Volume II Part 20 (1/2)
We retreated the 16th and came as far as Biddle's former Station, when nigh 100 Indians left me, as they went after their things they left at the Forks of Licking, and I took the Road by the blue Licks as it was nigher and the ground more advantageous in case the Enemy should pursue us--got to the Licks on the 17th and encamped.
On the 18th in the morning, one of my party that was watching the Road came in and told me the Enemy was within a mile of us, upon which I drew up to fight them--at 1/2 past seven they advanced in three Divisions in good order, they had spied some of us and it was the very place they expected to overtake us.--We had but fired one Gun till they gave us a Volley and stood to it very well for some time,'till we rushed in upon them, when they broke immediately.--We pursued for about two miles, and as the enemy was mostly on horseback, it was in vain to follow further.
We killed and took one hundred and Forty six. Amongst the killed is Col.
Todd the Commandr Col. Boon, Lt. Col. Trigg, Major Harlin who commanded their Infantry, Major Magara and a number more of their officers. Our loss is Monsr. La Bute killed, he died like a warrior fighting Arm to Arm, six Indians killed and ten wounded--The Indians behaved extremely well, and no people could behave better than both Officers & men in general--The Indians I had with me were the Wyandots and Lake Indians--The Wyandots furnished me with what provisions I wanted, and behaved extremely well.”
APPENDIX G--TO CHAPTER X.
It has been so habitual among American writers to praise all the deeds, good, bad, and indifferent, of our Revolutionary ancestors, and to belittle and make light of what we have recently done, that most men seem not to know that the Union and Confederate troops in the Civil War fought far more stubbornly and skilfully than did their forefathers at the time of the Revolution. It is impossible to estimate too highly the devoted patriotism and statesmans.h.i.+p of the founders of our national life; and however high we rank Was.h.i.+ngton, I am confident that we err, if any thing, in not ranking him high enough, for on the whole the world has never seen a man deserving to be placed above him; but we certainly have overestimated the actual fighting qualities of the Revolutionary troops, and have never laid enough stress on the folly and jealousy with which the States behaved during the contest. In 1776 the Americans were still in the gristle; and the feats of arms they then performed do not bear comparison with what they did in the prime of their l.u.s.ty youth, eighty or ninety years later. The Continentals who had been long drilled by Was.h.i.+ngton and Greene were most excellent troops; but they never had a chance to show at their best, because they were always mixed in with a ma.s.s of poor soldiers, either militia or just-enlisted regulars.
The resolute determination of the Americans to win, their trust in the justice of their cause, their refusal to be cast down by defeat, the success with which they overran and conquered the west at the very time they were struggling for life or death in the east, the heroic grandeur of their great leader--for all this they deserve full credit. But the militia who formed the bulk of the Revolutionary armies did not generally fight well. Sometimes, as at Bunker's Hill and King's Mountain, they did excellently, and they did better, as a rule, than similar European bodies--than the Spanish and Portuguese peasants in 1807-12, for instance. At that time it was believed that the American militia could not fight at all; this was a mistake, and the British paid dearly for making it; but the opposite belief, that militia could be generally depended upon, led to quite as bad blunders, and the politicians of the Jeffersonian school who encouraged the idea made us in our turn pay dearly for our folly in after years, as at Bladensburg and along the Niagara frontier in 1812. The Revolutionary war proved that hastily gathered militia, justly angered and strung to high purpose, could sometimes whip regulars, a feat then deemed impossible; but it lacked very much of proving that they would usually do this.
Moreover, even the stalwart fighters who followed Clark and Sevier, and who did most important and valorous service, cannot point to any one such desperate deed of fierce courage as that of the doomed Texans under Bowie and Davy Crockett in the Alamo.
A very slight comparison of the losses suffered in the battles of the Revolution with those suffered in the battles of the Civil War is sufficient to show the superiority of the soldiers who fought in the latter (and a comparison of the tactics and other features of the conflicts will make the fact even clearer). No Revolutionary regiment or brigade suffered such a loss as befell the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg, where it lost 215 out of 263 men, 82 per cent.; the 9th Illinois at s.h.i.+loh, where it lost 366 out of 578 men, 63 per cent.; the 1st Maine at Petersburg, which lost 632 out of 950 men, 67 per cent.; or Caldwell's brigade of New York, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Pennsylvania troops, which, in Hanc.o.c.k's attack at Fredericksburg, lost 949 out of 1,947 men, 48 per cent.; or, turning to the Southern soldiers, such a loss as that of the 1st Texas at Antietam, when 186 out of 226 men fell, 82 per cent.; or of the 26th North Carolina, which, at Gettysburg, lost 588 out of 820 men, 72 per cent.; or the 8th Tennessee, at Murfreesboro, which lost 306 out of 444 men, or 68 per cent.; or Garnett's brigade of Virginians, which, in Pickett's charge, lost 941 men out of 1,427, or 65 per cent.
There were over a hundred regiments, and not a few brigades, in the Union and Confederate armies, each of which in some one action suffered losses averaging as heavy as the above. The Revolutionary armies cannot show such a roll of honor as this. Still, it is hardly fair to judge them by this comparison, for the Civil War saw the most b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate fighting that has occurred of late years. None of the European contests since the close of the Napoleonic struggles can be compared to it. Thus the Light Brigade at Balaclava lost only 37 per cent., or 247 men out of 673, while the Guards at Inkermann lost but 45 per cent., or 594 out of 1,331; and the heaviest German losses in the Franco-Prussian war were but 49 and 46 per cent., occurring respectively to the Third Westphalian Regiment at Mars-le-Tours, and the Garde-Schutzen battalion at Metz.
These figures are taken from ”Regimental Losses in the American Civil War,” by Col. Wm. F. Fox, Albany, 1881; the loss in each instance includes few or no prisoners, save in the cases of Garnett's brigade and of the Third Westphalian Regiment.
APPENDIX H--TO CHAPTER XII.
(From the _Robertson MSS._, Vol. I., Letter of Don Miro.)
NEW ORLEANS, the 20th April, 1783.
Sir
I received yours of 29th January last, & am highly pleased in seeing the good intentions of the People of that District, & knowing the falsehood of the report we have heard they are willing to attack their Province.
You ought to make the same account of the news you had that the Indians have been excited in their Province against you, since I wrote quite the contrary at different times to Alexander McGillevray to induce him to make peace, & lastly he answered me that he gave his word to the Governor of North Carolina that the Creeks would not trouble again those settlements: notwithstanding after the letter received from you, and other from Brigadier general Daniel Smith Esqr I will writte to him engaging him to be not more troublesome to you.
I have not any connection with Cheroquis & Marcuten, but as they go now & then to Illinois I will give advice to that Commander to induce them to be quiet: in respect to the former in the month of May of last year they asked the permission of settling them selves on the west side of the Mississippi River which is granted & they act accordingly, you plainly see you are quite free from their incursions.
I will give the Pa.s.seport you ask for your son-in-law, & I will be highly pleased with his coming down to setle in this Province & much more if you, & your family should come along with him, since I can a.s.sure you that you will find here your welfare, without being either molested on religious matters or paying any duty & under the circ.u.mstances of finding allwais market for your crops which makes every one of the planters settled at Natchez or elsewhere to improve every day, much more so than if they were to purchase the Lands, as they are granted gratis.
I wish to be usefull to you being with regard sir
Your most obt. hl. servant ESTEVAN MIRO.
(Dupte.) Colonel JAMES ROBERTSON, Esqr.
The duplicity of the Spaniards is well ill.u.s.trated by the fact that the Gardoqui MSS. give clear proof that they were a.s.sisting the Creeks with arms and ammunition at the very time Miro was writing these letters. See the Gardoqui MSS., _pa.s.sim_, especially Miro's letter of June 28, 1786.
APPENDIX I-TO CHAPTER XIII.
Account of Robert Morris with Miss Betsey Hart, Philadelphia, 1780-81.