The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-04-30

&hem. Indeed, everybody, except the
Door martinez Zapoly, put his hand 20
forty thingsSa day. al clean my boots, \
wash my shirts, / sew on my buttons, 1
drill men, I scold them, / praise them l
mack biscuits, I approve bills for hay, l
fish for cat fish, I salt pork, Hoop easks,.1
write dispatches, l sit on court martials, l
do everything which becomes a man, from
swaggering around as If l was, a COM
mAnder round to concealmg the whole IN
nay hat by an extra large cockade." Thus
wrote Curwen to young Crowninshield, q
college friend whom he had left at home.
At last even the faStidious Harmar
agreed that they were ready to march.
High time it seemed to Harry, to Zapoly,
and most of the young officers Women
came in dailyto the fort with their chill
-dren, from cabins not thirty miles away,
frightened by tales of other cabins burned
and other women murdered. From be-
Eond this line of settlements, Or of places
proposed as settlements, more serious
rHmors came, of such q concentration OF
Indian forces as had not been made for
wears. In all such rumOrs, there was the
certaintg behind that the English troops
supplied powder, lead, fints and guns to
the savages- There was no hope that they
would not be equipped quite as well as
Hsrmar's own forces. Why he would
wait for q dozen more recruits, or for a
few more pack-saddles, was a problem
which the. younger officers could not
solve; and all were delighted indeed when
he at last permitted two or three COM
panies of his Kentucky recruits to march
northward up the valley, and feel the
force which was said to be gathering.
Fer Harry Curwen himself, he had not
much enthusiasm about the enterprise
which followed. To leave barracks and
fort;-yes, that was what they all longed
for. The weather was delightful; the
autumn just coming on, and the ride.
through forests and across praries was all
that one could wish. But he knew'an the
deficiencies in men and equipment;-an
aide does. He knew everything which
had been done wrong, aud it was hard for
him to think that of q sudden, insome day
Of battle, everything would go right.
With the privates, and eve with Zapoly,
lit was different. The count, as they all
called Zapoly, had amused himself in a
fashion by shooting, and sometimes by
fishing. He was delighted to have at last
an opportunity to exercise his own pro-
468SlOU, Ill WulCu u u1USI US COu1CSSCOj us
only achievement thus far had been in the
Potato War of Frederic,
To lounge along, ten or fifteen miles a
day, in weather generally perfect, this
was the regular movement of the first
three weeks of the campaign. If the
woods left only a beaten trail, talk was
difficult, but often the prairies opened so
that the officers could chat together as
the horses walked slowly on. Most of
the command was on foot, and it was i'm
possible to exceed their rate in a days
march. At night there wa but little
fuss about an encampment. The whole
force was hardly fifteen hundred men,
most of whom were used to frontier life.
a few tents were set up for the head
quarters, If it were convenient. For the
rest, there was always wood enoughf for
q camp fire, and the men slept in their
blankets, under trees or in the open air,
rs might happen.
Zspoly, the count, was delighted. His
dream had accomplished itself as if he
had no right to hope 1t would. He at
fached himself to every scouting party
though it were sent out for the most in
significant purpose. The rough and
simple Kentuckians were amused by his
elaborate artificial arrangements for the
campaign, and by the very limited range |
of his vocabulary. But once and again
General Harmar himself found him of use
-ojnterpreting with the coureurs al bots,
of whom more than n was with the
marty, who were really much better &C
unainted with the homes and trails of the
enemy than were any Of his K~entuckians.
The Ohio settlers had none OF them been
I'm the territory more than three years,
and Harmar himself knew the ground as
Msn as they did, which means that he
lid not know 1t at alb
Coming Back from ehs Of these expe-
Hitions on d rainy afternoon Zapoly re-
ported that the war was opening gigantic
broportions. "Dudder day, wot you call
him, hier, we did burn cinquante, wot
you call him, fifty corns, wot you callhim;
Dobs corn; au%jourdhui; to-day we did
burn deux cents, wot you call himE15two
hundred
The truth was that the business of. the
expedition VIA to destroy the villages of
the Shawnees, inside or east of the line
of the two Miamis. Some treaty or
agreement or general theory that it would
~ NJ OuO NOoS " push dA IC- AOIduS
west of that line governed the policy of
the newborn nation. Now the territory
involved is two-thirds, more or less, of
the present State of Ohio. 1t includes
some of the most remarkable farming
lands in this world. There are bottom
lands there which have yielded unparal-
leled crops of Indian corn from that day
TO this, in the century which has elapsed,
without "a spadeful of manure. Mad
Anthony, who knew Pennsylvania farm
ing when he saw the country and its
Indian cornfelds, said that he had never
seen such fields Of corn in his life. 1t
was not then very wonderful that the
Indians, who were in possession, did. not
abdicate very quickly when somebody
somewhere said it would be desirable that
they should. And this expedition on
which our friends were engaged was in
tended to convince them, by the destruc-