Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/77

 hardly able to bear arms, such as old, infirm men, and young boys; they were not such as might be expected from a frontier; viz., strong, active woodsmen well accustomed to arms, eager and alert to avenge injuries done.” Also, many of the militia were substitutes.

Congress utterly failed to detect the milk in the cocoanut, that even if the men had been “active woodsmen well accustomed to arms,” without discipline they might be worthless as soldiers. A few months later 4,000 of such woodsmen actually ran away from a prairie fire.