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