Man's Best Friend

     Being more of a dog lover than a historian,  the following story had to be included in the history of the Battle of Sideling Hill.

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     When Captain Culbertson went to Fort Littleton to solicit additional manpower, Dr. Ensign David Jameson in command of 18 others joined the Culbertson force.  During the battle, he was shot and left for dead on the battlefield.  The following is from a Jameson Family website regarding his survival and return to Fort Littleton.

     "At the time Captain Jameson was stationed with a small troop at Fort Littleton, a small stockade along the path from Carlisle westward to Pittsburgh.  Early in April 1756 he took nineteen men from the fort to join a militia force in pursuit of a troop of Indians who had raided a frontier settlement, killing many and dragging off several captives.  Jameson took along his pet dog and also an Indian porter named Isaac.  Trailing the raiders, the troop of about fifty militiamen was met by a slightly larger force of Indians near Sideling Hill.  For two hours they traded rifle volleys—the militia loaded and fired 24 times—and the losses were high, with each side losing about twenty men killed and as many wounded.  Near the end of the battle, Jameson was shot in the chest; the ball entered below his left nipple and went straight through and out at the shoulder blade.  His few remaining soldiers left their unconscious ensign on the field for dead.  Fortunately, they laid him in a bed of leaves behind a log, and the returning Indians, bent on taking scalps, failed to see him.

            Isaac left the scene among the fortunate survivors, and took David’s dog with him.  [He also took away “the scalp of Captain Jacobs,” one of the opposing chiefs.]  When they stopped to prepare the evening meal, Isaac tied the dog’s leash to a bush, and was dismayed when “Rover” broke the branch and dashed away down the path on which they had come.  Four or five hours after the battle, Jameson revived and found his faithful dog lying beside him, licking blood from his wound.   Jameson, desperately thirsty, crawled to a nearby spring and drank his fill.  The cold water helped to stanch his bleeding also.  He tore strips from his clothing and bandaged his wounds as well as he could.

            Though barely able to stand, he staggered off to return to the fort; before he had gone far, he lay down exhausted, without a covering.  The next morning he found himself completely covered with snow except for a small hole above his nostrils.  Two days after the battle, after heroic effort he managed to get back to Fort Littleton.  When the sentry shouted a challenge, however, his lungs were so weak that he was unable to answer, and the guard immediately shot at him; fortunately the exhausted captain was collapsing, having reached his goal, and the shot went over his head.  A patrol came out of the fort and the men were astonished to find their captain alive, with his faithful dog standing beside him.

Jameson was sent to Philadelphia for medical care, and after some months returned to duty; he suffered ill effects from the wound, however, to the end of his life."

The above is from the Jameson Family Website - http://www.jamesonfamily.org/thebook1.htm