American Men of Action Part 12

The end, however, was sad enough. When Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Boone's t.i.tles to the land he had laid out for himself were declared to be defective; it was all taken from him, and he moved first to Ohio, and then to Missouri, where he spent his last years. He was hale and hearty almost to the end, leading a hunting-party to the mouth of the Kansas when he was eighty-two years old, and completely tiring out its younger members. Nearly at the end of his life, Congress recognized his services to his country by granting him eight hundred and fifty acres of land in Missouri, and on this grant, the last years of his life were spent. Chester Harding visited him just before the end and painted a portrait of him which remains the best delineation of the redoubtable old pioneer, whose striking face tells of the resolute will, and unshrinking courage which made the settlement of Kentucky possible.

Scarcely less prominent than Boone on the Kentucky frontier, and with a career in many ways even more adventurous, was Simon Kenton. Born in Virginia in 1755, he had grown to young manhood, rough and uncultivated, and with little evidence of having been raised in a civilized community.

At the age of sixteen, he had a desperate affray with a neighbor named William Veach, during which he caught Veach around the body, whirled him into the air, and dashed him to the ground with such violence, that he thought he had broken his neck. Not daring to return home or to linger in the neighborhood, for fear his crime would be discovered and he himself arrested and hanged, he plunged into the wilderness and made his way westward over the mountains, changing his name to Simon Butler.

The two or three years following were spent by him in roaming along the Ohio valley, sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three companions, and always surrounded by danger. On one occasion, his camp was surprised by Indians, and he and his companion were forced to flee for their lives without weapons of any kind, and with no clothing but their s.h.i.+rts. For six days and nights, they wandered without fire or food, suffering from the cold, for it was the dead of winter, and so torn and lacerated that on the last two days they covered only six miles, most of it on hands and knees. Staggering and crawling forward, they came out at last upon the Ohio river, and by good fortune fell in with a hunting-party and were saved.

Kenton's life was full of just such incidents. Daniel Boone found in him a most valuable ally, incapable of fear and with a knowledge of woodcraft surpa.s.sed only by Boone himself. Kenton was inside Boone's fort whenever it was in danger, and on one occasion saved Boone's life.

Let us tell the story, for it is typical of the border warfare in which both Boone and Kenton were so expert.

One morning, having loaded their guns for a hunt, Kenton and two companions were standing in the gate of Fort Boone, when two men, who were driving in some horses from a near-by field, were fired upon by Indians. They fled toward the fort, the Indians after them, and one of them was overtaken and killed and was being scalped, when Kenton and his companions ran up, killed one of the Indians and pursued the others to the edge of the clearing. Boone, meanwhile, had heard the firing, and came hurrying out with reinforcements, only, a moment later, to be cut off from the fort by a strong body of savages. There was nothing to do but to cut their way back through them, and in the charge, Boone received a ball through the leg, breaking the bone. As he fell, the Indian leader raised his tomahawk to kill him, but Kenton, seeing his comrade's peril, shot the Indian through the heart, and succeeded in dragging Boone inside the fort.

During the Dunmore war, Kenton ranged the Indian country as a spy, carrying his life in his hand, and accompanied George Rogers Clark on his famous Illinois campaign. A short time later, with one or two others, he started on an expedition to run off some horses from the Miami villages, and had nearly succeeded, when he was captured. The Indians hated him more bitterly than they hated Boone himself, and they prepared to enjoy themselves at his expense. They bound him to a wild horse and chased the horse through the forest until their captive's face was torn and bleeding from the las.h.i.+ng of the branches; they staked him down at night so that he could not move hand or foot, and when they reached their town, the whole population turned out to make him run the gauntlet. The Indians formed in a double line, about six feet apart, each armed with a heavy club, and Kenton was forced to run between them.

He had not gone far when he saw ahead of him an Indian with drawn knife, prepared to plunge it into him as he pa.s.sed. By a mighty effort, he broke through the line, but was soon recaptured, lashed with whips, pelted with stones, branded with red-hot irons, and condemned to be burnt at the stake.

But before killing him, the Indians concluded to lend him to other towns to have some sport with, so he was taken from town to town, compelled to run the gauntlet at each one, and subjected to a variegated list of tortures. Three or four times, he was tied to a stake for the final execution, but each time the Indians decided to wait a while longer.

Finally, an Englishman got the Indians to consent to send Kenton for a visit to Detroit, and he spent the winter there. Then, with two other captives, and with the help of a kind-hearted Irish woman, he managed to escape, and made his way back to Kentucky--over four hundred miles through the Indian country, narrowly escaping death a hundred times--in thirty-three days.

There he learned that he need not have fled from Pennsylvania, that the man with whom he had fought years before was not dead, but had recovered. For the first time since his appearance in the west, he a.s.sumed his real name, and was known thereafter as Simon Kenton. Soon afterwards he returned to his old home, and brought the whole family back with him to Kentucky. One would have thought he had had enough of fighting, but he was with Wayne at the Fallen timbers and with William Henry Harrison at the battle of the Thames. Sadly enough, the last years of this old hero were pa.s.sed in want. His land in Kentucky was taken from him by speculators because he had failed to have it properly registered, and he was imprisoned for debt on the spot where he had reared the first cabin in northern Kentucky.

In the spring of 1824, an old, tattered, weather-beaten figure appeared on the streets of Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky. So strange and wild it was that a gang of street boys gathered and ran hooting after it. Men laughed--till suddenly, one of them, looking again, recognized Simon Kenton. In a moment a guard of honor was formed, and the tattered figure was conducted to the Capitol, placed in the speaker's chair, and for the first and only time in his life, Simon Kenton received some portion of the respect and homage to which his deeds ent.i.tled him.

Boone and Kenton, with a handful of hardy and fearless pioneers, laid the foundations of Kentucky; but in the history of the "Old Northwest,"

the country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, one name stands out transcendent; the name of a man as daring, as brave, as resourceful as any on the border--George Rogers Clark. He was greater than Boone or Kenton in that he had a wider vision; they saw only the duties of the present; he saw the possibilities of the future, and his exploits form one of the most thrilling chapters of American history.

Clark, a Virginian by birth, started out in life as a surveyor, and early in 1775, removed to Kentucky to follow his profession. There was, no doubt, plenty of surveying to be done there, since the whole country was an uncharted wilderness, but the beginning of the Revolution was accompanied by an immediate outbreak of Indian hostilities, so serious that the very existence of the Kentucky settlements was threatened.

Soon all but two of them, Boonesborough and Harrodsburg, had to be abandoned. Boone was, of course, in command at his fort, and Clark, who had seen some service in Dunmore's war, became the natural leader at Harrod's. His influence rapidly increased, and he was chosen as a delegate to journey to Williamsburg and urge upon Virginia the needs of the western colony, which lay within her chartered limits.

Clark set off without delay on the long and dangerous journey, reached Williamsburg, gained an audience of Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, and painted the needs of Kentucky in such colors that he soon gained the sympathy of the impulsive and warm-hearted governor, and together they secured from the a.s.sembly a large gift of lead and powder for the protection of the frontier. More than that, they succeeded in making Virginia acknowledge her responsibility for the new colony by const.i.tuting it the county of Kentucky. This, it may be added, put an end forever to Henderson's dream of the independent colony of Transylvania.

Clark got his powder and ball safe to Harrodsburg just in time to repel a desperate Indian a.s.sault; but it was evident that there would be no safety for the Kentucky settlements so long as England controlled the country north of the Ohio. All that region formed a part of what was known as the Province of Quebec. Here and there dotted through it were quaint little towns of French Creoles, the most important being Detroit, Vincennes on the Wabash, and Kaskaskia and Kahokia on the Illinois. These French villages were ruled by British officers commanding small bodies of regular soldiers, and keeping the Indians in a constant state of war against their Kentucky neighbors, furnis.h.i.+ng them with arms and ammunition, and rewarding them for every expedition they undertook against the Americans. They had no idea that any band of Americans which could be mustered west of the mountains would dare to attack them, and so were careless in their guard, and maintained only small garrisons at the various forts.

All this Clark found out by means of spies which he sent through the country, and finally, having his plan matured, he went again to Virginia in December, 1777, and laid before Governor Henry his whole idea, explaining in detail why he thought it could be carried out successfully. Henry was at once enthused with it, so daring and full of promise he thought it, and he enlisted the aid of Thomas Jefferson. The result was that when Clark set out on his return journey, it was with orders not only to defend Kentucky, but to attack Kaskaskia and the other British posts, and he carried with him 1,200 in paper money, and an order on the commander of Fort Pitt for such boats and ammunition as he might need.

With great difficulty, Clark got together a force of about a hundred and fifty men, one of whom was Simon Kenton. He could not get many volunteers from Kentucky because the settlers there thought they had all they could do to defend their own forts without going out to attack the enemy's and only a few men could be spared. In May, 1778, this little force started down the Ohio in flat boats, and landing just before they reached the Mississippi, marched northward against Kaskaskia, where the British commander of the entire district had his headquarters. Clark knew that his force was outnumbered by the garrison and that it would be necessary to surprise the town. After a six days'

march across country, he came to the outskirts of the village on the evening of July 4th, and found a great dance in progress in the fort.

Waiting until the revelry was at its height, Clark advanced silently, surprised the sentries, and surrounded the fort without causing any alarm. Then with his men posted, Clark walked forward through the open door, and leaning against the wall, watched the dancers, as they whirled around by the light of the flaring torches.

Suddenly an Indian, after looking at him for a moment, raised the war-whoop; the dancing ceased, but Clark, shouting at the top of his voice to still the confusion, bade the dancers continue, asking them only to remember that thereafter they were dancing under the flag of the United States, instead of that of Great Britain. A few moments later, the commandant was captured in his bed, and the investment was complete.

The other settlements in the neighborhood surrendered at once, so that the Illinois country was captured without the firing of a gun.

But when the news reached the British governor, Hamilton, at Detroit, he at once prepared to recapture the country. He had a much larger force at his command than Clark could possibly muster, and in the fall of the year he advanced against Vincennes at the head of over five hundred men.

The little American garrison was unable to oppose such a force and was compelled to surrender. Instead of pus.h.i.+ng on against Clark at Kaskaskia, Hamilton disbanded his Indians and sent some of his troops back to Detroit, and prepared to spend the winter at Vincennes. He repaired the fort, strengthened the defenses, and then sat down for the winter, confident that when spring came, he would again be master of the whole Illinois country.

Clark, at Kaskaskia, realized that it was a question of his taking the British or the British taking him, and that, if he waited for spring, he would have no chance at all; so he gathered together the pick of his men, one hundred and seventy all told, and early in February, 1779, set out for Vincennes. The task before him was to capture a force nearly equal to his own, protected by a strong fort well supplied for a siege.

At first the journey was easy enough, for they pa.s.sed across the snowy Illinois prairies, broken occasionally by great stretches of woodland, but when they reached the drowned lands of the Wabash, the march became almost incredibly difficult. The ice had just broken up and everything was flooded; heavy rains set in, and when the men were not wading through icy water, they were struggling through mud nearly knee-deep.

After twelve days of this, they came to the bank of the Embara.s.s river, only to find the country all under water, save one little hillock, where they spent the night without food or fire. For four days they waited there for the flood to retire, with practically nothing to eat; but the rain continued and the flood increased, and Clark, finally, in desperation, plunged into the water and called to his men to follow. All day they waded, and toward evening reached a small patch of dry ground, where they spent a miserable night. At sunrise Clark started on again, through icy water waist-deep, this time with the stern command to shoot the first laggard. Some of the men failed and sank beneath the waves, to be rescued by the stronger ones, and by the middle of the afternoon they had all got safe to land. By good fortune, they captured some Indian squaws with a canoe-load of food, and had their first meal in two days.

Soon afterwards the sun came out, and they saw before them the walls of the fort they had come to capture.

The British had no suspicion of their danger, and they thought the first patter of bullets against the palisades the usual friendly salute from an Indian hunting party. But they were soon undeceived, and answered the rifles with ineffective fire from their two small cannon. All night the fight continued, and at dawn an Indian war-party, which had been ravaging the Kentucky settlements, entered the town, ignorant that the Americans had captured it. Marching up to the fort, they suddenly found themselves surrounded and seized. In their belts they carried the scalps of the settlers--men, women and children--they had slain, and, infuriated at the sight, the Americans tomahawked the savages, one after another, before the eyes of the British.

Then Clark sent to the fort a peremptory summons to surrender, adding, that "his men were eager to avenge the murder of their relatives and friends and would welcome an excuse to storm the fort." To the British, it seemed a choice between surrender and ma.s.sacre. They had seen the b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance wreaked upon their Indian allies, and they had every reason to believe that they would be dealt with in the same manner, since it was they who had set the Indians on. Clark was himself, of course, in desperate straits, without means for carrying on a successful siege, but the British were far from suspecting this, and at ten o'clock on the morning of February 25, 1779, marched out and stacked arms, while Clark fired a salute of thirteen guns in honor of the colonies, from whose possession the Northwest was never again to pa.s.s.

For eight years longer, Clark devoted his life to protecting the border from British and Indian invasion. The war over, he returned to Kentucky, and took up his abode in a little log cabin on the Ohio near Louisville.

He was without means, and a horrible accident marred his last years, for, while alone in his cabin, he was stricken with paralysis, and fell with one of his legs in the old-fas.h.i.+oned fire-place. There was no one to draw him out of danger, and before the pain brought him partially to his senses, his leg was so badly burned that it had to be amputated.

There were no anaesthetics in those days, but while the leg was being removed, a fife and drum corps played its hardest at the bedside, and the doughty old warrior kept time to the music with his fingers.

He lived for ten years thereafter, though his paralysis never left him.

He felt keenly the ingrat.i.tude of the Republic which he had served so well, and which yet, in his old age, abandoned him to want, and the story is told that, when the state of Virginia sent him a sword of honor, he thrust it into the ground and broke it with his crutch.

"I gave Virginia a sword when she needed one," he said; "but now, when I need bread, she sends me a toy!"

In the settlement of the country north of the Ohio, one man, a veteran of the Revolution, was foremost. His name was Rufus Putnam, and he was a cousin of that Israel Putnam, some of whose exploits we will soon relate. He has been well called the "Father of Ohio," for he was the founder of the first permanent white settlement made within the borders of the state. He was born in 1738, at Sutton, Ma.s.sachusetts, and his early life was a hard and rough one. Left an orphan while still a child, he was put to work as soon as he was big enough to be of any use, and received practically no education, although he managed to teach himself to read and write. He earned a few pennies by watering horses for travelers, and with this money purchased a spelling-book and arithmetic.

He served through the French war and the Revolution, rendering distinguished service and retiring with the rank of brigadier-general; and at its close, finding that Congress would be unable for a long time to pay many of the soldiers for their services, he became interested in the suggestion that payment be made in land along the Ohio river, and offered to lead a band of settlers to their new homes. In March, 1786, in Boston, he and some others formed the Ohio Company, and one of their directors, Mana.s.seh Cutler, a preacher of more than usual ability, was selected to lay the company's plan before Congress. The result was the famous ordinance of 1787, providing for the establishment and government of the Northwest Territory, of which Arthur St. Clair was named governor. Cutler also secured a large land grant for the new company, and in the following year, Putnam started across the mountains with the first band of emigrants.

They reached the vicinity of Pittsburg after a weary journey, and there built a boat which they named the Mayflower, and in it floated down the river, until they reached the mouth of the Muskingum. On April 17, 1788, they began the erection of a blockhouse, which was to be the nucleus of the new settlement, and a place of defense in case of Indian attack. The settlement was named Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France; it prospered from the first, and in a few years was a lively little village. There were Indian alarms at first, but General Wayne's victory secured a lasting peace. Putnam served as a brigadier-general in Wayne's campaign, and was one of the commissioners who negotiated the peace treaty.

He lived for many years thereafter, and remained to the last the leading man of the settlement. He was interested in every project for the betterment of the new Commonwealth, helped to found the Ohio University at Athens, was one of the drafters of the state const.i.tution, and founded the first Bible school west of the mountains. A venerable figure, he died in 1824, having lived to see the valley which he had entered a wilderness settled by hundreds of thousands, and the state which he had helped to found become one of the greatest in the Union.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi was fairly well known, first through the explorations of such pioneers as Boone and Clark and Kenton, and, later on, through the steady advance of civilization, forever throwing new outposts westward. But beyond the great river stretched a mighty wilderness whose character and extent were only guessed at. The United States, of course, had little interest in it, since it belonged to France, and since, east of the river, there were millions of acres as yet unsettled; but when, in 1803, President Jefferson purchased it of Napoleon Bonaparte for the sum of fifteen million dollars, all that was changed. By that purchase, the area of the United States was more than doubled; but there were many people at the time who opposed the purchase on the ground that the country east of the river would never be thoroughly settled and that there would be no use whatever for the great territory west of it. So mistaken, sometimes, is human foresight!

The President determined that this great addition to the Nation should be explored without delay, and, securing from Congress the necessary powers, he appointed his private secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to head an expedition to the Pacific.

Lewis was at that time twenty-nine years of age. He seems to have been of an adventurous disposition for, despite the fact that he inherited a fortune, he enlisted in the army as a private as soon as he was of age.

Five years later, he had risen to the rank of captain, and, attracting the attention of President Jefferson, he was appointed his secretary. He proved to be so capable and enterprising that the President selected him for this dangerous and arduous task of exploration. With him was a.s.sociated Lieutenant William Clark, a brother of that hardy adventurer, George Rogers Clark.

William Clark, who was eighteen years younger than his famous brother, had joined him in Kentucky in 1784, at the age of fourteen, and soon became acquainted with the perils of Indian warfare. He was appointed ensign in the army four years later, and rose to the rank of adjutant, but was compelled to resign, from the service in 1796, on account of ill-health. He settled at the half-Spanish town of St. Louis, and in March, 1804, was appointed by President Jefferson a second lieutenant of artillery, with orders to join Captain Lewis in his journey to the Pacific. Clark was really the military director of the expedition, and his knowledge of Indian life and character had much to do with its success.

The party consisted of twenty-eight men, and in the spring of 1804, started up the Missouri, following it until late in October, when they camped for the winter near the present site of Bismarck, North. Dakota.

They resumed the journey early in the spring, and in May, caught their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Reaching the headwaters of the Columbia, at last, they floated down its current, and on the morning of November 7, 1806, after a journey of a year and a half, full of every sort of hards.h.i.+p and adventure, they saw ahead of them the blue expanse of the Pacific. They spent the winter on the coast, and reached St.

Louis again in September, 1807, having traversed over nine thousand miles of unbroken wilderness where no white man had ever before set foot. It was largely because of this expedition that our government was able, forty years later, to claim and maintain a t.i.tle to the state of Oregon.

Congress rewarded the members of the expedition with grants of land, and Lewis was appointed governor of Missouri. But the strain of the expedition to the Pacific had undermined his health; he became subject to fits of depression, and on October 8, 1809, he put an end to his life in a lonely cabin near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had stopped for a night's lodging. Clark lived thirty years longer, serving as Indian agent, governor of Missouri, and superintendent of Indian affairs.

While Lewis and Clark were struggling across the continent, another young adventurer was conducting some explorations farther to the east.

Zebulon Pike, aged twenty-seven, a captain in the regular army, was, in 1805, appointed to lead an expedition to the source of the Mississippi.

He accomplished this, after a hard journey lasting nine months; and, a year later, leading another expedition to the southwest, discovered a great mountain which he named Pike's Peak, and, continuing southward, came out on the Rio Grande. He was in Spanish territory, and was held prisoner for a time, but was finally released upon representations from the government at Was.h.i.+ngton. He rose steadily in the service, and in 1813, during the second war with England, led an a.s.sault upon Little York, now Toronto. The town was captured, but the fleeing British exploded a powder magazine, and General Pike was crushed and killed beneath the flying fragments. He died with his head on the British flag, which had been hauled down and brought to him.

The next step to be recorded in the growth of the United States is a step variously regarded as infamous or glorious--but it was marked by one of the most heroic incidents in history, and dominated by the picturesque and remarkable personality of Sam Houston.

The purchase of Louisiana from the French brought the United States in direct contact with Mexico, which claimed a great territory in the southwest, and, finally, in 1819, a line between the possessions of the two countries was agreed upon. It left Mexico in possession of the wide stretch of country now included in the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Most of this country was practically unknown to Americans, and the great stretches of arid land which comprised large portions of it were considered worthless and uninhabitable. But a good many Americans had drifted across the border into the fertile plains of Texas, and settled there. As time went on, the stream of immigration increased, until there were in the country enough American settlers to take a prominent part in the revolt of Mexico against Spain in 1824. The revolt was successful, and the country which had discovered the New World lost her last foothold there.