USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 40
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As a reward for his gallant services in the Revolution, the State of Georgia gave him a commission as major-general and a handsome grant of land. He was also chosen to represent the state in treaty negotiations with the Indians. Whenever there was trouble in Upper Georgia, the settlers turned instinctively to Elijah Clarke; and some few years later, at the battle of Jack's Creek, with his son, John Clarke,
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then barely more than a lad, nevertheless a fighter and a veteran of the Revolution, he added another trophy of war to his belt of victories.
Then came an episode in the career of Elijah Clarke which has somewhat eclipsed and darkened his fame as a patriot, viz., his effort to establish a trans-Oconee republie and his connivance with foreign powers. But nothing in the way of real dishonor attaches to his motives even in these transactions, not withstanding the odor of treason which seems to invest them. He was an old soldier who had never cul- tivated the grace of restraint and who had always commanded an independent body of troops, subject to no higher power than himself, and he merely sought in his own way to rid Georgia of the incubus of an Indian problem. The fact that two European powers made overtures to him is testimony of the most pronounced character to his military genius. Misjudged by his friends and maligned by his foes, General Clarke retired to his home in Wilkes, where death eventually brought him "surcease of sor- row. " He died on January 15, 1799. His last will and testament is on record in the County of Lincoln; and, while there is no positive evidence in regard to the place of his burial, the local traditions point clearly to Lincoln, which was cut off from Wilkes soon after the decease of the old hero.
Iron and velvet were strangely mixed in the character of this singular man. His life presents an enigma, in the solving of which the historians are at sea. He was the very embodiment of gentleness in shielding the defenseless women and children of the Broad River District, but in dealing with the Tories there was no milk of human kindness in his breast. To the quality of mercy he was an absolute stranger; and Shylock himself was not more remorseless in exacting his pound of flesh from the "Merchant of Venice." He squared accounts with the Tories by pinning them to the letter of the Mosaic law-""'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But when we remember what he suffered at the hands of the Tories, who turned his family out of doors, who burned his home to ashes, who murdered an inoffensive son in the presence of his wife, and whose hands were red with the blood of babes in the cradle, we can hardly blame him for registering an oath to be revenged upon the perpetrators of deeds so foul in the face of heaven. Without training in the school of arms-an uneducated rustic-he was not unlike the great Confederate horseman, Gen. N. B. Forrest. In the opinion of not a few critics the latter was the foremost soldier of the Civil war; and there will be no one to challenge the statement that among the soldiers of Georgia in the American Revolution the stalwart form of the victor of Kettle Creek lifts by far the loftiest plume .- "Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends," L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
THE TORIES: GEORGIA'S REIGN OF TERROR .- In proportion to the population there were more Tories in Georgia than in any other state. Some of them were no doubt honest people, who really believed that the Americans were wrong in rebelling against the English government; but many of them were mean and selfish men, who only wished to be on the strong or winning side. By the British subjugation of Georgia nearly all of the patriots of fighting age were driven out of the state, leaving their property and their helpless families behind, while the Tories remained unmolested at home. James Wright, the royal governor, came back from England and was once more placed at the head of the Georgia government.
By the 1st of February, 1779, the British were in almost complete possession of the state. The commander, Colonel Campbell, issued a proclamation calling on the people to take the oath of allegiance to the King and Government of England. He promised that those who would take the oath should not be molested but declared that those who refused would be driven from the colony and what property they left would be confiscated. Frightened by this threat, a great many people took the oath and became British subjects; these people were called Tories. But many refused to take the oath because they would rather suffer banishment, or even death, than give up the heroie struggle for independence; these were called Patriots. So the people of Georgia were divided into these two parties, Tories and Patriots, and they hated each other with a bitter hatred.
Soon after the fall of Savannah, a reign of terror was inaugurated. Between the British and the Tories, there was no end to the suffering inflicted upon the state; but the Tories were far worse than the British. They formed themselves into mili- tary companies, which were nothing more than bands of ruffians. They roved over
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the country on horseback and on foot, committing all sorts of outrages, robbing the people, burning houses, throwing old men into prison, insulting women, hanging every patriot soldier they could lay hands upon, sometimes even murdering children, and showing no mercy to any one who favored the American cause. In no other state were the Tories so wicked and cruel as in Georgia. They were even worse than the savage Indians, whom they employed to help them.
The worst of these Georgia Tories was a man by the name of Thomas Brown. He had always been a Tory; and in the early days of the Revolution he had made himself so obnoxious to the patriotic people of Augusta, where he lived, that one day a crowd of men dragged him out of his office, and, stripping him to the waist, poured over his naked body a pot of soft tar, and then over the tar emptied a pillow case full of feathers, which stuck to the tar and made poor Brown look like a big, ugly, frizzled chicken. Thus tarred and feathered, they seated him in an open wagon drawn by three mules and hauled him about the streets of Augusta, while a great crowd followed with hoots and jeers. After parading him for an hour or two they turned him loose with the warning that if he did not leave town within twenty-four hours they would kill him. For quite a while Brown kept his negro servant busy washing the tar and feathers from his body; then he put on his clothes, and, raising his right hand toward heaven, he took a solemn oath that he would be avenged for this great shame and outrage. He left; but many months afterwards he came back, and how well he kept his oath is a story written in blood!
It was when Georgia fell into the hands of the British that Brown came back, and soon he became the chief leader of the Tories in the state. He was a well educated, intelligent man, and possessed military skill, so that he was made a colonel in the English army, and was placed in command of Angusta, his old home. The force under him was composed of about half and half of Tories and Indians. His opportunity had now come. All of the Patriots of fighting age had left Augusta and were in the American army. Brown confiscated their property, threw their old gray- haired fathers and grandfathers into prison, expelled their helpless wives and children from home, and drove them 200 miles away into North Carolina. The sufferings along the journey were awful. Some of them died from exposure and exhaustion, and many were made invalids for life by the hardships endured on the dreadful march.
In September, 1780, Gen. Elijah Clarke, with a small army of patriots, undertook to recapture Augusta. He succeeded in driving Brown's army out of the city, and they took refuge in a large building just outside of the town known as the White House. Brown had the doors and windows barricaded and bored holes in the walls, through which his marksmen, with long-range rifles, held the Americans at bay. The building was completely surrounded by the patriots, but General Clarke had no cannon with which he could batter dowu the house, so he had to depend upon starving out the Tories. For four days and nights he held them besieged, till provisions were nearly exhausted, and every drop of water was gone. In one of the large upper rooms of the house lay forty poor, wounded Tories, with no medicines and no bandages or salves for their wounds and not a drop of water to appease their feverish thirst. Even in the American camp their shrieks of agony and their wild eries for "water! water!" could be plainly heard. Brown himself was severely wounded, shot through both thighs, and was suffering dreadfully; but he never gave up. He had himself carried round from room to room in an arm-chair to direct and encourage his men, who were nearly crazed with exhaustion. General Clarke sent a flag of truce to the unsubdued officer and begged him in the name of humanity to surrender, but he positively refused. He was as brave and heroic as he was bad and cruel.
At last, on the morning of the fifth day, the relief for which Brown had been looking came. Colonel Cruger, with a large detachment of British regulars, sud- denly appeared on the other side of the river, in response to a secret message which Brown had sent to him, on the day he left Augusta. General Clarke, knowing that he could not contend against, this large force, withdrew his army and quickly re- treated. He left behind him thirty wounded Americans who were unable to march, supposing, of course, that they would be treated as prisoners of war. He knew not then the cruel heart of Thomas Brown, though he afterwards learned to know it well.
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Selecting thirteen of the wounded American soldiers, Brown caused them to be hanged from the high balustrade of the staircase in the White House, so that he might witness the dying agonies of these men as he lay on his couch in the hall below. And as each victim was pushed from the balustrade and fell with a dull thud at the end of the rope, Brown would utter a grunt of satisfaction. He turned the rest of the prisoners over to the tender mercies of the Indian allies, who, forming a circle around them in the front yard of the White House, put them to death by slow and fiendish tortures.
When, in 1781, Augusta was at last captured by the Americans, Brown was taken prisoner. Knowing that if the soldiers could put hands on him they would tear the poor fellow limb from limb, the American commander had him carried down the river in a boat under a strong guard. It is strange that he was not court- martialed and hanged, a fate which he richly deserved. The Americans were too merciful to him. Brown was afterwards exchanged and rejoined the British army, and till the end of the war continued his fierce fighting and cruel work. After the war was over, realizing that he could not live in America, he took refuge in England. There, in the year 1812, he was convicted of forgery and thrown into prison, where he ended his infamous life in disgrace and ignominy.
Colonel Grierson was another had Tory, and Brown's right-hand man. They were two of a kind, companions in arms and companions in cruel deeds. Never was there joined together, in the commission of lawlessness, two men worse than Brown and Grierson, the Georgia Tory. Grierson, like Brown, was a colonel in the British army. Fort Grierson, at Augusta, was named for him. It was one of the strongest forts in Georgia, and around it, at the siege of Augusta, was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolution in the state. When Augusta was captured by the Americans, Grierson, like Brown, was taken prisoner. To save him from being mobbed by the soldiers, the American commander had him hidden away in a little house some distance from town and placed a strong guard around him; but suddenly, about twilight, a soldier on horse-back galloped up and, before the guards knew what he was about, threw his gun to his shoulder, shot Grierson throw the window, and then, wheeling, galloped away. During the night, in dreadful agony, Grierson died of the wound. The man who shot him was supposed to be Samuel Alexander, the son of John Alexander, an old man seventy-eight years old, whom Grierson had treated with savage cruelty, when he and Brown held sway in Augusta. Young Alexander was never arrested or tried for the deed.
Daniel MeGirth was another notorious Tory of Georgia. Unlike Brown, he was an ignorant, uneducated man; and, unlike Brown, too, he started out as an ardent patriot. He was born and reared in South Carolina and was a good frontiersman, as active and lithe as a panther. He was also a fine horseman and a splendid shot, and was among the first to take up arms in the American cause. Somehow he drifted into South Georgia, where he belonged to the little band of patriots who so bravely resisted the invasion of the British from Florida. He acted as a scout and spy for the Americans, and he rendered them most important service.
MeGirth brought with him from South Carolina a thoroughbred horse, of which he was very proud. She was an iron-gray mare with a snow-white blaze in her fore- head, and he called her Gray Goose. She was considered the finest horse in the American army, beautiful, intelligent, and swift as the wind. A captain in the American army took a great fancy to the animal and tried to buy her from McGirth, offering him a large price, but MeGirth refused to part with her. This angered the captain, who, out of spite, mistreated MeGirth in many ways, as an officer can mis- treat a subordinate, if he chooses. McGirth was a high-spirited fellow. Irritated beyond endurance, he one day insulted the officer and raised his arm to strike him; but some one intervened and stopped the blow. Now, to strike a superior officer is a grave crime in the army, so MeGirth was tried by court-martial and sentenced to receive ten lashes with a cowhide on his bare back three days in succession. The first whipping was administered and he was put into the guard house to await his second humiliation. The feelings of this high-spirited man can be imagined, as he paced up and down in his cell and brooded over the bitter shame to which he was being subjected.
About twilight, as he was gazing through his prison bars, McGirth spied Gray Goose, hitched to a tree not far away. He gave a low, peculiar whistle, and Gray
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Goose, recognizing the signal, raised her beautiful head and uttered an affectionate whinny in response. This was more than he could stand. With a broken trowel which he found in his cell, he tore the masonry from around the prison bars; then, with almost superhuman strength, he pulled out one of the bars and, through the narrow crack, squeezed his long body and, rushing out, sprang on Gray Goose and dashed away. The guards called to him to halt, but he only shook his fist at them and yelled a dreadful curse, and plunged into the darkness on his fleet-footed steed, heedless of the musket-balls that whistled about his head.
McGirth's whole nature was seemingly perverted by the bad treatment which he had received. He deserted to the enemy and joined the British army, and from then to the end of the war fought ferociously against the Americans. Of course, the bad treatment which he received from the American officer was no excuse, but MeGirth was as unprincipled as he was brave and fierce.
He was made a colonel in the British army and put at the head of a powerful Tory band, which for many months was the scourge of the state. He was a perfect ruffian in his manner of warfare. From the Florida line to Elbert County and over into South Carolina his name was a terror to the people. Many were the fearful stories told of MeGirth and his blaze-faced horse. A whole book might be written about his daring deeds and his inhuman cruelties. He was twice wounded, but was never taken prisoner. A big reward was offered for his capture, and thousands were trying to catch him and often had him in a tight place; but in every emergency he was saved by the fleet foot of his best friend, Gray Goose.
After the war was over, he went to Florida, which was then owned by the Spaniards. For some offense or crime there he was arrested and thrown into prison in the old fort of St. Augustine. After an imprisonment of five years he was released, but he was so weak and broken in health that he could barely drag himself back to his wife in his rude country home in Sumter District, South Carolina. There he soon died in peace, and there he now lies buried .- "Stories of Georgia History," J. Harris Chappell.
But there were some Tories of an altogether different pattern. Mr. John Couper, in a letter written when he was eighty-three years of age and dated St. Simon's Island, April 16, 1842, narrates an anecdote of the famous and eccentric Capt. Rory MeIntosh, who was attached as a volunteer to an infantry company, at the time of the siege of Fort Morris. The company was within the lines which Colonel Fuser had thrown around the fort and the adjacent town of Sunbury. Early one morning when Rory had made free with mountain dew, he insisted on sallying out to summon the fort to surrender. His friends could not restrain him, so out he strutted, clay- more in hand, followed by his faithful slave Jim, and approached the fort, roaring out :
"Surrender, you misereants. How dare you resist his Majesty's arms!"
Col. John MeIntosh, his kinsman, was in command of the fort, and, seeing his situation, he forbade any one firing, threw open the gate, and said:
"Walk in, Mr. MeIntosh, and take possession."
"No," said Rory, "I will not trust myself among such vermin; but I order you to surrender."
Just then a rifle was fired, the ball from which passed through his face, sidewise, under his eyes. He stumbled and fell backwards, but immediately recovered, and flourishing his sword retreated. Several shots followed. Jim called ont: "Run, massa, run, dey kill you."
"Run, poor slave, " indignantly exclaimed Rory; "thou mayst run, but I come of a race that never runs."
Jim stated to Mr. Couper that, in rising from the ground, his master put his hand for the first time to one of his cheek-bones and, finding it bloody, he raised it to the other also; both were covered with blood. He backed safely into the lines .*
NANCY HART'S BRAVE EXPLOIT .- Among the heroines of history an exalted rank must be assigned to the Boadicea of the Revolution-Nancy Hart.t Born of the
* White 's "Historical Collections of Georgia."
t Nancy Hart's maiden name was Nancy Morgan. She came from North Caro- lina, and is said to have been related to Gen. Daniel Morgan, of the Revolution. Her husband, Capt. Benjamin ITart, came from Kentucky; and his brother, Thomas Hart, was the father-in-law of Henry Clay and the uncle of Thomas Hart Benton.
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race of Amazons, she was one of the most courageous masterpieces of her sex; but for much of her prestige in the war department she was indebted to an unheroic blemish which would have kept Helen of Troy safe in Sparta, prevented the Trojan war and robbed the classic world of Homer's Iliad. Moreover, it would have ren- dered an Egyptian queen as unattractive to the eyes of courtship as was ever an Egyptian mummy of the Hyksos dynasty; it would likewise have spoiled the Biblical legend of Queen Esther and mutilated the exquisite romance of Mary Queen of Scots.
She was cross-eyed!
Some one has said that if Cleopatra's nose had been slightly tilted it would have changed the countenance of medieval times. It sounds suspiciously like Douglas Jerrold. Certainly it is true that if the ill-starred Empress had been cross-eyed she could never have captivated the famous general who, Inred by the fatal charm of beauty, scorned the plebian flowers of the Tiber to pluck the imperial blossom of the Nile; and equally is it true that unless the Georgia war-queen had been cross- eyed she could never have held five British officers at bay with an old blunderbuss which might have hung fire when she tried to shoot.
It was during the troublous days of Toryism in Upper Georgia that Nancy Hart, in an humble cabin of the backwoods, electrified the whole tragic theater of war with the story of her bold capture. Up to this time, it surpassed anything in the entire Revolutionary annals; and, calling across the sea to France, it challenged the prowess of the Maid of Orleans. Both Savannah and Augusta had become the strongholds of the British; and all the frontier belt had commenced to swarm with Tories, whose battle-cry was havoc. Gen. Elijah Clarke had recently transported most of the women and children of the Broad River settlement to the Holston region of Kentucky, preparatory to waging direful warfare against the human wolves and jackals that infested the thickets of Upper Georgia at this period. But Nancy Hart had not traveled in the wake of the noted rifleman. She may have had some intima- tion of the part which she was expected to play in the Tory extermination. At any rate, she was squared for action when the curtain rose upon the little drama which was destined to exhibit her feminine plnck in the most amazing degree, and to start her hitherto unheralded name upon the circuit rounds of Christendom.
Suggestive as the situation was of danger for the live targets who shivered in front of the fowling-piece, it was also spiced with some flavor of humor to behold five Tory protectors of the realm terrorized by an undaunted edition of Georgia pluck, who, instead of wearing the spike-tail of the Continental army, wore the petticoat of the calico brigade. Given to bloody deeds of violence as the Tories were, they were like helpless babes in the wood as they stood before the flashing eyes of this war-shod Diana of the forest. They were naturally perplexed. Never before had they looked into the barrel of an old shotgun behind which were stationed such an infernal pair of optics. If red-hot coals had risen from the ground underneath and taken the place of eyeballs in the grim sockets above the cheekbone, they could not have flashed more defiantly the brimstone message of the lower world. It was undeniably an embarrassing moment; for each member of the squad thought in his consternation that she was aiming her buckshot at him, and, like an upright piece of lumber whose business it was to prop the ceiling, he stood riveted to the floor.
At last one of them, recovering from the paralytic spell, ventured forward to wrest the weapon from her hand, but instantly as lightning he received the leaden charge into his bosom and fell lifeless upon the timbers. Before another member of the party could advance, she had snatched another musket and proceeded to hold herself in readiness for the second victim. But he was loath to approach, for it was evident at this stage of the game that the lady of the house knew how to shoot. She might appear to be looking in all directions, but she could see straight ahead.
Snecor now arrived. Captain Hart, having learned of the visit of the Tories, appeared upon the doorstep in good time to see his wife drilling the squad in defen- sive tactics. But he reached the honse none too soon. Time was now most precious. Another moment might have changed the whole aspect of things. Well it was, too, that the sturdy frontiersman brought substantial re-enforcements, for an ill-directed shot might have liberated some of the best blood of the colonies. As it was, with the aid of the stout muscles which the neighbors lent to the task of making the prisoners secure, the entire bunch was captured, and in less than half an hour,
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from the ends of good strong pieces of hemp, all of the Tories who survived the little drama in the backwoods cabin were left dancing in mid-air to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
Cunning strategy made possible the dramatic situation in which Naney Hart was enabled successfully to defy the Tory band. She lacked none of the elements of Spartan courage, but, added to the dare-devil spirit of the enraged lioness, she also possessed unusual presence of mind. Under the guise of feminine simplicity, she induced the Tories to believe that she was an easy mark. It seems that the first demand of the visitors, who arrived rather early in the forenoon, was for something to appease the pangs of hunger. Breakfast had already been served, and Captain Hart having rejoined the frontier guard, she was attending to various household duties. But she stopped everything else to serve the travelers in the most obsequious style of the wayside tavern. Not by the least token did she exhibit the weakness of fear or betray the stratagem which was quietly lurking behind her shrewd eye- brews. She disarmed them completely of all suspicion and urged them to feel perfectly at home while she prepared the utensils in the big open fireplace for dispensing warm hospitality to the unexpected arrivals. Lest she might appear to be lacking in courtesy to the strangers she also instructed the children to look after the gentlemen, and busily she applied herself to the task of providing another meal. Finally when the Tories, having stacked arms, were beginning, like Jack Falstaff, "to take their ease in their inn," she managed to engage them in an opposite corner of the room; and, falling back upen her own armery, she snatched an old fowling- piece from the wall and instantly leveled the weapon at the breast-plates of the surprised emissaries of John Bull. As she did so, she dispatched one of the young- sters of the household to the place where Captain Hart could be found, urging him to hasten to the house at ence with able-bodied help; and she also stationed her eldest. daughter, Sukey, directly in the rear te fill the pest of supply agent in the event another load of buckshot was required to keep the visitors bunched until re-enforce- ments could arrive. Then followed in quick succession the events which have already been narrated. Captain Hart duly came upon the scene; the Tories were made secure, and Nancy Hart lowered her musket. Thus an unprotected woman in the danger-infested thickets of Upper Georgia during the darkest hour of the struggle for independence, had net only outwitted and outbraved the whole band of Tories, but had added another immortal name to the heroic roster of the Revolution.
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