The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1905-01-20
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Time, with his slow but ceaseless
roll, has counted twenty-five full GEN.
turies since the heroic Spartans, un-
der the brave Leonidas, met the Per
sian hordes under Xerxes, and COW
cred the pass of Thermopylae with
eternal celebrity.
The heroic conduct of that little
Spartan band is repeated in every
tongue and is known of every school
boy throughout the world: 49,.
The charge of the 'Lignt Brigade
at Balakiava, under the leadership of
the Earl of Cardigan, has been made
immortal by Lord Tennyson's heroic
poem
Theirs not to reason why
Their : to do die
will be read around the hearthstone
and detained In the schoolroom as
long as the English language is spo-
ken.
Lord Macaulay has drawn such a
vivid picture of the BLACK Hole''
into which one hundred and forty
six English prisoners were thrust by
Surajah Dowlaf, the Nabob of India,
and all but twenty-three suffocated
IL manner SO heartrending that the
very mention of the name even Eow
causes one to shiver as he reads the
sickening details.
Nothing i'll history Or felton,
says Macaulay, mot even the story
which CgolinO told in the sea of ever
lasting ice, after he had wiped his
bloody lips on the scalp of his muir
derer, approaches the horrors which
were recounted by the few survivors
OF that night
After suffering untold agonies the
prisoners went mad with despair.
So, likewise, has every school boy
heard of the Alamo where one hundred
and forty Texans, met an attack of
four thousand Mexicans under Santa
Anna, and after days O, hardship and
suffering, sacrificed their lives almost
to man preferring TO share with
their dauntless leader, the brave
Colonel Travis, death to surrender,''
For the Black Hole and the Alamo,
Florida has her ''blockhouse," and
for her Thermopylae and Balaklaya.
she has her massacre of Major Dade
and his whole command save one who
alone was let TO tell the ileroic story.
Yet how unknown are these two in
cidents even to the average Florida
reader,
In the progress of the Seminole In
dian war Captain Mailman, with
small detachment of volunteer SOL
dlerS, was left on the banks of the
river, and in the non
delivery or confusion of O ders. for
gotten, and left to the mercy of the
savages.
Quickly perceiving their perilous
fate these soldiers hastily erected a
blockhouse and determined to sell
their lives as dearly as possible.
For more than two months this lit
tie band was kept awake by the al
most constant war whoop'' of their
savage assailants and day and night
bravely repelled their attacks.
Once the Indians succeeded in SET
ting the building on fire and the roof
was partly burned off before the he
role little band could stay the pro-
gress of the flames :.,.l :. hi:a some
were furiously fighting fii1 tl.s, others
had their unerring rifle, Ie--,ed at
their yelling assailants.
During all this long and perilous
siege this little band subsisted almost
solely on parched corn and when
finally rescued by Colonel Leigh
Read, whose bravery deserves
separate chapter. they were re-
1uced to the last extremity and
we're Low without even water to
Iuench their thirst.
No severer suffering, no Drawer de-
ense, is anywhere recorded in his
jory.
And how little known, too, is the
Utmost total humiliation of Major
)ade, and his entire command. con-
listing of one hundred and thirty-
line men.
Unexpectedly attacked by horde |
# yelling, half naked savages. who |
merge from their hiding places like
o many devils arising from the bow
is of the lower regions, in an unpro- |
ected, open plain, under these con-
what is the behavior of this |
little patriot band?
ire average man, under similar
would become manic
trcken and paralized with fear, but
hese men do not blanch. neither
tampede nor flee. Those who do not