Green Mountain Freeman

An Affair at Plattsburg.

Our venerable friend Joshua Dann, Esq., sends us the following, with this endorsement: "The above is true. I was there. J. Dunn."-Portland Transcript.

During our last war with Great Britain, as most of our readers will remember, Gen. Macomb, with his volunteer militia, met the enemy at Plattsburg, and was driven from the village, and forced to cross the river, having done which he tore up the bridge, and began to throw up breast-works. The British, instead of storming which their vastly superior force might have enabled them to do successfully, went at building batteries for the purpose of driving the Americans off at long range with their heavy ordnance. At length word came to Macomb, through vigilant scouts, that the enemy were, under cover of night, building a masked battery, at a point from which their battering cannon would give them incalculable annoyance.

A consultation was held, and Capt. MeGlassen, with a picked body of men, volunteered to cross the river and destroy the battery, if possible. The attack was made at night, and though our gallant band of volunteers was outnumbered three to one, they succeeded in routing the British and destroying the battery.

Years afterward, when the old scars had all been obliterated, and the animosities forgotten, a gentleman of Plattsburg, visiting Canada, chanced, at an evening party, to fall in with an elderly English officer of artillery. The officer, upon learning that our friend was from Plattsburg, asked him if he had lived there at the time of the battle.

Yes, said the gentleman. I was born there, and have lived nowhere else.

And do you know the name of the officer who led the party that stormed an English battery on the night of the tenth of September?

I knew the man well, sir. His name was MeGlassen.

As you tell me, pursued the officer, what number of men he had with him?

Just sixty, replied the gentleman.

Are you sure? asked the officer in astonishment.

Yes, sir. I was in General Macomb's camp on the following morning, and saw the fifty-seven that returned. Only three were missing.

Well, sir, said the British veteran, I was the officer in command of that battery, and I would give more to see Mr. MeGlassen than any other man in the world. It was the most complete thing I ever saw or heard of. We were quietly resting at our position when the order, as if thundered from the upper air-'charge on front and rear!'-broke the dead stillness. My men ran as though wild. I did my best, in the midst of the confusion, to bring them into order. At length I found a body charging in fine style. I placed myself at their head, and anxious to repulse the enemy, urged them forward with all the energy I could summon. On turning to see if they were going in firmly I gained a nearer view of my sudden command, and behold! they were a lot of Yankees, who had been charging up from the rear: Then was my time to run. Where my own men had gone I knew not. I rushed, pell-mell, into the woods, over logs, through mud and water, astraddle of stumps, bumping against rocks and trees, sometimes up and sometimes down. I arrived in camp about the worst bruised, the worst scratched, the sorest and the most chop-fallen individual you ever saw. If you ever, he continued, shaking the gentleman from Plattsburg by the hand, and smiling, meet Mr. MeGlassen again, give him my compliments, and tell him it was the most gallant thing I ever saw achieved by any man.