Stephen Watts Kearny was born in the year 1793, in the town of Newark, New Jersey, in a mansion yet the property of his family. Though not prone to admit that the adventitious circumstances of birth add any real dignity to individuals, either in America or elsewhere, it may not be improper to state that the family connections of the deceased general were of such a character as to have entitled him to a prominent social position any where, he being a relation of the well-known Lady Mary Watts, and a connection of the gallant and noble General Alexander (Lord Stirling) of the revolutionary army. The grandson of an emigrant, who settled in New Jersey, before the revolution, the family of Gen. Kearny had always occupied a prominent position in society, and exerted much influence in his native state.
At the commencement of the war of 1811, young Kearny, then about eighteen, was a student at Princeton College. Contrary, it is said, to the advice of his friends, he obtained a commission from Mr. Madison, and reported for duty as a lieutenant in the 13th regiment of infantry, in which he was attached to the company of which the present very distinguished General John E. Wool was the captain.
With two companies of his regiment he was present at the gallant affair of Queenstown, and with Colonel, since Gen. Scott, was surrendered a prisoner of war. This was on the 13th of October, 1812. In this affair the companies of the thirteenth had been long opposed to the greatly celebrated and highly disciplined forty-ninth British infantry, a regiment which had stood the ordeal of the Peninsula War, and had won laurels from the best troops of France. The forty-ninth had occupied, with heavy reinforcements of Canadian militia, a battery on a commanding position. The cannonade and musketry from this point was so severe that every commissioned officer was in the first assault either killed or wounded, and Col. Van Rensselaer who commanded, was carried from the field unable to stand. Before he left, however, he ordered every man who could move to storm the battery. Three more gallant officers than those who carried his order into execution probably never lived. They were Captain Wool, Lieutenant Kearny, and 2nd Lieutenant T. B. Randolph, late of the Virginia regiment. By orders of Capt. Wool the two companies of the 13th, which originally had numbered but one hundred, all told, were extended and ordered to close upon the guns. This perilous manœuvre was executed with brilliant success, the enemy were driven precipitately from his guns, which were the first trophies to the United States of the war with Great Britain. This field was young Kearny’s first arms, and was a brilliant promise of what was to be his future career. The battle was important to the United States, though, as is well known, Col. Scott and his gallant command of regulars were forced to surrender. To the English it was most disastrous, Major Gen. Sir Isaac Brock, the captor of Detroit, a man thought worthy to compete with Wellington for the command of the British army in Spain, having been picked off by an American marksman. Throughout this trying engagement young Kearny sustained himself with the firmness which he maintained through life. When driven to the hill selected by the present Col. Totten as the strongest point, his perseverance was as distinguished as his impetuosity had been during the charge.
After the surrender, Kearny, with the other prisoners, was marched to the Canadian village of Niagara, where, it is said, they were scarcely treated with the consideration due such gallant soldiers. There occurred a circumstance of thrilling character often told—the attempted murder of Col. Scott by the Indian chiefs “young Brandt and Captain Jacobs,” which, had it proved successful, would have made irreconcilable the war between Great Britain and the United States. It failed through the great personal courage of Col. Scott and the gallantry of Captain Coffin, an aide of Gen. Sheafe, but the would-be murderers were never punished by the British government. The recurrence of such scenes, and the probability of long confinement, exercised a most unhappy effect on the mind of Kearny, who saw as the consequence of his captivity (at that day there were no exchanges of prisoners) the ruin of his professional prospects. After a confinement of some weeks at Niagara, Kearny was with the other prisoners sent to Quebec. For a long time he continued moody and morose, until a circumstance occurred, which the present general-in-chief relates, that restored his wonted alertness. The prisoners were taken to Quebec in a vessel, and from the carelessness incident to this mode of travel, the idea of a possible escape occurred to Col. Scott. The plan was to overpower the guard, to march at once to the nearest division of the United States troops on the frontier, and take their conductors with them as captives. Col. Scott imparted this plan to Kearny, who at once entered into it with his whole soul. His energy returned, and he became again the wild subaltern who had led the first platoon of the thirteenth at Queenstown. Circumstances prevented this plot from being carried into execution, but it had gone far enough to show that the subject of this memoir had as much prudence as valor.
The prisoners at last arrived at Quebec, and their situation at once became most painful. They were confined in the old French castle, and were subjected to many indignities. This was before Niagara and Lundy’s Lane, and countless other fields had taught the British army that the American soldiers were worthy antagonists. At that time the British army was filled with the aristocracy of the country, which could not conceive or imagine the true position of a country without a nobility. Countless trivial insults were daily given, and which galled to the last degree the forbearance of the prisoners. The following anecdote may explain what they were.
On one occasion, when the American prisoners dined at the garrison mess, an officer of the British staff arose, and with a pointed pomposity gave the toast, “Mr. Madison, dead or alive.” The faces of the American officers flushed with indignation, which was not diminished when they saw a young American lieutenant rise from his chair, and in the blandest manner, and with a most insinuating smile, give thanks for the remembrance of the Chief Magistrate of the United States. All thought him drunk or mad, as he proceeded to say, “he felt the weightiness of the burden imposed on him by the silence of his seniors, that he would not give thanks for the toast last drunken, but would give another in return. He was sure the officers of both services present would understand him when he gave ‘the health of his royal highness, the Prince of Wales, DRUNK OR SOBER.’” If a shell had exploded under the table the surprise could not have been greater, and the danger of a collision became imminent, when the senior officer of the British army present, a man of tact and taste, interfered, and sent the person who had given the first toast from the table under arrest. This anecdote is variously told in the service, and sometimes is attributed to Gen. Kearny, and sometimes to the late Mann Page Lomax, major of artillery, who was at the time a prisoner in the castle of Quebec. It is perfectly characteristic of each of these officers, and whether Gen. Kearny be the hero or not, aptly enough illustrates this portion of his career. The American victories in the West, by which hosts of prisoners were acquired, soon placed the men of Queenstown in a different position, and they were exchanged.
Kearny was with Scott at the time the latter officer resisted the attempt to place in confinement the Irishmen surrendered at Queenstown, and ably sustained him in his energetic action in relation to this high-handed measure. He sailed in the cartel to Boston, and immediately on his arrival, proceeded to rejoin his regiment. He was subsequently stationed at Sacket’s Harbor, where he acquired the reputation for discipline and soldiership which never deserted him. While at this post the British commander, Sir James Yoe, and Commodore Chauncy, were manœuvring for possession of the lake. On one occasion, when in possession of a temporary superiority, Sir James appeared in front of the harbor and challenged the commodore to a fight. This the latter refused, because he had no marines. When the reason was told Capt. Kearny, (he had in the interim been promoted) a gallant officer of New York, a captain of artillery, named Romain, offered at once to go on board and serve as marine. The offer was not, however, accepted, much to the chagrin of Kearny and Romain.
Captain Kearny served through the war, and on the reductions of 1815 and 1821, was retained in the service with his old grade and rank. In 1823 he received the usual brevet for ten years faithful service, and was assigned to the command of the beautiful post of Bellefontaine, near St. Louis, and in that year accompanied Brigadier General Atkinson in his famous expedition to the Upper Missouri. This was before the introduction of steamboats into those waters, and the expedition was one of the most tedious imaginable. The boats were necessarily to be propelled by poles and oars against the rapid current of the Missouri, and not unfrequently by the tedious process of cordelling. This is done by extending from the capstan of the boat a cable, which is made fast to the shore, and thus the vessel must carefully be wound up until the rope is exhausted. Then a new rope is stretched, and the same tedious process undergone. Often, when in the midst of rapids, the cable would break, and before the vessel could be brought up, a greater distance than had been gained in a week would be passed over. In the course of two years they reached the Yellow Stone river, twenty-two hundred miles above St. Louis, and displayed the colors of the 1st and 6th infantry where the United States flag had never been seen before. The Sioux, the Pawnee, the Mandan, and Arickra, were made acquainted with the government, of which before they had but a vague knowledge, and the vast resources of that immense country for the first time revealed to the nation.
On his return Major Kearny received a full majority in the third infantry, and was removed to a new sphere, to the southern extremity of the Indian territory. While major of this regiment he established the post of Towson, on the banks of Red River. To reach this place, easy of access as it is at present, it was necessary to pass through what was then a wilderness of prairie, but which to the soldiers inured to the incessant storms of the Upper Missouri, seemed almost an Arcadia. After crossing the northern tributaries of the Arkansas, they were in the midst of the range of the buffalo, and the countless herds of wild horses which then abounded even there. The latter, not unfrequently, amazed at the novel sight of the marching troops, would dash up, as if to charge the columns, pause with as much unanimity as if they acted by command, encircle it, and tossing their long manes and forelocks, hurry out of view. New objects continually met his gaze, and the information then amassed was among the most valuable ever collected under the auspices of the government. On this march Major Kearny was accompanied by his accomplished wife, a step-daughter of Gen. M. Clark, of St. Louis, whom, about the time of his promotion, he had married. With the third infantry Major Kearny remained until the Black Hawk war, when almost all the troops of the country were concentrated in the country of the hostile Indians.
While a major of the third, an incident occurred, which, though often told, will bear repetition. On one occasion, while stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Major Kearny was drilling a brigade on one of the open fields near the post. The manœuvre was the simple exercise of marching in line to the front. An admirable horseman, he sat with his face toward the troops, while the horse he rode, perfectly trained, was backed in the same direction, along which the command was marched. At once the animal fell, fastening the rider to the ground by his whole weight. His brigade had been drilled to such a state of insensibility, that not one of them came to his assistance; nor was it necessary. The line advanced to within about ten feet of him, when, in a loud, distinct voice, calmly as if he had been in the saddle under no unusual circumstance, Major Kearny gave the command, “Fourth company—obstacle—march.” The fourth company, which was immediately in front of him, was flanked by its captain in the rear of the other half of the grand division. The line passed on, and when he was thus left in the rear of his men, he gave the command, “Fourth company into line—march.” He was not seriously injured—extricated himself from his horse, mounted again, passed to the front of the regiment, and executed the next manœuvre in the series he had marked out for the day’s drill.