University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
Captain Dare, at the head of his Bloody Volunteers, wins new
laurels by the storm and capture of an Indian village.

The valour of the Bloody Volunteers was
favourably noticed by the general, who complimented
Captain Dare for his good conduct; and,
what delighted the latter infinitely more, gave him
orders, after refreshing his men, to proceed with
them, and an additional body of fifty friendly Indians,
whom he put under his command, along the
creek, (a branch of the Tallapoosa River,) on which
the Hillabee towns stood, to destroy all the scattered
wigwams he might come across.

Captain Dicky immediately set out, and the wigwams
were given to the flames through a distance
of ten or twelve miles from the field of battle; and the
young captain might now have returned in triumph
to the army. But with such a powerful force, which
our red allies swelled to nearly a hundred men, at
his command, Captain Dare felt it impossible to
return to the camp, without having performed some
exploit worthier of fame than the burning of a dozen
cabins of bark and logs; and hearing from the
Indians that there was a small village of the enemy
some seven or eight miles further down the creek,
where it was probable the Hillabee fugitives would
seek refuge, he immediately resolved to stretch his

discretionary powers so far as to march against it,
and immortalize his name by its immediate destruction.
This the Indians, who, to give them their
due, were as fond of a little independent burning
and killing as Dicky himself, represented as a feat
neither difficult nor dangerous; and the Captain,
haranguing the Bloody Volunteers, and representing
the immortal honour they had it in their power to
achieve, they unanimously agreed, with great swearing,
they would follow him to that Indian town, or
any other he pleased, and kill all the warriors and
take all the squaws prisoners.

We set out accordingly, and by nightfall had come
to a hill within a mile of the devoted village, and
overlooking it; and here the Indians proposed we
should encamp for the night, and surprise the town
next morning at dawn, according to the usual Indian
mode of attack. But Captain Dare, too impetuous,
or too sagacious, to waste time in delay, was resolved
to commence the assault immediately; he
represented that the fugitives were now weary with
flight, and overcome with panic, and might, therefore,
be more advantageously assailed than in the
morning, after having refreshed their bodies and recovered
their spirits: “they will think,” quoth Dicky,
“that they have been followed by our general, and
that he is pouncing upon them with his whole army.
And besides,” he added, pathetically—“if we stay
here all night, we shall get no supper; whereas, in
that village, we shall doubtless surprise the squaws
in the midst of thier flesh pots, and so feast like
fine fellows.”

His arguments were effectual even with the allies,
who grunted their approbation, more especially at
the idea of the fleshpots.

Never were military calculations better borne out

than by the issue of our attack on the village. A
single volley from our guns, with one peal of warwhoops,
from the allies, settled the whole affair. I
have no doubt, the Indians thought, precisely as
Captain Dicky said they would, that the whole army
from the Hillabee towns was on them; and the gloom
of the twilight, which was gathering fast, prevented
their discovering their error. Such were the confusion
and terror among them that not so much as a
gun was fired at us by the warriors; who fled from
the cabins, like the squaws and children, yelling terribly,
until the woods and darkness assured them of
escape. Many of them even left their arms and ammunition
behind them, as we discovered by searching
the huts; in one of which we lighted upon a plentiful
store of corn and dried meat—a valuable capture, as
there was great scarcity of provisions in the camp at
that time. What injury, besides the loss of the
village and stores, we had inflicted upon the enemy,
we could not well determine; but we found the
bodies of two warriors in the street, besides another
discovered in a wigwam, which, from appearances
we judged was that of a fugitive, who had been
wounded in the battle of the morning, and had been
carried by his comrades thus far, and then died.

The victory achieved, it was now to be decided
whether we should destroy the village and stores of
provisions, and endeavour to retrace our steps to the
camp, without regarding the darkness; or fortify our
position in the village, and keep possession of it,
until the stores could be transferred to the army.

The latter course was resolved upon by Captain
Dare; who, removing all arms and other valuables
into the wigwam in which we had found the stores,
clapped the torch to the other cabins, and burned
them to the ground. Then fortifying the store wigwam,

which was converted into a camp, and stationing
sentinels, like a man who knew what he was
about, Captain Dare called his secretary Robin Day,
who wrote after his dictation the following important
despatch (which was immediately sent off by
one of the Indian allies,) to his commander, the
Brigadier:

“General:—Hearing of an Indian town, where it
was supposed the enemy might harbour, I have the
honour to report its capture by the forces under my
command, after an action of two minutes; together
with a store of corn equal to six days rations for the
army, and enough meat to make a feast all round;
and also some guns and ammunition. I have burned
the town, except one wigwam which I have fortified
for the protection of the stores, until further orders.”

This despatch will mark the genius of Captain
Dare. The judicious reader cannot but observe the
sublime brevity of its opening—that little clause, in
which the young conqueror condensed, without
words, ideas which would have caused another to
resort to his dictionary. Even the thrasonical Cæsar
found it necessary to clap down his veni and vidi;
whereas Dicky Dare may be said to have accomplished
his purpose with a vici only. “Hearing of an
Indian town, I have the honour to report its capture.”
What a laconic concatenation of extremes, of dissevered
circumstances, of a past and a future condensed
into a single present. “Hearing of an Indian town,
I report its capture;”—as if the hearing of it, or
having heard of it, (for it is not necessary a great
man should be particular about his grammar,) was
not merely necessarily followed by its capture, but
was to all intents and purposes the same thing as
its capture. It is thus genius leaps from its thoughts
to their results, disdainful, or unconscious, of the
steps that connect them.