The smallest naval battle ever fought in the world, perhaps, was fought
on the Alabama River on the 13th of November, 1813, between two canoes,
and this is the way in which it happened.
The United States were at war with Great Britain at that time, and a war
with Spain was also threatened. The British had stirred up the Indians
in the Northwest to make war upon the whites, and in 1813 they persuaded
the Creek Indians of Alabama and Mississippi to begin a war there.
The government troops were so busy with the British in other quarters of
the country that very little could be done for the protection of the
white settlers in the Southwest, and for a good while they had to take
care of themselves in the best way they could. Leaving their homes, they
gathered together here and there and built rude stockade forts, in which
they lived, with all their women and children. All the men, including
all the boys who were old enough to pull a trigger--and frontier boys
learn to use a gun very early in life--were organized into companies of
volunteer soldiers.
At Fort Madison, one of the smallest of the forts, there was a very
daring frontiersman, named Samuel (or Sam) Dale--a man who had lived
much with the Indians, and was like them in many respects, even in his
dress and manners. Hearing that the Indians were in force on the
southeastern bank of the Alabama River, the people in Fort Madison were
greatly alarmed, fearing that all the crops in that region--which were
ripe in the fields--would be destroyed. If that should occur, they knew
they must starve during the coming winter, and so they made up their
minds to drive the savages away, at least until they could gather the
corn.
Captain Dale at once made up a party, consisting of seventy-two men, all
volunteers. With this force Dale set out on the 11th of November, taking
Tandy Walker, a celebrated scout, for his guide. The column marched to
the Alabama River, and crossed it at a point about twenty miles below
the present town of Claiborne.
Once across the river, Dale knew that he was among the Indians, and
knowing their ways, he was as watchful as if he had been one of them
himself. He forbade his men to sleep at all during the night after
crossing the river, and kept them under arms, in expectation of an
attack.
No attack being made, he moved up the river the next morning, marching
most of the men, but ordering Jerry Austill, with six men, to paddle up
in two canoes that had been found. This Jerry Austill--who afterward
became a merchant in Mobile and a State Senator--was a boy only nineteen
years of age at the time, but he had already distinguished himself in
the war by his courage.
At a point called Peggy Bailey's Bluff, Dale, who was marching with one
man several hundreds of yards ahead of his men, came upon a party of
Indians at breakfast. He shot one of them, and the rest ran away,
leaving their provisions behind them. Securing the provisions, Dale
marched on for a mile or two, but finding no further trace of Indians,
he concluded that the country on that side of the river was now pretty
clear of them, and so he set to work to cross to the other side, meaning
to look for enemies there.
The river at that point is about a quarter of a mile wide, and as there
were only two small canoes at hand, the work of taking the men across
was very slow. When all were over except Dale and about a dozen others,
the little remnant of the force was suddenly attacked.
The situation was a very dangerous one. With the main body of his
command on the other side of the river, where it could give him no help,
Dale had to face a large body of Indians with only a dozen men, and as
only one canoe remained on his side of the river, it was impossible for
the whole of the little party to escape by flight, as the canoe would
not hold them all.
Concealing his men in the bushes, behind trees, and under the
river-bank, he replied to the fire of the Indians, and kept them at bay.
But it was certain that this could not last long. The Indians must soon
find out from the firing how small the number of their adversaries was;
and Dale knew that as soon as the discovery was made, they would rush
upon him, and put the whole party to death.
He called to the men on the other side of the river to come over and
help him, but they were panic-stricken, probably because they could see,
as Dale could not, how large a body of Indians was pressing their
commander. The men on the other bank did indeed make one or two slight
attempts to cross, but these came to nothing, and the little party
seemed doomed to destruction.
Bad as matters were with Dale, they soon became worse. An immense canoe,
more than thirty feet long and four feet deep, came down the river,
bearing eleven warriors, who undertook to land and attack Dale in the
rear. This compelled the party to fight in two directions at once. Dale
and his companions kept up the battle in front, while Jerry Austill,
James Smith, and one other man fought the warriors in the canoe to keep
them from landing. One of the eleven was killed, and another swam
ashore, and succeeded in joining the Indians on the bank.
Seeing how desperate the case was, Dale resolved upon a desperate
remedy. He called for volunteers for a dangerous piece of work, and was
at once joined by Jerry Austill, James Smith, and a negro man whose name
was Cæsar. With these men, he leaped into the little canoe, and paddled
toward the big Indian boat, meaning to fight the nine Indians who
remained in it, although he and his canoe party numbered only four men
all told.
[Illustration: "WITH A SINGLE BLOW HE KNOCKED OVER THE INDIAN WITH WHOM
AUSTILL WAS STRUGGLING."]
As the two canoes approached each other, both parties tried to fire, but
their gunpowder was wet, and so they grappled for a hand-to-hand battle.
Jerry Austill received the first attack, being in front. No sooner did
the two canoes touch than an Indian sprang forward, and dealt the youth
a terrible blow with a war club, knocking him down, and making a dent in
his skull which he carried through life. Once down, he would have been
killed, but for the quickness of Smith, who, seeing the danger his
companion was in, raised his rifle. With a single blow he knocked over
the Indian with whom Austill was struggling.
Then Austill rose, and the fierce contest went on. Dale and his men
rained their blows upon their foes, and received blows quite as lusty in
return, but Cæsar managed the boat so skillfully that, in spite of the
superior numbers of the Indians, the fight was not very unequal. He held
the little boat against the big one, but kept it at the end, so that the
Indians in the other end of the big canoe could not reach Dale's men.
In this way those that were actually fighting Dale, Austill, and Smith
never numbered more than three or four at any one time, and so the three
could not be borne down by mere force of numbers. Dale stood for a time
with one foot in each boat; then he stepped over into the Indian canoe,
giving his comrades more room, and crowding the Indians toward the end
of their boat.
One by one the savages fell, until only one was left facing Dale, who
held Cæsar's gun, with bayonet attached, in his hand. This sole survivor
was Tar-cha-chee, an Indian with whom Dale had hunted and lived, one
whom he regarded as a friend, and whom he now wished to spare. But the
savage was strong within the Indian's breast, and he refused to accept
mercy even from a man who had been his comrade and friend. Standing
erect in the bow of the canoe, he shook himself, and said, in the
Muscogee tongue, "Big Sam, you are a man, I am another; now for it."
With that he rushed forward, only to meet death at the hands of the
friend who would gladly have spared him.
The canoe fight was ended, but Dale's work was not yet done. His party
on the bank were every minute more closely pressed, and if they were to
be saved, it must be done quickly. For this purpose he and his
companions at once began clearing the big canoe of its load of dead
Indians. Now that only the white men were there, the Indians upon the
bank directed a galling fire upon the canoe, but by careening it to one
side Dale made a sort of breastwork of its thick gunwale, and thus
succeeded in clearing it. When this was done, he went ashore and quickly
carried off the party there, landing all of them in safety on the other
side.
The hero of this singular battle lived until the year 1841. The whole
story of his life is a romance of hardship, daring, and wonderful
achievement. When he died, General John F. H. Claiborne, who knew him
intimately, wrote a sketch of his career for a Natchez newspaper, in
which he described him as follows:
"In person General Dale was tall, erect, raw-boned, and muscular. In
many respects, physical and moral, he resembled his antagonists of the
woods. He had the square forehead, the high cheek-bones, the compressed
lips, and in fact the physiognomy of an Indian, relieved, however, by a
firm, benevolent Saxon eye. Like the red men, too, his foot fell lightly
upon the ground, and turned neither to the right nor left. He was
habitually taciturn, his face grave, he spoke slowly, and in low tones,
and he seldom laughed. I observed of him, what I have often noted as
peculiar to border men of high attributes, he entertained the strongest
attachment for the Indians, extolled their courage, their love of
country, and many of their domestic qualities; and I have often seen the
wretched remnant of the Choctaws camped around his plantation and
subsisting on his crops."
It is a curious fact that after the war ended, when Weatherford (Red
Eagle), who commanded the Indians on the shore in this battle with Dale,
was about to marry, he asked Dale to act as his best man, and the two
who had fought each other so desperately stood side by side, as devoted
friends, at the altar.