Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama Part 4

Meantime Major Beasley soon began to neglect proper precautions. He left the new blockhouse and the new line of picketing unfinished, although he had idle men in plenty who could have completed them with very little effort. The accounts which have been given of the life in the fort indicate that the commander was utterly wanting in the first qualification of an officer for command--namely, a due regard for discipline. He had raw troops under his command--troops whose efficiency as soldiers would have been more than doubled during those days of inaction and waiting if daily or twice daily drills had been ordered and anything like discipline or military order maintained. That a commander intrusted with the charge of so important a fort, especially with the lives of so many helpless women and children committed to his care, should have neglected so good an opportunity to convert his raw recruits into drilled and disciplined soldiers, would scarcely be credible if the fact were not fully attested.

Instead of improving the precious days of waiting in this way, Major Beasley wholly relaxed the reins of discipline. The men gave themselves up to roystering, card-playing, and uproarious fun-making.

About this time a negro, whom Weatherford had captured near McGirth's plantation, escaped, and, making his way to Fort Mims, informed Major Beasley of the whereabouts of the Indian force, telling him also that the Indian chieftain had made careful inquiries about this particular fort, its strength, the number of persons in it, and other details, his anxiety about which indicated his purpose to attack the post. Major Beasley sent out scouting parties; but as they discovered no Indians in the neighborhood he appears immediately to have relapsed into his former state of listlessness. He did not respect his enemy, as Claiborne had so earnestly warned him to do. The men, calling the negro from McGirth's plantation a liar, returned to their frolics and their idleness.

Red Eagle, wiser than his enemy, respected him, and advanced so cautiously that he actually placed his army within striking distance of the fort without Beasley's knowledge, and concealed his men so adroitly that Beasley's scouting parties failed to discover them. Beasley was as brave a man as Red Eagle, but Red Eagle had the other qualities of a soldier--sagacity, caution, tireless watchfulness--which Beasley lacked; in a contest between the two as commanders, Red Eagle was Beasley's master. One day, while Red Eagle was thus hovering about the fort, watching it as a cat watches its prey, two negroes, who had been guarding some cattle, ran in great terror to the fort, and reported that they had seen Indians in the immediate neighborhood. Major Beasley at once sent a body of hors.e.m.e.n under command of Captain Middleton to ascertain the facts of the case. Captain Middleton, accompanied by the negroes, went to the spot where they said they had seen the savages; finding no Indians there, Captain Middleton, who appears to have thought that Indians are like trees, staying in one place, returned to the fort and reported that a false alarm had been given. The poor negroes were denounced as liars, and one of them was flogged for having given a false alarm. The other was saved for a while by the intercession of his master, but he was afterward arraigned again, his master's consent having been gained by Major Beasley's threat to expel him and his family from the fort if he persisted in his refusal; and it is upon record that when the fort was attacked the negro was standing tied, and awaiting his flogging.

This incident is mentioned here in ill.u.s.tration of the unaccountable folly of Major Beasley. The writers who have recorded the facts of this officer's behavior have touched them as lightly as possible, sparing him probably because he fought manfully and fell at his post at last; but it is impossible to regard his conduct with any thing like respect or even patience. His carelessness was a crime, and history must condemn it as such. Charged with the duty of defending an important post, he neglected the most essential measures of defence; intrusted with the lives of more than five hundred persons, he carelessly, criminally, permitted them to be butchered. We have already seen that he neglected discipline in the fort; he neglected also to surround the fort, as he should have done, with a cordon of picket-guards, who might have been so placed that ample warning would have been given of the approach of the enemy. Instead of that, he actually subjected the negroes who gave warning to ignominious punishment, and, most incredible thing of all, permitted the gates of the fort to stand open until the acc.u.mulation of sand at their base rendered it impossible to shut them promptly!

The alarm given by the negroes was given on the 29th day of August. The next morning the negro who had been flogged was again sent out to guard the cattle, and his companion was detained to receive his punishment.

Meantime Red Eagle lay within a few hundred yards of the fort, at the head of a thousand warriors. While Major Beasley was using his authority to compel the negro's master to consent to the infliction of the penalty, Red Eagle and his men were quietly watching the fort, looking in at the open gate and making ready to destroy the garrison. The negro who had been whipped again saw the Indians, he being where a picket-guard ought to have been; but he was afraid to report the fact lest he should be whipped again, and so between his fear of the Indians on the one hand and of Major Beasley's peculiar notions of discipline on the other, the poor fellow determined to flee to another fort, two or three miles east of Fort Mims. No alarm was given, therefore. n.o.body in the fort suspected Red Eagle's presence or prepared to meet his a.s.sault.

n.o.body shut the gate. n.o.body did any thing, in short, which ought to have been done, or any thing which indicated that this was a fort, or that its commander knew that a war existed or was likely to exist anywhere on earth. Worst of all, Red Eagle lay there watching his prey like a tiger, and seeing just how matters stood. The able commander of the red men knew his business and attended to it. His plan was formed, his men were ready, and he only awaited the coming of the right moment to spring upon his unsuspecting prey. It was nearly noon, and it was the most critical hour of the war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT MIMS (INTERIOR).]

CHAPTER X.

THE Ma.s.sACRE AT FORT MIMS.

The accounts of what followed, which are given in the various books that treat the subject, are for the most part very meagre, and upon one or two points of minor importance they conflict with each other. Luckily, we have one account which is much more minute than any other, and at the same time is entirely trustworthy. This account is found in Mr. A. J.

Pickett's History of Alabama, a work remarkable for the diligence of research upon which it is founded, the author having been at great pains to gather details from the survivors of the various historical events of which he writes. Mr. Pickett had access to the private papers of General Claiborne, and to several survivors of the Fort Mims affair, and from these sources he gathered a ma.s.s of particulars which no other writer upon the subject had within reach. In writing here of the affair, we must depend mainly upon Mr. Pickett's pages for all matters of detail.

We left Red Eagle at the head of his men, within a short distance of the fort, quietly contemplating it. His prey was apparently within his grasp and his men were ready, but still Red Eagle waited, repressing the eagerness of his followers sternly. The people in the fort were singing, playing games, and occupying themselves in every way but the soldierly one. They were not on the alert--they were completely off their guard.

Apparently the time had come to strike, but Red Eagle knew his business, and waited. He knew that to take a stockade fortress without the aid of artillery he must surprise the garrison completely, and this was what he sought to do by delay.

Noon came, and with it came the drum for dinner. That was the signal Red Eagle had been waiting for. It was not enough that the garrison should be listlessly off guard. Red Eagle wished them to be occupied with something else, and now they were going to dinner. Giving them time enough collect for that purpose, the Indian commander advanced his line, doing so quietly, contrary to the Indian habit. He was determined to make the surprise as complete as possible. In this way the Indian line, running rapidly forward, reached a point within thirty yards of the open gates before their approach was discovered by anybody within. Then the few men who happened to be near enough made an attempt to close the gate; but it was too late, even if the acc.u.mulated sand at its foot had not prevented. The Indians rushed in pell-mell, and almost in the instant of discovering their presence Major Beasley learned that they were already within the outer lines of his defensive works.

Luckily there was a second line of picketing at this point, partly completed, which prevented the immediate pa.s.sage of the Indians to all parts of the fort, and gave the whites a defensive work from which to fight their foes. Major Beasley was at last awake to the reality of the danger of which Claiborne had warned him repeatedly, his last warning having come in a letter which Beasley had received only the day before, and to which he had replied that he was prepared to repel the attack of any force which might come against his fortress. If he had scorned this danger culpably, and had neglected to provide against it as he should have done, he at least did what a brave man could to repel it, now that it had come. He was among the first to confront the enemy, and among the first to fall, mortally wounded. He rejected all offers of a.s.sistance and refused to be carried into the interior of the fort, preferring to remain where he was to animate the troops by his presence and to direct their operations. He continued thus to command them until the breath left his body.

The fighting was terrible. It was not two bodies of troops struggling for possession of some strategic point, but a horde of savages battling with a devoted band of white men in a struggle the only issue of which was death. The savages fought not to conquer but to kill the whites, every one, women and children as well as men; and the whites fought with the desperation of doomed men whose only chance of life was in victory.

It was hand-to-hand fighting, too. It was fighting with knives and tomahawks and clubbed guns. Men grappled with each other, to relinquish their hold only in death.

Several Indian prophets were among the first of the savages to fall, and for a time their death spread consternation among their followers. These prophets had confidently told the Indians that their sacred bodies were invulnerable; that the bullets of white men would split upon them, doing no harm. When they went down before the first volley, therefore, the utter failure of their prophecy caused the Indians to lose faith in the cause, and they were ready like children to abandon it in their fright.

Red Eagle was a man of different mettle. He had used these wretched false prophets to aid him in stirring the enthusiasm of the Creeks, but he had never believed their silly pretences. With such a commander the Creeks soon recovered their courage, and the fight went on.

Although Weatherford had gained a great advantage by his tactics of surprise and sudden onset, his task was still a very arduous one. He had possession of the outer gates, but the whites were still intrenched, and he must dislodge them--an undertaking which subjected him to heavy loss of men. Everybody within the fort who could shoot a gun or strike a blow with axe or club was engaged in the fight. Weatherford, like the general of real genius that he was, sent some of his men to threaten the other sides of the fort, thereby compelling the whites to distribute their force all around the inclosure, and thus to weaken the defence at the main point of attack. Captain Middleton had charge of the eastern side, and fell at his post. Captain Jack fought desperately on the southern face, and Lieutenant Randon on the west. Fortunately--if we may call any thing fortunate about an affair which ended in utter misfortune--the northern face of the fort, against which Weatherford hurled his men in greatest numbers and with greatest desperation, was defended by Captain Dixon Bailey, a man of mixed blood, who, it will be remembered, distinguished himself in the battle of Burnt Corn, and who seems to have had some of the qualities of an able commander. He saw and tried to make use of one chance of success. He knew and told his men that the force of an Indian attack was greatest in its beginning; that unless success crowned their efforts Indians were apt to weary of their work after a little while. He urged his followers, therefore, to fight with determination and with hope. He urged every non-combatant who could do so to join in the defence, and even some of the women did so. His judgment of the Indian character was right, and it was presently vindicated by the conduct of the savages, who relaxed their efforts to take the fort, and began making off with what plunder they could secure.

But Red Eagle was there; and his presence was a factor for which Captain Bailey had not made due allowance. Riding after the retreating bands he quickly drove them back, and stimulated his forces to renewed exertions of the most desperate character.

Then Captain Bailey saw that his hope had been made vain by the resolution of this commander and by his genius for controlling men. It was now three o'clock, and the battle had lasted three hours. Captain Bailey seeing no chance for its cessation by the failure of savage determination, resolved to abandon the defences, and marching boldly out, attempt to cut a way through Red Eagle's hosts to Fort Pierce, a few miles distant. From this attempt he was restrained only by force.

The savages were now steadily gaining ground. One point after another was abandoned by the whites, whose numbers were rapidly diminishing. The savages fell as fast as the whites did, or even faster, but as they greatly outnumbered their entrenched foes they could afford this.

Deducting the women and children from the whole number of people in the fort, it will be seen that the savages--whose force was estimated variously at from one thousand to fifteen hundred fighting men--outnumbered the fighting men of the fort at least three to one, and perhaps even as greatly as six or seven to one. With the fall of each white man, therefore, the relative superiority of the Indians was increased, even though two or three of the a.s.sailants should fall at the same time.

Little by little the fort yielded. From one defensive point to another the various bands of white men were driven, fighting as they went, and contesting every inch of the a.s.sailants' advance. Two brothers of Captain Dixon Bailey, James and Daniel Bailey, went with some other men into Mims's house, and piercing the roof with port-holes did excellent work upon bodies of savages who were protected by barriers of various kinds against the fire of men on the ground. To silence their fire some of the Indians shot burning arrows into the shingles of the house and succeeded in setting it on fire. They also fired several other buildings, and the poor people who still remained alive were now driven to their last place of refuge, a small inclosure around the loom house, called in the fort the bastion. From every quarter the warning cry "To the bastion!" went up, and very soon the small inclosure was so full of people that there was scarcely room for any one to move. Meantime the fire was gaining on every hand. Around the burning houses demoniac savages danced and shrieked and howled, while the women and children within the burning buildings could do nothing but wring their hands and commit themselves to heaven while awaiting certain and horrible destruction.

Red Eagle was a soldier, not a butcher; and now that his victory was secure he sought to stop the bloodshed and spare the lives of the helpless people who remained; he called upon his warriors to desist and to receive the survivors as prisoners, but the yelling savages would not listen to him. He attempted to a.s.sert his authority and compel them to stop the carnage, but the authority which he was able to wield in setting these savages on, failed utterly when he tried to call them off.

When he thus sought to save the lives of white men and women and children, his followers remembered that he had not long before tried to withdraw altogether from the war, and with loud shrieks of anger they now turned upon him, threatening to put him to death if he should further plead for mercy. He could do nothing but submit, and turn away in horror from the sight of the brutal slaughter which he had made possible. Mounting his superb black horse he rode away, resolved to have at least no personal share in the horrible butchery.

The few remaining people in the fort were now shut up in a slaughter-pen. A few of them cut a hole through the outer picketing and made a dash for life. Of these about twenty escaped in different directions, and in one way or another managed after many hardships to reach other forts. All the rest of the people in the fort were butchered, except a few negroes kept by the savages as slaves, and one half-breed family, of whom we shall hear more presently.

The persons who escaped by flight were Dr. Thomas G. Holmes, a negro woman named Hester, a friendly Indian named Socca, Lieutenant Peter Randon, Josiah Fletcher, Sergeant Matthews, Martin Rigdon, Samuel Smith, a half-breed, Joseph Perry, Jesse Steadham, Edward Steadham, John h.o.r.en, Lieutenant W. R. Chambers, two men named Mourrice and Jones, and some others whose names have not come down to us.

Thus ended the battle of Fort Mims, in some respects the most remarkable battle between Indians and white men of which history anywhere tells us.

It had lasted for five hours without cessation, a most unusual thing in Indian warfare, which consists chiefly of sudden onsets that are not long persisted in if stoutly resisted. At Fort Mims the a.s.sault was kept up, in the face of desperate resistance, from noon until nearly sunset--a persistence due solely to the fact that the savages were for once commanded by a real soldier, who possessed the qualities of an able and determined general. The Indians here, as everywhere else, were disposed after a while, as has been said, to relinquish their purpose and content themselves with what they had accomplished in the way of destruction, but, as we have seen, Red Eagle sternly drove them back into battle, and succeeded in carrying the fort. If there were nothing else in his career to prove his t.i.tle to respect as a really able military man, his management of this Fort Mims affair would sufficiently establish his claim.

CHAPTER XI.

ROMANTIC INCIDENTS OF THE FORT MIMS AFFAIR.

It was Dr. Thomas G. Holmes who planned the sortie by which the persons named in the last chapter made their escape. He cut the hole through the picketing and headed the desperate charge, which was opposed by a thick line of savages who, antic.i.p.ating some such attempt, had placed themselves in position along a fence for the purpose of making escape impossible. It is indeed a marvel that anybody should have succeeded in breaking through their line and reaching the woods beyond. Dr. Holmes had his clothes riddled with bullets as he ran, but he managed to reach the thick woods unhurt, and there concealed himself in the hole made by the uprooting of a large tree. Remaining thus hidden until night, he was not discovered by any of the bands of Indians who beat the bushes in every direction, bent upon leaving no white man or friendly Indian alive. After night he had intended to make his escape under cover of darkness from the neighborhood, but the light from burning buildings prevented this until midnight, when, by careful creeping, he made his way without discovery, among the camp-fires of the sleeping savages, who now rested from their b.l.o.o.d.y toil. As Dr. Holmes could not swim, it was impossible for him to cross the river to the forts and settlements there, and hence he wandered about in the swamp for five days, living upon roots and other such things, until finally, almost famished, he emerged from the cane-brakes and sought the highlands, really caring very little in his desperation whether he should fall into the hands of friends or foes. Coming upon some horses which were tied, and finding that they belonged to white men who were somewhere near, he fired his gun to attract their attention; but unluckily it alarmed them, and they fled to the river and hid themselves, remaining there for two days and nights. Left thus alone, Holmes went to a house in the neighborhood, and succeeded in catching some chickens, which in his ravenous hunger he ate raw. He was finally discovered by a white man, the owner of the place, and taken to a place of safety. Many years afterward he related the story of his adventures to Mr. Pickett, from whose pages we have condensed it.

Lieutenant Chambliss was twice severely wounded in his flight, but reached the friendly woods at last and concealed himself in a heap of logs, meaning to make his way to a place of safety as soon as night should fall. About dark, however, a roving band of the savages surrounded the log heap, and to the dismay of poor Chambliss, set fire to it. His position was terrible. The fire rapidly ate into the pile, and to remain there was to be roasted alive, while any attempt to come out would be met, of course, by immediate destruction with knife or tomahawk. The fire was now scorching him, but he lay still, enduring it as long as it was possible to suffer in silence. Just as it became absolutely necessary for him to withdraw, he was delighted to see the Indians, who had now lighted their pipes, walking away. Silently, in order that the savages might not hear him, he crept out of the burning pile and concealed himself more effectually elsewhere. Wounded and famishing he wandered about for awhile, managing at last to reach Mount Vernon.

The most romantic incident of this terrible affair remains to be told.

Zachariah McGirth, with his half-breed wife and his children, was one of the inmates of Fort Mims until the day of the ma.s.sacre. On the morning of that day, a few hours before the attack was made, he left the fort, intending to visit his plantation at a point higher up on the Alabama River. Leaving his family in the fort he went to the river, accompanied by some negroes, and began his journey in a boat. He had gone but a few miles when the sound of the firing at the fort reached his ears, and he thus learned that the attack had come. Anxious about the fate of his wife and children, he turned back, and secreting himself in the woods, pa.s.sed the long afternoon in a state of the most terrible suspense. When the sound of musketry at last died away, the great volumes of smoke revealed to him the fact--horrible in its significance to him--that the savages had triumphed. Desperate now with distress, he hid the negroes and boldly went to the scene of the slaughter, not caring whether the Indians had left or not. Finding no savages there, but seeing heaps of the slain everywhere, he summoned his negroes and began a search for the bodies of his wife and children. They were nowhere to be found, and McGirth was forced to conclude that his family were among those who had been burned in the buildings.

As a matter of fact, McGirth's wife and children were the half-breed family who had been spared, as related in the preceding chapter. There was a young warrior among Weatherford's men who, many years before, when he was an orphan and hungry, had been tenderly cared for by McGirth's wife, and during the horrible slaughter at Fort Mims this young warrior happened to recognize the woman who had befriended him in his time of sorest need. To save her and her children he had to tell his comrades that he wished to make them his slaves, and under this pretence he carried them to his home in the nation.

McGirth knew nothing of this, of course, and as he had very tenderly loved his family, he now became entirely reckless of danger, not caring to live, but being desperately bent upon doing all that he could for the destruction of the Creeks, who, as he believed, had bereft him of his wife and his children. He became the most daring scout and express rider in the American service, making the most perilous journeys, shrinking from no danger, and many times serving the American cause when n.o.body else could be found to perform the important duties which he undertook.

One day, several months after the ma.s.sacre at Fort Mims, McGirth was in Mobile, when some one came to him with a message, saying that a party of poor Indians who had made their way down the river from the hostile country wished to see him. Answering the summons he was ushered into the presence of his wife and seven children, whom he had thought of for months, as among the victims of the savages at Fort Mims. It was as if they had suddenly arisen from the dead.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DOG CHARGE AT FORT SINQUEFIELD AND AFFAIRS ON THE PENINSULA.

It was a part of Weatherford's tactics to prevent the concentration of his enemies as far as that was possible, and to keep the whole country round about in such a state of apprehension that no troops or militiamen could be spared from one stockade fort for the a.s.sistance of another.

Accordingly, when he advanced to the a.s.sault on Fort Mims he sent the prophet Francis with a force of Creeks into the country which lies in the fork of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, and which in our day const.i.tutes Clarke County. In this part of the country there were several stockade forts erected, one in each neighborhood, by the settlers, as a precautionary measure, when the disturbed state of the country first aroused serious apprehensions. Fort Sinquefield, named, as all these fortresses were, after the owner of the place on which it was built, stood a few miles north-east of the village of Grove Hill, which is now the county seat of Clarke County. Fort White was further to the west, and Fort Gla.s.s was about fifteen miles to the south, near the spot on which the present village of Suggsville stands.

When the battle of Burnt Corn brought actual war into being, most of the settlers removed with their families into these forts and prepared to defend themselves. When General Claiborne arrived with his seven hundred men he sent some small reinforcements to these posts, under command of Colonel Carson, who rebuilding Fort Gla.s.s, christened it Fort Madison, and made it his head-quarters and the head-quarters of the district round about.

It was the mission of the prophet Francis to hara.s.s this part of the country, and on the next day but one after the ma.s.sacre at Fort Mims, Francis struck his first blow within two miles of Fort Sinquefield.

Notwithstanding the general alarm, Abner James and Ransom Kimball, with their families, numbering seventeen souls in all, remained at Kimball's house, intending within a day or two to remove to the fort. Francis attacked the house and killed twelve of the seventeen persons. The other five escaped in various ways. One of those who escaped was Isham Kimball, a youth sixteen years of age, who survived the war, became a public officer in his county, and was living there as late as the year 1857; from his account and that of Mrs. Merrill, a married daughter of Abner James, who also was living in Clarke County in 1857, the original recorders of this bit of history derived their information with respect to details.

Mrs. Merrill's adventures were very strange and romantic, and as we shall not again have occasion to write of her, it may not be amiss to interrupt the regular course of this narrative and tell what happened to her. At the time of the ma.s.sacre at Kimball's house, she, with her infant child in her arms, was knocked down, scalped, and left as one dead among the slain. She lay senseless for many hours, but during the night she revived, and with a mother's instinct began to search among the dead bodies of her kinsmen for her babe. She was overjoyed to find that it still breathed, although some member of the savage band had made an effort to scalp it, cutting its head all round, but failing--probably because the hair was so short--to finish the horrible operation. The poor mother, well-nigh dead though she was, made haste to give her babe the breast, and had the gratification of seeing it revive rapidly in consequence. Then, taking it in her arms, she made an effort to reach Fort Sinquefield, about two miles distant. Finding at last that her strength was failing rapidly, and that she could carry the child no longer, she secreted it and used the little remaining strength she had in crawling to the stockade and entreating some one there to rescue her child. This of course was quickly done, and notwithstanding the severity of her injuries both she and the child recovered under good treatment.

But the strangest, or at any rate the most romantic, part of the story is yet to be told. At the time of these occurrences Mrs. Merrill's husband was absent, serving as a volunteer under General Claiborne. The news of the butchery, including the positive information that Mrs.