Chapter Sixty One. The Route
The dispatch called for instant obedience. Fortunately my horse was still under the saddle, and in less than five minutes I was upon his back, and galloping for the volunteer camp.
Among these eager warriors, the news produced a joyous excitement, expressed in a wild hurrah. Enthusiasm supplied the place of discipline; and, in less than half an hour, the corps was accoutred and ready for the road.
There was nothing to cause delay. The command to march was given; the bugle sounded the “forward,” and the troop filing “by twos,” into a long somewhat irregular line, took the route for Fort King.
I galloped home to say adieu. It was a hurried leave-taking – less happy than my last – but I rode away with more contentment, under the knowledge that my sister was now warned, and there was no longer any danger of an alliance with Arens Ringgold.
The orderly who brought the dispatch rode back with the troop. As we marched along, he communicated the camp-news, and rumours in circulation at the fort. Many events had occurred, of which we had not heard. The Indians had forsaken their towns, taking with them their wives, children, cattle, and chattels. Some of their villages they had themselves fired, leaving nothing for their pale-faced enemies to destroy. This proved a determination to engage in a general war, had other proofs of this disposition been wanting. Whither they had gone, even our spies had been unable to find out. It was supposed by some that they had moved farther south, to a more distant part of the peninsula. Others alleged that they had betaken themselves to the great swamp that stretches for many leagues around the head-waters of the Amazura river, and known as the “Cove of the Ouithlacoochee.”
This last conjecture was the more likely, though so secretly and adroitly had they managed their migration, that not a trace of the movement could be detected. The spies of the friendly Indians – the keenest that could be employed – were unable to discover their retreat. It was supposed that they intended to act only on the defensive – that is, to make plundering forays on whatever quarter was left unguarded by troops, and then retire with their booty to the fastnesses of the swamp. Their conduct up to this time had rendered the supposition probable enough. In such case, the war might not be so easily brought to a termination! in other words, there might be no war at all, but a succession of fruitless marches and pursuits; for it was well enough understood that if the Indians did not choose to stand before us in action, we should have but little chance of overhauling them in their retreat.
The fear of the troops was, that their adversaries would “take to the cover,” where it would be difficult, if not altogether impossible, to find them.
However, this state of things could not be perpetual; the Indians could not always subsist upon plunder, where the booty must be every day growing less. They were too numerous for a mere band of robbers, though there existed among the whites a very imperfect idea of their numbers. Estimates placed them at from one to five thousand souls – runaway negroes included – and even the best informed frontiersmen could give only rude guesses on this point. For my part, I believed that there were more than a thousand warriors, even after the defection of the traitor clans; and this was the opinion of one who knew them well – old Hickman the hunter.
How, then, were so many to find subsistence in the middle of a morass? Had they been provident, and there accumulated a grand commissariat? No: this question could at once be answered in the negative. It was well-known that the contrary was the case – for in this year the Seminoles were without even their usual supply. Their removal had been urged in the spring; and, in consequence of the doubtful prospect before them, many had planted little – some not at all. The crop, therefore, was less than in ordinary years; and previous to the final council at Fort King, numbers of them had been both buying and begging food from the frontier citizens.
What likelihood, then, of finding subsistence throughout a long campaign? They would be starved out of their fortresses – they must come out, and either stand fight, or sue for peace. So people believed.
This topic was discoursed as we rode along. It was one of primary interest to all young warriors thirsting for fame – inasmuch as, should the enemy determine to pursue so inglorious a system of warfare, where were the laurels to be plucked? A campaign in the miasmatic and pestilential climate of the swamps was more likely to yield a luxuriant crop of cypresses.
Most hoped, and hence believed, that the Indians would soon grow hungry, and shew themselves in a fair field of fight.
There were different opinions as to the possibility of their subsisting themselves for a lengthened period of time. Some – and these were men best acquainted with the nature of the country – expressed their belief that they could. The old alligator-hunter was of this way of thinking.
“Thuv got,” said he, “that ere durned brier wi’ the big roots they calls ‘coonty’ (Smilax pseudo-china); it grows putty nigh all over the swamp, an’ in some places as thick as a cane-brake. It ur the best o’ eatin’, an’ drinkin’ too, for they make a drink o’ it. An’ then thar’s the acorns o’ the live-oak – them ain’t such bad eatin’, when well roasted i’ the ashes. They may gather thousands of bushels, I reckon. An’ nixt thar’s the cabbidge in the head o’ the big palmetter; thet ere’ll gi’ them greens. As to their meat, thar’s deer, an’ thar’s bar – a good grist o’ them in the swamp – an’ thares allaygatur, a tol’ably goodish wheen o’ them varmint, I reckon – to say nothin o’ turtle, an’ turkey, an’ squirrels an’ snakes, an’ sandrats, for, durn a red skin! he kin eat anythin’ that crawls – from a punkin to a polecat. Don’t you b’lieve it, fellars. Them ere Injuns aint a gwine to starve, s’easy as you think for. Thu’ll hold out by thar teeth an’ toe-nails, jest so long as thar’s a eatable thing in the darnationed swamp – that’s what thu’ll do.”
This sage reasoning produced conviction in the minds of those who heard it. After all, the dispersed enemy might not be so helpless as was generally imagined.
The march of the volunteers was not conducted in a strict military style. It was so commenced; but the officers soon found it impossible to carry out the “tactics.” The men, especially the younger ones, could not be restrained from occasionally falling out of the lines – to help themselves to a pull out of some odd-looking flask; and at intervals one would gallop off into the woods, in hopes of getting a shot at a deer or a turkey he had caught a glimpse of through the trees.
Reasoning with these fellows, on the part of their officers, proved rather a fruitless affair; and getting angry with them was only to elicit a sulky rejoinder.
Sergeant Hickman was extremely wroth with some of the offenders.
“Greenhorns!” he exclaimed; “darnationed greenhorns! let ’em go on at it. May a allaygatur eet me, if they don’t behave diff’rent by-’m-by. I’ll stake my critter agin any hoss in the crowd, that some o’ them ere fellars’ll get sculped afore sundown; durned if they don’t.”
No one offered to take the old hunter’s bet, and fortunately for them, as his words proved prophetic.
A young planter, fancying himself as safe as if riding through his own sugar-canes, had galloped off from the line of march. A deer, seen browsing in the savanna, offered an attraction too strong to be resisted.
He had not been gone five minutes – had scarcely passed out of sight of his comrades – when two shots were heard in quick succession; and the next moment, his riderless horse came galloping back to the troop.
The line was halted, and faced in the direction whence the shots had been heard. An advance party moved forward to the ground. No enemy was discovered, nor the traces of any, except those exhibited in the dead body of the young planter, that lay perforated with a brace of bullets just as it had fallen out of the saddle.
It was a lesson – though an unpleasant one to his comrades – and after this, there were no more attempts at deer-stalking. The man was buried on the spot where he lay, and with the troop more regularly and compactly formed – now an easier duty for its officers – we continued the march unmolested, and before sunset were within the stockade of the fort.