Mr. Ewing assured me that there was nothing remarkable or eccentric in his experience during the years that followed, excepting his executive ability in little matters of business committed to him. He “never knew so young a boy who would do an errand so correctly and promptly as he did. He was transparently honest, faithful, and reliable. Studious and correct in his habits, his progress in education was steady and substantial.” At the age of sixteen, Mr. Ewing, in his official position, had at his disposal the appointment of a cadet to the Military Academy at West Point, and determined to offer it to his “protégé.” Tecumseh had a taste for military life, and of course gladly accepted the honor.
Before we follow him to that institution we will take another glimpse of the home of his adoption. Mrs. Ewing was a highly intelligent lady, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and had the privilege of educating her children in her own faith. Her daughter Ellen was at this time an attractive girl of nearly the same age of Tecumseh. For half a dozen of life’s most careless, happy years, they had been to school, talked and played together. And it is not strange that among the friends he left behind him, when he turned the second time from home, and now for a distant abode among strangers, that to part with her should be no common trial for his young and manly heart. But he had entered for himself
“Upon life’s broad field of battle,”
and hastened to the ordeal of examination for admission to the academy. The bright day of trial has come. Look in upon the spacious hall where the Examining Board and distinguished visitors have gathered, to see and hear what the young candidates for freshman honors may know. Now listen; young Sherman’s name is called. He is modest, yet perfectly self-possessed. After answering a test question with remarkable propriety and dignity, a professor remarked: “He is a blooded fellow!” that is, he was of good blood—had the ingrained qualities of manliness, and the promise of honorable distinction. This was in the summer of 1836. He advanced from class to class, mastering the studies in the course, and maintaining a high reputation in all his relations to the officers and students of the academy. He was quite at home in artillery, which you know is the handling of heavy guns; and in the saddle at the riding school of the institution. He graduated fifth in his class June 30th, 1840. The rebel General Beauregard was a classmate.
You have learned that, as a man, he loses no time in his military movements. Created second lieutenant in the Third Artillery, he repaired to Florida in the service of the regular army. When the autumnal leaves rustled in the war-path, he was fairly in the ranks and under the old flag, which he was destined to honor so well, and with whose stars his name would shine while it floats over the land of his birth.
CHAPTER III.
The Lieutenant in the Florida War—Its Origin—The “Exiles”—Seminole Indians—Osceola—His wife made prisoner—The second Seminole War—Wild Cat’s Daughter—Peace—Lessons of the events before and after.
HEN Lieutenant Sherman reached the Southern peninsula, our war with the “exiles” and Seminoles had been in progress about five years. “Who were the ‘exiles?’ ” you ask. In answering that question I shall give you some account of the Florida wars, in which many of our West Point graduates have been actors; among them Generals Grant, Mitchel, and Sherman. And I shall let a distinguished statesmen, who has recently died,[[1]] and who wrote a book about the “exiles,” tell you some interesting things concerning these people.
“Florida was originally settled by Spaniards in 1558. They were the first people to engage in the African slave trade, and sought to supply other nations with servants from the coast of Guinea. The colonists held many slaves, expecting to accumulate wealth by the unrequited toil of their fellow-men.