This text is part of:
[291]
these children of the forest broke and ran. Brave as they are in fight, the Indian cannot face the roar and wrack of serious war. They made a rush; but, met with volleys, they recoiled.
All sounds and sights were new to them.
Hardly one Indian in ten had heard a cannon fired.
Not one Indian in fifty had seen a rocket.
Shells appeared to them shooting-stars.
Their whoop could not be heard for noise; their foes could not be seen for smoke.
Even when they dodged behind oaks and pines they were not safe.
Shells burst among the trees, and splinters crashed about their heads.
What could these children of the forest do but crouch on the ground, cover their bodies with sand and stones, and wait until the night came down?
At dusk they stole into the field, and passing through the sleeping soldiers, scalped the dying and the dead, and carried off their trophies to the camp.
These were the only blows the Indians ever struck for the possession of their Negro slaves.
Next day the scalpless men pvere found by burying-parties, and a cry rose up from both American camps against employment of such savages.
Curtis sent a message to Van Dorn, and to avoid
1875.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.