ROMANTIC INCIDENTS OF THE FORT MIMS AFFAIR.
It was Dr. Thomas G. Holmes who planned the sortie by which the persons
named in the last chapter made their escape. He cut the hole through the
picketing and headed the desperate charge, which was opposed by a thick
line of savages who, anticipating some such attempt, had placed
themselves in position along a fence for the purpose of making escape
impossible. It is indeed a marvel that anybody should have succeeded in
breaking through their line and reaching the woods beyond. Dr. Holmes
had his clothes riddled with bullets as he ran, but he managed to reach
the thick woods unhurt, and there concealed himself in the hole made by
the uprooting of a large tree. Remaining thus hidden until night, he was
not discovered by any of the bands of Indians who beat the bushes in
every direction, bent upon leaving no white man or friendly Indian
alive. After night he had intended to make his escape under cover of
darkness from the neighborhood, but the light from burning buildings
prevented this until midnight, when, by careful creeping, he made his
way without discovery, among the camp-fires of the sleeping savages, who
now rested from their bloody toil. As Dr. Holmes could not swim, it was
impossible for him to cross the river to the forts and settlements
there, and hence he wandered about in the swamp for five days, living
upon roots and other such things, until finally, almost famished, he
emerged from the cane-brakes and sought the highlands, really caring
very little in his desperation whether he should fall into the hands of
friends or foes. Coming upon some horses which were tied, and finding
that they belonged to white men who were somewhere near, he fired his
gun to attract their attention; but unluckily it alarmed them, and they
fled to the river and hid themselves, remaining there for two days and
nights. Left thus alone, Holmes went to a house in the neighborhood, and
succeeded in catching some chickens, which in his ravenous hunger he ate
raw. He was finally discovered by a white man, the owner of the place,
and taken to a place of safety. Many years afterward he related the
story of his adventures to Mr. Pickett, from whose pages we have
condensed it.
Lieutenant Chambliss was twice severely wounded in his flight, but
reached the friendly woods at last and concealed himself in a heap of
logs, meaning to make his way to a place of safety as soon as night
should fall. About dark, however, a roving band of the savages
surrounded the log heap, and to the dismay of poor Chambliss, set fire
to it. His position was terrible. The fire rapidly ate into the pile,
and to remain there was to be roasted alive, while any attempt to come
out would be met, of course, by immediate destruction with knife or
tomahawk. The fire was now scorching him, but he lay still, enduring it
as long as it was possible to suffer in silence. Just as it became
absolutely necessary for him to withdraw, he was delighted to see the
Indians, who had now lighted their pipes, walking away. Silently, in
order that the savages might not hear him, he crept out of the burning
pile and concealed himself more effectually elsewhere. Wounded and
famishing he wandered about for awhile, managing at last to reach Mount
Vernon.
The most romantic incident of this terrible affair remains to be told.
Zachariah McGirth, with his half-breed wife and his children, was one of
the inmates of Fort Mims until the day of the massacre. On the morning
of that day, a few hours before the attack was made, he left the fort,
intending to visit his plantation at a point higher up on the Alabama
River. Leaving his family in the fort he went to the river, accompanied
by some negroes, and began his journey in a boat. He had gone but a few
miles when the sound of the firing at the fort reached his ears, and he
thus learned that the attack had come. Anxious about the fate of his
wife and children, he turned back, and secreting himself in the woods,
passed the long afternoon in a state of the most terrible suspense. When
the sound of musketry at last died away, the great volumes of smoke
revealed to him the fact--horrible in its significance to him--that the
savages had triumphed. Desperate now with distress, he hid the negroes
and boldly went to the scene of the slaughter, not caring whether the
Indians had left or not. Finding no savages there, but seeing heaps of
the slain everywhere, he summoned his negroes and began a search for the
bodies of his wife and children. They were nowhere to be found, and
McGirth was forced to conclude that his family were among those who had
been burned in the buildings.
As a matter of fact, McGirth's wife and children were the half-breed
family who had been spared, as related in the preceding chapter. There
was a young warrior among Weatherford's men who, many years before, when
he was an orphan and hungry, had been tenderly cared for by McGirth's
wife, and during the horrible slaughter at Fort Mims this young warrior
happened to recognize the woman who had befriended him in his time of
sorest need. To save her and her children he had to tell his comrades
that he wished to make them his slaves, and under this pretence he
carried them to his home in the nation.
McGirth knew nothing of this, of course, and as he had very tenderly
loved his family, he now became entirely reckless of danger, not caring
to live, but being desperately bent upon doing all that he could for the
destruction of the Creeks, who, as he believed, had bereft him of his
wife and his children. He became the most daring scout and express rider
in the American service, making the most perilous journeys, shrinking
from no danger, and many times serving the American cause when nobody
else could be found to perform the important duties which he undertook.
One day, several months after the massacre at Fort Mims, McGirth was in
Mobile, when some one came to him with a message, saying that a party
of poor Indians who had made their way down the river from the hostile
country wished to see him. Answering the summons he was ushered into the
presence of his wife and seven children, whom he had thought of for
months, as among the victims of the savages at Fort Mims. It was as if
they had suddenly arisen from the dead.