Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — ANECDOTES OF GENERAL SHIELDS [ARTICLE]

ANECDOTES OF GENERAL SHIELDS

A Brave and Successful Dash Into the City of Mexico.

Before the capture of the City of Mexico an English boy, arrested as a, spy, asked private audience of General Shields, and told him that a Mexican desperado had sought his sister’s hand, and being refused had threatened vengeance. To accomplish his evil purposes he had obtained from Santa Anna the control of that part of the city in which the boy’s father, mother and two sisters lived; had hired a gang of villians who were to plunder the house, keep the booty and deliver the girls to the tender mercies of this Mexican scoundrel. Properly disguised the boy had entered the American ranks to beseech assistance of General Shields. The emergency was a rare one. It was certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army would not authorize a rescue. To abandon the girls to their

fate was foreign to the nature- of Shields. He took a sudden resolve, called for volunteers, selected 400 men and entered the beleaguered city unperceived: The ladies were rescued, the alarm was given by the bewildered Mexicans, and the daring band was obliged to cut their way through a host of enemies. They reached the ramparts in safety and returned to the camp with the rescued ones. By that time, however, both armies were alarmed, and a scene of bustle and confusion ensued. General Scott flew in to a terrible rage when he heard the story, that threatened all the penalties of a court-martial on the culprit (Shields) for such gross disobedience of orders. The young ladies succeeded in pacifying the choleric, old hero, and Shields entered the city with him after its capture completely reinstated in his favor. In 1839 James Shields was elected Auditor of the State of Illinois. While he occupied this important office he was involved in an “affair of honor” with a Springfield lawyer—no less a personage than Abraham Lincoln. At this time “James Shields, Auditor,” was the pride of the young democracy and was considered a dashing fellow by all, the ladies included. In the

summer of 1842 the Springfield Journal contained some letters from the “Lost Townships,” by a contributor whose nom du plume was “Aunt Becca,” which held up the gallant young Auditor as “a ball-room dandy, floatin' about on the earth without heft or substance, just like a lot of cat fur where cats had been fightin’.” These letters caused intense excitement in the town. Nobody knew or guessed their authorship. Shields swore it would be coffee and pistols for two if he should find out who had been lampooning him so unmercifully. Thereupon “Aunt Becca” wrote another letter, which made the furnace of his seven times hotter than before, in which she made a very humble apology and offered to let him squeese her hand for satisfaction, adding: “If this should not answer there is one thing more I would do rather than get a lickin’. I have all along expected to die a widow; but, as Mr. Shields is rather good looking than otherwise, I must say I don’t care if we compromise the matter by—really, Mr. Printer, I can’t help blushin’ —but I—it must come out—I—but widowed modesty—well, if I must, I must—wouldn’t he —maybe sorter let the old grudge drap if I was to consent to—be—his wife? I know he is a fightin’ man and would rather fight than eat: but isn’t marryin’ better than fightin’ though it does sometimes run into it? And I don’t think, upon the whole, I’d be sich a bad match, neither; I am not over sixty and am just four feet three in my bare feet and not much more round the girth; and for color, I wouldn’t turn my back for nary a girl in the Lost Townships. But after all, maybe I’m countin’ my chickens before they’re hatched an’ dreamin’ of matrimonial bliss when the only alternative reserved for me may be a lickin’. Jeff tells me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons,—which, being the case, I tell you in confidence that I never fight withs anything but broomsticks or hot water, or a shovelful of coals or some such things; the former of which, being somewhat like a shillelah, may not be so very objectionable to him. I will give him choice, however, in one thing, and that is whether, when we fight, I will wear breeches or he petticoats, for I presume this change is sufficient to place us on equality.” Of course some one had to shoulder the responsibility of these letters after such a shot. The real author was none other than Miss Mary Todd, afterward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was engaged, and who was in honor bound to assume, for belligerent purposes, the responsibility of her sharp pen thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. Not long after the two men with their seconds were on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was fixed up without any fighting, and thus ended in a fizzle the LincolnShields duel of the Lost Townships.