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Charles Morris - Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15)

C >> Charles Morris >> Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15)



Transcriber's note: in this pure-ASCII edition, a small number of
non-ASCII characters have been encoded as follows: ['e] and [`e]
for accented E; [^e] and [^o] for E and O with circumflex; and
[:i] for I with an ulaut.



['E]dition d'['E]lite


Historical Tales

The Romance of Reality

By

CHARLES MORRIS

Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors,"
"Tales from the Dramatists," etc.

IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES

Volume I

American

I

J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON


Copyright, 1893, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.


[Illustration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE.]




PREFACE.


It has become a commonplace remark that fact is often
stranger than fiction. It may be said, as a variant of this,
that history is often more romantic than romance. The pages
of the record of man's doings are frequently illustrated by
entertaining and striking incidents, relief points in the
dull monotony of every-day events, stories fitted to rouse
the reader from languid weariness and stir anew in his veins
the pulse of interest in human life. There are many
such,--dramas on the stage of history, life scenes that are
pictures in action, tales pathetic, stirring, enlivening,
full of the element of the unusual, of the stuff the novel
and the romance are made of, yet with the advantage of being
actual fact. Incidents of this kind have proved as
attractive to writers as to readers. They have dwelt upon
them lovingly, embellished them with the charms of rhetoric
and occasionally with the inventions of fancy, until what
began as fact has often entered far into the domains of
legend and fiction. It may well be that some of the
narratives in the present work have gone through this
process. If so, it is simply indicative of the interest
they have awakened in generations of readers and writers.
But the bulk of them are fact, so far as history in general
can be called fact, it having been our design to cull from
the annals of the nations some of their more stirring and
romantic incidents, and present them as a gallery of
pictures that might serve to adorn the entrance to the
temple of history, of which this work is offered as in some
sense an illuminated ante-chamber. As such, it is hoped that
some pilgrims from the world of readers may find it a
pleasant halting-place on their way into the far-extending
aisles of the great temple beyond.




CONTENTS


VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS 9
FROBISHER AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 26
CHAMPLAIN AND THE IROQUOIS 34
SIR WILLIAM PHIPS AND THE SILVER-SHIP 53
THE STORY OF THE REGICIDES 69
HOW THE CHARTER WAS SAVED 80
HOW FRANKLIN CAME TO PHILADELPHIA 90
THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS 98
SOME ADVENTURES OF MAJOR PUTNAM 111
A GALLANT DEFENCE 128
DANIEL BOONE, THE PIONEER OF KENTUCKY 138
PAUL'S REVERE'S RIDE 157
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS 172
THE BRITISH AT NEW YORK 180
A QUAKERESS PATRIOT 189
THE SIEGE OF FORT SCHUYLER 195
ON THE TRACK OF A TRAITOR 211
MARION, THE SWAMP-FOX 223
THE FATE OF THE PHILADELPHIA 237
THE VICTIM OF A TRAITOR 249
HOW THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH WAS INVENTED 259
THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC 275
STEALING A LOCOMOTIVE 285
AN ESCAPE FROM LIBBY PRISON 298
THE SINKING OF THE ALBEMARLE 314
ALASKA, A TREASURE HOUSE OF GOLD, FURS, AND FISHES 327
HOW HAWAII LOST ITS QUEEN AND ENTERED THE UNITED STATES 338




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

AMERICAN. VOLUME I.

WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE. _Frontispiece._
VIKING SHIPS AT SEA. 11
LAKE CHAMPLAIN AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 41
POND ISLAND, MOUTH OF THE KENNEBEC. 54
THE CAVE OF THE REGICIDES. 76
THE CHARTER OAK, HARTFORD. 85
PRINTING-PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED WHEN A BOY. 90
WASHINGTON'S HOME AT MT. VERNON. 98
SHORE OF LAKE GEORGE. 118
INDIAN ATTACK AND GALLANT DEFENCE. 128
THE OLD NORTH CHURCH, BOSTON. 158
THE SPIRIT OF '76. 166
ETHAN ALLEN'S ENTRANCE, TICONDEROGA. 172
THE OLD STATE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA. 191
THE BENEDICT ARNOLD MANSION. 220
THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC. 280
LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND. 298
SINKING OF THE ALBEMARLE. 319
MUIR GLACIER IN ALASKA. 328
A NATIVE GRASS HUT, HAWAII. 340




VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS.


The year 1000 A.D. was one of strange history. Its advent
threw the people of Europe into a state of mortal terror.
Ten centuries had passed since the birth of Christ. The
world was about to come to an end. Such was the general
belief. How it was to reach its end,--whether by fire,
water, or some other agent of ruin,--the prophets of
disaster did not say, nor did people trouble themselves to
learn. Destruction was coming upon them, that was enough to
know; how to provide against it was the one thing to be
considered.

Some hastened to the churches; others to the taverns. Here
prayers went up; there wine went down. The petitions of the
pious were matched by the ribaldry of the profligate. Some
made their wills; others wasted their wealth in revelry,
eager to get all the pleasure out of life that remained for
them. Many freely gave away their property, hoping, by
ridding themselves of the goods of this earth, to establish
a claim to the goods of Heaven, with little regard to the
fate of those whom they loaded with their discarded wealth.

It was an era of ignorance and superstition. Christendom
went insane over an idea. When the year ended, and the world
rolled on, none the worse for conflagration or deluge, green
with the spring leafage and ripe with the works of man,
dismay gave way to hope, mirth took the place of prayer,
man regained their flown wits, and those who had so
recklessly given away their wealth bethought themselves of
taking legal measures for its recovery.

Such was one of the events that made that year memorable.
There was another of a highly different character. Instead
of a world being lost, a world was found. The Old World not
only remained unharmed, but a New World was added to it, a
world beyond the seas, for this was the year in which the
foot of the European was first set upon the shores of the
trans-Atlantic continent. It is the story of this first
discovery of America that we have now to tell.

In the autumn of the year 1000, in a region far away from
fear-haunted Europe, a scene was being enacted of a very
different character from that just described. Over the
waters of unknown seas a small, strange craft boldly made
its way, manned by a crew of the hardiest and most vigorous
men, driven by a single square sail, whose coarse woollen
texture bellied deeply before the fierce ocean winds, which
seemed at times as if they would drive that deckless vessel
bodily beneath the waves.

This crew was of men to whom fear was almost unknown, the
stalwart Vikings of the North, whose oar-and sail-driven
barks now set out from the coasts of Norway and Denmark to
ravage the shores of southern Europe, now turned their prows
boldly to the west in search of unknown lands afar.

Shall we describe this craft? It was a tiny one in which to
venture upon an untravelled ocean in search of an unknown
continent,--a vessel shaped somewhat like a strung bow,
scarcely fifty feet in length, low amidships and curving
upwards to high peaks at stem and stern, both of which
converged to sharp edges. It resembled an enormous canoe
rather than aught else to which we can compare it. On the
stem was a carved and gilt dragon, the figurehead of the
ship, which glittered in the bright rays of the sun. Along
the bulwarks of the ship, fore and aft, hung rows of large
painted wooden shields, which gave an Argus-eyed aspect to
the craft. Between them was a double row of thole-pins for
the great oars, which now lay at rest in the bottom of the
boat, but by which, in calm weather, this "walker of the
seas" could be forced swiftly through the yielding element.

[Illustration: VIKING SHIPS AT SEA.]

Near the stern, on an elevated platform, stood the
commander, a man of large and powerful frame and imposing
aspect, one whose commands not the fiercest of his crew
would lightly venture to disobey. A coat of ring-mail
encircled his stalwart frame; by his side, in a
richly-embossed scabbard, hung a long sword, with hilt of
gilded bronze; on his head was a helmet that shone like pure
gold, shaped like a wolf's head, with gaping jaws and
threatening teeth. Land was in sight, an unknown coast,
peopled perhaps by warlike men. The cautious Viking leader
deemed it wise to be prepared for danger, and was armed for
possible combat.

Below him, on the rowing-benches, sat his hardy crew, their
arms--spears, axes, bows, and slings--beside them, ready
for any deed of daring they might be called upon to perform.
Their dress consisted of trousers of coarse stuff, belted at
the waist; thick woollen shirts, blue, red, or brown in
color; iron helmets, beneath which their long hair streamed
down to their shoulders; and a shoulder belt descending to
the waist and supporting their leather-covered
sword-scabbards. Heavy whiskers and moustaches added to the
fierceness of their stern faces, and many of them wore as
ornament on the forehead a band of gold.

They numbered thirty-five in all, this crew who had set out
to brave the terrors and solve the mysteries of the great
Atlantic. Their leader, Leif by name, was the son of Eirek
the Red, the discoverer of Greenland, and a Viking as fierce
as ever breathed the air of the north land. Outlawed in
Norway, where in hot blood he had killed more men than the
law could condone, Eirek had made his way to Iceland. Here
his fierce temper led him again to murder, and flight once
more became necessary. Manning a ship, he set sail boldly to
the west, and in the year 982 reached a land on which the
eye of European had never before gazed. To this he gave the
name of Greenland, with the hope, perhaps, that this
inviting name would induce others to follow him.

Such proved to be the case. Eirek returned to Iceland, told
the story of his discovery, and in 985 set sail again for
his new realm with twenty-five ships and many colonists.
Others came afterwards, among them one Biarni, a bold and
enterprising youth, for whom a great adventure was
reserved. Enveloped in fogs, and driven for days from its
course by northeasterly winds, his vessel was forced far to
the south. When at length the fog cleared away, the
distressed mariners saw land before them, a low, level,
thickly-wooded region, very different from the ice-covered
realm they had been led to expect.

"Is this the land of which we are in search?" asked the
sailors.

"No," answered Biarni; "for I am told that we may look for
very large glaciers in Greenland.

"At any rate, let us land and rest."

"Not so; my father has gone with Eirek. I shall not rest
till I see him again."

And now the winds blew northward, and for seven days they
scudded before a furious gale, passing on their way a
mountainous, ice-covered island, and in the end, by great
good fortune, Biarni's vessel put into the very port where
his father had fixed his abode.

Biarni had seen, but had not set foot upon, the shores of
the New World. That was left for bolder or more enterprising
mariners to perform. About 995 he went to Norway, where the
story of his strange voyage caused great excitement among
the adventure-loving people. Above all, it stirred up the
soul of Leif, eldest son of Eirek the Red, then in Norway,
who in his soul resolved to visit and explore that strange
land which Biarni had only seen from afar.

Leif returned to Greenland with more than this idea in his
mind. When Eirek left Norway he had left a heathen land.
When Leif visited it he found it a Christian country. Or at
least he found there a Christian king, Olaf Tryggvason by
name, who desired his guest to embrace the new faith. Leif
consented without hesitation. Heathenism did not seem very
firmly fixed in the minds of those northern barbarians. He
and all his sailors were baptized, and betook themselves to
Greenland with this new faith as their most precious
freight. In this way Christianity first made its way across
the seas. And thus it further came about that the ship which
we have seen set sail for southern lands.

This ship was that of Biarni. Leif had bought it, it may be
with the fancy that it would prove fortunate in retracing
its course. Not only Leif, but his father Eirek, now an old
man, was fired with the hope of new discoveries. The aged
Viking had given Greenland, to the world; it was a natural
ambition to desire to add to his fame as a discoverer. But
on his way to the vessel his horse stumbled. Superstitious,
as all men were in that day, he looked on this as an evil
omen.

"I shall not go," he said. "It is not my destiny to discover
any other lands than that on which we now live. I shall
follow you no farther, but end my life in Greenland." And
Eirek rode back to his home.

Not so the adventurers. They boldly put out to sea, turned
the prow of their craft southward, and battled with the
waves day after day, their hearts full of hope, their eyes
on the alert for the glint of distant lands.

At length land was discovered,--a dreary country,
mountainous, icy; doubtless the inhospitable island which
Biarni had described. They landed, but only to find
themselves on a shore covered with bare, flat rocks, while
before them loomed snow-covered heights.

"This is not the land we seek," said Leif; "but we will not
do as Biarni did, who never set foot on shore. I will give
this land a name, and will call it Helluland,"--a name which
signifies the "land of broad stones."

Onward they sailed again, their hearts now filled with
ardent expectation. At length rose again the stirring cry of
"Land!" or its Norse equivalent, and as the dragon-peaked
craft glided swiftly onward there rose into view a long
coast-line, flat and covered with white sand in the
foreground, while a dense forest spread over the rising
ground in the rear.

"Markland [land of forest] let it be called," cried Leif.
"This must be the land which Biarni first saw. We will not
be like him, but will set foot on its promising shores."

They landed, but tarried not long. Soon they took ship
again, and sailed for two days out of sight of land. Then
there came into view an island, with a broad channel between
it and the mainland. Up this channel they laid their course,
and soon came to where a river poured its clear waters into
the sea. They decided to explore this stream. The boat was
lowered and the ship towed up the river, until, at a short
distance inland, it broadened into a lake. Here, at Leif's
command, the anchor was cast, and their good ship, the
pioneer in American discovery, came to rest within the
inland waters of the New World.

Not many minutes passed before the hardy mariners were on
shore, and eagerly observing the conditions of their
new-discovered realm. River and lake alike were full of
salmon, the largest they had ever seen, a fact which
agreeably settled the question of food. The climate seemed
deliciously mild, as compared with the icy shores to which
they were used. The grass was but little withered by frost,
and promised a winter supply of food for cattle. Altogether
they were so pleased with their surroundings that Leif
determined to spend the winter at that place, exploring the
land so far as he could.

For some time they dwelt under booths, passing the nights in
their leather sleeping-bags; but wood was abundant, axes and
hands skilful to wield them were at hand, and they quickly
went to work to build themselves habitations more suitable
for the coming season of cold.

No inhabitants of the land were seen. So far as yet
appeared, it might be a region on which human foot had never
before been set. But Leif was a cautious leader. He bade his
men not to separate until the houses were finished. Then he
divided them into two parties, left one to guard their homes
and their ship, and sent the other inland to explore.

"Beware, though," he said, "that you risk not too much. We
know not what perils surround us. Go not so far inland but
that you can get back by evening, and take care not to
separate."

Day after day these explorations continued, the men plunging
into the forest that surrounded them and wandering far into
its hidden recesses, each evening bringing back with them
some story of the marvels of this new land, or some sample
of its productions strange to their eyes.

An evening came in which one of the explorers failed to
return. He had either disobeyed the injunctions of Leif and
gone too far to get back by evening, or some peril of that
unknown land had befallen him. This man was of German birth,
Tyrker by name, a southerner who had for years dwelt with
Eirek and been made the foster-father of Leif, who had been
fond of him since childhood. He was a little,
wretched-looking fellow, with protruding forehead, unsteady
eyes, and tiny face, yet a man skilled in all manner of
handicraft.

Leif, on learning of his absence, upbraided the men bitterly
for losing him, and called on twelve of them to follow him
in search. Into the forest they went, and before long had
the good fortune to behold Tyrker returning. The little
fellow, far from showing signs of disaster, was in the
highest of spirits, his face radiant with joy.

"How now, foster-father!" cried Leif. "Why are you so late?
and why have you parted from the others?"

Tyrker was too excited to answer. He rolled his eyes wildly
and made wry faces. When words came to him, he spoke in his
native German, which none of them understood. Joy seemed to
have driven all memory of the language of the north from his
mind. It was plain that no harm had come to him. On the
contrary, he seemed to have stumbled upon some landfall of
good luck. Yet some time passed before they could bring him
out of his ecstasy into reason.

"I did not go much farther than you," he at length called
out, in their own tongue "and if I am late I have a good
excuse. I can tell you news."

"What are they?"

"I have made a grand discovery. See, I have found vines and
grapes," and he showed them his hands filled with the purple
fruit. "I was born in a land where grapes grow in plenty.
And this land bears them! Behold what I bring you!"

The memory of his childhood had driven for the time all
memory of the Norse language from his brain. Grapes he had
not seen for many years, and the sight of them made him a
child again. The others beheld the prize with little less
joy. They slept where they were that night, and in the
morning followed Tyrker to the scene of his discovery, where
he gladly pointed to the arbor-like vines, laden thickly
with wild grapes, a fruit delicious to their unaccustomed
palates.

"This is a glorious find," cried Leif. "We must take some of
this splendid fruit north. There are two kinds of work now
to be done. One day you shall gather grapes the next you
shall cut timber to freight the ship. We must show our
friends north what a country we have found. As for this
land, I have a new name for it. Let it be called Vineland,
the land of grapes and wine."

After this discovery there is little of interest to record.
The winter, which proved to be a very mild one, passed away,
and in the spring they set sail again for Greenland, their
ship laden deeply with timber, so useful a treasure in their
treeless northern home, while the long-boat was filled to
the gunwale with the grapes they had gathered and dried.

Such is the story of the first discovery of America, as told
in the sagas of the North. Leif the Lucky was the name given
the discoverer from that time forward. He made no more
visits to Vineland, for during the next winter his father
died, and he became the governing head of the Greenland
settlements.

But the adventurous Northmen were not the men to rest at
ease with an untrodden continent so near at hand. Thorvald,
Leif's brother, one of the boldest of his race, determined
to see for himself the wonders of Vineland. In the spring of
1002 he set sail with thirty companions, in the pioneer ship
of American discovery, the same vessel which Biarni and Leif
had made famous in that service. Unluckily the records fail
to give us the name of this notable ship.

Steering southward, they reached in due time the lake on
whose shores Leif and his crew had passed the winter. The
buildings stood unharmed, and the new crew passed a winter
here, most of their time being spent in catching and drying
the delicious salmon which thronged river and lake. In the
spring they set sail again, and explored the coast for a
long distance to the south. How far they went we cannot
tell, for all we know of their voyage is that nearly
everywhere they found white sandy shores and a background of
unbroken forest. Like Leif, they saw no men.

Back they came to Vineland, and there passed the winter
again. Another spring came in the tender green of the young
leafage, and again they put to sea. So far fortune had
steadily befriended them. Now the reign of misfortune began.
Not far had they gone before the vessel was driven ashore by
a storm, and broke her keel on a protruding shoal. This was
not a serious disaster. A new keel was made, and the old one
planted upright in the sands of the coast.

"We will call this place Kial-ar-ness" [Keel Cape], said
Thorvald.

On they sailed again, and came to a country of such
attractive aspect that Thorvald looked upon it with longing
eyes.

"This is a fine country, and here I should like to build
myself a home," he said, little deeming in what gruesome
manner his words were to be fulfilled.

For now, for the first time in the story of these voyages,
are we told of the natives of the land,--the Skroelings, as
the Norsemen called them. Passing the cape which Thorvald
had chosen for his home, the mariners landed to explore the
shore, and on their way back to the ship saw, on the white
sands, three significant marks. They were like those made by
a boat when driven ashore. Continuing their observation,
they quickly perceived, drawn well up on the shore, three
skin-canoes turned keel upward. Dividing into three parties,
they righted these boats, and to their surprise saw that
under each three men lay concealed.

The blood-loving instinct of the Norsemen was never at fault
in a case like this. Drawing their swords, they assailed the
hidden men, and of the nine only one escaped, the other
being stretched in death upon the beach.

The mariners had made a fatal mistake. To kill none, unless
they could kill all, should have been their rule, a lesson
in practical wisdom which they were soon to learn. But,
heedless of danger and with the confidence of strength and
courage, they threw themselves upon the sands, and, being
weary and drowsy, were quickly lost in slumber.

And now came a marvel. A voice, none knew whence or of whom,
called loudly in their slumbering ears,--

"Wake, Thorvaldt! Wake all your men, if you would save your
life and theirs! Haste to your ship and fly from land with
all speed, for vengeance and death confront you."

Suddenly aroused, they sprang to their feet, looking at each
other with astounded eyes, and asking who had spoken those
words. Little time for answer remained. The woods behind
them suddenly seemed alive with fierce natives, who had been
roused to vengeful fury by the flying fugitive, and now came
on with hostile cries. The Norsemen sprang to their boats
and rowed in all haste to the ship; but before they could
make sail the surface of the bay swarmed with skin-boats,
and showers of arrows were poured upon them.

The warlike mariners in turn assailed their foes with
arrows, slings, and javelins, slaying so many of them that
the remainder were quickly put to flight. But they fled not
unrevenged. A keen-pointed arrow, flying between the ship's
side and the edge of his shield, struck Thorvald in the
armpit, wounding him so deeply that death threatened to
follow the withdrawal of the fatal dart.

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