General Pakenham was met by the solid phalanx of Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen, who reserved their fire, as usual, until the loud uniform of the English could be distinctly heard, when they poured into their ranks a galling fire, as it was so tersely designated at the time. General Pakenham fell mortally wounded, and his troops were repulsed, but again rallied, only to be again repulsed. This went on until night, when General Lambert, who succeeded General Pakenham, withdrew, hopelessly beaten, and with a loss of over two thousand men.
The United States now found that an honorable peace had been obtained, and with a debt of $127,000,000 started in to pay it up by instalments, which was done inside of twenty years from the ordinary revenue.
In the six years following, one State per year was added to the Union, and all kinds of manufactures were built up to supply the goods that had been cut off by the blockade during the war. Even the deluge of cheap goods from abroad after the war did not succeed in breaking these down.
James Monroe was almost unanimously elected. He was generally beloved, and his administration was, in fact, known as the original "era of good feeling," since so successfully reproduced especially by the Governors of North and South Carolina. (See [Appendix.])
Through the efforts of Henry Clay, Missouri was admitted as a slave State in 1821, under the compromise that slavery should not be admitted into any of the Territories west of the Mississippi and north of parallel 36° 30' N.
Clay was one of the greatest men of his time, and was especially eminent as an eloquent and magnetic speaker in the days when the record for eloquence was disputed by the giants of American oratory, and before the Senate of the United States had become a wealthy club of men whose speeches are rarely printed except at so much per column, paid in advance.
Clay was the original patentee of the slogan for campaign use.
Lafayette revisited this country in 1819, and was greeted with the greatest hospitality. He visited the grave of Washington, and tenderly spoke of the grandeur of character shown by his chief.
He was given the use of the Brandywine, a government ship, for his return. As he stood on the deck of the vessel at Pier 1, North River, his mind again recurred to Washington, and to those on shore he said that "to show Washington's love of truth, even as a child, he could tell an interesting incident of him relating to a little new hatchet given him at the time by his father." As he reached this point in his remarks, Lafayette noted with surprise that some one had slipped his cable from shore and his ship was gently shoved off by people on the pier, while his voice was drowned in the notes of the New York Oompah Oompah Band as it struck up "Johnny, git yer Gun."
Florida was ceded to the United States in the same year by Spain, and was sprinkled over with a light coating of sand for the waves to monkey with. The Everglades of Florida are not yet under cultivation.