while from every hollow and grass patch, from behind every stump and tree and fallen log, the Indians continued their fire.  Again and again the officers led forward the troops in bayonet charges; and at first the men followed them with a will.  Each charge seemed for a moment to be successful, the Indians rising in swarms and running in headlong flight from the bayonets.  In one of the earliest, in which Colonel Darke led his battalion, the Indians were driven several hundred yards, across the branch of the Wabash; but when the Colonel halted and rallied his men, he found that the savages had closed in behind him, and he had to fight his way back, while the foe he had been driving at once turned and harassed his rear.  He was himself wounded, and lost most of his command.  On re-entering camp he found the Indians again in possession of the artillery and baggage, from which they were again driven; they had already scalped the slain who lay about the guns.  Major Thomas Butler had his thigh broken by a bullet; but he continued on horseback, in command of his battalion, until the end of the fight, and led his men in one of the momentarily successful bayonet charges.  The only regular regiment present lost every officer, killed or wounded.  The commander of the Kentucky militia, Colonel Oldham, was killed early in the action, while trying to rally his men and damning them for cowards.

    Inferiority of the Troops to the Indians.

The charging troops could accomplish nothing permanent.  The men were too clumsy and ill-trained in forest warfare to overtake their fleet, half-naked antagonists.  The latter never received the shock; but though they fled they were nothing daunted, for they turned the instant the battalion did, and followed firing.  They skipped out of reach of the bayonets, and came back as they pleased; and they were only visible when raised by a charge.

    Feats of Some of the Packhorsemen.

Among the packhorsemen were some who were accustomed to the use of the rifle and to life in the woods; and these fought well.  One, named Benjamin Van Cleve, kept a journal, in which he described what he saw of the fight. [Footnote:  “American Pioneer,” II., 150; Van Cleve’s memoranda.] He had no gun, but five minutes after the firing began he saw a soldier near him with his arm swinging useless; and he borrowed the wounded man’s musket and cartridges.  The smoke had settled to within three feet of the ground, so he knelt, covering himself behind a tree, and only fired when he saw an Indian’s head, or noticed one running from cover to cover.  He fired away all his ammunition, and the bands of his musket flew off; he picked up another just as two levy officers ordered a charge, and followed the charging party at a run.  By this time the battalions were broken, and only some thirty men followed the officers.  The Indians fled before the bayonets until they reached a ravine filled with down timber; whereupon they halted behind the impenetrable tangle