r Indian force, the British troops were drawn
up.

The troops at my disposal consisted of about one hundred and
twenty regulars of the 27th regiment, five brigades of Kentucky
volunteer militia infantry under his excellency Governor Shelby,
averaging less than five hundred men, and Colonel Johnson's
regiment of mounted infantry, making in the whole an aggregate
something above 3000. No disposition of an army opposed to an
Indian force can be safe, unless it is secured on the flanks and
in the rear. I had therefore no difficulty in arranging the
infantry conformably to my general order of battle. General
Trotter's brigade of 500 men formed the front line, his right
upon the road and his left upon the swamp. General King's brigade
as a second line, 150 yards in the rear of Trotter's, and
Childs's brigade, as a corps of reserve, in the rear of it. These
three brigades formed the command of Major-General Henry; the
whole of General Desha's division, consisting of two brigades,
were formed _en potence_ upon the left of Trotter.

While I was engaged in forming the infantry, I had directed
Colonel Johnson's regiment, which was still in front, to be
formed in two lines opposite to the enemy, and upon the advance
of the infantry, to take ground to the left, and forming upon
that flank, to endeavour to turn the right of the Indians. A
moment's reflection, however, convinced me, that from the
thickness of the woods and swampiness of the ground, they would
be unable to do anything on horseback, and there was no time to
dismount them and place their horses in security; I therefore
determined to refuse my left to the Indians, and to break the
British lines at once by a charge of the mounted infantry; the
measure was not sanctioned by any thing I had seen or heard of,
but I was fully convinced that it would succeed. The American
backwoodsmen ride better in the woods than any other people. A
musket or rifle is no impediment to them, being accustomed to
carry them on horseback from their earliest youth. I was
persuaded, too, that the enemy would be quite unprepared for the
shock, and that they could not resist it. Conformably to this
idea, I directed the regiment to be drawn up in close column, (p. 259)
with its right at the distance of fifty yards from