Ohio History Journal

The Croghan Celebration.                   33

 

Betsies. The bravery of this American boy and his dauntless band ex-

ceeded in results for the betterment of humanity arid the advance of

civilization all the campaigns combined of Napoleon and his antagonists.

Croghan and his 160 followers were victorious because they were typical

pioneer Americans- Americans, a new type of character in the history

of the world. Someone has said that God sifted four races to produce

the American. Each one of you within the sound of my voice can

vividly recollect how on that magnificent May morning, 1898, Dewey

sailed into the Bay of Manila and almost in the twinkling of an eye sunk

the Spanish fleet, without the loss of a single American sailor and

scarcely the scratching of the paint from any of the American ships.

We thought that that was the most unparalleled event in history and

could never be repeated, but in sixty days thereafter it was encored in

the Bay of Santiago when the fleet of Cervera emerged and on that

July Sunday morning left the bay for the sea to encounter the storm

of fire and shot from the ships of Sampson and Schley. The war cor-

respondent of the London Times, one who for the last forty years had

been an eye-witness of the chief military and naval feats, both in the

old world and the new, gave in his paper a most graphic picture of this

battle of Santiago, which he viewed from the deck of one of the American

vessels. At the close of his vivid description, he made the significant

remark that the behavior of the American sailor was one of the most

marvelous exhibitions of coolness, bravery and accuracy he had ever wit-

nessed. Said he, "I verily believe that had those rival seamen exchanged

places, namely, had the Spanish sailors possessed the modern, thoroughly

equipped American ships and thus emerged from the bay, and had the

American sailors possessed the decrepid and time-worn ships of Spain,

the result would have been the same, namely, that the Americans

would have won the victory, because that victory was won by the char-

acter of the American boy who manned the American ships." The

American boy, Croghan, who defended Fort Stephenson against such tre-

mendous odds was the same type as the sailors of Dewey and Sampson

and Schley and the followers of the generals who led in the Spanish

War. It is related that when the Sultan of Turkey heard of the great

victory of the Americans at Manila and Santiago, he sent for the Amer-

ican ambassador and asked him if the reports of the marvelous feats

of the Americans were true. The ambassador replied that they were,

when the sultan asked if he could buy ships and guns like those which

the Americans employed. The ambassador told him that he supposed

the sultan could get them, they were made in America for money by

great manufacturers. "Then," said the sultan, "I will buy some of them

that I may win great victories." "Oh," said the ambassador, "that you

can do; but you cannot buy the American boys to man them for you."

It is of such men and boys as those who fought the American Revolution,

Vol. XVI- 3.

34         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

the War of 1812, of 1848, the Rebellion of 61-5 and the Spanish War

that this republic is composed. Your Vice-President and your Governor

have told you in eloquent language of the heroism and patriotism of

the American soldiers in those wars for independence, unity, liberty and

humanity. It is a noble record of a noble people and in that record

Ohio has taken a most conspicuous part. Three thousand Revolutionary

soldiers, scarred and wearied after the battles for independence, came

across the Alleghanies to establish homes for their declining years in the

peaceful and fruitful plains and valleys of Ohio. Their lives had been

dedicated to independence and freedom and their buried bones made

sacred the soil of Ohio. The seed of that Revolutionary patriotism

ripened into an hundred fold in the war for the national Union, for

300,000 loyal recruits went forth from the "Buckeye State" to fight on

the battle-fields of the Sunny South for the preservation of the republic

whose foundation was laid by their revered sires. In the crypt of St.

Paul's Cathedral, London, that splendid temple erected to the faith of

Christianity, lie the remains of its great architect, Christopher Wren.

They repose beneath the floor in which is sunken a simple plate, upon

which is inscribed the name "Christopher Wren," and the Latin inscrip-

tion "si monumentum requiris, circumspice"; if you seek his monument,

look about you. So I say, we may erect monuments, the graven metal

or carved marble, to the heroes of the past, not for them, for they

need them not, but for us that this reminder of their heroic deeds may

lead us to emulate their examples and push on to loftier heights. No,

I would say of George Croghan and the heroes of 1776 and 1812, if you

should ask for their monument, look about you and contemplate the mag-

nificent republic of which they laid the corner-stone, a republic whose

people present the highest of type character and civilization and whose

principles of liberty and humanity are being borne to all the inhabitants

of the earth and the islands of the sea. James A. Garfield, than whom

there was no more exalted example of the American citizen, soldier,

statesman, scholar and orator, a martyred President from Ohio, at the

close of one of his brilliant addresses used these words: "The history

of the worlds is a divine poem; the history of every nation is a canto in

that poem; and the life of every man is a word in that poem. The

harmony of that poem has ever been resounding through the ages and

though its melody has been marred by the roaring of cannon and the

groans of dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher, to you and me,

that poem breathes a prophecy of more happy and halcyon days to

come." What a word was the life of George Croghan in that poem of

universal history--a word that was a clarion note of bravery, heroism

and patriotism, a note that shall ever resound clear and distinct in the

harmony of American history.