Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama Part 6

"GENTLEMEN: I received the letter that you wrote me in the month of August, by which, and with great satisfaction, I was informed of the advantages which your brave warriors obtained over your enemies. I represented, as I promised you, to the Captain-General of the Havana, the request which, the last time I took you by the hand, you made me of arms and ammunitions; but until now I cannot yet have an answer. But I am in hopes that he will send me the effects which I requested, and as soon as I receive them I shall inform you. I am very thankful for your generous offers to procure to me the provisions and warriors necessary in order to retake the port of Mobile, and you ask me at the same time if we have given up Mobile to the Americans: to which I answer, for the present I cannot profit of your generous offer, not being at war with the Americans, who did not take Mobile by force, since they purchased it from the miserable officer, dest.i.tute of honor, who commanded there, and delivered it without authority. By which reasons the sale and delivery of that place is entirely void and null, and I hope that the Americans will restore it again to us, because n.o.body can dispose of thing that is not his own property; in consequence of which the Spaniards have not lost their right to it. And I hope you will not put in execution the project you tell me of, to burn the town, since these houses and properties do not belong to the Americans, but to true Spaniards. To the bearers of your letter I have ordered some small presents to be given, and I remain forever your good father and friend, MANXIQUE."

It is a pleasure to reflect, that about a year later, Jackson, acting on his own responsibility, marched to Pensacola and humiliated the successor of this especial rascal, who wrote about honor in a letter in which he was encouraging and planning to furnish arms and ammunition to savages who were butchering the people of a nation with whom his own country was at peace.

The letter explains Weatherford's course. He was acting from the first in concert with this Spanish governor, from whom he was drawing his arms and ammunition; and while he wanted to burn Mobile, he knew that he must first ask Manxique's permission. Accordingly, he must have sent a letter to that ally on the very day of the ma.s.sacre at Fort Mims, or on the next day at latest. That ma.s.sacre began at noon and ended at five o'clock on the 30th day of August; and Manxique speaks of the letter reporting the victory as "the letter that you wrote me in the month of August." It is thus clear that Weatherford's military instincts were neither asleep nor at fault when he finished that b.l.o.o.d.y day's work; that he saw both the possibility and the advantage of destroying Mobile, and at once asked permission to do so. The letter denying that permission to him was dated September 29th; and, as he was marching upon Tennessee and Georgia early in October, it is apparent that he had only waited for the arrival of the Spanish governor's reply, before renewing his campaign. While he hoped for permission to destroy the seaport town, he waited; the moment he knew that he must not do that, he began his northward and eastward march, to strike his enemies in another quarter.

His failure to march upon Mobile has been cited by some writers to prove that Weatherford was after all only an Indian, without real military capacity; in the light of all the facts, as they are revealed by the letter quoted, his proceedings prove precisely the reverse. We are indebted for the sparing of Mobile, not to incompetency on Weatherford's part, but to the greed of the Spaniard, who hesitated to permit the destruction of property which he hoped to get possession of by other means.

When Coffee's report of the advance of the Creeks came, the news greatly relieved Jackson of anxiety. It freed him from apprehension concerning Mobile; it promised to save him from a long and wearying march through a wilderness, and to enable him to meet the enemy sooner than would otherwise have been possible; and his chief desire now was to hurl his army with crushing force against the Creeks, to make unceasing war upon them, and to break their power as speedily as possible. He was so elated at the prospect of an early encounter with them, that he wrote in a playful vein to Coffee, saying: "It is surely high gratification to learn that the Creeks are so attentive to my situation as to save me the pain of travelling. I must not be outdone in politeness, and will therefore endeavor to meet them on middle ground."[2]

[Footnote 2: Parton's "Life of Jackson."]

A good deal remained to be done, and arrangements were not yet complete for the procuring of provisions. Coffee was at Huntsville, and was watching for the enemy. On the 11th of October, Coffee reported the Indian advance, and Jackson marched on the instant, arriving at Huntsville that evening. At Huntsville it was necessary to await the arrival of provisions for the army. Supplies from East Tennessee had been sent down the river, but a failure of water in the shallow stream detained them on the way. Jackson marched to Ditto's landing to await their coming; but they came not, and relief seemed to be impossible.

Jackson was in a sore strait. He wanted to advance, but was without provisions or an immediate prospect of getting any. He ordered Coffee with his cavalry to scour the Indian country for supplies, while with the main army he made a toilsome march, over a mountainous country, to Thompson's Creek, about twenty miles higher up the river, for the double purpose of meeting the expected provisions there, and of putting himself in the way of marching the more quickly to the relief of a body of friendly Indians who occupied a fort at the Ten Islands, on the Coosa River.

Meantime, Jackson sent messengers in every direction, urging everybody in any sort of authority to hurry the supplies forward. At Thompson's Creek he built a fort, as a base of supplies for the campaign. His plight was desperate, but he would not stay where he was or fall back.

With food or without it, he meant to march into the Indian country and dare starvation as he braved the other perils of war. It is related of him that at one time during the campaign, when the men were without provisions, one of them saw him eating something, and mutinously demanded a share of the food.

"Certainly," replied Jackson, thrusting his hand into his pocket and offering the man some acorns. He was literally living on acorns while marching and fighting night and day.

The state of affairs when Jackson was about leaving Fort Deposit, on Thompson's Creek, where he tarried but a single day, may be inferred from a letter written by Major John Reid, of the general's staff, from which we copy some pa.s.sages. The whole letter is printed in Parton's Life of Jackson.

"At this place we have remained a day for the purpose of establishing a depot for provisions; but where these provisions are to come from G.o.d Almighty only knows. We had expected supplies from East Tennessee, but they have not arrived, and I am fearful never will. I speak seriously when I declare I expect we shall soon have to eat our horses, and perhaps this is the best use we can put a great many of them to.

"The hostile Creeks, as we learnt yesterday from the Path Killer, are a.s.sembling in great numbers within fifteen miles from Turkey Town.

Chenully, who is posted with the friendly Creeks in the neighborhood of that place, it is feared will be destroyed before we can arrive to their relief. In three days we shall probably have a fight. The general swears he will neither sound a retreat nor survive a defeat.... We shall leave this place with less than two days' provisions."

It seems almost incredible that a general should venture to advance into an enemy's country, beginning the march with only provisions enough to last his force for a day or two, and with no a.s.surance, scarcely even a hope, that provisions were likely to follow him; but this is what Jackson did.

Coffee joined him on the march, bringing with him a few hundreds of bushels of corn, and reporting that he had destroyed some Indian towns, but had encountered none of the Indians. The corn was a mere handful among the men and horses of the army, but cries for help were coming every hour from the friendly Indians, whose situation at the Ten Islands was desperate, and Jackson marched forward, trusting to chance for supplies. He meant to fight first and find something to eat afterward.

As has been said, the army remained but one day at Fort Deposit, and during that day constructed a fortress; but Jackson found time in which to write an address to his men, whom he was now about to lead upon a campaign in which they would encounter famine and hardships of the sorest kind, as well as the savage enemy. They needed all the courage that enthusiasm in the cause could give them, and the address was designed to key them up, so to speak, to the pitch of their commander's temper. The address read as follows:

"You have, fellow-soldiers, at length penetrated the country of your enemies. It is not to be believed that they will abandon the soil that embosoms the bones of their forefathers without furnishing you an opportunity of signalizing your valor. Wise men do not expect, brave men will not desire it. It was not to travel unmolested through a barren wilderness that you quitted your families and homes, and submitted to so many privations: it was to revenge the cruelties committed upon your defenceless frontiers by the inhuman Creeks, instigated by their no less inhuman allies; you shall not be disappointed.

"If the enemy flee before us we will overtake and chastise him; we will teach him how dreadful, when once aroused, is the resentment of freemen.

But it is not by boasting that punishment is to be inflicted or victory obtained. The same resolution that prompted us to take up arms must inspire us in battle. Men thus animated and thus resolved, barbarians can never conquer; and it is an enemy barbarous in the extreme that we have now to face. Their reliance will be on the damage they can do you while you are asleep and unprepared for action; their hopes shall fail them in the hour of experiment. Soldiers who know their duty and are ambitious to perform it are not to be taken by surprise. Our sentinels will never sleep, nor our soldiers be unprepared for action; yet while it is enjoined upon the sentinels vigilantly to watch the approach of the foe, they are at the same time commanded not to fire at shadows.

Imaginary dangers must not deprive them of entire self-possession. Our soldiers will lie with their arms in their hands; and the moment an alarm is given they will move to their respective positions without noise and without confusion. They will thus be enabled to hear the orders of their officers, and to obey them with prompt.i.tude.

"Great reliance will be placed by the enemy, on the consternation they may be able to spread through our ranks by the hideous yells with which they commence their battles; but brave men will laugh at such efforts to alarm them. It is not by bellowings and screams that the wounds of death are inflicted. You will teach these noisy a.s.sailants how weak are their weapons of warfare, by opposing them with the bayonet. What Indian ever withstood its charge? What army of any nation ever withstood it long?

"Yes, soldiers, the order for a charge will be the signal for victory.

In that moment your enemy will be seen flying in every direction before you. But in the moment of action coolness and deliberation must be regarded; your fire made with precision and aim; and when ordered to charge with the bayonet you must proceed to the a.s.sault with a quick and firm step, without trepidation or alarm. Then shall you behold the completion of your hopes, in the discomfiture of your enemy. Your general, whose duty as well as inclination is to watch over your safety, will not, to gratify any wishes of his own, rush you unnecessarily into danger. He knows, however, that it is not in a.s.sailing an enemy that men are destroyed; it is when retreating and in confusion. Aware of this, he will be prompted as much by a regard for your lives as your honor. He laments that he has been compelled, even incidentally, to hint at a retreat when speaking to freemen and to soldiers. Never until you forget all that is due to yourselves and your country will you have any practical understanding of that word. Shall an enemy wholly unacquainted with military evolutions, and who rely more for victory on their grim visages and hideous yells than upon their bravery or their weapons--shall such an enemy ever drive before them the well-trained youths of our country, whose bosoms pant for glory, and a desire to avenge the wrongs they have received? Your general will not live to behold such a spectacle; rather would he rush into the thickest of the enemy and submit himself to their scalping-knives. But he has no fears of such a result. He knows the valor of the men he commands, and how certainly that valor, regulated as it will be, will lead to victory.

With his soldiers he will face all dangers, and with them partic.i.p.ate in the glory of conquest."

Nothing could have been better fitted than this address was to serve the end for which it was designed. Jackson knew his Tennesseeans, both in their temper and in their habits; and he adroitly managed to warn them against the consequences of those faults which were most prominent in their characters, while seeming merely to appeal in a stimulating fashion to their pride of courage. He knew, as they did not, how trying the hardships of a campaign in a wilderness with insufficient supplies are; he knew how p.r.o.ne raw troops are to fall into confusion and panic in the excitement of a sudden attack; and against all these things he did what could be done to brace them by an adroit appeal to their pride of race and of personal courage. If some of his expressions seem to suggest any thing like contempt of the Creeks as foes, they were meant merely to arouse the pride of his own men, and indicated no disposition on his part not to "respect his enemy," as Claiborne said. On the contrary, he showed the profoundest respect for his enemy by his extreme solicitude about the condition and the conduct of his own men.

The marching was now as nearly continuous as was possible in the circ.u.mstances. Frequent pauses had to be made, in order that provisions might be gathered from the surrounding country, but as soon as there was food in camp the march was resumed.

On the 28th of October, a detachment under command of Colonel Dyer left the main body, and the next day attacked the Indian village of Littefutchee, surprising it before daylight in the morning, destroying it, and bringing in twenty-nine prisoners as the first-fruits of the campaign.

This was the beginning of a series of battles which followed each other in as rapid succession as the starving condition of the army permitted.

Jackson was now in the enemy's country, and within striking distance of his strategic points. How vigorously and persistently he struck, we shall see in the chapters which follow.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BATTLE OF TALLUSHATCHEE.

On the second day of November, Jackson learned that a considerable force of the enemy was gathered at Tallushatchee, an Indian town about ten miles from the Ten Islands. He had no sooner received this information than he ordered Coffee with about nine hundred men to attack the post.

Coffee marched on the moment, taking with him a company of friendly Indians, mostly Cherokees, under Richard Brown. To prevent errors the Indians in the expedition wore white feathers and deer-tails on their heads.

The expedition crossed the river a few miles above the Ten Islands, and advanced during the night, arriving in the immediate neighborhood of the town about daybreak on the 3d of November. The purpose was not merely to defeat but to destroy the Indian force, and therefore, instead of dashing at once into the town, Coffee divided his force in half, sending Colonel Allcorn with the cavalry to the right, while he himself, in company with Colonel Cannon, marched to the left around the place, keeping at a sufficient distance to avoid alarming the Indians.

When the heads of the two columns met, the town was entirely surrounded.

Notwithstanding the caution with which this movement was executed, the Indians discovered the presence of the enemy when the troops were half a mile distant. They beat their drums and yelled in savage fashion, but remained on the defensive, awaiting the attack.

About sunrise, every thing being in readiness, General Coffee sent two companies forward into the town, without breaking his circular alignment, instructing the officers in command of them to make an a.s.sault and bring on the action. The manoeuvre was altogether successful. As soon as the two companies made their attack, the Indians, confident that this was the whole of the a.s.saulting column, rushed out of their houses and other hiding-places; and charged their a.s.sailants with great vigor. The companies of whites thereupon began falling back and the Creeks pursued them hotly. When the main line was reached, it delivered a volley into the midst of the advancing savages, and immediately charged them, driving them back in confusion to the shelter of their houses. Here the Creeks fought with the utmost desperation, refusing quarter, obstinately resisting when resistance was manifestly in vain, and choosing to die where they stood, rather than yield even to Coffee's overwhelming numbers.

General Coffee said in his report of the affair:

"The enemy retreated, firing, until they got around and in their buildings, where they made all the resistance that an overpowered soldier could do. They fought as long as one existed; but their destruction was very soon completed. Our men rushed up to the doors of the houses, and in a few minutes killed the last warrior of them. The enemy fought with savage fury, and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining; not one asked to be spared, but [they]

fought as long as they could stand or sit. In consequence of their flying to their houses and mixing with their families, our men, in killing the males, without intention killed and wounded a few of the squaws and children, which was regretted by every officer and soldier of the detachment, but which could not be avoided."

Coffee counted one hundred and eighty-six dead bodies of Indians, and, as many of them fell in the gra.s.s and high weeds, where their bodies were not easily found, he expressed the opinion in his report that the number of killed did not fall short of two hundred, while his own loss was five men killed and forty-one wounded, most of the wounds being slight and none of them mortal. For the first time in the history of Indian warfare, the fighting force of the savages in this battle was utterly destroyed, not a single warrior escaping alive.

There were eighty-four prisoners taken, all of them being women and children. Not only General Coffee, but his officers and men also, would gladly have ended the fight as soon as victory was theirs, sparing the warriors who had survived the first onset, and they constantly offered quarter not only to bodies of men who were fighting together, but to single individuals who were manifestly at their mercy, and to wounded warriors; but their offers of mercy were indignantly rejected in every case, and they therefore had no choice but to convert the battle into a ma.s.sacre more complete than that which had occurred at Fort Mims, except that the women and children were spared; but this time the butchery was forced upon the victors against their will, while at Fort Mims the triumphant savages had willingly indulged in indiscriminate slaughter.

Coffee at once took up his return march and rejoined Jackson, who sent a brief despatch reporting the affair to Governor Blount, praising Coffee and his men in the strongest terms, and ending with that plaintive plea for food for his army, which was now constantly on his lips. "If we had a sufficient supply of provisions," he wrote, "we should in a very short time accomplish the object of the expedition."

The most encouraging thing about this affair was the good conduct of the men. They manifested so little of the spirit of raw and undisciplined troops; they fought with so much coolness and steadiness, and went through the battle showing so few signs of that excitement which commonly impairs the efficiency of inexperienced soldiers, that their commander felt a confidence in them which justified him in attempting more than he would otherwise have dared in the circ.u.mstances.

Mr. Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, preserves a story which grew out of this battle, and which so strongly ill.u.s.trates the softer side of a stern soldier's character, that we may be pardoned for breaking the narrative to copy it here.

"On the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Tallushatchee was found a slain mother still embracing her living infant. The child was brought into camp with the other prisoners, and Jackson, anxious to save it, endeavored to induce some of the Indian women to give it nourishment. 'No,' said they, 'all his relatives are dead; kill him too.' This reply appealed to the heart of the general. He caused the child to be taken to his own hut, where among the few remaining stores was found a little brown sugar. This, mingled with water, served to keep the child alive until it could be sent to Huntsville, where it was nursed at Jackson's expense until the end of the campaign, and then taken to the Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson received it cordially, and the boy grew up in the family, treated by the general and his kind wife as a son and a favorite. Lincoyer was the name given him by the general. He grew to be a finely formed and robust youth, and received the education usually given to the planters' sons in the neighborhood. Yet it appears he remained an Indian to the last, delighting to roam the fields and woods, and decorate his hair and clothes with gay feathers, and given to strong yearnings for his native wilds."

The boy did not live to reach manhood, however. In his seventeenth year he fell a victim to pulmonary consumption, and when he died his benefactor mourned him as bitterly as if he had been indeed his son.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE BATTLE OF TALLADEGA.

Where was General c.o.c.ke with the troops from East Tennessee all this time? It will be remembered that he was to muster twenty-five hundred men in his half of the state, while Jackson gathered a like number in the west, and marching southward the two were to form a junction in the Creek country. Meantime General c.o.c.ke had undertaken to procure in East Tennessee supplies for the whole force. The supplies, as we know, had not come, and Jackson had marched without them. Now he expected General c.o.c.ke daily, with his force and his supplies; but they came not, and Jackson was greatly disappointed.