ley and his comrades, without monumental stone, have slept fourscore and ten years in a strange land. disappeared. Only a few Long since the forest has disappeared. trees on the river bank tell that once a dense woods covered the battlefield. The agriculturalist plows his corn, harrows and reaps his wheat. Tradition only tells where sleep our brave. The murmuring ripples of the Thames are the only requiem of these gallant slain, and the waving wheat and the rustling corn-leaves whisper that beneath their roots rest some of war's richest treasures—the ashes of the Kentucky freemen who died for their country on the battlefield of the Thames.' In 1835 there appeared in the public prints of Kentucky a communication from a gentleman named William Emmons, who had anonymously written the life of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, in which he represented that the pursuit of Proctor and his men, after the battle of the Thames, was made by Lieutenant-Colonel James Johnson. Captain John Payne, son of Major DeVall Payne, felt that that honor was due his father, and he immediately took steps, by communicating with all those who were engaged 'It is not to the credit of Kentucky that she has permitted her dead thus to sleep. The bones of the Raisin's dead were collected and borne to Frankfort and deposited in the State lot, but the Thames' dead have been left unhonored by any suitable mark, and in the ninety years passed since their sepulture I could learn of no Kentuckian, except myself, who had come to visit the spot where these noble heroes sleep their last sleep. in the pursuit, to secure an authoritative statement of the facts in regard to that transaction. As there was no more heroic or courageous performance in all the War of 1812, it was just that it should be determined finally to whom the honor of this pursuit belonged. Major Payne, having died in 1830, could not speak for himself. Immediately after the shock of battle had subsided and General Harrison realized that he had obtained a complete victory, Major Chambers, a volunteer aide, and Colonel Charles S. Todd, a regular aide, were directed to detach two hundred men from the right battalion of Johnson's regiment, commanded by Major DeVall Payne, for the pursuit of Proctor. These gentlemen, in the execution of this order, found Major Payne in command of that battalion. With his troops, he was still busy pursuing the fleeing British and Indians. The battalion was then between the battlefield and Moravian Town, some four and a half miles above the present site of Thamesville, Ontario. When called upon to name what force he could command for that purpose, sending all whom he could reach to take the place of messengers, he at once gathered about sixty of his men from the various companies; these were all the troops then in hearing. Instantly they were organized. Major Payne was directed to push on to the Moravian Town, about a mile away, to endeavor to cap |