USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 34
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in this artillery duel was eleven killed and twenty-three wounded; that of the enemy must have been much greater since they aban- doned their position.
General Jackson now turned his attention to fortifying the right bank of the Missis- sippi, the enemy, at the same time, also turning their attention in that direction. Commodore Patterson landed on that bank some of the heavy guns of the "Louisiana," as a support for the land batteries on the left bank. Should the enemy attempt to force his way up the river, these guns would take him in flank and in those days of wooden ships, would probably have burned or sunk more than one of his ves- sels, as he was prepared to fire hot shot into them from furnaces erected near his guns. These hot shot would also have burned the buildings on the left side of the river in which the enemy had taken refuge. Gen. D. B. Mor- gan, commanding the New Orleans and Louis- iana volunteers, was placed near this battery as a support and to drive back any attack the enemy might make at that point. He at once began to throw up entrenchments and mounted three twelve-pounders.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FIRST KENTUCKIANS TO THE FRONT-SUPPORT AMERICAN ADVANCE-AMERICAN VOLUNTEER VS. BRITISHI REGULAR-"JACKSON'S DAY"-JUSTICE TO KENTUCKY SOLDIERS-REMARK- ABLE NEW ORLEANS VICTORY-BRITISH WITHDRAW-BATTLE AFTER PEACE TREATY.
January 4, 1815, the expected reinforce- ments from Kentucky began to arrive. The first of these, under command of General Thomas, were almost destitute of arms. They had brought but few weapons from their homes, expecting to be supplied with the nec- essary arms on joining the army in the field. In this they were disappointed, as the arms ordered by boat from Pittsburg had failed to arrive.
The Kentuckians were ordered into camp, one mile above the lines, to await the arrival of the expected arms or their procurement elsewhere. New Orleans was ransacked for proper arms for these new forces. By the 7th of January, from various sources, arms were secured to equip the regiment of Colonel Slaughter and a battalion under Major Harri- . son. These forces were then marched, one thousand strong, to the front under command of General Adair, an experienced Indian fighter, and were placed in support of General Carroll's Tennessee troops.
The enemy, in the meantime, were endeav- oring by means of a canal connecting the Mis- sissippi river with Bayou Bienville, to draw their boats into a position which would enable them to attack Commodore Patterson and General Morgan. On discovering the aims of the enemy, Patterson at once communicated them to General Jackson, with a request for reinforcements. General Jackson thereupon ordered four hundred unarmed Kentucky vol-
unteers to proceed to the city where, it was expected, they would be supplied with arms and ammunition, after which they were to march down the right bank of the river and join General Morgan. These men marched at night and on arriving in the city it was found that arms could be had but for two hundred, and these arms were indifferent and not such as properly equipped soldiers should carry into battle. But such as they were, the Kentuck- ians accepted them and two hundred of their number marched to join Morgan's command, the remaining two hundred returning to the camp whence they had come.
On the morning of January 8th, at about one o'clock, Commodore Patterson, observ- ing unusual activity in the camp of the enemy, promptly notified General Jackson of the fact. Every one believed that the great struggle was about to begin. The first two attacks by the enemy having been repulsed, it was not doubted that he was about to make his third and greatest effort. The army, however, was in the main, ready for him. The Kentucky troops, it is true, were but poorly armed, the guns that had been given them being of a char- acter to which they were unaccustomed, but like their comrades, they were ready and will- ing for the fight. They were held in the post of honor, always given to troops upon whom dependence can be placed-in support of the advance columns of General Carroll. Upon supporting forces depends the safety of an
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army should the advance lines be driven back, and it was this honorable position which was held by the Kentucky volunteers.
The advance of the enemy was begun on the morning of January 8th, soon after dawn, in two strong columns, their left being under the command of General Keane, their right under that of General Gibbs; a third, or re- serve column, holding the post of honor under General Lambert. At the moment when a rocket gave the signal for their advance, a heavy artillery fire was begun upon the Amer- ican lines, at the short distance of five hundred yards.
The American lines received the attack with commendable courage while the artillery, ad- mirably managed, tore the advancing English columns inflicting great damage. But it was the small arms of the Americans, which in- flicted the greatest injury upon the English. The infantry withheld their attack until the enemy were at close range and then poured into them a steady, remorseless fire under which they, for a time, continued to advance with intrepid bravery, but human nature has its limitations and finally the advancing col- minns broke. Their officers, gallant men that they were, rallied them, throwing them once more against the American defenses, but in vain. The Americans were not to be denied ; they had come to the front to meet the flower of the British army, and having met it, were determined not to yield to it but to hold their ground until that army was defeated and driven from American soil. Again and again the brave Englishmen advanced to the attack. In the center, the Kentuckians had come up to join the Tennesseans, and the brave volun- teers from the sister states, six deep in line, met the fiercest of the English charges and drove them back time and again.
Twice driven back, the English forces formed for a third charge upon the American lines. It seemed that their officers had deter- mined either to win all or lose all at this bat-
tle. On they came, a third time, gallantly, it must be said to their credit, only to be again driven back with heavy loss. They could not rally again and as their torn columns retreated to their encampment, the American artillery poured a withering fire into them still further shattering them.
The battle was ended and victory rested with the American arms. The English com- mander-in-chief, General Packenham, lay dead upon the field; Gen. Keane and Gen. Gibbs were each wounded, the latter dying a few days later. Within one short hour Gen- eral Jackson had won the greatest battle of his career against the flower of the British army, and written a new page in the history of the young Republic. From that day to this, January 8th has been known as "Jackson's Day," and each anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, has, in some manner, been cel- ebrated. In. Kentucky, for many years, the day was recognized by the firing of cannon from Arsenal Hill, at Frankfort, but this prac- tice has fallen into disuse of late, the legis- lature, which formerly authorized the annual salute, having found its time so occupied in seeking political advantages over its adversa- ries as to forget that in the earlier days of the republic sterner battles than those of politics were fought and won by the citizen soldiery of the country.
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Returning, however, to the battle field at New Orleans, it is not pleasant to record that while the troops on the left side of the river were winning a great victory, those on the right side were sustaining a reverse. Com- modore Patterson's battery had done some good work during the battle, but later, was to fail in an emergency owing to delay in bring- ing it to bear upon a British force which had been thrown across the river, under command of Colonel Thornton. The latter advanced upon and drove back a force of Americans commanded by Major Arno, who had been ordered to oppose the landing of the British
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troops. Continuing their advance, these lat- ter struck the poorly armed force of Ken- tucky volunteers, two hundred strong under command of Colonel Duncan. After a loss of thirty men, killed and wounded, Duncan re- treated under orders from General Morgan, and later formed again on the right of the Louisiana militia. The guns in Patterson's embrasures being trained upon the left bank of the river, were not turned in time to oppose the advance of Colonel Thornton's charge. General Morgan's five hundred Louisiana troops were aligned behind protecting breast- works to the rear of the battery and at right angles to the river, being protected by three pieces of field artillery. There were one hun- dred and seventy Kentuckians, in addition to the two hundred under Colonel Davis, who were deployed along a ditch for three hundred yards, necessarily in skirmish formation, while to their right were several hundred yards of open country entirely unprotected. The en- emý came on in gallant form to the charge in double columns. Their right column, nearest the river, was met by General Morgan and driven off by his artillery. The British left column advanced against the Kentuckians who had no artillery and, in addition, no sup- port upon the open ground to their right.
The strongest resistance was made that was possible under the circumstances, but the Brit- ish forces flanked them and commenced to fire upon their rear. Receiving thus a hot fire from superior forces in both front and rear and receiving no support from General Mor- gan, these untrained Kentucky militiamen did what the best disciplined veterans would have done, and retreated from a position which they were unable longer to hold. Morgan and his men followed and Patterson, after spiking his guns, also withdrew. The enemy pursued the retreating forces some distance up the river and then retreated, stopping long enough to destroy the batteries of Patterson which had already been rendered harmless by the
spiking of his guns. Patterson and Morgan, the first remiss in duty for not having sooner trained his guns upon Thornton's advancing force ; the second, for leaving his right flank unprotected, recognized that they were fit subjects for blame, and looking about for sonie one upon whom to saddle the cause for their own remissness, settled upon the Ken- tucky troops who had been assailed in front by superior numbers; flanked on their right, and fired upon from their rear before they even attempted to withdraw. These same Ken- tuckians, armed with makeshift guns, picked up in New Orleans, had done most of the fighting on the right bank of the river, Mor- gan having used his artillery rather than his small arms against Thornton's advancing col- umn. They persuaded General Jackson to believe that the Kentuckians and not them- selves, were to blame, the result being that the commander-in-chief, in his report to the war department, said that "the Kentucky re- inforcements ingloriously fled, drawing after them, by their example, the remainder of the forces." Commodore Patterson, who had spiked and abandoned his guns when there was no need to do so, was equally unjust in his report to the navy department. Colonel Da- vis, smarting under the injustice of these charges, demanded and was granted a court of inquiry, before which the facts above stated were conclusively shown, the court reporting that "the action of the Kentucky troops was excusable." Kentucky troops have never been amenable to the charge of running away. General Adair, commanding the Kentucky vol- unteers, was not satisfied with this report and pressed the matter upon General Jackson, who finally gave a sentence of justification. It is not proposed here nor elsewhere, to pay a tribute to these Kentuckians at New Orleans. Kentucky soldiers have written the proud rec- ord of their gallantry upon too many fields of strife to need that the historian of today should explain their conduct at New Orleans, or else-
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where. In the contests with the Indians in defense of their homes; with George Rogers Clark at Vincennes; with General Harrison at Tippecanoe; at the River Raisin, and years afterwards at Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Cha- pultepec and the City of Mexico, they had written the name of the state too high upon the soldiers' roll of fame to need a panegyric at this late day. In other and on more mo- mentous fields, in civil strife, they have en- riched the soil of the south with their blood and on every field, whether wearing the uni- form of the Union or of the Confederacy, they have done honor to the state which gave them birth and made the name of a Kentuck- ian one to be borne with honor throughout every nation on earth.
The victory of the American forces on the left bank of the river stands unparalleled in history, so far as the losses are involved. The Americans lost six killed and seven wounded, while the British loss was about two thousand, six hundred in killed, wounded and prisoners. When an armistice for the burial of their dead was granted the enemy, and a line drawn be- yond which they were not to advance, and be- tween that line and the works, four hundred and eighty-two English soldiers lay dead, while two hundred lay outside that line, the esti- mate of twenty-six hundred killed, wounded and prisoners is not, therefore, regarded as extreme.
General Packenham, who, as has been stated, was killed, was a trained soldier of much experience, and a brother-in-law of the famous Wellington who, with Blucher's aid, had beaten Napoleon at Waterloo and forever ended the career of that remarkable man, the modern Attilla, who had been the scourge of Europe for so many disastrous years. Pack- enham had learned his lessons of war under his great relative, while the troops under his command were trained and tried veterans of many campaigns. Yet the volunteers from Louisiana. Tennessee and Kentucky number-
ing not more than four thousand, had utterly defeated his army of more than twice their number. On the other banks of the Missis- sippi, though Colonel Thornton had won a temporary triumph for the British arms, it had been at the loss of one hundred of his men killed and wounded. Among the serious- ly wounded was Colonel Thornton himself. The American forces though suffering a tem- porary reversal, lost less heavily than the enemy.
The English commanders, notwithstanding the severe losses in the battle on the 8th, brought up the river a portion of their naval outfit on the morning of the 9th, with a view to an attack on Fort St. Philip. From a point beyond the range of the guns of the fort, a bombardment was begun which continued for nine days without any material damage being inflicted. Finally, a large mortar was brought to and mounted at the fort and this opened fire on the fleet on the 17th, causing the with- drawal of the British vessels on the following morning. The loss in the fort was two killed and seven wounded, though thousands of shots had been fired by the British during the bom- bardment.
Failing in this second attempt to reach the city, General Lambert, who had succeeded to the command after the death of General Pack- enham, together with Admiral Cochran, commanding the naval forces. began prepara- tions for a withdrawal of their forces. As a preliminary step an exchange of prisoners was arranged for and perfected on the 18th on the night of which day the enemy retreated to their boats and small vessels, preparatory to a transfer to their larger vessels of war lying off Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Mississippi. Besides some of their wounded too badly injured to be removed, they left behind them eighteen pieces of ar- tillery and a large quantity of ammunition. General Jackson made no effort to interfere with the retreat of the defeated enemy, but Mr.
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Shields, an officer of the American navy, who had borne a flag of truce to the enemy and been treated with contempt and, for a time, made a prisoner, after his return to the Amer- ican lines, had the pleasure to lead a small naval force through Chef Menteure intercept- ing, capturing and destroying two British ves- sels, bringing in eighty prisoners and paroling a number of others.
It is a historical fact, perhaps not known to many persons, that this great battle was fought after terms of peace had been agreed to be- tween the United States and Great Britain. Some time prior to the date of the battle, the former country had appointed a commission composed of Henry Clay of Kentucky, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, James A. Bayard of Delaware. and Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania, to meet with a commission to be appointed by the English government. The latter named as its commissioner Lord Gam- bier, Henry Gaulborn and William Adams. So far as American history knows, these latter names are written in water, as no man here knows whence they came nor whither they went. But indelibly upon the pages of his- tory are inscribed the names of the illustrious Americans who formed our commission.
The commission met at Ghent, Belgium, · and after proper consideration of the momen- tous questions before it. agreed to terms of peace on December 24. 1814. Ratification of these terms was exchanged between the two governments at Washington February 17, 1815.
Thus it is seen that the battle of New Or- leans was fought two weeks after terms of peace had been agreed upon and that the rat- ification of the treaty followed the battle in
one month. One may speculate in vain as to the difference in the pages of history which would have been written had there been then, as now, a system of electric communication between the old world and the new. Certainly the battle of New Orleans would never have been fought. Those who enjoy speculation upon possibilities, may decide for themselves whether or not General Andrew Jackson would have sat for eight years in the presiden- tial chair, had there been an Atlantic cable in December, 1814, to convey to the government and to him, the news that the Treaty of Ghent had been agreed upon and that the war was at an end.
On the field of Chalmette, where the battle of New Orleans was fought and won, nearly one hundred years ago, there stands today an unfinished monument originally begun in honor of the splendid victory won there by American arms. It is in full view of vessels passing on the river and its unfinished condi- tion is occasion for remark by all who observe it, and that remark is not complimentary. As if to emphasize the statement that Republics are ungrateful, the United States has never seen fit to secure from congress a suitable ap- propriation for the completion of this monu- ment which stands a mute reproach to all who are today in authority, as well as to those who have preceded them. That the Louisiana del- egation in congress has not brought this sub- ject before that body and, at least, endeavored to secure the aid of the government is difficult to understand. Had it been a matter of an in- creased duty on sugar or rice there would have been no difficulty in securing the attention of the honorable senators and representatives from the Pelican state.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
KENTUCKY SURVEYOR AND STEAMBOAT INVENTOR-RUMSEY'S INVENTION-FULTON OR FITCH -MURRAY, INVENTOR OF "BESSEMER STEEL"-MADISON AND SLAUGHTER ADMINISTRATIONS -"THE PURCHASE" LANDS-KENTUCKY'S SEASON OF "INFLATION"-GENERAL ADAIR, GOVERNOR-PROPOSED LEGISLATIVE "RELIEF"-LEGISLATURE AGAINST JUDGE-CHIEF JUS- TICE BOYLE-WILLIAM OWSLEY-BENJAMIN MILLS-RELIEF (NEW COURT) PARTY.
With the close of the second war with Eng- land, came the first real era of peace Ken- tucky had ever known: Born during the first great struggle with his mother country, the state had won its way through constant strife with the savages and their white English comrades and leaders. It had met them wherever battle was offered whether in Ken- tucky, or at Vincennes, at Tippecanoe, at the River Raisin, in Canada or at New Orleans, and at last had seen the dawn of peace which gave to her valiant sons, and no less brave mothers and daughters, the opportunity they had so long sought to work out the high des- tiny of the young state free from war's alarms. To the material interests of the common- wealth, attention was now turned, the shadows of war having passed and the sunlight of peace begun to shed its beneficent rays upon them.
In 1780 there came to the district of Ken- tucky a young surveyor, John Fitch. While descending the Ohio river, and at the mouth of the Big Sandy river, the boat was fired upon by Indians who wounded two of the crew and killed a number of the horses and cattle with which the boat was laden. It is not related in the histories of that early period that the boat was captured and it is fair to assume that it, with its passengers and cargo, escaped. In 1786 Fitch is reported to have made an entry of lands in Nelson county for
himself and also for others of the pioneer set- tlers. He was of an inventive mind and to him has been ascribed the invention of the first steamboat. James Rumsey, about the same time, that is in 1786, also successfully applied steam to the navigation of water craft. Rum- sey claimed to have no knowledge of the in- vention of Fitch. In the eastern states, Rob- ert Fulton was experimenting along the same lines and to him, whether justly or unjustly, is ascribed the invention of a vessel that was impelled by steam for the first time. It is not the purpose of this work to enter into the question of the priority of invention. Many . pages have been written upon the subject which has never been definitely or satisfac- torily settled. It is enough to know that John Fitch, a resident of, but not a native of Ken- tucky, did in 1786 operate a steam-propelled vessel upon the Delaware river. This vessel was propelled by paddle wheels, moved by a system of cranks. The boat which was sixty feet in length, made a successful trial trip de- veloping a speed of more than seven miles an hour. During the three succeeding years Fitch built other boats, after the same model, which were run in a regular service between Philadelphia and Burlington at a speed of from four to seven miles an hour. Prior to this time, being like most inventors, a very poor man, he had petitioned congress and several of
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the states for aid in the development of his invention, but had received no encouragement.
In his papers, examined after his death, was found the prophetic and pathetic statement : "The day will come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches from my inven- tion, but nobody will believe that poor John Fitch can do anything worthy of attention." The correctness of this prediction has recently been shown in the presence of representatives of the navies of the world in New York bay
right or who was wrong it is not the purpose to state here. But the principle invented by Fitch obtained and is followed in one form or another today, while that of Rumsey is ac- counted as one of the interesting experiments of inventors groping in the dark. Nowhere has it any practical application.
There was yet another Kentuckian whose invention has revolutionized the steel industry of the world, yet the honor and the profit has gone to another. In 1846, at Eddyville, Ken-
CITY HALL, LOUISVILLE
celebrating the achievements of Robert Fulton, hailed as the pioneer inventor of the steam vessel. History is sometimes very unjust and occasionally unreliable.
James Rumsey, whose descendants yet live in Kentucky, was working on the problem of steam navigation concurrently with Fitch, though neither knew of the labors of the other. Rumsey's first boat was shown on the Potomac and made a speed of four miles an hour by ejecting water from the stern. He and Fitch acrimoniously contended for priority of in- vention, without any special addition to the knowledge of steam navigation. Who was
tucky. Wm. Murray operated iron furnaces. He was probably the pioneer employer of Chi- nese coolie labor, having secured from New York, the services of ten of these people who, at that early day, numbered but few in the United States. Mr. Murray was thoroughly informed as to the chemistry of iron manu- facture and was dissatisfied with the results obtained from his furnaces and began a series of investigations and operations which result- ed in the transformation, by means of currents of air, of the molten metal into malleable iron or steel as he desired, a variation in the appli- cation producing the one or the other metal.
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A description of the technical operations pro- ducing this important effect would be out of place in a publication of this character. It is enough to say that in the crude little iron fur- naces down on the Cumberland river, where Wm. Murray and his ten Chinese employes had been making iron sugar kettles for South- ern planters, there was discovered a process which makes possible the great steel bridges of our country and of the world and of the great "skyscrapers" which have done so much to disfigure our cities. Mr. Murray was re- mote from the great news centers; there were no fast mail trains in his day and but few tel- egraph lines. He was content to modestly go on with the work his hands found to do, and made no effort to advertise to the world the great discovery he had made. Others were less modest. English ironworkers, then the foremost manufacturers in that line in the world, came to Eddyville, observed the process Murray had discovered, predicted that it would speedily supersede all others and then went home to England. The result of this visit of inspection by these English iron-work- ers was that every foot of structural steel used in the world today is known as "Besse- mer Steel." instead of "Murray steel" as it should be. Bessemer adopted the Murray methods as his own and patented them, not- withstanding that Murray steel was in use in the United States long before the name of Bessemer was ever heard of. either in Eng- land or the United States. Murray, at last aroused to the importance of the great dis- covery he had made, sought a patent from the United States, but lost precedence of Besse- mer who secured a prior patent in England, it has been charged by having corrupted Mur- ray's attorney in the United States. Murray, however, secured a caveat and a final hearing by the commissioner of patents, who decided that he was the real inventor of the new proc- ess and granted him a patent which expired in 1871. being then renewed for seven years all
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