Identifier: conqueringwilder00tripuoft (find matches)
Title: Conquering the wilderness; or, New pictorial history of the life and times of the pioneer heroes and heroines of America, a full account of the romantic deeds, lofty achievements, and marvellous adventures of Boone, Kenton, Clark, Logan, Harrod, the Wetzel brothers, the Bradys, Poe and other celebrated frontiersmen and Indian fighters ... with picturesque skteches of border life past and present, backwoods camp-meeting, schools and Sunday-schools; heoric fortitude and noble deeds of the pioneer wives and mothers, flatboating, the overland route and its horrors; the gold fever and filibustering expeditions; ... eccentricities and self-sacrificing labors of Cartwright, Axley and other celebrated pioneer preachers, and describing life and adventure on the plains ..
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Triplett, Frank
Subjects: Indians of North America Frontier and pioneer life
Publisher: Chicago, Werner
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Born in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 8th, in the year 1832, he
received a European education and studied medicine, which profes-
sion he seems not to have greatly fancied, we find that he very early
abandoned it and was for some years an editor in New
Orleans. In California he also studied law and for a time practiced
that profession in Maryville, in that State. Alluding to his versa-
tility, some Englishman, quoting the old Latin poet, said of him,
with an ill-natured sneer :
" Augur, Schoenobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit," which may
be rather freely translated: " A Jack of all trades; good at none."
In size he was not above medium height, nor heavily built; his
hair was brownish and his eyes large and of a clear blueish grey.
They were his strongest feature, wonderfully piercing and magnetic,
and when lit up with the fire of battle, fairly blazed with excitement.
In disposition he was rather secretive, impassive and silent. He had

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668 CONQUERING THE WILDERNESS

the courage of the pioneer and the grace of the dwellers in cities.
His language, when excited, was terse, forcible and ready, though he
could hardly be called eloquent. His sayings were epigrammatic
Text Appearing After Image:


GENERAL WILLIAM S. WALKER.

and for all of his imperturbility, his soldiers fairly worshipped him
and he possessed that talent of the born commander that could carry
his men into the most desperate situations and hold them there to


WALKER OF NICARAGUA THE PIONEER FILIBUSTER. 669

conquer or to die, but never to give way to coward flight. Main-
taining a rigid discipline, he did not lose the affection of his men,
for he held himself bound to the same strict code as that which he
enforced with them. They knew no danger that he did not share;
they felt no hardship from which he shrank.
His warfare was heroic. It was always the battle of the few
against the many; the forlorn hope, that must win, if win it did, by
a bravery that feared no odds and felt no diminution. It is true
they were giants battling against pigmies—Anglo-Normans combat-
ting the degenerate scions of that Latin race, that makes cruelty
take the place of courage and with numbers and treachery opposes
bravery and conduct—but the pigmies had the aid of British hatred

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