1812.

MASSACRE NEAR CHICAGO.

871

water. This reassured me, aud regarding him attentively, I soon recognized, in spite of the paint with which he was disguised, Hie Black Partridge.

" "When the firing had somewhat subsided, my preserver bore me from the water, and conducted me up the sand banks. It was a burning August morning, and walking through the sand in my drenched condition, was inexpressibly painful and fatiguing. I stopped and took off my shoes, to free them from the sand, with which they were nearly filled, when a squaw seized and carried them off, and I was obliged to proceed without them. When we had gained the prairie, I was met by my father, who told me that my husband was safe, and but slightly wounded. They led me gently back toward the Chicago river, along the southern bank of which was the Pottawattamie encampment. At one time I was placed upon a horse without a saddle, but soon finding the motion insupportable, I sprang off. Supported partly by my kind conductor, and partly by another Indian, Pee-so-tum, who held dangling in his hand the scalp of Captain Wells, I dragged my fainting steps to one of the wigwams.

" The wife of Wau-bee-nee-mah, a chief from the Illinois river, was standing near, and seeing my exhausted condition, she seized a kettle, dipped up some water from a little stream that flowed near, threw into it some maple sugar, and stirring it up with her hand, gave it to me to drink. This act of kindness, in the midst of so many atrocities, touched me most sensibly, but my attention was soon diverted to another object. The fort had become a scene of plunder, to such as remained after the troops had marched out. The cattle had been shot down as they ran at large, and lay dead or dying around.

" As the noise of the firing grew gradually less, and the stragglers from the victorious party dropped in, I received confirmation of what my father had hurriedly communicated in our rencontre on the lake shore; namely, that the whites had surrendered, after the loss of about two-thirds of their number. They had stipulated for the preservation of their lives, and those of the remaining women aud children, and for their delivery at some of the British posts, unless ransomed by traders in the Indian country. It appears that the wounded prisoners were not considered as included in the stipulation, and a horrible scene occurred upon their being brought into camp.

" An old squaw, infuriated by the loss of friends, or excited by the sanguinary scenes around her, seemed possessed by a demoniac