... Holden the other, Ballard being with the latter. They proceeded with great caution but did not discover the Indians until they received their fire, which killed or mortally wounded sixteen of their men. Notwithstanding the loss, the party under Floyd maintained their ground, and fought bravely until overpowered by three times their number, who appealed to the tomahawk. The retreat, however, was completed without much further loss. This occasion has been rendered memorable by the magnanimous gallantry of young Wells (afterwards the Colonel Wells of Tippecanoe), who saved the life of Floyd, his personal enemy, by the timely offer of his horse at a moment when the Indians were near to Floyd, who was retreating on foot and nearly exhausted.

In 1788, the Indians attacked the little Fort on Tick creek (a few miles east of Shelbyville), where his father resided. It happened that his father had removed a short distance out of the fort, for the purpose of being convenient to the sugar camp. The first intimation they had of the Indians, was early in the morning, when his brother Benjamin went out to get wood to make a fire. They shot him and then assailed the house. The inmates barred the door and prepared for defence. His father was the only man in the house, and no man in the fort, except the subject of this sketch and one old man. As soon as he heard the guns he repaired to within shooting distance of his father's house, but dared not venture nearer. Here he commenced using his rifle with good effect. In the meantime the Indians broke open the house and killed his father, not before, however, he had killed one or two of their number. The Indians, also, killed one full sister, one half sister, his step-mother, and tomahawked the youngest sister, a child, who recovered. When the Indians broke into the house, his step-mother endeavored to effect her escape by the back door, but an Indian pursued her and as he raised his tomahawk to strike her, the subject of this sketch fired at the Indian, not, however, in time to prevent the fatal blow, and they both fell and expired together. The Indians were supposed to number about fifteen, and before they completed their work of death, they sustained a loss of six or seven.

During the period he was a spy for General Clark, he was taken prisoner by five Indians on the other side of the Ohio, a few miles above Louisville, and conducted to an encampment twenty-five miles from the river. The Indians treated him comparatively well, for though they kept him with a guard they did not tie him. On the next day after his arrival at the encampment, the Indians were engaged in horse racing. In the evening two very old warriors were to have a race, which attracted the attention of all the Indians, and his guard left him a few steps to see how the race would terminate. Near him stood a fine black horse, which the Indians had stolen recently from Beargrass, and while the attention of the Indians was attracted in a different direction, Ballard mounted this horse and had a race indeed. They pursued him nearly to the river, but he escaped, though the horse died soon after he reached the station. This was the only instance, with the exception of that at the river Raisin, that he was a prisoner. He was in a skirmish with Indians near the Saline Licks, Colonel Hardin being the commander; the Colonel Hardin who fought gallantly under Morgan at the capture of Burgoyne, and who fell a sacrifice to Indian perfidy in the northwest; the father of General M. D. Hardin, and grand-father of Col, J. J. Hardin of Illinois, whose heroic death at Buena Vista was worthy of his unsullied life.

In after life Major Ballard repeatedly represented the people of Shelby county in the legislature, and commanded a company in colonel Allen's regiment under General Harrison in the campaign of 1812-13. he led the advance of the detachment, which fought the first battle of the river Raisin -- was wounded slightly on that day, and severly by a spent ball on the 22d January. This wound, also continued to annoy his old age. On this disastrous occasion he was taken prisoner, and suffered severly by the march through snow and ice, from Malden to Fort George.

As an evidence of the difficulties which surrounded the early pioneer in this country, it may be proper to notice an occasion in which Major Ballard was disturbed by the Indians at the spot where he then resided. They stole his only horse at night. He heard them when they took the horse from the door to which he was tied. His energy and sagacity was such, that he got in advance of the Indians before they reached the Ohio, waylaid them, three in number, shot the one riding his horse, and succeeded not only in escaping, but in catching the horse and riding back in safety.

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