Dearest Brother,
Everyone as far as the Mississippi will be talking of our work yesterday, but I suppose my personal account will be of some interest to you and our mother. It would have been of even more interest to William, had he not been lost aboard L'Insurgente. He certainly had more aptitude for the naval service than I do, but I shall do my best.
I suppose that word of United States leaving New York was spread abroad more widely than it would have been otherwise thanks to the accident that damaged our bowsprit and disabled our Purser. Certainly we drew the cover off the Azores to no effect, speaking no ships save neutral Portuguese ones.
As we had replenished our water at the Azores, we had in it our power to cruise off the West Indies or South America. However, Captain Decatur showed unwonted prudence, in declining to risk our bowsprit in those waters in the hurricane season. He resolved to strike at the shipping between Halifax and Bermuda, drawing British ships from the blockade of the American coast.
We met headwinds, however, which slowed our progress but drove into our arms the British ship Appleton Brothers, with naval stores for Bermuda, as well as hardtack, rum, and nearly a thousand pounds in specie. We took what we could out of her and burned her, learning from her crew that several more ships similarly laden were following in her wake. They said nothing about the ships being convoyed, but Lieutenant Allen spoke for many of us when he said the Englishmen knew more than they were telling.
We encountered the first of those ships the next day (November the twenty-sixth), but she was able to keep her distance and lose us in a rain squall. United States is a stout ship, but is named "The Wagon" for good cause. One wonders if every spare piece of timber that came into Philadelphia while she was building went into her, giving her stout scantlings and a lubberly manner of sailing.
Not all things come to him who waits, but to those who wait with a keen eye enough good may well come. At dawn this day we saw several sail to the NNW, on a course toward us, and Captain Decatur ordered us to quarters. Having no purser's business outstanding, I stowed my papers and came on deck, ready to help with the wounded.
So I heard Captain Decatur say that if the British were in convoy, doubtless the escorting frigate was running down to engage us while the merchant vessels scattered. It was my understanding that we intended to disable the frigate at the longest possible range, then ravage the convoy while the frigate made repairs. Then we would add a second British frigate to the score of the American navy, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth to the British papers and their Lordships' meetings.
The largest of the ships came down upon us with both courses and topsails set on all three masts, as though she expected us to fly. With the clouds hanging low, she had closed to within two miles before we recognized Africa, the one ship of the line on the American station. American eyes had last seen her, I believe, from the deck of Constitution, during Hull's masterful escape from Broke's squadron.
All eyes on the deck of United States were turned to Captain Decatur. He snapped his glass shut and grinned in a manner that would not have been agreeable for the captain of Africa to contemplate.
"If she was a seventy-four, I'd want another forty-four with us. But a sixty-four built before our Revolution ended—it's worth chancing. The British may already be afraid to let their frigates go out after dark alone. If they have to guard their smaller two-deckers the same way . . . "
None of us needed telling that His Majesty's Navy would thereafter, and therefore, find maintaining a blockade rather harder than they might wish. Too many ships of force in American waters could allow the French out of every port from Venice to the last time that situation was dangerous for the British ship of the line?"
"Then let us respectfully persuade him that we are not French or Dons," Decatur said, ordering the starboard broadside to open fire.
Our respectful persuasion took the form of fifteen twenty-four-pound round shot, flung all at once straight at Africa. I only wish we could have equaled the range with a double-shotted broadside, as we struck fair and hard.
Her jib boom vanished, the fore course suddenly took the appearance of a nutmeg grater, her bowsprit was in worse case than ours. Enough shrouds and stays parted to make the foremast quiver majestically, then sway like Cousin Edward's old mare in her last days.
A handful of men scrambled into the fore rigging, doubtless to at least take in the fore course. We also saw Africa yawing to port, clearly hoping to open her broadside and at the same time increase her chances of crossing our stern to rake.
Having failed to terrify the "fir-built American frigate" and her crew of bastards into scuttling off like a whipped dog, Africa's captain was clearly prepared to make a proper fight of it. We thought he might have left the decision a trifle late.
However, Captain Decatur threw the fore topsail aback, so that we would not pass out of range of Africa, and likewise put the helm over so that our guns bore through three more broadsides. We could have fired faster, with all hands not tending sail helping the gun crews, but Decatur wished to fire on the upward roll. Once most of our shot went high, but twice they came down with notable effect on Africa's sails and rigging. We all prayed silently to see a mast go by the board, but the worst was the mizzen topsail yard sagging in its slings. Again, Africa's top men went swiftly to work.
"They're making better practice at repairs than I heard of aboard Guerriere," Decatur remarked.
"The Africa doesn't have Constitution's broadsides coming aboard every two minutes," Allen said.
The two officers exchanged looks. Before they could say anything, Africa's first full broadside came at us. Amid the clouds of spray and smoke, half a dozen shot came aboard and one ball bounced off our hull just below the main chains.
"Huzza!" Decatur shouted. "We've the same iron sides as Constitution! Now let's put Africa's to the proof."
Lieutenant Allen's face split in a vast smile. He had a very delicate sense of honor, and this long-range dueling could not have been entirely to his taste. I would not say that he would have yielded the battle rather than win it at long range, but clearly a stand-up fight was more to his liking.
Decatur would hardly care to turn our stern to be raked, so the helm went over again and we bore off to the NW, opening the range slightly while keeping up a fire from each main deck gun as it bore. Africa also reduced her fire to single guns, and altogether for the next fifteen minutes neither of us did more than disturb the sleep of the fishes. However, we were double-shotting the forty-two-pound carronades on the spar deck and I presumed that Africa might well be doing the same.
During that time we were both also maneuvering to rake. This was an exercise in which a lighter frigate (or a faster one, like President) might have quickly gained an advantage. United States was as stout as Africa, but only a trifle faster or handier. Captain Decatur left the helm orders to Lieutenant Allen, the guns being for now in the skilled hands of the junior officers, and studied Africa so intently that he might have been a silversmith like Paul Revere examining a newly cast tankard for flaws.
Several times during this study he moved forward or aft. Moving, he looked more like a hound casting for the scent. At last he bounded up on to the quarterdeck, snapped his glass shut, and ordered us laid close under Africa's lee charge of grapeshot to the spar deck, and not linger.
"You'll never be a gunner, Mr. Parker, but you'll be an honest purser and that's worth three midshipmen any day of the week."
"Aye," someone said. "And four and a lieutenant on payday."
Just then I heard the fearful crash of our entire port broadside, discharged as it was at a range of no more than fifty yards into Africa's lee side. Every gun was double-shotted, some of the round shot struck between wind and water as the Englishman heeled toward us, and more than one triple charge of grape swept her waist.
I staggered on deck, carrying my burden, but the carronade's crew had already reloaded with a ready shot. In the minute before someone took my charge of grape, Africa replied with a full broadside, then we fired again and the breech of the recoiling carronnade nearly broke my thigh for standing too close. Smoke swallowed both friend and foe; someone I hoped was a friend reached out of the smoke and unburdened me, then I heard a fearful squealing and cracking of wood as the two ships crashed together.
A score of Englishmen plummeted on to our decks, whether shaken from the rigging or trying to board I do not know. Most were slow to get to their feet, and our gun crews were quick to wield rammer, handspike, bucket, and cutlass. Then the two ships ground alongside one another, with still more squealing and the Marines on both sides firing over the heads of the sailors—a mere hair's breadth over, in my case at least.
I saw an Englishman's face appear in a gun port, above a gun muzzle. Another bullet shrieked past my ear, the Englishman's face disappeared, I turned to see Captain Decatur drawing his second pistol, then my gun threw its load of grape straight through the port. It cut a swath clear across the upper gundeck. Suddenly a twelve-pounder was loose, breechings shot away, rolling over the screaming wounded.
I leaped back again as a British shot made my gun ring like a bell and took off the handspike man's right leg. I knelt to put a tourniquet on him and found nothing to make it save the breeches of an Englishman who had no further need of earthly garments. Then more fearful crackling, as Africa's mainmast and our foremast came down almost in the same moment.
We were luckier than the British. Our foremast fell to starboard and leaning aft. Axemen, led by Captain Decatur himself in his shirtsleeves, ran to cut it away. The wreckage shattered railings and the captain's gig as it went overboard, but it was clear and we were able to maneuver again before Africa had well begun her clearing away.
It did not help her that the wreckage masked many of her remaining serviceable guns. On the lower deck, even those still serviceable could fire only on the upward roll. Decatur had reckoned correctly that with her lower deck port sills barely six feet above the water, Africa could not use her lower-deck lee broadside in a fresh breeze.
I saw also that Africa's foremast was swaying ominously, that several of her gunports had been knocked into one, and that from two others blood was trickling. Meanwhile, our spar deck battery played fiercely on Africa's waist with more grapeshot. The Englishmen who survived long enough to work on the mainmast would be a hardy or lucky breed.
We lumbered into a turn to port, closed, and raked Africa with another double-shotted broadside from dead ahead. Her bowsprit and foremast went by the board. After three more broadsides I was summoned below—the messenger threatened to chase me there at the point of a cutlass. We had dead and wounded to record, twenty-two of the first and forty-five of the second, and the surgeon and his mates had much to do, as well as hands too bloody to hold a pen.
So I did my work while the gunners finished theirs. When I came on deck again, Africa had only a stump of her mizzenmast left and was rolling heavily. Our topmen were al could hardly feed five hundred prisoners all the way to Boston, so we contented ourselves with a few tokens—perhaps more than a few—embarked her surviving officers as prisoners, and set her on fire.
She blew up just before dark, and we set all possible sail to be clear of pursuers before dawn. We were no longer a match for more than your common British 38.
It was only when the last glow from Africa died that the cheering began. Was it only then that we realized what we had done? Certainly we'd had enough work for all hands, and a hundred more besides, and weariness slows thought.
The cheering brought Captain Decatur on deck, from where he had been entertaining the surviving British officers at dinner. He stood on the break of the quarterdeck for a moment, then pretended to glare.
"What is this? Are we going to have a riot aboard United States every turn of the watch, from now to Boston?"
That altered the cheering, from plain "Huzza!" to "Huzza for Captain Decatur." The captain did not seem to find this an improvement.
Finally he sprang on to a quarterdeck gun. This drew attention and brought silence. "Comrades, I thank you. I admit, it isn't every day of the week that a frigate sinks a ship of the line. And I promise you—you have permission to cheer every time we sink another one."
We are now three days homeward bound. I will seal and weight this letter, so that it can be posted at once when we land or even if we speak an American ship, or thrown overboard if we are not fortunate to return safely to Boston.
God keep you, and prosper all your endeavours.Your affectionate brother,
Joshua
•
Great God, little Joshua!
By now you've no doubt long since read the Boston papers that we found in the same bundle with your letter. It's not every damned century that a frigate sinks a ship of the line, and I don't suppose any foreign frigate has ever done it the British. Serves them right, and I hope your Captain Decatur means what he says about doing it again.
Although we wouldn't mind having a man or two like him, commanding on the Lakes come spring. We've lost Mackinaw and Detroit down south, which means the British hold both the straits. All they need is a decent fleet on Lake Erie and they can carve a trail of tears all the way across the Northwest as far as the Mississippi. They don't have the Prophet anymore, but they still have Tecumseh and General Brock, and that's like fighting one old wise bear and one young wise bear at once. There's no way of being so lucky you don't get clawed.
If they turn every outpost in the Northwest into a Fort Mims, that could be bad enough. Then they could pick up more friends among the Red Sticks and the Choctaws and finish going north everything they didn't finish going south.
They might have that decent fleet, too, if the British get spitting mad over what you Navy boys have been doing on their sacred sea. The Federalist papers weren't even sure you could tweak the lion's whiskers, but you've damned near gone in and yanked out a tooth!
We'll do our best, but that might not be too good. General Harrison has all the regulars, who aren't very many or very good, and General Jackson has most of the militia and thinks he outranks Harrison. I hope they can lead their men separately, because if they ever have to fight in the same battle, they'll likely enough fight each other before they fight the British.
With a really good war to fight against everybody he hates, General Jackson is about as happy as he ever gets. Don't take me wrong—he's brave and stubborn enough to deserve his rank. But you don't have to be an Indian to understand why people are scared of him. I wonder how I looked, a while back when I had a temper and killed Charles Shaxxon. If I looked half as mean as Old Hickory, maybe the people who said I ought to go West knew something I didn't.
Well, not much we can do, except pray the ice on Erie is real slow to go out. The Indians can raid across the ice, but the Redcoats can't, and nobody can haul artillery or a sledge of rations.
If you can get to Philadelphia and find Cynthia Shaxxon McKnight willing to receive anybody by the name of Parker, please be received and give her my humblest respects and apologies. I don't suppose what I wrote her before leaving ever got there.
Keep your feet dry and your gullet wet.
Wishing the best,
Tom
•
Dearest Brother,
I hope there will be a victory to report on the Lakes before this letter reaches you. Certainly we have not been backward in sending everything needed to give Master-Commandant Lawrence a respectable force.
Our victory over Africa seems to have begun a chain of events that bodes well for the American cause, by bringing us all together. Before that victory, I would not have sworn that New England would stand with the rest of our noble Republic. But when we entered Boston, flying Africa's ensign under ours, the spectacle was a wonder. Captain Decatur was given the freedom of the city, a subscription for our dead and wounded raised seventeen thousand dollars in two days, and many other signs of public rejoicing were manifest.
The British replied to our victory by a close blockade of Boston, hitherto left largely free, and Captain Bainbridge, commanding Constitution, took her out to engage the British. Finding only one frigate, Broke's Shannon, he engaged, and after an intensely warm action, took her, Broke being killed and Bainbridge likely enough crippled for life. He has most certainly redeemed himself for the loss of Philadelphia, being the first American and perhaps the first captain of any nation in a long while to take two British frigates, Java and Shannon.
With Rodgers taking Macedonian and Lawrence taking Frolic, we now count six victories in single-ship actions since the war began. This is more than all the rest of the world has won against the British Navy in the last ten years.
Not able to strike back by sea, the British struck by land. General Brock won a smashing victory at Queenston. Afterward he let his Indians and Glengarry Scots, vengeful for their slain chief MacDonnel, swarm across the Niagara River. Which was more ready with the knife and the brand, the Indians or the Scots, there were few survivors to tell for a width of twenty miles inland.
This brought about a miracle. Would you believe two staunchly Federalist papers called for the militia to march, and stand shoulder to shoulder on the Canadian border until not a sparrow wearing a red coat can cross? Subscriptions for a frigate, the same plan as Essex, to be named Plymouth, and two sloops of war, Salem and General Scott? Donations of naval supplies? The fitting out as privateers of every fast vessel that can swim and some that I think may prove slow or leaky?
Well, I have read as all this and seen some of it with my own eyes. I have not read what I suspect to be the true reasons, that if New England could not profit from a separate peace she would profit from joining the war, and in the process keep the British away from her borders and coasts. (We have heard tales, that the British have a large naval force on the Penobscot, and are encamping troops behind strong earthworks.)
Not a tale, though perhaps another miracle, is what happened only two days ago. A French ship of the line and a frigate sailed through the blockading squadron and entered Boston Harbor.
It seems that Their Lordships of the Admiralty feared our attacking the convoys that feed Wellington's army in Spain. I believe this has happened, and certainly many New England merchant ships that were once licensed to carry cargoes to Spain have been withdrawn, captured, blockaded, or even turned into privateers to prey on the commerce that they once carried!
However, the French supposed that the British might be weakening the blockade off the French naval ports, and ventured to send out a squadron of ships of the line, to raid the West Indies convoys. The British met and engaged them a week out from Bordeaux, taking two ships of the line and the supply vessels. A frigate was lost at sea.
The two French crews we have with us are scurvy-ridden, and not in a good state of discipline. However, the ships themselves are soun
•
Salty Brother,
It looks as if you are taking nicely to the sea and the Navy is taking a nice bite out of the British lion. Keep biting! Even General Jackson says good things about the Navy, now that Captain Lawrence won on Lake Erie. In the past Jackson would say that spending public money on anything larger than a gunboat was just an Eastern way to justify raising taxes and establishing banks.
Captain Lawrence kept us from being ground between the upper and lower millstones. With our hold on Lake Erie, the best Brock and Tecumseh can do is hold what they have at either end, Niagara Falls and Detroit. We can even pry them out of Detroit if General Harrison can get a few more regulars up across Ohio.
We could also use those regulars here against the Muskogee Nation (that's the Creeks and Choctaws), but maybe not. If General Harrison came with them, I don't know who would be fighting who. Harrison's regular commission outranks Jackson's militia one, but waving a regular commission in Old Hickory's face is like waving a lighted torch over a barrel of turpentine. You don't want to be anywhere close to where that's happening.
The word about what we might have to do to the south isn't good hearing. The British have taken Pensacola in West Florida, claiming to protect their allies (the Dons) from French allies (us). They've also been sniffing around Mobile. God help us if they take that and start landing shiploads of arms for the Red Sticks' warriors.
I'm sure we could still stand them off if they came all the way north to try us, particularly if the Cherokees hit them from behind. But the Red Sticks in black paint are likely as not to go for Georgia, where the militia is thin as ants in an empty jug, and the Cherokees would have to defend their own land.
We also just march south and pound the Creeks into the mud, because we don't have enough men to do that and hold Tennessee and Kentucky the way the people want us to. I don't know how many men would be enough for that, but we certainly can't do it with less than four thousand, not with Jackson thinking about his career after the war. He won't get elected governor if he lets Indians run wild in places that haven't seen a scalping since the Revolution.
I've suggested that we muster a couple of companies of Rangers, to strike across country into Georgia, make the Red Sticks wonder what's next, and encourage the Cherokees. If this happens, I might be a captain of, or at least in, one of those companies. I might volunteer anyway, and you likely won't hear from me for some time. Still, it would beat sitting here, waiting to see if you'll wake up with your scalp still on your head and if the next load of whiskey is going to be worse than the last one..
This goes off tonight, toward the Ohio. I hope it reaches you before you become even saltier, by sailing across the Atlantic. Don't stay up so late working on the papers that you don't learn any of the French for charming the ladies, or wear yourself out so that you can't charm even the ones who speak English.
•
Dear Brother,
Your letter made me hope your undertakings prosper by land as mine do by sea, although not all the news I send by this missive is good.
Two squadrons broke out of Boston, only days after your letter reached me. One sailed under Commodore Hull with Constitution and Chesapeake, to trail their coat toward Halifax, and ours was the other. The British met Hull and drove him back to port in an action where we took Endymion and sank Tenedos but Hull was killed. Both our frigates will also need much work, and Commodore Stewart now commands in Boston, with Captain Perry in Chesapeake.
We sailed straight for France, in the strength of a ship of the line, La Legion (which means "legion" although there is only one of her), four frigates, Le Malin (which means "crafty"), United States, President, and Constellation, sloop of war Somers, and no less than seventeen privateers. If our kin in Baltimore do not hasten fitting out their ships, the New
Englanders will surely try to strip the seas bare of British sails.
Rodgers, being senior to Decatur, could not resist being the first American commodore to fly his broad pennant in a two-decker. The man stands much on his rank, and his dark and dour countenance well matches his choleric disposition. However, he is a sound seaman and somewhat eased in mind and purse by the award of prize money for bringing the Macedonian into New York.
It also helped to have two commodores, because we could thus form two Navy squadrons to attack the rich convoys, leaving the privateers to dispose of single ships. The British certainly had guarded their convoys rather well against frigates, but I do not think it was "dreamt of in their philosophies" to see a well-found seventy-four flying American colors. As a ruse de guerre, Rodgers also flew the British East India Company's house flag, some of their larger ships being easily mistaken for ships of the line.
Suffice it to say, we demolished a West India convoy, then we and Constellation feinted at the Irish coastal trade, being now well supplied with coffee and sugar from our prizes. For a gift of either, the Irish would gladly supply us with information as to the whereabouts of the British Navy, so we made a fine bag of English merchant ships and coast guard vessels, as well as burning several shore stations. Smugglers will go about their occasions unmolested for some time, in that part of Ireland.
Commodore Rodgers took his portion of the squadron into Nantes, nearly losing La Legion on a reef because the French were slow to send pilots. However, they at once made amends, and now we at last are all safe in Nantes. La Legion will need to be drydocked and refitted after her grounding. It is well that she met that accident in France, for there is not a drydock in America.
In truth, I have had no occasion to use my French to charm the ladies, and no wish to use my prize money on those whose charms may be purchased. The ladies of Nantes in any case mostly lack charm, and the French Navy is jealous of its position in regard to them. (At times I think they are jealous also of American victories over "Perfidious Albion.")
Few of us have as yet received much in specie, except for the division of the moveable goods taken aboard our thirty-one prizes (to the Navy alone; I have no count for the privateers) and is not being spent to repair the flagship. (Naval stores are terribly dear in France, after so many years of blockade.) All the prize agents in France could not command enough specie to pay what is owed us just for the prizes we sent in, to say nothing of what we burned.
However, we have agreed with the French that they will provide us with a lading of lace, silks, and brandy, sure to fetch a good price in America. They are sending it to America in two of their own
•
Brother,
We are very far from any place where a letter can be posted, so for all I know this letter may be found on my body by someone who will burn it. If it's a Red Stick, I hope he thinks it's a curse on him. I wish it was.
But if you read this at all—I did become captain of the First Company in Donelson's Rangers. The Donelsons are close friends, maybe even kin, to Old Hickory, but they don't have any men of the right quality to lead it, so the name is Jackson's way of flattering them. I don't much care about what name I fight under, and the Second Company is under a man of Pennsylvania stock, named Kleinschmidt. He's a fine shot and there are plenty of Duchies in Pennsylvania, but from what I hear about him, his father might have been a Hessian deserter, so Old Hickory would never make him a major. Not having a major doesn't matter much anyway, seeing as how the moon will turn blue before the two companies fight in the same battle.
Anyway, we struck off across country, keeping to the hills to have the high ground but marking routes for larger columns with heavier loads. We probably still left a trail so that any Creeks who followed us got short of breath only by laughing themselves into a fit.
The white settlers had been pretty well burned out or driven into stockades, and the stockades themselves were running short of food. We told people that if they had guns, their best chance was to get as far toward the Ohio as they could, and be ready to eat fish and their last hardtack all the way downriver. They looked at us kind of the way Job must have looked at the people who tried to comfort him after he'd lost everything..
We were two days beyond a place called Presley's Spring when we decided to send out a hunting party, thinking we were clear of hostiles and knowing we were in good deer country. Well, the hostiles—Choctaws, I think—had circled around wide enough that with the rain of the night and the early part of the day we hadn't heard them.
Then half of them came running out of the trees, making as much noise as they could, and the other half sneaked up on us like snakes, on their bellies and just about as quiet. They didn't have more than a single musket and I think their archers must have had wet bowstrings, or they'd have knocked a bunch of us down before rushing us.
We'd made a run for a hillside that would give us high ground with cover, but knew that it was maybe five hundred yards and we'd lose a man every hundred if we were lucky. I said my prayers, particularly thanks for having a tomahawk. It hits harder than a sword and reaches far enough.
Then suddenly we had about fifteen or twenty men running at the Choctaws, and without stopping five of them fired muskets. They shouldn't have hit anything, firing on the run, but the range was so close that they probably could have hit the Choctaws with a thrown pumpkin. Anyway, three Choctaws went down. A sixth man fired a pistol and hit a fourth Choctaw, who let out a terrible scream and grabbed his belly.
Then the newcomers were in among the Choctaws, using knives, tomahawks, and musket butts. We stopped running when the Choctaws got busy with the newcomers, and did the same, except that some of our men had reloaded and some of these had a clear shot. The range was fifty yards at most, and all of us could hit a man at two hundred.
More Choctaws went down. Others ran. Still others charged us while we were reloading. We were fighting them hand to hand in front, and the others were doing them same behind them, with everybody shouting and screaming.
The shouting and the war paint made me sure we had Choctaws against us and Cherokees on our side. I don't speak enough Cherokee to do more than be polite if I meet one of them out hunting. I did shout back what I hoped sounded like thanks.
After a while, there weren't any more live Choctaws, at least on their feet. T Some of them had been close enough to hear the shooting and ran back, coming empty-handed but too late for the fight. I told them to set snares for rabbits. Finally the deer hunters came back, enough to go around, including a great big buck.
When we'd done eating, I handed the buck's hide to the woman, whose name was Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller. She looked at it, and grinned. Her teeth weren't much worse than mine.
"Do you want to court me?" Then she turned to her war party and told them what she'd asked, only she used a much ruder word than "court."
I'd heard that Cherokee women were plain-spoken, but I was glad it was twilight so nobody could see me blushing.
"Well," I said. "There are other ways of sleeping warm, beside that. A good buckskin is one of them." She nodded, took the buckskin, sat down with it across her knees, and began looking at it for holes.
I laughed, and then waved Lieutenant Goble and three of the four sergeants over to me. (The fourth was tending to the cooking, but I didn't worry much about him. He's fifty years old and has nine children and fourteen grandchildren.)
"Nobody even looks strange at Caroline Bearkiller," I told them. "If you do, her warriors might kill you. Or she might decide to change her name to Mankiller. Or I might kill you."
Brother, if you read this after I am gone, find Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller or her family and give them whatever a Cherokee warrior gives a woman he would like to court, in my name. I hope and pray that even if I don't walk out to Georgia, she will.
By my hope of heaven and my fear of hell,
Thomas
•
Brother,
The English papers assure the world that the Indians are sweeping all before them in Georgia, as Wellington is in Spain and the allies in Germany. I permit myself to hope that if the part about the Indians is true, they have not swept you up.
We have reason to believe that the papers are telling the truth, about the fall of New Orleans. Whether they are also truthful in saying that the French inhabitants of the city would not fight to remain under American rule, is a matter for speculation. Can you add to our knowledge of these circumstances?
Any possession of that city gives the British a military advantage, through holding the mouth of the Mississippi and barring the commerce of the settlers in the great river's valley. They might also be able to carve out their dreamed-of "Indian homeland." Does anyone believe this reflects anything but a desire to use them as catspaws against the United States?
Indeed, by the terms of the original Treaty of San Iledefonso, by which the French gained Louisiana from Spain, the French had no right to sell the territory to President Jefferson and he had no right to buy it! When we were at peace and the Spanish at war with the British, this clearly mattered little. But now that Spain and Britain are allies, with the British using Florida, could the British Crown not find a pretext for "protecting" their allies' territory from the dreadful Yankees and so remain in occupation of New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana in perpetuity?
I fear that giving the British cause to fear our power at sea may not have served our national purpose as well as we thought it would.
I must set down my pen, as we have just learned that Commodore Samuel Barron has reached Nantes and wishes to embark for the United States, apparently with hope of reinstatement in the Navy and a command at sea! This also is an unexpected consequence of the course of the war at sea.
P.S.—We are hastily preparing for sea. It appears that the Alliance against Napoleon may be disintegrating. There is talk of a victory over Wellington in the south of France, and a separate peace with Austria. The French semaphore system sends messages with the speed of the wind, but of course it can send lies as easily and swiftly as truth.
If the French can then make peace with the British, they will face only Spain, Prussia, and Russia. Spain is weak, Prussia implacable but needing British subsidies, and the czar a weathercock whose armies in any case would be campaigning far from home. Since any peace with the British would surely require an end to French cooperation with the Americans, we wish to be at sea before the French can decide to throw us to the Lion as a gesture of goodwill.
This letter goes on the Baltimore privateer Barrett, although I hope to have time to make a fair copy.
In regrettable haste,
Joshua
•
This missive ought to find its way to Baltimore, and I hope onward to you. If the rumors about peace in Europe are true, the British will have ships and to spare for us, not having to blockade the French coast anymore.
Since the last time I wrote, we have marched a long ways toward Savannah, skirmishing with hostiles most of the way. We'd have been in a sorry muck several more times without Cherokee help.
It seems as if the Muskogee Nation Indians used a deal of their powder and guns from the British to settle old scores with the Cherokee. This puts the Cherokee firmly on our side, at least as long as we're fighting the British.
General Jackson's command is catching up with us. When it does, we will have about two thousand men in three columns, most of them from Tennessee and Kentucky. Even where the Georgians had enough settlers to make up a militia, the ones who've turned out were half armed, more than half naked, and hungry. If it wasn't for the Cherokee trying their best to feed us as well as their own people, we'd never have been able to advance.
We are now down in the lowlands, where it can be warm even at this time of year. The soil is all red clay, which sticks to you whether its mud or dust. After a day's march, you can't tell who started off white and who red, because everybody has turned clay-colored.
Nothing seems to be happening on the Canadian border. I suppose the strengths on the lake and on land are too evenly matched. I begin to doubt that the War Hawks were as smart as they thought they were. A war they thought would win us Canada may lose us even territory we had under the Peace of Paris thirty years ago!
A messenger in—General Jackson will be joining us in two days, and is sending word ahead to Savannah. If I can pour enough whiskey into the messenger, he might take this letter to the coast and find a ship to take it to Baltimore. The British are watching Savannah, but I've heard there are lots of creeks where nobody who doesn't know the water can sail even a rowboat.
Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller wishes me to greet you in her name. I don't think this means anything but good manners, which she has more than many white women I've known. She also says that Bearkiller is from an ancestor's hunting, but Pineraft is when she rode a log down a flooded stream to rescue a child who'd fallen in.
Your dusty brother,
Thomas
•
I am sorry to say that our respected mother appears to have opened both of your last letters to me that reached her and is somewhat distempered about Caroline Bearkiller. She certainly wrote me in strong terms on the subject. If she has not written in such terms to you, I will spare you knowledge of them for now.
It was easier for us to return than it was to go out, because of the odd sort of peace that has come to Europe. The Austrians and the Russians have recognized Napoleon's son as emperor, but since he is a baby, there is a Council of Regency that includes his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Louise, who of course is an Austrian princess. There is also a Superior Council of War, with old Boney himself in the rank of Marshal as its Chairman and some marshal named Davout as the Minister of War.
The French would not have welcomed the Bourbons back unless that was the only way of winning peace. Monarchist sympathizers in Nantes (whom we suspect in the disappearance of some of our sailors) did not like the agreement. But in time they admitted that if it kept the Prussians and Russians out of France, they could live with the Little Eagle or even under him without too much pain.
The British were said to be very reluctant parties to the armistice, and may yet balk at a peace treaty on these terms. There are also rumors that the Austrians hope to push the British toward agreement, by letting the French hold on to Italian territories that they would otherwise be returning to the Habsburgs. The British do not want the French all over the Mediterranean.
It's not every day of the week that one sees so many shiftings of alliances and so many friends become foes and the other way around.
The British have of course abandoned the blockade of France. They have also withdrawn Wellington's army to just beyond the Spanish border, because the Spanish have not signed a peace with the French. I do not know whether Wellington's orders are to prevent a French invasion of Spain or a Spanish invasion of France!
With no blockade off France but little of fair winds in mid-passage, we were forty-one days from Nantes to the Capes of the Chesapeake. We took only two prizes, the British now having most of their trade between Canada and the West Indies in convoys too heavily escorted for our privateers. Even the close blockade now consists of squadrons of frigates with the occasional ship of the line, and they will scatter small craft up and down the American coast again only when they have taken or rendered useless all of our heavier ships.
We were able to run into the Chesapeake at night in bad weather, with only one exchange of broadsides. Constellation was not so lucky, being taken by the British 74 Triumph. As of this writing, Legion and Malin are also safe in Baltimore, which should make the place secure against anything but a major expedition. Of course, the only way the French crews in Boston can come down to Baltimore is overland, so it looks as if the ships will be flying the American flag for a while longer. We are also said to be launching two ships of the line of our own later this year.
Ships that come from the south say the British appear to be gathering an expedition against Savannah. If they succeed, it will mean a rich haul of prize money, and they will be able to march northeast against Charleston or northwest against the Cherokees.
Commodore Decatur has appointed me his secretary, as a new purser has come aboard. I also learn that the frigate armed en flute reached Philadelphia, and if the Quakers are honest I shall see a handsome sum in addition to my prize money.
This letter is going south in a coasting vessel, so that I shall not add to it anything that might be useful to the enemy if the letter should fall into the wrong hands.
Do be careful with your Cherokee wench. Even if her people do not pr
•
Esteemed Brother,
Don't call Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller a wench. I've already knocked one man down for doing that.
I am leaving this letter where it will be safe if we hold off the British but I do not survive the Battle of Savannah. I will hope and even pray that you come in time—your Commodore Decatur sounds like a good hand in a fight. We have only about three thousand militia that are of any use at all, and this includes Americans from the Floridas and the Indian territories. We also have practically no field artillery and not much in the forts around Savannah that would stand up through a good fight.
That's not enough to hold the city against an attack from the sea and a second one from overland by way of Mobile or the Floridas. The British are sending regulars and some Dons from the Floridas, with the Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles to make a bad bargain worse.
The Cherokees can't hold the land route all by themselves, either. If they stay away from their crops and villages too long, they'll starve during the winter. Or their white neighbors will try to take over their land.
At least Old Hickory will do something about ungrateful bastards like that if he catches them! Nobody could ever call him an Indian lover, but he can tell people who've helped him from people who've hurt him. And people who've hurt him are safe, maybe, in the next territory.
Brother, you seem to have come home from the sea with more money than anybody in the family has seen in quite a while. Do you think you could loan me some of that pirate's gold to buy land for Caroline and her kin? A proper purchase with a legal title and everything will make it easier for them to keep off trespassers. Also, if I don't end the campaign in this world, Caroline will have something to call her own. The Cherokee sometimes make all kinds of noise about one of their women going with a white man.
Now please don't ask any questions where you wouldn't want Mother to hear the answers, even if you find me alive and in a state to answer them. Just say yes or no, and we'll part friends as well as kin.
Your grateful brother,
Tom
•
Dearest Mother,
I write to you to hope that you are well. I also enclose a promissory note to Thomas, to pay him eleven thousand dollars out of my share of the prize money and cargoes from the European cruise. I expect that both of us shall survive the coming campaign in the south, I to pay him and he to be paid and to buy the land in Tennessee on which he has set his heart. However, God is the Great Disposer of all things, and not only in war.
You ask how I see the progress of the war. It seems to me that we have gained much in the north, with General Harrison besieging Detroit and Chauncey's victory on Lake Ontario. Neither the Northwest nor New England can have much to fear from British offensives. Indeed, if New England's embodied militia is sufficiently reinforced by regulars and by our victorious Lake Ontario squadron, they may be able to sail down the St. Lawrence and threaten Montreal, as well as the supply line of the British forces in the Lake Champlain country. General Brock will do all that mortal man can do with his men—but that will be little enough if the Richelieu River is closed to reinforcements and supplies.
On the other hand, we may yet lose enough in the South that the British will claim territory there, if not for themselves then for the Spanish or the Indians. We sail for Savannah tomorrow to "spike that gun," as Tom would say it, by seeing that the British effort against that city comes to nothing.
We are four frigates and five fast-sailing armed merchantmen, carrying among them a thousand men, five thousand stand of arms, and much else by way of military stores. Commodore Rodgers flies his broad pennant in United States, which Commodore Decatur has given up in favor of the lighter frigate General Scott, fitter for work close inshore or even up the Savannah River. Other squadrons from New York and Boston will seek to draw the British blockaders north, by seeming to threaten their ships off Long Island and the Penobscot.
I understand that we have Secretary of State Monroe to answer for much of this scheme. I trust his share in the victory at Bladensburg has not given him a folie de grandeur, as I believe those reports you have, that General Smith did the greater part of the work. But we shall do our best, and pray that along with the efforts of those already around Savannah, it will be good enough to loose the British hold on the South.
Pray for us, Mother, for it is the hour of our need and our country's, and will be so for some while yet.
Your loving son,
Joshua
•
Dear Mam,
I leave this for you in case we don't meet again in this world. Please know that I haven't always honored my mother, still less my father, so my days may not be long. But I loved you both and I am sorry for all the disappointments and heartaches I caused you.
Please, I beg you, don't take my bequest to Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller as another heartache. There is nothing about her you could possibly object to, if she was white. Also, please note that this and all other fair copies of the bequest are signed by both me and Joshua and witnessed by Commodore Decatur. I didn't think this was the time to ask General Jackson to witness that kind of an agreement between one of his officers and a Cherokee woman.
They are beating the Assembly, and the signal guns are firing both to the south and along the river. That means the British are in sight in force in both quarters. God grant that I can soon write of a victory.
With affection,
Your son Thomas
•
Dear Mother,
I write in haste, so that this letter may go with the first courier to leave Savannah for the north. We have won a great victory, but at a high price. Many brave men are fallen and General Jackson is gravely wounded. The British not killed or taken are in flight by land and sea, the Seminoles mostly dead, and the Dons we could persuade the Cherokees to spare mostly taken.
I write this letter instead of Joshua, because he has a flesh wound in his right arm and cannot write anything a Christian could read with his left hand. His arm is in no danger, still less his life, and I am sure he will write the next letter at greater length.
But the prayers of us all for a victory have been answered.
Thankfully,
Thomas
•
Dearest Mother,
We write this letter together, Tom penning and Joshua dictating. This is because Joshua understands more of the sea fighting but still cannot write a legible hand.
Shoal water made the British cautious about a close blockade of the mouth of the Savannah River, so the squadron ran in with only the loss of a Charleston privateer to the British. Several other privateers and one of the transports ran ashore and could not be got off, but we were able to take out their guns and gear and land most of the transport's stores. Then we set the ships on fire, placed the guns in battery to cover the mouth of the river, and proceeded up to Savannah in local boats.
A thousand men of Maryland and Virginia made a considerable difference to the American strength in Savannah, where General Jackson had been trying to hold with no more than three thousand. A quarter of these were the all but useless Georgia militia and a similar part the Cherokees. Those who knew of their fighting in the north thought well of the Cherokees but the Georgians had no faith in them. Nor did they care for French volunteers who came in the squadron, or for a company of free Negroes General Jackson organized.
Savannah lies on the south bank of its river. To the southwest is forest and farmland, to the southeast swamp with a few trails across dry ground. The city itself is well laid out for defense, with many of the houses arranged around squares. General Jackson proposed to demolish some of the houses outside the squares, to clear fields of fire and procure material for building revetments, but the citizens would not permit it until he threatened to declare martial law and take everything and everybody he needed.
The British came against Savannah ten days after the reinforcements arrived, enough time to let us arrange a warm reception for them. Half of the Cherokees scouted the swamps and kept watch from the islands on the river for enemy landing parties. The militia and a naval landing party under Commodore Decatur held the entrenchments around Savannah, with the Maryland and Virginia regiments in reserve. The rest of the Cherokees formed a skirmish line to the west. Upriver from the city, we hid General Scott, under Captain Allen. She was left with her rigging all a-cockbill and firepots burning on her deck, to let spies believe she had been abandoned.
General Jackson and Commodore Decatur were not fast friends, being rather too unlike in temperament. But they both believed that victory meant leaving none of the enemy fit to fight. They were resolved to do this even if we ran out of powder and had to finish the battle with bayonets and boarding pikes.
At the coming of the British, Thomas took his Rangers out to join the Cherokee skirmishers, while Joshua took a position beside Commodore Decatur, to record his orders. Soon we heard firing both on the river and inland, musketry and cannon both. Then the Cherokee guarding the trails past White Marsh Island came tumbling back, firing as they went, to report Seminoles approaching Augustine Creek.
The Georgia militia from the settlements along that creek immediately wished to advance against the Seminoles to save their homes. General Jackson said that homes could be rebuilt if Savannah held, but if they ran off now the Seminoles would kill most of them and he would shoot any survivors. Rightly enough, they took him at his word.
The British had two regular regiments, the 44th and the 71st, coming overland, and two more on the river, the 42nd and another whose number I never learned. None of them were at full strength, but add together Seminoles, Dons, West Indian Negroes, and a naval landing party as large as ours, they probably outnumbered us by half again.
They tried to land in the town of Gerardus on our left flank, but the citizens there had their wits about them. They fired several warehouses filled with combu Decatur persuade him to a different plan. Certainly the militia would never have stood except in entrenchments with naval guns, and we had nothing like that except at the city itself.
So the good folk of Gerardus and the Cherokees came tumbling back together, into the entrenchments, leaving Gerardus burning behind them. The Gerardus militia were so proud of the fight that they had made that we had several brawls between them and the Savannans.
So the British came up to Savannah and on the sixth day of the campaign launched their principal attack. They put three regular regiments and two of what the Dons called regiments against the entrenchments. Meanwhile, they tried to ferry the last regiment across the river to the island behind Savannah, along with some artillery to take the city in the rear.
It was not a bad plan, for we held the island lightly, with a few sharpshooters from the militia and some Cherokees, also a few South Carolina militia who had just come in the day before. They looked better than the Georgians, but Jackson and Decatur were agreed on not putting them in the forefront.
The British had two armed luggers guarding the river crossing. These beat down the water battery, or at least thought they did. (Joshua again says that Commodore Decatur gave the idea for the stratagem.) The British storming columns advanced, as the regiment in flatboats put out on to the water.
Then, relying on a favorable wind, General Scott swept down the river into the middle of the British. Most of her guns were ashore to lighten her and strengthen the batteries, but Captain Allen had twelve carronades and a hundred men armed with swivels, muskets, and thrown combustibles and was the man to know what to do with all of them. We do not say this to disgust you, Mother, or as a poetic figure, but the Savannah River did run red that day.
The three columns going against the city were British on the left and the right and Dons in the middle. The Dons showed more stoutly than we had expected, nearly made it to the trenches, but fell back under our musketry and broke when we opened with grape.
The British on the right came along the riverbank, and of course expected the guns of the luggers and the river crossers to help them. They had no such help, as General Scott put both luggers out of action, then opened fire on the redcoats. They withdrew inland, losing a good half of the regiment.
The two regiments in the leftmost column were the most dangerous, as they came in at an angle that left them almost immune to artillery. Commodore Decatur and the sailors worked like Trojans to shift guns, but for nearly half an hour it was hand-to-hand fighting, with General Jackson in the vanguard taking the first of his wounds.
Thomas says that if it had not been for the Rangers and the Cherokees in the rear of the British on the left, they might have won. Of course, the Virginians and Marylanders also say it was their counterattack that saved the day.
Certainly, with neither foe against them, the British might have prevailed, or at least drawn off in better order. As it was, when repelled, they like the other enemies fled southward, to the banks of Augustine Creek. There Admiral Cockburn had prudently left boats and a few Marines to guard the line of retreat, but the Cherokee burned the boats and drove off the Marines.
The fighting went on into the night, to be ended more by the rain than by anything else. The Spanish surrendered as fast as they could to anyone who would let them, but the British regulars upheld their reputation. They fought us all the way to Augustine Creek, shooting from every kind of cover that they could find although not being the masters of open fighting that our best men were. We even had to bring up a six-pounder to blast them out of a farmhouse.
Our leaders were again in the forefront. General Jackson rode about, guiding his horse with his knees because he would not put down his sword and one arm was in a since Yorktown.
Then the rain started. By the time it finished at dawn, the British were holding a last-ditch position on the banks of Augustine Creek, which had gone out of its banks, was too swift to swim, and was threatening to drown the wounded. A few lucky survivors may have slipped down to the river under cover of the rain, riding on planks or driftwood. But near fifteen hundred unwounded British and Dons surrendered before noon, we took near four hundred wounded, and we have counted many more than a thousand bodies.
Our own losses were not light, being some two hundred killed and three times that many wounded, as well as being nearly out of powder. General Jackson lies on what may be his deathbed, but we hope that fear of his memory will keep the Red Sticks at a distance until we are fit to fight them.
Of the Red Coats, however, we need have no more fear.
With affectionate respects, your sons
Thomas
Joshua (his mark)
Amendment
You may be altogether proud of your sons, Mrs. Parker, and be assured that they take less than the honor due them for their part in the battle. Joshua was at my side under the heaviest fire, never flinching, never failing to repeat an order accurately or write down an event the moment it happened. Thomas was not under my eye as much, but he helped carry General Jackson from the field, then led his Rangers through the rain to stand between the British and a disgraceful massacre.
Your servant,
Stephen Decatur
•
I write with an equal burden of sad and joyful news.
General Jackson has died of his wounds. With almost his last breath, he urged Commodore Decatur to lead an invasion of the Floridas, to be sure that we will not have the Dons and Seminoles at our backs when we march west again. I can hardly write of the grief of all those he led to victory.
Also, Joshua's wounded arm had to be amputated. The amputation was done in plenty of time, by a skilled naval surgeon, who says that Joshua should recover completely. He has already tried to write with his left hand, and may succeed in writing something you can read before long.
Commodore Decatur has no plan to invade anybody or anything at the moment, although we have gravely hurt the British blockade off Georgia and South Carolina. They sent in a cutting-out party for the merchant vessels anchored at the river's mouth, while we were fighting in the city. But our men were alert and drove the British off, with more than a hundred men lost.
Then the British decided to bring a frigate and a ship of the line close in shore and try to bombard the anchorage. Well, the frigate ran aground, and then who should appear as the ship of the line was trying to tow her off but Commodore Rodgers with United States, President, and the new Hull. Commodore Rodgers proved what Commodore Decatur thought, that two of our big frigates could take a British 74. Cornwallis now flies the American flag, although we had to burn Lydia because we could not get her off before the British brought up the rest of the squadron.
We still have British ships roaming like stray cattle off the mouth of the Savannah, so news is slow reaching us and this letter will no doubt be slow reaching you. But it is not every day of the week that a British squadron has to look in all directions at once, like a cat in a kennel!
Your obedient son,
Thomas
•
Dear Mother,
As you can see, I am now writing with my left hand. At the moment it is somewhat of a burden, so this letter will be short.
I do assure you that I am out of all danger. The weather has turned moderate, reducing the danger of fevers. The British have sent a ship with provisions and medical supplies for those of their prisoners we still hold, and are negotiating with Commodore Decatur for a cartel to return them. We are also sending a ship north under a flag of truce and this letter will be aboard her.
With affection,
Joshua
•
Esteemed Mother,
It can now be said of me as it was said of Benedict, "Here may you see Thomas Parker, the married man."
Yesterday I and Caroline Bearkiller were married. I said the principal oaths in the Cherokee tongue, Joshua was my witness, her brother was hers, and we also had Commodore Decatur standing up with us. The marriage is legal and binding under both Cherokee and Georgia law, and we also feel that God has joined us and we may therefore not be put asunder.
Joshua looked very fine in his new uniform, even with the empty sleeve. He will be staying in Savannah for some time, where Commodore Decatur intends to leave a squadron of light vessels to guard the river. The British are still blockading but they aren't raiding, so the only enemy we have to worry about for now is whatever Seminoles decided to stay behind in the hope of picking up some loot. The Cherokees are giving them a very short shrift, let me tell you.
Joshua says that the British victory off Cape Cod may not quite balance the Battle of Savannah. The British can't afford to lose that many ships while the Bonaparte dynasty still keeps a fair-sized navy. However, even if we take five of their ships for every one we lose, they will still have enough ships to fight the French, the day that we don't have a navy at all. By Joshua's reckoning, after losing Constitution, Plymouth, and Columbus, we have one ship of the line, three frigates, and five sloops and brigs ready for sea, with more ready by spring if the British don't burn them on the stocks.
So Joshua and I both advise you not to invest any more money in privateers. The British may capture them, the French will probably close their ports to them, and anyway we may have a peace soon. Pray that it be so. We can't win much more out of this war. Maybe the next one will be luckier.
Obediently,
Thomas
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Honored Mother,
You really did not need to call Thomas a hypocrite for subscribing his last letter "Obediently" when you disapprove of his "outrageous marriage." There is nothing outrageous about my sister in law, Caroline, and not that much that is outrageous about most of the other Cherokees I have met.
I cannot help noting, however, that you have taken to heart our advice about investments in privateers. This is as well, as we understand that peace negotiations have begun in New Orleans. I suspect that the British wish to hold them there, so as not to be under the eyes of spies from half of Europe.
The British seem willing to return that city and any portion of the Mississippi they hold, as well as making no claims in the Northwest. But rumors run, that they wish either part of northern Massachusetts given up to Canada, or the Louisiana Territory returned to Spain. They might also expect the Dons to make an independent Indian territory beyond the Mississippi, and of course they would keep Florida.
It is not every day of the week that we are put so neatly on the horns of a dilemma, by having the choice of either going on with the war or seeing New England set against the West. all over again, as one of them will have to face a hostile neighbor close at hand. I suppose we should not be surprised, seeing how this came to be a much larger war than anyone had expected when we declared it, but I hope we can show enough wisdom to make an end to it before the British become totally implacable..
Tom and Caroline left for Tennessee before your letter arrived, so I will post it after them. He will not be returning to Georgia, I suspect, as he has been promised the command of a Tennessee militia regiment and his war is not over. It will take some while to reduce the Muskogee Nation to order, even with the help of the Cherokees and the leadership of General Harrison.
If you wish to write to them directly, you can post the letter to Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's Crossing, Tennessee.
Your respectful son,
Joshua