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Cornell University Library 
 E361 .C73 
 
 Narrative of the life of General Leslie 
 
 3 1924 032 760 443 
 
 olin 
 
NARRATIVE 
 
 OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 GENERAL LESLIE COMBS; 
 
 BMBEAOING INCIDENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 
 WAR OF 1812. 
 
 AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW OFFICE, 120 NASSAU STREET. 
 
 1852 
 
 John A. Grat, Printer. 
 
/^CORNELL" 
 jUNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
NARRATIVE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF GENERAL LESLIE COMBS, 
 
 OF KENTUCKY, 
 
 Embiaciug Incidents in the Eaily Histuiy of the North-Western Territory, 
 
 The biography of men in the Republic who 
 h'ave rai-id liier^^eive^ by their own unaided 
 talent- and enerf;ies above the level of the gen- 
 eral mass of the commuuity in which their lot 
 has been cast, njust be both entertaining and 
 instructive to their fellow countrymen. Dou- 
 bly instructive and profitable, in a more ex- 
 tended view, are the-e per.-unal liiNtories. when 
 they relate to the lives and fortunes of thu-e 
 ■who may be regarded as representative men — 
 types of classes that constitute essential or im- 
 portant elements in our national character, and 
 which, ahiiugh somewhat heterogeneous in 
 their origin and diverse in their features, have 
 yet become, through the harmonizing and fos- 
 tering influences of our republican institutions, 
 consolidated and blended into a congruous 
 whole, knowfi and recognized throughout the 
 world, distinctively as the American char 
 acter. 
 
 Nor are these essential and characteristic ele- 
 ments referable solely to peculiar national wri- 
 gins. On the contrary. local and other circum- 
 stances, irrespective of nationalities, have 
 formed some of the most distinctive, and. in a 
 Bational point of view, imporra^it of these ele- 
 ments. Of this kind weref the circumstances 
 attending the early settlement of our Western 
 country; circumstances which overbore ?nd 
 nearly obliterated all distinctions of national 
 origin, blending and consolidating all such el- 
 ements in the comprehensive, distinctive na- 
 tional one, represented by the Western hunter, 
 pioneer and settler, as combined in the same 
 individual. 
 
 Nurtured amidst stirring scenes, and accus- 
 tomed from early childhood to a life of activ- 
 ity, hardship, exposure, and thrilling adven- 
 ture — hence a hardy, enterprising, bold, and 
 fearless race; and leading the free and untram- 
 meled life of the backwoods, and breathing 
 from infancy the atmosphere of unrestrained 
 freedom and independence — hence a frank, gen- 
 erous, hospitable race, endued with an unso- 
 phisticated and plain sense of right, with a 
 ready disposition to uphold and protect it, as 
 well as a keen native sense of wrong, and an 
 impulsive instinct to repel and redress it; the 
 men of this race have ever been foremost, 
 whether in extending the area of civilization 
 
 and of the Republic, by felling the forest aniJ 
 subduing the rank prairie, or in defending our 
 national rights and avenging our national 
 wrongs on the field of battle. 
 
 It was this race, represented by and speak- 
 ing through a Hency Clay and others of that 
 stamp, which aroused oiir Government to a> 
 declaration of war, to vindicate our violated 
 national rights on the ocean, early in the pres- 
 ent century; and it was this race themselves,, 
 who, at the call of their country, rushed with 
 an unexampled unanimity and alacrity to the 
 field, while, in some parts of the country, but 
 too many of the more immediate neighbors and 
 kindred of those citizens whose rights of per- 
 son or property on the sea had been outraged, 
 not only refused to respond to this national 
 call, but sought to thwart the purposes of the 
 Government, by opposing its measures adopted 
 for the purpose of obtaining redress, in some 
 instances, by acts little short of treason. And 
 it is to the descendants of this race, already 
 numbering millions of hardy, unflinching re- 
 publicans, to which our country must look for 
 a patriotic and generous support of its institu- 
 tions, as a united whole, whenever the violence- 
 of ultra factions in the extreme North or 
 South, impelled by whatever motives,- shall at- 
 tempt to overturn the institutioni established 
 by .our revolutionary forefathers. It is then that 
 the people of the great West, the descendants 
 of the pioneer, hunter race', will — as one of her 
 representatives declared in his place in a late 
 Congress — have something to say on the final 
 question of union or disunion. 
 
 As being a worthy representative of this 
 race, and also one whose early life and adven ; 
 tures are intimately connected with an inter- 
 esting and instructive, but now almost forgot- 
 ten portion of our national history, as rela- 
 ting to the West, we shall depart somewhat 
 fr.im our ordinary practice, and allow our- 
 selves more space and latitude than usual, in 
 detailing the personal narrative of the subject 
 of the present memoir. 
 
 GE>f. Leslie Combs is descended, on the 
 side of his mother, whose maiden name was 
 Sarah Bichaedson, froni a respectable Quaker 
 family of Maryland, connected by blood with 
 the Thomases and Snowdens; His father wa» 
 
General Leslie Comls. 
 
 by birtli a Virginian, and served as a subal- 
 tern officer in the revdlutiocary army under 
 Washington, at the siege of Yorktown and cap- 
 ture of Lord Coruwallis. He soon afterwards 
 emigrated to Kentucky, and was engaged in all 
 those dangerous and sometimes bloody scenes 
 which resulted in driving out the Indians, and 
 devoting that rich and beautiful region to the 
 cause and purposes of civilization. 
 
 Both hia parents have been dead for several 
 years; and as their youngest of twelve chil- 
 dren, he has erected over their humble graves, 
 within a few miles of Boonesboro, appropri- 
 ate tombstones. On his father's are inscribed 
 the simple facts, that he was a "Revolutionary 
 Officer and a Hunter of Kentucky." A simple, 
 affecting, and suggestive tribute to the unpre- 
 tending but sterling worth of one of that class 
 of men which has impressed its characteristic 
 traits as honorably as it has indelibly on our 
 national character: "a hunter of Kentucky;" 
 one of that fearless, enterprising, self-relying, 
 frank and generous race, which, as the hardy 
 pioneer of civilization in our Western savage 
 wilds, has extended the area of the Republic 
 over those once almost illimitable forests and 
 prairies, and, by its valor and devoiiou to 
 country, has contributed so much to our na- 
 tional greatness and fame. 
 
 Seven only of his children survived him; 
 among whom was divided his hundred acre 
 farm in Clark county, which had furnisned. 
 his only support in raising his large family. 
 Of course their means and opportunities of ed- 
 ucation were limited; but, fortunately for the 
 subject of this memior, when he was but ten or 
 eleven years of age, the Rev. John Lylk, a 
 Presbyterian clergyman, opened a school of a 
 higher order than was usual in the country in 
 those days; and in it he was taup;ht the Latin 
 language, as well as English grammar, geogra- 
 phy, and the lower branches of mathematics. 
 His progress in all his studies was rapid, and 
 he soon became the pet of his venerable instruc- 
 tor, as he was the pride of his aged parents. 
 
 This state of things continued about three 
 jears, when Mr. Lyle removed to a neighbor- 
 ing county; and for a time our young scholar 
 was compelled to remain at home, and assis- 
 ted in cultivating the farm. The great anxi- 
 ety, however, of both his parents to give him 
 as liberal an education as possible, was soon 
 gratified by their being able to place him in 
 the family of a French gentleman residing near 
 Ashland, whose lady taught a few scholars, 
 and under whose instruction he remained for a 
 year; his time being mainly devoted to the ac- 
 quisition of her native language. That admira- 
 ble lady is yet alive, and still residing in her 
 humble home, one of her daughters having 
 married a son of Henry Clay. 
 
 bhortly after returning home, he was placed 
 as the junior deputy in the clerk's office of 
 Hon. S. H. Woodson, in Jessamine county, 
 and was residing there, when the last war was 
 declared against Great Britain. The excite- 
 ment in Kentucky, on the occurrence of that 
 event, pervaded all ages and classes. 
 
 Even those who are old enough to remember 
 the events of those times, but who were born 
 and have always lived in the eastern portions 
 of the country, can have little idea of the in- 
 tensity of feeling aroused by this event among 
 the hardy inhabitants of Kentucky and the 
 frontier portions of the north-western country. 
 In that region, the interval between the clo^-e 
 of the war of the Revolution and the declara- 
 tion of the second war with the same power, 
 had witnessed an almost uninterrupted strug- 
 gle between the Western pioneer Isettlers and 
 the native tribes of those regions, who, as was 
 well known, were continually instigated and 
 paid by British agents to harass and devas- 
 tate our infant settlements. Hence the na- 
 tional animosity against the mother country 
 excited by the War of Independence, so far 
 from having been allayed or effaced in those 
 parts, as was the case to a' considerable extent 
 in the East, by the lapse of thirty years of 
 peace, nominal as regarded the Western fron 
 tier, had, on the contrary, been gradually in- 
 creasing and becoming intensified down to the 
 very moment of the declaration of war in 1812. 
 This feeling reached its acme when that pome 
 power whose agents had so long been inciting 
 the savages to ruthless forays on the defense- 
 less and peaceful settlements, now entered into 
 alliances with them, and, by offering premi- 
 ums for the scalps of men, women and chil- 
 dren, incited them to redoubled zeal in the 
 prosecution of their instinctive and inhuman 
 mode of warfare. 
 
 A series of revolting atrocities perpetrated 
 early in the war by the savages, many of 
 them under the very eye, and with the ap 
 proval or connivance of the commanders of 
 their British allies, especially of the notori- 
 ous Colonel, and for these his acts promoted 
 or brevetted General Proctor, whose memory 
 the voice of outraged humanity will consign 
 to eternal infamy, aroused the whole Western 
 country to a pitch of intense excitement, which 
 manifested itself in a universal cry for re- 
 venge, and a spontaneous rush to the field* 
 
 ■'"'Exasperated to madness by the failure of their 
 attempt, September 4, 1812, on Fort Harrison, [de- 
 fended by Captain Zi^chery Taylor,] a considera- 
 ble party of Indians now made an irruption into 
 the settlements on the Pigeon Roost fork of White 
 river, where they barbarously massacred tweuty- 
 one of the inhabitants, many of them women and 
 children. The children had their brains knocked 
 out against trees; and one woman, who was preg- 
 nant, was ripped open, and her unborn infant taken 
 from her and its brains knocked out. However, 
 this was but a small matter; it amounted to no ee- 
 seniial injury! it was all for the best, as it was done 
 by the disciples of the Wabash Prophet, who was 
 in a close and holy alliance with George the Third, 
 defender of the t'aith, and legitimate sovereign of 
 the Bible Society nation, which is the bulwark of 
 our most holy religion. "Tet it excited the indigna- 
 tion of the uncivilized republican infidels in the 
 neighboring settlements ot Indiana and Kentucky." 
 — McAfee. Mietory of the War in the Wett'ern 
 Country, pjo. 154-5. 
 
General Lcslii' Co. 
 
 3 
 
 It can not therefore bo wondeted at, that 
 the sun of an old soldier and hunter, who had 
 often listened of a winter evening to his fa- 
 ther's thrilling detail.s of Indian fights, and 
 ambuscades, and hairbreadth escapes, should 
 be infected with the contagion, and long, 
 boy as he was, to throw away his pen and 
 seize some implement of war. 
 
 Young Leslie Combs had just passed his 
 eighteenlh birthday, and was, by law, s.ubjcct 
 to militia duty, although he had not been in- 
 scribed on any muster roll. Kentucky was 
 called upon for several thousand troops, and 
 he hoped to be one of the soldiers enlisted in 
 in the great cause of "sailors' rights and free 
 trade with all the world,'' in defiance of Brit- 
 ain's prond, insulting claim, as mistress of the 
 seas, to insult our flag and seize our seamen. 
 He accordingly borrowed a fowiing-piece, and 
 set himself to work to acquire the manual ex- 
 ercise as taught by Baron Sieuhen, then the 
 only approved master in such matters. It 
 was supposed that a draft would be necessary, 
 but, instead of that, there were more volun- 
 teers than were required to fill the quota of 
 Kentucky, and young Leslie's parents ob- 
 jected to his going, inasmuch as two of his tl- 
 der brothers had previously joined the troops 
 ordered to the northern frontier, under Gene- 
 ral Winchester. It -was not long after they 
 marched, however, before his continued and 
 earnest importunities, sometimes urged with 
 tears in his eyes, prevailed upon them to let 
 hiDi go. Equipping himself as a private of 
 cavalry as speedily as possible, about a month 
 after the army marched from Georgetown, Ken- 
 tucky, he started alone on their track, hoping 
 to overtake them in time to partake of their 
 glorious triumphs in Canada, for, like the 
 rest, he never dreamed of disaster and defeat. 
 "I shall never forget," to quote his words in 
 after years, "the parting scene with my be- 
 loved and venerated mother, in which she re- 
 minded me of my father's history, and her 
 own trials and dangers in the early settlement 
 of Kentucky, and closed by saying to me, 'as I 
 had resolved to become a soldier, I must never 
 disgrace my parents by running from danger; 
 — to die rather than fail to do my duty.' 'This 
 injunction was ever present to him afterwards, 
 in the midst of dangers and difficulties of 
 which he had then formed no idea, and stimula- 
 ted him to deeds that he might otherwise, per- 
 haps, have hesitated to undertake and per- 
 form." 
 
 Here properly closes what may be termed 
 the first chapter of his personal history; be- 
 cause from this time he threw off boyhood, 
 and entered upon a career more befitting 
 manhood. 
 
 Before proceeding with the personal narra- 
 tive of our subject, and in order to enable the 
 reader the better to understand Ihe scenes of 
 danger and suffering through which he passed 
 during the unfortunate campaigns of 1812-1.3, 
 we briefly sketch the situation of the great 
 North-western Territory, now composing some 
 siz or seven sovereign States of this great re- 
 
 publican confederacy. From just beyond Ur- 
 bana and Dayton, in western Ohio, to the 
 northern lakes in one direction, and the Mis- 
 sissippi river in another, was one unbroken 
 wilderness, inhabited only by Indians and wild 
 beasts, with the exception of a few scattering 
 settlements on some of the principle rivers, at 
 great distances from each other. There was a 
 small fort at Detroit, one at Mackinaw, and one 
 at Chicago, besides Fort Wayne and Harrison, 
 each garrisoned by a few regular troops. Wm. 
 Hull ymn Governor of the Territory of Michi- 
 gan, and William Henry Harrison of Indiana. 
 In view of the growing difficulties with Great 
 Britain in the spring of 1S12, Governor Hull 
 received the appointment of Brigadier-General 
 in the army of the United States, and was sent 
 to Ohio to take command of the forces ordered 
 to Detroit to protect that frontier in case of 
 war. These consisted of the fourth regiment 
 of regulars, under Colonel Miller, and three 
 regiments of Ohio volunteers, under Colonels 
 Duncan McArthur, Lewis Cass, and James 
 Findlay. War was declared on the 18th June, 
 1812, while General Hull was on his tardy 
 march through the northern swamps of Ohio 
 towards Detroit. His baggage, which had 
 been sent by Ihe way of the lake, was captured 
 in attempting to pa.«s Maiden, at the mouth of 
 the Detroit river. He himself soon afterwards 
 reached Detroit, issued his famous proclama- 
 tion, and talked largely of overrumiing Upper 
 Canada, for effecting which object he had ample 
 forces under his command; instead of doing 
 which, however, he very soon retreated back to 
 the American shore, and on the 16th August 
 disgracefully surrendered his army and the 
 whole of Michigan Territory to General Brock, 
 commanding the British forces on that frontier. 
 
 Mackinaw had been forced to capitulate a 
 month earlier, and Chicago had been abandoned 
 on the 15th of August, and its garrison mur- 
 dered or captured by a large force of Indians, 
 who had received news cf Hull's retreat from 
 Canada, and thereupon resolved to unite with 
 the British against us, as Ihey had been pre- 
 viously urged to do by Tecumseh, then rising 
 into power among the northern tribes on this 
 side of the Ame/ican and British boundary 
 line. 
 
 Thus our whole frontier from Lake Erie to 
 the Mississippi river was left utterly unde- 
 fended except by two small forts — Wayne and 
 Harrison — one at the junction of the St. Jo- 
 seph and St. Mary rivers, forming the Maurnee 
 of ihe iaie, the other on the far distant Wa- 
 bash. Both were defended by block-houses 
 and wooden pickets, both were attacked by the 
 Indians at about the same time, and Captain 
 Zack. Taylor, defending Fort Harrison, as we 
 have before intimated, with most unflinching 
 heroism, laid the foundation of that subse- 
 quent career of military glory and self-devo- 
 tion, which finally elevated him to the Presi- 
 dential office. 
 
 Three regiments of Kentucky volunteers, 
 under the command of Gen. Payne, and one reg- 
 iment of regulars under Colonel Well>^, had, in 
 
Qentrdl Iiealie Combs. 
 
 the mean time, been ordered to the north-wes- 
 tern frontier, to re-enforce General Hull. The 
 former rendezvoused at Georgetown on the 
 r6th of August, and after being addressed by 
 the old veteran. General Charles Scott, then 
 Oovernor of Kentucky, and by Henry Clay, 
 were mustered into the service of ihe United 
 States. The best blood of Kentucliy, the sons 
 of the old hunters and Indian fighters, could 
 be found in this little army. Two members of 
 Congress were among the privates in the 
 ranks. Little did they imagine, while listen- 
 ing to the soul-stirring appeals of the great 
 Kentucky orator, that, instead of marching to 
 Canada to aid in its conquest, on that very day 
 the white flag of disgraceful surrender had 
 been hung out by the coward or the traitor 
 Hull from the battlements of Detroit; and that 
 their own career of anticipated victories and 
 glory would terminate in disaster, as it did, on 
 the bloody battle-field of Raisin, on the fol- 
 lowing 22d day of January. General James 
 V/inchester had command of this force, and 
 marched on the 17th by way of Cincinnati, 
 {then a small town on the Ohio river, oppo- 
 site Newport,) towards the north-weslern 
 frontier; and it was not until they had passed 
 the Kentucky border that the news of Hull's 
 surrender reached them. 
 
 Governor Harrison had acquired very con- 
 siderable fame by his glorious victory at Tip- 
 pecanoe the preceding November, and was in 
 Kentucky at that time on a visit. So soon as 
 the events just above related were cunimuni- 
 cated to the Government at Washington, three 
 or four additional regiments of volunleprs 
 were ordered from Kentucky, and the Gov- 
 ernor of Kentucky prevailed on Governor Har- 
 rison to accept the office of Major-General , and 
 to hasten with the forces then in Ihe field, and 
 a large body of mounted Kentucky militia, to 
 the relief of Fort Wayne. 
 
 This, it will be remembered, he accom- 
 plished, and forced the Indians end their Brit- 
 ish auxiliries to retreat precipitately towards 
 Canada, without daring to engage him in bat- 
 tle. 
 
 By selling a small piece of land (all he had 
 on earth) devised to him by a deceased elder 
 brother, young Combs soon completed his outfit 
 a.s a volunteer, and, armed with holsters and 
 broad-sword, with only 15 dollars in his pocket, 
 started for the north-western army, which 
 was then marching with all possible speed 
 towards the frontiers of Ohio, in order to re- 
 enforce General Hull. Never having been forty 
 miles from his home before this time, young 
 and inexperienced as he was, nothing but hi» 
 burning zeal for Ihe cause to which he had de- 
 voted himself could have sustained him against 
 all the perils and hardships of his long jour- 
 ney. When he arrived at Piqua, beyond Day- 
 ton, he found crowds of Indians, men, womi-ii, 
 and children, principally from the neighboring 
 Shawanee villages, who were besieging the 
 commissary'.s and quartermaster's apartments 
 for food, blankets, and ammunition. He had 
 Bever before frceo such an array of yellow- 
 
 skins, and was gratified to find at the same 
 place several companies of mounted thirty-day 
 volunteers, hastening to the frontiers after the 
 news of Hull's surrender reached Ohio and 
 Kentucky; in company with whom he pro- 
 ceeded through the wilderness to St. Mary's, 
 dislant twenty or thirty miles. At that place 
 he met General Harrison on his return from 
 the relief of Fort Wayne, after turning over his 
 command to General Winchester, of the regu- 
 lar army. The next day and night, in com- 
 pany with three or four friends, he made the 
 journey to Fort Wayne, distant about sixty 
 miles, through an unbroken wilderness, in- 
 fested with hostile savages; and there found 
 the' troops in motion towards Old Fort Defi- 
 ance, at the junction of the Maumee and Aug- 
 laise rivers, and was attached by general orders 
 as a cadet to the fir.-it regiment of Kentucky- 
 volunteers, under Colonel Scott. In this ca- 
 pacity he continued to do duty the remainder 
 of the campaign, going out on all scouting- 
 parties. and thus becoming well acquainted 
 with the whole surrounding country. Some of 
 them were attended with great hazard, and all 
 of them with extra fatigue and hardships, even 
 when compared with the starred and naked 
 condition of all that wing of the army. 
 
 As these events have no doubt long since 
 passed from the memories of those not immedi- 
 ately connected with them, and the principal 
 history of them, written by Colonel McAfee, 
 is nearly out of print, we take leave to quote 
 from his authentic work. "The History of the 
 late War in the Western Country," printed in 
 1816, the following passages, first remarking 
 that the left wing of the north-western army, 
 under General Winchester, (General Harrison 
 having some weeks before received the ap- 
 pointment of Mnjor-General from the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and assumed the 
 chief command,) was encamped six miles be- 
 low Old Fort Defiance, on the Maumee: 
 
 "About the first of November they became ex- 
 tremely sickly. The typhus fever r.igeJ with vio- 
 lence, so that sometimes three or four would die in 
 a dixy. Upwards of three hundred were daily on 
 the sick list; and so discouraging was the prospect 
 of advancing, that about the lirst of December they 
 were ordered to build huts for their accommodation. 
 Many were so entirely destitute of shoes and other 
 clothing, that they must have frozen if they had 
 been obliged to march any distance; and sometimes 
 the whole army would be for many days entirely 
 without flour." (Pp. 183-4) 
 
 '■From the 10th to the 22d of this month, (Decem- 
 ber,) the camp was without flour, and for some time 
 before they had only half rations; poor beef and 
 hickory roots were their only subsistance. At the 
 same time, fevers and other diseases ragi-d in almost 
 every tent, in which the sick were exposed not only 
 to hunger, but the inclemency of the season." — 
 (Vido pp. 186-6.) 
 
 General Winchester had received orders 
 from General Harrison, as soon as he had ac- 
 cumulated twenty days' provisions, to ad- 
 vance to the rapids, forty-four miles lower 
 down the river than his present camp, and to 
 commence building huts, to induce the enemy 
 
General Leclit Ccnrili. 
 
 to believe Tie was gorug iuto •winter quarters. 
 It "was icdispensable to occupy the rapids, the 
 subsequent site of Fort Meigs, with a force 
 sufficiently strong to protect the provisions, 
 stores, and munitions of war, ■which were to be 
 forwarded from the other wings of the army, 
 located at Fort McArthnr and Upper San 
 dusky, previous to a contemplated rapid move- 
 ment upon Maiden and Detroit. From the 
 22d to the 30th of December, active prepara- 
 tions were being made for this change of po- 
 sition, which was to bring the American forces 
 so much nearer to the enemy. The river being 
 frozen over, they were obliged to take the bag- 
 gage on their backs, or on rickety sleds, to be 
 hauled by the men, for all their horses which 
 had not been sent into the interior in October 
 or November, had starved to death. 
 
 "Having provided for the sick, and assigned 
 guards to attend and protect them, the march for the 
 rapids was comraeuced on the 30th December, At 
 the same time, Mr. Leslie Combs, a young man of in- 
 telligence and enterprise from Kentucky, who had 
 joined the army as a volunteer on its march from 
 Fort Wayne to Fort Defiance, a'ccompanied by }lv, 
 A. Ruddle, as a guide, was sent with dispatches to 
 inform the commander-in-chief (General Harrison) 
 of this movement, in order that provisions and re- 
 enforcements might be forwarded as soon as possi- 
 ble. General Winchester expected to be met by 
 these at the rapids by the 12th of January. This, 
 however, was prevented by an immense fall of 
 snow, which, as Mi". Combs had to traverse on foot 
 a pathless wilderness of more than one hundred 
 ■miles m extent, retarded him for four or five days 
 longer in reaching even the first point of destination, 
 (Fort McArthur,) than would otherwise have been 
 •necessary to perform the whole route." — McAfee, 
 p. 201. 
 
 These dispatches consisted of a brief note, 
 introducing young Combs to General Harri- 
 son, "as a youth whose information as to the 
 intended movements of General Winchester 
 could be entirely relied upon;" and at the 
 same time he was fully possessed by General 
 Winchester, confidentially, of all his inten- 
 tions, which it was deemed unsafe to intrust 
 to caper, inasmuch as his journey was to be 
 through a region full of savages, who might 
 take his scalp and capture his papers. These 
 •confidential communications, intrusted to him 
 alone, and by him duly made to General Har- 
 rison, enabled him, in 1840, to vindicate the 
 old hero of Tippacano with entire success, 
 before the American people, agaln.ot the foul 
 aspersion cast upon him by his enemies in 
 reference to the subsequent disastrous de- 
 feat of General Winchester at the river Eaisin, 
 on the 22d January, 1813. 
 
 What he suffered on this tramp may be im- 
 agined, but can not well be described. He 
 had been accustomed only to wear his sword, 
 after sending his horse to the interi"r, and 
 their daily marching had ceased for some two 
 -months. He was on this occasion loaded with 
 a heavy musket and accoutrements, in addi- 
 tion to a 'blanket and four days' provision on 
 iis back. The snow commenced falling on the 
 
 morning of the 3Ist December, and continued 
 without intermission two days and nights, so 
 that on the third day of their journey, young 
 Combs and his companion found it over two 
 feel deep. They were in a dense forest, with- 
 out path or compass, and only guided by the 
 unerring skill of his companion, who had been 
 some fifteen years in early life a captive among 
 the Indians in this region, and was well 
 skilled in all their ways and customs. Seve- 
 ral nights they encamped in the black swamp, 
 and could not find a place to lie down and 
 rest, even on the snow, but were compelled to 
 sit up all night with a small fire at their feet, 
 made of such old brush as they could collect, 
 and, wrapping themselves in their blankets, 
 shivered through the long hours till day light 
 enabled them again to resume their tiresome 
 march. On the sixth day, their four days' 
 provision was entirely exhausted, and they had 
 early put themselves on short allowance. 
 Young Combs was extremely ill nearly all 
 night, so much so, ihat it was concluded that 
 Ruddle must leave hirn in the morning to his 
 fate, and for himself make the best of his way 
 to the nearest settlement or fort, and endeavor 
 to save Combs, if he should survive till his re- 
 turn. Fortunately for our young volunteer, 
 his natural strength of constitution, and, it 
 may be added, his uvjlinching resolution never 
 to slop while he could walk, overcame his dis- 
 ease, and be kept moving for three days and 
 nights longer, without a mouthful of food for 
 either himself or his companion, except slip- 
 pery elm bark. On the ninth evening, after 
 dark, they reached Fort McArthur, then under 
 command of General Tupper. 
 
 Every attention was paid to young Comba 
 by General Tupper and his staff, on his arri- 
 val at the head quarter.=. of that General. But 
 his sufferings had been so great, that he was 
 prostrated for days aft.efwards on a bed of 
 .sickness; as, in addition to hunger and fa- 
 tigue, his feet were badly frost-bitten, and his 
 arm joints stiffened with rheumatic pains, from 
 which he has never since recovered. Being un- 
 able to proceed to Upper Sandusky, where 
 General Harrison was posted, his dispatches 
 were conveyed to him, with a brief letter from 
 himself, by a special messenger on horseback, 
 the day after his arrival at Fort McArthur. 
 
 As soon as it was considered safe for him 
 to leave his quarters, he was furnished with a 
 sled, trt'o horses, and a driver, and proceeded 
 as speedily as possible through the snow to 
 the rapids, distant about ninety or one hun- 
 dred miles by way -oi Hull's trace, which place 
 he reached on the evening of the l9th of Janu- 
 ary, expecting to find General Winchesters 
 army encamped there, as that General had told 
 him he would be. Instead of this, he met 
 the news of Colonel Lewis's glorious victory 
 on the ISlh, at river Raisin, over the British 
 and Indians, thirty -six miles in advance of the 
 rapids, and about twenty miles onlv from 
 Maiden, the head-quarters of the British army 
 in Upper Canada. Disappointed and morti- 
 fied that a battle had been fought in hia ab- 
 
(joneral ]jss!if Comhs. 
 
 seiice, and apprehending the speedy recurrence 
 of another similar event of a more conclusive 
 character, as General Winchester bad himself 
 gone on with the flower of his forces that 
 morning, to re-enforce Colonel Lewis; with- 
 out waiting for General Harrison, who was 
 expected in a day or two, with a portion of the 
 right wing of the army, he determined to lose 
 no time in reporting himself at head quarters. 
 Accordingly, on the 21st, in the evening, he 
 set off on foot, with his blanket and one day's 
 rations on his back, and without his old heavy 
 nausket, to overtake Major Cotgreve's battal- 
 ion, which was understood to have been hur- 
 ried forward by General Harrison from Lower 
 Sandusky, with two or three pieces of light 
 artillery, in the direction of the river Raisin. 
 He soon accomplished his object, as the Mau- 
 mee was frozen over from shore to shore, and 
 he could travel on the ice with much greater 
 rapidity than by land through the deep crusted 
 snow. 
 
 With them he found another young Kentuck- 
 ian, with a small pony, loaded with his bag- 
 gage and provisions, proceeding to join his 
 regiment, from which he had been separated 
 for some time. The night of the 2lst was 
 bright, clear, and beauiiful, but intensely cold, 
 with a full moon shining; and at two o'clock 
 his newly found companion and himself de- 
 termined to make an Effort to reach the river 
 Baisin before the next night. So anxious were 
 they to accomplish this purpose, that they for- 
 got for the time their being on hostile ground, 
 as recognized by Hull in his articles of capitu- 
 lation, and thai there were one or two villages 
 intervening between them and theT point of 
 destination. Whether they should encounter 
 in them friend or foe, and how many murder- 
 ing Pottawalamies might be prowling through 
 the forests, were not laken into account; on- 
 ward they resolved to go, and at all hazards. 
 
 After twelve or thirteen hours' laborious 
 trudging through the snow and ice, one lead 
 ing and the other driving their little half- 
 starved pony, they arrived at a small village 
 about ten miles from the river Raisin, to wit- 
 ness a scene of consternation and distress 
 never before presented to their view. An 
 American soldier, without hat, coat, or shoes, 
 had just arrived from the disastrous field of 
 Baisin, with an exaggerated account of that 
 bloody affair, and the whole population were 
 preparing to fly towards the American army, 
 supposed to be approaching under General 
 Harrison, by way of the ice on the lake and 
 river. While hesitating whether to believe 
 this most painful news, and return, or treat 
 it as the tale of a coward, and proceed to tho 
 scene of action, they discovered another fu- 
 gitive in the distant prairie approaching them, 
 who, on his arrival, confirmed all ibey had just 
 heard, with the additional fact, that the Indi- 
 ans were purSuing the flying troops under Win- 
 chester and Lewis, in the direction towards 
 their present location. Id a very short space 
 of time, with the exception of a few Canadian 
 Frenchmen and one family of whom we shall 
 
 presently speak more particularly, the whole 
 village was depopulated, leaving houses and 
 furniture, barns, grain, stock, everything but 
 the little bedding, food and clothing they 
 could pack on sleds and carryalls, and scud- 
 ding for life on the ice towards the rapids. 
 It was a scene never to be forgotten by our 
 young soldier. It was the first time he had 
 ever seen war, face to face, or rather the effects 
 of war. He had read and thought and 
 dreamed of battles and their awful desolations; 
 but this miniature likfness was his first per- 
 sonal view, and it sickened and saddened his 
 heart. We will not stop to moralize, but pro- 
 ceed with our facts.* 
 
 The Frenchmen above mentioned, young 
 Combs understood, were Indian traders; and 
 from their knowledge of several Irdian lan- 
 guages and general friendly intercourse with 
 them, they had remained, ffith the hope of 
 being able to save their friends' property from 
 the torches of the enraged enemy. The family 
 before spoken of consisted of husband, wife. 
 
 *"MASSAcnE OP Baisin.— Proctor [Colonel] then 
 agreed to receive a surrender on tlie following terms: 
 that all private property should be respected; that 
 sleds should be sent next morning to remove the sick 
 and wounded to Amherstburg, on the island oppo- 
 site Maiden; that in the mean time they ehrndd lie 
 protected hy a guard; and that the side-arms of 
 the officers should be restored to them at Maiden. 
 [Query: Why were their side-arms taken from them 
 at all, if treachery was not contemplated?] . . . 
 About 12 o'clock, the prisoners were marched oU". 
 Drs. Todd and Bowers, of the Kentucky volunteers, 
 were left with the wounded; and .Miijor Reynolds, 
 [an American officer and prisoner also,] with two or 
 three interpreters, was all the oiiard left to protect 
 them, . . . About sunrise, instead of sleds .ar- 
 riving to convey them to Maiden, a large body of In- 
 dians, perhaps two hundred in number, came into 
 the town, painted black and red. . . . They be- 
 gan first to plunder the houses of the inhabitants, 
 and then broKe into those where the wounded pris- 
 oners were lying, some of whom they abused and 
 stripped of their clothes and blankets, and then tom- 
 ahawked them without mercy. . . . The few 
 who were judged able to march, were saved and 
 taken off towards Maiden; but as often as any of 
 them gave out on the way, they were tomahawked 
 and left lying on the road. . . . For the mas- 
 sacre at the river Raisin, for which any other civi- 
 lized Government would have dismissed, and per- 
 haps have gibbetted the commander, Colonel Proc- 
 tor received the rank of Major General in the Brit- 
 ish army. . . . Proctor, after he had left the 
 battle-ground, never named the guards nor sleds 
 which they had promised for the wouaded Amer- 
 icans; nor would he pay any attention to the sub- 
 ject, when repeatedly reminded of it by General 
 Winchester and Major Madison, [prisoners.] Cap- 
 tain Elliott [of the British armvj once replied to 
 their solioitotions, that "the Indians were tery ex- 
 cellent surgeons ! . . . The prospect of their re- 
 lease, however, was now very gloomy, as Proctor had 
 issued ^n order, forhidding individvals to vur- 
 cliase c^y more of them, \ihe prutmers,'] while a 
 stipulated- price was ttiilpatd for all the scalps 
 hrought inj^j tha .^aranes/' — See ifcAfce, np, 216 
 -2J. ' ■ 
 
General l.rslie Combs. 
 
 and five children, the lart;>'sl, about twelve 
 years old. They were distributed between a 
 small one horse sleigh and an ox sled loaded 
 with cookiu^ utensils, food and bedding. 
 The latter vehicle could iiut proceed, as all 
 the rest had done, on tlie ice, because the oxen 
 were unshod, and the owner did cot know 
 that Hull's old road by land back to the Mau- 
 mee was sufficiently free from obstruction to 
 enable him to save his family by that route 
 Fortunately, Combs and his companion had 
 just traveled that way, and could assure him 
 of its entire practicability, and that, moreover, 
 troops were advancing by it at that very time, 
 with whom they had encamped the previous 
 night. Having done thus much, the dictates 
 of ordinary prudence — the law of i=elf-preser- 
 vation, deemed by some the first law of nature 
 — might have impelled our young officer and 
 his Companion to disencumber their pony of 
 his pack, and with his aid have saved them- 
 selves from the much-appreheuded tamahawk 
 and scalping knife of the Indians, reeking and 
 red as they were with the blood of their gal- 
 lint associates and friends at Raisin. 
 
 But in the boys' hearts of our youthful ad- 
 venturers there was a "higher law," a duty 
 which they thought they owed to the army in 
 their rear, and the helpless family in their 
 presence, which induced them to give up the 
 pony to the two soldiers, togethsr with blank- 
 ets to protect themselves; directing them to 
 ride alternately, and hasten back to General 
 Harrison with the sad tidings they had just 
 communicated to them, and which was to blast 
 all his cherished hopes of a successful inva 
 sion of Upper Canada that winter. 
 
 At the same time, throwing their packs upon 
 the ox-sled, our adventurers started the terri- 
 fied family in the same direction, remaining 
 themselves some distance in the rear, to give 
 notice of approaching danger, and as far as 
 possible save their family, if death should come 
 on themselves. 
 
 Young Hensley, his Kentucky companion, 
 had a musket; Tessier, their protege, had a 
 fusee or shot-gun, and Combs himself was 
 armed "vith a sword and belt-pistols. Their 
 march was of course very slow; but it seemed 
 to our ardent young officer that he had never 
 before seen oxen move with such tardy pace. 
 They knew not at what moment their ears 
 would be saluted with the savage war-whoop 
 in their rear. Thus they proceeded till the 
 road was lost in darkness, hoping to meet 
 Major Cotgreve's battalion, and were forced 
 to encamp by the road side. They watched 
 all night, one of them acting as sentinel about 
 a hundred paces from the fire, on the trace 
 towards Raisin, and at dawn they again re- 
 sumed their slow retreat. They had not gone 
 over two or three miles, when, instead of 
 meeting an armed band which would give 
 them comparative safely, they found Cotgreve's 
 baggage-sleds and artillery abandoned in the 
 road, with all the marks of sudden and pre- 
 cipitate flight. "I shall not pretend," Combs' 
 subsequently writes, "to describe our feelings 
 
 at this unexpected sight; but thank Heaven vc. 
 did not abandon our voluntarily assumed 
 charge, but resolved, come what would, to save 
 them or peri.-h with them." 
 
 Just befoie sunset, they came in sight of 
 the Maumee river, and at the ^anie time dis- 
 covered that Winchesti'r's camp, loft in charge 
 of General Payne, some thres or four miles up 
 the river was in flames. At first they sup- 
 posed that the British and Indians had gotten 
 ahead of them by way of the lake and river 
 ice, and had defeated the remnant wing of the 
 army and General Harrison's le-enforcemcnts, 
 and that their own destiny was sealed. They 
 were soon relieved however from this painful 
 apprehension, by discovering a wounded sol- 
 dier who had made his escape by that route, 
 and who assured them that no enemy had pa,ssed 
 him. 
 
 We shall only refer to so much of the mili- 
 tary operations about this period on that 
 frontier as may render the personal narrative 
 of the subject of the memoir intelligible. The 
 two flying soldiers to whom Hensley had 
 promptly abandoned his pony at Combs' sug- 
 gestion, and determined to aid the latter in 
 bringing off the distressed family, had, it 
 seems, communicated to Major Cotgreve the 
 t^ame alarming information they had given to 
 Combs, "that at least foe thousand Indian war- 
 riors were in hot pursuit, under Tccuinseh and 
 Dixon," and thus caused his precipitate re- 
 treat. They reached General Winchester's old 
 camp at the rapids, at which General Harri- 
 son, in the mean time, had arrived with a small 
 body-guard early on the 23d, having traveled 
 all night, and caused him to abandon the po- 
 sition north of the Maumee, set fire to th« 
 camp, and fall back to the south side of Por- 
 tage river, some fifteen or twenty miles nearer 
 the Ohio settlements on Hull's trace. 
 
 Young Combs followed his footsteps across 
 the river on the ice, after sundown on the 23d, 
 and arrived on the opposite side of Portage 
 river on the evening of the 24th, with his 
 small caravan, much to the surprise and jsy 
 of his frrendb, who had already numbered him 
 among the dead. Having been mainly instru- 
 mental in saving also three of that gallant 
 band of Kentuckians, who had marched to the 
 frontier sonu' fiv,' months before, with such 
 devoted patuonsm and bouyant hopes of mil- 
 itary glory, for the first time since he met the 
 news of the disaster, he now felt safe from 
 pursuii.and gratified more than words could 
 express that he had the nerve to do his duty. 
 
 The weather had moderated, and the rain 
 had been falling all day, so that the ice on the 
 river had split near the centre and bulged up- 
 wards, rendering it difficult as well as danger- 
 ous to cross. But nothing could stop our 
 young adventurer's friends, when he came in 
 sight, from rushing across to 'meet him. Ma- 
 jors Hardiu and Gano conducted him to head- 
 quarters, and introduced him to General Har- 
 rison, informing him what he had done. "Jt 
 was a proud moment for me," writes Mr. 
 Comb.-^, in refcrance to that sight, "thus to be 
 
8 
 
 Qeneral Leslie Comht. 
 
 presented: and while Gen ; H. complimented me, 
 and said I was worthy of a civic crown, his eyes 
 were moist with tears, and mine were not dry. 
 That tear-drop of the hero of Tippacanoe fell 
 upon my heart; and my untiring support of 
 him in 1840, when he was a candidate for the 
 Presidency, can not be wondered at, although 
 my fii-t choice then and ever had been Henry 
 
 CiAY " 
 
 "I had no time," he continues, "on my per- 
 ilous retreat, to weep for my murdered frieuds 
 and fellow soldiers at Raisin. My eyes were 
 dry and ray nerves seemed rigid as iron until 
 personal danger was over, aud all under ray 
 charge in safely.'' Of over nine hundred offi- 
 cers aud soldiers eniraged in that disastrous 
 battle, only thirty three escaped; all the rest 
 were killed on t)ie field, massacred, or led into 
 captivity. The news filled the whole country 
 with the deepest grief; Kentucky was clad in 
 mourning, and General Harrison himself over- 
 whelmed with sorrow and disappointment. 
 Very soon afterwards, the remnant of the Ken- 
 tucky regiments engaged in the conflict were 
 discharged; but the subject of this memoir de- 
 clined to leave for some time, not knowing that 
 the invasion of Upper Canada was abandoued 
 for the winter, till after Fort Meigs was erec- 
 ted, and General Harrison himself in a com- 
 plimentary note advised him of the fact, and 
 permitted him to return to Kentucky, with the 
 expectation of again joining him in the spring 
 ■with other volunteers. Thus ended his first 
 campaign. 
 
 When he arrived at home, with his clothes 
 much worn and badly soiled, his mother met 
 him with a tear and a smile, remarking in 
 jest, that she was surprised to see him so soon, 
 as he had told her he would not return until 
 they had taken Canada. H'S reply was, "that 
 he had only come home to get a clean shirt." 
 And she very soon found he was in earnest. 
 
 The defeat at Raisin, and the discharge of 
 the remainder of the Kentucky troops, made 
 the situation of General Harrison, and the 
 whole north-western frontier, extremely criti- 
 cal. Two old forts there remained in our pos- 
 session. Forts Wayne and Harrison. Fort 
 Winchester had been erected on the site of old 
 Fort Defiance, and General Harrison had built 
 Fort Meigs at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, 
 on the south side of the river. The latter was 
 the only place at all prepared for an attack 
 by heavy artillery; and it was to be ex- 
 pected that as soon as the ice an the lake and 
 river broke up in the spring, the British, hav- 
 ing command on the water, and entire pos- 
 session of Michigan Territory, would assail 
 that position. It was of the first importance, 
 therefore, to have General Harrison re-eufnrced 
 as soon as possible, for the fall of Fort Meigs 
 would expose the whole north-western fron- 
 tier {o fire and desolation. For this purpose. 
 General Green Clay, marched from Kentucky, 
 early in April, with two regiments of volun- 
 teers, taking the same route which General 
 Winchester had done. Having made the ne- 
 cessary preparations, Combs started himself 
 
 soon afterwards to rejoin General Harrison aS 
 Fort Meigs, as he had promised to do, and 
 overtook General Clay at Dayton Totally 
 unprovided as that General w.is wilh maps of 
 the vast wilderness into whirh he was about 
 to plunge, the practical iiifuimalion which 
 young Combs hud obtained on the previous 
 campaign, as to the geography of iheconniry, 
 its waier-courfe.s, newly cut roadh, Ii.dian 
 villages, Ac, Ac, was deeuied of much im- 
 portance; and before the expedition reached 
 Piqua, he tendered young Combs the appoint- 
 ment of Captain of Spies, wilh the privilege of 
 selecting his company from Colonel Dudley's 
 regiment. He had not expected a posiiion so 
 high or responsible, and felt much diffidence 
 of his ability to discharge its dangerous du- 
 ties. 
 
 The next day, another company was organ- 
 ized in Colonel Boswtll's regiment, com- 
 manded by an old Indian fighter under Wayne, 
 named Kilbreath; and by way of distinction 
 afterwards, our young volunteer was called the 
 Ao!^ captain. Their pay was thirty dollars per 
 month <'Xtra; and he had no difficulty there- 
 fore, in filling bis company wilh activt gallant 
 riflemen, but one or two of whom however had 
 seen service. 
 
 When they reached St. Mary's block-house, 
 General Clay divided his brigade, sending Col. 
 Dudley's regiment across to the Auglaise river, 
 and descending the St. Mary's himself, with 
 Colonel Boswell's, intending to unite them 
 again at old Fort Defiance. Caplain Combs 
 was attached to the for^uer; and on their march 
 down the Auglaise, an express reached them 
 from Fort Meigs, wilh the intelligence that 
 General Harrison was in daily expectation of 
 an attack, and urging them to proceed with all 
 possible dispatch. Colonel Dudley immedi- 
 ately summoned a council of ofiicers to meet 
 at his quarters, where it was unanimously re- 
 solved that General Harrison ought to be ap- 
 prised of their approach, and his orders, as 
 to the time and miinner, received. How this 
 was to be accomplished was then the question. 
 It was fifty miles from Fort Defiance, where 
 they expected to meet General Clay, to Fort 
 Meigs; and it was deemed extremely hazard- 
 ous for any one to attempt to open a commu- 
 nication between the two points, especially as 
 no one present, except Captain Combs, knew 
 the exact position of Fort Meigs, or had any 
 knowledge of the intervening country. He 
 had remained silent during the consultation, 
 but now all eyes were turned npon him, and 
 he felt bound to speak. "Colonel Dudley," 
 said he "General Clay has thought proper to 
 intrust me with an important command, at- 
 tached to your regiment. When we reach Fort 
 Defiance, if you will furnish me a good canoe. 
 I will carry your dispatches to General Harri- 
 son, and return with his orders. I shall only 
 require four or five volunteersi from my own 
 company, and one of my Indian guides to ac- 
 company me." As may be supposed, his offer 
 was joyfully accepted, and the Colonel spe- 
 cially complimented him for his voluntary 
 
Ckneral Leslia Combi. 
 
 9 
 
 propoaitioa as he said he should have had great 
 reluctance iu ordering any officer upon such a 
 dangerous expedition. 
 
 The troops encamped at Fort Defiance on 
 the afternoon of the first of May. General 
 Clay, meanwhile, had not arrived. Captain 
 Combs immediately prepared for his perilous 
 trip. The two Wallsers, Paxton, and John- 
 son, were to accompany him, as well as the 
 young Shawnee warrior. Black Fish. As they 
 pushed off from shore at the mouth of the 
 Auglaise, the banli was covered with their anx- 
 ious fellow soldiers; and Maj. Shelby remarked, 
 looking at his watch, "Remember, Captain 
 Combs, if we never meet again, it is exactly 
 six o'clock when we part;" and he lias since 
 told Capt. Combs that he never expected to see 
 him again alive. 
 
 Captain Combs would have started some 
 hours earlier, could his frail craft have been 
 gotten ready; for he knew it would require 
 hard work, even with the aid of a strong cur- 
 rent, to reach Fort Meigs before daylight the 
 next morning. Placing his Shawnee in the 
 stern, with steering-oar, and two men at the 
 side-oars, alternately relieving each other, the 
 Captain took his position in the bow, to take 
 care of their rifles and direct the course to be 
 pursued; keeping as nearly as possible in the 
 middle of the stream, for fear of Indians on 
 either side. By dark they had come within 
 distinct hearing of the distant roar of heavy 
 artillery in their front, and knew that General 
 Harrison's apprehensions of an early assault 
 upon his weak position were verified. 
 These sounds were new to their ears and 
 highly exciting. It was late in the night when 
 they reached the head of the rapids, and it 
 seemed every moment as if their light canoe 
 would be dashed in pieces. By lying flat on 
 his face, the Captain could form some idea of 
 the course of the deep channel, amid the war 
 of waters which nearly deafened them, by see- 
 ing the foaming breakers glistening iu the star- 
 light. When they approached Roche debout, 
 where they were informed there was a consid- 
 erable perpendicular fall in low water, they 
 were forced to land and haul their canoe along 
 the margin of the southern bank till they had 
 passed the main obstruction; and daylight 
 dawned upon them before they were again 
 afloat. They were still some seven or eight 
 miles above the fort, and well knew that the 
 surrounding forests were alive with hostile 
 savages. 
 
 When the frightful appearance of the swol- 
 len river first presented itself to the view of our 
 voyagers by daylight, one of the men urged 
 Oapt. Combs to land, and endeavor to get to the 
 fort; but this plan was not to be thought of. 
 Three other alternatives remained to him: to 
 return and report the reason of his failure to 
 go any farther; to remain where he was during 
 the day, and make an attempt to enter the 
 fort the next night; or to proceed at once. The 
 first plan would have been most prudent; and 
 if he had been an old and experienced of- 
 ficer, of established reputation for courage, per- 
 2 
 
 haps it ought to have been adopted ; but he was 
 a mere boy, with but little military experience, 
 intrusted with a most importantduty at his own 
 instance; and his aged mother's last injunction 
 was fresh in his heart, as well as in his recol- 
 lection; Ae could not retreat. If he should de- 
 termine to remain where he was during the 
 day, they would most probably be discovei'ed 
 and tomahawked before night. He therefore 
 resolmd instantly to go ahead, desperate as the 
 chances seemed against him, and risk all 
 consequences. Not one of his brave compan- 
 ions demurred to his determination, although 
 he toldthem ihey would certainly be compelled 
 to earn theii breakfasts before they would have 
 the honor of taking cofiee with General Har- 
 rison. 
 
 No one can well conceive his deep anxiety 
 and intense excitement as he was approaching 
 tlie last bend of the river which shut the fort 
 from their view. He knew not but that, after 
 all his risks, he might only arrive in time to 
 see the example of Hull imitated, and the white 
 flag of surrender and disgrace hung out from 
 the walls; but, instead of that, as they swept 
 rapidly round the point, the first object that 
 met their sight was the British batteries belch- 
 ing forth their iron hail across the river, and 
 the bomb-sliells flying in the air; and the next 
 moment they saw the glorious stars and stripes 
 gallantly floating in the breeze. "Oh, it was a 
 grand scene." "They could not suppress 
 a shout; aud one of his men, Paxton, has 
 since declared to him that he then felt as 
 if it would take about a peck of bullets to 
 kill him I" Captain Combs had prepared 
 everything for action, by handing to each 
 man his rifle freshly loaded, and in the 
 mean time, keeping near the middle of the 
 river, which was several hundred yards wide, 
 not Itnowing from which side they would be 
 first attacked. 
 
 He hoped that General Harrison might now 
 and then be taking a look with his spy-glass 
 up the river, expecting Gen. Clay, and would 
 see them and send out an escort to bring them 
 in. He did not know that that General was 
 beleaguered on all sides, and hotly pressed at 
 every point. At first they saw only a solitary 
 Indian in the edge of the woods on the Amer- 
 ican side, running down the river so as to get 
 in hail of them; and they took him for a 
 friendly Shawnee, of whom they knew General 
 Harrison had several in his service as guides 
 and spies. His steersman himself was for a 
 moment deceived, and exclaimed, in his deep 
 guttural voice, "Shawnee," at the same time 
 turning the bow of the canoe towards him. A 
 moment afterwards, however, when he raised 
 the war-whoop, and they saw the woods full 
 of red devils, running with all their speed to 
 a point on the river below them, so as to cut 
 them off from the fort, or drive them into the 
 mouths of the British cannon, Captain Combs' 
 young warrior exclaimed, *' Pottawaiamie , God 
 damnV and instantly turned the boat toward 
 the opposite shore. The race between the lit- 
 tle water party and the Indians was not long 
 
10 
 
 Qeneral Leslie Combt. 
 
 doubtful. The latter had the advantage in 
 distance, and reached the point before the foi 
 mer. Oombs still hoped to pass them -with 
 little injury, owing to the width of the river 
 and the rapidity of the current, and therefore 
 ordered his men to receive their fire without 
 returning it, as he feared an attacls also from 
 the near shore, which would require all their 
 means of resistance to repel. If successful, 
 heihould still have time and space enough to 
 recross the river before he got within range of 
 the British batteries, and save his little band 
 from certain destruction. The first gun fired, 
 however, satisfied him of his error, as the ball 
 whistled over the canoe without injury, fol- 
 lowed by a volley, which prostrated Johnson, 
 mortally wounded, and also disabled Paxton; 
 not, however, before they had all fired at the 
 crowd, and saw several tumbling to the ground. 
 Captain Combs was thus, as a last hope, 
 forced to run his craft ashore, and attempt to 
 make good his way back 50 miles to Fort Win- 
 chester on the south side of the river. To 
 «ome extent they succeeded. The two Walk 
 •ers soon left the party, by. the Captain's or 
 •der, to save themselves; the Indian nobly re- 
 mained with Paxton, and helped him along for 
 six or seven miles, until he was so exhausted 
 ■with the loss of blood as to be unable to travel 
 farther. Captain Combs was less fortunate 
 with poor Johnson, who, with all his aid, 
 could barely drag himself half a mile from 
 their place of landing, and both he and 
 Paxton were very soon captured and taken to 
 GeBeral Proctor's head-quarters. They even 
 reported, as was afterwards learned, that they 
 had killed the Captain, and showed as evi- 
 dence of the fact his cloth coat, which he had 
 thrown off, putting on in its stead an old hun- 
 ting-shirt, after he had left Johnson, so as to 
 disincumber himself of all surplus weight. 
 His woodcraft, learned in the previous cam- 
 paign, now did him good service, as it ena- 
 bled him to elude his pursuers; and after two 
 days and nights of starvation and suffering, he 
 again met Major Shelby and his other friends, 
 at the month of the Auglaise, on the fourth of 
 May, in the morning, after all hope of his re 
 turn had been given up. The two Walkers 
 were a day ahead of him, and his brave young 
 Indian succeeded in making his way to his na- 
 tive village. 
 
 The historian McAfee, page 264, in speaking 
 of another expedition of a somewhat similar 
 character, subsequently undertaken by Major 
 Trimble, at the instance of General Clay, thus 
 alludes to the above: 
 
 "To penetrate to the camp (Fort Mcifjs) thus ex- 
 posed m an open boat, was deumed extremely haz- 
 ardous. Such an attempt had already been made 
 by Captain Leslie Combs, who was sent down in a 
 canoe with five or six men by Colonel Dudley, on 
 his arrival at Fort Defiance. The Captain was at- 
 tacken by the Indians and compelled to retreat, after 
 bravely contending with superior numbers till he had 
 lost nearly all his men." 
 
 Captain Combs' mouth and throat were ex- 
 coriated by eating bitter hickory buds, and 
 
 nothing else, for the last forty-eight hours. 
 His feet were dreadftlly lacerated by traveling 
 in moccasins through burnt prairies, and his 
 body and limbs were all over sore and chafed 
 by constant exercise in wet clothes, as he was 
 compelled to swim several swollen creeks, as 
 it was raining part of the time most violently. 
 In this situation he was ordered to bed in one 
 of the boats just preparing to descend the 
 river with Gen. Clay's brigade. 
 
 He could not for days afterwards eat any 
 solid food, and yet early next morning he 
 found they were making a landing, just above 
 the scene of his disaster four days before, and 
 that the two companies of spies and the friend- 
 ly Indian warriors were paraded on the beach, 
 seemingly waiting for him to come, although 
 the surgeon had told them he was unable to 
 leave his pallet. Colonel Dudley's regiment 
 was soon all landed and formed three lines, 
 preparatory to an early engagement with the 
 enemy, and Captain Combs was informed that 
 the spies were to constitute the vanguard. A 
 battle — a real battle — was to be fought ! de- 
 lightful thought ! The British batteries were 
 to be stormed and destroyed, while General 
 Harrison was assaulting the Indians and their 
 allies on the opposite side of the river. At 
 last he would have a chance to do something 
 to make up for all his previous sufferings and 
 misfortunes; and he forgot every bodily pain. 
 In a few minutes he was on his feet and dressed. 
 He was received with a glad shout at the van- 
 guard, and commenced the march in front of 
 the left flank, towards the enemy. Colonel 
 Dudley himself led the attacking column, and 
 captured the batteries from the rear, without 
 the loss of a man. "The British flag was cut 
 down, and the shouts of the American garri- 
 son announced their joy at this consummation 
 of their wishes. General Harrison was stand- 
 ing on the grand battery next the river, and 
 now called to the men and made signs to them 
 to retreat to their boats and cross over, as he 
 had previously ordered them, but all in vain." 
 — McAfee, pac/e ^10. 
 
 Just before the batteries were taken, a body 
 of Indians lying in ambush had fired upon 
 Captain Combs' comrnand, and shot down sev- 
 eral of his men. He immediately formed in 
 front of them, posting Captain Kilbreath ou 
 the left flank, while he himself occupied the 
 right, and maintained his ground till re-enfored 
 by Colonel Dudley, who felt the neccessity of 
 bringing him off the ground, inasmuch as he had 
 given him no orders to retreat, and had deter- 
 mined not to sacrifice him. Captain Kilbreath 
 was killed at his post, and Captain Combs was 
 slightly touched by a ball before he received 
 any assistance. They soon after routed the 
 enemy, and pursued them by successive charges 
 of bayonet some two or three miles through 
 the swamp In the meantime the British had 
 retaken their batteries, and driven off our left 
 column, which had been left to guard them. 
 The Indians, two, were largely re-enforced, 
 and were trying to surround the Kentucky de- 
 tachment, or, at any rate, to cut them off from 
 
Qmeral Leslit Combi. 
 
 11 
 
 their boats. Under these ciroumstrnces.a re- 
 treat was ordered, with directions again to 
 form at the batteries, it not tlien being isuown 
 to the party that they had been retaljen. As 
 had been the case at Raisin, and will ever be 
 repeated with raw troops, the retreat caused 
 much disorder and confusion, and cost the 
 Kentuckians most dearly, for many of the woun- 
 ded were now tomahawked and scalped; 
 among them their brave, unfortunate comman- 
 der, Colonel Dudley. Captain Combs' posi- 
 tion threw him in the rear in this movement, 
 and, although severely wounded in the shoul- 
 der by a ball, which remained lodged in his 
 body, and bleeding prefusely, he was enabled 
 now and then to make a rally and drive back 
 the painted devils, when they would be rusli- 
 ing up too closely upon his command He 
 had no idea that those in front of him had sur- 
 renaered, until he found himself in the midst 
 of the British regulars, and trampling on the 
 thrown-away arms of the Kentucky troops. 
 And here and thus his long-desired battle 
 ended — a second river Raisin bloody mas- 
 sacre.* 
 
 The brilliant early history of an Alexander 
 and a Napoleon, which had ever vividly 
 floated in his mind in glorious visions as to his 
 own unaided military career, were now ex- 
 changed for the agonizing reality of a prisoner 
 of war; and yet he had not half reached the 
 goal of torturing exposure which the afternoon 
 of that dreadful day was to bring upon him. 
 
 The pen of the historian has long since 
 given to the world some of the leading events 
 to which we refer, and they have, perhaps, 
 passed from the memory of the reader; but we 
 do not recollect ever to have seen an authentic 
 account published from any one of the unfor 
 tunate captives, and shall, therefore proceed 
 to give in substance that of Caplain Leslie 
 Combs. General Proctor, who owed his eleva- 
 tion from a colonelcy to a previous victory, 
 stained by the most revelling atrocities, and 
 who witnessed, if not permitted those horrid 
 atrocities, committed on the present occasion 
 by his Indian confederates, was afterwards dis- 
 missed from the British army for his 
 disgraceful flight from General Harrison 
 
 *"The prisoners were taken down to the British 
 head-quarters, put into Fort Miami, and the Indians 
 permitted to garrison the surrounding rampart, and 
 amuse themselves bj loading and filing at the 
 crowd, or at any p.irticular individuat. Those who 
 prefeired to inflict a still more cruel and savage 
 death, selected thi^ir victims, led them to the gate- 
 way, and there under the eye '>/ Genei-al Fructor, 
 und in the presence of the whole British army, 
 pymahawhed arid scal^ied them / . . As soon as 
 Tecumsdh beheld it, [the carnage,] he flourished his 
 sword, and, in a loud voice, ordered them "for shame 
 to desist. It is a disgrace tg kill a defencclesS'pris- 
 ioner." His orders were obeyed, to the great joy of 
 the prisoners, who had by this time, lost all hopes of 
 being preserved. In this single act, Tecuraseh dis- 
 played more humanity, magnanimity, and civiliza- 
 tinij, than Proctor, with all his British associates in 
 cJmmand, displayed in the whole war on the north- 
 western frontier," — McAfee, pp- 271-2. 
 
 at the battle of the Thames. 
 
 Immediately on the surrender of each suc- 
 cessive squad or individual, as they arrived 
 at the batteries, they were marched off in a sin- 
 gle file down the river towards the British 
 head-quarters near old Fort Maumee, then in a 
 very dilapidated condition, having been given 
 up to us and abandoned shortly after Wayne's 
 victory, some twenty years before that time. 
 Very soon the Indian warriors, fresh from the 
 conflict, (in some instances, boys and squaws,) 
 commenced the operation of insulting and plun- 
 dering the prisoners. A grim Indian on horse- 
 back, painted black and red in alternate rings 
 around his eyes, rode up to Captain Combs and 
 snatched his hat from his head. Soon after- 
 wards, another rushed upon him, and, regard- 
 less of his pain, tore his coat from his back, 
 tearing loose at the same time the bandages with 
 which his brother had bound up his bleeding 
 shoulder. Others robbed him of what little 
 money he had in his pockets, not sparing even 
 a small penknife and pocket-comb. In one in- 
 stance, when he had nearly arrived at the old 
 fort, and a "devlishlooking feliow" was hand- 
 ling him roughly — the more so, perhaps, as his 
 honest intentions upon the captive were unre- 
 warded, in consequence of his having been 
 previously cleaned out — a good-looking Cana- 
 dian noncommissioned oflicer, as the Captain 
 judged from his dress, interfered for his protec- 
 tion, and lost his life for his humanity. The 
 Captain was hurried onwards, and suddenly 
 observed, as he approached the fort, a number 
 of painted warriors ranged on each side of the 
 pass-way from the opening of a triangular 
 ditch in front, some sixty feet or more to the 
 old gateway of the main fortification; and on 
 either side and among them were lying prostrate 
 in the mud a number of human bodies, entirely 
 naked, and in all the ghastliness of violent 
 deaths produced by the war-club, the toma- 
 hawk, and the scalping knife. Never before 
 had our captive seen such a horrid sight. A 
 man would not be able to recognize his own fa- 
 ther or brother after the scalp had thus been 
 torn from his head, his whole countenance 
 would be so distorted and unnatural. There 
 was some poetry in the great excitement of 
 mortal strife and skill in open battle, when all 
 were armed with deadly weapons; but here the 
 prisoners were nearly naked, with a chilling 
 rain and fierce hail beating upon them for the 
 last hour, and totally defenceless, in the midst 
 of infuriated foes bent on their destruction. 
 There was not the slightest poetic thought in 
 our captive's head; all now was matter-of-fact 
 — real prose. He felt very uncomfortable, and 
 decidedly averse to proceeding any farther, and 
 so notified an English soldier near him; but he 
 replied that there was no alternative, and urged 
 the prisoner forward. During this brief delay, 
 the prisoner in the rear stepped beforehim, and 
 in another moment the work of death was done 
 upon him. He was shot down with a pistol 
 in the hands of the first black fiend on the left 
 side of the terriffic guantlet, and fell across 
 the track, whicn was all the way slippery with 
 
12 
 
 General Leslie Comhs. 
 
 fresh shed blood. Our Captain leaped over 
 his bedy, ond ran through into the fort unhit, 
 and found himself at once in the midst of sev- 
 eral iiundred of his fellow-sufferers, "who had 
 been equally fortunate. They were surrounded 
 by a small British guard; but, thank Heaven I 
 no more Indians were in -sight. "Whether it 
 was our Captain's youthful appearance, his 
 bloody shirt, or mere savage fancy that saved 
 him, he did not know, nor stop to inquire. He 
 again felt safe from cold-blooded massacre, 
 whatever else might befall him. He was left to 
 indulge this pleasant delusion for a fe^ short 
 minutes. Very soon, however, after the last 
 prisoner had followed him in, by which time it 
 seems the Indian hosts who had driven them 
 into the net of the British had assembled 
 around the prisoners' unsafe temporary habita- 
 tion, they at once demanded that the latter 
 should be given up to them; and being refused, 
 they simultaneously broke over the old walls 
 of the fort, and surrounded them on all 
 sides, giving utterance at the same time to the 
 dreaded war-hoop. 
 
 When the prisoners first entered the old fort, 
 they were ordered to sit down, for fear the In- 
 dians would fire on them over the walls, which 
 had crumbled down and were ^ery low in some 
 places. But as soon as the savages had burst 
 in upon them, they all instantly rose to their 
 feet, and an old friend of Captain Combs pro- 
 posed that they should attempt to break 
 through the enemy and get to the river. Cap- 
 tain Combs showed him his crippled shoulder 
 by way of reply, and he afterwards told the 
 Captain that he himself could not ."wim, but 
 preferred drowning to death by the tomahawk 
 and scalping-knife, and presumed the Captain 
 would also. 
 
 The guard quieted their apprehensions for a 
 short time, until a tall, raw-boned Indian, 
 painted black, commenced shooting, tomahawk- 
 ing, and scalping the prisoners nearest to him, 
 and could not be stopped until he had thus dis- 
 patched and mutilated four, whose reeking 
 scalps were immediately seen ornamenting his 
 waist-belt. One of these was a private in 
 Combs' own company, who fell so near the 
 Captain that his blood and brains sprinkled 
 his clothes. The shrieks of these men in their 
 dying agonies seemed for months afterwards to 
 ring in his ears, and the crushing in of their 
 skulls by the repeated blows of the war-club 
 was most horrid. 
 
 At this time, to.i, the immense mass of Indi- 
 ans around the prisoners again raised the war- 
 whoop and commenced throwing off the skin 
 caps which protected the locks of their guns, 
 preparatory for immediate use. The unfortu- 
 nate captives then firmly believed their time 
 had come; and they prepared to sell their lives 
 as dearly as possible. There was a rush to- 
 wards the centre, with a cry of terror, the 
 guard calling as loudly as possible for General 
 Procter or Colonel Elliott to come in, or all the 
 prisoners would be murdered. At this critical 
 juncture,_a noble looking Indian, unpainted, 
 dressed in a hunting-shirt or frock coat and 
 
 hat or cap, came striding briskly into the 
 midst of the surrounding savages, and, taking 
 his position on the highest point of the wall, 
 made a brief but most emphatic address. 
 Combs could noi understand a word of what 
 he said; but it seemed to receive the general 
 assent of the Indians, as was indicated by 
 their grunts and gestures, and he knew from 
 his manner that he was on the side of mercy. 
 The black devil only, who had just committed 
 the four murders, growled and shook his head; 
 but upon receiving a stern look and apparent 
 positive command from the speaker, whirled 
 on hi.s heel and departed, much to the general 
 joy of the prisoners, as it convinced them that 
 the orator had power as well as eloquence. The 
 next day Captain Combs asked of a British of- 
 ficer the name of the Indian who had thus in- 
 terfered and saved them. He replied: "It was 
 Tocumseh."* 
 
 "It was the first and last time," Mr. Combs 
 afterwards v.rites, "I saw this great warrior. 
 yince the days of King Philip, no single In- 
 dian had ever possessed so much power over 
 his race; for, from the Capes of Florida to 
 the Lake of the Woods, he had been able to 
 produce one simultaneous uprising of the 
 tribes against us, in the war with Great Brit- 
 ain. And yet I do not think, judging by his 
 appearance, he could at that time have passed 
 his fortieth year. When afterwards I heard of 
 his untimely death at the battle of the 'Thames, 
 while attempting to urge forward his forces, 
 and regain the battle which Proctor's cowardly 
 flight had lost, I could not repress a sigh of re- 
 gret, a feeling in which I doubt not all of my 
 coiupaions on the bloody fifth of May partici- 
 pated." 
 
 "The prisoners," says McAfee, page 272, 
 "were kept in the same place (the old ioiii till 
 dark, during which time the wounded experi- 
 enced the most excruciating torments. They 
 were then taken into the British boats, pnd 
 carried down the river to the brig Hunter and 
 a schooner, where several hunreds of them 
 were stowed away in the hold of the brig, and 
 kept there for an entire day and night," with- 
 out either food or bedding of any kind for 
 the wounded, or the slightest surgical atten- 
 tion. 
 
 Fortunately for himself. Captain Combs was 
 on board the schooner, which was less crowded 
 than the brig, and had the ball extracted from 
 his shoulder by a British surgeon early the 
 next morning; and, as soon as his name and 
 rank were known, he was invited into the Cap- 
 tain's cabin, and treated with marked attention 
 and politeness. It was there he learned that 
 the party which had defeated him on his fur- 
 lorn trip had borne back his uniform-coat in 
 triunpl]^ which was recognized by Paxton, and 
 they asserted they had Itilled the wearer, show- 
 ing some recent rent.s, which they averred 
 were bullet holes. Paxton himself, believed 
 he was dead, as he last saw him with the coat 
 on his back. 
 
 *McAfee, pp. 271-2, as quoted in a former note. 
 
Qeneral Leslie Oombs. 
 
 H 
 
 The prisoners were finally liberated on pa- 
 role, and sent across the lake in open boats to 
 the mouth of the Huron river, with a wilder- 
 ness of some forty or fifty miles between 
 thera and the nearest settlement in Ohio, at 
 Mansfield. Captain Combs had neither hat nor 
 coat, and did not exchange his shirt, although 
 covered with mud and blood, till he reached 
 the town of Lancaster. There they were all 
 decently clad, and most kindly entertained by 
 the citizens. 
 
 Late in May, he again reached his father's 
 humble farm in Clark county, and soon after- 
 terwards was sent to McAllister's school near 
 Bardstown, to improve his somewhat neglected 
 education. It was a year or two before he was 
 notified of his exchange; and in the meantime 
 he had commenced the study of the law, which 
 was to be his means of livelihood through life. 
 
 Whether it was in his blood, or that he took 
 the disease in his early boyhood from hearing 
 his father talk of his revolutionary services 
 and Indian "scrimmages," certain it is that, 
 long before he arrived at manhood. Gen. 
 Combs used to feel as young Nerval did, while 
 with his father on the Grampian hills, 
 — an anxious desire for military renown. "I 
 am not even yet," he writes, "entirely cured of 
 the disease, and have all my life, till within the 
 last few years, devoted a portion of my time to 
 military tactics, in training the militia, having 
 long since reached the highest grade. At the 
 first tap of the drum, I instinctively catch the 
 step, and keep it as long as the music reaches 
 my ear." 
 
 When the Mexicans were invading Texas in 
 1836, and General Gaines was posted on 
 our south-western frontier, which was consid- 
 ered in some danger, he called upon Kentucky 
 for help. The Governor immediately gave 
 Gen. Combs authority to raise ten companies, 
 and march to his relief. He accordingly issued 
 his proclamation, and had the offer of more 
 than forty volunteer companies in a very short 
 time. He selected ten, formed them into a reg- 
 iment, and was ready to embark from Loui.s- 
 ville when the President of the United Stales 
 countermanded the order, and they were dis- 
 charged. 
 
 So, too, ten years afterwards, when rumors 
 reached us that General Taylor was in front of 
 a Mexican force, on the Rio Grande, of more 
 than double his strength in point of numbers, 
 and Congress had authorized the President to 
 receive the services of fifty thousand volunteers, 
 Gen. Combs issued his general orders, com- 
 manding all the regiments under his command 
 to assemble at their several places of annual 
 
 fiarade, to see what could be done. The fol 
 owing is an extract from that order, dated 
 . May 18, 1846: 
 
 "The Major-General does not doubt that the same 
 noble spirit which precipitated the gallant sons of 
 Kentucky upon every frontier where an enemy was to 
 be found, during the late war, will again animate his 
 fellow-Boldiers; and he calls upon them, in the name 
 of liberty and patnotism, to hasten to the rescue of 
 
 tlie American army on the Rio Grande, to share 
 tlieir vittciries, or avenge their disasters, if any 
 hive bt'fallcn them." 
 
 Several re/.'iments of volunt^rs were soon 
 enrolled, and it was supposed Sy all that the 
 command would be given to (sineral Combs. 
 But such was not the ca.'^e. He was not in fa- 
 vor at Washington; and, although his procla- 
 mation was republished in the "Union," and 
 his energy and patriotism every where compli- 
 mented, none but political partisans were ap- 
 pointed to high offices;, some of whom were 
 made Generals, who had never "set a squad- 
 ron in the field," nor were fit to do it. The 
 Constitution of the United States was, in the 
 opinion of General Combs, violated by depriv- 
 ing the States of the right to officer their own 
 militia; and he was overlooked and super- 
 seded. Again, although opposed to the annex- 
 ation of Texas, as proposed and finally con- 
 summated, yet, when war was. declared, he de- 
 sired to see it speedily fought out, and termi- 
 nated by an honorable peace. He, therefore, 
 again made an effort to be employed in the 
 military service, and, with this view, addressed 
 a letter to the President, when more volunteers 
 were called for, offering to raise a full division, 
 if he would only allow those who were willing 
 to risk their lives for their country to choose 
 their own ofiicers. He even went to Washing- 
 ton, and renewed the offer in person to the 
 President and Secretary of War; but it was 
 declined politely, and positively. His remon- 
 strances on the occasion were in plain English, 
 as may be remembered, for they formed the 
 subject of remark by the public press at the 
 time, and very likely Mr. Marcy has not en- 
 tirely forgotten them. No one was present at 
 their brief interview in his office. General 
 Combs soon afterwards resigned his office, in 
 consequence of the gross injustice which he 
 felt had been done him. He would not consent 
 to be treated as a mere recruiting-sergeant to 
 raise troops for those whom he regarded as 
 party pets, without military experience or apti- 
 tude to command in the field. 
 
 Havinsr ii- n finra the ranks to the office of 
 Captain 111 two campaigns, without the aid of 
 friends or fortune, by repeated acts of self-de- 
 votion. Gen. Leslie Combs returned home 
 naked and penniless, a cripple for life. Yet 
 he did not apply for a pension from the War 
 Office, as did others — even Colonel Johnson 
 ^ilho received his in full. When urged to do 
 so, he replied, that his blood was as red, and 
 shed as freely, as that of Colonel (afterwards 
 Governor) Preston, of Virginia; and that, poor 
 as he was, he would never receive a pension 
 unless granted freely by special act of Con- 
 gress, as had been done in Colonel Preston's 
 case. But he had no friend at court; and no 
 member of Congress looked into the matter for 
 twenty years, when Mr. Allen, of the Lexing- 
 ton (Mr. Combs'; district took it in hand, and 
 the result was a report in favor of granting the 
 pension. A bill was then, and not till then, 
 passed by Congress, unanimously, we believe, 
 in boih Houses, which was approved by Presi- 
 
14 
 
 'Otineral Leslie Combi. 
 
 dent Jackson, giving liim a. peTision from that 
 date — half pay for life — but nothing for the 
 past. 
 
 By the aid of a relative, who allowed him 
 the gratuitous use of his office and boolss, he 
 studied law, and obtained a license as an attor- 
 ney at the age of twenty-three, and immediate- 
 ly went to hard work. Although far from be- 
 ing as well varsed in his profession as he felt 
 he ought to have been, his energy, industry, 
 and punctuality soon procured him a large 
 share of business, and enabled him to marry, 
 and take upon himself the responsibility of a 
 family. 
 
 This was his situation when the great effort 
 was made in Kentucky to destroy Henry Clay, 
 because he voted for Mr. Adams for President^ 
 His enemies in the Lexington district, and es- 
 pecially Fayette county, were most violent and 
 bitter in denouncing hira; and at one time, in 
 1S26, thought they could at the next election 
 certainly carry the county against him; their 
 leader, Gen. McCalla, having only failed by 
 some nine or ten votes at the previous election. 
 It was under these circumstances that Mr. 
 Combs was urged to become a candidate for 
 the Legislature. From his early boyhood he 
 had been devoted in feeling to that illustrious 
 man, looking upon him, as he ever since has 
 done, as the "foremost man of the age," as well 
 as the most vilely pui'sued, persecuted and ca- 
 lumniated by his enemies. Although, in a 
 manner a stranger to him — for Combs' youth 
 and Mr. Clay's almest continued absence from 
 Kentucky in the public service, h.id given the 
 latter no opportunity to know the former ex- 
 cept as a passing acquaintance — Mr. Combs 
 determined to enter upon his defense and sup- 
 port; and for three successive years he can- 
 vassed the county from end to end, meeting 
 Mr. Clay's enemies every where before the peo- 
 ple; literally taking his life in his hand, and 
 defying them. The first year he was elected 
 by nearly one hundred majority, and the last 
 by about five hundred; thus placing the party 
 in an impregnable majority. He then returned 
 to his profession, and soon not only regained 
 his lost clients, but also obtained many new 
 ones. 
 
 But it was contrary to Mr. Combs' nature to 
 be an idler, or an bumble follower of any man. 
 When, therefore, he entered upon the public 
 service, he went earnestly to work, as he had 
 previously done in his profession. Kentucky 
 was at that time flooded with a depreciated pa 
 per currency, worth about fifty cents on the 
 dollar, issued by the "Bank of the Common- 
 wealth," an institution which owed its origin 
 to what was then called the "Relief" party, 
 and which afterward became the Demo- 
 cratic party in that State. Of public im- 
 provements, the State could boast none; there 
 were not five miles of turnpike-road within her 
 wide borders; a railroad had not even hem 
 thought of West of the mountains, As Chair- 
 man of the Committee of Finance, at the sec- 
 ond or third session of his membership, he di- 
 gested and reported a bill, which, after a se 
 
 vere struggle, and some slight modification, 
 suo-gested by Mr. James Guthrie, providing for 
 winding up, gradually and without oppression, 
 of the whole paper system; and no attempt 
 has since been made to renew it. 
 
 He also devoted himself lo the cause of in- 
 ternal improvement, advocating turnpike char- 
 ters, and proposing the first one for a railroad, 
 when even Massachusetts could only boast of 
 one, some four miles long, from the granite 
 quarries to Boston. 
 
 He was again a member of the Legislature in 
 1833-4, and as Chairman of the Committee on 
 Internal Improvements, reported » volume of 
 bills, under whose salutary influence that no- 
 ble Stale has ever since been rapidly rising in 
 weatlh, comfort snd power. His means, too, 
 were freely contributed in taking stock; all of 
 which has since been bestowed upon a public 
 library in Lexington. 
 
 He was not again a candidate until 1845, 
 when he was chosen without the trouble of a 
 canvass, and was at that session elected Speak- 
 er of the House of Representatives. The 
 next year his name was again presented for 
 the sam3 office by a large majority of the 
 Whigs of the Legislature, but he positively 
 declined to have it used, inasmuch as there 
 were several highly promising young Whigs 
 who desired it, and he was satisfied with the 
 honor previously enjoyed. He has not since 
 been a candidate for any State office. 
 
 Mr. Combs never asked for an executive ap- 
 pointment of any kind in his life, having an 
 utter disgust to offlce-seeking, and being whol- 
 ly averse in feeling to such self-abasement as 
 is generally necessary to obtain favor at court. 
 His first demonstration as a politician and 
 public speaker on a national scale was at the 
 Harrisburg Whig Convention, in lSi(f, when 
 Gov. Metcalf and himself were the delegates 
 for the State at large, from Kentucky. They 
 were very desirous for Mr. Clay's nomination; 
 and it was, in Mr. Combs' opinion, by a most 
 unfortunate combination of circumstances and 
 individuals, that his nomination was defeated. 
 His never-to-be-forgotton, self-sacrificing letter 
 to the Convention, had been handed to Mr. 
 Combs by Mr. Archer, of Virginia; and after 
 Gen. Harrison's nomination he read it to that 
 body, with a heart full of sorrow and disap- 
 pointment. The whole country was taken by 
 surprise, and a large portion of the Whig 
 party shocked by the injustice done to their 
 great leader. 
 
 He had kept Mr. Clay fully advised of ev- 
 ery step taken, of every hope and fear which 
 he entertained, up to the 6nal consummation 
 of the combined efforts of the friends of Gen. H., 
 Gen. Scott, and Mr. Webster, which finally 
 defeated him. He believed then, and has never 
 doubted hince the election, that Mr. Clay could 
 easily have triumphed over Mr. Van Buren. 
 The people were tired, ^ick to death of his 
 heartless selfishness and evident incompetency, 
 and a change was inevitable. And ■^^•hat a 
 blessing it would have been to the country to 
 have had Henri/ Clay President for the sue- 
 
Qtrural Leslis Combs. 
 
 15 
 
 ceeding four or eight years, instead of Tyler or 
 Polk 1 We need not dwell upon the faots of 
 history, and the imaginings upon such a con- 
 trast. 
 
 Although Mr. Combs' first and only choir.e 
 had been defeated iu th» Convention, and by 
 means which he boldly condemned, still, 
 as his old commander, Gen, Harrison, a true 
 patriot and an honorable man, had been nom- 
 inated, he determined at ouee on his course. 
 He felt that he owed a duty to the Whig party, 
 to the country, to a gallant old soldier, under 
 whose commaod he had suffered many hard- 
 ships, and had shed his blood on the field of 
 battle; and resolved to devote himself to the 
 coming canvass. 
 
 His first public address was in Philadelphia, 
 to an immense multitude, the Monday night 
 succeeding the nomination. All knew his de- 
 votion to Henry Clay, and were therefore anx- 
 ious to hear what he had to say for Gen. Har- 
 rison. He had numerous clients in the crowd, 
 who had known him for many years as an en- 
 ergetic, prompt, and vigilant attorney, but 
 never dreamed that be had once been a soldier. 
 "I shall never forget their evident astonish- 
 ment," says Mr. Combs, "when I took up the 
 military life of the hero of Tippacanoe, and 
 spoke of its leading events as familiarly as if 
 they had been the events of yesterday. I 
 knew that he had been assailed as the cau.se of 
 the defeat of Winchester at Raisin, and of Dud- 
 ley at the Rapids; and my vindication of him 
 from these two charges was overwhelming and 
 conclusive. I had been so connected with both 
 of these disastrous events, as to render my 
 testimony irrefutable." 
 
 From that time until the succeeding Novem- 
 ber, he almost gave up his profession; and 
 from New York to New Orleans, from Ken- 
 tucky, through Tennessee and Virginia, to Del- 
 aware, was day after day addressing large 
 multitudes. His dress was a simple hunting- 
 shirt and sash, such as Geu. Harrison wore at 
 the battle of Tippecanoe, and when he first 
 saw him afterwards; such as his father had 
 Worn when he helped Daniel Boone to drive 
 the Indians out of Kentucky, and such as the 
 volunteers generally wore when they marched 
 to the frontiers during the late war. 
 
 The Whig press everywhere teemed with the 
 highest-wrought eulogies of his speeches, and 
 its applause might have turned the head of a 
 man prompted by less high and holy feelings 
 than those which influenced him. As it was, 
 they seemed only to have stimulated him to 
 still higher efforts. He spoke on the battle- 
 ments of Yorktown ou the anniversary of the 
 surrender of Cornwallis, with Seargent, and 
 Upshur, and Wise; at Lynchburgh, a few 
 days afterwards, with Rives, and Leigh, and 
 Preston; at Richmond on three several nights, 
 the last time to some thousand ladies. Thou- 
 sands of living witnesses still remain to attest 
 the effects of his addresses; while the files of 
 the Richmond Whig of that day, then edited 
 by the talented and lamented Pleasants, bear 
 testimony to the effect of these appeals. 
 
 The election over, and Gen. Harrison Presi- 
 dent, Gen. Combs asked for nothing, and noth- 
 ing was offered to him, while hundreds, who 
 had rendered comparatively but little service, 
 were clamorous for reward, and some of them 
 received high offices. The real champion of 
 the conflict — he whose morning bugle had of- 
 ten roused a thousand men to arms, and who 
 never wearied, day or night, in doing his duty 
 till the victory was won — was forgotten in the 
 hour of triumph, while others stepped for- 
 ward and enjoyed the fruits of victory. 
 
 If Peter the Hermit felt the inspiration of his- 
 holy cause when preaching a crusade against 
 the Infidels in possession of Jerusalem, so did 
 Mr. Combs in his against the corruptions and 
 usurpations of power in the City of Washing- 
 ton. All selfishness was absorbed in his burn- 
 ing desire to drive the Goths from the Capitol; 
 and he valued more highly the outpourings of 
 public approbation which every where greeted 
 his efforts, than he would have done any offi- 
 cial position which could have been offered him. 
 The noble-hearted Whigs of little Dela- 
 ware gave him a most substantial evidence 
 of their confidence and gratitude, by the pre- 
 sentation of a magnificient piece of plate, with 
 the following inscription; 
 
 "To General Leslie Combs, of Kentucky, from a 
 number of his Democratic Whig friends of Newcas- 
 tle county, Delaware, in testimony of their high re- 
 gard for him as a patriot and soldier in the North- 
 western campaign of 1812 and '13, whilst yet a 
 youth, and as the able and eloquent vindicator of his 
 old General, the hero of Tippacanoe and the Thames, 
 in the political campaign of 1840." 
 
 Four years afterwards, when the farmer of 
 Ashland received the nomination of the Balti- 
 more Convention, he again took the field, al- 
 though he knew that he would thereby lose a 
 large portion of his remaining clients and bus- 
 iness, which had become more important to 
 him from pecuniary embarrassment, induced by 
 large investments in the Texan War Debt. Af- 
 ter canvassing a large portion of Kentucky, 
 previous to the August election, he devoted 
 himself, during the moniihs of September, Oc' 
 tober, and November, to Virginia, Pennsylva- 
 nia, and New York. 
 
 He made a rapid passage through Virginia, 
 from Abingdon, by way of Lynchburg, Rich- 
 mond, and Yorktown, to Norfolk, arousing the 
 Whigs everywhere, and urging the Democrats 
 to stand by their noblest son, towering as he 
 did in fame and public services as high above, 
 his competitor as the peaks of the AUeghanies 
 above the mole-hills at their base. But all in 
 vain. They were wedded to their idol, modern 
 progressive Democracy. 
 
 What to them were justice, truth, gratitude, 
 fraternal or maternal love? Henry Clay was 
 to be immolated under the remorseless car of 
 this modern Juggernaut; and who so proper as 
 his own mother to use the sacrificial knife? It 
 was done. 
 
 Mr. Combs appealed to Pennsylvania and 
 New York to stand by and sustain the great, 
 
16 
 
 General Leslie Combs. 
 
 father of the American system, the steadfast 
 friend of human labor in all its forms, against 
 the false traitors and pretended friends, who 
 would certainly prostrate our rising manufac- 
 tures and mechanical pursuits; but they would 
 not heed him. They, too, cried out, "Crucify 
 him, crucify hira !" and he was crucified. Oh, 
 what a reckoning they have yet to settle for 
 this outrageous wrong to America's great 
 statesman ! 
 
 Of the many scenes of deep excitement 
 through which the subject of our notice passed 
 during this ever-memorable campaign, we shall 
 refer but to one of prominent interest. It oc- 
 curred at New Hapen, Connecticut. Mr. Combs 
 had been invited to be present at a great Whig 
 gathering at that renowned city, and accord- 
 ingly went there at the appointed time. The 
 principal streets were most magnificiently dec- 
 orated with flags and banners, bearing mottoes 
 of appropriate significance. The crowd was 
 innumerable, and moved by the highest enthu- 
 siasm. Senator Berrien, of Georgia, first ad- 
 dressed them, followed by Mr. White, of New 
 York, from a broad platform, covered by the 
 most venerable and distinguished sons of the 
 Pilgram Fathers. "Indeed," says Mr. Combs, 
 in allusion to this occasion, "when I looked 
 around me, I felt as if I were in the midst of 
 that daring band of holy men who had crossed 
 the broad Atlantic in quest of civil and reli 
 gious liberty." Instead of speaking from the 
 stand, a light wagon was placed for him to 
 stand in, near the centre of the crowd, so as to 
 be better heard. He spoke about two hours. At 
 the commencement, he had asserted his belief 
 in an overruling Providence in all things; that 
 there was ever present "a Divinity that shapes 
 our ends, rough-hew them as we will;" that He 
 who was the orphan's father and the widow's 
 husband had, in early life, taken an orphan boy 
 In the Slashes of Hanover, and led him on, 
 step by step, from one great deed to another, 
 till now, when his history should be written, 
 and justice dune him, he would occupy a pin- 
 nacle of glory high as Chimborazo's loftiest 
 peak, with Mount Olympus piled upon it. 
 Like an eagle high in air, shot at by the poi- 
 soned shafts of calumny onevery side, he still 
 flies higher, and with prouder pinion, towards 
 his mountain eyrie. "Look at him !" ex- 
 claimed the speaker, as he threw his hands up- 
 wards, and involuntarily the eyes of the mul- 
 titude followed his gesture. Such a shout as 
 instantly rent the skies was scarce ever heard 
 before, or such a waving of handkerchiefs seen 
 as was exhibited by the thousand ladies who 
 were present. Casting his eyes upwards, he 
 beheld an American eagle some (ew hundred 
 feet distant, gracefully flying towards the 
 East. His own feelings were highly excited. 
 He folded his arms, and, looking at it for a m6- 
 ment, exclaimed, in a thrilling tone of voice, 
 "I have told you, fellow-citizens, that there 
 were no accidents on earth or in Heaven, and 
 I hail this as a happy omen. Fly on, and still 
 fly higher, proud bird of my country's banner; 
 and long may jou continue to ornament the 
 
 flag which waves over the land of the free and 
 the home of the brave !" No one present will 
 
 ever forget the scene. -, » j 
 
 As the Whigs of little Delaware manifested 
 their gratitude to him by the presentation of a 
 magnificent piece of plate in 1840 so also did 
 those of the Empire State in 1844, with the 
 following simple, but touching inscription: 
 
 "From the Whigs of Kings County, New Tork, to 
 General Leslie Combs, of Kentucky, the fnend of 
 
 Henry Clay. , ,„,, 
 
 '•November, 1844. 
 
 "Si Pergama dextra, 
 "Defend! posseut, etiam hac defensa fuissent." 
 
 The defeat of Henry Clay, and the election 
 of James K. Polk, produce'd a profound sen- 
 sation throughout America; and when the vile 
 duplicity and falsehood of the democratic party 
 in Pennsylvania is remembered, where every 
 standard was emblazoned with "Polk, Dallas, 
 and the Tariff of 1842; " while every where in 
 the North it was unblushingly asserted that 
 Polk was a better protective tariff man than 
 Henry Clay, at the same time that he was sup- 
 ported in the South as an advocate of free 
 trade; it can not be wondered at that both he 
 and Dallas afterwards betrayed the North, and 
 the ruinous Tariff Act of 1846 was passed, 
 which has already prostrated some of our most 
 important manufactures. Indeed, but for the 
 opportune discovery of the rich gold mines of 
 California, we should, ere this, have had an- 
 other commercial crash such as desolated the 
 country in 1837-8; for it is indisputably true 
 that the balance of trade for the last year has 
 been so much again.st us that it has required 
 the shipment of over sixty millions of the pre- 
 cious metal, as well as large amounts of United 
 States and States stocks, to make up the de- 
 ficit. 
 
 Gen. Combs was the last man to leave this 
 great battle field; for, on the very day of the 
 election in New York, he passed from Albany 
 to New York city, and at every landing of 
 the steamer stimulated the crowd, who were 
 anxiously expecting the election news from 
 Ohio, urging them to poll every vote in their 
 power for Henry Clay, for that every thing de- 
 pended on the Empire State. 
 
 Such afterwards proved to be the case; and, 
 but for the gross frauds in the city of New 
 York, Polk would have been defeated, and 
 the great cause of American labor gloriously 
 triumphant. The Empire Club did the dark 
 deed, which has since produced such wide- 
 spread ruin and distress in some of our manu- 
 facturing districts, especially in Pennsylvania; 
 A man of less sanguine temperament, or one 
 more calculating in his friendship, and less 
 truly devoted to Henry Clay in all his for- 
 tunes than Gen. Combs, might have been led 
 away by the loud shouting and deep enthusi- 
 asm naturally excited by the brilliant victories 
 of the hero of Buena Vista, when the grateful 
 hearts of millions of true Whigs in America 
 throbbeo with joy at the suggestion of his 
 name in connec}ion with the Presidential of- 
 fice. Even in Kentucky, multitudes of Mr. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 19 
 
 testimony to his unbeoding iotegritj, his firm- 1 nevolenca of disposition, and in short, all 
 ness of purpose in maiDtaining the right at those high qualities which make up the true 
 erfery hazard, his manly independence, his be- 1 man — the noblest work of Ood, 
 
 A. P P E ]sr D I X 
 
 Extract from Gen. Wm. H. Harriaon' letter 
 to Cadet Letlie Combs. 
 Head Quaetebs, foot of the Miama> 
 Rapids, Feb'ry 16, 1813. i 
 Sib — Your letter of this date has been re- 
 ceived, and I beg you to accept my thanks for 
 the disposition to serve in the army which it 
 manifests. »»»»*• 
 Although my personal acquaintance with you, 
 is very limited, your character and zeal for the 
 service is not unknown to me, and I should be 
 very happy to have it in my power to place 
 you in a situation for the display of those mil- 
 itary virtues, which all who know you, allow 
 jou to possess." 
 
 Extract from Gen. Wm. H. Harrison's letter 
 on file in the Peniion Office at Washington 
 North Bend, Ohio, Dec. 23, 1832. 
 "In relation to the conduct of Capt. Combs, 
 as an officer generally, I state with confidence, 
 that in an army where both officers and men 
 exhibited an uncommon devotion to the ser- 
 vice, he was conspicuous. 
 
 Missouri Compromise — Henry Clay's Letter. 
 ■Wasdinston, Feb'ry 5, 1820. 
 
 Deae Sie — I have to acknowledge the re- 
 ceipt of your obliging letter of the 24th ult., 
 and to thank you for the friendly feelings 
 which dictated it. You will have learned ere 
 this my determination (though not for the 
 reasons which your partiality for me has sug- 
 gested) not to become a candidate for the office 
 of Governor. With respect to my remaining 
 where the favor of the country has put me, my 
 determination is also irrevocably formed, and 
 will in due season be announced. 
 
 We are in the midst of the discussion of the 
 Missouri restriction. It has as yet been free 
 from the irritation which was anticipated. 
 What will be the final disposition of it no one 
 can venture to say. I hoped it would pass off 
 with a compromise, and yet cherish that hope. 
 If it be not settled this session it will lead to 
 
 be convened of members of CoDgresR to re- 
 commend for the next Presidential term, some 
 person other than the present incumbent. 
 Every other subject of foreign or domestic con- 
 cern, is put by or suppressed by this momen- 
 tous question. 
 
 Yours, with great regard, 
 
 H. OLAT. 
 Leslie Csubs, Esq. 
 
 Tariff Compromise — Daniel Wehster'a Letter. 
 
 Boston, Nov. 24, 1832. 
 Mt Deae Sje — I am glad to learn, by yours 
 of the 15th, that Kentucky has given so hand- 
 some a majority for Mr. Olay, and that not- 
 withstanding the discouraging nature of pres- 
 ent appearances, there is so good a disposition 
 in your quarter to maintain the institutions, 
 and great interests of the country. A similar 
 spirit, I believe, exists with us, although there 
 appears to be a deep fear for the safety and 
 continuance of the Government. Pennsylva- 
 nia, Ohio, and New York, have greatly disap- 
 pointed us. These States have the fate of tne 
 Union in their hands. All their interests, and 
 all their principles would point one way, but a 
 potent cause, which I hardly know how to de- 
 scribe justly, appears to lead them in another. 
 We must hope for the best, and in all events, do 
 our duly. 
 
 Yours, with regard, 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Henry Clay's Letter. 
 
 Washington, Dec. 16, 1833. 
 
 Mt Deae Sie — I received yonr favor on the 
 8th. My journey to the North and East, was 
 full of gratification. On looking back on the 
 scenes through which I have passed, they ap- 
 pear to me to resemble more fairy than real life. 
 They loaded me with presents, often so valua- 
 ble, that I was almost ashamed to accept them. 
 
 We have begun well in the Senate. This 
 day we appointed all the Chairmen of Commit- 
 tees as we wished, and, as far as we went, every 
 member, but one unimportant. We have every 
 
 the construction of the troTst of all sorts of prospect of a decided majority, 
 parties. Even now, it is this day rumored (I Before us there is a great struggle — a con- 
 hope without foundation,) that a caucus is to { test for liberty and for the existence of the 
 
iu 
 
 Appe-nAii. 
 
 Government. I think we shall succeed, and 
 drive the Goths from Rome. But we want aid 
 —all aid. I hope Kentucky will stand firm 
 and erect. On Virginia (which beyond all 
 doubt is. fast getting right,) and Kentucky now, 
 as in 1799, hangs the destiny of the Repub- 
 lic. Then, for God's sake, let all private dif- 
 ference.s, all private ambitions be merged in 
 one grand and patriotic effort to save the Re- 
 public. »»»»•* • 
 Yours, with constant regard, 
 
 H. CLAY. 
 
 Cholera— J. J. Crittenden's Letter. 
 
 Feankfoe*, June 15, 1833. 
 
 Deae Sie— You can hardly imagine the anx- 
 iety with which we we have been looking to 
 Lexington during the period of its late terrible 
 visitation— and the dismay and grief with 
 which we received the daily ihtelligence of the 
 sufferings and death of our neighbor.s, friend-^ 
 and relations— what a fearful mystery is this 
 cholera ! ! How vain and Ineffectual all hu 
 man science to stay its murderous course ! 
 
 We rejoipe to hear of its abatement in your 
 city, anii I'mUBt sincerely congratulate you on 
 your deliverance. / have heard often and ev- 
 erywhere of your great anif benevolent exertions 
 in behalf of the afflicted, and of the humanity 
 and courage with which you exposed yourself in 
 the midst of disease and death. In yonr own re- 
 flections, and in the gratitude of the commu- 
 nity, you will receive ihe rich reward which 
 your conduct deserves. 
 
 Texas and Slavery Compromise — Henry Clay's 
 Letter and Resolutions. 
 
 I ■Wasbington, Dec. 22, 1849. 
 
 Mt Deae S;e— I received your favor of the 
 17th inst , and thank you for its details. * » 
 
 My object in writing you now is one of 
 great importance, and / wisli you to lead off in 
 it. It will do the country good and do you 
 good. 
 
 The feeling for disunion, among some in- 
 temperate southern politicians, is stronger than 
 1 supposed it could be. The masses generally, 
 even at the South, are I believe, yet sound; but 
 they may become inflamed and perverted, The 
 best counteraction of tliat feeling is to be de- 
 
 rived from popular expression at public meet- 
 ings of the people. Now, ^h^t 7 ^^'"'"'^„°! 
 glad to see is such meetings held throughout 
 Kentucky; for you must know that the disu- 
 nionists count upon the co-operation ot our pa- 
 triotic State. Can't you get up a large power- 
 ful meeting of both parties, if possible, at 
 Lexington, at Louisville, &c., to express m 
 strong language their determination to stand 
 by the Union? I hope the Legislature, and the 
 Convention also, if it has not been adjourned, 
 may do the same. If you remain silent and 
 passive, there is danger that the bad feeling 
 may reach you. Now is the time for salutary 
 action, and you are the man to do it. I enclose 
 some resolutions which, or some similar to 
 them I should be happv to see them adopted. 
 Prudence and propriety will suggest to you 
 that too free a use of ray name should not be 
 made in getting up this rriovement. You will 
 know the per-ons to counsel with, and 1 wish 
 you would keep me advLsed of what you do. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 H. CLAY. 
 Gen. Lkslie Combs. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 i. Resolved, That this meeting is firmly at- 
 tached to the union of these States, and that 
 they go for it, one and indivisible now and for- 
 ever. 
 
 2. Resolved, That whilst this meeting would 
 be must happy that the controverted question 
 of slavery within the Territory recently ac- 
 quired from Mtxico, should be settled in a man- 
 ner satisfactory to all parts of the Union. No 
 settlement of it, whatever it may be, will cre- 
 ate any just occasion for dissolving the Union. 
 
 3. Resolved. That tliis meeting beholds, in 
 the dissolution of our glorious Union, no rem- 
 edy foi any alleged evils, real or imaginary, 
 but a great aggravation of them all and con- 
 template that deplorable event as the parent of 
 other calamities, far transcending in magnitude 
 and fatal consequences any of which complaint 
 is now made. 
 
 4 Resolved, That, as far as depends upon us, 
 we will stand by, support and uphold the 
 Union, against all attacks from without or 
 within, and apainst all ultraisms, whether at 
 the North or the South. 
 
General Leslie Comht. 
 
 17 
 
 Clay's constant- supporters and some of his 
 oldest friends avowed tfcemselves in f»vor of 
 Gen. Taylor, a~ Uwmost anailable candidate; 
 and some lueTi denounced Mr, Olay as selfish 
 »nd arnbitidu?; but Gen, Combs never hesi- 
 tated, never faltered 
 
 "Faithful fuunil ajjiong the faithless ; 
 Faithful only ho iimid innumerable false." 
 "Unmoved, unsliiikon, unseduced, unterrified." 
 
 And so he cnritinned till the last moment in 
 Philadelphia, wlien the National Whig Conven- 
 tion decided m tavnr of Gen. Taylor. 
 
 Fatigue, Ins.- .'t re^t, anxiety of mind, had 
 by thi- lime pmsirated General Combs on a 
 feick-bed; yet, \i hen Independence Square was 
 in the evenini;- fillicl by tens of thousands of 
 anxious Whigs, niamly the devoted friends of 
 Henry Clay, it wa.s deemed most important to 
 have an addrps.'i made by General Combs, the 
 long tried and ever faithful friend of that il- 
 lustrious man li, was a severe trial for him to 
 encounter; yet, when lifted to the stand, he 
 pronounced that biietand mo>t ihriUinj^ ad- 
 dress, wtiich W.1,-, at the time listeced to in 
 breathless silence, and. given on the lightning's 
 wings to the utmost corners of the United 
 States, But no report of it could do justice to 
 the impressive niruineraud evidently deep emo- 
 tions of the speaker, while he seemed to feel 
 that he was giving up forever the hope of bis 
 whole life to -ee Henry Clay President of the 
 United States. 
 
 Considerini; the success of the Whig cause 
 as above all other considerations, he pursued 
 the saiuH course in 1848 that he had done in 
 1.^41). From Maine to Indiana his voice was 
 every where heard in private circles nnd in 
 public asseniblages of the people, urging all lu 
 unite in the .support of General Taylor; and 
 hundreds of thousands yet live to testify to the 
 power and t ff(-ct of his speeches. 
 
 Neil her General Harrison nor General Tay- 
 lor ever forgot (we will not say forgave) his 
 unalterable attachment and adherence to Mr, 
 Clay; and although he did more for each after 
 his nom'nation than any other one man in 
 America did, they acted towards him as if they 
 only remembered his opposition to their nomi- 
 nation by the Whig party. They never evinced 
 the slightest gratitude for his efficient and dis- 
 interested advocacy of their claims before the 
 Seople But that may be allowed to pass. 
 >. Combs had his own self-approbation, and 
 the high confidence of the great Whig party, 
 and they were infinitely more valuable than 
 court favor and official patronage. 
 
 We come now to Mr. Combs' last political 
 campaign; and shall treat it briefly. His com- 
 petitor w^as allied by blood and marriage to 
 several numerous wealthy and influential Whig 
 families in the district; had been himself a 
 Whig in early life; was the present pride and 
 hope of the Democracy; and thus concentrated 
 all their support. General Combs had no such 
 «xtra aid or sympathy in the canvass. The 
 mass of the Whigs believed he was invincible, 
 ■and that therefore they need make no e'fifort. 
 
 In a long professional career he had made 
 some personal enemies among the Whigs, who 
 took this occasion to gratify their ven- 
 geance at the sacrifice of political principle. 
 Some hundreds of the first class did not go to 
 the polls. A few of the latter were active and 
 violent against him, and he was defeated. But 
 he died on the plateau of the battle field, m 
 the front rank of the Whig army, with the 
 Whig banner around him as his wiudiiig-sheet. 
 He sustained the Union, the Compromises, the- 
 cause of American labor and internal improve- 
 ments, as presented by Millard Fillmore; and 
 he would rather thus have fallen ilian bare 
 achieved victory by any sacrifice of principle 
 or personal independence. Those who fly 
 from the battle-field, and those who hide in 
 the ravines and ditches while the balls are 
 flying thickest, are disgraced by defeat, and 
 not the leader who bravely fights and falls in 
 combat. Among the many high and honora- 
 ble names recorded in his support are those of 
 Henry Clay and J J. Crittenden. General 
 Combs has no complaints to make .:gainst 
 those who failed to do their duty. He feels that 
 his duty is still obvious: to hold on to Whig 
 principles only the more firmly because the 
 timid and treacherous abandon them. 
 
 He has ever preached, and endeavored to 
 practice, the philosophy that the world was in- 
 tended by its Creator to be governed, not by 
 force and violence, but by love and truth — love, 
 embracing all benevolencfc of thought and act, 
 and truth in deed as well as in word. To his 
 rigid observance of these two great moral land- 
 marks may be attributed the remarkable effect 
 of his public speeches. He never berated or 
 denounced bitterly his opponents. He lectured 
 them, criticfsed them, and endeavored to refute 
 the'r arguments in good temper; and he never 
 uttered a word on the stump which he did not 
 believe to be true, nor expressed a sentiment 
 which he did not most sincerely entertain. 
 
 When he commenced life, he set himself to 
 work first to attain pecuniary independence by 
 his own labor, and, second, to do all the good 
 he could to all around him. His first produc- 
 tion, which went to the press more than thirty 
 years ago, was an argument and appeal in fa- 
 vor of a Lunatic Asylum in Kentucky, There 
 was not one then west of the mountains, and 
 only three or four in America, A few humane 
 men in Lexington took up the subject, and the 
 result was the commencement of the presents 
 magnificent establishment, which has ever 
 since beeu dispensing its blessings in the 
 State, 
 
 At a later date, he aided the public library 
 by a large donation, considering his limited 
 means; stimulated the establishment of public 
 free-schools; and a female Orphan Asylum; all 
 of which are now conferring inestimable bene- 
 fits upon the community. Not a church has 
 been erected in Lexington, for whites or blacks, 
 to which he did not contribute his mite. In 
 1833, he passed through the severest ordeal of 
 his life. When the Asiatic cholera first made 
 its appearance in this continent, (in Caupda, 
 
18 
 
 Ckneral Leslie Combs. 
 
 we believe,) scattering death in its path and all 
 around, an almost univertal panic seized upon 
 the public mind. The alarm seemed to in- 
 crease according to the distance from the scene 
 of its first desolation, and prevailed to a f^reat 
 extent in the community of Oen. Combs' resi- 
 dence as Well as others, although the medical 
 faculty there assured the people that they were 
 in no danger; that their position was so eleva- 
 ted and healthful, that If it should even "rain 
 pestilence upon them, it would run off." The 
 consternation of the community may be easily 
 imagined, when, in June, 1833, that mysteri- 
 ous disease bnrst forth in all its fury in their 
 midst, sparing neither age nor sex; old men 
 and children, master and slave, seeming alike 
 subject to its sudden and fatal visitation. Its 
 first known demonstration was in General 
 Oombs' own family, upon the person of a fa- 
 vorite servant, who died in a few hours; thence 
 it spread among his immediate neighbors. 
 Thousands fled to the mountains, leaving their 
 houses deserted or in care of their slaves, who, 
 being thus abandoned, became more alarmed, 
 end consequently more liable to the fell dis- 
 ease. Many thought it contagious, and would 
 not even visit their relatives and dearest 
 friends. A high duty seemed to devolve upon 
 Oen. Combs. With a calm and determined 
 front he met it, and went to work to study the 
 disease, endeavor to arrest its progress, and 
 relieve ils subieats. He never stopped, except 
 for brief periods of rest, day or night, for more 
 than thirty days, devoting himself wholly to 
 the sick and suffering; rich and poor, black and 
 white, bond and free, friend and foe, alike re- 
 ceived his services, sometimes in the most me- 
 nial and disgustful offices at their bedsides. 
 It may be justly claimed for him that he was 
 the instrument of hope, of relief, of prolonged 
 life to many. He had a full sweep of vengence 
 upon his enemies — he had a few such — and 
 upon his political persecutors, by helping them 
 when they could not help themselves, and felt 
 as if they were abandoned by every fViend on 
 earth. "It was a glorious triumph," is the 
 language of Mr. Combs. "I would not now 
 exchange it for a vietory on the battle field, or 
 the highest political promotion — so help me 
 God !" 
 
 The entire population of Lexington was 
 decimated in a month. General Combs had 
 met the British and the Indians in hostile ar- 
 ray; had been wounded, and a prisoner, subjec- 
 ted to every savage barbarity: hut he never be- 
 fore found such a foe as the cholera of 1833, so 
 horrid, relentless and terrific, in act and aspect. 
 His escape from it, exposed as he was, seemed 
 almost miraculous; for he was not touched till 
 near the close of the season of the epidemic, 
 and then not violentlv. His health is still per- 
 fect, and he retains all the vigor and elasticity 
 uf early manhood. 
 
 In all the relations of life, General Combs 
 has discharged the obligations growing out of 
 ihose relations with scrupulous fidelity En- 
 terprising and public-spirited, he has ever been 
 among the foremost in promoting any scheme 
 
 having for its object the public good, and has 
 liberally used his means in contributing to ev- 
 ery project calculated to advance the public 
 prosperity. As a member of the Legislature 
 of Kentucky, and Chairman of the Committee 
 of Internal Improvements in 1833, he strenu- 
 ously advocated a system of Internal Im- 
 provements, which by his influence, was par- 
 tially adopted, and which has done much to- 
 wards placing the State in its preaent i 'rh po- 
 sition. Asa private citizen, within in« last 
 few years he has devoted himself to the work of 
 arousing the public mind to the importance of 
 railroad communication; and by his addresses, 
 and through the press, has done more, perhaps, 
 than any other man, in Kentucky to show the 
 necessity of prompt and vigprous action in 
 this behalf. The result is seuix in the various 
 lines of road projected and now under pro- 
 gress, and by which the entire State will, in 
 the course of a few yeais, be traversed. Such 
 indeed has been his characteristic energy and 
 ^eal in matters of this sort, that when any 
 thing was to be done, he was looked to, to take 
 the lead. 
 
 He has ever been, emphatically, the poor 
 man's friend; and never was an appeal made 
 to him in vain in behalf of suffering humanity. 
 During one of his tours in the Presidential 
 campaign of 1844, he chanced to stop at a 
 country church in Virginia, and heard the pas- 
 tor deliver his farewell sermon, in the course of 
 which some remarks were made in reference to 
 the pecuniary embarrassment which forced the 
 separation of this old shepherd fiom his flock. 
 Upon the return of General Combs home, he 
 immediately enclosed a sum of money to this 
 old minister, whom for the first and last time 
 he saw but a few minutes on that Sabbath, and 
 to whom he was an entire stranger. Accident 
 made the writer of this acquainted with the cir- 
 cumstance, a knowledge of which has hitherto 
 been confined to the parties to it and himself. 
 A favorite plan of benevolence with General 
 Combs has been to assist in bringing forward 
 poor young men of talent, assisting them in 
 their studies, recommending them to public fa- 
 vor, and aiding them in getting a start in their 
 profession; and more than one has had reason 
 to thank the good fortune that threw them in 
 his way. 
 
 In 1833, while the cholera was raging with 
 extreme violence in Lexington, one of its first 
 victims was a bitter personal enemy; and yet, 
 while fear drove others from his bed-side. Gen. 
 Oombs nursed him with all the care and tender- 
 ness of a devoted friend. The annual election 
 for members ef the General Assembly came on 
 a short time after the pestilence had subsided, 
 and the citizens of Lexington and Fayette 
 county testified their gratitude for his humane 
 exertions by bestowing upon him their unso- 
 licited suffrages, and electing him a member of 
 the Legislature. 
 
 The writer of this has had opportunities 
 which few have enjoyed of studying thoroughly 
 the character of the subject of this sketch, and 
 it affords him the highest gratification to bear 
 
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