{168}
_Engagement at Lewistown--Fight in Delaware Bay--Burning of Havre
de Grace, Georgetown, and Fredericktown--Battle at Craney
Island--Destruction of Hampton--Troubles with the Southern
Indians--Fight at Burnt Corn Creek--Massacre at Fort Mims--Jackson's
Campaign--Fights at Talluschatches, Talladega, the Hillabee Towns,
Autosse, and Econochaca--Dale's Canoe Fight._
|While these costly and almost useless campaigns were being fought at
the North, the Southern States were not without their war experiences,
which in some instances were quite as bloody. Along the southern
Atlantic coast the British had a great advantage from their heavy
war-ships, which blockaded-the harbors, ran into the navigable inlets,
bombarded the towns, and sent parties ashore to plunder and burn. The
militia did what they could to repel these incursions, and in some
cases, by handling a few pieces of artillery skilfully, drove off the
invaders. Lewistown, on Delaware Bay, was bombarded in April. The shells
fell short, and the rockets went over the town, but many of the solid
shot went through the houses, doing considerable damage. In May, a party
of {169}sailors sent ashore to get water for the squadron near Lewistown
were spiritedly attacked by militia, and compelled to return to their
ships with empty casks. A fortnight later a party was sent ashore for
provisions, but was driven off by the vigilant militia before a mouthful
had been obtained.
On the 29th of July the British sloop-of-war _Martin_ grounded in
Delaware Bay, and eight gunboats and two sloops, commanded by Captain
Angus, went down to attack her. They anchored within three quarters of a
mile, and opened upon her with all their guns. The frigate _Junon_ came
to her assistance, and the cannonade was kept up for nearly two hours.
The British sailors proved to be very poor gunners, in comparison with
the Americans. Hardly a shot struck the gun-boats, while the sloop and
the frigate were hulled at almost every discharge. At length the British
manned their launches, barges, and cutters, to the number of ten, and
pulled off to cut out some of the gun-boats at the end of the line.
Eight of them attacked a single gun-boat commanded by Sailing-Master
Shead, who used his sweeps to get his craft nearer the squadron,
from which it had become separated, but all the while kept firing his
twenty-four pounder at his pursuers, striking one or another of them
with almost every shot. Finding they were rapidly gain{170}ing on him,
he anchored and waited for them to attempt boarding. He gave them two
more gunfuls, as they drew nigh, with terrible effect, when the piece
became disabled. The barges completely surrounded the little gun-boat,
and there was a desperate conflict hand-to-hand. But of course it could
not last long. Shead's crew were soon overpowered, and the British flag
waved triumphantly over his deck. Seven of the British sailors had been
killed, and twelve wounded, while seven of Shead's men were wounded.
On the Chesapeake the Americans fared even worse. Early in the morning
of the 3d of May, the British Admiral Cockburn sent a force in nineteen
barges to destroy the town of Havre de Grace and ravage the country
between it and Baltimore. A small battery had been erected for the
defence of the place; but it was still dark when the enemy came, and the
first notice the inhabitants had of his approach was given by the balls
whistling through the houses. A panic and stampede ensued. But a few men
ran to the battery, and fired at the barges till the British began
to land, when they all joined in the flight, except an old man named
O'Neill, who stood by one of the guns and continued to load and fire it
till, in recoiling, it ran over his thigh and somewhat disabled him. He
{171}still had strength to get away, armed himself with two muskets, and
tried in vain to rally the militia, but finally was taken prisoner.
He and his companions at the battery had killed three of the enemy and
wounded two.
As soon as the British forces had landed, fire was set to the houses not
already destroyed by shells, while the sailors and marines went
through them, smashing furniture, cutting open beds to feed the flames,
insulting women, and spreading terror. One house only, filled with
women, was spared after a special appeal to the Admiral. A church just
outside of the town was gutted, farm-houses on the road to Baltimore
were plundered, travellers were robbed, and bridges, furnaces, and mills
were destroyed.
The little villages of Georgetown and Fredericktown, Maryland, were the
next spoil of the Admiral, who led the ravaging party in person. But
he did not succeed in landing till his men in the boats had suffered
severely from the fire of a battery manned by thirty-five militiamen,
which was kept up steadily for half an hour. Not a house was left
standing in either of the villages, and the enemy enriched themselves
with all the plunder they could carry away.
About this time Admiral Warren, who had issued {172}from Bermuda a
proclamation declaring New York, Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah, and
the whole of the Mississippi River under blockade--a paper blockade, at
which both Americans and neutrals laughed--joined Admiral Cockburn, in
the Chesapeake, and they determined to extend as far as possible the
pillaging and burning of towns on the coast.
The next one selected was Norfolk, Va. But the approach to the town was
commanded by a battery on Craney Island, and this battery was promptly
manned by a hundred American sailors, under command of Lieutenant Neale,
of the navy, and fifty marines under Lieutenant Breckenridge. It was
dawn of day on the 22d of June when four thousand British sailors and
marines, in barges, came in sight of the island; and when they were
fairly under the guns of the battery, it blazed out. The pieces were
served rapidly and with such precision that many of the barges were cut
clear in two, and their occupants would have been drowned had they not
been promptly rescued by the others. The Admiral was in a boat fifty
feet long, called the _Centipede_, and this was so riddled with shot
that he and his crew had barely time to get out of it when it sank.
Before this merciless and unremitting fire the squadron of barges at
length retreated {173}to the ships. At the same time, a body of eight
hundred soldiers had been put ashore, to attack the town by land. But
for them a force of Virginia volunteers, under Colonel Beatty, were
waiting, with a well-placed battery of six guns. The enemy had not all
landed when the battery opened upon them, with such effect that they
retreated at once. A part of them took refuge in a house, from which
they fired rockets at the battery-men; but an American gun-boat came up
and sent a few twenty-four-pound balls crashing through the house,
when the last of the enemy fled, making their way back to the fleet as
speedily as possible.
Smarting under this defeat, the British commanders immediately planned
the destruction of Hampton, eighteen miles from Norfolk, which they
supposed would cut off communication between the latter place and the
upper part of Virginia.
At daylight on the 25th, two thousand five hundred soldiers, commanded
by Sir Sydney Beckwith, were landed several miles below Hampton, and
marched on the town. At the same time, a squadron of boats, commanded
by Admiral Cockburn and protected by the sloop-of-war _Mohawk_, drew
up before the place and fired in rockets, shells, and solid shot. The
entire garrison of the place consisted of six hundred and thirty-six
men, com{174}manded by Major Crutchfield, who had seven pieces of
artillery.
As Cockburn's barges approached the town, fire was opened upon them with
two twelve-pounders, which did so much execution that the Admiral found
it discreet to draw off and take position behind a point of land where
the American gunners could not see him. From this shelter he fired
rockets and shells for an hour, but so wildly that not the slightest
damage was effected by them.
Crutchfield sent a company of riflemen, under Captain Servant, with
orders to conceal themselves in the woods near the road where Beckwith's
column would pass in approaching the town, to annoy and delay it as much
as possible. This was done so skilfully as to inflict considerable
loss upon the enemy; and when Crutchfield saw that the barges would not
approach the town again till it was in the possession of Beckwith, he
marched with the greater part of his force to the assistance of the
riflemen, leaving Captain Pryor with a few men to manage the battery and
keep off the barges.
Crutchfield's column was fired upon just as the British column had been,
by riflemen concealed in a wood; and as he wheeled to charge upon the
hidden foe, he was greeted by a sudden fire from two six-pounders and
a discharge of rockets. The {175}enemy's artillery was so well handled
that Crutchfield's column was broken up, and a portion of it driven from
the field. The remainder made its way through a defile, all the while
under fire, to a junction with Servant's riflemen. At the same time
Captain Cooper, with what few cavalrymen the Americans had, was annoying
the enemy's left flank.
Crutchfield kept up the fighting with spirit as long as possible, but of
course was obliged to give way at last. Captain Pryor and his men held
their ground at the battery, preventing any landing from the barges,
till the enemy's land force came up in the rear and was within sixty
yards of the guns. He then ordered the artillerists to spike the pieces,
and break through the corps of British marines approaching in the rear;
which order was at once obeyed, to the astonishment of the marines,
who failed to hurt or capture a single man. With Captain Pryor still at
their head, the little band plunged into a creek and swam across, those
who had car-fines or side-arms taking them with them, and escaped beyond
pursuit. Crutchfield in his retreat was followed for two miles by a
strong force, which failed to overtake him, while he frequently halted
his men behind fences and walls, to deliver a volley at the approaching
enemy and then continue the retreat. {176}In this fight the British had
ninety men killed, and a hundred and twenty wounded. The American loss
was seven killed, twelve wounded, and twelve missing.
The village of Hampton was now at the mercy of an enemy who showed
no mercy, and was immediately given up to plunder and outrage, which
continued for two days and nights. The town was not burned, but every
house was ruined as to its furniture and decorations, except the one
in which the commanding officers were quartered. Such deeds were
perpetrated by the British soldiers and sailors, unrestrained by their
officers, as had hardly been paralleled even in Indian warfare. Neither
age nor sex nor innocence was any protection. In one case an old and
infirm citizen was murdered in the presence of his aged wife; and when
she remonstrated, a soldier presented a pistol at her breast and shot
her dead. Women with infants in their arms were pursued till they threw
themselves into the river to escape, children were wantonly killed,
and such shameful scenes were enacted as cannot even be mentioned in
a history written for youth. The soldiers destroyed all the medical
stores, that were necessary for the care of the sick and wounded. They
also stole a considerable number of slaves and sent them to the West
Indies, not to be liber{177}ated, but to be sold and turned into cash.
When they abandoned the town, they went in such haste that they left
behind a large quantity of provisions, arms, and ammunition, and some of
their men, who were captured next day by Cooper's cavalry.
The indignation aroused by the unhappy fate of Hampton was such that
General Robert R. Taylor, commandant of the district, addressed a letter
to Admiral Warren, inquiring whether the outrages were sanctioned by
the British commanders, and if not, whether the perpetrators were to be
punished. The Admiral referred the letter to Sir Sydney Beckwith, who
did not attempt to deny that the outrages had been committed as
charged, but said that "the excesses at Hampton, of which General Taylor
complains, were occasioned by a proceeding at Craney Island. At the
recent attack on that place, the troops in a barge which had been
sunk by the fire of the American guns had been fired on by a party of
Americans, who waded out and shot these poor fellows while clinging to
the wreck of the boat; and with a feeling natural to such a proceeding,
the men of that corps landed at Hampton." General Taylor at once
appointed a court of inquiry, which by a careful investigation found
that none of the men belonging to the wrecked barge had been fired upon,
except one who was trying to escape to {178}that division of the British
troops which had landed, and he was not killed; while, so far from
shooting the unfortunate men in the water, some of the Americans had
waded out to assist them. The report embodying these facts was forwarded
to Sir Sydney, who never made any reply--which perhaps is the most
nearly graceful thing a man can do when he has been convicted of a
deliberate and outrageous falsehood.
In the far South a better success attended the American arms this summer
than either on the Northern border or the Atlantic coast. This was
owing partly to the greater simplicity of the task that lay before the
commanders, and partly to the greater energy with which they entered
upon it, but chiefly to the difference in the enemy. In Canada and on
the coast, our men contended with forces largely made up of British
regulars, at that time perhaps the most efficient soldiery in the world.
In Florida and Alabama they contended indeed with British arms, but they
were in the hands of Indians.
The English agents at Pensacola, with the connivance of the Spanish
authorities there--for Florida belonged to Spain till the United States
purchased it in 1819--had supplied the Creeks with rifles, ammunition,
and provisions, and sent them {179}on the war-path, not against the
American armies, for there were none in that region, but against the
settlers and scattered posts along the navigable rivers. A premium of
five dollars was offered for every scalp--whether of man, woman, or
child--which the savages might bring to the British agency.
The militia of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee were called out to meet
the emergency, and before the year was over the Creeks had been made to
suffer a terrible retribution.
As one body of these Indians, commanded by a half-breed named McQueen,
started for the interior, a militia force under Colonel James Caller set
out to intercept them. On the 27th of July they were found encamped on
a small, low peninsula enclosed in one of the windings of Burnt Corn
Creek. Caller promptly attacked them, and after a sharp action routed
them. But he called back the pursuing detachment too soon, the Indians
rallied, a part of the whites fled in panic, and the remainder had
a severe fight with the savages, in which they were outnumbered and
defeated. Caller lost two men killed and fifteen wounded.
This victory inspired the Indians with new confidence, while it spread
terror among the settlers. The next hostile movement was against Fort
Mims{180}on Lake Tensas, near Alabama River, forty miles northward
of Mobile. This work was a stockade enclosure of about an acre, which
a farmer named Mims had erected for the protection of his buildings and
cattle. It was loop-holed for musketry all round, and at one corner
was an uncompleted blockhouse. When the alarm of Indian raids had gone
forth, the settlers flocked to Fort Mims from all sides, and Governor
Claiborne sent a hundred and seventy-five volunteers, under Major Daniel
Beasley, to defend it. The space was so crowded that it became necessary
to extend the stockade, and another enclosure was made on the eastern
side, but the fence between was left standing. On the 29th of August,
a thousand Creek warriors, commanded by William Weathersford, a
half-breed, arrived within a quarter of a mile of the fort, and
concealed themselves in a ravine. Some of them were seen by two Negroes
who had been sent out to tend cattle; but when they had given the alarm,
and a scouting party had failed to find any trace of Indians, they were
not only disbelieved, but severely flogged for lying.
After many false alarms, the occupants of the fort had become
incredulous and careless of danger, their commander perhaps most so of
all. On the 30th the gates stood wide open, no guard was set, {181}and
when the drum beat for dinner the soldiers laid aside their arms and
went to their meal at the moment when the savages sprang from their
hiding-place and with their well-known yell rushed toward the stockade.
Officers and men sprang to arms at the frightful sound. Major Beasley,
in attempting to close the outer gate, was knocked down and run over
by the foremost of the assailants, many of whom poured into the outer
enclosure, where they quickly murdered all the whites whom they found.
Beasley himself crawled off in a corner to die, and the command devolved
upon Captain Bailey.
When the Indians attempted to enter the inner enclosure, they were
stopped by a fire through the loop-holes in the partition. Five of their
prophets, who had proclaimed that their charms and incantations rendered
the American bullets harmless, all fell dead at the first discharge.
This produced a temporary check, but new swarms of the naked savages
came up, and a desperate fight through the loop-holes was maintained for
several hours. The soldiers stood manfully at their posts, were assisted
by some of the women and boys, and killed a large number of the Indians,
who, on the other hand, were sure of hitting somebody whenever they
fired into the crowded enclosure. Numbers of the red-skins were
constantly dancing, hooting, and {182}yelling around the fort, many of
whom were shot by the old men of the garrison, who had ascended to the
attic of the largest house and cut holes in the roof.
The enemy were getting tired of this costly work, when Weathersford came
up, exhorted them to new efforts, and directed fire-tipped arrows to be
shot into the fort. In a short time the buildings were in flames, and
the miserable inmates, driven by the heat, were huddled in one corner,
when the Indians burst in and rapidly completed the massacre. Children
were taken by the heels, and their brains dashed out against the walls;
women were butchered in a manner unknown since the wars of the ancient
Jews; a few Negroes were kept for slaves, but not one white person was
left alive--excepting twelve, who had secretly cut an opening through
the stockade and escaped by way of the lake. Of the five hundred and
fifty-three persons in the fort at noon, at least four hundred perished
before night; and it was believed that about as many of the Indians had
been killed or wounded.
The tidings of this massacre of course excited horror and indignation
in every part of the country, but nowhere met so prompt and practical a
response as in Tennessee. The Legislature of that {183}State called for
thirty-five hundred volunteers--in addition to fifteen hundred whom she
had already enrolled in the service of the general Government--voted an
appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars, and placed them under
command of General Andrew Jackson. * To General John Cocke was entrusted
the work of gathering the troops from East Tennessee, and providing
subsistence for the whole. Fayetteville was appointed as the general
rendezvous, and Colonel John Coffee was sent forward to Huntsville,
Alabama, with a cavalry force of five hundred men, which by the time he
arrived there was increased to thirteen hundred.
Jackson reached Fayetteville on the 7th of October, began drilling his
men, and on the 11th, hearing from Coffee that the enemy was in sight,
marched them to Huntsville--thirty-two miles--in five hours. For the
work in hand, he could not have asked for better material than these
Western pioneers, who were skilled in wood-craft, who knew the tricks
and manners of the enemy, and were as fearless as they were cunning.
Among them were Sam Houston and the eccentric and now famous David
Crockett.
The only serious trouble was in forwarding the
* At this time the General was lying helpless at Nashville, from wounds
received in a disgraceful affray.
{184}supplies. At the most southerly point on Tennessee River, while he
sent out the cavalry to forage, Jackson drilled the infantry and built
Fort Deposit, intended as a depot for provisions when the rise of water
should allow them to be sent down.
Forty-five miles southward, at the Ten Islands of the Coosa, friendly
Indians were calling for help against the hostile Creeks. By a week's
march, in which he foraged on all sides and burned several villages,
Jackson reached that place. The enemy were in camp at Talluschatches
(now Jacksonville), thirteen miles eastward, and on the night of
November 2d Colonel Coffee was sent out with a thousand mounted men and
a few friendly Creeks, to attack them. At sunrise he divided his force
into two columns, the heads of which united near the place, while the
remainder, swinging outward and forward, made a semicircle about the
little town. Within this, two companies were pushed forward to entice
the Indians from their shelter. This accomplished, these companies
retreated, and the whole line opened fire upon the savages and rapidly
closed in upon them. "Our men rushed up to the doors of the houses,"
said Coffee in his report, "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 {185}complaining. Not one asked to be
spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit." About two
hundred Indians were killed, and eighty-four women and children were
made prisoners. The Americans lost five men killed and forty-one
wounded.
At this point Jackson was joined after a time by the forces from East
Tennessee under General Cocke, and here he built Fort Strother. But
before Cocke's arrival he learned that a few friendly Indians in Fort
Talladega, thirty miles south, were completely surrounded by a thousand
Creeks, who would soon reduce them by starvation. The news was brought
by a chief who had disguised himself in a hog-skin and escaped from the
fort by night.
Jackson at once put himself at the head of two thousand men, and marched
to the relief of the little fort. On the 9th of November he arrived
within striking distance of the enemy, when he deployed his columns,
placing the volunteers on the right, the militia on the left, and the
cavalry on the wings. He adopted precisely the same plan of attack
that Coffee had used at Talluschatches; but it was not so completely
successful, for two companies of the militia temporarily gave way, and
a part of the cavalry had to dismount and fill the gap. Jackson believed
that but for this he should have killed every {186}one of the thousand
hostile Indians before him. As it was, two hundred and ninety-nine of
them were left dead on the field, while the remainder were chased to the
mountains, and left a bloody track as they ran. The loss of the whites
was fifteen killed and eighty-six wounded.
The Indians of the Hillabee towns, in what is now Cherokee county, sent
a messenger to Jackson to sue for peace, through whom he replied that
they could only have it on condition of returning prisoners and property
and surrendering for punishment those who had been engaged in the
massacres. But while they awaited an answer, General Cocke, working his
way down the Coosa, sent a force, under General White, to attack these
towns. White marched rapidly, destroying everything in his path, and on
the 18th of November appeared before the principal village, which he at
once fell upon, and killed sixty unresisting Indians, and carried back
with him the squaws and children. The Indians, who supposed all the
whites were under Jackson's command, looked upon this as a piece of
treachery, and became more desperate than ever. For this unfortunate
affair, General Cocke has been severely blamed; but he was tried by
a court-martial, and honorably acquitted, while his own published
statement makes it clear that he acted in entire good {187}faith. He was
as destitute of provisions as Jackson was, and thought if he pushed on
to Fort Strother it would only double the number of starving soldiers
there.
While Jackson was coming down from the north, General John Floyd, with
nine hundred and fifty Georgians and four hundred Indians, was coming
from the east. He first found the enemy at Autosse, on the Tallapoosa,
thirty miles east of the present site of Montgomery, where, on the 29th
of November, he attacked them, drove them from their villages to holes
and caves in the river-bank, burned all their dwellings, and then hunted
down and killed as many of them as possible. At least two hundred fell.
The whites lost eleven killed and fifty-four wounded.
General Ferdinand L. Claiborne entered the country from the west in
July, and built small forts at various points. On the 12th of December
he left Fort Claiborne (on the site of the present town of that name)
with a thousand men, and after marching more than a hundred miles
northeast, he came on the 23d to an Indian town of refuge, called
Econochaca, on the Alabama, west of Montgomery. This village was built
upon what the Indian prophets assured the tribe was holy ground, which
no white man could set, foot upon and live. No path {188}of any kind led
to it. Here the women and children had been sent for safety; here, in a
little square, the prophets performed their religious rites, which are
supposed to have included the burning of captives at the stake. Several
captives, of both sexes, it is said were standing with the wood piled
about them when Claiborne's columns appeared before the town.
The Indians, who had hurried their women and children across the river,
fought desperately for a short time, and then broke and fled, many of
them swimming the river and escaping. About thirty were killed. The
whites lost one killed and six wounded. Claiborne sacked and burned the
village, and then returned to Fort Claiborne, where his forces rapidly
melted away by the expiration of their terms of service. Jackson, at
Fort Strother, was in a similar predicament; and thus closed the year on
the campaign at the South. It had been attended with many instances of
individual bravery and exciting and romantic adventure, one of the most
famous of which is known as the Canoe Fight, of which General Samuel
Dale was the hero. There can be no better account of it than Dale's
own, as he related it some years afterward to his friend Hon. John H. F.
Claiborne, who incorporated it in his "Life of Dale." The General was on
his way, {189}November 13th, with sixty men, to attack an Indian camp on
the east side of the Alabama, near what is now Dale's Ferry. He says:
"I put thirty of my men on the east bank, where the path ran directly
by the river-side. With twenty men I kept the western bank, and thus we
proceeded to Randon's Landing. A dozen fires were burning, and numerous
scaffolds for drying meat, denoting a large body of Indians; but none
were visible. About half past ten A.M. we discerned a large canoe coming
down stream. It contained eleven warriors. Observing that they were
about to land at a cane-brake just above us, I called to my men to
follow, and dashed for the-, cane-brake with all my might. Only seven
of my men kept up with me. As the Indians were in the act of landing, we
fired. Two leaped into the water. Jim Smith shot one as he rose, and I
shot the other. In the mean time they had backed into deep water, and
three Indians were swimming on the off side of the canoe, working her as
far from the shore as they could, to get out of the range of our guns.
The others lay in the bottom of the canoe, which was thirty odd
feet long, four feet deep, and three feet beam, made of an immense
cypress-tree, specially for the transportation of corn. One of the
warriors shouted to Weathersford (who was in the {190}vicinity, as it
afterward appeared, but invisible to us), 'Yos-ta-hah! yos-ta-hah!'
'They are spoiling us.' This fellow was in the water, his hands on the
gunwale of the pirogue, and as often as he rose to shout we fired,
but ineffectually. He suddenly showed himself breast-high, whooping in
derision, and said, 'Why don't you shoot?' I drew my sight just between
his hands, and as he rose I lodged a bullet in his brains. Their canoe
then floated down with the current. I ordered my men on the east bank
to fetch the boats. Six of them jumped into a canoe, and paddled to the
Indians, when one of them cried out, 'Live Indians! Back water, boys!
back water!' and the frightened fellows paddled back whence they came.
I next ordered Cæsar, a free Negro fellow, to bring a boat. Seeing him
hesitate, I swore I would shoot him the moment I got across. He crossed
a hundred yards below the Indians, and Jim Smith, Jerry Austill, and
myself got in. I made Cæsar paddle within forty paces, when all three of
us levelled our guns, and all missed fire! As the two boats approached,
one of them hurled his scalping-knife at me. It pierced the boat through
and through, just grazing my thigh as it passed. The next moment the
canoes came in contact. I leaped up, placing one of my feet in each
boat. At the same instant the {191}foremost warrior levelled his rifle
at my breast. It flashed in the pan. As quick as lightning, he clubbed
it, and aimed at me a furious blow, which I partially parried, and,
before he could repeat it, I shivered his skull with my gun. In the mean
time an Indian had struck down Jerry, and was about to despatch him,
when I broke my rifle over his head. It parted in two places. The barrel
Jerry seized, and renewed the fight. The stock I hurled at one of the
savages. Being then disarmed, Caesar handed me his musket and bayonet.
"Finding myself unable to keep the two canoes in juxtaposition, I
resolved to bring matters to an issue, and leaped into the Indian boat.
My pirogue, with Jerry, Jim, and Caesar, floated off. Jim fired, and
slightly wounded the Indian next to me. I now stood in the centre of
their canoe--two dead at my feet--a wounded savage in the stern, who
had been snapping his piece at me during the fight, and four powerful
warriors in front. The first one directed a furious blow at me with his
rifle; it glanced upon the barrel of my musket, and I staved the bayonet
through his body. As he fell, the next one repeated the attack. A shot
from Jerry Austill pierced his heart. Striding over them, the next
sprung at me with his tomahawk. I killed him with the bayonet, and
his corpse lay between me {192}and the last of the party. I knew him
well--Tar-cha-chee, a noted wrestler, and the most famous ball-player of
his clan. He paused a moment in expectation of my attack, but, finding
me motionless, he stepped backward to the bow of the canoe, shook
himself, gave the war-whoop of his tribe, and cried out, 'Sam tholocco
_Iana dahmaska, ia-lanes-tha--lipso--lipso--lanestha. Big Sam! I am a
man--I am coming--come on!_' As he said this, with a terrific yell he
bounded over the dead body of his comrade, and directed a blow at my
head with his rifle, which dislocated my left shoulder. I dashed the
bayonet into him. It glanced round his ribs, and the point hitching to
his back-bone, I pressed him down. As I pulled the weapon out, he put
his hands upon the sides of the canoe and endeavored to rise, crying
out, '_Tar-cha-chee is a man. He is not afraid to die!_' I drove my
bayonet through his heart. I then turned to the wounded villain in the
stern, who snapped his rifle at me as I advanced, and had been snapping
during the whole conflict. He gave the war-whoop, and, in tones of
hatred and defiance, exclaimed, '_I am a warrior--I am not afraid to
die._' As he uttered the words I pinned him down with my bayonet, and he
followed his eleven comrades to the land of spirits. {193}"During this
conflict, which was over in ten minutes, my brave companions, Smith
and Austill, had been struggling with the current of the Alabama,
endeavoring to reach me. Their guns had become useless, and their only
paddle had been broken. Two braver fellows never lived. Austin's first
shot saved my life.
"By this time my men came running down the bank, shouting that
Weathersford was coming. With our three canoes we crossed them all over,
and got safely back to the fort."