- sylvania to make roads and secure waggons
and Indian allies.
Dear Colonel: If the rest are like Sir John
St. Clair, I shall be glad to be shut of the business.
He swore at us for delay and said "no
soldier should handle an axe, but by fire and
sword he would force the inhabitants to do the
work; we should be treated as traitors, and that
when the General came he would give us ten bad
words for one that he had given." You, Sir,
know well how hard it is to stir up our border
folks and what a task to get from farmers in the
spring their waggons and horses. We are doing
our best. I have secured Captain Jack—a guide
hard to beat.
There was more of it, and enough to afford
serious thought.
During our stay I heard nothing but complaints of our want of efficiency, and no one seemed to see that it was silly to expect to find everything at hand in a land as new as ours. Captain Orme and Ensign Allen complained on one occasion to Dr. Mercer and me that our men were languid, spiritless, and unsoldier-like. Dr. Mercer, who was a hot-headed Scotchman, said he had seen undisciplined Highlanders put to
