They, however, obtained an interview between the Commanding General and two Seminole chiefs at Fort King. The chiefs were attended by some forty warriors, who remained in that vicinity four or five days, receiving food and articles of clothing from the United States; but they suddenly disappeared, and it was believed they originally came with hostile, rather than pacific, intentions. When it was found they had left clandestinely, the troops attempted to follow them, but were unable to find any traces of their flight.
While these things were transpiring, the army lay idle in their quarters; neither the Executive, nor the Secretary of War, nor the Commanding General, knowing what to do.
The Exiles learned from the Seminoles and Mickasukies, who visited them from the West, that many of their brethren who surrendered under the articles of capitulation, had been reënslaved, in violation of our plighted faith; and they refused to hold further intercourse with the agents of our Government. To them there appeared but one alternative--victory or death; and they greatly preferred the latter to slavery. Taking their families far into the interior, they hastened to renew the war with vigor and energy.
A party of some thirty Indians and Exiles were lurking about Micanopy, when, on the twenty-eighth of December, Lieutenant Sherwood, Lieutenant Hopson, Sergeant Major Carrol, and ten privates of the 7th Infantry, left Micanopy for the purpose of escorting Mrs. Montgomery, wife of a Lieutenant of that regiment, through the forest to Watkahoota, eight miles distant. The lady was on horseback, while others of the party rode in a wagon drawn by mules, and some marched on foot. The enemy having observed their movements, preceded them to a hommock, about four miles from Micanopy, where they secreted themselves, and awaited the approach of Mrs. Montgomery and party. When they were fairly within the hommock, through which the road passed, they were fired upon, and two privates fell dead. The war-whoop was raised, and the little party found themselves confronted by savages. Lieutenant Sherwood is said to have rallied his escort with promptness. Mrs. Montgomery, attempting to get into the wagon, was shot dead. Sherwood very discreetly retreated to the open forest, and dispatched Lieutenant Hopson to Micanopy for a reinforcement. Knowing the impossibility of retreating from Indians, and conscious that they gave no quarter, he bravely determined to defend himself or die on the field. But his assailants numbered three times as many warriors as he had. They out-flanked and surrounded his ill-fated party, all of whom with himself fell victims to that policy which had brought this war, with all its crimes, upon our nation.