"
[Footnote: Life of Red Jacket. McKenny's Indian Biography.]
Red Jacket as a civil officer was not called to take so prominent a place
on the field of battle, as the war chiefs. Yet in all of their
deliberations, which were frequent during the campaign, he could act as
their counsellor, as he did on every such occasion. He was uniformly their
principal orator, and his manner on these occasions is represented as
being "graceful and imposing in the eye of every beholder, and his voice
music, especially in the ears of his own people. He had the power of
wielding them at will, and the soul stirring trumpet could not produce a
more kindling effect in the bosoms of a disciplined army, than would his
appeals upon the warriors of his race." [Footnote: Col. Stone's Life of
Red Jacket.]
That the battle of Chippewa was particularly severe to the Indian forces
engaged in it, may be inferred from the fact that the British Indians
retreated not only beyond the Chippewa, but stayed not until they had gone
thirty miles further. The battle ground was strewed with many of their
number who had been slain. Two, who had been mortally wounded, and were
still alive, were despatched by a party of New York Indians, who were
looking for the bodies of their fallen friends. Being reproached for their
conduct in taking the life of an unresisting foe, one of them replied, in
a manner that indicated evident sorrow for the deed done, "That it did
seem hard to take the lives of these men, but they should remember that
these were very hard times.
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