disusters, who like to think Colle OU probably have never heard of the NS Jattle of La Colle Mill which was [3 fought 120 years ago this month A Just across the Canadian border » fo) Rl i &z SY respect you're not much different from most of your fellow-country- ered important enough to win a place in our school histories. And even If vou have read particularly to remember the story of that en- gagement, For It was just another in the long by blundering American generals, which makes the military history of the War of 1812, with but those Americans that we, as a nation, have been uniformly successful in ev- No, the Battle of La Mill was not the sort of affair to foster much pride in the history Americans was held at bay by only 200 British until By ELMO SCOTT WATSON from Rouses Point, N. Y. In that men, for this battle has never yet been consid- about it elsewhere, it's not likely that you care series of failures and brought about one or two exceptions, such dreary reading for ery war we have waged, of American arms, In it an army of some 4,000 fing their numbers up to about red-coated reinforcements came up, bring- 1,008) men, But MASPHERION'S BAT » 3 Ma, Fry ol” 4 From the rirait by C.W. Peale THE OLD SOUTHWEST Casunas, REFERS os War LEGEND 8 Susaieh sows ‘ a Towan wn he Amariens frm Briggled arm seprasents Amarin foptiion Mettimants Show even then, o one as were, those si OTT nglishmen not thelr own, bu the 4.000 An killed, 128 wounded an to the British loss of four missing. In thus indicating that the Battle of La Colle Mill us defeat for the Ameri- can arms, let it not be supposed that our sol diers were less hrave than the British, out the a gallantry and a des» best the jut again it case of a mander whose incompetence set at nought their herole efforts. He Gen, James Wilkinson, who sllowed himself to be “outsmarted” by the commander of the enemy they held ghting forced with a loss of 13 i as compared wl, 48 wounded and only was an ignomin Through battle hoth officers and men displayed srate valor worthy of the American fight man. traditions of ting bundering com- Was R was and was the victim of a stratagem as old as the history of warfare. In the midst of the assault on tiie stone mill, which gave the battle its name, there came from the woods nearby the sound of a bugle. By some strange process of reasoning, the American com- mander decided that by n mediately he was about to be cut off of the enemy and he im ordered a retreat, last of a bugle, the clever stratagem of a quick-witted dritish officer, turned what might easily have been an American victory into a disgracefol de. feat-——disgraceful, American troops, but to their leader, Lossing, in his gossipy, rambling “Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1512" devotes two pages to this engagement and ends his account thus: “With the discreditable affair at La Colle Mill, the military career of General Wilkinson was closed.” And In that sentence lies the im- portance of what a later historian has called “the insignificant little battle at La Colle MilL™ For, no matter how insignificant It may have been as a military engagement, the fact that it wrote “Finis” to the opportunity for mischief. making by one of the most amazing characters in American history makes It an outstanding event in the annals of our nation, Of this man John Randolph of Roanoke, who hated him and who, Incddentally, was one of the best haters of all time, once sald “Wilkinson is the most finished scoundrel that ever lived: a ream of paper would not contain the proofs” Even though the waspish Randolph didn’t believe that the proof could be contained in a ream of paper, a modern biographer has proved that it can be done pretty well in a 300 page book and, taking Randolph's characterization for his title, he proceeds to do it. He is Royal Orman Shreve and the book 18 "The Finished Scoundrel,” pub- lished recently by the Bobbs Merrill company. Indieative of what the book contains is the gub-title: “General James Wilkingon, sometime Commander -in-Chief of the Army of the United States, who made intrigue a trade and treason a profession,” and in the first chapter you “Meet General Wilkinson” and there begin resding “the story of an amazing career; of one of the most welrd and impossible characters that ever struts ted his little hour on the stage of a nation; of a man who was without doubt the most clever and persistent, if not the most dangerous, of that small company for whom history reserves the in- superior force No one not to the famous name of Traitor Born In Tidewater, Md. in 1757 he was a scion of the lesser landed gentry with ve him a good education teen he was sent to Phil sufficient income to gi At the age of fif- dy med] 3 there was every idelphia to st cine with an uncle and indica tion that he was destined for a career of allevi- distress instead, as it turned of adding to the sum total of humsar At the outbreak of the Revolution he “put by pill-box and lancet” and, as a teer,™ (yeh out, ating human 1 distress, “gentleman volun. headed north toward the siege of Boston, In the camp at Cambridge his ners, above time, knowledge drill and 1}! that of rustic ia officers” soon won him a captaincy in the army. It is probable that in the camp at Cambridge Wilkinson acquaintance men with whom hig name was to be linked in the fu- ture—thelr names to equally if not more guilty, was to have his name whitewashed, One was Benedict Arnold, then a colonel, and the other was Aaron Durr, also a gentleman volunteer, ingratiating man- address, education of the pleasing and the average of young lemen discipline beyond made the of two be besmirched while he, From that time on Captain Wilkinson is much in evidence in the history of the army. He 1s sent on the expedition to Canada un- der General Sullivan to support Arnold and quite by chance, rather than by his ability, saves Ar- nold from disaster as the latter retreats before the advance of Sir Guy Carleton, Next we find the young captain with Gates, who has been placed in command of the Northern army, “pan. dering to the vanity” of Gates, who makes Wil kinson a member of his staff, Forgetting his friendship for Arnold, Wilkinson “goes over horse, foot and dragoons to Gates; shares there. after his jealousy and deprecation of Arnold” Thus Wilkinson first appears In his characteristic role of double-crosser, Next he is with Washington at the splendid victory at Trenton, Then he is at Princeton, at Valley Forge, and at Morristown, becomes in. volved in the Conway cabal against Washington and again does some double-crossing of his fel- low-conspirators, incinding his friend, Gates, al- though this time, It must be admitted, his be trayal of the plot was more or less unintentional and came about while he was under the influence of liquor, By this time he was a brevet brigadier-general, albeit over the protest of some 47 colonels who were more worthy of the promotion than he, After the winter at Valley Forge he resigned Continental back on the payroll again as clothier-general for the army, a post which he held anti] the end of the war and which, for a wonder, he handled without becoming Involved In any shady deals After the war he was a member of the Penn gylvanin legisiature, then finding himself in finan. ein) straits, he started for the Kentucky frontier to recoup his fortunes. There he rapidly rose to prominence, helped In the development of the new state and became Involved again In his favor. ite occupation—that of iIntrigué-—this time In the famous Spanish Conspiracy which la still a confused and unsolved mystery, although docu. ments have been found in the Spanish archives Kinson was an by him to Influ- ¢ Unlon and be of Spain Ht evidently wrt his family for he went Can army was advanced to year to the rank of briga- 1790 he became commander wd that amazing period In his career olding the highest military office in the he was still, there Is good reason to be. the pay of Spain. Sonn afterwards he in the Burr conspiracy. Like the the Burr plot is still some with or ¥ any angles as yet une ¢ ern! fstorieal research HE NNeOY- } ered evide wlientes that Wilkinson instead arch-conspirator and that Burr was only the too! of the unscrunnlou chief. According to one theory Jefferson's secret agent all along, ope with which to ot. According to for his own ends, Inst to save his in the lig reasonable to believe that Will his past career, It would seem nson was up to ends against the capable of betraying anyone to furt 1 nmbitl But what. the fact remains that althou Wilkinson narrowly missed indict- ment on 8 charge of through his old tricks—plaring both us projects, ever the matter, treason he managed to come affair without bearing his disgrace that engulfed poor Aaron Burr and continted on his way of play- ing a part in important historical events As commander of the army he sent Lieutenant Pike off exploring expeditions that won fame for that young officer. He was one of the Louisiana and at the outbreak of the War of 1812 he won a bloodless victory by capturing Mobile ousting the Spanish Then he went north to the Ca. nadian border to add to his Inurels. hut succeed. ed only in wrecking what little military reputa. tion he had left . the whole Cosy fost share of the upon the the commissioners who received Purchase from the French and garrison there Still the stormy petrel of the army, he became involved in a series of jealousies and bickerings with other American generals who were, If any- more incompetent than he. The result was the utter failure of his proposed expedition to capture Montreal, an expedition which had every prospect of success had it been carried through intelligently. hing. In March, 15814, be launched another campaign to “vindicate” himself, That was the end of James Wilkinson, He was relieved of his command and ordered to Wash- ington under arrest to await court-martial. “The wait was long. The harassed administration at. tempting to wage war without money, without ghips, almost without soldiers, and with gener. als who achieved digaster with monotonous reg- ularity, had not time to waste on the trial of one of ita fallures” Perhaps If he had been tried it would have been with the usual result. For dur ing his eareer he had been before three courts of inquiry on charges ranging all the way from neglect of military duty to treason and each time he had managed to escape with a coat of white wash, Instead of being tried he was allowed to slip quietly Into obscurity. He spent the next few years writing his “Memoirs” a voluminous and verbose alibi for all the things that had ever been chargdd against him, and managing his plantation on the Mississippi below New Orleans, Then we find him in Mexico City also adjusting claims of American citizens entrusted te him and in trying to obtain a grant of land on what is now the site of Galveston, Texas, from the Spanish “In recognition of services rendered”! He died In 1825 and was buried beneath the Church of San Miguel In the Mexican capital The exnct site of his grave ls unmarked and unknown--an appropriate end, perhaps, to the man who received so much from his country and gave so little In return. © by Western Newspaper Unlon, Fifty Famous Frontiersmen By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Rising Wolf, White Blackfoot HE blood of French nobility and of English aristocracy flowed In his veins, He was fair-halred and blue eyed and white-skinned, but to this day he is revered among the Blackfeet Indians as “Rising Wolf,” one of their own greatest and best-loved. Hugh Monroe was his name and he was born at Three Rivers, Quebec, In 1798, the son of Capt. Hugh Monroe of the Brit Ish army In Canada and Amelie de In toche, daughter of a noble family of French emigres, When but sixteen years of age he persunded his parents to let him enter «com lords of the empire of fur spring he started wit} next weit thelr canoes, The Mountain Post Around the fort Blackfeet, “he year he was nt on the were nds of come trade for white man's But as yet the company had no and the H. B. C ROHR, Blackfeet interpreter post, tribe of the Blackfeet i them “to Post each year to do thelr hand stricken hy his Hr great deity strength @ s ying Sino api, ighter of nr Hud 2 years with the ort Benton in Pr DTP am Mon © ree hes as well un two sons and Francois, Lizzie latter married } they Jackson » do wit) two scouts for Gen | Nelson A | of I8NTG-T5. Gen “The Father of Oklahoma” TYONSIDER the paradox of Capt. - David 1. Payne. He was the “fa ther of Oklahoma,” yet he was 8 na tive of Indiana: he was given his first name becnt place in fara *xa8; he is buried 11 ansas, which has atte 8 to re move his bod 1a hu state steadla resisted iatter state has given him no recognition beyond naming original counties after him ind. who was a Born in Fairmont, 30, 1856. his mother, cousin of Davy David in tive fall of the fore, first Crockett, honor of the frontier-rela Alamo a few months be At the age of twenty-one Payne near Atchison. war in the Fourth until 1863 when he Then he state Kansas regiment was and legislature posimarter at In 1867 a Kansas fight the cavalry troop Indians and the western part of the state. During the next two served with Gen George A, and his Seventh cavalry and. as the renown as the “Scout of the Cimar ron.” The year 1570 found him back In politics again, as a member of the state legislature of Kansas as an un successful eandidate for the state sen ate in 1872 and finally as doorkeeper of the house of representatives In Washington where he remained until 1879, During his service as a scout for Custer, Payne had seen for him self the richness of the land in Okla homa and in Washington he made the discovery, as he believed, that the iinds in the western part of Indian territory, which had heen ceded by the Creek Indians to the government for occupation hy the other Civilized Tribes and by freedmen, in reality be longed to the public lands of the United States. So P'ayne hecame the first “Okla. noma boomer” and the leader of no jess than €ix of the eight expeditions of homesecekers, all of which tried to gottle there and were expelled from the disputed territory by federal troops. Payne died sudenly in Well ington, Kan, November 27, 1884. “poisoned by his enemies,” so his friends declare--five years too soon to see the realization of his dream of “the home of the red man™ opened to white settlement, ©. 1913, Western Newspaper Union. IN MUSIC, TOO A planist of exceptional ability visiting an Indiana cit; asked to play for the junior auigh school, The children preciative and spent some the concert in di i the selections that ha HABE Bee puts so much were thoroughly 1xbe inic, glon In her mi “Yen, she certainly fn MH expression In, Here's a Laugh retty girl sat Roll Call Consolation Author—Did eritic you gee gm of my latest 1 awful! He gave it a mering. Friend—Oh, don’t He hasn't an idea just says what everybods ing. —Moustique, Turkey's Many Names When you want France, you ask for “dindo in Ger Spain, on the bird” finder Magazi Cure for Extravagance “Are you saving any mones you “Sure gince bal. started y« anced it to go any ter, Power of Print “Why did you yiums at the plaintiff?” “Because of an advert throw the pot thi : i Berit SECU “What advertisement?” “Say It with flowers.” He Draws arguments between you and your wife usually end in a draw?” “Yes, I draw the check.” THE FLAVOR “So
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers