Not only were scores of settlers slain, but many small companies of soldiers were cut off. General Armistead succeeded to the command in 1840. He roused some hope by his kindly policy. He had a number of chiefs brought from Indian Territory, taking care to select those who had strongly opposed at first the removal thither, but had changed their views, and sent them among the hostiles. Whether they really tried to convince the discontented ones of their error or not, is uncertain. But though several meetings were held, the hostiles refused to listen, fled to the woods and swamps, and renewed the war with the old-time ferocity. General Armistead, in his disappointment, wrote to the Secretary of War: "Thus have ended all our well-grounded hopes of bringing the war to a close by pacific measures. Confident in the resources of the country, the enemy will hold out to the last, and can never be induced to come in again. Immediately upon the withdrawal of the Indians, orders were transmitted to commanders of the various regiments to put their troops in motion, and before this reaches you there will be scouting in every direction." And now, at last the right man came forward in the person of General William J. Worth, who took military charge in Florida in the spring of 1841. During the summer months, he sent parties of men who made their way far into the swamps to the islands, where the Seminoles had planted the crops on which they depended for support during the winter. These were destroyed, and a bright chief was brought as a prisoner to Tampa. He listened to the arguments of General Worth, and was impressed by them. The general invited him to select five of his fellow prisoners, and they were returned to the camp of the hostiles, with word that if they did not come in and surrender by a certain date to be fixed by the chief himself, he and all his fellow captives should be hanged. This message did the work. The fierce heroes who had defied the United States for so many years, knew that they would starve if they stayed in their retreats and that their leading chief and others would have to die unless the surrender was made. So the barefooted, emaciated Seminoles, negroes and mongrels, and their ragged women and children, stalked out of the regions of twilight and gloom, handed over their flintlocks, joined the procession beyond the Mississippi, and the Seminole War came to an end. CHAPTER XV SITTING BULL, THE MEDICINE MAN THE LAST GREAT INDIAN UPRISING