General Scott Part 1

General Scott.

by General Marcus J. Wright.

PREFACE.

In the preparation of this volume the author has consulted and used with freedom the following-named works: History of the Mexican War, by General Cadmus M. Wilc.o.x; Autobiography of General Scott; Life of General Scott, by Edward D. Mansfield; Life of General Scott, by David Hunter Strother; Life of General Scott, by J.T. Headley; History of the Mexican War, by John S. Jenkins; Anecdotes of the Civil War, by General E.D. Townsend; Sketches of Ill.u.s.trious Soldiers, by General James Grant Wilson; Fifty Years' Observation of Men and Things, by General E.D. Keyes; Reminiscences of Thurlow Weed, and Historical Register of the United States Army, by F.B. Heitman.

My thanks are due to Mr. David Fitzgerald, Librarian of the War Department; Mr. Andrew H. Allen, Librarian of the State Department; and Colonel John B. Brownlow, for many courtesies. I am specially indebted to Mr. John N. Oliver, of Was.h.i.+ngton city, for valuable a.s.sistance rendered me.

M.J.W.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, _August, 1893_.

GENERAL SCOTT.

CHAPTER I.

Parentage and birth of Scott--Precocity--Enters William and Mary College--Leaves college and commences the study of law with Judge Robinson--Attends the trial of Burr at Richmond--Impressment of American seamen and proclamation of President Jefferson--Joins the Petersburg troop--Leaves for Charleston--Returns to Petersburg--Appointed captain of artillery--Trial of General Wilkinson--Scott sends in his resignation, but withdraws it and returns to Natchez--Is court-martialed--On staff duty at New Orleans--Declaration of war with Great Britain--General Wade Hampton and the Secretary of War--Hull's surrender--Storming of Queenstown--March to Lewiston--Scott's appeal to the officers and soldiers--Indians fire on a flag of truce--Incident with a Caledonian priest--Letter in relation to Irish prisoners sent home to be tried for treason.

Winfield Scott was born at Laurel Branch, the estate of his father, fourteen miles from Petersburg, Dinwiddie County, Virginia, June 13, 1786. His grandfather, James Scott, was a Scotchman of the Clan Buccleuch, and a follower of the Pretender to the throne of England, who, escaping from the defeat at Culloden, made his way to Virginia in 1746, where he settled. William, the son of this James, married Ann Mason, a native of Dinwiddie County and a neighbor of the Scott family. Winfield Scott was the issue of this marriage. There were an elder brother and two daughters. James Scott died at an early age, when Winfield was but six years old. William, the father of Winfield, was a lieutenant and afterward captain in a Virginia company which served in the Revolutionary army. Eleven years after the father's death the mother died, leaving Winfield, at seventeen years old, to make his own way in the world.

At the death of his father, Winfield, being but six years old, was left to the charge of his mother, to whom he was devotedly attached.

It is a well-warranted tradition of the county in which the Scott family resided, that the mother of General Scott was a woman of superior mind and great force of character. In acknowledging the inspiration from the lessons of that admirable parent for whatever of success he achieved, he was not unlike Andrew Jackson and the majority of the great men of the world. He wrote of her in his mature age as follows: "And if, in my now protracted career, I have achieved anything worthy of being written, anything that my countrymen are likely to honor in the next century, it is from the lessons of that admirable parent that I derived the inspiration."

In his seventh year he was ordered on a Sunday morning to get ready for church. Disobeying the order, he ran off and concealed himself, but was pursued, captured, and returned to his mother, who at once sent for a switch. The switch was a limb from a Lombardy poplar, and the precocious little truant, seeing this, quoted a verse from St.

Matthew which was from a lesson he had but recently read to his mother. The quotation was as follows: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." The quotation was so apt that the punishment was withheld, but the offender was not spared a very wholesome lesson.

General Scott's mother, Ann, was the daughter of Daniel Mason and Elizabeth Winfield, his wife, who was the daughter of John Winfield, a man of high standing and large wealth. From his mother's family he acquired his baptismal name of Winfield. John Winfield survived his daughter, and dying intestate, in 1774, Winfield Mason acquired by descent as the eldest male heir (the law of primogeniture then being the law of Virginia) the whole of a landed estate and a portion of the personal property. The princ.i.p.al part of this large inheritance was devised to Winfield Scott, but, the devisee having married again and had issue, the will was abrogated. The wife of Winfield Mason was the daughter of Dr. James Greenway, a near neighbor. He was born in England, near the borders of Scotland, and inherited his father's trade, that of a weaver. He was ambitious and studious, and giving all of his spare time to study, he became familiar with the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian languages. After his immigration to Virginia he prepared himself for the practice of medicine, and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. He devoted much of his time to botany, and left a _hortus siccus_ of forty folio volumes, in which he described the more interesting plants of Virginia and North Carolina.

He was honored by members.h.i.+ps in several of the learned European societies, and was a correspondent of the celebrated Swedish naturalist Linnaeus. He acquired such a knowledge of music as enabled him to become teacher to his own children.

James Hargrave, a Quaker, was one of young Scott's earliest teachers.

He found his pupil to be a lad of easy excitement and greatly inclined to be belligerent. He tried very hard to tone him down and teach him to govern his temper. On one occasion young Scott, being in Petersburg and pa.s.sing on a crowded street, found his Quaker teacher, who was a non-combatant, engaged in a dispute with a noted bully. Hargrave was the county surveyor, and this fellow charged him with running a false dividing line. When Scott heard the charge he felled the bully to the ground with one blow of his fist. He recovered and advanced on Scott, when Hargrave placed himself between them and received the blow intended for Scott; but the bully was again knocked to the ground by the strong arm of Scott. Many years afterward (in 1816) Scott met his Quaker friend and former teacher, who said to him: "Friend Winfield, I always told thee not to fight; but as thou wouldst fight, I am glad that thou wert not beaten."

His next instructor was James Ogilvie, a Scotchman, who was a man of extraordinary endowments and culture. Scott spent a year under his tutelage at Richmond, and entered, in 1805, William and Mary College.

Here he gave special attention to the study of civil and international law, besides chemistry, natural and experimental philosophy, and common law. At about the age of nineteen he left William and Mary College and entered the law office of Judge David Robinson in Petersburg as a student.

Robinson had emigrated from Scotland to Virginia at the request of Scott's grandfather, who employed him as a private tutor in his family. There were two other students in Mr. Robinson's office with Scott--Thomas Ruffin and John F. May. Ruffin became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and May the leading lawyer in southern Virginia. After he had received his license to practice he rode the circuit, and was engaged in a number of causes. He was present at the celebrated trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and was greatly impressed with Luther Martin, John Wickham, Benjamin Botts, and William Wirt, the leading lawyers in the case. Here he also met Commodore Truxton, General Andrew Jackson, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, John Randolph, Littleton W. Tazewell, William B. Giles, John Taylor of Caroline, and other distinguished persons.

Aaron Burr was a native of Newark, N.J., and was the grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. He graduated at Princeton in September, 1772, and studied law, but in 1775 joined the American army near Boston. Accompanied Colonel Benedict Arnold in the expedition to Quebec, and acquired such reputation that he was made a major; afterward joined General Was.h.i.+ngton's staff, and subsequently was an aid to General Putnam. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, he commanded a detachment which defeated the British at Hackensack, and distinguished himself at Monmouth. Burr became Vice-President on the election of Jefferson as President, and was involved in a quarrel with Alexander Hamilton, and killed him in a duel at Weehawken, N.J., July 7, 1804. This affair was fatal to his future prospects. In 1805 he floated in a boat from Pittsburg to New Orleans. His purpose was supposed to be to collect an army and conquer Mexico and Texas, and establish a government of which he should be the head. He purchased a large tract of land on the Wachita River, and made other arrangements looking to the consummation of his object. Colonel Burr was arrested and tried for treason in Richmond in 1807, but was acquitted. He died on Staten Island, September 14, 1836.

In May, 1807, the British frigate Leopard boarded the Chesapeake in Virginia waters and forcibly carried off some of her crew, who were claimed as British subjects. Mr. Jefferson, President of the United States, at once issued a proclamation prohibiting all British war vessels from entering our harbors. Great excitement was produced throughout the entire country. The day after the issuance of the President's proclamation the Petersburg (Va.) troop of cavalry tendered its services to the Government, and young Scott, riding twenty-five miles distant from Petersburg, enlisted as a member. He was placed in a detached camp near Lynn Haven Bay, opposite where the British squadron was at anchor. Sir Thomas Hardy was the ranking officer in command of several line of battle s.h.i.+ps. Learning that an expedition from the squadron had gone out on an excursion, Scott, in charge of a small detachment, was sent to intercept them. He succeeded in capturing two mids.h.i.+pmen and six sailors, and brought them into camp. The capture was not approved by the authorities, and the prisoners were ordered to be released, and restored to Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy.

The prospect of a war with Great Britain had abated, and the affair of the Chesapeake being in train of settlement, Scott left Virginia in October, 1807, and proceeded to Charleston, S.C., with a view of engaging in the practice of law. The law of that State required a residence of twelve months before admission to the bar. Scott went to Columbia, where the Legislature was in session, and applied for a special act permitting him to practice. The application failed for want of time. He then proceeded to Charleston, with a view of office practice until he could be qualified for the usual practice in the courts; but the prospect of war being again imminent, he went to Was.h.i.+ngton, and on the application and recommendation of Hon. William B. Giles, of Virginia, President Jefferson promised him a captain's commission in the event of hostilities. No act of war occurring, he returned in March, 1808, to Petersburg, and resumed the practice of law in that circuit; but his life as a lawyer came suddenly to a close in the succeeding month of May, when he received from the President his commission as captain of artillery. He recruited his company in Petersburg and Richmond, and embarked from Norfolk to New Orleans, February 4, 1809.

It being thought that on the breaking out of hostilities the British would at once endeavor to invade Louisiana, a military force was sent to New Orleans under the command of General James Wilkinson. The discipline of the army became greatly impaired, and much sickness and many deaths occurred in this command. General Wilkinson was ordered to Was.h.i.+ngton for an investigation into his conduct as commanding officer, and General Wade Hampton succeeded to the command. The camp below New Orleans was broken up in June, 1809, and the troops were transferred to and encamped near Natchez.

General Wilkinson was charged with complicity with Aaron Burr, and with being in the pay of the Spanish Government, and was tried by court-martial; and although he was acquitted, there were many persons who believed him guilty, and among these was Captain Scott, who was present, as heretofore mentioned, at the trial of Burr, and partic.i.p.ated in the strong feeling which it produced throughout the country.

The apparent lull in the war feeling having produced the impression that there would be no hostile movements, Captain Scott forwarded his resignation and sailed for Virginia, intending to re-engage in the practice of the law. Before his resignation had been accepted he received information that grave charges would be preferred against him should he return to the army at Natchez. This determined him to return at once to his post and meet the charges. Scott had openly given it as his opinion that General Wilkinson was equally guilty with Colonel Burr. Soon after his return he was arrested and tried by a court-martial at Was.h.i.+ngton, near Natchez, in January, 1810. The first charge was for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," and the specification was "in withholding at sundry times men's money placed in his possession for their payment for the months of September and October." Another charge was "ungentlemanly and unofficerlike conduct," the specification being "In saying, between the 1st of December and the 1st of January, 1809-'10, at a public table in Was.h.i.+ngton, Mississippi Territory, that 'he never saw but two traitors--General Wilkinson and Burr--and that General Wilkinson was a liar and a scoundrel.'" This charge was based on the sixth article of war, which says: "Any officer who shall behave himself with contempt and disrespect toward his commanding officer shall be punished, according to the nature of the offense, by the judgment of a court-martial."

Captain Scott's defense to this charge was that General Wilkinson was not, at the time the words were charged to have been spoken, his commanding officer, that place being filled by General Wade Hampton.

General Scott, in his Memoirs, says that some of Wilkinson's partisans had heard him say in an excited conversation that he knew, soon after Burr's trial, from his friends Mr. Randolph and Mr. Tazewell and others, members of the grand jury, who found the bill of indictment against Burr, that nothing but the influence of Mr. Jefferson had saved Wilkinson from being included in the same indictment, and that he believed Wilkinson to have been equally a traitor with Burr. He admits that the expression of that belief was not only imprudent, but no doubt at that time blamable. But this was not the declaration on which he was to be tried. This was uttered in New Orleans, the headquarters of General Wilkinson. The utterance on which he was tried, as will be seen, was made in Was.h.i.+ngton, Mississippi Territory, when General Wade Hampton was his commanding officer.

The finding of the Court on this charge was guilty, and that his conduct was unofficerlike. The facts in regard to the charge of retaining money belonging to the men of his command were, that prior to his departure for New Orleans he had recruited his company in Virginia, and, being remote from a paymaster or quartermaster, a sum of four hundred dollars was placed in his hands to be used in recruiting. Some of his vouchers were technically irregular, and at the time of his trial about fifty dollars was not covered by formal vouchers. This was the finding of the Court, but it expressly acquitted him of all fraudulent intentions. General Wilkinson nursed his wrath, and after the close of the war published an attack on General Scott. His own failure in the campaign of 1813, and especially his defeat at La Cale Mills, compared with Scott's brilliant campaign on the Niagara frontier in the following spring, may have induced this attack.

Captain Scott returned to Virginia after the trial, and under the advice of his friend, the distinguished lawyer and statesman, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, he devoted himself to the study of military works and of English attack. During the time mentioned he wrote a letter to Lewis Edwards, Esq., at Was.h.i.+ngton City, of which he following is a copy:

"PETERSBURG, _June, 1811_.

"DEAR SIR: I believe we have very little village news to give you, nor do I know what would please you in that way. Of myself--that person who has so large a s.p.a.ce in every man's own imagination, and so small a one in the imagination of every other--I can say but little; perhaps less would please you more. Since my return to Virginia my time has been pa.s.sed in easy transitions from pleasure, to study, from study to pleasure; in my gayety forgetting the student, in the student forgetting my gayety.[A] I have generally been in the office of my friend Mr. Leigh, though not unmindful of the studies connected with my present profession; but you will easily conceive my military ardor has suffered abatement.

Indeed, it is my design, as soon as circ.u.mstances will permit, to throw the feather out of my cap and resume it in my hand. Yet, should war come at last, my enthusiasm will be rekindled, and then who knows but that I may yet write my history with my sword?

"Yours truly,

"WINFIELD SCOTT."

[Footnote A: "If idle, be not solitary; if solitary, be not idle." An apothegm of Burton paraphrased by Johnson, "My Motto."]

Scott rejoined the army at Baton Rouge, La., in 1811, and was soon appointed Judge Advocate on the trial of a colonel charged with gross negligence in discipline and administration. By dilatory pleas this officer had several times escaped justice, but on this trial he was found guilty and censured. In the winter of 1811-'12 Scott was frequently on staff duty with General Wade Hampton at New Orleans, and while there saw the first steam vessel that ever floated on the Mississippi.

On May 20, 1812, Captain Scott embarked at New Orleans for Was.h.i.+ngton _via_ Baltimore, accompanying General Hampton and Lieutenant Charles K. Gardner. As the vessel on which they had taken pa.s.sage entered near the Capes of Virginia it pa.s.sed a British frigate lying off the bar.

In a short time they met a Hampton pilot boat going out to sea. This was on June 29th, and this pilot boat bore dispatches to Mr.

Mansfield, the British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, announcing that Congress had two days before declared war against Great Britain. The vessel bearing Captain Scott and his companions went aground about sixteen miles from Baltimore, and he and some others undertook the remainder of the journey on foot. At the end of the fourth mile they pa.s.sed an enthusiastic militia meeting which had just received a copy of the declaration of war. Scott, having on a uniform, was made the hero of the occasion, and was chosen to read the declaration to the meeting. He was here offered a seat in a double gig to Baltimore, but the driver, who had become intoxicated, overturned the gig twice, when Scott took the reins and drove the latter part of the journey. On his arrival at Baltimore he received the pleasing intelligence that he had been appointed a lieutenant colonel in the United States army. He was then in his twenty-sixth year.

He went with General Hampton to Was.h.i.+ngton, where the general asked him to accompany him on an official visit to the Secretary of War. An unpleasant correspondence had a short time previously occurred between the general and the secretary, yet he felt it his duty to make the call. On General Hampton's name being announced to the secretary the latter appeared at the door and extended his hand, while General Hampton simply bowed and crossed his hands behind him. A conversation on official matters was held, at first formal and cold, but gradually terminating in one of a friendly character. When General Hampton rose to leave he extended to the secretary both of his hands; but it was now the latter's turn, and he bowed and placed his hands behind him.

General Hampton sent a challenge to mortal combat, but mutual friends settled the matter without bloodshed, by requiring that Hampton should on the next morning present himself at the secretary's door with both hands extended in the presence of the same persons who witnessed the former meeting. Colonel Scott was now ordered to Philadelphia to mobilize his regiment and organize a camp of instruction. On his own solicitation, he was soon afterward ordered to report to Brigadier-General Alexander Smyth, near Buffalo, N.Y.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The NIAGARA FRONTIER]

The Congress of the United States made formal declaration of war against Great Britain and its dependencies June 18, 1812. In the month previous General William Hull had been appointed to the command of the northwestern army, intended for the invasion of Canada. This army arrived on the Maumee River on May 30th, and marching northward subsequently crossed over at Detroit. High hopes were entertained of the success of this expedition, and the bitterest disappointment and chagrin were manifested throughout the country when it was learned that Hull had surrendered his entire command to the British General Brock on August 14th. The regiment to which Colonel Scott was a.s.signed was the Second Artillery. Colonel George Izard and he arrived on the Niagara frontier with the companies of Nathan Towson and James Nelson Barker. He was posted at Black Rock for the protection of the navy yard there established.

An expedition had been planned by Lieutenant Elliott, of the navy, for the capture or destruction of two armed British brigs which were lying under the guns of Fort Erie. On October 8th Colonel Scott detached Captain Towson and a portion of his company to report to Elliott. On the morning of the 9th the Adams was taken by Elliott and Lieutenant Isaac Roach, and the Caledonia was captured by Captain Towson. In pa.s.sing down the river the Adams drifted into the British channel and ran aground under the British guns. The enemy endeavored to recapture her, but were successfully resisted by Colonel Scott. This was his first experience under fire, and he was complimented for his skill and gallantry. The Caledonia was afterward a part of Commodore Perry's fleet on Lake Erie. The Adams, having drifted aground, was burned to prevent recapture.

The northwestern army at this time consisted of about ten thousand troops. General Henry Dearborn held command near Plattsburg and Greenbush, and was the commanding officer of all the forces on the northern frontier. A portion of his army was camped at Lewistown under the command of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, of New York. General Alexander Smyth was at Buffalo with some fifteen hundred regular troops. Besides these, there were small detachments at Ogdensburg, Sackett's Harbor, and Black Rock.

General Van Rensselaer conceived the plan of making a bold and sudden move into Canada, with a view of capturing Jamestown, and there establis.h.i.+ng winter quarters. The affair of the capture of the two English brigs with fifty men had roused great enthusiasm, and the country was anxious for some success of arms to alleviate the depression occasioned by Hull's surrender. General Van Rensselaer confided the immediate command of the expedition to his relative, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, an officer of coolness and courage, who, with three hundred militia and three hundred regulars, under Colonel Chrystie, on October 13th began crossing the river.

The troops were on the river bank ready to embark an hour before daylight, but from some mismanagement there was not a sufficient number of boats to transport the whole, and they were compelled to cross in detachments. Colonel Chrystie's boat was swept down the river by the current, and he was wounded. On a second attempt he succeeded in landing. With about a hundred men Colonel Van Rensselaer led them up the bank, and halted to await the arrival of the remainder. It was now daylight, and the little command was in full view of the enemy, who opened a deadly fire. Every commissioned officer was either killed or wounded. Finding that the river bank afforded but little protection, Colonel Van Rensselaer determined to storm the Queenstown heights. He had now received four wounds, and was compelled to relinquish the command to Captains Peter Ogilvie, Jr., and John Ellis Wool. In a very short time the fort was taken and the heights occupied by the Americans. The enemy took refuge in a stone house, from which they opened a destructive fire and made two unsuccessful attempts to recapture the lost ground. General Brock rallied his men and led them on, but while moving at the head of the Forty-ninth Grenadiers he fell mortally wounded. General Van Rensselaer recrossed the river and a.s.sumed command, but hastening back to urge forward re-enforcements, the command fell to General Decius Wadsworth, who, however, did not a.s.sume to control the movements. Two light batteries from the Canada sh.o.r.e played on the boats attempting to cross, and there was no artillery with which the Americans could resist.