The Western news. [volume], August 03, 1933, Page Page Six, Image 6

About The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
The Defense of Port Stephenson
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Gold Medal
Awarded toCroqhan
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The Assault on the Fort
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Then Colonel Elliott, pretending to be fear
ful for Shipp's safety, urged him to return to
the fort at once. As he started, an Indian sprang
from the bushes and tried to wrest his sword
from him. Dixon pretended to drag the savage
away with-great difficulty—a bit of play acting
which did not frighten the young ensign In the
least Crophan, standing on the walls of the
fort and seeing the insult to his envoy, Immedi
ately shouted "Come In, Shipp, and weil blow
'em all to h—1 !"
Convinced tant the garrison could not be
bluffed out, the British began their bombardment
which continued at Intervals all night, during
which time they landed five slx-pounders, park
ing three of them In a battery on a hill covered
by trees about 250 yards from the stockade.
From this position they opened a filrlous fire
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A
Plan of Fort Stephenson
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By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
N A park a short distance from the
center of the city of Fremont, Ohio,
stands a tall monument which does
not differ enough from the usual Civil
war memorials, found in hundreds of
towns throughout the United States,
to stop the passing motorist and cause
him to read the inscription thereon.
But nearby there Is something which
Is quite likely to halt him before he
speeds on his way. It is a little cannon,
between the wheels of whose carriage is a metal
plate which tells him that this Is "Old Betsy—
Cannon used by Major George Croghan against
the British and Indians in the defense of Fort
Stephenson, August 1 and 2, 1813." Back of that
brief Inscription Is the story of one of the most
brilliant feats (jo American history.
It Is the story ot a youthful American military
leader and his seven equally youthful subalterns
who set a high example of courage and daring
for future young Americans to emulate, and it
Is the story of a gun. Insignificant In appear
ance, which vitally affected the course of Amer
ican history. "Big Bertha" of World war fume,
the greatest piece of artillery ever devised by
man, failed to break the morale of the French
and lead to a German victory, as Its builders had
hoped. But "Old Betsy," a little six-pounder
which would be lost In the cavernous depths of
the World war piece, once turned the tide In a
crucial battle 120 years ago and saved a verit
able empire for the American flag.
Before beginning that story, however, first a
brief word about the chief actor In It—Maj.
George Croghan. He was a Kentuckian, born
near Louisville, November 15, 1791, and a neph
ew of George Rogers Clark, "the Savior of the
Old Northwest" during the Revolution. Grad
uated from William and Mary college In Vir
ginia at the age of eighteen, he served as a
volunteer aid to Colonel Boyd In the expedi
tion commanded by Gen. William Henry Har
rison which was sent to break up the conspir
acy of Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chieftain.
1 b 1811. Crqghan distinguished himself at the
Battle of Tippecanoe, received an appointment
In the army and at the outbreak of the War of
1812 he was a captain In the Seventeenth In
fantry. from which rank he was promoted to
major In the same regiment for gallantry In a
sortie during the siege of Fort Meigs by the
British.
Soon afterwards he was sent with a battalion
of his regiment, composed of some 160 officers
and men, to take command of Fort Stephenson,
a ramshackle old stockade, built around a for
mer Indian trader's house at the head of naviga
tion on the Sandusky river, about 20 miles from
Lake Erie, In Ohio. The modern city of Fre
mont now stands on that site but It Is known
In frontier history as Lower Sandusky, a rally
ing place for the tribes of the Old Northwest
and the scene of many a dark deed of torture
of white captives.
The stockade was made of posts about 10
feel high and outside them was a dry ditch
8 er 9 feet wide and 5 or 6 feet deep. It en
closed about an acre of ground and was laid
out In the form of a parallelogram with a block
house at the northeast corner and a guardhouse
at the southeast.
Oraghan built another blockhouse from which
he csuld enfilade the ditch and he also strength
ened the weak places In the stockade
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Midway on the north wall,
Despite Its unlmposlng appearance, Fort
Stephenson was an Important post It was at the
apex of a triangle, the base line of which con
nected Brie and Upper Sandusky. At Erie Oliver
Hazard Perry was busily engaged in building
the fleet with which tie was to win his famous
naval victory later and at Upper Sandusky,
20 miles up the river from Fort Stephen
was the great depot of supplies for the
some
SOB,
American armies In the Northwest. So If Fort
Stephenson fell It would leave the way open for
Crocjhan's Battle "Ace
u
the British to attack either Erie or Upper San
dusky.
To defend this post Croghan had a force of a
little over 150 men and the following -officers,
most of them younger than Croghan himself;
Capt. James Hunter, Lfeuts. Benjamin Johnston
and Cyrus A. Baylor, Ensigns John Meek, Joseph
Duncan and Edmund Shipp, Lieutenant Ander
son, who had no command, served as a volun
teer In the ranks. To defend it he also had a
solitary piece of artillery, the little slx-pounder
now known to fame as "Old Betsy," the affec
tionate title bestowed upon It by Croghan's men.
Late in July, 1813, General Proctor with a
force of 600 British regulars and some 3,000
Indians under Tecumseh crossed the lake from
Malden and appeared before Fort Meigs on the
Maumee. Falling in his attempt to draw Its gar
4( ,r)son out Into a sortie, he determined to make
a dash against Fort Stephenson, capture It and
fall upon General Harrison's small force at
Seneca Falls about 10 miles up the river. Har
rison had previously Inspected the fort and, be
lieving It could not be held against artillery,
he directed Croghan. In case the British ap
peared, to abandon the fort and retreat. So when
his scouts told him of the coming of the enemy,
on the night of July 20 he sent orders to Croghan
to destroy the place at once and retire to Seneca
Falls.
The messengers bearing these orders lost their
way in the woods, narrowly escaped capture by
the Indians and did not reach the fort until the
morning of July 30. Croghan Immediately called
a council of war of his young officers and find
ing them as determined as he was, sent this note
to Harrison: "Sir—I have Just received yours
of yesterday, ten o'clock p. rn., ordering me to
destroy this place, and make good my retreat,
which was received too late to be carried Into
execution- We have determined to maintain this
place, and, by heavens, we can !"
Harrison could not let such a flagrant diso
bedience of orders pass by. He immediately sent
Colonel Wells with a squadron of cavalry to
relieve Croghan of his command and ordered
the young major to report at headquarters at
once. Croghan hastened to Harrison's camp and
succeeded In placating his commander so that
he was allowed to return to Fort Stephenson and
resume command with permlsalon to try to hold
the fort against the expected British attack.
It came about noon of August 1 when Indians
In large numbers surrounded the fort. One of
the red men climbed a tree to reconnolter but
he was brought tumbling down by a shot from
the long rifle of one of the Kentuckians In the
fort. Then the Indians gathered in a body at
the edge of the clearing but one shot from "Old
Betsy" quickly dispersed them.
About 4 o'clock In the afternoon the British
boats appeared around a bend in the river and
opened fire on the fort. Proctor's regulars were
disembarked about a mile below the fort, a
howitzer was landed and opened fire. Croghan's
men dragged "Old Betsy" from porthole to port
hole to send an occasional shot In reply and
to give an Impression of a greater artillery force.
So the unequal contest began—Croghan and*his
160 men and one gun against Proctor's force of
1,200 supplied with plenty of artillery.
After a brief exchange of shots three British
officers, Colonel Elliott, Major Chambers and
Captain Dixon, came forward with a white flag
to demand the surrender of the fort. So Croghan
sent out Ensign Shipp, the youngest officer In
the fort, to meet them. To the British officer's
demands that the fort be surrendered, Shipp re
plied that the Americans were prepared to de
fend It to the death of the last man and when
one of them pleaded with him to "prevent the
slaughter which must follow resistance should
you fall Into the hands of the savages," Shim»
made the spirited reply of "When the fort shall
be taken there will be none to massacre."
little reply. During the night also, Captain Hunt
er, Croghnn's second In command, anticipating
an assault on the northwest corner of the stock
ade, had dragged "Old Betsy" to the blockhouse
on the north wall placing It so It would rake the
ditch. The little cannon was filled with a half
charge of powder, because of the short range,
and a double charge of slugs and bullets. The
porthole was masked so the British would not
suspect the presence of the gun there.
Late In the afternoon of August 2 a storming
party of 300 British rushed for the northwest
corner while a party of 200 grenadiers made a
detour through the woods and advanced to at
tack the south wall. Under cover of a fierce
fire from the batteries the storming party dashed
forward and because of the smoke their pres
ence was not discovered until they were less
than 20 yards from the fort.
Croghan's men poured a deadly rifle fire upon
the attackers who were thrown Into confusion
for a moment.
Then Lieutenant-Colonel Short sprang to the
head of the column. Waving his sword In the
air, he rallied his men who rushed forwmrd with
fixed bayonets. At the edge of the ditch the Bri
ton shouted "Come on, men! We'll give the
d—d Yankees no quarter I" and led the way
down Into the ditch and up the other side. For
a moment they were safe there, for the Amer
icans could not depress their rifles enough to
shoot the enemy In the ditch without exposing
themselves above the palisades to the fire of
the Indians.
But Just at this moment the masked porthole
was thrown open and the black snout of "Old
Betsy" appeared. The next instant she poured
out a blast of lead at short range which killed
or wounded no less than 50 men. Colonel Short
received a mortal wound and with his last effort
he raised his handkerchief on the point of his
sword, pleading for the mercy which but a mo
ment before he had said he would not give!
Heeling hack from the slaughter pen In the
ditch, the surviving attackers bent a hasty re
treat, many of them being dropped by the long
rifles of the Kentuckians as they ran. The at
tack on the south wall had also been beaten off
with heavy loss to the British, but It was that
one terrible blast from "Old Betsy" which had
turned the tide of battle. The British artillery
resumed Its bombardment but It was only half
hearted and Croghan knew that he had little
more to fear from them.
Immediately
During the night Croghan's men mercifully
lowered buckets of water to the wounded red
coats In the ditch and a small trench was dug
under the stockade which allowed those who
were able to craw! Inside the fort. Some of
those not so badly wounded managed to creep
away across the clearing and rejoin their com
mand unmolested. During the night, also, the
British force retreated, going so precipitously
that they left behind a boatload of stores and
munitions which fell Into the hands of the
Americans the next morning.
Croghan's faith in h!s ability to hold the fort
was more than Justified. He had won a decisive
victory over a greatly superior force, Inflicting
« loss of more than 100 out of the 500 enemy
engaged, not . counting the casualties among the
Indians, which are unknown. His own loss was
exactly one killed and seven wounded! Bnt more
Important than this defeat of an enemy force
at such a cost to them was the fact that In hold
ing Fort Stephenson he had saved the American
supply depots and freed the state of Ohio from
the fears of a hostile Invasion with Its attend
ant horrors at the hands of the red allies of
the British. More than that, the outcome of the
war might have been different If Proctor's In
/ vasion had been successful. Just as his dis
tinguished uncle, George Rogers Clark, had done
a third of a century before, so had young George
Croghan done again—he had saved the Old
'Jorlhwest to the American flag.
(© by WMltrn Newspaper Union.)
6
0
__ National Topics Interpreted
by William B ruckart
Washington.—Remlnlscdtat of the
stirring days of 1917, leaders In the
nation are calling for
Rallying patriotic support.
for New War 8 P eukers are abroad
In the land with a
call for united effort, posters flap from
the walls of public places, all In a
new war. But this war being conduct
ed by our government and Its people Is
a war to release the country from the
bondage of an economic enemy, a
final gigantic drive to restore a people
to the plane where happiness can re
place destitution, where steady em
ployment can replace Idle time and
where profits will appear instead of
bankruptcy.
The government, through President
Roosevelt, is calling upon all and
sundry to stand together again just
as firmly as they did Just about this
time of the summer of 1917. Instead
of the draft of men, however, the gov
ernment Is asking only that employers
of labor, those who manufacture
things to sell, those who engage In
business of any kind, conform to cer
tain rules. Those who buy the things
that are produced by labor are asked
to help In the cause by refusing to
deal with the Individuals who do not
co-operate and agree to the rules from
which the President expects so much
good to come.
And so we have a national code, a
national agreement, a set of rules of
conduct. While the farm relief legis
lation Is getting under way, and it Is
well under way, that farm prices may
be Increased, the government has at
tacked the other phase of the prob
lem, namely, relief for the millions
whose lot It Is to live and work In
the cities. For them he Is promising
shorter hours of work, a retention, if
not an actual Increase, In pay. Of
the manufacturers and the wholesalers
and the retailers, the government Is
asking that prices be not raised be
yond the necessities resulting from
Increased cost of raw materials and
wages. In other words, the govern
ment has asked that there he no
profiteering. Just as It demanded dur
ing the World war that some consid
eration be given the consumer.
No one can predict with what suc
cess this new drive will be attended.
It Is new In character. It is described
by Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, the na
tional recovery administrator, as an
appeal to the conscience and opinion
of the people and to their good In
stincts. I quote the general further:
"After four years of hopeless and
seemingly helpless suffering and Inac
tion It would be unforgivenble not to
open to the country the chance It now
has under this law to unite once more
and overcome and maybe to defeat
the depression. This Is a test of pa
triotism. It Is the time to demonstrate
the faith of our fathers and our be
lief In ourselves.
"We are a people disciplined by
democracy to a self-control—sufficient
to unite our purchasing power—our
labor power—our management power
to carry out this great national cov
enant with vigor, with determination,
but with the calm composure and fair
play which always mark the American
way."
And true to the thought, the philos
ophy, of that last sentence, the govern
ment Is seeking to obtain the co-opera
tion of all of the people who must
make concessions by having them
make agreements with the President
voluntarily. The President said when
he signed the historical document that
there would be no coercion. It is the
American way.
• • •
In brief, the government Is propos
ing that actual agreements will be
signed by the thou
sands who are being
National Code aak f t0 make „
cessions. The mall
carriers have delivered blanks to all
of them. Each blank carries a state
ment of fourteen points to which the
employer of labor, the manufacturer
of commodities for trade, the retailer
or other dealer, Is being asked to sub
scribe. They constitute the national
code. It Is to be effective from August
1 to December 31. By that time, It Is
hoped that Individual Industries of all
kinds will have had an opportunity to
work out codes, acceptable to General
Johnson, that will serve as rules of
principles and practice for that par
ticular Industry, whether It be for the
makers of glue, moldere of pottery or
the manufacturer in the heavy In
dustry such as steel. The national
code Is a stop-gap, a bridge for the
recovery machinery to use while a
permanent passage way to prosperity
Is being erected on a firm foundation.
Industry must pledge Itself not to
circumvent the agreement In any way.
Labor must pledge Itself to avoid dis
turbances resulting from Its use of
the strike as a weapon. State boards
are being set up—they have been
named In most states—to help out the
national administration. Child labor
The
con
.
of wor ^ 13 prescribed and If the estab
lishment must stay open longer, more
people can have Jobs, all at the old
rate of pay.
is barred. A week of thirty-five hours
While the recovery administrator's
explanation of the code said there
would be no coercion, It does seem
pressure will be used If the basic
agreements do not come In. signed, at
« rapid rate. It may not be coercion.
but certainly there Is a tremendous
economic force to be used, for the con
sumers are asked to deal only wltli
those who have signed agreements to
conform.
During all of this drive to get things
going again—the code calls It the
"President'S drive for re-employment"
—there are apt to be many unfair and
unjust acts by the overzealous. There
are certain to be recalcitrants who are
unwilling to make concessions for the
common good. But the most Im
portant class of all of those who may
not comply will be those who are un
able to comply because, to do so, they
would be bankrupt
I have heard It suggested in conver
sations here that the sudden move to
blanket the nation
voluntary
agreement on busi
ness conduct might
cause many persons In the country to
become skeptical that things were not
going so well. It was feared that
those without complete Information as
to the plans and purposes of the gov
ernment might look upon the far
reaching action as meaning that a new
crisis was Impending. The suggestions
were not altogether without support
ing reason. In the deluge of visitors
who have come here to draft new
codes In conference with General
Johnson, many have come with doubt
In their mind as to the value or the
Justice of the whole scheme. They
were honest In their Judgment and
simply viewed the program as unwork
able and as forcing them Into unnec
essary hardships. It seems, therefore
that an analysis of some of the rea
sons for the national code should be
made after It has been stated with
some emphasis that there Is no new
crisis, nothing more serious than be
fore. to be seen on the horizon of the
Immediate future.
It will be remembered that the an
nounced program of the President ^
when he started the recovery plan was
to boost commodity prices. He wantedi
Answering with a
the Skeptics
to see the farmers get more for their
products as a means of saving agri
culture from the Inevitable bow-wows
and he wanted the other sources of In
dustrial life to profit. As long as
prices were so low, there could be no
restoration of normal business activity,
In the President's view.
Carrying out this line of reasoning,
there came the farm aid laws, the In
flation authority, the farm and city
home refinancing bills and other pow
ers. -The President withdrew govern
ment support of the dollar in foreign
exchange by saying there could be no
gold exported. Obviously, prices went
up. They moved In a hurry. Specu
lation crept Into the picture In a big
way. The net result of this was that
the cost of living moved rapidly high
er but wages and salaries lagged be
hind.
The recovery administration thought
the problem could be met by the Indus
trial codes, but the codes were slow
In getting started and numerous con
troversies have arisen between units
of particular industries and between
whole Industries and the recovery ad
Delays were serving
ministration,
only to widen the margin between the
two basic factors of wages and prices,
and so General Johnson and the Presi
dent put their heads together on the
code which we have been discussing.
« •
The recent nose dive In grain prices
occasioned quite, a bit of talk In Wash
ington officialdom,
especially around the
Department of Agri
culture. Secretary
Wallace, however, was the calmest
man of the lot He did not let the fact
disturb him that wheat dropped off 25
cents a bushel In one day for the rea
son, he said, that Mr. John Q. Public
.was gambling In the market Sooner
or later, the secretary said, John Q.
had to take a licking.
Break in
Grain Prices
Mr. Wallace said, however, that pub
lic participation In the grain market
was not the sole reason for the sudden
He thought the rise In price
decline,
had been too rapid and that « reac
tion had set In. Another man In the
Department of Agriculture likened the
price rise to the growth of bean stalks
la over-rich soil It went all to top.
But the secretary said the members
of the Board of Trade in Chicago saw
the break coming and they sought to
protect themselves by calling for more
collateral or cash from those who
wore trading on margins. That nat
urally had the effect of frightening
many speculators, according to Mr.
Wallace, but he did not blame the
Board of Trade members,
something of a combination of circum
stances, then, that broke the grain
markets.
Nevertheless, the Department of Ag
riculture Is watching the grain trading
through numerous pairs of eyes. One
of the things It already has done Is to
Invoke the provisions of the grain fu
tures law which requires the Board of
Trade at Chicago to make dally re
ports of individual trading where the
amounts are 500,000 bushels or more.
The purpose of that is to keep the de
partment Informed as to who the big
speculators are, since it Is conceived
that a speculator can Influence the
market seriously with lots of about
500,000 bushels.
O, 1031. W«rt«rn Ne-wip&por Union.
It was