Nooks and Corners of the New England CoastDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Drake, Samuel Adams
New England -- Description and travel
Now let us take a walk over to the more elevated summit west of Fort
George. Here are also evidences of military occupation in fast-perishing
embankments and heaps of beach pebbles. What are left of the lines look
over toward the English fort and the cove between it and the main-land.
A broad, level plateau of greensward extends between the two summits,
over which neither you nor I would have liked to walk in the teeth of
rattling volleys of musketry. Yet such things have been on this very
hill-top.
The story of these fortifications is drawn from one of the most
disgraceful chapters of the Revolutionary war. It is of a well-conceived
enterprise brought to a disastrous issue through incapacity, discord,
and blundering. There are no longer susceptibilities to be wounded by
the relation, though for many years after the event it was seldom spoken
of save with mingled shame and indignation. Little enough is said of it
in the newspapers of the time, for it was a terrible blow to
Massachusetts pride, and struck home.
In June, 1779, Colonel Francis M'Lean was sent from Halifax with nine
hundred men to seize and fortify the peninsula, then generally known as
Penobscot.[26] He landed on the 12th of June, and with the energy and
decision of a good soldier began the work of establishing himself firmly
in his position.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN MOORE.]
In the British ranks was one notable combatant, Captain John Moore, of
the Fifty-first foot, who fell under the walls of Corunna while
commanding the British army in Spain. As his military career began in
America, I may narrate an incident illustrating his remarkable
popularity with his soldiers. In 1799, at Egmont-op-zee, the
Ninety-second fiercely charged a French brigade. A terrific _mélée_
ensued, in which the French were forced to retreat. In the midst of the
combat two soldiers of the Ninety-second discovered General Moore lying
on his face, apparently dead; for he was wounded and unconscious. "Here
is the general; let us take him away," said one of them, and, suiting
the action to the word, they bore him to the rear. The general offered a
reward of twenty pounds; but could never discover either of the soldiers
who had aided him. Moore's death inspired Wolfe's admired lines,
pronounced by Lord Byron "the most perfect ode in the language:"
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried."
"Moore," said Napoleon, "was a brave soldier, an excellent officer, and
a man of talent. He made a few mistakes, inseparable, perhaps, from the
difficulties with which he was surrounded." Being reminded that Moore
was always in the front of battle, and generally unfortunate enough to
be wounded, he added, "Ah! it is necessary sometimes. He died
gloriously; he died like a soldier."
[Illustration: FORT GRIFFITH.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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