But the insidious foe had been equally vigilant. They had left their island encampment with the first light of the morning, and each had taken his position along the trail in which the troops were expected to march, but at some thirty or forty yards distant. Each man was hidden by a tree, which was to be his fortress during the expected action. A few rods on the other side of the trail lay a pond of water, whose placid surface reflected the glittering rays of the morning sun. All was peaceful and quiet as the breath of summer.
Unsuspicious of the hidden death which beset their pathway, the troops entered this defile, and passed along until their rear had come within the range of the enemies’ rifles, when, at a given signal, each warrior fired, while his victim was in full view and unprotected. One-half of that ill-fated band, including the gallant Dade, fell at the first fire. The remainder were thrown into disorder. The officers endeavored to rally them into line; but their enemy was unseen, and ere they could return an effective shot, a second discharge from the hidden foe laid one-half their remaining force prostrate in death. The survivors retreated a short distance toward their encampment of the previous night, and, while most of the Exiles and Indians were engaged in scalping the dead and tomahawking those who were disabled, they formed a hasty breastwork of logs for their defense. They were, however, soon invested by the enemy, and the few who had taken shelter behind their rude defenses were overcome and massacred by the Exiles, who conversed with them in English, and then dispatched them.[82] Only two individuals beside Louis, the guide, made their escape. Their gallant commander, his officers and soldiers, whose hearts had beat high with expectation in the morning, at evening lay prostrate in death; and as the sable victors relaxed from their bloody work, they congratulated each other on having revenged the death of those who, twenty years previously, had fallen at the massacre of “Blount’s Fort.” The loss of the allied forces was—three killed and five wounded.
After burying their own dead, they returned to the island in the swamp long before nightfall. To this point, they brought the spoils of victory, which were deemed important for carrying on the war. Night had scarcely closed around them, however, when Osceola and his followers arrived from Fort King, bringing intelligence of the death of Thompson and Lieutenant Smith, together with the sutler and his two clerks. There, too, was Louis, the guide to Dade’s command. He was now free! He engaged in conversation with his sable friends. Well knowing the time and place at which the attack was to be made, he had professed necessity for stopping by the way-side before entering the defile; thus separating himself from the troops and from danger. Soon as the first fire showed him the precise position of his friends, he joined them; and swearing eternal hostility to all who enslave their fellow men, lent his own efforts in carrying forward the work of death, until the last individual of that doomed regiment sunk beneath their tomahawks.
The massacre of the unfortunate Dade and his companions, and the murder of Thompson and his friends, at Fort King, occurred on the same day, and constituted the opening scenes of the second Seminole War.
1847.
We bespeak the indulgence of the reader, while we digress from the chronological narration of events which followed consecutively upon this opening of the second Seminole War, in order to give a short sketch of some incidents which occurred in Congress, and were connected with the employment of Louis, and his subsequent service with the enemy.
Twelve years after the massacre of Dade’s command, Antonio Pacheco presented his petition to Congress, setting forth that he had been the owner of a valuable slave named Louis; that he hired him as guide to Major Dade to conduct his command from “Fort Brooke” to “Fort King;” that at the time of Dade’s defeat, Louis had been captured by the Indians, and by them had been subsequently surrendered to Major General Jessup, and by that officer sent to the Indian country, west of the Mississippi, whereby he became lost to his owner, who, therefore, prayed Congress to grant him full indemnity for his loss.
Among the proofs accompanying this petition was a letter from General Jessup, setting forth that, after Louis had been employed to act as guide, he had kept up a correspondence with the “Seminole negroes,” informing them of the intended march of Major Dade, etc. He also represented Louis as a man of extraordinary intellect and learning, declaring that he regarded him as a dangerous man; that he would have had him tried and hanged, instead of sending him West, if he had found leisure to attend to it; that from prudential motives he had sent him to the Indian country; and stated that he was worth a thousand dollars.
The case was most interesting in its character. Louis was probably the most dangerous enemy of the United States at that time in Florida. With his intelligence, he must have felt an inveterate hostility to the Government and the people, who robbed him of his most sacred right to liberty. Probably his former master and family were in greater danger from his vengeance than any other persons. He had surrendered to General Jessup as prisoner of war with arms in his hands; had been treated—very properly treated—as a prisoner of war: therefore, the master called on the people of the nation to pay him a thousand dollars for protecting him, his family, friends and nation from the fury of his own slave; and General Jessup and many Northern Representatives exerted their personal and political influence to sustain the claim.
The petition and accompanying papers were referred to the committee on Military Affairs, a majority of whom were known to be favorable to the interests of slavery. At the head of it was the Hon. Armisted Burt, of South Carolina, a man of intelligence and influence. He appeared devoted to the interests of the “peculiar institution.”