[Footnote 1:  Accessible in Drake, 416-418.]

After these early encounters the fighting became more and more bitter and the contest more prolonged.  Early in the war the disbursing agent reported that there were only three thousand Indians, including Negroes, to be considered; but this was clearly an understatement.  Within the next year and a half the Indians were hard pressed, and before the end of this period the notorious Thomas S. Jessup had appeared on the scene as commanding major general.  This man seems to have determined never to use honorable means of warfare if some ignoble instrument could serve his purpose.  In a letter sent to Colonel Harvey from Tampa Bay under date May 25, 1837, he said:  “If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him I shall send out and take all the Negroes who belong to the white people.  And he must not allow the Indian Negroes to mix with them.  Tell him I am sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them; and I intend to hang every one of them who does not come in.”  And it might be remarked that for his bloodhounds Jessup spent—­or said he spent—­as much as $5,000, a fact which thoroughly aroused Giddings and other persons from the North, who by no means cared to see such an investment of public funds.  By order No. 160, dated August 3, 1837, Jessup invited his soldiers to plunder and rapine, saying, “All Indian property captured from this date will belong to the corps or detachment making it.”  From St. Augustine, under date October 20, 1837, in a “confidential” communication he said to one of his lieutenants:  “Should Powell and his warriors come within the fort, seize him and the whole party.  It is important that he, Wild Cat, John Cowagee, and Tustenuggee, be secured.  Hold them until you have my orders in relation to them."[1] Two days later he was able to write to the Secretary of War that Osceola was actually taken.  Said he:  “That chief came into the vicinity of Fort Peyton on the 20th, and sent a messenger to General Hernandez, desiring to see and converse with him.  The sickly season being over, and there being no further necessity to temporize, I sent a party of mounted men, and seized the entire body, and now have them securely lodged in the fort.”  Osceola, Wild Cat, and others thus captured were marched to St. Augustine; but Wild Cat escaped.  Osceola was ultimately taken to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, where in January (1838) he died.

[Footnote 1:  This correspondence, and much more bearing on the point, may be found in House Document 327 of the Second Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress.]