“Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed which his aspiring rider seemed to know.”
“Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed which his aspiring rider seemed to know.”
—Richard II.
As if in mockery of the climax of trial they were to be made to undergo before its close, the 15th of August, 1812, dawned upon the inmates of Fort Dearborn with a brilliancy even surpassing that of the preceding day. Well do we, who chronicle these events, recollect it; for while the little garrison, in recording whose fate we take not less an interest than our readers can in the perusal, were preparing to march out of the fort—to abandon scenes and associations to which long habit had endeared them, and with the almost certainty of meeting death at every step, we stood at the battery which vomited destruction into the stronghold of him who had counselled and commanded the advance upon Fort Wayne. It has been a vulgar belief, fostered by his enemies, by those who were desirous of relieving themselves from the odium of participation, and of rising to power and consideration by the condemnation of their chief, that the position of General Hull was one fraught with advantage to himself and of disadvantage to his enemies. Nothing can be more incorrect. The batteries, to which we have alluded, had so completely attained the range of the Fort of Detroit, in the small area of which were cooped up a force of nearly twenty-five hundred men, that every shot that was fired told with terrible effect, and not less than three officers of the small regular force were killed or mutilated by one ball passing through the very heart of their private apartments, into which it had, as if searchingly and insidiously, found its way. To the left, moreover, was another floating battery of large ships of war, preparing to vomit forth their thunder, and distract the garrison and divide their fire, which could be returned only from their immediate front bearing on the river, that it soon became evident to the besiegers that their enemy had no power to arrest or effectually check the fury of their attack. But not this alone. Thousands of Indians had occupied the ground in the rear, and only waited the advance of the British columns, furnished also with artillery for an assault in another quarter, to rush with the immolating tomahawk upon the defenceless inhabitants of the town, and complete a slaughter to which there would have been no parallel in warfare. They could not have been restrained; their savage appetite for blood must have been appeased, and of this fact General Hull had been apprised. Moreover, five hundred of his force who had been detached under Colonel Cass, were at no great distance, and had an effectual resistance been made at Detroit—had blood been, as they would have conceived, wantonly spilt, the exasperation of the Indians would have been such that, in all probability, Colonel Cass would not at the present day be a candidate for presidential honors, nor would any of his force have shared a better fate. All these things we state impartially and without fear of contradiction, because they occurred under our own eyes, and because we believe that the people of the United States do not understand the true difficulties by which General Hull was beset. It may be very well, and is correct enough in the abstract, to say that an officer commanding a post, armed and garrisoned as Detroit was, ought to have annihilated their assailants, but where, in the return of prisoners, is mention made of artillerymen sufficient to serve even half the guns by which the fortress was defended? The Fourth Regiment of the line was there, but not the gallant Fourth Artillery, and every soldier knows that that arm is often more injurious to friends than to foes in the hands of men not duly trained to it. With the exception only of the regiment first named, the army of General Hull consisted wholly of raw levies chiefly from Ohio, expert enough at the rifle, but utterly incompetent to serve artillery with effect. Again, the greater the number of men the greater the disadvantage, unless at the moment of assault, for it has already been shown that the British battering guns had obtained the correct range, and half the force had only canvas to cover them.
We pretend not, assume not, to be the panegyrist of General Hull, but we have ever been of opinion that, as he expressed himself in his official despatch to the commandant at Chicago, his principal anxiety was in regard to the defenceless inhabitants; and that had his been an isolated command, where men and soldiers only were the actors, no consideration would have induced him to lose sight of the order of the Secretary of War—that no post should be surrendered without a battle. If he erred it was from motives of humanity alone. But we return from our short digression to the little party in Fort Dearborn.
As we have before remarked, the sun rose on their immediate preparation for departure with a seemingly mocking brilliancy. None had been in bed from early dawn; and as both officers and men glanced, for the last time, from the ramparts upon the common, they saw assembled around nearly the whole of the Indians, with arms in their hands, and though not absolutely dressed in war dress, without any of those indications of warriors prepared for a long march, such as that meditated by the troops, while their tents still remained standing.
“The prospect is gloomy enough,” remarked Captain Wells, gravely; “those follows have evidently been up all night and watching the fort from a distance, to see whether an attempt might not be made to 'steal a march' upon them in the dark—look yonder to the loft, do you see that band crouching as the light becomes stronger behind those sand hills? Mark me well if that is not the point from which they will make their attack, if attack us they do! For myself, I am prepared for the worst; and in order that they shall know how much I mistrust them—nay, how certain I am of what they intend, I shall head the advance with my brave warriors painted as black as the devil himself. And so to prepare ourselves.”
“Corporal Nixon, pull me down that flag,” ordered Ensign Ronayne, pointing to it, when the commanding officer had descended to give directions for the formation of the line of march—“that is my especial charge, and he who may take a fancy to it must win it with my life.”
The corporal replied not. He was not aware of the true position of his young officer's lady, and he was afraid to give him pain by making allusion to her. He, however, promptly obeyed, and when the flag was lowered, and the lines cut away, assisted him in enfolding it somewhat in the fashion of a Scotch tartan round his body.
At the moment when the flag came down, the Indians on the common set up a tremendous yell. It was evidently that of triumph at the unmistakable evidence of the immediate evacuation of the fort.
The hot blood of Ronayne could not suffer this with impunity. At the full extent of his lungs he pealed back a yell of defiance, which attracted the general notice towards himself, standing erect as he did with the bright and brilliant colors of the silken flag flashing in the sun. Among those who were nearest to him was Pee-to-tum, over whose wounded eye had been drawn a colored handkerchief as a bandage. The Chippewa shook his tomahawk menacingly at him, and motioned as though he would represent the act of tearing the flag from his body.
The shout and its cause were heard and known below. Captain Headley returned to the rampart, and with much excitement in his manner and tone, inquired of the young officer what he meant by such imprudence of conduct at such a moment—when they were about to place themselves, almost defenceless, at the mercy of those whom he so wantonly provoked.
“It ill becomes you, sir,” returned the Virginian, fiercely and sarcastically, “to talk to me of imprudence, who but follow your example of yesterday. Where was the prudence, I ask, which induced you to compromise not only your own life, but the lives of all, in spitting first, then dashing your glove, into the face of the Chippewa?”
“If you dare to question the propriety of my conduct, sir,” returned his commanding officer, “know that the act was provoked—unavoidable, if we would respect ourselves and command the respect of our enemies. Pee-to-tum had insulted the American people by contemptuously trampling under foot the medal that had been given to him by the President. Join your company, sir! What tomfoolery is that?” alluding to the manner in which the colors were disposed of. “Remove those colors!”
“That tomfoolery,” returned Ronayne, his cheek paling with passion as he descended to the parade, “means that I know what you do not, Captain Headley—how to defend the colors intrusted to my care. I will not remove them.”
“This fills the measure of your insolence, Mr. Ronayne,” returned the commandant; “you will have a heavy account to settle by the time you reach Fort Wayne.”
“The sooner the better; but if we do reach it, it will be from no merit of arrangement of yours,” returned the subaltern, as he placed himself in his allotted station in the company.
It may and must appear not only surprising, but out of character to the reader, that such language should pass between two officers—and these unquestionably gentlemen—of the regular service—the one in command, the other filling the lowest grade of the commissioned service; but so it was. The high spirit of the Virginian had ever manifested deep impatience under what he considered to be the unnecessary martinetism of Capt. Headley, and there had always existed, from the moment of joining of the former, a disposition to run restive under his undue exercise of authority. This feeling had been greatly increased since the resolution taken by Capt. Headley to retreat after giving away the presents and ammunition to the Indians, not only because it was a most imprudent step, but because while the fort was maintained, there was the greater chance of his again being reunited, through the instrumentality of Wau-nan-gee, to his wife. Perhaps had he known the sincere sympathy which Capt. Headley entertained for him at the grief occasioned by her loss, or the knowledge he had obtained of her supposed guilt, which, notwithstanding all their little differences, he guarded with so much delicacy, this bitterness of feeling would have been much qualified; but he was ignorant of the fact, and only on one occasion, and for a moment as has been seen, suspected that Mrs. Headley had, under the seal of confidence and from a presumed necessity, betrayed his secret. If the history of that time did not record these frequent and strong expressions of dissatisfaction and discontent between the captain and the ensign, we should feel that we were violating consistency in detailing them; but they were so, and the only barrier to an open and more marked rupture existed in the person of Mrs. Headley, whom Ronayne loved and honored as though she had been his own mother, and who, on her part, often pleaded his generous warmth of temperament and more noble qualities of heart in mitigation of the annoyance and anger of her husband.
All being now ready, the gates were thrown wide open for the last exit of the detachment, and the little column sallied forth. In the van rode Captain Wells and his little band of Miamis, whose lugubrious appearance likened the march much more to a funeral procession than to the movements of troops confident in themselves, and reposing faith in those whose services had been purchased. Next came thirty men of the detachment, and to them succeeded the wagons, containing, besides the women and children and sick, such stores of the garrison, including spare ammunition, with the luggage of the officers and men, as could not be dispensed with. Thirty men, composing the remaining subdivision of the healthy portion of the detachment, brought up the rear. Their route lay along the lake shore, while the Indians moved in a parallel line with them, separated only by a long range of sandhills.
Both excellent horsewomen, and mounted on splendid chargers whose good points had for years been proved by them in their numerous rides in the neighborhood, Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley, with Ronayne on horseback, brought up the extreme rear. The former, habited in a riding dress which fitted admirably to her noble and graceful figure, was cool and collected as though her ride were one of mere ordinary parade. Deep thought there was in her countenance, it is true. Less than woman had she been had none been observable there; but of that unquiet manner which belongs to the nervous and the timid, there was no trace. She spoke to Mrs. Elmsley—who also manifested a firmness not common to a woman, to one under similar circumstances, but still of a less decided character than that of her companion—of indifferent subjects, expressing, among other things, her regret that they were then leaving for ever the wild but beautifully romantic country in which they had passed so many happy days. “How we shall amuse ourselves at Fort Wayne,” she concluded, after one of those remarks, “heaven only knows; for although I spent a great part of my girlhood there, I confess it is the most dull station in which I have ever been quartered.”
“How,” remarked Ronayne, with an effort at gaiety his looks belied, “can the colors be better flanked than by two ladies who unite in themselves all the chivalrous courage of a Joan d'Arc and a Jeanne d'Amboise. Really, my dear Mrs. Headley,” glancing at the black morocco belt girt around her waist, and from which protruded the handles of two pistols about eight inches in length, “I would advise no Pottowatomie to approach too near you to-day.”
“I think I may safely second your recommendation, Ronayne,” she answered, as uncovering the front of her saddle she exhibited a short rifle which her riding habit concealed, “or they may find that my life has not been passed in the backwoods, without some little practical knowledge of the use of arms. When we were first married at Fort Wayne, Headley taught me to fire the pistol and the rifle with equal adroitness, and I have not forgotten my practice.”
“And I,” said Mrs. Elmsley, “though less formidably provided, have that which may serve me in an emergency—see here,” and she drew from the bosom of her riding dress a double-barrelled pistol, somewhat smaller than those of Mrs. Headley.
“Well provided, both of you,” said the Virginian, “and I was correct in saying that the color and the color-bearer were well guarded, but hark! what is that!”
Several shots were fired. They were discharged by the Indians, wantonly destroying the cattle browsing around the road by which they advanced.
“Such will be our fate,” exclaimed the officer with the excitement of indignation; “shot down, no doubt, like so many brutes.”
At that moment Captain Headley galloped up from the rear, he having been the last to leave the fort. Ronayne's words were overheard by him, and he demanded, hastily and abruptly:
“Are you afraid, sir? You seem well protected.”
“Sir!” thundered the ensign, “I can march up to the enemy where you dare not show your face.”
And, apologizing hurriedly to the ladies, he dashed the spurs furiously into his horse's flanks and followed his captain, who had hastened to the front.
As the latter gained the head of the column which was only rendered of any length by the dozen bullock wagons containing the stores and luggage, he saw Capt. Wells, who was about a hundred yards in the advance, suddenly wheel round with his Miamis, and push rapidly back for the—main body.
“They are preparing to attack us, sir,” he shouted. “There is not a moment to be lost in making your arrangements.”
Scarcely had these words been uttered, when a volley came rattling across the sandhill from the level of the prairie, wounding, but not disabling, two of his men.
“We must charge them,” he answered, “it is our only hope. Keep them in check, Wells, while I form line. Now, my lads, it is death or victory for us. Baggage wagons halt, and form hollow square, to shelter the women and children from the bullets of the enemy. Rear subdivision, to the front! Right subdivision, halt!”
“Left subdivision, halt!” ordered Lieutenant Elmsley, when they had come up.
“Front!” pursued the captain, and the line was formed. “Men, throw off your packs—you must have nothing to encumber you in that sand; the drivers will carry them into the square. Ladies, you had better retire there too.”
“To a soldier's wife the field of battle were preferable on a day like this,” calmly returned Mrs. Headley, who, with Mrs. Elmsley, had ridden up with the rear. “Better to be shot down there than tomahawked near the wagons. Besides our presence will encourage the men—will it not, my lads?” A loud cheer burst from the ranks. Each man, certainly, felt greater confidence than before.
“Then forward, charge!” shouted Capt. Headley, availing himself of this moment of enthusiasm; “recollect, you fight for your wives and children; if you drive not the Indians, they perish!”
“Nay, forget not, you fight for your colors!” cried Ronayne, galloping furiously through the sand to the front, and heading the centre.
The ascent was not very steep, and as the colors, tightly girt over the shoulders of Ronayne and hanging from the flanks of his horse, first appeared crowning the crest, and then the little serried line of bayonets glittering like so many streams of light in the sun's rays, exclamations of wonder, mingled with fierce shouts, burst from the Indians, who up to this moment had, after their first volley, been wholly occupied by Captain Wells and his party of horsemen, whom they seemed more anxious to make prisoners than to fire at, and this in consideration of their horses, which they were anxious to obtain unwounded.
“Wells,” shouted Captain Headley, on whose little line the Indians now began to open their fire, “send half your people to protect my right flank. Charge, men! It is all down hill work now, and we are fairly in for it. If we are to die, let us die like men.”
Simultaneously, and without the order, the men shouted the charge as, with their commanding officer and the colors full in view before them, they dashed forward where their enemies were the thickest, and such was the effect of their unswerving courage that the latter, although in numbers sufficient to have annihilated them, were awed by their resolution; and in many instances, those who were not in the immediate line of their advance, stood leaning on their guns watching them and without firing a shot; nor was this strange, for it must be recollected that the hostile feeling to the garrison had not been shared by all the Pottowatomies, especially by the chiefs and more elderly warriors.
Before the determined advance of the gallant little band the Indians gave way, until they had retired again nearly as far as their own encampment, but the ranks were fast thinning by the distant fire of the enemy, whom it was found impossible to reach with the bayonet.
“This will never do,” thundered Capt. Headley; “halt! form square!”
The order was speedily obeyed; but on hearing firing behind and looking round for his wife and Mrs. Elmsley, to place them in the centre, Captain Headley saw that a great number of the Indians whom they had driven before them had turned aside and reunited behind—thus cutting them off from their party. It has already been observed that the horse Mrs. Headley rode was a magnificent animal, docile yet full of life and spirit, and the excitement and sound of battle had, on this occasion, given to him an animation—a-grace, if it may be so expressed, which, rendered even more remarkable by the superb figure of his rider, excited in several of the Indians a strong desire to get possession of him uninjured. Her own scalp they were burning with eagerness to secure; for from the first moment of the charge down the hill, she had used her little rifle so successfully that of three Indians hit by her two had been killed, and they had evinced their deep exasperation. The anxiety to extricate herself, without the horse being wounded, in all probability saved her; for they fired so high that almost all the bullets passed over her head, although not less than seven did reach their aim—one of them lodging in her left arm. The Indians were now pressing more closely upon her, when Captain Wells, seeing the danger to which the noble woman was exposed, dashed back at the head of his brave horsemen, and used the tomahawk with such effect without the enemy being able to guard themselves against the rapidity of his movements, that he soon cleared a passage to her, cleft the skull of a Pottowatomie who had reached her side, and was in the very act of removing her riding hat to scalp her alive, and lifting her off her horse, covered with wounds and faint from loss of blood, bore her rapidly down towards the lake. As he approached it, he met Winnebeg and Black Partridge returning to the scene of blood, to save her if possible, as they had previously saved Mrs. Elmsley, who had had her horse shot under her, and been wounded in the ankle. Both were hurried into a canoe, and concealed under blankets by those good but now powerless chiefs, while the brave but desperate captain returned to head his warriors and try the last issue of the fight.
Meanwhile, Captain Headley had been again attacked and with great fury by the rallying Indians, while the only diversion in his favor was that made by the little band of Miamis, who, however, could not be expected to render efficient aid much longer; besides, whatever immediate advantage might be gained, the final result when the darkness of night should set in, was but too certain. Not only his officers and himself, but his men felt this, and they could scarcely be said to regret it, when, surrounding them from a distance, the Indians renewed a fire which, from the moment of their first being thrown into square, had in a great degree been lulled. During that short interval they had been made to moisten their parched lips from their canteens of water into which had been thrown a small quantity of rum at starting, and no one who has ever donned the buckler need be told the exhilarating, the renewing influence of this upon men jaded with long previous watching and fighting at disadvantage.
“Men, husband your ammunition,” enjoined the captain, “keep cool, and when I give the word, level low and deliberately. Our position cannot be better, for the country is all clear and flat around us. God defend the right.”
“Commence file-firing from the right of faces,” he ordered, as he remarked that the Indians, rendered bolder by has inactivity, were evidently closing upon him, as for the purpose of a rush.
Steadily and coolly the men pulled the trigger for the first time; and the effect of the caution he had given was perceptible. The Indians were no less galled than astonished when turning from one face to get out of the way of danger, they found the bullets coming upon them from every point of the compass—not very many, it is true, but quite enough to stay and to warn them that a nearer approach was dangerous; and before the little band had discharged a dozen cartridges each—few failing to tell—they had withdrawn entirely out of reach of danger either to themselves or to their enemies.
While thus they stood, as it were, at bay, they for the first time had leisure to look around and observe the havoc that had been done along the slope of the sandhill and on the plain below. Nearly half of their gallant comrades lay there scalped and tomahawked, and with their bodies and limbs thrown into those strange contortions which mark the last physical agony of the soldier struck down by the bullet in the midst of life and health; but for every private lay two Indians at least—a few of them who had been overtaken in the furious charge down the hill, but most of them sufferers from their fire while formed in their little but compact square. Capt. Headley and his lieutenant looked anxiously, but silently, towards the sand hill, where they had last seen their wives exposed to the most imminent danger, yet gallantly defended by Captain Wells and his Miami warriors, three of whose horses, shot under them, encumbered the ground, but nothing was to be seen of either; and the bitterness of sorrow was in their hearts, for they believed them to be dead, and that their bodies were lying beyond the crest of the hill, whence occasional shouts were heard. As for Ronayne, he kept his eye fixed in the opposite direction, for they were not far from the encampment of the Pottowatomies, and he felt satisfied that his beloved Maria, who, after the great peril to which he had fears Mrs. Headley and Mrs Elmsley were exposed, he deeply rejoiced to know was in a place of safety, was then not far from him, and no doubt forcibly detained from the field by the mother of Wau-nan-gee, or by the youth himself.
“'Twere folly to remain here longer and thus inactive,” remarked Captain Headley. “The Indians are evidently waiting for night to renew their attack, for they are sensible that, as few of them are provided with rifles, our muskets have greatly the advantage of range. Hark! do you hear the yells and shouting of the hell-hounds in the fort? It is well for us that nearly half their force has been attracted thither by the thirst of plunder and the hope of obtaining rum. But let us resume our position on the hill. Now that we shall be enabled to command every thing around us, if we are to die let us fall together like men and soldiers in our little serried square.”
“Long live our brave captain!—huzza! We will light to the last cartridge, and bayonet in hand,” exclaimed Paul Degarmo, raising his cap excitedly.
The cheer was taken up and prolonged until the forest that bounded the places they were in sent back the echo.
Scarcely had this subsided, when terrific shrieks and cries, mingled with fierce yells, burst from the opposite side of the sandhill. This lasted for about five minutes, and then gradually died away. Then many straggling shots were heard, and these died away in distance.
Captain Headley, who had deferred his movement towards the sandhill during this manifestation of the presence of the enemy on the other side of the ridge, now moved his men to its base, and there halted them. After a little time, ordering a rush with the bayonet on the first Indians who should show themselves in any force, he stepped out of the square, and moved in a stooping posture to gain the summit, that he might reconnoitre the enemy and see what they were about. But scarcely had he reached the top when he again rapidly descended. His face was pale—his lips compressed. He had seen a sight to shake the nerves of the sternest soldier, and gladly did he swallow, from the canteen of Sergeant Nixon, who offered it to him, the cordial beverage that carried renewed circulation to his veins.
“Forward, men, with as little noise as possible, and gain the crest of the hill; but, whatever you see, let not your nerves be shaken into indiscretion. If you fire without orders from me, you are lost without a hope. Be cool, and when I do give the command to fire, let the front face of the square exchange their discharged firelocks for those of the rear face, in order to be always loaded. Now, men, be cool.”
Captain Headley was wise in issuing this precautionary order, for the sight the little square beheld, on gaining and halting on the ridge, was one not merely to render men reckless and imprudent, but in a great measure to drive them mad.
“A crimson river of warm blood like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind.”
“A crimson river of warm blood like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind.”
—Titus Andronicus.
To understand the horrible scene that met the view, first of the commanding officer, and subsequently of the little square, it will be necessary to go back to certain events of the past half hour.
When Captain Wells had returned from delivering over his wounded niece to the charge of Black Partridge and Winnebeg, both of whom had, with deep sorrow, beheld the fiendish excesses of their young men, but without being able to prevent them, he was pursuing his way across the sandhill to the assistance of Captain Headley. Suddenly, while looking around to find out in what part of the field his Miamis were, he saw several Pottowatomies approach the spot where the baggage wagons were drawn up, and commence tomahawking the children. The cries and shrieks of the mothers, as the helpless victims perished one after the other, under their eyes, until nearly a dozen had fallen, brought with it all the renewal of the horror he ever experienced when women and children were the assailed, and drove him almost frantic.
“Is that your game?” he exclaimed furiously in their own language!— “thank God, we can play at that too.”
The attempt to check the strong party assembled round the wagons, he felt would be unavailing, but resolving to venture, single-handed, into the encampment of the enemy, where their children had been left unguarded, he turned his horse's head, dashed past the fort again at his fullest speed, and with revenge and a threat of retaliation racking his very heart strings, made for their wigwams. Alarmed, in turn, for the safety of their squaws and children, the murderers now desisted from their work and followed as vapidly as they could on foot, the flight of the Miami leader. Every now and then they stopped and fired, but at the outset all their shots were in vain, for the captain, accustomed to that sort of warfare, throwing himself along the neck of his horse, loading and firing in that position, baffled all their attempts to bring him down, while he waved his tomahawk on high, as if in triumph at the successful issue of what he meditated. As the pursuing Indians passed the gate of the fort, now filled with plunderers, many intoxicated, Pee-to-tum, who had been there from the first—his love of drink being even stronger than his thirst for revenge—came staggering forth, suddenly aroused to a consciousness of what was going on without, and demanded to know the cause of this new and immediate tumult. The young Indians hastily informed him; when the Chippewa, dropping on one knee, and holding his ramrod as a rest upon the ground, ran his right and uninjured eye along the sight, pulled the trigger, and brought down the horse of the fugitive, which fell with a heavy plunge. A tremendous shout followed from the band who had lost, four warriors by his fire, and who, consequently deeply enraged, now made the greatest efforts to come up with and secure him. Before he could disengage himself from his horse, under which he lay severely wounded himself, two other Indians came up from an opposite quarter, and, taking him prisoner, sought to bear him off before the others could reach him. These were the chiefs Waubansee and Winnebeg, the latter of whom, seeing the danger of the captain from the moment when the massacre of the children commenced, had left Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley under the care of Black Partridge, and hastened to be of service to him if possible. But all their efforts to save him were vain. With rapid strides, and shouts rendered more savage than ever by the fumes of the liquor he had swallowed, and with the scalp of the unfortunate Von Voltenberg—who had been killed while returning to the fort for a small flask of brandy which he had forgotten—dangling at his side, Pee-to-tum advanced with furious speed, and, stabbing the captain in the back, put an end to his misery. No sooner had he fallen, than, like a vulture, the Chippewa sprang upon the lifeless body, and, making an incision with his knife upon the strong and full-haired crown, tore the reeking covering away, and thus added another trophy to his disgusting spoils. This was the signal for further outrage, Exasperated by the knowledge of the revenge he had meditated, and the loss he had already occasioned them, the warriors who had first followed the ill-fated Miami leader, cut open the left side with their knives, and tore forth the yet warm and bleeding heart, which, as well as the body itself, they bore back in triumph to the very spot whence they had set out, Pee-to-tum carrying his heart, pierced by the ramrod, as it protruded a couple of feet from the barrel of his rifle.
Squatted in a circle, and within a few feet of the wagon in which the tomahawked children lay covered with blood, and fast stiffening in the coldness of death, now sat about twenty Indians, with Pee-to-tum at their head, passing from hand to hand the quivering heart of the slain man, whose eyes, straining, as it were, from their sockets, seemed to watch the horrid repast in which they were indulging, while the blood streamed disgustingly over their chins and lips, and trickled over their persons. So many wolves or tigers could not have torn away more voraciously with their teeth, or smacked their lips with greater delight in the relish of human food, than did these loathsome creatures, who now moistened the nauseous repast from a black bottle of rum which had been found in one of the wagons containing the medicine for the sick—and what gave additional disgust was the hideous aspect of the inflamed eye of the Chippewa, from which the bandage had fallen off, and from which the heat of the sun's rays was fast drawing a briny, ropy, and copious discharge, resembling rather the grey and slimy mucus of the toad than the tears of a human being.
At the moment when the little square thus reappeared unexpectedly before them, the revellers, who had supposed them either in the hollow below, or long since disposed of by their comrades, were almost instantly sobered and on their feet. Quickly they flew to secure their guns, which lay at a little distance behind them; but, before they could reach them, a volley from the front face of the square was poured in with an effect which, at that short distance, could not fail to prove destructive; and of the twenty Indians who had composed the circle, more than a dozen of them fell dead, or so desperately wounded, that they could not crawl off the ground.
“Good, men!” shudderingly remarked Capt. Headley, “we have revenged this slaughter at least. Cease firing. Pull not another trigger until I order you. If there be a hope left for us, it must depend wholly upon our coolness. What a pity you missed that scoundrel Pee-to-tum. Hark, Elmsley, do you hear his brutal voice calling upon the Indians to renew the attack!”—and then in a lower tone to the same officer: “What can have become of our wives? Yonder rides a Pottowatomie mounted on Mrs. Headley's charger. I pray God they may not have made them prisoners!”
“Heaven grant it may be so, sir!” solemnly returned his subaltern; “but, in their present exasperated state, I fear the worst. Why, while we were in the hollow, I distinctly saw Mrs. Headley bring down two Indians with her rifle. They would not easily forget that.”
“And I, sir,” said Sergeant Nixon deferentially, as if fearing to intrude, “saw Mrs. Elmsley's horse shot under her; and when an Indian came up and struggled with her, she threw her arm around his neck, and presented and fired a pistol at him, and then tried to get at his scalping knife which was suspended over his chest. What the result was, I could not make out; but the last I saw of her, she was seized by another Indian and carried in his arms across the very spot where we now stand. See, sir, that is her horse!” and he pointed to the animal, which lay only a few feet from the square, and which, among the dead bodies of soldiers, Pottowatomies, and Miamis, had hitherto escaped their attention.
“See, sir, they are collecting in great force near the gate,” observed the lieutenant—“I can distinctly see Pee-to-tum, who has joined them, motioning with his hand to advance.”
“Then is this the best position we could have chosen,” returned Captain Headley; “courage, men! A taste of biscuit from your haversacks while you have time, a teaspoonful of rum, and then we must at it again. Mind, above all things, that you keep cool, and do not fire a shot without orders.”
From the moment that Ronayne had placed himself, with the colors, at the head of the little party when advancing up the sandhill, he had not spoken a word, but continued to gaze fixedly and abstractedly upon that part of the plain or prairie which led to the inner encampment of the Indians. His whole thought—his undivided attention was given to his wife, whose anxiety, nay, anguish, at hearing the sounds of conflict which denoted his imminent peril, he knew must be intense. True, he himself was spared the anxiety and uncertainty which filled the breasts of his comrades on seeing those they loved best on earth exposed to all the fearful chance of battle, but even in that there was an excitement which in some degree compensated for the risks they ran. The very fact of their presence had sustained them; but now that the final result seemed no longer doubtful, and that the annihilation of the whole party was to be momentarily expected, he felt that one last look, one last embrace of her he loved, would rob death of half its horrors. But this was but the momentary selfishness of the man. When Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley were known to have disappeared, he more than ever rejoiced in the circumstances which had removed his beloved wife from the horrors of the day, and placed her under so faithful a guardianship as that of the generous Wau-nan-gee.
But there was another reason for the calm, the serious silence which the Virginian had preserved. Independently of the aching interest he took in all that he supposed to be passing at that moment in the mind of his absent wife, he had been deeply galled by the last insulting remark of Captain Headley, to which he had, it is true, replied in a similar spirit, yet which nevertheless had continued to give him much annoyance. His duty as bearer of the colors being rather passive than active, he had not found it necessary to open his lips, except to utter a few words of encouragement and approval to the men. Formed in hollow square, as the little force now was, there was no opportunity for display of individual or personal prowess, or he certainly would have sought an opportunity to test with his commanding officer the extent of their respective daring. But now an occasion at last presented itself, and in a manner least expected.
From the position now occupied by the devoted little band, a view of the whole adjacent country was distinctly commanded, even to the very gates of the fort, from which they had never advanced more than half a mile on their retreat, and within a mile of which their movements had again brought them. On looking anxiously around to see from what direction the most imminent danger would proceed, Captain Headley remarked a largo body of Indians issuing from the gateway, and moving slowly from the fort towards them.
“Give me the glass, Mr. Elmsley,” he said to that officer, who had it slung over his shoulder, “let me see if I can make out what they intend. Ha! by heaven they are moving one of the field pieces towards us. Could they but manage a few rounds of that, they would soon make short work of the affair, but the simpletons seem to have overlooked the fact of the gun being spiked—even if they knew how to aim it.”
“If it is the gun that was in the block-house, it is not spiked, sir,” remarked Sergeant Nixon.
“Not spiked! how is that?” asked the captain quickly—almost angrily.
“The spikes were too large, sir; and Weston, whose duty it was, broke a ramrod off instead.”
“Ha! is it so? What a thought strikes me! Could we get hold of that gun, we might yet make terms with those devils. Who will lead a forlorn hope and volunteer to take it?”
“I will,” thundered Ronayne, with sudden vivacity, his eye flashing fiercely as he met the glance of his commanding officer. “Spare me three men from each face of the square, and I will bring it to you or die in the attempt.” The captain colored and looked annoyed with himself.
“One moment, Mr. Ronayne. Have we the means of removing the broken ramrod if we should get the gun? Where is the armorer?”
“I have them, sir,” returned the man. “I thought a drill and a hammer would be useful on the march, and so I put them in my pack.”
“Pish! there is another difficulty. Your pack is as difficult to reach as the gun. It is in the wagon, is it not?”
“Yes, sir, and the hammer in it, but I have the spike thrust through a piece of beef in my haversack.”
“All right. There are stones enough around to supply the absence of a hammer.”
“Volunteers to the front!” said Ronayne, in a low, firm tone, and with compressed lip. “What Hardscrabble men will follow me?”
Simultaneously, Sergeant Nixon, Corporals Collins and Green; Phillips, Watson, Weston, and Degarmo, stepped forth, with several others, anxious to be of the party, until the number was made up, and again the diminished square closed upon its centre.
“Not yet,” cried Captain Headley, who, having once more applied the glass to his eye, was closely watching the movements of the Indian mass. “Nothing must be left to mere chance. Mr. Elmsley, what is the position of the wagon which contains the ammunition?”
“It was the leading one, sir,” returned the officer addressed. “What alteration has been made in the act of throwing them into square, I cannot possibly tell.”
“See, is not that it?” asked the commanding officer, pointing to one from the top of which several casks protruded.
“It is,” was the reply.
“Then, Mr. Ronayne, first lead your party to the wagons and let each man load himself from the keg of ball cartridge, and as many grenades as he can carry—these must supply the place of larger shot, if we get the gun. Lose no time. There is not an Indian on that side of the sandhill now, and you will easily accomplish your object. Sampson,” addressing the armorer, “you may as well avail yourself of the opportunity to get your heavy hammer. The stones about here are brittle, and may break.”
In little more than five minutes, this first part of their duty was accomplished, although under circumstances far more painful and repugnant than the more dangerous one in reserve. On their way to the wagons they were compelled to pass close to the scalped and disembowelled body of the brave but unfortunate Wells, whose still bleeding heart, only half eaten, was encrusted with sand, and bore the ragged impress of teeth driven furiously and voraciously into it. On their arrival near the wagons, their nerves were further tried by the horrible and disgusting spectacle of the slain children, whose scalped heads and mutilated remains gave unmistakable evidence of the fate that awaited themselves unless Providence should interpose a miracle in their favor, while their ears were assailed by the stifled groans and sobbings of mothers who had covered their heads up with blankets and sheets, not only with a view to shut out the appalling sight of their murdered offspring, but to seek exemption from a similar fate. So confused was the perception of those poor, unhappy creatures, that they could not identify either the voices or the language of those who were now near them—some, the fathers of the innocents they mourned—but believed them to be Pottowatomies, and it was not until they had departed, and were out of sight, that they ventured again to uncover their heads, and breathe a pure air.
By the time the party returned, and had deposited within the square the keg of ball cartridges, and some fifty hand grenades, the Indians in great numbers had brought the three pounder, which was now made out to be the calibre of the gun, to the very spot where Capt. Headley had first formed the square, and just without the present range of the heavy muskets of the men. There was a great deal of clamor and bustle about the manner of manoeuvring the piece, and with the aid of the glass it could be distinctly seen that they once or twice applied a burning torch to the breech, for, when this was done, the Indians grouped around retired quickly from its neighborhood, but, on finding it did not explode, seemed for the first time to be sensible of the cause, and again gathered near it.
“Now, Mr. Ronayne, is your time,” said Capt. Headley to the young officer, whose volunteers, twelve in number, with a hand grenade in each haversack, and a second in his right hand, now stood ready, with their muskets at the trail, to ignite the port fire, and descend upon the formidable mass below them. “Sampson, the moment you reach the gun, drive in the spike, and turn the muzzle towards the thickest of the enemy. Every bullet will, doubtless, tell. The discharge will throw them into confusion, and enable you, Mr. Ronayne, to retire under the cover of our musketry. The gun once here, and we may change the fortune of the day. Are your port fires all lighted? Forward, then!”
And down in silence dashed the little party into the midst of their enemies. Taken completely by surprise, and dismayed at the sight of the hissing port fire, which they did not comprehend, the Indians at first drew back and opened a running fire from their inferior guns, but seeing how small was the number of their assailants, they again advanced and waited for their nearer approach, determined apparently to save their powder and make the tomahawk alone perform its work. Suddenly, Ronayne, who had dismounted on the hill, halted within twenty paces of the spot, and with his men at extended order. The Indians dared not to provoke a hand-to-hand encounter, for that would have brought them within the range of the muskets they saw levelled above. This was a most critical and anxious moment to the young officer. He had descended the hill too rapidly for the port fire to be sufficiently consumed for ignition of the shells generally, and for nearly a minute they stood thus, their muskets still at the trail, and at every moment expecting the Indians to make a final spring upon them.
At length, after the lapse of a few seconds, which seemed ages, the fire rapidly approached the iron.
“Now, my lads,” shouted the Virginian, “throw them in lustily.”
A loud cheer burst from the lips of each, as, after having hurled the missives of death into the dense groups of the astonished savages, they followed up the advantage created by the confusion of the bursting shells, by a rush upon the gun, the drag-ropes of which were seized amid many distant shots, and so effectually used that, before the former could recover from their panic, the piece was withdrawn under cover of the fire from the square, and its muzzle turned to the enemy.
A second loud and triumphant cheer followed from the hill, and the strong voice of Captain Headley could be distinctly heard when it had ceased.
“Quick, quick, Mr. Ronayne; there is another strong band approaching the wood on your left. The work is but half done.”
“Light your second grenades,” ordered Ronayne. “The sight of the burning port fires will keep them in check. Sampson, will you never have finished with the gun? what are you fumbling about that you do not drive in the ramrod?”
But the man spake not; he reclined motionless over the breech of the field piece. The next moment the brazen plated cap fell from his head, and a white forehead was exhibited, with a slight incrustation of blood on the temple showing where the fatal rifle ball had entered.
“Ha! dead!” exclaimed Ronayne, excitedly, as he caught the man by the collar and gently lowered him to the ground. “I must then perform your duty.”
He caught up the drill and the heavy hammer which the stiffening armorer had dropped, and so well and powerfully did he use it, that after a few blows the end of the ramrod, broken short off at the touch—hole, fell into the body of the gun, and the vent-hole was clear.
“All right,” he exclaimed; “quick, Collins, a couple of cartridges to prime with.”
In another moment the gun was ready. The officer passed his eye along the sight, and saw that the muzzle pointed fully at the large body that was approaching a small patch of brushwood to take him in flank.
“The moment I fire,” he ordered, “throw in your second grenades, seize the drag-ropes and retire with all speed with the gun. I see the fuses are nearly burnt out; this is rather a short one for my purpose, Collins, but it must answer.”
Stepping to the right side of the gun, he held forth the grenade with his left hand, and applied the port fire to the touch-hole. There was a fizz of a few seconds, and then the gun went off with a loud explosion, and a fierce recoil. Yells and shrieks rent the air, and in a moment the whole of the new band were scampering away in full flight, leaving behind them some five-and-twenty of their party killed and disabled by the discharge of the piece, loaded, as has been seen, with musket bullets.
Profiting by the consternation into which this murderous fire had thrown the whole body of Pottowatomies, the men pealed forth another cheer even louder than the first, hurled forward their grenades, not yet ready for explosion, as far as they could throw them, and seizing the drag-ropes, ran fleetly with it towards the hill.
Stricken with disappointment, the Indians lost sight of their usual caution, and rushed furiously forward to recover the gun, which, however, being now discharged, was of no actual use to them.
“Leave the gun where it is, and bring off your officer,” shouted Captain Headley in a clear voice. “See you not that he is wounded, and the Indians advancing to dispatch him?”
This was the first intimation the men had of the fact. In their anxiety to secure the gun, they had not observed that Ronayne, hit by a rifle bullet while in the very act of firing his piece, had been brought to the ground with a broken leg, and rendered unable to follow them. But, no sooner had Captain Headley uttered the order than all hastened back to the spot where the Virginian reclined on one side, with the musket of the armorer tightly grasped, and his look still bent upon the distant forest.
Just as they had reached, and were preparing to lift him up, the Indians again rushed forward to dispute his possession. They were within twenty paces, and brandishing their tomahawks triumphantly, when, suddenly, and one after another, burst in the midst of them, the grenades which had been hurled prematurely on the discharge of the field piece, and striking panic into their body, caused them once more hurriedly to retire.
But this check was only momentary. Rendered reckless at every moment from the liquor which all had more or less imbibed at different periods of the battle, and ashamed that they should be kept at bay by so mere a handful of men, the dark mass now fiercely closed upon the little party that bore off the wounded officer, and commenced their attack.
Meanwhile, Captain Headley, seeing this resolute forward movement of the Indians, and anticipating the certain destruction of the whole, moved his little square rapidly towards the gun, causing his men to take with them the ammunition which had been collected there, and soon the piece was again loaded and turned to his front. But it was found impossible to discharge the gun without endangering the lives of his own men more than those even of the enemy, for the Indians in immediate pursuit kept themselves so cautiously in the rear of the former, that, in the position he then occupied, it was impossible to reach them alone. The only movement that could save them was a rapid change of ground, so as to enable him to take the enemy in flank, and of this he hastened to avail himself by again occupying the sandhill. This was done; but in the short time taken to effect the movement, the bloodhounds had too well profited by their advantage.
At the head of the pursuers was the Chippewa, Pee-to-tum. His voice had been loudest in the war whoop, as his foot had been the most forward in the advance; and his denunciations of the dog Headley, as he called him, were bitter, and he called loudly for him that he might kill him with his tomahawk.
“Save yourselves, men, and leave me to my fate,” exclaimed the Virginian, as he heard the voice of the Chippewa almost in his ear. “Nixon, remove the colors from my shoulders and take them into the square. I shall not die happy until I know them to be secure.”
“Nay, sir,” said the non-commissioned officer, “we will not, cannot desert you; and, if we would, it is now out of our power—we are too closely pressed—we must fight to the last.”
“Then drop me, and turn and fight. Let us not be struck down like dastards, with our backs to the enemy. Where is that musket?”
“Here it is, sir,” said the serjeant; “but in your present disabled state you cannot make use of it.”
“At least I will try,” returned the Virginian. “If I could but slay the black-souled Pee-to-tum, I should revenge the treachery of this day, and perhaps be the means of saving the remnant of our brave fellows.”
“Oh!” gasped Nixon, as he fell suddenly dead upon the body of his wounded officer. He had been shot through the back and under the left rib. A fierce veil followed, and Ronayne beheld the hellish face of the Chippewa, looking more disgusting than ever in the loss of his left eye, as, with shining blade, he bounded forward to take the scalp of his victim.
The body of the serjeant lay across his shattered leg, and not only gave him great anguish, but impeded his action, faint, moreover, as he was from loss of blood from several subsequent wounds received during his transit from the spot where he first had fallen. But the opportunity of avenging his wife, himself, and his slaughtered companions—the latter all murdered at his instigation—was one that would never occur again, and all his energies were aroused. Even while the half—drunken savage was in the act of taking the scalp of the unfortunate Nixon, Ronayne removed the bayonet from the musket, and grasping it with all the fierce determination of hatred, drove the sharp long instrument with such force through his exposed body, that not only the point protruded several inches on the opposite side, but the inner edge of the socket itself cut deeply into the flesh.
Absolutely roaring with pain, the Chippewa left his bloody work unfinished. The knife fell from his grasp. He sprang to his feet, and having at once seen by whose hand the blow had been inflicted, a sudden thought appeared to occur to him. Down again he threw himself furiously upon the body of the wounded officer, who, anticipating the act, had by this time armed himself with the knife that lay with its handle on the ground and the trickling blade across the down-turned cheek of the serjeant. He sought to encircle him in his death grip, but, in falling, the handle of the bayonet had struck the ground, driving the weapon even deeper in, and thus adding to his torture. But the greater his suffering, the more desperate became his thirst for revenge. He now managed to throw his arms round the neck of the Virginian, and said something in broken English, which, accompanied as his language was by a fiendish laugh rendering his countenance more hideous than ever, caused the latter to make the most furious endeavor to release himself, while with his right and disengaged hand he struck blindly with his knife at the uncovered throat of the Indian. But the weapon was soon wrested from his enfeebled hands, and the Chippewa, dexterously turning himself so as to get the body of his enemy completely under him, now tried to scalp him alive. Weak as he was, the young officer did not lose sight of his presence of mind. Scarcely had the scalping knife touched his head, when it was again withdrawn with the most horrible contortions of the whole body of the Chippewa. Fixing his eye on the Indian's face above that he might feast on the agony of the wretch who had just avowed himself to be the violator of his wife, while threatening a repetition of the outrage when the battle should be over, the Virginian had seized the handle of the bayonet, and turned the weapon so furiously in the wound as to cause one general laceration, the agony arising from which could only be comprehended from the spasmodic movements and wild bellowings of the savage. In order to free himself from the torture he was too much distracted by pain to think of removing by the instant death of his enemy, the Chippewa sprang suddenly upwards, but this movement only tended to increase the torments under which he writhed, for, as the Virginian held the handle firmly in his grasp, the bayonet was half withdrawn, and the sharp point forced, by the down-hanging weight of the socket, into a new direction. Wild with revenge and pain, he was at length in the act of raising his tomahawk to dispatch the Virginian, who had abandoned his hold of the bayonet, when a shot came from the front of the square, and Pee-to-tum fell dead across the bodies of both his immediate victims. Singular to say, the ball, aimed by Captain Headley himself at the upper part of his person, and during the only period when the Indians could be reached without danger to some one or other of the men, entered his brain over his injured eye, and forced out the other.
The fall of the detested Chippewa—the head and stay of their battle—seemed greatly to dispirit the Pottowatomies, a band of about fifty of whom had followed them in this fierce onset. Of that number, some fifteen had perished, both in the hand-to-hand encounter with the immediate followers of Ronayne and several shots from the square. On the other hand, but four of the volunteers remained —Corporal Collins, Phillips, Weston, and Degarmo—the latter severely wounded. All the others had fallen, and, with the exception of Serjeant Nixon, been scalped.
A cessation of the contest now ensued, and the Indians, holding up what was intended to be a flag of truce, asked permission to carry off the body of the Chippewa. Sensible how impolitic it would be to exasperate them without necessity, Captain Headley granted their request, adding that now the bad man who counselled them had been stricken down by the anger of the Great Spirit, he hoped they would come to their senses and obey their legitimate chiefs.
A low murmuring among themselves was the only reply, as they placed the body in a blanket, drew the bayonet from the wound, from which followed a copious dark stream, and leisurely proceeded with their burden and the scalps they had secured to rejoin another body of their tribe who had been watching them in the distance, and who now rapidly advanced to meet them, evidently anxious to know why they returned unmolested, and what tidings they brought.
Advantage was taken of this cessation of combat to bring back what remained of the gallant little band of volunteers within the square. The dead were left to moisten the sands on which they had so bravely fallen. Ronayne still lived, but he could not be removed. The slightest motion of his body brought with it agony little less excruciating than that which his enemy had experienced. He knew he must die, and he begged Captain Headley to let him perish where he was, under the shadow of the guns of his comrades, and in full sight of the forest which he knew contained all that he loved on earth. What he asked to be spared to him was a cloak to shield him from the burning heat of the sand, and a little water to moisten his parched lips. Oh! what would he not have given for a draught of the cool claret of the dinner of yesterday!