The next event that attracted general attention to Florida was the bloody and disastrous second Seminole war, which for deeds of atrocious barbarity, both on the part of the whites and red men, equals, if it does not surpass, any conflict that has ever stained the soil of our country. The earliest work relative to it was published anonymously in 1836, by an officer in the army.[106] He gives an impartial account of the causes that gave rise to the war, the manifold insults and aggressions that finally goaded the Indians to desperation, and the incidents of the first campaign undertaken to punish them for their contumacy. It is well and clearly written, and coming from the pen of a participant in many of the scenes described, merits a place in the library of the historian. The year subsequent, Mr. M. M. Cohen of Charleston, issued a notice of the proceedings in the peninsula.[107] He was an “officer of the left wing,” and had spent about five months with the army, during which time it marched from St. Augustine to Volusia, thence to Tampa, and back again to St. Augustine. The author tells us in his Preface, “our book has been put to press in less than thirty days from its being undertaken;” a statement no one will be inclined to doubt, as it is little more than a farrago of vapid puns and stale witticisms, hurriedly scraped together into a slim volume, and connected by a slender string of facts. An account of the imprisonment of Oceola and the enslavement of his wife, has been given by the same writer,[108] and has received praise for its accuracy. In 1836, when the war was at its height, an Indian boy was taken prisoner by a party of American soldiers near Newnansville. Contrary to custom his life was spared, and the next year he was handed over to the care of an English gentleman then resident in the country. From his own account, drawn from him after long persuasion, his name was Nikkanoche, his father was the unhappy Econchatti-mico, and consequently he was nephew to the famous chief Oceola, (Ass-se-he-ho-lar, Rising Sun, Powell.) His guardian removed with him to England in 1840, and the year after his arrival there, published an account of the parentage, early days, and nation of his ward,[109] the young Prince of Econchatti, as he was styled. It forms an interesting and pleasant little volume, though I do not know what amount of reliance can be placed on the facts asserted. An excellent article on the war, which merits careful reading from any one desirous of thoroughly sifting the question, may be found in the fifty-fourth volume of the North American Review, (1842,) prepared with reference to Mr. Horace Everett’s remarks on the Army Appropriation Bill of July 14, 1840, and to a letter from the Secretary of War on the expenditure for supporting hostilities in Florida.