1 56 The Winning of the West 



It is worthy of notice that though the Indians 

 were defeated, and though they were pitted against 

 first-class rifle shots, they yet had but five men killed 

 and a very few wounded. They rarely suffered a 

 heavy loss in battle with the whites, even when 

 beaten in the open or repulsed from a fort. They 

 would not stand heavy punishment, and in attack- 

 ing a fort generally relied upon a single headlong 

 rush, made under cover of darkness or as a surprise ; 

 they tried to unnerve their antagonists by the sud- 

 den fury of their onslaught and the deafening ac- 

 companiment of whoops and yells. If they began 

 to suffer much loss they gave up at once, and if pur- 

 sued scattered in every direction, each man for him- 

 self, and owing to their endurance, woodcraft, and 

 skill in hiding, usually got off with marvelously lit- 

 tle damage. At the outside a dozen of their men 

 might be killed in the pursuit by such of the venge- 

 ful backwoodsmen as were exceptionally fleet of 

 foot. The Northwestern tribes at this time appre- 

 ciated thoroughly that their marvelous fighting qual- 

 ities were shown to best advantage in the woods, 

 and neither in the defence nor in the assault of for- 

 tified places. They never cooped themselves in stock- 

 ades to receive an attack from the whites, as was 

 done by the Massachusetts Algonquins in the seven- 

 teenth century, and by the Creeks at the beginning 

 of the nineteenth ; and it was only when behind de- 

 fensive works, from which they could not retreat, 

 that the forest Indians ever suffered heavily when 

 defeated by the whites. On the other hand, the 



