THE CANOE FIGHT.
With the affairs already described, Jackson's campaign came to a halt by
reason of his want of supplies, and on account of mutinous conduct upon
the part of his men. For many weeks the Tennessee army did nothing, but
remained at Fort Strother, while the war went on in other parts of the
field. For the present, therefore, we leave Jackson, to follow the
course of affairs elsewhere.
The autumn having brought with it the necessity of gathering what
remained of the crops in that part of the country which lies on the
Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the settlers there did what they could to
clear the country of prowling bands of Indians. They sent out bodies of
armed men in different directions, and under protection of such forces
as they could muster, began gathering the ripened corn.
The danger of famine, if the corn should be allowed to perish in the
fields, seems also to have aroused General Flournoy from his dream of
strict adherence to law and treaty in his treatment of the Creeks. His
predecessor, General Floyd, had refused, it will be remembered, to
permit General Claiborne to invade the Creek Nation early in the war,
when that officer confidently believed that he could speedily conquer a
peace by pursuing that course. Flournoy now receded from the position
then taken, so far at least as to order Claiborne to advance with his
army and protect the citizens while they should gather their crops. He
still ordered no resolute invasion of the Creek territory, for the
purpose of transferring the seat of war to the soil of the enemy, and
putting an end to the strife; but he ordered Claiborne to drive the
Indians from the frontier, and even to follow them so far as the towns
which lay near the border, instructing him to "kill, burn, and destroy
all their negroes, horses, cattle, and other property, that cannot
conveniently be brought to the depots."
General Flournoy, like General Floyd, appears to have been somewhat too
highly civilized for the business in which he was engaged. Knowing, as
he did, that Claiborne was fighting savages who had violated every usage
and principle of civilized warfare, who were prowling about in the white
settlements murdering every white man, woman, and child whom they could
find, and who had committed the most horrible wholesale butchery at Fort
Mims; knowing all this, and knowing too that an army from Tennessee was
already invading the Creek country from the north, General Flournoy
appears to have given Claiborne this half-hearted and closely-limited
permission to fight the Creeks upon their own terms and their own soil
with great reluctance and with apologetic misgivings. He set forth his
conviction that even the little which he was now permitting Claiborne to
do toward making the war real on the white side was not in accordance
with the usages of civilized nations at war; but excused himself for his
departure from those usages by citing the conduct of the enemy in
justification of it. A stronger man than General Flournoy would have
seen that the Creeks had turned complete savages, that they had begun a
savage warfare for the extermination of the whites, and that such a war
could be brought to an end only by the destruction of the white people
whom he was set to protect, or by the prompt, resolute, and complete
subjugation of the Creeks. Seeing this, such an officer would have seen
that the Creeks could be conquered only by the invasion of their
territory with fire and sword, and with no respect whatever for those
rights which were theirs in peace, but which had been forfeited in the
war. It seems incredible that General Flournoy, in such circumstances
and with such an enemy to contend with, should have muddled his head and
embarrassed his army with nice questions of the rights, duties, and
usages of civilized warfare. This was so clearly not a civilized, but an
especially savage war, that his hesitation, and the misgivings upon
which that hesitation was founded, are wholly inexplicable.
Claiborne was quick to use the small liberty given him to fight the
Creeks, while the settlers, from their positions in the stockade forts,
were already making frequent expeditions against vulnerable points.
Early in October, a body of twenty-five men, under Colonel William
McGrew, went in pursuit of an Indian force, and attacked them resolutely
on a little stream called Barshi Creek. The Indians were in considerable
force, and despite the courage and determination of the whites the
Creeks got the best of the affair, killing Colonel McGrew and three of
his men, and putting the rest of the force to flight.
Much better success attended another expedition, which was undertaken
about this time, and which resulted in one of the most remarkable
incidents of the war, a sort of naval battle on a very small scale, but
one that was contested as heroically as the battle of the Nile itself.
This was Captain Sam Dale's celebrated canoe fight, of which a writer
has said:
"There has seldom occurred in border warfare a more romantic
incident.... History has almost overlooked it, as too minute in its
details for her stately philosophy. Yet for singularity of event,
novelty of position, boldness of design, and effective personal
fortitude and prowess, it is unsurpassed, if equalled, by any thing in
backwoods chronicles, however replete these may be with the adventures
of pioneers, the sufferings of settlers, and the achievements of that
class who seem almost to have combined the life and manners of the
freebooter with the better virtues of social man."
When Colonel McGrew's men returned after their unsuccessful conflict
with the Creeks, the news they brought greatly incensed the people of
Fort Madison, whose friends had fallen in that unlucky action. Believing
that the main body of the Creeks was now south of the Alabama River, and
fearing that they would destroy the buildings and the crops there,
Captain Sam Dale, who had now nearly recovered from his severe wound
received at the battle of Burnt Corn, organized an expedition for the
purpose of clearing the lower country, if possible, of the hostile
bands. The force which volunteered for this service consisted of
seventy-two men. Thirty of them constituted Captain Richard Jones's
company of Mississippi yauger men. The remainder were men of the
neighborhood, who volunteered for the expedition.
Among these volunteers were three whose participation in the canoe
fight makes it necessary to introduce them particularly to the reader.
One of them was a negro, whose name, Caesar, together with his good and
gallant conduct on this occasion, are all that history has preserved
with respect to him. Another was young Jeremiah Austill, the youth who
carried despatches, as already related, between Colonel Carson and
General Claiborne, when that service was most dangerous. The third was
James Smith. We may best tell what is known of young Smith in the words
of Mr. A. B. Meek, whose volume of sketches, from which we shall quote
here, is unfortunately out of print. Mr. Meek writes thus:
"In Dale's command was a private soldier who already had a high
reputation as an expert, daring and powerful Indian fighter. Born in
Georgia in 1787, this scion of the universal Smith family was now a very
stout, finely-proportioned man, five feet eight inches high, weighing
one hundred and sixty pounds. Residing near Fort Madison, he took refuge
there at the outbreak of the war. His fearless and adventurous character
may be indicated by an incident. One day he determined to visit his
farm, about eight miles distant, to see what injury the Indians had
done. Proceeding cautiously, he came to a house in which he heard a
noise, and, stealing up to the door, he found two Indians engaged in
bundling up tools and other articles to carry them off. Levelling his
gun at them he made them come out of the house and march before him
toward the fort. In a thicket of woods the Indians suddenly separated,
one on each hand, and ran. Smith fired at one of them and killed him,
and, dropping his rifle, pursued the other, and, catching him, knocked
him down with a light-wood[3] knot and beat out his brains.... This, and
similar deeds of daring and prowess, gave to James Smith a high position
among his frontier friends and neighbors."
[Footnote 3: "Light-wood" is a term used in the South to signify richly
resinous pine, of the kind sometimes called "pitch-pine" in other parts
of the country.]
Mr. Meek writes more fully of young Austill. He describes him as a youth
nineteen years of age, dark, tall, sinewy, and full of youthful daring.
The stories of his courageous performances were many, and during the war
he won the special commendation of his superiors on many occasions for
his bravery and his devotion to duty.
Dale marched from Fort Madison on the 11th of November, with Tandy
Walker, a noted frontiersman, for his guide. Marching to the south-east,
the column crossed the Alabama River at a point about thirty miles above
Mims's ferry, and about twenty miles below the site of the present town
of Claiborne.
Dale was thoroughly well acquainted with the habits of the Indians,
among whom indeed he had lived frequently for long periods. He was
therefore keenly alive to the necessity of unremitting vigilance, and,
determined to suffer no surprise, he refused to permit any of his men to
sleep during the night after his passage to the south-east bank of the
river. During the next day he advanced up the river very cautiously,
sending Austill, with six men, in two canoes which he had found, while
the rest of the force marched through the woods on the bank.
At a place called Peggy Bailey's bluff the first signs of the presence
of Indians were discovered. Following the trail well in advance of his
men, Dale discovered ten Indians at breakfast. The first intimation
these Indians had of the presence of white men on that side of the river
came to them in the shape of a bullet from Dale's rifle, which killed
one of the party, and caused the rest of them to abandon their provision
pack, and flee precipitately through the woods.
Securing the abandoned provisions, Dale marched on a mile or two, but
finding no further traces of Indians, he determined to recross the river
and scour the country on the other side.
The work of crossing was necessarily slow. Only two canoes were to be
had, and the river was nearly a fourth of a mile wide, but little by
little the force was paddled across, until only about a dozen of the men
remained with Dale on the eastern bank. These men were at breakfast when
suddenly they were startled by a volley from the rifles of an Indian
force. This force, as was afterward learned, was the advance party of
about three hundred warriors. Dale and his handful of men protected
themselves as well as they could among the trees, and returned the fire.
Had the savages known the weakness of their force, they might easily
have destroyed the little party by making a determined dash; but Dale
and his men were so well concealed among the trees and in the bushes,
that their enemies, in ignorance of their numbers, did not dare charge
them. The nature of the ground served also to favor Dale. The river here
had what is called a double bank--that is to say, there were two
plateaus, one above the other, each breaking rather suddenly at its
edge. These banks, covered with dense undergrowth, served the purpose of
rude natural breastworks.
The first assault was made by about twenty-five or thirty of the
savages, who were speedily joined by others, and Dale quickly saw that
his position was an extremely critical one. The Indians must soon
discover from the infrequency of the fire from the bank that the force
there was small, and it was certain that they would make a charge as
soon as this should be discovered--a charge which the dozen men there
could not possibly withstand. Dale's first thought was of escape across
the river to the main body of his little company; but this was clearly
out of the question. There was but one canoe on his side of the river,
so that to cross at all the little company on the bank must separate,
half of it going over at one trip and half at another. If half of them
should embark, the Indians, seeing the canoe in the river with its cargo
of fugitives would know at once that the band on the bank was unable to
resist them, and hence would destroy the men left behind before the
canoe could return to bring them away.
Dale called to his men on the other side of the river to recross and
render him assistance, but they seemed to be for the time fairly
panic-stricken, so that none of them moved to answer the call. After a
time their courage appeared to return, and eight of them manned a canoe
and began the passage. When the man who led this detachment saw the
great superiority of the Indian force, he became panic-stricken again
and ordered a retreat, so that even this little attempt to reinforce
Dale's tremendously overmatched company failed to bring relief.
Meantime a new danger appeared, coming this time upon the rear. A large
canoe holding eleven Indian warriors shot out from the bank a little way
up the river and paddled down to Dale's position. Here an attempt was
made to land. Should this be accomplished, the fight must end at once in
the destruction of the whole detachment on the river bank. To ward off
this danger Dale was compelled to fight both ways--to the rear and to
the front. He himself, with all of his men but three, kept up not a
brisk, but a very destructive, fire in front, picking their men and
shooting with all the precision of skilled marksmen; while Smith,
Austill, and one other man devoted their attention to the warriors in
the canoe, preventing them from approaching the shore.
Being kept thus at a distance, two of the most daring of the Indians in
the canoe resolved to risk an attempt to swim ashore. Leaping overboard
only their heads were exposed, of course; but Smith succeeded in sending
a bullet into even that small target, killing one of the swimmers
instantly. The other reached the bank, where he was met by Austill, who
unluckily tripped and fell into the water, and before he could regain
his footing the savage had escaped.
His escape brought matters to a head. Dale knew that this Indian had
seen how small his force was, and that he would report its weakness,
thereby making an immediate charge certain. He therefore resolved upon a
desperate attempt. He called to his men, declaring his purpose to man
the little canoe that remained with him, and attack the Indian canoe
party. For this perilous service he asked who would volunteer. Smith,
Austill, and the negro man Caesar at once offered themselves; and with
this little force Dale speedily put his plan into execution. Caesar took
the stern of the canoe as steersman, and the three white men grasped
their paddles.
The Indians had fired all their ammunition away, else it would have gone
hard with Dale when his own and his comrades' guns failed to fire as
they did, because the powder in their pans had become wet. When this
fact was discovered the two canoes were near each other, and Dale had no
thought of flinching from the hand-to-hand conflict which must ensue
between himself and his three companions on the one hand, and the nine
remaining Indians on the other. He ordered Caesar to bring the canoe
alongside the enemy's boat, and to hold it firmly there. As this was
done the Indians leaped to their feet, with their war-clubs and knives,
ready for the combat. When the boats touched, Dale instantly leaped into
that of his enemy, for the double purpose of crowding the enemy close
together and giving his own companions abundant room in which to swing
their clubbed guns. It was a mere question of brute strength between men
determined to club each other to death. Austill was knocked down with a
war-club once, but recovered himself. Dale advanced in the boat,
knocking over one Indian after another with his rapid blows. A few
minutes sufficed to bring the action to a close.
It is said that the last of the Indians was a young warrior with whom
Dale had lived and hunted as a friend before the outbreak of the war.
This young Indian and his former friend now confronted each other in the
boat. Dale recognized the man with whom he had sat at the camp-fire and
passed long days in the hunt; he hesitated, and was about to lower his
raised weapon when the young savage, calling him by the name he had
borne among the Indians, which meant "Big Sam," cried, "Sam Thlucco, you
are a man, I am another--now for it!" He spoke in the Muscogee tongue,
with which Dale was familiar, and as he spoke he attempted to grapple
with Dale, but the active white man was too quick of movement for him.
Stepping back suddenly, he brained his Indian antagonist with a single
blow, and the canoe-fight was ended. The nine Indians were corpses, and
Dale had not lost a single man, although Austill was severely wounded in
the head.
There was perilous work yet to do, however. The brave men in the boat
had no thought of abandoning their friends on the bank. Their own guns
were broken, and they were under a severe fire from the savages on
shore, but in spite of this they cleared the large canoe by throwing the
dead Indians overboard, and, with the two boats, paddled back to the
bank under a galling fire, and brought off the remainder of the party in
safety. If they had not conquered, they had at least baffled the
Indians, inflicting considerable loss upon them without suffering any
loss in their turn. That night the expedition returned to Fort Madison.
Dale was so typical a frontiersman, so perfect a model of the daring and
wily warrior of the border, that as long as he lived he was a man about
whom the interest of curiosity hung. A writer who knew him well wrote of
him thus:
"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 man, 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. In peace they felt for him the strongest
veneration; he had been the friend both of Tecumseh and Weatherford; and
in war the name of 'Big Sam' fell on the ear of the Seminole like that
of Marius on the hordes of the Cimbri."[4]
[Footnote 4: From a sketch by General John H. F. Claiborne, published in
the Natchez (Miss.) _Free-Trader_, on the occasion of Dale's death in
the year 1841.]