[CRUIKSHANK] HARRISON AND PROCTER 151 
and asking him to send forward a battalion to his support. On Jan- 
uary 15, another French Canadian came with information that two com- 
panies of Canadian militia and a body of Indians had arrived at the 
River Raisin shortly before his departure and announced their intention 
of removing all the cattle and grain and possibly destroying the village. 
An Indian scout afterwards brought in a letter from Day, who wrote 
from Otter Creek, stating that the British force at Frenchtown con- 
sisted of forty or fifty militia and perhaps a hundred Indians, who 
had positive instructions to remove all the inhabitants to Amherstburg 
with their horses, cattle, carioles, sleds, grain and provisions of all 
kinds. An immediate advance might secure three thousand barrels 
of flour and much grain.' 
Winchester called a council of his principal officers and asked 
their advice. Colonel Allen at once took the lead and warmly advo- 
cated a forward movement in a speech of such force that it carried the 
other members with him. As they were unanimously in favour of an 
advance, Winchester concurred cheerfully and ordered Colonel Lewis, 
as the next senior officer to himself, to march next morning at the head 
of ten companies completed to fifty-five men each. 
He had less than fifteen hundred effective men, all Kentuckians 
belonging to the 17th United States Infantry; 1st Kentucky, Colonel 
Scott; the 2nd Kentucky, Colonel Jennings; the 5th Kentucky, Col- 
onel Lewis; and the Ist Kentucky Rifles, Colonel Allen. Most of 
them were strong, hardy, adventurous young men, accustomed to the 
use of the rifle from boyhood. In the river towns of the Mississippi 
a Kentuckian was dreaded far more than an Indian, and the name 
“Kentuck” had much the same significance as “cow-boy” in later 
years. They were thoroughly fearless, reckless, lawless fellows, ever 
ready to quarrel and fight, who boastfully described themselves as 
“half horse and half alligator, tipped with snapping turtle.” Quiet 
folk were shocked by their drinking bouts, frequently ending in duels 
or savage fights attended by biting and gouging. Horse racing and 
rifle shooting were their chief amusements. Twenty years before the 
legislature had passed an Act making it compulsory on every white 
male over sixteen years of age to kill a certain number of crows and 
squirrels every year. Sometimes as many as two thousand squirrels 
were slaughtered in a single battue, all with the rifle. Auction sales 
or raffles were scarcely known. When a man announced his intention 
of disposing of his household goods, his neighbours turned out gun in 
hand. A mark was set up, a price was placed upon an article of furni- 
ture, each man paid his entrance money, and the shooting began.’ 

‘ Winchester Narrative; Armstrong I, 66-7; McAfee, 204; Brown. 
? McMaster, History of the American People IJ, 575; Marshall, History of 
Kentucky; Ramsay, Hist. South Carolina. 
