USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 49
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JOHN G. DAVIS.
is not like money squandered or dissipated, but like eapital invested in a profitable and judicious manner. It will not be like money sunk, or lost to the country, but every dollar's worth of land will yield a handsome per cent. Under monarchical or oligarchical governments, vast snms, drawn from the hard earnings of the people, are annually wasted in the support of military establishments, designed to awe and keep in subjection the masses, or to support, in princely extravagance, a privileged class-a favorite few. In the case of this road, however, every acre of the public domain expended in its completion, will not only strengthen the bonds of our Union and increase our means of defense, but must inure to the welfare and glory of our common country.
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THOMAS CORWIN.
WITH the exception of Henry Clay, perhaps no other civilian in the West has filled so large a space in the public mind as Thomas Cor- win of Ohio. It would require a volume to sketch his biography. It is foreign to my purpose to attempt this. I speak of him as I saw and knew him personally. Mr. Corwin was a remarkable man ; raised by the force of his native powers and his own exertions, without the advantages of an early education, from the indigent son of humble parents, to the high offices of member of Congress, Governor of Ohio, United States Senator and Secretary of the Treasury, in all of which high positions, he sustained himself to the entire satisfaction of the country. I need not say that he possessed talents of the very first order. As a speaker, he stood among the very first in the nation, on whatever platform he occupied, whether at the bar, on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the Senate Chamber, or on the public stands, before the thousands of his assembled countrymen. I have considered him the best and most efficient popular speaker I ever heard. He infused into his speeches by his looks and gestures a comic ele- ment, that gave point to his argument, and kept his hearers completely under his control. He always abounded in anecdotes of the right kind, and he knew just how, and when to use them. If he spoke two, three, or four hours, his speech was always too short for his audience. I knew Mr. Corwin well for many years, and I always placed him among the very first men in the nation. In the social circle, he was the life of every body around him. When I knew him in the strength of his manhood, he was straight, and erect, five fect eight inches high, well built, large round head, capacious brain, coal black hair and eyes, full face, broad full chest, dark complexion, active on his feet, lively, talkative, and ready at retort. I have before me, a number of his able speeches delivered in Congress, to select a single extract from, to show the style of this great orator, and have thought the reader would thank me for the extract I give from his speech in 1840, in reply to Gen. Crary, in the House of Representatives. I stood by during the delivery. The manner of the delivery was inimitable; the speech loses much in being put upon paper. The eyes of the House were upon Gen. Crary, he looked as if he had lost all his friends. I received a very interesting private letter from Mr. Corwin dated Cincinnati October, 12th, 1857, in which in closing he says, " my rheumatism prevents me from giv- ing you further fatigue." I saw him last week screwed almost round with inflammatory rheumatism, accompanied by excruciating pain. He seemed to bear it like a philosopher.
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THOMAS CORWIN.
Mr. CORWIN, of Ohio, rose and said : " Mr. Speaker, I am admon- ished, by the eager solicitations of gentlemen around me to give way for a motion to adjourn, of that practice of the House which accords ns more of leisure on this day than is allowed us on any other day of the week. The servants of other good masters are, I believe, indulged in a sort of saturnalia in the afternoon of Saturday, and we have supposed that our kind masters, the people, would be willing to grant us, their most faithful slaves, a similar respite from toil. It is now past three o'clock in the afternoon, and I should be very will- ing to pause in the discussion, were I not urged, by those menacing cries of ' Go on,' from various parts of the House. In this state of things, I ean not hope to summon to any thing like attention the unquiet minds of many, or the jaded and worn-down faculties of a still larger portion of the House. I hope, however, the House will not withhold from me a boon which I have often seen granted to oth- ers, that is, the privilege of speaking without being oppressed by a crowded audience, which is accompanied by this additional advantage, that the orator, thus situated, can at least listen to and hear himself.
" If you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of this House, have given that attention to the speech of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Crary), made yesterday, which some of us here thought it our duty to bestow, I am sure the novelty of the scene, to say nothing more of it, must have arrested your curiosity, if, indeed, it did not give rise to profound reflection.
" I need not remind the House, that it is a rule here (as I suppose it is every where else, where men dispute by any rule at all), that what is said in debate should be relevant and pertinent to the subject under discussion. The question before us is a proposition to instruct the Committee of Ways and Means to report a bill granting four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to continue the construction of the Cumber- land road, in the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The objections to the measure are, either that this Government is in no sense bound by compact to make the road, or that it is not a work of any national concern, but merely of loeal interest, or that the present exhausted state of the Treasury will not warrant the appropriation, admitting the object of it to be fairly within the Constitutional province of Congress.
" If the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Pickens), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Parris), who consider the Cumberland road a work of mere sectional advantage to a very small portion of the people, have attended to the sage disquisitions of the gentleman from Michigan on the art of war, they must now cither come to the
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conclusion, that almost the whole of the gentleman's speech is what old-fashioned people would call a 'non sequitur,' or else that this road connects itself, with not merely the military defenses of the Union, but is interwoven, most intimately, with the progress of science, and especially that most difficult of all sciences, the proper application of strategy to the exigencies of barbarian warfare. It will be seen, that the far-seeing sagacity, and long-reaching understanding of the gen- tleman from Michigan has discovered that, before we can vote with a clear conscience on the instructions proposed, we must be well-informed as to the number of Indians who fought at the battle of Tippecanoe, in 1811 ; how the savages were painted, whether red, black, or blue, or whether all were blended on their barbarian faces. Further, accord- ing to his views of the subject, before we vote money to make a road, we must know and approve of what Gen. Harrison thought, said, and did, at the battle of Tippecanoe !
" Again, upon this process of reasoning we must inquire, where a general should be when a battle begins, especially in the night, and what his position during the fight, and where he should be found when it is over ; and, particularly, how a Kentuckian behaves himself, when he hears an Indian war-whoop, in day or night. And, after settling all these puzzling propositions. still we must fully understand how, and by whom, the battle of the Thames was fought, and in what manner it then and there became our troops, regular and militia, to conduct themselves. Sir, it must be obvious, that if these topics are germain to the subject, then does the Cumberland road encompass all the interests, and all the subjects, that touch the rights, dutics, and destinies of the civilized world; and I hope we shall hear no more, from Sonthern gentlemen, of the narrow, sectional, or unconsti- tutional character of the proposed measure. That branch of the subject is, I hope, forever quieted, perhaps unintentionally, by the gentleman from Michigan. His military criticism, if it has not answered the purposes intended, has at least, in this way, done some service to the Cumberland road. And if my poor halting comprehen- sion has not blundered, in pursuing the soaring upward flight of my friend from Michigan, he has in this discussion written a new chapter in the 'regula philosophandi,' and made not our ourselves only, but the whole world his debtors in gratitude, by overturning the old worn out principles of the ' inductive system.'
" Mr. Speaker, there have been many and ponderons volumes writ- ten, and various unctuous discourses delivered, on the doctrine of ' association.' Dugald Stewart, a Scotch gentleman, of no mean pretension in his day, thought much, and wrote much concerning that
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principle in mental philosophy ; and Brown, another of the same school, but of later date, has also written and said much on the same subject. This latter gentleman, I think, calls it 'suggestion ;' but never, I venture to say, did any metaphysician, pushing his researches furthest and deepest, into that occult science, dream that would come to pass, which we have discovered and clearly developed -that is, that two subjects, so unlike as an appropriation to a road in 1840, and the tactics proper in Indian war in 1811, were not merely akin, but actually, identically the same.
"Mr. Speaker, this discussion, I should think, if not absolutely absurd and utterly ridiculous, which my respect for the gentleman from Michigan, and the American Congress, will not allow me to sup- pose, has elicited another trait in the American character, which has been the subject of great admiration with intelligent travelers from the old world. Foreigners have admired the ease with which we Yan- kees, as they call us, can turn our hands to any business or pursuit, public or private ; and this has been brought forward, by our own people, as a proof that man, in this great and free republic, is a being very far superior to the same animal in other parts of the globe less favored than ours. A proof of the most convincing character of this truth, so flattering to our national pride, is exhibited before our eyes, in the gentleman from Michigan, delivering to the world a grave lec- ture on the campaigns of General Harrison, including a variety of very interesting military events, in the years 1811, 1812, and 1813. In all other countries, and in all former times, before now, a gentleman who would either speak or be listened to, on the subject of war, involving subtle criticisms on strategy, and careful reviews of marches, sieges, battles, regular and casual, and irregular onslaughts, would be required to show, first, that he had studied .much, investigated fully, and digested well, the science and history of his subject. But here, sir, no such painful preparation is required; witness the gentleman from Michigan. He has announced to the House that he is a militia gen- eral on the peace establishment !! That he is a lawyer we know, tol- erably well read in Tidd's Practice and Espinasse's Nisi Prius. These studies, so happily adapted to the subject of war, with an appointment in the militia in time of peace, furnish him, at onee, with all the knowledge necessary to discourse to us, as from high authority, upon all the mysteries in the ' trade of death.' Again, Mr. Speaker, it must occur to every one, that we, to whom these questions are sub- mitted, and these military criticisms are addressed, being all colonels at least, and most of us, like the gentleman himself, brigadiers, are, of all conceivable tribunals, best qualified to decide any nice point,
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connected with military science. I hope the House will not be alarmed by an impression, that I am about to discuss one or the other of the military questions now before us at length, but I wish to suh- mit a remark or two, by way of preparing us for a proper appreciation of the merits of the discourse we have heard. I trust, as we are all brother officers, that the gentleman from Michigan, and the two hun- dred and forty colonels or generals, of this honorable House, will receive what I have to say, as coming from an old brother in arms, and addressed to them in a spirit of eandor,
'Such as becomes comrades free, Reposing after victory.'
"Sir, we all know the military studies of the gentleman from Michigan, before he was promoted. I take it to be, beyond a reason- able doubt, that he had perused with great care the title page of ' Baron Steuben.' Nay, I go further; as the gentleman has incidentally assured us he is prone to look into musty and neglected volumes, I venture to assert, without vouching the fact from personal knowledge, that he has prosecuted his researches so far as to be able to know that the rear rank stands right behind the front. This, I think, is fairly inferable from what I understood him to say of the lines of eneamp- ment at Tippecanoe. Thus we see, Mr. Speaker, that the gentleman from Michigan, so far as study ean give us a knowledge of a subject, eomes before us with claims to great profundity. But this is a sub- ject, which, of all others, requires the aid of actual experience to make us wise. Now the gentleman from Michigan, being a militia general, as he has told us, his brother officers, in that simple statement has revealed the glorious history of toils, privations, sacrifices, and bloody scenes, through which we know, from experience and observa- tion, a militia officer in time of peace is sure to pass. We all, in fancy, now see the gentleman from Michigan in that most dangerous and glorious event in the life of a militia general on the peace estab- lishment-a parade day ! That day for which all the other days of his life seem to have been made. We can see the troops in motion ; umbrellas, hoe and ax handles, and other like deadly implements of war overshadowing all the field, when lo! the leader of the host approaches,
'Far off his coming shines; '
his plume, white, after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of ample length, and reads its doleful history in the bereaved necks and bosoms of forty neighboring hen-roosts! Like the great Suwaroff, he seems somewhat careless in forms and points of dress ; hence his epaulets may be on his shoulders, back, or sides, but still gleaming, gloriously
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gleaming in the sun. Mounted he is, too, let it not be forgotten. Need I describe to the colonels and generals of this honorable House the steed which heroes bestride on such occasions? No, I see the memory of other days is with you. You see before you the gentleman from Michigan mounted on his erop-eared, bushy-tailed mare, the singular obliquities of whose hinder limbs is described by that most expressive phrase, 'sickle hams'-her hight just fourteen hands, 'all told;' yes, sir, there you see his ' steed that laughs at the shaking of the spear ;' that is, his ' war-horse whose neck is clothed with thun- der.' Mr. Speaker, we have glowing descriptions in history of Alex- ander the Great, and his war-horse Bucephalus, at the head of the invincible Macedonian phalanx ; but, sir, such are the improvements of modern times, that every one must see, that our militia general, with his crop-eared mare, with bushy tail and sickle ham, would liter- ally frighten off a battle-field, an hundred Alexanders. But, sir, to the history of the parade day. The general thus mounted and equipped, is in the field and ready for action. On the eve of some desperate enterprise, such as giving order to shoulder arms, it may be, there occurs a crisis, one of the accidents of war which no sagacity could foresee or prevent. A cloud rises and passes over the sun ! Ilere an occasion oceurs for the display of that greatest of all traits in the character of a commander, that tact which enables him to seize upon and turn to good account, events unlooked for, as they arise. Now for the caution wherewith the Roman Fabius foiled the skill and courage of Hannibal. A retreat is ordered, and troops and gen- cral, in a twinkling, are found safely bivouacked in a neighboring grocery ! But, even here, the general still has room for the exhibition of heroic deeds. Ilot from the field, and chafed with the untoward events of the day, your general unsheaths his trenehant blade, eighteen inches in length, as you will well remember, and, with an energy and remorseless fury, he slices the watermelons that lie in heaps around him, and shares them with his surviving friends. Other of the sinews of war are not wanting here. Whisky, Mr. Speaker, that great lev- eler of modern times, is here also, and the shells of the watermelons are filled to the brim. Here again, Mr. Speaker, is shown how the extremes of barbarism and civilization meet. As the Scandinavian heroes of old, after the fatigues of war, drank wine with the skulls of their slaughtered enemies, in Odin's Halls, so now our militia general and his forces, from the skulls of melons thus vanquished, in copious draughts of whisky, assuage the heroic fire of their souls, after the bloody scenes of a parade day. But alas, for this short-lived race of ours, all things will have an end, and so even is it with the glorious
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achievements of our general. Time is on the wing, and will not stay his flight ; the sun, as if frightened at the mighty events of the day, rides down the sky, and at the close of the day when 'the hamlet is still,' the curtain of night drops upon the scene,
' And glory, like the phenix in its fires, Exhales its odors, blazes, and expires.'
" Such, sir, has been the experience in war of the gentleman from Michigan. We know this from the simple annunciation that he is and has been a brigadier of militia in time of peace. And now, having a full understanding of the qualifications of our learned general, both from study and practice, I hope the House will see, that it should give its profound reflection to his discourses on the art of war. And this it will be more inclined to, when we take into view, that the gentleman has, in his review of General Harrison's campaigns, modestly imputed to the latter great mistakes, gross blunders, imbe- cility, and even worse than this, as I shall show hereafter. The force, too, of the lecture of our learned and experienced friend from Michi- gan, is certainly greatly enhanced, when we consider another admitted fact, which is, that the general whose imbecility and errors he has dis- covered, has not, like the gentleman from Michigan, the great advan- tage of serving in watermelon campaigns, but only fought fierce Indians, in the dark forests of the West, under such stupid fellows as Anthony Wayne, and was afterward appointed to the command of large armies, by the advice of such an inexperienced boy as Governor Shelby, the hero of King's Mountain.
"And now, Mr. Speaker, as I have the temerity to entertain doubts, and with great deference to differ in my opinions on this military ques- tion with the gentleman from Michigan, I desire to state a few histor- ical facts concerning Gen. Harrison, whom the general from Michigan has pronouneed incapable, imbeeile, and, as I shall notice hereafter, something worse even than these. Gen. Harrison was commissioned by Gen. Washington an officer of the regular army of the United States in the year 1791. He served as an aid to Gen. Anthony Wayne, in the campaign against the Indians, which resulted in the battle of the Rapids of the Maumee, in the fall of 1794. Thus, in his youth, he was selected by Gen. Wayne as one of his military family. And what did this youthful officer do in that memorable battle of the Rapids ? Here, Mr. Speaker, let me summon a witness merely to show how military men may differ. The witness I call to controvert the opinion of the gentleman from Michigan is Gen. Anthony Wayne. In his letter to the Secretary of War, giving an account of the battle of the Rapids, he says :
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"' My faithful and gallant Lieutenant Harrison rendered the most essential services, by communicating my orders in every direction, and by his conduct and bravery, exciting the troops to press for victory.'
"Sir, this evidence was given by Gen. Wayne, in the year 1794, some time, I imagine, before the gentleman from Michigan was born, and long before he became a militia general, and long, very long, before he ever perused the title page of Baron Steuben. Mr. Speaker, let me remind the House, in passing, that this battle and victory over the Indian forces of the Northwest, in which, according to the testi- mony of Gen. Wayne, ' Lieutenant Harrison rendered the most essen-, tial services, by his conduct and bravery,' gave peace to an exposed line of frontier, extending from Pittsburgh to the southern borders of Tennessee. It was, in truth, the close of the war of the Revolu- tion ; for the Indians who took part with Great Britain in our Revolu- tionary struggle never laid down their arms, until after they were vanquished by Wayne, in 1794.
"We now come to see something of the man, the general, whose military history our able and experienced general from Michigan has reviewed. We know, that debates like this have sometimes been had in the British Parliament. There, I believe, the' disenssion was usu- ally conducted by those in the House, who had seen, and not merely heard of service. We all know that Colonel Napier has, in several 2
volumes, reviewed the campaigns of Wellington, and criticised the movements and merits of Beresford, and Soult, and Massena, and many others, quite, yes, I say, quite as well known in military history as any of us, not even excepting our general from Michigan. We respect the opinions of Napier, because we know he not only thought of war, but that he fought, too. We respect and admire that combin- ation of military skill, with profound statesmanlike views which we find in 'Cesar's Commentaries,' because we know the ' mighty Julius' was a soldier, trained in the field, and inured to the accidents and dangers of war. But, sir, we generals of Congress require no such painful discipline to give value to our opinions. We men of the 19th century know all things intuitively. We understand perfectly the military art by nature. Yes, sir, the notions of the gentleman from Michigan agree exactly with a sage by the name of 'Dogberry,' who insisted that 'reading and writing come by nature.' Mr. Speaker, we have heard and read much of ' the advance of knowledge, the improve- ment of the species, and the great march of mind,' but never till now have we understood the extent of meaning in these pregnant phrases. For instance, the gentleman from Michigan asserts that Gen. Harrison has none of the qualities of a general, because, at the battle of
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Tippecanoe, he was found at one time at a distance from his tent, urging his men on to battle. He exposed his person too much, it seems. He should have staid at his tent, and waited for the officers to come to him for orders. Well, sir, see now to what conclusion this leads us. Napoleon seized a standard at Lodi, and rushed in front of his columns, across a narrow bridge, which was swept by a whole park of German artillery. Hence, Napoleon was no officer; he did not know how to command an army. He, like IIarrison, exposed his person too much. Oh, Mr. Speaker, what a pity for poor Napoleon, that he had not studied Steuben, and slaughtered watermelons with us natural-born generals of this great age of the world! Sir, it might have altered the map of Europe; nay, changed the destinies of the world !
" Again : Alexander the Great spurred his horse foremost into the river, and led his Macedonians across the Granicus, to rout the Per- sians who stood full opposed on the other side of the stream. True, this youth conquered the world, and made himself master of what had constituted the Medean, Persian, Assyrian, and Chaldean empires. Still, according to the judgment of us warriors by nature, the mighty Macedonian would have consulted good sense, by coming over here, if indeed, there were any here hereabouts in those days, and studying, like my friend from Michigan, first Tidd's Practice, and Espinasse's Nisi Prius, and a little snatch of Steuben, and serving as a general of militia awhile. Sir, Alexander the Great might have made a man of himself in the art of war, had he even been a member of our Congress, and heard us colonels discuss the subject of an afternoon or two. Indeed, Alexander or Satan, I doubt not, would have improved greatly in strategy by observing, during this session, the tactics of the Admin- istration party, on the New Jersey election question. Mr. Speaker, this objection to a general, because he will fight, is not original with my friend from Michigan. I remember a great authority in point, agreeing with the gentleman in this. In the times of the Henrys, 4th and 5th of England there lived one Captain Jack Falstaff. If Shakspeare may be trusted, his opinions of the art military were exact- ly those of the gentleman from Michigan. He uniformly declared, as his deliberate judgment on the subject, that 'discretion was the better part of valor ;' and this is an authority for the gentleman. But who shall decide? Thus the authority stands .- Alexander the mighty Greek, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and Harrison, on one side, and Captain John Falstaff and the General from Michigan on the other ! Sir, I must leave a question thus sustained by authorities, both ways, to posterity. Perhaps the lights of another age may ena-
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