The Battle of New Orleans Part 9

Eleventh Governor of Kentucky.]

On the expiration of his term Governor Slaughter retired to his country home, and resumed his occupation as a farmer, leading a quiet and useful citizen life until the end. He died at his home in 1830, aged sixty-three years.

KENTUCKY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR OF 1812-15.

It is worthy of mention to the credit of Kentucky that, with a population of four hundred thousand, she furnished for the nation's defense, during the three years of war with England and the savages who allied with her, forty regiments of volunteer militia, besides a number of battalions and companies, over twenty-four thousand men in all, from 1812 to 1815. Excepting a small force of volunteers from the then Territory of Ohio, and a few regulars, her troops made up the entire body of the army of General Harrison in the Northwest campaign, ending with the decisive and crus.h.i.+ng victory at the battle of Thames River, over the combined army of British under General Proctor, and Indians under Tec.u.mseh. That battle was fought and won by the impetuous charges of the Kentuckians, under Colonel Richard M. Johnson, against the Indians, and his brother, Colonel James Johnson, against the British, before the forces in the rear, mainly Kentuckians also, could be brought into action. Before Commodore Perry met the English fleet on Lake Erie, he called for one hundred riflemen from Harrison's army to perch upon the masts and rigging of his s.h.i.+ps, as sharpshooters, to pick off the seamen and gunners from the enemy's decks. One hundred Kentuckians volunteered in this perilous service, and others vied with them the honors of the place, though all were landsmen and strangers to the sea.

The British commodore made a similar call on Proctor's men and Tec.u.mseh's Indians, but none cared to confront the dangers of such a service. The fleets coming to close quarters, the deadly fire of the riflemen in the rigging helped to strew the decks of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps with dead and wounded, and to silence the guns by shooting down the gunners.