[93]Vermont Journal, October 18, 1791.
[93]Vermont Journal, October 18, 1791.
[94]This was the first instance of capital punishment since the organization of the State.
[94]This was the first instance of capital punishment since the organization of the State.
The continued aggressions of Great Britain were gradually but surely tending to a declaration of war against the imperial mistress of the sea. To the impressment of our seamen, the search and seizure of our vessels, the wanton attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, and many other outrages, was added the insult of attempting the same policy toward all New England which years before England had pursued in the effort to draw Vermont to her allegiance.
To open communication with the leading men therein, and to ascertain the feeling of the New England States, in all of which, except Vermont, the party opposing the administration of Madison was in the ascendant, Sir James Craig, Governor-General of Canada, employed an adventurer named John Henry, a naturalized citizen of the United States. Coming from Canada, he passed through Vermont, tarrying awhile at Burlington and Windsor. From the first town he wrote an unwarranted favorable report to his employer, representing that Vermont would not sustain the government in case of war; but, on reaching Windsor, he was led togive a less favorable representation. He then journeyed through New Hampshire, and, at length arriving at Boston, wrote many letters in cipher to Sir James. He represented the opposition of the New England Federalists to the administration to be of so violent a nature that, in case of war, they would at least remain neutral, and probably would bring about a separation of those States from the Union, and their formation into a dependency of Great Britain. Having performed the duty assigned him, he received from the British government, as reward for his services, not the appointment he asked, but only compliments. In retaliation for this poor requital, he divulged the whole correspondence to President Madison, receiving therefor the sum of $50,000. In the manifesto of the causes of war, this attempt at disruption was declared to be an "act of greater malignity than any other."
On the 18th of June, 1812, an act was passed by Congress declaring war against Great Britain. A considerable proportion of the citizens of the United States were strongly opposed to a resort to arms, believing that all disputes might have been adjusted more certainly by further negotiations than by the arbitrament of war, for which the nation was so ill-prepared.
So it was in Vermont. Of the 207 members of the Assembly which was that year elected, seventy-nine were Federalists opposed to the war, who made earnest protest against a resolution of themajority, declaring that those who did not actively support this measure of the government "would identify themselves with the enemy, with no other difference than that of locality." But the overwhelming majority of Republicans, with a governor of their own politics, framed the laws to their own liking. An act was passed prohibiting all intercourse between the people of Vermont and Canada without permit from the governor, under a penalty of $1,000 fine and seven years' imprisonment at hard labor; also, an act exempting the bodies and property of officers and soldiers of the militia from attachment while in actual service, and levying a tax of one cent per acre on all lands, for arming and supporting the militia to defend the frontiers.
Soon after the declaration of war, recruiting offices were opened in the State, a cantonment for troops was established at Burlington, and small bodies of volunteers were stationed at several points on the northern frontier. On either side of the scattered settlers of this region lay the forest,—on this, the scarcely broken wilderness of northern Vermont; on that, the Canadian wilds, that still slept in almost primeval solitude. The old terror of Indian warfare laid hold of these people, and their imagination filled the gloomy stretch of northward forest with hordes of red warriors awaiting the first note of conflict to repeat here the horrors of the old border warfare. In some of these towns stockades were built, and from all came urgentappeals to the state and general government for arms to repel the expected invasion. One frontier town was obliged to borrow twenty muskets, and the selectmen were authorized to purchase twenty-five pounds of powder and one hundred pounds of lead on six months' credit, a circumstance which shows how poorly prepared Vermont was for war.
Two months before the declaration of war, Congress authorized the President to detach 100,000 militia to march at a minute's notice, to serve for six months after arriving at the place of rendezvous. Vermont's apportionment was 3,000, and was promptly raised.
In November an act was passed by the legislature for the raising of sixty-four companies of infantry, two of cavalry, and two of artillery, to hold themselves ready at a minute's notice to take the field.
It appears that this corps was formed almost exclusively from exempts from military service. In one company, says an old paper,[95]was a venerable patriarch who could still shoot and walk well, and who "was all animation at the sound of the drum."
As shown by the disbursements by the State for premiums to recruits, it appears that only the old and populous States of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia furnished more men to the regular army than this young commonwealth, which was half a wilderness. The 30th and 31st regiments of infantry were composed entirely ofVermonters, as were largely the 11th and 26th. The 3,000 detached Vermont militia were assembled at Plattsburgh in the fall of 1812. In November General Dearborn marched from Plattsburgh to the lines with an army of 5,000 men, 2,000 of whom were militia. At the La Colle he made an ill-planned and feebly conducted attack upon a very inferior British force, and then retired to Plattsburgh. A large number of Vermonters shared the barren honors of this expedition under an incompetent leader. The militia were presently disbanded, and four regiments of regulars crossed the lake and took post at Burlington.
All along the lake, during the summer, there had been a stir of busy preparation. Vessels of war were built and fitted out to contest the supremacy on the lake with the British naval force already afloat. "Niles' Register" reports the arrival at Plattsburgh[96]of the sloop of war President, and a little later that of the smaller sloops, which, with six gunboats, constituted at the time the American force on Lake Champlain, all under the command of Lieutenant Macdonough. But the belligerent craft of either nation held aloof from more than menace, while sullen autumn merged into the bitter chill of northern winter, and the ships were locked harmless in their ice-bound harbors.
When returning warm weather set them free, some British gunboats crept up the lake, and on the3d of June the Growler and Eagle went in pursuit of them, chasing them into the Richelieu. Having come in sight of the works on Isle aux Noix, the sloops put about and endeavored to make their way back to the open lake against the current of the river and a south wind. Three row-galleys now put out from the fort, and began playing on them with guns of longer range and heavier metal than those of the sloops, upon whom a galling fire of musketry was also rained from the river banks. The vessels poured a storm of grape and canister upon the green wall of leafage that hid the musketeers, and hurled ineffectual shot at the distant galleys, maintaining a gallant defense for more than four hours. Then a heavy shot from one of the galleys crushed through the hull of the Eagle below the water-line, sinking her instantly, but in shallow water, so that her men were rescued by boats from shore. Fifteen minutes later a shot carried away the forestay and main boom of the Growler, and being now unmanageable she was forced to strike. Only one of the Americans was killed, and nineteen were wounded, while the loss of the British was far greater, but the entire crews of both sloops were taken prisoners. Thus disastrously to the Americans resulted the first naval encounter of this war on these waters. The captured sloops were refitted, and, under the names of Finch and Chub, made a brave addition to the British fleet upon the lake.
The defenseless condition of the western shoreinvited attack, and on the last day of July Colonel Murray sailed up to Plattsburgh with two sloops, three gunboats, and a number of longboats manned by 1,400 men. Making an unopposed landing, they destroyed the barracks and all other public property there, and carried away eight thousand dollars' worth of private property. During this attack General Wade Hampton, recently appointed to the command of this department, remained inert at Burlington, only twenty miles distant, with 4,000 troops, although he had twenty-four hours' notice of the expected attack, and received repeated calls for aid.
Two gunboats and the longboats then proceeded to Swanton, where they destroyed some old barracks and plundered several citizens, and committed similar piratical depredations at several points on the western shore.
The two sloops, late Growler and Eagle, now sailed under changed names and colors up the lake, accompanied by the other gunboats, and destroyed several boats engaged in transporting stores. They appeared before Burlington, firing a few shots upon the town, which were briskly returned by the batteries. That night they cut out four sloops laden with provisions, and burnt another with a cargo of salt, and then bore away northward with their booty.
In September Macdonough sailed down the lake with his little fleet and offered battle, but the British declined and sailed into the Richelieu, whither the brave commodore would not follow to beentrapped as Lieutenant Smith had been. Again, in December, when some of the British vessels came up to Rouse's Point on a burning and plundering expedition, Macdonough endeavored to get within striking distance near Point au Fer, but they refused to engage, and retired to the same safe retreat.
In October Colonel Isaac Clark, a Vermonter and a veteran of the Revolution, made a brilliant dash with a detachment of his regiment, the 11th, on a British post at St. Armand, on Missisquoi Bay. With 102 riflemen he surprised the enemy, killing nine, wounding fourteen, and taking 101 prisoners in an engagement that lasted only ten minutes. In November he again visited St. Armand, securing fifty head of cattle which had been taken there from the Vermont side of the line. A Canadian journal was "glad to give the Devil his due," and credited him with having "behaved very honorably in this affair."
During the autumn General Wade Hampton amused himself and tired his troops with abortive meanderings along the line. In October he entered Canada, and made an attack on a small body of British troops, accomplishing nothing but the loss to himself of thirty-five men, killed and wounded. He refused to coöperate with General Wilkinson, who was advancing from Sackett's Harbor down the St. Lawrence, and desired Hampton to join him at St. Regis, the object being the capture of Montreal. Hampton's ingloriouscampaign ended with his retiring to winter quarters at Plattsburgh. Many Vermonters served under him, their hardships unrewarded by victory, or even vigorous endeavor to gain it.
Wilkinson's movements were as abortive, though when his flotilla reached the head of the Long Sault, a brigade of his army engaged a force of the enemy at Chrysler's Farm. The raw and undisciplined American troops, of whom the Vermonters in a battalion of the 11th formed a part, distinguished themselves by frequently repulsing some of the tried veterans of the English army. Neither side gained a victory, but the British remained in possession of the field, though they suffered the heavier loss in killed and wounded, and the flotilla continued its inconsequential voyage. Arriving at St. Regis, and learning that Hampton would not coöperate with him, Wilkinson abandoned the movement against Montreal, and went into winter quarters at French Mills.
On the last of December a British force made a successful raid on a depot of supplies at Derby, Vermont, destroying barracks and storehouses, and carrying away a considerable quantity of stores. In consequence of this, and some threatening demonstration on the Richelieu, Wilkinson removed his quarters to Lake Champlain. While this pretense was made of undertaking a conquest which might result in the annexation of Canada to the United States, and a consequent increase of power in the north, a result desired neither by thesecretary of war nor the generals here employed, hot and earnest blows were falling on the enemy at the westward. On Lake Erie Perry had overcome the British, and was master of that inland sea. Harrison had vanquished the English and their Indian allies at the battle of the Thames, and Michigan was regained.
Meantime a storm of abuse raged between the political parties of Vermont, each hurling at the other the hard names of Tories, traitors, and enemies of their country, and neighborhoods and families were divided in the bitter contest. The Federalist strength was so far increased by the growing unpopularity of the war, and the irksomeness of the restrictions on trade, that the party succeeded at the election of 1813 in placing Martin Chittenden, son of the old governor, at the head of the state government.
One of his earliest acts was to recall by proclamation a brigade of the state militia in service at Plattsburgh. In this the governor acted on the ground that it was unconstitutional to call the militia beyond the limits of the State without permission from the governor, their commander-in-chief, a view of the case supported by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and adhered to by most of the other New England States; and, further, that the militia of Vermont were more needed for the defense of their own State than for that of its stronger sister commonwealth. A number of the Vermont officers returned a protest whose vigor wasweakened by its insolence. They refused to obey the proclamation of their captain-general, but nevertheless the rank and file, tired of inaction, less irksome to the officers, returned to their homes before the term of enlistment expired, and the affair passed without further notice.
The muskrats had long been housed in their lodges on the frozen marshes, and all waterfowl but the loons and mergansers had flown southward, when Macdonough withdrew his fleet from the stormy lake into Otter Creek, whose current was already thick with drifting anchor-ice. The craft were moored in a reach of the river known as the Buttonwoods, three fourths of a mile above Dead Creek, the ice closed around them, and they slept inert until the return of spring.
The sap had scarcely begun to swell the forest buds when Vergennes, eight miles upstream, where the first fall bars navigation, was astir with the building of other craft for the Champlain navy. A throng of ship carpenters were busy on the narrow flat by the waterside; the woods were noisy with the thud of axes, the crash of falling trees, and the bawling of teamsters; and the two furnaces were in full blast casting cannon-shot for the fleet. Forty days after the great oak which formed the keel of the Saratoga had fallen from its stump, the vessel was afloat and ready for its guns. Several gunboats were also built there, and early in May, their sappy timbers yet reeking with woodsy odors, the new craft dropped down the river to join the fleet at the Buttonwoods.
The right bank of Otter Creek at its mouth is a rock-ribbed promontory, connected with the mainland, except at high water, by a narrow neck of low, alluvial soil. On the lakeward side of the point earthworks were thrown up, and mounted with several pieces of artillery, for the defense of the entrance against an expected attempt of the enemy to destroy the American fleet. The militia of Addison, Chittenden, and Franklin counties were put in readiness to turn out on the firing of signal guns, and a small detachment was posted at Hawley's Farm, near the mouth of Little Otter, to watch the approach of the army. About 1,000 of the militia were stationed at Vergennes. All the night of the 13th the officers of the neighboring towns were running bullets at their treasurer's, where powder and lead were stored for the militia at Vergennes.
On the 10th of May the British squadron passed Cumberland Head, and on the 14th eight of the galleys and a bomb-ketch appeared off the mouth of Great Otter, while a brig, four sloops, and several galleys were two miles to the northward. The galleys opened a fire on the battery, which was bravely defended by Captain Thornton of the artillery and Lieutenant Cassin of the navy. The rapid discharge of the guns, repeated in echoes from the rugged steeps of Split Rock Mountain till it became a continuous roar, for a time greatly alarmed the inhabitants of the adjacent country, but the assailants were beaten off after receivingconsiderable injury, while they inflicted on the defenders only the dismounting of one gun, and the slight wounding of two men. The British fleet sailed northward, and next day Macdonough's flotilla issued forth ready for battle, and sailed northward to Cumberland Bay.
The importance of this action has not had proper recognition. It is briefly, if at all, mentioned by historians. If the defense of the little battery which now bears the name of Fort Cassin, in honor of Macdonough's brave lieutenant, had been less gallant and successful, our fleet would in all probability have been destroyed before it could strike the blow which gained its commander imperishable renown. The British keenly felt the lost opportunity, for Captain Pring was charged by his superiors with cowardice and disobedience of orders in not having taken the battery and blockaded the American squadron.
The invasion of Canada again was the plan of the campaign for 1814. The two western armies were to move against the enemy on the upper lakes and at the Niagara frontier, while General Izard was to cut the communication on the St. Lawrence between Kingston and Montreal. The Vermonters of the 30th and 31st regiments, and part of the 11th, with the militia and volunteers raised in the vicinity of Lake Champlain were employed in this army, while the remainder of the 11th were in service on the Niagara frontier.
The contraband trade was not entirelysuppressed all along the border. Many cunning devices were resorted to by the smugglers. One of the most notable was the fitting out of a pretended privateer by one John Banker of New York. Obtaining letters of marque from the collector of that city, he began cruising on the lake in a little vessel named the Lark, of less than one ton burden, and armed with three muskets. After evincing her warlike character by firing on the Essex ferry-boat, she ran down the lake to Rouse's Point, and there lay in wait for prizes. A barge heavily laden with merchandise presently fell a prey to the bold privateer; her cargo was conveyed to New York by Banker's confederate, and delivered to the owners. The government officials soon learned that the goods had not been received at the United States storehouse, the Lark was seized, and the brief career of privateering on these waters came to an end. In March, 1814, Colonel Clark of the 11th, with 1,100 Green Mountain Boys, took possession of the frontier from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut, establishing his headquarters at Missisquoi Bay, harassing the enemy as opportunity offered, and making vigilant efforts for the suppression of smuggling. After successfully accomplishing this, he joined Wilkinson at the La Colle.
In the brave but unsuccessful attack on the La Colle Mill, upon whose strong stone walls our two light pieces of artillery made no impression, Clark led the 600 Green Mountain Boys who composed the advance. Their loss was eleven of the thirteenkilled, and one third of the 128 wounded. The Vermonters of this army had no further opportunity to distinguish themselves until September, but those of the 11th regiment gallantly bore their part in the bloody battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie. In the first, General Scott called on the 11th to charge upon the enemy, who had declared that the Americans "could not stand cold iron," and the regiment dashed impetuously upon the scarlet line and swept it back with their bayonets.
A formidable British army, 15,000 strong, largely composed of veterans, flushed with their European victories, was near the Richelieu, under command of Sir George Prevost, and their fleet had been strengthened by additional vessels.
Though there were at the time but about 6,000 troops fit for duty, to oppose the enemy's advance in this quarter, early in August the secretary of war ordered General Izard to march with 4,000 of them to the Niagara frontier. Protesting against an order which would leave the Champlain region so defenseless, Izard set forth from Champlain and Chazy with his army on the 29th, halting two days at Lake George in the hope that the order might yet be revoked.
On the 30th the British general Brisbane occupied Champlain, and four days later Sir George Prevost arrived there with his whole force; while Plattsburgh was held by the insignificant but undaunted army of the Americans under GeneralMacomb, abandoned to its fate by a government that did not desire the conquest of Canada. The three forts and block-house were strengthened, and the general made an urgent call on New York and Vermont for reinforcements, which was promptly responded to, while small parties were sent out to retard, as much as possible, the advance of the enemy. But the skirmishers were swept back by the overwhelming strength of the invading army, and retired across the Saranac, destroying the bridges behind them.
Governor Chittenden did not consider himself authorized to order the militia into service outside the State, but called for volunteers. There was a quick response. Veterans of the Revolution and their grandsons, exempt by age and youth from service, as well as the middle-aged, each with the evergreen badge of his State in his hat, turned out. With the old smooth-bores and rifles that had belched buckshot and bullet at Hubbardton and Bennington, and with muskets obtained from the town armories, they flocked towards the scene of impending battle, on foot, in wagons, singly, in squads, and by companies, crossing the lake at the most convenient points, of which Burlington was the principal one. General Strong was put in command of the Vermont volunteers. On the 10th of September he reported 1,812 at Plattsburgh, and on the 11th 2,500, while only 700 of the New York militia had arrived.
When the morning of the 11th of Septemberbroke, the American army stood at bay on the south bank of the Saranac. Fifteen hundred regulars and about 3,200 hastily collected militia and volunteers, confronted by 14,000 of the best troops of Great Britain, proudly wearing the laurels won in the Napoleonic wars, and confident of victory over the despised foe that now opposed them.
Early that morning the British fleet collected at Isle La Motte weighed anchor, and sailed southward. At eight o'clock it rounded Cumberland Head, and with sails gleaming in the sunlight, swept down toward the American fleet like a white cloud drifting across the blue lake.
Macdonough's vessels were anchored in a line extending north from Crab Island and parallel with the west shore, the Eagle, Captain Henly, at the head of the line, next the Saratoga, Commodore Macdonough's flagship; the schooner Ticonderoga next; and at the south end of the line the sloop Preble, so close to Crab Island Shoal as to prevent the enemy from turning that end of the line. Forty rods in the rear of this line lay ten gunboats, kept in position by their sweeps; two north and in rear of the Eagle, the others opposite the intervals between the larger craft.
At nine o'clock the hostile fleet came to anchor in a line about three hundred yards from ours, Captain Downie's flagship, the Confiance, opposed to the Saratoga; his brig Linnet to the Eagle; his twelve galleys to our schooner, sloop, and a division of galleys; while one of the sloops takenfrom us the year before assisted the Confiance and Linnet, the other the enemy's galleys. The British fleet had 95 guns, and 1,050 men; the American, 86 guns, and 820 men. In such position of the fleets the action began.
The first broadside of the Confiance killed and disabled forty of the Saratoga's crew. The head of one of his men, cut off by a cannon-shot, struck Macdonough in the breast and knocked him into the scuppers. A shot upset a coop and released a cock, which flew into the shrouds and crowed lustily, and the crew, cheering this augury of victory, served the guns with increased ardor. The Eagle, unable to bring her guns to bear, cut her cable and took a position between the Saratoga and the Ticonderoga, where she greatly annoyed the enemy, but left the flagship exposed to a galling fire from the British brig. Nearly all the Saratoga's starboard guns were dismounted, and Macdonough winded her, bringing her port guns to bear upon the Confiance, which ship attempted the same manœuvre, but failed. After receiving a few broadsides, her gallant commander dead, half her men killed and wounded, with one hundred and five shots in her hull, her rigging in tatters on the shattered masts, the British flagship struck her colors.
The guns of the Saratoga were now turned on the Linnet, and in fifteen minutes she surrendered, as the Chub, crippled by the Eagle's broadsides and with a loss of half her men, had done some time before.
The Finch, driven from her position by the Ticonderoga, drifted upon Crab Island Shoals, where, receiving the fire of a battery on the island manned by invalids, she struck and was taken possession of by them. The galleys remaining afloat made off. Our galleys were signaled to pursue, but were all in a sinking condition, unable to follow, and, the other vessels being crippled past making sail, the galleys escaped.
The havoc wrought in this conflict proves it to have been one of the hottest naval battles ever fought. A British sailor who was at Trafalgar declared that battle as "but a flea-bite to this." The British lost in killed and wounded one fifth of their men, the commander of the fleet, and several of his officers; the Americans, one eighth of their men. Among the killed were Lieutenant Stansbury of the Ticonderoga, and Lieutenant Gamble of the Saratoga. The Saratoga was twice set on fire by the enemy's hot shot, and received fifty-five shots in her hull. At the close of the action, not a mast was left in either squadron on which a sail could be hoisted.[97]
The result, so glorious to the Americans, was due to the superior rapidity and accuracy of their fire.
For more than two hours the unremitting thunder-peal of the battle had rolled up the Champlain valley to thousands who listened in alternating hope and fear. For a time, none but thecombatants and immediate spectators knew how the fight had gone, till the lifting smoke revealed to the anxious watchers on the eastern shore the stars and stripes alone floating above the shattered ships; then horsemen rode in hot speed north, east, and south, bearing the glad tidings of victory.
The opening of the naval fight was the signal for the attack of the British land force. A furious fire began from all the batteries. At two bridges, and at a ford above Plattsburgh, its strength was exerted in attempts to cross the Saranac. The attacks at the bridges were repulsed by the American regulars, firing from breastworks formed of planks of the bridges. At the ford, the enemy were met by the volunteers and militia. A considerable number succeeded in crossing the river, but an officer riding up with news of the naval victory, the citizen soldiers set upon the enemy in a furious assault, and with cheers drove them back.
A fire was kept up from the English batteries until sundown, but when the evening, murky with the cloud of battle, darkened into the starless gloom of night, the British host began a precipitate retreat, abandoning vast quantities of stores and munitions, and leaving their killed and wounded to the care of the victors. They had lost in killed, wounded, prisoners, and deserters 2,500; the Americans, 119. But bitterest of all to the vanquished invaders was the thought that they who had overcome the armies of Napoleon were now beatenback by an "insignificant rabble" of Yankee yeomen.
The retreat had been for some hours in progress before it was discovered, and a pursuit begun, which, after the capture of some prisoners, and covering the escape of a number of deserters, was stopped at Chazy by the setting in of a drenching rainstorm.
Three days later, their present service being no longer necessary, the Vermont volunteers were dismissed by General Macomb, with thanks of warm commendation for their ready response to his call, and the undaunted spirit with which they had met the enemy.
Through General Strong they received the thanks of Governor Chittenden, and, later, the thanks of the general government "to the brave and patriotic citizens of the State for their prompt succor and gallant conduct in the late critical state of the frontier."
Their promptness was indeed commendable, for they had rallied to Macomb's aid, and the battle was fought, four days before the government at Washington had issued its tardy call for their assistance. The State of New York presented to General Strong an elegant sword in testimony of "his services and those of his brave mountaineers at the battle of Plattsburgh," and the two States united in making a gift to Macdonough of a tract of land on Cumberland Head lying in full view of the scene of his brilliant victory.
The army of Sir George Prevost was beaten back to Canada, but it was still powerful, and the danger of another invasion was imminent. Governor Chittenden issued another proclamation, unequivocal in its expressions of patriotism, enjoining upon all officers of the militia to hold their men in readiness to meet any invasion, and calling on all exempts capable of bearing arms to equip themselves and unite with the enrolled militia when occasion demanded.
As there was nothing to apprehend from any naval force which could be put afloat this season by the British, Macdonough requested that he might be employed on the seaboard under Commodore Decatur. On the approach of winter, the fleet was withdrawn to Fiddler's Elbow, near Whitehall, never again to be called forth to battle. There, where the unheeding keels of commerce pass to and fro above them, the once hostile hulks of ship and brig, schooner and galley, lie beneath the pulse of waves in an unbroken quietude of peace.
There were rumors of a projected winter invasion from Canada to destroy the flotilla while powerless in the grip of the ice. It was reported that an immense artillery train of guns mounted on sledges was preparing; that a multitude of sleighs and teams for the transportation of troops, with thousands of buffalo robes for their warmth, had been engaged and bought. Vermont did not delay preparation for such an attack.
The rancor of politics among her people had given place to a nobler spirit of patriotism, and, without distinction of parties, all good men stood forth in defense of their country, and those who had opposed the war were now as zealous as its advocates in prosecuting it to an honorable close.
Major-General Strong issued a general order to the militia to be ready for duty at any moment, requested the exempts to aid them, and urged the selectmen to make into cartridges the ammunition with which the towns were supplied, and place them at convenient points for distribution. All responded promptly, and, moreover, matrons and maids diligently plied their knitting-needles in the long winter evenings to make socks and mittens for the brave men who would need them in the bitter weather of such a campaign.
But, instead of the expected invasion, came the good news of the treaty of peace, signed at Ghent on the twenty-fourth day of December.
Peace was welcome to the nation, though the treaty was silent concerning the professed causes of the declaration of war, and the only compensation for the losses and burdens entailed by the conflict, so wretchedly conducted by our government, was the glory of the victories gained by our little navy and undisciplined troops over England's invincible warships and armies of veterans.
[95]Niles' Register.
[95]Niles' Register.
[96]October 27, 1812.
[96]October 27, 1812.
[97]Macdonough's report, Palmer'sLake Champlain.
[97]Macdonough's report, Palmer'sLake Champlain.
Peace was indeed welcome to a people so long deprived of an accessible market as had been the inhabitants of Vermont.
The potash fires were relighted; the lumberman's axe was busy again in the bloodless warfare against the giant pines; new acres of virgin soil were laid bare to the sun, and added to the broadening fields of tilth. White-winged sloops and schooners, and unwieldy rafts, flocked through the reopened gate of the country, and the clumsy Durham boat spread its square sail to the favoring north wind, and once more appeared on the broad lake where it had so long been a stranger. The shores were no longer astir with military preparations, but with the bustle of awakened traffic; soldiers had again become citizens; the ravages of war had scarcely touched the borders of the State, and in a few months there remained hardly a trace of its recent existence.
There had not been, nor was there for years after this period, a marked change in the social conditions of the people, for the old fraternal bonds of interdependence still held pioneer to pioneeralmost as closely as in the days when the strong hand was more helpful than the long purse.
Class distinctions were marked vaguely, if at all, and there was no aristocracy of idleness, for it was held that idleness was disgraceful. The farmer who owned five hundred acres worked as early and as late as he who owned but fifty, and led his half-score of mowers to the onslaught of herdsgrass and redtop with a ringing challenge of whetstone on scythe, and was proud of his son if the youngster "cut him out of his swathe."
The matron taught her daughters and maids how to spin and weave flax and wool. The beat of the little wheel, the hum of the great wheel, the ponderous thud of the loom, were household voices in every Vermont homestead, whether it was the old log-house that the forest had first given place to, or its more pretentious framed and boarded successor. All the womenfolk knitted stockings and mittens while they rested or visited, the click of the needles accompanied by the chirp of the cricket and the buzz of gossip.
For workday and holiday, the household was clad in homespun from head to foot, save what the hatter furnished for the first and the traveling cobbler for the last.
Once a year the latter was a welcome visitor of every homestead in his beat, bringing to it all the gossip for the womenfolk, all the weighty news for the men, and all the bear stories for the children which he had gathered in a twelve months'"whipping of the cat," as his itinerant craft was termed. These he dispensed while, by the light of the wide fireplace, he mended old foot-gear or fashioned new, that fitted and tortured alike either foot whereon it was drawn on alternate days.
The old custom of making "bees," instituted when neighborly help was a necessity, was continued when it was no longer needed, for the sake of the merry-makings which such gatherings afforded. There were yet logging-bees for the piling of logs in a clearing, and raising-bees when a new house or barn was put up; drawing-bees when one was to be moved to a new site, with all the ox-teams of half a township; and bees when a sick or short-handed neighbor's season-belated crops needed harvesting.
When the corn was ripe came the husking-bee, in which old and young of both sexes took part, their jolly labor lighted in the open field by the hunter's moon or a great bonfire, around which the shocks were ranged like a circle of wigwams; or, if in the barn, by the rays sprinkled from lanterns of punched tin. When the work was done, the company feasted on pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and cider. Then the barn floor was cleared of the litter of husks, the fiddler mounted the scaffold, and made the gloom of the roof-peak ring with merry strains, to which twoscore solidly clad feet threshed out time in "country dance" and "French four."
The quilting party, in its first laborious stage,was participated in only by the womenkind; but, when that was passed, the menfolk were called in to assist in the ceremony of "shaking the quilt," and in the performance of this the fiddler was as necessary as in the closing rites of the husking-bee.
When the first touch of spring stirred the sap of the maples, sugar-making began, a labor spiced with a woodsy flavor of camp life and small adventure. The tapping was done with a gouge; the sap dripped from spouts of sumach stems into rough-hewn troughs, from which it was gathered in buckets borne on a neck-yoke, the bearer making the rounds on snowshoes, and depositing the gathered sap in a big "store trough" set close to the boiling-place. This was an open fire, generously fed with four-foot wood, and facing an open-fronted shanty that sheltered the sugar-maker from rain and "sugar snow," while he plied his daily and nightly labor, now with the returning crow and the snickering squirrel for companions, now the unseen owl and fox, making known their presence with storm-boding hoot and husky bark. The sap-boiling was done in the great potash kettle that in other seasons seethed with pungent lye, but now, swung on a huge log crane, sweetened the odors of the woods with sugar-scented vapor. Many families saw no sweetening, from one end of the year to the other, but maple sugar and syrup, the honey from their few hives, or the uncertain spoil of the bee-hunter. All the young folks of a neighborhood were invited tothe "sugaring off," and camp after camp in turn, during the season of melting snow and the return of bluebird and robin, rung with the chatter and laughter of a merry party that was as boisterous over the sugar feast as the blackbirds that swung on the maple-tops above them rejoicing over the return of spring.
In the long evenings of late autumn and early winter, there were apple or paring bees, to which young folk and frolicsome elder folk came and lent a hand in paring, coring, and stringing to dry, for next summer's use, the sour fruit of the ungrafted orchards, and, when the work was done, to lend more nimble feet to romping games and dances, that were kept up till the tallow dips paled with the stars in the dawn, and daylight surprised the coatless beaux and buxom belles, all clad in honest homespun.
Very naturally, weddings often came of these merry-makings, and were celebrated with as little ostentation and as much hearty good fellowship. The welcome guests brought no costly and useless presents for display; there were no gifts but the bride's outfit of home-made beds, homespun and hand-woven sheets, table-cloths, and towels given by parents and nearest relations. The young couple did not parade the awkwardness of their newly assumed relations in a wedding journey, but began the honeymoon in their new home, and spent it much as their lives were to be spent, taking up at once the burden that was not likely to growlighter with the happiness that might increase. But if the burden became heavy, and the light of love faded, there was seldom separation or divorce. If there were more sons and daughters than could be employed at home, they hired out in families not so favored without loss of caste or sense of degradation in such honest service. They often married into the family of the employer, and their position was little changed by the new relation.
For many years the wheat crop in Vermont continued certain and abundant, and formed a part of almost every farmer's income, as well as the principal part of his breadstuff, for the pioneer's Johnny-cake had fallen into disrepute among his thrifty descendants, who held it more honorable to eat poor wheat-bread than good Johnny-cake, and despised the poor wretch who ate buckwheat. It is quite possible that the first demarcation between the aristocrats and the plebeians of Vermont was drawn along this food line.
Wool-growing was fostered in the infancy of the State by public acts, and almost every farmer was more or less a shepherd. A marked improvement in the fineness and weight of the fleeces began with the introduction of the Spanish merinos in 1809.[98]By the judicious breeding by a few intelligent Vermont farmers, the Spanish sheep were brought toa degree of perfection which they had never attained in their European home, and Vermont merinos gained a world-wide reputation that still endures; while the wool product of the State, once so famous for it that Sheffield cutlers stamped their best shears "The True Vermonter," has become almost insignificant, compared with that of states and countries whose flocks yearly renew their impoverished blood with fresh draughts from Vermont stock. Shearing-time was the great festival of the year. The shearers, many of whom were often the flock-owner's well-to-do neighbors, were treated more as guests than as laborers, and the best the house afforded was set before them. The great barn's empty bays and scaffolds resounded with the busy click of incessant shears, the jokes, songs, and laughter of the merry shearers, the bleating of the ewes and lambs, and the twitter of disturbed swallows, while the sunlight, shot through crack and knot-hole, swung slowly around the dusty interior in sheets and bars of gold that dialed the hours from morning till evening.
A distinctive breed of horses originated in Vermont, and the State became almost as famous for its Morgan horses as for its sheep. But, though Vermont horses are still of good repute, this noted strain, the result of a chance admixture of the blood of the English thoroughbred and the tough little Canadian horse, has been improved into extinction of its most valued traits.
The laborious life of the farmer had anoccasional break in days of fishing in lulls of the spring's work, and between that and haymaking; of hunting when the crops were housed, and the splendor of the autumnal woods was fading to sombre monotony of gray, or when woods and fields were white with the snows of early winter.
The clear mountain ponds and streams were populous with trout, the lakes and rivers with pike, pickerel, and the varieties of perch and bass; and in May and June the salmon, fresh run from the sea and lusty with its bounteous fare, swarmed up the Connecticut and the tributaries of Lake Champlain.
The sonorous call of the moose echoed now only in the gloom of the northeastern wilderness, but the deer still homed in the mountains, often coming down to feed with domestic cattle in the hillside pastures. The ruffed grouse strutted and drummed in every wood, copse, and cobble. Every spring, great flights of wild pigeons clouded the sky, as they flocked to their summer encampment; and in autumn, such innumerable hordes of wild fowl crowded the marshes that the roar of their startled simultaneous uprising was like dull thunder. These the farmer hunted in his stealthy Indian way, and after New England fashion,—the fox on foot, with hound and gun; and so, too, the raccoon that pillaged his cornfields when the ears were in the milk. When a wolf came down from the mountain fastnesses, or crossed the frozen lake from the Adirondack wilds, to ravage the folds, every arms-bearerturned hunter. The marauder was surrounded in the wood where he had made his latest lair; the circle, bristling with guns, slowly closed in upon him; and as he dashed wildly around it in search of some loophole of escape, he fell to rifle-ball or charge of buckshot, if he did not break through the line at a point weakly guarded by a timid or flurried hunter. His death was celebrated at the nearest store or tavern with a feast of crackers and cheese,—a droughty banquet, moistened with copious draughts of cider, beer, or more potent liquors, and the bounty paid the reckoning. The bounty, and the value of the skins and grease of bears were added incentives to the taking off of these pests, which was frequently accomplished by trap and spring-gun.
Many farmers made a considerable addition to their income by trapping the fur-bearers, for though the beaver had been driven from all but the wildest streams, and the otter was an infrequent visitor of his old haunts, their little cousins, the muskrat and mink, held their own in force on every stream and marsh; and the greater and lesser martins, known to their trappers as fisher and sable, still found home and range on the unshorn mountains. A few men yet followed for their livelihood the hunter's and trapper's life of laziness and hardship, for the most part unthrifty, and poor in everything but shiftless contentment and the wisdom of woodcraft. There were exceptions in this class: at least one mighty hunter laid the foundation of a fortune when he set his traps. When the trapping seasonwas ended, he sold his peltry in Montreal, bought goods there, and peddled them through his State till the falling leaves again called him to the woods. He gained wealth and a seat in Congress, but neither is likely to be the reward of one who now follows such a vocation in Vermont.
The annual election of legislators, justices, judges, state officers, and members of Congress, which falls on the first Tuesday of September, had then other than political excitement to enliven the day in the wrestling matches and feats of strength that were interludes of the balloting. In one instance the name of a town was decided by the result of a wrestling match on election day. One figure constant at the elections of the first half of this century, and by far the most attractive one to the unfledged voters who never failed in attendance, was he who dispensed, from his booth or stand, pies, cakes, crackers, cheese, and spruce beer to the hungry and thirsty. When the result of the election was announced, the successful candidate for representative bought out the remaining stock of the victualer, and invited his friends to help themselves, which they did with little ceremony. Nothing less than a reception given at the house of the representative-elect will satisfy the mixed multitude in these progressive times. The once familiar booth and its occupant have drifted into the past with the wrestlers, the jumpers, and pullers of the stick.
Gradually the primitive ways of life, the earliest industries, and the ruder methods of labor gaveway to more luxurious living, new industries, and labor-saving machinery.
The log-house, that was reared amid its brotherhood of stumps, decayed with them, and was superseded by a more pretentious frame-house, whose best apartment, known as the "square room," came to know the luxury of a rag carpet, or at least a painted floor, that heretofore had been only sanded, and a Franklin stove, a meagre apology for the generous breadth of the great fireplace whose place it took. There was yet a fireplace in the kitchen, down whose wide-throated chimney the stars might shine upon the seething samp-pot swinging on the trammel and the bake-kettle embedded and covered in embers. Great joints of meat were roasted before it on the spit, biscuits baked in a tin oven, and Johnny-cakes tilted on oaken boards. Around this glowing centre the family gathered in the evening, the always busy womenfolk sewing, knitting, and carding wool; the men fashioning axe-helves and ox-bows, the children popping corn on a hot shovel, or conning their next day's lessons; while all listened to the grandsire's stories of war and pioneer life, or to the schoolmaster's reading of some book seasoned with age, or of the latest news, fresh from the pages of a paper only a fortnight old. The fire gave better light for reading and work than the tallow dips, to whose manufacture of a year's supply one day was devoted, marked in the calendar by greasy discomfort. For the illumination of the square room on grand occasions, therewere mould candles held in brass sticks, while these and the dips were attended by the now obsolete snuffers and extinguisher. Close by the kitchen fireplace, and part of the massive chimney stack, whose foundations filled many cubic yards of the cellar, the brick oven held its cavernous place, and was heated on baking days with wood specially prepared for it. Oven and fireplace gave away after a time to the sombre but more convenient cook-stove, and with them many time-honored utensils and modes of cookery fell into disuse.
Wool-carding machines were erected at convenient points, and hand-carding made no longer necessary. Presently arose factories which performed all the work of cloth-making (carding, spinning, weaving, and finishing), so that housewife, daughter, and hired girl were relieved of all these labors, and the use of the spinning-wheel and hand-loom became lost arts. When it became cheaper to buy linen than to make it, the growing of flax and all the labors of its preparation were abandoned by the farmer. As wood grew scarcer and more valuable than its ashes, the once universal and important manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was gradually discontinued; and as the hemlock forests dwindled away, the frequent tannery, where the farmers' hides were tanned on shares, fell into disuse and decay.
Early in this century the dull thunder of the forge hammer resounded, and the furnace fire glared upon the environing forest, busily workingup ore, brought some from the inferior mines of Vermont, but for the most part from the iron mines of the New York shore. This industry became unprofitable many years ago, and one by one the fires of forge and furnace went out. With the decline of this industry, the charcoal pit and its grimy attendants became infrequent in the new clearings, though for many years later there was a considerable demand for charcoal by blacksmiths. Of these there were many more then than now, for the scope of the smith's craft was far broader in the days when he forged many of the household utensils and farming tools that, except such as have gone out of use, are now wholly supplied by the hardware dealer. A common appurtenance of the smithy, when every farmer used oxen, was the "ox-frame," wherein those animals, who in the endurance of shoeing belie their proverbial patience, were hoisted clear of the ground, and their feet made fast while the operation was performed. The blacksmith's shop was also next in importance, as a gossiping place, to the tavern bar-room and the store. At the store dry-goods, groceries, and hardware were dealt out in exchange for butter, cheese, dried apples, grain, peltry, and all such barter, and generous seating conveniences and potations free to all customers invited no end of loungers.
The merchant's goods were brought to him by teams from ports on Lake Champlain and the Connecticut, and from Troy, Albany, and Boston, whither by the same slow conveyance went theproduct of the farms,—the wool, grain, pork, maple sugar, cheese, butter, and all marketable products except beef, which was driven on the hoof in great droves to a market in Boston and Albany.
Daily stage-coaches traversed the main thoroughfares, carrying the mails and such travelers as went by public conveyance, to whom, journeying together day after day, were given great opportunities for gossip and acquaintance. There was much journeying on horseback. Families going on distant visits went with their own teams in the farm wagon, whose jolting over the rough roads was relieved only by the "spring of the axletree" and the splint bottoms of the double-armed wagon chairs. They often carried their own provisions for the journey, to the disgust of the innkeepers, and this was known as traveling "tuckanuck," a name and custom that savors of Indian origin.
Such were the means of interstate commerce, mail-carriage, and travel until two long-talked-of railroad lines were completed in 1849, running lengthwise of the State, east and west of the mountain range. The new and rapid means of transportation which now brought the State into direct communication with the great cities wrought great changes in trade, in modes of life, and in social traits.
There was now a demand for many perishable products which had previously found only a limited home market, and a host of middlemen arose in eager competition for the farmer's eggs, poultry,butter, veal calves, potatoes, and fruit, as well as for hay, for which until now there had been only a local demand.
The luxuries and fashions of the cities were in some degree introduced by the more rapid and easy intercourse with the outer world; for many strove to make display beyond their means, to the loss of content and comfort. With homespun wear and simple ways of life, the old-time social equality became less general, and neighborly interdependence slackened its generous hold.