Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie; With a Biographical Sketch, Introduction and Notes; And a Sketch of Longfellow's Home Life (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie; With a Biographical Sketch, Introduction and Notes; And a Sketch of Longfellow's Home Life

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the second son of the family, which contained four sons and four daughters. He took his name from his mother's brother, Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth, whose heroic death was a fresh and tender memory in the family. Two years and a half before, on the night of September 4, 1804, he had been second in command of the bomb - ketch Intrepid, which was fitted up as an infernal, and sent stealthily into the harbor of Tripoli to blow up the enemy's fleet. The officers and crew were to apply the match and escape in the boats; but when the Intrepid was still a quarter of a mile from her destination, the watching men in the American fleet out side saw a sudden line of light; in a moment a column of fire shot up from the vessel, and with a tremendous explo sion bombs burst in every direction, and the masts and rigging flew into the air. Every soul on board perished. Something, perhaps, of this adventure entered into the poet's early associations, and deepened the ardor of his patriotism.

The sea, at any rate, and a sea-fight nearer home, made a part of his boyish recollections. In 1813, when he was six years old, the American brig Enterprise fell in with the English brig Boxer, outside of Portland harbor, and a fight took place, which could be heard from the shore. It lasted for three quarters of an hour, the Boxer's colors being nailed to the mast. The Enterprise came into the harbor, bringing her captive, but both commanders had been killed in the engagement, and were buried side by side in the cemetery on Mountjoy. In his poem My Lost Youth, Longfellow recalls the town as it then was, and this memo rable fight.

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