ranged like a circle of wigwams; or, if in the barn, by the rays sprinkled from lanterns of punched tin. When the work was done, the company feasted on pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and cider. Then the barn floor was cleared of the litter of husks, the fiddler mounted the scaffold, and made the gloom of the roof-peak ring with merry strains, to which twoscore solidly clad feet threshed out time in "country dance" and "French four."

The quilting party, in its first laborious stage, was partic.i.p.ated in only by the womenkind; but, when that was pa.s.sed, the menfolk were called in to a.s.sist in the ceremony of "shaking the quilt," and in the performance of this the fiddler was as necessary as in the closing rites of the husking-bee.