The Battle-Ground.
The affair of Dade’s massacre is without a parallel in the history of Indian warfare. No conflict of a similar kind had ever occurred—at least, none so fatal to the whites engaged in it. In this case they suffered complete annihilation—for, of the three wounded men who had escaped, two of them shortly after died of their wounds.
Nor had the Indians any great advantage over their antagonists, beyond that of superior cunning and strategy.
It was near the banks of the Amazura (“Ouithlacoochee” of the Seminoles), and after crossing that stream, that Major Dade’s party had been attacked. The assault was made in ground comparatively open—a tract of pine-woods, where the trees grew thin and straggling—so that the Indians had in reality no great advantage either from position or intrenchment. Neither has it been proved that they were greatly superior in numbers to the troops they destroyed—not more than two to one; and this proportion in most Indian wars has been considered by their white antagonists as only “fair odds.”
Many of the Indians appeared upon the ground mounted; but these remained at a distance from the fire of the musketry; and only those on foot took part in the action. Indeed, their conquest was so soon completed, that the horsemen were not needed. The first fire was so deadly, that Dade’s followers were driven into utter confusion. They were unable to retreat: the mounted Indians had already outflanked them, and cut off their chance of escape.
Dade himself, with most of his officers, fell at the first volley; and the survivors had no choice but fight it out on the ground. A breastwork was attempted—by felling trees, and throwing their trunks into a triangle—but the hot fire from the Indian rifles soon checked the progress of the work; and the parapet never rose even breast-high above the ground. Into this insecure shelter the survivors of the first attack retreated, and there fell rapidly under the well-aimed missiles of their foes. In a short while the last man lay motionless; and the slaughter was at an end.
When the place was afterwards visited by our troops, this triangular inclosure was found, filled with dead bodies—piled upon one another, just as they had fallen—crosswise, lengthways, in every attitude of death!
It was afterwards noised abroad that the Indians had inhumanly tortured the wounded, and horribly mutilated the slain. This was not true. There were no wounded left to be tortured—except the three who escaped—and as for the mutilation, but one or two instances of this occurred—since known to have been the work of runaway negroes actuated by motives of personal revenge.
Some scalps were taken; but this is the well-known custom of Indian warfare; and white men ere now have practised the fashion, while under the frenzied excitement of battle.
I was one of those who afterwards visited the battle-ground on a tour of inspection, ordered by the commander-in-chief; and the official report of that tour is the best testimony as to the behaviour of the victors. It reads as follows: