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Page 91
The first fire was severely destructive, particularly on the right,
where the gallant Colonel Trigg fell mortally wounded, and was soon
after tomahawked and scalped. With him went down several officers of
inferior grade, and a large portion of the Harrodsburgh troops; but,
undaunted, his little band of survivors returned the fire of the
Indians, and, assisted by those in the rear, pressed forward like heroes
to the support of the center and van, where the work of death and
carnage was now becoming terrible.
"Onward!" shouted Colonel Todd, as he rode to and fro, animating his men
by his voice and gestures: "Onward, my noble soldiers, and strike for
your country and firesides! Oh God!" exclaimed he the next moment, as a
ball pierced his breast; "I am mortally wounded; but strike! press on,
and mind me not!"
As he spoke, he reeled in his saddle, the rein slipped from his grasp,
and his fiery steed rushed away, bearing him to the enemy and his
untimely doom.
"Fight, my lads, and falter not!" cried Major Harlan in the van; and the
next moment his horse went down, some five or six balls lodged in his
body, and he fell to rise no more.
But his men remembered their orders, and fought without faltering, until
but three remained alive to tell the fate of the party.
"At 'em, lads!--don't spare the varmints!" said Boone, as he urged the
left wing into action; and the immediate report of more than fifty
rifles in that quarter, told him he was obeyed. In this wing fought
Algernon, Isaac, the brother and son of Boone, with a heroic desperation
worthy of Spartans; and at every fire an Indian went down before each of
their deadly rifles.
But what could avail heroism here on that ill-fated day? Our brave
little band of Kentuckians was opposed by a foe of treble their number;
who, on their first terrible fire being expended, rushed forth from
their covert, with horrible yells, tomahawk in hand, and, gradually
extending their lines down the buffalo trace, on either side, so as to
cut off the retreat of the whites, closed in upon them in overwhelming
numbers, and the slaughter became immense. Major McGary rushed his
horse to and fro among the enemy, and shouted and fought with all the
desperate impetuosity of his nature. Major Todd did his best to press on
the rear, and Colonel Boone still urged his men to the fight with all
the backwoods eloquence in his power. But, alas! of what avail was
coolness, impetuosity, or desperation now? The Indians were closing in
thicker and thicker. Officers and privates, horsemen and footmen, were
falling before the destructive fire of their rifles, or sinking beneath
their bloody tomahawks, amid yells and screeches the most diabolical.
Cries, groans, and curses, resounded on every hand, from the living, the
wounded, and dying. But few now remained in command. Colonels Todd and
Trigg, Majors Harlan and McBride, Captains Bulger and Gordon, with a
host of other gallant officers, were now no more. Already had the
Indians enclosed them as in a net, hemmed them in on all sides, and they
were falling as grass before the scythe of the mower. Retreat was almost
cut off--in a few minutes it would be entirely. They could hope for
nothing against such odds, but a certain and bloody death. There was a
possibility of escape. A few minutes and it would be too late. They
hesitated--they wavered--they turned and fled; and now it was that a
horrible sight presented itself.
The space between the head of the ravines and the ford of the river a
distance of more than a mile, suddenly became the scene of a hard and
bloody race. As the whites fled, the Indians sprung after them, with
whoops and yells that more resembled those of infuriated demons than
human beings; and whenever an unfortunate Kentuckian was overtaken, he
instantly fell a victim to the tomahawk and scalping knife. Those who
were mounted generally escaped; but the foot suffered dreadfully; and
the whole distance presented an appalling sight of bloody, mangled
corses, strewing the ground in every direction. Girty, the renegade, was
now at the height of his hellish enjoyment. With oaths and curses, and
horrid laughter, his hands and weapons reeking with blood of the slain,
he rushed on after new victims, braining and scalping all that came
within his reach.
At the river the carnage was in no wise abated. Horsemen and footmen,
victors and vanquished, rushed down the slope, pell-mell, and plunged
into the stream--some striving for life and liberty, some for death and
vengeance--and the dark rolling waters went sweeping on, colored with
the blood of the slaughtered.
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