MAJOR-GEN. RIPLEY.
Eleazer Wheelock Ripley was born in Hanover, in New Hampshire, in the year 1782. His father, the Reverend Sylvanus Ripley, was professor of divinity of Dartmouth College; his maternal grandfather was the Reverend Eleazer Wheelock, founder of the institution of which his father was professor, and the son a graduate. By the same side he was lineally descended from the celebrated Miles Standish, the Scanderberg of his day, whose memory is justly cherished as the early protector of the Plymouth colony. The Reverend Mr. Ripley dying early in life, left a large family under the care of his widow, to whose virtuous and devoted attention may be ascribed the future success of her offspring, particularly that of the subject of this memoir, then at the tender age of five years. At the age of fourteen, Eleazer was admitted to Dartmouth college, from which institution he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in the year 1800, being only in the eighteenth year of his age. His course, while an under graduate, had been distinguished, and at the time of graduation he received the highest honors of the college. After leaving college, he commenced the study of the law in the town of Waterville, Massachusetts.
In this memoir we can only give slight traces of his early life, but infer from the information of historians, that he gave early presages in youth of what has since been realized in manhood. He was assiduous and successful in his studies, and exemplary in his life and conduct; and the early eminence attained by Mr. Ripley in his profession, tested the assiduity with which he had devoted himself to the study of it. In the year 1807, he was elected to the legislature of Massachusetts, from the town of Winslow, in that state. At the period when the nation first felt the effect of the offensive edicts of the two great belligerent powers of Europe, Mr. Ripley’s political character strongly developed itself. He was aware that the insults and aggressions of France would lead to a war, for which just cause had been given, provided the equal avidity and greater means of annoyance of Great Britain did not make that country the mark of an equally just enmity.
When, in the year 1808, their combined hostility became more apparent and oppressive, he conceived that was the moment for a declaration of war, for which the country would never be better prepared, a crisis which sooner or later must come.
In 1811, Mr. Ripley was elected to the chair of the speaker of the house of Representatives of Massachusetts, vacated by the late Hon. Joseph Story; over which he presided with distinguished ability and impartiality.
In 1812, he declared for the necessity of a war, and was induced to assume an active duty in it, by accepting a lieutenant-colonelcy in the army of the United States. On leaving his civil and legislative duties, Colonel Ripley was entrusted by the commander-in-chief with the charge of a sub-district, from Saco to the eastern frontier, with orders to place the same in the best posture of defence. To this was added the superintendence of the recruiting service, which in a short time embodied his recruits into a regiment, called the twenty-first, of which he had the sole command.
With this regiment he marched to Plattsburgh, on the northern frontier, where an army under the command of the late General Pike was encamped.
The winter of 1812 he spent with his regiment at Burlington, Vermont, where he commenced that school of discipline and police which led his regiment to its subsequent fame, and made it the model of the army. In March, 1813, Colonel Ripley left his winter quarters for Sacket’s Harbor, to join General Pike’s brigade, and prepare for the attack on York, Upper Canada. On the 23d of April, the troops embarked on that enterprise, and on the morning of the 27th, arrived before the town which was the object of it. The immediate command of the assault was entrusted to General Pike. On entering the bay of York the ships were severely cannonaded by the forts defending the harbor, while they in turn covered with their guns a large portion of the beach, on which it was intended that the troops should form. On the debarkation of a body of riflemen under Major Forsyth, the enemy fled to the woods, giving time for the main body to form on the beach, and move in close column to the attack of the principal fort. The troops thronged into the works, when the awful explosion of the magazine took place, which annihilated the leading columns, and mortally wounded their gallant commander General Pike. During the confusion, the enemy called in his detached parties, and concentrated his force in the town. Colonel Ripley, who also had been wounded in the explosion, soon collected his scattered army and prepared to charge the enemy, who made a precipitate retreat, leaving an immense quantity of artillery and stores, some few prisoners, and the town to make its own conditions. A surrender was made, and Colonel Ripley’s regiment was stationed to guard the property of the citizens from depredation. On the 30th, the army re-embarked for the assault of Fort George; but a long and severe storm detained and prevented its reaching its destination until the 27th of May, when Fort George was assaulted and taken. On the 3d of June, Colonel Ripley having been ordered to return to Sacket’s Harbor to organize the large body of recruits collected during the winter, reached that place on the 11th instant, where he was detained by severe indisposition, until the 15th of July; from that time until October the regiment was employed in an incessant course of instruction; the drill, general discipline, and police, were carried to their highest perfection, which produced the most successful results. In November following, Colonel Ripley and the 21st regiment played a conspicuous part in the descent of the St. Lawrence; after which they retired again to their winter quarters at Sacket’s Harbor. In the spring of 1814, the army was put in motion for the Niagara frontier. On the 15th of April, Colonel Ripley was created brigadier-general, and early took his leave of the corps of his own training, the 21st regiment. The command of General Ripley was not augmented by his increased rank. The division of the army under General Brown consisted of two brigades, of which General Scott commanded the first, General Ripley the second. From the 4th of May until the 3d of July, the army pursued its usual routine of instruction, when it commenced the passage of the Niagara, and invaded the province of Upper Canada. On the morning of the 5th, General Brown detached a portion of General Porter’s volunteers to drive back a body of the enemy’s light troops and Indians that infested a wood on the left wing of the army. About mid-day Generals Brown and Ripley advanced to ascertain the effect of this attempt, when it was observed that the firing, which had been irregular and receding, from the circumstance of the enemy’s having been driven back, changed into a regular heavy platoon discharge. This discovery made it necessary for Generals Ripley and Scott to join them; they had scarcely advanced when the enemy appeared in line, and the brilliant action ensued, so well known, and so justly celebrated, which caused the enemy to retire in such rapid and confused precipitation across the Chippewa, that no attempt to impede his flight could prove effectual. Everything that could not be moved in haste was abandoned, and the enemy retreating into his entrenchments, left the American army undisturbed possession of the ground in front of them. From this until the 24th the army were in frequent skirmishes with the enemy. As the succeeding day produced the most memorable battle during the war, there are circumstances which require a somewhat minute relation, and which are given on these pages from the concurring testimony of the most distinguished officers present. During the course of the 25th, a piquet stationed beyond the Chippewa, reported the advance of a small party of the enemy on the Niagara road, and that several columns had been thrown across the river to Lewistown, to proceed towards Schlosser, to seize on our wounded and baggage. General Scott, in order to draw them back, made a demonstrative movement toward Queenstown. About two hours after its departure a fire of musketry was heard, on which General Ripley immediately formed his brigade, to be in readiness for an emergency of which he had not been apprised; scarcely was it ranged, when the increased fire of musketry, accompanied by heavy discharges of artillery, announced the unexpected certainty of General Scott’s being engaged. Shortly afterwards an order arrived from General Brown, directing him to advance.
The enemy was posted on an eminence, his artillery in the centre, and from it, and a long line of infantry, poured on the first brigade an annihilating fire: that brigade had held position in direct front of the enemy, less than one hundred yards distance; the action had continued nearly two hours, during which an attempt to turn our left had been repulsed, but no advance had been made on the enemy’s line, which, from its superior position, beyond the reach of material annoyance from our artillery, kept up so deadly a fire that the first brigade was fast sinking under the effect of it. The 25th regiment line of brigade, under the command of Major, now General Jessup, being thrown on the enemy’s right flank, captured General Riall, and performed other acts of heroism reflecting the most unfading honor on its gallant commander. At the same instant he formed the 21st regiment under the command of the brave Colonel now General Miller, to attack the cannon in direct line in front, and to push both the 21st and 23d regiments upon the enemy. The two bodies struck the enemy’s line at nearly the same moment, the 21st falling immediately upon the cannon, the 23d on the infantry supporting it. At this moment of confusion it is scarcely possible to do justice to many individuals most honorably engaged. Colonel Miller, to whom the sole charge of the attack in front was entrusted, evinced that unconquerable gallantry which is identified by but one spirit, and that of the noblest sort. As the enemy was now advancing under cover of the darkness, General Ripley gave orders that the fire should be retained until that of the assailants was received, in order that ours might be made more effective by being directed by the light of his. In a few moments he advanced to within a distance of ten or twelve paces, and, from a line far outflanking ours, poured in one continued blaze of musketry; this was promptly answered by our troops, and at this short distance, a tremendous conflict commenced: for the space of twenty minutes an incessant gleam of light was emitted from both lines; sections mutually recoiled where the severity of the fire was most excessive; those on our side were inspirited and brought again to the charge by the personal exertion of General Ripley, and such a vigor infused in their resistance, that the enemy was forced back in confusion, and fell to the bottom of the hill. During the short period that intervened between this charge and a subsequent repetition of it, the first brigade was forming itself in the rear of the second, and at the moment when the two lines were in their second encounter, General Scott passed his corps through an opening in the one before it, to throw himself upon the enemy then engaged in a vigorous discharge of musketry. From this point he again advanced to the attack of the enemy’s right flank, but being compelled to fall back, he left his brigade on the left and pushed along the line to the extreme right. The enemy’s second charge being repulsed, General Ripley still retained his position on the eminence. It was now midnight, and the enemy being reinforced, advanced to his third and most vigorous effort. The same deadly assault was made, which in like manner was frustrated and forced back. This was a perfect skirmish; the enemy mingled himself with our ranks; two of our guns were spiked, and the utmost confusion prevailed in every direction; but by the firmness and bravery of the 21st regiment and its gallant officers, the line was preserved, and the enemy again, and for the last time, recoiled from it in confusion and dismay; leaving the line under General Ripley master of the field. The darkness was now impenetrable, and although the field, on which were strewed our dead and wounded, was ours, an enemy of superior force was on its borders, and of the measures which his late discomfiture might induce him to adopt we were necessarily ignorant. Under these circumstances General Ripley condensed the remnant of our shattered force and marched toward Chippewa. Such was the memorable battle of Niagara; although the conquest was ours, one-third of our slender force engaged in it were now wounded or dead. Some time after midnight the army arrived at its encampment, when General Ripley waited on General Brown, then wounded, in his tent. General Brown requested that General Ripley should refresh the troops, of which the whole command now rested with him, march them in the morning to the battle-field, and if the enemy appeared there in force, to be governed entirely by circumstances.
At daybreak the army was arranged, and the march commenced, when they found the enemy had been reinforced since the battle of the preceding evening, and that it would be an act of madness to attack an enemy thus increased, with two-thirds only of the force in the previous conflict. The army consequently retrograded across the Chippewa, the bridge of which they destroyed, and likewise everything that might aid the enemy’s advance.