On the nineteenth of September, General Armstrong, with a brigade of twelve hundred Tennessee militia, was ordered to Suwanee "Old Town." Here he was met by a detachment of two hundred Creek warriors, under Major Brown, and a battalion of Florida militia, under Colonel Warren; and with this formidable army, Governor Call moved upon Withlacoochee. On coming near the stream he encamped. During the darkness of night the allies fired upon his troops, and kept them in a state of alarm. In the morning it was found that the _river had suddenly risen_, which rendered it difficult for the troops to cross; and this gallant army returned to Fort Drane for supplies without firing a gun or seeing an enemy, leaving the allies in peaceful possession of the country. But the Indians and Exiles now found themselves almost daily threatened in their own fastnesses. Along the Withlacoochee were many small villages and plantations occupied almost exclusively by Exiles. Large crops of corn and other vegetables had been raised there during the season, and it was known that stores of provisions were located upon various islands surrounded by the swamps lying along that river, and in the great morass called the "Wahoo Swamp;" while it was equally known that many families of the Exiles were residing in that vicinity. It was therefore deemed important to destroy those villages and obtain the supplies which they contained. General Armstrong, with five hundred mounted men, while marching toward these villages on the fourteenth of November, encountered a strong force consisting of Indians and Exiles. The conflict was spirited. In forty minutes, eleven of Armstrong's men fell before the deadly aim of the allies. He, however, drove them from the field, but they took with them their dead and wounded. This fact with savages is regarded the only test of success in battle: they never acknowledge defeat while they hold possession of their dead and wounded. But the time drew near when they were constrained to acknowledge a _defeat_. On the eighteenth of November, a regiment of Tennesseeans, consisting of about five hundred, encountered a body of the enemy whose numbers are not given by any officer or historian whom we have consulted. They were posted in a hommock. The Tennesseeans were the assailing party. The battle continued more than two hours, when the allies fled, leaving upon the field twenty-five Indians and Africans slain in battle; while the loss of the assailants was still larger. This was the best contested battle which occurred during the campaign of 1836, and the first in which the allies left their dead in possession of our troops. This defeat appears to have taught the allies to be cautious, and stimulated a desire to wipe out the impression which their defeat was calculated to make upon the public mind.