8 The Phantom Horde

“Awake, my friend; the enemy comes!”

Osseo stood beside me in the chill of early dawn, his dark eyes glowing, and every nerve and muscle taut.

I sprang to my feet and saw naught but the sentinels, heard naught but their footsteps. The great forest rimmed us round, as silent and lonely as when we lay down to sleep. The ice glittered on the river and the pools.

“The enemy coming, Osseo? I see nothing.”

“There is a warrior in every bush. The ring of the tribes has closed around us. The General-who-never-walks does not believe, but Osseo knows. The end is in Manito’s keeping. Hero koué.”

It was a solemn speech, and I no longer doubted. I grasped my rifle more tightly and saw that my powder-horn and bullet pouch were full. A thin, cold mist was rising from the snow-covered earth.

The awakening trumpet sounded, and the army rose from its slumbers. The sentinels reported that all was well. The wintry sun crept above the rim of the earth, and the same silence still reigned in the great woods. Yet the forest now spoke to me in many tongues. I longed to shout its news into the ears of the stubborn general, but I knew that he would order me in scorn from his tent. The militia began to form in ranks, and smoke rose from the growing fires.

“The enemy comes!” said Osseo again in low and thrilling tones.

A bead of fire appeared in a bush straight ahead of us. expanded and went out, just as the sharp crack of a rifle sped, echoing, through the desolate forest. A soldier, one of our Kentucky militiamen, standing nearest the trees, pitched forward upon his face, stone dead. The bullet had passed through his head. A yell—long, quavering, but full of sound, like the howling of thousands of hungry wolves—rose and then died in a whine, more ferocious than its highest note. It was the war-cry of the savages, and it came from every point of the compass and all the points between. Osseo had spoken from the fulness of knowledge. The attack had begun.

The single bead of fire was followed by many others sparkling among the bushes or in the shadows of the forest, singularly vivid in the cold, still morning. The sound of the rifle shots was like the rapid cracking of a huge whip, and the echoes repeated themselves. No wind was stirring. The dead and dying leaves did not move, and the spurts of smoke rose straight upward.

Our men fell rapidly, the bullets flying fast. Some died without noise, and some cried out in surprise rather than pain when they were struck. Their comrades stood in disordered groups, bewildered by the attack, despite the warnings of the last few days, staring stupidly at the officers, who shouted opposing orders and who sought to form their ranks.

The fire of the savages increased; once again rose their war-whoop, fierce and triumphant, but the harried soldiers saw nothing. The forest was full of foes who shot with deadly aim. The beads of flame appeared and reappeared among bushes and trees, and the soldiers began to fire now at the flashes and the smoke, but still they saw no human beings save themselves. The sound of battle was in their ears, but it was only the crack of the weapons, their own cries, or the occasional war-whoop. Dusky forms were flitting from tree to tree, but they made no sound as they passed. Our men knew not whether any of their bullets slew. They could only fire into the forest, which was wide and sent back no tales; but they saw their own dead heaping up at their feet, and the hail of bullets that cut them down was thickening fast.

Our vanguard was quickly driven over the little river and into the main army, but it did not find rest and peace there. The fire of the invisible foe swept in a ring around the entire force, and the swift bullets cut through every rank. The army was driven into a huddled mass, and its bewilderment grew as the companies were struck down by the unseen death. When the survivors were pressed together they made a better target for the savages, who crept closer and closer, firing from behind every tree and bush and log at the great yellow and blue mass of white men who stood in the open. The crackle of the rifle shots was accompanied by cries, groans, and falls.

It is a terrible thing for the soft dweller in cities to be surprised in the desolate forest by an unseen but none the less deadly foe; to see the fire and smoke of his rifle shots, but never that foe; to hear the hiss of the bullets, and to see them cutting down the disordered ranks; then the chill of fear creeps into the marrow and paralyzes the brain. Panic ran through our raw Eastern levies. It was not such fighting as this that they had come to do; they expected at least an enemy whom they could see, and whenever the war-whoop rose it was to them a true death chant.

The officers sought to restore order and organize the defence. There were men among them who might have known more, but none are braver than those officers proved themselves to be. The Indian bullets struck them down as they gave orders and threatened with the flats of their swords, but the survivors shirked no duty. Pride and discipline kept them erect, although the storm of bullets came thicker and thicker.

I saw General St. Clair rush from his tent, believing at first that it was but a skirmish; but when he knew at last that the danger which he had despised was upon us he showed himself a brave man, walking calmly among the soldiers, upbraiding them for panic terror, and giving them an example of coolness, while the bullets of the savages pierced his own clothing. But to lead troops in battle one needs more than courage, and though the general stood in the midst of the army and encouraged it to fight, the fire of the Indians increased in volume and accuracy, and lashed our ranks through and through.

Now the soldiers began to see figures through the haze, mere glimpses of coppery faces leaping from bush to bush and gone when they fired. The clouds of smoke rising from so many rifle shots made the forest around them dimmer, and all that it contained vague and unreal.

Our cannon were firing, and the heavy roll of the discharges made a thunderous echo. The black smoke of the great guns rose and added to the dimness, but the gunners, like the riflemen, saw no target. The cannon-balls crashed in the forest, and from some other point the warriors yelled defiance. The cavalrymen sprang upon their horses and galloped into the woods, but the fire of the savages emptied the saddles and no one saw whence the bullets came. Regular troops, cannon in the centre and on their flanks, reckless of death, charged among the trees; the warriors melted away before them, and lo! no foe was there; when they were forced to fall back upon the mass of the army the Indians swarmed again on every side, their bullets striking on human bodies like the pattering of rain drops on water.

“0 God,” groaned a regular beside me, “if I could only see a single enemy—something to shoot at!”

The next instant a bullet from a hidden foe cut short his hopes and his life. I loaded and fired my rifle as fast as I could, and Osseo, bent in a stooping position, sending his bullets into the woods, was by my side.

The camp was now swept by the rifle fire from every side, with the ring of the savages pressing closer and ever closer. I saw General St. Clair again, and as I looked a bullet clipped a lock of the gray hair which hung in such profusion beneath his three-cornered hat, and another pierced his coat. He continued his steady walk up and down the lines; and General Butler, our second in command, just risen from a sick-bed, did the same, each trying to preserve order on his wing and passing and repassing in grave silence. There was something tragic and pathetic in the bearing of these two old generals, both so brave and both so unfit for the work they had to do.

“A hot morning, General Butler!” said General St. Clair once as he passed.

“An exceedingly hot morning, General St. Clair.” replied General Butler with the same coolness; “but I fancy that it will not last.”

General St. Clair bowed courteously to indicate agreement, and walked on. This was a fine dignity on the part of two old soldiers, and I admired it duly; but not all the merits of manner removed the facts of the surprise, nor abated for one moment the fury and baffling nature of the savage attack. We were being cut down precisely as a British army under Braddock had been cut down more than thirty years before; and the great President, then in his youth, who witnessed all the horrors of Fort Duquesne, had warned St. Clair of just such another ambush. “Beware of Indian stratagem,” he said. “Fill the woods with your scouts, and heed what they tell you!” But all in vain; the headstrong general would have his way, and behold the issue!

Our gallant officers still led the charges into the woods, and the cannon boomed above the crash of the rifles, balls and grape-shot doing much damage to trees and bushes, and always the wary foe sank away like the mist; but when the charge spent itself and the soldiers returned to the main force, back the savages came again, fiercer and more deadly than ever, pouring their bullets into the huddled mass of white men who yet stood like a shining mark in the open. Our charges became fewer. The artillery horses were shot down and the screams of the wounded animals were the most fearful sounds on all that battlefield. The officers fell fast, their bravery and their epaulets marking them as special targets, the army was driven more and more toward the common centre, and the ring of smoke in which so many beads of fire sparkled grew thicker all around it. The two generals were still walking up and down the lines, calling out orders and bidding the men to fight.

General St. Clair’s uniform was torn in a half dozen places by the rifle bullets, but so far as I could see he was unharmed. General Butler’s arm suddenly dropped to his side, broken by a ball; but the general threw oft his coat, and when one of the men put the arm in a sling he continued his calm walk, the blood from his wound falling drop by drop upon his uniform. Another bullet struck him in the side, and he fell at last, but struggled to his feet again. He could not stand, and two men, lifting him up, carried him to the middle of the camp, where he sat propped against a great heap of knapsacks, which would never be put to use again by our soldiers. General St. Clair walked on, but alone.

The disorder of the battle grew as the Indian bullets cut us down like grass; the ranks could not be kept, the cannon could not be moved, the horses being killed, the confused shouts told nothing, the increasing clouds of smoke hid every movement; all became a horrible tumult and jumble.

Now panic and terror ran through the veins of our men. They knew not the number of the savages, but they felt their sting. The foe was a phantom host who escaped their blows, but struck back with deadly interest. There was safety in neither attack nor defence, and whichever way they faced, the bullets swept every corner of the battlefield. Our dead lay throughout our camp, dozens at first, then scores, now hundreds, and above the shouts of our men, the whoop of the savages, and the rattle of the rifle shots, rose the scream of the wounded horses. I have seen battles between civilized foes; I was at Princeton when the British came with the bayonet, and I was at Monmouth on that burning day when “Mad” Anthony led the charge, but there it was mercy for the conquered, and the cry for quarter once uttered, foes became friends. Those were the mere polish of war to this savage encounter in the wilderness, where a man once down prayed a speedy death, for otherwise the fagot and the stake were his.

The terror of the phantom host multiplied in the minds of the raw soldiers. They seemed to be fighting invisible demons, as in truth they were. They began to give way, and with shouts of horror turned to flee. The savages now ran in, and bounding here and there, struck down with war axe and tomahawk.

General Butler was still lying against the knapsacks, and as I looked he sent his last aide with an order to another part of the field. A gigantic figure, naked to the waist, sprang up before the reclining officer. It was Hoyoquim, his face streaked horribly with the warpaint and his tomahawk uplifted. I raised my rifle with involuntary motion, but I had just fired at a savage, and there was not time to reload. The next instant the tomahawk descended and clove the head of the brave general to the neck. Uttering a piercing cry of triumph, Hoyoquim sprang back into the bushes, and the confusion and slaughter around us increased. The crackle of the rifle firing grew louder, but the note of the cannon sank, and for the best of reasons; nearly all the gunners and cannoneers were killed. Some of the men, unused to the forest, and appalled by this battle, in which the blows of the enemy seemed as mysterious and deadly as strokes of lightning, ceased to use their weapons, and, shivering, cowered over the fires, though, had they known it, the shivering was from terror and not from cold. Others burst into the tents and drank what liquor they could find, wishing to stupefy themselves or find an artificial joy in the face of death. The officers struck them with the flats of their swords, but these men took the blows in silence or laughed stupidly. Our regular troops in this strange and terrible position showed undaunted courage, charging often with the bayonet, driving back the savages and raising them out of the bushes and grass like partridges, but when the charge spent its force in the woods the savages, as before, swarmed back, shooting down from many coverts. Every one of the regular officers was killed or wounded, but their men fought on, and once General St. Clair himself led their charge, only to get more bullets through his clothes, but to escape the death which perhaps he then coveted.

We were being forced slowly toward the forest, and when we charged back at times to scatter the cloud of Indians who hung on our rear we noticed that our dead, who lay so thickly upon the ground, were now scalped, while the yelling savages as they leaped from bush to bush brandished in triumph the horrid trophies.

A dozen Indians suddenly sprang from the thickets, and rushing forward, seized one of the cannon; all the artillerymen had been killed beside it. They began to drag it away, but the regulars recovered it with a charge which sent the warriors flying into the bushes, from the cover of which they decimated our ranks with rifle balls. In a few moments another cannon was lost, and then retaken, but at the same expense, and now all the old scouts began to see that the courage of the regular troops and officers—boys, many of the latter were, though never did men die more bravely—was of no avail; the battle was lost beyond the hope of saving, and with it half the army, slain in that vast forest; all knew there would be no wounded, save those whom we could take away with us, and these would be but few.

Now a lone trumpet sounded the retreat. The cannon were spiked and abandoned. The way was plain; behind us lay the broad trail that our advancing army had made, and into it pressed the wild pell-mell of the fugitives, driven on by the fear of death in its most terrible form, bullets pelting the huddled and fleeing mass. Osseo and I had managed to keep together in all the turmoil, and when we turned to retreat with the others we ran toward the head of the column, where the savages had closed across the path of flight, wild with triumph and the greatest scalp-taking that their generation had known, and wishing to destroy the whole of the army as they had already destroyed half of it. The Indian coil now encircled us; but our army, some still animated by courage and some by the fear of death, drove straight along the road and at the savage line. General St. Clair, mounted on a horse that an aide had caught for him, rode in the centre, and on we went, leaving behind us our cannon and our hurt, the wildest rout that troops of our nation have ever known, and by far the most terrible.

Colonel Darke, one of our brave border officers, led the charge, and around him gathered all the frontiersmen and the stanchest of the soldiers. So fierce was our rush that the Indians were thrown from the road, and through the opening the remains of the army dashed, the savages at once closing in behind and hanging upon the rear of our flying force, busy with tomahawks and scalping knives.

Such a defeat as ours is bad, but such a flight is far worse. Only the oldest and wariest Indian fighters retained their presence of mind. The raw army, hacked continually by Indian bullets, the savage war-whoop sounding always behind it, was mad with terror. Many of the men threw away their guns, knowing that any weight would impede their flight, while the bravest turned to defend the rear as best they could and hold back the merciless pursuit. Many deeds of courage, too, did I witness on that day. I saw a provision packer, who had already given his horse to a wounded soldier, enabling the latter to escape, pick up a boy fallen from exhaustion, and carry him on his back in the press and whirl of the flying army. I learned long afterward that both escaped, although the brave packer stopped again on the way to bind up the hurt of a wounded man. Such things as these offset acts of cowardice, and I have noticed often that in moments of panic and despair the greatness and baseness of the human race alike are shown.

The old frontiersmen and the few regulars left were now the last bulwark of the fleeing army, its sole defence against the horde of savages, who followed it through the woods and strove to complete with bullet and tomahawk the ruin that they had begun. Nor should I forget Osseo, that valiant Indian who on this day achieved deeds worthy of the best knight who ever rode through the pages of a French romance. I think that a song of battle was singing in his ears; all the impulses passed down by many generations of savage life were sweeping him on; his black eyes were alight, his muscles drawn like whipcord; his brown body would flash past me, and some warrior, too daring, would fall beneath his tomahawk; now and then he uttered his own long, thrilling war-whoop as a defiance to our enemies, and though the savages sought zealously for his life, no bullet or blade touched him. He fought like one who had a grievance against the Northwestern tribes, and I, although not knowing what it was, remembered to be thankful that we profited by it.

Just in front of us a sergeant’s wife fell to the ground in terror, and another woman carrying a little child in her arms sank down exhausted. Osseo seized the child, the woman shrinking from him in fright, and then rushing at him with her hands to rescue her little one, thinking that he belonged to the savage army. But Osseo took her by the arm, and still carrying the child, helped them on in their flight. I raised the sergeant’s wife to her feet, and having found a place for her in a wagon, the horses of which still survived the Indian bullets, rejoined Osseo.

The retreat now demanded the whole attention of all who knew the ways of the woods. If one flees in a panic and the object that causes the panic pursues, it is but natural for the panic to increase. The danger that hangs on behind grows manifold, and when that danger was so real and terrible as ours there was naught that could restrain the more timorous among our troops. Such men as these no longer felt any sense of disgrace, and they had no thought but to reach Fort Jefferson, the last post built by the army in its advance into the Northwest, and shelter themselves behind its stockades.

But another thought was in the minds of the old frontiersmen who sought to keep back the pressing swarms of Indians, and it was of the border people whom this routed and fleeing army had come to protect and avenge. The tale of the Indian atrocities already filled with horror the minds of those who heard; but, flushed by such a victory, the tribes would become far bolder and more enterprising than ever. There would not be in all the circuit of the West a cabin that was safe. The tomahawk and the scalping knife would find victims from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. The woods would he filled with warriors seeking to emulate the great killing when St. Clair was beaten, and the rage for white scalps, whether of man, woman, or child, would burn in the veins of every tribe, even to those beyond the farthest end of Lake Superior, and such was what came to pass. White men have done wrongs on the border, but surely nothing that ever justified such cruelties as our vanguard of settlers have suffered.

The Indian pursuit began to slacken after a distance of four or five miles and then ceased altogether. It may be that they wished to return to the field and make their ghastly collection of scalps. Surely there was enough for them, as upon that fatal day between six and seven hundred of our men—about half the army—were killed outright and scalped, and half the remainder were wounded. Nearly all the officers were slain, and among them Colonel Oldham, the leader of the Kentucky militia, who fell gallantly at the head of his men early in the action, and Major Clark, who was shot down while seeking to cover the retreat. Colonel Darke, who commanded one wing, saw his youngest son killed upon the field, and he himself was badly wounded, though escaping with his life. But why should I continue the tale and tell of so many good men losing their lives through the stubborn folly of General St. Clair, who despised his enemy and neglected the commonest precautions? I say with deliberation that his was the chief fault.

We met later in the day the little regiment of regular troops that had been sent back after the deserting militia, so missing the battle, but serving very well now to cover our retreat. Thus the ghastly procession continued until about nightfall it reached Fort Jefferson, thirty miles from the battlefield, and took refuge behind its palisades. Never did the sun set upon a more miserable band.

I saw my cousin, Jasper Lee, once in this flight—I heard that he fought cautiously in the battle—and he said to me in a patronizing tone that was more insolent than abuse:

“You have borne yourself very well to-day, John.”

“Have I?” I replied. “I hope that I shall be able to speak as well of you.”

I wasted no more words upon him, having made a resolution which I awaited only our arrival at the fort to carry out.

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