An artful impostor, Tecumseh of the Shawnees, a man of most extraordinary
abilities and consummate address, conceived the bold design of an union
of the red against the white population of America, under a hope that by
a general and continued assault along the whole line of our frontiers,
the future extension of settlements might be checked, if the present
inhabitants could not be driven into the ocean. Assuming the attributes
of a prophet, and, among other things, assisted by the fortuitous
occurrence of an earthquake, of which he had hazarded a prediction, a
confidence began to be reposed in the sacredness of his character and
mission. A majority of the Creek nation were enlisted in his cause,
and the storm of an exterminating savage war hung over the West. Its
first explosion was on Fort Mims, a rude stockade defence, into which
the Southern inhabitants of Alabama had lately retreated for security.
More than 300 persons, including women and children, fell victims to
savage barbarity. “The slaughter was indiscriminate; mercy was extended
to none, and the tomahawk often transfixed mother and child at the same
stroke. But seventeen of the whole number in the fort, escaped to give
intelligence of the dreadful catastrophe.” In the midst of an alarm which
such an inhuman outrage was calculated to excite, the eyes of Tennessee
were turned on Jackson. Though confined at this period to his house by
a fractured arm, his characteristic firmness did not desert him, and he
cheerfully yielded to a second call for his services in the cause of his
country. Two thousand militia were ordered to assemble at Fayetteville in
Tennessee, in addition to five hundred cavalry previously raised under
the command of Gen. Coffee.
The alarming accounts of the concentration of the forces of the enemy,
with a view of deluging the frontier in blood, compelled General Jackson
(though individually in a most disabled state of body) to take the field
before the ranks of his army had been filled, or his troops organized.
With this undisciplined force, he prepared for active operations; but the
wisest dispositions were counteracted, and all his movements embarrassed,
by the failure of unfeeling and speculating contractors.
The enemy were gathering strength, and on the advance; they had already
threatened a fort of Indian allies. In this situation, to retreat was to
abandon our frontier citizens to the mercy of savages; to advance, was
with the certainty of exposure to every privation.
Jackson hesitated not on the alternative, and with but six days’ rations
of meat, and less than two of meal, he moved with his army upon the
Coosa; and, with Coffee’s command, gave a most decisive blow to the enemy
at Tallushatchee, in less than twenty-five days after he had marched
from the rendezvous at Fayetteville. The loss of the Creeks in this
engagement, was 186 killed, and 84 prisoners.
Though compelled by the want of supplies to return to his depots on the
frontier, we find him in less than six weeks in the field, at the well
fought battle of Talledega, and in the subsequent conflicts at Emuckfau,
Enotichopco, and Tohopka, annihilating the hopes and expectations of the
Creeks, and crushing the hydra of savage hostility in the South.
[Illustration]