{223}
_Condition of Affairs at the Opening of the Third Year--Congressional
Appropriations--Russian Offers of Mediation--Jackson's
Preparations--Battles of Emucfau, Enotachopco, and Horseshoe Bend._
|At the beginning of the third year of the war the prospects of the
Americans were more discouraging than at any previous period. The
European wars had come to an end for the time, Napoleon having been
overthrown at Leipsic, and Great Britain, with an immense navy and an
abundance of veteran troops, was at liberty to turn her entire attention
upon the enemy across the Atlantic. Indeed, her fleet on our coast had
been gradually increasing for several months, and Admirals Warren and
Cockburn had shown a determination not to confine their operations to
combats of vessel with vessel, but wherever practicable to send a force
ashore to harass the people, burn their homes, and carry off their
movable property. Harrison's victory was almost the only achievement
of the American land forces worth mentioning. The little navy was as
gallant as ever, and had suffered no defeat in {224}anything like an
equal fight, except in the case of the _Chesapeake_; but now it seemed
likely to be overwhelmed by a power that could send against it a
thousand war-ships. Two powerful ones had already been sent for the
special purpose of capturing one of our cruisers, the _Essex_, with
orders to follow her wherever she went, and take her at all hazards. The
operations of the privateers had struck the English nation in its most
tender spot, the pocket, and roused it to a furious determination for
vengeance; while the London journals were boldly talking of schemes for
using the opportunity to cut off various slices of our territory.
Though the Federal party had declined in popular strength, its leaders
in Congress opposed the war as bitterly as ever; but after considerable
debate an act was passed to increase the regular army to sixty thousand
men, enlisted for five years. A bounty of a hundred and twenty-four
dollars was voted for recruits, and eight dollars to each man who
brought in one. Seven hundred men were added to the Marine Corps, half
a million dollars appropriated for a floating battery, and a hundred
dollars offered for every prisoner brought home by a privateer. There
was a surplus of a million dollars in the treasury, and five millions
were yet to be paid in from loans, while the revenue for the ensuing
year was estimated {225}at ten millions. The expenditures were
estimated at forty-five millions, and Congress authorized a new loan of
twenty-five millions, and a reissue of ten millions in treasury notes.
The Russian Government offered its friendly offices as a mediator for
peace, three times in the course of the war; but each time the offer
was rejected by England. Once--in March, 1813--the offer was formally
accepted on the part of the United States, and Albert Gallatin and
James A. Bayard, who believed the English Government would accept it as
readily, sailed for St. Petersburg, to join John Quincy Adams, American
Minister at the Russian Court, in negotiating the peace. The London
_Courier_ probably spoke the sentiments of a large part of the British
public when it said:
"We hope the Russian mediation will be refused. Indeed, we are sure it
will. We have a love for our naval preeminence that cannot bear to have
it even touched by a foreign hand. Russia can be hardly supposed to be
adverse to the principle of armed neutrality, and that idea alone would
be sufficient to make us decline the offer. We must take our stand,
never to commit our naval rights to the mediation of any power. This
is the flag we must nail to the national mast, and go down rather than
strike it. The hour of concession {226}and compromise is past. Peace
must be the consequence of punishment to America; and retraction of her
insolent demands must precede negotiation. The thunder of our cannon
must first strike terror into the American shores, and Great Britain
must be seen and felt in all the majesty of her might, from Boston to
Savannah, from the lakes of Canada to the mouths of the Mississippi."
The English Government declined the offer of mediation, as before, but
expressed a willingness to nominate plenipotentiaries to make direct
negotiations with the American commissioners, suggesting that the
conference be held in London, unless the Americans preferred Gottenburg,
Sweden. This answer was made in September, 1813, and reached the
United States Government in official form in November. The President
communicated it to Congress early in January, 1814, and the proposition
was accepted; Gottenburg being chosen as the place, and Henry Clay and
Jonathan Russell being added to Messrs. Adams, Bayard, and Gallatin
as commissioners. Their instructions were, to insist on an absolute
discontinuance of the practice of search and impressment, and to offer,
in consideration of this, an agreement to exclude British seamen from
American vessels, and to surrender deserters.
But the best way to secure an honorable peace-{227}and indeed it will
be the only way, until the millennium--is by exhibiting an ability
to prosecute successful war. With the new appropriations, the
Administration, while sending its peace commissioners abroad, prepared
for more vigorous war within our own borders.
After a great deal of trouble with troops who believed their terms
of service had expired, and who finally marched home in spite of all
arguments and protests, Jackson, who had been made a major-general,
found himself at Fort Strother in January, 1814, with nine hundred
raw recruits and a few dozen men who had participated in his autumn
campaign. With these and two hundred Indians he set out on a raid into
the country of the Creeks.
On the 22d, near Emucfau, on Tallapoosa River, he was attacked by a
large force, who made a feint on his right and then fell heavily upon
his left. The General had anticipated this plan, and strengthened his
left, so that after a stubborn fight the enemy were routed and pursued
for three miles.
Two days later, on the return march, the troops were in the act of
crossing Enotachopco Creek, when the Indians attacked again. After a
few shots, the rear guard retreated in disorder, leaving not more than
a hundred men to face the enemy; but these, by determined bravery,
and especially {228}by skilful use of a six-pounder with grape-shot,
defeated the savages, and pursued them for two miles. Jackson himself
acted as gunner. He lost in this raid about a hundred men.
In February, Jackson had a new army of five thousand men, including a
regiment of United States regulars, in which Sam Houston was an ensign.
The only difficulty now was with supplies; but this was enormous. The
distance from Fort Deposit to Fort Strother was only forty miles,
but the roads were so bad that a wagon-train required seven days to
accomplish it, though there was a horse to every barrel of flour in
the load. Nearly sixty miles southeast of Fort Strother, and the same
distance northeast of Montgomery, is Horseshoe Bend in the Tallapoosa,
enclosing a peninsula of one hundred acres, which is less than five
hundred feet wide at the neck. Here the Creek warriors, to the number
of a thousand, had encamped and fortified themselves, when Jackson, with
nearly three thousand men, was marching against them, for the avowed
purpose of extermination. The Americans reached the place on the morning
of March 27th, and Jackson sent General Coffee with the mounted men and
Indians to cross the stream two miles be low, countermarch, and take
position on the bank in rear of the village. When he received the signal
{229}of their arrival, he moved forward with his main force, and planted
two field-pieces to play upon the breastwork of logs and earth which
crossed the neck of the peninsula. But a two hours' cannonade produced
no effect upon it. Coffee and his Indians now crossed the river, set
fire to the village, and attacked the enemy in the rear. As Jackson saw
by the rising smoke what had been done, he stormed the breastwork in
front, and for a little while there was desperate hand-to-hand fighting
through the loop-holes. Then the troops, following the example of Major
L. P. Montgomery and Ensign Houston, mounted the works, leapt down among
the enemy, and plied the bayonet right and left till the Indians broke
and fled. They neither asked for quarter nor received it. Whether they
hid themselves in the thickets or attempted to swim the stream, they
were hotly pursued, hunted out, and mercilessly shot. A portion found
shelter under the bank, where felled timber and a rude breastwork
protected them. Jackson summoned them to surrender, promising to
spare their lives; but they shot his messenger. After he had failed
to dislodge them either by an artillery fire or a storming party, his
troops set fire to the timber, and shot the Indians as they were
driven out by the flames. At the close of that day, five hundred and
fifty-seven {230}of the Creeks lay dead on the peninsula. It is believed
that not more than two hundred escaped. One chief, Manowa, saved himself
after he had been badly wounded, by plunging into the water, holding
himself under by grasping a root, and breathing through a reed that
reached from his mouth to the surface. After nightfall he rose, swam the
stream, and stole away.
Jackson lost one hundred and thirty-one white soldiers and fifty-four
Cherokees. Major Montgomery was killed, and Ensign Houston was wounded.
The savagery of this warfare is explained by the fact that the Creeks
were not fighting for any cause of their own, real or pretended, but
only as mercenaries of the English. In a letter written at this time,
Jackson said: "While we fight the savage, who makes war only because he
delights in blood, and who has gotten his booty when he has scalped
his victim, we are, through him, contending against an enemy of more
inveterate character and deeper design. So far as my exertions can
contribute, the purposes, both of the savage and his instigator, shall
be defeated."
By these battles, the power of the Creeks was completely broken. Jackson
compelled the remnant of the tribe to move north, and that summer they
were fed by the Government.