MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



5. Therefore another interval of rest and silence ensued — an interval which 

 lasted four years — viz., till 1858. The "right man in the right place "was then 

 Secretary of War — John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown ! Here was a master intel- 

 lect ; here was the very man to succor the suffering heirs of dead and forgotten 

 Fisher. They came up from Florida with a rush — a great tidal wave of Fishers 

 freighted with the same old musty documents about the same immortal cornfields 

 of their ancestor. They straightway got an Act passed transferring the Fisher 

 matter from the dull Auditor to the ingenious Floyd. What did Floyd do.?' He 

 said, " IT WAS PROVED that the Indians destroyed everything they could before the 

 troops entered in pursuit." He considered, therefore, that what they destroyed must 

 have consisted of " the houses with all their contents, and the liquor " (the most trifling 

 part of the destruction, and set down at only $3200 all told), and that the Govern- 

 ment troops then drove them off and calmly proceeded to destroy — 



Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres •of wheat, and 

 nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock ! [What a singularly intelligent army . 

 we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd — though not according to the 

 Congress of 1832.J 



So Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that $3200 

 worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsible for the property 

 destroyed by the troops — which property consisted of (I quote from the printed 

 United States Senate document) — 



Dollars. 



Total 



18,104 



That sum, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the "full value of the property destroyed 

 by the troops." He allows that sum to the starving Fishers, together with 



