CHAPTER VIII.
During the summer of 1832, Lieutenant Pendleton was transferred
from the Fourth to the Second Artillery, exchanging places
with his classmate, Lieutenant James Allen, and was ordered to
report for duty, in September, at Fort Hamilton, defending the
entrance to New York harbor. Before returning to West Point,
to make the necessary arrangements for removing from there, Mr.
Pendleton was confirmed, in Trinity Episcopal Church, Hanover
County, Virginia, by Bishop Meade, and entered quietly and humbly
upon the life of a consistent, professing Christian, in which
he walked faithfully to the end.
Cholera was then raging in the United States, and every one
going any distance was provided with some antidote or specific
for the dreaded disease. Crossing New Jersey in the stage, Mr.
Pendleton was attacked by some of the most alarming symptoms
of cholera, and but for the kindness of his fellow-travellers might
have died on the road-side. Writing some days after, from the
hospital at West Point, he tells his experience:
"On Thursday morning, after leaving Philadelphia, I began to
feel the languor and aching of a fever, but was not unwell enough
to be retarded from going on. After travelling about half-way
across New Jersey in the stage, I ate a little of the common ginger-cake
met with at the stopping-places. No sooner had I swallowed
it than I felt a deadly sickness at my stomach, and in a short time
ejected it. As soon as this was done my limbs were entirely paralyzed,
and my hands and feet contracted in a singular way. I
naturally enough imagined it might be a sudden attack of cholera.
A gentleman in the stage took from my pocket a lump of sugar,
and, dropping thereon some spirits of camphor, gave it to me.
Scarcely had I swallowed it when I experienced relief,—almost
miraculous. But the fever remained; and when I got to the
steamboat, at Brunswick, everybody crowded round the man who
had the cholera. I experienced marked attention from Cadet
Bretton and Major Pierce,[1]
he being at the time on the boat.
Thursday night I stayed in New York, under the kind care of
Mr. Bretton, and Friday morning we ventured up to the Point.
I was just able to call on Colonel Thayer, and have a short conversation
with him; and, returning to the hotel, I had forthwith to
take to my bed. Immediately I sent for the doctor, who ordered
me down to the hospital, where I have been ever since, taking
medicine. I can't tell you when I shall be able to start back to
Virginia, but hope sincerely, for your sake as well as my own, it
may be in the course of this week. I am well attended to, considering,
and am visited daily by Hackley, Mr. Harris, Taylor,
and sometimes by other officers. Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Warner,
and Mr. Davies have been to see me, and they all make particular
inquiries after you. The doctor thinks this attack may make a
favorable change in my system. As I wish to finish this before
the rise of my fever, I must conclude without saying much more.
Remember I am not much sick. I have hurried on so fast as almost
to omit what I intended,—love and kisses to our little Sue."
The nervous, almost illegible handwriting in this letter contradicts
the loving assurance that the writer was "not much sick."
The doctor's conjecture that his health might be improved after
so severe an illness proved to be correct, but for many years he
continued subject to sudden and violent attacks of bilious fever.
In October, Mr. Pendleton took his wife and infant daughter to
Fort Hamilton. The officers at the post were Major Benjamin
Pierce, Captain John L. Gardner, Lieutenant Smede, and Dr. Elwees.
With them and their families the new-comers soon established
friendly relations. The fort was not yet completed, having
little or no armament, and the officers lived in the casemates.
Part of Lieutenant Pendleton's duty, while at the post, was to
mount the heavy guns on the parapet. These were sixty-pounders,
then considered remarkable for size and weight. There was no
regular conveyance between the fort and New York, and no post-office
nearer than the city. Supplies for the garrison were carried
down in six-oared barges manned by the soldiers, and the officers
used the same means of visiting the city, or else they drove up
through Flatbush to Brooklyn, then an inconsiderable suburb of
New York, and crossed the ferry. The garrison mail was brought
down every day by one of the non-commissioned officers, who
went for it on horseback or in the boat.
Captain Gardner and his beautiful wife became especially intimate
with the Pendletons. They were earnest Episcopalians, and
the two families sometimes went as far as Brooklyn or New York
to church. Dr. McIlvaine, afterwards Bishop of Ohio, was then
rector of St. Anne's Church, Brooklyn, and his ministrations were
specially acceptable to Mr. Pendleton. When there was no opportunity
for attending public worship, service was held in one
of the large rooms of the fort, Captain Gardner and Mr. Pendleton
acting as lay-readers. From this small beginning arose St.
John's Church, Fort Hamilton.
In the early spring of 1833, Mrs. Pendleton's health failed,
and the raw, damp winds of the fort seemed unfavorable for her.
Captain Gardner's company had been ordered to Fort Monroe,
and were to go thither on a small "packet schooner;" and Mr.
Pendleton sent his little family South on the same vessel, as they
would have the company of their friends to Norfolk. The discomfort
of a coast-voyage on a small sailing-vessel crowded with
soldiers can scarcely be exaggerated, but the delay, exposure, and
fatigue were less than the inconveniences consequent upon the
frequent changes and long stage-rides of the land route.
On May 1, Mr. Pendleton writes his wife from Fort Hamilton,—
"I have taken a berth in the packet steamer 'Portsmouth,'
which clears for Norfolk on Saturday morning. When I shall see
you I can't say, since it depends so entirely on the winds. I was
in town yesterday and saw General Scott. Without my saying
anything again about leave of absence, the general turned to his
aide and desired him to make it out for me for twenty days, the
time I asked for. I pray the winds may be favorable, and that my
passage may be short, that I may have as much time as possible
to spend with my dear friends, and that I may see you and Sue
as speedily as I can. It pleases me a great deal to hear that she
is such a darling. Hugh Mercer[2]
spent last night with me. He
is one of General Scott's aides, and living at present in New
York. We took tea at the doctor's, and after returning to our
quarters he joined me in prayers, and then we talked nearly all
night. He is a fine fellow, and has a devoted wish to be 'fervent
in spirit, serving the Lord.'
"The young people in the vicinity have been venting their
gayety this evening by a May party. Kate W—was crowned
queen by the major's eldest daughter, and then there was dancing
in one room for the older people, and playing in another for the
little ones. I have done nothing to-day but see after first one little
thing and then another. The day has glided away and I can show
nothing to my conscience of improvement or benefit derived.
Such a feeling of failure to fulfil the great end of life, getting closer
to heaven as we get nearer to the grave, is very heavy on the heart."
At the expiration of his furlough the family returned to Fort
Hamilton. In the summer they had the pleasure of receiving a
visit from Mr. Hugh Pendleton, his wife and child, and Mrs. William
Pendleton's sister, Miss Anne Rose Page. During their
visit Bishop Moore, of Virginia, came to his old home on Long
Island. Lieutenant Pendleton and his wife hastened to call on
their venerable bishop. Their meeting is recorded in his Memoir
(p. 22), but no mention is made of the old gentleman's pleasure
on finding himself recognized and welcomed by Mrs. Pendleton's
negro nurse, who opened the door of the lieutenant's quarters
when he knocked. "Only to think, the girl knew me, and was
glad to see me!" he exclaimed, after shaking hands with his hostess.
The winter of 1832–33 is memorable for the nullification
troubles, which threatened to plunge the country into civil war.
General Andrew Jackson, elected President in 1828 by the
Democratic party, had taken so decided a stand as to the power
vested in the Executive and the general government, that he had
alienated many of his adherents. These held that the States had
certain inherent rights and privileges not to be affected by the
Constitution, and deprecated the tendency exhibited by General
Jackson to deny any such rights, and to thwart them by an
arbitrary use of power. The protective tariffs of 1828 and 1832,
framed so as to favor the growing manufacturing interests of the
New England States, and the productions of the Middle and
Northwestern States, were especially hostile to the prosperity of
the Southern cotton-, sugar-, and rice-raising sections. These
found themselves forced by the existing tariff to purchase at a
high price indifferent American manufactured goods absolutely
necessary for their use, and to sell their own produce at home for
much less than it would have brought in a foreign market. Several
of the most able among Southern statesmen, John C. Calhoun and
Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, at their head, took the ground
that Congress had no right to enact any tariff save what was necessary
to raise sufficient revenue to carry on the government.
The South Carolinians went further, and avowed that if Congress
should persist in making laws which were contrary to the
Constitution, each State possessed within herself the right to
prevent the operation of such laws within her territory. This
most advanced view of "State rights" was honestly and earnestly
held in South Carolina, and when the protective tariff of
1832 was passed by Congress, the Legislature of that State called
a convention, which, on November 24, proceeded to pass the
famous "Ordinance of Nullification," declaring their intention to
"nullify" the tariff and to resist the collection of duties imposed
by it within the limits of South Carolina.
President Jackson, on December 10, issued a proclamation
calling upon the South Carolinians to recede from their claims
and to submit without resistance to whatever Congress should
see fit to impose upon them. This proclamation being met by defiance
on the part of Governor Hayne, the President sent a message
to Congress, urging that the Executive should be empowered
to use not only all the legal machinery, but also the military and
naval force of the United States to put down any resistance to
the laws on the part of any one of the States. This message
was promptly followed by the "Force Bill," conferring upon the
President the powers for which he asked. But the President had
not waited for this. Several months previous, before the South
Carolina convention had taken any action, "the President sent
secret orders to the collector of the port of Charleston."
[3]
"A
few days after the despatch of these orders, General Scott was
quietly ordered to Charleston, for the purpose, as the President
confidentially informed the collector, of superintending the safety
of the ports of the United States in that vicinity. Other changes
were made in the disposition of naval and military forces, designed
to enable the President to act with swift efficiency if there
should be occasion to act."
[4]
In this state of things, officers in the army and navy, though
on principle abstaining from politics, looked with anxious eyes
to see what the course of events might call them to do should
the President resort to force of arms.
Lieutenant Pendleton had been trained in the strictest Democratic
opinions. His father was an ardent and enthusiastic admirer
of General Jackson, and upheld him in his most arbitrary exercise
of power. The lieutenant, in accordance with what he believed
the principles of American liberty, sympathized with that wing
of the Democracy known as the "National Republican" party,
which held aloof from the President and opposed his imperious
course. He could by no means agree to the right of the general
government to use armed force to coerce any one of the States,
and resolved never to draw his sword in such a cause. Rumors
were rife as to what troops were to be sent to put down nullification
in South Carolina, and when the report, in apparently
authentic form reached Fort Hamilton that all the troops in
New York harbor were to be ordered to Charleston, the young
Virginian did not hesitate, but immediately wrote his resignation
from the army. The tears and entreaties of his wife and the
advice of his friends induced him to delay handing it in for a few
days, at least, until the truth could be ascertained. In the
mean time milder counsels prevailed in Washington and South
Carolina; the "Compromise Tariff" was passed, and the nullification
danger over.
But the narrow sphere and contracted interests of garrison
life were becoming more and more irksome to Mr. Pendleton.
His active temperament desired more extensive opportunity for
work, and his wish to benefit his fellow-men demanded a wider
field for exercise. He therefore determined to avail himself of
the first good opening to exchange military life for some suitable
civil employment. This opening occurred in October, 1833, when
he was invited to the mathematical professorship in a newly-organized
Episcopal college, near Bristol, Pennsylvania.
