Fortunately we were not discovered by the enemy for nearly a week after the departure of the army, else we should most certainly have been destroyed to a man. The Indians, in all probability, had followed the “centre wing,” and thus for a time were carried out of our neighbourhood.
On the sixth day, however, they made their appearance, and summoned us to surrender.
We refused, and fought them—again, and again, at intervals, during a period of fifty days!
Several of our men were killed or wounded; and among the former, the gallant chief of our devoted band, Holloman, who fell from a shot fired through the interstices of the stockade.
Provisions had been left with us to serve us for two weeks; they were eked out to last for seven! For thirty days we subsisted upon raw corn and water, with a few handfuls of acorns, which we contrived to gather from the trees growing within the inclosure.
In this way we held out for a period of fifty days, and still no commander-in-chief—no army came to relieve us. During all that gloomy siege, we never heard word of either; no white face ever showed itself to our anxious eyes, that gazed constantly outward. We believed ourselves abandoned—forgotten.
And such in reality was the fact—General Scott, in his eagerness to get away from Florida, had quite forgotten to relieve the “post of observation;” and others believing that we had long since perished, made no effort to send a rescue.
Death from hunger stared us in the face, until at length the brave old hunter, Hickman, found his way through the lines of our besiegers, and communicated our situation to our “friends at home.”
His tale produced a strong excitement, and a force was dispatched to our relief, that succeeded in dispersing our enemies, and setting us free from our blockhouse prison.
Thus terminated “Scott’s campaign,” and with it his command in Florida. The whole affair was a burlesque, and Scott was only saved from ridicule and the disgrace of a speedy recall, by a lucky accident, that fell in his favour. Orders had already reached him to take control of another, “Indian war”—the “Creek”—that was just breaking out in the States of the southwest; and this afforded the discomfited general a well-timed excuse for retiring from the “Flowery Land.”