“Sir:–Yesterday, about 12 o’clock, five of our men went to some cabins on the bluff, about one-quarter of a mile below the fort, to bring a grindstone. The backwater of the Mississippi rendered it so that they went in a canoe. On their return they were attacked by a party of Indians, supposed to be about fifty in number. They killed and tomahawked three and wounded one mortally. While about this mischief, we gave them as good a fire from a little below the fort as the breadth of the breakwater would permit of. Captain Craig and myself, with about forty men, waded across the water and pursued them. In going about half a mile we came on them and commenced a fire, which continued about one hour, part of which time at a distance of about forty steps, and no part of the time further than one hundred and fifty steps. Shortly after the commencement of the battle, we were reinforced by Capt. Musick and twenty of his men. The enemy now ran; some made their escape, and others made to a sinkhole that is in the battleground, and from there they returned a most rapid fire. It being very dangerous to approach nearer than fifty steps of the sink, we at length erected a breastwork on the two wheels of a wagon, and resolved on moving it up to the edge of the sink to fire from behind, down into the sink, and preserve us from theirs. “We got the moving battery finished about sunset and moved it up with a sufficient number of men behind it, whilst all other posts round were sufficiently guarded in case they should be put to the rout. “We had not moved to within less than ten steps of the sink before they commenced a fire from the sink, which we returned at every opportunity and all possible advantages. Night came on and we were obliged to leave the ground and decline the expectation of taking them out without risking man for man, which we thought not a good exchange on our side. During the time of the battle, another party of Indians commenced a brisk fire on the fort. Captain Craig[34] was killed in the commencement of the battle; Lieutenant Edward Spears at the moving of the breastwork to the sink. The morning of the 25th we returned to the ground and found five Indians killed and the sign of a great many wounded that had been taken off in the night. The aggregate number of killed on our part is one captain, one third lieutenant; five privates killed, three wounded, one missing; one citizen killed and two wounded mortally.”[35] Concerning the same affair, Captain David Musick, of the St. Louis county rangers, in a letter or report to Col. William Russell, commander of that district, dated Lower Cuivre Ferry, May 25, 1815, had this to say: