THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS.
The accounts of what followed, which are given in the various books that
treat the subject, are for the most part very meagre, and upon one or
two points of minor importance they conflict with each other. Luckily,
we have one account which is much more minute than any other, and at the
same time is entirely trustworthy. This account is found in Mr. A. J.
Pickett's History of Alabama, a work remarkable for the diligence of
research upon which it is founded, the author having been at great pains
to gather details from the survivors of the various historical events of
which he writes. Mr. Pickett had access to the private papers of General
Claiborne, and to several survivors of the Fort Mims affair, and from
these sources he gathered a mass of particulars which no other writer
upon the subject had within reach. In writing here of the affair, we
must depend mainly upon Mr. Pickett's pages for all matters of detail.
We left Red Eagle at the head of his men, within a short distance of the
fort, quietly contemplating it. His prey was apparently within his grasp
and his men were ready, but still Red Eagle waited, repressing the
eagerness of his followers sternly. The people in the fort were singing,
playing games, and occupying themselves in every way but the soldierly
one. They were not on the alert--they were completely off their guard.
Apparently the time had come to strike, but Red Eagle knew his business,
and waited. He knew that to take a stockade fortress without the aid of
artillery he must surprise the garrison completely, and this was what he
sought to do by delay.
Noon came, and with it came the drum for dinner. That was the signal Red
Eagle had been waiting for. It was not enough that the garrison should
be listlessly off guard. Red Eagle wished them to be occupied with
something else, and now they were going to dinner. Giving them time
enough collect for that purpose, the Indian commander advanced his line,
doing so quietly, contrary to the Indian habit. He was determined to
make the surprise as complete as possible. In this way the Indian line,
running rapidly forward, reached a point within thirty yards of the open
gates before their approach was discovered by anybody within. Then the
few men who happened to be near enough made an attempt to close the
gate; but it was too late, even if the accumulated sand at its foot had
not prevented. The Indians rushed in pell-mell, and almost in the
instant of discovering their presence Major Beasley learned that they
were already within the outer lines of his defensive works.
Luckily there was a second line of picketing at this point, partly
completed, which prevented the immediate passage of the Indians to all
parts of the fort, and gave the whites a defensive work from which to
fight their foes. Major Beasley was at last awake to the reality of the
danger of which Claiborne had warned him repeatedly, his last warning
having come in a letter which Beasley had received only the day before,
and to which he had replied that he was prepared to repel the attack of
any force which might come against his fortress. If he had scorned this
danger culpably, and had neglected to provide against it as he should
have done, he at least did what a brave man could to repel it, now that
it had come. He was among the first to confront the enemy, and among the
first to fall, mortally wounded. He rejected all offers of assistance
and refused to be carried into the interior of the fort, preferring to
remain where he was to animate the troops by his presence and to direct
their operations. He continued thus to command them until the breath
left his body.
The fighting was terrible. It was not two bodies of troops struggling
for possession of some strategic point, but a horde of savages battling
with a devoted band of white men in a struggle the only issue of which
was death. The savages fought not to conquer but to kill the whites,
every one, women and children as well as men; and the whites fought with
the desperation of doomed men whose only chance of life was in victory.
It was hand-to-hand fighting, too. It was fighting with knives and
tomahawks and clubbed guns. Men grappled with each other, to relinquish
their hold only in death.
Several Indian prophets were among the first of the savages to fall, and
for a time their death spread consternation among their followers. These
prophets had confidently told the Indians that their sacred bodies were
invulnerable; that the bullets of white men would split upon them, doing
no harm. When they went down before the first volley, therefore, the
utter failure of their prophecy caused the Indians to lose faith in the
cause, and they were ready like children to abandon it in their fright.
Red Eagle was a man of different mettle. He had used these wretched
false prophets to aid him in stirring the enthusiasm of the Creeks, but
he had never believed their silly pretences. With such a commander the
Creeks soon recovered their courage, and the fight went on.
Although Weatherford had gained a great advantage by his tactics of
surprise and sudden onset, his task was still a very arduous one. He had
possession of the outer gates, but the whites were still intrenched, and
he must dislodge them--an undertaking which subjected him to heavy loss
of men. Everybody within the fort who could shoot a gun or strike a blow
with axe or club was engaged in the fight. Weatherford, like the general
of real genius that he was, sent some of his men to threaten the other
sides of the fort, thereby compelling the whites to distribute their
force all around the inclosure, and thus to weaken the defence at the
main point of attack. Captain Middleton had charge of the eastern side,
and fell at his post. Captain Jack fought desperately on the southern
face, and Lieutenant Randon on the west. Fortunately--if we may call any
thing fortunate about an affair which ended in utter misfortune--the
northern face of the fort, against which Weatherford hurled his men in
greatest numbers and with greatest desperation, was defended by Captain
Dixon Bailey, a man of mixed blood, who, it will be remembered,
distinguished himself in the battle of Burnt Corn, and who seems to have
had some of the qualities of an able commander. He saw and tried to make
use of one chance of success. He knew and told his men that the force of
an Indian attack was greatest in its beginning; that unless success
crowned their efforts Indians were apt to weary of their work after a
little while. He urged his followers, therefore, to fight with
determination and with hope. He urged every non-combatant who could do
so to join in the defence, and even some of the women did so. His
judgment of the Indian character was right, and it was presently
vindicated by the conduct of the savages, who relaxed their efforts to
take the fort, and began making off with what plunder they could secure.
But Red Eagle was there; and his presence was a factor for which Captain
Bailey had not made due allowance. Riding after the retreating bands he
quickly drove them back, and stimulated his forces to renewed exertions
of the most desperate character.
Then Captain Bailey saw that his hope had been made vain by the
resolution of this commander and by his genius for controlling men. It
was now three o'clock, and the battle had lasted three hours. Captain
Bailey seeing no chance for its cessation by the failure of savage
determination, resolved to abandon the defences, and marching boldly
out, attempt to cut a way through Red Eagle's hosts to Fort Pierce, a
few miles distant. From this attempt he was restrained only by force.
The savages were now steadily gaining ground. One point after another
was abandoned by the whites, whose numbers were rapidly diminishing. The
savages fell as fast as the whites did, or even faster, but as they
greatly outnumbered their entrenched foes they could afford this.
Deducting the women and children from the whole number of people in the
fort, it will be seen that the savages--whose force was estimated
variously at from one thousand to fifteen hundred fighting
men--outnumbered the fighting men of the fort at least three to one, and
perhaps even as greatly as six or seven to one. With the fall of each
white man, therefore, the relative superiority of the Indians was
increased, even though two or three of the assailants should fall at the
same time.
Little by little the fort yielded. From one defensive point to another
the various bands of white men were driven, fighting as they went, and
contesting every inch of the assailants' advance. Two brothers of
Captain Dixon Bailey, James and Daniel Bailey, went with some other men
into Mims's house, and piercing the roof with port-holes did excellent
work upon bodies of savages who were protected by barriers of various
kinds against the fire of men on the ground. To silence their fire some
of the Indians shot burning arrows into the shingles of the house and
succeeded in setting it on fire. They also fired several other
buildings, and the poor people who still remained alive were now driven
to their last place of refuge, a small inclosure around the loom house,
called in the fort the bastion. From every quarter the warning cry "To
the bastion!" went up, and very soon the small inclosure was so full of
people that there was scarcely room for any one to move. Meantime the
fire was gaining on every hand. Around the burning houses demoniac
savages danced and shrieked and howled, while the women and children
within the burning buildings could do nothing but wring their hands and
commit themselves to heaven while awaiting certain and horrible
destruction.
Red Eagle was a soldier, not a butcher; and now that his victory was
secure he sought to stop the bloodshed and spare the lives of the
helpless people who remained; he called upon his warriors to desist and
to receive the survivors as prisoners, but the yelling savages would not
listen to him. He attempted to assert his authority and compel them to
stop the carnage, but the authority which he was able to wield in
setting these savages on, failed utterly when he tried to call them off.
When he thus sought to save the lives of white men and women and
children, his followers remembered that he had not long before tried to
withdraw altogether from the war, and with loud shrieks of anger they
now turned upon him, threatening to put him to death if he should
further plead for mercy. He could do nothing but submit, and turn away
in horror from the sight of the brutal slaughter which he had made
possible. Mounting his superb black horse he rode away, resolved to have
at least no personal share in the horrible butchery.
The few remaining people in the fort were now shut up in a
slaughter-pen. A few of them cut a hole through the outer picketing and
made a dash for life. Of these about twenty escaped in different
directions, and in one way or another managed after many hardships to
reach other forts. All the rest of the people in the fort were
butchered, except a few negroes kept by the savages as slaves, and one
half-breed family, of whom we shall hear more presently.
The persons who escaped by flight were Dr. Thomas G. Holmes, a negro
woman named Hester, a friendly Indian named Socca, Lieutenant Peter
Randon, Josiah Fletcher, Sergeant Matthews, Martin Rigdon, Samuel Smith,
a half-breed, Joseph Perry, Jesse Steadham, Edward Steadham, John Horen,
Lieutenant W. R. Chambers, two men named Mourrice and Jones, and some
others whose names have not come down to us.
Thus ended the battle of Fort Mims, in some respects the most remarkable
battle between Indians and white men of which history anywhere tells us.
It had lasted for five hours without cessation, a most unusual thing in
Indian warfare, which consists chiefly of sudden onsets that are not
long persisted in if stoutly resisted. At Fort Mims the assault was kept
up, in the face of desperate resistance, from noon until nearly
sunset--a persistence due solely to the fact that the savages were for
once commanded by a real soldier, who possessed the qualities of an able
and determined general. The Indians here, as everywhere else, were
disposed after a while, as has been said, to relinquish their purpose
and content themselves with what they had accomplished in the way of
destruction, but, as we have seen, Red Eagle sternly drove them back
into battle, and succeeded in carrying the fort. If there were nothing
else in his career to prove his title to respect as a really able
military man, his management of this Fort Mims affair would sufficiently
establish his claim.