HISTORY

Captain George McGlassin

A gentleman of Plattsburgh, some years ago, when visiting Canada was introduced to an elderly English officer; and, on the officer's learning that he was from Plattsburgh, he inquired if he lived there at the time of the battle, and if he knew the name of the officer who lead the party that stormed the battery the night of the 10th. The gentlemen replied, that he was in Plattsburgh at the time of the battle, and that the officer that led the storming party he had named was McGlassin. "Will you be so good as to tell me," asked the officer, "what number of men he had with him?" "About 60, I believe," replied the gentleman. The officer looked much astonished, and at last said, "Well sir, I was the officer in command of that battery, and I would give more to see McGlassin than any man in the world. It was the most complete thing," said he, "I ever saw or heard of, for we were quietly in our positions when the words, 'Charge the front and rear,' broke the death like stillness as if a voice from the air had screamed, the men ran like mad. I tried my utmost, in the confusion, to bring them to some order, but without success for some time; at last I found a body charging in fine style I placed myself at their head and, anxious to repulse the attack, urged them forward with all the energy I possessed., when, taking a more anxious look at them, to see what ones stood firm in the surprise, behold, they were a lot of damned Yankees who had charged up another way, and I was leading them. Then," he said, "was my time to run. Where my men had gone no one knew. But I rushed, pell-mell into the woods over logs, into the mud and water; then a straddle of some stump; then against a tree; over stones and into holes – up and down, sometimes on one end and sometimes on the other. I arrived in camp about the worst bruised, the worst scratched, the sorest and most frightened individual you ever saw. If you ever," said he, shaking the gentleman from Plattsburgh by the hand, "meet Mr. McGlassin, give him my complements and tell him that was the most gallant thing accomplished by any man."