W

WINFIELD SCOTT.

INFIELD SCOTT was born near Petersburgh, Virginia, June thirteenth,

1786; was the youngest son of William Scott, Esq., and was left an orphan at an early age. He was educated at the high-school at Richmond, whence he went to William and Mary College, and attended law lectures. He was admitted to the bar of Virginia in 1806. The next year he went to South-Carolina with the intention to take up his residence there; but before he had acquired the right to practise in that State, Congress, in view of imminent hostilities with England, passed a bill to enlarge the army, and young Scott obtained a commission as Captain of light artillery.

General Wilkinson was then stationed in Louisiana, and Captain Scott was ordered to join the army at that point in 1809. In the next year Wilkinson was superseded, and the young Captain then expressed what was a very general opinion, namely, that his late commander was implicated in Burr's conspiracy. For this he was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to one year's suspension from rank and pay. Probably this suspension was a fortunate event; for the whole of that year was employed in the diligent study of works on military art.

War was declared against Great Britain June eighteenth, 1812; and in July of the same year Captain Scott was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Second artillery, and was stationed at Black Rock with two companies of his regiment. With this force he covered Van Rensselaer's passage of the Niagara River on the expedition against Queenstown, October thirteenth. Later in the day, when Van Rensselaer was disabled, the command fell upon Scott, who, after a gallant fight, deserted by the New-York militia, and outnumbered very greatly by British reënforcements, surrendered his whole command, two hundred and ninety-three in all, prisoners of war.

While a prisoner, he saw the British officers select from the American soldiers taken with him such as appeared to be Irishmen; and these men, they declared, were to be sent to England as British subjects, there to be punished for treason. Scott then, in the presence of the British officers, assured the soldiers that the United States Government would not quietly see them suffer, and would certainly retaliate upon British prisoners the treatment they should receive. Exchanged in January, 1813, he immediately made a

report of this matter to the Secretary of War. Laid before Congress, this report originated the act by which the President of the United States was invested with "the power of retaliation;" and from prisoners subsequently taken by himself, Scott chose a number equal to the number sent to England to abide their fate. For this purpose he was careful to choose only Englishmen.

Immediately after the capture of York, Upper Canada, Scott rejoined the army on the frontier as Adjutant to General Dearborn, with the rank of Colonel. He took part in the expedition against Fort George, landed his men in good order, and scaled a steep height in the presence of the enemy, who was finally driven from his position at the point of the bayonet. Fort George was then no longer tenable, and the British abandoned it, having placed slow matches to all the magazines. Only one of them exploded, and from a piece of timber thrown by it, Colonel Scott received a severe wound in the left shoulder. Disaster and disgrace marked the close of this campaign, and for another it was necessary to form a new army.

In March, 1814, Colonel Scott was made a Brigadier-General, and immediately thereafter established a camp of instruction at Buffalo, where his own and Ripley's brigades, with a battalion of artillery, and some regiments of volunteers, were drilled into thorough and accurate discipline.

Brigadier-General Scott crossed the Niagara River with his brigade, July third, 1814; on the fourth skirmished for sixteen miles with a detachment under the Marquis of Tweedale, and that night encamped upon Street's Creek, two miles from the British camp at Chippewa. Between the two camps lay the plain upon which the battle was fought next day. East of this plain was the Niagara River, west was a heavy wood, and on the northern side from the wood to the Niagara ran the Chippewa River, while Street's Creek ran in a similar direction on the southern side. Behind the Chippewa was the British army under General Riall, well provided with artillery.

About noon of the fifth, a bright, hot summer's day, there occurred a skirmish of light troops in the wood. Some Indians and British militia were there engaged by General Porter, with volunteers, militia, and friendly Indians, and driven back until they came upon the main body of the British army, which was seen to be in motion, when Porter's irregulars broke and fled. Major-General Brown, in the wood with Porter, thus first learned of the British advance; and Brigadier-General Scott, also ignorant of it, was leading his brigade into the plain to drill. This was at four P.M. Brown hurried to the rear to bring up Ripley's brigade, and Scott's force passed the bridge over Street's Creek in perfect order under the British fire. The action soon became general. Major Jessup, with a battalion in the wood, for some time checked the enemy's right wing, whereupon the enemy left one battalion with

him, formed a new right, and continued to advance. The British line was now drawn nearly square across the plain. Opposed was a battalion under McNeill, which faced his right obliquely, and another under Leavenworth, which opposed his left in the same manner. Scott's line, thus formed, and supported by Towson's artillery on the right, continued to advance, fire, and halt, until it was within eighty paces of the enemy, when McNeill's and Leavenworth's battalions, almost simultaneously, charged with the bayonet. This shock was decisive; the British army broke and fled, pursued nearly to its intrenchments, in complete rout. The American loss was three hundred and twenty-seven, the enemy's five hundred and three; while the Amercans engaged numbered only one thousand nine hundred, and the British two thousand one hundred. Three of the enemy's regiments, the Royal Scots, the Queen's Own, and the Hundredth regiment, were esteemed the best troops in the British army.

Much gloom was cleared from the public mind by this battle; it atoned for many disasters, and the country was taught, when it needed most to know it, that American soldiers, in proper hands, were equal to those whose skill and discipline had been acquired in the hard-fought fields of the Peninsular "Brigadier-General Scott," said General Brown in his official report, "is entitled to the highest praise our country can bestow."

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With Scott's brigade still in the van, the American army passed over the Chippewa two days after the battle, and the British army retreated before it. But to mask a movement against Burlington Heights, a feigned retreat was almost immediately made. Should this fail to draw the enemy out, it was intended to use the twenty-fifth of July as a day of rest, and force an action on the twenty-sixth; but on the twenty-fifth word came that a portion of the enemy's force had crossed the Niagara, and Scott was sent forward to attack the remainder thus weakened. His force consisted of four small battalions of infantry, Towson's battery, and a detachment of cavalry, one thousand three hundred men in all. About two miles from camp he came upon the enemy drawn up in line of battle on Lundy's Lane. No British troops had crossed the Niagara, and Scott was now in front of the same army he had beaten on the fifth, swelled with a heavy reënforcement which had come up unknown. Retreat must have a bad effect on the force to him only the night before. behind him; to stand fast was impossible, as he was already under fire; he therefore advanced, determined to hold the enemy in check, if possible, till the whole American army should come up. The battle began a little before sunset, and continued into the night. Major-General Brown arrived upon the field, and assumed command at nine P.M. Then the enemy's right, in an attempted flank movement, had been driven back with heavy loss; his left was

cut off and many prisoners taken; his centre alone remained firm, covered by a battery on a hill, which was finally carried by the bayonet.

Scott received a severe wound in the side early in the night, and at eleven o'clock was disabled by a musket-ball in the left shoulder, and borne from the field.

For his gallant conduct in these two battles, Scott was breveted MajorGeneral, received a gold medal from Congress, and was tendered a position in the Cabinet as Secretary of War, which he declined in favor of his senior. While yet feeble from his wounds, he went to Europe by order of the Government, for the restoration of his health and for professional improvement. He returned home in 1816, and in March of the following year was married to Miss Maria Mayo, daughter of John Mayo, Esq., of Richmond, Virginia.

Ordered to the command of the forces intended to act against the savages in the Black Hawk war, in May, 1832, General Scott reached Prairie du Chien the day after the Battle of Bad Axe, which ended the war, and in time only to assist in the preparation of the treaties thereupon made with the various tribes. From the Western frontier, he arrived in New-York in October, 1832, and was at once ordered to Charleston, S. C. Nullification had there agitated the community since the passage of the revenue act of 1828, and in 1832 a State convention provided for resistance to the objectionable law. President Jackson pronounced the resistance thus proposed incompatible with the existence of the Union; and the Governor of the State called out twelve thousand volunteers. General Scott's duty at Charleston was to examine the forts in the harbor, and strengthen and reënforce them if he deemed it necessary; and he was ordered to act subordinately to the United States civil authorities in all that he did, but to prepare for any danger. Every part of this duty was discharged with an admirable forbearance and delicacy, which tended greatly to soothe, and did much to allay the angry excitement; and SouthCarolina, thus firmly met, rescinded her nullification ordinance.

In January, 1836, Scott was ordered to Florida, and opened a campaign against the Indians there, which, from the nature of the country, the climate, inadequate stores, and the insufficiency of his force, proved entirely fruitless. Greater success crowned his efforts against the Creek Indians in the same year, and all went on well until, in July, he was recalled, that inquiry might be made into his first failure. Upon full deliberation, the court of inquiry pronounced his Seminole campaign "well devised, and prosecuted with energy, steadiness, and ability." Yet he took no further part in the Florida war, though it employed the Government for six years longer.

Canada became, in 1837, the scene of great political excitement, and all along the northern frontier the American people sympathized with the patriot