they had to provide for themselves.

"As soon as the wheat was large enough to rub out, they boiled it, which
to them was a great treat. Providence favoured them with an early
harvest; their sufferings were over, and not one had starved to death.
They now had enough, and they were thankful. Heaven smiled, and in a few
years they had an abundance for themselves and others.

"I have no memorandum to refer to. I have just related the tale I have
often heard my parents tell, without any exaggeration, but with many
omissions. I have not told you about my father's sufferings in the army,
when, upon an expedition near Little Miamac, he and some others were
left to carry the wounded. They got out of provisions: went three days
without anything to eat, except one pigeon between nine. I will give you
his own words. He says: 'The first day we came to where an Indian's old
pack-horse had mired in the mud; it had lain there ten days in the heat
of summer; the smell was dreadful; still some of our men cut out slices,
roasted and ate it; I was not hungry enough. The next day I shot a
pigeon, which made a dinner for nine; after that we found the skin of a
deer, from the knee to the hoof. This we divided and ate. I would
willingly, had I possessed it, have given my hat full of gold for a
piece of bread as large as my hand. Often did I think of the milk and
swill I had seen left in my father's _hog-trough_, and thought if I only
had that I would be satisfied.'

"Such were some of the sufferings of my forefathers for supremacy. They
have gone to their reward. Peace to their ashes!

"Yours, respectfully,

"Dr. E. Ryerson." "ELIZABETH BOWMAN SPOHN."

"P.S.--One thing more I must add: My father always said there never was
any cruelty inflicted upon either man, woman or child by Butler's
Rangers, that he ever heard of, during the war. They did everything in
their power to get the Indians to bring their prisoners in for
redemption, and urged them to treat them kindly; the officers always
telling them that it was more brave to take a prisoner than to kill him,
and that none but a coward would kill a prisoner; that brave soldiers
were always kind to women and children. He said it was false that they
gave a bounty for scalps. True, the Indians did commit cruelties, but
they were not countenanced in the least by the whites. E.S."

"N.B.--To this last statement of Mrs. Spohn's it may be added that it is
also true that the Indians were first