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THE BIG BROTHER
A Story of Indian War
by
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
Author of "How to Educate Yourself," Etc.
Illustrated
[Illustration: THE DOG CHARGE.]
New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street
1875.
Copyright.
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1875.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page.
SINQUEFIELD 7
CHAPTER II.
THE STORMING OF SINQUEFIELD 17
CHAPTER III.
SAM'S LECTURE 28
CHAPTER IV.
SAM FINDS IT NECESSARY TO THINK 38
CHAPTER V.
SAM'S FORTRESS 46
CHAPTER VI.
SURPRISED 61
CHAPTER VII.
CONFUSED 67
CHAPTER VIII.
WEATHERFORD 71
CHAPTER IX.
WEARY WAITING 83
CHAPTER X.
FIGHTING FIRE 93
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE WILDERNESS 104
CHAPTER XII.
AN ALARM AND A WELCOME 118
CHAPTER XIII.
JOE'S PLAN 124
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CANOE FIGHT 130
CHAPTER XV.
THE BOYS ARE DRIVEN OUT OF THE ROOT FORTRESS 143
CHAPTER XVI.
WHERE IS JOE? 159
CHAPTER XVII.
A FAMINE 163
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHICH ENDS THE STORY 173
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page.
THE DOG CHARGE _Frontispiece._
SAM'S PARTY 20
"WE'S DUN LOS'--DAT'S WHA' WE IS" 40
JUDIE ON THE RAFT 49
THE PERILOUS LEAP 83
THE BIG BROTHER.
CHAPTER I.
SINQUEFIELD.
In the quiet days of peace and security in which we live it is difficult
to imagine such a time of excitement as that at which our story opens,
in the summer of 1813. From the beginning of that year, the Creek
Indians in Alabama and Mississippi had shown a decided disposition to
become hostile. In addition to the usual incentives to war which always
exist where the white settlements border closely upon Indian territory,
there were several special causes operating to bring about a struggle at
that time. We were already at war with the British, and British agents
were very active in stirring up trouble on our frontiers, knowing that
nothing would so surely weaken the Americans as a general outbreak of
Indian hostilities. Tecumseh, the great chief, had visited the Creeks,
too, and had urged them to go on the war path, threatening them, in the
event of their refusal, with the wrath of the Great Spirit. His appeals
to their superstition were materially strengthened by the occurrence of
an earthquake, which singularly enough, he had predicted, threatening
that when he returned to his home he would stamp his foot and shake
their houses down. Their own prophets, Francis and Singuista, had
preached war, too, telling the Indians that their partial adoption of
civilization, and their relations of friendship with the whites, were
sorely displeasing to the Great Spirit, who would surely punish them if
they did not immediately abandon the civilization and butcher the
pale-faces. Francis predicted, also, that in the coming struggle no
Indians would be killed, while the whites would be completely
exterminated. All this was promised on condition that the Indians should
become complete savages again, quitting all the habits of industry and
thrift which they had been learning for some years past, and fighting
mercilessly against all whites, sparing none.
All these things combined to bring on the war, and during the spring
several raids were made by small bodies of the Indians, in which they
were pretty severely punished by the whites. Finally a battle was fought
at Burnt-corn, in July 1813, and this was the signal for the breaking
out of the most terrible of all Indian wars,--the most terrible, because
the savages engaged in it had learned from the whites how to fight, and
because many of their chiefs were educated half-breeds, familiar with
the country and with all the points of weakness on the part of the
settlers. Stockade forts were built in various places, and in these the
settlers took refuge, leaving their fields to grow as they might and
their houses to be plundered and burned whenever the Indians should
choose to visit them. The stockades were so built as to enclose several
acres each, and strong block houses inside, furnished additional
protection. Into these forts there came men, women, and children, from
all parts of the country, each bringing as much food as possible, and
each willing to lend a hand to the common defence and the common
support.
On the 30th of August, the Indians attacked Fort Mims, one of the
largest of the stockade stations, and after a desperate battle destroyed
it, killing all but seventeen of the five hundred and fifty people who
were living in it. The news of this terrible slaughter quickly spread
over the country, and everybody knew now that a general war had begun,
in which the Indians meant to destroy the whites utterly, not sparing
even the youngest children.
Those who had remained on their farms now flocked in great numbers to
the forts, and every effort was made to strengthen the defences at all
points. The men, including all the boys who were large enough to point a
gun and pull a trigger, were organized into companies and assigned to
port-holes, in order that each might know where to go to do his part of
the fighting whenever the Indians should come. Even those of the women
who knew how to shoot, insisted upon being provided with guns and
assigned to posts of duty. There was not only no use in flinching, but
every one of them knew that whenever the fort should be attacked the
only question to be decided was, "Shall we beat the savages off, or
shall every man woman and child of us be butchered?" They could not run
away, for there was nowhere to run, except into the hands of the
merciless foe. The life of every one of them was involved in the defence
of the forts, and each was, therefore, anxious to do all he could to
make the defense a successful one. Their only hope was in desperate
courage, and, being Americans, their courage was equal to the demand
made upon it. It was not a civilized war, in which surrenders, and
exchanges of prisoners, and treaties and flags of truce, or even
neutrality offered any escape. It was a savage war, in which the Indians
intended to kill all the whites, old and young, wherever they could find
them. The people in the forts knew this, and they made their
arrangements accordingly.
Now if the boys and girls who read this story will get their atlases and
turn to the map of Alabama, they will find some points, the relative
positions of which they must remember if they wish to understand fully
the happenings with which we have to do. Just below the junction of the
Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, on the east side of the stream, they will
find the little town of Tensaw, and Fort Mims stood very near that
place. The peninsula formed by the two rivers above their junction is
now Clarke County, and almost exactly in its centre stands the village
of Grove Hill. A mile or two to the north-east stood Fort Sinquefield.
Fort White was several miles further west, and Fort Glass, afterwards
called Fort Madison, stood fifteen miles south, at a point about three
miles south of the present village of Suggsville. On the eastern side of
the Alabama river is the town of Claiborne, and at a point about three
miles below Claiborne the principal events of this story occurred. It
will not hurt you, boys and girls, to learn a little accurate geography,
by looking up these places before going on with the story, and if I were
your schoolmaster, instead of your story teller, I should stop here to
advise you always to look on the map for every town, river, lake,
mountain or other geographical thing mentioned in any book or paper you
read. I would advise you, too, if I were your schoolmaster, to add up
all the figures given in books and newspapers, to see if the writers
have made any mistakes; and it is a good plan too, to go at once to the
dictionary when you meet a word you do not quite comprehend, or to the
encyclopædia or history, or whatever else is handy, whenever you read
about anything and would like to know more about it. I say I should stop
here to give you some such advice as this, if I were your schoolmaster.
As I am not, however, I must go on with my story instead.
Within a mile or two of Fort Sinquefield lived a gentleman named
Hardwicke. He was a widower with three children. Sam, the oldest of the
three, was nearly seventeen; Tommy was eleven, and a little girl of
seven years, named Judith, but called Judie, was the other. Mr.
Hardwicke was a quiet, studious man, who had come to Alabama from
Baltimore, not many years before, and since the death of his wife he had
spent most of his time in his library, which was famous throughout the
settlement on account of the wonderful number of books it contained.
There were hardly any schools in Alabama in those days, and Mr.
Hardwicke, being a man of education and considerable wealth, gave up
almost the whole of his time to his children, teaching them in doors and
out, and directing them in their reading. It was understood that Sam
would be sent north to attend College the next year, and meantime he had
become a voracious reader. He read all sorts of books, and as he
remembered and applied the things he learned from them, it was a common
saying in the country round about, that "Sam Hardwicke knows pretty
nearly everything." Of course that was not true, but he knew a good deal
more than most of the men in the country, and better than all, he knew
how very much there was for him yet to learn. A boy has learned the very
best lesson of his life when he knows that he really does not know much;
it is a lesson some people never learn at all. But books were not the
only things Sam Hardwicke was familiar with. He could ride the worst
horses in the country and shoot a rifle almost as well as Tandy Walker
himself, and Tandy, as every reader of history knows, was the most
famous rifleman, as well as the best guide and most daring scout in the
whole south-west. Sam had hunted, too, over almost every inch of
country within twenty miles around, trudging alone sometimes for a week
or a fortnight before returning, and in this way he had learned to know
the distances, the directions, and the nature of the country lying
between different places,--a knowledge worth gaining by anybody, and
especially valuable to a boy who lived in a frontier settlement. He was
strong of limb and active as he was strong, and his "book knowledge," as
the neighbors called it, served him many a good turn in the woods, when
he was beset by difficulties.
Sam's father was one of the very last of the settlers to go into a fort.
He remained at home as long as he could, and went to Fort Sinquefield at
last, only when warned by an Indian who for some reason liked him, that
he and his children's lives were in imminent danger. That was on the
first of September, and when the Hardwicke family, black and white, were
safely within the little fortress, there remained outside only two
families, namely, those of Abner James and Ransom Kimball, who
determined to remain one more night at Kimball's house, two miles from
Sinquefield. That very night the Indians, under Francis the prophet,
burned the house, killing twelve of the inmates. Five others escaped,
and one of them, Isham Kimball, who was then a boy of sixteen,
afterwards became Clerk of Clarke County, where he was still living in
1857.