The night after the "Dade Massacre" the Indians returned to Wahoo Swamp with the warm life-current dripping from the scalps of those they had slain. These scalps were given to Hadjo, their Medicine Man, who placed them on a pole ten feet high, around which they all danced, after smearing their faces with the blood of their foes, and drinking freely of "_fire-water_." One instance is mentioned worthy of remark, in regard to finding Major Dade's men with their personal property untouched. Breast-pins of the officers were on their breasts, watches in their places, and silver money in their pockets. They took the military coat of Major Dade, and some clothing from his men, with all the arms and ammunition, which proved they were not fighting for spoils, but their homes. The "Bloody Eight Hundred," after they had committed the murder, left the bodies unburied, and without mutilation, except from scalping. They were buried by the command of Major-general Gaines, who also named this tragic ground "Field of the Dead." Fights now followed each other in rapid succession. Long-impending hostilities burst upon the white settlers, who in turn sought every opportunity of gratifying their revenge for outrages committed. No person was safe; death lurked in every place, and there was security in none. Acts of fiendish barbarity were of common occurrence; houses burned--the labor of years gone forever--while many of the missing were consumed in the flames of their own dwellings, the savages dancing around the funeral-pile. The Indians appeared seized with a kind of desperation which knew no quarter, and asked for none, constantly posting themselves in the most frequented highways, with the intention of slaying or being slain. On the 31st of December, same year, the Indians, receiving information that the troops under General Clinch were approaching, and would cross the Withlacoochee, posted themselves at the usual fording-place for the purpose of intercepting them. General Clinch was surprised by them, as they had greatly the advantage, being among the trees, while the troops were in an open space, with only an old leaky canoe to cross in, under constant fire of the enemy, some of them being obliged to swim. The soldiers accustomed to Indian warfare never forded twice in the same place. Captain Ellis, now a worthy citizen of Gainesville, Florida, who commanded a company during the Seminole war, being present when this attack was made, says: "I was so much afraid the war would be over before I had a chance to be in a fight, I was glad when I saw the Indians coming, but I got enough fighting before it was through with." When he saw the savages at the commencement of this engagement, not knowing of the "Massacre," he said, "Boys, the Indians have been killing our men, for they have got on their coats."