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AN INDIAN RETREAT DURING THE SEMINOLE WAR

The affair of Dade’s Massacre is without a parallel in the history of Indian warfare. Of the 110 souls, who, with flying flags and sounding bugles merrily responded to General Clinch’s order, but two lived to describe in after years the tragic scenes. One was Private Clark, of the 2nd Artillery, who, wounded and sick crawled on his hands and knees a distance of sixty miles to Fort Brooke. The other was Louis Pacheo, the only person of the command who escaped without a wound.

The assault was made shortly after the troops crossed the Withlacoochee river, in a broad expanse of open pine woods, with here and there clumps of palmettoes and tall wire-grass. The Indians are supposed to have out-numbered the command, two to one, and at a given signal, as the troops marched gayly along, a volley of shot was poured into their number. The “gallant Dade” was the first to fall, pierced by a ball from Micanopy’s musket, who was the King of the Seminole nation. A breastwork was attempted by the soldiers, but only served as a retreat for a short time; the hot missiles from the Indians soon laid the last man motionless, and the slaughter was at an end.