JACKSON'S SECOND BATTLE WITH HIS OWN MEN.
When troops unused as these men were to systematic obedience make up
their minds to abandon the service they are of very little account
thereafter, as soldiers. If one pretext for mutiny and desertion fails
them, they quickly find another, as the men had done in this case. While
famine lasted, famine was the best possible excuse for wishing to go
home, and the men thought of no other. They even protested their
devotion to the cause and their willingness to remain in service if food
could be found for them; but no sooner were their mouths stopped with
abundant supplies of beef and bread than they tried to leave, as has
been described, without any pretext whatever. Failing in that, they
picked this flaw, or this pretended flaw, in their contract of
enlistment, and Jackson probably knew that so far as their restoration
to the condition of good soldiers was concerned, he was wasting words in
arguing the case; but it was necessary to detain these men until the
others for whom he had sent to Tennessee should arrive to take their
places. They were useless for any thing like offensive operations, else
he would have marched with them at once toward the Creek strongholds;
but while they should remain at Fort Strother he could depend upon them
to defend that post against any assault that might be made upon it,
simply because in the event of an attack they must defend themselves,
and to do that would have been to defend the fort.
Jackson had ordered the enlistment of a new force to take the place of
these discontented men, but until the new army should come he was bent
upon keeping the old one.
Precisely what arrangements he had made to meet trouble on the 10th of
December we have no means of knowing. He was not permitted to wait for
the coming of that day. On the evening of the 9th, word was brought to
him that the men were already strapping their knapsacks on their backs
and getting ready to march immediately.
It was time to act. Jackson issued one of the shortest of all his
proclamations, ordering all good soldiers to assist in putting down the
mutiny. Then he ordered the militia to parade at once under arms.
Placing his cannon in a commanding position, he drew up the militia in
line of battle and confronted the mutinous volunteers.
Riding to the front he made a speech to the volunteers, beginning by
assuring them that they could march only over his dead body; that he had
done with entreaty, and meant now to use force; that they must now make
their choice between returning to their tents and remaining quietly upon
duty, and fighting him and his troops right where he stood; the point,
he said, could be decided very quickly by arms if they chose to submit
the question to that kind of argument. He told them, too, that he was
expecting new troops to take their places, and that until these new
troops should arrive not a man present should quit the post except by
force.
He was now terribly in earnest, and bent upon no half-way measures. He
had drawn his men up in line of battle, not as a threat, but for
purposes of battle. He was ready to fight, and meant to fight, not
defensively, but offensively. He wanted no negotiation, asked no man
upon what terms he would submit. He had dictated the terms himself and
meant now to enforce them. He had given the volunteers a choice--either
to remain peaceably until he should send them home, or to fight a battle
with him right there in the road and right then on the 9th of December;
he had offered them this choice, and they must choose and say what their
choice was. When he ended his speech the volunteers stood grimly,
sullenly silent. They did not offer to advance, but that was not enough.
They must say whether they would remain and obey, or accept battle. If
they would promise to remain without further attempts of this kind, he
was content; if not, the battle would begin.
"I demand an explicit answer," he said; and no reply coming, he turned
to his artillerymen and ordered them to stand to their guns with lighted
matches.
It was now a question merely of seconds. Jackson gave the men time to
answer, but not many moments would pass before he would speak the only
words which were left to him to speak--the words "commence firing,"
those words which in every battle are the signal for the transformation
of iron or brazen guns from harmless cylinders of metal into bellowing
monsters, belching fiery death from their throats.
There was silence for a moment--that awful silence which always precedes
the turmoil of battle, doing more to appall men than all the demoniac
noises of the contest do; then a murmur was heard as of men hastily
consulting; then the officers of the volunteer brigade stepped a pace to
the front and delivered the answer which Jackson had demanded.
They had made their choice, and the answer was that they would return to
duty, and remain at the fort until the new men should come, or until
their commander should receive authority to discharge them.
This affair of the 9th of December, 1813, is nowhere set down in the
list of Jackson's battles; but nowhere did he win a more decided victory
or display his qualities as a great commander to better advantage.