A West Pointer with the Boers: $b personal narrative of Colonel J. Y. F. Blake, commander of the Irish brigadeBlake, John Y. Fillmore
History
A West Pointer with the Boers: $b personal narrative of Colonel J. Y. F. Blake, commander of the Irish brigade
Blake, John Y. Fillmore
South African War, 1899-1902
_The Government of the United States of America disgraced itself by
violating the law and allowing British officers to establish recruiting
camps for horses, mules and men on its sacred soil, thereby assisting
the great monarchy of the British Empire to destroy two little
republics in South Africa struggling so hard for their liberty and
independence. One of these camps was in New Orleans, at Chalmette, a
spot of ground sacred in the eyes and hearts of all true Americans._
The governor of the state protested against this camp. The mayor of the
city protested against this camp, and the people of America protested
against this camp, yet it was allowed to remain. The Government in
Washington City sent two officers clothed in the army uniform to visit
and report on this camp. The two officers went there, shook hands with
the British officers, had some wine, returned to Washington, reported
that all was well, and the Government established a police force to
protect those British officers and that camp while recruiting horses,
mules and men for the British Army in South Africa.
_During the war of 1812 the English tried to lay waste our land,
employed the Indian savages to murder our women and children, burnt
our capitol, and the war closed, with one of its greatest battles,
in 1815, at Chalmette, in New Orleans. So our English Government
in Washington waited some eighty-five years for the opportunity to
apologize to the British Government for the terrible thrashing that the
famous Andrew Jackson gave General Pakenham and his English army at
Chalmette, New Orleans._
It seems to me that this is enough to bring the blush of shame to the
cheeks of every true American. If the people of the United States of
America cannot find enough true Americans to fill the highest office
in their gift, then the time has arrived when they should change their
name and cease to call themselves Americans. Suffice it to say that
just as the struggling Boers had all England alarmed and the English
army pushed to hard straits, ship load after ship load of horses, mules
and men from America began to arrive in Cape Town and Durban, and with
them Lord Kitchener was soon able to put into the field ninety-one
mobile columns. Many of these Americans were captured, and some of
them said that the English forced them to enlist and fight, after they
reached South Africa, while others declared that they were duly hired
by the British in New Orleans to go with the horses and mules to South
Africa and on arrival there take up arms against the Boers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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