Hero Stories from American History Part 10

Now Shelby's men swarm up on the other side. Again the bayonets drive these new foes down the rocky cliffs. No sooner do the redcoats retire, than up comes Shelby again at the head of his men, nearer the top than before.

Meanwhile the riflemen, behind every tree and every rock, were picking off the redcoats. Clad in a hunting s.h.i.+rt, and blowing his silver whistle, the brave Ferguson dashes here and there to rally his men. He cuts and slashes with his sword until it is broken off at the hilt. Two horses are killed under him.

Some of the Tories raise a white flag. Ferguson rides up and cuts it down. A second flag is raised elsewhere. He rides there and cuts that down.

Now he flies at Sevier's riflemen, who had just made their way to the top of the hill. At once they recognize their man. In an instant, half a dozen bullets strike the gallant officer, and he falls dead from his horse. No longer is the shrill whistle heard.

{103} Colonel De Peyster, the next in command, bravely keeps up the fight, but the deadly rifles have done their work. The British are hemmed in and there is no escape. At the head of their men the several colonels arrive at the top of the hill about the same time.

The Tories are now huddled together near the baggage wagons.

"Quarter! quarter!" they cry everywhere.

"Remember Buford!" madly shout the victorious patriots.

"Throw down your arms, if you want quarter!" cries Shelby.

In despair, De Peyster at last raises a white flag, and white handkerchiefs are waved from ramrods. Some of the younger backwoodsmen did not know what a white flag meant, and kept on firing. The colonels ordered them to stop, and then made the Tories take off their hats and sit down on the ground.

There had been fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y work this beautiful autumn afternoon, on the crest of that rocky hill. Friends, neighbors, and relatives, in their bitter hatred, taunted and jeered one another, as they shot and stabbed in the desperate struggle.

Ferguson had about eleven hundred men in the action. Of these about four hundred were killed, wounded, or missing, and some seven hundred made prisoners. Of the patriots, twenty-eight were killed and about sixty wounded.

{104} Under bold and resolute leaders, the backwoods riflemen had swept over the mountains like a Highland clan. Their work done, they wished to return home. They knew too well the dangers of an Indian attack on those they had left in their distant log cabins.

After burying their dead, and loading their horses with the captured guns and supplies, the victors shouldered their rifles, and, carrying their wounded on litters made of the captured tents, vanished from the mountains as suddenly as they had appeared.

Such was the defeat of the red dragoons at King's Mountain. It proved to be one of the decisive battles of the Revolution, and was the turn of the tide of British success in the South. The courage of the Southern patriots rose at a bound, and the Tories of the Carolinas never recovered from the blow.

{105}

CHAPTER VIII

FROM TEAMSTER TO MAJOR GENERAL

On July 3, 1775, under the great elm on Cambridge Common, Was.h.i.+ngton took command of the patriot army. During the siege of Boston, which followed, his headquarters were in that fine old mansion, the Craigie house, where, from time to time, met men whose names became great in the history of the Revolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Was.h.i.+ngton taking Command of the American Army, at Cambridge]

Hither came to consult with the commander in chief three men who died hated and scorned by their countrymen. The first was Horatio Gates, a vainglorious man, given to intrigue and treachery. Next came tall and slovenly Charles Lee of Virginia, a restless adventurer, who, by his cowardice in the battle of Monmouth, stirred even Was.h.i.+ngton to anger. Then there was a young man for whom Was.h.i.+ngton had a peculiar liking on account of his great personal bravery, who afterward became the despised Benedict Arnold.

But here were also gathered men of another stamp,--men whom the nation delights to honor. From the granite hills of New Hamps.h.i.+re, came rough and ready John Stark, who afterwards whipped the British at Bennington. From little Rhode Island, came Nathanael Greene, a young Quaker, who began life as a blacksmith, {106} but who became the ablest general of the Revolution except Was.h.i.+ngton.

Into this group of patriot leaders came also Daniel Morgan of Virginia. Little is known of the early life of this remarkable man.

He would rarely say anything about his family. It is believed that he was born of obscure Welsh people, in New Jersey, about the year 1737.

At seventeen, Morgan could barely read and write. He was rude of speech and uncouth in manners, but his heart was brave, and he scorned to lie.

The next two years did wonders for this awkward boy. He grew to be over six feet tall, with limbs of fine build, and with muscles like iron. In some way he had found time to study, and was regarded by the village people as a promising young fellow.

Stirring times were at hand. The bitter struggle between the French and the English in the Ohio valley was raging.

Morgan at once enlisted in the Virginia troops, and served one of the companies as a teamster. An incident revealed the stuff of which the young wagoner was made. The captain of his company had trouble with a surly fellow who was a great bully and a skillful boxer. It was agreed, according to the unwritten rules of the time, that the matter should be settled by a fight at the next stopping place; and so when the troops halted for dinner, out strode the captain to meet his foe.

{107} "You must not fight this man," said Morgan, stepping to the front.

"Why not?" asked the officer.

"Because you are our captain," replied the young teamster, "and if the fellow whips you, we shall all be disgraced. Let me fight him, and if he whips me, it will not hurt the name of the company."

The captain said it would never do, but at last yielded. Morgan promptly gave the bully a sound thras.h.i.+ng.

After the defeat of Braddock, in 1755, the French and the redskins wreaked their vengeance upon the terrified frontier settlements. A regiment of a thousand men was raised, and Was.h.i.+ngton was made its colonel. With this small force, he was supposed to guard a frontier of two hundred and fifty miles.

Morgan enlisted as a teamster. It was his duty to carry supplies to the various military posts on this long frontier. This meant almost daily exposure to all kinds {108} of dangers. It was a rough, hard school for a young man of twenty; but it made him an expert with the rifle and the tomahawk, and a master of Indian warfare, which was so useful to him in after years.

During one of these wild campaigns on the frontier, a British captain took offense at something young Morgan had said or done, and struck him with the flat of his sword. This was too much for the high-strung teamster. He straightway knocked the redcoat officer senseless.

A drumhead court-martial sentenced the young Virginian to receive one hundred lashes on the bare back. He was at once stripped, tied up, and punished. Morgan said in joke that there was a miscount, and that he actually received only ninety-nine blows. With his wonderful power of endurance, the young fellow stood the punishment like a hero, and came out of it alive and defiant.

This act, extreme even in those days of British cruelty, doubtless nerved him to incredible deeds of bravery in fighting the hated redcoats.

Shortly after this, he became a private in the militia. He made his mark when the French and Indians attacked a fort near Winchester. The story is that he killed four savages in as many minutes.

The young Virginian never drove any more army wagons. From this time, he stood forth as a born fighter and a leader of men. Such was his coolness in danger, his sound judgment, and, more than all else, his great {109} influence over his men, that he was recommended to Governor Dinwiddie for a captain's commission.

"What!" exclaimed the governor, "to a camp boxer and a teamster?"

Still, the best men of Virginia urged it, and the royal governor so far yielded as to give him the commission of an ensign.

Not long afterwards, in one of the b.l.o.o.d.y fights with the French and Indians, Morgan was shot through the back of the neck. The bullet went through his mouth and came out through the left cheek, knocking out all the teeth on the left side. Supposing that he was {110} mortally wounded, and resolved not to lose his scalp, the fainting rifleman clasped his arms tightly round the neck of his good horse, and galloped for life through the woods. A fleet Indian ran after him, tomahawk in hand. Finding at last that the horse was leaving him behind, the panting savage hurled his weapon, and with a wild yell gave up the chase.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Morgan's Escape from the Indian]

The hardy frontiersman lay for months hovering between life and death, but finally recovered, and was once more in the thick of the wild warfare.

In his old age, Morgan used to tell his grandchildren of the fiendish look on the Indian's face while he felt sure of another scalp, and he would also imitate the horrible yell the redskin made when he was forced to give up the pursuit.

At last the war was over, and Morgan went back to his farm. He brought home with him, however, the vices of his wild campaign life.

He used strong drink, and gambled. Far and near, he was noted as a boxer and a wrestler. Pugilists came from a distance to try their skill with the noted Indian fighter and athlete, who weighed over two hundred pounds, and yet had not an extra ounce of flesh.

But these were only pa.s.sing incidents in the life of the great man.

With a giant's frame, he had a tender heart. His good angel came to him in the person of a farmer's daughter, Abigail Bailey. She had great beauty; and she was a loving, Christian woman.

{111} They were soon married, and, as the fairy books say, were happy ever after. As if by a magic spell, the strong man left his tavern chums and their rough sports, his boxing, his gambling, and his strong drink, and to the day of his death lived an upright life.