MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN ELLIS WOOL TO W. L. STONE ON THE

BATTLE OF QUEENSTOWN HEIGHTS IN OCTOBER, 1812.

Printed from the original manuscript in the New York Public Library.

MY DEAR SIR,

TROY- N. Y.

13th SEPTEMBER 1838.

My attention has been recently directed to your interesting history of Joseph Brant. Allow me to request that you will send me by mail two copies with a bill of the same. I will transmit the amount by return mail.

Should you publish another edition* I would be much gratified if you would previously inform me of your intentions in order that some errors relating to the affair of Queenstown may be corrected. In page 505 Vol. 2d it is stated that only two companies Captains Armstrong and Malcom had landed before Colonel Van Rensselaer and his party. This is incorrect-it should be three companies-viz Captains Wool, Malcom and Armstrong. It is also incorrect that they crossed the Niagara River undiscovered. The guard stationed on the Bank discovered us and fired into our boats before we reached the shore, but fled on our landing. As soon as we left the boats we ascended the bank and formed line fronting the heights. Being the senior officer in the absence of Lt. Col. Chrystie I took command of the detachment. At this moment Judge Advocate Lush arrived and informed me of the landing of Colonel Van Rensselaer and his party, with orders from the Colonel to "prepare for storming Queenstown Heights." I informed him we were ready. In a few moments he returned with an order to march. We proceeded a few rods when I received an order to halt. This was at the foot or base of the heights-our right extending towards the Village of Queenstown. Whilst thus waiting further orders the detachment was attacked on its right by a party of British from the Village of Queenstown. Without waiting for orders from Colonel Van Rensselaer the detachment was immediately brought to bear on the enemy. A short but severe contest ensued. The enemy was repulsed, but not without the loss of six officers killed and wounded out of 11 or 12 present, besides a large proportion of non-commissioned officers and privates, all of the 13th U. S. Infantry. Of the officers, Lieut Valleau and Ensign Morris were killed, and Captains Wool, Malcom and Armstrong and Lieut Lent wounded. Shortly after the enemy had retreated Ju[d]ge Advocate Lush came and informed me that Colonel Van Rensselaer was mortally wounded, with orders from the Colonel to retire with the troops to the shore. As soon as it was light I repaired to Colonel Van Rensselaer and asked him what could be done? He replied he did not know. I remarked that some thing must be done soon or we would all be taken prisoners. His reply

* Cf. the note appended to the fourth edition of Stone's Life of Brant.

was that he knew of nothing unless we could take Queenstown heights. Although wounded, a musket ball having passed through both my thighs, I offered to undertake the enterprise. It was no sooner communicated to such of the officers of the 13th able to march, consisting of, besides myself, Captain Ogilvie, Lieutenants Hugunin, Kearney, Car, Reab, and Sammons, than they rallied their troops, and with a small detachment of Artillery commanded by Lieutenants Gansevoort & Randolp[h] agreeably to the directions of Colonel Van Rensselaer, ascended the heights and captured the battery. Such is a plain but correct statement of the part performed by the 13th U. S. Infantry early on the morning of the 13th October 1812, and previous to the attack and defeat of General Brock. Of the latter I may hereafter give you some details.

This statement I assure you is made with no envious feelings towards Colonel Van Rensselaer. He has bled freely in the field of battle, and I would not, if it can be avoided with honor to myself, add another to the many wounds he has received in fighting the battles of his Country. He should however recollect that a commandant never loses reputation by doing justice to those who may have served with him in the field of battle. He has published a history* of the affair of Queenstown in which he has failed to do justice to those who accompanied him on that memorable morning. He claims credit for conduct that belongs to another, and which as a brave and a gallant soldier he should never have appropriated to himself. He would do no injustice to himself if he should contradict the statement that he led the 13th up the bank and routed the enemy at the point of the bayonet, when Ensign Morris was killed and Captains Armstrong Malcom and Wool were wounded. When Ensign Morris was killed & Armstrong, Malcom & Wool were wounded, those officers with the 13th Infantry had not only ascended the bank, but were on their way to "storm Queenstown Heights," when as I have before stated were halted, and whilst thus waiting for further orders was attacked by a party of the enemy from the Village of Queenstown who were repulsed without orders from or interference of Colonel Van Rensselaer. Nor would his conduct have appeared less brave or brilliant if he had stated the fact that Captain Wool although wounded volunteered to undertake the capture of the heights. It will be perceived on examination of my letter to Colonel Van Rensselaer that I commenced it at the moment I left him to ascend the heights, leaving it for him to describe what had occurred before, with full confidence that he would do justice to those who had accompanied him on the morning when so many gallant soldiers fell to rise no more. Would it have been too much to have named the dead or even those who volunteered, captured the heights and defeated General Brock. monument has been erected to mark the spot where a hero fell leading his troops to battle, but those who fought and won the victory and defeated the hero, was not even mentioned in the official despatch which announced the result.

For the flattering manner in which you have been pleased to represent me in your history, and the repeated defence of my character against the vile attacks of those who call themselves patriots, I offer you the most grateful acknowledgemts, with the assurance that there is not the slightest foundation for the infamous charges brought against me. I am exposed it would seem to a triangular warfare.

* His Narrative of the Affair at Queenstown, 1812. (New York, 1836. 12°.)

The Whig presses on the Frontier have charged me with not only oppressing the patriots but of violating the laws in arresting them and seizing their arms and ammunition. The Montreal Herald and ultra tory paper will not be convinced that either the administration or the officers of the Army were sincere in their exertions to preserve the peace and neutral obligations of the Country. The administration papers of Vermont charge me with having transcended the orders of the governmt, and of oppressing the patriots beyond the wishes and intentions. of the administration-see the Burlington Sentinel of the 3d September containing the correspondence of Sir John Colborne and myself, with an editorial article. against myself, Governor Jenison, and Charles Adams Esq, not one word of which is true, except that I was invited to partake of an entertainment at Burlington.

With this hasty scrawl believe me to be very truly your obliged friend &c.

COLONEL STONE.

JOHN E. WOOL

PIRACY IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, 1823.

SIR,

Printed from the original manuscript in the New York Public Library.

U. S. SCH GRAMPUS, THOMPSON Isd
JULY 3 1823

I have the honor to inform you, that this vessel sailed from the Balise, on the 24th April, with a convoy for Tabasco, where she arrived on the 1st May-sailed thence again on the 6th with a convoy towards Vera Cruz parted with the convoy on the 9th, and arrived at Campeachy on the 13th, where I received information, of several piracies committed upon the merchant vessels of the U. S; and that the coast of Yucatan, from Cape Catouche, to Lagoona was then infested by several gangs of pirates, who had been guilty of every atrocity imaginable: finding there were a very considerable number of Merchantships at the several ports upon that coast unprotected, and others arriving almost daily, I continued thereabouts untill the 25th June scouring the coast, up and down, and occasionally, when any information was had, which offered the least chance of detecting those villians, the boats were employed, and sometimes were sent along the coast 20, and 30 leagues from the vessel: on the 22d May I chased a schooner on shore, to windward of Siral which I have no doubt was a pirate, from his appearance and conduct: as it was in the night, and upon a part of the coast where I was not sufficiently acquainted, and blowing fresh upon the shore, I had not an opportunity of compleating his distruction: On the 11 June, I seized a suspicious vessel in the harbour of Campeachy, and resigned her to the authorities there upon that account. This last vessel had just come from New Malaga, or Virgia de Chiguila, a little to the

westward of Cape Catouche, where the pirates have a very considerable establishment and came down Campeachy for purpose of procuring stores for a vessel then prepairing for a cruise. Two seamen who had been held as prisoners at N. Malaga, informed me that this gang were sometimes a hundred and upwards in number, that they held possession of a small fort having two twenty four pounders; and that an officer named Molla, who had been placed there by the Government had joined them, this was corroborated by the authorities at Campeachy-who requested me to land and destroy the place. The pirates issue from their post in barges, small vessels, and in canoes; hover along the shores, enter the harbour murder and destroy almost all that fall in their power: on the 2nd June the American Sch! Shibbolet, Capt Perry, of N. Y. being then ready for sea, was boarded by a canoe having fourteen of these villians on board; the watch was instantly murdered eight others of the crew, were put in the forecastle, the hatch spiked down, a ton or more of Logwood put over it: the head sails set-with the wind off shore—and fire put to the vessel in the cabin-by the most extraordinary exertions, these now broke out, in time to save their lives. I arrived while the vessel was burning down. The same canoe then proceeded to windward and two days afterwards, took the Sch! Augustus & John off Sisal-and burnt her, having turned the crew adrift in a small boat-with every probability of their perishing. The people of the country were much exasperated, and turned out to hunt them from their shores-a party of Dragoons having met them, a skirmish insured, wherein the Captain of Dragoons, and several of his men were killed, and the pirates taking to their boats escaped-one of the seamen, I mentioned, as having been amongst them stated that he belonged to an English Sch. from N. Providence called the Flyer, that the crew with the exception of himself were instantly butchered he was detained by them about two Mo[nths] during which time they had captured nine vessels, some of which were brought in, but the principal part destroyed, and in some instances he was certain that the whole crews were murdered when he left the place (about twenty days since) they had a Guinaman with two hundred slaves and a large quantity of Ivory two small schooners, Americans, and an English cutter [hiatus in ms.] informed me that pirates had a direct and uninterrupted intercourse with Havanna, by means of small coasting vessels that ran regularly to the ports on the coast, and always touched at N. Malaga—frequently some of them would go up to the Havanna, and others of the gang came down-That this infernal horde of villians have established themselves at N. Malaga I have no doubt, and from the information given me by men of the first respectability at Campeachy, Siral, and other places on that coast, I believe the pirates have been guilty of all the acts herein stated.

I have the Honor to be
Very Respectfully

Your Mo. Ob. Ser.

FRANK GREGORY

St. Comd. U. S. M.

Comd. DAVID PORTER

Coms U. S. N. forces

W. I. Station.

LIST OF WORKS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY RELATING TO IRELAND;-IRISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, ETC.

PART II.