Notes
[1]: An incident occurred after the battle, which presented in striking contrast the two opposite natures of Jackson. An Indian warrior, severely wounded, was brought to him, whom he placed at once in the hands of the surgeon. While under the operation, the bold, athletic warrior looked up, and asked Jackson in broken English, "Cure 'im, kill 'im again?" The latter replied, "No; on the contrary, he should be well taken care of." He recovered, and Jackson pleased with his noble bearing, sent him to his own house in Tennessee, and afterwards had him taught a trade in Nashville, where he eventually married and settled down in business. When that terrible ferocity, which took entire possession of this strange, indomitable man in battle, subsided away, the most gentle and tender emotions usurped its place. The tiger and the lamb united in his single person.
[2]: The Peruvian Government supposed that Spain, as the ally of England, would make common cause with her on this continent, and so to be beforehand, fitted out cruisers against our commerce in the Pacific.
[3]: This was Stephen Decatur M'Knight. Lieut. Wilmer, after fighting gallantly, was knocked overboard and drowned. The other officers were badly wounded, and one, Lieut. Cowell, died soon after.
[4]: The British were 2100 strong. American troops actually engaged, 1900.
British killed 138. Wounded and missing 365. Americans killed 68. Wounded and missing 267.
[5]: Vide Ingersoll, vol. II, page 189.
[6]: The scene and the occasion which called forth this beautiful ode, have helped to make it a national one. It requires but little imagination to conceive the intense and thrilling anxiety with which a true patriot would look for the first gray streak of morning, to see if the flag of his country was still flying, while the heart involuntarily asks the question—
"O, say, can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming—
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?