![](./pubData/source/images/pages/page27.jpg)
LIVING HISTORY
25
Coacoochee told Sherman to get off his horse. He wanted
to sit down and talk. Sherman refused. The young lieutenant
said that any talk would have to be with the “big chief”
back in the fort, meaning Childs. Seeing the Seminoles’ rifles
stacked against a tree nearby and sensing possible danger,
Sherman ordered his men to take control of the guns. That
made Coacoochee mad. Sherman calmed him down with
assurances that the guns would be returned, plus a nice horse
would be provided to him for the ride into Fort Pierce.
Coacoochee took his own sweet time after that, stripping
down and bathing himself in the pond. Afterward, he
ceremoniously dressed in his finest attire, which included
buckskin leggings, moccasins, a number of shirts, and several
vests — the last of which had a big bullet hole in the chest
surrounded by a bloodstain.
“In due time,” Sherman added facetiously, “he was dressed
with turban and ostrich feathers, and thus we rode back
together to Fort Pierce.”
MERGER OF DESTINIES
With his casual recollection of that striking scene, Sherman
glosses over its greater significance, which we can elicit now.
RICK CRARY
This hammock west of Fort Pierce is reminiscent of the countryside through which Sherman and Coacoochee once rode side-by-side.
RICK CRARY
This conceptual display of the old fort at Fort Pierce is one of the exhibits at the St. Lucie County Regional History Center.
>>