 Chapter 20 and 21 of A Comic History of the United States. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on Order Volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. A Comic History of the United States by Bill Nye. Chapter 20. The War with Canada. October 13th, General Van Rensselaer crossed the Niagara River and attacked the British at Queenstown Heights. The latter retreated and General Brock was killed. General Van Rensselaer went back after the rest of his troops, but they refused to cross on the ground that the general had no right to take them out of the United States. And thus the troops left in charge at the Heights were compelled to surrender. These troops who refused to go over and accept a victory already won for them because they didn't want to cross the Canadian line would not have shied so at the boundary if they had been boodlers, very likely in later years. August 19th occurred the naval fight between the Constitution and Guerriere off the Massachusetts coast. The Constitution, also called Old Ironsides, was commanded by Captain Isaac Hull. The Guerriere was first to attack, but got no reply until both vessels were very close together. When into her starboard, Captain Hull poured such a load of hardware that the Guerriere was soon down by the head and lopsided on the offside. She surrendered, but was of no value being so full of holes that she would not hold a cargo of railroad trestles. The economy used by the early American warriors by land and sea regarding their ammunition, holding their fire until the enemy was at arm's length, was the cause of more than one victory. They were obliged, indeed, to make every bullet count in the days when even lead was not produced here and powder was imported. October 13th, the naval fight between the frolic and wasp took place off the North Carolina coast. The frolic was an English brig and she wound up, as most frolics do, with a severe pain and a $5 fine. After the wasp had called and left her RSVP cards, the decks of the frolic were a sight to behold. There were not enough able-bodied men to surrender the ship. She was captured by the boarding crew, but there was not a man left of her own crew to haul down the colors. Other victories followed on the sea, and American privateers had more fun than anybody. Madison was re-elected, thus showing that his style of administration suited one and all, and the war was prosecuted at a great rate. It became a sort of fight with Canada, the latter being supported by English arms by land and sea. Of course, the Americans would have preferred to fight England direct, and many were in favor of attacking London. But when the commanding officer asked those of the army who had the means to go abroad to please raise their right hands, it was found that the trip must be abandoned. Those who had the means to go did not have suitable clothes for making a respectable appearance, and so it was given up. Three divisions were made of the army, all having an attack on Canada as the object in view, v's the army of the center, the army of the north, and the army of the west. The armies of the center and north did not do much, aside from the trifling victory at York and President Madison said afterwards in a letter to the writer's family that the two armies did not accomplish enough to pay the duty on them. The army of the west managed to stand off the British, though the latter still held Michigan and threatened Ohio. September 10th, Perry's victory on Lake Erie occurred and was well received. Perry was 27 years old and was given command of a flotilla on Lake Erie, provided he would cut the timber and build it, meantime boarding himself. The British had long been in possession of Lake Erie and when Perry got his scowls afloat, they issued invitations for a general display of carnage. They bore down on Perry and killed all the men on his flagship but eight. Then he helped them fire the last gun and with the flag they jumped into a boat which they paddled for the Niagara under a galling fire. This was the first time that a galling fire had ever been used at sea. Perry passed within pistol shot of the British and in less than a quarter of an hour after he trod the poop of the Niagara he was able to write to General Harrison, they have met the enemy and they are ours. Proctor and Tecumseh were at Maldon with English and Indians preparing to plunder the frontier and kill some more women and children as soon as they felt rested up. At the news of Perry's victory, Harrison decided to go over and stir them up. Arriving at Maldon, he found it deserted and followed the foe to the River Times where he charged with his Kentucky horsemen right through the British lines and so on down the valley where they were formed and started back to charge on their rear when the whole outfit surrendered except the Indians. Proctor however was mounted on a tall fox hunter which ran away with him. He afterwards wrote back to General Harrison that he made every effort to surrender personally but that the circumstances prevented. He was greatly pained by this. The Americans now charged on the Indians and Johnson, the commander of the Blue Grass Dragoons fired a shot which took Tecumseh just west of the watch pocket. He died, he said, tickled to death to know he had been shot by an American. Captain Lawrence of the Hornet having taken the British Brig Peacock was given command of the Chesapeake and put to Boston to have repaired. While there, he got a challenge from the Shannon. He put to sea with half a crew and a shot in his chest. That is, the arm chest of the ship burst the whole thing open and annoyed everyone on board. The enemy boarded the Chesapeake and captured her so Captain Lawrence, her brave commander, breathed his last after begging his men not to give up ship. However, the victories on the Canadian border settled the war once more for the time and cheered the Americans very much. The Indians in 1813 fell upon Fort Mems and massacred the entire garrison, men, women and children not because they felt a personal antipathy towards them but because they, the Red Brothers had sold their lands too low and their hearts were sad in their bosoms. There was only no fun in trading with an Indian for he is devoid of business instincts and reciprocity with the Red Brother has never been a success. General Jackson took some troops and attacked the Red Brother, killing six hundred of him and capturing the rest of the herd. Jackson did not want to hear the Indians speak pieces and see them smoke the pipe of peace but buried the dead and went home. Very little of the romantic complaint which now and then breaks out regarding the Indian but knew full well that all the Indians ever born on the face of the earth could not compensate for the cruel and violent death of one good, gentle, patient American mother. Admiral Cockburn now began to pillage the coast of the southern states and borrow communion services from the churches of Virginia and the Carolinas. He also murdered the sick in their beds. Perhaps a word of apology is due the Indians after all. Possibly they got their ideas from Cockburn. The battle of Lundy's Lane had been arranged for July 25th, 1814 and so the Americans crossed Niagara under General Brown to invade Canada. General Winfield Scott led the advance and gained a brilliant victory on July 5th at Chippewa. The second engagement was at Lundy's Lane within the sound of the mighty cataract. Old man Lundy, whose lane was used for the purpose said that it was one of the bloodiest fights by a good many gallons that he had ever attended. The battle was however bearing of results the historian says the really an American victory from the standpoint of a tactician and professional gore spiller. In September, Sir George Prevost took 12,000 veteran troops who had served under Wellington and started for Plattsburgh. The ships of the British at the same time opened fire on the nine dollar American Navy and were almost annihilated. The troops under Prevost started to fight but learning of the destruction of the British fleet on Lake Champlain Prevost fled like a frightened fawn leaving his sick and wounded and large stores of lime juice porridge and plum pudding. The Americans who had been living on chopped horse feed and ginseng root took a week off and gave themselves up to the false joys of lime juice and general good feeling. Along the coast the British destroyed everything they could lay their hands on but perhaps the rudest thing they did was to enter Washington and burn the capital the congressional library and the smokehouse in which President Madison kept his hands. Even now when the writer is a guest at some great English dignitary and perhaps at table picking the merry thought of a canvas backduck the memory of this thing comes over him and burying his face in the costly napery he gives himself up to grief with his kind words and a celery glass full of turpentine or something bring back his buoyancy and rainbow smile. The hospitality and generous treatment of our English brother to Americans now is something beautiful unaffected and well worth of voyage across the Kwame Sea to sea but when Cockburn burns down the capital and took the president's sugar cured hams he did a rude act. End of chapter 20 Chapter 21 The Advance of the Republic The administration now began to suffer at the hands of the people many of whom criticized the conduct of the war and that of the president also. People met at Hartford and spoke so harshly that the Hartford Federalists obtained a reputation which clung to him for many years there being no cable in those days the peace by Treaty of Ghent was not heard of in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans January 8th, 1815 there having been two weeks of peace as a matter of fact when this hot and fatal battle was fought. General Pakenham with a force of 12,000 men by sea and land attacked the city. The land forces found General Jackson entrenched several miles below the city he had used cotton for fortifications at first but a hot shot had set a big bunch of it on fire and rolled it over towards the powder supplies so that he did not use cotton anymore. General Pakenham was met by the solid phalanx of Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen who reserved their fire as usual until the loud uniform of the English could be distinctly heard when they poured into their ranks a galling fire as it was so tersely designated at the time General Pakenham fell mortally wounded and his troops were repulsed but again rallied only to be again repulsed this went on until night when General Lambert who succeeded General Pakenham withdrew hopelessly beaten and with a loss of over 2,000 men the United States now found that an honorable piece had been obtained and with a debt of 127 million dollars started in to pay it up by installments which was done inside of 20 years from the ordinary revenue in the six years following one state per year was added to the Union and all kinds of manufacturers were built up to supply the goods that had been cut off by the blockade during the war even the deluge of cheap goods abroad after the war did not succeed in breaking these down James Monroe was almost unanimously elected he was generally beloved and his administration was in fact known as the original era of good feeling since so successfully reproduced especially by the governors of North and South Carolina through the efforts of Henry Clay Missouri was admitted as a slave state in 1821 under the compromise that slavery should not be admitted into any of the territories west of the Mississippi and north of parallel 36 degrees 30 degrees north Clay was one of the greatest men of his time and was especially imminent as an eloquent and magnetic speaker in the days when the record for eloquence was disputed by the giants of American oratory and before the Senate of the United States had become a wealthy club of men whose speeches are rarely printed except at so much per column paid in advance Clay was the original patentee of the slogan for campaign use Lafayette revisited this country in 1819 and was greeted with the greatest hospitality he visited the grave of Washington and tenderly spoke of the grandeur of characters shown by his chief he was given the use of the brandy wine a government ship for his return as he stood on the deck of the vessel at Pier 1 North River his mind again recurred to Washington and to those on shore he said that quote to show Washington's love of truth even as a child he could tell an interesting incident of him relating to a little new hatchet given him at the time by his father end quote as he reached this point in his remarks Lafayette noted with surprise that someone had slipped his cable from shore and his ship was gently shoved off by the people on the pier while his voice was drowned in the notes of the New York Oompa Oompa Band as it struck up Johnny get your gun Florida was seated to the United States in the same year by Spain and was sprinkled over with a light of sand for the waves to monkey with the Everglades of Florida are not yet under cultivation Mr. Monroe became the author of what is now called the Monroe Doctrine that the effort of any country to obtain dominion in America with thereafter and forever afterwards be regarded as an unfriendly act rather than be regarded as unfriendly foreign countries now refrain from doing their dominion dynasty work here the Wigs now appeared and the old Republican Party became known as the Democratic Party John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were Wigs and John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson were Democrats the Wigs favored a high protective tariff and internal improvement the Democrats did not favor anything especially but bitterly opposed the Wig measures they were in 1825 John Quincy Adams son of John Adams was elected president and served one term he was a ball headed man and the country was given 4 years of unexampled prosperity yet this experience has not been regarded by the people as it should have been other kinds of men have repeatedly been elected to that office only to bring sorrow regret and bank failures upon us sometimes it would seem to the thinking mind that as a people we need a few car loads of scents in each school district where it can be used at a moment's notice Adams was not re-elected on account of his tariff ideas which were not popular at the south he was called the old man eloquent and it is said that during his more impassioned passages his head round and extremely smooth became flushed so that from resembling the cue ball on the start as he rose to more lofty heights his dome of thought looked more like the spot ball on a billiard table no one else in congress at that time had succeeded in doing this John Quincy Adams was succeeded in 1829 by Andrew Jackson the hero of New Orleans Jackson was the first to introduce what he called the rotation in office during the 40 years previous there had been but 74 removals Jackson made 700 this custom has been pretty generally adopted since giving immense satisfaction to those who thrive upon the excitement of offensive partition ship and their wives relations while those who have legitimate employment and pay taxes support and educate a new garden with every change of administration the profit sees in the distance an 8 year term for president and employment thereafter as charge day affairs of the united states with permission to go beyond the seas thus the vast sums of money and rivers of rum used in the intervening campaigns at present will be used for the relief of the widow and orphan the ex-president then with the portfolio of international press agent for the united states could go abroad and be fed by foreign governments leaving dis-papes shut everywhere in his wake and crowned heads with large damp towels on them every ex-president should have some place where he could go and hide his shame a trip around the world would require a year and by that time the voters would be so disgusted by the president that the old one would come like a healing bomb and he would be permitted to die without publishing a bulletin of his temperature and showing his tongue to the press for each edition of the paper south carolina in 1832 passed a nullification act declaring the tariff act null and void and announcing that the state would secede from the union if force were used to collect any revenue at charleston south carolina has always been rather advanced regarding the matter of seceding from the american union president jackson however ordered general scott and a number of troops to go and see that the laws were enforced but no trouble resulted and soon more satisfactory measures were enacted through the large influence of mr clay jackson was unfriendly to the bank of the united states and the bank was retaliated by contracting its loans thus making money matters hard to get hold of by the masses when the public money says the historian which had been withdrawn from the bank of the united states was deposited in local banks money was easy and speculation extended to every branch of trade new cities were laid out fabulous prices were charged for building lots which existed only on paper etc and in van buren's time the people paid the violinist as they have in 1893 with ruin and remorse speculation which is unprofitable should never be encouraged unprofitable speculation is only another term for idiocy but on the other hand profitable speculation leads to prosperity public esteem and the ability to keep the team we may distinguish the one from the other by means of ascertaining the difference between them if one finds on waking up in the morning that he experiences a sensation of being in the poor house he may almost at once jump to the conclusion that the kind of speculation he selected was the wrong one the black hulk war occurred in the northwest territory in 1832 it grew out of the fact that the sacks and boxes sold their lands to the united states and afterwards regretted that they had not asked more for them so they refused to vacate until several of them had been used up on the asparagus beds of the husband men the florida war 1835 grew out of the fact that the siminals regretted having made a dicker with the government at too low a price for land oceola the chief regretted the matter so much that he scalped general thompson while the latter was at dinner which shows that the indian is not susceptible to cultivation or the acquisition of any knowledge of table etiquette whatever what could be a poor taste then scalping a man between the soup and the remove the same day major date with 100 men was waylaid and all but four of the party killed seven years later the indians were subdued phrenologically the indian allows his ally meantiveness to overbalance his group of organs which show veneration benevolence fondness for society et cetera hope love of study fondness for agriculture and unbridled passion for toil et cetera france owed five million dollars for damages to our commerce in napoleon's wars and napoleon himself being entirely worthless having said every time that the bill was presented that he would settle it as soon as he got back from st. helena jackson ordered reprisals to be made but england acted as a peacemaker and the bill was paid on receiving the money a trunk attached by our government and belonging to napoleon was released space here in the nature of this work forbid an extended opinion regarding the course pursued by napoleon in this matter his tomb is in the basement of the hotel des invalides in paris and you're requested not to fumer while you were there and of chapter 21 chapters 22 and 23 of a comic history of the united states this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org this reading by allison hester of actin's georgia a comic history of the united states by bill nye chapter 22 more difficulties straightened out van buren the 8th president was unfortunate in taking the helm as the financial cyclone struck the country this was brought about by scarcity of funds more than anything else businessmen would not pay their debts and the new york was not then so large as at present 100 million dollars were lost in 60 days this way the government had required the payments for public lands to be made in coin and so the treasury had plenty of gold and silver while business had nothing to work with speculation also had made a good many snobs who had sent their gold and silver abroad for foreign luxuries also some paupers who could not do so when a man made some money from the sale of rural lots he had his hats made abroad and his wife had her dresses fitted in paris at great expense confidence was destroyed and the air was heavy with failures and apprehension for failures to come the canadiens rebelled against england and many of our people wanted to unite with canada against the mother country but the police would not permit them to do so general scott was sent to the frontier to keep our people from aiding the canadiens there was trouble in the northeast over the boundary between main and new brunswick but it was settled by the commissioners daniel webster and lord bachburton webster was a smart man and a good extemporaneous speaker van buren failed of a re-election as the people did not fully endorse his administration administrations are not generally endorsed where the people are unable to get over six pounds of sugar for a dollar general harrison who followed in 1841 died soon after choosing his cabinet and his vice president john tyler elected as a wig proceeded to act as president but not as a wig president should his party passed a bill establishing the united states bank but tyler vetoed it and the men who elected him wished they had been as dead as ramsies was at the time doors justly celebrated rebellion in rhode island was an outbreak resulting from restricting the right of suffrage to those who owned property a new constitution was adopted and or chosen as governor he was not recognized and so tried to capture the seat while the regular governor was at tea he got into jail for life but was afterwards pardoned out and embraced the christian religion in 1844 the anti-rent war in the state of new york broke out among those who were tenants of the old patroon estates these men disguised as indians tarred and feathered those who paid rent and killed the collectors who were sent to them in 1846 the matter was settled by the military in 1840 the Mormons had settled at navoo illinois they were led by joseph smith and not only proposed to run a new kind of religion but introduced polygamy into it the people who lived near them attacked them, killed smith and drove the Mormons to Iowa opposite Omaha in 1844 occurred the building of the magnetic telegraph invented by samuel f b morse the line was from baltimore to washington or vice versa authorities failing to agree on this matter it cost $30,000 and the boys who delivered the messages made more out of it than the stockholders did bulletin having invented and perfected the steamboat in 1805 and started the Claremont on the north river at the dizzy rate of 5 miles per hour in george stevensson having in 1814 made the first locomotive to run on a track the people began to feel that the theosophy was about all they needed to place them on a level with the seraphim and other astral bodies texas had under the guidance of sam houston obtained her independence from mexico and asked for admission to the union congress at first rejected her fearing that the texas people lacked cultivation being so far away from the thought ganglia of the east also fearing a war with mexico but she was at last admitted so everyone is glad of it the wigs were not in favor of the admission of texas and made that the issue of the following campaign henry clay leading his party to a hospitable grave in the fall james k poke a democrat was elected his rallying cry was i am a democrat the mexican war now came on general taylor's army met the enemy first at lo alto where he ran across the mexicans 6000 strong and though he had but 2000 men drove them back only losing 9 men this was the most economical battle of the war the next afternoon he met the enemy at resoca de la palma and whipped him in the time usually required to ejaculate the words scat next general taylor september 24 and with 6000 men attacked the strongly fortified city which held ten thousand troops the americans avoided the heavy fire as well as possible by entering the city and securing rooms at the best hotel leaving word at the office that they did not wish to be disturbed by the enemy in fact the soldiers did dig their way through from house to house to avoid the volleys from the windows and thus fought to within a square of the grand plaza when the city surrendered the grand plaza is generally a sandy vacant lot where mexicans sell tamales made of the highly peppered but tempting cutlets of the mexican hairless dog the battle of buenavista took place february 23 1847 general santa anna commanding the mexicans he had twenty thousand men and general taylor's troops were reduced in numbers the fight was a hot one lasting all day and the americans were saved by bragg's artillery bragg used the old colonial method of rolling his guns up to the nose of the enemy and then discharging an iron foundry into his midst this disgusted the enemy so that general santa anna that evening took the shreds army and went away general kirny was sent back to take new mexico and california his work consisted mainly in marching for general fremont who had been surveying a new route to oregon and tad with sixty men then so successful that on the arrival of kirny with the aid of comodores sloat and stockton california was captured and has given general satisfaction to everyone in march eighteen forty seven general scott with twelve thousand men bombarded vera cruz four days and at the end of that time the city was surrendered at cero gordo a week later scott overtook the enemy under general santa anna and made such a fierce attack that the mexicans were completely routed santa anna left his leg on the field of battle and went away on a pet mule named charlotte corday the leg was preserved and taken to the smithsonian institute it is made of second growth hickory and has a brass furl and a rubbery racer on the end general taylor afterwards taunted him with this incident and though greatly irritated santa anna said there was no use trying to kick puebla resisted not the army marched into the city of mexico august seventh the road was rendered disagreeable by strong fortifications and thirty thousand men who were not on good terms with scott the environments and suburbs one after another were taken and a parley for peace ensued during which the mexicans were busy fortifying some more on the quiet september eight the americans made their assault carried the outworks one by one then the castle of chapulte peck was stormed first the outer works were scaled which made them much more desirable and the moat was removed by means of a stomach pump and blotting pad and then the escarpment was upended the don john tower was not silly by a solid shot and the castle capitulated thus on the fourteenth of september the old flag floated over the courthouse of mexico and general scott ate his tea in the palace of the montezuma peace was declared february second eighteen forty eight and the united states owned the vast country southward to the healer and west to the pacific the wilmont proviso was invented by david wilmont a poor struggling member of congress who moved that in any territory acquired by the united states slavery should be prohibited except upon the advice of a physician the motion was lost gold was discovered in sacramento valley in august eighteen forty eight by a workman who was building a mill race a struggle ensued over this ground as to who should own the race it threatened to terminate in a race war but was settled amicably in eighteen months one hundred thousand people went to the scene thousands left their skeletons with the red brother and other thousands left theirs on the isthmus of panama or on the cruel desert many married men went who had been looking a long time for some good place to go leaving their wives with ill concealed relief they started away through a country filled with death to reach a country they knew not of hide en route while others were hanged and still others became the heads of new families some came back and carried water for their wives to wash clothing for their neighbors it was a long hard trip then across the plains one of the author's friends at the age of thirteen years drove a little band of cows from the state of indiana to sacramento he says he would not do it again for anything he is now a man and owns a large prune orchard in california and people tell him he is getting too stout and that he ought to exercise more and that he ought to walk every day for several miles but he shakes his head and says no i will not walk any today and possibly not tomorrow or the day following do not come to me and refer to taking a walk i have tried that you take me for a dromedary but you were wrong i am a fat man and may die suddenly some day while lacing up my shoes but when i go anywhere i ride when he got to sacramento were gold was said to be so plentiful he was glad to wash dishes for his board and he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country and he sent him into the fields for to feed swine with the california peaches which the swine did eat and he began to be in want and no man gave unto him and if he had spent his substance in riotous living he said it would have been different about 30 years after that he arose and went unto his father and carried his dinner with him also a government bond and a new suit of raiment for the old gentleman i do not know what we should learn from this end of chapter 22 chapter 23 the websters daniel webster together with mr clay had much to do with the compromise measures of 1850 these consisted in the admission of california as a free state the organizing of the territories of utah and new mexico without any provision regarding slavery pro or con the payment to texas of one hundred million dollars for new mexico which was a good trade for texas the prohibition of the slave trade in the district of colombia and the enactment of a fugitive slave law permitting owners of slaves to follow them into the free states and take them back in irons if necessary the officials and farmers of the free states were also expected to turn out call the dog, leave their work and help catch these chattels and carry them to the southbound train daniel webster was born in 1782 and noah in 1758 daniel was educated at dartmouth college where he was admitted in 1797 he taught school winters and studied summers as many other great men have done since until he knew about everything that anybody could what daniel did not know noah did strange to say daniel was frightened to death when first called upon to speak a piece he said he committed dozens of pieces to memory and recited them to the woods and crags and crows and stone abutments of the new england farms but could not stand up before a school and utter a word in 1801 he studied law with thomas w thompson afterwards united states senator he read then for the first time that law is a rule of action prescribing what is right and prohibiting what is wrong end quote in 1812 he was elected to congress and in 1813 made his maiden speech masterly speeches was made on economical and financial subjects and yet in order to get his blue broad cloth coat with brass buttons from the tailor shop to wear while making the speech he had to borrow $25 when the country has wanted a man to talk well on these subjects it has generally been compelled to advance money to him before he could make a speech sometimes he has to be taken from the pawn shop webster it is said was the most successful lawyer after he returned to boston that the state of massachusetts has ever known and yet his mail was full of notices from banks down east announcing that he had overdrawn his account once he was hard pressed for means as he was trying to run a farm and running a farm costs money so he went to a bank to borrow and he hated to do it because he had no special inducements to offer a bank or to make it hilariously loan him money how much did you think you would need Mr. Webster ask the president cutting off some coupons as he spoke and making paper dolls of them well I could get along very well said Webster in that deep prescenuous voice of his if I could have $2,000 well you remember said the banker do you not that you have $2,000 here that you deposited five years ago after you had dined with the governor of North Carolina no I had forgotten about that said Webster give me a blank check without unnecessary delay we may learn from this that Mr. Webster was not a careful man in the matter of detail his speech on the 200th anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims was a good thing and found its way into the press of the time his speech at the laying of the corner stone of the bunker hill monument and his eulogy of Adams and Jefferson were beautiful and thrilling Daniel Webster had a very large brain and used to loan his hat to brother senators now and then when their students were painting them provided he did not want it himself his reply to Robert Y. Hain of South Carolina in 1830 was regarded as one of his ablest parliamentary efforts Hain attacked New England and first advanced the doctrine of nullification which was even more dangerous than secession Jefferson Davis in 1860 denying that he had ever advocated or favored such a doctrine Webster spoke extemporary and people sent out for their lunch rather than go away in the midst of his remarks Webster married twice but did not let that make any difference with his duty to his country he tried to farm it some but did not amass a large some owing to his heavy losses and trying year after year to grow Saratoga potatoes for the Boston market no American foreign or domestic ever made a greater name for himself than Daniel Webster but he was not so good a penman as Noah Noah was the better penwriter Noah Webster also had the better command of language of the two those who have read his great work entitled Webster's elementary spelling book or how one word led to another will agree with me that he was smart Noah never lacked for a word by which to express himself he was a brainy man and a good speller one by one our imminent men are passing away Mr. Webster has passed away Napoleon Bonaparte is no more and Dr. Mary Walker is fading away this has been a severe winter on red shirt and I have to advance the night air a good deal myself it would ill become me at this late date to criticize Mr. Webster's work a work that is now I may say in nearly every home and school room in the land it is a great book I only hope that had Webster lived he would have been equally fair in his criticism of my books I hate to compare my books to Mr. Webster's because it looks egotistical in me but although Noah's book is larger than mine and has more literary attractions as a book to set a child on at the table it does not hold the interest of the reader all the way through he has introduced too many characters into his book at the expense of the plot it is a good book to pick up and while away at leisure hour it is not a work that could rivet your interest till midnight while the fire went out and the thermometer stepped down to 47 degrees below zero you do not hurry through the pages to see whether Reginald married the girl or not Mr. Webster did not seem to care how the affair turned out therein consists the great difference between Noah and myself he doesn't keep up the interest a friend of mine at Sing Sing who secured one of my books said he never left his room till he had devoured it he said he seemed chained to the spot and if you can't believe a convict who is entirely out of politics whom in the name of George Washington can you trust Mr. Webster was certainly a most brilliant writer though a little inclined perhaps to be wordy I have discovered in some of his later books 118,000 words no two of which are alike this shows great fluency and versatility it is true but we need something else the reader waits in vain to be thrilled by the author's wonderful word painting there is not a thrill in the whole tome I had heard so much of Mr. Webster that when I read his book I confess I was disappointed it is cold methodical dry and dispassionate in the extreme and one cannot help comparing it with the works of James Fenimore Cooper and Horace as I said however it is a good book to pick up for the purpose of wiling away an hour no one should travel without Mr. Webster's tale those who examined this tale will readily see why there were no flies on the author to collect them off with this tale it is a good book as I say to take up for a moment or to read on the train or to hold the door open on a hot day I would never take a long railroad ride without it either I would as soon forget my bottle of cough medicine Mr. Webster's Speller had an immense sale 10 years ago he had sold 40 million copies and yet it had the same defect it was cold dull, disconnected and verbose there was only one good thing in the book and that was a little literary gem regarding a boy who broke in and stole the apples of a total stranger the story was so good that I have often wondered whom Mr. Webster got to write it for him the old man it seems at first told the boy Mr. Webster came down as there was a draft in the tree but the young sass box apple sass box I presume told him to a vaunt at last the old man said calm down honey I am afraid the limb will break if you don't then as the boy still remained he told him that those were not eating apples that they were just common cooking apples but the boy said he didn't mind a little thing like that so then the old gentleman got irritated and called the dog and threw turf at the boy and at last saluted him with pieces of turf and decayed cabbages and after the lad had gone away the old man pride the bulldog's jaws open and found a mouth full of pantaloons and a freckle I do not tell this of course in Mr. Webster's language but I give the main points as they recur now to my mind though I have been a close student of Mr. Webster for years and have carefully examined his style I am free to say that his ideas about writing a book are not the same as mine of course it is a great temptation for a young author to write a book that will have a large sale but that should not be all it should have a higher object than that and strive to interest those who read the book it should not be jerky and scattering in its statements I do not wish to do an injustice to a great man who is now no more a man who did so much for the world and who could spell the longest word without hesitation but I speak of these things just as I would expect others to criticize my work if one aspires to be the member of the literati of his day he must expect to be criticized I have been criticized myself when I was in public life as a justice of the peace in the Rocky Mountains a man came in one day and criticized me so that I did not get over it for two weeks I might add though I dislike to speak of it now that Mr. Webster was at one time a member of the legislature of Massachusetts I believe that was the only time he ever stepped aside from the straight and narrow way a good many people do not know this but it is true Mr. Webster was also a married man yet he never murmured or repined end of chapter 23 chapters 24 and 25 of a comic history of the United States this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia a comic history of the United States by Bill Nye chapter 24 before the wall causes which led to it masterly grasp of the subject shown by the author a man named Lopez in 1851 attempted to annex Cuba thus furnishing for our Republican rapper a genuine Havana filler but he failed and was executed while his plans were not Franklin Pierce was elected president on the Democratic ticket running against General Scott the Whig candidate slavery began to be discussed again when Stephen A. Douglas in Congress advocated squatter sovereignty or the right for each territory to decide whether it would be a free or a slave state the measure became a law in 1854 that was what made trouble in Kansas the two elements free and slave were arrayed against each other and for several years friends the United States had come over and helped Kansas bury its dead the condition of things for some time was exceedingly mortifying to the citizen who went out to milk after dark without his gun trouble with Mexico arose owing to the fact that the government had used a poor and unreliable map in establishing the line so General Gadston made a settlement for the disputed ground and made Mexico ten millions of dollars it is needless to say that we have since seen the day when we wished we had it back two ports of entry were now open to us in Japan by Commodore Perry's expedition and cups and saucers began to be more plentiful in this country many of the wealthier deciding at that time not to cool tea in the saucer or drink it from that vessel this custom and the wig party passed away at the same time the Republican or anti-slavery party nominated for president John C. Fremont who received the vote of 11 states but James Buchanan was elected and proved to the satisfaction of the world that there is nothing to prevent any unemployed man's applying for the presidency of the United States also that if his life had been free from ideas and opinions he may be elected sometimes where one who has been caught in the very act of thinking and had it proved on him might be defeated Chief Justice Taney now stated that slaves could be taken into any state of the union by their owners without forfeiting their rights of ownership this was called the Dred Scott decision and did much to irritate abolitionists like John Brown whose soul as this book goes to press is said to be marching on Brown was a Kansas man with a mission and massive whiskers he would be now called a crank but his action in seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry and declaring the slaves free was regarded by the South representative of the Northern feeling the country now began to be in a state of restlessness Brown had been captured and hanged as a traitor Northern men were obliged to leave their work every little while to catch a Negro and return him to his master or give him a lift towards Canada and as the Negro was replenishing the earth at an astonishing rate general alarm broke out Douglas was the champion of squatter sovereignty John C. Breckenridge of the doctrine that slaves could be checked through as personal baggage into any state of the union and Lincoln of the anti-slavery principle which afterwards constituted the spinal column of the federal government as opposed to the confederacy of the seceded states Lincoln was elected which reminded him of an anecdote Douglas and several other candidates were defeated which did not remind them of anything South Carolina seceded in December 1860 and soon after Mississippi, Florida, Alabama Georgia, Louisiana and Texas followed suit the following February the confederacy was organized at Montgomery, Alabama and Jefferson Davis was elected president long and patient effort on the part of the historian to ascertain how he liked it has been entirely barren of results Alexander H. Stevens was made vice president everything belonging to the United States and not thoroughly fastened down was carried away by the confederacy while President Buchanan looked the other way or wrote airy to tottering dynasties which slyly among themselves characterized him as a neat and cleanly old lady had Buchanan been a married man it is generally believed now that his wife would have prevented the war then she would have called James out from under the bed and allowed him to come to the table for his meals with the family but he was not married and the war came on Major Anderson was afraid to remain at Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor so crossed over to Fort Sumter the south regarded this as hostility and the fort was watched to see if anyone should attempt to divide his lunch with the garrison which it was declared would be regarded as an act of defiance the reader will see by this that a deaf and dumb asylum in northern Michigan was about the only safe place for a peaceable man at that time President Lincoln found himself placed at the head of a looted government on the sharp edge of a crisis that had not been properly upholstered the Buchanan cabinet had left little except a burglar's tool or two here and there to market operations and with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army and no encouragement except from the abolitionists many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance the president stole incognito into Washington like a man who had agreed to lecture there southern officers resigned daily from the army and navy to go home and join the fortunes of their several states meantime the federal government moved about like a baby elephant loaded with shot while the new confederacy got men, money, arms and munitions of war from every conceivable point finding that supplies were to be sent to Major Anderson General Peter G.T. Beauregard summoned Major Anderson to surrender General Beauregard after the war became one of the good kind gentlemen who annually stated over their signatures that they had examined the Louisiana state lottery and that there was no deception about it the lottery felt grateful for this and said that the general should never want while it had a roof of its own Major Anderson had 70 men while General Beauregard had 7000 after a bombardment in a general fight of 34 hours the starved and suffocated Garrison yielded to overwhelming numbers President Lincoln was not admired by a class of people in the north and south who heard with horror that he had at one time worked for ten dollars a month they thought the president salaried too much for him and feared that he would buy watermelons with it they also feared that someday he might tell a funny story in the presence of Queen Victoria this nobocracy could hardly sleep nights for fear that Lincoln at a state dinner might put sugar and cream in his cold consumé Jefferson Davis it was said knew more of etiquette in a minute than Lincoln knew all his life the capture of Sumter united the north and unified the south it made war democrats i.e. democrats noted against Lincoln join him in the prosecution of the war more united states property was cheerfully appropriated by the confederacy which showed that it was alive and kicking from the very first minute it was born confederate troops were sent to Virginia and threatened the capital at washington and would have taken it if the city had not in summer been regarded as unhealthful the first war in the city of truce its regimen hurrying to the capital was attacked in baltimore and several men were killed this was the first actual bloodshed in the civil war which caused rivers and lakes and torrents of the best blood of the north and south to cover the fair sweet clover fields and blue grass meadows made alone for peace the first thing that came to my mind was that the war was as unavoidable as the deluge and as idiotic in its incipiency as adams justly celebrated defense in the great apple sass case men will fight until it is educated out of them just as they will no doubt remain rudimentary tales and live in trees till they know better its all owing to how a man of course after we have been drawn into the fight and been fined and sent home we like to maintain that we were fighting for our home or liberty or the flag or something of the kind we hate to admit that as a nation we fault and paid for it afterwards with our families bread money just because we were irritated that's natural but most great wars are arranged by people who stay at home and sell groceries to the widow and orphan and old maids at one hundred percent advance Arlington Heights and Alexandria were now seized and occupied by the union troops for the protection of washington and mosquito wires were put up in the capitol windows to keep the largest of the rebels from coming in inviting congress fort Monroe was garrisoned by a force under general Benjamin F. Butler and an expedition was sent out against Big Bethel on the way the federal troops fired into each other which pleased the confederates very much indeed the union troops were repulsed with loss and went back to the fort where they stated that they were disappointed in the war West Virginia was strongly for the union in sentiment was set off from the original state of Virginia and after some fighting the first year of the war over its territory came into line with the northern states the fighting here was not severe generals McClellan and rosecrons union and lee confederate were the principal commanders the first year of the war was largely spent and sparring for wind very able authority has it in the next chapter reference will be made to the battle of bull run and the odium will be placed where it belongs the author reluctantly closes this chapter in order to go out and get some odium for that purpose end of chapter 24 chapter 25 bull run in other battles on the 21st of July 1861 occurred the battle of bull run under the joint management of general Erwin McDowell and general P. G. T. Beauregard after a sharp conflict the Confederates were repulsed but rallied again under general T. J. Jackson called thereafter Stonewall Jackson while the Federals were striving to beat Jackson back troops under general's early and Kirby Smith from Manassas Junction were hurled against their flank McDowell's men retreated and as they reached the bridge a shell burst among their crowded and chaotic numbers Akeeson was upset and a panic ensued many of the troops continuing at a swift canter till they reached the capital where they could call the sergeant at arms to preserve order As a result of this run on the banks of the Potomac the North suddenly decided that the war might last a week or two longer than at first stated that the foe could not be killed with corn stalks and that a mistake had been made in judging that the rebellion wasn't loaded Half a million men were called for and five hundred million dollars voted General George B. McClellan took command of the army of the Potomac The battle of Ball's bluff resulted disastrously to the Union forces and two thousand men were mostly driven into the Potomac some drowned and others shot Colonel Baker, United States Senator from Oregon was killed The war in Missouri now opened Captain Lyon Reserved the United States arsenal at St. Louis and defeated Colonel Marmaduke at Booneville General Siegel was defeated at Carthage, July 5th by the Confederates So Lyon with five thousand men decided to attack more than twice that number of the enemy under Price and McCulloch which he did August 10th at Wilson's Creek He was killed while making a charge The men were defeated General Fremont then took command and drove Price to Springfield but he was in a short time replaced by General Hunter because his war policy was offensive to the enemy Hunter was soon afterwards removed and Major General Halleck took his place Halleck gave General satisfaction to the enemy and even his read messages from Washington where he boarded during the war were filled with nothing but kindness for the misguided foe Davis early in the war commissioned privateers and Lincoln blockaded the southern ports The North had but one good vessel at the time and those who have tried to blockade four or five thousand miles of hostile coast with one vessel know full well what it is to be busy The entire Navy consisted of ships and some of these were not seaworthy Some of them were so pervious that their guns had to be tied on to keep them from leaking through the cracks of the vessel Hatteras Inlet was captured and Commodore Dupont aided by General Thomas W. Sherman captured Port Royale entrance and Tybee Island Port Royale became the depot It was now decided at the south to send Montures Mason and Slidell to England partly for change of scene and rest and partly to make a friendly call on Queen Victoria and invite her to come and spend the season at Asheville, North Carolina It was also hoped that she would give a few readings from her own works at the south while her retinue could go to the front and have fun with the Yankees if so disposed These gentlemen wearing their nice new broadcloth clothes and with a court suit and suitable night wear to use in case they should be pressed to stop a week or two at the castle got to Havana safely and took passage on the British ship Trent But Captain Wilkes of the United States steamer, San Jacinto took them off the Trent just as Mr. Mason had drawn and fortunately filled a hand with which he hoped to pay a part of the war dead of the south and get a new overcoat in London Later however the United States disavowed this act of Captain Wilkes and said it was only a bit of pleasantry on his part The first year of the war had taught both sides a few truths and especially that the war did not in any essential features resemble a straw ride to camp meeting and return The south had also discovered that the Yankee peddlers could not be captured with flypaper and that although war was not their regular job they were willing to learn how it was done In 1862 the National Army numbered 500,000 men and the Confederate Army 350,000 3 objects were decided upon by the federal government for the Union Army and Navy to accomplish 1. The opening of the Mississippi 2. The blockade of southern ports and 3. The capture of Richmond the capital city of the southern Confederacy The capture of Fort Henry and Donaldson was undertaken by General Grant aided by Commodore Foote and on February 6th a bombardment was opened with great success reducing Fort Henry in one hour The garrison got away because the land forces had no idea the fort would yield so soon and therefore could not get up there in time to cut off the retreat Fort Donaldson was next attacked the garrison having been reinforced by the men from Fort Henry The fight lasted 4 days and on February 16th the fort with 15,000 men surrendered Nashville was now easily occupied by Buel and Columbus by Bowling Green were taken The Confederates fell back to Corinth where General Beauregard and Albert Sidney Johnston massed their forces General Grant now captured the Memphis and railroad but the Confederates decided to capture him before Buel who had been ordered to reinforce him should affect a junction with him April 6th and 7th therefore the battle of Shiloh occurred whether the Union troops were surprised or not at this battle we cannot hear Pauls to discuss Suffice it to say that one of the federal officers admitted to the author in 1879 the influence of Calmy's that though not strictly surprised he believed he violated no confidence in saying that they were somewhat astonished it was Sunday morning and the northern hordes were just considering whether they would take a bite of beans and go to church or remain in camp and get their laundry work counted for Monday when the Confederacy and some other men burst upon them with a fierce rude yell in a few moments the federal troops had decided that there had sprung up a strong personal enmity on the part of the south and that ill feeling had been engendered in some way all that beautiful sabbath day they fought the federal's yielding ground slowly and reluctantly till the bank of the river was reached and Grant's artillery commanded the position here a stand was made until Buell came up and shortly afterwards the Confederates fell back but they had captured the Yankee camp entire and many a boy in blue lost the nice warm woolen purse warmers crocheted for him by his soul's idol it is said that over 3500 needle books and 3000 men were captured by the Confederates also 30 flags and immense quantities of stores but the Confederate commander General A.S. Johnston was killed the following morning the tide had turned and General P.G.T. Beauregard retreated unmolested to Corinth General Halleck now took command and as the Confederates went away from there he occupied Corinth though still retaining his rooms at the Arlington Hotel in Washington the Confederates who retreated from Columbus fell back to islands number 10 in the Mississippi River where Commodore Foote bombarded them for three weeks thus purifying the air and making the enemy feel much better than at any previous time during the campaign General Pope crossed the Mississippi capturing the batteries in the rear of the island and turning them on the enemy who surrendered April 7 the day of the battle of Shiloh May 10 the Union gun votes moved down the river Fort Pillow was abandoned by the Southern forces and the Confederate Flotilla was destroyed in front of Memphis Kentucky and Tennessee were at last the property of the fierce hordes from the great course north General Bragg was now at Chattanooga Price at Eucca and Dorn at Holly Springs all these generals had guns and were at enmity with the United States of America they very much desired to break the Union line of investment extending from Memphis almost to Chattanooga Bragg started out for the Ohio River intending to cross it and capture the middle states but Buel heard of it and got there 24 hours ahead where for Bragg abandoned his plans as it flashed over him like a clap of thunder from a clear sky that he had no place to put the middle states if he had them he therefore escaped in the darkness his wagon trains sort of drawing over 40 miles of roads and hit a reigning September 19 General Price who with Van Dorn had considered it a good time to attack Grant who had sent many troops north to prevent Bragg's capture of North America decided to retreat and General Rosecrans failing to cut him off escaped and was thus unable to fight on other occasions the two confederate generals now decided to attack the Union forces at Corinth which they did they fought beautifully especially the Texan and Missouri troops who did some heroic work but they were defeated and driven 40 miles with heavy loss October 30th General Buel was succeeded by General Rosecrans the battle of Murfreesboro occurred December 31st and January 2nd it was one of the bloodiest battles of the whole conflict and must have made the men who brought on the war by act of Congress fill first rate about 1 fourth of those engaged were killed an attack on Vicksburg in which Grant and Sherman were to cooperate the former moving along the Mississippi Central Railroad and Sherman descending the river from Memphis was disastrous and the capture of Arkansas post January 11th 1863 closed the campaign of 1862 on the father of Waters General Price was driven out of Missouri by General Curtis and had to stay in Arkansas quite a while though he preferred a drier climate General Van Dorn now took command of these forces numbering 20,000 men and at Pea Ridge March 7th and 8th 1863 he was defeated to a remarkable degree during his retreat he could hardly restrain his impatience some 4 or 5,000 Indians joined the Confederates in this battle but were so astonished at the canon and so shocked by the large decayed voles as they called the shells which came hurdling through the air now and then hurting an Indian severely that they went home before the exercises were more than half through they were down on the program some fantastic and interesting tortures of the Union prisoners but when they got home to the reservation and had picked the briars out of themselves they said that war was about as barbarous a thing as they were ever to and they went to bed early leaving a call for 9.30 a.m. on the following day the Red Brother's style of warfare has an air about it that is unpopular now a stone stab knife is a feeble thing to use against people who shoot a distance of 8 miles with a gun that carries a 40 gallon cauldron full of red hot iron end of chapter 25 chapters 26 and 27 of a comic history of the United States this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia a comic history of the United States by Bill Nye chapter 26 some more fratricidal strife the effort to open the Mississippi from the north was seconded by an expedition from the south in which Captain David G. Farragut commanding a fleet of 40 vessels cooperated with General Benjamin F. Butler with the capture of New Orleans as the object mortar boats covered with green branches for the purpose of fooling the enemy as no one could tell at any distance at all whether these were or were not olive branches steamed up the river and bombarded Fort Jackson and St. Philip till the stunned catfish rose to the surface of the water to inquire why all this and turned their pallid stomachs toward the soft southern zenith 16,800 shells were thrown into the two forts but that did not capture New Orleans Farragut now decided to run his fleet past the defenses and desperate as the chances were he started on April 24th a big cable stretched across the river suggested the idea that there was a hostile feeding among the New Orleans people five rafts and armed steamers met him and the iron plated ram Manassas extended to him a cordial welcome to a wide wet grave with a southern exposure Farragut cut through the cable about three o'clock in the morning practically destroyed the Confederate fleet and steamed up to the city for his mercy the forts now threatened in the rear by Butler's army surrendered and Farragut went up to Baton Rouge and took possession of it General Butler's occupation at New Orleans has been variously commented upon by both friend and foe but we are only able to learn from this and the entire record of the war in fact that it is better to avoid hostilities except the unpleasant features of combat the author when a boy learned this after he had acquired the unpleasant features resulting from combat which the artist has cleverly shown on opposite page General Butler said he found it almost impossible to avoid giving offense to the foe and finally he gave it up in despair the French are said to be the politest people on the face of the earth but no German will admit it and though the Germans are known to have big warm hospitable hearts since the Franco-Prussian war you couldn't get a Frenchman to admit this in February Burnside captured Roanoke Island and the coast of North Carolina fell into the hands of the Union army Port Royale became the base of operations against Florida and at the close of the year 1662 every city on the Atlantic coast except Charleston Wilmington and Savannah was held by the Union army the Merrimack iron clad which had made much trouble for the Union shipping for some time steamed into Hampton roads on the 8th of March Hampton roads is not the Champs Elysees of the South but a long wet stretch of track in Virginia the midway the Merrimack steered for the Cumberland rammed her and the Cumberland sunk like a stove lid with all on board the captain of the Congress warned by the fate of the Cumberland ran his vessel on shore and tried to conceal her behind tall grass but the Merrimack followed and shelled her till she surrendered back to Norfolk where she boarded night having come on a pace in the morning she aimed to clear out the balance of the Union fleet that night however the monitor a flat little craft with a revolving tower invented by captain Erickson arrived and in the morning when the Merrimack started in on her day's work of devastation beginning with the Minnesota the insignificant looking monitor slid up to the iron monster and gave her two 166 and three quarter pound solid shot the Merrimack replied with a style of broadside that generally sunk her adversary but the balls rolled off the low flat deck and fell with a solemn plunk in the morning sea or broken fragments and lay on the forward deck with samples of antique eggs on the floor of the House of Parliament after a home rule argument five times the Merrimack tried to ram the little spits pup of the Navy but her huge iron beak rode up over the slippery deck of the enemy and when the big vessel looked over her sides to see its wreck she discovered that the monitor was right side up and ready for more the Confederate vessel gave it up at last and went back to Norfolk defeated her career suddenly closed by the timely genius of the able Scandinavian the Peninsular Campaign was principally addressed toward the capture of Richmond 100,000 men were massed at Fort Monroe April 4th and marched slowly toward Yorktown where 5,000 Confederates under General McGrutter stopped a great army under McClellan after a month's siege and just as McClellan was about to shoot at the town the garrison took its valise and went away on the 5th of May occurred the battle of Williamsburg between the forces under fighting Joe Hooker and General Johnston it lasted nine hours and ended in the routing of the Confederates and their pursuit by Hooker 7 miles of Richmond this caused the adjournment of the Confederate Congress but Johnston prevented the junction of McDowell and McClellan after the capture of Hanover Courthouse and Stonewall Jackson reinforced by Ewell scared the Union forces almost to death they crossed the Potomac having marched 35 miles per day Washington was getting too hot now to hold people who could get away it was hard to say which capital had been scared the worst the governors of the northern states were asked to send militia to defend the capital and the front door of the White House was locked every night after 10 o'clock but finally the Union generals instead of calling for more troops got after General Jackson and he fled from the Shenandoah Valley burning the bridges behind him it is said that as he and his staff were about to cross their last bridge they saw a mounted gun on the opposite side manned by a Union artillery man Jackson rode up and in clarion tones called out who told you to put that gun there sir bring it over here sir and mount it and report at headquarters this evening sir the artillery man unlimbered the gun he was placing it General Jackson and staff crossed over and joined the army one cannot be too careful during a war in the matter of obedience to orders we should always know as nearly as possible whether our orders come from the proper authority or not no one can help admiring this dashing officers tour in the Shenandoah Valley where he kept three major generals and 60,000 troops awake knights with 15,000 men saved Richmond scared Washington into fits and prevented the Union of McClellands and McDowell's forces had there been more such men and a little more confidence in the great volume of typographical errors called Confederate money the lovely character who pens these lines might have had a different tale to tell first and June 1st occurred the battle of Fair Oaks where McClellands men floundering in the mud of the Chickahominy swamps were pounced upon by General Johnston who was wounded the first day on the following day as a result of this accident Johnston's men were repulsed in disorder General Robert E. Lee who was now in command of the Confederate forces desired to make his army more offensive than it had been and on June 12th General Stewart, led off with his cavalry made the entire circuit of the Union army saw how it looked from behind and returned to Richmond much improved in health having had several meals of victuals while absent Hooker now marched to where he could see the dome of the courthouse at Richmond but just then McClelland heard that Jackson had been seen in the neighborhood of Hanover Courthouse and so decided to change his base General McClelland was a man of great refinement and would never use the same base over a week at a time he had hardly got the base changed when Lee fell upon his flank at Mechanicsville June 26th and the 7 days battle followed the Union troops fought and fell back until Malvern Hill was reached where, worn with marching choked with dust and broken down by the heat to which they were unaccustomed they made their last stand July 1st here, Lee got such a reception that he did not insist on going any farther but the Union army was cooped up on the James River the siege of Richmond had been abandoned and the North felt blue and discouraged 300,000 more men were called for and it seemed that as in the South the cradle and the grave were to be robbed for more troops Lee now decided to take Washington and butcher Congress to make a Roman holiday General Pope met the Confederates August 26th and while Lee and Jackson were separated could have whipped the latter had the army of the Potomac reinforced him as it should but full of malaria and foot sore with marching it did not reach him in time and Pope had to fight the entire Confederate army on that historic ground covered with so many unpleasant memories and other things called bull run for the second time the worn and wilted Union army was glad to get back to Washington where the President was and where beer was only five cents per glass oh how sad everything seemed at that time to the North and how high cotton cloth was the bride who hastily married her dear one and bade him goodbye as the bugle called him to war pointed with pride to her cotton clothes as a mark of wealth and the middle classes were only too glad to have a little cotton mixed with their woolen clothes Lee invaded Maryland and McClellan restored to the command of the army of the Potomac followed him and found a copy of his order of march which revealed the fact that only a portion of the army was before him so overtaking the Confederates at South Mountain he was ready for a victory but waited one day and in the mountains Lee got his troops united again while Jackson also returned the Union troops had over 80,000 in their ranks nothing could have been more thoughtful or genteel than to wait for the Confederates to get as many together as possible otherwise the battle might have been brief and unsatisfactory to the taxpayer or newspaper subscriber who of course wants his money's worth when he pays for a battle the battle of Antietam was a very fierce one and undecisive yet it saved Washington from an invasion by the Confederates who would have done a good deal of trading there no doubt entirely on credit thus injuring business very much and loading down Washington merchants with book accounts which added to what they had charged already to members of Congress would have made times in Washington extremely dull General McClellan having impressed the country with the idea that he was a good bridge builder but a little too delitory in the matter of carnage was succeeded by General Burnside President Lincoln had written the proclamation of emancipation to the slaves in July but waited for a victory before publishing it Bull Run as a victory was not up to his standard so when Lee was driven from Maryland the document was issued by which all slaves in the United States became free and although 31 years have passed at this writing they are still dropping in occasionally from the back districts to inquire about the truth of the report end of chapter 26 chapter 27 still more fraternal bloodshed on principle outing features disappear and give place to strained relations between combatants who began to mix things on December 13th the year's business closed with the battle of Fredericksburg under the management of General Burnside 12,000 Union troops were killed before night mercifully shut down the slaughter the Confederates were protected by stone walls and situated upon a commanding height from which they were able to shoot down the Yankees with perfect sang froid and deliberation in the midst of all these discouragements the Red Brother fetched loose in Minnesota Iowa and Dakota and massacred 700 men women and children the outbreak was under the management of Little Crow and was confined to the Sioux Nation 39 of these Indians were hanged on the same scaffold at Mancato, Minnesota as a result of this wholesale murder this execution constitutes one of the green spots in the author's memory in all lives now and then an oasis is liable to fall this was oasis enough to last the writer for years in 1863 the federal army numbered about 700,000 men and the Confederates about 350,000 still it took two more years to close the war it is now held by good judges that the war was prolonged by the jealousy existing between Union commanders who wanted to be president or something else and that it took so much time for the generals to keep their eyes on caucuses and county papers at home that they thought best when surprised and attacked by the foe general Grant moved again on Vicksburg and on May 1 defeated Pemberton at Fort Gibson he also prevented a junction between Joseph E. Johnston and Pemberton and drove the latter into Vicksburg securing the stopper so tightly that after 47 days the garrison surrendered July 4th this fight cost the Confederates 37,000 prisoners 10,000 killed and wounded and immense quantities of stores it was a warm time in Vicksburg a curious man who stuck his hat out for 20 seconds above the ramparts found 15 bullet holes in it when he took it down and when he wore it to church he attracted more attention than the collection the North now began to sit up and take notice morning papers began to sell once more and Grant was the name on every tongue the Mississippi was open to the Gulf and the Confederacy was practically surrounded Rosecrans would have moved on the enemy but learned that the foe had several head of Calvary more than he did also a team of artillery at this time John Morgan made his way to Ohio he surrounded Cincinnati but did not take it as he was not keeping house at the time and hated to pay storage on it he got to Parkersburg West Virginia and was captured there with almost his entire force on September 19th and 20th occurred the battle of Chickamauga Longstreet rushed into a branch in the Union line and swept it with a big great bosom of wrath with wisely provided himself on starting out Rosecrans felt mortified when he came to himself and found that his horse had been so unmanageable that he had carried him 10 miles from the carnage but the left under Thomas held fast its position and no doubt saved the little band of 60,000 men which Rosecrans commanded at the time his army now found itself shut up in entrenchments with brag on the heels threatening the Union forces with starvation on November 24th and 25th a battle near Chattanooga took place with Grant at the head of the federal forces Hooker came to join him from the army of the Potomac and Sherman hurried to his standard from Luca Thomas made a dash and captured orchard knob and Hooker on the following day charged lookout mountain this was the most brilliant perhaps of Grant's victories it is known as the battle of missionary ridge Hooker had exceeded his prerogative and kept on after capturing the crest of lookout mountain while Sherman was giving the foe several varieties of fits from the north when Grant discovered that before him the line was being weakened in order to help the confederate flanks so with Thomas he crossed through the first line and over the rifle pits forgot that he had intended to halt and reform and concluded to wait and reform after the war was over when he should have more time and that night along the entire line of heights the campfires of the Union army winked at one another in ghoulish glee the army under brag was routed and brag resigned his command Burnside who had been relieved of the command of the army of the Potomac was sent to east Tennessee where the brave but frost-bitten troops of Longstreet shut him up at Knoxville and compelled him to board at the railroad eating house there Sherman's worn and weary boots were now ordered at once to the relief of Burnside and Longstreet getting word of it made a furious assault on the farmer who repulsed him with loss and he went away from there as Sherman approached the west Hooker had succeeded Burnside in the command of the army of the Potomac and he judged that as Lee was now left with but sixty thousand men while the army of the Potomac contained one hundred thousand who craved out-of-door exercise he might do well to go and get Lee returning in the cool of the evening Lee however accomplished the division of the army while concealed in the woods and sent Jackson to fall on Hooker's rear the close of the fight found Hooker on his old camping ground opposite Fredericksburg murmuring to himself in a dazed sort of way where am I Lee felt so good over this that he decided to go north and get something to eat he also decided to get catalogs and price lists of Philadelphia and New York while there threatening Baltimore in order to mislead General Mead who was now in command of the Federals, Lee struck into Pennsylvania and met with the Union Calvary a little west of Gettysburg on the Chambersburg road it is said that Gettysburg was not intended by either army as the site for the battle Lee hoping to avoid a fight depending as he did on the well-known hospitality of the Americans and Mead intending to have the fight at Pipe Creek where he had some property July 1st, 2nd and 3rd were the dates of this memorable battle. The first day was rather favorable to Lee quite a number of Yankee prisoners being taken away while they were lost in the crowded streets of Gettysburg. The second day was opened by Longstreet who charged the Union left and ran across Sickles who had by mistake formed in the way of Mead's intended line of battle. They outflanked him but as they swung around him Warren met them with a diabolical welcome which stayed them Sickles found himself on Cemetery Ridge while the Confederates under Ewell were on Culp's Hill. On the third day at 1pm, Lee opened with 150 guns on Cemetery Ridge. The air was a hornet's nest of screaming shells with fiery tails. As it lulled a little, out of the woods came 18,000 men in battle array extending over a mile in length. The Yankees knew a good thing when they saw it and they paused to admire this beautiful gathering of foemen in whose veins there flowed the same blood as in their own and whose ancestors had extended shoulder to shoulder with their own in a hundred battles for freedom. Their sentiment gave place to shouts of battle and into the silent phalanx a hundred guns poured their red hot messages of death. The golden grain was drenched with the blood of men no less brave because they were not victorious and the rich fields of Pennsylvania drank with thirsty eagerness the warm many a southern sun yet they moved onward volley after volley of musketry mowed them down and the puny reaper in the neglected grain gave place to the grim reaper death all down that unwavering line of gray and brown they marched up to the union breast works bayoneted the gunners at their work planted their flags on the parapets and while the generals converged from every point to this exploding powder burned the faces of these contending hosts who hand to hand fought each other to death while far away widows and orphans multiplied to mourn through the coming years over this ghastly folly of civil war whole companies of the Confederates rushed as prisoners into the arm of their enemies and the shattered remnant of foe retreated from the field while all this was going on in Pennsylvania Pemberton was arranging terms of surrender at Vicksburg and from this date onward the Confederacy began to wobble in its orbit and the president of this ill-advised but bitterly punished scheme began to wish that he had been in Canada when the war broke out in April of the same year admirable Dupont and able seamen with massive whiskers decided to run the fortifications at Charleston with iron clads but the Charleston people thought they could run themselves so they drove him back after the sinking of the Kennebec and the serious injury of all the other vessels General Gilmore then landed with troops Fort Wagner was captured the 54th regimen of colored troops the finest organized in pre-states took a prominent part and fought with great coolness and bravery by December there were 50,000 colored troops enlisted and before the war closed over 200,000 it is needless to say that this made the Yankee unpopular at the time in the best society of the south General Gilmore attempted to capture Sumter and did reduce it to a pulp but when he went to gather it he was met by a garrison still concealed in the basement and peppered with volleys of hot shingle nails and other bric-a-brac which forced him to retire with loss he said afterward that Fort Sumter was not desirable anyhow this closed the most memorable year of the war with the price of living at the south running up to $800 and $900 per day and currency depreciating so rapidly that one's salary had to be advanced every morning in order to keep pace with the price of mule stakes. End of Chapter 27