USA > Georgia > Stories of Georgia > Part 10
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"Can you row the boat ashore, Billy boy, Billy boy? Can you row the boat ashore, Gentle Billy ? Can you row the boat ashore Without a paddle or an oar, Billy boy?"
Though he had failed many times, Longstreet was not disheartened. He continued his experiments, and at last succeeded in making a toy boat, which he exhib- ited to a few friends. His idea at this time, it seems, was not to construct a steamboat, but merely to con- vince some of his friends that steam could be used as a
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motive power. But in this he was not very successful. His toy boat did all that he wanted it to do; but his friends declared, that while steam might be used to move a small boat, it could never be used to move a large one. The experience of a new generation showed that there was one wise man in Augusta and a great many fools. Nevertheless William Longstreet deter- mined to show that a large boat could be moved by a large amount of steam as easily as a small boat could be moved by a small volume.
Now, while he was making his experiments, and try- ing to overcome the difficulties that presented them- selves, Robert Fulton was living in Paris with Joel Barlow. He was in Paris when Napoleon became first consul. At that time he was experimenting with his div- . ing boat and submarine torpedo. Napoleon was so much interested in this work that he gave Fulton ten thou- sand francs to carry it on. The inventor was in France in 1803 when Napoleon organized his army for the invasion of England. He was surrounded by influen- tial friends, and he had money at his command.
Compared with William Longstreet, Robert Fulton was "in clover." Longstreet was compelled to work without money, and in the midst of a community whose curiosity had developed into criticism and ridicule. Thus it was not until 1806 that he succeeded in com- pleting a steamboat that would accommodate twenty or twenty-five persons. He went on board, accompanied by such of his friends as he could persuade, and in the presence of a curious and doubting crowd the first real steamboat was launched on the Savannah River. Some
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of the friends of those on board, feeling anxious for their safety if the "contraption" should explode, secured a skiff, and followed the steamboat at a safe distance, ready to pick up such of the passengers as might survive when the affair had blown to pieces. Longstreet headed the boat down the river, and went in that direction for several miles. Then he turned the head of the little boat upstream; and, although the current was swift, he carried his passengers back to the wharf, and several miles above.
From that hour William Longstreet became a man of some consequence in the community. Those who had ridiculed him now sang his praises, and those who had doubted that steam could be used as a motive power were now convinced. His friends tried hard to get him to go to Washington and secure the benefits of a patent for his invention ; but he persistently refused to take any steps to profit by the results of his genius, or indeed to make his invention known. His constant reply to all those who tried to persuade him to go to Washington was, that he had carried on his experiments simply to prove the truth of his theory to his own satisfaction, and to convince those whose respect he coveted that he was neither a fool nor a crank.
Some of his friends and admirers were themselves preparing to go to Washington in behalf of the in- ventor, but they had put off their journey until the year after the exhibition was made in Augusta, and at that time they heard that Robert Fulton had exhibited his steamboat "Clermont" on the Hudson River. They then gave up their design, and William Longstreet
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continued to remain in the seclusion that was so pleas- ant to him.
It is a noteworthy fact, that twelve years after Wil- liam Longstreet made his successful experiments on the Savannah River, Georgia enterprise built, launched, and managed the first steamship that ever crossed the ocean. This great enterprise was organized in Savan- nah in 1818. The Georgia Company contracted to have the ship built in New York; and when completed, it was named the "Savannah." The vessel was finished and brought to Savannah in April, 1819. In May the steamship left Savannah bound for Liverpool. From Liverpool it went to St. Petersburg, and then returned to Savannah, having made the voyage in fifty days.
The first sewing machine was invented by Rev. Frank R. Goulding, a Georgian who has won fame among the children of the land as the author of "The Young Marooners." He invented the sewing machine for the purpose of lightening the labors of his wife; and she used it for some years before some other genius invented it, or some traveler stole the idea and im- proved on it.
Dr. Crawford W. Long, in 1842, when twenty-seven years of age, performed the first painless surgical oper- ation that is known to history. In 1839, Velpeau of Paris declared that the attempts to find some agent by which to prevent pain in surgical operations was noth- ing less than chimerical ; and as late as 1846 Sir Benja- min Brodie said, " Physicians and surgeons have been looking in vain, from the days of Hippocrates down to the present time, for the means of allaying or prevent-
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ing bodily pain." And yet three years after the decla- ration of Velpeau, and four years before the statement of Sir Benjamin Brodie, the young Georgia physician had removed a tumor from the neck of a patient, and that patient had felt no pain.
The story is very interesting. Dr. Crawford W. Long was born in Danielsville, Madison County, Ga., on the Ist of November, 1815.
He graduated at the University of Georgia, studied medicine, and grad- uated at the medical department of the University of Penn- sylvania. He then went to Jefferson, Jackson County, where he opened an office, and prac- ticed medicine for many years.
In those days the
young men living in the country districts, for want of something better to amuse them, were in the habit of inhaling nitrous-oxide gas, or, as it was then popularly known, "laughing gas." The young people would gather together, and some of them would inhale the gas until they came under its influ- ence. The result was in most cases very amusing. Some would laugh, some would cry, and all in various ways would carry out the peculiarities of their charac-
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ters and dispositions. Thus, if a young man had an inward inclination to preach, he would, under the influ- ence of "laughing gas," proceed to deliver a sermon. As these "laughing-gas " parties were exhilarating to the young people who inhaled the gas, and amusing to those who were spectators, they became very popular.
But it was not always easy to secure the gas. On one occasion a company of young men went to Dr. Long's office and asked him to make them a supply of "laughing gas." There was no apparatus in the office suitable for making it, but Dr. Long told the young men that the inhalation of sulphuric ether would have the same effect. He had become acquainted with this property of ether while studying medicine in Philadel- phia. The young men and their friends were so well pleased with the effects of ether inhalation, that "ether parties" became fashionable in that section, as well as in other parts of the State. At these ether parties, Dr. Long noticed that persons who received injuries while under its influence felt no pain. On one occasion a young man received an injury to his ankle joint that disabled him for several days, and he told Dr. Long that he did not feel the slightest pain until the effects of the ether had passed off. Observing these facts, Dr. Long was led to believe that surgical operations might be performed without pain.
Dr. Long's theory was formed in 1841, but he waited for some time before testing it, in the hope that a case of surgery of some importance - the amputation of an arm or a leg - might fall in his practice. On the 30th of March, 1842, Dr. Long removed a tumor from the
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neck of Mr. James M. Venable. On the 6th of June, the same year, another small tumor was removed from the neck of the same patient, and both operations were painless. Mr. Venable inhaled sulphuric ether, and the effect of it was to render him insensible to the pain of cutting out the tumors.
Dr. Long had told Mr. Venable that he would charge little or nothing for removing the tumors under the influence of ether. The bill rendered for both opera- tions amounted to $4.50; but, small as the bill was, it represented the discovery and application of ether in surgical practice, - one of the greatest boons to man- kind. Up to that time no patient under the surgeon's knife had ever been able to escape the horror and pain of an operation.
Dr. Long did not at once print the facts about his discovery. He wanted to make assurance doubly sure. He waited in the hope of having an important case of surgery under his charge, such as the amputation of a leg or an arm. But these cases, rare at any time, were still rarer at that time, especially in the region where Dr. Long practiced. He finally satisfied himself, how- ever, of the importance of his discovery, but, having waited until 1846, found that at least three persons - Wells, Jackson, and Morton - had hit on the same discovery, and had made publication of it. Morton patented ether under the name of "Letheon," and in October, 1846, administered it to a patient in the Massachusetts General Hospital.
In 1844, Horace Wells, a native of Vermont, discov- ered that the inhalation of nitrous-oxide gas produces
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anæsthesia. He was a dentist. He gave it to his patients, and was able to perform dental operations without causing pain. Thus we may see how the case stands. Long produced anæsthesia in 1842; that is to say, he caused his patients to inhale sulphuric ether in that year, whenever he had a painful operation to perform, and, in each case the operation was painless.
In 1846, when the surgeons of the Massachusetts General Hospital performed painless operations on patients, after administering to them Morton's patented " Letheon," which was his name for sulphuric ether, there came about a great war of pamphlets, and it ended tragically. Long had never made any secret of the substance which he used. He gave information of it to all the surgeons and doctors with whom he came in contact ; and he was not in any way concerned in the conflict that was carried on by Jackson, Morton, and Wells. He simply gathered together the facts of his discovery, proved that he was the first physician to per- form painless operations in surgery, and that was the end of it so far as he was concerned.
Wells became insane, and committed suicide in New York in 1848. Morton died in New York City of con- gestion of the brain. Jackson ended his days in an insane asylum.
In Boston a monument has been erected to the dis- coverer of anaesthesia. The name of Crawford W. Long should stand first upon it, and should be followed by the names of Wells, Morton, and Jackson.
THE EARLY PROGRESS OF THE STATE.
A FTER the invention of the cotton gin, the progress of the people and the devel- opment of the agriculture of the State went forward very rapidly. The popu- lation began to increase. The movement of families from Virginia and North Carolina grew constantly larger. In Virginia, and in settled por- tions of North Carolina, it was found that the soil and climate were not favorable to the growth of the cotton plant: consequently hun- dreds of families left their homes in these States, and came to Georgia.
When Oglethorpe settled the Colony, the charter under which he acted prohibited the introduction and use of negro slaves in the Colony. It is hard to say at
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this late day whether this portion of the charter was dictated by feelings of humanity, especially when we re- member that in those days, and in most of the Colonies, there were many white people -men, women, and chil- dren - employed and used as slaves. From the very first, many of the Georgia colonists were anxious to introduce negro slaves, but the trustees firmly refused to allow it. There was a strong party in favor of intro- ducing negroes, and those who opposed the movement presently found themselves in a very small and unpopu- lar minority. By 1748 the excitement over the question had grown so great, that those colonists who were op- posed to negro slavery were compelled to abandon their position. Rev. Mr. Whitefield, the eloquent preacher, had already bought and placed negro slaves at his Orphan House at Bethesda, near Savannah. The colo- nists had also treated this part of the charter with contempt. They pretended to hire negroes' homes in South Carolina for a hundred years, or during life. They paid the "hire" in advance, the sum being the full value of the slaves. Finally negroes were bought openly from traders in Savannah. Some of them were seized ; but a majority of the magistrates were in favor of the introduction of negroes, and they were able to postpone legal decisions from time to time.
Rev. George Whitefield, whose wonderful eloquence has made his name famous, and Hon. James Haber- sham, had great influence with the trustees; and it was mainly due to their efforts that the colonists were legally allowed to purchase and use negro slaves. Mr. Habersham affirmed that the Colony could not prosper
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without slave labor. Rev. Mr. Whitefield, on the other hand, was in favor of negro slavery on the broad ground of philanthropy. He boldly declared that it would be of great advantage to the African to be brought from his barbarous surroundings and placed among civilized Christians. When we remember what has happened, who can deny that the remark of the eloquent preacher was not more to the purpose, and nearer to the truth, than some of the modern statements about American slavery ? What really happened (as any one may discover by looking into impartial history) was, that thousands of negroes who had been captured in battle, and made slaves of in their own country, were taken from that dark land and brought into the light of Christian civili- zation. Their condition, mentally and morally, was so improved, that, in little more than a century after White- field made his statement, the government of the United States ventured to make citizens of them. The con- trast between their condition and that of the negroes who remained in Africa is so startling, that a well- known abolitionist, writing twenty years after emanci- pation, has described slavery as a great university, which the negroes entered as barbarians, and came out of as Christians and citizens.
The efforts of the Colony to secure a repeal of the act prohibiting slavery were successful. The trustees in London concluded that it would be better to permit slavery, with such restrictions and limitations as might be proper, than to permit the wholesale violations that were then going on; and so in 1749 the colonists of Georgia were allowed by law to own and use negro slaves.
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Thus, when the cotton gin came fairly into use, slavery had been legally allowed in Georgia for nearly half a century. The rest of the Colonies had long en- joyed that privilege. The cotton gin, therefore, had a twofold effect, - it increased the cotton crop and the value of the lands, and it also increased the use of negro slaves. The Virginians and North Carolinians, who came to Georgia, brought their slaves with them ; and the Georgians, as their crops became profitable, laid out their surplus cash in buying more negroes. The slave trade became very prosperous, and both Old England and New England devoted a large amount of capital and enterprise to this branch of commerce.
As the population increased, and the cotton crop became more valuable, the demand for land became keener. To this fact was due the intense excitement kindled by the Yazoo Fraud in 1794. The cotton gin had been introduced the year before, and the people were beginning to see and appreciate the influence the invention would have on their prosperity. Instead of selling land to speculators, they wanted to keep it for themselves and children, or at least to get something like its real value.
The cotton gin had increased not only the demand · for negro slaves, but also the demand for land; and indirectly it was the cause of the various troubles the State had with the Indians after the close of the War for Independence. The troubles with the Indians also led finally to serious misunderstandings between the United States Government and that of Georgia. In May, 1796, a treaty was made between the United STO. OF GA .- 12
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States and the Creeks. This treaty created some indig- nation among the people, and was denounced as an interference by the General Government with State affairs. The lands which the Indians ceded to the United States were a part of the Territory of Georgia, and the transaction gave rise to much discussion and considerable bad feeling.
In ten years, from 1790 to 1800, the population in Georgia had increased more than eighty thousand. During the next ten years the increase in the popula- tion was more than ninety thousand. This increase meant a still greater demand for farm lands. West- ward the Territory of Georgia extended to the Mis- sissippi River. The agitation which began over this rich possession when the Yazoo Fraud was attempted, was kept up until 1800, when Georgia appointed four of her most prominent citizens to meet with commis- sioners appointed by the United States, and settle all questions that had arisen. The result was, that Georgia ceded to the General Government all her lands belong- ing to the State, south of Tennessee and west of the Chattahoochee River. These lands were to be sold, and out of the proceeds the State was to receive $1,250,- 000. It was also provided that the United States, at its own expense, should extinguish the Indian titles to the lands held by the Creeks between the forks of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers, and that in like man- ner the General Government should extinguish the Indian title to all the other lands within the State of Georgia. Under this agreement, and the Indian treaty based upon it, nearly all of the lands lying between the
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Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers were opened up for occu- pation and cultivation.
All the Territory of Georgia was looked upon by the people as a public domain, belonging to the State for distribution among the citizens. The lands east of the Oconee were divided among the people under the plan known as the "Head Right System." By this system every citizen was allowed to choose, and survey to suit himself, a body of unoccupied land. This done, he re- ceived a title called a "head right land warrant," which was issued to him when he paid a small fee and a nominal price for the land. If no one had previously appropriated the same land, the warrant was his title. But much confusion arose in the distribution of titles, and serious disputes grew out of it. The poorer sec- tions of land were neglected, and only the most fertile sections surveyed.
When the lands west of the Oconee were acquired, the clumsy Head Right System was given up for what is known as the "Land Lottery System." " All free white males, twenty-one years of age or older, every married man with children under age, widows with chil- dren, and all families of orphan minors," were allowed to draw in the lottery. Lists of these persons were made out in each county, and sent to the governor. The lot- tery was drawn under the management of five responsi- ble persons. The tickets to be drawn were marked with the numbers of the land lots, and these were put into boxes with numerous blanks. Those who were fortu- nate enough to draw numbered tickets were entitled to plats and grants of their lots, signed by the governor.
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The lots were not all of the same size. Some contained 20212 acres, others 490 acres. Twelve months after the drawing was completed, the fortunate person was re- quired to pay into the State treasury four dollars for every hundred acres contained in his lot.
Many of those who had the good fortune to draw prizes in the land-lottery scheme paid the necessary amount of money, and received titles to their land lots ; but many others neglected to pay in the money, and thus forfeited their titles.
It has been said that the land hunger of the people at this time was both selfish and sordid ; but if we come to look at the matter closely, selfishness is behind much of the material progress that the world has made. The selfishness of individuals is not more conspicuous than the selfishness of communities, commonwealths, and nations. In history we find the rumseller, the land grabber, and the speculator following hard upon the heels of the missionary. The selfishness of nations is frequently given the name of "patriotism," and rightly so, since it is a movement for the good of all.
When Georgia had fairly begun to recover from the disastrous results of the War for Independence, the troubles that resulted in the War of 1812 began to make themselves felt. France and England were at war; and the United States Government tried to re- main neutral, giving aid to neither the one nor the other. But this was not pleasing to either of these great powers. Both were interested in the trade and commerce of this country, and both issued orders affect- ing American affairs. The United States resented the
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interference, and protested against it. Great Britain, with an arrogance made bitter by the remembrance of her humiliating defeat at the hands of a few feeble Colonies, replied to the American protest, declaring that Amer- ican ships would still be searched, and American sailors im- pressed into the ser- vice of the British, wherever found on the high seas. In 1807 a British man- of-war fired on an American merchant vessel as it was leav-
ing harbor. Three
men were killed,
eighteen wounded,
and four sailors seized. This outrage
inflamed the whole country, and in De- cember of that year Congress passed a law preventing Amer- ican vessels from leaving their ports to trade with foreign nations. This law was deeply resented by the New Eng- land States, and they held at Hartford, Conn.,
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the first secession convention that ever met in this country.
Georgia was foremost among the States to denounce and resist the aggressive acts of Great Britain. In 1808 the Legislature sent an address to the President of the United States, approving the measures he had taken, and declared that the people of Georgia were strong in their independence, and proud of their gov- ernment, and that they would never wish to see the lives and property of their brethren exposed to the insult and rapacity of a foreign power ; but if the war should come, they would, in proportion to their number and resources, give zealous aid to the government of their choice.
The British, meanwhile, made arrangements to force a cotton trade with Georgia and South Carolina, and for the purpose fitted out a number of vessels of from ten to fifteen guns each. These vessels were to be employed in opening the ports of Georgia and Carolina. A war brig anchored at Tybee, and two of its offi- cers went to Savannah. When they had made known their purpose, they were peremptorily ordered away. They returned to their vessel and put to sea; but as they were leaving, they fired at a pilot boat in the harbor, and committed other outrages.
This incident and others aroused the indignation of the people. The Legislature passed resolutions, ad- dressed to the President of the United States, declar- ing that all hope of a peaceful termination of the difficulty had been lost, that the duty of the United States was to maintain its sovereign rights against
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the despots of Europe, and that the citizens of Georgia would ever be found in readiness to assert the rights and support the dignity of the country whenever called on by the General Government. By the time the treaty of peace was made, the day before Christmas in 1814, the war spirit in Georgia had been roused to the highest pitch by the numerous outrages committed by the Indian allies of the British.
But the story of the Indian troubles belongs to a chapter by itself.
THE CREEKS AND THE CREEK WAR.
IF all the stories of the troubles of the early set- tlers of Georgia with the Indians could be written out, they would fill a very large book. All the whites with whom the red men came in contact in Georgia were not as just, as generous, and as unselfish as James Edward Ogle- thorpe. On the other hand, not all the Indians with whom the whites had dealings were as wise and as honest as old Tomochichi. Consequently misunder- standings arose, and prejudices grew and developed. This was greatly helped by dishonest traders and speculators, who were keen to take advantage of the ignorance of the Indians.
The controlling influence among the Indians in Georgia was the Creek Confederacy (or nation); and
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