Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama Part 7

The fact was that General c.o.c.ke had been delayed by precisely the same lack of breadstuffs that had embarra.s.sed General Jackson. He had collected supplies, indeed, and ordered them forward by way of the river, but for lack of water they had not come, and at last, like Jackson, he began his march without them. He started south from Knoxville on the 13th of October, and after a considerable delay on the route, abandoned all hope of receiving the supplies, and depended thereafter upon such aid as the friendly Cherokees could give him in the way of furnishing provisions. General White had marched separately with his brigade, and when he joined General c.o.c.ke his men were in a starving condition.

While marching in a column separate from Jackson's, General c.o.c.ke was an independent commander. If he should join Jackson, whose commission was older than his own, the East Tennessee commander must become subordinate to the authority of Jackson. The fact that he did not form the contemplated union of forces, but acted separately, and the additional fact that his separate action led to a blunder which added greatly to the horrors of the war, caused Jackson great annoyance, and subjected General c.o.c.ke to the severest criticism. He was accused of an undue and culpable jealousy of Jackson, of self-seeking, and of perverse disobedience of orders. To all of this we shall come presently. The matter is mentioned now merely because it is necessary to know this much about it in order that we may properly understand the events to be immediately narrated.

As soon as Coffee's command returned from the Tallushatchee expedition, General Jackson resumed his march over a mountainous country toward the Ten Islands. Upon arriving at that point on the Coosa River, he began the construction of a fort as a centre of operations, and a defensive post at which his supplies--whenever he should happen to have any thing of that kind--could be protected by a comparatively small force. He adopted the usual method of fortifying against Indian a.s.saults--inclosing a large s.p.a.ce within a line of strong timber pickets, and building block-houses, storehouses, and other needed structures within. Here he was disposed to await the arrival of General c.o.c.ke, hoping that that officer would bring provisions of some sort with him, as the force at Fort Strother--that was the name given to the works at the Ten Islands--was now almost dest.i.tute of food and forage.

When c.o.c.ke was within three days' march of Fort Strother, his advance-guard, about one thousand strong, under command of General White, was within a very short distance, and General White sent forward a courier from Turkey Town reporting his arrival at that point, and asking for orders.

About this time there came into Jackson's camp a messenger, who brought news of a very important nature. He came from a little fort thirty miles away, at the Indian town of Talladega, on the spot where the modern town of Talladega stands. In that fort a handful of friendly Indians, about one hundred and fifty in number, had gathered to escape butchery at the hands of their hostile brethren. Here they were closely besieged by an Indian force one thousand strong, who, contrary to their usual practice, made no a.s.sault, but sought to starve out the little garrison. They surrounded the fort and maintained an unbroken siege line, confident that the plight and even the existence of the beleaguered fort were unknown to the whites, and confident, therefore, that no relief could be sent to them. They knew, too, that the supply of water, as well as of food, in the fort was very scant, and hence they had only to await the sure operation of starvation and thirst to do their work for them.

The messenger who came to Jackson to pray for the deliverance of the little band from their pitiable situation is described by some writers as an Indian, by others as a chief, and by still another he is said to have been a Scotchman who had lived for many years among the Indians as one of themselves. The last-named writer has evidently confused this case with another. Whoever and whatever he was, this man had escaped from the fort by a characteristic Indian stratagem. He had covered himself with a swine's skin, and wandered about like a hog in search of roots. In this way he managed to work his way at night through the lines of the besiegers, and when once beyond them he travelled as rapidly as possible toward Jackson's camp, and reported the state of affairs.

He arrived on the 7th of November, and Jackson at once began casting about for ways and means. He scarcely dared to march with his scanty supplies of food, and he scarcely dared to leave his post with an insufficient force to defend it; but he must rescue that band of friendly Indians at all hazards and at any cost. Their hard situation appealed to his pity; the cruelty of their foes appealed to the stronger stuff in his composition, arousing his anger and his disposition to wreak a righteous vengeance. There were reasons of polity, too, to move him to activity in their behalf. If they should be left to their fate, the discouragement of the friendly Indians everywhere would be great, and might be calamitous.

Jackson quickly considered all of these things and formed his resolution. General White was at Turkey Town at the head of about a thousand men. Jackson resolved to order him to march immediately upon Fort Strother, and to hold the place while the main army should be absent. There was great danger in leaving the post unguarded even for a brief time, but the occasion was so pressing that the resolute commander determined to take the risk, hoping that White would arrive in time to prevent disaster at the fort.

Having sent his order to White, he began his preparations for an immediate march with the whole effective force at the post.

Between midnight and one o'clock the next morning, November 8th, the column began its march, two thousand strong, eight hundred being mounted men. The task of fording the Coosa occupied the hours until the dawn of day, the horses of the cavalrymen being used for the transportation of the infantry across the stream.

A march of twenty-four miles consumed the day, and not long before dark General Jackson halted his men within six miles of the enemy, in order that they might rest. It was his purpose to resume the march after midnight, and attack the enemy early in the morning.

Thus far all had gone well, but here something like calamity overtook the commander in the shape of extremely bad news. A courier arrived bringing a despatch from General White, in which that officer informed Jackson that he could not obey the order given him to advance and protect Fort Strother, because of positive orders from his immediate superior, General c.o.c.ke, commanding him to return and rejoin the East Tennessee division of the army.

The state of facts which now confronted Jackson was most appalling. He was a long day's march from his fortified camp, with an impending battle on his hands; while his camp, to which alone he could retire when his present task should be done, was lying open and helpless, at the mercy of any band of Indians which might choose to attack it! Worse still, Jackson knew that the food supplies at the camp were exhausted, and as General White was not to come up with the provisions which he had promised to bring with him, Jackson saw that after fighting the Indians in his front he should be obliged to march his exhausted and hungry army back to a post where there was nothing for them to eat. His was a terrible dilemma, neither horn of which offered him hope. He expressed his anger with General c.o.c.ke and General White in forcible terms; but that did him no good, and the offending officers were not present to profit by the rebuke.

The Indians in his front probably had some provisions, enough at least for a meal, and Jackson determined to secure these at any rate, and at the same time to accomplish the purpose of his expedition.

Putting his army in motion very early in the morning he approached the Talladega town. When within half a mile of the foe he formed his line of battle, dividing the cavalry and placing half of it upon each wing. The advance was made slowly in the centre, so that the wings might gradually encircle the enemy, a movement much more difficult here than it had been at Tallushatchee, because of the greater numbers of the enemy, and because of their distribution over a wider area. For these reasons the plan of battle was less perfectly carried out on this occasion than on the former one, but it proved effective notwithstanding the difficulties which prevented its perfect execution.

At the proper moment a small body of troops was thrown forward from the centre to bring on the action. This force made a spirited attack, firing several successive volleys into the ranks of the surprised Indians, before a determined resistance was made to their attack. Then the Creeks charged upon them in force, and in accordance with the instructions they had received, the officers commanding the advance withdrew toward the main line, falling back in good order and at a moderate speed. We cannot do better than let General Jackson tell the rest of the story. In his report of the affair he said:

"The enemy pursued, and the front line was now ordered to advance and meet him; but, owing to some misunderstanding, a few companies of militia, who composed part of it, commenced a retreat. At this moment a corps of cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Dyer, which I had kept as a reserve, was ordered to dismount and fill up the vacancy occasioned by the retreat. This order was executed with a great deal of prompt.i.tude and effect. The militia seeing this, speedily rallied; and the fire became general along the front line, and on that part of the wings which was contiguous. The enemy, unable to stand it, began to retreat, but were met at every turn and repulsed in every direction. The right wing chased them, with a most destructive fire, to the mountains, a distance of about three miles, and, had I not been compelled, by the _faux pas_ of the militia in the outset of the battle, to dismount my reserve, I believe not a man of them would have escaped. The victory, however, was very decisive: two hundred and ninety of the enemy were left dead, and there can be no doubt but many more were killed who were not found.

Wherever they ran they left behind traces of blood, and it is believed that very few will return to their villages in as sound a condition as they left them.

"In the engagement we lost fifteen killed and eighty-five wounded; two of them have since died. All the officers acted with the utmost bravery, and so did all the privates, except that part of the militia who retreated at the commencement of the battle; and they hastened to atone for their error. Taking the whole together, they have realized the high expectations I had formed of them, and have fairly ent.i.tled themselves to the grat.i.tude of their country."

Jackson's loss in wounded included General Pillow, Colonel Lauderdale, Major Boyd, and Lieutenant Barton; but of these only Lieutenant Barton died of his wounds. The friendly Indians rescued numbered one hundred and sixty men, with their women and children.

In writing that two hundred and ninety of the enemy were found dead, General Jackson dealt in round numbers. General Coffee, who seemed always to have an exacting curiosity in such matters, said in a letter which was written soon after the battle: "We have counted two hundred and ninety-nine Indians dead on the ground, and it is believed that many have not been found that were killed dead; but the battle-ground was so very large we had not time to hunt them up. It is believed that very few got clear without a wound."

General Coffee said also in this letter, which is preserved in the archives of the Tennessee Historical Society, that "the force of the enemy was a little upwards of one thousand warriors, picked men, sent forward to destroy our army." By dint of adding to the numbers of Indians known to have been killed in the two battles thus far fought as many more as he believed to have been killed, and a.s.suming that the wounded equalled the killed in numbers, General Coffee arrived at the conclusion that the battles of Tallushatchee and Talladega had left the fighting force of the Creeks "a thousand men weaker" than when the campaign began. The calculation was scarcely a fair one, however; a.s.sumptions respecting dead men not found are necessarily unsafe, and as there were no wounded men at all left alive at Tallushatchee, the calculation respecting wounded men was of course founded upon an erroneous a.s.sumption, to say nothing of the fact that the only men wounded and not killed at Talladega were so slightly wounded that they succeeded in getting away, and hence could scarcely be accounted lost to the Creeks.

It is easy to pardon the enthusiastic general his slight overestimate of the damage inflicted upon the enemy, whom he was so earnestly anxious to defeat. The damage was great, certainly, and the success thus far attained had been secured at small cost in the matter of the lives of the white troops.

The object for which Jackson had marched from Fort Strother to Talladega was fully accomplished. The hostile Creeks in that quarter had been routed with heavy loss, and the little band of beleaguered friendly Indians were released from their dangerous and trying situation; but Jackson's army was hungry, and there was a prospect that actual starvation would presently overtake it. The little food that was found at Talladega was distributed among the men, sufficing to satisfy their immediate needs.

The pressing necessity of the hour now was to return with all possible haste to Fort Strother, which must not be left in its defenceless state a moment longer than was absolutely necessary; but an instantaneous beginning of the return march was wholly out of the question. The men had begun their toilsome journey at midnight between the 7th and 8th of November, had marched all day on the 8th, and, after a few hours' rest, had begun to march again a little after midnight, to go into battle early on the morning of the 9th. Now that the battle was done, they were utterly worn out, and must rest. Accordingly, the army went into camp for the night, after they had buried their dead comrades. The next day the return march was begun, and on the 11th of November the weary army arrived at their encampment.

The fort was unharmed, but it was dest.i.tute of provisions, and for a time it was with great difficulty that Jackson prevented a mutiny among the troops, whose only food was the meagre supply gleaned from the surrounding wilderness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

GENERAL c.o.c.kE'S CONDUCT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

It is necessary now to explain the circ.u.mstances which left Fort Strother without the garrison under General White, which General Jackson had provided for its defence during his absence, and to show to what consequences this failure of the East Tennessee commander to co-operate with General Jackson presently led. The writers upon these historical events differ very widely in their judgment of the case, and most of them severely censure General c.o.c.ke, attributing his conduct to an unworthy jealousy. His rank was the same as that of General Jackson; but, as was said in a former chapter, Jackson's commission was the older one, and hence if c.o.c.ke had joined his "ranking officer," Jackson would have been in command of the whole force. It was alleged at the time and afterward that both the East Tennessee troops and their commander were jealous of Jackson and his army, and envious of that army's success. To this unworthy motive General c.o.c.ke's conduct has generally been attributed. Mr. Pickett, in his History of Alabama, gives an account of the matter, which is substantially the same as those given by Drake in his Book of the Indians, and by most other writers.

In that account he says, without doubt or qualification, that the want of concert between the two divisions of the army grew "out of a jealousy of the former [the East Tennessee division], and a strong desire to share some of the glory which the latter had already acquired in the few battles they had fought."

Mr. Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, gives a different version of the affair, attributing General c.o.c.ke's course to his earnestness in the cause, and his knowledge of certain facts which were unknown to General Jackson. To that we shall come presently; but while General c.o.c.ke's statement, upon which Mr. Parton founds his opinion, is certainly ent.i.tled to consideration, it must not be forgotten that General c.o.c.ke was under at least implied orders to join Jackson--orders which he was bound as a soldier to obey, whatever his judgment may have dictated; that whatever he may have known, there were two or three things which he did not know; that one of these things unknown to him--namely, the departure of Jackson from Fort Strother--made his obedience to orders very necessary to the successful execution of Jackson's plans; and that his want of knowledge of another fact led to the perpetration of a fearful outrage--the driving of Indians who were disposed to become peaceful into fierce hostility, and the increase of the ferocity of the war. It was General c.o.c.ke's business to obey his orders, expressed or necessarily implied. For reasons which he thought good, he neglected to do so, and great evil resulted.

On the march southward c.o.c.ke's army had destroyed two or three deserted Indian villages, but had had no encounter with the enemy. When General c.o.c.ke arrived within a few days' march of Fort Strother he detached General White and sent him to Turkey Town. Thence White marched to Tallushatchee, intending to attack the place, but he arrived there after Coffee had destroyed the force gathered at that point, although his visit was on the same day. As he was marching to join Jackson, it does not very clearly appear why General White did not follow Coffee to the camp of the main body. He returned to Turkey Town instead, and from that point reported to Jackson, as we have seen, just as the army was about to march upon Talladega. He was at once ordered to advance and replace Jackson's force at the fort, but before he could execute the order he received the instructions from General c.o.c.ke already referred to, directing him to turn back and join the East Tennessee division at the mouth of the Chattooga River. Believing that in a case of conflicting orders it was his duty to obey that which came from his immediate superior, General White obeyed c.o.c.ke rather than Jackson.

c.o.c.ke had determined upon a separate operation against the Hillabees, and sending White to one of the Hillabee towns, that officer surprised and destroyed it on the 18th of November, killing sixty of the Hillabees and taking two hundred and fifty prisoners, mostly women and children.

Pickett says, "The Hillabees, it is a.s.serted, made not the slightest resistance. At all events, not a drop of Tennessee blood was spilt."

The unfortunate feature of this affair was that to the Indians it wore the appearance of the basest and cruelest treachery. These Hillabees had been great sufferers at Jackson's hands in the battle of Talladega, and becoming convinced by the result of that battle that resistance was useless, they determined to surrender and make peace. They sent Robert Grayson, an old Scotchman who had lived among them for many years, to Jackson's camp to sue for peace, proposing to lay down their arms, and to comply with whatever terms Jackson might impose upon them. As the object of the war was not to kill the Creeks in wantonness, but to secure peace and good conduct at their hands, Jackson properly regarded the proposed surrender of the Hillabee tribe as the richest fruit of the campaign. Accordingly, he sent Grayson back to them with a lecture, and an acceptance of their capitulation. He said to them: "Upon those who are disposed to become friendly, I neither wish nor intend to make war; but they must afford evidences of the sincerity of their professions.

The prisoners and property they have taken from us and the friendly Creeks must be restored. The instigators of the war and the murderers of our citizens must be surrendered."

While Jackson was yet rejoicing in the belief that his hard-fought battle at Talladega and the hardships endured upon that expedition had accomplished so much more than the mere defeat of the enemy there, his work was utterly undone by the ill-timed and unfortunate expedition of White against the Hillabees. These people knew nothing of the divided councils of the Tennessee army, and when White came down upon one of their towns, while their messenger was still absent upon his errand of peace, they naturally supposed that their a.s.sailants were Jackson's men, and that he had sent them as his relentless messengers to answer the Hillabee prayer for peace with the merciless stroke of the sword.

Convinced that Jackson was implacable, and that no hope remained to them, the Hillabees fled from all their towns and joined the hostile forces, wherever bodies of them could be found. Drake says, in the Book of the Indians:

"The Indians thought they had been attacked by General Jackson's army, and that therefore they were now to expect nothing but extermination; and this was thought to be the reason why they fought with such desperation afterwards. And truly they had reason for their fears; they knew none but Jackson, and supposed now that nothing short of their total destruction would satisfy him, as their conduct exemplified on every occasion. They knew they had asked peace on any terms, and their immediate answer was the sword and bayonet."

In acting as he did, without first consulting with General Jackson and learning both the exact situation of affairs and the nature of his superior officer's purposes, General c.o.c.ke did wrong in a military sense. Of this there seems to be no room whatever for doubt or question, and as his wrong-doing led to disastrous results, it was altogether natural that both General Jackson and the historians should severely censure the offending officer, as they did; General Jackson being violently exasperated, as well he might be, when he learned the full results of the blunder.

In saying as we do, that General c.o.c.ke was clearly culpable for acting as he did, we do not necessarily imply that his course was dictated by the jealousy and envy to which it has been attributed, or indeed by unworthy motives of any kind. His motives may, perhaps, have been perfectly unselfish; his conduct the result merely of bad judgment, or of inaccurate notions of military duty; but to establish these facts is only to palliate, not to excuse his offence. It is unjust, however, in any discussion of these matters, to neglect the defence which General c.o.c.ke made of his conduct.

That defence was made in the autumn of the year 1852, in a letter published in the _National Intelligencer_, and was prompted by the publication of certain criticisms upon General c.o.c.ke's conduct. In the letter he says:

"About the 1st of October I rendezvoused my troops at Knoxville, and they mustered into service; and on the twelfth day after, I took up the line of march. I encamped with my command on the banks of the Coosa, which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and Creek Indians, where I was compelled to halt for want of provisions for my own command; and at no time after I left Knoxville had I more than five days' rations for my army. At this point I waited for supplies from the contractor, but owing to the low water they did not arrive, and I was compelled to procure supplies from the Cherokees as best I could. General White joined me with his brigade in a starving condition upon the second day after my arrival on the Coosa."

Mr. Parton offers the following comment upon this part of the letter and upon the situation:

"It thus appears that while General Jackson was anxiously looking for supplies from General c.o.c.ke, General c.o.c.ke himself was as dest.i.tute as General Jackson. A junction of the two armies would have had the sole effect of doubling Jackson's embarra.s.sments, inasmuch as he would have had five thousand men to feed in the wilderness instead of twenty-five hundred, and would have required twenty wagon-loads of provisions daily instead of ten. General c.o.c.ke knew this; knew that Jackson's anxiety for a junction had arisen from an expectation that the East Tennesseeans would bring supplies with them; did not know that Jackson's dash at Talladega had left Fort Strother unprotected--did not know any thing about the Hillabees' suing for peace, and Jackson's favorable reply to them."

This, we say, is at most only a palliation of the offence. General c.o.c.ke did not know, as Mr. Parton says, that Jackson's anxiety for a union of the two armies was due to his expectation that the East Tennesseeans would bring supplies with them, because that was not the fact. He did expect them to bring provisions, but his anxiety for a junction was not altogether on that account. He wanted White's men for a garrison for Fort Strother, and hence General c.o.c.ke only believed that which Mr. Parton a.s.sumes that he knew. Again, if the junction had been made, and the doubling of the number of men had embarra.s.sed Jackson, it would have been easy for him to separate the forces again. Moreover, after the Hillabee expedition was ended, General c.o.c.ke was ready and willing to join Jackson, while the scarcity of provisions remained; if his reason for not forming the junction was good in the one case, it was good also in the other. Indeed, General c.o.c.ke has himself contradicted the plea which Mr. Parton makes in his behalf. While General White was still absent on the Hillabee expedition, General c.o.c.ke wrote a letter to Jackson, in which he said:

"I entertain the opinion that to make the present campaign as successful as it ought to be, it is essential that the whole force from Tennessee should act in concert. I have despatched all my mounted men, whose horses were fit for duty, on the Hillabee towns, to destroy them. I expect their return in a few days. I send the bearer to you for the sake of intelligence as to your intended operations, and for the sake of a.s.suring you that I will most heartily agree to any plan that will be productive of the most good."

From the fact that he thus arranged to put himself within the range of Jackson's authority as soon as his Hillabee campaign should be ended, the inference is inevitable that General c.o.c.ke neglected to make the contemplated earlier junction in order that he might carry out this little scheme of his own. Inasmuch as a court-martial, composed of officers who, General c.o.c.ke says, were his bitterest enemies and Jackson's closest friends, fully acquitted the accused officer of guilt, it is only fair to the memory of a brave and conscientious soldier to believe that he acted for the good of the cause; that his anxiety to deal a blow at the Hillabees was prompted by a desire to serve the ends of the campaign, not by unworthy jealousy of Jackson; but beyond this it does not appear to be possible to go. We may properly acquit General c.o.c.ke of petty envy, and of conscious insubordination, but it is impossible not to see that his course was ill-judged as well as calamitous in its results, and it is impossible also to blame Jackson for his displeasure with his subordinate. The most that General c.o.c.ke establishes in his defence, which is elaborate, is that he acted in accordance with the unanimous opinion of his field officers; that he conscientiously believed that his course was the best one to be pursued in the circ.u.mstances, and that it was dictated solely by his earnest desire to serve the cause. The most that is proved against him appears to be, that he acted with smaller regard to strict military rules than an officer of his rank should have done. He was guilty of a blunder, not of a crime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COL CALLER'S ROUTE TO BURNT CORN CREEK]