Part 14 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ATTACK ON BOONESBOROUGH.]
ATTACK OF BOONSBOROUGH.
On the tenth of March, 1778, Daniel Boone, having been taken prisoner by the Indians, was conducted to Detroit, when Governor Hamilton himself offered one hundred pounds sterling, for his ransom; but so great was the affection of the Indians for their prisoner, that it was positively refused. Boone's anxiety on account of his wife and children was incessant, and the more intolerable as he dared not excite the suspicions of his captors by any indication of a wish to return home.
The Indians were now preparing for a violent attack upon the settlements in Kentucky. Early in June, four hundred and fifty of the choicest warriors were ready to march against Boonesborough, painted and armed in a fearful manner. Alarmed at these preparations, he determined to make his escape. He hunted and shot with the Indians as usual, until the morning of the sixteenth of June, when, taking an early start, he left Chillicothe and directed his steps to Boonesborough. The distance exceeded one hundred and sixty miles, but he performed it in four days, during which he eat only one meal. He appeared before the garrison like one risen from the dead. He found the fortress in a bad state, and lost no time in rendering it more capable of defence. He repaired the flanks, gates, and posterns, formed double bastions, and completed the whole in ten days.
On the eighth of August, the enemy appeared. The attack upon the fort was instantly commenced; and the siege lasted nine days, during which, an almost incessant firing was kept up. On the twentieth of August, the enemy retired with a loss of thirty-seven killed and a great many wounded. This affair was highly creditable to the spirit and skill of the pioneers.
THRILLING INCIDENTS OF BATTLE.
There is a man now living in East Dixfield, Oxford county, me, who actually caught in his mouth a ball discharged from a musket. He was at the battle of Bridgewater, in the war of 1812, and, while biting off the end of a cartridge, for the purpose of loading his gun, was struck by a ball, which entered on the left side of his face, knocking out eight of his teeth, cut off the end of his tongue, and pa.s.sed into his throat. He raised it, went to the hospital, staid out the remainder of his enlistment, and returned home with the bullet in his pocket.
The New Orleans Picayune, one of whose editors was an eye-witness of the most of the leading battles in Mexico, copies the foregoing paragraph, and appends to it the following relation:
We can relate an incident even more strange than this. At the siege of Monterey, in 1846, and, while General Worth's troops were advancing to storm the small fort, known as La Soldada, a man, named Waters, an excellent soldier, belonging to Ben McCulloch's Rangers, caught a large grape-shot directly in his mouth. It was fully the size of a hen's egg, was rough, uneven in shape, and, in its course, completely carried out the four upper teeth of the ranger, and part of the jaw, cut off the four lower teeth, as with a chisel, split his tongue in twain, carried away his palate, went through the back of his head, and, striking a tendon, glanced down, and lodged under the skin on the shoulder-blade, where it was extracted by a surgeon, and safely placed in the pocket of Waters for future reference.
No man thought the wounded ranger could live, he could swallow neither food nor water. We saw him two nights afterward, in a room in the Bishop's Palace, which had been converted into a hospital, sitting bolt upright among the wounded and the dying--for the nature of his terrible hurt was such that he could not lie down without suffocating. His face was swollen to more than twice its ordinary size--he was speechless of course--his wants were only made known by means of a broken slate and pencil, and he was slowly applying a wet sponge to his mouth, endeavoring to extract moisture, which might quench the fever and intolerable thirst under which he was suffering. By his side lay young Thomas, of Maryland, a member of the same company, who was mortally wounded the morning after, and who was now dying. Wounded men, struck that afternoon in Worth's advance upon the Grand Plaza, were constantly being brought in, the surgeons were amputating and dressing the hurts of the crippled soldiers by a pale and sickly candle-light, and the groans of those in grievous pain added a new horror to the scene, which was at best frightful. We recollect, perfectly well, a poor fellow struck in both legs by a grape-shot, while advancing up one of the streets. He was begging l.u.s.tily, after one of his limbs had been amputated, that the other might be spared him, on which to hobble through the world. Poor Thomas, as gallant a spirit as ever lived, finally breathed his last; we brought Waters a fresh cup of water with which to moisten his wounds, and then left the room to catch an hour's sleep; but the recollections of that terrible night will not soon be effaced from my memory.
The above incident occurred on the night of the 23d and morning of the 24th of September, 1846. During the early part of the month of February following, while pa.s.sing into the old St. Charles, in this city, we were accosted with a strange voice by a fine-looking man, who seemed extremely glad to see us, although he had a most singular and unaccountable mode of expressing himself. We recollected the eye as one we had been familiar with, but the lower features of the face, although in no way disfigured, for the life of us, we could not make out.
”Why, don't you know me?” in a mumbling, half-indistinct, and forced manner, said the man, still shaking our hand vigorously. ”I'm Waters.”
And Waters it was, in reality, looking as well and as healthy as ever, without showing the least outward sign that he had ever caught a grape-shot in his mouth. A luxuriant growth of mustaches completely covered his upper lip, and concealed any scar the iron missile might have made; an imperial on his under lip hid any appearance of a wound at that point; and, with the exception of his speech, there was nothing to show that he had ever received the slightest injury about the face. His tongue, which was terribly shattered, was still partially benumbed, rendering articulation both difficult and tiresome; but he a.s.sured us he was every day gaining more and more the use of it, and, in his own words, he was soon to be ”just as good as new”
It is needless to say that we were glad to see him--to meet one we had never expected to encounter again in such excellent plight. Any one who could have seen him sitting in that apartment of the Bishop's Palace, his face swollen, and, with a gravity of countenance, which would have been ludicrous, even to the causing of laughter, had it not been for his own precarious situation, and the heart-rending scenes around, would have been equally as much astonished and rejoiced, as we were, on again so unexpectedly beholding him.
A correspondent of the ”Inquirer” has sent us the following, which is quite as remarkable as either of the foregoing:
Very extraordinary incidents have been published lately, of shot having been caught in the mouths of soldiers, in the course of battle, in the war of 1812, and in the Mexican war; but an incident, perhaps more remarkable, for the coolness of the individual on the occasion, occurred at the battle of Fort Drane, fought, in August, 1837, under the command of the late Col. B.K. Pierce. This was one of the most signal and desperate engagements of that b.l.o.o.d.y war. The Seminoles, under their renowned chief, Osceola, had taken a very commanding position in an extensive sugar field, near the stockade, strengthened on the east side by a dense hammock. Three desperate onsets were made during the battle, and the enemy were finally driven from the field to the protection of the hammock. During the hottest of the battle, a soldier belonging to the detachment under the command of Lieut. Pickell, whose position was a little in advance of the two wings, of the name of Jackson, having just fired, received a shot from a tall Indian, not twenty yards distant, which broke through the outer parts of his pantaloons, and lodged in his right-hand pocket. Feeling the slight sting of the half-spent ball, he thrust his hand in his pocket, drew out the bullet, and dropped it into the barrel of his musket, upon the charge of powder he had just before put in; then, with the unerring aim of a true marksman, leveled his piece, and, as quick as lightning, his adversary was measured upon the ground. The wound was fatal--the warrior survived the shot but a few minutes.
The above is one of the many incidents that occurred in the recent war with the Florida Indians which, for peril and brave feats, on the part of the American soldiers and officers, has scarcely ever been equaled.
The above incident is stated as it actually occurred.
A FAMILY ATTACKED BY INDIANS.
On the night of the eleventh of April, 1787, the house of a widow in Bourbon county, Kentucky, became the scene of a deplorable adventure.
She occupied what was called a double cabin, in a lonely part of the county. One room was tenanted by the old lady herself, together with two grown sons, and a widowed daughter with an infant. The other room was occupied by two unmarried daughters from sixteen to twenty years of age, together with a little girl.
The hour was eleven o'clock at night, and the family had retired to rest. Some symptoms of an alarming nature had engaged the attention of the young man for an hour, before anything of a decided character took place. At length hasty steps were heard in the yard, and quickly afterward several loud knocks at the door, accompanied by the usual exclamation, ”Who keeps house?” in very good English.
The young man, supposing from the language that some benighted travelers were at the door, hastily arose, and was advancing to withdraw the bar that secured it, when his mother, who had long lived upon the frontier, and had probably detected the Indian tone in the demand for admission, instantly sprang out of bed, and ordered her son not to admit them, declaring that they were Indians.
She instantly awakened her other son, and the young men seizing their guns, which were always charged, prepared to repel the enemy. The Indians finding it impossible to enter under their a.s.sumed characters, began to thunder at the door with great violence, but a single shot from a loop-hole obliged them to s.h.i.+ft the attack to some less exposed point, and, unfortunately, they discovered the door of the other cabin, which contained the three daughters. The rifles of the brothers could not be brought to bear on this point; and, by means of several rails taken from the yard fence, the door was forced from its hinges, and the girls were at the mercy of the savages. One was instantly secured, but the eldest defended herself desperately with a knife she had been using at the loom, and stabbed one of the Indians to the heart, before she was tomahawked.
In the meantime, the little girl, who had been overlooked by the enemy in their eagerness to secure the others, ran out into the yard, and might have effected her escape, had she taken advantage of the darkness, and fled; but instead of looking to her own safety, the terrified little creature ran round the house, wringing her hands, and crying that her sisters were killed.