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. We cannot withhold our sympathy from those patriotic men who enter the public service expecting to act in an honorable sphere in favor of just measures; but who are often made the instruments of injustice, and their lives sacrificed to the spirit and policy of oppression. Our officers and soldiers, serving in this Florida War, were duly conscious of the dishonorable employment in which they were engaged; that they were daily subjected to dangers and death for the purpose of enabling the people of Florida to seize men and women, and sell them into interminable bondage. Officers and men who would cheerfully meet danger and death upon the field of honorable warfare in defense of freedom, were compelled to meet death in all its various and revolting forms in Florida to uphold oppression, to sustain an institution which they abhorred; nor can we wonder that the consciousness of these facts should have created a feeling of hostility between our regular troops and the slaveholders of Florida, who were constantly charging them with inefficiency and want of energy in the capture of negroes. This feeling ran so high that the white men of Florida were charged with disguising themselves as Indians, and actually committing murders and robberies upon mail carriers and express riders, in order to continue hostilities and keep up the war.[128] This feeling greatly increased the embarrassment of the Executive.