On the 30th of August, 1813, Fort Mimms, which contained one hundred and
fifty men, under the command of Major Beasely, besides a number of women
and children, was surprised by a party of Indians. The houses were set
on fire, and those who escaped the flames fell victims to the tomahawk.
Neither age nor sex was spared; and the most horrible cruelties, of
which the imagination can conceive, were perpetrated. Out of the three
hundred persons which the fort contained, only seventeen escaped to
carry the dreadful intelligence to the neighboring stations.
This sanguinary and unprovoked massacre excited universal horror, and
the desire of revenge. The state of Tennessee immediately took active
measures for punishing the aggressors. General Jackson was ordered to
draft two thousand of the militia and volunteers of his division; and
General Coffee was directed to proceed with five hundred mounted men to
the frontier of the state. The former, having collected a part of his
force, joined General Coffee on the 12th of October, at Ditto's landing,
on the Tennessee. They then marched to the Ten Islands, in the same
river. A few days afterward, General Coffee was detached with nine
hundred men to attack a body of the enemy, posted at Tallushatchee. He
arrived early in the morning within a short distance of it, and,
dividing his force into two columns, completely surrounded it. The
Indians, for a long time, made a desperate resistance, and did all that
was possible for men to do who were in their situation. But they were
finally overpowered, with the loss of one hundred an eighty-six men.