Hero Tales of the Far North by Jacob A. Riis
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Jacob A. Riis >> Hero Tales of the Far North
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14 HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
By
JACOB A. RIIS
AUTHOR OF "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES"
"THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN"
"THE OLD TOWN," ETC.
New York, 1921
[Illustration: FREDERIKSBORG]
THIS BOOK OF MY DEAD HEROES
I DEDICATE TO MY LIVING HERO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
MAY IT BE MANY YEARS BEFORE THE LAST CHAPTER
OF HIS SPLENDID WHOLESOME LIFE IS
WRITTEN IN THE PAGES OF OUR
COUNTRY'S HISTORY
FOREWORD
When a man knocks at Uncle Sam's gate, craving admission to his
house, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a
hindrance instead of a help. If now we were to ask what he brings,
not only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this
stranger, what ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country
he left that shaped his hopes and ambitions,--might it not, if the
answer were right, be a help to a better mutual understanding
between host and guest? For the _Mayflower_ did not hold all who in
this world have battled for freedom of home, of hope, and of
conscience. The struggle is bigger than that. Every land has its
George Washington, its Kosciusko, its William Tell, its Garibaldi,
its Kossuth, if there is but one that has a Joan d'Arc. What we want
to know of the man is: were its heroes his?
This book is an attempt to ask and to answer that question for my
own people, in a very small and simple way, it is true, but perhaps
abler pens with more leisure than mine may follow the trail it has
blazed. I should like to see some Swede write of the heroes of his
noble, chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight
here, though I count them with my own. I should like to hear the
epic of United Italy, of proud and freedom-loving Hungary, the
swan-song of unhappy Poland, chanted to young America again and
again, to help us all understand that we are kin in the things that
really count, and help us pull together as we must if we are to make
the most of our common country.
These were my--our--heroes, then. Every lad of Northern blood, whose
heart is in the right place, loves them. And he need make no excuses
for any of them. Nor has he need of bartering them for the great of
his new home; they go very well together. It is partly for his sake
I have set their stories down here. All too quickly he lets go his
grip on them, on the new shore. Let him keep them and cherish them
with the memories of the motherland. The immigrant America wants and
needs is he who brings the best of the old home to the new, not he
who threw it overboard on the voyage. In the great melting-pot it
will tell its story for the good of us all.
To those who wonder that I have left the Saga era of the North
untouched, I would say that I have preferred to deal here only with
downright historic figures. For valuable aid rendered in insuring
accuracy I am indebted to the services of Dr. P.A. Rydberg, Dr. J.
Emile Blomen, Gustaf V. Lindner, and Professor Joakim Reinhard. My
thanks are due likewise to many friends, Danes by birth like myself,
who have helped me with the illustrations.
J. A. R.
RICHMOND HILL,
June, 1910.
CONTENTS
A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA
HANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE TO GREENLAND
GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN
ABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH
KING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG
HOW THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID
KING CHRISTIAN IV
GUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING
KING AND SAILOR, HEROES OF COPENHAGEN
THE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR ALONE
CARL LINNE, KING OF THE FLOWERS
NIELS FINSEN, THE WOLF-SLAYER
A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA
The Eighteenth Century broke upon a noisy family quarrel in the
north of Europe. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the royal hotspur of
all history, and Frederik of Denmark had fallen out. Like their
people, they were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent on
settling the old question which was the better man. After the
fashion of the lion and the unicorn, they fought "all about the
town," and, indeed, about every town that came in their way, now
this and now that side having the best of it. On the sea, which was
the more important because neither Swedes nor Danes could reach
their fighting ground or keep up their armaments without command of
the waterways, the victory rested finally with the Danes. And this
was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the like of which
is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, Peder Tordenskjold.
Rising in ten brief years from the humblest place before the mast,
a half-grown lad, to the rank of admiral, ennobled by his King and
the idol of two nations, only to be assassinated on the "field of
honor" at thirty, he seems the very incarnation of the stormy times
of the Eleven Years' War, with which his sun rose and set; for the
year in which peace was made also saw his death.
Peder Jansen Wessel was born on October 28, 1690, in the city of
Trondhjem, Norway, which country in those days was united with
Denmark under one king. His father was an alderman with eighteen
children. Peder was the tenth of twelve wild boys. It is related
that the father in sheer desperation once let make for him a pair of
leathern breeches which he would not be able to tear. But the lad,
not to be beaten so easily, sat on a grind-stone and had one of his
school-fellows turn it till the seat was worn thin, a piece of
bravado that probably cost him dear, for doubtless the exasperated
father's stick found the attenuated spot.
Since he would have none of the school, his father had him
apprenticed out to a tailor with the injunction not to spare the
rod. But sitting cross-legged on a tailor's stool did not suit the
lad, and he took it out of his master by snowballing him thoroughly
one winter's day. Next a barber undertook to teach him his trade;
but Peder ran away and was drifting about the streets when the King
came to Norway. The boy saw the splendid uniforms and heard the
story of the beautiful capital by the Oeresund, with its palaces and
great fighting ships. When the King departed, he was missing, and
for a while there was peace in Trondhjem.
Down in Copenhagen the homeless lad was found wandering about by the
King's chaplain, who, being himself a Norwegian, took him home and
made him a household page. But the boy's wanderings had led him to
the navy-yard, where he saw mid-shipmen of his own size at drill,
and he could think of nothing else. When he should have been waiting
at table he was down among the ships. For him there was ever but one
way to any goal, the straight cut, and at fifteen he wrote to the
King asking to be appointed a midshipman. "I am wearing away my life
as a servant," he wrote. "I want to give it, and my blood, to the
service of your Majesty, and I will serve you with all my might
while I live!"
The navy had need of that kind of recruits, and the King saw to it
that he was apprenticed at once. And that was the beginning of his
strangely romantic career.
Three years he sailed before the mast and learned seamanship, while
Charles was baiting the Muscovite and the North was resting on its
arms. Then came Pultava and the Swedish King's crushing defeat. The
storm-centre was transferred to the North again, and the war on the
sea opened with a splendid deed, fit to appeal to any ardent young
heart. At the battle in the Bay of Kjoege, the _Dannebrog_, commanded
by Ivar Hvitfeldt, caught fire, and by its position exposed the
Danish fleet to great danger. Hvitfeldt could do one of two things:
save his own life and his men's by letting his ship drift before the
wind and by his escape risking the rest of the fleet and losing the
battle, or stay where he was to meet certain death. He chose the
latter, anchored his vessel securely, and fought on until the ship
was burned down to the water's edge and blew up with him and his
five hundred men. Ivar Hvitfeldt's name is forever immortal in the
history of his country. A few years ago they raised the wreck of the
_Dannebrog_, fitly called after the Danish flag, and made of its
guns a monument that stands on Langelinie, the beautiful shore road
of Copenhagen.
Fired by such deeds, young Wessel implored the King, before he had
yet worn out his first midshipman's jacket, to give him command of a
frigate. He compromised on a small privateer, the _Ormen_, but with
it he did such execution in Swedish waters and earned such renown as
a dauntless sailor and a bold scout whose information about the
enemy was always first and best, that before spring they gave him a
frigate with eighteen guns and the emphatic warning "not to engage
any enemy when he was not clearly the stronger." He immediately
brought in a Swedish cruiser, the _Alabama_ of those days, that had
been the terror of the sea. In a naval battle in the Baltic soon
after, he engaged with his little frigate two of the enemy's
line-of-battle ships that were trying to get away, and only when a
third came to help them did he retreat, so battered that he had to
seek port to make repairs. Accused of violating his orders, his
answer was prompt: "I promised your Majesty to do my best, and I
did." King Frederik IV, himself a young and spirited man, made him a
captain, jumping him over fifty odd older lieutenants, and gave him
leave to war on the enemy as he saw fit.
The immediate result was that the Governor of Goeteborg, the enemy's
chief seaport in the North Sea, put a price on his head. Captain
Wessel heard of it and sent word into town that he was outside--to
come and take him; but to hurry, for time was short. While waiting
for a reply, he fell in with two Swedish men-of-war having in tow a
Danish prize. That was not to be borne, and though they together
mounted ninety-four guns to his eighteen, he fell upon them like a
thunderbolt. They beat him off, but he returned for their prize.
That time they nearly sank him with three broad-sides. However, he
ran for the Norwegian coast and saved his ship. In his report of
this affair he excuses himself for running away with the reflection
that allowing himself to be sunk "would not rightly have benefited
his Majesty's service."
However, the opportunity came to him swiftly of "rightly
benefiting" the King's service. After the battle of Kolberger Heide,
that had gone against the Swedes, he found them beaching their ships
under cover of the night to prevent their falling into the hands of
the victors. Wessel halted them with the threat that every man Jack
in the fleet should be made to walk the plank, saved the ships, and
took their admiral prisoner to his chief. When others slept, Wessel
was abroad with his swift sailer. If wind and sea went against him,
he knew how to turn his mishap to account. Driven in under the
hostile shore once, he took the opportunity, as was his wont, to get
the lay of the land and of the enemy. He learned quickly that in the
harbor of Wesensoe, not far away, a Swedish cutter was lying with a
Danish prize. She carried eight guns and had a crew of thirty-six
men; but though he had at the moment only eighteen sailors in his
boat, he crept up the coast at once, slipped quietly in after
sundown, and took ship and prize with a rush, killing and throwing
overboard such as resisted. In Sweden mothers hushed their crying
children with his dreaded name; on the sea they came near to
thinking him a troll, so sudden and unexpected were his onsets. But
there was no witchcraft about it. He sailed swiftly because he was a
skilled sailor and because he missed no opportunity to have the
bottom of his ship scraped and greased. And when on board, pistol
and cutlass hung loose; for it was a time of war with a brave and
relentless foe.
His reconnoitring expeditions he always headed himself, and
sometimes he went alone. Thus, when getting ready to take Marstrand,
a fortified seaport of great importance to Charles, he went ashore
disguised as a fisherman and peddled fish through the town, even in
the very castle itself, where he took notice, along with the
position of the guns and the strength of the garrison, of the fact
that the commandant had two pretty daughters. He was a sailor, sure
enough. Once when ashore on such an expedition, he was surprised by
a company of dragoons. His men escaped, but the dragoons cut off his
way to the shore. As they rode at him, reaching out for his sword,
he suddenly dashed among them, cut one down, and, diving through the
surf, swam out to the boat, his sword between his teeth. Their
bullets churned up the sea all about him, but he was not hit. He
seemed to bear a charmed life; in all his fights he was wounded but
once. That was in the attack on the strongly fortified port of
Stroemstad, in which he was repulsed with a loss of 96 killed and 246
wounded, while the Swedish loss footed up over 1500, a fight which
led straight to the most astonishing chapter in his whole career, of
which more anon.
All Denmark and Norway presently rang with the stories of his
exploits. They were always of the kind to appeal to the imagination,
for in truth he was a very knight errant of the sea who fought for
the love of it as well as of the flag, ardent patriot that he was. A
brave and chivalrous foe he loved next to a loyal friend. Cowardice
he loathed. Once when ordered to follow a retreating enemy with his
frigate _Hvide Oernen_ (the White Eagle) of thirty guns, he hugged
him so close that in the darkness he ran his ship into the great
Swedish man-of-war _Oesel_ of sixty-four guns. The chance was too
good to let pass. Seeing that the _Oesel's_ lower gun-ports were
closed, and reasoning from this that she had been struck in the
water-line and badly damaged, he was for boarding her at once, but
his men refused to follow him. In the delay the _Oesel_ backed away.
Captain Wessel gave chase, pelted her with shot, and called to her
captain, whose name was _Soestjerna_ (sea-star), to stop.
"Running away from a frigate, are you? Shame on you, coward and
poltroon! Stay and fight like a man for your King and your flag!"
Seeing him edge yet farther away, he shouted in utter exasperation,
"Your name shall be dog-star forever, not sea-star, if you don't
stay."
"But all this," he wrote sadly to the King, "with much more which
was worse, had no effect."
However, on his way back to join the fleet he ran across a convoy of
ten merchant vessels, guarded by three of the enemy's line-of-battle
ships. He made a feint at passing, but, suddenly turning, swooped
down upon the biggest trader, ran out his boats, made fast, and
towed it away from under the very noses of its protectors. It meant
prize-money for his men, but their captain did not forget their
craven conduct of the night, which had made him lose a bigger
prize, and with the money they got a sound flogging.
The account of the duel between his first frigate, _Loevendahl's
Galley_, of eighteen guns, and a Swede of twenty-eight guns reads
like the doings of the old vikings, and indeed both commanders were
likely descended straight from those arch fighters. Wessel certainly
was. The other captain was an English officer, Bactman by name, who
was on the way to deliver his ship, that had been bought in England,
to the Swedes. They met in the North Sea and fell to fighting by
noon of one day. The afternoon of the next saw them at it yet. Twice
the crew of the Swedish frigate had thrown down their arms, refusing
to fight any more. Vainly the vessel had tried to get away; the Dane
hung to it like a leech. In the afternoon of the second day Wessel
was informed that his powder had given out. He had a boat sent out
with a herald, who presented to Captain Bactman his regrets that he
had to quit for lack of powder, but would he come aboard and shake
hands?
The Briton declined. Meanwhile the ships had drifted close enough to
speak through the trumpet, and Captain Wessel shouted over from his
quarter-deck that "if he could lend him a little powder, they might
still go on." Captain Bactman smilingly shook his head, and then the
two drank to one another's health, each on his own quarter-deck, and
parted friends, while their crews manned what was left of the yards
and cheered each other wildly.
Wessel's enemies, of whom he had many, especially among the
nobility, who looked upon him as a vulgar upstart, used this
incident to bring him before a court-martial. It was unpatriotic,
they declared, and they demanded that he be degraded and fined. His
defence, which with all the records of his career are in the Navy
Department at Copenhagen, was brief but to the point. It is summed
up in the retort to his accusers that "they themselves should be
rebuked, and severely, for failing to understand that an officer in
the King's service should be promoted instead of censured for doing
his plain duty," and that there was nothing in the articles of war
commanding him to treat an honorable foe otherwise than with honor.
It must be admitted that he gave his critics no lack of cause. His
enterprises were often enough of a hair-raising kind, and he had
scant patience with censure. Thus once, when harassed by an
Admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "The
biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I shall
not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an
honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't
be done." He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of
the whole North Sea fleet. No wonder he had enemies.
However, the King was his friend. He made him a nobleman, and gave
him the name Tordenskjold. It means "thunder shield."
"Then, by the powers," he swore when he was told, "I shall thunder
in the ears of the Swedes so that the King shall hear of it!" And he
kept his word.
Charles had determined to take Denmark with one fell blow. He had an
army assembled in Skaane to cross the sound, which was frozen over
solid. All was ready for the invasion in January 1716. The people
throughout Sweden had assembled in the churches to pray for the
success of the King's arms, and he was there himself to lead; but
in the early morning hours a strong east wind broke up the ice, and
the campaign ended before it was begun. Charles then turned on
Norway, and laid siege to the city of Frederikshald, which, with its
strong fort, Frederiksteen, was the key to that country. A Danish
fleet lay in the Skagerak, blocking his way of reenforcements by
sea. Tordenskjold, with his frigate, _Hvide Oernen_, and six smaller
ships (the frigate _Vindhunden_ of sixteen guns, and five vessels of
light draught, two of which were heavily armed), was doing scouting
duty for the Admiral when he learned that the entire Swedish fleet
of forty-four ships that was intended to aid in the operations
against Frederikshald lay in the harbor of Dynekilen waiting its
chance to slip out. It was so well shielded there that its commander
sent word to the King to rest easy; nothing could happen to him. He
would join him presently.
Tordenskjold saw that if he could capture or destroy this fleet
Norway was saved; the siege must perforce be abandoned. And Norway
was his native land, which he loved with his whole fervid soul. But
no time was to be lost. He could not go back to ask for permission,
and one may shrewdly guess that he did not want to, for it would
certainly have been refused. He heard that the Swedish officers,
secure in their stronghold, were to attend a wedding on shore the
next day. His instructions from the Admiralty were: in an emergency
always to hold a council of war, and to abide by its decision. At
daybreak he ran his ship alongside _Vindhunden_, her companion
frigate, and called to the captain:
"The Swedish officers are bidden to a wedding, and they have
forgotten us. What do you say--shall we go unasked?"
Captain Grip was game. "Good enough!" he shouted back. "The wind is
fair, and we have all day. I am ready."
That was the council of war and its decision. Tordenskjold gave the
signal to clear for action, and sailed in at the head of his handful
of ships.
The inlet to the harbor of Dynekilen is narrow and crooked, winding
between reefs and rocky steeps quite two miles, and only in spots
more than four hundred feet wide. Halfway in was a strong battery.
Tordenskjold's fleet was received with a tremendous fire from all
the Swedish ships, from the battery, and from an army of four
thousand soldiers lying along shore. The Danish ships made no reply.
They sailed up grimly silent till they reached a place wide enough
to let them wear round, broadside on. Then their guns spoke. Three
hours the battle raged before the Swedish fire began to slacken. As
soon as he noticed it, Tordenskjold slipped into the inner harbor
under cover of the heavy pall of smoke, and before the Swedes
suspected their presence they found his ships alongside. Broadside
after broadside crashed into them, and in terror they fled, soldiers
and sailors alike. While they ran Tordenskjold swooped down upon the
half-way battery, seized it, and spiked its guns. The fight was won.
But the heaviest part was left--the towing out of the captured
ships. All the afternoon Tordenskjold led the work in person,
pulling on ropes, cheering on his men. The Swedes, returning gamely
to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore. One of the
abandoned vessels caught fire. Lieutenant Toender, of Tordenskjold's
staff, a veteran with a wooden leg, boarded it just as the
quartermaster ran up yelling that the ship was full of powder and
was going to blow up. He tried to jump overboard, but the lieutenant
seized him by the collar and, stumping along, made him lead the way
to the magazine. A fuse had been laid to an open keg of powder, and
the fire was sputtering within an inch of it when Lieutenant Toender
plucked it out, smothered it between thumb and forefinger, and threw
it through the nearest port-hole. There were two hundred barrels of
powder in the ship.
Tordenskjold had kept his word to the King. Not as much as a yawl of
the Dynekilen fleet was left to the enemy. He had sunk or burned
thirteen and captured thirty-one ships with his seven, and all the
piled-up munitions of war were in his hands. King Charles gave up
the siege, marched his army out of Norway, and the country was
saved. The victory cost Tordenskjold but nineteen killed and
fifty-seven wounded. On his own ship six men were killed and twenty
wounded.
Of infinite variety was this sea-fighter. After a victory like this,
one hears of him in the next breath gratifying a passing whim of
the King, who wanted to know what the Swedish people thought of
their Government after Charles's long wars that are said to have
cost their country a million men. Tordenskjold overheard it, had
himself rowed across to Sweden, picked up there a wedding party,
bridegroom, minister, guests, and all, including the captain of the
shore watch who was among them, and returned in time for the palace
dinner with his catch. King Frederik was entertaining Czar Peter the
Great, who had been boasting of the unhesitating loyalty of his men
which his Danish host could not match. He now had the tables turned
upon him. It is recorded that the King sent the party back with
royal gifts for the bride. One would be glad to add that
Tordenskjold sent back, too, the silver pitcher and the parlor clock
his men took on their visit. But he didn't. They were still in
Copenhagen a hundred years later, and may be they are yet. It was
not like his usual gallantry toward the fair sex. But perhaps he
didn't know anything about it.
Then we find him, after an unsuccessful attack on Goeteborg that cost
many lives, sending in his adjutant to congratulate the Swedish
commandant on their "gallant encounter" the day before, and
exchanging presents with him in token of mutual regard. And before
one can turn the page he is discovered swooping down upon Marstrand,
taking town and fleet anchored there, and the castle itself with its
whole garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled by stratagem into
an army of thousands. We are told that an officer sent out from the
castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the
besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred
men around every corner, as he made his way through the town,
piloted by Tordenskjold himself, who was careful to take him the
longest way, while the men took the short cut to the next block. The
man returned home with the message that the town was full of them
and that resistance was useless. The ruse smacks of Peder Wessel's
boyish fight with a much bigger fellow who had beaten him once by
gripping his long hair, and so getting his head in chancery. But
Peder had taken notice. Next time he came to the encounter with hair
cut short and his whole head smeared with soft-soap, and that time
he won.
The most extraordinary of all his adventures befell when, after the
attack on Stroemstad, he was hastening home to Copenhagen. Crossing
the Kattegat in a little smack that carried but two three-pound
guns, he was chased and overtaken by a Swedish frigate of sixteen
guns and a crew of sixty men. Tordenskjold had but twenty-one, and
eight of them were servants and non-combatants. They were dreadfully
frightened, and tradition has it that one of them wept when he saw
the Swede coming on. Her captain called upon him to surrender, but
the answer was flung back:
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