Chapter Seventy One. Mysterious Disappearance of an Army
The two divisions of the army now came together, and after a rapid council had been held between the commanders, continued scouring the field in search of our enemy. Hours were spent in the search; but not an Indian foe could be found!
Osceola had performed a piece of strategy unheard of in the annals of war. He had carried an army of 1,600 men from between two others of nearly equal numbers, who had completely enfiladed him, without leaving a man upon the ground – ay, without leaving a trace of his retreat. That host of Indian warriors, so lately observed in full battle-array, had all at once broken up into a thousand fragments, and, as if by magic, had melted out of sight.
The enemy was gone, we knew not whither; and the disappointed generals once more marched their forces back to Fort King.
The “dispersion,” as it was termed, of the Indian army, was of course chronicled as another “victory.” It was a victory, however, that killed poor old Gaines – at least his military fame – and he was only too glad to retire from the command he had been so eager to obtain.
A third general now took the field as commander-in-chief – an officer of more notoriety than either of his predecessors – Scott. A lucky wound received in the old British wars, seniority of rank, a good deal of political buffoonery, but above all a free translation of the French “system of tactics,” with the assumption of being their author, had kept General Scott conspicuously before the American public for a period of twenty years20. He who could contrive such a system of military manoeuvring could not be otherwise than a great soldier; so reasoned his countrymen.
Of course wonderful things were expected from the new commander-in-chief, and great deeds were promised. He would deal with the savages in a different way from that adopted by his predecessors; he would soon put an end to the contemptible war.
There was much rejoicing at the appointment; and preparations were made for a campaign on a far more extensive scale than had fallen to the lot of either of the chiefs who preceded him. The army was doubled – almost trebled – the commissariat amply provided for, before the great general would consent to set foot upon the field.
He arrived at length, and the army was put in motion.
I am not going to detail the incidents of this campaign; there were none of sufficient importance to be chronicled, much less of sufficient interest to be narrated. It consisted simply of a series of harassing marches, conducted with all the pomp and regularity of a parade review. The army was formed into three divisions, somewhat bombastically styled “right wing,” “left wing,” and “centre.” Thus formed, they were to approach the “Cove of the Ouithlacoochee” – again that fatal Cove – from three different directions, Fort King, Fort Brooke, and the Saint John’s. On arriving on the edge of the great swamp, each was to fire minute-guns as signals for the others, and then all three were to advance in converging lines towards the heart of the Seminole fastness.
The absurd manoeuvre was carried out, and ended as might have been expected, in complete failure. During the march, no man saw the face of a red Indian. A few of their camps were discovered, but nothing more. The cunning warriors had heard the signal guns, and well understood their significance. With such a hint of the position of their enemy, they had but little difficulty in making their retreat between the “wings.”
Perhaps the most singular, if not the most important, incident occurring in Scott’s campaign was one which came very near costing me my life. If not worthy of being given in detail, it merits mention as a curious case of “abandonment.”
While marching for the “Cove” with his centre wing, the idea occurred to our great commander to leave behind him, upon the banks of the Amazura, what he termed a “post of observation.” This consisted of a detachment of forty men – mostly our Suwanee volunteers, with their proportion of officers, myself among the number.
We were ordered to fortify ourselves on the spot, and stay there until we should be relieved from our duty, which was somewhat indefinitely understood even by him who was placed in command of us. After giving these orders, the general, at the head of his “central wing,” marched off, leaving us to our fate.
Our little band was sensibly alive to the perilous position in which we were thus placed, and we at once set about making the best of it. We felled trees, built a blockhouse, dug a well, and surrounded both with a strong stockade.
Fortunately we were not discovered by the enemy for nearly a week after the departure of the army, else we should most certainly have been destroyed to a man. The Indians, in all probability, had followed the “centre wing,” and thus for a time were carried out of our neighbourhood.
On the sixth day, however, they made their appearance, and summoned us to surrender.
We refused, and fought them – again, and again, at intervals, during a period of fifty days!
Several of our men were killed or wounded; and among the former, the gallant chief of our devoted band, Holloman, who fell from a shot fired through the interstices of the stockade.
Provisions had been left with us to serve us for two weeks; they were eked out to last for seven! For thirty days we subsisted upon raw corn and water, with a few handfuls of acorns, which we contrived to gather from the trees growing within the inclosure.
In this way we held out for a period of fifty days, and still no commander-in-chief – no army came to relieve us. During all that gloomy siege, we never heard word of either; no white face ever showed itself to our anxious eyes, that gazed constantly outward. We believed ourselves abandoned – forgotten.
And such in reality was the fact – General Scott, in his eagerness to get away from Florida, had quite forgotten to relieve the “post of observation;” and others believing that we had long since perished, made no effort to send a rescue.
Death from hunger stared us in the face, until at length the brave old hunter, Hickman, found his way through the lines of our besiegers, and communicated our situation to our “friends at home.”
His tale produced a strong excitement, and a force was dispatched to our relief, that succeeded in dispersing our enemies, and setting us free from our blockhouse prison.
Thus terminated “Scott’s campaign,” and with it his command in Florida. The whole affair was a burlesque, and Scott was only saved from ridicule and the disgrace of a speedy recall, by a lucky accident, that fell in his favour. Orders had already reached him to take control of another, “Indian war” – the “Creek” – that was just breaking out in the States of the southwest; and this afforded the discomfited general a well-timed excuse for retiring from the “Flowery Land.”
Florida was destined to prove to American generals a land of melancholy remembrances. No less than seven of them were successively beaten at the game of Indian warfare by the Seminoles and their wily chieftains. It is not my purpose to detail the history of their failures and mishaps. From the disappearance of General Scott, I was myself no longer with the main army. My destiny conducted me through the more romantic by-ways of the campaign – the paths of la petite guerre– and of these only am I enabled to write. Adieu, then, to the grand historic.