Down in Florida, at the same time, Osceola, the chieftain of the Seminole Indians, called upon the Comet as a signal for war against the whites. The Indians called the Comet “Big Knife in the Sky.”
The war began with a bloody massacre of American soldiers under General Wiley Thompson at Fort King. All were slaughtered. Osceola scalped General Thompson with his own hands.
On the same day, Major Dade of the American Army, who was leading a relief expedition into Florida from Tampa Bay, was ambushed by the Indians near Wahoo Swamp and was massacred with his men. Of the whole expedition only four men escaped death.
Within forty-eight hours of this horrible massacre came another bloody Indian fight on the banks of the Big Withlacoochee.
With the passing of the Comet to the Southern Hemisphere, bloody wars broke out one after another in Mexico, Cuba, Central America, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. All those countries were in a welter of blood.
At the same time the American settlers of Texas declared themselves independent and made open war on Mexico. The war began with the bloody battle of Gonzales, in which 500 American frontiersmen fought and defeated over a thousand Mexican soldiers. This was followed by other fierce fights at Goliad and Bexar.
Next came the bloody massacre of the Alamo, when all of Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s American followers were killed in an all night fight. Out of 200 Americans every man fell at his post. This was the deed of blood on which Joaquin Miller wrote his stirring Ballad of the Alamo.
“Santa Ana came storming as a storm might come,—
There was rumble of cannon; there was rattle of blade;
There was cavalry, infantry, bugle and drum,—