to believe he was going into winter-quarters. It was indispensable 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 McArthur and Upper Sandusky, previous to a contemplated rapid movement upon Malden and Detroit. From the 22d to the 30th of December, active preparations were being made for this change of position, which was to bring the American forces so much nearer to the enemy. The river being frozen over, they were obliged to take the baggage 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 commenced on the 30th December. At the same time, Mr. Leslie Combs, a young man of intelligence and enterprise from Kentucky, who had joined the army as a volun teer on its march from Fort Wayne to Fort Defiance, accompanied by Mr. A. Riddle, as a guide, was sent with dispatches to inform the commander-in-chief, (General Harrison,) of this movement, in order that provisions and reënforcements might be forwarded as soon as possible. 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 Mr. Combs had to traverse on foot a pathless wilderness of more than one hundred miles in 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 Harrison, "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 intentions, which it was deemed unsafe to intrust to paper, 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 Harrison, enabled him, in 1840, to vindicate the old hero of Tippecanoe with entire success, before the American people, against the foul aspersion cast upon him by his enemies in reference to the subsequent disastrous defeat of General Winchester at the river Raisin, on the 22d January, 1813. What he suffered on this tramp may be imagined, but cannot well be described. He had been accustomed only to wear his sword, after sending his horse to the interior, and their daily marching had ceased for some two months. He was on this occasion loaded with a heavy musket and accoutrements, in addition to a blanket and four days' provisions on his back. The snow commenced falling on the morning of the 31st 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 feet deep. They were in a dense forest, without 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. Several 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 daylight 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, that it was concluded that Riddle must leave him 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 return. Fortunately for our young volunteer, his natural strength of constitution, and, it may be added, his unflinching resolution never to stop while he could walk, overcame his disease, and he kept moving for three days and nights longer, without a mouthful of food for either himself or his companion, except slippery elm bark. On the ninth evening, after dark, they reached Fort McArthur, then under command of General Tupper. Every attention was paid to young Conbs by General Tupper and his staff, on his arrival at the head-quarters of that general. But his sufferings had been so great, that he was prostrated for days afterwards on a bed of sickness; as, in addition to hunger and fatigue, his feet were badly frost-bitten, and his arm joints stiffened with rheumatic pains, from which he has never since recovered. Being unable 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. separated for some time. The night of the 21st was bright, clear, and beautiful, but intensely cold, with a full moon shining; and at two o'clock his newly found companion and himself determined to make an effort to reach the river Raisin before the next night. So anxious were they to accomplish this purpose, that they forgot for the time their being on hostile ground, as recognized by Hull in his articles of capitulation, and that there were one or two villages intervening As soon as it was considered safe for him between them and their point of destination. to leave his quarters, he was furnished with Whether they should encounter in them a sled, two horses, and a driver, and pro-friends or foes, and how many murdering ceeded as speedily as possible through the Pottowatamies might be prowling through snow to the rapids, distant about ninety or the forests, were not taken into account; one hundred miles by way of Hull's trace, onward they resolved to go, and at all which place he reached on the evening of hazards. the 19th of January, expecting to find Gen- After twelve or thirteen hours' laborious eral Winchester's army encamped there, as trudging through the snow and ice, one that general had told him he would be. leading and the other driving their little Instead of this, he met the news of Colonel half-starved pony, they arrived at a small Lewis's glorious victory of the 18th, at river village about ten miles from the river Raisin, over the British and Indians, thirty- Raisin, to witness a scene of consternation six miles in advance of the rapids, and about and distress never before presented to their twenty miles only from Malden, the head-view. An American soldier, without hat, quarters of the British army in Upper Canada. Disappointed and mortified that a battle had been fought in his absence, and apprehending the speedy recurrence of another similar event of a more conclusive character, as General Winchester had himself gone on with the flower of his forces that morning, to reenforce Colonel Lewis; without 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 20th, in the evening, he set off on foot, with his blanket and one day's rations on his back, and without his old heavy musket, to overtake Major Cotgreve's battalion, which was understood to have been hurried 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 Maumee 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 Kentuckian, with a small pony, loaded with his baggage and provisions, proceeding to join his regiment, from which he had been coat, or shoes, had just arrived from the disastrous field of Raisin, 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 the scene of action, they discovered another fugitive in the distant prairie approaching them, who, on his arrival, confirmed all they had just heard, with the additional fact, that the Indians were pursuing the flying troops under Winchester and Lewis, in the direction towards their present location. In 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, every thing but the little bedding, food, and clothing they could pack on their sleds and carryalls, and scudding 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 bat tles and their awful desolations; but this miniature likeness was his first personal view, and it sickened and saddened his heart. We will not stop to moralize but; proceed with our facts.* The Frenchmen above mentioned, young Combs understood, were Indian traders; and from their knowledge of several Indian languages and general friendly intercourse with them, they had remained, with 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, and five children, the largest about twelve years old. They were distributed between a small one-horse sleigh and an ox-sled loaded with cooking utensils, food and bedding. The latter vehicle could not proceed, as all the rest had done, on the ice, because the oxen were unshod, and the owner did not know that Hull's old road by land back to the Maumee 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 self-preservation, deemed by some the first law of nature-might have impelled our officer and his companion to disenyoung "MASSACRE OF RAISIN. Proctor [Colonel] then agreed to receive a surrender on the follow-cumber their pony of his pack, and with his ing terms: that all private property should be re- aid have saved themselves from the muchspected; that sleds should be sent next morning apprehended tomahawk and scalping-knife to remove the sick and wounded to Amherstburg, of the Indians, reeking and red as they were on the island opposite Malden; that in the mean with the blood of their gallant associates and time they should be protected by a guard; and that the side-arms of the officers should be restored friends at Raisin. to them at Malden. [Query, why were their side-arms taken from them at all, if treachery was not contemplated?] About 12 o'clock, the prisoners were marched off. Drs. Todd and Bowers, of the Kentucky volunteers, were left with the wounded; and Major Reynolds, [an American officer and prisoner also,] with two or three interpreters, was all the guard left to protect them... About sunrise, instead of sleds arriving to convey them to Malden, a large body of Indians, perhaps But in the boys' hearts of our youthful adventurers 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, together with blankets 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 invasion of Upper Canada that winter. At the same time, throwing their packs upon the ox-sled, our adventurers started the terrified family in the same direction, remaining themselves some distance in the rear, to give notice of approaching danger, and as far as possible save these families, if it should come on themselves. Young Hensley, his Kentucky companion, had a musket; Tessier, their protégé, had a fusee or shot-gun, and Combs himself was armed with 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 a tardy pace. They knew not at what moment their ears would be saluted with the Thus they savage war-whoop in their rear. proceeded till the road was lost in darkness, hoping to meet Major Cotgreve's battalion, and were forced to encamp by the road-side. | across the river on the ice, after sundown on They watched all night, one of them about the 23d, and arrived on the opposite side of a hundred paces from the fire, on the trace Portage river on the evening of the 24th, towards Raisin, and at dawn they again re- with his small caravan, much to the surprise sumed their slow retreat. They had not and joy of his friends, who had already gone over two or three miles, when, instead numbered him among the dead. Having of meeting an armed band which would give been mainly instrumental in saving three of them comparative safety, they found Cot- that gallant band of Kentuckians, who had greve's baggage-sleds and artillery aban- marched to the frontier some five months doned in the road, with all the marks of before, with such devoted patriotism and sudden and precipitate flight. "I shall not buoyant hopes of military glory, for the first pretend," Combs subsequently writes, " to time since he met the news of the disaster, describe our feelings at this unexpected sight; he now felt safe from pursuit, and gratified but thank Heaven we did not abandon our more than words could express that he had voluntarily assumed charge, but resolved, had the nerve to do his duty. come what would, to save them or perish with them." Just before sunset, they came in sight of the Maumee river, and at the same time discovered that Winchester's camp, left in charge of General Payne, some three or four miles up the river, was in flames. At first they supposed that the British and Indians had gotten ahead of them by way of the lake and river ice, and had defeated the remnant of the left wing of the army and General Harrison's reënforcements, and that their own destiny was sealed. They were soon relieved, however, from this painful apprehension, by discovering a wounded soldier who had made his escape by that route, and assured them that no enemy had passed him. We shall only refer to so much of the military 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' suggestion, and determined to aid the latter | in bringing off the distressed family, had, it seems, communicated to Major Cotgreve the same alarming information they had given to Combs, "that at least five thousand Indian warriors were in hot pursuit, under Tecumseh and Dixon," and thus caused his precipitate retreat. They reached General Winchester's old camp at the rapids, at which General Harrison, in the mean time, had arrived with a small body-guard early on the 22d, having traveled all night, and caused him to abandon the position north of the Maumee, set fire to the camp, and fall back to the south side of Portage river, some fifteen or twenty miles nearer the Ohio settlements on Hull's trace. 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 upwards, rendering it difficult as well as dangerous to cross. But nothing could stop our young adventurer's friends, when he came in sight, from rushing across to meet him. Majors Hardin and Gano conducted him to head-quarters, and introduced him to General Harrison, informing him what he had done. "It was a proud moment for me," writes Mr. Combs, in reference to that sight, "thus to be presented and while he complimented me, and said I was worthy of a civie crown, his eyes were moist with tears, and mine were not dry. That tear-drop of the hero of Tippecanoe fell upon my heart; and my untiring support of him in 1840, when he was a candidate for the Presidency, cannot be wondered at, although my first choice then and ever had been HENRY CLAY." 66 "I had no time," he continues, "on my perilous retreat, to seek for my murdered friends and fellow-soldiers at Raisin. My eyes were dry, and my nerves seemed rigid as iron until all personal danger was over, and all under my charge in safety." Of over nine hundred officers and soldiers engaged in the disastrous battle, only thirty-three escaped; all the rest were killed on the 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 overwhelmed with sorrow and disappointment. Very soon afterwards, the remnant of the Kentucky regiment engaged in the conflict were discharged; but the subject of this memoir declined to leave for some time, not knowing that the invaYoung Combs followed in his footsteps i sion of Upper Canada was abandoned for the winter, till after Fort Meigs was erected, and General Harrison himself, in a complimentary 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 [TO BE CONTINUED.] PHILOSOPHY. teaches the indifferency of circumstances, the slumberous immobility of life, and the abandonment of self. The Sphinx, with its look of sad and mute bewilderment, is the expressive symbol of its thought. WHAT is the relation which man sustains | Oriental life. throughout its entire developto the universe, is the great world-problem ment in religion, and art, and literature, and whose solution speculative thought has law, was but the flowering and fruitage of sought through so many ages of restless that impassive and noxious faith, which and persistent inquiry. Upon this thread Philosophy has strung most of its brilliant and bewildering speculations. To discover some pass-way from the personal to the impersonal, some transit from the individual to the universal, Intellect has sounded its Philosophy next appears upon the more profoundest depths, and Genius wandered congenial soil of Greece, and propounds its to its farthest heights. System has suc- problems to the more vigorous, cultured, ceeded system, and school followed school, and discriminative Hellenic mind. A quicker leaving the problem still unresolved. Phil-life runs through the veins of that wonderosophy first appears in the East, puzzling, ful people; a finer and sprightlier intellect with its mysteries, the infancy of the race. flashes its creations upon no impassive spirits, In the dreamy and speculative character of and plays its fancies round no indifferent Oriental mind it finds a ready reception: hearts. but not to the Children of the Sun is it given to read "the open secret." An intense and overshadowing sense of the infinite brings such a paralysis upon all active individual consciousness, as to leave little significance to the inquiry; since the total absorption of the individual in the universal, destroys the very conditions of the relation sought to be determined. The personal and the impersonal, the one and the many. are identified as the homogeneous parts of an insoluble whole, bound together by the iron chain of necessity, and committed to the uncertain guidance of some mysterious and unknown power. From such a faith, throwing its fatalistic spell around all life and thought, results that philosophy of profound indifference, which finds so sublime an expression in the Indian Bhagavad-Gita, and the Vedas and Puranas. Here, then, Philosophy may look for some response to its questionings. A thinker of Ionia appears seeking, amid the uncertain light, some traces of a beginning. Amid the shadows of chaotic and primal elements, a first principle is discovered, the process of creation traced, a system founded; and now the long centuries resound with the noise of contentious schools. By what many and diverse lines of inquiry; by what slight but sure gradations of advance, Philosophy travelled from Ionia to Alexandria, through Italian, Eleatic, Socratic, and Academician schools, to the lofty spiritualism and extreme generalizations of the later Platonist, we may not here fully consider. We must pass this most brilliant period in the world's annals, so ripe in its intellectual life, and so fruitful in its fountain thoughts and its great names, with a rapid |