And there were other things shouted, foul epithets, which I am ashamed to admit could only have been learned from the whites. And repeatedly did they encourage one another and seek to intimidate us by yelling:
“Drive the white dogs over the river! Drive them like cattle into the water!”
While I kept well covered and was completing my reconnaissance I was horrified to see Colonel Fleming walk into the clear ground. He fired at an Indian who had showed himself for a moment to make an insulting gesture. He got his man, and the next second was struck by three balls, two passing through his left arm and the third penetrating his left breast.
He called out to his captains by name and sharply ordered them to hold their ground while he went to the rear to be patched up. He was answered by hearty cheers, but his absence was to be keenly felt by his officers. He started to work his way to the Point, but the exertion of bending and dodging from tree to stump sorely taxed him. I ran to his aid just as Davis, of Howard’s Creek, sprang from behind a log and seized his right arm. Between us we soon had him back in camp and his shirt off. The lung tissue had been forced through the wound a finger’s length. He asked me to put it back. I attempted it and failed, whereat he did it himself without any fuss.
On returning to the right column to make a belated report to Colonel Field I ran across the body of Mooney, my partner on several scouts. He had been shot through the head. It may here be said that nearly all the dead on both sides were shot through the head or chest, indicating the accuracy of marksmanship on both sides.
I found the Augusta men steadily pushing the Indians back. But when they gave ground quickly, as if in a panic, it was to tempt the foolhardy into rushing forward. The riflemen had learned their lesson, however, and maintained their alignment. The advance was through nettles and briers, up steep muddy banks and over fallen timber.
The warriors rushed repeatedly to the very muzzles of our guns, and thus displayed a brand of courage never surpassed, if ever equaled, by the North American Indian before. It was Cornstalk who was holding them to the bloody work. His voice at times sounded very close, but although we all knew his death would count a greater coup than the scalps of a hundred braves we never could get him. He was too shrewd and evasive.
Once I believed I had him, for I had located him behind a detached mound of fallen timber. He was loudly calling out for his men to be brave and to lie close, when a warrior leaped up and started to run to the rear. Then Cornstalk flashed into view long enough to sink his ax into the coward’s head. It was all done so quickly that he dropped to cover unharmed.
That was one of his ways of enforcing obedience, a mode of terrorization never before practised by a war-chief to my knowledge. It was told afterward by the Shawnees that he killed more than that weak-hearted one during the long day. I saw nothing of the other chiefs who attended the conference in Cornstalk’s Town while I was a prisoner. And yet they were there, chiefs of Mingos, Wyandots, Delawares and Ottawas.
“They’re fallin’ back! They’re fallin’ back!” yelled a voice in advance of our first line.