The legendary “Race to the Dan”, was one of
the most dramatic episodes of the American Revolutionary War.
In December of 1780, the British Army under the
command of Lord Charles Cornwallis was on the verge of victory in the Southern
theater of war. Cornwallis had captured Charleston and had destroyed an
American army at the Battle of Camden (South Carolina).
General Washington sent the able General
Nathanael Greene to North Carolina to retrieve the situation. Although
outnumbered, Greene was both aggressive and smart, as he fought a guerilla
campaign against the British.
On December 21, 1780, Greene sent General
Daniel Morgan, a Virginian, into South Carolina with one wing of his army to
harry the enemy. Morgan set a clever trap.
He allowed the British under Lieutenant
Colonel Banastre Tarleton to pursue his force until out of range of Cornwallis’
main army. He then turned and decisively defeated Tarleton at the Battle of
Cowpens.
Morgan utterly smashed Tarleton’s force and
retreated north into North Carolina with huge numbers of prisoners as well as
much needed weapons and supplies.
General Greene re-united the two wings of his
army in North Carolina as an enraged Lord Charles Cornwallis set out after the
Americans with the bulk of his forces, intent on recapturing the prisoners
taken by Daniel Morgan and smashing the Americans for good.
Greene’s objective now was to keep his
smaller army out of the reach of the British.
The Dan River, was a significant natural
barrier near the boundary of North Carolina and Virginia. If the Americans
could reach the Dan, they could prevent the British from crossing.
The “Race for the Dan” was on.
The Americans pushed the prisoners forward as
rapidly as possible. The British burned their slow moving supply wagons and
pursued with remarkable speed, sometimes being only a few hours behind the
Americans. Both sides were playing for high stakes.
On February 14, 1781, the American army
reached Boyd’s Ferry on the Dan River.Anticipating the arrival of General Greene’s army, a flotilla of small
boats had been assembled to carry men, supplies and cannon to safety. When the
British arrived, they could only look with frustration at the impassable river.
Charles City County - Westover Plantation: At the time of the Revolution this
was the home of William Byrd III. Byrd inherited a large fortune which he
turned into a very small fortune, through his lavish lifestyle and addiction to
gambling.On July 6, 1774, Byrd made
his will, disposing of an estate that “thro’ my own folly and inattention to
accounts the carelessness of some entrusted with the management thereof and the
villainy of others, is still greatly encumbered with debts which embitters
every moment of my life.”
Byrd deplored the “frantic patriotism”
sweeping Virginia and urged moderation and continued loyalty to the king. On
July 30, 1775, he wrote offering his service to the king. In November 1775,
however, he changed his mind after Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of
Virginia, offered freedom to slaves who ran away and joined the fight against
the Virginia revolutionaries.
This was too much for Byrd, who now sought
appointment as colonel of the 3rd Virginia Regiment. This came to
nothing, as did his attempt to persuade the Continental Congress to appoint him
as a Major General. In early January 1777, the embittered Byrd killed himself
at Westover.
During
Benedict Arnold’s 1781 raid on Richmond, the British made Westover their base
of operations for a week. William Byrd’s widow, Mary Willing Byrd, was a cousin
of Benedict Arnold’s wife, Peggy Shippen.
In 1776, Jefferson was chosen to draft the
Declaration of Independence, putting forward the arguments of the colonies for
declaring themselves free and independent states.
The Declaration
is regarded as a charter of universal liberties, proclaiming that all men are
equal in rights, regardless of birth, wealth, or status; that those rights are
inherent in each human, a gift of the Creator, not a gift of government, and
that government is the servant and not the master of the people.
Although
slavery, practiced in all thirteen colonies at the time, made a mockery of
Jefferson’s poetic vision, no less a figure than Abraham Lincoln, the Great
Emancipator, wrote:
“All honor to Jefferson – to the man who, in the concrete
pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the
coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary
document, an abstract truth, and so to embalm it there, that to-day and in all
coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers
of reappearing tyranny and oppression.”
Yorktown - Victory Monument:The cornerstone of this monument was
laid on October 19, 1881, to mark the centennial of the surrender of the
British at Yorktown. The monument to Alliance and Victory was completed on
August 12, 1884. A figure of Liberty stood atop the monument. On July 29, 1942,
during the darkest days of World War II, lightning struck the Liberty statue, sheering
off the arms and head. The body was shattered, and the base of the monument
damaged. Some thought this was an omen predicting the end of America.But America did not end and, after victory in
World War II was achieved, the monument was restored to its former glory in
1956, spurred on by the efforts of the Sons of the American Revolution.
One
foppish high fashion style of dress that made its way from England to Virginia
was the so called“Macaroni”.One
contemporary observer wrote:
“They
indeed make a ridiculous figure, with hats an inch in the brim, that do not
cover, but lie upon the head, with about two pounds of fictitious hair, formed
into what is called a club, hanging down their shoulders…. Their legs are at
times covered with all colours of the rainbow; even flesh-coloured and green
silk stockings are not excluded….Such a figure, essenced and perfumed, with a
bunch of lace sticking out under (the) chin, puzzles the common passenger….”
In
1774, Virginian James Mercer claimed that items had been stolen from him by a
“profound knave” named William Foster Crosby, whom he described as “(dressed)
like a Macaroni”
During the
Revolution British soldiers sang the ditty “Yankee Doodle” mocking Americans as
simpletons who thought if you stuck a feather in your cap you were the
embodiment of high fashion.Americans
adopted the song as a song of defiance.By 1781, “Yankee Doodle” had become a song of national pride.
Yankee
Doodle went to town A-riding on a pony Stuck a feather in his cap And called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle keep it up Yankee Doodle dandy, Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy.
The average age of the Continental soldier was 22,
although soldiers varied in age from 15 to 70.
Continental soldiers came from many different
backgrounds and included African Americans and Native Americans.By 1780 persons of color made up as much as
fifteen percent of the Continental Army.Some estimate range as high as twenty five percent.
To fill the ranks, Congress assigned yearly quotas to
each state, which offered recruiting inducements such as bounties and land grants.States that were unable to fill positions
with volunteers resorted to sending members of the state militia, originally
only mustered to serve within the boundaries of the state, to serve with the
Continental Army.
In 1779, the Continental Congress established the blue
uniform coat as the color for the Army, but shortages of dye meant that many
regiments wore brown or green coats until the end of the war.
Regular United States Infantry during the Revolutionary
War were known as “Continentals” or the “Continental Line.”
Massachusetts and
Virginia each furnished the largest of the state Lines.Each state was
responsible for equipping its own soldiers.
At the beginning of the war equipping troops with
proper firearms was a major problem.Although men usually brought their own weapons when mustered (long
rifles or hunting guns), the lack of uniformity among these weapons was a
problem.
The notorious inaccuracy of the musket made the use of
the bayonet a key element in battlefield tactics.
The opposing armies
lined up facing each other in ranks two or three deep and fired in the direction
of the enemy. The musket was highly inaccurate at a distance greater than 80
yards.
Speed in loading and
firing was more important than aiming.The volume of fire was considered the measure of a good army. Presumably
if you fired enough times you were bound to hit someone.
The battlefield
tactics of the time called for reliance on the musket with a bayonet.
Civilian hunting guns
and rifles were not designed to mount a bayonet. If a fight was confined to
shooting, the Americans had an advantage with their longer range rifles.
If a battle ended
with a bayonet charge, of which the British were masters, the Americans would
be outmatched.
In 1777,
General Washington formed a Corps of Riflemen under the command of the
Virginian Daniel Morgan to take advantage of the long range shooting capability
and accuracy of the rifle.These
riflemen were a special unit, protected by regular Line troops when threatened
by bayonets.
The musket
problem was not resolved until 1777.France became the primary supplier of
military style muskets.
Some 102,000 muskets
were delivered to America between 1776 and 1781.By 1777 the entire Continental Line was
equipped with French muskets.
Until the formation of
the Continental Line in 1775, the American colonies had depended on home grown
militias for their day to day protection.
In times of peace the
militia was more of a social or drinking club than a military organization. Discipline
was lax and training sketchy. Even in times of war, militiamen were reluctant
to serve more than a few weeks away from home.Without them, who would work the farm and provide for the family?
Notwithstanding the shortcomings of
the militia, militiamen often provided essential manpower on the ground at key
moments.British commanders had to take
into account the size of militia forces operating against them when planning
campaigns.Such forces might be
unpredictable, and unsteady in a pitched battle against British regulars, but
they could inflict significant damage, especially in guerilla style attacks.
Even though the militia force was large and
useful, General Washington was convinced that ultimate victory over the British
would require the creation of a national, disciplined, professional army.He created this Continental Army which would
serve the American war effort well, with the militia providing significant
support.
The first widely distributed artistic rendition
of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was called “The Battle on the Little Big Horn River: The death struggle of General Custer.” Using a wood engraving based on a drawing by
W.M. Cary, The Daily Graphic: an
Illustrated Evening Newspaper, published
in New York, was able to portray the scene of battle as early as July 19, 1876.
The newspaper, which was the first in America
to publish daily illustrations, may have been the first in print, but the
depiction was not accurate.Custer is
seen standing on a boulder, waving a saber, in a double breasted coat with a
sash, which made him look more like a desperado or a pirate than a soldier.
Many regard Edgar S. Paxon’s “Custer’s Last Stand”
as the best pictorial representation of the battle.Arriving in Montana in 1877, the artist spent twenty years researching, and
eight years painting the monumental work, interviewing nearly one hundred men
on both sides including the Sioux chief Gall.
From these interviews Paxson, in his effort to achieve
historical accuracy, made detailed journals about the equipment, attire,
and physical location of each man on the battlefield.
The painting now resides at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in
Wyoming.
In 1884 the artists Cassilly Adams completed a painting he
named “Custer’s Last Fight.”The
painting was sold to John Ferber the owner of a saloon in St. Louis, Missouri,
where the picture was prominently displayed. The brewer Adolphus Busch
acquired the painting and the saloon in 1892 when Ferber went broke.
Busch commissioned Otto F. Becker, to produce lithographs
based on the painting to be used as advertising. The first advertising
prints appeared in 1896 with a run of fifteen thousand prints. There have
been eighteen subsequent editions with over one million copies having been
produced. The original Adams painting was destroyed by fire on June 13,
1946.
This painting has been criticized for having many historical
inaccuracies, including what appears to be a Zulu warrior rushing at Custer.
The renowned artist of the American Old West, Charles M. Russell
produced the lithograph “The Custer Fight” in 1903 depicting the battle from
the view of the Native American combatants.
"The Battle of Little
Bighorn" was painted by Kicking Bear in 1898 at the request of the western
artist Frederick Remington.Kicking
Bear fought at the Little Bighorn.His
drawing is a significant view of the battle as seen by Native Americans.
In 1775 Great Britain
depended on the Royal
Navy to maintain trade and project British
power.Throughout the war the British
could strike when and where they would along the virtually undefended American
coastline.
The British army
numbered 48,000 men, about a quarter of the size of the French army.Unlike the navy which depended on
conscription and impressment for manpower, the British Army at the time of the
American Revolution was a volunteer
force.
Volunteers were farm
laborers or the unemployed, and usually in their early twenties.A life in the army provided steady pay,
regular meals and an escape
from poverty.The non-commissioned officers were the backbone of the army and insured
strict discipline and rigorous training.
As
the war progressed, the army expanded rapidly.Some fifty thousand British soldiers fought in America.
Two
short periods ofimpressment were tried, in which
unemployed men were taken into the army.This proved so unpopular in Britain that it was quickly abandoned.
The
British turned to a well-established eighteenth century custom to augment their
numbers namely hiring foreign auxiliaries.
Approximately
30,000 German troops were hired by the British to fight during the American
Revolution. Most of these troops were from the German princely state of
Hesse-Cassel, and hence the term “Hessians” came to be applied to all German
troops in America no matter which princely state from which they may actually have
originated.
Soldierswere
a major export for Hesse-Cassel.Boys
were registered for military service at the age of seven.Men from the ages of sixteen to thirty
presented themselves annually for possible induction.School dropouts, bankrupts, and the
unemployed could be inducted at any time.Life in the Hessian army was marked by harsh discipline, but had
economic benefits.Wages were higher
than farm work and there was a promise of additional official money from the
sale of captured military property.There was also the lure of making money by plundering civilians, which
although officially forbidden was widespread.
Early in the war, the Continental Congress
devised a plan offering fifty acres of land, freedom to practice their
religion, and civil liberties to German deserters.Thousands of former Hessian soldiers did
indeed remain in America after the war.
After betraying his country, Benedict Arnold accepted a commission in the British army. After the war Benedict Arnold was not
celebrated when he arrived in England.
He tried to advise British politicians to continue the fight for America
despite the defeat at Yorktown.Members
of Parliament expressed the hope that the government would never put Arnold at
the head of a part of the British army lest “the sentiments of true honour,
which every British officer (holds) dearer than life, should be (offended).”
Arnold next tried his hand at business.He was turned down for a position in the East
India Company where great fortunes were being made with the explanation that
the purity of his conduct was generally thought low.
In 1785, Arnold tried land speculation in
Canada and trading in the West Indies.The entire family moved to Canada in 1787, where the quarrelsome
Arnold became involved in a series of bad business deals and petty
lawsuits.He became so unpopular that
the townspeople of Saint John, New Brunswick burned him in effigy in front of
his house as his family watched.
The
family returned to London in 1791.In July 1792, Arnold fought a
duel with the Earl of Lauderdale who had impugned his honor.When war broke out with France he outfitted a
privateer and sailed for the West Indies.By 1801 Arnold’s health began to fail.After four days of delirium he died on June 14, 1801 at the age of sixty
leaving debts and a name synonymous with treachery.
Lieutenant Colonel
Banastre Tarleton who led the fearsome Loyalist British Legion returned to England in triumph at the end of the American Revolution. He was universally acclaimed for his legendary exploits
in the American war and became a close friend of the Prince of Wales (the
future King George IV).In 1787 Tarleton
wrote History of the Campaigns of 1780 and
1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America.In 1790 he was elected to Parliament, where he
served for over twenty years. In the
Napoleonic Wars, Tarleton served under the Duke of Wellington reaching the
rank of lieutenant general in 1801.In 1815, he was awarded a baronetcy.
In 2006, four Patriot regimental
colors captured by Tarleton in 1779 and 1780 were auctioned by Sotheby’s in New
York City on Flag Day.Lot No. 1
consisted of one flag.Lot No. 2 consisted of the three regimental
colors of the 3rd Virginia Detachment that Tarleton captured at the
Battle of Waxhaws (also known as The Waxhaws Massacre).Passed down in Tarleton’s family for almost
two hundred and fifty years these battle flags were the last American Revolutionary
War colors known to remain in British hands and the last such colors to remain
in private hands anywhere.The fiercely contested
auction lasted fourteen minutes and raised $17.3 million. The three Virginia
flags sold for $5.0 million.The private
buyer remains anonymous, but the flags have occasionally been exhibited
publicly.
Despite his
defeat at Yorktown, Lord Charles Cornwallis was
cheered when he landed in England on January 21, 1782.He retained the confidence of
successive British governments and was appointed Governor-General and
Commander-in-chief in India in 1786.He
successfully led British forces to victory in the Third Anglo-Mysore War from
1789 to 1792.In 1798 Cornwallis was
appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief of Ireland.The spirit of revolution had swept the
British out of America and now threatened to do the same thing in Ireland.Disaffected Irishmen began to assert their
“constitutional rights” and sought aid from the French who had staged their own
revolution in 1789.A massive force of
26,000 was assembled under Lord Cornwallis which crushed the Irish rebellion
and repulsed a French invasion of Ireland.Following his service in Ireland, Cornwallis was reappointed to India in
1805 where he died of fever at the age of sixty-six not long after his arrival.
Peter Francisco (1760-1831) who was six feet
eight inches tall, and weighed some 260 pounds has come down to history with the
title the “Virginia Giant.” His deeds during the Revolutionary War became the stuff
of myth and legend. Some of the stories may actually contain an element of
truth, others if not true “ought to be”, in the words of the heroic
storytellers of the Revolution.The
stories of the Giant’s deeds were so popular by the 1820s that the early
Revolutionary War historian Alexander Garden wrote that he “scarcely ever met a
man in Virginia who had not some miraculous tale to tell of Peter Francisco.”
Pedro (later called Peter) Francisco arrived
at the dock in City Point aged five and was unable to speak English. It is
believed that he had been kidnapped from his Portuguese parents in the Azores.
He was taken in and raised by the family of Judge Anthony Winston.
In 1776, at the age of sixteen Francisco
enlisted in the Virginia Line. He fought in Pennsylvania at the Battle of
Germantown and in New Jersey at the Battle of Monmouth. Francisco was part of
an attack on the British fort of Stony Point in New York where supposedly,
even after receiving a nine-inch wound to the stomach, he continued to fight;
killing twelve British grenadiers and capturing the enemy’s flag.
One of his most well-known feats occurred in
South Carolina after the Battle of Camden. Seeing an American cannon mired in
mud and about to be abandoned, he freed the 1,100-pound cannon and carried it
on his shoulders to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.
He
fought at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. A monument at Guilford Court
House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s efforts,” To Peter
Francisco a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement
eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps
the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”
The
story of “Francisco’s Fight” relates how the legendary giant, although unarmed, overpowered
nine enemy dragoons who were trying to rob him of the silver buckles on his
shoes. He supposedly killed three dragoons and made off with eight horses.
George
Armstrong Custer’s widow, Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer died on April 4, 1933.She had defended her husband’s reputation for
over fifty years.Within a year the
Custer legend was under attack by revisionist historians.
In 1934
Frederic F. Van de Water wrote Glory Hunter.: A Life of General Custer.
Custer’s primary qualities according to
Van der Water were blind ambition and hubris.
On October 17, 2024, a rare privately owned copy of
the U.S. Constitution was sold at auction by Brunks Auctions of Asheville,
North Carolina for $9 million.The final
bid far outstripped the reserve price of $1 million.The bidding lasted seven minutes and bids
came in at $500,000 intervals.
This rare artifact is
one of the 100 official copies printed in 1787 that were sent to state leaders
for review before being formally adopted, and is among only eight copies known
to exist today, and is the only one still in private hands.The document was sold to an anonymous bidder.
The almost 237 year old
document was found inside a battered filing cabinet in a long neglected storage
room on a property in Edenton, North Carolina once owned by the state’s first
governor Samuel Johnston.Johnston was
governor from 1787 to 1789, and oversaw the state convention that ratified the
Constitution.Also found with the copy
of the Constitution was an original letter from George Washington asking for
ratification!
Gregory
Maguire's
1995 novel Wicked: The Life
and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West creates a backstory for Elphaba, the future
Wicked Witch of the West, and explores the world of The Wizard of Oz from
her perspective. Elphaba is modeled after Margaret Hamilton's portrayal in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned,
clad entirely in black and wearing a tall, peaked hat.
The
novel Wicked explains that the ruby slippers a pair of magical shoes which play
a pivotal role in The Wizard of Oz, were given to Nessarose, the future Wicked Witch of
the East, by her father. In the musical Wicked, it is Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who enchants the
shoes, giving her crippled sister Nessarose the ability to walk.
The ruby slippers worn by Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, in
the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz have achieved iconic stature and are among the
most valuable items of film memorabilia.
In L. Frank
Baum's original 1900 novel, The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wears silver shoes but the color of the
shoes was changed to take advantage of the introduction of Technicolor to the
movies.
The wardrobe woman who worked on the
film claimed "six identical pairs" had been made. Four pairs used in
the movie have been accounted for. Is it
possible that the other two pair are tucked away in someone’s garage or attic?
Let’s look at the big four:
One pair
is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
Another
pair was initially owned by one Roberta Bauman who won them in a contest. In 1988, these shoes were sold at auction
to Anthony Landini for $150,000. Landini auctioned this pair of slippers, at
Christie's auction house in 2000, for $666,000. They now belong to a collector
who owns memorabilia shops in Hollywood.
A
third pair were the highlight of the 2011 “Icons of Hollywood auction”. They were offered with a starting reserve price of two million
dollars, but did not sell. Leonardo DiCaprio,Steven Spielberg, and other benefactors
made it possible for the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acquire the pair for an
undisclosed price in February 2012 for the Academy’s new Museum in Los Angeles.
Michael Shaw acquired the fourth pair in
1970. These were stolen from an exhibit at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand
Rapids, Minnesota, in August, 2005. On
September 4, 2018, the FBI announced the stolen pair had been recovered after
13 years. Five year later, one Terry
Martin was indicted for the crime and pleaded guilty, saying that he thought
the slippers were made from real rubies because they were insured for one
million dollars.
Another iconic piece of Oz memorabilia,
the Wicked Witch’s hat from the 1939 movie, has recently come up for auction
with a whopping price tag of $140,000.
Major General William Elphinstone is considered by some
military historians to be “the most
incompetent soldier who ever became a general”, possessed of “the
leadership qualities of a sheep.”Elphinstone’s road to disaster, however, was well paved and made broad
by others.
In 1838, Afghanistan
was a buffer state between British India and
the expanding Russian Empire. Energized
by real or imagined Russian plots in the country, the British rallied support behind
a prince favorable to British interests, marched into the country, and after a
short campaign installed a puppet king in Kabul
on August 6, 1839.
Many in British India now
felt that the mission had been accomplished.
It was time to bring the troops home.
Most of the victorious army marched home, but a permanent British
garrison was established in Kabul
to prop up the new regime. It needed
propping up. The British had replaced a
relatively popular ruler with a weak puppet. Scattered fighting erupted in the
surrounding countryside.
Increasingly frustrated with the costs of maintaining a
large garrison in Kabul, the British government eliminated the subsidies being
paid to the various tribes in the area around Kabul to keep the peace. Once the
subsidies ended, hostile activity increased even more.
Into this rapidly
deteriorating situation stepped Major General William Elphinstone, who
was assured by all, “You will have nothing to do here; all is peace.”
When Elphinstone arrived in Kabul his command consisted of
some 4,500 troops (British troops and Indian sepoys). Additionally, there were 12,000 army
dependents such as wives, children, and servants, living in the British
cantonment just outside of Kabul.
The military situation on the ground when Elphinstone
arrived was a tragedy waiting to happen.
The British had abandoned the city’s fortified citadel, the Bala Hissar,
to the puppet king and built the British cantonment some 1.5 miles outside of
the city in a low area surrounded by Afghan forts occupying the high
ground. These forts had been neither occupied
nor destroyed.
The cantonment itself was indefensible. According to
contemporary witnesses there had been, “a pretense of rendering the cantonments
defensible by surrounding the great parallelogram with the caricature of an
obstacle in the shape of a shallow ditch and feeble earthwork over which an
active cow could scramble.”
Elphinstone now nearly sixty was racked by gout and
rheumatism. He was soon unable to mount his horse un-aided. He was incapable of
reaching clear cut decisions and vacillated depending on the opinion of the
latest person with whom he spoke. One
officer wrote, that Elphinstone was “fit only for the invalid establishment on
the day of his arrival.”
On 2 November 1841 a revolt broke out in Kabul. A mob of insurgents stormed the house of one
of the senior British civilian officers and murdered him and his staff. Elphinstone took no action, which encouraged
the insurgents to press the British further.
The Afghans next stormed the poorly defended supply fort where the
British garrison’s provisions were housed.
After furious fighting around the small fort and repeated
calls for help, Elphinstone finally realized that he should do something. The relief force was surprised, however, to
find the survivors of the supply fort, having abandoned all hope of relief,
making a hasty retreat toward the cantonment.
Elphinstone’s inaction had resulted in the loss of most of the army’s
food and supplies.
A council of war proposed, as the winter was coming on,
either to retreat to the British stronghold of Jalalabad some ninety miles
away, or to move to the Bala Hissar, Kabul’s strong bastion. Elphinstone overruled the move to the Bala
Hissar and settled on retreat.
On the Afghan promise of a safe retreat, Elphinstone
capitulated on January 1, 1842, handing over the army’s gunpowder reserves,
most of the cannon, and all of the newest muskets.
The troops and twelve thousand civilians began the march to
Jalalabad on January 6. The sick and
wounded were left behind with a guarantee of their safety. They were murdered as soon as the last of
Elphinstone’s soldiers left the cantonment.
The retreat of
the column was an unmitigated horror.
Weather conditions were extreme, and the column was continually harassed
by the fire of Afghan tribesmen. The
first night, the column halted six miles from the city. The road was already strewn with the dead and
dying.
By the evening of January 9, some 3,000 of Elphinstone's
column had died due to enemy action, the freezing weather, or even
suicide. Elphinstone had ceased giving
any orders.
On the evening of January 11th, the wives of the British
officers accepted being taken hostage by the Afghans who anticipated a large
ransom for their release. The wives and
children of the Indian troops were all to die since they would not bring a
ransom.
Elphinstone and his
second in command also allowed themselves to become hostages, while the column
struggled on against certain death.
Elphinstone died of dysentery on April 23, 1842, while in captivity.
Only one British officer managed to reach Jalalabad.On 13 January, Assistant Surgeon William
Brydonrode through the gates of Jalalabad on an exhausted horse. Part of his
skull was sheared off by a sword.When
asked what happened to the army, he answered “I am the army.”
Shortly before his murder in 1890, Sitting Bull said
to his biographer:
“When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world.The sun rose and set on their land; they sent
ten thousand men to battle.Where are
the warriors today?Who slew them?Where are our lands?Who owns them? …. Is it wrong for me to love
my own?Is it wicked for me because my
skin is red?Because I am Sioux.Because I was born where my fathers
lived?Because I would die for my people
and my country?I wish it to be
remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.”
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