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If the whigs had come on in a body, as there was every reason to expect, Ferguson would have been given the one thing he needed time; and he would certainly have been too strong for his opponents. His defeat was due to the sudden push of the mountain chieftains; to their long, swift ride from the ford of Green River, at the head of their picked horse-riflemen.
So complete was the success that only the first line of regulars was able to take part in the fighting; the second line, and Scott's horse-riflemen, on the left, in spite of their exertions were unable to reach the battle-field until the Indians were driven from it; "there not being a sufficiency of the enemy for the Legion to play on," wrote Clark.
The mountain-men had done a most notable deed. They had shown in perfection the best qualities of horse-riflemen. Their hardihood and perseverance had enabled them to bear up well under fatigue, exposure, and scanty food. Their long, swift ride, and the suddenness of the attack, took their foes completely by surprise.
Except a small force of horse-riflemen the men were on foot, each with tomahawk, scalping-knife, and long, grooved flint-lock; all were healthy, well equipped, and in fine spirits, driving their pack-horses and bullocks with them. Characteristically enough a Presbyterian clergyman, following his backwoods flock, went along with this expedition as chaplain.
The same standards must be applied to Sevier and his hard-faced horse-riflemen that we apply to the Greek colonist of Sicily and the Roman colonist of the valley of the Po; to the Cossack rough-rider who won for Russia the vast and melancholy Siberian steppes, and to the Boer who guided his ox-drawn wagon-trains to the hot grazing lands of the Transvaal; to the founders of Massachusetts and Virginia, of Oregon and icy Saskatchewan; and to the men who built up those far-off commonwealths whose coasts are lapped by the waters of the great South Sea.
The first was commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Scott; Colonel John Hardin led his advance guard, and Wilkinson was second in command. Towards the end of May, Scott crossed the Ohio, at the head of eight hundred horse-riflemen, and marched rapidly and secretly towards the Wabash towns.
Ten days after this another party of immigrants, led by a man named Moore, were attacked on the Wilderness Road and nine persons killed. Whitley raised thirty of his horse-riflemen, and, guessing from the movements of the Indians that they were following the war trace northward, he marched with all speed to reach it at some point ahead of them, and succeeded.
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