CHAPTER XLIII.
SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
A. D. 1812 TO 1815.
James Turner, of Warren; Nathaniel Alexander, of Mecklenburg; David Stone, of Bertie, and Benjamin Smith, of Brunswick, had served in turn as Governors of North Carolina during the years of growth and expansion described in the last chapters. William Hawkins, of Granville, was chosen to the same high office in 1812, and, as Commander-in-Chief of all the State's forces, felt unusual responsibility in prospect of war even then begun between Great Britain and the United States.
1813.
2. It was the purpose of the American government to seize Canada and carry on hostilities, as much as possible, in that portion of America. As no great army was assembled at any one point, no call was made upon North Carolina for troops to be sent outside of her borders, except to Norfolk, in Virginia. At that place Major-General Thomas Brown, of Bladen, was in command of a division sent from North Carolina.
3. General Brown was a veteran of the Revolution, and had rendered heroic service at Elizabethtown and elsewhere during that long and arduous struggle. His brigade commanders were General Thomas Davis, of Fayetteville, and General James F. Dickinson, of Murfreesboro.
4. Camps were also established and troops held for action at other points. The western levies were collected at Wadesboro, under General Alexander Gray, and were drilled and kept in readiness to be marched to the relief of either Wilmington or Charleston. Colonel Maurice Moore, at Wilmington, and Lieutenant- Colonel John Roberts, at Beaufort, commanded garrisons for the defence of these seaports.
1814.
5. In the American army on the northern frontier, where Winfield Scott, of Virginia, was winning laurels, were two North Carolina officers who were also rising to distinction. These were William Gibbs McNeill, of Bladen, and William McRee, of Wilmington. Both became Colonels in the corps of engineers. Amid the frequent disasters and exhibitions of incompetency on the part of other officers in that department, these gallant men were of great credit to America and to North Carolina.
6. On the sea, where the mighty fleets of Great Britain had at such fearful disadvantage the few cruisers of their opponents, were also to be found brilliant representatives of this Commonwealth. Captain Johnston Blakeley, of Wilmington, had been reared by Colonel Edward Jones, the Solicitor-General of North Carolina. He had already made reputation in the Mediterranean Sea under Commodore Preble.
7. Early in 1614 he went to sea in the United State's sloop-of- war Wasp, and captured, with great eclat, the British sloop- of-war Reindeer. Having burned this prize for fear of its recapture, he refitted in a French port, and in August encountered another British ship, the Avon. The British vessel had struck her colors, when a fleet of the enemy came upon the scene and the victorious Wasp was forced to fly. In a few days Blakeley, thus cruising over the crowded seas surrounding England, captured fifteen merchant vessels. On one of these, the brig Atlanta, he put a prize crew and sent her to the United States.
8. This is the last that is known of this gallant and ill fated officer. He perished in some unknown manner at sea, but has left an imperishable name to our keeping.
9. Captain Otway Burns, of Beaufort, was the commander of a cruiser known as the Snap-Dragon. With this privateer he long roamed the seas, and was victorious in many well fought actions. He survived the war and was afterwards a member of the Legislature. The village of Burnsville was named in his honor.
10. In addition to the troops already mentioned, a regiment commanded by Colonel Joseph Graham, so highly distinguished in the Revolution, was sent against Billy Weathersford and his Creek warriors, who had massacred nearly three hundred white people in Fort Minims, on the Alabama River. Another North Carolinian by birth, General Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, was in command of the force sent to avenge this outrage of the red men. *
*General Andrew Jackson was born in Mecklenburg county, on the 15th day of March, 1767,
11. So swiftly and completely had Jackson done his work, that when the North Carolina regiment arrived there was nothing left to do; for, as Weathersford declared, his braves were all dead, and the war ended. The Indians were required, as a preliminary to peace, to bring in their fugitive chief, Weathersford. That bold and able half-breed did not wait for arrest upon hearing these terms, but rode into General Jackson's camp, and in surrendering himself, boldly announced that he did so because he no longer had warriors to continue the struggle." I have nothing to ask for myself," said he, "but I want peace for my people."
1815.
12. Peace was soon made between the United States and Great Britain, and the two nations, after struggling for each other's injury for three years, agreed to stop without settling a single one of the causes of the war. England did not even agree to cease impressing men from the United States navy, but this was no more practiced. The treaty of peace was ratified by the United States Senate, February 7th, 1815.