THE DIARY OF WILLIAM BROOKS NORTHCUTT


Copyright Kentucky Historical Society--used by permission granted 2/15/2000. The document is the property of the Kentucky Historical Society and may not be used in whole or in part for monetary gain.


Originally published in the Societies scholarly journal "The Register" in three installments in 1958.

Wm. B. Northcutt was the son of Benjamin Northcutt and Winnie Brooks Northcutt, daughter of Thos. Brooks of Fauquler Co., Virginia. Wm. Brooks Northcutt was born Jan. 19, 1790 in Fauquier Co; Va; and lived in Virginia until he was between seven and eight years of age when his father moved to Kentucky in the spring of 1797 and settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky and from there he moved to Fayette County and from there to Harrison County, Kentucky where in 1800 my mother died from the bite of a spider and left behind her five small children; the oldest ten years of age and the youngest three weeks of age; all of them under the care of my father's mother; quite an old lady to raise the infant by hand.

The old lady stayed with us until father married again which was sometime in Jan. 1801, to a Miss Rachel Leathers of Woodford County, Kentucky. Then began my earthly troubles for my step-mother paid very little attention to the baby and my old grandmother left us and went to live with her daughter and the care of the child was put on me which was a sore trial for a boy of ten years of age. While my Mother lived I had not done much but go to school she started me to school at four years of age and kept me going every opportunity until she died which put an end to my schooling until I was free from my father.

Before I was five years of age I could read every chapter in the Bible which was a marvel to the neighbors that so small a boy could read so well.

My father moved from Virginia on pack horses and I rode a pack horse all the way over the mountains to Redstone Fort now Brownsville, and there father bought a flat bottomed boat and put all on board and we landed at Limestone now Maysville, Kentucky. He then put us all on horseback again and we landed in Bourbon County, Kentucky in May 1797.

In the fall of 1808, my father bought land in Campbell County, Ky, in the woods and built a house on it and in Jan. 1809 moved into it. He had six boys and I was the oldest.

When I was about nineteen years of age he said that he was going to set all of his boys free at twenty years of age and told me that if I would make him a certain number of fence rails that I might be free; accordingly in the spring of 1809 I set in to make the rails and in the month of October finished my task and got my freedom, and in 1810 left Campbell County and went to Bourbon County, and set in with a gentleman by the name of Jas. Hutchinson in the distilling business, which I had learned from my father and was complete master of. I averaged him three gallons of whiskey to the bushel of grain that he furnished me the first season, which pleased him so that he enlarged his Distillery and I worked with him two or three seasons until the War of 1812 with Great Britain. In the spring of 1812 I had entered school for three months to a young man by the name of Harrison, but before the three months were out we both volunteered in the Army and the school broke up; he volunteered in Mauriel Langhams Company of Rifle men for six months and I volunteered in Capt. Garrards troop of twelve months "Light Dragoons, and was attached to Jas. V Balls Squadron of United States Light Dragoons; On the 20th of August 1812, we rendezvoused at Georgetown, Scott County, Ky., and took up our line of March for Maiden, Upper Canada. There were three Regiments of Infantry for six months, and our troop of horse for twelve months that left Georgetown together under the command of Brigadier General Payne; the whole commanded by General Wm. H. Harrison.



We started for the wars with high spirits but poor fellows few if any of us anticipated what awaited us for few of us knew what a soldiers life was but I guess before we got back some of us found out what it was to be a soldier. I often told my mess-mate that I was as good a patriot as any one in the Army for I had come into the Service with all I had possessed when I left Campbell County for Bourbon County. I left on foot and carried all that I owned in a small checked handkerchief. The first year I bought a horse and some clothes and the next year I had saved up a little money and it took it all to equip me in the troop of horse, that I had joined. Our uniform was of the finest blue broadcloth, trimmed with white lace and red scarlet Vest with a jacket of leather--cap, black cockade with black plume tipped with red and our horse equipage was very expensive so that it took all that I had made to equip myself in the Service of my country and I took all that I had except one suit of clothes with me into the Service of my country.

Our Company was made up in May but we did not receive marching orders until about the 10th of August and when the Sergeant came to give me notice I was on a wheat stack-stacking wheat for Mr. Hutchinson.

We left Georgetown on the 21st of August 1812 and got as far as Gauches [?] on the Dry Ridge road and there made our first encampment. The next night we got to Gaines and I left my company at Gaines and went about three miles to my fathers to take leave of them, and there I met a good many of the neighbors that had come into see a young soldier and tell him farewell. The next night I met my company at Newport, Ky; there we had the promise of drawing our Cavalry Arms, but they were not there and the Captain gave us our choice to draw muskets and go on, or go back home--we all agreed to draw the long knives, and go on to Maiden.

At Newport we formed our first camp guard by placing out a guard and when the officer of the guard came around, he played a prank on one of the Sentinels by asking him for his arms, getting them, and then putting him under guard.

Our company was composed of the elite of the State young men of the best families in Kentucky--young merchants, lawyers, and doctors; the Company was one hundred and six men strong and but two married men in it; our Captain, himself being an old bachelor and fifteen more of the same sort--the balance were young men from 22 years of age down to 16, mere boys. But it said to be the finest company that left old Kentucky in 1812 for the War. We stayed at Newport two days and had ours horses valued into the Service which was done by two Kentuckians at pretty high figures, and those that lost them without their neglect got paid for them at their value. I lost mine at the Battle of the Mississinewa river and received one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it. At Newport we drew our muskets and cartridge boxes and carried them about three months when we gave them up and drew our Cavalry arms and a younger or short rifle; about the 25th of August we crossed the Ohio river at Cincinnati, and took up our line of march for Malden, but there we received the unpleasant news of the surrender of Detroit, by General Hull which news gave us a damper to our getting to Malden.

Soon we crossed the Ohio river in a flat ferry boat and formed on the bank of the river to wait for the foot men to cross. Captain George Graham's Company of United States Regulars were the to cross over and when they landed the Captain with a long spontoon in his hand was the first man out when I observed to some of the boys that the government had made a mistake in appointing a boy to command a company of regulars for he had the appearance of a mere boy but it turned out that it was I that was mistaken and not the Board of War for he proved to be a lion instead of a lamb for I never saw such generalship displayed anywhere in the war as was displayed by him at lower Sandusky in the attack that the British made on that fort on the 2nd of August 1813. I was there before the dead British were taken out of the ditch and I never saw such generalship displayed anywhere as was done in the defense of the fort by this boy Captain and he did it all under disobedience of orders, for Harrison had ordered him to evacuate the fort and come to his headquarters at Camp Seneca, Nine miles above the fort on the Sandusky river.

The ladies of Chillicothe presented him with an elegant sword for his bravery and, General Harrison--with a red petticoat. The General received a very nice little box and when he opened it out jumped the present.

We marched through Cincinnati and went five miles out to Mill Creek at Hutchinson's Tavern and there encamped awaiting for orders. We stayed at this encampment two days and while lying here, their came in a great many of the citizens to see the troops which was about 2000 strong and amongst the rest an old Englishman that hollered hurrah for King George and the boys did not like such music very well and thought they would put a stop to it; so they caught the old chap and took him up to the Tavern to the pump where there was a large watering trough and layed him flat on his back in it and held him there, and pumped water on him until they cooled him off so that he hurrahed no more for King George, the third.

While lying here one of our company by the name of Brown beat their Ohio champion running a foot race, winning several hundred dollars of their money.

There came one of their citizens to where our company was encamped with a wagon load of water mellons to sell and the boys thought that he was asking too much for them and that they would get them a little cheaper, and accordingly they made a plot to do so; some four or five of them were to go up to the wagon, and begin to pick and price the watermelons, while as many more were to slip them out in the high ironweeds that stood by the roadside, presently the fellow that who owned the melons found out what they were up to and started to move off but his wagon wheels had not more than turned over until his wagon was capsized and the melons went galloping over the road.

About the first of Sept. 1812 the Indians layed siege to Fort Wayne then in the Indiana territory and the Kentucky troops under the command of General Harrison started from their camp at Mill Creek and went on a forced march to the relief of the fort. We went by way of Dayton, Ohio and Pickway which was then the outside town in Ohio and here we drew flints and ammunition, and went from here by way of St. Marys to Fort Wayne, when we came to the River St. Mary's-- the boys there found a Kentuckian of African descent, living in a hut with a white woman; some of the troop knew him, he belonged to a man in Kentucky; he had runaway a few years ago and came here and located with the white woman for his wife. The hard hearted Kentuckians parted them and sent the boy home to his master and the woman went into the camp as cook for some of Uncle Sams boys; they use to call her the Negroes Mammy.

We had a good many false alarms on the way out to Fort Wayne and a good many killed by accident. It was against general orders to fire a gun in the ranks but one day as we were marching very soberly through a thick woods, there was a porcupine lying in the forks of a tree and one of the footmen up with his gun and fired and hollered out, accident but down came the porcupine. When the officer of the day rode up to him and drew his sword over his head and swore he wanted no more such accidents.

The night before we arrived at Fort Wayne we had a great time with false alarms; the sentinels were firing and running in all night crying out the watch word which was, fight on,; we expected every moment to be attacked by the Indians and that night had thrown up considerable breastworks and the boys called it "Fort Fight On". The Indians had out their spies and they were around us all night and nothing but our numbers kept us from being attacked by them.

We had to cross a swamp the next morning where old Anthony Wayne had a battle them in his----Campaign in 93. As soon as we got through the swamp we came to an Indian encampment with their fires still burning; our spies had a skirmish with their spies and wounded one of them--got his gun and blanket but did not get the Indian.

We arrived at the Fort about 3 o'clock on the evening of Sept. 9th, 1812, to the great joy of the garrison for the Indians had besieged it for the last two weeks but upon our appearance they cleared out and left it. After killing two of the Sentinels in the fort and some of the citizens that lived around the fort and destroyed all the public stores outside of the fort; all the stock that belonged to and around the fort. They paid us a visit that night and stole some of our horses and fired into the camp nearly all night without killing any one. There was a great many bullets shot through our tents but no one was hit--they used a good deal of strategy to get the Fort to surrender--the Capt. of the garrison became alarmed and wanted to surrender, but the Lieutenant would not agree to it. The Indians made themselves a wooden cannon in order to scare them into a surrender; the manner in which they made the cannon was this; there was a great many public wagons around the Fort which they destroyed--they took the hub bands off of the wheels of the wagons and then cut a log of wood about the size of a cannon and split it open and hollowed it out with their tomahawks and burned it black--then put the hub bands on it and mounted it on the hind wheels of a wagon that they had reserved for the purpose, and brought it up in front of the fort and demanded a surrender or they would blow them to pieces but the garrison would not comply with the demand and they filled it powder and cut loose and away went their artificial gun. Before we dismiss the Fort Wayne subject I will relate a little incident that occured the day that we got there. The Indians had killed two of the Sentinels in the fort in their sentry boxes and they had buried them inside of the Fort and when we arrived there they took them out of the fort to the graveyard and buried them with the honors of war; they were the first that I had seen shot by the Indians--I stood at the gate of the fort as they marched out with them and I could not help shedding tears although they were perfect strangers to me, but before my twelve months were out I could have slept on a dead soldier--this goes to prove that a soldier loses his natural feelings and I suppose that is alright that he should before he becomes fit for a soldier, for the man that thinks about dying in a battle is not fit to be there and will not do any good for his country or King.

After staying a day or two at Fort Wayne our company of horse and Col. Allens Regiment of Riflemen under the immediate command of General Harrison, left for the Indian towns on the head waters of the Wabash River; the second day we came to the first town which was evacuated--they had left a set of blacksmith tools in the town and a few chickens all of which we captured. There was about a dozen of the boys took after a chicken to catch it, I stood and looked on until the boys and the chicken were both pretty well rundown--I then jumped in and picked up the chicken and run down to the river with it, dipped it in the water, then picked it and had it on the fire cooking in a very few minutes.

In this town there was found a fresh Indian grave made in a manner peculiar to themselves--it was built of small poles and --?--bed up tight with mortar made of mud--the pen was about three feet high and four feet wide and lowered with poles and mortar or mud; in it was found an old Indian lying flat on his back, wrapt up in a blanket and on his breast sat a tin pan with a great many silver breaches [?] in it with his gun lying by his side. The boys tore the top off to look in and while one of them was stooping down peeping in one of my mess-mates pushed him in with the old Indian which occasioned a good deal of merriment with the boys. We destroyed this town and went about 16 miles lower down the river to another town called the "white Loon" town--we found it also evacuated; In this town we found a great deal of corn and vegetables of all kinds; we destroyed their corn and everything else in their town which we burned.

Encamped in the edge of the town that night and the next morning started back for Fort Wayne--we arrived there about the 17th of Sept. and found a mutiny about to occur in Lewis' Regiment in regard to Genl. Winchester taking the command of the Kentucky Volunteers, he being a regular officer the volunteers refused to be commanded by him and fixed up to come home in a body but through influence of Genl. Harrison and some of his staff they were persuaded to go under Winchester who had been sent out by the "Board of War;" to supercede Harrison in the command of the Kentucky volunteers, but the boys did not like him; Harrison was their favorite and could do more with them than any other living man.

The day before we arrived back at Fort Wayne the detachment that went out to the St. Joseph towns, composed of Cols. Lewis and Scott and some Regulars under the command of Col. Wells, the whole making about twelve hundred men returned to the fort and we were all put under the command of Genl. Winchester and called the "North Western Army"; Harrison gave up the command to Winchester and returned to Cincinnati to attend to some military business there. The next thing that we hear from Harrison is that he is appointed Major Genl. over Winchester and sole commander of the North Western Army which gave to the troops new life and vigor.

Winchester was ordered from Fort Wayne to Fort Defiance, an old vacated fort then occupied by the British. We left Fort Wayne about the 20th of Sept. 1812 with three Regiments of Kentucky volunteers.

Capt. Wm. Garrads Troop of Horse and some regulars under Col. Wells crossed the river below the forks at the fort and took the North side of the River Miami of the Lake; we were then put on half rations of beef and no flour all the way down to Defiance which took us ten days to get there; at that point we expected to meet provisions but when we arrived there they had not arrived as yet. Col. Jennings who was escorting the provisions became alarmed at the news of the British being at Defiance and built a block house on the Agloise [?] river and stored it up. We had a tedious march from Ft. Wayne to Defiance, the Indians dogged us all of the way--we had to form the line of battle frequently to fight them but they always backed out--when we got about half way down to Defiance, a young officer in the regular service, by the name of Liggett, from Woodford Co; Ky., asked the general for the privilege of choosing four of his neighbor boys, volunteers, and to let them go on ahead of the main army to Defiance to make discoveries, and to see if the British were there. The Genl. granted him this request and he chose his four men, neighbor boys and accordingly they started to go to Defiance but they had not gotten five miles from where they started until the whole of them was shot, tomahawked, scalped and most inhumanly and barbarlously treated by the Indians. We suppose from appearances that they had been decoyed to the spot where they were killed by the Indians by scattering plums along a deer path that led down to the river, for there was plums lying around where they were killed and not a plum tree in sight. They left camp early in the morning and were not found until evening of the same day.

A young man by the name Hannon, one of my old Harrison County playmates, found them, he belonged to Blair Ballards Spies Company--he came in and reported; the worst scared fellow that I had ever seen but it was too late to go and bury them that evening so early the next morning our Troop of Horse and Ballard's Company of spies was ordered to bury them. A party of the Indians lay in wait, watching them. Ballards company were a little distance ahead of our troop and got there first when the Indians fired on them--when our troop heard the firing they made a charge and raised the Yell, scared the Indians into a swamp. We buried the poor fellows all in one grave and returned back to the army and took our position there which was advance guard and scouts.

Some of our baggage wagons broke down and the army had to halt to mend them; our company was at the time some half mile in the front, they sent orders for us to halt, we halted on the bank of the river Miami of the Lake.

When some of the boys saw great schools of fish in the river, the conclusion was to make a bush drag and draw them out--accordingly we went at it by placing out a guard and the rest went to work with our tomahawks getting the bush vines and bark and made a large drag--now for the fish. One of our boys, a six footer by the name of Moses Richardson, took hold of one end of the vine and says, "Come on boys now we will have them," and fetched a bounce into the river and went out of sight, the water being about 10 ft. deep, we could see the fish so plain, the water being clear. We never thought of examining the water and so there was an end to the fishing spree; we left the dragg there for the amusement of the Indians. A few days after this, one of the footmen by the name of Hume, was on the bank of the river and saw a large fish in the water and thought that he must have him and to make sure of him poked his old musket into the water and fired at the fish and the result was his gun bursted and tore off the fools face.

We continued our march down the river until we came within five miles of the old fort of Defiance and there the main army halted and sent our company across the river to make discoveries and as soon as we got over upon reconnoitering the woods we discovered some fresh wagon tracks and thought they were Jennings escort with the much desired provisions coming to meet us and reported back accordingly which occasioned a great shout in the camp for they were in a starving condition being on half rations of beef and nothing else for the last ten days, but the shouting hardly ceased when we discovered our mistake for instead of it being provisions wagons, the tracks that we saw proved to be the tracks of the British Cannon carriage tracks that had started from Defiance to go to Ft. Wayne to assist the Indians in the siege of that place.

In reconnoitering the woods we found an Indian encampment with camp fire burning and their liberty pole standing by with owl feathers and tobacco fastened on the top of it; we cut down their pole with our tomahawks and found at their camp their conjuring apparatus consisting of square pieces of bark all marked in a singular manner, on scouring the woods I found a half barrel of gunpowder concealed in some bushes and reported it to my commanding officer. The British had got item of our coming and turned back in a hurry and hid their ammunition and sunk their cannon in the river. In the evening of that day, Winchester crossed the river at this point and encamped with the whole of his army five miles above Defiance. The next day after crossing the river our troop of horse was sent down to the old fort to make discoveries and another company of spies mounted on pack and wagon horses had gone on ahead of us and arrived there before we did--they not knowing of our going nor we of theirs when they saw us at a great distance took us to be British light horse and we took them to be Indians mounted, they broke to run and we took after them and gave them a good chase before we found the mistake--it was diverting to see them whipping-spurring and looking back.

In the evening we all got back to camp and had a merry time over the race.

At this camp we had a good many curious incidents, they court marshalled one of Longhorn's Company by the name of Edwards, for going to sleep out on his post--that they need not be afraid to sleep in the camp--it was the third time that he had been caught asleep on his post. and nothing but the influence of his Capt. saved him from being shot. His sentence was to stand two hours on the breast work and be jeered at by the whole army; whilst we were on half rations the boys became very peevish and fretful. One night after we had drew our beef, a couple of messmates fell out about dividing it; one of them accused the other of having more than his share when he denied it and said, "it was a lie," and from that they got to fighting, when one of our Corporals undertook to part them and caught one around the middle until the other struck him several times in the face when one of my messmates said to the Corporal, that it was a rascally trick to hold one man until another struck him; the Corporal then drew a large clasp knife and struck at him with it, the point of the knife striking the button of his uniform coat--it glanced off and did not hurt him; it then took four of us to hold my messmate to keep him from killing the Corporal.

At another one of our encampments one of my messmates by the name of John Terrel, was guilty of whipping a woman--we had marched hard all day and ate nothing from early in the morning, until dark we drew our half rations and divided them when he took his share and cut it in two pieces and put them on a stick about four feet long, a small piece in front of a large one so that it could cook first that he might be eating it while the other piece was cooking; there came a woman by the name of Kate Staley that belonged to the Regulars, and said to him, "for goodness sake give me some of that meat for I am almost starved" he turned around and held the stick out to her telling her to take the small piece, but instead of taking the small piece as directed she took both hands and cleaned his stick. He stood and looked at her until she got three or four steps away when he raised the stick and took after her and gave her a lick for every step for about twenty but she held on to the meat and he poor fellow went without his supper, the boys thought he had committed an outrage by whipping the woman and arrested him, formed a court, had a jury summoned and tried him for the offense. We had two young lawyers in our company and one of them took Terrels side and the other took the womans and after giving the case a full investigation found him guilty and sentenced him to receive four bumps against a beech tree that stood hard by but when he heard his sentence he slipped away from the guard and hid himself amongst the baggage wagons and we did not get him that night but we gave the penalty to the guard for letting him get away and he went without his supper and did not hear the last of it while we stayed together.

It was now about the middle of October 1812 and Winchester fixed a permanent camp where he crossed the river and fortified it with breast works then next after he got this fixed he started our troop all of those that were able to do duty for there were a great many of the boys that were sick and not able to do duty but those that were able he started to Ft. Jennings about forty miles up the Aglaize [?] river to escort the provision down to his camp that Col. Jennings had stored up there. We started from camp on the 17th of Oct. 1812 about day break and traveled at a brisk trot until dark when we encamped by putting out a guard; it fell to my lot to be on guard--we had nothing to cook and nothing to eat but the boys that were not on duty kindled up a fire in order to keep away the mosquitos when it appeared the whole woods was alive with wolves. When the old Capt. bawled out at the top of his voice to put out every d-n spark of that fire and that ceased their howling.

The next morning at daybreak we were again in the saddle and about five miles from the blockhouse, I was sent on with two more of the boys as an advance guard when within about two miles of the blockhouse we met three men that belonged to the blockhouse going out deer hunting and we asked them for something to eat for we were almost starved. They had their dinner with them and they very liberally gave us what they had--it was simply bread and meat but I thought it the best food that I had ever eaten in my life. We went on to the Blockhouse and there found plenty of provisions stored up that we had been suffering for the past two weeks.

We stayed there until the next morning and early the next morning our Troop of Horse and Daniel Garrards Company of footmen, he Daniel being a brother of our Capt. from Clay County, Ky., and belonged to Jennings Regiment. We loaded a great many pack horses with the provisions such as bacon and flour and a little while after we started it began to rain and rained on us during the day as hard as it could pour. My boots got full of water at least a dozen times in the course of the day and when night came we encamped and I had to go on guard and it continued to rain until the next morning. I heard the Sentinel next to me snapping his old musket and could not get it off--at last I heard him swear that if he couldn't shoot that he could stick and I heard the brush cracking and away went an old pack horse with the Sentinel after him.

The next morning before we left camp we were ordered to fire off our guns and not a single musket out of the two companies fired--we had to draw our locks??

We got to Winchester's Camp about dark the second day from Jennings and found those boys that we left behind sick, no better, and in a few days were ordered to leave Winchesters Army and go on to Franklinton to join Balls Squadroon and fix for a winter campaign. The boys that were sick got in the baggage wagons and came in all but one and he was one of my messmates, a particular friend by the name of James Hill. We could not prevail on him to come with us we had to leave him behind and we never saw him again for he died and was buried there; we left him in the care of his brother, Fountain Hill, that belonged to Longhorns Company in Allens Regiment.

I always had some misgivings about Winchesters success with his Army knowing that he was not loved by his men for they all despised him, and were constantly playing some of their tricks on him; at one encampment they killed a porcupine, skinned it and stretched the skin over a pole that he used for a particular purpose in the night, he sat down on it and it liked to have ruined him; and at another encampment they sawed his pole that he used for the same purpose, nearly into, so that when he used it in the night it broke into and let his generalship uniform and all fall backwards in no very decent place, for I saw his Regimentals hanging high upon a pole the next day taking the fresh air.

I was with that army about three months out of the 12 months that I was in the service; there was a great many of my neighbors and acquaintances with that command and a great many that never came home but was lost at Winchester's defeat at the River Basin.

My school teacher Robert Harrison, who I was going to school to when I volunteered for the service, was lost there on the 18th of January battle and great many more on 22nd of the same month; There they took Winchester and Lewis prisoners, also poor Allen and many other valuable men from Kentucky--They killed General Proctor, British officer, who was in command of the British Army and promised the Americans that if they would quit fighting and surrender to him that they would be protected from the Indians and have all the usages of civilized warfare but he did not comply with his promise for he took all of the boys that could march and run them across the lake to Malden and left the poor wounded soldiers behind in the huts in the town where they had the Battle and the Indians, that were with Proctor turned back to the town where the wounded boys lay helpless and massacred them in a most shocking manner by tomahawking and scalping them--then setting the huts that they were in on fire and burning them up.

I was pretty certain that Winchester would never do any good with that army although it was composed of some of the best men in Kentucky; for it is entirely necessary to insure success to an army that they should respect as well as obey their commander, which to my knowledge was not the case with him. He was an old Revolutionary officer who had served under Washington and might have been useful in his day but that day has passed by, for he must have been at the least seventy years of age and very infirm at that, and had to have assistance in mounting and dismounting his horse--he got so afraid of the boys that he kept a body guard around his quarters day and night.

We will now take leave of Winchester and his unfortunate expedition for they are all gone into the lions claws and will figure no more in the war of 1812-13.

Our Company was ordered by Genl . Harrison to leave that part of the army about the last of October, 1812 and repair to Franklinton, Franklin County, Ohio, a small town opposite the fork of the Scioto River and join Col. James V. Balls Squadron, recruit our horses and prepare for a winter campaign against the Northwestern Indians. We arrived there about the 5th of Nov. and was stationed in the courthouse for the want of tents which we had left behind us for the need of baggage wagons. We were here about three weeks getting ready for the Miami Expedition on the Mississinewa River, here we gave up our muskets and cartridge boxes that we drew at Newport in August, 1812 and drew a sword, one pistol and a younger or short rifle for the expedition.

The citizens of the town had begun to picket in the Courthouse from the fear that the Indians would attack them for it was then a frontier town with but few inhabitants; we kept a guard there every night in order to watch our horses which we kept picketed to stakes--around the Courthouse the house was a very large one with two fire places in it which accomadated us very conveniently and at night those that were not on duty had a great deal of sport by dancing what they were pleased to call a Stag dance.

While living here my mare that I first rode out got away from me by breaking her halter and getting out of the line of Sentinels she took a bee line for old Kentucky. I borrowed a horse from one of my messmates and got another one of them to go with me and put out in pursuit of my mare, followed her two days down the river to a few miles below Circleville and there a fellow had stopped her, jumped on her and in company with the Governor of the State of Ohio, had started to the town of Franklinton--we heard in the neighborhood before we got there that he had taken her up and when we arrived at his house he was gone with her; he was Sheriff of the County in which he lived and thought himself big enough to ride with Governor Meigs; well we put off after them but they having several hours start on us we did not overtake them until very late in the night. We came to a Tavern and enquired for them and they told us the Governor and Sheriff were both there and in bed so we stood guard over them until daylight and then beat the reveille and awakened them, when they made their appearance in the hall I asked for an introduction to the gentleman Sheriff and obtained it from the landlord--when I then asked him if he had rode a nag there that was not his own and he answered in the affirmative I then asked him if he Sheriff Rennick [?] did not know that he had violated the law of the land by persuing the course he had taken with the animal he knowing it to be a stray; "Well, he said, that he supposed that he had but it was a case of emergency that made him do so and begged to be excused. I told the gentlemen that the mare was mine and that I was a soldier and had not the time to attend to his case and that if he would pay our bill he might go free--he agreed to do it and I proved my mare to be mine by the man that was with me so we took her away from him and left him a foot, we left and started to Franklinton to join the Company there and make the necessary preparations for the march to the Mississinewa towns.

In a few days Balls' Squadron came along, composed of Regulars and 12 months volunteers--two companies of Volunteers and one of Regulars. The volunteers were commanded as follows one company by Capt. and the other by McClelland and the Regulars by Samuel Hopkins of Ky., the volunteers, both Companies from Pennsylvania and when our Company joined them. It made a pretty respectable little Army of Horsemen--Our old Col. Ball was a Virginia and has served in the Horse under Wayne was also connected with Campbell's troop of Horse at the battle of the Maumae Rapids where Campbell was killed by the Indians and his Lieutenant Wm. H. Harrison took the command of the company.

About the 20th of November, 1812 our little army marched out of Franklinton and for the first time encamped all together about one mile from the town--from there we went to Genia [?] and encamped--here we drew our first soldiers pay. We drew three months back pay at the rate of five dollars per month for our own services and twelve dollars for our horses. We stayed at this encampment about three days and while lying here, we had considerable sport by riding a fellow on Genl. Winchesters English _______ a rail, this chap stole a brace of pistols from Captain M from Pennsylvania and sentenced by the Court Marshall that tried him; to be ridden around the encampment on a fence rail carried by two of the strongest men in camp. We left this place and marched to a town on the big Miami called Dayton and encamped there a day or two making the necessary preparations for a forced march on the Miami Indians on the Mississinewa River, in the territory of Indiana. Here at Dayton we left our baggage and baggage wagons and only took the clothes on our backs--I left my boots here and my valise with all of the clothes I had, with a private citizen of the town and bought a pair of shoes lined with leather and a pair of cloth wrappers which was the means of saving my feet from being frostbitten as the weather by this time, had become very cold with considerable snow on the ground.

About the 10th of December, 1812 we crossed the big Miami River at Dayton which took us one day, we had to ferry over our horses in a small flat boat with about 10 horses a trip, after getting all over we encamped on the bank of the river and the next morning our Colonel made us a speech and told us where we were going, and what we were going for; says he, "boys we are going to have a fight with the Indians certain, and if any of you think you cannot stand it, you may go back to Dayton and stay there with the brave sick, that we have left there," but there was no backing out in this case; the boys said, "that if he could stand it that they could"-- we all pushed on to a place called New Lexington about thirty miles from Dayton, and joined more troops under the command of Col. John B. Campbell, a regular officer who Harrison had put as Chief Commander of the Expedition--the detachment was composed of the following three Companies of infantry mounted on pack horses and pack saddles for the Expedition. (to Wit.) Capt. Elliots Company of Regulars, Capt. Butlers Company of twelve months Volunteers and called the Pittsburgh Blues also Capt. McClellands Company of Twelve Months Volunteers, Rifle men from Pennsylvania; Col. Simralls Regiment of Six Months Mounted Rifles from Kentucky and Balls Squadron of Regulars and Twelve Months Volunteers;

At this place, New Lexington, we were all formed into one Army and amounted to about four hundred and fifty men, to go on one of the most hazardous Expeditions performed in the war of 1812.

In the depths of winter with the snow half leg deep, to penetrate an unknown Indian wilderness over one hundred miles against a wiley foe with their numbers to us unknown. We went from Lexington to Fort Greenville, the outside post, and there drew three days rations for our horses and ourselves. We obtained a man who had been out to the Indian towns the summer before, trading with them, and as he came in from there to Fort Greenville, he broke bushes and let them hang by strips of the back leaves on them and that was all the guide we had to their towns.

The second night out from Greenville, an accident happened to one of our Company by the name of West. He was summoned on guard and in kindling up a fire he unstopped his powder horn to pour some of the powder on the fire when it flashed up and caught in his powder horn, bursted it, making a great report and putting the fellows eyes out. It raised a great alarm in the camp and the orders was to arms to arms. When I heard him holler and told the boys it was West for I knew his voice and the report we heard was his powder horn bursted and so it turned out to be, for directly they came leading him in stone blind; as soon as he got to where the Captain was he bawled out, "Captain, I did not do it a purpose." "Dam you, says the Captain, "who said you did it a purpose."

The next morning the Captain sent him back to the fort and we saw no more of West for sometime. It took us three days of hard marching to get to the Indian towns.

We marched through unbroken and wild wilderness country where the foot of the white man had seldom trod, we saw a great deal of wild game of almost all description. We marched in columns of about 20 men deep and about the length of our column apart and one day an old Buck run in between two of our columns and was so badly scared that he dropped both of his horns before he got out--I told the boys we had scared the horns off of a deer, I suppose that he was about to shed them and when he jumped so high they fell off. The same day there was a gang of wild turkeys got in between our columns and one of them did not raise to fly and the boys got to cutting at it with their swords sitting on their horses but one of them having more sense than the rest--jumped off of his horse and took after it on foot and soon cut its head off; I told him it was a sick turkey and not to eat it but he would not mind me but took it along and had a fine supper.

On the night of the 16th of December, 1812 we marched all night in order to get to the Indian towns about daylight and take it by surprise, but our guide lost his bushes a little before daylight and the Col. ordered a halt until the guide found his way again, and this detained us so that we did not get there until one hour of the sun on the morning of the 17th in this night's march.

A great many of the boys were frost bitten, by getting off their horses and walking, in order to warm themselves the fatigue of walking would put them in a perspiration and mounting again would chill them and would frost bite in a very little time. I stuck to my horse and never got off the whole night which was a very trying thing to do--sometimes being so numb with cold, that I would drop off to sleep in spite of all that I could do and the first thing I knew a limb of brush across my face and eyes leaving me no very good humor for I thought that if the Indian that I had to fight the next day had of been there that I could have given it to him good. The guide found his as soon as daylight made its appearance and we resumed our march.

We were then about 2 miles as near as we could guess, from the first town; we had marched about one mile when our spies let the commander know that we were discovered. They were a little ways ahead of the army when they saw three Indians in the act of catching their horses; the spies and Indians discovered each other about the same time the Indians caught and mounted their horses and took off for the town to give the alarm, and the spies came back to report to the Commander. He ordered a line of battle to be formed when we were within a mile from the town; he then ordered a charge on the town, we then started on the charge through a tremendous thick piece of woods. We had to pack an ax to each mess and we took our time about carrying of it; it fell to my lot that morning to carry the ax our squadron was on right of the line and Simralls on the left and the Infantry on pack horses in the center--they raised the yell on the left--it extended to the right and put our horses in such a fret that I could not carry the ax and my gun and manage my mare so I concluded that the gun would be of more use to me than the ax; so threw the ax away marking the place where I threw it so that if I wanted it I would know where to find it again.

When our line of Battle was formed it extended for more than one half mile in length and our squadron being on the extreme right, missed the town and Simrall's Regiment which was on the left struck the town and took it before we could wheel to the left and get up there they had taken it;
we killed eight of the Indians and one big Negro took 42 prisoners and dispersed the balance over the river--we dashed over the river after them but only killed one or two of them and took some prisoners. One young man took a squaw on the other side of the river and put her in a canoe to bring her back to the town--when he started with her he could not get the canoe straightened from the other side with his paddle the squaw put out her hand and with a few licks with her hand she straightened it and brought it right over, to the great merriment of the boys that were looking on.

When we had taken this town and burned all of the huts and wigwams in it except one of the largest cabins that was reserved for the accommodation of the prisoners we went to forming an encampment in edge of the town. Some of the boys said to Bill, "Where is the ax that belongs to the mess?" I said that I had thrown it away in the charge on the town; they said I had to get it--well, says I, "if I must I suppose I must," so I mounted my mare and put back to the place where I had thrown it away--as I threw it I marked the place--it was where two old trees had fallen one across the other and as I went by the place I pitched it under right where they crossed so I found the ax, got down and picked it up and started back with it, I had not gone fifty yards from the place where I picked up the ax when I met two men that were going back after something that they had lost and I had not gone one hundred yards until I heard a gun fire and they came running back and just after they passed me one of them fell dead from his horse, he being shot through with a bullet. There was an encampment of men went back where he was shot but could find [?] no trace of Indians nor a sign of one so it remained a mystery how the man got shot--he was the only man on our side that was killed. On the 17th after fixing up a fire and getting something to eat of which we had very little for our three days rations that we drew at Fort Greenville was about gone.

Balls Squadron was ordered to march three miles lower down the river to another town to destroy it; when we arrived in the town it was evacuated by the Indians. There were a great many dogs and horses in the town, left there by the Indians--we burned the town killed their dogs and caught about forty of their horses--the horses were very wild and we had to use strategy to catch them. They were in an old field and we surrounded them with the whole Squadron and kept closing in on them until we got them into a huddle we then formed a solid line of horsemen around them and some 15 or 20 of the boys went in to catch them, haltering them and bringing them out. I was one of the guard that stood around them, I saw three of them kick one man at the same time; we brought them up to the first town and tied them in the lines with our own horses and that night a great many of them were killed.

In the second Battle which was fought in the morning before daylight on the 18th of December, 1812. Our Squadron got back to the first town about one hour by Sun in the evening and went into camp in our usual position which was always the right of the Army. We had killed some of the Indians cattle that day which I thought was the best beef that I had ever tasted, we cooked some of it with some dried roasting ears that I had gotten out of an old gun in one of their huts before we burned it down. I got my cap full of it and divided with my messmates and my mare for our forage was gone as well as our provisions--With the Indian beef and tosamanona[?] we had a pretty good supper that night and it was the last for some days.

The orderly Sergeant came along and says he, "Northcutt on guard tonight," Says I, "reckon there is a mistake in the matter, sir:"--no mistake whatever," says he, "and if you don't go I'll report you to the Captain"--Report away, says I, "for it is not my turn and I am not going," with that he went to the Captain and made his report, when the old Captain came bustling along and said, "Billy what is the matter with you?" says I, Captain "I never refuse to do my duty sir when it is my time" he says, how is it? Why sir, I was on guard last night, by being in the advance guard all day, and when the orders came to march all night the guard was called in and I claim that for a tour you were right, Sir, "Sergeant summon a new guard."

I happened to a stand at the head of the Sergeants' old list and before he would write another he was going to summon the old one and make it serve but my refusing to go cleared all of it for the rest of the boys. That night about two hours before day on the morning of the 18th we had a false alarm and we were aroused and paraded for Battle and that false alarm saved our bacon for we did not lie down any more but roused up our fires and went to preparing something to eat; we had a few sea biscuits and a little coffee, some of the Indian beef. One of my mess-mates and one of the other mess, that always built a fire with us so that one fire might do our cooking, had been down to the river and got a tin bucket of water and put it on the fire to make our coffee when about a half hour before day, the Indians made their attack on our camp at the right angle of the encampment which was as usual in a hollow square with our horses tied to stakes 20 paces in our rear. One of my messmates was on guard where the attack was made and said "he saw them coming up in Indian file for sometime and kept snapping his gun at them until another Sentinel hailed them when the foremost one of them halted and fired his gun as a signal; when they raised the yell and formed their line of Battle and made right up to where he was standing; he fell in with them and they run together until they got to within about sixty yards of our lines; they stopped and he ran into our lines and got shot twice, after he came in; by this time the Indians had formed their line and commenced their attack on us with a terrible yell; they took possession of a at the guard fire, dispersed the guard and killed Pierce, the Captain of the guard with a warhawk, the guard all ran in and left him behind; we were ordered to form in the rear of our fires and put them out, which we did and stood one fire from them in this position when the officers discovered that they had the advantage of us, they being in a thick slump of woods and we in an open place in the edge of their town with here and there a tree. And we ordered to retreat, from behind our horses which were tied to stakes, twenty paces in our rear, when we left our first formation to get behind our horses, the Indians made a charge on us and some of them were killed at our fires we had left. They fought with desperation yelling all the time like so many fiends.

Our watchword was "Fight On," and we repeated it all of the time when a hoarse voice from their side bawled out, "fight on and be damned to you." Our Company had to stand the brunt of the fight, we had two killed and a great many wounded. My right hand man was shot through the head and fell flat on his back with his gun cocked across his breast; my left hand man had his right arm broken close to his shoulder and I had four messmates badly wounded; how I escaped is a mystery to me and always will be for I was in the thick of the fight and never got a scratch.

We had a great many of our horses killed and wounded so bad that we had to kill them; our ranks got so badly thinned out that we had to be reinforced by Captain Butler's company from the center of the encampment. His was an Infantry Company and fired by platoons, we opened to the right and left and they formed in our lines; formed in sections of sixteen men in a section; from the time they commenced their firing the note of the Indian yell began to change, for in a very short time their fire became very scattering and the smoke of the powder had settled on us so that we could not see them only by the flash of their guns.

When the sun was about one-half hour high we opened our ranks again and let Trotters Troop of Horse from Simralls Regiment out to make a charge on them, they having begun to retreat. Trotter went out and formed his line in order to make one fire on them. Before he made his charge on them, while he was doing that the party of Indians that stayed back to cover their retreat; fired on his men, they being on their horses and the Indians, behind trees, cut his company all to pieces and rendered his charge of no avail. But the Indians soon cleared out and we were not in a fix to follow them for we were pretty badly crippled and they left forty of their dead behind them but none of their wounded, we took no prisoners in this fight. We had eight killed on the spot and four died from their wounds. Two coming in and two at Dayton--sixty five wounded. Our squadron had to bear the brunt of this fight the other part of the Army not being engaged in any part of it.

While the fight was going on the prisoners that we had taken the day before kept up a continual hollering and gabbering in the hut that they were confined in, under guard.

When the Battle was over we turned our attention to our own dead and wounded; Tom Webster, the man that was on guard when the Indians made the attack on our camp got shot in the shoulder--he fell and recovered; said I to him, "Tom are you badly hurt?" Says he, "Damn them they have broken my shoulder."

Just before that I had taken another one of my messmates that had been shot in the thigh, and put him on a blanket behind a large tree immediately in the rear; I said to him, "You can walk you go where I put Henry Wilson and keep out of our way; showing him the place, he went off and I saw no more of him until the battle was over; when I went to find the wounded men, said he to me, "Bill they have given it to me again" Said I, "How come it"? Why says he, you all kept such a hell of a fuss out there and I kept peeping around to see what you were after and they shot me again in the side;" but it happened to be a glancing shot so was not dangerous, but his shoulder was broken all to pieces; we had to bring him in a horse litter with five more of our company.

He got well and joined us again before our time was out. The only one of the wounded boys that did so.

In hunting up the wounded I came across a man by the name of Scott, that was shot through his breast, the ball going in just above the left nipple and coming out under his right shoulder blade; when I found him I said, "Are you badly hurt"? Says he, "Yes, I am mortally wounded. I went off to get a blanket and three of the boys went with me to the place that I left him; I spread out the blanket and took hold of him, to lay him on it, when he looked up in my face and said, "Billy, you go do something for them that there is some hope for, as for me there is none." Said I to him, "While there is life there is hope and we are going to take you to the doctors fire, and we four boys took hold of a limb apiece and lay him on the blanket and took him to the doctors. They drew a silk handkerchief through him and contrary to his own and every ones opinion, he got well and wrote to the Board of War for a Commission, a Lieutenant--received it and went into the Regular Service, stayed there during the war. We gathered up the wounded boys and took them to the doctors quarters; then we gathered up our dead and buried them all in one grave; we dug it in the floor of the hut, that we had left for the prisoners to stay in; we leveled it off even with the other part of the floor and set it on fire in order to keep the Indians from finding it or finding out how many of us they had killed. There was one poor little fellow that was shot through the head but could not die so the doctors gave him something to finish him off so that we could bury him with the rest of the fellows. After dispensing with the dead we then turned our attention to the poor wounded boys, how we were to bring them away with us for we had no carriages of any sort, so we made horse litters to bring them in manner following; we cut poles about twelve feet long and took canvass and sewed it around two of them and put them on horses, one before and one behind and put the wounded in between them; it took two men to each litter to manage the horses.

The Indians had killed so many of our horses and it took so many to bring in the wounded that we were pretty nearly all on foot.

We fixed up and left the Battle ground about two o'clock on the evening of the 18th and marched about two miles and encamped by making of breast-work, for we expected another attack hourly until we arrived at Fort Greenville; we were pretty near out of ammunition. An accident happened to our ammunition, a few days before we arrived at the Indian towns, we had two boxes of cartridges on a pack horse, when he took fright and broke away from the man that was leading him, the package turned under his belly and he kicked the boxes to pieces, scattering the cartridges for about a quarter of a mile in the snow and destroyed them.

We are now on our march back to Greenville; more than half of us on foot and we had a great many sick and frostbitten.

The morning report; this morning the 19th of December, there were three hundred and ten fit for duty, the rest being either wounded, sick or frostbitten.

We had the prisoners with us, most of them women and children. The commander ordered the Indian ponies, that we had caught on the 17th, in the lower town, to be given up for the squaws and papooses to ride, which occasioned some hard swearing amongst the boys that claimed them as
captured property; there were some of them fine animals; one mare and yearling colt, in particular. The man that had the colt refused to give him up and took him home with him to Lexington. He belonged to Trotter's Company, from Lexington, of six months men and his time was out; he took the colt home with him but it was a mere streak of good luck for him that he did so, for we were on the point of starvation and if provisions had not met us as soon as they did his colt would have been butchered and eaten by the troops.

I lost my mare and had to walk into Dayton; pack my gun and sword. I got a soldier that rode a pack horse out to bring in my saddle and holsters to Dayton for me. Our Captain lost both of his horses, there was three horses tied to a sapling and all three were killed; The Captains, his water trays and Lieutenant Hickmans. The second day from the Battle ground I overtook the old Captain waddling along through the snow, he look up and saw me, and says I to him, "Captain, this is the fate of war and we will have to bear with them;" when he swore that he would have a horse the next day and that night Capt. Hopkins dismounted one of his men and let the Captain have his horse.

Sometime during the day some of the litters broke down and we had to halt to mend them, when we started on again, the Captain led the dragoons horse up by the side of a log to get on him, looked all around and bawled out at the top of his voice, "Bourbon Blues, Mount, when there wasn't a single Bourbon Blue there to mount but the old Captain himself, which occasioned some merriment for the boys that heard the order.

Today one of our wounded boys died in his litter, and we buried him in the woods by the side of an old log. We had about twenty wounded to bring into Dayton in the litters, and in a great many places the little ponds of water were frozen over so that we would have to take the litters off the horses and carry them over the ice, on our shoulders. We had a severe time getting back to Dayton; we had to make breastworks every night, until we got to Greenville and stand guard every other night which was enuf to try the spunk of the very best of us. There was three days and nights that I did not get one hours sleep; during the night it would take us late into the night to erect the breastwork, which was done by falling large trees on top of one another all around the encampment and raising them breast high.

The third night we had to be up all night occasioned by false alarms by the Sentinels firing and running into camp. The Commander ordered the companies to be divided, one-half of them to stand one-half hour at the breast work while the other half stood by the fire and warmed themselves.

I belonged to our first Lieutenant Dr. E and when our squad was at the Breastwork looking out we saw a gun flash and the line of sentinels broke to run in, I was by the Lieutenant when he hollered out to me, "Shoot Northcutt, by God! they are coming." Says I, "they are our boys" He ordered me again to shoot swearing that they were Indians. By this time they were so close to the Breastwork, that he saw that they were our boys and told them to cry out the watchword, which was "Greenville" when one of the boys bawled out, "Greenville, Greenville, for God's sake don't shoot; they all scaled the Breastwork and run to the fire, where there was an old Frenchman that belonged to Butler's Company, from Pittsburgh; says he, to one of them, "what you run for?" Says the fellow, "I saw eleven Indians," Says the Frenchman, "how do you know there was eleven Indians?" "Because I counted them," says the fellow: Says the old Frenchman, "You say you saw eleven Indians, you stopped to count eleven Indians and did not shoot--to hell with such a soldier." They kept up such sport as that all night. There was no sleep for any of us that night.

The Sentinels were paraded and sent back but just as often they would break and run in. One of our boys, by the name of Jim Clark, was on guard that night, when they kept running in he told the Captain of the guard that he would fight at the guard fire until he died, but he was damned if he would go back to his post anymore that night.

The next night it fell to my lot to go on guard and when I started out to the guard fire I told my messmates to go to bed and get some sleep for there would be no false alarms that night where I was on post. My time to go on duty was the second relief and the Sentinel that I had to relieve was fast asleep and I took his place, knowing that he had been asleep which made me look out with both eyes; I had not stood there long before I saw, in the heed of a hollow right before me, something moving towards me; I sprung the triggers of my gun, to be ready to shoot if an enemy approached and when I set my triggers, I heard two more Sentinels to my left, set theirs; the main springs of our locks were so strong that they could be heard to set a good ways off when I heard their locks set thinks I, there is two of you not asleep anyhow. When we came in off guard we three had the same tale to tell. I kept watching the object, thinking about what I told the boys about false alarms, when I heard an owl holler right opposite me and another one answer it right back of the encampment, then I remembered of hearing old Indian fighters talking about the Indians hollering like owls. I then had it fixed up they were surrounding the camp and giving one another the signal by the owl holler, the object before me was one of their spies, it kept coming towards me and I should certainly have fired had it not been for the promise I made to the boys, but I was determined to let it get close enough to me before I shot to make a sure shot, and when that happened it turned out to be an old horse that had gotten away from camp and was browsing his way back.

The Sentinels that was found asleep was reported to his Captain by the Sergeant of the Guard and the next morning, was punished for it, by being tied across the Breastwork and given fifteen licks well laid on with a paddle made for the purpose.

That morning when the guard was called in I was detailed as one of the road cutters, for the litters to pass along about 10 o'clock. Some of the litters broke down and we ordered to halt until they were mended again. When we halted I pulled a piece of bark off an old dead hickory tree and the last thing that I remembered was throwing it down at the root of the tree. They mended the litters and had all gone on road cutters and left me sitting there fast asleep; when one of my messmates who was in the rear guard caught me by the top of the head and asked me what I was doing there; I told him that I was sleeping and by that time my company of road cutters were half a mile ahead, so I fell in with the rear guard and there marched the balance of the day.

When the army halted for the night I stepped up and answered to my name, so there was nothing more said about it. I was so worn out for want of sleep that I was more like a dead man than a living one. A man can do about as well without eating as he can without sleeping.

We had forty-two prisoners with us most of them women and children and when encamped at night, the squaws would have the wood to cut, at night, to make their fires--the men standing looking on.

I saw six squaws cutting down a tree not more than a foot and a half over, they had what they called squaw axes, they commenced chopping on the tree and kept going backwards one after the other, all around the tree until it fell, then they all jumped on it and commenced cutting it up to make their fires.

Today another one of our wounded boys died in his litter and we had to bury him, like we did the others, by the side of the log in the wild woods. Today some provisions met us from the fort but it was so little that it hardly gave us all a taste. It took us six or seven days to get from the Battleground to the fort; we left it on the 18th and arrived at the fort on the 24th of December--it being Christmas eve, we had a hard time of it getting in, for we had to build Breastwork every night, until we arrived at the fort but when we did, we had a jubilee for there we found plenty to eat and drink, we had a Merry Christmas of it.

We encamped at edge of the fort without putting out a regular guard, and had a real old fashioned Christmas frolick.

We had one old squaw with us that could speak a little broken english, and I suppose some of the boys put her up to it, for about daylight she came along the lines saying "Christmas gift--Christmas gift, which produced considerable merriment with the boys. Some would give her some money and some of them gave her some curses.

We stayed here all Christmas day and rested, a thing that we greatly needed, and here the commander dispensed with the prisoners by giving them up to the Indian Agent, and we saw no more of them.

It took us five days to get from here to Dayton where we had left our baggage; here we left our poor wounded boys in a hospital under the doctors and here two more of them died which made four that died from their wounds.

After we left the Battleground which made twelve killed in all and sixty five wounded, there was but one of the wounded who ever rejoined us again and that was Thomas Webster; all of the rest went home and stayed there, all but little Billy Scott, he got well and joined the regular army, and stayed there during the war, came home and killed himself, drinking whiskey, so there was an end to little Billy Scott; he was never married and if I ever knew a woman hater he was one.

We got back to Dayton, New Years Eve, crossed the river at the same place that we crossed when going out; marched through the town and encamped in the woods close by the town and stayed at this encampment two days. Here our Company was furloughed for forty days, in order to go home and recruit ourselves and get fresh horses. There were a great many of us that had lost their horses and those that had horses were worn out completely with fatigue. I drew a pack horse at Dayton and about the third day of Jan., 1813, we started for old Kentucky, by way of Cincinnati; I rode the pack horse to Centi; and there gave him up to the quartermaster, and took his receipt for it.

When we came to the river, the ice had broken up and was running at such a rate that we could not get across, for the boats could not cross because of the ice running so thick; the next morning after we had arrived there I went down to the river, there was a yawl just about to start out with two men in it, for Newport--I asked them to let me get in with them when they refused; at length, by hard persuading and a round half dollar, they agreed to let me get into the yawl with them. It took us a long time to make the trip--we had so much dodging of the big cakes of ice, but we finally landed safe on the Newport side, we all jumped out of the yawl, caught hold of it jerked it out of the water when instantly two large pieces of ice struck each other; if they had caught us would have smashed us to pieces.

When it got up on the bank in Newport, the first man I saw was my father, he said that he was looking across the river when the little craft started out but never expected to see it land; it was a miracle that it did so.

My feelings when I met my father so unexpectedly can be easier felt by me than described. He had heard that we were coming in and had a battle and that I was killed in it so had come down to see about it--had stayed the night before at Kennedys in Covington and crossed the Licking River that morning on the ice and came over to Newport, in search of news about me--hoping to find someone there that could tell him something about me, which he did, by finding the boy himself.

I had left my saddle and arms at a tavern and a foot without any incumbrance whatever, my father had brought a lead horse with him so I at once mounted the horse and went home with him, where he loaned me a horse and I went to old Bourbon, the place I claimed for my home, and where I had left some very dear friends that I had not seen from the 20th of August 1812, the day I set out on the campaign.

I arrived home and visited some of my friends--bought another horse and was enjoying myself as I thought, first rate, when lo and behold there came an express after us to go back to camp, instead of a forty day furlough, it turned out to be five.

In this short time we had recruited thirty new recruits for the balance of our time which was six months.

Some of the best young men in the neighborhood joined our fortune, and with a heavy heart some of us started back to face the foe of our country.

We ordered to meet the Squadron at Lebanon, Warren County, Ohio as soon as could get there for another expedition.

I went on by my father's, in order to bid them farewell, then went on to join my company at Lebanon and here we found the Squadron encamped waiting for us, we joined them and drew ammunition, to go on Expedition but for some cause it failed to go, We stayed here at this encampment for several weeks, shot our ammunition, that we had drawn, away.

I made a business, where not on duty, to go squirrel hunting in the neighboring woods, which was alive with them; we considered this excellent pasttime. There was about four of us boys went out one day and got a good many squirrels up one tree; we all surrounded the tree and commenced firing on them, the first firing we made down came a squirrel and all four of us claimed it. I hollered out, "there comes my squirrel". another cries out, "it is mine," in fact all claimed it, and when examining it we found all four of us had hit it, and the squirrel was not worth picking up. I shot away all of my powder and lead that I had drawn and pretty much all that my messmates had, for most of them were too lazy to go out after the squirrels and rather spend their time in some other pursuits.

Lebanon was only about thirty miles from Cincinnati and my father lived only twenty miles the other side of that town, so I concluded one day I would get a furlough and go to see my daddy, I went to the Captain to get it, when he says, "Billy you can have it, I want to go to Cinti, and we will go together that far; so the next day we put off together and arrived in Cincinnati in one day, where we put up at a tavern together, and the next morning I left him there and came on to my fathers, and when I arrived there my father was sick in bed with the mumps. I stayed with him one day and caught the mumps from him, came back to Camp, and in about ten days broke out with the mumps and inoculated the Squadron with them.

From this camp sometime in the month of February, I with about thirty of our company, one sabbath morning, concluded that we wanted to go meeting, and accordingly fixed up for church. We were about four miles from the Shakers, Quakerstown, called the Union Village; they did not like our appearance very much, however, we tried to behave ourselves as well as could under the circumstances that surrounded us. We arrived there before their worship began. Their meeting house was a very large one fenced into itself from the other buildings, there were two gates to the fence and two doors to the meeting house, the women had one gate and one door to go in and the men the other, and went in at their respective gate and door; they had seats fixed for spectators but none for their own members for as they came in they sat flat down on the floor in solid columns; the men at one end of the room and the women at the other, left a space between them of about ten feet, vacant, when their preacher occupied this vacancy he gave us a pretty long sermon on matters and things in general and when he had finished his discourse, he told the congregation to prepare for duty when they all, both men and women, arose to their feet from where they had been sitting, formed again in rows, and commenced singing and dancing, the singers standing with their backs to the wall facing the dancers.

I counted seventy-eight men and ninety women, all dancing at the same time, each person occupying the same position that they took when they first formed, and the tune that they sang was what we boys used call, "The bell cow younder is the bell cow, and they kept the tune to a person and whenever the tune turned they turned with it; there was some of the most complete dancers on that floor that I ever saw anywhere in my life; They sang And danced for two hours without intermission until some of them fairly gave out and sat flat down on the floor.

It was a very cold day with snow on the ground and they danced until their perspiration raised a complete fog in the house and they wound it up with some of the most unearthly screeches and screams that I ever heard, the Indians yells not excepted, and so ended the biggest frolick I ever attended. The meeting came to a close and we went back to our camp wondering if that was religion.

About the time I broke out with mumps we received marching orders to go to Fort Meigs at the Maumee Rapids. We broke up camp and started for Fort Meigs on a forced march without our tents or camp equipage, and about the time that we started it began to rain and rained on us two days in succession and almost without intermission between Springfield and Urbana.

I thought, die I should, with misery, I had to lie down on my horse and hold to my pistol holsters; when we got to Urbana I told my Captain that I could go no farther and he gave me a furlough and put me under a doctor, where I lay about ten days in great pain. There was about six of the Squadron left here sick. In about two weeks we all felt better and thought we could do camp duty again. Our companies that we belonged to had gone on to Fort Meigs and we could not get to them; so we chose one of our Company, by the name of John Layson, to be our leader and we formed our little squad and went to a block house, about twenty miles from Urbana, that they called Memories Block house where there was considerable forage and provisions stored up, in order to guard them.

We arrived there and formed our camp; there was several camps of friendly Indians in the neighborhood that made frequent visits to our camp and about the third day that we had been there they stole three of our horses and took them to a place surrounded by quicksand except one place where they took them in and hobbled them; they did it in order to get paid for bringing them in to us. We hunted three days for them and could not find them. At length we hired one of the Indians that had no hand in the plot, to help us hunt them and found the three horses and brought them in, disappointed the rascals that had stolen them.

We bought some sugar and cranberries from an old squaw and I thought we would have some old fashioned preserves out of the cranberries so I put them into a camp kettle and started cooking them but lo and behold they were so cankered that we could not eat them and had to throw them away.

After being here several days there came along a detachment of the Ohio Militia going on to Fort Meigs so we broke up our camp and fell in with them in order to join the Squadron which was at Fort Meigs in the first siege of that place.

We went with them to Fort McArthur and at that point met the Express with orders from our commander, to us to meet him at Franklinton. The siege was raised and the Squadron, according to orders, came on back the way that we had gone out until we arrived back at Urbana and there we took the road to Franklinton. We met our Squadron and joined up again.

The first of May, the Squadron went from here to the Pickaway plains about thirty miles below Franklinton and there encamped on the bank of the Sciote River, in order to recruit our horses by grassing them on some excellent pasture in the neighborhood. We encamped here at this point three or four weeks; drilled and recruited our horses; here we lost one of our brave boys, by the name of Sam'l. Henderson. He died with typhoid fever and we buried him here, with the honors of war.

Here they put one of my messmates under guard, by the name of Shy; there were three of us messmates went down to the river to swim and had a canoe in with us; the canoe was there for the use of the troops to cross the river; after being in the river sometime, Woodyard and I, my other messmate, came out of the water and left Shy in the river, with the canoe when there came one of the regular soldiers down and called to Shy, to bring him the canoe as he wanted to cross the river in it. Shy told him he would do so when he got ready. The answer made the regular mad and he turned into cursing Shy, which made him mad also; when Shy brought the canoe up to the end of a large willow log and as the soldier started to step into the canoe, Shy jerked it back and in went the regular, heels overhead, into ten feet of water; he scrambled out and by this time Shy had come out and put on his clothes, the regular made right at him, as he said to give him a whipping but that was no go for it took Woodyard and me to keep Shy from killing him.

The regular went back to camp and reported Shy to the commander who had him arrested, courtmarshalled and sentenced to be put under guard for three days. One day I went to the guardhouse to carry him his dinner; I asked him how he liked being under guard; he said he would as soon be under guard as on guard and appeared to take his punishment very easy. Here at this camp I saw the most severe punishment inflicted on a poor fellow that I ever saw anywhere. It was what they call picketing; they drove a peg into the ground and sharpened the other end of the peg, as sharp as it could be made, fixed a spring pole and tied the fellows two thumbs up to the end of the pole--then took and placed his barefoot on the end of the peg and held him there until he fainted. I thought then and I think so yet that I would prefer to have been shot. His offense was disobedience of orders.

While we lay here there came an express from General Harrison, from Franklinton, for an escort of men to guard him to Fort Meigs; as the road from there to the Fort was lined with hostile Indians; accordingly there was a detail of twenty-five men made out of the Squadron and placed under the command of our second Lieutenant, David Heckman; I happened to be one of the detail and early the next morning we left our camp and started for Franklinton but before we got there Harrison had got an escort from the 26th United States Infantry--had gone on the day before. Hickman said that his orders were to escort the General to Fort Meigs and he must obey them; so we took right after him, he having one days start of us; but we being horsemen and they being Infantry the Lieutenant thought we could soon overtake them; some put off after them in a long trot, but we did not overtake them until the second day in the morning; we overtook them at the mouth of the Carrion River, before they left their encampment.

Here the General ordered the Lieut., with his command, to lower Sandusky; there to wait for the Squadron, which he said he had ordered to Cleveland by way of Sandusky; so we turned back and went to the fort as our orders directed us. We got there at night and went into camp in the fort. We were here several days before the Squadron came on; while we lay, one morning one hour by sun, the Indians run in between the fort and a pasture, where we had our horses a grazing, and cut of a house where there was a fishery kept.

Either the sight or scent of the Indians scared our horses so that they broke out of the pasture and came running up to the fort, all of them but two, one of them belonged to the Lieutenants waiter, a free mulatto, by the name of Bill Meeker, and the other to a Pennsylvania, by the name of Hare. Some of the boys says, "Bill here comes all of our horses running up to the fort but yours and Hares"--Bill says-- "Come Hare, let us go and see where our horses are" they started and by the time they got to where their horses were, the Indians fired on them and Billy Hare and his horse. They killed Bill's horse in the pasture but they killed him in the river.

There were two of the soldiers that belonged to the fort, down at the fishery when the Indians made their attack on it; one of them and Bill attempted to swim the river just above the house. Their idea was to swim the river and run up on the other side and cross it again opposite to the fort so they could get into the fort again. The soldier that was with Bill made the trip and came in with a bullet hole through the top of his hat, just above his head but they shot Bill through the head in the river; the soldier said that he heard two guns fire and looked back saw Bill sinking; the Indians killed the man that owned the fishery, his wife and five children with the soldier, that was there at the house when they made their attack. They made no attack on the fort. At this time old Col. Wells had the command of the fort at that time, and would not let any of us go out after them.

He expected an attack on the fort and commenced making preparations by having all of the stock about the fort, driven in.

There was one of the soldiers in the fort that was so badly scared that he caught one of our horses that had gotten out of the pasture and started to run into the Settlement about three miles above the fort; he met three wagons coming down to the fort and told them that the fort was massacred and he alone had escaped. The wagon-men got so alarmed that they took a horse from each wagon and started to go to the fort.

Wells had started a Sergeant with a file of men up the road to reconnoiter. I was detailed as one of them; when we got out of the fort, the Sergeant told me I had to go about one hundred yards in front to make discoveries and report to him. When I saw three men a coming down the road with red flannel shirts on and their heads tied up with handkerchiefs; thinks I, here comes the red coats and I halted until the Sergeant came up and reported; says he,--"What are we to do' says I, "hold on I saw but three and if there is no more of them we will give them a fight," by this time the wagonmen got so close that we could tell who they were.

We went back with them into the fort, but the fellows that stole Jim Ball's horse kept on and way above upper Sandusky he met the Squadron and told them the same tale that he had told the wagoners but the boys did not believe him how he came by that horse and took the horse away from him and brought the horse back to the owner.

We searched all that evening with hooks in the river for Bill Meeker but could not find him and early the next morning there was four of us in a canoe hunting for him, when I saw the top of his head, about one foot below the surface of the water, and told the boys that I had found him; they stopped the canoe and I reached down in the water and caught hold of the top of his head and pulled him up to the top of the water; the boys helped me with him--we put him into the canoe. He was standing perpendicular in ten feet of water. He had, when shot, sunk to the bottom and swelled so that he had started to come up to the top of the water.

When we found him and seven more that the Indians had killed and buried them all in one grave.

Hare, the Pennsylvanian, that was killed in the pasture with his horse, had every pocket he had, turned wrong side out hunting for his money and when we had him lying on the bank of the grave, just ready put him in one of his Company that was along said, that he knew that had money, and in his watch fob we found seventy-five dollars in bank notes which Lieut. Hickman took charge of it to send home to his friends.

The next day, after we had buried them, the Squadron arrived there on their way to Cleveland and we joined them, all camped together above the fort on the Sandusky River bottom; the next day being the first of July 1813, we started on for Cleveland to watch for the British Ship and guard the boats that Harrison had built there and sunk in the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.

We struck the lake at the mouth of the Huron River and kept all the way down the lake to Cleveland; crossing of four rivers, swimming three of them with our horses.

I stood guard on the night of the fourth of July at the mouth of Black River; I had twenty paces to walk and had on a full cloth great coat with double cape and like to froze.

It was sometime in the month of March just before we left Lebanon for Fort Meigs that we drew our other pistol and gave up our Youngers, from that time on we acted as Cavalry altogether; Our Colonel was a great disciplinarian and use to drill us in the Cavalry exercise until we had learned to understand the exercise perfectly; he was very particular in teaching us to mount and dismount. He had us one day drilling us in the sword exercise when one of the boys went to cut Sgt. George in the rear and left the point of his sword fall too low and cut his horse's hamstring into and the horse and his rider both came down together.

When we arrived in Cleveland we encamped on a high bluff on the bank of the lake, just below the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, where it empties into Lake Erie.

We went there without our tents; the Squadron having left them behind and when we arrived here we had to build tents out of Chestnut bark, which grew here in great abundance.

We lay here three weeks and commenced to build a fort. It was one day of fatigue and the next day on guard, watching for "Queen Sharlot," the British vessel, that Harrison was expecting to come and destroy. His boats that were sunk in the mouth of the river, to keep the British from finding them.

We made half faced tents out of the chestnut tree bark that answered a very good purpose; about the last of July 1813, Harrison sent an Express after us to come to him at his headquarters on the Sandusky River about nine miles above Fort Stephenson, on lower Sandusky. We arrived there by a forced march about the last day of July and here he had one soldier shot for deserting and another tried and condemned to be shot for charging bayonet on his Lieutenant on their march into camp; the soldier was sick and could not keep up with his company, when the officer drew his sword and put at him with it, to make him keep up, when the soldier charged bayonet on him and made him back out. They courtmarshalled him and condemned him to be shot, had him marched out into an old field for that purpose but after all the maneuvering had been gone through except the word fire, Harrison reprieved him to the joy of the whole army and the poor culpret in particular for it did appear to me that he was as good as dead until the General rode up and read his reprieve; he then appeared to revive and live again; the troops that were formed in a hollow square wheeled out into line and marched back to camp in quite a different manner to that which they marched out for they went out with reversed arms and the dead march, with muffled music.

When our squadron arrived at Harrison's headquarters there was not any forage for our horses and he ordered them to take their forage bags and go down to lower Sandusky, to get them filled with oats for our horses and to bring with us to his camp George Chrogan, the Commander at lower Sandusky, to answer to him for disobedience of orders, for he had not ordered him, Col. Chrogan to evacuate that post and he and his company come to him, and Chrogan had not done it according to orders. We started to the fort with our forage sacks, when within two miles of the fort as we were marching along very soberly, our advance guard being about one hundred yards in advance of the Squadron, and composed of six men, there was lying concealed in the high grass by the roadside, thirteen Indians who arose up out of their ambush and fired simultaneously on the six men that formed the guard and killed three of their horses, wounded two men; as it happened, the wounded mens horses were not hurt and they all wheeled and run back to the Squadron, with the Indians close after them.

The first thing that the Indians knew of the squadron they were right under our broad swords and we made their head rattle like old gourds. They caught their guns in both hands and held them over their heads and gabbered something; something I suppose about quarters, but we were Kentuckians and did not understand one word about the Indian language so we gabbled them right up on the spot.

I happened to be in front of the Squadron when the thing occurred and saw the whole of the sport; the Indians appeared panic stricken for there was but one of them that attempted to run. I had cut one fellow down with my sword and took after the one that broke to run. There was one of the boys by the name of Wilson that started with me after the Indian that broke to run; I was before Wilson and had raised in my stirrups several times to cut him down but everytime he was a little too far off; at length we came to an old log that had fallen and the Indian loped it; my horse made a stop to gather himself up for the lope and Wilson's horse cleared at the charge and he got in before me and the moment that he did so he dress his pistol, shot the Indian and he fell dead. I was so anxious to cut him with my sword that I had never thought of my pistols, until I saw Wilson draw his and then it was too late. When the Indian fell Wilson turned around to me and says, "Bill, shall I scalp him?" Says I, "No John, don't do that for if you want his scalp for a witness that, you have killed him, I am a living witness."

After the fracas was over we went on to the fort and left the Indian lying there, we drew our forage and took Chrogan the Commander of the fact, and brought him up to Harrison; as we came back our commander ordered a line to be formed and we made a rake over the ground that we had had the skirmish on, in order to see how many of the Indians we had killed; we found thirteen of them laying stretched out on their cooling boards, but we had not time to bury them.

The next day some of our pet Indians that Harrison had with him went down and buried them, came back and reported that one of the hostile Indians had got away wounded. In making the rake over the Battle-ground I found one of their hoppers sacks, it was a new Mackinaw blanket, rolled up with part of a dressed deer skin in it, with about one pound of the best double glazed powder in it and two pair of moccasins cut out but not made; a bladder of paint and another of Indian medicine.

When we got back to the camp, I opened the blanket and there was one of the pet Indians standing by and I asked him what the medicine was--says he-- "good for sick Indian," I asked if he wanted it; he said, "he did" so I gave the medicine to him but kept the balance of the prize and brought home with me.

The night after we got back from lower Sandusky, there was a Lieutenant and fourteen white boys and four of our pet Indians, detailed to go on a scouting party and I was one of them. We went about six miles from the camp to watch the road that lead from Fort Meigs to lower Sundusky. The Indians that was with us was afoot and the rest of us was mounted. We tied our horses in a kind of low piece of ground and scattered along the road for several hundred yards and watched all night but saw no enemy. The next morning we all started helter, skelter, to go to our horses; when I asked the Lieut. if he did not apprehend some danger in going up to our horses in that manner, for I thought that if there were an Indian in the woods they were watching our horses; where he called a half formed in an line and we marched up to our horses in order. When I got on old Charlie I thought that I was safe, at least I thought there was no Indians in those woods. We saw a good deal of Indian signs but none of them; when we had gone about two miles toward the camp the pets being just ahead of us, I saw them stop and all four of them raise their guns and fire; thinks I--now we are going to have it but it turned out to be a deer that they shot at instead of the enemy. We came into the camp and reported.

That evening the British attacked lower Sandusky; Harrison had taken Chrogans sword from him for disobedience of orders and sent him back to the fort and instead of running he had to go to fighting and fight he did. Harrison was laying nine miles above him with fifteen hundred men but instead of going to help George he turned in to fortifying his own encampment, expecting the British to whip Chrogan, and then attack him. The morning after the British had attacked the fort I was placed out on picket guard about one half mile below our camp, towards Sandusky. There was thirty men commanded by a Lieutenant; we were divided in three reliefs; ten of us out on duty and twenty at a place designated as guard fire and everytime during the day, that I was not out on duty the guard would fire and run in; one fellow swore that he saw two Indians and was so close to them as to see their blankets rolled up and hoppered on their backs. I heard every canon that was fired on the fort during the day and did think it an extreme hard case, that Chrogan should be cooped up with a hand full of men to be massacred by the British while Harrison was lying in hearing of him with fifteen hundred men, and not go to help him. I did think then and I think so now, that Harrison might have taken Malden at lower Sandusky on the second day of August 1813, instead of the River Thames in upper Canada on the 5th of October following, for he could certainly have destroyed the British Army at that point; for Chrogan, with one hundred and sixty men, drove them away from the fort with considerable less on their side. With but one killed and one wounded on our side. The two boys that were wounded in the little skirmish that we had with the Indians, when we were going down after our forage; we had left them in the fort at the time; they were there in the encampment and fought bravely in that Battle, but one of the poor fellows died soon after, of his wound that he received in the skirmish but the other one got well and joined his company again before the war was over.

Harrison was fortifying his encampment here with the expectation that Chrogan would be defeated by the British and that he would to fight them here.

On the morning of the third of August, I was detailed out on fatigue and was in the ditch at work with a spade throwing up an entrenchment, when I heard the trumpet that belonged to our Squadron sound boots and saddles; I threw the spade as far as I could throw it and jumped out of the ditch and went to see what was the matter and the matter was that Chrogan had whipped the British and had sent an Express up to Harrison that the enemy had retreated and left the fort that morning about daylight; Harrison then ordered Balls Squadron of Horse and one Regiment of footmen to repair immediately to the fort and follow them to where they took their shipping, which was about three miles below the fort.

We mounted our horses and started off on a long trot and got there before the dead British had taken out the wounded and administered to their wants but the dead were still in the ditch. The British had fired on the fort about thirty-six hours with their canon with but little success when they undertook to storm it by scaling the walls of the fort; they made a desperate charge on the walls of the fort, and when the ditch in front of the fort was full of red coats, Chrogan with his little six pounder loaded with cannister shots and slugs of lead opened on them but great havock. I saw them lying there in heaps one upon another as they fell dead. We pursued on to where they took their shipping about three miles below the fort at the head of the Sandusky Bay; being satisfied that they had cleared out and left the neighborhood we returned back to the fort and examined the manner in which Chrogan had made his defense. The fort was built in a four square with a block house at each corner and a wide deep ditch, all around it and picketted in with split logs about twelve inches thick and fifteen feet high and sharpened to a point at the top. On one side of the fort they had bored auguer holes and drove in long pins of wood and on those pins they had placed round logs sufficient in size to crush twenty men. On the two other sides of the fort they had placed bayonets through the tops of the pickets and let the point slanting downwards so that it was impossible to have scaled them; on either of the three sides and on the fourth side, in a canon block house were fixed his little six pounder; from this point he filled his ditch with dead British. There was one of those dead British the most daring looking fellow I ever saw, even as a corpse he had a flask of Brandy fastened to his belt to drink King George, the thirds, health, when he got into the fort. His name was Colonel Short and George Chrogan made short work with him.

After resting awhile at the fort we started for our camp, arrived there about one hour by Sun and we had not been long in camp before we heard the canon cut loose again at the fort and one of our company, by the name of Thomas, began to swear, cursing the red coats at a most terrible rate. Says I to him, "Bob what is the matter"? "Don't you hear that"--hear what, says I, "what do you hear"? Why, says he, those d-n British has come back to lower Sandusky and attacked it again and we shall have to go back there and fight them and says he, if they had killed me when I first came out here I would not have minded it, but, says he, I have been here almost twelve months and want to go home." Says I, to Bob, "don't you know that you are a fool for those cannot be British canon that is firing down there, for do you not know that we have just come from there and it would be impossible for them to have got back there and fixed up their canon and commenced firing at this time." Well, says he, "Bill what the devil is it then," why says I it is Chrogan burying the dead British with the honors of war" and so it turned out to be for had them taken out of the ditch and gave them a decent burial; this goes to show that the brave are generous, for a more brave man he had not in the army of the northwest.

The ladies of Chillicothe presented him with an elegant sword and the General with a nice red petticoat. We stayed at camp Seneca Harrison's headquarters, the balance of our time, which was but a few days and here I was taken sick and remained so until we were discharged from the Service.

There was about three hundred friendly Indians here with Harrison; they were encamped outside of our encampment in a body to themselves and had very little correspondence with us or we with them. Some of the prisoners that we took at the Battle of Mississinewa, were with them. They had a recollection of our troop of Horse for one day.

While the Squadron was out on parade in the old field that was close to their camp, there was a squad of them came out to look at us, parade and one of them pointed to our trumpeter and put his hands up to his mouth and says, "toot a toot," away down Mississinewa, so by that I knew that he must have been there.

Harrison's kitchen, a place where they did his cooking, was in the rear of our tent and we had to go right by it to go to the river after water. One day, while I was sick, I started to go after a bucket of water and when I got opposite to Harrison's cooking, there was sitting by the fire, what we use to call a hoe cake of beautiful yellow corn bread, toasting for his dinner. We had been living on sour flour and cornbread was such a rarity to me that I thought that I must have some of it; so I sat down my bucket and made two or three steps toward the fire; I looked for the cook, he was absent so I thought I would have it at all hazards, when my conscience smote me and told me that it was the General's bread and if I took it, I would be caught and punished for it so I just left in a hurry, picked up my bucket and went on to the river, got the water to cook our dinners with.

I had been in the Service nearly twelve months and had never taken one pins worth of anything that was not my own and was glad that I had left the General's hoe cake alone; although I did want it very bad.

In a few days after this our time of Service was about out; the General ordered our Colonel to discharge Garrard's Troop and let them go home which order he obeyed and gave us an honorable discharge from the Northwestern Army on the 13th of August, 1813.

Our time of Service lacked seven days of being out but we were allowed that time to get home in and on the morning of the 14th, we left the turmoils of the camp and took the road for home; the troop went on by the way of Franklington and crossed the Ohio at Maysville but I wanted to go by my father's in Campbell County in order to see them and to get the horse that I had left there in the winter, when we came in on furlough. So two of my messmates and I, came on together to Cincinnati about one mile from a little town called Xemia. We discovered a flock of wild turkeys just making their way out of a grain field, when I says to one of my messmates, by the name of Webster; "Tom, I am going to kill one of those turkeys"--says he, "You look like it" don't you--Well, I put the spur to my horse and raised the gallop and just as the turkeys got to the fence and huddled up to fly over I fired at the flock with my pistol and broke one of their necks. "Well, says, he, you are fool enough to kill it" and I says to him, now you be fool enough and get it, for I was so sick that I could hardly sit on my horse. I left camp sick and continued so for sometime after I got home. We got the turkey which proved to be a very fine gobbler. So we took it along to the town and sold it to the Tavern Keeper for our breakfast. We came to Cincinnati and there I left Tom Webster, for that was his home and there he joined our company in August, 1812. That was the last I ever saw of poor Tom Webster.

We stayed all night in Cincinnati and early the next morning we left; my other messmate, whose name was Reading, and I left for my father's in Campbell County, Ky. We stayed one night with him, for our time was limited as we had to meet on the twentieth of August in Paris, Ky. in order to be mustered out of the Service and get our discharge.

We got the first night from fathers to Arnold's Tavern on the Dry Ridge road and there stayed over night and started early in the morning intending to go about seven miles to an old acquaintance, to breakfast, when a little after sunrise I found a pocketbook lying in the road. I got off of my horse and picked it up and examined it to see if we could find anything in it that would give us a clue to the owner, but no papers of any sort were discernible but there was fifty dollars in bank notes in it. We went on to Conyers Tavern and got our horses fed, had breakfast and when about to start, said I, to Conyers, "Uncle Dennis," if you hear of any body inquiring for a lost pocketbook, tell them who has it for he knew me well and had known me for years. The next time I saw him, he says, "Bill, you little rascal, I have a good notion to give you a whipping," "What for, says I, Uncle Dennis--why says he, because you did not tell me that there was money in that pocketbook that you told me you had found," says he, "I never suffered so much uneasiness about no little rascal as I did about you for them men that come along hunting of it," stated that there was fifty dollars in it," and you not telling me so I thought somebody else might have found it before you did and robbed it and you would be blamed for it and did not see any peace until the men came back and told me that they had got the pocketbook alright.

Now, says I, "Uncle, I will tell you why I did not tell you there was money in it; I wanted the right owner to get it therefore, I did not describe it to and now I shall relate how the right owner did get it. He came on from Conyers, where he heard who had found the pocketbook, to Bourbon County to the place that I made my home before I went into the Army. My father's brother, George Northcutt, Reading and I had arrived there late in the evening and directly after supper went to bed and I had not told any of them about the pocket book but before we were up the next morning Uncle George came to the room door and called me and said that there was two men at the Stile Block that wanted to see me; something about a pocketbook and asked me if I had one that was not my own. I told him that I had and got up and went out where the men were and asked them if either of them lost a pocketbook, when one of them said that he had; I then told them that I had found one and asked him to describe it, which he did saying "that it was a new red morroco pocket book with fifty dollars in Kentucky bank notes in it and his discharge from the Army." "Well, says I "that will do in part but on the whole," for I thought I had examined it sufficiently and could find no discharge; when he asked me to let him have it which I did and he pretty soon found the discharge from the Army, in a secret pocket that I had not discovered; says I, "Gentlemen the pocket book is sufficiently proven." Well, says the man that owned the pocketbook, "What do you charge for your trouble," Says I to him--all that I charge you, is to take better care of it in the future." Well, says he, "I kindly thank you Sir and shall never forget you while I live; I have never seen him since. He was a poor young man from Mercer County and had served six months in the army, had drawn his pay for his services, bought the pocketbook and put the money in it; then started to Boone County to see some of his relations in that section and lost it late in the evening before I found it.

I was a poor boy myself but it gave me more pleasure to return this poor fellows his lost money than to have had that much given to me.

Now the 20th of August, the long looked for day, has come at last when we are to parade and hear the Roll called for the last time. I can say with propriety that my name was never called during the twelve months service but what I was there to answer. Here at 10 o'clock, we met in Paris; the place where our company was made up and where more than twenty of our Troop of Horse lived and made it their home; we were very fortunate in the Service for we only lost six men during the twelve months of Service in the Army; four died with sickness and two were killed by the Indians; there were several wounded so bad, that they never rejoined us again, in the Service. Our old Capt. Wm. Garrard paraded us through the streets of Paris several times; faced us to the right about and says, "discharged."

And now the trying hour has arrived when we come to tell our officers and fellow soldiers a long farewell. We had been so long associated together that the attachment we had for one another was very strong and it is only the man that has been in the Service that can appreciate our feelings. There were men in my company that felt nearer to me than some of my own blood relations; the officers made out the necessary papers and we drew our last pay; posted to meet no more as soldiers but it seemed more like a dream to me than a reality, that I was out of the Service for I imagined for a long time after, that I left the Camp that in the morning I could hear Reveille and the Roll call, and many a time I was just ready to holler out in my sleep.

Now we have told the Army farewell and have assumed citizenship. I came from the Army in a very bad state of health and it appeared I could not get well again. I tried the doctors and they did not help me and sometime in September in the fall of 1813, I concluded to go to the Harrodburg Springs and try what virtue there was in the medical water there; accordingly I got a young man that had been a messmate of mine in the army, to go with me; his health being bad also. We started about the 20th of September and went by way of Lexington, and the Shawnee Village of Shaking Quakers. When we arrived in the village it was a little after dark and they were just winding up their frolic; we heard them dancing sometime before we arrived there but just as we got there they quit their dancing and singing. We rode into the yard and hollered, and out came an old man to learn what we wanted; we told him that we wanted to stay alnight with him;" when he says, "I will let thee know presently, turned and went into the house to consult the head of the family on the subject; he presently came out and says, "Yea, thee can stay," Well we dismounted and went in and the old head of the Bangar, treated us very cordially. He had a good supper prepared for us to ourselves and then a bed prepared for us in a room to ourselves; next morning a very good breakfast and then a very pretty little bill of fare and then we went on but we never saw the face of a female in the place but I have no doubt that they were there.

We went on from here to Harrodsburg and went to the Springs; engaged board at a boarding house and went in for the benefit of the water, but it was no go, for the water made me worse; the more I drank of it the worse I got, so after staying there a few days and getting no better fast, we concluded to leave; when we were fixing to leave, the landlady says to me; Young man I don't think that you were very sick when you came here but I think that you are going away pretty sick, which was a fact, for the water set me to vomitting and I pucked until we reached the Kentucky River. I told Benair, the man that was with me that if we met anybody that they would be sure to think I was drunk.

We came to a farm house just before we got to the river and there we put up and stayed until the next day. We then crossed the Kentucky River at the Shaker Ferry at the mouth of Shawnee Creek, and came on to Lexington and put up at a Tavern; stayed there and rested, got our dinner and then came on home, not much better for the Harrodsburg trip. I continued sick and not able to work all fall. I was not confined to my bed nor to the house but was able to be up and about pretty much all the time; I employed myself most of the time in riding about seeing the people. I attended several meetings that were held in the neighborhood to raise men for the Army by draft. The wire edge for volunteering had worn off and there came a call for more men and they had to be raised by draft. I attended several of their meetings and had my own sport over it. When the poor fellows would go up to put their hands in the hat in order to draw the prize on the copperhead as they called it, their hands would shake like some old man with the palsey; I could not help being diverted at them and had a good deal of sport over the matter.

Some few weeks after I got home from the army there was a call for three months or sixty days men to join Harrison's Army, in order to cross the lake and take upper Canada; they were mounted Infantry; there was one company raised in my neighborhood, and if I had been able I would have joined them and went back to see my old Master, Wm. H. Harrison, again, but I was not able to go. The Troops were raised and put under the command of our old war horse Governor Shelby, the then Governor of Kentucky, and he marched them on and joined Harrison's army at lower Sandusky, went on with him in the vessels that Perry took from the British on Lake Erie in the month of September previous.

Harrison crossed the volunteers in ships and the Regulars, he crossed in the boats that he had built at Cleveland for the purpose. They all landed at Malden, Upper Canada, and took it without firing a gun for the British Commander took to his heels on the appearance of the Americans and left the fort to the mercy of our troops. Proctor had one days start on Harrison but he pursued him and the third day overtook him on the River Thames and there the last Battle was fought and the whole British Army captured on October, the 5th, 1813. There Tecumseh, the Indian chief, was killed by Richard M. Johnson, who commanded a Regiment of Mounted Riflemen from Scott County, Kentucky.

The Indians that were not killed, fled and there was no Indian prisoners taken in that Battle. Proctor, the British Commander, got away by cutting a horse loose from his carriage and fleeing to the woods, leaving his carriage and its contents to the mercy of the Americans. Harrison then retreated back with his British prisoners and sent them to the Newport garrison for safe keeping. They were kept under guard until the war was over. Kentucky suffered more in that war in the loss of men than any other state in the Union. Some of the very best men of the state offered up their lives on the alter of their country; such as Allen Mead, Whitley Hart and many others of equal importance. Kentucky has always stood ready with the blood of her sons to defend her rights in the Union and I hope that she as a state, may so remain.

I came down in Campbell County and spent some of my time with my father's family and his neighbors in the month of October, not being able to walk for a long time after I arrived home from the Army. Sometime in November, eighteen hundred and thirteen, I commenced to work again for my old friend Hutchinson at the distillery business which I had not forgotten. I worked at that business all winter and in the Spring of 1814 I rented a small farm in the neighborhood from a gentleman by the name of Sutton and took in a partner in the farming business by the name of Hill. We were both single men and we went to keeping bachelors hall but we got tired of living that way and we rented the house that was on the farm, out to another person but kept the tilable land. He, Hill, boarded at his fathers and I boarded at Mr. Hutchinsons; we worked on in this way until the 20th of May, 1814 when I got married to Miss Joanna Hill, sister of Nathaniel Hill, my partner in the farming business, and daughter of Warren Hill and Elizabeth Hill of Bourbon County, Kentucky. We lived at Mr. Hills until sometime in the fall of 1814; I then built a house convenient to Mr. Hutchinson's largest Still house. He had two of them; one near his residence and the large one near his griss mill on Coopers Run. He helped me move a vacant building he had on his place near to the Still house and I fixed it up very comfortable, to live in and in November, 1814, moved into it with my wife and went to housekeeping. Hired my wife's brother, Nathaniel Hill, one that had cropped with me the summer before, to still with me, for it took two hands to work that house because it was a very large one. Mr. Hutchinson had built it in the fall of 1811 and I had worked it the winter before I went into the army in 1812.

We commenced stilling about the middle of November, 1814 and worked on until the 17th of January, 1815, when on that night about 10 o'clock, the Still house caught fire and burned down with all of its contents. We had both left it to go to supper when I looked out the window and saw the light of the Still house but it was too far gone to save it and it burned to ashes with all of its contents and considerable grain. The loss to Mr. Hutchinson was considerable but to me it was greater for it threw me entirely out of employment. I had rented a field of Mr. Hutchinsons to tend in corn the next summer and one morning, soon after the fire I happened to be at Mr. Hutchinsons and at breakfast the conversation about the Still house, getting burned, came up when the old gentleman observed that he did not mind his loss but that he was sorry for Billy; when the old lady says, I hear a good many of you say that you are sorry for Billy but I want to know how much you are sorry for him. "Well Betsy, says the old man, I will tell you how much I am sorry for him, he shall have the field rented to him for rent free and a sugar camp also, rent free. Well, I thanked him for his kindness; tended the sugar camp and made considerable of sugar and the next spring and summer I tended the field-made a very good crop of corn and in the fall I engaged to still for my Uncle George Northcutt, who had married Mr. Hutchinson's oldest daughter, Nancy, and he, Mr. Hutchinson, let me have the house that I lived in rent free, as long as I wanted it and ground to tend. My Uncle had a very large Distillery and furnished me with a hand and gave me good wages. I set in to Still in November and worked on until sometime in March when I quit the Still house and went home to tend a crop. The Still house that I worked in was three miles from where I lived and I went home twice a week of nights. When I would hire one of Uncle's black men to take my place in the Still house until I would get back which was always about daylight; cold or hot or dry; daylight never caught me away from the Still house. I hired a Negro boy to stay with my wife; to cut wood and make fires for her in my absence and she would send him every Wednesday and Saturday evening with a horse for me to ride and every Thursday and Monday morning he would bring me back as I stayed at home every Sunday and in this way I spent my time for two years. But at length I grew weary of this way of living and concluded that I wanted a little home of my own, and in the fall of 1816 I went down into Campbell County and bought one hundred acres of land in the woods from Wm Routt, as agent for John Fowler of Lexington, Ky., and in the month of March, 1817, I hired two wagons and teams and moved on to it without there being a stick cut on it, with my wife and two small children. I boarded my wife and children with my brother Thomas Northcutt, who had married my wife's older sister, and had bought himself an improved farm close by.

It was the last day of March 1817, when we arrived at my brothers. I hired some hands and turned in to build a cabin and about the 20th of April moved into it. I then hired some more hands and set into clearing ground and got about five acres in corn at home and rented about five acres from my brother Thomas, so that I made corn enough that year to do us. My greatest trouble was my stock. I brought down with me four head of horses, two milking cows, two calves and one year old heifer, I fenced in a little place for the calves but the cows and the other stock such as the horses that I did not use had to take the woods, for it was all a new settled country and pasture was out of the question. The range as we called it was excellent with the pea vine knee high almost all over the woods. I bought a couple of excellent bells; one for the cows that I could hear two miles and one for the horses that I could hear a long way off and of a night when I quit plowing I would have to go to the horses that I did not use to put the horse with them that I had been using and in the morning I would have to hunt them again to get the one I wanted to plow; bring it in and feed it and while it was eating go and hunt the cows. This is the way that I spent my first summer. I kept the leader of the horses, belled and clogged but sometimes the old mare would loose her clog and then I would have to go a good ways after them. I found it a very arduous task to settle in the woods alone as I was for I had no help of my own until my boys got large enough and by that time I had a pretty smart place opened. I would chop and grub in the daytime and burn the brush at night. I have burned brush by myself until midnight. In January 1820 I took what was called the milk sickness or pucking--I hired a man, by the name of Conrad, in the fall before to get out a set of house logs and in January there fell a very deep snow so I thought that I would chop them off and haul them in on the snow, with a log slide and two horses so I went out one morning to cut them off for the purpose, and I had not worked long before I began to tire with a misery across my arms and thighs: I could not understand it for it was something very uncommon with me, I got so before night that I could not raise the ax to my head. I thought I was taking a severe cold and told my wife I wanted some medicine. We had always kept some in the house; she gave me a dose of calomel and it operated with me as usual but when it quit working me I turned into pucking which I did not understand. Calomal had often pucked me when I first took it but now that it had operated so well and pucked me, it was past my comprehension. I pucked on without much intermission and was heart sick all the time. At length we become alarmed about it and sent for one of the neighbors who was acquainted with the disease and pronounced it the pucking and then there was some scared folks for certain. I pucked eight days with very little change. We sent for Dr. Rochford about the third day but he did not stop it until I had pucked eight days. Our cattle then showed us where it came from; they turned into trembling and dying; they all died except one cow and calf; well I did not get over it for a long time for whenever I exerted myself at any thing I would have a relapse; the 16th of April, by over doing myself, I pucked as hard as I did in January; Well I was determined at that time to leave the country but it turned out otherwise. We turned our little meadow into pasture and kept in all of the stock that we used and we have not had it since.

In 1824 we were sued for our land by Jas. M. Gaines and Wm. Routt, the man that had sold us the land, as agent for John Fowler of Lexington, telling us at the time, that the title was as good as Congress land; they had writs of ejectments served on us from the Federal Court in Frankfort and instituted their suit in that Court. Well, it seemed to be a pretty serious matter that we should lose our land after working so hard to make an improvement upon it. There were about eighty defendants: my father was then living and he put one of his boys on a horse and started him over the neighborhood to call a meeting on the subject. They met at Cruise Creek Church and unanimously agreed to defend the suit; the agreement was, that we all should be taxed, in proportion, to the land that we held in order to pay the expenses of the Suit; choose two of the company as agents to go to Frankfort and make the necessary arrangements to defend the Suit. The Company chose Wm. Jones and myself; as the men for the purpose but Wm. Jones refused to serve and they then chose James Owens to fill his place, as agent. Owen and myself in a few days started for Frankfort and employed a lawyer, the best that we could find, according to our instructions from the Company of defendants.

They had employed John J. Crittenden on their side; we employed Soloman P. Sharp on our side. Sharp charged us four hundred dollars, as a fee, for his services; well, Colonel, says I to Sharp, "this is an enormous fee sir." Says he, there is an enormous long string of defendants here to fight for and you will be sure to cast them in this suit, and you will receive of them the cost and dockett fees which will amount to two hundred dollars, Sir, says I, is that your opinion?" Says he "it is Sir." Well, says I to him, if that is so, suppose that we give you two hundred dollars and the dockett fees for your services," which he agreed to do and we employed him, paid him the two hundred dollars and came home and left the case in his hands.

That August Sharp was elected a member of the Legislature from Franklin County, Ky., and when the assembly met they chose him Speaker of the lower house and that night he was assassinated him in his own house by Beau Champ, which was one of the most outrageous acts ever committed in the State of Ky. so we lost his services.

The Federal Court was then about to sit in Frankfort and we were left without a lawyer; well Owens and me started off again to do our first work over and was instructed by the defendants to get the next best lawyer that we could find and we employed George M. Bibb as our next lawyer. By agreeing to give him two hundred dollars in silver, for he would not have anything to do with commonwealth paper which was then going at one-half or two dollars for one. We came home and reported to our employers--called a meeting and made the necessary levy on our land and collected the money and I took it to him before the Court set and when I counted out the money to him, I threw my white eyes into his black eyes, and says to him, "Are you an honest lawyer, Sir?" "By God, what do you mean sir?" Sir, says I, "I mean just what I say," When, says he, not too honest--By G-d, for says he, I have known some religious lawyers in my time and he was d-nd if they had not liked to have starved." Well, says I to him, since you seem to take the joke so well, I will tell you what I did mean; this money that I have just counted out to you belonged to poor men and their all is at stake." Says he, "go home and tell the boys there to rest easy for I will be d-nd if I don't blow those rascals sky high."

Well, when the court opened, sure enough he did. The Court opened sometime in November and Owens and I went down to Frankfort to attend to it. We filed a bill of discovery, to make them show their papers; we had found out they had gotten into the wrong shop with their job for they had sued us in the Federal Court in the name of non-residents; when they held a deed from Sneed and Triplet of Frankfort and it was revealed in Burlington Boone Co; Ky., when we filed our bill of discovery, in the Court and had Sworn to it. John Crittenden and Jas. M. Gaines turned very pale for they began to see the corner that they were in. Crittenden picked up the bill and examined it very minutely for sometime. When he says, "May it please the court Mr. Bibb's clients are surely mistaken as it respects the import of the Bill and went on and seemed to make it all wrong. Well, I began to feel pretty spotted about this time, for Crittenden had made the sellout to be all wrong and now if I had sworn false the penitentiary was close at hand but when Bibbs took up the case, he says, "May it please your Honor Sir, my clients are not mistaken in regard to the import of this bill, for I heed it no longer ago than night before last from as respectable a gentleman as any in this town; the every essence of the import of this bill, therefore they cannot be mistaken in it." Well, that cured me up again and when I got the opportunity to speak to Bibb, I asked him how he came into possession of the information, in respect to the bill." Well, says he, night before last we had a party in this town given in honor of the Honorable John J. Crittenden's late marriage and I pumpted it out of young Sneed. Well, there was not much of a trial about it, for they saw that they were beaten so they gathered up their budget and walked out of the Court, by paying the cost of the Suit, which amounted to about seven hundred dollars; so they concluded to let us alone in the possession of our premises; but the boys did not feel satisfied with Mr. Wm. Routt, the man sold them the land and got their money for it and sued them Court, run them to considerable expense for to give him something to remember them for.

They gave him a decent coat of tar and feathers in the manner following. It was our Court day and the man Routt was a big lawyer at the court so the boys made up a plat to give the gentleman a new suit that night and put out spies to see where he went to roost and they watched him to old Jesse Pettys, an old brother bachelor of his, and after they had gone to bed and to sleep, some of them slipped in the house and took the lawyer out of bed from behind Petty and took to the woods and stripped him and gave him a new suit and basted it with hickory oil; He said, afterwards, that when he smelled the tar it greatly revived him, for he thought they were going to kill him. he accused me of being in the gang; I heard of it and took my horse and rode up to the house and called him out to the Stile; Says I to him, "Mr. Rout I understand that you accuse me of jimmy blanting of you--I understand you call Jimmy Blanting "Yes, d-n the Jimmy Blantins, he did call them so, and says he--"Northcutt I did think that you were there and held my right leg d-n tight while the tar was being put on, but says he, I have since persuaded another man and has cleared you of the charge." Well, says I to him - I am glad that you have done so, for I am able to prove and intended to prove that I was not there; this thing of assignation I despise and will have no part in anything of the kind" "But Sir, let me tell you how I am a going to "Jenny Blanton" when ever you or Jim Gaines or any of your agents come to my house to turn my wife and little children out; if I can crook my finger I will shoot you certain." Says he, "Northcutt, I never had any intention of doing so." Well sir, if you have not you have a poor way of showing it; I paid you the money for that land once and I don't intend to pay you for it again, and so we parted--he never bothered me anymore about our land.

We have gone through with the trouble about our land and now begins another. About the 25th of April 1825, my father died, he made his Will or rather my stepmother's will, signed by him; for he gave all that he was worth, after paying his just debts, to her and her two sons. He left me his executor which was the severest pill that I had ever taken but I took it and went through with it, to the best of my judgement and when I had wound it all up and paid some special legasie that he had left to some of the children, the rest of us had eighteen dollars and thirty-seven cents apiece. He gave to John his oldest by her, one hundred acres of land adjoining the home farm and unto Benjamin his youngest son, the balance of the land with the farm that he lived on, containing one hundred and fifty acres, After the death of his mother.

My wife's father died about the time my father died, her mother being dead some years before, and the old man lived with his youngest son, Elisha Hill and he made his will and left his farm, a very valuable one, to Elisha and all that we got out of the Estate, was one small Negro boy about six years old.

My youngest brother, Jeremiah Northcutt, the one that my mother left an infant when she died and that I had to raise by hand, he married twice; then died leaving but one child, a boy by his first wife, and her Mother raised him from an infant; he grew to be a man and went to the Mexican war in 1846, took the camp dysentery and died. Jerry died without a will and I had to administer on his Estate and had a great deal of trouble with his first father-in-law, Philip Timberlake, who was the boys guardian and I settled with him as such.

In 1843, My brother Thomas Northcutt, died and I was called in by the heirs to administer his Estate, which I did, to the general satisfaction of all concerned. In twelve months from the day I administered, I had it all wound up and settled with the court and heirs. This was the last of my being administrator for any body, although I had several applications to do so. Now comes the petty offenses that I have had; I was ten years a staff officer in the Regiment of Militia that I belonged to. I was the first Adjutant that was appointed in the 105th Regiment of Kentucky Militia, and Quarter Master in the same Regiment commanded by Colonel Leonard Stephens. Afterwards Major General, I mustered 27 years and one year of that time in actual Service and my name was never called but that I was there to answer it, Neither at home nor in the Service, I always took pride in doing my duty in every capacity that I was placed in. I taught school for my neighbors, three quarters and gave general satisfaction; I taught in the winter season for three winters in succession, expressly for the benefit of my own children and the neighbors. One Christmas when I was teaching the scholars thought they wanted what they termed a holiday and one morning, when I arrived at the school house, the door was bored up with benches. I ordered them to open the door and to get their books, when one of the boys, I suppose their leader, poked out through a crack a piece of paper. I took it and looked at it and says "what does this mean?" "Holiday" Says one little fellow. I says to them, "Good Morning Gentlemen," and started for home; when I looked back, there they came in full chase after me in order to catch me and compel me into terms with them, for the holiday, but I did not let them catch up with me but went home and let them sweat it out for awhile. I then went back to the school house and compromised the matter by my giving them one a week holiday and one bushel of apples which appeared to give general satisfaction to parties concerned. When their week was out we all met again and everything went on as usual. I had my rules laid down to them and when any of them violated they were sure of the penalty there unto cornered. I whipped one boy for breaking them who was almost grown.

In eighteen hundred and thirty-two I was appointed a "Justice of the Peace," for Campbell County, Kentucky, and served in that capacity six years and it appeared I had more trouble in that office than any other magistrate in the county. They were bringing all of their knotty cases before me. I recollect of issuing as many as four commonwealth warrants in one day; I held court twice in a month and always had a crowded docket. I had two school houses that I held court in. There was a tipling shop in the neighborhood, where my predecessor had held his court and when I got the office he, the owner, came to me and asked me to hold court there. I told the old gentleman that I wished to do business with sober men and that I should not do it, when he took offense at it and employed a scamp in the neighborhood, to follow me to the school houses, with his whiskey, and it occasioned me to have some trouble with them.

I saw one day while I was holding court, in one of the school houses some old men come into the court pretty drunk; says I, to a bystander, is there whiskey in this vicinity?" Says he, "Yes, there is," Says I to him, "who has it? Says he, "Ben Timberlake" Says I to him, "will you do me a favor; will you go where Timberlake has the whiskey to sell and buy a glass of it from him, and come back and report." He was a friend of mine and did as I instructed him. I then issued a warrant, gave it to the Constable and told him to serve it on Ben Timberlake and to bring him forth with before me. The Constable took the warrant and went and brought Timberlake into Court. I took the warrant and read it to him charging him with violation of the law, by selling liquor by the small and proved it by the man that I had asked to buy it; the fellow looked pretty badly scared up and began to plead his case by stating that the whiskey was not his but belonged to old man Callan; "very well," says I to him, I am aware of that Sir--but you are the man that sold it and you are fined by this Court, ten dollars and the costs for the offense." Well, this way done in order to keep the whiskey away from my court and it had the desired affect, but it occasioned a pretty smart fuss in the neighborhood. There were some of them that said I had usurped the power of the Circuit Court and had no law for my course with Timberlake and there was some threats that they would mob me. When the next court day came around we had a large congregation and when I adjourned court I mounted a bench and called the attention of the company and made them a stump speech and read the law to them on the subject and showed them that I was justified by the law, in my course with Timberlake; while I was speaking I turned my head around and there stood one of their party standing right behind me with a loaded horse whip in his hand, with the throng of the whip wrapped around his arm in order to knock me off of the bench, but his courage failed him and he did not do it. One of their party says to me, --one day Bill we intend to bring whiskey to your court and drink it in spite of your law; says he--we will bring along with the whiskey some cakes and tobacco and we will sell the cakes and tobacco and give away the whiskey. Says I to him--"John Norris, don't you do that thing for if you do it will occasion more trouble, for I can show you the law that says--any person selling liquor by the small, either directly or indirectly shall be fined for the offense, so they let me alone with their whiskey.

I found the Magistrate's office to be a very arduous task; for where ever there is warrant trying in Court there are two parties and to do justice and please both parties is a thing pretty hard to do. I do not recollect of ever pleasing both parties--but I do recollect at one time of making both parties mad. There was one of the neighbors that swore out a warrant on another neighbor on an open court; when the case was called, the plaintif in the case presented his account. When the defendant disputed the justice of the account, so I told the plaintif he had to prove his claim--he had no witness to present. Well, says I to the defendant, I suppose you know the law on the subject, when there isn't a witness presented by the plaintiff it is your perogative to swear in the case. Well, he refused to swear it off. Says I to the plaintiff, "the law allows you, when he refuses to swear, to be a witness in the case; He refused to swear. Well, gentleman, says I, "then you have got me in a pretty close fix, but we have gone into trial and we must come out--you both have refused to be witnesses in the case but I am bound to do something in the case. They both had accounts drawn up against the other and neither of them would be sworn in the case, so I took both of their accounts and slapped them together and subtracted one from the other and gave judgment for the plaintiff for the balance, that his claim over-run the other, which amount was two dollars, twelve and one half cents. Well, the defendant comes up and claims an appeal from the judgment. Says I to him--"Sir, I am very sorry that you cannot do that thing. Well, he says he,--why so-- "The very best of reason Sir," the law wont allow you for the sum is too small." Well, he went off and consulted some of his friends on the subject: when he came back and said, that it was a hard case but he would have to stand it." Well up comes the plaintiff and says, I want an appeal from the judgment, for the reason that I have not got enough: Well, says I "just what sort of folks are you, when you both want an appeal from the same judgment" I says to him, "You cannot get it sir, the sum is too small--but if you think that you have not received justice, sir--if you will here take an oath that you can at another trial introduce good and sufficient evidence, I can open this judgment and let you have another trial--But, says I, maybe you had better be a little careful about that matter for now you have judgment against Wm. Sampson for two dollars 12 1/2 cts. and you may not, the next time; he finally agreed to let it stand so I then thought that I had done justice by making both parties want an appeal; it was a natural consequence for one of the parties to think they did not have justice done them but when both parties was dissatisfied it proved to me that I had done justice for once, at least I reckon that I tried more contested cases than was ever done by one man in the same length of time.

There was three little stores wound up in the neighborhood and I have tried as high as twenty cases in one day and there never was an appeal taken from my docket to a higher court, which goes to prove that my judgment gave general satisfaction.

After serving six years I resigned the troublesome and unprofitable office of Justice of the Peace. I served for twelve years in the County as one of the four officers of the election; either as judge of the polls or clerk of the same. I have held a great many petty County offices; such as County Commissioner; to settle with administrators and guardians, and was elected, by the voters of the county, road commissioner, under the first road law, that we had in Campbell County.

There were thirteen candidates for the office and three to be elected and I was one of them. Edmond P. Ball and Wm. McCartie were the other two. We had an excited election over it. I was then and am yet opposed to the road law, for I did think and do yet that the old law was the best; this thing of making old men and widows work the road, did not seem right to me but I am a law abiding citizen and whilst it is a law, I must abide by it. We have never had as good road under this new road law as we had under the old one. There were some of my opponents that said, "that I ought not to be elected because I opposed it but I showed them better, for I was the foremost man in the race. I told them all that I did oppose the law and showed them wherein it was deficient and moreover told them, that as a republican in a republican government, I had the right to run and was a going to beat them, if I could, and did so by a large majority. That race for public office satisfied me and I have never offered my services to the public since, for any office whatever. In eighteen hundred and forty-five I was appointed, by the County Court assessor to assess the County of Kenton. We had a few years previous been struck from Campbell County and formed a new County; they called it Kenton, in honor of Simon Kenton; the Kentucky pioneer, and Indian hunter.

I made the closest assessment that had ever been made in the county for I only missed one man in the whole county and one watch. In assessing of the county, I had a good many many diverting incidents. It appeared the assessor was an unwelcome guest and nobody wanted his company, for they hid and run, when they saw me coming and some would refuse to give me their names. I met with a dutchman hauling rock on the Lexington pike and I spoke very politely to him and asked him if he lived in the neighborhood--he said that he did. I says to him-- "What is your name if you please, sir" Says he-- "I know you who you are and I don't tell you my name." I then asked him where he lived; he said, "at Jack Leathers," Says I "I will go to Jack and get your name from him." I asked him what his horse and cart was worth; he said, "it is none of your business," Well, says I, we will see about that and started off to go see Jack Leathers about his case, when he called me back and gave me his list, himself and old gray horse.

I had a great many similar cases as the dutchmans. I went to a gentleman's house to get his list of taxable property and he was away from home; I asked his wife, in a very polite manner if she would give me a list of their taxable property, when she refused to do so saying, how that was men's business and she was not agoing to do men's business. Well, I tried to reason the case with her, telling her that it would be a great accommodation to me, for her to do so, that I was about through with the business in the neighborhood where they lived and would have to ride twenty miles from where I lived, for that one list; but it was to no avail, for she was not agoing to do men's business. I then wrote a notice to her husband; for him to meet me at the Courthouse on a certain day and list his taxable property and handed it to her, when she says "What is that?" Says I to her-- "Madam it is simply a notice for Mr. Cleveland to meet me at Independence, on our next court day and give in a list of his taxable property." Well, says she-- "if it is to be attended with all that trouble; I suppose I must do it; she then went on and made as complete a list as any man could have done, although she was not agoing to do men's work.

I met with another pretty knotty case; I went to an old gentleman's house for his list; he was not at home but the old lady was not like Mrs. Cleveland for she could do men's business and said that she could give in the property and did so. When she got through says I, "Madam, "is that all," she pointed to her daughter and said, "she has a horse." Says I to her, "Madam, what is your horse worth?" when she says, "he is not worth anything, for he is sickly and of no account," Well, says I "Madam, I should suppose that worth something but she contended he was worth not anything at all. Well, "Miss, says I--since you will not give me the value of that horse yourself, you have a cousin, at work up here in the woods by the roadside and he is a pretty good judge of a horse; I will call on him to value that horse for me, as you won't do it." When she says, in no very good humor, "if Harvey does that he had better be doing something else," so I called on Harvey and asked him if he knew his cousin Eunice's horse," he said he did--Well, I says to him, what is that horse worth?--says he, "that horse is worth eighty dollars in any man's money." So I listed the young lady's horse at eighty dollars and left her and the Sheriff for the balance; but I suspect that when the Sheriff came around for his taxes that he caught a tartar.

I went on finished the job of making the assessment and did it in the shortest time that it had been done heretofore; for I completed it in eight weeks from the time that I commenced until I got through taking in the property of the County, outside of Covington. I listed all of the property outside of the Corporation of the City. I then made the assessors book which was a considerable job and returned it to the Court, with a request to the Court for the future, to appoint young men to that office that were able to fight dutch and dogs.

I found a great many of the Germans that could not speak English, which put me to considerable trouble to get their list correctly and the dogs appeared to have a spite at me wherever I went; I called at a house one day and the folks were at dinner and there bolted out at me three large dogs, well, I had a shillalah with me that I generally carried for the purpose of self defense and fell to work with it right and left on the three curs and made some of them yell so that the lady of the house came to the door and bawled out, "for goodness sake, throw down that stick, for if you don't you will be torn to pieces.." Says I,-- "No Madam, I cannot spare this stick, for I believe that your dogs are hungry and want to eat me up; do please, call off your dogs and give them something to eat; but it was not me that the lady was afraid would get hurt but it was her dogs, for I made them scamper off at a rapid rate and with sore bones from the way they yelled and so I must wind up my very unpleasant business of assessing the County.

I can say as much as any man living and more than a great many can say; I now lack but a few months of being seventy seven years of age and I never struck a man nor was struck by a man in anger. I never warranted a man nor was warranted by a man in all my life.

I mustered in the militia for twenty-seven years, from the time I was eighteen until I was forty-five years of age and one year of that time in actual service and my name was never called at no time or place but what I was there to answer to it. I have always . . . church south and in May, eighteen hundred and twenty two, my wife joined the same church; her parents had belonged to that denomination of Christians for many years before we were married; my mother belonged to the Episcopal Church when she was married to my father in old Virginia, and I can recollect very distinctly of going to church with her there, but my father never made any profession of religion until a few years before he died when he joined the old side Calvinistic Baptist Church and was very strenuous in his religious views. My mother was a very pious woman and about the first thing that I can remember, was her religious training of me.

When I joined the Methodist Church there was a great revival in the Baptist Church; in the neighborhood they were baptising of them by scores, and all of my convictions that had ever made any proffession belonged to that church; my father, step-mother, brothers and sister were members with the exception of one brother who, with me, had joined the Methodist Church. I had a great trial in regard to that matter, for I could not believe their hard Calvinistic doctrine, for when I was convicted of my erring ways, I took the book of life and salvation to read for myself and it read me clean out of Calvinism, so that I could not join the church where my near and dear relations were; but had to cast my lot with a few despised Methodists, that had a small class in the neighborhood; I had a hard time with my Baptist friends-they thinking I was a lost sheep as I would not go with them into the water and be baptized by immersion.

Now as it respects baptism I believe it to be a church ordinance and was instituted by the Christian Church at Corinth when the disciples got their command to go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; and he that believeth is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned. Now it appears to me that the stress here, put on the word, believe, and not on the word baptize; but the mode of administering the ordinance appears to be a bone of contention with the different churches--some of them holding baptism by immersion essential to salvation and others holding that pouring or sprinkling with water to be valid baptism; now my own opinion in regard to baptism is that one cup of water, if it is administered in obedience to the holy command given to us by the Savior, will wash away as many sins as a fountain.

I have been a member of the Methodist Church for forty-five years and I am not tired of them yet, for they preach the doctrine that I believe to be the true meaning of the gospel of the Saviour of the world. I have had pretty hard times with my Baptist friends when I joined the Methodist Church; there were some of them that thought they would drive me out of it by argument. There was one old gentleman that undertook the job; he labored assiduously with me for a considerable time in order to drive me from my Methodist principles but the more he strove to do it the further he drove me into them; at last he gave up the job as fruitless and a hopeless task; he exclaimed, boy, "if ever you are converted from your errors, the good Lord must do it, for I acknowledge that I cannot." Well, from that time on the old gentleman let me alone and gave me up; in his good opinion, as a lost sheep. There was a great many others of the same way of thinking.

But the hardest time that I had with any of them was an old lady, the wife of an old Baptist preacher by the name of Gosney; he was a preacher and a doctor and lived some fifteen miles from where I lived.

Our children were taken with the putrid sore throat and we had lost our oldest son, with the disease and the next oldest boy was taken with it; the neighbors persuaded me to go after the doctor and said that he could cure the disease, so I put off after the doctor and when I arrived there the doctor was not at home and the old lady was very inquisitive to know who I was and where I came from, so I told her that I was from the neighborhood of Cruise Creek Church and then told her my name, which she was familiar with, but not with me; she being acquainted with my father and a great many of the neighbors. She then asked me if I belonged to the Cruise Creek Church. I told her that I did not; well, says she - "do you belong to any church?" Says I to her--"Yes, Madam," Well, says she "What church do you belong to?" I says to her--"the Methodist, Madam." Well, the old lady appeared to be a little rumpled at that, and says, "Why could not you belong to the Baptist Church?" "Well Madam, says I-- to be honest with you they are too Calvinistic for me," When she exclaimed, "Why dear child, that is the very marrow of the gospel." "Well Madam, says I to her-- "if it is the marrow of the gospel, you are quite welcome for me, to the marrow and the bone with it, for I do not want it"--so we parted on the strength of it and I suppose that the old lady had the same opinion of me, that a good many others had, that I was a lost sheep.

I have lived where I am now, staying for nearly fifty years and work hard to make a living, have raised a large family and have tried to set before them, a good example, by being soberly and as righteously as I know how, and I have written this sketch of my life for the benefit of posterity, so that my descendants, may know what kind of an ancestor they had.

I will now close this scroll by returning thanks to an all wise ruler for the privilege that he has granted me of writing this history of my life which it has been his good pleasure to extend, to a good old age.

Finis.

Genealogy of the Northcutt family; My father, Benjamin Northcutt, was the son of Richard Northcutt who was the son of John Northcutt who came from England, in company with his brother, William Northcutt, in the first setling of Virginia. John settled himself in Virginia and his brother William, went to North Carolina and settled himself there. They were both single men when they came to America, they married in the colonies and both of them raised large families; John, in Virginia and William, in North Carolina. As it respects William's' family, I know but very little about.

John had four sons that I recollect; the names were; William, Richard, John and Jeremiah. I was never acquainted personally with any of them but Jeremiah and I was well acquainted with him and his whole family. My father lived neighbor to him, in Bourbon County, Ky., in 1798 and 1799. In 1800, my father moved from that part of Kentucky and soon after that his Uncle Jeremiah Northcutt died, being a very old man and leaving a large family which has become scattered over the western territories and where they are now I do not know. My grandfather, Richard Northcutt, died at the siege of Little York, when the British Army, under Cornwallis, was taken by General Washington and the American and French Armies. Richard, my grandfather, married Sally Florence of Virginia and by her had five sons and no daughters, the names of their sons are as follows: John, Benjamin, William, George and Jeremiah, the youngest of the five brothers. My father Benjamin, had by my mother, his first wife, four boys and one daughter to wit: William Brooks, Thomas B., George F., and Jeremiah and Susan. By his second wife, John and Benjamin the youngest, they are all dead but myself, George and Susanah.

This is the genealogy of our family, we had born to us thirteen children, eleven boys and two daughters, named as follow: Benjamin Warren, named after both of our fathers; Elisha Brooks, second son, named after my wife's brother and my mother's maiden name; Elizabeth Hill, named after Elizabeth Hill, my wife's Mother; Nathaniel Jackson, third son, named after Nathaniel Hill, and Andrew Jackson; William Florence, fourth son, named after myself and my grandmother's maiden name; Asbury Allen fifth son, named after Bishop Asbury and our traveling preacher, Thomas Oden Bagby Sixth son, named after my oldest brother and a merchant of Cincinnati and our brother in law David Bagby, Polly Ann Agness, our second daughter, named after her mothers sisters; the baby three weeks old, died without a name; Francis Marion McKindrie, our eighth son, named after General Francis Marion and Bishop McKindrie; Leonidas Martin Vanburen, our ninth son, named after the President of the United States, Ira Lucien, our tenth son, named after Napoleon Bonapartes brother Lucien. Achilles Fletcher, our eleventh son, named after the great Grecian General and a Methodist preacher.

Benjamin Warren died at ten years of age with malignant sore throat. Elisha Brooks was married twice, his first wife was Miss Jerusha Hill, dau. of Robt. Hill, his own first cousin and his second wife was Miss Christian Field-dau. of Charles Field; Elizabeth Hill, our oldest dau. married Wm. Glinn, son of James K. Glenn; Polly Ann Agness, our youngest dau., married Joel Moffett, son of Thos. Moffett; Nathaniel Jackson, married Miss Patsy Hill, his first cousin, dau. of Robert Hill; William Florence, was killed by the limb of a tree, falling on him at the age of eighteen; Asbury Allen, was married twice; the first wife was Miss Amanda Stephens, dau. of Robt. Stephens, the second wife was Miss Ann Stephens, his first wifes sister; Thomas Odel Bagly, married Miss Amanda Yelton, dau. of Jesse Yelton; Francis Marion McKindrie, married Miss Eliza Ann Wayman, dau. of Henson Wayman; Leonidus Martin Van Buren, married Miss Margaret Connelly, dau. of Nathan Connelly; Ira Lucien, married Miss Leaviera Bird dau. of Arthur Bird, Achilles Fletcher, married Louisa Jane Hill, dau. of Nattaniel. Hill, his Mother's brother; and so ends the chapter of our family relations all of which I have given to the best of my ability. We have lived to raise a large family and they all have married into respectable families and have gone to themselves and are doing well and left us all alone, just as we were when we began the world only old and broken down and not able to work like we use to do.

Now I will relate something in regard to my notions about the government. I have all my life been a law abiding man and have always been for the Union as it was and the Constitution, as it is or was before the radicals got to tinkering with it and changing it, but it is now my honest conviction, in a political point of view and unless there is some change in the management of our political affairs, we are pretty near done with that precious thing called liberty; any person that has ever read the history of our former Republic must discern that we are following in their wake step by step and unless there is a speedy stop put to it that we must go the way of the old Rome and all of the other Republics. There was people the people against the Senate and the Senate against the people and so it kept on until down went their liberty and so it will be with us if there is not a stop put to it, by the people who is or ought to be the Sovereigns of the country and if they do not rise in their might and take the matter in their own hands, we are gone to all intents and purposes into Anarchy or despotism. The signs of the times appears to be pregnant with political trouble for here is the Congress against the President of the United States, this puritanical Congress with their Bills and Civil Rights Bill is in my opinion about to ruin the country and if there is not a stop put to them some way or other they will certainly do it. The Northern Abolishionists began their free Negro work over thirty years ago; they began with their periodicals and pamphlets and petitions to Congress to emancipate the Negroes in the district of Columbia. I recollect a petition gotten up by the puritans of Massachusetts and brought into Congress by their honorable representative, John Quincy Adams, praying Congress to emancipate the Negroes in that district, when he first presented it to that body, they refused to read it and threw it under the table, but he kept on bringing them into Congress for several years in succession and they would serve them in the same way, until at length the old puritan says "Gentlemen, I am no Abolitionist myself but I contend here for the right of petition and then he got them and they had to let them come in and be read by the Clerk of the house and that was the beginning of the trouble that has ruined the country, for they kept on until they raised up a generation of men in the North and East that answered their purpose. They preached it from their pulpits and from their rostrums and in their public speaking until they got their people to believe that slavery was a moral sin and that no Christian could be a slave holder and doctrine brought on the rebellion in the South and caused them to secede from the Government and break the peace in the United States by forming a government of their own and rebelling against the government of the United States. Now these fanatics of the North knew that the South would revolt from such doctrine that they were preaching just as well before the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter, as they did after it was done, but it was what they wanted and they carried their point; when they elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860, they made their boast that slavery was dead and they used him as a cats paw for that purpose and succeeded in accomplishing it.

Washington in his farewell address to the American people warned them of sectional animosities that if they were indulged in that they would destroy our Republic but those black Republicans would not heed the father of our country but kept crying free the Negro, the poor down trodden African and make him equal with the white man, and the white race until they have ruined the best government on the face of the globe; now it looks to me as tho these wild fanatics are never going to be satisfied with abusing and persecuting the Southern people; not being satisfied with the unconstitutional course that they have pursued against them in taking away their property from them, they are showing more of their spite and malice by not letting them have representation in the Congress of the United States and taxing them without representation, which is most certainly contrary to all right and justice; that was what brought on the revolution with Great Britain; our fathers fought through a seven years war to gain our liberty and to have taxation and representation go together which is certainly the fundamental principle of all free governments, but our great Congress says, stand back to the southern states you are out of the Union when you want to abuse them and in the Union when you want to use them, for the emancipation act could never have been carried without the vote of the Southern States but as soon as that was obtained, then how was it; why you are out of the Union and cannot have a seat with us in Congress until you vote for another bill, called the Civil Rights Bill; that is to make the Negro equal with the white man and grant him priviledges that the white man is not in possession of, and make him a free elector with free suffrage and capable of holding office from the Constable to the President of the United States. Now this is the bonus for the southern states to get representation in the Congress of the United States of America. Now I repudiate all such stuff and believe that the Southern States were never out of the Union and are as conquered rebels agreeable to the terms of their surrender and are entitled to all the amoluments and priviledge of our government; free institutions such as they are but I think without some very important change in matters and things, we will not have our glorious old tree of liberty to shake us much longer. Amen!

The Muster Roll of Capt. Wm. Garrard's Co. of 12 months was composed of one hundred and six men but two married men in it; twenty of them were own cousins.

Uniform of the Company Deep blue broad cloth coatee and pantiloons trimmed with white lace; red velvet vest trimmed with the same; Jacket, leather cap with bear skin over the top black cockade with a silver eagle in the center black plume tipped with red; boots and spurs; etc.

Time and tide waits for no man. When this you see, remember me Wm. Brooks Northcutt.

Sept. 27 - 1878. dated signed by Wm. B. Northcutt

A correct account of the posterity of Wm. B. Northcutt and Joanna Northcutt, his wife.

Our children --13

Grandchildren --88

Grt. Grandchildren --66

Grt. Grt. grandchildren -- 04

Total up to June 20,1876 -- 171

Total up to March 17, 1877 -- 226

Review

I will now go back to my youth and relate something that took place then. When I was a boy of eleven years, my lived on Raven Creek, Harrison County, Ky., and the wild turkeys that fall came in very numerous and he built a rail pen in order to catch them in the manner following: he dug out a hole on the ground, large enough for them to go in it; lowered the top of the pen with fence rails and the hole with boards as far in as about the middle of the pen and then baited it with corn and the turkeys would go into the hole after the corn and could not find their way out. The worst whipping that I ever had, was at that pen by an old turkey gobler. I went to the pen one day and there were two turkeys in the pen and a hen and the other a very large gobler; I took the hen out without any trouble but when I got hold of the old gobler and pulled him out of the pen when I began to wring his neck, he began to flop his wings and he beat me black and blue.

When I was a boy of seven years of age my father moved from Fauquier County, Virginia to Bourben County, Kentucky on pack horses; I rode a pack horse all the way over the Allegheny Mountains and sat on old punch and played the harp. The people in the mountains had the small pox at almost every house on the road and one day we had to pass between two houses where the small pox was in both houses; I had fallen to the rear of the company when father hollered back to me to push up when I laid whip to the old horse and down he fell, right between the two houses where the people were dying with the smallpox. I fell off pack and all when my father started back to fix me up again. His Mother, who came out with us took after him with her bottle of camphor hollering out at the top of her voice "Stop Ben" and got the bottle of camphor. There was hardly a day but what we would meet a corpse in the road, that had died with it.

I wish to give the youth of our land some advice; I want you to remember that if you live long enough, that you will someday be old and I want you to respect old age and when you start out to seek you a partner in life, a wife, be not in haste to marry but let your choice be directed by wisdom and a thorough acquaintance with the person of your choice, for I have known, in my time, some very speedy matches, and seldom ever knew them to do well and young men when you get married, remember what Solomon says, "that a good wife is workmanship of a good husband and be careful how you treat her. In the beginning of married life strive to do your part with good judgement and she will be very apt to do so if she is the right sort of a woman.

And now I will give you a moral on the subject of matrimony.

The next morning, after marriage, call for a long rope and throw it over the roof of the house and call your wife and tell her to take hold of one end of the rope while you have hold of the other end of the rope; while you have hold of the rope and both of you pull and when you find out that you cannot get the rope from each other then let your end go and go around to her end and take hold of the rope with her and both of you pull together and then see how easy the rope will come off of the house; then for the balance of your married life remember the rope and both of you pull one way and you will see how smoothly you will get along through life, for remember when contention comes in at the door love goes out the window. Never marry for riches for they make themselves wings and fly away. Marry for true love and work for riches and I predict that your days of married life will be pleasant and happy; be they, many or few. So I wish you well and bid adieu.

Wm. Brooks Northcutt