Contents ▼▲
Front Matter At Boonesborough Beginning of the Story Boone on the Yadkin Boone Moves his Family Ready for the Journey What we Wore Driving Cattle and Sheep Camping at Nightfall The Long Halt Jimmy Boone Goes to Clinch Murder of Jimmy Boone A Time of Mourning The Faint-hearted Return A New Home Making Moccasins Tanning Leather Governor Dunmore Our Home on the Clinch Household Duties Attacked by a Wildcat Fighting the Wildcat Boone and Father Return The Wilderness Road Building the Forts Boonesborough Gathering Salt Boonesborough Precautions Our Home in the Fort Ready for Cooking Furnishing the House The Hominy Block The Supply of Water Sports Inside the Fort Wrestling and Running Religion of the Indians Indian Babies Colonel Callaway Arives News from Eastern Colonies Venturing Outside the Fort Dividing the Land Who Owned Kentucky? Ready to Build a Home Billy's Hard Lot Preparing Flax Spinning and Soap Making Broom Making More Indian Murders Indian "Signs" Woodcraft and Hunting Pelts Used as Money Petition of the Settlers Making Sugar Building Fences Capture of the Girls My Willful Thoughts Finding the Trail The Pursuit The Story Told by Jemima Elizabeth's Heroism Rescuing the Girls Alarm Among the Settlers Indians on the Warpath The First Wedding The Wedding Festivities The Brides Home The Housewarming Attacks by the Indians Besieged by the Savages In the Midst of the Fight The Assault by the Indians Failure of the Assault Watchfulness of the Indians The Sortie My Father Wounded Our Wounded

Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis




Our Wounded

After that I saw only father. Thanks to the brave fellows who were holding the Indians in check at the risk of their own lives, he and the other wounded men had gained the shelter of the stockade. None of our people were killed outright, although of the nine who ventured through the gate, six returned wounded.

[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis

No sooner were our men inside the stockade and the gate securely barred than the savages made another assault, this time rushing up to the very face of the palisade and shooting between the crevices of the logs, while we women and children, as before, loaded and cleaned rifles, while our men fought regardless of their wounds.

During two days and nights we fought nearly every moment of the time, striving only to save our lives, while the savages attacked again and again, spurred on by the hope of gaining the rewards which had been offered by General Hamilton.

The Indians, after forty-eight hours of fighting, have drawn off once more into the forest, where they still watch over us, and I am sitting here writing this story to keep from thinking of what may be our fate if the Shawnees come against us again.

I pray that whosoever reads what I have written will ask further about Boonesborough, for, even though we who are here now may not live many days longer, there is a great wish in my heart that our settlement may prosper as we have dreamed it would.

And while learning what may have become of us who are now within the stockade, I hope that, among the others, there may be remembered the girl who at the last moment is proud to call herself Hannah of Kentucky.