Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Nathanael Greene

As a general Nathanael Greene ranks next to Washington in the esteem of the American people. His father was a Quaker clergyman who lived in Rhode Island. Nathanael as a boy worked on the farm, at the blacksmith’s forge, and in a grist mill. He generally had a book at hand and spent his leisure minutes in study; by his own exertions, without ever having much schooling, he became a well-educated man. No one would have imagined that this hard-working young Quaker, in his drab clothes and broad-brimmed hat, was to become a fearless leader of the patriot bands.

He was a young man when the Revolution began. He became convinced that the battle-field must decide the cause of the colonists, and, despite the Quaker views in which he had been trained, he wished to join the fight for freedom. As soon as he heard of the battles of Lexington and Concord, he started to Boston to take the part of his oppressed countrymen. When the Continental army was organized, Rhode Island voted to raise sixteen hundred men to be commanded by Greene.

For four years he served in the north, winning the esteem and confidence of Washington. He was with Washington in the retreat through New Jersey and aided in the brilliant attacks at Trenton and Princeton. In the battle of Brandywine he saved the day. His troops were stationed in the rear; as the retreating forces fell back, at Greene’s command the ranks opened and let them pass, then closed again. Thus he kept his troops formed in line of battle and held the British army in check, till night came; then he withdrew to the main army. In the battle of Germantown, too, Greene bore a brave part, and by his courage and endurance he cheered Washington during the dark days at Valley Forge.

During the first years of the war the north was the battle field. The south was almost unmolested except for the attack in 1776 on Fort Moultrie which was gallantly defended. In December, 1778, however, General Clinton sent thirty-five hundred men by sea from New York; these troops easily captured Savannah which was defended by only six hundred men. The British forces made themselves masters of the country defended only by scattered bands of patriots. In the spring of 1780, Clinton himself with eight thousand men went by sea to Charleston and captured the city. Leaving Cornwallis to complete the conquest of the South, Clinton returned to the north. It seemed as if the southern colonies were to be torn from the patriots.

In this emergency General Gates was sent to take command in the south. By overcoming Burgoyne with the army prepared by Schuyler and led by Morgan and Arnold, he had won fame and popularity, and was regarded as equal or superior to Washington. He was defeated at Camden by Cornwallis with a smaller force. Gates led the retreat, or stampede, of the militia, while a brave German, De Kalb, with one-third of the army stood at bay against the whole British army and met an honorable death. “We look on America as at our feet,” said an English statesman when the news of this battle was received in England.

But it was a general not a people which the English had defeated. The brave settlers on the frontier rallied in their own defense. In October, 1780, they surrounded Ferguson’s troops at King’s Mountain, captured or killed the entire force, and disbanded before the English could attack them. “A numerous army appeared on the frontier drawn from Nolachucky and other settlements beyond the mountains whose very names had been unknown to us,” wrote Lord Rawdon.

Two months later, December, 1780, a general was sent to the southern colonies who was worthy of the troops he was to command. This was Greene. The outlook was not promising. Without provisions, military stores, or clothing, and lacking means to provide them, Greene took charge of an army of about two thousand starving, ragged men. Opposed to him were well-disciplined, well-provisioned troops. But his brave soldiers were commanded by such men as William Washington, Morgan, “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Marion, and Sumpter. The patriots were cheered by the victory of Cowpens, won by Morgan’s men, January 17, 1781, over the bold and savage Tarleton.

Greene was not able to withstand the large and well-equipped British army; as Cornwallis approached, he fell back, going northward. By looking at a map, you can see the position of the troops. Behind them were three rivers, the Catawba, the Yadkin, and the Dan. The patriots’ effort was to keep a river between them and their enemy; the British endeavor was to overtake the little American army between two rivers, where it would be easy to destroy it. The march became a race for the rivers. Cornwallis destroyed the baggage of the army, beginning with his own personal luggage, and his men marched as light infantry. The patriots hurried on through the mud and rain, over the snow and frozen roads; for them it was a march for life and death; the men were allowed three hours’ sleep and they had but one meal a day. They pressed on, crossed the Catawba in safety, and in safety crossed the Yadkin; unless they were overtaken before they reached the Dan, they would be safe. Cornwallis thought that they would seek the fords of the Dan and he marched in that direction; Greene, however, hurried toward a ford where boats were collected and the army crossed the river. After a vain march of two hundred and fifty miles, in which his losses had been greater than in battle, Cornwallis was compelled to retrace his steps. He said of his opponent: “Greene is as dangerous as Washington,—he is vigilant, enterprising, and full of resources.”

Greene received reinforcements; though most of them were raw and untrained men, he knew that a battle must be risked while his ranks were full. He marched back to Guilford Court House, where a battle was fought, March, 1781. The raw troops were not able to withstand the attack of the British regulars, and the patriots were defeated. Though defeated, Greene remained in control of much of North Carolina; Cornwallis went northward, entered Virginia, and advanced to his fate at Yorktown. Greene’s troops were attacked at Hobkirk’s Hill, April, 1781, and defeated by Lord Rawdon who had succeeded Cornwallis in command. The men deserted the guns and it was not until Greene himself rushed forward and seized the ropes that the men rallied to drag off the precious artillery.

That fall, in the fiercely-contested battle of Eutaw Springs, Greene held his own. Though he won few decisive victories in pitched battle against the British regulars, he gradually drove the enemy from Georgia and the Carolinas, till only a few fortified towns were left in their control. Greene drew his lines closer and closer around Charleston and at last the British were forced to evacuate the city. This really ended the war in the south.

When peace was declared in 1783, Greene returned to his home in Rhode Island. Two years later, he went to Georgia to make his home on an estate there which was presented to him as a reward for his gallant services. He did not long survive to enjoy his well-won fame, dying in June, 1786.

John Paul Jones
Our First Naval Hero

The American army during the Revolution was, for the most part, led by native Americans; the officers of English birth were for one reason and another less popular and less successful than the Americans. This, however, was not the case with the American navy, created and manned to meet the exigency of the time. The twenty-six vessels did valiant service, capturing during the first two years of the war eight hundred merchantmen and gaining many brilliant victories. The man whose achievements shed most luster upon it was a Briton.

John Paul, known to us as Paul Jones, was the son of a Scotch gardener. In childhood he showed a love for the sea and he became a sailor when he was twelve years old. One of his first long voyages was on a ship which came to Virginia for a cargo of tobacco. He studied naval history and tactics, though he remained in the merchant-service. There he rose in rank, until he became captain of a trading-vessel. When he was about twenty-five, his brother, who had settled in Virginia, died and John Paul, for by this name he was still known, took charge of his estate. He does not seem to have been a successful farmer, and he led an uneventful life until the Revolution began. Then he offered his services to Congress. We do not know why he cast his lot with his adopted country instead of his native one, but he gave it faithful and brilliant service, without pay or allowance.

From this time, however, he dropped his real name of John Paul and chose to be known as John Paul Jones—perhaps because he did not wish his friends and countrymen to know that he was aiding the “rebel” cause.

He was at first appointed to a subordinate position. In the early part of 1776 the first American squadron, with Paul Jones first lieutenant on one of its vessels, the Alfred, sailed to the Bahama Islands. Its mission was to take the military supplies so needed by the Americans from the forts on New Providence. The Americans were unable to enter the harbor, and the expedition would have been a failure but for Paul Jones. He had been informed that there was a good landing near the harbor, and he undertook to guide the Alfred to it. He did so and the other ships followed. They seized the military stores, including a hundred cannon, and sailed back to America.

Soon after this Paul Jones was given charge of a little sloop and sent to sea on a six-weeks’ cruise. He had encounters with several English frigates and on more than one occasion his vessel was saved only by his courage and seamanship. At the end of his cruise he returned to Newport with sixty-six prizes. The gallant and successful captain was deprived of command by a jealous superior officer and for several months he was without a ship. He repeatedly asked Congress for a ship and he requested that it might be a good one, “for I intend to go in harm’s way,” he said—and he generally carried out his intention.

While on shore Jones gave Congress valuable advice about fitting out a navy. He recommended that “1. Every officer should be examined before he receives his commission. 2. The ranks in a navy should correspond to those in an army. 3. As England has the best navy in the world, we should copy hers.”

In June, 1777, he was put in command of the Ranger and over this he hoisted, for the first time on the seas, the American flag, the Stars and Stripes, lately adopted by Congress. He thought that the most effective way to wage war was to “carry it into the enemy’s country.” Accordingly he went to Whitehaven on the English coast, where nearly three hundred vessels were in harbor. He took his men ashore in two boats and ordered them to set fire to the ships, while he surprised the two batteries and the fort and spiked their cannon. When he returned to the harbor, he found that his orders had been disobeyed,—not one ship had been fired. It was now day and the people were aroused, but Paul Jones was unwilling to go without carrying out a part of his plan and with his own hand he set fire to the largest ship.

The English made many attempts to seize the doer of this daring deed, and at one time there were forty-two British ships on the waters seeking to capture the bold rover. One of the ships which set out to capture the Ranger was the Drake. Jones met it in battle and defeated and captured the English vessel which had more guns and better-trained and better-equipped men than his.

The Ranger was recalled to defend the coast of America, and for months Paul Jones was in France without a ship. At last he was given an old trading-vessel fitted out as a war-ship. He called it Bon Homme Richard, the French name for Poor Richard in honor of his friend Franklin’s Poor Richard of the almanac. In September, 1779, Commodore Jones sailed toward the English coast with four small vessels. There he met two large English war-ships that were convoying, or accompanying, a fleet of forty merchant-vessels. The merchant-vessels took refuge on the English coast, and the war-ships advanced to fight. The shots of the English ship, the Serapis, inflicted so much injury on the Richard that Captain Pearson of the Serapis thought it was sinking and asked the American commander, “Has your ship struck?”

“I have not yet begun to fight,” was Jones’s stern reply.

He had the two vessels lashed together. Then, with his own hands helping to work the guns, he directed the fight with dauntless resolution. His ship was riddled with shot and on fire; still he refused to yield; when the vessel seemed sinking, he drove his prisoners to the pumps and made them work for life itself. One of his ships, instead of coming to his aid, fired on him. His situation seemed desperate. Captain Pearson called again to know if he had struck and he answered, “No,—that if he could do no better he would sink with his colors flying.”

After a deadly combat of three-and-a-half hours, in which the Serapis and the Richard literally “shot each other to pieces,” the Serapis had to yield. The king conferred on Captain Pearson the honor of knighthood as a reward for his brave, though unsuccessful, fight. When Jones heard of this he said that if ever he met Pearson at sea again he would make a lord of him. After the Revolution in which he served America so bravely and ably, Jones made his home in France. There in 1792 ended his adventurous life in which he had, as he said, “twenty-three battles and solemn rencounters by sea.”

Thomas Jefferson
The Author of the Declaration of Independence

Not all the work of securing American independence was done by the able generals and the brave soldiers. The patriot cause in the Revolution owed much to men who never served in the army. One of these was Franklin, who secured for the colonies aid and recognition from France. Another was Thomas Jefferson, called “the pen of the Revolution,” who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia, in 1743; his father, a wealthy country gentleman, died when Thomas was about fourteen years old. The country boy divided his time between books and outdoor sports, and his mind was well-trained and his slender frame was as active and as tireless as an Indian’s. Then at seventeen he rode off to Williamsburg to enter William and Mary College.

At Williamsburg was formed the friendship with Patrick Henry which continued till after the Revolution; it was broken by differences in political opinions. It was on a flyleaf of one of Thomas Jefferson’s law books that Henry wrote his “resolutions.” Jefferson was one of the audience that listened entranced to the eloquent speech against the Stamp Act. When Jefferson was twenty-four, he was admitted to practice law at Williamsburg. He became an able and successful lawyer, though he had a weak voice and was never a pleasing speaker. In 1775 Jefferson heard Patrick Henry’s eloquent appeal to the people to arm for the inevitable conflict; Jefferson, Washington, and others were appointed to form plans to put Virginia on a military basis.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Jefferson, who had already won reputation as author and scholar, was sent to Philadelphia to the Continental Congress. Though one of the youngest of its members, he was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. The paper was accepted and adopted in form slightly changed from that in which he presented it. The delegates who signed it well knew that they were signing their death warrants if the Revolution should prove a failure and they should fall into King George’s hands.

Hancock, the president of the Congress, said that the members must all hang together.

“Yes,” said Franklin, “we must hang together or we shall all hang separately.”

Four days later, the Declaration was read publicly, and its proclamation was received with enthusiasm throughout the colonies.

Jefferson was one of the five men that the Assembly selected to revise the Virginia laws; upon him devolved most of the work. It was due to him that severe laws were passed against dueling, and that there was repealed the old English law by which the eldest son inherited the father’s estate. For nine years he and other enlightened men fought for the repeal of the old intolerant laws about religion, and the passing of a statute securing religious liberty. Finally, all the old laws about tithes, compulsory worship, etc., were struck out and in their place was substituted this statute written by Jefferson:

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, ministry, or place whatsoever; nor shall he be enforced, restrained, molested or hindered in his body or his goods; nor shall he otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.” We accept this as a matter of course, but in that day it was a great step forward.

Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia, but he resigned in 1781, feeling that in the emergency of the time the government could best be administered by having civil and military power in the same hands. He was asked by Congress to go with Franklin to France as ambassador but he refused because his wife was ill. After her death, two years later, he went as minister to France. No other American ambassador was ever so popular as Franklin, but Jefferson was liked and respected.

“You replace Dr. Franklin,” said a Frenchman.

“I merely succeed him; no one could replace him,” was the prompt reply.

Jefferson, like Franklin, was a many-sided man. The famous author of the Declaration of Independence, the scholar versed in the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages, took a keen interest in practical matters and applied science. Under great difficulties, he procured some of the best rice of Italy and sent it to South Carolina; from this handful came the great rice crops produced in that state. From Europe Franklin sent to the United States the first announcement of Watt’s steam engine which he went from Paris to London to see. He wrote back that by it “a peck and a half of coal performs as much work as a horse in a day.” Jefferson himself had inventive talent; among his other inventions was a plow superior to any then in use, which in 1790 received a gold medal in France. He became the third president of the American Philosophical Society of which Franklin was the first president.

Jefferson returned to America in 1789 and served as Secretary of State under Washington. He had succeeded in getting our present coinage system adopted, urging successfully a decimal system to replace that of England which many people wished to retain. He tried to have introduced a system of measures founded on the same decimal plan, but in this he did not succeed. While he was Secretary of State the mint in Philadelphia was established by his advice; till then American money had been coined in Europe.

In 1793 Jefferson resigned the office of Secretary of State and returned to his beloved home, Monticello, one of the handsomest country seats in Virginia. His overseer said that in the twenty years he lived at Monticello, he saw Jefferson sitting unemployed only twice—both times he was too unwell to work. “At all other times he was either reading, writing, talking, working upon some model, or doing something else.” Once Jefferson’s little grandsons whom he urged to “learn” and “labor” replied that they would not need to work because they would be rich. He answered, “Ah, those that expect to get through the world without industry, because they are rich, will be greatly mistaken. The people that do the work will soon get possession of all their property.”

One of his grandsons tells another incident of these days: “On riding out with him when a lad we met a negro who bowed to us; he returned his bow, I did not. Turning to me he asked, ‘Do you permit a negro to be more of a gentleman than yourself?’”

The country did not permit Jefferson to remain long in retirement. He was elected Vice President in 1796 and President in 1801. He represented the party of the people; this was opposed to the Federalist party led by Hamilton which was in favor of a centralized government. The party led by Jefferson was called, first Republican, then Democratic-Republican, then Democratic—to express the idea that the power belonged to the people. Scholar and aristocrat as Jefferson was, he had confidence in the “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as a man of the people expressed it later. Throughout Jefferson’s life this was his main idea, and the one for which he always worked.

During his first administration he rendered a great service to the country; being instrumental in 1803 in purchasing from France for fifteen million dollars the Louisiana territory. This territory included not only Louisiana but the territory extending to Puget Sound. In a message to Congress, Jefferson asked for money to send an expedition to explore this great country and he selected two brave and hardy frontiersmen to lead it, Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Clarke. They spent two and a half years on the expedition and brought back information about the country and specimens of its products.

After he had served his country twice as president, Jefferson retired to his home at Monticello and there spent his old age, still occupied with schemes for the public welfare. He believed in America for Americans. In a letter to President Monroe he said, “Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with Cis-Atlantic affairs.”

He planned an educational system for Virginia which included a comprehensive free school system, and a university. He gave years of thought and study to planning the building, government, and course of study of this university. In 1818 the state legislature made a grant to establish the University of Virginia.

Jefferson gave practically his whole life to the service of his country. He was in office thirty-nine years, and spent more than twenty years revising the Virginia Statutes and laboring to establish the University of Virginia. Thus, he said, his public services occupied over sixty years. During this time, his private affairs were neglected. From wealth in youth, he was reduced in old age to straitened circumstances. He sold his library, thirteen thousand volumes, to Congress for $23,950, about one-half of its auction value, and the money went to his creditors.

In the summer of 1826 Jefferson was taken ill. At midnight July the third, he was heard to murmur, “This is the fourth of July.” About midday he died, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. On the same day in Massachusetts was dying John Adams who had helped in the fight for the people’s rights. During his last hours, his thoughts turned to his great associate and he said, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.”

On Jefferson’s tombstone were recorded as he had requested—not the offices he had held nor the honors he had received—but the three things by which he wished to be remembered,—that he wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for religious liberty, and founded the University of Virginia.

Alexander Hamilton
The Founder of the Federalist Party

The Democratic-Republican party which believed in the “power of the masses” and the rule of the people was founded by Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist party, which believed in a centralized government patterned on the aristocratic one of England, was founded by Alexander Hamilton. Little is known about the family and early life of Hamilton. He was born in the little West India island of Nevis in January, 1757. His father is supposed to have been a Scotch trader and his mother a Frenchwoman. His family was poor, and it was necessary for him to leave school in childhood and set to work. At the age of twelve, he became a clerk in a counting-house where he remained about three years. Every spare moment was spent in the study of mathematics, chemistry, and history. He was so faithful in his work, however, that at the age of thirteen or fourteen he was left in charge of business during his employer’s absence.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

In 1772 the island of Santa Cruz was visited by a terrible hurricane; young Hamilton wrote such a vivid and eloquent account of it that his friends thought he ought to become a professional man and offered to help him continue his education. Accordingly, in October, 1772, he set sail to the colonies. Leaving the West Indies, he cut loose from his old life; of friends and relatives there, almost nothing is heard after this time. Young Hamilton attended a grammar school in New Jersey, and then entered King’s College, now Columbia University, in New York. The young West Indian came to America at a time when people were greatly excited about political matters, and he heard much about the Stamp Act and the oppressive taxes laid by Great Britain. At first he took the part of the king, but in less than two years he had become an enthusiastic patriot. It was the cause of the colonies as a whole that appealed to him. He never developed any of the feeling for the separate colonies which was so strong in most native-born Americans.

When he espoused the cause of the oppressed colonies, he did it with his whole heart. The precocious, clever boy of seventeen made patriotic addresses, and published an able pamphlet, entitled, “A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies” (1774). In this pamphlet he stated the case of the colonies clearly and eloquently. He said, “All men have one common origin; they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be advanced why one man should exercise any power or preëminence over his fellow-creatures, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since then, Americans have not by any act of their own empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows that they can have no just authority to do it.”

Hamilton believed in the enforcement of law and order. On one or two occasions, when mobs had set out to attack royalists’ houses, he persuaded them to respect private property and opinions.

The opinions that young Hamilton upheld with pen he was ready to uphold with sword. In 1776, when he was only nineteen, he was put in charge of a company of artillery which he drilled so well that he won the commendation and friendship first of General Greene and later of General Washington. During the retreat through New Jersey, he managed his company with courage and skill, and he fought bravely in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1777 he became one of Washington’s “official family,” being made his confidential secretary. Washington was very fond of the clever young man whom he often addressed as “my boy.” Hamilton’s ability, too, was recognized and in 1777 he was entrusted with a delicate and important mission. This was to get reinforcements for Washington’s hard-pressed army from Gates’s successful forces. As superior officer, Washington could have ordered the troops sent to his relief, but for many reasons it was best to have them sent on Gates’s own accord, if possible. Therefore, Washington gave Hamilton a sealed order of command to Gates, instructing him not to deliver it if without doing so he could persuade the general to send the troops. Hamilton brought back the troops and he also brought back the unopened letter. It was while he was in New York on this errand that he met General Schuyler’s daughter whom he married in 1780.

Hamilton did not remain in the commander-in-chief’s official family. On one occasion he failed to answer a summons promptly; General Washington, who was a strict disciplinarian, said, “Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting for you these ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, that you treat me with disrespect.” The hot-tempered youth replied, “I am not conscious of it, sir, but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.”

“Very well, sir, if that is your choice,” answered the general.

Washington was willing to overlook the occurrence, but Hamilton was desirous to return to active service. At Yorktown he led a gallant attack against a British redoubt which he took in ten minutes.

After the Revolution, he read law four months and then began to practice in Albany. He put aside professional work to serve his adopted country again. This time in Congress. The colonies which had united in their war of defence now seemed drifting apart and the general government had no power to hold them together. The country was in debt and had neither money nor credit. The states, therefore, sent representatives to Philadelphia in 1787 to form a Constitution to take the place of the Articles of Confederation.

Hamilton was one of these delegates. He argued in favor of a strong central government, ruled by a president, congress, and supreme court; he thought that practically all power should be put in the hands of the general government, and that the governors of states should be appointed by it and should have veto power over state legislation. To him an American state was a mere geographical division, like an English county. Most of the people, however, clung to the independence of the separate states, and there was heated discussion as to what rights should be delegated to the general government and what should be reserved by the states. At last a constitution was drawn up, in favor of which Congress voted. It was decided that this constitution should go into effect as soon as it should be ratified by nine states. As yet the states “had given up none of their rights to the general government.”

In order to present the views in favor of this constitution and to secure its adoption, Hamilton, with some assistance from Madison and Jay, published a series of eighty-five papers called “The Federalist.” The constitution was adopted, and George Washington was elected first President. When he formed his Cabinet he made Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. It was felt that this young man of thirty-two could do more than any one else to establish the finances of the country on a safe basis. He made a report “On the Public Credit” which “laid the corner-stone of American finance under the constitution.”

He insisted that the credit of the United States should be firmly established and the United States should assume the war debt of fifty-four million dollars; to secure the payment of this a national bank was established. Hamilton suggested ways in which money might be raised by taxing whiskey and imported articles and by the use of public lands, the Northwest Territory ceded by Virginia, and the western lands ceded by Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.

After some opposition Hamilton’s plan was adopted and the finances of the country were established on a safe basis. An insurrection called the Whiskey Rebellion was raised in Pennsylvania by people who were unwilling to pay the tax on liquor, and Hamilton went with troops who suppressed it.

Jefferson and others argued that under this constitution the general government had no power to establish a national bank. Hamilton brought forward the view, which he was the first to advance, that Congress had “implied” powers as well as “delegated” ones. One of his chief motives in urging national banks was that he felt they would be a “powerful cement of union,” uniting the business interests of the country in the support of the government. It was Hamilton, then, who originated the “protective tariff” and “national banks,” over which political parties are still contending.

In 1795 after his national policies were adopted, Hamilton resigned public life and began to practice his profession in New York. He put aside his brilliant and profitable professional work, however, when war with France seemed imminent, in order to assist Washington in his plans for the organization of the army. When the war-cloud passed he resumed the practice of his profession. But his brilliant life was to come to an early and untimely end. In his political life he made many antagonists. One of these was Aaron Burr, as brilliant and hot-tempered as Hamilton, and a man of bold and dangerous ambition.

After a political quarrel, Burr challenged Hamilton to fight a duel. In theory Hamilton recognized the sin and folly of dueling, but he was not willing to refuse to fight for fear people would think he was a coward. Early one morning, July 11, 1804, the two rivals met in a quiet spot. Hamilton fired into the air, as he had said he would do; Burr with deadly skill aimed straight at his opponent who fell fatally wounded. Hamilton left his mourning country the record of a brilliant public career, the main purpose of which was to strengthen the general government and to consolidate the Union.

Daniel Boone
The Pioneer of Kentucky

During colonial days, the English settlers occupied the land east of the Alleghany Mountains. Except on expeditions of war or explorations and adventure, they did not cross the mountains to the west. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the first pioneer went westward to settle, taking with him his wife and daughter, the first white women to make their homes in the western land. This pioneer was Daniel Boone. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1735, and so was three years younger than George Washington.

Boone’s father moved to North Carolina in 1752 and there Daniel grew to manhood. His school days were brief and his book-learning was limited. There was standing many years a tree on which was carved in rude letters, “D. Boon Cilled A Bar on this tree year 1760.” But he was expert in the homely, hardy work of the frontier, and in woodcraft; familiar with the life and habits of the wild things of the wood; a sure quick shot, a fearless and self-reliant youth. One who knew him later says he was “honest of heart and liberal—in short, one of nature’s noblemen. He abhorred a mean action and delighted in honesty and truth. He never delighted in the shedding of human blood, even that of his enemies in war. His remarkable quality was an unwavering and invincible fortitude.”

Boone was an expert hunter and trapper. Like many American frontiersmen, he wore a dress resembling that of the Indians,—a buckskin hunting shirt with fringed buckskin leggings and moccasins of deerskin or buffalo-hide. His inseparable companion was his long-barrelled rifle.

He went as a wagoner on Braddock’s ill-fated expedition and barely escaped with his life.

The country west of the mountains had been visited and explored by several men and parties. Gist, who accompanied Washington on his mission to the French forts, was one of these early explorers. Another was John Finley who traded with the Indians on the Red River of Kentucky. He told Boone about the fertile soil, the abundant game, and the “salt licks” of the western lands.

After a short hunting trip on the borders, Boone started out, in May, 1769, to explore “the far-famed but little-known land of Kentucky.” He started with five companions and he spent two years roaming over the country. The white men were attacked by Indians in the fall of 1769 and Boone and Stewart were captured. A week later they made their escape, but were unable to find their friends. Not long after, Boone’s brother and another frontiersman joined them with a welcome supply of powder and lead.

Their companions were killed by the Indians, and the Boone brothers spent some months in the wilderness in a cabin which they built of poles and bark. For some reason his brother went home, and Daniel Boone remained for months alone, the only white man in that wilderness which was the battle-ground of northern and southern Indians. Not even a dog was there to keep him company, and as food, he had only what his rifle and fishing-rod could secure.

Undaunted by loneliness or wildness, by lurking beast or hostile savages, Boone determined to bring his family to this fair and fertile land. He felt that he had a work to do, “God had appointed him an instrument for the settlement of the wilderness.” Several families set out with the Boone brothers, driving their cattle and conveying their household goods in wagons. They were attacked by Indians and the others became so discouraged that they turned back.

Boone, however, was undaunted. In 1775, as agent of a North Carolina company, he founded Boonesborough, a stockade or station near a salt lick on the Kentucky River. This was near the present site of Frankfort. Thither came his wife and daughter, the first women pioneers in Kentucky. The Indians strove to drive back the white men from their hunting-grounds, and this fort became the center of savage and relentless warfare.

At one time three little girls, one of whom was Boone’s daughter, were captured by the Indians. The settlers marched to rescue them, and did so, it is said, after a long journey and a fierce struggle in which Boone and a companion were captured.

In 1778, Boone with a small party of men left the settlement to get a supply of salt. They were surrounded by a large band of Indians and carried north. Boone was taken as far as the present site of Detroit. He remained with the savages several months without having an opportunity to let his family know his fate. Learning that the Indian warriors were preparing to attack the Kentucky settlements, he managed to escape and made his way two hundred miles southward, through the wilderness swarming with enemies, in time to warn the settlements and to help defend Boonesborough against attack. His family, thinking him dead, had returned to North Carolina. He followed them and returned with them to his chosen home a few months later.

For years there was almost constant warfare against the Indians in the “Dark and Bloody Ground,” as Kentucky was well called. It is said within seven years—from 1783 to 1790—fifteen hundred whites were killed or taken captive in Kentucky.

In 1792 Kentucky, which had been a county of Virginia, was made a state; at this time Boone’s title to his land was found defective. In his old age he was deprived of his small share of the great country he had helped to settle and open to the English.

He moved west to the country owned by Spain, and stopped near the present site of St. Louis. The Spanish governor granted him about eight thousand acres of land. When this territory was sold to the United States, his title was upset and he was deprived of this estate also.

This typical American pioneer died in 1820.

Oliver Hazard Perry and Thomas Macdonough
Two Naval Commanders in the War of 1812

The war of 1812 was brought about by the war between the French and English in Europe. France and England each issued orders forbidding trade with the other. Both claimed the right to confiscate all vessels that engaged in trade with its rival. The English claimed also the right to search American vessels for British seamen; and they seized hundreds of men, many of whom were not English seamen at all but Americans.

In order to avoid war, instead of resisting these unjust demands at once, the United States passed the Embargo Act, forbidding American vessels to sail to any foreign country; this act occasioned discontent and was soon repealed; only trade with England was forbidden. The English impressments of American seamen continued until finally America had to fight for her rights. War was declared, June 18, 1812. Most of the American victories in this war were won at sea. The most famous of the naval commanders was Perry.

Oliver Hazard Perry was the descendant of an English Quaker, who came to America about the middle of the seventeenth century to enjoy the free exercise of his religion. He went first to Plymouth where Quakers were disliked; finally he purchased a tract of land in Roger Williams’ Rhode Island colony and settled there. Here his descendants remained and here Oliver Hazard Perry was born in 1785. His father served in the American navy during the Revolution and became so fond of the sea that he continued his voyages as captain of a merchant-vessel.

Oliver was sent first to a school near his home. A few years later his parents moved from South Kingston to Newport to give their children the advantage of better schools. The war between England and France was now going on, and it seemed at this time as if America would be drawn into war against France. President Adams, therefore, resolved to establish a navy. Captain Perry was given command of a vessel called the General Greene, the business of which was to defend American merchant-vessels trading with the West Indies. Oliver, now thirteen, begged his father to let him enter the navy. Permission was granted, and Oliver became a midshipman on his father’s vessel.

After danger of war with France was over, young Perry still continued in the navy. His next service was in the Mediterranean against the Barbary States. These states,—Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, and Morocco—on the north coast of Africa, had for hundreds of years made a business of piracy. They captured vessels, and used or sold the stores and sold the crews into slavery. America, like England and other countries, for years bribed them not to molest its vessels. At last the Americans determined, instead of paying tribute, longer, to send a fleet to the Barbary coast and force the pirates to respect the American flag. Oliver Perry was on a ship sent in 1802. The fleet cruised about and did little fighting and his ship was recalled to America in 1803.

The most daring deed of the war was performed by a young American lieutenant, Stephen Decatur. An American ship, the Philadelphia, had fallen into the hands of the Barbary pirates and Lieutenant Decatur went into the harbor with a few men in a boat and set fire to the vessel to prevent its being manned by the Tripolitans. The Barbary ruler finally made a treaty of peace with the United States. In the war Perry had had no special opportunity to distinguish himself, but he had proved himself brave and efficient.

When the war against England began in 1812, it seemed that American chances for sea victory were small. England, the mistress of the seas, had a large, well-equipped navy; the American fleet was far inferior in numbers and in size. But the Americans had brave seamen who won some brilliant victories. One of the greatest of these was that of the American vessel the Constitution over the English Guerriére.

The command of the Great Lakes was very important; being on the boundary between the United States and the English colony of Canada, they controlled the entrance to each country. When the war opened, the English had a naval force on the Great Lakes, the Americans had none. A fleet could not be made ready without delay, and an American army under General Hull was sent to invade Canada. General Hull surrendered the fort at Detroit without attempting to defend it, and the English took also Fort Dearborn, on the site of Chicago.

To protect the northern coast, Lieutenant Oliver Perry was sent to build a fleet on Lake Erie and to fight the British there. This was a great undertaking. There was no railroad or canal connecting the western with the eastern part of New York. Nails, sails, guns, powder, shot, and supplies of all kinds had to be carried on ox wagons along the rough roads and on boats up the streams. Perry did not lose time bemoaning the difficulty of the task. The very day that he received his orders he started carpenters to the lake; having arranged about men and supplies, he himself set forth in the depth of winter. In the spring, followed men bringing needed stores. In a few months Perry had a little fleet built of trees which were standing in the forest the summer before. “Give me men,” he wrote, “and I will acquire both for you and for myself honor and glory on this lake, or die in the attempt.”

In September, 1813, the American ships sailed forth and the English fleet, which was about equal in men and guns, made ready to attack. Lieutenant Perry hoisted a flag bearing the words, “Don’t give up the ship,” the dying speech of brave Captain Lawrence for whom the flag-ship was named. The English attacked gallantly, and Perry’s ship was so injured that “hammered out of his own ship,” he had to go in a row-boat to the Niagara. With him he took his flag and Captain Lawrence’s brave words waved as a signal from the Niagara. The Americans raked the English decks with a deadly broadside. The British fought bravely till their ships were crippled and most of their officers and many of their men were wounded. Then the whole squadron was surrendered,—the first time that this fate ever befell the British in a naval battle.

In honor of Captain Lawrence, Perry was determined that the surrender should take place on the Lawrence, so he returned to that vessel and there received the swords of the British officers. On the back of an old letter he wrote his famous dispatch to General Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours—two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours with very great respect and esteem, O. H. Perry.” This battle of Lake Erie prevented the English and French invasion of the United States and made it possible for the Americans to invade Canada. Perry was made captain, then the highest rank in the American navy. This ended his service in the war of 1812.

In 1816 Captain Perry was sent against the Algerian pirates who were again troublesome. The ruler finally signed a treaty of peace and Perry returned without having had to fight. Two years later, in 1819, he was ordered to Venezuela to protest against seizures of American vessels and to present claims for losses. He succeeded in his mission, but he did not live to return home, dying of yellow fever on his thirty-fourth birthday, August 23, 1819. His body was brought home in a war-vessel and buried with military honors at Newport, Rhode Island.

Another hero of the war of 1812 was Thomas Macdonough, “the hero of Lake Champlain,” who won a decisive victory against odds of men, guns, and ships. Thomas Macdonough was born in Delaware and entered the navy when he was sixteen.

In 1803 he sailed on the frigate Philadelphia bound for Tripoli. At Gibraltar he was left in charge of a captured Moorish ship. The Philadelphia, as you know, was taken by the Tripolitans; its crew was kept in close confinement nearly two years. Macdonough served on board the Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, and he was one of the seventy men who captured and destroyed the Philadelphia, which Admiral Nelson declared to be “the most bold and daring act of the age.” For his gallantry on this occasion, Macdonough was made lieutenant.

In 1810 he made a voyage in the merchant-service; at Liverpool he was impressed and carried on board a British vessel, but he managed to make his escape in the clothes of an English officer.

In 1812 Lieutenant Macdonough, then twenty-six years old, was put in command of the naval force on Lake Champlain. You remember the old plan of the British under Burgoyne for the invasion of New York. A similar plan was now devised by the British and eleven thousand soldiers were collected at the end of Lake Champlain to invade New York by way of the lake. The English had built a fleet to convey this army. The Americans had at the time, in 1814, only a force of about two thousand men at Plattsburg, New York, and on the lake Lieutenant Macdonough’s fleet of fourteen vessels, with eighty-six guns and eight hundred and eighty-two men.

This fleet protected Plattsburg and it was necessary to destroy it before General Prevost, the British commander, could make the land attack. The British fleet, consisting of sixteen vessels with ninety-two guns and nine hundred and thirty-seven men, advanced to the attack early on the morning of September 11, 1814. Macdonough in Plattsburg Bay awaiting the enemy. The shot of the British vessel shattered a hen-coop on board Macdonough’s vessel; a game cock, thus suddenly released, jumped on a gun, flapped his wings, and crowed. “The men laughed and cheered; and immediately afterwards Macdonough himself fired the first shot from one of the long guns.”

During the battle Macdonough worked like a common sailor at the guns and directed the movements of his fleet with a quick eye for every point of advantage. His ship was twice set on fire, and one by one his guns were disabled; the damage inflicted on the British was still more severe and some of their vessels were captured; in two and a half hours their crippled fleet had to withdraw. The American fleet was so injured that Lieutenant Macdonough was unable to pursue the retreating enemy. But General Prevost was forced to retire without attacking Plattsburg and the invasion of New York had to be given up.

From his battleship, Macdonough sent the message: “The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champlain in the capture of one frigate, one brig, and two sloops of war of the enemy. T. Macdonough.” For this victory he was made captain.

After the war of 1812, Captain Macdonough was sent on several cruises. In 1825 on account of ill-health he obtained permission to leave the Mediterranean where he was stationed and return to the United States. But he did not live to reach his native shores, dying at sea, November 10, 1825. His body was brought home and buried with military honors.

Marquis de Lafayette
A French Patriot

One of the notable figures of the eighteenth century was a French nobleman who aided in the struggle for freedom in two countries, America and France. This book can give only a brief sketch of his efforts in behalf of the American patriots. By the death of his father and mother, the Marquis de Lafayette in his youth became master of large estates and great wealth.

But he did not settle down to a calm and selfish enjoyment of these. He heard of the struggles of the American colonists against the oppression of the English king and his generous heart was inspired with interest and sympathy. Later, he said, “The moment I heard of America I loved her: the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burned with desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life.”

He was only eighteen, lately married to a young and beautiful lady of rank and wealth equal to his own. But he turned from the gay and luxurious court; despite the opposition of the government, he left France and made his way to America to aid the colonists in their fight for freedom.

He went to Philadelphia; there he was coldly received by Congress which hesitated to give the young foreigner the position to which he was entitled by his rank and by the promise of the American commissioner in France. A less enthusiastic patriot might have taken offence. Lafayette only wrote to Congress: “After the sacrifice I have made I have the right to exact two favors; one is, to serve at my own expense, the other is, to serve at first as a volunteer.”

His generosity was not unrewarded. Congress made him major-general; he was soon attached to the staff of Washington and between the two there grew to be the warmest friendship. Lafayette suffered many hardships in the patriot cause. He was wounded in the battle of Brandywine while leading his troops; he bore without a murmur the privations of Valley Forge, and fought gallantly in the battle of Monmouth.

In 1779 Lafayette went to France for a few months; it was largely through his influence that land and naval forces were sent to the aid of America. France formed an alliance with America and aided the patriots chiefly because she hated England and wished revenge for the loss of her northern colonies. The young French officer, however, was inspired by love for the cause of freedom.

In 1781 he was sent in command of twelve hundred New England soldiers to help the Virginians against the invading Cornwallis who had about five thousand men. “The boy cannot escape me,” said Cornwallis when he heard of Lafayette’s approach. But “the boy” managed to keep out of reach, until he was so reinforced that when he offered battle Cornwallis withdrew. It was now Lafayette’s turn to pursue and Cornwallis’s to retreat. At Yorktown the British were hemmed in by the American army under Lafayette on one side and the French fleet on the other, until Washington’s forces came up. The siege and capture of Yorktown followed, and Lafayette who had contributed largely to the success of the campaign was publicly thanked by Washington. In December, 1781, the young nobleman returned to his home in France.

A few years later the French began their struggle for liberty, the famous French Revolution. The Marquis de Lafayette drew up a famous “declaration of rights,” modeled after the Declaration of Independence, and drew his sword again in the cause of the people. The great French prison, the Bastile, regarded as the stronghold of tyranny, was taken, and its key was sent by Lafayette to Washington.

Lafayette wanted freedom but not license for his countrymen, and he lost favor with the violent republican party. At last, sick of anarchy in the name of liberty, he left France, intending to come to America. He was seized by the Austrian authorities, and for five years was kept in close and cruel imprisonment.

In 1824 Lafayette, an old and broken man who had been deprived of wealth and property, came to visit the young republic for which he had fought. He was received as the nation’s guest, the people’s friend; he went from Boston to New Orleans, welcomed and honored at every turn. He made a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon to visit the tomb of his “great good friend,” Washington. In Boston he laid the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument. Congress voted him a grant of two hundred thousand dollars and an American vessel was sent to convey him home. The United States joined France in lamenting the death of this great patriot in 1834.