JACKSON WITH AN ARMY AT LAST.
Jackson's long and earnest entreaty for an army with which to carry on
the campaign at last produced its desired effect. He who had so long and
vainly begged for men, getting only a handful at a time, and getting
even them upon terms which made it impossible to use them with full
effect, now saw men coming in great numbers from every quarter to fight
under his standard. How far this was merely the accumulated result of
his successive pleas, and how far the return of the militiamen who had
fought at Emuckfau and Enotachopco, bearing with them their general's
warm commendation, was influential in behalf of enlistments, it is
difficult to determine; but in some way an enthusiasm for Jackson and
for the service had sprung up in Tennessee, and the long baffled and
weary general at last, saw coming to him an army five thousand strong an
army so greatly outnumbering any force which the Creeks could now put
into the field, that its coming promised the speedy overthrow of what
remained of the Creek power.
Two thousand men came from West Tennessee, two thousand more from the
eastern half of that State. Coffee succeeded in gathering together a
part of his old brigade, backed by whom he always felt himself to be
capable of accomplishing any thing, and at the head of these trained and
trusted veterans the general who had made himself Jackson's right hand
in all difficult enterprises galloped into the camp at Fort Strother,
amid the cheers of all the men assembled there.
Better still, if any thing could be better in Jackson's eyes than
Coffee's coming with his hard-fighting old brigade, Colonel Williams
arrived on the 6th of February with the Thirty-ninth Regiment of regular
troops, a body of men six hundred strong, whose example of discipline as
regular soldiers was of incalculable advantage in the work of converting
volunteers into something better than raw recruits.
As if to verify the adage that "it never rains but it pours," a
messenger came from the chiefs of the Choctaw Nation offering the
services of all their warriors for the campaign.
Thus at last Jackson had an army as large as he needed or wanted, but
before moving such a force it was necessary to provide an abundant
supply of food for them, and this was no light task. The winters in
North Alabama are rainy, with alternate freezings and thawings, which
render roads almost impassable; and in addition to the usual difficulty
of securing the food needed there was the still greater difficulty of
transporting the supplies from Fort Deposit to Fort Strother to be
overcome.
Jackson bent all his energies to this task. He set large forces of his
men at work upon the road, paving it in the worst places with logs,
making what is called in the South a corduroy road of it. In spite of
all that could be done, however, the road remained a bad one, and it was
with great difficulty that wagons moved over it at a snail's pace, even
when drawn by four horses and very lightly loaded. Seven days were
consumed upon each wagon journey from Fort Deposit to the Ten Islands,
although a force of men accompanied each wagon to lift it out of mires
and hurry it forward. The wagons were lightly loaded too, else they
could not have made the journey at all. The strongest of the teams could
draw no more than sixteen hundred pounds.
Little by little the supplies were brought up in this laborious fashion,
and meantime boats were built, with which Jackson intended to send his
provisions down the Coosa River, while he should march his men overland
to an appointed place of rendezvous.
At last all was ready. Jackson had a satisfactory army and a
satisfactory supply of food for his men, and he was now at last prepared
to crush the Creeks by an irresistible blow, delivered at the centre of
their strength. There was no chance now for any Creek force to "whip
Captain Jackson."
Sending his wounded and sick men to Tennessee, Jackson sent his
flatboats down the river, accompanied by the regiment of United States
regular troops as a guard. Then, leaving Colonel Steele with a garrison
of four hundred men to hold Fort Strother, and if necessary to
co-operate with the troops left between that point and Fort Deposit in
protecting the army's communications, Jackson began his final march into
the Creek Nation, at the head of three thousand effective men.