The US Army’s longest war was against the American Indians. It lasted 109 years (and much longer if you count the colonial period before the Revolutionary War). Indian warriors were fearsome opponents and were rightly feared. The were not the “tame” reservation welfare dependents so prized by liberals. American Indians were warriors and real men.
Statement of Elias Vansickle
Nacodoches, January 23, 1839.
By request, Elias Vansickle states that, about the 1st of October last, he was taken prisoner at the Saline, Nacodoches county, by a party of Mexican Boluxee and Shawanie Indians, and kept by them until the 21st of December following, when he made his escape.
He states that he was in their camp at the Kickapoo town at the time of the battle between General Rusk’s force and them, and that there were then fifteen Cherokees with them, who all joined in the attack upon General Rusk’s camp.
He states, also, that Dogshoot, a Cherokee, came into the enemy some time before and brought a scalp which he said belonged to one of the Kilough family, who had been murdered about the same time in the Cherokee nation. The Cherokees, Dogshoot and others, said that in three days from that time, thirty besides those in the camp would join them, and unite with them in a war upon the white settlements. Several Shawanies—five, he thinks, in number—were at the hostile camp some days previous to the battle. Fifteen Coshattees were in the battle against us, led by Benash, a chief. Another chief was killed a few days before in an action between Major Mabbit’s command and the Indians, in which it is known the latter made the attack