from Carroll's men; three cheers from the Kentuckians behind them; cheers continued from the advancing column, not heard yet in the American lines. 5. Steadily and fast the column of General Gibbs marched toward batteries numbered six, seven, and eight, which played upon it, at first with but occasional effect, often missing, sometimes throwing a ball right into its midst, and causing it to reel and pause for a moment. Promptly were the gaps filled up; bravely the column came on. As they neared the lines, the well-aimed shot made more dreadful havoc, "cutting great lanes in the column from front to rear," and tossing men and parts of men aloft, or hurling them far on one side. 6. At length, still steady and unbroken, they came within range of the small-arms, the rifles of Carroll's Tennesseans, the muskets of Adair's Kentuckians, four lines of sharpshooters, one behind the other. General Carroll, coolly waiting for the right moment, held his fire till the enemy were within two hundred yards, and then gave the word-FIRE! At first, with a certain deliberation, afterwards in hottest haste, always with deadly effect, the riflemen plied their terrible weapon. 7. The summit of the embankment was a line of spurting fire, except when the great guns showed their liquid, belching flash. The noise was peculiar, and altogether indescribable ;a rolling, bursting, echoing noise, never to be forgotten by a man that heard it. Along the whole line it blazed and rolled;~~~ the British batteries showering rockets over the scene, Patterson's batteries on the other side of the river joining in the hellish concert. Imagine it; ask no one to describe it. Our words were mostly made before such a scene had become possible. 8. The column of General Gibbs, mowed by the fire of the riflemen, still advanced, Gibbs at its head. As they caught sight of the ditch, some of the officers cried out, "Where are the Forty-Fourth? If we get to the ditch, we have no means of crossing and scaling the lines!"—"Here come the FortyFourth!" shouted the general; adding, in an undertone, for his own private solace, that if he lived till to-morrow, he would hang Mullens on the highest tree in the cypress-wood. 9. Reassured, these heroic men again pressed on, in the face of that murderous, slaughtering fire. But this could not last. With half its numbers fallen, and all its commanding officers disabled except the general, its pathway strewed with dead and wounded, and the men falling ever faster and faster, the column wavered and reeled (so the American riflemen thought) like a red ship on a tempestuous sea. At about a hundred yards from the lines, the front ranks halted, and so threw the column into disorder, Gibbs shouting in the madness of vexation for them to re-form and advance. There was no re-forming under such a fire. Once checked, the column could not but break and retreat in confusion. 10. Just as the troops began to falter, General Pakenham rode up from his post in the rear, toward the head of the column. Meeting parties of the Forty-Fourth running about distracted, some carrying fascines, others firing, others in headlong flight, their leader nowhere to be seen, Pakenham strove to restore them to order, and to urge them on the way they were to go. "For shame!" he cried bitterly; "recollect that you are British soldiers. This is the road you ought to take,” pointing to the flashing and roaring scene in front. 11. Riding on, he was soon met by General Gibbs, who said, "I am sorry to have to report to you that the troops will not obey me. They will not follow me." Taking off his hat, General Pakenham spurred his horse to the very front of the wavering column, amid a torrent of rifle-balls, cheering on the troops by voice, by gesture, by example. At that moment a ball shattered his right arm, and it fell powerless to his side. The next, his horse fell dead upon the field. 12. His aid, Captain McDougal, dismounted from his black creole pony, and Pakenham, apparently unconscious of his dangling arm, mounted again, and followed the retreating column, still calling upon them to halt and re-form. A few gallant spirits ran in toward the lines, threw themselves into the ditch, plunged across it, and fell scrambling up the sides of the soft and slippery breast work. 13. Once out of the reach of those terrible rifles, the column halted, and regained its self-possession. Laying aside their heavy knapsacks, the men prepared for a second and more resolute advance. They were encouraged, too, by seeing the superb Highlanders marching up in solid phalanx' to their support, with a front of a hundred men, their bayonets glittering in the sun, which had then begun to pierce the morning mist. Now for an irresistible onset! 14. At a quicker step, with General Gibbs on its right, General Pakenham on the left, the Highlanders in clear and imposing view, the column again advanced into the fire. Oh! the slaughter that then ensued! There was one moment, when that thirty-two pounder, loaded to the muzzle with musketballs, poured its charge directly, at point-blank range, right into the head of the column, literally levelling it with the plain; laying low, as was afterwards computed, two hundred men. The American line, as one of the British officers remarked, looked like a row of fiery furnaces. 15. The heroic Pakenham had not far to go to meet his doom. He was three hundred yards from the lines when the real nature of his enterprise seemed to flash upon him, and he turned to Sir John Tilden and said: 66 Order up the reserve." Then, seeing the Highlanders advancing to the support of General Gibbs, he, still waving his hat, but waving it now with his left hand, cried out: "Hurrah! brave Highlanders!" 16. At that moment a mass of grape-shot, with a terrible crash, struck the group of which he was the central figure. One of the shots tore open the general's thigh, killed his horse, and brought horse and rider to the ground. Captain McDougal caught the general in his arms, removed him from the fallen horse, and was supporting him from the field, when a second shot struck the wounded man in the groin, depriving him instantly of consciousness. He was borne to the rear, and placed in the shade of an old live-oak, which still stands; and there, after gasping a few minutes, yielded up his life without a word, happily ignorant of the sad issue of all his plans and toils. 17. A more painful fate was that of General Gibbs. A few moments after Pakenham fell, Gibbs received his death-wound, and was carried off the field, writhing in agony, and uttering fierce imprecations. He lingered all that day and the succeeding night, dying in torment on the morrow. Nearly at the same moment, General Keane was painfully wounded in the neck and thigh, and was also borne to the rear. Colonel Dale, of the Highlanders, fulfilled his prophecy, and fell at the head of his regiment. 18. The Highlanders, under Major Creagh, wavered not, but advanced steadily, and too slowly, into the very tempest of General Carroll's fire, until they were within one hundred yards of the lines. There, for cause unknown, they halted and stood, a huge and glittering target, until five hundred and forty-four of their number had fallen, then broke and fled, in horror and amazement, to the rear. The column of General Gibbs did not advance after the fall of their leader. Leaving heaps of slain behind them, they, too, forsook the bloody field, rushed in utter confusion out of the fire, and took refuge at the bottom of wet ditches and behind trees and bushes on the borders of the swamp. 19. The whole was like a dream. How long a time, does the reader think, elapsed between the fire of the first American gun and the total rout of the attacking columns? Twenty-five minutes! Not that the American fire ceased, or even slackened at the expiration of that period. The riflemen on the left, and the troops on the right, continued to discharge their weapons into the smoke that hung over the plain for two hours. But in the space of twenty-five minutes, the discomfiture of the enemy in the open field was complete. The battery alone still made resistance. It required two hours of a tremendous cannonade to silence its great guns, and drive its defenders to the rear.—Life of Andrew Jackson. The Hartford Convention.-A large number of citizens of the United States, belonging to the Federal party, had been opposed to the war from its very commencement, and they continued to oppose its prosecution till the close. These persons were mostly residents of New England. They regarded the war as unnecessary and impolitic; the losses, too, which they were sustaining in their commerce and fisheries, were not without influence upon them. For the purpose of considering their grievances, and devising means of redress, a convention was held at Hartford, Connecticut, in December, 1814. The friends of President Madison and of the war looked upon this assemblage of delegates, commonly known as the "Hartford Convention," as a treasonable body; but their doings were, to say the least, harmless, their principal act being the adoption of a document which presented a statement of grievances, and recommended several amendments to the Constitution. After three weeks of secret session, the convention adjourned. Objects of the Hartford Convention.-Noah Webster. 1. FEW transactions of the Federalists, during the early periods of our government, excited so much the angry passions of their opposers as the Hartford Convention-so called-during the presidency of Mr. Madison. As I was present at the first meeting of the gentlemen who suggested such a convention; as I was a member of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts when the resolve was passed for appointing delegates, and advocated that resolve; and, further, as I have copies of the documents, which no other person may have preserved, it seems to be incumbent on me to present to the public the real facts in regard to the origin of the measure, which have been vilely falsified and misrepresented. 2. After the war of 1812 had continued two years, our public affairs were reduced to a deplorable condition. The troops of the United States, intended for defending the sea-coast, had been withdrawn to carry on the war in Canada; a British squadron was stationed in the Sound to prevent the escape of a frigate from the harbor of New London, and to intercept our coasting trade; one town in Maine was in possession of the British forces; the banks south of New England had all suspended the payment of specie; our shipping lay in our harbors, embargoed, dismantled, and perishing; the treasury of the United States was exhausted to the last cent; and a general gloom was spread over the country. 3. In this condition of affairs, a number of gentlemen in Northampton, in Massachusetts, after consultation, determined |