DANIEL MORGAN—ABLE TRIBUTE TO THE MOST UNIQUE FIGURE IN THE ANNALS OF AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS.
An address delivered before the Society, copy for which was received too late for publication in Vol. VIII of the Journal.
BY HON. JOSEPH T. LAWLESS, NORFOLK, VA.
Mr. President and Fellow Members:
By the grace of your invitation, I have the honor of addressing this Society a second time. With the invitation was coupled the admonition that I should devote myself to the subject which our distinguished President has just announced. Deeply distrusting my ability to discharge the commission to your entertainment and within the limitation of time the occasion prescribes, but taking courage from your desire to have recorded the facts of unwritten history as they affect the objects of this organization, and relying upon your patience to hear, though your interest should wane, I have come tonight in obedience to your summons to speak of the most unique figure in the annals of American Commonwealths. The place of his birth unknown even to himself—his parentage wrapped in an oblivion which he steadfastly refused to penetrate—a farm laborer in the Valley of Virginia in 1755—a teamster in the British army in the French and Indian war—he advanced without the aid of adventitious circumstances to the command of an army of his compatriots and fought and won at the Cowpens the battle which made possible the triumph at Yorktown!
All this, indeed, did Daniel Morgan. But he did more. He conquered his own weaknesses, and scorned the allurements of unworthy preferments. He overcame the excesses of youthful appetite; he flouted the proffered temptations of a commission in the royal army of Great Britain while a ragged prisoner of war amidst the snows of Quebec; and in the hour of his subsequent glory on the field at Saratoga, he disdained the persuasions of Gates to join the “Conway Cabal” and remained loyal to Washington and to the liberties of his country.
With his lineage unknown, his birthplace unestablished, his advent unheralded, and his history but sparsely written, no man can speak with certainty of the race from which he sprung. But if there be aught distinctive in racial characteristics; or aught indicative in that accent of human speech which makes the Irish brogue sound as music on the ear, Daniel Morgan was of that race which has ennobled Celtic history, and the lullaby which first soothed him into sleeping was the crooning of a mother’s voice that spake the Irish tongue. But, my countrymen, whatever his lineage and wherever the place of his birth, tonight, on the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of his greatest battle, when we have assembled in New York’s banquet hall to honor his memory and to make better known a renown which should be as firmly established as the liberties of his country, we may well pause to trace the course of those wonderful activities which have no parallel in Revolutionary lore.
The earliest, and perhaps his sole biographer, James Graham, declares he was of Welsh extraction, and that he went to Virginia from the banks of the Delaware. This declaration is based on a manuscript prepared for the biographer by Dr. William Hall, of Winchester, who knew General Morgan in his lifetime and attended his bedside during his last illness. The uniform refusal of Morgan to discuss his parentage and the resultant uncertainty which surrounds his racial extraction, entitle such a statement on the part of a person who was his friend in life to consideration and respect. But I submit a statement of another person who knew him during life to substantiate the belief which exists in Virginia that he was of Irish blood.
The grandmother of Colonel Charles Triplett O’Ferrall, a late Governor of that Commonwealth, lived near and knew Daniel Morgan. During a close association at Richmond, Governor O’Ferrall frequently told me anecdotes of him which he learned from the lips of his grandmother, who in her early life saw much of Morgan and was present at his funeral. In reciting some of these anecdotes the Governor would imitate the Irish brogue which appeared to distinguish the accent of Morgan. Born within a few miles of Morgan’s home, O’Ferrall lived in the Valley all his life and for twelve years represented that District in the House of Representatives of the United States. Three times in that body he introduced a bill having for its object the erection of a monument to mark the grave of Morgan. No citizen gave more thought to the personality of the man and his career as a soldier than did Governor O’Ferrall. In his published memoirs he closes the last chapter with a tribute to him and expresses the hope that some successor in Congress from the Valley District will be able to persuade Congress to mark his lowly grave. “I had set my heart on its passage,” he says, on page 358; “every emotion of my soul was aroused in its behalf. I had carefully studied the hero’s life and character and it read like a romance to me.” Concerning Morgan’s brogue, he could not have been misinformed by his grandmother. Res ipsa loquitur. Himself of Irish extraction and as game a cavalryman as ever drew a blade, who can doubt that it was because of the blood that ran in Morgan’s veins, scarcely less than his services to his country, that impelled O’Ferrall to so interest himself in his career?
When about the age of seventeen, in the year 1753, a tall, raw-boned boy, calling himself Daniel Morgan, “turned up” near the village of Winchester in Virginia. There was nothing about him to excite the good opinion of those frontiersmen, except his willingness to work. He had scant acquaintance with the three R’s. His writing was barely legible; his reading, painful to everybody who heard—especially to himself; his knowledge of the simplest principles of arithmetic, was small; his manners were rude; and his conversation so unpolished as to class him with the humblest order of men. The only occupation he understood was that of a land-grubber and rail-splitter, and it was at these hard tasks that he sought employment. He found it. And such was his strength and his industry that no man engaged Daniel Morgan to clear a piece of new land or to split white-oak rails for a snake-fence and ever regretted his contract! Within a year he became a wagoner for Nathaniel Burwell, Esquire. In a little more than two years his industry and thrift enabled him to purchase a wagon and team of his own; and then—a forerunner of the Wells Fargo—he established an express between the Valley and points beyond the Blue Ridge, east of the Range.
As his fortunes improved, there came improvement in his mind. His manners, too, changed. The raw-boned boy of seventeen had developed into the man of twenty-one, and with the development came a reputation for great physical strength and a courage that was dauntless—great virtues, always, on the frontier. With these qualities he coupled a natural wit, a quick intelligence, a manliness, and a frankness of manner which won the admiration of his sturdy neighbors.
When Braddock landed his army on the upper banks of the Potomac to make good the claim of his sovereign to the fertile region west of the Alleghanies, Morgan became a teamster with the ill-fated soldiers and accompanied the baggage train of the Second Division. In 1756 he was sent to Fort Chiswell with a wagon-load of supplies. It was while at this post that he received the terrible beating on his bare back which would have cost a less hardy man his life. A British lieutenant insulted him by striking him with the flat of his sword and was immediately stretched senseless on the ground by a blow from the teamster’s fist. A drum-head courtmartial sentenced him to receive five hundred lashes. He was forthwith stripped and tied to a white-oak tree. At the end of the castigation his flesh hung in tags. But his spirit was unbroken and King George was never forgiven for the cruelty his soldiers then inflicted.
When he arrived at about the age of twenty-three, he was a strikingly handsome man. In height, he was upward of six feet; his frame was massive and symmetrical; and, without carrying an ounce of superfluous flesh, his weight was two hundred pounds. But his conduct was not exemplary. He became at this time a trencherman of distinction. Yet so powerful was his constitution he was able to bear excess of liquor without becoming entirely under its influence. As a card player, he was as skillful as the most skillful, and he used his talent to add to his estate. So great was his prowess at fisticuffs and so constant his engagements thereat, that the little town of Berryville in the County of Clarke, where these combats were always held, is called “Battletown” to this day by the older residents of the Valley.
This, indeed, was the most unpromising time of Daniel Morgan’s life. To most of the vices which end in ruin, he was addicted. But, in the Providence of God, he was not overwhelmed. Grave faults, indeed, he had in plenty; but they appear to have proceeded, not from a depraved heart but from the rollicking, devil-may-care nature of a young frontiersman. Without parents to advise or friends to admonish, his bold wayward spirit was conscious of no restraint when impulse impelled it to action. What he needed to round the man was adventurous enterprise—dangerous commissions! The dash within him—the spirit of command—needed war. And, war came! Like Hotspur, he must have blows and “pass them current, too.”
First it was “Lord Dunmore’s War” for the protection of the frontier against the Indians under Chief Logan and Cornstalk. General Andrew Lewis, an Irishman born and thirteen years of age before he left Ireland for Virginia, was ordered to raise four regiments in the Southwestern counties; and while Lewis was organizing his forces, Morgan, now holding a commission by grace of William Nelson, Esquire, President of His Majesty’s Council and Commander-in-chief of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, took the field under Major Angus McDonald. He became at once an active factor. His splendid judgment, his knowledge of woodcraft, his understanding of the Indian character and their methods of warfare, his boldness and his courage, soon distinguished him among his comrades in arms as a man fit for leadership.
“Lord Dunmore’s War” ended with the defeat of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant and Morgan’s command turned homeward. When they reached the mouth of the Hockhocking, those stupendous events which had been happening in England and the Colonies during their absence became known to these Virginians, fresh from the wilderness. They learned that the Parliament of Great Britain had ordered the port of Boston to be closed. They were informed that the General Assembly of the mother colony had protested against such despotic legislation. They were told with solemn voices that representatives of the people were then assembled at Philadelphia to consider ways and means to resist the encroachments of the crown. And then and there, amidst the solitude of that wilderness, far from the outposts of civilization, Daniel Morgan and his band of liberty-loving Virginians resolved upon their course. “Upon hearing these things,” he wrote in an all-too-inadequate sketch of his military services, “we, as an army victorious, formed ourselves into a society, pledging our words of honor to each other to assist our brethren of Boston in case hostilities should commence.” I need not ask you New Englanders tonight how well they kept that pledge!
On the 22d day of June, 1775, by a unanimous vote of the Committee of Safety of Frederick County, he was appointed to command one of the two companies of Riflemen which the Continental Congress had ordered to be raised in Virginia. “In less than ten days after the receipt of his commission,” says Graham, “he raised a company of ninety-six young, hardy woodsmen, full of spirit and enthusiasm and practised marksmen with the rifle. John Humphreys, who was killed in the assault on Quebec, was his first lieutenant. William Heth, afterwards a Colonel, who greatly distinguished himself in the subsequent events of the war, was his second lieutenant. His ensign was Charles Porterfield, afterwards a Colonel, and an officer who by his many brilliant and daring achievements had earned a proud name among the defenders of his country, and was rapidly rising to distinction when he fell in the bloody field of Camden. A finer body of men than those who composed his company are seldom seen. One that rendered better service, or that shed a brighter lustre on the arms of their country, never had existence.”
In twenty-one days, Morgan, at the head of this company, each Rifleman wearing a cap with the legend “Liberty or Death,” marched a distance of six hundred miles to Boston, and when the roll was called every member of the command was present and ready for duty.
He was now come for the first time on that broader field of action in which he won a renown which will never die. It is not my purpose to dwell on the hardships of that extraordinary march into Canada led by Arnold. The sufferings endured by the Americans in the midst of the snow’s and ice of the Canadian winter are beyond the power of human speech to depict. Half-clad, bare of foot or shod only with moccasins, half-starving, with their comrades in arms dropping in their weary tracks to die—such sufferings could only be endured by men whose natural hardihood and love of country could not be overwhelmed by the agonies of physical torture. At intervals, some helpless hero would be overcome by the hardships of the march and tenderly laid aside to die, with a single devoted comrade to hunt for a squirrel or jay or to gather wild herbs for his food, the while he watched his expiring breath and caught the last whispered message of affection for the loved ones at home. Morgan himself was dressed in a costume similar to that of an Indian. He wore leggings and a cloth about the middle. His thighs were bare and their laceration because of it was painfully obvious. But he appeared to be impervious to pain. Judge Henry, who was a member of the expedition, in his “Campaign” describes Morgan at this time as being “a large, strong-bodied personage”—“with a stentorian voice”—“whose appearance gave the idea history has left us of Belisarius.” Those high qualifications for command, which became more and more distinguished as the war progressed, manifested themselves on this occasion. He led the vanguard. And in eight weeks’ time he penetrated an unexplored wilderness for six hundred miles and stood ready with his Riflemen to assault the fortified walls of gun-fringed and snow-crowned Quebec.
If the fame of Daniel Morgan as one of the most intrepid of soldiers depended alone on his conduct at the storming of Quebec, it would live as long as the heroic deeds of the Revolution are remembered of men. At the height of a tempest in which the blinding snow was driven with terrible effect, in the early hours of the first day of the New Year, 1775, the assault began. Armed with scaling-ladders and spontoons, as well as rifles, Morgan’s men, with their captain at their head, were first over the walls. With a sublime courage and a voice which rang above the roar of the tempest he commanded his men, and they, with a devotion as faithful as it was unquestioning, obeyed. Into the heart of the town they fought their way. But, alas, the brave fellows were not supported. The disastrous results of the assault—the wounding of Arnold at its commencement, the death of Montgomery, the brave, while leading those sixty heroes from New York, and the capture of Morgan, of the lion’s heart—are tales of devotion which every American schoolboy knows and which were so extraordinary as to become the subject of public eulogy in the Commons of Great Britain. With “the flower of the rebel army,” Morgan was “cooped up” in the town. His half-starved and poorly clad men were all but frozen in the terrible northeast storm. Their eyes could not endure the hail; their faces were “hoar with frost” and weird with pendant icicles; their rifles were practically useless. Finding himself alone with a few of his men and a sprinkling of brave Pennsylvanians, and confronted in a narrow street by his massed enemies, he resolved to cut his way through. The attempt was madness itself. At last, he stood at bay with his back to a wall. With tears streaming down his face, he refused to surrender and challenged his enemies to come and take his sword. A hundred muskets were levelled at his breast, when several of his men begged him to resist no further. Denouncing his enemies as cowards, he acquiesced in the importunities of his followers, but refused to surrender his sword to any person save a noncombatant priest who chanced to be near.
The heroism of the Americans in this assault attracted the admiration of the world. Frederick, of Prussia, praised Montgomery as a military chieftain. In the British Parliament, Barrè, Montgomery’s veteran friend and comrade in the war with France which annexed Canada to the crown, “wept profusely,” in extolling his virtues and the bravery of his men. Edmund Burke pronounced him a hero and his men brave patriots. Lord North, in reply for government, cursed the virtues of the Americans and denounced them as rebels. “The term rebel,” retorted Fox, “is no certain mark of disgrace. The great assertors of liberty, the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind in all ages have been called rebels. We owe the constitution which enables us to sit in this house to a rebellion.” And North was silent!
It was during his confinement in “The Seminary,” following his capture, that Morgan was tempted by the British to desert the cause of his country. Had he been made of common clay he might have yielded. He was half-naked; the few garments he wore were in tatters; he was a thousand miles from home; he was a prisoner of war with no prospect of release. But beneath the ragged hunting shirt of this nobleman from the Virginia forests beat a heart as full of loyalty as of love for his country. The polished and generous Governor-General, Sir Guy Carleton, knew of his wonderful courage in the assault. Through the mediation of a subordinate, he tendered Morgan in delicate and diplomatic language “the commission, rank and emoluments of a colonel” in the British Army. “I hope, sir,” was his disdainful reply, “I hope, sir, you will never again insult me in my present distressed and unfortunate situation by making me offers which plainly imply that you think me a scoundrel.”
On the 10th day of August, 1776, the prisoners of war in Quebec were released on parole, and a month later landed from the transports at Elizabethtown Point. General Washington gave Morgan a flattering reception. His high qualifications as an officer had become known throughout the army, and the Commander-in-chief desired to avail of his talents at once. From the Heights of Harlem, on the 20th day of September, 1776, General Washington addressed a communication to the President of Congress urging the appointment of Morgan to succeed Colonel Hugh Stephenson of the Rifle Regiment lately ordered to be raised. He stated “his conduct as an officer, in the expedition with General Arnold last fall, his intrepid behavior in the assault on Quebec, when the brave Montgomery fell, the inflexible attachment he professed to our cause during his imprisonment, and which he perseveres in,” all entitled him “to the favor of Congress.” After his release from his parole, Congress acted on the recommendation and Captain Morgan became “a Colonel of the Eleventh Regiment of Virginia in the army of the United States.” Before the year 1776 closed he was once more in the field of active operations.
He was ordered northward with a regiment of his own recruiting to check the ravages of the Indians attached to Burgoyne’s army. During that ever memorable campaign under Gates, Morgan and his men were in the thick of every engagement until the capitulation of the British at Saratoga. “Sir, you command the finest regiment in the world,” was Burgoyne’s outburst to him when they were introduced after the surrender. And in his “Review of the Evidence taken before the House of Commons,” in which Burgoyne’s conduct was a subject of investigation, in speaking of Morgan’s regiment having driven the British light infantry from the field and attacked them in their entrenchments, Burgoyne remarks: “If there can be any person who, after considering that circumstance and the positive proof of the subsequent obstinacy of the attack on the post of Lord Balcarras, and various other actions of the day, continue to doubt that the Americans possess the quality and faculty of fighting (call it by whatever term they please) they are of a prejudice that it would be very absurd longer to contend with.”
That is honorable testimony from an able adversary of the part Morgan bore in those momentous days. And yet the name of Morgan was omitted from the official account of the surrender which he did so much to compel. The reason was not far to seek and is now well-known. Again—this time on a triumphant field—did the innate nobleness, the loyalty and love of country of Daniel Morgan overcome the blandishments of the tempter and scorn his proffered preferments. General Gates sought to persuade the honest woodsman to join him and his co-conspirators in the “Conway Cabal,” which had for its object the promotion of Gates over Washington. He refused. Had he yielded, his name would have blazoned the dispatches announcing the capitulation. When Gates had concluded his request, the frank and honest soul of Morgan was aflame with indignation. “I have one favor to ask of you, sir, which is never to mention that detestable subject to me again; for under no other man than Washington as commander-in-chief would I ever serve.”
Vain was the attempt to ignore the services of Morgan and his regiment in the campaign against Burgoyne! The omission of his name by Gates in the dispatches should be supplied by the mighty pen of his grateful countrymen, and writ large, in letters of gold, upon the imperishable annals of the Republic. His enemies paid homage to his gallantry. An incident occurred at this time, as related by Lee in his Memoirs, which illustrates the resentment of Gates towards Morgan and demonstrates how unworthy and undeserved was his malice. Shortly after the rejection by Morgan of General Gates’ proposition to join the “Conway Cabal,” Gates gave a dinner to the principal officers of Burgoyne’s army. The principal officers of the American army were also present. But Morgan was not invited. Having occasion to seek an interview with General Gates before the entertainment was concluded, the British officers, observing the noble mien and soldier-like carriage of Morgan and that he wore the uniform of a field officer, made inquiries concerning his identity immediately upon his withdrawal. When informed that he was Colonel Morgan, of the Rifle Regiment, they arose to a man, and overtaking him in the road severally introduced themselves and declared their admiration for his bravery and skill as a commander.
After the surrender, Colonel Morgan, by express command of General Washington, marched southward to join him. The commanderin-chief was then operating on the Hudson and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and was anxious to avail himself of the remarkable talents of Morgan, whose Rangers were now become the elite rifle-corps of the army. To follow him in all of his engagements while under the immediate command of Washington would prolong this address beyond the limitations which patience and the conventions prescribe. No undertaking having for its object the success of the American cause was too hazardous, no service too difficult for him to perform. It was during this period that developed those intimate personal relations between Colonel Morgan and General Lafayette which continued through life and which is affectionately manifested in the correspondence of the polished Marquis with his unaccomplished friend. In a letter from Fishkill, November 28, 1778, Lafayette, in thanking Morgan for the friendship and good opinion he expressed for him on the eve of his departure for France, said: “Both are extremely dear to my heart; and I do assure you, my dear sir, that the true regard and esteem and the sincere affection you have inspired to me, will last forever.
“Farewell, my dear sir, don’t forget your friend on the other side of the great water, and believe me ever,
“Your affectionate,
“Lafayette.”
But while he was held in the highest esteem by his superior officers and had rendered extraordinary services to his country, Congress ignored him in dispensing its favors and continued to promote over his head men of smaller talents who had friends at court. Finally he determined to resign. Not even the influence of Washington, once his mind had been formed, was powerful enough to dissuade him from his purpose. Early in July, 1779, he presented a laudatory letter from Washington to Congress and offered his resignation. It was accepted, and the war-worn hero mounted his horse and rode homeward to the verdant valley of the Shenandoah. Greatly was his departure regretted in the army. In a letter to him dated “Haverstraw, Nov. 9, 1779,” General John Neville, then an officer in Woodford’s brigade, said: “Then, say they, for old Morgan a brigadier, and we would kick the world before us. I am not fond of flattery; but I assure you, on my word, that no man’s ever leaving the army was more regretted than yours, nor no man was ever wished for more to return.”
For fifteen months he remained with his family, a close student of passing events in the progress of the war. The attention of the British was now directed towards the South and Morgan was filled with apprehension by the preparations being made to bring it under British subjection. Leading three thousand fresh troops from New York, Cornwallis had arrived near Charleston to take command in that section. So rapid and effective were his operations that on the 12th day of May, 1780, when he was ready to assault the town by land and water, General Lincoln signed a capitulation of the city and surrendered his army. By the end of June, the British commander was able to report that he had put an end to all resistance in South Carolina and Georgia; and that in accordance with his plan of operations, he would after the September harvest reduce the province of North Carolina, continue his march to the Chesapeake, and from that base conquer the province of Virginia.
Disregarding the wishes of Washington, Congress on the 13th day of June unanimously named General Gates, instead of General Greene, to succeed Lincoln in command of the Southern Department. It proved to be one of the saddest blunders of the war.
In receiving this independent command, Gates was instructed to report directly to Congress and not to the commander-in-chief. He was authorized to appoint his own staff-officers; to address himself directly to Virginia and to the States north of it for supplies; and to engage his army in such manner for the defense of the South as his judgment alone should approve. Ambitious as Lucifer, and vain by nature, this mark of great distinction—bestowed in spite of the known opinion of Washington concerning its unwisdom—gave Gates unlimited confidence in his abilities. Miscalculating the fighting strength of his “grand army,” two thirds of which consisted of raw militia from the various provinces that had never been paraded together, he marched against the best disciplined troops in the world, led by Cornwallis, at Camden, and suffered a defeat which demoralized the entire South, deprived him of his command and terminated his military career. “Two thirds of the army ran like a torrent,” he wrote, forgetting to add that he ran with them and did not quit running until he arrived, ahead of the fleetest of the fugitives, at Hillsborough, North Carolina, two hundred miles away—making the distance in the splendid time of three and one half days!
MAJOR JOHN W. BOURLET.
Of Concord, N. H.
Many years in charge of the printing and publishing of the volumes of the Society.
Deceased, January 19, 1910.
At this juncture, Cornwallis was the most conspicuous figure in the British Army in America. Already “the pride and delight” of Lord George Germain, his successes vindicated the opinion which that minister entertained of his military talents, and he was now designed by the Cabinet to supersede Clinton as commander-in-chief—being considered “the one man on whom rested the hopes of the ministry for the successful termination of the war.” Proud of this favoritism on the part of the Cabinet and conscious of the hopes and expectations of the King, Cornwallis began preparations for his northward march. Success had elated him. He believed he would swing from victory unto victory until he had brought all of the people south of the Delaware again under the dominion of the crown.
He began the work of subjugation by inaugurating a reign of terror not excelled in point of barbarity in the annals of civilized warfare. After his victory at Camden, he erected a gibbet, and began the summary and indiscriminate execution of those among his prisoners who had formerly received their parole. He gave stringent orders to his subordinates to imprison all who refused to enter the British Army and thus became the instrument of their own subjection. The confiscation of property and the destruction of life assumed hideous forms. “South Carolina,” says Bancroft, “was writhing under the insolence of an army in which every soldier was licensed to pillage, and every officer outlawed peaceful citizens at will.” The gold and silver plate and other valuables divided amongst the victors at the fall of Charleston amounted in value to a million and a half dollars, the dividend of a major-general alone being four thousand guineas. Cold-blooded assassinations by men holding the King’s commission, often in the presence of the wives and children of the helpless victims, were frequent. No engagements by capitulation were respected. Woodsmen in their rude cabins were suddenly surrounded and put to death, not because they were in arms against the King, but because they were not in arms for him. The tomahawking in June, 1777, of poor Jane McRae by one of the two Indians in the British service who were escorting her under British protection from Fort Edward, New York, to her expectant betrothed in the British lines, and who quarreled over the reward promised for her safe arrival, found a fitting complement three years later in South Carolina when Colonel Tarleton, of His Majesty’s service, personally beat the wife of a general officer of the Continental army because of his activity in the cause of his country. Equalling this villainy, Lord Rawdon, one of Cornwallis’ commanders on the Santee, who had found great difficulty in forcing his Irish Regiment to fight against the American patriots, issued an order dated July 1, 1780, in which he said: “I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for any deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland and five guineas only if they bring him in alive.”
To the disgrace of the ministry of Lord North, these practices were not only known to but were approved by the Cabinet. Indeed, they met the “hearty and repeated applause” of those charged with the conduct of the war, Germain declaring in orders to Clinton that “no good faith or justice is to be expected from them and we ought in all our transactions with them to act upon that supposition.”
Such was the temper of the British and such was the condition of the people of South Carolina when Cornwallis moved forward.
The army was in three divisions—the main body under Cornwallis, at Camden; Tarleton’s Legion, at Winnsborough; and the Brigade of Provincial troops under Major Ferguson, at Post Ninety-Six. It was at this time that Morgan again took the field. The defeat of Gates at Camden had stirred his patriotism to its very depths. In the distress of his country he buried all resentment of the ill-treatment he had received from both Gates and the Congress—the hardy warrior again drew his sword. And Gates with his pride humbled and his heart filled with humility by adversity, desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes, resolved upon giving Morgan an independent command. The British began their march in the second week of September—a delightful season in the southern clime, perhaps the loveliest of the year. The earlier cereals had yielded to the sickle, and the sheaves, standing like mute sentinels in the field, had been bound by the reapers. The maize was nearly ripe. Supplies for the troops were plentiful. Indeed, the proud Cornwallis had no thought of care for his army that did not dissolve in the kindling prospect of glory and renown.
In the opinion of Bancroft, the ablest British partizan officer at that time in America was Major Patrick Ferguson, in command of the left division of the army. He was ordered to enlist as he passed northward, the young loyalists who had fled to the mountains for security and those fugitives whose love of plunder would find indulgence and protection under the British standard. House-burners and assassins, plunderers and wrongers of women and children, were massed in his command. But neither Ferguson nor his desperate troops were fated much longer to pillage, burn and kill. At King’s Mountain, on the 7th day of October, the backwoodsmen from the Virginia mountains, the commands of Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, the men from North Carolina under McDowell and Cleaveland—all by common consent under the command of the redoubtable Virginian, William Campbell, a brother-in-law of Patrick Henry—every man armed with his own rifle and riding his own horse, determined to avenge the wrongs which they and their kinsmen had suffered at the hands of the British troops. A bloody battle was fought and Ferguson was pierced through the heart. His entire command was captured.
Six days after this event, on the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, and John Rutledge, the great chief magistrate of South Carolina, Congress appointed Daniel Morgan a Brigadier-General in the army of the United States. The news of the death of Ferguson and the surrender of his army at King’s Mountain reached Cornwallis on the march from Charlotte to Salisbury. The destruction of one-third of his army, at a single blow, and the death of his ablest commander were reverses as stunning as they were unexpected. His fears were at once aroused for the safety of the posts in his rear, now being constantly menaced by Marion and Sumpter.
He first halted. Then he retreated. Determining to reinforce his army, before resuming his march, with the three thousand men under General Leslie at Portsmouth, Virginia, he ordered that officer to join him by way of Charleston. He recrossed the Catawba and posted himself at Winnsborough on the 29th day of October, intending to await the coming of Leslie. On the 4th day of December, 1780, General Nathaniel Greene succeeded General Gates in command of the American army in camp at Charlotte. And now began the series of stirring events which culminated in the most remarkable and surprising battle of the war and the destruction of the second division of Cornwallis’ proud army.
The whole American force at this time did not exceed two thousand men, only eight hundred of whom were regulars. It was an army almost entirely devoid of necessary equipment. It had no tents and few wagons; it was badly armed and its supply of ammunition was short. Its men were almost naked, with not more than three days’ provisions in store. General Greene’s orders, under these circumstances, were as necessary as wise—he determined to divide his force into two bodies and post them on the right and left flanks of the British. Under his own command, the main body was to occupy a position on the Pedee River; while a detachment under General Morgan was to operate between the Broad and Pacolet. The detachment under Morgan consisted of five hundred and eighty men in all—three hundred and twenty-eight light infantry, two hundred Virginia militia and about eighty cavalry. They were put in motion on the 20th of December, 1780, for the country between the rivers I have just named. Greene offered him wagons. He refused them as being incompatible with the nature of light troops. When Cornwallis learned of Morgan’s movement, he misinterpreted it to mean an attack on the British post called Ninety-Six. On the 2d day of January, 1781, Cornwallis addressed this familiar note to Tarleton, which is indicative of the close personal relations existing between the parties to it, as well as the wholesome respect they had for Morgan:
“Dear Tarleton: I sent Haldane to you last night, to desire you would pass Broad River with the legion and the first battalion of the 71st as soon as possible. If Morgan is still at Williams’, or anywhere within your reach, I should wish you to push him to the utmost. I have not heard, except from McArthur, of his having cannon, nor would I believe it, unless he has it from very good authority. It is, however, possible, and Ninety-Six is of so much importance that no time is to be lost.
“Yours sincerely,
“Cornwallis.”
Tarleton promptly obeyed these instructions and was soon in possession of sufficient information to warrant him in assuring Cornwallis that Ninety-Six was in no immediate danger from Morgan. He then conceived and proposed to Cornwallis the plan of operations against Morgan which ended in the celebrated battle which we commemorate tonight and immortalized the name and fame of the big raw-boned boy with the Irish brogue who came to the Valley of Virginia in 1755 “out of the land of God-knows-where”!
That plan contemplated a joint movement against Morgan on the part of Tarleton and Cornwallis by which they would compel him “either to fight, disperse across the mountain or surrender.” It was at once approved. Cornwallis sent Tarleton a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty men and on the 7th of January put the main body in motion to act in conjunction with him. On the 16th day of January Cornwallis reached Turkey Creek. Filled with anxiety lest Greene should attack and defeat the troops under Leslie, and having no doubt that the dashing Tarleton with his superior numbers would defeat Morgan if he overtook him, Cornwallis determined to await at Turkey Creek until General Leslie joined the main army. It was a fatal decision. Not more than twenty-five miles away was about to be enacted the tragedy to the British arms, in which a rude and untutored genius, commanding undisciplined woodmen half-naked and half-starved, was matched against an educated and accomplished officer in command of regular troops greater in number, well-fed, well-conditioned, and as thoroughly disciplined as any troops in the world. The beginning of the end of British authority over American soil was at hand.
Through his superior system of scouts and their knowledge of woodcraft, Morgan was always thoroughly informed of the movements of his enemies. The orders of General Greene required him to hold his ground as long as he possibly could and not to dispirit the inhabitants by a retreat unless it were a necessity to save his troops from destruction or capture. But the time had now come for him to retire in haste before the British or to give battle to Tarleton before Cornwallis could join him. With a noble confidence in his troops, Morgan determined to fight. He made his camp on the night of January 16, 1781, two miles from a grazing-ground for cattle known as the Cowpens, sixteen miles from Spartansburg, South Carolina, and five miles from the North Carolina line. The news that he had determined to give battle to Tarleton was received by his men with exclamations of joy. He knew the enemy’s strength was superior to his own—that the British infantry embraced twice his number and the cavalry three times the little force under his command. He knew the advantage of the British because of their artillery. But he was unafraid. Against the superiority of numbers, he placed the skill of his riflemen and their zeal to punish an enemy who had wantonly inflicted upon them and their kinsmen and kinswomen personal wrongs of the most grievous character. But above all, he placed their love of country and a willingness to die in its defense.
“The night before the battle,” says Major Thomas Young in Orion, Vol. III., page 88, “he went among the volunteers, helped them to fix their swords, joked them about their sweethearts, and told them to keep in good spirits, and the day would be ours. Long after I laid down, he was going about among the soldiers encouraging them, and telling them that the ‘Old wagoner would crack his whip over Ben (Tarleton) in the morning, as sure as he lived.’ ‘Just hold up your head, boys,’ he would say, ‘three fires and you are free! And when you return to your homes, how the old folks will bless you and the girls will kiss you for your gallant conduct.’ I don’t think he slept a wink that night.”
It is as far beyond my purpose, Mr. President, as it is beyond my ability, to describe the action which began at sunrise on the 17th day of January, 1781, and ended at “two hours before noon.” In the judgment of Bancroft, Morgan was at this time the “ablest commander of light troops in the world,” and I content myself with saying that on that bloody but happy day his disposition of his troops, his personal bravery, and the result which attended it, all, all confirm the pronouncement of the great historian. The battle was fought in an open wood, “affording to the movements of an army all the facilities of a plain.” Tarleton himself declared it to be “as proper and convenient a place for an action as he could desire.” It resulted in an American loss of twelve killed and sixty wounded. Of the enemy, “ten commissioned officers were killed and more than a hundred rank and file; two hundred were wounded; twenty-nine commissioned officers and more than five hundred privates were taken prisoners besides seventy negroes.” Two standards, upward of a hundred dragoon horses, thirty-five wagons, eight hundred muskets and two field pieces were also captured. The British army was practically destroyed—the fragment which survived, with the flying Tarleton at their head, being driven pell-mell in ignominious flight to the main body at Turkey Creek. Thus again, by a single blow, was another third of Cornwallis’ proud army annihilated.
The fame of this surprising victory spread throughout the country. Greene announced it to the army in general orders, saying the victors were “the finest fellows on earth, more worthy than ever of love.” The governors of the Southern States made proclamation of the event. The Commonwealth of Virginia, in the plenitude of her gratitude, voted Morgan a house and sword as a testimonial of “the highest esteem of his country for his military character, so gloriously displayed.” From Charlotte, under date of January 21, 1781, the gallant General Davidson, who was so soon to yield his life in resisting Cornwallis’ passage of the Catawba, sent Morgan a note by “Parson McCaully” extending his “warmest congratulations on the late glorious victory,” and saying “you have, in my opinion, paved the way for the salvation of the country.”
Greene wrote him from Camden August 20, 1781: “The people of this country adore you.” “Great generals are scarce—there are few Morgans to be found.” From Montok Hill, August 15, 1781, while Morgan was recuperating his health, Lafayette wrote: “My dear Friend: I have been happy to hear your health was better. I hope the springs will entirely recover it; and then, my dear sir, I shall be happier than can be expressed, at seeing you with the army. You are the general and the friend I want.” In the Congress, a resolution was adopted placing on record on behalf of the people of the United States “the most lively sense of approbation of the conduct of Morgan and the men and officers under his command.” It ordered that a medal of gold be struck and presented to him in commemoration of the gratitude of his countrymen. It attempted to sum up his merit in three words: “Virtus unita valet.”
Modest, indeed, was the report of Morgan himself of the battle. “Our success,” said he to Greene, “must be attributed to the justice of our cause and the gallantry of our troops. My wishes would induce me to name every sentinel in the corps.” He did name some of his officers in that original report of the battle dated “Camp near Cain Creek, Jan. 19, 1781,” and it will arouse the pride of every man of Irish blood to read them. Listen to this much of it: “Major McDowell, of the North Carolina volunteers, was posted on the right flank in front of the line, one hundred and fifty yards; and Major Cunningham, of the Georgia volunteers, on the left, at the same distance in front. Colonels Brannon and Thomas, of the South Carolinians, were posted in the right of Major McDowell and Colonel Hayes and McCall, of the same corps, on the left of Major Cunningham. Captains Tate and Buchanan, with the Augusta riflemen, to support the right of the line.” In the Maryland Regiment, were Major Edward Giles, Morgan’s aid; Captain Gilmore, and Ensign McCoskell. McDowell and Cunningham and Tate and Giles and Gilmore and Hayes and McCoskell and McCall and Brannon, commissioned officers all, in one battle! From this array, it would seem that the Irish may modestly lay claim to have struck at least one blow for Independence!
The military career of Morgan was now nearly ended. Immediately upon the termination of the engagement, he began that masterly retreat for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles before the troops of Cornwallis and Leslie, to form a junction with Greene, which was so necessary to save his little corps from annihilation or capture. To overtake him, Cornwallis destroyed his entire baggage train, and converted his army into light troops. But in vain. Though heavily encumbered by the captured munitions of the enemy and his celerity retarded by the prisoners of war, Morgan conducted his retirement with great prudence and success, and in twenty-one days joined Greene at Guilford Court House, his pursuers being but twenty-five miles in his rear. His heroic band was saved.
Emaciated from want and crippled with disease resulting from hardships he endured in the Canadian campaign, Morgan was now scarcely able to sit upon his horse. When mounted he could not ride out of a walk. He “was a sufferer to the verge of human endurance, and was forced to ask for leave of absence to regain his broken health. Slowly and painfully he made his way homeward; and he was never again physically fit for active operations. But his warlike spirit was never at rest while an armed enemy of his country was in the field. In June, 1781, when Tarleton was raiding eastern Virginia, he raised and equipped a body of cavalry at his own expense and at the earnest importunity of Benjamin Harrison and Archibald Cary, Speakers of the House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia, he placed himself at their head to join Lafayette. But in August his old malady compelled him again to retire.
The spirit of the old hero chafed under his enforced idleness. The termination of the titanic struggle was now discernible to his experienced eye and he longed to participate in the closing events. The French fleet was in the Chesapeake, cutting off the escape of Cornwallis by sea. In his rear was Lafayette—there was no retreat to the southward. On his flank was the Marquis of St. Simon—there was no flight to the mountains. And from the north, at the head of the main army, marched George Washington with his veteran troops.
The stupendous event which took place at Yorktown on the 19th day of October, 1781, at 4 o’clock p. m., and its influence on the history of the human race, all the world knows. Morgan was at home at that time on a bed of sickness. He wrote Washington under date of September 20, lamenting that his condition prevented him from serving in the field. It was a letter full of personal and patriotic utterances—so much so that Washington felt impelled to answer it in kind. His answer is dated “Headquarters, before York, 5th October, 1781.” “Surrounded as I am,” he wrote, “with a great variety of concerns on the present occasion, I can yet find time to answer your letter of the 20th ultimo, which I have received with much satisfaction; not only as it is filled with such warm expressions of desire for my success on the present expedition, but as it breathes the spirit and ardor of a veteran soldier, who, though impaired in the service of his country, yet retains the sentiments of a soldier in the firmest degree.
“Be assured that I most sincerely lament your present situation, and esteem it a peculiar loss to the United States that you are, at this time, unable to render your services in the field. I most sincerely thank you for the kind expressions of your good wishes, and earnestly hope that you may soon be restored to that share of health which you may desire, and with which you may again be useful to your country in the same eminent degree as has already distinguished your conduct.”
Within two weeks’ time from the date of that cordial letter, Cornwallis surrendered his army, the war of the Revolution had been fought to a finish and the military life of Daniel Morgan was ended.
To his estate in Clarke County, Virginia, which he proudly called “Saratoga,” he now retired; and there he spent his declining days. For two years, in obedience to the call of his people, he served them in the Congress of the nation; but, as he had been most warlike in time of war, in time of peace he preferred the quiet shades of private life. On the sixth day of July in the year 1802, in about the sixty-seventh year of his age, he passed out at Winchester, in Virginia, and there lies his dust in an humble grave.
Mr. President, the dust of Daniel Morgan is noble dust. Saving alone those of the commander-in-chief, his services to his struggling country are the most remarkable in the annals of the war. From the valley of the Hockhocking in 1774, he pledged himself to the services of his brethren of Boston and marched his riflemen six hundred miles to their relief. Into the hardships of the Canadian Campaign he led the van; and three times before Quebec he guided his men to the fire-fringed heights with the courage of a demi-god. To him belongs the chief glory of Burgoyne’s surrender; and at the Cowpens he won what Bancroft affirms was “the most astonishing victory of the war.” His life was a succession of sacrifices for his country. Measure his services as you may—in number, in value, or in brilliancy—they are not surpassed by those of any officer of the Revolution, saving always the unapproachable Washington. In fifty contests with the enemy he participated—eight of them being general engagements—and in those in which he was charged with the responsibility of command, he was either successful or achieved results which were equivalent thereto. His patriotism was proof against British allurements when he was a ragged prisoner of war; and his sense of honor repelled the temptations of a superior brother-officer in the hour of victorious exultation. Into every danger where wartime duty called him, he “fought a good fight”; in spite of every wile of the seducer, “he kept the faith”; into the quietude of private life he carried the praises of the whole army and the plaudits of the civil representatives of his country. But he did not escape calumny. He paid the inevitable penalty which success entails, and paid it with the smile of scorn and the noble silence of conscious rectitude. The American people, as yet, have no Madeleine, no Valhalla, no Westminster, wherein repose the ashes of their mighty dead. But when that national mausoleum comes, as come it ought and come it will, to it in some future generation the dust of Daniel Morgan will be tenderly borne and in honor inurned beneath its vaulted halls. Meantime, he sleeps yonder at Winchester amidst the lovely hills of Old Virginia, and, “in honored rest,” sleeps well well—
“His truth and valor wearing.”
No marble pile marks his resting place. He needs none! Congresses may, his countrymen never will, forget his devotion to the Republic. On the portals of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the stranger who would behold the monument of its architect, Sir Christopher Wren, is admonished in stately Latin to “look around him.” Si quaeris monumentum, circumspici! Ye who would behold the monument of Daniel Morgan, lift your eyes to the towering dome of your country’s Capitol and consider all that it represents! Read the Bill of Rights incorporated in the charters of your commonwealths, and reflect upon the inalienable prerogatives it preserves to eighty millions of freemen! Study the constitution itself and realize with Gladstone that it is “the most wonderful work ever struck off in a given time by the brain and purpose of man!” Ponder those blessings of liberty which, in their full flower and fruition, every American enjoys tonight! And when ye have done this, remember that Daniel Morgan was of the fathers by whose blood and spirit they were established. Sublimer than effigies of brass, more enduring than granite shafts, are these memorials of the men of the old heroic days. Upon the rights of mankind are they founded, and they will remain even unto the last day of recorded time. And when Time shall be no longer—when, in the ultimate convulsion of nature, the archangel-trumpeter shall sound his summons for the living and the dead to render final accounting of their stewardship—before the Judge of the Nations in the group of immortals who blazed the way for the glory of the American Republic, will stand the tall Irish chieftain of the Virginia Riflemen, “with a countenance like the lightning and in raiment as white as snow.”