George Cary Eggleston
Strange Stories from History for Young People
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066240523
Table of Contents
THE BOY COMMANDER OF THE CAMISARDS.
THE STORY OF A WINTER CAMPAIGN.
YOUNG WASHINGTON IN THE WOODS.
THE BOYHOOD OF DANIEL WEBSTER. [A]
THE SCULLION WHO BECAME A SCULPTOR.
THE BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM CHAMBERS.
HOW A BOY WAS HIRED OUT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
THE WICKEDEST MAN IN THE WORLD.
A PRINCE WHO WOULD NOT STAY DEAD.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
| Breakfast and Battle |
| Vladimir Besieging the City Containing his Archbishop |
| Cavalier Personating the Lieutenant of the Count Broglio |
| With a Single Blow he Knocked over the Indian with whom Austill was Struggling |
| Boarding the Gun-boats |
| General Jackson at New Orleans |
| The Burghers Prepare to Defend their City |
| Richelieu Surveying the Works at Rochelle |
| The Parting between King Richard II. and Queen Isabella |
| Martin Preaching to the People on the Duty of Fighting |
| "Just at the Moment when Matters were at their Worst, he Rode up" |
| Capture of the Dutch fleet by the Soldiers of the French Republic |
| Washington as a Surveyor |
| "She Went Boldly into his Tent" |
| "To the End of the Twelfth Book of the Æneid,'answered the 'Idle' Boy in Triumph" |
THE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT.
During the war of 1812–14, between Great Britain and the United States, the weak Spanish Governor of Florida—for Florida was then Spanish territory—permitted the British to make Pensacola their base of operations against us. This was a gross outrage, as we were at peace with Spain at the time, and General Jackson, acting on his own responsibility, invaded Florida in retaliation.
Among the British at that time was an eccentric Irish officer, Colonel Edward Nichols, who enlisted and tried to make soldiers of a large number of the Seminole Indians. In 1815, after the war was over, Colonel Nichols again visited the Seminoles, who were disposed to be hostile to the United States, as Colonel Nichols himself was, and made an astonishing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and defensive, between Great Britain and the Seminoles, was agreed upon. We had made peace with Great Britain a few months before, and yet this ridiculous Irish colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight us whenever the Seminoles in the Spanish territory of Florida should see fit to make a war! If this extraordinary performance had been all, it would not have mattered so much, for the British government refused to ratify the treaty; but it was not all. Colonel Nichols, as if determined to give us as much trouble as he could, built a strong fortress on the Appalachicola River, and gave it to his friends the Seminoles, naming it "The British Post on the Appalachicola," where the British had not the least right to have any post whatever. Situated on a high bluff, with