GENERAL COCKE'S CONDUCT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
It is necessary now to explain the circumstances which left Fort
Strother without the garrison under General White, which General Jackson
had provided for its defence during his absence, and to show to what
consequences this failure of the East Tennessee commander to co-operate
with General Jackson presently led. The writers upon these historical
events differ very widely in their judgment of the case, and most of
them severely censure General Cocke, attributing his conduct to an
unworthy jealousy. His rank was the same as that of General Jackson;
but, as was said in a former chapter, Jackson's commission was the older
one, and hence if Cocke had joined his "ranking officer," Jackson would
have been in command of the whole force. It was alleged at the time and
afterward that both the East Tennessee troops and their commander were
jealous of Jackson and his army, and envious of that army's success. To
this unworthy motive General Cocke's conduct has generally been
attributed. Mr. Pickett, in his History of Alabama, gives an account of
the matter, which is substantially the same as those given by Drake in
his Book of the Indians, and by most other writers.
In that account he says, without doubt or qualification, that the want
of concert between the two divisions of the army grew "out of a jealousy
of the former [the East Tennessee division], and a strong desire to
share some of the glory which the latter had already acquired in the few
battles they had fought."
Mr. Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, gives a different version of
the affair, attributing General Cocke's course to his earnestness in the
cause, and his knowledge of certain facts which were unknown to General
Jackson. To that we shall come presently; but while General Cocke's
statement, upon which Mr. Parton founds his opinion, is certainly
entitled to consideration, it must not be forgotten that General Cocke
was under at least implied orders to join Jackson--orders which he was
bound as a soldier to obey, whatever his judgment may have dictated;
that whatever he may have known, there were two or three things which he
did not know; that one of these things unknown to him--namely, the
departure of Jackson from Fort Strother--made his obedience to orders
very necessary to the successful execution of Jackson's plans; and that
his want of knowledge of another fact led to the perpetration of a
fearful outrage--the driving of Indians who were disposed to become
peaceful into fierce hostility, and the increase of the ferocity of the
war. It was General Cocke's business to obey his orders, expressed or
necessarily implied. For reasons which he thought good, he neglected to
do so, and great evil resulted.
On the march southward Cocke's army had destroyed two or three deserted
Indian villages, but had had no encounter with the enemy. When General
Cocke arrived within a few days' march of Fort Strother he detached
General White and sent him to Turkey Town. Thence White marched to
Tallushatchee, intending to attack the place, but he arrived there after
Coffee had destroyed the force gathered at that point, although his
visit was on the same day. As he was marching to join Jackson, it does
not very clearly appear why General White did not follow Coffee to the
camp of the main body. He returned to Turkey Town instead, and from that
point reported to Jackson, as we have seen, just as the army was about
to march upon Talladega. He was at once ordered to advance and replace
Jackson's force at the fort, but before he could execute the order he
received the instructions from General Cocke already referred to,
directing him to turn back and join the East Tennessee division at the
mouth of the Chattooga River. Believing that in a case of conflicting
orders it was his duty to obey that which came from his immediate
superior, General White obeyed Cocke rather than Jackson.
Cocke had determined upon a separate operation against the Hillabees,
and sending White to one of the Hillabee towns, that officer surprised
and destroyed it on the 18th of November, killing sixty of the Hillabees
and taking two hundred and fifty prisoners, mostly women and children.
Pickett says, "The Hillabees, it is asserted, made not the slightest
resistance. At all events, not a drop of Tennessee blood was spilt."
The unfortunate feature of this affair was that to the Indians it wore
the appearance of the basest and cruelest treachery. These Hillabees had
been great sufferers at Jackson's hands in the battle of Talladega, and
becoming convinced by the result of that battle that resistance was
useless, they determined to surrender and make peace. They sent Robert
Grayson, an old Scotchman who had lived among them for many years, to
Jackson's camp to sue for peace, proposing to lay down their arms, and
to comply with whatever terms Jackson might impose upon them. As the
object of the war was not to kill the Creeks in wantonness, but to
secure peace and good conduct at their hands, Jackson properly regarded
the proposed surrender of the Hillabee tribe as the richest fruit of the
campaign. Accordingly, he sent Grayson back to them with a lecture, and
an acceptance of their capitulation. He said to them: "Upon those who
are disposed to become friendly, I neither wish nor intend to make war;
but they must afford evidences of the sincerity of their professions.
The prisoners and property they have taken from us and the friendly
Creeks must be restored. The instigators of the war and the murderers of
our citizens must be surrendered."
While Jackson was yet rejoicing in the belief that his hard-fought
battle at Talladega and the hardships endured upon that expedition had
accomplished so much more than the mere defeat of the enemy there, his
work was utterly undone by the ill-timed and unfortunate expedition of
White against the Hillabees. These people knew nothing of the divided
councils of the Tennessee army, and when White came down upon one of
their towns, while their messenger was still absent upon his errand of
peace, they naturally supposed that their assailants were Jackson's men,
and that he had sent them as his relentless messengers to answer the
Hillabee prayer for peace with the merciless stroke of the sword.
Convinced that Jackson was implacable, and that no hope remained to
them, the Hillabees fled from all their towns and joined the hostile
forces, wherever bodies of them could be found. Drake says, in the Book
of the Indians:
"The Indians thought they had been attacked by General Jackson's army,
and that therefore they were now to expect nothing but extermination;
and this was thought to be the reason why they fought with such
desperation afterwards. And truly they had reason for their fears; they
knew none but Jackson, and supposed now that nothing short of their
total destruction would satisfy him, as their conduct exemplified on
every occasion. They knew they had asked peace on any terms, and their
immediate answer was the sword and bayonet."
In acting as he did, without first consulting with General Jackson and
learning both the exact situation of affairs and the nature of his
superior officer's purposes, General Cocke did wrong in a military
sense. Of this there seems to be no room whatever for doubt or question,
and as his wrong-doing led to disastrous results, it was altogether
natural that both General Jackson and the historians should severely
censure the offending officer, as they did; General Jackson being
violently exasperated, as well he might be, when he learned the full
results of the blunder.
In saying as we do, that General Cocke was clearly culpable for acting
as he did, we do not necessarily imply that his course was dictated by
the jealousy and envy to which it has been attributed, or indeed by
unworthy motives of any kind. His motives may, perhaps, have been
perfectly unselfish; his conduct the result merely of bad judgment, or
of inaccurate notions of military duty; but to establish these facts is
only to palliate, not to excuse his offence. It is unjust, however, in
any discussion of these matters, to neglect the defence which General
Cocke made of his conduct.
That defence was made in the autumn of the year 1852, in a letter
published in the _National Intelligencer_, and was prompted by the
publication of certain criticisms upon General Cocke's conduct. In the
letter he says:
"About the 1st of October I rendezvoused my troops at Knoxville, and
they mustered into service; and on the twelfth day after, I took up the
line of march. I encamped with my command on the banks of the Coosa,
which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and Creek Indians,
where I was compelled to halt for want of provisions for my own command;
and at no time after I left Knoxville had I more than five days' rations
for my army. At this point I waited for supplies from the contractor,
but owing to the low water they did not arrive, and I was compelled to
procure supplies from the Cherokees as best I could. General White
joined me with his brigade in a starving condition upon the second day
after my arrival on the Coosa."
Mr. Parton offers the following comment upon this part of the letter and
upon the situation:
"It thus appears that while General Jackson was anxiously looking for
supplies from General Cocke, General Cocke himself was as destitute as
General Jackson. A junction of the two armies would have had the sole
effect of doubling Jackson's embarrassments, inasmuch as he would have
had five thousand men to feed in the wilderness instead of twenty-five
hundred, and would have required twenty wagon-loads of provisions daily
instead of ten. General Cocke knew this; knew that Jackson's anxiety for
a junction had arisen from an expectation that the East Tennesseeans
would bring supplies with them; did not know that Jackson's dash at
Talladega had left Fort Strother unprotected--did not know any thing
about the Hillabees' suing for peace, and Jackson's favorable reply to
them."
This, we say, is at most only a palliation of the offence. General
Cocke did not know, as Mr. Parton says, that Jackson's anxiety for a
union of the two armies was due to his expectation that the East
Tennesseeans would bring supplies with them, because that was not the
fact. He did expect them to bring provisions, but his anxiety for a
junction was not altogether on that account. He wanted White's men for a
garrison for Fort Strother, and hence General Cocke only believed that
which Mr. Parton assumes that he knew. Again, if the junction had been
made, and the doubling of the number of men had embarrassed Jackson, it
would have been easy for him to separate the forces again. Moreover,
after the Hillabee expedition was ended, General Cocke was ready and
willing to join Jackson, while the scarcity of provisions remained; if
his reason for not forming the junction was good in the one case, it was
good also in the other. Indeed, General Cocke has himself contradicted
the plea which Mr. Parton makes in his behalf. While General White was
still absent on the Hillabee expedition, General Cocke wrote a letter to
Jackson, in which he said:
"I entertain the opinion that to make the present campaign as successful
as it ought to be, it is essential that the whole force from Tennessee
should act in concert. I have despatched all my mounted men, whose
horses were fit for duty, on the Hillabee towns, to destroy them. I
expect their return in a few days. I send the bearer to you for the sake
of intelligence as to your intended operations, and for the sake of
assuring you that I will most heartily agree to any plan that will be
productive of the most good."
From the fact that he thus arranged to put himself within the range of
Jackson's authority as soon as his Hillabee campaign should be ended,
the inference is inevitable that General Cocke neglected to make the
contemplated earlier junction in order that he might carry out this
little scheme of his own. Inasmuch as a court-martial, composed of
officers who, General Cocke says, were his bitterest enemies and
Jackson's closest friends, fully acquitted the accused officer of guilt,
it is only fair to the memory of a brave and conscientious soldier to
believe that he acted for the good of the cause; that his anxiety to
deal a blow at the Hillabees was prompted by a desire to serve the ends
of the campaign, not by unworthy jealousy of Jackson; but beyond this it
does not appear to be possible to go. We may properly acquit General
Cocke of petty envy, and of conscious insubordination, but it is
impossible not to see that his course was ill-judged as well as
calamitous in its results, and it is impossible also to blame Jackson
for his displeasure with his subordinate. The most that General Cocke
establishes in his defence, which is elaborate, is that he acted in
accordance with the unanimous opinion of his field officers; that he
conscientiously believed that his course was the best one to be pursued
in the circumstances, and that it was dictated solely by his earnest
desire to serve the cause. The most that is proved against him appears
to be, that he acted with smaller regard to strict military rules than
an officer of his rank should have done. He was guilty of a blunder, not
of a crime.
[Illustration: COL CALLER'S ROUTE TO BURNT CORN CREEK]