124 The Winning of the West 



parentage, and of mixed race; but the dominant 

 strain in their blood was that of the Presbyterian 

 Irish the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. 

 Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead and 

 the Cavalier for their leadership in our history; 

 nor have we been altogether blind to the deeds of the 

 Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if 

 we have wholly realized the importance of the part 

 played by that stern and virile people, the Irish, 

 whose preachers taught the creed of Knox and Cal- 

 vin. These Irish representatives of the Covenant- 

 ers were in the West almost what the Puritans were 

 in the Northeast, and more than the Cavaliers were 

 in the South. Mingled with the descendants of 

 many other races, they, nevertheless, formed the ker- 

 nel of the distinctively and intensely American stock 

 who were the pioneers of our people in their march 

 westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting 

 settlers, who with axie and rifle won their way 

 from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande and the 

 Pacific. 2 



2 Among the dozen or so most prominent backwoods pio- 

 neers of the West and Southwest, the men who were the lead- 

 ers in exploring and settling the lands, and in fighting the 

 Indians, British, and Mexicans, the Presbyterian Irish stock 

 furnished Andrew Jackson, Samuel Houston, David Crockett, 

 James Robertson ; Lewis, the leader of the backwoods hosts 

 in their first great victory over the Northwestern Indians; 

 and Campbell, their commander in their first great victory 

 over the British. The other pioneers who stand beside the 

 above were such men as Sevier, a Shenandoah Huguenot; 

 Shelby, of Welsh blood ; and Boone and Clark, both of En- 

 glish stock, the former from Pennsylvania, the latter from 

 Virginia. 



