Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/440

 434 Southern Historical Society Papers.

enrolled ; they gathered together for battle, and went back to their plows when the fight was over. There were no Tories in that re- gion ; it was thoroughly Whig. But I never heard of more than one pensioner in all that country. These men scorned the bounty of the government for simply doing their duty. No official records ever bore the names of those gallant partisans, whose daring deeds are known only to the Omniscient. There were no horn-blowers and quill-drivers among them.

If we come to the war of 1812, all will concede that Jackson, of North Carolina, and Harrison, of Virginia, gained the most laurels, as shown by the elevation of both of them to the presidency. All, too, readily concede that the brilliant land-fights of that war were in defence of New Orleans, Mobile, Craney Island and Baltimore, all fought by Southern troops on Southern soil.

Although that war was waged in the interests of the maritime rights of the North, it soon became unpopular in New England, be- cause it seriously damaged trade and commerce. The Hartford Convention shows how deep was the defection in that region. The doctrine of secession was taught there half a century before the South took it up.* Hence, in this war, the old South furnished more than her proportion of troops. Southern troops flocked North, and, in the battles in Canada, a large number of general officers were from the old South : Harrison, Scott, Wilkinson, Izzard, Winder, Hampton, Gaines, Towson, Brooke, Drayton, etc. Kentucky sent more men for the invasion of Canada than did any other State.

All honor to the United States sailors of the North, who had no sympathy with the Hartford Convention, and nobly did their duty- Perry, Bainbridge, Stewart, Lawrence, Porter, Preble, &c. The

the ravaging of the Southern coast in the war of 1812 by the noted Admiral Cockburn. He says: "Along the Virginia and Carolina coast he (Cockburn) burned bridges, farm-houses, and villages ; robbed the inhabitants of their crops, stock, and slaves; plundered churches of their communion services, and murdered the sick in their beds." And then the author explains why the Southern coast was devastated and the New England coast was not dis- turbed. This explanation is in a foot-note, which reads as follows: "New England was spared because of a belief that the Northern States were un- friendly to the war and would yet return to their allegiance to Great Britain."
 * In Barnes' History of the United States, the author tells us (page 167) of

This is the statement of a Northern writer, and not the fabrication of an enemy. How did the belief start among the British people that New Eng- land wished to return to its allegiance to the " Mother country?"