who was well acquainted with the Indian character, and with their present state of feeling, convinced Captain Heald of the impolicy of furnishing the savages with arms against himself; and the next evening, after the goods, consisting of blankets, broadcloths, calicoes, paints, &c., had been distributed, a large part of the ammunition and liquor was carried, by his order, into the sallyport and thrown into a well; the remainder being transported as secretly as possible through the northern gate, the heads of the barrels knocked in, and the contents poured into the river. A large quantity of alcohol belonging to the trader before mentioned was disposed of in the same way. All the muskets not necessary for the march were broken up and thrown into the well, with the bags of shot, flints, gun-screws, &c. dians were about to attack them, and bidding them form instantly and charge upon the enemy. At the same moment a volley was showered from among the sand-hills, and the troops formed in line hastily, and charged up the bank. At the commencement of the action, Captain Wells had been riding by the side of his niece. He said to her as they parted that they should meet no more in this world; that he was satisfied there was no chance for his life. When the troops, followed by the women who accompanied their march, had left the bank and gained the prairie, the action became general. The Miamis, having uttered threats of future vengeance, were soon seen scouring across the prairies in flight; but the soldiers behaved gallantly, resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. One matron, who was present and gives an account of the scene, drew back and gazed upon her husband and father, feeling that all were doomed to destruction. The surgeon, who had been wounded, asked her if they could not purchase their lives by promising a large reward, and expressed great fear of death; she replied that there was no hope, and pointed to a young officer who, though mortally wound On the 14th arrived the uncle of Mrs. Heald, Captain Wells, with a small party of friendly Miamis. He had heard of the order for evacuating the fort, and, knowing the hostile feelings of the Pottawatomies, he had made a rapid march for the purpose of preventing the exposure of his relative and the troops to almost certain destruction. His warning, however, came too late; the ammunition was destroyed, and the pro-ed, and sunk on one knee, was still fighting visions were given to the Indians: there was no alternative, and the troops prepared for their march on the following morning. Notwithstanding the precautions taken, the Indians were informed of the destruction of the ammunition and liquor; the noise of knocking in the barrel-heads had been heard the night before, and so great was the quantity of liquor thrown into the river, that the water tasted, as a savage expressed it, "strong grog." Murmurs and threats were heard, and it was evident that the hostile feeling would be manifested as soon as the troops should be exposed to it. On the morning of the 15th, the troops left the fort, taking their route along the lake shore, in military array. When they reached a point where commenced a range of sand-hills intervening between the beach and the prairie, the escort of Pottawatomies, about five hundred in number, kept the level of the prairie, instead of continuing along the beach with the soldiers. These had marched about a mile and a half farther, when Captain Wells, who, with his Miamis, was somewhat in advance, rode furiously back, exclaiming that the treacherous In desperately. At this moment a young Indian assailed the brave woman (she was an officer's wife, but her name has not been ascertained) with his tomahawk; she sprang aside, and the blow alighted on her shoulder; she then seized him round the neck, and while struggling to get possession of his scalping-knife, she was dragged from his grasp by an older Indian. He bore her, struggling and resisting, to the lake, plunged her into the water, and held her down with a strong hand. She now perceived that the object of her captor was not to drown her, as he held her in such a position as to place her head above water; and looking in his face, disguised with paint, she recognized a friendly chief, "the Black Partridge." When the firing had subsided, he led her up the sand-bank to the prairie, where she met her father, who assured her of her husband's safety. She was then conducted towards the Chicago river, and, supported partly by her preserver, and partly by another Indian, who held dangling in his hand the scalp of Captain Wells, dragged her fainting steps to one of the wigwams near the Pottawatomie encampment. The charge of the troops drove back the Indians a considerable distance into the prairie, where Captain Heald ordered his men, diminished by more than two thirds of their number, to halt; and, after a parley with the savages, agreed to surrender, stipulating that their lives should be spared, and that they should be delivered at one of the British posts, unless ransomed by traders in the Indian country. It appeared afterwards that the Indians did not consider the wounded prisoners included in the stipulation, from the horrible cruelties practised on them, in revenge for their own loss. One infuriate old squaw, excited by the sanguinary scenes around her, seized a stable-fork, and assaulted a victim who lay groaning in the anguish of his wounds. An Indian chief stretched a mat across two poles, to hide this dreadful scene from the sight of a female prisoner. Several of the wounded were tomahawked the next night. One of the soldiers' wives, who had expressed a determination never to fall into the hands of the savages, fought desperately with those who attempted to capture her, and literally suffered herself to be cut to pieces, rather than surrender. The horse Mrs. Heald rode was a noble animal, and, desirous of obtaining such a prize, the Indians aimed their shots so as to disable the rider only. She was rescued from the hands of her captor, who was about to scalp her, by a half-breed from St. Joseph's, named Chandonnai, who offered for her ransom a mule he had just taken, and the promise of ten bottles of whisky; engaging to pay the latter, even if the captive should die of her numerous wounds. She was placed in a boat with another woman and her children, covered with a buffalo robe, and bid to keep silence, that the savages, who were continually coming to the boat in search of prisoners, might not suspect she was there. The boat was at length permitted to return to the house of the trader, whither Mrs. Heald was removed that her wounds might be dressed. Captain Heald was taken prisoner by an Indian from the Kankakee, who was friendly towards him, and, when he saw the enfeebled condition of Mrs. Heald, released the captain, that he might accompany his wife to St. Joseph's. The generous Indian returned to his village on the Kankakee, where his band manifested so much dissatisfaction at his conduct, that he determined to return to St. Joseph's and reclaim his prisoner. The chiefs who had the captives in charge, after holding a private council with Chandonnai and the principal men of the settlement, resolved to save Captain and Mrs. Heald from separation by sending them to the island of Mackinac and delivering them to the British. They were accordingly put in a bark canoe and paddled by the chief of the Pottawatomies and his wife three hundred miles along the coast of Lake Michigan. They were here surrendered as prisoners of war to the commanding officer at Mackinac. General Hunt says that, some months after the massacre at Chicago, he met Captain and Mrs. Heald walking in the street in Detroit. They had just been brought from Mackinac in a vessel, and were much pleased to see their old friend. Mrs. Heald had recovered from her wounds, and appeared to be as well as she had ever been. It is probable that after the termination of the war her life was one of quiet usefulness, like that of her sister pioneers; the occurrences in which she had borne so prominent a part serving to relate-as truth is more strange than fiction-to those whose fortune had led them into less stirring and exciting scenes. SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF HON. N. K. HALL, POSTMASTER-GENERAL. In our February number we presented to | without patronage or adventitious aid, our readers an engraved portrait of the Hon. through an early training of homely labor, Nathan K. Hall, Postmaster-General, with by dint of steady, self-denying application the notice that a biographical sketch of that gentleman would follow its publication. In fulfilling that intention, our thoughts are turned, as they have often been before, to the peculiarity and importance of the particular class of biography to which this sketch belongs. It is peculiar, because among the nations of the earth our own country alone can furnish materials for it; and important, for it is full of motive and encouragement to every deserving youth in the land whose laudable ambition is depressed, and whose hopes of the future are chilled in view of adverse circumstances surrounding him, such as elsewhere and under all other existing political institutions would shut him out from the paths leading to honorable distinction. Let such a young man, when despondency gathers over his thoughts, turn them to the most eminent places in the government of his country, and, tracing back the history of the men to whom its highest administrative powers are intrusted, ask himself what advantages of birth, of social position, or of education they possessed over his own. The biographies of such men as Millard Fillmore and Nathan K. Hall-one filling with eminent ability and wisdom the most exalted position that human ambition can aspire to; the other chosen, from intimate knowledge of his judgment, ability and worth, to conduct the business of an important department of the government, and to sit in high council upon matters of the gravest importance to his country, often, perhaps, affecting the peace and welfare of the civilized world-are indeed full of encouragement and promise to that large class of young men who are thrown upon the world to shape their own destiny by the force of their own unaided exertions. The history of men who have thus risen and perseverance, comes to the young aspirant for usefulness and distinction like the sound of a trumpet to arouse and inspire him; calling upon him to gird up his loins for the battle of life, and to contend hopefully and manfully with the adverse circumstances which have surrounded and perhaps disheartened him. Though his position in life may afford no flattering prospect of advancement; though his friends may be few, and neither wealthy nor powerful, and even his means of education scanty; and though conscious of no superior intellectual endowments above his fellows, or of that brilliant native genius stirring within him, which gives promise of eminence, and by force of which, in a few rare instances, the conventional barriers of caste and position have been broken down, even under the despotic systems of Europe, and its possessors promoted to places among the high-born and powerful, he has yet the inestimable consolation of reflecting that, under the glorious institutions of his country, "A man's a man for a' that, For a' that and a' that;" and may of right enter the lists of honor and renown with the most fortunate! Calling to mind the instances of success which we have cited, and others found shining out from almost every page of our brief history, he follows cheerfully and resolutely his allotted path of life, proudly conscious that the highest honors of his country lie before him, and that he may reach them as others have reached them, through the practice of the same virtues which lead to success and eminence in the ordinary pursuits of life. The paternal ancestors of Nathan K. Hall, the subject of this notice, had been long settled in Meriden, Connecticut, where they were known as respectable physicians, father |