Commodore Macdonough’s fleet was anchored off Plattsburg with fourteen vessels and eighty-six guns. On shore could be heard from the deck of his flagship, “Saratoga,” the Commodore giving orders, in that cool, calm voice—so loved by Decatur and Bainbridge—the voice that indicated at once courage, humanity and confidence. Nor were these qualities at all disturbed by the rumor that a “host was advancing down the lake to crush the Yankees!”
The “host” was Captain George Downie, on his flagship, “Confiance,” with a flotilla of sixteen vessels carrying ninety-two guns.
It was now the eve of a great naval engagement—the tenth of September, eighteen hundred and fourteen—the story of which has been told over and over for generations.
Near Captain Dulaney’s headquarters, Morgan slept little that night; across the lake Burlington throbbed with flaring lights, and the town about him was wide awake. He dreamed waking dreams of his ancestor, the Turk, ridden by Captain Byerly, in King William’s wars, one hundred and twenty-five years before—the Byerly Turk, he was called—who had seen the glories of Londonderry and Enniskillan.
Of another ancestor, too, he dreamed, the White Turk, ridden by Oliver Cromwell; and now he, Morgan, was taking part in a war under the saddle of his Lady’s soldier—for this reason an even greater personage than Captain Byerly or Oliver Cromwell!
Long before dawn on the eleventh, his owner rode him out to watch the maneuvers on the lake from an eminence, for it now seemed that Morgan was not to take an active part in this battle.
Commodore Macdonough had drawn his fleet up in two lines, forty yards apart, and as daylight came, and the morning advanced, the force weighed anchor and moved forward in a body. The wind was fair and at eight bells all was ready for the approaching enemy—not more than a league away.
As the British ships came nearer the Americans swung their broadsides to bear—an intense stillness fell whose influence extended to the watchers on land.
The “Saratoga” was silent—waiting—every man at his post, every nerve at the highest tension—some in fear, some in restraint, some in suspense—but every ear astrain against the rending of that awful silence.
And suddenly it was rent!