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Several Indians had come in through the open gate, some arrayed in feather or fur match-coats and others in buckskin shirt and leggings, with their blankets purchased from the traders drawn up about their ears; they were standing near the walls of one of the block-houses to see the drill. A certain expectancy hung upon this group as they watched the movements of the men now loading anew.
Two great rivers mark out our position; let us raise block-houses on that line; let our fires cross each other on all sides; let us form in square battalion; cannons at the angles and the exterior; let the interior contain our quarters and our magazines: 1813 will see us at Moscow 1814 at Petersburgh. The Russian war is a war of three years!"
The stout log-cabins were arranged in straight lines, so that their outer sides formed part of the wall, the spaces between them being filled with a high stockade, made of heavy squared timbers thrust upright into the ground, and bound together within by a horizontal stringer near the top. They were loop-holed like the block-houses.
The result of this was that General Grant issued an order commending the action of the detachments that were successful, stating that wherever they stood success followed, and the enemy suffered a loss in killed and wounded greater than the garrisons of the block-houses and stockades.
In the evenings after the dress-parade and the boom of the sunset-gun, the elder women sat about in the doors and porches, and knitted and gossiped, and the men walked up and down and discussed the stale war news from Europe for the triumphs of British arms were then rife in all the world or sat upon the grass and played dominoes or cards; the soldiers near the barracks threw horseshoes for quoits; the children rollicked about, shrill but joyous; Odalie and Belinda Rush in their cool fresh linen dresses, arm in arm, the admiration of all beholders, strolled up and down with measured step and lissome grace; and the flag would slip down, and the twilight come on, and a star tremble in the blue summer sky; and the sweet fern that overhung the deep clear spring, always in the shadow of the oaks near one of the block-houses, would give out a fresh, pungent fragrance.
Cutler records that fifty-five gentlemen sat down, together with three ladies. The fort itself was a square, with block-houses, curtains, barracks, and artillery. Cutler's Trip up the Ohio. After three weeks' stay the Doctor started back, up stream, in the boat of a well-to-do Creole trader from the Illinois.
The First Brigade, which was under Colonel Carroll Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton commanding the Ninth Regiment, Major Wessels the Third, and Captain Kerr the Sixth had already crossed and was marching to the right, parallel to, but a little distance from, the river. The Spaniards in the trenches and block-houses on top of the hills in front were already firing at the brigade in desultory fashion.
The whites accused the Indians of many thoughts and deeds some false, some true. The Indians accused the whites of many deeds mainly true. Block-houses were hastily erected, for the protection of settlers. Governor Dunmore of Virginia called out troops in earnest. "Dunmore's War" as well as "Cresap's War" was this named.
Doubtless the block-house and trenches at Fort San Juan proper were only held by three or four hundred men; they were taken by the Sixth and Sixteenth Infantry under Hawkins's immediate command; and they formed but one point in the line of hills, trenches, ranch-houses, and block-houses which the Spaniards held, and from which we drove them.
And I saw three more block-houses being builded, and armed with cannon. The music of Colonel Proctor's Artillery Regiment was playing "Yankee Doodle" near headquarters as we sighted the General's marquee, and the martial sounds enthralled me.
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