Various

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

PART I.

PART II.

CHAPTER I. (2)

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

TRANSLATION.

THE BLUE-BIRD.

THE GROUND-ROBIN.

CHAPTER I. (3)

CHAPTER II. (2)

CHAPTER III. (2)

NATURE'S TRIUMPH.

THE RAINY DAY.

JULY
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
1849.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXV.      July, 1849.      No. 1.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Poetry, Music, and Fashion

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

. . . . . .

1849.

POETRY.

REVIEWS.

MUSIC.

ENGRAVINGS.

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 manoeuvre 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 manoeuvring 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 manoeuvre 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 manoeuvre in the series he had marked out for the day’s drill.

We are now, however, to see Major Kearny in a new and more important sphere of action.

During the whole of the last war with Great Britain cavalry was not once employed as a battle-piece, and in spite of the great services of the horse which had been commanded, during the revolution, by Cols. Lee and Washington, and by Count Pulaski, this great arm had become most unpopular. Consequently, on the reduction, no skeleton even of a corps had been retained—the sabres were locked up, the saddles and horses sold, and the officers and men disbanded. The policy, however, of disposing the eastern tribes along the western frontier, and the rapid strides of emigration west ward, brought the army into contact with the mounted tribes of the prairie, who evidently could never be overtaken or punished for depredations they at that time used to commit, by foot-soldiers, armed with heavy muskets, and laden down with knapsacks and camp equipage. Of this evident proof had been obtained in the expedition of Gen. Atkinson, mentioned above, and other excursions which had brought the officers and men of the 6th, 3rd and 1st infantry into contact with the nomad tribes of the Camanch. If other demonstration were required, it was furnished by the events of the Black Hawk war, when it became necessary to raise a body of mounted gunmen for special service, which was done under the auspices of the present distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Dodge. These troops, called Rangers, did good service enough to induce Congress to authorize the levy of a strict cavalry corps called Dragoons. The whole army, with very few exceptions, was impressed with the necessity of this corps, for which the most distinguished men in their several grades of the service applied. On its organization, Major Kearny was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, and on him depended almost exclusively the discipline, the colonel, Dodge, though a brave man, not having the military education or experience requisite to make him the active head of a new corps, in the details of which not only men but officers were to be instructed. Col. Kearny, during his long seclusion in the west, had been a patient student, and had made himself master of all the theory of his profession, and in a short time made his regiment one of the best in the world. Within less than a year after the first muster of the regiment, it was sent, under its colonel, as a part of the command with which the lamented Gen. Leavenworth marched to the Spanish Peaks. This disastrous march, in the course of which so many men and officers died, was most trying to a new corps, which had no guide to direct them. Here all the experience of the old world was at fault. Cavalry had there to march but from one hamlet to another, finding forage and grain everywhere. Here eight hundred miles of wilderness were to be overcome, and more than once the jaded horses were without even water. This proved the perfectness of the regiment, and the thoroughness of the discipline which induced the gallant and veteran Gen. Gaines to speak, in an official letter, of the first dragoons as “the best troops I ever saw;” and the officer who had defended Fort Erie, beaten back a victorious enemy at Chrysler’s Field, and received the keys of St. Augustine, certainly knew what a soldier was.

In 1835, Col. Kearny visited with one wing of his regiment, the Sioux, on the Upper Missouri, and had the satisfaction at a council to reconcile the long animosity between them and the Sauks and Foxes. He also made a long march to the head-waters of the Mississippi, visiting the village of Wabisha, and effecting a cessation of the trespassing of the British subjects, from the Earl of Selkirk’s settlement at Pembina, on the territories of the United States. In July, 1836, he was made colonel of the first dragoons; and from this period a sketch of his services would be almost a history of the West, not one trouble on the frontier occurred in the settlement of which he was not instrumental; and with six companies of his regiment he was able to protect a line of frontier eight hundred miles long. Stationed at Fort Leavenworth, be made himself the idol of the West, and devoting himself to his regiment, made its discipline perfect. He had now acquired a high rank, and the qualities he had always possessed became conspicuous. Bland in his manners, but of iron firmness, kind to his juniors, his equals, or those nearly so, requiring the strictest obedience, measuring his expectations by the rank of the officer, his conduct became proverbial. To his men he was most considerate, so that they looked on him as a protector. It is believed that during the whole time he commanded the first dragoons no soldier ever received a blow, except by the sentence of a general court martial for the infamous crime of desertion. The lash disappeared, and though probably the strictest disciplinarian in the service, there was less punishment in his corps than in any other. About this time the system of drill of the dragoons was changed, and he was long engrossed in the instruction of his regiment, having the troublesome task of unlearning them all he had taught of the old system, from which the new one differed entirely in mode and principle of combination.

In the year 1839, the two Ridges, father and son, and Elias Boudinot, chiefs of the Cherokees, were murdered by a hostile clique of their own tribe, and there seemed imminent danger that a war would originate. Immediately on the receipt of the news of a possible collision, Col. Kearny determined to proceed to the scene. The officer of the quarter-master’s department on duty with him being unable to furnish the requisite funds, the colonel provided them from his own resources, and after a very rapid march appeared with six companies of his regiment at Fort Wayne. Words can not express the difference between his companies and those in garrison at that post; the beautiful condition of the men and horses of the first, and the rough-coated nags and unclean condition of the men of the second. After the difficulty had gone by, he effected an exchange of garrisons, and with the neglected and abused left wing, proceeded to Fort Leavenworth, where, in a short time these companies became equal in discipline to the others of the corps. The companies of the Fort Wayne garrison which he took with him to Leavenworth, were those which, under the command of the gallant and lamented Capt. Burgwin, and the excellent soldier, Major Grier, did such good service, and so much distinguished themselves in the campaign in New Mexico against the revolters and the Pueblo and Navajo Indians.

In 1842, he was appointed to the command of the third military department, with head-quarters at St. Louis. There he remained until 1846, with the exception of his long march to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains in 1845. There is no doubt that this is one of the most extraordinary marches on record, both from its distance, its rapidity, and the fact that he passed among semi-hostile tribes nearly two thousand miles; crossed deep and rapid streams by swimming, gave protection to the immense army of emigrants en route to California, and returned without losing a man or horse.

In 1846, the war with Mexico began, and he was assigned to the command of the army of the West with orders to occupy New Mexico and California. To reach Santa Fe an immense march was to be undertaken across a country but sparsely furnished with wood and water, and where no supplies were to be met with or obtained until the enemy’s country should be reached, and in all probability a battle fought and won. To accomplish this, precisely such a man as Col. Kearny was required. He was familiar with the service, and possessed the unbounded confidence of the people of Missouri, from which state the volunteers who were to compose the main body of his army were to be drawn. In a most unprecedented short time the men were enrolled, and all necessaries supplied, and before Armijo, the governor of New Mexico was aware of his approach, the army was in the capital of the province. Like CÆsar, Gen. Kearny might say, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Immediately before the capture of Santa Fe, Col. Kearny had received his promotion to the grade of Brigadier-General, and abandoned to his successor the standard of a regiment he had borne from the Gulf of Mexico to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and which was to be the first flag of the army which waved on the shores of the Pacific. After obeying his orders, and providing for the future peace of the country, he proceeded to California, across a country where an army had never marched before, and which was considered impassable. Cold, a wilderness, absolute barrenness, were all to be overcome. Scarcely, however, had he set out on this expedition than he was met by an express, informing him that California was conquered. Relying on this, he sent back all his troops except one hundred men, and proceeded to the valley of the Gila. Of the sufferings of his men, of the almost starvation which forced them to eat the flesh of the emaciated dragoon-horses which had borne them so far we will not speak. When he emerged into the fertile country, it was not until after severe contests against immense odds, and until he had lost many favorite officers and picked men, to all of whom he had become endeared by participation in the dangers of a march across the American continent.

On the 2d of December, 1846, Gen. Kearny arrived at Warner’s Rancho, one of the extreme eastward settlements of California. He there learned certainly what he had previously heard from a party of Californians, that the population had risen against the invaders and that Andreas Pico was near San Diego with a superior party, intending to give him battle. Though exhausted by a long march, and mounted on broken-down mules, Gen. Kearny hurried to attack him. On the night of December 5, he heard that Pico was at the village of San Pascual, and on the next morning met him. At once a charge was ordered, which broke Pico’s line and forced it to retreat. After a flight of half a mile, however, it was rallied and charged the head of the American force, and lanced many of the foremost men. A desperate hand to hand fight ensued, which resulted in the discomfiture of Pico, not, however, until Captains Moore and Johnston, and Lieutenant Hammond, and sixteen men had been killed, and fourteen persons wounded, including the general himself, and all the officers except Captain Turner, who, though he greatly distinguished himself, escaped untouched. The inequality of the contest was immense, when we remember that the Californians, the most superb horsemen in the world, were mounted on excellent chargers, while the dragoons were on mules which had marched from Santa Fe. The dead were buried; this sad duty, and the necessity of making further arrangements, detained the party all day. On the next day the march was resumed, but encumbered as they were, they were able to proceed but nine miles when the enemy charged them again. The needful preparations to receive them were made, when the enemy wheeled off, and attempted to occupy an eminence which commanded the route. From this, after a sharp skirmish, they were driven with some loss, and then Gen. Kearny encamped. As Pico evidently intended to dispute every pass, the general determined to remain where he was until reinforcements, for which he had sent to the naval commander at San Diego, should arrive. Four days afterward a force of marines, under Capt. Zelin, U. S. M. C. and of sailors, commanded by Lieutenant Gray, arrived, and with this force Gen. Kearny marched without molestation to San Diego, a distance of thirty miles. A difficulty about the command here arose between Commodore Stockton and Gen. Kearny, which could not be settled in California, where the naval commander had far the superior force. It did not prevent their undertaking a joint expedition against Puebla de los Angelos, which was in possession of a strong Mexican force under Flores.

On the 8th of January the Mexicans were met six hundred strong, with four guns, in the face of whom the American force of sailors, marines, and the remnant of the dragoons, forded the river, and after a short, sharp, and decisive affair, drove them from the field. On the next day the enemy again appeared, and, as usual, were beaten, and on the 10th Puebla de los Angelos was occupied. At these affairs both the naval and army commanders were present, and the question of who was commander added somewhat to the difficulty already existing between them. At this time Lieut. Col. J. C. Fremont, then of the mounted rifles, commanded a numerous body of volunteers in California. Gen. Kearny ordered this officer to join him. This Col. Fremont did not do, but on the contrary, considered Com. Stockton as his commander. Consequently, when on the arrival of land reinforcements from the United States, Gen. Kearny assumed and maintained his command, he ordered Col. Fremont to accompany him home. Col. Fremont was subsequently arrested and tried for this dereliction of duty, found guilty of mutinous conduct, and sentenced to be dismissed the service. A portion of the court which tried him having recommended the remission of the sentence, the President acquiesced, and he was ordered to duty, but immediately resigned his commission. The prosecution of the charges against Col. Fremont detained Gen. Kearny in Washington during a portion of the winter of ’47 and ’48, and was, doubtless, most painful to him, for no man in the army had previously borne a higher character for soldiership than Col. Fremont. The court martial fully sustained Gen. Kearny in every pretension, and but one person has been found in America to cavil at the sentence.

In the spring of 1848, Gen. Kearny was ordered to Mexico, whither he proceeded at once. All hostilities were, however, then over, and though he was in the discharge of his duty, his service there was uneventful. On the conclusion of the war he returned home, and was assigned to the command of the military division of which St. Louis is the head-quarters. He there had the proud satisfaction to receive the brevet of major-general for his services in New Mexico and California. He had, however, brought with him the seeds of an insidious disease which soon overcame his strength, enfeebled as it was by privations and trials of every kind. He died at St. Louis, October 31, 1848, leaving a wife and a family of young sons to regret him.

In the eventful career of Gen. Kearny he had always been distinguished as one of the best officers of his grade in the service. From a subaltern to the highest rank he rose, every step having been won by service. He was bland in his manners, dispassionate and calm. Quick and ready in forming his opinions, he yet did not act hastily, and when once he had decided, was immutable in his course. A great student and thinker, he never talked except when he had something to say, yet possessed a fund of anecdote and universal information rarely to be met with. In the West he was a popular idol, so that the whole population acquiesced in the apparently arbitrary steps he was often called on to take in the discharge of his duty. To his subalterns he was endeared by a thousand kindnesses, and to the whole army by respect and admiration. He left in all the army list no one superior to him in personal courage, science in his profession, or the minor qualities which contribute so much to make the soldier.

Immediately on the receipt of the news of his death, the Secretary of War, Mr. Marcy, published an order containing the following high tribute to his important services.

“War Department.

Washington, Nov. 6, 1848.

The President with feelings of deep regret announces to the Army the death of Brigadier-General Stephen W. Kearny, Major-General by brevet. The honorable and useful career of this gallant officer terminated on the 31st of October at St. Louis, in consequence of a disease contracted while in the discharge of his official duties in Mexico.

General Kearny entered the army in 1812 as lieutenant, and continued in it until his death—a period of more than thirty-six years. His character and bearing as an accomplished officer were unsurpassed, and challenge the admiration of his fellow citizens and the emulation of his professional brethren. His conquest of New Mexico and valuable services in California have inseparably connected his name with the future destiny of these territories, and it will be ever held in grateful remembrance by the successive generations which will inhabit these extensive regions of our confederacy.”