“His orders were promptly obeyed, the soldiers rushing in among the fleeing prisoners, and firing among them in all directions. One poor fellow fell wounded, and a number of soldiers surrounded him. He got on his knees and begged them to spare his life, but their answer was:
“‘No mercy here.’
“They then discharged the contents of their muskets into him and left him a mangled corpse. Others fleeing for the doors of their respective prisons, that always before had been left open at turning-in time, found them shut, and while endeavoring to gain the opposite door, found themselves subject to the cross-fire of the soldiers. This was further proof that this work was premeditated. After much inquiry we learned that seven men were killed and sixty wounded.”
From a copy of a daguerreotype at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
As it happened, in the rush of prisoners to escape into their rooms, a British soldier was wedged into the mass and carried inside. As soon as he was discovered a Yankee boatswain piped for order. The doors had now been locked and the prisoners had the soldier completely in their power. With their wounded shipmates before their eyes—some of them dying—a cry for vengeance arose.
“Hang him! hang him! hang him!” rang through the building. It was now the soldier’s turn to beg for the mercy that had been refused to the wounded one who had knelt and begged in the passageway. It is with the heartiest satisfaction that Americans read in this day that when a vote was taken among the prisoners as to what should be done with the soldier, the result was “decidedly in favor of releasing him.” He had merely obeyed the order of Captain Shortland.
There was an investigation, of course. Sixty-seven men, held prisoners because they had refused to fight against their flag, had been shot down in a prison where they were under the most rigorous rules, although the ratified treaty of peace had been deposited in London more than six weeks before. They had been shot down through the spleen of a British post captain. Mr. Charles King represented the American Government. “Mr. King had rather, at any time, smooth over a quarrel, than increase the exasperation by dealing sternly with its causes,” says an old-time apologist for his act. He conceived it to be his duty to smooth over the wanton murder of which Captain Shortland was guilty. When “the massacre at Dartmoor was disavowed by the British Government,” he was satisfied.
CHAPTER XIV
STORIES OF THE DUELLISTS
TRADITIONS OF PERSONAL COMBATS THAT ILLUSTRATE, IN A WAY, A PART OF THE LIFE LED BY THE OLD TIME NAVAL OFFICERS—WHEN AN ENGLISHMAN DID NOT GET “A YANKEE FOR BREAKFAST”—THEY WERE OFFENDED BY THE NAMES OF THE YANKEE SHIPS—SOMERS WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT HE WAS NOT DEVOID OF COURAGE—THE FATE OF DECATUR, THE MOST FAMOUS OF THE NAVY’S DUELLISTS.