JACKSON DISMISSES HIS VOLUNTEERS WITHOUT A BENEDICTION.
Jackson had not deceived himself with respect to these mutinous men. He
knew very well that their usefulness as soldiers was hopelessly gone,
and he had no thought of undertaking a campaign with them. Even before
this last trouble came he had abandoned all hope of this, and had ceased
to regard the army he had with him as worth keeping, except as a
garrison for Fort Strother, during the period of waiting for a new army
to be raised to take its place. It was his purpose to send this army
back to Tennessee as soon as he could replace the men with others fit to
fight with, and to get those others he was working in every possible
way. He had sent to Tennessee for the enlistment of a new force,
and had written to everybody he knew there who had aught of
influence--preachers, doctors, lawyers, and men of affairs--urging them
to stir the enthusiasm of the young men and persuade them to volunteer.
He had already ordered General Cocke to join him with his force, and
that officer had promised to do so immediately. As this would give him a
sufficient garrison for the fort almost immediately, Jackson determined
to send home at once every man who could not be stirred to a proper
sense of his duty, every man who could not be induced, by a fair and
earnest statement of the case, to remain voluntarily and finish the
campaign. In order to separate any such sheep, if there were any, from
the homesick goats, the commander on the 13th of December issued a final
appeal, which was read to the troops. It was as follows:
"On the 12th day of December, 1812, you assembled at the call of your
country. Your professions of patriotism and ability to endure fatigue
were at once tested by the inclemency of the weather. Breaking your way
through sheets of ice you descended the Mississippi and reached the
point at which you were ordered to be halted and dismissed. All this you
bore without murmuring. Finding that your services were not needed, the
means for marching you back were procured; every difficulty was
surmounted, and as soon as the point from which you embarked was
regained, the order for your dismissal was carried into effect. The
promptness with which you assembled, the regularity of your conduct,
your attention to your own duties, the determination manifested on every
occasion to carry into effect the wishes and will of your government,
placed you on elevated ground. You not only distinguished yourselves,
but gave to your state a distinguished rank with her sisters, and led
your government to believe that the honor of the nation would never be
tarnished when entrusted to the holy keeping of the volunteers of
Tennessee.
"In the progress of a war which the implacable and eternal enemy of our
independence induced to be waged, we found that without cause on our
part a portion of the Creek Nation was added to the number of our foes.
To put it down, the first glance of the administration fell on you, and
you were again summoned to the field of honor. In full possession of your
former feelings, that summons was cheerfully obeyed. Before your enemy
thought you in motion you were at Tallushatchee and Talladega. The
thunder of your arms was a signal to them that the slaughter of your
countrymen was about to be avenged. You fought, you conquered! Barely
enough of the foe escaped to recount to their savage associates your
deeds of valor. You returned to this place loaded with laurels and the
applause of your country.
"Can it be that these brave men are about to become the tarnishers of
their own reputation, the destroyers of a name which does them so much
honor? Yes, it is a truth too well disclosed that cheerfulness has been
exchanged for complaints. Murmurings and discontents alone prevail. Men
who a little while since were offering up prayers for permission to
chastise the merciless savage, who burned with impatience to teach them
how much they had hitherto been indebted to our forbearance, are now,
when they could so easily attain their wishes, seeking to be discharged.
The heart of your general has been pierced. The first object of his
military affections and the first glory of his life were the volunteers
of Tennessee. The very name recalls to him a thousand endearing
recollections. But these brave men, these volunteers, have become
mutineers. The feelings he would have indulged, your general has been
compelled to suppress; he has been compelled, by a regard to that
subordination so necessary to the support of every army, and which he is
bound to have observed, to check the disorder which would have destroyed
you. He has interposed his authority for your safety--to prevent you
from disgracing yourselves and your country. Tranquillity has been
restored in our camp; contentment shall also be restored. This can be
done only by permitting those to retire whose dissatisfaction proceeds
from causes that cannot be controlled.
"This permission will now be given. Your country will dispense with your
services if you no longer have a regard for that fame which you have so
nobly earned for yourselves and her. Yes, soldiers! You who were once
so brave, and to whom honor was so dear, shall be permitted to return to
your homes, if you still desire it. But in what language, when you
arrive, will you address your families and friends? Will you tell them
that you abandoned your general and your late associates in arms within
fifty miles of a savage enemy, who equally delights in shedding the
blood of the innocent female and her sleeping babe as that of the
warrior contending in battle? Lamentable, disgraceful tale! If your
dispositions are really changed, if you fear an enemy you so lately
conquered, this day will prove it. I now put it to yourselves; determine
upon the part you will act, influenced only by the suggestions of your
own hearts and your own understandings. All who prefer an inglorious
retirement shall be ordered to Nashville, to be discharged as the
President or the Governor may direct. Those who choose to remain and
unite with their general in the further prosecution of the campaign can
do so, and will thereby furnish a proof that they have been greatly
traduced, and that although disaffection and cowardice have reached the
hearts of some, it has not reached theirs. To such my assurance is given
that former irregularities will not be attributed to them. They shall be
immediately organized into a separate corps, under officers of their own
choice; and in a little while it is confidently believed an opportunity
will be afforded of adding to the laurels you have already won."
If these men had had a single spark of soldierly spirit left in them--if
the manhood itself had not all gone out of them--such an appeal as this
would have shamed them into their duty. It is incredible that men who
had once had spirit enough to volunteer in the service of their country
should have lost it so utterly that they could resist this plea to their
pride, their duty, and their regard for their own good name; but such
was the fact. Out of the whole brigade, officers and men, only one was
found with manliness enough to stay. That one man was a Captain
Wilkinson, the mention of whose name is only a just tribute to his
soldierly manhood. The rest were no longer men in spirit, but homesick
wretches, lusting for the flesh-pots of Tennessee, the ease, the
indolence, the comfort of home.
Public opinion is particularly strong in a new country, where every
man's history is known to all his neighbors, and few men in such a case
can successfully brave it. Public opinion in Tennessee sharply condemned
these volunteers for their abandonment of the service upon a mere
technicality, at a time when the enemy was in their front. How sorely
they smarted under the taunts of their neighbors we may easily imagine;
and when they could silently endure the censure no longer, they prepared
a plea in their own justification, which was published in March of the
following year. This plea was offered in the form of a statement, signed
by the brigadier-general who commanded the disaffected brigade, one
colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, an aide-de-camp, and the
brigade-quartermaster. These officers in their statement recount the
history of their service, and rest their case upon the dates used in
their muster-rolls, and the technicality that in dismissing them after
their Natchez expedition Jackson had used the word "discharge" instead
of "dismiss." They assert that they and their men were fully and finally
discharged at the end of that expedition, and explain their readiness to
answer the call to march against the Creeks, when Jackson assembled them
a second time, by a confession that they thought they saw a chance to
secure pay for service not rendered. They declare that they returned to
the service, believing that their term could only last till the 10th of
December in any case, and that by doing so they could compel the
government to give them soldiers' pay for all the time which they had
passed at home.
Read carelessly, their plea seems to palliate their misconduct; read at
all carefully, it adds to their shame.