He rallied his men with great bravery under a destructive rifle fire and gained the ditch beneath the stockade walls. There he ordered his men to cut down the pickets and give the Americans no quarter. At the proper second of time the masked embrasure was thrown open and the slug-charged cannon was permitted to belch its death-dealing contents into the close packed mass of soldiers at short range. Few escaped this destructive fire. Colonel Short was killed.
The second column, led by Major Chambers and Colonel Warburton, was also defeated by the line in charge of Captain Hunter. When night came the enemy withdrew in a disorderly fashion, leaving behind them one of their gunboats, some of the wounded, much ammunition and many guns. At nine o’clock the next morning, Major Croghan sent an express to Harrison announcing his victory and the retirement of the defeated enemy. The defenders of the fort lost only one killed and seven wounded of the 100 men who answered roll call. Ten times that number opposed them, and 2,000 more were in reserve near Fort Meigs to cut off any reinforcement from that direction.
In his official report of the battle Harrison said: “It will not be among the least of Proctor’s mortifications that he has been baffled by a youth who has just passed his twenty-first year. He is, however, a hero worthy of his gallant uncle, Gen. George Rogers Clark.” The brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel was at once conferred upon the young hero by the president of the United States, and he was presented with a sword by the ladies of Chillicothe. Of this victory, Gen. W. T. Sherman, writing from the standpoint of a military expert, said: “The defense of Fort Stephenson by Croghan and his gallant little band was the necessary precursor to Perry’s victory on the lake and of Harrison’s triumphant victory on the Thames. These assured our immediate ancestors the mastery of the great West, and from that day to this the West has been the bulwark of the nation.”
The following year saw him made a full lieutenant-colonel. He served with distinction until 1817, when he resigned and went to New Orleans to live. He was made postmaster of that city in 1824. Some years later he was appointed inspector general of the army, and in 1835 he was voted a gold medal by Congress in recognition of his fight of twenty-two years before.
He died on January 8, 1849, while the guns were thundering their salutes in honor of another great victory, that of General Jackson, another Irishman’s son, over Packenham and the British below New Orleans in 1814. His body was removed to the old family burying ground at Locust Grove and buried near that of his famous uncle, where they were found last June by Maj. Webb C. Hayes, acting for the Fremont Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which is named after Major Croghan.
They were removed to Fremont on June 10, and were placed temporarily in the vault at Oakwood Cemetery. The pall-bearers were five venerable survivors of the Mexican War who had enlisted in Sandusky County. The youngest was seventy-seven years of age and the oldest eighty-five. As Croghan was inspector-general of the army during the Mexican War, they can be said to have served under him. The dead hero left three children. His only son, St. George Croghan, died on the field early in the Civil War, wearing the gray of the Confederate army. A grandson, also George Croghan, survives, and there are other descendants on the distaff side.
The Daughters of the American Revolution have erected on the British redoubt 250 yards northwest of Fort Stephenson a tablet commemorating the fact that it was there that the cannon from Commodore Barclay’s fleet thundered against Croghan’s walls. Exultingly the fact is proclaimed that Barclay was afterward wounded and his entire fleet, including the cannon which had been used against Fort Stephenson, was captured by Commodore Perry at the battle of Lake Erie in the following September.
IRISH SETTLERS ON THE OPEQUAN.
Compiled from an Article by “Iveagh,” in the Belfast (Ireland) Witness.
The year 1718 marks an epoch in the history of America, because in that year a band of sturdy Ulster men turned their faces and fortunes towards the new world. This early and most important organized company of emigrants to leave Ireland in the eighteenth century sailed from Lough Foyle in the year above named, and consisted of about 100 families. (Marmion’s Maritime Ports of Ireland.) These people founded a colony in New Hampshire which became famous in the history of America. The emigrants were of as much importance to America as were those of Plymouth, and from them are descended equally if not more distinguished men.