wed them with a
will. Each charge seemed for a moment to be successful, the Indians
rising in swarms and running in headlong flight from the bayonets. In
one of the earliest, in which Colonel Darke led his battalion, the
Indians were driven several hundred yards, across the branch of the
Wabash; but when the Colonel halted and rallied his men, he found that
the savages had closed in behind him, and he had to fight his way back,
while the foe he had been driving at once turned and harassed his rear.
He was himself wounded, and lost most of his command. On re-entering
camp he found the Indians again in possession of the artillery and
baggage, from which they were again driven; they had already scalped the
slain who lay about the guns. Major Thomas Butler had his thigh broken
by a bullet; but he continued on horseback, in command of his battalion,
until the end of the fight, and led his men in one of the momentarily
successful bayonet charges. The only regular regiment present lost every
officer, killed or wounded. The commander of the Kentucky militia,
Colonel Oldham, was killed early in the action, while trying to rally
his men and damning them for cowards.

Inferiority of the Troops to the Indians.

The charging troops could accomplish nothing permanent. The men were too
clumsy and ill-trained in forest warfare to overtake their fleet,
half-naked antagonists. The latter never received the shock; but though
they fled they were nothing daunted, for they turned the instant the
battalion did, and followed firing. They skipped out of reach of the
bayonets, and came back as they pleased; and they were only visible when
raised by a charge.

Feats of Some of the Packhorsemen.

Among the packhorsemen were some who were accustomed to the use of the
rifle and to life in the woods; and these fought well. One, named
Benjamin Van Cleve, kept a journal, in which he described what he saw of
the fight. [Footnote: "American Pioneer," II., 150; Van Cleve's
memoranda.] He had no gun, but five minutes after the firing began he
saw a soldier near him with his arm swinging useless; and he borrowed
the wounded man's musket and cartridges. The smoke had settled to within
three feet of the ground, so he knelt, covering himself behind a tree,
and only fired when he saw an Indian's head, or noticed one running from
cover to cover. He fired away all his ammunition, and the bands of his
musket flew off; he picked up another just as two l